Christians are here compared to sheep. Not a very flattering comparison you may say; but then we do not wish to be flattered, nor would our Lord deem it good to flatter us. While far from flattering, it is, however, eminently consoling, for of all creatures there are not any more compassed about with infirmity than sheep. In this frailty of their nature they are a fit emblem of ourselves; at least, of so many of us as have believed in Jesus and become his disciples. Let others boast how strong they are; yet if there be strong ones anywhere, certainly we are weak. We have proved our weakness, and day by day we lament it. We do confess our weakness; yet may we not repine at it, for, as Paul said, so we find, when we are weak then are we strong. Sheep have many wants, yet they are very helpless, and quite unable to provide for themselves. But for the shepherd’s care they would soon perish. This, too, is our case. Our spiritual needs are numerous and pressing, yet we cannot supply any of them. We are travellers through a wilderness that yields us neither food nor water. Unless our bread drop down from heaven, and our water flow out of the living rock, we must die. Our weakness and our want we keenly feel: still we have no cause to murmur, since the Lord knows our poor estate, and succours us with the tenderest care. Sheep, too, are silly creatures, and in this respect likewise we are very sheepish. We meekly own it to him who is ready to guide us. We say, as David said, “O God, thou knowest my foolishness;” and he says to us as he said to David, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go.” If Christ were not our wisdom, we should soon fall a prey to the destroyer. Every grain of true wisdom that we possess we have derived from him; of ourselves we are dull and giddy; folly is bound up in our heart. The more conscious you are, dear brethren, of your own deficiencies, your lack of stamina, discretion, sagacity, and all the instincts of self-preservation, the more delighted you will be to see that the Lord accepts you under these conditions, and calls you the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. He discerns you as you are, claims you as his own, foresees all the ills to which you are exposed, yet tends you as his flock, sets store by every lamb of the fold, and so feeds you according to the integrity of his heart, and guides you by the skilfulness of his hands. “I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God.” Oh, what sweet music there is to us in the name which is given to our Lord Jesus Christ of “the good Shepherd”! It not only describes the office he holds, but it sets forth the sympathy he feels, the aptness he shows, and the responsibility he bears to promote our well-being. What if the sheep be weak, yet is the shepherd strong to guard his flock from the prowling wolf or the roaring lion. If the sheep suffer privation because the soil is barren, yet is the shepherd able to lead them into pasturage suitable for them. If they be foolish, yet he goes before them, cheers them with his voice, and rules them with the rod of his command. There cannot be a flock without a shepherd; neither is there a shepherd truly without a flock. The two must go together. They are the fulness of each other. As the church is the fulness of him that filleth all in all, so we rejoice to remember that “of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” That I am like a sheep is a sorry reflection; but that I have a shepherd charms away the sorrow and creates a new joy. It even becomes a gladsome thing to be weak, that I may rely on his strength; to be full of wants, that I may draw from his fulness; to be shallow and often at my wit’s end, that I may be always regulated by his wisdom. Even so doth my shame redound to his praise. Not to you, ye great and mighty, who lift your heads high, and claim for yourselves honour: not for you is peace, not to you is rest; but unto you, ye lowly ones, who delight in the valley of humiliation, and feel yourselves to be taken down in your own esteem-to you it is that the Shepherd becomes dear; and to you will he give to lie down in green pastures beside the still waters.

In a very simple way, we shall speak about the proprietor of the sheep. “My sheep,” says Christ. Then, we shall have a little to say about the marks of the sheep. After that I propose to talk awhile about the privileges of the sheep. “I know my sheep:” they are privileged to be known of Christ. “My sheep hear my voice.”

Who is the proprietor of the sheep? They are all Christ’s. “My sheep hear my voice.” How came the saints to be Christ’s?

They are his, first of all, because he chose them. Ere the worlds were made, out of all the rest of mankind he selected them. He knew the race would fall, and become unworthy of the faculties with which he endowed them, and the inheritance he had assigned them. To him belonged the sovereign prerogative that he might have mercy on whom he would have mercy; and he, out of his own absolute will, and according to the counsel of his own good pleasure, made choice severally and individually of certain persons, and he said, “These are mine.” Their names were written in his book: they became his portion and his heritage. Having chosen them of old so many ages ago, rest assured he will not lose them now. Men prize that which they have long had. If there is a thing that was mine but yesterday, and it is lost to-day, I might not fret about it; but if I have long possessed it, and called it my patrimony, I would not willingly part with it. Sheep of Christ, ye shall be his for ever, because ye have been his from ever. They are Christ’s sheep, because his Father gave them to him. They were the gift of the Father to Christ. He often speaks of them in this way. “As many as thou hast given me:” “Thou hast given them me,” saith he, over and over again. Of old, the Father gave his people to Christ. Separating them from among men, he presented them to him as a gift, committed them into his hand as a trust, and ordained them for him as the lot of his inheritance. Thus they become a token of the Father’s love to his only begotten Son, a proof of the confidence he reposed in him, and a pledge of the honour that shall be done unto him. Now, I suppose we most of us know how to value a gift for the donor’s sake. If presented to us by one whom we love, we set great store by it. If it has been designed to be a love-token, it awakens in our minds many sweet memories. Though the intrinsic worth may be of small account, the associations make it exceedingly precious. We might be content to lose something of far greater value in itself rather than that which is the gift of a friend, the offering of his love. I like the delicate sentiment of the poet, as it is expressed in that pretty verse-

“I never cast a flower away,

The gift of one who cared for me;

A little flower-a faded flower,

But it was done reluctantly.”

Yet, oh, how weak the words of human passion! but, oh, how strong the expressions of divine ardour, when Jesus speaks to the Father of “the men whom thou gavest me out of the world”! “Thine they were,” he says, “and thou gavest them me; and those that thou gavest me I have kept.” Ye sheep of Christ, rest safely; let not your soul be disturbed with fear. The Father gave you to his Son, and he will not lightly lose what God himself has given him. The infernal lions shall not rend the meanest lamb that is a love-token from the Father to his best Beloved. While Christ stands defending his own, he will protect them from the lion and the bear, that would take the lambs of his flock; he will not suffer the least of them to perish.

“My sheep,” says Christ. They are his, furthermore, because, in addition to his choice and to the gift, he has bought them with a price. They had sold themselves for nought; but he has redeemed them, not with corruptible things as with silver and gold, but with his precious blood. A man always esteems that to be exceedingly valuable which he procured with risk-with risk of life and limb. David felt he could not drink the water that the brave warriors who broke through the host of the Philistines brought to him from the well at Bethlehem, because it seemed to him as though it were the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives; and he poured it out before the Lord. It was too precious a draught for him, when men’s lives had been hazarded for it. But the good Shepherd not only hazarded his life, but even laid it down for his sheep. Jacob exceedingly valued one part of his possessions, and he gave it to Joseph: he gave him one portion above his brethren. Now, you may be sure he would give Joseph that which he thought most precious. But why did he give him that particular portion? Because, he says, “I took it out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.” Now, our blessed Shepherd esteems his sheep because they cost him his blood. They cost him his blood-I may say, he took them out of the hand of the Amorite with his sword and with his bow in bloody conflict, where he was victor, but yet was slain. There is not one sheep of all his flock but what he can see the mark of his blood on him. In the face of every saint the Saviour sees, as in a glass, the memorial of his bloody sweat in Gethsemane, and his agonies at Golgotha. “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price.” That stands as a call to duty, but it is at the same time a consolation, for if he has bought me, he will have me. Bought with such a price, he will not like to lose me, nor suffer any foe to take me out of his hand. Think not that Christ will suffer those to perish for whom he died. To me the very suggestion seems to draw near to the verge of blasphemy. If he has bought me with his blood, I cannot conceive he cares nothing for me, will take no further concern about me, or will suffer my soul to be cast into the pit. If he has suffered in my stead, where is justice gone that the substitute should bear my guilt, and I should bear it too? and where is mercy fled, that God should execute twice the punishment for one offence? Nay, beloved, those whom he hath bought with blood are his, and he will keep them.

