This verse is guarded before and behind by two notable statements. Before it we hear the Master say, “I lay down my life for the sheep,” and immediately after it we meet with another grand sentence, “I lay down my life, that I might take it again.” The first statement, “I lay down my life for the sheep” is the sheet anchor of our confidence when storms assail the vessel of the church. The Lord Jesus has by his death proved his love to his people; and his determination to save them is made clear by his laying down his life for them; therefore doubt and fear should be banished and the very name of despair should be unknown among the Israel of God. Now are we sure of the love of the Son of God to his chosen flock, for we have an infallible proof of it in the laying down of his life for them. Now also are we absolutely certain that Christ’s purpose is perpetual: it cannot alter; the Lord Jesus has committed himself to that purpose beyond recall, for the price is paid and the deed is done by which the purpose is to be effected. Beyond this we are hereby assured beyond a shadow of a doubt that the divine purpose will be carried out, for it cannot be that Christ should die in vain. We think it a kind of blasphemy to suppose that his blood should be spilt for naught. Whatever was proposed to be accomplished by the laying down of the life of the Son of God, we feel absolutely certain that it will be fully performed in the teeth of all adversaries; for we are not now speaking of man’s design, but of the purpose of God, to which he devoted the heart’s blood of his only-begotten Son. We both patiently hope and quietly wait to see the salvation of God, and the performance of all his designs of love; for that death upon the cross is a cause which will surely produce its effect. Christ did not die at a peradventure. The supposition of a Saviour disappointed in the results of his blood-shedding is not to be tolerated for a moment. In darkest times that glorious cross flames with light. No evil event can prevent its efficacy. Still in that sign we conquer. If Jesus has laid down his life for the sheep, then all is well. Rest assured of the Father’s love to those sheep; rest assured of the immutability of the Divine purpose concerning them, and rest assured of its ultimate achievement. It must not, shall not be that God’s own Son shall lay down his life in vain. Though heaven and earth should pass away, the precious heart’s blood of the Son of God shall accomplish the end for which it was so freely poured forth. Jesus says, “I lay down my life for the sheep,” therefore the sheep must live who have been redeemed at such a price as this, and the Shepherd in them shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. So far we are cheered by the vanguard which marches in advance of our text.

But as if the poor, timid people of God would, nevertheless, at times fancy that the purpose of Christ would not be achieved, behold in the rear another sentence, “I lay down my life that I might take it again.” He that died, and so redeemed his people by price, lives that he may himself personally see that they are also redeemed by power. If a man dies to achieve a purpose, you feel sure that his very soul must have been in it: but if that man should rise again from the dead, and still pursue his purpose you would see how resolutely he was set on his design. If he rose with greater power, clothed with higher rank, and elevated to a more eminent position, and if he still pursued his great object, you would then be more than certain of his never-ending determination to perform his design. In the risen life of Jesus assurance is made doubly sure: now are we sure that his design must be carried out, nothing can hinder it. We dare not dream that the Son of God can be disappointed of the object for which he died, and for which he lives again. If Jesus died for a purpose he will accomplish it; if Jesus rose for a purpose, he will accomplish it; if Jesus lives for ever for a purpose, he will accomplish it. To me this conclusion seems to be past question: and if it be so, it puts the destiny of the sheep beyond all hazard. Did not Paul argue much in the same way when he said, “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life”?

If any of you have been cast down by reason of present difficulties, let these two grand texts sound their silver trumpets in your ears. If you have been looking forth from the windows, and the outlook has seemed to be exceeding dark, take courage, I pray you, from what your Lord has done: his death and resurrection are prophetic of good things to come. You dare not think that Christ will miss the end of his death: you dare not think that he will miss the purpose of his glory-life: why, then, are you cast down? His will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven, as surely as he came from heaven to earth, and has returned from earth to heaven. His purpose shall be carried out as surely as he died and lives again. Is not this the secret reason why, when the Lord appeared to his sorrowing servant John, he said to him, “I am he that liveth and was dead and am alive for evermore, amen, and have the keys of death and of hell”? Is not the dying and then living Shepherd the safety and the glory of the flock? Wherefore comfort one another with these words of your Lord, “I lay down my life for the sheep”; “I lay down my life, that I might take it again.”

There are four things in the text itself which deserve your attention, for they are full of consolation to minds troubled by the evils of these perilous times. The first is this,-our Lord Jesus Christ had a people under the worst circumstances. When he speaks of “other sheep,” it is implied that he had certain sheep at the time; and when he says “other sheep have I which are not of this fold,” it is manifest that even then the Good Shepherd had a fold. The times were grievously dark and evil, but a few true hearts clustered about tin Saviour and by his divine power were protected as in a “fold.” It has been supposed that our Lord here alludes to the Jews as “this fold”; but the Jews, as such, were never Christ’s fold. He could not have meant to call the Jews around him his fold, for a little further on he exclaims, “Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.” His fold were that little handful of disciples whom by his personal ministry he had gathered, and who stood folded, as it were, about their Good Shepherd. They might be sneered at as a little company, but he saith to his enemies who are standing outside the fold foaming with wrath, “Other sheep I have that are not of this little fold: these you cannot see, but I have them none the less for that; these I must in due time lead, and then there shall be one flock and one Shepherd.”

See, then, that the Lord Jesus had a people in the worst times. Doubtless these days are exceedingly dangerous, and I have certain brethren round me who never allow me to forget it, for they play well in the minor key, and dwell most judiciously upon the necessary topic of the general declension of the church and the growing depravity of the world. I would not stop them from their faithful warnings, although I can assure them that, with slight variations, I have heard the same tune for years. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up, and it has been good for me. I recollect hearing some thirty years ago that we lived in awful times; and, as nearly as I can recollect, the times have been awful ever since; and I suppose they always will be. The watchmen of the night see everything except the coming of the morning. Our pilots perceive dangers ahead and steer with caution. Perhaps this is as it should be; at any rate, it is better than sleeping in a fool’s paradise. Be this as it may, it is clear that the days of our Lord Jesus Christ were emphatically terrible times. No age can be worse than that age which literally crucified the Son of God, crying, “Away with him! Away with him!” Whether the present days are better than those I will not determine, but they cannot be worse. The day of our Lord’s first advent was the culmination and the crisis of the world’s career of sin; and yet the Good Shepherd had a fold among men in the midnight of history.

There was a sad lack of vital godliness in those days. A few godly ones watched for the coming of the Messiah; but they were very few, such as good old Simeon and Anna. A small remnant sighed and cried for the abounding sin of the nation; but the salt was almost gone: Israel was becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. The choice band of mourners in Zion had not quite died out, but their number was so few that a child might write them. Speaking generally, when the Saviour came to his own, his own received him not. The mass of professing people in that day was rotten throughout; the life of God was gone; it could not dwell with the Pharisees nor the Sadducees, nor any of the sects of the times, for they were altogether gone out of the way. The Lord looked, and there was no man to help or to uphold his righteous cause: those who professed to be its champions had altogether become unprofitable. As for the religious teachers, their mouth was become an open sepulchre, and the poison of asps was under their tongues: and yet the Lord had a people in Judea even then. On earth there was still a fold for sheep whom he had chosen who knew the Shepherd’s voice and gathered to his call and followed him faithfully.

