C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”-Romans 10:1, 2, 3.

We ought to have an intense longing for the salvation of all sorts of men, and especially for those, if there are any, that treat us badly. We should never wish them ill, not for a moment; but in proportion to their malice should be our intense desire for their good. Israel had persecuted Paul everywhere with the bitterest imaginable hate. When he addressed them in their synagogues, they rushed upon him in their fury. When he let them alone, and preached quietly to the Gentiles, they made a mob, dragged him before the magistrates, charged him with causing a tumult, and either stoned him, or beat him with rods. He was “an Israelite indeed,” but his people regarded him as a turncoat indeed, because he had become a Christian. Mad as they were against all Christians, they had a special spite and fury against the apostate Pharisee. Paul’s only reply to all their infuriated malice is this gentle assertion: “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.”

Brethren, let us pray for men that they may be saved. Simple as the statement is, I feel sure that we shall see more conversions when more people pray for conversions. If, as we went about the street, we made a rule that, whenever we heard a man swear, we would pray that he might be saved, might we not hope to see a great many more saved? If, whenever we saw a case of special sin, or read of it in the newspaper, we were to make it a habit always to offer our heart’s desire and prayer for such offenders that they might be saved, I cannot tell what countless blessings would come from God’s right hand.

I would bring before you one peculiar class of persons whose conversion some of us should very earnestly pray for. They are the kind of people who are here described by the apostle: Israelites, religious people, intensely religious in their way, although that way is not the way of truth. They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. They are righteous people, self-righteous people, people that have done no ill, but, on the contrary, have laboured to do a great deal of good. They are running, and running well, but they are not running in the right road. They are labouring, and labouring hard, but they are not labouring in the right style; and so they will miss their reward. Many of these people are around us, and very admirable people they are in many ways; but their condition causes us the utmost anxiety. There are a few such persons in this present congregation; and though they are not so numerous among us as in many other quarters, yet they have a peculiar place in our affectionate regard. We esteem them so highly that we should be shocked and grieved that one single person of their character should perish. I say most solemnly, “My heart’s desire and prayer for such is, that they might be saved; for I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”

Bear with me at this time while I talk about these people. If you do not belong to this order of minds yourselves, I am glad of it. Pray for them if you yourselves are saved. If you know any such, keep on mentioning them to God in prayer, while I am preaching. Use the next half-hour as a time of quiet pleading with God about individuals of whom you will be reminded while I am talking. Say, “Lord, bless her,” or, “Lord, bless him.” If you are not one of those at whom I shall be specially aiming, then help me with your prayers that this sermon may be clothed with power by the Holy Ghost.

And first, why are we specially concerned for these people? The answer is, “Because they are so zealous.” They have a zeal of God. I feel right glad to meet with a zealous man nowadays, for zeal for God has become a rare quality in the land. You see plenty of zeal where politics are concerned. Fashion, and art, and society, and literature, each one evokes zeal of a certain kind; but we are not overdone with those who are zealous in the matter of religion. We seem to be pretty nearly gone to sleep as to essentials of creed and worship. Who is zealous? Who burns with holy ardour? Who is consumed with sacred enthusiasm? If anybody comes to be a little zealous above others, he is straightway condemned. The man of fervent spirit is laughed at as “a hot gospeller”: he is called fanatical, and great efforts are made to put him down. I fear that both the wise and the foolish virgins are going to sleep at this present time. There is a dulness in the religious world, as if we had passed into a dull, thick, autumn fog. We want a great and general revival. Meanwhile, when we do meet with people who are zealous, we take an interest in them. Zealous at church, zealous in their ceremonies, zealous in their belief of what they believe-however mistaken their zeal may be, there is something interesting about it. We like to associate with people who have hearts-not dry leather bottles, out of which all the juice has gone; but those who have heart, and soul, and life, and fire, and go. I love to meet with those who believe in something, and who work under the pressure of their belief, and give their strength to the carrying out of what they believe to be the will of God. It does seem a very great pity that any zeal should be wasted, and that any one full of zeal should yet miss his way. We fear that there are some who will do so. If you want to go to York you may ride very fast south, but you will not get to York with all your speed. Unless you turn your rein towards the north, you may ride a thousand horses to death, and never see the gates of the old city. It is of no use to be zealous if you are zealous in a wrong cause; but when we meet with any who are such, I say that they become peculiarly the object of a Christian’s prayers. Pray for the zealous with all your hearts, for it is such a pity that one of them should go astray.

Again, they should be specially the subject of our prayers, because they may go so very wrong, and may do so much mischief to others. Those who have no life nor energy may easily ruin themselves, but they are not likely to harm others; whereas a mistaken zealot is like a madman with a firebrand in his hand. Persons who are zealous, and are under a mistake, may do such a deal of mischief! What did those Scribes and Pharisees in Christ’s day? They were very zealous, and under the pressure of their zeal they crucified, the Lord of glory. What did Saul do in his time? He was very zealous, and under the influence of his zeal he dragged men and women to prison, and compelled them to blaspheme, and when they were put to death he gave his voice against them. I do not doubt that many who burned the martyrs were quite as sincere in their faith as those whom they burned. In fact, it must have taken an awful amount of sincerity in the case of some to have been able to believe that the cruelties which they practised were really pleasing to God. We cannot doubt that they had such sincerity. Did not our Lord himself say, “Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service”? Documents, written by men who stained their hands with the blood of Protestants, prove that some of them had a right heart towards God. In their mistaken zeal for God, and truth, and church unity, they believed that they were crushing out a very deadly error, and that the persons whom they sent to prison and to death were criminals that ought to be exterminated, because they were destroyers of the souls of men.

Take heed that none of you fall into a persecuting spirit through, your zeal for the gospel. A good woman may be intensely zealous, and for that reason she may say, “I will not have a servant in my house who does not go to my place of worship.” I have known landlords, wonderfully zealous for the faith, who have therefore turned every Dissenter out of their cottages, and have refused to let one of their farms to a Nonconformist. I do not wonder at their conduct; if they are zealous, and at the same time blind, they will naturally take to exterminating the children of God. Of course, in their zeal they feel as if they must root out error and schism. They will not have Nonconformity near them, and so they get to work, and in their zeal they hack right and left. They say strong things and bitter things, and then proceed to do cruel things-very cruel things-verily believing that, in all that they do, they are doing God service, not thinking that they are violating the crown rights of God, who alone is Lord of the consciences of men. They would not oppose the will of God if they knew it; and yet they are doing so. They would not willingly grieve the hearts of those whom God loves, and yet they do so when they are browbeating the humble cottager for his faith. They look upon the poor people who differ a little from them as being atrociously wrong, and they consider it to be their duty to set their faces against them, and so, under the influence of the zeal that moves them, which, in itself, is a good thing, they are led to do that which is sinful and unjust. Hence the apostle, after he had felt the weight of the stones from the hands of the Jews, prayed that they might be saved; for if they were not saved, their zeal for God would continue to make murderers of them.

Another reason why we long to see the zealous converted is this-because they would be so useful. The man that is desperately earnest in a wrong way, if you can but show him his wrong, and teach him what is right, will be just as earnest in the right way. Oh, what splendid Christians some would make who are now such devotees of superstition! Despite their superstition, I look upon many High Churchmen with admiration. Up in the morning early, or at night late, ready to practise all kinds of mortifications, to give their very bodies to be burned, and all their substance in alms, ready to offer prayers without number, and to be obedient to rites without end-what more could external religion demand of mortal men? Oh, if we could get these to sit at Jesu’s feet, and leave the phylacteries and the broad-bordered garments, and worship God in spirit, and have no confidence in the flesh, what grand people they would make!

See what Paul himself was, when, counting all he had valued so dear to be but dung, he quitted it, and began to preach salvation by grace alone. While he flew over the world like a lightning flash, and preached the gospel as with a peal of thunder, he loved, he lived, he died for the Nazarene, whom once in his zeal he had counted to be an impostor. Brethren, pray with all your might for zealous but mistaken persons, who have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

Once more, we are bound to make these people the subject of specially earnest prayer because it is so difficult to convert them. It requires the power of God to convert anybody really; but there seems to be a double manifestation of power in the conversion of a downright bigot when his bigotry is associated with dense ignorance and gross error. “Oh,” says he, “I do that which is right. I am strict in my religion. My righteousness will save me.” You cannot get him out of that. It is easier to get a sinner out of his sin than a self-righteous man out of his self-righteousness. Conceit of our own righteousness sticks to us as the skin to the flesh. Sooner may the leopard lose his spots than the proud man his self-righteousness. Oh, that righteousness of ours! We are so fond of it. Our pride hugs it. We do so like to think that we are good, that we are upright, that we are true, that we are right in the sight of God by nature; and though we be beaten out of it with many stripes, yet our tendency is always to return to it. Self-righteousness is bound up in the heart of a man as folly in the heart of a child. Though thou bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his self-righteous folly depart from him. He will still stick to it that, after all, he is a good fellow, and deserves to be saved. We must, therefore, in a very special manner pray for such, seeing that self-righteousness is a deep ditch, and it is hard to draw him out who has once fallen into it. Prejudice, of all other opponents, is one of the worst to overcome. The door is locked. You may knock as long as you like; but the man will not open it. He cannot. It is locked, and he has thrown away the key. You may tell him, “You are wrong, good friend”; but he is so comfortably assured that he is right, that all your telling will only make him the more angry at you for attempting to disturb his peace. O God! who but thou canst draw a man out of this miry clay of self-righteousness? Therefore do we cry to thee, of thy great grace, to do it. For these and many other reasons those who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, must have a chief place in our importunate prayers.

And secondly, what is it that these people are according to our text? These people will not like the text, nor yet like me for honestly explaining it. According to our text, it is very clear that these good people are ignorant. “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, go about to establish their own righteousness.” Ah! you may be brought up under the shadow of a church; you may sit all your life in a meeting-house; you may hear the gospel till you know every term and phrase by heart, and yet you may be ignorant of the righteousness of God. This is not a very complimentary statement, but as it is made upon inspiration, it behoves us to give earnest heed thereto.

Listen! There are many who are quite ignorant as to the natural righteousness of God’s character. They do not know how intensely he hates sin, how his anger burns against injustice and untruth. They have never conceived an idea of how pure he is, how infinitely holy. They have never been in sympathy with the angel’s adoration so as to know what is meant by the celestial chant,” Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth.” “Thou thinkest,” says God, “that I am altogether such a one as thyself-that if thou art pleased with thy righteousness, I must be pleased with it too; and if thy poor pride and stupefied conscience be satisfied, therefore thy God must be satisfied also.” Those who are satisfied with their own holiness are ignorant of God’s attribute of righteousness.

