This is a terrible case. When God is turned to be a man’s enemy, and fights against him, he is in a desperate plight. With other enemies we may contend with some hope of success, but not with the Omnipotent. The enmity of others is an affliction, but the enmity of God is destruction. If he turns to be our enemy, then everything is turned against us. The stars in their courses fight against us, and the stones in the fields are in league for our stumbling. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” But if God be against us, who can be for us? The words read like a funeral knell: “He was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.”

This shows us that God is net indifferent to sin. Men may try to persuade themselves that God does not care; that it is nothing to him how men act, whether they break or keep his laws. Men may plead that he is “kind to the unthankful and to the evil,” and the same event happens unto all, both to the righteous and to the wicked; and so indeed it seems for the present. Our shortsightedness may even assure us that the ungodly prosper, and have the best of it; but this is only our blindness. God hates sin now and always. He would not be God if he did not. God is stirred with righteous indignation against every kind of evil: it moves his Spirit to anger. Some believe in an impassive God; but certainly the God of the Bible is never so described. He is represented in Holy Scripture after the manner of men; but how else could he be represented to men? If he were represented after the manner of God, you and I could understand nothing at all of the description; but as he is represented to us in Scripture, the Lord notes sin, feels sin, grows angry with sin, is provoked, and his Holy Spirit is vexed by the rebellion of men. Let me read the solemn text again: “But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.”

God is always the same, but his acts vary. He changes not, and yet he is represented in our text as turning. He turns in his action, though he does not turn in his purpose. He often wills a change, though he never changes his will. He is always the same God, but he does not always show us the same side of his character. Sometimes he manifests mercy, at other times justice: he is as much God in the one case as in the other. At one time he makes a world; at another time he destroys it: but he is the same Jehovah. A change in his outward dispensation does not argue any change in his inward disposition. He is an unchanging God of whom we read, “He was turned to be their enemy.”

Having said these two or three things as a helpful commencement, I would invite you to consider this remarkably impressive verse with very great reverence and awe. May the Holy Spirit help us! The current idea now is, “Never preach anything that is dreadful or terrible. If you do, you will earn as bad a character as Spurgeon.” Now, I am not ashamed, in the least degree, to have a bad character for preaching against the evil of sin, and declaring the sure punishment of it. What have I to gain by such preaching? Shall I get the applause of men? Nay, the whole current of this generation’s liking rushes the other way. Let the preacher tell men that they may live as they like, and that it will come all right in the long run, and that will please them. Universal salvation is a very popular doctrine among the “cultured” folk. I want none of your popularity. I will preach to you, as long as this tongue moves in my head, God’s truth, whether it offend or please; and the day shall declare who best loved your souls-those who could flatter, or those who spoke unpalatable truth. Our text has in it very little, apparently, that may minister comfort to anybody; and yet my persuasion is, that if, with reverent heart, you lend your ear to what it teaches, it will lead you into a surer comfort than you will ever find in the philosophies of men, yea, it will bring your conscience into a state of rest with God, for which you will bless God as long as ever you live.

First, my text belongs to the Lord’s own offending children. Let me try to find them out, and lay this text home to them. There are some of God’s own people-really converted, saved people-who have, nevertheless, degenerated into such a state of sin that the Lord is turned to be their enemy. If you read this chapter, you will see that it is so. Let me begin at the seventh verse. “I will mention the loving-kindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his loving-kindnesses. For he said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy.” See, dear friends: once they were on the lap of love, once they lay in the bosom of favour, once they knew the sympathy of Christ, once they could sing of loving-kindnesses, and a multitude of mercies; but they rebelled. Is it not a shocking thing that the favoured people of God should backslide? Is it not sad that they who have eaten the bread of heaven should hunger for the ashes of this world; that men who have lain in the bosom of Christ should, nevertheless, play the traitor to him, and provoke his anger? Yet it is so, sadly so; we have seen it so in others. God grant that it may not be so with us!

These people, after tasting all this love, and all this favour, became rebellious. He calls them “rebels.” They were not merely children that made a mistake, children that fell through folly, but “they rebelled.” Does the child of God ever get into that state? Yes, children have rebelled. David thus erred, and many others have shamefully rebelled against their God. I cannot say how far a man who has tasted of the grace of God may go in sin; but, I pray you, do not experiment upon it. Nay, let us keep as far away from sin as possible. Yet it appears that those with whom the Saviour had such sympathy that in all their affliction he was afflicted, nevertheless “rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit.”

