It is a very happy circumstance when the commandment of our father and the law of our mother are also the commandment of God and the law of the Lord. Happy are they who have a double force to draw them to the right-the bonds of nature, and the cords of grace. They sin with a vengeance who sin both against a father on earth and the great Father in heaven, and they exhibit a virulence and a violence of sin who do despite to the tender obligations of childhood, as well as to the demands of conscience and God. Solomon, in the passage before us, evidently speaks of those who find in the parents’ law and in God’s law the same thing, and he admonishes such to bind the law of God about their heart, and to tie it about their neck; by which he intends inward affection and open avowal. The law of God should be so dear to us, that it should be bound about the most vital organ of our being, braided about our heart. That which a man carries in his hand he may forget and lose, that which he wears upon his person may be torn from him, but that which is bound about his heart will remain there as long as life remains. We are to love the word of God with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength; with the full force of our nature we are to embrace it; all our warmest affections are to be bound up with it. When the wise man tells us, also, to wear it about our necks, he means that we are never to be ashamed of it. No blush is to mantle our cheek when we are called Christians; we are never to speak with bated breath in any company concerning the things of God. Manfully must we take up the cross of Christ; cheerfully must we avow ourselves to belong to those who have respect unto the divine testimonies. Let us count true religion to be our highest ornament; and, as magistrates put upon them their gold chains, and think themselves adorned thereby, so let us tie about our neck the commands and the gospel of the Lord our God.

In order that we may be persuaded so to do, Solomon gives us three telling reasons. He says that God’s law, by which I understand the whole run of Scripture, and, especially the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be a guide to us:-“When thou goest, it shall lead thee.” It will be a guardian to us: “When thou sleepest”-when thou art defenceless and off thy guard-“it shall keep thee.” And it shall also be a dear companion to us: “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.” Anyone of these three arguments might surely suffice to make us seek a nearer acquaintance with the sacred word. We all need a guide, for “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Left to our own w we soon excel in folly. There are dilemmas in all lives where a guide is more precious than a wedge of gold. The word of God, as an infallible director for human life, should be sought unto by us, and it will lead us in the highway of safety. Equally powerful is the second reason: the word of God will become the guardian of our days; whoso hearkeneth unto it shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Unguarded moments there may be; times, inevitable to our imperfection, there will be, when, unless some other power protect us, we shall fall into the hands of the foe. Blessed is he who has God’s law so written on his heart, and wears it so about his neck as armour of proof, that at all times he is invulnerable, kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

But I prefer, this morning, to keep to the third reason for loving God’s word. It is this, that it becomes our sweet companion: “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.” The inspired law of God, which David in the hundred and nineteenth Psalm calls God’s testimonies, precepts, statutes, and the like, is the friend of the righteous. Its essence and marrow is the gospel of Jesus, the law-fulfiller, and this also is the special solace of believers. Of the whole sacred volume it may be said, “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.” I gather four or five thoughts from this expression, and upon these we will speak.

We perceive here that the word is living. How else could it be said: “It shall talk with thee”? A dead book cannot talk, nor can a dumb book speak. It is clearly a living book, then, and a speaking book: “The word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” How many of us have found this to be most certainly true I A large proportion of human books are long ago dead, and even shrivelled like Egyptian mummies; the mere course of years has rendered them worthless, their teaching is disproved, and they have no life for us. Entomb them in your public libraries if you will, but, henceforth, they will stir no man’s pulse and warm no man’s heart. But this thrice blessed book of God, though it has been extant among us these many hundreds of years, is immortal in its life, unwithering in its strength: the dew of its youth is still upon it; its speech still drops as the rain fresh from heaven; its truths are overflowing founts of ever fresh consolation. Never book spake like this book; its voice, like the voice of God, is powerful and full of majesty.

Whence comes it that the word of God is living? Is it not, first, because it is pure truth? Error is death, truth is life. No matter how well established an error may be by philosophy, or by force of arms, or the current of human thought, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all untruth shall be as stubble before the fire. The tooth of time devours all lies. Falsehoods are soon cut down, and they wither as the green herb. Truth never dies, it dates its origin from the immortals. Kindled at the source of light, its flame cannot be quenched; if by persecution it be for a time covered, it shall blaze forth anew to take reprisals upon its adversaries. Many a once venerated system of error now rots in the dead past among the tombs of the forgotten; but the truth as it is in Jesus knows no sepulchre, and fears no funeral; it lives on, and must live while the Eternal fills his throne.

The word of God is living, because it is the utterance of an immutable, self-existing God. God doth not speak to-day what he meant not yesterday, neither will he to-morrow blot out what he records to-day. When I read a promise spoken three thousand years ago, it is as fresh as though it fell from the eternal lips to-day. There are, indeed, no dates to the Divine promises; they are not of private interpretation, nor to be monopolised by any generation. I say again, as fresh today the eternal word drops from the Almighty’s lips as when he uttered it to Moses, or to Elias, or spake it by the tongue of Esaias or Jeremiah. The word is always sure, steadfast, and full of power. It is never out of date. Scripture bubbles up evermore with good matters, it is an eternal Geyser, a spiritual Niagara of grace, for ever falling, flashing, and flowing on; it is never stagnant, never brackish or defiled, but always clear, crystal, fresh, and refreshing; so, therefore, ever living.

The word lives, again, because it enshrines the living heart of Christ. The heart of Christ is the most living of all existences. It was once pierced with a spear, but it lives on, and yearns towards sinners, and is is as tender and compassionate as in the days of the Redeemer’s flesh. Jesus, the Sinner’s Friend, walks in the avenues of Scripture as once he traversed the plains and hills of Palestine: you can see him still, if you have opened eyes, in the ancient prophecies; you can behold him more clearly in the devout evangelists; he opens and lays bare his inmost soul to you in the epistles, and makes you hear the footsteps of his approaching advent in the symbols of the Apocalypse. The living Christ is in the book; you behold his face almost in every page; and, consequently, it is a book that can talk. The Christ of the mount of benedictions speaks in it still; the God who said, “Let there be light,” gives forth from its pages the same divine fiat; while the incorruptible truth, which saturated every line and syllable of it when first it was penned abides therein in full force, and preserves it from the finger of decay. “The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.”

Over and above all this, the Holy Spirit has a peculiar connection with the word of God. I know that he works in the ministries of all his servants whom he hath ordained to preach; but for the most part, I have remarked that the work of the Spirit of God in men’s hearts is rather in connection with the texts we quote than with our explanations of them. “Depend upon it,” says a deeply spiritual writer, “it is God’s word, not man’s comment on it, which saves souls.” God does save souls by our comment, but still it is true that the majority of conversions have been wrought by the agency of a text of Scripture. It is the word of God that is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. There must be life in it, for by it men are born again. As for believers, the Holy Spirit often sets the word on a blaze while they are studying it. The letters were at one time before us as mere letters, but the Holy Ghost suddenly came upon them, and they spake with tongues. The chapter is lowly as the bush at Horeb, but the Spirit descends upon it, and lo! it glows with celestial splendour, God appearing in the words, so that we feel like Moses when he put off his shoes from his feet, because the place whereon he stood was holy ground. It is true, the mass of readers understand not this, and look upon the Bible as a common book; but if they understand it not, at least let them allow the truthfulness of our assertion, when we declare that hundreds of times we have as surely felt the presence of God in the page of Scripture as ever Elijah did when he heard the Lord speaking in a still small voice. The Bible has often appeared to us as a temple God, and the posts of its doors have moved at the voice of him that cried, whose train also has filled the temple. We have been constraine! adoringly to cry, with the seraphim, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts.” The Jews place as a frontispiece to their great Bible the text, “Surely God is in this place; it is none other than the house of God, and the very gate of heaven.” And they say well. It is, indeed, a spiritual temple, a most holy house, garnished with precious stones for beauty, and overlaid within and without with pure gold, having for its chief glory the presence of the Lord, so gloriously revealed, that, oftentimes, the priests of the Lord cannot stand to minister, by reason of the glory of the Lord which fills the house. God the Holy Spirit vivifies the letter with his presence, and then it is to us a living word indeed.

And now, dear brethren, if these things be so-and our experience certifies them-let us take care how we trifle with a book which is so instinct with life. Might not many of you remember your faults this day wore we to ask you whether you are habitual students of holy writ? Readers of it I believe you are; but are you searchers; for the promise is not to those who merely read, but to those who delight in the law of the Lord, and meditate therein both day and night. Are you sitting at the feet of Jesus, with his word as your school-book? If not, remember, though you may be saved, you lack very much of the blessing which otherwise you might enjoy. Have you been backsliding? Refresh your soul by meditating in the divine statutes, and you will say, with David, “Thy word hath quickened me.” Are you faint and weary? Go and talk with this living book: it will give you back your energy, and you shall mount again as with the wings of eagles. But are you unconverted altogether? Then I cannot direct you to Bible-reading as being the way of salvation, nor speak of it as though it had any merit in it; but I would, nevertheless, urge upon you unconverted people great reverence for Scripture, an intimate acquaintance with its contents, and a frequent perusal of its pages, for it has occurred ten thousand times over that when men have been studying the word of life, the word has brought life to them. “The entrance of thy word giveth light.” Like Elijah and the dead child, the word has stretched itself upon them, and their dead souls have been made to live. One of the likeliest places in which to find Christ is in the garden of the Scriptures, for there he delights to walk. As of old, the blind men were wont to sit by the wayside begging, so that, if Jesus passed by, they might cry to him, so would I have you sit down by the wayside of the Holy Scriptures. Hear the promises, listen to their gracious words; they are the footsteps of the Saviour; and, as you hear them, may you be led to cry, “Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me!” Attend most those ministries which preach God’s word most. Do not select those that are fullest of fine speaking, and that dazzle you with expressions which are rather ornamental than edifying; but get to a ministry that is full of God’s own word, and, above all, learn God’s word itself. Read it with a desire to know its meaning, and I am persuaded that, thereby, many of you who are now far from God will be brought near to him, and led to a saving faith in Jesus, for “the word of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

If the text says, “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee,” then it is clear the word is personal. “It shall talk with thee.” It is not written, “It shall speak to the air, and thou shalt hear its voice,” but, “It shall talk with thee.” You know exactly what the expression means. I am not exactly talking with any one of you this morning; there are too many of you, and I am but one; but, when you are on the road home, each one will talk with his fellow: then it is truly talk when man speaks to man. Now, the word of God has the condescending habit of talking to men, speaking personally to them; and, herein, I desire to commend the word of God to your love. Oh! that you might esteem it very precious for this reason!