Again, they are ignorant of the righteousness of the law. Indeed, there is awful ignorance about that. You may hear the ten commandments read every Sabbath-day, and I think that it is a good thing to have them read, and a good thing to have them posted up where they can be read, but you will not know anything about them by merely reading them. There is a depth of meaning in those commandments, of which self-righteous persons are ignorant. For instance, when they read, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” does it strike most men’s minds that even a lascivious look breaks that commandment? Do they reflect that not only acts of fornication and uncleanness, but indecent words, thoughts, and looks are forbidden by that command? A man reads, “Thou shalt not kill,” and he thinks to himself, “I never committed a murder. I can shake hands with that commandment, and sing a merry song under the gallows-tree.” But Christ says, “He that is angry with his brother, without a cause, is a murderer”; and ill-will is murder at bottom. Murder is but hate ripened into deed; and therefore the least degree of hate is a violation of the command, “Thou shalt not kill.” Who among us has ever measured the full compass of the great law of God? Let me stretch out the line before you for a moment. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself.” Who among us has ever done that? The man who says, “I have kept the law” is simply ignorant of the righteousness which the law of God sets before us as the divine requirement. Could we behold the law in all its full-orbed majesty, we should as soon expect to hold the sun in the hollow of our right hand as to fulfil the law in all its length and breadth.

Further than this, dear friends, a man that is self-righteous, and hopes to get to heaven by his works and his religion, is ignorant of God’s righteous requirements with regard to his own heart. God requires not only that thou shouldst do that which is right, but that thou shouldst think that which is right, that thou shouldst love that which is right, ay, and that thou shouldst be that which is right. He desires truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part he would have us to know wisdom. If I could govern my tongue entirely, yet might I be guilty before God, even with that tongue; for there is such a thing as idle silence as well as idle speech. If it were possible to keep the hands right in all things, yet the heart might all the while be willing and anxious to move the hands amiss, and after all it is the way of the heart which is the true gauge of the man’s life. Unless thou be clean through and through in thy very inwards, in the core and centre of thy being, thou hast not reached to the righteous requirements of God. What sayest thou to this? Are not many grossly ignorant of this?

And then, again, all persons who are self-righteous must surely be ignorant of God’s righteousness in another sense, namely, they are ignorant that God has prepared a better righteousness for us. The Lord God has prepared for man a perfect and divine righteousness, by which he justifieth the ungodly. He has sent his own Son into the world, pure in heart and pure in life, to work out that righteousness. That Son of his has kept the law in every point, and what is more, he has honoured the law by his death, whereby he vindicated its tarnished honour, and gave glory to the Law-giver. Now God says, “Sinner, I can make thee righteous through Christ-righteous by imputation. I will impute to thee what Jesus did for thee. I will accept thee on account of what he is, and of what he did. He shall be thy righteousness. He shall be made of God unto thee thy righteousness.” Now surely, if you say, “No, but I will have a righteousness of my own”; why, man, you must be ignorant of God’s righteousness. Would God have taken the trouble to make another righteousness if thou couldst have made one of thine own? Is not Calvary, with all its griefs, a superfluity of naughtiness if men could be saved without it! The death of Christ upon the tree was an extravagance-a needless extravagance, if men can be saved without it; and if any man can be saved without Christ, saved by his own works, and saved by the principle of the law, then for him is Christ dead in vain. There was no need, in the first place, that Christ should have died for such a man, and to such a man Christ has died for nothing. If thou be righteous, thou hast nothing to do with Christ, for he is a Saviour of sinners. If thou hast a righteousness of thine own, thou art a rival to Christ. Thou art holding up thy twopenny garment of rags, and saying, “This is as good as the divine robe of Christ’s righteousness.” Man, thou art stitching together thy poor fig leaves, and thou art saying, “This is garment enough for me. I want not to wear the livery of God, the garment of Christ.” But those leaves will wither ere the sun goes down, and leave thee naked to thy shame. Thou art in opposition to Christ, thou art an Antichrist, and thy sin in setting up such a righteousness is, perhaps, greater than if thou hadst lived in open sin. Thou art, at any rate, casting as much dishonour upon Christ, and doing as much displeasure to God by this vain-glorious attempt to set up thine own righteousness, as if thou hadst gone about, like Pharaoh, to ask, “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?” It is only another form of the same pride. In the Egyptian king it takes one shape, and in thee it takes another. Wherefore, beware!

Brothers and sisters, are you praying for these zealous but ignorant and vain-glorious people? Go on with your prayer. Now in silence cry, “Lord, of thy great mercy, be pleased to deliver them from their headstrong zeal! Give them light, that they may quit their ignorance, and be no longer enemies to the cross, and grace, of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

That brings me to my third point, which is this: I have shown you why they should be prayed for. I have shown you that they are ignorant. Now I am going to show you what they do. According to the text they are going about to establish their own righteousness. I do not know whether I can give you the idea which this language suggests to my mind, but it is this: here is a kind of stuffed image, or, if you like, a statue, and they have set it up, and they want it to stand; but it is so badly constructed that it tumbles down. So they set it up again, and over it goes; in other words, they use all manner of plots and schemes to set up their righteousness upon its legs, but it repeatedly topples over. Another figure which may illustrate the expression is this: they have bad foundations for a house, and bad materials, and bad mortar, and they themselves are by no means good workmen. They have built up quite a height of wall to make a shelter for themselves, but it tumbles down. Never mind: they are very industrious, and so they set to work to put it up again. They are perseveringly determined, somehow or other, to build up a righteousness of their own. That is the meaning of this text. They go about to set up, to establish-to make to stand-their own righteousness, and it is such a crazy thing that it falls down of its own weight, and whenever it tumbles down they set it up again. They go about to do it; that is, they invent all sorts of ways; they go to the ends of the earth to find another bit of stone that will just wedge in and help to settle the corner-stone. All their industry is spent in trying to set up this thing, which is not worth a button when it is set up. Alas, that folly should be so desperately entrenched in the heart of man, that he will spend his whole life in a persevering attempt to insult his Maker by preparing a righteousness of his own, when his Maker has already wrought out, and brought in, a righteousness perfect in every respect!

While I am preaching about this I am thinking of myself, and smiling and yet mourning to think how, in the days of my ignorance, I myself tried this ridiculous pastime. The pictures which I shall paint will be drawn from my own personal experience. At first the man says, “I shall be saved, for I have kept the law. What lack I yet?” Now a very small hole will let enough light into the man’s heart to force him to see that this pretence will not answer. No one of us has kept the law. What saith the Scripture? “They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one.” You have only to read the law over by the light of conscience, and you must say to yourself, “I see that I cannot be saved by the perfect keeping of the law, since I have broken that law already.” When driven from this foolish hope, the man readily sets up another. If he cannot work, then a man tries to feel-and I know I tried to feel. Or else he cries, “I must join a bit of religion to my pure morals. I do not quite understand how the combination is to be made; but we have to maintain a reputation for righteousness, and we must do it by hook or by crook. It is true that I have not kept the law. Well, then, I will pray every morning and pray every night very regularly, and take a good long time over too, when I do not go to sleep, or when I do not wake up too late! And I will read so much of the Bible every day: a grand thing that! And if I can get through the Bible in a certain time, that will score one, will it not? Then I shall attend regularly a place of worship: and then, I think-well, I must be baptized, perhaps, or at any rate confirmed, or I must go to the sacrament; and when I have done all this, do you not think it will come pretty square?” If a man’s conscience is awake, it will not come square: or, to go back to the old figure, the image will not stand upright: it will tumble over. After appearing to stand firm for a while, our poor wretched righteousness grows top-heavy again, and over it goes. The man says, “No, I do not feel righteous after all! There is something amiss.”

Conscience begins to call out, “It will not do.” Peradventure, the man is taken ill. He thinks that he is going to die, and he says, “Alas, I could not die with so poor a hope as this! This boat would never carry me across the river Jordan. I can see that it leaks very terribly. There are a hundred points in which my hope utterly fails me. What shall I do?” Well, then, he must keep his wretched pretence afloat somehow; and so he cries, “At length I must go in for something thunderingly good. I will give a lot of money away.” If he is a rich man, he says, “I will endow an almshouse. You see I need not give the money till I die. That will do very well. I had better keep it while I am alive, and then leave it when I cannot keep it. Won’t it be a splendid thing? And if I put a painted window in a church, surely that will go a long way; or I will give a lump sum to an hospital.” To build a bridge, or mend the common roads, used to be the way in which a man who wanted to bid high for heaven made his offers in olden times; or else the monks and friars promised to sing him into glory for the small consideration of ten thousand a year. And so men go into that line, and seek salvation by purchase. And they hear about saints who fast. Well, then, they say, “Oh, I shall fast!” Then they say, “I have not prayed long enough. I must pray twice as long.”

According to the church to which he belongs, the zealous person becomes a determined partizan of his sect. Remember how Mr. Bunyan says that, when he was a godless man, he could have kissed the earth on which the clergy walked, and he thought that every nail in the church door was sacred. Among Dissenters, the man who is trying to save himself usually thinks that every practice of the little community with which he is united is infallibly correct. He has no real love to Christ, and has no trust in Christ’s righteousness; but how he will work at his favourite self-salvation! And you will have to work at it, sirs, if you are going to heaven by your works! To work your fingers to the bones is nothing. You might as well try to climb to the stars on a treadmill as to get to heaven by your good works; and, certainly, you might more easily sail from Liverpool to America on a sere leaf than ever get to heaven by works and doings of your own. There is more wanted than will ever come of yourself. You want a Saviour. You must be born again from above. You want a salvation that shall be a gift of infinite charity, a benison of the boundless mercy of the eternal God; and nothing else will save you.

But, oh, men will go about to set up their own righteousness; and I will tell you what some of them will do to-night! “Ah!” they will say, “quite right, Mr. Spurgeon. Quite right. I cannot bear that work-mongering and self-justification; but I hope that I shall be saved because I feel so deeply my sinnership, and I groan so heavily under a sense of guilt.” You trust to that, do you? It is only another form of trusting to your own works. I must rout you out of your feelings, as well as out of your works. You may just as well trust in the one thing that comes of you, as in the other thing that comes of you. Your salvation lies absolutely outside of yourself, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not in what you do, but in what he is. If you add to that foundation stick or stone of your own-thought, feeling, or work of your own-by way of trusting in it, you have spoiled the salvation of Christ. It shall never be “Christ and Company.” Hence be sure that if Jesus is to save you, you must let him do it, and you yourself must stand out of the way. “What! am I not to work? “Oh, yes! Work as hard as ever you like if he has saved you; but as to the salvation itself, that is with him. “But we are to work out our own salvation.” Certainly you are, after he has worked it in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure. But you cannot work out of yourself what is not in yourself; and you cannot put it into yourself, the Lord Jesus must put it there for you, and then you must with diligence work it out in your life and conversation. The inner and spiritual work is all his doing, from first to last.

