C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”-John 11:24-26.

Martha is a very accurate type of a class of anxious believers. They do believe truly, but not with such confidence as to lay aside their care. They do not distrust the Lord, or question the truth of what he says, yet they puzzle their brain about “How shall this thing be?” and so they miss the major part of the present comfort which the word of the Lord would minister to their hearts if they received it more simply. How? and why? belong unto the Lord. It is his business to arrange matters so as to fulfil his own promises. If we would sit at our Lord’s feet with Mary, and consider what he has promised, we should choose a better part than if we ran about with Martha, crying. “How can these things be?”

Martha, you see, in this case, when the Lord Jesus Christ told her that her brother would rise again, replied, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” She was a type, I say, of certain anxious believers, for she set a practical bound to the Saviour’s words. “Of course there will be a resurrection, and then my brother will rise with the rest.” She concluded that the Saviour could not mean anything beyond that. The first meaning and the commonest meaning that suggests itself to her must be what Jesus means. Is not that the way with many of us? We had a statesman once, and a good man too, who loved reform; but whenever he had accomplished a little progress, he considered that all was done. We called him at last “Finality John,” for he was always coming to an ultimatum, and taking for his motto “Rest, and be thankful.” Into that style Christian people too frequently drop with regard to the promises of God. We limit the Holy One of Israel as to the meaning of his words. Of course they mean so much, but we cannot allow that they intend more. It were well if the spirit of progress would enter into our faith, so that we felt within our souls that we had never beheld the innermost glory of the Lord’s words of grace. We often wonder that the disciples put such poor meanings upon our Lord’s words, but I fear we are almost as far off as they were from fully comprehending all his gracious teachings. Are we not still as little children, making little out of great words? Have we grasped as yet a tithe of our Lord’s full meaning, in many of his sayings of love? When he is talking of bright and sparkling gems of benediction, we are thinking of common pebble-stones in the brook of mercy; when he speaketh of stars and heavenly crowns, we think of sparks and childish coronals of fading flowers. Oh that we could but have our intellect cleared; better still, could have our understanding expanded, or, best of all, our faith increased, so as to reach to the height of our Lord’s great arguments of love!

Martha also had another fault in which she was very like ourselves: she laid the words of Jesus on the shelf, as things so trite and sure that they were of small practical importance. “Thy brother shall rise again.” Now, if she had possessed faith enough, she might truthfully have said, “Lord, I thank thee for that word! I expect within a short space to see him sitting at the table with thee. I put the best meaning possible upon thy words, for I know that thou art always better than I can think thee to be; and therefore I expect to see my beloved Lazarus walk home from the sepulchre before the sun sets again.” But no, she lays the truth aside as a matter past all dispute, and says, “I know that my brother shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” A great many precious truths are laid up by us like the old hulks in the Medway, never to see service any more, or like aged pensioners at Chelsea, as relics of the past. We say “Yes, quite true, we fully believe that doctrine.” Somehow it is almost as bad to lay up a doctrine in lavender as it is to throw it out of window. When you so believe a truth as to put it to bed and smother it with the bolster of neglect, it is much the same as if you did not believe it at all. An official belief is very much akin to infidelity. Some persons never question a doctrine: that is not their line of temptation; they accept the gospel as true, but then they never expect to see its promises practically carried out; it is a proper thing to believe, but by no means a prominent, practical factor in actual life. It is true but it is mysterious, misty, mythical, far removed from the realm of practical common sense. We do with the promises often as a poor old couple did with a precious document, which might have cheered their old age had they used it according to its real value. A gentleman stepping into a poor woman’s house saw framed and glazed upon the wall a French note for a thousand francs. He said to the old folks, “How came you by this?” They informed him that a poor French soldier had been taken in by them and nursed until he died, and he had given them that little picture when he was dying as a memorial of him. They thought it such a pretty souvenir that they had framed it, and there it was adorning the cottage wall. They were greatly surprised when they were told that it was worth a sum which would be quite a little fortune for them if they would but turn it into money. Are we not equally unpractical with far more precious things? Have you not certain of the words of your great Lord framed and glazed in your hearts, and do you not say to yourselves, “They are so sweet and precious”? and yet you have never turned them into actual blessing-never used them in the hour of need. You have done as Martha did when she took the words, “Thy brother shall rise again,” and put round about them this handsome frame,” in the resurrection at the last day.” Oh that we had grace to turn God’s bullion of gospel into current coin, and use them as our present spending money.

Moreover, Martha made another blunder, and that was selling the promise in the remote distance. This is a common folly, this distancing the promises of the Most High. “In the resurrection at the last day”-no doubt she thought it a very long way off, and therefore she did not get much comfort out of it. Telescopes are meant to bring objects near to the eye, but I have known people use the mental telescope in the wrong way: they always put the big end of it to their eye, and then the glass sends the object further away. Her brother was to be raised that very day: she might so have understood the Saviour, but instead of it she looked at his words through the wrong end of the glass, and said, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Brethren, do not refuse the present blessing. Death and heaven, or the advent and the glory, are at your doors. A little while and he that will come shall come, and will not tarry. Think not that the Lord is slack concerning his promise. Do not say in your heart, “My Lord delayeth his coming”; or dream that his words of love are only for the dim future. In the ages to come marvels shall be revealed, but even the present hour is bejewelled with loving-kindness. To-day the Lord has rest, and peace, and joy to give to you. Lose not these treasures by unbelief.

Martha also appears to me to have made the promise unreal and impersonal. “Thy brother shall rise again”: to have realised that would have been a great comfort to her, but she mixes Lazarus up with all the rest of the dead. “Yes, he will rise in the resurrection at the last day; when thousands of millions shall be rising from their graves, no doubt Lazarus will rise with the rest.” That is the way with us; we take the promise and say, “This is true to all the children of God.” If so it is true to us; but we miss that point. What a blessing God has bestowed upon the covenanted people! Yes, and you are one of them: but you shake your head, as if the word was not for you. It is a fine feast, and yet you are hungry; it is a full and flowing stream, but you remain thirsty. Why is this? Somehow the generality of your apprehension misses the sweetness which comes of personal appropriation. There is such a thing as speaking of the promises in a magnificent style, and yet being in deep spiritual poverty; as if a man should boast of the wealth of old England, and the vast amount of treasure in the Bank, while he does not possess a penny wherewith to bless himself. In your case you know it is your own fault that you are poor and miserable, for if you would but exercise an appropriating faith you might possess a boundless heritage. If you are a child of God all things are yours, and you may help yourself. If you are hungry at this banquet it is for want of faith: if you are thirsty by the brink of this river it is because you do not stoop down and drink. Behold, God is your portion: the Father is your shepherd, the Son of God is your food, and the Spirit of God is your comforter. Rejoice and be glad, and grasp with the firm hand of a personal faith that royal boon which Jesus sets before you in his promises.

