David had first found it in his heart to build a house for God. Sitting in his house of cedar he resolved that the ark of God should no longer abide under curtains, but should be more suitably housed. The Lord, however, did not design that David should build his temple, though he accepted his pious intentions, and declared that it was well that it was in his heart. From which we may learn that our intentions to serve the Lord in a certain manner may be thoroughly good and acceptable, and yet we may not be permitted to carry them out. We may have the will but not the power: the aspiration but not the qualification. We may have to stand aside and see another do the task which we had chosen for ourselves, and yet we may be none the less pleasing to the Lord, who in his great love accepts the will for the deed. It is a holy self-denial which in such cases rejoices to see the Lord glorified by others, and at the Captain’s bidding cheerfully stands back in the rear, when zeal had urged it to rush to the front. It is as true service not to do as to do when the Lord’s word prescribes it.

The reason why David was not to build the house is not stated here, but you will find it in 1 Chronicles 28:2, 3. “Then David the king stood up upon his feet, and said, Hear me, my brethren, and my people: As for me, I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God, and had made ready for the building: but God said unto me, Thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood.” David’s wars had been necessary and justifiable, and by them the people of the Lord had been delivered; but the Ever Merciful One did not delight in them, and would not use for building his temple an instrument which had been stained with blood. The great Prince of Peace would not have a warrior’s hand to pile the palace of his worship, choosing rather that a man whose mind had exercised itself in quieter pursuits should be the founder of the place of rest for the ark of his covenant of peace. He is not so short of instruments as to use a sword for a trowel, or a spear for a measuring rod, especially when these have been dyed in the blood of his creatures. In your own househeld affairs you do not use the same implement or utensil for opposite purposes; if David, therefore, is used to smite Philistines he is not to be employed in erecting a temple; Solomon, his son, a man of peace, is called to do that holy work. I have sometimes trembled on behalf of our own nation, and especially just now, lest its warlike propensities should disqualify it for what has hitherto appeared its highest destiny. If it should resolve to pick a quarrel and wantonly plunge itself into a bloody war, it may come to pass that our God may judge it to be unfit for the accomplishment of his purposes of grace. Even if it were granted that the war would be most just and right, yet should it be undertaken with solemn reluctance, lest it should deprive our nation of the capacity to be the preacher of righteousness and the herald of the cross. With what face can we preach the gospel of peace among the heathen if we provoke war ourselves? Little wonder would it be if the Lord should say of the English people, “Ye shall not convert the nations nor build up a church for my name, because ye delight in war and have needlessly shed blood.” God grant that all things may be so ordered according to his infinite wisdom that this land may be the true Solomon among the nations, and build a temple for God, which shall enclose the whole earth, wherein every language and every nation shall be heard praising and magnifying the Lord. Labour, I pray you, O ye servants of the loving Saviour, to promote peace if haply the temporary rage of the multitude may be appeased without carnage. To return to personal cases: it may happen to any one of you to be called to pass through business or domestic trials, in which you may be altogether blameless, and yet you may at the close of them find yourself disqualified for certain prominent positions of usefulness, at least for a time. Henceforth you may not hope to accomplish certain high and noble purposes which once were laid upon your heart. God may have to say to you ever afterwards, “You use lies elsewhere. I will not employ you for this, but still I accept you, and it was well that it was in your heart;” and if he should so see fit, do not repine, but like David do all you can towards the work that the man who is to perform it may find materials ready to his hand. David gathered much of the treasure to meet the cost, and did it none the less earnestly because another name would outshine his own in connection with the temple.

Beloved friends, there is a very sweet consolation in my text for those who may be placed in circumstances similar to those of David. If by any means a man of God becomes disqualified for any form of desirable service which was upon his heart, yet nothing can disqualify him from prayer. If he find it in his heart to pray he may boldly draw near to God through the sacrifice of Christ, he may still use the way of access, which the dying body of our Lord has opened, and he may win his suit at the throne of grace. It was well for David that though, when the building of the temple was in his heart it could not be, yet when a prayer was in his heart it might be presented with the certainty of acceptance. If thou, my brother or my sister, art denied the privilege of doing what thy heart is set upon, be not angry with God, but set thy heart towards him in prayer; ask what thou wilt and he will give thee the desire of thine heart.

By my text three thoughts are suggested: the first is it is well to find prayer in our heart,-“therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee;” secondly, it is pleasant to be able to see how the prayer came there,-I shall trace the rise and progress of the prayer of David; and, thirdly, it is most profitable to use a prayer when we find it in our heart; for David solemnly prayed the prayer which he discovered in his soul.

First, then, it is well to find prayer in our hearts. In no other place can true prayer be found. Prayer with the lip, prayer with bended knee and uplifted hand is nothing worth if the heart be absent. Prayer as a mere matter of form and routine is but the husk, heart-work is the kernel. Words are the oyster shell, the desire of the heart is the pearl. Do not imagine that the Lord looks down with any pleasure upon the tens of thousands of forms of prayer, whether liturgical or extempore, which are presented to him without heart: such forms rather weary him than worship him; they are not adoration, but provocation. The God of truth can never accept an untruthful devotion. Our prayer must flow from our heart, or it will never reach the heart of God. But prayer is not found in every man’s heart. Alas, many of our fellow men never pray; and many who think they pray are yet strangers to that sacred exercise. If an angel were now suddenly to announce that he would mark every man and woman here who has never prayed I fear that many of you would be in a great fright, for fear the mark should be on you. If suddenly the complexion could change, and each prayerless person’s face should gather blackness, I wonder how many there would be among us whom we should gaze upon with intense surprise! There shall be no such Cain-like mark set upon any of you, but will you set some sort of seal upon your own conscience if you are compelled to confess, “I am one of those who have never prayed.” What an acknowledgment for a rational being to make! Twenty years of life without a prayer to the Creator of its being! Be astonished, O heavens, and amazed O earth! Perhaps you deny that you are thus guilty, for you have always said a prayer, and would not have gone to sleep at night if you had not done so; then, I pray you, remember that you may have repeated holy words from your youth up, and yet may have never prayed a prayer with your heart. To pray as the Holy Ghost teaches is a very different thing from the repetition of the choicest words that the best of writers may have composed, or the utterance of random words without thought. Have we prayed with our hearts or not? Remember, a prayerless soul is a Christless soul, and a Christless soul is a lost soul, and will soon be cast away for ever. The verses were meant for children, but I cannot forbear quoting them here, for they in simple language express my meaning;

“I often say my prayers;

But do I ever pray?

And do the wishes of my heart

Go with the words I say?

“I may as well kneel down

And worship gods of stone,

As offer to the living God

A prayer of words alone.

“For words without the heart

The Lord will never hear;

Nor will he to those lips attend

Whose prayers are not sincere.”

Further, let me observe that the spirit of prayer, though it is always present in every regenerated heart, is not always alike active. It is not, perhaps, to-day nor to-morrow that every Christian will be able to say, “I find in my heart to pray this one particular prayer unto God”; it may for the present be beyond our standard of grace, and we may therefore be unable to grasp the blessing. In some respects we are not masters of our supplications. You cannot always pray the prayer of faith in reference to any one thing; that prayer is often the distinct gift of God for an occasion. Others may ask your prayers, and sometimes you may plead very prevalently for them; but at another time that power is absent. You feel no liberty to offer a certain petition, but on the contrary feel held back in the matter. Well, be guided by this inward direction, and follow rather than press forward in such a case. There are times with us when we find it in our heart to pray a prayer, and then we do so with eagerness and assurance; but we cannot command such seasons at pleasure. How freely then does prayer come from us, as freely as the leaping water from the fountain; there is no need to say, “I long to pray,” we do pray, we cannot help praying, we have become a mass of prayer. We are walking the streets and cannot pray aloud, but our heart pleads as fast as it beats; we enter our house and attend to family business, and still the heart keeps pleading as constantly as the lungs are heaving; we go to bed, and our last thought is supplication; if we wake in the night still is our soul making intercession before God, and so it continues while the visitation remains. O that it were always so. Now it is a very happy thing when the Christian finds it in his heart to pray with marked and special fervour unto God. Then he puts no pressure upon himself, nor thinks of supplication as a matter of duty; it has become a pleasant necessity, a sacred passion of the inward life, a holy breathing of the soul, not to be restrained. So it should always be, but, alas, most of us have to mourn that in the matter of prayer we are the subjects of many changeful moods. O that we had learned more perfectly how to be praying always in the Holy Ghost.

The presence of living prayer in the heart indicates seven things about that heart upon which we will speak with great brevity.

First, prayer in the heart proves that the heart is renewed. True prayer dwells not in a dead, corrupt, stony heart. If thou findest in thy heart to pray a prayer unto God thou hast assuredly been born again. “Behold he prayeth,” is one of the first and one of the surest marks of the new birth. The faintest movement of the pulse proves that life still remains in a drowning man, and though prayer be weak, feeble, fragmentary, yet if it be there at all the soul lives unto God. Though to your apprehension your prayer is so poor and broken and unworthy that it cannot be accepted, yet the desire of the soul towards. God is an index of spiritual life most hopeful and instructive. Have hope, brother, as long as you can pray, for none who pray believingly, in the name of Jesus, can ever be cast into hell. He whom faith in Jesus has taught to cry to God shall never hear him say, “Depart, ye cursed,” for hath not the Lord said, “Whosoever calleth upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”? Be glad, therefore, if you find it in your heart to pray, for it proves that the root of the matter is in you.

To find prayer in the heart proves next a reconciled heart. David might have been in a pet with God and have said, “If I cannot build a temple I will do nothing, for I have set my heart upon it, and I have already laid up treasure for it. It is a laudable project, and it has had the sanction of the prophet, and I am hardly used in having my design rejected.” There are some professors who would do a great thing if they might, but if they are not permitted to act a shining part they are in the sulks and angry with their God. David when his proposal was set aside found it in his heart not to murmur, but to pray. Job asks concerning the hypocrite, “Will he always call upon God?” and thus he meant to say that only true and loyal hearts will continue to pray when things go hard with them. Let this be a test for you and for me. Canst thou pray, brother, now that the delight of thine eyes has been cut off by death? Canst thou pray now that thy substance is diminished and thy bodily health is failing? Then I take it as a sign that thou hast submitted thyself unto God and art at peace with him, being reconciled to him by his grace. To cease from complaining and to give the heart to prayer is the sign of a soul renewed and reconciled.

Prayer is also the index of a spiritual heart. David sat in his house of cedar: it was costly and carved with great art, but it did not draw his mind away from God. It has too often happened that prospering professors have become proud professors, and have forgotten God. When they were poor they associated with Christian brethren, whom they felt pleasure in recognizing, but now they have gotten a large estate they no longer know the poor people of God, and they spend their Sabbaths where they can meet with a little “society,” and move among their “equals” as they call them, they being themselves so very much superior to the holy men and women whom once they had in honour. Such folks become high and mighty like Nebuchadnezzar, and as they walk their grounds or sit in their painted chambers they say, “Behold this great Babylon which I have builded.” A “self-made man,” risen from the ranks, come to have a name like the name of the great men that are upon the face of the earth: is not this something? Oftentimes hath it happened that these things have turned away the hearts of professors from the God who loaded them with benefits. It was not so with David. In his cedar palace he found it in his heart to pray. The more he had the more he loved his God; the more he received the more he desired to render unto the Lord for his benefits. Plants when they are pot-bound become poor weak things, and so do men’s hearts when they are earth-bound, doting upon their riches. As a traveller finds it hard to move when his feet stick in the mud of a miry way, so do some men make small progress heavenward because they are hindered by their own wealth. Happy is that man who has riches but does not suffer riches to have him: who uses wealth and does not abuse it by idolizing it, but seasons all with the word of God and prayer.

Prayer in the heart also proves an enlightened heart. A man who does not pray is in the dark; he knoweth not his own wants, else would he make supplication. If he understood his own danger, the temptations which surround him, and the corruptions which are within him, he would be incessantly in prayer. He who hath left off praying hath surely lost his wits. If the Holy Ghost has taught us anything he has taught us this, that we must pray without ceasing. David prayed, too, as an enlightened man, because he felt that devotion was due to God. Since the Lord had done so much for him he must worship and adore: “Therefore hath thy servant,” saith he, “found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.” He who is well taught by the Spirit of God knows his position to be that of a humble dependent, who is bound to reverence his God with all his heart; and hence he daily sings, “Thy vows are upon me, O God, I will render praise unto thee.”

The heart in which prayer is found constantly welling up is also a lively heart. We do not all possess lively hearts, nor do we all keep them when we get them, for some men appear to have fatty degeneration of the heart, after a spiritual manner, since their heart acts very feebly in prayer. They are lethargic and lifeless in devotion. Do we not all find ourselves at times in a cold state in reference to prayer? Brothers, I believe that when we cannot pray it is time that we prayed more than ever; and if you answer, “But how can that be?” I would say-pray to pray, pray for prayer, pray for the spirit of supplication. Do not be content to say, “I would pray if I could”; no, but if you cannot pray, pray till you can. He who can row down stream with a flowing tide and a fair wind is but a poor oarsman compared with the man who can pull against wind and tide, and nevertheless make headway. This our soul must endeavour to do. But, beloved, how delicious it is when you can pray, and cannot leave off; when your heart pours forth devotion as the roses shed their odours, or the sun gives his light. I love to feel my soul on the wing like the birds in spring, which are always singing and flitting from bough to bough, full of life and vigour. Oh to have the soul mounting on eagle’s wings, and no longer groping in the earth like a mole. To be instant, constant, eager at prayer-this is health, vigour, and delight. To feel the heart in prayer like the chariots of Amminadib, outstripping the wind-this is a joy worth worlds.

Beloved, this finding in the heart to pray proves, in the sixth place, that the heart is in communion with God; for what is prayer but the breath of God in man returning whence it came. Prayer is a telephone by which God speaks in man. His heaven is far away, but his voice sounds in our soul. Prayer is a phonograph: God speaks into our soul, and then our soul speaks out again what the Lord has spoken. Conversation must always be two-sided. God speaketh to us in this book-we must reply to him in prayer and praise. If you do not pray, my brother, why then you have shut the gates of heaven against yourself, and there is neither coming in nor going out between you and your Lord: but prayer keeps up a heavenly commerce acceptable to God and enriching to your own souls. Do you find yourself mightily moved to pray? Then the Lord is very near to you; the Beloved has come into his garden to eat his pleasant fruits-take care to feast him with your love. Prayer in the heart is the echo of the footsteps of the Bridegroom of our souls who is seeking communion with us. Open wide the doors of your soul and let him in, and then detain him and constrain him, saying, “Abide with us.”