“My sheep,” says Christ. They are his, or in due time they shall become so, through his capturing them by sacred power. As well by power are we redeemed as by price, for the blood-bought sheep had gone astray even as others. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way;” but, my brethren, the good shepherd has brought many of us back with infinite condescension: with boundless mercy he followed us when we went astray. Oh, what blind slaves we were when we sported with death! We did not know then what his love had ordained for us: it never entered our poor, silly heads that there was a crown for us; we did not know that the Father’s love had settled itself on us, or ever the day-star knew its place. We know it now, and it is he that has taught us; for he followed us over mountains of vanity, through bogs and miry places of foul transgression; tracked our devious footsteps on and on, through youth and manhood, till at last, with mighty grace, he grasped us in his arms and laid us on his shoulder, and is this day carrying us home to the great fold above, rejoicing as he bears all our weight and finds us in all we need. Oh, that blessed work of effectual grace! He has made us his own, he has defeated the enemy, the prey has been taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive has been delivered. “He hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron asunder,” to set his people free. “O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”

“My sheep,” saith Christ, as he stands in the midst of his disciples. “My Shepherd,” let us one and all reply. All the sheep of Christ who have been redeemed by his power, become his by their own willing and cheerful surrender of themselves to him. We would not belong to another if we might; nor would we wish to belong to ourselves if we could; nor, I trust, do we want any part of ourselves to be our own property. Judge ye whether this be true of you or not. In that day when I surrendered my soul, to my Spirit, I gave him my body, my soul, my spirit; I gave him all I had, and all I shall have for time and for eternity. I gave him all my talents, my powers, my faculties, my eyes, my ears, my limbs, my emotions, my judgment, my whole manhood, and all that could come of it, whatever fresh capacity or new capability I may be endowed with. Were I at this good hour to change the note of gladness for one of sadness, it should be to wail out my penitent confession of the times and circumstances in which I have failed to observe the strict and unwavering allegiance I owe to my Lord. So far from regretting, I would fain renew my vows and make them over again. In this I think every Christian would join.

“’Tis done! the great transaction’s done:

I am my Lord’s, and he is mine:

He drew me, and I follow’d on,

Charm’d to confess the voice divine.

Now rest, my long-divided heart;

Fix’d on this blissful centre, rest:

With ashes who would grudge to part,

When call’d on angels’ bread to feast?

High heaven, that heard the solemn vow,

That vow renew’d shall daily hear:

Till in life’s latest hour I bow,

And bless in death a bond so dear.”

And yet, brethren, though our hearts may now be all in a glow, lest they should presently grow cold, or the bleak atmosphere of this evil world should chill our devotion, let us never cease to think of the good Shepherd in that great, good act, which most of all showed his love when he laid down his life for the sheep. You have heard the story told by Francis de Sales. He saw a girl carrying a pail of water on her head, in the midst of which she had placed a piece of wood. On asking her why she did this, she told him it was to prevent the motion of the water, for fear it might be spilt. And so, said he, let us place the cross of Christ in the midst of our hearts to check the movement of our affections, that they may not be spilt in restless cares or grievous troubles.

“My sheep,” says Christ, and thus he describes his people. They are Christ’s, his own, a peculiar property. May I hope that this truth will be henceforth treasured up in your soul! It is a common truth, certainly; but when it is laid home by the Holy Spirit it shines, it beams, not merely as a lamp in a dark chamber, but as the day-star rising in your hearts. Remember this is no more our shame that we are sheep, but it is our honour that we are Christ’s sheep. To belong to a king carries some measure of distinction. We are the sheep of the imperial pastures. This is our safety: he will not suffer the enemy to destroy his sheep. This is our sanctity: we are separated, the sheep of the pasture of the Lord’s Christ. This is sanctification in one aspect of it: for it is the making of us holy, by setting us apart to be the Lord’s own portion for ever. And this is the key to our duty: we are his sheep: then let us live to him, and consecrate ourselves to him who loved us and gave himself for us. Christ is the proprietor of the sheep; and we are the property of the good Shepherd.

Now, let us commune together awhile upon the marks of the sheep. When there are so many flocks of sheep, it is necessary to mark them. Our Saviour marks us. It has been very properly observed, that there are two marks on Christ’s sheep. One is on their ear, the other is on their foot. These are two marks of Christ’s sheep not to be found on any other; but they are to be found on all his own-the mark on the ear: “My sheep hear my voice”-the mark on the foot: “I know them, and they follow me.”

Think of this mark on their ear. “My sheep hear my voice.” They hear spiritually. A great many people in Christ’s day heard his voice who did not hear it in the way and with the perception that is here intended. They would not hear; that is to say, they would not hearken or give heed, neither would they obey his call or come unto him that they might have life. These were not always the worst sort of people: there were some of the best that would not hear Christ, of whom he said, according to the original, as translated by some, “Ye search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” They would get as far as curiosity or criticism might allure them; but they would not go any farther: they would not believe in Jesus. Now, the spiritual ear listens to God. The opening of it is the work of the Holy Spirit, and this is a mark of Christ’s chosen blood-bought people, that they hear not only the hollow sound, but the hidden sense; not the bare letter, but the spiritual lesson; and that too not merely with the outward organ, but with the inward heart. The chief point is that they hear his voice. Oh, if all that heard my voice heard Christ’s voice, how would I wander down every street in this city to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ; but, alas! the voice of the minister is utterly ineffectual to save a soul, unless the voice of Christ reach the conscience and rouse its dormant powers. “My sheep hear my voice;” the voice of Jesus, his counsel, his command, clothed with the authority of his own sacred sovereign utterance. When the gospel comes to you as Christ’s gospel, with demonstration of the Spirit, the invitation is addressed to you by him. You can look upon it in no other light; so you must accept and receive it. When his princely power comes with it-being mighty to save, he puts saving power into the word-then you hear Christ’s voice as a fiat that must be obeyed, as a summons that must be attended to, as a call to which there must be a quick response. O beloved, do not ever rest satisfied with hearing the voice of the preacher. We are only Christ’s speaking-trumpets: there is nothing in us: it is only his speaking through us that can do any good. O children of God, some of you do not always listen to Christ’s voice in the preaching. While we comment on the word, you make your comments on us. Our style, or our tone, or even our gesture, is enough to absorb-I might rather say, to distract-your thoughts. “Why look ye so earnestly on us?” I beseech you, give less heed to the livery of the servant, and give more care to the message of the Master. Listen warily, if you please; but judge wisely, if you can. See how much pure grain, and how much of Christ, there is in the sermon. Use your sieve; put away all the chaff; take only the good wheat; hear Christ’s voice. Well were it if we could obscure ourselves that we might manifest him. I could wish so to preach that you could not see even my little finger; might I but so preach that you could get a full view of Jesus only. O that you could hear his voice drowning ours! This is the mark, the peculiar mark of those who are Christ’s peculiar people: they hear his voice. Sometimes, truly, it sounds in the ministry; sometimes it thrills forth from that book of books, which is often grossly neglected; sometimes it comes in the night-watches. His voice may speak to us in the street. Silent as to vocal utterance, but like familiar tones that sometimes greet us in our dreams, the voice of Christ is distinctly audible to the soul. It will come to you in sweet or in bitter providences; yea, there is such a thing as hearing Christ’s voice in the rustling of every leaf upon the tree, in the moaning of every wind, in the rippling of every wave. And there be those that have learned to lean on Christ’s bosom, till they have looked for all the world as though they were a shell that lay in the ocean of Christ’s love, listening for ever to the sonorous cadence of that deep, unfathomed, all-mysterious main. The billows of his love never cease to swell. The billowy anthem still peals on with solemn grandeur in the ear of the Christian. O may we hear Christ’s voice each one of us for ourselves! I find that language fails me, and metaphors are weak to describe its potent spell.

