“While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”-Matthew 17:5.

“Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”-John 12:28.

That our Lord was the true Messiah of God was proved by his answering to all those prophecies which described the promised messenger of the covenant. His miracles also proved that God was with him, and from their character they marked him out as the ordained deliverer. To open the blind eyes and unstop deaf ears, were works foretold as denoting the Messiah. His teachings were equally clear proofs of his mission, there is about them an authority found nowhere else. The words which he spake are spirit and life. They are self-evidencing in their elevation, purity, perfection. “Never man spake like this man.” His testimony is unique, and bears a majesty of deity about it which bespeaks itself. His resurrection also was a clear proof that he was sent of God. He was “declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead.” But in addition to all this and a great deal more, the divine Father was pleased also to speak out of heaven with an audible voice, to declare that Jesus of Nazareth was no other than the Son of God, and the promised Christ for whom the faithful were watching. Thrice did the majesty of heaven break its sublime silence and bear witness to the incarnate God. The three occasions, as mentioned in our texts, are most instructive, and shall command our attention this morning. May the Holy Ghost instruct us.

Without any further preface, let us consider the three testimonies given to our Lord by the voice of the Most High; if time permit we will then notice one or two instructive circumstances connected with them, and close by drawing a great practical lesson therefrom.

In endeavouring to bring before your attentive minds the three occasions on which the Father by a voice from heaven bore witness to his Son, I would invite you to observe, first, when the sevoices were heard.

Angels had proclaimed his birth, and wise men had seen his star, but the divine voice was not heard during the first thirty years of his sojourn; the three celestial utterances were reserved for the brief period of his public life. The first came at the commencement of his public ministry, at his baptism; the second some little time after the central point of his ministry; and the last, just before he closed his work, by being offered up. It is a fit thing to pray that all our works may be begun, continued, and ended under the divine blessing. Certainly our Lord Jesus Christ, as to his public work, both began it, continued it, and ended it with the publicly declared witness of the Most High. How cheering a thing it is at the beginning of a great enterprise to have from God clear testimony that he has sent you upon it! Such was the testimony given to the Master in the waters of Jordan, when he was first announced as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” How sweetly encouraging it is to the soul when the labour is heavy, the opposition vehement, and the spirit faint, to receive another affirming word from the excellent glory! such was that which came to Jesus on the holy mount, when retiring from the multitude he sought the refreshment of prayer and fellowship with God; then as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear him.” And best of all, when our work is almost done, and the shadows of evening are lengthening, and we are about to depart into the land of spirits, what a consolation it is to receive another refreshment from the divine mouth! Such our Saviour had a little while before he was lifted up from the earth. In answer to his fervent cry, “Father, glorify thy name,” there came a voice from heaven saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” In our departing hours we are most anxious about that which was our life’s dearest object: the life-work of Christ was to glorify his Father’s name, concerning that he prayed, and concerning that the voice gave full assurance. The result of the Lord’s life-work was declared to be ensured, and therefore wrapping himself about with that heavenly testimony, the great Redeemer went bravely to his death. It is to be noted, then, that at the beginning, the middle, and end of our Master’s work, the divine voice was heard.

The first celestial witness was uttered after he had lived for thirty years in comparative obscurity. It seemed meet that when he first appeared there should be some token that he was what he professed to be. That heavenly declaration, be it also remembered, came just before his memorable temptation. He was to be forty days in the wilderness tempted of the devil, and among the horrible suggestions hissed forth from the serpent’s mouth would be the doubt, “If thou be the Son of God.” What better forearming of our great champion than the witness, “This is my beloved Son”? How in the recollection of that paternal testimony would the Son be made strong to overcome all the temptations of the fiend, or to endure the hunger which followed the forty days of lonely fast! Thus ever, my brethren, it is not with the Master only but with the servants; before temptation there cometh spiritual sustenance, which maketh the heart strong in endurance. Like Elias of old the believer falls asleep, being awakened, he eats bread of heaven’s own providing, in the strength of which meat he journeys forty days through the wilderness without weariness. Expect that when the Lord trieth you he will also send you strength to sustain you under it.

The second occasion of the heavenly utterance was when our Lord was about (according to Luke) to send out other seventy disciples to preach the Word. The twelve had healed the sick, cast out devils, and done many mighty works; but now the labourers were to be increased and the harvest more rapidly ingathered; the seventy evangelists were to carry the divine crusade through all the Holy Land. Brethren, it is instructive that heaven gave to our Saviour, before extending his agencies of mercy, a fresh token for good; and we also, when the Lord calls us to wider service, may go up to the mountain apart to pray, and while we are there we too may expect to enjoy the comforting and strengthening witness of the Spirit within; the heavenly voice shall whisper, “Thou art mine,” and we shall descend with radiant countenance to fight anew the battles of the Lord.

The third heavenly testimony came to our Lord just before his sufferings and death. I need not say to you how well-timed was that witness. With such a death before him, with such circumstances surrounding him, all tending to make his agony sharper and his death more terrible than any which had fallen to the lot of man before; with Gethsemane, with Gabbatha, with Golgotha, all before him; with such words as these yet to be uttered, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death,” and these, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” it was meet that the oppressed sufferer, who must tread the winepress alone, should receive at the outset a word from the throne of the highest, meeting exactly the point about which his soul was most concerned, namely, the glory of the Father’s name.

While still enlarging upon the time when the divine voices were heard, we may also note that the first came to our Lord when he was in the attitude of obedience. Why needed he to be baptised? It is a sinner’s ordinance, Jesus is no sinner and needs no washing, no death, no burial! But he takes the sinner’s place, and therefore comes to be buried in Jordan, for “thus,” saith he, “it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” It was to Christ an act of obedience. He took upon himself the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man he became obedient to every ordinance of God, and hence he yielded himself to baptism. Then came the voice, “This is my beloved Son.” Brethren and sisters, learn that when you are in the path of filial obedience you may expect the Spirit to bear witness with your spirit that you are born of God. If you live in neglect of any known duty, if you are wilfully unobservant of any command of Christ, you may expect that there shall be withholden from you the sweet assuring tokens of divine love; but if you be scrupulously obedient, only desiring to know what is the Lord’s will, and then promptly to do it, not asking the reason why, nor using your own tastes, or indulging your own whims. then in the path of obedience, especially if it cost you much, you may expect to have the witness in yourself that you are a child of God.