I beg you to observe how the Lord Jesus Christ in great wisdom dealt with Martha. In the first place, he did not grow angry with her. There is not a trace of petula-ce in his speech. He did not say to her, “Martha, I am ashamed of you that you should have such low thoughts of me.” She thought that she was honouring Jesus when she said,-“I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.” Her idea of Jesus was that he was a great prophet who would ask of God and obtain answers to his prayers; she has not grasped the truth of his own personal power to give and sustain life. But the Saviour did not say, “Martha, these are low and grovelling ideas of your Lord and Saviour.” He did not chide her, though she lacked wisdom,-wisdom which she ought to have possessed. I do not think God’s people learn much by being scolded; it is not the habit of the great Lord to scold his disciples, and therefore they do not take it well when his servants take upon themselves to rate them. If ever you meet with one of the Lord’s own who falls far short of the true ideal of the gospel, do not bluster and upbraid. Who taught you what you know? He that has taught you did it of his infinite love and grace and pity, and he was very tender with you, for you were doltish enough; therefore be tender with others, and give them line upon line, even as your Lord was gentle towards you. It ill becomes a servant to lose patience where his Master shows so much.

The Lord Jesus, with gentle spirit, proceeded to teach her more of the things concerning himself. More of Jesus! More of Jesus! That is the sovereign cure for our faults. He revealed himself to her, that in him she might behold reasons for a clearer hope and a more substantial faith. How sweetly fell those words upon her ear: “I am the resurrection and the life”! Not “I can get resurrection by my prayers,” but “I am, myself, the resurrection.” God’s people need to know more of what Jesus is, more of the fulness which it has pleased the Father to place in him. Some of them know quite enough of what they are themselves, and they will break their hearts if they go on reading much longer in that black-letter book: they need, I say, to rest their eyes upon the person of their Lord, and to spy out all the riches of grace which lie hidden in him; then they will pluck up courage, and look forward with surer expectancy. When our Lord said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” he indicated to Martha that resurrection and life were not gifts which he must seek, nor even boons which he must create; but that he himself was the resurrection and the life: these things were wherever he was. He was the author, and giver, and maintainer of life, and that life was himself. He would have her to know that he was himself precisely what she wanted for her brother. She did know a little of the Lord’s power, for she said, “If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,” which being very kindly interpreted might mean, “Lord, thou art the life.” “Ah, but,” saith Jesus, “you must also learn that I am the resurrection! You already admit that if I had been here Lazarus would not have died; I would have you further learn that I being here your brother shall live though he has died; and that when I am with my people none of them shall die for ever, for I am to them the resurrection and the life.” Poor Martha was looking up into the sky for life, or gazing down into the deeps for resurrection, when the Resurrection and the Life stood before her, smiling upon her, and cheering her heavy heart. She had thought of what Jesus might have done if he had been there before; now let her know what he is at the present moment.

Thus I have introduced the text to you, and I pray God the Holy Spirit to bless these prefatory observations; for if we learn only these first lessons we shall not have been here in vain. Let us construe promises in their largest sense, let us regard them as real, and set them down as facts. Let us look to the Promiser, even to Jesus the Lord, and not so much to the difficulties which surround the accomplishment of the promise. In beginning the divine life let us look to Jesus, and in afterwards running the heavenly race let us still be looking unto Jesus, till we see in him our all in all. When both eyes look on Jesus we are in the light; but when we have one eye for him, and one eye for self, all is darkness. Oh, to see him with all our soul’s eyes!

Now, I am going to speak as I am helped of the Spirit; and I shall proceed thus-first, by asking you to view the text as a stream of comfort to Martha and other bereaved persons; and, secondly, to view it as a great deep of comfort to all believers.

First, I long for you to view the text as a stream of comfort to Martha and other bereaved persons.

Observe, in the beginning, that the presence of Jesus Christ means life and resurrection. It meant that to Lazarus. If Jesus comes to Lazarus, Lazarus must live. Had Martha taken the Saviour’s words literally, as she should have done, as I have already told you, she would have had immediate comfort from them; and the Saviour intended her to understand them in that sense. He virtually says, “I am to Lazarus the Power that can make him live again; and I am the Power that can keep him in life. Yea, I am the resurrection and the life.” A statement so understood would have been very comfortable to her. Nothing could have been more so. It would there and then have abolished death so far as her brother was concerned. Somebody says, “But I do not see that this is any comfort to us, for if Jesus be here, yet it is only a spiritual presence, and we cannot expect to see our dear mother, or child, or husband raised from the dead thereby.” I answer that our Lord Jesus is able at this moment to give us back our departed ones, for he is still the resurrection and the life. But let me ask you whether you really wish that Jesus would raise your departed ones from the dead. You say at first, “Of course I do wish it”; but I would ask you to reconsider that decision; for I believe that upon further thought you will say, “No, I could not wish it.” Do you really desire to see your glorified husband sent back again to this world of care and pain? Would you have your father or mother deprived of the glories which they are now enjoying in order that they might help you in the struggles of this mortal life? Would you discrown the saints? You are not so cruel. That dear child, would you have it back from among the angels, and from the inner glory, to come here and suffer again? You would not have it so. And to my mind it is a comfort to you, or should be, that it is not within your power to have it so; because you might be tempted in some selfish moment to accept the doubtful boon. Lazarus could return, and fit into his place again, but scarcely one in ten thousand could do so. There would be serious drawbacks in the return of those whom we have loved best. Do you cry, “Give back my father! Give me back my friend”? You know not what you ask. It might be a cause of regret to you as long as they lingered here, for you would each morning think to yourself, “Beloved one, I have brought you out of heaven by my wish. I have robbed you of infinite felicity to gratify myself.” For my own part, I had rather that the Lord Jesus should keep the keys of death than that he should lend them to me. It would be too dreadful a privilege to be empowered to rob heaven of the perfected merely to give pleasure to imperfect ones below. Jesus would raise them now if he knew it to be right; I do not wish to take the government from his shoulder. It is more comfortable to me to think that Jesus Christ could give them back to me, and would if it were for his glory and my good. My dear ones that lie asleep could be awakened in an instant if the Master thought it best; but it would not be best, and therefore even I would hold his skirt, and say,” Tread softly, Master! Do not arouse them! I shall go to them, but they shall not return to me. It is not my wish they should return: it is better that they should be with thee where thou art, to behold thy glory.” It does not seem to me, then, dear friend, that you are one whit behind Martha; and you ought to be comforted while Jesus says to you,” I am even now the resurrection and the life.”

Furthermore, here is comfort which we may each one safely take, namely, that when Jesus comes the dead shall live. The Revised Version has it, “He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live.” We do not know when our Lord will descend from heaven, but we do know the message of the angel, “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” The Lord will come; we may not question the certainty of his appearing. When he cometh, all his redeemed shall live with him. The trump of the archangel shall startle the happy sleepers, and they shall wake to put on their beauteous array; the body transformed and made like unto Christ’s glorious body shall be once more wrapt about them as the vesture of their perfected and emancipated spirits. Then our brother shall rise again, and all our dear ones who have fallen asleep in Jesus the Lord will bring with him. This is the glorious hope of the church, wherein we see the death of death, and the destruction of the grave. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Then we are also told that when Jesus comes, living believers shall not die. After the coming of Christ there shall be no more death for his people. What does Paul say? “Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed.” Did I see a little schoolgirl put up her finger? Did I hear her say, “Please, sir, you made a mistake.” So I did; I made it on purpose. Paul did not say, “We shall not all die,” for the Lord had already said,” Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”; so Paul would not say that any of us should die, but he used his Master’s own term, and said, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” When the Lord comes there will be no more death; we who are alive and remain (as some of us may be-we cannot tell) will undergo a sudden transformation-for flesh and blood, as they are, cannot inherit the kingdom of God-and by that transformation our bodies shall be made meet to be “partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.” There shall be no more death then. Here, then, we have two sacred handkerchiefs with which to wipe the eyes of mourners: when Christ cometh the dead shall live; when Christ cometh those that live shall never die. Like Enoch, or Elias, we shall pass into the glory state without wading through the black stream, while those who have already forded it shall prove to have been no losers thereby. All this is in connection with Jesus. Resurrection with Jesus is resurrection indeed. Life in Jesus is life indeed. It endears to us resurrection, glory, eternal life, and ultimate perfection, when we see them all coming to us in Jesus. He is the golden pot which hath this manna, the rod which beareth these almonds, the life whereby we live.

