Spurgeon's Prayer Meeting Addresses
Chapter 1
Three model prayers
A prayer meeting address
WHAT is the right way to pray? I will remind you of three Scriptural models. The first is Jacob at the brook Jabbok. He is in great trouble, and he does his best to meet it; but when he has done all that he can, he feels that it is little enough, and that it will not succeed unless God's blessing rests upon his efforts. I do not know what sort of a place that ford or brook Jabbok was, but Jacob had sent over it his wives, and his children, and his servants, and his flocks and herds; 'and Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.'
Now, I do not think that I could pray all night; I do not believe that, if my going to Heaven depended upon my praying all through the night, I should ever get there. I am not, at least under ordinary circumstances, able to fix my mind upon one subject for such a long time without a break; and, besides, I have such confidence in God that I have what I ask for, that, when I have prayed concerning any matter, I go about my business feeling certain that he has heard me. But, on a special occasion, in some great stress, when a man feels that he has not obtained the blessing for which he has asked, then he can keep on praying until he gets it. That is the time for an all-night prayer, and the suppliant may say, with the poet—
'With you all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle until the break of day.'
That night, Jacob felt that he must have the blessing he was seeking; he was determined to obtain it; and he was driven to such desperation of mind that he grasped the angel with all his might, and cried, 'I will not let you go, except you bless me.' You must have noticed, in reading of this incident, that it does not say that Jacob wrestled with the angel, but 'there wrestled a man with him, (that is, an angel, or, probably, The Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the form of a man,) until the breaking of the day.' There was something in Jacob that was too strong, so he had to be made weaker. He was much too clever, and cunning, and crafty, for the Lord to bless him as he was; and there are many of God's children, nowadays, who are very much like him. They know too much, they feel themselves too strong, they have not enough of the true child spirit, they are not little enough and humble enough for God to bless them.
So Jacob, being so big in his own estimation, had to be taken down a great deal before he was fit to receive the blessing that God intended to give him. Yet I must say that, whatever his faults were, he had this excellence, that he meant to have the blessing; so he gripped the angel, and the angel touched the hollow of his thigh, the sinew shrank, and the patriarch fell; but, in falling, he still clutched the angel, who struggled to depart, and said to him, 'Though I cannot overcome you, I will not let you go, except you bless me.' Then it was, when he felt his own weakness, when he could no longer stand, and wrestle, when the Jacob had gone out of him, he still, as with a dying grip, held on to the mysterious wrestler.
In like manner, there must be about prevailing prayer the resolve to have it answered. Are you quite sure that what you ask is according to the will of God? Do not pray until you are certain upon that point, and always say, in your supplications, 'Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.' But there are times when a praying man knows that what he is asking is according to God's will, that the Holy Spirit is striving within him—the groanings which cannot be uttered have proved that he is right, and he feels that he is pleading according to the mind of the Spirit. That is the way to pray. We should have a great blessing resting upon every department of this church's work if we had among us a number of Christian men and women, weak and feeble in themselves, and conscious of their own weakness—with the sinew shrunken as Jacob's was—who nevertheless could, each one, say to the great Angel of the Covenant, 'I will not let you go, except you bless me.' That is a way of praying which I very heartily commend to you.
The next model that I commend to you is the prayer of Elijah upon the top of Carmel. That is quite another sort of prayer from Jacob's. There had been no rain for more than three years, but Elijah wanted rain that day, and the Lord moved him to pray for it. So we read, 'He cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees.' He was so certain that his prayer would be heard that he 'said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea.' If his servant had said, 'I see a great cloud hanging over the West,' he would not have been at all astonished. He knew it would come, so he said, 'Go again; go again; go again seven times.' Oh, what wonders such faith as that can work! That is another kind of prayer that prevails with God—the expectant prayer. Jacob's was the prayer of the wrestling hand and foot, but Elijah's was the prayer of the expectant eye. He knew that his prayer would be answered, so he kept on praying until it was. You do not see so much of the wrestling as in the case of Jacob, yet it was there all the while; but you do see the calm confidence that waits for the answer that must surely come. Elijah seems to say to the Lord, 'I know that you will bless me; I am sure of it, so I will stand upon my watch-tower, and continue pleading until I see the blessing come.' What a wonderful combination would be made if we could put Jacob and Elijah together! What a mighty man of prayer he would be who could be these two suppliants in one!
But, after all, the model prayer is the prayer of the Master himself. It must have been a wonderful experience for those who were privileged to hear and see him when he was so mightily pleading with God. I do not suppose that he ever said, 'I will not let you go, except you bless me.' We do know that he said, 'Father, I thank you that you have heard me. And I knew that you hear me always.' We do not read that he ever sent one of his disciples to look for an answer to his supplication. He always felt such perfect confidence that he should have his requests granted that he did not need to send anyone to watch for the coming blessing. He knew that his mind was according to the mind of God, and that he continually walked with God, so he was certain that, whatever he prayed, the Lord must and would hear him; yet he was just as earnest as any doubter can be; in fact, it is doubt that prevents a man from being earnest. He was as a child talking to its father in simple confidence that it must be heard.
When the disciples heard Jesus pray, we find that they said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray.' They were so struck with his prayers that they desired to imitate them. I gather that our Lord's prayers were not so much notable for any one excellence alone, as for all excellencies most marvelously combined. It is so in that prayer which he gave to his disciples as a model: 'Our Father which are in Heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For your is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.' It is a beautifully clear, limpid stream, which flows on without a break. There is in it no admixture of selfishness, and no apparent vehemence; yet an inward force that can be strongly quiet, because conscious of omnipotence. Oh, that we could pray as Jesus did! Brethren and sisters, imitate all those who succeed in prayer, but recollect that Jesus is the model in whom all excellencies meet. In him we have the wondrous blending of all the prayers that make up the one prayer that must forever be utterly unmatched.
Pray for his spirit of prayer. He seemed to be always praying; he lived in the atmosphere of prayer; he was ever communing with his Father. The habit of prayer is a blessed one, but the spirit of prayer is something still more blessed. To pray regularly, is well; to pray continually, is better; but neither to be anything, nor to do anything, except in a prayerful spirit, is best of all. That is the way to live, and the way to get great blessings. I am sure that, when once we get out of the atmosphere of prayer, we get weak, we get hasty, we get irritated, we get short-tempered, we get self-sufficient; or we get to be crafty, like Jacob; or else fiery or despondent, like Elijah; but when we are in the spirit of prayer all the day long, it surrounds us, and saturates us. You know the peculiar effect that is produced upon you by our London fogs. There is a dreary sensation upon you, so that everything seems foggy, inside and out. Well now, when you get into the light, and when you walk in the light—and the spirit of prayer is the manifestation of light—then everything is bright inside and outside. It seems, then, as if there is nothing that is dark, for all is light, and your heart is glad within you; or if it is not glad, it is supremely restful.
I do not know whether you have ever felt like this; but, sometimes, when I have been suffering extreme pain, and have also been so depressed in spirit that I have desponded almost to the verge of despair, I have cast myself upon the Lord in a sort of swooning away into his arms, and I have then experienced such unutterable happiness as I have never had at any other time. Feeling my Lord to be so completely my All-in-all, and myself to be less than nothing, I have entered into the spirit of Faber's lines—
'And when it seems no chance nor change
From grief can set me free,
Hope finds its strength in helplessness,
And, patient, waits on Thee.'
It is no good whining and saying, 'I know that I do not pray as I ought.' The thing for you to do is to rouse yourself up to pray as you ought. Pray when you can pray, and pray when you cannot pray; I think you know what I mean by that paradox. There is such a thing as praying prayer into yourself, by God's grace; and, sometimes, when you have thought that you could not pray at all, you have said, afterwards, 'I wish I felt more often as I did then.' The worst state in which anyone can be is that of not feeling anything at all. Someone said to me, the other day, that he felt as Cowper did when he wrote those lines—
'If anything is felt, 'tis only pain
To find I cannot feel.'
If that is your case, you are evidently feeling pain; and, perhaps, nobody feels more than the man who feels that he does not feel at all. Yet, surely, he who is sensible of his insensibility is not insensible. He who mourns his lack of life is not without life. He who groans because he says he cannot groan, is groaning all the while. I have heard of a man, who was so absent-minded that he thought he had lost his horse even while he was riding on its back; and I remember my dear old grandfather saying to me, 'Charles, I cannot find my spectacles anywhere.' 'No,' I replied, 'I should think you can't, for you have got them on.' He was looking through them, and so could not see them; and there is many a man, who has been wanting to find his evidences, and his very anxiety to find his evidences is, in itself, an evidence of the work of grace within his heart. If he had not that holy carefulness to be right, he would be far more wrong than he now is; indeed, that fear lest he should be wrong is a proof that he is right. I seldom preach a sermon against hypocrisy without some dear child of God coming to me, and saying, 'Ah, Mr Spurgeon! I know that you meant me; you did show me up dreadfully.' 'My dear creature,' I reply, 'are you afraid that you are not right with God? Then, take my word for it that you are not the person whose case I was describing. There never yet was a hypocrite who was afraid that he was not right; they know they are wrong.' It is very much the same in this matter of prayer; many, who think they cannot pray at all, are really praying best of all. The Lord help all of us to be mighty in prayer, and send us gracious answers! Amen.
Chapter 2
'His heart's desire'
An address at a Tabernacle prayer meeting
'You have given him his heart's desire.'—Psalm 21:2.
DEAR FRIENDS—I thought I might speak to you, for a few minutes, upon the words of David which I have just read to you: 'You have given him his heart's desire.' They were spoken concerning 'the king', but they are, in a still more emphatic manner, applicable to King Jesus. I believe that it is of him that the psalmist says, 'You have given him his heart's desire.' Our Lord Jesus was always a man of desires, as all gracious men are. You know that the expression used to Daniel, 'O man greatly beloved,' may be read, 'O man of desires.' He was full of desires, and all whom God loves are brimming over with desires. God gives one grace that he may make room for two, and he gives two graces that he may make room for twenty. Wherever he gives grace, it is with the object of giving more grace; so that, the more grace a man has, the more grace he does desire. I never yet knew any man who had so much grace that he did not long for more. I have heard of some simpletons, who thought they were as full of grace as it was possible for them to be; but I thought there was a great leak somewhere in the bottom of that tub. The more grace a man has, the more he desires, just as the Lord gives most to those who have most. The Lord said, of the man that hid his talent in the earth, 'Take away the talent from him, and give it unto him which has ten talents;' which seemed to surprise those who heard it, for they said, 'Lord, he has already ten talents.' The Lord knew all about that; and that is his usual plan, he loves to give more grace where there is already some grace, he delights to give grace for grace, grace upon grace; though he is so gracious that he often gives grace where there is none.
The Lord Jesus, being a perfect man, was full of desires; and inasmuch as his desires were in perfect accordance with the will of God at all times, it could truly be said concerning him, 'You have given him his heart's desire.' You recollect how he said to his disciples, on that night in which he was betrayed, 'With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;' and his Father gave him that desire of his heart. He was not hurried away to die at an untimely hour, but he had what he wished for, the opportunity of celebrating the paschal feast with his disciples, for the last time, in an orderly, leisurely, devout, and quiet manner. Thus he had his heart's desire. He had also long had a desire to give himself for his people. He said, 'I have a baptism to be baptized with: and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!' And, ah! He had his heart's desire in this thing also, for he was submerged in grief, immersed in agony, in that wondrous death which he 'accomplished' on Calvary. His Father gave him that desire of his heart, which had been so strong upon him when he set his face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem, and then gave himself up, most freely and most resolutely, to die, 'the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.'
He had a further desire, that, after he had died, he might rise again from the dead. No doubt his holy soul rested confidently upon that word of the inspired psalmist: 'For you will not leave my soul in hades; neither will you suffer your Holy One to see corruption.' He was quite certain that both soul and body would be raised up again, and his Father gave him his heart's desire in that matter also. In the first grey light of the morning of the third day after his crucifixion, the Master himself unwound the napkin that was wrapped about his head, folded up the grave-clothes for which he had no further use, and came out into the liberty of life and light again.
After a short sojourn with his disciples, giving them instructions as to their work in his absence, he had a great desire to go back to his Father, that he might prepare a place for his people; and again the King had his heart's desire, for he ascended to Heaven, in the act of blessing his followers, and in full view until a cloud received him out of their sight. They saw him depart from them in the act of blessing them, and beheld, to the last, his pierced hands, uplifted in the act of blessing. The last time that Christ was seen on earth, he was blessing his people, and he has never left off blessing them. He had previously prayed, 'I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do. And now, O Father, glorify you me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world was;' and God gave him his heart's desire; for, there, in the midst of the throne, he stands, as a Lamb that had been slain, surrounded by even more honor and glory than were his before he emptied himself that he might fill his people.
But, dear brethren and sisters, this is not the only way in which God has given to Christ his heart's desire. Our loving Lord still longs to see the tears of repentance, and to hear the cries of godly sorrow for sin; and, blessed be his holy name, we can say, in this Tabernacle, and it can be said to God in many other parts of the world also, 'You have given him his heart's desire.' In fact, I hope that most of us here can say, 'You have given him his heart's desire in my salvation.' There is a great joy in Christ's heart over every sinner that repents, but his joy is of such a kind that the angels can observe it. He himself said, 'There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents.' Now, who is in the presence of the angels of God but the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and the Father, and the Spirit, and the redeemed from among men? These saved ones cast their crowns before his feet, and worship him; and looking into his face, they see the joy that is upon his glorified countenance, and it gives them joy also. When a poor penitent sinner at last looks to Jesus, and finds that—
'There is life for a look at the Crucified One,'—
his burden is removed, his troubled heart is quieted, the prisoner is brought out of his dungeon, the captive's chain is broken, the sick one leaves his malady behind, the blind one sees, the dead one lives, and then these words are again fulfilled concerning Christ, who has wrought that miracle of mercy, 'You have given him his heart's desire.' His Father is continually giving it to him, and this is an argument that we may well use in prayer, 'O Lord, give your beloved Son his heart's desire! Holy Spirit, bring sinners to him, for he said, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," O Lord, give him his heart's desire!'
Then, after sinners have believed in him, and, resting in him, have received eternal life, the Father gives to his Son his heart's desire in the communion that he has with his people whom he has loved from before the foundation of the world. He loves to see them, to hear their voices, to dwell near to them; he calls his Church his sister, his spouse, his love, his dove, his undefiled, and he says to her, 'Let me see your countenance, let me hear your voice; for sweet is your voice, and your countenance is lovely.'
Christ's heart's desire is also given to him as we grow in holiness, for he has an ardent desire to perfect his people, that he may present them 'faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy:' and every time we, by his grace, conquer sin, every time we press forward to a higher plane of Christian life, every time we grow in knowledge, every time our character becomes more pure, more strong, more consecrated, every time the image of Christ is photographed afresh upon us, and shines out more clearly from us, then indeed it may be said, 'You have given him his heart's desire.'
He has another strong desire, which he thus expressed in prayer while he was upon the earth, 'Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory;' and, in answer to that petition, they keep on going home. If our eyes were opened widely enough, we should see, in that new way which Christ has opened by his death, a constant stream of blood-washed travelers ascending to his Father and theirs, to his God and theirs. Can you not see many of them even now, and can you not detect among them some of your dearest earthly friends? You are weeping because you have lost them, but they are not weeping as they ascend to their Lord. Who are these travelers, whose weary feet are now reaching the pearly gates? Who are they, and whence came they, who are now climbing the steps of the New Jerusalem, entering in to enjoy its glories forever? These are they whom Christ desired of old, whose names were written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and also were engraved upon the breastplate and upon the heart of our great High Priest. These are the sheep and lambs that he has purchased with his own blood; and as they enter the heavenly fold, it may again be said, 'You have given him his heart's desire.'
Up to this point, I have been speaking of matters of fact; but there are matters of promise which will be equally matters of fact in due time. Depend upon it, brethren, Christ has a desire much larger than anything that has yet been fulfilled, and this desire shall be granted unto him. He has a desire to reign universally upon this earth, and that desire has this promise to support it: 'He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yes, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.' He has also a desire to come again, in fulfillment of his own promise: 'If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.' He is coming soon; we cannot tell how soon; perhaps, to us, it may seem a long time, but his own word is, 'Surely I come quickly;' so we may sing, in joyful anticipation of his appearing—
'Lo! He comes! countless trumpets
Blow to raise the sleeping dead!
'Mid ten thousand saints and angels,
See the great exalted Head!
Hallelujah!
Welcome, welcome, Son of God!'
When he comes, and his feet stand again upon mount Olivet, whence he ascended, and he gathers all nations unto him, and reigns, as King of kings, and Lord of lords, among his ancients gloriously—when he has given to his people to sit upon thrones with him, to judge even the angels with him, and to be his co-assessors at the last great assize, then shall we say, 'You have given him his heart's desire.'
Now, before I close, I want to urge you to put your prayers into Christ's hands, so that he may present them for you. As it is true of him, 'You have given him his heart's desire,' then, if I can get my prayer into his hands, so that my prayer becomes Christ's desire, then I shall be sure to have my desire fulfilled. Even Solomon said that 'the desire of the righteous shall be granted;' so we cannot do better than go to him who is greater than Solomon, our Heavenly Advocate, who has gone within the veil, there to appear in the presence of God for us.
'He ever lives to intercede
Before his Father's face:
Give him, my soul, your cause to plead,
Nor doubt the Father's grace.'
Do you ask, 'How are we to get our prayers into his hands?' I remind you of George Herbert's quaint poem called 'The Bag,' in which he represents the Savior pointing to his open side, and saying to his people,
'If you have anything to send or write,
(I have no bag, but here is room,)
Unto my Father's hands and sight
(Believe me,) it shall safely come.
That I shall mind, what you impart;
Look, you may put it very near my heart.
'Or if hereafter any of my friends
Will use me in this kind, the door
Shall still be open; what he sends
I will present, and somewhat more,
Not to his hurt. Sighs will convey
Anything to me. Hark despair, away!'
Oh, happy they who can thus put their prayers into the very heart of Christ! Poor troubled soul, if you can pray in no other way than this, pray this way, put your desires into your Savior's wounds. It is the best way to pray of which I know; therefore, do so, and may the Lord bless you evermore! Amen.
Chapter 3
'Jesus Christ's matter;' or, our duty at the forthcoming elections
A prayer meeting address
PRAYER is available under all circumstances, and in all the sorrows of life. Have faith in prayer: have faith in it in regard to your little daily troubles, and domestic trials, and business embarrassments. Kneel down, and say, 'We will do as God sees best,' and you will find your minds sweetly directed in the path which perhaps you might not have selected, but which will prove to be the best.
I rejoice to know that Jesus Christ is Head over all things to his Church, as well as Head of the Church; and that, therefore, there is nothing in this world, great or small, but what he governs for the good of his people. Like Joseph in Egypt, he is sure to take care of his brethren in Goshen. We, who are the least popular people living in this land, rejoice to think that Jesus, our Brother, is the King of the Egypt in which we sojourn, and that he will manage all our affairs for us.
We may bring the elections of tomorrow before him in earnest prayer. He will hear us, and grant us help. I have more faith in God than in all statesmen. I have more faith in his guiding and directing men's minds than in all that can be said or printed. The Master's glory will come of it, even if we should be beaten for a while; for we hold to Christ's Kingdom, and know nothing about alliances with the kingdoms of this world. We can wait another fifty years, or we can wait for five hundred years; but we shall win at the end. Our triumph, if it come not tomorrow, nor next year, comes certainly. No matter what abuse may be cast upon us, nor what may be said against us, the day shall come when there shall be an unfettered Church in this land, and in every land, and when Christ shall be the recognized Head of it, and when every hireling church, that licks the hand of the State, as the dog licks its master's, shall be sent to the rightabout.
I have thought fit, with all earnestness and vehemence, to urge this matter upon the members of this Church, until, I hope, you thoroughly understand the question; and I earnestly pray that every one of you may do his duty tomorrow, and that you may not be led astray by all that is sought to be palmed off upon us.
What think you? We have a banner flaunted in our face—a Bible, shut up, with a crown upon it to keep it shut; and a sword laid upon it, to be used against those who dare to open it! But we dare to open it, and the first line we read in it is this, 'My Kingdom is not of this world.' And yet, forsooth, the followers of the Church that teaches Baptismal Regeneration, and Sacramentalism, and I know not what besides, cry out that they are Protestants! It is an old dodge for a man, who has stolen, to cry, 'Stop, thief!' and then run away. But we shall, by God's grace, be helped forward tomorrow; and even if we do not have the victory, we can wait.
But there are some of us whose tongues will wax more eloquent because we are obliged to wait; and if this matter of the Church in Ireland be kept in hand for many a day, we shall be thankful, for it will come to the turn of the Church of England all the sooner: for we do not conceal our purpose—we shall never rest until in England the Church is free, and until this spiritual adultery—for it is nothing else—by which the Kingdom of Christ is defiled, shall be forever put away, and be remembered only as the darkest blot that ever disfigured the Church's face. Pray earnestly for this blessing! I pray for it as devoutly as I ever asked for salvation. If I might but live to see the day when there shall be a free church in a free nation, and all this State-churchism done away, I could almost say with Simeon, 'Lord, now let you your servant depart in peace, according to your word, for mine eyes have seen your salvation.'
It will be no small privilege for some of you young men to have had a share in this battle. I have insisted upon this all through; and, so far from repenting that I ever took up arms in the matter, I feel more and more safe about it every day. I feel that, in acting thus, I prove my loyalty to my Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the midst of opposition, and in the teeth of much misrepresentation and abuse. If this be not true, I know nothing that is true—that Christ's Church is a body altogether distinct from every civil corporation, and is to be governed by Christ himself, and is to look up to him alone as her Head.
I AM NO POLITICIAN, BUT THIS IS JESUS CHRIST'S MATTER.
Chapter 4
Souls ruined by unfaithful ministers
A prayer meeting address
I WANT you, dear friends, as the orphans are here tonight, to offer special prayer for them, and for all children. At the church-meeting downstairs, we have had some very delightful testimonies from our young friends who have told us what the Lord has done for their souls, and this should encourage us to pray for the conversion of the orphans before they leave the Institution, and of all our children while they are yet young. It is of the utmost importance that our young friends should know the Lord early in life, and that they should really know him;—that it should be no sham work with them, but a true, solid, saving operation of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts.
I hope there are none here who are, or ever will be, like the writer of a letter that I am going to read to you. It has come to me from the very center of Germany, and this is a translation of it:
'In great trouble I write to you as my condition is unbearable. I cannot pray. Until my fifteenth year, I was quite devoted to my Savior, and often prayed a whole night; but then came blasphemous thoughts, about which I consulted our clergyman, who advised me to go to a place of amusement, and dance. I obeyed, and found more and more pleasure in dancing, and thus got into all the snares of the devil. I spent my money in dancing and licentiousness, thinking this no sin, as also no preacher warned me. Thus I lived many years until, on a sudden, I was startled, and felt all the tortures of conscience by day and night. When I pray, a voice seems to say, "It is of no use, you will never be saved." Sometimes, it is as if Satan would tear out my tongue. I am sixty-seven years of age, and the thought of going in this state into eternity makes the measure of my sufferings full. I have heard much of your faith, as I have much fellowship with Baptists; and firmly hope God will help me by you. Please pray with your Church for me. May I ask an answer?
'Yours respectfully,
Poor soul! Now, there is a case in which the unfaithfulness of a German minister is responsible for the ruin of a soul, unless the Lord, by his grace, shall prevent it. You see, dear brethren, what we may yet come to in England. In Germany, there was once a believing Church, and the Gospel was faithfully preached both by the Lutherans and the Calvinists; but the ministers have been led aside by the heresies of 'modern thought', until, in their criticisms of the Bible, they have cast a doubt upon well-near every truth which God has revealed; and the result is that the German nation is rapidly becoming an unbelieving nation. There is a faithful remnant left, according to the election of grace, and they know and fear the Lord; but many of the so-called ministers of the Gospel have stamped true religion out in Germany so far as it was possible. The devil has found none to do his service better than those who were supposed to be ministers of Christ;—I say this coolly and deliberately;—and I believe that, at this moment, in England as well as in Germany, more real injury is being done to the cause of Christ by some professed preachers of the Gospel, and certain religious newspapers, than by all the infidels put together; and unless God, in his infinite mercy, prevents it, we shall be completely over-run by these enemies of the cross of Christ.
Many of these men are very crafty; they dare not openly deny the Gospel, and they even use many of the same expressions that we use, but they give a different meaning to them, and so rob them of their real value. One thing has gone, and another thing is going; there will soon be little left, for these critics, like rats which gnaw the piles of a building, seem to be eating away the very pillars of the palace of truth. May the Lord speedily make a clearance of them! Otherwise, we shall presently find ourselves in the same condition as the people in Germany are in; already fewer people go to places of worship, in proportion to the population, than used to go. This is not to be wondered at while the ministers tell the people that there is no Hell, and that, even though they live in sin, it will be all the same with them in the end, for everybody is to be finally restored. When we get this sort of teaching from the pulpit, we cannot be surprised if the people say that there is nothing in religion. I pray that the Lord may raise up, all over the country, honest preachers of the Gospel, and that we, as a Church, may be 'steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord.' May these dear children never be tempted to imbibe false doctrine, or to suppose that there is any true pleasure in sin; but may they be kept from folly, and be taught to know the Lord, for the ways of wisdom are pleasantness, and all her paths are peace!
Chapter 5
Stormy winds
A prayer-meeting address, 3 February 1868
'Stormy wind fulfilling his word.'—Psalm 148:8
THE wind has been behaving most outrageously during the last few days, not only to the world in general, but to us in particular; for, as I had the misfortune to tell you on Sabbath morning, it has most completely and entirely sent to the ground one of our buildings at the Orphanage, of which nothing remains at all except the materials, which will be useful for something else; but the structure itself is demolished as completely as a thousand workmen could have done it. The stormy wind, however, though we regret what it has done, must not be viewed by us as a chance agency, or as causing misfortunes and losses which we are to lament; but we are to look upon it as the 'stormy wind fulfilling his word.'
Of all things in the world, the wind is, I suppose, the most free from control. Even our Lord said of it, 'The wind blows where it wills.' It follows its own sweet will, sometimes turning to the North, sometimes to the South, sometimes to the East, and sometimes to the West, just as it may happen to please itself. But, depend upon it, there is as much order in the course of the most vehement gale, or in the tortuous windings of the most destructive whirlwind, as there is in the paths of the planets, or in the motions of the stars. God holds every single globule of matter in his hand, and there is not a breath that can dare to blow except as he breathes it. It is well for us to be firm believers in the universal government of God, for all things do occur and move according to his eternal will. He does as he wills among the armies of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of this lower world, and in all things he has his way. He has his way, certainly, in the whirlwind, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
Now, stormy winds occur, not only in the outer world but also in our own inner worlds, in our circumstances, in our troubles, in our temptations, but there, also, every stormy wind fulfills God's word.
I recollect four remarkable winds in Scripture which fulfilled God's word. The first was that great wind which came from the wilderness and smote the four corners of the house in which Job's sons and daughters were eating and drinking, and brought down the whole house in one hasty ruin so that all the inhabitants were destroyed at once, save the messenger who rushed into Job's presence, saying, 'I only am escaped alone to tell you.' Now, in this case, that wind was evidently sent by God's providence for the trial of his people. So is it with all the winds of temptation, with all the blasts of adversity, with all the howlings of persecution. All these are sent to us in order to see whether we serve God for nothing, whether we are perfect and upright in heart before the Lord, or whether when adversity comes we shall take the advice of Job's unhappy wife, and be ready to curse God and die. Ah! he is not the man who can stand in the trying hour who has built his house upon the sand, and who will come down with that house when the winds blow and the floods come, and the rain descends. But that man shall be accepted at the last who is not afraid of tempests, and trembles not even though God should try him in the furnace, and pass him through the fire seven times. The stormy wind fulfills God's word in the trial of God's people.
The second great wind I recollect is in connection with Jonah. Jonah was minded to run away from his Master's service, and he 'met with a providence,' as we say; but providence is never an excuse for sin. He went down to Joppa, and there he found a ship going to Tarshish, and I dare say he said to himself, 'How providential!' But there is a devil's providence as well as a divine providence, and, sometimes, the devil's providence may seem to us to be the more important, and to show us the most direct way, but it is not really so. However, Jonah sailed on board this ship, but he had not got far before God sent his sheriff's officer after him. There arose a mighty wind. The sea arose most tempestuously, and though the mariners were willing enough to get to land, could they have done so, they tried in vain, until at last Jonah was cast out, and then the sea was calm. Sometimes God sends stormy winds, not so much to try his children as to chasten them, to reclaim them, to rectify their position, to stop them in the path of error, and make them return to his service. Do not think, child of God, that you can sin without chastisement. A thousand sins in an ungodly man God will endure in this life which he would not bear in his own child. You let a stranger say fifty things, and you take no notice of them, but if they came from your own child you would take care that the rod was used. Where we love the best, we are the most jealous. If you are one of the King's council, mind how you behave yourself, for kings are very jealous of their courtiers in whom they trust. So, the Lord may well send stormy winds after some of us, for perhaps we have been beginning to wander, and we shall go on by little and little unless a terrible providence comes and detects us in our sins, and makes us turn unto the Lord with full purpose of heart.
The third great wind I call to mind is in connection with our Lord himself. The disciples were in the ship with Christ, but that did not make the sea calm, for though Christ may be with his people to deliver them out of trouble, he is not always with them to keep them from trouble. Presently the wind arose, and the whole sea was running mountains high, and the little bark was ready to sink, and all the while the Savior lay asleep at the helm. Now, that wind was sent, neither for their correction, nor so much for their trial, as for a revelation of the divine power of Jesus. When he stood up and said to the winds, 'Be still,' he had an opportunity of showing to them that he was the Lord of sea and land, and they said, 'What manner of man is this?' Sometimes our trials are sent to us in order that there may be a platform for our Lord to display his wonder-working arm. If you had no difficulties you would not need an Almighty Savior. If you had no burden you would not know the strength of the great Burden-bearer. If you had no care you would not have the delightful peace which follows from casting all your care on him who cares for you. Oh! be glad if you are sometimes put into the fiery furnace, for we do not find that Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego ever saw that fourth, like unto the Son of God, until they got on the coals; but when they began to tread that glowing floor, then it was they saw the Son of man in the furnace with them. Joshua had never seen the angel with the sword drawn if he had not been himself a soldier with his sword drawn. Jacob had never seen our Lord as the wrestling angel if he had not been himself a wrestler, and Abraham had never seen the three strangers as wayfarers unless he had himself been a pilgrim to the strange land. Thank God, then, for your afflictions. They put you in positions in which you may be able to see Christ, and enjoy Christ, having a demand for his help that he may render to you the help which you require. We may thank God, then, for stormy winds.
The fourth wind which I mention was connected with Paul—when the great wind blew—the Euroclydon, and the vessel was about to drift upon the rocks. You remember how grandly Paul comes out in that shipwreck scene. You always respected Paul, but you did not know what a gallant Christian he was until the vessel began to split up and they were about to kill the prisoners lest they should escape. Then Paul began to speak, and to cheer the captain and all the rest of the crew! Bravely done, Paul! You are not only a true Christian, but a true hero; not only an orator, but, what is more difficult than oratory, you are self-possessed and able to bear yourself calmly in the midst of danger! I believe that God often sends stormy winds of difficulties and troubles that he may bring out his people, not to glorify them, but to glorify himself in them. When you make some instrument or tool, you like to put your work to the test, and you say to onlookers, 'See how it bears the test!' So God, when he makes vessels of mercy, sometimes exposes them to divers difficulties and trials in order to say to mankind, 'Behold what I have done in that man! See how grace shines through him! See how I can glorify myself in poor flesh and blood when I choose to come and dwell in it!' How that bush glows with deity! It is nothing but a bush, but when God dwells in it, it blazes like the sun in all his strength!
Well, dear friends, we may hope whenever God sends difficulty to us as a Church that it is only for us to gird up our loins, and try to get over the difficulty, so that the Lord educates us by our difficulties, and fetches out our manhood. I hope this little event with regard to our Orphanage will only be intended to bring out our liberality, to stir up our prayers, to excite our sympathy, and that God will throw difficulties in our pathway as a Church on purpose to bring out our manhood, to the glory of him who is manhood's Covenant Head, and who delights to see man made like unto himself.
Chapter 6
Looking back
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 23 July 1866
SOMETHING was said just now which reminded us of looking back. It is not always a good thing to be looking at the present. I am not certain that the world's maxim is a bad one when it says, 'Well, what matters? It will be all the same a hundred years hence!' I am not sure whether it is not a good thing to look at things in the light of the future a little more, instead of filling us up with things that are present, for do you know when the present comes to get the upper hand of us we are always in a bad state of mind. We are sure to be carnal, and perhaps there may be some little difficulty between us and our Christian brethren. We are sure to be bad-tempered. We are pretty certain to grow harsh, or if not we shall be in danger some other way. We shall come to love the world, to be too fond of this present life, and so be unfitted for the speedy coming of the Lord. Anything is better, it seems to me, than fattening upon the present.
Looking back is one of the ways of getting ourselves out of the mischief of the present. Now, let us look back to a few points. And the first point that my eye seems to rest upon—though there are many others that I might speak of—the first great point is, the time when Christ first met with us. The old hymn-writer says:
'Do mind the place, the spot of ground,
Where Jesus did you meet!'
Some of you, perhaps, can recollect the spot; well, go there. Or, if you cannot recollect the spot, perhaps you will remember the time when first the Lord appeared unto you, and said, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love.' Oh! go back to that. Or if neither spot nor time be conspicuous, yet there was a time when you did come from darkness into light, and from death unto life—now, go back to it. Do you not bless the Lord? What, not praise him at the recollection of that happy day? Do you not sing—
'Happy day! happy day!
When Jesus took my sins away!'
Recollect the day, and not smile? Do you think there is a negro that recollects the day of emancipation and does not smile when he thinks of it? Why, I should say that if the negro be in the greatest possible poverty, yet the thought of the day when the proclamation was read in Jamaica, and liberty was given, must make even his black face shine. And does not your face shine too? Forgiven; accepted; renewed; saved; set at liberty; blood-washed; clothed; received into the Father's house; adopted; justified; sanctified;—why, every one of these words ought to make the bells of your heart ring for joy. They should each one of them be a finger to touch the chords of your heart, and make the harp-strings sound with sweetest music. Can I not get you back to that? There are some of you who have to go back fifty years, as our Brother Dransfield and another dear brother, one of our deacons, would have to do. When they were lads they were brought to Christ. They have never repented of it. They have had to bless God ever since that ever they came to know the Lord. Others of us have only to go back some fifteen or sixteen years, and that seems a great length of time to us now. But if it be only four or five months, or even days, yet surely, distant or near, it must bring joy to the heart.
Well, we have gone so far back, but I think we must go a little farther. I do not seem to want to linger anywhere on the road. Let us take one flight of 1800 years at least, and we light on Calvary, or at the empty tomb, or at the resurrection and ascension. Just let us go to that point. Our future seemed hanging in the scales, trembling in the balance, when the Savior said, 'This is your hour, and the power of darkness.' Now is the crisis of the world. At that moment unbelief would have said, 'He will never be able to do it! A man, how can he bear the weight of human guilt? And, though the Godhead be in him, yet since the Godhead cannot suffer, how shall the manhood be able to bear all that mass of suffering which will come crowding upon his devoted head?' It was a frightful struggle, certainly, but he conquered, he overthrew every foe, and left not a single enemy to be routed by us. All the enemies were defeated by his all-conquering arm. And when he was in the grave, it seemed a problem, 'Will he rise again?' No man had ever done so. Other men had been raised by the power of God through the voice of some prophet, but who is there that can raise himself? Here is a man who must be awakened, self-awakened; and be quickened, self-quickened. 'Tis true his God is with him, but yet it is by his own power of Godhead that he must come again from that grave. It did seem a strange thing, an impossible thing; and so the disciples went about in sorrow, wringing their hands in doubt, and saying, 'This is the third day,' when he had already risen; and the mighty Conqueror had come forth to life and liberty. Oh! 'twas a happy day for us, for then we were saved. The justification of his people was accomplished then. The debt was paid. We rose in him, just as we died in him, and as Christ rose to die no more, so none of his elect can ever die, or ever bear the weight of sin, for Christ has borne and buried it all forever. They were saved when he rose from the grave. Do not your hearts sing when you get as far back as that? Can you sit like a dove on the Cross, and not begin to utter turtle-notes of joy. Can you sit where the blood is dropping, and feel its sweet power to cleanse, and not return a note of gratitude? Do you not say—
'Love and grief my heart dividing
With my tears his feet I'll bathe;
but at the same time I will pour the oil of my song and my grateful praise
upon his blessed head'?
Now, that is a long flight, but I want to prepare you for a longer one still. We will go by the fall. It was a dreadful catastrophe, but God foreknew it, and the mercy is that we stood before we fell, and were saved before we were lost! There is the mercy. Go past the fall. Long before we were in our first father Adam we were in the Second Adam, for we were chosen in him from before the foundation of the world. Now, if you can, fly back to that time when there was no time, to that day when there was no day except the Ancient of Days, back to eternity. Now there is naught existing except the Eternal Mind, where everything slumbers in the purpose of God. Now if your faith has eyes it will read in the Eternal purposes a purpose concerning us. Then, e'en then, before we had been born, or men had been created at all, the Divine mind foresaw us, and in that glance of its foreknowledge loved us; saw us when we fell in Adam, yet loved us notwithstanding all; and then ordained us to be his children, gave his Son in covenant to die for us, and resolved that we should be forever with him. Now, you may rest there. If you can get back there I want to know whether you cannot sing? I think you must. I recollect riding one day rather wearily up the Alps, very tired and hot, but I could not help singing, in my poor growling way, for I had got this verse somewhere between my mouth and my lips—
'In songs of sublime adoration and praise
You pilgrims to Zion who press;
Break forth and extol the great Ancient of Days,
His rich and distinguishing grace.
His love from eternity fixed upon you;
Broke forth and discovered its flame;
Then each with the bonds of its kindness it drew,
And taught you to love his great name.'
Why, if that precious truth of electing love does not make a man sing, he must be a stone. Feel it, and not sing about it? Understand one's self to be chosen of God before the day-star knew its place, and that
'Long before the sun's refulgent ray
Primeval shades of darkness drove,
We on his sacred bosom lay
Loved with an everlasting love.'
If that does not make a man sing for joy, what will? Why, surely he will have nothing to sing of when he gets to Heaven, for what can he have even in Heaven better than that precious truth? It seems to be angels' food—manna that drops round about the camp on earth, and manna that shall be fed upon before the eternal throne. Surely, everlasting love shall be one of the loudest, sweetest notes of the choristers before the throne?
Now, if you can get back there you will have joy indeed, if you can get back into the bosom of your God.
'A monument of grace,
A sinner saved by blood;
The streams of love I trace,
Up to their fountain—God;
And in his mighty breast I see,
Eternal thoughts of love to me.'
I would to God you could all look back after that style; but there are some of you whose looking back must be with sorrow. Well, if you can look back to him whom you have pierced, if you can look back to all your sins, and sorrows, and desire to escape from them, then you may look to the present if you will. Perhaps it is best that you should think that there is now a fountain, that it is now filled with blood. Come there, like the dying thief, and you shall be washed and cleansed.
God give us grace thus to look back!
Chapter 7
The operations of the Spirit
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 20 May 1867
I THOUGHT of saying just a few words to you this evening upon the Spirit of God.
If any man should undertake to explain the operations of the Holy Spirit, he would prove his own folly, for these are a great mystery. 'The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but you can not tell whence it comes nor where it goes; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.' I suppose the action of the wind can, nowadays, be philosophically explained, but the work of the Holy Spirit must ever remain a great celestial mystery, a mystery into which it is not possible for us to pry. But, certain it is that the Holy Spirit does operate upon the mind of man in a most mysterious and wonderful, but still most effectual, manner, the marks and proofs of which are very clear and very apprehensible, for we see men who were like a stone melted to great sensitiveness, and to holy repentance on account of sin; we see men who were in love with sin weaned from their wickedness, and made to love the Savior whom once they despised. We see many Christians lifted up from despondency, and filled with superior strength, though in themselves nothing but weakness. We find them helped in times of trial, and directed in hours of perplexity, and all these are works of the Holy Spirit. We see the Spirit of God continually operating in the midst of the church, sometimes raising up one man who shall be a leader in God's Israel, and sometimes another, and at certain seasons sweeping through the church like a strong wind through the tops of the trees, and making every member distinctly conscious of an inward spiritual power working in the mind.
Now, if we might be permitted to form any idea at all of how the Spirit of God works, we think we should be safe in saying that he probably operates upon the mind according to the laws of mind. That is to say, the mind is sometimes brought into a certain state by persuasion. A truth is pressed home upon the mind, and that truth, when clearly seen, brings that mind into a certain state in harmony with that truth. So, when the Spirit of God would bring us to repentance he brings to the mind the guilt of sin, and that guilt of sin as connected with the love of God against whom that sin is committed, and then follows, naturally and of course, that state of heart which we call 'repentance.' The Spirit of God is also pleased to enable the human mind to perceive the character and work of Christ, and when the intellect is fully convinced that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that his work is to be trusted in, then there follows, almost as a matter of course, the trust which comes in every sane man's mind when he discovers that a thing is trustworthy and fully to be relied upon.
The Spirit of God probably operates upon us—to compare the great thing with a thing so insignificant—somewhat after the same fashion as that in which we operate upon our fellow-men. That is to say, if we would persuade them we bring arguments before them. We bring our soul's affections in contact with their souls, and at last, if ours is a stronger spirit, we prevail. Now the Holy Spirit is the greatest of all minds, the mightiest of all spirits. He knows how to bring truth home to the mind, to the intellect, and to impress the affections through the intellect, and he, being the superior mind, superior to all created minds put together, effects his divine purposes and makes men willing in the day of his power. We cannot tell exactly, for he does not confine himself to one mode, and all his operations are wonderful and mysterious, but he certainly does seem to operate upon mind according to the laws of mind.
Now, I dare say some of you will say, 'Why talk about such an abstruse matter? What is it to us?' Why, it seems to me that this is a very comfortable thought. Have you never seen how the minds of men, the minds of tens of thousands of men, can be operated upon by someone other mind? Why, even the freaks of fashion, and the changes of dress, are just to be attributed to this, that someone person's mind leads the way, and all the rest follow. So it has been with great political changes. Someone great master-mind has struck out a truth, like a spark from an anvil, and a whole nation has been led in a certain track by that one mind. Well, then, if we have got the eternal mind, if we have got the Infinite Spirit, do you not think it is possible that that which we sometimes talk of as a wonder—a nation being born in a day—should be achieved? It seems to me that with the Spirit of God it would be the easiest thing possible. He has only to bring home to the minds of the tens of thousands of men who make a nation the same truth which he brings home with power to one—and he can do it as easily with ten millions as he can with one, and those ten millions would be converted with no more power than that which converts one. It is a fact that an argument which convinces one sound mind would convince fifty sound minds. If we were dealing now with material substances, we might feel as if to accumulate a great degree of power would require a long time, but when we come to talk of spiritual power we get into quite another region. It is not a thing of time at all. The Spirit of God could now, if so he willed it, in the next five minutes, bring home to all this congregation such truths as would humble us all, lead us all to the cross, and bring us all to be disciples of Christ, and this he would far more easily do than I can speak these words, for I cannot speak these words with my own strength. I have no power even to utter a word, but must borrow strength for that, but he would not need to borrow any help for the conversion of the whole world. If it was in God's purpose so to do, it would certainly be in the Holy Spirit's power.
Now, here, you see, we get into a region where we may expect great things. Do you know, when I first saw Christ, and understood him, I wondered that everybody did not understand Christ and rejoice in him. And when I was under the burden of sin I wondered that everybody was not burdened too. If anyone had said that ten thousand others were burdened with sin, I should have said, 'Very likely, and well they may be.' And if another had said that ten thousand people had found peace with God, I should have said, 'I quite believe it, for it is the simplest thing in the world to look to Jesus Christ and find eternal life.'
Consider, then, that there is the Spirit of God to effect these two simple things, to bring home to the sinner a sense of the sin which is already there and which ought to be a burden, and to bring the sinner to see the Savior who is already there. Why, all the difficulties of salvation are gone! Christ has rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulcher. Christ has said, 'It is finished,' and there are no difficulties now. The Lord has but to give the Word, and great shall be the multitudes of them that shall publish it. Kings and armies shall flee apace, and those that tarried at home shall divide the spoil.
Now, I have been talking thus because we are very apt to think that we have been praying a long while, and that we have not seen so great a blessing as we could desire. Brethren, I am very grateful for any mercy; I am not satisfied with any, for I would long to see more, and if the Lord were to send more I think I should pray for more, and if he were to send more than that I would pray for more than that still, for God's mercies are wonderful mouth-openers. When you open your mouth wide, and God fills it, you are always sure to open it twice as wide next time, and then he will fill it again, and you will want more still, for the mouth of faith, unlike the mouth of our natural bodies, can open, and God can fill it to any extent, and perhaps with some of you God will open it so wide in the matter of conversions as you did not conceive to be possible.
Brethren and sisters, let us wait upon God and ask him to do great things. Let us make that a point in our prayers in the future.
A dear friend was telling us of a great work which is going on in America just now—of judges being saved, and of lawyers! He even told us that all the lawyers of a certain town had been brought to a knowledge of their sins, had been led to repentance, and were preaching the Word. He told us that the whole town met together for prayer. Why not? Why not? The same truth which may awaken one man may awaken millions. The same power of God which can bring one man to pray can bring thousands of men to pray. Why not? Why not? Let us ask for these great things. I know sometimes, when we have had this Tabernacle full at a prayer-meeting, we have thought that it was a very great thing. Ah! well, God be praised for all his mercies, but if there were a thousand such places as this all crowded, yet still, my dear friends, even with all that how much the world would require! It would be but as a pinch of salt compared with the great mountains of sin that there are still in this world. We should have need still to pray. We must not be satisfied with anything short of the whole world becoming the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.
I stir you up, therefore, to large desires and large expectations, and then, let me add, to large efforts. It is no use our expecting God to do great things and then folding our hands. We are only hypocrites if we pray to God to save souls and then do not go and tell them the Gospel. God's appointed way of saving souls is through the truth, and if we do not tell the truth we cannot expect the Lord to work through the truth. It is no use for us to be like the carter, with his horses and his wagon stuck in the mud, and crying to Hercules to help him out, but being obliged to be told by Hercules to put his own shoulder to the wheel. We cannot save souls, but, under God, when he is with us, souls will be saved through our instrumentality. It is not enough to pray. That is but the beginning of the work. We must go forth in God's name, day after day, with earnest, affectionate, tearful passion for souls, and tell men of what Jesus Christ has done to save sinners.
My dear friends, have you done anything for Christ today? Do not have to say, as one of old did, 'I have lost a day.' Do something for Jesus every day in the week. I would we could do something every hour, but let us at least do something every day. The sun has gone down tonight, but let not the last ray of twilight melt away before some word is spoken of the Master, before some testimony is borne for Jesus, and so on the next day, and the next, and the next. I have no doubt that on Wednesday* the devil will be here. I have no doubt about his activity. I wish we could then be more active in prayer, and when we see the world's riot and the world's pleasure, let us have some sacred pleasure too. They will have their race; let us take care to run ours, and God grant that we may win it; and may eternal mercy yet stem the mighty torrent of wickedness, and make men as anxious about the things of God as they now are about their poor, passing, carnal joys.
Chapter 8
Concerning prayer
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 5 March 1866
LAST night our text led us to talk about the Sacred Trinity in Unity, and we tried to show the union of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the work of salvation. We showed you how, at the baptism of Christ, when he was 'fulfilling all righteousness,' the Spirit came resting upon him like a dove, while the Father was heard declaring in an audible voice, 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.'
Now, the whole Trinity is thus displayed in many places where we are very likely to forget it. Especially will you notice this, dear friends, in the case of prayer; there is not a single prayer offered in this place tonight which God accepts in which Father, Son, and Spirit are not all concerned. If any of us shall pray, and it shall be our prayer but nothing more, it will never reach so high as Heaven. It has not wings strong enough to reach there. In fact, every true prayer comes down from Heaven before it goes up to Heaven. It never would have the power to ascend unless, like the Savior, it had first descended from the skies.
The philosophy of prayer seems to be this: first of all, the Holy Spirit works upon our hearts, makes us sensible of our needs, and shows us that we cannot supply those needs ourselves, directs us to the covenant of grace where all these needs are matters of promise, points us to the Savior through whom all these blessings must come to us, and so enables us to pray. Over and above this, the Holy Spirit also works in us desires and longings which we cannot express. Perhaps the best part of prayer is that which is never expressed in words. Great thoughts, you know, sometimes break the backs of words; they are too heavy for words to carry them. Groans, and sighs, and sobs, and tears are often mightier burden-bearers than ever words can be, and so sometimes the Spirit 'makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered'—unutterable groanings. So that, the desire which constitutes prayer, the faith which brings prayer to God, the desire, the language which expresses the prayer, and the unuttered desire which enters into the very essence of fervency in prayer—all these come from God the Holy Spirit.
Then, when prayer is thus the work of the Holy Spirit, and you and I have uttered it, and it goes up to Heaven, does it go direct to God? Inasmuch as the prayer is not the Holy Spirit's prayer, but our prayer—for though the Holy Spirit works it in us it is yet most distinctly ours—it becomes to that extent defiled and imperfect. As the Spirit works it, it is perfect, but as we in whom it is wrought are defiled, depraved materials, the thing itself is like bad clay put upon a good wheel. It is well wrought, but the material of which it is made is ill, our nature being depraved, and before it can go to Heaven it passes through another process. The Lord Jesus Christ takes that prayer of ours, and corrects and amends it. He sprinkles his precious blood upon it. Our unhallowed motive, our sinful desire, perhaps the rash word, the unhumbled thought, the want of respect to God, or the want of faith in him—all these he takes away, and then when the prayer is made perfect he endorses it, and makes it his own prayer, and so it comes up before the Father's face. 'Through him we have access by one Spirit unto the Father.'
It is to the Father that the prayer comes. I do not think that we are wrong in addressing our prayer to God the Holy Spirit, or to Jesus Christ. It seems to me that the prayer of the dying thief, 'Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom,' was a most proper and legitimate one, and that we may well pray the same. When the Apostle Paul taught us the Blessing, 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit rest upon you,' I believe the essence of that blessing is a prayer to each of those persons that they would each be graciously pleased to rest upon us and continue to bless us. But still, prayer in the main is to be directed to 'our Father who is in Heaven.' After this manner pray you. Let us present our petitions before our Father's face, for he always hears us, and in due time will answer.
You know it has been discussed among sceptics of different kinds, and among some people even who would not like to be called sceptics, as to what is the real influence of prayer. They have said that prayer, no doubt, has a very excellent effect upon the mind of the person offering it, but that it really has any effect upon the mind of God they have thought to be impossible. Now, brethren, I do not care what their thoughts may happen to be about possibilities or impossibilities. The Word of God is a sufficient guide for us, and there is nothing in that Word taught us more distinctly or more certainly than the efficacy of prayer. Besides, all of us who are believers know it by experience, so that casting any manner of doubt upon it would be almost the same as casting a doubt upon the sun shining, or upon our own existence. We know it to be so.
Yet it has been said by some people, 'But, if everything is appointed and determined, what is the use of praying?' This is the old difficulty which everybody feels and which everybody kicks at for a little time, and at last gives up as a difficulty not to be solved. It really is not a difficulty at all, but only a knot which we cannot untie. It would be as reasonable for one to say, 'It is ordained whether I shall live or not, and therefore I shall not eat,' as for us to say, 'It is ordained whether or not I shall have such-and-such a blessing and therefore I shall not ask for it.' We all feel that the man would be an idiot who should say, 'I shall die at the appointed time, and therefore I will hold my breath, for if my life is to be preserved it will be.' We should feel that when the man died through wickedly restraining from breathing he would be a suicide, and so the man who does not pray because he thinks if he is to have a blessing he shall have it whether he asks for it or not, destroys himself. The appointed blessings do come, but when they come they come as the result of prayer. The God who has appointed to give you a blessing tonight, has also appointed that you shall pray for it, and he who appointed that you should not have it foreknew that you would not seek it. The end is appointed, but the means are appointed also. If people would only recollect that the means are as much the subject of divine appointment as is the end, they would cease to be so troubled about matters which are not half so difficult, after all, as they think them to be. Someone asked, not long ago, 'Well, but if there are elect people, what is the use of preaching?' 'Yes,' but, I might ask, 'if there were no elect people, what would be the use of preaching?' The God who determined the salvation of a man determined also that Christ should die for that man, determined that the Spirit of God should work in that man through the preaching of the Gospel, and determined, also, perhaps, that I should be the preacher through whom that man should be converted. At any rate, I shall preach as if I felt he had, and it may be that I may find out that he had so determined.
I wish that some people would receive this doctrine! 'Well,' says one, 'but I have prayed, and I have not had what I asked for.' Yes, but, in the first place, are you a child of God? God has not promised to hear you if you are not. In the next place, do you suppose you had God's promise for what you asked? Had you a promise for it at all? I recollect a person praying for a thousand pounds, but he did not get it; and it was not very likely that he would, for he never had any promise that he should have it. If you go to the Bank without a cheque you are not likely to get money given you, and if you go to God without a promise you must not expect to have a blessing. 'Well,' says another, 'I trust I am a child of God, and I have asked for something which I thought was fairly promised to me in such-and-such a passage, but I have not had it.' Are you quite sure that it would have been good for you to have had it? The way in which a child asks a thing of its father, is, if it be a proper child, 'My dear father, will you give me such-and-such a thing if it is good for me?' There may be some things which the child would like to have, but the father might have to say, 'My child, I have promised that I will always answer your requests, but if you are wise you will not wish me to answer your requests when to do so would do you damage.' If your child asked you for something which you knew would do him harm, you would say, 'My dear child, I cannot give you that, but I will give you something that is far better.' We always reckon that a man has paid his debts even if he does not pay them in kind, but in money. If, for instance, I owe a man a certain quantity of silver, and I pay him—not in silver, but in gold, I have paid him just as much as though I had paid him in silver. And, if God gives you, not what you ask for, but something ten times better, do you not think that he has been as good as his word—ay, and a good deal better too. Sometimes God hears the petitions of bad men, and does not hear the prayer of good men, There is an instance recorded in Matthew where the devil prayed and Christ heard him, and the Gergesenes prayed, and Christ heard them, but there was a good man who prayed, and Christ did not hear him. You remember the occasion—when Christ was in the country of the Gergesenes and they came to him and said, 'Master, depart out of our coasts,' and he went away directly. When the poor man possessed with devils cried to Christ, Christ heard him and the devils ran into the swine directly, but when the same man, after he was healed, wished to abide with Christ, Christ said, 'No, go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you.' Well, this was rather singular, that the devil should get what he asked for, and that the unbelieving inhabitants of the country should get what they asked for, and yet that at the same time the poor man should not get what he wanted! Why was this? Why, because it was better that he should go home than that he should remain with Christ, because he would be more useful in telling his friends and neighbors what Christ had done for him than he would be if he stayed with the Savior. You remember how the Israelites, when they asked for quails, had the quails, and you also remember how the wrath of God came upon them. O God, never hear my foolish prayers! O God, never hear my wicked prayers! O God, never hear my proud prayers! O God, never hear my angry prayers! Only hear such prayers as are for your glory and for my good. I am sure if God had not put such a limit as that it would have been extremely dangerous for us—if he had given us everything we asked for whether it might be for our good and for his glory or not. But there are some men to whom God will give whatever they like, because they will never like to have anything but what would be for his glory; he will give them what they ask because they never did ask and never will ask for anything but what is consistent with his will. I hope, dear friends, that you and I never want to get beyond the Spirit of the Savior: 'Not as I will, but as you will.' You have, perhaps, heard the story of the woman, who was a professing Christian woman, and who went to her minister to ask him to pray for her child who was ill. The minister did pray, 'O God, be pleased to spare this dear child if it be your will.' The woman stopped him and said she wanted her child's life spared whether it were God's will or not. The minister rose from his knees, and, looking the woman in the face, said, 'Woman, the day will come when that prayer of yours will ring in your ears, for God has heard you in his wrath.' Twenty years afterwards that very woman was carried fainting from out of a dense crowd standing round a scaffold in a country town, on which scaffold hung the son whose life she had asked whether God would or not! The minister, as he told the story to many, used to say, 'Do not offer willful prayers.' Brethren, do pray, but take care that your prayers are in accordance with the will of God. Then shall you say with Peter, 'Master, it is good for us to be here.' May our prayers be engraved on our hearts by God the Holy Spirit; then Jesus Christ shall take them and present them to his Father, and the Father shall answer them as certainly as God is true!
O I wish we could come back again to the old belief that there is a reality in prayer! Depend upon it, there is! Let us, then, cry earnestly unto the Lord of all the earth, and he will answer us, and that right early!
Chapter 9
A happy New Year
A Monday evening prayer meeting address
I THINK that most of us who are members of this church do really enjoy religion. You know, there are some people who 'do' their religion as a matter of duty. They get through with it, and have done with it, and there it is. But I do think that the most of our friends here—I trust it is true of all of them—do come up to this house with joy and thankfulness; and when we worship God it is with holy mirth. We can say that it is our joy to be with Christ. Our religion is not taken up by us as a burden. It is no more a burden to us than wings are to a bird, or sails to a ship. It is our joy and our delight. And yet, you know, there are many professed Christians in the work who seem as if the service of God were a drudgery, and they do as little of it as they well can.
