C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.”-Mark 10:13-16.

It must be a very great sin indeed to hinder anybody from coming to Christ. He is the only way of salvation from the wrath of God, salvation from the terrible judgment that is due to sin-who would dare to keep the perishing from that way? To alter the sign-posts on the way to the city of refuge, or to dig a trench across the road, would have been an inhuman act, deserving the sternest condemnation. He who holds back a soul from Jesus is the servant of Satan, and is doing the most diabolical of all the devil’s work. We are all agreed about this.

I wonder, my dear friends, whether any of us are quite innocent in this respect. May we not have hindered others from repentance and faith? It is a sad suspicion; but I am afraid that many of us have done so.

Certainly you who have never believed in Jesus yourselves have done sadly much to prevent others believing. The force of example, whether for good or bad, is very powerful, and especially is it so with parents upon their children, superiors upon their underlings, and teachers upon their pupils. Peradventure, father, if you had been an earnest Christian, your son would not have been ungodly; possibly, dear mother, if you had been decided for the Saviour, the girls would have been Christians too. We have to speak and judge after the manner of men; but, assuredly, example is a great fashioner of character. We can none of us tell if we go down to hell how many we shall draw with us; for we are bound to thousands by invisible bands. Here’s the respect which makes a wide calamity out of the ruin of a single soul. Over the tomb of each sinner may be read this epitaph, “This man perished not alone in his iniquity.” “None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.” If we could fling our souls away as solitary stones out of the sling, this were woe enough; but since we are all threaded beads upon the string of common life, where one goes many go with him. The plague of sin will not confine itself to one man’s house, it sallies forth from every door and window, and slays its victims all around, so that “one sinner destroyeth much good.” May I put this question to those of you who have never yet repented of your sins, nor sought the Saviour’s face? Have you calculated what baneful influences are streaming from your lives upon the souls of your children, your wives, your brothers, your friends? Jesus says, “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” How many have you scattered abroad like wandering sheep? How many have you induced to remian careless and godless, since they see you doing the same? These are solemn reflections for those who mean no harm, and yet are doing it.

Do not some persons go further than their example, and hinder others from coming to Christ by discouraging speeches? They dishearten those who are hoping for better things. Working men are to be found who never see any tenderness towards holy things in a work-mate but what they hasten at once to wound his heart. If they suspect a comrade of endeavouring to escape from drunkenness, they ridicule him; and if he goes further, and exhibits faith towards God, they make him the football of their contempt. It must entail a fearful responsibility upon a man for him to make himself the opposer of all good in his fellows. Why are so many eager to undertake this responsibility? It is a sorrowful thing that certain men will let others quite alone, and even be friendly with them, should they drink, and swear, and commit lewdness; and yet as soon as they have serious thoughts of religion, they attack them bitterly. Half a fault in a Christian is made the theme of the most ungenerous comment; but actual crimes will be excused in an irreligious person. Why should men wish to prevent their fellows being saved? Friend, if you choose to ruin your own soul, why should you try to ruin others? Why play the dog in the manger? If you will not have religion for yourself, why not let others have it? It can be no gain to you, either in this world or in the world to come, to stand as with a club at the gates of life to drive back all who would enter thereat.

Again, certain would-be wise people hinder souls from coming to Christ by cunningly insinuating doubts about the revelation of the divine word. They have heard from an infidel lecturer, or from some “modern thought” preacher, a dangerous piece of error, and they no sooner find a young mind inclined to serious things than they at once repeat this pretty lie. By their captious questions they stagger young minds. By their evil teaching they dry up the springs of repentance, and paralyze the strength of faith. Fierce as Pharaoh, they would throw all new-born faith into the river of doubt. Cruel as the Prince of Darkness, they would quench every newly-kindled candle of hope. They are more diligent to destroy the faith than others are to spread it. What an accumulation of guilt must be resting upon the mind of the man who breathes out doubt as other men breathe air! Neither God, nor Christ, nor heaven, nor hell, can escape the foul steam of his infidelity. See how he blasts the souls on whom he breathes! Calculate his crimes. Put down the soul-murders of which he is guilty. Item: a young man decoyed from the Bible-class, familiarized with blasphemous notions, and then led into outward sin and speedy death. Write that down in blood. Note the next item: a young girl, once hopeful and considerate, impressed by the supposed scientific knowledge of an unbeliever, led from the faith of her mother, and by-and-by snared by the world so as to live and die impenitent. Write that also in blood to be demanded at the doubter’s door in the last great day! Woe unto those who act the part of jackals to the lion of hell! May God give repentance to those who have been the body-guard of the Prince of Darkness, doing his murderous work with both their hands by denying the truth and sowing the seeds of unbelief! If I speak to any such, I do it with sorrowful indignation, and I beg them to turn from their evil way.

In many ways evil-minded persons may lead others to that evil decision which in the ungodly almost occupies the same place as conversion in the case of the regenerate. Minds in their early days are plastic. The first seven years of our being often shape all the rest: at any rate, give to godly teaching the first twelve years of any child, and it will be difficult to erase the writing. Some seem to take a wretched delight in stamping upon the soft clay their own vile impress, and in confirming upon youth the dangerous tendencies already present. These people work conversions unto evil, by which young minds become settled in vice, and established in wickedness.

God save us from hindering a single soul from coming to Christ and heaven. I cannot help trembling sometimes lest a cold and chilly sermon of mine should wither young buds of promise; lest in the prayer-meeting a wandering, rambling prayer from a heartless professor should damp the rising earnestness of a tearful seeker. I tremble for you, my dear brethren and sisters in Christ, lest levity of conversation, worldliness of conduct, inconsistency of behaviour, or callousness of demeanour, should in any one of you, at any time, turn the lame out of the way, or give cause of stumbling to one of the Lord’s little ones. Lord, save me from being a partaker in other men’s sins, and especially in being in any measure the cause of another man’s destruction! Oh to be clear of the blood of all men! God forbid that we should be accomplices in the murder of souls, either before the fact, or in the fact, or after the fact: for in each of these ways we may be guilty. God help us, brethren, to avoid this great sin of hindering others in their coming to Christ.

Yet this is not the subject of my discourse this morning: I shall only deal with a single form of it. I am going to speak upon the great sin of hindering the young from coming to Christ. First, let us describe it; secondly, let us watch its action; thirdly, let us see how Jesus Christ condemns it; and then, lastly, let us take a hint from the doctrine which our Lord incidentally lays down. It may be that the Lord will bless this to our souls.

Let us describe this sin of hindering young children from coming to Christ.