One point is worth noticing, however. I think our Lord meant here that his sheep, when they hear his voice, know it so well that they can tell it at once from the voice of strangers. The true child of God knows the gospel from the law. It is not by learning catechisms, reading theological books, or listening to endless controversies, that he finds this out. There is an instinct of his regenerate nature far more trustworthy than any lessons he has been taught. The voice of Jesus! Why, there is no music like it. If you have once heard it, you cannot mistake it for another, or another for it. Some are babes in grace: others are of full age, and by reason of use, have their senses exercised; but one sense is quickly brought out-the sense of hearing. It is so easy to tell the joy-bells of the gospel from the death-knell of the law; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. “Do, or die,” says Moses. “Believe, and live,” says Christ: you must know which is which. Yes; and I think they are equally shrewd and quick to discriminate between the flesh and the Spirit. Let some of the very feeblest of God’s people sit down under a fluent ministry, with all the beauties of rhetoric, and let the minister preach up the dignity of human nature, and the sufficiency of man’s reason to find out the way of righteousness, and you will hear them say: “It is very clever; but there is no food for me in it.” Bring, however, the best and most instructed, and most learned Christian man, and set him down under a ministry that is very faulty as to the gift of utterance, and incorrect even in grammar; but if it is full of Jesus Christ, I know what he will say: “Ah! never mind the man, and never mind the platter on which be brought the meat; it was food to my soul that I fed upon with a hearty relish; it was marrow and fatness, for I could hear Christ’s voice in it.” I am not going to follow out these tests; but certain it is, that the sheep know Christ’s voice, and can easily distinguish it. I saw hundreds of lambs the other day together, and there were also their mothers; and I am sure if I had had the task of allotting the proper lamb to each, or to any of them, it would have kept me till now to have done it. But somehow the lambs knew the mothers, and the mothers knew the lambs; and they were all happy enough in each other’s company.

Every saint here, mixed up as he may be at times with parties and professors of all sorts, knows Christ, and Christ knows him, and he is therefore bound to his owner. That is the mark on the ear. You have seen sometimes in the country two flocks together on the road, and you say: “I wonder how the shepherds will manage to keep them distinct? They will get mixed up.” They do not; they go this way and that way; and after a little commingling they separate, for they know their master’s voice; “and a stranger will they not follow.” You will go to-morrow, many of you, out into the world, some to the Exchange, others to the market, and others again into the factory: you are all mixed. Yes; but the seeming confusion of your company is temporary, not real and permanent. You will come right again, and you will go to your own home and your own fellowship. And at the last, when we shall have ended our pilgrimage, the one shall wend his way to the glory land, and the other to the abyss of woe. There will be no mistake. You will hear the Master’s call, and obey. There is a mark on the ear which identifies every saint.

Christ’s sheep hear his voice obediently. This is an important proof of discipleship. Indeed, it may serve as a reproof to many. Oh, I would that you were more careful about this! “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them,” said Jesus, “he it is that loveth me.” “He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings.” How comes it to pass, then, that there are certain commands of Christ which some Christians will suffer to lie in abeyance? They will say, “The Lord commands this, but it is not essential.” Oh, unloving spirit, that can think anything unessential that thy Bridegroom bids thee do! They that love, think little things of great moment, especially when they are looked upon as tokens of the strength or the tenderness of one’s regard. It may not be essential, in order to prove the relation in which a wife stands to her husband, that she should study his tastes, consult his wishes, or attend to his comfort. But will she the less strive to please, because love, not fear, constrains her? I trow not. And can it be that any of you, my brethren, would harbour such a thought as your negligence implies? Do you really suppose that after the choice of Christ has been fixed on you, and the love of Christ has been plighted to you, you may now be as remiss or careless as you like? Nay, rather, might we not expect that a sacred passion, an ardent zeal, a touch of inspiration would stir you up, put you on the alert, make you wake at the faintest sound of his voice, or keep you listening to do his will? Be it ours, then, to act out with fidelity that verse we have often sung with enthusiasm:-

“In all my Lord’s appointed ways

My journey I’ll pursue.”

However little the precept may appear in the eyes of others; however insignificant as compared with our salvation, yet-doth the Lord command it?-then his sheep hear his voice, and they follow him.

Christ has marked his sheep on their feet as well as their ears. They follow him: they are gently led, not harshly driven. They follow him as the Captain of their salvation; they trust in the power of his arm to clear the way for them. All their trust on him is stayed; all their hope on him they lean. They follow him as their teacher; they call no man “Rabbi” under heaven, but Christ alone. He is the infallible source of their creeds; neither will they allow their minds to be ruled by conclaves, councils, nor decrees. Hath Christ said it? It is enough. If not, it is no more for me than the whistling of the wind. They follow Christ as their teacher.

And the sheep of Christ follow him as their example; they desire to be in this world as he was. It is one of their marks, that to a greater or less degree they have a Christ-like spirit; and if they could they would be altogether like their Lord.

They follow him, too, as their Commander, and Lawgiver, and Prince. “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it,” was his mother’s wise speech; and it is the children’s wise rule: “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” Oh, blessed shall they be above many of whom it shall be said, “These are they that have not defiled their garments.” “These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” Some of his followers are not very scrupulous. They love him. It is not for us to judge them. Rather we place ourselves among them and share in the censure. But happiest of all the happy are they who see the footprint-the print of that foot that once was pierced with the nail-and put their foot down where he placed it, and then again, in the selfsame mark, follow where he trod, till they climb at last to the throne. Keep close to Christ; take care of his little precepts unto the end. Remember, “Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.” Do not peril being least in the heavenly kingdom, though it is better to be that than to be greatest in the kingdom of darkness. O seek to be very near him, to be a choice sheep in his chosen flock, and to have the mark distinctly upon your foot!

I will not stay to apply these truths, but leave each one of you to make such self-searching enquiries as the text suggests. Have I the ear mark? Have I the foot mark? “My sheep hear my voice,” “and they follow me.” I hope that I am among the number.

The last point, with which we now proceed to close, is-the privilege of Christ’s sheep. It does not look very large, but if we open it we shall see an amazing degree of blessedness in it. “I know them,” “I know them.” What does it mean?

