Those of you who were present last Thursday evening* will remember that I spoke then upon the necessity of “holding fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end,” and I showed you that it is only by continuing in the faith with which we began that we are proved to be partakers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let us speak as plainly as we may, we are always liable to be misunderstood. The most eager hearer may easily confound his thoughts with our words, and so attribute motions to us that spring up spontaneously in his own mind. Thus, I met this week with an earnest anxious enquirer who thought I had meant that though a man should be a believer in Jesus Christ, yet after all he might perish. I dare say some expressions I used led him to think so. Had he been long a hearer here, he would not have imagined that I could give utterance to such a statement; for all of you who hear me continually know that, if there is one doctrine I have preached more than another, it is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints even to the end. What I intended to say-I do not wonder that he did not quite understand me-was this: that the believer must always be a believer; having began in that confidence, he must continue in that confidence; the alternative would be that he draw back unto perdition, in which case he would perish as an unbeliever; and then the inference would be that the faith he seemed to have was a fiction, that the confidence he seemed to enjoy was a bubble, that he really never did believe to the saving of his soul. This is a fair argument, based on the operation of the Spirit of God; it is in no sense a condition dependent on the good behaviour of men. The one way by which a soul is saved is by that soul’s abiding in Christ; if it did not abide in Christ, it would be cast forth as a branch and be withered. But, then, we know that they who are grafted into Christ will abide in Christ. We reason in the manner of the apostle Paul who, when he had spoken of the danger that some were in that, having begun well, they should end badly-after being enlightened and tasting the good word of God and the powers of the world to come, they should turn aside, he adds, “But beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” The question, however, having been mooted, it occurs to me that it may not be unprofitable if I state briefly-not by way of controversy, but simply for the sake of instruction-the doctrine of the security of the believer in Christ, the certainty of the believer’s perseverance even to the end, and of his entrance into eternal rest. This text at once suggests itself to me-“I give unto my sheep eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.”

The three clauses of this sentence represent to us three gracious securities. Here is a divine gift-“I give unto them eternal life;” a divine promise, far-reaching and wide-“they shall never perish;” and a divine holdfast-“neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.”

First, then, observe the divine gift-“I give unto them eternal life.” Eternal life comes to every man who has it as a matter of gift. He did not possess it when he first entered into the world. He was born of the first Adam, and born to die. He did not educe it or evolve it from himself by some mysterious processes. It is not a home growth, a product of the soil of humanity: it is a gift. Nor is eternal life bestowed as a reward for service done. It could not be; for it is a pre-requisite to the doing of service. The term “gift” shuts out all idea of debt. If it be of gift, or of grace, then it is no more of debt or of reward. “Wherever eternal life is implanted in any person’s soul, it is the free gift of the Lord Jesus Christ, not deserved but bestowed on the unworthy. Hence we see no reason why it should be revoked from the person who has received it. For, suppose there are certain disqualifications in the man who has participated in the gift, yet they cannot otherwise operate to his prejudice in enjoying the boon than they would have operated to his ever receiving it, if they had been taken into the account at all. The thing does not come to him because of any worthiness in him, but comes as a gratuity. There is no reason why it should not continue, since it has come into existence, or why the present tense, as we have it here, should not always be a present fact. “I give”-I continue to give-“to them eternal life.” That cannot be affected by an unworthiness subsequently discovered, because God knoweth the end from the beginning. When he bestowed eternal life upon the man who hath it, he knew right well every imperfection and failing that would occur in that man. These demerits, had they been reasons at all, would have been a cause for the not giving, rather than for giving and then taking away again. But, it is inconsistent with the gifts of God for them ever to be disannulled. We have it laid down as a rule of the kingdom of which there is no violation, that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” He does not rescind in caprice that which he has conferred of his own good will. It is not according to the royal nature of the Lord our God to bestow a gift of grace upon a soul, and then afterwards to withdraw it-to lift up a man from his natural degradation and set him among princes by endowing him with a life eternal, and then to cast him down from his high estate by disendowing him of all the infinite benefits he has conferred. The very language I am using is contradictory enough of itself to refute the suggestion. To give eternal life is to give a life beyond the contingencies of this present mortal existence. “For ever” is stamped on the charter. To take it away were not consistent with the royal bounty of the King of kings, even if it were possible that such a thing could be. “I give unto them eternal life.” If he gives then, he gives with the sovereignty and generosity of a king; he gives permanently, on an enduring tenure; he gives so that he will not revoke the grant. He gives and it is theirs-it shall be theirs by divine charter for ever and ever.

We may infer the certain safety of the believer, not only from the face that this life is an absolute gift, and will not therefore be withdrawn, but from the nature of the gift, it being eternal life. “I give unto my sheep eternal life.” “Yes, but,” says somebody, “they lose it.” Then they cannot have had eternal life. It is a solecism in terms to say that a man hath eternal life and yet perisheth. Can death befall the immortal, or change affect the immutable, or decay corrode the imperishable? How can life be eternal if it comes to an end? How can it be possible that one shall have eternal life and yet die with sudden shock, or drop as feeble nature fails of all her functions? No! eternity is not to be measured by weeks or months or years. When Christ says eternal, he means eternal, and if I have received the gift of eternal life, it is not possible for me so to sin as to lose that spiritual life by any means whatever. “It is eternal life.”

We may reasonably expect the believer to hold on to the end, because the life which God has implanted within him is of that nature that it must continue to exist, must conquer all difficulties, must ripen, must perfect, must cast out sin from him, and must bring him to eternal glory. When Christ spake by the well to the Samaritan woman, he said, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” This cannot mean a transient draught that would slake the thirst for an hour or two, but it must imply such a partaking as changes a man’s actual constitution and his destiny, and become in him a never-failing well-spring. For the life which God implants in believers by regeneration is not like the life which we now possess by generation. This mortal life does pass away. It is connected with flesh, and all flesh is like grass; it withers. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Not so the new life that is born of the Spirit and it is spirit, and spirit is not capable of destruction: it shall continue and last on world without end. The eternal life within every man who hath it was begotten in him “not of the will of man, nor of flesh, nor of blood, but of God” himself. Thanks be unto the Father, for it is of him that we are “begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Tracing this implanted life to its germ, we are said to be “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” It is a holy seed. It cannot sin, for it is born of God. We are made partakers of the divine nature, and the new life within us is a divine life. It is the life of God within the soul of man. We become the twice-born, with a life that can no more die than the life of God himself; for it is, in fact, a spark from that great central sun: it is a new well in the soul which draws its supplies from the deep that lieth under; from the inexhaustible fountain of the fulness of God. This, then, is a second reason for believing in the security and final perseverance of the believer. He has a gift from Christ, and Christ will not withdraw his gift: he has a life which is in itself immortal and eternal.

But, further, this life within the believer which is a gift from Christ, is always in connection with Christ. We live because we are one with Christ; as the branch sucks its sap from the vine, so do we continue to derive our life’s blood, our life’s supplies from Christ himself. The union between the believer and Christ is vital and to the fullest degree assuring. For what does our Lord say of it?-“Because I live, ye shall live also.” It is not a partnership which may be dissolved or a connection which may be severed; but it is a necessity that no accident can interfere with; it is a fixed law of being-“because I live, ye shall live also.” That the union between Christ and his people is indissoluble appears obvious from the figures which are used to illustrate it. To such an overwhelming extent do they denote that there can be no separation, that we may well say, “Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” Are we not married unto Christ? What metaphor could be more expressive? To estimate its value you must take the divine account of the relationship. For although weddings are secularised by our Acts of Parliament, and nuptial ties are looked upon as civil contracts, God has pronounced man and wife to be one flesh; yea, in the sight of heaven, he that is joined to a harlot is one body. If, then, in ordinary marriage divorce is possible, and, alas, too common; when you come to scripture, you find it written that he hateth putting away. He hath said, “I will betroth thee unto me for ever, I have betrothed thee unto myself in righteousness and in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord.” The marriage between our souls and Christ can never be dissolved. It were blasphemy to suppose that Christ shall appeal for a divorce, or that there should be a proclamation made that he hath put away that spouse whom he chose of old, for whom he hath prepared the great wedding feast, and for whose eternal bliss he hath gone to glory to prepare a place. No, we cannot imagine such espousals leading to a separation.

Again, are we not members of his body? Shall Christ be dismembered? shall he every now and then be losing one limb and another? Can you suppose that Christ is maimed? I scarcely like to think, much less to express the thought, of here or there an eye, or a foot, or an ear wanting to complete the perfection of his mystic person. No! it shall not be. Members of the body of Christ shall be so vitally quickened by the heart, and by himself the head, that they shall continue to live, because he lives. When a man stands in water, the flood might naturally have power to drown him, but as long as his head remains above water, the stream cannot possibly drown his feet or his hands; and because Christ, the head, cannot die, cannot be destroyed, all the floods that shall come upon the members of his body shall not-cannot-destroy them.

Moreover, the life of the believer is constantly sustained by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is a matter of fact under the gospel dispensation that not only is the Holy Ghost with believers but he is in believers. He dwells in them, he makes them his temple. The life, as we have shown you, is sui generis, of its own kind, immortal; it is immortal because united with an undying Christ; but it is also immortal because supported by a Divine Spirit who cannot be overcome, who has power to meet all the mischief of false and evil spirits that aim at our destruction, and who from day to day adds fresh fuel to the eternal flame of the believer’s life within. Were it not for the Holy Spirit’s abiding with us, we might be the subjects of some doubt, but as long as he continues to abide with us for ever, we will not fear.

The first consolation that we thus draw from the text is that we are the recipients of a divine gift-“I give unto my sheep eternal life.”

Now, secondly, we have, added to this, a divine promise:-“They shall never perish.” I am very thankful for this word, because there have been some who have tried to do away with the force of the entire passage-“neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.” “No,” they have said, “but they may slip between the fingers, and though they cannot be plucked out, yet they may go out of their own accord;” but here is a short sentence that puts all such thoughts out of the question-“they shall never perish”-in his hands or out of his hands, under any supposition whatever-“they shall never perish.” Observe that there is no restriction here; it includes all time. “They shall never perish.” Are they young believers; their passions strong; their judgment weak? have they little knowledge, small experience, and tender faith? May they not die while yet they are lambs, and perish while they are so feeble? “They shall never perish.” But, in middle life, when men too often lose the freshness of early grace, when the love of their espousals may perhaps have lost its power, may they not get worldly? May they not, somehow or other, then be led aside? “They shall never perish.” “They shall never perish.” Perish they would, could worldliness destroy them; perish they would could evil utterly and entirely get the mastery of grace, but it shall not. “They shall never perish.” But, may they not grow older, and yet not wiser? May they not be surprised by temptation, as so many have been in times when they have become carnally secure, because they thought their experience had made them strong? “They shall never perish,”-neither if they are beginners, nor if they have all but finished their course. “They shall never perish.” It shuts out all time-all reference to time, by taking the whole range of possible periods into the one word, “never.” “They shall never perish.”