When we find prayer in the heart, we may know that our heart is accepted of God, and the prayer too. Brother, when a desire comes to thee again and again and again, take it as a favourable omen regarding thy supplication. If the Lord should prompt thee to any one desire especially, laying thy child perhaps more than usual upon thy heart, or causing the name of a friend constantly to occur to thee, so that thou findest thyself frequently praying for him-take this as a token from the Lord that he would have thee turn thy thoughts in that direction, and that a blessing is in store for thee. If a certain church which seems to need revival is laid upon thy soul, or a township or a district, mark well the fact. Suppose thou findest thy heart going out towards a special country or city, bearing thy mind thither and working to pray with tears and entreaties, grieving because of its sin, and entreating that God would remember and forgive, be thou sure that this is a prophecy of good to that place, and do thou redouble thy petitions. When the gale blows the navigator spreads his sail to catch the wind, and when the Spirit, who bloweth where he listeth, comes upon thee influencing thee to this or that, be sure to spread all sail. Reckon that the inclination to pray is the foretaste of the coming blessing; as coming events cast their shadows before them, thy desire is the shadow of the mercy which God is sending down to thee. He moves thee to pray for it because he himself is about to give it.

Thus I have shown that it is well when we find it in our hearts to pray a prayer, for it proves the heart to be in many respects in a healthy condition.

Now, secondly, it is pleasant to be able to see how the prayer came into the heart. “I find it in my heart,” says David. Well, David, how did it come there? I answer as he did not, that any true prayer which is found in the human heart comes there by the Holy Ghost. If there be anything excellent in us, even if it be only a desire to pray acceptably, it is of the Holy Spirit’s creation, and unto him be all the praise. But the modus operandi, the way in which the Spirit operates upon us is somewhat in this fashion. First of all he puts the promise into the word of God. David tells us very plainly that it was because God had revealed such and such promises that therefore saith he, “hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.” The Lord gives the promise, and that becomes the parent of our prayer. For first there are some mercies we should never have thought of praying for if he had not promised them. They would never have suggested themselves to us, and we should not have known our need of them unless the supply had taught us, and the promise of God itself incited us to the desire. There are other mercies for which we should not have dared to pray if the promise had not encouraged us. We could not have had the heart to ask such great things if the Lord had not promised them to us. So that the word of God suggests the desire and then encourages us to hope that the desire will certainly be fulfilled. Moreover when a promise comes very close home to a man as it did to David when it was spoken personally to him by the prophet, it vivifies the soul, causes the mind to realize the blessing, and both intensifies desire and gives grasp and grip to faith. We should not have felt the boon to be real had it not been placed before us in plain words. Brethren, this is how our prayers come into our heart. The word of God suggests them, encourages us to seek them, and then gives us a realizing power so that we plead with eagerness and believe with force.

In saying “therefore” David means not only that the word of God had put the prayer into his mind but that his whole meditation had led him to the finding of this prayer in his heart. Had he not been sitting before the Lord in quiet thought he might never have noticed the work of the Spirit upon his soul, but inward searchings brought the right prayer to light. Will you kindly look through the chapter while I very briefly sum up its contents and show that each item excited David to pray? When the king sat before the Lord and spake out his heart, his first word was about the Lord’s past goodness to him and his own insignificance,-“Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?” Brethren, who are we that God should have been so good to us? But inasmuch as his grace to us has been amazing, do we not find it in our heart to pray a prayer to him that he would bless us still more? Can you not enquire of the Lord in the words of the hymn which we sang just now-

“After so much mercy past

Canst thou let me sink at last?”

He hath been mindful of us, he will bless us. Let our memory of his past lovingkindness excite us to prayer for present and future favours.

David then passed on to speak of the greatness of the promise: “This was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God; but thou hast spoken also of thy servant’s house for a great while to come.” We also have received exceeding great and precious promises, and since God has promised so much, will we not be much in prayer? Shall he be large in promising and shall we be narrow in asking? Shall he stand before us and say, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive,” and will we be content with slender, starved petitions? Beggars seldom need pressing to beg, and when a promise is given them they usually put the widest possible construction upon it, and urge it with great vehemence; will it not be well to take a leaf out of their book? Come, brethren, the argument is strong with those who have spiritual sense-the greatness of the promise encourages us to find many a prayer in our heart.

Then he speaks of the surprising “manner” of God. “Is this the manner of man, O Lord God?” He saw that God acted far more graciously than the most generous human beings act towards their fellows. He perceived that “as high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are God’s ways above our ways, and his thoughts above our thoughts,” and therefore he opened his mouth wide in prayer. Was he not right in so doing, and are we right, my brother, if we do not imitate his example? We are advised by the wise man not to go into our brother’s house in the day of our calamity, and the like wisdom would move us not to ask too much from friends and neighbours; but no such prudence is needful towards our Friend above; to him we may come at all hours, and to him we may offer the largest requests. Since the Lord dealeth not as men deal, but giveth liberally and upbraideth not, since he openeth the windows of the treasury of heaven, and is pleased to make no stint whatever in the showers of his liberality, let us wait upon him continually. His unspeakable love should encourage us to abound in prayer.

Then the king goes on to speak of God’s free grace, which was another argument to pray. “For thy word’s sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things to make thy servant know them.” The Lord had entered into coveuant with him, not because David had merited so great an honour, but entirely for his own mercy’s sake. David recognizes the freeness and sovereignty of the grace, and seems to say, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. If thou hast loved me so, then am I bold to ask great things of thee. If thou waitest not for the merit of man, nor for human deservings, then will I ask thee still further to bless me, unworthy though I am, to the praise of the glory of thy name.” Pray mightily, my brethren, since God sits on a throne of grace. When the choicest treasures are to be had for the asking, who can refuse to pray?

Then he proceeded to mention the greatness of God, “Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee.” Surely, to a great God we should bring great prayers. We dishonour him by the fewness of our petitions, and the littleness of our desires. My soul, enlarge thy desires; be hungry, be thirsty, be greedy after divine grace, for whatever thou desirest thou shalt have, provided it be indeed for thy good. Thy desire to obtain shall be the test of thy capacity to receive. Brethren, we have not because we ask not, or because we ask amiss. “Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name,” said the Lord Jesus to his disciples, and he might say the same to us now; for all we have ever asked comes to next to nothing compared with what he is prepared to give, compared with what he will give when once he has tutored us into something like largeness of heart in prayer, like that of Solomon, of whom we read, “God gave him largeness of heart even as the sand which is on the sea shore.” We need to be delivered from narrow conceptions of God, and limited desires in prayer, that we may ask of infinity with suitable capacity of soul, and so may receive grace upon grace, and be filled with all the fulness of God.

David closed his meditation by speaking of God’s love to his people, saying, “And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods? For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel to be a people unto thee for ever: and thou, Lord, art become their God.” Well, since the Lord loves his people so intensely, we may well be encouraged to ask great things for ourselves, and especially to seek great things for the church. We are no strangers to God now, his chosen are neither aliens nor foreigners, they are his children, dear to his heart; and if we, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more sure is it that our heavenly Father will give good gifts to them that ask him? When you pray for Zion plead for great prosperity, and speak with boldness, for you are asking blessings upon those whom God delights to bless, asking prosperity for that church which is as the apple of his eye.

I will sum up this point as to the pleasure of seeing how prayer comes to be in our heart, by briefly tracing the line of beauty along which it runs. First of all the thought and purpose of blessing arises in the heart of God: David perceived that to be the case, for in the twenty-first verse he says, “For thy word’s sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things.” Prayer owes its origin to the heart of God. The next stage is reached when it is revealed by inspiration; the Lord sent Nathan to tell David of his gracious intent towards him. The thought has passed, you see, from God’s secret purpose into God’s revealed word, and now it filters into the heart of David, and David sends it back to God in prayer. Prayer, like our Lord, comes forth from God and returns to God. That is the pedigree and history of all true supplication. It is like the mist which you see in the early morning, rising from the plains towards heaven in the form of clouds, like incense from an altar. How came it there? First of all, the moisture was in the heavens, in the secret treasuries of God. Then came a day when it fell in drops of rain, and did not return void, but watered the earth. Afterwards, when the blessed sun shone forth, it steamed up again, to return to the place from whence it came. The clouds are like the divine decree-who shall enter into the secret place where Jehovah hideth his purposes? The rain is like the word, with its sparkling drops of precious promises, the outcome of the mysterious purposes of God. These revealed blessings we see standing in pools in the Scriptures. Turn to the Book or listen to the Lord’s servants whom he helps to speak, and you shall hear a sound of abundance of rain. This rain watereth the soul of man, and when the warm love of God comes shining on the saturated heart it uprises in earnest petitions. Prayer is never lost, for though the mist which rises in yonder valley may never fall again into the same place, it drops somewhere; and so true prayer, though it come not back into the offerer’s own bosom, is fruitful in good in some way or other. The result of honest hearty prayer may not be distinctly this or that according to your mind or mine, but it is always good; supplication is never wasted, it is preserved in the divine reservoir, and in due time its influence visits the earth and waters it with “the river of God, which is full of water.” When you find a rare flower by the roadside, and wonder how it came there, for it is no indigenous weed but a fair stranger from another clime, it is pleasant to trace out its way to the place it beautifies; and even so when you find a prayer in your heart, it is gladsome to see how it comes forth from the heart of God, by the word of God, to blossom in the garden of your soul.

In the the third place it is very profitable to use a prayer when we find it in our heart. Notice the phraseology of my text. He says, “Thy servant hath found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.” Not to say this prayer, but to pray this prayer. There is great force in the expression. Some prayers are never prayed, but are like arrows which are never shot from the bow. Scarcely may I call them prayers, for they are such as to form, and matter, and verbiage, but they are said, not prayed. The praying of prayer is the main matter, Sometimes, beloved, we may have a prayer in our hearts and may neglect the voice of the Lord within our soul, and if so we are great losers.

What does praying a prayer mean? It means, first, that you present it to God with fervency. Pray as if you meant it, throw your whole soul into the petition. Entreat the Lord with tears and cries. If you do not prevail at first, yet come to him importunately again and again with the resolve that since he has written the prayer in your heart you will take no denial. Heat your prayers red hot. In naval warfare, in the old time, our men of war fired red hot shot; try that system, for nothing is so powerful in prayer as fervency and importunity.

Pray also spiritually, for the text saith, “I have found it in my heart to pray this prayer unto thee.” It is of no use pray to yourself or to the four walls of your room. Some persons even pray to those who are around them, like the preacher of whose prayer the remark was made that “it was one of the finest prayers that ever was presented to a Boston audience.” I am afraid many prayers are presented to audiences rather than to God. This should not be. Moreover, when you find a prayer in your heart do not talk it over nor say to another, “I feel such and such a desire”-but go and pour it out before God; speak it into the divine ear, realize that God is there as distinctly as if you could see him, for that is the way to make a proper use of the prayer which is in your heart.

Pray with specialty. The text indicates that-“I have found it in my heart to pray this prayer.” Know what you pray. Prayer is not putting your hand into a bag and pulling out what comes first. Oh, no; there must be definite desires and specific requests. Think carefully about it and ask for what you want and for nothing else but what you need. Pray this prayer. David had a promise about his house and his prayer was about his house that God would bless and establish it. Much of what we think to be prayer is really playing at praying, The archers in the English armies of old with their arrows a cloth-yard long, when they met the foe took steady aim, and sorely they galled the foe. Give your little boy his bow and arrow, and what does he do? He shoots at random and sends his arrows away, for he plays at archery. A good deal of praying is of that sort, there is no steadily taking aim at the white and drawing the bow with strength, and watching the arrow with anxiety. Lord, teach us to pray.

We ought to pray, too, dear friends, when we find prayer in our hearts, with much boldness. He says, “I found in my heart to pray,” that is, he had the heart to pray, the courage to pray: the promise influenced him to make bold with God. Some men fail in reverence for God, but far more fail in holy boldness towards God. Men who are mighty for God are generally famous for courage with him. Look at Luther; they say it was wonderful to hear him preach, but a hundred times more so to hear him pray. There was an awful reverence about that heroic man, but there was also such a childlike simplicity of daring that he seemed as though he did really lay hold of God. That is the way: try it in your chamber this afternoon. Be bold with God, find it in your heart to pray this prayer unto him.

And do so promptly. Let promptitude mark your prayer as it did that of David. He did not wait a week or two after he had obtained the promise; he went straight away and sat down before the Lord, began to plead the divine word, and said, “Do as thou hast said.” He found the petition in his heart, and before it could lose its way again he brought it before God. He was studying his soul, and as he observed its movements he saw a prayer lift up its head. “Ah,” said he, “I will seize it,” and he held it fast and presented it before God, and so obtained a blessing.

I suggest, dear friends, to those whose hearts feel touched in the matter, that we should to-day make special supplication to God as to the peace of nations, now so miserably endangered. You will meet as teachers in the school, you will meet in the classes, and others of you will be at home in meditation this afternoon; but you can all in various ways help in the common intercession. At this moment it is upon my heart very heavily to pray this prayer to God, and I wish you would all make a point of joining in it: “Send us peace in our days, good Lord.” Not as politicians, but as followers of Christ, we are bound to entreat our Lord to prevent the cruel war which is now threatened. A curse will surely fall upon all who are causing the strife, but blessed are the peacemakers. I believe that if all Christians would join in pleading with God they would do much more than all the public meetings and all the petitions to the Houses of Parliament or to the Queen will ever accomplish. O Lord, prevent war, we pray thee.

Another thing: during this week the various societies are holding their public meetings, and I suggest, if you find it in your hearts, that you spend a little extra time in praying to God to bless his church and its mission work. There will, also, be meetings held of great importance this week, in connection with certain religious bodies. There are denominations which are sadly diseased with scepticism, but a healthy love for the truth remains with many, and therefore there will come a struggle between the evangelical and the philosophical parties: this week will witness such a struggle. Pray God to send the conquest to the right, to strengthen hesitating brethren, and to give decision to those who have long been too timorous in their action. Pray that power and guidance from on high may be given to those who hold the orthodox faith. I find it in my heart so to pray, and shall be glad to know that others are agreeing with me.