Well, then, what happened? Now we come to the text indeed: “He was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.” This is the story in many cases. He sends affliction. There come upon the man’s harvest the palmer-worm, and the caterpillar, and the canker-worm. There come upon his business a blight and a blast. He cannot make it out; for where everything seemed to go well, all affairs now go amiss. All that he gets is like money poured into a bag that is full of holes. Seeing that he is a child of God, and has become a rebel, he has vexed God’s Spirit, and chastisement falls upon him. Perhaps he is brought low by a painful disease. Perhaps a dear child is taken away. Affliction comes into the family one way or another: not the affliction of Job, which tried him for God’s glory; but the affliction of Jacob, who was afflicted in his family because that family had become defiled with sin. God is jealous, and deals severely with his erring children.

He sends them affliction; but worse than that, he turns to be their enemy, and he fights against them by withholding the comforts of the Holy Spirit. Oh, how they once enjoyed a sermon! it was full of grace and truth. They do not enjoy it now. The same preacher; other people are edified as much as before; but they are not. Such a man goes to pray; but he feels no Spirit pleading within. He reads the Bible, and it is a dead letter. He seeks the company of Christian people, but their society is dreary to him, and yields no solace. God has shut up the windows of heaven. He has made the angels cease to bring down blessings by the way of the golden ladder. God has turned to be his enemy, and fights against him. I have known cases in which true people of God (I know they were the true people of God, for they have come back, and they never did lose the life of God, even when they were away from him) have come to this-that God has fought against them in their prayers, and they seemed to pray like a man shouting inside a great copper caldron, where every sound echoes in his ears like thunder. I charge you that are the people of God to mind what you are at; for God, who loves you, will deal roughly with you if you sin against him. Remember that text, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” As I have often said, if a man saw a boy in the street breaking windows, or doing mischief, he might say very little to him; but if he was his own boy, he would give him a smart blow, and send him home; and so is it when the Lord catches his own children sinning. He may let the common sinner go on, and sin until judgment shall be executed; but as for his own children, they cannot transgress with impunity. “He was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.”

At such times, if they still pursue any Christian career of usefulness, they are smitten with great barrenness, and their work is without efficacy. I should greatly sorrow if my words brought bruising to the tenderest of God’s people; but yet I know that it is so. If the preacher leaves his God, his God will leave him to preach in vain. If the teacher quits the Saviour, the Saviour will quit the teacher, and leave him, or her, to fail with the children. What generally happens with a minister when God has gone? Well, instead of going to God, and humbling himself and crying to him for mercy, he resolves that he will buy a new organ. That will do the trick. The new organ, after all, blow it as they may, does not come to much. Well, then, he will have sensational entertainments, a Sunday-evening concert-fiddling, or something or other. If God will not help him, he is in the same plight as Saul the son of Kish. He will try music first, and if that does not render him aid, he will go to the witch of Endor, now called “modern theology,” and ask assistance there. God have mercy upon us, if we ever do that! I do not wish for success in the ministry if God does not give it to me; and I pray that you, who are workers for God, may not wish to have any success except that which comes from God himself in God’s own way; for if you could heap up, like the sand of the sea, converts that you had made by odd, unchristian ways, they would be gone like the sand of the sea as soon as another tide comes up. O child of God, do not try to do without God! Do not bring in new inventions to patch up the breach that your sin has made. If the Lord turns to be your enemy, and fights against you, bow before him, and confess your wrong.

I leave this point when I have made solemn enquiry. Am I speaking to any Christian man or woman to whom this text is sorrowfully true? Is not sin the cause of your sorrow? I beseech you, do not trifle with this matter. It is a very solemn thing to have God fighting against you. Say to him, “Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.” But do not despair. If the Lord had meant to destroy you, he would have sternly said, “He is joined to idols: let him alone.” To leave a man altogether alone is God’s ultimatum with the hopeless; but to flog the wanderer back to his Lord is love in a mask. The wise man can see beneath the mask, and understand that it is because God would not destroy you with the wicked that therefore he now brings you under the discipline of his family, and makes you feel that sin and smart must go together in an heir of heaven. Seek you the Lord; cry unto him; and confess your sin. The parable of the prodigal son belongs much more to you than it does to an unconverted person; for you can call God “Father,” and you may come back to him as a son; for you are his son, notwithstanding all your riotous living in the far country, and all your wasting of your Father’s substance. Arise, and go to him at once. You know the way. Retrace it. You know your Father: fly to him immediately. Put your head into his bosom, and sob out your confession, “Father, I have sinned”; and before this present service is over, you shall receive your Lord’s full absolution, and you shall feel yourself-

“To your Father’s bosom pressed,

Once again a child confessed;

From his house no more to roam,

But with God to rest at home.”