No less does the sweep of the sentence include all contingencies. “They shall never perish.” What, not if they are severely tempted? “They shall never perish.” Not if they backslide? They shall be restored again. “They shall never perish.” But, if they continue in backsliding and die so? Ah, that they shall not do. “They shall never perish.” You must not suppose that which never can occur. “They shall never perish.” They shall never get into such a condition that they shall be utterly without grace; they shall never be in such a state of heart, that sin shall have dominion over them-utter and entire dominion. It may come in; it may seem for a time to get the mastery, but sin shall never so have dominion over them that they shall perish before the Lord. “They shall never perish.”

It takes in all the flock. “They shall never perish,”-that is, not one of his sheep. This is not the distinctive privilege of a few, but the common mercy of them all; none of them-not one of them-shall ever perish. If thou, believer in Christ, art the most obscure of all the family, thou shalt never perish. If thou hast indeed received the inner life and true grace be in thy soul, though no one knows thy name and no one lends thee a helping hand; though, as a solitary pilgrim thou shouldst walk the heavenly road all alone, weak and feeble, and trembling all the way, yet thou shalt never perish. The promise is not to some, but to all the believing sheep of Christ. “They shall never perish.”

And, beloved, it may greatly strengthen our faith and sweetly revive our spirits, if we consider how this doctrine harmonises with other doctrines which are most surely believed among us. Christ’s sheep were of old chosen of God unto salvation. But, if they perished, the election of God would be frustrated. From the foundation of the world he appointed them that they should bring forth fruit unto holiness, even unto the end, and, if they do not, how can his will be done on earth as it is in heaven? They were a people set apart unto himself, that they might honour him by good works; did they fail of this, did they fall from their blest estate, did they utterly perish, the Father’s counsel would be foiled; and that cannot be. The purpose of God secures their final perseverance. “They shall never perish.”

We may rest assured that they shall be preserved because of the effectual redemption which Christ has wrought out for them. We believe, beloved, in this place, (though the doctrine is very much disparaged nowadays) in an actual and literal substitutionary sacrifice.

We believe that Jesus died for his people, and

“Bore, that they might never bear

The Father’s righteous ire.”

Now, if he paid their debts they have no debts to discharge. If he has borne their punishment, they have no penalty to suffer. If he stood in their stead, justice as well as grace-justice and grace together-demand that they should be saved. Jesus Christ has offered for them an atonement; and “who is he that condemneth”? “It is Christ that died, yea, rather that hath risen again.” “If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” If he died to bear our guilt, much more, the atonement being completed, shall we enter into the fulness of rest. If he would not lose us, viewing us as unredeemed, but came and paid the price, much less will he lose us now that he hath redeemed us unto God by his blood out of every nation and people and kindred and tongue. He laid down his life for his sheep. He loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might present it unto himself a glorious church; and he will effect the purpose for which he has already ventured so much, he will surely claim and as surely receive at the hand of justice the salvation of those for whom he was a vicarious victim.

Furthermore, dear friends, he that believeth in Christ is justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses. Is it according to the manner of man first to justify and afterwards to condemn? Certainly not, but if it were it is not according to the supreme equity of the Most High God. Has he pronounced a man just, just that man is. When he has declared the man’s transgressions forgiven, shall they be again reckoned to him?-again laid to his door? Is it not said that he has put away our sins like a cloud, and will he gather the cloud of yesterday again? Hath he not said he hath cast our sins into the depths of the sea? Shall that which Jehovah himself hath consigned to the oblivious ocean be washed up again as though he had only committed it to the shallows? As far as the East is from the West, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Our East and West are wide enough apart; but what must God’s East and West be when he looks through infinite space! He has removed those sins so far from us, that the swiftest-footed devil could not bring them back again though he had a whole eternity to perform the feat. He hath put them away for ever. Yea, hear what is said of the Messiah,-“He hath finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness.” If it is finished, it is finished, and if he has made an end of it, where is it? Where is it? “If it be searched for it shall not be found”-yea, it shall not be, saith the Lord. O beloved, how then shall the man that believeth in Christ be condemned-condemned for the sin that has been pardoned? How shall he be cast into hell? For what? For offences that have been borne by the Saviour? How shall he be condemned whom God has justified? Give no countenance to the thought. Let nor fear nor fancy induce you to lend an ear to the suggestion. The sentence of remission once passed upon a man stands irrevocable. “It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth.”

In the believer, moreover, there is a work of God begun, which he has engaged to complete. It hath never been said of God that he began to build and was not able to finish. “We are persuaded that he which hath begun a good work in you will carry it on and perfect it to the day of Christ.” It has not been according to Jehovah’s wont to leave unfinished his works; why should he leave them unfinished? Is there a want of power? Inconceivable. Is there a want of will? We cannot imagine it; for if his will hath changed there must be some reason for the change. And if it be so, is God wiser than he was? Has he altered his plan because he has found out some error in it? If not, if infinite wisdom led him to put his hand to it, infinite wisdom will keep his hand to the work.

“The work which wisdom undertakes,

Eternal mercy ne’er forsakes.”

O beloved, the very beginning of the work from God augurs that the work will be fully carried out.

The doctrine of adoption supplies us with yet another argument for our safety. Every man who is saved, justified, forgiven is also adopted into the family of God. And, dost thou think that God shifts and changes his children who are called by his own name? Dost thou imagine such a thing credible? Does it sound like a fact? Art thou thy Father’s child to-day, and somebody else’s child to-morrow? Is not the absurdity too obvious to need refutation? Nay; I know not whence could have come so whimsical a thought as that we should be children of God to-day, and by-and-by children of the devil, changing thus the blessed paternity which God himself claims as to all his people. “But, we may play the prodigal,” saith one. Yes, I answer, and we may be brought back again after we have gone astray as the prodigal was. Besides; the prodigal was still a son; even when at the swine-trough, and when he had wasted all his substance in riotous living, he was still beloved of the father. And, because he was a son he came back again with weeping and bitterness of spirit, and found peace and pardon. Had he been no son, he might like others have spent his living with harlots, and there had been no saying, “I will arise and go unto my father;” but grace operated on his heart; he was quickened mysteriously, and he said, “I must leave this life of poverty and sin and go back to my father’s house again.” And, if God’s child shall go astray, as it is possible, (only God grant you and I never may,) yet there is a voice that saith, “Return, return thou backsliding Israel. I am married unto thee, saith the Lord.” Adoption is surely a grand proof that the Lord’s people shall be kept and preserved; that there shall be an unbroken family of God in heaven. He shall not have to lament that his own dear sons and daughters, begotten by his grace, have utterly perished. Jesus shall say, “Here am I and the children thou hast given me.”

Then all the saints are in Jesus’ hands. They are not only in his heart, but in his hands-just as the high priests wore the names of the twelve tribes on the breastplates, and also wore them on the shoulders, too. The power, as well as the affection, of Christ shall preserve the the people of God. They are in his hands. “All thy saints are in thy hands.” What a blessed place for us to be in-in the hand of Christ-always there!

But, does not our Lord intimate as if to forewarn us that a great many attempts would be made to pluck us out of that hand? Satan would do it; our own base lusts would do it; the ungodly would do it. The very air is full of tempters who would if they could pluck us away from Christ. We have, therefore, cause for great watchfulness, deep humility, but also for much thankfulness that we are placed where the tempters cannot reach us, for the promise assures us that none is able to pluck us out of Christ’s hand. There is not power enough in legions of fallen spirits, if they were marshalled in battle array against one poor weak Christian, to snatch him away from Christ, yea, should they besiege him without intermission, like a vast herd of lions seeking to devour one lamb, the defence were so much stronger than the invasion that they could not pluck even that one out of Christ’s hand. The destroyer has never yet celebrated a triumph over the Redeemer. He is not able to hold up a single jewel of the Redeemer’s crown and say, “Aha! aha! I stole it from thy diadem. Thou couldst not keep it!” He has no single sheep there to which he can point and say, “Ah, Shepherd of the sheep, thou couldst not keep them all! The strong were safe enough: they helped themselves, but this poor weakling could not help itself, and thou couldst not help it. Lo! I have borne it away from thee; thy flock, which is thy pride, is not complete; thou thyself as Shepherd hast a spot upon thy name, for thou hast lost at least this one that thy Father gave thee and whom thou hast purchased with thy blood.” It cannot be; it shall not be. The powers of darkness have conspired for this and struggled for this, but they have not yet prevailed, nor shall they. None shall pluck them out of my hand. Oh, rest in the hand of Christ, rest quietly; now thou art there thou art secure, neither shall any pluck thee thence. As if he would make assurance doubly sure, and give us very strong consolation, he added, “My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and none shall pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” You can interpret the figure. There was Christ’s hand and his people in it, and he shall shut it fast to hold them. But, then, that hand was pierced once, and so to make it doubly sure the Father clasps it with his hand, and so within a double enceinture the elect of God are held and embraced. There is the pierced hand of Jesus and there is the Father’s almighty hand; so there are two hands to protect and defend them. Well may they now cheerfully defy all power terrestrial or infernal, ever to destroy them. They must, they shall, for ever rest in perfect security beneath the guardian care of the Mau Mediator, Christ the Lord, and God the everlasting and ever blessed Father, who also takes them into his sacred keeping.

