C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“If the priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the people; then let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned, a young bullock without blemish, unto the Lord for a sin offering.” Leviticus 4:3.

In the previous chapters of the book of Leviticus you read of the burnt offering, the peace offering, and the meat offering-all types of our Lord Jesus Christ, as seen from different points of view. Those three sacrifices were sweet savour offerings, and represent the Lord Jesus in his glorious person and perfect righteousness as an offering of a sweet smell unto God. The chapter before us, the whole of which we shall require as a text, describes the sin offering, which, although quite distinct from the sweet savour offerings, is not altogether to be separated from them, for the Lord Jesus Christ viewed in any light is very dear unto his Father; and even when beheld as a sin offering is elect and precious unto God, as we shall have to show you in the type before us; still, the sin offering does not set forth the acceptance of the substitute before the Lord, but rather brings out the abhorence which God has towards sin, the putting away from his holy presence of everything upon which sin is laid. This morning, if God shall enable us, we hope to impress upon your minds, first of all, the great evil of sin; and secondly, the great and wonderful power of the blood of atonement by which sin is put away.

Without any further preface we shall invite you, in meditating upon the type before us, first, to consider our Lord Jesus as made sin for us; secondly, we shall ask you to observe, carefully and prayerfully, his blood in its efficacy before the Lord; and thirdly, we shall bid you look at his substitution in the shame which it involved.

First, brethren, let us, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, view our blessed Lord as made sin for us, as he is here typified in the bullock.

1. His personal character is set forth before us in the victim chosen, namely, a young bullock without blemish. It was a bullock, the most valuable of the sacrifices, an animal laborious in life and costly in death; it was a young bullock in the fulness of its strength and vigour; it was without blemish; and the slightest fault disqualified it from being laid upon the altar of God. Behold, O believer, your Lord Jesus, more precious far than ten thousands of the fat of fed beasts: a sacrifice not to be purchased with gold, or estimated in silver. Full of vigour, in the very prime of manhood, he offered up himself for us. Even when he died, he died not through weakness; for that cry of his at his death, “with a loud voice,” proved that his life was still firm within him, and that when he gave up the ghost, his death was not one of compulsion, but a voluntary expiring of the soul. His glory is as the firstling of the bullock, full of vigour and of strength. How distinctly was our Lord proved to be without blemish! Naturally born without sin, practically he lived without fault. In him there was neither deficiency nor excess. In no virtue did he come behind, and no fault could be found in him. The prying eyes of the prince of this world could find nothing in him, and the still more accurate search of the all-seeing God found no fault in him. This spotlessness was necessary, for how could he have been made an offering for our sin, if it had not been true that personally “he knew no sin”? Shall one bankrupt stand in the debtors’ court as a substitute for another? How shall one penniless wretch pay the debt of another who is about to be cast into prison? If the king require service of any man, how shall another from whom service is equally due, offer himself as a substitute for him? No, the saviour of others must have no obligations of his own; he must owe no personal debts; there must be no claims on the part of justice against him, on his own account, or he cannot stand “the just for the unjust,” to expiate the sins of men. Ye holy souls, feast your eyes upon the spotless Son of God. Ye pure in heart, delight your purified vision with a sight of his perfections. You shall one day be like him-this will be your heaven; meanwhile, make it your rapture, your paradise on earth, to gaze upon the unrivalled beauties of the altogether lovely. “In him was no sin.” In him was all excellence. His body and soul are alike: white as the lily for holiness, though made by suffering red as the rose. Alabaster, and bright ivory overlaid with sapphires, are but dull and soiled types of his purity. Come, ye virgin souls, and let the eyes of your holy love survey him, that ye may see how fit he was to suffer as “the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.”

The act of the transference of sin to the victim next calls for our attention. You will have noticed, in reading the chapter, that our Lord’s being made sin is set forth to us by the very significant transfer of sin to the bullock, which was made by the priest, or by the elders of the people, as the case might be. We are expressly told, “He shall lay his hand upon the bullock’s head,” which act, our good Dr. Watts has interpreted in his well-known verse-

“My faith would lay her hand

On that dear head of thine,

While like a penitent I stand;

And there confess my sin.”

This laying of the hand does not appear to have been a mere touch of contact, but in some other places of Scripture has the meaning of leaning heavily, as in the expression, “Thy wrath lieth hard upon me.” (Psalm 88:7.)

Surely this is the very essence and nature of faith, which doth not only bring us into contact with the great Substitute, but teaches us to lean upon him with all the burden of our guilt; so that if our sins be very weighty, yet we see him as able to bear them all; and mark, the whole weight of our iniquity taken off from us, who must have been crushed to the lowest hell thereby, and laid on him who took the weight and bore it all, and then buried it in his sepulchre for ever. From of old it was decreed, “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Jehovah made to meet upon the head of the Substitute all the offences of his covenant people; but each one of the chosen is brought personally to ratify this solemn covenant act of the great God, when by grace he is enabled by faith to put his hand upon the head of the “Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.” My fellow believers, do you remember that rapturous day? My soul recalls her day of deliverance with delight; laden with guilt and full of fears, I saw my Saviour willing to be my Substitute, and I laid my hand, oh! how timidly at first, but courage grew and confidence was confirmed, I leaned my soul entirely upon him; and now it is my unceasing joy to know that my sins are no longer imputed to me, but laid on him, and like the debts of the poor wounded traveller, Jesus, like the good Samaritan, has said of all my future sinfulness, “Set that to my account.” Oh! blessed discovery, sweet solace of a repenting heart.

“My numerous sins transferr’d to him,

Shall never more be found,

Lost in his blood’s atoning stream

Where every crime is drown’d!”

We must now beg your notice of the sins transferred. In the case of the type, they were sins of ignorance. Alas! the Jew knew nothing about a sin offering for sins of presumption, but there is such a sin offering for us. Our presumptuous sins were laid on Christ; our wilful sins; our sins of light and knowledge, are pardoned by his blood. The mention of sins of ignorance, suggests a very comfortable reflection, that if there are any sins which I know not, they were, notwithstanding my ignorance, laid on my Substitute and put away by his atonement. It is not sin as we see it which was laid on Christ, but sin as God sees it; not sin as our conscience feebly reveals it to us, but sin as God beholds it, in all its unmitigated malignity, and unconcealed loathsomeness. Sin in its exceeding sinfulness Jesus has put away. Not sham sin, but real sin; sin as before the Lord; sin as sin, Jesus has made an end of. Child of God, you will not misuse this truth and deny the need of repentance, for you well know that you cannot practically feel the power of this blood, except as your sin is known to you; this, indeed, is intimated in the type, for, according to verse fourteen, the bullock was only offered when the sin was known. It was to be laid by the elders upon the head of the bullock, when the sin was no longer hidden from the eyes of the congregation. Sin unknown, the sacrifice is unheeded. It is only as you know and perceive sin that you can consciously know and prize the atonement by which it is taken away. Mark, it is when you perceive sin that then you are to trust the blood; not when you perceive holiness in yourself, and goodness and virtue, but when you perceive sin, and iniquity, and defilement-it is then you are to lay your hand upon the head of the great Atoning Sacrifice. Jesus is a sinner’s Saviour. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” It is not written, “If any man be holy, he has an advocate,” but “if any man sin, we have an advocate;” so that in all our sin and iniquity, blackness, and defilement, when overwhelmed with our own vileness, we may still come to Christ, and believe that our most horible and detestable sins were laid upon him, and over and above that those sins which we do not feel, which may be even more detestable, even these, and what is more, the sinfulness of our nature itself-that black and polluted fount from which the streams of our trespasses take their rise; the guilt of all actual and original sin was laid upon Jesus, and by him for ever put away.