The second attestation came to our Master in his devout retirement. He had gone up to the mountain to pray; his desire was to be alone. He had taken with him his accustomed body-guard of three, Peter, and James, and John, that they might be with him while his soul communed with God. I doubt not that, as in the garden, they were bidden to remain a stone’s cast distance off, for surely Jesus poured out his soul before God alone; and then it was that suddenly the glory of God shone upon him; then, in his retirement, Moses and Elias appeared, coming forth from the spirit-world to commune with him; then did the Father utter a second time the testimony, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Brethren and sisters, you too, like your Master, may expect to receive divine testimonies when you are on the mount of communion alone, when your fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. The neglect of retirement will probably rob you of such assurances. If your prayer should be, “Show me a token for good,” the answer will be, “Get thee to the top of Tabor, get thee away to thy retirement, there will I give thee the token which thy heart desires.” But to live evermore spending our strength in public, wasting ourselves in the turmoil of this world, and to neglect the soul-refreshing ordinance of private devotion, is to deprive the inner man of the richest of spiritual delights.

The third testimony came to our Lord in his ministry. He was preaching in the temple when the Father responded to his prayer. Now while I have spoken a good word for obedience, and also have sought to magnify retirement, let it never be forgotten that public service is equally acceptable to God. Our Lord had been conversing with certain enquiring Greeks, and declaring the living power of his death to all who chose to hear him. In that selfsame hour the Father gave an audible answer to his prayer. If you, my brethren, are called to any form of service, I beseech you, under no pretext, neglect it. The neglect of anything for which you have the talent, and to which you have the call, may deprive you of the inward witness. Bear much fruit, so shall ye be his disciples, consciously so. Keep his commandments, so shall you abide in his love and know it. Forget not to be obedient, forget not to be prayerful in retirement, but forget not also that you are meant to shine as a light in this world, that you must work while it is called to-day, that you are not sent into this life merely to enjoy spiritual recreation or even celestial refreshment, but to do a work which no other can do, and for which you must give a personal account.

We must now dismiss the question of the time, and briefly consider to whom the attestations were given. The first at baptism, came to John and to our Lord, and most probably to them only. We do not think the voice from the opened heaven was necessarily heard by any one but John and our Lord. The token of the descending dove was given to John as the sign by which he should discern the Christ. “And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost.” John probably gathered from all that he had heard of Jesus that he was the great Bridegroom to whom he stood as friend, but he was not to follow his own judgment, he was to receive a token from God himself, and till that token came he could not act as one fully and indisputably convinced. When he had immersed our Lord he saw the heavens opened, saw the Spirit descending upon him, and heard the confirming voice, and then he knew beyond all doubt that Jesus was the Christ. To the Baptist, then, alone that voice was audible, but then through him it was published to all Judea.

The second testimony had a somewhat wider range, it came not to one but to three. Peter and James and John were present. What if I say to five, for there were with them Moses and Elias, representatives of the law and of the prophets, as the three apostles were the representatives of the Christian church, as if to show that law and gospel meet in Jesus, and the things in heaven and the things on earth are gathered together in one in him. The testimony enlarges, you see. At first one opened ear hears it, next five are assured thereby.

The third time the voice was heard of many, how many I cannot say, but the crowd in the temple heard it. Many heard it who did not understand it, for they said it thundered, perhaps perversely determining not to believe in the presence of God, but to ascribe that articulate voice rather to a rumbling thunder than to the divine mouth. Others who confessed that they heard words, averred that an angel spake-men will have anything but God; thunderpeals, or cherubim, or even devils they will welcome, but divine interpositions are irksome to them. Many, we say, heard the third voice, it was a testimony to the hundreds: may we not learn from this that God’s testimony to Christ is evermore a growing one? If at first he was revealed to one, then to more, then to a numerous band, expect, my brethren, the fulfilment of that promise, “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” If the glory of Jesus be to-day seen by thousands, it shall yet be unveiled to tens of thousands, and in the latter days the voice which spake once and again to our fathers, shall so speak as to shake not only earth but also heaven, and in that day if not before, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The heavenly testimony grows and spreads. Jesus is proclaimed as Lord in many hearts. Look not on the present littleness of his visible kingdom, despise not the day of small things; the witness of Jesus is but a spark of fire, but the conflagration thereof shall yet belt the world with holy flame.

The three testimonies were given in this wise; the first, to the greatest of men: for “among those that are born of women there was not a greater prophet than John the Baptist;” yet the voice revealed a greater than he, whose shoe-latchet he was not worthy to unloose. The second was heard by the best of men-the great lawgiver, the chief of the prophets and the noblest of the apostles, yet the voice bare witness to a better than they. The third time the voice echoed in the holiest place in the temple, and there it testified to a holier than the holiest shrine. Jesus is everywhere magnified beyond all others as the only beloved Son of the Father. I need not however enlarge. There is far more of teaching than either time or ability allow me to open up to you.

We come in the next place to notice to what God bore testimony. God never sets his seal to a blank. What was it, then, which he attested? First, at the Jordan, witness was borne to Christ’s miraculous origin. “This is my beloved Son.” He comes not here as the Pharisees, and soldiers, and others have done, a mere son of man. Son of man he is, but he is also Son of the infinite, eternal God, and now on his introduction to his work he receives a spiritual anointing and a recognition from the Father. The seal was set that day to his Godhead and his relation to the Father was acknowledged.

By the second audible declaration it seems to me that the Father sealed the Son’s appointment as the great prophet, and the anointed servant of God; for in the second testimony these memorable words were added, “hear him.” Here God commands us to accept him as the great Teacher, to acknowledge him as the Head of the dispensation, to yield to him our loyal attention and obedience. When the Lord appears, it is necessary that men should know who he is; when he is actually engaged in his work it may be needful to confirm his authority; this was done on the holy mount, for so Peter understood it, as he writes in his second epistle. “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.”

The third testimony bore witness to the success of his work. “I have both glorified my name,” saith the Father, “and will glorify it again.” “What,” say you, “what if Jesus should not succeed? He has come into the world to vindicate the justice of God, and reveal his love, and so to glorify God-what if he should miss the mark; what, if after all his life of labour and his death of agony he should be unsuccessful?” The Father’s word declares that the results anticipated shall certainly be produced. “I have glorified it,” saith the Father; “all thy past life has glorified my name; thy coming down from heaven, thy life of thirty years’ obedience, all the works which thou hast done in thy three years of toil, all these have brought renown to the infinite Majesty; and “I will glorify it again,” in the supremest sense; amidst the glooms of the garden, amidst the terrors of Pilate’s hall, and amidst the sorrows of the cross, I will glorify my name yet again; yea, and in thy resurrection, in thine ascension, in thy majesty at my right hand, in thy judgment of the quick and dead I will glorify my name again.” The three voices may be viewed as attesting the Son’s person, work, and success.