Thinking this matter over, I have wondered whether the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ might not be very like an orchard in America of which I have heard. A certain man, whose apples were always stolen by the boys, traveled forty miles to buy a particularly sour sort of apple tree, which he planted in the hedge of the orchard, forming a ring round it. When the boys came again and tasted this particularly sour fruit they concluded that all the rest were of that sort, and consequently they left the orchard alone, and the man found that the sour apples were the very best protection to his fruit.
Now, I am inclined to think that in the mere external part of religion, just the outside of it, there is a good deal of rather sour fruit, and that the only enjoyment of religion is found by those who are not content with the external, but who press forward into the center, and try to get into the depths of it—into the real sweetness of the pith, the marrow, the core of it. Rest assured that there is nothing in the world so badly done, if it is half done, as the service of God, and there is nothing that so ill repays you as walking half-heartedly with God. But, on the other hand, 'Blessed is the man,' says David, 'whose strength is in you.' Notice, 'Whose strength is in thee'—who throws himself right into it; who, if he does serve God, does serve him; does not serve God with one hand and Baal with the other; who does not live in this world as though that were the main thing, and religion were but a little pastime and by-play to occupy spare moments, but who gives his whole heart to it. In the old Tabernacle, you know, there were different places for different classes of worshipers. Outside stood the common multitude; then there was a court of the priests; and then there was an inner court, the Holy of Holies, and into that Holy of Holies none entered but the High Priest, and he only once a year. Now it is the prerogative of the Christian to enter into that which is within the veil, and to go every day where the High Priest only dared to go once a year, for that veil is rent, and the hidden mysteries are now revealed. Now, it is some privilege to be an outer-court worshiper if it leads to something more; but the highest privilege is to be an inner-court worshiper, to come up to the mercy seat which is sprinkled with blood, and there have intimate communion with God. The mere words of prayer—what is there in them? But in the spirit of prayer—oh! what joy is there. Merely to read the Bible as a form—what is there in that? But to come to our Father's Book, and read it as a letter sent fresh from his own hand—oh! it makes one's eyes sparkle to read it thus, and to find out his precious promises. I do believe that any of you Christians who go to God but little, love God but little, pray to God but little, come to his house but seldom, are not fair judges of what Christianity is. If there is a certain kind of food provided for the farmer to give his cattle, and he only gives to some of them, now and then, a little of it; it would not be fair for him to say that the food was not fattening food, because he has not given it a fair trial. But if he has some of his stock that stand in the stalls and eat as much as they will of it, then they become fair specimens of what the food can do. So is it with the precious bread of Heaven; if a man only sometimes eats of it, if he lives at a distance from God, and is carnal and worldly, you must not take him as a fair specimen of what a Christian is. The man who lives with Christ every day is the man by whom you must judge what the Gospel of the grace of God can do. And it does make us happy? Oh! it makes us 'rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory;' happy in life, happy in death: happy in sickness, happy in health, happy in the still night when we cannot sleep. It makes us still peaceful, whatever may befall, as we look the great matter through, and read it from beginning to end, and thank God for all his mighty grace to us. Yes, 'happy are you, O Israel, O people saved of the Lord.' I hope, dear friends, that none of you will go back in your earnestness, for if you do you will go back in your enjoyment. I hope none of you will get slack in your earnest zeal for the promotion of the Redeemer's kingdom, for it is Christian activity that promotes Christian happiness. We have been praying a good deal lately for conversions. You are, most of you, doing what you can, but there is one other thing, perhaps, which we might ask you to do. We cannot ask you to bring more people here on Sundays. I do not know where we should put them on Sunday nights if you were to do so. But sometimes on a Thursday night you might ask a few more to come. I thank God for the noble attendance we do have here on Thursday nights, but why should there be a vacant seat? 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.' Then get the people to come and hear. You who cannot preach yourselves will be doing the next very best thing by bringing them to listen to those who do preach. If I could not fire a cannon in the battle, and yet I wanted to get the victory, I would try to carry some of the ammunition to the gunners; and if I did not understand sponging out the gun and ramming in the charge, I could, perhaps, bring the cartridges. And so may you. You may be serviceable in some way or other. May the Master bless you according to your efforts, your prayers, and your faith! Thus you may hope to make the New Year, and all the years, truly happy.
Chapter 10
The Blessing
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 22 October 1866
THERE is one passage of Scripture which is, perhaps, more quoted in public than any other. It is very often misquoted, and sometimes some think that the text itself is not correct, but it is. The words to which I refer are at the end of the 13th chapter of the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.'
If you look at these words you will be struck with one thing about them, namely, the order in which the three things mentioned are put down.
We sometimes say, 'Glory be unto the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,' but that is not the order here. We are accustomed to speak of the Father as the first, of the Son as the second, and of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Divine Trinity. I suppose that we are correct in that, and that that is the real order, but it is not the order here. It is not 'The love of God, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit,' but 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ' comes first, and then 'the love of God,' and then 'the communion of the Holy Spirit,' the Father being placed second, and the Son being placed first.
Now, there must be a reason for this. The Holy Spirit never speaks without a reason, and if he here departs from the order which he seems to have laid down and observed elsewhere, there must be some motive for it.
Brethren, the reason is very easily perceived. The passage is a blessing, and in what way are we blessed? Ask the Christian man how we are blessed. Do we begin with the Father? Oh, no. It is from God the Father that the sinner instinctively shrinks, for he feels that 'our God is a consuming fire' while he is unpardoned and unreconciled. The Father, though he be a Father full of love, yet is not approachable by us while we are unconverted. Martin Luther used to say, and say very properly, too, 'I will have nothing to do with an absolute God; I dare not have anything to do with such an one.' The very first point of contact between a soul and its God is not the Father, but the Son. The first blessing that we get is through 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Then it is that we come to understand the Father's love, and from that we advance to the communion of the Spirit. The order here, you perceive, is not doctrinal but experimental.
Two or three words, however, about the doctrinal order.
There is a tractate called, 'The Trinity and the Christian.' We must all remember that it needs the Trinity to make a Christian; that even in the work of salvation it is neither the Father alone nor the Son alone, nor the Spirit alone, but Father, Son, and Spirit, each distinctly taking a part of the work, and the whole co-working in their essential unity to produce the eternal salvation of a soul. In the order of doctrine the Father is first. It is he who in predestination decrees a people to be formed in the image of his dear Son. It is he who sets apart his chosen, and ordains them to eternal life, that in due time they may be fetched out from among the ruins of the fall, and be his in the day when he makes up his jewels. Electing love is first. It is the fountain and well-head of every mercy. Does not Paul speak of covenant-blessings after this fashion, 'According as he has chosen us in him from before the foundation of the world'? First the fountain flows, and then the stream of bounty comes to us. The Father is first, doctrinally.
Then comes the Lord Jesus Christ. The next great doctrine is that the Son of God undertook in the Eternal Council to redeem the chosen people. He undertook to bear their sins and their consequent sorrow. He undertook to appear in their nature, and in that nature to offer a substitutionary sacrifice, and also to present a perfect righteousness. He declared that he would stand in their stead, and that, seeing they would fall, their iniquities should be laid on him. The Lord Jesus Christ in the fullness of time accomplished this, and now as many as are chosen unto eternal life were by the death of Christ upon the cross, 'redeemed from among men.'
The Holy Spirit's part in the work is actually to carry out the Father's decree, and to apply the purchase of the Son. The Father and the Son do not, in a certain sense, actually operate upon the human mind. It is the Holy Spirit who does that. He comes to us in our darkness, and says, 'Light, be!' He comes to us in our hard-heartedness, and turns the heart of stone to flesh. He comes to us when we are 'dead in trespasses and sins,' and says, 'Live!' and we do live. It is the Holy Spirit who gives the joy of faith, and works all our works in us. It is by him that we are sanctified day by day by continual sanctification, and it is by him that we shall be cleansed from inward corruption, so that we may be presented by Christ at last without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.
God's love towards us; Christ's work for us; God the Holy Spirit's work in us—without any one of these we could not be saved. We must have the whole three to work out our salvation. In the order of doctrine, then, it is God the Father electing, God the Son redeeming, and God the Holy Spirit converting and sanctifying. But, though this is the doctrinal order, the experimental order is still this: 'The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.'
Now, dear friends, what made me start up and speak upon this was the thought that there might be some soul here who is earnestly seeking salvation, but who is beginning to seek the blessing at the wrong end. My dear friend, if there be such an one here it is not to the doctrine of election that you are to look tonight for comfort. That is the love of the Father, the love of God. What you first have to do with, as a sinner, is 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.' That is not election, but redemption. You will get into the covenant-love of the Father next, but we must always begin where God would have us begin, and that is with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ upon yonder cross. Why, it is too great and high a thing for you to talk about communion with the Holy Spirit! How do you expect that the Holy Spirit could have communion with you while you are a sinner? God the Holy Spirit has communion with those whom he makes holy, and in proportion as we are made holy our communion with him grows and increases. Our sin is a hindrance to our communion with the Holy Spirit. We must have the grace of Christ first, for you see that can come to us. The communion of the Holy Spirit cannot, in a certain sense, come to a sinner, but the grace of Christ can. Grace is just the thing to meet men's misery, men's sin, men's ill-desert. If you would have God, you must have him by grace, if you would have grace the grace comes streaming down to undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving sinners through the golden pipe of the person of the Lord Jesus. Do not begin, then, at the wrong end. If anybody were to try to say the Lord's Prayer backward, it would not be worth much as a prayer after all, but to begin with 'Our Father, who are in Heaven,' and then to go on to, 'Your kingdom come,' and so on—this is the right order. Do not, then, begin with the love of God the Father, nor with the communion of the Holy Spirit, but begin with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why, this seems to me to be one of the things that is preached every Sunday. If you do not learn anything else when you go to the house of God on the Sunday, do learn from the last blessing these two things: first, that there is a Trinity, and secondly, that you have to begin with the Son, with Jesus Christ. I am very grateful to think that we do end our services with these words, for I have heard it said that if it had not been for that, so little is there said about the Holy Spirit in some places of worship, that you would not have known there is a Holy Spirit, and so little is there sometimes said about the Father and the Son that you might not know of the existence of the Trinity. We always have this, however, and we are thankful for it, and we may learn much more from it than we at first thought.
You Christian people, do see the order of the blessing. Begin with Christ's grace, and when you have got Christ's grace, then go on to the love of God, eternal, immutable, free, distinguishing, discriminating, without beginning and without end. Do not stop at the grace of Christ. Many young Christians are so pleased with that, that for a long time they do not go any farther. Do you go on to the love of God, and drink deep of that. And then get to the communion of the Holy Spirit. Oh! that is the very life of the Christian—to get to feel the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, and moving in you, so that your communion with God shall be through the indwelling of the Spirit, and what the Holy Spirit desires you desire, and what the Holy Spirit wills you will. He desires to bring men in, and you desire to bring them in. He wills that you should be holy, and you will to be holy. He works in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure, and that is because your pleasure is to will and to do according to his pleasure, and so you two are perfectly agreed, and you walk together, and have communion. Let us never be content without this 'Communion of the Holy Spirit,' but still let us remember that we have to begin with 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
Chapter 11
Are you saved?
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 17 February 1868
MY dear hearers, I have but a few sentences to say to you this evening. Are you saved, or are you not? You are either one or the other. No, there is no ground between the two—no border territory. He who is not with Christ is against him, and he who gathers not scatters abroad. Are you a believer or an unbeliever? Do you possess spiritual life, or are you dead in trespasses and in sins? Let conscience answer, and answer truly now. If by faith, looking to the bleeding Savior, you can say, 'Yes, I do trust him, and I am saved,' then, dear brother, dear sister, be with us in heart and soul, and anxiously and earnestly pray that others may be brought into the same condition. You owe so much to Christ, and there is no return that you can make that will be so acceptable to him as seeking to gather the lost ones whom he loves.
But I am afraid there are many here who cannot say, 'I am saved.' I am truly sorry for you. It is a melancholy position to be in, to be a dying man and yet to have no hope, to be a sinful man and to find no mercy, to be a troubled man and to have no comfort. Your state is miserable at present, but what will it be hereafter? What will it be hereafter? Oh! the wrath to come! Every loss and pain that you can suffer here is but as a flea-bite compared with the terrors of God hereafter. Now he stays his hand; he does but touch us with his little finger. Your worst crosses and losses, your worst aches, your sharpest pains, that worst palpitation of the heart, that worst headache—all these are nothing, I tell you, compared with the pangs that will come upon you if you live and die as you now are, without God and without Christ. I do desire you really to take this matter into consideration. I wish men were half as business-like about their souls as they are about their shops. I wish they would be half as attentive to the things which last forever as they are to the things which only last for an hour. If there be no Heaven and no Hell, if you be no better than a dog, and have no immortal soul, why, then, I shall not wonder if you live carelessly and plunge into all manner of evils. Those who give up the restraints of these things may well sin with a high hand, but if you believe these things, oh! be not so inconsistent and act as if you did not. If they be true, do not trifle with them. Eternity, eternity, eternity! This is no toy for a child to play with in the nursery. Heaven, heaven—this is no fable for a man to fling away and play ducks and drakes with to amuse him. Hell, hell—this is no dream that a man may wake and laugh at, no bugbear that may startle a fool but which a wise man will despise. These are truths and realities, and therefore I do beseech you let them have full weight with you. This is the evil of men's hearts, that they are lost, but do not know it; that if they know it they do not feel it; that if they admit it they seem to be careless over it. Oh! for a thunderbolt with which to awaken some of you, for I fear that little short of this will do. My dear brother Dransfield—a dear, loving spirit—when we were speaking to him about addressing the unconverted this evening, said, 'I am afraid I am too much of a Barnabas to speak to them.' You know what he meant—he thought that comforting words were not what some of you wanted, but that you want something that will startle and shake you. I am afraid it is so. Men will sleep, and therefore God sends a storm to wake them, and he sends thunderclap after thunderclap, until he makes Heaven and earth to reel in their minds, and then it is that they cry unto God in their trouble, but until then they go on hardening their necks and resisting his grace. I do hope that during this next month many of the unconverted will be stirred and quickened lest they sleep on until they have a waking where the rich man lifted up his eyes, and found himself tormented in the flame.
But I want to say a word or two to those of you who are not asleep. I know there are some here who are very anxious about their souls, and really desire to be saved. Now Satan, who at one time tells you that sin is a trifle, that you can repent when you like, and so on, when he sees a man or woman really in earnest, turns round and says, 'Oh! it is no use now; it is too late,' and along with the sense of guilt there generally come hard thoughts of God. I suppose it cannot be helped. When a child knows that it has done very wrong and has been very disobedient, it wants to get away from its father's face; and when any of us feel that we have sinned—even those of us who hope that we are saved—do you not notice that there always comes with a sense of sin a sort of sense of alienation from God? Now, I will suppose that some of you have really committed a great fault, not a sin of thought, or word, or imagination, but you have really offended and done wrong. You feel you have, even though nobody may know of it, and you feel that you cannot pray now. Is not that a strange thing? It is now that you want to pray most, but there comes with the sin the thought that you cannot pray. You feel as though you cannot go up to a place of worship now. Often when a woman has grossly sinned, what does she do? She is afraid to let those know who might help her, and she plunges as far as ever she can right away into the depths of sin, and hides away from them. So do we do with God. We are like Adam, we try to hide ourselves from God, thinking that he has cast us away. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ knows more about God's feelings to us than we do, and do you know how he has put it? Why, he has put it in this way, that instead of our Father thinking the less of us on account of sin he thinks the more of us. When we have sinned he hates the sin, but instead of hating us, his compassions go after us, and in order to make us feel that it is so the Lord has put it in three ways. Suppose a shepherd had a sheep that has gone astray, but had ninety and nine that did not go astray. Which out of the whole hundred sheep did he think the most of? Why, he thought the most of the sheep that went astray. Before he went to rest at night he was not anxious about the ninety-nine. They did not cross his mind as individuals, but he said to himself, 'Oh! that lost sheep of mine, that one poor sheep—where is it tonight? The wolf may be after it; perhaps it is tearing itself among the thorns and briars.' When he woke in the morning the shepherd proved that he thought more of the lost one than about those who went not astray, because he left the ninety and nine, and away he went, all heart, and soul, and strength, to seek the one that was lost. Oh! lost one, Jesus does not think less of you, but more of you, and he longs after you. If there is one man in all England that has been more spoken of during the last two weeks than another who has it been? Well, you do not need to guess twice; it is Mr Speke who is lost. Almost everybody has said, 'I wonder where that man is.' We should never have heard of him, perhaps, if it had not been that he is lost, and now we are all concerned about him. Now, it is so with the great Eternal Father. When a man is lost he thinks of him, and he seeks him, and he has done for sinners, let me say, what he never did for angels; he has done for wandering sinners what he never did for cherubim or seraphim. He has given up his own Son that they might be saved. Then he puts it another way. A woman had a little purse of money. She prized all her money, but, somehow or other, she dropped one piece. Where was it? Did the woman say, 'Oh! there, let it go; I do not care about it; I have got so many pieces left that it is nothing to me'? Not so, but we read that she lit the candle, and swept the house, and searched diligently until she found it. I am sure she knew that half-crown better than any other one. She certainly thought more of it. So it is with our Lord. He sets such a price upon lost souls that he seeks after them with the candle of the Gospel, and with the broom of trouble he often makes a little dust when he is looking after these lost pieces of money, but he seeks diligently until he finds them, and then he rejoices greatly. And then he puts it yet more powerfully, and best of all. A certain man had two sons, and one of those sons claimed his portion, went away, and spent all his substance with harlots in riotous living. What then did the father say—'A plague upon this boy! He will bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; I never want to see him again'? Oh! no, but, like a fond father, he waited and watched, and one day when he saw him coming back, while he was yet a long way off, he ran and had compassion upon him. God has kind thoughts towards you, returning sinner, much kinder thoughts to you than your dearest friends have. Be of good comfort; only come you to Jesus and trust him. Now, often as we are saying that, I am persuaded that the most of people do not know what we mean by trusting Christ. As I sat in that chair just now while some of our brethren were praying I felt that I could talk to God, and did talk to God, as distinctly as ever I talked to any man. I am sure that my mind got into contact with the great eternal mind, and I seemed to say to him, 'Lord, you hear what we are saying, you have taught us to pray like this; we are your own children, do hear us; you can not do otherwise; you have promised it; give your people some token of it, and let them see souls believing.' Well, now, men think that if they could do something with their own hands, fingers, eyes, mouth, they could do that very easily, and if the way of salvation were of that kind, they could understand it. But do you not understand that we can talk to God without the lip and mouth, and see him without the eye, through the mind? Now, faith is a thing of the mind. It is a getting hold of God with the mind, and depending upon Jesus Christ with the soul, and the moment you do that you are saved. This is the great truth of God's Word. There is nothing in those bowings, and scrapings, and cringings, and fine dresses, and all that sort of thing. We may well laugh at and ridicule such worship as that. Bodily exercise is of no use here, but there must be soul-worship, the spirit talking to God, and the soul casting itself upon the Lord Jesus Christ, to hang upon him, to depend upon him for everything. Now, you cannot do this of yourselves, but the Holy Spirit can make you. Oh! that you would now rest alone upon the Son of God, who suffered that we might not suffer, and stood in our stead that he might redeem us from all iniquity.
Chapter 12
God giving—men gathering
An address at the Monday evening prayer meeting, 8 July 1867
'That you give them they gather.'—Psalm 104:28
THAT is to say, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea, countless as they are, are all provided for by the God of Providence, but they are provided for on this plan—'That you give them they gather.' From which we learn, in the first place, that the Providence of God does not exempt us from industry, but requires it at our hands. When the sparrow wakes up in the morning it does not find its taste of barley or of wheat outside its nest already picked up for it. It is ready for him; every grain he will get is ready; every seed into which he will dig his bill, every fruit which will refresh him, is all ready for him somewhere or other, but he has to get it, and he will not have it unless he gathers it. If he sits still upon the branch of the tree where he roosted at night and sings that God provides for the morrow he will very soon find that he will have to sing on an empty crop.
And just the same is true of us in the common providence of life. God provides for us, but if he has given us strong limbs, or a ready wit, if he has given us the pen of the writer or the tongue of the learned—if we refuse to use the instrumentalities which he has given to us on purpose for the gathering of our daily bread, and pretend foolishly to trust in Providence, we shall soon find that Providence keeps a very heavy whip for the back of idlers. We sometimes meet with people of this kind—who are very pleased to be able to put their hands into other people's pockets, and to eat bread for which they never gave their own sweat. Paul has written a little piece on purpose for such people. He says that if a man will not work neither shall he eat. Under the pretense of being very spiritual some people do but very little business. No doubt their profession of being spiritual seems to them to be correct, but we believe it to be hypocritical. We have heard of one who became a monk, and when he went to the monastery and saw the brethren at work in the fields he did not join them, but went to his own cell to prayer. When the dinner-hour came he was surprised that no bell rang to call him, and a long time afterwards he wondered why no one was sent to knock at his cell door to tell him that tea was ready. He came down and asked the abbot what it meant, and whether the brethren were not going to have refreshment. The abbot said: 'Oh! yes, there were some brethren who were not so spiritual as you, but who worked, and they have had something to eat; but we thought that as you were too spiritual to work you would also be too spiritual to need any refreshment, but if you find yourself so carnal as to need to come to dinner you will please to recollect that you must also be carnal enough to go out into the fields and do your share of the work, or you will get nothing.' And right good reasoning too. 'That you give them they gather.' God's Providence does not exempt us from earnest effort, but calls us to it, for it is in the path of our daily calling that God is pleased to give us our daily bread.
The same rule holds good in spiritual things. A church can only be prospered by what God gives it. The rule in spiritual things is—'That you give them they gather;' that is to say, a church cannot have a blessing from God without working hard to get it, and working hard in the strength of it when they have got it. We have heard of some churches that have got very low. There is a poor attendance; generally the members bicker with one another, for when there is no meat on the bones the dogs are sure to fight. And then they say: 'Would God we could have a revival! Oh! that we could have a blessing!' Well, you can have it, but you must gather it. God will give it to you, but you must go to get it. Why not meet for earnest prayer? Why not use all the talents which the church has got? Why not seek to do the utmost you can—each member of you—for God, laying out your talents at good interest for your Lord and Master? I do not believe that any church on earth dares to say that it is doing its utmost for God and yet it has not a blessing. When our brother said just now in prayer: 'We have preached the Gospel to the best of our ability; will you not bless us?' it seemed to me as if that was good argument. How could it be otherwise? God commands us to use means, and in that very command he pledges himself to make the means a blessing, because if not he would have spoken somewhere—it is not in the Bible, certainly—but he would have spoken somewhere, in some dark place of the earth, and said: 'You seed of Jacob, seek you my face in vain.' But he has never said that. He never tells his people to plough the sand, or to sow salt. When he tells us to work for him he means to give us a blessing. Paul plants, and Apollos waters, and God gives the increase. There is a connection between Christian effort in a prayerful spirit, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and sure success. 'That you give them they gather.' If you want to have souls converted they will not be converted by your lying about doing nothing. If you desire to see your children saved they will not be saved by your setting them an example of indifference and sloth in spiritual things. If you want to see your neighbors in earnest about their souls they will not be made in earnest by your simply passing them by, not caring for their souls. But if, believing that God is about to give you a blessing you set to work to gather it—which is all you can do, and is but a small part of the whole thing—you shall find something to gather. Give us, Lord, the blessing, and give us grace to gather it!
In looking at the text again we perceive that in reference to the beasts of the field, and so on, that which they gather every day is here distinctly said to be the gift of God to them. What, are the grains which are picked up by the sparrow and the wren God's gift to them? And the sprats, and the tiny fishes in the sea, and the sticklebacks in the pools, and the gnats, and the flies—does God distinctly feed every one of these? Well, so the text says, for it speaks of 'things creeping innumerable.' All these things God distinctly provides for, as much as does the warden or the steward of some great institution, who measures out so many ounces of bread and meat to each inmate of the asylum. God metes out to each of these things what it wants. Well, then, depend upon it that the God who has so much order in the universe of little things and who has so good a remembrance for the most insignificant things which his skillful hand has formed, must have the same order in the higher departments, dealing with creatures whom he has made in his own image, and whom he has destined to dwell with himself forever. He must have as clear a recollection of their wants, and as good an intention to supply those wants too, and as kindly a feeling towards them as he can have towards these minute, unintellectual objects of his skill. You see that at once. It needs no argument. But do you believe it? I mean, do you so believe it as to lay your cares aside—not so believe it as not to work—I have already told you that you must work—but do you so believe it that, working, you are confident when you go out to gather that there is something for you to gather? Note the children of Israel in the morning. As soon as ever the sun rises they draw the curtains of their tents and go off—the whole host of them, I suppose two and a half millions of people; perhaps three millions. You see them all going out of their tents. Where are they going to? They are in the wilderness, in the sandy wilderness—where are they going? They are all going out to gather their morning manna. They do not sit still; they do not expect the manna to come into the tent. They go to gather it. If a man should meet them on the road and say: 'There is no manna for you to gather,' they would reply: 'There is; we know there is, and we shall find it,' and they go and gather it, and each man brings home his omer; he who gathers much has nothing over; and he who gathers little has no lack. Now, why did these people believe that there would be manna there? I suppose they believed it, for one reason, because God had promised that it should be there, and that is a good reason, surely. And God has promised the same for you and for me, for 'no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly,' and when he taught us to pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' there was a promise implied in his teaching us so to pray. 'Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things.' But I will tell you what would have been the best argument, perhaps, to an unbeliever. The Israelites could have said: 'You want to know why we expect to find the manna? Well, we will tell you; we have found it there when we have gone every week-day morning for forty years, and therefore we believe that we shall find it until we get across the Jordan into the land where we shall not want it, the land where we shall feed upon the good corn, the land which flows with milk and honey. We have found it every morning for near upon forty years, and, of course, we have no doubts about finding it there this morning.' There for forty years they had found the manna upon the ground! How many times they had had the faithfulness of God proved to them! Well now, some of us have not had our bread for forty years yet, for the simple reason that we are not forty years old. But there are some of you who make up for us, for you have found it for sixty and seventy years. I know you have, because you are here now. If your bread had been stopped you would not be here. You must have been sustained, or you would not be alive. Now then, after all the time that God has supplied your wants are you now going to mistrust his Providence, and think he will not do the same in the future as he has done in the past? Does he change, then? Is the storehouse empty? Has God lost his power to help his people? You dare not think so! Then go forth and gather in the belief and confidence that it is somewhere. If it does not happen to be in just the same place where it used to be it is only an inch or two off, and just go a little farther. Recollect that when God shuts one door, he always has another; and if one thing does not succeed, perhaps another will. I believe that God sometimes drives his sheep out of one pasture because it is much sweeter in another, and there is no getting them into the other one except by driving them out of the one where they are accustomed to be. Only go forth, child of God, with confidence in your Father's care, and you shall find that you will gather what God gives you.
One other observation. 'That you give them they gather.' Then it seems that every day these little things gather what God gives them, and when they have got it they may say of it: 'Well, this is what God meant me to have; I have gathered just what he intended.' Dear friends, our portions in this life are very varied. Some men gather so much that they may well say: 'My cup runs over.' Do not envy them. There is a skeleton in every house, and if you knew all about anybody you would be content to be where you are. Depend upon it, the differences in our position are a great deal more apparent than they are real. There are some people who have got bread and no appetites, and some who have got appetites and no bread. Now, a man who has bread but no appetite may go to many doctors before he will get an appetite, while the man who has appetite will probably get his bread before the other one will get what he is after. There is many a man rich in poverty to all intents and purposes, even as to physical enjoyment, better off than the man who rolls in wealth. There is, no doubt, to be seen by angels as great happiness in the depths of poverty as ever could have been discovered in the heights of wealth. Do not envy those who gather much, because they only gather what God gives them. Everything that comes to you of temporal mercy, comes to you from a Father's hand, consecrated to your use, blessed by his blessing, and better is a dinner of herbs with his blessing than a stalled ox and contention. Better to have little with your Father's smile than to have much without it. There are many who gather but very little. They are long gathering it, but it comes to very, very little in the end. Well, dear friends, may God give you much patience, for depend upon it you gather what God gives, and it may be that it is best for you that it is little. You might not have been what you are now if you had had much. Some have little and they keep near to God, but if they had had much they might have lived at a distance from him. I suppose when we get to Heaven we shall be as thankful to God for our troubles as we ever could have been for our blessings. When we shall see our troubles to be blessings we shall thank God for all our portion in this life. Let us, then, write in the log: 'The lines have fallen unto me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage, because I have, Lord, what you give me; I have what you ordain for me, and what you ordain is sure to be best, for you know what is good for me, and I do not always know what might be good for myself.'
There may be someone here who is desirous to feed upon the bread of Heaven. Recollect, you have not got to make that bread. Christ has made it. Christ is himself the bread, but still the hand of faith must gather it. Jesus Christ is freely given to everyone who is willing to gather him. If you have a hand to take hold of Christ, Christ is your. If you will trust him, he belongs to you. If he is any good to you, and you lack him, you may have him. If you feel any need of him, any desires after him, any longings for him, any kind of drawings after his infinitely blessed self, come and take him, for he is as free to you as the air you breath is free to your lungs. Gather him by faith. You will not gather what God has not given you. He freely presents the Lord Jesus Christ to you in the Gospel, and may you have grace to gather a blessing from that Gospel.
Chapter 13
Wanted—laborers
An address delivered on Monday evening, 12 March 1866, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle
'And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness, and every disease among the people; But when he saw the multitude he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then says he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; Pray you, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers unto his harvest.'—Matthew 9:35–38.
I suppose you can catch the thought. Here is the Master, the Lord Jesus, earnestly engaged in doing all sorts of miracle-works, as well as in teaching the people. But there is a limit to what any human being can do, and, though Christ was Divine, yet still he was but a man, and, in so far as he was but a man, his power to preach was limited. As a man he could only preach with one tongue; as a man he could only be healing with one pair of hands, and only in one house, or one village, or one city at a time. But his compassion was larger than his human power, as you often find. It was this which made him weep over Jerusalem; it was this which made him send forth others to do that which, as a man, it was not within the range of possibility for him to do alone. He called together the twelve whom he had chosen, and sent them out to preach the Gospel. You have the account of their sending in the next chapter, with their names, and the regulations which were to order their proceedings, but that which first of all moved him was compassion for the multitude, and the first step he took was to bid the people pray that laborers might be sent, and then he heard the prayer himself, and did send forth the laborers on the spot.
Now, dear friends, I hope that you and I in some degree have caught this spirit of Jesus Christ. We wish that we could heal the sick, but we cannot. We can, however, tell them of the Gospel. We can preach that soul-healing Word which really does cure spiritual diseases. But, after all, we can only do this in one sphere. One man can occupy but one pulpit; each of you can move but in only one circle. What, then, will your compassion suggest to you to do? Why, first to pray that God would send more laborers, and next, to do as Jesus did—namely, to put your hand, as far as you can, to the work of helping to send them out. Jesus did both. He first prayed for them, and then sent them out. He would have us imitate him—first to pray, and then to go, as far as human ability can go, into the active work of sending them.
Now, observe, the first thing to be done is to pray. 'Pray you, therefore, the Lord of the harvest.' Ministers are to be got by praying for them. Did you ever advertise for a minister? It has been done by some churches with the most amusing results. The last church I heard of that advertised for a minister had two hundred applications, and I think I may venture to say that out of the two hundred there was not one that was worth a spoon, much less his salt, for a brother who responds to an advertisement of that sort is never good for anything. The ministers whom God sends are never advertised for, and do not want to advertise. God manages with them and for them, and they do not need any such means as advertising to bring them into notice. The right thing for a minister to do is to advertise in the heavenly Gazette by sending up a prayer to God. True ministers are neither sent nor found by such devices as advertising, or by coming to some office in London and applying to the clerical secretary who provides a certain article for so much money. Once advertise, and use such means, and you have the beginning of the end of the Church's action, whereas both the beginning and end of the Church's action should be with her Lord. It is only Jesus Christ who can make a minister. We can teach men anything, and men can do anything if they are taught; but the true ministry, which consists of a longing, loving heart, and an earnest, passionate spirit, must come from the Most High. All that can be done by tutors, is but, as if it were, to fashion the clay; the Spirit of God must breathe into the nostrils the breath of life. We can make the earthen vessel, but the heavenly treasure must be put into it by the great Master of all. Oh! if we want ministers we must pray for them, and I wish the Church did pray more that God would send her ministers. Do you know that ministers, as a gift to the Church, are not second to anything, for when Christ ascended up on high he received gifts for men, and what were those gifts? Why, 'He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry.' These are the gifts of Christ when he 'leads captivity captive.' Should we despise the gifts which are treasured up to make the last illustrious day more glorious? Assuredly we should not. If we pray more fervently for more ministers there would be more of them. If we pleaded with God for those we have already they would grow better, but because we do not pray the blessing does not come.
Then you are also told what kind of men to pray for. You are told to pray that God would send forth more laborers—not more gentlemen, not more divines who should be so learned that they cannot tell out their learning—but more laborers. Now, what is a laborer? If you look for a laborer you generally find him some rough kind of fellow with his sleeves tucked up, and all covered with mud. He has been digging a trench, or reaping in the fields, or else he is a brick-layer's man, or is engaged in some other rough sort of work. And this is the sort of men that we want. 'Pray you the Lord of the harvest to send forth more laborers'—fellows who can work and who are not ashamed of it. We have enough who cannot work, and who are ashamed of the very suspicion of ever having worked. The true worker for the Lord Jesus Christ must really make a work of it—not a gentlemanly, lazy, lie-abed occupation. Richard Baxter says that the hardest-working man in the whole world should be the Christian minister; but if there be a minister who finds his work an easy one, God help him, for his will be an awful condition at the day of judgment. So it will! There is no work that can exceed it. The business-man's work is finished by the evening, and he can rest; but the true minister never does rest. If he sleeps it is with one eye open, ay, and sometimes with both his eyes open, for he will be thinking over, even in his dreams, the cares of the day. I do not say that many do this, but I dare to say it for myself, that there does not live beneath the copes of Heaven a soul that does more work than I do, or if there is I only wish he would tell me how to do it, for I should be delighted to learn the way. The true minister is not afraid to stand before God who searches all hearts, and say, 'Lord, you know I am no boaster, but in all points and in all ways I do what lies in me to promote the extension of your kingdom.' You are to pray, then, for ministers who will labor. Some labor by going from house to house; some labor most in the pulpit; some have to labor in one field, and some in another; but what we want is not a fine gentleman, not a person who will stand by and show other people how to do it, but a man who will do it himself. We want a laborer, and I believe that if there is a laborer anywhere he need not be long without work, for there are so many churches that need laborers, and so many, on the other hand, who are not laborers but who want churches—and God grant that they may never find them. Our people are packed so closely together now that you might almost build a dozen places of worship in a street, and they would never interfere with one another. If you only had the chance to open them there would be plenty of people who would come to them. I recollect hearing of a brother who, when he had done preaching, always used to say that he wondered the people came to hear him, and how they could listen to him so attentively. Well, I do not suppose that his hearers ever thought so, but he used to think so, and sometimes I have thought the same, and I have said: 'Well, if people will hear So-and-So talk, who is there that could not get a congregation?' This is how one has talked often; and really, in this great city, if one would but leave off those stilted ways into which some people get, and those habits of talking big talk, and just speak to the people out of one's heart, simply and plainly; if one be sent of God to the work, surely he will not be long without finding people who will hear him. I pray God to send more laborers. Sometimes we hear that somebody is going to build a chapel close by. Well, go on and build as many as you please—twenty if you will; draw all my congregation away, if you can; try your best, and then try somewhere else. What matters it, dear friends? We ought not to be so jealous of the new shop on the other side of the road as some brethren are, or afraid that the new rising cause will injure ours. Nonsense! Only let us just keep close to the Master, and lift up our hearts to him, and he will help us; and if he does not do it in one place let us take the friendly hint, and in Divine obedience go somewhere else. The world is wide enough, and there is room enough for the Christian minister if he really goes to work in dependence upon his God.
'Ah! well,' says one, 'but if so-and-so, and if so-and-so, and if so-and-so?' All these things are very difficult indeed, and carnal reason can never see its way clear; but simple faith can: and, depend upon it, simple faith was never yet at a nonplus. She has been in some very awkward positions, but when she has lifted up her heart to God, and has lifted her eye to Heaven, she has seen a gracious eye looking down again in return, and before long the voice has come: 'This is the way, walk you in it.' Pray you, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, not to diminish the number of ministers, but to send forth more laborers. The more the merrier; the more the better; the more there are the sooner shall the kingdom of Christ be extended.
But there is also a reason given for this prayer, 'Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest,' because the harvest is so plenteous. I do think that in a country town or a small village it would be a pity that there should be twenty ministers when one would be sufficient. If this little island of ours were so very small, or if the inhabitants were but very few, it would be almost a pity if we had a vast host of ministers. But only think of the population of England, and of the population of this great London! Why, when you take up the handbook and see the number of Baptist ministers, and all the other ministers put together, and supposing that they are all sent of God—and I am a long way from believing that they are—but supposing that they are—surely there are none too many to meet the necessities of the times. There are some folk who think they would make very excellent farmers; but then they must have a farm that is all in good order. They can go and settle when all the weeds are grubbed up, and the oxen are bought, and the ploughs are all there, and there is a good farm established, and everything is comfortable. But the true laborer does not care for this. All that the backwoodsman wants when he goes to America is a good strong arm, a sharp axe, and plenty of wood, and to work he goes, and soon makes a clearing. Let me say to you young men who are round about me that there is no house so comfortable as the one you have built yourself, and there is no ground that yields such a good harvest as your own clearing. Oh! to build up a church of your own, under God; to begin with a very little, and then to see the thing working up—why, the happiness of this is ten times more than in the case of succeeding some good old gentleman into whose shoes you step, and always afterwards the people say: 'Yes, he is a very nice man, but he hardly does after the old doctor.' You are always looked upon in that way; when you have done your utmost you are only keeping up the thing, and that is all you can do. That is like the man in England who, when he goes to a farm, finds everything to his hand; but the man who goes to the backwoods of America has to get everything in order, and when afterwards he walks over his fields, and reaps their produce, he can say to his children: 'Ah! I recollect when this was a forest, full of snakes, and bogs, and ditches, and logs of wood; but I cleared it all; I planted these trees; you youngsters come into it all in order, but I was the first who dropped on to this spot.' Why, the man is happy in his home, for he feels that it is his own home, and he has a greater pleasure and enjoyment in it than he would have had he gone to some place that was made ready for him. Now, I want you to pray for more laborers, because the harvest is plenteous. The harvest is not plenteous for gentlemen who want to go to places ready-made for them; but the harvest is plenteous, and there is room enough and to spare for laborers who will go and make places for themselves. The Baptist denomination, I am told, is too small for so many ministers. They calculate how many churches there are, and then if there are so many men raised up every year they say there will be too many for the vacancies. Of course there will be; but did we ask you to find horses for our riders? Nay, but we hope to send out many who, under God, will walk, and who will not want horses. We hope to send forth many who, by God's help, will cut their own way into the forest, and make their own clearing. Such men you are taught to pray for from God; such men God has sent us, and may he send us many more.
We do not want harvestmen who will come, and gather up the sheaf, and sit down and thresh it, and then run away with the wheat. There is a great field without any boundary. As far as you can see there is nothing but waving corn. Mile after mile, as far as you journey, there is nothing but corn. It is all ripe for the sickle, but it is all spoiling, for it is raining, and worse than that. Nay, it is worse than spoiling, for there is another who is busy reaping it—a black reaper with a sharp sickle. Death is going before him to clear the way, and the black reaper himself is taking sheaf after sheaf every moment, and casting them into the fire! The harvest is being spoiled and burned, and here are we with this great harvest before us—some of us reaping night and day until the sweat stands on our brow; but nothing keeps us at our work but the sight of One covered with a bloody sweat, who keeps on reaping as though for his very life—reaping, in fact, with his life, even unto death. The sight of him keeps us still working; but, oh! we shall never reap all this harvest! The fields of London, Ireland, England, Scotland, Europe, Africa, Australia—all these invite us and call to us. We are not enough for the work; we cannot be enough for the work! Oh! pray that the Savior's harvest may not be spoiled! Pray you that the world's harvest may not be cast into the fire! Pray you that the Lord would send forth more laborers, that all these precious ears may be bound up in shocks and gathered into the Master's garner.
We had an application the other day for a brother to go and preach the Gospel in India, and the invitation was immediately responded to. We have had applications from Australia, from the Cape of Good Hope, and from all sorts of places. One brother has just gone to Rio Janeiro, and all these districts call for men. But we have not got the men. We have as many as we can support. If we had more support we could have more men. We believe that it is the Master's work, and that he will give it his blessing. I do not believe in your praying the Lord to send more laborers, and then doing nothing to help to send them. You know the old fable of the man whose cart got stuck in the mire, and who fell down on his knees and prayed to Hercules to come and help him. The fable says that Hercules did come, and said: 'Get up, you lazy fellow, and put your shoulder to the wheel, and you will soon get your cart out of the mire.' So might God often say to us, when we cry: 'Send out more laborers.' 'There they are: bold men with earnest hearts and freedom of speech, but lacking knowledge; it is yours to help them, that they may acquire facility in dispensing the truth.'
It is in your power to do this, and I beg you do it, and to cry to God to send forth more laborers into the harvest.
Chapter 14
Continuance in well-doing
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 4 February 1867
ONE of our brethren has just reminded us in his prayer that what we need is not so much a sacred impulse now and then as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to operate permanently upon our daily life. Last night we spoke about a religion that has secret springs. Now, there are some springs in England, and elsewhere, which are intermittent. Such springs are not the springs that are in the believer, at least they ought not so to be. And yet I feel that with all of us that they are intermittent after their measure. Sometimes we are in fullness of spirit, and sometimes we are not, so that we are like the sea, which flows and then ebbs. Oh! that we always lived with all our might! At a meeting which we have just been holding downstairs one of our brethren said that he meant to live with all his life while he did live. Do you 'live while you live'? It is the Epicure's motto, but let it be the Christian's motto too, only after a better fashion. A Christian ought to throw his whole force into every moment of his life. He should not live like the toad, which existed for two thousand years in the catacomb and yet never lived at all, but he should live like a man who if he shall have never so short a space yet makes the world know it. We ought to walk through this world as people sometimes walk upon the seashore. There are some who trip lightly across the sands, and make no sign upon them, but there are others who tread heavily; they are heavy men, perhaps; they take heavy steps, and the impress of their feet remains. This is how we should walk, and thus shall we
'Departing, leave behind us
Foot-prints on the sands of time;
'Foot-prints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.'
We shall not make these foot-prints by lightly tripping across the sands, but by walking with all the weight of our character, and all the force of our nature, doing what we do, in fact, feeling that if a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing well, and if it is not worth doing well it is not worth doing at all.
Brethren, to have communion with God in that short interval which any of us can give to private devotion is very sweet. It is delightful to talk with Christ alone for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, but to do this in the street or the counting-house, or in the market when busy buying and selling, feeling that our Beloved is with us then, this is sweeter still. It is a better proof of piety, at any rate, for the hypocrite can have his joys in secret after a fashion, but the genuine Christian alone knows the meaning of sacred communion when he is distracted with public distraction, and he alone can live near to God even in the world. The hypocrite looks upon devotion as the occupation of this hour, or that, but the true Christian looks upon his communion as having nothing to do with this hour or that, but with all hours, and all places, with all times, and with all occupations. To be with Jesus in the field, with Jesus in the kitchen or in the parlor, with Jesus when the Bible is laid aside and the ledger has to be taken up, or when the needle takes the place of the hymn-book—this is the piety we want—communion with Jesus Christ at all times. We cannot be always praying in the act, but we can always be praying in the spirit. When a heart is rightly wound it never rests, but it goes up to God with its desires, its longings, and its aspirations all day long. It is a blessed thing to have a heart to pray though the clock may not strike. I do not believe, myself, in those clockwork kind of prayers. It is very well, I dare say, to have rubrics—'Here the priest shall say or sing.' I do not recommend it, for if you take rubrics to be your guide to prayer you may find your rubrics tumble over. You will say at a certain time, 'Well, now, I wish somehow that this were not the hour of prayer.' But if your heart is full of prayer, you know, it will not want putting down that you are to pray, because you will be sure to pray, you cannot but pray, and you will pray at all times. I am not speaking against stated seasons for prayer. I think there should be such, but I am speaking against trusting to them without having the spirit of prayer which would lead us to pray at all times.
When I was at Wootton-under-Edge I asked which was Mr Rowland Hill's study. I got no answer, and I asked therefore again, 'Which was Mr Hill's study?' The good minister living there said, 'That was what I wanted to know when I came here, and they said, "Mr Hill's study; he had no study." ' 'Well, but didn't he study his sermons?' 'Yes, after a sort, for he was always studying his sermons.' When he walked up the Blackfriars Road he used to go looking into the shop-windows, looking at everything there, and thinking what he should say to his people the next time he preached. Or when he was down at Wootton-under-Edge he used to take a telescope and look out of window at the people as they came to church; and he would listen to what some of them said, and notice how they acted, and then he would tell them all about it in the sermon, and they wondered all the while how he came to know it. That was his style of studying. He was always studying. He did not want a place to study in because he was always studying. 'Well,' I said to a gentleman who knew him, 'did you notice whether he set apart long intervals for prayer?' 'No,' he said. 'I do not know that he did; he did pray, but he was a man who was always praying.' If you stopped until after the congregation had gone as he went down the aisle you would hear him muttering to himself as he went along. When he preached once at Walworth Mr Clayton heard him say as he was walking down the aisle:
'And when I shall die,
Receive me I'll cry,
For Jesus has loved me; I cannot tell why;
But this thing I find,
We two are so joined,
He won't be in glory, and leave me behind.'
Well now, I envy the spirit of a man who is always praying just as he is always breathing, and who, if he has got some little occupation which takes him away from prayer, goes back to it again as soon as it is over. It is his element, his vital breath, his native air. May we get this constant communion, this constant prayerfulness of spirit.
And then there ought to be about us a holy watchfulness, which should not act by fits and starts, but should be habitual. Some people are very proper in their religion at the proper time. When it is appointed unto them to keep a holy day it is a holy day with them after a sort, but they make up for it other days. Their Christianity is a thing which is of time, and place, and position. But I take it that the genuine Christian is watchful over his steps, when he is right at heart, wherever he may be, and he adorns the doctrine of God his Savior in all things. I think we ought to be just as much Christians at home as husbands, sons, and fathers, as we are in the pulpit or the pew, and that we should be as much Christians in the humblest positions as if we were called to the loftiest offices in the Church of Christ. There is a way of consecrating a lapstone, of consecrating an adze, or an awl, or a hammer, of making the market to become a temple, making the field to become holiness unto the Lord. We should be watchful always. 'See that you walk circumspectly.' What a wonderful text that is, 'See that you walk circumspectly.' You have need of it. Do you want to know the meaning of it. Go up opposite the Bank and see a poor country lady wanting to get across to the Mansion House. Did you ever observe it? Before she crosses she looks down Threadneedle Street, up Lombard Street, down Cheapside—looks everywhere until she sees a cab, or something, pass by, and then she makes a dash at last to get across, but her eyes are all round her, looking this way, and that way, for fear lest she should be run over. That is the way in which the Christian man is to walk—expecting temptation on all sides, not knowing from which quarter it may come—looking round, that is the word—walking circumspectly. Some people pick their steps as they walk; may we walk through the world with this constant circumspection, and it will be a far better habit than that of being guided and governed by the fear of man, or the love of men, or respect for human opinion.
We want these three things together, then—continued communion, continued prayerfulness, and continued watchfulness. There is one thing more—perpetual fervency. We work ourselves up sometimes to a great pitch of zeal, but we soon get cold again. One has learned one little thing in this world, and that is that we can never have too much zeal. I used to be a little suspicious of So-and-so that he would do something outrageous when he got to be too zealous, but I really think that the safest virtue in the world is zeal, for it generally runs down so quickly that it does not get to be fanaticism. Nowadays we are such a cold-blooded generation, and are so chilled by worldliness, that we can work ourselves up pretty high about reform, about politics, and things of that kind, but about the love of souls, about the glory of Christ—where is our fervor? Where is our enthusiasm? I would to God that we had some of the old Methodist fire back again—some of that primitive spirit against which nothing could stand; that mighty flame which came from Heaven, and would not rest until it had set the whole round earth on a blaze. I would to God that we had some of that early zeal again, and kept it constantly fervent, so as to be always full of love for souls, and watchful for opportunities of doing good.
Chapter 15
Notes for the encouragement of saints
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 4 August 1867
I THOUGHT of saying a few words this evening, which I shall entitle 'Notes for the Encouragement of Saints,' taken from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. I shall scarcely need to read the whole of the chapter, as you are all well acquainted with the story of the Creation, but I shall beg to call your attention to a few points which may help to confirm the faith of the believer.
The first is that throughout the chapter, though the work described is no less than that of Creation, you have only God as the Operator. There is not a single instrumentality, not a single man apparent upon the face of the earth until the last day, and then he is himself a created thing, not coming there to assist the Lord, but only coming into the Creation when it is completed that he may enjoy it. God is working all alone. There is not even angelic agency, nor are there any of those laws of which men talk so much, but it is just God working alone, and that, too, only by his Word, having no tools, using no instruments, exerting no agency whatever but his word. He spoke and it was done; he commanded and it stood fast.
This ought to encourage faith, for if God alone made the heavens and the earth by his word, then his word is still enough, without anything else. Has he said, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not make it good? You would like to see some men raised up, or some second cause in operation. But surely, he who made the heavens and the earth alone can sustain you alone, and bear you through your trials, even though you should have no horses and chariots of Egypt upon which to rest, and he can make you more than conqueror in your battle, and carry you even to hoar hairs, though all should be against you. If, I say, the simple Word of God, without any assistance whatever, was sufficient to build yonder blue arch, and to separate the earth from the sea, surely he is quite able to attend to our small affairs by his own promise, and sustain us by his naked arm.
Further, if you notice, throughout the chapter, while God only is operating, it is all done with the simplest imaginable ease. God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. He divided the light from the darkness at once. It seemed to be to him no toil. There is no straining, no panting, no weariness. God does it like a God, with all his glorious ease.
And so, beloved, he accomplishes his divine purposes. You and I may fret, and worry, and care, and trouble, but the placid brow of the divine One is always calm, and his mind is never stirred, nor moved with fears about results.
'He everywhere has sway,
And all things serve his might.'
And with the greatest possible ease in the midst of Providence he is working out his own will with just as much quietness as he wrought out his own mysterious plans of wisdom in the day of the Creation. From God's working alone, and from God's working with such evident and apparent ease, let our faith gather much confidence, and much encouragement to trust him in all other respects.
And now, beginning with the chapter itself, we notice that when God began his work there was nothing to begin with. He made the world out of nothing, so that, as Paul puts it, 'The things that were made were not made of things that did appear.' God made existence out of non-existence; entity out of non-entity, all worlds out of nothing. So, believer, if there be nothing now in you, yet he can make a new Heaven and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness, out of you, and though there be in you no good thing which might help him in his service, yet can he serve himself by you. Though you be weak, yet can he produce power out of that weakness, clothing you with himself, for he made a world out of nothing. Beloved, I can well understand how he can work by our feebleness, how our nothingness may be in his hands the very best material by which he can make his own glory manifest among the sons of men. Now, you who feel that you have but little strength, and sometimes fear that you have no grace, trust in God, and rest in him alone, for if out of nothing he brought all this, he can do it again, and he will do it to the praise of his great name.
Please observe, too, in the early verses, that there was darkness upon the face of the deep, and yet the Spirit of God moved there.
Here is another lesson for faith. Whatever darkness there may be, my soul, the Spirit of God can move there. Whatever darkness there may be upon the face of Providence, providential wisdom can move there. Though I cannot see, the Spirit will not miss his way, and though I cannot discern so much as a single ray of light, yet the Spirit of God knows all things, and, being at work, will achieve his purposes even in the dark. Clouds and darkness are round about him, but righteousness and judgment are about him, too. While the Spirit of God is the habitant of the throne let us, even in the midst of darkness, still believe in the going forth of the divine might.
You will also note, if you read in the third verse, that God made the light before he made the sun. The sun was not ordained and set in its place until the fourth day, but there was light on the first day. I do not understand it, but it was so, and I can understand that God can give me light if there be no earthly sun to shine upon me; that he often does give his children light when the stars of ministry shine not; that he can give his people comfort when earthly comforts are not; that he can give to them joy and peace in believing when there is everything to make them doubting and cast down. We are apt to suppose that the light must be dependent upon the sun, and that if the sun were gone we should be in the dark. It does not appear to be so. Probably the sun is only a light carrier from the lamp that was born long before it was created. The light was before the sun. So we have the grace of God sometimes when we are debarred from outward means, and the love of God may come to us though there be no voice to whisper into our ear concerning that love. Notice that, Christian, and let it strengthen your faith. There was light before the sun, and, therefore, there may be heavenly blessings where earthly blessings are not.
Notice, too, that on the second day God separated the waters that were above the firmament from the waters under the firmament, and on the third day he drove the waters into one place, and made the sea, and left the dry land to be the dry land, and from that day there have been sea and dry land. From which I gather, again, that he can restrain the most outrageous of elements. If you have ever been at sea in a storm you must have thought 'Who can bind the sea? Who can control its huge waves, and say to it "Be still"?' And yet you walk on the seashore, along the Eastern coast, perhaps, and you see where the cliffs have all tumbled in, and are gradually decaying, and in their place there is nothing but a line of sand, and the sea comes up so far, but no farther. It dashes its spray along until you might suppose that it would come on, but there it stops, as though it heard the word which the Eternal spoke in the early time: 'Hitherto shall you come, but no further, and here shall your proud waves be stayed.' From which faith gathers this, that trials and troubles are in the hands of God; that these things which we cannot rule are still ruled by the Most High, and that God has his way of keeping his people safe upon the dry land if so he wills it, so that all the seas of trouble in the world shall not come near unto them.
Observe, also, concerning the third day, that God made the grass. He made the grass before he made the sun, and that was a strange thing. There were the green trees, the green grass, and herbs bearing seed, before there was any sun to shine. Those things which appear to us to be entirely dependent for their coloring, for their vitality, and their sap, upon the presence of the sun, were absolutely created before the sun had begun to cast its rays upon the face of the earth. Again, I say, I do not understand it, but I can comprehend how I, who may be as little and insignificant as the grass in the field, may yet be independent of all outward means, and be cast upon the simple power of the sustaining help of God, and know no lack. If the sun were darkened we should not want for light even then if God willed to give us light, and if every creature should faint, if cisterns were all broken, and outward resources entirely dried up, yet, still, the word which God has spoken would surely prevail. As the grass lacked not, even when the sun was not there, but still had its life, so should we, if all outward means were gone.
I cannot stop to notice all the points, but the whole chapter is full of lessons from which faith may get comfort. You will notice, however, that on the last day God created man, which seems to cheer our faith greatly, for observe the change. God said 'Let us make man.' The pronoun is plural here. There is a council held about man. Father, Son, and Spirit come out conspicuously in the creation of man, and herein is the whole of God manifested. Well, beloved, what an interest we have, then, in the heart of God? If in the old creation it was 'Let us,' how much more so is it in the new creation? Let us come, then, to our God feeling that we are more his creatures, and more his children, than all the works of his hands besides. He has had a covenant council about us. It has been a matter of judgment, and of council, of thought and of consideration with him. Let us go, then, to him who cares for us, and who has a desire toward the work of his hands.
It is noteworthy that on the last day, when man was created, man had dominion given him over all the works of God's hands.
'Lions, and beasts of savage name,
Put on the nature of a lamb,'
while all the birds that flew in the heavens were subject unto man. From which we gather that God can make all things subject unto us, that especially if we seek his glory he can make the most beast-like men to be subject to our will. He is able to make a Herod to be fatally stricken if he stands in the way of his church, or he can turn the heart of the emperor if he stands in the way of the kingdom. The Lord has the hearts of kings in his hands, and he moves them as he pleases. From the greatest to the lowest of all creatures, they shall all observe the divine will. I think this should be something for us to feed upon.
And, as the first man Adam had dominion over all the works of God's hands, so our faith delights to remember that the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus, has dominion over the whole. It is delightful to think of Adam walking in the garden, and all the creatures round him, not only the tame, but the wild and ferocious beasts subject to him. And so is it with our Lord Jesus Christ. Even devils are subject unto him. Nothing can stand against him. When he puts forth his touch he turns the heart of granite into wax. He makes the eye that is dry as a desert to run with springs of penitence, and causes the soul that was dead as a stone to leap up in fullness of life. Glorious Lord Jesus, you will yet make this world a paradise, and everywhere you shall have dominion over all the works of your hand!
These thoughts struck me just now while some of our brethren were in prayer, and I could not help giving utterance to them. May they comfort and strengthen you in your works of faith and labors of love. May the presence of God abide with you. May you feel the Lord to be very present with you in all the various works of the Church. May the College abundantly prosper, and also the schools, and the classes, which God has so highly favored. May all of you who are engaged in tract distribution, street-preaching, and all other good works, have during the next month a time of visitation from the presence of God. The Lord refresh and revive his Church yet more and more. Pray for us as we will for you, and may the bow of the covenant be always over us, the Lord's sign and token of his faithfulness to his own promise, and if the storm should gather, let us remember that the bow is set in the cloud, and the cloud is but the foil whereon the bow is painted. So even our troubles shall but afford us a fresh token of the Lord's faithfulness to his people.
Chapter 16
Manasseh and Ephraim; or forgetfulness and fruitfulness
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 16 April 1866
'And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, … And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: For God, said he, has made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house. And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.'—Genesis 41:50–52.