Find it in your hearts, too, at this time to pray for the work of this our own church, and I call special attention to the work of our colporteurs. We have now nearly ninety brethren going from village to village, from house to house, selling the word of God, and preaching it to those who in the hamlets might otherwise be left without the gospel. Find it in your hearts to invoke a blessing upon them; and, in fine, if there be anything that is more upon your heart than another, be wise enough to hedge in a quarter of an hour in order to pray the prayer unto the Lord. Shut yourself up and say, “I have business to do with the Master. I feel a call within my ear to speak with the King.” Beloved brethren, when such a season comes to you, I would most humbly but most affectionately ask those of you who are benefited by my ministry to whisper my name into the King’s ear, for I have much need of his grace and help. May the Lord accept your petitions, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

UNDERNEATH

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 12th, 1878, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington

“Underneath are the everlasting arms.”-Deuteronomy 33:27.

God surrounds his children on all sides: they dwell in him. The passage before us shows that the Lord is above, for we read, “There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky.” Assuredly he is around them, for “The eternal God is thy refuge;” and he is before them, for “He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.” Here according to the text the Lord is also under his saints, for “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations,” and by thee we are everywhere surrounded as the earth by the atmosphere.

“Within Thy circling power I stand;

On every side I find thy hand;

Awake, asleep, at home, abroad,

I am surrounded still with God.”

The verse which contains our text should be interpreted somewhat after this fashion: “The eternal God is thy dwelling-place, or thy rest, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” The parallel passage is that verse in the Song wherein the bride exclaims, “His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.” The soul hath come to its resting-place in God, and feels itself to be supported by the divine strength. The heart has learned to abide in Christ Jesus to go no more out for ever, but to lean on his bosom both day and night. It is somewhat in the condition of Noah’s dove which, when weary, was about to drop into the all-destroying waters, but Noah put out his hand and plucked her in unto him into the ark; and when she was all safe, in the hollow of his hands, held by her preserver with a firm but tender grasp, she found in that place a refuge which surrounded her and upheld her from below. The hands covered her on all sides and came beneath her too. Even thus the hand of God sustains all those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High and abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I am going, however, to take the words just as they stand in our own authorized version, and to consider them apart from the context. I ask your most careful consideration of them, for they must be very full of meaning, and very emphatic in their force. The words are placed at the end of Moses’ song, and they are its crown and climax. He had wound himself up to the highest pitch of poetic excitement and spiritual fervour, and this passage is the result. He had spoken grandly before concerning the separate tribes, and the words which fell from his lips are unspeakably rich; but now he is about to close, and therefore he pours forth his loftiest strains and utters full and deep meanings, the ripest and choicest fruit of a lifetime of communion with God. As our Lord ascended to heaven blessing his disciples, so did his servant Moses before climbing to Pisgah pour out a torrent of benedictions full and deep, inspired by the divine Spirit. It is not possible, therefore, that the language can be too greatly prized. The words mean all that we can make them mean, the nectar of their consolation is altogether inexhaustible; may God the Holy Spirit help us to weigh and measure them, and then to distil their inner sense and drink of the spiced wine of his pomegranate.

“Underneath are the everlasting arms.” I shall handle the text in this fashion. Where? “Underneath:” What? “The everlasting arms:” When? They are underneath us now and evermore: and if it be so, what then?

First let us attend to the question:-Where? “Underneath.” Now, “underneath” is a region into which we cannot see. We glance downwards, and the dead cold earth stops our gaze. When we are heavy in spirit we fix our eyes upon the ground and look, and look, and look, but even an eagle’s glance cannot see far below. Scarce can we peer beneath the thin green sod, the bottom of a grave is well nigh the full range of mortal vision. The under world is mysterious, we associate the subterranean with all that is dark and hidden, and because of this it is often regarded as terrible. A man scarcely ever fears that which he can see in proportion to his dread of what he cannot see. Hence our alarm at the “underneath.” What may be underneath us when we leave this sunlit region for the grave’s o’ershadowing vault? What will happen to us in eternity? Life will soon end: what is death? What is the immediate result of death? What shall we feel when we are traversing those tracks unknown, and finding our way to the judgment seat of God? Not knowing, except that little which has been revealed to us, we are all too apt to conjecture terrors and invent horrors, and so to begin trembling concerning that which we do not understand. What a comfort it is to be told by the voice of inspiration that “Underneath are the everlasting arms!” Poets have usually been in a gloomy humour when picturing the under-world, and imagination is very apt to spin a black and tangled thread. You have read of caverns dark, where the bodies of men are fast detained, of which caverns death has the key. Of this the grim Anglo-Saxon poet wailed the warning note-

“Loathsome is that earth-house,

And grim within to dwell;

There thou shalt dwell,

And worms shall divide thee.”

You have heard of gloomy ruins where the night-raven for ever sits and croaks; of corridors where prisoners incessantly rattle their chains to the dolorous music of sullen groans and hollow moans. We have been afraid of death because of the horrors with which our ignorance has surrounded it, and dismayed at the future because of the mysteries which darken it. Be comforted. Our text, like a lamp, reveals the abyss of death and uplifts the veil of the future; follow its gleam, and you will see how it dispels the darkness. If you are a child of God you may descend without fear into the lowest depths: even if like Jonah you had to cry, “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever,” yet you need not be dismayed, for “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” If you were called to take some such awful journey as Virgil and Dante have fabled in their poems, when their heroes descended into the dread Avernus, you need not tremble, though it were said of you as of them,

“Along the illuminated shade

Darkening and lone their way they made.”

If, I say, you were bound to traverse the sepulchral vaults, and all the gloomy dungeons of Hades, yet you need not fear, for “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” Mystery of mysteries! thou art no longer terrible to us, because the light of lights is shining upon thee. Depths unfathomable, we no longer fear to pass through you, for there is One whose love is deeper than the depths beneath as it is higher than the heights above, and he hath said, “I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring them up from the depths of the sea.” We gladly take our journey downward at the call of God, and without fear we pass through the gates of the tomb, and enter the doors of the shadow of death, for “Underneath are the everlasting arms.”

“Underneath”-the word arouses thought and enquiry. Everything ought to be sound, solid, and substantial there. “Underneath” must be firm, for if that fails we fail indeed. We have been building, and our eyes have been gladdened with the rising walls, and with the towering pinnacles; but what if something should be rotten “underneath”? Great will be the fall thereof, if we have built as high as heaven, if the sand lie underneath, yielding and shifting in the day of flood.

“Underneath” is the great matter to which the architect, if he be wise, will give his best attention. And truly, brethren, when you and I begin to examine into our graces and our professions, that word “underneath” suggests many a testing question. Is it all right with us as to the root of the matter-“underneath”? If not, the fair flower above ground will wither very speedily. The seed has sprung up hastily, but how is the soil underneath? for if there be no depth of earth the scorching sun will soon dry up the superficial harvest. “Underneath,” though it be mysterious, is also intensely important, and hence the great joy of being able to say by faith, “Yes, ‘underneath’ is well secured; we have trusted in God and we shall not be confounded; we have relied upon the eternal promises and they cannot fail; we have rested on the infinite merits of the atoning sacrifice of God’s dear Son, and we shall never be ashamed of our hope.” Happy is he who rests upon the everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure, for with him all is safe underneath; and, though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, he need not fear, but may patiently hope and quietly wait for the salvation of God.

For a period we may be content with superficial pleasures, but there are times of trial when we have to fall back upon something deeper and more reliable: earthly props give way in their season, and we need superior sustaining power. The carnal mind meets with an hour when “the proud helpers do stoop under him”; and believers too, in proportion as they foolishly lean upon an arm of flesh, find their confidences departing; then it is that we feel the value of divine upholdings, and rejoice that “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” Let us look more closely into this most important matter.

“Underneath are the everlasting arms.” That is, first, as the foundation of everything. If you go down, down, to discover the basement upon which all things rest you come ere long to “the everlasting arms.” The things which are seen are stayed up by the invisible God. This outward visible universe has no power to stand for a single instant if he does not keep it in being. By him all things consist. There are no forces apart from God’s power, no existences apart from his will. He bears up the pillars of the universe. He alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. He maketh Arcturus, Orion, and the Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. Foolish are those philosophers who think that they can reach the essence and soul from which visible things were evolved, unless they bow before the invisible God. He is the foundation of creation, the fountain and source of being, the root and basement of existence. “Underneath” everything “are the everlasting arms.”

Most true is this with regard to his church. He chose her and redeemed her to himself: the very idea of a church is from the Lord alone. As a temple he devised her architecture, saying, “I will lay thy foundations with sapphires”; and he hath built up her every stone by his own power; her walls he sustains against her enemies, so that the gates of hell cannot prevail against her, for the foundation of God standeth sure. The foundation of every true church is the Lord himself, the Highest himself doth establish her. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.”

Blessed be God, what is true of the church as a corporate body is true of every member of the church. There abides no spiritual life in the world which is not founded upon the everlasting arms. Beloved, if the life of God be in you, if you search deep and go to the basis of it, you will find that your life is staying itself and drawing its constant nurture, yea, deriving its very existence, from the life of the eternal God. Jesus says, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” Your life is the life of God in you; for the divine seed is the foundation of all spiritual life. Beware, then, of harbouring in your heart anything which hath not underneath it the everlasting arms. If there be any hope let it be founded on the everlasting covenant of God; if there be any joy let it well up from the everlasting love of God; if there be any confidence let it be stayed upon the everlasting strength of Jehovah; if there be any service rendered, let it be according to the everlasting commandment. If in your soul there be any grace, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, suffer none of these matters to be superficial or pretentious, the creation of your own native strength, but let them be all founded upon the work of the Holy Ghost in your soul; in fact, let it be said of each of them, “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” Nothing will serve our turn in the trials of life, the terrors of death, or the solemnities of the last great day, except that which hath underneath it the everlasting arms. See how the nations reel when God no longer sustains them: “he removeth the mountains and they know not, he overturneth them in his anger.” See how those churches fly into apostasy which have not underneath them the everlasting arms, they are quenched as the fire of thorns, and only a smoke remaineth. Did not Jesus say, “Every plant that my Father hath not planted shall be rooted up”? See how hypocritical professors disappear like the morning mist when the sun ariseth. Nothing will abide the day of the Lord’s coming unless its foundation be laid in the eternal God. The Lord help us to know what this meaneth, so that we may be like the wise man who digged deep and built his house upon a rock.

Again we may read the words, “Underneath are the everlasting arms,” in the sense of being the bottom and end and object of everything. If in faith you search into divine providence, however dark and trying it may appear, you will soon find that underneath it are the everlasting arms. Satan may be mining, but God is undermining; even under the deep devices of hell the everlasting arms are to be found. Satan’s craft is deep to us, but it is very shallow to the Lord, whose wisdom goes far deeper than all the cunning of the prince of darkness. The evils and errors which are in the world should not cause us to despair of the ultimate victory of the truth, for beneath them still there is the immutable decree of the Ever-living and the Ever-blessed; and that decree shall be accomplished whoever may oppose it; hath he not said, “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear”? His purpose shall stand, he will do all his pleasure. He worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will. Trace your present trials below their surface, trace them to the deeps instead of groaning over their outward appearance, and you will find that underneath each trouble there is a faithful purpose and a kind intent; yea, beneath the utmost depths of distress and grief God is still at work in love to your soul, “From seeming evil still educing good, and better still, and better still, in infinite progression.” Underneath the best events are the arms of love to make them good, and underneath the worst that can happen are the selfsame everlasting arms to moderate and overrule them. As the design, and object of all, “underneath are the everlasting arms.”

I take the text, “Underneath are the everlasting arms,” to mean next that the arms of God are there as the preservation of his people. His people sometimes appear to themselves to be in very great danger, but it is written, “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” Certain of the saints are set in very high places, and their brain might well be turned, so that they would fall; but they shall not slip with their feet, for God upholdeth the righteous. If under deep depression of spirit and sore travail of heart their feet should be almost gone, what a blessing it is to think that “underneath are the everlasting arms.” Sometimes faith walks upon a very slender thread high up above the ways of common men; poising her balancing pole of experience, she tries to keep her feet, but her satisfaction is that even if she should slip for awhile, and her joy should fail, yet there is a net beneath her which will receive her in her fall, so that she shall not be utterly dashed in pieces. “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not” is the gracious safeguard of those who fall, as Peter did, when Satan has them in his sieve. The people of God must and shall be safe. Satan may cast them down, but God shall save them ere they fall into perdition. Let us walk carefully none the less because of this. Let us watch well our footsteps as much as if our preservation entirely depended upon ourselves, but let us ever look alone to our Lord, knowing that he alone keepeth the feet of his saints. Holiness, strength of faith, and ultimate perfection are the things which we must daily aim at, but it is a blessed consolation that when through infirmity or carelessness we do not fully maintain our consecrated walk we are not therefore cast away for ever, for it is written, “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.” “Underneath are the everlasting arms.”

That leads me to read my text in the fourth sense as teaching us that the everlasting arms are the rest of his people. If these everlasting arms are always outstretched to preserve me lest I totter in weakness and fall into destruction, then on those arms let me lean my whole weight for time and for eternity. That is the practical lesson of this choice word. Repose yourselves, beloved, in those arms which even now are embracing you. Wherefore vex your heart when you may be free from care? Underneath everything your Father’s arms are placed-what, then, can fret you? Why are you disquieted when you might dwell at ease and inherit the earth? Are you afraid to rest where the universe resteth? Are not your Father’s arms a sufficient pillow for you? Do you think that it is not safe to be at peace when the love and might of God, like two strong arms, are stretched out for your upholding, and the divine voice whispers to you “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him”? His own word to his prophets is, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem.” Will you not accept the comfort which he sends by his Spirit, and bids his servants impart to you? When God himself doth rest in his love will not you rest in it, and shall it not again be proven that “we that have believed do enter into rest”? Is not the Lord Jesus our peace? Why, then, are we troubled? Well may you lie down to sleep in peace when underneath you are the everlasting arms. Well may your spirit be filled with composure and become indifferent to outward trials when you are thus upborne. Blow ye winds and toss ye waves, the barque cannot sink, or if it did sink it could not sink to our destruction, we should only drop into the great Father’s hand, for underneath even the sinking vessel are the everlasting arms. Now, let the earth reel with earthquake, or open wide her mouth to swallow us up quick, we need not fear to descend into her dreariest gulf, since underneath us still would be the everlasting arms. What a fulness of rest this secures to the believing people of God!

