It is very suggestive of the way in which our Lord Jesus took the sinner’s place that we are here in the context compared to sheep: “All we like sheep have gone astray,” and then he who comes to take our place is compared to a sheep also,-“As a sheep before her shearers is dumb.” It is wonderful how complete was the interchange of positions between Christ and his people, so that what they were that he became, in order that what he is they may become. See how closely he became like his brethren. I can very well understand how we should be like to the sheep and he to the shepherd; but I should never have dared to coin the comparison which likens him to a sheep. I dare try to explain, but I should never have dared to utter it if I had not found it here. To liken the Son of the Highest to a sheep would have been unpardonable presumption had not his own Spirit employed the condescending figure.

Though the emblem is very gracious, it is by no means novel, for our Lord had been long before Isaiah’s day typified in the lamb of the Passover. To call him “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,” is a very frequent mode of explaining to us how he made expiation for our transgressions: and indeed even in his glory he is the Lamb in the midst of the throne, before whom angels and the redeemed are bowing. I delight to bring before your minds the singular communion between yourselves and Jesus: you “like sheep,” and he “as a sheep;” you like sheep in your wanderings, he like a sheep in his patience; you most like sheep-I mean myself and you-most like sheep for foolishness, but he only like a sheep for the sweet submissiveness of his spirit, so that beneath the shearer’s hand “he openeth not his mouth.”

I will not keep you with any preface, but invite you to consider, first, our Saviour’s patience, under the figure of a sheep before her shearers. Let us view our Lord’s patience by the help of the Holy Spirit.

I do not think I will preach to you, but I will set before you as open a window as I can, and ask you to look in, and behold the Lamb of God. Our Lord was brought to the slaughter, and brought in another sense by another figure to the shearers: to the slaughter that he might die; to the shearers that he might be shorn of his comfort, and of his honours, shorn even of his good name, and shorn at last of life itself. While he was before the slaughtermen he was quiet as a lamb that is led: when he was under the shearers he was as silent as a sheep that lieth to be shorn. You know the story of how patient he was before Pilate, and Herod, and Caiaphas, and on the cross. You have no record of his groaning, or of his uttering any exclamation as though impatient of the pain and shame which he received at the hands of wicked men; you have not one bitter word, one hard speech. Pilate cries,“Answerest thou nothing? Behold how many things they witness against thee”; and Herod is bitterly disappointed, for he expected to see some miracle wrought by him. All that he does say is like the bleating of a sheep, only so infinitely more full of meaning. He utters sentences like these,-“For this purpose was I born, and came into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth,” and, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He is all patience and silence.

Now remember, first, that our Lord was dumb and opened not his mouth against his adversaries, and did not accuse one of them of cruelty or injustice. They slandered him, but he replied not; false witnesses arose, but he answered them not. He did not say, like Paul, “God shall smite thee, thou white wall.” I am not going to condemn Paul, but I certainly am not going to commend him. In contrast with the Master how differently he behaves! Jesus lets not fall a word against anybody, though they are doing everything that malice can invent against him. For Pilate he even makes a half apology, “He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.” One would have thought he must have spoken when they spat in his face. Might he not have said, “Friend, why doest thou this? For which of all my works dost thou insult me?” But the time for such expostulations was over. When they smote him on the face with the palms of their hands, it would not have been wonderful if he had said, “Wherefore do you smite me so?” But no; he speaketh not. He brings no accusation to his Father. He had only to have lifted his eye to heaven, or to have felt a wrathful wish, and legions of angels would have chased out the ribald soldiery; one flash of a seraph’s wing and Herod had been eaten by worms, and Pilate had died the death he well deserved as an unjust judge. The hill of the cross might have become a volcano’s mouth to swallow up the whole multitude who stood there jesting and jeering at him: but no, nothing of the kind, there was no display of power, or rather there was so great a display of power over himself that he did not use his might against his bitterest foes; he restrained Omnipotence itself with a, strength which never can be measured, for his mighty love availed even to restrain divine wrath. He kept back the natural indignation which must have come over his spirit against the injustice, the falsehood, the shameful malice of his foes; he held it all back, and was patient, meek, silent to the end.

Again, as he did not utter a word against his adversaries, so he did not say a word against any one of us. You remember how Zipporah said to Moses, “Surely a bloody husband art thou to me,” as she saw her child bleeding; and surely Jesus might have said to his church, “Thou art a costly spouse to me, to bring me all this shame and blood-shedding.” But he giveth liberally, he openeth the very fountain of his heart, and he upbraideth not. He had reckoned on the uttermost expenditure, and endured the cross, despising the shame.

“This was compassion like a God,

That when the Saviour knew

The price of pardon was his blood,

His pity ne’er withdrew.”

No doubt he looked across the ages; for that eye of his was not dim, even when bloodshot on the tree, and he might have looked at your indifference and mine, at our coldness of heart, and unfaithfulness, and he might have left on record some such words as these: “I am suffering for those who are utterly unworthy of my regard; their love will be a very poor return for mine. Though I give my whole heart for them, how lukewarm is their love to me! I am sick of them, I am weary of them, and it is woe to me that I should be laying down my heart’s blood for such a worthless race as these my people are.” But there is not a hint of such a feeling, not a trace of it. He is dumb before the shearers. They shear away everything from him, they strip him to the last rag, till, as he hangs upon the tree, he says, “I can tell all my bones, they look and stare upon me,” and yet he murmurs not against our cruel sins. He was stripped because we were naked, that he might cover our nakedness, and yet he makes no complaint against us, nor utters a single syllable by way of regret that he had entered upon so severe an enterprise, and that he was paying so heavy a price. No. “For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame,” and not a syllable is uttered that looks like murmuring, or wishing that he had not commenced the work.

And again, as there was not a word against his adversaries, nor a word against you nor me, so there was not a word against his Father or of repining at the severity of the punishment of our sin. You know how Cain said, “My punishment is greater than I can bear,” and yet to me he seems to have been treated with strange leniency, that first red-handed man. Sometimes you and I have cried, when under a comparatively light grief, “Surely my grief cannot be weighed in the scales, nor measured in the balances.” We have thought ourselves hardly done by. We have dared to cry out against God, “My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure.” But not so the Saviour; in his mouth were no complaints. Yet it is quite impossible for us to conceive how the Father pressed and bruised him. How often did that olive press revolve; how was the screw tightened again and again and again, to bring the stones together, to bruise out of him his very life! “It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief.” He alone of all mankind could truly say, “All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me”; yet there is not a complaint, for “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” is a cry of grief, but it is not a cry of repining. It shows manhood in its weakness, but not manhood in revolt. There is the cry of grief, but there is not the voice of rebellion there, nor even of despair. We have the Lamentations of Jeremiah, but where are the lamentations of Jesus? Jesus wept, and Jesus sweat great drops of blood, but he never murmured nor felt rebellion in his heart.