Some have thought that the three voices attested our Lord in his threefold offices. John came proclaiming the kingdom: Jesus was in his baptism proclaimed as the chief of the new kingdom. On the second occasion, the voice which said, “Hear him,” ordained him as the prophet of his people. And on the third occasion Jesus was owned as a priest. Standing in the midst of priests, in the temple where sacrifice was offered, himself about to offer the true sacrifice, praying that his sacrifice might glorify God, he receives the witness that God has been glorified in him, and will be yet again.

My brethren, in this threefold witness receive into your hearts the testimony of God, who cannot lie. Behold your Saviour, well pleasing to his Father; let him be well pleasing to you. Hear him proclaimed as God’s beloved; O let him be the beloved of your hearts! Hear the testimony born to him that he has glorified God, and remember that his further glorifying God in some measure depends on you, for it is by your godly conversation, by your holy patience, by your zealous exertions for your Master’s praise, that God in Christ Jesus is to be glorified until he cometh. Let these three testimonies, as they make up a complete and conclusive code of evidence, have force upon your hearts and minds, and win you to a solemn confidence in your Lord and Master.

I shall now ask your attention to the question, How were the testimonies given? Observe that when our Lord was baptised, the heavens were opened and the Spirit descended. What if this proclaims to us that by his obedience our Lord procured the opening of heaven for us, that our prayers might ascend to God, and all blessings might descend to us, and especially that the Holy Ghost might come down and rest for ever upon the church of God? The Master’s baptism was the type of his death. Buried beneath the waters of Jordan, he pictured there his being buried in the deeps of agony and in the darkness of the tomb; rising from the Jordan, he typified his resurrection; ascending its banks he represented his ascension into heaven. God sees in figure all righteousness fulfilled, and answers the type by the relative type of heaven opened and the dove descending.

Heaven was not beheld as opened when a second time the voice was heard. In Luke 9 we read that the voice came out of the cloud. The overshadowing cloud is a beautiful representation of the mediatorship of Christ. He, like a glorious cloud, veils the excessive brightness of the Godhead, and shields us, that when God speaks he may not speak as from the top of Sinai, with voice of trumpet and sound of thunder, but may speak through an interposing medium, with that still, small voice of love which we can hear with delight. Out of the cloud, my brethren, God speaks to his people; that is to say, he speaks to us in Christ Jesus That was a strong utterance of Luther, but it was strictly true, “I will have nothing to do with an absolute God,” meaning I will have nothing to do with God out of Christ. If, indeed, we had to do with God out of Christ, what misery were it for us, my brethren? We should stand in the same terror as Israel did when bounds were set about the mount. Even Moses said, “I do exceeding fear and quake.” It is a great mercy that the heavenly voice, as it reaches us, comes out of the cloud.

In reading the narrative of the third divine testimony, our mind rests neither upon the opening of heaven nor the cloud, but upon the voice alone, as if the glory of God in the work of Christ put every other thought aside. The opening of heaven, or the interposition of a mediator, are but means to the great end of glorifying God. O that this one great object may absorb all our souls! But, alas! the voice, plain as it was, was misunderstood, and the clearest revelation that God ever gave to mortals has been misunderstood by many. There will be those who think of thunder and the so-called grandeur of nature, and others who see only angels or second causes.

Once more, consider what was it that was spoken on those three occasions. There was a difference in each case, though in the first two but slight. The first time the heavenly voice preached the gospel, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The old fathers were wont to say, “Go to Jordan if you would see the Trinity,” and we may add, go to Jordan if you would hear the gospel. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Observe the gospel in this sentence. The gospel is tidings concerning a blessed person sent of God; such tidings the Lord here utters. This man rising dripping from the water-floods, this man is pointed out as the hope of the world. The gospel is never preached except where the person of Jesus Christ is exhibited to men. “I, if I be lifted up”-not truths about me-but “I myself, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” The attraction lies in the person of Christ, because the real power to save lies there. We have here the gospel revealing the acceptableness of the chosen person with God-“My beloved Son.” What men needed was a Saviour who could stand for them before God, one dear to the heart of God. It is good news to us that the anointed one is wellbeloved of the Father. Why, my hearers, though I have not yet opened up the fulness of that utterance, does not gospel light break in upon you already? Here is a person sent of God to save, a man of your own race, but yet right wellbeloved of God, and so near to God as to be called his beloved Son. But note, yet more earnestly, the gospel of the next words, “In whom I am well pleased;” not “With whom,” as hasty readers suppose, but “In whom I am well pleased.” This is the very gospel, that God as he looks upon men is well pleased with all who are in Christ. God in Christ is not anger, but good pleasure. If I, a poor sinner, enter by faith into Christ, then I may be assured that God is well pleased with me; that, if I as his child come to him, and by a living faith link my destiny with the life and person of Christ, I need not fear the wrath of heaven. Sinner, God is not well pleased with you as you are; child of God, God is not well pleased with you as you are: there is enough about either saint or sinner to provoke the Lord to jealousy; but, sinner, if thou art in Christ by faith God is well pleased with thee; and, O heir of heaven, with all thine infirmities and imperfections, since thou art one with Christ by an eternal and now vital union, God is well pleased with thee. Said I not well that the gospel sounded from Jordan’s waves?

The second sound of the voice uttered not only the gospel itself, but the gospel command, “Hear him.” Matthew Henry has some very delightful remarks upon this expression, “Hear him.” He remarks in effect that salvation does not come by seeing, as the Romish church would have it, for the disciples were not directed to behold Christ in his glory, though the sight deserved all their attention, but they were bidden to hear rather than see. To hear the gospel is a most important duty, for faith cometh by hearing. But salvation comes not by hearing the doctrines of men but by hearing Jesus Christ. There stood Moses; and those three Jewish worthies, Peter and James and John, might have longed for Moses to open his mouth, and had he spoken to them they would have been very attentive to him, but the word was not, “Hear Moses,” but “Hear him.” There was Elias, too. O for a burning word from that master among the prophets, whose life was flame; but it was not said, “Hear ye Elias,” but “Hear him.” “They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them,” is the word sent to careless sinners, but to sincere seekers the direction is, “Hear him.” Dear brethren and sisters, the great salvation of God comes to us through the testimony of Jesus Christ; not through the moral essays or philosophical treatises or doctrinal discussions of men. “Hear him.” The gospel so commands you. Let not your ear be deaf when God communicates tidings of eternal life.