“It shall talk with thee,” that is to say, God’s word talks about men, and about modern men; it speaks of ourselves, and of these latter days, as precisely as if it had only appeared this last week. Some go to the word of God with the idea that they shall find historical information about the ancient ages, and so they will, but that is not the object of the word. Others look for facts upon geology, and great attempts have been made either to bring geology round to Scripture, or Scripture to geology. We may always rest assured that truth never contradicts itself; but, as nobody knows anything yet about geology-for its theory is a dream and an imagination altogether-we will wait till the philosophers settle their own private matters, being confident that when they find out the truth, it will be quite consistent with what God has revealed. At any rate, we may leave that. The main teachings of Holy Scripture are about men, about the Paradise of unfallen manhood, the fall, the degeneracy of the race, and the means of its redemption. The book speaks of victims and sacrifices, priests and washings, and so points us to the divine plan by which man can be elevated from the fall and be reconciled to God. Read Scripture through, and you shall find that its great subject is that which concerns the race as to their most important interests, and concerns the race, not as Jews or as Gentiles, but as men; not as Barbarians, or Scythians, or Greek, or bond, or free, but as men; and he does not read the word of God aright, who does not hear it talking to him about things which intimately concern both himself and his fellows. It is a book that talks, talks personally, for it deals with things not in the moon, nor in the planet Jupiter, nor in the distant ages long gone by, nor does it say much of the periods yet to come, but it deals with us, with the business of to-day; how sin may be to-day forgiven, and our souls brought at once into union with Christ.

Moreover, this book is so personal, that it speaks to nun in all states and conditions before God. How it talks to sinners-talks, I say, for it puts it thus: “Come, now, and let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as snow.” It has many very tender expostulations for sinners. It stoops to their condition and position. If they will not stoop to God, it makes, as it were, eternal mercy stoop to them. It talks of feasts of fat things, of fat things full of marrow; and the book, as it talks, reasons with men’s hunger, and bids them eat and be satisfied. It speaks of garments woven in the loom of infinite wisdom and love, and so it talks to man’s nakedness, and entreats him to be arrayed in the divine righteousness. There is no sinner, in any condition, who dare say there is nothing in the word of God to suit his case. If thou hast been a persecutor, Saul’s history talks to thee: if thou hadst shed innocent blood very much, Manasseh would speak with thee; if thou hast been a harlot, or a thief, it has special passages to meet thee. In all conditions into which the sinner can be cast, there is a word that precisely meets his condition.

And, certainly, when we become the children of God the book talks with us wondrously. In the family of heaven it is the child’s own book. We no sooner know our Father than this dear book comes at once as a love letter from the far-off country, signed with our own Father’s hand, and perfumed with our Father’s love. If we grow in grace, or if we backslide, in either case Scripture still talks with us. Whatever our position before the eternal God, the book seems to be written on purpose to meet that position. It talks to you as you are, not only as you should be, or as others have been, but with you, with you personally, about your present condition.

Have you never noticed how personal the book is as to all your states of mind, in reference to sadness or to joy? There was a time with some of us when we were very gloomy and sore depressed, and then the book of Job mourned to the same dolorous tune. I have turned over the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and thought that I could have written just what Jeremiah wrote. It mourns unto us when we lament. On the other hand, when the soul gets up to the exceeding high mountains, to the top of Amana and Lebanon, when we behold visions of glory, and see our Beloved face to face, lo! the word is at our side, and in the delightful language of the Psalms, or in the yet sweeter expressions of the Song of Solomon, it tells us all that is in our heart, and talks to us as a living thing that has been in the deeps, and has been on the heights, that has known the overwhelmings of affliction, and has rejoiced in the triumphs of delight. The word of God is to me my own book: I have no doubt, brother, it is the same to you. There could not be a Bible that suited me better: it seems written on purpose for me. Dear sister, have not you often felt as you have put your finger on a promise, “Ah, that is my promise; if there be no other soul whose tearful eyes can bedew that page and say, ‘It is mine,’ yet I, a poor afflicted one, can do so!” Oh, yes; the book is very personal, for it goes into all the details of our case, let our state be what it may.

And, how very faithful it always is. You never find the word of God keeping back that which is profitable to you. Like Nathan it cries, “Thou art the man.” It never allows our sins to go unrebuked, nor our backslidings to escape notice till they grow into overt sin. It gives us timely notice, it cries to us as soon as we begin to go aside, “Awake thou that sleepest,” “Watch and pray,” “Keep thine heart with all diligence,” and a thousand other words of warning does it address personally to each one of us.

Now I would suggest, before I leave this point, a little self-examination as healthful for each of us. Does the word of God after this fashion speak to my soul? Then it is a gross folly to lose by generalisations that precious thing which can only be realised by a personal grasp. How sayest thou, dear hearer? dost thou read the book for thyself, and does the book speak to thee? Has it ever condemned thee, and hast thou trembled before the word of God? Has it ever pointed thee to Christ, and hast thou looked to Jesus the incarnate Saviour? Does the book now seal, as with the witness of the Spirit, the witness of thine own spirit that thou art born of God? Art thou in the habit of going to the book to know thine own condition, to see thine own face as in a glass? Is it thy family medicine? Is it thy test and tell-tale to let thee know thy spiritual condition? Oh, do not treat the book otherwise than this, for if thou dost thus unto it, and takest it to be thy personal friend, happy art thou, since God will dwell with the man that trembles at his word; but, if you treat it as anybody’s book rather than your own, then beware, lest you be numbered with the wicked who despise God’s statutes.

From the text we learn that holy scripture is very familiar. “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. To talk signifies fellowship, communion, familiarity. It does not say, “It shall preach to thee.” Many persons have a high esteem for the book, but they look upon it as though it were some very elevated teacher speaking to them from a lofty tribunal, while they stand far below. I will not altogether condemn that reverence, but it were far better if they would understand the familiarity of God’s word; it does not so much preach to us as talk to us. It is not, “When thou awakest, it shall lecture thee,” or, “it shall scold thee; “no, no, “it shall talk with thee.” We sit at its feet, or rather at the feet of Jesus, in the word, and it comes down to us; it is familiar with us, as a man talketh to his friend. And here let me remind you of the delightful familiarity of Scripture in this respect, that it speaks the language of men. If God had written us a book in his own language, we could not have comprehended it, or what little we understood would have so alarmed us, that we should have besought that those words should not be spoken to us any more; but the Lord, in his word, often uses language which, though it be infallibly true in its meaning, is not after the knowledge of God, but according to the manner of man. I mean this, that the word uses similies and analogies of which we may say that they speak humanly, and not according to the absolute truth as God himself sees it. As men conversing with babes use their broken speech, so doth the condescending word. It is not written in the celestial tongue, but in the patois of this lowland country, condescending to men of low estate. It feeds us on bread broken down to our capacity, “food convenient for us.” It speaks of God’s arm, his hand, his finger, his wings, and even of his feathers. Now, all this is familiar picturing, to meet our childish capacities; for the Infinite One is not to be conceived of as though such similitudes were literal facts. It is an amazing instance of divine love, that he puts those things so that we may be helped to grasp sublime truths. Let us thank the Lord of the word for this.

How tenderly Scripture comes down to simplicity. Suppose the sacred volume had all been like the book of the prophet Ezekiel, small would have been its service to the generality of mankind. Imagine that the entire volume had been as mysterious as the Book of Revelation: it might have been our duty to study it, but if its benefit depended upon our understanding it, we should have failed to attain it. But how simple are the gospels, how plain these words, “He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved;” how deliciously clear those parables about the lost piece of money, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son. Wherever the word touches upon vital points, it is as bright as a sunbeam Mysteries there are, and profound doctrines, deeps where Leviathan can swim; but, where it has to do immediately with what concerns us for eternity, it is so plain that the babe in grace may safely wade in its refreshing streams. In the gospel narrative the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err. It is familiar talk; it is God’s great mind brought down to our littleness, that it may lift us up.

How familiar the book is too-I speak now as to my own feelings-as to all that concerns us. It talks about my flesh, and my corruptions, and my sins, as only one that knew me could speak. It talks of my trials in the wisest way; some, I dare not tell, it knows all about. It talks about my difficulties; some would sneer at them and laugh, but this book sympathises with them, knows my tremblings, and ray fears, and my doubts, and all the storm that rages within the little world of my nature. The book has been through all my experience; somehow or other it maps it all out, and talks with me as if it were a fellow-pilgrim. It does not speak to me unpractically, and scold me, and look down upon me from an awful height of stern perfection, as if it were an angel, and could not sympathise with fallen men; but like the Lord whom it reveals, the book seems as if it were touched with a feeling of my infirmities, and had been tempted in all points as I am. Have you not often wondered at the human utterances of the divine word: it thunders like God and yet weeps like man. It seems impossible that anything should be too little for the word of God to notice, or too bitter, or even too sinful for that book to overlook. It touches humanity at all points. Everywhere it is a personal, familiar acquaintance, and seems to say to itself, “Shall I hide this thing from Abraham my friend?”

And, how often the book has answered enquiries! I have been amazed in times of difficulties to see how plain the oracle is. You have asked friends, and they could not advise you; but you have gone to your knees, and God has told you. You have questioned, and you have puzzled, and you have tried to elucidate the problem, and, lo I in the chapter read at morning prayer, or in a passage of Scripture that lay open before you, the direction has been given. Have we not seen a text, as it were, plume its wings, and fly from the word like a seraph, and touch our lips with a live altar coal? It lay like a slumbering angel amidst the beds of spices of the sacred word, but it received a divine mission, and brought consolation and instruction to your heart.

The word of God, then, talks with us in the sense of being familiar with us. Do we understand this? I will close this point by another word of application. Who, then, that finds God’s word so dear and kind a friend would spurn or neglect it? If any of you have despised it, what shall I say to you? If it were a dreary book, written within and without with curses and lamentations, whose every letter flashed with declarations of vengeance, I might see some reason why we should not read it; but, O precious, priceless companion, dear friend of all my sorrows, making my bed in my sickness, the light of my darkness, and the joy of my soul, how can I forget thee-how can I forsake thee? I have heard of one who said that the dust on some men’s Bibles lay there so thick and long that you might write “Damnation” on it. I am afraid that such is the case with some of you. Mr. Rogers, of Dedham, on one occasion, after preaching about the preciousness of the Bible, took it away from the front of the pulpit, and, putting it down behind him, pictured God as saying, “You do not read the book: you do not care about it; I will take it back-you shall not be wearied with it any more.” And then he pourtrayed the grief of wise men’s hearts when they found the blessed revelation withdrawn from men; and how they would besiege the throne of grace, day and night, to ask it back. I am sure he spoke the truth. Though we too much neglect it, yet ought we to prize it beyond all price, for, if it were taken from us, we should have lost our kindest comforter in the hour of need. God grant us to love the Scriptures more!

Fourthly, and with brevity, our text evidently shows that the word is responsive. “When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee,” not to thee. Now, talk with a man is not all on one side. To talk with a man needs answering talk from him. You have both of you something to say when you talk together. It is a conversation to which each one contributes his part. Now, Scripture is a marvellously conversational book; it talks, and makes men talk. It is ever ready to respond to us. Suppose you go to the Scriptures in a certain state of spiritual life: you must have noticed, I think, that the word answers to that state. If you are dark and gloomy, it will appear as though it had put itself in mourning, so that it might lament with you. When you are on the dunghill, there sits Scripture, with dust and ashes on its head, weeping side by side with you, and not upbraiding like Job’s miserable comforters. But suppose you come to the book with gleaming eyes of joy, you will hear it laugh; it will sing and play to you as with psaltery and harp, it will bring forth the high-sounding cymbals. Enter its goodly land in a happy state, and you shall go forth with joy and be led forth with peace, its mountains and its hills shall break before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. As in water the face is reflected, so in the living stream of revealed truth a man sees his own image.

