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  TILL HE COMES
  by C.H. Spurgeon
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A collection of C.H. Spurgeon's communion addresses delivered at the Lord's
Supper, reflecting his weekly practice of this sacred ordinance and his deep
devotion to Christ.

  Chapters: 25

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. Chapter 1
    2. a PREFATORY NOTE.
    3. b CONTENTS
    4. MYSTERIOUS VISITS
    5. UNDER HIS SHADOW.
    6. UNDER THE APPLE TREE.
    7. OVER THE MOUNTAINS.
    8. FRAGRANT SPICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS
    9. THE WELL-BELOVED.
   10. THE SPICED WINE OF MY POMEGRANATE;
   11. THE WELL-BELOVED'S VINEYARD.
   12. REDEEMED SOULS FREED FROM FEAR.
   13. JESUS, THE GREAT OBJECT OF ASTONISHMENT.
   14. BANDS OF LOVE; OR, UNION TO CHRIST.
   15. "I WILL GIVE YOU REST."
   16. THE MEMORABLE HYMN.
   17. JESUS ASLEEP ON A PILLOW.
   18. REAL CONTACT WITH JESUS.
   19. CHRIST AND HIS TABLE-COMPANIONS.
   20. A WORD FROM THE BELOVED'S OWN MOUTH.
   21. THE BELIEVER NOT AN ORPHAN.
   22. COMMUNION WITH CHRIST AND HIS PEOPLE.
   23. THE SIN-BEARER.
   24. SWOONING AND REVIVING AT CHRIST'S FEET.
   25. C. H. SPURGEON'S COMMUNION HYMN.

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  CHAPTER 1: CHAPTER 1
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Till He Come Communion Meditations And Addresses By C. H. Spurgeon (Not
published in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.) First Published 1896.


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  CHAPTER 2: A PREFATORY NOTE.
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PREFATORY NOTE. For many years, whether at home or abroad, it was Mr. Spurgeon's
constant custom to observe the ordinance of the Lord's supper every Sabbath-day,
unless illness prevented. This he believed to be in accordance with apostolic
precedent; and it was his oft-repeated testimony that the more frequently he
obeyed his Lord's command, "This do in remembrance of Me," the more precious did
his Saviour become to him, while the memorial celebration itself proved
increasingly helpful and instructive as the years rolled by. MR. SPURGEON had
intended to publish a selection of his Communion Addresses; so this volume may
be regarded as another of the precious literary legacies bequeathed by him to
his brethren and sisters in Christ who have yet to tarry a while here below. It
is hoped that these sermonettes will be the means of deepening the spiritual
life of many believers, and that they will suggest suitable themes for
meditation and discourse to those who have the privilege and responsibility of
presiding at the ordinance.


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  CHAPTER 3: B CONTENTS
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CONTENTS Mysterious Visits.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l
"mysterious visits") "Thou hast visited me in the night."—Psalms 17:3. "Under
His Shadow."("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "under his shadow")
"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the
shadow of the Almighty "—Psalms 91:1. "The shadow of a great rock in a weary
land."—Isaiah 32:2. "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my
Beloved among the sons. I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His
fruit was sweet to my taste:" Son_2:3. "Because Thou hast been my help,
therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice."—Psalms 63:7. "And He hath
made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me, and
made me a polished shaft; in His quiver hath He hid me."—Isaiah 49:2. Under the
Apple Tree.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "under the apple tree")
"I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my
taste."—Son_2:3. Over the Mountains.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "over the mountains") "My Beloved is mine, and
I am His: He feedeth among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee
away, turn, my Beloved, and be Thou like a roe or a young hart upon the
mountains of Bether."—Son_2:16-17. Fragrant Spices from the Mountains of
Myrrh.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "fragrant spices from the
mountains of myrrh") "Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in
thee."—Son_4:7. The Well-beloved.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l
"the well-beloved") "Yea, He is altogether lovely."—Son_5:16. The Spiced Wine of
my Pomegranate.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "the spiced wine of
my pomegranate") "I would cause Thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my
pomegranate."—Son_8:2. "And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for
grace,"—John 1:16. The Well-beloved's Vineyard.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "the well-beloved's vineyard") "My
Well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill."—Isaiah 5:1. Redeemed
Souls Freed from Fear.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "redeemed
souls freed from fear") "Fear not: for I have redeemed thee."—Isaiah 43:1.
Jesus, the Great Object of Astonishment.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "jesus, the great object of astonishment")
"Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and
be very high. As many were astonied at Thee; His visage was so marred more than
any man, and His form more than the sons of men: so shall He sprinkle many
nations, the kings shall shut their mouths at Him: for that which had not been
told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they
consider."—Isaiah 52:13-15. Bands of Love; or, Union to Christ.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "bands of love; or, union to christ") "I drew
them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that
take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. "—Hosea 11:4. "I
will Give you Rest."("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "i will give
you rest") "I will give you rest."—Matthew 11:28. The Memorable Hymn.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "the memorable hymn") "And when they had sung
an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives."—Matthew 26:30. Jesus Asleep on
a Pillow.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "jesus asleep on a
pillow") "And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and
they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? And He
arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the
wind ceased, and there was a great calm."—Mark 4:38-39. Real Contact with
Jesus.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "real contact with jesus")
"And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched Me: for I perceive that virtue is gone
out of Me."—Luke 8:46. Christ and His Table-companions.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "christ and his table-companions") "And when
the hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him."—Luke 22:14. A
Word from the Beloved's Own Mouth.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l
"a word from the beloved's own mouth") "And ye are clean."—John 13:10. The
Believer not an Orphan.("till.htm" \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "the
believer not an orphan") "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to
you."—John 14:18. Communion with Christ and His People.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "communion with christ and his people") "The
cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we
being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one
bread."—1 Corinthians 10:16-17. The Sin-Bearer.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "the sin-bearer") "Who His own self bare our
sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going
astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."—1
Peter 2:24-25. Swooning and Reviving at Christ's Feet.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "swooning and reviving at christ's feet") "And
when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me,
saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and
was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen: and have the keys of hell
and of death."—Revelation 1:17-18. C. H. Spurgeon's Communion Hymn.("till.htm"
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\l "C. H. Spurgeon's communion hymn")


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  CHAPTER 4: MYSTERIOUS VISITS
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MYSTERIOUS VISITS AN ADDRESS TO A LITTLE COMPANY AT THE COMMUNION TABLE AT
MENTONE. "Thou hast visited me in the night."—Psalms 18:3.

IT is a theme for wonder that the glorious God should visit sinful man. "What is
man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?"
A divine visit is a joy to be treasured whenever we are favoured with it. David
speaks of it with great solemnity. The Psalmist was not content barely to speak
of it; but he wrote it down in plain terms, that it might be known throughout
all generations: "Thou hast visited me in the night." Beloved, if God has ever
visited you, you also will marvel at it, will carry it in your memory, will
speak of it to your friends, and will record it in your diary as one of the
notable events of your life. Above all, you will speak of it to God Himself, and
say with adoring gratitude, "Thou hast visited me in the night." It should be a
solemn part of worship to remember and make known the condescension of the Lord,
and say, both in lowly prayer and in joyful psalm, "Thou hast visited me." When
first of all the Lord draws nigh to the heart, the trembling soul perceives
clearly the searching character of His visit. Remember how Job answered the
Lord: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth
Thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." We can read of
God, and hear of God, and be little moved; but when we feel His presence, it is
another matter. I thought my house was good enough for kings; but when the King
of kings came to it, I saw that it was a hovel quite unfit for His abode. I had
never known sin to be so "exceeding sinful" if I had not known God to be so
perfectly holy. I had never understood the depravity of my own nature if I had
not known the holiness of God's nature. When we see Jesus, we fall at His feet
as dead; till then, we are alive with vainglorious life. If letters of light
traced by a mysterious hand upon the wall caused the joints of Belshazzar's
loins to be loosed, what awe overcomes our spirits when we see the Lord Himself!
In the presence of so much light our spots and wrinkles are revealed, and we are
utterly ashamed. We are like Daniel, who said, "I was left alone, and saw this
great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned
in me into corruption." It is when the Lord visits us that we see our
nothingness, and ask, "Lord, what is man? " I think you will remember that, when
the Lord first visited you in the night, it was with you as with Peter when
Jesus came to him. He had been toiling with his net all the night, and nothing
had come of it; but when the Lord Jesus came into his boat, and bade him launch
out into the deep, and let down his net for a draught, he caught such a great
multitude of fishes that the boat began to sink. See! the boat goes down, down,
till the water threatens to engulf it, and Peter, and the fish, and all. Then
Peter fell down at Jesus knees, and cried, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful
man, O Lord!" The presence of Jesus was too much for him: his sense of
unworthiness made him sink like his boat, and shrink away from the Divine Lord.
I remember that sensation well; for I was half inclined to cry with the demoniac
of Gadara, "What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God most high?" That
first discovery of His injured love was overpowering; its very hopefulness
increased my anguish; for then I saw that I had slain the Lord who had come to
save me. I saw that mine was the hand which made the hammer fall, and drove the
nails that fastened the Redeemer's hands and feet to the cruel tree. "My
conscience felt and own'd the guilt, And plunged me in despair; I saw my sins
His blood had spilt, And help'd to nail Him there." This is the sight which
breeds repentance: "They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and mourn
for Him." When the Lord visits us, He humbles us, removes all hardness from our
hearts, and leads us to the Saviour's feet. Since those early days, I hope that
you and I have had many visits from our Lord. Those first visits were, as I
said, sharply searching; but the later ones have been sweetly solacing. Some of
us have had them, especially in the night, when we have been compelled to count
the sleepless hours. "Heaven's gate opens when this world's is shut." The night
is still; everybody is away; work is done; care is forgotten, and then the Lord
Himself draws near. Possibly there may be pain to be endured, the head may be
aching, and the heart may be throbbing; but if Jesus comes to visit us, our bed
of languishing becomes a throne of glory. Though it is true "He giveth His
beloved sleep," yet at such times He gives them something better than sleep,
namely; His own presence, and the fulness of joy which comes with it. By night
upon our bed we have seen the unseen. I have tried sometimes not to sleep under
an excess of joy, when the company of Christ has been sweetly mine. Do you ask
me to describe these manifestations of the Lord? It were hard to tell you in
words: you must know them for yourselves. If you had never tasted sweetness, no
man living could give you an idea of honey. Yet if the honey be there, you can
"taste and see." To a man born blind, sight must be a thing past imagination;
and to one who has never known the Lord, His visits are quite as much beyond
conception. Nor is it simply a close contemplation of Christ; for we can picture
Him as exceedingly fair and majestic, and yet not have Him consciously near us.
Delightful and instructive as it is to behold the likeness of Christ by
meditation, yet the enjoyment of His actual presence is something more. I may
wear my friend's portrait about my person, and yet may not be able to say, "Thou
hast visited me." When the Lord visits us in the night, what is the effect upon
us? When hearts meet hearts in fellowship of love, communion brings first peace,
then rest, and then joy of soul. I am speaking of no emotional excitement rising
into fanatical rapture; but I speak of sober fact, when I say that the Lord's
great heart touches ours, and our heart rises into sympathy with Him. At such a
time there is a delightful sense of rest; we have no ambitions, no desires. A
divine serenity and security envelop us. We have no thought of foes, or fears,
or afflictions, or doubts. There is a joyous laying aside of our own will. We
are nothing, and we will nothing: Christ is everything, and His will is the
pulse of our soul. We are perfectly content either to be ill or to be well, to
be rich or to be poor, to be slandered or to be honoured, so that we may but
abide in the love of Christ. Jesus fills the horizon of our being. Now, beloved
friends, you may be saying to yourselves, "We have not enjoyed such visits as
these." You may do so. If the Father loves you even as He loves His Son, then
you are on visiting terms with Him. If, then, He has not called upon you, you
will be wise to call on Him. Breathe a sigh to Him, and say,— "When wilt Thou
come unto me, Lord? Oh come, my Lord most dear! Come near, come nearer, nearer
still, I'm blest when Thou art near. "When wilt Thou come unto me, Lord? I
languish for the sight; Ten thousand suns when Thou art hid, Are shades instead
of light. "When wilt Thou come unto me, Lord? Until Thou dost appear, I count
each moment for a day, Each minute for a year." "As the hart panteth after the
water-brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God!" If you long for Him, He
much more longs for you. Never was there a sinner that was half so eager for
Christ as Christ is eager for the sinner; nor a saint one-tenth so anxious to
behold his Lord as his Lord is to behold him. If thou art running to Christ, He
is already near thee. If thou dost sigh for His presence, that sigh is the
evidence that He is with thee. He is with thee now: therefore be calmly glad.
"Go forth, beloved, and talk with Jesus on the beach, for He oft resorted to the
sea-shore. Commune with Him amid the olive-groves so dear to Him in many a night
of wrestling prayer. If ever there was a country in which men should see traces
of Jesus, next to the Holy Land, this Riviera is the favoured spot. It is a land
of vines, and figs, and olives, and palms; I have called it "Thy land, O
Immanuel." While in this Mentone, I often fancy that I am looking out upon the
Lake of Gennesaret, or walking at the foot of the Mount of Olives, or peering
into the mysterious gloom of the Garden of Gethsemane. The narrow streets of the
old town are such as Jesus traversed, these villages are such as He inhabited.
Have your hearts right with Him, and He will visit you often, until every day
you shall walk with God, as Enoch did, and so turn week-days into Sabbaths,
meals into sacraments, homes into temples, and earth into heaven. So be it with
us! Amen.


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  CHAPTER 5: UNDER HIS SHADOW.
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UNDER HIS SHADOW. A BRIEF SACRAMENTAL DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT MENTONE TO ABOUT A
SCORE BRETHREN. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall
abide under the shadow of the Almighty."—Psalms 91:1.

I MUST confess of my short discourse, as the man did of the axe which fell into
the stream, that it is borrowed. The outline of it is taken from one who will
never complain of me, for to the great loss of the Church she has left these
lower choirs to sing above. Miss Havergal, last and loveliest of our modern
poets, when her tones were most mellow, and her language most sublime, has been
caught up to swell the music of heaven. Her last poems are published with the
title, "Under His Shadow," and the preface gives the reason for the name. She
said, "I should like the title to be, 'Under His Shadow.' I seem to see four
pictures suggested by that: under the shadow of a rock, in a weary plain; under
the shadow of a tree; closer still, under the shadow of His wing; nearest and
closest, in the shadow of His hand. Surely that hand must be the pierced hand,
that may oftentimes press us sorely, and yet evermore encircling, upholding, and
shadowing. "

I. We will begin with the first picture which Miss Havergal mentions, namely,
THE ROCK sheltering the weary traveller:—"The shadow of a great rock in a weary
land" (Isaiah 32:2). The shadow of a rock is remarkably cooling, and so was the
Lord Jesus eminently comforting to us. The shadow of a rock is more dense, more
complete, and more cool than any other shade; and so the peace which Jesus gives
passeth all understanding, there is none like it. No chance beam darts through
the rock-shade, nor can the heat penetrate as it will do in a measure through
the foliage of a forest. Jesus is a complete shelter, and blessed are they who
are "under His shadow." Let them take care that they abide there, and never
venture forth to answer for themselves, or to brave the accusations of Satan.
There is, however, something of awe about this great shadow. A rock is often so
high as to be terrible, and we tremble in presence of its greatness. The idea of
littleness hiding behind massive greatness is well set forth; but there is no
tender thought of fellowship, or gentleness: even so, at the first, we view the
Lord Jesus as our shelter from the consuming heat of well-deserved punishment,
and we know little more. It is most pleasant to remember that this is only one
panel of the four-fold picture. Inexpressibly dear to my soul is the deep cool
rock-shade of my blessed Lord, as I stand in Him a sinner saved; yet is there
more. Here we have not so much refuge from trouble as special rest in times of
joy. The spouse is happily wandering through a wood, glancing at many trees, and
rejoicing in the music of the birds. One tree specially charms her: the citron
with its golden fruit wins her admiration, and she sits under its shadow with
great delight; such was her Beloved to her, the best among the good, the fairest
of the fair, the joy of her joy, the light of her delight. Such is Jesus to the
believing soul. Dear friends, is Christ to each one of us a place of sitting
down? I do not mean a rest of idleness and self-content,—God deliver us from
that; but there is rest in a conscious grasp of Christ, a rest of contentment
with Him as our all in all. God give us to know more of this! This shadow is
also meant to yield perpetual solace, for the spouse did not merely come under
it, but there she sat down as one who meant to stay. Continuance of repose and
joy is purchased for us by our Lord's perfected work. Under the shadow she found
food; she had no need to leave it to find a single needful thing, for the tree
which shaded also yielded fruit; nor did she need even to rise from her rest,
but sitting still she feasted on the delicious fruit. You who know the Lord
Jesus know also what this meaneth. Let us use His sacred name as a common word,
as a household word, and run to Him as to a dear familiar friend. Under His
shadow we are to feel that we are at home, and then He will make Himself at home
to us by becoming food unto our souls, and giving spiritual refreshment to us
while we rest. The spouse does not here say that she reached up to the tree to
gather its fruit, but she sat down on the ground in intense delight, and the
fruit came to her where she sat. It is wonderful how Christ will come down to
souls that sit beneath His shadow; if we can but be at home with Christ, He will
sweetly commune with us. Has He not said, "Delight thyself also in the Lord, and
He shall give thee the desires of thine heart"? III. The third view of the one
subject is,—THE SHADOW OF HIS WINGS,—a precious word. I think the best specimen
of it, for it occurs several times, is in that blessed Psalm, the sixty-third,
verse seven (Psalms 63:7):— Does not this set forth our Lord as our trust in
hours of depression? In the Psalm now open before us, David was banished from
the means of grace to a dry and thirsty land, where no water was. What is much
worse, he was in a measure away from all conscious enjoyment of God. He says,
"Early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee." He sings rather of
memories than of present communion with God. We also have come into this
condition, and have been unable to find any present comfort. "Thou hast been my
help," has been the highest note we could strike, and we have been glad to reach
to that. At such times, the light of God's face has been withdrawn, but our
faith has taught us to rejoice under the shadow of His wings. Light there was
none; we were altogether in the shade, but it was a warm shade. We felt that God
who had been near must be near us still, and therefore we were quieted. Our God
cannot change, and therefore as He was our help He must still be our help, our
help even though He casts a shadow over us, for it must be the shadow of His own
eternal wings. The metaphor is, of course, derived from the nestling of little
birds under the shadow of their mother's wings, and the picture is singularly
touching and comforting. The little bird is not yet able to take care of itself,
so it cowers down under the mother, and is there happy and safe. Disturb a hen
for a moment, and you will see all the little chickens huddling together, and by
their chirps making a kind of song. Then they push their heads into her
feathers, and seem happy beyond measure in their warm abode. When we are very
sick and sore depressed, when we are worried with the care of pining children,
and the troubles of a needy household, and the temptations of Satan, how
comforting it is to run to our God,—like the little chicks run to the hen,—and
hide away near His heart, beneath His Wings. Oh, tried ones, press closely to
the loving heart of your Lord, hide yourselves entirely beneath His wings! Here
awe has disappeared, and rest itself is enhanced by the idea of loving trust.
The little birds are safe in their mother's love, and we, too, are beyond
measure secure and happy in the loving favour of the Lord. "And He hath made my
mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath He kid me, and made me
a polished shaft; in His quiver hath He hid me." These are mere surface
thoughts. The subject deserves a series of discourses. Your best course, my
beloved friends, will be to enlarge upon these hints by a long personal
experience of abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. May God the Holy Ghost
lead you into it, and keep you there, for Jesus' sake!


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  CHAPTER 6: UNDER THE APPLE TREE.
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UNDER THE APPLE TREE.

"I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my
taste."—Son_2:3.

Christ known should be Christ used. The spouse knew her Beloved to be like a
fruit-bearing tree, and at once she sat under His shadow, and fed upon His
fruit. It is a pity that we know so much about Christ, and yet enjoy Him so
little. May our experience keep pace with our knowledge, and may that experience
be composed of a practical using of our Lord! Jesus casts a shadow, let us sit
under it: Jesus yields fruit, let us taste the sweetness of it. Depend upon it
that the way to learn more is to use what you know; and, moreover, the way to
learn a truth thoroughly is to learn it experimentally. You know a doctrine
beyond all fear of contradiction when you have proved it for yourself by
personal test and trial. The bride in the song as good as says, "I am certain
that my Beloved casts a shadow, for I have sat under it, and I am persuaded that
He bears sweet fruit, for I have tasted of it." The best way of demonstrating
the power of Christ to save is to trust in Him and be saved yourself; and of all
those who are sure of the divinity of our holy faith, there are none so certain
as those who feel its divine power upon themselves. You may reason yourself into
a belief of the gospel, and you may by further reasoning keep yourself orthodox;
but a personal trial, and an inward knowing of the truth, are incomparably the
best evidences. If Jesus be as an apple tree among the trees of the wood, do not
keep away from Him, but sit under His shadow, and taste His fruit. He is a
Saviour; do not believe the fact and yet remain unsaved. As far as Christ is
known to you, so far make use of Him. Is not this sound common-sense? We have
thus the door set open for us, and we pray that the Holy Spirit may help us to
enter in while we notice in the text two things which we pray that you may enjoy
to the full. First, the heart's rest in Christ: "I sat down under His shadow
with great delight." And, secondly, the heart's refreshment in Christ: "His
fruit was sweet to my taste." The spouse had been seeking her Beloved, and in
looking for Him she had asked where she was likely to find Him. "Tell me," says
she, "O Thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou feedest, where Thou makest Thy
flock to rest at noon." The answer was given to her, "Go thy way forth by the
footsteps of the flock." She did go her way; but, after a while, she came to
this resolution: "I will sit down under His shadow." She who said, "I sat down
under His shadow with great delight," could appreciate shade, for she had been
sunburnt. Did we not read just now her exclamation,—"Look not upon me, for I am
black, because the sun hath looked upon me"? She knew what heat meant, what the
burning sun meant; and therefore shade was pleasant to her. You know nothing
about the deliciousness of shade till you travel in a thoroughly hot country;
then you are delighted with it. Did you ever feel the heat of divine wrath? Did
the great Sun—that Sun without variableness or shadow of a turning—ever dart
upon you His hottest rays,—the rays of his holiness and justice? Did you cower
down beneath the scorching beams of that great Light, and say, "We are consumed
by Thine anger"? If you have ever felt that, you have found it a very blessed
thing to come under the shadow of Christ's atoning sacrifice. A shadow, you
know, is cast by a body coming between us and the light and heat; and our Lord's
most blessed body has come between us and the scorching sun of divine justice,
so that we sit under the shadow of His mediation with great delight. Mark well
these two things concerning the spouse. She knew what it was to be weary, and
she knew what it was to be sunburnt; and just in proportion as you also know
these two things, your valuation of Christ will rise. You who have never pined
under the wrath of God have never prized the Saviour. Water is of small value in
this land of brooks and rivers, and so you commonly sprinkle the roads with it;
but I warrant you that, if you were making a day's march over burning sand, a
cup of cold water would be worth a king's ransom; and so to thirsty souls Christ
is precious, but to none beside. The spouse tells us that, when she became quite
overshadowed, then she felt great delight. Great "I" never has great delight,
for it cannot bear to own a greater than itself, but the humble believer finds
his delight in being overshadowed by his Lord. In the shade of Jesus we have
more delight than in any fancied light of our own. The spouse had great delight.
I trust that you Christian people do have great delight; and if not, you ought
to ask yourselves whether you really are the people of God. I like to see a
cheerful countenance; ay, and to hear of raptures in the hearts of those who are
God's saints! There are people who seem to think that religion and gloom are
married, and must never be divorced. Pull down the blinds on Sunday, and darken
the rooms; if you have a garden, or a rose in flower, try to forget that there
are such beauties: are you not to serve God as dolorously as you can? Put your
book under your arm, and crawl to your place of worship in as mournful a manner
as if you were being marched to the whipping-post. Act thus if you will; but
give me that religion which cheers my heart, fires my soul, and fills me with
enthusiasm and delight,—for that is likely to be the religion of heaven, and it
agrees with the experience of the Inspired Song. Often have I felt as if Jesus
leaned over me, as a friend might look over my shoulder. Although no cool shade
comes over your brow, yet you may as much feel His shadow as if it did, for your
heart grows calm; and if you have been wearied with the family, or troubled with
the church, or vexed with yourself, you come down from the chamber where you
have seen your Lord, and you feel braced for the battle of life, ready for its
troubles and its temptations, because you have seen the Lord. "I sat down" said
she, "under His shadow with great delight." How great that delight was she could
not tell, but she sat down as one overpowered with it, needing to sit still
under the load of bliss. I do not like to talk much about the secret delights of
Christians, because there are always some around us who do not understand our
meaning; but I will venture to say this much—that if worldlings could but even
guess what are the secret joys of believers, they would give their eyes to share
with us. We have troubles, and we admit it, we expect to have them; but we have
joys which are frequently excessive. We should not like that others should be
witnesses of the delight which now and then tosses our soul into a very tempest
of joy. You know what it means, do you not? When you have been quite alone with
the heavenly Bridegroom, you wanted to tell the angels of the sweet love of
Christ to you, a poor unworthy one. You even wished to teach the golden harps
fresh music, for seraphs know not the heights and depths of the grace of God as
you know them. Now I leave this first part of the subject, only noticing how
beautifully natural it is. There was a tree, and she sat down under the shadow:
there was nothing strained, nothing formal. So ought true piety ever to be
consistent with common-sense, with that which seems most fitting, most comely,
most wise, and most natural. There is Christ, we may enjoy Him, let us not
despise the privilege. But as soon as ever she was under the shadow, then the
fruit was all hers . "I sat down under His shadow," saith she, and then, "His
fruit was sweet to my taste." Dost thou believe in Jesus, friend? Then Jesus
Christ Himself is thine; and if thou dost own the tree, thou mayest well eat the
fruit. Since He Himself becomes thine altogether, then His redemption and the
pardon that comes of it, His living power, His mighty intercession, the glories
of His Second Advent, and all that belong to Him are made over to thee for thy
personal and present use and enjoyment. All things are yours, since Christ is
yours. Only mind you imitate the spouse: when she found that the fruit was hers,
she ate it. Copy her closely in this. It is a great fault in many believers,
that they do not appropriate the promises, and feed on them. Do not err as they
do. Under the shadow you have a right to eat the fruit. Deny not yourselves the
sacred entertainment. The spouse rested while feasting: she sat and ate. So, O
true believer, rest whilst thou art feeding upon Christ! The spouse says, "I
sat, and I ate." Had she not told us in the former chapter that the King sat at
His table? See how like the Church is to her Lord, and the believer to his
Saviour! We sit down also, and we eat, even as the King doth. Right royally are
we entertained. His joy is in us, and His peace keeps our hearts and minds. What
are the fruits which come from Christ? Are they not peace with God, renewal of
heart, joy in the Holy Ghost, love to the brethren? Are they not regeneration,
justification, sanctification, adoption, and all the blessings of the covenant
of grace? And are they not each and all sweet to our taste? As we have fed upon
them, have we not said, "Yes, these things are pleasant indeed. There is none
like them. Let us live upon them evermore "? Now, sit down, sit down and feed.
It seems a strange thing that we should have to persuade people to do that, but
in the spiritual world things are very different from what they are in the
natural. In the case of most men, if you put a joint of meat before them, and a
knife and fork, they do not need many arguments to persuade them to fall to. But
I will tell you when they will not do it, and that is when they are full: and I
will also tell you when they will do it, and that is when they are hungry. Even
so, if thy soul is weary after Christ the Saviour, thou wilt feed on Him; but if
not, it is useless for me to preach to thee, or bid thee come. However, thou
that art there, sitting under His shadow, thou mayest hear Him utter these
words: "Eat, O friend: drink, yea, drink abundantly." Thou canst not have too
much of these good things: the more of Christ, the better the Christian. She
grew very full of this. It was such a grand thing to find a great Saviour, a
triumphant Saviour, an exalted Saviour! But it was too much for her, and she
became sick of soul with the excessive glory of what she had learned; and do you
see what her heart craves for? She longs for her first simple joys, those
countrified delights. "Comfort me with apples," she says. Nothing but the old
joys will revive her. Did you ever feel like that? I have been satiated with
delight in the love of Christ as a glorious exalted Saviour when I have seen Him
riding on His white horse, and going forth conquering and to conquer; I have
been overwhelmed when I have beheld Him in the midst of the throne, with all the
brilliant assembly of angels and archangels adoring Him, and my thought has gone
forward to the day when He shall descend with all the pomp of God, and make all
kings and princes shrink into nothingness before the infinite majesty of His
glory. Then I have felt as though, at the sight of Him, I must fall at His feet
as dead; and I have wanted somebody to come and tell me over again "the old, old
story" of how He died in order that I might be saved. His throne overpowers me,
let me gather fruit from His cross. Bring me apples from "the tree" again. I am
awe-struck while in the palace, let me get away to the woods again. Give me an
apple plucked from the tree, such as I have given out to boys and girls in His
family, such an apple as this, "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest." Or this: "This man receiveth sinners." Give me
a promise from the basket of the covenant. Give me the simplicity of Christ, let
me be a child and feast on apples again, if Jesus be the apple tree. I would
fain go back to Christ on the tree in my stead, Christ overshadowing me, Christ
feeding me. This is the happiest state to live in. Lord, evermore give us these
apples! You recollect the old story we told, years ago, of Jack the huckster who
used to sing,— "I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my
all in all."