First, I may say of it that it is very common; it must be common, or else it would not have been found among the twelve apostles. The immediate disciples of our Lord were a highly honourable band of men; despite their mistakes and shortcomings, they must have been greatly sweetened by living near to one so perfect and so full of love. I gather, therefore, that if these men, who were the cream of the cream, rebuked the mothers who brought their young children to Christ, it must be a pretty common offence in the church of God. I fear that the chilling frost of this mistake is felt almost everywhere. I am not going to make any ungenerous statement; but I think if a little personal investigation were made many of us might find ourselves guilty upon this point, and might be led to cry, with Pharaoh’s butler, “I do remember my faults this day.” Have we laid ourselves out for the conversion of children, as much as we have done for the conversion of grown-up folks? What? Do you think me sarcastic? Do you not lay yourselves out for anybody’s conversion? What must I say to you? It is dreadful that the Cainite spirit should enter a believer’s heart and make him say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” It is a shocking thing that we should ourselves eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and leave the famishing multitudes to perish. But tell me now, if you did care for the salvation of souls, would you not think it rather too commonplace a matter to begin with boys and girls? Yes; and your feeling is shared by many. The fault is common.

I believe, however, that this feeling, in the case of the apostles, was caused by zeal for Jesus. These good men thought that the bringing of children to the Saviour would cause an interruption: he was engaged in much better work: he had been confounding the Pharisees, instructing the masses, and healing the sick. Could it be right to pester him with children? The little ones would not understand his teaching, and they did not need his miracles: why should they be brought in to disturb his great doings? Therefore the disciples as good as said, “Take your children back, good women. Teach them the law yourselves, and instruct them in the Psalms and the Prophets, and pray with them. Every child cannot have Christ’s hands laid on it. If we suffer one set of children to come, we shall have all the neighbourhood swarming about us, and the Saviour’s work will be grievously interrupted. Do you not see this? Why do you act so thoughtlessly?” The disciples had such reverence for their Master that they would send the prattlers away, lest the great Rabbi should seem to become a mere teacher of babes. This may have been a zeal for God, but it was not according to knowledge. Thus in these days certain brethren would hardly like to receive many children into the church, lest it should become a society of boys and girls. Surely, if these come into the church in any great numbers, the church may be spoken of in terms of reproach! The outside world will call it a mere Sunday-school. I remember that when a fallen woman had been converted in one of our county-towns, there was an objection among certain professors to her being received into the church, and certain lewd fellows of the baser sort even went the length of advertising upon the walls the fact that the Baptist minister had baptized a harlot. I told my friend to regard it as an honour. Even so, if any reproach us with receiving young children into the church, we will wear the reproach as a badge of honour. Holy children cannot possibly do us any harm. God will send us sufficient of age and experience to steer the church prudently. We will receive none who fail to yield evidence of the new birth, however old they may be; but we will shut out no believers, however young they may be. God forbid that we should condemn our cautious brethren, but at the same time we wish their caution would show itself where it is more required. Jesus will not be dishonoured by the children: we have far more cause to fear the adults.

The apostles’ rebuke of the children arose in a measure from ignorance of the children’s need. If any mother in that throng had said, “I must bring my child to the Master, for he is sore afflicted with a devil,” neither Peter, nor James, nor John would have demurred for a moment, but would have assisted in bringing the possessed child to the Saviour. Or suppose another mother had said, “My child has a pining sickness upon it, it is wasted to skin and bone; permit me to bring my darling, that Jesus may lay his hands upon her,”-the disciples would all have said: “Make way for this woman and her sorrowful burden.” But these little ones with bright eyes, and prattling tongues, and leaping limbs, why should they come to Jesus? Ah, friends! they forgot that in those children, with all their joy, their health, and their apparent innocence, there was a great and grievous need for the blessing of a Saviour’s grace. If you indulge in the novel idea that your children do not need conversion, that children born of Christian parents are somewhat superior to others, and have good within them which only needs development, one great motive for your devout earnestness will be gone. Believe me, brethren, your children need the Spirit of God to give them new hearts and right spirits, or else they will go astray as other children do. Remember that however young they are, there is a stone within the youngest breast; and that stone must be taken away, or be the ruin of the child. There is a tendency to evil even where as yet it has not developed into act, and that tendency needs to be overcome by the divine power of the Holy Spirit, causing the child to be born again. Oh that the church of God would cast off the old Jewish idea which still has such force around us, namely, that natural birth brings with it covenant privileges! Now, even under the old dispensation there were hints that the true seed was not born after the flesh, but after the spirit, as in the case of Ishmael and Isaac, and Esau and Jacob. Will not even the church of God know that “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”? “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” The natural birth communicates nature’s filthiness, but it cannot convey grace. Under the new covenant we are expressly told that the sons of God are “born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Under the old covenant, which was typical, the birth according to the flesh yielded privilege; but to come at all under the covenant of grace ye must be born again. The first birth brings you nothing but an inheritance with the first Adam; you must be born again to come under the headship of the second Adam.

But it is written, saith one, “that the promise is unto you, and to your children.” Dear friends, there never was a grosser piece of knavery committed under heaven than the quotation of that text as it is usually quoted. I have heard it quoted many times to prove a doctrine which is very far removed from that which it clearly teaches. If you take one half of any sentence which a man utters, and leave out the rest, you may make him say the opposite of what he means. What do you think that text really is? See Acts 2:39: “The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” This grandly wide statement is the argument on which is founded the exhortation, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you.” It is not a declaration of privilege special to any one, but a presentation of grace as much to all that are afar off as to them and to their children. There is not a word in the New Testament to show that the benefits of divine grace are in any degree transmitted by natural descent: they come “to as many as the Lord our God shall call,” whether their parents are saints or sinners. How can people have the impudence to tear off half a text to make it teach what is not true? No, brethren; you must sorrowfully look upon your children as born in sin, and shapen in iniquity, “heirs of wrath, even as others”; and though you may yourself belong to a line of saints, and trace your pedigree from minister to minister, all eminent in the church of God, yet your children occupy precisely the same position by their birth as other people’s children do; so that they must be redeemed from under the curse of the law by the precious blood of Jesus, and they must receive a new nature by the work of the Holy Ghost. They are favoured by being placed under godly training, and under the hearing of the gospel; but their need and their sinfulness are the same as in the rest of the race. If you think of this, you will see the reason why they should be brought to Jesus Christ-a reason why they should be brought as speedily as possible in the arms of your prayer and faith to him who is able to renew them.