YOU all know the story of Joseph, how under a false and wicked charge he was shut up in prison; how he interpreted the dreams of the butler and of the baker; and how afterwards, when Pharaoh dreamed a dream, he interpreted that also. You know how, in consequence of these interpretations, the king perceived that the Spirit of God and the spirit of wisdom rested greatly upon Joseph, and, therefore, he exalted him, and made him head over all the land, being second to none but the king himself. He put a chain of gold about his neck, and decorated him with all the distinctions of princely rank, and made him to be very great throughout the land.
Now, Joseph is, no doubt, a type of our Lord Jesus Christ, not only in the great particulars, but also in the little ones. You will see that Joseph everywhere corresponds with Jesus, and that Jesus is the fulfillment of the picture of Joseph. Jesus, too, was sold by his brethren, falsely accused, put into prison, came up from the prison-house of the grave, and is now King over all the land on the behalf of his people.
Joseph was also the type of all the saints, because, if he is a type of Christ, all the saints are conformed to Christ, and in their measure have to tread the same path which he trod, and, therefore, Joseph may well serve as a type of every child of God. There is a time with every Christian when he is put in prison. With us it is no false accusation. We are put in prison; we are brought low; we are shut up, and cannot come forth. But by and by, by God's good grace, we are restored from our prison-house; we are enlarged; we are made priests and kings unto our God, and we are made to reign with Christ forever and ever. It is a blessed and happy change when we come from the dunghill to the throne, and when we are taken from the bondage of Sin and Satan, and introduced into the kingdom of God's dear Son.
Now, when Joseph was thus brought into joy and liberty you perceive that he had two sons. The good old custom at that time was to call the children by some name which recalled something of the parents' feelings at the time of their birth. We find the son of Abraham and Sarah called 'Isaac,' that is to say 'laughter,' 'because,' said his mother, 'God has made me to laugh for joy.' So, in the case before us, the first child was called 'Manasseh,' that is to say 'forgetfulness,' and the second was called 'Ephraim,' that is 'fruitfulness.'
I think these names are significant of the feelings of all God's people when they are set at happy liberty. The first thing that then occupies them is FORGETFULNESS—not a wicked forgetfulness, but forgetfulness with regard to the past, and then they go on from that to FRUITFULNESS with regard to the present and the future. It is Manasseh first, and Ephraim afterwards. Our first state of experience is that of Manasseh—we forget. We never forget that we were sinners; we never forget that we have been washed. 'Rahab the harlot' we still say. She never was a harlot after grace met with her, but her old name sticks to her. 'Simon the leper,' too, we call him; he was no leper, for Christ had healed him, but he is called a leper still. And in Heaven I think the name of 'sinner saved by grace' will not seem at all out of place, for we shall sing even there that 'we have washed our robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' To forget in that sense were an atrocious piece of wickedness. No, we never can forget that; why should we? My soul, bless you the Lord, and forget none of his benefits, much less forget them all. We shall forget the conviction, forget the pangs of groaning, and sighing, and longing, and waiting, in our joy to think that we have found the Savior. We shall seem to say: 'Never mind how sharp the cuts of the law; never mind how nauseous were the bitters of penitence; we have found him,' him whom our soul loves, and we can now forget all; we can even bless God, forgetting all the bitterness.
When a man has carried a burden for a very long time on his back, and it is suddenly taken off, as Christian's was at the foot of the cross, he forgets the burden in the joy of its relief. When a man has tossed to and fro on a bed of sickness, and he recovers, and once more walks the green sward and breathes the pure fresh air, in a certain sense he forgets the sickness in the fact of his being once more restored. So is it with the converted soul when it finds peace in Christ. Sorrow is all gone. 'The winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.' '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.' We rejoice and bless God, and in the pleasure of pardon we forget the smartings of conviction.
There is another sort of forgetfulness which we all of us ought to experience when Christ pardons us. It is that which is described by David when singing of Solomon and his spouse: 'Forget also your own kindred and your father's house.' The Christian, when brought out into liberty, and made a citizen of the New Jerusalem, forgets the manners and customs, the pleasures and the delights of his old state of sin. As the lark forgets her nest and soars towards the sun, so, by God's grace, the Christian forgets the world, and mounts upwards towards God. I suppose that if the swine could be changed into sheep, they could never forget that they had once been swine, but they would forget to roll in the mire. If the raven were turned into a dove the dove might recollect that it was a raven once, but it would forget to feed on carrion. So we forget to go after the things that once charmed us. We are deaf to the world's music, and blind to the world's beauty. We no longer pursue the things that once were our soul's only attractions.
Some of you have not got so far as this. You are still smarting: you are still wearing the fetters; the iron enters into your soul. But it shall not be so long. Jesus Christ's name is THE LIBERATOR. He comes to set the prisoners free. This is what he claims. 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to open the prison-doors to them that are bound.' May he exercise this gracious office upon you! You cannot set yourselves free. You wish sometimes that you could, but if you could you would have the honor of it; but as you cannot Christ must do it, and you will therefore feel compelled to give him all the glory, and that is just as it ought to be. You wish that you could feel such and such things, and if you could you think that you could do something. What a mercy it is that you do not feel those things, because now you cannot do anything, but you will be obliged to be saved by the doings of Christ. It will come to this one of these days, that you will be driven to rest in the Savior. Like the poor little robin that was hunted by the hawk and flew right into the breast of one who was walking in the fields, so will you be. It would never have thought of finding a hiding-place in the man's bosom if it had not been for the relentlessly cruel bird that pursued it. So your fears, and your despairing, and your sorrow, will, I hope, drive you into the Savior's bosom. God grant that you may fly there now! It is open for every needy sinner. There was never known a case of Christ rejecting any. When I passed St Bartholomew's Hospital this morning I could not but notice the great number of people who were waiting there. I suppose, by their waiting, that they had some recommendation, or some tickets that insured their getting in. At any rate, if they could not get into St Bartholomew they could all get into Christ's Hospital, for whoever waits at his door shall find that door opened for them. But, soul, the waiting mainly rests with yourself, for it is you that keeps out, and not Christ that keeps you out. It is you who put a door between yourself and Christ, for there is no door of Christ's putting. The distance is one of your own making, for there is no distance between Christ and a needy soul as far as Christ is concerned. When you are yet a great way off he is near you. Though you are not near him, yet he is near you in affection and in love, even though you may be distant through your unbelief and your want of power to trust him. May God soon bring you, dear friend, to say: 'My name is Manasseh; the sad part is all forgotten now,' and may you then sing:
'I will praise you every day
Now your anger's turned away.'
But the second son of Joseph was named 'Ephraim,' that is 'fruitfulness.' Every man who is really saved by Christ will get, more or less, into a state in which it will be his desire to be fruitful in the land of his affliction. God cuts the vines. He cut Joseph's vine very close indeed, but it made him bear more fruit. Our troubles are sometimes very severe, but troubled Christians are great fruit-bearers. We should not be so useful if we were not so afflicted. Our trials help us to be holy, and to serve God more than we should otherwise do.
Perhaps there are some Christians here who have not reached this point. Ah! my friend, you will not be very happy unless you are very fruitful. You must serve Jesus, or you are not very likely to sup with him, nor he with you. I do think that our barrenness for Christ is very often the cause of our barrenness in Christ, for if we did more for him we should enjoy more of him. It is not likely that the King will give us royal dainties unless we are willing to be his soldiers; but if we will go into the thick of the fight we shall soon find that he is ready to reward us, and to do for us 'exceeding abundantly, above what we ask or think.'
I do bless God that this Church has many Ephraims in it, and I do pray that these Ephraims may become yet more and more fruitful. 'Well,' says one, 'I wish I could be fruitful.' Friend, it is very likely that you will have to go into the land of affliction in order to be so. When we ask to be fruitful we do not always know what we ask for. There was a man once who asked that God would bless his ministry. He prayed very earnestly for it, and he set his people praying for it too. There came a frightful and fearful accident, which seemed as if it would shatter the man, and destroy all his hopes. That was God's answer to his prayer, and from that time the multitudes gathered to hear the Word, for the fame was noised abroad throughout the land. Have you never heard of the woman who asked God to make her more useful? She was in a good position, but suddenly she was brought very low into poverty, and in her poverty she began to talk with her poor neighbors, and she thus did a great deal more good than she ever could have done had she remained a fine lady. Have you never heard of the man who asked God to make him more useful? He broke his leg soon afterwards, and as he laid in the hospital there was a poor sinner in the next bed under concern of soul. The Christian man talked with him and prayed with him until that soul was saved, which, speaking after the manner of men, could not have been the case if that Christian had not broken his leg. We do not know how much our troubles have been sent on purpose to bring us into a position where we may be useful.
Some of you have got into great trouble tonight, and you have come here to get a little consolation. Well, I cannot give you any, but I should not wonder but what the day will come when you will sing, as David did: 'It is good for me that I have been afflicted.' It is a great thing for a man when he loses that which would have been a nuisance and a trouble to him. If I had got a rattlesnake's egg, I think it would be as well for me to lose it before it was hatched, and sometimes a man has something of that kind about him. If I have something in my possession that would ultimately ripen into a thorn for my death-pillow, it is a great mercy for me when God takes that thorn away, though I may like it very much, for I do not know what it really is. Let us leave these matters in God's hands, but let our prayer be: 'Fruitfulness, Lord, fruitfulness; do help me to be fruitful, for your name's sake.'
I have heard some say who are always talking about experience, but who never do anything for Christ, that there is a great deal of inside fruit which the Christian brings forth. That idea is a very curious one, and I must say it is rather romantic. If a tree were to bring forth its fruit inside I do not see any chance for it but cutting it down in order to get at it, and it strikes me that that is what will be done with all these inside-fruit people who do not bring forth any outside fruit. They will be cut down, for so John the Baptist said of old: 'Every tree that brings not forth fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.'
So then, we must begin with Christ. We do not begin with fruitfulness. We begin with Manasseh, and then go on to Ephraim; we begin with forgetfulness and then go on to fruitfulness.
Sinner, you can never be fruitful until you have gone to Christ. What are you that you should be fruitful? Supposing you should be fruitful, your fruit would only be the apples of Sodom and the clusters of Gomorrah. What does a fruitful sinner do but propagate mischief? He brings forth wild grapes which God cannot accept. I have sometimes thought what sort of a person a baptized sinner must be! What a strange anomaly! One who never was dead to Christ, and yet has been buried! And what must a confirmed sinner be? Why, a confirmed sinner, of course, but, being what he was, the ceremony could not change him, and he remains the same. But what a mockery! What a mockery! Some of you have been very religious, but if your hearts are not right before God what an insult to bring to God! You clean the outside of your cups and your platters while the inside is full of filth. You whitewash your sepulchers, but inside there are rottenness and foulness. May God cleanse us thoroughly in the precious blood, and when that is done we shall forget our sins and rejoice in his salvation, and then shall we pray: 'Lord, show me what you would have me to do, and make me fruitful in the land of my affliction.'
Chapter 17
On church increase
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 18 November 1867
DEAR FRIENDS—Let me stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. If your minds are impure it is no use stirring them up, but if they are pure before God the more they are stirred up the better they will be, like fire that burns the better for stirring.
The subject upon which I want to stir you up is connected with last Sabbath morning's sermon.* The first thing, you remember, upon which we remarked, was, individuality of true religion—how true godliness makes a man feel that there is something for him to do, that he should tell to other men the faith that is in him.
Now, I want to be very practical, and to ask a few questions, and to give a few explanations.
Thirteen years ago this church numbered about three hundred members, and I think the increase in that year was about three hundred members. Year after year some three hundred were added to our ranks, and now we number about three thousand six hundred souls, and our increase this year is likely to be about three hundred.
When I looked at these statistics I thought to myself—Well, this is not altogether an encouraging state of things. It is very satisfactory to see a church steadily increasing. When you can say, 'Yes, there is one more this year than there was last,' it is very satisfactory to some sober and sleepy minds, but it is not altogether so to me. Suppose now—taking it for granted that the salvation of sinners must be effected through the grace of God by the individual exertions of believers—suppose that three hundred members and the pastor are made the means of the conversion of three hundred in a year, it is not altogether an honorable circumstance that three thousand should be the means of the conversion of no more. I will grant that there may be a great many persons converted who do not come forward and join our church, and many who might, move away, but still, so there would be in the case of the three hundred conversions at the first. Three hundred persons are blessed to the conversion of three hundred, and three thousand, with all their exertions, are blessed to no more! That does not strike me as being altogether as things ought to be, nor at all an encouraging circumstance.
We do not overlook the fact that in the history of all sects and Christian denominations which have arisen in the world the increase has been proportionately far more rapid when the numbers were but few than afterwards when they were many. If you hear of any denomination increasing ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty percent, in two or three years, you may be quite certain that it is a small denomination. Had it been a large one it would not—could not, I suppose in the order of things—have increased in the same proportion. Now, this is a fact, I believe, almost without an exception. I do not recollect one. Certainly it is the case with Wesleyan Methodism, Primitive Methodism, and every other branch of the Christian Church that I know of. The more numerous a church becomes the slower does it increase. The more ponderous it is the more heavy and difficult it seems to be to move. This is a fact. That, put side by side with our own experience, shows that we are no worse than other people, and no better, but that is not saying much, for comparing ourselves among ourselves is not wise. If all other denominations should grow slack, I do not see why we should. There can be no argument from the sins of one class of men to excuse the sins of others.
What is the reason, then, for this? I will suppose one reason. Is it that God blesses his people more when they are few than when they are many? I do not think you would approve that answer; I do not think you would believe it. If you go into those places where the congregation is very small do you find any greater unction there? There exist some small communities where there is a deal of talk about the presence of God, but very little of it—nothing being done for Christ; a few comfortable old souls making themselves as happy as they can under the circumstances; but as to the world ever being blessed by them, we shall have to wait until the sea catches alight before the world will ever be blessed through their instrumentality. I believe that where a church is most numerous there often is the largest blessing, and that as Christ has promised that where two or three are met together in his name there he will be, so, multiplied so many times, there will he be present where numbers of his people, with warm hearts and earnest prayers, meet together in continued Christian effort. When they were all with one accord in one place, then came the blessed Spirit, and when brethren dwell together in unity, then it is that we may expect the blessing of God, like the dew of Hermon, descending and resting upon the entire church.
You would not like that argument, then, nor believe it.
Well, I will propose another answer, and it is this—the reason why large churches do not increase in the same ratio as small churches, is that there is a dreadful tendency among us all to forget our own personality. At the first, when the chapel is only half-full, everybody exerts himself to bring in hearers, and when the hearers are brought everybody that is at all right-minded is anxious to know what is the impression that is produced, everybody is anxious to bring souls to Christ, and there is a deal of earnest longing and earnest desire to extend the Master's kingdom. I am afraid that afterwards there is not the same individual working for Christ. The school is full, and there is no more room for teachers, perhaps, and so certain young men and women, who might have been usefully employed—what do they do? Well, if Christ does not find them work there is somebody else who always does. If there are any young men or young women here without work to do they will readily find a black employer to engage them.
'He will find you work to do,
He will pay you wages too,'
and if you are not doing good you will be sure to be doing mischief. A dead bone anywhere about in the body will be sure to be breeding pain and trouble to the entire corporate system. Or, perhaps there is a brother more advanced in years who used to go out preaching. He gets into a bigger church, and thinks he is not called upon; there are others more gifted than himself, and so he does not get out as he used to do. Well now, that brother may be more comfortable, but if he does not find some other mode of usefulness you see that his usefulness is lost to the church, and we know what the result will be. So is it all through the church. Good people say, 'Well, there is nothing I know of that I can do, or if there is there are plenty who can do it better than I can.' My dear brother, there is something that you can do better than anybody else, and there is something that nobody else can do except yourself. There is somebody in this world, I trust, that is to be converted through your means. There is some person to hear you tell the Gospel who would not hear any other person tell it, or at least who will hear you with more interest, and with more likelihood of a blessing upon it. Oh! I wish we could all get into this frame of mind! It used to be a proverb at the Tabernacle—I hope it is a proverb now—that there should not be one person in the place who should not be spoken to about his soul. Oh! we should be sure to see great works going on if we were all to remember to work that way. If we were all bees gathering honey the hive would very soon be full. I do not care for a net church increase every year. I could almost wish that we might never be more numerous than we are, but I should like to see an increase which would go to other churches, a real increase which would go to fatten, and supply, and increase the churches round about. Thank God we have fed numbers of churches everywhere, all over the world. I do not think there is a speck on the map I could look upon without knowing that there is someone of our brethren or sisters settled there doing good. It is quite a pleasant task sometimes to think over all their names, and remember them. I am glad sometimes when some of them do go to Australia because, though I do not want to get rid of them, yet it often develops their gifts. There was a good brother here some time ago, and I am sure I did not know that he had any preaching in him. He used to attend the evening classes here and got a little education, and then afterwards he found himself over in Australia, and there got his mouth opened. There was nobody else to talk about Christ, and he thought he would do it, and now they have made him the pastor of a church over there. Another brother finds himself at New York, and there he becomes an evangelist. Some of these friends would not have spoken here. I do not know that we should have particularly wanted them, for we have got enough who can speak exceedingly well, but when they get out there, there is room for them to speak for Christ with such ability as they have, and they are the better for being so brought out.
Now, I want the members of the church to take into consideration the fact I have mentioned, and the reason which I have given for it, and if they think that I have given the right reason, I want them to take stock, and make the inquiry as to how far they may have been guilty of neglecting opportunities of doing good. Why, we always have opportunities if we would but seize them. I wonder how many words we say in a day that need not be said? This morning you told your friends that it was foggy. I suppose, unless they were very blind they would see that it was. And very likely yesterday you told nearly everybody you met that the wind blew. Well, yes; that also was a piece of information which would hardly be worth paying any large sum for. Well, now, if we would but employ at least half of the words that we use unnecessarily in communicating some Gospel truth, what a blessing it would be! I know a gentleman, a friend, who used to be a great huntsman, a man of the world, and a man who liked to be in company. Well, he came up to London, and was taken to hear a certain minister, and God blessed him. He went back, and when one of his old friends came to him and said, 'What is the news from London? What is the best news you have?' he said, 'Well, the best news I have heard is that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.' His friend was utterly astonished, but in this way he made his first public confession to his ungodly friends that he had been brought to know the Lord. Do we not get opportunities of giving some such answers which might prove words in season which God would bless?
Now, dear friends, there may be some here present who cannot do any good to others because they are not saved themselves. We cannot tell dead men to proclaim the living Gospel. Oh! may the Lord help you by his grace, and bring you to himself! Remember what the Gospel is, 'He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.' It is to trust in the Lord Jesus, and then, being his servant, you wear the badge of the Christian, being immersed, which is a token of your being dead to the world, buried with Christ, and raised into newness of life.
Chapter 18
On trusting God alone
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 26 March 1866
IT has been upon my mind to say a few words this evening upon the importance of keeping our confidence single, resting wholly upon the Lord, and waiting patiently for him, and never venturing to associate with God any creature as the ground of our confidence.
Idolatry is the sin of the fallen race. From the very first day even until now we have all been inclined to commit the two evils—to forsake the fountain of living waters and to hew out to ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water. If we do not absolutely leave our God, yet we are too apt to try to bring in the broken cisterns with the fountain, and to endeavor to get our supply partly from one and partly from the other, and this in its very essence is idolatry. It is setting up another God before the living God and laying another foundation for our confidence besides that which is presented to us in the character and the promises of our covenant-keeping God. I say that this is our natural tendency, and I am sure it is so, for we must all of us have observed it in ourselves. If the Lord sanctifies us by his Spirit, and our graces are somewhat bright, we are pretty sure to be delighted with them. We get as pleased with these graces of our own as little children with their penny toys, and we forget him who gave them to us. If we secure a little temporal prosperity, and have a few friends round about us, we begin to worship those friends, and that we do so is clear, because if we think that they are a little cold to us—if we fancy that they are not so kind as usual—it cuts us to the very quick, which it would not do if we had not put them into too high a place, and had not begun to rest upon them in some degree. The experience of every believer, I think, is this, that he finds it difficult to keep himself clear from idols. 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols,' is as necessary a precept now as it was when the aged Apostle John gave it to the saints of old.
But it will not do to have more than one ground of comfort or more than one well to draw from, because the Christian's course is straight onward. Now, if I feel the power of two attractions, and surrender myself to two influences, I cannot travel onwards, but must necessarily travel in a circle. This world of ours—what progress has it made? Some six thousand times, in our own era, it has gone round the center. And it is going round the sun still—a slave, a servant, a satellite of the sun—but onwards it has not gone. We blame not the world, but we must take care that we do not become earth-like and imitate it. But why is the world's motion always circular? Why has it not traveled into new fields of space and gone onwards? Because there are two influences at work upon it. There is one force that would drive it at a tangent, far away, and there is another force that would draw it into the sun, and so, between the two, it goes round, round, round. And this is the reason why many of us go round, and round, and round, and why our religion gets to be a circular kind of religion, making progress at one time, and then retreating again—advancing and then receding, until I might compare our life very much to John Milton's description of the planets— 'Progressive, retrograde, or standing still.'
This often seems to be our condition, and the secret of it is that we let two influences meddle with us, instead of being able to say: 'Oh, God, my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed on you alone; from you, and from you only, do I look for my hope, my joy, my everything.'
It must be wrong thus to associate two things together as the ground of hope, because what is there which we can associate with God which it will not be a dishonor for him to be associated with? Master John Berridge speaks quaintly somewhere of linking the Creator with the creature as being like linking an elephant with a flea, and the comparison, though it is rather strong, does not sufficiently represent the contrast. It is as though we linked yonder archangel, whose wand, as Milton says,
'Might make a mast for some tall admiral,'
with an emmet crawling upon a sand-hill, or as though we took the lightning flash and harnessed with it the creeping snail. What can we find that can express the difference between the Almighty and the poor weak creature of an hour? Now, if I am depending partly upon God and partly upon my wife, my father, or my friend, what am I doing but making such a union as that? If I as a Christian minister put my confidence in my people, in my dearest friends, in my most attached fellow-workers in the Church, I am doing just the same thing, and we are all apt to do it. Oh, dear brother, wherefore should you seek to join God's gold and silver and precious stones with the wood and hay and stubble of a creature-confidence? Let congruity be studied, and let not a head of gold be joined to feet of clay, but let your trust be of one piece throughout. Let it be in all respects a confidence resting in the living God.
I think, too, you will see the folly of having two confidences if you will think for a moment what would be the consequence of doing so in other things. Here is a railway being constructed, and there is a valley across which the line has to be carried. Suppose an architect who is standing by says: 'Yes, that is right; make those arches of iron by all manner of means, but I think that that one to the right, or the left, or in the center, might just as well be made of wood; and although you run up your iron to a certain extent, and make the pillars of iron so high, yet why not make them of wood just here and there?' You knew very well what the consequence would be when the weight came upon the weaker portion. It would be all in vain that it was strong elsewhere; if it is weak there down must go the train with all its precious freight. If a chain by which men had to descend into a coal-mine should be made of the best welded iron, but there were one or two links that were made of poorer stuff—some cast-iron link, perhaps, that might easily be snapped—the chain would give way at once. So, if I trust nine parts to God and one part to myself, my confidence will give way; and if I almost entirely lean upon God, but have got just a little corner in which I am resting upon a friend, in that corner I shall meet with sorrow and with mischief. The Lord will have it known to us—once has he spoken and twice have I heard this, that power belongs unto God, and he will have us put our confidence alone in him,
There is yet another point. How much of our own sadness arises from putting our confidence in an arm of flesh! You never did lean on anyone yet in preference to God without having to smart for it, and you never will. It is true that all men are not like Judas; there are some true hearts, but the truest heart has not always the greatest ability, and there are many who are very faithful, but who
'Can but weep where most they love,'
and who cannot help you when the fierce trial comes. How independent is that
man who has learned to live upon God! 'There,' says he,
"Let the world's old pillars shake,
And all the wheels of Nature break,"
our God is still the same.' He does not fear the drought, for no drought can ever dry up the fountains of the mighty deeps that are in God. He is not afraid of the winter; what frost can ever affect the external heat of the divine love? He is not afraid of storms, or tempests, or whatever may come, for he knows that these cannot shipwreck him so as to make him lose his treasure, for his treasure is laid up in Heaven, where shipwreck cannot touch it. The moment you begin to deposit your treasure here below you make an unsafe investment.
May I ask you to cultivate more and more the habit of living upon God. Do not live on frames and feelings. Do not live on friends and acquaintances. Do not live on money. Do not live as though you got your breath out of other people's nostrils, but go to God for it. That is where Adam got his, and it is where we must go for ours. God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and every living soul gets its life in the same way. Live upon God; live only upon God, and you shall never lack any good thing.
Chapter 19
On coming to Christ
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 10 September 1866
WHEN the Savior went away from earth and ascended into glory he gave his disciples a reason for going. He said, 'It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you.' The Spirit of God had wrought in the minds of the saints before that period, and they had been cheered and comforted by that same Spirit; but in a more remarkable and especial manner the Holy Spirit was given after the ascension of our Savior, and what had been rather the peculiar gift of some saints became the common gift of all, according to the promise which had been made—'I will outpour my Spirit upon all flesh.'
I have been thinking, while we have been singing about Jesus Christ being in Heaven, that it is much better that he should be there than that he should be here. The sinner will say, 'You tell us to come to Christ; now, if Christ were here upon earth we could understand you; we should travel all the way; no matter what the expense, nor what the distance, we would try to get at him.' Yes, you might try, but I am inclined to think that you would not be likely to succeed, for supposing that everybody were of the same mind as yourselves—and I believe that they would be if mere outward coming to Christ were sufficient—you would find it almost impossible to get at Christ. He could not be in more than one place at a time, of course, in his bodily presence as a man, and how could all the millions manage even to see him? If in the days of his flesh, when he was in a little country like Judea, they could not get at him because of the press, how would it be if all mankind were clamoring to come and touch him? Moreover, you might die on the road. Suppose he were in Judea now: most of you could never get there; many of you could not afford the expense of the journey, and then with such great caravans of pilgrims as would be constantly besieging the city of Jerusalem, you might die outside the walls, and never reach him. Think of the many who are sick and ill today; how could they get at him? Think, too, of the multitudes who are lying in our hospitals; if the gospel we had to preach said that we must come to Christ actually, and see him and touch him, it would not be an available gospel for the many poor ones who can hardly stir hand or foot. It would be a preposterous mockery to call that a gospel which said to them, 'You must go to Christ in bodily form,' because they could not do it, but would expire in the attempt. What is coming to Christ, then? If he is in Heaven, if the person of the Savior is in glory, what is coming to him? It is to be interpreted spiritually. It is doing with your mind and heart what you would have done physically with your body had he still been with us. Some of you good women who are here tonight are not here really. You are sitting there in the pews, and I can see you, but you are not here. You are thinking about that child at home. You, the real you, are at home. Sometimes, too, the business man is here, yet he himself is not present; he is thinking of that bad debt, and of what he has to do tomorrow morning. It has been said that there has been many a coat cut out in the house of God, and I dare say many a coat has been made there too. Many a ship has been built there, many a field has been ploughed, and a great deal of money has been laid and lost in the house of God, in a man's mind; and the mind is the real man. Well, then, as my mind may go with my business when my body is absent, and thus the more important part of myself is given to my business, even so is it possible for me with my heart and mind to come to Christ. We come to Christ by thinking of him, by understanding his character, his work, and his power to save. And, especially, we come to him by trusting him, by depending upon him. See what a blessed way of coming to him this is. I have said that it would be a very sad thing if we had to come to Christ in our bodies, because it could not be done by the many multitudes of earth, and could not be done by the sick; but now, however sick you may be, if grace enables you, your mind can go to Christ. There is not even a penny a mile to pay for traveling upon the line, and if you were to go by the very cheapest material conveyance you would have to pay that. The mind can go to Christ without any railway carriage, or any expenditure of steam, and much more quickly than traveling on the eagle's wing would be. A ray of light must take some time to come from the stars, swiftly though it speeds through space, but thought takes no time at all. Here am I sitting here; I have been forgetful of God, but my mind can go to Christ in the moment I begin to think about him, and when I am enabled by divine grace my mind can trust him just as well up in Heaven as if he were at my side. I do not need to see him; I do not need to be within a hundred miles of him; distance is nothing to mental coming. I can come to him at once, and coming to him I get all the virtue from him that my needy soul requires. Hundreds and thousands of people saw Christ with their natural eyes who never got a blessing, but never has anybody looked to Christ with the eye of faith, and trusted him without receiving his blessing, for so it is written, 'Look unto me, and be you saved, all you ends of the earth.'
Now, do you not feel thankful tonight that Christ Jesus is not here in the flesh, at least that we have not to get at him in the flesh? He will come by and by in the very flesh in which he went up to Heaven, but, meanwhile, for the purposes of salvation, it is better to know that he is yonder. I will even say that he is nearer to us in Heaven than he would be if his bodily presence were among us. We bless the Lord Jesus that we live under a spiritual dispensation, though there are some who would like to go back to the elements of a carnal and natural system. We are not among them. We love a Christ whom we have not seen; he is unseen, but not unknown, and we thank him that in another sense he is neither unseen nor unknown, for we have seen him with the eye of faith, and we know him in a glad experience, and we hope to know him soon even as we are known.
Chapter 20
How God's dealings differ
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 17 September 1866
'For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.'—Isaiah 28:27 and 28.
THIS passage may appear to be a difficult one to treat, but in reality it is quite simple. The prophet mentions the fact that different modes of securing the produce of certain kinds of grain are adopted by the gardener; that the tender and more delicate seeds are beaten out with a staff, or a stick; while hardier grains were thrown down, as I have frequently seen them in Northern Italy, upon a hard threshing-floor, and sometimes horses or oxen were driven over the shocks until the wheat or the barley was pressed out; at other times a heavy block of wood, upon which a man could sit, and which was armed at the lower end with sharp pieces of iron, was drawn over the threshing-floor, and so the corn was dragged, as it were, out of the husk. The gardener would have been foolish had he used the cart-drag upon the cummin, which is but a small seed; and he would have been equally unwise if he had tried to beat out all his corn with the simple use of the stick, which would have proved a long and weary process. For different sorts of grain there must be different threshing instruments.
The teaching which I gather from this is that the God who gives wisdom to the gardener to deal thus with different kinds of grain, possesses the same wisdom himself in an infinitely higher degree, and deals in different ways with different orders of human minds. We shall all be threshed; let not any of you expect to get into God's garner without it. You will all be pressed, and you will have a good deal of it, too; for it is through much tribulation—much threshing—that we inherit the Kingdom. But we shall not all be beaten alike. Some have to go through very deep waters, while others walk beside still waters. Some must pass through a wilderness, while others lie down in green pastures. I do not believe that any of God's people are without trial, but there are some whose path is, comparatively speaking, very smooth.
Now, there is a reason for this. The cummin must be gently beaten with a rod; but the wheat must be beaten heavily. Different constitutions need different kinds of trial as the instruments of their sanctification. It is very foolish for people to say, 'I wish I had the rod.' Ah! you will one day change your note. There are persons who have been troubled because they had not any cross. Oh! do not let that trouble you. You will have one quite soon enough. It is a naughty child that cries for the rod and perhaps it will have double what it cries for. Be thankful when you are free from trial, but if you really want a cross you can carry the cross of other people by sympathizing with them, remembering those who are in bonds, as being bound with them. Simon the Cyrenian had no cross, but he carried Christ's cross, and then he had not to complain that he had not one of his own. So, if you have no other cross to carry you can take up Christ's cross, the cross of his poor disciples, the cross of witness for the truth, and that cross may serve you as long as you like. Take up the cross of souls that love not Christ; the cross of sorrow that the Savior is not loved and served as he should be, and that so many turn from him with disdain. Make these things a cross to your heart if you have not got any other. It would be foolish for the cummin to complain that it does not have to experience the corn-drag, for it does not need it; and so a severe amount of affliction may not be needful for you; probably it would bruise your tender spirit too much, and the Master will not do that, even though you should tempt him to it. On the other hand, when any of us have any sharp afflictions we ought not to marvel. With such a disease, oh! you must not wonder if the lancet goes deep, and cuts sharply. If the Master really gets the rust off us, it will not be surprising if the file has to be very often used. Afflicted as we are, we still often grow proud and lofty in spirit. There is little wonder that trials come thick and fast to press us to the ground. Humbling is very necessary, if very painful work, and 'sweet are the uses of adversity.' 'Trials give new life to prayer,' and, God knows, our prayerfulness needs reviving. 'Trials bring us to his feet, lay us low, and keep us there.' Considering how readily we get away from his feet, and how soon we leave off lying low, it is not to be wondered at that many are the trials employed to enable us to cultivate humility.
Chapter 21
The winnowing fan
An address delivered on Monday evening, 11 June 1866, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle
WHILE our friends were engaged in prayer I found myself on a sudden thinking about a passage in the middle of the third chapter of Matthew, where John, standing in the baptismal stream, speaks of the Savior to the people, and says, 'I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.' I thought also of the word of the prophet Malachi, 'For behold the day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.'
You remember also how the prophet says in the third chapter: 'Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the LORD, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in; behold, he shall come, says the LORD of Hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears; for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.'
Now, these things were spoken of Christ, not as to his Second Advent, but as to his first coming. Malachi describes Christ as suddenly coming into his temple, and as coming to be like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap; and John, also, who is the messenger to prepare the way, says of Christ that his fan is in his hand, and that he will throughly purge his floor. Now, has it not sometimes struck you, that in looking at the life of Christ there does not appear to the outward observer to be much of the use of the fan? On one occasion, it is true, he did take a scourge of small cords and drive the buyers and sellers out of the Temple, and overturned the seats of the money-changers and of them that sold doves, saying, 'Take these things hence.' But throughout life, he was very gentle. It was said of him that he was 'the friend of publicans and sinners,' and you would hardly think at first sight that he was like a refiner's fire, or like fullers' soap. When we describe him as gathering the lambs in his bosom, and gently leading those that are with young, you get a picture of him drawn to the very life, but you do not seem to catch, at the first sight of the Savior's life, the idea of the winnowing-fan being in his hand that he may throughly purge his floor. What is the reason of this? The reason is because the purging which Christ gives to his own Church's floor is not given by any material means. Christ does not come into his church, nor did he do so when on earth, with a scourge of small cords. He does not say as he walks in the midst of us, 'Such and such a man is a hypocrite; put him out.' Rather he seems to say: 'Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "Gather you the tares in bundles to burn, but gather the wheat into my barn." ' The fact is that this characteristic of Christ is one which needs spiritual eyes to see it. I may say of Christ as a winnower that he is no more to be discovered by the carnal eye than is his body. The carnal eye sees in Christ no beauty that it should desire him, and the carnal mind will say of Christ the Savior, 'There is no winnowing to separate, he lets both continue as they were, and makes no separation at all.' The Pharisees were the winnowers outwardly: 'Stand by,' said they, 'I am holier than you.' There is an outer ring for publicans and harlots, and then there is an inner sanctum sanctorum for that good man who has made broad his phylactery and the border of his garments. The Pharisee claimed to be the great separator, but he was not, for when you come to look you see there was not a pin to choose between the Pharisee and the Publican after all, that spiritually they are all in one dead mass, that the man who lives in open sin and the Pharisee who lives in open self-righteousness are much of a muchness; put them together, and they are equally reprobate silver to be cast away, and no trace of spiritual distinction is discernible at all.
But now, see what is the case with Christ. As soon as he begins to preach there is a separation at once. There is a certain number who reject his word directly, who gnash their teeth, and would cast him down headlong. By and by there is a little band of men who listen to him, surround him, cling to his garments, and follow his footsteps. These are the wheat on the threshing floor. When they come what does he do? Does he say, 'I must keep all these people; I must try to adapt my teaching to the constitutions and views of all these different characters, and in this way I shall keep them all attached to my person, and we shall soon muster a strong Church'? Nothing of the kind! Christ begins with the winnowing-fan. There comes to him one night a man named Nicodemus, a very influential person, a ruler of the Jews. He had it in his mind, I think, that Christ would say to him, 'Well, my friend, you believe in me, you may do so; I will accept you as a disciple, and you need not make a public profession of it at all; you use your influence in the Sanhedrin quietly for me, and you shall be my disciple, but there shall be no public profession required of you.' Instead thereof, Christ said in effect, 'You cannot enter into my kingdom, you cannot become my servant at all, unless you are born of the Spirit, and in addition to that I must have you make a confession of it outwardly. I will have no shirking the question; you must first receive a new nature, and then you must come right out and make a confession of having that new nature, and do it openly too, or else I will not receive you, and you cannot enter into my kingdom.' After this Christ gets a company round him who are openly his disciples, and then he purposely picks out certain doctrines, very high and spiritual doctrines, which he enunciates in this way: 'Except a man eat my flesh, and drink my blood, there is no life in him.' 'Well,' say some of them, 'that is a hard saying, who can hear it?' and away they go. Cannot you see that Christ is thus using his winnowing-fan? As they are going they are just the chaff flying off, and then Christ turns round to those who remain, and says, 'Will you also go away?' As if to say, 'Go if you wish; do not adhere to me if you cannot receive my teaching; I ask of you such unhesitating faith, and such uncompromising obedience, that if these are too much for you to give, then go, pray go, do not stop.' On another occasion he says to his disciples, 'Count the cost,' and he gives them descriptions of what they will have to suffer; he puts it very strongly, and tells them that unless a man hate his father and mother, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be his disciple. An ordinary religious pretender would be quite sure to leave out such expressions as that, but Christ is using the winnowing-fan again, and as he told them what would be required of them if they followed him, there were doubtless many who were his professed followers, but whose hearts were not won to his service, and who walked no more with him, but went back to their old habits. So, you see, Christ did not say to men, 'You are not fit for me,' but he made every man his own judge, as it were. He just told them the truth. He held a looking-glass up before them, as it were, and if a man looked in it, and did not like the appearance of his own face, he just went away, and would not look any more.
I think that what Christ thus did in his life on earth he is doing now, spiritually, wherever he is fairly preached. There is a way of preaching something that looks like the Gospel, and with which almost everybody will be quite satisfied and well pleased. There is a way of doing this, but let the man who is tempted to do it beware of the judgment of the last tremendous day. There is a way of saying, 'Well, I shall soften down the doctrine of eternal punishment; I will be quiet as to that very ugly doctrine of election, and as to substitution, since it is very objectionable to the carnal mind, very little shall be said about it; if there is anything in our Church discipline which is obnoxious to people, we will soften it down, and make the way as smooth as possible; we will roll every stone into the road, and have a big roller to crush them all; we will take every stumbling-block out of the way, and in this way we will hope to build up a Church.' Yes, that is a very likely thing, but let a man take heed how he builds thereon, for every man's work must be tried as by fire, and if he has built of wood, hay, and stubble, he may make a very pretty building of it, but the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. But where the Gospel is unhesitatingly preached, and where it is attended in the Church by really earnest and holy living, it becomes a great winnowing-fan. Shall I explain the process? One Sunday there is a sermon preached on a certain doctrine. There are some people who say, 'We cannot receive that.' One will say, 'I hate it.' Another will say, 'I do not believe it.' By and by, if it is preached again, they say, 'Well, we will be gone.' This is part of the sifting process, part of the true use of the Gospel, which is to blow away some of the chaff from the wheat. At another time some earnest exhortation to Christian service is given, and some of the hearers say, 'The minister holds up too high a standard, and what is worse, both minister and people live up to too high a standard; they are always doing something or other; they always seem to be at work for Christ, and really I do not like it; I shall go.' This is another case of the application of the winnowing-fan, another instance of what is meant when it is said, 'Behold his fan is in his hand, and he shall throughly purge his floor.' The highest standard of Christian labor and of Christian excellence is used by Christ as the test, for many will go with Christ part of the way, but they will not go all the way. When a man comes to understand really that what Christ asks of him is perfect consecration to his service, and that he expects him to live wholly for him, then many men who would have been quite content to have been Christians, to contribute something, and to behave respectably and decently, and so on, are shocked at these very high demands, and say, 'No, no, we will never yield to that,' and they go, as it is most fit they should. Sometimes, again, when the Church of God is in a truly healthy and holy state, there will be some people who will say, 'I do not know how it is, but these people seem to be all eaten up by their religion; I could bear with it at proper times and seasons, but, dear me, they seem to take their pleasure in it. I like to go to so-and-so for my pleasure; I like to indulge in such and such things; these people do not talk to me about these pleasures, but if I say anything to them about them they shake their heads, and do not seem to feel any interest in them whatever; their religion eats them up, and I will not go among such people.' It is quite right and proper that you should not. This is another case of the winnowing-fan, for 'behold his fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor.' You have seen, perhaps, in the old coaching-days, how a coach used to start from a town with a very few passengers and pick a great many up on the road, until it arrived at its journey's end well loaded. But the Gospel coach goes on a very different principle, for it starts well loaded, and then it drops a passenger at the first stage of objectionable doctrine; it drops another at the next stage of exalted spiritual experience; it drops another at the stage of Scriptural precision of life, but oh! how many, both inside and outside passengers, drop down when we get to the stage of entire consecration to the Redeemer's cause! 'I cannot stand that,' says one, 'I cannot stand that!' Now, when such people go, what is to be said? Will some of you come to the preacher and say, 'Alas! sir, so-and-so has left us.' Why, my dear sir, I expected he would do it; I thought it was very likely that the expulsive power of the Gospel would drive him away. You say, 'How then is the congregation to be kept up?' Why, on the other hand, there is always an attractive power in the Gospel; we are always getting fresh masses of people upon the threshing-floor to be sifted.
If the Lord were to send us a very gracious and unusual work of the Spirit, I should not wonder if one of the results would be that some who have been very quiet and happy among us would find themselves no longer able to endure it. Well, but the blessing comes to those who endure. The blessing of being refined in that fire, and of being winnowed by that fan is so great, that all the apparent loss that comes from it is abundantly made up.
Dear brethren and sisters, if I could choose to which Church I should belong I should wish to attend upon a ministry that would try and sift me well, and if I had to choose a people with whom to associate, I should desire to be with people whose earnestness would be beyond mine, whose holiness and devotion would shame mine. Do look upon the Gospel as being a help, under God, to self-examination, and as a means whereby you may escape spiritual delusion.
I do not know why I am led to talk about this at all tonight, but perhaps it is because God means to come to us in this way, for if there be here and there some who are not what they should be, remember it is better that they should be found out, and that the winnowing-fan should drive them away, than that they should remain to grieve the Holy Spirit, and to bring dishonor upon the cause of our Lord Jesus Christ. How happily for many a year has God kept us as a Church, faithful, in the main, I hope, to his truth, and to his Son. And it is so now; we have no cause to be despondent nor dispirited. We have much reason for thankfulness, much reason to bless the Lord, and to go on our way serving him more and more zealously than ever.
I know there are a great many of you who are in trouble. Some of you are tried in one way and some in another. I thought of my flock of sheep the other day as I sat correcting some hymns in a certain inn. There was opposite the inn a lake, into which there ran a little pier or jetty. There was all at once a great deal of dust, and shouting, and baaing, and barking, and I got up to see what it was all about. There was a shepherd there with a large flock of sheep and lambs, and I did not imagine at the time what was going on, but presently some of the men with the shepherd, and especially the shepherd himself, drove the sheep on to the pier, and laid hold of them, and pitched them head first into the lake one after another. One might well have pitied the poor creatures as they were thrown in, and as they began to swim to shore they did look so pitiable; their heavy fleeces did not at all aid their swimming, and when they landed there was such a to-do. They had been in strange waters, they had been in the depths of affliction, where they had never been before. The lambs could not understand it at all, and the oldest sheep said to one another that such a thing had never been known in all their experience. They looked most miserable objects. But the shepherd did not stop; he threw them all in one after another. I thought it was rather hard lines for the sheep, but they made the water very dirty, and at last, the lambs and the sheep all began to congratulate one another upon its being all over, when down came the men and the dog, and drove them on to the pier again, and they had to pass through another great fight of affliction, and were thrown head first into the lake again. They swam ashore the second time, and I am sure their 'confusion' did look 'worse confounded.' They seemed to think that the world had come to an end; these poor sheep had been accustomed to lie down in the green pastures and by the still waters, and now they seemed as if they had got under a new dispensation; it looked as though the shepherd's love had failed them, as if he had quite forsaken them and cast them away. But it was not so at all, you know; and if the sheep had only known they would not have wanted such barking to drive them into the water. You hardly need that I should draw the parallel, but the case of these sheep is wonderfully like ours. Every now and then the Master comes with his big black dog, and drives us all out from our ordinary resting-places, and throws us one by one, head first, into the waters of affliction. We do not know what to make of it. Down we go, and as we come up again and begin to swim to shore we think that such a strange thing has happened, and such as has never been known before. We comfort ourselves with the thought that it is all over, that we have passed through the waters, and we begin to sing 'Now on a green and flowery mount,' when presently down comes the dog again, and we have to be driven in once more, and there seems to be no pity for us, but we fancy that the love of God is withdrawn from us. But, though the shepherd did pull the sheep about rather roughly and throw them in rather untenderly, I do not think he cared the less for them. In fact, I noticed that though they drove the lambs again on the jetty yet he did not throw them into the lake the second time. They had not such long fleeces, and were not so dusty and dirty as the older sheep. So, some of you young people do not get thrown in twice. You do not get so much trial and affliction as some of the older ones. You do not need it, and, moreover, you could not bear it. The Shepherd really is tender, and makes a difference, and does not treat the weak ones as he does the strong, but he permits us to be tempted according to what we are able to bear. These sheep wanted washing I am clear, for they made the water so dirty, and so it was for their good that they were thrown in; and certainly, when sanctified afflictions shall enable us to be rid of evil habits and desires we shall see much more reason to thank God for affliction and adversity than we thought we had, and we shall discover more of the Shepherd's love in it all than we could have discovered had such afflictions never come.
To come back to the old topic, you see it is only the sheep who get this washing. The afflictions which God sends to his Church as a Church do, I have no doubt, tend to drive away some who are not real members of it. They say, 'Hey-day, is this to be a Christian? No, I thank you, I will be gone!' They are like Mr Pliable, who, when he was covered with mud from head to foot, said to Christian, 'Ah! you may have the brave country all to yourself for me; let me just get out on the other side, and be rid of some of this mud, and I will e'en go another journey, but not with you, nor yet to the land where you are going!' There are many persons who are like the nautilus which may be seen in calm summer days floating in little fleets with sails outspread upon the bosom of the placid deep; but the moment there is the slightest sound of wind, long before Euroclydon comes on, when only the first faint breath of breeze is felt, the nautilus folds its sails and sinks to the bottom of the sea. Many there are of the kind, who are good Christians in fair weather, but as soon as there is a chance of a storm, down they go. Well, it is well they should, perhaps, for are not the words thus fulfilled, 'Behold his fan is in his hand, and he shall thoroughly purge his floor'?
The only question that each one of us has now to ask is, 'Am I among the wheat or among the chaff?' The one way by which you know the wheat is that it falls when the wind blows, instead of being blown away as is the chaff. Does the preaching of the Gospel make you fall lower and lower in your own esteem? Do you feel humbled under it? Does the weight of sin, or better still, the weight of gratitude, bring you low? Or does the Gospel puff you up with empty vanity? If it does, then it is a proof that you are chaff, but if you fall under it, if you are humbled by it, if above all it leads you to trust in Christ alone, then you are among the wheat, and you will live to thank God for the separating process by which you were delivered from the chaff when his fan was in his hand and he throughly purged his floor.
Chapter 22
Holy fire
An address delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Monday evening, 23 April 1866, at the meeting of the Baptist Union
I HAVE felt it to be a very important matter to have to address you tonight, especially as there are so many among you who are my comrades in Christian warfare, some of whom have seen far more of the heat of conflict than my few years have permitted me. I could scarcely choose a topic which seemed more suitable to the occasion than this one—THE NECESSITY OF A HOLY FIRE THAT WE MAY ACCOMPLISH OUR LIFE-MISSION.
That was a wondrous spectacle when Abraham and Isaac went up the side of the hill to the mountain-top, and that was a singular question which Isaac asked his father—'My father, here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?' We have not to ask that question. Our Lamb has been offered; we have been saved by the sprinkling of blood, and it is our joy to feast upon him as our daily meat. But sometimes I think there is another thing absent, not the Lamb, and not the wood, but the FIRE. Now, the presence of the fire was one of the surest indications that Abraham had truly dedicated his son to God, for had he been but halfhearted he would have left the fire for Heaven to give; he would have said, 'If God means to take my dear son he can hardly expect me to immolate him myself and to kindle his funeral pile.' The carrying of fire in his hand was a token that he meant to give up his son, and the keeping of the fire alight during the three days' journey was a token of true sincerity, which glowed within the good man's bosom. Ah! friends, it will be a sad symptom if any of us upon self-examination, should have to confess that we lack the fire.
In the things of God it seems to me that fire is absolutely necessary, but then it must be fire of a particular sort. It must be a holy fire. There is a great deal of false fire in the world. The fire of Peter the Hermit looked like true fire, but you know whence it came, and you know where it went, for in garments rolled in blood, and in heaps of the slaughtered and misguided votaries of superstition, that fire went out. But while it was an unholy fire, it was also a mighty fire, and deserves to be held up for our wonderment, and in some sense for our example. It shows us, after all, what a thing fire is. Oh! might we get some kindlings from above that would again stir the multitude with the cry of: 'God wills it!' Oh! that a true crusade might be proclaimed against the powers of darkness.
And, brethren, it must be heavenly fire. I am afraid that in many revivals there has been much earth-born fire, namely, excitement, that which every orator knows how to excite. It is possible almost by a stamp of the foot or by the glance of one's eye, to waken the soul, and make a man feel excited until he scarce knows what he is about. But God's servants should disdain so to excite men's souls. It is not the clap, nor the stamp, nor talking fine words, nor piling up sentences into a glowing climax, that has power in it. This in God's sight is weakness, and we must have done with it. There is a better fire than ever came from mere oratory, a power from on high, and not the mere sparks of man's kindling. I think we ought to be very careful in preaching the Word where we get our excitement from, lest, like Nadab and Abihu, we offer strange fire before the Lord. I have sometimes heard of brethren reading certain doubtful works with a view to kindling enthusiasm, and I have even heard of persons taking stimulating drinks for this purpose. Accursed be the habit! and let no Christian ever for a single second be guilty of it. Fire we must have, but it must not be this earth-born fire, or else God will cast a blight over our ministry and our service.
Now, I do not find that it is so very difficult to get holy and heavenly fire, but I do find that it is extremely difficult to keep it. My soul craves to get some of the fire which was always burning on the altar, and never went out; to be as earnest about sinners in the drawing-room as in the pulpit; to be as fond of winning souls when I am only with half-a-dozen as though I had the assembled throng which crowds this house. Oh! to pant for souls by day, and to long for them by night; to go to bed with the tear in the eye because they are not saved, and to wake up with some new purpose, half wrought out in one's dreams, concerning someone whose soul one would gladly bring to the feet of the Savior. We shall not see great works done by spasmodic efforts. These may be well enough where we cannot get anything better, but, oh! for a fire that burns on, and on, and on, like the sun's own flame, and grows not dim, though many a candle has gone out and many a star's light has been quenched in everlasting darkness. May ours be the 'shining light, which shines more and more unto the perfect day.'
It is sometimes said that our age wants reality, and I am sure that all true hearts want reality, and we want real fire, too. My brethren in the ministry, do you never ask yourselves when Sunday is over: 'Did I mean all that enthusiasm which I expressed about the souls of men?' I went home wretched last Sunday night. I do not think I preached worse than usual, and I know I preached the truth as it is in Jesus, but I did not feel that I had thrown my soul into it as I wanted to, and it is very, very little use to hold up the truth unless your whole soul goes with it. I do love to preach when I seem to ram myself right into the cannon, and to fire myself, as well as the truth, at the people, for at such times I have made them feel that if they did not believe, I did, and that if they perished it would not be for want of my weeping over them. I am persuaded that we all want this more and more—a deep-seated, vital, real agony and anguish for the souls of men.
And, brethren, when this once comes upon us it is wonderful what a transforming power it has. We have seen brethren upon whom it rested only for a time, and of whom we have had afterwards to stand in doubt, but they have been other men during the time it has been upon them. I said the other day of a certain brother who is far from what he should be, when I heard of something which he had said and the way in which he said it: 'Is Saul also among the prophets?' It is wonderful how in honest hearts this fire works. A man may have only one talent, he may be scarcely able to speak grammatically, and be a man whom you would not desire to hear, and yet when the fire comes upon him there is such a dignity about the man that his platitudes seem transformed into interesting novelties, and the simplicity of the Cross glows with a grandeur which is undiminished by all his roughness of speech. Only let the fire get into us, and we shall not want a change of ministry; the churches would not be saying, 'Would God we had so-and-so to minister among us!' When the fire comes upon us it makes amends for the lack of a thousand things. Have ten talents by all means if they are to be had, but the one talent well used, used by one who has thoroughly dedicated it, will bring as much in as the ten talents would have done if they had not been thoroughly turned to good account. There are some tradespeople who talk about 'a nimble ninepence and a dull half-crown,' and there are many men who have made large fortunes by small returns, because they have turned the ninepence over and over again many times, while the half-crown may have been turned only once. So I do believe it is with us. If we have never so little ability, yet when we throw ourselves into it, God gives us more profit than we should have had if with greater gifts we had done less, and done it in a less warm-hearted style.
May I venture to say, brethren, that we must get more fire as a denomination than we have ever had before? We must get it because this is the only way in which we can meet other fire. In the long run you can only kill fire by fire. There is often fanaticism connected with revivals, but the best way to meet this is for the genuine fire of the Gospel to come and burn up that which this fanaticism feeds upon. To be a doubter is thought, nowadays, to be a token of being a great thinker. I believe it is a token of being a great simpleton, and that the greatest thinkers, after all, are those men who have so thoroughly thought out a thing that they know and believe it, and do not doubt it any more, but just go on their way turning the thing to practical account. Doubting is getting to be so dreadfully impudent that we shall have to give it a good thrashing before it will give up its claim to dignity. It is as silly a thing now as ever it was. Indeed, doubting in this present age is just simply driveling; it generally talks in sentences which it does not understand itself, and it claims wisdom because other people cannot understand them. Now, brethren, we will meet this by setting our simplicities alight, and we will let men know that the soul-quickening words, 'Believe and Live' are as divine as ever they were, and that doubting is still under as terrible a doom from God as it was in ages past. 'He who believes not shall be damned,' is as true in 1866 as it was when the Savior's words proclaimed that dreadful sentence.
Without fire I do not see how a minister can keep on in his work. It is terrible work to go round and round the mill feeling as though you were a horse compelled to do it; but, oh! it is glorious work when your soul is in it. When I once mount my 'pulpit-throne' I would not change places with Napoleon, or with all the Caesars, but it is only so when the soul is on fire. Without this fire the work becomes dull, it becomes slavery, and the pulpit becomes a prison.
And we must have fire or we shall not bring in others. If we expect that in this age, when men are so busy, they will convert themselves, we shall be very greatly mistaken. If it had been expected in any age it would have been false, but to expect it now would be unreasonable indeed. We have now-a-days not only to think out truth for our people, but put it into such shapes that they can receive it at once, and we must also try to drive it home to their hearts. I remember hearing Mr Paxton Hood use this illustration in addressing our students. He said, 'According to Solomon, the Master of Assemblies drives nails; now, he does not take out a packet of tin-tacks and say, "Now, beloved posts, these ought to be driven into you, and here is a hammer, and I hope you will all make a personal application"; no, but instead of that the true Master of Assemblies takes his ten-penny nail, or whatever it may be, and begins to gimlet a hole at first and thus gets attention; then he puts his nail in rather gently; then comes one blow, and then another; he knows the posts will not drive the nails themselves; and when he has got the nail in right up to the head, he gives one or two more blows by way of clenchers, in case, after all, the thing should come out.' To do this a man must be all alive. How you can convince a man of a truth when it is red-hot. A red-hot nail goes into the wood directly, and when you get a truth thoroughly red-hot you will soon get it into the heart, but if you deliver it in a cold-hearted manner it is not likely that we shall see many souls converted.
Beloved friends, we shall never keep our churches and congregations together unless we really are alive ourselves. We shall never get our people on fire unless we show some fire ourselves. The preacher must always be the leader. If there is a duty of self-sacrifice to be done, and he wants his people to do it, he must do it first, and they will believe in him, and try to do the same. I remember one saying to me, when I began to preach at Waterbeach, that some of my deacons had taken to preaching, and he said: 'It is very dangerous; these preaching deacons are a great trouble, for sometimes they preach better than you do, and if you let them get to be more holy, more profitable, and more gifted than you are, it will be all over with you.' I said: 'Then I hope it will be very soon, but at any rate I will give them a fair race until they catch up with me.' I think, dear brethren, we should be not the hottest-headed, but the warmest-hearted in the whole congregation, and then they must feel that we are their natural leaders because our souls are all on flame.
I wish I could say something tonight that might be useful to any who are apt to grow a little cold, but I fear I cannot. It is only the warm-hearted that I am likely to stir. I think it is a sign that I am myself hot when I feel the heat of fire within burning the censer a little. I mean by that, that sometimes one gets to be perfectly wretched about God's work. In looking back upon it, I do love sometimes to feel unhappy about my people. I do like to get into such a state that I cannot bear myself, but go up and down on Saturday when I am thinking out my sermons, and feel as if I have something, but cannot possibly bring it out, and as if it had come to this, that if they did not get saved I wished I might go to Heaven and have done with the work, but I must get them to Heaven, and must see God's work going on. This is the fire burning the censer, and if we ever get God's fire to carry in our silver censer we shall soon find that it burns the censer. And supposing it should, supposing the fire should consume the censer, supposing it should consume ourselves? Oh! blessed consumption, sacred devouring, if the heavenly fire should remove us utterly away! 'The zeal of your house has eaten me up,' said David. Ah! there are some who are not likely to be eaten up that way! The Savior said: 'My meat and my drink is to do the will of him that sent me.' Some of you do not have a very hearty meal if this is your meat and your drink; some of us are poor starvelings in this respect. God send us more of this holy fire even if in the end it should become too hot for the vessel to hold, and the soul become too vehement to be held within the narrow limits of the body.