Do I hear any one object, saying, “Well, but if this be true, then may not a man live as he likes?” Sir, how canst thou ask that question? What dost thou mean by it? Dost thou mean, may a man live in sin? I have been trying to show that if a man is one of Christ’s sheep, he cannot perish, by which I mean, he cannot live in sin, for that is to perish. When I maintain that he cannot live in sin as he did, and cease to be a gracious man; you ask me whether he will not henceforth sin wilfully because he is saved from his sins? You must surely misunderstand me. “But, may not a man fall? Now I have these checks taken from me, I may grow wanton.” What checks? What checks? If I lay it down that a man who is enlisted as a soldier is always a soldier, how can you tell me I have taken away some checks? I see not how that can be. I have rather implied a great many strong incentives to virtue than offered a single pretext for vice. Certainly he is not to lay down his soldiership because he is enlisted for life in the service of his Lord. If he ever did lay it down, he never could take it up again. Could these fall away, it were impossible again to renew them to repentance. If God’s work did fail, if Christ’s atoning blood did fall short of its aim, there would remain no hope for them. The ground on which the dew that moistens the flowers descends, when it yields nothing but thorns and briars, is given up as worthless. Were a man in some fit of enthusiasm to profess that he believed the gospel, and then take a fit of libertinism and plunge into dissipation, you would all know what to think of his sincerity. When the guilt of sin is removed, the love of sin is purged out of the heart; and when the Spirit of holiness is given, the love of holiness is infused into the heart. The man who truly believes begins a life of holiness, and from that life of holiness he will never utterly depart. I grant you he may be overtaken in a fault; he may be surprised with a temptation; he may stumble through weakness, or through lack of watchfulness: but he will be led back again into repentance: he shall not be allowed to perish. The life that is in him is immortal, a holy incorruptible seed, and it will continue to develop in spite of sultry heat or biting frost, blight or mildew, till it blooms in the perfection of life above. Says one, “Ah, sir, I hold no argument about your doctrine; my fear is for myself: I do not think I should live as I now do if I were not afraid of falling away.” Is not that a suitable fear for the child of the bondwoman:-“Unless I do so and so I shall be sent into the wilderness with my mother Hagar.” Very likely you will. But, I know this, I am the child of the free woman, that is Sarah, and I know my father will never send his child into the wilderness. What then; shall his attachment provoke my alienation? Shall I act shame because he appoints me to honour? Nay, nay, but because he loves me so, I will love him in return. I pray him to forgive my offences, but I will seek to do all that is possible to show that I realise the greatness of his love, and desire to make some poor return for it as best I can. Well, but, says somebody, are we not admonished with warnings against falling away? Certainly, and they are the most terrible that language can describe. Undoubtedly the Scripture paints the pilgrim’s path as full of peril. It is not by creature strength that we can hold our own. Could the precious blood lose its virtue; did the blessed Spirit withdraw his influence; were the timely succour withheld, we have no resource. For all manner of sin there is a remedy; believe in Christ as a Saviour; but for apostacy there is no cure. If you trample on the one sacrifice, no second sacrifice will ever be offered. There is but one new birth. Regeneration is once and once only. “But why these warnings,” say you, “if it cannot happen?” Remember God does not deal with his people as if they were blocks of wood or iron cast and run into a mould. We are beings with a will and a judgment, and God deals with us in that way. Now, if I have poison in my house and it should be needful for some reason or other that poison should be there, I do not intend that my children should ever have that poison or take it. Suppose me to be omnipotent and that I have power to prevent their taking it, yet I do not lock it up and put it where they could not possibly get it. I put it where they can get it if they like, and it will kill them if they do get it; but I tell them they must not take it; I describe to them the results that will follow, and I have such a loving power over my children’s hearts-(suppose it to be so)-that they do not disobey me so as to take this poison. Though it be there and devils come into the house and tempt them to take it, yet they will not take it but put it from them. I should thus be making an exhibition to those who looked on, of the love to me that was in my children’s hearts, and also of my power over my children’s hearts, though I did not violate their wills, and did not make it impossible for them to destroy themselves. Now, it is so here. Sin is permitted to be in the world-I do not know why-and God does not render it impossible for a man to go and commit any sin. The man might, he would, unless God’s grace prevented; but God’s grace is not mechanical in its action; it is not like a fetter, or a chain; it is not (as I have heard some say) dragging people to heaven by their ears. No, it is a mighty force; an omnipotent power, but quite consistent with free agency, it never operates contrary to the laws of mind; and God is glorified in this, that though his children be thus tempted, they do not run into fatal soul-destroying sin; they do not go into such apostacy from him as would be final and prove altogether destructive. They are kept by his gracious power-kept as men-drawn, but with cords of love-bound, but with the bands of a man. Do you object that “good men fall”? Good men do not fall so as to perish. Good men do fall, for they are men. The old nature is in them. But, the truly gracious man with all his sins repents, still believes, and with broken bones goes back to his Lord and proves himself to be still a child. The sheep may fall into a ditch, it will not roll in the mire as a hog would if it fell there. A sheep even when it fails into a ditch proves that it is a sheep still. There is a difference in the nature of it. When I have seen a child of God fall into sin, I have known that if he were a child of God he would hate himself for it, he would grieve over it, and could not be at peace and ease in it. Do you tell me of a Christian who lived in sin and seemed very happy? Be sure that he was no Christian but a pretender. He who can continue in sin and delight in it is no child of God. He that can go day after day into vice, or can tolerate in himself any known sin, has a spot which is not the spot of God’s children. He has a mark upon him which never was yet and never shall be upon a truly quickened child of God. Be ye holy, for I am holy, is the voice which sounds in the saint’s ear, and if he does not always obey it as he should, this is the complaining of his soul, and it makes him go weeping and lamenting before his God. But still, in the main it ever shall be, the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.

I have one word for any here who are unconverted, but would desire salvation. Do you know, dear friends, that one of the great leading thoughts of my young life, the master thought that brought me to the Saviour, was belief in the doctrine of final perseverance? Perhaps you wonder how that could be, but so it was. I saw while yet I was a lad many promising boys and lads who made total shipwreck early in their lives by falling into gross vices. I felt in my soul a loathing of the sins which I heard they had committed. I had been kept from them by divine counsels, by gracious interpositions, by parental teaching, and by pious example. Still I feared lest the sins into which these young men had fallen might master me. Such knowledge as I had of the depravity of my own heart led me to distrust myself. I was convinced that unless I was converted, born again, and received the new life, I had no safeguard. Whatever good resolutions I might make, the probabilities were they would be good for nothing when temptation assailed me, I might be like those of whom it has been said, “They see the devil’s hook and yet cannot help nibbling at his bait.” But, that I should morally disgrace myself, as some had done whom I had known and heard of, was a hazard from the very thought of which I shrunk with horror. When I heard and read with wondering eyes that whosoever believed in Christ Jesus should be saved, the truth came to my heart with a welcome I cannot describe to you. The doctrine that he would keep the feet of his saints had a charm indeed for me. I thought, “Then if I go to Jesus and get from him a new heart and a right spirit, I shall be secured against these temptations into which others have fallen; I shall be preserved by him.” I do not say that drove me to Christ: a sense of sin did that, but it attracted me to him. It was one of the beauties of his face that ravished me, that he was a faithful keeper of all souls that were committed to him; that he was able and willing to take the young man and make him cleanse his way and keep him even to the end. O young people, there is no life assurance like a believing in Jesus Christ.

“Grace shall preserve your following years,

And make your virtues strong.”

I do not preach to you, to-night, a sandy foundation that will give way under your feet, but a rock to which you may continually retreat, in which you may always dwell secure. I do not present to you a salvation that may fail you under some stress of temptation, but a salvation that is strong, having in it “the sure mercies of David.” He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved,-saved from sinning, from the guilt as well as the punishment of sin, and brought to heaven holy and meet for the inheritance of the saints. God grant you to be believers in Christ. Amen, and amen!

UNTRODDEN WAYS

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, June 23rd, 1872, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“For ye have not passed this way heretofore.”-Joshua 3:4.

They had come out of Egypt, they had gone up and down in the wilderness, but they had not before crossed the Jordan. It was new ground to them, a new difficulty, and a new series of events lay before them. As a fresh emergency had arisen, they had new orders direct from the Lord their leader, and Joshua and his officers were busy going throughout the host to communicate the divine directions. Beloved, when it shall be our lot to come into new positions we shall always obtain renewed guidance from the Spirit of God, if we will but wait upon him for it and cry, “Show me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path.”

It is a most important matter with all of us who are believers in Christ that our faith should be in a thoroughly sound condition. It is not only grievous to ourselves, but dishonouring to God, when our faith falls to a low ebb. To see a distrustful Christian is to see a man who is robbing God of his glory. Since the Holy Spirit so vehemently cries, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people; speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,” we may safely come to the conclusion that it is solemnly important that the saints should be comforted, and that for them to lose their comfort is a very grievous thing. He glorifies God most whose faith staggers least. To maintain faith in full vigour is therefore a most important matter. Now, there is one very severe trial of faith which will happen to us all, and probably has already occurred to most of us. It is that of a change of trials, a passing into new territory, an entrance into novel circumstances. There is a conservative tendency about most of us, so that we build our nest and would fain live and die in it. Even if we are ill at ease in our present circumstances, this feeling

“Makes us rather bear the ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of.”

Some spirits are given to change, and would almost leap from the pan into the fire, but others of us take root deeply and dread transplanting. We know the present, and we dread the unknown to-morrow. We are familiar with wilderness tribulations, but we shudder at the Jordan, which lies before us, and the giants, and the chariots of iron, which are yet to be encountered. We are not given to change, but are far more likely to settle upon our lees. We would fain abide where we are, and make no experiment of novel circumstances.

This principle is so strongly developed in certain minds, that they have even been afraid to learn truths which are new to them. From the milk diet of their spiritual infancy they are unwilling to be weaned, even though strong meat awaits them. They were not taught certain sublime truths in their early days, and, therefore, they wish not to be instructed now. Like the aged man in Solomon’s proverb, they are afraid of that which is high. The doctrine of election-they see how full of comfort it is, but not having heard it preached before, they feel afraid to hear it and accept it now. That “wine on the lees well refined” they will not drink, because heretofore it has not been poured into their cup.

We have known such persons to be suspicious of spiritual attainments; they have been so long victims of doubts and fears that they are now afraid to believe; as for full assurance, they are as much alarmed at it as if it were a crime rather than a grace; they regard it as dangerous presumption, and put it far from them. Holy courage, brave reliance upon God, fervent zeal, confidence in prayer, unspeakable joy-these and such like blessings are to their timorous souls perilous things which had better be let alone. The high attainments which some of God’s people have possessed, of access to the throne of grace, of close communion with God, of insight into the secret of the Lord-these things our dear brethren have thought to be too good for them, too precious for present enjoyment; and they have even suspected that those who profess to enjoy them were likely to have been deceived, or were carried away by carnal excitement. Because they have not yet gathered the grapes of Eshcol they will not believe that such clusters exist; because they had not passed this way heretofore they doubt whether there is, indeed, a highway of holiness undisturbed by ravenous beasts.

This fear of that which is new is more powerful still when we are called to enter upon new labours. We become accustomed to our present service, which at first was difficult; continual exercise therein has made it easy to us, and, therefore, when the Lord calls us to something else, we are afraid to venture. We feel as if we were quite competent for the work we are now doing, whereas we ought to know that even there “our sufficiency is of God,” and we are not able even in that to do anything as of ourselves; but we are afraid to sail upon seas which we have never navigated before, even though our unerring Pilot steers the ship in that direction. Like Jonah, we would sooner go to Tarshish than bear testimony for God in the streets of Nineveh; and, like the man of God at Horeb, we complain that we stammer and are slow of speech, and we are ready to forego the honour of the Lord’s service if we may escape its responsibilities. Ah, dear brethren, this is of the flesh, it is altogether contrary to the course of faith; yet how frequent a temptation it is with the people of God!