I know that you do not like this doctrine, sir. You are sitting very uneasily, and looking towards the door; I thought I saw you seize your stick just now. Have patience a few minutes longer. Suppose that you were to get to heaven in your way, what would happen? I am afraid that sacred place would become more than a little mixed. Whenever I get to heaven, I will sing to the praise of the glory of his grace to whom I shall owe it all. When you get there, you cannot sing with me. You must needs have a new tune. You will throw up your cap, and say, “I have managed it after all!” This will lead to a very speedy contest and quarrel. You will glorify yourself, and depend upon it, sinners saved by grace will glorify Christ. Our jealousy for his glory will not suffer us to tolerate you in the realms of the blest. Our Lord is not going to have any discord in heaven; you shall all sing his praises there, or never sing at all. There will be no divided praise; but the strain shall be set to the tune of Salvation all of grace. “Salvation to our God that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.”

Lastly, dear people of God, are you praying about these zealous, mistaken people all this while? Let me entreat you to renew your supplications. Shall we stop a minute while you do so? Remember that you also were once in the dark, and that you foolishly hoped to be saved in the same proud and selfish manner which has such charms for them. Pray about them that the Lord will fetch them out of their self-righteousness-“O Lord, of thine infinite mercy, bring to thyself and to thy dear Son, those earnest persons who have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge! O thou, who doest great marvels, enlighten the darkness of those who are prejudiced against the day!”

The fourth thing is, what they will not do. “Going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”

“They have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” Why, there are some that have not submitted even to hear it! Possibly, I address to-night one who never came here before, and has always said, “No, I should not think of going to such a place.” You are only one of a numerous band of people of that character. Our law does not judge any man before it hears him, but these people both judge and condemn the gospel without giving it an hour’s attention. If you speak to them about it, they are wrapped up in an idea of their own righteous perfectness, and they really cannot endure to hear themselves talked to as if they were common sinners. Are they not good enough of themselves? What can you tell them better than they know already? They do not want to hear the gospel. I think that I would recommend them, at any rate, to hear what it is, because the next time they speak against it, they will speak with more knowledge. It is always a pity not to know even that which we most despise. Even contempt should have a rational foundation. It will not hurt you, friend, to know. And yet there is such prejudice in the mind of some that they refuse to acquaint themselves with the verities which God has revealed. “Sinners saved by grace!” they say: “Salvation by faith! It is all very well for the commonalty; but it does not do for ladies and gentlemen like us. We were always so good.” Very well, then; if that really is the case, you know there is a heaven for the commonalty, and it is highly probable that you ladies and gentlemen are too good to go there. Where will you go? There is but one way to heaven, and that way is closed against the proud; and if you choose to be so proud, you will close it against yourself, and we cannot help you. But we will pray-pray God that prejudice may yield, and that to-night, and at other times, those who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge, may, at least, be willing to hear what the gospel is. How many have been brought to Christ in the old times by reading Martin Luther upon the Galatians! That is a book in a rough enough style. What sledge-hammer words Martin uses! Only the other day I met a man who came to me like one of the old Puritans, and he said to me that he had traversed the line of the two covenants. He began to converse with me in that antique, majestic style which comes of Puritanic theology. I thought-Bless the man! He has risen from the dead. He is one of Oliver Cromwell’s grey Ironsides. He will be able to tell me of Naseby and Marston Moor. So I said to him, “Covenant and law, where did you pick that up, friend?” “Not at any church or chapel,” said he. “There are none round about where I live who know anything at all about it. They are all in the dark together-dumb dogs that cannot bark.” “How did you stumble on the true light?” I asked. The man replied, “In the good providence of God, I met with Master Martin Luther on the Galatians. I bought it for sixpence out of a box in front of a bookseller’s shop.” Oh, it was a good find for that man! Six pennyworth of salvation, according to the judgment of men; but infinite riches, according to the judgment of God. He had indeed found a jewel when he learned the truth of salvation by grace through faith. I recommend persons, whether they will read Martin Luther or any other author, to be especially careful to read the Epistle to the Galatians itself. Paul hammers there against all hope of salvation by the law, and puts salvation on the basis of grace, and grace alone, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Still there are many who will not incline their ear, and come unto Christ; they will not even hear that their souls may live. Do not they deserve to die who are too proud to hearken to the way of life?

And then there are others who, when they hear it, will not admit that they need it. “What, sir! Must I go down on my knees? Must I confess that I am a sinner, a real sinner? Must I come before God as if I had been a criminal? Must I stand in the dock, and plead guilty? “Yes, you must, or else you will never be saved. “They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick.” Off with that helmet of obstinacy! Down with the plumes of pride! Thou must come to God on thy bended knees, with a rope about thy neck, as one who is only fit to die, and to be cast into hell, for he will never save thee on any other terms. He must extend to thee the sceptre of his absolutely sovereign grace, and save thee as an undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving sinner, or else thou canst never be saved at all. What sayest thou to this? Dost thou reply, “I will never submit to such a humiliation”? God will never alter his terms to please you. Some will not submit to accept salvation. It is freely offered, without money and without price, but men would like to pay for it at least a something, and they turn upon their heel. They will not have it as a free gift.

Again, there are others who will not submit to the spirit of it-to the influence of it, for you must know that the spirit of free grace is this-if God saves me for nothing, then I belong to him for ever and ever. If he forgives me every sin simply because I believe in Jesus, then I will hate every sin, and flee from it. If he grants me forgiveness on no ground but that of his own absolute mercy and good pleasure, as he has put it, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion;” then I will love him with all my heart, and soul, and strength, till time shall be no more. Now, for the love I bear him, I will lead a holy life. I will serve him with every power of my being. The virtue I aimed at before, in my own strength, I will now ask for from his Holy Spirit. The goodness that I thought I had, but never had, I will seek to have as a gift of his grace wrought in me; and I, because of his great goodness to me, will live to him, and will not henceforth serve myself or serve sin, but will serve him who has bought me with his precious blood. Many will not submit to that; yet they can never be saved from sin unless they yield themselves as the blood-bought servants of Christ. Christ comes to save his people from their sins, and from their sins he will save them; they shall no longer be in bondage to the powers of evil. The Lord Jesus accomplishes this salvation by freely forgiving them, and then moving their hearts to such a love of him that they become in love with everything that is pure and holy, and are filled with hatred of everything that is unjust, and wrong, and wicked, and their life becomes totally changed. What the principle of law talked about doing, but never did, the principle of grace actually does. It puts a new mainspring into the man; and when the works within are right, then the hands without soon move according to right rules. I most earnestly pray that many of you may submit to the righteousness of Christ. Yield yourselves up; trust in Christ; believe in him who died for sinners; take him to be your Saviour to-night. Do not go to sleep till this is done, lest you wake up in the bottomless pit.

With my whole soul I offer the prayer of my text this night; and do you also, dear friends, keep on praying. I ask all of you Christian people to insert a special petition into all your prayers, and to keep it there-“O Lord, save by thy grace those who have a zeal for thee, which is not according to knowledge! Grant that they may not go about to establish their own righteousness, but may submit themselves unto the righteousness of God!” Amen and Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Philippians 3.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-563, 684, 554.

REJOICE EVERMORE

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, May 23rd, 1886, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Rejoice evermore.”-1 Thessalonians 5:16.

This is a sunny precept. When we read it we feel that the time of the singing of birds has come. That joy should be made a duty is a sure token of the blessedness of the New Covenant. Because Jesus has suffered, we are encouraged, commanded, and enabled to rejoice. Only the Man of Sorrows and his chosen apostles can teach for a precept such a word as this-“Rejoice evermore.” Happy people who can be thus exhorted! We ought to rejoice that there is a command to rejoice. Glory be unto the God of happiness who bids his children be happy. While musing on this text, I seem carried in spirit to the green woods, and their bowers. As in a dell all blue with hare-bells, where the sun smiles down upon me through the half-born oak leaves, I sit me down, and hear the blessed birds of the air piping out their love-notes: their music saith only this-“Rejoice evermore.” All that I see, and hear, and feel, surrounds me with garlands of delight; while the fairest of all the shepherds of Sharon sings to me this delicious pastoral-“Rejoice evermore.” The very words have breathed spring into my soul, and set my heart a blossoming. Thus am I also made to be as a daffodil which long has hidden away among the clods, but now at last ventures to uplift her yellow lily, and ring out her golden bell. Who can be sad, or silent, when the voice of the Beloved saith “Rejoice evermore”?

Our apostle speaks of rejoicing as a personal, present, permanent duty to be always carried out by the people of God. The Lord has not left it to our own option whether we will sorrow or rejoice; but he has pinned us down to it by positive injunction-“Rejoice evermore.” He will have this cloth of gold spread over the whole field of life. He has laid down as first and last, beginning, middle and end-“Rejoice evermore.” Some things are to be done at one time, some at another; but rejoicing is for all times, for ever, and for evermore, which, I suppose, is more than ever, if more can be. Fill life’s sea with joy up to high-water mark. Spare not, stint not, when rejoicing is the order of the day. Run out to your full tether; sweep your largest circle when you use the golden compasses of joy.

Some things being once done are done with, and you need not further meddle with them; but you have never done with rejoicing. “Rejoice evermore.”

Our text is set in the midst of many precepts. Notice how from the fourteenth verse the apostle packs together a number of duties of Christian ministers and church members one towards another. “We exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.” All these things are to be done in turn, according as occasion requires; but “rejoice evermore.” You have plenty to do; but this thing you have always to do. You shall never be able to fold your hands for want of some holy task or other; but be not worried; be not fretted by what you have to do; on the contrary, take up the sacred duties with alacrity, welcoming each one of them, and entering upon them with delight. Rejoice in each one, because you “rejoice evermore.” You will have to warn the unruly, and their rebellious tempers will, perhaps, irritate you; or, if in patience you possess your soul, yet you may grow sad at having so melancholy a duty to perform; but be not overmuch troubled, even by the grief of injured love. Warn the unruly, but “rejoice evermore.” Do not pause in the blessed service of rejoicing when you are called upon to comfort the feeble-minded. There is a danger that the feebleminded may rob you of your comfort, but let it not be so. In attempting to lift them out of the waters you may, perhaps, be almost drowned yourself; your deliverance will lie in the sweet word, “Rejoice evermore.” You will lose your power both to warn the unruly and to comfort the feeble-minded, if you lose your joy. The joy of the Lord will be your strength in all these matters; therefore, “rejoice evermore.” Close at your hand will lie the weak who want supporting, and you may be half saying to yourselves, “We wish that all God’s people were strong, that we might unitedly spend all our strength against the foe, instead of having to use it at home for supporting our own weak soldiery.” But be not dejected on that account: while you are supporting the weak, still “rejoice evermore.” Your rejoicing will be a great support to the faint; your ceasing to rejoice will be a terrible confirmation of their sorrow. Lend the feeble a hand, but do not stop your own singing. Does not a mother carry her babe, and sing at the same time?

