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  SPURGEONS SERMONS VOLUME 26 1880
  by C.H. Spurgeon
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Volume 26 of Spurgeon's collected sermons, containing messages preached during
1880 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. These sermons showcase Spurgeon's powerful
biblical exposition, vivid illustrations, and passionate gospel proclamation
that drew thousands to hear the 'Prince of Preachers' during his Metropolitan
Tabernacle ministry.

  Chapters: 10

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    0. Spurgeons Sermons Volume 26 1880
    1. Questions Which Ought To Be Asked
    2. Loyal to the Core
    3. Cheer Up, My Comrades!
    4. The Key-Note of a Choice Sonnet
    5. Salvation by Knowing the Truth
    6. For the Candid and Thoughtful
    7. Beloved, and yet Afflicted
    8. The Holy Spirit's Intercession
    9. The Waterpots at Cana

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  CHAPTER 0: SPURGEONS SERMONS VOLUME 26 1880
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  CHAPTER 1: QUESTIONS WHICH OUGHT TO BE ASKED
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A Sermon (No.1511) Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Newington (This was followed by a farewell address from his son, Thomas
Spurgeon.) "But none saith, Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the
night; who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser
than the fowls of heaven?" -- Job 35:10-11. ELIHU PERCEIVED the great ones of
the earth oppressing the needy, and he traced their domineering tyranny to their
forgetfulness of God: "None saith, Where is God my Maker?" Surely, had they
thought of God they could not have acted so unjustly. Worse still, if I
understand Elihu aright, he complained that even among the oppressed there was
the same departure in heart from the Lord: they cried out by reason of the arm
of the mighty, but unhappily they did not cry unto God their Maker, though he
waits to be gracious unto all such, and executeth righteousness and judgment for
all that are oppressed. Both with great and small, with oppressors and
oppressed, there is one common fault in our nature, which is described by the
apostle in the Romans, "There is none that understandeth, there is none that
seeketh after God." Until divine grace comes in and changes our nature there is
none that saith, "Where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the night?" This is
a very grave fault, about which we shall speak for a few minutes, and may the
Holy Ghost bless the word. I. And first, LET US THINK OVER THESE NEGLECTED
QUESTIONS, beginning with "Where is God my Maker?" There are four questions in
the text, each of which reminds us of the folly of forgetting it. First, Where
is God? Above all things in the world we ought to think of him. Pope said, "The
proper study of mankind is man"; but it is far more true that the proper study
of mankind is God. Let man study man in the second place, but God first. It is a
sad thing that God is all in all, that we owe everything to him, and are under
allegiance to him, and yet we neglect him. Some men think of every person but
God. They have a place for everything else, but no place in their heart for God.
They are most exact in the discharge of other relative duties, and yet they
forget their God. They would count themselves mean indeed if they did not pay
every man his own, and yet they rob God. They rob him of his honor, to which
they never give a thought they rob him of obedience, for his law has no hold on
them; they rob him of his praise, for they are receiving daily at his hands, and
yet they yield no gratitude to their great Benefactor. "None saith, Where is
God?" My dear hearer, do you stand convicted of this? Have you been walking up
and down in this great house, and never asked to see the King whose palace it
is? Have you been rejoicing at this great feast, and have you never asked to see
your Host? Have you gone abroad through the various fields of nature, and have
you never wished to know him whose breath perfumes the flowers, whose pencil
paints the clouds, whose smile makes sunlight, and whose frown is storm. Oh, it
is a strange, sad fact -- God so near us, and so necessary to us, and yet not
sought for! The next point is, "None saith, Where is God my Maker?" Oh!
unthinking man, God made you. He fashioned your curious framework, and put every
bone into its place. He, as with needlework, embroidered each nerve, and vein,
and sinew. He made this curious harp of twice ten thousand strings: wonderful it
is that it has kept in tune so long: but only he could have maintained its
harmony. He is your Maker. You are a mass of dust, and you would crumble back to
dust at this moment if he withdrew his preserving power: he but speaks, and you
dissolve into the earth on which you tread. Do you never think of your Maker?
Have you no thought for him without whom you could not think at all? Oh, strange
perversity and insanity that a man should find himself thus curiously made, and
bearing within his own body that which will make him either a madman or a
worshipper; and yet for all that he lives as if he had nothing to do with his
Creator -- "None saith, Where is God my Maker?" There is great force in the next
sentence: "Who giveth songs in the night." That is to say, God is our Comforter.
Beloved friends, you that know God, I am sure you will bear witness that, though
you have had very severe trials, you have always been sustained in them when God
has been near you. Some of us have been sick -- nigh unto death, but we have
almost loved our suffering chamber, and scarce wished to come out of it, so
bright has the room become with the presence of God. Some of us here have known
what it is to bury our dearest friends, and others have been short of bread, and
forced to look up each morning for your daily manna; but when your heavenly
Father has been with you -- speak, ye children of God -- have you not had joy
and rejoicing, and light in your dwellings? When the night has been very dark,
yet the fiery pillar has set the desert on a glow. No groans have made night
hideous, but you have sung like nightingales amid the blackest shades when God
has been with you. I can hardly tell you what joy, what confidence, what inward
peace the presence of God gives to a man. It will make him bear and dare, rest
and wrestle, yield and yet conquer, die and yet live. It will be very sad,
therefore, if we poor sufferers forget our God, our Comforter, our song-giver.
Two little boys were once speaking together about Elijah riding to heaven in the
chariot of fire. One of them said, "I think he had plenty of courage. I should
have been afraid to ride in such a carriage as that." "Ah!" Ah!" said the other,
"but I would not mind if God drove it." So do Christians say. They mind not if
they are called to mount a chariot of fire if God drives it, We speak as honest
men what we do know and feel, and we tell all our fellow-men that as long as God
is present with us we have no choice of what happens to us, whether we sorrow or
whether we rejoice. We have learned to glory in tribulations also when God's own
presence cheers our souls, Why do not they also seek to know the Giver of
songs?And then there is a fourth point. "None saith, Where is God my Maker, who
teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and make/h us wiser than the
fowls of heaven?" Here we are reminded that God is our Instructor. God has given
us intellect; it is not by accident, but by his gift, that we are distinguished
from the beasts and the fowls. Now, if animals do not turn to God we do not
wonder, but shall man forget? Strange to say, there has been no rebellion
against God among the beasts or the birds. The beasts obey their God, and bow
their necks to man. There are no sin-loving cattle or apostate fowls, but there
are fallen men. Think, O man, it may have been better for thee if thou hadst
been made a frog or a toad than to have lived a man if thou shouldst live and
die without making peace with thy Maker. Thou gloriest that thou art not a
beast: take heed that the beast do not condemn thee. Thou thinkest thyself
vastly better than the sparrow which lights upon thy dwelling: take heed that
thou do better and rise to nobler things. Methinks if there were a choice in
birds, and souls dwelt in them, their minstrelsy would be as pure as now it is:
they would scorn to sing loose and frivolous songs, as men do, but they would
carol everlastingly sweet psalms of praise to God. Methinks if there were souls
in any of the creatures, they would devote themselves to God. as surely as
angels do. Why then, O man, why is it that thou with thy superior endowments
must needs be the sole rebel, the only creature of earthly mould that forgets
the creating and instructing Lord?Four points are then before us. Man does not
ask after his God, his Maker, his Comforter, his Instructor: is he not filled
with a fourfold madness? How can he excuse himself?II. Supposing you do not ask
these questions, let me remind you that THERE ARE QUESTIONS WHICH GOD WILL ASK
OF YOU.When Adam had broken God's command he did not say, "Where is God my
Maker?" but the Lord did not therefore leave him alone. No, the Lord came out,
and a voice, silvery with grace, but yet terrible with justice, rang through the
trees, "Adam, where art thou?" There will come such a voice to you who have
neglected God. Your Judge will enquire, "Where art thou?" Though you hide in the
top of Carmel, or dive with the crooked serpent into the depths of the sea, you
will hear that voice, and you will be constrained to answer it. Your dust long
scattered to the wind will come together, and your soul will enter into your
body, and you will be obliged to answer, "Here am I, for thou didst call
me."Then you will hear the second question, "Why didst thou live and die without
me?" And such questions as these will come thick upon you, "What did I do that
thou shouldst slight me? Did I not give you innumerable mercies? Why did you
never think of me? Did I not put salvation before you? Did I not plead with you?
Did I not entreat you to turn unto me? Why did you refuse me? "You will have no
answer to those questions: and then there will come another question -- ah! how
I wish it would come to you while there is time to answer it -- "How shall we
escape if we neglect so great salvation?" To-night I put it to you that you may
propose a way of escape, if your imagination is equal to the task. You will be
baffled even in trying to invent an escape now, and how much more when your time
of judgment really comes! If you neglect the salvation of God in Christ you
cannot be saved. In the next world, how will you answer that question -- "How
shall we escape?" You will ask the rocks to hide you, but they will refuse you
that dread indulgence. You will beseech them to crush you, that you may no
longer see the terrible face of the King upon the throne, but even that shall be
denied you. Oh, be wise, and ere you dare the wrath of the King eternal and dash
upon the bosses of his buckler, turn and repent, for why will ye die?III. Now,
if any seek an answer to the grave enquiries of the text, and do sincerely ask,
"Where is God my Maker?" let us GIVE THE ANSWERS. Where is God? He is
everywhere. He is all around you now. If you want him, here he is. He waits to
be gracious to you. Where is God your Maker? He is within eye-sight of you. You
cannot see him, but he sees you. He reads each thought and every motion of your
spirit, and records it too. He is within ear-shot of you. Speak, and he will
hear you. Ay, whisper -- nay, you need not even form the words with the lips,
but let the thought be in the soul, and he is so near you -- for in him you live
and move and have your being -- that he will know your heart before you know it
yourself. Where is your Comforter? He is ready with his "songs in the night."
Where is your Instructor? He waits to make you wise unto salvation. "Where,
then, may I meet him?" says one. You cannot meet him -- you must not attempt it
-- except through the Mediator. "There is one God and one Mediator between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus." If you come to Jesus you have come to God. "God
was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself; not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation," which word we
preach. Believe in Jesus Christ, and your God is with you. Trust your soul with
Jesus Christ, and you have found your Creator, and you shall never again have to
say, "Where is God my Maker?" for you shall live in him, and he shall live in
you. You have found your Comforter and you shall joy in him, while he shall joy
in you. You have also in Christ Jesus found your Instructor, who shall guide you
through life, and bring you to perfection in yon bright world above.May the Holy
Ghost use this little sermon as a short sword to slay your indifference; for
Christ's sake.PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON -- Psalms 42, 53.HYMNS
FROM "Our Own Hymn Book" -- 550, 711, 606, 522.


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  CHAPTER 2: LOYAL TO THE CORE
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A Sermon (No.1512) Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Newington "And Ittai answered the king, and said, As the Lord liveth, and as my
lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in
death or life, even there also will thy servant be." -- 2 Samuel 15:21. Although
the courage of David appears to have failed him when he fled from his son
Absalom, yet certain other noble characteristics came out in brilliant relief,
and among the rest, his large-heartedness and his thoughtfulness for others. A
man in such a desperate condition as he was must have earnestly coveted many
friends and have been anxious to retain them all, but yet he would not exact
their services if they were too costly to themselves, and so he said to Ittai,
who appears to have been a Philistine -- a proselyte to Israel, who had lately
come to join himself to David -- "Wherefore I goest thou also with its? Thou
hast newly come to me, and should I make thee wander with me in my sorrows?
Return to thy place and abide with the new king, for thou art a stranger and an
exile. May every blessing be upon thee. May mercy and truth be with thee." He
did not send him away because he doubted him, but because he felt that he had no
claim to the great sacrifices which Ittai might have to make in attending his
checkered fortunes. "I do not know what may become of me," he seems to say, "but
I do not want to drag you down with myself. Should my cause become desperate, I
have no wish to involve you in it, and therefore with the best of motives I wish
you farewell." I admire this generosity of spirit. Some men have great
expectations: they live upon their friends, and yet complain that charity is
cold. These people expect more from their friends than they ought to give. A
man's best friends on earth ought to be his own strong arms. Loafers are
parasitical plants, they have no root of their own, but like the mistletoe they
strike root into some other tree, and suck the very soul out of it for their own
nourishment. Sad that men should ever degrade themselves to such despicable
meanness! While you can help yourselves, do so and while you have a right to
expect help in times of dire necessity, do not be everlastingly expecting
everybody else to be waiting upon you. Feel as David did towards Ittai -- that
you would by no means wish for services to which you have no claim. Independence
of spirit used to be characteristic of Englishmen. I hope it will always
continue to be so; and especially among children of God. On the other hand, look
at Ittai, perfectly free to go, but in order to end the controversy once for
all, and to make David know that he does not mean to leave him, he takes a
solemn oath before Jehovah his God, and he doubles it by swearing by the life of
David that he will never leave him; in life, in death, he will be with him. He
has cast in his lot with him for better and for worse, and he means to be
faithful to the end. Old Master Trapp says, "All faithful friends went on a
pilgrimage years ago, and none of them have ever come back." I scarcely credit
that, but I am afraid that friends quite so faithful as Ittai are as scarce as
two moons in the sky at once, and you might travel over the edge of the world
before you found them. I think, however, that one reason why faithful Ittai have
become so scarce may be because large-hearted Davids are so rare. When you tell
a man that you expect a good deal of him, he does not see it. Why should you
look for so much? He is not your debtor. You have closed at once the valves of
his generosity. But when you tell him honestly that you do not expect more than
is right, and that you do not wish to be a tax upon him, when he sees that you
consult his welfare more than your own, that is the very reason why he feels
attached to you, and counts it a pleasure to serve such a generous-hearted man.
You will generally find that when two people fall out there are faults on both
sides: if generous spirits be few, it may be because faithful friends are rare,
and if faithful friends are scarce it may be because generous spirits are scarce
too. Be it ours as Christians to live to serve rather than to be served,
remembering that we are the followers of a Master who said, "The Son of man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister." We are not to expect others to
serve us, but our life is to be spent in endeavoring to serve them. I am going
to use Ittai's language for a further purpose. If Ittai, charmed with David's
person and character, though a foreigner and a stranger, felt that he could
enlist beneath his banner for life -- yea, and declared that he would do so
there and then -- how much more may you and 1, if we know what Christ has done
for us, and who He is and what He deserves at our hands, at this good hour
plight our troth to Him and vow, "As the Lord liveth, surely in whatsoever place
my Lord and Saviour shall be, whether in death or life, even there also shall
His servant be." And so, I shall begin by noticing first in what form this
declaration was made, that we may learn from it how to make the same
declaration. I. IN WHAT FORM AND MANNER WAS THIS DECLARATION MADE? It was made,
first, at a time when David's fortunes were at their lowest ebb, and
consequently it was made unselfishly, without the slightest idea of gain from
it. David was now forsaken of everybody. His faithful bodyguard was all that he
had on earth to depend upon, and then it was that Ittai cast in his lot with
David. Now beloved, it is very easy to follow religion when she goes abroad in
her silver slippers, but the true man follows her when she is in rags, and goes
through the mire and the slough. To take up with Christ when everybody cries up
his name is what a hypocrite would do, but to take up with Christ when they are
shouting, "Away with him! away with him!" is another matter. There are times in
which the simple faith of Christ is at a great discount. At one time imposing
ceremonies are all the rage, and everybody loves decorated worship, and the pure
simplicity of the gospel is overloaded and encumbered with meretricious
ornaments; it is such a season that we must stand out for God's more simple
plan, and reject the symbolism which verges on idolatry and hides the simplicity
of the gospel.At another time the gospel is assailed by learned criticisms and
by insinuations against the authenticity and inspiration of the books of
Scripture, while fundamental doctrines are undermined one by one, and he who
keeps to the old faith is said to be behind the age, and so on. But happy is
that man who takes up with Christ, and with the gospel, and with the truth when
it is in its worst estate, crying, "If this be foolery, I am a fool, for where
Christ is there will I be; I love Him better at His worst than others at their
best, and even if He be dead and buried in a sepulchre I will go with Mary and
with Magdalene and sit over against the sepulchre and watch until He rise again,
for rise again He will; but whether He live or die, where He is there shall his
servant be." Ho, then, brave spirits, will ye enlist for Christ when His banner
is tattered? Will you enlist under Him when His armor is stained with blood?
Will you rally to Him even when they report Him slain? Happy shall ye be! Your
loyalty shall be proven to your own eternal glory. Ye are soldiers such as He
loves to honor.Ittai gave himself up wholly to David when he was but newly come
to him, David says, "Whereas thou camest but yesterday, should I this day make
thee go up and down with us? But Ittai does not care whether he came yesterday
or twenty years ago, but he declares, "Surely in what place my lord the king
shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be." It is
best to begin the Christian life with thorough consecration. Have any of you
professed to be Christians, and have you never given yourselves entirely to
Christ? It is time that you began again. This should be one of the earliest
forms of our worship of our Master -- this total resignation of ourselves to
Him. According to His Word, the first announcement of our faith should be by
baptism, and the meaning of baptism, or immersion in water, is death, burial,
and resurrection. As far as this point is concerned, the avowal is just this. "I
am henceforth dead to all but Christ, whose servant I now am. Henceforth let no
man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. The watermark
is on me from head to foot. I have been buried with Him in baptism unto death to
show that henceforth I belong to Him." Now, whether you have been baptized or
not I leave to yourselves, but in any case this must be true -- that henceforth
you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. As soon as ever Christ is
yours you ought to be Christ's. "I am my Beloved's" should be linked with "My
Beloved is mine," in the dawn of the day in which you yield to the Lord.Again,
Ittai surrendered himself to David in the most voluntary manner. No one
persuaded Ittai to do this; in fact, David seems to have persuaded him the other
way. David tested and tried him, but he voluntarily out of the fullness of his
heart said, "Where, my lord, the king, is, there, also shall his servant be."
Now, dear young people, if you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is yours, give
yourselves up to Him by a distinct act and deed. Feel that one grand impulse
without needing pressure or argument -- "The love of Christ constraineth me";
but do not wait to have your duty urged upon you, for the more free the
dedication the more acceptable it will be. I am told that there is no wine so
delicious as that which flows from the grape at the first gentle pressure. The
longer you squeeze the harsher is the juice. We do not like that service which
is pressed out of a man: and certainly the Lord of love will not accept forced
labor. No; let your willinghood show itself. Say -- Take myself, and I will
beEver, only, ALL for thee.My heart pants after the service after of her Lord.
With the same spontaneity which Ittai displayed make a solemn consecration of
yourselves to David's Lord.I used a word then which suggests another point,
namely, that Ittai did this very solemnly. He took an oath which we Christians
may not do, and may not wish to do, but still we should make the surrender with
quite as much solemnity. In Dr. Doddridge's "Rise and Progress of Religion in
the Soul" there is a very solemn form of consecration, which he recommends
voting men to sign when they give themselves to Christ. I cannot say that I can
recommend it, though I practiced it, for I fear that there is something of
legality about it, and that it may bring the soul into bondage. I have known
some write out a deed of dedication to Christ and sign it with their blood. I
will neither commend nor censure, but I will say that a complete dedication must
be made in some manner, and that it should be done deliberately and with grave
thought. You have been bought with a price, and you should, therefore, in a
distinct manner own your Lord's property in you, and transfer to Him the
title-deeds of your body, spirit, and soul. And this, I think, Ittai did
publicly. At any rate, he so acted that everybody saw him when David said, "Go
over," and march in front -- the first man to pass the brook, Oh yes, dear
friend, you must publicly own yourself a Christian. If you are a Christian you
must not try to sneak to heaven round the back alleys, but march up the narrow
way like a man and like your Master. He was never ashamed of you, though He
might have been: how can you be ashamed of Him when there is nothing in Him to
be ashamed of? Some Christians seem to think that they shall lead an easier life
if they never make a profession. Like a rat behind the wainscot they come out
after candlelight and get a crumb, and then slip back again. I would not lead
such a life. Surely, there is nothing to be ashamed of. A Christian -- let us
glory in the name! A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ -- let them write it on
our door plates, if they will. Why should we blush at that? "But," says one, "I
would rather be a very quiet one." I will now place a torpedo under this
cowardly quietness. What saith the Lord Jesus? Whosoever shall deny me before
net,, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven; but he that
shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is
in heaven." Take up your cross and follow Him, for "with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." When
our Master ascended up on high He told us to preach the gospel to every
creature; and how did He put it? "He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved." There must be, therefore, the believing and the acknowledgment of
believing. "But cannot I be saved as a believer if I do not openly confess
Christ?" Dear friend, you have no business to tamper with your Master's command,
and then say, "Will He not graciously forgive this omission?" Do not neglect one
of the two commands, but obey all His will. If you have the spirit of Ittai you
will say, "Wheresoever my lord the king is, there also shall thy servant be."I
leave the matter with the consciences of those who may be like Nicodemus, coming
to Jesus by night, or may be like Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple, but
secretly, for fear of the Jews. May they come out and own their Master,
believing that then He will own them.II.Secondly, WHAT DID THIS DECLARATION
INVOLVE? As to Ittai, what did it involve?First, that he was henceforth to be
David's servant. Of course, as his soldier, he was to fight for him, and to do
his bidding. What sayest thou, man? Canst thou lift thy hand to Christ, and say,
"Henceforth I will live as thy servant, not doing my own will, but thy will. Thy
command is henceforth my rule?" Canst thou say that? If not, do not mock Him,
but stand back. May the Holy Ghost give thee grace thus to begin, thus to
perservre, and thus to end.It involved, next, for Ittai that he was to do his
utmost for David's cause, not to be his servant in name, but his soldier, ready
for scars and wounds and death, if need be, on the king's behalf. That is what
Ittai meant as, in tough soldier-tones, he took the solemn oath that it should
be so. Now, if thou wouldst be Christ's disciple, determine henceforth by His
grace that thou wilt defend His cause; that if there be rough fighting thou wilt
be in it; and if there be a forlorn hope needed thou wilt lead it, and go
through floods and flames if thy Master's cause shall call thee. Blessed is the
man who will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, giving himself wholly up to
his Lord to serve Him with all His heart.But Ittai in his promise declared that
he would give a personal attendance upon the person of his master. That was,
indeed, the pith of it, "In what place my lord, the king, shall be, even there
also will thy servant be." Brethren, let us make the same resolve in our hearts,
that wherever Christ is, there we will be. Where is Christ? In heaven. We will
be there by-and-by. Where is He here, spiritually? Answer: in His church. The
church is a body of faithful men; and where these are met together, there is
Jesus in the midst of them. Very well, then, we will join the church, for
wherever our Lord, the King, is, there also shall His servants be. When the list
of the redeemed is read we will be found in the register, for our Lord's name is
there.Where else did Jesus go? In the commencement of His ministry He descended
into the waters of baptism. Let us follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. At
the close of His ministry He brake bread, and said, "This do ye in remembrance
of me." Be often at His table, for if there is a place on the earth where He
manifests Himself to His children it is where bread is broken in His name. Let
me now tell a secret. Some of you may have heard it before, but you have
forgotten it. Here it is -- my Lord it generally here at prayer-meetings on
Monday nights, and, indeed, whenever His people come together for prayer, there
He is. So I will read you my text, and see ether you will come up to it --
"Surely in what place my Lord the King shall be, whether it be in a
prayer-meeting or at a sermon, even there also will thy servant be. "If you love
your Lord, you know where His haunts are; take care that you follow hard after
Him there. Where is the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, brethren, He is wherever the
truth is, and I pray God that He may raise up a race of men and women in England
who are determined to be wherever the truth of God is. We have a host of
molluscous creatures about who will always be where the congregation is the most
respectable: respectability being measured by clothes and cash. Time was in the
church of God when they most esteemed the most pious men; has it come to this
that gold takes precedence of grace? Our fathers considered whether a ministry
was sound, but now the question is -- Is the man clever? Words ire preferred to
truth, and oratory takes the lead of the gospel. Shame on such an age. O you who
have, not altogether sold your birthrights, I charge you keep out of this
wretched declension.The man who loves Christ thoroughly will say, "Wheresoever
the Lord the King is, there also shall His servant be, if it be with half a
dozen poor Baptists or Methodists, or among the most despised people in the
town." I charge you, beloved, in whatever town or country your lot is cast, be
true to your colors, and never forsake your principles. Wherever the truth is,
there go, and where there is anything contrary to truth, do not go, for there
your Master is not to be found.What next? Well, our Master is to be found
wherever there is anything to be done for the good of our fellow-men. The Lord
Jesus Christ is to be found wherever there is work to be done in seeking after
His lost sheep. Some people say that they have very little communion with
Christ, and when I look at them, I do not wonder. Two persons cannot walk
together if they will not walk at the same pace. Now, my Lord walks an earnest
pace whenever He goes through the world, for the King's business requires haste;
and if His disciples crawl after a snail's fashion they will lose His company.
If some of our groaning brethren would go to the Sunday-school, and there begin
to look after the little children, they would meet with their Lord who used to
say, "Suffer the little children to come unto me." If others were to get
together a little meeting, and teach the ignorant, they would there find Him who
had compassion on the ignorant on those that are out of the way. Our Master is
where there are fetters to be broken, burdens to be removed, and hearts to be
comforted, and if you wish to keep with Him you must aid in such service.Where
is our Master? Well, He is always on the side of truth and right. And, O, you
Christian people, mind that in everything@politics, business, and everything you
keep to that which is right, ]lot to that which is popular. Do not bow the knee
to that which for a little day may be cried up, but stand fast in that which is
consistent with rectitude, with humanity, with the cause and honor of God, and
with the freedom and progress of men. It can never be wise to do wrong. It can
never be foolish to be right. It can never be according to the mind of Christ to
tyrannize and to oppress. Keep you ever to whatsoever things are pure and lovely
and of good report, and you will so far keep with Christ. Temperance, purity,
justice-these are favorites with Him; do your best to advance them for His
sake.Above all, remember how Jesus loved secret prayer, and if you resolve to
keep with Him you must be much at the throne of grace.I will not detain you over
each of these points, but simply say that Ittai's declaration meant also this --
that he intended to share David's condition. If David was great, Ittai would
rejoice. If David was exiled, Ittai would attend his wanderings. Our point must
be to resolve in God's strength to keep to Christ in all weathers and in all
companies, and that whether in life or death. Ah that word "death" makes it
sweet, because then we reap the blessed result of having lived with Christ. We
shall go upstairs for the last time and bid good-bye to all, and then we shall
feel that in death He is still with us as in life we have been with Him. Though
our good works can never be a ground of confidence when we are dying, yet if the
Lord enables us to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and so to lead a
decided, positive, downright, upright Christian life, our death pillow will not
be stuffed with thorns of regret, but we shall have to bless God that we bore a
faithful witness as far as were able to do so. In such a case we shall not when
the dying wish to go back again to rectify the mistakes and insincerities of our
lives. No, beloved, it will be very, very sweet to be alone with Jesus in death.