And, beloved, when this fear takes the shape of a foreboding of coming trial, it is even more common and crushing. We have sometimes to look forward to a period of sickness. Already it may be the disease has commenced to prey upon us; already consumption has weakened our strength by the way, or a more acutely painful disease is tearing at our vitals, and, therefore, we naturally expect that month after month our pain will greatly increase, and come to an alarming height. When death appears to be near, we persist in imagining that there is something terrible about departure out of this world unto the Father. Though tens of thousands of Christians have passed away with songs upon their lips, yet are we still afraid to ford the stream; though Jordan’s banks have been made to ring ten thousand times with triumphant shouts, yet still we linger shivering there, and think it a dreadful thing to die. Forebodings, then, of pain, decay, and death, too often haunt us because we have not passed that way heretofore.

To many the fear of poverty is very bitter; they dread the infirmities of old age; they are dismayed in prospect of the desertion of friends, or the loss of beloved relatives in whom their heart is wrapt up. All these things, because as yet we are new to them, are apt to exercise an influence over our faith of the saddest kind. To help those who are so exercised shall be my aim this morning, hoping that the Lord may have sent by me comfort for his mourners, to make the faces of his afflicted to shine.

First, we shall utter certain words by way of consolation; then, others by way of direction; and, lastly, a few more by way of exciting expectation.

First, let us consider thoughts suggestive of consolation. Let us turn first to the case of the children of Israel. They were certainly where they had never been heretofore. With the exception of Joshua and Caleb, none of them had even passed the Red Sea. They were a fresh generation, born in the wilderness, so that they had not the recollections of the Red Sea as a preparation for their present circumstances. They saw before them now a river which was full to the brim, owing to the melting of the snows of Lebanon; it was both deep and broad; how were they to cross it? They had no apparatus, there was not a boat in all their tents. Suppose they did cross it, there was a walled city within view frowning upon them on the other side, and behind the walls were many powerful and ferocious enemies. Suppose they should conquer the men of Jericho, the whole land was full of cities equally strong, “walled up to heaven” they said, and therefore, apparently impregnable. Their case was one that might naturally excite a thousand fears; but faith drove all fears away. God sent them his consoling word at the time when their faith was about to be tried; and, sustained by its power, they did not show the slightest sign of wishing to turn back, but they advanced straight on at God’s bidding, and the Lord came to their rescue by drying up the river, casting down the walls of Jericho, routing their adversaries, and ultimately giving them the whole of the land from Dan to Beersheba as their inheritance. Now, are you in such a case as that? Are you just now where you have never been before as to trial? Are the demands upon your strength more heavy than at any former period of your career? Is there now a tax upon your faith such as never exercised it before? Come, then; let us talk together, and may the words be words of comfort.

Remember, whether your way in Providence be new or old, it is not a way of your own appointing. A higher power than yours has led you to your present standing place. The people of Israel could have said, “We removed from this place to that, and from that to the next, but we never went without being led on by the fiery cloudy pillar; and here we are just at the brink of Jordan, but we did not come here in a wilful spirit, but we were guided here; Jehovah himself went before us.” Feeling this they felt secure, and we may unite with them. Surely the Lord cannot make mistakes; eternal wisdom cannot err. Your path, my dear brother, and the path of all the saints, has ever been directed by the unerring skill of the great Father, and therefore it must be right. Providence cannot have placed us in a wrong position; it must be right for us to be just where we are; ay, though the armed men were binding us to east us into Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, heated seven times hotter than before, we are in the right place if God has brought us there. He has never erred yet, either in guiding a star in its orbit, or in directing the chaff from the winnower’s hand, and he cannot err in steering the course of one of his people. “Say ye unto the righteous it shall be well with him;” for “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.” “My times are in thy hand.” Desperate, therefore, though your position may appear to the eye of fear, yet faith knows that God has put you in the best possible position for you to be in at this moment. If it were better, taking everything into account, for you to be in heaven to-day than where you are, you should be there. God will do the best possible thing for his people. If it were better for them that there should be no devil and no death, there should be neither devil nor death, but to heaven should they be caught up at once. Infinite, unspeakable, boundless love arranges all our pathway, and infinite wisdom joins in the decree.

Note, again, your present pathway is new to you, but it is not new to your God. Everything that happens to-day, or will happen to-morrow, is new to us, because we can only live in the present moment; and even though we endeavour to project ourselves a little forward, yet it is generally in a wrong fashion, so that we do not see the truth of coming events, seeing not, but only imagining that we see. But all things are present to the eye of God. To-morrow-there is no such thing with Jehovah! Yesterday-there is no such thing! Past, present, future-these are human words! “now” is God’s word, and it comprehends all. He who should look upon a country from a star, taking a bird’s-eye view, would have all parts equally before him, while he who traverses it with slow step leaves a portion of the territory behind him, and another part is yet before him. So is it with man. Creeping like an insect from leaf to leaf he leaves something behind, and has something yet before; but God looking down upon all things at once, serenely fills his own eternal “Now,” and sees our ages pass. The peculiar troubles of to-day, which are exercising you, dear child of God, your heavenly Father was cognisant of ten thousand years ago; and nothing about them comes upon him by surprise. The Lord has no emergencies; he is never at the end of his resources. O beloved, it makes my heart smile while I mention such a notion; it is a childish folly, indeed, to think that the infinite God who filleth all, and sustains all, can ever meet with anything that to him shall be hard. Rest, then, O fellow pilgrim, in this confidence, that the new road to you is an old road to God.

Moreover, there is one view of this thought which ought to be very encouraging to the sorrowful, namely, that he who is at your Father’s side, the Man of love, the Crucified, has, in his practical sympathy with you, actually trodden this pathway of yours. That God has seen it is consoling, but that Christ has trodden it is richest comfort.

“In every pang that rends the heart

The Man of Sorrows bears his part.”

You may see all along the way the blood-stained footsteps of him who gave his feet to the nails. Right down to Jordan’s brink, and through the flood, and up the hither shore, there are the marks of the goings of him who loved the sons of men and bore their sorrows in his own person for their sakes. Courage, my brethren; where Jesus has been we may go. He leads us through no darker rooms than he went through before, and his having gone through them has sown them with light. We thought them novel places of trial, but they are no longer so since our covenant head has traversed them.

Remember, also, the trials which seem new to us are not new to God’s people. Joshua said to the tribes, “Ye have not passed this way heretofore;” but then their forefathers had gone through the Red Sea, which was much the same thing, and perhaps on a greater scale still. Do not, therefore, say or imagine that your woes are peculiar. Others have suffered as much as you are enduring. Ask your fathers, the elders of the Christian church, whether these griefs of yours are new, and they will smile and tell you that they have done business on the same deep waters, and that the waves and billows which go over you have also covered their heads. Dream not that a strange thing has happened unto you. If it be strange to you it is only to you strange, for the rest of God’s saints have suffered the same.

But suppose our position should be new, the labour new, the affliction new, it is no sort of reason why it should be any the more dangerous. It is folly to be alarmed at new things, because they are new. There may be less danger, my dear brother, after all, in the trial you dread than in that which you are bearing to-day. You dread poverty, do you? It is an evil, but it may not be such an evil as that which at this present moment bows your spirit down. Care to keep abundance is more gnawing to the heart than the scantiness of penury. Poverty in the experience of God’s people has proved to be an evil in the midst of which men are capable of great rejoicing. You tremble at approaching sickness. But peradventure there will come with the sickness such joy unspeakable to your soul, that the spiritual joy will far outweigh the increased bodily infirmity. It is clear, then, that a change is not always for the worse, and altered circumstances do not necessarily involve more burdens. Your trial is new, but not therefore the more perilous. Go on, and be not alarmed.

And suppose that being new, it were dangerous; one thing is very clear, namely, that fear will not diminish the danger. To fret, and worry, and mistrust, will that prepare you for what is coming? Will it help you to lie on the sick bed and be patient, if you now begin to fret because you are going to be bed-ridden? Will it aid you to die to begin this day to “feel a thousand deaths in fearing one”? No, brother, if the worst come to the worst, nothing can sharpen your sword so well for battle as faith in the ever-living God. What if I must weep tomorrow, yet will I sing to day, and mayhap my song will gather such force, that some of its stanzas will overleap to-morrow, and I may sweeten my sighs with my psalms. While we may, let us rejoice in the Lord, and not begin to exercise ourselves about unborn troubles. I saw in the monastery of the monks of La Trappe a few days ago, a grave which they had dug in their garden; not that any one of them was dead, but it was a profitable and amusing exercise to take a turn at digging the grave of some friend who might die. A happy family, truly, in which the brothers have a grave in readiness for the next who shall depart. I would like to have filled the hole up at once, for surely it is time enough to dig graves when our friends are dead, and even so it is time enough to prepare for troubles when troubles come. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” is the voice of inspiration. Let us not import from to-morrow the miseries which God has mercifully screened us from to-day.

Further considerations may also console us. Hitherto and up to this moment we have found our God to be faithful to us. These present crosses which are now upon our shoulders, we say we would rather always bear them than have new crosses, but is this wise? Do you not recollect when these very crosses were themselves new? They fit our shoulders now; somehow or other we have adapted our back to the burden, or God has adapted the burden to the back, and we do not like changing the load, though a few years ago we were just as reluctant to bear it. Our present crosses were new once, and God gave us strength to carry them. To-day’s grief will only be new for to-day and for a little time to come; it will soon grow old if we live long enough, and we shall become as used to the new trial as to the old. As to-day we have learned to wing our way joyously under the broiling sun of summer, so by-and-by we shall sit upon the bare bough in the desolate winter and cheerfully sing of the coming of spring. Press on, press on, ye warriors of the cross; the new foes shall be as the old. The novelty of sorrow is but of the hour; the hour will wear it out as it wears out itself, and we shall receive strength to bear up under all.

Moreover, beloved friends, should we become distrustful while passing by a way which we have never trodden before, if we recollected that progress implies a change of difficulties and trials? Who wants to be like a blind horse going round a mill for ever and ever, feeling the lash of the same whip at the same place, and dragging the same machinery round without advancing? No, let us advance. And what if in going on we meet with sterner trials? then so let it be, for we shall receive richer grace. Towards the heaven of God we vehemently desire to make progress by his grace. The trials of manhood are not at all the same as those of a child. There are diseases of childhood from which we are quite free when we come to manhood; and there are difficulties and trials both of the body and of the mind which will come upon us in riper years which children know not, yet we are very glad to get out of childhood and into manhood. When a stroke means knighthood no one wishes to avoid it, and if trial brings higher degrees of grace who desires to shirk it?