If you come to Holy Scripture with growth in grace, and with with aspirations for yet higher attainments, the book grows with you, grows upon you. It is ever beyond you, and cheerily cries, “Higher yet; Excelsior!” Many books in my library are now behind and beneath me; I read them years ago, with considerable pleasure; I have read them since, with disappointment; I shall never read them again, for they are of no service to me. They were good in their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old; but I have outgrown them, I know more than these books know, and know wherein they are faulty. Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years. It is true, it cannot really grow, for it is perfect; but it does so to our apprehension. The deeper you dig into Scripture, the more you find that it is a great abyss of truth. The beginner learns four or five points of orthodoxy, and says, “I understand the gospel, I have grasped all the Bible.” Wait a bit, and when his soul grows and knows more of Christ, he will confess, “Thy commandment is exceeding broad, I have only begun to understand it.”

There is one thing about God’s word which shows its responsiveness to us, and that is when you reveal your heart to it, it reveals its heart to you. If, as you read the word, you say, “O blessed truth, thou art indeed realised in my experience; come thou still further into my heart. I give up my prejudices, I assign myself, like the wax, to be stamped with thy seal,”-when you do that, and open your heart to Scripture, Scripture will open its heart to you; for it has secrets which it does not tell to the casual reader, it has precious things of the everlasting hills which can only be discovered by miners who know how to dig and open the secret places, and penetrate great veins of everlasting riches. Give thyself up to the Bible, and the Bible will give itself up to thee. Be candid with it, and honest with thy soul, and the Scripture will take down its golden key, and open one door after another, and show to thy astonished gaze ingots of silver which thou couldst not weigh, and heaps of gold which thou couldst not measure. Happy is that man who, in talking with the Bible, tells it all his heart, and learns the secret of the Lord which is with them that fear him.

And how, too, if you love the Bible and talk out your love to it, the Bible will love you! Its wisdom says, “I love them that love me.” Embrace the word of God, and the word of God embraces you at once. When you prize its every letter, then it smiles upon you graciously, greets you with many welcomes, and treats you as an honoured guest. I am always sorry to be on bad terms with the Bible, for then I must be on bad terms with God. Whenever my creed does not square with God’s word, I think it is time to mould my creed into another form. As for God’s words, they must not be touched with hammer or axe. Oh, the chiselling, and cutting, and hammering in certain commentaries to make God’s Bible orthodox and systematic! How much better to leave it alone! The word is right, and we are wrong, wherein we agree not with it. The teachings of God’s word are infallible, and must be reverenced as such. Now, when you love it so well that you would not touch a single line of it, and prize it so much that you would even die for the defence of one of its truths, then, as it is dear to you, you will be dear to it, and it will grasp you and unfold itself to you as it does not to the world.

Dear brethren and sisters, I must leave this point, but it shall be with this remark-Do you talk to God? Does God talk to you? Does your heart go up to heaven, and does his word come fresh from heaven to your soul? If not, you do not know the experience of the living child of God, and I can earnestly pray you may. May you this day be brought to see Christ Jesus in the word, to see a crucified Saviour there, and to put your trust in him, and then, from this day forward, the word will echo to your heart-it will respond to your emotions.

Lastly, Scripture is influential. That I gather from the fact that Solomon says, “When thou wakest, it shall talk with thee;” and follows it up with the remark that it keeps man from the strange woman, and from other sins which he goes on to mention. When the word of God talks with us, it influences us. All talk influences more or less. I believe there is more done in this world for good or bad by talk thou there is by preaching; indeed, the preacher preaches best when he talks; there is no oratory in the world that is equal to simple talk: it is the model of eloquence; and all your rhetorician’s action and verbiage are so much rubbish. The most efficient way of preaching is simply talking; the man permitting his heart to run over at his lips into other men’s hearts. Now, this book, as it talks with us, influences us, and it does so in many ways.

It soothes our sorrows, and encourages us. Many a warrior has been ready to steal away from God’s battle, but the word has laid its hand on him, and said, “Stand on thy feet, be not discouraged, be of good cheer, I will strengthen thee, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” Brave saints we have read of, but we little know how often they would have been arrant cowards, only the good word came and strengthened them, and they went back to be stronger than lions and swifter than eagles.

While the book thus soothes and cheers, it has a wonderfully elevating power. Have you never felt it put fresh life-blood into you? You have thought, “How can I continue to live at such a dying rate as I have lived, something nobler must I gain?” Read that part of the word which tells of the agonies of your Master, and you will feel-

“Now for the love I bear his name,

What was my gain I count my loss

My former pride I call my shame,

And nail my glory to his cross.”

Read of the glories of heaven which this book reveals, and you will feel that you can run the race with quickened speed, because a crown so bright is glittering in your view. Nothing can so lift a man above the gross considerations of carnal gain or human applause as to have his soul saturated with the spirit of truth. It elevates as well as cheers.

Then, too, how often it warns and restrains. I had gone to the right or to the left if the law of the Lord had not said, “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.”

This book’s consecrated talk sanctifies and moulds the mind into the image of Christ. You cannot expect to grow in grace if you do not rend the Scriptures. If you are not familiar with the word, you cannot expect to become like him that spake it. Our experience is, as it were, the potter’s wheel on which we revolve; and the hand of God is in the Scriptures to mould us after the fashion and image which he intends to bring us to. Oh, be much with the holy word of God, and you will be holy. Be much with the silly novels of the day, and the foolish trifles of the hour, and you will degenerate into vapid wasters of your time; but be much with the solid teaching of God’s word, and you will become solid and substantial men and women: drink them in, and feed upon them, and they shall produce in you a Christ-likeness, at which the world shall stand astonished.

Lastly, let the Scripture talk with you, and it will confirm and settle you. We hear every now and then of apostates from the gospel. They must have been little taught in the truth as it is in Jesus. A great outcry is made, every now and then, about our all being perverted to Rome. I was assured the other day by a good man, with a great deal of alarm, that all England was going over to Popery. I told him I did not know what kind of God he worshipped, but my God was a good deal bigger than the devil, and did not intend to let the devil have his way after all, and that I was not half as much afraid of the Pope at Rome as of the Ritualists at home. But mark it, there is some truth in these fears. There will be a going over to one form of error or another, unless there be in the Christian church a more honest, industrious, and general reading of Holy Scripture. What if I were to say most of you church members do not read your Bibles, should I be slandering you? You hear on the Sabbath day a chapter read, and you perhaps read a passage at family prayer, but a very large number never read the Bible privately for themselves, they take their religion out of the monthly magazine, or accept it from the minister’s lips. Oh, for the Berean spirit back again, to search the Scriptures whether these things be so. I would like to see a huge pile of all the books, good and bad that were ever written, prayer-books, and sermons, and hymn-books, and all, smoking like Sodom of old, if the reading of those books keeps you away from the reading of the Bible; for a ton weight of human literature is not worth an ounce of Scripture; one single drop of the essential tincture of the word of God is better than a sea full of our commentings and sermonisings, and the like. The word, the simple, pure, infallible word of God, we must live upon if we are to become strong against error, and tenacious of truth. Brethren, mar you be established in the faith, rooted, grounded, built up; but I know you cannot be except ye search the Scriptures continually.

The time is coming when we shall all fall asleep in death. Oh, how blessed it will be to find when we awake that the word of God will talk with us then, and remember its ancient friendship. Then the promise which we loved before shall be fulfilled; the charming intimations of a blessed future shall be all realised, and the face of Christ, whom we saw as through a glass darkly, shall be all uncovered, and he shall shine upon us as the sun in its strength. God grant us to love the word, and feed thereon, and the Lord shall have the glory for ever and ever. Amen and amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon.-Psalm 119:161-176; Proverbs 6:1-23.

PLEADING

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 29th, 1871, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make no tarrying.”-Psalm 70:5.

Young painters were anxious, in the olden times, to study under the great masters. They concluded that they should more easily attain to excellence if they entered the schools of eminent men. At this present time, men will pay large premiums that their sons may be apprenticed or articled to those who best understand their trades or professions; now, if any of us would learn the sacred art and mystery of prayer, it is well for us to study the productions of the greatest masters of that science. I am unable to point out one who understood it better than did the psalmist David. So well did he know how to praise, that his psalms have become the language of good men in all ages; and so well did he understand how to pray, that if we catch his spirit, and follow his mode of prayer, we shall have learned to plead with God after the most prevalent sort. Place before you, first of all, David’s Son and David’s Lord, that most mighty of all intercessors, and, next to him, you shall find David to be one of the most admirable models for your imitation.

We shall consider our text, then, as one of the productions of a great master in spiritual matters, and we will study it, praying all the while that God will help us to pray after the like fashion.

In our text we have the soul of a successful pleader under four aspects: we view, first, the soul confessing: “I am poor and needy.” You have, next, the soul pleading, for he makes a plea out of his poor condition, and adds, “Make haste unto me, O God!” You see, thirdly, a soul in its urgency, for he cries, “Make haste,” and he varies the expression but keeps the same idea: “Make no tarrying.” And you have, in the fourth and last view, a soul grasping God, for the psalmist puts it thus: “Thou art my help and my deliverer;” thus with both hands he lays hold upon his God, so as not to let him go till a blessing is obtained.

To begin, then, we see in this model of supplication, a soul confessing. The wrestler strips before he enters upon the contest, and confession does the like for the man who is about to plead with God. A racer on the plains of prayer cannot hope to win, unless, by confession, repentance, and faith, he lays aside every weight of sin.

Now, let it be ever remembered that confession is absolutely needful to the sinner when he first seeks a Saviour. It is not possible for thee, O seeker, to obtain peace for thy troubled heart, till thou shalt have acknowledged thy transgression and thine iniquity before the Lord. Thou mayest do what thou wilt, ay, even attempt to believe in Jesus, but thou shalt find that the faith of God’s elect is not in thee, unless thou art willing to make a full confession of thy transgression, and lay bare thy heart before God. We do not usually think of giving charity to those who do not acknowledge that they need it: the physician does not send his medicine to those who are not sick. There is too much to be done in the world of necessary work for us to undertake works of supererogation; and, surely, to clothe those who are not naked, and to feed those that are not hungry, is to attempt superfluous work, which will bring us no credit. God will not do this: you must be empty before you can be filled by him, and you must confess your emptiness, too, or else assuredly he will not come to fill the full, nor to lift up those who are already high enough in their own esteem. The blind man in the gospels had to feel his blindness, and to sit by the wayside begging; if he had entertained a doubt as to whether he were blind or not, the Lord would have passed him by. He opens the eyes of those who confess their blindness, but of others, he says, “Because ye say we see, therefore, your sin remaineth.” He asks of those who are brought to him, “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” in order that their need may be publicly avowed. It must be so with all of us: we must offer the confession, or we cannot gain the benediction.