He will make all our bed in our sickness; He will make our dying pillow soft,
and our soul shall vanish, kissed away by His dear lips, and we shall be with
Him forever and forever. Of those that are nearest to Him it is said, "These are
they that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. They shall walk with him in
white, for they are worthy."I conclude with this observation. Will our Lord
Jesus Christ accept at our hands tonight such a consecrating word? If we are
trusting in Him for salvation will He permit us to say that we will keep with
Him as long as we live? We reply, He will not permit us to say it in our own
strength. There was a young man who said, "Lord, I will follow thee
whithersoever thou goest," but Christ gave him a cool reception: and there was
an older man who said, "Though all men shall forsake thee yet will not I," and
in reply his Master prayed for Him that his faith should not fail. Now, you must
not promise as Peter did, or you will make a greater failure. But, beloved, this
self-devotion is what Christ expects of us if we are His disciples. He will not
have us love father or mother more than Him; we must be ready to give up all for
His sake. This is not only what our Master expects from us, but what He deserves
from us.Love so amazing, so divine,Demands my soul, my life, my all.This, also,
is what the Lord will help us to do, for He will give us grace if we will but
seek it at His hands: and this it is which He will graciously reward, and has
already rewarded, in that choice word of His in the twelfth of John, where He
says of His disciples in the twenty-sixth verse, "If any man serve me, let him
follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me,
him will my Father honor." Oh, to be honored of God in eternity when He shall
say, "Stand back, angels; make way, seraphim and cherubim; here comes a man that
suffered for the sake, of my dear Son. Here comes one that was not ashamed of my
Only-begotten when his face was smeared with the spittle. Here comes one that
stood in the pillory with Jesus, and was called ill names for His sake. Stand
back, ye angels, these have greater honor than you." Surely the angels of heaven
as they traverse the streets of gold and meet the martyrs will ask them about
their sufferings, and say, "You are more favored than we, for you have had the
privilege of suffering and dying for the Lord." O brothers and sisters, snatch
at the privilege of living for Jesus; consecrate yourselves this day unto Him;
live from this hour forward, not to enrich yourselves, nor to gain honor and
esteem, but for Jesus, for Jesus alone. Oh, if I could set Him before you here;
if I could cause Him to stand on this platform just as He came from Gethsemane
with His bloody sweat about Him, or as He came down from the cross with wounds
so bright with glory and so fresh with bleeding out our redemption, I think I
should hear you say, each one of you, "Lord Jesus, we are thine, and in what
place Thou shalt be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servants
be." So may the Lord help us by His most gracious Spirit who hath wrought all
our works in us, for Jesus' sake. Amen.PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON
-- 2 SAMUEL 15:13-23; Matthew 10:24-33.HYMNS FROM "Our Own Hymn Book" -- 670,
658, 666.LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON.BELOVED FRIENDS, -- The Lord has been
graciously pleased to release his prisoner. I am weak, but the pain is gone, and
in this land of bright sun and warm air I expect soon to recover strength. If my
hopes are fulfilled, I shall have escaped this time with a lighter measure of
chastening than for several previous years, and for this I feel doubly grateful.
To all those by whose prayers I have been comforted and blessed I return hearty
thanks.Special services are commencing at the Tabernacle, and I entreat friends
at home to throw their whole souls into them. I also beg my readers to pray that
my beloved work at home may not suffer through my absence, but that it may
please God through these special services to revive nd increase the spiritual
life of the church committed to my care. Then will all the agencies be quickened
also, and great blessing will come to the people of God.Unto the Lord our God
belong the issues from death, and he restoreth our soul. To Him be glory for
ever.With love to all the saints, yours,C.H. SpurgeonMenton, Dec.26, 1879.


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  CHAPTER 3: CHEER UP, MY COMRADES!
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A Sermon (No.1513) Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Newington "And Josiah set the priests in their charges, and encouraged them to
the service of the house of the Lord" -- 2 Chronicles 35:2. JOSIAH, as you
remember, in the early part of his reign set his face against the idolatries
that prevailed, to root them out of the land. He then bent his thoughts upon
repairing and beautifying the temple. After that it was his heart's aim to
restore the sacred services, to observe the solemn feasts, and to revive the
worship of God after the due order, according to the words of the book of the
covenant that was found in the house of the Lord. Our text tells us something of
the method with which he went to work; and it may well serve us as a model. The
first thing is to get every man into his proper place; the next thing is for
every man to have a good spirit in his present place, so as to occupy it
worthily. I will suppose, dear friends, that in the providence of God you are in
your place, and that by the direction of God's Spirit you have also sought and
found the precise form of usefulness in which you ought to exercise yourself.
To-night it shall not be my business to arrange you; but assuming that it is
well for you to keep where you are, my object shall be to encourage you to do
your work for your Lord without being cast down. I am hardly going to preach so
much as to talk to different persons who are discouraged in the work of the
Lord, that we may rouse them up, rally them round us, and encourage them to keep
rank. I. And, first, I would speak a little to THOSE WHO THINK THAT THEY CAN DO
NOTHING. They will tell me that in such a sermon not a sentence can concern
them: if I am to encourage men to the service of the house of the Lord, it will
be in vain for them, as they can do nothing at all. Well, dear friends, you must
not take that for granted; you must make quite sure that you cannot do anything
before I may venture to speak to you as if it were a matter of fact; for
sometimes there is a want of way because there is a want of will. Though I do
not go so far as to allege that this is your case, we know too well that
"cannot" often does mean "will not," and not to have triumphed may mean that you
have not tried. You have been so discouraged that you have excused yourself for
inaction, and your inaction has grown into indolence. If a man, under the notion
that he could not lift his right hand, constantly kept it still, I should not
wonder if, after weeks and months, it would become a matter of fact that he had
not the power to use it. It might actually stiffen for no reason but because he
had not moved it. Do you not think that, before your muscles get rigid, it would
be well to exercise them by attempting some kind of service? Especially you
younger folk, if you do not work for the Lord almost as soon as you are
converted it will be very difficult afterwards to make you take to it. Aptitude,
I have often noticed, comes with employment, and through negligence and sloth
people become enervated and helpless. You say that you cannot move your arm, and
so you do not move it; take heed, for by-and-by your pretence will become the
parent of real powerlessness. But I will take what you have said as being true.
You are ill; the vigour you felt in the bright days of health fails you now; you
have to suffer pain, weariness, and exhaustion; you are often detained at home;
and home seems now to you a gloomy hospital all the day long, rather than a
genial hostelry when evening shadows fall. Little indeed, therefore, can you do;
so little that you are apt to reckon it as nothing at all. The thought is a
burden to you. You wish you could serve the Lord. How constantly you have
dreamed of the pleasure since you have been denied the privilege! How willing
your feet would be to run; how ready your hands would be to labour; how glad
would your tongue be to testify! You envy those who are able, and you would fain
emulate and excel them; not indeed that you harbour ill-will against them, but
you devoutly wish that you could do some personal service in the cause of your
Master. Now, I want to encourage you first by reminding you that the law of the
Son of David is the same as the law of David himself; and you know the law of
David about those that went to the battle. There were some that were lame, and
some that were otherwise incapable of action, and he left them with the baggage.
"There," he said, "you are very weary and ill: stop in the camp: take care of
the tents, and the ammunition, while we go and fight." Now, it happened once on
a time that the men that went to fight claimed all the spoil. They said, "These
people have done nothing: they have been lying in the trenches: they shall not
carry off a share of the booty." But King David there and then made a law that
they should share and share equally -- those that were in the trenches and those
that engaged in the fray. "As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so
shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike. And it was
so from that day forward, that he made it a statute and an ordinance for
Israel." Nor is the law of the Son of David less gracious. If by sickness you
are detained at home, -- if for any other reason, such as age or infirmity, you
are not able to enter into actual service, yet if you are a true soldier and
would fight if you could, and your heart is in it, you shall share even with the
best and bravest of those who, clad in the panoply of God, encounter and grapple
with the adversary. And, brethren, you have no reason to envy, though you may
admire to your heart's content, all who are diligent and successful in the
service of Christ. Let me remind you of a law of the kingdom of heaven with
which you are all familiar -- "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a
prophet shall receive a prophet's reward." In truth, it is a splendid
appointment to be a servant of the Lord. David thought so, for you often read at
the commencement of his psalms -- "A prayer of David, the servant of God,"
though you never read, "A prayer of David, the king of Israel," for he thought
more of being enrolled a servant of God than of being entitled a king of Israel.
Health and strength, ability and opportunity to fulfil a mission for the Master
are much to be desired, but these are not always to be taken as reliable
evidence of personal salvation. A man may preach admirably, and he may work
marvels in the church, and yet himself not be a partaker of saving grace. Hence,
when the disciples came back from preaching, and said, "Lord, even the devils
are subject to us through thy name," the Lord said, "Never the less, in this
rejoice not, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven." Judas
was amongst them; Judas cast out devils; Judas preached the gospel; and yet
Judas was a son of perdition, and is lost for ever. Because you cannot do much
you must not infer that therefore you are not saved; for if you were to be among
the chief of Christian workers it would not prove that you were certainly a
child of God. Do not fret, then, because you are shut out from the cheerful
activities in which others share; for, as long as your name is written in
heaven, and your heart truly follows after the Lord, you shall have an abundant
recompense at the last great day, even though here you are doomed to be a
sufferer rather than a worker.But to me it seems more than possible that some of
you, dear friends, whose minds are tinged with melancholy, have painted your own
lot in deeper shades than the justice of the case deserves. Is your life indeed
a dull routine, which, for lack of busy change and lively enterprise, leaves no
record behind? Not so, methinks. "The rich relics of a well-spent hour" do
sometimes pour around your path a stream of light that cheers our eyes, though
it may escape your notice. Are you patient under your sufferings? Do you try to
keep the flesh in subjection, to govern your spirit, to refrain from murmuring,
and to foster cheerfulness? That, my friend, is doing a great deal. I am sure
that the holy serenity of a suffering child of God is one of the best sermons
that can ever be preached in a family. A sick saint has often been more
serviceable in a house than the most eloquent divine could have been. They see
how sweetly you submit to the divine will, how patiently you can bear painful
operations, how the Lord gives you songs in the night. Why, you are greatly
useful. I have sometimes been called to visit bedridden persons who have been
unable to rise for many, many years, and it has been within my knowledge that
their influence has extended over whole parishes. They have been known as poor
pious women or as experienced Christian men, and many have gone to visit them.
Christian ministers have said that they derived more benefit from sitting
half-an-hour talking to poor old Betsy than they did from all the books in their
library, and yet Betsy said that she was doing nothing. Look at your case in
that light, and you will see that you can praise God upon your bed, and make
your chamber to be as vocal for God as this pulpit ever can be.Besides, dear
friends, do you not think we frequently limit our estimate of serving God to the
public exercises of the sanctuary, and forget the strong claims that our Lord
has upon our private fidelity and obedience? You say, "I cannot serve God," when
you cannot teach in the school or preach in the pulpit, when you are unable to
sit on a committee or speak on a platform: as if these were the only forms of
service to be taken into account. Do you not think that a mother nursing her
baby is serving God? Do you not think that men and women going about their daily
toil with patient industry discharging the duties of domestic life are serving
God? If you think rightly you will understand that they are. The servant
sweeping the room, the mistress preparing the meal, the workman driving a nail,
the merchant casting up his ledger, ought to do all in the service of God.
Though, of course, it is very desirable that we should each and all have some
definitely religious work before us, yet it is much better that we should hallow
our common handicraft, and make our ordinary work chime with the melodies of a
soul attuned for heaven. Let true religion be our life, and then our life will
be true religion. That is how it ought to be. "Whether ye eat or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks unto God
and the Father by him." So, then, let the stream of your common life as it flows
on, obscure, unobserved, be holy and courageous; you will find that while "they
also serve who only stand and wait," you shall not be neglected or overlooked
who simply sit at Jesus' feet and listen to his words when you can do no more.
This is service done for him which he can appreciate; complain who may. Know,
too, my dear sister, that by thy sorrows the Lord has drawn out thy sympathies.
Thou, my dear brother, know that by the discipline which has chastened thee,
thou hast learned to be a comforter. Say you, then, that you cannot do anything?
I know a few secrets about you that you forget. You do not reckon yourself up as
we reckon you. Did you not try to cheer a poor neighbour the other day by
telling of the Lord's goodness to you when you were very sick yourself? How
started from your eye that tear most sacred shed for a fellow-creature's pain?
Is it not your habit, poor sufferer as you are, to let drop just a few words for
your Master to others in a like condition whenever you can? You tell me that you
cannot do anything. Why, dear hearts, the refreshing of God's saints is one of
the highest works in which anyone can be occupied. God will send prophets to his
servants at times when they need to be rebuked; if he wants to comfort them he
generally sends an angel to them, for that is angel's work. Jesus Christ
himself, we read, had angels sent to minister to him. When? Was it not in the
garden of Gethsemane, when he was bowed down with sorrow? Comforting is not
ordinary work: it is a kind of angelic work. "There appeared unto him an angel
strengthening him." A prophet was sent to warn the Israelites of their sin; but
when a Gideon was to be encouraged to go and fight for his country, it was the
angel of the Lord that came to him. So I gather that comforting work is angel's
work. You, dear kind Christian men and women, who think that you are not able to
do anything but to condole or to console with cheery words some souls cast down
and sore dismayed, you are fulfilling a most blessed office, and doing work
which many ministers find it difficult to perform. I have known some who have
never known suffering or ill-health, and when they try to comfort God's weary
people they are dreadfully awkward over it. They are like elephants picking up
pins: they can do it, but it is with a wonderful effort. God's tried people
comfort each other con amore; they take to the work as a fish to water. They
understand the art of speaking a word in season to him that is weary, and when
this is the case they may not complain that they are doing nothing.And yet,
beloved, you who thought that you did nothing, and now perceive that you are
really useful, will, I hope, perceive that there is still a wider region into
which you may advance. Breathe to-night the prayer of Jabez, who was more
honourable than his brethren, because he was the child of his mother's sorrow;
and this was the prayer -- "Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge
my coast"! Ask God to open up to you a larger region of usefulness, and he will
do it.II. Now let me address a few words to another class of workers WHO THINK
THAT THEY ARE LAID ASIDE."Dear sir," says one, "I wish you would encourage me. I
used to be useful once; at least, I was recognized as one of a band of men who
worked together right heartily, but since I have changed my residence I am
unknown in the neighborhood where I am living, and I seem to have dropped out of
the ranks. I have done little or nothing lately, and I feel uneasy about it. I
wish that I could get to work." My dear brother, I hope you will; but do not
waste five minutes in thinking it over. These times need so much Christian
effort that when a man asks me, "How shall I do work for Christ"? I am
accustomed to say, "Go and do it." "But what is the way to do it"? Start at
once. Get at it, my brother. Do not be out of harness a minute. But suppose that
you are obliged to desist awhile, do not let your interest in the cause of our
Lord and Master decline. Some of the best of God's workers have been laid aside
for long periods. Moses was forty years in the desert, doing nothing. A greater
than he, our blessed Saviour himself, was thirty years, -- I will not say doing
nothing, but certainly doing no public work. When you are in a retired and
inactive position, be preparing for the time when God brings you out again. If
you are put away on the shelf, do not rust there, but pray the Master to
brighten you up so that when he comes to use you again you may be fully fitted
for the work which he has in hand for you.While you must be laid aside, I want
you to do this, -- pray for others that are at work. Help them; encourage them.
Do not get into that peevish, miserable frame of mind which grudges and
undervalues other men's works. Be not like the dog in the manger. Some people,
when they cannot do anything themselves, do not like anybody else to be diligent
and laborious. Say, "If I cannot help, I will never hinder, but I will cheer my
brethren."Spend your time in prayer that you may be fit for the Master's use,
and, meanwhile, be prompt in helping others. You remember that, at the siege of
Gibraltar, when the fleet surrounded it and determined to storm the old rock,
the governor fired red-hot shot down upon the men of war. The enemy did not at
all admire the governor's warm reception. Think how it was done. Here were
gunners on the ramparts firing away, and every man in the garrison would have
liked to do the same. What did those do who could not serve a gun? Why, they
heated the shot; and that is what you must do. I am master gunner here
generally: heat my shot for me, if you will. Keep the furnace going, so that
when we do fire off a sermon it may be red-hot, through your earnest prayers.
When you see your friends sitting in the Sunday-school, or standing out in the
street working for God, if you cannot join them yet say, "Never mind: I will
heat the shot for them. My prayers shall not be wanting, if I can contribute
nothing else." That is counsel for you who are for awhile laid on the shelf.
III. Others there are who are much discouraged because THEY HAVE BUT SMALL
TALENT. "Oh," they say, "I wish I could serve Jesus Christ like Paul, or like
Whitefield -- that I could range the country through proclaiming his dear name
and winning thousands of converts. But I am slow of speech and dull of thought,
and what I attempt produces little or no effect." Well, brother, mind that you
do what you can. Do you not recollect the parable of the men who had talents
entrusted to them? I do not want to lay undue stress upon the fact that it was
the man who had one talent who buried it. Yet why is he represented as doing so?
I think it was not because the men of two and five talents do not sometimes bury
theirs, but because the temptation lies most with the one talent people. They
say, "What can I do? What is the use of me? I may be excused." That is the
temptation. Brother, do not be entangled in that snare. If your Lord has only
given you one talent he does not expect you to make the same interest upon it as
the man does with five; but still he does expect his interest, and therefore do
not wrap your talent in a napkin. It is but with strength imparted that any of
us can serve him. We have nothing to consecrate to him but the gift we have
first received from him. You are weak. You feel it; but what says your God to
you? "Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." He can make
you useful though you have no extraordinary endowments. Grape-shot may do great
execution, though it cannot compare with grenade or bomb-shell. A sinner may be
brought to Christ by the simple earnestness of a peasant or an artisan, without
calling in the aid of a professor's learning or a preacher's eloquence. God can
bless you far above what you think to be your capacity, for it is not a question
of your ability but of his aid. You have no self-reliance, you tell me. Then
take refuge in God, I entreat you, for you evidently want more of the divine
succor. Go and get it; it is to be had. He girds the weak with strength. "The
young men shall faint and be weary, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength." Why, I think you are more likely to do good than if you had
five talents, for now you will pray more and you will depend more upon God than
you would have done if you had possessed strength of your own.One other word. As
you are not enriched with many talents, mind you economize those you have. Do
you know how merchants and tradesmen who have only a small capital in business
manage to compete with those who have larger means? They try to turn their money
over every day. The costermonger cannot afford to deal out his goods to
gentlemen who will pay him in three months. Not he. He must get his ready money
at the door, and then go and buy another stock to-morrow morning, and turn it
over, or else he could not pick up his living with so small a capital. If you
have only ninepence, make it "nimble," and you will get as much profit out of a
nimble ninepence as another out of a lazy crown. Activity often makes up for
lack of ability. If you cannot get force by the weight of the ball, get it by
the velocity with which it travels. A little man with one talent all ablaze may
become a perfect nuisance to the devil, and a champion for Christ. As for that
great divine with his five talents, who marches on so sleepily, Satan can always
overmatch him and win the day. If you can but turn over your one talent again
and again, in the name of God, you may achieve great wonders. So I would
encourage you in the work of the Lord.IV. With workers WHO ARE UNDER GREAT
DIFFICULTIES I would now have a word. I have known the day when perplexities
pleased me, dilemmas afforded me delight, and instead of declining a difficult
task I rather like it. Even now I enjoy puzzling over a problem, and attempting
what others decline. Nothing good in this world can be effected without
difficulty. The biggest diamonds lie under heavy stones which sluggards cannot
turn over. That which is easy to do is hardly worth doing. In the face of
difficulty the man of ardent, persevering spirit braces up his nerves, sharpens
his wits, and brings all his powers into play to achieve an object that will
reward his efforts. Have you great difficulties dear friend? You are not the
first worker for God who has had difficulties to encounter. Let us go back to
Moses again. He was to bring Israel out of Egypt; but his path did not appear
very plain. He must go before Pharaoh and issue God's command. Pharaoh looked
him through when he said, "Let my people go." The haughty monarch was greatly
surprised to hear anybody, especially a Hebrew, talk like that; and so he bade
him begone. But Moses returns with, "Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go"; and
his courage was not even then crowned with immediate success. There must be
plague upon plague, plague upon plague, till at last proud Pharaoh's heart was
broken, the Israelites were saved from the hand of him that hated them; and
Egypt was glad when they departed. This, however, was but the beginning of the
mission of Moses. His was a life of difficulty -- the meekest man, but the most
provoked; and until he got to the top of Pisgah, and his gracious Master kissed
away his soul, the prophet of Horeb had never done with difficulties. Any good
thing, I say, especially any good thing done for God, must be surrounded with
difficulties, and resisted by adversaries. Look at Nehemiah, and Ezra, and
Zerubbabel, and those that built Jerusalem, the second time. These good men
wrought zealously, but Sanballat and Tobiah were jeering and jesting, and trying
to throw down the wall. If you build a city without difficulty, it is not
Jerusalem. Be sure of that. As soon as ever you begin working for God you will
find a great power working against you. If you encounter opposition, take it as
a good sign. When our young men go to a provincial town to preach, and I want to
know how they are getting on, after listening to their story, I ask, "Has
somebody slandered you yet? Do the newspapers denounce you as a fool"? If they
say "No," I conclude that they are not getting on much. If Christ's cause is
prospering the world will reproach the soul-winner; if you do damage to the
devil's kingdom he will roar at you. Should your course be smooth, it is because
he says, "There is nothing to disturb me in that man's monotonous talk. I need
not let fly the fiery dart of calumny at him: he is a chip in the porridge, I
will let him alone." Such a man generally goes through life very comfortably.
People say, "He is a quiet, inoffensive sort of man." We do not want such
soldiers in the service of Christ. "What a disagreeable person"! said a king
once of an officer whose sword rattled on the floor. "That sword of his is most
offensive." "Sire," said the officer, "that is exactly what your majesty's
enemies think." When ungodly persons say that we are troublesome, we are not
broken-hearted at being out of their good looks. If the king's enemies think us
troublesome, we reckon it to be high praise. When you, my dear brother, meet
with opposition, encounter it with prayer. Exercise more faith. Antagonists
ought never to hinder your going forward in the cause of Christ. Diamond must
cut diamond. There is nothing so hard in this world but you can cut it with
something harder. If you ask God to steel your soul up to the conquering point,
and to make your resolution like an adamant stone, you can cut your way through
an alp of diamond in the service of your Lord and Master. Let me inspirit you in
the face of assailants. The forces ranged against you might be stumbling-blocks
to fools, but they shall only prove a stimulus to men. One day your honour shall
be the greater and your reward shall be the higher because of these adverse
elements. Therefore, be brave and fear not, but advance in the strength of
God.V. Fain would I now speak a passing word of comfort to another class of
workers -- THOSE THAT ARE NOT APPRECIATED. I am not going to say much, because I
have not much sympathy with them. Yet I know that the smallest slight chafes
those who are over sensitive. They murmur, "I do my best, and nobody thanks me."
You think yourself a martyr, and complain that you are mis-represented. Be it
so, dear friend; that was your Master's lot, and it is the lot of all his
servants. This is a cross we must all carry, or we shall never wear the crown.
Do you fancy that this is a new experience? Look at Joseph. His brethren could
not bear him, and yet it was he that saved the family and fed them in time of
famine. Look at David. His brothers asked why he had left the charge of the
sheep to come down to the battle, suspecting that the pride of his heart had
brought him among the soldiers and the standards. Yet nobody could bring back
Goliath's head but that young David. Take a lesson from the ruddy hero; take no
notice of what your brethren say about you. Go and bring back the giant's head.
A good adventure is the best answer to evil accusations. If you are serving the
Master let their scandal stir you up to more self-consecration. If they cry out
against you as too forward, serve the Lord with more vigour, and you will
antidote the venom of their tongues. Did you enter into Christ's work in order
to be honoured among men? Then retire from it, for you came with a bad motive.
But if you enlisted purely to bring honour to Him, and to win his smile, what
more do you want? What more do you want? Be not therefore disheartened because
you are not applauded. Be certain of this, that to be kept in the rear rank is
often necessary to future eminence. If you take a man and put him in front, and
pat him on the back and say, "What a great man he is"! he will make a false step
before long, and there will be an end of your hero; but when a man is brought
forward by God, he is often one whom everybody criticizes, finds fault with, and
declaims as an impostor, but the banter he is exposed to serves as ballast for
his mind. When he comes off with success he will not be spoiled with conceit,
for the grace of God will make him bow with gratitude. The sword that is meant
for a princely hand, to split through skull and backbone in the day of battle,
must be annealed in the furnace again and again; it cannot be fit for such
desperate work until it has passed through the fire full many a time. Do not ask
to be appreciated. Never be so mean as that. Appreciate yourself in the serenity
of conscience, and leave your honour with your God.VI. I must speak now, in the
last place, a little more at length to THOSE WHO ARE DISCOURAGED BECAUSE THEY
HAVE HAD SO LITTLE SUCCESS.It was my great delight a few evenings ago to meet a
splendid band of men and women who are the Sunday-school teachers of this
church. You will think it strange that I did not till then thoroughly estimate
the extent of their work, as I had never added up the total of the various
schools; but when I did so, and found that they mounted up to six thousand
children, I felt full of joy. I shall run over with delight if they increase to
twelve thousand in another twelve months. For so large a district this would not
be too many, but still our present number is most encouraging. Now, I know that
some of our teachers are working away in back streets, in rooms not connected
with any place but this, and we hardly knew of them, because they were pursuing
their simple, unobtrusive labours so quietly. Are there any of you who fear that
you have toiled in vain and spent your strength for nought? I would entreat you,
dear friends, not to be satisfied with casting in the seed unless you reap some
good results; yet do not be so faint-hearted as to give up because of a little
disappointment. Though you cannot be satisfied without fruit, yet do not cease
to sow because one season proves a failure. I would not have our friends the
farmers abandon agriculture because this year they have a bad crop: if they were
to measure their future prospects by the present failure, it would be a great
pity. If you have preached or taught, or done work for Christ with little
success until now, do not infer that you will always be unsuccessful. Regret the
lack of prosperity but do not relinquish the labour of seeking it. You may
reasonably be sorrowful, but you have no right to despair. Non-success is a
trial of faith which has been endured by many a trusty servant who has been
triumphant in the issue. Did not the disciples toil all night, and catch
nothing? Did we not read just now of some who cast the net, and yet took no
fish? Did not our Lord say that some seed would fall on stony ground, and some
among the thorns, and that from these there would be no harvest? What good did
Jeremiah do? I have no doubt he laboured, and God blessed him, but the result of
his preaching was that he said, "The bellows are burned in the fire." He had
blown up the fire till he had burnt the bellows, but no man's heart was melted.
"Woe is me"! said he. "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of
tears"! I do not know what was the result of Noah's ministry, but I do know that
he was a preacher of righteousness for a hundred and twenty years, and yet he
never brought a soul into the ark except his own family. Poor preaching we may
count it judging by the influence it exerted: and yet we know that it was grand
preaching, such as God commended. Do not, then, grudge the time, or the
strength, you lay out in the service of our great Lord because you do not see
your efforts thrive, for better men than you have wept over failure. Remember,
too, that if you really do serve the Lord thoroughly and heartily, he will
accept you and acknowledge your service, even though no good should come of it.
It is your business to cast the bread on the waters: if you do not find it after
many days, that is not your business. It is your business to scatter the seed;
but no farmer says to his servant, "John, you have not served me well, for there
is no harvest." The man would say, "Could I make a harvest, sir? I have
ploughed, and I have sowed. What more could I do"? Even so our good Lord is not
austere, nor does he demand of us more than we can do. If you have ploughed and
if you have sowed, although there should be no harvest, you are clear and
accepted. Did it never strike you that you may be now employed in breaking up
ground and preparing the soil from which other labourers who come after you will
reap very plentifully. Perhaps your Master knows what a capital ploughman you
are. He has a large farm, and he never means to let you become a reaper because
you do the ploughing so well. Your Master does not intend you to take part in
the harvest because you are such a good hand at sowing; and as he has crops that
need sowing all the year round he keeps you at that work. He knows you better
than you know yourself. Perchance if he were once to let you get on the top of a
loaded wagon of your own sheaves, you would turn dizzy and make a fall of it; so
he says, "You keep to your ploughing and your sowing, and somebody else shall do
the reaping." Peradventure when your course is run you will see from heaven,
where it will be safe for you to see it, that you did not labour in vain nor
spend your strength for nought. "One soweth and another reapeth." This is the
divine economy. I think that every man that loves his Master will say, "So long
as there does but come a harvest, I will not stipulate about who reaps it. Give
me faith enough to be assured that the reaping will come, and I will be
content." Look at William Carey going to India, his prayer being "India for
Christ." What did Carey live to see? Well, he saw good-speed enough to rejoice
his heart: but certainly he did not see the fulfillment of all his prayer.