Perhaps I should weary you were I to continue much longer in this strain, but let me remind you that if there come new trials they generally end the old ones. It is quite certain that if we are troubled with a west wind, if a rough east wind should blow, we shall not be troubled with the west wind any longer. Heat and cold will not both torment us at the same moment. When the children of Israel were in the desert they had one set of trials; there was the hot sand beneath their feet, and the Amalekites pursuing them and attacking them; and, therefore, at any rate whatever there might be in Canaan, they would be out of the desert and away from desert inconveniences. If they had the Gergashites to fight with there would be no Amalekites. So there is something of gain to be set over against any possible loss. Let every child of God recollect that. When the Lord calls us to a change of position, and brings out a new burden, he removes the older load. We shall not to-morrow be pressed with the weight of to-day. I do not know what my trials may be seven years hence, but I do know that the trials of the month of June, 1872, will not then disturb me. When we bow beneath the infirmities of age, we may rest assured that we shall not be annoyed by the temptations of boyhood, nor molested by the vexations of middle life. In advancing, there are prospects of gain as well as of loss.

Moreover, although we have not passed this way heretofore, the path runs in the right direction. The children of Israel had their faces set towards the Promised Land. If they had been called to cross a Jordan which led them into the bondage of Egypt, there would have been something to distress them; but they were travelling to the land of brooks and rivers, which flowed with milk and honey. Men of faith among them would say one to another, “We pitched our tent each night all through the wilderness a day’s march nearer to our rest, and now there is only one more day between us and the land of promise, therefore let us not fear.” How brave they must have felt when Canaan was just in view. Courage, brothers and sisters! The way may be rough to us, but it is the King’s highway, leading to the New Jerusalem.

“Yet the dear path to thine abode

Lies through this horrid land,

Lord, we would keep the heavenly road,

And run at thy command.

Our souls shall tread the desert through

With undiverted feet,

And faith and flaming zeal subdue

The terrors that we meet.

Our journey is a thorny maze,

But we march upward still;

Forget the troubles of the way,

And reach at Zion’s hill.”

In the second place a few sentences of direction. Wherewithal shall a man be guided when he comes to a way which he has not passed heretofore? When our way is devoid of familiar foot-prints, what shall we do?

The first direction is this: be most concerned to hear the word of the Lord, and obey it. Notice that this chapter seems taken up with “The Lord said unto Joshua,” and “Joshua said unto the people of Israel.” It must have struck you in reading it that it is full of commands. The only details are the taking up of the stones of memorial, heaping them on the shore, and the setting up of other stones in the Jordan: otherwise, all the verses are repeated commands from the Lord, and the record of the nation’s obedience thereto; from which we may gather that in time of trouble our chief enquiry ought not to be-“How should we get through this?” but, “What is our duty while we are in it?” “How would God have us act under these circumstances?” Depend upon it there is no temptation more perilous than that of supposing that self-preservation screens us from duty, and that obedience may be suspended while we provide for ourselves. Remember the words of the hymn-

“ ’Tis mine to obey; ’tis his to provide.”

Would you take the Lord’s work into your own hands? You cannot do it. Attend to your own. If you were at this very moment in the worst trouble that ever befel a son of Adam, I do not believe wiser advice could be given to you than this: “Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” Be it yours to hear what God the Lord shall speak, and to do what he bids you; all will come right then. The chief point in every dilemma is to wait till you hear the Master’s voice.

The next direction is, distinctly recognise the presence of the covenant God of Israel with you. The ark which went before the people had three-fourths of a mile of distance between it and the people, in order that they might see it, because had they been nearer to it the front rank might have seen it, but the rest would not; but now there was a space put between it and the people that they all might see it before them as they went on their march. We never travel so sweetly over the rough ways of this life as when we see that God, the living God, the God of the covenant, the God of the mercy-seat, the God of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the God of the reconciliation by blood, is with us and fulfilling his promise, “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” Is God with us? What more do we want? Omniscience, omnipotence, and infinite love, are all these leading the van? Then we will not fear to follow, though it were into Hades itself; for if Jehovah led the way his saints would be safe even there. Treasure up that direction. Do not think so much of the presence of friends in trouble as the presence of God in trouble. “Fear not,”-what is the next word?-“I am with thee: be not dismayed,”-what is the next sentence? “I am thy God.” The richest consolation you can have is that which is derived from the presence of the Lord God of the covenant.

Note the third direction. Dismiss from your soul the anxiety which arises from the idea that you are the keeper of the divine life within your soul. “Strange direction,” say you. Yes, but let me explain it. When the children of Israel marched through the wilderness some tribes were before and some were behind the ark, as if they were guarding it; but on this occasion the ark went far ahead of them, as though God had said, “You my people are no protection to me; I guard you.” Now in the time of danger the priests who carry the ark advance into the very teeth of the enemy, and into the bed of the Jordan, and there they stand, as though the eternal God threw down the gauntlet to all the hosts of Canaan and said, “Come and contest it with me if you can. I have left my people behind; I alone will meet you; I have come up alone, unattended, and I defy you all.” It will often happen that in the time of trouble our worst fear is this: “I am so afraid that I shall not be able to preserve the grace of God in my heart.” Get rid of that, dear brother, for the right question is not. Will you preserve the grace of God? but will the grace of God preserve you? Man, be assured of this, that God’s grace will take care of him upon whom it lights. There may be a sense in which we are to preserve the divine life, for there is a watchfulness which each man must render to his own soul; but far higher, and above that, is the truth that the Lord is our keeper, the Lord is our shield upon our right hand. The Lord himself will go before you; he shall cover you with his feathers, and under his wings shall you trust; and instead of saying in such a trial, “Shall I be able to keep the grace I have?” rather say, “I have received the grace of God, and it will sustain me, and make me more than conqueror.”

As further directions let me briefly say, beloved, if you are now about to enter into a great trouble, do not hurry, make no rash haste. We often, when we are afraid of a thing, dash into it like a moth dazzled by the candle’s flame. We become so disturbed in our minds that we do not act wisely and prudently, but fall into that haste which brings no good speed. The children of Israel did not rush pell mell to Jordan to swim across, but they waited while the priests went on before, and tarried till the ark stood still in the midst of Jordan. Everything was done deliberately. Ask grace to do the same. Be calm. If the grace of God does not make us calm in the time of peril and suffering, we have some reason to question whether it is healthily operating upon our spirits at all.

But next, while you do not hurry, do not hesitate. Not one man of all the tribes said, “I must wait and see others cross, and know whether the road really is open.” At the moment the trumpets sounded the advance they all went on, asking no questions. A brave man that first priest must have been who went right up to the brink of Jordan and put down his foot. It must have been a noble sight to see the water suddenly roll right away in curling waves till it made a great wall of sparkling crystal up towards the right. He was a brave man who stepped there first and passed along the novel way which God had newly fashioned. His was the first foot which had trodden the bottom of that ancient river, the river Jordan. Be brave, also, my dear brother, and go straight on, though it were a river of fire instead of water. If Jehovah bids you the way is right, hesitate not.

There is one direction which we must not omit, because it is put by itself for special observance-it is this, “sanctify yourselves.” Whenever we are in new trials a voice speaks out of them, saying, “Sanctify yourselves.” I suppose the Israelites washed themselves with water and practised the ceremonial rights which made them clean; so the child of God should come afresh in time of trouble to the precious blood of Christ. He should also ask for grace that he may purge out the old leaven. Our trials are not punishments, for all the punishment of sin was laid on Christ, and God will not punish us for whom Jesus was a substitute; but they are sent as paternal chastisements, and also as loving hints and indications to us that there is something in us to be put away. What is the voice of your present trial, beloved? What is the voice of the trial that you are dreading? I cannot interpret its special note, but I know that its general meaning is this, “Sanctify yourselves.” Do we expect soon to be laid aside from active service? Then let us work for Jesus while we can. Do we reckon upon speedy death? Then let us with both hands serve the Master in the vineyard while life remains to us. May we be more than ever set apart unto God. If we expect poverty or desertion of men, may we feel that the Lord is weaning us from the poor dainties of earth, that he may fill us with the ineffable delights of heaven. “Sanctify yourselves.” That is the voice of God to every man who is led by a way which he has not passed heretofore.

Lastly, a few sentences by way of exciting expectation.

Before us rolls this river, full to its brim; beyond the river, contention and strife await us; let us lift up our hearts to God and trust him, and what shall then happen? Why, first, we shall discern the presence of the living God. Did you notice in this chapter how Joshua puts it in the tenth verse? “Hereby shall ye know that the living God is among you.” The men of this world have no living God. They will hardly endure the name of God; they talk of nature, the forces of nature, the laws of nature, and so on. They have banished the Lord from their philosophy. I am afraid there are some professing Christians with whom things go so smoothly, that they seldom recognise the hand of the living God. Now, tried believer, that you are coming into a new trouble, shall you know that there is a God, a God who acts, a God who interposes for his people, and actually works for them. We have not a God who will hear and then refuse to put out his hand to help us; who will look upon us, but will not come to our succour. You might have continued in your present circumstances without discovering what you know now, namely, that the Lord whom you serve will deliver you with a high hand and with an outstretched arm. Anything which gives us an opportunity to see our God is worth having. Even the light of the fiery furnace, if no other light can reveal that fourth who is like the Son of God, is a precious light. It is worth while treading the blazing coals to have a visit and a sight of that mysterious but beloved personage. Thank God that trouble is coming, for now, as through a glass, shall you behold the glory of the Lord.

What next will happen then? Why, in all probability the difficulty in your way will cease to be; for while the children of Israel saw the living God, they also saw a totally new and wonderful phenomenon. The Red Sea, it is true, had been dried up, but that generation had not seen it. It was a new thing to them when the river Jordan was made dry for them to march through it. I have seen in my short life some very singular and remarkable things, but I cannot now narrate them. I have often heard persons say, in reading “Huntington’s Bank of Faith,” that it was a Bank of Nonsense. I do not believe it. I think there is much in that that any Christian man could have written, and I believe that if many of us were to detail our experiences, they would be quite as wonderful, and that others would say of them, “We cannot receive it, there must be some colouring about it,” and the writings of novelists are not one half so interesting as the actual lives of Christians would be, if they were written out at length. God does interfere in ways which could not have been prognosticated by those who best understand the science of probabilities. You do not know what is going to happen: a trouble is coming, it will come, but there will come with it a mercy which will swallow it up. “The flood,” say you, “the flood is before me, it overflows its banks.” It is there and yet it is not there, for lo! when you shall come to it it shall have disappeared.

“Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessings on your head.”

It has been well up till now; it shall be well to the end. You have not a changing God to deal with; remember that. Shall the God of our childhood, who nursed us when we could not help ourselves, leave us when we come to second childhood? God forbid. Shall he who loved us before the world was leave us when we come into peril? It cannot be. “Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” Rest assured of this, that God has resources you have never dreamed of, and difficulties shall only put you into a position to see new displays of Jehovah’s power and grace. God flings down the challenge every day to Satan and to sin, and says, “Here is my child; I put him in a new position to-day; see if you can overcome him now.” To-morrow God will issue the same challenge, and so on to the end. Perhaps this new trouble has come because Satan has said, “Put forth now thine hand and touch his bone, and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face;” but God is saying, “Try him, try him,” only with this view, that he may get glory by causing our weakness to overcome all the strength of hell through grace divine.