But further, I have not made you drink deep enough of this stream yet,-I think our Saviour meant that even now his dead are alive. “He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Those that believe in Jesus Christ appear to die, but yet they live. They are not in the grave, they are for ever with the Lord. They are not unconscious, they are with their Lord in Paradise. Death cannot kill a believer, it can only usher him into a freer form of life. Because Jesus lives, his people live. God is not the God of the dead but of the living: those who have departed have not perished. We laid the precious body in the cemetery, and we set up stones at the head and foot; but we might engrave on them the Lord’s words, “She is not dead, but sleepeth.” True, an unbelieving generation may laugh us to scorn, but we scorn their laughing.

Again, even now his living do not die. There is an essential difference between the decease of the godly and the death of the ungodly. Death comes to the ungodly man as a penal infliction, but to the righteous as a summons to his Father’s palace: to the sinner it is an execution, to the saint an undressing. Death to the wicked is the King of terrors: death to the saint is the end of terrors, the commencement of glory. To die in the Lord is a covenant blessing. Death is ours; it is set down in the list of our possessions among the all things, and it follows life in the list as if it were an equal favour. No longer is it death to die. The name remains, but the thing itself is changed. Wherefore, then, are we in bondage through fear of death? Why do we dread the process which gives us liberty? I am told that persons who in the cruel ages had lain in prison for years suffered much more in the moment of the knocking off of their fetters than they had endured for months in wearing the hard iron; and yet I suppose that no man languishing in a dungeon would have been unwilling to stretch out his arm or leg, that the heavy chains might be beaten off by the smith. We should all be content to endure that little inconvenience to obtain lasting liberty. Now, such is death-the knocking off of the fetters; yet the iron may never seem to be so truly iron as when that last liberating blow of grace is about to fall. Let us not mind the harsh grating of the key as it turns in the lock; if we understand it aright it will be as music to our ears. Imagine that your last hour is come! The key turns with pain for a moment; but, lo, the bolt is shot! The iron gate is open! The spirit is free! Glory be unto the Lord for ever and ever!

I leave the text now as a stream of comfort for the bereaved, for I wish you to view it as a great deep of comfort for all believers. I cannot fathom it, any more than I could measure the abyss, but I can invite you to survey it by the help of the Holy Ghost.

Methinks, first, this text plainly teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ is the life of his people. We are dead by nature, and you can never produce life out of death: the essential elements are wanting. Should a spark be lingering among the ashes, you may yet fan it to a flame; but from human nature the last spark of heavenly life is gone, and it is vain to seek for life among the dead. The life of every Christian is Christ. He is the beginning of life, being the Resurrection: when he comes to us we live. Regeneration is the result of contact with Christ: we are begotten again unto living hope by his resurrection from the dead. The life of the Christian in its commencement is in Christ alone; not a fragment of it is from himself, and the continuance of that life is equally the same; Jesus is not only the resurrection to begin with, but the life to go on with. “I have life in myself,” saith one. I answer-not otherwise than as you are one with Christ: your spiritual life in every breath it draws is in Christ. If you are regarded for a moment as separated from Christ, you are cast forth as a branch and are withered. A member severed from the head is dead flesh and no more. In union to Christ is your life. Oh that our hearers would understand this! I see a poor sinner look into himself, and look again, and then cry, “I cannot see any life within!” Of course you cannot; you have no life of your own. “Alas,” cries a Christian, “I cannot find anything within to feed my soul with!” Do you expect to feed upon yourself? Must not Israel look up for the manna? Did one of all the tribes find it in his own bosom? To look to self is to turn to a broken cistern which can hold no water. I tell you you must learn that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Hearken to that great “I”-that infinite Ego! This must cover over and swallow up your little ego. “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” What are you? Less than nothing, and vanity; but over all springs up that divine, all-sufficient personality, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Take the two first words together, and they seem to me to have a wondrous majesty about them-“I am!” Here is Self-Existence. Life in himself! Even as the Mediator, the Lord Jesus tells us that it is given him to have life in himself, even as the Father hath life in himself (John 5:26). I am fills the yawning mouth of the sepulchre. He that liveth and was dead and is alive for evermore, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, declares, “I am the resurrection and the life.” If, then, I want to live unto God, I must have Christ; and if I desire to continue to live unto God I must continue to have Christ; and if I aspire to have that life developed to the utmost fulness of which it is capable, I must find it all in Christ. He has come not only that we may have life, but that we may have it more abundantly. Anything that is beyond the circle of Christ is death. If I conjure up an experience over which I foolishly dote, which puffs me up as so perfect that I need not come to Christ now as a poor empty-handed sinner, I have entered into the realm of death, I have introduced into my soul a damning leaven. Away with it! Away with it! Everything of life is put into this golden casket of Christ Jesus: all else is death. We have not a breath of life anywhere but in Jesus, who ever liveth to give life. He saith, “Because I live, ye shall live also,” and this is true. We live not for any other reason-not because of anything in us or connected with us, but only because of Jesus. “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Now, further, in this great deep to which we would conduct you, faith is the only channel by which we can draw from Jesus our life. “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me”: that is it. He does not say, “He that loves me,” though love is a bright grace, and very sweet to God: he does not say, “He that serves me,” though every one that believes in Christ will endeavour to serve him; but it is not put so: he does not even say, “He that imitates me,” though every one that believes in Christ must and will imitate him; but it is put, “He that believeth in me.” Why is that? Why doth the Lord so continually make faith to be the only link between himself and the soul? I take it, because faith is a grace which arrogates nothing to itself, and has no operation apart from Jesus, to whom it unites us. You want to conduct the electric fluid, and, in order to this, you find a metal which will not create any action of its own; if it did so, it would disturb the current which you wish to send along it. If it set up an action of its own, how would you know the difference between what came of the metal and what came of the battery? Now, faith is an empty-handed receiver and communicator; it is nothing apart from that upon which it relies, and therefore it is suitable to be a conductor for grace. When an auditorium has to be erected for a speaker in which he may be plainly heard, the essential thing is to get rid of all echo. When you have no echo, then you have a perfect building: faith makes no noise of its own, it allows the Word to speak. Faith cries, “Non nobis Domine! Not unto us! Not unto us.” Christ puts his crown on faith’s head, exclaiming, “Thy faith hath saved thee;” but faith hastens to ascribe all the glory of salvation to Jesus only. So you see why the Lord selects faith rather than any other grace, because it is a self-forgetting thing. It is best adapted to be the tubing through which the water of life runs, because it will not communicate a flavour of its own, but will just convey the stream purely and simply from Christ to the soul. “He that believeth in me.”