On the third occasion the testimony given was not the gospel nor the gospel precept, but the gospel’s result: “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” I call your attention to this that you may be earnest in preaching the gospel. It is through the gospel that God is glorified. By the poorest gospel sermon that was ever preached, God through his Holy Spirit, gets to himself a glory which the most pompous ritual cannot yield him. You never speak well of Jesus but what you glorify God. No gospel word falls to the ground and is lost; it must accomplish that whereunto God hath sent it. He has glorified his name by the gospel, and he will again. Let this encourage those of you who are afraid that the times are very bad, and that we are all going to the pope. Do not be at all afraid. God will glorify his name by the gospel again as he did before. Martin Luther was not in himself a character so lovely that one might be overwhelmed with admiration of him: wherein then lay his power? His power lay in this, that he grasped the true gospel, and he was a man who, when he grasped a thing, gave it a grip so firm that the devil himself could not wrench it away from him. With the gospel in his hands he could say, “Heaps upon heaps with the weapon of the gospel I have slain my thousands; heaps upon heaps the foes of God are overturned.” He was mighty because he declared the gospel of Jesus Christ, and with this he shook the world and brought about the Reformation. You need not therefore despair. If the ministers of Christ will only come back to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, plainly, simply, and with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, we shall drive the Ritualists, those cubs of the old Roman monster, back to their dens, as our fathers did their mother of old. Never lose your faith in the gospel. Always believe that our power is gone when we get away from the cross, but know also of a truth that when we come back to the truth as it is in Jesus, God glorifies his name.

Let us now observe one or two instructive circumstances connected with these three divine voices. On each occasion Jesus was in prayer.

My dear, dear young people, look out the proofs of that in your Bibles. You will find in one or other of the evangelists that it is distinctly stated on each occasion that our Lord was in prayer. Learn, then, that if any child of God would have God speak comfortably to him, he must speak to God in prayer. If you would have the witness of the Holy Ghost in your soul, you must be much in supplication. Neglect not the mercy seat.

Notice next, that each time the sufferings of Christ were prominently before him. John, at the waters of Jordan had said, “Behold the Lamb of God;” plainly speaking of sacrifice. Baptism itself, the fulfilling of all righteousness, we have seen to be the type of his death, and of his immersion in suffering. On Tabor, on the second occasion, Matthew tells us that, “Behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.” The subject that the best of men talked about when they met was the death of Jesus. No better topic, then, for us when we meet. If we were the most talented and the wisest men that ever lived, if we met together and wanted the most select topic for an eclectic discourse, we ought to choose the cross; for Jesus, Moses, and Elias, three great representative men, talked of the atoning death of the great Substitute. The third time our Lord had just spoken about the hour being come in which he was to be glorified, as you well remember. Learn then, my brethren, that if you desire to see the glory of Christ, as attested of the Father, you must dwell much on his death. Do not talk to me about the life of Christ in all its purity, I know it and rejoice in it; but I tell you that the death of Christ, in all his misery, is the grandest point of view. The example of Jesus should be exalted by all means, but his atonement is grander far; and you, sirs, who take the man Christ, and offer your pretty, complimentary phrases about him, but then turn round and deny his expiating sacrifice, I tell you your tawdry offerings are unacceptable to him; to be complimented by your lips is almost to be censured, for if you do not believe on him as an atoning sacrifice, you do not understand his life. Thus each attestation came in connection with the Lord’s sufferings, as if the glory of Christ dwelt mainly there.

Once more, each time that Jesus received this word from the Father he was honouring the Father. In baptism he was honouring him by obedience; on the mountain he was honouring him in devotion; in the temple the very words he was using were, “Father, glorify thy name.” Oh, if you would see God’s glory, and hear God’s voice in your own heart, honour him, spend and be spent for him, keep not back your sacrifices, withhold not your offerings, lay yourselves upon his altar, and when you say with Isaias, “Here am I, send me,” for any service whatever it may be, then shall you also feel that the Lord is with you, owning both you and your work, and glorifying himself in it.

Earnestly let me speak to every one here. God has three times with audible voice spoken out of heaven to bear witness to Jesus. These are historical facts. I beseech you then receive with assured conviction the truth to which God bears witness. The Man of Nazareth is the Son of the Highest; the Son of Mary is the Saviour appointed to bear human sin; he is the way of salvation, and the only way. Doubt not this truth; accept the Saviour, for God declares that he is well pleased in him; hear him then, with profound reverence, accept the teaching and invitations of Jesus as not the mere utterances of fallible men, but as the instructions and the loving expostulations of God. I pray you have respect to every word and command of Christ. Listen to him as spirits listen to the voice of the Most High when they bow before the throne; and if he saith to you, as he does this morning, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” hear ye him and lovingly obey the command. Hear him, I pray you, with unconditional obedience. God attests him as being sent from heaven; whatsoever he saith unto you, do it; and since he bids you believe him, be not unbelieving. He has told us to say in his name, “He that believeth, and is baptised, shall be saved.” Despise not that double command. Attend, O sinner, attend, for it is the Son of God who speaks to thee. Trust and be baptised, and thou shalt be saved. There stands the gospel stamped with the authority of deity; obey it now. May the Holy Spirit lead thee so to do.

Hear him, lastly, with joyful confidence. If God has sent Jesus, trust him; if he bears the glory of God’s seal upon him, joyfully receive him. Ye who have trusted him, trust him better from this day forth. Leave your souls right confidently in the hand of him of whom Jehovah, thrice speaking out of heaven, declares that he is the only Saviour. Receive him, sinner, thou that wouldst be saved. May the Lord confirm the testimony which he spake out of heaven, by speaking in your hearts by his Holy Spirit, that you may rejoice in his beloved Son, and glorify God in him.

Portions op Scripture read before Sermon-Mark 1:1-13; Luke 9:28-36; John 12:20-33.

OVERWHELMING OBLIGATIONS

A Sermon

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?”-Psalm 116:12.