Those who knew him were astonished at his constant composure. They had a world
of doubts and fears, and so they asked him why he never doubted. "Well," said
he, "I can't doubt but what I am a poor sinner, and nothing at all, for I know
that, and feel it every day. And why should I doubt that Jesus Christ is my all
in all? for He says He is." "Oh!" said his questioner, "I have my ups and
downs." "I don't," says Jack; "I can never go up, for I am a poor sinner, and
nothing at all; and I cannot go down, for Jesus Christ is my all in all." He
wanted to join the church, and they said he must tell his experience. He said,
"All my experience is that I am a poor sinner, and nothing at all, and Jesus
Christ is my all in all." "Well," they said, "when you come before the
church-meeting, the minister may ask you questions." "I can't help it," said
Jack, "all I know I will tell you; and that is all I know,— "'I'm a poor sinner,
and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my all in all.'"

He was admitted into the church, and continued with the brethren, walking in
holiness; but that was still all his experience, and you could not get him
beyond it. "Why," said one brother, "I sometimes feel so full of grace, I feel
so advanced in sanctification, that I begin to be very happy." "I never do,"
said Jack; "I am a poor sinner, and nothing at all." "But then," said the other,
"I go down again, and think I am not saved, because I am not as sanctified as I
used to be." "But I never doubt my salvation," said Jack, "because Jesus Christ
is my all in all, and He never alters." That simple story is grandly
instructive, for it sets forth a plain man's faith in a plain salvation; it is
the likeness of a soul under the apple tree, resting in the shade, and feasting
on the fruit. The Lord Himself bring forth His own sweet fruit to you! Amen.


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  CHAPTER 7: OVER THE MOUNTAINS.
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OVER THE MOUNTAINS.

"My Beloved is mine, and I am His: He feedeth among the lilies. Until the day
break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be Thou like a roe or a
young hart upon the mountains of Bether."—Son_2:16-17.

IT may be that there are saints who are always at their best, and are happy
enough never to lose the light of their Father's countenance. I am not sure that
there are such persons, for those believers with whom I have been most intimate
have had a varied experience; and those whom I have known, who have boasted of
their constant perfectness, have not been the most reliable of individuals. I
hope there is a spiritual region attainable where there are no clouds to hide
the Sun of our soul; but I cannot speak with positiveness, for I have not
traversed that happy land. Every year of my life has had a winter as well as a
summer, and every day its night. I have hitherto seen clear shinings and heavy
rains, and felt warm breezes and fierce winds. Speaking for the many of my
brethren, I confess that though the substance be in us, as in the teil-tree and
the oak, yet we do lose our leaves, and the sap within us does not flow with
equal vigour at all seasons. We have our downs as well as our ups, our valleys
as well as our hills. We are not always rejoicing; we are sometimes in heaviness
through manifold trials. Alas! we are grieved to confess that our fellowship
with the Well-beloved is not always that of rapturous delight; but we have at
times to seek Him, and cry, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" This
appears to me to have been in a measure the condition of the spouse when she
cried, "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved." It is
plain, from this Sacred Canticle, that the spouse may love and be loved, may be
confident in her Lord, and be fully assured of her possession of Him, and yet
there may for the present be mountains between her and Him. Yes, we may even be
far advanced in the divine life, and yet be exiled for a while from conscious
fellowship. There are nights for men as well as babes, and the strong know that
the sun is hidden quite as well as do the sick and the feeble. Do not,
therefore, condemn yourself, my brother, because a cloud is over you; cast not
away your confidence; but the rather let faith burn up in the gloom, and let
your love resolve to come at your Lord again whatever be the barriers which
divide you from Him. The spouse also speaks of shadows. "Until the day break,
and the shadows flee away." Shadows are multiplied by the departure of the sun,
and these are apt to distress the timid. We are not afraid of real enemies when
Jesus is with us; but when we miss Him, we tremble at a shade. How sweet is that
song, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me!" But we
change our note when midnight is now come, and Jesus is not with us: then we
people the night with terrors: spectres, demons, hobgoblins, and things that
never existed save in fancy, are apt to swarm about us; and we are in fear where
no fear is. When communion with Christ is broken, in all true hearts there is a
strong desire to win it back again. The man who has known the joy of communion
with Christ, if he loses it, will never be content until it is restored. Hast
thou ever entertained the Prince Emmanuel? Is He gone elsewhere? Thy chamber
will be dreary till He comes back again. "Give me Christ or else I die," is the
cry of every spirit that has lost, the dear companionship of Jesus. We do not
part with such heavenly delights without many a pang. It is not with us a matter
of "maybe He will return, and we hope He will;" but it must be, or we faint and
die. We cannot live without Him; and this is a cheering sign; for the soul that
cannot live without Him shall not live without Him: He comes speedily where life
and death hang on His coming. If you must have Christ you shall have Him. This
is just how the matter stands: we must drink of this well or die of thirst; we
must feed upon Jesus or our spirit will famish. The dividing difficulties were
many as well as great. She does not speak of "a mountain", but of "mountains":
Alps rose on Alps, wall after wall. She was distressed to think that in so short
a time so much could come between her and Him of whom she sang just now, "His
left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me." Alas, we
multiply these mountains of Bether with a sad rapidity! Our Lord is jealous, and
we give Him far too much reason, for hiding His face. A fault, which seemed so
small at the time we committed it, is seen in the light of its own consequences,
and then it grows and swells till it towers aloft, and hides the face of the
Beloved. Then has our sun gone down, and fear whispers, "Will His light ever
return? Will it ever be daybreak? Will the shadows ever flee away?" It is easy
to grieve away the heavenly sunlight, but ah, how hard to clear the skies, and
regain the unclouded brightness! So the spouse seems to have come to the
conclusion that the difficulties in her way were insurmountable by her own
power. She does not even think of herself going over the mountains to her
Beloved, but she cries, "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn,
my Beloved, and be Thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of
Bether." She will not try to climb the mountains, she knows she cannot: if they
had been less high, she might have attempted it; but their summits reach to
heaven. If they had been less craggy or difficult, she might have tried to scale
them; but these mountains are terrible, and no foot may stand upon their lone
crags. Oh, the mercy of utter self-despair! I love to see a soul driven into
that close corner, and forced therefore to look to God alone. The end of the
creature is the beginning of the Creator. Where the sinner ends the Saviour
begins. If the mountains can be climbed, we shall have to climb them; but if
they are quite impassable, then the soul cries out with the prophet, "Oh, that
Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down, that the mountains
might flow down at Thy presence. As when the melting fire burneth, the fire
causeth the waters to boil, to make Thy name known to Thine adversaries, that
the nations may tremble at Thy presence. When Thou didst terrible things which
we looked not for, Thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at Thy presence."
Our souls are lame, they cannot move to Christ, and we turn our strong desires
to Him, and fix our hopes alone upon Him; will He not remember us in love, and
fly to us as He did to His servant of old when He rode upon a cherub, and did
fly, yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind? Here I would remind you that
this prayer is one that we may fairly offer, because it is the way of Christ to
come to us when our coming to Him is out of the question. "How?" say you. I
answer that of old He did this; for we remember "His great love wherewith He
loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and in sins." His first coming
into the world in human form, was it not because man could never come to God
until God had come to him? I hear of no tears, or prayers, or entreaties after
God on the part of our first parents; but the offended Lord spontaneously gave
the promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. Our
Lord's coming into the world was unbought, unsought, unthought of; he came
altogether of His own free will, delighting to redeem. "With pitying eyes, the
Prince of grace Beheld our helpless grief; He saw, and (oh, amazing love!) He
ran to our relief." His incarnation was a type of the way in which He comes to
us by His Spirit. He saw us cast out, polluted, shameful, perishing; and as He
passed by, His tender lips said, "Live!" In us is fulfilled that word, "I am
found of them that sought Me not." We were too averse to holiness, too much in
bondage to sin, ever to have returned to Him if He had not turned to us. What
think you? Did He come to us when we were enemies, and will He not visit us now
that we are friends? Did He come to us when we were dead sinners, and will He
not hear us now that we are weeping saints? If Christ's coming to the earth was
after this manner, and if His coming to each one of us was after this style, we
may well hope that now He will come to us in like fashion, like the dew which
refreshes the grass, and waiteth not for man, neither tarrieth for the sons of
men. Besides, He is coming again in person, in the latter-day, and mountains of
sin, and error, and idolatry, and superstition, and oppression stand in the way
of His kingdom; but He will surely come and overturn, and overturn, till He
shall reign over all. He will come in the latter-days, I say, though He shall
leap the hills to do it, and because of that I am sure we may comfortably
conclude that He will draw near to us who mourn His absence so bitterly. Then
let us bow our heads a moment, and silently present to His most excellent
Majesty the petition of our text: "Turn, my Beloved, and be Thou like a roe or a
young hart upon the mountains of division." It is easy, too, for Christ to come
over the mountains for our relief . It is easy for the gazelle to cross the
mountains, it is made for that end; so is it easy for Jesus, for to this purpose
was He ordained from of old that He might come to man in his worst estate, and
bring with Him the Father's love. What is it that separates us from Christ? Is
it a sense of sin? You have been pardoned once, and Jesus can renew most vividly
a sense of full forgiveness. But you say, "Alas! I have sinned again: fresh gu
ilt alarms me." He can remove it in an instant, for the fountain appointed for
that purpose is opened, and is still full. It is easy for the dear lips of
redeeming love to put away the child's offences, since He has already obtained
pardon for the criminal's iniquities. If with His heart's blood He won our
pardon from our Judge, he can easily enough bring us the forgiveness of our
Father. Oh, yes, it is easy enough for Christ to say again, "Thy sins be
forgiven"! "But I feel so unfit, so unable to enjoy communion." He that healed
all manner of bodily diseases can heal with a word your spiritual infirmities.
Remember the man whose ankle-bones received strength, so that he ran and leaped;
and her who was sick of a fever, and was healed at once, and arose, and
ministered unto her Lord. "My grace is sufficient for thee; for My strength is
made perfect in weakness." "But I have such afflictions, such troubles, such
sorrows, that I am weighted down, and cannot rise into joyful fellowship." Yes,
but Jesus can make every burden light, and cause each yoke to be easy. Your
trials can be made to aid your heavenward course instead of hindering it. I know
all about those heavy weights, and I perceive that you cannot lift them; but
skilful engineers can adapt ropes and pulleys in such a way that heavy weights
lift other weights. The Lord Jesus is great at gracious machinery, and He has
the art of causing a weight of tribulation to lift from us a load of spiritual
deadness, so that we ascend by that which, like a millstone, threatened to sink
us down. To conclude, our Lord can do all this directly. As in the twinkling of
an eye the dead shall be raised incorruptible, so in a moment can our dead
affections rise to fulness of delight. He can say to this mountain, "Be thou
removed hence, and be thou cast into the midst of the sea," and it shall be
done. In the sacred emblems now upon this supper table, Jesus is already among
us. Faith cries, "He has come!" Like John the Baptist, she gazes intently on
Him, and cries, "Behold the Lamb of God!" At this table Jesus feeds us with His
body and His blood. His corporeal presence we have not, but His real spiritual
presence we perceive. We are like the disciples when none of them durst ask Him,
"Who art Thou?" knowing that it was the Lord. He is come. He looketh forth at
these windows,—I mean this bread and wine; showing Himself through the lattices
of this instructive and endearing ordinance. He speaks. He saith, "The winter is
past, the rain is over and gone." And so it is; we feel it to be so: a heavenly
springtide warms our frozen hearts. Like the spouse, we wonderingly cry, "Or
ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib." Now in happy
fellowship we see the Beloved, and hear His voice; our heart burns; our
affections glow; we are happy, restful, brimming over with delight. The King has
brought us into his banqueting-house, and His banner over us is love. It is good
to be here! "Friends, we must now go our ways. A voice saith, "Arise, let us go
hence." O Thou Lord of our hearts, go with us! Home will not be home without
Thee. Life will not be life without Thee. Heaven itself would not be heaven if
Thou wert absent. Abide with us. The world grows dark, the gloaming of time
draws on. Abide with us, for it is toward evening. Our years increase, and we
near the night when dews fall cold and chill. A great future is all about us,
the splendours of the last age are coming down; and while we wait in solemn,
awe-struck expectation, our heart continually cries within herself, "Until the
day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be Thou like a roe
or a young hart upon the mountains of division." "Hasten, Lord! the promised
hour; Come in glory and in power; Still Thy foes are unsubdued; Nature sighs to
be renew'd. Time has nearly reach'd its sum, All things with Thy bride say
'Come;' Jesus, whom all worlds adore, Come and reign for evermore!"


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  CHAPTER 8: FRAGRANT SPICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS
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FRAGRANT SPICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS OF MYRRH.

"Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee."—Son_4:7.

HOW marvellous are these words! "Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in
thee." The glorious Bridegroom is charmed with His spouse, and sings soft
canticles of admiration. When the bride extols her Lord there is no wonder, for
He deserves it well, and in Him there is room for praise without possibility of
flattery. But does He who is wiser than Solomon condescend to praise this
sunburnt Shulamite? 'Tis even so, for these are His own words, and were uttered
by His own sweet lips. Nay, doubt not, O young believer, for we have more
wonders to reveal! There are greater depths in heavenly things than thou hast at
present dared to hope. The Church not only is all fair in the eyes of her
Beloved, but in one sense she always was so. "In God's decree, her form He
view'd; All beauteous in His eyes she stood, Presented by Th' eternal name,
Betroth'd in love, and free from blame. "Not as she stood in Adam's fall, When
guilt and ruin cover'd all; But as she'll stand another day, Fairer than sun's
meridian ray."

He delighted in her before she had either a natural or a spiritual being, and
from the beginning could He say, "My delights were with the sons of men." (Prov.
8:31.) Having covenanted to be the Surety of the elect, and having determined to
fulfil every stipulation of that covenant, He from all eternity delighted to
survey the purchase of His blood, and rejoiced to view His Church, in the
purpose and decree, as already by Him delivered from sin, and exalted to glory
and happiness. "Oh, glorious grace, mysterious plan Too great for angel-mind to
scan, Our thoughts are lost, our numbers fail; All hail, redeeming love, all
hail!" Our first bundle of myrrh lies in the open hand of the text. When He
speaks positively, how complete is His admiration! She is "fair", but that is
not a full description; He styles her "all fair." He views her in Himself,
washed in His sin-atoning blood, and clothed in His meritorious righteousness,
and He considers her to be full of comeliness and beauty. No wonder that such is
the case, since it is but His own perfect excellences that He admires, seeing
that the holiness, glory, and perfection of His Church are His own garments on
the back of His own well-beloved spouse, and she is "bone of His bone, and flesh
of His flesh." She is not simply pure, or well-proportioned; she is positively
lovely and fair! She has actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but
more, she has through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by which an
actual beauty is conferred upon her. Believers have a positive righteousness
given to them when they become "accepted in the Beloved." (Ephesians 1:6.) Let
us mark well the repeated sentences of His approbation. "Lo, thou art fair! lo,
thou art fair! Twice fair thou art, I say; My righteousness and graces are Thy
double bright array. "But since thy faith can hardly own My beauty put on thee;
Behold! behold! twice be it known Thou art all fair to Me!"

After having surveyed her whole person with rapturous delight, He cannot be
satisfied until He takes a second gaze, and afresh recounts her beauties. Making
but little difference between His first description and the last, he adds
extraordinary expressions of love to manifest His increased delight. "Thou art
beautiful, O My love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with
banners. Turn away thine eyes from Me, for they have overcome Me: thy hair is as
a flock of goats that appear from Gilead. Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep
which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not
one barren among them. As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy
locks. . . . My dove, My undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her
mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her." (Son_5:4-7, Son_5:9.) Let
us remember that He who pronounces the Church and each individual believer to be
"all fair" is none other than the glorious Son of God, who is "very God of very
God." Hence His declaration is decisive, since infallibility has uttered it.
There can be no mistake where the all-seeing Jehovah is the Judge. If He has
pronounced her to be incomparably fair, she is so, beyond a doubt; and though
hard for our poor puny faith to receive, it is nevertheless as divine a verity
as any of the undoubted doctrines of revelation. Christ Jesus has no quarrel
with His spouse. She often wanders from Him, and grieves His Holy Spirit, but He
does not allow her faults to affect His love. He sometimes chides, but it is
always in the tenderest manner, with the kindest intentions;—it is "My love"
even then. There is no remembrance of our follies, He does not cherish ill
thoughts of us, but He pardons, and loves as well after the offence as before
it. It is well for us it is so, for if Jesus were as mindful of injuries as we
are, how could He commune with us? Many a time a believer will put himself out
of humour with the Lord for some slight turn in providence, but our precious
Husband knows our silly hearts too well to take any offence at our ill manners.
But the question returns,—How is this? Can it be explained, so as not to clash
with the most evident fact that sin remaineth even in the hearts of the
regenerate? Can our own daily bewailings of sin allow of anything like
perfection as a present attainment? The Lord Jesus saith it, and therefore it
must be true; but in what sense is it to be understood? How are we "all fair"
though we ourselves feel that we are black, because the sun hath looked upon us?
(Son_1:6.) The answer is ready, if we consider the analogy of faith. And Dr.
Gill excellently expresses the same idea, when he writes, "though all sin is
seen by God, in articulo providentiae, in the matter of providence, wherein
nothing escapes His all-seeing eye; yet in articula iustificationis, in the
matter of justification, He sees no sin in His people, so as to reckon it to
them, or condemn them for it; for they all stand 'holy and unblameable and
unreproveable in His sight.'" (Colossians 1:22.) The blood of Jesus removes all
stain, and His righteousness confers perfect beauty; and, therefore, in the
Beloved, the true believer is at this hour as much accepted and approved, in the
sight of God, as He will be when He stands before the throne in heaven. The
beauty of justification is at its fulness the moment a soul is by faith received
into the Lord Jesus. This is righteousness so transcendent that no one can
exaggerate its glorious merit. Since this righteousness is that of Jesus, the
Son of God, it is therefore divine, and is, indeed, the holiness of God; and,
hence, Kent was not too daring when, in a bold flight of rapture, he sang,— "In
thy Surety thou art free, His dear hands were pierced for thee; With His
spotless vesture on, Holy as the Holy One. "Oh, the heights and depths of grace,
Shining with meridian blaze; Here the sacred records show Sinners black, but
comely too!"

II. OUR LORD'S ADMIRATION IS SWEETENED BY LOVE. He addresses the spouse as "My
love." The virgins called her "the fairest among women "; they saw and admired,
but it was reserved for her Lord to love her. Who can fully tell the excellence
of His love? Oh, how His heart goeth forth after His redeemed! As for the love
of David and Jonathan, it is far exceeded in Christ. No tender husband was ever
so fond as He. No figures can completely set forth His heart's affection, for it
surpasses all the love that man or woman hath heard or thought of. Our blessed
Lord, Himself, when He would declare the greatness of it, was compelled to
compare one inco nceivable thing with another, in order to express His own
thoughts. "As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you." (John 15:9.) All
the eternity, fervency, immutability, and infinity which are to be found in the
love of Jehovah the Father, towards Jehovah-Jesus the Son, are copied to the
letter in the love of the Lord Jesus towards His chosen ones. Before the
foundation of the world He loved His people, in all their wanderings He loved
them, and unto the end He will abide in His love. (John 13:1.) He has given them
the best proof of His affection, in that He gave Himself to die for their sins,
and hath revealed to them complete pardon as the result of His death. The
willing manner of His death is further confirmation of His boundless love. How
Christ did delight in the work of our redemption! "Lo, I come: in the volume of
the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God." (Psalms
40:7-8.) When He came into the world to sacrifice His life for us, it was a
freewill offering. "I have a baptism to be baptized with." (Luke 12:50.) Christ
was to be, as it were, baptized in His own blood, and how did He thirst for that
time! "How am I straitened till it be accomplished." There was no hesitation, no
desire to be quit of His engagement. He went to His crucifixion without once
halting by the way to deliberate whether He should complete His sacrifice. The
stupendous mass of our fearful debt He paid at once, asking neither delay nor
diminution. From the moment when He said, "Not My will, but Thine, be done"
(Luke 22:42), His course was swift and unswerving; as if He had been hastening
to a crown rather than to a cross. The fulness of time was His only
remembrancer; He was not driven by bailiffs to discharge the obligations of His
Church, but joyously, even when full of sorrow, He met the law, answered its
demands, and cried, "It is finished." III. LET US NOTE THAT CHRIST DELIGHTS TO
THINK UPON HIS CHURCH, AND TO LOOK UPON HER BEAUTY. As the bird returneth often
to its nest, and as the wayfarer hastens to his home, so doth the mind
continually pursue the object of its choice. We cannot look too often upon that
face which we love; we desire always to have our precious things in our sight.
It is even so with our Lord Jesus. From all eternity, "His delights were with
the sons of men;" His thoughts rolled onward to the time when His elect should
be born into the world; He viewed them in the mirror of His fore-knowledge. "In
thy book," He says, "all my members were written, which in continuance were
fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." (Psalms 139:16.) When the world
was set upon its pillars, He was there, and He set the bounds of the people
according to the number of the children of Israel. Many a time, before His
incarnation, He descended to this earth in the similitude of a man; on the
plains of Mamre (Genesis 18:1-33), by the brook of Jabbok (Genesis 32:24-30),
beneath the walls of Jericho (Joshua 5:13), and in the fiery furnace of Babylon
(Daniel 3:19-25), the Son of man did visit His people. Because His soul
delighted in them, He could not rest away from them, for His heart longed after
them. Never were they absent from His heart, for He had written their names upon
His hands, and graven them upon His heart. As the breast-plate containing the
names of the tribes of Israel was the most brilliant ornament worn by the high
priest, so the names of Christ's elect were His most precious Jewels, which He
ever hung nearest His heart. We may often forget to meditate upon the
perfections of our Lord, but He never ceases to remember us. He cares not one
half so much for any of His most glorious works as He does for His children.
Although His eye seeth everything that hath beauty and excellence in it, He
never fixes His gaze anywhere with that admiration and delight which He spends
upon His purchased ones. He charges His angels concerning them, and calls upon
those holy beings to rejoice with Him over His lost sheep. (Luke 15:4-7.) He
talked of them to Himself, and even on the tree of doom He did not cease to
soliloquize concerning them. He saw of the travail of His soul, and He was
abundantly satisfied. "That day acute of ignominious woe, Was, notwithstanding,
in a perfect sense, 'The day of His heart's gladness,' for the joy That His
redeem'd should be brought home at last (Made ready as in robes of bridal
white), Was set before Him vividly,—He look'd;— And for that happiness
anticipate, Endurance of all torture, all disgrace, Seem'd light infliction to
His heart of love." Nor is He content with looking, He must feed His ears as
well as His eyes, and therefore He commends her speech, and intreats her to let
Him hear her voice. See how truly our Lord rejoiceth in us. Is not this
unparalleled love! We have heard of princes who have been smitten by the beauty
of a peasant's daughter, but what of that? Here is the Son of God doting upon a
worm, looking with eyes of admiration upon a poor child of Adam, and listening
with joy to the lispings of poor flesh and blood. Ought we not to be exceedingly
charmed by such matchless condescension? And should not our hearts as much
delight in Him as He doth in us? O surprising truth! Christ Jesus rejoices over
His poor, tempted, tried, and erring people. The Holy Spirit is often pleased in
a most gracious manner to witness with our spirits of the love of Jesus. He
takes of the things of Christ, and reveals them unto us. No voice is heard from
the clouds, and no vision is seen in the night, but we have a testimony more
sure than either of these. If an angel should fly from heaven, and inform the
saint personally of the Saviour's love to him, the evidence would not be one
whir more satisfactory than that which is borne in the heart by the Holy Ghost.
Ask those of the Lord's people who have lived the nearest to the gates of
heaven, and they will tell you that they have had seasons when the love of
Christ towards them has been a fact so clear and sure, that they could no more
doubt it than they could question their own existence. If we were wiser and more
careful, we might preserve the fragrance of Christ's words far longer; for they
are not like the ordinary manna which soon rotted, but are comparable to that
omer of it which was put in the golden pot, and preserved for many generations.
The sweet Lord Jesus has been known to write his love-thoughts on the heart of
His people in so clear and deep a manner, that they have for months, and even
for years, enjoyed an abiding sense of His affection. A few doubts have flitted
across their minds like thin clouds before a summer's sun, but the warmth of
their assurance has remained the same for many a gladsome day. Their path has
been a smooth one, they have fed in the green pastures beside the still waters,
for His rod and staff have comforted them, and His right hand hath led them. I
am inclined to think that there is more of this in the Church than some men
would allow. We have a goodly number who dwell upon the hills, and behold the
light of the sun. There are giants in these days, though the times are not such
as to allow them room to display their gigantic strength; in many a humble cot,
in many a crowded workshop, in many a village manse there are to be found men of
the house of David, men after God's own heart, anointed with the holy oil. It
is, however, a mournful truth, that whole ranks in the army of our Lord are
composed of dwarfish Littlefaiths. The men of fearful mind and desponding heart
are everywhere to be seen. Why is this? Is it the Master's fault, or ours?
Surely He cannot be blamed. Is it not then a matter of enquiry in our own souls,
Can I not grow stronger? Must I be a m ourner all my days? How can I get rid of
my doubts? The answer must be: yes, you can be comforted, but only the mouth of
the Lord can do it, for anything less than this will be unsatisfactory. Oh, for
more of these Bethel visits, more frequent visitations from the God of Israel!
Oh, how sweet to hear Him say to us, as He did to Abraham, "Fear not, Abram, I
am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." (Gen. 15:1.) To be addressed as
Daniel was of old, "O man greatly beloved" (Dan. 10:19), is worth a thousand
ages of this world's joy. What more can a creature want this side of heaven to
make him peaceful and happy than a plain avowal of love from his Lord's own
lips? Let me ever hear Thee, speak in mercy to my soul, and, O my Lord, I ask no
more while here I dwell in the land of my pilgrimage! "Brethren, let us labour
to obtain a confident assurance of the Lord's delight in us, for this, as it
enables Him to commune with us, will be one of the readiest ways to produce a
like feeling in our hearts towards Him. Christ is well pleased with us; let us
approach Him with holy familiarity; let us unbosom our thoughts to Him, for His
delight in us will secure us an audience. The child may stay away from the
father, when he is conscious that he has aroused his father's displeasure, but
why should we keep at a distance when Christ Jesus is smiling upon us? No! since
His smiles attract us, let us enter into His courts, and touch His golden
sceptre. O Holy Spirit, help us to live in happy fellowship with Him whose soul
is knit unto us! "O Jesus! let eternal blessings dwell On Thy transporting name.
* * * Let me be wholly Thine from this blest hour. Let Thy lov'd image be for
ever present; Of Thee be all my thoughts, and let my tongue Be sanctified with
the celestial theme. Dwell on my lips, Thou dearest, sweetest name! Dwell on my
lips, 'till the last parting breath! Then let me die, and bear the charming
sound In triumph to the skies. In other strains, In language all divine, I'll
praise Thee then; While all the Godhead opens in the view Of a Redeemer's love.
Here let me gaze, For ever gaze; the bright variety Will endless joy and
admiration yield. Let me be wholly Thine from this blest hour. Fly from my soul
all images of sense, Leave me in silence to possess my Lord: My life, my
pleasures, flow from Him alone, My strength, my great salvation, and my hope.
Thy name is all my trust; O name divine! Be Thou engraven on my inmost soul, And
let me own Thee with my latest breath, Confess Thee in the face of ev'ry horror,
That threat'ning death or envious hell can raise; Till all their strength
subdu'd, my parting soul Shall give a challenge to infernal rage, And sing
salvation to the Lamb for ever."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 9: THE WELL-BELOVED.
========================================================================