Is this all that we have to expect? No, beloved, we shall see such deliverances that we shall be prepared for future trials. Observe this, Joshua said, “Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites.” Sometimes a trouble when we are marvellously brought through it, becomes a kind of stock-in-trade for us; we look back upon it when the next affliction comes, and we say, “No, I am not afraid; the God who helped me on that occasion can help me now.” How we may bless God for great afflictions, for now all that are coming will be little troubles in comparison. He has brought us through the Jordan. Come on, ye Hivites! Come on, ye Jebusites! Come on, ye Gergashites; behold God has given you as driven stubble to our bow; we will drive you before us, and say destroy them, for he who divides the Jordan is a God with whom nothing is impossible. Be glad then, beloved, if the Lord strangely exercises you; he is trying your muscles and bracing them up for greater feats; as sacred athletes, ye shall do marvellously in the presence of that crowd of witnesses who compass you about. Rejoice and be glad that thus the Lord prepares you more fully to glorify his name.

Lastly, and this is best of all, and will please the children of God most-all that is coming to you will magnify Jesus in your eyes. On that day when Israel went through the river God began to magnify Joshua; and oh, when we pass through deep waters of affliction, how the Lord magnifies his son Jesus in our souls! Jesus is very dear to every child of God, but to the most tried he is the most precious. You who have had him with you when every one else has left you, know what a dear friend he is; you who have been nursed by him when your bones have come through your skin, know what a beloved physician he is; you who have been succoured, and fed, and led, and guided by him when all around has been a wilderness to you, know what a good shepherd he is; and you who have been upon the brink of death and have seen all things melt away, know how blessedly he is immortality and life, and what a fulness dwells in him sufficient to fill the soul when all created joys are gone. O Lord God, if it will magnify Jesus do what thou wilt with thy people. Not one of us would flinch and try to make provision for the flesh if Jesus can be made great. For any other reason less than this we would not say as much; but for Jesu’s glory, for magnifying of his name, if only thou wilt give us strength we will not dread martyrdom, though it be by fire. Anything for Jesus, everything for Jesus. Does not your heart say so, my brother? I know it does if you are loyal to your Saviour, and, therefore, to-day you will shoulder the new cross, you will grasp the fresh weapons of the changed warfare, you will take up the new tools in a fresh corner of the vineyard, though “you have not gone this way heretofore.” If it be for Jesus’ honour for us to advance, who desires to loiter? “Forward,” then, is the message of to-day to all the soldiers of Christ. Great Joshua, lead thou the way! Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon.-Joshua 3, 4.

NO QUARTER

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, June 30th, 1872, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Elijah said unto them, take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.”-1 Kings 18:40.

Elijah may be called the iron prophet; he was a man stern and brave, who flinched not to deliver his Master’s message at all hazards. It was meet that such a man should be raised up just at that time, for the Sidonian queen, Jezebel, was a woman of imperious spirit, superstitious to the last degree, and resolute in carrying out her will; ruling Ahab with sovereign sway, she had issued her mandate that the prophets of Jehovah should be slain, a mandate which was all too well obeyed. None could stand before this tigress until Elijah came, and dared her malice to do its worst. That lone man, of heroic soul, stemmed the fearful torrent of idolatry, and like a rock in mid-current, firmly stood his ground. He, alone and single-handed, was more than a match for all the priests of the palace and the groves, even as one lion scatters a flock of sheep. On the occasion of our text, you will remember that he had proved the prophets of Baal to be liars and pretenders, and then, like a practical man as he was, he went on to the natural conclusion. The law of Israel was, “The prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die;” and, therefore, the case being proved before all men, Elijah became himself the executioner; he bade the people seize the impostors, and he himself purpled the Kishon with their blood. “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape,” was the thundering voice of the prophet of fire. The man did his Master’s will thoroughly, never dreaming of compromise. Perhaps it was for this reason that he, with but one other of woman born, ascended to heaven by an unusual road. The God who made him so grandly faithful had determined that he who passed through the world differently from other men, should pass out of it differently, and he who had in life flamed like a seraph, should in a chariot of fire be carried to his reward.

I am not, however, about to go further into the details of that matter, but would seek instruction from its main idea. Brethren and sisters, the spiritual teaching of such an utterance as this is far-reaching; there is a lesson in it which might be turned to many accounts, for like the cherubic sword at the gate of Eden, it turns every way. One use of it must suffice for this morning: but at the same time, as a hint of how it might be employed, we would observe that it has a distinct bearing upon the present condition of the church of God. “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape,” is a voice which our cathedrals and parish churches might be the better for hearing. Unholy compromises are the fashion of the day; an infusion of honest blood is needed, greatly needed. Men are growing utterly careless as to religious truth, because they see the servants of God and the votaries of Baal associated in the same church, and worshipping at the same altars. Sincere loyalty to God brooks not this confederacy with idolaters. Errors were suffered to remain in the national church for peace sake, and now they have become dominant, and threaten to destroy the lovers of the truth! It is now clear that every error of doctrine or ordinance is as mischievous as a prophet of Baal, and should not be endured. The world is wide, and men are only responsible to God for their beliefs; but the church should not, within her borders, suffer falsehood to propagate itself. Christians have no right to associate themselves with any church which errs in its teaching. If we see that gross error is rampant in a church, and we join it in membership, we are partakers of its sins, and we shall have to share in its punishment in the day of visitation. It is utterly false that it does not matter to what church we belong. It matters to every man who has a conscience and loves his God. I dare not associate in church fellowship with Ritualists and Rationalists; loyal subjects will not join the society of traitors. What a blessing it would have been in Luther’s time if the reformation had been carried out completely! Great as the work was, it was, in some points, a very superficial thing, and left deadly errors untouched. The reformation in England was checked by policy almost as soon as it commenced. Ours is a semi-popish church. If in this country the axe had been laid to the root of the trees, as John Knox laid it in Scotland, we might have been spared a thousand evils; but now the trees, which were only lopped, begin to send out their branches again, and the errors which were allowed to occupy a secondary place by permission, now come to the front and threaten to thrust out the truth of God altogether. The only way in which our conscience can be kept clear before God, so that we can walk with him in light, is that we abhor every false way, and renounce everything which is not of God and of the truth. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” When will Christians see this? The Bible, and the Bible alone, is said to be the religion of Protestants, but the statement is a terrible lie; the most of Protestants believe a crowd of other things over and above what is taught in the Bible; they practise ordinances destitute of scriptural authority, and believe doctrines which are not revealed by the Holy Ghost. Happy will the churches be when they shall cast off the yoke of all authority apart from the Scriptures and the Spirit. What have the Lord’s free men to do with councils of the church, with fathers and doctors, with tradition and custom? The true church has but one Rabbi, and his word suffices her. Away with the commandments of men. Down with the traditions which make void the law of God. “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” A thorough purgation is needed; a root and branch reformation is imperatively necessary. May the Lord send us a prophet clothed with the spirit and power of Elias, by whom the fruitless and poisonous trees of error shall be hewn down and cast into the fire.

I am not, however, about to speak upon that important subject. I want to carry fire and sword into another district, where I trust the invasion will yield practical results. Let us look at home, searching our own hearts, testing our own souls. Our manhood is a triple kingdom; spirit, soul, and body, are the United Kingdom of the Isle of Man; that kingdom ought to be wholly dedicated to the one God of Israel; but instead thereof sin has polluted it, and even where by God’s grace the reigning power of evil has been subdued, sin still intrudes and seeks to regain the mastery. The great law of Christian life in regard to sin within ourselves is, “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” We hold neither truce nor parley with iniquity: war to the knife against every sin of every sort should be the constant habit of the Christian man’s innermost nature.

I shall, this morning, only speak to the people of God. Let that be fully understood. I am not addressing myself now to unregenerate persons, to those who are not believers in Jesus Christ. I should be foolish indeed, if I were to exhort those who are dead in sin, to fight with their sins in the hope of obtaining salvation thereby; for that is not the way of salvation at all, even were they capable of it. Sinners must first be led to Christ, and find saving grace in him by a look of faith. Faith is the first business, not works. To talk of good works before the new birth is to disregard the divine order and put the last first. It is idle to talk of the duties of a Christian to a man who is not a Christian. To you unconverted hearers, the first, and for the present, the only work of God is, that ye believe in Jesus Christ whom he has sent. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;” for “he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” I address myself to those only who have believed; but upon them I would press home the clear, sharp, thorough counsel of the text.

We shall give, first of all, reasons for the slaughter which we now command: secondly, arguments for its thoroughness, “let not one escape;” and then, thirdly, truths of practical value will be mentioned, to help us in carrying out the command.

First, then, let us adduce some reasons for the slaughter which we now advise.

At the outset we remind you that our sins deserve to die, every one of then, because they are traitors to our God. Once we were traitors, too, and then we gave our sins a willing shelter. We conspired against the majesty of heaven, and, therefore, our transgressions were loved and pampered; they were our darlings, and we doted on them. At this time, beloved, the case is altered, the Lord Jehovah is our God and king; we delight in his reign, and our prayer is, “Let the whole earth be filled with his glory.” Our inbred sins would fain rob the Lord of his glory. Every sin is virtually an attack upon the throne of the Most High, it is a treasonable assault upon the crown rights of heaven. He who rebels against the law of God by his breach of that law virtually says, “I will not have this law maker to rule over me.” It is not meet then, O ye children of the kingdom, that sin should be permitted to assail the Lord through you. It is not meet that souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus, loved with an everlasting love, and made secure of endless favour, should harbour those black and foul traitors the sins of the flesh and of the mind. Let the decree go forth in the power of God the Holy Spirit this day to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts. Take those foxes which spoil the vines, and let not one of them escape.