Let me speak especially to you who desire to find peace with God, and salvation through the precious blood: you will do well to make your confession before God very frank, very sincere, very explicit. Surely you have nothing to hide, for there is nothing that you can hide. He knows your guilt already, but he would have you know it, and therefore he bids you confess it. Go into the details of your sin in your secret acknowledgments before God; strip yourself of all excuses, make no apologies; say, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.” Acknowledge the evil of sin, ask God to make you feel it; do not treat it as a trifle, for it is none. To redeem the sinner from the effect of sin Christ himself must needs die, and unless you be delivered from it you must die eternally. Therefore, play not with sin; do not confess it as though it were some venial fault, which would not have been noticed unless God had been too severe; but labour to see sin as God sees it, as an offence against all that is good, a rebellion against all that is kind; see it to be treason, to be ingratitude, to be a mean and base thing. Do not think that you can improve your condition before God by painting your case in brighter colours than it should be. Blacken it: if it were possible blacken it, but it is not possible. When you feel your sin most you have not half felt it; when you confess it most fully you do not know a tithe of it; but oh, to the utmost of your ability make a clean breast of it, and say, “I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.” Acknowledge the sins of your youth and your manhood, the sins of your body and of your soul, the sins of omission and of commission, sins against the law and offences against the gospel; acknowledge all, neither for a moment seek to deny one portion of the evil with which God’s law, your own conscience, and his Holy Spirit justly charge you.

And oh, soul, if thou wouldst get peace and approval with God in prayer, confess the ill desert of thy sin. Submit thyself to whatever divine justice may sentence thee to endure: confess that the deepest hell is thy desert, and confess this not with thy lips only, but with thy soul. Let this be the doleful ditty of thine inmost heart-

“Should sudden vengeance seize my breath,

I must pronounce thee just in death;

And, if my soul were sent to hell,

Thy righteous law approves it well.”

If thou wilt condemn thyself, God will acquit thee; if thou wilt put the rope about thy neck, and sentence thyself, then he who otherwise would have sentenced thee will say, “I forgive thee, through the merit of my Son.” But never expect that the King of heaven will pardon a traitor, if he will not confess and forsake his treason. Even the tenderest father expects that the child should humble himself when he has offended, and he will not withdraw his frown from him till with tears he has said, “Father, I have sinned.” Darest thou expect God to humble himself to thee, and would it not be so if he did not constrain thee to humble thyself to him? Wouldst thou have him connive at thy faults and wink at thy transgressions? He will have mercy, but he must be holy. He is ready to forgive, but not to tolerate sin; and, therefore, he cannot let thee be forgiven if thou huggest thy sins, or if thou presumest to say, “I have not sinned.” Hasten, then, O seeker, hasten, I pray thee, to the mercy seat with this upon thy lips: “I am poor and needy, I am sinful, I am lost; have pity on me.” With such an acknowledgment thou beginnest thy prayer well, and through Jesus thou shalt prosper in it.

Beloved hearers, the same principle applies to the church of God. We are praying for a display of the Holy Spirit’s power in this church, and, in order to successful pleading in this matter, it is necessary that we should unanimously make the confession of our text, “I am poor and needy.” We must own that we are powerless in this business. Salvation is of the Lord and we cannot save a single soul. The Spirit of God is treasured up in Christ, and we must seek him of the great head of the church. We cannot command the Spirit, and yet we can do nothing without him. He bloweth where he listeth. We must deeply feel and honestly acknowledge this. Will you not heartily assent to it my brethren and sisters at this hour. May I not ask you unanimously to renew the confession this morning? We must also acknowledge that we are not worthy that the Holy Spirit should condescend to work with us and by us. There is no fitness in us for his purposes, except he shall give us that fitness. Our sins might well provoke him to leave us: he has striven with us, he has been tender towards us, but he might well go away and say, “I will no more shine upon that church, and no more bless that ministry.” Let us feel our unworthiness, it will be a good preparation for earnest prayer; for, mark you, brethren, God will have his church before he blesses it know that the blessing is altogether from himself. “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” The career of Gideon was a very remarkable one, and it commenced with two most instructive signs. I think our heavenly Father would have all of us learn the very same lesson which he taught to Gideon, and when we have mastered that lesson, he will use us for his own purposes. You remember Gideon laid a fleece upon the barn floor, and in the morning all round was dry and the fleece alone was wet. God alone had saturated the fleece so that he could wring it out, and its moisture was not due to its being placed in a favourable situation, for all around was dry. He would have us learn that, if the dew of his grace fills any one of us with its heavenly moisture, it is not because we lie upon the barn-floor of a ministry which God usually blesses, or because we are in a church which the Lord graciously visits; but we must be made to see that the visitations of his Spirit are fruits of the Lord’s sovereign grace, and gifts of his infinite love, and not of the will of man, neither by man. But then the miracle was reversed, for, as old Thomas Fuller says, “God’s miracles will bear to be turned inside out and look as glorious one way as another.” The next night the fleece was dry and all around was wet. For sceptics might have said, “Yes, but a fleece would naturally attract moisture, and if there were any in the air, it would be likely to be absorbed by the wool.” But, lo, on this occasion, the dew is not where it might be expected to be, even though it lies thickly all around. Damp is the stone and dry is the fleece. So God will have us know that he does not give us his grace because of any natural adaptation in us to receive it, and even where he has given a preparedness of heart to receive, he will have us understand that his grace and his Spirit are most free in action, and sovereign in operation: and that he is not bound to work after any rule of our making. If the fleece be wet he bedews it, and that not because it is a fleece, but because he chooses to do so. He will have all the glory of all his grace from first to last. Come then, my brethren, and become disciples to this truth. Consider that from the great Father of lights every good and perfect gift must come. We are his workmanship, he must work all our works in us. Grace is not to be commanded by our position or condition: the wind bloweth where it listeth, the Lord works and no man can hinder; but if he works not, the mightiest and the most zealous labour but in vain.

It is very significant that before Christ fed the thousands, he made the disciples sum up all their provisions. It was well to let them see how low the commissariat had become, for then when the crowds were fed they could not say the basket fed them, nor that the lad had done it. God will make us feel how little are our barley loaves, and how small our fishes, and compel us to enquire, “What are they among so many?” When the Saviour bade his disciples cast the net on the right side of the ship, and they dragged such a mighty shoal to land, he did not work the miracle till they had confessed that they had toiled all the night and had taken nothing. They were thus taught that the success of their fishery was dependent upon the Lord, and that it was not their net, nor their way of dragging it, nor their skill and art in handling their vessels, but that altogether and entirely their success came from their Lord. We must get down to this, and the sooner we come to it the better.

Before the ancient Jews kept the passover, observe what they did. The unleavened bread is to be brought in, and the paschal lamb to be eaten; but there shall be no unleavened bread, and no paschal lamb, till they have purged out the old leaven. If you have any old strength and self-confidence; if you have anything that is your own, and is, therefore, leavened, it must be swept right out; there must be a bare cupboard before there can come in the heavenly provision, upon which the spiritual passover can be kept. I thank God when he cleans us out; I bless his name when he brings us to feel our soul-poverty as a church, for then the blessing will be sure to come.

One other illustration will show this, perhaps, more distinctly still. Behold Elijah with the priests of Baal at Carmel. The test appointed to decide Israel’s choice was this-the God that answereth by fire let him be God. Baal’s priests invoked the heavenly flame in vain. Elijah is confident that it will come upon his sacrifice, but he is also sternly resolved that the false priests and the fickle people shall not imagine that he himself had produced the fire. He determines to make it clear that there is no human contrivance, trickery, or manœuvre about the matter. The flame should be seen to be of the Lord, and of the Lord alone. Remember the stern prophet’s command, “Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt sacrifice, and on the wood. And he said, Do it a second time; and they did it a second time. And he said, Do it a third time; and they did it a third time. And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water.” There could be no latent fires there. If there had been any combustibles or chemicals calculated to produce fire after the manner of the cheats of the time, they would all have been damped and spoiled. When no one could imagine that man could burn the sacrifice, then the prophet lifted up his eyes to heaven, and began to plead, and down came the fire of the Lord, which consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood, and the altar stones and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench. Then when all the people saw it they fell on their faces, and they said, “Jehovah is the God; Jehovah is the God.” The Lord in this church, if he means greatly to bless us, may send us the trial of pouring on the water once, and twice, and thrice; he may discourage us, grieve us, and try us, and bring us low, till all shall see that it is not of the preacher, it is not of the organization, it is not of man, but altogether of God, the Alpha and the Omega, who worketh all things according to the council of his will.

Thus I have shown you that for a successful season of prayer the best beginning is confession that we are poor and needy.

Secondly, after the soul has unburdened itself of all weights of merit and self-sufficiency, it proceeds to prayer, and we have before us a soul pleading. “I am poor and needy, make haste unto me, O God. Thou art my help and my deliverer: O Lord, make no tarrying.” The careful reader will perceive four pleas in this single verse.

Upon this topic I would remark that it is the habit of faith, when she is praying, to use pleas. Mere prayer sayers, who do not pray at all, forget to argue with God; but those who would prevail bring forth their reasons and their strong arguments, and they debate the question with the Lord. They who play at wrestling catch here and there at random, but those who are really wrestling have a certain way of grasping the opponent-a certain mode of throwing, and the like; they work according to order and rule. Faith’s art of wrestling is to plead with God, and say with holy boldness, “Let it be thus and thus, for these reasons.” Hosea tells us of Jacob at Jabbok, “that there he spake with us;” from which I understand that Jacob instructed us by his example. Now, the two pleas which Jacob used were God’s precept and God’s promise. First, he said, “Thou saidst unto me, Return unto thy country and to thy kindred:” as much as if he put it thus:-“Lord, I am in difficulty, but I have come here through obedience to thee. Thou didst tell me to do this; now, since thou commandest me to come hither, into the very teeth of my brother Esau, who comes to meet me like a lion, Lord, thou canst not be so unfaithful as to bring me into danger and then leave me in it.” This was sound reasoning, and it prevailed with God. Then Jacob also urged a promise: “Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good.” Among men, it is a masterly way of reasoning when you can challenge your opponent with his own words: you may quote other authorities, and he may say, “I deny their force;” but, when you quote a man against himself, you foil him completely. When you bring a man’s promise to his mind, he must either confess himself to be unfaithful and changeable, or, if he holds to being the same, and being true to his word, you have him, and you have won your will of him. Oh, brethren, let us learn thus to plead the precepts, the promises, and whatever else may serve our turn; but let us always have something to plead. Do not reckon you have prayed unless you have pleaded, for pleading is the very marrow of prayer. He who pleads well knows the secret of prevailing with God, especially if he pleads the blood of Jesus, for that unlocks the treasury of heaven. Many keys fit many locks, but the master-key is the blood and the name of him that died but rose again, and ever lives in heaven to save unto the uttermost.

Faith’s pleas are plentiful, and this is well, for faith is placed in divers positions, and needs them all. She hath many needs, and having a keen eye she perceives that there are pleas to be urged in every case. I will not, therefore, tell you all faith’s pleas, but I will just mention some of them, enough to let you see how abundant they are. Faith will plead all the attributes of God. “Thou art just, therefore spare thou the soul for whom the Saviour died. Thou art merciful, blot out my transgressions. Thou art good, reveal thy bounty to thy servant. Thou art immutable-thou hast done thus and thus to others of thy servants, do thus unto me. Thou art faithful, canst thou break thy promise, canst thou turn away from thy covenant?” Rightly viewed, all the perfections of Deity become pleas for faith.