Passing on, still keeping to the same point, we would remark that the sin was laid upon the bullock most conspicuously “before the Lord.” Did you notice the frequent expressions: “shall bring him to the door of the congregation before the Lord;” “kill the bullock before the Lord;” “shall sprinkle the blood seven times before the Lord, and shall put some of it upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord”? Clearly the most important part of the sacrifice was not before the people, but before the Lord. All that the onlookers outside could have seen was the bullock, when dead, carried by the priests without the camp. Some of them who came nearer might have seen the pouring of the blood at the bottom of the brazen altar, but they certainly never did and never could see the priest sprinkle the blood towards the veil, nor yet see him put it upon the horns of the golden altar, for the court of the priest was concealed from their view. We very much mistake if we think that the ceremonies of the Jews were much seen by the people. They were mainly unseen except by the priests. The ritual of the old covenant must have been very little a matter of sight; for the Israelite, pure and simple, never penetrated beyond the first court; he stood before the brazen altar, but he never went further; and all that was done in the next court of the priests, and especially all that was done in the most holy place, must have been entirely a matter of faith to all the people. The fact was, the sacrifices were not so much for men to look at as for God himself to gaze upon, and though this may seem to you a strange observation, there is no little value in it. You will hear men nowadays say that the purpose of atonement has reference to men, and not to God. Depend upon it there is a fatal error in this doctrine, and we must denounce it. Although its advocates take some few expressions of certain of our hymns, and pretend to believe that we teach that the blood placated an angry God, we never taught anything of the kind, and they know we never did; yet we are not to be frightened into denying or qualifying our assertion that the action of God towards man has been wonarously affected by the atonement of Christ. God the judge would have condemned us to punishment had not Jesus suffered in our stead, so that, in justice, we might be permitted to go free. Not only is man made willing to love God by the manifestation of the love of God in Christ Jesus, but it has become possible for God to extend the hand of amity towards sinful man through the atonement; and this would not have been possible, consistently with the divine attributes, if it had not been for the atoning sacrifice. We must still stand to it, that the blood is not merely a comfort to the wounded conscience, but is really a satisfaction to divine justice; a covering, a propitiation, a mercy-seat for the Most Holy God. That is a striking passage concerning the Passover and the destroying angel in Egypt. Thus spake Jehovah, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you;” not, “When you see the blood.” The spared ones did not see the blood at that moment; for, you will remember, that they were all inside the house feasting upon the lamb. The father of the family had put the blood outside upon the lintel and the side-posts, not for the inmates to see, but for God to see; and so, though a sight of the precious blood, thanks be to God, does bring us faith, and joy, and peace, yet the real work of our salvation is not the effect of the blood upon us, but the effect of the blood upon God himself: not, it is true, a change produced in God, but a change which is thus produced in the action of divine justice. Apart from the blood, we are guilty, condemned: washed in blood, we are accepted and beloved. Without the atonement, we are aliens and strangers, heirs of wrath even as others; but, as seen in the eternal covenant purpose, through the precious blood of Jesus, we are accepted in the beloved. The great stress of the transaction lies in its being done “before the Lord.”

Still, further, carefully observe that as soon as ever the sin was thus “before the Lord,” laid upon the bullock, the bullock was slain. “He shall lay his hand upon the bullock’s head, and kill the bullock before the Lord.” So, in the fifteenth verse, “The elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the Lord, and the bullock shall be killed before the Lord.” Ah! yes; as soon as the sin is transferred, the penalty is transferred too. Down fell the pole-axe the minute that the priestly hand had been laid on the bullock. Unsheathed was the bloody knife of sacrifice the moment that the elders had begun to lean upon the sacrificial head. So was it with our Saviour; he must smart, he must die, for only as dying could he become our sin offering. Ah! brethren, those who would preach Christ, but not Christ crucified, miss the very soul and essence of our holy faith. “Let him come down from the cross, and we will believe in him,” is the Unitarian cry. Anything but a crucified God. But there, indeed, lies the secret of that mystery, and the very core and kernel of our confidence. A reigning Saviour I do rejoice in: the thought of the splendour yet to come makes glad our eyes; but after all, it is a bleeding Saviour that is the sinner’s hope. It is to the cross, the centre of misery, that the sinner turns his eyes for comfort rather than to the stars of Bethlehem, or to the blazing sun of the millennial kingdom. I remember one joining this church, who said, “Sir, I had faith once in Christ glorified, but it never gave me comfort: I have now come to a faith in Christ crucified, and I have peace.” At Calvary there is the comfort, and there only. That Jesus lives is delightful; but the basis of the delight is, “He lives who once was slain.” That he will reign for ever is a most precious doctrine of our faith, but that the hand that wields the silver sceptre, once was pierced, is the great secret of the joy. O beloved, abide not in any place from which your eye cannot behold the cross of Christ. When you are thinking of the doctrines of the gospel, or the precepts of the Word, or studying the prophecies of Scripture, never let your mind relinquish the study of the cross. The cross was the place of your spiritual birth; it must ever be the spot for renewing your health, for it is the sanatorium of every sin-sick soul. The blood is the true balm of Gilead; it is the only catholicon which heals every spiritual disease. Come, sin-sick soul, and breathe the air which was purified when the blood of the heart of Jesus fell from his wounds to the ground, for no spiritual disease can abide the presence of the healing blood. Hasten, ye weak ones, to Calvary, and partake in God-given strength and vigour. It is from Calvary that you shall see the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing beneath his wings. The beloved Physician meets his patients at the foot of the cross, and relieves them from all their ills.

I shall not ask you to dwell on any further details of the type, as they refer to the substitution, but I cannot leave the topic till I have asked each one this all-important question: Is the Lord Jesus made a sin offering for you? It is written, “He hath made him to be sin for us;” and from this it appears that sin was laid upon Jesus by God himself; but still it is true that each believer by faith lays his own sins there, and the hymn, “I lay my sins on Jesus,” is quite scriptural. Have you, dear friend, seen your sins laid on Jesus? Has your faith laid its hand upon his head? My dear hearers, we shall soon, each one of us, have to pass through the vale of death; it may be but a very short time before some of us will know what are the solemnities of our last, departing hour. Are you ready?-quite ready? You have been a professor for years-are you ready now to die? Can you hope that it at this moment the summons were given, sitting where you are, you are so really and truly resting in the precious blood, that sin would not disturb your dying peace, because it is forgiven and put away? Search the ground of your hope, I pray you, and be not satisfied unless your faith be surely built upon the Rock of Ages. Get as much assurance as you can, my brethren, but beware of presumption. I have seen some of those fine Christians who will not say-

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in thee!”

And I think very little of them. It is their boast that no hymns will suit them but those which are full of assurance and conscious enjoyment. I admire their confidence, if it be the fruit of the Spirit; but I fear, in many cases, it is the offspring of proud, unhumbled self-conceit. I know that when shaking times, when I am sore vexed with bodily pain and mental distractions, I am glad enough to say-

“Let me hide myself in thee!

Let the water and the blood,

From thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse me from its guilt and power!”