Also, no doubt, this feeling that children may not come to Christ may be derived from a doubt about their capacity to receive the blessing which Jesus is able to give. Upon this subject, if I were at this moment to deal with facts alone, and not with mere opinion, I could spend the whole morning in giving details of young children whom I have personally conversed with, some of them very young children indeed. I will say broadly that I have more confidence in the spiritual life of the children that I have received into this church than I have in the spiritual condition of the adults thus received. I will even go further than that, and say that I have usually found a clearer knowledge of the gospel and a warmer love to Christ in the child-converts than in the man-converts. I will even astonish you still more by saying that I have sometimes met with a deeper spiritual experience in children of ten and twelve than I have in certain persons of fifty and sixty. It is an old proverb that some children are born with beards. Some boys are little men, and some girls are little old women. You cannot measure the lives of any of us by our ages. I knew a boy who, when he was fifteen, often heard old Christian people say, “The boy is sixty years old: he speaks with such insight into divine truth.” I believe that this youth at fifteen did know far more of the things of God, and of soul travail, than any around him, whatever their age might be. I cannot tell you why it is, but so I do know it is, that some are old when they are young, and some are very green when they are old; some are wise when you would expect them to be otherwise, and others are very foolish when you might have expected that they had quitted their folly. Oh, dear friends, talk not of a child’s incapacity for repentance! I have known a child weep herself to sleep by the month together under a crushing sense of sin. If you would know a deep, and bitter, and awful fear of the wrath of God, let me tell you what I felt as a boy. If you would know joy in the Lord, many a child has been as full of it as his little heart could hold. If you want to know what faith in Jesus is, you must not look to those who have been bemuddled by the heretical jargon of the times, but to the dear children who have taken Jesus at his word, and believed in him, and loved him, and therefore know and are sure that they are saved. Capacity for believing lies more in the child than in the man. We grow less rather than more capable of faith: every year brings the unregenerate mind further away from God, and makes it less capable of receiving the things of God. No ground is more prepared for the good seed than that which as yet has not been trodden down as the highway, nor has been as yet overgrown with thorns. Not yet has the child learned the deceits of pride, the falsehoods of ambition, the delusions of worldliness, the tricks of trade, the sophistries of philosophy; and so far it has an advantage over the adult. In any case the new birth is the work of the Holy Ghost, and he can as easily work upon youth as upon age.

Some, too, have hindered the children because they have been forgetful of the child’s value. The soul’s price does not depend upon its years. “Oh, it is only a child!” “Children are a nuisance.” “Children are always getting in the way.” This talk is common. God forgive those who despise the little ones. Will you be very angry if I say that a boy is more worth saving than a man? It is infinite mercy on God’s part to save those who are seventy; for what good can they now do with the fag end of their lives? When we get to be fifty or sixty, we are almost worn out; and if we have spent all our early days with the devil, what remains for God? But these dear boys and girls-there is something to be made out of them. If now they yield themselves to Christ they may have a long, happy, and holy day before them in which they may serve God with all their hearts. Who knows what glory God may have of them? Heathen lands may call them blessed. Whole nations may be enlightened by them. If a famous schoolmaster was accustomed to take his hat off to his boys because he did not know whether one of them might not be Prime Minister, we may justly look with awe upon converted children, for we do not know how soon they may be among the angels, or how greatly their light may shine among men. Oh, brethren and sisters, let us estimate children at their true valuation, and we shall not keep them back, but we shall be eager to lead them to Jesus at once.

In proportion to our own spirituality of mind, and in proportion to our own child-likeness of heart, we shall be at home with children; and we shall enter into their early fears and hopes, their budding faith and opening love. Dwelling among young converts, we shall seem to be in a garden of flowers, in a vineyard where the tender grapes give a good smell.

Secondly, concerning this hindering of children, let us watch its action. I think the results of this sad feeling about children coming to the Saviour is to be seen, first, in the fact that often there is nothing in the service for the children. The sermon is over their heads, and the preacher does not think that this is any fault; in fact, he rather rejoices that it is so. Some time ago a person who wanted, I suppose, to make me feel my own insignificance, wrote to say that he had met with a number of negroes who had read my sermons with evident pleasure; and he wrote that he believed they were very suitable for what he was pleased to call “niggers.” Yes, my preaching was just the sort of stuff for niggers. The gentleman did not dream what sincere pleasure he caused me; for if I am understood by poor people, by servant-girls, by children, I am sure I can be understood by others. I am ambitious of preaching for niggers, if by these you mean the lowest, the rag-tag and bob-tail. I think nothing greater than to win the hearts of the lowly. So with regard to children. People occasionally say of such a one, “He is only fit to teach children: he is no preacher.” Sirs, I tell you that in God’s sight he is no preacher who does not care for the children. There should be at least a part of every sermon and service that will suit the little ones. It is an error which permits us to forget this.

Parents sin in the same way when they omit religion from the education of their children. Perhaps the thought is that their children cannot be converted while they are children, and so they think it of small consequence where they go to school in their tender years. But it is not so. Many parents even forget this when their girls and boys are closing their school-days. They send them away to the Continent, to places foul with every moral and spiritual danger, with the idea that there they can complete an elegant education. In how many cases I have seen that education completed, and it has produced young men who are thorough-paced profligates, and young women who are mere flirts. As we sow we reap. Let us expect our children to know the Lord. Let us from the beginning mingle the name of Jesus with their A B C. Let them read their first lessons from the Bible. It is a remarkable thing that there is no book from which children learn to read so quickly as from the New Testament: there is a charm about that book which draws forth the infant mind. But oh, dear friends, let us never be guilty, as parents, of forgetting the religious training of our children; for if we do we may be guilty of the blood of their souls.

Another result is that the conversion of children is not expected in many of our churches and congregations. I mean, that they do not expect the children to be converted as children. The theory is that if we can impress youthful minds with principles which may in after years prove useful to them, we have done a great deal; but to convert children as children, and to regard them as being as much believers as their seniors, is regarded as absurd. To this supposed absurdity I cling with all my heart. I believe that of children is the kingdom of God, both on earth and in heaven. It is a sacred joy to me on Thursday night to notice certain boys and girls who have for a long time attended the pastor’s prayer-meeting with great regularity. Some of you old folks do not come and pray for your pastor; but these children do, for they love their pastor, and he, on his part, highly values their prayers. Happy church which is adorned and blessed by prayers of dear children who early learn to cry to the great Father for the hallowing of his name and the coming of his kingdom! We expect to see children converted, and we do see it.

Another ill-result is that the conversion of children is not believed in. Certain suspicious people always file their teeth a bit when they hear of a newly-converted child: they will have a bite at him if they can. They very rightly insist upon it that these children should be carefully examined before they are baptized and admitted into the church; but they are wrong in insisting that only in exceptional instances are they to be received. We quite agree with them as to the care to be exercised; but it should be the same in all cases, and neither more nor less in the cases of children. I thank God that the most of those dear children who have been added to this church could stand a rigid examination in doctrinal matters, and would bear favourable comparison with the older folks; but still it seems to me a very hard thing that a high degree of knowledge should be expected of them.

How often do people expect to see in boys and girls the same solemnity of behaviour which is seen in older people! It would be a good thing for us all if we had never left off being boys and girls, but had added to all the excellencies of a child the virtues of a man. Surely it is not necessary to kill the child to make the saint. It is thought by the more severe that a converted child must become twenty years older in a minute. A very solemn person once called me from the play-ground after I had joined the church and warned me of the impropriety of playing at trap, bat, and ball with the boys. He said, “How can you play like others if you are a child of God?” I answered that I was employed as an usher, and it was part of my duty to join in the amusements of the boys. My venerable critic thought that this altered the matter very materially; but it was clearly his view that a converted boy, as such, ought never to play! What foolery, brethren! I will say no more.

Do not others expect from children more perfect conduct than they themselves exhibit? If a gracious child should lose his temper, or act wrongly in some trifling thing through forgetfulness, straightway he is condemned as a little hypocrite by those who are a long way from being perfect themselves. Jesus says, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.” Take heed that ye say not an unkind word against your younger brethren in Christ, your little sisters in the Lord. Jesus sets such great store by his dear lambs, that he carries them in his bosom; and I charge you who follow your Lord in all things to show a like tenderness to the little ones of the divine family. I will not say more on that point.