Successive missionaries have since gone and spent their life on that vast field
of enterprise. With what result? A result amply sufficient to justify all their
toil, but, as compared with the millions that sit in heathendom, utterly
inadequate to the craving of the church, much less to the crown of Christ. It
does not much matter how any one man fares. The mighty empire will revert to the
world's Redeemer, and I can almost trace in the records of the future the
writing of "These be the names of the mighty men whom David had," as the valiant
deeds of his heroes are chronicled by our Lord. When old St. Paul's cathedral
had to be taken down in order to make room for the present noble edifice, some
of the walls were immensely strong and stood like rocks. Sir Christopher Wren
determined to throw them down by the old Roman battering-ram. The battering-ram
began to work, and the men worked at it for hours and hours, day after day,
without apparent effect. Blow after blow came on the wall; tremendous thuds that
made the bystanders tremble. The wall continued to stand till they thought it
was a useless operation. But the architect knew. He continued working his
battering-ram till every particle of the wall felt the motion, and at last over
it went in one tremendous ruin. Did anybody commend those workmen who caused the
final crash, or ascribe all the success to them? Not a bit of it. It was the
whole of them together. Those who had gone away to their meals, those who had
begun days before, had as much honour in the matter as those who struck the last
blow. And it is so in the work of Christ. We must keep on battering, battering,
battering, and at last -- though it may not be for another thousand years -- the
Lord will triumph. Though Christ cometh quickly he may not come for another ten
thousand years, but in any case idolatry must die, and truth must reign. The
accumulated prayers and energies of ages shall do the deed, and God shall be
glorified. Only let us persevere in holy effort, and the end is sure. When a
certain American general was fighting they said, "What are you doing"? He said,
"I am not doing much, but I keep pegging away." That is what we must do. We
cannot do much at any one time, but we must keep on. We must keep on pegging
away at the enemy, and something will come of it by-and-by.Possibly, dear
friends, some of you who think you have had slender success may have had a great
deal more than you know of. Others there may be whose want of success should
suggest to them to try somewhere else, or else to try some other method. If we
cannot do good in one way we must do it in another. Bring the matter before God
in prayer. Cry mightily to him, for he will help you yet to do it, and his shall
be the glory. When he has laid you low, when he has taught you how inefficient
you are, when he has driven you in despair to rely implicitly upon himself, then
it may be that he will give you more trophies and triumphs than you ever dreamed
of. Anyhow, whether I prosper in life or not is not my question. To bring souls
to Christ is my main endeavour, but it is not the ultimate proof of my ministry.
My business is to live for God, to lay aside self, and give myself up wholly to
him, and if I do that I shall be accepted whatever else may happen. I wish we
had the spirit of that brave old man who was condemned to the stake. They were
going to burn him. He knew that the sentence was to be carried out the next
morning, but with a soul full of courage, and with a merry heart, he sat the
last thing at night talking with his friends -- faggots and fire to face in the
morning, recollect -- and he said to one of them, "I am an old tree in my
Master's orchard. When I was young I bore a little fruit by his grace. It was
unripe and sour, but he bore with it: and I have grown mellow in my older days
and brought forth some fruit for him by his grace. Now the tree has grown so old
that my Master is going to cut it down and burn the old log. Well, it will warm
the hearts of some of his family while I am burning"; and he even smiled for joy
to think that he might be put to so good a purpose. I want you to have that
spirit, and to say, "I will live for Christ while I am young: I will die for
him, and warm the hearts of my brethren. You know that the persecutions of those
martyr days begat such heroism and gallantry among disciples as prudent people
in peaceful times can scarcely credit. It is said of the old Baptist church over
in the City that the members went to Smithfield early one morning to see their
pastor burnt, and when some one asked the young people what they went there for,
they said that they went to learn the way. That is splendid! They went to learn
the way. Oh, go to the Master's cross to learn the way to live and die! See how
he spent himself for you, and then sally forth and spend yourselves for him.
"Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall ye be glorious in the sight of the
Lord." Though you may think that you do not succeed, your whole-hearted
consecration shall be your honour in the day of the Lord. By your hallowed life,
and your humble service, you shall bring glory to his name. O Lord, set us in
our charges, and encourage us in the service of thy house! "Let the beauty of
the Lord our God be upon us; establish thou the work of our hands: yea, the work
of our hands establish thou it." May the blessing of our covenant God rest upon
you, my brethren, for Jesus' sake. Amen. PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON
-- John 21.HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" -- 245, 674, 694.LETTER FROM MR.
SPURGEON.BELOVED FRIENDS, -- On this first day of a New Year I salute you with
hearty good wishes, and pray that every blessing may attend your future steps. I
beg also on my own behalf your prayers that through another year my ministry may
be more edifying to the saints, more persuasive with sinners, and more
acceptable to the Lord. I thank the great Healer that this day smiles upon me,
and sees me free from pain, reviving in strength, and restored in spirit. I
shall hope soon to be at work again. Oh for an anointing with fresh oil.Yours to
serve in hearty earnest,C.H. SpurgeonMenton, Jan.1, 1880.


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  CHAPTER 4: THE KEY-NOTE OF A CHOICE SONNET
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A Sermon (No.1514) Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Newington "My soul doth magnify the Lord." -- Luke 1:46. MARY HAD RECEIVED a
wonderful intimation from heaven of which she herself scarcely understood the
full length and breadth. Her faith had apprehended a great promise, which as yet
her mind hardly comprehended. Her prayer, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be
it unto me according to thy word," showed her joyful submission and childlike
confidence, and this made her blessed with the blessedness of patient hope.
Under divine guidance she made a speedy journey into the hill country to see her
cousin Elisabeth, and from her she received a confirmation of the wonderful
tidings which the angel had brought to her. Elizabeth herself had been favored
from above, for the Lord had looked upon her, and taken away from her the
reproach of barrenness. Amongst other choice words, Elizabeth said to her,
"Blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things
which were told her from the Lord." When Mary had thus been comforted by her
friend, and her spirit had been elevated, and her confidence confirmed, she
began to sing unto the Lord most sweetly, saying, "My soul doth magnify the
Lord." Now, if it is a good time with any of you -- if in communion with some
older believer your confidence has been strengthened, make sure that the Lord
has a return for it. When your own heart is lifted up, then lift up the name of
the Lord. Exalt him when he exalts you. You will perhaps tell me that the Virgin
had very especial reason for magnifying the Lord, and I answer, Assuredly she
had. "Blessed is she among women," and we are not backward to own the eminent
honor which was put upon her. Blessed indeed she was, and highly favored. But
yet, is there any true believer who has not also received special favor of the
Lord? Sitting down quietly in our chamber, can we not each one say that the Lord
has favored him or her with some special token of divine love? I think there is
something about each believer's case which renders it special. We are none of us
exactly like our brethren, for the manifestations of divine grace are very
various; and there are some bright lines about your case, brother, which will be
seen nowhere else, and some peculiar manifestations about your happiness, my
sister, of which no one else can tell. I might not be straining words if I were
to say to many a sister in Christ here, "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the
Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women." And I might say the same to
many a brother here: "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee:
blessed art thou among men. The Lord hath done great things for thee, and let
thy spirit be glad." True, there is one point in which we cannot be compared to
Mary literally. She was to be the mother of the human nature of our Lord; but
there is a parallel case in each one of us in which a higher mystery -- a more
spiritual mystery -- gives us a like privilege, for, behold, the Holy Ghost
dwells in each believer. He lives within us as within a temple, and reigns
within us as in a palace. If we be partakers of the Holy Ghost, what more can we
desire by way of favor from God, and what greater honor can be bestowed upon us?
It was by her that the Word became incarnate, but so also is it by us, for we
can make God's Word stand out visibly in our lives. It is ours to turn into
actual, palpable existence among the sons of men the glorious Spirit of grace
and truth which we find in the Word of God. Truly did our Lord speak when he
said to his disciples, "These are my mother, and sister, and brother." We bear
as close a relationship to Christ as did the Virgin mother, and we in some sense
take the same position spiritually which she took up corporeally in reference to
him. May he be formed in us the hope of glory, and may it be ours to tend his
infant cause in the world, and watch over it as a nurse does over a child, and
spend our life and strength in endeavoring to bring that infant cause to
maturity, even though a sword should pass through our own heart while we cherish
the babe. But now, having introduced to you her magnificat, we will dwell upon
these words, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and I do earnestly hope that many
of us can adopt the language without being guilty of falsehood: we can as truly
say as Mary did, "My soul doth magnify the Lord." If there are any of you
present to-night who cannot say it, get to your chambers, fall upon your knees,
and cry to the Lord to help you to do so; for as long as a man cannot magnify
God he is not fit for heaven, where the praises of God are the eternal
occupation of all the blessed spirits. If you cannot magnify God, it probably is
because you are magnifying yourself. May the Lord cut self down and make nothing
of you, and then you will make everything of him. When you sink in your own
estimation, then will God rise in your esteem. May God the Holy Ghost make it
so. I. Touching these words, I notice that, first, our text suggests to us AN
OCCUPATION FOR ALL GRACIOUS PEOPLE: "My soul doth magnify the Lord." Here is an
occupation for all of us who know the Lord, and have been born into his family.
Observe, it is an occupation which may be followed by all sorts of people. This
humble woman speaks of her low estate, and yet she could magnify the Lord. All
believers, of every rank and condition, can attend to this work. There are some
things that you cannot do, but this one thing every gracious heart can do, and
should delight to do, namely, to magnify the Lord. This is an occupation which
can be followed in all places. You need not go up to the meeting-house to
magnify the Lord, you can do it at home: you need not step out of your own quiet
little room, for you may sit still, and all alone you may magnify the Lord. You
may be tossed about upon the sea in a storm, but you may trust his name, and be
calm, and so magnify him. Or, you may be no traveler, and never go a hundred
yards out of the village in which you were born, but you may magnify the Lord
just as well for all that. "Where'er we seek him he is found,And every place is
hallowed ground";and in every place this hallowed occupation may be carried out,
and we may always say -- at least the place will not prevent our saying, "My
soul doth magnify the Lord."This is not an occupation which requires a crowded
congregation, it can be fitly performed in solitude. I suppose that this sonnet
of the Virgin was sung with only one to hear it, her cousin Elisabeth. There is
a quorum for God's praise even where there is only one; but, where there are two
that agree to praise God, then is the praise exceeding sweet. Ah, my dear
sisters, you will never stand up to speak to thousands, and many of my brethren
now present would be very timid if they had to praise the Lord before a score.
Never mind about that. Praise does not require even two or three, but in the
quiet of the night, or in the loneliness of the wood far away from the haunts of
men, your soul may pursue this blessed task, and daily, hourly, constantly sing
-- " My soul doth magnify the Lord."This is an occupation also, dear friends,
which requires no money. Mary was a poor maiden. She had no gold or silver, and
yet did she sweetly say, "My soul doth magnify the Lord." It is an honorable
thing to be entrusted with this world's treasure to lay it out for Jesus. The
church has its temporal needs, and happy is that man who is privileged to supply
them: but this kind of work can be followed by the child who has no money, and
by the workwoman who scarcely knows how to find herself in bread. It may be
followed by the poor man reduced to the workhouse; and by the poor woman who
lies in the infirmary breathing out her life. "My soul doth magnify the Lord,"
is as fit for paupers as for peers. Oh! these are golden notes, and those that
use them have golden mouths, as golden as Chrysostom of old, even though they
have to say, "Silver and gold have I none."And this is an occupation, dear
friends, which I commend to all here present, because it does not require great
talent. A simpleton may sing "My soul doth magnify the Lord." We have each one a
soul, and when that soul has been renewed by grace it can follow this blessed
pursuit of magnifying the Lord, Perhaps you have not the abilities of Mary, for
she was, doubtless, a woman of considerable culture, like Hannah who preceded
her, whose song she partly borrowed. Hannah seems to me to be one of the most
gifted women of the Old Testament, and to be worthy of more notice than is
generally given to her. But if you could not write a hymn, if you could not
compose a verse, if you have no ability that way, ay, and if you cannot sing --
and there are some of us that have such cracked voices that we never shall, and
there are one or two brethren here who have such bad ears for time that I
generally hear them a note behind everybody else, as I did to-night -- well,
never mind about that, our souls can magnify the Lord. It is an occupation that
does not depend upon the voice, or upon any kind of talent whatever. Those who
sing worst to the ear of man may, perhaps, sing best to the ear of God; and
those who have the least apparent ability may, from the warmth of their heart
and the ardor of their devotion, really have the greatest capacity in God's
judgment for magnifying his name."My soul doth magnify the Lord." I would invite
all my brothers and sisters here to take this for their occupation as long as
they live, and never to cease from it. Nay, even should death for a moment
suspend it, let them so praise God that it shall be no new work for them to
begin again and praise him for ever in heaven.Dear friends, albeit that this
magnifying of the Lord is an occupation to be taken up by all Christians, do not
let us think little of it. To magnify the Lord seems to me the grandest thing we
mortals do, for, as I have already said, it is the occupation of heaven. When
the saints of the Most High pass into their glorified state they have nothing
else to do but to magnify the Lord. The word signifies, to put it in a Saxon
form instead of a Latin one, to "greaten God." We cannot make him really
greater, but we can show forth his greatness. We can make him appear greater. We
can make others have greater thoughts of him, and that we do when we are
praising him. We can ourselves try to have greater and yet greater thoughts of
him -- make him to our apprehension a greater God than we once knew him to be;
and this, I say, is no mean occupation, because it is followed in heaven by all
redeemed and perfected spirits. Even here, it is the end of everything. Praying
is the end of preaching, for preaching and hearing are nothing in themselves
except men be brought to Christ and led to prayer. But then praying is not the
end: praising is the end of praying. Prayer is the stalk of the wheat, but
praise is the ear of the wheat: it is the harvest itself. When God is praised,
we have come to the ultimatum. This is the thing for which all other things are
designed. We are to be saved for this end, "To the praise of the glory of his
grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved." We are not saved for
our own sakes. How often does the Scripture tell us this in sense, and sometimes
in words, "Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto
you; be ashamed and be confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel." The
glory of God is to my mind the highest conceivable end -- it certainly is the
chief end of my being. So, my dear brother, if you cannot go out to preach -- if
after looking over all your condition you feel that your sickness and other
circumstances may excuse you from active service, and even if you are compelled
to keep your bed, do not suppose that you are useless as to the highest end of
your being. You may still serve it by lying upon the couch of pain and
magnifying the Lord by patience. Have you ever looked at those lovely lilies
which adorn our gardens with their golden petals and their milk-white leaves?
How they praise God! And yet they never sing. You do not even hear a rustle, but
they stand still and praise God by existing -- by just, as it were, enjoying the
sun and the dew, and showing what God can do. A genuine Christian shut up under
pain and sickness may glorify God by being his beloved child, by receiving the
love of God, by showing in his common-place daily character, which is only
noticeable from its holiness, what the grace of God can do. Oh may this be the
occupation of us all since it is so noble a pursuit! "My soul doth magnify the
Lord." Come, what are you doing to-night? Have you been during this day
murmuring and complaining and grumbling? End that, and begin praising. Some of
you are farmers, and I have no doubt you have grumbled because of the weather. I
do not wonder, but I hope that you will not do it any more, but rather believe
that God knows better about skies and clods and clouds and crops than you do. If
we had the management of the weather, I have no doubt we think we should do it
very splendidly, but I question whether we should not ruin all creation. Our
great Lord and Master knows how to manage everything. Let us cease from all
criticism of what he does, and say, "My soul does not grumble. My soul does not
complain; I have taken up a better business than that. My soul doth magnify the
Lord.' That is her one engagement from which she will never cease." II.
Secondly, if you look at the text from another point of view, it provides for us
A REMEDY FOR SELF-CONGRATULATION.If any one of us had been favored, as the
Virgin was, with the promise that we should become the parent of the Savior, do
you not think that we should have felt exceedingly lifted up? It was natural
that she should be proud, but it was gracious on her part that she was humble.
Instead of magnifying herself she magnified the Lord. It was a great thing, and
somebody must be magnified for it. Nature would have said, "Mary, magnify
thyself"; but grace said, "Mary, magnify the Lord." If the Lord has been very
gracious to any one of us, our only way to escape from vain-glorious pride,
which will be exceedingly wicked if we indulge in it, is by giving vent to our
feelings in quite another direction. Do you notice how she sets off the
greatness of God by her own insignificance? "He that is mighty hath done to me
great things." "To me," she says. "They are great things, and he is mighty, but
they are to me. He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden." Over against
the greatness of God's goodness to you be sure to set in contrast your own
meanness and unworthiness. Has the Lord redeemed you, called you, justified you,
sanctified you, set you in his church, and given you a name and a place among
his people? When you are inclined to run up the topgallants, and to hang out all
the flags, and to glory in your flesh, recollect who you are and what you are,
and the hole of the pit whence you were drawn, and the rock out of which you
were hewn, and say, "Why me, Lord? Why me?" Begin to magnify the name of the
Lord, and that will be a death-blow to the temptation to pride.Mary had a
specialty: no one else should be the mother of our Lord: but so have we.
Electing love has pitched on us. Many have been passed by, but the Lord has
loved us with a special love; yet we cannot rejoice in it so as to glory in
ourselves, for this election is according to his sovereign will, and not of
ourselves. It is all of grace and free favor, and not according to merit. Hence
my soul doth magnify the Lord for everlasting love and special redemption.
Whence is this to me? What am I, and what is my father's house, that thou, O
Lord, shouldst choose me?Mary knew also that she was to be famous. "All
generations shall call me blessed." But do notice how she balances her fame with
another fame. She says, "Holy is his name, and his mercy is on them that fear
him." She magnifies the name of the Lord. If he has given her a measure of
honor, she lays it at his feet. Mind you do the same. Be not so vain as to be
lifted up with a little success. We have all passed through this test of
character, and in the fining-pot how few of us have borne the fire without loss!
Perhaps you have preached a sermon and God has blessed it; the congregation is
increased, and crowds are gathering; the probability is that the devil whispers,
"You are a capital preacher. Well done! You put your point admirably: God is
blessing you. There must be something admirable in your character and
abilities." Away, away, thou fiend of the pit! This is ruinous pride! But
suppose, dear brother, that the fiend will not go away while he finds you musing
upon your success, what are you to do? Try him with this -- "My soul doth
magnify the Lord." Praise the name of the Lord that ever he should make use of
such a poor, unsuitable instrument as yourself. Give him all the honor and all
the glory, if honor and glory there be, and see if the arch-enemy does not take
to flight, for God's praises are abhorrent to the devil.In whatever capacity you
are serving the Lord, if he puts any honor upon you, mind you give it all back
to him. Sedulously and carefully endeavor to do this, for robbery here will be
fatal; he will not give his glory to another. If we begin to pilfer even a
little of the praise, we shall find that our Master will reckon us to be
unfaithful stewards, and give us a discharge. If we glory in our strength, we
may have to go out and shake ourselves like Samson when his hair was lost,
because the Lord has taken our strength away from us. A heart that is lifted up
with self-esteem will soon be cast down in the mire. Mary knew that God's favors
are given to us, not that we may congratulate ourselves, but that we may worship
him; and she acted accordingly. If grace be come to thee, my brother, it is a
wanton waste of it to pride thyself upon it. Like the manna in the Israelite's
house when kept till the morning, it will breed worms and stink: no worm ever
brought swifter decay than pride. Bear the shield of thine honor as an
armor-bearer for thy Lord, Know that thou hast nothing but what belongs to him.
Use all for him, and glorify him for all, and in all; and so wilt thou do well.
I recommend the text, then, as a cure for pride: "My soul doth magnify the
Lord."III. Thirdly, and I will be brief on each point, the text is A FRUITFUL
UTTERANCE FOR HOLY FEELINGS. "My soul doth magnify the Lord," is evidently the
overflow of a full soul.There must have been great mixture of feeling in the
heart of this holy woman; but these few words furnished expression for every
variety of her emotions. Those feelings were of an opposite character, and yet
they all spoke by this one sentence. It is clear that she was filled with
wonder. Her thoughtful spirit asked, how can so great a thing be true to me?
Shall the Son of the Highest be born of Mary, the village maiden? Oh, miracle of
condescension! With the amazement there was mingled, not the unbelief which too
often comes of wonder, but an expectation of the promised marvel. She believed
that the things which were spoken to her would be performed by the Lord, and she
looked that God should keep his word to her. How sweetly those two feelings,
wonder and expectation, are blended, hidden away and yet expressed, in these few
words, "My soul doth magnify the Lord"! It is as though she had said, "I cannot
understand the favor promised me. How glorious in his grace is the Lord my God!
But I expect the blessing: I am sure of it, for the Lord is true! So I praise
him concerning it." The sentence is tinged with two fair colors, the vermilion
of wonder and the azure of hope, and they meet harmoniously upon the same
ground. The words are wonderful on that account. Now take two other mental
states. The first would be her believing. She was not like Zacharias, who needed
to be struck dumb because he doubted the word of the Lord. Mary had faith, and
yet, at the same time she must have been awe-stricken by the revelation. That
she should give birth to the Son of the Highest must have utterly abashed and
overwhelmed her. Now both these states of mind are here -- faith and awe. Faith
says, "I know that the angel's message is true, and therefore my soul doth
magnify the Lord." Awe says, "What a solemn thing it is that God should come to
dwell in my breast! My soul doth magnify the Lord." Thus in these words
confidence and reverence have met together, assurance and adoration have kissed
each other. Here is faith with its familiarity, and devotion with its godly
fear.Here, also, you very clearly perceive two other holy emotions. Her humility
is apparent, and in the text it seems to ask the question, "How can this happen
to me? How can it be that such a poor woman, affianced to a humble carpenter,
should be the mother of my Lord?" Humility sheds its perfume here, like a violet
hidden away. She seems to say, "Not unto me, not unto me be the glory! My soul
doth magnify the Lord." But that humility is not of the cringing and crouching
kind which draws back from God, for it is clearly mixed with love. "I rejoice in
my gracious Lord," she seems to say, "I bless him: I love him: I praise him. My
soul doth magnify the Lord. I am not worthy of his promised visitation, but it
will be mine, and infinite condescension will do this thing unto me. Therefore
do I love my God, and I draw near to him. My soul doth magnify the
Lord."Brothers and sisters, you will often find the language of my text the most
expressive of utterances for all that is good in your minds. Many sweet
passions, like little birds, may fold their wings, and dwell together in this
one well-compacted nest, -- "My soul doth magnify the Lord," Holy emotions may
fly hither in swarms, and make the text like a hive of bees, stored with honey.
As I turn and think it over, it sheds abroad its own spirit within me, as spices
breathe out their own perfume, and I cry, "My soul doth magnify him."I think I
perceive in these words a singular mixture of admiration and calm thought: a
wonder in which there is no surprise. The blessed Virgin is evidently, as I have
said before, wonder-struck that such a thing should come to her, and yet there
is about that wonder no startling of amazement, but a marvelling which is the
result of previous careful thought. She had considered the prophecies and
promises, and saw them about to be fulfilled in her seed. She sang in the
fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth verses, "He hath holpen his servant Israel, in
remembrance of his mercy; as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his
seed for ever." She had turned over the subject in her mind, and she came to the
conclusion, "He has said he will do this. It is as he spake." So, oftentimes,
when you get a mercy given to you, you will be surprised at it at first, but
afterwards you will say, "This is even as the Lord promised to me. He doeth no
new thing to his servant. It is only my forgetfulness that has made me to be
astonished. Did he not promise that he would help me -- that he would deliver me
-- that he would give me all that I needed? And inasmuch as he has done it in
this surprising way, my soul doth magnify him twice over for the wonderful
mercy, and for the faithfulness of his covenant love which kept the ancient
promise which he made to be yea and amen in Christ Jesus." Again, I say, I
commend the text as an expression of your feelings. How sweet are the words, "My
soul doth magnify the Lord"! They are full, many-sided, and natural, and yet
most spiritual.IV. Fourthly, I think my text may be used as A REASON FOR
HOPEFULNESS.It would be well to be wrapped up in this spirit with regard to
everything. The mood which bids us sing "My soul doth magnify the Lord" is full
of a hope which will be useful in a thousand ways. For instance, concerning our
own providential condition, let us magnify the Lord. Surrounded with
difficulties, let us walk on with confidence, because our great God is equal to
every emergency, and can both level the mountains and fill up the valleys.
Burdened with labors and stripped by necessities, let us maintain an unchanging
cheerfulness, because we magnify the might and the bounty of the eternal
Jehovah, whose name is God All-sufficient. When danger is magnified by fear, let
God be magnified by faith. When the troubles of our heart are enlarged, let our
expectations from the Lord be enlarged also.The same God-magnifying spirit
should attend our glances into futurity, if we indulge in any, and we are all
too apt to do so. Ah! we would like to know, some of us, what is going to happen
to us. Fain would we steal a glance behind the screen, and each one see"What
gloomy lines are writ for me,Or what dark scenes arise"There is a desire in most
persons' minds to draw away the curtain which God has so wisely placed over the
future. This is very wrong of us, and yet it is as common as it is blamable. We
all turn prophets every now and then, and when we do we prophesy evil, and
therefore it would be well if we could catch the spirit of Mary with regard to
our forecasts of the future, and say, "My soul doth magnify the Lord." Why do we
set our blear-eyed anxieties to watch the signs of heaven? If we must pry, and
guess, and speculate, why not employ our brighter powers, and let blue-eyed hope
scan the ensigns of the sky? When we meddle with the future how dare we foretell
that which would dishonor the Lord? If we must needs write bitter things against
ourselves, yet we ought not to write untruthful things against him. When we do
forecast the future at all, let us do it in the spirit wherewith we sing, "My
soul doth magnify the Lord." Let us be certain that we shall find him to be a
great God in the future, greatly good, wondrously gracious, magnifying his
mercy. We shall have troubles, but our soul doth magnify the Lord, for she
foresees that we shall ride out all storms with Jesus at the helm, and come safe
into port. Our anxious eye foresees necessities, but our soul doth magnify the
Lord, for she sees him with a golden key opening the treasures of David, and
supplying all her wants. Our troubled car can hear the wolf, but our soul doth
magnify the Lord, for she sings, "The Lord is my Shepherd, and he will preserve
me." In this spirit you may look forward to the swellings of Jordan, magnifying
the living God while you yourself lie down to die. If you faint and begin to
say, "Ah! I shall never be able to die triumphantly," you are minimizing, and
not magnifying, the Lord. You are making him little, and not great. Try and say,
"How marvellously will he show his grace to me, a dying worm! Oh, how wondrous
he will be in the eyes of angels that will crowd the banks to' hear a poor
trembling soul like me go singing through the stream! My God will be great in
that day; then will he lay bare his arm, and therefore will I fear no evil, for
he will be with me; his rod and his staff will comfort me." Think great things
of God. Greaten God. Magnify his name whenever you look forward to the future.
Chase from your mind any imagination or foreboding which would detract from the
greatness or the goodness of your God. Judge in the same manner with regard to
the salvation of your fellow-men. Never say, "It is of no use inducing such a
man to attend the means of grace. He is a blaspheming wretch. All that he would
do if he heard a sermon would be to make sport of it for the next week. I have
no faith in taking such a man to hear a ministry which he would be sure to
ridicule." Such unbelieving talk is making little of God. Is it not so? Is it
not dishonoring God to think that his gospel cannot reach the most depraved
hearts? Why, if I knew that a man had seven thousand devils in him, I believe
the gospel could drive them all out. Get the sinners under the sound of the
word, and the worse they are, oftentimes, the more does God love to display the
greatness of his grace in casting down the power of their sin. Believe great
things of God. I can honestly say this -- that since God saved me I never
doubted his power to save anybody. All things are possible now that he has
brought me to his feet, and kept me these years as his loving child. I must
think great things of God who has done such great things for so great a sinner
as I am. Greaten God, my brethren; greaten God. Believe great things of him.
Believe that China can be made into a province of the celestial kingdom. Believe
that India will cast her riches at Jesus' feet. Believe that the round world
will yet be a pearl on Christ's finger-ring. Do not go in for the dispiriting,
despairing, unmanly, un-Christly ideas of those who say, "The world is not to be
converted. It is a poor wreck that will go to pieces, and we are to fish off
here and there one from the water-logged hulk." Brethren, never believe that we
are to stand by and see the eternal defeat of God. Deem not that our God is
unable to win upon the old lines, and must needs shift the plan of the campaign.