As you turn about, you find all men gathering to hinder you, to grieve you, to slander you, or to make use of you for their base purposes. But be not grieved: put up with your poor fellow-creatures since the Lord puts up with you, but do not leave off rejoicing. As you are patient towards all men, let your patience have a flavour of joy in it: however great the provocations that you endure, still “rejoice evermore.” As it is written, “With all thy sacrifices thou shalt offer salt,” so let it be thy settled purpose with every other duty to offer rejoicing. I am sure, brethren, that we make a very great mistake if we get like Martha-cumbered with much serving; for that cumbering prevents our serving the Master well. He loves to see those who serve in his house of a cheerful countenance. He wants not slaves to grace his throne. He Would have his children wait upon him with a light in their faces which is the reflection of his own. He would have his joy fulfilled in them, that their joy may be full: it is his royal pleasure that his service should be delight, his worship heaven, his presence glory. Let your hearts be sanctified, but let not your hearts be troubled. Amidst a thousand duties give not way to a single anxiety. While you are desirous to honour God in everything, yet be not overburdened even with the cares of his cause and service, lest you put forth the hand of Uzza to stay the ark of the Lord. The Lord forbade his priests to wear garments that caused sweat, and he will not have any one of us fret and worry about his cause so as to lose our rest in his own self. Wrestle for a blessing, but still “rejoice evermore.”

The command to rejoice is set in the midst of duties; it is put there to teach us how to perform them all.

Also notice that our text comes after just a flavouring of trouble and bitterness. Read verse fifteen: “See that none render evil for evil unto any man.” Children of God are apt to have evil rendered to them. They may have slanderous reports spread about them: they may be accused of things they never dreamed of: they may be cut to the heart by the ingratitude of those who ought to have been their friends; but still they are bidden, “rejoice evermore.” Even rejoice in the persecution and in the slander. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” So says our Lord. “Rejoice ye,” he says, “and be exceeding glad.” There is an expression in the Greek that never has been rendered into English, and never will be-αγαλλιασθε. Old Trapp half puns upon the agalliasthe as he says, “dance a galliard.” I do not know what a “galliard” was, but I suppose that it was some very joyous kind of dance. Certainly we know of no better way of translating our Lord’s word than by-exult, or leap for joy. Even when your good name shall be tarnished by the malice of the wicked, then you are to leap. When are you to be wretched? Surely despondency is excluded. If slander is to make us dance, when are we to fret? Suppose some other kind of trial should come upon you, you are still to rejoice in the Lord always. The dearest friend is dead: “rejoice evermore.” The sweet babe is sickening, the darling of your household will be taken away: “rejoice evermore.” Trade is ebbing out, prosperity is disappearing from you, you may even be brought to poverty; but, “rejoice evermore.” Your health is affected, your lungs are weak, your heart does not beat with regularity, very soon you may be sick unto death; but, “rejoice evermore.” Shortly you must put off this tabernacle altogether! Tokens warn you that you must soon close your eyes in death; but, “rejoice evermore.” There is no limit to the exhortation. It is ever in season. Through fire and through water, through life and through death, “rejoice evermore.”

Now and then a commentator says that the command of our text must mean that we are to be in the habit of rejoicing, for there must necessarily be intervals in which we do not rejoice. It is to be “constant but intermittent”: so one good man says. I do not know how that can be, though I know what he means. He means that it ought to be the general tenor of our life that we rejoice: yet he evidently feels that there must be black clouds now and then to vary the abiding sunshine. He warns us that there will be broken bits of road where as yet the steam roller has not forced in the granite. But that will not do as an interpretation of the text; for the apostle expressly says, “Rejoice evermore”: that is, rejoice straight on, and never leave off rejoicing. Whatever happens, rejoice. Come what may, rejoice. If the worst darkens to the worst-if the night lowers into a sevenfold midnight, yet “rejoice evermore.” This carillon of celestial bells is to keep on ringing through the night as well as through the day. “Rejoice, rejoice, ye saints of God at every time, in every place, and under every circumstance. Joy, joy, for ever. Rejoice evermore. In the midst of a thousand duties, amid the surges of ten thousand trials, still rejoice.” There is to be about the Christian a constancy of joy.

I am bound to mention among the curiosities of the churches, that I have known many deeply spiritual Christian people who have been afraid to rejoice. Much genuine religion has been “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought”! Some take such a view of religion that it is to them a sacred duty to be gloomy. They believe in the holiness of discontent, the sanctity of repining; but they recoil from grateful joy as if it were the devil in the form of an angel of light. One of the commandments of the saints of misery is, “Draw down the blinds on a Sunday.” Another is, “Never smile during a sermon: it is wicked.” A third precept is, “Never rest yourself, and be sure that you never let anybody else rest for an instant. Why should anybody be allowed a moment’s quiet in a world so full of sin? Go through the world and impress people with the idea that it is an awful thing to live.” I have known some very good people spoiled for practical usefulness, and spoiled as to being like the Lord Jesus Christ, by their deeply laid conviction that it was wicked to be glad. Well do I remember an earnest Christian woman who saw me when I was first converted, full of the joy of the Lord, and joyfully assured of my salvation in Christ Jesus. She seemed distressed at the sight of so much joy. She shook her head. She looked at me with that heavenly-minded pity which these good people usually lay by in store. It seemed to her a dreadful thing that so young a Christian should dare to know whom he had believed. If you had been a Christian a hundred years you might perhaps begin to think it possible that you were saved; but to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ right straight away like a little child, and at once to rejoice in his salvation, seemed to this dear old Christian woman to be an act of such shocking temerity that she could only shake her dear head and prognosticate all sorts of horrible things. Since then I have found a great many like her; and when I have seen them shake their heads they have not shaken me half so much as she shook my heart on that first occasion; because I know them now, and I know that there is nothing in that shake of the head after all. The fact is that they ought to shake their heads about themselves for getting into so sad a state while this text stands on the sacred page, “Rejoice evermore.” It cannot be a wise and prudent thing to neglect this plain precept of the word. It cannot be an unsafe thing to do what we are commanded to do. It cannot be a wrong thing for a believer to abide in that state of mind which is recommended by the Holy Spirit in words so plain, and so unguarded, “Rejoice evermore.”

Oh, dear friends, you may rejoice. God has laid no embargo upon rejoicing; he puts no restriction upon happiness. Do believe it that you are permitted to be happy. Do believe that there is no ordinance of God commanding you to be miserable. Turn this book over and see if there be any precept that the Lord has given you in which he has said, “Groan in the Lord always, and again I say groan.” You may groan if you like. You have Christian liberty for that; but, at the same time, do believe that you have larger liberty to rejoice, for so it is put before you. He bids you rejoice, and yet again he says “rejoice.” Some of God’s sheep dare not go into the Lord’s own pasture. It is dark and thick with rich and luscious food; and into that field their Shepherd has already led them. Yet they dream that there is a gate, and that gate is shut, and across it is written this word, “Presumption.” They are afraid to feed where God has made the best grass to grow for them because they are afraid of being presumptuous. The fear is groundless, but painfully common. Oh that I could deliver the true believer from this evil influence! If you are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, everything that there is in Christ is yours. If you are resting in Jesus Christ, though you have only lately begun to trust in him, the whole covenant of grace with all its infinite supplies belongs to you, and you have the right to partake of that which grace has provided. Jesus invites you to eat and drink abundantly. Beloved in the Lord, the only sin that you can commit at the banquet of love will be to stint yourselves. The feast is spread by a royal hand, and royal bounty bids you come. Hold not back through shame or fear. Come and satiate your souls with goodness. “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness,” for so God permits you to do.

But I go a step farther, and that is, that it is a sin not to rejoice. I will not say it harshly; I should like to say it as softly and tenderly as it could be put: but it must be said, and I must not take away from the force of it by my tenderness. If it be a command, “Rejoice evermore,” then it is a breach of the command not to rejoice evermore. And what is a breach of a command? What is a neglect to obey a precept? Is it not a sin-a sin of shortcoming, though not of transgression? Beloved, why do your faces wear those gloomy colours? Why do you distrust? Why do you mourn? Why are you continually suspicious of the faithfulness of God? Why are you not rejoicing when there is God’s word for it, first permitting, and then commanding you? Come, ye unhappy and dolorous professors, question yourselves rather than others. O thou forlorn one, cease to judge those whose eyes flash with exultation. Next time that you meet with a rejoicing Christian, do not begin to chide him, but quietly chide yourself because you do not rejoice. As for you who are swift of foot, I hope that you will not say an unkind word of poor Mephibosheth, who is lame in both his feet, for he is dear to David, and he shall sit at David’s table. But, on the other hand, Mephibosheth in his lameness must not grow bitter and censorious, and find fault with Asahel, who is fleet of foot as a young roe, or otherwise it may seem almost too ridiculous. No, no, Heavy-heart, chide not the glad. Glad-heart, deal not roughly with the sorrowful. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and share ye one another’s joys. If there be any chiding, let it be the chiding of Little-Faith, sorrowfully bemoaning his own weakness of grace. Oh that God would help us to be faithful to our own experiences: then we shall not criticize others, but judge ourselves.

All this by way of introduction.

And now, just for a minute or two, I desire to speak upon the quality of this rejoicing which is commanded in our text. May the Holy Spirit enable me to set before you the select taste and special quality of a believer’s life-long joy! “Rejoice evermore.”

Brethren, this is not a carnal rejoicing. If it were, it would be impossible to keep it up evermore. There is a joy of harvest; but where shall we find it in winter? There is a joy of wealth; but where is this joy when riches take to themselves wings, and fly away? There is a joy of health; but that is not with us evermore, for the evil days come and the years of weakness and sorrow. There is a joy in having your children round about you; sweet are domestic joys, but these last not for ever. At the house of the happiest knocks the hand of death. No: if your joys spring from earthly fountains, those fountains may be dried up, and then your joys are gone. If the foundation of a man’s joy be anywhere on earth it will be shaken; for there is a day coming when the whole earth shall shake, and even now it is far from being a stable thing. Build not on the floods; and what are outward circumstances but as waves of the changeful sea? No, beloved, it cannot be carnal joy which is here commanded, since carnal joy in the nature of things cannot be for evermore. I know not that carnal joy is commanded anywhere. Men are permitted to rejoice in the things of this life, but that is the most that we can say. They are forbidden to rejoice too much in these things, for they are as honey, of which a man may soon eat till he is sickened. The joy which God commands is a joy in which it is impossible to go too far. It is a heavenly joy, based upon things which will last for evermore; or else we could not be bidden to “rejoice evermore.”