It was a time when will-worship abounded. Men had given up worshipping God according to the Scriptures, and they worshipped according to their own fancies. Then you might hear the trumpet in every corner of the street, for Pharisees were distributing their alms. You could see fathers and mothers neglected, and families broken up because the scribes had taught the people that if they should say “Corban” they were free from all obligation to help father or mother. They taught for doctrines the commandments of men, and the commandments of God were laid on one side. To wear broad-bordered garments and phylacteries was exalted into a matter of first importance; while to lie and cheat were mere trifles. To eat with unwashen hands was thought to be a crime, but to devour widow’s houses was a thing which to the most self-righteous Pharisee caused no qualm of conscience. The land was filled with will-worship, and that is one great and growing hindrance nowadays; but for all that Christ had a fold of his own, and in it were those who knew his voice, and these, following at his heel, were enabled to go in and out and find pasture.

It was a day when there was the most fierce opposition to the real truth of God. Our Lord Jesus could hardly open his mouth but they took up stones to stone him. It was said that he had a devil and was mad; and that he was a “gluttonous man and a wine bibber, the friend of publicans and sinners.” The rage of men against Christ was then boiling at its greatest heat, till at last they took him and nailed him to the cross because they could not endure that he should live among them. And yet he had his own in those dreadful times: even then he had his chosen company for whom he laid down his life, of whom he said to the Father, “Thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.” To those he spake saying “Ye are they that have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me.” Wherefore, beloved, I gather that though at this time there is a sad decline in vital godliness, and though will worship sweeps over the land with its tumultuous waves, and though opposition to the pure truth of Christ is more fierce than ever; nevertheless even at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. Even to-day the answer of God saith to the complaining prophet, “Yet have I left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal.” Wherefore, my brethren, in confidence possess ye your souls.

Now, it is to be noticed that this little company of Christ’s people he calls a “fold.” Afterwards they were to be a “flock,” but while his bodily presence was with them they were pre-eminently a “fold.” They were few in number, all of one race, mostly in one place, and so compact that they could fitly be said to be a fold. One glance of the Shepherd’s bodily eye saw them all. Happily, also, they were so thoroughly distinct from the rest of the world that they were eminently and evidently folded. Our Lord said of them, “Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” He had shut them in to himself, and shut the world out. Within this blessed seclusion they were perfectly safe, so that their Lord said to the Father, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.” Whatever their mistakes and faults, and they were many, yet they did not conform themselves to the generation among which they dwelt, but they were kept apart as in a fold while Jesus was with them. In that fold they were protected from all ill weathers, and from the wolf, and the thief. The Lord’s presence with them was like a wall of fire round about them: they had only to run to him and he answered all their adversaries, and defended them from reproach. Like another David, the Lord Jesus guarded his flock from all the ravening lions that sought to devour them. True, even in that little fold there were goats, for he himself said, “I have chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil.” Even then they were not absolutely pure, but they were wonderfully so; and they were marvellously separated from the world, preserved from false doctrine, and kept from dividing and scattering. Within that fold they were being strengthened for the future following of their great Shepherd. They were learning a thousand things which would be useful to them when afterwards he sent them forth as lambs among wolves; so that they would be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” because of what they had learned of their Lord. Thus you see that in the worst times the Lord had a church, I might almost say the best church. May I not call it so? for that apostolic church upon which the Holy Ghost descended was nut a whit behind the church of any era that succeeded it. It was the choice flock of all the flocks of the ages, even that feeble company of which Jesus said, “Fear not, little little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Yet you see one thing is notable here, that when Jesus had thus shut them all in he would not allow them to become exclusive and glide into a state of selfish satisfaction. No, he opens wide the door of the sheep-fold and cries to them, “Other sheep I have.” Thus he checks a tendency so common in the church to be forgetful of those outside the fold, and to make one’s own personal salvation the sum and substance of religion. I do not think it wrong to sing-

“We are a garden wall’d around,

Chosen, and made peculiar ground;

A little spot, enclosed by grace

Out of the world’s wide wilderness.”

On the contrary, I judge that the verse is true, and sweet, and ought to be sung; but then there are other truths besides this one. To us also the Shepherd opens the door of the enclosed garden and says, “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.” The fold is our abode, but it is not our sole sphere of action; for we are to go forth of it into all the world seeking our brethren. Seeing that our Lord has other sheep which are not of this fold, and these are to be found by him through his faithful people, let us arouse ourselves to the holy enterprise.

“O, come, let us go and find them

In the paths of death they roam;

At the close of the day’ twill be sweet to say,

‘I have brought some lost one home.’ ”

Beloved, I shall leave this point when I have said to you,-never despair! The Lord of hosts is with his people. They may be few and poor, but they are Christ’s, and that makes them precious. A common sheepfold is not a thing of glory and beauty, four rough walls compose it, and it is but a hovel for sheep; even so the church may appear mean and base in men’s eyes; but then it is the sheepfold of the Shepherd-King, and the sheep belong to the Lord God Almighty. There is a glory about this which angels do not fail to see. Here is human weakness, but also divine power. We do not, I fear, estimate the strength of a church aright. I read of three brethren who had to carry on a college when funds were running short. One of them complained that they had no helpers, and could not hope to succeed; but another who had more faith said to his brother, “Do you ask what we can do? Do you say that we are so few? I do not see that we are few; for we are a thousand at the least.” “A thousand of us!” said the other, “how is that?” “Why,” replied the first, “I am a cipher, and you are a cipher, and our brother is a cipher; so we have three noughts to begin with. Then I am sure the Lord Jesus is one: put him down before the three ciphers and we have a thousand directly.” Was not this bravely spoken? What power we have when we do but set the great ONE in the front. You are nothing, brother; you are nothing, sister; I am nothing; we are all nothing when we are put together without our Lord: but, oh, if he stands in front of us then we are thousands; and again is it true on earth as in heaven, the chariots of the Lord are twenty thousand, even thousands of messengers, the Lord is among them as in the holy place. Wherefore, my friends, be ye not cast down at any time, but say unto yourselves-We are not even now come to so dark a night as once fell on this world. We are not at this painful moment in such a desperate condition as the church of Christ was in his own day; and if the Lord be spiritually in the midst of us we need not fear though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, for there is a city which abides for ever, and there is a river the streams whereof shall for ever make her glad. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, and that right early. Wherefore, my fellow-believers, be ye strong and of good courage!

But now, secondly, it is clear, for the text teaches it in so many words, that our Lord hath other sheep not yet known to us. he says, “Other sheep I have.” I want you to notice that strong expression, “Other sheep I have,”-not “I shall have,” but “I have other sheep.” Many of these sheep were not even in the thoughts of the apostles. I do not think it had crossed the mind of Peter, James, or John that their Lord had any sheep in this poor savage island, then scarcely regarded as being within the borders of the earth. I do not suppose the apostles at that time even dreamed that their Lord Jesus had sheep in Rome. No, their most liberal notion was that the Hebrew nation might be converted, and the scattered of the seed of Abraham gathered together in one. Our Shepherd-King has greater thoughts than the most large-hearted of his servants. He delights to enlarge the area of our love. “Other sheep have I.” You do not know them, but the Shepherd does. Unknown to ministers, unknown to the warmest-hearted Christians, there are many in the world whom Jesus claims for his own through the covenant of grace.