Beloved, I feel as if I could not preach upon this, but ask you just to look in there, within the open door, and see Jesus like the lamb waiting in the shambles: not struggling, when the knife is at his throat, but waiting there to die, and dying with his own consent; laying down his life willingly for our sakes. Look again, and see your Lord and Saviour lying down stretched out in passive resignation beneath the shearers, as they take away everything that is dear to him, and yet he openeth not his mouth. I see in this, in Christ our Lord, complete submission. He gives himself up; there is no reserve about it. The sacrifice did not need binding with cords to the horns of the altar. How different from your case and mine? He stands there willing to suffer, to be spit upon, to be shamefully entreated, and to die, for in him there was a complete surrender. There was no reserve about his body, soul, or spirit. He was wholly given up to do the Father’s will, and work out our redemption. There was a complete self-conquest too. In him no faculty arose to plead for liberty, and ask to be exempted from the general strain; no limb of the body, no portion of the mind, no faculty of the spirit started, but all submitted: a whole Christ giving up his whole being unto God, that he might perfectly offer himself without spot for our redemption.

There was not only self-conquest, but there was a complete absorption in his work. The sheep, lying there, thinks no more of the pastures, it just gives itself up to the shearer. And Christ forsook his Father that he might be one flesh with us; that was at the very first, and therefore he came here and was joined unto us at Bethlehem. He kept up the union to the end, and hence he was one with us in death. The zeal of God’s house did eat him up in Pilate’s hall as well as everywhere else, for there he witnessed a good confession. No thought had he but for the clearing of the divine honour, and the salvation of God’s elect. His powers were concentrated into one desire, and the passion of love to men made his heart hot within him till it melted and ran out in a stream of love and blood. Oh, brethren, I wish we could ever get to this, to submit our whole spirit to God, to resign ourselves completely, to learn self-conquest, and then the delivering up of conquered self entirely to God: the absorption of it all in one desire, the burning up of the sacrifice till it should be like Elias’ sacrifice on Carmel, when the fire came down from heaven, and consumed not only the bullock, but the wood and the stones of the altar, and licked up the water that was in the trenches, and the whole sacrifice went up in one vast cloud of fire and smoke to heaven, a whole burnt offering to the living God. This is just what one could wish might happen unto us, even as it happened unto the Lord’s Christ on that day.

The wonderful serenity and submissiveness of our Lord are still better set forth by our text, if it be indeed true that sheep in the east are even more docile than with us. Those who have seen the noise and roughness of many of our washings and shearings will hardly believe the testimony of that ancient writer Philo-Judæsus when he affirms that the sheep came voluntarily to be shorn. He says: “Woolly rams laden with thick fleeces put themselves into his hands (the shepherd’s) to have their wool shorn, being thus accustomed to pay their yearly tribute to man, their king by nature. The sheep stands in a silent inclining posture, unconstrained under the hand of the shearer. These things may appear strange to those who do not know the docility of the sheep, but they are true.”

Thus I have very feebly indeed set before you, dear friends, the patience of our beloved Master. Now I want you to follow me, in the second place, to view our own case under the same metaphor as that which is used in reference to our Lord.

Did not I begin by saying that because we were sheep he deigns to compare himself to a sheep? Now, just go back again. Our Lord was a sheep under the shearers, and as he is so are we also in this world. Though we shall never be offered up like a lamb in the temple by way of expiation, yet the saints for ages were the flock of slaughter, as it is written, “For thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter!” Jesus sends us forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, and we are to regard ourselves as living sacrifices, ready to be offered up. I dwell, however, more particularly upon the second symbol: we can go, and do go, as sheep under the shearers’ hands. I want to speak to you a little to-night about this figure, as I have no doubt it has been wrought out in the lives of many here present, and may perhaps be wrought out at this present time, and in future days in the rest of you.

Just as a sheep is taken by the shearer, and its wool is all cut off, so doth the Lord take his people and shear them, taking away all their comforts at times, all their earthly comforts, and leaving them bare as shorn sheep. I wish when it came to our turn to undergo this shearing operation it could be said of us as of our Lord, “As a sheep before her shearers, so he openeth not his mouth.” I fear that we open our mouths a great deal, and make no end of complaint. But now to the figure. We need to be reconciled to the shearing process, and to that end I shall speak at this time.

First, remember that a sheep rewards its owner for all his care and trouble by being shorn. There is nothing else that I know of that a sheep can do. It yields food when it is killed, but while it is alive the one payment that the sheep can make to the shepherd is to yield its fleece in due season. And so, dear friends, a sheep, if it were intelligent, might well be reconciled to be shorn because it would say, “The shepherd deserves to be rewarded for his pains, and so I am content to go down to the shearing house, to yield my fleece that he may be repaid.” Some of God’s people can give to Christ a tribute of gratitude by active service, and they should do so gladly every day of their lives; but many others cannot do much in active service, and about the only reward they can give to their Lord is to give up their fleece by suffering when he calls upon them to suffer; submissively yielding to be shorn of their personal comfort when the time comes for patient endurance. And, mark you, those who serve Christ actively ought to feel that what they do in that way is all too little, and if they can supplement it by passive service, by yielding themselves to be shorn as others are, they ought to rejoice that in this way they can show forth to Christ the more abundant gratitude for what he has done for them.

Here comes the shearer; he takes the sheep and begins to cut, cut, cut, cut, taking away the wool by wholesale. Affliction is often used as the big shears. The husband is taken away, or perhaps the wife, little children are taken away, property is taken away, health is taken away. Sometimes the shears even cut off your good name; slander comes, everything seems to come and remove your consolations, till all comforts vanish. Well, this is your shearing time, and it may be that you are not able to glorify God to any very large extent except by undergoing this process; and if this be the fact, do you not think that you and I, like good sheep of Christ, should surrender cheerfully and say, “I lay myself down with this intent, that thou shouldst take from me anything and everything, and do what thou wilt with me; for I am not mine own, I am bought with a price, and so I would cheerfully yield to anything by which thou mayest get some honour out of me. Thou great Shepherd of the sheep, clip and shear me as thou wilt, so long as thou seest some sort of return for all thy tender care and bitter woe.

Notice that the sheep is itself benefited by the operation of shearing. Before they begin to shear the sheep the wool is long and old, and every bush that catches it, every thistle with which it gets entangled, every briar that it passes by, tears off a bit of the wool, and the sheep looks ragged and forlorn. If the wool were left on it when the heat of summer came it would not be able to bear itself, it would be so overloaded with clothing that it would be as we ourselves are when we have kept on our borrowed wool, our flannels and broadcloths, too late. After the heat of summer has come we have to throw off our thick clothes: we cannot bear them; so the sheep is the better for losing its wool, it would become a hindrance to it and not a comfort if it could retain it. So brethren, when the Lord shears us, we do not like the operation any more than the sheep do; but first, it is for his glory, and secondly, it really is for our benefit, and therefore we are bound most willingly to submit. There are many things which we should have liked to have kept which, if we had kept them, would not have proved blessings, but curses. Remember, a stale blessing is a curse. The brazen serpent preserved as a relic became a snare to the people till it was broken up and called Nehushtan, a piece of brass. The manna, though it came from heaven, was only good so long as God’s command made it a blessing, but when they kept it over its due time it bred worms and stank, and then it was no blessing. I do believe that many persons if they could would keep their blessings stinking in the house till they filled their cupboards with worms. But God will not have it so. Up to a certain point for you to be wealthy was a blessing; it would not have been a blessing any longer, and so the Lord took your riches away. Up to that point your child was a boon, but it would have been no longer so, and therefore it fell sick and died. You may not be able to see it, but it must certainly be, that God, when he withdraws a blessing from his people, takes it away because it would not be a blessing any longer. Remember this text, “No good thing will I withhold from them that walk uprightly,” and if that be true, then this is true, “No really good thing will I take away from them that walk uprightly,” for that is something more than withholding.