Deep emotion prompts this question; but where are the depths of love and gratitude that can meet its exuberant demands? You will perhaps remember an incident in the life of a famous soldier, who also became a famous Christian, Colonel James Gardiner. One night, when he was little thinking of divine things, but on the contrary had made an appointment of the most vicious kind, he was waiting for the appointed hour, when he saw, or thought he saw before him in the room wherein he sat alone, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, and he was impressed, as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him to this effect-“O sinner, I did all this for thee; what hast thou done for me?” Some such representation as that I would put before the eyes of every person in this assembly. I earnestly pray that the vision of the Christ of God, the mercy of God, the love of God, may appear to all your eyes, and may a voice say in your conscience, both to saint and sinner, “I did all this for thee; what hast thou done for me?” It will be a humiliating night probably for us all, if such should be the case, but humiliation may prove salutary; yea, the very healthiest frame of mind in which we can be found.

I shall first of all this evening, invite you to cast up a sum in arithmetic.

The text suggests this. “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?” Come, let us reckon up, though I know that the number will surpass all human numeration, let us try to reckon up his benefits towards any one of us. I wish each one of you, distinctly and severally, would now endeavour to think of the mercy of God towards yourself.

First, let us call over the roll of our temporal mercies. They are but secondary, but they are very valuable. There is a special providence in the endowment of life to each individual creature. David did not disdain to trace back the hand of God to the hour of his nativity; and Paul adored the grace of God that separated him from the time that his mother gave him birth. Our gratitude may, in like manner, revert to the days when we hung upon the breast; or in the case of some, you may thank the goodness that supplied the lack of a mother’s tender love. Childhood’s early days might then make our thoughts busy, and our tongues vocal with praise. But here we are now. We have been preserved, some of us, these thirty or forty years. We might have been cut down, and punished in our sin. We might have been swept away to the place where despair makes eternal night. But we have been kept alive in the midst of many accidents. By some marvellous godsend, death has been turned aside just as it seemed, with a straight course, to be posting towards us. When fierce diseases have been waiting round to hurry us to our last home, we have yet escaped. Nor have we existed merely. God has been pleased to give us food and raiment, and a place whereon to lay our weary heads. To many here present he has given all the comforts of this life, till they can say, “My cup runneth over; I have more than heart can wish.” To all here he has given enough, and though you may have passed through many straits, yet your bread has been given you, and your water has been sure. Is not this cause for thankfulness. You cannot think of a shivering beggar to-night in the streets, you cannot think of the hundreds of thousands in this unhappy country-unhappy for that reason-who have no shelter but such as the poor-house can afford them, and no bread but such as is doled out to them as a pauper’s meagre pittance, without being grateful that you have been hitherto supplied with things convenient for your sustenance, and defended from that bitter, biting penury which palls self-respect, cows industry, damps the ardour of resolution, chafes the heart, corrodes the mind, prostrates every vestige of manliness, and leaves manhood itself to be the prey of misery and the victim of despair. More than that, we have reason to-night to be very grateful for the measure of health which we enjoy. “It is indeed a strange and awful sensation, to be suddenly reduced by the unnerving hand of sickness to the feebleness of infancy; for giant strength to lie prostrate, and busy activity to be chained to the weary bed.” Oh! when the bones begin to ache, and sinews and tissues seem to be but roads for pain to travel on, then we thank God for even a moment’s rest. Do you not know what it is to toss to and fro in the night and wish for the day, and when the daylight has come to pine for the night? If there has been an interval of relief, just a little lull in the torture and the pain, how grateful you have been for it! Shall we not be thankful for health then, and specially so for a long continuance of it? You strong men that hardly know what sickness means, if you could be made to walk the wards of the hospital, and see where there have been broken bones, where there are disorders that depress the system, maladies incurable, pangs that rack and convulse the frame, and pains all but unbearable, you would think, I hope, that you had cause enough for gratitude. Not far off this spot there stands a dome-I thank God for the existence of the place of which it forms a part-but I can never look at it, I hope I never shall, without lifting up my heart in thanks to God that my reason is spared. It is no small unhappiness to be bereft of our faculties, to have the mind swept to and fro in hurricanes of desperate, raging madness, or to be victims of hallucinations that shut you out from all usefulness, and even companionship with your fellow men. That you are not in St. Luke’s or Bedlam to-night, should be a cause for thankfulness to Almighty God. But why do I enlarge here? Consider what pains the human body may be subjected to; imagine what ills may come upon humanity; conceive what distress, what woe, what anguish, we are all capable of bearing, and then in proportion as you have been secured from all these, and in proportion on the other hand as you have been blessed with comforts and enjoyments, “let each generous impulse of your nature warm into ecstacy,” and ask yourselves the question, “What shall we render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward us?” Cast up the sum, and then draw a line, and ask what is due to God for even these common boons of providence.

But, my brethren and sisters in Christ, you who have something better than this life to rest upon, I touch a higher and a sweeter string, a chord which ought to tremble with a nobler melody, when I say to you-think of the spiritual blessings which you have received. It is not very long ago that you were in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity. We look back but for a little while, some of us, and we were under the bondage of the law. We had been awakened, and we felt the load and the guilt of sin: a grievous burden, from which we feared we never could escape; a flagrant defilement from which we knew no means of cleansing. Do not I remember well my fruitless prayers; my tears that were my meat both day and night; my grief of heart, that cut me to the quick, but from which I found no kind of deliverance! How I sought the Lord then! How I cried for mercy, but I found none! I was shut up and could not come forth; delivered up to fear, and doubt, and despair. Bless the Lord, it is over now. Blessed be the name of God, the soul has escaped like a bird out of the net, and this night, instead of talking of sin as a thing unpardonable, I can stand here and say for you as well as myself, that he hath put away all our iniquity, and cast our transgressions into the depths of the sea. If he had never done anything for us but that, it seems to me that we should be bound for ever and for ever to extol his name with as much exultation as Miriam and Moses felt, when Miriam took the timbrel, and Moses wrote the song, “Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation.”