And now let us notice, thirdly, how Jesus condemned this fault.

First, he condemned it as contrary to his own spirit. “They brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased.” He was not often displeased: certainly he was not often “much displeased,” and when he was much displeased we may be sure that the cause was serious. He was displeased at these children being pushed away from him, for it was so contrary to his mind about them. The disciples did wrong to the mothers; they rebuked the parents for doing a motherly act-for doing, in fact, that which Jesus loved them to do. They brought their children to Jesus out of respect to him: they valued a blessing from his hands more than gold; they expected that the benediction of God would go with the touch of the great Prophet. They may have hoped that a touch of the hand of Jesus would make their children’s lives bright and happy. Though there may have been a measure of weakness in the parents’ thought, yet the Saviour could not judge hardly of that which arose out of reverence to his person. He was therefore much displeased to think that those good women, who meant him honour, should be roughly repulsed.

There was also wrong done to the children. Sweet little ones! what had they done that they should be chided for coming to Jesus? They had not meant to intrude. Dear things! they would have fallen at his feet in reverent love for the sweet-voiced teacher, who charmed not only men, but children, by his tender words. The little ones meant no ill, and why should they be blamed?

Besides, there was wrong done to himself. It might have made men think that Jesus was stiff, reserved, and self-exalted, like the Rabbins. If they had thought that he could not condescend to children they would have sadly slandered the repute of his great love. His heart was a great harbour, wherein many little ships might cast anchor. Jesus, the child-man, was never more at home than with children. The holy child Jesus had an affinity for children. Was he to be represented by his own disciples as shutting the door against the children? It would do sad injury to his character. Therefore, grieved at the triple evil which wounded the mothers, the children, and himself, he was sore displeased. Anything we do to hinder a dear child from coming to Jesus greatly displeases our dear Lord. He cries to us, “Stand off. Let them alone. Let them come to me, and forbid them not.” Dear grey-headed friend, who are so strict and good, I must get you to stand back a bit, and suffer that child to come to Jesus; for I do not wish the Lord to be displeased with you. And you, good Christian sister, who have curdled a little in your temper, I must beg you be quiet, lest the Lord should be displeased with you, as he will be if you forbid the children to come to him. So, you see, it was contrary to his spirit.

Next, it was contrary to his teaching; for he went on to say, “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” Christ’s teaching was not that there is something in us to fit us for the kingdom; and that a certain number of years may make us capable of receiving grace. His teaching all went the other way, namely, that we are to be nothing, and that the less we are and the weaker we are, the better; for the less we have of self the more room there is for his divine grace. Do you think to come to Jesus up the ladder of knowledge? Come down, sir, you will meet him at the foot. Do you think to reach Jesus up the steep hill of experience! Come down, dear climber; he stands in the plain. “Oh! but when I am old, I shall then be prepared for Christ.” Stay where thou art, young man; Jesus meets thee at the door of life: you were never more fit to meet him than just now. He asks nothing of you but that you will be nothing, and that he may be all in all to you. That is his teaching: and to send back the child because it has not this or that is to fly in the teeth of the blessed doctrine of the grace of God.

Once more, it was quite contrary to Jesus Christ’s practice. He made them see this; for “he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.” All his life long there is nothing in him like rejection and refusing. He saith truly, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” If he did cast out any because they were too young, the text would be falsified at once: but that can never be. He is the receiver of all who come to him. It is written, “This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” All his life he might be drawn as a shepherd with a lamb in his bosom; never as a cruel shepherd setting his dogs upon the lambs and driving them and their mothers away. I have neither time nor strength to say more, and I must close with a mere glance at our last point.

Let us take the hint which Jesus gives to those who would come to him. “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” How I wish that all my congregation would come and receive Christ as a little child receives him! The little child has no prejudices, no preconceived theories nor opinions it cannot give up; it believes what Jesus says. You must come in the same way to learn of Christ. I fear you know a great deal-throw it out of the window. You have made up your mind about a great many things-unmake your mind, and be as wax to the seal before him.

A little child believes with an unquestioning faith which makes everything vivid and real. Believe just so! The child believes in all humility, looking up to its teacher, and receiving its teacher’s word as decisive. Believe in Jesus just so! Say, “Lord, I am a know-nothing: I come to thee to be taught. I am nothing, be thou mine all in all.”

A child when it comes to Christ comes very sincerely, and with all its heart. It knows nothing of sinister motives, or of formality. Its repentance and faith are genuine. I wish you would come to Christ this morning, you poor guilty ones, in real earnest, just as you are. Do not play at religion any more. Do not look for fine words with which to trim yourselves and make your prayers look neat and pretty, but come as a child does, in all simplicity, not ashamed to talk as your heart feels.

When a child believes in Jesus it cares nothing for critical points. That is the way you must come to Christ. You that have always been inventing religious conundrums; you that for many years have been readers of the last new novels in modern theology-for they are mere novels, and nothing better; you that have addled your brains with the vain thoughts of vain men, come to Jesus as you are, and believe what Jesus says because Jesus says it. Take Christ at his word, and trust him: that is the way to be saved.

“But I have no merit,” said one, “I have no preparation.” Neither has a child. I never find children troubled about being prepared for Christ, I never hear of such a thing as a child worried about qualifications for grace. A child is a sinner and knows it. That is the way to come to Christ. Come as a sinner, knowing that you are such. Say, “Jesus calls me, and I come; Jesus died for me, and I trust him.” That is the true way to come to Jesus. O friends! instead of thinking yourselves fitter for Christ by growing bigger, grow smaller. Instead of getting greater, get less. Instead of being more wise, be more completely bereft of all wisdom, and come to Jesus for wisdom, righteousness, and all things.

Sometimes when we are very feeble, and our language is very simple, God may bless it all the more, and I do pray he may this morning set his seal upon this poor talk of his sick servant. Every particle of my flesh, and every atom of my bones, is praying God to bless this sermon. Grim pain has been racking me while I have been speaking. May this discourse be more honourable than its brethren, because I bore it with sorrow! I long, I pine, I cry before God, that he may bless this feeble word of mine to your conversion, and to the conversion of many dear children. Those of you who have never looked to Christ and lived, do unto Christ, I pray you, just what these dear children did: he called them, and they came, and were folded in his arms. Come along with you! Do you half wish you could be a child again? You can be. He can give you a child’s heart, and you can be in his kingdom newly-born. May it be so, for his name’s sake! Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Luke 18.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-917, 704, 546.

LOVE’S COMPLAINING

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, October 24th, 1886, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”-Revelation 2:4, 5.

It was the work of the priest to go into the holy place and to trim the seven-branched lamp of gold: see how our Great High Priest walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks: his work is not occasional, but constant. Wearing robes which are at once royal and priestly, he is seen lighting the holy lamps, pouring in the sacred oil, and removing impurities which would dim the light.