When the wool goes, it is because the sheep does not really want it, it is better without it. Mr. Jouatt, who has written upon sheep, tells us, “As the spring advances the old wool is no longer needed to defend the animal from the cold, and it becomes, from its weight and its warmth, a nuisance rather than a comfort.” When the Lord Jesus Christ sends affliction and trial to shear us, while we hope to glorify him in the process, it is also good for us that we should have it cut away. Though we do not like it at the time, it is working our lasting good.

You who know something about sheep will remember that before sheep are shorn they are always washed. Were you ever present at the scene when they drive them down to the brook, to the place where they have dammed up the stream to make a pool for washing? There the men stand in rows, while the shepherd stands in the water breast high. The sheep are driven down, and the men seize them, throw them into the water, keeping their faces above water, and swill them round and round and round to wash the wool before they clip it off. You see them come out on the other side frightened to death, poor things, wondering whatever is coming, no doubt under the impression that they are going to be drowned, and when they escape they stand bleating on the other shore as one by one they finish their swim. I want to suggest to you, brethren, that whenever a trial threatens to overtake you, before it actually arrives you should ask the Lord to sanctify you. If he is going to clip the wool, ask him to wash it before he takes it off; ask to be cleansed in spirit, soul, and body. That is a very good custom Christian people have of asking a blessing on their meals before they eat bread. Do you not think it is even more necessary to ask a blessing on our troubles before we get into them? Here is your dear child likely to die; will you not, dear parents, meet together and ask God to bless the death of that child, if it is to happen. Here are things going badly in trade: would it not be a good thing to hold a special meeting in the family, and ask God to bless your declining business to you? There is a bad crop; the harvest fails; would it not be well to say-“Lord, sanctify this poverty, this loss, this year’s bad harvest: cause it to be a means of grace to us. The evil is coming, and ere it comes we would ask a blessing on it.” Why not ask a blessing on the cup of bitterness as well as upon the cup of thanksgiving? Ask to be washed before you are shorn, and if the shearing must come, let that be your chief concern. “Lord, if thou art coming to take my wool, make it clean before thou takest it: wash what thou takest, and wash me also, and I shall be clean; yea, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

After the washing, and the sheep has dried, the sheep actually loses what was its comfort. It is thrown down, and you see the shearers; you wonder at them and pity the poor sheep. The sheep is losing what was its comfort. It will happen to you that you shall lose what is your comfort. Will you recollect this? Because the next time you receive a fresh comfort you must say, this is a loan. Oh sheep, there is no wool on your back but what will come off; child of God, there is no comfort in your possession but what will either leave you, or you will leave it. Nothing is our own except our God. “Why,” says one, “not our sin?” That was our own, I own that, but Jesus has taken that upon himself, and we call it no more our own. There is nothing our own but our God, and there is no blessing that we have but what, when the Lord sends it to us, it is on the agreement that we shall have it only for a time. It is held on lease, terminable at the will of the Lord. We foolishly consider that our mercies belong to us, and when the Lord takes them away we half grumble. If you borrow anything of a neighbour, you ought not to send it back with tears, or say, “I am sorry you recall it.” A loan, they say, should go laughing home, and so should what God loans us. We should rejoice. He gives, and, blessed be his name, he takes but what he gave; he does not take to himself anything of ours, he takes to himself what he lent us. All our possessions are but favours borrowed here to be returned anon. So as the sheep yields up its wool and loses its comfort, so must we yield up all our comforts one by one; or if they remain with us till we die, we shall part with them then, we shall not take so much as one of them across the stream of death. Our spiritual riches are of another kind, and they are laid up already in heaven, but of all things here below we shall take not a thread with us.

The shearers, when they are taking the wool off the sheep, take care not to hurt the sheep: they clip as close as they can, but they do not cut the skin. If possible they will not make a gash or a wound, or draw blood, even in the smallest degree. When they do make a gash, it is because the sheep does not lie still; but a careful shearer has bloodless shears. Of this Thomson sings in his Seasons, and the passage is so good an illustration of the whole subject that I will adorn my discourse with it:-

“How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies!

What softness in its melancholy face,

What dumb complaining innocence appears!

Fear not, ye gentle tribes! ’tis not the knife

Of horrid slaughter that is o’er you waved;

No, ’tis the tender swain’s well guided shears,

Who having now, to pay his annual care,

Borrow’d your fleece, to you a cumbrous load,

Will send you bounding to your hills again.”

Be ye sure that when the Lord is clipping and shearing us he will not hurt us; he will take our comforts away, but he will not really injure us, or cause a wound to our spirits. Hath he not said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace.” If ever the shears do make us bleed, it is because we kick, because we struggle. If we were patient as the sheep, we should just lie still, and the process would cost us very little pain. What pain there was would become delightful, seeing we had submitted ourselves entirely to the divine will. Pain grows into pleasure when you come to feel that God wills it; you are glad to suffer because he ordains you should. It is the kicking and the struggling that make the shearing work at all hard, but if we are dumb before the shearers no hurt can come. The Lord may clip wonderfully close: I have known him clip some very close, who did not seem to have a bit of wool left, for they were stripped entirely, just as Job was when he cried, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither,” but still he was able to add, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord.”

You will notice about sheepshearing that the shearers always shear at a suitable time. It would be a very wicked, cruel, and unwise thing to begin sheepshearing in winter time. There is a proverb which talks about God “tempering the wind to the shorn lamb.” It may be so, but it is a very wicked practice to shear lambs while winds need tempering. Sheep are shorn when it is warm, genial weather, when they can afford to lose their fleeces, and are all the better for being relieved of them. As the summer comes on sheepshearing time comes. Have you ever noticed that whenever the Lord afflicts us he selects the best possible time? There is a prayer that he put into his disciples’ mouths, “Pray that your flight be not in the winter”: the spirit of that prayer may be seen in the seasonableness of our sorrows. He will not send us our worst troubles at our worst times. I have frequently noticed, and I have treasured it up with gratitude, that when I have had strong inclinations to sin, the opportunity has not come; that if ever I have had opportunities of sinning temptingly put before me, then I have had no inward longing towards the sin. When the inward desire and the opportunity meet, that is a very dangerous case indeed, but the Lord keeps his people from that. So if you notice, if your soul is depressed the Lord does not send you a very heavy burden; but reserves such a load for times when you have had joy in the Lord, and that joy has been your strength. It has got to be a kind of feeling with us that where we have much delight a trial is near, but when sorrow thickens deliverance is approaching. The Lord does not send us two burdens at a time, or if he does he sends double strength. It is an observation which I suppose no one would make but an Irishman, and I am not one, that you never knew the west wind blow when the east wind is troubling you. You never knew the wind blow from the north when it was blowing from the south. As a rule, except it be in a tornado or a cyclone, the wind blows from some one quarter. “He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.” He knows how to prevent our suffering more tribulation than we can bear. He shears us, but not to injure us; he clips away the wool, but sends the genial temperature so that we may be able to flourish under our loss. Let that be noted, and let God be thanked for it.