Again, as this joy is not carnal, so I feel quite sure that it is not presumptuous. Some persons ought not to rejoice. Did not the prophet Hosea say, “Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou hast departed from thy God”? There are some persons who rejoice, and it would be well if a faithful hand were to dash the cup from their lips. They have never fled to Christ for refuge-they have never been born again-they have never submitted themselves to the righteousness of God, and yet they are at ease in Zion. Ah, wretched ease! Many are ignorant of their ruin, strangers to the remedy of grace, strangers to the blood that bought redemption; and yet they rejoice in their own righteousness. They have a joy that has been accumulated through years of false profession, hypocritical formality, and vain pretence. Such as these are not told to “rejoice evermore.” There must be sound reasons for rejoicing now, or there can be no reason for rejoicing evermore. If your joy will not bear looking at, have done with it. If, when you run with the footmen of common self-examinations in time of health, they weary you, what will you do when you contend with the black horsemen of dark thought in the hour of death? The joy that will abide for ever is the joy to be sought after; but joy which a man cannot justify never ought to be thought of as enduring for “evermore.” la your hope fixed on what Jesus did for sinners on the tree? Are you really a partaker of the life that is in him? Have you been begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead? If so, it is safe for you to rejoice at once; and it will be equally safe for you to “rejoice evermore.” Is it not clear that the rejoicing commanded in our text is not a presumptuous joy, or a carnal joy?

Again, dear friends, I feel bound to add that it must not be a fanatical joy. Certain religious people are of a restless, excitable turn, and never feel good till they are half out of their minds. You would not wonder if their hair should stand bolt upright, like the quills of the fretful porcupine. They are in such a state of mind that they cry “hallelujah” at anything or nothing, for they feel ready to cry, or shout, or jump, or dance. I do not condemn their delirium, but I am anxious to know what goes with it. Come hither, friend; let us have a talk. What do you know? What? Is it possible that I offend you the moment I seek a reason for the hope that is in you? Is it so, that you do not know anything of the doctrines of grace? You were never taught anything; the object of the institution which enlisted you is not to teach you, but only to excite you. It pours boiling water into you, but it does not feed you with milk. That is a miserable business. We like excitement of a proper kind, and we covet earnestly a high and holy joy, but if our rejoicing does not come out of a clear understanding of the things of God, and if there is no truth at the bottom of it, what does it profit us? Those who rejoice without knowing why can be driven to despair without knowing why; and such persons are likely to be found in a lunatic asylum ere long. The religion of Jesus Christ acts upon truthful, reasonable, logical principles: it is sanctified common sense. A Christian man should only exhibit a joy which he can justify, and of which he can say, “There is reason for it.” I pray you, take care that you have joy which you may expect to endure for ever, because there is a good solid reason at the back of it. The excitement of animal enthusiasm will die out like the crackling of thorns under a pot; we desire to have a flame burning on the hearth of our souls which is fed with the fuel of eternal truth, and will therefore burn on for evermore.

I go a little farther, and I say that I believe that this joy which is commanded here, “Rejoice evermore,” is not even that high and divine exhilaration which Christians feel upon special occasions. We could tell of rapturous ecstasies and sublime joys which, if they be not heaven itself, are so near akin to it, that we would not change them for the place that Gabriel fills when nearest to his Master’s throne. Oh, there are times when God’s Elijah, having brought down the fire from heaven, girds up his loins and runs; before Ahab’s chariot with a divine enthusiasm which onlookers cannot understand. There are moments on the top of the mount when Peter is no fool for saying, “Let us build three tabernacles.” It is so good to be there that we would willingly stay in that mount and never come down again to the bustle, and turmoil, and sin of a guilty world. Now, you are not commanded in the text to be always in such a high, exalted, rapturous state of mind as that. “Rejoice evermore,” but you cannot always rejoice at that rate. I have said that you cannot, and I mean it literally. There is a physical impossibility in it. The strain upon the mind would be much too great. We could not live in such a condition of excitement and tension. Sometimes we can swim in the deep waters; but who can always swim? We can take to ourselves the wings of eagles, and soar beyond the stars; but we are not condors, and cannot always fly: we are more like the sparrows which find a house near the altar of God. When we cannot mount as on wings, we think it quite sufficient if we can run without weariness, and walk without fainting. The ordinary joy of the Christian is that which is commanded here: it is not the joy of Jubilee but of every year; not the joy of harvest but of all the months. “Rejoice evermore.” No, Miriam, no, not always the timbrel. Not every day, “Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.” There is other work for you. No, Moses, not every day, “Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.” No, you have other work to do amongst those rebels, quite as honouring to your God and quite as useful as writing Israel’s triumphal hymn. No, James and John and Peter, not always on the top of Tabor. Sometimes in the house of death with your Master where the young girl is raised, and sometimes in Gethsemane to keep watch, if you can, while he sweats great drops of blood. You are to “rejoice evermore,” but you are not always to be clashing the high-sounding cymbals; sometimes the softer psaltery must satisfy your hand. All days are not holidays: there was a day when Job lost his cattle and his children, and yet blessed the name of the Lord. All days are not wedding days: there was a day wherein Jacob cried, “All these things are against me.” All days are not as the days of heaven upon earth; and until the day break and the shadows flee away we shall have to bear about a joy that is rather a lamp in the night than a sun in the day-a joy that gladdens us when we are cast down, rather than lifts us up to ecstasy.

I hope that you catch my thought, though I am afraid that I do but dimly put it. This shows you what kind of joy could not be with us always. The joy that can be with us evermore is a part of ourselves, a power of the new nature which God works in us by his own Spirit. It consists in the great cheerfulness of the new-born disposition; a full conviction that whatever God does is right; a sweet agreement with the providence of God, let it ordain what it will; an intense delight in God himself and in the person of his dear Son; and consequently a quietness, a calm, a stillness of soul, “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” This holy rejoicing is a drop of the essence of heaven. You have heard of “songs without words”; such is the joy of the Lord in the soul: a sort of silent song for ever sung within the spirit; a quiet making of music with every pulse of the heart; a living psalmody before God with every heaving of the lungs. I hope that you know what it means, or that if you do not, you may soon learn. This is a joy that has no wear and tear about it. You can keep from year to year the even tenor of this way; for this is the pace for which men’s minds were made. “Rejoice evermore.” You can live to be as old as Methuselah in this frame; for this rejoicing will never tear you to pieces. It will conserve you, and act as the salt of your physical, mental, and spiritual man.

Thus much upon the quality of this joy.

Suffer a few words upon the object of this rejoicing, in order to help you, dear friends, to indulge it. “Rejoice evermore.” Wherewith can we keep this feast? What are the objects of such a joy as this?

God helping us, we can always rejoice in God. What a God we have! “God my exceeding joy,” said the Psalmist. “Delight thyself also in the Lord.” Every attribute of God, every characteristic of God, is an inexhaustible gold mine of precious joy to every man who is reconciled to God. Delight thyself in God the Father, and his electing love, and his unchanging grace, and his illimitable power, and his transcending glory; and in thy being his child, and in that providence with which he orders all things for thee. Delight thyself in thy Father God. Delight thyself also in the Son, who is “God with us.” God with us or ever the earth was, in the covenant council when he became our surety and our representative. God with us when his delights were with the sons of men. Delight in him as man suffering, sympathizing with you. Delight in him as God putting forth infinite wisdom and power for you. I should need a month in which to give a bare outline of the various points of our Lord’s divine and human character which furnish us with objects of joy. Do but think of him. Do but for a moment consider his love, and if you are at all right in heart it must bring unspeakable pleasure to you.

“Jesus, the very thought of thee

With sweetness fills my breast.”

Then think of the Holy Ghost, and rejoice in him as dwelling in you, quickening you, comforting you, illuminating you, and abiding with you for ever. Think of the triune God, and be blest.

Then muse upon the covenant of grace; think of redemption by blood; think of divine sovereignty and all that has come of it in the form of grace to men. Think of thy effectual calling, thy justification, thy acceptance in the Beloved. Think of thy final perseverance. Think of thy union with the glorious person of the Well-beloved, and of all the life and all the glory that is wrapped up in that surpassing truth. “Rejoice evermore.” With such a God you have always a source of joy.

I believe, dear friends, that if we are right-minded every doctrine of the gospel will make us glad, every promise of the gospel will make us glad, every precept of the gospel will make us glad. If you were to go over a list of all the privileges that belong to the people of God, you might pause over each one, and say, “I could rejoice evermore in this if I had nothing else.” If ever you fail to rejoice, permit me to exhort you to arouse each one of the graces of the Spirit to its most active exercise. Begin with the first of them-faith. Believe, and as you believe this and that out of the ten thousand blessings which God has promised, joy will spring up in your soul. Have you exercised faith? then lead out the sister grace of hope. Begin hoping for the resurrection, hoping for the second coming, hoping for the glory which is then to be revealed. What sources of joy are these! When you have indulged hope, then go on to love, and let this fairest of the heavenly sisters point you to the way of joy. Go on to love God more and more, and to love his people, and to love poor sinners; and, as you love, you will not fail to rejoice, for joy is born of love! Love has on her left hand sorrow for the griefs of those she loves, but at her right hand a holy joy in the very fact of loving her fellows; for he that loves doeth a joyful thing. If you cannot get joy either out of hope, or faith, or love, then go on to patience. I believe that one of the sweetest joys under heaven comes out of the severest suffering when patience is brought into play. “Sweet,” says Toplady, “to lie passive in thy hand, and know no will but thine.” And it is so sweet, so inexpressibly sweet, that to my experience the joy that comes of perfect patience is, under certain aspects, the divinest of all the joys that Christians know this side of heaven. The abyss of agony has a pearl in it which is not to be found upon the mountain of delight. Put patience to her perfect work, and she will bring you the power to rejoice evermore.

I will suppose that you have gone through all this, and that you still say, “I cannot rejoice as I would.” Then arise, dear brother, and gird yourself for holy exercise. Begin with prayer. Prayer will make the darkening cloud remove; and then you will rejoice. If supplication is over, and you are not rejoicing, then sing a psalm. “Bring hither the minstrel.” Often does holy music set the prophet going. Let us sing a song unto the Lord; and if we have no joy in our hearts already, we shall not have sung very many verses before rejoicing will drop on us like the dew which soaks the dry and dusky tents of the Arabians. If neither prayer nor praise will do it, then read the Word. Sit still and meditate on what the Lord has spoken. Go up to the Communion table; gather with the people of God in sweet mutual converse; or go out and preach to sinners. Go to the Sunday-school class, and tell the dear children about Christ. In Christian labour you will joy in the Lord as you would not have rejoiced in him if you had been idle at home.

At any rate, when you do not rejoice, say to yourself, “Come, heart, this will not do. Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” I have heard of a mother that whenever her children began to cry, and grow fretty, she said, “They must have medicine.” She was sure that they were not well. Whenever you begin to fret and worry, say to yourself, “I must take heavenly medicine, for I am not right. The leaves of the Scriptures are for my healing: I will use them for my soul’s good. If my heart were right I should rejoice in the Lord, and as I am not rejoicing I must resort to the great Physician.”