THE WELL-BELOVED. A COMMUNION ADDRESS AT MENTONE. "Yea, He is altogether
lovely."—Son_5:16. THE soul that is familiar with the Lord worships Him in the
outer court of nature, wherein it admires His works, and is charmed by every
thought of what He must be who made them all. When that soul enters the nearer
circle of inspiration, and reads the wonderful words of God, it is still more
enraptured, and its admiration is heightened. In revelation, we see the same
all-glorious Lord as in creation, but the vision is more clear, and the
consequent love is more intense. Can we come into this inner circle? All do not
enter here. Alas! many are far off from Him, and are blind to His beauties. "He
was despised and rejected of men," and He is so still. They do not see God in
His works, but dream that these wonders were evolved, and not created by the
Great Primal Cause. As for His words, they seem to them as idle tales, or, at
best, as inspired only in the same sense as the language of Shakespeare or
Spenser. They see not the Lord in the stately aisles of Holy Scripture; and have
no vision of Himself. May He, who openeth the eyes of the blind, have pity on
them! If we enter this sacred inner circle, we must become witnesses, as she
does who speaks of Christ, "Yea, He is altogether lovely." She knows what He is,
for she has seen Him. The verses which precede the text are a description of
every feature of the heavenly Bridegroom; all His members are there set forth
with richness of Oriental imagery. The spouse speaks what she knows. Have we,
also, seen the Lord? Are we His familiar acquaintances? If so, may the Lord help
us to understand our text! If the Holy Spirit will help me, I should like to
lift the veil, that we may, in sacred contemplation, look on our Beloved. It is
admiration which speaks of Him as "altogether lovely" or beautiful. This
admiration rises to the highest degree. The spouse would fain show that her
Beloved is more than any other beloved; therefore she cries, "He is altogether
lovely." Surely no one else has reached that point. Many are lovely, but no one
save Jesus is "altogether lovely." We see something that is lovely in one, and
another point is lovely in another; but all loveliness meets in Him. Our soul
knows nothing which can rival Him: He is the gathering up of all sorts of
loveliness to make up one perfect loveliness. He is the climax of beauty; the
crown of glory; the uttermost of excellence. Our admiration of our Lord is
inexpressible. We can never tell all we know of our Lord; yet all our knowledge
is little. All that we know is, that His love passeth knowledge, that His
excellence baffles understanding, that His glory is unutterable. We can embrace
Him by our love, but we can scarcely touch Him with our intellect, He is so
high, so glorious. As to describing Him, we cry, with Mr. Berridge,— "Then my
tongue would fain express All His love and loveliness; But I lisp, and falter
forth Broken words, not half His worth. "Vex'd, I try and try again, Still my
efforts all are vain: Living tongues are dumb at best, We must die to speak of
Christ."

"He is altogether lovely." Do we not feel an inexpressible admiration for Him?
There is none like unto Thee, O Son of God! There He stands: we know Him by the
thorn-crown, and the wounds, and the visage more marred than that of any man! He
suffered all this for us. O Son of man! O Son of God! With the spouse, we feel,
in the inmost depths of our soul, that Thou art "altogether lovely." Let us
meditate upon the proof of our assertion. "He is altogether lovely" in His
person. He is God. The glory of Godhead I must leave in lowly silence. Yet is
our Jesus also man, more emphatically man than any one here present this
afternoon, for we are English, American, French, German, Dutch, Russian; but
Christ is man, the second Adam, the Head of the race: as truly as He is very God
of very God, so is He man, of the substance of His mother. What a marvellous
union! The miracle of miracles! In his incomparible personality He is altogether
lovely; for in Him we see how God comes down to man in condescension, and how
man goes up to God in close relationship. There is no other such as He, in all
respects, even in heaven itself: in His personality He must ever stand alone, in
the eyes of both God and man, "altogether lovely." Passing from His character to
His sacrifice; there especially "He is altogether lovely." You may have read
"Rutherford's Letters "; I hope you have. How wondrously he writes, when he
describes his Lord in garments red from His sweat of blood, and with hands
bejewelled with His wounds! When we view His body taken down from the cross, all
pale and deathly, and wrapped in the cerements of the grave, we see a strange
beauty in Him. He is to us never more lovely than when we read in our Beloved's
white and red that His Sacrifice is accomplished, and He has been obedient unto
death for us. In Him, as the sacrifice once offered, we see our pardon, our
life, our heaven, our all. So lovely is Christ in His sacrifice, that He is for
ever most pleasing to the great Judge of all, ay, so lovely to His Father, that
He makes us also lovely to God the Father, and we are "accepted in the Beloved."
His sacrifice has such merit and beauty in the sight of heaven, that in Him God
is well pleased, and guilty men become in Him pleasant unto the Lord. Is not His
sacrifice most sweet to us? Here our guilty conscience finds peace; here we see
ourselves made comely in His comeliness. We cannot stand at Calvary, and see the
Saviour die, and hear Him cry, "It is finished," without feeling that "He is
altogether lovely." Forgive me that I speak so coolly! I dare not enter fully
into a theme which would pull up the sluices of my heart. Every feature of our
Lord is lovely. You cannot think of anything that has to do with Him which is
unworthy of our praise. All over glorious is our Lord. The spouse speaks of His
head, His locks, His eyes, His cheeks, His lips, His hands, His legs, His
countenance, His mouth; and when she has mentioned them all, she sums up with
reference to all by saying, "Yea, He is altogether lovely." There is nothing
lacking about His loveliness. Some would be very lovely were there a brightness
in their eyes, or a colour in their countenances: but something is away. The
absence of a tooth or of an eyebrow may spoil a countenance, but in Christ Jesus
there is no omission of excellence. Everything that should be in Him is in Him;
everything that is conceivable in perfection is present to perfection in Him.
Neither is there anything in our Lord which is incongruous with the rest . In
each one of us there is, at least, a little that is out of place. We could not
be fully described without the use of a "but." If we could all look within, and
see ourselves as God sees us, we should note a thousand matters, which we now
permit, which we should never allow again. But in the Well-beloved all is of a
piece, all is lovely; and when the sum of the whole is added up, it comes to an
absolute perfection of loveliness: "Yea, He is altogether lovely." What is
stranger and more wonderful still, our Lord Jesus makes sinners lovely. In their
natural state, men are deformed and hideous to the eye of God; and as they have
no love to God, so He has no delight in them. He is weary of them, and is
grieved that He made men upon the earth. The Lord is angry with the wicked every
day. Yet, when our Lord Jesus comes in, and covers these sinful ones with His
righteousness, and, at the same time, infuses into them His life, the Lord is
well pleased with them for His Son's sake. Even in heaven, the infinite Jehovah
sees nothing which pleases Him like His Son. The Father from eternity loved His
Only-begotten, and again and again He hath said of Him, "This is My beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased." What higher encomium can be passed upon Him? Our
Lord's loveliness appears in every condition: in the manger, or in the temple;
by the well, or on the sea; in the garden, or on the cross; in the tomb, or in
the resurrection; in His first, or in His second coming. He is not as the herb,
which flowers only at one season; or as the tree, which loses its leaves in
winter; or as the moon, which waxes and wanes; or as the sea, which ebbs and
flows. In every condition, and at every time, "He is altogether lovely." III.
The little time which we can give to this meditation has run out, and therefore
I hasten to a close. I have bidden you look at our Lord as "altogether lovely"
with reverent emotions, and with absolute certainty. Now, to conclude, think of
Him WITH PRACTICAL RESULTS. "He is altogether lovely." What shall we do for this
chief among ten thousand? You who are not preachers cannot do better than speak
much of Jesus, as opportunity offers. Make Him the theme of conversation. People
talk about ministers; but we beg you to talk of our Master. Our undecided
neighbours are always talking of hypocrites and inconsistent professors; but we
would say to them, "Never mind about His followers: talk about the Master
Himself." His followers, by themselves considered, never were worth your words;
but what a theme is this,—"He is altogether lovely "! Our Lord's people are far
worthier than the world thinks them to be; for my part, I rejoice in the many
gracious and beautiful characters with which I meet, but even if all the ill
reports we hear were true, this would not detract from the loveliness of our
Lord, who is infinitely beyond all praise. Rest not, any one of you, till you
know of a surety that Jesus is yours. Do not be content with a hope, struggle
after the full assurance of faith. This is to be had, and you ought not to be
content without it. It may be your lifelong song, "My Beloved is mine, and I am
His." You need not pine in the shade: the sun is shining, "walk in the light."
Away with the idea that we cannot know whether we are condemned or forgiven, in
Christ or out of Him! We may know, we must know; and, as we appreciate our Lord,
we shall know. Either Jesus is ours, or He is not. If He is, let us rejoice in
the priceless possession. If He is not ours, let us at once lay hold upon Him by
faith; for, the moment we trust Him, He is ours. The enjoyment of religion lies
in assurance: a mere hope is scant diet. FPRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT= "Once more, it
is a fair fruit of our delight in our Lord that our valuation of Him becomes a
bond of union between us and others. The spouse cries, "This is my Beloved, and
this is my Friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!" and they reply, "Whither is thy
Beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? Whither is thy Beloved turned aside,
that we may seek Him with thee?" Thus, you see, they institute a companionship
through the Well-beloved. Few of us, in this room, would ever have known each
other, had it not been for our common admiration of the Lord Jesus. We should
have gone on walking past each other by the sea to this day, and we should have
missed much cheering fellowship. Our Lord has become our centre; we meet in Him,
and feel that in Him we are partakers of one life. We seek our Well-beloved
together, and around His table we find Him together; and finding Him, we have
found one another, and the lost jewel of Christian love glitters on every bosom.
We have differing views on certain parts of divine truth; and I do not know that
it is wrong for us to differ where the Holy Spirit has left truth without
rigidly defining it. We are bound each one devoutly to use his judgment in the
interpretation of the Sacred Word; but we all agree in this one clear judgment:
"Yea, He is altogether lovely. "This is the point of union. Those who
enthusiastically love the same person are on the way to loving each other. This
is growingly our case; and it is the same with all spiritual people. Professors
quarrel, but possessors are at one. We hear much discourse upon "the Unity of
the Church" as a thing to be desired, and we may heartily agree with it; but it
would be well also to remember that in the true Church of Christ real union
already exists. Our Lord prayed for those whom the Father had given Him, that
they might be one, and the Father granted the prayer: the Lord's own people are
one. In this room we have an example of how closely we are united in Christ.
Some of you are more at home in this assembly, taken out of all churches, than
you are in the churches to which you nominally belong. Our union in one body as
Episcopalians, Baptists, Presbyterians, or Independents, is not the thing which
our Lord prayed for; but our union in Himself. That union we do at this moment
enjoy; and therefore do we eat of one bread, and drink of one cup, and are
baptized into one Spirit, at His feet who is to each one of us, and so to all of
us, ALTOGETHER LOVELY. "White and ruddy is my Belovd All His heavenly beauties
shine; Nature can't produce an object, Nor so glorious, so divine; He hath
wholly Won my soul to realms above. "Farewell, all ye meaner creatures, For in
Him is every store; Wealth, or friends, or darling beauty, Shall not draw me any
more; In my Saviour I have found a glorious whole."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: THE SPICED WINE OF MY POMEGRANATE;
========================================================================

THE SPICED WINE OF MY POMEGRANATE;

OR, THE COMMUNION OF COMMUNICATION. I would cause Thee to drink of spiced wine
of the juice of my pomegranate. "—Son_8:2. And of his fulness have all we
received, and grace for grace."—John 1:16. THE immovable basis of communion
having been laid of old in the eternal union which subsisted between Christ and
His elect, it only needed a fitting occasion to manifest itself in active
development. The Lord Jesus had for ever delighted Himself with the sons of men,
and he ever stood prepared to reveal and communicate that delight to His people;
but they were incapable of returning His affection or enjoying His fellowship,
having fallen into a state so base and degraded, that they were dead to Him, and
careless concerning Him. It was therefore needful that something should be done
for them, and in them, before they could hold converse with Jesus, or feel
concord with Him. This preparation being a work of grace and a result of
previous union, Jesus determined that, even in the preparation for communio n,
there should be communion. If they must be washed before they could fully
converse with Him, He would commune with them in the washing; and if they must
be enriched by gifts before they could have full access to Him, He would commune
with them in the giving. He has therefore established a fellowship in imparting
His grace, and in partaking of it. The word koinonia, or communion, is
frequently employed by inspired writers in the sense of communication or
contribution. When, in our English version, we read, "For it hath pleased them
of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which
are at Jerusalem" (Romans 15:26), it is interesting to know that the word
koinwnian is used, as if to show that the generous gifts of the Church in Achaia
to its sister Church at Jerusalem was a communion. Calvin would have us notice
this, because, saith he, "The word here employed well expresses the feeling by
which it behoves us to succour the wants of our brethren, even because there is
to be a common and mutual regard on account of the union of the body." He would
not have strained the text if he had said that there was in the contribution the
very essence of communion. Gill, in his commentary upon the above verse, most
pertinently remarks, "Contribution, or communion, as the word signifies, it
being one part of the communion of churches and of saints to relieve their poor
by communicating to them." The same word is employed in Hebrews 13:16, and is
there translated by the word "communicate." "But to do good, and to communicate,
forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." It occurs again in 2
Corinthians 9:13, "And for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all
men;" and in numerous other passages the careful student will observe the word
in various forms, representing the ministering of the saints to one another as
an act of fellowship. Indeed, at the Lord's supper, which is the embodiment of
communion, we have ever been wont to make a special contribution for the poor of
the flock, and we believe that in the collection there is as true and real an
element of communion as in the partaking of the bread and wine. The giver holds
fellowship with the receiver when he bestows his benefaction for the Lord's
sake, and because of the brotherhood existing between him and his needy friends.
The teacher holds communion with the young disciple when he labours to instruct
him in the faith, being moved thereto by a spirit of Christian love. He who
intercedes for a saint because he desires his well-being as a member of the one
family, enters into fellowship with his b rother in the offering of prayer. The
loving and mutual service of church-members is fellowship of a high degree. And
let us remember that the recipient communes with the benefactor: the communion
is not confined to the giver, but the heart overflowing with liberality is met
by the heart brimming with gratitude, and the love manifested in the bestowal is
reciprocated in the acceptance. When the hand feeds the mouth or supports the
head, the divers members feel their union, and sympathize with one another; and
so is it with the various portions of the body of Christ, for they commune in
mutual acts of love. It is one branch of this mutual communication which we have
selected as the subject of this address. "Looking unto Jesus," who hath
delivered us from our state of enmity, and brought us into fellowship with
Himself, we pray for the rich assistance of the Holy Spirit, that we may be
refreshed in spirit, and encouraged to draw more largely from the covenant
storehouse of Christ Jesus the Lord. As the life of grace is first begotten in
us by the Lord Jesus, so is it constantly sustained by Him. We are always
drawing from this sacred fountain, always deriving sap from this divine root;
and as Jesus communes with us in the bestowing of mercies, it is our privilege
to hold fellowship with Him in the receiving of them. Following out the
suggestion of our explanatory preface, we can well believe that when the poor
saints received the contribution of their brethren, many of them did in earnest
acknowledge the fellowship which was illustrated in the generous offering, but
it is probable that some of them merely looked upon the material of the gift,
and failed to see the spirit moving in it. Sensual thoughts in some of the
receivers might possibly, at the season when the contribution was distributed,
have mischievously injured the exercise of spirituality; for it is possible
that, after a period of poverty, they would be apt to give greater prominence to
the fact that their need was removed than to the sentiment of fellowship with
their sympathizing brethren. They would rather rejoice over famine averted than
concerning fellowship manifested. We doubt not that, in many instances, the
mutual benefactions of the Church fail to reveal our fellowship to our poor
brethren, and produce in them no feelings of communion with the givers. Ought
not the mass of professors to confess the truth of this accusation? Have not the
bulk of us most sadly departed from the purity of our love? We rejoice, however,
to observe a remnant of choice spirits, who live near the Lord, and know the
sweetness of fellowship. These receive the promise and the blessing, and so
digest them that they become good blood in their veins, and so do they feed on
their Lord that they grow up into Him. Let us imitate those elevated minds, and
obtain their high delights. There is no reason why the meanest of us should not
be as David, and David as the servant of the Lord. We may now be dwarfs, but
growth is possible; let us therefore aim at a higher stature. Let the succeeding
advice be followed, and, the Holy Spirit helping us, we shall have attained
thereto. If thou wouldst enjoy communion with the Lord Jesus in the reception of
His grace, endeavor to be always sensibly drawing supplies from Him. Make thy
needs public in the streets of thine heart, and when the supply is granted, let
all the powers of thy soul be present at the reception of it. Let no mercy come
into thine house unsung. Note in thy memory the list of thy Master's benefits.
Wherefore should the Lord's bounties be hurried away in the dark, or buried in
forgetfulness? Keep the gates of thy soul ever open, and sit thou by the wayside
to watch the treasures of grace which God the Spirit hourly conveys into thy
heart from Jehovah—Jesus, thy Lord. Study thyself, seek out thy necessities, as
the housewife searches for chambers where she may bestow her summer fruits.
Regard thy wants as rooms to be filled with more of the grace of Jesus, and
suffer no corner to be unoccupied. Pant after more of Jesus. Be covetous after
Him. Let all the past incite thee to seek greater things. Sing the song of the
enlarged heart,— "All this is not enough: methinks I grow More greedy by
fruition; what I get Serves but to set An edge upon my appetite; And all Thy
gifts invite My pray'rs for more."

Cry out to the Lord Jesus to fill the dry beds of thy rivers until they
overflow, and then empty thou the channels which have hitherto been filled with
thine own self-sufficiency, and beseech Him to fill these also with His
superabundant grace. If thy heavy trials sink thee deeper in the flood of His
consolations, be glad of them; and if thy vessel shall be sunken up to its very
bulwarks, be not afraid. I would be glad to feel the mast-head of my soul twenty
fathoms beneath the surface of such an ocean; for, as Rutherford said, "Oh, to
be over the ears in this well! I would not have Christ's love entering into me,
but I would enter into it, and be swallowed up of that love." Cultivate an
insatiable hunger and a quenchless thirst for this communion with Jesus through
His communications. Let thine heart cry for ever, "Give, give," until it is
filled in Paradise. "O'ercome with Jesu's condescending love, Brought into
fellowship with Him and His, And feasting with Him in His house of wine, I'm
sick of love,—and yet I pant for more Communications from my loving Lord. Stay
me with flagons full of choicest wine, Press'd from His heart upon Mount
Calvary, To cheer and comfort my love-conquer'd soul. (Nymphas, by JOSEPH
IRONS.) This is the only covetousness which is allowable: but this is not merely
beyond rebuke, it is worthy of commendation. O saints, be not straitened in your
own bowels, but enlarge your desires, and so receive more of your Saviour's
measureless fulness! I charge thee, my soul, thus to hold continual fellowship
with thy Lord, since He invites and commands thee thus to partake of His riches.
This is a blessed method of fellowship. It is kissing the divine lip of
benediction with the sanctified lip of affection. Oh, for more rejoicing grace,
more of the songs of the heart, more of the melody of the soul! Labour to
maintain a sense of thine entire dependence upon His good will and pleasure for
the continuance of thy richest enjoyments. Never try to live on the old manna,
nor seek to find help in Egypt. All must come from Jesus, or thou art undone for
ever. Old anointings will not suffice to impart unction to our spirit; thine
head must have fresh oil poured upon it from the golden horn of the sanctuary,
or it will cease from its glory. To-day thou mayest be upon the summit of the
mount of God; but He who has put thee there must keep thee there, or thou wilt
sink far more speedily than thou dreamest. Thy mountain only stands firm when He
settles it in its place; if He hide His face, thou wilt soon be troubled. If the
Saviour should see fit, there is not a window through which thou seest the light
of heaven which he could not darken in an instant. Joshua bade the sun stand
still, but Jesus can shroud it in total darkness. He can withdraw the joy of
thine heart, the light of thine eyes, and the strength of thy life; in His hand
thy comforts lie, and at His will they can depart from thee. Oh! how rich the
grace which supplies us so continually, and doth not refrain itself because of
our ingratitude! O Lord Jesus, we would bow at Thy feet, conscious of our utter
inability to do aught without Thee, and in every favour which we are privileged
to receive, we would adore Thy blessed name, and acknowledge Thine unexhausted
love! Regard every spiritual mercy as an assurance of the Lord's communion with
thee. When the young man gives jewels to the virgin to whom he is affianced, she
regards them as tokens of his delight in her. Believer, do the same with the
precious presents of thy Lord. The common bounties of providence are shared in
by all men, for the good Householder provides water for His swine as well as for
His children: such things, therefore, are no proof of divine complacency. But
thou hast richer food to eat; "the children's bread" is in thy wallet, and the
heritage of the righteous is reserved for thee. Look, then, on every motion of
grace in thine heart as a pledge and sign of the moving of thy Saviour's heart
towards thee. There is His whole heart in the bowels of every mercy which He
sends thee. He has impressed a kiss of love upon each gift, and He would have
thee believe that every jewel of mercy is a token of His boundless love. Look on
thine adoption, justification, and preservation, as sweet enticements to
fellowship. Let every note of the promise sound in thine ears like the ringing
of the bells of the house of thy Lord, inviting thee to come to the banquets of
His love. Joseph sent to his father asses laden with the good things of Egypt,
and good old Jacob doubtless regarded them as pledges of the love of his son's
heart: be sure not to think less of the kindnesses of Jesus. What an expensive
dependent thou art! King Solomon made marvellous provision for his household (1
Kings 4:22), but all his beeves and fine flour would be as the drop of the
bucket compared with thy daily wants. Rivers of oil, and ten thousand rams or
fed beasts, would not provide enough to supply the necessities of thy hungering
soul. Thy least spiritual want demands infinity to satisfy it, and what must be
the amazing aggregate of thy perpetually repeated draughts upon thy Lord! Arise,
then, and bless thy loving Immanuel for the invaluable riches with which He has
endowed thee. See what a dowry thy Bridegroom has brought to His poor, penniless
spouse. He knows the value of the blessings which He brings thee, for He has
paid for them out of His heart's richest blood; be not thou so ungenerous as to
pass them over as if they were but of little worth. Poor men know more of the
value of money than those who have always revelled in abundance of wealth. Ought
not thy former poverty to teach thee the preciousness of the grace which Jesus
gives thee? For remember, there was a time when thou wouldst have given a
thousand worlds, if they had been thine, in order to procure the very least of
His abundant mercies. All thou hast, thou hast in Him: in Him chosen, in Him
redeemed, in Him justified, in Him accepted. Thou art risen in Him, but without
Him thou hadst died the second death. Thou art in Him raised up to the heavenly
places, but out of Him thou wouldst have been damned eternally. Bless Him, then.
Ask the angels to bless Him. Rouse all ages to a harmony of praise for His
condescending love in taking poor guilty nothings into oneness with His
all-adorable person. This is a blessed means of promoting communion, if the
sacred Comforter is pleased to take of the things of Christ, and reveal them to
us as ours, but only ours as we are in Him. Thrice-blessed Jesus, let us never
forget that we are members of Thy mystical body, and that it is for this reason
that we are blessed and preserved. Above all, and chief of all, never forget
that Christ is thine. Amid the profusion of His gifts, never forget that the
chief gift is Himself, and do not forget that, after all, His gifts are but
Himself. He clothes thee, but it is with Himself, with His own spotless
righteousness and character. He washes thee, but His innermost self, His own
heart's blood, is the stream with which the fountain overflows. He feeds thee
with the bread of heaven, but be not unmindful that the bread is Himself, His
own body which He gives to be the food of souls. Never be satisfied with a less
communication than a whole Christ. A wife will not be put off with maintenance,
jewels, and a ttire, all these will be nothing to her unless she can call her
husband's heart and person her own. It was the Paschal lamb upon which the
ancient Israelite did feast on that night that was never to be forgotten. So do
thou feast on Jesus, and on nothing less than Jesus, for less than this will be
food too light for thy soul's satisfaction. Oh, be careful to eat His flesh and
drink His blood, and so receive Him into thyself in a real and spiritual manner,
for nothing short of this will be an evidence of eternal life in thy soul! "What
more shall we add to the rules which we have here delivered? There remains but
one great exhortation, which must not be omitted. Seek the abundant assistance
of the Holy Spirit to enable you to put into practice the things which we have
said, for without His aid, all that we have spoken will but be tantalizing the
lame with rules to walk, or the dying with regulations for the preservation of
health. O thou Divine Spirit, while we enjoy the grace of Jesus, lead us into
the secret abode of our Lord, that we may sup with Him, and He with us, and
grant unto us hourly grace that we may continue in the company of our Lord from
the rising to the setting of the sun! Amen.