Without boasting, I can declare as much about strong faith in God as most men; and I can usually rejoice in the fullest confidence of my acceptance in the Beloved; but there are times with me of deeply awful depression of spirit, and horror of great darkness; and at such periods my joyous confidence takes the form of humbly pleading the blood once shed for sinners, and saying, with a broken heart-

“Nothing in my hand I bring:

Simply to thy cross I cling.”

It seems to me, that humbly resting upon Jesus is the best position for us; and I ask each of you, very affectionately, whether that is your position at this present moment? Does your heart rejoice in the Substitute? Do you rejoice in the language of these two precious verses?-

“When Satan tempts me to despair,

And tells me of the guilt within,

Upward I look, and see him there

Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Saviour died,

My sinful soul is counted free;

For God, the Just, is satisfied

To look on Him, and pardon me.”

Let us turn to the second part of the subject. The chapter sets forth before us the efficacy of the precious blood of Jesus.

As soon as the bullock was slain, the priest carefully collected the blood. The bullock was slain in the court of the Israelites; see, there it lies at the foot of the brazen altar, with the blood in a basin. The priest passes into the court of the priests, passes by the golden altar of incense, which stood in the holy place, and proceeds to dip his finger in the basin, and to sprinkle the blood seven times towards the veil which concealed the holy of holies. Whether the blood fell on the veil or not we are not certain; but we have good reason to believe that it was cast upon the veil itself. The veil, of costliest tapestry, would thus become by degrees more and more like a vesture dipped in blood. Seven times towards the veil the blood of the sin offering was sprinkled by the priest. Why did he begin there? It was to show that our communion with God is by blood. The veil was not then, of course, rent. It showed that the way of access to God was not then revealed. The sprinkling of the blood showed that the only thing that could open the way of access to God was the blood; that the blood, when it should be perfectly offered, seven times sprinkled, would rend the veil. The blood of Jesus has to the letter fulfilled the type. When our Lord had sprinkled, if I may so say, seven times his own heart’s blood upon the veil, he said, “It is finished,” and “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.” Beloved, through the perfect offering of the precious blood, we have access with boldness into this grace wherein we stand; and we who have faith in that blood have intimate communion with the living God, and come near to his mercy-seat to talk with him, who dwelleth between the cherubim, as a man talketh with his friend. The priest began at the innermost point, because the first thing which a Christian loses through sin is communion with God, and free access to him, and consequently the first thing to be restored to him must be this communion with his God. Suppose, my brother, you backslide, there are some things which you will not lose at once. You will still be able to pray in a feeble style; you will still have some sense of acceptance, out certainly your enjoyment and fellowship with God will be suspended so soon as you have fallen from your first estate. Therefore the blood is sprinkled upon the veil to show you that through the blood, and through the blood only, you can renew your access. You advanced Christians, you who have lived in the very heart of God, and have stood like Milton’s angel in the sun; you who have been made to sit at the banqueting table, and to drink of the wines on the lees well refined; you who have been the King’s favourites, and, like Mephibosheth, have always been made to sit at the King’s own table, and to eat of the choice portions of his dainties, if you have lost your heavenly fellowship, it is through the blood, and through the blood alone, that you can again have access unto the heart of God.

The next act of the priest was to retire a little from the veil to the place where stood the golden altar of incense, adorned with four horns of gold, probably of a pyramidal shape, or fashioned like rams’ horns, and the priest, dipping his finger in the basin, smeared this horn and the other, until the four horns glowed with crimson in the light of the golden candlestick. The horn is always, in the oriental usage, indicative of strength. What was the blood put upon the altar for, then? That incense altar was typical of prayer, and especially of the intercession of Christ; and the blood on the horn showed that the force and power of all-prevailing intercession lies in the blood. Why was this the second thing done? It seems to me that the second thing which a Christian loses is his prevalence in prayer. Whereas, first he loses communion with God when he backslides; the next thing he loses is his power in supplication. He begins to be feeble upon his knees; he cannot win of the Lord that which he desireth. How is he to get back his strength? Here the great Anointed Priest teaches us to look to the blood for renewed power, for see, he applies the blood to the horns of the altar, and the sweet perfume of frankincense ascends to heaven, and God accepts it. O beloved, think of this, Christ’s intercessory power with God lies in his precious blood, and your power and mine with God in prayer must lie in that blood too. Oh! to see the horns of that altar smeared with blood! How can you ever prevail with God unless you plead the blood of Jesus? Believer, if thou wouldst overcome in prayer, tell the Lord of all the groans of his dear Son; never dream of arguing except with arguments fetched from Jesus’ wounds: these are potent pleas with God-the bloody sweat, the flagellation, the nails, the spear, the vinegar, the cross-these must be the mighty reasons with which to overcome the Infinite One. Let the altar of your incense be smeared with blood.

This being finished, the priest goes backwards still further and enters the court of the Israelites. There stood the great altar of brass, whereon was consumed the burnt offerings; and now the priest, having his basin full of the blood of which only a small quantity had been used in sprinkling the veil and touching the horns of the golden altar, pours the whole of the remaining blood in a great stream at the foot of the altar of burnt offering. What does that typify? Did he not thus teach us that the only ground and basis (for mark, it is put at the foot of the altar), of the acceptance of our persons and of our thank offerings is found in the blood of Jesus? Did it never strike you how the whole tabernacle must have been smeared with blood everywhere? Blood was on every side. The priest himself, when at his work, with garments on which showed every stain, must have looked as though all besmeared with gore. You could not look at his hands or at his vestments without seeing everywhere blood: indeed, when consecrated, he had blood on his ear, blood on his foot, blood on his hand-he could not be made a priest without it. The apostle says, “Almost everything under the law was sprinkled with blood.” It was blood, blood everywhere. Now, this could have been very far from a pleasant sight, except to the spiritual man who, as he looked at it, said, “What a holy God is the God of Israel! How he hates sin! See, he will only permit sinners to approach him by the way of blood!” and then the enquiring mind would ask, “What blood is this which is here intended?” We know that the blood of bulls and of goats was but the visible symbol of the sufferings of Jesus, the great Sacrifice, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation for our sins. All the blood-marks pointed to the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Let us rejoice in the precious blood of Christ the Lamb without blemish and without spot, who was foreordained from the foundations of the world, but was manifest in these last days for us.

Will you now make a summary of what has been spoken? Come with me outside the Tabernacle. Let us begin at the opening in its curtains leading to the outer court. We have sinned, and desire acceptance with God; that must be the first blessing. The brazen altar of burnt offerings is standing before us, and we wish to offer out thank offering, may we do so? How can we be accepted? Look at the bottom of the altar! What see you there? A pool of blood all around it, as though the altar stood in blood! What means this? Surely the blood of Jesus is the basis of our acceptance before God, and here we stand as citizens of heaven, not accursed, but beloved; not rejected and abhorred, but elect and blessed through the blood which is the ground of our acceptance as believers and citizens of Zion. Now we have come so far, we remember that we are not only citizens of the new Jerusalem, but priests unto God, and as priests we desire to enter the court of the priests, and offer the incense of praise and prayer. Here we stand as priests, and there is the golden altar, but where is our power to minister before the Lord? How shall we approach with the love of our hearts, our joyful thanks, and our fervent intercessions? Behold the answer to our enquiries Observe with joy the blood-marks on the four horns! It is not our prayers that will be in themselves prevalent, nor our praises, nor our love; but the blood gives prevalence, acceptance, and power to all. Come hither, then, and let us lay our heart itself, all bleeding upon that altar, and let our prayers and praises rise to heaven, like pillars of smoke, accepted through the blood. But, beloved, this is not all, we are something more than priests, we are children of God, dear to his heart; let us, then, seek fellowship with our Father who is in heaven. How can we enter into the most holy place and commune with the God who hideth himself? What is the mode of entrance into that which is within the veil? We look, and lo, the veil is rent, but on the floor, right across where the veil was wont to hang, we see a line of blood, where, times without number, the blood had been sprinkled; and on the two pieces of the veil through which we pass, we can see many distinct traces of blood; yes, and when we come right up to the mercy-seat we can see the blood there too. What means this but that blood is the means of access to God, and by no other means is he to be approached? When we shall be nearest to God, and see him face to face, and dwell with him in heaven for ever, it will be because Jesus Christ loved us and died for us, and sprinkled his blood for us, that we are permitted to have this close and wonderful communion with God, which even angels never had, for even they can only veil their faces with their wings, but must not dare to look upon God as we shall do, when our eyes shall see him as our Father and our Friend.