Now notice, to the reception of Christ by faith there is no limit. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever”-I am deeply in love with that word “whosoever.” It is a splendid word. A person who kept many animals had some great dogs and some little ones, and in his eagerness to let them enter his house freely he had two holes cut in the door, one for the big dogs and another for the little dogs. You may well laugh, for the little dogs could surely have come in wherever there was room for the larger ones. This “whosoever” is the great opening, suitable for sinners of every size. “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Has any man a right to believe in Christ? The gospel gives every creature the right to believe in Christ, for we are bidden to preach it to every creature, with this command, “Hear, and your soul shall live.” Every man has a right to believe in Christ, because he will be damned if he does not, and he must have a right to do that which will bring him into condemnation if he does it not. It is written, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned,” and that makes it clear that I, whoever I may be, as I have a right to endeavour to escape from damnation, have a right to avail myself of the blessed command, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and live.” Oh that “whosoever,” that hole in the door for the big dog! Do not forget it! Come along with you, and put your trust in Christ. If you can only get linked with Christ you are a living man; if but a finger touches his garment’s hem you are made whole. Only the touch of faith, and the virtue flows from him to you, and he is to you the resurrection and the life.

I desire you to notice that there is no limit to this power. Before I was ill this time, and even since, I have had to deal with such a swarm of despairing sinners, that if I have not pulled them up they have pulled me down. I have been trying to speak very large words for Christ when I have met with those disconsolate ones. I hear one say, “How far can Christ be life to a sinner? I feel myself to be utterly wrong, I am altogether wrong; there is nothing right about me: though I have eyes I cannot see, though I have ears I do not hear; if I have a hand I cannot use it, if I have a foot I cannot run with it-I seem altogether wrong.” Yes, but if you believe in Christ, though you were still more wrong-that is to say, though you were dead, which is the wrongest state in which a man’s body can be,-though you were dead yet shall you live. You look at the spiritual thermometer, and you say, “How low will the grace of God go? will it descend to summer heat? will it touch the freezing point? will it go to zero?” Yes, it will go below the lowest conceivable point,-lower than any instrument can indicate: it will go below the zero of death. If you believe in Jesus, though you are not only wrong, but dead, yet shall you live.

But, says another, “I feel so weak. I cannot understand, I cannot lay hold of things; I cannot pray. I cannot do anything. All I can do is feebly to trust in Jesus.” All right! Though you had gone further than that, and were so weak as to be dead, yet should you live. Though the weakness had turned to a dire paralysis, that left you altogether without strength, yet it is written, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” “Oh, Sir,” says one, “I am so unfeeling.” Mark you, these generally are the most feeling people in the world. “I am sorry every day because I cannot be sorry for my sin”-that is the way they talk; it is very absurd, but still very real to them. “Oh,” cries one, “the earth shook, the sun was darkened, the rocks rent, the very dead came out of their graves at the death of Christ.

‘Of feeling all things show some sign

But this unfeeling heart of mine.’ ”

Yet if thou believest, unfeeling as thou art, thou livest; for if thou wert gone further than numbness to deadness, yet if thou believest in him thou shalt live.

But the poor creature fetches a sigh, and cries, “Sir, it is not only that I have no feeling, but I am become objectionable and obnoxious to everybody. I am a weariness to myself and to others. I am sure when I come to tell you my troubles you must wish me at Jericho, or somewhere else far away.” Now, I admit that such a thought has occurred to us sometimes when we have been very busy, and some poor soul has grown prosy with rehearsing his seven-times-repeated miseries; but if you were to get more wearisome still, if you were to become so bad that people would as soon see a corpse as see you, yet remember Jesus says, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Ay, if you went so far as to go in and out among men like an unquiet ghost, so that everybody got out of your way, it would not put you beyond the promise, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

“Oh, sir, I have no hope; my case is quite hopeless!” Very well; but if you had got beyond that, so that you were dead, and could not even know you had no hope, yet if you believed in him you should live. “Oh, but I have tried everything, and there is nothing more for me to attempt. I have read books, I have spoken to Christians, and I am nothing bettered.” No doubt it is quite so; but if you had even passed beyond that stage, so that you could not try anything more, yet if you did believe in Jesus you should live. Oh, the blessed power of faith! Nay, rather say the matchless power of him who is the resurrection and the life; for though the poor believer were dead, yet shall he live! Glory be to the Lord who works so wonderfully.

To conclude, if you once do believe in Christ, and come to live, there is this sweet reflection for you, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Our Arminian friends say that you may be a child of God to-day and a child of the devil to-morrow. Write out that statement, and place at the bottom of it the name “Arminius,” and then put the scrap of paper into the fire: it is the best thing you can do with it, for there is no truth in it. Jesus says, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Here is a very literal translation-“And every one who lives and believes on me, in no wise shall die for ever.” This is from “The Englishman’s Greek New Testament,” and nothing can be better. The believer may pass through the natural change called death, as far as his body is concerned; but as for his soul it cannot die, for it is written, “I give unto my sheep eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” “He that believeth in me hath everlasting life.” “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” These are not “ifs” and “buts,” and faint hopes; but they are dead certainties, nay, living certainties, out of the mouth of the living Lord himself. You get the life of God in your soul, and you shall never die. “Do you mean that I may do as I like, and live in sin?” No, man, I mean nothing of the sort; what right have you to impute such teaching as that to me? I mean that you shall not love sin and live in it, for that is death; but you shall live unto God. Your likes shall be so radically changed that you shall abhor evil all your days, and long to be holy as God is holy; and you shall be kept from transgression, and shall not go back to wallow in sin. If in some evil hour you backslide, yet shall you be restored; and the main current of your life shall be from the hour of your regeneration towards God, and holiness, and heaven. The angels that rejoiced over you when you repented made no mistake; they shall go on to rejoice till they welcome you amidst the everlasting songs and Hallelujahs of the blessed at the right hand of God. Believest thou this? Come, poor soul, believest thou this? Who are you? That does not matter, you can get into the “whosoever.” That ark will hold all God’s Noahs. What have you done? One said to me the other day, “I should like to tell you some of my sins!” I answered quickly, “I would like you would not; I have enough of my own without being infected with yours.” What is any man that he should have the filth of another man’s drains poured into his ear? No, no: confess to God, but not to man unless you have wronged him, and confession of the wrong is due to him.

“Ah,” saith one, “you don’t know what I am.” No, and I don’t want to know what you are; but if you are so far gone that there seems to be not even a ghost of a shade of a shadow of a hope anywhere about you, yet if you believe in Jesus you shall live. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ, for he is worthy to be trusted. Throw yourself upon him, and he will carry you in his bosom. Cast your whole weight upon his atonement; it will bear the strain. Hang on him as the vessel hangs on the nail, and seek no other support. Depend upon Christ with all your might just as you now are, and as the Lord liveth you shall live, and as Christ reigneth you shall reign over sin, and as Christ cometh to glory you shall partake of that glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-John 11:1-27.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-414, 839, 327.