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  CHAPTER 11: THE WELL-BELOVED'S VINEYARD.
========================================================================

THE WELL-BELOVED'S VINEYARD. AN ADDRESS TO A LITTLE COMPANY OF BELIEVERS, IN MR.
SPURGEON'S OWN ROOM AT MENTONE. "My Well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very
fruitful hill."—Isaiah 5:1.

WE recognize at once that Jesus is here. Who but He can be meant by "My
Well-beloved"? Here is a word of possession and a word of affection,—He is mine,
and my Well-beloved. He is loveliness itself, the most loving and lovable of
beings; and we personally love Him with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and
strength: He is ours, our Beloved, our Well- beloved, we can say no less. This
happy afternoon I want you to note that this vineyard is said to be upon "a very
fruitful hill." I have been thinking of the advantages of my own position
towards the Lord, and lamenting with great shamefacedness that I am not bringing
forth such fruit to Him as my position demands. Considering our privileges,
advantages, and opportunities, I fear that many of us have need to feel great
searchings of heart. Perhaps to such the text may be helpful, and it will not be
without profit to any one of us, if the Lord will bless our meditation upon it.
Let us think of the times in which we live as calling upon us to be very
fruitful when we compare them with the years gone by. Time was when we could not
have met thus happily in our own room: if we had been taken in the act of
breaking bread, or reading God's Word, we should have been haled off to prison,
and perhaps put to death. Our forefathers scarcely dared to lift up their voices
in a psalm of praise, lest the enemy should be upon them. Truly, the lines have
fallen unto us in pleasant places; yea, we have a goodly heritage, in a very
fruitful hill. That this is the case some of us know positively, because we have
been fruitful. Look back, brothers and sisters, upon times when your hearts were
warm, and your zeal was fervent, and you served the Lord with gladness. I join
with you in those happy memories. Then we could run with the swiftest, we could
fight with the bravest, we could work with the strongest, we could suffer with
the most patient. The grace of God has been upon certain of us in such an
unmistakable manner that we have brought forth all the fruits of the Spirit.
Perhaps to-day we look back with deep regret because we are not so fruitful as
we once were: if it be so, it is well that our regrets should multiply, but we
must change each one of them into a hopeful prayer. Remember, the vine may have
changed, but the soil is the same. We have still the same motives for being
fruitful, and even more than we used to have. Why are we not more useful? Has
some spiritual phylloxera taken possession of the vines, or have we become
frost-bitten, or sun-burnt? What is it that withholds the vintage? Certainly, if
we were fruitful once, we ought to be more fruitful now. The fruitful hill is
not exhausted; what aileth us that our grapes are so few? And what is more, the
very circumstances with which we are surrounded all tend to make our position
exceedingly favourable for fruit-bearing. In this little company we have not one
friend who is extremely poor; but if such were among us, I should say the same
thing. Christ has gathered some of His choicest clusters from the valley of
poverty. Many eminent saints have never owned a foot of land, but lived upon
their weekly wage, and found scant fare at that. Yes, by the grace of God, the
vale of poverty has blossomed as the rose. It so happens, however, that the most
of us here have a competence, we have all that we need, and something over to
give to the poor and to the cause of God. Surely we ought to be fruitful in
almsgiving, in caring for the sick, and in all manner of sweet and flagrant
influences. "Give me neither poverty nor riches," is a prayer that has been
answered for most of us; and if we do not now give honour unto God, what excuse
can we make for our barrenness? I am speaking to some who are singularly
healthy, who are never hindered by aches and pains; and to others who have been
prospered in business for twenty years at a stretch: yours is great indebtedness
to your Lord: in your case, "My Well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful
hill." Give God your strength and your wealth, my brother, while they last: see
that all His care of thee is not thrown away. Others of us seldom know many
months together of health, but have often had to suffer sorely in body; this
ought to make us fruitful, for there is much increase from the tillage of
affliction. Has not the Master obtained the richest of all fruit from bleeding
vines? Do not His heaviest bunches come from vines which have been sharply cut
and pruned down to the ground? Choice flavours, dainty juices, and delicious
aromas come mostly from the use of the keen-edged knife of trial. Some of us are
at our best for fruitbearing when in other respects we are at our worst. Thus I
might truly say that, whatever our circumstances may be, whether we are poor or
rich, in health or in affliction, each one of our cases has its advantages, and
we are planted "in a very fruitful hill." II. I go a step further, by your
leave, and say that OUR POSITION, as the Lord's vineyard, IS FAVOURABLE TO THE
PRODUCTION OF THE FRUIT WHICH HE LOVES BEST. I believe that my own position is
the most favourable for the production of the fruit that the Lord loves best in
me, and that your position is the same. What is this fruit? Another choice fruit
is love. Jesus delights in love. His tender heart delights to see its love
returned. Am I not of all men most bound to love the Lord? I speak for each
brother and sister here, is not that your language? Do you not all say, "Lives
there a person beneath yon blue s ky who ought to love Jesus more than I should
do?" Each sister soliloquizes, "Sat there ever a woman in her chamber who had
more reason for loving God than I have?" No, the sin which has been forgiven us
should make us love our Saviour exceeding much. The sin which has been prevented
in other cases should make us love our Preserver much. The help which God has
sent us in hours of need, the guidance which He has given in times of
difficulty, the joy which He has poured into us in days of fellowship, and the
quiet He has breathed upon us in seasons of trial,—all ought to make us love
Him. Along our life-road, reasons for loving God are more numerous than the
leaves upon the olives. He has hedged us about with His goodness, even as the
mountains and the sea are round our present resting-place. Look backward as far
as time endures, and then look far beyond that, into the eternity which has
been, and you will see the Lord's great love set upon us: all through time and
eternity reasons have been accumulating which constrain us to love our Lord. Now
turn sharply round, and gaze before you, and all along the future faith can see
reasons for loving God, golden milestones on the way that is yet to be
traversed, all calling for our loving delight in God. Select any fruit of the
Spirit you choose, and I maintain that we are favourably circumstanced for
producing it; we are planted upon a very fruitful hill. What a fruitful hill we
are living in as regards labour for Christ! Each one of us may find work for the
Master; there are capital opportunities around us. There never was an age in
which a man, consecrated to God, might do so much as he can at this time. There
is nothing to restrain the most ardent zeal. We live in such happy times that,
if we plunge into a sea of work, we may swim, and none can hinder us. Then, too,
our labour is made, by God's grace, to be so pleasant to us. No true servant of
Christ is weary of the work, though he may be weary in the work: it is not the
work that he ever wearies of, for he wishes that he could do ten times more.
Then our Lord makes our work to be successful. We bring one soul to Jesus, and
that one brings a hundred. Sometimes, when we are fishing for Jesus, there may
be few fish, but, blessed be His name, most of them enter the net; and we have
to live praising and blessing God for all the favour with which He regards our
labour of love. I do think I am right in saying that, for the bearing of the
fruit which Jesus loves best, our position is exceedingly favourable. Viewed
from this table, the vineyard slopes to the south, for everything looks towards
Christ, our Sun. This bread, this wine, all set our souls aslope towards Jesus
Christ, and He shines full upon our hearts, and minds, and souls, to make us
bring forth much fruit. Are we not planted on a very fruitful hill? Moreover,
the Well-beloved Himself is among us. He has not let us out to husbandmen, but
He Himself doth undertake to care for us; and that He is here we are sure, for
here is His flesh, and here is His blood. You see the outward tokens, may you
feel the unseen reality; for we believe in His real presence, though not in the
gross corporeal sense with which worldly spirits blind themselves. The King has
come into His garden: let us entertain Him with our fruits. He who for this
vineyard poured out a bloody sweat, is now surveying the vines; shall they not
at this instant give forth a goodly smell? The presence of our Lord makes this
assembly a very fruitful hill: w here He sets His feet, all good things
flourish. Blessed be God, we are where we have ourselves often grown. We have
enjoyed our best times when celebrating this sacred Eucharist. God grant it may
be so again! Let us, in calm meditation and inward thought, now produce from our
hearts sweet fruits of love, and zeal, and hope, and patience; let us yield
great clusters like those of Eshcol, all for Jesus, and for Jesus only. Even
now, let us give ourselves up to meditation, gratitude, ador ation, communion,
rapture; and let us spend the rest of our lives in glorifying and magnifying the
ever-blessed name of our Well-beloved whose vineyard we are. "While such a scene
of sacred joys Our raptured eyes and souls employs, Here we could sit, and gaze
away A long, an everlasting day. "Well, we shall quickly pass the night, To the
fair coasts of perfect light; Then shall our joyful senses rove O'er the dear
object of our love. "There shall we drink full draughts of bliss, And pluck new
life from heavenly trees. Yet now and then, dear Lord, bestow A drop of heaven
on worms below."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 12: REDEEMED SOULS FREED FROM FEAR.
========================================================================

REDEEMED SOULS FREED FROM FEAR. A TALK WITH A FEW FRIENDS AT MENTONE. "Fear not:
for I have redeemed thee."—Isaiah 43:1.

I WAS lamenting this morning my unfitness for my work, and especially for the
warfare to which I am called. A sense of heaviness came over me, but relief came
very speedily, for which I thank the Lord. Indeed, I was greatly burdened, but
the Lord succoured me. The first verse read at the Sabbath morning service
exactly met my case. It is in Isaiah 43:1: "But now thus saith the Lord that
created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not." I said to
myself, "I am what God created me, and I am what He formed me, and therefore I
must, after all, be the right man for the place wherein He has put me." We may
not blame our Creator, nor suspect that He has missed His mark in forming an
instrument for His work. Thus new comfort comes to us. Not only do the
operations of grace in the spiritual world yield us consolation, but we are even
comforted by what the Lord has done in creation. We are told to cease from our
fears; and we do so, since we perceive that it is the Lord that made us, and not
we ourselves, and He will justify His own creating skill by accomplishing
through us the purposes of His love. Pray, I beseech you, for me, the weakest of
my Lord's servants, that I may be equal to the overwhelming task imposed upon
me. Let us think for a few minutes of the wonderful depth of consolation which
lies in this fact. We have been redeemed by the Lord Himself, and this is a
grand reason why we should never again be subject to fear. Oh, that the logic of
this fact could be turned into practice, so that we henceforth rejoiced, or at
least felt the peace of God! I suppose there would be a reference here to the
great redemption out of Egypt. This word is addressed to the people of God under
captivity in Babylon, and we know that the Lord referred to the Egyptian
redemption; for He says in the third verse, "I gave Egypt for thy ransom." Egypt
was a great country, and a rich country, for we read of "all the treasures of
Egypt", but God gave them for His chosen: He would give all the nations of the
earth for His Israel. This was a wonderful stay to the people of God: they
constantly referred to Egypt and the Red Sea, and made their national song out
of it. In all Israel's times of disaster, and calamity, and trial, they joyfully
remembered that the Lord had redeemed them when they were a company of slaves,
helpless and hopeless, under a tyrant who cast their firstborn children into the
Nile, a tyrant whose power was so tremendous that all the armies of the world
could not have wrought their deliverance from his iron hand. The very nod of
Pharaoh seemed to the inhabitants of Egypt to be omnipotent; he was a builder of
pyramids, a master of all the sciences of peace and the arts of war. What could
the Israelites have done against him? Jehovah came to their relief in their dire
extremity. His plagues followed each other in quick succession. The dread
volleys of the Lord's artillery confounded His foes. At last He smote all the
firstborn of Egypt, the chief of all their strength. Then was Egypt glad that
Israel departed, and the Lord brought forth His people with silver and gold. All
the chivalry of Egypt was overthrown and destroyed at the Red Sea, and the
timbrels of the daughters of Israel sounded joyously upon its shores. This
redemption out of Egypt is so remarkable that it is remembered even in heaven.
The Old Testament song is woven into that of the New Covenant; for there they
"sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb." The first
redeemption was so wonderful a type and prophecy of the other that it is no
alloy to the golden hymn of eternal glory, but readily melts into the same
celestial chant. Other types may cease to be remembered, but this was so much a
fact as well as a type that it shall be had in memory for ever and ever. Every
Israelite ought to have had confidence in God after what He had done for the
people in redeeming them out of Egypt. To every one of the seed of Jacob it was
a grand argument to enforce the precept, "Fear not." The remembrance of this
transcendent redemption ought to comfort us in all times of perplexity. When we
cannot see our way, or cannot make out what to do, we need not be at all
troubled concerning it; for the Lord Jehovah can see a way out of every
intricacy. There never was a problem so hard to solve as that which is answered
in redemption. Herein was the tremendous difficulty—How can God be just, and yet
the Saviour of sinners? How can He fulfil His threatenings, and yet forgive sin?
If that problem been left to angels and men, they could never worked it out
throughout eternity; but God has solved it through freely delivering up His own
Son. In the glorious sacrifice of Jesus we see the justice of God magnified; for
He laid sin on the blessed Lord, who had become one with His chosen. Jesus iden
tified Himself with His people, and therefore their sin was laid upon Him, and
the sword of the Lord awoke against Him. He was not taken arbitrarily to be a
victim, but He was a voluntary Sufferer. His relationship amounted to covenant
oneness with His people, and "it behoved Christ to suffer." Herein is a wisdom
which must be more than equal to all minor perplexities. Hear this, then, O poor
soul in suspense! The Lord says, "I have redeemed thee. I have already brought
thee out of the labyrinth in which thou wast lost by sin, and therefore I will
take thee out of the meshes of the net of temptation, and lead thee through the
maze of trial; I will bring the blind by a way that they know not, and lead them
in paths which they have not known. I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring
up My people from the depths of the sea." Let us commit our way unto the Lord.
Mine is a peculiarly difficult one, but I know that my Redeemer liveth, and He
will lead me by a right way. He will be our Guide even unto death; and after
death He will guide us through those tracks unknown of the mysterious region,
and cause us to rest with Him for ever. We are at times troubled by a sense of
our personal insignificance. It seems too much to hope that God's infinite mind
should enter into our mean affairs. Though David said, "I am poor and needy, yet
the Lord thinketh upon me," we are not always quite prepared to say the same. We
make our sorrows great under the vain idea that they are too small for the Lord
to notice. I believe that our greatest miseries spring from those little worries
which we hesitate to bring to our heavenly Father. Our gracious God puts an end
to all such thoughts as these by saying "Fear not for I have redeemed thee." You
are not of such small account as you suppose. The Lord would never be wasteful
of His sacred expenditure. He bought you with a price, and therefore He sets
great store by you. Listen to what the Lord says: "Since thou wast precious in
My sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I
give men for thee, and people for thy life." It is amazing that the Lord should
think so much of us as to give Jesus for us. "What is man that Thou art mindful
of him?" Yet God's mind is filled with thoughts of love towards man. Know ye not
that His only-begotten Son entered this world, and became a man? The man Christ
Jesus has a name at which every knee shall bow, and He is so dear to the Father
that, for His sake, His chosen ones are accepted, and are made to enjoy the
freest access to Him. We sing truly,— "So near, so very near to God, Nearer we
cannot be, For in the person of His Son We are as near as He." And now the very
hairs of our head are all numbered, and the least burden we may roll upon the
Lord. Those cares which we ought not to have may well cease, for "He careth for
us." He that redeemed us never forgets us: His wounds have graven us upon the
palms of His hands, and written our names deep in His side. Jesus stoops to our
level, for He stooped to bear the cross to redeem us. Do not, therefore, be
again afraid because of your insignificance. "Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and
speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over
from my God? Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God,
the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?
There is no searching of His understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to
them that have no might He increaseth strength." The Lord's memory is toward the
little in Israel. He carrieth the lambs in His bosom. See how the gifts of God
are bound to this redemption. "I have redeemed thee. I have called thee." "For
whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of
His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He
did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also
justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." Here is a chain in
which each link is joined to all the rest, so that it cannot be separated. If
God had only gone so far as to make a promise, He would not have drawn back from
it; if God had gone as far as to swear an oath by Himself, He would not have
failed to keep it; but when He went beyond promise and oath, and in very deed
the sacrifice was slain, and the covenant was ratified: why, then it would be
blasphemous to imagine that He would afterwards disannul it, and turn from His
solemn pledge. There is no going back on the part of God, and consequently His
redemption will redeem, and in redeeming it will secure us all things. "Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ?" With the blood-mark upon us we may
well cease to fear. How can we perish? How can we be deserted in the hour of
need? We have been bought with too great a price for our Redeemer to let us
slip. Therefore, let us march on with confidence, hearing our Redeemer say to
us, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the
rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou
shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." Concerning His
redeemed, the Lord will say to the enemy, "Touch not Mine anointed, and do My
prophets no harm." The stars in their courses fight for the ransomed of the
Lord. If their eyes were opened, they would see the mountain full of horses of
fire and chariots of fire round about them. Oh, how my weary heart prizes
redeeming love! If it were not for this, I would lay me down, and die. Friends
forsake me, foes surround me, I am filled with contempt, and tortured with the
subtlety which I cannot baffle; but as the Lord of all brought again from the
dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the
everlasting covenant, so by the blood of His covenant doth He loose His
prisoners, and sustain the hearts of those who tremble at His Word. "O my soul,
thou hast trodden down strength," for the Lord hath said unto thee, "Fear not:
for I have redeemed thee."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: JESUS, THE GREAT OBJECT OF ASTONISHMENT.
========================================================================

JESUS, THE GREAT OBJECT OF ASTONISHMENT. A COMMUNION ADDRESS AT MENTONE.
"Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and
be very high. As many were astonied at Thee; His visage was so marred more than
any man, and His form more than the sons of men; so shall He sprinkle many
nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at Him: for that which had not been
told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they
consider."—Isaiah 52:13-15. OUR Lord Jesus Christ bore from of old the name of
"Wonderful", and the word seems all too poor to set forth His marvellous person
and character. He says of Himself, in the language of the prophet,—" Behold, I
and the children whom the Lord hath given Me are for signs and for wonders." He
is a fountain of astonishment to all who know Him, and the more they know of
Him, the more are they "astonied" at Him. It is an astonishing thing that there
should have been a Christ at all: the Incarnation is the miracle of miracles;
that He who is the Infinite should become an infant, that He who made the worlds
should be wrapt in swaddling-bands, remains a fact out of which, as from a hive,
new wonders continually fly forth. In His complex nature He is so mysterious,
and yet so manifest, that doubtless all the angels of heaven were and are
astonished at Him. O Son of God, and Son of man, when Thou, the Word, wast made
flesh, and dwelt among us, and Thy saints beheld Thy glory, it was but natural
that many should be astonished at Thee! I. HE WAS A GREAT WONDER IN HIS GRIEFS:
"As many were astonied at Thee; His visage was so marred more than any man, and
His form more than the sons of men." Our astonishment, when in contemplation we
behold our suffering Lord, will arise from the consideration of what His natural
beauty must have been, enshrined as He was from the first within a perfect body.
Conceived without sin, and so born of a pure virgin without taint of hereditary
sin, I doubt not that He was the flower and glow of manhood as to His form, and
from His early youth He must have been a joy to His mother's eye. Great masters
of the olden time expended all their skill upon the holy child Jesus, but it is
not for the colours of earth to depict the Lord from heaven. That "holy thing"
which was born of Mary was "seen of angels," and it charmed their eyes. Must
such loveliness be marred? His every look was pure, His every thought was holy,
and therefore the expression of His face must have been heavenly, and yet it
must be marred. Poverty must mark it; hunger, and thirst, and weariness, must
plough it; heart-griefs must seam and scar it; spittle must distain it; tears
must scald it; smiting must bruise it; death must make it pale and bloodless.
Well does Bernard sing— "O sacred Head, once wounded, With grief and pain
weigh'd down, How scornfully surrounded With thorns, Thine only crown; How pale
art Thou with anguish, With sore abuse and scorn! How does that visage languish,
Which once was bright as morn!"

Remember that the face of our Well-beloved, as well as all His form, must have
been an accurate index of His soul. Physiognomy is a science with much truth in
it when it deals with men of truth. Men weaned from simplicity know how to
control their countenances; the crafty will appear to be honest, the hardened
will seem to sympathize with the distressed, the revengeful will mimic
good-will. There are some who continually use their countenance as they do their
speech, to conceal their feelings; and it is almost a point of politeness with
them never to show themselves, but always to go masked among their fellows. Now
think, dear friends, what were the causes of this marring. It was not old age
that had wrinkled His brow, for He was still in the prime of life, neither was
it a personal sickness which had caused decay; much less was it any congenital
weakness and disease, which at length betrayed itself, for in His flesh there
was no possibility of impurity, which would, in death, have led to corruption.
It was occasioned, first, by His constant sympathy with the suffering. There was
a heavy wear and tear occasioned by the extraordinary compassion of His soul. In
three years it had told upon Him most manifestly, till His visage was marred
more than that of any other man. To Him there was a kind of sucking up into
Himself of all the suffering of those whom He blessed. He always bore upon Him
the burden of mortal woe. We read of Christ healing all that were sick, "that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took
our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Yes, He took those infirmities and
sicknesses in some mystical way to Himself, just as I have heard of certain
trees, which scatter health, because they themselves imbibe the miasma, and draw
up into themselves those noxious vapours which otherwise would poison mankind.
Thus, without being themselves polluted, they disinfect the atmosphere around
them. This, our Saviour did, but the cost was great to Him. You can imagine,
living as He did in the midst of one vast hospital, how constantly He must have
seen sights that grieved and pained Him. Moreover, with a nature so pure and
loving, He must have been daily tortured with the sin, and hypocrisy, and
oppression which so abounded in His day. In a certain sense, He was always
laying down His life for men, for He was spent in their service, tortured by
their sin, and oppressed with their sorrow. The more we look into that marred
visage, the more shall we be astonished at the anguish which it indicated. His
deepest griefs and most grievous marring came of His substitutionary work, while
bearing the penalty of our sin. One word recalls much of His woe: it is,
"Gethsemane." Betrayed by Judas, His trusted friend, that the Scripture might be
fulfilled, "He that eateth bread with Me hath lifted up his heel against Me;"
deserted even by John, for all the disciples forsook Him and fled; not one of
all the loved ones with Him: He was left alone. He had washed their feet, but
they could not watch with Him one hour; and in that garden He wrestled with our
deadly foe, till His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to
the ground, and as Hart puts it, He— "Bore all Incarnate God could bear, With
strength enough, but none to spare."

I do verily believe that verse to be true. Herein you see what marred His
countenance, and His form, even while in life. The whole of His manhood felt
that dreadful shock, when He and the prince of darkness, in awful duel, fought
it out amidst the gloom of the olives on that cold midnight when our redemption
began to be fully accomplished. II. There is AN EQUAL ASTONISHMENT AT HIS
GLORIES. I doubt not, if we could see Him now, as He appeared to John in Patmos,
we should feel that we must do exactly as the beloved disciple did, for He
deliberately wrote, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." His
astonishment was so great that he could not endure the sight. He had doubtless
longed often to behold that glorified face and form, but the privilege was too
much for him. While we are encumbered with these frail bodies, it is not fit for
us to behold our Lord, for we should die with excess of delight if we were
suddenly to behold that vision of splendour. Oh, for those glorious days when we
shall lie for ever at His feet, and see our exalted Lord! You notice what is
said, concerning the Christ, as the most astonishing thing of all: "So shall He
sprinkle many nations." Now is it the glory of our risen Lord, at this moment,
that His precious blood is to save many nations. Before the throne, men of all
nations shall sing, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by Thy
blood." Not the English nation alone shall be purified by His atoning blood, but
many nations shall He sprinkle with His reconciling blood, even as Israel of old
was sprinkled with the blood of sacrifice. We read in the tenth chapter of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, at the twenty-second verse, of "having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience," and this is effected by that precious blood
by which we have been once purged so effectually that we have no more
consciousness of sins, but enter into perfect peace. The blood of bulls and of
goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the
purifying of the flesh, and much more doth the blood of Christ purge our
conscience from dead works, to serve the living God. Listen to this, "Kings
shall shut their mouths at Him." They shall see such a King as they themselves
have never been; they speak freely to their brother-kings, but they shall not
dare to speak to Him, and as for speaking against Him, that will be altogether
out of the question. "Kings shall fall down before Him, And gold and incense
bring."