Hence our Lord’s fitness to deal with the churches, which are these golden lamp-stands, for no one knows so much about the lamps as the person whose constant work it is to watch them and trim them. No one knows the churches as Jesus does, for the care of all the churches daily comes upon him, he continually walks among them, and holds their ministers as stars in his right hand. His eyes are perpetually upon the churches, so that he knows their works, their sufferings, and their sins; and those eyes are as a flame of fire, so that he sees with a penetration, discernment, and accuracy to which no other can attain. We sometimes judge the condition of religion too leniently, or else we err on the other side, and judge too severely. Our eyes are dim with the world’s smoke; but his eyes are as a flame of fire. He sees the churches through and through, and knows their true condition much better than they know themselves. The Lord Jesus Christ is a most careful observer of churches and of individuals; nothing is hid from his observant eye.

As he is the most careful observer, so he is the most candid. He is ever “the faithful and true witness.” He loves much, and therefore he never judges harshly. He loves much, and therefore he always judges jealously. Jealousy is the sure attendant of such love as his. He will neither speak smooth words nor bitter words; but he will speak the truth-the truth in love, the truth as he himself perceives it, and as he would have us perceive it. Well may he say, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches,” since his sayings are so true, so just, so weighty.

Certainly no observer can be so tender as the Son of God. Those lamps are very precious to him: it cost him his life to light them. “Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Every church is to our Lord a more sublime thing than a constellation in the heavens: as he is precious to his saints, so are they precious to him. He careth little for empires, kingdoms, or republics; but his heart is set on the kingdom of righteousness, of which his cross is the royal standard. He must reign until his foes are vanquished, and this is the great thought of his mind at this present, “From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.” He ceases not to watch over his church: his sacrifice is ended, but not his service in caring for the golden lamps. He has completed the redemption of his bride, but he continues her preservation.

I therefore feel at this time that we may well join in a prayer to our Lord Jesus to come into our midst and put our light in order. Oh for a visit from himself such as he paid in vision to the seven churches of Asia! With him is the oil to feed the living flame, and he knows how to pour it in according to due measure; with him are those golden snuffers with which to remove every superfluity of naughtiness, that our lights may so shine before men, that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father which is in heaven. Oh for his presence now, to search us and to sanctify us; to cause us to shine forth to his Father’s praise! We would be judged of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. We would pray this morning, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” All things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we have to do; and we delight to have it so. We invite thee, O great High Priest, to come into this thy sanctuary, and look to this thy lamp this morning.

In the text, as it is addressed to the church at Ephesus and to us, we note three things. First, we note that Christ perceives: “I know thy works.… nevertheless I have somewhat against thee.” Secondly, Christ prescribes: “Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent,” and so forth. Thirdly, Christ persuades-persuades with a threatening: “I will remove thy candlestick out of his place”; persuades, also, with a promise: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” If the Lord himself be here at this time, our plan of discourse will be a river of life; but if he be not among us by his Holy Spirit, it will be as the dry bed of a torrent which bears the name of “river,” but lacks the living stream. We expect our Lord’s presence; he will come to the lamps which his office calls upon him to trim; it has been his wont to be with us; some of us have met him this morning already, and we have constrained him to tarry with us.

First, then, we notice that he perceives.

Our Lord sorrowfully perceives the faults of his church-“Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee”; but he does not so perceive those faults as to be forgetful of that which he can admire and accept; for he begins his letter with commendations, “I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil.” Do not think, my brethren, that our Beloved is blind to the beauties of his church. On the contrary, he delights to observe them. He can see beauties where she herself cannot see them. Where we observe much to deplore, his loving eyes see much to admire. The graces which he himself creates he can always perceive. When we in the earnestness of self-examination overlook them, and write bitter things against ourselves, the Lord Jesus sees even in those bitter self-condemnations a life and earnestness and sincerity which he loves. Our Lord has a keen eye for all that is good. When he searches our hearts he never passes by the faintest longing, or desire, or faith, or love, of any of his people. He says, “I know thy works.”

But this is our point at this time, that while Jesus can see all that is good, yet in very faithfulness he sees all that is evil. His love is not blind. He does not say, “As many as I love I commend”; but, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.” It is more necessary for us that we should make a discovery of our faults than of our virtues. So notice in this text that Christ perceiveth the flaw in his church, even in the midst of her earnest service. The church at Ephesus was full of work. “I know thy works and thy labour, and for my name’s sake thou hast laboured, and hast not fainted.” It was such a laborious church that it pushed on and on with diligent perseverance, and never seemed to flag in its divine mission. Oh that we could say as much of all our churches! I have lived to see many brilliant projects lighted and left to die out in smoke. I have heard of schemes which were to illuminate the world; but not a spark remains. Holy perseverance is a great desideratum. In these three and thirty years we thank God he has enabled us to labour and not to faint. There has been a continuance of everything attempted, and no drawing back from anything. “This is the work, this is the labour,” to hold out even to the end. Oh how I have dreaded lest we should have to give up any holy enterprise or cut short any gracious effort! Hitherto the Lord has helped us. With men and means, liberality and zeal, he has supplied us. In this case the angel of the church has been very little of an angel from heaven, but very much of a human angel; for in the weakness of my flesh and in the heaviness of my spirit have I pursued my calling; but I have pursued it. By the help of God I continue to this day, and this church with equal footsteps is at my side; for which the whole praise is due to the Lord, who fainteth not, neither is weary. Having put my hand to the plough I have not looked back, but have steadily pressed forward, making straight furrows; but it has been by the grace of God alone.

Alas! under all the labouring the Lord Jesus perceived that the Ephesians had left their first love; and this was a grievous fault. So it may be in this church; every wheel may continue to revolve, and the whole machinery of ministry may be kept going at its normal rate, and yet there may be a great secret evil which Jesus perceives, and this may be marring all.

But this church at Ephesus was not only laborious, it was patient in suffering great persecution. He says of it: “I know thy works and thy patience, and how thou hast borne, and hast patience, and hast not fainted.” Persecution upon persecution visited the faithful, but they bore it all with holy courage and constancy, and continued still confessing their Lord. This was good, and the Lord highly approved it; but yet underneath it he saw the tokens of decline; they had left their first love. So there may seem to be all the patient endurance and dauntless courage that there should be, and yet as a fair apple may have a worm at its core, so may it be with the church when it looks best to the eye of friends.