I have not time now to tell you all it means. “I know them.” “What is the reverse of this but one of the most dreadful things that is reserved for the day of judgment? There will be some who will say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils?” And he shall say, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, I never knew you; depart from me, ye cursed.” Now measure the height of that privilege by the depth of this misery. “I never knew you.” What a volume of scorn it implies! What a stigma of infamy it conveys! Change the picture. The Redeemer says, “I know them,” “I know them.” How his eyes flash with kindness; how their cheeks burn with gratitude, as he says, “I know them”! Why, if a man had a friend and acquaintance that he used to know, and some years after he found him a disreputable, abandoned, wicked, guilty criminal, I feel pretty sure he would not say much about having known such a fellow, though he might be driven to confess that he had some years ago a passing acquaintance with him. But our Lord Jesus Christ, though he knows what poor, unworthy ones we are, yet when we shall be brought up before the Lord, before the great white throne, he will confess he knew us. He does know us, we are old acquaintances of his, and he has known us from before the foundation of the world, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called.” There are riches of grace in this; but we will consider it in another way. Our Saviour knows us, our Shepherd knows us. Beloved, he knows your person and all about you. You, with that sick body, that aching head, he knows you and he knows your soul with all its sensitiveness; that timidity, that anxiety, that constitutional depression-he knows it all. A physician may come to see you, and be unable to detect what the disease is that pains or prostrates you, but Christ knows you through and through; all the parts of your nature he understands. “I know them,” saith he; he can therefore prescribe for you. He knows your sins. Do not let that dismay you, because he has blotted them all out; and he only knows them to forgive them, to cover them with his righteousness. He knows your corruptions; he will help you to overcome them; he will deal with you in providence and in grace, so that they shall be rooted up. He knows your temptations. Perhaps you are living away from your parents and Christian friends, and you have had an extraordinary temptation, and you wish you could go home and tell your mother. Oh, he knows it, he knows it; he can help you better than your mother can. You say: “I wish the minister knew the temptation I have passed through.” Do not tell it; God knows it. As Daniel did not want Nebuchadnezzar to tell him the nature of his dream, but gave him the dream and the interpretation at the same time, so God can send you comfort. There will be a word as plainly suited to your case as though it were all printed and the preacher had known it all. It must be so. Depend upon it, the Lord knows your temptation, and watches your trial; or be it a sick child, or be it a bad matter of business that has lately occurred; or be it a slander that has wounded your heart, there is not a pang you feel but God as surely sees if as the weaver sees the shuttle which he throws with his own hand. He knows your trial, and he knows the meaning of your groans: he can read the secret desire of your heart. You need not write it nor speak it: he has understood it all. You were saying: “O that my child were converted! O that I grew in grace!” He knows it: he knows it every whit. There is not a word on your tongue, nor a wish in your heart, but he knoweth it altogether. O dear heart, he knows your sincerity! Perhaps you want to join the church, and your proposal has been declined, because you could not give satisfactory testimony. If you are sincere, he knows it; he knows, moreover, what your anxiety is. You cannot tell another what it is that is bitter to you-the heart knoweth its own bitterness-he knows it. As his secret is with you, so your secret is with him. He knows you: he knows what you have been trying to do. That secret gift-that offering dropped so quietly where none could see it-he knows it. And he knows that you love him. “Yes,” you are saying in your soul, “if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.” No, you cannot tell him, nor tell others; but he knows it all.

So, now, in closing, let us say that in the text there is mutual knowledge. “I know them, but they also know me, because they hear my voice, and recognise it.” Here is mutual confession. Christ speaks, else there would be no voice: they hear, else were the voice not useful. “I know them; “that is his thoughts go towards them. “They follow me;” that is, their thoughts go towards him. He leads the way, else they could not follow. They follow, however, when he leads the way. Being the counterpart of each other, what the one does the other returns through grace; and what grace puts into the sheep the shepherd recognises, and makes a return to them. Christ and his church become an echo of each other: his the voice, theirs is but a faint echo of it; still it is a true echo, and you shall know who are Christ’s by this. Do they echo what Christ saith? Oh, how I wish we were all sheep! How my soul longs that we may many of us who are not of his fold be brought in. The Lord bring you in, my dear hearers. The Lord give you his grace, and make you his own, comfort you, and make you to follow him. And if you are his, show it. These, dear brethren and sisters, here at this time, desire to confess Christ in your presence. If they are doing right, and you are not doing as they do, then you are doing wrong. If it is the duty of one, it is the duty of all; and if one Christian may neglect making a profession, all may do so, and then there will be no visible church whatever, and the visible ordinances must die out. If you know him, own him, for he hath said: “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” God bless you, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Letter from Mr. Spurgeon, read at the Tabernacle on Lord’s-day, June 18th:-

My Beloved Friends,-

As soon as the church had resolved to meet for special prayer for me, I began rapidly to recover. It pleased God to turn the wind at the beginning of this week, and the change in the temperature has worked wonders. We may truthfully say of the Wednesday meeting for prayer, that the Lord fulfilled his word: “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” For all this great goodness I pray you to unite with me in sincere and intense gratitude to the Lord our God.

I feel bound publicly to express my happiness of heart. This week has furnished me with the liveliest proofs of your true love. I have been deeply touched with the various ways in which the affection of so many of you has sought to find expression. I value this not only for my own sake, though it is very sweet to be the object of such hearty love, but because I see in it the evidence that our union has been cemented by years, and the earnest of future years of united effort, if God spares us. The absence of unity is weakness: its indisputable presence is strength.

On the closing day of my thirty-seventh year, I find myself the pastor of a beloved flock, who have borne the test of twelve Sabbaths of their minister’s absence, and the severer test of more than seventeen years of the same ministry, and are now exhibiting more love to him than ever. I bless God, but I also thank you, and assure you that I never felt happier in the midst of my people than I do now in the prospect of returning to you.

I am still weak, but the improvement in strength has been this week very surprising. I hardly dare speak of the future; but I earnestly hope we shall look each other in the face on the first Sabbath of July.

The collection to-day is to enable the London Baptist Association to build a new chapel in the Wandsworth Road. We are to carry out the project, so that it will not become us to be slack in our collection. London grows so rapidly, that much must be done to keep pace with its spiritual needs. Our Association does something, but ten times more would be little enough. You will I am sure give as God has prospered you. The College, of course, will be less helped; but I must beg to thank you for the continued series of noble contributions which have made each week remarkable.

Peace be with you and the Lord’s own anointing. May those who speak to you to-day be filled with the Spirit. May the soft south wind of the Spirit’s love be among you, and may you pour forth praise as flowers breathe perfume.

Yours very truly,

C. H. SPURGEON.

THE ALARUM

A Sermon

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“I myself will awake early.”-Psalm 57:8.

The proper subject to treat upon with such a text as this would be the propriety and excellence of early rising, especially when we are desirous of praising or serving God. The dew of dawn should be consecrated to devotion. The text is a very remarkable expression, and might fitly be made the early-riser’s motto. It is, in the original, a highly poetical phrase, and Milton and others have borrowed or imitated it. “I will awaken the morning.” So early would the psalmist arise for the praise of God, that he would call up the day, and Lid the sun arise from the chambers of the east, and proceed upon his journey. “I will awaken the morning.” Early rising has the example of Old Testament saints to recommend it, and many modern saints having conscientiously practised it, have been loud in its praise. It is an economy of time, and an assistance to health, and thus it doubly lengthens life. Late rising is too often the token of indolence, and the cause of disorder throughout the whole day. Be assured that the best hours are the first. Our City habits are to be deplored, because by late hours of retirement at night we find early rising difficult if not impossible. If we are able to escape the shackels of custom, and secure for devotion and contemplation the hour when the dew is on the grass, we may count ourselves thrice happy. If we cannot do all we would in this matter, at least let us do all we can.