"That which they had not heard shall they consider." They shall be obliged, even
on their thrones, to think about the kingdom of the King of kings, and they
shall retire to their closets to confess their sins, and to put on sackcloth and
ashes, and to give heed to the words of wisdom. "Be wise now, therefore, O ye
kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth." To-day, the humble listen to
Christ, but by-and-by the mightiest of the mighty shall turn all their thoughts
towards Him. He shall gather sheaves of sceptres beneath His arm, and crowns
shall be strewn at His feet; and "He shall reign for ever and ever," and "of the
increase of His government and peace there shall be no end." If we were
astonished at the marring of His face, we shall be much more astonished at the
magnificence of His glory. Upon His throne none shall question His supremacy,
none shall doubt His loveliness; but His enemies shall weep and wail because of
Him whom they pierced; while He shall be admired in all them that believe.
Adorable Lord, we long for Thy glorious appearing! We beseech Thee tarry not!
"Come, and begin Thy reign Of everlasting peace; Come, take the kingdom to
Thyself, Great King of Righteousness!"


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 14: BANDS OF LOVE; OR, UNION TO CHRIST.
========================================================================

BANDS OF LOVE; OR, UNION TO CHRIST.

"I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they
that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. "—Hosea 11:4.

SYSTEMATIC theologians have usually regarded union to Christ under three
aspects, natural, mystical and federal, and it may be that these three terms are
comprehensive enough to embrace the whole subject, but as our aim is simplicity,
let us be pardoned if we appear diffuse when we follow a less concise method. 2.
There is, moreover, a union of purpose as well as of love. By the first, we have
seen that the elect are made one with Jesus by the act and will of the Son; by
the second, they are joined to Him by the ordination and decree of the Father.
These divine acts are co-eternal. The Son loved and chose His people to be His
own bride, the Father made the same choice, and decreed the chosen ones for ever
one with His all-glorious Son. The Son loved them, and the Father decreed them
His portion and inheritance; the Father ordained them to be what the Son Himself
did make them. The foresight of the Fall led the divine mind to provide for the
catastrophe in which the elect would have perished, had not their ruin been
prevented by gracious interposition. Hence followed as part of the divine
arrangement other forms of union, which, besides their immediate object in
salvation, had doubtless a further design of illustrating the condescending
alliance which Jesus had formed with His chosen. The next and following points
are of this character. 4. For the accomplishment of the great works of atonement
and perfect obedience, it was needful that the Lord Jesus should take upon Him
"the likeness of sinful flesh." Thus, He became one with us in our nature , for
in Holy Scripture all partakers of flesh and blood are regarded as of one
family. By the fact of common descent from Adam, all men are of one race, seeing
that "God hath made of one blood all nations that dwell upon the face of the
earth." Hence, in the Bible, man is spoken of universally as "thy brother"
(Leviticus 19:17; Job 22:6; Matthew 5:23-24; Luke 17:3; Romans 14:10, &c., &c.);
and "thy neighbour" (Exodus 20:16; Leviticus 19:13-18; Matthew 5:43; Romans
13:9; James 2:8); to whom, on account of nature and descent, we are required to
render kindness and goodwill. Now, although our great Melchizedek in His
divinity is without father, without mother, without descent, having neither
beginning of days nor end of life, and is both in essence and rank at an
infinite remove from fallen manhood; yet as to His manhood He is to be reckoned
as one of ourselves. He was born of a woman, He hung upon her breasts, and was
dandled upon her knee; He grew from infancy to youth and thence to manhood, and
in every stage He was a true and real partaker of our humanity. He is as
certainly of the race of Adam as He is divine. He is God without fiction or
metaphor, and He is man beyond doubt or dispute. The Godhead was not humanized,
and so diluted; and the manhood was not transformed into divinity, and so
rendered more than human. Never was any man more a portion of His kind than was
the Son of man, the Man of sorrows and the Acquaintance of grief. He is man's
Brother, for He bore the whole nature of man. "The Word was made flesh, and
dwelt among us." He who was very God of very God made Himself a little lower
than the angels, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the
likeness of men. If, in all our straits and distresses, we would always treasure
in our minds the remembrance of our Redeemer's manhood, we should never bemoan
the absence of a sympathizing heart, since we should always have His abundant
compassion for our consolation. He is no stranger, He is able to enter into the
heart's bitterness, for He has Himself tasted the wormwood and the gall. Let us
never doubt His power to sympathize with us in our infirmities and sorrows.
Pause here, and see if thou canst, without ecstatic amazement, contemplate the
infinite condescension of the Son of God in exalting thy wretchedness into
blessed union with His glory. Thou art so mean that, in remembrance of thy
mortality, thou mayest say to corruption, "Thou art my father," and to the worm,
"Thou art my sister;" and yet, in Christ, thou art so honoured that thou canst
say to the Almighty, "Abba, Father," and to the Incarnate God, "Thou art my
Brother and my Husband." Surely, if relationships to ancient and noble families
make men think highly of themselves, we have whereof to glory over the heads of
them all. Lay hold upon this privilege; let not a senseless indolence make thee
negligent to trace this pedigree, and suffer no foolish attachment to present
vanities to occupy thy thoughts to the exclusion of this glorious privilege,
this heavenly honour of union with Christ. 5. Christ Jesus is also joined unto
His people in a mystical union. Borrowing once more from the story of Ruth, we
remark that Boaz, although one with Ruth by kinship, did not rest until he had
entered into a nearer union still, namely, that of marriage; and in the same
manner there is, superadded to the natural union of Christ with His people, a
mystical union by which He assumes the position of Husband, while the Church is
owned as His bride. In love He espoused her to Himself, as a chaste virgin, long
before she fell under the yoke of bondage. Full of burning affection, He toiled
like Jacob for Rachel, until the whole of her purchase-money had been paid, and
now, having sought her by His Spirit, and brought her to know and love Him, He
awaits the glorious hour when their mutual bliss shall be consummated at the
marriage-supper of the Lamb. Not yet hath the glorious Bridegroom presented His
betrothed, perfected and complete, before the Majesty of heaven; not yet hath
she actually entered upon the enjoyment of her dignities as His wife and queen;
she is as yet a wanderer in a world of woe, a dweller in the tents of Kedar; but
she is even now the bride, the spouse of Jesus, dear to His heart, precious in
His sight, and united with His person. In love and tenderness, He says to her,—
"Forget thee I will not, I cannot, thy name Engraved on My heart doth for ever
remain: The palms of My hands whilst I look on I see The wounds I received when
suffering for thee."

He exercises towards her all the affectionate offices of Husband. He makes rich
provision for her wants, pays all her debts, allows her to assume His name, and
to share in all His wealth. Nor will He ever act otherwise to her. The word
divorce He will never mention, for "He hateth putting away." Death must sever
the conjugal tie between the most loving mortals, but it cannot divide the links
of this immortal marriage. In heaven they marry not, but are as the angels of
God; yet is there this one marvellous exception to the rule, for in heaven
Christ and His Church shall celebrate their joyous nuptials. And this affinity,
as it is more lasting, so is it more near than earthly wedlock. Let the love of
husband be never so pure and fervent, it is but a faint picture of the flame
that burns in the heart of Jesus. Passing all human union is that mystical
cleaving unto the Church, for which Christ did leave His Father, and become one
flesh with her. 6. As yet we have only considered the acts of Christ for us,
whereby He effects and proves His union to us; we must now come to more personal
and sensible forms of this great truth. When the Lord in mercy passed by and saw
us in our blood, He first of all said, "Live"; and this He did first, because,
without life, there can be no spiritual knowledge, feeling, or motion. Life is
one of the absolutely essential things in spiritual matters; and until it be
bestowed, we are incapable of partaking in the things of the kingdom. Now, the
life which grace confers upon the saints at the moment of their quickening is
none other than the life of Christ, which, like the sap from the stem, runs into
us, the branches, and establishes a living connection between our souls and
Jesus. Faith is the grace which perceives this union, and proceeds from it as
its firstfruit. It is, to use a metaphor from the Canticles, the neck which
joins the body of the Church to its all-glorious Head. "O Faith! thou bond of
union with the Lord, Is not this office thine? and thy fit name, In the economy
of gospel types, And symbols apposite—the Church's neck; Identifying her in will
and work With Him ascended?"

Faith lays hold upon the Lord Jesus with a firm and determined grasp. She knows
His excellence and worth, and no temptation can induce her to repose her trust
elsewhere; and Christ Jesus is so delighted with this heavenly grace, that He
never ceases to strengthen and sustain her by the loving embrace and
all-sufficient support of His eternal arms. Here, then, is established a living,
sensible, and delightful union, which casts forth streams of love, confidence,
sympathy, complacency, and joy, whereof both the bride and Bridegroom love to
drink. When the eye is clear, and the soul can evidently perceive this oneness
between itself and Christ, the pulse may be felt as beating for both, and the
one blood may be known as flowing through the veins of each. Then is the heart
made exceedingly glad, it is as near heaven as it ever can be on earth, and is
prepared for the enjoyment of the most sublime and spiritual kind of fellowship.
This union may be quite as true when we are troubled with doubts concerning it,
but it cannot afford consolation to the soul unless it be indisputably proven
and assuredly felt; then is it indeed a honeycomb dropping with sweetness, a
precious jewel sparkling with light. Look well to this matter, ye saints of the
Most High!


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 15: "I WILL GIVE YOU REST."
========================================================================

"I WILL GIVE YOU REST." A COMMUNION ADDRESS AT MENTONE. "I will give you
rest."—Matthew 11:28.

E have a thousand times considered these words as an encouragement to the
labouring and the laden; and we may, therefore, have failed to read them as a
promise to ourselves. But, beloved friends, we have come to Jesus, and therefore
He stands engaged to fufil this priceless pledge to us. We may now enjoy the
promise; for we have obeyed the precept. The faithful and true Witness, whose
word is truth, promised us rest if we would come to Him; and, therefore, since
we have come to Him, and are always coming to Him, we may boldly say, "O Thou,
who art our Peace, make good Thy word to us wherein Thou hast said, 'I will give
you rest.'" I. WHAT MUST THESE WORDS MEAN? This promise must mean rest to all
parts of our spiritual nature. Our bodies cannot rest if the head is aching, or
the feet are full of pain; if one member is disturbed, the whole frame is unable
to rest; and so the higher nature is one, and such intimate sympathies bind
together all its faculties and powers, that every one of them must rest, or none
can be at ease, Jesus gives real, and, consequently, universal rest to every
part of our spiritual being. The conscience, when it is at all alive and awake,
is much disturbed because the holy law of God has been broken by sin. Now,
conscience once aroused is not easily quieted. Neither unbelief nor superstition
can avail to lull it to sleep; it defies these opiates of falsehood, and frets
the soul with perpetual annoyance. Like the troubled sea, it cannot rest; but
constantly casts up upon the shore of memory the mire and dirt of past
transgressions and iniquities. Is this your case? Then Jesus says, "I will give
you rest." If, at any time, fears and apprehensions arise from an awakened
conscience, they can only be safely and surely quieted by our flying to the
Crucified. In the blessed truth of a substitution, accepted of God, and fully
made by the Lord Jesus, our mind finds peace. Justice is honoured, and law is
vindicated, in the sacrifice of Christ. Since God is satisfied, I may well be
so. Since the Father has raised Jesus from the dead, and set Him at His own
right hand, there can be no question as to His acceptance; and, consequently,
all who are in Him are accepted also. We are under no apprehension now as to our
being condemned; Jesus gives us rest, by enabling us to utter the challenge,
"Who is he that condemneth?" and to give the reassuring answer, "Christ hath
died. " Next, these words mean rest about all things. He who is uneasy about
anything has not found rest. A thousand thorns and briars grow on the soil of
this earth, and no man can happily tread life's ways unless his feet are shod
with that preparation of the gospel of peace which Jesus gives. In Christ, we
are at rest as to our duties; for He instructs and helps us in them. In Him, we
are at rest about our trials; for He sympathizes with us in them. With His love,
we are restful as to the movements of Providence; for His Father loves us, and
will not suffer anything to harm us. Concerning the past, we rest in His
forgiving love; as to the present, it is bright with His loving fellowship; as
to the future, it is brilliant with His expected Advent. This is true of the
little as well as of the great. He who saves us from the battle-axe of Satanic
temptation, also extracts the thorn of a domestic trial. We may rest in Jesus as
to our sick child, as to our business trouble, or as to grief of any kind. He is
our Comforter in all things, our Sympathizer in every form of temptation. Have
you such all-covering rest? If not, why not? Jesus gives it; why do you not
partake of it? Have you something which you could not bring to Him? Then, fly
from it; for it is no fit thing for a believer to possess. A disciple should
know neither grief nor joy which he could not reveal to his Lord. Assuredly, our
Lord has given a blessed rest to those who trust Him, and follow Him. They are
often unable to inform others as to their deep peace, and the reasons upon which
it is founded; but they know it, and it brings them an inward wealth compared
with which the fortune of an ungodly millionaire is poverty itself. May we all
know to the full, by happy, personal experience, the meaning of our Saviour's
promise, "I will give you rest"! The first answer is in our text. We should
enjoy this rest because Jesus gives it. As He gives it, we ought to take it.
Because He gives it, we may take it. I have known some Christians who have
thought that it would be presumption on their part to take this rest; so they
have kept fluttering about, like frightened birds, weary with their long
flights, but not daring to fold their tired wings, and rest. If there is any
presumption in the case, let us not be so presumptuous as to think that we know
better than our Lord. He gives us rest: for that reason, if for no other, let us
take it, promptly and gratefully. "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for
Him." Say with David, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing
and give praise." "Now rest, my long-divided heart, Fix'd on this blissful
centre, rest."

Another reason why we should have this rest is, that it will enable us to
concentrate all our faculties. Many, who might be strong servants of the Lord,
are very weak, because their energies are not concentrated upon one object. They
do not say with Paul, "This one thing I do." We are such poor creatures that we
cannot occupy our minds with more than one su bject, at a time. Why, even the
buzzing of a fly, or the trumpeting of a mosquito, would be quite sufficient to
take our thoughts away from our present holy service! As long as we have any
burden resting on our shoulders, we cannot enjoy perfect rest; and as long as
there is any burden on our conscience or heart, we cannot have rest of soul. How
are we to be freed from these burdens? Only by yielding ourselves wholly to the
Great Burden-Bearer, who says, "Come unto Me, and, I will give you rest.
"Possessing this rest, all our faculties will be centred and focussed upon one
object, and with undivided hearts we shall seek God's glory. Once more, this
rest is necessary to our growth. The lily in the garden is not taken up and
transplanted two or three times a day; that would be the way to prevent all
growth. But it is kept in one place, and tenderly nurtured. It is by keeping it
quite still that the gardener helps it to attain to perfection. A child of God
would grow much more rapidly if he would but rest in one place instead of being
always on the move. "In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and
in confidence shall be your strength." Martha was cumbered about much serving;
but Mary sat at Jesus' feet. It is not difficult to tell which of them would be
the more likely to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
III. I have left myself only a minute for the answers to my third question,—HOW
CAN WE OBTAIN THIS REST? Next, we obtain rest by yielding to Christ. "Take My
yoke upon you, . . . and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Christ bids us
wear His yoke; not make one for ourselves. He wants us to share the yoke with
Him, to be His true yoke-fellow. It is wonderful that He should be willing to be
yoked with us; the only greater wonder is that we should be so unwilling to be
yoked with Him. In taking His yoke upon us what joy we shall enter upon our
eternal rest! Here we find rest unto our souls; a further rest beyond that which
He gives us when we come to Him. We first rest in Jesus by faith, and then we
rest in Him by obedience. The first rest He gives through His death; the further
rest we find through copying His life. "Lastly, we secure this rest by learning
of Christ. "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find
rest unto your souls." We are to be workers with Christ, taking His yoke upon
us; and, at the same time, we are to be scholars in Christ's school, learning of
Him. We are to learn of Christ, and to learn Christ; He is both Teacher and
lesson. His gentleness of heart fits Him to teach, and makes Him the best
illustration of His own teaching. If we can become as He is, we shall rest as He
does. The lowly in heart will be restful of heart. Now, as we come to the table
of communion, may we find to the full that rest of which we have been speaking,
for the Great Rest-Giver's sake! Amen.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 16: THE MEMORABLE HYMN.
========================================================================

THE MEMORABLE HYMN.

"And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of
Olives."—Matthew 26:30. THE occasion on which these words were spoken was the
last meal of which Jesus partook in company with His disciples before He went
from them to His shameful trial and His ignominious death. It was His farewell
supper before a bitter parting, and yet they needs must sing. He was on the
brink of that great depth of misery into which He was about to plunge, and yet
He would have them sing "an hymn." It is wonderful that He sang, and in a second
degree it is remarkable that they sang. We will consider both singular facts.
This remark, however, is quite a secondary one to the next: our Lord's complete
fulfilment of the law is even more worthy of our attention. It was customary,
when the Passover was held, to sing, and this is the main reason why the Saviour
did so. During the Passover, it was usual to sing the hundred and thirteenth,
and five following Psalms, which were called the "Hallel." The first commences,
you will observe, in our version, with "Praise ye the Lord!" or, "Hallelujah!"
The hundred and fifteenth, and the three following, were usually sung as the
closing song of the Passover. Now, our Saviour would not diminish the splend our
of the great Jewish rite, although it was the last time that He would celebrate
it. No; there shall be the holy beauty and delight of psalmody; none of it shall
be stinted; the "Hallel" shall be full and complete. We may safely believe that
the Saviour sang through, or probably chanted, the whole of these six Psalms;
and my heart tells me that there was no one at the table who sang more devoutly
or more cheerfully than did our blessed Lord. There are some parts of the
hundred and eighteenth Psalm (Psalms 118:1-29), especially, which strike us as
having sounded singularly grand, as they flowed from His blessed lips. Note
verses 22, 23, 24 (Psalms 118:22-24). Particularly observe those words, near the
end of the Psalm, and think you hear the Lord Himself singing them, "God is the
Lord, which hath shewed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the
horns of the altar. Thou art my God, and I will praise Thee: Thou art my God, I
will exalt Thee. O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy
endureth for ever." May we not venture to suggest another and deeper reason? Did
not the singing of "an hymn" at the supper show the holy absorption of the
Saviour's soul in His Father's will? If, beloved, you knew that at—say ten
o'clock to-night—you would be led away to be mocked, and despised, and scourged,
and that tomorrow's sun would see you falsely accused, hanging, a convicted
criminal, to die upon a cross, do you think that you could sing tonight, after
your last meal? I am sure you could not, unless with more than earth- born
courage and resignation your soul could say, "Bind the sacrifice with cords,
even unto the horns of the altar." You would sing if your spirit were like the
Saviour's spirit; if, like Him, you could exclaim, "Not as I will, but as Thou
wilt;" but if there should remain in you any selfishness, any desire to be
spared the bitterness of death, you would not be able to chant the "Hallel" with
the Master. Blessed Jesus, how wholly wert Thou given up! how perfectly
consecrated! so that, whereas other men sing when they are marching to their
joys, Thou didst sing on the way to death; whereas other men lift up their
cheerful voices when honour awaits them, Thou hadst a brave and holy sonnet on
Thy lips when shame, and spitting, and death were to be Thy portion. There is
much more that might be said concerning our Lord's sweet swan-song, but there is
no need to crowd one thought out with another; your leisure will be well spent
in meditation upon so fruitful a theme. Remembering the fact commemorated by the
Paschal supper, Israel might well rejoice. They sang of their nation in bondage,
trodden beneath the tyrannical foot of Pharaoh; they began the Psalm right
sorrowfully, as they thought of the bricks made without straw, and of the iron
furnace; but the strain soon mounted from the deep bass, and began to climb the
scale, as they sang of Moses the servant of God, and of the Lord appearing to
him in the burning bush. They remembered the mystic rod, which became a serpent,
and which swallowed up the rods of the magicians; their music told of the
plagues and wonders which God had wrought upon Zoan; and of that dread night
when the first-born of Egypt fell before the avenging sword of the angel of
death, while they themselves, feeding on the lamb which had been slain for them,
and whose blood was sprinkled upon the lintel and upon the side-posts of the
door, had been graciously preserved. Then the song went up concerning the hour
in which all Egypt was humbled at the feet of Jehovah, whilst as for His people,
He led them forth like sheep, by the hand of Moses and Aaron, and they went by
the way of the sea, even of the Red Sea. The strain rose higher still as they
tuned the song of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb. Jubilantly they
sang of the Red Sea, and of the chariots of Pharaoh which went down into the
midst thereof, and the depths covered them till there was not one of them left.
It was a glorious chant indeed when they sang of Rahab cut in pieces, and of the
dragon wounded at the sea, by the right hand of the Most High, for the
deliverance of the chosen people. III. The time has now come for me to say HOW
EARNESTLY I DESIRE YOU TO "SING AN HYMN." Being satisfied on this point, perhaps
you ask, "What hymn shall we sing?" Many sorts of hymns were sung in the olden
time: look down the list, and you will scarcely find one which may not suit us
now. Another early, form of song was the pastoral. When he shepherds sat down
amongst the sheep, they tuned their pipes, and warbled forth soft and sweet airs
in harmony with rustic quietude. All around was calm and still; the sun was
brightly shining, and the birds were making melody among the leafy branches.
Shall I seem fanciful if I say, let us unite in a pastoral to-night? Sitting
round the table, why should we not sing, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not
want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still
waters"? If there be a place beneath the stars where one might feel perfectly at
rest and ease, surely it is at the table of the Lord. Here, then, let us sing to
our great Shepherd a pastoral of delight. Let the bleating of sheep be in our
ears as we remember the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for His flock. The
love-song we must not forget, for that is peculiarly the song of this evening.
"Now will I sing unto my Well-beloved a song." His love to us is an immortal
theme; and as our love, fanned by the breath of heaven, bursts into a vehement
flame, we may sing, yea, and we will sing among the lilies, a song of loves.
David wrote a considerable number of Psalms which he entitled, " Maschil," which
may be called in English, "instructive Psalms." Where, beloved, can we find
richer instruction than at the table of our Lord? He who understands the mystery
of incarnation and of substitution, is a master in Scriptural theology. There is
more teaching in the Saviour's body and in the Saviour's blood than in all the
world besides. O ye who wish to learn the way to comfort, and how to tread the
royal road to heavenly wisdom, come ye to the cross, and see the Saviour suffer,
and pour out His heart's blood for human sin! Certain Psalms in the Old
Testament are entitled, "Upon Shoshannim ," that is, "Upon the lilies." O ye
virgin souls, whose hearts have been washed in blood, and have been made white
and pure, bring forth your instruments of song:— "Hither, then, your music
bring, Strike aloud each cheerful string!"

Let your hearts, when they are in their best state, when they are purest, and
most cleansed from earthly dross, give to Jesus their glory and their
excellence. We have not half exhausted the list, but it is clear that, sitting
at the Lord's table, we shall have no lack of suitable psalmody. Perhaps no one
hymn will quite meet the sentiments of all; and while we would not write a hymn
for you, we would pray the Holy Spirit to write now the spirit of praise upon
your hearts, that, sitting here, you may "after supper" sing "an hymn."
Remember, beloved, that the same Saviour who will accept the joyful shoutings of
the strong, will also receive the plaintive notes of the weak and weeping. You
little ones, you babes in grace, may cry, "Hosanna," and the King will not
silence you; and you strong men, with all your power of faith, may shout,
"Hallelujah!" and your notes shall be accepted, too. We should not choose a tune
for the communion table which is not very soft. These are no boisterous themes
with which we have to deal when we tarry here. A bleeding Saviour, robed in a
vesture dyed with blood—this is a theme which you must treat with loving
gentleness, for everything that is coarse is out of place. While the tune is
soft, it must also be sweet . Silence, ye doubts; be dumb, ye fears; be hushed,
ye cares! Why come ye here? My music must be sweet and soft when I sing of Him.
But oh! it must also be strong; there must be a full swell in my praise. Draw
out the stops, and let the organ swell the diapason! In fulness let its roll of
thundering harmony go up to heaven; let every note be sounded at its loudest.
"Praise ye Him upon the cymbals, upon the high-sounding cymbals; upon the harp
with a solemn sound." Soft, sweet, and strong, let the music be. V. We close by
enquiring,—WHO SHALL SING THIS HYMN? You have not much comfort at home, perhaps;
by very hard work you earn that little. Sunday is to you a day of true rest, for
you are worked very cruelly all the week. Those cheeks of yours, poor girl, are
getting very pale, and who knows but what Hood's pathetic lines may be true of
you?— "Stitch, stitch, stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once,
with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt."