HEAVEN BELOW

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, September 21st, 1884, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.”-Revelations 7:16, 17.

Let us think of this felicity, that we may be comforted in the prospect of it. All this is already enjoyed by tens of thousands of the redeemed. Some of those who were very dear to us on earth, whose faith we desire to follow, are now for ever with the Lord, and this is their joyful portion-“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sunlight on them, nor any heat.” Our comfort lies in the sweet reflection that we are journeying to this goodly land. This divine inheritance is ours: we have the seal of the Holy Spirit upon our title-deeds; we have tasted of the grapes of its Eshcol; we already rejoice in the light and warmth of its celestial city to which we draw near. In a little time we shall be actually within the gate of pearl, and shall know in an instant infinitely more of its glory than an apostle could teach us here below. We are like to one who hath in his hand the guide-book of a country to which he is journeying; he finds in it fair pictures of the scenery of the land and the architecture of the cities, and as he reads each page he says to himself, “I am going there! This is what I shall soon behold!” It would be a wretched thing to have such a book in one’s hand and to be entering upon a life-long banishment from home and the home-country. Then should we have to say, “This was my country once, but I shall never see it again. Fair are its skies and lovely are its vales, but mine eye shall ache in vain to gaze upon them. I am exiled for ever from my own dear land!” It is not so with us who are believers in Christ: our faces are towards Immanuel’s land, the land which floweth with milk and honey, and we have a portion among the blessed; a mansion is being made ready for each one of us, and we have this promise: “Go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days.” Rejoice, then, beloved, for if your portion on earth be slender, if your condition here be sorrowful, if your trials multiply, if your strength declines, yet it is but a little while and he that will come shall come, and shall not tarry. Well doth our hymn tell us that-

“An hour with our Lord will make up for it all.”

We shall forget the pains of a long life in one half-hour of the vision of the Well-beloved. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. Look before you. It is brightness beyond though it be darkness here. Anticipate your sure reward, it cometh with all speed. I speak but sober truth; it seems but a day’s journey from this spot to the heavenly highlands. It is so little a while since I was a boy, and yet in less space I shall be with God. It seems but a few days to you who are aged people since you climbed your mother’s knee, and yet in far less time you will behold the face of your soul’s Bridegroom. Then all trouble will be ended, and eternal joy will crown your head.

But I want you to do this morning, and by God’s grace I think we shall accomplish it, a little more than receive comfort. I long that we may “sit together in the heavenlies” even now. It seems to me that this, world, if Christians lived as they should do, would become a nether heaven. The true Christian life, when we live near to God, is the rough draft of the life of full communion above. We have seen the artist make with his pencil, or with his charcoal, a bare outline of his picture. It is nothing more, but still one could guess what the finished picture will be from the sketch before you. One acquainted with the artist could see upon the canvas all the splendour of colour peeping through the dark lines of the pencil. Now, I want you to-day to see “the patterns of things in the heavens.” We have much of heaven here; at any rate, we have the Lamb who is the glory of the eternal city; we have the presence of him that sits upon the throne among us even now; we have if not the perfect holiness of heaven, yet a justification quite as complete as that of the glorified; we have the “white robes,” for “the blood of the Lamb” has washed them even now; and if we have not yet the palm branches of final victory, yet, thanks be to God, we are led in triumph in every place, and even now “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Therefore-

“I would begin the music here,

And so my soul should rise;

Oh, for some heavenly notes to bear

My passions to the skies.”

Our voices are not clear as yet, they are half-choked with the fogs and smoke of earth. They will be perfectly attuned ere long; at any rate, let us go over the notes, and if we cannot reach to the full melody of the heavenly music, yet let us run up and down the scale, and try some easy passages. Come, let us worship, and adore, and rejoice as our departed ones are doing, and thus enjoy some of “the days of heaven upon the earth.” That shall be my drift this morning, as the Holy Spirit shall instruct me.

Keeping to the text, however, I want to speak, first, of the perfection of the provision which is enjoyed in heaven-“They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.” This is the perfection of the provision.

I must, by your permission, go a little further back to make my description of this provision more complete. Notice the last sentence of the fifteenth verse: “He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.” In the reading we interpreted according to the Revised Version, which gives a more correct rendering: “He that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them.” The glorified dwell under the shadow of God. It is for this reason that “the sun shall not light on them, nor any heat,” because they dwell in God. Oh, what a dwelling-place that will be! You and I are often like Noah’s dove, sent out flying over a weary waste, and finding no rest to the sole of our foot; but they dwell in the ark for ever. We go in and out and find pasture, but in that going in and out we are sometimes troubled; up yonder they “go no more out for ever,” but eternally behold the face of the King, and for ever dwell at God’s right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore. Oh what a joy this must be in heaven, to be always within the circle of the eternal presence, which is always seen, always unclouded, always enjoyed! Such a dwelling means transformation, for none can dwell with God but those who are like him, free from sin, and perfect in holiness. We cannot abide in God for ever unless we are like him, and this in itself is boundless bliss. The abiding in the outspread pavilion of Jehovah will certify a similarity of sanctity and purity between the redeemed and the great Father who becomes their dwelling-place. The Lord shall tabernacle over his glorified people: he shall be their eternal home.

Next we are assured that they shall have all their necessities prevented. “They shall hunger no more.” To be supplied when we hunger is the mercy of earth: never to hunger at all is the plenitude of heaven. God shall so fill the souls of his redeemed that they shall have no longings: their longings shall be prevented by their constant satisfaction. That which they enjoy will be more than they ever desired to enjoy, or ever imagined that they could be capable of enjoying. Imagination’s utmost height never reached to the exceeding bliss and glory of the world to come. The saints confess in the glory that it never entered into their hearts to guess what God had prepared for them that love him. Heaven shall exceed all the desires of God’s people; they shall not, even with their enlarged capacities, be able to wish for anything which they do not already possess; so that they shall hunger no more, in the sense that they shall never pant for more than they have.

They shall have done with the desires which it is right for them to have here-desires which intimate their present imperfection. Here it is their duty and their privilege to long after perfection, to be sighing and crying for a perfect deliverance from every shade of sin; but they shall not sigh and cry for this in glory, for they shall be without fault before the throne of God. None of them shall cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” This on earth is one of the most deeply spiritual of cries, never heard from any but those whose sanctification is greatly advanced. None will ever utter that bitter exclamation but men like Paul, to whom the slightest speck of sin has a horror about it akin to death itself. Fanatical persons talk about being perfect; it is the talk of blind men: but those whose eyes have seen the Lord abhor themselves, and sigh and cry over what other men call failures, and mistakes, and infirmities. To them their heart sins and unseen faults are things to weep over; they have sharp hungerings and piercing thirsts after complete likeness to Christ. This likeness the saints possess before the throne; and they shall not thirst any more, even after this best and most desirable of attainments, since they shall enjoy it to the full.

Beloved, observe that, as they have no kind of hunger, so they have also no measure of thirst; that is to say, they have no needs, no unsatisfied wishes of any sort. In whatever form a need might approach them, it is excluded, for both hunger and thirst are shut out. Oh, brothers, it has been blessed to hunger and thirst after righteousness, what must that higher blessedness be which rises above even these holy desires!

