02.B03. Speaking To The People When

CHAPTER III.

SPEAKING TO THE PEOPLE WHEN STANDING IN THE LIGHT.

While I was employed in such meditations, the Professor came down from the upper room, and asked me what subject I intended to preach to the people about the following evening. "I shall preach to them from this text, I replied, ’The love of Christ constraineth us.’" "Are you," he asked with surprise, "intending to preach on that text?" "I am," I replied. "I know that I have found at last ’the mystery of the hidden life,’ and ’the days of my mourning are ended.’" The Professor has often remarked since that he could never understand the effect produced upon my mind while we were conversing upon that passage in his room. Nor can any one understand it, unless he himself shall receive the apprehension then and there imparted to my mind by the Spirit of God. It was no new exposition of the passage that I then received. I had often, and that most critically, examined it before -- had as often reflected upon the diverse relations which Paul and myself sustained to Christ as evinced in the passage, and had obtained all the meaning of it which I now attach to it, or can be derived from it by mere human interpretation. Nor was it any new doctrine that I then received.

What I did receive, on the other hand, was a direct, immediate, and open vision of the glory and love of Christ, that love "which passeth knowledge," -- an inward beholding imparted to the mind by the Spirit of God, a beholding utterly impossible but upon one condition, that "the Spirit shall take of the things of Christ, and show them unto us." Here we have a full understanding of the meaning of the apostle when he said, "No man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." We can, of course, without any special aid of the Spirit, pronounce the words. We can, also, prove doctrinally the incarnation, the divinity, atonement, and lordship of Christ. No man, on the other hand, can pronounce the words referred to, with any proper apprehension of the eternal verity which these words represent, but upon the exclusive condition that "the Holy Ghost" shall open upon his mind a vision or apprehension of the verity itself. Moses, for example, knew enough of the divine character -- and so do all -- to understand that there was a glory about it which he needed to apprehend, and that he must apprehend this, or he could not, as he desired, "know God, and understand His way, and find grace in His sight."

He was also aware that such apprehensions are possible to creatures, but upon the condition that God Himself shall "show them His glory," and "cause all His goodness to pass before them." Hence the prayer, "I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory." I may, as a student of the Bible, obtain a very full exegetical knowledge of its contents, and as a theologian, I may receive a full knowledge of the system of doctrines revealed in the Scriptures, and such forms of knowledge are important, and should not be undervalued. If I would know Christ, and God in Christ, with all kindred truths, as they are in themselves, however, here my dependence is absolute upon the direct and immediate illumination and teaching of the Holy Spirit. Knowledge, in the first form, however clear and extensive, is comparatively "a dead letter," and has very little transforming or vitalising power. In the second form, truth, in all its manifestations, has an all-transforming, quickening, and vitalising power. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." This is the divine illumination promised to all believers, and which they should all seek as the immutable condition of "their knowing God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent," and of their receiving that "eternal life" which comes to the soul through that knowledge. Christ, with the Father in Him, is walking up and down amid the great revelations of His Word, as He did "amid the golden candlesticks," and the Spirit is waiting to show us "the glory of the Lord." When will the prayer of faith became universal -- "I beseech thee, show me the glory of the Lord?" As far as the meeting in the evening was concerned, the Spirit of God seemed to have prepared all hearts to receive the new message which God had given me to deliver to the people. After giving forth my text, I remarked to the audience that I had an important confession to make in their hearing. Up to that time I had not been, in the highest sense of the term, a preacher of the gospel. What I had preached had been, as far as it went, the truth of God, and that truth had been so preached as to be instrumental in the conversion of many souls. I had also been sincere in my ministry, and had fully acted up to the light I had. Yet, while my preaching had been efficacious for the end referred to -- the conversion of sinners -- it had lacked essentially those characteristics requisite to "feed Christ’s sheep" and "Christ’s lambs;" in other words, to furnish those instructions adapted to "build up believers in the most holy faith," and so to instruct them that they would "grow up in Christ all things," and thus "attain to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." The reason and ground of this deficiency I would now endeavour to make known to the audience. When a sinner had inquired of me what he should do to be saved, I had known perfectly what needed to be done in his case. He needed to be instructed in regard to his sins, his ill-desert on account of sin, and his hopeless ruin in sin. He needed then to be directed to Christ as his only hope and refuge. Having given up his sins, and given himself wholly to Christ to be His servent forever, he must intrust his mortal and immortal interest to the mercy and grace of God in Christ. Under such instruction, the sinner, by "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," obtains pardon, "power to become one of the sons of God," and "peace and joy in believing." But when a believer had come to me and confessed that he was not living as God requires, and asked me how he should escape "the bondage of corruption," and attain to "the liberty of the sons of God," I had instructed him to confess his sins, put them away, renew his purpose of obedience, and go forth with a fixed resolution to do the entire will of God. Now, here was a fundamental mistake. We are not only to be justified by the faith of Christ, "but to sanctified also by the faith that is in Him." "Christ is of God made unto us," not only "wisdom and righteousness," that is, justification, but "sanctification and redemption" also.