But, my sister, you may surely rejoice to-night in spite of all this. There may
be little on earth, but there is much in heaven. There may be but small comfort
for you here apart from Christ; but oh! when, by faith, you mount into His
glory, your soul is glad. You shall be as rich as the richest to-night if the
Holy Spirit shall but bring you to the table, and enable you to feed upon your
Lord and Master. Perhaps you have come here to-night when you ought not to have
done so. The physician would have told you to keep to your bed, but you
persisted in coming up to the house where the Lord has so often met with you. I
trust that we shall hear your voice in the song. There appear to have been in
David's day many things to silence the praise of God, but David was one who
would sing. I like that expression of his, where the devil seems to come up, and
put his hand on his mouth, and say, "Be quiet." "No," says David, "I will sing."
Again the devil tries to quiet him, but David is not to be silenced, for three
times he puts it, "I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord." May the
Lord make you resolve this night that you will praise the Lord Jesus with all
your heart! "Oh!" says one, "would God I could believe!" Poor soul, may God help
thee to believe now! God took upon Himself our flesh; Christ was born among men,
and suffered on account of human guilt, being made to suffer "the Just for the
unjust, that He might bring us to God." Christ was punished in the room, place,
and stead of every man and woman who will believe on Him. If you believe on Him,
He was punished for you; and you will never be punished. Your debts are paid,
your sins are forgiven. God cannot punish you, for He has punished Christ
instead of you, and He will never punish twice for one offence. To believe is to
trust. If you will now trust your soul entirely with Him, you are saved, for He
loved you, and gave Himself for you. When you know this, and feel it to be true,
then come to the Lord's table, and join with us, when, after supper we sing our
hymn,— "'It is finished!'—Oh, what pleasure Do these charming words afford!
Heavenly blessings without measure Flow to us from Christ the Lord: 'It is
finished! ' Saints, the dying words record. "Tune your harps anew, ye seraphs,
Join to sing the pleasing theme; All on earth, and all in heaven, Join to praise
Immanuel's name! Hallelujah! Glory to the bleeding Lamb!"


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 17: JESUS ASLEEP ON A PILLOW.
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JESUS ASLEEP ON A PILLOW.

"And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake
Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest Thou not that we perish? And He arose, and
rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased,
and there was a great calm."—Mark 4:38-39. OUR Lord took His disciples with Him
into the ship to teach them a practical lesson. It is one thing to talk to
people about our oneness with them, and about how they should exercise faith in
time of danger, and about their real safety in apparent peril; but it is
another, and a far better thing, to go into the ship with them, to let them feel
all the terror of the storm, and then to arise, and rebuke the wind, and say
unto the sea, "Peace, be still." Our Lord gave His disciples a kind of
Kindergarten lesson, an acted sermon, in which the truth was set forth visibly
before them. Such teaching produced a wonderful effect upon their lives. May we
also be instructed by it! I. WITHIN THE LORD THERE WAS A GREAT CALM, and that is
why there was soon a great calm around Him; for what is in God comes out of God.
Since there was a calm in Christ for Himself, there was afterwards a calm
outside for others. What a wonderful inner calm it was! "He was in the hinder
part of the ship, asleep on a pillow." There was also mixed with His faith in
the Father a sweet confidence in His own Sonship. He did not doubt that He was
the Son of the Highest. I may not question God's power to deliver, but I may
sometimes question my right to expect deliverance; and if so, my comfort
vanishes. Our Lord had no doubts of this kind. He had long before heard that
word, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased;" He had so lived and
walked with God that the witness within Him was continuous, so He had no
question about the Father's love to Him as His own Son. "Rocked in the cradle of
the deep," His Father keeping watch over Him,—what could a child do better than
go to sleep in such a happy position? And so He does. You and I, too, want a
fuller assurance of our sonship if we would have greater peace with God. The
devil knows that, and therefore he will come to us with his insinuating
suggestion, "If thou be the son of God." If we have the Spirit of adoption in
us, we shall put the accuser to rout at once, by opposing the Witness within to
his question from without. Then shall we be filled with a great calm, because we
have confidence in our Father, and assurance of our sonship. But I think I hear
someone say, "I could do that if mine were solely care about myself." Yes,
perhaps you could; and yet you cannot cast upon God your burden of care about
your children. But your Lord trusted the Father with those dear to Him. Do you
not think that Christ's disciples were as precious to Him as our children are to
us? If that ship had been wrecked, what would have become of Peter? What would
have become of "that disciple whom Jesus loved"? Our Lord regarded with intense
affection those whom He had chosen and called, and who had been with Him in His
temptation, yet He was quite content to leave them all in the care of His
Father, and go to sleep. Having left everything with His Father, our Lord did
the very wisest thing possible. He did just what the hour demanded. "Why," say
you, "He went to sleep!" That was the best thing Jesus could do; and sometimes
it is the best thing we can do. Christ was weary and worn; and when anyone is
exhausted, it is his duty to go to sleep if he can. The Saviour must be up again
in the morning, preaching and working miracles, and if He does not sleep, He
will not be fit for His holy duty; it is incumbent upon Him to keep Himself in
trim for His service. Knowing that the time to sleep has come, the Lord sleeps,
and does well in sleeping. Often, when we have been fretting and worrying, we
should have glorified God far more had we literally gone to sleep. To glorify
God by sleep is not so difficult as some might think; at least, to our Lord it
was natural. Here you are worried, sad, wearied; the doctor prescribes for you;
his medicine does you no good; but oh! if you enter into full peace with God,
and go to sleep, you will wake up infinitely more refreshed than by any drug.
The sleep which the Lord giveth to His beloved is balmy indeed. Seek it as Jesus
sought it. Go to bed, brother, and you will better imitate your Lord than by
putting yourself into ill humour, and worrying other people. II. But here
notice, dear friends, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MASTER AND HIS DISCIPLES; for
while He was in a great calm, they were in a great storm. Here see their
failure. They were just as we are, and we are often just as they were. And the
disciples were so unwise as to do the Master a very ill turn. He was sadly
weary, and sorely needed sleep; but they hastened to Him, and aroused Him in a
somewhat rough and irreverent manner. They were slow to do so, but their fear
urged them; and therefore they awoke Him, uttering ungenerous and unloving
words: "Master, carest Thou not that we perish?" Shame on the lips that asked so
harsh a question! Did they not upon reflection greatly blame themselves? He had
given them no cause for such hard speeches; and, moreover, it was unseemly in
them to call Him" Master," and then to ask Him, "Carest Thou not that we
perish?" Is He to be accused of such hard-heartednesses to let His faithful
disciples perish when He has power to deliver them? Alas, we, too, have been
guilty of like offences! I think I have known some of Christ's disciples who
have appeared to doubt the wisdom or the love of their Lord. They did not quite
say that He was mistaken, but they said that He moved in a mysterious way; they
did not quite complain that He was unkind to them, but they whispered that they
could not reconcile His dealings with His infinite love. Alas, Jesus has endured
much from our unbelief! May this picture help us to see our spots, and may the
love of our dear Lord remove them! His voice produced it. They say that if oil
be poured upon the waters they will become smooth, and I suppose there is some
truth in the statement; but there is all truth in this, that if God speaks, the
storm subsides into a calm, so that the waves of the sea are still. It only
needs our Lord Jesus to speak in the heart of any one of us, and immediately the
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, will possess us. No matter how
drear your despondency, nor how dread your despair, the Lord can at once create
a great calm of confidence. What a door of hope this opens to any who are in
trouble! If I could speak a poor man rich, and a sick one well, I am sure I
would do so at once; but Jesus is infinitely better than I am, and therefore I
know that He will speak peace to the tried and troubled heart. Note, also, that
the Saviour coupled this repose with faith, for He said to the disciples as soon
as the calm came, "Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?"
Faith and the calm go together. If thou believest, thou shalt rest; if thou wilt
but cast thyself upon thy God, surrendering absolutely to His will, thou shalt
have mercy, and joy, and light. Even if we have no faith, the Lord will
sometimes give us the blessing that we need, for He delights to do more for us
than we have any right to expect of Him; but usually the rule of His kingdom is,
"According to your faith be it unto you." Let us survey our mercies. Every sin
that we have ever committed is forgiven. "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,
cleanseth us from all sin." The power of sin within us is broken; it "shall not
have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace." Satan is
a vanquished enemy; the world is overcome by our Lord Jesus, and death is
abolished by Him. All providence works for our good. Eternity has no threat for
us, it bears within its mysteries nothing but immortality and glory. Nothing can
harm us. The Lord is our shield, and our exceeding great reward. Wherefore,
then, should we fear? The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our
refuge. To the believer, peace is no presumption: he is warranted in enjoying
"perfect peace"—a quiet which is deep, and founded on truth, which encompasses
all things, and is not broken by any of the ten thousand disturbing causes which
otherwise might prevent our rest. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose
mind is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee." Oh, to get into that calm,
and remain in it till we come to that world where there is no more sea! "A calm
like that which ruled within our Saviour should we be happy enough to attain to
it, will give us in our measure the power to make outside matters calm. He that
hath peace can make peace. We cannot work miracles, and yet the works which
Jesus did shall we do also. Sleeping His sleep, we shall awake in His rested
energy, and treat the winds and waves as things subject to the power of faith,
and therefore to be commanded into quiet. We shall speak so as to console
others: our calm shall work marvels in the little ships whereof others are
captains. We, too, shall say, "Peace! Be still." Our confidence shall prove
contagious, and the timid shall grow brave: our tender love shall spread itself,
and the contentious shall cool down to patience. Only the matter must begin
within ourselves. We cannot create a calm till we are in a calm. It is easier to
rule the elements than to govern the unruliness of our wayward nature. When
grace has made us masters of our fears, so that we can take a pillow and fall
asleep amid the hurricane, the fury of the tempest is over. He giveth peace and
safety when He giveth His beloved sleep.


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  CHAPTER 18: REAL CONTACT WITH JESUS.
========================================================================

REAL CONTACT WITH JESUS.

"And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched Me: for I perceive that virtue is gone
out of Me."—Luke 8:46. OUR Lord was very frequently in the midst of a crowd. His
preaching was so plain and so forcible that He always attracted a vast company
of hearers; and, moreover, the rumour of the loaves and fishes no doubt had
something to do with increasing His audiences, while the expectation of
beholding a miracle would be sure to add to the numbers of the hangers-on. Our
Lord Jesus Christ often found it difficult to move through the streets, because
of the masses who pressed upon Him. This was encouraging to Him as a preacher,
and yet how small a residuum of real good came of all the excitement which
gathered around His personal ministry! He might have looked upon the great mass,
and have said, "What is the chaff to the wheat?" for here it was piled up upon
the threshing-floor, heap upon heap; and yet, after His decease, His disciples
might have been counted by a few scores, for those who had spiritually received
Him were but few. Many were called, but few were chosen. Yet, wherever one was
blessed, our Saviour took note of it; it touched a chord in His soul. He never
could be unaware when virtue had gone out of Him to heal a sick one, or when
power had gone forth with His ministry to save a sinful one. Of all the crowd
that gathered round the Saviour upon the day of which our text speaks, I find
nothing said about one of them except this solitary "somebody" who had touched
Him. The crowd came, and the crowd went; but little is recorded of it all. Just
as the ocean, having advanced to full tide, leaves but little behind it when it
retires again to its channel, so the vast multitude around the Saviour left only
this one precious deposit—one "somebody" who had touched Him, and had received
virtue from Him. Jesus said, "Somebody hath touched Me," from which we observe
that, in the use of means and ordinances, we should never be satisfied unless we
get into personal contact with Christ, so that we touch Him, as this woman
touched His garment. Secondly, if we can get into such personal contact, we
shall have a blessing: "I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me;" and, thirdly,
if we do get a blessing, Christ will know it; however obscure our case may be,
He will know it, and He will have us let others know it; He will speak, and ask
such questions as will draw us out, and manifest us to the world. Peter said,
"The multitude throng Thee, and press Thee," and that is true of the multitude
to this very day; but of those who come where Christ is in the assembly of His
saints, a large proportion only come because it is their custom to do so.
Perhaps they hardly know why they go to a place of worship. They go because they
always did go, and they think it wrong not to go. They are just like the doors
which swing upon their hinges; they take no interest in what is done, at least
only in the exterior parts of the service; into the heart and soul of the
business they do not enter, and cannot enter. They are glad if the sermon is
rather short, there is so much the less tedium for them. They are glad if they
can look around and gaze at the congregation, they find in that something to
interest them; but getting near to the Lord Jesus is not the business they come
upon. They have not looked at it in that light. They come and they go; they come
and they go; and it will be so till, by-and-by, they will come for the last
time, and they will find out in the next world that the means of grace were not
instituted to be matters of custom, and that to have heard Jesus Christ
preached, and to have rejected Him, is no trifle, but a solemn thing for which
they will have to answer in the presence of the great Judge of all the earth.
But, "somebody," said Christ, "somebody hath touched Me," and that is the soul
of the matter. O my hearer, when you are in prayer alone, never be satisfied
with having prayed; do not give it up till you have touched Christ in prayer;
or, if you have not got to Him, at any rate sigh and cry until you do! Do not
think you have prayed, but try again. When you come to public worship, I beseech
you, rest not satisfied with listening to the sermon, and so on, as you all do
with sufficient attention; to that I bear you witness;—but do not be content
unless you get at Christ the Master, and touch Him. At all times when you come
to the communion table, count it to have been no ordinance of grace to you
unless you have gone right through the veil into Christ's own arms, or at least
have touched His garment, feeling that the first object, the life and soul of
the means of grace, is to touch Jesus Christ Himself; and except "somebody" hath
touched Him, the whole has been a mere dead performance, without life or power.
Note, first, she felt that it was of no use being in the crowd, of no use to be
in the same street with Christ, or near to the place where Christ was, but she
must get at Him; she must touch Him. She touched Him, you will notice, under
many difficulties. There was a great crowd. She was a woman. She was also a
woman enfeebled by a long disease which had drained her constitution, and left
her more fit to be upon a bed than to be struggling in the seething tumult. Yet,
notwithstanding that, so intense was her desire, that she urged on her way, I
doubt not with many a bruise, and many an uncouth push, and at last, poor
trembler as she was, she got near to the Lord. Beloved, it is not always easy to
get at Jesus. It is very easy to kneel down to pray, but not so easy to reach
Christ in prayer. There is a child crying, it is your own, and its noise has
often hindered you when you were striving to approach Jesus; or a knock will
come at the door when you most wish to be retired. When you are sitting in the
house of God, your neighbour in the seat before you may unconsciously distract
your attention. It is not easy to draw near to Christ, especially coming as some
of you do right away from the counting-house, and from the workshop, with a
thousand thoughts and cares about you. You cannot always unload your burden
outside, and come in here with your hearts prepared to receive the gospel. Ah!
it is a terrible fight sometimes, a real foot-to-foot fight with evil, with
temptation, and I know not what. But, beloved, do fight it out, do fight it out;
do not let your seasons for prayer be wasted, nor your times for hearing be
thrown away; but, like this woman, be resolved, with all your feebleness, that
you will lay hold upon Christ. And oh! if you be resolved about it, if you
cannot get to Him, He will come to you, and sometimes, when you are struggling
against unbelieving thoughts, He will turn and say, "Make room for that poor
feeble one, that she may come to Me, for My desire is to the work of My own
hands; let her come to Me, and let her desire be granted to her." This woman
also came into contact with Christ under a very deep sense of unworthiness. I
dare say she thought, "If I touch the Great Prophet, it will be a wonder if He
does not strike me with some sudden judgment," for she was a woman ceremonially
unclean. She had no right to be in the throng. Had the Levitical law been
strictly carried out, I suppose she would have been confined to her house; but
there she was wandering about, and she must needs go and touch the holy Saviour.
Ah! poor heart, you feel to-night that you are not fit to touch the skirts of
the Master's robe, for you are so unworthy. You never felt so undeserving before
as you do to-night. In the recollection of last week and its infirmities, in the
remembrance of the present state of your heart, and all its wanderings from God,
you feel as if there never was so worthless a sinner in the house of God before.
"Is grace for me?" say you. "Is Christ for me?" Oh! yes, unworthy one. Do not be
put off without it. Jesus Christ does not save the worthy, but the unworthy.
Your plea must not be right eousness, but guilt. And you, too, child of God,
though you are ashamed of yourself, Jesus is not ashamed of you; and though you
feel unfit to come, let your unfitness only impel you with the greater
earnestness of desire. Let your sense of need make you the more fervent to
approach the Lord, who can supply your need. I have known many staggered with
that saying of Paul's, "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and
drinketh damnation to himself." Now, understand that this passage does not refer
to the unworthiness of those persons who come to the Lord's table; for it does
not say, "He that eateth and drinketh being unworthy." It is not an adjective;
it is an adverb: "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily," that is to say, he
who shall come to the outward and visible sign of Christ's presence, and shall
eat of the bread in order to obtain money being a member of the church, knowing
himself to be a hypocrite, or who shall do it jestingly, trifling with the
ordinance: such a person would be eating and drinking unworthily, and he will be
condemned. The sense of the passage is, not "damnation", as our version reads
it, but "condemnation." There can be no doubt that members of the church, coming
to the Lord's table in an unworthy manner, do receive condemnation. They are
condemned for so doing, and the Lord is grieved. If they have any conscience at
all, they ought to feel their sin; and if not, they may expect the chastisements
of God to visit them. But, O sinner, as to coming to Christ,—which is a very
different thing from coming to the Lord's table,—as to coming to Christ, the
more unworthy you feel yourself to be, the better. Come, thou filthy one, for
Christ can wash thee. Come, thou loathsome one, for Christ can beautify thee.
Come utterly ruined and undone, for in Jesus Christ there is the strength and
salvation which thy case requires. You see, the woman did really touch Christ,
and so I come back to that. Whatever infirmity there was in the touch, it was a
real touch of faith. She did reach Christ Himself. She did not touch Peter; that
would have been of no use to her, any more than it is for the parish priest to
tell you that you are regenerate when your life soon proves that you are not.
She did not touch John or James; that would have been of no more good to her
than it is for you to be touched by a bishop's hands, and to be told that you
are confirmed in the faith, when you are not even a believer, and therefore have
no faith to be confirmed in. She touched the Master Himself; and, I pray you, do
not be content unless you can do the same. Put out the hand of faith, and touch
Christ. Rest on Him. Rely on His bloody sacrifice, His dying love, His rising
power, His ascended plea; and as you rest in Him, yo ur vital touch, however
feeble, will certainly give you the blessing your soul needs. II. THE WOMAN IN
THE CROWD DID TOUCH JESUS, AND, HAVING DONE SO, SHE RECEIVED VIRTUE FROM HIM.
And now, child of God, I want you to learn the same lesson. Very likely, when
you came in here, you said,—"Alas! I feel very dull; my spirituality is at a
very low ebb; the place is hot, and I do not feel prepared to hear; the spirit
is willing, but the flesh is weak; I shall have no holy enjoyment to-day!" Why
not? Why, the touch of Jesus could make you live if you were dead, and surely it
will stir the life that is in you, though it may seem to you to be expiring!
Now, struggle hard, my beloved, to get at Jesus! May the Eternal Spirit come and
help you, and may you yet find that your dull, dead times can soon become your
best times. Oh! what a blessing it is that God takes the beggar up from the
dunghill! He does not raise us when He sees us already up, but when He finds us
lying on the dunghill, then He delights to lift us up, and set us among princes.
Or ever you are aware, your soul may become like the chariots of Ammi-nadib. Up
from the depths of heaviness to the very heights of ecstatic worship you may
mount as in a single moment if you can but touch Christ crucified. View Him
yonder, with streaming wounds, with thorn-crowned head, as in all the majesty of
His misery, He expires for you! "Ay!" saith another, "but my sins come to my
remembrance, my sins since conversion." Well, return to Jesus, when your guilt
seems to return. The fountain is still open, and that fountain, you will
remember, is not only open for sinners, but for saints; for what saith the
Scripture—"There shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and for the
inhabitants of Jerusalem,"—that is, for you, churchmembers, for you, believers
in Jesus? The fountain is still open. Come, beloved, come to Jesus anew, and
whatever be your sins, or doubts, or heaviness, they shall all depart as soon as
you can touch your Lord. I do not know your names; a great number of you are
perfect strangers to me. It matters nothing; your name is "somebody", and Christ
will know you. You are a total stranger, perhaps, to everybody in this place;
but if you get a blessing, there will be two who will know it,—you will, and
Christ will. Oh! if you should look to Jesus this day, it may not be registered
in our church-book, and we may not hear of it; but still it will be registered
in the courts of heaven, and they will set all the bells of the New Jerusalem
a-ringing, and all the harps of angels will take a fresh lease of music as soon
as they know that you are born again. "With joy the Father doth approve The
fruit of His eternal love; The Son with joy looks down and sees The purchase of
His agonies; The Spirit takes delight to view The holy soul He formed anew; And
saints and angels join to sing The growing empire of their King."

"Somebody!" I do not know the woman's name; I do not know who the man is,
but—"Somebody!"—God's electing love rests on thee, Christ's redeeming blood was
shed for thee, the Spirit has wrought a work in thee, or thou wouldst not have
touched Jesus; and all this Jesus knows. Now, as Jesus knows of your salvation,
He wishes other people to know of it, and that is why He has put it into my
heart to say,—Somebody has touched the Lord. Where is that somebody? Somebody,
where are you? Somebody, where are you? You have touched Christ, though with a
feeble finger, and you are saved. Let us know it. It is due to us to let us
know. You cannot guess what joy it gives us when we hear of sick ones being
healed by our Master. Some of you, perhaps, have known the Lord for months, and
you have not yet come forward to make an avowal of it; we beg you to do so. You
may come forward tremblingly, as this woman did; you may perhaps say, "I do not
know what I should tell you." Well, you must tell us what she told the Lord; she
told Him all the truth. We do not want anything else. We do not desire any sham
experience. We do not want you to manufacture feelings like somebody else's that
you have read of in a book. Come and tell us what you have felt. We shall not
ask you to tell us what you have not felt, or what you do not know. But, if you
have touched Christ, and you have been healed, I ask it, and I think I may ask
it as your duty, as well as a favour to us, to come and tell us what the Lord
hath done for your soul. Whoever you may be, my dear friend, though you may be
nothing but a poor "somebody", yet if you have touched Christ, tell others about
it, in order that they may come and touch Him, too; and the Lord bless you, for
Christ's sake! Amen.


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  CHAPTER 19: CHRIST AND HIS TABLE-COMPANIONS.
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CHRIST AND HIS TABLE-COMPANIONS.