Thus I have tried to set forth the threefold prevalence of the precious blood, but let it not be forgotten that the blood also put away sin; for you find at the end of the chapter, “His sin shall be forgiven.” First forgiven, then accepted, then prevalent in prayer, and then admitted into access with boldness to God; what a chain of blessings! All, all through the blood of Jesus!

Thirdly, the most painful part of our sermon remains, while I beg you to view the shame which our Lord endured.

While it is all so well for us, so sweet for us, I want you now to reflect how bitter, how shameful it was for our Lord! The offerer who brought the sin offering has been forgiven; he has been accepted at the brazen altar; his prayers have been heard at the golden altar; and the veil has been sprinkled on his behalf: but what of the Victim itself? Draw nigh and learn with holy wonder. In the first place, albeit that our Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us, it is noteworthy that, though nearly all the bullock was burned without the camp, there was one portion left and reserved to be burnt upon the altar of burnt offering, that was the fat. Certain descriptions are given as to the fat which was to be consumed upon the altar, by which we believe it was intended to ensure that the richest part of the fat should be there consumed. As much as if God would say, “Though my dear Son must be made sin for this people, and consequently I must forsake him, and he must die without the camp, yet still he is most dear and precious in my sight, and even while he is a sin offering, yet he is my beloved Son, in whom in himself I am still well pleased. Brethren, whenever we speak about our Lord as bearing our sins, we must carefully speak concerning him-not as though God ever did despise or abhor the prayer of his afflicted Son, but only seemed to do so while he stood for us, representatively made sin for us, though he knew no sin. Oh! I delight to think that the Lord smelled a sweet savour even in the cross, and that Jesus Christ is this day a sweet savour unto God, even as a sin offering; the fat, the excellence of his heart, the consecration of his soul, were acceptable to God, and sweet in his esteem, even when he laid upon him the iniquity of his people. Still, here is the shameful part of it: the priest theu took the bullock, and gathering up all the inwards, every part of it, the skin, the dung-all mentioned to teach us what a horrible thing sin is, and what the Surety was looked upon as being when he took our sin-he took it all up, and either himself personally, or assisted by others, took it away out of the camp. We are told that in the wilderness, so large was the camp, that it may have been the distance of four miles that this bullock had to be carried. I think I see the sad procession: the priest all smeared with blood, carrying the carcase of the bullock, taking it right away down the long line of tents, first through the abodes of one tribe and then of another, through the long streets of tents, while the people stood at their doors and saw the ghastly sight. It was killed at the altar of burnt offering. Why was it not burnt there? That altar was holy, and as soon as ever sin was laid upon the bullock, it ceased to be any longer looked upon as a holy thing; it could not, therefore, be burnt in the holy place, it must be taken right away. So the priest carried it away-a terrible load-till he reached the usual place where the ashes were kindled, and he put the bullock there, and heaped the hot ashes upon it till the whole smoked up to heaven, and was utterly consumed as a sin offering. My beloved, try if you can to grasp the idea of Jesus being put away from God. I cannot give you the thoughts, but if you could hear the air pierced with the dreadful cry, “Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” you would see Christ put away because he was made sin. It was not possible for God to look upon sin, even when it was in Christ, with anything like complacency. “It pleased the Father to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.” If you have read the order of the burnt offering, you will have noticed that when the bullock of the burnt offering was offered, it was washed, to show the perfection of Christ as he is a sweet savour, all pure and clean; but in this case there is added that humiliating word, “with the dung.” What a humiliating type of Christ! Ah! but what are your sins and mine that were laid upon Jesus? How could our iniquities and transgressions be better set forth than by that bleeding, mangled mass, which the high priest had to carry out away from the camp, as though it were a thing abhorred, which could not be endured in the camp any longer. It is your Saviour made sin for you and put away on your behalf.

After the removal, they gathered the hot ashes, they kindled the fire, and burnt it all. See here a faint image of the fire which consumed the Saviour upon Calvary! His bodily pains ought never to be forgotten, because there is so intimate an intercourse between physical suffering and mental grief, that it were hard to draw the line; but still the sufferings of his soul must have been the very soul of his sufferings; and can you tell what they were? Have you ever suffered from a raging fever? Have you felt at the same time the pangs of some painful disease? Has your mind refused to rest? Has your brain been tossed like the waves of a sea of fire within your head? Have you questioned whether you should lose your reason or not? Have you ever been near unto distraction? Have you ever been near unto the breaking of the cords of life? If so, you may guess feebly what he suffered when he said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death;” and when he “began to be sorrowful and to be very heavy.” Those were the coals of juniper which were being heaped over the sin offering. As you see Jesus scourged by Herod and by Pilate, and afterwards bleeding on the accursed tree, you see the fire of divine wrath consuming the sin offering because our sin had been laid upon him. I will not dwell longer on this, only ask the Holy Spirit to make you feel the shame that Christ suffered for you. Sometimes I cannot grasp the thought, when I have tried to think that he who made the heavens, to whom the whole blue arch is but as a span, and the depths of the seas as the hollow of his hand, should be made flesh! and suffer for such an insignificant worm as I am. That he should suffer, however, never amazes me so much as that he should bear my sin. Oh! marvellous! The angels say, “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God of Sabaoth!” What could they have said when he, whom they hymned as “glorious in holiness,” bowed his head and gave up the ghost, because “made sin for us”? Blessed Son of God! where we cannot understand we will adore.

The apostle Paul suggests to us the most practical conclusion of our sermon. He tells us that as our Saviour, having given his blood to be sprinkled within the Tabernacle for us, was then taken without the camp, so it is our duty, ay, and our privilege, to go forth unto him without the camp also, bearing his reproach. You have heard how he was reproached for you: are you unwilling to be reproached for him? You have heard how he went without the camp in that shameful manner: are you unwilling to go without the camp for him? Too many Christians try to be Christians in the camp, and it cannot be done. “Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds.” There is so much of worldly conformity among us; but the promise is not to worldly-minded Christians, but, “Come ye out from among them; be ye separate; touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you.” How much we lose by affinities with the world! How much of distance there is between us and God, because of the nearness there is between us and the world! Come out, ye lovers of the Saviour, and tread the separated way which your Saviour trod before you!