Brethren, we must rejoice. Why should we not rejoice, since all things are ours? Heaven is ours in the future, and earth is ours in the present. With the past and all its sins blotted out, the future and all its wants provided for by the bounty of an unchanging God, wherefore should we be disquieted? If we are not glad, the stars may rebuke us as they twinkle amid the darkness: the sun may rebuke us for refusing to shine in the light of God. Come, brethren, let us obey the Word that says, “Rejoice evermore.”

Lastly, somebody will say, “But why should we rejoice?” What are the reasons for this rejoicing? We ought not to want arguments to persuade us to be happy. The worldling says that “he counts it one of the wisest things to drive dull care away.” The child of God may count it the wisest thing to cast his care upon his God. You do not want an argument for rejoicing; but if you did, it is found in the command of your Lord, who says to you, “Rejoice evermore.”

Rejoicing wards off temptation. The Christian may be tempted; but little impression is made upon him by the pleasurable bait if he is happy in the Lord. There is a passage in Paul-I forget just now where it is-where he speaks of putting on the armour of light. It is fine poetry as well as solid fact that we wear the armour of light; and part of the meaning is, that we are so surrounded with seraphic joy that nothing can tempt us. The joy which we wear is far superior to any which the evil one can offer us; and so his temptation has lost its power. What can the devil offer the joyous Christian? Why, if he were to say to him, “I will give thee all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof, if thou wilt fall down and worship me,” the believer would reply to him, “Fiend, I have more than that. I have perfect contentment; I have absolute delight in God. My soul swims in a deep sea of bliss as I think of God.” The devil will speedily quit such a man as that; for the joy of the Lord is an armour through which he cannot send the dagger of his temptation.

This joy of the Lord will shut out worldly mirth from the heart. The rejoicing Christian is not the kind of man that wants to spend his evenings in a theatre. “Pooh!” he says, “what can I do there?” You say to the man who has once eaten bread, “I will take you to such a grand feast. I will show you a company of swine all feeding upon husks. Look upon them, see how they enjoy themselves! You shall have as much as you like, and be as happy as they are.” He says, “But you do not know me: you do not understand me. I have none of the qualities that link me with swine. I cannot enjoy the things which they enjoy.” He that is once happy in God pours contempt upon the sublimest happiness that a worldling can know. It is altogether out of his line. He does not know their mirth, even as they do not know his rejoicing. I suppose that the fish of the sea have joys suitable to their natures. I do not envy them: I am not inclined to dive into their element. It is so with the children of God; they are not inclined to go after worldly things when they are happy in the Lord. But your miserable professors who simply go to a place of worship because they ought to go, and who are very good because they dare not be anything else, they have no joy in the Lord. They go to the devil for their joy: they openly confess that they must have a bit of pleasure sometimes, and therefore they go to questionable amusements. No wonder that they are found in Satan’s courts, looking up to him for delights, since they find no rejoicing in the ways of the Lord.

He that rejoices in the Lord always will be a great encouragement to his fellow Christians. He comes into the room: you like the very look of his face. It is a half-holiday to look at him; and as soon as ever he speaks he drops a sweet word of encouragement for the weak and afflicted. We have some brethren round about us whose faces always refresh me before preaching. Their words are cheering and strengthening. Those who rejoice in the Lord evermore cannot help perfuming the room where they are with the aroma of their joy. Others catch the blessed contagion of their contentment, and become happy too.

This is the kind of thing that attracts sinners. They used in the old times to catch pigeons and send them out with sweet unguents on their wings: other pigeons followed them into the dovecote for the sake of their perfume, and so were captured. I would that every one of us had the heavenly anointing on our wings, the divine perfumes of peace, and joy, and rest; for then others would be fascinated to Jesus, allured to heaven.

God grant that it may be so, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-1 Thessalonians 5.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-23 (Vers. I.), 764, 778.

MYSTERIOUS MEAT

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, May 23rd, 1886, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye Know not of. Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.”-John 4:31-38.

The disciples had gone away into the city to buy meat, and for this they cannot be censured. It was necessary that food should be provided, and it naturally fell to their lot to perform that duty. Do not say that they were carnal or unspiritual because of this, for the most spiritual people must eat to live. When they came back from making their purchases, they found their Master sitting by the well, as they had left him. They naturally expected that he would be as ready to partake of the provision as they were to offer it to him; but he made no movement in that direction. His mind was evidently far away from the idea of food. He was absorbed in something else, and therefore his disciples sought to call him back to a sense of his need. I do not suppose that they had themselves eaten; it was hardly like them to do so while their Lord was not with them. They therefore themselves wished to eat, and they were all the more struck with the fact that he had no care for refreshment. Knowing how weary he had been when they left him-so weary that he bade them go alone into the city-they were perplexed at his indifference to food, and perhaps judged that he was over-fatigued, and therefore they prayed him to eat. Importunately, one after another said, “Good Master, it is long since thou hast eaten; the way has been weary, the day is hot, thou seemest very faint; we pray thee eat a little that thou mayest be revived. The woman to whom thou spakest has gone; thy good work for a while is over; let us eat together.”

Again I confess that I do not agree with those who blame these disciples. If it be true that there is nothing very elevated in providing food, there is certainly nothing unworthy in the act. I admire their care for their Master; I praise them for so lovingly pressing upon him the supply of his necessities. It is right for the spiritual man to forget his hunger, but it is equally right for his true friends to remind him that he ought to eat for his health’s sake: it is commendable for the worker to forget his weakness and press forward in holy service; but it is proper for the humane and thoughtful to interpose with a word of caution, and to remind the ardent spirit that his frame is but dust. I think the disciples did well to say, “Master, eat.” What is more, I will hold them up to your imitation. Jesus has gone from you now in actual person, but his mystical body is still with you, and if you meet with any part of his body in need make it your earnest care. Still pray him, saying, “Master, eat.” If you know any of his people in poverty, ask them to partake of your abundance, lest haply your Lord should say to you at the last, “I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink.” Our Lord’s spirituality is not of that visionary sort which despises the feeding of hungry bodies. Look after his poor and needy ones. How can you be truly spiritual if you do not so? “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” There is much in the common-place attentions of charity: Jesus commands our consideration of the weaknesses and needs of others; and therefore I say again I commend the disciples that they prayed him saying, “Master, eat.”

Having done this justice to the twelve, let us do higher honour to the divine One about whom they gathered. His mind was at that time absorbed in spiritual objects; and, being so, he wished to lead them into that higher field wherein he himself was so much at home, and therefore he transfigured their common words by giving them a higher meaning. “Ye pray me to eat,” said he; but “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” They did not comprehend what he meant: as the Samaritan woman did not understand him when he spake of water, neither did his disciples when he spake of meat: but you see the Lord endeavoured to use the lower expression as a ladder to something higher and more spiritual. This was the Master’s way from the beginning to the end, always to be making similitudes of things seen to set forth the things unseen; always to take the thing which men had grasped and use it as the means of helping them to lay hold on some great truth which as yet was out of their reach. Inasmuch as refreshments were spoken of, and his disciples saw the need of those refreshments, the Master turns that thought into a deeper channel, and tells them of other refreshments which he himself enjoyed and wished them to share with him. In effect our Lord’s reply to the request, “Master, eat,” is this: “I have eaten in the best sense, and I wish you also to eat with me.” He would have them enter into that service which had yielded so intense a satisfaction to himself; he would have them know his joy in it.

This morning the run of my subject will be just this: first, there are refreshments far our hearts which are but little known-“I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” Secondly, these refreshments satisfied our Lord-so satisfied him that he forgot to eat bread; and thirdly, and a very practical thirdly I hope it will be, let us seek these refreshments at once, that we, too, may forget our earthly needs in a heavenly enthusiasm. O blessed Spirit of all grace, give us secret, sacred food this morning while meditating upon this theme!

First, there are refreshments which are little known. Generally men know enough about refreshments of the body. Those questions-What shall we eat, and what shall we drink?-hare been long and carefully studied. It seems obvious to all men that if we are to be restored and lifted above fatigue or weakness it must be by corporeal food. Yet there is in the Word of God an intimation of another principle; as we read, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live.” The Lord has been pleased to make it generally necessary that the body should be sustained with food, but that is only because the body is to be destroyed, for it is written, “Meats for the body, and the body for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them.” That new body, which will never be destroyed will probably need no meats. If God so willed it, this frame might be sustained without visible food. There is no absolute necessity that the order of nature or of providence should be just as it is. Even now we know that there are many ways by which waste can be suspended, and the need of food greatly lessened; and there are conditions under which life has been sustained upon an almost incredibly small portion of food. If God willed it, he could secretly infuse strength into the system, keeping the lamp of life burning by means of a subtle, invisible oil. We are not so absolutely dependent upon the bread we eat as at first sight seems: food is but the vehicle of sustenance; God could sustain us without it.

Now, brethren, our Lord Jesus Christ found for himself a sustenance other than that of food: a food superior to the ordinary meat of men. But these refreshments were not known to his disciples. The common ruck of mankind have no idea of spiritual food; but the disciples were not of the common ruck; they were chosen out of the world, and they had been with their Lord for some little time, and yet they had not grasped the idea of a man being fed and strengthened by an influence upon his spiritual nature which could raise him above the down-dragging of his bodily needs. They could not yet enter into their Lord’s secret: he had a meat to eat which even they knew not of.

The reason for his knowing what they knew not was in part the fact that this nourishment was enjoyed upon a higher plane than these servants of Christ had yet reached. They were spiritual men in some degree; but they were not highly spiritual: they were mere babes in grace, though men in physical development. They had not yet reached to the height of letting their spirits rule the rest of their nature, nor had they yet learned the proper occupation of their spirits. They could not yet enjoy spiritual meat to the full because they were so little spiritual. Our Saviour was full of the Holy Ghost, and in his inmost nature he was deeply and intensely spiritual, and lived in constant communion with invisible things, and hence it was that he perceived that “meat to eat” which they knew not of. Oh, that we may not miss the delicacies of heaven from lack of a purified taste! It is a sad ignorance which comes of lack of spirituality. The Lord lift us out of it.