Not indeed, beloved, that forgiven sin was the total; it was but an item, the beginning of his tender mercies towards us, for after that he comforted us like as a mother comforteth her children. He bound up every wound; he removed every blot; he covered us with a robe of righteousness, and decked us with the jewels of the Spirit’s graces. He adopted us into his family, even us who were aliens by nature, foes by long habit, rebels and traitors by our revolt against “his government; he made us heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. All the privileges of sonship, which never would have been ours by nature, have been secured to us by regeneration, and by adoption. All his benefits! If these were all, oh, what should we render unto him who is the author and giver of such inestimable blessings? All his benefits! How could we estimate their value, even if we had to stop here? for mark you, they are benefits indeed, not merely the kind intent of benevolence, or good wishes, which may or may not be of real service to us; but verily the saving effect of beneficence, or good deeds accomplished for us, the full advantage of which we have, richly to enjoy. There is a vexatious uncertainty about all human philanthropy. How weak it often is, expending strength for nought, and failing to mature its best projects! What, though the physician should exhaust the resources of medical science while he spares no pains in watching his patient? that patient may die. What, though the advocate plead for his client with intense fervour, cogent reasoning, and a torrent of eloquence? that client may yet lose his cause. What, though the general of an army command the troops ever so skilfully, and fight against the enemy ever so bravely? the battle may yet be lost. The heroic volunteer who assays to rescue a drowning man may fail in the endeavour, and lose his own life in the attempt. The valiant crew that man the life-boat may not succeed in bringing the shipwrecked to shore. The best aims may miscarry. Kindness, like ore of gold in the breast of the creature, may never be minted into the coin of benefit, or pass current for its real worth. Not all donations expended in charity are effectual to relieve distress. But the benefits of God are all fully beneficial. They answer the ends they are designed to serve. Forgetfulness on the part of God’s children is without excuse, for here we are, monuments of mercy, pillars of grace, living epistles; ay, the living, the living to praise thee, O God, as I do this day; and thus beholden to the Lord for all his benefits, I feel that my thoughts and actions of adoring gratitude should break forth, restrained by no shore, but be continually overflowing every embankment that custom has thrown up, and send out in tears of love and sweat of labour, fertilising streams on the right hand and on the left.

All his benefits! Ring that note again. His benefits are so many, so various, so minute, that they often escape our observation while they exactly meet our wants. True it is, the Lord hath done great things for us which may well challenge the admiration of angels; but true it also is that he hath done little things for us, and bestowed attention upon all our tiny needs and our childish cares and anxieties. As we turn over the leaves of our diary, we are lost in wonder at the keenness of that vision and the extent of that knowledge, whereby even the hairs of our head are all numbered. O God, what infinite tenderness, what boundless compassion, hast thou shown to us! Thou hast continued to forgive our offences: thou hast perpetually upheld us in the hour of temptation. What comforts have delighted our soul in the times of trouble! What gentle admonitions have brought us back in the times of our going astray! We have had preserving mercies, sustaining mercies, enriching mercies, sanctifying mercies. Who shall count the small dust of the favours and bounties of the Lord? My dear brethren, it is no small benefit that God has conferred upon some of us that we are members of a happy church on earth, that we are united together in the bonds of love. I know some of you used to be members of other churches where there were periodical conflicts, and you are glad enough that you have come with a loving and happy people where you can serve the Lord to your heart’s content, and meet with warm-hearted fellow Christians who will bid you Godspeed. My heart exults in the thought of all the prosperity we have enjoyed in this place. The Lord’s name be praised. Even as a church, over and above the mercies which have come to us as private Christians, I would say, and I would invite you to join me in saying, “What shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits toward us?”

But, beloved, we have only begun the list of those mercies that we strive in vain to enumerate, we shall not essay to finish it, for blessed be God it never will be finished. He has given us himself to be our portion; he has given us his providence to be our guardian; he has given us his promise to be the voucher for our inheritance. We shall not die, though we must sleep, unless the Lord first cometh. Yet we shall sleep in Jesus. Our bones and ashes shall be watched over and preserved until the trumpet of the resurrection shall summon them by its voice, and our bodies shall be reanimated by divine power; for our souls, we have the sure and certain hope that we shall be with Christ where he is, that we may behold his glory. We are looking forward to the blessed day when he shall say to us, “Come up higher,” and from the lower room of the feast we shall ascend into the upper chamber, nearer to the King, to sit at his right hand and feast for ever. Oh, the depths of his mercy! Oh, the heights of his lovingkindness! Faithfulness has followed us, not a promise has been broken, not one good thing has failed us.

Now, my dear brethren and sisters, what have I just given you but a sort of general outline of the mercies the Lord has bestowed on us, and the benefits we have received at his hand? If each one would try to fill that outline up, by the rehearsal of his own case, and the life-story of his own experience, how much glory God might get from this assembly to-night. Your case is different from mine in the incidents that compose it; I believe mine is different from any of yours, but this I know, there is not a man in this place that owes more to God than I do, there is not one here that ought to be more grateful; there cannot be one that is more indebted to the goodness of the Lord than I am for every step of the pilgrimage that I have trodden, from the first day even until now. I can, nay, I must, speak well of his name. Truly God is good, and I have found him so. “The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.” I have proved him so. Well, but I know all your tongues are itching to say the same. You feel that though he has led you through deep waters, and through fiery trials, and sometimes chastened you very severely, he has not given you over to death, but he has dealt with you as a father with his son whom he loveth, and been to you as a friend that never forsaketh. You would not breathe half-a-word against his blessed name. Rather you would say, to borrow an expression which Rutherford constantly used, that you are “drowned debtors to God’s mercy.” He meant that he was over head and ears in debt to God: he could not tell how deep his obligations were, so he just called himself “a drowned debtor “to the lovingkindness and the mercy of his God. Well, there is a sum for you. If you want to use your arithmetical faculties, sit down when you can get an hour’s quiet, and try to tell up all the precious thoughts of God towards you-all his benefits.

Our second point shall be a calculation of the gratitude which is due to God for all this.

I should like to make each man his own assessor to-night, to assess the income of mercy which he has received, and put down what should be the tribute of gratitude which he should return to the revenue of the great King. “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits?” Calculate for a minute what we owe to God the Father, and what we ought to render him for the debt. As many as have believed in Christ, were chosen of God the Father from before all worlds. He might have left them unchosen. It was his own absolute good pleasure which wrote them in the roll of the elect. He has chosen you, my brother; and you, my sister, that you should be holy, that you should be his child, that you should be made like your elder brother, Christ Jesus; and because he chose you to this, to this you shall come, though all the powers of earth and hell should withstand, for the divine decree abides immutably steadfast, and shall surely be fulfilled. You are God’s favourite one, his child, ordained to dwell for ever in eternal bliss. What shall we render for this? O let the thought just stir the depths of your soul a minute, if indeed it be so, that the seal of the covenant hath been set upon you. Before the sun began to shine, or the moon to march in her courses, God did choose me, in whom there was nothing to engross his love-nothing to attract his favour. O my God, if it be so, that I, of all the sons of Adam, should be made a distinguishing object of thy grace, and the subject of thy discriminating favour, take me, take my body, take my soul, take my spirit, take my goods, my talents, my faculties; take all I have, and all I am, and all I ever hope to be, for I am thine. Thou hast loosed my bonds, but thy mercy has bound me to thy service for ever.