And now, should there be any here who are unsaved, I should not wonder but what some of them will make the remark, the almost, nay, the quite profane remark, “Why, he spoke so much of blood!” Ah! sinner, and we had need to speak much of it to you, for it is your only hope. God will either have your blood or Christ’s blood, one of the two. If you reject Christ, you shall perish in your sin. “The blood is the life thereof,” says the Word of God; and your life must be taken unless Christ’s life shall avail for you. The very heart of Christ was broken to find out the way to save a sinner; and, sinner, there is no other; if you refuse the purple road, you shall never reach the pearly gate. Trust in the blood of Jesus. Dost thou doubt? How canst thou? Is there not efficacy enough in the blood of the Son of God to take away sin? Dost thou contradict God’s declared truth? “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Oh! believe it, and cast thy soul upon it, and we will meet within the veil, one of these days, to sing, “To him that loved us, and washed us from our sine in his own blood … to him be glory for ever and ever.” Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Lev. 4:1-21; Heb. 13:10-15.

STEPHEN’S MARTYRDOM

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, March 17th, 1867, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.”-Acts 7:55, 56

True Christian zeal will seek to do the highest work of which sanctified humanity is capable. Stephen is first heard of as a distributor of the alms of the church to needy widows. He exercised what was virtually, if not nominally, the deacon’s office. Being grave, and not double-tongued, and holding the mystery of the faith in a good conscience, he was well fitted for his work. Doubtless he used the office of a deacon well, and so purchased to himself a good degree, and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Although the onerous duty of serving tables might well have excused him from other service, we soon find him, full of faith and power, doing great wonders and miracles among the people; and not even content with that, we see him defending the faith against a synagogue of subtle philosophical deniers of the truth. These, with their allies, made the valiant deacon the object of their attack, and he at once rose to be an irresistible witness for the gospel. Stephen the deacon became Stephen the preacher. This holy man not only used such gifts as he had in one department, but having abilities for a more spiritual form of service, he laid them at once upon the altar of Christ. Nor is this all, he had a higher promotion yet-when he had thus become Stephen the wise apologist and brave defender of the faith, he did not stop there, but he mounted to the highest rank of the Christian army; he gained the peerless dignity, the foremost nobility, the brightest glory-I mean the martyr’s name and honour. Stephen the deacon is first Stephen the preacher, and afterwards Stephen God’s faithful and true witness, laying down his life that he may seal his testimony with his blood. Put a man without zeal into the front place, and he will gradually recede into his native insignificance, or only linger in the front to be an impediment and a nuisance; but put a man into the rear of the army of God’s elect, if his soul be full of holy fire, you will soon hear of the unknown Samson in the camps of Dan, and, ere long, he will dash into the vanguard, and make the enemies of God’s church know that the Holy Ghost still dwells in the midst of Zion in the men whom he has chosen. If there be any of my brethren and sisters here whose abilities are as yet dormant, I trust that, without ambitiously seeking the chief places of the synagogue, if they have been useful in any one walk of life, they will enquire whether they may not have talents for a yet wider sphere; since, in these evil days, we have need to use every soldier in the army to the utmost of his capacity. When the world is so dark, we had need that every lamp should give some light, and that each lamp should burn as much oil as it will carry, that its light may be of the brightest possible kind.

Stephen, as a martyr, is set before us in the words of our text. I shall not so much look upon him as witnessing for the truth, as ask you to look, first, at the power of the Holy Ghost in him, that you may learn to rely upon that divine power; secondly, I shall ask you to look at the source of his dying comfort, that you may learn to gaze upon the same ravishing vision; and, thirdly, I shall bid you notice the effect of this heavenly comfort upon him, in the hope that we may live in peace and fall asleep in ease, by faith in the same great sight which cheered his dying eyes.

First, then, this morning, I shall want every devout mind to observe the power of the Holy Spirit as developed in Stephen’s death, in order that we may learn to rely upon that power.

Here our grapes hang in clusters, and we would have you note them one by one. I would have you observe, first, that although Stephen was surrounded by bitter enemies, no doubt railing and cavilling, and muttering their observations to disturb him and distract his mind, yet his defence is wonderfully logical, clear, consecutive, and forcible. If you read the seventh chapter through, you might think it was delivered from this pulpit to an audience as affectionate, appreciating, and attentive as you may be: it does not read like an address delivered to a furious mob of bigots, gnashing their teeth at the lone, brave man. In calm, cool, deliberate, bold, stinging language, he deals with them fearlessly and without reserve. He takes the sharp knife of the Word and rips up the sins of the people, laying open the inward parts of their hearts, and the secrets of their souls: between the joints and the marrow he deliberately inserts the two-edged sword, and discovers the thoughts and intents of their hearts. He could not have delivered that searching address with greater fearlessness had he been assured that they would thank him for the operation; the fact that his death was certain had no other effect upon him than to make him yet more zealous. What secret spirit helped him thus to speak? Had he prepared that speech with long elaboration and forethought? Had that oration been carefully composed, revised, and learned by heart? Far from it. He was not so unmindful of our Saviour’s words. “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” Seized upon, doubtless, without previous notice, and dragged before the council without being allowed a moment for deliberation, Stephen stood up and defended himself, and the truth as it is in Jesus, with all the skill of a practised debater, with all the deliberation of one laboriously prepared, and with all the vigour of one whose zeal was like a fire in his bones. To what do we trace this month and wisdom, which his enemies could not gainsay? To what, indeed, but to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Ghost exerts such a power over the human mind, that when it is his will, he can enable his servants to collect their scattered thoughts, to concentrate all their powers upon one topic, and to speak the words of truth and soberness with unwonted power. Moreover, the Lord can also touch the stammering tongue, and make it as eloquent as the tongue of Esaias of old, to proclaim the truth in the name of the Lord. I will not argue, my brethren, that a minister, when called to speak for Christ, ought at all times to speak extemporaneously. I am so far removed from that opinion, that I conscientiously believe that when we have the opportunity for studying the Word, if we waste it in idleness, it is mere presumption to trust to the immediate inspiration of the moment; but will say as much as this, that if the Christian minister, or if any one of you be called to speak for your Master when you can have had no preparation, you may confidently depend upon the Spirit of God to help you in your hour of difficulty-ay, and I will go farther, and say, that if more of our ministers believed in the power of the Spirit of God to help them in their preaching, their preaching would be more effective, and God would own it more greatly to the conversion of souls. It seems to me a curious piece of absurdity, if not a specimen of blasphemy, for a preacher to ask the help of the Holy Spirit in his preaching, and then to pull his manuscript out of his pocket. Where is the room for the Holy Ghost to work? Have they not bolted and barred the door against Him? What thoughts can he suggest? What emotions can he excite? The paper is the guide of the hour. Why, then, should they mock the Holy Spirit by asking for his assistance-an assistance which they will not follow? Or, if I shall have committed every word to memory, and prepared every sentence, and then shall come into the pulpit and ask to have an anointing from the Holy One to help me to speak, what do I but ask him to do what I do not want him to do, since I can do quite as well without him as with him, and should be thrown out of my course if he did assist me. It seems to me that, after due study of the Word, if the preacher-if you, dear friend, the teacher-will cast yourself upon the teaching of the Spirit of God, though distractions may occur, though in the congregation or in the Sabbath-school class there may be much to throw you off your track, and to make you lose the thread of your discourse, if you can rest upon the Spirit of God, he will enable you to speak with power, point, propriety, and personality. It is better to be taught of the Holy Spirit than to learn eloquence from the rules of oratory, or at the feet of masters of rhetoric. The Spirit of God needs to be honoured in the church in this respect. I am quite sure that if he were more glorified we should find more who spoke with power, because we should find more who spoke with the Holy Ghost Let this first remark stand with you for what it is worth, and I am persuaded that there is far more in it than some will care to see.