I will fetch from the text one more meaning while I am speaking upon the position of these arms. The text seems to give us a promise of exaltation and uplifting. We may be very low and greatly cast down, but “underneath are the everlasting arms.” The merciful God is great at a dead lift. “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.” Who can tell how high a man may be lifted up-to what sublime elevations he may safely ascend when the Lord makes his feet like hind’s feet that he may stand upon his high places? If still underneath him are the everlasting arms he may safely obey the word, “Get thee up into the high mountains.” He may outsoar the eagle, mounting higher and higher till he has left the sun like a speck beneath his feet, and still underneath him shall be the everlasting arms. Therefore higher, and yet higher may we hourly ascend in thought, in joy, in holiness, in likeness to our God; this is meant to encourage us to rise, since there can be no danger while the arms of God are underneath. This then, my brethren, is where we may expect to find the strength and power of God: it is underneath us, bearing us up. We may not always see it, for the underneath is hidden from our sight, but surely as in secret the Lord upholds the huge columns of the universe so he upbeareth all his own servants, and their concerns. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.”

Secondly let us meditate upon what is it which is beneath us. The everlasting arms. What is meant by this? I hope the gentlemen who are so ingenious in toning down the word “everlasting” will not meddle with my text. A new way of reading the Bible has been invented in these highly enlightened days. I used to get on exceedingly well with the book years ago, for it seemed clear and plain enough, but modern interpreters would puzzle us out of our wits and out of our souls, if they could, by their vile habit of giving new meanings to plain words. Thank God, I keep to the old simple way; but I am informed that the inventors of the new minimizing glasses manage to read the big words small, and they have even read down the word “everlasting” into a little space of time. Everlasting may be six weeks or six months according to them. I use no such glasses; my eyes remain the same, and “everlasting” is “everlasting” to me whether I read of everlasting life or everlasting punishment. If I clip the word in one place I must do so in another, and it will never do to have a terminable heaven. I cannot afford to give it up here when its meaning is joyous to the saint, and therefore not there when its sound is terrible to the sinner. What, then, are “the everlasting arms”? They are arms which always were, and always will be: arms which always were strong, and never will grow faint or weary; arms which once outstretched will never be drawn back again; arms which once engaged for the defence of the chosen people shall never cease to work for their good world without end. Not failing arms, nor dying arms, but everlasting arms, are underneath the saints of God.

I understand the words to mean, first, the arms of everlasting purpose, “according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” His purpose may be called his arms, by which he stretches out his hands to do his work, and these can never fail: for “The Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” “The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.” “He is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth even that he doeth.” We have to deal with One whose gifts and calling are without repentance. In the book of his purpose is it written, and his providence and grace shall tally with the secret decree, “He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion,” and the everlasting purpose of sovereign grace shall be carried out to the end. O my soul, when thy poor purposes shift and vanish, and thou hast to change them twenty times a day, what a blessing it is to think that the purpose of thy God standeth fast, and he himself is without the shadow of a turning. He has declared that he that believeth in Christ shall be saved, and so thou shalt be, though all hell assail thee. Come what may, the eternal purpose lies at the bottom of all, and will be the end and result of all, and so all Israel shall be saved; for “underneath are the everlasting arms” of unchanging purpose.

But next we see here the arms everlasting of love. I do no violence to Scripture when I compare love to arms, for is it not written, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee”? Love has hands and arms with which it draws us, and these are at this moment underlying all the dealings of God with us. This love is everlasting love: without beginning, without variation, without end. Underneath thee, child of God, is the infinite affection of the omnipotent God; what, then, can harm thee? Thy love! Ah, how it flames forth at times, and then how dull it becomes; but thy safety comes from a love which never varies, which many waters cannot quench, and which the floods cannot drown. Look beneath thee, and thou mayest see a depth of love, fathomless and eternal, which may well remind thee of what Moses said when he spake of “the deep which lieth under.” The strength of love which abides in God, who is love itself, no mind can conceive, but all this is placed under thee, O believer, for thy succour, support, and security. Immovable arches of immortal love sustain thy soul from fear of ruin. Rest thou there and sing unto the Lord thy song upon thy stringed instrument as long as thou hast any being.

But next, these arms may be described as the arms of power. And what saith Isaiah the prophet? “Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength.” What said Jeremiah? “Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.” Strength is needed to uphold the people of God lest they fall to their confusion, and that strength is always ready, nay, it is always in exercise. Believer, thou hast been able to stand because the arm of divine strength has never been withdrawn. He is able to keep thee from falling and to present thee faultless, and he will do it. “O bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard: which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved.”

These are the arms of immutability, for God abideth for ever the same. “I am God; I change not: therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” He saved his people “with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, for his mercy endureth for ever.” They are the arms of everlasting blessing, for God has determined to make his people happy, and happy they shall be. “Surely,” saith he “in blessing I will bless thee.” “Thy blessing is upon thy people.” He giveth liberally unto them, and that liberality is never diminished, nor can it be stayed. Underneath thee, believer, are the everlasting arms, for ever carrying thee as a nurse carries her child, for ever gathering up for thee innumerable blessings, and carrying them for thy provision. He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and with that same arm will he show strength unto his people. How blest are they who have such arms beneath them. I heard of a man who was spending a great deal of money, living in grand style, and launching out in business, and certain of his fellow tradesmen told me that they could not see a reason for his cutting such a figure. But said one, “There is somebody at his back; we are quite sure of that.” And so it is with us: we may well be strong, we may well be happy, for there is a power unseen of men which is at our back: the everlasting arms are underneath us, and we cannot fail. Let us be joyous and confident, and praise the right hand of the Lord. Yea, though our conflicts should multiply let us not fear, but let us sing unto the Lord, “Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power. The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.” For this right hand upholdeth the cause of his servants.

Now, in the third place, let us consider when are the everlasting arms underneath us? The only answer is now and for evermore.

Now; at this moment, beloved, the everlasting arms are underneath us. The life of a Christian is described as walking by faith, and to my mind walking by faith is the most extraordinary miracle ever beheld beneath the sun. Walking on the waves, as Peter did, is a type of the life of every Christian. I have sometimes likened it to ascending an invisible staircase far up into the clouds. You cannot see a step before you, but you wind up towards the light. When you look downward all is dark, and before you lies nothing visible but cloud, while beneath you yawns a fathomless abyss. Yet we have climbed, some of us, now for years up this perpetually ascending stair, never seeing an inch before us. We have often paused almost in horror, and asked in wonder, “What next, and what next?” Yet what we thought was cloud has proved to be solid rock; darkness has been light before us, and slippery places have been safe. Every now and then, when the darkness has been denser than usual, a darkness which might be felt, when all the past behind us has vanished, and nothing has been seen but the one step we stood on, we have said, “How did I come here? What a strange, mysterious life mine has been!” We have almost wished ourselves down on the level among the worldlings, who can always see their way and know what is underneath them, but faith has come to our help again; we have believed, and believing we have seen the invisible and grasped the eternal; and then we have gone on, have put our foot down again, and anon have run up with joy the shining way. What an ascent we have sometimes made upon that ladder of light, so that we have companied with angels and left the world far down beneath our feet! Now and then we have enjoyed a glimpse through the thick darkness of the jewelled walls of the eternal city, which needeth no candle, neither light of the sun; we have seen, I say, its brightness, and determined still to climb the mysterious way. Well, believer, at this moment, though thou canst not see thy way, yet since thou art walking by faith “underneath are the everlasting arms.”

It is so, though at this moment you fear that you are going down into a gloomy glen. You have lost a great deal of money lately, and the friend who so kindly helped you is taken away, so that you are going down in the world: yes, but underneath are the everlasting arms. You are getting nearer to those arms now. Friends and wealth came between you and the almighty arms: but now you must lean on them alone. The creature fails, and you must rest on the Creator. You will have sweeter fellowship now than ever you had, since there is nothing to come between you and your Lord. “Ah,” saith one, “but I am sinking in spirit; I am greatly depressed.” Still underneath are the everlasting arms. Thy soul is sinking, like Peter amid the waves, but a hand is outstretched to save thee: thou canst not sink while thy heavenly Father’s hand is near. Go on sinking, if the Lord so will it. Sometimes the greatest sweetness in life is found amid intense bitterness. I never have in my soul a more solid and real joy than when I have been cast into the dust with fearful depression of spirit. I stay myself upon my God, and him only, and then I touch the confines of bliss, though trembling all the while. I hardly know how to express the unrivalled sweetness of resting upon the Lord alone. When you are flung upon God altogether, then does your soul enter into the divinest peace. The natural spirits have gone, everything that sprang from the vigour of youth and the natural elasticity of the mind has departed: now you come right upon God, and lie naked in his hands; and then there is cast into your cup a foretaste of heaven which the soul sits down and humbly sips to herself, for the secret she can never tell; no ear would understand her if she did. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” And so, dear friends, if you should sink both in circumstances and in spirits, and your experience should happen to be a very downcast one, it will still be well. If now you have to discover the corruption of your nature, which you knew little of before; if now your experience, instead of being that of the brethren of the higher life, should be one of humiliation, of prostration of spirit, of deep self-loathing, still underneath thee are the everlasting arms. If you are not to climb to Pisgah with Moses, but must dive to the bottom of the mountains like Jonah, still underneath are the everlasting arms, even at the lowest point of your going down.

So it shall be for ever and for ever, for the arms are everlasting in their position as well as their power. Now thou hast come to die; thou hast gathered up thy feet in the bed; the death sweat stands upon thy brow: thou art sinking so far as this life is concerned among the sons of men, but underneath thee shall then be the everlasting arms. Beautifully has Bunyan described confidence in death, when he pictures the pilgrims passing the river. Christian cried out to young Hopeful, “I sink in deep waters, the billows go over my head, all his waves go over me.” Then said Hopeful, “Be of good cheer, my brother, I feel the bottom, and it is good.” Thus, beloved, shall it be with you. You shall feel the bottom of death’s chill river, but you shall say “it is good”; for underneath are the everlasting arms. Then comes the last plunge, and we shall be as when a man stands on the edge of a precipice and leaps over into the clouds below him. You need not fear to take your last farewell and drop into your Father’s arms, for underneath you shall be the everlasting arms; and oh, how sweetly shall you be caught up together with the Lord in the air, pressed to the bosom of the great Father, and borne upward into the heaven of heavens, where you shall behold the face of the Well Beloved, and find yourselves entranced in his company for ever and for ever. O heir of glory, underneath thee there is no hell: underneath thee there is no annihilation: underneath thee are the everlasting arms; therefore commit thy spirit unto thy faithful Creator, and then welcome life or death, for all is well with thee.

First, let us look underneath. My brother, you have been going on with great discomfort, sighing and crying because your way is rough, and because sometimes you think it dangerous, and fear that you will slip into a chasm and perish. Now, instead of complaining after this fashion, and fearing the road, stop a little and begin to examine-“What is underneath me? What is the bottom of my hope?” You hypocrites dare not examine; you formalists dare not search. You are afraid to ask questions and to open your eyes, lest you should see too much; but those who are honest and sincere in the way of our Lord are not afraid to be tested. You who are under any anxiety will do well to pull right up and say, “I have been troubled with doubts and fears, and I will no longer endure it. I will know the end of this; I will search myself and know my ways, and pray the Lord to let me see the worst of my case; for I long to know what there is underneath.” If you are believing in Jesus Christ with a sincere heart, and resting in the atoning sacrifice, and the covenant of which his blood is the seal, you can afford to search underneath; for you will find all things solid and eternal. It is well to look underneath an outward providence when it frowns darkly upon you, for it conceals the eternal purpose of love. The sorrows which you see are but, as it were, a napkin hiding the precious treasure of eternal grace, hence you can say to yourself in all ill weathers, “All is well, for all is well underneath. The eternal purpose is working out my lasting good.” Do not be afraid to search underneath, my trembling brothers and sisters; but when you do so and find the everlasting arms to be there, then sing unto the Lord with all your might.

The next inference is, if underneath us are the everlasting arms, let us lean heavily. We are afraid to lean too hard on God. To be careful not to encroach on a friend is a very proper disposition. Do not spoil a generous friend by drawing upon him so heavily that he will dread to see you again. I wish some people had a little more of that disposition, as far as I am concerned; but this is not a right feeling when you have to deal with the Lord. Never fear that you will weary your God; never say to yourself, “I will ask as little as I can.” Why, he says, “Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.” Never say “I will trust him a little, take him a part of my cares and rest a portion of my trials upon him.” No, lean with your whole weight. Do not keep a spare ounce for your own carrying. That will break your back. Bring all the tons and the pounds and the ounces and the pennyweights, and cast them all on God. He loves his children to treat him with entire confidence. All your weight will not trouble him. You know Æsop’s fable of the polite little gnat which apologised to the ox for burdening him when he alighted on his horn, and the ox replied that he really did not know he was there. Your God will not tell you that, for he counts the very hairs of your head, but he will tell you that your load is no burden to him. Why, if you had fifty kingdoms burdening your brain and if you carried the politics of a hundred nations in your mind, or were loaded with all the cares of a thousand worlds, you might safely leave them with the Wonderful Counsellor and go your way rejoicing. Lean hard, brothers, lean hard, sisters, for underneath you are the everlasting arms.

The next thing is then, let us rise confidently. Do not be afraid of ascending to heights of love: do not be afraid of having a high ambition for a wholly consecrated life. Be not afraid of high doctrines, or high enjoyments, or high attainments in holiness. Go as high as you like, for underneath you are the everlasting arms. It would be dangerous to speculate, but it is safe to believe. Some men are always going downward, turning diamonds into gas and hallelujahs into howlings; they are trying to get rid of precious truth, and to substitute for it some new theory or the other. Let us be brave in the other direction, and seek to comprehend with all saints what are the heights and depths, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. You may climb, my dear young brother, nor fear to fall even if you reach the masthead of truth, for underneath are the everlasting arms.

Once more, let us dare unhesitatingly, and be very courageous for the Lord our God.

“Through floods or flames, if Jesus leads,

I’ll follow where he goes,”

for underneath are the everlasting arms. Are you called upon to lose everything for Christ? Go on and leap like Curtius into the gulf for your Lord Jesus, for underneath you are the everlasting arms. Does your Master call you to an enterprise which seems impossible? Nevertheless, if God has called you to it, attempt it, for he rendereth to every man according to his work. Remember what the negro said: “If Massa Jesus say to me, ‘Sam, you jump through that brick wall.’ I jump. It is Sam’s business to jump: it is Massa’s work to make me go through the wall.” So it is with you. It is yours to leap forward when the captain gives the watchword, and in confidence to attempt what mere nature cannot achieve, for the supernatural is still with us. The best of all is, God is with us. Underneath us are the everlasting arms. Less reliance upon self and more reliance upon God; less counting of the barley loaves and fishes, and a greater readiness to bring them to his hands who can multiply them till they shall feed the thousands, this is what we want. God grant us grace to trust in his almighty power and sing henceforth and for ever “underneath are the everlasting arms.”