Let them be slain, secondly, because they have already done us infinite evil. In their assault upon God we have already found a master motive for their overthrow; let us remember also that they have sorely injured us and our race. My brethren, what has sin done for us? Can it point to any advantage or blessing with which it has enriched us? Look down the roll of history and see if sin be not man’s worst enemy. Whose hot breath blasted Eden, withered all its bowers of bliss, and caused the earth to become barren, so that without labour even unto sweat she will not yield bread for our sustenance! Mark well you innumerable graves which cover every plain with hillocks. Who slew all these? By what gate came death into the world? Was not sin the janitor to open the portal? Hearken at this moment to the shouts of war which in every age of the world’s history have created a horrible din of groans of dying men, and shrieks of flying women. Who first dipped you flag in blood, and made the air pestilent with carnage? And yonder despotic throne which has crushed down the multitude and made the lives of many bitter with hard bondage, who laid its dark foundations and cemented it with blood? Whence came war with its carnage, and tyranny with its sufferings? Whence, indeed, but from the sins and lusts of men? All over the world if there be hemlock in the furrow, and thistles on the ridge, sin’s hand has sown them broadcast. Sin turned the apples of Sodom to ashes, and the grapes of Gomorrah to gall. The trail of this serpent, with its horrid slime, has obliterated the footsteps of joy. Before the march of sin I see the garden of the Lord, and behind it a desert and a charnel. Stay ye awhile. Nay, start not, but come with me. Look down into the ghastly gloom of Tophet, that region abhorred, where dwell the finally impenitent, who died with unforgiven sins upon their heads. Can you bear to hear their groans and moans of anguish? We will not attempt to describe the sufferings of spirits driven from their God, eternally banished from all hope and peace; but we will ask you, O son of man, who digged you pit, and cast men into it? Who provides the fuel for that terrible flame, and whence getteth the worm that dieth not its tooth which never blunts? Sin has done it all. Sin, the mother of hell, the fire-fountain to which ye may trace each burning stream. O sin, it is not meet that any heir from heaven, redeemed from hell, should make friends with thee. Shall we fondle the adder, or press the deadly cobra to our bosom? If it had not been for the grace of God our sins would have shut us up in hell already, and even now they seek to drag us there; therefore, let us take these enemies of our souls and slay them-let not one escape.

But further, dear brethren, it is meet that every sin should die through the grace of God, whether it be pride, or sloth, or covetousness, or worldliness, or lust, or any other form of evil; it is meet that it should die, because it will work us serious mischief if it be not put to death. Of great sins, as men think them, there is little need that I speak unto you, for you all know how dangerous they are; but those called little sins are equally to be renounced. To fall by little and little, is a terrible way of falling. A Christian man cannot indulge a known sin and yet walk with God. As soon as we tolerate sin within ourselves, we lose power in prayer. The Scriptures cease to be sweet to us when sin becomes pleasant; the services of the sanctuary are dull and lifeless when the heart is fascinated by evil. No tongue can ever tell what mischief a single sin will do to a professor-it is like the one worm at the root of Jonah’s gourd. Take David’s case-what a change came over the spirit of that man’s life from the moment when he went astray! He reached heaven, but how painfully he limped all the way thither, and how heavily he groaned at every step. The songs he wrote before that time are frequently jubilant, and often ring with the crash of the loud sounding cymbals; but after that the voice of the sweet singer of Israel is hoarse; he touches the mournful string, and supplants the psaltery by the sackbut. Sin broke that eagle wing, and dimmed that eagle eye. Samson is a yet sadder case. Let his shorn locks and blind eyes speak to us. O soul, if thou wouldst behold thy worst enemies, look upon thy sins. If thou wouldst see that whish can straiten thy soul’s estate, bankrupt thy heart of joy, shipwreck thine assurance, and kill thy usefulness, thou hast only to look upon sin. See ye it not, its scales are bright with many colours, and its eye gleams with fascination, but its fangs are deadly. As Amalek was the remorseless foe of Israel, so is sin the pitiless enemy of the believer; therefore, to arms against it, take ye all its children and let not one escape.

These reasons might suffice to arouse us to the slaughter. Shall not traitors die? Shall not those who have compassed our ruin be put far from us? Shall not these insatiable adversaries, who are swifter than eagles and stronger than lions to injure us, shall not these, I say, be resisted and overcome? Peace with them is not to be dreamed of. The Lord and his people shall have war with Amalek, from generation to generation. Let not our heart incline to spare a single sin, but with a jealousy cruel as the grave let us hunt down these unclean beasts.

Methinks when Elias said, “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape,” he derived an argument from the spot whereon the altar had so lately stood. By that wondrous spectacle, when bullock, wood, stones, and water were all licked up by heavenly fire, he would plead with them to serve Jehovah. Surely Elias would say, “Look ye there, the sacrifice has been accepted by Jehovah. What then? What is the natural consequence of it but that the enemies of that sacrifice, the setters up of a rival victim, should at once be slain?” Brethren and sisters, you and I have seen the sacrifice of Calvary, a sight far more august than that of Carmel. No bullock was there, but the Son of God made flesh. Your faith has seen him nailed to the tree, you have beheld the sufferings of his body, and by contemplation you have gazed upon the agony of his soul, and you know that it “pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.” When he made his soul “a sacrifice for sin,” the flames of divine justice fell upon the victim, and now the sacrifice is finished, Christ has made an accepted atonement for all our sin. Will you not draw the inference that henceforth you cannot serve sin! By the blood of Jesus you are under bonds to hate evil. These sins necessitated the griefs of Christ, will you indulge them? For these your transgressions your Saviour bore the wrath of God, will you return to them? This would be barbarous ingratitude, can you be guilty of it? Can you gaze upon the bleeding wounds of Jesus, and then wound him afresh with sin? Say, believer, art thou justified, and yet canst thou go back to wanton dalliance with transgression? It cannot be. There is no more sanctifying spectacle in the world than the sight of the bloody sacrifice of Jesus Christ. There is nothing which to the Christian mind is a more convincing proof that sin must die than the fact that Jesus died. Heaven’s eternal Darling bleeds and suffers for transgression, then transgression must die too. The cross crucifies sin. The tomb of Jesus is the sepulchre of our iniquities. By the blood and wounds of Jesus we are constrained to take the prophets of Baal and let not one escape. Have your swords ready for their hearts! Up and slay them. Hew them in pieces, as Samuel hewed Agag before the Lord.

The prophet might have used another argument, which would be sure to tell with them. “Hearken,” he might have said, “you have yourselves confessed that Jehovah is God. Awestruck by the miracle, you have a second time repeated the ascription of praise to Jehovah and owned that he is God. What then? Let these seducers be put down at once.” Such a confession demanded consistent action. The most of you to whom I speak this morning have avowed that the Lord of holiness is your God. You have not only said it by joining in the solemn worship of the sanctuary, and thus declaring it in psalms and hymns, and by saying Amen to our prayers, but many of you have avowed your personal faith before the church of God; you have come before the assembled brethren, and you have declared that the Lord is your God and king. Moreover, you have, in obedience to your Master’s command, submitted yourselves to that symbolical ordinance by which you have declared yourselves to be dead to the world and buried with the Lord Jesus in baptism unto death. Solemnly have you been baptised into his name, and in his name have been raised up from the liquid grave-will you be false to all that this symbolises? Is your profession a lie? Was your baptism a blasphemous falsehood, a presumptuous intrusion. Let me put it to each heart as I would put it to my own; let us have no profession, or else make it true; and if our profession be true, it certainly demands that sin should not be pampered but abhorred. But am I not speaking to church members who think it consistent with their profession to do during the week what they would not like to have known to-day? Are there not some of you who in trade have not clean hands and yet have been outwardly washed, as professers of Christ? It may be you will come this evening to the Lord’s table, wherein you set forth the Redeemer’s death, and yet the morsels from Satan’s table are hardly out of your mouths. If your life all the week has been contrary to the life of Christ, what do you among his people on the Sabbath? If you indulge at home in a passionate spirit, in a proud and hectoring conversation, if you are dishonest, if your talk is unchaste, if you practise intoxication, or any other unhallowed indulgence of the flesh, who can clear you from guilt, and who shall be advocate? You have declared that you worship God, how dare you follow Baal? Ye say that ye are the servants of Christ, how can ye be servants of Belial? Can ye link the two together? It must not, cannot be. If God be God, serve him with all your heart and mind, but if the world and sin after all be better than the Lord’s way, then say so honestly, and take your choice. Be true, I pray you, be always true to your solemn professions.

The prophet had a claim upon them because he was undoubtedly under the inspiration of God. He had no need to tell them so, for they all observed it. The actions of Elijah that day were very remarkable; and indeed, apart from the fact of his being guided by God’s Spirit, they would have been questionable; but God gave him certain sacred instincts which stood him in the place of verbal directions, and the man was led beyond himself by a mysterious influence to which he was pliant and plastic. When he laughed at the priests of Baal, he did what God would have him do; when he bowed his knee and cried for the fire, and the fire came, he was yielding to the Divine impulse which struggled within him; and so when he said, “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape,” all the people were obedient, because they felt that God was speaking through the man. Now, if there be any voice in the world which is assuredly divine it is that which cries out of the excellent glory, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” “Put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” This is the intention of election-he has chosen us that we should be holy. This is the object of redemption-he hath determined to redeem us from all iniquity. This is the great end and aim of the Spirit of God-that we may be his workmanship, created in the imago of God. Holiness is the great requirement, and at the same time the great privilege of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. O brethren, think not that these lips speak alone when I say, slay the sins that are in you, let not one escape; it is God that speaketh it, and let his voice have power over your souls.

Again, I think Elijah had a very prevalent argument as he pointed to the fields around Carmel, and to the parched sides of the mountain. Far as the eye could see, there was not a speck of verdure. Even where the water-course at other times had supported a narrow line of straggling vegetation, there was now no trace of rush, or reed, or grass; all brooks and rivulets were dried up, and their banks were desolate. Men looked with eager gaze, but saw no trace of grass for beasts, or corn for men. With what eloquence could Elijah have pleaded had he cared to do so! “All this has been brought upon you by your sins; you have turned aside from God, and he has smitten you till Lebanon languisheth and Sharon’s plains are as the dust of the furnace. If you would remove the evil, sweep away the cause of it. Slay the traitors who have despoiled you.” Let me at this time point some of you to the barrenness of your spirits incident upon sin. Remember your loss of fellowship with Christ, your want of joy in God, your powerlessness in prayer, your lack of influence for good upon the church and upon the world. What has made you thus barren? There was a time with you in those young days of your espousals, when your soul was like the garden of the Lord, and the excellency of Carmel and Sharon were yours; but now this day, even though you sit with God’s people, you do not enjoy the word as they do, and though you pray it is not prevailing prayer, and when you sing, the hymns which charmed you once are now monotonous. The joy has departed from your life, its verdure and its comeliness are gone, and how? Have not your secret sins betrayed you? Were they not to your souls as a moth to a garment, fretting and devouring it? Grey hairs were here and there upon you, and you knew it not, till a spiritual decay made you totter for weakness. The thieves of sin have in the night broken through and stolen away your jewels and carried off your choice treasures. If you wish to recover your former state of bliss, you must at once with resolution take these prophets of Baal, and let not one of them escape.