Further, these refreshments were unknown to the apostles as yet, because they implied a greater smiting of self than they as yet knew. “My meat,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him that sent me.” How condescendingly does our Lord sink himself in this expression! He does not even say, “My meat is to do my Father’s will.” He takes a lower position than that of sonship, and dwells chiefly upon his mission, its service, and the absorption in the will of God which it involved. He finds his refreshment in being the commissioned officer of God, and in carrying out that commission. In being a servant, obeying the will, and doing the work of another, he feels himself so much at home that it revives him to think of it. Others have been refreshed by gaining honour for themselves, our Lord is refreshed by laying that honour aside. The carnal mind finds its meat and drink in self-will, but Christ in doing the will of God. Doing his own work, and carrying out his own purpose, is the meat and drink of the natural man: the very opposite was the joy of our Lord Jesus. Is it so with thee, my hearer, that thou wilt have thine own way, and be thine own lord and master? Thou feedest upon wind. Very emptiness thou seekest after, and in the end thy hunger shall devour thee. But oh, believer, hast thou ever tried thy Lord’s plan? Hast thou taken thy Lord’s yoke upon thee, and learned of him? Thus it is that thou shalt find rest unto thy soul. Not in self, but in self-surrender, is there fulness for the heart. You are no longer to live unto yourself; for you are not your own, but you are the servant of him who has bought you with a price: you will find peace in taking up your proper place. Your life-work is henceforth not to be one of your own selecting, but the work which your great Lord and Master has chosen for you. Servants lay their wills aside, and do what they are bidden. When a man gets fully into this condition I bear witness that he will be refreshed by it. If I felt that my calling were of my own choosing, and that my message were of my own inventing, I should have no rest; the responsibility would crush me: but now that I feel that I am doing the will of him that sent me, and know that I am committed wholly to the work of the Lord, I pluck up courage, and put my shoulder to the wheel without misgiving. In the name of him who has sent me to do this work I find a fountain of fresh strength. But, brothers, we must get low down; we must come right away from the idea of being originals and inventing something and carrying out a novel purpose of our own; we must act only upon commission; we must say only our Lord’s words, and do only his work, and then we shall eat of that same loaf on which Jesus fed when he had food to eat which even the twelve knew not of. When we get to know that we are sent of the Most High there is nourishment in that very fact. We need to feel that as the Father hath sent Christ into the world, even so hath Christ sent us into the world; and if we do not so feel, we shall miss a choice form of spiritual meat.

Further, our Lord not only lived on a higher plane, and felt a greater sinking of self, but he was in fuller harmony with, God than his disciples. He says, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” God’s will was his will, not only passively, but actively, so that he wished to do it; God’s work was his work completely, so that he wished to finish it. He longed to go all the length of God’s eternal purpose, and carry it out as far as that purpose concerned himself. Now, when a man feels, “My one desire is that I may do God’s will. I have no other will but his will; my own will has fallen into God’s will as a brook falls into a river”-then he is at peace. It is a blessed thing to rejoice in being crossed in our own purpose, in order that the purpose of the Lord may be more completely fulfilled. When a man wants to do God’s work, and to get through with it whatever it may cost, he is sure to feel strength in his heart. He who will glorify God, whatever it may cost him, is a happy man. He that serves God in body, soul, and spirit, to the utmost of his power, finds new power given to him hour by hour, for God opens to him fresh springs. Perhaps you do not see this truth; but if you have ever experienced what it is to lay your whole soul on the altar, and feel that for Christ you live and for Christ you would die, why then you will know by experience that I speak the truth. If your heart’s desires were as ravenous as that of the young lions when they howl for their prey, they would be abundantly satisfied by your soul’s being tamed into complete submission to the will of God. When your will is God’s will, you will have your will: when your will rings out in harmony with the will of God, there must be sweetest music all around your steps. Our chief sorrows spring from the roots of our selfishness. Hang up self before the face of the sun, as Joshua hung up the Canaanitish kings, and your soul will no longer be consumed with the hunger and thirst of discontent. When you are tuned to perfect harmony with God you begin your heaven upon earth, even though your lot be cast in the hut of poverty, or on the bed of sickness. I know by experience that the way to renew your strength for suffering or for service is to become more and more at one with the will and the purpose of the Most High. As God’s glory becomes the one object of life, we find in him our all in all.

Once more: our dear Saviour was sustained by these secret refreshments, because he understood the art of seeing much in little. Our Master had been feasting. He had partaken of a more than royal banquet. How? He had been made a blessing to a woman-an ill-famed, much sinning woman. He had led her up to the point at which she could perceive that he was the Messiah; this was to him a festival. Some would have thought it a trifle; but as a wise man sees a forest in an acorn, so did Jesus see grand results in this little incident. Many a man would say, “I could easily forget hunger and a thousand other inconveniences if called to preach to a vast congregation like that which assembles in the Tabernacle. It ought to inspirit a man to see so many faces.” But note well that it inspirited your Master to see only one face, and that the common-place face of a villager of mournful character, who had come forth from Sychar with her water-pot upon her head. It was not an oration that he delivered; he had not even preached a sermon which would command admiration as a masterpiece of eloquence, and yet his whole soul was absorbed in what he had done. It was only a talk such as a city-missionary would have at any door, or such as would naturally fall from a Bible-woman in her calls from room to room; yet our divine Exemplar saw so much in one soul, and so much valued one opportunity of enlightening it, that he felt a sacred satisfaction in his simple conversation. He saw in the woman the seed-corn of a harvest, and therefore drew a large refreshment from her conversion. We do not usually measure things rightly; I am persuaded that our weights and scales are out of order. We think we are doing a great deal when we get into a big controversy, or write an article that is read all over the nation, or create a sensation which startles thousands. But, indeed, it is not so. The Lord is not in the wind, nor in the tempest: we must go on with the still small voice of loving instruction and persuasion. You must go on talking with your little children in your classes; you must go on speaking to the few sick persons you are able to visit; you must try and preach Jesus Christ in little rooms, or to dozens and scores in the street corner or on the village green. It is the old-fashioned, quiet personal work which is effectual. If we get to think that everything must be big to be good, we shall get into a sorry state of mind. In the little bit of work thoroughly well done God is glorified, much more than in the great scheme that is scamped. That word scamped gives a true description of very much Christian work nowadays. A huge piece of moral architecture is carried out by jerry-builders, to whom appearance is everything, and reality is nothing. It tumbles down before long, and then its authors begin again in the same wretched manner, with the same flourish of trumpets, and bragging of what is going to be done. It is worth while to spend a year upon the conversion of a single woman, ay, worth while to spend a lifetime on the conversion of a single child, if it be soundly done; and there might more come of the true conversion of that woman or child than of all your noise and shouting over a hundred suppositious conversions, forced by excitement like mushrooms in a hotbed. We want real work, not noisy work: work done in the centre of the soul of man, such as Jesus did upon the well. This sort of work will bring refreshment to our spirit, and any other will end in bitter disappointment. I am sure if we are content to do little things in the power of the great God, we shall find our meat therein. Some one here gets up and says, “I see, I see. I always thought that ministers and other workers who are always before the public would have most joy; but now I see that there is a reward for the obscure and hidden worker.” The Lord Jesus Christ was satisfied to sit by a well and talk to one; be you satisfied henceforth to keep on with your mother’s meeting, or your tract district, or your Bible-class, or your family of little ones. Plod away; for infinite possibilities lie concealed within the least work done for Jesus in the power of the Holy Ghost by a sincere heart. Perfume which may fill the halls of princes lies asleep within a tiny rosebud. Despise no little service; but be grateful for permission to render it.

Thus the Master found satisfying meat-meat little known even by his disciples, and therefore he said, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.”

Advance with me, dear friends, to our second theme: these secret refreshments satisfied our Lord. I bring this forward to remind you that where he found refreshment we also should find it. Why did it satisfy our Lord to be doing the will of him that sent him, and to be finishing his work?

Well, first, because he had so long hungered to be at it. For thousands of years the Christ had longed to be here among men. He said, “My delights were with the sons of men.” Before he actually appeared in human flesh and blood, our Lord made many appearances in different forms, because he was eager to be at his work; and when he was born, while he was yet a boy, he said, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” This was the spirit of him all his life long. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished”? He longed to be at work saving men; he hungered to perform his chosen deeds of mercy. Read in the second chapter of John at the seventeenth verse. He went into the temple and he purged it; and, then we read “His disciples remembered that it was written of him, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” That was before he had told them that it was his meat to do the will of him that sent him. Our Lord was full of such zeal to be serving God and blessing men that when he did get at it, he was so joyful that everything else fell into the background as if it were not worth a thought. If you and I felt our Lord’s anxiety to be serving God and winning souls, we should find refreshment in the service itself, even as he did.

When our Lord did get at his work he gave himself wholly up to it; he went in for soul-winning heart and soul. There was a wonderful concentration of purpose about our Saviour. His face is always steadfastly set to his work; he is instant and constant in it; he is all there, and always there. Time was-and I hope the time has gone for ever-when there were professed ministers of Jesus Christ whose hearts were in the hunting-field. Do you wonder that their ministry was a scandal? Others have been naturalists first, and divines afterwards. Do you wonder that their ministry proved to be a failure? Time was, and time is, I am sorry to say, when many professed ministers of Christ have their hearts more set upon criticizing the gospel than preaching it; they are more at home in scattering doubts than in promoting faith. They preach what they are not sure of, and what they have no interest in. It is not their meat to do the Lord’s will, for he never sent them. They get their meat by preaching, but it is not their meat to preach. Surely it must be misery to them to have to tell out an old tale which in their souls they despise. Wretches that they are! I cannot call them better. It seems an awful thing to me that a man should profess to be a servant of Christ and not put his heart into the Redeemer’s service. You may go and sell your calicoes, and your teas and your sugars, if you like, half-heartedly, it will not spoil your calicoes or your teas: but if you preach the gospel half-heartedly, that is another business. You will spoil every bit of what you preach. What good can come of half-hearted preaching?

And you, good friends, who teach in the school or do any work for Jesus, remember you spoil with that touch of yours all the work you do if your hand is numbed with a cold indifference. If your soul is not in what you do you had better leave it undone; you will do mischief rather than service unless your heart be in it. When Jesus talks with that woman, he is every bit of him there. He avails himself of every opportunity, and catches up every chance. He converses like a master of the art of teaching, because teaching is the master passion of his soul. Now, brethren, when we get to work like that we shall be refreshed by it. If you do what you do not like to do it will be weariness to you; but if your work is the joy of your heart, you will find in the doing of it that you have meat to eat that idlers know nothing of.

Our Lord found great joy in the work itself. I believe it was an intense delight to him to be telling about that living water to a thirsty soul. It was a high pleasure to him to be liberating a spirit which had so long been shut up in prison; to be creating new thoughts in a mind which had long grovelled in the mire of sin. How pleased he was to hear the woman say to him, “Whence, then, hast thou that living water?” What a host of thoughts it stirred up in his own soul! The woman had given him to drink, though she had not let her water pot down into the well. It was such glad, such happy work to him to be doing good that it was its own reward.