That is not, however, the topic upon which I now desire to speak to you. I come at this time, not so much to plead for the early as for the awakening. The hour we may speak of at another time-the fact is our subject now. It is bad to awake late, but what shall be said of those who never awake at all? Better late than never: but with many it is to be feared it will be never. I would take down the trumpet and give a blast, or ring the alarm-bell till all the faculties of the sluggard’s manhood are made to bestir themselves, and he cries with new-born determination, “I myself will awake.”

“Will awake.” This is a world in which most men nowadays are alive to their temporal interests. If in these pushing times any man goes to his business in a sleepy, listless fashion, he very soon finds himself on an ebb-tide, and all his affairs aground. The wideawake man seizes opportunities or makes them, and thus those who are widest awake usually come to the front. Years ago affairs moved like the broad-wheel waggon, very sleepily, with sober pause and leisurely progression, and then the son of the snail had a chance; but now, when we almost fly, if a man would succeed in trade he must be all alive, and all awake. If it be so in temporals, it is equally so in spirituals, for the world, the flesh, and the devil are all awake to compete with us; and there is no resolution that I would more earnestly commend to each one of the people of God than this one: “I will awake; I will awake at once; I will awake early, and I will pray to God that I may be kept awake, that my Christian existence may not be dreamy, but that I may be to the fullest degree useful in my Master’s service.” If this were the resolve of each, what a change would come over the Christian church! I long to see the diligence of the shop exceeded by the closet, and the zeal of the market excelled by the church. Each Christian is alive: but is he also awake? He has eyes, but are they open? He has lofty possibilities of blessing his fellow men, but does he exercise them? My heart’s desire is that none of us may feel the dreamy influence of this age, which is comparable to the enchanted ground; but that each of us may be watchful, wakeful, vigorous, intense, fervent. Trusting that the Holy Spirit may bless our meditations to our spiritual quickening, we shall briefly turn our thoughts to the consideration of two or three things.

Our text is connected with the duty of praise, and therefore our first point shall be-it is most necessary that our minds should be in a state of wakefulness when we are praising God. Therefore, as we ought to be always praising him, our mind ought always to be wakeful. It is a shame to pray with the mind half asleep: it is an equal shame to attempt to praise God till all the powers of the mind are thoroughly aroused. David is herein a most fit example, for he sings, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.”

We should be fully awake when engaged in private thanksgiving; the song of our solitude should be full of living joy. I am afraid there is very little private singing nowadays. We often hear discourse concerning private prayer, but very seldom of private praise; and yet ought there not to be as much private praise as private prayer? I fear from the seldomness of its being mentioned, that private thanksgiving has grown to be a sleepy affair. Then as to public worship, how earnest ought it to be! Yet how seldom is it hearty and real! How often do we hear half-awake singing! Sometimes a sort of musical-box, consisting of pipes, keys, and bellows, is set to do all the adoration. The heathens of Thibet turn the wind to account religiously, by making it turn their windmills and pray for them; and our brethren in England, by an ingenious adjustment of pipes, make the same motive power perform their praise. Where this machinery is not adopted, still the Lord is robbed of his praise by other methods. Sometimes half a dozen skilled voices of persons who would be equally as much at home at the opera or the theatre as in the house of God, are formed into a choir to perform the psalmody; and it is supposed that God accepts their formal notes as the praise of the entire assembly. How far different is the genuine song of gracious men who lift up their voices to the Lord because their hearts adore him! Oh, I love to hear every voice pouring out its note, especially if I can but hope that with every voice there is going forth a fervent heart. This warm-hearted, joyful singing-why, it makes the congregation on earth to be like the assembly of the skies; and causes the meeting-place of the saints to be a faint type of the gathering of the angels and glorified spirits before the throne of God. To drone or to whisper in such a delightful exercise is criminal. If ever we should exhibit the angels’ wakefulness, it should be when we are emulating their employment.

Our praise ought to be performed with a fully awakened mind: first, that we may recollect what we are praising God for. We should have a vivid sense of the mercies we have received, or we cannot bless God aright for them. You who have not yet received spiritual blessings, should not be forgetful of his temporal mercies: it is surely sufficient cause for lively thanksgiving that you are not upon a bed of sickness; that you are not in the lunatic asylum; that you are not in the work-house; that you are not on the borders of the grave; that you are not in hell; that you still have food and raiment, and that you are where the gospel is graciously presented to you. Should not all this be thought of? Should not this be fuel for the flame of gratitude? As for us who have tasted spiritual blessings, if our minds were awake, we should think of eternal love and its goings forth from eternity; of redeeming love, and the streams that flow from the fount of Calvary; of God’s immutable love, and his patience with our ill-manners in the wilderness; of covenant mercy, of mercies yet to come, of heaven, and the bliss hereafter. Such recollections should call up our whole man to praise the Lord. If the innumerable benefits which we receive were thought of and dwelt upon, the contemplation would put a force, a volume, a body into our song, and make it far more the flaming ethereal thing which it ought to be.

We want our souls awakened, next, so that we may remember to whom our praise is offered. Before no mean king do we bow the knee of homage. To praise God is to stand in the immediate presence of the blessed and only Potentate. Do not even seraphs veil their faces in that august presence? With what lowliness ought we bow! With what earnestness of spirit should we praise! “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” Courtiers are not expected to nod with drowsiness in the presence of their king; and if they came to present thanksgiving, it would seem strange if they were to yawn as men half asleep. Surely, it would be hypocritical congratulation and insulting behaviour if they should be detected in a sleepy condition! If we come together to praise God, let us really do it. If we cannot praise him, let us know and mourn that we cannot do it, and let us be sure that the spirit is willing, even if the flesh be weak. Let all sleepiness be put away in the presence of the ever-wakeful Jehovah, before whose eyes all things are naked and open. He never slumbereth nor sleepeth, so as to make a pause in his mercy to us: let not our slumbering spirits cause au omission of our grateful song.

We need that we should be awake in praise, that our whole hearts may be thoroughly warm in the exercise. Under Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, the acceptableness of our praise depends very much upon the warmth of it. As cold prayers virtually ask God to deny them, so cold praises ask God to reject them. Cold praises are a sort of semi-blasphemy: they do, as it were, say, “Thou art not worthy to be ardently praised. O God, we bring thee these poor thanksgivings: they are good enough for thee.” Surely if we treated our heavenly Father as we should, every sacred passion would glow in our hearts like a furnace: our whole heart would catch fire, and as Elijah went up to heaven with horses of fire and chariots of fire, so, too, our soul, as we thought upon the goodness and the graciousness of God, would ascend to heaven in vehement joy of adoration. Our praises would not be like the incense in the censer, sweet but cold; but coals of fire would be put in with the incense, and then, like a holy cloud of smoke, our gratitude would ascend to heaven. Mark with what exhilaration the psalmist rendered praise unto God, and imitate him therein. See him dancing before the ark, and hear him cry aloud, “Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises.”