God will soon put away the rod when you put away the sin. If he does not stay the chastisement, you will patiently bear it, and bless him that he has forgiven you; for that is the chief thing to be thought of. As a rule, the Lord ceases to fight against the man who ceases from sin; but if he does not, prostrate yourself before him. There is a picture in a quaint old book which represents a man with a flail trying to strike another, and the man who is assailed runs close in, so that the adversary cannot strike him. Run in upon God, and he cannot strike you. What does he say? “Let him take hold of my strength; and he shall make peace with me.” That is-go right up to God, who has been smiting you, and say, “Lord, I fully submit to thee. By the bowels of thy compassion, I pray thee, forgive me, and restore me to thy love.” He has no pleasure that you should suffer: as his dear child he would have you happy. He is grieved that you should wander away from him. Come back at once, backslider; come back even now. The Lord enable you to do so now, for Jesus’ sake!

The text is true to those who cannot say that they are the people of God, who would give their eyes if they could. Many an awakened sinner feels that he has rebelled, and vexed God’s Holy Spirit, and now he feels that God has turned to be his enemy, and is fighting against him by sending him trouble. Yes, he was getting on splendidly, and his prosperity was a snare to him. He had plenty of money, and therefore he could go into every place of amusement and every haunt of vice. Now he mourns an empty pocket. To-night he hardly knows where he is going to find a lodging. He was a young gentleman once, but he has to herd with beggars now. Yes, many and many a man has been brought down, by lechery and drunkenness, to the lowest abyss of penury. God has turned to be his enemy, for all things fail him: he has tried to get a situation, and he cannot; he has worn his boots off his feet, and he cannot find work to do. Perhaps I speak to some young woman here whose course has been far away from God; and she, too, has come down in another sense. Health is gone. Alas, for that laughing girl! That hectic flush upon her cheek tells that the worm is within the fruit. Poor soul! she is sickening. She will pass away, and she is still without hope. God has turned to be her enemy (so she thinks), and he fights against her, for the medicine is of no use to her; while other people seem to have been cured, she remains as sickly as ever. There are those here against whom God has been fighting of late; and when God fights, it is not child’s play, nor mere buffeting: he fights indeed. Perhaps he may be fighting with some of you in this respect, that your spirits are gone. You were once as merry as a cricket. You used to count it one of the easiest things to drive dull care away. Oh, what a jolly fellow you were! And now you cannot hold up your head. An awful depression has come upon you, and you cannot look up. It may have been through a sermon: or you were all alone, thinking, and you began to feel despondent, melancholy, unhappy. God is fighting against you, and in the depths of your soul you feel his frown. Or else you are in pecuniary difficulties. Formerly, your prosperity was your ruin. You could not be saved while you were rich; and your ease and your carelessness had to be broken in upon. There was no saving you without burning up the bed in which you slept so securely. God is tearing to pieces all your deceitful joy, and making you see the truth of matters.

I should not wonder if God is fighting against some of you in another way, so that your flimsy notions of religion are all going. You formerly boasted, “I can believe in the Lord Jesus Christ whenever I like, and it will be all right.” You once thought it such an easy thing to believe; but you do not find it so now. You have been thinking about salvation lately, and it is not quite such a trifling matter as you thought it was. Why, now you cry, “I cannot feel. What is worse, I cannot believe, I cannot remember. I cannot restrain myself from evil, I seem possessed by the devil. God help me, for I cannot help myself.” God does not seem to help you, but he makes you feel more of your weakness than you ever knew before; and the more you labour to be better the worse you are. “He was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.”

In the progress of this battle you may have suffered very serious damage. There came a man into this Tabernacle, some years ago, who said, “I got spoiled one Sunday morning. I came into this Tabernacle, and I thought that I was as good a man as any tradesman within fifty miles of the place.” Said he, “I went out spoiled; for I was made to confess that I was as bad as anybody in Newington, or within a thousand miles of the place.” That is what comes to us when God begins to fight against our self-righteousness. I thought myself, as a child, a good and decent lad, till I saw my own heart. I was a fine soldier till God came with his battle-axe, smashed in my shield, and hewed away my finery, and I stood there, in my own apprehension at that time, the worst youth that had ever lifted his hand against God. God makes great havoc with the trappings of self-righteousness. Our tawdry finery soon goes to pieces when the truth deals with it.

At such times, when God is fighting against a man, his inward sorrows seem to increase. His memory shouts at him, “Remember this! Remember that! Remember the other! Remember that night of sin! Remember that day of rebellion!” His fears rise up and stalk like grim ghosts before him. His hopes, that once sang sweetly siren songs, now turn their sonnets into dirges. His expectations fail. The man’s thoughts are all a case of knives, cutting his soul at every point. O sirs, when God besieges the town of Mansoul, he sets his batteries against every gate. His artillery is turned against every part of the wall. His big shells burst in the centre of the heart. The Lord is a man of war, Jehovah is his name. When he goes forth to battle, it shall be terrible for the man against whom he fights.