There is another thing to remember. When God takes away our mercies he is ready to supply us with more. It is with us as with the sheep, there is new wool coming. Whenever the Lord takes away our earthly comforts with one hand, one, two, three, he restores with the other hand six, twelve, scores, a hundred; he takes away by spoonfuls, and he gives by cartloads: we are crying and whining about the little loss, and yet it is necessary in order that we may be able to receive the great mercy. Yes, it will be so, we shall yet have cause for rejoicing, “joy cometh in the morning.” There is always as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, and when one set of favours is taken away there are more mercies to come. The great sea of divine love has bigger fish in it than ever we have taken out of it. If we have lost one position, there is another position for us; if we have been driven out of one place, there is yet a refuge for us. God opens a second door when he shuts the first. If he takes away the manna, as he did from his people Israel, it is because there is the corn of Canaan for them to live upon. If the water of the rock did not follow the tribes any longer, it was because they could drink of the Jordan, and of the brooks that flowed in that land of hills and valleys. Yes, there is new wool coming; do not therefore fret at the shearing. I have given these thoughts in brief, that we may come to this last word.

Let us, in the third place, endeavour to imitate the example of our blessed Lord when our turn comes to be shorn. Let us be dumb before the shearers, submissive, quiescent, even as he was.

I have been giving, in everything I have said, a reason for so doing. I have shown that it glorifies God, rewards the Shepherd, and benefits ourselves. I have shown that he measures and tempers our affliction, and sends the trial at the right time. I have shown you in many ways that we are wise to submit ourselves, as the sheep does to the shearer, and the more completely we do so the better. Oh, brethren, we shall be happy when we have done with self: it will be all well with us whatever we may have gone through, when we learn that verse of Toplady’s:

“Sweet to lie passive in Thy hand,

And know no will but thine.”

I know we struggle a good deal, and we make excuses for struggling. Sometimes we say, “Oh, this is so painful, I cannot be patient! I could have borne anything else; but not this.” When a father is going to correct his child does he select something that is pleasant? Oh dear no. The painfulness of the chastisement is the essence of it, and even so the bitterness of your sorrow will be a blessing to you. By the blueness of the wound the heart will be made better. Do not rebel because your trial seems strange. It is as good as saying, “If I have it all my own way I will not rebel, but if everything does not please me I will not endure it.” Sometimes we complain because of our great weakness. “Lord, were I stronger I would not mind this heavy loss; I am like a sere leaf driven of the tempest.” But who is to be the judge of the suitability of your trial? You or God? Since the Lord judges this trial to be suitable to your weakness, depend upon it it is so. Lie still, lie still, lie quite still! “Alas,” you say, “my grief comes from the most cruel quarter; this trouble did not arise directly from God, it came through my cousin or my brother, who ought to have treated me with gratitude. I could have borne it if it had not come in that way; it was not an enemy, then I could have borne it.” Then let me tell you it is not a traitor after all. God is at the bottom of all your tribulation,-look through the second causes to the great First Cause. It is a great mistake when we fret over the human instrument which smites us, and forget the hand which uses the rod. If I strike a dog with a stick, he bites my stick-that is because he is stupid; if he thought a little he would bite me, or else take the blow and bow in obedience. Now, you must not begin biting the stick. After all it is God that uses that staff, though it be of ebony or of blackthorn. It is well to have done with all this picking and choosing, and to leave the whole matter in the hand of infinite wisdom. A sweet singer has put this matter very prettily, let me quote the lines:-

“But when my Lord did ask me on what side

I were content,

The grief whereby I must be purified,

To me was sent,

“As each imagined anguish did appear,

Each withering bliss

Before my soul, I cried, ‘Oh! spare me here,

Oh, no, not this!’

“Like one that having need of, deep within,

The surgeon’s knife,

Would hardly bear that it should graze the skin,

Though for his life.

“Nay, then, but He, who best doth understand

Both what we need,

And what can bear, did take my case in hand,

Nor crying heed.”

This is the pith of my sermon: oh sheep, yield thyself, yield thyself! Oh believer, yield thyself, lie passive, lie passive, struggle not! There is no use in struggling, for our great Shearer, if he means to shear, will do it; if he means to send us trials and troubles he will not spare for our crying, he will not mind our whining, he will do his will and carry out his purpose. What is the good, therefore, of rebellion? Did not I say just now that the sheep, by struggling, might be cut by the shears! So you and I, if we struggle against God, we shall get two troubles instead of one, and after all there is not half so much trouble in a trouble as there is in our kicking against the trouble. The eastern ploughman when he ploughs has a goad, and pricks the ox to make it move along; he does not hurt it much, but suppose the ox flings out the moment it touches him, he drives the goad into himself, and bleeds. So is it with us, if we kick out against divine providences we shall get a sore wound, much more than was ever needful; we shall endure much more pain than would have come if we had yielded to the divine will. What is the use of kicking and struggling then, you fretful ones? You cannot make one hair white or black. You that are troubled, rest with us, for you cannot make shower or shine, rain or fine weather, with all your groaning. Did you ever bring a penny into the till by fretting, or put a loaf on the table by complaint, or get a shilling in your pocket by murmuring? Murmuring is wasted breath, and fretting is wasted time. But to lie still in the hand of God brings a blessing to the soul. I wish myself that I could be more quiet, calm, and self-possessed, but an active mind is apt to turn upon itself to its own wounding, when all the cares of a church and a great work press heavily. I long to cry habitually, “Lord, do what thou wilt, when thou wilt, as thou wilt with me, thy servant: appoint me honour or dishonour, wealth or poverty, sickness or health, exhilaration or depression, and I will take all right gladly from thy hand.” A man is not far from the gates of heaven when he is fully submissive to the Lord’s will. Though heaven is uphill the road to it is downhill, and when a man has gone down so much that he is dead to self, he is not far from entering into that eternal life where God shall be all in all, in bliss for ever and ever. You that have been shorn have, I hope, received a word of comfort to-night through the ever blessed Spirit of God. May God bless it to you. Oh that the sinner, too, would submit himself to God, yield himself up, and rebel no longer! Submit yourselves unto God, let every thought be brought into captivity to him, and the Lord send his blessing, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Isaiah 53.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-758, 752, 703.

Mahanaim, or hosts of angels

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, June 20th, 1880, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God’s host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim.”-Genesis 32:1, 2.

“And it came to pass, when David was come to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of Nahash of Rabbah of the children of Ammon, and Machir the son of Ammiel of Lodebar, and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim, brought beds, and basons, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and lentiles, and parched pulse, and honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kine, for David, and for the people that were with him, to eat: for they said, The people is hungry, and weary, and thirsty, in the wilderness.”-2 Samuel 17:27-29.

Let us go even unto Mahanaim and see these great sights. First, let us go with Jacob and see the two camps of angels, and then with David to observe his troops of friends.

Jacob shall have our first consideration.