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Deuteronomy 33.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-214, 731, 732.

NO DIFFERENCE

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-Day Evening, May 12th, 1878, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington

On this night the Tabernacle was free to all comers, the regular congregation having vacated their seats.

“He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”-Matthew 5:45.

You see our Lord Jesus Christ’s philosophy of nature. He believed in the immediate presence and working of God. As the great Son of God he had a very sensitive perception of the presence of his Father in all the scenes around him, and hence he calls the sun God’s sun-“He maketh his sun to rise.” He does not speak of the daybreak as a thing which happens of itself as a matter of course, but he traces the morning light to his Father, and declares, “He maketh his sun to rise.” As for the rain, our great Lord and Master does not speak of the laws of condensation causing the vapour to become fluid and fall to the earth in a beneficial shower, but he says of his Father, “He sendeth rain upon the just and upon the unjust.” Jesus knew far better than any of us all the laws by which the great Creator governs the world of matter, and yet he never speaks of these laws as though they operated without the divine power making them to be effective. In Christ’s philosophy the Lord God himself was everywhere present, working all things, yea, even numbering the hairs upon the heads of his chosen, and marking the falling of a sparrow to the ground. Let such be your philosophy and mine, for it is the true one. Dr. Watts taught us to sing when we were children:

“My God, who makes the sun to know

His proper hour to rise,

And, to give light to all below,

Doth send him round the skies.”

So our mothers taught us, and they taught us the truth; but the very wise men of this proudly enlightened age seem to be spinning all sorts of theories to get rid of God, to turn our benefactor out of his own world, and put man’s best friend as far away as possible. I am sometimes reminded by these schools of philosophy and science of Tom Hood’s “I remember, I remember.” Here is a verse of it-

“I remember, I remember,

The fir-trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops

Were close against the sky;

It was a childish ignorance,

But now ’tis little joy

To know I’m further off from heaven

Than when I was a boy.”

It were a good thing for our sceptical teachers who have banished God out of his own universe if they could go back to their mothers’ knees again and learn to talk simply and naturally after the fashion of the wisest man that ever lived, namely, our Lord and Master: then would they also confess that our heavenly Father “maketh his sun to rise and he sendeth the rain,” for so it is. Laws of nature can do nothing without a power at the back of the laws. What is nature, about which many infidels speak so very plentifully? Ask them to tell you what nature is, and they will reply, “Why, it is nature.” Well, but what is that? And they can only say, “Why nature you know, you know, you know, nature is nature.” Some such sensible reply was given to certain of our friends on Kennington Common by one who was there reviling his Maker. Now if men did but understand nature they would know that nature is simply God’s creation, workshop, laboratory, storehouse, and banqueting-hall. In nature what God has made and what God is doing, are made visible before our eyes. God is among us still, blessed be his name.

Believing this, we at once perceive that the Lord has been talking with us during the last few days very sweetly and delightfully. The merciful Father speaks to us with charming eloquence on such a day as this, of which George Herbert would have said-

“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky.”

Coming just in the middle of this fair season of hope and promise, concerning which he sang-

“Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie,”

it has a still small voice which all should wish to hear. What a blessing to have enjoyed such a May-day as this has been. We have had God speaking to us according to the exact style of our text: he has made his sun to shine, and he has us sent rain. Our days for some little time have been made up of sunshine and shower, with every now and then that wondrous master-piece of glory in the sky which we call the rainbow, of which God has said, “I, even I, do set my bow in the cloud,” “whose warp is the raindrop of earth, and whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven”; glorious ensign of his grace and faithfulness, who hung it on the cloud. Now what does God say to us in the sunshine and the shower which thus come the one after the other in such pleasant alternation, making the grass so green and causing flowers to deck both tree and herb? What says he in all these? There is a voice full of the music of love, to which we shall do well to listen.

There is one instruction in it and only one that I shall be able to expound to-night. It is the fact brought out in the text, “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

One of the most considerable heights anywhere near London is Leith Hill, near Dorking. And if you have ever stood there, as I often have done with delight, you may, perhaps, have thought over our text. Far around you see the distant lands, pasture, arable, park, wood, with here and there the laughing water, and beyond the blue hills the distant sea. Up comes a gleam of sunlight, where all was cloud before. By-and-by the sun bursts out in full beauty. Do you notice how impartial it is? Men have mapped out the country: so far is allotted to this squire, so far to that, with here and there an insignificant patch pilfered from the wayside or the common which may belong to some industrious peasant; but the sun shines on all, glances into the hall, peeps into the cottage, gleams from the white spire of the church, and flashes from the tavern signboard swinging in the breeze, shines on the wayside, floods the green where the children are at play with its golden light; sweeps over all, in fact. Now that farm over yonder belongs to a churl, who is sure to rake his stubble after the harvest, lest the poor should glean an ear or two-a man who fights and quarrels with his neighbour; yet the sun shines on his selfish heritage. Yonder farm belongs to one who would, if he could, rob the orphan and fatherless and the widow-a heartless wretch, unworthy to gather a sour apple from the sharpest crab; yet the sun shines on his wheat and barley just the same as on that portion of land which belongs to the generous-hearted and the free, to the gracious and the godly. There is no distinction made between the meadows of the righteous and the pastures of the wicked. As you see the sunlight bathe the whole of the scene before you, the entire landscape smiles with universal joy. While you are watching, that cloud, which all day long you had suspected would turn to a shower, comes rushing up with the wind-the Great Father blowing with his breath this travelling fountain of the sky. Then it begins to pour. We seek the shelter of the lofty tower of Leith without a murmur, for we know that the rain is seasonable. The land wants it; it has been dry and parched for weeks. Down comes the blessed shower that shall fill our barns with plenty. Yes, yes, the Lord is pouring forth a shower of food-creating moisture, and, see, it is raining on the churl’s piece of land just as much as on his liberal neighbour’s. It is watering the farm of the man who would rob the fatherless of his shoes if the law permitted him; it is making his broad acres teem with plenty just as surely as it is fattening the poor man’s patch, or falling upon the widow’s scanty plot, or on the farm of the gracious godly man. As though he did not regard human character at all, God bids his sun shine on good and bad. As though he did not know that any men were vile, he bids the shower descend on just and unjust. Yet he does know, for he is no blind deity. He does know; and he knows when his sun shines on yonder miser’s acres that it is bringing forth a harvest for a churl. He does it deliberately. When the rain is falling yonder upon the oppressor’s crops, he knows that the oppressor will be the richer for it, and means that he should be; he is doing nothing by mistake and nothing without a purpose. It is of his own will that he thus scatters sunlight with both his hands, and pours the bounteous shower on all things that grow. He knows what he is doing, blessed be his name. He on purpose sends forth shine and shower on the evil and on the good, and that is the one lesson we want to bring out to-night. What is the meaning of this boundless generosity? Why this impartial bounty, this indiscriminate liberality?

What does God say to us when he acts thus? I believe that he says this:-“This is the day of free grace; this is the time of mercy.” The hour for judgment is not yet, when he will separate between the good and the bad; when he will mount the judgment seat and award different portions to the righteous and to the wicked. Sheep and goats as yet feed together, and he giveth to them all their fodder; wheat and tares grow in the same field and he ripens both for the harvest. This is not the day of justice, but the period of mercy-free rich mercy-mercy to the undeserving, grace to the worthless, sunlight of love for the evil, and showers of blessings for the unjust.

That is the teaching of the great Father to us to-night, and, in trying to bring it out, I shall first show how forcible it is made to appear by its being placed as an example; and secondly, I shall dwell upon the act itself, drawing inferences from the impartiality of sunshine and shower to encourage all who long to receive grace at the great Father’s hand; and, lastly, I shall let the plants and grass and trees talk to you a little.

First, then, this which is spoken concerning God’s causing his sunshine to fall on the evil as well as on the good is set before us as an example, and hence the emphasis of its meaning. We are, according to the verses which precede our text, to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, to pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us, because if we do so we shall be like our Father in heaven, who blesses with shine and shower the bad as well as the good. It must mean, then, that he, in causing his sun to shine upon the bad, is rendering good for evil, is wishing well to those who treat him ill, is intending favour to those that despitefully use him, and persecute his cause. That is what the text means. God would not command us to do what he will not do himself, if placed in similar circumstances. He bids us forgive, because his sunshine and shower teach us that he is ready to forgive. He bids us do good to those who do us ill, because in shine and shower he is doing good to those who hate him and despitefully use him. Now suppose, my brethren, that we were all enabled by divine grace to follow out the precept which is set before us, our conduct would be regarded by most men as being very extraordinary; for the most of people say, “Well, I will do good to a man if he is a deserving character, but you cannot expect me to help the undeserving. I will cheerfully render a measure of assistance to a person who is grateful, but to the ungrateful and the evil you do not expect me to be kind? Yes, I will be kind to my neighbour, but that man who the other day was so contemptuous in his behaviour as to treat me worse than a dog, and seemed as if he would tread me under his feet like dirt; would you have me do him kindness?” Now, suppose that you are able to rise to the example which is put before you, and that you persistently do good, and only good even to the worst of men; and when you are treated with evil suppose you are able to do only the more good, and thus heap coals of fire upon the offender’s head by being more generous to him than ever-that will be very extraordinary conduct. You think so, I know, for you feel the proposal to be too hard for flesh and blood to carry out; and so indeed it is. If, however, you are enabled to rise to so great a height, you will astonish all around you and become a wonder unto many.

Admire, then, with all your hearts the marvellous conduct of your God. He is prepared to put away all the offences of the past; and he is ready to forgive, and to do good to those who have been doing ill all their days; yea, to take into his very heart of love and make into his children the very persons who have hated him and spoken evil against him. Will it not be extraordinary if he does that to you, dear friend, if such has been your character? Know, then, that the Lord loves to do extraordinary things. “Who is a god like unto thee, passing by transgression, iniquity, and sin?” “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are his ways above our ways, and his thoughts above our thoughts.” God is prepared to save extraordinary sinners by an extraordinary act of love; wiping out the past, and causing them to begin a new life in which they shall be enriched with his favour and preserved by his love.

Again, if a man should carry out what I have tried to set forth-the continuous rendering of good to the undeserving-he would be regarded by all thinking persons whose judgment is worth taking to be very noble. When a man has been abused, misrepresented, and slandered, and he simply smiles and says, “If you knew me better you would not treat me so”; and if the first time he finds an opportunity he helps the man who injured him, and if he gets no gratitude, but, on the contrary, worse treatment than before, he is still able to persevere in doing good, most of you would say, “What a noble fellow he is.” Even the man who does not praise him is obliged to feel his greatness. There is about such a man a superiority which covers him with honour in the consciences of those who observe his gentle spirit. Now, hearken, you that are conscious of great sin against God. If the Lord were to-night to put all your sins behind his back, and would take you into his family, as he took the poor returning prodigal; and make a great feast for you as he did when his son that was lost was found, would it not be noble of him? Would you not feel that his thoughts are far above your thoughts? Of course you would. Ay, but my God doth noble deeds such as make the harps of heaven ring with ecstatic music as the cherubim and seraphim behold his grace. O thrice noble God, there is none like unto thee, so ready to pardon and to receive each returning penitent and restore him to thy favour. To pardon you, my sinful brother, would be extraordinary and honourable to the last degree, but God is prepared to act after that noble fashion. Will you not accept such boundless love, and be at peace with such a Lord?

Do you not all feel that if you could act in so noble a style it would be very pleasurable to you? No doubt, there is some pleasure in knocking a fellow down who insults you, but it cannot last long. When the fire of passion goes out a man begins to think whether it was a good thing to do after all: but not to do it, to turn the other cheek when you have been smitten, to do good instead of evil, have you ever tried that? If you have done so, you have heard music in your heart at midnight at the remembrance of your forbearance. When you have been lying awake you have thought it over, and you have said to yourself, “It makes me happy to think that I did not reply to that angry man in an angry tone-to think that I did not after all give him a smart blow when he gave me one; but that I showed patience and good temper, and endured ill treatment for Christ’s sake.” It is a pleasure as deep as it is noble. To be Christlike is to enjoy a heaven within your breast. Even so it is a pleasure to God to have mercy upon sinners: he delighteth in mercy. Nothing gives to God greater delight than to save those who have offended him. He is always ready for a gracious deed, and freely of his own will he meets those who seek his face; he does not want you to melt his heart with tears in order to win his love, and he does not require the laceration of your body by penance, nor a long period of agonizing doubt, before he grants full and effectual pardon. It is his joy to pardon. He meets returning sinners when they are yet a great way off, and kisses them. So rejoiced is he to receive them that if they are glad to be received, yet he is the gladder of the two. Joyous is the great Father’s heart when he presses his Ephraims to his bosom.

Did I hear somebody say, “But this that you are talking about is not justice”? Listen: it is not unjust. Look at the conduct which our Lord commands us and see if that would be unjust. If a man has insulted me and I forgive him, am I unjust? If a man has slandered me, and I overlook it, am I unjust? If a man has done me an injury, and I refuse to take any revenge except that of doing good to him, am I unjust? Certainly I am not acting according to the laws of justice, but then I am not the judge, and not being the judge, why should I undertake an office to which I am not called? God is the judge of all by necessity of his nature, but he will not fully display that character till the day when in the person of his Son he shall come with all his holy angels to summon men to his bar: for the present he does not deal with living men after the rule of justice, but he deals with them according to his grace. If any one should question why he should give his grace to the undeserving, here is a sufficient answer for them: “May I not do as I will with my own? Is thine eye evil because mine is good?” If you choose to show kindness to those who do not deserve it, who shall say you “nay”? May not a man be as generous and forbearing as he pleases? What law, human or divine, forbids him? And if God, with infinite sovereignty of mercy, chooses to dispense his favours even to those who deserve nothing at his hands, let him be adored for ever, but let him not be questioned for so doing. At any rate it ill becomes the undeserving themselves to raise such a question; rather let them eagerly accept the bounty of the pardoning God.