We have wishes here which ought not to be gratified; these occasion us our sharpest pangs of hunger; but there they shall never know an unlawful wish, a wandering desire, or even an unwise longing. They shall have all things that a renewed heart can enjoy. All that their perfected nature can yearn after they shall possess: there shall be no unsatisfied craving of their manhood, neither their risen body nor their sanctified spirit shall be moved to hunger or thirst after any evil, for there shall be nothing about them which has a tendency that way. The provision made for them shall be so absolutely complete that before they can desire any good thing they shall find it; before they know a need they shall have enjoyed the supply. This is wonderful! Yes, but all I can tell you is not the half of the truth.

Further, as we read we discover a third blessing, namely, that every overpowering influence is attempered;-“Neither shall the sun light on them.” What if by that “sun” is meant the full glory of God! If you and I could be introduced into the divine presence at once and as we are, the first result upon us must be a swoon, and the second must be death. We are not able to endure the blaze of Deity as yet; its glory would cause a sunstroke to the soul. We might well cry with good Mr. Walsh, “Hold, Lord! Hold! Remember I am but an earthen vessel, and I cannot as yet hold much of thee.” We are not prepared to endure the Lord as our Sun, in meridian splendour. In heaven they are able to endure the immediate presence of God, not only because of the Mediatorship of Christ, through whom the glory of God shines with tempered splendour upon the saints, but also because they themselves are strengthened. From all this earthly grossness quit, they are enabled to stand in that light to which no mortal man can now approach. To us even “our God is a consuming fire” while we are here; but in the saints there remaineth nothing to consume. The light of God is not too bright for eyes that Christ hath touched with heaven’s own eye-salve. The vision of the Infinite is not too glorious for those whom the Lord has prepared to be with him and to see his face. What John of Patmos could not bear, the weakest saint in heaven can endure, not for an hour, but for the whole stretch of eternity. Blessed, indeed, are they who shall behold the King in the ivory palaces above!

When it is added, “Nor any heat,” we learn that injurious influences shall cease to operate. By our surroundings here we are troubled with many heats. The very comforts of life, like warm weather, tend to dry us up. A man may have gold, a man may have health, a man may have prosperity and honour till he is withered like the heath in the desert in the day of drought. Unless a dew from the Lord shall rest upon the branch of the prosperous he will be parched indeed. We have need of grace whenever God gives us blessings of a temporal kind. But no heat of that sort shall happen to saints in heaven: they can be rich, and honoured, and perfectly beautiful, and yet under no temptation to self-exaltation. Here the heats which are around us tend to fever us. Our fellow-men grow hot about this and that-the pursuit of wealth, the triumph of party politics, the honour of a family, and so forth; and we are all too apt to feel the common ague. Within ourselves, heats arise: unhealthy and unholy heats. We cannot go through this plague-smitten world altogether unscathed: every now and then we return to our quiet chamber, and feel that we have sickened, sickened in the company wherein we have tarried for an hour, sickened even in contact with those whom we sought to bless. Up yonder no fever shall burn the hearts of the glorified. Travelling through the wilderness of this world, on a sudden the hot sirocco of worldliness sweeps over us, laden with the burning dust of the desert, bearing death beneath its wings; God only can keep us in that evil hour; only as we lie on our faces before him can we hope to outlive the blast. Many are the temptations of this life: some of them soft and deceptive, others fierce and terrible; but up yonder no sirocco shall ever blow, and the inhabitant shall no more say, “I am sick.”

See, then, the perfect provision which is made by Christ for his saints above, and listen while we try to show that this same provision, in a modified way, lies to our hand even now. Come, beloved, do we not dwell in God? Do we not sing, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations”? If any of you believers have wandered away from your resting-place, whose fault is that? Has not the Lord given you himself to be your perpetual pavilion? Has not Jesus said, “Abide in me”? Have you not sung in that sweet twenty-third Psalm, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever”? What more do you want? The Lord hath spread his tabernacle over you; you abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Whenever you dwell in God and the Lamb feeds you, do you not also realize that next expression, “they shall hunger no more”? Can you not sing when Christ is with you and you dwell in God-

“I thirst, but not as once I did,

The vain delights of earth to share;

Thy wounds, Immanuel, all forbid

That I should seek my pleasures there.

It was the sight of thy dear cross

First wean’d my soul from earthly things:

And taught me to esteem as dross

The mirth of fools and pomp of kings.”

A child of God in communion with Christ would not lift his finger to possess a world, nor wink his eye to see all the pomp of kings, nor move a step to enjoy all the honours of rank, nor rise from sitting at Jesus’ feet to learn all the wisdom of philosophy. He is already filled; what can he have more? The best of the best has fallen to his portion, and shall he change it? No; like the olive tree, he saith, “Should I leave my fatness, and go to be promoted over the trees?” and with the fig, he cries, “Should I forsake my sweetness, and go to be promoted over the trees?” He that eateth of the bread which Jesus gives him shall never hunger more after a painful sort. The husks of carnal joy have no attractions to the son who banquets at his father’s table.

“Neither shall they thirst any more;” they shall feel that the Lord Jesus is such an all-satisfying, all-sufficient portion that their desires can go no farther. I have sped across the sea with flying sails, bidding each gale waft me according to its will, hoping that I might somewhere find a port. Restlessly have I hastened to and fro, and been tossed up and down, the sport of every wave. My spirit has sped on and on through fair and foul, never abiding long in one stay. Happily there came a day when I found a fair haven. Down went my anchor; it took fast hold and held my barque. Under the lee of Calvary I found rest. Now blow ye winds, or cease to blow as shall best please you. I stir not out to sea again. In the fair haven of the love of God in Christ Jesus shall my spirit abide for ever. If we could but reach this resolve, dear brethren, and hold to it, we should have no more anxieties and longings; we also should hunger no more, neither thirst any more.

And then how blessedly true it is to those who dwell in God and live near to Jesus that now the sun doth not light on them. God in his infinite majesty and holiness does not overwhelm us.

“Till God in human flesh I see,

My thoughts no comfort find;

The holy, just, and sacred Three

Are terrors to my mind.

But if Immanuel’s face appear,

My hope, my joy begins;

His love forbids my slavish fear,

His grace removes my sins.”

What a blessing it is to see God in Christ, and to rejoice in him.

And, now, beloved, if you are being daily fed by Jesus and are dwelling in God, the light of the sun, as to temporal prosperity, will do you no harm. You may be rich, but you will not trust in uncertain riches; you may be famous, but you will be as humble as if you were obscure; you may be learned, but you will sit at Jesus’ feet; you may be indulged with all kinds of worldly prosperity, and yet these things will not prove a snare unto you. “Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.”