Brethren, we have need to wake up our souls in praise, or else we shall at times fail altogether in the duty. Only the wakeful are praiseful. Sleeping birds sing not. The very best praises God receives from earth are from his troubled saints; but then they are awake; the strokes of the rod have aroused them. When the three holy children sung in the fire, their song was sweet indeed; yet had they not been thoroughly in earnest, they had poured forth no holy hymn. When martyrs have magnified God standing on the burning fagot, they have given God better praise than even the angels can. It was the old fable, that the nightingale was made to sing by the thorn that pricked her breast: and many a child of God has poured forth his sweetest music when the thorn of affliction has pierced his heart. Wake up your souls-you that are desponding, you that are depressed, you that have a dead child at home, you that are expecting soon to go to the grave with those you love, you that have been losing your property, you that are pinched with poverty-wake up your souls to praise God still, for unless well awake you will forget to extol him. Remember what Job did. When he sat on the dunghill, scraping himself with a bit of broken pot, yet he praised God, and said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” It was grand of thee, O patriarch of Uz, to be able thus to extol thy Lord: then was thy soul fully awake. Beloved friends, may our inmost souls be so energetic with the power of grace that we may spontaneously and earnestly bless the Lord at all times and under all circumstances.

Do you believe, my brethren, that amongst all the throng of those who see Jehovah face to face, there is one dull, cold, careless worshipper? Look through the seraphim and cherubim: they are all flaming ones, burning with intense desire and fervent adoration. Look through the hosts of angels: they are all his ministers that do his pleasure, and bless him while they do it. Search through all those sanctified and glorified bands of spirits, and you shall not find one with half-closed eye wearily praising his Maker. Heaven consists in joyful praise. Look at the very birds on earth how they shame us! Dear little creatures, if you watch them when they are singing, you will sometimes wonder how so much sound can come out of such diminutive bodies. How they throw their whole selves into the music, and seem to melt themselves away in song! How the wing vibrates, the throat pulsates, and every part of their body rejoices to assist the strain! This is the way in which we ought to praise God. If birds that are sold at three for two farthings yet render God such praise, how much more heartily ought we to sing before him? Let it be a resolution with us at this hour that we will praise God more; that we will sing to him more at home, about our business, and in all proper places; and that whenever we do sing we will do it heartily, waking up our tongue and all the powers of our mind and body to bless and praise the name of God.

Now, secondly, we shall notice that wakefulness is a great need in the entire spiritual life. I believe it to be one of the great wants of the church now. I question whether most of us are awake spiritually. I question whether I am. I wish to be wakened far more to a sensibility of the power of the world to come, and a tenderness in regard to spiritual truth. Slumber is so natural to us. “Well,” says one, “but we talk about the things of God.” Yes, but people talk when they are asleep, and a good deal of Christian conversation is very much like the talk of sleepers. There is not the force in it-the life in it that there would be in conversation if we were really awakened to feel the power of eternal verities. “Yet,” says one, “I hope we act consistently.” I trust you do, but there are many people who walk in their sleep, and, alas! I know some Christian professors who appear to be trying very hazardous feats of sleep-walking just now. Some somnambulists have been able to walk on places where, had they been awake, they never would have been able to endure the dizzy height; and I see some Christians, if indeed they be Christians, running awful risks which I think they would never venture upon unless they had fallen into the deep sleep of carnal security. Speak of a man slumbering at the mast-head, it is nothing to a professor of religion at ease while covetousness is his master, or worldly company his delight. If professors were awake, they would see their danger, and avoid sinful amusements and ungodly associations, as men fly from fierce tigers or deadly cobras. “Well, but we are doing much good and useful work,” says one: “teaching in Sabbath-schools, distributing religious tracts, or labouring in some other form of service; we are spending our time in commendable engagements.” I am glad to hear it: but people can do a great deal in their sleep. We have heard many strange instances of how habit at last has enabled persons to pursue their callings, to answer signals, and keep up all the appearance of industry, and yet they have been at the time asleep. Oh, it is a very shocking thing that so many of our churches in England are in a deep sleep! Dissenting churches I know best about, and there are many where the minister preaches in his sleep, where the people sing in their sleep, where prayer is offered in sleep, and even the communion is celebrated amid a profound spiritual slumber. Have you never been at a prayer-meeting where half, if not all, both of those who prayed vocally and those who listened, were in a lethargy as rigid as death? Talk of sleeping women who have been in a swoon by the month together, the wonder may be a lying one in the natural world, but in the spiritual world it is as common as daisies in the meadows. Adam slept soundly when the taking away of his rib did not wake him, but what shall we say of those who startle not though they are losing all the strength and glory of their souls? Alas! for some congregations, it is long since they had a revival, they have lost the very idea of vigorous piety and vital energy. All the week round they are all asleep, and if a real, earnest, living, stirring sermon were preached among them, it would be almost as if the King of Prussia’s Krupp guns had dropped a live shell into their midst. I wish a spiritual live shell could fall into some congregations, and burst among them, killing their conventionality, and wounding their self-satisfaction with a deadly wound. Men may attend to outward worship with unimpeachable decorum and correctness, and yet there may be no wakefulness in it, and consequently no acceptableness with God Most High.

Come, brethren and sisters, we must wake up, even if we have been asleep ourselves, and we must do so because we are in an enemy’s country; it will not do to sleep here. This side of heaven we are in every place and at all hours surrounded by foes. What did the Master say? “What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch!” Be like sentries at your post, for otherwise the enemy will soon betray you. Will you not grieve the Holy Spirit if you are lethargic? Will you not dishonour your Master if you fall asleep? Remember, also, that the devil seeks your destruction, and can never do you so much mischief awake as he can if he finds you sleeping. Let the growling of the old lion arouse you. If nothing else will bestir you, remember the fiery darts of the wicked one. Saul would not have lain so quiet if he had known that Abishai was holding the spear over him, and longing to pin him to the earth: yet this is the condition of professors who are given to slumber. Samson would have scarcely slept on Delilah’s lap if he had foreseen that his hair would be cut, and his eyes put out by the Philistines. Up, then, ye drowsy professors, for the Philistines are upon you!

Moreover, brethren, slumber impoverishes us. The sluggard, and the thistle and thorn, always go together, and rags and poverty follow close behind. You may miss by your sleep great spiritual profit. You cannot expect sleepy Christians to grow in grace. They will miss many instructive things in God’s word, many precious promises meant only for the wakeful. They will lose high enjoyments and spiritual banquetings, for the king’s entertainments are not for those who fold their arms, and toss upon the bed of indolence. Wealth lies in the field of the wakeful, but the lover of ease shall have want come upon him as an armed man. I blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in God’s holy mountain, for it is high time to awake out of sleep.

Awaken too, my brother, for you are losing opportunities for usefulness. While you sleep men are dying. See how the cemeteries are becoming crowded, how the area of them has to be enlarged. Day by day you see wending through the streets the funeral procession: men gone beyond the reach of your instructions and your warnings are carried to their long homes. Awake then, awake, for death is busy everywhere. Meanwhile, those who do not die before you may be removed beyond the sphere of your usefulness; they go where at least you cannot reach them, where perhaps no one ever will, and their blood may lie upon your head, and that for ever. Awake, for perhaps while you are asleep another heart that is now accessible to the gospel may become finally hardened. Conscience will soon become seared, and then there is nothing for zeal and earnestness to work upon. It will be too late for you to put the seal upon the wax when once it is cool. Quick, sir; while the wax is soft put the seal down! How many opportunities for good we all miss! But those who are asleep lose all their opportunities, and they will be surely required of them when the Master comes.