What a varied experience is that of God’s people! Their pilgrimage is over a shifting sand; their tent is ever moving, and the scene around them ever changing. Here is Jacob at one time contending for a livelihood with Laban, playing trick against trick in order to match his father-in-law; then he prospers, and determines to abide no more in such servitude; he flies, is pursued, debates with his angry relative, and ends the contention with a truce and a sacrifice. This unseemly family warfare must have been a very unhappy thing for Jacob, by no means tending to raise the tone of his thoughts, or sweeten his temper, or ennoble his spirit. What a change happened to him when the next day, after Laban had gone, Jacob found himself in the presence of angels. Here is a picture of a very different kind: the churl has gone and the cherubs have come, the greedy taskmaster has turned his back and the happy messengers of the blessed God have come to welcome the patriarch on his return from exile. It is hard to realize to the full the complete transformation.

Such changes occur in all lives; but, I think, most of all in the lives of believers. Few passages across the ocean of life are quite free from storm, but the redeemed of the Lord may reckon upon being tossed with tempest even if others escape. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” Yet trials last not for ever; clear shining comes after rain. Change worketh ever. We pass from storm to calm, from breeze to hurricane: we coast the shores of peace, and anon we are driven upon the sandbanks of fear. Nor need we be surprised: for were there not great changes in the life of our Lord and Master? Is not his life as full of hills and valleys as ours possibly can be? We read of his being baptized in Jordan, and there and then visited by the Spirit, who descended upon him like a dove,-then was his hour of rest. Who can tell the restfulness of Jesus’ spirit when the Father bare witness concerning him, “This is my beloved Son”? But we read directly afterwards, “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” From the descent of the Holy Ghost to dire conflict with the devil is a change indeed! But another change followed it, for when that battle had been fought out, and the triple temptation had been tried upon our Lord in vain, we read again, “Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him.” In a short space our Lord’s surroundings had changed from heavenly to diabolical, and again from satanic to angelic. From heaven to the manger, from walking the sea to hanging on the cross, from the sepulchre to the throne-what changes are these! Can we expect to build three tabernacles and tarry in the mount when our Lord was thus tossed to and fro?

Beloved, you will certainly find that the world is established upon the floods, and is therefore ever moving. Never reckon upon the permanence of any joy: thank God, you need not dread the continuance of any sorrow. These things come and go, and go and come; and you and I, so far as we have to live in this poor whirling world, must be removed to and fro as a shepherd’s tent, and find no city to dwell in. If this happen not to our habitations it will certainly happen in our feelings. From of old “the evening and the morning were the first day,” and “the evening and the morning were the second day,”-the alternation of shade and shine, of setting and rising, are from the beginning. Dawn, noon, afternoon, evening, darkness, midnight, and a new morning follow each other in all things. So must it be: there is a needs be for clouds and showers, and morning glories, “until the day break and the shadows flee away,” when we shall be fitted to bask in the beams of everlasting noon.

In the case before us we see Jacob in the best of company. Jacob, not cheated in Mesopotamia, but honoured in Mahanaim; not trying to outwit Laban, but gazing upon celestial spirits. He was surrounded by angels, and he knew it. His eyes were open, so that he saw spirits who in their own nature are invisible to human eyes. He became a seer, and was enabled by the inward eye to behold the hosts of shining ones whom God had sent to meet him. It is a great privilege to be able to know our friends and to discern the hosts of God. We are very apt, indeed, to realize our difficulties, and to forget our helps: our allies are all around us, yet we think ourselves alone. The opposition of Satan is more easily recognized than the succour of the Lord. Oh to have eyes and hearts opened to see how strong the Lord is on our behalf.

Jacob had just been delivered from Laban, but he was oppressed by another load: the dread of Esau was upon him. He had wronged his brother; and you cannot do a wrong without being haunted by it afterwards. He had taken ungenerous advantage of Esau, and now, many, many years after it his deed came home to him, and his conscience made him afraid. Notwithstanding that he had lived with Laban so long, his conscience was sufficiently vigorous to make him tremble because he had put himself into a wrong position with his brother: had it not been for this he would have marched on to his father Isaac’s tent with joyful foot. Dreading his brother’s anger, he was greatly distressed and troubled: these angels came to bring him cheer by helping him to forget the difficulties round about him, or lose his dread of them by looking up and seeing what defence and succour awaited him from on high. He had but to cry to God, and Esau’s four hundred men would be met by legions of angels. Was not this good cheer? Have not all believers the same? Greater is he that is for us than all they that are against us.

If this morning I shall be enabled by the Holy Spirit to uplift the minds of the Lord’s tried people from their visible griefs to their invisible comforts I shall be glad. I beg them not to think exclusively of the burden they have to carry, but to remember the strength which is available for the carrying of it. If I shall cause the timorous heart to cease its dread, and to trust in the living God who has promised to bear his servants through, I shall have accomplished my desire. The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge, and therefore no weapon that is formed against us shall prosper, and even the arch-enemy himself shall be bruised under our feet.

In treating of Jacob’s experience at Mahanaim we will make a series of observations.

First, God has a multitude of servants, and all these are on the side of believers. “His camp is very great,” and all the hosts in that camp are our allies. Some of these are visible agents, and many more are invisible, but none the less real and powerful. The great army of the Lord of hosts consists largely of unseen agents, of forces that are not discernible except in vision or by the eye of faith. Jacob saw two squadrons of these invisible forces, which are on the side of righteous men. “The angels of God met him,” and he said, “This is God’s host: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim (two camps)”; for there a double army of angels met him.

We know that a guard of angels always surrounds every believer. Ministering spirits are abroad, protecting the princes of the blood royal, They cannot be discerned by any of our senses, but they are perceptible by faith, and they have been made perceptible to holy men of old in vision. These bands of angels are great in multitude; for Jacob said, “This is God’s host”: a host means a considerable number, and surely the host of God is not a small one. “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels.” We do not know what legions wait upon the Lord, only we read of “an innumerable company of angels.” We look abroad in the world, and calculate the number of persons and forces friendly to our Christian warfare; but these are only what our poor optics can discover: the half cannot be told us by such means. It may be that every star is a world, thronged with the servants of God, who are willing and ready to dart like flames of fire upon Jehovah’s errands of love. If the Lord’s chosen could not be sufficiently protected by the forces available in one world, he has but to speak or will, and myriads of spirits from the far-off regions of space would come thronging forward to guard the children of their king. As the stars of the sky, countless in their armies, are the invisible warriors of God. “His camp is very great.” “Omnipotence has servants everywhere.” These servants of the strong God are all filled with power: there is not one that fainteth among them all, they run like mighty men, they prevail as men of war. A host is made up of valiant men, veterans, troopers, heroes, men fit for conflict. God’s forces are exceedingly strong: nothing can stand against them. Whatever form they take, they are always potent, even when God’s host is made up of grasshoppers, cankerworms, and palmerworms, as in the Book of Joel, none can resist them, and nothing can escape them. They devoured everything; they covered the earth; and even darkened the sun and moon. If such be the case with insects, what must be the power of angels? We know that they “excel in strength,” as they “do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.” Rejoice, O children of God! There are vast armies upon your side, and each one of the warriors is clothed with the strength of God.