Those who dwell in God are not now parched with inward heat. We notice people of God who are anxious and fretful, and cause a great deal of misery for people round about them by always worrying, fidgetting, and being in a state of nervous excitement. But holy souls, who abide in Christ, take everything calmly. You can remember such persons, both men and women;-whatever happened they remained unmoved, patient and cheerful. Great losses came in the course of business, but the brother did not lose his balance; sad bereavements came, but the sister did not repine. If the believer endured a sharp affliction, his chief concern was that the Lord would sanctify it to him: if people persecuted or slandered him he was not surprised, for he expected to be hated of the world when he became a follower of Jesus. If he prospered, he did not get into a heat of pride, and begin to crow over everybody else like a cock on his dunghill. In patience he possessed his soul. God’s good gift of the Holy Spirit comforted and strengthened him. He could say, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.” “Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.” How much of mischief comes to the human body through its heats! The doctor looks hopeful when our blood grows cool again and the fever ceases. The best cure for the fever of the soul is to be made to dwell under the shadow of the Almighty, and to be fed by the Lord Jesus Christ; for that sacred shadow, and that health-giving food, prevent the burning sickness from coming near the chosen of the Lord. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” Safe, calm, happy, restful shalt thou be: thy soul shall dwell at ease, and with the meek thou shalt inherit the earth.

“Ah,” says somebody, “you are setting us up an exceedingly high standard.” I am setting up a standard to which multitudes of God’s people have attained, to which I would have you all attain. If this blessed bribe of heaven below does not make you ambitious to rise to this level, what more shall I say? It is for your own profit and for God’s glory that you should not rest content short of this. Rise from the dust, my brethren. Ascend into the hill of the Lord, and stand in his holy place. Abide in Christ, and feed upon Christ, and then all this shall be yours to-day and throughout life. So much for the perfection of the provision.

Now will you give me your heart’s attention while I touch a noble string, and that is, the description of the Provider. “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters.” You see this is the reason for all the provision and enjoyment: the verse begins with the word “For,” signifying that this is the cause of all the felicity of the blessed, that the Lamb doth feed and lead them.

Who is this that feeds them? It is the Lamb. I wish it were possible for me to communicate to you the enjoyment my own soul has had in meditating upon this blessed word “The Lamb,” as it stands in this connection. Does it not teach us, first, that our comfort and life must come from our incarnate Saviour-the Lamb? The expression is very peculiar: it is a figure, and no figure; a mixed metaphor, and yet most plain and clear! It is written, “The Lamb shall shepherd them.” This is an accurate interpretation. How is that? A shepherd, and that shepherd a Lamb! Here is the truth which the words contain,-he that saves is a man like ourselves. He that provides for his people is himself one of them,-“For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.” A lamb is a member of the flock; but in this case the Lamb is the shepherd of the flock: a shepherd who is also a lamb must be the most tender shepherd conceivable, the most sympathetic and brotherly guardian that can be. When a man is shepherd to sheep he should be compassionate, but he cannot be so tender as if he actually partook of their nature. In our case our shepherd is to the full a partaker of our nature: we are men, and our shepherd is a man.

Beloved, our soul’s support, our spiritual meat, lies in this, that the Son of God is a partaker of flesh and blood, and is one of ourselves. He that sits upon the throne is our kinsman, a sharer in our nature, a brother born of adversity-why, surely this heavenly truth is manna from heaven, the food of saintly souls. The Lamb is their hope, their comfort, their honour, their delight, their glory.

Does it not mean more than that? “the Lamb” surely refers to sacrifice. Only run your eye back a verse or two, and you have the key of the expression, “they that washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” He, then, that feeds his people in heaven is the sacrifice, the atonement, the expiation. In heaven they glory in the cross. Each one sings “he loved me and gave himself for me.” The glorified drink the deepest draughts of delight from the fact that God was made flesh, and that in human flesh he offered perfect expiation for human guilt. Brethren, these two fountains are here as well as there: come, let us drink of them; let us prevent our thirst by the water of the well of Bethlehem, and by streams from the smitten rock.

Still, there is a third meaning which must not be overlooked. “The Lamb” must refer to the meekness of character, the lowliness and condescension of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ on earth was “led as a lamb to the slaughter.” He was “meek and lowly in heart.” He walked up and down among men, the friend of sinners, the lover of little children, the companion of the poor, and to-day he is not otherwise than he was on the earth. Though heaven adores him, he is still as compassionate and condescending as he was in the days of his flesh, and this is why he can feed his people so well both here and in heaven.

I beg you to dwell upon that word “Lamb” till you feed upon it with jour whole souls. Jesus has joined himself to his flock: “As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.” As surely as he is God he is also man, indeed and of a truth; not in semblance, but in reality.

“It is my sweetest comfort, Lord,

And will for ever be,

To muse upon the gracious truth

Of thy humanity.

Oh, joy! there sitteth in our flesh,

Upon a throne of light,

One of a human mother born,

In perfect Godhead bright!

For ever God, for ever man,

My Jesus shall endure;

And fix’d on him, my hope remains

Eternally secure.”

He is also our sacrifice: “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” What rest came unto our hearts when we first understood the meaning of that word-“Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”! Continue to behold him, and all your feverish heats will be abated, and your hunger and thirst of spirit will be gone.

Jesus is so meek and lowly, as I have said, that you may approach to him at all times, and he will manifest himself to you. He is tender and gentle, and never makes himself strange unto his own flesh. Sitting at his feet you shall find rest unto your soul. “Neither shall the sun light on you, nor any heat.”

The character of our Lord, then, brings our spirit all that it needs; but yet this is not all: the text speaks of “the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne” as feeding them. Think of that, the Lamb in the midst of the throne. Can you put these two things together, a sacrifice and a throne? That same Saviour who opened his veins that he might cleanse us from sin now wears the imperial purple of the universe. He that stooped to be made sin for us is now supreme sovereign, King of kings and Lord of lords. Think of that and be comforted. Our Representative is glorified. Our covenant Head, our second Adam, is in the midst of the throne. God the Father hath exalted the Mediator to the place of power and honour and rule. Our Saviour hath all power in heaven and in earth. Sometimes when I think of my great King and Captain exalted to so glorious an estate, I feel that it matters nothing what becomes of me, his poor follower. The sun of persecution smites not when he is seen as God over all blessed for ever. Hunger is not hunger, and pain is not pain, for such a loved one. In blissful sympathy with the unutterable delights of Jesus, we are happy at our worst, feeling that if Christ be rich we are not poor, and if Christ be happy we are not disappointed. His victory is our victory. His glory is our glory. Feel this union with your enthroned Lord, and you will begin to be in heaven.

Yet further remember that when we read of “the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne,” it must mean that our Redeemer is the most conspicuous of persons. In the forefront of the throne is Jesus. He is seen of angels; he is beheld continually with wonder by all the servants of our God. The sovereignty of God, his royal power, his eternal majesty are at the back of Christ to sustain his cause and make his name illustrious. He must reign. Every eye must see him, every knee must bow to him, and every tongue must call him Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He shall have all enemies under his feet, and shall be extolled, and exalted, and be very high. My heart rejoices to remember this fact in this cloudy and dark day. Though our modern thinkers sneer at the gospel, and sceptics scoff at the doctrine of the Nazarene, and all manner of scorn is poured upon our holy faith, yet the Lord hath set his Son upon his holy hill, and he is there with him to secure his everlasting dominion, despite the assaults of men and devils.

In all this I see the choicest food for the flock of God. To them Jesus speaks from the throne, and uses to-day words like those which he spoke on earth. “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Out of the glory he saith, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.”