Now think for a minute of what you owe to God the Son, to Jesus Christ. I mean as many of you as have believed on him. Think for a moment on the habitation of the highest glory, and consider how Jesus left his Father’s throne, deserted the courts of angels, and came down below to robe himself in an infant’s clay. There contemplate him tabernacling in our nature; see him after he has grown up, leading a life of toil and pain, bearing our sicknesses, and carrying our sorrows. Let your eye look straight into the face of the man who was acquainted with grief. I shall not ask you to track all his footsteps, but I would bid you come to that famous garden, where in the dead of the night he knelt and prayed, until in agony he sweat drops of blood. It was for you, for you, believer, that there the sweat-drops bloody fell to the ground. You see him rise up. He is betrayed by his friend. For you the betrayal was endured. He is taken. He is led off to Pilate. They falsely accuse him; they spit in his face; they crown him with thorns; they put a mock sceptre of reed into his hands. For you that ignominy was endured; for you especially and particularly the Lord of Glory passed through these cruel mockings. See him as he bears his cross: his shoulder is bleeding from the recent lash. See him, as along the Via Dolorosa he sustains the cruel load. He bears that cross for you. Your sins are on his shoulders laid, and make that cross more heavy than had it been made of iron. See him on the cross, lifted up between heaven and earth, a spectacle of grievous woe. Hear him cry, “I thirst!” and hear his cry more bitter still, while heaven and earth are startled by it, “Why hast thou forsaken me, my God, my God?” He is enduring all those griefs for you. For you the thirst and the fainting, the nakedness and the agony. For you the bowing of the head, the yielding up the ghost, the slumber in the cold and silent tomb. For you his resurrection when he rises in the glory of his might, and for you afterwards the ascension into heaven, when they sing, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors.” For you his constant pleading at the right hand of the Father. Yes, all for you, and what should be done for him? What tribute shall we lay at the pierced feet? What present shall we put into that nailed hand? Where are kisses that shall be sweet enough for his dear wounds? Where is adoration that shall be reverent enough for his blessed and exalted person? Daughters of music, bring your sweetest songs. Ye men of wealth, bring him your treasures. Ye men of fame and learning, come lay your laurels at his feet. Let us all bring all that we have, for such a Christ as this deserveth more than all. What shall we render, Christ of God, to thee for all thy benefits towards us?

Let me ask you to think for a moment on the third Person of the blessed Godhead, namely, the Holy Ghost. Let us never forget that when we were like filthy rags his hand touched us. When we were like corrupt and rotten carcases in the graves of sin, his breath quickened us. It was his hand that led us to the cross. It was his finger that took the film from the eye. It was his eyesalve that illuminated us that we should look to Jesus and live. Since that hour the blessed Spirit has lived in our heart. Oh, what a dreadful place, I was about to say, for God to dwell in! But the Holy Ghost has never utterly left us. We have grieved him; we have vexed him offtimes; but still he is here, still resident within the soul, never departing, being himself the very life of the living incorruptible seed that abideth for ever. My dear friends, how often the Holy Ghost has comforted you! How very frequently in your calm moments has he revealed Christ to you! How often has the blessed truth been laid home to you with a divine savour which it never could have had, if it had not been for him! He is God, and the angels worship him, and yet he has come into the closest possible contact with you. Christ was incarnate, and the flesh in which he was incarnate was pure and perfect. The Holy Ghost was not incarnate, but still he comes to dwell in the bodies of his saints, bodies still impure, still unholy. Oh, what grace and condescension is this! Thou blessed Dove, thou Dear Comforter, thou kind Lover of the fallen sons of men, thy condescension is matchless! We love thee even as we love Christ himself, and this night if we ask the question, “What shall we render unto the Lord the Holy Ghost for all his benefits towards us?” we know not how to answer, but can only say, “Take us, take us, Holy Spirit; use us; fill us with thyself; sanctify us to thy holiest purposes; use us right up; make us living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, for it is our reasonable service.”

Now, perhaps, by God’s Spirit, the text may come a little more vividly before your minds. You have had another opportunity of adding up all the benefits of God: another opportunity, dear brother or sister, of calculating what you ought to do.

Give heed, then, for I intend to come, in closing, to be very personal and practical. I wish to speak very pointedly to you as individuals, but there are so many of you, that some are sure to slip away in the crowd. I half wish I were in the position of the preacher who had but one hearer, and addressed him as “Dearly beloved Roger.” I want to put the question of my text as though only one person were here, and that one person yourself. “What shall I render to the Lord?” Never mind your neighbour, your brother, your sister, your husband, your wife, or anybody else just now. If you are a saved soul, the question for you is, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?” “What shall I render?” Suppose, dear friend, you had been the woman bowed with an infirmity for so many years, and Christ had loosed you, and you had stood upright to-night; what would you render? Well, you have been loosed from your infirmity, a much worse decrepitude than the physical ailment she was released from. Suppose you had been poor blind Bartimeus sitting by the wayside begging, born blind, and you had your sight given you to-night; what would you render? But you have had such a gift bestowed on you. You were in spiritual blindness, worse than that which is only natural, and Christ has opened your eyes; what will you render? Suppose you had been Lazarus, and had been in the grave so long that you began to be corrupt, and Christ had raised you to life, what would you render? Well, you have been quickened when you were dead in sin. You were corrupt; you were buried in darkness and in sin; but you can say with the psalmist, “O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave.” Now, what will you render to him? Suppose he stood on this platform to-night, and instead of this poor voice, and these unclean lips, the voice of the Wellbeloved should speak in music to you, and the lips that are like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh could talk to each of you; what would you render to him then? Well, do the same as though he were here, for he sees you, ay, and indeed his Spirit hovering over this assembly will accept the tribute you give as though he were here in the flesh, or otherwise he will grieve over you and resent the neglect of your heart. Think of him as being here, and render unto him as though he were visibly and audibly in our midst.