It shall never be said that God could not save the world by the preaching of the
gospel, and by the work of the Holy Spirit, and therefore must needs bring in
the advent of the Lord to do it. I believe in the coming of the Lord, but,
blessed be his name, I believe also that the battle which he has begun in the
Spirit he will fight out in the old style, and finish with a victory in the very
manner in which he opened the conflict. It pleases him by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe, and it will please him to continue to do so
till the whole round earth shall ring with hallelujahs of praise to the grace of
God, who by the feeblest of his creatures shall have defeated sin, and death,
and hell. Do not get into a desponding state of mind, and rush into half-insane
theories of prophecy in order to excuse your unbelief and idleness. Never throw
down your weapons, and pretend that the victory is to be won by doting and
dreaming: we are to fight to the end with the same weapons, and in the same
name. We will drive the devil out of the world yet, by the grace of God, by the
old, efficient weapons of the Word of God and the Spirit of God. Greaten God,
and magnify his name, by believing in the success of the gospel of his dear
Son.As to the nearer future, never believe any human prophecy that does not
glorify God. Expect great things of God, and if you hear any prediction that is
not to the glory of God, conclude that it is a blunder. "Oh!" said one to me,
"this country will go back to Romanism: the gospel light will be quenched in
England." Ah, dear me! Some brethren are mightily fond of this prognostication.
But, my dear friend, there is one thing that always comforts me, namely, that
God is not dead: and he is not going to be defeated by the pope of Rome, or
fifty popes of Rome. He will win the victory yet. Always have courage, for it is
God's cause, and it is in God's hands, and, being in God's hands, it is safe
enough. See what you do: -- because you cannot trust God's hand you trust your
own! You thrust out your sacrilegious arm to interfere with God's peculiar work.
What are you at? You are about to defile God's ark. Recollect the story of
Uzzah. Pluck your hand back, and leave the ark alone. The Lord will help you to
do such work as he gives you to do, but he has not made you Lord of empires, nor
director of providence. Leave to his sovereign sway the purposes of his eternal
grace, and depend upon it he will bring the world to Jesus' feet. Christ himself
shall come: be you looking for him every day, but be constant in his service,
working for him every hour. Believe, too, that he shall reign amongst his
ancients gloriously, and where amidst Judea's glades Christ has been dishonored
and the false prophet has ruled, there too shall he reign, and Jew and Gentile
shall worship and adore his ever-blessed name. I say again, magnify the Lord
with all your souls. Greaten God. Expect great things in the future, and with
the cheery note of confidence go forward to battle for him whose is the victory
for ever and ever.V. Once more, and I have done. Our text should be used as a
GUIDE IN OUR THEOLOGY. We will finish with that. Here is a very useful test for
young disciples who are beginning to study God's word. "My soul doth magnify the
Lord." If you will carry this with you it will often save you from error, and
guide you into truth. There is certain teaching which makes a great deal of man:
it talks much of man's free-will, ability, capacity, and natural dignity. It
evidently makes man the center and end of all things, and God is placed in a
position of service to his creature. As for the Fall: father Adam slipped and
broke his little finger, or something of the kind, but this theology sees no
great ruin as the result of the fall. As for salvation: it is a slight cure for
a small ill, and by no means the infinite grace which we consider it to be. Dear
brethren, let those have this theology who like it, but do not you touch it even
with a pair of tongs. It is of no use to man, for it mistakes his position, and
only ministers to his pride. Man's place is not on the throne, but at the foot
of the cross. Listen to another theology, in which the sinner is laid low, his
sinfulness is exposed, his corruption is unfolded, Christ's redemption is
magnified, free grace is extolled, and the Holy Ghost is adored. That is the
theology for you, believe it: that is the theology of the Scriptures, accept it.
I do not think that you will often be led wrong if this be your mode of
judgment: that which glorifies God is true, and that which does not glorify God
is false. Sometimes you will meet with an undoubted teaching of God's word which
you do not understand. You know that the doctrine is taught in the word, but you
cannot make it coincide with some other truth, and you cannot quite see,
perhaps, how it glorifies God. Then, dear brother, dear sister, glorify God by
believing it. To believe a doctrine which you see to be true by mere reason is
nothing very wonderful. There is no very great glory to God in believing what is
as clear as the sun in the heavens; but to believe a truth when it staggers you
-- oh, gracious faith! oh, blessed faith! You will perhaps remember an
illustration taken from Mr. Gough, where the little boy says, "If mother says it
is so, it is so if it is not so." That is the kind of believing for a child
towards its mother, and that is the sort of believing we ought to exercise
towards God. I do not see the fact, and I cannot quite apprehend it, but God
says it is so, and I believe him. If all the philosophers in the world should
contradict the Scriptures, so much the worse for the philosophers; their
contradiction makes no difference to our faith. Half a grain of God's word
weighs more with us than a thousand tons of words or thoughts of all the modern
theologians, philosophers, and scientists that exist on the face of the earth;
for God knows more about his own works than they do. They do but think, but the
Lord knows. With regard to truths which philosophers ought not to meddle with,
because they have not specially turned their thoughts that way, they are not
more qualified to judge than the poorest man in the church of God, nay, nor
one-half so much. Inasmuch as the most learned unregenerate men are dead in sin,
what do they know about the living things of the children of Cod? Instead of
setting them to judge we will sooner trust our boys and girls that are just
converted, for they do know something of divine things, but carnal philosophers
know nothing of them. Do not be staggered, brothers and sisters, but honor God,
glorify God, and magnify him by believing great things and unsearchable -- past
your finding out -- which you know to be true because he declares them to be so.
Let the ipse dixit of God stand to you in the place of all reason, being indeed
the highest and purest reason, for God, the Infallible, speaks what must be
true.So, then, I come back to where I started. Let us go forth and practically
try to magnify the name of the Lord. Go home and speak well of his name: gather
your children together and tell them what a good and great God he has been. Some
of you who have a swarm of youngsters could not do better than spend half an
hour in telling them of his goodness to you in all your times of trouble. Leave
to your children the heirloom of gratitude. Tell them how good the Lord was to
their father, and how good he will be to his children: tell your servants, tell
your work-people, tell anybody with whom you come in contact what a blessed God
the Lord is. For my part, I never can speak well enough of his adorable name. He
is the best of masters, his service is delight; he is the best of fathers, his
commands are pleasure. Was there ever such a god as our God, our enemies
themselves being judges?Magnify his name by the brightness of your countenances.
Rejoice and be glad in him. When you are in sorrow and must needs fast, yet
appear not unto men to fast, but anoint your faces and still wear a smile. Let
not the world think that the servants of a king go mourning all their days. Make
the world feel what a great God you serve, and what a blessed Savior Christ is,
and thus evermore let your soul magnify the Lord. God grant you grace to do so,
for Jesus' sake. Amen.PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON -- Psalm 34.HYMNS
FROM "Our Own Hymn Book" -- 174, 775.LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON.Dear Friends, --
Your continued prayers are sought for the special services at the tabernacle,
that by their success any injury occurring through the pastor's enforced absence
may be remedied. It would be an affliction indeed if our life-work should suffer
through painful sickness, which in itself is a heavy cross to bear. By your
prayers this will be averted, and the trial will be turned into a blessing.Right
thankful am I to report rapid, and I trust real, progress in my own case. Living
in an unbroken series of summer days, where no cold mists are dreamed of, it is
no great marvel that rheumatic pains fly away, and depression of spirit departs.
The healing Lord has breathed a restoring influence over land, and sea, and sky,
and I am feeling it to my great joy. Hoping soon to be among my own people, and
to issue sermons newly preached, I am, to my many hearty friends, their grateful
servant.C.H. SpurgeonMenton, Jan.8, 1880.


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  CHAPTER 5: SALVATION BY KNOWING THE TRUTH
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A Sermon (No.1516) Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Newington "God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto
the knowledge of the truth." -- 1 Timothy 2:3, 4. MAY GOD THE HOLY GHOST guide
our meditations to the best practical result this evening, that sinners may be
saved and saints stirred up to diligence. I do not intend to treat my text
controversially. It is like the stone which makes the corner of a building, and
it looks towards a different side of the gospel from that which is mostly before
us. Two sides of the building of truth meet here. In many a village there is a
corner where the idle and the quarrelsome gather together; and theology has such
corners. It would be very easy indeed to set ourselves in battle array, and
during the next half-hour to carry on a very fierce attack against those who
differ from us in opinion upon points which could be raised from this text. I do
not see that any good would come of it, and, as we have very little time to
spare, and life is short, we had better spend it upon something that may better
tend to our edification. May the good Spirit preserve us from a contentious
spirit, and help us really to profit by his word. It is quite certain that when
we read that God will have all men to be saved it does not mean that he wills it
with the force of a decree or a divine purpose, for, if he did, then all men
would be saved. He willed to make the world, and the world was made: he does not
so will the salvation of all men, for we know that all men will not be saved.
Terrible as the truth is, yet is it certain from holy writ that there are men
who, in consequence of their sin and their rejection of the Savior, will go away
into everlasting punishment, where shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of
teeth. There will at the last be goats upon the left hand as well as sheep on
the right, tares to be burned as well as wheat to be garnered, chaff to be blown
away as well as corn to be preserved. There will be a dreadful hell as well as a
glorious heaven, and there is no decree to the contrary. What then? Shall we try
to put another meaning into the text than that which it fairly bears? I trow
not. You must, most of you, be acquainted with the general method in which our
older Calvinistic friends deal with this text. "All men," say they, -- "that is,
some men": as if the Holy Ghost could not have said "some men" if he had meant
some men. "All men," say they; "that is, some of all sorts of men": as if the
Lord could not have said "all sorts of men" if he had meant that. The Holy Ghost
by the apostle has written "all men," and unquestionably he means all men. I
know how to get rid of the force of the "alls" according to that critical method
which some time ago was very current, but I do not see how it can be applied
here with due regard to truth. I was reading just now the exposition of a very
able doctor who explains the text so as to explain it away; he applies
grammatical gunpowder to it, and explodes it by way of expounding it. I thought
when I read his exposition that it would have been a very capital comment upon
the text if it had read, "Who will not have all men to be saved, nor come to a
knowledge of the truth." Had such been the inspired language every remark of the
learned doctor would have been exactly in keeping, but as it happens to say,
"Who will have all men to be saved," his observations are more than a little out
of place. My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views is not great enough
to allow me knowingly to alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect
for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a
hundred times over appear to be inconsistent with myself than be inconsistent
with the word of God. I never thought it to be any very great crime to seem to
be inconsistent with myself; for who am I that I should everlastingly be
consistent? But I do think it a great crime to be so inconsistent with the word
of God that I should want to lop away a bough or even a twig from so much as a
single tree of the forest of Scripture. God forbid that I should cut or shape,
even in the least degree, any divine expression. So runs the text, and so we
must read it, "God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth." Does not the text mean that it is the wish of
God that men should be saved? The word "wish" gives as much force to the
original as it really requires, and the passage should run thus -- "whose wish
it is that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth." As it
is my wish that it should be so, as it is your wish that it might be so, so it
is God's wish that all men should be saved; for, assuredly, he is not less
benevolent than we are. Then comes the question, "But if he wishes it to be so,
why does he not make it so? " Beloved friend, have you never heard that a fool
may ask a question which a wise man cannot answer, and, if that be so, I am sure
a wise person, like yourself, can ask me a great many questions which, fool as I
am, I am yet not foolish enough to try to answer. Your question is only one form
of the great debate of all the ages, -- "If God be infinitely good and powerful,
why does not his power carry out to the full all his beneficence?" It is God's
wish that the oppressed should go free, yet there are many oppressed who are not
free. It is God's wish that the sick should not suffer. Do you doubt it? Is it
not your own wish? And yet the Lord does not work a miracle to heal every sick
person. It is God's wish that his creatures should be happy. Do you deny that?
He does not interpose by any miraculous agency to make us all happy, and yet it
would be wicked to suppose that he does not wish the happiness of all the
creatures that he has made. He has an infinite benevolence which, nevertheless,
is not in all points worked out by his infinite omnipotence; and if anybody
asked me why it is not, I cannot tell. I have never set up to be an explainer of
all difficulties, and I have no desire to do so. It is the same old question as
that of the negro who said, "Sare, you say the devil makes sin in the world."
"Yes, the devil makes a deal of sin." "And you say that God hates sin." "Yes."
"Then why does not he kill the devil and put an end to it?" Just so. Why does he
not? Ah, my black friend, you will grow white before that question is answered.
I cannot tell you why God permits moral evil, neither can the ablest philosopher
on earth, nor the highest angel in heaven. This is one of those things which we
do not need to know. Have you never noticed that some people who are ill and are
ordered to take pills are foolish enough to chew them? That is a very nauseous
thing to do, though I have done it myself. The right way to take medicine of
such a kind is to swallow it at once. In the same way there are some things in
the Word of God which are undoubtedly true which must be swallowed at once by an
effort of faith, and must not be chewed by perpetual questioning. You will soon
have I know not what of doubt and difficulty and bitterness upon your soul if
you must needs know the unknowable, and have reasons and explanations for the
sublime and the mysterious. Let the difficult doctrines go down whole into your
very soul, by a grand exercise of confidence in God. I thank God for a thousand
things I cannot understand. When I cannot get to know the reason why, I say to
myself, "Why should I know the reason why? Who am I, and what am I, that I
should demand explanations of my God?" I am a most unreasonable being when I am
most reasonable, and when my judgment is most accurate I dare not trust it. I
had rather trust my God. I am a poor silly child at my very best: my Father must
know better than I. An old parable-maker tells us that he shut himself up in his
study because he had to work out a difficult problem. His little child came
knocking at the door, and he said "Go away, John: you cannot understand what
father is doing; let father alone." Master Johnny for that very reason felt that
he must get in and see what father was doing -- a true symbol of our proud
intellects; we must pry into forbidden things, and uncover that which is
concealed. In a little time upon the sill, outside the window, stood Master
Johnny, looking in through the window at his father; and if his father had not
with the very tenderest care just taken him away from that very dangerous
position, there would have been no Master Johnny left on the face of the earth
to exercise his curiosity in dangerous elevations. Now, God sometimes shuts the
door, and says, "My child, it is so: be content to believe." "But," we foolishly
cry. "Lord, why is it so?" "It is so, my child," he says. "But why, Father, is
it so?" "It is so, my child, believe me." Then we go speculating, climbing the
ladders of reasoning, guessing, speculating, to reach the lofty windows of
eternal truth. Once up there we do not know where we are, our heads reel, and we
are in all kinds of uncertainty and spiritual peril. If we mind things too high
for us we shall run great risks. I do not intend meddling with such lofty
matters. There stands the text, and I believe that it is my Father's wish that
"all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth." But I know,
also, that he does not will it, so that he will save any one of them, unless
they believe in his dear Son; for he has told us over and over that he will not.
He will not save any man except he forsakes his sins, and turns to him with full
purpose of heart: that I also know. And I know, also, that he has a people whom
he will save, whom by his eternal love he has chosen, and whom by his eternal
power he will deliver. I do not know how that squares with this; that is another
of the things I do not know. If I go on telling you of all that I do not know,
and of all that I do know, I will warrant you that the things that I do not know
will be a hundred to one of the things that I do know. And so we will say no
more about the matter, but just go on to the more practical part of the text.
God's wish about man's salvation is this, -- that men should be saved and come
to the knowledge of the truth.Men are saved, and the same men that are saved
come to a knowledge of the truth. The two things happen together, and the two
facts very much depend upon each other. God's way of saving men is not by
leaving them in ignorance. It is by a knowledge of the truth that men are saved;
this will make the main body of our discourse, and in closing we shall see how
this truth gives instruction to those who wish to be saved, and also to those
who desire to save others. May the Holy Spirit make these closing inferences to
be practically useful.Here is our proposition: IT IS BY A KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH
THAT MEN ARE SAVED.Observe that stress is laid upon the article: it is the
truth, and not every truth. Though it is a good thing to know the truth about
anything, and we ought not to be satisfied to take up with a falsehood upon any
point, yet it is not every truth that will save us. We are not saved by knowing
any one theological truth we may choose to think of, for there are some
theological truths which are comparatively of inferior value. They are not vital
or essential, and a man may know them, and yet may not be saved. It is the truth
which saves. Jesus Christ is the truth: the whole testimony of God about Christ
is the truth. The work of the Holy Ghost in the heart is to work in us the
truth. The knowledge of the truth is a large knowledge. It is not always so at
the first: it may begin with but a little knowledge, but it is a large knowledge
when it is further developed, and the soul is fully instructed in the whole
range of the truth.This knowledge of the grand facts which are here called the
truth saves men, and we will notice its mode of operation. Very often it begins
its work in a man by arousing him, and thus it saves him from carelessness. He
did not know anything about the truth which God has revealed, and so he lived
like a brute beast. If he had enough to eat and to drink he was satisfied. If he
laid by a little money he was delighted. So long as the days passed pretty
merrily, and he was free from aches and pains, he was satisfied. He heard about
religion, but he thought it did not concern him. He supposed that there were
some people who might be the better for thinking about it, but as far as he was
concerned, he thought no more about God or godliness than the ox of the stall or
the ostrich of the desert. Well, the truth came to him, and he received a
knowledge of it. He knew only a part, and that a very dark and gloomy part of
it, but it stirred him out of his carelessness, for he suddenly discovered that
he was under the wrath of God. Perhaps he heard a sermon, or read a tract, or
had a practical word addressed to him by some Christian friend, and he found out
enough to know that "he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath
not believed on the Son of God." That startled him. "God is angry with the
wicked every day:" -- that amazed him. He had not thought of it, perhaps had not
known it, but when he did know it, he could rest no longer. Then he came to a
knowledge of this farther truth, that after death there would be a judgment,
that he would rise again, and that, being risen, he would have to stand before
the judgment-seat of God to give an account of the things which he had done in
the body. This came home very strikingly to him. Perhaps, also, such a text as
this flamed forth before him, -- "For every idle word that man shall speak he
must give an account in the day of judgment." His mind began to foresee that
last tremendous day, when on the clouds of heaven Christ will conic and summon
quick and dead, to answer at his judgment-seat for the whole of their lives. He
did not know that before, but, knowing it, it startled and aroused him. I have
known men, when first they have come to a knowledge of this truth, become unable
to sleep. They have started up in the night. They have asked those who were with
them to help them to pray. The next day they have been scarcely able to mind
their business, for a dreadful sound has been in their ears. They feared lest
they should stumble into the grave and into hell. Thus they were saved from
carelessness. They could not go back to be the mere brute beasts they were
before. Their eyes had been opened to futurity and eternity. Their spirits had
been quickened -- at least so much that they could not rest in that doltish,
dull, dead carelessness in which they had formerly been found. They were shaken
out of their deadly lethargy by a knowledge of the truth. The truth is useful to
a man in another way: it saves him from prejudice. Often when men are awakened
to know something about the wrath of God they begin to plunge about to discover
divers methods by which they may escape from that wrath. Consulting, first of
all, with themselves, they think that, if they can reform -- give up their
grosser sins, and if they can join with religious people, they will make it all
right. And there are some who go and listen to a kind of religious teacher, who
says, "You must do good works. You must earn a good character. You must add to
all this the ceremonies of our church. You must be particular and precise in
receiving blessing only through the appointed channel of the apostolical
succession." Of the aforesaid mystical succession this teacher has the
effrontery to assure his dupe that he is a legitimate instrument; and that
sacraments received at his hands are means of grace. Under such untruthful
notions we have known people who were somewhat aroused sit down again in a false
peace. They have done all that they judged right and attended to all that they
were told. Suddenly, by God's grace, they come to a knowledge of another truth,
and that is that by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in
the sight of God. They discover that salvation is not by works of the law or by
ceremonies, and that if any man he under the law he is also under the curse.
Such a text as the following conies home, "Not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God"; and such another text as this, "Ye
must be born again," and then this at the back of it -- "that which is born of
the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." When they
also find out that there is necessary a righteousness better than their own -- a
perfect righteousness to justify them before God, and when they discover that
they must be made new creatures in Christ Jesus, or else they must utterly
perish, then they are saved from false confidences, saved from crying, "Peace,
peace," when there is no peace. It is a grand thing when a knowledge of the
truth stops us from trusting in a lie. I am addressing some who remember when
they were saved in that way. What an opening of the eyes it was to you! You had
a great prejudice against the gospel of grace and the plan of salvation by
faith; but when the Lord took you in hand and made you see your beautiful
righteousness to be a moth-eaten mass of rags, and when the gold that you had
accumulated suddenly turned into so much brass, cankered, and good for nothing,
-- when you stood stripped naked before God, and the poor cobwebs of ceremonies
suddenly dropped from off you, oh, then the Lord was working his salvation in
your soul, and you were being saved from false confidences by a knowledge of the
truth.Moreover, it often happens that a knowledge of the truth stands a man in
good stead for another purpose; it saves him from despair. Unable to be
careless, and unable to find comfort in false confidences, some poor agitated
minds are driven into a wide and stormy sea without rudder or compass, with
nothing but wreck before them. "There is no hope for me," says the man. "I
perceive I cannot save myself. I see that I am lost. I am dead in trespasses and
sins, and cannot stir hand or foot. Surely now I may as well go on in sin, and
even multiply my transgressions. The gate of mercy is shut against me; what is
the use of fear where there is no room for hope?" At such a time, if the Lord
leads the man to a knowledge of the truth, he perceives that though his sins be
as scarlet they shalt be as wool, and though they be red like crimson they shall
be as white as snow. That precious doctrine of substitution comes in -- that
Christ stood in the stead of the sinner, that the transgression of his people
was laid upon him, and that God, by thus avenging sin in the person of his dear
Son, and honoring his law by the suffering of the Savior, is now able to declare
pardon to the penitent and grace to the believing. Now, when the soul comes to
know that sin is put away by the atoning blood; when the heart discovers that it
is not our life that saves us, but the life of God that comes to dwell in us;
that we are not to be regenerated by our own actions, but are regenerated by the
Holy Ghost who comes to us through the precious death of Jesus, then despair
flies away, and the soul cries exultingly, "There is hope. There is hope. Christ
died for sinners: why should I not have a part in that precious death? He came
like a physician to heal the sick: why should he not heal me? Now I perceive
that he does not want my goodness, but my badness; he does not need my
righteousness, but my unrighteousness: for he came to save the ungodly and to
redeem his people from their sins. I say, when the heart comes to a knowledge of
this truth, then it is saved from despair; and this is no small part of the
salvation of Jesus Christ.A saving knowledge of the truth, to take another line
of things, works in this way. A knowledge of the truth shows a man his personal
need of being saved. O you that are not saved, and who dream you do not need to
be, you only require to know the truth, and you will perceive that you must he
saved or lost for ever. A knowledge of the truth reveals the atonement by which
we are saved: a knowledge of the truth shows us what that faith is by which the
atonement becomes available for us: a knowledge of the truth teaches us that
faith is the simple act of trusting, that it is not an action of which man may
boast; it is not an action of the nature of a work, so as to he a fruit of the
law; but faith is a self-denying grace which finds all its strength in him upon
whom it lives, and lays all its honor upon him. Faith is not self in action but
self forsaken, self abhorred, self put away that the soul may trust in Christ,
and trust in Christ alone. There are persons now present who are puzzled about
what faith is. We have tried to explain it a great many times to you, hut we
have explained it so that you did not understand it any the better; and yet the
same explanation has savingly instructed others. May God the Holy Ghost open
your understandings that you may practically know what faith is, and at once
exercise it. I suppose that it is a very hard thing to understand because it is
so plain. When a man wishes the way of salvation to be difficult he naturally
kicks at it because it is easy; and, when his pride wants it to be hard to be
understood, he is pretty sure to say that he does not understand it because it
is so plain. Do not you know that the unlettered often receive Christ when
philosophers refuse him, and that he who has not called ninny of the great, and
many of the mighty, has chosen poor, foolish, and despised things? That is
because poor foolish men, you know, are willing to believe a plain thing, but
men wise in their own conceits desire to be, if they can, a little confounded
and puzzled that they may please themselves with the idea that their own
superior intellect has made a discovery; and, because the way of salvation is
just so easy that almost an idiot boy may lay hold of it, therefore they pretend
that they do not understand it. Some people cannot see a thing because it is too
high up; but there are others who cannot see it because it is too low down. Now,
it so happens that the way of salvation by faith is so simple that it seems
beneath the dignity of exceedingly clever men. May God bring them to a knowledge
of this truth: may they see that they cannot be saved except by giving up all
idea of saving themselves; that they cannot be saved except they step right into
Christ, for, until they get to the end of the creature, they will never get to
the beginning of the Creator. Till they empty out their pockets of every mouldy
crust, and have not a crumb left; they cannot come and take the rich mercy which
is stored up in Christ Jesus for every empty, needy sinner. May the Lord be
pleased to give you that knowledge of the truth!When a man comes in very deed to
a knowledge of the truth about faith in Christ, he trusts Christ, and he is
there and then saved from the guilt of sin; and he begins to be saved altogether
from sin. God cuts the root of the power of sin that very day; hut yet it has
such life within itself that at the scent of water it will bud again. Sin in our
members struggles to live. It has as many lives as a cat: there is no killing
it. Now, when we conic to a knowledge of the truth, we begin to learn how sin is
to be killed in us -- how the same Christ that justifies, sanctifies, and works
in us according to his working who worketh in us mightily, that we may he
conformed to the image of Christ, and made meet to dwell with perfect saints
above. Beloved, many of you that are saved from the guilt of sin, have a very
hard struggle with the power of sin, and have much more conflict, perhaps, than
yon need to have, because you have not come to a knowledge of all the truth
about indwelling sin. I therefore beg you to study much the word of God upon
that point, and especially to see the adaptation of Christ to rule over your
nature, and to conquer all your corrupt desires, and learn how by faith to bring
each sin before him that, like Agag, it may be hewed in pieces before his eyes.
You will never overcome sin except by the blood of the Lamb. There is no
sanctification except by faith. The same instrument which destroys sin as to its
guilt must slay sin as to its power. "They overcame by the blood of the Lamb,"
and so must you. Learn this truth well, so shall you find salvation wrought in
you from day to day.Now, I think I hear somebody say, "I think I know all about
this." Yes, you may think you know it, and may not know anything at all about
it. " Oh, but," says one, "I do know it. I learned the Assembly's Catechism'
when I was a child. I have read the Bible ever since, and I am well acquainted
with all the commonplaces of orthodoxy." That may be, dear friend, and yet you
may not know the truth. I have heard of a man who knew how to swim, but, as he
had never been in the water, I do not think much of his knowledge of swimming:
in fact, he did not really know the art. I have heard of a botanist who
understood all about flowers, but as he lived in London, and scarcely ever saw
above one poor withered thing in a flowerpot, I do not think much of his botany.
I have heard of a man who was a very great astronomer, but he had not a
telescope, and I never thought much of his astronomy. So there are many persons
who think they know and yet do not know because they have never had any personal
acquaintance with the thing. A mere notional knowledge or a dry doctrinal
knowledge is of no avail. We must know the truth in a very different way from
that. How are we to know it, then? Well, we are to know it, first, by a
believing knowledge. You do not know a thing unless you believe it to be really
so. If you doubt it, you do not know it. If you say, "I really am not sure it is
true," then you cannot say that you know it. That which the Lord has revealed in
holy Scripture you must devoutly believe to be true. In addition to this, your
knowledge, if it becomes believing knowledge, must be personal knowledge -- a
persuasion that it is true in reference to yourself. It is true about your
neighbor, about your brother, but you must believe it about yourself, or your
knowledge is vain -- for instance, you must know that you are lost -- that you
are in danger of eternal destruction from the presence of God -- that for you
there is no hope but in Christ -- that for you there is hope if you rest in
Christ -- that resting in Christ you are saved. Yes, you. You must know that
because you have trusted in Christ you are saved, and that now you are free from
condemnation, and that now in you the new life has begun, which will fight
against the old life of sin, until it overcome, and you, even you, are safely
landed on the golden shore. There must be a personal appropriation of what you
believe to be true. That is the kind of knowledge which saves the soul.But this
must be a powerful knowledge, by which I mean that it must operate in and upon
your mind. A man is told that his house is on fire. I will suppose that standing
here I held up a telegram, and said, "My friend, is your name so-and-so?" "Yes."