I think the Lord forgot to eat bread that day partly because of the enthusiasm which filled him in the pursuit of that soul. The chamois-hunter quits his couch long before the sun is up, and climbs the mountains. He watches from the first grey light for the creature which is the object of his pursuit. Ask him how it is when he returns late in the evening that he has had nothing to eat all day long. He answers, “I never thought of it; I saw a chamois on a distant crag and I hastened after it. I leaped the ravines, I climbed the steep faces of the rocks, I sprang down again; I was almost on my prey, but it was gone. I crept up within range again, holding my breath lest the scent of me should alarm the watchful chamois. I thought of nothing but my sport; and I never knew what hunger meant until my bullet found its mark in the heart of my prey, and I had drawn out my hunting-knife. It was not until I began to lift the game to my shoulder that I bethought me that I had neither eaten nor drunk that day. You understand what this enthusiasm means, and how it refreshes the hunter. Some of you have been salmon fishing in the Scotch rivers; you have fished on and on until you have hooked a huge fish, and by the time you have landed him, on taking out your watch, you discover that it is long past your dinner hour, and you are surprised that you had not noticed that you were almost faint. Your excitement kept you going: only when it was over did you begin to hunger. Thus the Master was so taken up with soul saving that he had meat to eat that others knew not of. I hope we sometimes get into this state of entire absorption under the influence of a burning desire to bring sinners away from sin to their Saviour, and lead them to put their trust in him who is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him. I see the riddle all unriddled. They said, “Master, eat,” but I see that he had meat to eat that they knew not of; for the enthusiasm of soul-winning was strong upon him.

Moreover, the Master had not only felt the enthusiasm of pursuit, but he was moved greatly by the sympathy of pity. The man that hunts the chamois has no sympathy with his prey, the man who would take his salmon has no pity for the creature; but he that labours to bless souls is full of tenderness. Many noble women love nursing the sick. Their hearts are at home at the bedside of the suffering. They do not sleep at night while pain needs relief, and cold sweat needs to be wiped away. Their tender pity gives them a more than ordinary power of endurance. They watch and wait hour after hour. Exhaustion comes at last to them, and then they begin to enquire of themselves, “How was it I held out so long?” Generous sympathy conquered fatigue. How mothers can and do endure with sick children! They feel that they cannot sleep while the dear one tosses to and fro in fever, or moans in pain? They have lost all care for eating while they guard the brittle thread which threatens so soon to snap. Real sympathy seems as if it swallowed up everything else, as Aaron’s rod swallowed up all the other rods. Sometimes you have seen suffering which you could not help, and you have come away forgetful of all else but the dreadful scene. You loathed the sight of food; you were sick at heart; the sorrow had become your own. You started in your sleep weeks afterwards, for the person wounded in the accident had come before you. Thus was our Saviour carried away with pity for lost souls; he knew the danger of that Samaritan city, and that thought caused him to forget to eat.

More than that: it was not only sympathy, he felt great joy in present success. He delighted to see that he had led a soul into life and light. He had the bliss of seeing a sinful woman believe in the Messiah; and of knowing that her heart and life would thus be purified. I do not know anything that can make a man forget his pain and weariness like grasping the hand of a sinner saved. “Oh,” saith the saved one, “God Almighty bless you! you have brought me to Jesus.” This nerves us to new effort. I speak here from experience, for yesterday evening, when I was thinking of this subject, I was myself somewhat dull through pain and weakness, and as God would have it I took up the Report of the Baptist Missionary Society, which will be issued to you on the 1st of June, and as I glanced over it, I saw my own name. It seems that our missionary in San Domingo has had a discouraging year, but it was lighted up with one most pleasing incident. A man had come down from the interior of Hayti to ask for baptism. Finding him to be a most intelligent Christian, well instructed in the gospel, the missionary asked how he came to know anything about it. In reply he told him that he had fallen in with a sermon translated into the French language which was preached by Mr. Spurgeon. Oh friends, I was dull no longer. I had meat to eat. Had an angel stood in the study, I could not have felt more delighted with his visit than I did when I read of a sinner saved. Here was a sermon translated into French, which was carried far away to Hayti, I do not know how, and there was read by a Romanist, who found by it salvation. God bless him! You cannot faint after such a success; can you? As for myself, despite my sickness, I resolve to go on again, preach with all my might, and print more sermons, and send them out to the ends of the earth. Brethren, never say die. Never dream of giving up. Let God’s blessing on your work refresh you.

To complete the list, the blessed Master had something else which made him forget hunger: it was that he saw the prospect of better things. Enquirers were coming out of the city; that one female missionary had gone back and told her story, and the men were coming to hear what Jesus had to say. Our Lord also with prescient eye beheld the day when Philip the Evangelist would go down to Samaria, and when many Samaritans would be brought to the knowledge of the truth. O friends, let us open our eyes and find refreshment in what God is about to do! Let us have bright views of the future. The gospel which has saved twenty can save twenty thousand. The same kind of preaching which has blessed this one congregation can bless all congregations. We have only to exercise more faith in it, and proclaim it with greater confidence, and make it more our life-work to proclaim it, and the world shall yet come to Jesus’ feet, and the old, old gospel now despised shall yet again be had in honour. Let us be of good cheer. If we do but serve God as Jesus served him we shall have meat to eat that will fully satisfy us, as it did our Lord.

Thirdly, let us at once seek this refreshment. That is our practical business. If there is meat to eat that we know not of let us try to know of it at once. I am speaking, of course, only to you who are converted, and are thus saved by faith in Jesus Christ. You who are not yet believers cannot eat of this secret meat, for you are not alive unto God: you need to be quickened by the Spirit of our God; you must be born again before you can eat the bread of heaven. May the Lord lead you to saving faith in Jesus Christ at once! But I speak to you that know the Lord, you who labour for him, and need to be refreshed this day. Look you to the right place for nourishment. Are we weary? Then let us seek refreshment by following out the directions of our Lord in the text before us.

First, let as remember that we are sent of God. Do not forget that. Say with your Lord, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.” Each redeemed one is sent forth by his Redeemer. I do not know what the Lord has sent you to do. I hope you know that each man for himself; but when you know what work you are called to do, do not be held back by anyone; wait for no man’s consent, patronage, or help. Strengthen your soul upon the persuasion that God has sent you, and then go forward. If God has sent you, who can stand against you? A Queen’s messenger claims that we clear the road for him. An officer who bears the Queen’s authority is authorized to lay all persons under orders to speed him. He who rides on royal business has precedence over all others. Get to feel, Christian friend, that Jesus has sent you, and herein will lie food for your courage. Know that you have a mission, and go at it; and let it be unsafe for anyone to stand in your way. Let opposers know that somebody will have to clear out; for if God sent you, in that sending there is a force and an energy which nothing can safely resist. Do not make a noise. Forbear all blustering; but quietly set yourself to work. If God has sent you, you will be like the greater Sent One, of whom we read, “He shall not strive, nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets,” but at the same time “he shall not fail, nor be discouraged.”

Next, if we desire to be refreshed, let us find joy at once in God’s work and will. You have been trying to find joy and refreshment in your own work and your own will, and you have failed; come, then, and sail in another direction. But upon this I have already spoken. If all the work you and I have to do can be made to be God’s work, if we will do all things to his glory, whether it be mending of shoes, or making garments, or preaching sermons, or ploughing of fields, then shall we be happy in God, and our souls shall be fed upon the finest of the wheat. No drudgery remains when the lowliest labour is seen to be part of a priestly service. When the meanest work glows with the glory of a divine call there is refreshment in it. I am sure I am directing you in the right way to find sweet morsels for your heart when I urge you to have joy in God’s work rather than in your own.

Next, let us get to work. The Master says to his apostles, “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest.” This was a common saying among the lazy. The time for work was never come; they always found reason for delay; the harvest was always four months off. Many are going to do a lot of work one of these days. Just now they take things easy, but in four months they will let you see how they can labour. We have too many Christian people around us who find no joyful satisfaction in divine things because they do not at once spend themselves for Christ. One enquires, What is the best way to do good? Our answer is, do it. I cannot give you any better recommendation. The best way to serve Christ is to serve him. A man who was hungry, when he was asked what was the best way to dine, said, “Give me a knife and fork, and give me a chance, and I will soon show you.” When asked how you can serve God, reply by seizing the first opportunity and doing it. For our joy and comfort be it remembered that opportunities are many and present. “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”

Further, if we want to have joy and refreshment in our own Christian life let us leap into cur place at once. These disciples were not to be sowers, but reapers. Many others are not to be reapers, but sowers. You must get to work in the place into which the Lord puts you; there must be no picking of positions; you must jump into the saddle and be off. It may be that you say, “I should like to begin an altogether new work,” but if the Lord appoints you to go on with the work that someone else has carried on for years, do not hesitate. Perhaps you say, “I should like to labour where the first rough work is done”; but if your Lord directs you to commence on the uncleared forest, do not raise an objection. It may be you wish to carry up the last hod of bricks to put on the chimney; but if the house has not reached that condition yet, be quite as willing to dig out the cellar. We must be willing to hook on anywhere. Be leader or shaft-horse. Be first or last. Be sower or reaper, as the Lord ordains. Dear friends, you will never get refreshment in Christ’s service if you bring a dainty self-will into the field and set it to make a selection, for this is contrary to the true spirit of service. Have no choice, and then you will find satisfaction.

If we are to get refreshment for our souls we may also anticipate the wages. There is to be a time when workers together with Christ are to receive wages. The text says, “He that reapeth receiveth wages.” In our own country agricultural labourers have been paid so little that we could hardly call it receiving wages; but when harvest time comes, then the reaper is paid, and truly receiveth wages. The hardest-fisted churl must pay for reaping, must he not? Even the most grudging miser must pay his reapers. There must be special money for mower and reaper. Let us work on; for our Master speaks to us of wages, and he always pays liberally. Your reward is not what you get at present; but it lies in the glorious future. When the Lord Jesus comes he will reward all his stewards and servants. No truth is more plain in the four gospels than this fact, that when Jesus returns to this earth he will distribute recompense in proportion to work done. Herein is meat for us to eat which may well sustain us under the burden and heat of the day.

Then cometh the end. If any of you wish to be refreshed, remember the end. What is the end of sowing and the end of reaping? Is it not the completed harvest? See you not the last waggon loaded with grain? See the children on the top there! Hark how the rustics shout their joy as they bring in the precious fruits of the earth! And there is a supper at night. The master has been killing his fatlings, and he invites all his labourers to supper. How they feast with him! Sow on; work on; reap on; for there will come a day when heaven and earth shall be moved with joyous acclamations, because the Lord’s purpose is accomplished, and his work is finished. Then shall we sit down at the supper of the Lamb and rejoice together as many of us as have had a hand in the blessed work and service in which our Master laid down his life. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind; be sober, and hope to the end. Be encouraged and refreshed this morning. Feed upon the eternal dainties which are provided for you by your Lord, and be glad in his name.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-John 4.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-103, 162, 377.