What will you render? Let me ask you, dearly beloved, whether you have ever thought of what men and women can render? You may have read the lives, I hope you have, of Mr. and Mrs. Judson in Burmah, ready to sacrifice all for Christ; or the lives of our martyrs, in Foxe’s Martyrology, who rejoiced if they might burn for Christ. We have still some men and women amongst us-I wish there were more-whose lives of consecration tell you what men can be and do. Are you anything like them? If not, while they are not what they ought to be, and they fall short of the Master’s image, how far short must you be? Oh! I pray you be grieved that it is so, and press the question upon yourselves the more, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?”

A side question may help you. What have you rendered? You are getting old now, or at least you are getting to the prime of life; what have you done for Christ up to this time? Come, look; look back now, I must urge you to do it. Converted late perhaps, or if converted young, it matters not, still the question must come-What have you done hitherto? Oh! I dare not answer the question myself-yet I am not in that respect the worst here-I dare not look back upon my past life of service for God with anything like satisfaction. After having done all that we could do, we are but unprofitable servants; we have not done what was our duty. There is no man here, I fear, who can answer the question, “What have I rendered?” with any self-contentment. We must all drop a tear, feel abashed, and say, “Good Lord, let not the future be as barren as the past, but by thy mercy help us to a better and a nobler sort of living!”

May I ask you, as it may assist in answering the question, how old are you? Some of you tell me that you are far advanced in age; then what must you render in the few years you can have to live? Live hard, beloved, live hard; live fast in a spiritual sense, for you have little time to use, none to waste. Get as much done as can be done for your dear Lord, before he calls you to his face. You are young, others of you tell me. Oh! then with such a long opportunity as God may give you, you ought to be diligent every moment. If you are not diligent now in your early days, there is no likelihood that you will be afterwards. Since you have the especial and peculiar advantage of early piety, O render to the Lord the more, because he has opened before you a wider field, and given you more time to cultivate it than full many of his people have known.

Let me ask you, again, what are your capacities? That, perhaps, will help you to answer the question. “Oh,” says one, “I cannot do much.” Well then, my dear friend, do the little you can, do it, all; do it up to the very point, do not leave an inch untouched. If you can only do a little, do all of that, and do it heartily; and keep at it till you die. Says another, “Perhaps God has entrusted some talents to me.” Then he expects a great deal from the employment of them. O do not let your talents lie idle! Your talents are not meant for your gain, nor merely to serve the world; they are meant to serve your God with, who hath redeemed you with the precious blood of Jesus. Take care, whether you have much or little, to give him all.

I will put another question to you that may stir your mettle. How did you serve Satan before you were converted? What rare boys some of you were; not sparing body or soul to enjoy the pleasures of sin. Oh, with what zest, with what fervour and force, and vehemence, did many of you dance to the tune of the devil’s music! I wish you would serve God half as well as some of the devil’s servants serve him. What, now you have a new friend, a new lover, a new husband, shall he ever look you in the face and say, “You do not love me so well as the old; you do not serve me so zealously”? Shall Jesus Christ say to any man or woman among us, “Thou dost not love me so well as thou didst love the world; thou wast never weary of serving the world, but thou dost soon get weary of serving me”? O my poor heart, wake up! wake up! What art thou at, to have served sin at such a rate, and then to serve Christ so little?

Another question may be to the point. How do you serve yourselves? You are in business some of you, and I like to see a man of business with his hands full and his wits about him. Your drones, those indolent fellows who go about the shop half asleep, and seem as if they never did wake up, what is the use of them? men who seem to cumber the earth, men who never did see a snail unless they happened to meet one, for they could not have overtaken it, they travel so slowly, such men are of little use to God or man. I know that the most of you are diligent in business. You never hear the ring of a guinea without being on the alert to earn it if possible. Your coats are off, and very likely your shirt-sleeves are turned up when there is a chance of driving trade. That I commend, but oh, do let us have something like it in the service of Jesus Christ. Do not let us be drudging in the world, and drawling in the church; lively in the service of mammon, and then laggard in the service of Christ. Heart and soul, manliness, vigour, vehemence, let the utmost strain of all our powers be put forth in the service of him who was never supine or dilatory in the service of our souls when they had to be redeemed.

I shall not keep you much longer, but still pressing the same question, let me ask you, dear friends, how do you think such service as you have rendered will look when you come to see it by the light of eternity? Oh, nothing of life will be worth having lived, when we come to die, except that part of it which was devoted and consecrated to Christ. Live, then, with your death-beds in immediate prospect. Live in the light of the next world, so will your pulse be quickened, and your heart excited in the Master’s service.

I now put the question, What shall we render? What shall I render unto the Lord. Let the question go all round the pews, and let everybody answer, What shall I render? Is there any new thing I can do for Christ that I never did before? Cannot I speak a word for Christ to somebody to-night? To-night, because you cannot overtake the loss of a single opportunity. To-morrow’s mercies will bring to-morrow’s obligations; to-day’s obligations must be discharged to-day. What shall I render to-night? Is there anybody I can speak to of Jesus ere I retire to my chamber? It is a little thing, but let me do it. What shall I render? Let me give my God praise to-night somehow. There is the communion table around which we are about to gather; that may help me to render him some homage; I will there take the cup of salvation, and call upon his name. To-morrow I shall be in the world going forth to my wonted labours. What shall I render? I will consecrate part of my substance to God, but I will try to consecrate all to-morrow and next day to him. While I am at my work, if I drive a plane, or use a hammer, or if I stand at a counter, or in the fields, or in the streets, I will ask that my thoughts may be up to God, that I may be kept from sin, and that by my example I may render some tribute of honour to his name in the sight of my fellow men, and I will try to seize every opportunity that comes in my way of telling

“To sinners round,

What a dear Saviour I have found.”

And yet, dear friends, it is not for me to answer the question that is propounded for you. With these few brief hints, I do put the question in all its touching pathos, in all its deep solemnity, in all its momentous gravity, before every Christian man and woman here, and I cite you to answer it before the searcher of all hearts, “What shall I render?” Thrice happy ye who respond in lip and life to the urgent call! “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed towards his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

As for those of you, my hearers, who are not yet converted, you who are not saved, this is not a question for you. Your question is, “What must I do to be saved?” and the answer is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” O believe on him to-night! Trust him-that is the point; trust Jesus Christ. You may come to him and be saved at once. Then, not till then, you will begin to serve him.

May God bless you, my dear friends, every one of you, for Christ’s sake.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon.-Psalm 116.