"Well, your house is on fire." He knows the fact, does he not? Yes, but he sits
quite still. Now, my impression is about that good brother, that he does not
know, for he does not believe it. He cannot believe it, surely he may believe
that somebody's house is on fire, but not his own. If it is his house which is
burning, and he knows it, what does he do? Why he gets up and goes off to see
what he can do towards saving his goods. That is the kind of knowledge which
saves the soul -- when a man knows the truth about himself, and therefore his
whole nature is moved and affected by the knowledge. Do I know that I am in
danger of hell fire? And am I in my senses? Then I shall never rest till I have
escaped from that danger. Do I know that there is salvation for me in Christ?
Then I never shall be content until I have obtained that salvation by the faith
to which that salvation is promised: that is to say, if I really am in my
senses, and if my sin has not made me beside myself as sin does, for sin works a
moral madness upon the mind of man, so that he puts bitter for sweet and sweet
for bitter, and dances on the jaws of hell, and sits down and scoffs at Almighty
mercy, despises the precious blood of Christ and will have none of it, although
there and there only is his salvation to be found.This knowledge when it comes
really to save the soul is what we call experimental knowledge -- knowledge
acquired according to the exhortation of the psalmist, "Oh, taste and see that
the Lord is good" -- acquired by tasting. Now, at this present moment, I,
speaking for myself, know that I am origin ally lost by nature. Do I believe it?
Believe it? I am as sure of it as I am of my own existence. I know that I am
lost by nature. It would not be possible for anybody to make me doubt that: I
have felt it. How many weary days I spent under the pressure of that knowledge!
Does a soldier know that there is such a thing as a cat when he has had a
hundred lashes? It would take a deal of argument to make him believe there is
not such a thing, or that backs do not smart when they feel the lash. Oh, how my
soul smarted under the lash of conscience when I suffered under a sense of sin!
Do I know that I could not save myself? Know it? Why, my poor, struggling heart
labored this way and that, even as in the very fire with bitter disappointment,
for I labored to climb to the stars on a treadwheel, and I was trying and trying
and trying with all my might, but never rose an inch higher. I tried to fill a
bottomless tub with leaking buckets, and worked on and toiled and slaved, but
never accomplished even the beginning of my unhappy task. I know, for I have
tried it, that salvation is not in man, or in all the feelings, and weepings,
and prayings, and Bible readings, and church goings, and chapel goings which
zeal could crowd together. Nothing whatsoever that man does can avail him
towards his own salvation. This I know by sad trial of it, and failure in it.But
I do know that there is real salvation by believing in Christ. Know it? I have
never preached to you concerning that subject what I do not know by experience.
In a moment, when I believed in Christ I leaped from despair to fullness of
delight. Since I have believed in Jesus I have found myself totally new --
changed altogether from what I was; and I find now that, in proportion as I
trust in Jesus, I love God and try to serve him; but if at any time I begin to
trust in myself, I forget my God, and I become selfish and sinful. Just as I
keep on being nothing and taking Christ to be everything, so am I led in the
paths of righteousness. I am merely talking of myself, because a man cannot bear
witness about other people so thoroughly us he can about himself. I am sure that
all of you who have tried my Master can bear the same witness. You have been
saved, and you have come to a knowledge of the truth experimentally; and every
soul here that would be saved must in the same way believe the truth,
appropriate the truth, act upon the truth, and experimentally know the truth,
which is summed up in few words: -- "Man lost: Christ his Savior. Man nothing:
God all in all. The heart depraved: the Spirit working the new life by faith."
The Lord grant that these truths may come home to your hearts with power. I am
now going to draw two inferences which are to be practical. The first one is
this: in regard TO YOU THAT ARE SEEKING SALVATION. Does not the text show you
that it is very possible that the reason why you have not found salvation is
because you do not know the truth? Hence, I do most earnestly entreat the many
of you young people who cannot get rest to be very diligent searchers of your
Bibles. The first thing and the main thing is to believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, but if you say," I do not understand it," or "I cannot believe," or if
there be any such doubt rising in your mind, then it may be because you have not
gained complete knowledge of the truth. It is very possible that somebody will
say to you, "Believe, believe, believe." I would say the same to you, but I
should like you to act upon the common-sense principle of knowing what is to be
believed and in whom you are to believe. I explained this to one who came to me
a few evenings ago. She said that she could not believe. "Well," I said, "now
suppose as you sit in that chair I say to you, Young friend, I cannot believe in
you': you would say to me, I think you should.' Suppose I then replied, I wish I
could.' What would you bid me do? Should I sit still and look at you till I
said, I think I can believe in you'? That would be ridiculous. No, I should go
and enquire, Who is this young person? What kind of character does she bear?
What are her connections?' and when I knew all about you, then I have no doubt
that I should say, I have made examination into this young woman's character,
and I cannot help believing in her.'" Now, it is just so with Jesus Christ. If
you say, "I cannot believe in him," read those four blessed testimonies of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and especially linger much over those parts where
they tell you of his death. Do you know that many, while they have been sitting,
as it were, at the foot of the cross, viewing the Son of God dying for men, have
cried out, "I cannot help believing. I cannot help believing. When I see my sin,
it seems too great; hut when I see my Savior my iniquity vanishes away." I think
I have put it to you sometimes like this: if you take a ride through London,
from end to end, it will take you many days to get an idea of its vastness; for
probably none of us know the size of London. After your long ride of inspection
you will say," I wonder how those people can all be fed. I cannot make it out.
Where does all the bread come from, and all the butter, and all the cheese, and
all the meat, and everything else? Why, these people will be starved. It is not
possible that Lebanon with all its beasts, and the vast plains of Europe and
America should ever supply food sufficient for all this multitude." That is your
feeling. And then, to-morrow morning you get up, and you go to Covent Garden,
you go to the great meat-markets, and to other sources of supply, and when you
come home you say, "I feel quite different now, for now 1 cannot make out where
all the people come from to eat all this provision: I never saw such store of
food in all my life. Why, if there were two Londons, surely there is enough here
to feed them." Just so -- when you think about your sins and your wants you get
saying, "How can I be saved?" Now, turn your thoughts the other way; think that
Christ is the Son of God: think of what the merit must be of the incarnate God's
hearing human guilt; and instead of saying, "My sin is too great," you will
almost think the atoning sacrifice too great. Therefore I do urge you to try and
know more of Christ; and I am only giving you the advice of Isaiah, "Incline
your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live." Know, hear, read,
and believe more about these precious things, always with this wish -- "I am not
hearing for hearing's sake, and I am not wishing to know for knowing's sake, but
I am wanting to hear and to know that I may be saved." I want you to be like the
woman that lost her piece of silver. She did not light a candle and then say,
"Bravo, I have lit a candle, this is enough." She did not take her broom and
then sit down content, crying, "What a splendid broom." When she raised a dust
she did not exclaim, "What a dust I am making! I am surely making progress now."
Some poor sinners, when they have been seeking, get into a dust of soul-trouble,
and think it to be a comfortable sign. No, I'll warrant you, the woman wanted
her groat: she did not mind the broom, or the dust, or the candle; she looked
for the silver. So it must be with you. Never content yourself with the reading,
the hearing, or the feeling. It is Christ you want. It is the precious piece of
money that you must find; and you must sweep until you find it. Why, there it
is! There is Jesus! Take him! Take him! Believe him now, even now, and you are
saved.The last inference is for YOU WHO DESIRE TO SAVE SINNERS. You must, dear
friends, bring the truth before them when you want to bring them to Jesus
Christ. I believe that exciting meetings do good to some. Men are so dead and
careless that almost anything is to be tolerated that wakes them up; but for
real solid soul-work before God' telling men the truth is the main thing. What
truth? It is gospel truth, truth about Christ that they want. Tell it in a
loving, earnest, affectionate manner, for God wills that they should be saved,
not in any other way, but in this way -- by a knowledge of the truth. He wills
that all men should be saved in this way -- not by keeping them in ignorance,
but by bringing the truth before them. That is God's way of saving them. Have
your Bible handy when you are reasoning with a soul. Just say, "Let me call your
attention to this passage." It has a wonderful power over a poor staggering soul
to point to the Book itself. Say, "Did you notice this promise, my dear friend?
And have you seen that passage?" Have the Scriptures handy. There is a dear
brother of mine here whom God blesses to many souls, and I have seen him talking
to some, and turning to the texts very handily. I wondered how he did it so
quickly, till I looked in his Bible, and found that he hind the choice texts
printed on two leaves and inserted into the book, so that he could always open
upon them. That is a capital plan, to get the cheering words ready to hand, the
very ones that you know have comforted you and have comforted others. It
sometimes happens that one single verse of God's word will make the light to
break into a soul, when fifty days of reasoning would not do it. I notice that
when souls are saved it is by our texts rather than by our sermons. God the Holy
Ghost loves to use his own sword. It is God's word, not man's comment on God's
word, that God usually blesses. Therefore, stick to the quotation of the
Scripture itself, and rely upon the truth. If a man could be saved by a lie it
would be a lying salvation. Truth alone can work results that are true.
Therefore, keep on teaching the truth. God help you to proclaim the precious
truth about the bleeding, dying, risen, exalted, coming Savior; and God will
bless it. PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON -- 1 Timothy 2.HYMNS FROM
"Our Own Hymn Book" -- 551, 546, 556.LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON.DEAR FRIENDS, --
Accept again my heartiest salutations. I hope soon to issue sermons preached at
home on the previous Sabbaths, for I purpose, if the Lord will, to leave this
shelter on February 2, or thereabouts. Six weeks of continuous fine weather have
by God's blessing delivered me from my pains, and enabled me to regain a large
measure of strength; and the daily good tidings from home has also helped to
quiet my mind and revive my spirit. O that I may be the better for this
affliction. As after heavy showers the fountains and brooks run with new force
and fullness, so may it be with these sermons now that with me "the rain is over
and gone." If you, dear readers, are the more refreshed I shall count pain and
weakness to be a small cost for so blessed a result.Yours most heartilyC.H.
SpurgeonMenton, January 16, 1880.


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  CHAPTER 6: FOR THE CANDID AND THOUGHTFUL
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A Sermon (No.1517) Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Newington "And when Jesus saw" ["saw him," so it should be] "that he answered
discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." -- Mark
12:34. THIS MAN BEGAN with Christ as a foe, and he ended as a friend. It does
not quite appear from Mark, but it is plainly stated by Matthew, that the scribe
asked a question of the Savior "tempting him." He was, therefore, an enemy. Put
the mildest sense you like on the word "tempt" and it will retain the idea of an
unfriendly testing; yet nothing could be more hearty in the end than the verdict
with which he commended our Lord's answer, "Well, Master, thou hast said the
truth." Our Lord Jesus Christ has an almighty power over men's minds; he
possesses irresistible charms by which he turns adversaries into advocates. He
has a secret key which fits the wards of human hearts, and he can open that
which seems to be the most securely closed against him. "Never man spake like
this man," for in his voice, even in his humiliation, there were traces of the
eternal fiat which of old spake the primeval midnight into noon. It strikes me
that this scribe was half-hearted in the work of tempting our Lord, even at the
first. I should imagine him to have been a very superior man amongst his
fellows, a man of greater light and discernment than the rest, and of greater
ability in statement and discussion. Possibly for this cause his brother scribes
selected him, and put him forward to ask the testing questions. Now, it will
sometimes happen that a man is thrust forward by others to do what he would
never have thought of doing of his own accord, and quite unwillingly he acts as
the mouthpiece of a set of people whom he half despises. Our Lord Jesus Christ
is a ready reader of human hearts, and he very soon discovers whether what a man
does is being done of himself or whether he is acted upon by a power behind. He
discerns the difference between the malicious adversary and the less guilty
victim of circumstances. These words of mine may be reaching persons who have
opposed a religious movement, or fought against a gracious truth, not because
they themselves would have done so if they had been left alone, but others have
egged them on and made use of them, and thus they have been drawn or driven into
a false position. The people whom they have been accustomed to lead have led
them: it is too often the fate of leaders. The circle of which they have been
the center and the head has imprisoned its own apparent master, and made him
captive, so that he fights against that which in his heart he half suspects to
be right. If, even now, he could be set free from his surroundings he would side
with the right. Friend, my blessed Master can read your heart, and understand
the pressure under which you are acting. I pray that as he reads your inmost
soul he may see what of good there remaineth among the evil, and deliver you out
of the false and dangerous position into which you have drifted. Jesus can set
you right, my friend -- can take you away from the entanglements of your
surroundings, sever you from those who are making a tool of you, but who are at
the same time sinking you down to their own level: can bring you to be his own
friend, and lift you up to his own standard, so that you too shall be the
champion of everything that is good and true, and shall go forward with him as
your Master, bearing his cross, and looking to wear his crown. Although the
scribe in the narrative before us appeared first under the aspect of an
antagonist, and tried to tempt our Lord, yet before long the great Teacher had
put him into such a mental condition that he said of him, "Thou art not far from
the kingdom of God." At this time I shall first notice the commendation which is
here expressed; and then, in the second place, I shall dwell for a little while
upon the question which is here suggested -- suggested, I think, by no idle
curiosity, but very naturally suggested: Did this man, who was so near to the
kingdom, actually enter it, or did he not? I. May the Holy Spirit instruct and
impress us while, first, we consider the COMMENDATION EXPRESSED: -- "THOU art
not far from the kingdom of God." I am not going to use this text after the
usual fashion. It has been made the heading of a catalogue of characters who are
supposed to be not far from the kingdom of God. It is a very proper thing to
address hopeful persons, and to give descriptions of conditions about which
there is much that is cheering, and yet much to create anxiety; but the text
itself does not deal with many cases, but with one whom Jesus judged to be not
far from the kingdom of God, of whom it gives us such information that we see
why he was thus spoken of. It speaks of one particular individual: "Thou art not
far from the kingdom of God"; and it tells us that Jesus said this because he
saw that he answered discreetly. We may infer without fear of mistake that any
man who would answer as this man answered is not far from the kingdom of God.
Let us read his answer: "Master, thou hast said the truth; for there is one God,
and there is none other but he; and to love him with all the heart, and with all
the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love
his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices."
With care let us investigate this reply, and see how far it might be our own
language. The first point in which our Savior saw that the scribe was not far
from the kingdom of God was this, that he possessed candour, and possessed so
much of it that he rose superior to party considerations. He was a scribe, and
naturally he took the side of the scribes and pharisees, but still he was not so
much a scribe and pharisee that he would follow them against the truth. He kept
himself open to conviction, and as soon as the Savior had given a fitting answer
to the question, he did not, as other pharisees would have done, sneer at him,
and continue still to pick fresh holes in his coat, but, like a candid man, he
said, "Well, master, thou hast answered rightly"; and thus he did, as it were,
separate himself from the unjust and bigoted party for whom he had been the
temporary spokesman. He did not avow himself to be a disciple of Christ, yet he
gave the great Teacher his due, and said of him what he felt bound to say,
namely, that he had answered rightly. Now, my brethren, there is always some
hope of a man who is candid, and there is more hope still of one who, being
placed by circumstances amongst the bigoted and prejudiced, nevertheless breaks
away from bondage, keeps a conscience, preserves his eye from total blindness,
is willing to see light if light is to be had, and is anxious to know the truth
if the truth can be brought before him. It gives me great delight to meet with
such persons, even though they confess that they are of a sceptical turn of
mind, when it is clear that they are ready to yield to evidence, and are not
mere cavillers. Time is wasted upon men who have made up their minds, or who
have no minds to make up, but enquirers are worth trouble, and those who will
admit right and truth when they see it are among the most hopeful of hearers. We
do not wish people to open their mouths and shut their eyes and swallow
everything that we may like to give them, yet the mouth ought to be open, or at
least willing to be opened, as well as the eye, or oar service at the gospel
feast will be a weary task. When hearers are willing to receive the truth as
well as to examine what they hear, they are in a good state. They will not only
"prove all things," which a great many will do, but they are ready also to "hold
fast that which is good," which some will not do: among such persons was the
scribe. I will suppose that I am addressing one who has been brought up under a
system which makes little of Christ. Perhaps your form of religion makes much of
the priest, and of sacraments, but it does not say much of the atonement of the
Lord Jesus Christ. There are faiths which make more of human things than of our
divine Savior, the blessed Redeemer of sinners, and it may be that you profess
one of these. Or you may have hitherto lived under a religion which makes much
of your good works, and doings, and feelings, and so on. It may be that the Lord
will enable you to rise superior to the influence of creeds, of education, and
of association, and to say, "I only wish to know God's way of salvation. My
desire is to be guided by what the Lord has revealed. I am prepared to accept
whatever is plainly taught in the Word of God, even should it reverse all my
former beliefs, and deprive me of my most cherished consolations. With sincere
heart I ask enlightenment from the divine Spirit." Now, when we meet with a man
of that kind, and see him hearing the gospel, we may say of him, "Thou art not
far from the kingdom of God." These are the kind of people who feel the force of
truth, and are converted to the faith of Jesus, these straightforward people,
these hearty lovers of that which is good. The Savior called some men, "honest
and good ground," and they were such even before the seed of the word fell upon
them. Of course, even this natural openness and sincerity of character is God's
gift, but assuredly these are the people upon whom the heavenly work takes most
effect. Your tricksters, shufflers, players, make-believes, and men without
principle or heart, are seldom converted. I speak from wide observation. I have
seen scores of blustering blasphemers, who were downright in their profanity,
brought to Jesus' feet, but I do not remember seeing a deceitful person brought
there. Your deeply lying character -- I will not say that it is beyond the power
of grace to save him, but I will say this, it is the rarest thing under heaven
for a man who has long been a liar ever to be converted. I will say nothing in
the praise of human nature, nor give any reason for the absolutely free election
of grace, but still I notice that for the most part there is a sort of honest
openness and freedom from trickery about those whom the Lord calls to himself. I
notice that characteristic in the first fishermen apostles, who were no doubt
ignorant and weak, but they were as transparent as glass, and as free from guile
as Nathanael. Even in their follies, and their sins, and their blunders they
were always open-hearted, and so, in general, are those upon whom the Lord looks
with an eye of love. Tricksters come in like Judas, but they go out again, for
they are not of us. They experience no change from their association with
godliness, or from their knowledge of truth, but would pick the purse of Christ
himself, and sell their Redeemer for pieces of silver. Far otherwise is it with
a man of candid and thorough spirit, for he is glad to receive the gospel, and
it soon displays its gracious power in him. We may say of the candid man as
Christ did of this scribe, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."A second
point is, perhaps, even more clear. This man also possessed spiritual knowledge.
It is a great error to suppose that ignorance can do anybody any good. There is
a religion which prefers to have ignorant people to deal with, but we have
learned the truth of what Solomon said: "That the soul be without knowledge, it
is not good." To be ignorant of the law of God is to be far off from the
kingdom; and to be ignorant of the gospel is also to be in a measure far off
from the kingdom: but this man knew the law, and knew it well. He had a
spiritual appreciation of its range, meaning, and spirituality. Notice how he
puts it: he puts it well. He says, "To love God with all the heart, and with all
the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, -- this is
the first commandment." Here we see, first, that he mentions sincere love, in
the words "to love him with all the heart." God is to be loved, not in name, not
with lip language, not with mere pretense, but with the heart. God requireth by
his law the hearty obedience of his creatures. Next, the scribe puts it, "With
all thy understanding "; that is, God deserves and demands the intelligent love
of his creatures. He does not ask blind love of them: he desires them to know
something of him, and of his works, and of his claims upon them, so as to love
him because he deserves their affection. The understanding must justify and
impel the affections. Then, he puts it, "with all thy soul "; that is, with the
emotional nature. Love God with feeling -- not coolly, but with the whole force
of your feeling. Love him with your soul, for soul love is the soul of love. And
then he adds, "and with all thy strength "; that is to say, intensity is to be
thrown into our love to God. We are to serve him with our might, and throw all
our whole energy into his worship. Thus he gives us, under four heads, a
description of the kind of love which the law of God requires of us -- sincere
-- "with all thy heart"; intelligent -- "with all thy understanding"; emotional
-- "with all thy soul"; intense and energetic -- "with all thy strength." This
the scribe knew, and it was most valuable knowledge. Beloved, when a man begins
intelligently to grasp the doctrines of the law and the gospel, when we perceive
that he is no stranger to divine things, but that he can give a reason for his
beliefs, and can state them to others, although we dare not conclude because of
this knowledge that such a man is actually in the kingdom of God, we may safely
conclude that he is not far from it. Give us candor, and let that candour be
attended with enlightenment, and we are sure that the possessor of these things
is not far from the kingdom of God. A third point is more remarkable still,
because it is to be feared that hundreds of professed Christians are nothing
like so near to the kingdom of heaven as this man was. This scribe knew the
superiority of an inward religion over that which is external, for he declares,
To love him with all thy heart is more than whole burnt offerings and
sacrifices." Thousands at this hour are publicly teaching us that the principal
point of religion is that you shall be duly and properly baptized and confirmed,
and shall reverently and properly receive the sacrament. They lay stress upon
your receiving before you have your breakfast, and upon the breaker of the
sacred bread having been duly touched on the head by a bishop, and I do not know
what else of mere outward circumstance. Books have been written about how the
service is to be performed, and how it is not to be performed, and a great noise
has been made about a piece of bread which was brought before a court of law. I
believe a very great dignitary has been so weak as to certify that this baked
dough has been "reverently consumed": and yet this is not a heathen country, nor
are we worshippers of fetishes! Great importance is attached to the style of
garment, which should be worn by priests on Holy Monday, or Good Friday. Colours
vary according to the almanack, and the age of the moon. I must confess I need
all my gravity when I think of copes, and girdles, and surplices, and gowns
being matters of serious discussion. Surely these poor dupes of superstition are
far, very far, from the kingdom of God, which is not meat and drink, nor
clothing, nor posture, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Their whole line of thought is alien to the mind of God, who is a spirit, and
must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. In the whole business of exhibitional
religion what is there to content the soul? What can there be in it to please
God? If our God were a royal puppet I could conceive of his being pleased with
ceremonial; or if he were like the heathens' idiotic deities I could understand
that mummeries, masquerades, postures, processions, robes, and round-robins
might please him; but seeing that he is God, the only wise, be it far from me to
dream of such a thing. Such child's play can scarce be borne with by full-grown
men, but for that glorious mind that filleth all immensity to be thought to be
particular about the cut and color of a vestment seems to me to be little short
of blasphemy. When the thing was typical of truth yet to be revealed, it was
important; but now that the true light has risen, and the shadows have departed,
no such explanation is possible. Can it really be true that courts of law and
assemblies of the church discuss the question of men's turning to the east or to
the west when they pray? Is it thought to be of some consequence how men shall
turn, and twist, and bend? What god is this that they serve? What being is this
that they adore? Certainly not Jehovah, the God of heaven, whom we worship, for
he "dwelleth not in temples made with hands," that is to say, of this building;
and he hath abolished all rubrics save this: -- "they that worship him must
worship him in spirit and in truth." Only spiritual worship is worship, and only
as the heart adores does God accept the homage which is offered to him. This
scribe knew that even whole burnt offerings, though God had ordained them, and
they were therefore right, and sacrifices, though the law had settled them, and
they were therefore due, were nothing when compared with loving God with all the
heart and with all the soul. He expresses this most plainly that "to love God
with all the heart is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." And
see how broadly he puts it -- "All whole burnt offerings and sacrifices" put
together. If they could slay all the bullocks upon a thousand hills, and set
Lebanon's self on fire, making it one huge altar upon which the holocaust should
smoke, and even if they should pour out rivers of oil, and side by side with it
ran streams of blood of fat beasts, yet all would be nothing. Who hath required
this at their hands? The Lord's demands are not of this sort. "Sacrifice and
offering thou wouldest not." What God asks is that we should love him first of
all, and our neighbor as ourselves. Now, a man who has come so far as to shake
off the superstition of confidence in external worship is not far from the
kingdom of God. He who knows that if saved it will be by a spiritual change, and
not by going to a place of worship, not by repeating prayers, not by joining a
church, not by being baptized, not by taking the sacrament, knows more than
many; and he who also knows that loving God with all his heart is an absolutely
needful evidence of his being a child of God, and longs to feel that love, is
not far from the kingdom. A sense of the value and necessity of spiritual
religion is a most hopeful sign. I do not say that it is a sure sign of saving
grace; but I am sure it is a token of being very near the kingdom. Oh that the
man would take the one step which is now needed by turning his knowledge into
practice! Oh that he would believe with all his heart, and live! Another point
is manifest in this man's confession; he saw very plainly the supremacy of God
over the whole of our manhood. It was clear to him that there was but one God,
and that man was made on purpose to be one and undivided in his service. He
perceived that man should love, honor, and serve that one God with all his
heart, with all his heart, with all his understanding, with all his soul, and
with all his strength. Do you know that, dear friend? Come now, if you are not a
saved man, I will ask you -- do you recognize this to be true, that it is your
bounden duty to serve your God with all your heart and understanding, and soul,
and strength? Do you admit this? If you do, and if you are an honest man, you
are not far from the kingdom of God, because honest men earnestly endeavor to
pay their debts, and when they find that they cannot, they are distressed. If
you are in distress of mind because you cannot meet your obligations to God,
then you are not far from the kingdom. I rejoice in your discovery of
shortcoming, failure, and inability, for these lie near that hearty penitence
which is the sister of saving faith, and the sure herald of joy and peace. When
a man feels his own inability to do as he ought, when he trembles before the law
which, nevertheless, he honors and admits to be just and right, then he is not
far from self-renunciation, and from accepting that matchless righteousness
which Jesus Christ has come to bring. A consciousness of the supremacy of the
sovereignty of God over us, so that he ought to have every thought, every
breath, every pulse, is the work of the Spirit, who thereby convinces us of sin,
and it is a sweet sign of dawn in the once darkened soul. Admit that God ought
to be heartily loved, and you are not far from loving him; feel that you are
guilty for not loving, and the seeds of love are in your heart.Once more only.
Although this hopeful scribe recognized the value of spiritual religion, and the
need of heart-work, and of the heart being wholly given to God, yet he did not
despise outward religion so far as it was commanded of God. He says that to love
God is better than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices; which was an admission
that these things were good in their places. He was no rejecter of ceremonies
which are commanded, because of the superstition of will-worshippers who invent
ceremonies. We are not to give up the baptism of believers because of the
unscriptural rite of infant sprinkling, nor to forsake the Lord's Supper because
of the popish mass. Ordinances of God are good in their places, and what is to
be dreaded is the perversion of them by thrusting them into the place of better
and more important matters. Thus the scribe showed a well-balanced mind all
round, and proved himself not far from the kingdom of God.My dear friend, are
you prepared to lay hold of truth wherever you find it? Are you prepared to
break away from party ties and family prejudices? Are you prepared to believe
that the inward and spiritual part of religion is infinitely superior to the
external part of it, be it right or be it wrong? Do you also admit the divine
supremacy of God, and his right to you in all respects? And are you willing to
take ordinances, such as he has ordained, in their place, and not out of it?
Then, if all these things be in you, your character resembles that of this
scribe of whom Jesus said, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." I am
right glad to meet with you, for you are not far from submitting to the divine
authority, since you are already found admitting its right to you. I trust you
are not far from entering into the realm of spiritual religion, for you already
value it. You are not far from the privilege of being wholly renewed in heart,
since you see the need of it. How glad I am that you should be now listening to
the gospel! Happier still shall I be if God shall help me to say the right word
to you at this good hour. The Lord send it!II. Our second point is THE QUESTION
SUGGESTED -- this man came so near to the kingdom: did he ever enter it? We do
not know. If anybody were to assert that he did not I should be ready to
question his statement. If anybody were to declare that he did I should at once
demand his authority for the assertion. We receive no information from the
Scriptures, and it is always better where the word of God is silent to be silent
ourselves. We should also observe another very good rule if you have to judge of
a man's state, and know but little of it, always judge it favourably. Judges
usually give a prisoner the benefit of the doubt; and when a man is not a
prisoner, when he has come so far towards grace as this scribe, let us at any
rate hope that he did enter into the kingdom.I see no reason why he should not
have done so; and that is my first answer to the question. He should have done
so. Having come so far there were many doors by which, God's Spirit being with
him, he might have entered into the kingdom; I mean doors of thought, by which
the Holy Spirit would readily have led his candid mind into the faith of Christ.