All these agents work in order, for it is God’s host, and the host is made up of beings which march or fly, according to the order of command. “Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path.” All the forces of nature are loyal to their Lord. None of these mighty forces dreams of rebellion. From the blazing comet which flames in the face of the universe to the tiniest fragment of shell which lies hidden in the deepest ocean cave, all matter yields itself to the supreme law which God hath settled. Nor do unfallen intelligent agents mutiny against divine decrees, but find their joy in rendering loving homage to their God. They are perfectly happy, because consecrated; full of delight, because completely absorbed in doing the will of the Most High. Oh that we could do his will on earth as that will is done in heaven by all the heavenly ones!

Observe that in this great host they were all punctual to the divine command. Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. The patriarch is no sooner astir than the hosts of God are on the wing. They did not linger till Jacob had crossed the frontier, nor did they keep him waiting when he came to the appointed rendezvous; but they were there to the moment. When God means to deliver you, beloved, in the hour of danger, you will find the appointed force ready for your succour. God’s messengers are neither behind nor before their time; they will meet us to the inch and to the second in the time of need; therefore let us proceed without fear, like Jacob, going on our way even though an Esau with a band of desperadoes should block up the road.

Those forces of God, too, were all engaged personally to attend upon Jacob. I like to set forth this thought: “Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him;” he did not chance to fall in with them. They did not happen to be on the march, and so crossed the patriarch’s track; no, no; he went on his way, and the angels of God met him with design and purpose. They came on purpose to meet him: they had no other appointment. Squadrons of angels marched to meet that one lone man! He was a saint, but by no means a perfect one; we cannot help seeing many flaws in him, even upon a superficial glance at his life, and yet the angels of God met him. Perhaps in the early morning, as he rose to tend his flocks, he saw the skies peopled with shining ones who quite eclipsed the dawn. The heavens were vivid with descending lustres, and the angels came upon him as a bright cloud, descending, as it were, upon the patriarch. They glided downward from those gates of pearl, more famed than the gates of Thebes. They divided to the right and to the left and became two hosts. Perhaps the one band pitched their camp behind, as much as to say, “All is right in the rear, Laban cannot return; better than the cairn of Mizpah is the host of God.” Another squadron moved to the front as much as to say, “Peace, patriarch, peace with regard to Esau, the red hunter, and his armed men: we guard you in the van.” It must have been a glorious morning for Jacob when he saw not one, but many morning stars. If the apparitions were seen in the dead of night, surely Jacob must have thought that day was come before its time. It was as if constellations mustered to the roll call, and clouds of stars came floating down from the upper spheres. All came to wait upon Jacob, on that one man: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him”; but in this case it was to one man with his family of children that a host was sent. The man himself, the lone man who abode in covenant with God when all the rest of the world was given up to idols, was favoured by this mark of divine favour. The angels of God met him. One delights to think that the angels should be willing, and even eager, troops of them, to meet one man. How vain is that voluntary humility and worshipping of angels which Paul so strongly condemns. Worshipping them seems far out of the question; the truth lies rather the other way, for they do us suit and service: “are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that are the heirs of salvation?”They serve God’s servants. “Unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son”? But this he has said, first to the Only-Begotten, and then to every believer in Christ. We are the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty, and these ministering ones have a charge concerning us: as it is written, “they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.”

I have shown you that believers are compassed about with an innumerable company of angels, great in multitude, strong in power, exact in order, punctual in their personal attention to the children of God. Are ye not well cared for, oh ye sons of the Most High!

Those forces, though in themselves invisible to the natural senses, are manifest to faith at certain times. There are times when the child of God is able to cry, like Jacob,“The angels of God have met me.” When do such seasons occur? Our Mahanaims occur at much the same time as that in which Jacob beheld this great sight. Jacob was entering upon a more separated life. He was leaving Laban and the school of all those tricks of bargaining and bartering which belong to the ungodly world. He had breathed too long an unhealthy atmosphere; he was degenerating; the heir of the promises was becoming a man of the world. He was entangled with earthly things. His marriages held him fast, and every year he seemed to get more and more rooted to Laban’s land. It was time he was transplanted to better soil. Now he is coming right away; he has taken to tent life. He has come to sojourn in the land of promise, as his fathers had done before him. He was now to confess that he was seeking a city, and meant to be a pilgrim till he found it. By a desperate stroke he cut himself clear of entanglements; but he must have felt lonely, and as one cast adrift. He missed all the associations of the old house of Mesopotamia, which, despite its annoyances, was his home. The angels come to congratulate him. Their presence said, “You are come to this land to be a stranger and sojourner with God, as all your fathers were. We have, some of us, talked with Abraham, again and again, and we are now coming to smile on you. You recollect how we bade you good-bye that night, when you had a stone for your pillow at Bethel; now you have come back to the reserved inheritance, over which we are set as guardians, and we have come to salute you. Take up the non-conforming life without fear, for we are with you. Welcome! welcome! we are glad to receive you under our special care.” Then was it true to Jacob, “Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.” This brotherhood of angels must have been an admirable compensation for the loss of the fatherhood of that churlish Laban. Anything we lose when we leave the world, and what is called “society,” is abundantly made up when we can say, “We have come unto the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven, and unto an innumerable company of angels.”

Again, the reason why the angels met Jacob at that time was, doubtless, because he was surrounded with great cares. He had a large family of little children; and great flocks and herds and many servants were with him. He said himself, “With my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.” This was a huge burden of care! It was no light thing for one man to have the management of all that mass of life and to lead it about in wandering style. But see, there are two companies of angels to balance the two companies of feeble ones. If he has two bands to take care of he shall have two bands to take care of him; if he has double responsibility he shall have double assistance. So, brothers and sisters, when you are in positions of great responsibility, and you feel the weight pressing upon you, have hope in God that you will have double succour, and be sure that you pray that Mahanaim may be repeated in your experience, so that your strength may be equal to your day.

Again, the Lord’s host appeared when Jacob felt a great dread. His brother Esau was coming to meet him armed to the teeth, and, as he feared, thirsty for his blood. In times when our danger is greatest, if we are real believers, we shall be specially under the divine protection, and we shall know that it is so. This shall be our comfort in the hour of distress. What can Esau do with his four hundred men now that the hosts of God have pitched their tents and have assembled in their squadrons to watch between us and the foe? See ye not the horses of fire and chariots of fire around about the chosen servant of God? Jacob ought to have felt calm and quiet in heart; I suppose he was while he saw his protectors. Alas! as soon as he lost sight of them, poor Jacob was depressed in spirit again about his brother Esau, lest he should slay the mother with the children. Such is the weakness of our hearts! But let us not fall into the grievous sin of unbelief. Are we not without excuse if we do so? In times of great distress we may expect that the forces of God will become recognizable by our faith, and we shall have a clearer sense of the powers on our side than ever we had before. O Holy Spirit, work in us great clearness of spiritual sight!