And then note this thought-that to do good to the evil is, after all, promotive of righteousness. To be good to the unjust is to help on the cause of right, for goodness to the evil is one of the most wooing things in the world, wooing them, I mean, to repent and do good in return. Let me give you an anecdote. There was a farmer who lived in one of the new settlements of America. We will call him Mr. Wrath, for he was a man of a horrible temper, and everybody who lived near him was made to know it. He had an excellent Christian man living near him-a gentle, good, easy-tempered soul; and on one occasion this good man’s hogs strayed into the bad man’s wheat and caused damage. Mr. Wrath came down in a tearing rage, and said what he would do and what he would not do; the other offered to pay for the damage, and said that he was very sorry for his neglect and would do his best that it should not happen again. However, it did happen again, and the owner of the wheat was in a great passion. He caught the swine and killed them all, put their bodies on a cart and took them back to his neighbour. “Your hogs,” said he, “got into my corn: here they are”-and sure enough there they were, all dead. Of course, the owner of the hogs might have gone to law with Mr. Wrath and obtained damages at more or less cost of trouble and temper; but he merely said that he was exceedingly sorry that his hogs had transgressed again, and there ended the matter. Some time after it came to pass that Mr. Wrath’s pigs went astray, as pigs will do, and they damaged this good man’s wheat. What did he do? He had not sought a legal remedy against his adversary; would not it have been fair and straightforward to butcher Mr. Wrath’s hogs, on the principle of tit for tat, as the proverb puts it? Of course it would have been, but a Christian does not act upon that worn-out legal principle. Instead of killing the creatures, he caught them all, tied their legs, put them on a cart, drove up to the door and said, “Friend Wrath, your hogs got into my corn: I have brought them to you: here they are,”-the very words that Mr. Wrath had used to him. He went to the cart, of course expecting to find his swine all dead; but there they were, all right enough, grunting in proof of their continued existence. “There,” said he, “hogs are always troublesome. I dare say you could not help their getting into my corn: there they are.” Mr. Wrath’s temper was changed from that very day. How could he behave ill to such a neighbour who had vanquished him by forgiving him the injury that he had done him? Now, just as men can win upon men by their kindness, so does God win upon the hearts of men by his love when the Holy Spirit leads them to see and feel that he acts graciously towards them. There is no power to win a man like the power of love. If you have ever been converted, dear friends, I think that you have felt that you could say-

“I yield, by sovereign love subdued:

Who can resist its charms?”

The thunderbolts of God might have broken you down, but they could not have forced love into your terrified soul; yet, when Jesus came in love and mercy, you were compelled to yield, and that most gladly and heartily. So God’s goodness to the unjust is aiding and assisting the cause of righteousness and justice, and who, therefore, shall say a word against it?

“Ah,” says somebody, “but it is very liable to be abused. If you go and help the bad, and benefit the unjust, you will find that they will take your charity and spend it wrongly, or perhaps they will turn again and rend you.” This is very true, but still the Master says, “Love your enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use you.” He does not insert a clause to the effect that we are only to do this where we are sure that it will not be abused. No, it is absolute. If they make bad use of it, that is no business of yours. Your heavenly Father knows that the churl, when he reaps his harvest, will simply spend it on himself; yet he sends him the sunlight and the shower. He knows that yonder oppressive wretch will, with his wealth, go on to grind the poor; but he sends his crops the warm, genial sun, and the refreshing rain, notwithstanding it. But, dear friends, there is this thing to be said about divine grace, that if God gives it to you, you cannot misuse it, for grace will change your heart and renew your nature, and if he is so ready to give to men those benefits which they can and do abuse, much more will he bestow that grace which is liable to no such ill usage.

Let me add, however, if anybody does abuse God’s mercy, just as if any man abuses your practical kindness, it involves him in great guilt. Men cannot do despite to goodness without becoming exceeding vile. You will soon see this if I mention one anecdote. In Holland, in the days when the Baptists were persecuted, it happened that the canals were frozen over, and one poor despised Baptist escaped from a person who was seeking to drag him before the magistrates to get blood money for his head. He ran across the river, which was wide and frozen. The ice was strong enough to bear him and he got safely to the other shore. The person who was seeking his life was a heavier man and he slipped through the ice and went into the water. And what did this poor hunted Christian man do? He turned round and at the peril of his own life he helped his persecutor out and landed him on the bank; and what did the wretch do but seize him and drag him before the magistrates and he was burnt as the result of his own act of generosity. There is not a man in the world who does not feel that the wretch deserves universal execration. Everybody denounces him at once. So if after God’s mercy to the unjust and the bad they still go on to sin against him I will leave the universal conscience of mankind to cry them down. I heard the other day an instance of a dog’s returning good for evil, and this places the matter in an equally strong light. A man had taken a dog with the intention of drowning him,-a large Newfoundland dog. He went into a boat with a big stone intending to throw the dog out of the boat into the stream with the stone about his neck. Somehow or other before he had securely tied the stone, the dog had become free and in some little scuffle between them the boat was upset and dog and man were both in the water. The man sank and was nearly drowned; but the dog, noble creature, swam up and seized hold of the man and drew him safely to shore. Now suppose he had drowned the dog after that! Did I hear some indignant person say, “Let him be drowned himself.” He would not deserve to live, surely. I would take such a dog as that home and say, “While I have a crust, there shall be a bit for you, good dog, who saved my life when I was destroying yours.” Now, if even a dog when it renders good for evil gets a claim upon us, what shall I say of the great God who with generous liberality continues to feed and keep in life and health the undeserving sons of men, and who more than this has given his own Son to die, and sent a message of amazing love to mankind, in which he says, “Come to me: I am ready to forgive you. Come and accept my love and mercy. Let us be friends, for I delight to forgive sin”? Is it not clear that to abuse such love is black-hearted baseness? I beseech you, be not guilty of it.

Now, secondly, we may gather fresh hope and encouragement from the fact itself. When the sunlight comes upon a wicked man’s field and the rain descends upon the farm of a blaspheming atheist, the man has done nothing to deserve either shower or sun, but yet they favour him. And, blessed be God, he gives his grace to those who have done nothing to deserve it. If all your life long you cannot think of one good action you have ever performed, nevertheless the grace of God is free to you if you will have it. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” is preached to you; for deservings and merits are out of the question. God gives freely even to the evil and the unjust.

Showers from heaven and sunlight come to those who have not sought them at the Lord’s hands. That churl there never prayed for the sunlight. He does not believe in praying-not he. And that oppressor over yonder, that we spoke of, never asked God to send the rain: he said it was a matter of chance, and he did not see the good of praying about it. Yet it came. And oh, what a wonder it is that God is often found of them that sought him not! Persons have come into this Tabernacle, and the last thing they thought of was that they would be saved that night, and yet they have been. God’s infinite mercy sometimes comes to those who do not ask for it: according to the text, “I am found of them that sought me not.” Look at Colonel Gardiner. He had made an assignation, was about to perpetrate a gross act of vice, but the person whom he expected to meet had not come, and therefore he had to wait an hour or two; and while he waited he saw or thought he saw a vision of the Saviour who said to him, “I did all this for thee, what hast thou done for me?” That question with the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ, by divine grace, changed his heart: he never kept that assignation, but, as most of you know, he became one of the most devout Christians in the world. Oh, tell it the wide world over that as the rain tarrieth not for man nor waiteth for the sons of men, but cometh according to the good favour of God, so often does his grace visit those who knew not God and sought not after him. Let him be praised and extolled for ever and ever because of this.

Now, if grace sometimes comes to those who have not asked, do you net think that it will come to you who are asking for it? Oh you that are groaning for it, sighing for it, and longing for it, do you think it will be denied to you? God forbid! He will be sure to bless you. Believe in the Lord Jesus and it is yours at once.

The rain comes to those who do not even acknowledge the existence of God. It waters the atheist’s fields, and refreshes the pastures of the fool who saith in his heart, “There is no God.” Even so, I have known the grace of God descend on those who have loudly denied his very existence. In our church there is one at least who not long ago was a loud spokesman against God, but upon his dropping into this house the word came with power to his soul, and again, and again, and again it described his case, till at last he said, “There is a God, for he has found me out. The preacher seems to know my case and character.” Every time he came something was said which so accurately described himself that he could not understand and interpret it in any other way than that God had spoken to his soul. Now, if God calls by his effectual grace some that even doubt his existence, how much more will he look on you who have been made to tremble before him, and who desire to be reconciled to him? Surely he will hear the cry of the humble, and grant your penitent request.

The Lord sends the rain to some that never thank him for it. “A heavy shower, William,” says the churl. “Yes, sir,” says his pious servant, “God be thanked for it.” “I do not know much about that, William. I dare say the wind had a good deal to do with it. I knew it would come, for the glass was down.” So he ends that talk. Ay, but, dear friend, if God sends temporal blessings to those who do not thank him, will he not give his grace to those of you who feel that you would bless him for ever, if he would but save you? A good woman said when she sought the Lord, “If he saves me he shall never hear the last of it, for I will praise him as long as ever I live, and then to all eternity.” Well, now you may reckon quite surely that when a soul feels after that manner the Lord will not deny it the sun of his love, or the rain of his grace. He gives rain even to those whom he knows will remain thankless, will he not give his Spirit to those who will become his grateful children?

Recollect, too, dear friends, that God gives this rain, and this sunshine, year after year. If I were very kind to a man, and he treated me unthankfully I should think that I had a good deal of grace if I kept on being kind to him for twelve months. And supposing I kept on seven years, I fancy that I should think that I had endured a long enough trial of him, and should get a little tired of being grieved by him; would not you? Yet, see, God has sent sunshine and shower upon the fields of the wicked all their lives long; he has continued to be kind to them, and yet he has not grown weary. Perhaps some of you are fifty years old and yet have never yielded to the love of God. Ah, you have been hearing sermons these fifty years. Perhaps you are getting on for seventy now. Why, you have heard tender words of love that went further than your ears, and touched your conscience, but you have still held out against God. Oh, the patience of God to have borne with you from day to day! Now, if he has suffered you so long, and if tonight you turn to him with purpose of heart, and say, “I have had enough of this rebellion. Lord, I would be at peace with thee,” do you think that he will refuse you? Far from it, for his mercy endureth for ever.

One more remark only on this. The sunshine which you saw to-day, I do not doubt, was as bright a sunlight as that which Joshua saw when he bade the sun stand still; and the shower that fell the other day, especially as it fell in these quarters and at Brixton, I should say was quite as plentiful as any downpour which our grandsires can remember. It is evident that the sun’s fire is not burnt out, and that the clouds are not exhausted. Well, it is so in heavenly things, for there the eternal fulness dwells. God has as much love as ever, and as much grace as ever; and as a thousand years ago he poured forth his grace to convert the bad and the unjust, he is just as able to pour them out now upon the most guilty, and the most worthless. His grace in conversion, pardon, adoption, and preservation is as large as ever. Glory be to his blessed name, he still rains his bounties on the unjust; and that Christ who when we were dead in sins died for us, and who while we were yet sinners manifested his great love to us-that Christ who came into the world to save sinners-still aboundeth in power to save and bless; and if you will go to him (and oh may his grace constrain you) you shall find it to be so.

Lest I should weary you, I will finish with the last head, under which I should like to make the earth, the flowers, and the trees, which have been watered and warmed, speak to you a little.

And, first, I will suppose, dear friend, that you are here to-night, and feel that you cannot pray-feel as if you could not come to God, could not do anything. The flowers say, “We are cheered by the sun, and refreshed by the rain; we do nothing to deserve these blessings, but we do long for them.” The little flowers say, “We do long for the rain.” Look at them; they droop their heads during a long drought. See the grass, how brown it gets; see the leaves, how dry they are; see the earth, how chapped it is after a dry season. Now, soul, do long for the mercy of God; pine for it; sigh for it; cry for it. God help you to do that. To be forgiven, to get the love of God shed abroad in your hearts, is not that worth having? Do pant for it, I say, as the flowers sigh for the rain and the sun.

And next, the flowers seem to say, “Do turn to it.” If you keep a plant in your window see how it grows the way the sun comes. Notice the trees how they put out their branches sunward. See the sunflower how it turns its head in the direction of the sun. The flowers love the sun. If you cannot do anything to get divine grace, at least turn your head that way. Look that way; long that way; grow that way. You will receive it, it will not be denied. It will come to you. It has come to you if you already begin to turn to it with longing gaze.

And then the flowers seem to say, “Drink it in when it does come.” In January there was the crocus just peeping up from the soil, and the sun shone on it, and in gratitude it brought up from the deeps-from its cellar somewhere-a gold cup, and set it out to catch the sunbeams till the sun smiled and graciously filled it to the brim. And have you noticed when the soft April showers fall how the flowers seem each to have a cup to hold a share of heaven’s bounty? and certainly beneath the soil each flower has its little travelling rootlets sucking up each drop of moisture they can find.

Now, dear hearers, when grace does come specially near to you, drink it in. Is the sermon blest to you? Do not go away and lose its influence. Do you feel some tender movements in your conscience? Yield to them. Is there an invitation? Accept it. Is there a threatening? Tremble at it. Open your bosom and say “Come in, my Saviour, come in and reign and save my soul from the wrath to come.”

But then the flowers say once more, “De thank God for it.” The last two or three days I have seemed to live in a temple. When I go into my garden I have a choir around me in the trees. They do not wear surplices, for their song is not artificial and official. Some of them are clothed in glossy black, but they sing like little angels; they sing the sun up, and wake me at break of day; and they warble on till the last red ray of the sun has departed, still singing out from bush and tree the praises of their God. And all the flowers-the primroses that are almost gone-these look into my heart deep meanings concerning God till the last one shuts his eye. And now the forget-me-nots and the wall-flowers and the lilacs and the guelder-roses and a host of sweet beauties are pouring out their incense of perfume, as if they said, “Thank the God that made us. Blessed be his name. The earth is full of his goodness.”

Now, dear hearers, if you do get the Lord’s grace, thank him for it. Grow by it, blossom with it, be fragrant with it. If you only receive a little grace be very grateful for it, for a little grace is worth a great deal. If God gives you grace enough to be called starlight, thank him for it, and he will give you moonlight; and when you get moonlight grace, thank him for it, and he will give you sunlight; and when you have obtained sunlight grace, thank him for it, and he will give you the light of heaven which is as the light of seven days.

Lastly,-and this the flowers cannot teach you, because the flowers cannot do it-pray for grace. It will come; it will come. Do you remember George Herbert’s pretty verse. With that I will finish. He says:-

“The dew doth every morning fall:

And shall the dew outstrip thy dove?