Faith will boldly plead all God’s gracious relationships. She will say to him, “Art thou not the Creator? Wilt thou forsake the work of thine own hands? Art thou not the Redeemer, thou hast redeemed thy servant, wilt thou cast me away?” Faith usually delights to lay hold upon the fatherhood of God. This is generally one of her master points: when she brings this into the field she wins the day. “Thou art a Father, and wouldst thou chasten us as though thou wouldst kill? A Father, and wilt thou not provide? A Father, and hast thou no sympathy and no bowels of compassion? A Father, and canst thou deny what thine own child asks of thee?” Whenever I am impressed with the divine majesty, and so, perhaps, a little dispirited in prayer, I find the short and sweet remedy is to remember that, although he is a great King, and infinitely glorious, I am his child, and no matter who the father is, the child may always be bold with his father. Yes, faith can plead any and all of the relationships in which God stands to his chosen.

Faith, too, can ply heaven with the divine promises. I need not enlarge here, for this I trust you all do so continually. When you can as it were bring home the Lord’s word to himself, it is well. That is the conquering argument, “Do as thou hast said.” “Thou hast spoken it, and thou hast made thy promise to be yea and amen in Christ Jesus to thine own glory by us, wilt thou not fulfil it? Wilt thou run back from thine own word? Wilt thou fail to carry out thine own declaration? That be far from thee, Lord!” Brethren, we want to be more business like and common sense with God in pleading promises. If you were to go to one of the banks in Lombard Street, and see a man go in and out and lay a piece of paper on the table, and take it up again and nothing more; if he did that several times a day, I think there would soon be orders issued to the porter to keep the man out, because he was merely wasting the clerk’s time, and doing nothing to purpose. Those city men who come to the bank in earnest present their cheques, they wait till they receive their gold and then they go, but not without having transacted real business. They do not put the paper down, speak about the excellent signature and discuss the correctness of the document, but they want their money for it, and they are not content without it. These are the people who are always welcome at the bank and not the triflers. Alas, a great many people play at praying, it is nothing better. I say they play at praying, they do not expect God to give them an answer, and thus they are mere triflers, who mock the Lord. He who prays in a business-like way, meaning what he says, honours the Lord. The Lord does not play at promising, Jesus did not sport at confirming the word by his blood, and we must not make a jest of prayer by going about it in a listless unexpecting spirit.

The Holy Spirit is in earnest, and we must be in earnest also. We must go for a blessing, and not be satisfied till we have it; like the hunter, who is not satisfied because he has run so many miles, but is never content till he takes his prey.

Faith, moreover, pleads the performances of God, she looks back on the past and says, “Lord, thou didst deliver me on such and such an occasion; wilt thou fail me now.” She, moreover, takes her life as a whole, and pleads thus:-

“After so much mercy past,

Wilt thou let me sink at last?”

“Hast thou brought me so far that I may be put to shame at the end?” She knows how to bring the ancient mercies of God, and make them arguments for present favours. But your time would all be gone if I tried to exhibit, even a thousandth part of faith’s pleas.

Sometimes, however, faith’s pleas are very singular. As in this text, it is by no means according to the proud rule of human nature to plead-“I am poor and needy, make haste unto me, O God.” It is like another prayer of David: “Have mercy upon mine iniquity, for it is great.” It is not the manner of men to plead so, they say, “Lord, have mercy on me, for I am not so bad a sinner as some.” But faith reads things in a truer light, and bases her pleas on truth. “Lord, because my sin is great, and thou art a great God, let thy great mercy be magnified in me.” You know the story of the Syrophenician woman; that is a grand instance of the ingenuity of faith’s reasoning. She came to Christ about her daughter, and he answered her not a word. What do you think her heart said? Why, she said in herself, “It is well, for he has not denied me: since he has not spoken at all, he has not refused me.” With this for an encouragement, she began to plead again. Presently Christ spoke to her sharply, and then her brave heart said, “I have gained words from him at last, I shall have deeds from him by-and-by.” That also cheered her; and then, when he called her a dog. “Ah,” she reasoned, “but a dog is a part of the family, it has some connection with the master of the house. Though it does not eat meat from the table, it gets the crumbs under it, and so I have thee now, great Master, dog as I am; the great mercy that I ask of thee, great as it is to me, is only a crumb to thee; grant it then I beseech thee.” Could she fail to have her request? Impossible! When faith hath a will, she always finds a way, and she will win the day when all things forebode defeat.

Faith’s pleas are singular, but, let me add, faith’s pleas are always sound; for after all, it is a very telling plea to urge that we are poor and needy. Is not that the main argument with mercy? Necessity is the very best plea with benevolence, either human or divine. Is not our need the best reason we can urge? If we would have a physician come quickly to a sick man, “Sir,” we say, “it is no common case, he is on the point of death, come to him, come quickly!” If we wanted our city firemen to rush to a fire, we should not say to them, “Make haste, for it is only a small fire;” but, on the contrary, we urge that it is an old house, full of combustible materials, and there are rumours of petroleum and gunpowder on the premises; besides, it is near a timber yard, hosts of wooden cottages are close by, and before long we shall have half the city in a blaze.” We put the case as badly as we can. Oh for wisdom to be equally wise in pleading with God, to find arguments everywhere, but especially to find them in our necessities.

They said two centuries ago that the trade of beggary was the easiest one to carry on, but it paid the worst. I am not sure about the last at this time, but certainly the trade of begging with God is a hard one, and undoubtedly it pays the best of anything in the world. It is very noteworthy that beggars with men have usually plenty of pleas on hand. When a man is hardly driven and starving, he can usually find a reason why he should ask aid of every likely person. Suppose it is a person to whom he is already under many obligations, then the poor creature argues, “I may safely ask of him again, for he knows me, and has been always very kind.” If he never asked of the person before, then he says, “I have never worried him before; he cannot say he has already done all he can for me; I will make bold to begin with him.” If it is one of his own kin, then he will say, “Surely you will help me in my distress, for you are a relation;” and if it be a stranger, he says, “I have often found strangers kinder than my own blood, help me, I entreat you.” If he asks of the rich, he pleads that they will never miss what they give; and if he begs of the poor, he urges that they know what want means, and he is sure they will sympathise with him in his great distress. Oh that we were half as much on the alert to fill our mouths with arguments when we are before the Lord. How is it that we are not half awake, and do not seem to have our spiritual senses aroused. May God grant that we may learn the art of pleading with the eternal God, for in that shall rest our prevalence with him, through the merit of Jesus Christ.

I must be brief on the next point. It is a soul urgent: “Make haste unto me, O God. O Lord, make no tarrying.” We may well be urgent with God, if as yet we are not saved, for our need is urgent; we are in constant peril, and the peril is of the most tremendous kind. O sinner, within an hour, within a minute, thou mayest be where hope can never visit thee; therefore, cry, “Make haste, O God, to deliver me: make haste to help me, O Lord!” Yours is not a case that can bear lingering: you have not time to procrastinate; therefore, be urgent, for your need is so. And, remember, if you really are under a sense of need, and the Spirit of God is at work with you, you will and must be urgent. An ordinary sinner may be content to wait, but a quickened sinner wants mercy now. A dead sinner will lie quiet, but a living sinner cannot rest till pardon is sealed home to his soul. If you are urgent this morning, I am glad of it, because your urgency, I trust, arises from the possession of spiritual life. When you cannot live longer without a Saviour, the Saviour will come to you, and you shall rejoice in him.

Brethren, members of this church, as I have said on another point, the same truth holds good with you. God will come to bless you, and come speedily, when your sense of need becomes deep and urgent. Oh, how great is this church’s need! We shall grow cold, unholy, and worldly; there will be no conversions, there will be no additions to our numbers; there will be diminutions, there will be divisions, there will be mischief of all kinds; Satan will rejoice, and Christ will be dishonoured, unless we obtain a larger measure of the Holy Spirit. Our need is urgent, and when we feel that need thoroughly, then we shall get the blessing which we want. Does any melancholy spirit say, “We are in so bad a state that we cannot expect a large blessing?” I reply, perhaps if we were worse, we should obtain it all the sooner. I do not mean if we were really so, but if we felt we were worse, we should be nearer the blessing. When we mourn that we are in an ill state, then we cry the more vehemently to God, and the blessing comes. God never refused to go with Gideon because he had not enough valiant men with him; but he paused because the people were too many. He brought them down from thousands to hundreds, and he diminished the hundreds before he gave them victory. When you feel that you must have God’s presence, but that you do not deserve it, and when your consciousness of this lays you in the dust, then shall the blessing be vouchsafed.

For my part, brethren and sisters, I desire to feel a spirit of urgency within my soul as I plead with God for the dew of his grace to descend upon this church. I am not bashful in this matter, for I have a license to pray. Mendicancy is forbidden in the streets, but, before the Lord I am a licensed beggar. Jesus has said, “men ought always to pray and not to faint.” You land on the shores of a foreign country with the greatest confidence when you carry a passport with you, and God has issued passports to his children, by which they come boldly to his mercy seat; he has invited you, he has encouraged you, he has bidden you come to him, and he has promised that whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. Come, then, come urgently, come importunately, come with this plea, “I am poor and needy; make no tarrying, O my God,” and a blessing shall purely come; it will not tarry. God grant we may see it, and give him the glory of it.

I am sorry to have been so brief where I had need to have enlarged, but I must close with the fourth point. Here is another part of the art and mystery of prayer-the soul grasping God. She has pleaded, and she has been urgent, but now she comes to close quarters; she grasps the covenant angel with one hand, “Thou art my help,” and with the other, “Thou art my deliverer.” Oh, those blessed “my’s,” those potent “my’s.” The sweetness of the Bible lies in the possessive pronouns, and he who is taught to use them as the psalmist did, shall come off a conqueror with the eternal God. Now sinner, I pray God thou mayest be helped to say this morning to the blessed Christ of God, “Thou art my help and my deliverer.” Perhaps you mourn that you cannot get that length, but, poor soul, hast thou any other help? If thou hast, then thou canst not hold two helpers with the same hand. “Oh, no,” say you, “I have no help anywhere. I have no hope except in Christ.” Well, then, poor soul, since thy hand is empty, that empty hand was made on purpose to grasp thy Lord with: lay hold on him! Say to him, this day, “Lord, I will hang on thee as poor lame Jacob did; now I cannot help myself, I will cleave to thee: I will not let thee go except thou bless me.” “Ah, it would be too bold,” says one. But the Lord loves holy boldness in poor sinners; he would have you be bolder than you think of being. It is an unhallowed bashfulness that dares not trust a crucified Saviour. He died on purpose to save such as thou art; let him have his way with thee, and do thou trust him. “Oh,” saith one, “but I am so unworthy.” He came to seek and save the unworthy. He is not the Saviour of the self-righteous: he is the sinners’ Saviour-“friend of sinners” is his name. Unworthy one, lay hold on him! “Oh,” saith one, “but I have no right.” Well, but that is the very reason you should grasp him, for right is for the court of justice, not for the hall of mercy. I would advise thee not to try thy rights, for thou hast no right but to be condemned; but thou needest no rights when dealing with Jesus. Nothing makes a charitable person refuse his alms like a beggar’s saying, “I have a right.” “Nay,” says the giver, “If you have rights, go and get them; I will give you nothing.” Since you have no right, your need shall be your claim: it is all the claim you want. Methinks I hear one say, “It is too late for me to plead for grace.” It cannot be: it is impossible. While you live and desire mercy, it is not too late to seek it. Notice the parable of the man who wanted three loaves. I will tell you what crossed my mind when I read it: the man went to his friend at midnight; it was late, was it not? Why, his friend might have said, and, indeed, did in effect say to him, that it was too late, but yet the pleader gained the bread after all. In the parable the time was late, it could not have been later; for if it had been a little later than midnight, it would have been early in the next morning, and so not late at all. It was midnight, and it could not be later; and so, if it is downright midnight with your soul, yet, be of good cheer, Jesus is an out of season Saviour; many of his servants are “born out of due time.” Any season is the right season to call upon the name of Jesus; therefore, only do not let the devil tempt thee with the thought that it can be too late. Go to Jesus now, go at once, and lay hold on the horns of the altar by a venturesome faith, and say, “Sacrifice for sinners, thou art a sacrifice for me. Intercessor for the graceless, thou art an intercessor for me. Thou who distributest gifts to the rebellious, distribute gifts to me, for a rebel I have been. When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. Such am I, good Master; let the power of thy death be seen in me to Save my soul.”