"And when the hour was come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with
Him."—Luke 22:14. THE outward ordinances of the Christian religion are but two,
and those two are exceedingly simple, yet neither of them has escaped human
alteration; and, alas! much mischief has been wrought, and much of precious
teaching has been sacrificed, by these miserable perversions. For instance, the
ordinance of baptism as it was administered by the apostles betokened the burial
of the believer with Christ, and his rising with his Lord into newness of life.
Men must needs exchange immersion for sprinkling, and the intelligent believer
for an unconscious child, and so the ordinance is slain. The other sacred
institution, the Lord's supper, like believers' baptism, is simplicity itself.
It consists of bread broken, and wine poured out, these viands being eaten and
drunk at a festival—a delightful picture of the suff erings of Christ for us,
and of the fellowship which the saints have with one another and with Him. But
this ordinance, also, has been tampered with by men. By some, the wine has been
taken away altogether, or reserved only for a priestly caste; and the simple
bread has been changed into a consecrated host. As for the table, the very
emblem of fellowship in all nations—for what expresses fellowship better than
surrounding a table, and eating and drinking together?—this, forsooth, must be
put away, and an altar must be erected, and the bread and wine which were to
help us to remember the Lord Jesus are changed into an "unbloody sacrifice", and
so the whole thing becomes an unscriptural celebration instead of a holy
institution for fellowship. Let us be warned by these mistakes of others never
either to add to or take from the Word of God so much as a single jot or tittle.
Keep upon the foundation of the Scriptures, and you stand safely, and have an
answer for those who question you; yea, and an answer which you may render at
the bar of God; but once allow your own whim, or fancy, or taste, or your notion
of what is proper and right, to rule you, instead of the Word of God, and you
have entered upon a dangerous course, and unless the grace of God prevent,
boundless mischief may ensue. The Bible is our standard authority; none may turn
from it. The wise man says, in Ecclesiastes, "I counsel thee to keep the King's
commandment;" we would repeat his advice, and add to it the sage precept of the
mother of our Lord, at Cana, when she said, "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do
it. " While we see the Saviour sitting down with His twelve apostles, let us
enquire, first, what did this make them? Then, secondly, what did this imply?
And, thirdly, what further may we legitimately infer from it? Note what they
were at first. By His first calling of them they became His followers, for He
said unto them, "Follow Me." That is to say, they were convinced, by sundry
marks and signs, that He was the Messias, and they, therefore, became His
followers. Followers may be at a great distance from their leader, and enjoy
little or no intercourse with him, for the leader may be too great to be
approached by the common members of his band. In the case of the disciples,
their following was unusually close, for their Master was very condescending,
but still their intercourse was not always of the most intimate kind at first,
and therefore it was not at the first that He called them to such a festival as
this supper. They began with following, and this is where we must begin. If we
cannot enter as yet into closer association with our Lord, we may, at least,
know His voice by His Spirit, and follow Him as the sheep follow the shepherd.
The most important way of following Him is to trust Him, and then diligently to
imitate His example. This is a good beginning, and it will end well, for those
who walk with Him to-day shall rest with Him hereafter; those who tread in His
footsteps shall sit on His throne. Being the Lord's disciples, the chosen ones
next rose to become His servants, which is a step in advance, since the disciple
may be but a child, but the servant has some strength, has received some measure
of training, and renders somewhat in return. Their Master gave them power to
preach the gospel, and to execute commissions of grace, and happy were they to
be called to wait upon such a Master, and aid in setting up His kingdom. My dear
brethren and sisters, are you all Christ's servants consciously? If so, though
the service may at times seem heavy because your faith is weak, yet be very
thankful that you are servants at all, for it is better to serve God than to
reign over all the kingdoms of this world. It is better to be the lowest servant
of Christ than to be the greatest of men, and remain slaves to your own lusts,
or be mere men-pleasers. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. The servant
of such a Master should rejoice in his calling; yet is there something beyond.
Now note that, on the night before His Passion, our Lord led His friends a step
beyond ordinary friendship. The mere follower does not sit at table with his
leader; the disciple does not claim to be a fellow-commoner with his master; the
servant is seldom entertained at the same table with his lord; the befriended
one is not always invited to be a guest; but here the Lord Jesus made His chosen
ones to be His table-companions; He lifted them up to sit with Him at the same
table, to eat of the same bread, and drink of the same cup with Himself. From
that position He has never degraded them; they were representative men, and
where the Lord placed them, He has placed all His saints permanently. All the
Lord's believing people are sitting, by sacred privilege and calling, at the
same table with Jesus, for truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with His
Son Jesus Christ. He has come into our hearts, and He sups with us, and we with
Him; we are His table-companions, and shall eat bread with Him in the kingdom of
God. II. So now we shall pass on, in the second place, to ask, WHAT DID THIS
TABLE-COMPANIONSHIP IMPLY? But, beloved, you do not understand this supper
unless you are also reminded of the faithfulness that is due from you to your
Lord, for the feast is common, and the pledge mutual. In eating with Him, you
plight your troth to the Crucified, Beloved, how have you kept your pledge
during the past year? You have eaten bread with Him, and I trust that in your
hearts you have never gone so far aside as to lift up your heel against Him, but
have you always honoured Him as you should? Have you acted as guests should have
done? Can you remember His love to you, and put your love to Him side by side
with it, without being ashamed? From this time forth, may the Holy Ghost work in
our souls a jealous fidelity to the Well-beloved which shall not permit our
hearts to wander from Him, or suffer our zeal for His glory to decline! In the
next place, eating and drinking together was a token of mutual confidence. They,
in sitting there together, voluntarily avowed their confidence in each other.
Those disciples trusted their Master, they knew He would not mislead or deceive
them. They trusted each other also, for when they were told that one of them
would betray their Lord, they did not suspect each other, but each one said,
"Lord, is it I?" They had much confidence in one another, and the Lord Jesus, as
we have seen, had placed great confidence in them by treating them as His
friends. He had even trusted them with the great secret of His coming
sufferings, and death. They were a trustful company who sat at that
supper-table. Now, beloved, when you gather around this table, come in the
spirit of implicit trustfulness in the Lord Jesus. If you are suffering, do not
doubt His love, but believe that He works all things for your good. If you are
vexed with cares, prove your confidence by leaving them entirely in your
Redeemer's hands. It will not be a festival of communion to you if you come here
with suspicions about your Master. No, show your confidence as you eat of the
bread with Him. Let there also be a brotherly confidence in each other. Grievous
would it be to see a spirit of suspicion and distrust among you. Suspicion is
the death of fellowship. The moment one Christian imagines that another thinks
hardly of him, though there may not be the slightest truth in that thought, yet
straightway the root of bitterness is planted. Let us believe in one another's
sincerity, for we may rest assured that each of our brethren deserves to be
trusted more than we do. Turn your suspicions within, and if you must suspect,
suspect your own heart; but when you meet with those who have communed with you
at this table, say within yourself, "If such can deceive me, and alas I they
may, then will I be content to be imposed upon rather than entertain perpetual
mistrust of my fellow-Christians." Oh, that Christian brotherhood were more
real! The very word "brother" has come to be ridiculed as a piece of hypocrisy,
and well it may, for it is mostly used as a cant phrase, and in many cases means
very little. But it ought to mean something. You have no right to come to that
table unless you really feel that those who are washed in Jesus' blood have a
claim upon the love of your heart, and the activity of your benevolence. What!
are ye to live together for ever in heaven, and will ye show no affection for
one another here below? It is your Master's new command that ye love one
another; will ye disregard it? He has given this as the badge of Christians: "By
this shall all men know that ye are My disciples,"—not if ye wear a gold cross,
but—"if ye have love one to another." That is the Christian's badge of his
being, in very truth, a disciple of Jesus Christ. Here, at this table, we find
fraternity. Whosoever eateth of this sacred supper declares himself to be one of
a brotherhood in Christ, a brotherhood striving for the same cause, having
sincere sympathy, being members of each other, and all of them members of the
body of Christ. God make this to be a fact throughout Christendom even now, and
how will the world marvel as it cries, "See how these Christians love one
another! " Lastly, on this point, the feast at the one table indicated familiar
affection. It is the child's place to sit at the table with its parents, for
there affection rules. It is the place of honour to sit at the table: "Martha
served, but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table." But the honour is
such as love and not fear suggests. Men at the table often reveal their minds
more fully than elsewhere. If you want to understand a man, you do not go to see
him at the Stock Exchange, or follow him into the market; for there he keeps
himself to himself; but you go to his table, and there he unbosoms himself. Now,
the Lord Jesus Christ sat at the table with His disciples. 'Twas a meal; 'twas a
meal of a homely kind; intimate intercourse ruled the hour. Oh, brethren and
sisters, I am afraid we have come to this table sometimes, and Christ, and then
it has been an empty formality and nothing more. I thank God that, coming to
this table every Sabbath-day, as some of us do, and have done for many years, we
have yet for the most part enjoyed the nearest communion with Christ here that
we have ever known, and have a thousand times blessed His name for this
ordinance. Still, there is such a thing as only eating the bread and drinking
the wine, and losing all the sacred meaning thereof. Do pray the Lord to reveal
Himself to you. Ask that it may not be a dead form to you, but that now in very
deed you may give to Christ your heart, while He shall show to you His hands and
His side, and make known to you His agonies and death, wherewith He redeemed you
from the wrath to come. All this, and vastly more, is the teaching of the table
at which Jesus sat with the twelve. I have often wondered why the Church of Rome
does not buy up all those pictures by one of its most renowned painters,
Leonardo da Vinci, in which our Lord is represented as sitting at the table with
His disciples, for these are a contradiction of the Popish doctrine on this
subject. As long as that picture remains on the wall, and as long as copies of
it are spread everywhere, the Church of Rome stands convicted of going against
the teaching of the earlier Church by setting up an altar when she confesses
herself that aforetime it was not considered to be an altar of sacrifice but a
table of fellowship, at which the Lord did not kneel, nor stand as an
officiating priest, but at which He and His disciples sat. We, at least, have no
rebukes to fear from antiquity, for we follow, and mean to follow, the primitive
method. Our Lord has given us commandment to do this until He comes,—not to
alter it, but just to "do this," and nothing else, in the same manner until He
shall come. I answer: first, there may be inferred from it the equality of all
the saints. There were here twelve apostles. Their apostleship, however, is not
concerned in the matter. When the Lord's supper was celebrated after all the
apostles had gone to heaven, was there to be any alteration because the apostles
had gone? Not at all. Believers are to do this in remembrance of their Lord
until He shall come. There was no command for a change when the first apostles
were all gone from the Church: No, it was to be the same still,—bread and wine
and the surrounding of the table, until the Lord came. I gather, then, the
equality of all saints. There is a difference in office, there was a difference
in miraculous gift, and there are great differences in growth of grace; but
still, in the household of God, all saints, whether apostles, pastors, teachers,
deacons, elders, or private members, being all equal, eat at one table. There is
but one bread, there is but one juice of the vine here. Another inference, only
to be hinted at, is this, that the wants of the Church in all ages will be the
same, and the supplies for the Church's wants will never vary. There will be the
table still, and the table with the same viands upon it,—bread still, nothing
more than bread for food; wine still, nothing less than wine for drink. The
Church will always want the same food, the same Christ, the same gospel. Out on
ye, traitors, who tell us that we are to shape our gospel to suit this
enlightened nineteenth century! Out on ye, false-hearts, who would have us tone
down the everlasting truth that shall outlive the sun, and moon, and stars, to
suit your boasted culture, which is but varnished ignorance! No, that truth
which of old was mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, is
mighty still, and we will maintain it to the death; the Church wants the
doctrines of grace to-day as much as when Paul, or Augustine, or Calvin preached
them; the Church wants justification by faith, the substitutionary atonement,
and regeneration, and divine sovereignty to be preached from her pulpits as much
as in days of yore, and by God's grace she shall have them, too. We finish with
this word of deep regret,—regret that many here cannot understand what we have
been talking about, and have no part in it. There are some of you who must not
come to the table of communion because you do not love Christ. You have not
trusted Him; you have no part in Him. There is no salvation in sacraments.
Believe me, they are but delusions to those who do not come to Christ with their
heart. You must not come to the outward sign if you have not the thing
signified. Here is the way of Salvation: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt be saved. To believe in Him is to trust Him; to use an old word, it
is recumbency; it is leaning on Him, resting on Him. Here I lean, I rest my
whole weight on this support before me; do so with Christ in a spiritual sense:
lean on Him. You have a load of sin, lean on Him, sin and all. You are all
unworthy, and weak, and perhaps miserable; then cast on Him the weakness, the
unworthiness, the misery and all. Take Him to be all in all to you, and when you
have thus trusted Him, you will have become His follower; go on by humility to
be His disciple, by obedience to be His servant, by love to be His friend, and
by communion to be His table-companion. "The Lord so lead you, for Jesus' sake!
Amen.


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  CHAPTER 20: A WORD FROM THE BELOVED'S OWN MOUTH.
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A WORD FROM THE BELOVED'S OWN MOUTH.

"And ye are clean."—John 13:10. AS Gideon's fleece was full of dew so that he
could wring out the moisture, so will a text sometimes be when the Holy Spirit
deigns to visit His servants through its words. This utterance of our Saviour to
His disciples has been as a wafer made with honey to our taste, and we doubt not
it may prove equally as sweet to others. Acceptance with the Lord, safety,
happiness, and every blessing, always go with cleanness of heart, and he that
hath it cannot miss of heaven. It seems too high a condition to be ascribed to
mortals, yet, by the lips of Him who could not err, the disciples were said,
without a qualifying word, or adverb of degree, to be "clean"; that is to say,
they were perfectly justified in the sight of eternal equity, and were regarded
as free from every impurity. Dear friends, is this blessing yours? Have you ever
believed unto righteousness? Have you taken the Lord Jesus to be your complete
cleansing, your sanctification, your redemption? Has the Holy Spirit ever sealed
in your peaceful spirit the gracious testimony, "ye are clean "? The assurance
is not confined to the apostles, for ye also are "complete in Him," "perfect in
Christ Jesus," if ye have indeed by faith received the righteousness of God. The
psalmist said, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow;" if you have been
washed, you are even to that highest and purest degree clean before the Lord,
and clean now. Oh, that all believers would live up to their condition and
privilege; but alas! too many are pining as if they were still miserable
sinners, and forgetting that they are in Christ Jesus forgiven sinners, and
therefore ought to be happy in the Lord. Remember, beloved believer, that, as
one with Christ, you are not with sinners in the gall of bitterness, but with
the saints in the land which floweth with milk and honey. Much of the force of
the sentence before us lies in the Person praising . To be certified as clean by
the blind priests of Rome, would be small comfort to a true Christian. To
receive the approving verdict of our fellow-men is consoling, but it is after
all of small consequence. The human standard of purity is itself grossly
incorrect, and therefore to be judged by it is but a poor trial, and to be
acquitted a slender comfort; but the Lord Jesus judges no man after the flesh,
He came forth from God, and is Himself God, infinitely just and good, hence His
tests are accurate, and His verdict is absolute. I wot whom He pronounces clean
is clean indeed. Our Lord was omniscient, He would have at once detected the
least evil in His disciples; if there had remained upon the man unpardoned sin,
He must have seen it; if any relic of condemnation had lingered upon them, He
must have detected it at once, no speck could have escaped His all-discerning
eye; yet did He say without hesitation of all but Judas, "Ye are clean." It may
cheer us to call to mind the persons praised. They were not cherubim and
seraphim, but men, and notably they were men compassed with infirmity. There was
Peter, who a few minutes after was forward and presumptuous; and, indeed, it is
not needful to name them one by one, for they all forsook their Master, and fled
in His hour of peril. Not one among them was more than a mere child in grace;
they had little about them that was apostolic except their commission, they were
very evidently men of like passions with us; yet their Lord declared them to be
clean, and clean they were. Here is good cheer for those souls who are hungering
after righteousness, and pining because they feel so much of the burden of in
dwelling sin; for cleanliness before the Lord is not destroyed by our
infirmities, nor prevented by our inward temptations. We stand in the
righteousness of Another. No measure of personal weakness, spiritual anxiety,
soul conflict, or mental agony can mar our acceptance in the Beloved. We may be
weak infants, or wandering sheep in ourselves, and for both reasons we may be
very far from what we wish to be; but, as God sees us, we are viewed as washed
in the blood of Jesus, and we, even we, are clean every whit. The time when the
praise was given is not without instruction. The word of loving judgment is in
the present tense, "Ye are clean." It is not, "ye were clean," that might be a
rebuke for purity shamelessly sullied, a condemnation for wilful neglect, a
prophecy of wrath to come; neither is it, "ye might have been clean," that would
have been a stern rebuke for privileges rejected, and opportunities wasted; nor
is it even, "ye shall be clean," though that would have been a delightful
prophecy of good things to come at some distant period; but ye are clean, at
this moment, in this room, and around this table. Though but just then Peter had
spoken so rudely, yet he was even then clean. May the Holy Ghost now bear
witness with every believer, "and ye are clean." "Then may your souls rejoice
and sing, Then may your voices sweetly ring, For if your souls through Christ
are clear, What cause have you to faint or fear?"


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  CHAPTER 21: THE BELIEVER NOT AN ORPHAN.
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THE BELIEVER NOT AN ORPHAN.

"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."—John 14:18.

YOU will notice that the margin reads, "I will not leave you orphans: I will
come to you." In the absence of our Lord Jesus Christ, the disciples were like
children deprived of their parents. During the three years in which He had been
with them, He had solved all their difficulties, borne all their burdens, and
supplied all their needs. Whenever a case was too hard or too heavy for them,
they took it to Him. When their enemies well nigh overcame them, Jesus came to
the rescue, and turned the tide of battle. They were all happy and safe enough
whilst the Master was with them; He walked in their midst like a father amid a
large family of children, making all the household glad. But now He was about to
be taken from them by an ignominious death, and they might well feel that they
would be like little children deprived of their natural and beloved protector.
Our Saviour knew the fear that was in their hearts, and before they could
express it, He removed it by saying, "You shall not be left alone in this wild
and desert world; though I be absent in the flesh, yet I will be present with
you in a more efficacious manner; I will come to you spiritually, and you shall
derive from My spiritual presence even more good than you could have had from My
bodily presence, had I still continued in your midst." I. First, here is, AN
EVIL AVERTED. Now remember, that an orphan is one whose parent is dead. This in
itself is a great sorrow, if there were no other. The dear father, so well
beloved, was suddenly smitten down with sickness; they watched him with anxiety;
they nursed him with sedulous care; but he expired. The loving eye is closed in
darkness for them. That active hand will no longer toil for the family. That
heart and brain will no longer feel and think for them. Beneath the green grass
the father sleeps, and every time the child surveys that hollowed hillock his
heart swells with grief. Beloved, we are not orphans in that sense, for our Lord
Jesus is not dead. It is true He died, for one of the soldiers with a spear
pierced His side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water, a sure evidence
that the pericardium had been pierced, and that the fountain of life had been
broken up. He died, 'tis certain, but He is not dead now. Go not to the grave to
seek Him. Angel voices say, "He is not here, for He is risen." He could not be
holden by the bands of death. We do not worship a dead Christ, nor do we even
think of Him now as a corpse. That picture on the wall, which the Romanists
paint and worship, represents Christ as dead; but oh! it is so good to think of
Christ as living, remaining in an existence real and true, none the less living
because He died, but all the more truly full of life because He has passed
through the portals of the grave, and is now reigning for ever. See then, dear
friends, the bitter root of the orphan's sorrow is gone from us, for our Jesus
is not dead now. No mausoleum enshrines His ashes, no pyramid entombs His body,
no monument records the place of His permanent sepulchre. "He lives, the great
Redeemer lives, What joy the blest assurance gives!"

We are not orphans, for "the Lord is risen indeed." But in spirit there is no
need for you to stir from the pew, no need to say a word; Jesus hears your
thoughts talk, and attends to all your needs at the same moment. No need to
press to get at Him because the throng is great, for He is as near to me as He
is to you, and as near to you as to saints in America, or the islands of the
Southern Sea. He is everywhere present, and all His beloved may talk with Him.
You can tell Him at this moment the sorrows which you dare not open up to anyone
else. You will feel that, in declaring them to Him, you have not breathed them
to the air, but that a real Person has heard you, One as real as though you
could grip His hand, and could see the loving flash of His eye and mark the
sympathetic change of His countenance. The orphan, too, has lost the kind hand
which took care always that food and raiment should be provided, that the table
should be well stored, and that the house should be kept in comfort. Poor feeble
one, who will provide for his wants? His father is dead, his mother is gone: who
will take care of the little wanderer now? But it is not so with us. Jesus has
not left us orphans; His care for His people is no less now than it was when He
sat at the table with Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus, whom "Jesus loved." Instead
of the provisions being less, they are even greater, for since the Holy Spirit
has been given to us, we have richer fare and are more indulged with spiritual
comforts than believers were before the bodily presence of the Master had
departed. Do your souls hunger to-night? Jesus gives you the bread of heaven. Do
you thirst to-night? The waters from the rock cease not to flow. "Come, make
your wants, your burdens known."

You have but to make known your needs to have them all supplied, Christ waits to
be gracious in the midst of this assembly. He is here with His golden hand,
opening that hand to supply the wants of every living soul. "Oh!" saith one, "I
am poor and needy-." Go on with the quotation. "Yet the Lord thinketh upon me."
"Ah" saith another, "I have besought the Lord thrice to take away a thorn in the
flesh from me." Remember what he said to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for
thee." You are not left without the strength you want. The Lord is your Shepherd
still. He will provide for you till He leads you through death's dark valley,
and brings you to the shining pastures upon the hill-tops of glory. You are not
destitute, you need not beg an asylum from an ungodly world by bowing to its
demands, or trusting its vain promises, for Jesus will never leave you nor
forsake you. It is most for your profit that you should receive the Spirit of
truth, not through the golden vessel of Christ in His actual presence here, but
through the poor earthen vessels of humble servants of God like ourselves. At
any rate, whether we speak, or an angel from heaven, the speaker matters not; it
is the Spirit of God alone that is the power of the Word, and makes that Word to
become vital and quickening to you. Now, you have the Spirit of God. The Holy
Spirit is so given, that there is not a truth which you may not understand. You
may be led into the deepest mysteries by His teaching. You may be made to know
and to comprehend those knotty points in the Word of God which have hitherto
puzzled you. You have but humbly to look up to Jesus, and His Spirit will still
teach you. I tell you, though you are poor and ignorant, and perhaps can
scarcely read a word in the Bible; for all that, you may be better instructed in
the things of God than doctors of divinity, if you go to the Holy Spirit, and
are taught of Him. Those who go only to books and to the letter, and are taught
of men, may be fools in the sight of God; but those who go to Jesus, and sit at
His feet, and ask to be taught of His Spirit, shall be wise unto salvation.
Blessed be God, there are not a few amongst us of this sort. We are not left
orphans; we have an Instructor with us still. Now I want, without saying many
words, to get you who love the Master to feel what a very precious thought this
is, that you are not alone in this world; that, if you have no earthly friends,
if you have none to whom you can take your cares, if you are quite lonely so far
as outward friends are concerned, yet Jesus is with you, is really with you,
practically with you, able to help you, and ready to do so, and that you have a
good and kind Protector close at hand at this present moment, for Christ has
said it: "I will not leave you orphans." What does this mean? Does it not mean,
from the connection, this—"I will come to you by My Spirit"? Beloved, we must
not confuse the Persons of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit is not the Son of God;
Jesus, the Son of God, is not the Holy Spirit. They are two distinct Persons of
the one Godhead. But yet there is such a wonderful unity, and the blessed Spirit
acts so marvellously as the Vicar of Christ, that it is quite correct to say
that, when the Spirit comes, Jesus comes, too, and "I will come to you," means
-"I, by My Spirit, who shall take My place, and represent Me, I will come to be
with you." See then, Christian, you have the Holy Spirit in you and with you to
be the Representative of Christ. Christ is with you now, not in person, but by
His Representative,—an efficient, almighty, divine, everlasting Representative,
who stands for Christ, and is as Christ to you in His presence in your souls.
Because you thus have Christ by His Spirit, you cannot be orphans, for the
Spirit of God is always with you. It is a delightful truth that the Spirit of
God always dwells in believers;—not sometimes, but always. He is not always
active in believers, and He may be grieved until His sensible presence is
altogether withdrawn, but His secret presence is always there. At no single
moment is the Spirit of God wholly gone from a believer. The believer would die
spiritually if this could happen, but that cannot be, for Jesus has said,
"Because I live, ye shall live also." Even when the believer sins, the Holy
Spirit does not utterly depart from him, but is still in him to make him smart
for the sin into which he has fallen. The believer's prayers prove that the Holy
Spirit is still within him. "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me," was the prayer
of a saint who had fallen very foully, but in whom the Spirit of God still kept
His residence, notwithstanding all the foulness of his guilt and sin. And then
notice the persons to whom it is addressed, "I will not leave you comfortless,
you, Peter, who will deny Me; you, Thomas, who will doubt Me; I will not leave
you comfortless." O you who are so little in Israel that you sometimes think it
is a pity that your name is in the church-book at all, because you feel
yourselves to be so worthless, so unworthy, He will not leave you comfortless,
not even you! "O Lord," thou sayest, "if Thou wouldst look after the rest of Thy
sheep, I would bless Thee for Thy tenderness to them, but I—I deserve to be
left; if I were forsaken of Thee, I could not blame Thee, for I have played the
harlot against Thy love, but yet Thou sayest, 'I will not leave you.'" Heir of
heaven, do not lose your part in this promise. I pray you say, "Lord, come unto
me, and though Thou refresh all my brethren, yet, Lord, refresh me with some of
the droppings of Thy love; O Lord, fill the cup for me; my thirsty spirit pants
for it. "'I thirst, I faint, I die to prove The greatness of redeeming love, The
love of Christ to me.'

Now, Lord, fulfil Thy word to Thine unworthy handmaid, as I stand like Hannah in
Thy presence. Come unto me, Thy servant, unworthy to lift so much as his eyes
towards heaven, and only daring to say, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' Fulfil
Thy promise even to me, 'I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.'"
Do you not see, dear friends, here is not only all you can sentence, "I will
come to you"? "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell;" so
that, when Christ comes, in Him "all fulness" comes. "In Him dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily," so that, when Jesus comes, the very Godhead
comes to the believer. "All my capacious powers can wish In Thee doth richly
meet;" and if Thou shalt come to me, it is better than all the gifts of Thy
covenant. If I get Thee, I get all, and more than all, at once. Observe, then,
the language and the sufficiency of the promise. Let me remind you that the text
is at this moment valid, and for this I delight in it. "I will not leave you
comfortless." That means now, "I will not leave you comfortless now." Are you
comfortless at this hour? It is your own fault. Jesus Christ does not leave you
so, nor make you so. There are rich and precious things in this word, "I will
not leave you comfortless: I will come to you, I will come to you now." It may
be a very dull time with you, and you are pining to come nearer to Christ. Very
well, then plead the promise before the Lord. Plead the promise as you sit where
you are: "Lord, Thou hast said Thou wilt come unto me; come unto me to-night."
There are many reasons, believer, why you should plead thus. You want Him; you
need Him; you require Him; therefore plead the promise, and expect its
fulfilment. And oh! when He cometh, what a joy it is; He is as a bridegroom
coming out of his chamber with his garments fragrant with aloes and cassia! How
well the oil of joy will perfume your heart! How soon will your sackcloth be put
away, and the garments of gladness adorn you! With what joy of heart will your
heavy soul begin to sing when Jesus Christ shall whisper that you are His, and
that He is yours! Come, my Beloved, make no tarrying; be Thou like a roe or a
young hart upon the mountains of separation, and prove to me Thy promise true,
"I will not leave you orphans: I will come to you." God grant that we may all
break bread in the kingdom above, and feast with Jesus, and share His glory! We
are expecting His second coming. He is coming personally and gloriously. This is
the brightest hope of His people. This will be the fulness of their redemption,
the time of their resurrection. Anticipate it, beloved, and may God make your
souls to sing for joy! "'Mid the splendours of the glory Which we hope ere long
to share; Christ our Head, and we His members, Shall appear, divinely fair. Oh,
how glorious ! When we meet Him in the air! "Bright the prospect soon that
greets us Of that long'd-for nuptial day, When our heavenly Bridegroom meets us
On His kingly, conquering way; In the glory, Bride and Bridegroom reign for
aye!"


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  CHAPTER 22: COMMUNION WITH CHRIST AND HIS PEOPLE.
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COMMUNION WITH CHRIST AND HIS PEOPLE. AN ADDRESS AT A COMMUNION SERVICE AT
MENTONE. "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the
blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body
of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all
partakers of that one bread."—1 Corinthians 10:16-17.