I hear you say to me, “You are giving a very terrible description.” I am not describing everybody that is saved. Many come to Christ very readily, and simply trust in him, and live at once. But, my hearer, you are not of that tender sort. You would not come. A mother’s tears could not persuade you, your teacher’s exhortations could not induce you; even the gentler dealings of God could not drive or draw you; and you have lived in sin till at last God has effectively taken you in hand. Your conscience is aroused; you cannot go on any longer as you now are.

“Oh,” says one, “I do not feel like that.” Alas! I wish you did. I have to meet with a great many people of a sorrowful spirit. They are constantly seeking me out. I have known them come for many a mile to have a talk with me; for they seem to think that I know something about these wounds and bruises. They are right in their belief, although the fact causes me great labour among the sad. Oh, dear hearts, if God fights against you, throw down your weapons! Pull those feathers out of your caps! Down on your faces before him! Yield, and when you have yielded he will do you no harm; but he will stoop over you, and lift you up, and forgive you. The woman taken in adultery in the presence of Christ is a sample of what he will do with you, taken in the very act of rebellion against him. The tender Saviour said, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more!” Dear soul, yield, yield, yield! Make no excuse. Offer no extenuation. Yield to the omnipotence of God, which, in your case, will be omnipotent love. He has wounded, and he will heal. He has torn you, and he will bind you up. “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he woundeth, and his hands make whole.” But how can he make those alive who were never killed? You that were never wounded, you who to-night have been sitting here and smiling at your own ease, what can mercy do for you? Do not congratulate yourselves on your peace, for at the bottom of the painful experience I have described there lies the wondrous secret that this fighting against men is fighting against their evil for their good, that they may be saved. God fights against your pride, that you may be humbled: he fights against your self-confidence, that you may be ashamed of it; and when his warfare has answered its purpose, God will be no enemy of yours; but you will find him blotting out your sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud your iniquities.

I leave off when I have warned you to watch carefully that you do not go into sin. It is a blessed thing to be forgiven; but it is a more blessed thing to be kept from sin. Oh, what agony, what mischief, I have seen brought upon individuals and families by acts of carelessness which have afterwards led to acts of licentiousness! Steer clear of the lesser forms of sin, lest you so vex the Spirit that he shall turn to be your enemy, and fight against you.

Lastly, this text is a very dreadful one in reference to those who die impenitent. Concerning those who die impenitent, what shall we say? What ought to be the truth about them? You-I speak only now of those who have heard the gospel, of such as are sitting in this Tabernacle, where the warning and the promise are set before them-if you die impenitent, having wilfully rejected the great sacrifice of Christ, you will die with a vengeance. Jesus Christ has died, and you have refused the merit of his blood. You have wilfully and wickedly done despite to the mercy of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; and this is in addition to all your other sins. Now, let me ask you-What is to be done with the man who will not have mercy when it is set before him? If a convicted criminal is invited to confess and receive pardon, and he will not do it, what remains but to carry out the sentence? Both justice and injured mercy require that it should be so. When a man gets into the next world, who dies refusing Christ, and rejecting divine mercy, he will fight against God there, and, according to his ability, he will be a greater sinner there than here. Shall God give him pleasure? Shall the Lord make such a rebel happy? Shall he stand by and say, “I will reward the rebel. He has vexed my Spirit, but I will ennoble and reward him”? Shall the Judge of all the earth act so? If you will turn to this Book, you will not find between these two covers a solitary ray of hope for a man who dies without God, and without Christ. I defy any man who believes this Book to be inspired, to find anything in its sacred page but blank despair for the man who will not in this life accept the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. My Lord and Master said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” That is his word, and there it stands, and there it will stand for ever. It will never be reversed. It is the final sentence, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” I charge you, by the living God, do not provoke him to this. Rush not upon the edge of Jehovah’s sword.

At once look to Jesus crucified-Jesus crucified for the guilty, Jesus who came into the world, took our nature, and bare our sin and shame. He cries from the cross, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” I cannot speak to you like an angel from heaven, but I speak like a sinner saved from hell; and I implore you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved; “for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” God bless you! Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Psalm 106.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-176, 106 (Part II.), 570.

A MEDIATOR

A Sermon

Delivered on Lord’s-day Evening, February 23rd, 1890, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.”-Galatians 3:20.