And, once again, when you and I, like Jacob, shall be near Jordan, when we shall just be passing into the better land, then is the time when we may expect to come to Mahanaim. The angels of God and the God of angels, both come to meet the spirits of the blessed in the solemn article of death. Have we not ourselves heard of divine revealings from dying lips? Have we not heard the testimony so often, too, that it could not have been an invention and a deception? Have not many loved ones given us assurance of a glorious revelation which they never saw before? Is there not a giving of new sight when the eyes are closing? Yes, O heir of glory, the shining ones shall come to meet you on the river’s brink, and you shall be ushered into the presence of the Eternal by those bright courtiers of heaven, who on either side shall be a company of dear companions when the darkness is passing, and the glory is streaming over you. Be of good cheer: if you see not the hosts of God now you shall see them hereafter, when the Jordan shall be reached, and you cross over to the promised land.

Thus I have mentioned the time when these invisible forces become visible to faith; and there is no doubt whatever that they are sent for a purpose. Why were they sent to Jacob at this time? Perhaps the purpose was first to revive an ancient memory which had well-nigh slipped from him. I am afraid he had almost forgotten Bethel. Surely it must have brought his vow at Bethel to mind, the vow which he made unto the Lord when he saw the ladder, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. Here they were: they had left heaven and come down that they might hold communion with him. I like the dream at Bethel better than the vision of Mahanaim for this reason, that he saw the covenant God at the top of the ladder: here he only sees the angels. Yet is there a choice pearl in this latter sight, for whereas at Bethel he only saw angels ascending and descending, he here sees them on the earth by his side, ready to protect him from all ill. How sweetly do new mercies refresh the memory of former favours, and how gently does new grace remind us of old promises and debts. Brother, does not your Mahanaim point to some half-forgotten Bethel? Judge for yourself. Should our glorious God give you at this time a clear view of his divine power and of his covenant faithfulness, I pray that the sight may refresh your memory concerning that happy day when first you knew the Lord, when first you gave yourself up to him, and his grace took possession of your spirit.

Mahanaim was granted to Jacob, not only to refresh his memory, but to lift him out of the ordinary low level of his life. Jacob, you know, the father of all the Jews, was great at huckstering: it was the very nature of him to drive bargains. Jacob had all his wits about him, and rather more than he should have had, well answering to his name of “supplanter.” He would let no one deceive him, and he was ready at all times to take advantage of those with whom he had any dealings. Here the Lord seems to say to him, “O Jacob, my servant, rise out of this miserable way of dealing with me, and be of a princely mind.” Such should have been the lesson of this angelic visit, though it was ill learned. Jacob was prepared to send off to Esau, and call him “My Lord Esau”; he was ready to cringe and bow, and call himself his servant, and all that. He went beyond the submissiveness which prudence suggests into the abject subjection which is born of fear. The vision should have led Jacob to stand upon higher ground. With bands of angels as his body-guard, he had no need to persist in his timorous, pettifogging policy. He might have walked along with the dignified confidence of his grandsire Abraham. There is something better in this life after all than policy and planning: faith in God is grander far. A coward’s scheming ill becomes the favourite of heaven. Why should he fear who is protected beyond all fear? Esau could not stand against him, for Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, was on his side. O for grace to live according to our true position and character, not as poor dependents upon our own wits or upon the help of man, but as grandly independent of things seen, because our entire reliance is fixed upon the unseen and eternal. Jacob as a mere keeper of sheep has great cause to fear his warlike brother, but as the chosen of God and possessor of a heavenly guard he may boldly travel on as if no Esau were in existence. All things are possible with God. Let us, then, play the man. We are not dependent on the things that are seen. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live. Cursed is he that trusteth in man. Trust in God with all your heart. He is your infinite aid. Do the right, and give up calculations. Plunge into the sea of faith. Believe as much in the invisible as in the visible, and act upon your faith. This seems to me to be God’s object in giving to any of his servants a clearer view of the powers which are engaged on their behalf.

If such a special vision be granted to us let us keep it in memory. Jacob called the name of that place Mahanaim. I wish we had some way in this western world, in these modern times, of naming places, and children, too, more sensibly. We must needs either borrow some antiquated title, as if we were too short of sense to make one for ourselves, or else our names are sheer nonsense, and mean nothing. Why not choose names which should commemorate our mercies? Might not our houses be far more full of interest if around us we saw memorials of the happy events of our lives? Should we not note down remarkable blessings in our diaries, to hand down to our children? Should we not tell our sons and daughters, “There God helped your father, boy;” “thus and thus the Lord comforted your mother, girl;” “there God was very gracious to our family”? Keep records of your race! Preserve the household memoranda! I think it is a great help for a man to know what God did for his father and his grandfather, for he hopes that their God will be his God also. Jacob took care to make notes, for he again and again named places by the facts which there were seen. Jacob named Bethel, and Galeed, and Peniel, and Mahanaim, and other places, for he was a great name giver. Nor were his names forgotten, for hundreds of years after good King David came to the same spot as Jacob, and found it still known as Mahanaim, and there the servants of God of another kind met him also.

This brings me to my second text; for angels did not meet David, but living creatures of another nature met him, who answered the purpose of David quite as well as angels would have done. So just for a few minutes we will dwell upon that second event which distinguished Mahanaim. Turn to the Second Book of Samuel, seventeenth chapter, twenty-seventh verse. David came to Mahanaim, and there was met by many friends. He stood upon the sacred spot, accompanied by his handful of faithful friends, fugitives like himself. There was not an angel about that day apparently, yet secretly there were thousands flying around the sorrowing king. Who is this that comes? It is not an angel, but old Barzillai. Who is this? It is Machir of Lodebar. They bring with them honey, corn, butter, sheep, great basins by way of baths, and cooking utensils, and earthen vessels to hold their food; and look, there are beds too, for the poor king has not a couch to lie upon. These are not angels, but they are doing what angels could not have done, for Gabriel himself could hardly have brought a bed or a basin.

Who is yonder prominent friend? He speaks like a foreigner. He is an Ammonite. What is his name? Shobi, the son of Nahash, of Rabbah, of the children of Ammon. I have heard of those people: they were enemies were they not-cruel enemies to Israel? That man Nahash, you recollect his name; this is one of his sons. Yes! God can turn enemies into friends when his servants require succour. Those that belong to a race that is opposed to Israel can, if God will it, turn to be their helpers. The Lord found an advocate for his Son Jesus in Pilate’s house,-the governor’s wife suffered many things in a dream because of him. He can find a friend for his servants in their persecutor’s own family, even as he raised up Obadiah to hide the prophets and feed them in a cave: the chamberlain to Ahab himself was the protector of the saints, and with meat from Ahab’s table were they fed. It strikes me that Shobi the Ammonite came to David because he owed his life to him. Rabbah of Ammon had been destroyed, and this man, probably the brother of the king, had been spared: this act of mercy he remembered, and when he found David in trouble he acted gratefully and came down from his highland home with his men, and with his substance. Many a good man has found gracious help in his time of need from those who have received salvation by his means. If we are a blessing to others they will be a blessing to us. If we have brought any to Christ, and they have found the Saviour by our teaching, there is a peculiar tie between us, and they will be our helpers. Shobi of Rabbah of Ammon will be sure to be generous to David, because he will say, “It is by him I live; it is through him that I found salvation from death.” If God blesses you in the conversion of any, it may be that he will raise them up in your time of need, and send them to help: at any rate, either by friends visible or invisible, he will cause you to dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed. Here comes another person we have heard of before, Machir of Lodebar. That is the large farmer who took care of Mephibosheth. He seems to have been a truly loyal man, who stuck to royal families, even when their fortunes were adverse. As he had been faithful to the house of Saul so was he to David. We have among us brethren who are always friends of God’s ministers: they love them for their Master’s sake, and adhere to them when the more fickle spirits rush after new comers. Happy are we to have many such adherents. They helped the preacher’s predecessor; they like to talk of the grand old man who ruled Israel in the olden times, and they are not tired of it, but they are the entertainers of the present leader, and are equally hearty in their help. God fetches up these brethren at the moment they are wanted, and they appear with loaded hands.