I will show you one. There was in after years another scribe, a rabbi -- you
will recollect his name -- who said, "I consent unto the law, that it is good;
but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched
man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God,
through Jesus Christ our Lord." You see the process of thought. It is a very
simple one. This scribe sees the law of God to be a spiritual law, demanding the
obedience of his heart, his understanding, his soul, and his strength. If he had
thought awhile he would, as a candid man, have said, "I have not kept this law.
What is more, I cannot keep it. If I try to keep it I find a something within me
against which I struggle, but which, nevertheless, brings me into captivity to
another law -- a law of selfishness, a law of sin." Then, as a man anxious to be
right, he would have said, "How can I be delivered? Oh that I might be set free
to keep the law of God! I cannot abide in this bondage. I ought to keep this
law, I shall never be happy till I do love God with all my heart, for he ought
to be so loved, and I perceive that there can be no heaven to a heart which does
not love God intensely, for this is one of the essentials of peace and rest. How
can I get at it?" In such a condition as that, if he had heard the sweet
invitation of our Lord, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest," would he not have leaped at the sound? Do you not see
the simple doorway for such a man as that to become a Christian? He had come so
far that surely he should come a little farther. Let us trust that he did. At
any rate, if any of you have come so far, may God's sweet Spirit lead you to
take those other steps, and to enter into the kingdom, submitting to the sweet
sovereignty of the Prince Immanuel, whose scepter is of silver, and whose
servitude is an honor and a delight to all his subjects. That is one door; now
follow with me another track. Suppose this man had really loved God with all his
heart, and understanding, and soul, and strength -- I will not say perfectly,
for that would be supposing an impossibility, but supposing that he had truly
and sincerely loved God, he could not have been an hour in the company of the
Lord Jesus without feeling the deepest union of heart to him. Would he not have
exclaimed, "This man, too, loves God with all his heart"? He must have perceived
it, for the zeal which Christ had for the Father was immeasurable; it flashed in
every gleam of his eye, it tinctured every word that fell from his lips. Jesus
lived for God, and glorified the Father with all his heart and soul, and any
person who truly loved God would soon have perceived that fact. "Ah!" he would
have exclaimed, "here is one who loves God better than I do; here is one who
honors God more than I do; here is one who is more consecrated, more devoted,
more godlike than I am." By that door he would have been led to admiration of
Jesus, to communion with him, and ultimately to belief in him as the Messiah.
Let us hope that the scribe was so led, for the way is plain enough. At any
rate, if God in his grace has led any man here to love the Father, I am
persuaded that he will love the Son; for he that loveth him that begat, loveth
him also that is begotten of him. My hearer, thou art certainly not far from the
kingdom of God if thou hast come so far as to love God, even though thou knowest
little as yet of his only begotten Son. God help you to take that one other
step.Here is another door. You notice that he said that to love God was more
than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. Now, suppose that with that in his
mind, he had sat down, and said, "This loving God is the main thing; why, then,
is the law encumbered with burnt offerings and sacrifices? If they really are
inferior to the moral precepts, and especially to the spiritual precepts, why
are they there at all?" Then methinks he would have seen that they must be there
for a spiritual purpose. And suppose he had begun to try and read the meaning of
the paschal lamb, or of the daily lamb, or of the sin-offering, why, methinks,
if he turned to that blessed fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and began to read it
in order to understand the sacrifices of the old law, it would have happened to
him as it did to the eunuch when Philip opened to him the Scriptures -- he would
have seen Jesus in them all. He must have seen him. And if you, dear friend,
have come to see the right place of gospel ordinances through candidly searching
out their meaning, you have seen that their whole teaching is Christ Jesus, the
sacrifice for sin. There is nothing in the two great gospel ordinances but
Christ. Christ's sufferings, death, burial, and resurrection set forth in
baptism: Christ's death set forth until he come at the communion table -- life
given us by our Savior's death, and life sustained by the same means. Jesus is
the body of the ordinances of the Old Testament, and the soul of those of the
New. If you are but candid enough to desire to push through the veil, and get at
the real meaning of every outward ordinance, you will see Jesus ere long.There
is another road by which the scribe might have been led to the Savior. Think
again. Suppose that he had continued to glow and burn with love to God. As that
love grew the understanding would also become enlightened with it, and the soul
would rise towards God. You know why that would be. It must be because the Holy
Spirit was in the man, for no man loveth God or striveth to love God, with all
his heart, and understanding, and soul, and strength, without there being in
secret and unknown to him a divine power at the back impelling him in that
direction. Now, do you think that the Holy Spirit would thus work in the man and
not reveal Christ to him for his salvation? I cannot believe it. I am persuaded
that, coming as that man did under the gospel of Christ, he would be by his
candour, by his love of God, by the influence of the divine Spirit, in such a
state of mind that, as when sparks fall upon dry tinder they ignite at once, so
would the words of Jesus fall upon a mind prepared of the Spirit of God. That
scribe was, therefore, not far from the kingdom of God. I do hope that there are
some such hearts present at this hour. Some of you, I trust, can say, "Oh that I
had Christ! I would give my eyes for him." If you mean that, why do you not have
him? He is to be had for nothing. "Oh," says another, "I would die if I might
have him and be saved." Why not live, and be saved? "Oh, but I would give
anything." Why not leave off the idea of giving, and take freely what Jesus
presents to you? But yet that very desire of yours -- that longing of yours --
proves that you are not far from the kingdom of God. My heart's desire is that
as you have come so far you may now yield yourselves up to Jesus. That is the
way of salvation: have done with self-salvation and let Jesus save you. When a
man is in the water, if he kicks and struggles he will drown, but if he lies
still he will float. When another comes to help, if he will be passive he will
be saved, but all that he can do will hinder his deliverance. Be passive in the
hands of Christ till he gives you life to be active with. Be nothing, and let
him be everything. Trust him wholly and alone. Drop into his arms, and let him
bear the weight of your sins and sorrows, and it shall not be said of you any
longer that you are not far from the kingdom of God, but it shall be sung on
earth and in heaven -- "He has returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls,
glory be to God!" Still, as I have said, there is the dark supposition that
perhaps the scribe never did enter the kingdom. He may have been so near to the
kingdom, and yet he may have lacked the one thing needful. If it were so, it was
a grievous fact; and all we can now do is to profit by it. What could have been
the reason why he did not enter the kingdom? I cannot tell, we know so little of
him; but if we might infer from the little we do know, I should suppose that if
he did not enter it was from the unworthy motive of being swayed by his
fellow-men. We judged that when he came to Christ to put the question, he came
not of his own mind and motion. We began by thinking that he seemed half-hearted
in his opposition, and that so he the more readily turned from a questioner into
a candid admirer. It is, however, just possible that, being the spokesman for
others, he had grown fond of taking the lead; and if he did not really enter the
kingdom, it may have been because he would have lost his place in the front rank
of scribe and pharisee, and this was too great a price to pay for truth and
righteousness. I have known a man deeply impressed with religious things, and
feeling his way aright; but a little company of half a dozen whom he met in the
evening, of whom he was the leading spirit, have sufficed to hold him in
bondage. They invite him to come again; they miss his genial society, his jest,
his song, his merry talk. He cannot face it out, and tell them that he has a
call elsewhere, a call to nobler things. He has not the resolute will to lead
them in another direction, and dreads even to make the attempt. He wants to be
the leading man; and so he gives up what his conscience suggests to him rather
than not be the leader of men whom in his heart he must know to be unworthy of
such a homage. In his own mind he thinks them fools; but, still, he is afraid
that they should think him so, and therefore he becomes a greater and more
guilty fool than they. Oh. that fear of men, that fear of men! You may meet with
here and there a man of the better sort who begins to feel, "Yes, there is the
light there: light worth having." He breaks away from his party, and its
surroundings, and for a while is eager for the truth, which he has half
discovered; but he fears the cold shoulder which society would give him, dreads
the jeer of "Sir John," and the sneer of "My Lord." The half-opened eye is
closed with saddest determination from fear ot other children of darkness, who
would mock at its better sight. This is a sight which might make an angel weep.
Jesus is sold, but not for so much as clinked in the hand of Judas; he is
bartered for a fool's smile, and for the company of the vain and frivolous. Ah
me, that ever the sun should behold so dread a sight! Multitudes who know the
truth, and are not far from the kingdom of God, nevertheless, never enter it,
because of the fear of man, the love of approbation, the horror of being laughed
at and jested at. With such vile fetters immortal souls are bound for execution,
and held back from everlasting blessedness. There is something very beautiful
about many a young man of enquiring mind, and if you could transplant him, and
set him in another soil, you might make something of him; but not in that shop,
where all his fellows would make him the butt of their mirth if he were really a
Christian, not in that work-room, where all the artisans would swear and chaff
if he were but to avow his half-formed convictions. Want of courage, want of
self-denial, is that fatal flaw which ruins what else had been a gem in the
Redeemer's crown. All brave hearts mournfully pronounce that he is justly lost
who is not bold enough to own his Savior, and the truth."I had as lief not be,
as live to beIn awe of such a thing as I myself."Afraid of another man! Am I
then myself a man? Or am I but the mere mockery of manhood? Oh, sirs, let your
manhood come to the rescue. God grant you grace to say, "What can it matter to
me what men say as long as I am right?" They cannot break bones with their
jests; and if they did, there have been Christians who have not only suffered
the breaking of their bones, but the burning of their whole bodies for Christ's
sake sooner than deny his sacred claims. What did Jesus say? "He that loseth his
life for my sake shall find it." He who, to gain the whole world, would keep
back a solitary truth, is a huge loser for his pains. He is mean and base, and
not worthy to be numbered amongst those who follow the Lamb whithersoever he
goeth. Oh! if I speak to one who hesitates, let me remind him that, however it
may look to-night to be a daring step to be decided for Christ, it will look
very differently soon when the great trumpet shall sound, and ring o'er earth
and sea, and the dead shall rise, and the judgment-seat shall be set, and the
great white throne shall be unveiled. Then it will be seen to be a far more
desperate daring to deny the Lord even to save life itself. What will the
cowards do in that day who, to please men, forsook their Lord? What will they do
who suppressed truth and stifled conscience when the Shepherd begins to divide
the goats and the sheep from each other? Ay, what will they do who find
themselves driven with the goats, though once they half decided to be numbered
with the sheep? They were near the fold, but never entered. What will they feel
when he shall say, "Depart! Depart! I know you not. You knew not me in the day
of my humiliation. You were ashamed of me in the world. You blushed at. my name.
You covered up what was in your conscience in order to avoid man's laughter and
rebuke. You knew not me, and now I know not you. Depart! Depart!" In proportion
to the light against which you have shut your eyes will be your horror when that
light shall blind you into eternal night. In proportion to the violence which
you have done to your consciences will be the terror which your awakened
consciences will work in you. In proportion to the nearness of the kingdom
within which you came shall be the dreadful distance to which you will be
driven. I was thinking that, if the Lord were to pay men in their own coin, what
an awful thing it would be if those who are now not far from the kingdom were
told by the Lord, "You shall stay there for ever. You, who heard the gospel, and
did not accept it, must stop where you are." Halt, sir! not a step more! Close
to the gates of heaven -- you stop there! To hear its music for ever, and to
gnash your teeth for ever, because you cannot join in it! To hear the songs of
the righteous, while you wail for ever! To know the brightness of bliss, but to
be yourself in the black darkness for ever! To be within an inch of heaven, and
yet in hell! The living water flowing at your feet, and yet your tongue for ever
parched! The bread of life nigh at hand, and yet you cannot eat! Oh, think of
it! Eternally not far from the kingdom! If you would not wish to be so, oh, be
not out of Christ another minute! May God's Spirit enable you to leap right away
from your undecided condition into living faith and loving obedience to
Christ."So near to the Kingdom! yet what dost thou lack?So near to the Kingdom!
what keepeth thee back?Renounce every idol, tho' dear it may be,And come to the
Savior now pleading with thee."LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON.DEAR FRIENDS, -- Nothing
remains to report to you but my hope of being in my own pulpit on Feb.8. I beg
you to join with me in thanks to the healing Lord for this restoration. The Lord
bringeth down to the grave and raiseth up again, and to him be praise for
ever.It would be a great favor to me personally, and a means of good to many, if
the readers of the sermons would aid in increasing their circulation. They are
already very widely scattered, but if twice the number could be sent abroad we
might look for double fruit. After standing the test of twenty-five years the
Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit may be pardoned if it asks those who profit by
the sermons to introduce them to others.May future discourses be more full of
unction and power, and so may you, dear readers, reap a harvest from my pains
and sicknesses.Yours ever heartily,C.H. SpurgeonMenton, January 22, 1879.


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  CHAPTER 7: BELOVED, AND YET AFFLICTED
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Notes of a Sermon (No.1518) PREACHED BEFORE AN AUDIENCE OF INVALID LADIES AT
MENTONE, BY C. H. SPURGEON, "Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick." -- John
11:3. THAT DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVED is not at all backward to record that Jesus
loved Lazarus too: there are no jealousies among those who are chosen by the
Well-beloved. Jesus loved Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus: it is a happy thing
where a whole family live in the love of Jesus. They were a favoured trio, and
yet, as the serpent came into Paradise, so did sorrow enter their quiet
household at Bethany. Lazarus was sick. They all felt that if Jesus were there
disease would flee at his presence; what then should they do but let him know of
their trial? Lazarus was near to death's door, and so his tender sisters at once
reported the fact to Jesus, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick."
Many a time since then has that same message been sent to our Lord, for in full
many a case he has chosen his people in the furnace of affliction. Of the Master
it is said, "himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses," and it is,
therefore, no extraordinary thing for the members to be in this matter conformed
to their Head. I. Notice, first, A FACT mentioned in the text: "Lord, behold, he
whom thou lovest is sick." The sisters were somewhat astonished that it should
be so, for the word "behold" implies a measure of surprise. "We love him, and
would make him well directly: thou lovest him, and yet he remains sick. Thou
canst heal him with a word, why then is thy loved one sick?" Have not you, dear
sick friend, often wondered how your painful or lingering disease could be
consistent with your being chosen, and called, and made one with Christ? I dare
say this has greatly perplexed you, and yet in very truth it is by no means
strange, but a thing to be expected. We need not be astonished that the man whom
the Lord loves is sick, for he is only a man. The love of Jesus does not
separate us from the common necessities and infirmities of human life. Men of
God are still men. The covenant of grace is not a charter of exemption from
consumption, or rheumatism, or asthma. The bodily ills, which come upon us
because of our flesh, will attend us to the tomb, for Paul saith, "we that are
in this body do groan." Those whom the Lord loves are the more likely to be
sick, since they are under a peculiar discipline. It is written, "Whom the Lord
loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Affliction of
some sort is one of the marks of the true-born child of God, and it frequently
happens that the trial takes the form of illness. Shall we therefore wonder that
we have to take our turn in the sick chamber? If Job, and David, and Hezekiah
must each one smart, who are we that we should be amazed because we are in
ill-health? Nor is it remarkable that we are sick if we reflect upon the great
benefit which often flows from it to ourselves. I do not know what peculiar
improvement may have been wrought in Lazarus, but many a disciple of Jesus would
have been of small use if he had not been afflicted. Strong men are apt to be
harsh, imperious, and unsympathetic, and therefore they need to be put into the
furnace, and melted down. I have known Christian women who would never have been
so gentle, tender, wise, experienced, and holy if they had not been mellowed by
physical pain. There are fruits in God's garden as well as in man's which never
ripen till they are bruised. Young women who are apt to be volatile, conceited,
or talkative, are often trained to be full of sweetness and light by sickness
after sickness, by which they are taught to sit at Jesus' feet. Many have been
able to say with the psalmist, "It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I
might learn thy statutes." For this reason even such as are highly favoured and
blessed among women may feel a sword piercing through their hearts. Oftentimes
this sickness of the Lord's loved ones is for the good of others. Lazarus was
permitted to be sick and to die, that by his death and resurrection the apostles
might be benefited. His sickness was "for the glory of God." Throughout these
nineteen hundred years which have succeeded Lazarus' sickness all believers have
been getting good out of it, and this afternoon we are all the better because he
languished and died. The church and the world may derive immense advantage
through the sorrows of good men: the careless may be awakened, the doubting may
be convinced, the ungodly may be converted, the mourner may be comforted through
our testimony in sickness; and if so, would we wish to avoid pain and weakness?
Are we not quite willing that our friends should say of us also "Lord, behold,
he whom thou lovest is sick"? II. Our text, however, not only records a fact,
but mentions A REPORT of that fact: the sisters sent and told Jesus. Let us keep
up a constant correspondence with our Lord about everything."Sing a hymn to
Jesus, when thy heart is faint;Tell it all to Jesus, comfort or complaint."Jesus
knows all about us, but it is a great relief to pour out our hearts before him.
When John the Baptist's broken-hearted disciples saw their leader beheaded,
"they took up the body, and went and told Jesus." They could not have done
better. In all trouble send a message to Jesus, and do not keep your misery to
yourself. In his case there is no need of reserve, there is no fear of his
treating you with cold pride, or heartless indifference, or cruel treachery. He
is a confident who never can betray us, a friend who never will refuse us.There
is this fair hope about telling Jesus, that he is sure to support us under it.
If you go to Jesus, and ask, "Most gracious Lord, why am I sick? I thought I was
useful while in health, and now I can do nothing; why is this?" He may be
pleased to show you why, or, if not, he will make you willing to bear his will
with patience without knowing why. He can bring his truth to your mind to cheer
you, or strengthen your heart by his presence, or send you unexpected comforts,
and give you to glory in your afflictions. "Ye people, pour out your heart
before him: God is a refuge for us." Not in vain did Mary and Martha send to
tell Jesus, and not in vain do any seek his face.Remember, too, that Jesus may
give healing. It would not be wise to live by a supposed faith, and cast off the
physician and his medicines, any more than to discharge the butcher, and the
tailor, and expect to be fed and clothed by faith; but this would be far better
than forgetting the Lord altogether, and trusting to man only. Healing for both
body and soul must be sought from God. We make use of medicines, but these can
do nothing apart from the Lord, "who healeth all our diseases." We may tell
Jesus about our aches and pains, and gradual declinings, and hacking coughs.
Some persons are afraid to go to God about their health: they pray for the
pardon of sin, but dare not ask the Lord to remove a headache: and, yet, surely,
if the hairs outside our head are all numbered by God it is not much more of a
condescension for him to relieve throbs and pressures inside the head. Our big
things must be very little to the great God, and our little things cannot be
much less. It is a proof of the greatness of the mind of God that while ruling
the heavens and the earth, he is not so absorbed by these great concerns as to
be forgetful of the least pain or want of any one of his poor children. We may
go to him about our failing breath, for he first gave us lungs and life. We may
tell him about the eye which grows dim, and the ear which loses hearing, for he
made them both. We may mention the swollen knee, and the gathering finger, the
stiff neck, and the sprained foot, for he made all these our members, redeemed
them all, and will raise them all from the grave. Go at once, and say, "Lord,
behold, he whom thou lovest is sick."III. Thirdly, let us notice in the case of
Lazarus A RESULT which we should not have expected. No doubt when Mary and
Martha sent to tell Jesus they looked to see Lazarus recover as soon as the
messenger reached the Master; but they were not gratified. For two days the Lord
remained in the same place, and not till he knew that Lazarus was dead did he
speak of going to Judea. This teaches us that Jesus may be informed of our
trouble, and yet may act as if he were indifferent to it. We must not expect in
every case that prayer for recovery will be answered, for if so, nobody would
die who had chick or child, friend or acquaintance to pray for him. In our
prayers for the lives of beloved children of God we must not forget that there
is one prayer which may be crossing ours, for Jesus prays, "Father, I will that
they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold
my glory." We pray that they may remain with us, but when we recognize that
Jesus wants them above, what can we do but admit his larger claim and say, "Not
as I will, but as thou wilt"? In our own case, we may pray the Lord to raise us
up, and yet though he loves us he may permit us to grow worse and worse, and at
last to die. Hezekiah had fifteen years added to his life, but we may not gain
the reprieve of a single day. Never set such store by the life of any one dear
to you, or even by your own life, as to be rebellious against the Lord. If you
hold the life of any dear one with too tight a hand, you are making a rod for
your own back; and if you love your own earthly life too well, you are making a
thorny pillow for your dying bed. Children are often idols, and in such cases
their too ardent lovers are idolaters. We might as well make a god of clay, and
worship it, as the Hindus are said to do, as worship our fellow-creatures, for
what are they but clay? Shall dust be so dear to us that we quarrel with our God
about it? If our Lord leaves us to suffer, let us not repine. He must do that
for us which is kindest and best, for he loves us better than we love ourselves.
Did I hear you say, "Yes, Jesus allowed Lazarus to die, but he raised him up
again"? I answer, he is the resurrection and the life to us also. Be comforted
concerning the departed, "Thy brother shall rise again," and all of us whose
hope is in Jesus shall partake in our Lord's resurrection. Not only shall our
souls live, but our bodies, too, shall be raised incorruptible. The grave will
serve as a refining pot, and this vile body shall come forth vile no longer.
Some Christians are greatly cheered by the thought of living till the Lord
comes, and so escaping death. I confess that I think this no great gain, for so
far from having any preference over them that are asleep, those who are alive
and remain at his coming will miss one point of fellowship, in not dying and
rising like their Lord. Beloved, all things are yours, and death is expressly
mentioned in the list, therefore do not dread it, but rather "long for evening
to undress, that you may rest with God."IV. I will close with A QUESTION --
"Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus" -- does Jesus in a special
sense love you? Alas, many sick ones have no evidence of any special love of
Jesus towards them, for they have never sought his face, nor trusted in him.
Jesus might say to them "I never knew you," for they have turned their backs
upon his blood and his cross. Answer, dear friend, to your own heart this
question, "Do you love Jesus?" If so, you love him because he first loved you.
Are you trusting him? If so, that faith of yours is the proof that he has loved
you from before the foundation of the world, for faith is the token by which he
plights his troth to his beloved.If Jesus loves you, and you are sick, let all
the world see how you glorify God in your sickness. Let friends and nurses see
how the beloved of the Lord are cheered and comforted by him. Let your holy
resignation astonish them, and set them admiring your Beloved, who is so
gracious to you that he makes you happy in pain, and joyful at the gates of the
grave. If your religion is worth anything it ought to support you now, and it
will compel unbelievers to see that he whom the Lord loveth is in better case
when he is sick than the ungodly when full of health and vigour.If you do not
know that Jesus loves you, you lack the brightest star that can cheer the night
of sickness. I hope you will not die as you now are, and pass into another world
without enjoying the love of Jesus: that would be a terrible calamity indeed.
Seek his face at once, and it may be that your present sickness is a part of the
way of love by which Jesus would bring you to himself. Lord, heal all these sick
ones in soul and in body. Amen.


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  CHAPTER 8: THE HOLY SPIRIT'S INTERCESSION
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A Sermon (No.1532) Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 11th, 1880, by C. H.
SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington "Likewise the Spirit also
helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should what pray for as we
ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of
the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according the to will
of God." -- Romans 8:26,27. THE APOSTLE PAUL was writing to a tried and
afflicted people, and one of his objects was to remind them of the rivers of
comfort which were flowing near at hand. He first of all stirred up their pure
minds by way of remembrance as to their sonship, -- for saith he "as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." They were, therefore,
encouraged to take part and lot with Christ, the elder brother, with whom they
had become joint heirs; and they were exhorted to suffer with him, that they
might afterwards be glorified with him. All that they endured came from a
Father's hand, and this should comfort them. A thousand sources of joy are
opened in that one blessing of adoption. Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have been begotten into the family of grace. When
Paul had alluded to that consoling subject he turned to the next ground of
comfort -- namely, that we are to be sustained under present trial by hope.
There is an amazing glory in reserve for us, and though as yet we cannot enter
upon it, but in harmony with the whole creation must continue to groan and
travail, yet the hope itself should minister strength to us, and enable us
patiently to bear "these light afflictions, which are but for a moment." This
also is a truth full of sacred refreshment: hope sees a crown in reserve,
mansions in readiness, and Jesus himself preparing a place for us, and by the
rapturous sight she sustains the soul under the sorrows of the hour. Hope is the
grand anchor by whose means we ride out the present storm. The apostle then
turns to a third source of comfort, namely, the abiding of the Holy Spirit in
and with the Lord's people. He uses the word "likewise" to intimate that in the
same manner as hope sustains the soul, so does the Holy Spirit strengthen us
under trial. Hope operated spiritually upon our spiritual faculties, and so does
the Holy Spirit, in some mysterious way, divinely operate upon the new-born
faculties of the believer, so that he is sustained under his infirmities. In his
light shall we see light: I pray, therefore, that we may be helped of the Spirit
while we consider his mysterious operations, that we may not fall into error or
miss precious truth through blindness of heart. The text speaks of "our
infirmities," or as many translators put it in the singular -- of "our
infirmity." By this is intended our affliction, and the weakness which trouble
discovers in us. The Holy Spirit helps us to bear the infirmity of our body and
of our mind; he helps us to bear our cross, whether it be physical pain, or
mental depression, or spiritual conflict, or slander, or poverty, or
persecution. He helps our infirmity; and with a helper so divinely strong we
need not fear for the result. God's grace will be sufficient for us; his
strength will be made perfect in weakness. I think, dear friends, you will all
admit that if a man can pray, his trouble is at once lightened. When we feel
that we have power with God and can obtain anything we ask for at his hands,
then our difficulties cease to oppress us. We take our burden to our heavenly
Father and tell it out in the accents of childlike confidence, and we come away
quite content to bear whatever his holy will may lay upon us. Prayer is a great
outlet for grief; it draws up the sluices, and abates the swelling flood, which
else might be too strong for us. We bathe our wound in the lotion of prayer, and
the pain is lulled, the fever is removed. We may be brought into such
perturbation of mind, and perplexity of heart, that we do not know how to pray.
We see the mercy-seat, and we perceive that God will hear us: we have no doubt
about that, for we know that we are his own favoured children, and yet we hardly
know what to desire. We fall into such heaviness of spirit, and entanglement of
thought, that the one remedy of prayer, which we have always found to be
unfailing, appears to be taken from us. Here, then, in the nick of time, as a
very present help in time of trouble, comes in the Holy Spirit. He draws near to
teach us how to pray, and in this way he helps our infirmity, relieves our
suffering, and enables us to bear the heavy burden without fainting under the
load. At this time our subjects for consideration shall be, firstly, the help
which the Holy Spirit gives; secondly, the prayers which he inspires; and
thirdly, the success which such prayers ore certain to obtain.I. First, then,
let us consider THE HELP WHICH THE HOLY GHOST GIVES.The help which the Holy
Ghost renders to us meets the weakness which we deplore. As I have already said,
if in time of trouble a man can pray, his burden loses its weight. If the
believer can take anything and everything to God, then he learns to glory in
infirmity, and to rejoice in tribulation; but sometimes we are in such confusion
of mind that we know not what we should pray for as we ought. In a measure,
through our ignorance, we never know what we should pray for until we are taught
of the Spirit of God, but there are times when this beclouding of the soul is
dense indeed, and we do not even know what would help us out of our trouble if
we could obtain it. He see the disease, but the name of the medicine is not
known to us. We look over the many things which we might ask for of the Lord,
and we feel that each of them would be helpful, but that none of them would
precisely meet our case. For spiritual blessings which we know to be according
to the divine will we could ask with confidence, but perhaps these would not
meet our peculiar circumstances. There are other things for which we are allowed
to ask, but we scarcely know whether, if we had them, they would really serve
our turn, and we also feel a diffidence as to praying for them. In praying for
temporal things we plead with measured voices, ever referring our petition for
revision to the will of the Lord. Moses prayed that he might enter Canaan, but
God denied him; and the man that was healed asked our Lord that he might be with
him, but he received for answer, "Go home to thy friends." We pray evermore on
such matters with this reserve, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."