The text does not strike you as difficult, but it is exceedingly perplexing to the interpreter. I was looking at one very old commentator, who is a great favourite of mine, and I noticed that he said that there were two hundred and fifty different meanings given by expositors to this verse. John Prime, in 1587, called it “an endless labyrinth.” “Oh,” I thought, “here is a nice wood to lose oneself in! Two hundred and fifty meanings!” Turning to a more modern author-a great reader, however-he said he believed that more than four hundred different interpretations had been put upon the passage. This was getting from a wood into a forest-a black forest, where one might lose himself hopelessly. Should I preach from such a text? Yes; but I must not worry you with these many interpretations. Some of them cannot be correct; some of them are, no doubt, nearly accurate. What does, the passage mean? I will not venture to say that I know; but I will venture to say that I know how to use it for a practical purpose. If the Spirit of God will help us, we shall find our way, by a very simple clue, to the practical meaning, and make use of the words for our soul’s profit.

A mediator! What is a mediator? A mediator is a middleman, a go-between; one who comes in between two parties who otherwise could not commune with each other. Take the case of Moses. God’s voice was very terrible, and the people could not bear it; so Moses came in and spake on the behalf of God. The presence of Jehovah upon the mountain was so glorious that men could not climb the hill, and endure that great sight, so Moses went up for men to God. He was a mediator, speaking for the Lord, and making intercession for the people. This is what Paul alludes to when he speaks of the law being “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator”; and here the apostle lets slip a sort of general statement-a truth which does not seem to be in connection with anything that goes before, or anything that follows after. He lays this down as a general rule: “A mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.” Paul hath dust of gold: his every thought is precious. He is looking at one object, and talking about it; and meanwhile he strikes a stone with his foot, and lays bare a vein of gold. As if he did not notice the treasure, he passes on, and leaves that vein of gold for you and for me. He is very fond of a digression. It is the style of Paul, and the style of every man who is very full and running over. He keeps to one argument, but he sees many others. While he is running towards the goal, he lets fall golden apples in the form of general principles which occur to him at the time. I understand Paul here, not as going on with any argument, but as letting fall a general principle, which I-taking it out of its connection-hope to use for our profit to-night. A mediator, a go-between, an interposer, is not a mediator of one, that is clear; but God is one. What shall we learn from this?

First, a mediator is not for God alone. A mediator deals with two persons-with God and man. A mediator does not come because God wants, himself, any kind of mediator. He is eternally one; and if you view him as the sacred Trinity, yet he is a Trinity in unity. God is one. Some persons call themselves Unitarians who have no exclusive right to the name. All Trinitarians are Unitarians: though we believe that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, yet we confess that there are not three gods, but one God. Now, between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, there is no difference, no ground for contention; and therefore no mediator is needed to reconcile the divine persons. God is one: therefore our God does not need the mediator for himself. Who is the mediator wanted for, then? Why, for somebody else. That somebody else is here to-night, and I want to find him out. A mediator! Blessed be God, there is a mediator; but God does not want him for his personal purposes; there is another person for whom the mediator is required. Where is that other person? In the very gift of Christ as a mediator, in the sending of him in his divine and human nature, in Christ’s life, in Christ’s death, God had an eye to another party. God, looking out beyond himself to somebody else, provided a mediator. That ought to be a great thought to you; for if God is looking out of himself, why should he not look at you? If God has so looked out of himself as to provide a mediator, that must mean that he is thinking of a creature who needs one. O my soul, may he not be thinking of thee? Though thou hast wandered from him, and lived for many years without him, may it not be that as there is a mediator, and that mediator cannot be for God alone, for God is one, that mediator may be intended to meet my need, and bring me back to God?

Now, according to the run of the text, and according to the run of Scripture, that other party, for whom a mediator is sent, is man. Man has fallen out with God. Man is at enmity with God, and God is necessarily angry with man, for he cannot but hate sin, and he must punish evil. God, therefore, is looking out on man; and here am I to-night, sitting in the house of prayer: is he looking on me? God desireth fellowship with men. God would have men brought near to him; why should not I, then, be brought near? Why should I live at a distance? Here is a mediator: that mediator cannot be for God alone, for God is one; he must be meant for a second person: may not I be that person? Let me lift my eye to heaven, and say, “O gracious Lord, grant that I may be that other person for whom this mediator is concerned!” for a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one, and would have me to be the second, that there may be work for a mediator to do. That is clear enough.

Now go a step further. In the second place, a mediator is not for persons who are agreed with each other. A mediator is not needed for persons of one heart and of one soul. I want no mediator between myself and my brother, between myself and my son, between myself and my wife. We are perfectly at one already, and no mediator is wanted. So, then, it is clear that, if there be a mediator, it is for two persons between whom there is some ground of difference. Mark well this truth, and catch at it. I am not going to say pretty things, or use fine words; yet I say to those of you who long to be saved,-Catch at what I am saying; for it will help you. A mediator! That must be for persons between whom and God there is ground of quarrel. Sinner, sinner, this is good news for you! A mediator is not for a man who is perfectly at one with God; but for you, who have by many sins provoked God, who by the sinfulness of your nature stand at a distance from him. There is need of a mediator between you and the thrice-holy God; and it is for such as you that a mediator has appeared. Do you see this truth? A mediator is not a mediator between those who are at one. He is a mediator between persons who differ; and that is the case with you as to your God.