The dew for which grass cannot call-

Drops from above.”

See his point? The dew comes every morning. The grass cannot ask for it, but it comes. And shall the dew be more free and swift than the Holy Ghost. No, saith the poet: I can pray for that holy Dove: will he not come to me who pray, since the dew comes to the grass which cannot call for it? Behold he visits the earth and waters it with the river of God which is full of water, and flings back the curtains of the sky and bids the sun shine out with genial face upon the poor dead soil; and if he does all this for the fields that cannot pray and for flowers that cannot speak, how much more will he do it for you who seek his face through Jesus Christ.

Come then to him. He will gladly welcome you. Come and trust his Son. Come and rest in the merit of Jesus’ blood, and you shall find eternal life. May God bless you all, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Matthew 5:17-48; 6:1-8.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-176, 555, 549, 1051.

GREAT DIFFERENCE

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 19th, 1878, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington

“Where is the God of judgment?”-Malachi 2:17.

“Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”-Malachi 3:18.

You were not here, I am thankful to say, last Sabbath evening, for it was your duty and privilege to stay away to give others an opportunity of hearing; but my subject then was our heavenly Father, who maketh his sun to rise upon the evil and upon the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and upon the unjust. Then I set forth the universal benevolence of God and the way in which he stays the operations of justice to give space for forbearance and longsuffering. Now this fact, this gracious fact, which ought to lead man to repentance, has through the perversity of human nature been used for quite another purpose. Men have said, “He blesses the evil as well as the good. The sun shines on all alike; the rain indiscriminately enriches the field of the churl and the pasture of the generous heart; where is the God of judgment? Is there such a God? Is it not one and the same whether we fear him or disregard him?”

Side by side with this has run another circumstance perhaps even more readily misunderstood. God is in this life preparing his people for a better world and part of that process is effected by trial and affliction, so that it frequently happens that the godly are in adversity while the wicked are in prosperity. Having no such designs toward them as toward his people, the Lord permits the wicked to enjoy themselves while they may; so that oftentimes they are as bullocks fattened in rich pastures, but they forget that they are fattened for the slaughter; while the righteous are brought very low, are often in poverty, frequently in sickness, and not seldom in despondency of spirit, but all to prepare them for the glory land. From the trials of the godly, which are all sent in wisdom and in love, shortsighted man has inferred that God has no regard to human character and even treats those worst who serve him best. In Malachi’s days the blaspheming crew even said that God takes sides with the wicked, and they wearied God by saying-“Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them.” Then again they uttered the old rude but plain-spoken question, “Where is the God of judgment?”

Truly brethren, in looking with these poor eyes upon the affairs around us they do appear to be a great tangle and snarl, a mixed medley of strange accidents. We see the true princes of the earth walking in the dust and beggars riding upon horses. We mourn as we see servants of God and heirs of heaven lying, like Lazarus, sick at the gate of the ungodly miser, while the vicious libertine is rioting in luxury and drinking full bowls of pleasure. Until we perceive the clue, providence is a labyrinth into whose centre we can never penetrate. But there is a clue which opens all its secrets. There is a God of judgment, not sitting in heaven in blind indifference, but looking down upon the sons of men and working out purposes of righteousness at all times.

At this time I purpose to speak upon the fact that God doth put a difference between the righteous and the wicked, and makes no mistake between Egypt and Israel. The Lord knoweth them that are his, and in his dealings, which we cannot always understand, he nevertheless hath not confounded his people with the world, nor doth the rod of the wicked rest upon the lot of the righteous. He hath a right hand of acceptance for them that fear him, he hath a left hand of punishment for those that fear him not. This distinction is not so apparent yet as it shall be, but we shall now trace the gradual widening of the division between the two classes, and show that still there is a God of judgment, and that by-and-by even the blindest eye shall be able to discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

First, then, there are signs of separation between the righteous and the wicked.

The first sign is seen in the evident difference of character. “They that feared the Lord” are spoken of. That is to say, there are still some on the face of the earth who believe that there is a God, who believe in the revelation which he has given, who accept the atonement which he has provided, and who delight to be obedient to the will which he has declared. How came they to fear the Lord? The answer is, it is a gift of his grace and a work of his Spirit wherever it is found. It makes a distinction very deep, and very vital, and consequently very lasting, for it shall continue throughout eternity. Let us bless God that in the worst times he still hath a remnant according to the election of grace, and when blasphemers grow bold in sin and say “Where is the God of judgment?” there are at least a few hidden ones who nevertheless look up and behold the Lord exalted above the rage of his foes. There will always be a band who bow the knee and worship the Most High, because their hearts stand in awe of him. God is beginning to separate his chosen from the world, when he gives them an inward sense of his presence, and a consequent holy fear and sacred awe of him. The dividing work begins here, in the bent and current of the heart.

This difference in real character soon shows itself in a remarkable change of thought and meditation. According to the passage before us, those who are said to “fear the Lord,” are also described as those who “thought upon his name.” Their thoughts are not always towards the transient things of this world, but they are much engaged with the eternal God and his truth: they are not always grovelling after the creature, but soaring towards the Creator. The Hebrew word has the idea of “counting”: they reckon the Lord as the chief consideration when they count up their arguments for action. Others do not take him into the reckoning, they act as if there were no God at all: but the righteous make much of him, and account him to be the greatest factor in all their calculations; they fall back upon God in trouble, and joy most of all in him when they are glad. They reckon not without the Lord of hosts; they say “The best of all is, God is with us.” And concerning any action, if it be contrary to his mind, they reject it; if it be according to his will they think upon him, and they delight to carry it out. This makes a great difference in their course of life, and also in their happiness. Dear hearers, I trust there are many among you who can truly say that your meditation of God has been very sweet, you have been glad in the Lord. This, then, is working out a distinction between you and the wicked who forget God. You fear the Lord, and you take delight in meditating upon him in secret, but this the worldling cannot understand.

This makes a distinction between you and the careless, which does not long exist without operating in a further direction: you grow weary of their frivolous conversation, and they cannot endure your serious observations, and so two parties are formed, as of old there were two lines-the sons of God and the children of Cain. You will soon see Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob living over again if you watch the thoughtless worldling and the pious Christian, and mark how much they differ. Hence there grows out of this difference of thought and feeling a separation as to society. “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another,” which shows that they often met, and that they delighted in one another’s company. Each man felt himself feeble in the midst of the ungodly, and therefore he sought out a brother that he might be strengthened by association. Each man felt himself to be like a sheep in the midst of wolves, but knowing the nature of sheep to be gregarious, each one sought to his fellow, that they might make up a flock, hoping that, as a flock, they might gather round the Good Shepherd. Yes, and in the ungodliest times there are not only gracious people here and there, but these chosen souls by some means or other make mutual discoveries, and come together and so form the visible church of the living God. In Rome in the days of the Cæsars, when to be a Christian meant to be condemned to die without mercy, if believers could not meet in their houses they would meet in the abodes of the dead, in the Catacombs: but they must meet. It is the nature of God’s children that they do not like going to heaven alone, but prefer to go up to the temple in bands and companies, and the more the merrier, as the proverb hath it, for they delight to go with the multitude that keep holy day, and they rejoice to fly in flocks like doves to their windows. There is a divine sweetness in Christian communion, and every true saint delights in it. The essence of our religion is love, and he that loveth not the brethren loveth not God, and lacks an essential point of the Christian character. By the exercise of holy brotherhood the Lord continues to call out his own people, and thus to create a manifest separation. Likeness of character and thought produce a mutual attractiveness, and so a corporate body is formed, and the solitary secret ones become manifest in the mass. The chosen stones are quarried, and are builded into the similitude of a palace; what if I say that they come together bone to his bone to fashion the spiritual body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This distinct association leads on to a peculiar occupation: for “they that feared the Lord spake often one to another.” They heard others speak against the Lord, and they resolved to speak too. Of others the Lord complained, “your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord,” and these men felt that it would be a shame if they were silent. They did not cast their pearls before swine, yet they wore their pearls where those who were not swine, but saints, could see them. In society where truth would be appreciated they were not backward to declare it: “they spake often one to another.” It was a time of noise and tumult, it was a time of speaking very bitterly against the Lord: therefore when they met together they spake for the Lord, and each one opened his mouth, that the Lord might not lack for witnesses. I take it that the expression means that they renewed and repeated their testimony. “They spake often one to another.” They said, “Ah, we can answer what the ungodly are saying, our experience testifies that they speak not aright. It is not a vain thing to serve God. How do you find it, brother?” Then the brother would say, “I find it exceedingly comforting and cheering to my soul. They have said, What profit is it that we have kept his ordinances? but I have found it exceeding profitable, for in keeping his commandments there is great reward.” Then a third would say, “It has enriched our souls to walk according to the mind of God, and in the blessed ordinances of his house our souls have been fed and exceedingly nourished.” A fourth would add, “The ungodly say it is in vain that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts: do you find it so, brother?” The reply would be, “No, my mournful days have often been most profitable, like the days of shower and cloud, which have most to do with the harvest.” “Besides,” said another, “we do not walk mournfully before the Lord as a rule, for we rejoice before him, yea, in his name we do exceedingly rejoice.” Thus, you see, by their testimony the one to the other they supported each other’s minds against the popular infidelities of the time; they set their thoughtful experience against the vicious falsehoods of unbelieving men, and so they both honoured God and benefited each other.

When they “spake often one to another” I have no doubt they expressed their affection one for the other. They said, “Let us not marvel if the world hate us: did not our Master say, It hated me before it hated you”? Did he not tell us to beware of man; did he not remind us that our worst enemies should be those of our own household. “Yea, brethren,” they would say one to another, “let us love one another, for love is of God.” The elders would speak like John the divine and say, “Little children, love one another,” and the younger ones would respond by acts and words of loving respect to the older saints. Their mutual expressions of love would increase love. As when we lay live coals together they burn the better, so loving intercommunications increase the heat of affection till it glows like coals of juniper, which have a most vehement flame.

No doubt, for we know by what we see, this speaking one to another assisted each other’s faith. One might be weak, but they were not all weak at once; one and another would be strong just then. We all have our ups and downs, but the mercy is that when one is sinking another is rising. It will frequently happen that if the sun does not shine on my side of the hedge it is shining on yours, and you can tell me that the sun is not snuffed out, but that it will shine on me too by-and-by. Commerce makes nations rich, and Christian intercourse makes believers grow in grace. Speaking often one to another with the view of helping the weak hands and confirming the feeble knees, is a means of great blessing to the souls of Christians. When they met, one would tell what he knew which his brother might not know, and a third would say, “I can confirm that statement and add something more,” and so the first speaker would learn as well as teach. Then a fourth brother would say, “But there is yet another truth which stands in relation to that which you have stated, do not overlook it.” Thus by communion in experience, and each one expressing what the Lord had written upon his heart, the whole would be edified in righteousness.

Now, beloved, it is in proportion as the children of God speak often one to another in this way that the church is brought out into a visible condition. A silent church might grope through the world unobserved, but a speaking church, speaking often within itself, is of necessity soon heard beyond the doors of the house in which it dwells. Soon does the sound of gospel music steal over hill and dale. “Their sound hath gone forth throughout all the earth, and their words unto the end of the world.” The speaking together of assembled saints at Pentecost led to the gift of tongues, and then they spoke so that every man in his own language heard the wonderful works of the Lord. An increase of private communion among the saints would lead to a fuller public communication to the outside, and the world would receive a blessing.

Thus I have shown you that the Lord thus gradually begins to separate a people to himself. The fear of the Lord in the heart, and the thought of God in the mind lead to association in persons of similar mould: hence arises the church. Then the interchange of expression between the godly makes them zealous, and this leads to public testimony, and the people of God are revealed. You will say, that this does not prove that God is dealing differently with them from other men. “Where is the God of judgment?” is the question, and how is it to be answered? My reply is, but in all this the Lord is putting a difference. To work his fear in the heart is an act of sovereign grace, but to enable the soul to find deep enjoyment in meditating upon divine things, is a reward as well as a gift of grace, and a reward more valuable than if he gave the God-fearing man wealth and fame. Christian society is also no small token of the divine favour, and is another reward of the God-fearing. I do not know how you find it, but I can truly assert that my choicest delights are with the people of God. What a deal some of us owe to Christian fellowship! People whom we should never have known and never have thought of speaking to are now our choicest friends, and have been and are incalculably helpful to us. Christian love has enlarged our family circle wonderfully. We have come to be intertwisted the one with the other, and the separate threads have ceased to be such, for they have become a threefold cord which cannot be broken, and this is no small gift of divine grace. Moreover, the communications which have arisen out of this society, in which we have edified one another, have they not been very precious to us? Can you not say you had rather dwell for a day in the courts of the Lord than reign in the tents of wickedness for ages? Is it not so that when we are able to rejoice together, and tell out our experience we find a pleasure which makes the wilderness and the solitary place to be glad? Best of all, it is in the midst of these communications, where holy society yields us gracious fellowship, that God himself is found. This is the grand distinction in God’s relation to the universe at this present time, that he is with his people, and they know it; while he is far from the wicked. The Lord hearkened and heard of old, and he hearkens and hears still; and the Lord answers out of his holy place the prayers of his children, and sends tokens of acceptance to those who praise and magnify his name. “The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.” Oh come, let us exult before him, for he is not far away, nor has he hidden his face from us, but he dwelleth between the cherubim and shineth forth among his saints in the person of his dear Son, and manifests himself to us as he doth not to the world. Even now Israel in Egypt is not Egypt, for God is pitying the sighs and cries of his people. Israel in the Arabian desert is not Arabian, for, lo, the fiery cloudy pillar, like an uplifted standard, gathers around it a separated people. Lo, “The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.” Even now the faithful in going out from the world and being separate find the promise fulfilled: “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” There is the first answer to the question, “Where is the God of judgment?” The separation is already beginning; there are signs of it now.

Secondly, there are preparations for a final separation, and these are at this moment proceeding. What these preparations are we learn from the sixteenth verse-“The Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.” There is a day coming in which he will separate the two sorts of men the one from the other, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats. The great net is now dragging the sea-bottom: the day comes when the net shall be hauled in, and drawn to shore. What a medley it contains of good and bad fish, of creeping things, and weeds, and shells, and stones: this mass must be parted. Then will come the putting of the good into vessels and the casting of the bad away. When that is done it will be executed with great solemnity and care. There will be great discrimination used in the dividing of the righteous from the wicked, and as at a trial everything proceeds upon evidence, the separating work is being prepared for us every day, because the evidence is being collected and recorded. The evidence in favour of the righteous might be forgotten if it were not duly preserved, in order that in the day when the separation shall be consummated there may be no mistake, and nobody may be able to challenge the decision of the great Judge.