Oh, you that are saved and, therefore, love Christ, I want you, dear brethren, as the saints of God, to practice this last part of my subject; and be sure to lay hold upon God in prayer. “Thou art my help and my deliverer.” As a church we throw ourselves upon the strength of God, and we can do nothing without him; but we do not mean to be without him, we will hold him fast. “Thou art my help and my deliverer.” There was a boy at Athens, according to the old story, who used to boast that he ruled all Athens, and when they asked him how, he said, “Why, I rule my mother, my mother rules my father, and my father rules the city.” He who knows how to be master of prayer will rule the heart of Christ, and Christ can and will do all things for his people, for the Father hath committed all things into his hands. You can be omnipotent if you know how to pray, omnipotent in all things which glorify God. What doth the Word itself say? “Let him lay hold on my strength.” Prayer moves the arm that moves the world. Oh for grace to grasp Almighty love in this fashion. We want more holdfast prayer; more tugging, and gripping, and wrestling prayer, that saith, “I will not let thee go.” That picture of Jacob at Jabbok shall suffice for us to close with. The covenant angel is there, and Jacob wants a blessing from him: he seems to put him off, but no put-offs will do for Jacob. Then the angel endeavours to escape from him, and tugs and strives: so he may, but no efforts shall make Jacob relax his grasp. At last the angel falls from ordinary wrestling to wounding him in the very seat of his strength; and Jacob will let his thigh go, and all his limbs go, but he will not let the angel go. The poor man’s strength shrivels under the withering touch, but in his weakness he is still strong: he throws his arms about the mysterious man, and holds him as in a death-grip. Then the other says, “Let me go, for the day breaketh.” Mark, he did not shake him off, he only said, “Let me go;” the angel will do nothing to force him to relax his hold, he leaves that to his voluntary will. The valiant Jacob cries, “No, I am set on it, I am resolved to win an answer to my prayer. I will not let thee go except thou bless me.” Now, when the church begins to pray, it may be at first, the Lord will make as though he would have gone further, and we may fear that no answer will be given. Hold on, dear brethren. Be ye steadfast, unmoveable, notwithstanding all. By-and-by, it may be, there will come discouragements where we looked for a flowing success; we shall find brethren hindering, some will be slumbering, and others sinning; backsliders and impenitent souls will abound; but let us not be turned aside. Let us be all the more eager. And if it should so happen that we ourselves become distressed and dispirited, and feel we never were so weak as we are now; never mind, brethren, still hold on, for when the sinew is shrunk the victory is near. Grasp with a tighter clutch than ever. Be this our resolution, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me.” Remember the longer the blessing is coming the richer it will be when it arrives. That which is gained speedily by a single prayer is sometimes only a second rate blessing; but that which is gained after many a desperate tug, and many an awful struggle, is a full weighted and precious blessing. The children of importunity are always fair to look upon. The blessing which costs us the most prayer will be worth the most. Only let us be persevering in supplication, and we shall gain a broad far-reaching benediction for ourselves, the churches, and the world. I wish it were in my power to stir you all to fervent prayer; but I must leave it with the great author of all true supplication, namely, the Holy Spirit. May he work in us mightily, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Genesis 32; Luke 11:1-13.

HOUSEHOLD SALVATION

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, November 5th, 1871, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.”-Acts 16:32-34.

It sometimes happens that a good man has to go alone to heaven: God’s election has separated him from the midst of an ungodly family, and, notwithstanding his example and his prayers, and his admonitions, they still remain unconverted, and he himself, a solitary one, a speckled bird amongst them, has to pursue his lonely flight to the skies. Far oftener, however, it happens that the God who is the God of Abraham becomes the God of Sarah, and then of Isaac, and then of Jacob, and though grace does not run in the blood, and regeneration is not of blood nor of birth, yet doth it very frequently-I was about to say almost always-happen that God, by means of one of a household, draws the rest to himself. He calls an individual, and then uses him to be a sort of spiritual decoy to bring the rest of the family into the gospel net. John Bunyan, in the first part of his “Pilgrim’s Progress,” describes Christian as a lonely traveller, pursuing his road to the Celestial City alone; occasionally he is attended by Faithful, or he meets with a Hopeful; but these are casual acquaintances, and are not of his kith or kin: brother or child after the flesh he has none with him. The second part of Bunyan’s book exhibits family piety, for we see Christiana, and the children, and many friends, all travelling in company to the better land; and, though it is often said that the second part of Bunyan’s wondrous allegory is somewhat weaker than the former, and probably it is so, yet many a gentle spirit has found it sweeter than the former, and it has given to many a loving heart great delight to feel that there is a possibility, beneath the leadership of one of the Lord’s Greathearts, to form a convoy to the skies, so that a sacred caravan shall traverse the desert of earth, and women and children shall find their way, in happy association, to the City of Habitations. We rejoice to think of whole families enclosed within the lines of electing grace, and entire households, redeemed by blood, devoting themselves to the service of the God of love. I am sure any of you, who yourselves have tasted that the Lord is gracious, are most anxious to bring others into reconciliation with God. It is an instinct with the Christian to desire that his fellow-men should, as he has done, both taste and see that the Lord is good. Judaism wraps itself up within itself, and claims a monopoly of blessing for the chosen nation. The heir after the flesh gnashes with his teeth when we declare that the true heirs of Abraham are born after the Spirit and are found in every land. They would reserve all heavenly privileges to the circumcised, and keep up the ancient middle wall of partition. It is the very genius of Christianity to embrace all mankind in its love. If there be anything true, let all believe it: if there be anything good, let all receive it. We desire no gates of brass to shut out the multitude; and if there be barriers, we would throw them down, and pray eternal mercy to induce the teeming millions to draw near to the fountain of life. It will not be wrong, but, on the contrary, most natural and proper, that your desire for the salvation of others should, first of all, rest upon your own families. If charity begins at home, so, assuredly, piety will. They have special claims upon us who gather around our table and our hearth. God has not reversed the laws of nature, but he has sanctified them by the rules of grace; it augurs nothing of selfishness that a man should first seek to have his own kindred saved. I will give nothing for your love for the wide world, if you have not a special love for your own household. The rule of Paul may, with a little variation, be applied here; we are to “do good unto all men, but specially unto such as be of the household of faith;” so are we to seek the good of all mankind, but specially of those who are of our own near kindred. Let Abraham’s prayer be for Ishmael, let Hannah pray for Samuel, let David plead for Solomon, let Andrew find first his brother Simon, and Eunice train her Timothy: they will be none the less large or prevalent in their pleadings for others, because they were mindful of those allied to them by ties of blood.

To allure and encourage you to long for family religion, I have selected this text this morning. God grant it may answer the purpose designed. May many here have a spiritual hunger and thirst, that they may receive the blessing which so largely rested upon the Philippian jailor.

Note in our text five things. We have a whole household hearing the word, a whole household believing it, a whole household baptized, a whole household working for God, and then, a whole household rejoicing.

Observe, first, in the passage before us, a whole household hearing the word. I do not know whether they had ever heard the Gospel before: perhaps they had. We have no certain proof that the jailor heard the name of Jesus Christ for the first time amidst the tumult of the earthquake; he may have listened to Paul in the streets, and so have known something of the Gospel and of the name of Jesus Christ; but this is hardly probable, as he would then have scarcely treated the apostle so harshly. Most likely the word of God sounded at midnight in the ears of the jailor and his household for the first time, and, on that remarkable occasion, they all heard it together. The father first, in his alarm, asked the question, “What must I do to be saved?” and received personally the answer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and thy house;” and then it appears that all the family gathered around their parent, and the two holy men, while Paul and Silas spake unto him the word of the Lord, and also to all that were in his house. We do not know whether there were children there, but if so, and we will assume it for this occasion, all were hearers that night. There was not a solitary exception, no one was away from that sermon in a jail. His wife, his children, his servants, all that were in his house, listened to the heavenly message. It is true, he who preached was a prisoner, but that made the word none the less powerful, for he was to them an ambassador in bonds. Prisoner as he was, he preached to them a free gospel, and a gospel of divine authority. He erred not from the truth in what he taught; he preached unto them the “word of God.” Would to God that all preachers would keep to the word of God, and, above all things, would exalt The Incarnate Word of God. This were infinitely better than to delude men’s minds with those “germs of thought,” those strikingly new ideas, those metaphysical subtleties, and speculations, and theories, and discoveries of science, falsely so called, which are now-a-days so fashionable. If all ministers would preach the word, the revealed mind and will of God, then hearers would in larger numbers become converts; for God will bless his own word, but he will not bless anything else. The jailor’s household all heard God’s word faithfully declared, and there was the main cause of blessing, for, alas! with many hearers, the Sabbath is utterly wasted; for, though they are attentive listeners, they are left without a blessing, because that which they hear is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I have myself heard sermons which, I am persuaded, God Almighty himself could not bless to the conversion of anybody. He could not, because it would have been a denial of himself. The discourses were not true, nor according to his word; they were not such as were calculated to honour himself, and how can he bless that which is not to his own honour? and how can he set his seal to a lie? The word of God must be preached, and then the place, the hour, or the garb of the preacher will matter nothing. The minister may have been led up from a prison, and the smell of the dungeon may be upon him, but when he opens his mouth with the glad tidings, the name of Jesus will be as ointment poured forth.