A mediator also comes when there is a ground of difference which cannot readily be removed; for if the ground of difference is trivial, and the two parties are willing to be agreed, they soon settle the matter; but a mediator, an arbitrator, is brought in when the case is hard. Such is your case and mine by nature. We have sinned. God is just. He is full of compassion, and willing to forgive as far as the slight is against his person; but he is also King and Judge of all the earth, and he must punish sin. If he does not punish sin, he will be unjust, and the injustice which does not punish sin is cruelty to all righteous men. If our judges were to-morrow to say to every thief, housebreaker, murderer, “Go your way; you are forgiven,” it would be kindness to them, but it would be cruelty to us. It would not be true mercy on the part of God to pass by sin without a punishment. He could not occupy his throne as the guardian of right and the protector of virtue if he did not execute judgment upon sin. Here, then, we perceive a barrier between God and the guilty: God must punish offenders; and man has offended. How can these two be brought together? Here steps in the mediator, one of a thousand, who can lay his hand upon both, compose this deadly feud, and make eternal peaco. A mediator is not for those who are at one, but for those who have a ground of difference which cannot be readily removed.

In this case, if there be any wish on the part of the offending one to be reconciled, it may be done; for the offended God is willing to be at peace. There would be no use in a mediator unless the parties were both willing to be reconciled to each other. A mediator who comes in between two who have a continued hatred simply loses his time; but in our case God is willing to be reconciled. “Fury is not in me,” saith he. But man is not willing to be reconciled to God until grace changes his heart. If there be on your part a wish to end your quarrel, and to be friends with God, you will be happy to know that there is a mediator. Jesus stands waiting to remove the barrier that divides you from God, and to reconcile you to God by his own death.

There must, however, in order to a mediator, an umpire, be a willingness on both sides to leave the matter in his hands. There must be a difference which they cannot remove, a difference which they wish to have removed, and a difference which they are willing to leave in the umpire’s hands. God is willing to leave our matter with Christ. He has done so. He has laid help on One that is mighty. He has qualified and commissioned him to come as an ambassador, and make peace between him and guilty men. On your part, are you willing to hand the matter over to Christ entirely, to do what he bids you, to own to what he would have you confess, to repent wherein he tells you you are wrong, to seek to be right wherein he warns you that you have failed? Will you give your case over to the mediator, and make Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to be your representative in the business? God trusts his honour in the hands of his Son Jesus. He is not afraid to leave everything that concerns his moral government and his royal character in the hands of the Well-beloved. Will you trust your soul’s eternal interests in those same dear pierced hands? If so, rejoice that there is a mediator between two parties that have long been alienated-a mediator between God and you. Take him to your heart to-night.

Now we will go a step further. A mediator is not a mediator of one; but he studies the interests of both parties. Such is our Lord Jesus Christ. Coming here on earth, did he come to save men? Yes. Did he come to glorify his Father’s name? Yes. For which of these two purposes did he chiefly come? I will not say. He came for both, and he blends the two. He looks after the interests of man, and pleads the causes of his soul: he looks after the interests of God, and vindicates the honour of God, even unto death. Is he obedient, that he might magnify the law of God, and make it honourable? Yes, but he is mediator that he may deliver us from the curse of the law. Beloved, our blessed mediator is not a mediator for one. An umpire must not take sides, and a mediator that did not understand more than one side, and was not concerned for anybody but one side, would be unworthy of the name. Our mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, has both natures. Is he God? Verily, he is very God of very God. Is he man? Assuredly, of the substance of his mother, as truly man as any man among us. Is he most God, or is he most man? This is a question not to be asked, and, therefore, not to be answered. He is my brother. He is God’s Son. Yea, he is himself God. What better umpire can we want than this divine human being, who can lay his hands upon us both, who counts it not robbery to be equal with God, and yet calls man his brother? A mediator is not a mediator of one, since he wears both natures, and espouses both causes. Oh, how dear to the heart of Christ is the glory of God! He lives, he dies, he rises again, to glorify the Father. Oh, how dear to Christ is the salvation of men! He lives, he dies, he rises again, and pleads for the salvation of sinners. He has the enthusiasm of humanity, but he has the enthusiasm of divinity as well. God must be glorified; he will die to do it. Man must be saved; he will die to do it. What a splendid mediator, who is not a mediator of one, but a mediator who takes up the cause of both sides!