At times this very spirit of resignation appears to increase our spiritual
difficulty, for we do not wish to ask for anything that would be contrary to the
mind of God and yet we must ask for something. We are reduced to such straits
that we must pray, but what shall be the particular subject of prayer we cannot
for a while make out. Even when ignorance and perplexity are removed, we know
not what we should pray for "as we ought." When we know the matter of prayer, we
yet fail to pray in a right manner. We ask, but we are afraid that we shall not
have, because we do not exercise the thought, or the faith, which we judge to be
essential to prayer. We cannot at times command even the earnestness which is
the life of supplication: a torpor steals over us, our heart is chilled, our
hand is numbed, and we cannot wrestle with the angel. We know what to pray for
as to objects, but we do not know what to pray for "as we ought" it is the
manner of the prayer which perplexes us, even when the matter is decided upon.
How can I pray? My mind wanders: I chatter like a crane; I roar like a beast in
pain; I moan in the brokenness of my heart, but oh, my God, I know not what it
is my inmost spirit needs; or if I know it, I know not how to frame my petition
aright before thee. I know not how to open my lips in thy majestic presence: I
am so troubled that I cannot speak. My spiritual distress robs me of the power
to pour out my heart before my God. Now, beloved, it is in such a plight as this
that the Holy Ghost aids us with his divine help. and hence he is "a very
present help in time of trouble."Coming to our aid in our bewilderment he
instructs us. This is one of his frequent operations upon the mind of the
believer: "he shall teach you all things." He instructs us as to our need, and
as to the promises of God which refer to that need. He shows us where our
deficiencies are, what our sins are, and what our necessities are; he sheds a
light upon our condition, and makes us feel deeply our helplessness, sinfulness,
and dire poverty; and then he casts the same light upon the promises of the
Word, and lays home to the heart that very text which was intended to meet the
occasion -- the precise promise which was framed with foresight of our present
distress. In that light he makes the promise shine in all its truthfulness,
certainty, sweetness, and suitability, so that we, poor trembling sons of men,
dare take that word into our mouth which first came out of God's mouth, and then
come with it as an argument, and plead it before the throne of the heavenly
grace. Our prevalence in prayer lies in the plea, "Lord, do as thou hast said."
How greatly we ought to value the Holy Spirit, because when we are in the dark
he gives us light, and when our perplexed spirit is so befogged and beclouded
that it cannot see its own need, and cannot find out the appropriate promise in
the Scriptures, the Spirit of God comes in and teaches us all things, and brings
all things to our remembrance, whatsoever our Lord has told us. He guides us in
prayer, and thus he helps our infirmity.But the blessed Spirit does more than
this, he will often direct the mind to the special subject of prayer. He dwells
within us as a counsellor, and points out to us what it is we should seek at the
hands of God. We do not know why it is so, but we sometimes find our minds
carried as by a strong under current into a particular line of prayer for some
one definite object. It is not merely that our judgment leads us in that
direction, though usually the Spirit of God acts upon us by enlightening our
judgment, but we often feel an unaccountable and irresistible desire rising
again and again within our heart, and this so presses upon us, that we not only
utter the desire before God at our ordinary times for prayer, but we feel it
crying in our hearts all the day long, almost to the supplanting of all other
considerations. At such times we should thank God for direction and give our
desire a clear road: the Holy Spirit is granting us inward direction as to how
we should reckon upon good success in our pleadings. Such guidance will the
Spirit give to each of you if you will ask him to illuminate you. He will guide
you both negatively and positively. Negatively, he will forbid you to pray for
such and such a thing, even as Paul essayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit
suffered him not: and, on other hand, he will cause you to hear a cry within
your soul which shall guide your petitions, even as he made Paul hear the cry
from Macedonia, saying, "Come over and help us." The Spirit teaches wisely, as
no other teacher can do. Those who obey his promptings shall not walk in
darkness. He leads the spiritual eye to take good and steady aim at the very
centre of the target, and thus we hit the mark in our pleadings. Nor is this
all, for the spirit of God is not sent merely to guide and help our devotion,
but he himself "maketh intercession for us" according to the will of God. By
this expression it cannot be meant that the Holy Spirit ever groans or
personally prays; but that he excites intense desire and created unutterable
groanings in us, and these are ascribed to him. Even as Solomon built the temple
because he superintended and ordained all, and yet I know not that he ever
fashioned a timber or prepared a stone, so doth the Holy Spirit pray and plead
within us by leading us to pray and plead. This he does by arousing our desires.
The Holy Spirit has a wonderful power over renewed hearts, as much power as the
skillful minstrel hath over the strings among which he lays his accustomed hand.
The influences of the Holy Ghost at times pass through the soul like winds
through an Eolian harp, creating and inspiring sweet notes of gratitude and
tones of desire, to which we should have been strangers if it had not been for
his divine visitation. He can arouse us from our lethargy, he can warm us out of
our lukewarmness, he can enable us when we are on our knees to rise above the
ordinary routine of prayer into that victorious importunity against which
nothing can stand. He can lay certain desires so pressingly upon our hearts that
we can never rest till they are fulfilled. He can make the zeal for God's house
to eat us up, and the passion for God's glory to be like a fire within our
bones; and this is one part of that process by which in inspiring our prayers he
helps our infirmity. True Advocate is he, and Comforter most effectual. Blessed
be his name.The Holy Spirit also divinely operates in the strengthening of the
faith of believers. That faith is at first of his creating, and afterwards it is
of his sustaining and increasing: and oh, brothers and sisters, have you not
often felt your faith rise in proportion to your trials? Have you not, like
Noah's ark, mounted towards heaven as the flood deepened around you? You have
felt as sure about the promise as you felt about the trial. The affliction was,
as it were, in your very bones, but the promise was also in your very heart. You
could not doubt the affliction, for you smarted under it, but you might almost
as soon have doubted the divine help, for your confidence was firm and unmoved.
The greatest faith is only what God has a right to expect from us, yet do we
never exhibit it except as the Holy Ghost strengthens our confidence, and opens
up before us the covenant with all its seals and securities. He it is that leads
our soul to cry, "though my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me
an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure." Blessed be the Divine
Spirit then, that since faith is essential to prevailing prayer, he helps us in
supplication by increasing our faith. Without faith prayer cannot speed, for he
that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed, and
such an one may not expect anything of the Lord; happy are we when the Holy
Spirit removes our wavering, and enables us like Abraham to believe without
staggering, knowing full well that he who has promised is able also to
perform.By three figures I will endeavour to describe the work of the Spirit of
God in this matter, though they all fall short, and indeed all that I can say
must fall infinitely short of the glory of his work. The actual mode of his
working upon the mind we may not attempt to explain; it remains a mystery, and
it would be an unholy intrusion to attempt to remove the veil. There is no
difficulty in our believing that as one human mind operates upon another mind,
so does the Holy Spirit influence our spirits. We are forced to use words if we
would influence our fellow-men, but the Spirit of God can operate upon the human
mind more directly, and communicate with it in silence. Into that matter,
however, we will not dive lest we intrude where our knowledge would be drowned
by our presumption.My illustrations do not touch the mystery, but set forth the
grace. The Holy Spirit acts to his people somewhat as a prompter to a reciter. A
man has to deliver a piece which he has learned; but his memory is treacherous,
and therefore somewhere out of sight there is a prompter, so that when the
speaker is at a loss and might use a wrong word, a whisper is heard, which
suggests the right one. When the speaker has almost lost the thread of his
discourse he turns his ear, and the prompter gives him the catch-word and aids
his memory. If I may be allowed the simile, I would say that this represents in
part the work of the Spirit of God in us, -- suggesting to us the right desire,
and bringing all things to our remembrance whatsoever Christ has told us. In
prayer we should often come to a dead stand, but he incites, suggests, and
inspires, and so we go onward. In prayer we might grow weary, but the Comforter
encourages and refreshes us with cheering thoughts. When, indeed, we are in our
bewilderment almost driven to give up prayer, the whisper of his love drops a
live coal from off the altar into our soul, and our hearts glow with greater
ardour than before. Regard the Holy Spirit as your prompter, and let your ear be
opened to his voice. But he is much more than this. Let me attempt a second
simile: he is as an advocate to one in peril at law. Suppose that a poor man had
a great law-suit, touching his whole estate, and he was forced personally to go
into court and plead his own cause, and speak up for his rights. If he were an
uneducated man he would be in a poor plight. An adversary in the court might
plead against him, and overthrow him, for he could not answer him. This poor man
knows very little about law, and is quite unable to meet his cunning opponent.
Suppose one who was perfect in the law should take up his cause warmly, and come
and live with him, and use all his knowledge so as to prepare his case for him,
draw up his petitions for him, and fill his mouth with arguments, -- would not
that be a grand relief? This counsellor would suggest the line of pleading,
arrange the arguments, and put them into right courtly language. When the poor
man was baffled by a question asked in court, he would run home and ask his
adviser, and he would tell him exactly how to meet the objector. Suppose, too,
that when he had to plead with the judge himself, this advocate at home should
teach him how to behave and what to urge, and encourage him to hope that he
would prevail, -- would not this be a great boon? Who would be the pleader in
such a case? The poor client would plead, but still, when he won the suit, he
would trace it all to the advocate who lived at home, and gave him counsel:
indeed, it would be the advocate pleading for him, even while he pleaded
himself. This is an instructive emblem of a great fact. Within this narrow house
of my body, this tenement of clay, if I be a true believer, there dwells the
Holy Ghost, and when I desire to pray I may ask him what I should pray for as I
ought, and he will help me. He will write the prayers which I ought to offer
upon the tablets of my heart, and I shall see them there, and so I shall be
taught how to plead. It will be the Spirit's own self pleading in me, and by me,
and through me, before the throne of grace. What a happy man in his law-suit
would such a poor man be, and how happy are you and I that we have the Holy
Ghost to be our Counsellor!Yet one more illustration: it is that of a father
aiding his boy. Suppose it to be a time of war centuries back. Old English
warfare was then conducted by bowmen to a great extent. Here is a youth who is
to be initiated in the art of archery, and therefore he carries a bow. It is a
strong bow, and therefore very hard to draw; indeed, it requires more strength
than the urchin can summon to bend it. See how his father teaches him. "Put your
right hand here, my boy, and place your left hand so. Now pull"; and as the
youth pulls, his father's hands are on his hands, and the bow is drawn. The lad
draws the bow: ay, but it is quite as much his father, too. We cannot draw the
bow of prayer alone. Sometimes a bow of steel is not broken by our hands, for we
cannot even bend it; and then the Holy Ghost puts his mighty hand over ours, and
covers our weakness so that we draw; and lo, what splendid drawing of the bow it
is them! The bow bends so easily we wonder how it is; away flies the arrow, and
it pierces the very centre of the target, for he who giveth have won the day,
but it was his secret might that made us strong, and to him be the glory of
it.Thus have I tried to set forth the cheering fact that the Spirit helps the
people of God.II. Our second subject is THE PRAYER WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT
INSPIRES, or that part of prayer which is especially and peculiarly the work of
the Spirit of God. The text says, "The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us
with groanings which cannot be uttered." It is not the Spirit that groans, but
we that groan; but as I have shown you, the Spirit excited the emotion which
causes us to groan.It is clear then the prayers which are indited in us by the
spirit of God are those which arise from our inmost soul. A man's heart is moved
when he groans. A groan is a matter about which there is no hypocrisy. A groan
cometh not from the lips, but from the heart. A groan then is a part of prayer
which we owe to the Holy Ghost, and the same is true of all the prayer which
wells up from the deep fountains of our inner life. The prophet cried, "My
bowels, my bowels, I am pained at my very heart: my heart maketh a noise in me."
This deep ground-swell of desire, this tidal motion of the life-floods is caused
by the Holy Spirit. His work is never superficial, but always deep and
inward.Such prayers will rise within us when the mind is far too troubled to let
us speak. We know not what we should pray for as we ought, and then it is that
we groan, or utter some other inarticulate sound. Hezekiah said, "like a crane
or a swallow did I chatter." The psalmist said, "I am so troubled that I cannot
I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart"; but he added, "Lord,
all my desire is before thee; and my groaning is not hid from thee." The sighing
of the prisoner surely cometh up into the ears of the Lord. There is real prayer
in these "groanings that cannot be uttered." It is the power of the Holy Ghost
in us which creates all real prayer, even that which takes the form of a groan
because the mind is incapable, by reason of its bewilderment and grief, of
clothing its emotion in words. I pray you never think lightly of the
supplications of your anguish. Rather judge that such prayers are like Jabez, of
whom it is written, that "he was more honourable than his brethren, because his
mother bare him with sorrow." That which is thrown up from the depth of the
soul, when it is stirred with a terrible tempest, is more precious than pearl or
coral, for it is the intercession of the Holy Spirit. These prayers are
sometimes "groanings that cannot be uttered," because they concern such great
things that they cannot be spoken. I want, my Lord! I want, I want; I cannot
tell thee what I want: but I seem to want all things. If it were some little
thing, my narrow capacity could comprehend and describe it, but I need all
covenant blessings. Thou knowest what I have need of before I ask thee, and
though I cannot go into each item of my need, I know it to be very great, and
such as I myself can never estimate. I groan, for I can do no more. Prayers
which are the offspring of great desires, sublime aspirations, and elevated
designs are surely the work of the Holy Spirit, and their power within a man is
frequently so great that he cannot find expression for them. Words fail, and
even the sighs which try to embody them cannot be uttered.But it may be,
beloved, that we groan because we are conscious of the littleness of our desire,
and the narrowness of our faith. The trial, too. may seem too mean to pray
about. I have known what it is to feel as if I could not pray about a certain
matter, and yet I have been obliged to groan about it. A thorn in the flesh may
be as painful a thing as a sword in the bones, and yet we may go and beseech the
Lord thrice about it, and getting no answer we may feel that we know not what to
pray for as we ought; and yet it makes us groan. Yes, and with that natural
groan there may go up an unutterable groaning of the Holy Spirit. Beloved, what
a different view of prayer God has from that which men think to be the correct
one. You may have seen very beautiful prayers in print, and you may have heard
very charming compositions from the pulpit, but I trust you have not fallen in
love with them. Judge these things rightly. I pray you never think well of fine
prayers, for before the thrice holy God it ill becomes a sinful suppliant to
play the orator. We heard of a certain clergyman who was said to have given
forth "the finest prayer ever offered to a Boston audience." Just so! The Boston
audience received the prayer, and there it ended. We want the mind of the spirit
in prayer, and not he mind of the flesh. The tail feathers of pride should be
pulled out of our prayers, for they need only the wing feathers of faith; the
peacock feathers of poetical expression are out of place before the throne of
God. Hear me, what remarkably beautiful language he used in prayer!" "What an
intellectual treat his prayer was! Yes, yes; but God looks at the heart. To him
fine language is as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal, but a groan has music in
it. We do not like groans: our ears are much too delicate to tolerate such
dreary sounds; but not so the great Father of spirits. A Methodist brother
cries, "Amen," and you say, "I cannot bear such Methodistic noise"; no, but if
it comes from the man's heart God can bear it. When you get upstairs into your
chamber this evening to pray, and find you cannot pray, but have to moan out,
"Lord, I am too full of anguish and too perplexed to pray, hear thou the voice
of my roaring," though you reach to nothing else you will be really praying.
When like David we can say, "I opened my mouth and panted," we are by no means
in an ill state of mind. All fine language in prayer, and especially all
intoning or performing of prayers, must be abhorrent to God; it is little short
of profanity to offer solemn supplication to God after the manner called
"intoning." The sighing of a true heart is infinitely more acceptable, for it is
the work of the Spirit of God.We may say of the prayers which the Holy Spirit
works in us that they are prayers of knowledge. Notice, our difficulty is that
we know not what we should pray for; but the Holy Spirit does know, and
therefore he helps us by enabling us to pray intelligently, knowing what we are
asking for, so far as this knowledge is needful to valid prayer. The text speaks
"of the mind of the Spirit." What a mind that must be! -- the mind of that
Spirit who arranged all the order which now pervades this earth! There once was
chaos and confusion, but the Holy Spirit brooded over all, and His mind is the
originator of that beautiful arrangement which we so admire in the visible
creation. What a mind his must be! The Holy Spirit's mind is seen in our
intercessions when under his sacred influence we order our case before the Lord,
and plead with holy wisdom for things convenient and necessary. What wise and
admirable desires must those be which the Spirit of Wisdom himself works in
us!Moreover, the Holy Spirit's intercession creates prayers offered in a proper
manner. I showed you that the difficulty is that we know not what we should pray
for "as we ought," and the Spirit meets that difficulty by making intercession
for us in a right manner. The Holy Spirit works in us humility, earnestness,
intensity, importunity, faith, and resignation, and all else that is acceptable
to God in our supplications. We know not how to mingle these sacred spices in
the incense of prayer. We, if left to ourselves at our very best, get too much
of one ingredient or another, and spoil the sacred compound, but the Holy
Spirit's intercessions have in them such a blessed blending of all that is good
that they come up as a sweet perfume before the Lord. Spirit-taught prayers are
offered as they ought to be. They are his own intercession in some respects, for
we read that the Holy Spirit not only helps us to intercede but "maketh
intercession." It is twice over declared in our text that he maketh intercession
for us; and the meaning of this I tried to show when I described a father as
putting his hands upon his child's hands. This is something more than helping us
to pray, something more than encouraging us or directing us, -- but I venture no
further, except to say that he puts such force of his own mind into our poor
weak thoughts and desires and hopes, that he himself maketh intercession for us,
working in us to will and to pray according to his good pleasure. I want you to
notice, however, that these intercessions of the Spirit are only in the saints.
"He maketh intercession for us," and "He maketh intercession for the saints."
Does he do nothing for sinners, then? Yes, he quickens sinners into spiritual
life, and he strives with them to overcome their sinfulness and turn them into
the right way; but in the saints he works with us and enables us to pray after
his mind and according to the will of God. His intercession is not in or for the
unregenerate. O, unbelievers you must first be made saints or you cannot feel
the Spirit's intercession within you. What need we have to go to Christ for the
blessing of the Holy Ghost, which is peculiar to the children of God, and can
only be ours by faith in Christ Jesus! "To as man as received him to them gave
he power to become the sons of God"; and to the sons of God alone cometh the
Spirit of adoption, and all his helping grace. Unless we are the sons of God the
Holy Spirit's indwelling shall not be ours: we are shut out from the
intercession of the Holy Ghost, ay, and from the intercession of Jesus too, for
he hath said, "I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given
me."Thus I have tried to show you the kind of prayer which the Spirit
inspires.III. Our third and last point is THE SURE SUCCESS OF ALL SUCH
PRAYERS.All the prayers which the Spirit of God inspires in us must succeed,
because, first, there is a meaning in them which God reads and approves. When
the Spirit of God writes a prayer upon a man's heart, the man himself may be in
such a state of mind that he does not altogether know what it is. His
interpretation of it is a groan, and that is all. Perhaps he does not even get
so far as that in expressing the mind of the Spirit, but he feels greenings
which he cannot utter, he cannot find a door of utterance for his inward grief.
Yet our heavenly Father, who looks immediately upon the heart, reads what the
Spirit of God has indited there, and does not need even our groans to explain
the meaning. He reads the heart itself: "he knoweth,' says the text, "what is
the mind of the Spirit." The Spirit is one with the Father, and the Father knows
what the Spirit means. The desires which the Spirit prompts may be too spiritual
for such babes in grace as we are actually to describe or to express, and yet
the Spirit writes the desire on the renewed mind, and the Father sees it. Now
that which God reads in the heart and approves of -- for the word to "know" in
this case includes approval as well as the mere act of omniscience -- what God
sees and approves of in the heart must succeed. Did not Jesus say, "Your
heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of these things before you ask them"?
Did he not tell us this as an encouragement to believe that we shall receive all
needful blessings? So it is with those prayers which are all broken up, wet with
tears, and discordant with those sighs and inarticulate expressions and heavings
of the bosom, and sobbings of the heart and anguish and bitterness of spirit,
our gracious Lord reads them as a man reads a book, and they are written in a
character which he fully understands. To give a simple figure: if I were to come
into your house I might find there a little child that cannot yet speak plainly.
It cries for something, and it makes very odd and objectionable noises, combined
with signs and movements, which are almost meaningless to stranger, but his
mother understands him, and attends to his little pleadings. A mother can
translate baby-talk: she comprehends incomprehensible noises. Even so doth our
Father in heaven know all about our poor baby talk, for our prayer is not much
better. He knows and comprehends the cryings, and meanings, and sighings, and
chatterings of his bewildered children. Yea, a tender mother knows her child's
needs before the child knows what it wants. Perhaps the little one stutters,
stammers, and cannot get its words out, but the mother sees what he would say,
and takes the meaning. Even so we know concerning our great Father: -- "He knows
the thoughts we mean to speak,Ere from our opening lips the break."Do you
therefore rejoice in this, that because the prayers of the Spirit are known and
understood of God, therefore they will be sure to speed.The next argument for
making us sure that they will speed is this -- that they are "the mind of the
Spirit." God the ever blessed is one, and there can be no division between the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These divine persons always work together,
and there is a common desire for the glory of each blessed Person of the Divine
Unity, and therefore it cannot be conceived without profanity, that anything
could be the mind of the Holy Spirit and not be the mind of the Father and the
mind of the Son. The mind of God is one and harmonious; if, therefore, the Holy
Spirit dwells in you, and he move you to any desire, then his mind is in your
prayer, and it is not possible that the eternal Father should reject your
petitions. That prayer which came from heaven will certainly go back to heaven.
If the Holy Ghost prompts it, the Father must and will accept it, for it is not
possible that he should put a slight upon the ever blessed and adorable Spirit.
But one more word, and that circles the argument, namely, that the work of the
Spirit in the heart is not only the mind of the Spirit which God knows, but it
is also according to the will or mind of God, for he never maketh intercession
in us other than is consistent with the divine will. Now, the divine will or
mind may be viewed two ways. First, there is the will declared in the
proclamations of holiness by the Ten Commandments. The Spirit of God never
prompts us to ask for anything that is unholy or inconsistent with the precepts
of the Lord. Then secondly, there is the secret mind of God, the will of his
eternal predestination and decree, of which we know nothing; but we do know
this, that the Spirit of God never prompts us to ask anything which is contrary
to the eternal purpose of God. Reflect for a moment: the Holy Spirit knows all
the purposes of God, and when they are about to be fulfilled, he moves the
children of God to pray about them, and so their prayers keep touch and tally
with the divine decrees. Oh would you not pray confidently if you knew that your
prayer corresponded with the sealed book of destiny? We may safely entreat the
Lord to do what he has ordained to do. A carnal man draws the inference that if
God has ordained an event we need not pray about it, but faith obediently draws
the inference that the God who secretly ordained to give the blessing has openly
commanded that we should pray for it, and therefore faith obediently prays.
Coming events cast their shadows before them, and when God is about to bless his
people his coming favour casts the shadow of prayer over the church. When he is
about to favour an individual he casts the shadow of hopeful expectation over
his soul. Our prayers, let men laugh at them as they will, and say there is no
power in them, are the indicators of the movement of the wheels of Providence.
Believing supplications are forecasts of the future, He who prayeth in faith is
like the seer of old, he sees that which is to be: his holy expectancy, like a
telescope, brings distant objects near to him. He is bold to declare that he has
the petition which he has asked of God, and he therefore begins to rejoice and
to praise God, even before the blessing has actually arrived. So it is: prayer
prompted by the Holy Spirit is the footfall of the divine decree.I conclude by
saying, see, my dear hearers, the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit, for if
the saints know not what they should pray for as they ought; if consecrated men
and women, with Christ suffering in them, still feel their need of the
instruction of the Holy Spirit, how much more do you who are not saints, and
have never given yourselves up to God, require divine teaching! On, that you
would know and feel your dependence upon the Holy Ghost that he may prompt the
once crucified but now ascended Redeemer that this gift of the Spirit, this
promise of the Father, is shed abroad upon men. May he who comes from Jesus lead
you to Jesus.And, then O ye people of God, let this last thought abide with you,
-- what condescension is this that Divine Person should dwell in you for ever,
and that he should be with you to help your prayers. Listen to me for a moment.
If I read in the Scriptures that in the most heroic acts of faith God the Holy
Ghost helpeth his people, I can understand it; if I read that in the sweetest
music of their songs when they worship best, and chant their loftiest strains
before the Most High God, the Spirit helpeth them, I can understand it; and even
if I hear that in their wrestling prayers and prevalent intercessions God the
Holy Spirit helpeth them, I can understand it: but I bow with reverent
amazement, my heart sinking into the dust with adoration, when I reflect that
God the Holy Ghost helps us when we cannot speak, but only groan. Yea, and when
we cannot even utter our groanings, he doth not only help us but he claims as
his own particular creation the "groanings that cannot be uttered." This is
condescension indeed! In deigning to help us in the grief that cannot even vent
itself in groaning, he proves himself to be a true Comforter. O God, my God,
thou hast not forsaken me: thou art not far from me, nor from the voice of my
roaring. Thou didst for awhile leave the Firstborn when he was made a curse for
us, so that he cried in agony, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" but thou wilt not
leave one of the "many brethren" for whom he died: the Spirit shall be with
them, and when they cannot so much as groan he will make intercession for them
with groanings that cannot be uttered. God bless you, my beloved brethren, and
may you feel the Spirit of the Lord thus working in you and with you. Amen and
amen.PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON -- Romans 8:14 to end.HYMNS FROM
"OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" -- 1009, 978, 400.


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  CHAPTER 9: THE WATERPOTS AT CANA
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A Sermon (No.1556) Delivered by C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle,
Newington "Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled
them up to the brim." -- John 2:7. YOU KNOW THE NARRATIVE. Jesus was at a
wedding feast, and when the wine ran short, he provided for it right
bountifully. I do not think that I should do any good if I were to enter upon
the discussion as to what sort of wine our Lord Jesus made on this occasion. It
was wine, and I am sure it was very good wine, for he would produce nothing
quite but the best. Was it wine such as men understand by that word now? It was
wine; but there are very few people in this country who ever see, much less
drink, any of that beverage. That which goes under the name of wine is not true
wine, but a fiery, brandied concoction of which I feel sure that Jesus would not
have tasted a drop. The fire-waters and blazing spirits of modern wine
manufacturers are very different articles from the juice of the grape, mildly
exhilarating, which was the usual wine of more sober centuries. As to the wine
such as is commonly used in the East, a person must drink inordinately before he
would become intoxicated with it. It would be possible, for there were cases in
which men were intoxicated with wine; but, as a rule, intoxication was a rare
vice in the Savior's times and in the preceding ages. Had our great Exemplar
lived under our present circumstances, surrounded by a sea of deadly drink,
which is ruining tens of thousands, I know how he would have acted. I am sure he
would not have contributed by word or deed to the rivers of poisonous beverages
in which bodies and souls are now being destroyed wholesale. The kind of wine
which he made was such that, if there had been no stronger drink in the world,
nobody might have thought it necessary to enter any protest against drinking it.
It would have done nobody any hurt, be sure of that, or else Jesus our loving
Savior would not have made it. Some have raised a question about the great
quantity of wine, for I suppose there must have been no less than one hundred
and twenty gallons, and probably more. "They did not want all that," says one,
"and even of the weakest kind of wine it would be a deal too much." But you are
thinking of an ordinary wedding here, are you not, when there are ten or a
dozen, or a score or two, met together in a parlour? An oriental wedding is
quite another affair. Even if it be only a village, like Cana of Galilee,
everybody comes to eat and drink, and the feast lasts on for a week or a
fortnight. Hundreds of people must be fed, for often open house is kept. Nobody
is refused, and consequently a great quantity of provision is required. Besides,
they may not have consumed all the wine at once. When the Lord multiplied loaves
and fishes, they must eat the loaves and fishes directly, or else the bread
would grow mouldy, and the fish would be putrid; but wine could be stored and
used months afterwards. I have no doubt that such wine as Jesus Christ made was
as good for keeping as it was for using. And why not set the family up with a
store in hand? They were not very rich people. They might sell it if they liked.