I think, in closing, that we ought to have more fire in our work because we have to do with great wonders. We are great wonders to ourselves that we should be saved by grace at all. We have to deal with men who, I believe, have nothing whatever in them upon which the Gospel can work until the Spirit of God comes. I believe we have to deal with men concerning whom the case is as hopeless as if we had to deal with devils unless the Spirit of God came. They are dead in trespasses and sins, wrapped up in the cerements, and lying in the tomb, some of them as rotten as Lazarus himself, and only miracles of grace can ever bring them to life again. We have to do with cases which are utterly desperate. We are great miracle-workers under God. This day we, too, do apostolic deeds. We open blind men's eyes; we raise the dead; we make a tomb more terrible than Hades give up its captives. We have to do with wondrous subjects in which we often feel that we are out of our depth. Strange contrasts have we! We have to handle subjects which we do not understand but yet which we comprehend, subjects which we grasp, and yet which none but the Infinite can hold in his hand! This is our power, and who need be afraid when he carries God in him! He who has God in him goes forth as a man no longer, but as one in whom the Deity incarnates itself after a fashion, not as it did in Jesus, but after a sort. We hear sometimes of brethren who say: 'Never tell dead sinners to live; what is the use of it?' My reply is: No use at all for you to do it, but you have not to do it if you have not the grace nor the faith to do it, but it is a great deal of use for me to do it, for if God sends me and he bids me say it he will own my word, and to a brother who says: 'There is no use in it, we cannot do it,' I would say, 'Then have the goodness to stand out of the way and let me do it.' 'Can we raise the dead?' Is this a question asked by a Christian? 'Can we restore the spiritually blind?' This asked by a believer in Jesus Christ! Well, it is a strange thing that it has come to this, that a ministry which God himself sends into the world, with his word to back it: 'Lo, I am with you always even to the end of the world,' should be looked upon as a mere perfunctory thing, which has a certain thing to say, a certain form of words to run over, and then to have done with it! My brethren, we claim apostolical succession in the true sense of the term. If God has given us to the work he has called us to do as apostles did, that is to say, in a spiritual sense. Christ himself said, 'You shall do greater things than these because I go to my Father.' 'All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth. Go you therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe whatever things I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' Brethren, we succeed to this apostolical power. All of us who have received our commission from on high are enabled by the preaching of the Gospel to raise the dead and to open blind eyes. Oh! let our fire burn brightly when we think of the results of our work. If one soul alone were saved what a reward it would be, but hundreds will meet some of us at the gates of Heaven; nay, thousands will welcome us there. Let us think of the happy time when we shall be with our Savior, and shall rest forever. Rather let us think of the day of victory, when he shall come, and when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ! You who are fighting in some little village to maintain the truth; I think I hear Jesus say: 'Where is my friend that worked for me in such a village? Make way, angels! make way, cherubim! This is the man whom the King delights to honor; well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things.'
Brethren, let us live in the future. Let us direct our eyes to the time of the advent. Let our souls anticipate the future instead of deploring the present. He shall come; he shall reign, and we shall see him come, and shall reign with him! Ah! Master, we bow our shoulders to the Cross again; we lift our hand in humble fealty, and dedicate ourselves afresh, each one of us to your service. Have mercy upon us in that day, and fulfill unto us your promise that 'they who sow in tears shall reap in joy.'
Chapter 23
Peculiar power in prayer
A Thursday evening sermon
'And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.'—Isaiah 65:24.
THE prophet is foretelling happy days for Israel, when the elect out of her should be visited in great mercy, and should enjoy the presence and blessing of God. He gives a very wonderful list of favors which would be enjoyed by these chosen people. There shall be for Israel as great a change as if there were new heavens and a new earth. The Lord's people shall spring into new life, created anew by him who says, 'Behold, I make all things new.'
Coupled with this new creation, there would exist peculiar happiness; for the Lord says, 'I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.' When sin departs, sorrow goes also. Happy age, when tears shall cease because all cause of weeping will be removed!
With this happiness there will be, in the millennial period, a lengthening of human life. 'The child shall die a hundred years old,' and 'there shall be no more an old man that has not filled his days.' When the grace of God has renewed both the heart and the world, the longer men live on earth the better. In many cases, a shortening of human life has been a blessing, since it has stopped the more terrible development of evil. Men grow bad enough in sin in seventy years; what would they become if they could spend seven hundred years in educating themselves in wickedness? But when they shall be all gracious, then shall the hoary head be indeed a crown of glory.
With this length of age shall come continued prosperity. 'They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; they shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble.' God will be able to bestow temporal blessings without the check which evil now lays upon his bounty. Then will come the age of gold, which is not fabled, but is prophesied in the Scriptures of truth. Then shall there be universal peace: 'The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock.' Dawn on us, blessed age! Why do you delay?
It is singular that, in the midst of these special blessings, there should occur this high privilege of remarkable power with God in prayer: 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.' It is evidently no everyday blessing. It is the peculiar gift of a time of special grace.
Upon this blessing we will meditate at this time; not dissevering it from its connection, but taking it as the Lord gives it. Our first remark shall be that, when and where this is the case, great grace must have been given to the pleaders; and, secondly, when and where this is the case, great grace is seen on God's part. In the third place, the verse itself shows us the great value which God attaches to prayer, since he will, in some cases, stand ready to reply to it with unexampled speed.
I. First, then, the giving of this promise implies GREAT GRACE WROUGHT IN THE PLEADERS. It is not fair to view these words as a promise to everybody. God does not say of all men, 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.' God's servants are called upon to practice importunity, and this would not be needful, or even proper, if God had promised to answer every prayer at once. We are to be intense in prayer, to wrestle with the angel, and to bring forth our strong reasons while we plead. God is not slow to answer; but for wise purposes he withholds the blessing until we are better prepared to receive it. Many of God's children are in such a state of mind that it would not be safe to make this promise to them. They will be heard when they pray, but they may not be answered for many a day, or even for many a year. Whenever God can say of any people, 'Before they call, I will answer,' it shows that they are well-grown in grace, and far in advance of the most of believers. We may not pluck up texts by their roots, and make them mean what they do not mean. We must understand them as God meant them to be understood. All that the words here mean is this—that to persons to whom the Lord has given a great measure of grace, he will give such wonderful power in prayer, that before they call, he will answer them.
This can be the case, first, because these people will seek right objects. If we go to God asking for what it would not be seemly in him to give, nor wholesome for us to receive, we shall be sent from the mercy-seat to mend our prayers. The people of whom the text is spoken were evidently so well instructed that they would only ask for such blessings as the Lord would instantly bestow. Their minds had become perfect reflectors of the eternal purposes of God. A correct prayer is the herald of divine action. Coming events cast their shadows before them, and God's blessing when it is coming shadows itself in prayer. A believing man in prayer is a prophet to himself. His prayer is the foretelling of what God is about to do. That is great grace which makes our desires coincide with the designs of the eternal God. Is not this the fulfillment of the promise, 'Delight yourself also in the Lord; and he shall give you the desires of your heart'? When a man has lain so long in God's bosom that the secret of the Lord has penetrated his soul, then he asks for right objects, and for these only; and then the Lord says, 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.'
Next, it is clear that when the Lord can thus unconditionally promise a prompt answer to men's prayers, they will pray in right order. It is not every prayer that can enter Heaven. There are prayers which ought not to be heard. 'You have not, because you ask amiss.' Prayers which are not fervent ask to be denied: if you have not heard yourself, you cannot expect that God should hear you. Prayers that are not humble cannot be allowed an audience with the High and Lofty One. If we are impertinent and arrogant in prayer, how can the Lord hear us? Those prayers must be of a right order, to which the Lord can promise an immediate reply.
What is the right order of praying? It is to pray in the name of Jesus, not pleading our merit, but urging the person, righteousness, and sacrifice of Jesus as the argument for a gracious reply. We must also address our prayer to the Father, bowing low before him, seeing he is in Heaven and we are upon the earth. A true prayer must begin with 'Our Father,' and keep its face towards Heaven. So, also, must prevailing prayer be dictated by the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit helps our infirmities, and teaches us what we should pray for as we ought, then our prayer expresses the desire of the Holy Spirit himself, and he 'makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.' Then may we be sure that before we call, the Lord answers; and that while we are yet speaking, he hears.
Dear friends, I fear that many of our prayers have not sped, because they were not sprinkled with the precious blood; they were not set on fire by the Holy Spirit; they were not directed to the Father. How often have our prayers been put back that the suppliant might amend his plea, as they say in courts of law; prayers which might have been heard at once had they been presented in due order.
When God hears all the prayers of men immediately, it shows that they are in a right condition. As I have already said, such a prevailing man must be in earnest, and thus one reason for delay is gone. One design of prayer towards ourselves is to make us see our need of the blessing, and feel the value of it, so that we may ask with intensity of mind. Prayer is for our sakes, and not because God needs it; and when a man is evidently conscious of his need, and able to appreciate the blessing, then there is no reason for protracting his prayer; and the answer is given at once. Humility is needful; but when a man is already humble, and lies low before God; when, like Abraham, he speaks of himself as 'dust and ashes,' then God may give him his desire without fear that he will be puffed up. He must be lowly, reverent, and full of holy tenderness, to whom the Lord can promise instantaneous answers to prayers.
Want of faith is the ruin of many a prayer; the Lord delays his answer until we plead in faith. 'According to your faith be it unto you,' is the rule of the kingdom; and if, at any time, God answers a man while he is yet speaking, it is because the man is full of faith. Prayer is intended to exercise faith, and so to strengthen it; but when faith is already strong, and in active exercise, then it becomes a fitting thing for the Lord, if so he pleases, to answer the prayer directly, by saying, 'Be it unto you even as you will.' Little faith cannot find the key-hole; but great faith puts the key into the lock and opens the door at once. To the knock of little faith the door of grace will open; but great faith carries a latch-key, and enters at once. It is plain that the man to whom our text is a personal promise, is possessed of mighty faith.
Beloved, prayer is often hindered by sin. God's own people have to come again and again to him, because he says to them, 'I cannot give you that blessing until you put away that sin.' Whenever God says, 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear,' it is evident that sin has been put away from the suppliant's heart. He has been sanctified and cleansed by the Spirit of the blessed God, and therefore he may have his way in prayer. If you think that you can have power in prayer without holiness, you are very much mistaken. If you imagine that God will bind himself to grant your requests, while you are setting up idols in your heart, you are much mistaken. Beloved, this is a great subject: I cannot enter fully into it; but I beg you to think it over. What must be the holy and happy state of that man to whom the Lord can say, 'Before he calls, I will answer him; and while he is yet speaking, I will hear'! Seek to be in that state yourself.
We may say of such favored persons, that they are living very near to God. He must be walking in the closest fellowship with God, to whom God can give so full, so speedy a reply. He must be where the heart of God influences his desires and longings; he must, in fact, be like the apostle John, when his head was pillowed on the bosom of his Lord. Some of God's own beloved are not always on good terms with the Lord Jesus. Sad for me to say it. I do not mean that they are lost; or that they ever will be; but I mean that sometimes they go day after day without speaking to the Well-beloved. What would a wife think if we could say to her, 'You live in the same house with your husband, but you do not treat him lovingly'? She would feel deeply ashamed. What an unhappy household her's would be! But what shall I say of some who profess love to Jesus, but who have no real fellowship with him? They do not give up prayer, or the reading of the Word of God; but there is little communion with God in their devotions. It must not be so. O friend, say it shall not be so! If we are the Lord's, and have been bought with his blood, we must draw near to him, we must joy in his joy, and live in his love. When it is not so, things are not going well with us, and the Lord cannot say of us, 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.'
Use the text aright, and it is seen to be the property of the man who is made fit to be trusted with such a heritage; and if you feel that you have no such character, seek after it by the Spirit of God.
II. Secondly, so large a promise shows GREAT GRACE ON GOD'S PART. How gracious that the Lord should say of any, 'Before they call, I will answer'! Great is God's grace to hear prayer at all! If he said to me, 'Go and cry to me, and I will hear you after a month of pleading,' I would bless his name. Ay, and if he said, 'Cry to me day and night, and I will hear you at the end of the year,' I would accept his offer, for it is infinitely more than I deserve. If lost souls could have the word, 'Cry to me for a thousand years, and after that I will grant your petitions,' the abode of wrath would not be so encircled with despair. But our Lord does not thus postpone his gifts. If there is a postponement, there is always a reason for it, and that reason usually lies in ourselves. We are not straitened in him. What a wonder that the Lord should hear a sinner's prayer! Whoever you are, if you cry, he will hear you. It is written, 'He who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.' No man on earth, no man in Hell, will dare to say that he sought the Lord with all his heart, and that the Lord would not be found of him. You may have to come again and again; but the Lord will hear you. What matchless mercy is this! Child of God, he will hear you. He who made the ear, shall he not hear? He who caused you to plead has not led you to plead in vain. He who gave you a thirst for his grace, intends to satisfy that thirst.
It is great grace that God should dwell so near men to be more than prepared to hear their prayer. He must love greatly, or he would not perceive their prayer afar off, before it was actually made manifest by a call upon him, or a speech to him. 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.' He so earnestly waits to be gracious, that he is beforehand with them; before their prayer has gone up to Heaven, the answer has come down from Heaven. It takes longer for a prayer to come from our heart to our mouth, than it does to go from our heart to God's ear. So quick is God in observing all the movements of the mind of his children, so intimately near is he to them in love, that before they can get the words from their tongues his blessings are in their laps.
How great is the grace of God in watching for the coming needs of his people! Before they become painful wants, they are met and supplied. Some of us know what it is never to feel the rough side of need; indeed, we never feel anything more of it than that which we infer from the divine supply. We guess how naked, and poor, and miserable we should be without Christ, when we look on the dress in which he has arrayed us, the wealth with which he has endowed us, and the joy with which he has filled our hearts. Before we reach the halting-place, at the end of the day's march, we can see that entertainment is prepared. Do not I see 'The House Beautiful' at the end of the road? The bread is made, the evening meal is prepared, the damsels stand ready to wait upon us in the banqueting-hall of the Lord of the way. Our table is prepared, our cup overflows. Blessed be the Lord!
In many matters God is prepared for prayer before the prayer is prepared for him. For instance, if you seek pardon, the means for your being forgiven were provided more than eighteen hundred years ago on the cross: there sin was put away, and a cleansing fount was opened by your Lord. Long before you call for pardon, absolution is waiting. When you seek peace with God, you may remember that Jesus is our peace, and was so from of old.
Suppose your prayer is of another kind, 'Lord, give me wisdom, light, and grace. Work in me all your will, and help me to work out that will in my life.' Before that prayer is uttered, all grace is given you in the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has never left us since he came down at Pentecost: he abides still with his people, and will abide with them forever in all fullness of gift and grace. You have in the Spirit all the grace and all the help that you will ever want between this place and glory. By his indwelling the prayer is born and fulfilled: 'Before they call, I will answer.'
I think I hear you say, 'Well, these are all high spiritual blessings.' I have often found it so with regard to temporal blessings. Providential aid is sent to us in the very nick of time; yes, while we are seeking it. I prayed, on one occasion, when in great need, for the Orphanage, and I had my answer that very day. But, look you; that money was set apart, and was on its way days before, so that before I called the Lord had answered me. I knew a minister of Christ to whom his cow was the great support of his family. It fell dead on a sudden. That day he received a letter containing more than enough to buy another cow, which sum had been sent him unsolicited from a Pastors' Aid Society in London. That money was on the road before the cow died and the cry of need had been uttered. That minister was my grandfather.
You should hear my father's story of returning from his preaching one cold night in November, and when he had some twelve miles to go his pony was taken very ill, and he feared it could go no farther. Out in a country road, in the pitiless wind, with the fear that he would lose his pony, and be unable to go on with his good work, the tears stood in the good man's eyes. Deliverance came; but the point I want to note is this, that, on the previous night, a wealthy and generous man had been kept awake by thinking of poor Mr Spurgeon, who would the next day be out in the snow with his pony. His impression was that he ought to send him money to buy a horse which could do the journey quicker. So that, while the servant of God was fearing, his Master had already made provision for him. God knows how to bring his children out of their troubles; and if we would trust him more, we should see greater things than these. The Lord foresees the prayer, and has the answer ready before the prayer is actually uttered. Glory be to his great grace!
III. We close our happy talk by noting THE GREAT VALUE THAT GOD SETS ON PRAYER. This in the text? Let us see.
It is clear that prayer is most needful. Those to whom the promise is made were the best of saints; they had been so sanctified and taught of God that it was safe for God to say, 'Before they call, I will answer,' and yet they must pray. I heard of one who was so sanctified that she had hardly any need to pray. Her corruption was all gone, so that she had not to watch and pray; and her will was so in harmony with the will of God, that she hardly believed it right to ask anything of God, but preferred to leave him to do as he pleased. What proud folly! That sanctification which makes you leave off praying, comes from the devil. The sooner you are rid of such sanctification the better. It is not divine sanctification, or it would lead you to pray with greater frequency and fervency than ever you did before. Beware of that kind of holiness which makes you think you are above prayer. When you are truly holy, you will pray to real purpose.
Notice that those were the best of times—millennial times—the time when the wolf had come to lie down with the lamb, and the lion was eating straw like the bullock. Will men pray then? Assuredly. Intercession is the holy service of saints, so long as there remains a soul unsaved, or a promise unfulfilled. We shall not, in this life, reach a period in which prayer will be out of date.
Is it not a wonder that prayer should be so acceptable? Observe that God has answered a man, and yet he lets him pray afterwards. This is clear from the expression, 'Before they call, I will answer.' The man does not need to call, does he? Oh, yes, just as much as before. If your prayer is heard before you pray, still pray, but pray in the key of praise. Though God may answer before we call, he means us to call all the more for that. He loves our prayers so much, that though he may have already answered them, he does not tell us so, but lets us pray on. He loves to hear us cry, 'My Father, give me this blessing,' although he has already given it. The voices of his children's hearts are full of music to his ears. How sweet to pray to one who so greatly loves to hear!
Mark in the text another fact, which shows the glory of prayer, for it sets the time of the blessing—'While they are yet speaking, I will hear.' The time for God to give is while we are yet speaking. Prayer is the stroke of the clock of mercy. When the church of God is aroused to pray, a revival is near. When a man arrives at the condition of a peculiarly earnest prayerfulness, it is a token for good to him. When a sinner begins to cry for mercy, it is the token that mercy is at work with him. David gives us an instance when he only said that he intended to pray for forgiveness, and it came while he was speaking. 'I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.' He did but resolve to confess, and he received absolution. The blessing is coming if we are praying; nay, it is come. Prayer itself is the receiver of the blessing. While they are praying their mouths are open, and God fills them.
Here is the wonder of it all, and with this I have done—that prayer should bring God into the field, personally and actively. Let me read the text again: 'It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.' He does not say, 'While they are praying, an angel shall come,' but 'I will answer.' He does not say, 'While they are yet speaking, they shall be heard by a seraph,' but, 'I will hear.' Surely the Lord might have delegated this to one of the angels standing at the top of the ladder which Jacob saw. He might have said, 'Gabriel, when a prayer ascends the ladder, hasten down with a blessing.' No: he himself will be engaged—'I will answer.' Prayer has an effect upon God himself; it comes into his ear, it moves his heart, it stretches out his hands. Let us not doubt this. The life of prayer is gone if we cease to believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Our prayers are much more to God than we dare hope. He evidently values them for the sake of his Only-begotten Son, in whose name they are presented.
Now, beloved, do you believe all this? If so, then go and pray mightily. Do you say that you cannot? Well, then, ask for more sanctification, more growth in grace. All spiritual blessings are grouped together. You can no more have power in prayer without the other forms of spiritual power, than a man can be strong to reap a harvest without being strong to dig or plough. May God make us strong in faith and mighty in prayer, and then it may be said that, like Luther, we can have of God whatever we desire. We shall go into our secret chamber, and come back from the mercy-seat, crying, like Luther, 'Vici! Vici! I have conquered.' When the battle is won on our knees, it will not be lost in any form. Oh, for the prayer whose answer comes with it, or even before it!
Chapter 24
The healing word
A Thursday evening discourse
'He sent his word, and healed them.'—Psalm 107:20.
THIS healing was in answer to prayer. The people were sore sick, and near unto death. They could not eat. Their appetite was so far gone that their soul abhorred all manner of meat. Then they cried unto the Lord. That is an expressive word, 'cried'; for a prayer that is natural, scarcely articulate, has few words, or none. They cried, and as soon as they cried, this was the result—'He sent his word, and healed them.' Now, it may be very encouraging to some, if they will notice what kind of prayer it was which brought so wonderful an answer.
Read the context, and you will see that it was the prayer of fools: 'Fools, because of their transgression, are afflicted;' and these fools in their affliction cried unto God. You may know little or nothing about religion; but you may cry unto God. You may have very little human learning, and, as to theology, you may be quite ignorant of it; nevertheless, if you will but cry unto God, you shall be heard and helped, just as in this case the Lord answered the cries of fools.
But further, this was the prayer of sinners. These were moral fools: for we are told, they were afflicted 'because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities'; so that these were a sinful people; transgressors, men who had gone beyond God's bounds, trespassers. They were also full of iniquity—that is, of in-equity. They had not been right towards men or towards God; but though they were in this condition, when they cried, God heard them. God loves to hear a sinner cry. If all that you can say is, 'God be merciful to me a sinner,' you will go your way justified rather than the man who boasts of his own righteousness. Beloved, it was the prayer of fools and of criminals, and yet God heard it.
Moreover, it was the prayer of dying men. 'They draw near unto the gates of death.' We would not encourage any to put off seeking God until they come to die; but, at the same time, we would not discourage a dying man from seeking God. We are all dying men. They told me of one, 'His life hangs on a thread,' and I said, 'So does mine.' 'Oh, but,' they said, 'he may not live through the day;' and I answered, 'And I may not live through the day.' Alas! we do not often think of that. We think all men mortal but ourselves. We may be upon the brink of our eternal destiny; and if we be, if in five minutes' time we shall stand before the bar of God, he will hear us now if we truly cry to him. What a mercy!
It was a prayer of men in great trouble. They were in 'distresses.' Yet they knew how to pray. 'Oh!' says one, 'I cannot pray. I am in such pain, I am so cast down. If I try to pray, something seems to choke me. I feel unworthy to come unto the mercy-seat. I cannot expect to be heard.' Well, now, these people were in that condition; and yet they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. No matter how distracted you may be, how worried, how unable to think, yet still cry unto God. When your dear child is sick of a fever, restless, heated, disturbed; you know how the little one starts in its fevered dreams, and is distressed. Do you, dear mother, say, 'I cannot listen to my child's cry, because it is in such a feverish state'? Oh, no! You are all the quicker to listen to its cry, and to run to its help. It is so with God. When you are so bad that you cannot pray, God is so good that he can still hear the sighing of your soul, the breathing of your spirit.
You are in such distress, you say, that you do not know what to do. Well then, do not do anything but cry. But you never have been accustomed to pray. Well, cry. Oh, but you cannot put words together. Cry. 'Ah!' you say, 'I hear others pray at the prayer-meeting, but I seem completely shut up.' Cry. Why, even a babe can cry. Never mind about beautiful expressions. What does God care about them? The most beautiful thing to God is a tear. To him there's music in a groan, and beauty in a tear. Let your heart speak as best it can; and remember that when the Holy Spirit prays, which is the highest conceivable form of prayer, it is 'with groanings which cannot be uttered.' Therefore, if you can only groan, you are praying a prevailing prayer, and God will hear you. 'He sent his word, and healed them,' and that was in answer to such a prayer as I have described to you.
The point about the prayer is this, it brings God on the scene. The man is ill. He sees the doctor. Prescribe, sir, what you will, the man is still ill. Here is the cook. She has brought a very dainty dish, just the kind of thing that surely will provoke his appetite. No, cook, it is of no use. His soul 'abhors all manner of meat.' He who would physic him, and she that would feed him, may both go their way. But now, when he cries, he brings another Person on the scene. He has asked God to come and see what he can do. Beloved, whenever you are in trouble, cry to the Lord. As long as you are there, and friends are there, and human help is there, you may have cause to despair; but when you take to your knees, and begin crying to God, then you have called in the Omnipotent, whose mercy endures forever, and there will soon be an end of your trouble.
That is our subject—God's coming upon the scene; God's healing soul-sickness: 'He sent his word, and healed them.'
I. I shall first call your attention to THE DIVINITY OF THIS HEALING. 'He sent his word.' See! there is nothing about man. The man is sick and ill, but when God comes in to heal him, it is, 'He sent.' What did he send? He sent 'his word.' God wrought with his own instrument. 'He sent his word, and healed them.' It is all of God from beginning to end. All true salvation is of the Lord. There is a great deal of salvation preached that is of man, and by man: but the salvation that we believe in, is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.
For the very reason that the work of salvation is wholly of the Lord, it is very simple. Man's work is always complex. The nearer a machine comes to perfection, the simpler it always becomes. God's word is perfect, and therefore it is exceedingly simple. 'He sent his word, and healed them.' That is all. Admire the simplicity of God in this. It is not, 'He put them through years of trial. He sent them pompous ceremonies. He sent them eloquent preachers. He lifted them up, and he cast them down, and did a thousand things with them.' No. 'He sent his word, and healed them.' There it is, all done, and done gloriously, simply by the sending of his word.
The divinity of the healing is further seen in that, while it is simple, it is effectual. 'He sent his word, and healed them.' It was done, done at once, done outright. God's word is never sent in vain. He says, 'My word shall not return unto me void.' 'He sent his word, and healed them.' Somebody else's word had come a great many times, and had never healed them. They had gone to this ceremony, and the other rite, and they were not healed; but 'He sent his word, and healed them.' That same word that created the light in the darkness, the word that made the heavens and the earth, comes to sick souls, and heals them. That word, and nothing more, is wanted.
Conversions are wrought in many different ways as to the circumstances; but if you could investigate each individual case, you would find it is uniformly by the word of God. One read a tract, another heard a sermon, another had a text of Scripture brought to his memory. One only thought, and as he thought he remembered something that he learned in his childhood. But, come how it may, this is the way by which we get spiritual healing: 'He sent his word, and healed them.' There is a brother sitting in his study, puzzling his head, and worrying his heart, to find out something fresh for next Sunday morning. He has taken down some German divine, and he has just struck on a new thought that is not worth a penny a bushel, but his people shall have it on Sunday morning for their good; and what will come of it, except, perhaps, admiration for the preacher? But if that brother would simply stick to God's word, and seek the promised help of the Holy Spirit, he would be led into all truth, and so preach it, that it would come true according to the text: 'He sent his word, and healed them.' Very simple, very effectual, uniformly triumphant, is the word of God to the sin-sick souls of men.
Best of all, the cure which is wrought by the word is complete. 'He sent his word, and healed them, and', says the text, 'delivered them from their destructions.' Salvation by grace is always complete. Depend upon it, if God has saved us from the guilt of sin, he will also save us from the power of sin; and before long he will save us from the tendency to sin, and will present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. 'His work is perfect.' 'He sent his word, and healed them.' See, then, the divinity of the blessing. If you are ever to be healed of soul-sickness, it must be by God himself. Poor sinner! do not be discouraged because of this; for if no one else can help you, God can and will. Therefore cry to him, cry on, until it comes true to you, 'He sent his word, and healed them.'
II. Now, secondly, consider THE MYSTERY OF THE METHOD. 'He sent his word, and healed them.' What does this mean? It means three things. He sent the Incarnate Word, and this is the essence of the cure. He sent his Inspired Word, and this is the instrument of the cure. He sent his Omnipotent Word by the Holy Spirit, and this is the power which works the cure; and these three forms of meaning must go together to make the text true to you and to me.
First of all, here is the true medicine for sick souls: 'He sent his word,' the Incarnate Word. 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' and God sent that Word into the world that he might heal those who were sick. 'With his stripes we are healed.' 'His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,' and by that substitutionary bearing of sin he took it away. Our cure comes of his wounds. There is no refuge for a sin-sick soul but in the bleeding, dying, risen, and ascended Savior. 'He sent his word, and healed them.' O beloved friends, you that preach, preach much of Christ! Preach him up, preach him always. Never tire of preaching him; for there is no healing of the wounds of a bleeding world but by the wounds of a bleeding Christ. More of Christ! More of Christ! It was well said by the congregation, when they put into the pastor's Bible these words, 'Sir, we would see Jesus.' It is what the people want and must have—Jesus. There is no other remedy, no other balm, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Then for the bringing of Christ, the Incarnate Word, to our hearts, there is the Inspired Word. While some try to diminish the inspiration of this Book, I take the volume as it stands to be my Father's mind to me. Now, when God means to heal sin-sick souls, he sends his word to their hearts. There is no part of the Bible that God has not blessed. You would be astonished if you were to hear how different parts of Scripture have been used of God in conversions. I think that the pole-star text is, 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' I have heard of hundreds brought to Christ by that, as compared with ones and twos by other texts. But yet I have known strangely out-of-the-way texts, in the historical parts of the Bible, used by God. One has wondered how and why they got there; but God has put them there to bless them to some out-of-the-way, odd kind of soul, who might not have been reached through the usual methods. Every doctrine of the Bible is a converting doctrine, if properly preached; and every fact in Christ's life is a converting fact. The apostles usually preached Jesus and the resurrection; and the resurrection was the doctrine which led to the conversion of many. There are no doctrines in the Bible that we can do without. An all-round gospel, where every doctrine stands in fair proportion, will, in the hands of God, do more good than any one-sided view of the gospel. Preach it all; for there is something in it that is meant for all sorts of characters. 'He sent his word, and healed them.' Sometimes it is a precept. Sometimes it is a promise. Sometimes it is an Old Testament example; sometimes a New Testament miracle. But this is how men get healed, by Christ: it is through the preaching of the word. Topical sermons are all very well; but the textual sermon will enable you to bring in most of the Word of God. Watch your conversions, and you will very seldom find a man converted by your comment upon God's words. The conversions are almost always by the Word of God itself. The sling does not kill anybody; it is the stone; and so you need not be so long playing with the sling without the stone. But take care that you have the stone; then use the sling, and you have something to send home to Goliath's brow. Oh, for more Scriptural preaching, expository preaching; for still it stands true, 'He sent his word, and healed them'!
Still there is a third sense. God has a word, secret and imperceptible by human ears, a word of power, and when the preacher proclaims the gospel of Christ, the Lord stands by him, and seems to say, 'Break, hearts!' and hearts are broken; 'Come unto me,' and the hearers come to him; 'Believe,' and they believe; for God speaks through the preacher with an almighty force, and then it is that men are effectually called, even the same people who might have been called in general to the world's end, and yet never would have come. What we want is the Omnipotent Spirit to work with the Infallible Word, to bring men to the Incarnate Word as their only hope and trust. See, then, the great need of prayer in our churches to bring the Holy Spirit among us. If we forget him, he will forsake us. If our ministry is without the Spirit, it will be without power. Unless we put ourselves into his hands, to be helped in thought and in utterance, and then put what we say into his hands, that he may apply it where and when he will, to conviction, and conversion, and comfort, we cannot expect a blessing; for still it stands true, 'He sent his word, and healed them.' If the Lord says, 'Be healed,' healed they shall be. If he says, 'Arise, take up your bed, and walk,' the paralytic man shall rise. If he says to the blind eye, or the deaf ear, 'Be opened,' opened it shall be; for 'where the word of a king is, there is power;' and this is the word of the King of kings, even of God himself. Thus much upon the mystery of the method.
III. Now, in the third place, I would say just a little upon THE SENDING OF THE WORD; for, notice, it is not the word alone that healed, but 'He sent his word.' I pass by other senses of the term, and will say no more about the sending of the Incarnate Word; but I will speak about the way in which the Inspired Word is sent by God to men.
Souls come into the house of prayer weary, and worn, and sad. God sends his word, first of all, by guiding his servant to select the right topic. How strangely does God guide his servants! I should not be believed if I were to tell the hundredth part of the singular things that have happened in this house. Entirely ignorant as to who might come, I have in my study thought over a passage, and come here. It has been the very passage somebody has thought of and talked about while coming. It has happened to be a passage which had been troubling the heart of some hearer, or in some way had worked itself into the circumstances of the day. It has fitted the hearer, as a glove fits the hand; and while he has heard the text preached from, he has said to himself, 'What a strange thing that I should be here! I was never in the Tabernacle before, and this man seems to have unrolled a map, and to have traced upon it all my course through life. How can it be?' Why, it is because God sends his word. All whom God has blessed to the salvation of souls must have noticed the phenomenon—strange apart from the supernatural—how God has put in a man's way just the truth that he needed; ay, and more than that, has made it to be as plainly for him as if there had been written upon it, 'This passage of Scripture is for such a one.' 'He sent his word.'
Well, then, when God sends the word, attention is arrested. Persons have come to hear the word, with no intention whatever of conversion. In fact, if anybody had said anything about conversion to them, they would have stopped away; but something in the reading, or in the hymns, has laid hold of them; and they have been obliged to listen. Were you ever at the reading of a will? Is your name John Smith? Well, when the will is being read, it is a very dreary affair, is it not?—all about the tenements and messuages and hereditaments, and so forth, and you almost go to sleep over it; but presently the lawyer comes to a passage—'I leave to my cousin, John Smith, the sum of £500.' What an interesting will it is! You are at once wide awake to everything that has to be said. So when in the discourse from the word, or in the reading of the Scriptures, we come upon something that is meant for us, we begin to listen, and the truth has a fair opportunity of telling on our heart and conscience. God sends the word in such a case as that by making it specially applicable to us.
When God sends the word, it is not content with lodging in the ear; it means to get into the heart. The man seems to say to it, 'There is no admission here;' but the word says, 'Then I will make admission. If you will not open the door to me, I will break it open: for come in I must.' Why, are there not some of us who, when we were converted to God, were dogged up hill and down dale by a text of Scripture? We were obliged to attend to it; we could not refuse. The word came with such tremendous power that it cut us to the very heart. It would find an entrance. 'He sent his word.' Oh, when God sends his word, it must get into the hearer's heart!
Together with this deep conviction, there was a strange desire begotten in our hearts. We began to feel we scarcely knew how. The word which we heard read in the pulpit we felt to be true. The word preached, too, we knew was true. It condemned us, but it was true. It drove us away from comfort, but we felt that it was true. Soon there sprang up a longing in our heart concerning the sweet things of the gospel. We believed that they were true; but oh, that we had a portion in them! Do you not remember when you used to go round the Lord's table, and wish that you might have one crumb from it? I do not mean the table of communion: I mean the table of his grace—when you used to go round the Lord's house, and say, 'Oh, that I could get in! Oh, that I had a place among his people! Oh, that I might but have their hope, and their salvation!'
All this was evidence that God was begetting faith in us. We felt our heart believing that he sent this word to us. The iceberg had got into the warm gulf-stream of everlasting love, and it began insensibly to melt. The secret was, that the word of God had come into our hearts, and made them glow with divine love.
And, oh! do you remember when, at last, you received the word in the power of it, how it took full possession of your heart, and, sitting on the throne, made all things new? Do you remember when the promises became yours, and you read them with sparkling eyes, and said, 'God speaks all this to me! He has blotted out my sins like a cloud. He has adopted me into his family. I am accepted in the Beloved. Hallelujah! hallelujah!'? 'He sent his word, and healed them.' You used to read your Bible before, did you not? You heard the same kind of truth preached, too; but it was no good to you; but when he sent his word, then it healed you. God's great bow, with which he sends the arrows of salvation, no man in earth or Heaven can bend. But when he comes whose bow it is, and he draws it with his mighty arm, then the shaft flies to its predestined mark, and God's eternal purpose is fulfilled, to the praise and glory of his grace.
IV. Now, the last point is this: THE HEALING NATURE OF THE WORD. 'He sent his word, and healed them.' There is an adaptation in what God uses to the healing of men. Is there anything in God's Word that will heal men? Well, bring hither your cases. Is there one here dying in despair? It is a dreadful thing to meet with men or women shut up in the iron cage, deserted, apparently, and left to die. But the great truth, that God was manifest in the flesh, and came and dwelt among men, forbids despair.
"Til God in human flesh I see,
My thoughts no comfort find;
The holy, just, and sacred Three,
Are terrors to my mind.
But if Immanuel's face appear,
My hope, my joy, begins;
His name forbids my slavish fear,
His grace removes my sins."
The Word was made flesh that he might save our poor flesh from going down to destruction, and there is now no room for despair.
It often happens that, when despair is gone, there lingers a large amount of unbelief. 'I do not doubt', said one, 'but that God could save me; but I cannot believe as I would.' Beloved, you never will believe, except through the word of God; for that is the ordained means for removing unbelief. Read and study it much. Especially think much of him who is the Incarnate Word. Get him before your mind's eye; and when you see him wounded, bleeding, dying on the accursed tree, you will soon find your heart believing that he suffered this for you, and you will come to him, and find rest unto your souls. If you but know this truth, and rest in it, you shall be saved. Whoever you may be, if you rest in God's word as he gives it to you in this Book, and God's Word as he gave himself to you upon the cross, you shall be healed of despair, and also of doubt.
'Oh!' says one, 'but my heart has grown sad. It is long since I have had anything like spiritual joy. I am always playing in the minor key. My notes are all of mournful things.' Well now, there is healing in the word of God for that. Spirits can be revived by promises. Hearts can be made to dance for joy by the words of this precious Book. Somewhere in it there is a remedy for every sorrow of the soul. Hunt for it. When I have this Book in my hand, I feel like a whitesmith who has a great bunch of keys, with which he can open any lock that he wishes. You have got your comfort all locked up in a drawer, and you cannot get it out. Here are the keys; and if there is not another lock in the world like yours, there is a key here made on purpose for you; for this Bible contains a marvelous collection of keys for opening closed drawers or closed doors. Someone said truly that 'it is no end of a Book.' It is an illimitable expanse of consolation; a sea without a bottom or a shore. It is a mine, full of all precious things to enrich poor souls. Do but come and try this remedy, and you shall be healed of your sadness.
'But, alas! I feel such tendencies to sin, and I am so easily overcome by temptation,' says another. Well, this Book is full of medicine for souls that have tendencies to sin. There is some very bitter physic here for you, and when God gives you one of his bitter pills, it will cure the tendency to sin. The sight of Christ on the cross is the best protection from temptation. You will loathe sin when you see what Christ suffered for you. You will loathe it when you see how much Christ loved you. A dose of the love of Christ, a few drops taken in a little of the water of repentance, will cure any tendency to sin; and this will be one of the best preservatives against temptation. The mighty love of Christ, the deep hatred of the soul to the sin that made the Christ to die, may we have these in our hearts to the full!
Now, to sum all up, let us prize Christ beyond everything. Precious Christ! Let us prize the Word of God—every line of it; and if we are in any kind of spiritual disease, unrest, or tribulation, let us come to the Word, and read it. Let us come to Christ, and trust him; and let us say to the great Father, 'O God, send your word, and heal me!'
Do I address any poor sinner who has not yet felt his need of Christ? May the word heal you of your carelessness! And if you do feel your need of Christ, and cannot lay hold of him, may the Incarnate Word come, and heal your spiritual paralysis, and may you go your way healed, to the praise of the glory of his grace! Amen.
Chapter 25
Cedars and hyssops
'And he spoke of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springs out of the wall.'—1 Kings 4:33.
THIS evening we are to have a little spiritual botany. We have our sciences in the kingdom of grace, as well as in the kingdom of nature; but what is to be said about such a text as the one before us? Why, this: Solomon was exceedingly wise, and had addicted himself, among other studies, to the study of trees and plants; and, in order to make himself a complete arborist and botanist, it was necessary that he should study, not only the mighty, storm-defying cedar on Lebanon's brow, but also the tiny hyssop springing out of the wall. Traveling in the Alps, you meet with collectors of various specimens, and though they will sell you any specimens that you please, yet they best like to sell you a complete collection; and, in order to have it complete, you must have the humblest flower that blooms as well as the fairest.
Our Solomon, of whom the Solomon who sleeps with his fathers was but a faint and feeble type, possesses a wisdom by which he knows every plant of his own right-hand planting: and whether it be some towering saint comparable to the cedar in Lebanon, our Savior knows him altogether; or one so little and despised as only to be worthy to be likened to the hyssop which springs out of the wall, still our Solomon speaks of him, and knows him altogether, and looks upon him with an eye of affectionate regard.
I. We shall begin by saying that, IN THE WORLD OF GRACE, AS IN THE NATURAL WORLD, THERE IS A GREAT VARIETY.
This it is not necessary to prove; but still it may be comforting to some if we enlarge upon it. It is a matter of fact, that, in the Christian Church, all have not attained to the same degree of grace. We have Great-Faiths, a few of them; and these are captains among us. We have also Little-Faiths, very many of them; and they bring up the rear; they do some service, but they need much assistance. We have some who flame with love until they are like Basil, who was called 'a pillar of fire'; and we have others who have so little of it, that they are rather to be compared to glow-worms than to flaming meteors. We have some who are profound in knowledge, who have come to where Paul was when he spoke of 'understanding mysteries', and they are able to teach others; they help to bind up the broken in heart, and comfort and instruct seekers. On the other hand, we have many who need to be themselves taught, little ones who must be put to the breast first, that they may drink in the unadulterated milk of the Word. You know, brethren, that such was the case in apostolic times; they were not all Pauls; they were not all of them able to take rank with the apostles. Many of them were but children and babes in grace. It has been so all down the ages; and it is so now. It is so in this church. We are very thankful that there are some who run well, and outstrip their fellows; but we know that there are also some who limp and lag behind. It always will be so. I do not know where you may be able to put yourselves tonight; you may be among the cedars; if so, be grateful. I will be grateful to God if you or I may even be permitted to rank among the hyssops. So long as we do but grow in the Lord's garden, whether we be great or small, let us be thankful; but great and small there always will be as long as the Church of God is here below.
Now, you old Christians, do not be expecting all the young converts to know as much as you do. You who have studied doctrine for forty years, do not be for knocking the heads off the youngsters, because they do not happen to know the difference between this point of theology and that. Comfort them; cheer them. If the farmer were to kill all his lambs, he would certainly have no sheep; and if we deal hardly with those who are but beginners in the kingdom of grace, we shall never have any who are well-taught and well-trained. We must expect to see little ones in the flock, and we must tenderly handle them, and kindly nurse them. The mustard-seed will yet become a tree, and grace in the blade will become the full corn in the ear. The fact, then, tells us this.
But even if we had not observed it, I think we might be pretty sure that there would be these differences in the family of grace, because our God is a God of sovereignty; and, being a Sovereign, he would be expected to display his sovereignty, not by distributing to all alike, but by giving to one man ten talents, to another five, and to another one. 'Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?' is a question which God asks, and to which he would have us give a humble answer. He has a right to give much or to give little, to give all or to give none, as it seems to him good. If he chooses, then, to make one of his creatures an eagle and another a moth, if he makes one of his creatures a flying serpent and another a creeping worm, who shall stay his hand, or ask him why he does it? He shall do as he wills. 'Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?' Especially in connection with God's deeds of mercy, if he makes us all Christians, shall we wonder if some of us are like David in the ranks, while others are suffered to tarry at home, and divide the spoil? Sovereignty, then, would make us suppose that there would be cedars, and that there would be hyssops.
Besides that, the analogy of the outward world of nature would lead us to expect this. Variety is one of Heaven's laws. Pope said that—
'Order is Heaven's first law.'
I am not so sure of that; but if it be, variety is one that is either second or third in place, for God creates no two things precisely alike. It is for man, with his coarse are, to run a thousand things in the same mold; but there are no two leaves upon a tree in all the forests of the West that are precisely alike, and there never were two blades of grass but what some distinctions might be detected in them, if the eye did but carefully observe them. God is a God of variety. We expect, then, to see in the world cedars and hyssops; and we must expect to see in the Church the distinguished and the unknown, the educated and the ignorant, the strong and the weak. We cannot too often, I think, speak out against those who try to clip God's people into uniformity. There is an attempt constantly made to get up a model of experience, like the gardeners do with their shears, clipping the trees all round to make them symmetrical circles. God's trees do not grow so; they grow anyhow. The trees of the wood twist their boughs and gnarl their roots just according to their own sweet wills, or rather, according to the will of God; and so the experiences of believers always differ if they are genuine. You can make counterfeit experiences which shall be all alike, and all of which shall say 'Shibboleth' with the same sound of the 'sh'; but when God comes to deal with us, there will be a unity, but not a uniformity. There will be a similarity, but we shall not be the same. We shall be distinguished in being living plants, because no one plant is precisely like the other. We gather, then, from observation, from the laws of sovereignty, and from the law of variety, that we must expect to have in the Church of God the great and the small.
And, beloved, there is another reason yet, namely, the law of necessity. The world requires the little as well as the great. Man has been very slow to learn this lesson in the outward world; but he must learn it. The destruction of the small birds by the farmers of France proved the means of covering the country with caterpillars and insects innumerable, which destroyed the harvests. At last, people opened their eyes, and said, 'Is the sparrow, after all, of so much consequence; and whereas five are sold for two farthings, is it a fact that we cannot strike so humble a bird out of the list of nature's servants without being made to suffer for it?' It is a fact that the smallest thing in the economy of nature is as necessary as the greatest; just as, in some machine, the smallest wheel, with its finest cog, is as necessary to the working of the machine as the largest fly-wheel or the widest band. So it is in the Church of God. The least beautiful member of the body is still necessary. In the Church of Christ, the eye cannot say to the foot, 'I have no need of you,' nor can the foot say to the eye, 'I have no need of you.' Brethren, I have heard sometimes a disgusting sneer against some congregations because there were so many poor people in them. May God always send us a plentiful mixture of the poor, ay, and of the very poorest, too! It is a great mercy to have a number of friends who, by their substance, can maintain the cause of God in its working, and it is a mercy, for which we ought to be grateful, when such persons are led to consecrate their substance to God; yet if I had my choice today, or any day, between two congregations, one all rich and the other all poor, I know which I should choose, and it would certainly be the latter. But when we can have both together, we must be most thankful. While the rich are the arm of the church, and can do work which could not be done without them, yet very often the poorest of the poor are the heart of the church, and by their earnest praying, by their holy living, and by their patient suffering, keep the church before the Lord, and bring down an abundance of blessings upon her. Ah, friends! we cannot do without the little ones; we cannot do without the obscure ones. The humblest member of the church, if he be a living Christian, if he were lost to us, would perhaps be as great a loss as some more conspicuous person, whose name covers a greater space, but who does not bring a greater blessing from God. I thank God for you who are horny-handed workers, but who work for Christ, too. I thank God for you little ones, you boys and girls, whom God has converted and brought in. We must have you all, for in some mysterious way we believe that you are all necessary in the economy of the Church of God. We cannot do without the hyssop any more than we can do without the cedar. If the cedar fell, we should cry out, 'Howl, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen'; but we ought also to sorrow if even the hyssop should be cut off. We want all of you. Oh, may we all be kept together in love and unity until we are transplanted, cedars and hyssops together, to the garden of the Lord upon the hill-tops of glory!
I cannot leave this point without saying that I do think there is one reason why some are so little in the church, which it would be unfair not to mention, namely, because they are so slothful. There are some Christians who might have more faith, and ought to have it; who might have more love, and should have it; and who must not lay their spiritual poverty at the door of divine sovereignty, but must confess that they neglect prayer, that they do not search the Scriptures, that they do not labor to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If they be poor, it is because they are improvident; if they are not rich in grace, it is because they are spiritual spendthrifts, and do not redeem the time, nor seek to grow rich in the things of God. Oh, that such hyssops might grow into cedars! Why should it not be? If I were a soldier, and if the battle were for my country, I should like to do all that a soldier could do. I might not covet the front rank because of its honor; if I did, I should be wrong; but I ought to covet it for the sake of the service I might render there. So with you. 'Covet earnestly the best gifts.' Seek to be foremost in the host of the Lord, not wanting the highest places to satisfy pride or ambition, nor desiring any earthly honor or eminence; but wishing for usefulness, desiring eminence in service that you may bring forth much fruit, and that so the world may know that you are Christ's disciples.
II. Our second point is that, though these cedars and hyssops do exist, yet JESUS KNOWS THEM ALL.
The cedar says, 'Here am I, on Lebanon's stormy heights; the frosts of winter nip me, and the howling winds go among my branches; I stand alone. I wish I were a hyssop; I should then be so quiet and so comfortable; blooming in obscurity upon the wall, I should be sheltered from many a blast; but, alas! I am called into a prominence which is not a happy one, I am exposed thereby to troubles which others escape.' So think some of the ministers of God who are here tonight, and some of you church-officers almost wish that you were hyssops, that you were not called to the work which you have to do. I know I sometimes think that, if I could sit and hear a sermon, if I could get my Sundays to myself, I would not mind what I did the other six days of the week; if I could but come to the house of God with nothing to think of but worship, and with none of the cares of a flock, and especially of so large a flock as this. One might well wish to be anything sooner than stand in the high places of the Church of God. There are many comforts in such places unknown to any but those who stand there; but there are many trials, too, that are peculiar to such a position.
Now, as God knows all about the cedars, he also knows all about the hyssops. You who feel that you are little in Israel, and less than the least of all saints, is it not sweet to you to think that your Father knows you? No one calls to see you; but Christ shall be your companion. You were ill a month ago, and nobody called upon you, and you thought yourselves neglected; but then your Father made your bed in your sickness. Sometimes you go into your poor little room when you get home from the Tabernacle, and you think that if you were to die there, nobody would miss you; but, remember, you would not die alone; you would have to say, 'I am alone, and yet I am not alone, because my Father is with me.' When one of old was delivering an oration, he suddenly discovered that he had only one hearer listening to him, and he was about to stop, when he observed that the one listener was Plato, and he considered that Plato was an audience in himself. Now, you have but one with you, but then that one is the Lord Jesus, and surely that should be sufficient for you. If you have never told anybody else your grief, never poured into another person's ear the story of your sorrows, let this be your consolation, that your grief and your sorrow are known beforehand to him who sees the little as well as the great. Understand you not, you doubting ones, that that same God who spies the stars, as they roll in their orbits, marks also the grain of dust as it flies in the March wind? It is true that he guides the billow as it dashes aloft to Heaven; but he guides also every particle of spray as it springs from its foaming crest. It is true that he wings the thunderbolt, but he wings also the tiniest humming-bee that flies from bough to bough. He guides the mighty beasts of prey as they stalk through the forest, but the smallest gnat that dances in the summer's beam is guided just as truly by him. And so he knows you, catches your tears in his bottle, writes your cares in his book: he will not let a hair of your head be touched, without his permission, for the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore, be of good cheer, for Jesus Christ knows the hyssop on the wall as well as he knows the cedar in Lebanon.
III. Our third point is that, Jesus not only knows all, but HE CARES FOR ALL.
He has a heart which beats with as much sympathy towards the little as towards the great, and for this reason, that he planted all the plants that are in his garden. If you have but little faith, he gave you that as certainly as he gave Whitefield and Luther their great faith. The spiritual life is the same in its essence, and the same in its source, however much it may differ in degree. If you be regenerate, though you be but a babe in grace, yet Christ put the new life into you; the Holy Spirit kindled it as surely as ever he put the life into the mightiest hero who leads the van of the army of the Lord. Because he planted you, he cares for you. When Cyrus showed some ambassadors over his garden, he said to them, 'You cannot possibly have such an interest in this garden as I have, for I planted every tree and every flower in it.' So is it with the garden of the Church. Christ takes such a special interest in it because he planted it.
Moreover, besides planting them all, he bought them all. My dear brother, I know that you are not much known in the church, but you cost Christ as much to buy you, and to save you, as did the leaders in our Israel. He could not buy you except with his own precious blood, and he bought the others at the same price. The Lord said to the Jew, 'The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel,' so that there was the same redemption money for each. The most popular and the most obscure, the most talented and the most hidden of the saints of God, are equally purchased with the precious blood of Christ, and therefore he cares for each alike.
Besides that, Jesus supplies the wants of all. Where must the great pitcher go to be filled but to the well? The little cup must go to the same place. When the rain falls, it moistens the roots of the cedars, and they drink in their deep draughts; but it falls also upon the cup of the harebell, and gives it its tiny sip. The same water, the same dew, the same sunshine, and the same earth, must supply all the plants. Be thankful then, humble Christian, that God loves you as he loves the rest, for he proves it by supplying you with the self-same food. There are no two tables in my Master's hall; there are not some who sit below the salt, and some who sit nearer to his hand. They are all his children, and they all feast on the same bread that comes down from Heaven, and drink of the same water which flows from the rock, Christ Jesus. They are cared for and supplied by equal love.
There is this, too, about it, that the loss of the meanest Christian would be as much a loss to Christ as the loss of the greatest. It might not make so much noise on earth, but it would make as much noise in eternity. 'Aha! Aha!' the devil would say, if Christ lost even so much as a lamb out of his flock, 'You Shepherd, you have not kept them all; I have stolen one at least.' If the tiniest jewel in the Redeemer's crown could be taken away by the black prince of darkness, the crown would not be complete; it would be as certainly an incomplete crown as if the brightest Ko-i-noor had been plucked from it. If an apostle should fall from grace, and perish, it would not make more scorn than if the humblest servant-maid in the Church of God should fall away and perish. It seems to me as if it would be worse for the weak ones to be lost than the strong ones, for it would be said, 'Ah! He kept the strong ones, but he could not keep the weak,' and then that would stain his honor all the more, and bring a greater discredit upon his love if he suffered the weak ones to be cast away. Oh! you hyssop, rejoice that Jesus will not let you be lost.
I must notice, before I leave this point, that Jesus speaks of and for the very least of his people. It is said that Solomon spoke about the hyssop on the wall. What had he to say about that plant? I do not know; but he must have said something or other. Perhaps you say, 'What can Christ have to say of me?' Oh! He will find something or other to say even of you. When he looks into you, he sees something which you cannot see. You take up a common flower, and say, 'Well, this a very ordinary kind of thing!' Yes, but look at it through the microscope, and see what singular networks there are, and what wonderful lines of beauty. Then you say of it, 'Well, I have seen nothing more lovely than this common field flower, after all, when looked at through the glass.' Jesus Christ has such a glass as that in his eye; he can see in you what you cannot see in yourselves. Do you know what it is he sees? I think it is like this: a great artist, when he gets a block of marble, finds it a great dead lump; but he says, 'I can see a statue in this lump of marble; I will chip away all the extraneous marble there is round it, and then the statue will stand out.' Now, Jesus Christ sees himself in you, and he works away until he has taken from you all the superfluities of naughtiness, and has brought himself out, and he becomes formed in you the hope of glory. I know the ordinary eye cannot see it, but his eye can. It is strange what beauty mothers see in their own children. What mother ever had a child that was not lovely? Jesus Christ sees a beauty in us for the very same reason, because we are his own. He has loved us from before the foundation of the world, and he has begotten us again unto a lively hope by his resurrection from the dead, and therefore he sees a beauty in us, which no eye but his would be able to discern.
He speaks of us, then, and blessed be his name, I know that he speaks for us! He puts in a good word for us at the throne of grace. He has God's ear, and he speaks into it respecting his people. Some young men, who want to get on in the world think, 'Oh, if I could but get somebody, who has the ear of the Prime Minister, to be my friend, how pleased I should be!' You had better get that Friend who has the ear of God; you will get on far better than by trying the back-stairs of government influence. Young man, 'Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.' Go to the King himself. He will speak for you, and a blessing shall come to you, even to you.
I have been trying to speak to doubting and mournful souls, to the weak in the faith, and this has been the tenor of my words; I want them to feel that they have an interest in Christ's intercession, an interest in his blood, an interest in his heart, and that they have the same interest in it that the greatest saints have. You know, when a father dies, and leaves his property among his children, there is one of them, perhaps, who is five-and-twenty, and he has his portion; but there is one in swaddling-clothes, and that one has its portion, too. It does not matter how young the child is, it has its share. Some of you, I perceive, have some little ones, for I have heard their sweet voices tonight; well, they are as much your children as those who have grown up, are they not? Perhaps you even more clearly perceive your paternity in their case than you do in those who have left you. So is it with the Lord's little ones, who have but little faith, you are as much his children as those who can move the mountains, and thresh them until they become like chaff. You are as truly heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, and shall be as surely a part of his heritage as the brightest of all the saints in the family of God.