Who are these? Well, these “other sheep” were, first, his chosen; for he has a people whom he has chosen out of the world, and ordained unto eternal life. “Ye have not chosen me,” said he, “but I have chosen you,”-there is a people upon whom his sovereignty has fixed its loving choice from before the foundation of the world. And of these elect ones he says, “I have them.” His election of them is the basis of his property in them. These are also those whom his Father gave him, of whom he says in another place, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me”: and again, “Of those whom thou hast given me I have lost none.” His Father’s eternal donation of them seals his title to them. These are the people for whom he peculiarly and especially laid down his life, that they might be the redeemed of the Lord. “Christ loved his church, and gave himself for it.” These are they that are redeemed from among men, of whom we read, “Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price.” The Lord Jesus laid down his life for his sheep: he tells us so himself, and none can question his own statement. These are those of whom Jesus says “I have them,” for on account of these he entered into suretiship engagements, even as Jacob undertook the flock of Laban and watched day and night that he should not lose them, and if one had been torn, he would have had to make it good. These sheep represent a people for whom Christ hath entered into suretiship engagements with his Father that he will deliver each one of them safely at the last day of account, not one of them being absent when the sheep shall pass again under the hand of him that telleth them as they will at the last great day. “Other sheep I have,” says Christ. How wonderful that he should say, “I have them,” though as yet they were far off by wicked works.

What was their state? They were a people without shepherd, without fold, without pasture, lost on the mountains, wandering in the woods, lying down to die, ready to be devoured by the wolf; yet Jesus says, “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold.” They were sheep that had wandered exceeding far, even into the most shameful iniquity, and yet he says, “I have them.” Bad as this world is to-day, it must have been far worse in the cruel Roman age as to open vices and unmentionable abominations; and yet these wanderers were the sheep of Christ, and in due time they were delivered from their sins, and fetched away from all the superstition and idolatry and filthiness into which they had wandered. They were Christ’s even while they were afar off; he had chosen them, the Father had given them to him, he had bought them, and he determined to have them; nay, he saith, “I have them,” and he calls them his own even while they are transgressing and running headlong to destruction.

It seems to me that these were as well known to Christ as those that were in his fold. I think I see him, the Divine Man, standing there confronting his adversaries, and when he has cast his glance upon his foes, I see his eyes going to and fro throughout the whole earth to gaze upon a sight far more pleasant to him. While he speaks his eyes flash with joyous fire as they light upon thousands out of every kindred and people and tongue, and while he quotes to himself the words of the twenty-second Psalm: “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord’s: and he is the governor among the nations. A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.” He spies out the myriads that are his, and he rejoices before his scornful foes as he sees his growing kingdom which they are powerless to overthrow. Proud, self-righteous men may blindly refuse the leadership of the Lord’s anointed Shepherd, but he shall not be without a flock to be his honour and reward. Did not the Lord at that time rejoice in his inmost heart and soliloquize within himself thus-“Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength”? This led him to say, “Other sheep I have.”

In this there is great comfort for God’s people who love the souls of their fellow-men. The Lord has a people in London, and he knows them. “I have much people in this city,” was said to the apostle when as yet nobody was converted there. “I have them,” says Christ; though as yet they had not sought him. Our Lord Jesus has an elect redeemed people all over the world at this time, though as yet they are not called by grace. I know not where they are, nor where they are not; but for certain he has them somewhere, since still it stands true, “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.” This is a part of our authority for going out to fiud the lost sheep; for we brethren have a right to go anywhere to ask after our Master’s sheep. I have no business to go hunting after other people’s sheep; but if they are my Master’s sheep who shall stop me over hill or dale enquiring, “Have you seen my Master’s sheep?” If any say, “You do intrude in this land,” let the answer be, “We are after our Master’s sheep which have strayed here!” “Excuse our pushing further than politeness might allow, we are in haste to find a lost sheep.” This is your excuse for going into a house where you are not wanted, to try and leave your tract and speak a word for Christ: say, “I think my Master has one of his sheep here, and I am come after it.” You have received a search-warrant from the King of kings, and therefore you have a right to enter and search after your Lord’s stolen property. If men belonged to the devil we would not rob the enemy himself; but they do not belong to him; he neither made them nor bought them, and therefore we seize them in the King’s name whenever we can lay hands on them. I doubt not but what there are some here this morning who neither know nor love the Saviour as yet, who nevertheless belong to the Redeemer, and he will yet bring them to himself and to his flock. Therefore it is that we preach with confidence. I do not come into this pulpit hoping that peradventure somebody will of his own free will return to Christ; that may be so or not, but my hope lies in another quarter; I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, “You are mine, and you shall be mine; I claim you for myself.” My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not from the freedom of the will. A poor haul of fish will any gospel fisherman make if he takes none but those who are eager to leap into the net. Oh, for an hour of Jesus among this crowd! Oh, for five minutes of the great Shepherd’s handiwork! When the good Shepherd overtakes his lost sheep he has not much to say to it. According to the parable he says nothing, but he lays hold of it, lays it on his shoulders and carries it home, and that is what I want the Lord to do this morning with some of you whose will is all the other way, whose wishes and desires are all contrary to him. I want him to come with sacred violence and mighty love to restore you to your Father and your God. Not that you will be saved against your will, but your consent will be sweetly gained. Oh, that the Lord Jesus would take you in hand and never let you go again. May he sweetly say to you, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”

Our third head contains in it much delight. Our Lord must bring or lead those other sheep. “Them also I must bring”-read it, and it will be more accurate, “them also I must lead:” Christ must be at the head of these other sheep, and they must follow his lead-“them also I must lead, and they shall hear my voice.” Those who belong to Christ secretly must be openly led to follow him.

First, it is Christ that has to do it, even as he has done it hitherto. The text says, “Them also I must bring,” and this language implies that those who have already come he has brought. All that were in the fold Christ had brought there, and all that are to be in the fold he must lead there. All of us who are saved have been saved by the mighty power of God in Christ Jesus. Is it not so? Is there anyone among us that came to Jesus without Jesus first coming to him? Surely, no. Without exception we all admit that it was his love that sought us out and brought us to be the sheep of his pasture. Now, as the Lord Jesus has done this for us he must do it for others; for they will never come except he fetch them.

Here comes in that emphatic, imperious “must.” The proverb is that “must” is for the king, and the king may say “must” to all of us: but did you ever hear of a “must” that bound the king himself and constrained him? Kings generally do not care to have it said to them you “must;” but there is a king, the like of which king there never was nor shall be for glory and for dominion, and yet he is bound by a “must”-the Prince Immanuel saith, “them also I must bring.” Whenever Jesus says “must” something comes of it. Who can resist the omnipotent must? Clear out, devils! Clear out, wicked men! Flee, darkness! Die, O death! If Jesus says “must” we know what is going to happen: difficulties vanish, impossibilities are achieved. Glory, glory, the Lord shall get the victory! Jesus says of his chosen, his redeemed, his espoused, his covenanted ones, “Them also I must bring,” and therefore it must be done.