I WILL read you the text as it is given in the Revised Version: "The cup of
blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ ?" That is
to say,—Is it not one form of expressing the communion of the blood of Christ?
"The bread," or as it is in the margin, "the loaf which we break, is it not a
communion of the body of Christ? seeing that we, who are many, are one loaf, one
body: for we all partake of the one loaf." The word "loaf" helps to bring out
more clearly the idea of unity intended to be set forth by the apostle. What
does this supper mean? It means communion: communion with Christ, and communion
with one another. I. The teaching of the Lord's supper is just this—that while
we have many ways of COMMUNION WITH CHRIST, yet the receiving of Christ into our
souls as our Saviour is the best way of communion with Him. Communion is ours by
personal intercourse with the Lord Jesus. We speak with Him in prayer, and He
speaks with us through the Word. Some of us speak oftener with Christ than we do
with wife or child, and our communion with Jesus is deeper and more thorough
than our fellowship with our nearest friend. In meditation and its attendant
thanksgiving we speak with our risen Lord, and by His Holy Spirit He answers us
by creating fresh thought and emotion in our minds. I like sometimes in prayer,
when I do not feel that I can say anything, just to sit still, and look up; then
faith spiritually descries the Well-beloved, and hears His voice in the solemn
silence of the mind. Thus we have intercourse with Jesus of a closer sort than
any words could possibly express. Our soul melts beneath the warmth of Jesus'
love, and darts upward her own love in return. Think not that I am dreaming, or
am carried off by the memory of some unusual rhapsody: no, I assert that the
devout soul can converse with the Lord Jesus all the day, and can have as true
fellowship with Him as if He still dwelt bodily among men. This thing comes to
me, not by the hearing of the ear, but by my own personal experience: I know of
a surety that Jesus manifests Himself unto His people as He doth not unto the
world. Next, we have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views, and purposes;
for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity.
Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus does; that which pleases Him
pleases them, and that which grieves Him grieves them also. Consider, for
instance, the greatest theme of our thought, and see whether our thoughts are
not like those of Christ. He delights in the Father, He loves to glorify the
Father: do not we? Is not the Father the centre of our soul's delight? Do we not
rejoice at the very sound of His name? Does not our spirit cry, "Abba, Father"?
Thus it is clear we feel as Jesus feels towards the Father, and so we have the
truest communion with Him. This is but one instance; your contemplations will
bring before you a wide variety of topics wherein we think with Jesus. Now,
identity of judgment, opinion, and purpose forms the highway of communion; yea,
it is communion. Further, we have had fellowship with Christ in many of our
actions. Have you ever tried to teach the ignorant? This Jesus did. Have you
found it difficult? So Jesus found it. Have you striven to reclaim the
backslider? Then you were in communion with the Good Shepherd who hastens into
the wilderness to find the one lost sheep, finds it, lays it upon His shoulders,
and brings it home rejoicing. Have you ever watched over a soul night and day
with tears? Then you have had communion with Him who has borne all our names
upon His broken heart, and carries the memorial of them upon His pierced hands.
Yes, in acts of self-denial, liberality, benevolence, and piety, we enter into
communion with Him who went about doing good. Whenever we try to disentangle the
snarls of strife, and to make peace between men who are at enmity, then are we
doing what the great Peace-maker did, and we have communion with the Lord and
Giver of peace. Wherever, indeed, we co-operate with the Lord Jesus in His
designs of love to men, we are in true and active communion with Him. Nor this
alone: we have been with our Divine Master in His joys. I suppose there never
lived a happier man than the Lord Jesus. He was rightly called "the Man of
sorrows"; but He might, with unimpeachable truth, have been called, "the Man of
joys." He must have rejoiced as He called His disciples, and they came unto Him;
as He bestowed healing and relief; as He gave pardon to penitents, and breathed
peace on believers. His was the joy of finding the sheep, and taking the piece
of money out of the dust. His work was His joy: such joy that, for its sake, He
endured the cross, despising the shame. The exercise of benevolence is joy to
loving hearts: the more pain it costs, the more joy it is. Kind actions make us
happy, and in such joy we find communion with the great heart of Jesus. Such
fellowship is eternal. No power upon earth can henceforth take from me the piece
of bread which I have just now eaten, it has gone where it will be made up into
blood, and nerve, and muscle, and bone. It is within me, and of me. That drop of
wine has coursed through my veins, and is part and parcel of my being. So he
that takes Jesus by faith to be his Saviour has chosen the good part which shall
not be taken away from him. He has received the Christ into his inward parts,
and all the men on earth, and all the devils in hell, cannot extract Christ from
him. Jesus saith, "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." By our sincere
reception of Jesus into our hearts, an indissoluble union is established between
us and the Lord, and this manifests itself in mutual communion. To as many as
received Him, to them has He given this communion, even to them that believe on
His name. Let me go over much the same ground as before. We commune by holy
converse. I wish we had more of this. Time was when they that feared the Lord
spake often one to another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one
against another. It is a grievous thing that full often love lies bleeding by a
brother's hand. Where we are not quite so bad as that, yet we are often backward
and silent, and so miss profitable converse. Our insular reserve has often made
one Christian sit by another in utter isolation, when each would have been
charmed with the other's company. Children of one family need not wait to be
introduced to each other: having eaten of this one bread, we have given and
received the token of brotherhood; let us therefore act consistently with our
relationship, and fall into holy conversation next time we meet. I am afraid
that Christian brotherhood in many cases begins and ends inside the place of
worship. Let it not be so among us. Let it be our delight to find our society in
the circle of which Jesus is the centre, and let us make those our friends who
are the friends of Jesus. By frequent united prayer and praise, and by
ministering the one to the other the things which we have learned by the Spirit,
we shall have fellowship with each other in our Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved
friends, our emotions are another royal road of fellowship. You sit down and
tell your experience, and I smile to think that you are telling mine. Sometimes
a young believer enlarges upon the sad story of his trials and temptations,
imagining that nobody ever had to endure so great a fight, when all the while he
is only describing the common adventures of those who go on pilgrimage, and we
are all communing with him. When we talk together about our Lord, are we not
agreed? When we speak of our Father, and all His dealings with us, are we not
one? And when we weep, and when we sigh, and when we sing, and when we rejoice,
are we not all akin? Heavenly fingers touching like strings within our hearts
bring forth the self-same notes, for we are the products of the same Maker, and
tuned to the same praise. Real harmony exists among all the true people of God:
Christians are one in Christ. Certainly we have much communion one with the
other in our sufferings . There is not a poor sick or despondent saint upon the
earth with whom we do not sympathize at this moment, for we are fellow-members,
and partakers of the sufferings of Christ. I hope we can say, "Is there a lamb
in all Thy flock, I would disdain to feed? Is there a foe, before whose face, I
fear Thy cause to plead?"

No, we suffer with each other, and bear each other's burden, and so fulfil the
law of Christ. If we do not, we have reason for questioning our own faith; but
if we do so, we have communion with each other. When I have put all these modes
of Christian communion together, no one of them is so sure, so strong, so deep,
as communion in receiving the same Christ as our Saviour, and trusting in the
same blood for cleansing unto eternal life. Here on the table you have the
tokens of the broadest and fullest communion. This is a kind of communion which
you and I cannot choose or reject: if we are in Christ, it is and must be ours.
Certain brethren restrict their communion in the outward ordinance, and they
think they have good reasons for doing so; but I am unable to see the force of
their reasoning, because I joyfully observe that these brethren commune with
other believers in prayer, and praise, and hearing of the Word, and other ways:
the fact being that the matter of real communion is very largely beyond human
control, and is to the spiritual body what the circulation of the blood is to
the natural body, a necessary process not dependent upon volition. In perusing a
deeply spiritual book of devotion, you have been charmed and benefitted, and yet
upon looking at the title-page it may be you have found that the author belonged
to the Church of Rome. What then? Why, then it has happened that the inner life
has broken all barriers, and your spirits have communed. For my own part, in
reading certain precious works, I have loathed their Romanism, and yet I have
had close fellowship with their writers in weeping over sin, in adoring at the
foot of the cross, and in rejoicing in the glorious enthronement of our Lord.
Blood is thicker than water, and no fellowship is more inevitable and sincere
than fellowship in the precious blood, and in the risen life of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Here, in the common reception of the one loaf, we bear witness that we
are one; and in the actual participation of all the chosen in the one
redemption, that unity is in very deed displayed and matured in the most
substantial manner. Washed in the one blood, fed on the same loaf, cheered by
the same cup, all differences pass away, and "we, being many, are one body in
Christ, and every one members one of another." Let us take care to see Christ in
the mirror of this ordinance. Have any of you eaten the bread, and yet have you
not seen Christ? Then you have gained no benefit. Have you drunk the wine, but
have you not remembered the Lord? Alas! I fear you have eaten and drunk
condemnation to yourselves, not discerning the Lord's body. But if you did see
through the emblems, as aged persons see through their spectacles, then you have
been thankful for such aids to vision. But what is the use of glasses if there
is nothing to look at? and what is the use of the communion if Christ be not in
our thoughts and hearts? Beloved friends, when you have thus received Jesus,
fail not to rejoice in Him as having received Him. How many there are who have
received Christ, who talk and act as if they never had received Him! It is a
poor dinner of which a man says, after he has eaten it, that he feels as if he
had not dined; and it is a poor Christ of whom anyone can say, "I have received
Him, but I am none the happier, none the more at peace." If you have received
Jesus into your heart, you are saved, you are justified. Do you whisper, "I hope
so"? Is that all? Do you not know? The hopings and hoppings of so many are a
poor way of going; put both feet down, and say, "I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him
against that day." You are either saved or lost; there is no state between the
two. You are either pardoned or condemned; and you have good reason for the
highest happiness, or else you have grave causes for the direst anxiety. If you
have received the atonement, be as glad as you can be; and if you are still an
unbeliever, rest not till Christ is yours. "Oh, the joy of continually entering
into fellowship with Christ, in such a way that you never lose His company! Be
this yours, beloved, every day, and all the day! May His shadow fall upon you as
you rest in the sun, or stray in the gardens! May His voice cheer you as you lie
down upon the sea-shore, and listen to the murmuring of the waves; may His
presence glorify the mountain solitude as you climb the hills! May Jesus be to
you an all-surrounding presence, lighting up the night, perfuming the day,
gladdening all places, and sanctifying all pursuits! Our Beloved is not a Friend
for Lord's-days only, but for week-days, too; He is the inseparable Companion of
His loving disciples. Those who have had fellowship with His body and His blood
at this table may have the Lord as an habitual Guest at their own tables; those
who have met their Master in this upper room may expect Him to make their own
chamber bright with His royal presence. Let fellowship with Jesus and with the
elect brotherhood be henceforth the atmosphere of our life, the joy of our
existence. This will give us a heaven below, and prepare us for a heaven above.


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  CHAPTER 23: THE SIN-BEARER.
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THE SIN-BEARER. A COMMUNION MEDITATION AT MENTONE. "Who His own self bare our
sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going
astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."—1
Peter 2:24-25. THIS wonderful passage is a part of Peter's address to servants;
and in his day nearly all servants were slaves. Peter begins at the eighteenth
verse (1 Peter 2:18): "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not
only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy,
if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what
glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it
patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently,
this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ
also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow His steps:
who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth: who, when He was reviled,
reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to
Him that judgeth righteously: who His own self bare our sins in His own body on
the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose
stripes ye were healed." If we are in a lowly condition of life, we shall find
our best comfort in thinking of the lowly Saviour bearing our sins in all
patience and submission. If we are called to suffer, as servants often were in
the Roman times, we shall be solaced by a vision of our Lord buffeted, scourged,
and crucified, yet silent in the majesty of His endurance. If these sufferings
are entirely undeserved, and we are grossly slandered, we shall be comforted by
remembering Him who did no sin, and in whose lips was found no guile. Our Lord
Jesus is Head of the Guild of Sufferers: He did well, and suffered for it, but
took it patiently. Our support under the cross, which we are appointed to bear,
is only to be found in Him "who His own self bare our sins in His own body on
the tree." Let us, as we hope to pass through the tribulations of this world,
stand fast by the cross; for if that be gone, the lone-star is quenched whose
light cheers the down-trodden, shines on the injured, and brings light to the
oppressed. If we lose the cross,—if we miss the substitutionary sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus Christ, we have lost all. I. The first is, THE BEARING OF OUR SINS by
our Lord; "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." These
words in plainest terms assert that our Lord Jesus did really bear the sins of
His people. How literal is the language! Words mean nothing if substitution is
not stated here. I do not know the meaning of the fifty-third of Isaiah if this
is not its meaning. Hear the prophet's words: "The Lord hath laid on Him the
iniquity of us all;" "for the transgression of my people was He stricken;" "He
shall bear their iniquities:" "He was numbered with the transgressors, and He
bare the sin of many." It does not much matter what these modern haters of the
cross may dare to say; but, assuredly, that which they deny, denounce, and
deride, is the cardinal doctrine of our most holy faith, and is as clearly in
Scripture as the sun is in the heavens. Beloved, as we suffer through the sin of
Adam, so are we saved through the righteousness of Christ. Our fall was by
another, and so is our rising again: we are under a system of representation and
imputation, gainsay it who may. To us, the transference of our sin to Christ is
a blessed fact clearly revealed in the Word of God, and graciously confirmed in
the realizations of our faith. In that same chapter of Isaiah we read, "Surely
He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows, "and we perceive that this
was a matter of fact, for He was really, truly, and emphatically sorrowful; and,
therefore, when we read that "He bare our sins in His own body on the tree," we
dare not flitter it away, but assuredly believe that in very deed He was our
Sin-Bearer. Possible or impossible, we sing with full assurance— "He bore on the
tree the sentence for me." Had the sorrow been figurative, the sin-bearing might
have been mythical; but the one fact is paralleled by the other. There is no
figure in our text; it is a bare, literal fact: "Who His own self bare our sins
in His own body on the tree." Oh, that men would give up cavilling! To question
and debate at the cross, is an act near akin to the crime of the soldiers when
they parted His garments among them, and cast lots for His vesture. This
sin-bearing on our Lord's part was continual. The passage before us has been
forced beyond its teaching, by being made to assert that our Lord Jesus bore our
sins nowhere but on the cross: this the words do not say. "The tree" was the
place where beyond all other places we see our Lord bearing the chastisement due
to our sins; but before this, He had felt the weight of the enormous load. It is
wrong to base a great doctrine upon the incidental form of one passage of
Scripture, especially when that passage of Scripture bears another meaning. This
sin-bearing is final. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, but He bears
them now no more. The sinner and the sinner's Surety are both free, for the law
is vindicated, the honour of government is cleared, the substitutionary
sacrifice is complete. He dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him;
for He has ended His work, and has cried, "It is finished." As for the sins
which He bore in His own body on the tree, they cannot be found, for they have
ceased to be, according to that ancient promise, "In those days, and in that
time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there
shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found" (Jeremiah
1:20). The work of the Messiah was "to finish the transgression, and to make an
end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in
everlasting righteousness" (Daniel 9:24). Now, if sin is made an end of, there
is an end of it; and if transgression is "finished", there is no more to be said
about it. Beloved friends, we very calmly and coolly talk about this thing, but
it is the greatest marvel in the universe; it is the miracle of earth, the
mystery of heaven, the terror of hell. Could we fully realize the guilt of sin,
the punishment due to it, and the literal substitution of Christ, it would work
in us an intense enthusiasm of gratitude, love, and praise. I do not wonder that
our Methodist friends shout, "Hallelujah!" This is enough to make us all shout
and sing, as long as we live, "Glory, glory to the Son of God!" What a wonder
that the Prince of glory, in whom is no sin, who was indeed incapable of evil,
should condescend to come into such contact with our sin as is implied in His
being "made sin for us"! Our Lord Jesus did not handle sin with the golden
tongs, but He bore it on His own shoulders. He did not lift it with golden
staves, as the priests carried the ark; but He Himself bore the hideous load of
our sin in His own body on the tree. This is the mystery of grace which angels
desire to look into. I would for ever preach it in the plainest and most
unmistakable language. We are henceforth legally dead to the punishment of sin.
If I were condemned to die for an offence, and some other died in my stead, then
I died in him who died for me. The law could not a second time lay its charge
against me, and bring me again before the judge, and condemn me, and lead me out
to die. Where would be the justice of such a procedure? I am dead already: how
can I die again? I have borne the wrath of God in the person of my glorious and
ever-blessed Substitute; how then can I bear it again? Where was the use of a
Substitute if I am to bear it also? Should Satan come before God to lay an
accusation against me, the answer is, "This man is dead. He has borne the
penalty, and is 'dead to sins,' for the sentence against him has been executed
upon Another." What a wonderful deliverance for us! Bless the Lord, O my soul!
The Greek word here used cannot be fully rendered into English; it signifies
"being unborn to sins." We were born in sin, but by the death of Christ, and the
work of the Holy Spirit upon us, that birth is undone, "we are unborn to sins."
That which was wrought in us by sin, even at our birth, is through the death of
Jesus counteracted by the new life which His Spirit imparts. "We are unborn to
sins." I like the phrase, unusual as it sounds. Does it seem possible that birth
should be reversed: the born unborn? Yet so it is. The true ego, the reallest
"I," is now unborn to sins, for we are "born, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." We are unborn to sins, and born
unto God. III. The apostle then speaks of THE HEALING OF OUR DISEASES by
Christ's death: "By whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going
astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. "
First, it was brutishness. "Ye were as sheep." Sin has made us so that we are
only fit to be compared to beasts, and to those of the least intelligence.
Sometimes the Scripture compares the unregenerate man to an ass. Man is said to
be "born like a wild ass's colt." Amos likens Israel to the "kine of Bashan",
and he saith to them, "Ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which
is before her." David compared himself to behemoth: "So foolish was I, and
ignorant: I was as a beast before Thee." We are nothing better than beasts until
Christ comes to us. But we are not beasts after that: a living, heavenly,
spiritual nature is created within us when we come into contact with our
Redeemer. We still carry about with us the old brutish nature, but by the grace
of God it is put in subjection, and kept there; and our fellowship now is with
the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. We "were as sheep," but we are now
men redeemed unto God. Another disease of ours was inability to return: "Ye were
as sheep going astray; but are now returned." Dogs and even swine are more
likely to return home than wandering sheep. But now, beloved, though we
wandered, we have returned, and do still return to our Shepherd. Like Noah's
dove, we have found no rest for the sole of our foot anywhere out of the ark,
and therefore we return unto Him, and He graciously pulls us in unto Him. If we
wander at any time, we bless God that there is a sacred something within us
which will not let us rest, and there is a far more powerful something above us
which draws us back. We are like the needle in the compass: touch that needle
with your finger, and compel it to point to the east, or to the south, and it
may do so for the moment; but take away the pressure, and in an instant it
returns to the pole. So we must go back to Jesus; we must return to the Bishop
of our souls. Our soul cries, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none
upon earth that I desire beside Thee." Thus, by the virtue of our Lord's death,
an immortal love is created in us, which leads us to seek His face, and renew
our fellowship with Him. Finally, beloved friends, when we were wandering we
were like sheep exposed to wolves, but we are delivered from this by being near
the Shepherd. We were in danger of death, in danger from the devil, in danger
from a thousand temptations, which, like ravenous beasts, prowled around us.
Having ended our wandering, we are now in a place of safety. When the lion
roars, we are driven the closer to the Shepherd, and rejoice that His crook
protects us. He says, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow
Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of My hand." "What a wonderful work of grace has
been wrought in us! We owe all this, not to the teaching of Christ, though that
has helped us greatly; not to the example of Christ, though that is charming us
into a diligent copying of it; but we owe it all to His stripes: "By whose
stripes ye were healed." Brethren, we preach Christ crucified, because we have
been saved by Christ crucified. His death is the death of our sins. We can never
give up the doctrine of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice, for it is the power
by which we hope to be made holy. Not only are we washed from guilt in His
blood, but by that blood we overcome sin. Never, so long as breath or pulse
remains, can we conceal the blessed truth that He "His own self bare our sins in
His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness." The Lord give us to know much more of this than I can speak, for
Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.


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  CHAPTER 24: SWOONING AND REVIVING AT CHRIST'S FEET.
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SWOONING AND REVIVING AT CHRIST'S FEET. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE CLOSE OF ONE
OF THE PASTORS' COLLEGE CONFERENCES. "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as
dead. And He laid His right hand upon me saying unto me, Fear not; I am the
first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold. I am alive
for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."—Revelation 1:17-18.

WE have nothing now to think of but our Lord. We come to Him that He may cause
us to forget all others. We are not here as ministers, cumbered with much
serving, but we now sit at His feet with Mary, or lean on His bosom with John.
The Lord Himself gives us our watchword as we muster our band for the last
assembly. "Remember Me," is His loving command. We beseech Him to fill the full
circle of our memory as the sun fills the heavens and the earth with light. We
are to think only of Jesus, and of Him only will I speak. Oh, for a touch of the
live coal from Him who is our Altar as well as our Sacrifice! "And when I saw
Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto
me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead;
and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of
death." Permit me, dear brethren, to take my text from its connection, and to
apply it to ourselves, by bringing it down from the throne up yonder to the
table here. It may be, I trust it will be, that as we see Jesus even here, we
shall with John fall at His feet as dead. We shall not swoon, but we shall be
dead in another sense, most sweetly dead, while our life is revealed in Him.
After we have thought upon that, we shall come to what my text implies: then,
may we revive with John, for if he had not revived he could never have told us
of his fainting fit. Thus we shall have death with Christ, and resurrection in
Him. Oh, for a deep experience of both, by the power of the Holy Spirit! For,
first, here we see provision for the removal of our sin, and we are thus
reminded of it. Here is the bread broken because we have broken God's law, and
must have been broken for ever had there not been a bruised Saviour. In this
wine we see the token of the blood with which we must be cleansed, or else be
foul things to be cast away into the burnings of Tophet, because abominable in
the sight of God. Inasmuch as we have before us the memorial of the atonement
for sin, it reminds us of our death in sin in which we should still have
remained but for that: grace which spoke us into life and salvation. Are you
growing great? Be little again as you see that you are nothing but slaves that
have been ransomed. "God's freed-men" is still your true rank. Are you beginning
to think that, because you are sanctified; you have the less need of daily
cleansing? Hear that word, "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we
have fellowship one with another," yet even then "the blood of Jesus Christ, His
Son, cleanseth us from all sin." We sin even when in the highest and divinest
fellowship, and need still the cleansing blood. How this humbles us before the
Lord! We are to be winners of sinners, and yet we ourselves are sinners still,
needing as truly the Bread of life as those to whom we serve it out. Herein we
fall as low as the dead. Where is the "I"? Where is the self-glorying? Have you
any left in the presence of the crucified Saviour? As you in spirit eat His
flesh and drink His blood, can you glory in your own flesh, or feel the pride of
blood and birth? Fie upon us if there mingles a tinge of pride with our
ministry, or a taint of self-laudation with our success! When we see Jesus, our
Saviour, the Saviour of sinners, surely self will sink, and humility will fall
at His feet. When we think of Gethsemane and Calvary, and all our great
Redeemer's pain and agony, surely, by the Holy Ghost, self-glorying,
self-seeking, and self-will must fall as though slain with a deadly wound. "When
I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." The "I" cannot live, for our Lord has
provided no food for the vain Ego, and its lordliness. He has provided all for
necessity, but nothing for boasting. Oh, blessed sense of self-annihilation! We
have experienced it several times this week when certain of those papers were
read to us by our brethren; and, moreover, we shrivelled right up in the blaze
of the joy with which our Master favoured us. I hope this happy assembly and its
heavenly exercises have melted the Ego within us, and made it, for the while,
flow away in tears. Dying to self is a blessed feeling. May we all realize it!
When we are weak to the utmost in conscious death of self, then are we strong to
the fulness of might. Swooning away unto self-death, and losing all
consciousness of personal power, we are introduced into the infinite, and live
in God. All the life-floods of our being will flow with renewed force if, first
of all, we are brought into contact with Jesus: "He laid His right hand upon
me." Marvellous patience that He does not set His foot upon us, and tread us
down as the mire of the streets! I have lain at His feet as dead, and had He
spurned me as tainted with corruption, I could not have impugned His justice.
But there is nothing here about His foot! That foot has been pierced for us, and
it cannot be that the foot which has been nailed to the cross for His people
should ever trample them in His wrath. He ar these words, "He laid His right
hand upon me." The right hand of His strength and of His glory He laid upon His
fainting servant. It was the hand of a man. It is the right hand of Him who, in
all our afflictions, was afflicted, who is a Brother born for adversity. Hence,
everything about His hand has a reviving influence. The speech of sympathy, my
brothers, is often too unpractical, and hence it is too feeble to revive the
fainting; the touch of sympathy is far more effectual. You remember that happy
story of the wild negro child who could never be won till the little lady sat
down by her, and laid her hand upon her. Eva won poor Topsy by that tender
touch. The tongue failed, but the hand achieved the victory. So was it with our
adorable Lord. He showed us that He was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh;
He brought Himself into contact with us, and made us perceive the reality of His
love to us, and then He became more than a conqueror over us. Still, there was
something else wanted, for our Lord Jesus, after the touch, gave the word: "Fear
not; I am the first and the last." What does He say? Does He say, "Thou art"?
Open your Testaments, and see. Does He exclaim, "Fear not; thou art the beloved
disciple, John the apostle and divine"? I find nothing of the kind. He did not
direct His servant to look at himself, but to remember the great I Am, his
Saviour, and Lord. The living comfort of every swooning child of God, of
everyone who is conscious of a death-wound to the natural "I," lies in that
majestic "I," who alone can say "I am." You live because there is an "I am" who
has life in Himself, and has that life for you. Read on,—"I am He that liveth."
"Because I live, ye shall live also; no real death shall befal you, for death
hath no more dominion over Me,—your Head, your Life." While there is a living
Christ in heaven, no believer shall ever see death: he shall sleep in Jesus, and
that is all, for even then he shall be "for ever with the Lord." "And behold, I
am alive for evermore." Yes, behold it, and never cease to behold it: we serve
an ever-living Lord. Brothers, go home from this conference in the power of this
grand utterance! The dear child may sicken, or the precious wife may be taken
home; but Christ says, "I am alive for evermore." The believing heart can never
be a widow, for its Husband is the living God. Our Lord Jesus will not leave us
orphans, He will come unto us. Here is our joy, then: not in ourselves, but in
the fact that He ever lives to carry out the Father's good pleasure in us and
for us. Onward, soldiers of the cross, for our immortal Captain leads the way.
Conclude the verse,—"and of death." Our Lord has the keys of death, and this
will be a joyful fact to us when our last hours arrive. If we say to Him,
"Master, whither am I going?" He answers, "I have the key of death and the
spirit world. Will we not reply, "We feel quite confident to go wherever Thou
wilt lead us, O Lord"? We shall then pursue His track in His company. Our bodies
shall descend into what men call a charnel-house, though it is really the
unrobing-room of saints, the vestibule of heaven, the wardrobe of our dress
where it shall be cleansed and perfected. We have a fit spiritual array for the
interval, but we expect that our bodies shall rise again in the likeness of "the
Lord from heaven." What gainers we shall be when we shall take up the robes we
laid aside, and find them so gloriously changed, and made fit for us to wear
even in the presence of our Lord! So, if the worst fear that crosses you should
be realized, and you should literally die at your Lord's feet, there is no cause
for dread, for no enemy can do you harm, since the divine right hand is pledged
to deliver you to the end. Let us give the Well-beloved the most devout and
fervent praise as we now partake of this regal festival. The King sitteth at His
table, let our spikenard give forth its sweetest smell.


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  CHAPTER 25: C. H. SPURGEON'S COMMUNION HYMN.
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C. H. SPURGEON'S COMMUNION HYMN.

C. H. SPURGEON'S COMMUNION HYMN. (No. 939 in "Our Own Hymn Book.") AMIDST us our
Belov'd;stands, And bids us view His pierc'd;hands; Points to His wounded feet
and side, Blest emblems of the Crucified. What food luxurious loads the board,
When at His table sits the Lord! The wine how rich, the bread how sweet, When
Jesus deigns the guests to meet! If now with eyes defiled and dim, We see the
signs but see not Him, Oh, may His love the scales displace, And bid us see Him
face to face! Our former transports we recount, When with Him in the holy mount,
These cause our souls to thirst anew, His marr'd but lovely face to view. Thou
glorious Bridegroom of our hearts, Thy present smile a heaven imparts: Oh, lift
the veil, if veil there be, Let every saint Thy beauties see!


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/till-he-comes/
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