IV. This brings me to close with the last thought, namely, that JESUS CAN USE US ALL.
It is believed that the knowledge which Solomon had of plants was principally a knowledge of their medicinal properties. He could find a remedy in the cedar, and he could also detect a healing juice in the hyssop, which might have been the house-leek, of healing fame among old country-folks, or else the wallflower. The skillful botanist knows that there are subtle virtues and powerful juices in all sorts of plants. The Lord Jesus knows that there are uses in all his people. A dear brother in the Lord called to see me, a little while ago, wanting to know what he could do in the cause of God. The dear man, through many infirmities, was not able to do much. I was nonplused, and was obliged to tell him I had no doubt that the Lord Jesus had something for him to do; but I did not know what it was; and he must go and find out by asking the Master. But, do you know? I thought he had already done good by coming to me. When that aged man, so deaf that he could scarcely hear a sound, yet asked what he could do for Christ with such earnestness as though he were but a young beginner in the family of God, he had done good even by putting this story in my mouth. I believe that, as soon as ever a young person, or a boy or a girl, joins the church, there is something for each one to do. There is some use in that hyssop. You young people should begin to serve God early. You have joined the church; say not that you will be a Sunday-school teacher by-and-by; but try to do something for God now. You are not likely to be a useful old man if you are not a useful young man. As a rule, a serviceable matron is first a serviceable maiden. If you do not serve God earnestly while yet your youthful blood leaps in your veins, you are not likely to serve him very vigorously when the stream flows heavily along. Young Christians, be young Timothys and young Phoebes, and lay out your souls for God while yet the bloom of youth is upon you! I believe there is something to be done by the very poorest; and in such a city as this I need hardly point out what can be done. Some of you Christians are called to live in very low neighborhoods, and very poor localities. Why, you ought to be the missionaries of the district! You should be; you are, indeed, God's clergy. Wherever you go, you should be the clergy of the district, taking with you the Word of God. And as for you tradesmen and masters, why, there is not one among you who ought to make the excuse that you have too much business to allow you to serve the Lord! I will not believe that you were bought with blood to be of no service to Christ. I cannot imagine that you have been made again by the Holy Spirit, and yet that you are incapable of honoring my Lord. Oh, what good might not some of you do! Some time ago, a member of this church left London to go to a little country town to take a drapery business. He was no sooner there than he began to look out for the means of grace, and finding a church pretty well asleep, he said, 'This won't do.' A little shed was taken, and a brother was found to preach. The people gathered together, a larger place was taken, a student was sent down, and last week, when I was preaching in that town, I found a crowded congregation, a church well able to support its minister, and many being added to the church; and all this blessing was brought about mainly through the exertions of that one brother who had resolved that, wherever business might take him, he would make it his business to serve his God there. There are always some of you who are emigrating to Canada, to the United States, and to Australia. Wherever you go, you should take the lamp of truth with you. I thank God many of you have done it. I would have you all like Samson's foxes, with fire-brands setting all the world on a blaze wherever you go. I do not think a Christian man ought to be for a month, nay, not for a week, in a place without spreading abroad the savor of Christ's name. We do not live here, dear brethren, I hope, merely to make money, and to do business. We are put here by the Lord Jesus Christ as stewards, as laborers in his vineyard, with this large commission, 'Occupy until I come.' If you have ten talents, or if you have only one talent, go to our great Solomon, and ask him what is the use of you. Go to Christ, and say, 'Lord, I am not a cedar, I wish I were; if I could help to build your temple, I would not mind being cut in pieces to help to make a beam in your house; but if I am not a cedar, I hope I am a hyssop; I grow upon the wall, the foundation of which is your own merit; I do send my roots into your own self, Lord, do use me!' I do beg you, who are his people, not to go to sleep tonight until you have found out what is the use he has for you. Do not give slumber to your eyelids until you have discovered what you were made for. Remember the answer to that question in the catechism, 'What is the chief end of man?' 'Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.' May we all, by God's great grace, attain to this!
Alas! there are some here who are neither hyssops nor cedars. I am afraid there are some here who are like the green bay tree, which spreads itself on the right hand and on the left, but which is to be cut down at the last. Oh, you who are not believing in Christ, and whose hearts are not right with God, who do not love him, remember that there will be an axe found that will cut you down; and where the tree falls, there it must lie! Do you not know the plan of salvation? It is wrapped up in this one sentence, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.' To believe is to trust, to trust in what Jesus Christ has done, and especially to trust in his atoning sacrifice. Throw your own merits away, and your own prayers, and your own tears, too. Do not trust them; but come and trust him; and if you trust him, you have the roots of a living faith, which shall bring forth fruit unto holiness, and the end shall be everlasting life.
God grant that it may be so, and that both cedars and hyssops, protected by the divine care, may be kept in the garden of the Lord until it is his will to transplant them into the Paradise above; and unto him shall be all glory forever and ever! Amen.
Chapter 26
Unpublished notes of Charles Spurgeon's sermons
Delivered at Elgin Place Church, Glasgow, in November, 1864.
'Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.'—John 20:20.
I. FIRST, dear friends, notice that THE DISCIPLES SAW THE LORD AS DIVINE. 'The doors were shut where the disciples were assembled.' 'Then came Jesus and stood in the midst.' How did he enter? Only as God. Suspending the laws of matter, he passed into the room, for there was no aperture through which he might enter. The disciples saw him standing 'in the midst'—manifestly revealed as God. We all believe in Jesus as God; that is a doctrine concerning which we have no hesitancy or doubt. Have we all seen him as God? Have we seen the Christ as Jehovah-Jesus, as Jehovah-tsidkenu, 'The Lord our righteousness'? We should soon get rid of our doubts and fears if we saw Jesus thus; if we were leaning on the strong arm of the omnipotent Savior. The eternal, invisible God is revealed in the Lord Jesus. Our doubts and fears come because we think too little of Jesus Christ, and do not worship him as God. If we estimated him at his true value, we should have no troubles, but should rejoice in casting all our care on him who cares for us. On the eve of a great battle, a certain commander went round the camp to the tents of his soldiers. Stopping outside one tent, he listened to the conversation, and heard the soldiers talking together somewhat in this strain—'We are in great difficulties now. Our commander has brought us into a place of peril. There are so many thousands of the enemy's cavalry, so many regiments of the line, such a force of infantry; they will certainly overcome our small forces.' The commander, drawing aside the tent curtains, said, 'How many do you count me for?' It was as though he had said, 'I have fought so many battles, I have won so many victories, surely I can overcome these foes.' Our Lord and Master, the Captain of our salvation, might well say to us when we are doubting and desponding, 'How many do you count me for?' Estimate your Lord at his proper value, and you will see that more are they that are for us than all that can be against us. 'If God be for us, who can be against us?' When, by faith, you have once had a true view of Christ as God, you will see every mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about his people.
II. Next, THE DISCIPLES SAW THE LORD AS THE GREAT PEACE-BESTOWER. Jesus said unto them, 'Peace be unto you.'
I trust that wondrous sight is no strange vision to your eyes and mine. Do you remember the time when Jesus first spoke 'peace' to your soul? I may be talking riddles to some here; I perceive that they are simplicities to many of you. Do you remember that sacred spot where Jesus first met with you? Some among us can point to the hallowed place, where, when we were burdened with sin, and full of woes, we saw One hanging on a tree, who turned his dying eyes on us, and said, 'I bore your sins, and carried your iniquities,' and then our souls had perfect peace. Dark and terrible was the night when all our sins were let loose against us, when, like the sea in a storm, we had no sort of quiet; then Jesus came, and walked upon the troubled waters, and said to our sins, 'Peace, be still,' and suddenly there was a great calm, so deep, so profound, that it seemed an earnest of the rest that remains for the people of God.
Since that time, we have had many troubles; again and again have we been cast into the depths, and we have done business in the great waters; but whenever Christ has come, we have had peace. No matter even if we have had enemies in our own household, and stern conflicts in our own nature, and little else to rest on than God, still we have had peace, perfect peace. When all earthly props have been dashed from under us, we have found the name of Jesus sufficient to give us sweetest solace. His presence is enough to give us sunlight, even in the darkest night. Jesus is enough to fill us to the brim, even when every earthly cistern has been emptied and broken. O believer, see to it that you never seek peace anywhere but in your Lord! May it be your happy privilege to see the Lord, and to hear him say, 'Peace be unto you!' Christian, the tear is in your eye, your heart is palpitating, you have had a great loss; you are expecting a greater one; or a sharp trial has fallen upon you unexpectedly. Brother, speed you away to the chamber of communion; tarry there a little season with your door shut. Presently you shall come forth, your face wreathed with smiles, your step elastic, your heart glad, and you shall say, 'Now I am full of peace, for I have seen the Lord. I have told him in prayer all my griefs and sorrows. I have meditated on his way, so much rougher and darker than mine; and now I feel that, if he could thus suffer for me, I must not, I dare not repine at my own lot. Here and now I am filled with gladness, for I have seen the Lord.'
III. Thirdly, THE DISCIPLES SAW THE LORD SENDING THEM OUT TO WORK. Jesus said to them, 'As my Father has sent me, even so send I you.'
I fear there are very many of our church-members who have not yet seen the Lord thus, as the great Sender-out of his people into the world to do good. Did it ever startle you to think what a little, comparatively, the Church of God is doing for Christ in these days? Twelve poor men, within the first century, had traversed every land, and proclaimed the gospel in every tongue, until it seemed as if the Christians would soon out-number the heathen population of the known world. We have, I was about to say, millions of church-members, and I suppose we have not less than millions all the world over; yet, what are we doing for Christ? Hardly anything, in comparison with what the early Christians did. We keep up our chapels and our churches;—and there are some who are hard-pressed even to do that;—but how few we have who feel the force of the divine commission within them, how few there are who are fully consecrated to Christ, wholly dedicated to his service, sent into the world by Christ, even as Christ was sent into the world by his Father! In some of our Baptist churches—and I expect things are about as bad in other denominations—there are people who, when they take a seat, attend once, or occasionally twice, on the Lord's-day, listen listlessly to the sermon, and come out now and again to a week-evening service, think they have done all that is required of them. Ask them why they do not come to the prayer meeting, and they 'with one consent' begin to make excuse. Ask them to give to the missionary society, and they say they have 'so many calls' upon them, though I half suspect that they never listen to the said 'calls.' They do not teach in the Sunday-school, nor visit the sick, nor distribute tracts. 'Not they, indeed!' They think themselves to be too respectable ever to do anything for Christ! The idea of working for Christ has never come into their minds; their chief business is to find fault with other people who do work, and to criticize them. The Lord deliver us from the do-nothing, grumbling, complaining church-members!
We want men who, having seen the Lord, henceforth feel that they have nothing to care about but Christ. They know that he has delivered them from death, from sin, from guilt, from wrath; that they now have joy, and peace, and everlasting life, which shall be crowned with eternal glory, and therefore they must spend and be spent for their Savior. Such men are a power in the world, and in the Church. The missionary, with his life in his hand, who lands on the barbarian shore, to teach the savage how to pray, is one who, surely, must have seen the Lord. The humble woman, who, leaving all the quiet and retirement of the fireside, goes out to labor among the poor and worthless, that she may lift them from degradation, and teach them to know and love Jesus, is surely a woman who has seen the Lord. The merchant, who has gone out to make wealth, but only that his wealth should be Christ's, who has traded for Jesus, that is a man who must certainly have seen the Lord.
In all our churches we want members who will work for Jesus Christ, members like that aged saint, who was accustomed to say that he did eat and drink and sleep eternal life. He had become so thoroughly consecrated to the Lord, that he trusted he did nothing except for Jesus. God help us thus to devote ourselves, all that we have, all that we are, and all that we hope to be, to Christ Jesus, for time and for eternity!
Some of our church-members remind us very forcibly of that passage in Job, where it is written, 'The oxen were plowing, and the donkeys feeding beside them.' There is no small number belonging to that latter class in our churches at the present time, those who are too well content to be 'feeding' everlastingly, but as for doing any of the work of the church, they will sit still, leaving God to do it, or others to do it, but they do not so much as touch any work themselves. What will these church-members do at the coming of the Son of man? When Christ comes to gather together his people, when the tree shall be known by its fruit, when he shall come 'whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire,' what shall these unprofitable servants do in that day? What shall they do who have hidden their talent in the earth, and kept back their Lord's money? What shall these do, whose crown, if they ever have one, shall be without a star? What shall these do, who have never been spiritual progenitors in Israel, but barren and unfruitful; these selfish ones, icebound and frost-bound in the nakedness of their own little spirits? Oh, may the Lord have mercy upon all such now! May they from this time see the Lord as sending them out to work, even as Christ himself was sent out by his Father!
IV. Once more, THE DISCIPLES SAW THE LORD INVESTING THEM WITH POWER AND ABILITY TO WORK. 'He breathed on them, and says unto them, Receive you the Holy Spirit.'
Christ never gives commands without also giving strength for obedience to his commands. To know our mission, and not have the power to fulfill it, would be misery indeed. We must, therefore, if we are to be useful in Christ's service, see the Lord bestowing upon us all the power we need for the work. Dear friends, I know not how many of you have in this sense seen the Lord. When a man has once experienced the influence of the Holy Spirit of God, he is lifted up above the common race of mankind, the level of ordinary humanity. Other men deliberate, and are cautious or afraid; but the Spirit-possessed man dashes forward. When others labor, there is not the effect there is in his work. True Christians are not like the men mentioned in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, who steered the ships, and held the ropes, but were dead men still. The man with the Holy Spirit within him is all-alive, and therefore is mighty. Heaven yields to him; man is plastic in his hands, like clay in the hands of the potter; and the earth trembles before him, for the man is mighty when God fills him with his Spirit.
V. 'Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.' Now let us enquire—HOW AND WHERE CAN WE SEE THE LORD?
And I would reply—Not in dreams and visions. Some people talk about what they see when they are asleep; I would rather by half know what they do when they are awake. I do not think it matters much what our disordered brains dream about when we sleep; we have something more important to think of than those flimsy flights of fancy, those vagaries of restless imaginations.
First, we can see the Lord in sacred Scripture. Augustine said truly:'The Scriptures are the swaddling-bands of the child Christ Jesus.' Here, as we unwrap the Scriptures, we behold the Lord. 'He feeds among the lilies,' and these Books of the Bible are 'beds of lilies' and of 'sweet spices' where he reposes. Often have we seen the Lord in the ancient types, in the Psalms, in the Prophets, in the Evangelists, in the Epistles. The Holy Scriptures are like a looking-glass. If we look up to Heaven, we cannot see the Lord yonder; but if we cast our eyes down upon this glass, then he looks down from Heaven in the glass, and, as in a glass darkly, we see him mirrored, and we are content to wait for the time to come, when we shall see him, face to face, in his own eternal kingdom.
Next, we see the Lord in the Word preached. If we do not see the Lord in the preaching, the preaching is worthless. A sermon without Christ! If you hear one such, it is your misfortune; if you hear another from the same preacher, it is your sin! Never give a minister an opportunity to preach two sermons to you without Jesus Christ in them. Such a preacher is too clever for a true child of God. If a baker makes bread without flour, do not eat his bread, unless you wish to be poisoned. If a man is clever enough to preach Christless sermons, do not injure yourself by listening to him. Listen to an illiterate, blundering, uncouth minister, who can only throw out his sentences about Jesus in rough order, rather than to a polished, intellectual, learned preacher, who is so clever and such an ornate orator that he can do without our blessed Lord and Master. A minister should ever be 'as Moses' who 'lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,' that the serpent-bitten and dying might look and live.
Again, we see the Lord in Scriptural baptism; not in baby sprinkling, but when the believer is 'buried with him by baptism into death,' and 'planted together in the likeness of his death' and 'of his resurrection.' The believer, when he is baptized, is not regenerated by baptism, not 'made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven,' as infants are erroneously said to be in the Church of England Prayer Book Catechism. The believer knows he has no right to be baptized until he is regenerated, until he is saved; but, being saved, he sees in his baptism an appropriate emblem of his union with his Lord in his death, his burial, and his resurrection. He has died with Christ, he has been buried with Christ, he is risen again with Christ, and thus in his baptism he is glad, because he has seen the Lord.
So, in the Lord's supper, how glad we are when we see the Lord himself! What views we have there of Jesus! There we have 'the communion of the blood of Christ,' and 'the communion of the body of Christ.' Also, in private, solitary communings, we have seen the Lord. There are times when Jesus is specially near to us in our solitude. Oh, that we could have more of such seasons!
In varied scenes we may see the Lord. Abraham saw the Lord as a wayfaring man. Moses saw the Lord in the bush that burned with fire, and was not consumed. Jacob saw the Lord, and the Lord wrestled with him at Jabbok. Joshua saw the Lord as captain of the host. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego saw the Lord in the furnace of fire. Daniel saw the Lord in the den of lions. We often see the Lord in the chamber of affliction, in the home of bereavement, and in the habitation of poverty. We see the Lord, who 'was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,' we 'therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.'
We see the Lord from different points of view, first one way and then the other. Perhaps, in the darkest hour we shall ever have, we shall see the Lord the best. In the worst affliction that shall ever come sweeping over our heads, like big waves threatening to destroy us forever, it may be that will be the very time when we shall see the Lord more clearly than we have ever before beheld him, or than we ever shall behold him, until 'we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.' Happy is that trial, that affliction, which enables us to say the better, 'We have seen the Lord.'
VI. Lastly, IF WE HAVE SEEN THE LORD, WHAT THEN? Let us go at once, and say unto Thomas, 'We have seen the Lord.' Do not begin to make excuses for not telling Thomas. Do not say, 'I love retirement; I could not speak, I am so bashful.' No doubt modesty is a great virtue; but I am not quite certain that it is the greatest virtue a soldier can exhibit. Remember, that by your profession you are a soldier of Christ; and we do not usually think that soldiers ought to be so modest as to be ashamed to show their faces in the day of battle. There are too many nominally Christian people who are far too modest in this way. Shake off just so much of your retiring modesty as may not be necessary to your usefulness, and dare to say something for your Lord, who bled, suffered, agonized, and died for your salvation. What was that I heard you say? 'I never did tell anyone what I have felt.' That is the very reason why you should begin at once, this very hour.
I have done; only that I fear there are some here who have never seen the Lord at all. What shall I say to them? I preach the gospel to them. Here it is in our Lord's own words: 'He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.' To believe Jesus Christ is to trust in him, to rely upon him. Whoever trusts his soul on Christ Jesus is saved. However black his sin may have been, the moment the sinner trusts in Jesus, he is saved; his sin is gone, the Holy Spirit enters into him, he becomes at once an heir of a glorious immortality, and he shall see the face of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the glory everlasting. May the Lord add his blessing, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
Chapter 27
The sum and substance of all theology
Unpublished notes of a sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Swansea, on 25 June 1861.* Forwarded by Pastor T. W. Medhurst, Cardiff.
'All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.'—John 6:37.
WHAT a difference there is between the words of Christ, and those of all mere men! Most men speak many words, yet say but little; Christ speaks few words, yet says very much. In modern books, you may read scores of pages, and scarcely come across a new thought; but when Christ speaks, every syllable seems to tell. He hits the nail on the head each time he lifts the hammer of his Word. The words of Christ are like ingots of solid gold; we preachers too often beat out the gold so thin, that whole acres of it would scarcely be worth a farthing. The words of Christ are always to be distinguished from those of his creatures, not only for their absolute truthfulness, but also for their profound fullness of matter. In all his language he is 'full of grace and truth.' Look at the text before us. Here we have, in two small sentences, the sum and substance of all theology. The great questions which have divided the Church in all ages, the apparently contradictory doctrines which have set one minister of Christ against his fellow, are here revealed so simply and plainly, 'that he may run that reads' (Habakkuk 2:2). Even a child may understand the words of Christ, though perhaps the loftiest human intellect cannot fathom the mystery hidden therein.
Take the first sentence of my text: 'All that the Father gives me shall come to me.' What a weighty sentence! Here we have taught us what is called, in the present day, 'High Calvinistic doctrine'—the purpose of God; the certainty that God's purpose will stand; the invincibility of God's will; and the absolute assurance that Christ 'shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.'
Look at the second sentence of my text: 'And him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.' Here we have the richness, the fullness, the unlimited extent of the power of Christ to save those who put their trust in him. Here is a text upon which one might preach a thousand sermons. We might take these two sentences as a life-long text, and never exhaust the theme.
Mark, too, how our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the whole truth. We have many ministers who can preach well upon the first sentence: 'All that the Father gives me shall come to me.' Just set them going upon Election, or everlasting covenant engagements, and they will be earnest and eloquent, for they are fond of dwelling upon these points, and a well-instructed child of God can hear them with delight and profit. Such preachers are often the fathers of the Church, and the very pillars thereof; but, unfortunately, many of these excellent brethren cannot preach so well upon the second sentence of my text: 'And him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.' When they get to that truth, they are half afraid of it; they hesitate to preach what they consider to be a too open salvation. They cannot give the gospel invitation as freely as they find it in the Word of God. They do not deny it, yet they stutter and stammer sadly, when they get upon this theme.
Then, on the other hand, we have a large number of good ministers who can preach on this second clause of the text, but they cannot preach on the first clause. How fluent is their language as they tell out the freeness of salvation! Here they are much at home in their preaching; but, we are sorry to be compelled to say that, very often, they are not much at home when they come to doctrinal matters, and they would find it rather a difficult matter to preach fluently on the first sentence of my text. They would, if they attempted to preach from it, endeavor to cut out of it all that savors of Divine Sovereignty. They do not preach the whole 'truth' which 'is in Jesus.'
Why is it that some of us do not see both sides of God's revealed truth? We persist in closing one eye; we will not see all that may be seen if we open both our eyes; and, sometimes, we get angry with a brother because he can see a little more than we do. I think our text is very much like a stereoscopic picture, for it presents two views of the truth. Both views are correct, for they are both photographed by the same light. How can we bring these two truths together? We get the stereoscope of the Scripture, and looking with both eyes, the two pictures melt into one. God has given us, in his Word, the two pictures of divine truth; but we have not all got the stereoscope properly adjusted to make them melt into one. When we get to Heaven, we shall see how all God's truth harmonizes. If we cannot make these two parts of truth harmonize now, at any rate we must not dare to blot out one of them, for God has given them both.
Now, as God shall help me this morning, I want to expound both sentences of my text with equal fidelity and plainness. I shall not expect to please some of you while speaking on the first sentence, and I shall not be surprised if I fail to please others of you when I come to the second sentence; but, in either case, it will be a small matter to me if I have an easy conscience because I have proclaimed what I believe to be the whole truth of God. I am sure you will be willing to give a patient hearing to that which you may not fully receive, if you believe it to be declared in all honesty. Reject what I say, if it be not true, but if it be the Word of God, receive it; and, be it known unto you that it is at your peril if you dare to reject the truthful Word of the glad tidings of God.
I. I will begin with the first sentence of the text: 'All that the Father gives me shall come to me.' We have here, first, THE FIRM FOUNDATION UPON WHICH OUR SALVATION RESTS.
It rests, you perceive, not on something which man does, but on something which God the Father does. The Father gives certain persons to his Son, and the Son says, 'All that the Father gives me shall come to me.' I take it that the meaning of the text is this—that, if any do come to Jesus Christ, it is those whom the Father gave to Christ. And the reason why they come—if we search to the very bottom of things—is, that the Father puts it into their hearts to come. The reason why one man is saved, and another man is lost, is to be found in God; not in anything which the saved man did, or did not do; not in anything which he felt, or did not feel; but in something altogether irrespective of himself, even in the sovereign grace of God. In the day of God's power, the saved are made willing to give their souls to Jesus. The language of Scripture must explain this point. 'As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God' (John 1:12–13). 'So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy' (Romans 9:16). If you want to see the fount of grace, you must go to the everlasting God; even as, if you want to know why that river runs in this direction, and not in that, you must trace it up to its source. In the case of every soul that is now in Heaven, it was the will of God that drew it thither. In the case of every spirit that is on its way to glory now, unto God and unto him alone must be the honor of its salvation; for he it is who makes one 'to differ from another' (1 Corinthians 4:7).
I do not care to argue upon this point, except I put it thus: If any say, 'It is man himself who makes the difference,' I reply, 'You are involving yourself in a great dilemma; if man himself makes the difference, then mark—man himself must have the glory.' Now, I am certain you do not mean to give man the glory of his own salvation; you would not have men throw up their caps in Heaven, and shout, 'Unto ourselves be the glory, for we, ourselves, were the hinge and turning point of our own salvation.' No, you would have all the saved cast their crowns at the feet of Jesus, and give to him alone all the honor and all the glory. This, however, cannot be, unless, in that critical point, that diamond hinge upon which man's salvation shall turn, God shall have the control, and not the will of man. You know that those who do not believe this truth as a matter of doctrine, do believe it in their hearts as a matter of experience.
I was preaching, not very long ago, at a place in Derbyshire, to a congregation, nearly all of whom were Methodists, and as I preached, they were crying out, 'Hallelujah! Glory! Bless the Lord!' They were full of excitement, until I went on to say in my sermon, 'This brings me to the doctrine of Election.' There was no crying out of 'Glory!' and 'Hallelujah!' then. Instead, there was a great deal of shaking of the head, and a sort of telegraphing round the place, as though something dreadful was coming. Now, I thought, I must have their attention again, so I said, 'You all believe in the doctrine of Election?' 'No, we don't, lad,' said one. 'Yes, you do, and I am going to preach it to you, and make you cry "Hallelujah!" over it.' I am certain they mistrusted my power to do that; so, turning a moment from the subject, I said, 'Is there any difference between you and the ungodly world?' 'Ay! Ay! Ay!' 'Is there any difference between you and the drunkard, the harlot, the blasphemer?' 'Ay! Ay! Ay!' Ay! there was a difference indeed. 'Well, now,' I said, 'there is a great difference; who made it, then?' for, whoever made the difference, should have the glory of it. 'Did you make the difference?' 'No, lad,' said one; and the rest all seemed to join in the chorus. 'Who made the difference, then? Why, the Lord did it; and did you think it wrong for him to make a difference between you and other men?' 'No, no,' they quickly said. 'Very well, then; if it was not wrong for God to make the difference, it was not wrong for him to purpose to make it, and that is the doctrine of Election.' Then they cried, 'Hallelujah!' as I said they would.
The doctrine of Election is God's purposing in his heart that he would make some men better than other men; that he would give to some men more grace than to other men; that some should come out and receive the mercy; that others, left to their own free will, should reject it; that some should gladly accept the invitations of mercy, while others, of their own accord, stubbornly refuse the mercy to which the whole world of mankind is invited. All men, by nature, refuse the invitations of the gospel. God, in the sovereignty of his grace, makes a difference by secretly inclining the hearts of some men, by the power of his Holy Spirit, to partake of his everlasting mercy in Christ Jesus. I am certain that, whether we are Calvinists or Arminians, if our hearts are right with God, we shall all adoringly testify: 'We love him, because he first loved us.' If that be not Election, I know not what it is.
II. Now, in the second place, note THE CERTAINTY OF THE ETERNAL SALVATION OF ALL WHO WERE GIVEN TO JESUS: 'All that the Father gives me shall come to me.'
This is eternally settled, and so settled that it cannot be altered by either man or devil. All whose names are written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, all whom God the Father designed to save when he gave up his well-beloved Son to die upon the cross of Calvary, shall in time be drawn by the Holy Spirit, and shall surely come to Christ, and be kept by the Spirit, through the precious blood of Christ, and be folded forever with his sheep, on the hill-tops of glory.
Mark! 'All that the Father gives me shall come to me.' Not one of those whom the Father has given to Jesus shall perish. If any were lost, the text would have to read: 'Almost all,' or, 'All but one;' but it positively says 'All' without any exception; even though one may have been, in his unregenerate state, the very chief of sinners. Yet even that chosen one, that given one, shall come to Jesus; and when he has come, he shall be held by that strong love that at first chose him, and he shall never be let go, but shall be held fast, even unto the end. Miss Much-afraid, and Mrs Despondency, and Mr Feeble-mind, shall as certainly come to the arms of Christ, as Mr Great-heart, and Mr Faithful, and Mr Valiant-for-Truth. If one jewel were lost from Christ's crown, then Christ's crown would not be all-glorious. If one member of the body of Christ were to perish, Christ's body would not be complete. If one of those who are one with Christ should miss his way to eternal life, Christ would not be a perfect Christ.
'All that the Father gives me shall come to me.' 'But suppose they will not come?' I cannot suppose any such thing, for he says they 'shall come.' They shall be made willing in the day of God's power. God knows how to make a passage through the heart of man; and though man is a free agent, yet God can incline him, willingly, to come to Jesus. There are many sentences even in Wesley's hymn-book which contain this truth. If God took away freedom from man, and then saved him, it would be but a small miracle. For God to leave man free to come to Jesus, and yet to so move him as to make him come, is a divinely-wrought miracle indeed. If we were for a moment to admit that man's will could be more than a match for God's will, do you not see where we should be landed? Who made man? God! Who made God? Shall we lift up man to the sovereign throne of the Deity? Who shall be master, and have his way, God or man? The will of God, that says they 'shall come', knows how to make them come.
'But suppose it should be one of those who are living in the interior of Africa, and he does not hear the gospel; what then?' He shall hear the gospel; either he shall come to the gospel, or the gospel shall go to him. Even if no minister should go to such a chosen one, he would have the gospel specially revealed to him rather than that the promise of the Almighty God should be broken.
'But suppose there should be one of God's chosen who has become so bad that there is no hope for him? He never attends a place of worship; never listens to the gospel; the voice of the preacher never reaches him; he has grown hardened in his sin, like steel that has been seven times annealed in the fire; what then?' That man shall be arrested by God's grace, and that obdurate, hard-hearted one shall be made to see the mercy of God; the tears shall stream down his cheeks, and he shall be made willing to receive Jesus as his Savior. I think that, as God could bend my will, and bring me to Christ, he can bring anybody.
'Why was I made to hear his voice,
And enter while there's room;
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?
'Twas the same love that spread the feast,
That sweetly forced me in;
Else I had still refused to taste,
And perish'd in my sin.'
Yes, 'sweetly forced me in;'—there is no other word that can so accurately describe my case. Oh, how long Jesus Christ stood at the door of my heart, and knocked, and knocked, and knocked in vain! I asked: 'Why should I leave the pleasures of this world?' Yet still he knocked, and there was music in every sound of his pleading voice; but I said, 'Nay, let him go elsewhere.' And though, through the window, I could see his thorn-crowned head, and the tears standing in his eyes, and the prints of the nails in his hands, as he stood and knocked, and said, 'Open to me,' yet I heeded him not. Then he sent my mother to me, and she pleaded, 'Let the Savior in, Charlie;' and I replied, in action, though not in words, 'Nay, I love you, my mother; but I do not love Christ, your Savior.' Then came the black hours of sickness; but in effect I said, 'Nay, I fear not sickness, nor death itself; I will still defy my Maker.' But it happened, one day, that he graciously put in his hand by the hole of the door, and I was moved toward him, and then I opened the door, and cried, 'Come in! Come in!' Alas! alas! He was gone; and for five long years I stood, with tears in mine eyes, and I sought him weeping, but I found him not. I cried after him, but he answered me not. I said, 'Where is he gone? Oh, that I had never rejected him! Oh, that he would but come again!' Surely the angels must then have said, 'A great change has come over that youth; he would not let Christ in when he knocked, but now he wants Christ to come.' And when he did come, do you think my soul rejected him? Nay, nay; but I fell down at his feet, crying, 'Come in! Come in! you Blessed Savior. I have waited for your salvation, O my God!'
There is no living soul beyond the reach of hope, no chosen one whom Christ cannot bring up even from the very gates of Hell. He can bare his arm, put out his hand, and pluck the brand 'out of the fire' (Zechariah 3:2). In a horrible pit, in the miry clay, his jewels have been hidden; but down from the throne of light he can come, and thrusting in his arm of mercy, he can pull them out, and cause them to glitter in his crown forever. Let it be settled in our hearts, as a matter of fact, that what God has purposed to do, he will surely accomplish.
I need not dwell longer upon this point, because I think I have really brought out the essence of this first sentence of my text: 'All that the Father gives me shall come to me.' Permit me just to remark, before I pass on, that I am sometimes sad on account of the alarm that some Christians seem to have concerning this precious and glorious doctrine. We have, in the Baptist denomination—I am sorry to have to say it—many ministers, excellent brethren, who, while they believe this doctrine, yet never preach it. On the other hand, we have some ministers, excellent brethren, who never preach anything else. They have a kind of barrel-organ that only plays five tunes, and they are always repeating them. It is either Election, Predestination, Particular Redemption, Effectual Calling, Final Perseverance, or something of that kind; it is always the same note. But we have also a great many others who never preach concerning these doctrines, though they admit they are doctrines taught in Sacred Scripture. The reason for their silence is, because they say these truths are not suitable to be preached from the pulpit. I hold such an utterance as that to be very wicked. Is the doctrine here—in this Bible? If it is, as God has taught it, so are we to teach it. 'But,' they say, 'not in a mixed assembly.' Where can you find an unmixed assembly? God has sent the Bible into a mixed world, and the gospel is to be preached in 'all the world', and 'to every creature.' 'Yes,' they say, 'preach the gospel, but not these special truths of the gospel; because, if you preach these doctrines, the people will become Antinomians and Hyper-Calvinists.' Not so; the reason why people become Hyper-Calvinists and Antinomians, is because some, who profess to be Calvinists, often keep back part of the truth, and do not, as Paul did, 'declare all the counsel of God'; they select certain parts of Scripture, where their own particular views are taught, and pass by other aspects of God's truth. Such preachers as John Newton, and in later times, your own Christmas Evans, were men who preached the whole truth of God; they kept back nothing that God has revealed; and, as the result of their preaching, Antinomianism could not find a foot-hold anywhere. We should have each doctrine of Scripture in its proper place, and preach it fully; and if we want to have a genuine revival of religion, we must preach these doctrines of Jehovah's sovereign grace again and again. Do not tell me they will not bring revivals. There was but one revival that I have ever heard of, apart from Calvinistic doctrine, and that was the one in which Wesley took so great a part; but then George Whitefield was there also to preach the whole Word of God. When people are getting sleepy, if you want to arouse and wake them up thoroughly, preach the doctrine of Divine Sovereignty to them; for that will do it right speedily.
III. I shall now turn very briefly to the second sentence of my text: 'And him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out!'
'Now,' says somebody, 'he is going to knock down all that he has been building up.' Well, I would rather be inconsistent with myself than with my Master; but I dare not alter this second sentence, and I have no desire to alter it. Let it stand as it is, in all its glorious simplicity:
'HIM THAT COMES TOME I WILL IN NO WISE CAST OUT.'
Let the whole world come, still this promise is big enough to embrace them all in its arms. There is no mistake here, the wrong man cannot come. If any sinner come to Christ, he is sure to be the right one. Mark, too, as there is no limitation in the person coming, so there is no limitation in the manner of the coming. Says one, 'Suppose I come the wrong way?' You cannot come the wrong way; it is written, 'No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him.' 'No man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father' (John 6:44, 65). If, then, you come to Christ in any way, you are drawn of the Father, and he cannot draw the wrong way. If you come to Christ at all, the power and will to come have been given you of the Father. If you come to Christ, he will in no wise cast you out; for no possible or conceivable reason will Jesus ever cast out any sinner who comes to him. There is no reason in Hell, or on earth, or in Heaven, why Jesus should cast out the soul that comes to him. If Satan, the foul accuser of the brethren, brings reasons why the coming sinner should not be received, Jesus will 'cast down' the accuser, but he will not 'cast out' the sinner. 'Come unto me, all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,' is still his invitation and his promise, too.
Let us suppose a case by way of illustration. Here is a man in Swansea—ragged, dirty, coal-begrimed—who has received a message from Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria. It reads in this wise: 'You are hereby commanded to come, just as you are, to our palace at Windsor, to receive great and special favors at our hand. You will stay away at your peril.' The man reads the message, and at first scarcely understands it; so he thinks, 'I must wash and prepare myself.' Then, he re-reads the royal summons, and the words arrest him: 'Come just as you are.' So he starts, and tells the people in the train where he is going, and they laugh at him. At length he arrives at Windsor Castle; there he is stopped by the guard, and questioned. He explains why he has come, and shows the Queen's message; and he is allowed to pass. He next meets with a gentlemen in waiting, who, after some explanations and expressions of astonishment, allows him to enter the ante-room. When there, our friend becomes frightened on account of his begrimed and ragged appearance; he is half inclined to rush from the place with fear, when he remembers the words of the royal command: 'Stay away at your peril.' Presently, the Queen herself appears, and tells him how glad she is that he has come just as he was. She says she purposes that he shall be suitably clothed, and be made one of the princes of her court. She adds, 'I told you to come as you were. It seemed to be a strange command to you, but I am glad you have obeyed, and so come.'
I do think this is what Jesus Christ says to every creature under Heaven. The gospel invitation runs thus: 'Come, come, come to Christ, just as you are.' 'But, let me feel more.' No, come just as you are. 'But let me get home to my own room, and let me pray.' No, no, come to Christ just as you are. As you are, trust in Jesus, and he will save you. Oh, do dare to trust him! If anybody shall ask, 'Who are you?' answer, 'I am nobody.' If anyone objects, 'You are such a filthy sinner,' reply, 'Yes, 'tis true, so I am; but he himself told me to come.' If anyone shall say, 'You are not fit to come,' say, 'I know I am not fit; but he told me to come.' Therefore.—
'Come, you sinners, poor and wretched,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity joined with power;
He is able,
He is willing; doubt no more.
'Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness he requires,
Is to feel your need of him:
This he gives you;
'Tis the Spirit's rising beam.'
Sinner, trust in Jesus; and if you do perish trusting in Jesus, I will perish with you. I will make my bed in Hell, side by side with you, sinner, if you can perish trusting in Christ, and you shall lie there, and taunt me to all eternity for having taught you falsely, if we perish. But that can never be; those who trust in Jesus shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of his hand. Come to Jesus, and he will in no wise cast you out.
May the Lord bless the words I have spoken! Though hastily suggested to my mind, and feebly delivered to you, the Lord bless them, for Christ's sake! Amen.
Chapter 28
The great invitation
A sermon preached in 1866.
Forwarded by Pastor T. W. Medhurst, Cardiff.
'In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He who believes on me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'—John 7:37–38.
THERE is, doubtless, something suggestive in the occasion upon which our Lord Jesus Christ uttered these words, as well as in the posture he assumed when he spoke them. The occasion upon which he made this declaration was, 'the last day, that great day of the feast.' Some commentators try to make a great point of a certain, probably absurd, ceremonial, which they say was practiced by the Jews on this particular day—that of drawing water out of the Pool of Siloam, and pouring it out in the presence of the crowd. We have no clear evidence that such a ceremony was ever practiced; but if it was observed, as it was not Scriptural, nor ordained of God, it must have been only a matter of superstition (even as infant sprinkling is down to the present time), and Christ would not have in any way accorded to it his sanction. There may be something convincing in the fact that, on this particular day, according to the Jewish law, the people were commanded to do no servile work, and that among such works were to be numbered the hewing of wood and drawing of water. Inasmuch as upon that day, therefore, they could not lawfully draw water, we believe they did not take any out of the Pool of Siloam, as by some it is alleged. Seeing they were thus prohibited from drawing water on 'that great day of the feast,' the Savior may have used the occasion to show them that, when men passed from the law to the gospel there was 'a fountain opened' whence they might drink, that their spiritual thirst might be quenched.
I think we have a reason for this peculiarly full declaration of the Savior on this occasion. Perseveringly had he pleaded with them on the previous days, and they had now arrived at 'the last day, that great day of the feast,' and he was about to leave them. It was the last opportunity he would have of addressing that assembly of people; never more would they all be gathered together again. They were soon to be scattered, going their several ways to their own homes, and therefore the teaching of Jesus was fuller, clearer, and plainer than usual, and he was, if possible, even more earnest than ever he had been before in pleading with them to come unto him that they might obtain eternal life. It is often thus in the present day in our congregations; there are usually some to whom we are addressing the Word for the last time, some who will listen to our voice proclaiming the gospel no more forever. In my own case, I am always impressed with this fact. Perhaps, since I have preached at the Tabernacle, there has never been a week without the loss of some two or three members from the congregation. Every Sabbath, when I stand on my platform, it is a moral certainty to me that there are some of the previous Sunday's congregation who have departed from time into eternity. In a measure, and in proportion to the number of their hearers, this becomes not a matter of speculation, but of positive certainty with all ministers. Therefore, we should feel, every time we stand up to preach, 'This is a "great day" because it may be "the last day" to some of these people here present. I must now seek to be more earnest than ever I have been heretofore; I must be more clear and plain in the proclamation of the gospel, in pointing out the way of salvation, for there are some in this congregation who will never again hear the gospel from my lips.'
The posture of our Lord Jesus Christ upon this occasion was also significant: 'Jesus stood and cried.' At other times we read, 'He sat down, and taught the people' (Luke 5:3). Here, in our text, it is written, 'Jesus stood and cried,' as if he must be more earnest and forceful than usual in pleading with the people. We may suppose that he chose some corner of a pillar, or that he stood erect on the Temple steps, and cried aloud. He was not encased, as so many preachers are, in a wooden, or stone, or marble thing, called a pulpit, which is surely a device of Satan to check the preacher's earnestness. 'Jesus stood and cried,' as Raphael depicts Paul preaching, impelled by an intense interest in the souls of his hearers, and eager for their salvation. So 'Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.' Jesus 'cried.' We may be sure that he did so vehemently, with force, and pathos, and plaintiveness. He 'cried' to the people, as though in the extremity of the distress of his heart, that all in the crowd might catch every syllable of his utterances. He spoke out earnestly, and with all his might. He was 'not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.' He so 'cried' that emotion well-near choked his utterance. As afterwards he wept over Jerusalem, so now he wept in Jerusalem. He cried aloud, with the deepest pathos, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.' Oh, that we were able to preach, as did our Master! Oh, that we were men who could stand upright, and cry to a world whose ears are closed against ordinary teaching, with a voice that would rend the rocks, and cause hearts of iron to melt! If we cannot do that, let us tell out the simple gospel in such a style that even the most ignorant may understand our message.
Thus much, then, about the place, the time, and the manner of our Savior's preaching; now for the subject matter of his proclamation: 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He who believes on me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' Let us endeavor to enter into the meaning of these words, by asking a few questions concerning them.
I. 'If any man thirst,'—WHAT KIND OF THIRST DOES THE SAVIOR MEAN?
There are some persons who are afraid that too many people will be saved, and go to Heaven. These maintain that the thirst the Savior meant was a spiritual thirst, so they put in that adjective. They are sure either to add an adverb to the verb, or an adjective to the noun, for fear lest some sinners, who are not invited, should take courage, and come to Christ. I find by my text that Jesus said, 'If ANY man thirst.' He used no qualifying adjective whatever, so God forbid that I should be guilty of the presumption of thinking that our Lord Jesus Christ has omitted anything which ought to be included in this invitation! That would be to incur the curse pronounced in the Revelation upon those who 'add unto' or 'take away from' what the Holy Spirit has left complete and perfect. The thirst that Christ intended was just 'thirst'—thirst of any and of every kind. No matter what kind of thirst you suffer, come to Jesus if you do but thirst in any way whatever. If your soul is thirsting, believe on Jesus, and he will surely quench your thirst. Let me mention some different kinds of thirst, not with any view of giving you a complete catalogue, for that would be an impossible thing to do; but in order to let you see that all kinds of thirst are intended, and none are excluded.
First, some persons have a thirst of conscience. God the Holy Spirit has convinced them of sin, and now they are thirsting after pardon. They want to be forgiven; they cannot bear the thought that they should be lying under the anger and just condemnation of the Most High. They thirst for something which shall assure them of their acceptance before God. To these persons many bring the empty pitcher of forgiveness without the atonement; and when these poor parched souls put the pitcher to their mouths, they cry, 'Alas! this only mocks our thirst.' Others pretend to offer forgiveness through the sinners' own merits; and they foolishly try to quench their soul's thirst, and to obtain the forgiveness of their sins, by their own meritorious works; but after a time they see that they have failed, and they give up trusting to their own merits, for in such broken cisterns they find no healing waters. Others present a thirst-quenching concoction called, 'Forgiveness by penance, through perils and afflictions.' They teach that the troubles of this life may be a set-off against the evil of our sins; but soon the thirsty ones turn away, their souls more parched than ever, and they cry in anguish, 'Oh, that someone would give us to drink, so that our thirst might be wholly removed!' Jesus stands before all such persons today, and he cries, 'If any man thirsts for the forgiveness of his sins, if any man is conscience-stricken, and desires a salvation which shall satisfy him, and make him perfectly at ease in the presence of God, let him come unto me, and drink. I am the great sacrifice for sin; let him trust to me, for I am the Mediator of the New Covenant. He who believes on me shall thirst no more.'
Secondly, there are others who have a thirst of heart. This is not at all an uncommon thirst, and it ought not to be forgotten. The heart of man must have some object upon which to rest itself; it thirsts for someone worthy of its love. We love the creature, but after a little while we find that there is unfaithfulness in the creature, and we turn away disappointed even though the one on whom we had set our affection is fair and lovely. Some seek to slake their thirst with wealth, which can only cheat them; others turn to fame, which only mocks them. Many are content to abide in their calling, and to make the best of what they find to satisfy them where they are; but, alas! the thirst of their soul is not quenched. None but the Triune God can fill the heart of man; old Francis Quarles says truly—
'The God that made mine heart, is he alone
That of himself both can and will
Give rest unto my thoughts, and fill
Them full of all content and quietness:
That so I may possess
My soul in patience,
Until he find it time to call me hence.'
When the heart has long tried first this object and then that, and has turned away from all, exclaiming, 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity; there is nothing here below that can satisfy me, or that can give me full contentment,' then it is that Jesus stands and cries, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.' O souls! if you would have someone to love who is every way worthy of you, one who can satisfy your deepest longings, one whom you may love fully, and yet never be guilty of idolatry, one who cannot desert you, and who will never forget you, one who will love you infinitely better than you can love him, one whose charms shall grow upon you, and never decline, one who shall become sweeter every day, and more precious than the droppings of the honeycomb every hour, come you to Jesus Christ, the altogether lovely, to him who is even now inviting you, saying, 'Come you, drink of me, and you shall never, never thirst again.'
Thirdly, others there are who have a thirst of intellect. They want something absolutely and entirely certain, which they can believe with unquestioning confidence. They want to be able to say, as Paul wrote to Timothy, 'I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.' Some have tried to find rest in unbelief; and because they could not get in it what they thought was sure, they have run on until, from doubting, at last they have come to denying everything; but they find that there is no satisfaction, or quenching of their thirst in this mockery of dry unbelief. Others have gone to the opposite extreme, and, to make sure, as they thought, have submitted themselves to the dogmas of so-called 'priests', and to the alleged 'infallible' teaching of the Pope of Rome; and so they have tried to quench the thirst of their intellect by getting something on which they can rely with absolute certainty. Alas, for the deceivers and for the deceived! There is no man, however deeply he may think, or however widely he may search, who is saved by trusting to his own intellectual powers, or who can find anything in superstition to quench his thirst; but to all such our Lord Jesus cries, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.' Come to Jesus. If you want wisdom, he is made unto you wisdom. If you want knowledge, here is the knowledge of Christ and him crucified; and I reckon the knowledge of Jesus Christ to be, as old Dr Alexander Carson used to say, 'the most excellent of the sciences.' You want to be able to distinguish between things that differ; here is the Spirit of Jesus, who can make you to discern between joint and marrow, between soul and spirit. If any man would become profoundly learned, let him become a philosopher only in this way, by understanding the philosophy of the cross of Jesus Christ, the marvelous doctrine of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, Jesus crucified and dying to save sinners. I think any Christian man, who has really and truly been led to come to Christ by faith, and who has received the gospel into his heart, will tell you that, whereas he once was troubled about a thousand things, his soul is now at peace, according to that promise in Isaiah, 'You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you: because he trusts in you.' The man says, 'My heart is fixed, my heart is fixed; I have no doubts about doctrine now; I have now no troubles about a thousand questions that used to fill me with perplexity. Through the cross of Christ I have become settled and satisfied; and my thirst is stayed and quenched forever.'
Fourthly, there are certain others who have a thirst of ambition. They say they thirst to achieve some great and noble purpose, to do some notable thing before they die. 'Oh!' said a young man on his death-bed, 'I am about to be taken away, yet I never did a good or a great thing in my life.' It is true that all men should have an object in life; a man without a purpose is like a poor blind horse, going round and round in a mill, working and toiling, but getting no satisfaction out of its labors. Man naturally is like an arrow; he wants a target at which he can be shot. Well then, that being the case, how shall we have an object worthy of us, which shall be always before us as long as we live? Jesus says, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.' Do you want to have before you the highest and holiest object? Let it be to glory in the cross of Jesus Christ. Do you want to live for a blessed purpose? Let it be to live for Jesus Christ. Would you have something in which you can spend and be spent? Let it be in the service of Jesus Christ. If you would have some excellent object beyond you, then remember that Jesus Christ is always beyond you, so that you may strive to apprehend him by whom you have been apprehended, and forgetting that which is behind, you may press forward to that which is before, even the perfect likeness of Jesus Christ. Many an individual has had an object among men, and when he has gained it, he has become more miserable than if he had lost the object of his pursuit; but the man who lives for Jesus Christ, and to magnify his name, lives indeed, and he reigns while he lives. He obtains his object, yet not so obtains it as to leave it behind; for still he presses on, and on, and on, and feels that the utmost craving of his inner nature is abundantly satisfied with the living water that Jesus gives.
I have only mentioned these four variations of the current of human thirst; I specify no more, because I cannot attempt to complete the list. If you have not found your particular thirst described, do not think yours is a peculiar case, shut out, and therefore not mentioned; but remember that Jesus thus issues his invitation, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.'
II. 'If any man thirst,'—WHO IS INVITED?
'If any man thirst.' Here is one who is learned. He can speak several languages, he has made himself master of tome after tome laden with the riches of ages. Well, my friend, you are invited. I may also have here present a poor foolish person, all but an idiot, one who cannot read a word, and to whom writing is a mystery. He also is invited. Here is one who walks blamelessly; he is without reproach before his neighbors, though he knows that he is not without blame before God. He is invited. Here is another who has committed well-near every crime in the black catalogue of iniquity; he has made himself vile with lust and red with blood; yet he, too, may come, for the invitation is on this wise, 'If any man thirst.' Here is one who has grown grey-headed in sin, who has heard the gospel through the whole of his long life, who has resisted the Holy Spirit, and overcome the stragglings of a quickened conscience. Well, he is invited. Here is another who is quite a child, who is but a beginner in the way of wrong-doing, who hears the gospel today, and hears it, perhaps, for the first time. My young friend, you are invited. Bring me 'any man' you will, if he does but answer to this description; if his soul is thirsting, even though he does not know for what he thirsts, that man is invited. The text says, 'If any man thirst,'—not if he answers such and such another description, but—'if any man thirst' he may be sure that he is included in the invitation, and let none attempt to shut him out.
'But none ought to come unless they are among the elect.' Friend, you do not know who the elect are, and no one but the Lord knows. 'But should we not seek to find out who are the elect?' How do you think we can find them out? The command to us is, 'Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.' See, here is a great heap, made up of steel-filings and ashes. I want to find out the steel-filings, and so I sit down by the hour together, and try to separate them from the ashes. Why, it would take me all my life to do it, and probably when I thought I had got to the end of my task, I should see many filings in the heap that I called ashes, and many ashes in the heap that I called steel-filings. I should never be able to make the separation in that way; but here is a great magnet, I thrust that into the midst of the heap, and draw out from it, through the magnet's instrumentality, all the particles of steel. I have thus done in a few minutes what I could not have done in a lifetime in any other way. I put in the magnet, and the steel-filings cling to it; I lift up the magnet, and the ashes are left behind. So, if I would know who are God's elect, I have not to go and look into people's faces, and ask the question, 'Are you one of the elect?' I have to 'preach the gospel' to every creature under Heaven, and my Lord says, 'He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who believes not shall be damned.' I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a great separator; it finds out God's chosen ones, and leaves behind those who 'will not come' unto Christ that they 'might have life,' and who by their own persistent unbelief are given up to perdition. No description that you or I could give as to who are the elect would answer the same purpose. I have heard descriptions of saints that were so high that few, if any, could get into Heaven if that were the true standard by which they were to be tested; and I have also heard descriptions of saints so broad that thousands might have answered to them who would, nevertheless, not be saints after the gospel standard. Our only course is to preach the gospel, to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, to cry aloud, as Peter did on the day of Pentecost, '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' (Acts 2:38). 'The Lord knows them that are his.' Never you trouble yourselves about the doctrine of election; I am sorry for you if you do, seeing it is a most precious and blessed doctrine, full of comfort. Modern divinity does not suit me at all; when one gets really hungry, he wants the solid meat of the old Puritanical theology of the sovereign everlasting grace of God. Why should you be troubled about that which is the believer's delight? Whatever election may be, or may not be, it is quite certain, if it is not in the Bible, you need not bother your head about it; and if it is there, it cannot be inconsistent with any other portion of Scripture, for truth is always consistent with itself. Therefore the doctrine of election is quite consistent with our text, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.' It must also be consistent with other passages, such as 'Let him that is athirst, come; and whoever will, let him take the water of life freely;' or, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house.'
Whatever difficulties there may seem to be, you need not try to solve them. Just take the passage before us; you can understand it, though some other texts may be 'hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction' (2 Peter 3:16). Look, here is a man overboard! Throw him a rope. There it is, close to him; why does he not lay hold of it? Why, he says he does not know whether he is predestined to be drowned or not! We tell him that, if he does not lay hold of the rope, he must perish. There is no time to enter into any speculation as to what the rope was made for; let the drowning man lay hold of it, and then when we have got him safe on board, we can begin to talk of these speculative matters. It is God's command that we should trust his Son Jesus Christ. He adds to this promise of pardon a fearful threatening if the sinner will not trust him: 'He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who believes not shall be damned.' Listen to this other Scripture: 'He who believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he who believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.' Hearken to another passage: 'He who believes on him is not condemned: but he who believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.' Why is the sinner condemned? Because 'he believes not.' What is there which is necessary to salvation beyond what you can understand? There is nothing required but simple trust in Jesus. We may and do preach the full and free gospel without any fear that we are doing harm thereby; we are certain we are doing good. 'If any man thirst,' the wide world over, we cry to him, that he may come unto Christ Jesus, and drink and live.
III. 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me,'—WHAT IS IT TO COME TO JESUS CHRIST?
Sometimes, explanations of faith are a great deal more troublesome to understand than faith itself. What is coming to Christ? Trusting him. What is the faith that saves the soul? Certain preachers say that Christ died for every man; well, then, if Christ died for every man, he must have died for me; and yet I may believe that, and perish. The revelation that Jesus Christ died specially and particularly for me, is one that is in close connection with faith, but it is not the essence of faith. Faith is just trusting Christ. Whether I have any special interest in his redemption or not, is a thing I have to ascertain by-and-by. Just now, Jesus Christ bids me trust him, and I do so, as an act of obedience to his divine will. That trusting Jesus Christ is the saving act which brings the soul into union with him, and gives it the water to drink which quenches all its thirst.
IV. WHAT IS THE WARRANT FOR COMING TO CHRIST? Turn again to the text: 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He who believes on me, as the Scripture has said,'—that is the warrant—'as the Scripture has said.'
No sinner can of himself alone believe in Christ, no matter how sincere may be his repentance. Repentance is no qualification for coming to Christ. No matter what your feelings are, feelings in no sense constitute a claim upon Christ. The sinner stands before Christ without anything by which he can recommend himself; he comes to Christ, and lies at his feet, because he has told him to come, and for no other reason. He comes to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and not in his own strength. It has been my unhappy lot to meet with preachers who never give an invitation to any except 'sensible' sinners; but gospel exhortations are addressed to sinners, and even to stupid sinners. Look to Jesus Christ to save you; not to any sufficiency of your own, but to his all-sufficiency, to his sufferings, blood-shedding, and substitutionary death at Calvary.
Any preacher who directs a sinner to look for any warrant, or fitness, or hope in himself, is anti-Scriptural. There is a danger of making a Christ out of a man's feelings, and of so preaching as to lead men to think they must not come to Christ as sinners, but that they must wait until they become awakened sinners, 'sensible' sinners, repenting sinners. I have heard some say that it is wrong to invite sinners to come to Christ unless they give signs of repentance; but any repentance which is supposed to come before faith is a snare and a delusion, a repentance that needs to be repented of; for, if there be such a thing as repentance before faith, inasmuch as we are told that 'without faith it is impossible to please God,' such repentance in God's sight must be obnoxious and detestable. Some talk of a law-work which is to overcome the infirmity of the flesh, and subdue man's pride, ignorance, and unwillingness to come to Christ; but a man, after years of law-work, as it is called, finds that it will not do, and after all he has to come to Christ simply as a sinner, not as a law-worked sinner. The only way by which anyone can come to Christ is to come as a sinner. The only warrant you can ever have for coming to Jesus is that he himself bids you come when he says, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.'
I know what some of you are looking for: you want to be saved by an angel coming down out of Heaven to convert you; you want to be made to feel some sort of electrical shock; you have read certain biographies, and you think you must be saved like Mr So-and-so, who was dragged over the mouth of Hell before he came to Jesus by the way of the cross. You are full of all sorts of whims and fancies, but just as Elisha sent his servant to say to Naaman, 'Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall come again to you, and you shall be clean,' so I say to you, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.' Do you say, 'It seems such a simple thing to do'? Yes, because it is so blessedly simple, men think it hard to receive such a doctrine. If we were to bid them, 'Go, and labor, until you work the flesh off your bones,' many men would receive our message. If we were to say, 'Have such-and-such feelings,' then you would try to work them up; but when you are told to 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,' the pride of your naughty heart will not let you obey, you will be questioning God, you will want to have a finger in the matter, you are not willing to go to Jesus as a pauper. None will ever come to Christ in this way, but those whom the Spirit brings will come. No man by nature will ever accept this simple gospel, but if any of you say, 'Just as I am, I trust the Lord Jesus to save me,' depend upon it there will soon be wrought in you that which all the holy angels in Heaven could not have accomplished. This simple plan of salvation, although it is despised of man, is in God's eyes excellent above all others. 'This is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.' Down with all your frames and feelings, if you set them up before the cross of Christ; down with your doings, prayings, church and chapel-going, if you, in any way, put them up in competition with Christ. These may be all right and good in their place, but Christ Jesus must be first and chief of all. These may be all blessed as fruits, but not as roots. These may do for walls in the house, but not as its foundation. 'Your wounds, Jesus! Your wounds, Jesus! These are the cleft rock in which I hide myself.' Thus exclaimed the dying monk who had found a Bible in his cell, and this must be every sinner's resting-place for salvation—a whole Christ for a broken heart, a full Christ for an empty sinner, Christ the only Savior for the guilty and the lost.