I began my remarks on this point by noting that they all heard Paul; and observe the need of this, as a starting-point, for “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” It is not all who hear that will be saved, but the ordinary way with God is for men first to hear, then to believe, and so to be saved. “Being in the way, God met with me,” said Obadiah; and the road which a soul should follow to be met with by God is the way of hearing. Though it may seem a very trite thing to say, it is nevertheless exceedingly important, if we are to have household conversion, that there should be a household hearing of the word. This is the chosen instrumentality, and we must bring all under the instrumentality if we wish them to obtain the blessing. Now, in this City, many fathers never hear the word of God, because they regard the Sabbath Day as a day of laziness. They work so hard all the week, they say, that they are not fit to rise from their beds in the morning, and then, after a heavy dinner, the evening must be spent in loitering about, and chatting away time. Brethren, if you want to see your fellow-workmen saved, you should earnestly endeavour to bring them under the sound of the gospel. Here is a very useful occupation for many of you. You cannot preach, but you can gather a congregation for those who do. A little persuasion would succeed in many cases, and once bring them here, we would hope to hold them. If I could not be the instrument of converting a soul by preaching the gospel myself, I would habitually addict myself to the bringing of strangers to listen to those whom God has owned to the conversion of souls. Why, our congregations need never be thin-I speak not now for myself, for I have no need-but in no place where the gospel is preached need there be a thin audience, if those who already appreciate the Gospel would feel it to be a Christian duty to bring others to hear it. Do this, I pray you. I believe it to be one of the most important efforts which a Christian man can make, to endeavour to bring the working men of London, and, indeed, all classes of men everywhere, to listen to the Gospel of Christ. The men, the fathers, the heads of households, we must have.

If we are to have the household saved, however, the mothers must hear the word as well as the fathers. Many of them do, but I know cases, and, perhaps, there may be such present, and I wish to speak what is practical; where a man comes to hear the word himself, but his wife is detained at home with the children. Perhaps she is not converted, and has not much care to go to the service; perhaps she is a Christian woman, and though she would wish to go she must look after the children; in either case it is the duty of every such father, if he does not keep a servant to attend to the children, to take his turn with the wife and let her have her fair share of opportunity for hearing the gospel. He meanly shirks the duty of a husband, who, being a working man, does not take his turn at home and give his wife as good an opportunity of learning the way of salvation as himself. This may be a new suggestion to some, I only hope they will carry it out. It is plain that if we are to have whole households saved, we must have whole households hearing the word, and if the mother cannot hear the word, we cannot rationally expect the blessing to come to her.

Then the children also must be thought of. We desire to see them converted as children. There is no need that they should wait until they are grown up, and have run into sin as their fathers did, that they may be afterwards brought back; it would be infinitely better if they were preserved from such wanderings, and early brought into the fold of Jesus. The blessing which God gave to the jailor’s children by hearing, he gives in the same way to other children. Let the little ones be brought to hear the Gospel. They can hear it in the Sabbath School, and there are special services adapted to them; but, for my part, I like also so to preach that boys and girls shall be interested, and I shall feel that I am very faulty in my style if children cannot understand much that I teach in the congregation. Bring all who have reached years of understanding with you. Suffer none to be at home, except for good reasons. Bring each young Samuel to the house of the Lord. Let it be said of you, as it is written in the Book of Chronicles, “And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.” If nothing else shall come from children’s attending our worship, the holy habit of going up to God’s house will be a perpetual heritage to them; and who knows but while they are yet young their hearing the word shall be the means of their salvation.

Then there are the servants, and by no means are they to be overlooked. To have all that are in the house saved, all that are in the house must hear the Gospel. Do you all make such opportunities for your servants on the Sabbath as you should? I do not know, of course, how you conduct your family arrangements; but I know of some who do not think enough of their servants’ hearing the Gospel. Servants frequently are sent out in the afternoon, when there is no preaching worth the hearing. It may be unavoidable in many cases; but I would ask, What is the use of their going out at an hour when no preaching is to be found? If we give them only opportunities of going out when there is nothing to hear, we certainly have not given them a fair portion of the Lord’s-day. By some contrivance or other, perhaps with a little pinch and self-sacrifice, our servants might hear our own minister. You cannot pray God to save your household, and be honest, unless you give the whole household an opportunity of being saved, and God’s way of saving souls, we repeat it, is by the preaching and the hearing of the word. Oh! let every one of us be able to say, as masters and as parents, “I cannot save my children, and I cannot save my servants, but this I have done, I have directed them to a man of God who preaches the gospel faithfully; I do not send them to a place merely because there is talent or fashion there, but I have selected for them a ministry which God blesses, and I do my best to put them all in the way of the blessing, praying and beseeching the Lord to call them all by his grace.” I anticipate the many difficulties you will urge, but would again say, if we love souls, we should try to meet these difficulties, and if we cannot do all we would, we should at least do all we can, that we may have all our households every Sabbath-day hearing the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

We now turn to the next, which is a most comfortable and cheering sight. Here is a whole household believing. We know that the whole household believed, for we are told so in the thirty-fourth verse; “Believing in God with all his house:”-all, all, all were powerfully affected, savingly affected by the gospel which Paul preached to them. I have already remarked, that they were very probably new hearers. Certainly, if they had heard the word before, it could not have been many times; and yet they all believed. Is it not a most sad fact that many of my old hearers have not believed? The battering-ram has beaten often on their walls, but it has not shaken them yet; wooing invitations of the gospel have been presented to them again and again, accompanied by the soul-piercing music of a Saviour’s dying cries; and yet, for all that, they remain unconverted still. Oh! the responsibilities that are heaped up upon gospel-hardened sinners! Take home to yourselves that warning word, I pray you. This household heard the gospel probably but once, certainly only once or twice, yet they believed, and here are some of us who have heard it from our youth up, and remain rebellious still.

Of this family it may be said that as they were new hearers, so they were most unlikely hearers. The Romans did not select for jailors the most tender hearted of men. Frequently they were old legionaries who had seen service in bloody wars, and been inured to cruel fights; and, when these men settled down as, in a measure, pensioners of the empire, they were allotted such offices as that which the jailor held. In the society and associations of a jail there was very little that could be likely to improve the mother, to benefit the children, or elevate the servants. They were, then, most unpromising hearers. Yet how often are the most unlikely persons convinced of sin, and led to the Saviour. How true is it still of many who are most moral and excellent, and even outwardly religious, that “the publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of heaven before them.” This is an encouragement to you who work in lodging-houses and in the slums of this vast city, to bring all kinds of people to hear the word, for if a jailor and his household were numbered among the first fruits unto God at Philippi, may we not hope that others of an unlikely class may be converted too? Who are you, that you should say, “It is of no use to invite such a man to hear, for he would not be converted?” The more improbable it seems to be in your judgment, perhaps the more likely it is that God will look upon him with an eye of love. How happy a thing it was for the jailor that, in the providence of God, his hardened but probably honest spirit was brought under the influence of the earnest apostle. Bring others, like him, into the place of worship, for who can tell?

Note, that though they were thus unlikely hearers, yet they were immediately converted, there and then. It took but a short time. I do not know how long Paul’s sermon was; he was a wise man, and I should not think he would preach a long sermon in the dead of the night, just after an earthquake. I have no doubt it was a simple exposition of the doctrine of the cross. And then Silas talked too; perhaps, when Paul had done, Silas gave a little exhortation, a brief address to finish up with, and fill up anything which Paul had left out. The teaching was soon over, and at its close the jailor, his wife, his children (if he had any), his servants, and indeed all that were in the house, avowed themselves to be believers. It does not take a month to convert a soul. Glory be to God, if he wills to do it, he can convert all here this morning, in a moment. Once hearing the gospel may be sufficient to make a man a Christian. When the eternal word of God comes forth with omnipotent energy, it turns lions into lambs, and that in a single instant of time. As the lightning flash can split the oak from its loftiest bough to the earth in a single second, so the ever blessed lightning of God’s Spirit can cleave the heart of man in a moment. Our text shows us a whole family saved at once.

It is said particularly of them all that “they believed.” Was that the only thing? Could it not be said that they all prayed? I dare say it could, and many other good things; but then faith was at the root of them all. It was the sneer of an old Greek philosopher against the Christians of his day. “Faith,” he said, “is your only wisdom.” Yes, and we rejoice in the same wisdom now-faith; for the moment we receive faith we are saved. It is the one essential grace;-“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” The moment God gives a man faith-and that he can do at any time-the instant the heart casts itself into the arms of Jesus crucified, and rests there, whoever it is, he is saved in an instant: effectually and infallibly saved; he is, in all respects, a new creature in Christ Jesus. Faith is an instantaneous act at its beginning, and then it remains as an abiding grace; its first act, by the power of God, puts a man into the present possession of immediate salvation. I wonder if we preachers fully believe this as a matter of fact. If I were to go into a jail to-morrow evening, and were to preach to the jailor and his household, should I expect to see all saved there and then? And if they were, should I believe it? Most likely I should not see it, and the reason would be because I should not have faith enough to expect it. We preach the gospel, no doubt, but it is with the slender hope that some may be converted, and they are converted, here and there; but if God would clothe us with the faith of the apostles, we should see far greater things. When he works in us a larger faith, he will also restore to us the hundredfold harvest, which, alas! is so rare in these days.

Notice very particularly, that these persons though converted thus suddenly, all of them were, nevertheless, very hearty converts. They did that night, as I shall show you soon, abundantly prove how thoroughly converted they were. They were quick to do all that in them lay for the apostle, and for the good cause. They were not half converted, as many people are. I like to see a man renewed all over from head to foot. It is delightful to meet your hearty Christian, who, when he gave his heart to Jesus, meant it, and devoted his whole body, soul, and spirit to the good Lord who had bought him with his blood. Some of you have only got a little finger conversion, just enough to wear the ring of profession, and look respectable, but oh! to have hand and foot, lungs, heart, voice, and soul, all saturated with the Spirit’s influence and consecrated to the cause of God. We have a few such men, full of the Holy Ghost, but, alas, we have too many other converts, who are rather tinctured with grace, than saturated with it, and to whom sprinkling is a very significant ordinance, for it would appear that they never have received anything but a sprinkling of grace. Oh, for saints in whom there will be a thorough death and burial to the world, and a new life, in the resurrection image of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the true baptism of the Holy Ghost.

However, I must return on this head to the point, that they all believed. What a sweet picture for you to look upon. The father is a believer in Jesus, but he has not to kneel down and pray, “Lord, save my dear wife;” for see, and rejoice as you see it, she is a believer too. And then there is the elder son and the daughters; we know not, and we must not guess, how many there might be, but there they are all rejoicing in their father’s God. And then there are the servants, the old nurse who brought up the little ones, and the little maid, and the warders who have to look after the prisoners, they are all of them ready to sing the psalm of praise, and all delighted to look upon those who were once their prisoners as now their instructors and their fathers in the faith. O brethren, if some of us should ever see all our children and our servants saved, we would cry like Simeon of old, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.” Many have seen it; the jailor’s case is by no means an exceptional one, and I hope all of us are earnestly crying to God that we may gain the same unspeakable privilege.

We have, in the third place, in our text, a whole household baptised. “He was baptised, he and all his straightway.” In almost every case in Scripture where you read of a household baptism, you are distinctly informed that they were also a believing household. In the case of Lydia it may not be so; but then there are remarkable circumstances about her case which render that information needless. In this instance they were all believers, and, therefore, they were all of them baptised. First, “he” was baptised,-the jailor; he was ready first to submit himself to the ordinance in which he declared himself to be dead to the world, and risen anew in Christ Jesus. Then “all his” followed. What a glorious baptism, amidst the glare of the torches that night! perhaps in the prison bath, or in the impluvium which was usually in the centre of most oriental houses, or perhaps the stream that watered Philippi ran by the prison wall, and was used for the occasion. It matters not, but into the water they descended, one after another, mother, children, servants; and Paul and Silas stood there delighted to aid them in declaring themselves to be on the Lord’s side, “buried with him in baptism.”