Furthermore, he tells us how he must do it. He says, “They shall hear my voice.” So that our Lord is going to save people still by the gospel. I do not look for any other means of converting men beyond the simple preaching of the gospel and the opening of men’s ears to hear it-“They shall hear my voice.” The old methods are to be followed to the end of the chapter. Our standing orders are,-“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” We are not commissioned to do anything else but continue to preach the gospel, the selfsame gospel which saved us and which was delivered to us at the beginning. We know of no alterations, enlargements, or amendments to the gospel. We obey and follow one voice, not many voices. One gospel of salvation is to be proclaimed everywhere, and no other work is in our commission.

Then it is added, “They shall hear my voice.” It is promised that they shall first lend an attentive ear and then that they shall yield a willing heart to the voice of divine love, and follow Jesus where he leads. “What then,” saith one; “suppose I speak in Christ’s name, and they will not hear?” Do not suppose what cannot be! The Scripture says of the chosen sheep,-“they shall hear my voice.” The rest remain in their blindness, but the redeemed will hear and see. Do not again say, “Suppose they will not!” You must not suppose anything that is contrary to what Jesus promises when he says, “They shall hear my voice.” The graceless may stop their ears if they will, and perish with Christ’s voice as a witness against them, but his own redeemed shall hear the heavenly voice and obey it. There is no resisting this divine necessity: Jesus says-“I must bring them, and they shall hear my voice.” It was with this that Paul turned to the Gentiles, and said to the Jews, “Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.” He had no fear about the reception the word would meet with; neither ought we to entertain any, since Christ has a people who must be led, and shall hear the voice of the Bishop and Shepherd of souls.

We have heard it said that “If Christ must have his people, what is the good of preaching?” What would be the good of preaching if it were otherwise? Why, dear sir, this fact is one great reason why we preach. That which you suppose to be a motive for inaction is the strongest motive for energetic movement. Because the Lord has a people that must be saved we feel an imperious necessity laid upon us to join with him in bringing this people to himself. They must come, and we must fetch them: Christian brethren, do you not feel that you must help in compelling them to come to the Wedding-feast? Is it not laid upon you that you must go after lost souls, that you must speak to them, seeing that you must have a hand in bringing these blood-bought ones to Christ by his Holy Spirit?

And again, are there not some in this place who feel a necessity laid upon them also that they must come? Do I not hear some of you saying, “I have stood out a long while, but I must come; I have resisted divine grace long enough, and now Christ has laid his hand on me, I must come.” How I wish that a heavenly “must,” a blessed necessity of omnipotent decree may overshadow you, and bear you as a sheep to the fold. Oh that you may now yield yourselves unto God because the love of Christ constraineth you. Submit yourselves unto God, owning the supreme authority of his grace, which shall lead every thought into captivity, that henceforth Christ may reign in your hearts, and put every enemy under his feet. He saith, “Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out.” “I will trust him,” saith one; “I feel I must.” Just so; and that trust is a mark of your election of God, for “He that believeth in him hath everlasting life.” “Whom he did predestinate them he also called.” If he is calling you it is because he did predestinate you; and you may rest quite sure of it, and yield to him with holy joy and delight. As for me, I feel so happy in preaching the gospel, because I am not fishing with a “chance” and a “perhaps” that some may come. The Lord knoweth them that are his, and they shall come. Every congregation is, in this sense, a picked assembly. I felt this morning when I came here that there were so many friends out in the country for the holidays that we should very likely have a thin house. I rejoice that I was altogether out in my reckoning, but even then I thought, God has a people that he will bring whom he means to bless. Here they are, and now while standing here I know that God’s word “shall not return to him void, but it shall accomplish that which he pleases, and shall prosper in the thing whereto he hath sent it.”

But now, lastly, our Lord guarantees the unity of his church. “Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.” We hear a great deal about the unity of the church, and notions upon this subject are rather wild. We are to have the Roman and the Greek and the Anglican church all joined together in one: if they were so, the result would not be worth two-pence; but much evil would come of it. God has, I doubt not, a chosen people amongst all these three great corporations, but the union of such questionable organizations would be a dire omen of mischief to the world: the dark ages, and a worse Popedom than ever, would soon be upon us. The more those three quarrel with each other the better for truth and righteousness. I should like to see the Anglican Church standing at drawn daggers with the Roman, and coming into a more and more open opposition to its superstitions. I would to God that the national church would in all things be delivered from the Pope of Rome and his Antichristian enormities.

Truly, this has been carried out as a matter of fact; there never was but one Shepherd of the sheep yet, even Christ Jesus; and there never was but one flock of God yet, and there never will be. There is one spiritual church of God, and there never were two. All the visible churches up and down the world contain within themselves parts of the one church of Jesus Christ, but there were never two bodies of Christ, and there cannot be. There is one church, and there is one Head of the church: the motto of Christianity is,-one flock and one Shepherd.

As a matter of experience this is carried out in believers. I do not care who the man is, if he is a truly spiritually-minded man he is one with all other spiritually-minded men. Those people in any visible church who have no grace are usually the greatest sticklers for every point of difference and ever particle of rite and form. Nominal professors are soon at war, quickened believers follow after peace. Of course, when a man has nothing else but the outside, he fights for it tooth end nail; but a man who loves the Lord, and lives near him, perceives the inner life in others, and has fellowship therewith: that inner life is one in all the quickened family, and compels them to be one in heart. Set two brethren at prayer, the one a Calvinist and the other an Arminian, and they pray alike. Get a real work of the Spirit in a district and see how Baptists and Pædo-Baptists pull together. Tell out your inward experience and speak of the Spirit’s work in the soul, and see how we are all moved thereby. Here is a brother, a member of the Society of Friends, and he likes silent worship; and here is another who enjoys hearty singing; but when they get near to God they do not quarrel over this, but agree to differ: the one says, “The Lord be with you in your holy silence,” and the other prays that the Lord may accept his brother’s psalm. All who are one with Christ have a certain family feeling, a higher form of clannishness, and they cannot shake it off. I have found myself reading a gracious book which has drawn me near to God, and though I have known that it was written by a man with whose opinions I had little agreement, I have not therefore refused to be edified by him in points which are unquestionably revealed. No, but I have blessed the Lord that, with all his blunders, he knew so much of precious vital truth, and lived so near his Lord. What Protestant can refuse to love the holy Bernard? Was there ever a more consecrated servant of God or a dearer lover of Christ than he? Yet he was most sorrowfully in bondage to the superstitions of his age and of the Romish Church. Are you not all one with him who sang-

“Jesus, the very thought of thee

With sweetness fills my breast;

But sweeter far thy face to see,

And in Thy presence rest”?

The external church is needful, but it is not the one and indivisible church of Christ. Jesus as the life binds his church together, and that life flows through all the regenerate, even as the blood flows through all the veins of the body. Drop the external, and look by faith into the spiritual realm and you will see one flock and one Shepherd.

The practical lesson is, let us belong to that one flock. How are they known? Answer: they are a hearing flock-they hear the Lord and follow his lead. Be you one of those who listen to Christ’s voice, and to none besides. Keep to the one Shepherd! How do you know him? It is Jesus: in his feet and hands are nail-prints, and his side bears yet the scar. He it is who leads the one only flock. Follow Jesus and you are right. Follow him everywhere and you are happy. The best way to promote the unity of the church is for all the sheep to follow the Shepherd. If they all follow the Shepherd they will all keep together. Let us go forth and try and do that, and let us long for that happy day when all disputed points shall be settled by all obeying the Lord. Compromises would only mean an agreement to disobey the Lord. Let no man yield a principle under pretence of charity: it is not charity to call falsehood truth. We must follow Jesus fully, and we shall come together. First pure then peaceable is the rule. Oh, when shall the triple banner again float over all,-“One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism!” Oh, God the Holy Ghost, forgive us our errors, and bring us to thy truth! Oh, God the Son, forgive us our want of holiness, and renew us in thine own image! Oh, God the Father, forgive us our want of love, and melt us into one family. To the one God be glory, in the one church, for ever and ever. Amen.