Are there any here who will trust my Master, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Have you all trusted him? Blessed be God, if I have the privilege of preaching to a congregation of all saved souls! But, my hearers, it is not so; there are some of you who have not yet trusted in Jesus. Young woman and young man, ay, and those of you who have got into the sere and yellow leaf, you have lived up to this present moment without trusting in Christ Jesus for your soul's salvation. 'But what if I trust him, and then perish after all?' some of you perhaps are asking. Well, I will perish with you, too; we will go together; but, blessed be God, I have a better hope than that!
'The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
He will not, he will not, desert to its foes;
That soul, though all Hell should endeavor to shake,
He'll never, no never, no never forsake!'
'But,' say you, 'suppose, after all, we go to Hell, and have to say, "We did trust Christ, yet he did not save us!" ' We could not be in Hell with such a statement in our mouths; when once we put our trust in Christ—
'His honor is engaged to save
The meanest of his sheep;
All that his Heavenly Father gave,
His hands securely keep.'
You sometimes say of certain persons, 'I wish I had not seen So-and-so, for he does trust to me so much that I don't know what to do with him;' but Christ will say of you, 'There is that poor sinner, he does trust me so, I must, I will save him; I will not, I cannot deceive him. He has no rest anywhere but in me; I will surely save him.'
V. I now come to the last point, upon which I shall not detain you long—AFTER A MAN HAS ONCE BELIEVED IN CHRIST, WHAT THEN?
Our text is rather roughly translated from the original, which may be read thus, 'He who believes on me, out of the midst of him shall flow rivers of living water.' After you are yourself saved, you will seek to do good to others, and thus be, in your turn, instrumentally a Savior of others. The goodness of a true believer, when Christ has come unto him, is not merely external, but in the very midst of him; and it will flow out from him, not in drops and driblets, or in small streams, but in 'RIVERS'—not in one river, not in one special manner of doing good, but in 'RIVERS.' Out of the midst of a believing soul 'shall flow rivers of living water.'
Dear friends, do you know that you are saved? Are there 'rivers of living water' flowing out from you? Are you doing good to others? Are you channels of blessing to your friends, neighbors, companions? Some of our churches—I do not know whether it is so where I am now preaching—are 'very respectable!' The people who go to such-and-such a chapel—they call it a 'church' now—are 'such a respectable congregation!' There is 'such a respectable minister!' There are no poor people there; such 'respectable' persons do not like places where the mob assemble. Now, what do such churches and congregations do for the Lord, and for the salvation of sinners? It will not take any great length of time to enumerate their doings.
'But,' says one, 'we really do a great deal as a church.' Well, what do you do personally? 'Oh, I subscribe a guinea a year to the Missionary Society!' Says another, 'I give what I can afford, but what I give is nothing to nobody.' Yes, yes, that may be true enough, in more senses than one; but, my friend, what do you do personally for Jesus Christ? Do you ever say a word for him? Do you speak to the persons who sit in the next pew to you? What did you say? 'Oh, no! I have never been introduced to them, and it is only vulgar people who speak without an introduction!' 'Introduced!' Why, are we not all one family in Adam? You need no introduction; introduce yourself. You know that there is a person living opposite to you who has no fear of God before his eyes; did you ever try to do any good to that man? 'No,' you reply, 'it never struck me.' Just so, and there are hundreds of Christians, so-called, who are never 'struck' with any idea that they ought to do good to their fellow-men. 'If I get to Heaven myself, will not that be a wonder of grace?' It will, my hearer, and such a wonder of grace as I am afraid will not happen. 'But, sir, I am not my brother's keeper.' No, friend, you are not your brother's keeper; but, like Cain, you may be your brother's murderer! If you are idle in the Lord's cause, you are doing mischief. Generally, the idlers in our churches are the grumblers and complainers. 'Well, what can I do? I must call on my minister, and ask him what he thinks I should do.' Do not do any such thing. If you are right in heart, you have no need to trouble your minister, you can get plenty to do close at hand. 'Whatever your hand finds to do,'—not what the minister or the church finds for you to do, but—'whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, where you go' (Ecclesiastes 9:10). You need do nothing more than open your eyes to enable you to see something that you may do for Christ.
There are in most towns certain streets with very nice houses, but behind them are dark courts and alleys; you can go down them, and work for the Lord. 'But we pay a missionary for doing that.' I dare say you do; but did the Lord Jesus pay somebody to come here and deliver you? No; he came personally. When Jesus Christ healed the leper, he did it by personal contact. 'He put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be you clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him' (Luke 5:13). That is the way in which the members of the Church of Jesus Christ must come into contact with, and heal the sick everywhere. There is a charming and noble-hearted woman who can condescend to look on the fallen and sinful, and visit them in their wretched homes; why, there is a glory and majesty about that Christian woman that even scorners cannot help admiring. Were we, every one of us, personally in earnest in bringing souls to Jesus Christ, the church of which we are members would soon look 'forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.' Do not be content to see the promise fulfilled in other people, while it is not fulfilled in yourself: 'out of the midst of him shall flow rivers of living water.'
Every one who believes and drinks for himself, out of him 'shall flow rivers of living water.' I have no doubt that I am speaking to many who love the Lord, and who are trusting their souls to him. Let me be very earnest in asking each one of you, personally—Are you doing as much for Jesus Christ your Savior as you can do? Perhaps you may be doing as much as you think you can do; but you do not know how strong you are, or what is the measure of your ability. Faith makes men and women so mighty, that what they before thought to be impossible becomes easy when they attempt great things for Christ, because they expect great things from Christ. Venture upon large things for Christ, and keep up your little ones as well, and you will find that 'as your days, so shall your strength be.'
The time of the harvest is coming; what if the farmer says, 'I have no reapers to work for me'? Suppose he says to you, 'Here is the corn all ripe; the ears are shelling out on the ground, and I have no reapers.' He gets hold of you, and says, 'What are you doing? Here is a vast population wanting bread, and here is the harvest ready for gathering, but I have no reapers.' Why, if I understood nothing about the business, I should take my sickle, and try and gather in some of the produce of the field; but what if I saw a company there, all standing around, and saying that they would eat the bread when the corn was cut? I should say, 'Brothers, come and take a sickle; cut down the wheat, and bind up the sheaves, for here is this great harvest which must be reaped, or the corn will all be lost.' One gathers a handful, and another gathers a little; and they say, 'We do not see how all this is to be reaped.' Should we not then cry, 'The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest'? We should say, concerning the spiritual harvest, 'Let the Lord of the harvest send as many laborers as he may into his field, I cannot be spared. If I do any work for Christ, it will be a blessed thing for myself; I shall be reaped while I am reaping, I shall be gathered while I am gathering, I shall have corn for myself while I am seeking to gather corn for others.' May we all have an abundant entrance into the joy of the Lord! May we hear him, at the last, say to each one of us, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter you into the joy of your Lord.'
May God bless these remarks, for the sake of Jesus! Amen.
Chapter 29
Satisfying mercy
An address to senior scholars, delivered at John Street Chapel, Bedford Row, London, on Wednesday evening, 1 May 1867.
'O satisfy us early with your mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.'—Psalm 90:14.
THIS text may fittingly be used by us as a prayer tonight. I will not say that Moses intended the same meaning that I shall give to it; but we shall take these words, and use them in a sense which suits our own necessities; and may God be pleased to give us an answer of peace to the petition of the text!
I. THE FIRST AND PRINCIPAL SUBJECT HERE IS, MERCY—SATISFYING MERCY. True religion may be described as 'satisfying mercy.'
It is, first of all, 'mercy.' If you and I are to be saved, we cannot appeal to the justice of God—for we have no merits to plead before him. Sinners must depend upon favor, upon grace; they cannot claim any good thing as due to them. If they had their deserts, they would be shut up in Hell. It is only upon the footing of mercy that God can deal with us. When we come to him, the prayer of each one of us must be, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' See that benighted traveler; he is poor and ragged, and the cold of night is coming on. His eye catches a light in yonder house; he hastens towards it; he knocks at the door. One opens to his knock, and sternly asks, 'What is your name?' The trembling beggar answers, 'My name is, "a sinner." ' Then says the stern porter, 'This is not the place for such as you; this is the house of Justice; and if you tarry for another moment on the door-step, you will be delivered to the executioner.' So the poor wretch retires, shivering, into the gloom again. Presently he sees a light in another house; he makes his way anxiously towards it, and knocks faintly, and in great fear. After a while, the door is softly opened, and a fair maiden appears, and asks him, 'What is your name?' 'My name,' he says, and he is almost afraid to say it, 'is, "a sinner." ' Then she, who opened the door, smiles, and bids him enter. 'Come in,' says she, 'and welcome; for this is the house of Mercy, and it was built on purpose to entertain sinners.'
Dear young friends, may God give you such a sense of your sinnership that you may not think of going to him through the door of Justice, as though you could claim anything on account of your own merits or good works! Seek to enter in through the gate of Mercy. If you knock there, it will not be long before you have a gracious reception.
Now, in the second place, I would have you observe that it is not only mercy the psalmist is praying for, but satisfying mercy. There is a good deal of mercy which God gives that is not satisfying mercy. For instance, it is a mercy to be alive; it is a mercy to have food and clothing; it is a great mercy not to be in a lunatic asylum; it is a great mercy not to be in a hospital; but none of these mercies can satisfy us. Those who have most of the common mercies of God, which we call providential mercies, are still unsatisfied. There are some people, who roll by in their carriages as you walk through the streets, who yet are very dissatisfied people. There have been those who have sat upon thrones, and who have worn crowns, who have been very unsatisfied. Too oft it is true—
'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'
You may climb as high as you will as a fortune-hunter, but all the wealth you can ever accumulate will not satisfy you. I think I have heard of someone who once advertised for a satisfied person; I do not know where such a person is to be found, certainly not apart from the grace and free favor of our God.
There are mercies, then, that are not satisfying; but what you need, and I pray God you may be made to long for, is satisfying mercy. I feel inclined to pause, and repeat those words again, satisfying mercy. What a grand word 'satisfaction' is! Is it not derived from the Latin, satis, enough? 'Give me so much mercy, Lord, that I may be able to say, "It is enough; I have all that I want when I wish at the highest pitch of my wishing power." ' It is a great prayer, is it not? 'O satisfy us early with your mercy!' 'Lord, give me your mercy; give me enough of your mercy; give me to the full of your mercy; give me sufficient, satisfying mercy.'
What kind of mercy would 'satisfy us'? In the first place, it must be spiritual mercy. All the mercy that is given to the body cannot satisfy the soul. Men with bags of untold gold are not able to make their sad hearts leave off aching by applying their money-bags to their bosom. You yourselves know that, though the sun may shine brightly, and others may be very kind to you, and you may have a good deal that would give you satisfaction at another time, if the mind is unhappy, everything is out of gear. As soon as a man gets a little speck of dust in his eyes, no matter how beautiful the landscape may be, all is darkness to him; and so, if the soul be not blessed, all that the body may have cannot satisfy. What a wretched being a man may be although he is able to wear 'purple and fine linen, and to fare sumptuously every day!' What a miserable creature a man may be even while thousands are clapping their hands in admiration of him, and thinking him the most blessed of mortals! But when the Lord gives us soul-mercy, spiritual mercy, when he pours his blessing upon this marvelous immortal something that is within us, then, the spirit being satisfied, a very little will satisfy the body; the heart being filled, a very little of outward good will content the man.
Then, again, I am quite sure that, if mercy is given to 'satisfy us,' it must be pardoning mercy. See the man in the condemned cell in Newgate—I hope the day will not be far distant when there will be no need of such a place—but we will suppose the case of a poor man, shut up there, who is to be hanged in a few days. I go to him, and tell him the magistrates have prepared him a very sumptuous dinner, and that, with such a feast before him, I hope he will be quite satisfied. 'Oh!' he cries, 'how can I have an appetite with a halter about my neck? If you could bring me a pardon, even though I should have nothing but bread and water as long as I live, that would satisfy me; but so long as I am unpardoned, no cook can prepare a dish that will satisfy me.' 'Well,' I say, 'you are a very dissatisfied man; but here is a suit of clothes I have brought, such as you have seldom or never worn; put them on. Do not they satisfy you?' 'Oh, no,' says he, 'it does not matter what clothes are worn by a man who is going to be hanged.' 'Well, but,' I say, 'I have bought a cottage for you, and a piece of land; here are the title-deeds; it is your estate, and I have settled so much money upon you. Are you not satisfied now?' 'Ah!' he replies, 'I should be thankful for all this if I were pardoned; but until I am pardoned, all these things seem to be but a mockery. Did you come here merely to mock me, and to make me more wretched by causing me to think of all I might have had if I had been forgiven?' But then I say to him, 'Her Majesty has given you a free pardon.' See now how he claps his hands, how he leaps for joy as he cries, 'Now I am satisfied! I care not for the clothes, the cottage, or anything else. I am satisfied, for I am forgiven.' May God satisfy you early with his mercy, by whispering in your ear this little sentence, 'I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember your sins.' 'I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed you.' May you hear him say, 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.' You will then have satisfying mercy.
Again, satisfying mercy must be cleansing mercy—healing mercy. If I were to have my sins forgiven me, and yet were to keep my old nature, and be just what I used to be, how could I be satisfied? If there is a person here who has a painful and fatal disease upon him, nothing will satisfy him but a cure for it. He will say, 'If I could get rid of this painful humor, if I could be healed of this malady, which will, otherwise, soon bring me to my grave, then I should be happy.' You know, dear friends, that we all have by nature the fatal disease of sin; and when God the Son takes away the guilt of our sins, God the Holy Spirit comes into us to destroy the power of sin, and to make us new creatures in Christ Jesus. Left as we once were, I do not suppose that all the world would satisfy us; yes, I am sure that it would not. We should be like Alexander, of whom it is said that, when he had conquered the world, he wept that there was not another world to conquer; and if we could even go to Heaven without having our sins taken away, it would not satisfy our unregenerate heart; perhaps, indeed, in no place would a person be so miserable as in Heaven, unless his nature were changed; the holy song, that rises there, would grate upon his unholy ear; the employments of the redeemed would be toilsome to him, and he would be glad to get away from what he could not enjoy. There is no time, perhaps, when an angry man feels more angry than when other people are pleased; and there is no place where an ungodly man is so unhappy as the place where others are made happy by the love and favor of God. My dear hearers, if you are to be satisfied, you must have new hearts. Oh, that God would create in you clean hearts, and renew within you right spirits! This is, I hope, the satisfying mercy which you will all seek.
Again, satisfying mercy must be sensible mercy. It must be mercy which you know you have in actual possession. Last week, I saw a gentleman (if he were here—perhaps he may be—he would not mind my telling you), who had found the Lord Jesus, one Sunday, when I was preaching at the Agricultural Hall; and, on the Tuesday, he said to me, 'Come into my house, and pray with my children; I want to have my home dedicated to God now that I am myself saved.' He did not say, 'I hope I am saved;' but, 'I AM SAVED.' I asked him, 'How came it to pass?' He told me that, while listening to my last sermon in the Hall,* the Lord blessed the Word, and carried home the truth to his heart. He said, 'I saw it all; I saw that Christ had finished the work of salvation on the tree, and that all I had to do was to trust him; and I did trust him, and now I am as sure I am saved as that I am alive.' How glad he was, and how his eyes sparkled with joy!
My dear young friends, I want you to have a salvation which you can know and feel. It would make any one of you very uneasy if you had a ring, which someone you were very fond of had given you, and as you sat here, and felt your finger, you found that it was not there. 'Dear me,' you would think, 'where can it have gone?' And you would want to go home, to look in the wash-hand basin, or to search in the bed-room, to ascertain where you had left it. So long as you do not know that you have it, you are unhappy; but when you can feel it, and can say, 'Here is my ring, I can see it, I can touch it,' then you are satisfied. I hope, in reference to your souls, you will never be satisfied until you know you are safe; and can say, not 'if,' or 'but,' or 'I hope so,' but 'I KNOW.' Take God at his Word, trust him, believe in him;—and rest assured you can never believe God too well, you cannot be too strong in faith;—if you believe his promise, and take him at his Word, according to your faith, so shall it be done unto you. May you have sensibly enjoyed mercy, for then you will be truly satisfied!
And, once more, if we are to be satisfied with God's mercy, it must be everlasting mercy. Nothing can satisfy a man but that which will be always his. A little boy may be satisfied with bubbles, but you and I want something we can keep. We are not content with things which 'perish with the using;' we want something that is permanent. I do not think that I should like to be the Lord Mayor of London; for I should feel so small the next year. I should want, if once 'his lordship,' to be always 'his lordship.' Now, the mercy which God gives is not that which you are to have merely for a year; but once have it, and it shall never be rent away from you. None 'shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' O my young friends, if God gives you this satisfying mercy, not even death itself shall take the precious treasure away from you! You shall take it with you to your dying chamber, and when you must leave all besides, this shall be your rod and your staff to comfort you. Satisfying mercy shall be the last star you will see on earth; it shall be to you the evening star of life, and the morning star of immortality. Eternal mercy, an unchanging God, a faithful promise—this it is, and this alone, that can satisfy the spirit. O satisfy us, Lord, with this mercy; 'that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.' If I could, I would have every young friend here saved; as I cast my eyes upon you, I want you all to be satisfied. Oh, that you might all be satisfied tonight! I cannot satisfy you; all the world cannot satisfy you; your dearest friends cannot satisfy you; but the Lord Jesus Christ can satisfy you to the full; and if you go to him, breathing this earnest prayer, 'O satisfy us early with your mercy!' he will surely give you this satisfying mercy, great as it is; for he will be none the poorer for giving it. If he were now to give that mercy to all of you here present, there would still be just as much mercy in his heart as there was before.
II. Let us now turn to our second head, which is, THE EARLY SEASON: 'O satisfy us EARLY.'
Early in the morning is very delightful, especially in the country. I do not know whether anything is very delightful in these dull streets of ours; but 'over the hills, and far away,' among the cornfields and the orchards, just now, when everything is bursting into bloom, how delightful it is in the morning when the sun just peeps above the horizon; when every hedge seems hung with diamonds, and, as Milton says—
'Now Morn, her rosy steps in th' Eastern climate
Advancing, sows the earth with orient pearl.'
There is no part of the day so sweet, so fair, so truly 'the prime of day,' as the morning.
And early in the year is also very delightful. We are all now feeling the genial influence of the Spring, after the long and dreary Winter, with all its frosts and cold. How glad we are to see the buds bursting! There is no green like the green of the Spring, and no atmosphere like the sweet air of the early days of May.
It is very much the same with the early part of life; it is fresh and cheerful; we have not exhausted our strength; we have not lost our spirits. It is early in the morning of life with some of you. You are as yet but beginners in the race. Your ship has only just been launched on the untried sea. You are a traveler but newly entered on the wonderful journey of life. I almost wish it were early in the morning with me, though I am not very old; but still, that first freshness has gone; it does not and cannot last long with those who work hard. The best prayer for you young folk to offer is, 'Lord, give us your mercy early in life. O satisfy us early with your mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.' It will be a great blessing if you get the mercy of God at any time, but it is ten times the blessing if you are satisfied with it early in life. Of all the Christians in the world, I think I could undertake to prove that the happiest, the most eminent, and the most useful Christians, are those who were converted while young. There may be many exceptions to the rule; but, still, there are very few laborers in the Lord's vineyard like those who began to work for him at the first hour of the day. They seem, somehow or other, to have got into the habit of Christian service, and know the enjoyment of it. Of all believers, I say, commend me to those who begin with Christ while they are yet young.
It is the early season with some of you; you are quite boys and girls, though I suppose you hardly like to be called so. Still, it is early life with you as compared with that of our friends who have grown grey; early as compared with those of us who have for several years borne the burden and heat of the day. But though it is thus early with you, there is a sad thought which comes over my mind—it is not so early but that you have learned to sin. How early sin comes into the heart! Nay, it is always there; but how early it shows itself!
'True, you are young, but there's a stone
Within the youngest breast.'
Oh, if all the sins of the young people here were to be gathered up into a heap, what a black mass it would be! Though you have not yet, some of you, learned the more gross and wicked ways of mankind, yet I sometimes think there is no age at which persons are more wicked than just when they are upon the verge of manhood and womanhood. Of all classes that are bad, boys are the worst anywhere; and when girls are bad, they are very bad indeed. Well, then, though it is early with you, yet it seems that, early as godly teachers have been in looking after you, the devil has been beforehand with them; and, dear children, though it is early, you are lost. It is a dreadful thing to think of—that you are lost by nature, and lost by practice so early! Unless Christ had come to save you, early as it is, Hell must have been your portion, for even you are condemned already. Think of that solemn truth.
Another thought, too, steals over me, and that is, that, early as it is, it is not too early for you to die. I took my little boys, a few years ago, to a church-yard, and we carried with us a piece of tape. I told them to measure some of the little graves, for I wanted them to learn practically how soon they might die. They found there were several which were shorter than they themselves were. Ah! there are many who are taken away before they are your age, my young friends, and why may not you be so taken? How suddenly some die! I had a letter, yesterday, from a friend in the country, who wrote: 'Our dear Brother So-and-so fell down and died as he was leaving his house in the morning.' He was one who had sweetly preached the gospel; and when I last saw him, he seemed in perfectly good health, yet in a moment he fell down under the stroke of God! That may be your lot; it is early with you, but it is not too early for Death to be even now pointing his darts at you.
And then, dear friends, early as it is, it is not too early for you now to be saved. At what age may a child be converted? That I cannot answer, but I believe there have been children saved who were but a very few years old. That wonderful little book about The Folded Lamb, by Mrs Rogers, gives a beautiful instance of a little one, converted early in life, and early in life taken home. Those who are spared to live here are, perhaps, as a rule, not so capable of understanding truth at so early an age; but, still, I do not know how soon they may trust Jesus. I have heard of children of six and seven years of age being brought to God, and I have received scores into the church at the ages of ten and twelve; and of all I have received at those early ages, I have never known one put out of the church afterwards, though I have known scores in the large church over which I preside, from whom we have had to withdraw because of their sins, who were received far later in life. Perhaps we were more careful about receiving the young; but I am sure that God's grace can dwell as well in a child of twelve years of age as in a man of fifty, and that it can produce as holy results, too. You, young people, can understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, and understand it thoroughly, if it be taught to you by the Spirit of God. It is not such a complex system that you cannot receive it. All that is necessary for your salvation, the least educated among you are quite capable of understanding at your present age; and the gospel, if received by you, will produce good fruits, just as it does in older folk. Cannot children love Christ quite as much as people who are grown up? I think they can love him even more. And can they not speak for Christ, too? Oh, yes! in touching words, in accents that are mighty in their weakness, and profound in their simplicity. Children can preach living sermons for Christ, and sometimes they say wonderful things when they are in prayer. I pray God that in you young plants there may be found living fruits. I have, in my garden, a little orchard of apple trees, and I have also some larger trees. Some of my little trees, though only a year or two old, bear fine fruit; but I think, sometimes, I shall have to cut down the big trees, for they take up so much room. Methinks the Lord Jesus Christ likes to have young trees in his vineyard; they often bear finer fruit than the older ones, which seem to cumber the ground. Dear friends, it is not too early for you to be Christians. I wish I had known Christ when I was a very little child. But, alas! alas! when I was ten years of age, instead of knowing Christ, I did not truly know myself; and when I was about fifteen years old, I crept over this world as miserable a boy as ever lived, under a sense of sin; though my dear parents had taught me the gospel, and I had read it and heard it faithfully preached. I used to sleep with Baxter's Call to the Unconverted and Alleine's Alarm under my pillow; and when I awoke in the morning, I read them carefully, but all that time I did not know Jesus as my Savior. I was not satisfied with his mercy, though I was dissatisfied with my sins. Happy was that day when, between fifteen and sixteen years of age, I heard the message, 'Look unto me, and be you saved.' I found out then that I had nothing to do, nothing to feel, but just to look to Jesus, and to trust in him. I did look, and I was satisfied. Some of you will say, 'That was early;' but I wish it had been much earlier. I pray that you who are young may not live to be fifteen years of age before you find the Savior. Some of you are already past that age; I pray that now, this very night, this May night, the dew of God's grace may come upon you. Oh, that this May-day might see the blossoming of your faith and your hope, that you might be saved even now! Pray this prayer from your heart, 'O satisfy us early,' in this early season, 'with your mercy.'
III. In the third place, we have AN EXCELLENT REASON: 'that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.'
I know what the devil has told some of you. He has tried to persuade you that, if you are converted, and become Christians, you will never have any happiness, but you will be mopy and miserable all your days. Yes; but then, I hope you do not believe the devil, for he was a liar from the beginning. My dear friends, there is no greater falsehood than the assertion that religion makes men miserable. I would not, if I knew it, tell you an untruth; I stand here like a witness in the box, and I am bearing my testimony, and I declare solemnly, and the Lord hears what I say, that I have known Christ now these seventeen or eighteen years, and I bless God for it. I have found it to be true concerning Christ's wisdom: 'Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.' Thus shall you find the ways of God to be, if you seek him early. I can truly say I have not found that trust in Christ makes me miserable; I have not found that being a Christian makes me wretched; but I have found the very reverse. A good man showed me over a building, the other day, and I was going to offer him something for his trouble in so doing; but he said, 'Do not give me anything; I am glad to do any service to a Christian man.' And, moreover, he said, 'You see a man now before you who is perfectly content. I thank God I would not change my place with any man on earth; I am perfectly satisfied; for the providence of God is good to me, and the grace of God is in my heart.' That was a man who had no reason for telling a falsehood; and I want you also to be happy all your days; and I know that, if you begin life with Christ, you will begin life with happiness; and, hereafter, you will not have to look back on wasted years. You will not have the misery of remembering wickedness which you learned in the ways of the world. You will not have to overcome bad habits early acquired. You will probably be a much better Christian than those who were converted in later life; and, at last, you will be gathered 'in a full age, like as a shock of corn comes in in his season,' and 'so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.' I do not wish to see you converted that you may be made unhappy; but that you may be made truly happy. I desire you to become Christians indeed while you are young. All the happiness the world can confer is but a mere sham, it is good for nothing. What a lot of 'sovereigns' you can buy in the streets, sometimes, for a penny each! Did you ever buy any of them? If so, when you came to look at them, what a poor bargain you found you had made! That is like the world's happiness. Some of you boys have perhaps bought a watch for a penny. You asked the man who sold it whether it would go; he told you, 'Yes,' and so it did go when you carried it, but never further. You were deceived by appearances and falsehoods; and that is how you will be deceived as you grow up to be a man, unless the Lord makes you truly wise; only then it will be on vastly more solemn matters than that of buying a watch. You will make the purchase of that which you think is happiness, and it will look so bright, so like unto pure gold, so like real happiness; but, alas! you will find out—God grant that you may find it out before it is too late!—that the world has deceived you, and sold you emptiness instead of happiness, a worthless pebble instead of the 'one pearl of great price.' There is no true happiness out of Christ; but the dearest, purest, sweetest, richest happiness is to be found in him.
Did you notice, in my text, the two words, 'that we may rejoice and be glad'? It is happiness twice told. All the flowers in God's garden bloom double; all the joys God gives are double; they are joys on earth, and at God's 'right hand there are pleasures for evermore.'
When one sees the double sentence, 'Rejoice and be glad,' does it not mean that we should tell out our joy? Oh, yes! And if we once know Christ, and are satisfied with his mercy, we shall be sure to tell it out to others. I recollect hearing of a minister who, when addressing a Sunday-school on one occasion, asked, 'Is there anyone here who loves the Lord Jesus Christ?' No one spoke. At last he said, 'Some of you may be timid, or you may think it would be pride to speak; but I do earnestly ask that, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ, you will now confess him; and if any of you do love him, that you will now stand up.' One little boy stood up. Everyone in the school knew him to be the one who should stand up, for he was one whose life and conduct were a pattern to all in the school. It was a very delightful thing to see him stand there, and to hear him say, 'Yes, sir, I do love Jesus Christ.' I trust you, my young friends, may be able to do so, too. You need not think it is a thing to be ashamed of; you need not speak of it as though it were a singular thing. If you do love the Savior, Jane, then tell Mary; talk to her about it. If you, Susan, have known the truth as it is in Jesus, be sure you let Lucy know the good news. If you, Thomas, have been brought to Christ, do not be backward in telling John; and you, William, make haste, and tell James that you have found the Savior. If you have found honey, do not eat it all yourself, but let others taste it, too; and if you have found the satisfying mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, 'rejoice and be glad,' and let it be known, that others may come and share in your joy. I think that is one reason why it is put twice over, 'Rejoice and be glad,' just to show that it should be publicly expressed that we have obtained mercy and are satisfied.
IV. Now I must come to a conclusion, and the last head is, CONSIDER THE WHOLE TEXT AS AN EARNEST PRAYER. 'O,'—that is the word with which it begins, 'O satisfy us—O satisfy us—O satisfy us early with your mercy.' You must not trifle when you are coming to God about these sacred things. You must be in earnest. That little round 'O' is about the only expression we can give to our deepest feelings. 'O!' you say, as if you felt, 'Great God, we are not playing at it, we mean it, our whole heart means it, our whole spirit groans and cries; we mean what we say, "O satisfy us." ' When you have been in danger, and your life has been in peril, you have cried out, 'O save me!' I want you to pray to God in that kind of spirit, not tripping over the words, as you sometimes do, night and morning, when you say your prayers; such prayers are no prayers at all, but let yours be the 'O' prayer: 'O satisfy us.' God does not open the gate of Heaven to those who carelessly knock. You must knock with all your might, and knock again, and again, and again, and say, in the words of one of our hymns—
'I can no denial take,
For I plead for Jesus' sake.'
When it comes to this, that you must be saved, you shall be saved. When your heart resolves, through the Holy Spirit, that you will not let God go unless he gives you a blessing, he will most surely bless you. Go to your chamber, or wherever you have the opportunity to pray, and say, 'O God, I must be saved!'
'Lord, deny me what you will,
Only ease me of my guilt;
Suppliant at your feet I lie,
Give me Christ, or else I die.'
Then notice that the prayer I want to press upon you is a personal prayer. 'O satisfy us.' You may put it in the singular if you like, 'O satisfy me.' Religion is a good thing; and it is good for you. Repentance is a necessary thing; and it is necessary for you to repent. You must be born again; you must look to Christ; like the dying thief, you must rejoice to see the fountain of the dear Redeemer's precious blood. It is you, YOU, YOU! I cannot come down from where I am, and say to each one of you in the body of the chapel, or in the galleries, 'You must die; you must trust Christ if you would be saved; you will be lost if you do not believe in Jesus;' but will you let it be considered as if I had done so? Remember, it is not the one sitting next to you, but yourself to whom I am speaking; and let the prayer now go up, 'Lord, let all the young people be saved, but, Father, SAVE ME! Satisfy me, my God, satisfy me early with your mercy.'
Once more, this is a present prayer. It is not a prayer that God would do this in a month or two's time; but now. I wonder whether we can hear that clock tick? [The preacher paused. There was profound silence in the chapel; but an organ playing in the street prevented the ticking of the clock being heard.—T. W. M.] Ah, no! the music of the world is quite sure to drown it; but the tick of the clock, if translated, always says this, 'now, NOW, NOW!' They tick in different tones; but that is always the message. There is no other time but now. Time past has gone; time to come will be now when it does come, and until it is now, it is not time at all.
I will put another word with that now; it may be, with some dear friends here, that it is NOW OR NEVER. Unless you are saved tonight, some of you may never be saved at all. Unless, before you close your eyes in sleep this very night, your heart be given to Christ, you may never become a Christian, but you may perish in your sins. Oh, let it be now, now, now! My heart would gladly break that some of you might trust in Jesus now. You know the way of salvation. You have not to save yourselves; it is Christ that saves. I knew a fine lad, once, who had been skating upon a pond. He came off because it was dangerous; but a playmate continued to amuse himself upon the ice. At last, it broke, and the youth sank beneath the surface. My friend, who was a brave, bold lad, sprang in, seized him, and lifted him up in his arms, calling out as he did so to those around, 'He is saved! He is saved!' And then, alas! he himself sank, and was drowned. His memory is very dear to the young man who was saved by the loss of that precious life. That is what Jesus did for us; he sprang in, and saved us, then sank beneath our sins into death. He died for you, dear friends; and now what you have to do is to trust him. The robe of Christ's righteousness only needs to be put on; it does not need to be made. The bath of blood does not need to be filled; it only needs that you should step into it.
'There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.'
Trust Jesus Christ wholly, trust him heartily; only trust him now, and you are saved; and then you may indeed 'rejoice and be glad' all your days.
Dear teachers, I need not say to you, 'Pray God that all these young people may be saved.' You do pray it, I know; and I know, too, that the answer to that prayer will be your greatest joy. I need not say to the pastors here, 'Pray for these dear young people.' You do pray for them; I know you do. Mothers and fathers, I need not exhort you to pray for them. If you love the Lord Jesus yourselves, you cannot help being anxious for your children. But, young people, I want you to pray for yourselves. By the living God, by the shortness of time, by the certainty of death, by the terrors of the judgment, by the glories of Heaven, by the sweetness of the love of Jesus the Savior, and by the riches of his grace, I beseech and entreat you, 'Seek you the Lord while he may be found, call you upon him while he is near.' Trust in Jesus, and you are saved. Amen, and amen.
Chapter 30
Spurgeon's most striking sermons, published in The Sword and the Trowel, April 1898
IN 1875, the Baptist Union held its Autumnal Session in Plymouth, and the services on that occasion stand out prominently in the memory for several reasons. For one, Dr McLaren was the President for the year, and he then delivered his historical plea for the establishment of the Annuity Fund, which, if it did not actually call the Fund into existence, at least gave it a worthy introduction to the denomination.
Then, too, at these gatherings, leave was taken of several 'outward-bound' missionaries, among whom was Thomas J. Comber, whose life—and, alas! death—are permanently associated with the story of the Congo Mission. By those who had the privilege of listening to them, neither his modest and graceful words of farewell, nor the massive and forcible utterances of Dr Brock, who gave the valedictory address, will ever be forgotten.
But to many, if not to most, the chief interest centered in the fact that Mr Spurgeon was in attendance nearly the whole of the Session, and took an unusually prominent part in the public services—speaking or preaching five times—no doubt, partly owing to his deep personal affection for Rev. John Aldis, who was then Pastor at Plymouth. Our beloved President was present at the morning conference, and listened, with evident delight, to the characteristic and solemn address of Dr Brock to the missionaries. Writing, not long afterwards, in The Sword and the Trowel, Mr Spurgeon described the address referred to as 'so wise, so faithful, so full of the Spirit of God that, had he known that he should never meet his brethren again, it was such a valedictory as he might have chosen to deliver.'
In the afternoon,† Mr Spurgeon was to preach in the Plymouth Guildhall, a noble Gothic structure, which had been recently opened by the Prince of Wales. Long before the time of service, the spacious building was crowded to excess, every point that would afford foothold was occupied, many hundreds were waiting outside, in the vain hope that room might yet be found, and when, on the stroke of the hour, the preacher stepped on to the platform, he was faced by a congregation that might have stirred the heart of any man. Living—as I was then—in the neighborhood, I could look round on the multitude, and mark how representative it was; officers of the navy and army were there, clergymen and ministers from all sections of the Church, and some priests of the Church of Rome, who were as absorbed in the engagements of the afternoon as any who were present. The devotional part of the service was brief, and led up with directness to the Sermon, which, though it lasted for fifty minutes, seemed all too short. Taking as his text part of Genesis 19:15, 'Then the angels hastened Lot,' Mr Spurgeon said:‡
'One cannot help observing, before going to the point which we would specially emphasize, how careful God is to save his own. Here is Lot—what business had he in Sodom? He had already been warned, for he had been carried captive, and thus had had notice that God was displeased with him; yet still he continued to live in filthy Sodom, and though "vexed with the conversation" of the Sodomites, we can hardly pity him, for he was there by his own choice. Yet, although the circumstances were such that, if he had died with the others, we might have said, "it served him right," God would not let him perish. Yes, Lot must be saved; the sluices of God's justice were ready to be drawn, so that his vengeance might flow down in fiery streams upon the city, but not one drop of that dread shower must descend until Lot was safe in Zoar. "I cannot do anything," said the angel, "until you be come thither." When God shall come at last to destroy the world, there will be seen that wondrous sight of the four angels holding the four winds, "that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree," until the servants of God are "sealed in their foreheads." Even in that dread hour, when the pillars of the earth shall tremble, and the day of mercy is about to close, God will take care of his own—glory be to his name for this! Yet, this doctrine should only be preached with the mention of the fact that Lot himself, though saved, was not saved in Sodom, but from it.
'Now to our main subject, which is this: "The angels hastened Lot." Lot, with all his faults, was a gracious man; probably, he was about as good as the average Christian. Lot needed pressure; many of us, nay, all of us, need it, too. Are we slow, then? Redeemed with the blood of Jesus, and called to Christ's work by his Spirit, are we slow? It is to be feared that we are. Wherein, then, are we slow? In the same things in which Lot was slow; slow to obey commands. I wish to speak very solemnly, and very sorrowfully, as much to myself as to anybody here; it is to our shame that we are slow in keeping the commands of Christ. Why, brethren, there are some who do not even know them yet! They have never given an intelligent reading to the Scriptures. And, then, I greatly fear that there are some who do not want to know them; who are, in fact, a little afraid of knowing too much; who fear lest some old prejudice would have to be laid aside, or some new duty undertaken. Dear friend, if a text of Scripture has a controversy with you, you had better give way, for be well assured the text will not. If you have been afraid to look one solitary text in the face, is it not due to your Master that you should go at once, and sit at his feet, and say, "Lord, what is your will? Teach me, for I desire in everything to do your will." Linger not, as some do, excusing their neglect of some known duty by saying that "it has not been laid home" to them; do you, who are parents, allow your children to talk in that way? I think it more than probable that, in such a case, you would lay it home to them, in a fashion that would not be very pleasing. Oh, may we feel that the commands of Christ are so dear to us, that we shall have no desire to evade them, and if we have been backward, may we be hastened!
'Again, like Lot, we have been slow to separate from sinners. Happy are they who, like Abraham, have maintained a life separate from the world for years without a break; but there are many over whom the world has sadly too much power, and they need to be stirred up, if not by the angels, yet by the angels' Master, to a life more separate from the world. Gladly would I, if I could, act the part of the angels, and hasten you to leave these lower things, and seek the highest life possible this side of Heaven.
'We need hastening, too, to seek the salvation of others. Lot had to be stirred up to get his wife and children out of Sodom; have we seen to our households? Are we clear? Are our ministers clear there? Are our deacons clear? Mothers and fathers, have you done all that you could do in this way? God quicken us, to seek the salvation of our households! What makes us slow? Lot, I doubt not, would say that it was the atmosphere of Sodom; but it will not do to lay the blame of our tardiness on the atmosphere, the fault is our own. How often it springs from unbelief! I fear that, after all, Lot did not altogether believe the angels; surely, if he really believed that the city was to be at once destroyed, he would not have lingered; and if we believed the verities of God as truly as we profess that we do, we should not need to be hastened.
'What are the angels that hasten us? Their name is legion. Every mercy that comes to us from God, is an angel to quicken us. Look back upon your election, your redemption, your calling, remember how you have been pardoned, and sanctified. "What manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness!" Look at yourself, and then, look at what has been spent upon you. I am told that hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent on Saltash Bridge, and I can well believe it, for there is something to be seen for the money; but here is a man, about whom I am told that the everlasting purposes of God were concerned, that infinite wisdom bent its strength to the formation of such an one as he, that Jesus died for him, that the blessed Spirit regenerated him; and when I hear all this, I expect something very great in that man. I don't know, in fact, what I do not expect, but, alas! I expect what I do not often see. O dear brethren, do let us live more according to the scale of infinite love, and the wonderful purposes of the eternal God who gave his Son to purchase us by his precious blood!
' "The angels hastened Lot." I know one who is called "the Angel of the Covenant." Oh, that he stood before us this afternoon—the King of the thorny crown, he of the face battered with bruises, and bespattered with spittle, he of the pierced hand, and open side! He is here; he is looking upon you; and can you look on his face, and remember that he died for you, and loves you, and not be hastened in your service for him? I must confess that if, this afternoon, my Lord were here in bodily presence, my first impulse would be to ask him to forget my life. I dare scarcely ask him any more than this, that he would cover its good and evil alike in the ocean of his love, and help me to begin again. Then those viewless messengers of his, who are "sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." How they must wonder at our unreadiness! Have you, who are masters, ever set a servant to do something, and seen that servant do it in such a way that, as you have looked at him, you have felt your very flesh creep, and you have wanted to do the work yourself, and send him packing? So, I fear, the angels must sometimes feel when they see and hear us. Did they not hover over the mercy-seat with faces looking downward, desiring to look into the secrets of the covenant; and thus, do they not chide our neglect, as they see our minds occupied with trifling things, instead of the weighty matters of the law and the testimony? When Christ was born, they led the song, "Glory to God in the highest," and their sweet music rebukes our feeble praise; they stood in the wilderness, and ministered to Christ after his conflict with the tempter, and methinks they must wonder at us, who bear his name, and yet perhaps fall under each of the three temptations which he repelled; in the garden, they helped him when the bloody sweat was on him, and they seem to say to us, "You have not yet resisted unto blood." When he ascended on high, those angels said, "You men of Galilee," and they seem to say to us now, "You men of Plymouth, why stand you gazing up into Heaven?" They bid us remember that Christ will come again, and be prepared, as stewards of his grace, to render our account. Oh, how the angels hasten us! They rejoice when sinners turn to God; and have we no longing to see them repent? They sound their golden harps when prodigals return, and shall we play the part of the elder brother? Like flames of fire, they fly at Christ's command; do you not see them as they cleave the sky on lightning wings? Oh, how their zeal rebukes us, as we lag, and loiter, in the service of our Lord!
'This year, another angel has been busy, who well may hasten us—the angel of death. I will not try to mention the names of those who have been called away to swell the ranks of the triumphant. I have stood astonished as the arrows have been flying right and left among us; not once, nor twice, but many times, the Lord has spoken, and to all quarters, North, South, East, West, he has sent his angels, to call our brethren home. Oh, let this angel hasten us! Look at the fields, how white; look at the reapers, how few; and before the sunset comes, make haste to garner the grain. Then there is yet another angel, I will not try to picture him, yet methinks I see him; he is lifting the trumpet to his lips, it almost touches them; and when it does, then shall be heard that awful blast that tells us time shall be no more, then shall close the day of mercy, then shall dawn the day of our account. If that angel do not hasten us, then are we lingerers indeed.
'These angels who came to Lot were model ministers. God sent them to get Lot out of Sodom, and they went down to where he was, nor left him until he was well out of the city. The soul-winner must go where the people are, get down among them. I saw in Scotland a man fishing for salmon, he was standing in great top-boots in the very middle of the stream; that is the way to fish, and that is the way to win souls; we must get close to the people, and if they linger, lay hold on them. Our one great business is to get the sinners out of Sodom. Some brethren seem to speak slightingly of this, and have a good deal to say about the need for higher spiritual culture; all right, brother, you take Lot up the mountain, and black his boots, and brush his coat, I'm going down into Sodom to find another sinner. It is quite a proper thing that he should look respectable in his dress, but the first thing is to get him saved.
'Now, in closing, dear brethren, if we wish sinners to be eager, we must be eager ourselves. When we are in dead earnest, we shall not fail to find the right way of working. We need the right spirit, and that spirit is Love; how shall we get it? Where shall we learn the are? I think we had better go to Abraham's school; let us stand where he stood, "before the Lord." He will teach us, not by books or lectures, but by a sacred instinct, which will flow from his heart into ours. If you want any more instruction, go and look towards Sodom. It seems to have become unfashionable to believe in the punishment of the wicked, but, depend upon it, if a man goes wrong there, there will be little soul-winning. To preach about this matter, with a hard spirit, in words that sound like curses, is to me dreadful; but to feel it, to have it as an awful background to the picture that represents eternal life, is the very source of strength. Commune with God, look that way, and then look the other. I shall say no more than to ask you this—if, at this very moment, Christ should come, what sort of account would you be able to give of your service? You believe in Christ—you say—you are a church member, you have been baptized, you go to the communion table; but what have you done for Jesus? Give an account of your stewardship at once. Oh, I pray you, take stock this afternoon, and when you have done it, God grant that the process may so "hasten" you that you may go forth and hasten sinners, to lay hold on eternal life! Amen.'
To say that the Sermon was heard with the closest possible attention, would be to convey but a slight impression of its effect on the great congregation. From the beginning to the end of the service, the peerless preacher had complete control of his audience, and during the more dramatic passages—as when he pictured the angel of the Revelation—the people seemed to hold their breath with expectation; and when—with that pathos which was so effective, because so natural—he spoke of 'the Angel of the Covenant,' I could see the face of a Catholic priest, who stood by one of the pillars near me, wet with tears. It was a grand occasion, grandly used to the glory of God.
Chapter 31
Grace all-sufficient
Substance of a sermon delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Thursday evening, 29 August 1861.
'My grace is sufficient for you; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.'—2 Corinthians 12:9
FROM the interesting narrative which the apostle Paul gives of the remarkable revelation which was made to him, of his special trial afterwards, and of his thrice-repeated prayer, we learn, among other lessons, that God does not always hear his people's prayers as they would desire them to be heard. Here was an apostle as the suppliant; God did not therefore refuse the petition on account of any unworthiness in the person presenting it. Here was a prayer most suitable; that the Lord would withdraw from him 'a thorn in the flesh.' Here was a prayer doubtless offered in faith; and, certainly, it was a prayer pleaded with importunity: 'For this thing I besought the Lord thrice.' After the example of the Savior, who thrice, and only thrice, said, 'O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as you will;' the apostle may have prayed thrice in almost identical terms, and said, 'O my Father, if it be possible, let this thorn depart from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as you will.' It was not the Father's will that the prayer of the apostle should be answered according to the letter of it, though he answered it in a far better way in spirit.
Brethren, it is well for us that it is not an unconditional doctrine of Scripture that God will always answer our prayers in the form in which we present them. That God will hear his people's supplications, and when they are rightly offered, that he will answer them, is most certainly true. But it is not certain that God will always answer our prayers as we offer them, and as we expect him to answer them; if it were, we should rather depend upon our own wisdom in prayer than on God's wisdom in providence; we should be tempted to take the throne ourselves, to think of the Lord almost as our subject, and to consider our own will supreme above the will of our Father in Heaven. Our folly would ask for that which would destroy us were it granted; our pride would often request that which would be to God's dishonor were it bestowed: and our petulance and impatience would often crave to have that removed which is essentially necessary to our growth in grace, and to the confirmation of our faith. We thank you, O Lord, for the mercy-seat, but we also thank you that you have not left us to ask and to have just what we will; you have not made the gift of your mercies a dangerous weapon in the hand of our infirmity!
Let this cheer and comfort you who have been asking the Lord to withdraw some trouble, which yet remains. Your Father can give you something much better than you ask, infinitely more than an equivalent, more for your profit and for his glory. You have asked for silver, but he will give you gold. Take for your comfort the example of the apostle, and know that it is no sign of God's displeasure if he should not answer your prayer in the way you expect. If, in the matter of taking away the cup from Christ, not the will of the Son, but the will of the Father must be done, do you expect that you are to have your will, and to get your way? Why, that would be to dethrone God, and to uplift yourself, and to make yourself worthy of more honor, than you pay to your Heavenly Father.
Now we will consider the exceeding great and precious promise which the apostle received as an answer to his prayer, though not the answer he wished and expected: ' "My grace is sufficient for you." I will not remove the load from you, but I will strengthen your shoulders to bear it. I will not take away the difficulty, but I will give you both wisdom and grace to pass through it well.'
There are three things I intend to speak of tonight. First, the sufficiency of Divine grace in the various trials and circumstances of the believer's life; secondly, the implied limit of the promise; 'My grace is sufficient for you;' and, thirdly, the suggested question, Is Christ's grace sufficient for you? I. THE SUFFICIENCY OF DIVINE GRACE IN THE DIVERSIFIED POSITIONS INTO WHICH BELIEVERS ARE BROUGHT BY THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.
Those medicines which are advertised as 'cure-alls' seldom cure anything at all; but of the grace of God it may most truly be said that it does cure all the diseases of the soul, that it meets all cases, and that it is suitable to the Christian in every position into which he may be brought. I might compare the different manifestations of Divine grace to those well-near innumerable combinations of color which are made by the kaleidoscope, with which children amuse themselves. They turn the tube again and again, and every time the few pieces of glass fall into fresh forms. So is it with Divine grace; every turn of the glass, every day of every hour of every year brings out some new combination of God's wisdom, love, power, compassion, and longsuffering, so that he who, in hoary age, is nearing the last hour of life's battle can say, 'I have found the grace of Christ in my every hour of need to be both suitable and sufficient.'
Here is a brother who has lately suffered many losses; trade is bad with him; one thing fails after another; he puts his money into a bag with holes in it; his hopes are constantly disappointed; and yet see him! Filled with Divine grace, he bears his losses as majestically as his joys. The same grace which was as a weight to keep him on the ground when he would have been lifted up by prosperity, now, when affliction seems as though it must cast him down, makes him buoyant and joyous. The chaff that is blown away before the gale flies high as though it would emulate the stars; but, see, it sinks and falls, and at last any muddy pool may be its grave. But, in the selfsame gale, the tall and stately cedar, though its branches may wave in the wind, stands erect because it is firmly rooted. So is it with the child of God when he knows how to depend entirely upon his Heavenly Father's grace. He takes affliction from his Father's hand with joy; he says, with Job, 'Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?… The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'
See the believer when the affliction comes closer home. His child has sickened before his eyes; the disease has continued to gather strength, and at last the news has come to his ears that the child must die. He realizes the fact; the mother tries to understand it, too. Crushed in spirit, they retire to pray; they tell the tale of their sorrow before their God. See them as they come down from that chamber! They weep—'Jesus wept;'—but they murmur not, for, like him, they are, 'as a sheep before her shearers,' dumb. They have put their child into the hands of their God, and with patience they await the result.
You may have seen the wife with a numerous family about her, and he who was their only stay, and on whose broad breast she leaned, is smitten down. There he lies! Can you wonder if, for a little season, in her agony, she says, 'I cannot bear this blow; this cannot be from a Father's hand. Had he taken away some lesser mercy, I might have borne it; but, oh! to take away my all—him—the man who has fulfilled every pledge he made to me, and who has loved and cherished me from his youth up even until now'? But see her again! Her prayers have been offered, God's grace has been given, and she goes to his dying bed, and she wipes the death-sweat from his brow, and she says to him, 'My beloved husband, do not let thoughts of your wife disturb your dying moments, you know how to commit me to your God, and I commit you to him now.' And, with many a tear, but without a murmur, she says, 'Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of the Lord.'
I speak of matters of fact which I see every day. Grace makes the man bravely bear the loss and the cross; it makes the man, and the woman, too, though of tender spirit, endure bereavement after bereavement, and that most crushing of all losses, when the partner who is dearer than one's own life is taken away.
Have you, too, ever seen the Christian in the perilous position into which some few are brought, standing on the dizzy heights of the lofty pinnacle of fame? There he is up aloft, but not too high to hear the noise of the wondering crowd surging below. If God has endowed him with Divine grace, the Christian is as safe on the summit of the mountain as in the peaceful valley below. Like the chamois of the Alps, he leaps from crag to crag, despises the ravine, laughs at the thunderclap, feeling that the Lord, who made his nature fit to be the comrade of these lofty things, will keep him so that he may look down and not stumble, so that he may stand upright even there, and so glorify his Lord and Master. It would be ill for the Christian to whom Divine Providence had appointed a place at Court, or loaded with riches, if the grace of God were not as able to keep him as safely under the withering blasts of the sun as under the colder beams of the moon.
One other case let me mention. An heir of Heaven is called to some extraordinary labor. A truth has been revealed to him which is unknown to his age; the Church has grown careless and Christless, and he has come forward to be the champion of the Lord. He can count little on the sympathy of friends, and he is called to lead a forlorn hope against a well-garrisoned citadel. Since he has scarcely any earthly helpers, he relies the more unreservedly on Divine grace, he strikes the decisive blow for God and truth, and gains the victory.
These cases are not depicted merely from imagination. As certainly as an ocean bears a navy on its bosom, so does God's grace bear up God's people; and it is not more a fact that fire burns, and that we live by breathing the atmosphere, than that grace burns in the soul, and that we live, under the most desperate circumstances, by receiving Divine grace. St Laurentius upon the gridiron, the Waldenses hunted from mountain to mountain, and valley to valley, Wycliffe, 'the morning star of the Reformation,' the Lollards, his followers, persecuted, misrepresented, betrayed, tortured, burned;—all these found Christ's grace sufficient for them. Our own glorious ancestors, hunted by the foul Conventicle Act, made the offscouring of all things, and denied the rights of citizens, found God's grace sufficient to make them uphold the standard, and to smite down their foes.
And now that we are being tired by holidays more than by work, and in more danger from the world's smile than from its frown, God's grace is still sufficient for his Church, She needs no Acts of Parliament to regulate her affairs, no temporal aggrandizement to make her powerful and attractive, no endowment beyond this: 'MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU.' O you Queen of the earth, go you in this your might, for this shall ever be enough to suffer with and to conquer with also! In these days, we have so-called Christian ministers who are little better than infidels, while Romanists and Papists are standing in what were once Protestant pulpits. What shall we say to this? God's grace is sufficient for his Church even in this her trial hour.
And you personally, brethren, who have had a new and severe trial today, or a series of trials have placed you in such a critical position as you never were in before—bless God for it! Now there is room for faith. Trust God, and in the new position you shall find that his grace is adapted to all circumstances, and that it never fails in any. 'But I have not a friend,' says one. 'My grace is sufficient for you.' 'But I have a multitude of troubles,' says another. 'My grace is sufficient for you.' 'But Satan has his foot on my neck, I am sore wounded; he is drawing his fiery sword to take away my life.' 'My grace is sufficient for you.' My brethren, this Divine declaration is just as applicable to your case as to that of any other believer in Jesus, no matter how peculiar or severe your trouble may be.
II. The IMPLIED LIMIT OF THE PROMISE: 'My grace is sufficient for you.'
There is no limit in the degree or in the number of the trials; but the limit is here, there will not be more than a sufficiency of grace. There is a way of living in grace by which we have bread from Heaven and water out of the Rock, and our garments are given to us, but we have no more than a sufficiency for our need. We are the people of God, but we are not his joyful people; we are his children, but his children who do not often see his face, and sun ourselves in the light of his countenance. Now, remember, Christian, God has not promised always to give you the comforts of grace, though he has promised a sufficiency of grace; the comforts ought never to be the main thing with you. If he take you up to 'the top of Amana,' and thence show you some of his love, be you glad and rejoice; but, remember, it is not Amana that saves, but Calvary. If he take you to his banqueting-house, and there cause you to drink the juice of the spiced wine of his pomegranate, be glad; but, remember, it is not drinking that wine, but resting upon his atonement, that saves you. You are as safe without these joys as with them; for the Rock we stand on is not our comfort, but the finished work of Christ; and if the comforts be withdrawn, the promise has not failed. You shall get through the river, though you may not go through it dry-shod. You shall pass through the fire unhurt, though not perhaps without feeling the heat; nay, rather, you shall feel the fire, and by it your dross shall be consumed. The Lord does not promise his soldiers that they shall always lie on feather-beds; but he does promise them that, if they lie on the plain, they shall be in peace. He does not promise that they shall come out of the battle with armor as bright and coats as clean as when they went into the field, but only that they shall come out of the conflict with flesh unwounded. They shall come out with garments rolled in blood; but, still, unconquered heroes of the cross; they shall come out without defeat, ay, and without dishonor, for the Lord's message to each one of them is, 'My grace is sufficient for you.'
So, friend, you have come here, tonight, groaning that you have not grace enough for tomorrow. Ah, well! the text says, 'My grace is sufficient for you,' and that means sufficient for today, not for tomorrow until tomorrow comes. You are fretting about a trouble coming on in a month's time; but the Lord does not promise to give you grace for October in the month of August. You say you have not got dying grace yet. Well, you are not dying yet; be content with living grace now, and you shall have the grace you need when the trial comes.
The brave Leonidas, with his handful of Spartans, did not go out into the plain to the myriads of Persians, and say, 'Come now, these three hundred will fight you all.' He would soon have been destroyed if he had done so. But he chose a narrow pass between great rocks, and the enemy could not come more than one at a time, and then, as they came, he and his brave soldiers were all day and all night long fighting hand to hand, and each one slew his man, and so kept back the Persian host. Now, do you stand in the narrow pass of today, and as your troubles come, hour by hour, by Divine grace you shall smite them; but do not go out to fight all the trials of life at once, and especially do not dishonor your God and trouble yourself by fretting about storms and troubles which may never come. Just cast the future, Christian, where you must leave it, with Christ. Do not act as some silly people do, who will try to gaze through the telescope to see into futurity, and who say; 'It is all clouds,' when, but for their own breath upon the glass, they would have seen only the clear, bright blue sky above their heads.