Notice next, the energy of the Holy Ghost conspicuously displayed in the manner and bearing of the martyr. What a right royal and triumphant bearing the man has! He does not stand in the midst of the raging, multitude with his eyes fixed upon the ground as though, humbly patient, and doggedly resigned, he felt crashed and overwhelmed; neither does he cast his eyes around to observe a gap in the dense ring of cruel persecutors; he has no wish to elude the penalty of witness-bearing. He gazes steadfastly up into heaven. They may gnash their teeth, but they cannot disturb that settled gaze. Their noise and vehemence may roar like the raging waves of the sea; but from the serene depth of his inward pace, his soul looks upward to the eternal throne, and is ravished with unutterable delight. He despises the tumult of the people, not because he is contemptuous towards them, but because his whole soul is swallowed up in blissful adoration of his God, He looks up to heaven, and what he beholds through its opened portals makes him careless of the bloodthirsty foes below. Wondrous picture! Behold the man of shining countenance steadfastly looking up, as though he tracked the road through which his soul would soon wing its way; as though he saw the angelic bands ascending and descending to minister to him; as though he held perpetual and abiding fellowship with the great Father of spirits, and was not to be disturbed or distracted by the rage of men. The bearing of many of the martyrs has been singularly heroic. You will he struck in reading “Foxe’s Acts and Monuments,” to find how many of the humblest men and women acted as if they were of noblest blood. In every age the line of martyrs has been a line of true nobility. When the King of France told Bernard Palissy that, if he did not change his sentiments, he should be compelled to surrender him to the Inquisition, the brave potter said to the king, “You say I shall be compelled, and yet you are a king; but I, though only a poor potter, cannot be compelled to do other than I think to be right.” Surely the potter was more royal than the king. The cases are numberless, and should be as household words among you, in which humble men, feeble women, and little children have shown a heroism which chivalry could not equal. The Spirit of God has taken the wise in their own craftiness, and answered the learned out of the mouths of babes. The answers of uneducated persons among the martyrs were frequently so pat to the point, and hit the nail so well on the head, that you might almost suppose they had been composed by an assembly of divines; they came from a better source, for they were given by the Holy Spirit. The bearing of the bleeding witnesses for our Lord has been worthy of their office, and right well have they earned the title of “The noble army of martyrs.” Now, my brethren, if you and I desire to walk among the sons of men without pride, but yet with a bearing that is worthy of our calling and adoption as princes of the blood royal of heaven, we must be trained by the Holy Ghost Those men who are cowardly, whose profession of religion is so timid that you scarce know whether they have made it or not; those men who go cap-in-hand to the world, asking leave to live, know nothing of the Holy Ghost. But when the Holy Spirit dwells in a man, he knows the right and holds the right, and is not the servant of men. Humblest among the humble in all things else, when it comes to a matter of conscience, he owns no master but his Master who is in heaven. No child of God need fear the face of the great, for he is greater than they; he is God’s true aristocrat: God has put within him a spirit of uprightness and sternness for the right which the world cannot bend, let its blasts howl as they will. I pray God we may learn the manliness of Christianity, for much injury has been done to the faith by professors adopting another mode of procedure, and fawning and cringing before the mighty. That upward glance seems to say to us: “Eyes up, Christian! eyes up; let your heart go up to heaven; let the desires mount; let the whole soul fly towards heaven.” With heaven in our eye, we may walk through the crowds of men as a lion walketh through a flock of sheep, and our fellow-men shall involuntarily own our power.

The power of the Spirit was also very conspicuously seen in the case of Stephen in another respect, namely, in the calm and happy spirit which he manifested. I see no fear, I mark no sign of trepidation; he wipes no hot sweat from his brow; he faints not, much less does he offer any plea by which he may escape from their cruel hands. He never walked out of that gate of Jerusalem with a more joyous and tranquil spirit, on the brightest day of summer, than on that occasion when they dragged him out to die-still, resigned, calm, and happy. It is a great thing for a Christian to keep himself quiet within when, turmoil rules without. When the mind gets distracted, we are not able to judge of what is wise, A disturbed and distracted spirit generally rushes in foolish haste to escape from the difficulty, and so falls into sin in some form or other. To be calm ’mid the bewildering cry, confident of victory; to be still and know that God is God; to stand still with the children of Israel at the Red Sea, and see the salvation of God; this is hard, so hard that only the divine dove, the Comforter, can bring us from above the power to be so; but when once the art of being still is fully learned, what strength and bliss is in it! How many of us, in the face of death, could return death’s stony gage? If it were now decreed that at this moment you must lay down your life, could you smile? Why, the mere thought of it disturbs you, but the fact would alarm you beyond degree. But not so Stephen, his soul rests at anchor in an unruffled haven. Oh! it is in these solemn test-moments, when we are not merely talking of death and vaingloriously boasting of our love to Christ, but when death actually comes, and our love is sternly put to the trial, it is then that the omnipotence of the Holy Ghost is seen, when he gives to his servants that sweet peace which none can know but the man who enjoys it.

I have not yet declared all the glorious works of the Holy Spirit upon this first Christian martyr: in addition to the accuracy of his defence, and the royalty of his manner, and the happiness of his spirit, the Spirit of God was even more clearly seen in his holy and forgiving temper. In his dying prayer he imitates his Lord; “Lay not this sin to their charge.” He stood erect when he prayed for himself, and I know not that he spoke aloud; but when it came to praying for the multitude around him, his spirit acquired a greater vehemence and earnestness. We are told in the first place, that he knelt down, as if to make them see how he prayed, and then he prayed with a loud voice, that they might hear as well as see; he spent his last expiring breath in a loud cry to heaven, that his murder might not be laid at the door of his persecutors. O sweet Spirit of the Son of Man lingering still on earth! “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” has been the pattern and the forerunner of ten thousand prayers of a similar heavenly character. It has been the mark of a Christian to die patiently, with forgiveness on his lips. Thousands of those who wear the ruby crown this day, and are

“Foremost of the sons of light,

’Midst the bright ones doubly bright,”

passed away from earth with just those very words upon their lips. Surely, this is a work of the Holy Spirit indeed! We can scarce forgive those who offend us but a little; we find it not altogether easy to live at peace with all men, but to die at peace with them, and to die at peace with our murderers, what shall I say of it? Surely, this is what the world cannot understand-a celestial, a divine virtue, which must be implanted in human hearts by God himself.