The “midst of the throne” seems to signify also that Jesus has become the very centre of all things. “Unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” He is lifted up, and all men are drawn to him. He is the great central sun, and all other lights revolve about him. He is the heart of the eternal purpose, the hinge of history, and the climax of revelation. He reigns in the midst of heaven, even as at this day upon earth he is in the midst of two or three who are met together in his name. Our joy is like that of the just made perfect. In this delight we unite with the general assembly and church of the firstborn. Jesus on the throne is to our hearts and songs the central person, and the centre shall never be removed, neither shall the gathering of his people be scattered.

Thus you see who it is that feeds the saints in heaven, and I desire you to feel that if you are to be fed and comforted here below, it must be by the same great Shepherd of the sheep, in the same character. There are no stores for you other than those which are in the hands of Jesus, in whom all fulness dwells; there are no comforts for you except as they are given from the throne where the Lamb is reigning. Turn ye away, my brethren, turn ye away from all the frothy novelties of modern thought, and the vain inventions of man, and behold the crown of your adorable Lord, the Lamb of God’s Passover, the Lamb who shall overcome all the powers of evil and stand in the midst of the throne. Dwell on the literal, historical incarnation of the Son of God; believe in his literal death, in his actual substitution, his complete and perfect atonement; dwell on his rising from the dead, and his ascent to the right hand of God, and never doubt it that he is now the supreme object of heaven’s adoration, the Lord of all things that are or shall be, sure and certain to be in the latter days exalted above all principalities and powers, and every name that is named. If we can but live on these truths, and delight ourselves in them, we shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on us, nor any heat, but even here we shall find living fountains of water, and tears shall be wiped from our eyes.

I finish by giving a hint or two only upon the third point; that is to say, the manner of this providing. We have considered the provision in its perfection, and the Provider in his glorious character, now let us see how this provision is given to the saints, for in the same manner is it brought to us.

In two ways the saints in heaven enjoy it,-the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them. Go over this, and think first of the feeding of them. The Greek word is “shall shepherdize them.” In heaven Jesus is a shepherd ruling over all his flock with a happy, genial, sympathetic sovereignty, to which they yield prompt and glad obedience. There the Lord Jesus cares for his people immediately and personally. He himself bestows upon them all that they require. Here he has under-shepherds, and he hands out the food by our poor instrumentality; and, alas, sometimes we are found incapable, or forgetful, and the flock is not fed: but it is never so in heaven, for the Lamb himself maintains the pastorate, and acts the shepherd in a manner which none of us can emulate. What saith the prophet Micah? “And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.”

All else of care and feeding that saints can require in glory is in Christ. I know not what it may be, but this I know, that while they worship him he cares for them. He is among them as the Chief Shepherd, at whose appearing the under-shepherds shall appear with him in glory.

Up yonder Jesus still communes with them very closely, else were it not written, “The Lamb shall feed them.” I remind you again of what we have said: he feeds them, therefore he is their Shepherd; yet still it is the Lamb that feeds them, therefore he is one with them; as if he fed with them, as if their food was his food, and his food their food, and they were one with him in all respects. But what must fellowship with Christ be in heaven! I do protest I have sometimes had, and many of you have had, such communion with Jesus here that, if I could but have continued to enjoy it, it would not have concerned me the turning of a penny whether I were here or among the angels, for it was bliss enough for me to be with Jesus. But, oh! when we shah have enlarged our capacities, when our understanding shall have been cleared, and our affections purified, and all our manhood shall be made innocent and Christlike, what must it be then to behold his glory, to commune with himself, to lean our head upon his bosom, to bask in his love, and to feel our hearts on fire with love in return! Oh to be with him for ever, to see no intervening cloud, to feel no wandering wish, no thought of future declension, no possibility of grieving him by sin! What must it be to be for ever one with him in his glory! That is bliss above conception. He shepherdizes them, he himself does it, and therefore they are supremely blessed. Now do you not think we can enjoy some of this to-day? Do you question it? What does the tenth of John mean, if Jesus is not the good Shepherd of his sheep at this day? Read it through when you get home. What does the twenty-third Psalm mean? Is that a psalm for another world, or for this? Does it not say, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters”? Why, one would think from the look of your doubtful face that it ran thus-“The Lord has forgotten to be my shepherd. He has given me over to the wolf. He has driven me into a wilderness, and left me among the dark mountains. I perish in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.” It is not so; we must not think it so, for even here our great Lord is our Shepherd, and he careth for each one of the flock.

Then it is added, “He shall lead.” That is another work of the Shepherd, to lead his flock,-“He leads them to living fountains of waters.” You may read it, “he shall guide them to fountains of waters of life”; it is but a variation of the same thought. Now, even in heaven the holy ones need guiding, and Jesus leads the way. While he is guiding, he points out to his people the secret founts and fresh springs which as yet they have not tasted. As eternity goes on, I have no doubt that the Saviour will be indicating fresh delights to his redeemed. “Come hither,” saith he to his flock, “here are yet more flowing streams.” He will lead them on and on, by the century, aye, by the chiliad, from glory unto glory, onward and upward in growing knowledge and enjoyment. Continually will he conduct his flock to deeper mysteries and higher glories. Never will the inexhaustible God who has given himself to be the portion of his people ever be fully known, so that there will eternally be sources of freshness and new delight, and the Shepherd will continue to lead his flock to these living fountains of water. He will guide them,

“ ‘From glory unto glory’ that ever lies before,

Still widening, adoring, rejoicing more and more,

Still following where he leadeth, from shining field to field,

Himself our goal of glory, Revealer and Revealed!”

He will also cause them to drink of the river of his pleasures, so that they shall be full of bliss. Can we not grasp a little of this to-day? If we will but follow Christ we may drink of the water which he freely gives to all who believe in him, even as he gave to the woman of Samaria. “I cannot see any joy,” cries one. No; but Jesus will lead you to it. “Oh, but I read my Bible this morning, and I did not get anything from it.” That may be; but if Jesus had been there and led you to the fountain, you would have been refreshed. How the texts open up when Jesus touches them! You are like Hagar; you have laid your child down among the shrubs to die; you are perishing of thirst, and yet if you would but listen you might hear the plash of the falling waters just behind you. You only need the Lord to speak and open your eyes and you will see rich supplies, for the living fountain is near at hand. Go you to the Saviour to-day, and say, “Lord, lead me to living fountains of water. I drank years ago, and I have been drinking all along, but Lord I want deeper draughts. I desire to know more and love more.” Jesus will lead you. He will do it now, and when he does so you will realise to the full how like this earth may be to heaven above. Let us commit ourselves like sheep to our great Shepherd. Come, ye wanderers, return to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. You that have been in him these many years and fed in his pastures, come near to him and follow him yet more closely, and your eyes shall be opened to see new rivers of delight where all seemed dry. You shall find in the valley of Baca a well, and drinking of it you shall go from strength to strength, till every one of you in Zion appeareth before God. How long will it be, O ever-blessed One, till we behold thee? Even now the day breaketh!

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Revelation 7.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-912, 877, 775.

N.B.-Will the reader please note that this is number 1,800 of our consecutive sermons in this form. We bless the God of all grace that for all these years every Thursday has seen its sermon. The sale is well sustained, but we should be very grateful if friends would endeavour to increase it.-C. H. S.