EARNEST EXPOSTULATION

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, April 1st, 1883, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”-Romans 2:4.

The apostle is intensely personal in his address. This verse is not spoken to us all in the mass, but to some one in particular. The apostle fixes his eyes upon a single person, and speaks to him as “Thee” and “Thou.” “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” It should ever be the intent of the preacher to convey his message to each hearer in his own separate individuality. It is always a very happy sign when a man begins to think of himself as an individual, and when the expostulations and invitations of the gospel are seen by him to be directed to himself personally. I will give nothing for that indirect, essay-like preaching which is as the sheet lightning of summer, dazzling for the moment, and flaming over a broad expanse, but altogether harmless, since no bolt is launched from it, and its ineffectual fires leave no trace behind. I will give nothing for that kind of hearing which consists in the word being heard by everybody in general, and by no one in particular. It is when the preacher can “Thee” and “Thou” his hearers that he is likely to do them good. When each man is made to say, “This is for me,” then the power of God is present in the word. One personal, intentional touch of the hem of Christ’s garment conveys more blessing than all the pressure of the crowd that thronged about the Master. The laying of his healing hand upon the individual who was suffering had more virtue in it than all those heavenly addresses which fell from his lips upon minds that did not receive the truth for themselves. I do pray that we may come to personal dealings with the Lord each one for himself, and that the Spirit of God may convince each man and each woman, according as the case may stand before the living God. O my hearer, thou art now to be lovingly spoken with: I speak not to you as unto many, but unto thee, as one by thyself.

Observe that the apostle singled out an individual who had condemned others for transgressions, in which he himself indulged. This man owned so much spiritual light that he knew right from wrong, and he diligently used his knowledge to judge others, condemning them for their transgressions. As for himself, he preferred the shade, where no fierce light might beat on his own conscience and disturb his unholy peace. His judgment was spared the pain of dealing with his home offences by being set to work upon the faults of others. He had a candle, but he did not place it on the table to light his own room; he held it out at the front door to inspect therewith his neighbours who passed by. Ho! my good friend, my sermon is for thee. Paul looks this man in the face and says, “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whoever thou art, that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things:” and then he pointedly says to him: “Thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?” Well did the apostle aim that piercing arrow; it hits the centre of the target and strikes a folly common to mankind. The poet of the night-watches wrote,-

“All men think all men mortal but themselves.”

As truly might I say, “All men think all men guilty but themselves.” The punishment which is due to sin the guilty reckon to be surely impending upon others, but they scarce believe that it can ever fall upon themselves. A personal doom for themselves is an idea which they will not harbour: if the dread thought should light upon them they shake it off as men shake snow-flakes from their cloaks. The thought of personal guilt, judgment, and condemnation is inconvenient; it breeds too much trouble within, and so they refuse it lodging. Vain men go maundering on their way, whispering of peace and safety; doting as if God had passed an act of amnesty and oblivion for them, and had made for them an exception to all the rules of justice, and all the manner of his courts. Do men indeed believe that they alone shall go unpunished? No man will subscribe to that notion when it is written down in black and white, and yet the mass of men live as if this were true; I mean the mass of men who have sufficient light to condemn sin in others. They start back from the fact of their own personal guiltiness and condemnation, and go on in their ungodliness as if there were no great white throne for them, no last assize, no judge, no word of condemnation, and no hell of wrath. Alas, poor madmen, thus to dream! O Spirit of Truth, save them from this fatal infatuation.

Sin is always on the downward grade, so that when a man proceeds a certain length he inevitably goes beyond it. The person addressed by the apostle first thought to escape judgment, and then he came to think lightly of the goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering of God. He thinks he shall escape in the future, and because of that he despises the present goodness and longsuffering of the Most High. Of course he does. If he does not believe in the terrors of the world to come for himself, he naturally reckons it to be a small thing to have been spared their immediate experience. Barren tree as he is, he does not believe that he will ever be cut down, and therefore he feels no gratitude to the dresser of the vineyard for pleading, “Let it alone yet another year, till I dig about it, and dung it.” I wish, as God shall help me, to drive hard at the consciences of men upon this matter. I would be to you, my careless friend, what Jonah was to Nineveh: I would warn you, and bestir you to repentance. Oh that the Holy Ghost would make this sermon effectual for the arousing of every unsaved soul that shall hear or read it!

First, let me speak this morning to thee, O unregenerate, impenitent man, concerning the goodness of God which thou hast experienced. Thou hast known the goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering of God. According to the text, “riches” of these have been spent upon unconverted, ungodly men, and upon thee as one of them. Let me speak with thee first, O man, and remind thee how favoured thou hast been of God by being made a partaker of “the riches of his goodness.” In many cases this is true of temporal things Men may be without the fear of God, and yet, for all that, God may be pleased to prosper their endeavours in business. They succeed almost beyond their expectation-I mean some of them; probably the description applies to thee. They rise from the lowest position, and accumulate about them the comforts and luxuries of life. Though they have no religion, they have wit, and prudence, and thrift, and so they compete with others, and God permits them to be winners in the race for wealth. Moreover, he allows them to enjoy good health, vigour of mind, and Strength of constitution: they are happy in the wife of their youth, and their children are about them. Theirs is an envied lot. Death seems for awhile forbidden to knock at their door, even though he has been ravaging the neighbourhood; even sickness does not molest their household. They are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Abraham had to prepare a Machpelah, and David mourned over his sons; but these have had to make scant provision for family sepulchre: a hedge has in very deed been set about them and all that they have. I know that it is thus with many who do not love God, and have never yielded to the entreaties of his grace. They love not the hand which enriches them, they praise not the Lord who daily loadeth them with benefits. How is it that men can receive such kindness, and yield no return? O sirs, you are to-day blessed with all that need requires; but I pray you remember that you might have been in the depths of poverty. An illness would have lost you your situation; or a slight turn in trade would have left you bankrupt. You are well to-day; but you might have been tossing to and fro upon a bed of sickness; you might have been in the hospital, about to lose a limb. Shall not God be praised for health and freedom from pain? You might have been shut up in yonder asylum, in the agonies of madness. A thousand ills have been kept from you; you have been exceedingly favoured by the goodness of the Most High. Is it not so? And truly it is a wonderful thing that God should give his bread to those that lift up their heel against him, that he should cause his light to shine upon those who never perceive his goodness therein, that he should multiply his mercies upon ungodly men who only multiply their rebellions against him, and turn the gifts of his love into instruments of transgression.