Awake! I pray you, because you will insensibly lose the power, the joy of your spiritual life. Communion with God will become more and more scarce with you as you become more sleepy. Awake, lest you backslide, lest you fall by little and little; lest after all you become apostate, and prove yourself not to be a child of God. Awake, for your power with others will certainly depart from you as your wakefulness departs. A sleepy preacher never wins the souls of men. A dull, formal servant of God is of little or no use in the church of God. I think I said years ago, “Give me half a dozen thorough red-hot Christians, and I will do more, by God’s grace, with them, than with half a dozen hundred of ordinary professors.” I am sure it is so. Crowds of professors are past all cure. I would as soon hunt with dead dogs, as try to work with them. They cannot be trained into heroes: they are dolts both by nature and by practice; much slothfulness has drained out their soul’s life. The most you can hope for them is that they will remain decently Christianised, so as not altogether to disgrace us. But, O for thoroughly wideawake men, men who feel the life of God in their souls, and are, therefore, more than ordinarily earnest. Band together half a dozen such, and the Holy Spirit being with them, they will make all London feel their presence before long. O may God awaken all of us, for our spiritual life absolutely requires it.

Thirdly, I am going to mention certain ways of keeping yourselves awake. “How can I be kept awake?” says one. Answer, first, make it a matter of prayer with the Lord to awaken you. No one can give you spiritual power and watchfulness but the Spirit of God. “All my fresh springs are in thee.” Where life first comes from, there more life must be obtained. Christ has come that we may have life, and that we may have it more abundantly. He who first called us from the dead must also arouse us from among the slumbering. He who brought us from the grave of our depravity must bring us from the couch of our indolence. Pray about the matter; make it a point with God: ask him to arouse you. On your knees is the posture in which to conquer sloth.

Next, means are to be used. We are not to leave the matter with God, and think there is nothing to be done by ourselves. Act towards yourselves about your spiritual wakefulness as you would with natural wakefulness. Set your inventive faculties to work, and devise means for chasing away the sleep dragon. What would you do if you required to be awakened early? Perhaps you would set an alarum; a good thing, no doubt. Take care you set a spiritual alarum. Every Christian ought to keep one, and it should be so well set as to keep exact time, and so powerful as to arouse the most slumbering. A tender conscience, quick as the apple of the eye, is a precious preservative against sinful sleep; but it must never be tampered with, or its usefulness will soon end. When once the hour has come, down runs the alarum, the man starts up all at once, and says, “It is time to rise;” so should my conscience be so well regulated, that when a temptation is near, or a sinner is near me whom I ought to warn, my soul should at once take the alarm, and say, “Here is work to do-a sin to be conquered, or a soul to be instructed: now, therefore, perform the doing of it with all thy might! I hear the alarum, and I must bestir myself!” May we always maintain and retain such a special wakefulness that we may be at our post of duty or in our place of conflict with a punctuality which none can gainsay. O for the alarum of a tender conscience!

Many of our friends who have to be up early in the morning ask the policeman to call them at the appointed hour. I may not compare the Christian minister with a policeman in some respects; but yet he is one of God’s officers, and it is part of his business to stir up drowsy professors. It is well to attend an earnest gospel ministry, where the minister’s voice, under God’s blessing, will be likely to wake you up. Faithful preachers are among God’s best gifts. Cherish them, and be obedient to their admonitions. I have known persons become offended when a minister is “too personal;” but wise men always prize a ministry in proportion as it is personal to themselves. He who never tells me of my faults, nor makes me feel uneasy, is not likely to be the means of good to my soul. What is the use of a dog that never barks? Why have a doctor, and grow angry with him if he points out the source of your disease? Did God send us, as his messengers, to pander to your taste or flatter your vanity? We seek not your approval if it be not founded on right. I have often felt pleased when I have heard people confess, after their conversion, “I came to the Tabernacle, and at the first I could not endure the preaching. I hated the preacher, and raged at his doctrine; but I could not help coming again.” Just so. Conscience makes men respect the gospel, even when their depravity makes them loathe it. They are held fast by the cords which they fain would cast from them. May it often be so, O my unregenerate believers, that while my plain dealing excites your anger, it may nevertheless have a power over you; and may every man and woman here, whether saved or unsaved, feel that the preaching is the truth of God to his or her soul; and, whether liked or not liked, may it become the permanent means of arousing from sleep, and ultimately bringing to Christ every one of you to whom these words shall come. Be sure and attend an arousing ministry, and pray God to make the ministry which you now listen to more and more an arousing ministry to your own soul. Pray for the preacher, for he is in the same danger as yourselves, for he too is compassed with infirmity. The minister soon goes to sleep unless God wakens him; and what is more sad than to see the professed messenger of God become a traitor both to his Master and to men’s souls by a lack of zealous affection? It is ill for the sheep if the shepherd himself be asleep. Woe to the camp where the sentry is given to slumber! May God deliver our country from being overrun with preachers whose souls are insensible concerning their grand work, and who love the bread of their office better than the glory of God or the good of their hearers.

I have known some persons adopt a plan for awaking in the morning which I can recommend spiritually at any rate. They have drawn up the blinds in the direction of the morning sun, that the sun might shine on their face and wake them. I know of no better way of waking for your soul than letting the light, and the life, and the love of God shine full into your face. When the Sun of Righteousness arises he brings healing beneath his wings, and he brings awakening too. A man cannot think much of Christ, and love Christ much, and walk much in Christ’s fellowship, and yet be asleep. The two who went to Emmaus in Immanuel’s company, were their hearts cold? Nay, do not think so. “Did not our heart burn within us?” Yes, and your hearts will burn too, and your whole spiritual system will flame and glow if you walk in the company of Jesus. I can recommend constant fellowship with God as one of the best remedies for spiritual sloth, the surest provocative of holy zeal.

Many times people are awakened in the morning by the noise of the street in which they live. “I cannot sleep after such an hour,” says one, “for I hear the tramp of those who are going into the city, and the grind of the street traffic.” At a certain time you hear the hammer of the blacksmith, the scream of an engine, or the heaving of machinery, and after that sleep is gone. The activities of the world ought to awaken Christians. Are worldlings so active? How active ought we to be! Do they labour and spend their sweat for earthly wages? How much more ought I to put forth my entire strength to serve so good a Master, whose reward of grace is everlasting bliss? The world is all astir to-day: let the church be all awake too.

We ought to be stimulated to supreme efforts by the activity of our fellow Christians. I find it does me much service to read the biographies of eminent servants of Christ, such as martyrs, missionaries, and reformers. I rise from reading their memorials feeling ashamed to be of so dwarfish a stature compared with these spiritual giants. What a humbling effect such a reflection ought to have on the do-nothings who swarm in the churches! but alas! these are not soon moved to judge themselves. With this one word we leave them: think of what some are doing, and be ashamed that you are doing so little in proportion to what they accomplish.