III. We now come to THE SUGGESTED QUESTION: 'FRIEND, IS GOD'S GRACE SUFFICIENT FOR YOU?'
I would not condemn all those who are doubting and fearing, but those who say that Divine grace is not enough to bear them up under the ordinary trials of life have very grave reason to suspect whether they have received the true grace of God at all. When you see a Christian man fretting and worrying about losses in business, you say, 'That man has little faith in God, or he would not act like that.' Or when you see a Christian woman, months after bereavement, refusing to be comforted, you may say with the Quaker, 'Friend, have you not forgiven God yet?' If I see the believer crushed beneath trouble, I must suspect his faith, because 'this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.' Brethren, this has often been a serious test-point to myself. I know what nervousness means; perhaps the most timid old woman here is not half so nervous as I am. The most ridiculous fears will sometimes come across my mind, and I know their absurdity—and often a sluggish liver is responsible for our despondency—but I put it to myself thus—If I have been taken into the family of Christ, and he has given me ground for rejoicing in him evermore, I ought not to give way to this feeling, for his grace is able to lift me above it.
If we cannot bear affliction, what should we have done in the days of persecution? If our patience fails when we have a slight pain, if our hearts sink under a little trial, what shall we do in the swellings of Jordan? Come, this will not do! 'Quit you like men; be strong.' This will not do; we must not give way to this feeling. We must say, and may God help us to say it, 'Lord, give us grace that shall be equal to our day!' And he will not refuse our request, but will help us to live to his honor and to our comfort by giving us more grace as we have to endure more trials.
I close when I have made this remark; there is no promise in the Bible that God's grace will be sufficient for those who do not believe on his Son, Jesus Christ. You will have your troubles; but you will have no one to help you bear them. You shall be poor, but you shall not make many rich. You shall be perplexed, and you shall be in despair. You shall be persecuted, and you shall be forsaken. For you, there shall be the clouds, but not the bow; the flood, but not the ark; the Red Sea, but not the rod of Moses, nor the billows to swallow up your enemies; the wilderness, but not the pillar of cloud; the fiery serpent, but not the saving serpent of brass; the Canaanites, but no Joshua; the captivity, but no return; the destruction of the Temple, but not the building of it in three days. For you, there shall be the reeling earth, but no solid Heaven; the conflagration of the skies, but no cleft of the rock in which Jehovah shall hide you. For you, there will be the judgment without an Advocate; the charge without the courage to plead 'not guilty'; the condemnation without hope of respite; and the punishment without hope of end. Oh, that you were wise, that you understood this, and that you fled at once to him who ever receives to his bosom penitent souls drawn by his Spirit. 'He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he who believes not shall be damned.' God help us all to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, for his dear Name's sake! Amen.
Chapter 32
Spiritual springtime
A sermon preached at Surrey Chapel on Thursday evening, 4 April 1867
'My beloved spoke, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.'—Song of Solomon 2:10–13.
WHENEVER the springtime arrives, we have a new proof of the faithfulness of God to his ancient covenant, in which he said, 'While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.' Let us accept this as a pledge that God will be equally true to all his other promises, and that, especially, will he be found faithful to his great covenant of grace. Did you imagine, in the depth of winter, that the springtime would never come? When the snow was lying deep upon the ground, did despondency say that summer would never return? When the swallows were all gone, and the sere leaves of autumn had melted back into mother earth, did you then think that the trees would never again bud and blossom, and that there would never be a season of fruit-bearing again? If you did think so, your unbelief has received a gracious rebuke; and you now perceive that God is faithful, for the springtime has returned.
Learn the same lesson, dear friends, about your spiritual life—the little world within you. There must be both seedtime and harvest there. There must be both summer and winter within your soul as well as in the outer world. We read, in the first chapter of Genesis, that 'the evening and the morning were the first day,' and that 'the evening and the morning were the second day,' and so on. There were no days, even in that Paradise, without their evenings and their mornings; and, certainly, since the Fall, no Christian's day has been all brightness; there must be darkness as well as light to make it complete. But your worst sorrows must come to an end. The severest winter yields to the genial influence of spring, and the sharpest troubles will at last give place to consolation. When the tide runs out, it keeps on ebbing for hours; but at last it turns; and so, even if you go on growing poorer and poorer, there must come a time when your poverty shall be stayed; or if you have been long sick, health may yet be recovered; and if it never be recovered in this world, yet there is a land the inhabitant whereof shall never say, 'I am sick.' Be of good comfort, then, poor mourner! Take heart of hope as you see God governing the clouds, and believe that your very worst seasons must have an end, and that your severest afflictions will at last result in producing in you the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
But, further, dear friends, the coming of spring is all the more welcome to us because of the sharp winter which preceded it. Sometimes, when we have had very mild winters, we have scarcely known when the spring came back, and hardly cared about it; but if our bodies have been pinched with extreme cold, how glad we are when, at last, the winter disappears, and the April showers begin to prepare the way for the sweet May flowers! And, in like manner, all the joys we are yet to have will be increased by the troubles which we are now enduring. Depend upon it, one of the happiest experiences of human existence is just after a long season of trouble and pain. Why, it is almost worth while to be sick for the sake of the enjoyment that a man has when health is restored to him. It is worth while to go through 'a sea of troubles' for the peace and rest which the heart gets when at last it outrides the waves, and casts anchor in the harbor. Nothing can so make your joys shine as having passed through deep sorrows to reach them. Your past afflictions will be like the black foil which the jeweler sometimes puts at the back of the diamond to make the brilliant appear the brighter; your former troubles shall only increase the brightness of your coming joy.
Yet, once again, the happiness of the springtime is increased by the fact that it is prophetic of something better yet to come—namely, the summer. Solomon tells us, in our text, that 'the fig tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell;'—that is to say, there were prophecies of a vintage, there were signs of fruit-bearing and of a coming harvest. We should not be so thankful for the spring but that we can foresee that the blossoms will become fruit, and that the green blade will become the full corn in the ear, and afterwards the golden grain which shall provide bread for the multitudes. And, in a similar fashion, what a sweet mercy it is when our present joys are known by us to be foretastes of greater delights that are yet to come! The worldling's joy may well be unsatisfactory, because it will die with him, and he with it, and he will then enter upon his eternal misery; but the Christian's joy has this charm about it, that it is but the porch of something better, the vestibule of a glory and an immortality which shall know no measure nor end. If today we rejoice in the love of Christ, in the Better Land we shall rejoice in it in a still higher style. If today we have fellowship with God's people, and find it delightful to worship in the house of prayer, our delight shall go on swelling, and in due time we shall come to 'the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in Heaven.' So that, our present joy, being but the earnest of 'a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,' is, like the spring, prophetic of a brighter and a richer summer.
Let us then be thankful—thankful, if we have just escaped from trouble, that the past will but help to make the present all the sweeter; thankful, if we are now in trouble, that it will not last forever; thankful, if we are now in the midst of enjoyment, that we have not to leave it, except to mount to something better, from the nether to the upper springs, from the feasts of love on earth to the feasts of bliss in glory.
With this introduction, I call your attention to the great fact that, as there are springtimes in the outer world, so there are spring seasons in the Church of Christ as a whole, and in the heart of each individual believer; and I will talk upon that subject in this fashion.
I. First, I will say a little about REVIVAL SEASONS IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN GENERAL—THEIR SIGNS AND THEIR DUTIES.
There are times, in the Christian Church, when it is just like winter. The ministry seems to be fruitless, like the trees when stripped of their leaves, and bound in the bands of frost and snow. Then the Christian workers almost cease to labor, just as the farmer cannot drive his plough when the earth is frozen hard as iron. There are no joyous songs heard in the sanctuary; but, instead thereof, many groans, like the howling winds of winter which take the place of the sweet melodies of the birds of summer. Then there is desolation even in the hearts of the godly; those who love the Church hang their harps upon the willows, feeling as if they were in a strange land, where they could not sing the songs of Zion. But, by-and-by, there come 'times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.' He causes his wind to blow, and the waters of penitence flow. He speaks the Word, and the chains of indifference and of sloth are melted, even as the ice is thawed in the returning warmth of springtime. The Church revives, songs of joy and gladness are again heard in her midst, and it is once more said, 'The Lord has done great things for his people.'
The first season of this kind that we read of as happening to the Church after the days of our Lord was at Pentecost. It was a short but a very sharp winter which the Church had when her Lord lay buried in the grave. How troubled all the disciples were! They thought that he was the Messiah who would deliver Israel, but he had been crucified and slain, and buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. That winter was but short—it lasted only three days—but it was very sharp. The hearts of the disciples were greatly troubled through their unbelief, and their forgetfulness of the Lord's plain teaching concerning his resurrection. But, the third day, he rose from the dead. He appeared to many of them; he walked and talked with them again and again at intervals for forty days, and then he ascended into Heaven. After ten more days, the Church's winter was past, and the rain of her tearful sorrow was over and gone. Having waited for the appointed time, they met with one accord in one place, and then the promised blessing came. You remember that day of Pentecost, when the flowers appeared upon the earth. Young converts, like fresh flowerets blossoming from amidst the dark, dreary soil of Judaism, were seen by thousands on that memorable day. Then were there songs of gladness heard in the midst of the Church, for 'the time of the singing of birds' had come. The Holy Spirit, the Divine Dove, descended and rested upon the chosen ones. 'The voice of the turtle' was heard in the land; the gospel turtledove notes, full of goodwill and peace to man, were heard by Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia. All over the land, the voice of pardoning blood and redeeming mercy was soon heard, and unto the uttermost ends of the earth the gospel was proclaimed. Then came the fruit of the Spirit. The fig tree put forth her green figs. The Church was full of all sorts of holy graces and sanctified affections. Christ himself walked with his Church, and she rose up, and went forth with her Beloved, and held the sweetest and dearest fellowship with him. Oh, those were blessed days—those days that saw the ingathering of the first-fruits that followed the day of Pentecost! We often sigh for them, and wish that the like would come to us. We may have them; nay, we may have better days than those if we have but faith enough. The Spirit is given, and the Lord's arm is not shortened that he cannot save. Let us hope, and pray, and trust that such a time of singing of birds may yet come to us.
You who know the early history of the Christian Church will recollect how, centuries after that blessed period, a long winter fell upon the Church. She had forgotten her first love, and yielded herself up to the fascinations of anti-Christ, and that period of time which we commonly call 'The Dark Ages' passed heavily over the Church's head. God was not glorified. Souls were not saved. The saints did not adorn the doctrine of God their Savior;—the true saints did, but there were so few of them, and many of those who were called 'saints' were but mock saints, and knew not the truth. But, in God's good time, there came the spring-like season of the Reformation. In answer to the prayers of a few hidden ones amidst the valleys of the Alps, and in the wilds of Bohemia, the Spirit was again manifested in the midst of the Church. There rose up certain preachers and teachers, such as John Huss and Jerome of Prague. These were followed by others more eminent still, such as Luther, and Zwingli, and Calvin. Many lands seemed, on a sudden, to have received light from Heaven. The time of flowers came again. Once more, the gospel was preached; that same gospel, which had stirred the world before, began to have a similar influence upon human minds. Again the plants, that had been like the bulbs of the daffodil and the crocus, hidden deep down in the mire, suddenly sent up their green shoots and their golden flowers, and all over the Continent, and in this our own country, the time had come for the flowers to appear upon the earth. Many learned to love and trust the Savior, and rejoiced to bear testimony to his saving grace. Then came also the time of the singing of birds. Luther translated the Psalms, and the German ploughman sang them as he drove his horse down the furrow. It was said that, all over England, if you met three men, you might be sure that one out of the three was a disciple of Wycliffe and a singer of Psalms. They called them 'Lollards' because of their singing; and, as the brightest singing of birds is usually an intimation that springtime has come, so the revival of Christian Psalmody seems to be one indication of a revival of religion. Then indeed was 'the voice of the turtle' heard again in the land. The gospel sounded forth sweetly and clearly, and the power of the Holy Spirit was again felt in the comforting of the Lord's people, and in the conversion of multitudes of souls.
I might remind you of a third period, which will never be forgotten in the history of the Christian Church, that is to say, the days of Whitefield and Wesley. And here, in Surrey Chapel, it is well to speak of those days, for when Whitefield fell asleep, the man who chiefly bore the standard of truth was Rowland Hill, and it was through such men as Romaine, at St Ann's, on the other side of the road, and of Rowland Hill here, and others too numerous for me now to mention, that the Lord was pleased to visit his Church, which had fallen either into dull orthodoxy—orthodoxy without life—or else into heterodoxy full of decorous rottenness. All over the land, the Church of England was asleep in the dark, and the Dissenters were asleep in the light; and that was the only difference between the two. Taking the ministers as a whole, they were dumb dogs that could not bark;—greedy dogs that could never have enough given to them upon which to slumber! But those men of whom I have spoken, touched by God's Spirit, once more proclaimed the gospel, and just as the whole earth feels the influence of spring, or, as the psalmist says of the sun, 'There is nothing hid from the heat thereof,' so was it with the whole land, nothing was hidden from the heat of gospel truth. Conversions were numerous, and again the songs of Zion were heard in every street. It is wonderful how, in Mr Wesley's time, the use of hymn-books increased; and almost all those who became great preachers constantly advocated the singing of the praises of the Lord. Blessed be God, some of us think that we have not quite lost the influence of that glorious time yet; and I trust that the holy fire, which then was kindled, still lingers on the altars of God's sanctuaries, and that it shall never go out. The time of the singing of birds had come, and the voice of the turtle was heard in our land.
In thus describing these three great seasons of revival, I have told you the signs of them; but now I want to remind you that there are always certain duties peculiar to certain seasons. The duty of the Christian, in revival seasons, is plainly pointed out in our text. Christ, as the Heavenly Bridegroom, there says to his spouse, 'Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Whenever there is a true revival of religion, every genuine Christian should arise, and gird himself to serve his Master with double diligence. If he has been at all slothful before, he must not be so now. The old proverb says, 'Make hay while the sun shines;' and we may turn that proverb to good account in the Christian Church. Try to do all the good you can when God the Holy Spirit is busy among the people. When there is a spirit of hearing, then preach with all your might. When the people seem to have a desire to know the gospel, do not let them remain ignorant of it. Now that the wind is favorable, crowd on your canvas. Seize every opportunity you can to help on the good cause. The miller knows that he cannot make his mill go whenever he likes; he is dependent upon the wind; so, when the wind blows, he takes care to grind his grist, and so must you do. You cannot command the Spirit of God to come when you please; but when he is abroad in the world in his mighty power, and there is a stir among the people, recollect that passage in Old Testament history: 'Let it be, when you hear the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then you shall bestir yourself, for then shall the Lord go out before you.' So, when you hear that God is putting forth his power, and he gives you even the slightest indication of it, then with might and main seek to serve him.
But specially note that the text says, 'Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.' During revival seasons, Christians should endeavor in a very special sense to walk in distinct separation from the world. I find that, when grace is not actively at work in the Church, Christians are more apt to become conformed to the world; but, as soon as ever their spiritual life and vigor are restored to them, they become Nonconformists to the world, they take up the cross, and go outside the camp with their Lord. And you Christians, who live in these happy days, which I trust are in some measure seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, do seek after a high standard of spirituality! Strive to attain an eminent degree of usefulness, and hear your Beloved say to you, 'Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Now that the floods are out, God grant that the gardens of our souls may all be watered! Now that the sun shines, may it shine into our faces; may we have our full share of its genial influence! Grant, O God, that none of your people may be slow to serve you when your arm is made bare!
I might, in connection with this remark, venture to ask the members of the church especially under my care to make this a particular time for pleading with God for his blessing because of the immense numbers of persons who are willing each Sabbath day to listen to my voice in the proclamation of the truth. Now it is, when the flowers appear upon the earth, and there is a time of the singing of birds—it is now, if ever in all your life, that you should be much in prayer seeking a blessing from the Most High. Let this be the earnest, continued cry of us all—
'Revive your work, O Lord,
And give refreshing showers!
The glory shall be all your own,
The blessing, Lord, be ours.'
Thus much about revivals in the Church of Christ as a whole; but now I turn with pleasure to the second point.
II. Secondly, THERE ARE FREQUENTLY SPRINGTIMES IN THE HEART OF EACH INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER.
The first of these springtimes is at conversion. Oh, the long and dreary winter through which a soul passes when under conviction of sin! I need not describe that sad period; for, Christian, you have not forgotten it. You were dead, comfortless, barren, a castaway. You tried to cheer yourself, but you could not; and to help yourself, but it all ended in disappointment. But do you not remember the day when the Lord appeared unto you, when his everlasting love was revealed to you, when the precious blood of Jesus was applied to your guilty conscience, when the Holy Dove descended, and dwelt in your breast, bearing witness with your spirit that you were born of God? Oh, yes! you can never have forgotten all that if it has really happened to you. May I, then, charge your memories to go back to that blessed springtime, you who have been long in the ways of the Lord? I trust, too, that there are some here who are even now in that joyous state; for they have but lately experienced 'the time of the singing of birds,' and to them the flowers have just now begun to appear.
What a happy season is that time immediately after our conversion! I might take each word of the text, and say that it seems to be literal truth concerning a young convert. I am sure that, when first I knew the Lord, my soul was as a garden of sweet flowers exhaling delightful fragrance. I was full of love to Christ, full of ardent zeal which knew scarcely any bounds, and seemed as if it could not rise to a higher pitch of intensity; full of bright-eyed hope; and full of joy that tripped on gaily with happy feet. Every virtue seemed to be there, in a measure, at least—though weak, yet fair and beautiful. How full of happiness was my heart—like the young lambs that leap and skip in the field from the mere exuberance of new-born life! Perhaps there is no part of a Christian's career that is more joyous than its beginning. There are other times which may be preferred to it for strength, for usefulness, for maturity; but, oh! how blessed is that first springtime of spiritual life! What a season of flowers it is!
At our conversion, it was also 'the time of the singing of birds.' We went out with joy, and we were led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills broke forth before us into singing, and all the trees of the field did clap their hands. In those happy days, every promise of Scripture seemed to be spoken specially to us, and even the threatenings of the Word became turned into blessings as we saw that we were not under their power. When we went up to the house of God, how sweet the hymns were! When we resorted to our place of communion with the Lord, how delightful was prayer! Then, that blessed fellowship at the Lord's table, how we did enjoy it! We thought, when we listened to the preaching of the gospel, that no music could be compared to it. 'The time of the singing of birds' had indeed come. It was a spiritual honeymoon to us; we were married to Christ, and our joy was like that of those who are newly-wedded. I am afraid some of us have almost forgotten our first love, and therefore have lost our first joy; but, oh, the bliss, the happiness of that springtime in our souls!
Above all, we shall never forget how clear and distinct 'the voice of the turtle' then was. The Holy Spirit gave us a complete assurance that we were saved. As for doubts, we did not know what they were then. As to unbelief, we thought we never should fall into such a sin as that. We had seen the Lord; and the glorious sight of his finished work and perfect righteousness had ravished our soul. We knew nothing about cares; we had enough of them in the world if we had chosen to call them cares, but we cast them all upon our God, and the joy of the Lord was our strength, and he himself was our abounding confidence. Yes, it was indeed a happy springtime with our new-born souls.
Let me say to any who are now in this joyous state—Make the best use you can of it while it lasts. I do not know why it should not always last, but usually it does not; so employ it to the highest advantage while it does. The way to make good use of it is to 'rise up' now as high as ever you can, and to 'come away' from the world as much as ever you can during this blessed time. I have sometimes thought that, if a man does not become a high-class Christian during the first three months after his conversion, he probably never will. I have noticed some people who have begun their Christian life in a very feeble fashion. I hope they so began that they were really saved; but, still, they began doubting and fearing, and they kept on in the same style until they went to Heaven. Some begin by serving the Lord stingily, not giving him their whole hearts; or they begin coldly, and so they never get hot with zeal all their lives. I do like to see a young convert red-hot—white-hot, if you like. I like to see him too full of zeal if that is possible; because, when he cools down, he will come just to the right heat if he is too hot at first; but, if he is cool at first, what will he come to by-and-by? You who are enjoying a happy springtime, ask the Lord to make you grow as fast as you can now. Depend upon it, all the fruit that will be upon the trees this year is upon them now. Do you ask, 'How is that?' Why, every gardener will tell you that there is all the blossom on the tree now that there ever will be; it only wants unfolding—and there is all the fruit there, too, that is, the germ of it; it only wants expanding. And I believe that there is the whole of a Christian in a young convert; and that, if you could really see what is in a young convert, you might pretty well judge what sort of a Christian he will make. Therefore, young believers, use well your first hour. Very often, if a tradesman does not get on in his business during the first few years, he never makes a success of it. We have known some who have been at school, but who have neglected their lessons in their early days; and if they have not really mastered the grammar of a language while they have been young, it has been a great difficulty to them ever to get hold of it when they have grown old. So it is with you, young Christians; your early mornings are the best parts of your days, so mind you do not waste them. Serve God while you can. Do not listen to those who say, 'Save up your strength for future efforts.' Never save any of it—spend it all as quickly as you get it. God will give you fresh strength when you need it; but if you try to save it up, it will breed worms and stink, like the manna did of old. Serve God, you young converts, with might and main; and put those of us who have been in the work these fifteen or twenty years to shame if you can; for if you do not serve the Master now with all your powers, you probably never will do so. He seems to say to you, in these springtimes of your piety, 'Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Set up a high standard of piety. Even if you never reach it, it will be far better than if you had set up a low one. He who aims at the moon will shoot higher than he who aims only at a bush; and he who sets before himself the highest possible ideal, even though he may never attain to it, will yet come nearer to perfection than he will who is content with an inferior model. The Lord help us all to grow while we can!
Now, passing away from that part of my subject, let me say that, after conversion—alas, that it should be so!—after conversion, there are winters for many Christians; but then—blessed be God!—there are also times of refreshing which come to them. Beloved in the Lord Jesus, I trust you are not any of you now lukewarm or cold in love; but if you are, breathe the prayer now, 'Return unto me, O Lord, and revive my spirit!' God will hear that prayer; so persevere in presenting it, be importunate, and you shall have a revival of the work of grace in your soul. I am often conscious of having very distinct revivals from the presence of the Lord, and I suppose every Christian has, more or less, the same experience. O beloved, how blessedly the Lord can, in a moment, lift us up out of the dungeon into the banqueting-house! In the twinkling of an eye, he can turn the shadow of death into the brightness of the morning. I have sometimes questioned whether I had so much as a grain of grace, and have been ready to lay down my profession lest it should be a delusion; but, within the next hour, I could not have envied the seraphs before the throne, but have felt that I had as great a joy as they in fellowship with Christ. The Lord needs not to take a long time for working this gracious result. He can do it with one promise of Scripture applied with power to the heart, or with but one reminder by his Spirit of some past transaction of his loving-kindness. Or ever we are aware, he can make our souls like the chariots of Ammi-nadib; and then, what happy and rejoicing springtimes we have! Come, Christian, have you such a time now?
If you have, then let me exhort you to bring forth the flowers of love and joy this very hour. Let Christ have a posy of them; deck his brow with garlands. Give him your joyous praise and your loving service. Let 'the time of the singing of birds' come if you can. You cannot always sing; then sing when you can. Tonight, at the family altar, lift up your voice if you can; if not, lift up your heart in God's praise. Never miss an opportunity of singing a song unto your Well-beloved. 'Whoever offers praise glorifies me.' God is not only glorified by our working for him, but by our praising and blessing him; and when any one of us says, from his inmost heart, 'Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name,' it is a sign that the heart is in a healthy state, and such adoration is truly acceptable to the Most High. Now, Christian, now that the Holy Spirit is with you, now that your peace is like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea, seek after a still higher standard of grace. Hear your Lord say to you, 'Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.'
Is there any sin into which you have fallen? Then, break it off this very instant. You remember what Elijah did when God had heard his prayer, and sent down the fire from Heaven to consume the sacrifice. What came next? 'Take the prophets of Baal,' said he, 'let not one of them escape.' And if the holy fire has come down from Heaven upon your soul today in answer to your prayer, now take your sins, and slay them before the Lord, let not one escape. Favored seasons of communion should be times in which we should seek to purge ourselves from dead works. Remember what Nehemiah did when he found that, in his absence, Eliashib the priest had prepared a chamber for Tobiah in the courts of the Lord's house. What did he do? Did he call upon him, and tell him very politely that he wanted his room, and should much prefer it to his company? No; but he says, 'And it grieved me sore: therefore I cast forth all the household stuff of Tobiah out of the chamber.' So must we do with our sins until there be not a single one left. Let us set to work, by the help of God's Spirit, to find out every idol, and to tear it from its throne, that we may worship God alone. Our Lord Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem in triumph, you recollect; but what did he do as soon as he got there? Why, he took a scourge of small cords, and drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple; and if ever the Lord Jesus comes riding into your soul with songs and hosannas, then ask him to cast all his foes and yours out of your heart, which should be a temple of the living God, and not a den of thieves. It is easier to kill sin, and to conquer corruption, when the Spirit of God is with you than it is at any other time. O Christian, while your locks are yet unshorn, and you have Samsonian strength, fall upon these Philistines, and slay them; for, if you wait until the evil days come, when your hair is cut, and your strength is gone, you may go out and shake yourselves in vain, and your enemies will laugh you to scorn.
In closing my discourse, let me say that there is one very happy way of reading the text. There is a time coming, to us who love the Lord, and rejoice in his name, when the winter will be over and gone forever. After all, though we must never murmur, life is a bitter draught. There is much to bless God for here, but the happiest of us can at least say, 'I would not always live here.' Thank God that this earth is not our home, nor the place of our rest. It is not the Christian's summertime yet. Even you who rejoice the most, must feel that this is an unsatisfactory world for an immortal spirit to dwell in. It is winter with us now; but this cold season will not last forever. I see that some of you have the tokens that your winter will soon be gone, for the almond tree has begun to blossom. You know that the almond tree was the token of old age, and it is a very sweet one. Almost the first tree that comes out in the springtime is the almond; and, in like manner, we may look upon the Christian's grey head as the blossom of immortality; not a sign of your wintertime, but of your springtime that is yet to come.
I have heard that, when vessels go out from England to Australia, those who are in the habit of drinking toasts on board will at first drink the healths of those whom they have left behind, and they will continue this until they have got a good way on the voyage, but then they change the toast, and make it to the health of the friends who are ahead. So, Christian, sometimes you are thinking of the friends you will have to leave; but when you are getting near home, you will often think of those to whom you are going. Occupy your minds with thoughts of the right royal company who are looking for you on the other side of the river. 'You are on the wrong side of seventy,' said someone to a Christian gentleman. 'No,' replied he, 'I am not; thank God, I am on the right side of seventy, for I am seventy-five, and that is the right side, for I am now nearer home than I was when I was on the other side.' Oh, yes! the nearer we get to our Master, the happier should we be, and we should no more relent then than we do when the winter is almost over, and the rain is nearly gone. Welcome, sweet May! Welcome, flowery June! Welcome, bright July! Welcome, golden August! Welcome, glorious harvest days! So, welcome, Heaven! Welcome, immortality! Welcome, everlasting joy!
Remember, too, dear friends, that the time of the appearing of flowers will soon come to you.
'There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers.'
What flowers they are which bloom in Heaven, I cannot tell you; the perfume of them has made many a soul sick with love, until it has begun to say—
'My heart is with him on his throne,
And ill can brook delay;
Each moment listening for the voice,
"Rise up, and come away." '
As for the flowers themselves, may it be your happy lot and mine to wear them in our bosoms forever; but, at present, we cannot even guess what they are like.
Then, too, 'the time of the singing of birds' will come. Nay, that expression will not do; it will be the singing of angels that shall make melody in our ears forever, the music of the harps of the harpers harping upon their harps, the song of ten thousand times ten thousand, like many waters, and like great thunders.
Then, indeed, we should hear 'the voice of the turtle-dove.' We shall then hear the very voice of Jesus. Rutherford says, 'What will it be to be there? When Christ gives us a feast of love at his table here, I sit down, and make such a feast thereon that a king is not fed as I am; but what shall it be when I sit in Heaven with him? When he does but blow me a kiss from his hand now, it is like Heaven itself; but what will it be when my poor cheek shall be touched by the holy lips of the King of kings, and he shall kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, and I shall recline my head upon his breast forever?' Ay, indeed—
'What must it be to be there?'
Our highest imagination, our deepest meditation, cannot possibly attain to a conception of what is the glory that shall be revealed in us, though the Lord has in part revealed it unto us by his Spirit.
There, we shall have no 'green figs.' My text fails me now, for the 'figs' will all be ripe, and perfect there. There shall be no 'tender' grapes, but goodly clusters richer than Eshcol ever knew. There we shall have joy—nay, 'fullness of joy' forever. We shall be satisfied—nay, 'abundantly satisfied' with the goodness of his house forever. At his right hand, there are rivers of joy, and pleasures for evermore. Are not our mouths watering for these sweet fruits of the goodly land? Are we not like Moses on the top of Pisgah, quite prepared to die after having seen the vision? May the Master grant that none of us may miss it, but may we all be found in Christ that we may be found in Heaven; may we be one with Jesus that we may be one with his glorified Church forever there!
Blessed indeed will that hour be when the messenger shall knock at the door, and the silver cord shall be loosed, and the golden bowl shall be broken, and the wheel shall be broken at the cistern, and the pitcher shall be broken at the fountain, and the spirit shall obey the summons, 'Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.' What an arising that will be! We shall, like the lark, mount and sing, and sing and mount again, until we are lost from human sight in clouds of bliss ineffable! What an arising, what a mounting, I say, will that be! What a coming away will that be! A coming away from a few friends on earth, to the countless company of our brethren in the skies; a coming away from our cottages here, to the mansions of the blessed over there; a coming away from this body of aches and pains, a bundle of woe and sorrow, to the house of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; a coming away from the type and the symbol to the reality, and the substance; a coming away from sin and imperfection, to holiness that shall be perfect and complete; a coming away from seeing through a glass darkly, to beholding our Savior face to face; a coming away from knowing in part, to know even as we are known! The Lord grant us all to enter into his rest! But are we all in Christ by a living faith? If we are not, the Lord have mercy upon us, and bring us even now to confess our sins, to trust in Jesus, and to find pardon and peace, for his dear Name's sake! Amen.
Chapter 33
Prospect and prayer
A sermon preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on Lord's-Day evening, 20 June 1875
'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be you like a roe or a young deer upon the mountains of Bether.'—Song of Solomon 2:17.
OUR text is preceded by one of the sweetest verses in the whole Bible—perhaps, the sweetest of all: 'My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feeds among the lilies.' Faith, with full assurance, lays hold on Christ with both her hands, and says, 'My beloved is mine;' and love embraces him, and in return is embraced by him: 'My beloved is mine, and I am his.' There is a mutual delight and a mutual possession between Christ and his people—Christ ours, and we Christ's—Christ altogether ours, a whole Christ the property of his people, and we altogether Christ's, with no reserve, wholly consecrated unto him who has redeemed us unto God with his most precious blood.
There is also, in the preceding verse, a picture of the Lord Jesus as present with the person who thus speaks of him: 'He feeds among the lilies.' He is in the midst of his saints, who are to him as beautiful as the lilies; they toil not, neither do they spin, in spiritual matters, and yet are more glorious than was Solomon himself in all his regal splendor. Among these lilies does Jesus feed. There is everything in that sixteenth verse to make up an all but perfect state. It is one of the 'idylls of the King.' Surely it is a stray sonnet from Heaven itself. Perhaps, even the harps of angels cannot reach to a higher note of bliss than this: 'My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feeds among the lilies.'
But yet everything was not quite perfect, or altogether as the singer wished it to be. There were still shadows, for there is a mention of their fleeing away. There was still a brighter day yet to dawn, for there is something about the daybreak; and from this we learn that, even when we get our best here below, beloved, we have not yet obtained all that we desire. When the child of God is highest on the mountain of spiritual experience, he is not as high as he shall yet be; when he is leaning his head upon his Savior's bosom in closest fellowship, he is not as near as he shall be by-and-by; and when he has feasted on the choicest dainties at the banquet of love, he has not tasted the sweetest things that shall yet be his. There is something better in store for us than we have ever imagined, for 'it does not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he (our beloved) shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.'
I want, if I can, by God's help, to carry your thoughts right away to the world that is to come, and yet that is so near to some of us. It is well for us only to think of this world as the interval between us and Heaven, and to use it wholly for God's glory, reckoning this land of our sojourning as a place where we may render some slight service to our Lord, and bring him some glory before we ascend to the mountains of myrrh and the hills of frankincense where he has gone to prepare a place for us.
My talk will be very simple, and it will be about two things—a word of prospect, and a word of prayer. The word of prospect is, 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away;' and the word of prayer is, 'Turn, my beloved, and be you like a roe or a young deer upon the mountains of Bether;' that is, 'of division or separation.'
I. First, then, let us talk a little about THE WORD OF PROSPECT: 'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away.'
'Until' is the key-word of the sentence; and I want to explain it thus. Until what? or, life's goal. What until? or, life's walk. What only until? or, life's patience; and what not until? or, life's climax.
First, until what? or, life's goal. There is something yet to come, a boundary line to this mortal life, a goal, a 'finis' to be written at the end of the volume of our earthly existence. Dear hearer, if I were to put that simple question to you, 'Until what?' how would you have to answer it in your own case? With the Christian, it is, 'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away;' but with some of you it would have to be, 'Until the sun set, and the everlasting midnight lowers down.' It is a dreadful thing to know that, in the life of so many of our fellow-creatures, the current is ever descending lower, and lower, and lower, and yet lower still. Every hour brings them nearer to a dread eternity, to an angry God, and to the awful sentence, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' They are 'outward bound'; and every wind that blows, and every mile they sail, or drift, bring them nearer to everlasting shipwreck. They are getting every moment further from home, further from hope, further from God. O wretched voyager, across a sea that is none too smooth, to a whirlpool terrible beyond all utterance or imagination, into whose fatal vortex your doomed vessel may any instant be drawn, how dreadful is the prospect before you!
It is not so to the Christian. With him, whatever brightness there may be in the sky now, it is night compared with the glory that is yet to be revealed. He reckons that all the delights of earth are so inferior to the joys that are yet to come that he is still in his night season; and when he is asked, 'Watchman, what of the night?' his answer is, 'The morning comes; the morning comes.' Every hour of his life, he is getting nearer to the eternal day which shall have no night. He is 'homeward bound.' Every wave wafts him nearer to the Fair Havens of everlasting bliss. Every step of the journey which he takes, however rough his pilgrim path may be, is bringing him nearer to that dear home above where many of his loved ones have already gone, and where Jesus stands to welcome him. We, who believe in him, do not look for the goal of our life 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away.'
And, to my mind, this fact has a gracious influence on the whole of our life. I have noticed—and you also must have noticed—how even a horse, when his head is turned towards home, though the distance is just the same homeward or outward, always likes the homeward journey best, and pricks up his ears, and quickens his pace, as if to show that he knows which is the way home. And if you and I, my friend, have to traverse just the same distance in our earthly course, yet, if you are going away from home, and I am going homeward, my steps and yours are very different. We may have to go over the same flint stones, and we may have equal loads to carry; but, still, the journey is of a totally different character, if you are going away from God and hope, and if I am going towards God and Heaven. Do you not find, you tried servants of the Lord, that this fact sweetens everything that you have to endure—that there is an end to it, and that that end is the crown eternal, immortal, incorruptible, and that fades not away? Do you not bless and praise God that you are even now in the twilight before the dawn of the everlasting day, and that the twilight continually increases its brightness, and that, by-and-by, it will develop into the perfect day? This gives a fair color to the darkest night that ever passes over us; and, though the night wind may blow, and chill may be the blast of midnight, yet this is the source of our gladness, that every time the pendulum swings to and fro brings us somewhat nearer to the daybreak when the shadows shall flee away.
What is this daybreak to which we are ever getting nearer and nearer? Well, it may be, brethren, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in person from Heaven; for, according to the teaching of Holy Scripture, we are bound to expect that, at any moment, he may come back again from the glory land where he has gone. He said to his disciples, 'Of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of Heaven, but my Father only;' but, still, he will come in like manner as he went up into Heaven. Writing to the Thessalonians, Paul said, 'For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God.' That will be our daybreak, for, then, if we are alive and remain here, we shall be changed in a moment, and shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air; or if we have slept awhile in the tomb, we shall then rise, incorruptible, and shall be changed at the coming of the Lord from Heaven. Let us ever be looking forward to that blessed time, waiting for the glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for that will be the daybreak to us.
But it is possible that many or all of us may fall asleep in Jesus before that glorious daybreak; and if we do, brethren, then I venture to say that, the moment our eyes are closed on earth, we shall have a daybreak in another and a better world; for we know that, when we are absent from the body, we are at once present with the Lord. What a daybreak that will be—to go from the bed of sickness to the abode of immortality—to leave the cottage of poverty, and enter upon the mansion of eternal felicity—to go away from the temptations, and trials, and sorrows, and reproaches of earth, to the everlasting hallelujahs of Heaven! What a wondrous surprise will come over our spirits when once we find ourselves in that world of light and blessedness. Methinks, one of the first tendencies will be to swoon away with the every ecstasy of delight, and then to look round, and marvel however we could have been admitted there, until our eyes shall behold him whom our soul loves, and then we shall understand it all, and begin to realize the fullness of our delight in gazing upon his adorable person, which surely will rivet our eyes, and hold them fast forever and ever.
So, dear friends, either the Lord's coming to us, or else our going to him, will be the daybreak when the shadows will all flee away, to return no more forever.
And what a daybreak that will be! The break of day, at any time, is a most delightful period. The birds always think so; they sing from the earliest dawn of the early summer mornings, as though they would wake up even the sun himself. They begin to chant the praises of the Lord while yet the dews are fresh upon the grass. But what must it be when first we wake up in the heavenly daybreak! Oh, how the angels will sing, and how we, too, will sing then! Everything is so fresh and bright in the early morning, earth is like a rich Orient pearl in the first hours of the day; but what will be the splendor of the pearls with which Heaven will be hung in that daybreak which we are so soon to see?
And, beloved, what shadows will then flee away—shadows of ignorance, shadows of doubt, shadows of defilement, shadows of mystery, shadows of care, shadows of trial, shadows of affliction and sorrow of all sorts! In that blessed daybreak, all of them will be gone. As in a moment, they will have sped away; and we shall be where the light shall last forever, and the sun shall no more go down. It is until that daybreak that we have to speed on our way, ever looking forward to that glorious goal of our earthly existence. O happy men and women, who have such bliss as that in prospect!
But, secondly, we were to inquire, What until? or, life's walk. What are we to do until the day break, and the shadows flee away? We see now what the 'until' includes; but what about that which is to happen between now and the time when we reach that boundary line, and arrive at that goal? Come, my brethren, let us think of how this interval is to be occupied. If we have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we have a little time to wait 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away,' what lies between then and now? I will tell you as far as I can.
On God's part, between now and then, a gracious providence will supply all our needs; our bread shall be given us, and our waters shall be sure. The Lord has engaged that, between here and the daybreak, 'no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.' What a blessed assurance is that! On God's part, 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away,' forgiving love and grace of every kind shall be yours if you are a believer in Jesus. There shall be cleansing for you whenever you sin, restoration for you whenever you fall, provision for you according to all that your wants may require; in fact, everything is arranged and prepared for you between here and the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem. And all shall be freely given 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away.' From your Heavenly Father there will be given to you every gift of love that shall be desirable or necessary between here and Heaven; for he is both able and willing to give you exceeding abundantly above what you ask or even think.
One of the very choicest gifts which you shall have between here and Heaven is the Holy Spirit. 'He shall abide with you forever.' Never will that Divine Comforter desert you. He will be your Monitor, Counselor, and Guide, until you enter into the land of your rest.
And as for you yourself, between here and the daybreak—what are you to have? Why, first, faith. Believe your God; trust in him at all times, and go on, even in the dark, firmly persuaded that, where he bids you to go, it must be safe for you to tread. Between here and the daybreak, what else is there for you to do? Why, to be daily learning, daily submitting yourself to the Divine teaching, daily preparing for the better land, daily seeking after more conformity to the image of Christ, that you may, as much as you can, reflect his glories among the sons of men, until you are taken up to be with him, and to rejoice in his light forever. What else is there for you to do between here and the daybreak? Why, with all your heart and soul, to love him 'whom having not seen we love,' and to let even the angels see how much poor, infirm, mortal men can love the Lord Jesus Christ, and what sacrifices they can make for their Lord and Master, and with what strength of passionate affection they can cleave to him under all manner of reproaches, and sorrows, and trials, and temptations.
Between here and the daybreak, brethren, let us also try to keep up unbroken communion with our Lord Jesus Christ; and let us also try to work for Jesus, doing all we can 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away.' Often have these words flashed across my mind when I have been somewhat weary in my Master's service. I have thought to myself, sometimes, when 'weary, and worn, and sad,' 'Ah, well! it is only until the day break, and the shadows flee away.' And when discouragements have come—and they will come, more or less, to every worker for Christ—one has said, 'Be of good courage, faint heart; it is only "until the day break." ' If the Master has given us our night's work or watching to do, and already the Eastern sky has begun to redden with the approach of the rising sun, let us not be too anxious to lay down the tools of our service or the weapons of our warfare, but let us be willing to work right on 'until the day break.' Methinks, when we get to Heaven, this life will seem to have been but a point of time, a mere pinprick compared with the countless cycles of eternity. We shall wonder how we could ever have got weary in such a short space; and if we can blush in Heaven, we shall do so as we regret that we did not even wish for a longer time of service and of suffering here in which to labor for our Lord—
'In works which perfect saints above,
And holy angels cannot do.'
Now I pass on to notice the third question which I suggested—What only until? or life's patience. Some of the things I have mentioned will last after the great daybreak. I believe that, then, we shall still be employed in our Lord's service, I know that we shall still have fellowship with him, I am sure we shall have love to him after the daybreak; and we shall have more of each of these things than we have now; but there are some things, dear brethren, in life's patience, which will last only 'until the day break,'—and not a moment after.
From our gracious God, we shall receive needed chastisement 'until the day break;' but there will be no scourging for us in Heaven. 'Until the day break,' God will test us, and prove us, and sift us; but there will be no further testing or trying when once we get into the land of light. Here, we must expect to have trials of every sort and shape, for through much tribulation we must enter the Kingdom; but it is only 'until the day break.' Daughters of sorrow, you must be what you are 'until the day break;' but no longer. It is so sweet, when we look upon the fading form of the loved one who suffers greatly day by day, and gradually seems to be descending to the tomb, to feel that, though we cannot ease the pain, it will only last 'until the day break.' The physician may be foiled in all his efforts to effect a cure; but there is a Physician who will not be defeated. The earthly physician may be unable to put a period to the infirmity; but there is One who, in due time, will lift his hand, and then healed shall be every infirmity, and the inhabitant shall no more say, 'I am sick.' It is only 'until the day break,' tried soul, that there will be pain, and weakness, and bereavement, and poverty, and the chastisement of God.
There are also some things, which come from Satan, which shall only last 'until the day break.' He tempts, he accuses, he insinuates all sorts of evil and dreadful things; but he can only do this 'until the day break.' Ah! dog of Hell, you may howl at me in the night, but you shall be chained up in the morning when the Master comes.
And as for this world, it has its snares, and reproaches, and persecutions for the children of God; and to some of our brethren, in former ages, in this and other lands, those reproaches and persecutions have gone as far as cruelty and death; but it has only been 'until the day break.' The world cannot touch us when the day breaks. The persecutors will change their note then, for they themselves will awake to shame and everlasting contempt, and those whom they have despised will then become objects of envy to them. O child of God, never fear, never shrink or flinch because of anything that man can do unto you; for his power lasts only through this short night of life; when the day breaks, that shadow must flee away forever.
As for ourselves, dear brethren, there are some things about us that will only last 'until the day break.' The body of this death, these old corruptions, these inbred sins—are only 'until the day break.' And these infirmities and weaknesses, that often hamper and hinder our devotion, are only 'until the day break.' O my sister, into what will you develop, you whose spirit is so full of power but whose body is so weak? And you, my brother, into what will you be changed, you whose soul is like a sharp sword that cuts through the scabbard of the body? What a flaming seraph you will make when once you are set free from all that now cramps and confines you! It is 'until the day break.' Our burden seems to get light as air when we recollect that we have only to carry it until tomorrow morning's sun shall rise. Surely, the road will seem to get smooth, however rough it is, if we know that we have only to tread it for a few more minutes or hours of darkness, and then the morning comes, and our Lord comes with it.
Thus I have briefly mentioned many points on which I might have said a good deal, but there is just one more to which I must refer—What not until? or, life's climax. There are some things which we cannot have 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away,' and they are these, I think.
First, we shall never have clear knowledge of many mysteries 'until the day break.' I do not expect to understand everything even then; but I do hope to know more about some truths than I know at present, some of the deep things of the Word of God which puzzle me today. Find out all you can about them here, dear friend; but, still, you will know a great deal more about them when the day breaks, and the shadows flee away. As many a man has been trying to read an inscription in the dark, and could not make it out at all, and with the first glimpse of daylight, he has read it all; so, when the day breaks, we shall all be good theologians, brethren. We shall not be mystified in our doctrine any longer, but we shall see things as they really are in the light of God.
And as clear knowledge will come, so there will come perfect holiness. Some Christians expect to get that blessing before the day breaks, but I do not. If it is to be had, I will have it; but I do not believe it is. I expect to have it when the day breaks, and the shadows flee away; but not until then. To walk after the example of our dear Lord and Master, praying and longing to be fully sanctified, should be our aim continually; but to be able to say, 'I have no sin,' must be reserved until that day when we wake up in his likeness, 'without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.'
And so, in like manner, perfect happiness is not to be had here. It matters not how kind our friends are, or how favorable our circumstances may be, perfection in joy is not to be found this side the separating mountains; but when the day breaks, and the shadows flee away, then will perfect joy be ours forever and ever.
And unbroken fellowship with Christ, altogether without cloud or shade—that, too, must be left 'until the day break.' And independence of all the means of grace—that, also, will never be our portion 'until the day break.' Here, we need ministries; here, we want ordinances. True, they are but shadows, but we shall not be able to do without them until we ourselves get up where Jesus is; and when we see him face to face, we shall need no mirror in which to behold his image. We must keep on using such things as we have 'until the day break;' and then, when that day has fully broken, these things of time and sense can be put away as childish things are laid aside when a man comes to full age.
Ah, dear brothers and sisters, I wish I had the power to tell you about this glorious prospect as I sometimes have power to think over it in my private meditation! When one gets a glimpse within the gate of pearl, he can form some slight notion of what it must be to be there; but where are the words which can convey such an idea as that to the hearts of others? It is not possible for me to utter them; but I do trust that each one of you will be, in your aspirations and desires, looking forward to the land of eternal day, waiting patiently, and with earnest expectation, 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away.'
II. Now, in closing, I can say only a few sentences about the second part of my subject, A WORD OF PRAYER: 'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be you like a roe or a young deer upon the separating mountains.'
That is a prayer for a believer to be always praying 'until the day break.' You may pray it as long as you live here below. It is a prayer for only one blessing, and that one blessing is the presence of the Lord. As our hymn puts it—
'To your will I leave the rest,
Grant me but this one request,
Both in life and death to prove
Tokens of your special love.'
It is a grand thing to have your wishes compacted into one comprehensive request. A great many desires make a man poor, and keep him poor; but one supreme desire, and that one such as is capable of being gratified—and such as it will be worth while to have gratified—makes a man truly rich in a spiritual sense. The text puts it just thus. I have to wait 'until the day break, and the shadows flee away.' What shall I ask for until then? I will ask for nothing but the company of my Lord and Master—nothing less than that, and nothing more.
This prayer is necessary, because of distance mourned. The spouse here, as she looked out into the darkness, could only see, by the dim starlight, lofty mountains that seemed to separate her from the land of light and joy. When she saw those mountains, she knew that she could not traverse them; her trembling feet could never leap across those yawning chasms, or stand securely upon those dangerous precipices. But she prayed, 'Lord, turn you, and come to me; for you can leap where I cannot. You are like the roe, that bounds from crag to crag, or like a young deer that takes no thought of distance, but is fleet as the wind. Lord, I cannot get to you, but you can come to me. Come often to me; let me see your face, and hear your voice, and have sweet spiritual communion with you. This is all I ask.' And I protest that this is all that I ask of God; and if I may but have it, he may do what he pleases with me in all other respects; and I think every child of God here will say the same, because, if the Lord shall send us poverty, it will only be 'until the day break,' and his own presence will make a dinner of herbs to be a better feast than a stalled ox would be without him. What if he shall send us sickness? It will only be 'until the day break.' If the Lord shall be with us, the battle shall be only the background of victory, for 'in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.'
So, 'until the day break,' he will be with us; and after that, we shall be with him. We shall have a little Heaven here, and then a great Heaven hereafter. So we shall get two heavens, but those two heavens will be wholly in him; and, surely, in him there are more than two heavens. Is he not better than seven heavens all in one? If we could have a thousand heavens, but he was not there, they would be all of no account to us; but if we had the poorest place on earth, the lowest dungeon in a tyrant's castle, if our Lord were there with us, it would be a real Heaven to us; his presence would fill us to the full with bliss such as we hope to enjoy forever. Pray then, brethren and sisters, the sweet prayer of the text: 'Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be you like a roe or a young deer upon the mountains of separation.'
Often, as I look upon this congregation, I notice how many are growing old, and I know that, with them, it will not be long before the day breaks, and the shadows flee away. Some of us are younger, but we may, perhaps, outstrip you older folk; we cannot tell. 'The other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher;' and some of us may reach our sepulcher before you get to yours. Well, if we do, we shall meet again, brothers and sisters, young or old, on the other side of Jordan, on the farther side of the separating mountains. In the last great daybreak, we will all be there; and, until then, let us comfort one another with these words, and hold on, and hold out, and work on and be 'steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,' for our reward will come according to his grace when the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.
I wish I could feel sure that it will be so with all whom I am now addressing. If there are those who know not the Lord, I would like them to think of the time when, not daybreak will come to them, but, if they are without Christ, a night, when the shadows will darken and deepen, all the lights will begin to flee away, and no candle will be able to cheer their darkness;—when wealth must be left to those who will inherit it—when fame will be but a blast of human breath—when the broad acres of vast estates will only be things to make men weep because they cannot take them where they are going. O sirs, I beseech you, do not try to build your nests in this world, for all the trees in earth's forest are marked for the axe, and they must all come down, and if you build upon them, you will come down with them to your everlasting confusion and sorrow. Build, I pray you, in that tree of life whose leaf will never wither, and against which the axe of the destroyer never can be lifted; for, if you build among the branches of his eternal love, and rest in his blessed sacrifice, when the day breaks, and the shadows flee away, you shall be among the birds that will salute that everlasting morning; or, rather, among the happy spirits who shall sing for joy that the work of the new creation is accomplished. God grant that this may be your portion, for his dear Son's sake! Amen.
Chapter 34
'We have seen the Lord!'
A sermon preached at Brighton nearly 40 years ago [1861 or later]
'The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord.'—John 20:25.
WE may generally form a correct estimate of the tone of a man's religion from that which is its leading thought; and if the leading thought of a man's religion be Christ, we shall not be very far from the mark if we say that his religion will be truthful, and healthy, and sound, and, we hope, vigorous.
There are some good people, (we would not judge them severely,) whose main thought in religion is doctrine. With them, 'contending earnestly for the faith' seems to be their most prominent employment; and they have so exaggerated the apostle's words, that they 'contend' bitterly and ferociously, 'for the faith,' until I have known some of them, who seem to carry out, to the full, the reverse of the text, 'See that you love one another,' for they 'hate one another with a pure heart fervently;'—as 'fervent' as you can suppose hatred to be, will these theologians make it. You will see that, while it is a good thing to love the truth, and to fight for it, there is always the danger of acquiring a narrow spirit, and getting bitter and bigoted, if doctrine becomes the main thought.
Others, I have known, make experience the main thing about which they talk. Frames and feelings—their depravity—their enjoyments—they look to these things, rather than to Christ. Now, it is a good thing to be looking to the work within, for, if there be no spiritual work within, we certainly have 'no part nor lot' in the great work which was performed upon the cross. But those who make this the leading thought of their spiritual life, will become conceited, and will set up their own feelings as the standard by which all others must be tested; and they will generally be a very miserable sort of people; for, since their frames and feelings will always be changing, so will their enjoyments; their feelings will sometimes rise to the very clouds, and then go down again to the very depths.
But there is another class of very excellent people, who look at religion only in a practical light. They have their virtues, and they do much good; but there is a tendency in them to go off into legalism, and to put 'works' in the stead of Christ; or else to estimate themselves by their 'works' rather than by the 'faith which is in Christ Jesus.' These are usually shallow in their knowledge of Divine doctrine, and are 'babes in grace.'
But, dear friends, he who makes Christ the leading thought of his piety—who puts Christ above everything else—will have the excellencies of all these three without their faults. He will be sound in doctrine; for how could he be otherwise when he has learned to sit at the feet of Jesus? He will be ripe in experience; for how could he be otherwise when he knows Christ, who is 'the Way, the Truth, and the Life'? He is sure to be excellent enough in practice, for who can be with Christ without being holy? Who can learn to adore, and commune with him, without being transformed into his image, as by the Spirit of the Lord? And all this while we shall miss—by making Christ the leading thought—the vices which either doctrine, or experience, or practice, if exaggerated, would have been sure to bring upon us. Let us be content to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne of our souls; and let us never be satisfied if anything, though it be never so good, should have taken that higher seat.
I will venture here upon yet another remark. You may know the depth and strength of a man's piety by the way in which he looks at Christ. Granted that Christ is the leading thought—in what way will the soundest-hearted man look at Jesus? Now we may say it, without being censorious, that there are thousands of professors to whom Christ is only a thought—not quite a fiction; but still a mere historical personage. They would not say, perhaps, exactly as the old woman said to her minister, after he had told her about the sufferings of Christ—of his bitter passion, and death on the cross, 'Well, well, you see, sir, it was a long way off, and a long time ago;—let us hope it isn't true!' They would not speak thus; but, in the spirit of it, I believe they think so. The Scripture narrative itself never comes home to them as a matter of fact, which they ought to feel, and in which they ought to rejoice. It has come, in the highest degree, to him to whom Christ is as real a person as himself, and as present a person as his own friend and child. He can sing of Christ as Kent did—
'A man there was, a real man,
Who once on Calvary died;
And streams of blood and water ran
Down from his wounded side.'
That same blessed man, exalted, sits high on his Father's throne. To have a Christ with whom one can walk and talk; who shall be the Companion of our sorrowing nights, and share the joys of our gladsome days—to know him, as one with whom we have been brought up, whose name is familiar to us as a household word, and whose very person has become familiar, too—this is to say, in the words of the apostles used in our text, 'We have seen the Lord!'
Oh, it will be a grand day for the Church of Christ when she gets to know Christ, once more, as a real Person! For, after all, it is always a person who stirs the enthusiasm of men. What made the French soldiers so victorious in battle, but the presence of 'the Little Corporal' in their midst? They no sooner saw him, with his calm face, and heard his voice, ordering them to charge in battle, than every man became a hero—their leader had excited them all to the utmost bravery. And so, our great Captain, Christ, has come into the midst of his people; and they must feel him to be real and true—not to be thought of merely, but to be touched and handled; and then will come back those old, brave days, when the earth was made to tremble before the prowess of the Church, and she went forth 'fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.'
Thus much, then, by way of preface. Let us now, first, for a little while, think of the Being whom these disciples saw; then, secondly, consider how we may see the same Person; and then, thirdly, note what will certainly be the effect if we shall 'see the Lord.'
I. First, then, LET US THINK A LITTLE ON WHAT THESE DISCIPLES SAW: 'We have seen the Lord.'
You must remember that they saw Christ in a somewhat different aspect from that in which they had been accustomed to see him; for now, in the first place, they saw him, on that memorable night, as the complete and finished Savior. They had seen him when, as a man, 'He went about doing good,'—toiling and working, that he might weave a robe of righteousness. They saw him also when he sweat as it were great drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane. They stood afar off, and beheld him, while he did hang upon the tree; but they had never seen him as having accomplished the work. In the strong throes of his agony, they had gazed upon him; but they had never beheld him as one who had finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness. It must have been a joy to them to see Christ, and to know that his work was done. Beloved, have we seen Christ thus? If so, this is a joy indeed.
You ask many young believers, and they will say they 'hope Christ will save them;' when they have grown in grace, they will say, 'Christ has saved us,' for—
'The moment a sinner believes,
And trusts in his crucified God,
His pardon at once he receives,
Redemption in full through his blood.'
Christ does not, when we believe in him, put us into a
position where we may be saved; but he saves us out of hand. It is done; it
is finished; it is completed. But I think I hear someone say, 'I never
thought of that. I sometimes hope, when I die, I may be saved.' I wonder not
that yours is a miserable life, and that you have to look to the world for
comfort. Oh, how happy would you be if you could say, 'I am saved,'—not
partly saved, but wholly saved! Oh, that you could now say, 'Against me no
sin remains, for Christ has blotted it out with his precious blood. No debt
stands now recorded against me, for Christ has paid it all.
"With his spotless vesture on,
Holy as the Holy One"—
'I stand accepted in him.' And yet, mark you, this is what every child of God should say, and we do not live up to our privileges unless we are able to rejoice in a salvation that is finished. I know, of a surety, that I have no need to lift my finger to save my soul. I know that all was done for me before I was born. Upon the cross, where Jesus poured out his life, he did everything. He made the garment to cover me; and there is not a stitch to be added to it. All that might be added would be a work of supererogation, and would but spoil the robe. He paid the debt I owed to God; and never again can it be demanded, for he has paid it once for all. Splendid is the faith that can sing with Deer—
'Now, freed from sin, I walk at large,
The Savior's blood's my full discharge;
At his dear feet my soul I'd lay,
A sinner saved—and homage pay.'