Might not Elijah have said “Think of your unanswered prayers”? Some of you have a long file of them. Like the Israelites in Elijah’s day, who cried for rain, but no rain came, you have been praying to God for your children’s conversion, and they are not converted; you have asked the spiritual life of a dear friend, and you have not had it; and peradventure the reason is this-you walk contrary to God, and he is walking contrary to you. If you will not hear him, neither will he hear you. He will not cast you off and let you utterly perish, but he will restrain the heavens, and they shall be as brass above you. You cannot be a Jacob in prayer if you are an Esau in life. If you are weak on your knees, your sins have wrought the mischief-let them not escape. Remember, if you will slay the Lord’s enemies, he will remove your barrenness, and hear your cries. When the prophets of Baal had watered the ground with their heart’s blood, the Lord deluged the fields with rain, but not till then. When we give up sin we shall find our captivity turned. Put away sin from thee and God will visit thee. Christian, purge thy way and thou shalt see Christ’s face again. He hath gotten himself away into his chamber, to see what thou wilt do when he has left thee, and now if thou wilt sigh and cry to him, he will return. Above all, if thou wilt say,

“The dearest idol I have known,

Whate’er that idol be,

Now will I tear it from its throne,

And worship only thee,”

you shall soon have back your Master, and with him all the dews of his Spirit, and your soul shall blossom again, and the fruits of joy and holiness shall be brought forth. Need I argue longer? Is not every Christian ready to take up the sacrificial knife, and slay his transgressions?

Secondly, let me remind you that the text is a very thoroughgoing one. “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” Let me give some arguments for this thoroughness. I fear there is good need why I should argue for the thoroughness of the slaughter of sin, because human nature makes desperate attempts to rescue at least one sin. Like Saul, it cannot bear to kill all the Amalekites-it would save a few of the better sort. I have heard men very eloquent against drunkenness, very, and I would not have them less so; but they have not had a word to say against Sabbath-breaking, or against unbelief, hardness of heart, pride, or self-righteousness. They would kill the adder and spare the viper. Have you not also known some who justify the taunt in Hudibras, and “compound for sins they are inclined to by damning these they have no mind to.” They are ferocious against certain sins and fond of others. They would not touch arsenic, but poison themselves with prussic acid. Just as Lot said of Zoar, so do they say, “Is it not a little one?” Some will avow that they have a constitutional tendency to a sin, and therefore they cannot overcome it; they take out a license to sin, and reckon themselves clear though they indulge their evil propensity. Brethren, this will never do. Indulgences for sin issued by the Pope are now rejected-shall we write them out for ourselves? Is Christ the messenger of sin? I know that some persons feel they are excused in the use of bitter language occasionally, because they are provoked, but I find no such excuses in the Word of God. In no one passage do I find a permit for any sin, or a furlough from any duty. Sin is sin in any case and in any man, and we are not to apologise for it, but to condemn it. It is pleaded by some that their father was passionate, and they are passionate, and therefore it runs in their blood, but let them remember that the Lord must cleanse their blood, or they will die in their sin. Others will say that their constant discontent, moroseness, and murmuring, and tendency to quarrel with everybody, must be set down to their infirmity of body. Well, I am not their judge; but the word of the Lord judges them, and declares that sin shall not have dominion over the believer. Does a sin easily beset us? we are doubly warned to lay it aside. More grace is needed, and more grace may be had. Never suppose that God has given to you a license for any sin, so that you may live in it as long as you please; no, but believe that Jesus has come to save us from our sins. I have received no intimation from the Lord to deal delicately with any man’s sins, or to become an apologist for transgression. My message is that of Elijah, “Take the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” For, observe this, one sin may result in fatal consequences. “To a child of God?” say you. I say not that; but how know we that you are a child of God? how dare you think yourself born from above while your heart loves any one sin? In truth, you may be assured that you are not a child of God if there be any one sin from which you do not long to be delivered. A child of God may for awhile be the captive of sin, but never a lover of sin. One sin ruined our race; one fruit plucked from the forbidden tree hurled manhood from its pristine glory. The effect of that one sin has gone on rankling in our blood through six thousand years, and will go on when years cease to be counted, destroying men throughout an eternity of woe, if it be not purged out of them. That is something dreadful to think of as the result of one sin. Where one sin does not ruin a church, see what mischief it causes. There was only one Achan, but Israel was defeated at Ai, and could not conquer until the accursed thing was discovered and put away. There are poisons so potent that one drop will envenom the whole body; one leak in a ship may be sufficient to send it to the bottom; one lone rock may break the staunchest timbers of a gallant vessel. Say not that there is no danger in one sin, but may God grant us grace to feel that no evil must be spared.

Then, dear brethren, there is this about it, there never was one sin alone yet. Sins always hunt in packs. See one of these wolves, and you may be certain that a countless company will follow at its heels. I spoke just now of the sin of Adam in the garden in taking forbidden fruit-let me ask, what was the essence of that sin? I think it would not be difficult to maintain the thesis that it was pride, or that it was discontent, or that it was lust, or unbelief, or indeed almost any other sin you like to name. It was a many-sided transgression, its light resolves itself into all the colours of evil. That devil’s name was legion, “for they are many.” Sin’s whole brood may be hatched out of one egg: the first original sin had all others in its loins. So we must not think of indulging one sin, because it will bring seven others more wicked than itself. He who sports with one sin will soon come to play with more, and go from bad to worse. A thief who cannot get in at the front door because he finds it locked, tries the back door, and the windows, and then finds a little window so small that it was not fastened because no full-grown man could enter by it, and therefore he puts a child through it, and that is quite enough, for the little one can unlock the door, and let in as many thieves as he will. So one sin put into the soul and allowed to run riot there, may prepare the heart for transgressions never dreamed of. Not all at once do men grow abominable, but sin works the way for sin, and folly nursed grows into crime.

Dear brethren, there are Christians who, through a measure of yielding to some one sin, are all their life-time subject to bondage. They are weak in grace, they are melancholy, they never rejoice in the Lord; their characters are doubtful; they are poor examples, they have but little influence for good; their usefulness is questionable, their life is weak, and in all probability their death will be clouded. They will be saved, but so as by fire; they will get into harbour, but they will be like a vessel I saw some few days ago after the late gales, they will have to be tugged in, their masts gone, their sails rent to pieces, so that they cannot realise the blessed word, “So an entrance may be administered unto you abundantly into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

There is one strong reason for thoroughness in searching out sin, with which I will close this point: it is this, there is certainly no sin that Jesus loves, consequently there is no sin that we should love. Jesus never smiles on any sin of ours, but for every sin he wept, and groaned, and bled, and died. Shall his murderers be our favourites? Shall we harbour those who spat in his dear face, and pierced his blessed side. Methinks there is no argument so powerful to the Christian as the love of Christ. If you are a wife, a loving, tender wife, you will do nothing which would grieve your husband. If you have grown cold in love, that motive will not sway you; but if your heart be warm, and you feel the love of your espousals, you will want no other law. Beloved, will you grieve the Lord that bought you? Will you do despite to him whose heart bled for you? By all the charms of his matchless beauty, and the flames of his quenchless love, I charge you be chaste to your soul’s Bridegroom, and chase away the wanton rivals which would steal your hearts, and defile you. Let Calvary be the Tyburn of your sins.

“Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die,

My heart has so decreed;

Nor will I spare the guilty things

That made my Saviour bleed.”

And now we shall close, in the third place, by mentioning certain doctrines which may help us in this practical work.

While I have been giving the exhortation to the people of God, I dare say many of you have been whispering, “Who is sufficient for all this?” That is just what I wanted you to say, and my first inference is this-hence we see how incapable is the natural man of self-salvation, and of sin-killing efforts. Tell him to slay his sins; not he-he will hide them as Rahab the harlot hid the spies, and let them out again when a quiet time comes round. Kill his sins! not he-they are his Absaloms, and he would sooner die than lose them. The sinner kill sin? Ah, no. There is an old league between them, a sworn confederacy. The unregenerate will no more quarrel with sin than bees with honey, or dogs with bones. Sin is the sunshine in which the sinner, like an insect, dances through his little hour. “Ye must be born again, ye must be born again.” All reformations which do not begin with regeneration are wood, hay, and stubble, and will come to an end. All that fallen nature weaves in her loom will be unravelled. “Ye must be born again, ye must be born again!”

And then, secondly, see how much this work is beyond all human strength. If I had to slay one sin, how could I do it? for to kill sin is not such easy work, it is hundred-headed and hundred-lived. You think, “I have overcome that evil,” and meanwhile you may hear it laugh at you. How true is that of pride. A man says, “I will be humbler, I will pray down my pride,” and at last he thinks, “Well, now, I have become humbler,” a sure sign that he is prouder than ever. A humble man mourns over his pride daily; it is only a proud man who has any humility to boast of. But if one sin cannot readily be put to death, what shall we do with the thousands which haunt us and find such convenient hiding-places in our old Adam nature? How shall we slay all these? He that made us must make us again, or we shall never be worth a farthing. He who first of all gave a pure nature to Adam must impart to us the pure nature of the second Adam, or our existence will be a failure. O God, how weak are we!

But then the third reflection is, behold, the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost is God, and he has undertaken to make us pure and perfect. Brethren, he will do it; blessed be his name, he will do it. We cannot help him in it, we cannot do it ourselves, it is absolutely certain we shall fail if we make the attempt; but he can perfect his own work. By his divine power and Godhead he will certainly take these prophets of Baal within us and slay them, till not one survives. Let us adore the Holy Spirit, let us love and bless him, make his person the object of our confidence, and the thought of him one of our richest delights. The Spirit of God will sanctify you wholly, spirit, soul and body, and you shall be presented faultless before the presence of God, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. What a comfortable truth is this to our souls!

The next word is this: dear brethren, let us be very watchful. Since all these sins must die, let us be constantly watching for an opportunity to put them to death. They are watching for our halting: let us watch for their slaying. Sleeping Christian, you might be justified in sleeping if the devil would sleep too, but he was never known to slumber yet. Sleeping Christian, you might have some excuse if sin would go to sleep, but sin never sleepeth; day and night it dogs our footsteps. Up, then, in the name of God, and be well aroused to watch and pray.

And lastly, and I delight to make this a closing note, what admiration and adoration ought we to give to our Redeemer, the blessed Son of God, because in him was no sin. Remember, brethren, that the manhood of Christ was really human. Do not think of your Lord as though he were not truly man. Remember, he was tempted in all points like as we are, but, oh, that word, “yet without sin.” The devil sets him on the high mountain, and bribes him with a world, but he says, “Get thee behind me Satan.” The devil puts him on the pinnacle of the temple, and bids him cast himself down, but he will not tempt the Lord his God. Satan appeals to his hunger and bids him turn stones to bread, but he will not take the way of the flesh; he rests on God, knowing that “man lives not by bread alone.” O blessed Redeemer, pattern of our spirit, model to whom we are to be conformed, we reverence thee. Conquering in so many conflicts, coming forth from every trial victorious, thou art glorious indeed. It is not ours to open up the whole matter; it is ours to worship, ours to love, ours to imitate. O God, help us to do so, and the glory shall be unto thee for ever. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon.-1 Kings 18.