Note once more, the power of the Spirit was seen in enabling Stephen, at such a juncture, when the stones were rattling about his ears, and his body was bruised and mangled by them, to pray one of the most prevalent prayers that ever went up to heaven. The prayer we have just mentioned did not die in the air outside Jerusalem’s gate; it passed through the gate of pearl, it reached the heart of God, and it obtained an answer. See that eager, impetuous, young man yonder, about thirty years of age. The clothes of the witnesses are laid down at his feet; he desires to have a prominent part in stoning the hated Nazarene; he is one of the most fiery of those ferocious bigots; he belongs to the synagogue of Cilicia, and, having been defeated in argument, he rejoices that harder weapons are at hand; he is glad to see the heretic die; he gloats his eyes with the spectacle, for he feels that Moses, and the law, and the rabbis, and the traditions, are this day avenged. Mark that young man well, for Stephen’s prayer is meant for him, though he knows it not. It may be that he heard the plaintive petition and despised it. It is just possible that having heard it, he went away to sneer at it, and to remark upon the hypocritical character of those disciples of Jesus who could lisp their leader’s dying words as if they were their own. Yet methinks that blessed petition must have rankled in his heart; he must have felt that there was a spirit there far better than his own. Whether or not that prayer remained with him just then, in after years he must have looked upon Stephen as being, if anyone was, his spiritual father, by whose dying prayer he was begotten unto God. In speaking of his conversion, surely Paul must have thought within himself it was the prayer of Stephen that was the means of changing Saul the persecutor into Paul the apostle of the crucified Son of God. Ah! well, my friends, you and I cannot always prevail in prayer, even in sunshiny weather, but what a grand Spirit must that be who could help Stephen thus to unlock heaven’s gates in the dreary article of death; to have power with God; to pluck the Saviour by the sleeve, and to bring him to save this guilty, raving persecutor, just when the stones were falling upon him, and his flesh was being battered and bruised. O blessed Spirit, though the outward man decayeth, thou dost renew the inner man day by day.

Behold, beloved, how independent of outward circumstances the Holy Ghost can make the Christian! See what a bright light may shine within us when it is all dark without! See how firm, how happy, how calm, how peaceful we may be, when the world shakes to and fro, and the pillars of the earth are removed! See how even death itself, with all its terrible influences, has no power to suspend the music of a Christian’s heart, but rather makes that music become more sweet, more clear, more heavenly, till the last kind act which death can do is to let the earthly strain melt into the heavenly chorus, the temporal joy into the eternal bliss! Let us have confidence, then, in the blessed Spirit. Are you looking forward, my dear friend, to poverty? Does Your business decline? Do you see clearly before you that you will have to put up with the woes of penury? Fear not; the divine Spirit can give you, in your want, a greater plenty than the rich have in their abundance. You know not what joys may be stored up for you in the cottage which grace will make the cottage of content. Are you conscious of a growing failure of your bodily powers? Do you expect to suffer long nights of languishing and days of pain? Oh, be not sad! That bed may become a throne to you. You little know how every pang that shoots through your body may be a refining fire to consume your dross-a beam of glory to light up the secret parts of your soul. Are the eyes failing? Do you expect blindness? Jesus will be your light. Do the ears fail you? Do you hear but few sounds? Jesus’ name will be your soul’s best music, and his person your dear delight. Socrates used to say this-“Philosophers can be happy without music;” and we Christians can be happier than philosophers when all outward causes of rejoicing are withdrawn. In thee, my God, my heart shall triumph, come what may of ills without! By thy power, O blessed Spirit, my heart shall be exceeding glad, even should all things fail me here below.

May this first point be practically serviceable to you! Trust ye the Holy Spirit: rely firmly upon him, and he will not suffer you to be confounded.

The source of richest comfort will next be indicated, with the hope that we may learn to look there.

It was the end and aim of the Holy Spirit to make Stephen happy. How could this be done? By revealing to him the living and reigning Saviour at the right hand of God. Whether or no Stephen saw literally with his eyes the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God, we do not know. It is possible that what is meant here is that his faith became so unusually strong that he had the most clear and vivid sense of Christ’s reigning in heaven, so much so that it might be fitly said that he actually saw the Lord Jesus standing at the right hand of God. If it were really a supernatural vision, you and I have no ground to expect a repetition of it, but, if it were a vision of faith, as I think it was, there is no sort of reason why we should not enjoy it even now. If we have like precious faith with Stephen, since it is a great fact that Christ is there, there is no reason why our faith should not see what Stephen’s faith saw, and this day our soul’s eyes may see Jesus, and our souls may receive the same joy and gladness out of a sight of Christ which Stephen obtained therefrom.

What then did Stephen see? He saw first, that Jesus was alive. This is no small thing.

“He lives, the great Redeemer lives-

What joy the blest assurance gives!”

Alive, too, after the crucifixion! Stephen knew that Christ had died upon the cross. In that fact was the confidence of his soul; but he saw that, though once dead and buried, Jesus still lived. Herein was great comfort for Stephen: he was not serving a dead Christ; he was not defending the honour of a departed prophet; he was speaking for a friend who still existed to hear his pleadings, and to accept his testimony. Stephen argued within himself “If Christ lives after crucifixion, why should not Stephen live, through Christ, after stoning? If the nails of the cross sufficed not to leave the Saviour dead, neither shall the stones from the Jews avail to rob Stephen of resurrection. Jesus rises from his grave, and Stephen shall rise also. No mean assurance this. It is a rich source of comfort to you and to me this day, if conscious of our frailty and of the near approach of mortality, because Jesus lives we shall live also.

Moreover, Stephen not only saw Jesus living, but he knew that Jesus saw him and sympathised with him. Is not that the meaning of the attitude which the Lord assumed? We are told that our Lord sits at the right hand of God “expecting till his enemies be made his footstool,” and yet in the text he is not seen as sitting, but as standing. Why standing? One of the old fathers says it was as though the Lord Jesus stood up in horror at the deed which was being done; as though he were about to interpose to help his servant die, or to deliver him out of their hands. He stands up, actively sympathising with his suffering witness. Well, beloved, this is just what we see in heaven. The Man of sorrows is alive, and sympathises with his people still. Though raised to the throne of glory, he is not forgetful of our shame and sorrow. Think not, O child of earth, that the Son of Man has forgotten what temptation means, and is now a stranger to human weakness and infirmity. “In all your affliction he is afflicted.” He deeply sympathises with every one of his tried brethren, “and in his measure feels afresh what every member bears.” Suppose not that he is an unthoughtful, uncaring spectator of your grief. I tell you, child of God, Christ has risen from his throne to succour you. He stands at this moment in the hour of your extremity, ready to help you. He will send you comforts when you need them, and he will see that your strength shall be to your day. What a sight was this for the dying Stephen! Jesus is living, and living with the same love in his heart which he showed on earth, with the same tender sympathy which he manifested amongst the twelve when he lingered amongst the sons of men.

The brightest point in the vision was this: he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. That was the point in dispute. The Jews said the Nazarene was an impostor. “No,” said Stephen, “there he is: he stands at the right hand of God.” To Stephen’s mind the point was settled by what he saw. This was the main thing-the only thing, indeed, that Stephen cared for; he craved to have his Lord exalted, and he saw him exalted. The people rage, the rulers take counsel together, but yonder is the King upon the holy hill of God; beyond a doubt he is a reigning monarch, and to Stephen’s heart this was all he wished. If any fear had been felt by Stephen, it was not for himself, it was for the church. He thought, “These wolves tear me first: what will become of the rest of the sheep? How will any escape from their fangs?” He looked up, and there stood the Shepherd looking down upon the wolves, and saying to his dearly-purchased sheep, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” That seems to me to be the grandest part of the vision-Christ living, Christ loving, and Christ reigning, the triumphant Saviour, at the right hand of God.