If you desire a victory over your tempers, your appetites, and all your propensities, take them to Christ, just as you take your sins to Him, and He will give you the victory over the former, just as He gives you pardon fro the latter. He is just as able and ready to save you from the power as he is to deliver you from the condemnation of sin. Here is the only cause of your many shortcomings. In the matter of justification, you have trusted Christ, and He has done for you according to your faith. In the matter of sanctification, you have, instead of trusting Christ to "sanctify and cleanse you with the washing of water by the Word," resolved and re-resolved, and, as a consequence, have remained "carnal, sold under sin." So it will be, until you shall cease wholly from man and from yourself, and trust Christ universally. When He shall become the fixed and changeless center about which all your affections, and purposes, and hopes, and confidence, shall revolve, then shall "your righteousness go forth as brightness, and your salvation as a lamp that shineth," and in your love and obedience you shall be "as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but which abideth for ever." The command in the Bible is not Be strong in yourself, or in good resolution, but "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might." Trusting in Christ, you will "always have all-sufficiency in all things, and be abundantly furnished unto every good work." It is not he that resolves, but "he that abideth in Christ, and Christ in him, that bringeth forth much fruit." It is because that "in my ignorance" I talked so much of human ability to do all that is required of us, and in reality trusted in my own resolutions, instead of putting "my hope and trust in the living God" in the matter of holy-living, that I am permitted to speak to you tonight of "the unsearchable riches of Christ," instead of being cast aside as a vessel unfit for its master’s use. From this time onward let this be our changeless sentiment -- "Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."

I then directed the attention of the attention of the audience to the principle involved in the words, "The love of Christ constraineth us." The strongest and most enduring principle, I remarked, in rational natures is that of sympathy. The action of such natures is strongest, steadiest, and most tireless, when they are brought into the full sympathy with the thoughts, emotions, and purposes of some controlling mind, whom all in common regard with the deepest love and veneration. It is said that during the American Revolution there was a crisis when but one single fact kept our army from disbanding and going home -- sympathy with the fixed determination, calm assurance, and deathless patriotism of Washington, their venerated chief. The same principle obtains universally. The design of God is, "in the dispensation of the fulness of times," to "gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him" -- that is, to induce an absolute unity of thought, feeling, sentiment, and fellowship among all holy beings in the universe. This is to be accomplished by bringing all into one common sympathy with "the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge," and that love is to harmonise, vitalise, and constrain all in common to eternity. When you shall come to a comprehension of "the breadth, and length, and depth and height," and shall "know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge," your whole being will be drawn into sympathy and fellowship with that love; and, to the extent of your capacities, your love will be as full, as pervading, as enduring, and as constraining as is the love ans sympathy which controls, and vitalizes all your activities.

Here we have the secret of the piety of Paul. He knew the love of Christ -- saw duty, in all its forms, in the light of that love -- sympathised with that love, and was constrained by it in all his "work and labors of love." He was, consequently, crucified with Christ," and "Christ lived in him," and "the life which he lived in the flesh" was, as he said, "by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Living, dwelling, and acting in the everlasting light, and under the all-constraining influence of that love, it could not but have been to him, at all times and under all circumstances, as "a burning fire shut up in his bones;" and his life could not have been less laborious, less self-denying, less contented, less joyful, less victorious, less "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might," and less fruitful, than it was. "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Oh, "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ," who has come to us in our darkness, and made manifest unto us this "new and living way"! All that Paul ever experienced in his inner life every one of us may become fully possessed of; because we can know the love of Christ as he knew it.