Furthermore, this goodness of God has not only come to you in a temporal form, O impenitent man, but it has also visited you in a spiritual manner. Myriads of our fellow men have never had an opportunity of knowing Christ. The missionary’s foot has never trodden the cities wherein they dwell, and so they die in the dark. Multitudes are going downward, downward; but they do not know the upward road: their minds have never been enlightened by the teachings of God’s word, and hence they sin with less grievousness of fault. You are placed in the very focus of Christian light, and yet you follow evil! Will you not think of this? Time was when a man would have to work for years to earn enough money to buy a Bible. There were times when he could not have earned one even with that toil: now the word of God lies upon your table, you have a copy of it in almost every room of your house; is not this a boon from God? This is the land of the open Bible, and the land of the preached word of God: in this you prove the riches of God’s goodness. Do you despise this wealth of mercy? Possibly you have enjoyed the further privilege of sitting under a ministry which has been particularly plain and earnest: you have not had sermons preached before you, they have been preached at you: the minister has seized upon you and tugged at your conscience, as though he would force you to the Saviour. With cries and entreaties you have been invited to your heavenly Father, and yet you have not come. Is this a small thing?

What is more, you have been favoured with a tender conscience. When you do wrong you know it, and smart for it. What mean those wakeful nights after you have yielded to a temptation? What means that miserable feeling of shame? that fever of unrest? You find it hard to stifle the inward monitor, and difficult to resist the Spirit of God. Your road to perdition is made peculiarly hard; do you mean to follow it at all costs, and go over hedge and ditch to hell?

You have not only been aroused by conscience, but the good Spirit has striven with you, and have been almost persuaded to be a Christian. Such has been the blessed work of the Spirit upon your heart that you have at times been melted down, and ready to be moulded by grace. A strange softness has come over you, and if you had not gathered up all your evil strength, and if the devil had not helped you to resist, you had by this time dropped into the Saviour’s arms. Oh, the riches of the goodness of God to have thus wooed you, and pressed his love upon you! You have scarcely had a stripe, or a frown, or an ill word from God; his ways have been all kindness, and gentleness, and longsuffering from the first day of your memory even until now. “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness?” O man, answer this, I implore thee.

The apostle then dwells upon the riches of “forbearance.” Forbearance comes in when men having offended, God withholds the punishment that is due to them; when men, having been invited to mercy, have refused it, and yet God continues to stretch out his hands, and invite them to come to him. Patient endurance of offences and insults has been manifested by God to many of you, who now hear these words of warning. The Lord knows to whom I speak and may he make you, also, know that I am speaking to you, even to you. Some men have gone back to the very sin of which for awhile they repented: they have suffered for their folly, but have turned again to it with suicidal determination. They are desperately set on their own ruin, and nothing can save them. The burnt child has run to the fire again; the singed moth has plunged again into the flame of the candle: who can pity such self-inflicted miseries? They are given over to perdition, for they will not be warned. They have returned to the haunt of vice, though they seemed to have been snatched from the deep ditch of its filthiness. They have wantonly and wilfully returned to their cups, though the poison of former draughts is yet burning in their veins. Yet, despite this folly, God shows forbearance towards them. They have grievously provoked him when they have done despite to his word, and have even turned to laughter the solemnities of his worship, against their own consciences, and to their own confusion: yet when his hand has been lifted up he has withdrawn it in mercy. See how God has always tempered his providence with kindness to them. He laid them low so that they were sore sick, but at the voice of their moaning he restored them. They trembled on the brink of death, yet he permitted them to recover strength; and now, despite their vows of amendment, here they are, callous and careless, unmindful of the mercy which gave them a reprieve.

Did you ever think what is included in the riches of forbearance. There are quick tempered individuals who only need to be a little provoked, and hard words and blows come quick and furious: but, oh, the forbearance of God when he is provoked to his face by ungodly men! By men, I mean, who hear his word, and yet refuse it! They slight his love, and yet he perseveres in it. Justice lays its hand on the sword, but mercy holds it back in its scabbard. Well might each spared one say,-

“O unexhausted Grace

O Love unspeakable!

I am not gone to my own place;

I am not yet in hell!

Earth doth not open yet,

My soul to swallow up:

And, hanging o’er the burning pit,

I still am forced to hope.”

Our apostle adds to goodness and forbearance the riches of “long-suffering.” We draw a distinction between forbearance and long-suffering. Forbearance has to do with the magnitude of sin; long-suffering with the multiplicity of it: forbearance has to do with present provocation; long-suffering relates to that provocation repeated, and continued for a length of time. Oh, how long doth God suffer the ill manners of men! Forty years long was he grieved with that generation whose carcases fell in the wilderness. Has it come to forty years yet with you, dear hearer? Possibly it may have passed even that time, and a half-century of provocation may have gone into eternity to bear witness against you. What if I should even have to say that sixty and seventy years have continued to heap up the loads of their transgressions, until the Lord saith, “I am pressed down under your sins; as a cart that is full of sheaves I am pressed down under you.” Yet for all that, here you are on praying ground and pleading terms with God; here you are where yet the Saviour reigns upon the throne of grace; here you are where mercy is to be had for the asking, where free grace and dying love ring out their charming bells of invitation to joy and peace! Oh, the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering. Threefold is the claim: will you not regard it? Can you continue to despise it?

I should like to set all this in a striking light if I could, and therefore I would remind you of who and what that God is who has exhibited this goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering to men. Remember how great he is. When men insult a great prince the offence is thought to be highly heinous. If anyone should openly insult our own beloved Queen, and continue to do so, all the nation would be clamorous to have the impertinence ended speedily. We cannot bear that a beloved ruler should be publicly insulted. And what think you of the sin which provokes God? which to his face defies him? and in his very courts resists him? Shall this always be forborne with? Is there not a limit to longsuffering? Goodness also adds another item to the provocation; for we naturally say, “Why should one so good be treated so cruelly?” If God were a tyrant, if he were unrighteous or unkind, it were not so much amiss that men stood out against him; but when his very name is love, and when he manifests the bowels of a Father towards his wandering children it is shameful that he should be so wantonly provoked. Those words of Jesus were extremely touching when he pointed to his miracles, and asked, “For which of these things do you stone me?” When I think of God I may well say-for which of his deeds do you provoke him? Every morning he draws the curtain and glads the earth with light, and gives you eyes to see it; he sends his rain upon the ground to bring forth bread for man, and he gives you life to eat thereof-is this a ground for revolting from him? Every single minute of our life is cheered with the tender kindness of God, and every spot is gladdened with his love. I wonder that the Lord does not sweep away the moral nuisance of a guilty race from off the face of earth. Man’s sin must have been terribly offensive to God from day to day, and yet still he shows kindness, love, forbearance. This adds an excessive venom to man’s disobedience. How can he grieve such goodness? How can divine goodness fail to resent such base ingratitude?

Think also of God’s knowledge; for he knows all the transgressions of men. “What the eye does not see the heart does not rue,” is a truthful proverb; but every transgression is committed in the very presence of God, so that penitent David cried, “Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” Transgression is committed in the sight of God, from whose eyes nothing is hidden. Remember also, that the Lord never can forget; before his eyes all things stand out in clear light, not only the things of to-day, but all the transgressions of a life. Yet for all this he doth forbear. With evil reeking before his face, he is slow to anger, and waiteth that he may be gracious.