In this capacity, our blessed Mediator pleads for both with both; for he is not a mediator of one. A mediator, when he would make peace, goes to this one, and he states the case, and he urges him, and pleads with him. When he has done that, he returns to the other party, and states the other side. He pleads with the one on the behalf of the other. Even so our Lord Jesus Christ comes in between God and man. Oh, how wonderful! He pleads with God for sinners, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” And then he turns round, and pleads with sinners for God, and bids them turn to him, and be reconciled to him, since he is their Father and their Friend! A mediator is not a mediator of one. He who should come in and pretend to be a mediator, and then throw all the blame on one party, and care only for the interests of the other party, would not be a mediator, but a partisan. But, in this case, here is One who has something to say, not in vindication, or excuse for sin, but in pleading for mercy to the sinner. He has something to say to magnify the justice of God, and yet he cries for mercy. He prays, “Have mercy, O God! Have mercy upon the guilty!” I think that I have got the run of this text, somehow, if I cannot give you the exact meaning of the words. This meaning lies hidden within the words: a mediator is not for one, but he studies the interests of both.

It is, then, most clear that a mediator must have two parties to deal with, or else his office is a mere name. An umpire is chosen to keep order between two sets of people; but if only one set shall put in an appearance, you may go home, Mr. Umpire. There is evidently nothing for you to do. “A mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one.”

Now, to-night my Lord is here to be a mediator. God is willing to be reconciled to men; but if there be nobody here to be reconciled, if the preaching of to-night has no relation to anybody here, then it is quite clear that the office of Christ cannot be exercised. He cannot be a mediator unless there is a sinner here to be reconciled. Where is he? My Lord the mediator holds his court to-night, and sits here as an ambassador; but what can he do unless I can find him out the other party; unless I can find out the offender, the guilty one; and unless, finding him out, the Spirit of God shall bring him to say, “I wish to be reconciled to God, and I put my case into the hand of the great interposer”? If there is no sinner in the world, then there is no Saviour in the world. How can he save if men are not guilty, and do not need saving? I tell thee, sinner, thou art necessary to Christ’s doing any business! A man is a surgeon, and puts a brass-plate outside his door. Go and tell him that there is nobody ill in the parish. Prove to him that within ten miles there is nobody who has so much as a cold or a toothache: the good man may take down his brass-plate, and go and spend a month in the country. It breaks a doctor up if everybody remains in health. Now, if to-night everybody here has kept God’s law, and is innocent, guiltless, and fully at one with God, my Master has no mission here, nor have I. I have no need to speak of him to you, for “they that be whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.” Therefore come I forth in the name of the mediator, to ask whether there be not some sinner here who will confess his guilt; some enemy of God, who will ask for peace; some giddy young man who has lived without God until now, who will pray to be reconciled to him. If so, you make work for my Master. You give him something to do in that divine office of mediator, in which he takes such a delight.

And mark you this: in the case of a mediator, or umpire, the more difficult the case, the greater is the honour that comes to him if he can compose it. If there be a very stiff quarrel between you and God, I commend to you my Lord as mediator; for he never failed yet to settle any dispute, and at this time he says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Solomon was great in handling hard matters, but a greater than Solomon is here. If thy life be all in a tangle and a snarl, he can put it straight. If thy differences with God are too solemn and weighty to be stated in words; if they press thy life out of thee, if they rob thee of sleep, if they bring thee down to hell’s door; yet still my Lord the mediator can settle every difference, and make peace between thy soul and God. Art thou willing that he should exercise his office for thee? If so, the worse thy case the greater will be the credit that will come to my Lord as mediator, when he has removed every difficulty for thee.

Do not be afraid because there are so many sinful ones here, and such great numbers of you are still the enemies of God. I do not only invite one of you to come, but I would say: Come all, and the more the merrier. My Lord will have the greater honour if he composes this quarrel in hundreds of cases, all varying, but all grievous. You may come, the whole of you, and he will not shut his door against you. If you go to see some eminent doctors of this city, you must get there early in the morning, and wait almost till night before your turn comes round; but there will be no waiting with my Lord and Master. If you wish to be friends with God, the mediator is ready to compose the difference, and to send you away happy in the love of the Most High.

“But may I come?” says one. May you come? When Christ sets up to be a mediator, why should you not use him as a mediator? I do not ask the doctor’s pardon when, feeling ill, I knock at his door. He has put up his name as one that is willing to deal with the sick, and therefore I seek him. I take no liberty in coming. If he has undertaken an office, let him do his office. Poor guilty wretch, afraid to come to God, behold Christ puts up the name of mediator with intent that he should be used as such! He is the way of access to the Father. Come and use him for what he professes to be. Believe that he is able to do what, by his name and his official title, he claims to do. Now come, and be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ his Son, the mediator.