I then directed the attention of the audience to two distinct and separate points of light in which duty, in all its forms, and in reference to all its objects, may be contemplated. We will consider in illustration, I remarked, the soul, for whose salvation we are called upon to labor. We think of the soul itself; its nature, powers, susceptibilities, its ruin in sin, and its eternal future. Here is an object the contemplation of which ought to move all the activities of our nature. There is another point of view, however, in which this same object may be contemplated. Christ knows the soul, its sins, and the perils and infinitude of its interests, as we cannot know them. "The redemption of the soul," what value does He place upon it? What has He done to redeem it? What is the strength of His desire for its salvation? How much does He love it? In illustration of the principle under consideration, I now referred to two examples. You attend a funeral service, I remarked. Before you lies the lifeless body of a husband and father. You think of that family as having experienced a great loss. Yet you do not weep. At length the widow and orphans gather around that body. Why do you weep now? Because you see the same object from another standpoint from which you contemplated it before. You now perceive how dear and how valuable the departed was to the heart of that widow and those orphan children.

Years ago, I further stated, the son of an Irish soldier, who had passed through his term of service, and was waiting in London for his papers, was tried and condemned in court for theft. During the trial the father was seen walking to and fro in the most demure and saddened silence. When the sentence was pronounced, he turned to the judge in the most convulsive agony, and exclaimed, "I have carried him many a mile upon my back, your honor." The court-room instantly became "a Bochim." All suffused with tears, the judge requested the father to tell him about his son. He then informed him that the mother of the child died when it was an infant; that he had nursed the child as its mother would have done; that when he entered the army, he had taken the little one with him, and in all his marches had carried his boy upon his back. While waiting in London to receive his wages and his papers, the lad had been enticed by wicked boys, and had engaged with them in theft. "And now," exclaimed the father, "I must go home without him." "No, no!" exclaimed the judge and all present. There was no difficulty now in getting signatures to a petition, and advocates for the pardon of the lad. Why did not the spectacle of the child tried and condemned of itself thus move that audience? Why this sudden outburst of feeling? Why this movement for the restoration of the child to the arms of the father? Because the case was now contemplated in the light of a father’s love, and in sympathy with that love. To the same principle our Saviour refers in the melting parable of the Prodigal Son.

So, when we shall come to contemplate the soul with all its interests, and duty in all its forms, not only as they are in themselves, but in the light in which Christ views them, of the value which He places upon them, in the light of His "love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity;" of His love to us, to the souls for whom He died, to all rational natures, and to "His Father and our Father, and to His God and our God," -- then we shall no more have occasion to talk and sing about "these cold hearts of ours," about our inability to "fly or go to reach eternal joys," or about "the blessedness we knew when first we saw the Lord." "God will become our everlasting light, and the days of our mourning shall be ended." We shall "mount up on wing as eagles. We shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint." "He that is feeble among us shall be as David, while the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before Him." "We shall be in the world as He was in the world." We, abiding in His love, "the works that He did we shall do also, and greater works than these shall we do," because "He has gone to the Father," and shall "endue us with power from on high" for the work to which He has called us. The love of Christ being infinite and unchangeable, when we shall know it, and be brought into sympathy with it, we shall be under an influence by which "our love shall be made perfect," and as enduring and constraining as is the love in the everlasting light of which we live and act.

One more topic, I remarked, needed to be elucidated before closing the discourse. Is it possible for us, it may be asked, to "know the love of Christ"? and if so, how shall we attain to this knowledge? We can attain to this knowledge, I replied, because the Holy Spirit is in the world, and is promised to all believers who seek "the baptism of the Holy Ghost," for the revealed purpose of enabling us to "know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." "The Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep things of God ;" and when we shall be "filled with the Holy Ghost," as all may be, this "liberty" will be vouchsafed to us -- namely, "We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, shall be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Yes; when the Holy Spirit shall come, and He is promised, I repeat, to all who seek Him, we shall fully understand in experience what Paul meant when, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he put up the following prayer : -- "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." Let us, then, take our harps down from the willows, never again to tune them to notes of sadness, but that we may "return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon our hearts," that we "may obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing flee away."

Such is the exact substance of the first full gospel sermon that I ever preached in my life. It may be considered somewhat remarkable that the doctrine of Christ as our "wisdom. righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," and "the promise of the Spirit," as the great central truths of the gospel, should have been presented to my mind at one and the same time. But so it was. The truths presented in the discourse made manifest to those believers who, with myself, had come to a state of such intense hungering and thirsting after righteousness, "the fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem," that is, to all believers, "for sin and for uncleanness." Many descended at once into that fountain, and "washed their garments and made them white" there, finding, at the same time, "the Lord as their everlasting light," and the love of Christ as the same all-vitalizing, all-abiding, and all-constraining power in their hearts as it had been in the heart of Paul. From that time onward nothing was known in our preaching but "Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." Professor Finney especially most heartily indorsed the views presented in the discourse as soon as he was informed of them.