All this while, remember, the Lord is great in power. Some are patient because they are powerless: they bear and forbear because they cannot well help themselves; but it is not so with God. Had he but willed it, you had been swept into hell; only a word from him and the impenitent had fallen in the wilderness, and their spirits would have passed into the realms of endless woe. In a moment the Lord could have eased him of his adversary; he could have stopped that flippant tongue, and closed that lustful eye in an instant. That wicked heart would have failed to beat if God had withdrawn his power, and that rebellious breath would have ceased also. Had it not been for long-suffering you unbelievers would long since have known what it is to fall into the hands of an angry God. Will you continue to grieve the God who so patiently bears with you?

Be it never forgotten that sin is to God much more intolerable than it is to us. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Things which we call little sins are great and grievous evils to him: they do, as it were, touch the apple of his eye. “Oh, do not,” he says, “do not this abominable thing that I hate!” His Spirit is grieved and vexed with every idle word and every sensual thought; and hence it is a wonder of wonders that a God so sensitive of sin, a God so able to avenge himself of his adversaries, a God who knows the abundance of human evil, and marks it all, should nevertheless exhibit riches of goodness and forbearance and longsuffering: yet this is what you, my ungodly hearer, have been experiencing many a long year. Here let us pause; and oh that each one who is still unsaved would sing most sincerely the words of Watts:-

“Lord, we have long abused thy love,

Too long indulged our sin,

Our aching hearts e’en bleed to see

What rebels we have been.

“No more, ye lusts, shall ye command,

No more will we obey;

Stretch out, O God, thy conqu’ring hand,

And drive thy foes away.”

Come with me, friend, and let me speak to thee of the sin of which thou art suspected. Hear me, unconverted sinner: the sin of which thou art suspected is this,-“Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering?” The Lord’s goodness ought to be admired and to be adored, and dost thou despise it? His goodness ought to be wondered at and told as a marvel in the ears of others, and dost thou despise it? That I may rake thy conscience a little, lend me thine ear.

Some despise God’s goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, because they never even gave a thought to it. God has given you life to keep you in being, and he has indulged you with his kindness, but it has not yet occurred to you that this patience is at all remarkable or worthy of the smallest thanks. You have been a drunkard, have you? a swearer? a Sabbath-breaker? a lover of sinful pleasure? Perhaps not quite so; but still you have forgotten God altogether, and yet he has abounded in goodness to you: is not this a great wrong? The Lord saith, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but these my creatures do not know, my favoured ones do not consider.” Why, you have no such forbearance with others as God has had with you. You would not keep a dog if it never followed at your heel, but snarled at you: you would not even keep a potter’s vessel if it held no water, and was of no service to you; you would break it in pieces, and throw it on the dunghill. As for yourself, you are fearfully and wonderfully made, both as to your body and as to your soul, and yet you have been of no service to your Maker, nor even thought of being of service to him. Still, he has spared you all these years, and it has never occurred to you that there has been any wonderful forbearance in it. Assuredly, O man, thou despisest the long-suffering of thy God.

Others have, perhaps, thought of it, but have never seriously meditated thereon. When we offend a man, if we are right-minded, we not only note the fact with regret, but we sit down and weigh the matter, and seek to rectify it; for we would not be unjust to any person, and if we felt that we had been acting unfairly it would press upon our minds until we could make amends. But are there not some of you who have never given half an hour’s consideration to your relation to your God? He has spared you all this while, and yet it has never occurred to you to enter into your chamber and sit down and consider your conduct towards him. It would seem to be too much trouble even to think of your Creator. His longsuffering leads you to repentance, but you have not repented; in fact, you have not thought it worth your while to consider the question at all: you have thought it far more important to enquire, “What shall I eat and what shall I drink?” Bread and broadcloth have shut out the thought of God. Ah me, you will stand at his judgment bar before long-and then? Perhaps ere this week is finished you may have to answer, not to me, but unto him that sits upon the throne; therefore I do implore you now, for the first time give this matter thought. Despise no longer the goodness and long-suffering of God.

This longsuffering is despised, further, by those who have imagined that God does not take any great account of what they do. So long as they do not go into gross and open sin, and offend the laws of their country, they do not believe that it is of any consequence whether they love God or not, whether they do righteousness or not, whether they are sober and temperate, or drunken and wanton; whether they are clean in heart by God’s Spirit, or defiled in soul and life. Thou thinkest that God is altogether such an one as thyself, and that he will wink at thy transgression and cover up thy sin; but thou shalt not find it so. That base thought proves that thou despisest his longsuffering.

Some even get to think that the warnings of love are so much wind, and that the threatenings of God will never be fulfilled. They have gone on for many years without being punished, and instead of drawing the conclusion that the longer the blow is in falling the heavier it will be when it does come, they imagine that because it is long delayed the judgment will never come at all; and so they sport and trifle between the jaws of death and hell. They hear warnings as if they were all moonshine, and fancy that this holy Book, with its threatenings, is but a bugbear to keep fools quiet. If thou thinkest so, sir, then indeed thou hast despised the goodness and forbearance and longsuffering of God. Do you imagine that this forbearance will last for ever? Do you dream that at least it will continue with you for many years? I know your secret thoughts: you see other men die suddenly, but your secret thought is that you will have long space and ample time: you hear of one struck down with paralysis, and another carried off by apoplexy, but you flatter yourselves that you will have plenty of leisure to think about these things. Oh, how can you be so secure? How can you thus tempt the Lord? False prophets in these evil days play into men’s hands and hold out the hope that you may go into the next world wrong, and yet be set right in the end. This is a vile flattery of your wicked hearts; but yet remember that even according to their maunderings centuries may elapse before this fancied restoration may occur. A sensible man would not like to run the risk of even a year of agony. Half-an-hour of acute pain is dreaded by most people. Can it be that the very men who start back from the dentist’s door, afraid of the pinch which extricates an aching tooth, will run the risk of years of misery? Take the future of the impenitent even on this footing, it is a thing to be dreaded, and by every means avoided. I say, these flattering prophets themselves, if rightly understood, give you little enough of hope; but what will come to you if the old doctrine proves to be true and you go away into everlasting fire in hell, as the Scripture puts it? Will you live an hour in jeopardy of such a doom? Will you so despise the longsuffering and forbearance of the Lord?

I will not enlarge and use many words, for I am myself weary of words: I want to persuade you even with tears. My whole soul would attract you to your God, your Father. I would come to close quarters with you, and say,-Do you not think that, even though you fall into no doctrinal error, and indulge no hazy hope as to either restitution or annihilation, yet still it is a dreadful despising of God’s mercy when you keep on playing with God, and saying to his grace, “Go thy way for this time; when I have a more convenient season I will send for thee”? The more gentle God is the more you procrastinate, and the more in tenderness he speaks of pardon the more you transgress. Is this generous? Is it right? Is it wise? Can it be a fit and proper thing to do? Oh, my dear hearer, why will you act thus shamefully? Some of you delight to come and hear me preach, and drink in all I have to say, and you will even commend me for being earnest with your souls; and yet, after all, you will not decide for God, for Christ, for heaven. You are between good and evil, neither cold nor hot. I would ye were either cold or hot; I could even wish that ye either thought this word of mine to be false, or else that, believing it to be true, you at once acted upon it. How can you incur the double guilt of offending God and of knowing that it is an evil thing to do so? You reject Christ, and yet admit that he ought to be received by you! You speak well of a gospel which you will not accept for yourselves! You believe great things of a Saviour whom you will not have to be your Saviour! Jesus himself says, “If I tell you the truth, why do you not believe me?”