My brethren and sisters, this doctrine has been to my own soul the only one which has cheered me in times of extremely deep depression of spirit. As I have told you before, so I tell you now-I have known what it is to be brought so low in heart, that no promise of God’s Word gave me a ray of light, nor a single doctrine afforded me a gleam of comfort, and yet, so often as I have come across this text, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name,” I have always found a flood of joy bursting into my soul, for I have said, “Well, it is of no consequence what may become of me if my name be cast out as evil, and if I myself am left in darkness; if pains should multiply; if sorrows should increase beyond number, it does not matter-I will not lift up a finger so long as my Lord Jesus is exalted.” I believe that every genuine Christian heart that loves the Saviour feels just that. Like the dying soldier in the hour of battle, who is cheered with the thought, “The general is safe; the victory is on our side; my blood is well spent, my life well lost, to win the victory.” Let Christ reign, and I will make no bargain with God as to myself. Let Jesus be king the whole world over, I care for nothing else; let him wear the crown; let the pleasure of the Lord prosper in his hands; let his covenant purposes be fulfilled; let his elect be saved; let the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, why, what mattereth it even though ten thousand of us should go pining through the valley of the shadow of death!-our lives and deaths were all well spent to earn so great a reward as to see Jesus glorified.

I would like to put this telescope then to the eye of every sorrowing Christian here, because having had so sweet an influence upon my own heart, surely it might comfort theirs. Dear friend, you are troubled this morning, you are cast down, you do not prosper as you could wish in heavenly things; well, but Christ is not troubled, he is not cast down; and the great fight, after all, goes rightly enough; God’s great purposes are subserved; Christ is glorified. Here are two or three pearls for you, gaze upon them, and prize them. First, remember that your exalted Saviour is exalted to intercede for you. If he hath power, he useth it in prayer for you. Christ has no merit which he does not plead for you. Jesus has received no reward, in consequence of his death, which he will withhold from you. Dear to the Father he is, but he uses that influence on your behalf. Joseph said to the butler, “Speak for me when it shall be well with thee;” but the butler forgot him. It is well with Jesus to-day, and, depend upon it, it is well with you also, for the Well-beloved cannot forget you; and as he always has the Father’s ear, he will pray the Father for you, and whatsoever you need shall surely be given you. Recollect too, that Christ has this power, not only to intercede for you, but to prepare a place for you. Christian, if Christ be a king of boundless wealth, yet he disdains not to use the wealth of his royal treasury to furnish that mansion of yours most richly, so as to make it worthy of the giver who shall bestow it upon you. Moreover, Jesus is in glory as your representative. You are virtually in heaven at this very moment in God’s esteem. Your representative is there. My head is in heaven, wherefore should I fear? How can God give heaven to the head, and hell to the foot? As sure as Christ is there, every one of those who are virtually united to him shall be there also. Only prove that Christ is in heaven, and you have proved that every believer must be there. Christ’s body cannot be mangled. You cannot cut the spiritual body of Jesus into pieces, and throw one limb of it into hell, while the head goes up to glory. Because he lives, we shall live also; and it is his will that where he is, there should also his people be. Jesus is in heaven full of power-there to intercede, to represent, to prepare; but that far-reaching power darts its rays down to earth. The keys of providence swing at the girdle of Christ. Believe it, Christian, nothing occurs here without the permit or the decree of your Saviour, who loved you and gave himself for you. Does the enemy rage? Jesus will put a bit between his jaws, and turn him back. “Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.” Your Lord Jesus Christ has all power in heaven and in earth, and all this power he will exert to bring every one, even the weakest of his children, into his bosom. Blessed be the sweet love of God which has given us an omnipotent Shepherd to watch over us by night and by day! His head is crowned because he hath conquered all his foes. Surely, we may see in that crown of victory the indication that no foe shall ever be able to conquer us. I wish that I could bring out to you the sweetness of the thought of Jesus glorified as I have enjoyed it in my own heart; but it does charm me to think sometimes, that as surely as sin, death, and hell, are under the feet of the Son of Man, so surely shall these very feet of mine beese upon the dragon’s neck. If I am in Christ, as certainly as Jesus is a conqueror, so shall I be more than a conqueror through him that hath loved me. What sweeter sight could Stephen see than this, when the enemy was at his worst, still Christ was unconquered! and Stephen could read in that the fact that Stephen would be unconquered too; the stones that felled and crushed him would not destroy him; the voice of his blood would cry from the ground, and the spiritual Stephen would become the victor over the hosts of error; the truth would spring out of the dust, and blossom like a sweet flower, and God would be glorified when his servant was slain. Thus I have indicated to you the delightful vision which can give us comfort. Lord, open our eyes to see it.

Finally, the comfort itself is worth a moment’s consideration.

We do not find that the appearance of Jesus in the heavens stopped the stones. When the Son of Man came into the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the fire did not burn the three holy children, but on this occasion, though the Son of Man was there, the fire did burn Stephen. Stephen’s life is not spared. He dies as certainly as if Jesus had not been there. That is the plan of the present dispensation. The Lord Jesus does not come to us to forbid our suffering, nor to remove our griefs, but he sustains us under them. We beseech the Lord thrice that this or that may depart from us; it does not depart-that is not the general way with God-but we get the answer, “My strength is sufficient for thee; my strength shall be perfect in weakness.” It was so with Stephen. The stones fell; they beat about his head; they stopped his eloquent tongue; they dashed into his heaving lungs; they bruised his tender heart. There lay his mangled corpse, an object of love and of lamentation to the saints that were at Jerusalem. The love of Christ had not preserved the flesh. And who ought to expect it? We have heard it said, “If Christ died for his people, how is it that they die?” Such questioners forget that the people of God must die because Jesus died: the death of the flesh is no ill, but a blessing. It behoves us to tread in the Saviour’s steps, that we also may die unto the flesh, but be quickened in the Spirit. The death of Stephen we do not look upon as a calamity. The death of the flesh was but a needful fellowship with the crucified Redeemer, for he did not die as to his spirit-that enjoyed immortality which the rugged masses of rock which were heaved upon him could not injure. Stephen’s glorious comfort was in being sustained within, though not shielded from without-in being preserved as to his inner man, though the outer man was bruised and battered. This is the comfort you and I may expect. Through the darts we must go, and they must stick in our flesh, but yet they shall not poison the blood of our soul. Beneath the pitiless storm of hail we must stand, and yet no hailstones shall be able to smite our heart to injure it. Through the furnace we must go, and the smell of fire must pass upon us, but yet we shall come out of the flaming heat uninjured by the blazing fire. ’Tis ours to suffer and yet to conquer, to die and yet to live, to be buried and yet to rise again. How sweetly is Stephen’s triumph pictured in those last words, “He fell asleep.” This is the life as well as the death of a Christian. When the world has been most in arms against a believer, it is wonderful how God has given to his beloved sleep, how the saint has rested with perfect composure in the sight of his enemies, and his cup has run over in the time of drought. Calmly on the bosom of his God he has lain his head, and left his troubles for his God to bear. This shall be the death of the Christian. Let his death be as painful as that of Stephen, it shall be quite as composed. He shall shut his eyes to earth and open them to heaven. His body shall but sleep in that royal sepulchre where Christ himself once reposed; to be awakened by that heavenly trumpeter who shall bring the tidings of resurrection to the sleeping myriads of the saints. Courage, brethren and sisters, because the Holy Spirit dwelleth in us, and because Christ up yonder is triumphant for us. Let our tribulations abound, our consolations also shall abound by Jesus Christ, and we shall be more than conquerors through him that hath loved us.

I wish you all had a share in these precious things. If you had, it would not matter how badly I spoke of them; they would charm your souls. But if you do not understand them, I pray that you may. May the Spirit of the Lord open your eyes to see the power of the Spirit and the glory of Christ, and may you and I ere long see him face to face in paradise. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Acts 6 and 7:54-60.