There are many ways of waking, but here is one, with which I will close my observations on this point. Hear the trumpet of the second coming. “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him,” was the cry that awakened the virgins when they all slumbered and slept: may it have the like arousing power at this moment. We know not when Christ will come, nor is it for us to utter prophecies about it: the times and seasons are hidden from us. “Of that day and that hour knoweth no man.” Whether it will be before the Millennium or after the Millennium, let those judge who can. I have no judgment upon it. I think, as you carefully read the Scriptures, you will feel more and more convinced that only this is clearly and certainly revealed-that the Lord will personally come in such an hour as we look not for him. Let that awaken us; let it keep us always watchful, with loins girt and lamps trimmed, proving our faithful love to our blessed Master.

These are, it is clear, very many ways by which Christians may be awakened. God grant they may be effective to each and all. I think it was Sydney Smith who was once preaching a sermon about sleeping in church, and when he had done, he said, “Now, what good have I done? All those who sleep have been asleep through my sermon, and only those who are wakeful have heard me, and they did not need my rebukes and advice.” I often feel that this is very much the preacher’s case. Earnest people, when the congregation is exhorted to earnestness, take it home to themselves; but those persons who do nothing, and are most indolent, are the very ones who say, “I do not see the need of it; I do not want to be disturbed.” Of course not! It is not only the mark of the sluggard to sleep, but it is another characteristic of him that he is wrath with those who would compel him to rise. “A little more sleep,” says he, “a little more slumber;” he turns his heavy head upon the pillow once again, and wishes no blessings upon those who knock at his door so heavily. You sleepy professors are likely to do the same, but I will not refrain from knocking till you refrain from dozing. I pray God that there may be very few in this church of the incorrigible order, whose life is one long dream, a dream of self-aggrandisement, meanness, and littleness. May you and I, and all of us, be thoroughly earnest in the service of our Master, and if we cannot arouse others by our precept, at least let us not fail to try the force of our example.

I must close with a word upon the fourth point, which is this-the great and urgent need that the unconverted sinner should awake. Hitherto I have spoken to the converted man: now let me address myself to the ungodly, and may the voice which shall call the dead to judgment now awaken him. You, you unconverted man, are asleep; a deep and horrible sleep holds you fast. If it were not so, you would perceive your danger, and you would be alarmed. You have broken God’s law; the fact is certain and solemn, though you treat it lightly. Punishment must follow every breach of that law, for God will not be mocked, nor suffer his government to be treated with contempt. For every transgression there is an appointed recompense of reward. The retribution which is your lawful due will not long be withheld: it is on its road towards you. The feet of justice are shod with wool: you hear not its coming, but it is as sure as it is silent. Its steps are swift, and its stroke overwhelming. Awaken, O man, and listen to this text: “God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.” No peril of plague, battle, shipwreck, or poison, can equal the hazard of an unpardoned soul. Beware, ye that forget God, for his terrors are past conception, and his wrath burneth as an oven.

If you were awakened, O sin-stricken transgressor, you would also perceive that there is a remedy for your disease, a rescue from your present danger. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them;” and, “Whosoever believeth in Jesus Christ hath everlasting life.” Forgiveness of sin is guaranteed to every one that rests in the work of Jesus, and all other necessary blessings are secured to him. If thou wert awake, thou wouldst not remain an unconverted sinner another hour, but thou wouldst turn unto God with full purpose of heart. If God would awaken thee, thou wouldst tremble at the jaws of hell which are open to receive thee; thou wouldst turn to Christ, and say, “Jesus, save me! Save me now!” You are asleep, sinner-you are asleep, or you would not take matters so coolly. I am afraid for you, and bowed down with amazement and dread. The mercy is that you may be awakened: you are not yet among the slain that go down into the pit. O that that almighty grace would awaken you at this present moment, ere your doom is sealed and your damnation executed! Here offer I my fervent prayers for you, believing that he to whom I pray is able to bring to holy sensibility the most stolid of mankind.

Strange ways God has of awakening his elect ones from their deadly slumbers. Awake them he will, and he will shake heaven and earth sooner than let any one of them perish in unfeeling security. He will strike them down as he did Paul, or send an earthquake to shake them, as he did to the gaoler at Philippi; in his own way and time he will make them come to themselves and then to Christ. Remember the story of Augustine. To the grief of his dear mother, Monica, he had been leading a wicked life; but God’s time had come, and as Augustine walked in the garden he heard a little child say, “Take! Read! Take! Read!” This induced him to take the Bible and read it. He no sooner read, than a passage came before his eyes which awakened him, and he sought a Saviour, and found him. Perhaps it will be a death in your house that will wake you-sad means, but often most effectual. A mother’s death-bed has been a soul-saving sermon to many a family. Some sleepers need a thunderclap to arouse them. Pray, you dear people of God that are awake, that the sinner may be awakened, for there is this awful danger-that he may sleep himself into hell. Spiritual sleep deepens, the slumberer becomes more heavy still, the stupor more dense, till the conscience grows seared, and the soul is unimpressible; the flesh is turned into stone, the heart is harder than steel. It may be that some of those who hear these words of warning may never wake to think about their souls till in hell they lift up their eyes. What an awful lifting up of the eyes will that be! O you who are now peaceful and secure, what a change awaits you! Hurled from vainglorious security to blank despair in a moment! You took it all so easily: you said, “Let me alone; do not worry me; there’s time enough. The preacher ought not to frighten us with these bugbears; we have a great deal else to do besides listening to horrible stories of hell and damnation;” and so you wrapped it up, and so you smoothed it over, but the end thereof who shall describe? Have you never heard of the Indian in his boat upon one of the great rivers of America? Somehow his moorings had broken, and his canoe was in the power of the current. He was asleep, while his canoe was being borne rapidly along by the stream. He was sound asleep, and yet had good need to have been awake, for there was a tremendous cataract not far ahead. Persons on shore saw the canoe-saw that there was a man in it asleep; but their vigilance was of no use to the sleeper: it needed that he himself should be aware of his peril. The canoe quickened its pace, for the waters of the river grew more rapid as they approached the cataract; persons on shore began to cry out, and raise alarm on all sides, and at last the Indian was aroused. He started up, and began to use his paddle, but his strength was altogether insufficient for the struggle with the gigantic force of the waters around him. He was seen to spring upright in the boat and disappear-himself and the boat-in the fall. He had perished, for he woke too late! Some persons on their dying beds just wake up in time to see their danger, but not to escape from it: they are carried right over the cataract of judgment and wrath. They are gone, for ever gone, where mercy is succeeded by justice, and hope forbidden to enter. Let much prayer go up from believing hearts that God would awaken sinners now, and begin with those who come to the place of worship, and remain at ease in Zion. Ask for the arm of God to be revealed while the heavenly message is delivered; for this is our message: “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” There is a man before me now asleep in his sins, whom God means to make a minister of Christ: he knows not the divine purpose, but there are lines of love in it for him. Arise, O slumberer, for Jesus calls thee! Awake, thou Saul of Tarsus, thou art a chosen vessel unto the Lord! Turn thou from thy sin: seek thou thy Saviour. There is one here who has been a great sinner; but the Lord intends to wash him in the cleansing fount, and clothe him in the righteousness of Christ. Come, thou guilty one, awake! for mercy waits for thee. There is a poor weeping woman here who has gone far into sin; but Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” Sister, awake! Come and receive the mercy which Jesus Christ is ready to bestow upon thee! God give thee waking grace, and saving grace.

May you and I, beloved brethren in Christ, awake to the most earnest and intense form of life in Christ and life for Christ. At once let us bestir ourselves: we may think it early, but it will be none too early; may we awake now, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 108.; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11