“Despisest thou the longsuffering of God?” Dare you do it? I tremble as I think of a man despising God’s goodness. Is not this practical blasphemy? Darest thou do it? Oh, if thou hast done it hitherto, do it no more. Ere you sun goes down again, say within thy heart, “I will be a despiser of God’s goodness no longer; I will arise and go unto my Father, and I will say unto him,-Father, I have sinned. I will not rest until in the precious blood he has washed my sins away.”

In closing this sermon I desire to remind thee, O ungodly man, of the knowledge of which thou art forgetful. Read my text:-“Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” Now there are many here who know as a matter of doctrine that the goodness of God leads them to repentance, and yet they do not know it as a practical truth affecting their lives: indeed, they so act that it is not true to them at all. Yet, if they do not know this they are wilfully ignorant; not willing to retain in their minds a fact so disagreeable to them. None are so blind as those who will not see: but he who does not see, and yet hath eyes, has a criminality about his blindness which is not found in that of those who have no sight. Dear hearer, whether you know this truth or not, I would remind you that God’s patience with you is meant to lead you to repentance. “How?” say you. Why, first by giving you an opportunity to repent. These years, which are now coming to a considerable number with you, have been given you in order that you might turn to God. By the time you were twenty-one you had sinned quite enough; perhaps you had even then begun to mislead other youths, and to instruct in evil those under your influence. Why did not God take you away at once? It might have been for the benefit of the world if he had done so; but yet you were spared till you were thirty. Did not each year of your lengthened life prove that the Lord was saying “I will spare him, for perhaps he will yet amend and think upon his God. I will give him more light, and increase his comforts; I will give him better teaching, better preaching; peradventure he will repent.” Yet you have not done so. Have you lived to be forty, and are you where you were when you were twenty? Are you still out of Christ? Then you are worse than you were; for you have sinned more deeply and you have provoked the Lord more terribly. You have now had space enough. What more do you need? When the child has offended, you say, “Child, unless you beg pardon at once, I must punish you”: would you give a boy so many minutes to repent in as God has given you years? I think not. If a servant is continually robbing you; if he is careless, slothful, disobedient, you say to him, “I have passed over your faults several times, but one of these days I shall discharge you. I cannot always put up with this slovenliness, this blundering, this idleness: one of these times you will have to go.” Have you not so spoken to your female servant, and thought it kind on your part to give her another chance? The Lord has said the same to you; yet here you are, a living but impenitent man; spared, but spared only to multiply your transgressions. This know, that his forbearance gives you an opportunity to repent; do not turn it into an occasion for hardening your heart.

But next, the Lord in this is pleased to give a suggestion to you to repent. It seems to me that every morning when a man wakes up still impenitent, and finds himself out of hell, the sunlight seems to say, “I shine on thee yet another day, as that in this day thou mayest repent.” When your bed receives you at night I think it seems to say, “I will give you another night’s rest, that you may live to turn from your sins and trust in Jesus.” Every mouthful of bread that comes to the table says, “I have to support your body that still you may have space for repentance.” Every time you open the Bible the pages say, “We speak with you that you may repent.” Every time you hear a sermon, if it be such a sermon as God would have us preach, it pleads with you to turn unto the Lord and live. Surely the time past of your life may suffice you to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. “The times of your ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth men everywhere to repent.” Do not life and death, and heaven and hell, call upon you so to do? Thus you have in God’s goodness space for repentance, and a suggestion to repent.

But something more is here; for I want you to notice that the text does not say, “The goodness of God calleth thee to repentance,” but “leadeth thee.” This is a much stronger word. God calls to repentance by the gospel; God leads to repentance by his goodness. It is as though he plucked at your sleeve and said, “Come this way.” His goodness lays its gentle hand on you, drawing you with cords of love and bands of a man. God’s forbearance cries, “Why wilt thou hate me? What wrong have I done thee? I have spared thee; I have spared thy wife and children to thee; I have raised thee up from the bed of sickness; I have loaded thy board; I have filled thy wardrobe; I have done thee a thousand good turns; wherefore dost thou disobey me? Turn unto thy God and Father, and live in Christ Jesus.”

If, on the other hand, you have not received rich temporal favours, yet the Lord still leads you to repentance by a rougher hand; as when the prodigal fain would have filled his belly with husks, but could not, and the pangs of hunger came upon him; those pains were a powerful message from the Father to lead him to the home where there was bread enough and to spare. “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” Oh, that thou wouldest yield to its sweet leadings, and follow as a child follows the guidance of a nurse. Let thy crosses lead thee to the cross; let thy joys lead thee to find joy in Christ.

Do you not think that all this should encourage you to repent, since God himself leads you that way? If God leads you to repentance he does not mean to cast you away. If he bids you repent, then he is willing to accept your repentance, and to be reconciled to you. If he bids you change your mind, it is because his own mind is love. Repentance implies a radical change in your view of things, and in your estimate of matters; it is a change in your purposes, a change in your thoughts and in your conduct. If the Lord leads you that way he will help you in it. Follow his gracious leading till his divine Spirit shall lead you with still greater power and still greater efficacy, till at last you find that he has wrought in you both repentance and faith, and you are saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. If “the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance,” then be sure of this, that the goodness of God will receive thee when thou dost repent, and thou shalt live in his sight as his well-beloved and forgiven child.

I close now, but I am sorry so to do, for I have not pleaded one-half as I could have wished. Yet what more can I say? I will put it to yourselves. If you were in God’s stead, could you bear to be treated as you have treated him? If you were all goodness and tenderness, and had borne with a creature now for thirty or forty years, how would you bear to see that creature still stand out, and even draw an inference from your gentleness to encourage him in his rebellion? Would you not say, “Well, if my longsuffering makes him think little of sin, I will change my hand. If tenderness cannot win him, I must leave him; if even my love does not affect him, I will let him alone. He is given unto his evil ways-I will cease from him, and see what his end will be”? O Lord, say not so, say not so unto anyone in this house, but of thy great mercy make this day to be as the beginning of life to many. Oh that hearts may be touched with pity for their slighted Saviour, that they may seek his face! Here is the way of salvation: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” You know how the Master bade us put it. “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature: he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” First, we are to preach faith, whereby we lay hold on Christ; then baptism, whereby we confess that faith, and own that we are dead and buried with Christ that we may live with him in newness of life. Those are the two points he bids us set before you, and I do set them before you. Weary, but not quite wearied out, O impenitent man, I plead with thee! Though thou hast so often been pleaded with in vain, once more I speak with thee in Christ’s stead, and say-Repent of thy sin, look to thy Saviour, and confess thy faith in his own appointed way. I verily believe that if I had been pleading with some of you to save the life of a dog I should have prevailed with you a great while ago. And will you not care about the saving of your own souls? Oh, strange infatuation-that men will not consent to be themselves saved; but foolishly, madly, hold out against the mercy of God which leads them to repentance. God bless you, beloved, and may none of you despise his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Luke 13:1-17, 24-30.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-103, 516, 518.

Might not the distribution of this sermon be useful? If the Christian reader think so, will he favour the preacher by placing copies of it in the hands of persons who need just such appeals. The prayers of God’s people are entreated that this discourse may bear fruit unto life eternal.