To have a thought of being only half saved, is a miserable thing; to have merely a hope of being saved, is not a happy thing; but to be sure of being wholly saved, fully forgiven, so that Heaven might sooner fall than our spirit perish—this is Heaven begun below. God give each of you to see the finished salvation of Christ! Mark, my dear hearers, if Christ has not finished it, you never can; if you are not wholly saved in Christ, you certainly can never save yourself, for 'all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;' and who would add our 'filthy rags' to Christ's perfect robe of righteousness? You must trust in Christ altogether and alone, or not trust in Christ at all; and if you trust him, you must trust him to save you there and then, fully and completely.
Still I hear some say, 'We are to do much.' I answer, 'O, not to save ourselves.' There is no greater fallacy than that verse which some people sing—
'A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify;
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.'
If that were our charge, it never would be fulfilled. What a Christian has to do is this—being saved, and having no selfish motive for which to live, since his salvation is finished for him, he now says, 'Out of gratitude to God, I will do a thousand times more than another man would do to save himself. The love of Christ constrains me, because I thus judge that, if he has died and given himself for me, then I am not my own, but I am "bought with a price;" ' and this love, or gratitude, produces higher deeds of heroism than your slavish fears can ever produce. The man who seeks to save himself by good deeds, cannot perform good deeds, because his deeds are all selfish; they are tinged and tainted with a desire to save himself, and therefore God cannot accept them. It is only the man who is saved, who is capable of virtue. No other man can look virtue in the face; all that any other does is vicious; for, though it may be virtuous in itself, it is stained with the selfish thought of saving himself. No, saved by Christ first, then we work, and live, and do, and are prepared to die for him, who has presented to us a finished salvation.
This is the first sight that the disciples saw. By reference to the chapter, we perceive that they also saw Christ in another light to that which, doubtless, they had seen him before—they saw him as God. 'The doors were shut;' then how could he enter? Only as God. Suspending the laws of matter, he passed into the room, for there was no aperture through which he might enter; and they saw him standing, manifestly revealed as God. Now I am not going into the controversy about Christ being God. I can understand the consistency of the person who says, 'Christ was an impostor;' but I cannot understand the man who says that he was a good man, but not God; for, if he was not God, he certainly was a deceiver, and therefore could not have been a good man. If Christ was not God, he made his disciples think he was; and there are millions of us who believe him to be so at this day; and we do not remember a single passage, in which he charged us not to worship him; and that were not consistent with the character of a good man to let his followers adore him. That he did; therefore we say he is God and man. If he were not God, it were utterly inconsistent to say he was a good man. We all believe he was God—that is a doctrine about which we have no hesitancy; but I hope, Christian, you have seen him as God. I hope you have a grip of the thought that he is Jehovah-Jesus—Jehovah-tsidkenu, 'The Lord our Righteousness.' Why those doubts, my sister? Would you have them, if you leaned upon the strong arm of Christ? Why those fears, my brother? Would you have them, if you knew that the eternal, invisible God has sworn to bring you safely to his right hand? No, our doubts and fears come from our not worshiping Christ—thinking too little of him: if we estimated him at greater value, we need have no great trouble, but rejoice in casting all our care upon him since he cares for us.
On the eve of a great battle, a certain commander went round the camp to the tents of his soldiers. Stopping at one tent, he heard them talking together somewhat in this strain—one who was evidently of a desponding spirit said, 'Well, we are in great difficulties now. Our leader has brought us into a dangerous place. There are so many thousands of the enemy's cavalry—so many regiments of the line—such a force of infantry. They will thoroughly overcome us.' And then he began to count up the forces on his side; when his commander, drawing aside the curtain, said, 'How many do you count me for?' As though he would say, 'Having fought so many battles, and won so many victories, do you not think I can overcome these foes?' Surely, our Lord and Master, when we are doubting, might say to us, 'And how many do you count me for?' for if you would estimate Christ at his proper value, you will say, 'More are they that are for us, than all that be against us.' You will see the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about his people, when once you have had, by faith, a true view of Jesus Christ as God.
But, further, we notice, in the chapter, that they had seen the Lord as the great Peacemaker. They were all sitting very quietly in the room, hardly daring to talk, for fear the Jews should hear them, and break through the doors. On a sudden, a man appears in their midst; they were frightened, but he put out that well-known hand, and said to them, 'Peace be unto you!' I hope that is no strange sight and sound to your eyes and ears. Do you remember the first time Jesus spoke 'peace' to your soul? I know I am talking riddles to some here; but I see they are simplicities to others of you. Do you remember, friend, the spot of ground where Jesus first met with you? Some of us could point to that hallowed place where, burdened with sin, and full of woes, we saw One hanging on a tree, who turned his languid eyes on us, and said, 'I bore your sins, and carried your iniquities;' and we were glad, and our soul enjoyed perfect peace. Dark was that night, and terrible, when all our sins were let loose against us; and, like a sea in a storm, we had no sort of quiet, and Jesus came, and walked the waters, and said to our sins, 'Peace, be still!' and there was a calm, so profound, that it was an earnest of 'the rest which remains for the people of God.'
Since that time, you and I have had many troubles, we have been cast into the depths again and again; we have 'done business in great waters;' but, whenever Christ has come, we have had peace. No matter if we have had enemies in our own household, and conflicts in our own nature, and little else to rest on but God; when earthly props were dashed from under us, we found his name enough to give us solace, his presence enough in the darkest night to give us sunlight, himself enough to fill us to the brim, even where everything beside was emptied. O Christian, never seek peace anywhere but in your Lord; and may it be your happy privilege to say, 'I have seen the Lord'!
I see the Christian now. The tear is in his eye, and his heart is palpitating. He has had a great loss, and he is expecting another. A sharp trial has unexpectedly fallen upon him. Go up to your chamber, brother! He is up there for a little season, and when he comes down, his face is smiling, his step elastic, his heart is glad; and I say to him, 'My brother, what change is this that has come over you?' He answers, 'I have "seen the Lord." I have been up yonder in prayer; I have told him all my griefs, and I have thought to myself—
"His way was much rougher and darker than mine;
Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?"—
and here I am strengthened, because "I have seen the Lord."
And yet further, not to linger long upon any one of these points, these disciples saw the Lord as very few Christians have ever seen him—they saw him as the great Sender-out of his people into the world to do good, for he said to them, 'As my Father has sent me, even so send I you.' Did it ever strike you what a little the Church of God is doing in these days? Twelve fishermen, within a century, had filled the armies of Caesar with Christians—had traversed every land—had proclaimed the Gospel in every tongue—until, at the end of a century, the Christians seemed to outnumber the heathen population of the world; and yet, with, I was about to say, millions of church-members, (and I suppose we have not less than that,) what are we doing? Hardly anything. We keep up our churches and our chapels; and, sometimes, there are some who have to be pressed hard to do even that; but how few we have, comparatively, who feel a Divine mission within—who feel consecrated to Christ—dedicated to his service, sent out to the world to be as much saviors, though after another sort, as ever Christ was sent to be a Savior.
I know, in some of our Baptist churches, (and I suppose that things are quite as bad in others,) there are people who, when they take a seat, attend regularly, and listen to the sermon attentively, and come out a certain number of times in the week to attend service, think that they have done quite enough. If they are asked to assist in religious movements, they always excuse themselves, saying, 'We have so many calls upon us,'—though I do not believe they ever listen to them. If they are asked whether they preach—'The thought never entered their heart;'—whether they would go out among the poor of some neighboring district—whether they would teach in a Ragged School—'Not they, indeed!' They think they are too respectable to do anything for Christ! It does not come into their minds to do anything for him.
See some of the young men who join our churches;—if they join a rifle corps, they are active, fine fellows; but the moment they get into our churches, they have nothing to do with their arms and hands. Their names get on our books; but that is all. They are seen as attendants; but are doing nothing for Christ. If any other captain had such a do-nothing race of soldiers, as our great Captain, Jesus Christ, I am sure he would soon discharge them, and send them about their business.
Give us men who have felt that they have nothing to care about but Christ—that he has delivered them from death, and sin, and guilt, and wrath; and that they have now joy, and life, and grace, and glory. Such men would become a power in the world. They would carve their names upon the tablets of history; and these names would be gazed upon by angels, when emperors and kings shall be forgotten.
That missionary yonder, who, with his life in his hand, lands on the barbarian shore, to teach the savage how to pray—that man, surely, must have seen the Lord. That humble woman, leaving all the quietude and retirement of the fireside, and going out, spending her day among the poor and worthless, that she may lift them from degradation, and teach them to know Christ—surely, she must have seen the Lord. That merchant, who goes out to make wealth, but only that the wealth should be Christ's—who trades for Christ—that man, surely, must have seen the Lord.
We want members who will work for Christ. We want people like the old saint, who was accustomed to say, that he did eat and drink and sleep eternal life;—he had become so thoroughly consecrated that he trusted he did nothing except for Jesus. Everything for Jesus, is a Divine motto, though often sadly misused. God help us to devote ourselves to Christ, and to make that motto ours!
But if we were to preach this doctrine to the members of some of our churches, they would call us very legal names. Some even in our Baptist churches do not understand this working for Christ. Many of them remind us of that passage in the Book of Job, where it is written, 'The oxen were ploughing, and the donkeys feeding beside them.' There is no small proportion of that latter class in the Church at present, who are well content to be continually feeding; but, as to doing any of the work of the Church, they will sit still, leaving God to do it, or other men to do it; but they will not so much as touch it themselves. These men—what shall they do in the coming of the Son of man, when Christ comes to gather together his people, when the tree shall be known by its fruit, when he shall come, 'whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire'? What shall these 'unprofitable servants' do then? What shall become of these, who have hidden their talent in the earth, and kept their Lord's money? What shall these do, whose crown, if they had one, would be without a star; who are never spiritual progenitors in Israel, but barren and unfruitful—these selfish ones—ice-bound and frost-bound in the nakedness of their own little spirits? Oh, may the Lord have mercy upon them now! May they 'see the Lord' as sending them out, even as Christ was sent out by his Father!
And I ought to say, before leaving this point, that these disciples saw the Lord as giving them the Holy Spirit. It would be sad to hear Christ commanding us to go forth without giving us strength to obey the commandment. To know my mission, without having the power to fulfill it, were miserable indeed. But seeing the Lord giving us all the power we need, preaching is a glorious work. Dear friends, I know not how many of you have 'seen the Lord' in this last sense; but I must say that, when a man has once felt the influence of the Holy Spirit, he is lifted up above the common race of mankind, the level of ordinary humanity. Other men deliberate, and are afraid; but he dashes onward. When others labor in their own strength, there is not the effect in their service that rests on his work. True Christians are not like the men mentioned in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, who steered the ships, and held the ropes, but were dead men still; but the man with the Holy Spirit in him is mighty because he has been quickened into newness of life. Heaven yields to him; earth is plastic in his hands, like clay in the hands of the potter; and men tremble before him, for he is mighty when God fills him with his Spirit.
II. Now I come to the second part of my subject, on which I can only speak briefly. That is, HOW MAY WE SEE THE LORD? Not, I should say, in visions and dreams. Some people talk a great deal about what they see when they are asleep; I would much rather know what they do when they are awake. I do not think it matters much what we dream about, when our disordered brains go on working while we sleep. We must have something more solid to depend on than those flights of fancy, and those flimsy, distorted imaginations.
How can we see the Lord? In Scripture. As Augustine said, 'The Scriptures are the swaddling-bands of the holy Child Jesus;' and here, as we unwind the Scriptures, we behold him. 'He feeds among the lilies;' and these Books of the Bible are the beds of lilies and of sweet spices, where he reposes. Often have we found Christ in the Old Testament types—in the Psalms—in the Gospels—in the Epistles. The Holy Scriptures are like a looking-glass. If we look up to Heaven, we cannot see Christ yonder; but if we cast our eyes down upon this glass, then he looks down from Heaven into the glass, and, 'as in a glass, darkly,' we see him mirrored, and are content to wait for the time to come when we shall see him face to face, in his own eternal Kingdom.
Then we see Christ, also, in the Word preached; at least, that preaching is not worth much that has not Christ in it. A sermon without Christ! If you hear one such discourse, it is your misfortune; if you hear two such, it is your sin. Never give a man the opportunity to preach two sermons to you without Christ in them; such a preacher is far too clever. If some baker has made one loaf of bread without using any flour, never trust him a second time;—he will murder you one of these days! If a man is clever enough to preach a sermon, and to keep Christ out of it, do not go to hear him. You had better listen to some illiterate, blundering brother, who can only utter his words in rough disorder, rather than to a preacher of the other description, who is so clever, and such a polished orator, that he can do without his Master. A minister should ever be like Moses, who 'lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,' that men might 'look and live.'
Then, in the ordinances, as well as in the Word preached and read, we may see Christ. 'Buried with him by baptism into death,' 'planted together in the likeness of his death,' 'that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.' The believer, when he is baptized, is not saved by baptism; he knows better than that, for he knows he has no right to be baptized until he is saved; but, being saved, he sees in the baptismal stream a figure of the tomb of Christ; and he is there 'buried with Christ,' and rises again in him.
So, in the Lord's supper, what a reminder we have of Jesus! I hope, dear friends, your communing times are times of peace and joy to you. To the souls of God's people, that are in a healthy state, they are, for, as they eat the bread, and drink the wine—though not superstitiously, or in any Popish way—they eat Christ's flesh, and drink his blood, after a spiritual fashion. Dear to every child of God must be those solemn meetings, when we have said, with Paul, 'The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?'
And so, too, we may say, 'We have seen the Lord' in private, in solitary communings. I am ashamed to say it, yet I must, that communion is what we are not often engaged in. We are so much occupied in traveling by railway speed, leaving the time of anchorites and hermits far behind. I care not for making monks and hermits; but I wish we had more communion with Christ. I think we might serve God all the better if we had more time for quietude and musing on him. Think not I dream when I say—There are times when Christ is very near to us, in solitude, when we can see him, though not with these eyes; and when we can talk of the things which 'our hands have handled, of the Word of life.' Sweetly do we sing, sometimes, with the spouse in the Canticles, 'His left hand is under my head, and his right hand does embrace me.' The walk to Emmaus we also have had; and our hearts have burned within us, while he has talked with us by the way. He has shown to us his hands and his side; and our souls have been made 'like the chariots of Ammi-nadib.' Remember these seasons, you who have known them; recall them into your mind; and let the thought of them be reviving to your spirit. Snatch from the altars of yesterday blazing torches, to kindle the almost expiring embers of today. Again draw near to God, come close to Christ, for so only can you say, 'Yes, we have seen the Lord.'
I must make just one more remark here, and then close this point. I think, dear friends, we have often seen the Lord in positions of life where the Holy Spirit has touched our eyes with spiritual eye-salve. You may have noticed that all the saints who have ever beheld Christ, saw him as like themselves. Abraham was a stranger and foreigner, sitting under the tree at Mamre; he saw Christ—but how? As 'a wayfaring man,' a stranger passing by. Moses, much tried, and feeling himself like 'a burning bush,' 'saw the Lord,'—but how? As 'a burning bush,' yet 'unconsumed.' Jacob was about to wrestle with his brother Esau, he was alone at Jabbok; and he saw Christ—but how? 'There wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.' Joshua was about to march upon Jericho, and, sword in hand, was gazing at its walls, he saw Christ—but how? 'He lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand,' who said, in answer to Joshua's challenge, 'Are you for us, or for our adversaries?' 'Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.' Then there were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—how did they see Christ? As one walking with them in the burning fiery furnace.
We must take different points of view, and see Christ first in this way, and then in the other; and, perhaps, in the darkest hour we ever shall have, we shall see Christ the best; and in the worst affliction that shall ever come to us, sweeping over our heads, like big waves threatening to destroy us, perhaps that will be the very time when we shall behold Christ more clearly than we have ever beheld him, or shall behold him, until we arrive in Heaven. Happy is the trial that enables us the better to say, 'We have seen the Lord.'
III. And now, in the last place, WHAT WILL BE THE RESULT IF WE HAVE SEEN THE LORD?
We learn from the text that, if we have seen the Lord, we shall tell other people. These disciples went and told Thomas that they had seen the Lord, and I want to stir up those, who have had a vision of Christ's face, to go and tell Thomas about it. I know you will try to excuse yourself, and say, 'I love retirement. I could not speak, I am so bashful.' No doubt, modesty is a great virtue; but it is not the greatest virtue that a soldier can exhibit; and you are a soldier of Christ, remember, by profession. We do not generally think that soldiers ought to be so modest as to be ashamed to show their faces in the day of battle. There are a good many people who are modest in this way; but I beg you to shake off just so much of your retiring habits as may be necessary to your usefulness, and dare to say something for Christ. No doubt you will say, 'I never did tell anyone what I have felt,' but that is the very reason why you should begin to do so now.
I remember once riding on a coach, when the coachman observed to me that he knew a certain minister (I will not say of what church), who, for the last six months, had been in the habit of riding up and down on the box of his coach with him; 'and,' said he, 'he is a good sort of man, sir, the sort of man that I like.' 'Well, what sort of a man is he?' I asked. 'Well, you see, sir,' he replied, 'he is a minister; and I like him because he never intrudes his religion, sir. I never heard him say a word that would make me believe him to be a religious man the whole six months he has ridden with me, sir!' I am afraid there are plenty of Christians of that sort; but their religion is not worth much. They never intrude their religion; and I think the reason it is so unobtrusive is, that they have not any to intrude; for true godliness is one of the most intrusive things in the world. It is fire; and if you put fire down in your study, and give it most earnest admonition never to burn, you will find, while you are administering your sage advice, that a conflagration has commenced.
'Oh!' says one, 'I think we can have true religion, and not show it.' Do you, indeed? Christ thought differently, for he said, 'You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.'
'Well,' says another, 'but I have no gifts; I hope I know about these things, but I could not tell others about them.' You have no gifts! If I had said that, you would have been offended. 'But I can do nothing.' Again I am glad I have not insulted you by saying so. There is not a spider in the corner of the churchyard, there is not a nettle growing on the most neglected heath, that has not some virtue. God has not made a single thing without a purpose; and I cannot think he has made you, given you enjoyment, given Christ to save you, and yet intends you to do nothing for him. I cannot believe you, my friend, my brother, my sister; there must be something for you to do, so find it out, and do it. There must be some person to whom you can tell what you know about the Lord Jesus Christ.
'Well,' asks one, 'to whom can I tell it—if I must tell it?' To whom? Tell it to your nearest kinsman, your dearest acquaintance; or, if not, tell it to anyone, for it is good news which should be published upon the very housetops. I generally advise the members of my congregation, if they have felt anything of the power of God in their own hearts, to tell it to the first stranger who may happen to come into view; and many have been the conversions I have seen wrought by speaking to those who had no serious thought; talking to them in a solemn manner, they have been impressed. How do you think the religion of Christ is to be spread in this world, if all of you are to be silent about it? 'By the ministers,' say you. Oh, the ministers! But are we to do it all? God forbid! I would sooner lay down my ministry than undertake your responsibilities. You have your work to do, and we have ours. You cannot do ours, and we cannot do yours. Indeed, this were priestcraft with all its evil, and none of its good, supposing the work of saving souls to be left to the ministry. Nay, the whole Church of God is to be the winner of souls; and every saved soul should seek to bring another, by telling what God has done for his soul.
Possibly, someone says, 'I will try; but I am sure I shall stammer.' So much the better; this stammering will have all the force of eloquence. If you cannot tell what you feel, it will have all the greater power. I think this is just the preaching that is now required—that of private persons talking of Jesus; for men say of us ministers, 'It is his business to talk about these things.' But great good will attend the speaking privately to men. The Countess of Huntingdon—what a preacher for Christ she was, though she was never in a pulpit! Lady Ann Erskine—what a bishop was she in the Church—though she never came forth to put the mitre on her brow! Persons of humble life, undistinguished among the common multitude, putting in here a word, and there a sentence, and above all savoring the whole with a godly, gracious, and loving spirit. O friends, these are they that shall 'shine as the stars forever and ever,' when Christ comes to divide the portions to his people!
You do not know, some of you, what good you would get in your own heart, if you tried to do good to others. The devil knows that the only way to keep his people quiet, is to give them work to do; and the Lord knows there is no way of keeping Christians happy, but that of keeping them hard at work for him. We must be laboring for Jesus, if we would be happy. Did you ever have the satisfaction of hearing the cry of penitence, from a heart that you were the instrument of breaking? Did you ever see the beaming countenance of one, whom you had pointed to Christ? It is a bliss worth worlds. Martyrdom were a cheap price to buy it—the bliss of being a spiritual father in Christ Jesus. Labor for it. You may have it; you cannot be put into a sphere where usefulness is out of your way. If you have seen the Lord, I charge you, by the sufferings he endured for you—by the agony of that face, 'more marred than that of any man,'—by all those tears and drops of blood—by that scourge, and shoulders torn until the white wounds start out from a sea of crimson—by the five wounds, by the sponge, the vinegar, the nails, the cry, 'I thirst,' the shriek of 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,'—by the bowing of the head, and the descent into the grave—I conjure you, if ever you have not lived for him, serve him now. Fly onward to 'the mark of your high calling,' like arrows shot from the bow of his love—turn neither to the right hand nor to the left—but yonder go, speeding your life-giving course, until you be lost in the splendor of his ineffable glory, and forever behold his face, and circle his throne rejoicing, with songs of caroling symphony forever and ever.
I have done. Only there are some here who have never seen the Lord at all. What shall I say to them? I preach the Gospel to them. 'He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.' To believe Christ, is to trust in him. Whoever trusts his soul to Christ is saved; however black his sin may have been, the moment he trusts Christ, he is saved; his sin is gone, the Holy Spirit enters into him, he becomes an heir of immortality, and he shall see the face of Christ, in glory everlasting. May the Lord add now his blessing, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
Chapter 35
An address to converts
Delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle
'For you, O God, have proved us: you have tried us, as silver is tried.'—Psalm 66:10.
IT is a good thing for those of us who have long known the Lord, to have such an opportunity as this of meeting you who have but recently been brought to Christ. We are apt to get into certain grooves; and, worse than that, we are liable to lose the freshness and force of our early love to the Savior, so it is a blessing to us to have an infusion of new life through the introduction into our midst of those who have been lately born again through the effectual working of the Holy Spirit. On coming back to my work, after a necessary season of rest, I am inexpressibly glad to learn that the Lord has been calling so many, by his grace, out of nature's darkness, into his marvelous light.
Very heartily do I thank you, my brothers and sisters, who have been working for Christ during the special services. Truly, I say unto you, you have your reward in these friends whom you have been enabled to lead to the Savior; and as for you who have been brought to Christ during the mission, I do indeed rejoice over you with exceeding great joy. I feel that you new converts come into the church as a kind of compensation to those of us who watch for souls, as those that must give account, and who are often overwhelmed with grief because of those who fall into sin, and who go out from us because they are not really of us. It is heartbreaking work to hear of one and another, who certainly knew better, and about whom we felt that, whoever went astray, they would not be likely to do so—I say that it is heartbreaking work for us to hear of them saying and doing that which brings dishonor upon the Name of Christ. It sends me home, often, with a heart well-near broken, and I begin to ask myself, 'Who will be the next to fall, and to bring disgrace upon the church, and upon the Christ whom they profess to serve?' It makes me fear concerning everybody, and to feel safe about none; so that, dear young converts, I am specially glad to see you here tonight, but I shall be gladder still to meet you here, in twenty years' time, if we are spared, and to see you then faithfully following your Lord. May he keep you firm and steadfast even unto the end! Let this be your constant prayer to him, 'Hold you me up, and I shall be safe.'
The fact of your coming to the last meeting for converts was a profession that you were numbered among them, and your coming again tonight, your acceptance of the invitation was a sort of profession that you had been converted; so you have probably been long enough reckoned among professors to ask yourselves such searching questions as these, 'Were we really converted? Was it a genuine work of the Holy Spirit? Will it last?' I want you to test and try yourselves by the Scriptural standard. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, so would I say to you, 'Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith; prove your own selves.' I do not want you to look so much to yourselves as to forget your Savior, but I do want you to see whether all is right; for if it is not all right, you must come and begin at the proper place, that is, at the cross of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I often ask myself whether I was ever really converted; but whenever the question comes up, I quickly answer it by immediately trusting in Jesus. That is a short cut to the point I want to reach. I say to myself, 'There is a fountain opened for sin and for impurity, I am a sinner, and I want to be cleansed, so I will go to that fountain, and wash and be clean. Whether I have ever believed in Jesus, or not, I will believe in him now; whether I am a saint, or a sinner, is not the question I want just now to decide; I know that I am a sinner, so I will go to Christ in that character, for I know he will not cast me out, for he has said, "Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out." '
If you want to test and try yourselves, what is the best way to do it? I should say—Try yourselves as you would try a shilling, or any other coin, to prove whether it is genuine. If you knew that there was a quantity of counterfeit coin being circulated, how would you try a shilling or a half-crown to test its genuineness?
Well, first, you judge it by its appearance. That is not a very sure test, but it will sometimes be sufficient to condemn the counterfeit. See whose image and superscription it professes to bear, and then compare it with a coin that you know is genuine. The coiners of the bad money may not have imitated the good coin well, and you may be able at once to decide that it is spurious. Well, now, look at yourself in your daily life; try to look at your heart, and see whether the image of Christ is clearly stamped upon you. You look, perhaps, to see the date on the coin that you are examining. I can hardly see the date on this one that I hold in my hand, but it is good enough for all that; and if you cannot tell exactly when and where you were converted, do not be troubled about that matter if you can discern the image and superscription of Jesus stamped upon you; or, rather, if those who look upon you can take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus, and have caught something of his spirit. On this coin, it says A.D.; that is, Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord, such-and-such a date. Well, I hope you have been born again in the year of our Lord, the acceptable year of his mercy and his grace. I trust that you have found that his set time to favor you has come.
Watch yourselves day by day to see how you are living, and judge whether your life is that of a true Christian. You who are young women, are you as giddy and frivolous as you used to be? Then, do not think that you are Christians, for what sign is there of the change that the grace of God always works in those who are the subjects of it? You who are wives, are you making home a happier place than it used to be? I do not think much of your profession if you do not make an improvement there. Rowland Hill used to say that a man's religion was no good unless his dog and cat were the better for it, and there is much truth in the remark. How is it with you, husband? Do you go straight home at night, from work or from the house of God, or do you go to 'the Dun Cow' or 'the Red Lion' as you used to do? If you still go there as much as you did, I do not think anything of your profession of Christianity, and I hardly imagine that you can think much of it yourself. You can easily try yourselves by this simple test of your ordinary daily life. There are some things that are transparent, a moment's thought decides that a godly man cannot do them. A man, who has been truly converted, cannot remain a drunkard. A woman, who is always nagging at her husband with that long and irritating tongue of hers, is no child of God. You can tell, at the very first glance, that such people as these are not the Lord's chosen and redeemed ones.
A second test, that you generally give to coins when you want to decide as to their genuineness, is, you try to see how they ring. So, you listen to people's ordinary conversation, to their general talk, and you say, 'What is the ring of it? Is there a true ring of sincerity about it? Is there the clear, genuine ring of holiness about their speech?' When you hear them speak, do they lie? Do they use ill language? Do they speak crossly, proudly, savagely? Or do they speak as we may suppose that Jesus Christ would speak if he were in their place?
There is also a ring about our actions, as well as about our words. In our Infant School-Room at the Orphanage there is a motto which I would commend to you all, and especially to you young converts, 'What would Jesus do?' What an infallible Guide he will be to us throughout the whole of our life! If, at any time, you do not know what you should do in certain circumstances in which you are placed, think what Jesus Christ would do if he were in your position, for you never can be wrong in supposing that it would be right for you to do what he would have done if he had been in your place. There should be about you, at all times, a Christlike ring; you should manifest a loving, generous, courageous, holy spirit, like that of Jesus Christ; so that, wherever you are, if men test you and try you to see what kind of ring there is in you, you shall always speak like a Christian, and act like a Christian, so that they shall say to you, as the men said to Peter in the palace of the high priest, 'You also are one of Christ's disciples, for your speech betrays you.'
Another way to test money is, I believe, by the taste of it. I do not admire the taste even of a good coin; but, still, I know what the taste is; and I also know that there is a delightful taste about a true Christian. I cannot exactly explain to you what it is; perhaps I could better tell you what it is not. I have been with a man, I have been with a minister of the Gospel, and I have heard him preach; and I have felt that all he said was very good, and that all he did was very good, yet I did not like the taste of him. There was a want of savor, a lack of unction about him; there was little or nothing of that holy fragrance of which the spouse says to her Lord, 'Because of the savor of your good ointments your Name is as ointment poured forth.' I do not want it to be so with you, my dear young friends; I want you to be so full of the spirit of Christ that, even when you are not talking, and when you are not doing anything, those around you will say, 'There is a delightful fragrance about that young man's character, there is a sweet savor about that young woman's life, which tells that the grace of God has been at work upon them.'
I have seen a cabman test the genuineness of a coin by biting it. I believe that, in most cases, this is one of the best possible tests that you can apply. Most bad money can be detected by your teeth. Well, now, the devil will be sure to try to bite you young converts, so you must mind that he does not get his teeth into you. Many of those who are around you will also seek to give you a bite; some of your old companions will be certain to attempt to bite you. Do not give way to them for a single moment; let them blunt their teeth upon you if they will, but do not let them make any impression upon you. Ask the Lord to give you, by his grace, all the necessary firmness to resist their attacks, and to enable you to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
You need to be pretty well hardened in such a world of temptation as this is. I am sure that some of our church-members, who have to work in certain shops, must have been made of genuine metal, or they would have been detected long ago, for they are surrounded by scoffers, who make their life a burden to them. If they ever do find one who gives in to them, they will exultingly say, 'There, we have spoiled one of your converts, now send us another.' There is a certain set of infidels, and ungodly men, who take a sort of fiendish delight in spoiling professors. You see to it that, when they bite you, their teeth shall go against something harder than they like. Say to them, 'Bite as hard as you like; I can stand it as long as your teeth can, and they will break before I shall give in.' Be like the blacksmith's anvil; it never strikes back when the hammer smites it, and it endures all the blows that fall upon it; yet the anvil will outlast many hammers, because it is so hard that it is able to withstand all the blows that it has to bear.
You know that wolves are terribly fierce animals, and that it is according to their nature to devour sheep; and you also know that the sheep, if left to themselves, would not be at all a match for the wolves. Yet it is a remarkable thing that, at the present time, there are a great many more sheep, ay, by millions, than there are wolves in the world; and the day will probably come when there will not be one wolf left, though there will still be vast flocks of sheep. You remember that our Lord Jesus said to his disciples, 'Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.' If you are the sheep of the Good Shepherd, you have a strong Protector, and you need not fear all the wolves in the world, nor even the roaring lion, Satan himself, who goes about seeking whom he may devour.
There is another way in which coin is tested, and you young Christians are sure to be tried in the same fashion; that is, by weight. God will test you thus, dear friends. Hannah, in her prayer, truly said, 'The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed;' but Solomon goes further when he says, 'The Lord weighs the spirits.' What wonderful scales he must have! If our service were reckoned by counting, I believe it would be found that I have done as much in quantity as anybody now alive; but the thought that often presses very heavily upon me is that God will judge, not by counting, but by weight. You may have watched the clerks, at some banks, and noticed that they do not count the sovereigns, they weigh them, and they will not take gold except by weight. In a similar fashion, God will weigh you, and your actions, and all that relates to you. You may think you have truly repented, but your repentance will have to be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary. You may fancy that you have believed in Jesus, but your believing will have to be weighed in those scales that never make a mistake. You may tell a good tale, and a long one, too; but, in God's judgment, it is not the length of your story, but the weight of it that will tell with him; and mind that, whenever you pray, you do not measure your prayers by the length of them;—except that, as a general rule, you may conclude that, the longer your prayer is, the poorer it is;—for it is weight that is wanted at the throne of grace, not length. It may be a grand thing to be able to pray for an hour; and, sometimes, upon a sick-bed, it may be necessary to be pleading with the Lord the whole night long; but, as a usual thing, you need not trouble about the length of your supplication, it is the earnestness, the sincerity, the deep spirituality of your prayer that will count in the sight of God.
How will you, dear friends, stand this weight test? If God's great scales were to be fixed here tonight, and he were at once to close all these doors, and to say to us, 'None will go out of this place except to Heaven or to Hell,' how would it be with each one of us? When weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, should we be up to the required weight? Have we Christ in us, the hope of glory? If not, we shall certainly be found wanting; but if we have him for our portion, we shall be able to pass this test as well as all the others that I have mentioned.
There is a way of testing metals that chemists use, by nitric acid, I think it is. A coin may be subjected to that test, and it will be proved that there is a good deal of silver in it, but also some alloy; and I suppose that, if we are any of us tested by the acid of Satanic temptation, or by the fiery trials that come to most of God's people, sooner or later, it will be seen that there is some imperfection in us. The acid or the fire will find it out, and it will make some mark even upon those who are thought to be the best among us. When the Lord permits these various tests to be applied to you, I pray that it may not be said concerning any of you, 'Reprobate (or refuse) silver shall men call them, because the Lord has rejected them;' but may you all be accepted of him, both now and at the last great day, and to him shall be all the glory! Amen.
Chapter 36
Civility, morality, humanity, Christianity
An address at the Butchers' Festival at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Tuesday, 26 March 1878
DEAR BRETHREN ALL, I trust you have all enjoyed yourselves, and been well fed; at any rate, there was a very large heap of provisions, and I am given to understand that the most of it has disappeared. I trust your minds will be ready to receive some spiritual food. God grant that you may have a good appetite for it, that you may eat and digest it, and grow strong in the Lord through it.
I am glad to see you here again, for I think these meetings tend to make all things happy among masters and men. It is always a pity when there is not that feeling between masters and men, it is sure to lead to mischief on both sides. It is very seldom when there comes a strike but that both suffer, and the general public as well. If ever you butchers should strike, it would be a bad thing for us. We should come down to Smithfield in a body, begging and beseeching you, if not to give us our daily bread, at least to let us have a little bit of meat to it. May there always be a good feeling between masters and men, and I hope that these festivals will be continued, and that they will always promote it. I recollect that I have a word to say to the masters as well as to the men. Well, gentlemen, I have a delicate way of doing such things; I am apt to do it like the Irishman, who said, 'Now, Patrick, I have lost my coat, and I believe you have stolen it; I just give you a hint.' If you have not paid for this meal, will you be so good as to pay up? I am quite sure you will; and I merely throw this out as a slight hint.
I could not help noticing, gentlemen, the improvement in the appearance of a great many of you, if you are the same folk that I saw here four years ago. I suppose you are not all the same; some are quite new to the profession, others have come to London lately, but there is a general aspect of wonderful respectability about you.
Someone said that I looked like a butcher, like a person who lived on his own meat, and that the right sort of stuff. I do not mind if you do take me for a butcher; I am always afraid lest anyone should take me for a priest—I do not mean by that a Catholic priest, any more than a Protestant priest—a priest of any kind. I am afraid that I should not be a good hand at the trade of a butcher; but though I could not kill the beasts, I can carve the meat after it is killed.
I have heard that there is also a great improvement in the whole class of men in the language used in the market. I really think that the working-men of England talk more filthily and more profanely than ever. As we pass along we hear mere boys using words of which they cannot know the meaning at all, else they would be horrified to utter them. Stand where there is a piece of road up, or where men are laying down the paving, or listen to some coal-heavers, and you will hear certain words that are most disgusting, and stupid, and foul, mixed up with their common conversation. Now, it is a subject of congratulation that some gentlemen, who go through your market, are able to testify that it is the exception, not the rule, to hear bad language there. Well, always keep it so. At any rate, Smithfield ought to be holy ground—the blood of the martyrs stains every inch of it; the men that won our liberties and defended the faith. It seems to me a sort of double profanation that God's name should be blasphemed where men were burned for Christ's sake. You know there is nothing gained by using bad language; it is stupid, it is senseless. A man is an donkey to do it; he is worse than an donkey, for an donkey would not do it. If a man must say something in addition to his ordinary speech, let him say, 'Boots, Boot-jacks, Blunderbusses,' or words of that sort. 'Bring that boots, boot-jacks, blunderbusses leg of mutton.' They would serve just as well, and they would sound just as big; or a man could say, 'Fifty-pounder,' or 'Cannon,' or some big word, Latin or Greek—I suppose you know Latin and Greek; anything is better than being profane.
Now, then, having to speak to you tonight, I want rather a long range of subjects. I do recommend every working-man to begin with a very common-place virtue, and yet one worth having—CIVILITY. From my very soul I loathe a man of oily tongue and crafty heart. When a man begins to 'slaver' me over, I expect he will end by trying to swallow me, so I get out of his way. There are some men that are so dreadfully gruff that when they speak to you they seem ready to jump down your throat. Kindness of manner, amiability of deportment, civility, will make any man's fortune; no matter though he wears a blue coat, he becomes a nobleman and a prince among men. Civility costs but little, but many a man will keep his nose to the grindstone all his days, and never rise in the world because he is not civil.
A higher thing than civility is MORALITY. Good ministers preach morality, for if a man is not moral he cannot have any religion. I recollect hearing of a fellow in a public-house, who said to his boozing companions, 'I can say more than any of you can; I am one of God's people.' What horrible blasphemy! No wonder they kicked him out, it served him right; he was not worth the injury done to their boots. Such a man deserves to be expelled from any society.
Morality is wanted in your business. Some of the masters would be the better for a little more of it, and the men, too; for immorality and vice are found among men of large property, and also among working-men. Honesty! honesty! honesty! Let that be the motto of every man, honesty not only with regard to money and weights, but honesty with regard to your time and the way in which you spend it. A lazy man is a thief, he robs his employer of the time for which he is paid. He who has work to do, and does not do it, or loiters over it, is stealing so much time belonging to his master. There should be no 'eye-service, as men pleasers.' I say, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work'; but I also say, 'A fair day's work for a fair day's wage.' It is loathsome to see how soon some men will lie; indeed, I know some people who seem never to speak the truth except by accident, and some who have a greater pleasure in saying what is false than what is true. Oh! it is pitiful, pitiful, pitiful to the last degree to know what liars there are in the world. I would have a man's word to be his bond, and every word so true that he would not need to go to the court and kiss the Book, for his chance word in the street is more reliable than another man's oath.
We want also among butchers, and among certain other people, too, more HUMANITY. I have thought several times this evening of the assembly of doctors we had at the Tabernacle a little while back. When I compare the butchers of tonight, and the medical students of a few weeks ago, there is no necessity to say which behaved the better. I have no hesitation in saying which belong to the upper class. A little humanity would not be lost if it were given to medical students, and after that is done a good deal might be spared for butchers. Yet I do believe, from all I have heard, that though you have to witness much of brute suffering, most of you would take pains not to cause one extra pang to the beasts you kill. I do not believe that you could cut a leg from any ox while it was alive—you have never brought yourselves to that. You could not stand and watch the motion of nerve, and the action of blood vessels, and the change of tissue in a creature that still lived and writhed before your eyes; and I feel persuaded that if one of your number was so brutal, the rest of you would shun him and say, 'He is not fit to fill the honorable position of a butcher.' If I ever had the power of an Oliver Cromwell, I would let no man kill a creature except the man who could be trusted to do it mercifully, and I think you would all agree to such a law as that.
But, gentlemen, brethren, men (that is the best word of all, for a man is greater than a gentleman)—men, the highest thing after all is true religion. Civility, morality, humanity, should be the possession of each one of you; then, over the top, CHRISTIANITY. And I stand here to recommend it, and for one or two reasons. The first is, as a matter of common honesty. If any of you have a dog, you expect that dog, if you feed it, to fawn upon you, and own you as its master. You would not keep a horse or donkey unless it could do you some sort of service. Well, now, God has made us, we are his creatures, 'fearfully and wonderfully made,' and it is due to our Creator that we should serve him. If a man constructs a machine, he makes it that it may do work for him, and if it would not work he would put it away or destroy it. What wonderful machines we are; what Divine are there is about our bodies and our minds; surely God ought to have something of us in return for all he has done for us.
Many of you would not rob men of a penny; do you rob God? You render to your earthly master faithful service, are you to be unfaithful to your God? If anyone were to say that any of you are doing a wrong to your fellow-men, you would be greatly put out; but have not some of you been doing wrong to God? Have you not been living carelessly, never thinking about God? He is more worthy of your love than the loveliest earthly thing, and yet you do not love him; you ought to know him, yet you do not. Oh, I sympathize with the great God of Heaven when he says, 'Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord has spoken; I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib: but Israel does not know, my people does not consider.'
Think, I pray you, of your God, and let common honesty cause you to love him. Look at the way in which a great many people waste the Sabbath. Suppose I meet a man in the street, who wants help. I have seven pounds, and I say to him, 'Sir, I have seven pounds, I will give you six of them; I keep only one for myself.' If he should turn round, and rob me of that one pound, you at once feel that he is an ungrateful wretch. There are but seven days in the week, and God gives you six in which you may serve your business, and there is but one left for him, and it is only honest that you should give that to God that you may have it for yourselves in a higher and better sense. Is it not a shame, a crying shame, that men should rob God of the one day in the seven which he has hallowed for himself? I plead the claims of God with honest men, and pray that his day may be more than ever consecrated to his service.
My second reason for urging you to true religion is, that it is a matter of common sense. I would like to get you all by the hand and ask each one, 'There is a God, is there not?' My gardener sowed some seed in my garden in the form of the letters, 'C. H. S.' Now, if somebody had said to me that the seed came up like that by chance, that nobody sowed it, but that my name appeared just because certain seeds were blown that way by the wind, I should have asked him how long since he was at Colney Hatch. A man must be insane who could talk like that. Well, but, sirs, look you, look you; look at the stars, look at the green fields, look at the flowers, look at your own hands, those wonderful hands—were they made by chance? Oh, no! This world, and all we see, they were made by somebody—by God. This God is very strong; hark how he thunders, how the sound rolls along the heavens; how terrible are the flashes of the lightning, how dreadful are his winds when the strong ships, with stalwart men on board, sink in a moment to the bottom of the sea. I would like to have this God as my Friend, I could not endure to have him as my mighty enemy. I would like to crouch beneath the shadow of his wings and find my shelter there.
I am not such a fool as to think of fighting against him who could crush me as a moth. I have learned to acquaint myself with him that I might be at peace with him, and since then all things have seemed to sing of his goodness to me. A plain countryman was once met by a sneering infidel who ridiculed the poor man's religion. 'Well,' said Hodge, 'I have got two strings to my bow.' 'Oh,' said the other, 'how is that?' 'Well,' said he, 'if it should turn out that there is no Heaven, or Hell, or God, I shall be as well off as you are, and I am happy by the road, because I do believe there is eternal joy for me; but if it should turn out that I am right, and you are wrong, where will you be?' And that is just so. If I have to die like a dog, my religion has been an inconceivable blessing to me, and there are hundreds here who could testify to the comfort it is to them in this life. It has been the making of some of you;—you might have been in prison tonight, or reeling in the streets with drunkards; you might have been where nobody would trust you with a sixpence, and you owe all you are to God's grace. A poor bricklayer fell from the top of a ladder, and a clergyman, who was passing by at the time, said to him, 'I exhort you to make your peace with God.' 'To make my peace with God, sir!—why, that was made eighteen hundred years ago and more, when my great, glorious Lord paid all my debt upon the cruel tree. My peace is Christ, for "He is our peace." ' Oh, it is blessed to know, and to be able to say, 'My peace is made; Christ is my peace, and I am saved.'
Then I commend religion to you, also, as a matter of common prudence. Some people have no prudence, they rush in headlong, neck or nothing; they are always going from puddle to puddle, and from muddle to muddle. The prudent man foresees evil and prepares for it. Now, look at the prudence of having God to be your friend; if he is, then your prayers will be heard, you will be sustained, you will be kept right.
Let me say to fathers and mothers here, if I did not care for religion myself, I think I should desire it for my boy. With what cruel grief your daughters may rend your hearts; and in what ways your sons may tear your hearts until you may wish they had never been born. There was never a man that was disgraced because of his son being a Christian, and never a mother weeping because her daughter loved Christ. If we want our children to become our honor, and our comfort, we must lead them where they are likely to get Christ. A little boy was once asked by a sneering man, 'Where is Jesus Christ?' 'Sir, he lives down our alley now, ever since mother has been to the little chapel over the way.' Ah! if you get Christ to live in your house, it will be bright with peace and joy, though there may be a little coffin in the corner, and though poverty and sickness be your lot. Life insurance is a good thing, but Christ in the house is an insurance for this life and for eternity. Look forward to the world to come, the world to come, the world to come. Common prudence bids us prepare for it. I must tell you that to me true religion is a matter of pure delight. There is no bondage in it, it is freedom, it is bliss. And, once more, it is a matter of pure necessity. 'You must be born again,' and this cannot be except by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that comes where there is faith in Jesus Christ. If you will but believe in Jesus Christ, and simply trust in him, you are born again. The great way of salvation is by believing in Christ Jesus, and the great hope of every sinner must be the precious blood of Christ. I have heard that a young soldier, who was keeping watch in one of the long corridors of the fort of Gibraltar, was in deep distress about his sins. There was another soldier, a pious man, at the other end of the corridor. An officer passed by and gave him the password—he ought to have given the other word in return, but he was so occupied in meditating on Divine things that he said to the officer, 'The precious blood of Christ,' and then, recollecting himself, he stopped, and gave the right word. However, God meant him to utter the other expression, for, as his companion at the other end of the passage was thinking of his sins, and how they could be put away, there came the answer, as if from Heaven, 'The precious blood of Christ.'
O men, if ever you feel as that young soldier did, I would like your very shambles to speak to you about the precious blood of Christ. When your tasks get heavy, oh, that out of every market stall there could come the cry, 'The precious blood of Christ.' Let every lamb you kill say to you, 'Behold, the Lamb of God.' If ever you should lie in a hospital, may that sweet word steal into your ear and be forever the basis of your hope. 'The precious blood of Christ,' for 'The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.'
Chapter 37
Today
An address delivered at a watch-night service in the Metropolitan Tabernacle on Thursday 31 December 1863
'The Holy Spirit says, Today!' Hebrews 3:7.
MY short text is—'Today'—'As the Holy Spirit says, To day,' and there seem to me to be two things to talk about very briefly. Here is opportunity for you, and here is a reason for importunity in me. 'As the Holy Spirit says, Today.'
I. HERE IS OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU. How many opportunities you have had during your whole life, and even during this year; but now they are all gone, all gone, and you know that the water which has passed the mill cannot turn the wheel, nor can the opportunities that are gone be of any use to you now. We have an old proverb that it is no use crying about spilt milk, but I am not quite sure about that. If we have wasted the golden opportunities and they cannot come back to us, yet we ought to recollect that we have the responsibility of them, and that we shall be asked at the last as to those opportunities, and what use we made of them.
However, it will be better, instead of weeping about the past, to think a little of the present. 'Today, today.' We are still in the midst of a day of grace. Not yet has the great assize been proclaimed with sound of trumpet. Not yet have the books been opened; not yet has the voice of thunder said, 'Depart, you cursed.' We are yet in the day of mercy. Now remember that the day of mercy is always short at the very longest. Compare it with eternity, and if a man should live his seventy years twice told, yet how short is mercy's day! The shadows are soon drawn out, and man quickly goes to his grave. The day of mercy is limited; once let its hours be spent, and you can never have another hour added to it. God has fixed the length of time in which he will plead, invite, entreat, exhort; and once let the clock strike and it is all over. From that bourne no traveler comes back. Once pass the stream of death and he who is filthy let him be filthy still, and he who is holy let him be holy still. Remember, too, that this day of mercy is very variable. In some cases it lasts seventy years, in others hardly seventy days; in your case it may not last another seventy minutes; nay, you are not sure that it will last the next three or four-and-twenty minutes that still remain of this year. Short, I say, it is at the best; limited to all, but variable to every one of us. We cannot tell, therefore, how long 'today' may be. The 'today' of grace, the 'today' of invitation, the 'today' of hope may suddenly be over; the sun may go down even at high noon, and then it is lost, lost, lost, with us forever.
But 'The Holy Spirit says, To day,' and when I think of opportunities, I think I may liken us here tonight to a number of men in the Arctic regions. They have been frozen up for a long time, and the ship is high and dry on great masses of ice. The thaw comes on; but the thaw, however, will last but for a very short time. They set their saws to work; they see a split in the ice; there is a long and very narrow lane of water. If they can get the ship along there before the water freezes it up again they may yet reach the shores of dear old England, and be safe; but if not they are frozen in for another winter, and very likely will be frozen in forever. Well now, tonight it seems just so with us. It seems as if the Spirit of God had purposely brought some of you here; and I do trust he is opening, as it were, the lane of mercy for you—causing your sins for a little time to loose their frosty hold, and opening your heart a little to the genial influences of the Gospel. But O! if it should be frozen up again! There may be some men and women in this Tabernacle tonight who do not often come, and there may be a little feeling in their hearts now. O! that the Spirit of God would get a ship out of the ice before the passage freezes up again, for 'the Holy Spirit says, To day.' Christian men, every one of you, get to work with your prayers. Now let your souls go up to God in earnest cries and tears for men, lest this opportunity having passed away, these men and women may be frozen up forever in the cold frost of their sins, and may never feel the power of the voice of God again.
You remind me, too, of a sailor who is very anxious to make a passage, and the wind blows favorably, but little does he know how soon that wind may change, and so he hoists up every sail, and every stitch of canvas is spread, and he endeavors to lie in mid-channel in the hope that when the wind is fully blowing he may make the utmost distance that he possibly can. O that the Holy Spirit, like a gracious wind, might blow tonight! But if he does, Christian, remember—'The Holy Spirit says, To day!' and while the Holy Spirit is in operation put up your sails. Spread the sails of your prayers, Christians! and you awakened sinners, whose souls are full of anxious desires, put up your prayers too. Say, 'Save, Lord, or I perish; God be merciful to me a sinner.' These shall be like sails; and while the Spirit of God, through the Word, shall be operatively present among us—who can tell?—He may catch your sail, and you may suddenly find your prayer answered, so that you may be able to say—'Glory be to God! I have found a Savior; the Spirit of God who said "To day" has brought Jesus Christ to me.'
You remind me, too, of a little river I have sometimes seen. It is often so shallow that you could walk even in the bed of it and yet not wet your feet; but as at other times there is some little depth of water there the villagers have laid across a course of stepping-stones. There is one, and then another, and another, and so you may step from stone to stone. But there has been a very heavy fall of rain, and the water comes down from the hills in torrents, and as you stand by the riverside you are wanting to get over to your cottage. It is only just on the other side of the bank, but the water comes sweeping down, and there it is just to the top of the stepping-stone. Now, if you are quick, you may step from stone to stone and reach your home; but wait, wait five minutes, and the water will be above the stones, or perhaps it will have swept them away altogether, and there will be nothing before you but the roaring torrent, and you may not be able to reach your home tonight. Well, so it seems to me to be just now with you. Time rolls along, and God in his infinite mercy puts these stepping-stones across the river—the proclamations of mercy, the invitations of the Gospel to the sinner to come to Christ. Step now! O, that the Holy Spirit may say in your hearts—'Now; today; today,' and then you shall come to your home and to your rest, to your Lord and to your Savior. But, but, if you shall be left to your own will, to wait your own time, you will wait so long that the streams of justice will have covered the stepping-stones of mercy, and there will be no possibility for you to cross, but you will be shut out from home and hope, and that, remember, forever.
If these figures satisfy you not, I might give you many others; but surely these are enough. Dear friends, when one thinks of so many of you hearing the Gospel Sabbath after Sabbath, and yet not being blessed by it, it is enough to grieve one's heart, and to make one's heart break, too. 'Ah!' said a poor old woman, who was very deaf, and who had not heard a sound for years—'Ah!' said she, when she found that there were many who lived in the village who never went to a place of worship at all, 'to think that they can hear, and they won't!' That was her grief, to think that they could hear and they would not. Now, if a soul from Hell could be suddenly brought here to stand in this pulpit, I can imagine it expressing some such a thought as this: 'O, to think that Jesus Christ is preached to them, and they will not hear! O, to think that they are warned, but pay no regard!' 'O,' says the damned spirit, 'if I could but have my time over again, how would I think of these things! If I had the sound of Jesus once more in my ears, how would I flee to him! If there were but hope for me, how would I lay hold upon it! If Jesus Christ could but once again stand at my door and knock, how would I open to him! But O! to think that these people have his Gospel preached to them and offered to them, and yet receive it not!' This is one of the most frightful proofs of man's fall. Nothing shows so much how utterly ruined man is as the fact that he will not accept the remedy. Nay, put it as you will to him, until the Spirit of God makes him willing in the day of his power, he will not accept the offer of Divine grace. And yet this is his sin—a sin which I charge upon you tonight. You will not come that you might have life; you will not hear that you might be saved; you will not give your hearts to God that you might find eternal life. May the Lord change your hearts, and bring you to himself. So much, then, upon your opportunity.
II. Now only one or two words, for time flies, about THE DUTY OF MY IMPORTUNITY.
You who love the Lord do not want any words from me tonight. I did not intend to preach to you. I want you to be praying and to be sending up your hearts to God for a blessing. But with you who do not love God I must be earnest tonight in asking you to think about these things. One thing that makes me earnest is the remembrance of eternity. Your time is short, but your eternity, O how long! There was once a lady who often used to go to the dance, and to the opera, and to keep her servant sitting up at night to let her in and attend her to bed. The poor girl, the servant, often went to sleep, so her mistress recommended her to get a book and read, and she got some religious books, and it pleased God to bless the reading of them to her. Her mistress laughed at her very much about this, and when she came home one morning, somewhere about two or three o'clock, she came up to the girl and said to her 'Mary, what are you reading? A religious book?' she added, as she looked over her shoulder—'Why, it will make you as miserable as possible,' and she began to laugh. But while she looked at the book her eyes fell upon the word 'eternity.' She went up to her chamber, and, when the maid was gone, she gave vent to her feelings in a flood of tears, and it was not many days before that lady had learned to give up the frivolities of time for the true and substantial pleasures of eternity. I wish that some of you would get that word, 'Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!' into your minds. Even if you had it printed on your very eye-balls it would not hurt you. Eternity! Eternity! Eternity! A mountain without a summit; a sea, without a shore; a depth without a bottom. Eternity! An endless plain of woe, or a boundless field of delight. As your character shall be here on earth, so shall eternity be to you hereafter. If you have believed in Jesus it shall be bliss everlasting; if you have rejected Christ it shall be woe eternally. Eternity! Eternity! Eternity! If there were nothing else to make the preacher earnest and to make him thoughtful, surely this ought to be enough.
We are very earnest, and would be very importunate with you tonight, dear hearers, because we know what good hands you are at making excuses. You are sure to say, 'I can't.' How many a sinner takes refuge behind that word, 'I can't!' Well, I will try and meet you there. There was once a master who sent his servant with a letter. 'Go,' said he, 'to such and such a town with it.' He started, but he soon came back with the letter, and said, 'Master, I could not deliver it.' 'How was that?' said the master. 'Sir, there is a deep river, and I cannot get across.' Now, that looked very much like an excuse, didn't it, and like a very good excuse, too? But the master knew better, and he said, 'There was a ferry-boat across—did you call for the ferryman?' 'No, sir, I did not.' 'Very well, then,' said he, 'the blame lies with you.' Now, it is true you cannot save yourselves, most true; but there is One who can. Did you ever call to him to help you? If you did not, then surely the mischief, the fault, the blame, the ruin, must lie at your own door. Did you ever pray? Soul, did you ever cry out for the ferryman? Did you ever say, when you found you could not get across the river—'Lord Jesus, save, or I perish'? Why, if you had ever prayed that from your heart he would have heard you. 'O,' says one, 'but I do not think he could hear me even if I called.' I stood at Bangor some time ago, and there is a ferry there across to Anglesea. You cannot be heard the other side the bank with your simple voice; but there is a speaking-trumpet, and if you just speak through that you may say, 'Boy!' and it is heard all across the straits, and the boatman will come, and meet you. Well, now, prayer is God's great speaking-trumpet, and if you come to God in prayer pleading the name of Jesus it is certain that he will hear you and deliver you. Away with your excuses, we pray you, away with your excuses!
I would be all the more importunate with you because I know the joy which you would most certainly have if you did but believe on Christ. Several princes had met together on a certain occasion to talk of their estates, and they were boasting greatly, when the Prince of Wirtemberg said that he would not exchange his dominions for those of any one else, 'For,' said he, 'I have not such great dominions as you have, nor yet such riches as you, but I am so beloved by my subjects, that if I met any man among them he would lie down, and let me put my head upon his bosom; and I should not be afraid to go to sleep in the open streets, for I am quite sure I should be safe.' Ah! the Christian man can say that he would not change his estate for that of an ungodly man, for he can put his head down, and go to sleep and rest under any circumstances, sick or well, rich or poor, living or dying, because he is safe. Now, I wish that you knew this. O! that you knew this! It is sweet to us to find a Savior. O! that you might find him too. Today! Today! Why postpone a feast? Why put off your wedding-day? Why be reluctant to be rescued from drowning? Sinner, why be reluctant to be saved? Why say, 'Tomorrow'? Today! Lord, today do you give the sinner this joy!
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, sinner. In the name of him who walked the waters, in the name of him who bade the waves be still and the winds be hushed, in the name of him who made the dead start from their graves, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, by whom the lame leaped and the blind saw, we command you to believe and you shall live, and we believe that the majesty of that name will be heard in Heaven; that the Spirit will come down to attend that name, and that you will be saved because you were made obedient to the command, 'Believe and live.'
May the Lord now bring many to a saving faith in Christ; and that this may be the case, we will spend the last three or four minutes of this year in silent prayer. Let each Christian, when he has offered his own supplications, pray for the ungodly now present; and O, may some of you who have never prayed before pray now for the first time! Jesus Christ is passing by. Ask him, blind man, to give you your sight, and he will do it. Let us now come before God in prayer.