Recollect this, dear friends, that evidence is being written down in a book-evidence of fidelity to God in evil times. When others were thinking against God, and speaking against God, there were some who spoke on his behalf, because they feared him, and thought upon his name, and their singular conduct was reported upon and chronicled. God’s gracious eye never overlooks one single act of decision for him in the midst of blasphemy and rebuke. If the timid girl in the midst of a Christless family still patiently endures reproach, and holds on to her Master’s truth, though she cannot speak eloquently, behold it is written in the book. Though her tears may often be her strongest expressions, they are in the book also, and shall not be forgotten. When the workman in the shop speaks a word against filthy language, a word for the sacredness of the Sabbath, a word for his Lord, it is all written in the book of remembrance. A commission is instituted for the collection of evidence as to those that fear the Lord, and think upon his name. Are you, dear friends, furnishing evidence, do you think, evidence which will prove that you are truly godly? Do you clearly stand out from among your fellows, and are you manifestly separate, so that even Satan himself at the last great day will not be able to challenge the evidence that will be given, that you did indeed fear the Lord when others reviled him?

This evidence is being taken by the Lord himself. There is much consolation in this, because others might be prejudiced, and give an unfavourable view of what we do, but when the Lord himself bears witness the truth will be manifested. “The Lord hearkened and heard.” It is a very strong expression; he not only “hearkened” as one trying to hear, but he did actually hear all that was said. What a witness God will be in favour of his saints! If we really fear him and think upon his name he will set our holy fear, and our godly thought, and our gracious talk in evidence on our behalf. He reads our motives, and these are a deep and vital part of character. Others might err, but he cannot: what he hears is accurately heard and correctly understood. Evidence is being collected, then, by a witness who is truth itself.

This evidence is before God’s eye at all times. If you notice, “the book of remembrance was written before him,” as if while every item was being put down, the book lay open before his gaze. From him the record is no more concealed than the act itself: past deeds of virtue are present to his eye. Every recorded act of grace is especially noticed by the Lord, every separate word of faithfulness and act of true God-fearing life is noted, weighed, estimated, valued, and safely preserved in memory to justify the verdict of the last grand dividing day. Do think of it, then, beloved-all that divine grace is working in you of humble faithfulness to God is being recorded. No annual report will proclaim it, it will never be printed in the magazine, nor advertised through the newspapers so as to bring you renown; but a book of remembrance is written before the Lord himself. There it lies before him whose single approval is more than fame. There, read a page-“Such an one thought upon my name; So-and-so spoke to his brother concerning me, and helped to the mutual edification of the body and to the bearing of powerful testimony for the truth against the assaults of error.”

This evidence, moreover, dear friends, is of a spiritual kind; and this is one reason why it is taken down by God and by no one else, for it is evidence concerning the state of the heart in reference to God, and who is to form that estimate, but the Lord who searches the heart. Who is to know the thoughts of the mind, save God alone? There is an ear that hears thought: though it is not indicated by a sound so loud as the tick of a clock, nor so audible as the chirping of a little bird, yet every thought is vocal to the mind of the Most High, and it is written down in the remembrance book. Certain great actions which every man applauds may never go into that book, because they were done from motives of ostentation; but the thought which nobody could have known, and which must otherwise have remained in oblivion, is recorded of the Lord, and shall be published at the last assize. Perhaps it ran thus, “What can I do for Jesus? How can I help his poor people? How can I cheer such and such a languishing spirit? How can I defeat error? How can I win a wandering soul for my Master?” Such thoughts as these are reckoned worthy of record and they are supplying evidence which in his gracious love the Lord is collecting, that the sentence of his great tribunal may be justified to all.

That evidence concerns apparently little things, for it mentions that “they spake one to another.” Of course people will gossip when they get together: what is there in talk? Oh, but what sort of gossip was it? that is the question. For a holy theme turns gossip into heavenly fellowship. It is written, they “thought upon his name.” Surely it is not much to think. Ah brethren, thinking and speaking are two very powerful forces in the world, and out of them the greatest actions are hatched. Thoughts and words are the seeds of far-reaching deeds, and God takes care of these embryos and germs: men do not even know of them and if they did know would not esteem them, but they are put down in the book of remembrance which lies always open before the Most High.

Now, all this is going on every day and every night as certainly as time’s sands drop through the hour-glass. Letter after letter, and stroke by stroke, the story is being written in the book of remembrance, and though men see it not the evidence is being gathered up to be used in that dread solemnity, in which, amidst the pomp of angels, the great Infallible shall separate the blessed of his Father from those who are accursed. Thus every day the God of judgment is working towards the time when even the most careless shall discern between the righteous and the wicked.

This brings us to the third point that in that separation great principles will be manifested. I shall only have time to mention them rapidly.

First, the principle of election will be displayed. God will have a people who are more his than other men can be. “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day.” “All souls are mine,” saith God, and his witness is true, but he rejects some souls because of sin, and says, “Ye are not my people.” As for his chosen, they are his portion, his peculiar treasure, his regalia, his crown jewels, and they shall be his for ever. Then will special love and peculiar choice be manifest, for in the day of the separation it shall be seen that the Lord knoweth them that are his and while he counteth others to be as mere stones of the field he hath set his heart upon the saints who are the gems of his crown.

But then will come as the next principle the fact of essential value: namely, that the Lord’s people are not only his, but they are his jewels. There is something in them which grace has put there, which makes them to be more precious than other men. “The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour”: God’s grace makes his children to be purer, holier, heavenlier than the rest of mankind; and they are rightly divided from the impure and worthless mass. They will at the last by evidence be proved to have been jewels among men, and nobody shall be able to question their worth. They shall be confessed by all men to have been precious stones amid pebbles, gold amid dross.

Then will come up the next principle of open acknowledgment. They were the Lord’s, and they shall be owned as such. “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day.” He himself will declare the fact, for it is written, “He is not ashamed to call them brethren,” and in that day the Lord Jesus will say, “Here am I, and the children that thou hast given me.” Oh, what a joy it will be to be thus openly confessed by Jesus himself! Now, we are unknown if we be God’s people, for the world knoweth us not because it knew not our Master himself; for we are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God; but when he who is our life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in glory. “Then shall thy righteousness shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Then shall be carried out the principle that there is nothing hid which shall not be known; and those who were secretly servants of the Lord shall have evidence of that fact read aloud before assembled worlds, and God, the judge of all, shall not be ashamed to declare, “They are mine, they are my peculiar treasure.”

But even in their case the principle of mercy will be conspicuous. I want you to notice very specially. “When I make up my jewels they shall be mine, and I will spare them.” Sparing applies to those who under another mode of judgment would not escape. Had it been a question of merit as under law, they would have been doomed as well, as others, but the Lord saith, “I will spare them.” O God, even though thou hast made thy chosen to be thy treasure, yet thou dost spare them, for the evidence does not prove them meritorious, but shows that they were saved in Christ Jesus, and therefore taught to fear thee. When the apostle had received great kindness from a friend whom he had valued he offered a prayer for him, which you may be sure would be a very earnest and comprehensive one, but it was this: “The Lord have mercy upon him in that day.” That is all we can expect, and, blessed be God, it is all we need. The matter of justice is settled by our Great Substitute, and to us mercy comes freely. The brightest saint that ever reflected the image of Christ on earth will have to be saved by mercy from first to last. “I will spare them,” saith he, for he might have dealt otherwise with them had he taken them on grounds of law, and judged them apart from the mercy which flows through the atoning sacrifice. True, they were jewels, and they were the Lord’s own treasure, but if he had laid up their sins in evidence instead of their marks of grace, if that book of remembrance which is written before him had contained an account of their shortcomings and their transgressions as the basis of judgment, it would have gone otherwise with them, but now he calls to remembrance their godly fear, their sacred thoughts; and their holy conversation, and therefore he spares them.

They will be dealt with on the principle of relationship also. “I will spare them as a man spareth his own that serveth him.” You spare your son when you know he is doing his best to serve you. He has made a a blunder, and if he had been a mere hired servant you might have been angry, but you say, “Ah, I know my boy was doing all he could, and he will do better soon, and therefore I cannot be severe. I see that he is imperfect, but I see equally well that he loves me, and acts like a loving son.” The word here used signifies pity or compassion, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” He will even at the last look upon us with a love which has pity mingled with it, for we shall need it in that day. He will “remember that we are dust,” and will accept us, though, cognizant of all the faults there were, and of all the infirmities that there had been: he will accept us still, because we are his own sons in Christ Jesus, and by grace desire to serve him. We do not serve him to become sons, but because we are sons. It is a sweet name for a child of God: a son-servant, one who is a servant to his father, and therefore, because he is his son, serves not for wage, nor of compulsion, but out of love. Such service is mentioned as evidence of sonship, and not as a claim; and we shall be saved through grace, our holy service of sonship being the proof of that grace.

Beloved, on these principles will God make the final division. He will say “You are mine: I chose you. You are my saints, and there is a gracious excellence in you. I acknowledge you as mine, and I am not ashamed to do so, for you bear my nature. I chose you in mercy, and in consequence of my having chosen you, I have made you to be my son-servants, and so I accept your holy conversation as the token of your sincere love to me, and I receive you into my glory to be mine for ever and ever.

And now, lastly, comes the sure truth that the separation itself will be clear to all. Then shall ye mourn ye sorcerers and adulterers, ye that oppress the hireling and turn aside the stranger from his right, ye false swearers and enemies of God. You now can go on your way and say, “God cares nothing about righteous or wicked, he deals with all alike, or even smites his children worst of all;” but ye shall look another way by-and-by. Compelled to turn your heads in another direction from that of this poor fleeting world, you shall see something that will astound you; for though you wish it not, even you and much more the godly shall then “discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”

The division will be sharp and decisive. Wherever you read in the Bible you find only two classes; you never read of three; but you find the righteous and the wicked, him that feareth God and him that feareth him not. A certain order of persons puzzle us in making division here below, because we do not know to which party they belong; but when the book of remembrance is finished and shall be opened, there will be no sort of difficulty in knowing them; the two classes shall roll apart like the two portions of the Red Sea when Moses lifted up his rod, and there shall be a space between. On which side, my dear hearer, you that are halting between two opinions,-on which side will you be? There will be no border land, no space for non-committal and neutrality; you will then be among the fearers of God or among those that fear not his name. Who may abide the day of his coming? That coming may be very speedy, for none of us knoweth the day nor the hour when the Son of man shall appear. The separation will be sharp and decisive, there will be no undecided ones left.

And it will obliterate a host of pretensions, for the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud shall be as stubble. The Pharisee who thought he took his place among those that were the jewels of creation, will find that the coming of the Lord will burn up his phylacteries, and his broad hems, and utterly consume all his boasting as to fasting thrice in the week, and taking mint and anise and cummin, for these things were never written in the book, nor worth recording there. What was put there was fearing the Lord, and thinking upon his name, and speaking one to another; but ceremonials and niceties of observance are not thought worth a stroke of the recording pen. There is nothing in the book to act as evidence for the proud, but everything to condemn him; and therefore the day shall burn him up and utterly consume him and his hopes.

That division will be universal, for all they that do wickedly shall be as stubble, not one of them escaping. Though they hid their wickedness and bore a good name, though they concealed their sin even from those who watched them, they entered the church and gained honours in it, as Judas did in the college of the apostles; yet that day shall discover all that do wickedly. Talk how they may, and speak as they please, their outward conduct will be the index of their inner alienation from God, and in the hour of their judgment the fire shall consume them from off the earth.

Then shall both classes perceive that the distinction involves two very different fates. Once the righteous were in the fire, and according to the third chapter and the third verse, the Lord sat as a refiner and purified them in a furnace like silver, but now the tables are turned, and the proud, and they that do wickedly, are in a more terrible fire. The day shall burn as an oven! The righteous were profited by their fire, for they were good metal, and to part with the dross was no loss, but the wicked are such base metal that they shall utterly fail in the testing fire. The tables will be turned again, for the righteous were under the feet of the wicked, they ridiculed and mocked them, and called them “cants and hypocrites”; but then the ungodly shall be laid low, and the righteous shall tread them as ashes under their feet. The cause of evil will be a worn out thing, it will be burnt up, and there will be nothing left of it upon the earth but memories of its former power, and of the fire by which it perished. That day cometh, and let the mighty ones amongst the sons of men who rebel against God know it: they shall no more be able to resist the terror of his presence than the stubble is able to stand against the blazing fire. When they pine for ever in the place where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched they will know the God of judgment, and see how utterly he consumed them out of the land.

Look at the lot of the righteous. When Christ the Sun of Righteousness shall arise upon the earth and gild it with his own light there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, and the righteous shall go forth and leap for joy, like cattle which aforetime had been penned in the stall. No works of the ungodly shall be left. As far as this world is concerned they shall be utterly and altogether gone. There shall then be no tavern songs or ale-house ribaldry; there shall be no village profligate around whom shall gather the youth of the hamlet to be led away by his libidinous and blasphemous words: there shall then be no shameless reviler who shall provide a hall where blasphemers may congregate to try which can utter the blackest profanities against the Lord of hosts. There shall be no shrine of virgin, or of saint, or idol, or image, or crucifix. Superstition shall be swept away. There shall be no congregations where pretended preachers of the gospel shall deal out new philosophies and suggest newly invented scepticisms, or which at least they hoped men would accept as new, though they were the old errors of the past picked from off the dunghill upon which they had been thrown by disgusted ages. Sin shall all be gone and not a trace of it shall be left, but here shall dwell righteousness and peace; the meek shall inherit the earth, and the saints shall stand each one in his lot, for the Lord himself shall reign amongst his ancients gloriously. From every hill and every vale shall come up the one song of glory unto the Most High and every heart that beats shall magnify his name, who at last has answered the question, “Where is the God of judgment?” Then, cast into the nethermost hell, in the place appointed for the devil and his angels, the ungodly shall never ask again, “Where is the God of judgment?” and saints triumphant in their Lord, with whom they shall reign for ever in eternity, shall also perceive that he “discerneth between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.” Beloved hearer, where? O where will you be? Where shall I be?-in that day?

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Malachi 2:17, 3:18.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-885, 714, 728.