And this was done, mark you, straightway. There was not one who wished to have it put off till he had tried himself a little, and seen whether he was really regenerated. In those days no one had any scruple or objection to obey; none advocated the following of some ancient and doubtful tradition; all were obedient to the divine will. No one shrank from baptism for fear that water might damage his health, or in some way cause him inconvenience; but he and all his, wishing to follow the plain example of our Lord Jesus Christ, were baptised, and that straightway,-at once, and on the spot. No minister has any right to refuse to baptise any person who professes faith in Jesus Christ, unless there be some glaring fact to cast doubt upon the candidate’s sincerity. I, for one, would never ask from any person weeks and months of delay, in which the man should prove to me that he was a believer; but I would follow the example of the apostle. The gospel of Christ was preached, the people were converted, and they were baptised, and all perhaps in the space of an hour. The whole transaction may not have taken up so much time as I shall occupy in preaching about it this morning. How, then, is it with you, who wait so long? Where is the precept or example to warrant your hesitation? Permit me to remind you that duties delayed are sins. Will you take that home with you, you who have been believers for years and yet are not baptised? Permit me to remind you, also, that privileges postponed are losses. Put the two together, and where duty and privilege meet do not incur the sin and the loss, but, like David, “make haste and delay not” to keep the divine command.

“Why say so much about baptism?” says somebody. Much about baptism! Never was a remark more ungenerous, if it is made against me. I might, far more justly, be censured for saying so little about it. Much about baptism! I call you all to witness that, unless it comes across my path in the Scriptures, I never go away from the text to drag it in. I am no partisan: I never made baptism my main teaching, and God forbid I should; but I will not be hindered from preaching the whole truth, and, I dare say, no less than I am now saying. The Holy Ghost has recorded the baptism here: will you think little of what he chooses to record? Paul and Silas, an apostle and his companion, dared not neglect the ordinance: how dare you despise it?

It was the dead of the night, it was in a prison; if it might have been put off, it surely might have been then: it was not a reputable place to dispense baptism, some would have said; it was hardly a seasonable hour, but they thought it so important that there and then, and at once, they baptised the whole household. If this be God’s command-and I solemnly believe it to be so-do not despise it, I beseech you; as you love Christ, do not talk about its being non-essential. If the Lord command, shall his servant talk about its being non-essential? It is essential in all things to do my Master’s will, and to preach it; for hath he not said, “He that shall break one of the least of these my commandments, and shall teach men so, the same shall be least in the kingdom of heaven “? I hope it may be our privilege here to see whole families baptised. Come along with you, beloved father, if you are a believer in Jesus: come with him, mother: come with him, daughters: come with your mother, ye godly sons, and come ye servants too. If you have come to the cross, and all your hope is placed there, then come and declare that you are Christ’s. Touch not the ordinance till you believe in Jesus Christ: it may work you mighty mischief if you do. The sacramentarianism, which is so rampant in this age, is of all lies I think the most deadly, and you encourage sacramentarianism if you give a Christian ordinance to an unconverted person. Touch it not, then, until you are saved. Until you are believers, ordinances are not for you, and it is a sacrilege for you to intrude yourselves into them. How I long to see whole households believe, for then I may safely rejoice at seeing them baptised!

Next, we have a whole household at work for God. Read the passage, and you will see that they all did something. The father called for a light, the servants bring the torches, and the lamps such as were used in the prisons. He took his prisoners the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes. Here is work for himself, and work for gentle hands to do, to assuage the pains of those poor bleeding backs; to wash out the grit that had come there through their lying on their backs on the dungeon floor, and to mollify and bind up their wounds. There was suitable occupation for the mother and for the servants, for they set meat before the holy men. The kitchen was sanctified to supply the needs of the ministers of Christ. Everything was done for their comfort. They were hungry, and they gave them meat; they were bleeding and they bathed their wounds. The whole household was astir that night. They had all believed and been baptised, and their very first enquiry is, “What can we do for Jesus?” It was clear to them that they could help the two men who had brought them to Christ, and they did so affectionately. No Martha had to complain that her sister left her to serve alone. I am persuaded there was not one of the family who shirked the pleasant duty of hospitality, though it was at dead of night. They soon had a meal ready; and how pleased they felt when they saw the two holy men reclining at their ease at the table, instead of lying with their feet fast in the stocks in the prison. They did not take the food down to the prison to them, or wash them, and send them back to the dungeon; but they brought them up from the cell into their own house, and accommodated them with the best they had. Now, beloved, it is a great mercy when you have a family saved and baptised, if the whole household sets to work to serve God, for there is something for all to do. Is there a lazy church member here? Friend, you miss a great blessing. Is there a mother here whose husband is very diligent in serving God, but she neglects to lead her children in the way of truth? Ah, dear woman, you are losing what would be a great comfort to your own soul. I know you are; for one of the best means for a soul to be built up in Christ is for it to do something for Christ. We cease to grow when we cease either to labour or to suffer for the Lord. Bringing forth fruit unto God is, unto ourselves, a most pleasant and profitable operation. Even our children when they are saved can do something for the Master. The little hand that drops its halfpence into the offering box, out of love to Jesus, is accepted of the Lord. The young child trying to tell its brother or sister of the dear Saviour who has loved it is a true missionary of the cross. We should train our children as the Spartans trained their sons early for feats of war. We must have them first saved, but after that we must never think that they may be idle till they come to a certain period of life. I have known a little boy take his young companion aside, and kneel down in a field and pray with him, and I have heard of that young lad’s being now, in the judgment of his parents, a believer in Christ. I have seen it, and my heart has been touched when I have seen it-two or three boys gathered round another to seek that boy’s salvation, and praying to God as heartily and earnestly as their parents could have done. There is room for all to work to help on the growing kingdom; and blessed shall that father be who shall see all his children enlisted in the grand army of God’s elect, and all striving together for the promotion of the Redeemer’s kingdom.

That brings me to the fifth sight, which is a family all rejoicing, for he rejoices in God with all his home. According to the run of the text the object of their joy was that they had believed. Believing obtains the pardon of all sin, and brings Christ’s righteousness into our possession, it declares us to be the sons of God, gives us heirship with Christ, and secures us his blessing here and glory hereafter: who would not rejoice at this? If the family had been left a fortune they would have rejoiced, but they had found more than all the world’s wealth at once in finding a Saviour, therefore were they glad.

But though their joy sprang mainly from their believing, it also arose from their being baptised, for do we not read of the Ethiopian of old after he was baptised that he “went on his way rejoicing.” God often gives a clearing of the skies to those who are obedient to his command. I have known persons habitually the subjects of doubts and fears, who have suddenly leaped into joy and strength when they have done as their Lord commanded them. Not for keeping, but “in keeping his commandments there is great reward.”

They rejoiced, no doubt, also because they had enjoyed an opportunity of serving the church in waiting upon the apostle. They felt glad to think that Paul was at their table; very sorry that he had been imprisoned, but glad that they were his jailors; sorry that he had been beaten, but thankful that they could wash his stripes. And Christian people are never so happy as when they are busy for Jesus. When you do most for Christ you shall feel most of His love in your hearts. Why it makes my heart tingle with joy when I feel that I can honour my God. Rejoice, my brethren, that you have doors of usefulness set open before you, and say, now we can glorify the Saviour’s name; now we can visit the sick; now we can teach the ignorant; now we can bring sinners to the Saviour. Why, there is no joy except the joy of heaven itself, which excels the bliss of serving the Saviour who has done so much for us!

I have no doubt that their joy was permanent and continued. There would not be any quarrelling in that house now, no disobedient children, no short tempered father, no fretful mother, no cruel brother, no exacting sister, no purloining servants, or eyeservers; no warders who would exceed their duty, or be capable of receiving bribes from the prisoners. The whole house would become a holy house, and a happy house henceforth. It is remarkable they should be so happy, because they might have thought sorrowfully of what they had been. They had fastened the apostle’s feet in the stocks. Ah! but that was all gone, and they were happy to know that it was all forgiven. The father had been a rough soldier, and perhaps his sons had been little better; but it was all blotted out, Christ’s blood had covered all their sin, they were happy though they were penitent. It is true, they had a poor prospect before them, as the world would say, for they would be likely to be persecuted, and to suffer much. Here were two of the great ones of the church who had been scourged and put in prison: the humble members could not expect to fare better. Ah, never mind, they rejoiced in God. If they had known they would have to die for it, they would have rejoiced, for to have a Saviour is such a source of thankfulness to believing souls, that if we had to burn to-morrow, we would rejoice to-day; if we had to die a thousand deaths in the course of the next month, yet, to find a Saviour such as Jesus Christ is, is joy enough to make us laugh at death itself. They were a rejoicing family because they were a renewed family.

In closing, regard these two words. That household is now in glory: they are all there-the jailor, and his spouse, and his children, and his servants; they are all there, for is it not written, “He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved?” They were obedient to that word, and they are saved. Now, with some of you the father is in heaven, and the mother is on the road, but the children, ah, the children! With others of you, your little ones have gone before you, snatched away from the mother’s breast; and your grandsire is also in glory; but, ah! husband and wife, your faces are turned towards the ways and wages of sin, and you will never meet your children and your parents. There will be broken households around the throne, and if it could mar their joy-if anything could-it would be the thought that there is a son in hell, or perhaps a husband in the flames, while the wife and mother sings the endless song. O God, grant it never may be so. May no child of our loins die an heir of wrath; none that have slept in our bosoms be banished from Jehovah’s presence. By the bliss of a united family, I beseech you seek after it that you may have that united family in heaven. For this is the last question,” Will my family be there? “Will yours be there? Turn it over in your minds, my brothers and sisters, and if you can give the happy answer, and say, “Yes, by the blessing of God, I believe we shall all be there,” then, I will ask you to serve God very much, for you owe him very much. You are deep debtors to the mercy of God, you parents who have godly children. You ought to do twice as much; nay, seven times as much for Jesus as any other Christians. But on the other hand, if you have to give a painful answer, then let this day be a day of prayer, and I would say to you, could not you, fathers, who love the Lord, call your children together this afternoon, and tell them what I have been talking about. Say to the boy, “My dear boy, our minister this morning has been speaking about a household in heaven, and a household being baptised because they believed; I pray that you may be a believer.” Pray with the boys, pray with the girls, pray with the mother; and I do not know but what this very afternoon your whole household may be brought to the Saviour. Who can tell?

You, dear boys, just below me, who are a few out of my large family at the Orphanage, some of you have fathers in heaven, I hope you will follow them in the right way. The church of God tries to take care of you because you are orphans, and God has promised to be the father of the fatherless: O dear boys give him your hearts. Some of you have godly mothers, I know them, and I know that they pray for you. May their prayers be heard for you. I hope you will trust the Saviour, and grow up to serve him. May it not be long before you profess your faith in baptism; and may we all of us meet in glory above, everyone without exception. The Lord grant it, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon.-Acts 16:6-40.