The Ephesian church excelled in something else, namely, in its discipline, its soundness in the faith, and fidelity towards heretics; for the Lord says of it, “how thou canst not bear them which are evil.” They would not have it: they would not tolerate false doctrine, they would not put up with unclean living. They fought against evil, not only in the common people, but in prominent individuals. “Thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.” They had dealt with the great ones; they had not flinched from the unmasking of falsehood. Those who seemed to be apostles they had dragged to the light and discovered to be deceivers. This church was not honeycombed with doubt; it laid no claim to breadth of thought and liberality of view; it was honest to its Lord. He says of it, “This thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.” This was grand of them: it showed a backbone of truth. I wish some of the churches of this age had a little of this holy decision about them; for nowadays, if a man be clever, he may preach the vilest lie that was ever vomited from the mouth hell, and it will go down with some. He may assail every doctrine of the gospel, he may blaspheme the Holy Trinity, he may trample on the blood of the Son of God, and yet nothing shall be said about it if he be held in repute as a man of advanced thought and liberal ideas. The church at Ephesus was not of this mind. She was strong in her convictions; she could not yield the faith, nor play the traitor to her Lord. For this her Lord commended her: and yet he says, “I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” When love dies orthodox doctrine becomes a corpse, a powerless formalism. Adhesion to the truth sours into bigotry when the sweetness and light of love to Jesus depart. Love Jesus, and then it is well to hate the deeds of the Nicolaitanes; but mere hate of evil will tend to evil if love of Jesus be not there to sanctify it. I need not make a personal application; but that which is spoken to Ephesus may be spoken at this hour to ourselves. As we hope that we may appropriate the commendation, so let us see whether the expostulation may not also apply to us. “I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” Thus I have shown you that Jesus sees the evil beneath all the good: he does not ignore the good, but he will not pass over the ill.

So, next, this evil was a very serious one; it was love declining: “Thou hast left thy first love.” “Is that serious?” saith one. It is the most serious ill of all; for the church is the bride of Christ, and for a bride to fail in love is to fail in all things. It is idle for the wife to say that she is obedient, and so forth: if love to her husband has evaporated, her wifely duty cannot be fulfilled, she has lost the very life and soul of the marriage state. So, my brethren, this is a most important matter, our love to Christ, because it touches the very heart of that communion with him which is the crown and essence of our spiritual life. As a church we must love Jesus, or else we have lost our reason for existence. A church has no reason for being a church when she has no love within her heart, or when that love grows cold. Have I not often reminded you that almost any disease may be hopefully endured except disease of the heart? But when our sickness is a disease of the heart, it is full of danger; and it was so in this case: “Thou hast left thy first love.” It is a disease of the heart, a central, fatal disease, unless the great Physician shall interpose to stay its progress, and to deliver us from it. Oh, in any man, in any woman, any child of God here, let alone in the church as a whole, if there be a leaving of the first love, it is a woful thing! Lord have mercy upon us; Christ have mercy upon us: this should be our solemn litany at once. No peril can be greater than this. Lose love, lose all. Leave our first love, we have left strength, and peace, and joy, and holiness.

I call your attention, however, to this point, that it was he that found it out. “I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” Jesus himself found it out! I do not know how it strikes you; but as I thought it over, this fact brought the tears to my eyes. When I begin to leave off loving Christ, or love him less than I do, I would like to find it out myself; and if I did so, there would soon be a cure for it. But for him to find it out, oh, it seems so hard, so sad a thing! That we should keep on growing cold, and cold, and cold, and never care about it till the Beloved points it out to us. Why even the angel of the church did not find it out; the minister did not know it; but he saw it who loves us so well, that he delights in our love, and pines when it begins to fail. To him we are unutterably dear; he loved us up out of the pit into his bosom, loved us up from the dunghill among beggars to sit at his right hand upon his throne; and it is sorrowful that he should have to complain of our cooling love while we are utterly indifferent to the matter. Does Jesus care more about our love than we do? He loves us better than we love ourselves. How good of him to care one jot about our love! This is no complaint of an enemy, but of a dear wounded friend.

I notice that Jesus found it out with great pain. I can hardly conceive a greater grief to him as the husband of his church than to look her in the face and say, “Thou hast left thy first love.” What can she give him but love? Will she deny him this? A poor thing is the church of herself: her Lord married her when she was in beggary; and if she does not give him love, what has she to give him? If she begins to be unfaithful in heart to him, what is she worth? Why, an unloving wife is a foul fountain of discomfort and dishonour to her husband. O beloved, shall it be so with thee? Wilt thou grieve Emmanuel? Wilt thou wound thy Well-beloved? Church of God, wilt thou grieve him whose heart was pierced for thy redemption? Brother, sister, can you and I let Jesus find out that our love is departing, that we are ceasing to be zealous for his name? Can we wound him so? Is not this to crucify the Lord afresh? Might he not hold up his hands this morning with fresh blood upon them, and say, “These are the wounds which I received in the house of my friends. It was nothing that I died for them, but ill it is that, after having died for them, they have failed to give me their hearts”? Jesus is not so sick of our sin as of our lukewarmness. It is a sad business to my heart; I hope it will be sad to all whom it concerns, that our Lord should be the first to spy out our declines in love.

The Saviour, having thus seen this with pain, now points it out. As I read this passage over to myself, I noticed that the Saviour had nothing to say about the sins of the heathen among whom the Ephesians dwelt: they are alluded to because it must have been the heathen who persecuted the church, and caused it to endure, and exhibit patience. The Saviour, however, has nothing to say against the heathen; and he does not say much more than a word about those who were evil. These had been cast out, and he merely says: “Thou canst not bear them which are evil.” He denounced no judgment upon the Nicolaitanes, except that he hated them; and even the apostles which were found to be liars the Master dismisses with that word. He leaves the ungodly in their own condemnation. But what he has to say is against his own beloved: “I have somewhat against thee.” It seems as if the Master might pass over sin in a thousand others, but he cannot wink at failure of love in his own espoused one. “The Lord thy God is a jealous God.” The Saviour loves, so that his love is cruel as the grave against cold-heartedness. He said of the church of Laodicea, “I will spue thee out of my mouth.” This was one of his own churches, too, and yet she made him sick with her lukewarmness. God grant that we may not be guilty of such a crime as that!

The Saviour pointed out the failure of love; and when he pointed it out he called it by a lamentable name. “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen.” He calls it a fall to leave our first love. Brothers, sisters, this church had not been licentious, it had not gone aside to false doctrine, it had not become idle, it had not been cowardly in the hour of persecution; but this one sin summed up the whole-she did not love Christ as she once loved him, and he calls this a fall. A fall indeed it is. “Oh, I thought,” saith one, “that if a member of the church got drunk that was a fall.” That is a grievous fall, but it is a fall if we become intoxicated with the world, and lose the freshness of our devotion to Jesus. It is a fall from a high estate of fellowship to the dust of worldliness. “Thou art fallen.” The word sounds very harshly in my ears-no, not harshly, for his love speaks it in so pathetic a manner; but it thunders in my soul deep down. I cannot bear it. It is so sadly true. “Thou art fallen.” “Remember from whence thou art fallen.” Indeed, O Lord, we have fallen when we have left our first love for thee.

The Master evidently counts this decline of love to be a personal wrong done to himself. “I have somewhat against thee.” It is not an offence against the king, nor against the judge, but against the Lord Jesus as the husband of the church: an offence against the very heart of Christ himself. “I have somewhat against thee.” He does not say, “Thy neighbour has somewhat against thee, thy child has somewhat against thee, thy God has somewhat against thee,” but “I, I thy hope, thy joy, thy delight, thy Saviour, I have this against thee.” The word somewhat is an intruder here. Our translators put it in italics, and well they might, for it is a bad word, since it seems to make a small thing of a very grave change. The Lord has this against us, and it is no mere “somewhat.” Come, brothers and sisters, if we have not broken any law, nor offended in any way so as to grieve anybody else, this is sorrow enough, if our love has grown in the least degree chill towards him; for we have done a terrible wrong to our best friend. This is the bitterness of our offence: Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that I have left my first love. The Saviour tells us this most lovingly. I wish I knew how to speak as tenderly as he does; and yet I feel at this moment that I can and must be tender in this matter, for I am speaking about myself as much as about anybody else. I am grieving, grieving over some here present, grieving for all of us, but grieving most of all for myself, that our Well-beloved should have cause to say, “I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.”