At any rate, that is not my subject, and I do not intend getting into hot water
over the question of cold water. I abstain myself from alcoholic drink in every
form, and I think others would be wise to do the same; but of this each one must
be a guide unto himself. Jesus Christ commenced the gospel dispensation, not
with a miracle of vengeance, like that of Moses, who turned water into blood,
but with a miracle of liberality, turning water into wine. He does not only
supply necessaries, but gives luxuries, and this is highly significant of the
kingdom of his grace. Here he not only gives sinners enough to save them, but he
gives abundantly, grace upon grace. The gifts of the covenant are not stinted or
stunted, they are neither small in quantity nor in quality. He gives to men not
only the water of life that they may drink and be refreshed, but "wines on the
lees well refined" that they may rejoice exceedingly. And he gives like a king,
who gives lavishly, without counting the cups and bottles. As to one hundred and
twenty gallons, how little is that in comparison with the rivers of love and
mercy which he is pleased to bestow freely out of his bountiful heart upon the
most needy souls. You may forget all about the wine question, and all about
wine, bad, good, or indifferent. The less we have to do with it the better, I am
quite sure. And now let us think about our Lord's mercy, and let the wine stand
as a type of his grace, and the abundance of it as the type of the abundance of
his grace which he doth so liberally bestow. Now, concerning this miracle, it
may well be remarked how simple and unostentatious it was. One might have
expected that when the great Lord of all came here in human form he would
commence his miraculous career by summoning the scribes and Pharisees at least,
if not the kings and princes of the earth, to see the marks of his calling and
the guarantees and warrants of his commission; gathering them all together to
work some miracle before them, as Moses and Aaron did before Pharaoh, that they
might be convinced of his Messiahship. He does nothing of the kind. He goes to a
simple wedding among poor people, and there in the simplest and most natural way
he displays his glory. When the water is to be turned into wine, when he selects
that as the first miracle, he does not call for the master of the feast even, or
for the bridegroom himself or for any of the guests, and begin to say, "You
clearly perceive that your wine is all gone. Now, I am about to show you a great
marvel, to turn water into wine." No, he does it quietly with the servants: he
tells them to fill the waterpots: he uses the baths: he does not ask for any new
vessels, but uses what were there, making no fuss or parade. He uses water, too,
of which they had abundance, and works the miracle, if I may so speak, in the
most commonplace and natural style; and that is just the style of Jesus Christ.
Now, if it had been a Romish miracle it would have been done in a very
mysterious, theatrical, sensational way, with no end of paraphernalia; but,
being a genuine miracle, it is done just as nearly after the course of nature as
the supernatural can go. Jesus does not have the waterpots emptied and then fill
them with wine, but he goes as far with nature as nature will go, and uses water
to make the wine from; therein following the processes of his providence which
are at work every day. When the water drops from heaven, and flows into the
earth to the roots of the vine, and so swells out the clusters with ruddy juice,
it is through water that wine is produced. There is only a difference as to time
whether the wine is created in the cluster, or in the waterpots. Our Lord does
not call for any strangers to do it, but the ordinary servants shall bring
ordinary water; and while they are drawing out the water, or what appears to
them to be water, the servants shall perceive that the water has been turned
into wine. Now, whenever you try to serve Jesus Christ do not make a fuss about
it, because he never made any fuss in what he did, even when he was working
amazing miracles. If you want to do a good thing, go and do it as naturally as
ever you can. Be simple hearted and simple minded. Be yourself. Do not be
affected in your piety, as if you were going to walk to heaven on stilts: walk
on your own feet, and bring religion to your own door and to your own fireside.
If you have a grand work to do, do it with that genuine simplicity which is
next. akin to sublimity; for affectation, and everything that is gaudy and
ostentatious, is, after all, mean and beggarly. Nothing but simple naturalness
has a bout it a genuine beauty; and such a beauty there is about this miracle of
the Savior. Let all these remarks stand as a kind of preface; for now I want to
draw out the principles which are hidden in my text; and then, secondly, when I
have displayed those principles, I want to show how they should be carried
out.I. "Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water." WHAT ARE THE
PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN OUR LORD'S MODE OF PROCEDURE?First, that, as a rule, when
Christ is about to bestow a blessing he gives a command. This is a fact which
your memories will help you to establish in a moment. It is not always so; but,
as a general rule, a word of command goes before a word of power, or else with
it. He is about to give wine, and the process does not consist in saying, "Let
wine be," but it begins by a command addressed to men, -- "Fill the waterpots
with water." Here is a blind man: Christ is about to give him sight. He puts
clay on his eyes, and then says, "Go to the pool of Siloam and wash." There is a
man with his arm swinging at his side, useless to him: Christ is going to
restore it, and he says, "Stretch forth thine hand." Ay, and the principle goes
so far that it holds good in cases where it would seem to be quite inapplicable,
for if it be a child that is dead he says, "Maid, arise;" or if it be Lazarus,
who by this time stinks, being four days buried, yet he cries, "Lazarus, come
forth." And thus he bestows a benefit by a command. Gospel benefits come with a
gospel precept.Do you wonder that this principle which is seen in the miracles
is seen in the wonders of his divine grace? Here is a sinner to be saved. What
does Christ say to that sinner? "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved." Can he believe of himself? Is he not dead in sin? Brethren,
raise no such questions, but learn that Jesus Christ has bidden men believe, and
has commissioned his disciples to cry, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand." "The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men
everywhere to repent." And he bids us go and preach this word -- "Believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." But why command them? It is his
will to do so, and that should be enough for you who call yourself his disciple.
It was so even in the olden times, when the Lord set forth in vision his way of
dealing with a dead nation. There lay the dry bones of the valley, exceeding
many, and exceeding dry, and Ezekiel was sent to prophesy to them. What said the
prophet? "O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." Is that his way of making
them alive? Yes, by a command to hear; a thing which dry bones cannot do. He
issues his command to the dead, the dry, the helpless, and by its power life
comes. I pray you, be not disobedient to the gospel, for faith is a duty, or we
should not read of "the obedience of faith." Jesus Christ, when he is about to
bless, challenges men's obedience by issuing his royal orders.The same thing is
true when we come away from the unconverted to believers. When God means to
bless his people and make them blessings it is by issuing a command to them. We
have been praying to the Lord that he would arise and make bare his arm. His
answer is, "Awake, awake, O Zion." We ask that the world may be brought to his
feet, and his reply is, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go
ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them." The command is to us the
vehicle of the blessing. If we are to have the blessing of converts multiplied,
and churches built up, Christ must give us the boon: it is altogether his gift,
as much as it was his to turn the water into wine; yet first of all he says to
us, "Go ye and proclaim my salvation unto the ends of the earth," for thus are
we to fill the waterpots with water. If we be obedient to his command we shall
see how he will work -- how mightily he will be with us, and how our prayers
shall be heard.That is the first principle that I see here: Christ issues
commands to those whom he will bless.Secondly, Christ's commands are not to be
questioned, but to be obeyed. The people want wine, and Christ says, "Fill the
waterpots with water." Well, now, if these servants had, been of the mind of the
captious critics of modern times, they would have looked at our Lord a long
while, and objected boldly: "We do not want any water; it is not the feast of
purifications; it is a wedding feast. We do not require water at a wedding. We
shall want water when we are going up to the synagogue, or to the temple, that
we may purify our hands according to our custom: but we do not want water just
now: the hour, the occasion, and the fitness of things, call for wine." But
Mary's advice to them was sound -- " Whatsoever he saith to you, do it." Thus,
too, let us neither question nor cavil, but do his bidding straight away.It may
sometimes seem that Christ's command is not pertinent to the point in hand. The
sinner, for instance, says, "Lord, save me: conquer in me my sin." Our Lord
cries, "Believe," and the sinner cannot see how believing in Jesus will enable
him to get the mastery over a besetting sin. There does not at first sight
appear to be any connection between the simple trusting of the Savior and the
conquest of a bad temper, or the getting rid of a bad habit, such as
intemperance, passion, covetousness, or' falsehood. There is such a connection,
but recollect, whether you can see the connection or not, it is yours "not to
reason why," but yours to do what Jesus bids you do; for it is in the way of the
command that the miracle of mercy will be wrought. "Fill the waterpots with
water," though what you want is wine. Christ sees a connection between the water
and the wine, though you do not. He has a reason for the pots being filled with
water, which reason, as yet, you do not know: it is not yours to ask an
explanation, but to yield obedience. You are, in the first instance, just to do
what Jesus bids you, as he bids you, now that he bids you, and because he bids
you, and you shall find that his commandments are not grievous, and in keeping
of them there is a great reward. Sometimes these commands may even seem to be
trivial. They may look as if he trifled with us. The family were in need of
wine; Jesus says, "Fill the waterpots with water." The servants might have said,
"This is clearly a mere putting of us off and playing with us. Why, we should be
better employed in going round to these poor people's friends, and asking them
to contribute another skin of wine. We should be much better employed in finding
out some shop where we could purchase more: but to send us to the well to fill
those great waterpots that hold so much water does seem altogether a piece of
child's play." I know, brethren, that sometimes the path of duty seems as if it
could not lead to the desired result. We want to be doing something more; that
something more might be wrong, but it looks as if we could thereby compass our
design more easily and directly, and so we hanker after this uncommanded and
perhaps forbidden course. And I know that many a troubled conscience thinks that
simply to believe in Jesus is too little a thing. The deceitful heart suggests a
course which looks to be more effectual. "Do some penance: feel some bitterness;
weep a certain amount of tears. Goad your mind, or break your heart": so cries
carnal self. Jesus simply commands, "Believe." It does appear to be too little a
thing to be done, as if it could not be that eternal life should be given upon
putting your trust in Jesus Christ: but this is the principle we want to teach
you -- that when Jesus Christ is about to give a blessing he issues a command
which is not to be questioned, but to be at once obeyed. If ye will not believe,
neither shall ye be established; but if ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat
the good of the land. "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it."The third principle
is this -- that whenever we get a command from Christ it is always wisdom to
carry it out zealously. He said, "Fill the waterpots with water," and they
filled them up to the brim. You know there is a way of filling a waterpot, and
there is another way of filling it. It is full, and you cannot heap it up; but
still you can fill it up till it begins almost to run over: the liquid trembles
as if it must surely fall in a crystal cascade. It is a filling fullness. In
fulfilling Christ's commands, my dear brethren and sisters, let us go to their
widest extent: let us fill them up to the brim. If it is "Believe," oh, believe
him with all your might; trust him with your whole heart. If it is "Preach the
gospel," preach it in season and out of season; and preach the gospel -- the
whole of it. Fill it up to the brim. Do not give the people a half gospel. Give
them a brimming-over gospel. Fill the vessels up to the very brim. If you are to
repent, ask to have a hearty and a deep repentance -- full to the brim. If you
are to believe, ask to have an intense, absolute, childlike dependence, that
your faith may be full to the brim. If you are bidden pray, pray mightily: fill
the vessel of prayer up to the brim. If you are to search the Scriptures for
blessing, search them from end to end: fill the Bible-reading vessel up to the
brim. Christ's commands are never meant to be done in a half-hearted manner. Let
us throw our whole soul into whatever he commands us, even though, as yet, we
cannot see the reason why he has set us the task. Christ's commands should be
fulfilled with enthusiasm, and carried out to the extreme, if extreme be
possible.The fourth principle is that our earnest action in obedience to Christ
is not contrary to our dependence upon him, but it is necessary to our
dependence upon him. I will show you that in a moment. There are some brethren I
know who say, "Hem! you hold what you call revival services, and you try to
arouse men by earnest appeals and exciting addresses. Do you not see that God
will do his own work? These efforts are just your trying to take the work out of
God's hands. The proper way is to trust in him, and do nothing." All right,
brother. We have your word for it -- that you trust in him and do nothing. I
take the liberty not to be so very certain that you do trust him, for if I
remember who you are, and I think I have been to your house, you are about the
most miserable, desponding, unbelieving person that I know. You do not even know
whether you are saved yourself nine times out of ten. Well now, I think you
should hardly come and cry yourself up for your faith. If you had such a
wonderfully great faith, there is no doubt whatever that according to your faith
it would be unto you. How many have been added to your church through your doing
nothing this year -- that blessed church of yours, where you exercise this,
blessed faith without works? How many have been brought in? "Well, we do not
have very many additions." No, and I think you are not likely to have. If you go
about the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom by inaction, I do not think that
you go the way to work which Jesus Christ approves of. But we venture to say to
you that we who go in for working for Christ with all our heart and soul, using
any means within our reach to bring men in to hear the gospel, feel as much as
ever you do that we cannot do anything at all in the matter apart from the Holy
Spirit, and we trust in God, I think, almost as much as you do, because our
faith has produced rather more results than yours has done. I should not wonder
if it turns out that your faith without works is dead, being alone, and that our
faith having works with it has been living faith after all. I will put the case
thus: Jesus Christ says, "Fill the waterpots with water." The orthodox servant
says, "My Lord, I fully believe that thou canst make wine for these people
without any water, and by thy leave I will bring no water. I am not going to
interfere with the work of God. I am quite certain that thou dost not want our
help, gracious Lord. Thou canst make these waterpots to be full of wine without
our bringing a single bucket of water, and so we will not rob thee of the glory
of it. We will just stand back, and wait for thee. When the wine is made we will
drink some of it and bless thy name; but meanwhile we pray thee have us excused,
for pails are heavy carrying, and a good many must needs be brought to fill all
those waterpots. It would be interfering with the divine work, and so we would
rather take our ease." Do you not think that servants who talked so would prove
that they had no faith in Jesus at all? We will not say that it would prove
their unbelief, but we will say that it looks very like it. But look at the
servant there who, as soon as ever Jesus commands" Fill the waterpots with
water," says, "I do not know what he is at. I do not see the connection between
fetching this water and providing the feast with wine, but I am off to the well:
here, hand me a couple of pails. Come along, brother; come along and help fill
the baths." There they go, and soon come joyfully back with the water, pouring
it into the troughs till they are full up to the brim. Those seem to me to be
the believing servants who obey the command, not understanding it, but expecting
that, somehow or other, Jesus Christ knows the way to work his own miracle. By
our earnest exertions we are not interfering with him, dear friends; far from
it. We are proving our faith in him if we work for him as he bids us work, and
trust in him alone with undivided faith. The next principle I must lay equal
stress upon is this, -- our action alone is not sufficient. That we know, but
let me remind you of it yet again. There are these waterpots, these troughs,
these baths: they are full, and could not be fuller. What a spilling of water
there is! You see that in their trying to fill them the water runs over here and
there. Well, all these six great baths are full of water. Is there any more wine
for all that? Not a drop. It is water that they brought, nothing but water, and
it remains water still. Suppose that they should take that water into the feast;
I am half afraid that the guests would not have thought cold water quite the
proper liquid to drink at a wedding. They ought to have done so; but I am afraid
they were not educated in the school of total abstinence. They would have said
to the master of the feast, "Thou hast given us good wine, and water is a poor
finish for the feast." I am sure it would not have done. And yet water it was,
depend upon it, and nothing else but water, when the servants poured it into the
pots. Even so, after all that sinners can. do, and all that saints can do, there
is nothing in any human effort which can avail for the saving of a soul till
Christ speaks the word of power. When Paul has planted and Apollos watered,
there is no increase till God gives it. Preach the gospel, labor with souls,
persuade, entreat, exhort; but there is no power in anything that you do until
Jesus Christ displays his divine might. His presence is our power. Blessed be
his name, he will come; and if we fill the waterpots with water, he will turn it
into wine. He alone can do it, and those servants who show the most alacrity in
filling up the waterpots are among the first to confess that it is he alone who
can perform the deed.And now the last principle here is that although human
action in itself falls short of the desired end, yet it has its place, and God
has made it necessary by his appointment. Why did our Lord have these waterpots
filled with water? I do not say that it was necessary that it should have been
done. It was not absolutely necessary in itself; but in order that the miracle
might be all open and above board, it was necessary; for suppose he had said,
"Go to those waterpots and draw out wine," those who watched him might have said
that there was wine there before, and that no miracle was wrought. When our Lord
had them filled up with water, there remained no room for any wine to be hidden
away. It was just the same as with Elijah, when, in order to prove that there
was no concealed fire upon the altar at Carmel, he bade them go down to the sea,
and bring water, and pour it upon the altar, and upon the victim, till the
trenches were filled. He said, "Do it a second time," and they did it a second
time; and he said. "Do it a third time," and they did it a third time, and no
possibility of imposture remained. And so, when the Lord Jesus bade the servants
fill the waterpots with water, he put it beyond all possibility that he should
be charged with imposture; and thus we see why it was necessary that they should
be filled with water.Moreover, it was necessary, because it was so instructive
to the servants. Did you notice when I was reading it that the master of the
feast, when he tasted the good wine, did not know where it came from. He could
not make it out, and he uttered an expression which showed his surprise, mingled
with his ignorance. But it is written, "The servants which drew the water knew."
Now, when souls are converted in a church, it happens much in the same way with
certain of the members, who are good people, but they do not know much about the
conversion of sinners. They do not feel much joy in revivals; in fact, like the
elder brother, they are rather suspicious of these wild characters being brought
in: they consider themselves to be very respectable, and. they would rather not
have the lowest of people sitting in the pew with them: they feel awkward in
coming so near them. They know little about what is going on. "But the servants
which drew the water knew": that is to say, the earnest believers who do the
work, and try to fill the waterpots, know all about it. Jesus bade them fill the
vessels with water on purpose that the men who drew the water might know that it
was a miracle. I warrant you, if you bring souls. to Christ you will know his
power. It will make you leap for joy to hear the cry of the penitent, and mark
the bright flash of delight that passes over the new-born believer's face when
his sins are washed away, and he feels himself renewed. If you want to know
Jesus. Christ's miraculous power you must go and -- not work miracles, but just
draw the water and fill the waterpots. Do the ordinary duties. of Christian men
and women -- things in which there is no power of themselves, but which Jesus
Christ makes to be connected with his divine working, and it shall be for your
instruction, and your comfort, that you had such work to do. "The servants which
drew the water knew."I think that I have said enough upon the principles which
lie concealed within my text. II. You must have patience with me while I try to
apply these principles to practical purposes. LET US SEE HOW TO CARRY OUT THIS
DIVINE COMMAND, "Fill the waterpots with water."First, use in the service of
Christ such abilities as you have. There stood the waterpots, six of them, and
Jesus used what he found ready to his hand. There was water in the well; our
Lord used that also. Our Lord is accustomed to employ his own people, and such
abilities as they have, rather than angels or a novel class of beings created
fresh for the purpose. Now, dear brothers and sisters, if you have no golden
chalices, fill your earthen vessels. If you cannot consider yourselves to be
goblets of rarest workmanship in silver, or if you could not liken yourselves to
the best Sevres ware, it does not matter; fill the vessels which you have. If
you cannot, with Elias, bring fire from. heaven, and if you cannot work miracles
with the apostles, do what you can. If silver and gold you have none, yet such
as you have dedicate to Christ. Bring water at his bidding, and it will be
better than wine. The commonest gifts can be made to serve Christ's purpose.
Just as he took a few loaves and fishes, and fed the crowd with them, so will he
take your six waterpots and the water, and do his wine-making therewith.Thus,
you see, they improved what they had; for the waterpots were empty, but they
filled them. There are a good many brethren here from the College to-night, and
they are trying to improve their gifts and their abilities. I think you do
right, my brethren. But I have heard some people say, "The Lord Jesus does not
want your learning." No, it is very likely that he does not, any more than he
needed the water: but then he certainly does not want your stupidity and your
ignorance, and he does not want your rough, uncultivated ways of speaking. He
did not seek for empty pitchers on this occasion; he would have them full, and
the servants did well to fill them. Our Lord to-day does not want empty heads in
his ministers, nor empty hearts; so, my brethren, fill your waterpots with
water. Work away, and study away, and learn all you can, and fill the waterpots
with water. "Oh," somebody will say, "but how are such studies to lead to the
conversion of men? Conversion is like wine, and all that these young fellows
will learn will be like water." You are right; but still I bid these students
fill the waterpots with water, and expect the Lord Jesus to turn the water into
wine. He can sanctify human knowledge so that it shall be useful to the setting
forth of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. I hope that the day has gone by when it
is so much as dreamed that ignorance and coarseness are helpful to the kingdom
of Christ. The great Teacher would have his people know all that they can know,
and especially know himself and the Scriptures, that they may set him forth, and
proclaim his gospel. "Fill the waterpots with water."Next, to apply this
principle, let us all use such means of blessing as God appoints. What are they?
First, there is the reading of the Scriptures. "Search the Scriptures." Search
them all you can. Try to understand them. "But if I know the Bible, shall I be
therefore saved." No, you must know Christ himself by the Spirit. Still, "fill
the waterpots with water." While you are studying the Scriptures you may expect
the Savior will bless his own word, and turn the water into wine.Then there is
attendance upon the means of grace, and hearing a gospel ministry. Mind you fill
that waterpot with water. "But I may hear thousands of sermons and not be
saved." I know it is so, but your business is to fill this waterpot with water,
and while you are listening to the gospel God will bless it, for "faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Take care to use the means which
God appoints. Since our Lord has appointed to save men by the preaching of the
word, I pray that he will raise up those who will preach without ceasing, in
season and out of season, indoors and in the streets. "But they won't be saved
by our preaching." I know that. Preaching is the water: and while we are
preaching, God will bless it, and turn the water into wine. Let us distribute
religious books and tracts. "Oh, but people won't be saved by reading them."
Very likely not, but while they are reading them God may bring his truth to
remembrance and impress their hearts. "Fill the waterpots with water." Give away
abundance of tracts. Scatter religious literature everywhere. "Fill the
waterpots with water," and the Lord will turn the water into wine.Remember the
prayer-meeting. What a blessed means of grace it for it brings down power for
all the works of the church: fill that waterpot with water. I have not to
complain of your attendance at prayer-meetings; but oh, keep it up, dear
brethren! You can pray. Blessed be his name, you have the spirit of prayer. Pray
on! "Fill the waterpots with water," and in answer to prayer Jesus will turn it
into wine. Sunday-school teachers, do not neglect your blessed means of
usefulness. "Fill the waterpots with water." Work the Sunday-school system with
all your might. "But it will not save the children merely to get them together,
and teach them of Jesus. We cannot give them new hearts." Who said that you
could? "Fill the waterpots with water." Jesus Christ knows how to turn it into
wine, and he does not fail to do it when we are obedient to his commands. Use
all the means, but take care that you use those means right heartily. I come
back to that part of the text -- "And they filled them up to the brim." When you
teach the young ones in the Sunday-school, teach them well. Fill them to the
brim. When you preach, dear sir, do not preach as if you were only half awake;
stir yourself up; fill your ministry to the brim. When you are trying to
evangelize the community, do not attempt it in a half-hearted way, as if you did
not care whether their souls were saved or not; fill them to the brim; preach
the gospel with all your might, and beg for power from on high. Fill every
vessel to the brim. Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well. Nobody ever yet
served Christ too well. I have heard that in some services there may be too much
zeal, but in the service of Christ you may have as much zeal as ever you will
and yet not exceed, if prudence be joined therewith. "Fill the waterpots with
water," and fill them to the brim. Go in for doing good with all your heart and
soul and strength.Further, in order to apply this principle, be sure to remember
when you have done all that you can do, that there is a great deficiency in all
that you have done. It is well to come away from tract-distributing and
Sunday-school teaching and preaching, and go home and get to your knees, and
cry, "Lord, I have done all that thou hast commanded me, and yet there is
nothing done unless thou givest the finishing touch. Lord, I have filled the
waterpots, and though I could only fill them with water, yet I have filled them
to the brim. Lord, to the best of my ability, I have sought to win men for
thyself. There cannot be a soul saved, a child converted, or any glory brought
to thy name by what I have done, in and of itself; but, my Master, speak the
miracle-working word, and let the water which fills the vessels blush into wine.
Thou canst do it, though I cannot. I cast the burden upon thee."And this leads
me to the last application of the principle, which is -- trust in your Lord to
do the work. You see, there are two ways of filling waterpots. Suppose these
people had never been commanded to fill the waterpots, and their doing it had
had no reference to Christ whatever; suppose that it had been a freak of their
own imagination, and they had said, "These people have no wine, but they shall
have a bath if they like, and so we will fill the six waterpots with water."
Nothing would have come of such a proceeding. There would have stood the water.
The Eton school-boy said, "The conscious water saw its God and blushed," a truly
poetic expression; but the conscious water would have seen the servants, and
would not have blushed. It would have reflected their faces upon its shining
surface, but nothing more would have happened. Jesus Christ himself must come,
and in present power must work the miracle. It was because he had commanded the
servants to fill the waterpots with water that therefore he was bound, if I may
use such an expression of our free King, bound to turn it into wine, for
otherwise he would have been making fools of them, and they also might have
turned round and said, "Why didst thou give us such a command as this?" If,
after we have filled the waterpots with water, Jesus does not work by us, we
shall have done what he bade us; but if we believe in him, I make bold to say
that he is bound to come; for though we should be losers, and dreadful losers
too, if he did not display his power, for we should have to lament, "I have
labored in vain, and spent my strength for nought," yet we should not be such
losers as he would be, for straightway the world would affirm that Christ's
commands are empty, fruitless, idle. It would be declared that obedience to his
word brings no result. The world would say, "You have filled the waterpots with
water because he told you to do it. You expected him to turn the water into
wine, but he did not do it. Your faith is vain; your whole obedience is vain;
and he is not a fit Master to be served." We should be losers, but he would be a
greater loser still, for he would lose his glory. For my part, I do not believe
that a good word for Christ is ever spoken in vain. I am sure that no sermon
with Christ in it is ever preached without result. Something will come of it, if
not to-night, nor to-morrow; something will come of it. When I have printed a
sermon, and seen it fairly in the volume, I have before long been delighted to
hear of souls saved by its means. And when I have not printed, but only
preached, a discourse, I have still thought, something will come of it. I
preached Christ. I put his saving truth into that sermon, and that seed cannot
die. If it shall lie in the volume for years, like the grains of wheat in the
mummy's hand, it will live, and grow, and bear fruit. Consequently, I have heard
but lately of a soul brought to Christ by a sermon that I preached twenty-five
years ago. I hear almost every week of souls having been brought to Christ by
sermons preached at Park Street, and Exeter Hall, and the Surrey Gardens, and
therefore I feel that God will not let a single faithful testimony fall to the
ground. Go on, brethren. Go on filling the waterpots with water. Do not believe
that you are doing much when you have done your utmost. Do not begin to
congratulate yourselves on your past success. All must come from Christ; and it
will come from Christ. Do not go to the prayer-meeting and say, "Paul may plant
and Apollos may water, but " -- and so on. That is not how the passage runs. It
says just the contrary, and runs thus, -- "Paul planteth, Apollos watereth, but
God giveth the increase." The increase is surely given by God where the planting
and sowing are rightly done. The servants fill the waterpots: the Master turns
the water into wine. The Lord grant us grace to be obedient to his command,
especially to that command, "Believe and live!" and may we meet him in the
marriage-feast above to drink of the new wine with him for ever and ever. Amen
and amen.PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON -- John 1:29-51; John
2:1-11.HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" -- 432, 645, 739.Just Published. Stiff
covers, 1s; cloth, gilt edges, 2s.JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES;OR,MORE OF HIS PLAIN
TALK FOR PLAIN PEOPLE.by C. H. SPURGEON."A Rich store of topics treated
daintily, with broad humour, with quaint good sense, yet always with a subdued
tone and high moral aim." -- Oxford Times."It is as witty, humorous, and
mirthful as Punch, and has the wisdom of the Proverbs of Solomon." -- Kelso
Chronicle."This book deserves, and no doubt will meet with, the same popularity
as John Ploughman's Talk.'" -- Leath Herald."Each sentence is a cluster of
diamonds, some of them rough, but all of them real. It is the very quintessence
of sanctified common sense. Every page is worth a mint of money." -- The
Christian.PASSMORE & ALABASTER, 4, Paternoster Buildings; and all Booksellers.


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