I have been nearly forty years now trying to preach. I cannot get at it yet. Oh, that I knew how to put this, so as to move every soul to come to God, and sue for peace! How willing must God be to be at peace with men, when he provides a mediator between himself and them! How readily ought you to come when Christ’s honour and glory depend upon men’s trusting their cases in his hands! I ask again, what is a mediator if no case is trusted to him? A king without a crown, a shepherd without a flock, a farmer without land, a physician without sick people-these are all in a poor plight. And Christ without sinners, where is he? His name is an empty thing, and his glory gone. Come, then, ye chief of sinners, come to Christ, and leave your case with him!

But I close by noticing that, although it be necessary, when the mediator begins, that there should be two parties-for he is not a mediator of one, and God is one-yet when the case ends, a mediator must make the two one, or he has not succeeded. Our Lord Jesus has broken down the middle wall of partition. He has really reconciled those who stood apart. Christ has done this for so many that I should like you sitting in the gallery to say, “Why should not he do it for me?” Hung up in Christ’s private chamber there is a record of ten thousand quarrels between men and God that he has ended. Why should he not have my name among them? Why should he not end the quarrel between me and God? Why should he not reconcile me to the Father, so that the Father should give me the kiss of peace? He has never failed in a case yet. Some of the very worst cases have been submitted to his umpireship; but he has always succeeded. They know not in heaven of a single defeat of our Lord; and the gloomy shades of hell cannot reveal a single failure on the part of Christ, in the case of one poor, condemned, guilty soul, that came to him and said, “Make my peace with God.” He was never obliged to say, “I cannot do it.” There is no such instance. Come, my friend, if thou hast lived to be eighty, an enemy to God, thou mayest yet become his friend through this mediator! Come, my hearer, if thou be young and full of vigour, and if thy passions have led thee far away from purity, so that God may well quarrel with thee, thou mayest come at once, just as thou art, and Christ will make up the quarrel between thee and God! His pardoning blood can take away the guilt that angers God; and the water which flowed with the blood from his dear pierced side can take away the propensity to rebellion within thine own bosom. Surely I ought, by such words as these, to comfort some souls, and lead them to Jesus.

Reconciliation, wrought out by Christ, is absolutely perfect. It means eternal life. O my hearer, if Jesus reconciles thee to God now, thou wilt never quarrel with God again, nor God with thee. If the mediator takes away the ground of feud-thy sin and sinfulness-he will take it away for ever. He will cast your iniquities into the depths of the sea, blotting out your sins like a cloud, and like a thick cloud your transgressions. He will make such peace between you and God that he will love you for ever, and you will love him for ever; and nothing shall separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I have heard of some mend-all which so puts the pieces of broken plates together, that the articles are said to be stronger than they were before they were broken. I know not how that may be. This I know: the union between God and the sinner, reconciled by the blood of Jesus, is closer and stronger than the union between God and unfallen Adam. That was broken by a single stroke; but if Christ join thee to the Father by his own precious blood, he will keep thee there by the inflowing of his grace into thy soul; for who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?

One thing more I have to say. Remember, if you refuse the mediator whom God appoints, you do peremptorily refuse to be at peace with God. You could not have found a mediator; you cannot discover another now. There can be no other so every way suitable to come between us and God, as the God-man, Christ Jesus; bleeding on the cross to put away our sin, and risen from the dead to proclaim that we are justified. Now, if God takes out of his own bosom his own Son, and gives him up to die, that he may make peace with us, and we refuse him, we mean endless war with God. That is what it comes to. If you will not have Christ, you are baring your arm for an eternal conflict with the Almighty. You are putting on your helmet, and girding your sword, to fight with your Maker. You are rejecting peace when you reject Christ. I am sure that it is so. You are choosing war with the Lord of hosts. Well, sirs, if you will have it, you must have it; but I would implore you to repent at once of your insane choice. How can you fight with God? Why should you fight with God? To battle with God is to battle against your own best interests, and to ruin your souls. Heaven, the only heaven that a creature can have, is to be at peace with his Creator. There is no peace unto the wicked. How can there be? The only hope that we can have is to be agreed with God. If he has made me, he has made me for a purpose. If I fulfil that purpose, I shall answer the end of my being, and I shall be happy. If I do not fulfil that purpose, I must be unhappy; and in choosing to be the foe of God, I have chosen my own eternal damnation. God help us to repent of such a choice; and may we now lay hold on Christ the mediator, and trust ourselves with him, that he may make peace between us and God; and to his name shall be glory for ever and ever! Amen.

Portion of Scripture read before Sermon-Galatians 3.