So much for what our Lord perceives. Holy Spirit, bless it to us!

And now, secondly, let us note what the Saviour prescribes. The Saviour’s prescription is couched in these three words: “Remember,” “Repent,” “Return.”

The first word is Remember. “Thou hast left thy first love.” Remember, then, what thy first love was, and compare thy present condition with it. At first nothing diverted thee from thy Lord. He was thy life, thy love, thy joy. Now thou lookest for recreation somewhere else, and other charms and other beauties win thy heart. Art thou not ashamed of this? Once thou wast never wearied with hearing of him and serving him. Never wert thou overdone with Christ and his gospel: many sermons, many prayer-meetings, many Bible readings, and yet none too many. Now sermons are long, and services are dull, and thou must have thy jaded appetite excited with novelties. How is this? Once thou wast never displeased with Jesus whatever he did with thee. If thou hadst been sick, or poor, or dying, thou wouldst still have loved and blessed his name for all things. He remembers this fondness, and regrets its departure. He says to thee to-day, “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness.” Thou wouldst have gone after thy Lord anywhere in those days: across the sea, or through the fire, thou wouldst have pursued him; nothing would have been too hot or too heavy for thee then. Is it so now? Remember! Remember from whence thou art fallen. Remember the vows, the tears, the communings, the happy raptures of those days; remember and compare with them thy present state.

Remember and consider, that when thou wast in thy first love, that love was none too warm. Even then, when thou didst live to him, and for him, and with him, thou wast none too holy, none too consecrated, none too zealous. If thou wast not too forward then, what art thou now-now that thou hast come down even from that poor attainment? Remember the past with sad forebodings of the future. If thou hast come down from where thou wast, who is to tell thee where thou wilt cease thy declining? He who has sunk so far may fall much farther. Is it not so? Though thou sayest in thy heart like Hazael, “Is thy servant a dog?” thou mayest turn out worse than a dog yet, yea, prove a very wolf. Who knows? thou mayest even now be a devil! Thou mayest turn out a Judas, a son of perdition, and deny thy Master, selling him for thirty pieces of silver. When a stone begins to fall it falls with an ever-increasing rate; and when a soul begins to leave its first love, it quits it more and more, and more and more, till at last it falleth terribly. Remember!

The next word of the prescription is “Repent.” Repent as thou didst at first. The word so suitable to sinners is suitable to thee, for thou hast grievously sinned. Repent of the wrong thou hast done thy Lord by leaving thy first love of him. Couldst thou have lived a seraphic life, only breathing his love, only existing for him, thou hadst done little enough; but to quit thy first love, how grievously hast thou wronged him! That love was well deserved, was it not? Why, then, hast thou left it? Is Jesus less fair than he was? Does he love thee less than he did? Has he been less kind and tender to thee than he used to be? Say, hast thou outgrown him? Canst thou do without him? Hast thou a hope of salvation apart from him? I charge thee, repent of this thine ill-doing towards one who has a greater claim upon thy love than ever he had. He ought to be to-day loved more than thou didst love him at thy very best! O my heart, is not all this most surely true? How ill art thou behaving! What an ingrate art thou! Repent! Repent!

Repent of much good that thou hast left undone through want of love. Oh, if thou hadst always loved thy Lord at thy best, what mightest thou not have known of him by this time! What good deeds thou mightest have done by force of his love! How many hearts mightest thou have won for thy Lord if thine own heart had been fuller of love, if thine own soul had been more on fire! Thou hast lived a poor beggarly life because thou hast allowed such poverty of love.

Repent! Repent! To my mind, as I thought over this text, the call for repentance grew louder and louder, because of the occasion of its utterance. Here is the glorious Lord, coming to his church and speaking to her angel in tones of tender kindness. He condescends to visit his people in all his majesty and glory, intending nothing but to manifest himself in love to his own elect as he doth not to the world. And yet he is compelled even then to take to chiding, and to say, “I have this against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” Here is a love-visit clouded with upbraiding-necessary upbraiding. What mischief sin has done! It is a dreadful thing that when Jesus comes to his own dear bride he should have to speak in grief, and not in joy. Must holy communion, which is the wine of heaven, be embittered with the tonic of expostulation? I see the upper springs of nearest fellowship, where the waters of life leap from their first source in the heart of God. Are not these streams most pure and precious? If a man drink thereof he liveth for ever. Shall it be that even at the fountain-head they shall be dashed with bitterness? Even when Christ communes personally with us must he say, “I have somewhat against thee”? Break, my heart, that it should be so! Well may we repent with a deep repentance when our choicest joys are flavoured with the bitter herbs of regret, that our best Beloved should have somewhat against us.

But then he says in effect, Return. The third word is this-“Repent, and do the first works.” Notice, that he does not say, “Repent, and get back thy first love.” This seems rather singular; but then love is the chief of the first works, and, moreover, the first works can only come of the first love. There must be in every declining Christian a practical repentance. Do not be satisfied with regrets and resolves. Do the first works; do not strain after the first emotions, but do the first works. No renewal is so valuable as the practical cleansing of our way. If the life be made right, it will prove that the love is so. In doing the first works you will prove that you have come back to your first love. The prescription is complete, because the doing of the first works is meant to include the feeling of the first feelings, the sighing of the first sighs, the enjoying of the first joys: these are all supposed to accompany returning obedience and activity.

We are to get back to these first works at once. Most men come to Christ with a leap; and I have observed that many who come back to him usually do so at a bound. The slow revival of one’s love is almost an impossibility; as well expect the dead to rise by degrees. Love to Christ is often love at first sight: we see him, and are conquered by him. If we grow cold, the best thing we can do is to fasten our eyes on him till we cry, “My soul melted while my Beloved spake.” It is a happy circumstance if I can cry, “Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib.” How sweet for the Lord to put us back again at once into the old place, back again in a moment! My prayer is that it may be so this morning with any declining one. May you so repent as not merely to feel the old feelings, but instantly to do the first works, and be once more as eager, as zealous, as generous, as prayerful, as you used to be! If we should again see you breaking the alabaster box, we should know that the old love had returned. May the good Master help us to do as well as ever, yea, much better than before!

Notice, however, that this will require much of effort and warfare; for the promise which is made is “to him that overcometh.” Overcoming implies conflict. Depend upon it, if you conquer a wandering heart, you will have to fight for it. “To him that overcometh,” saith he, “will I give to eat of the tree of life.” You must fight your way back to the garden of the Lord. You will have to fight against lethargy, against an evil heart of unbelief, against the benumbing influence of the world. In the name and power of him who bids you repent, you must wrestle and struggle till you get the mastery over self, and yield your whole nature to your Lord.