Here comes Barzillai, an old man of fourscore, and as the historian tells us, “a very great man.” His enormous wealth was all at the disposal of David and his followers, and “he provided the king of sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim.” This old nobleman was certainly as useful to David as the angels were to Jacob, and he and his coadjutors were truly a part of God’s forces. The armies of God are varied: he has not one troop alone, but many. Did not Elisha’s servants see the mountain full of horses of fire, and chariots of fire? God’s hosts are of varied regiments, appearing as horse and foot, cherubim and seraphim, and holy men and holy women. Those who are of the church of God below are as much a part of the host of God as the holiest angels above. Godly women who minister unto the Lord do what they can, and angels can do no more.

On this occasion Mahanaim well deserved its name, because the help that came to David from these different persons came in a most noble way, as though it came by angels. The helpers of David showed their fidelity to him. He was driven out of his palace and likely to be dethroned; but they stood by him and proved that they meant to stand by him. Their declaration was in effect, “Thine are we, thou son of Jesse, and all that we have.” Now was the time of his need, and now he should see that they were not fine weather friends; but such as were true in the hour of trial. See their generosity! What a mass of goods they brought to sustain David’s troops in the day when they were hungering and thirsting. I need not give you the details; the verses read like a commissariat roll of demands. Every actually necessary form of provision is there. How spontaneous was the gift! David did not demand: they brought before he asked. He had not to send round his sergeants to levy upon the outlying villages and farms; but there were the good people ready-handed with all manner of stores. Their thoughtfulness was great too, for they seem to have thought of everything that was wanted, and besides, they said, “The people is hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.” The heartiness of it all is most delightful. They brought their contributions cheerfully and joyfully, else they would have brought after a meagre sort, and with less variety of gifts.

I infer from this that if at any time a servant of God is marching onward in his Master’s work, and he needs assistance of any sort, he need not trouble about it, but rest in the Lord, for succour and help will surely come, if not from the angels above, yet from the church below. Will you look at Solomon’s Song, sixth chapter and thirteenth verse, “Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies,” or Mahanaim; for that is literally how it stands in the Hebrew. In the church of God, then, we see the company of Mahanaim: the saints are the angels of God on earth as the angels are his hosts above. God will send these upon his errands to comfort and sustain his servants in their times of need. Go on, O David, at the bidding of thy Lord, for his chosen servants here below will count it their delight to be thine allies, and thou shalt say of them “this is God’s host!”

And now, to close. While I have shown you God’s invisible agents, and God’s visible agents, I want to call to your mind that in either case, and in both cases, the host is the host of God: that is to say, the true strength and safety of the believer is his God. We do not trust in the help of angels; we do not trust in the church of God, nor in ten thousand churches of God put together, if there were such, but in God himself alone. Oh, it is grand to hang on the bare arm of God; for there hang all the worlds. The eternal arm is never weary, nor shall those who rest on it be confounded. “Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength.” I said last Thursday night to you that faith was nothing but sanctified common sense; and I am sure it is so. It is the most common-sense thing in the world to trust to the trustworthy, the most reasonable thing in the world to take into your calculations the greatest power in the world, and that is God, and to place your confidence in that greatest power. Yea, more, since that greatest power comprehends all the other powers,-for there is no power in angels, or in men, except what God gives them: it is wise to place all our reliance upon God alone.

The presence of God with believers is more certain and constant than the presence of angels or holy men. God hath said it,-“Certainly I will be with thee.” He hath said again, “I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee.” When you are engaged in Christ’s service you have a special promise to back you up,-“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” What are you afraid of then? Begone all trembling. Let feeble hearts be strong. What can stagger us? “God is with us.” Was there ever a grander battle cry than ours-the Lord of hosts is with us? Blessed was John Wesley to live by faith, and then to die saying, “The best of all is, God is with us.” Shrink? Turn your backs in the day of battle? Shame upon you! You cannot, if God be with you; for “if God be with us, who can be against us?” or if they be against us, who can stand for an hour?

If, then, God is pleased to grant us help by secondary causes, as we know he does-for to many of us he sends many and many a friend to help in his good work-then we must take care to see God in these friends and helpers. When you have no helpers, see all helpers in God; when you have many helpers, then you must see God in all your helpers. Herein is wisdom. When thou hast nothing but God, see all in God: when thou hast everything, then see God in everything. Under all conditions stay thy heart only on the Lord. May the Spirit of God teach us all how to do this. This tendency to idolatry of ours, how strong it is. If a man bows down to worship a piece of wood or stone, we call him an idolater; and so he is: but if you and I trust in our fellow-men instead of God, it is idolatry. If we give to them the confidence that belongs to God, we worship them instead of God. Remember how Paul said he did not consult with flesh and blood: alas, too many of us are caught in that snare. We consult far more with flesh and blood than with the Lord. The worst person I ever consult with at all is a person who is always too near me. The Lord deliver me from that evil man, myself. The presence of the Lord Jesus is the star of our night and the sun of our day, the cure of care, the strength of service, and the solace of sorrow. Heaven on earth is for Christ to be with us, and heaven above is to be with Christ.

I can ask nothing better for you, brethren, than that God may be with you in a very conspicuous and manifest manner all through this day, and right onward till days shall end in the eternal day. I do not ask that you may see angels: still, if it can be, so be it. But what is it, after all, to see an angel? Is not the fact of God’s presence better than the sight of the best of his creatures? Perhaps the Lord favoured Jacob with the sight of angels because he was such a poor, weak creature as to his faith; peradventure if he had been perfect in his faith he would not have needed to see angels. He would have said, “I need no vision of heavenly spirits, for I see their Lord.” What are angels? They are only God’s pages to run upon his errands; to see their Lord is far better. The angels of God are not to be compared with the God of angels. If my confidence is in him that he is my Father, and that Jesus Christ has become the brother of my soul, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in me according to his own word, what need I care, although no vision of the supernatural should ever gladden my eyes? Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. “We walk by faith, not by sight,” and in that joyous faith we rest, expecting that in time and to eternity the power of God will be with us, either visibly or invisibly, by men or by angels. His arm shall be lifted up for us, and his right arm shall defend us.

My heart is glad, for I too have had my Mahanaim, and in this my hour of need for the work of the Lord to which he has called me, I see the windows of heaven opened above me, and I see troops of friends around me. For the Orphanage now to be commenced I see providence moving. Two camps are around me also, and therefore do I preach to you this day of that which I have seen and known. May the angel of the covenant be ever with you. Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-Genesis 31:43-55; 32:1, 2; 2 Samuel 17:27-29; Psalm 23.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-708, 34, 674.