So I have shown you how Christ prescribes, and I greatly need a few minutes for the last part, because I wish to dwell with solemn earnestness upon it. I have no desire to say a word by which I should show myself off as an orator, but I long to speak a word by which I may prove myself a true brother pleading with you in deep sympathy, because in all the ill which I rebuke I mourn my own personal share. Bless us, O Spirit of the Lord!

Now see, brethren, he persuades. This is the third point: the Lord Jesus persuades his erring one to repent.

First, he persuades with a warning: “I will come unto thee”; “quickly” is not in the original: the Revised Version has left it out. Our Lord is generally very slow at the work of judgment: “I will come unto thee, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent.” This he must do: he cannot allow his light to be apart from love, and if the first love be left, the church shall be left in darkness. The truth must always shine, but not always in the same place. The place must be made fit by love, or the light shall be removed.

Our Lord means, first, I will take away the comfort of the Word. He raises up certain ministers, and makes them burning and shining lights in the midst of his church, and when the people gather together they are cheered and enlightened by their shining. A ministry blessed of the Lord is a singular comfort to the church of God. The Lord can easily take away that light which has brought comfort to so many: he can remove the good man to another sphere, or he can call him home to his rest. The extinguisher of death can put out the candle which now gladdens the house. The church which has lost a ministry by which the Lord’s glory has shone forth has lost a good deal; and if this loss has been sent in chastisement for decline of love it is all the harder to bear. I can point you to places where once was a man of God, and all went well; but the people grew cold, and the Lord took away their leader, and the place is now a desolation: those who now attend those courts and listen to a modern ministry cry out because of the famine of the Word of the Lord. O friends, let us value the light while we have it, and prove that we do so by profiting by it; but how can we profit if we leave our first love? The Lord may take away our comfort as a church if our first zeal shall die down.

But the candlestick also symbolizes usefulness: it is that by which a church shines. The use of a church is to preserve the truth, wherewith to illuminate the neighbourhood, to illuminate the world. God can soon cut short our usefulness, and he will do so if we cut short our love. If the Lord be withdrawn, we can go on with our work as we used to do, but nothing will come of it: we can go on with Sunday-schools, mission-stations, branch churches, and yet accomplish nothing. Brethren, we can go on with the Orphanage, the College, the Colportage, the Evangelistic Society, the Book Fund, and all else, and yet nothing will be effected if the arm of the Lord be not made bare.

He can, if he wills, even take away from the church her very existence as a church. Ephesus is gone: nothing but ruins can be found. Rome once held a noble church of Christ, but has not her name become the symbol of antichrist? The Lord can soon take away candlesticks out of their places if the church uses her light for her own glory, and is not filled with his love. God forbid that we should fall under this condemnation! Of thy mercy, O Lord, forbid it! Let it not so happen to any one of us. Yet this may occur to us as individuals. You, dear brother or sister, if you lose your first love, may soon lose your joy, your peace, your usefulness. You, who are now so bright, may grow dull. You, who are now so useful, may become useless. You were once an instructor of the foolish, and a teacher of babes; but if the Lord be withdrawn you will instruct nobody, you will be in the dark yourself. Alas! you may come to lose the very name of Christians, as some have done who once seemed to be burning and shining lights. They were foolish virgins, and ere long they were heard to cry, “Our lamps are gone out”! The Lord can and will take away the candlestick out of its place if we put him out of his place by a failure in our love to him.

How can I persuade you, then, better than with the warning words of my Master? My beloved, I persuade you from my very soul not to encounter these dangers, not to run these terrible risks; for as you would not wish to see either the church or your own self left without the light of God, to pine in darkness, it is needful that you abide in Christ, and go on to love him more and more.

The Saviour holds out a promise as his other persuasive. Upon this I can only dwell for a minute. It seems a very wonderful promise to me: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Observe, those who lose their first love fall, but those who abide in love are made to stand. In contrast to the fall which took place in the paradise of God, we have man eating of the tree of life, and so living for ever. If we, through grace, overcome the common tendency to decline in love, then shall we be confirmed and settled in the favour of the Lord. By eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil we fell; by eating of the fruit of a better tree we live and stand fast for ever. Life proved true by love shall be nourished on the best of food: it shall be sustained by fruit from the garden of the Lord himself, gathered by the Saviour’s own hand.

Note again, those who lose their first love wander far, they depart from God. “But,” saith the Lord, “if you keep your first love you shall not wander, but you shall come into closer fellowship. I will bring you nearer to the centre. I will bring you to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” The inner ring s for those who grow in love; the centre of all joy is only to be reached by much love. We know God as we love God. We enter into his paradise as we abide in his love. What joy is here! What a reward hath love!

Then notice the mystical blessing which lies here, waiting your meditation. Do you know how we fell? The woman took of the fruit of the forbidden tree, and gave to Adam, and Adam ate and fell. The reverse is the case in the promise before us: the Second Adam takes of the divine fruit from the tree of promise, and hands it to his spouse; she eats and lives for ever. He who is the Father of the age of grace hands down to us immortal joys, which he has plucked from an unwithering tree. The reward of love is to eat the fruit of life. “We are getting into mysteries,” says one. Yes, I am intentionally lifting a corner of the veil, and no more. I only mean to give you a glimpse at the promised boon. Into his innermost joys our Lord will bring us if we keep up our first love, and go from strength to strength therein. Marvellous things are locked up in the caskets whereof love holds the key. Sin set the angel with a flaming sword between us and the tree of life in the midst of the garden; but love has quenched that sword, and now the angel beckons us to come into the innermost secrets of paradise. We shall know as we are known when we love as we are loved. We shall live the life of God when we are wholly taken up with the love of God. The love of Jesus answered by our love to Jesus makes the sweetest music the heart can know. No joy on earth is equal to the bliss of being all taken up with love to Christ. If I had my choice of all the lives that I could live, I certainly would not choose to be an emperor, nor to be a millionaire, nor to be a philosopher; for power, and wealth, and knowledge bring with them sorrow and travail; but I would choose to have nothing to do but to love my Lord Jesus-nothing, I mean, but to do all things for his sake, and out of love to him. Then I know that I should be in paradise, yea, in the midst of the paradise of God, and I should have meat to eat which is all unknown to men of the world.

Heaven on earth is abounding love to Jesus. This is the first and last of true delight-to love him who is the first and the last. To love Jesus is another name for paradise. Lord, let me know this by continual experience. “You are soaring aloft,” cries one. Yes, I own it. Oh that I could allure you to a heavenward flight upon wings of love! There is bitterness in declining love: it is a very consumption of the soul, and makes us weak, and faint, and low. But true love is the ante-past of glory. See the heights, the glittering heights, the glorious heights, the everlasting hills to which the Lord of life will conduct all those who are faithful to him through the power of his Holy Spirit. See, O love, thine ultimate abode! I pray that what I have said may be blessed by the Holy Spirit to the bringing of us all nearer to the Bridegroom of our souls. Amen.

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-Revelation 1; 2:1-7.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-425, 797, 804.