It is the business of the prophet of God, and of the minister of Christ, to seek comfort for those who are in distress. “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” It is a part of our calling to seek, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to bring words of consolation to those who are heavy in heart. We have other work to do; but still this is a part of our commission. God would not have his people’s heads hang down, he would have their hearts full of joy and peace in believing; so he sends us, with tender, sympathetic words, to strive to comfort all that mourn.

I can truly say that, while this is our duty, when we succeed in it, it is also our delight. To take the burden from the heavy heart, is a great joy. Whenever I have comforted any mourners, I think that I have had even more comfort than the comforted ones. You cannot impart consolation to others without, at the same time, enjoying it yourself, in some measure at any rate. You put out your hands to open the door into the King’s banqueting-house for another; and, lo, your own fingers drip with sweet-smelling myrrh, from the handle of the door! Try to cheer another heart, and you will go the nearest way to cheer your own. So, then, I am glad that I have a text like this; only the gladness is sobered and saddened by the connection in which it stands, and by the almost hopeless character of the question, “Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?”

I shall have only two divisions to-night. First, sometimes, our work is very easy; secondly, at other times, it becomes so hard as even to be impossible.

First, sometimes our work is very easy, especially to those long practised in it. To a young surgeon, a case of a broken bone may be a difficulty; but to one who has long been in his profession, it is a simple matter, and he soon sets the bone.

Now, first, it is a comparatively easy thing to find comforts for true children of God in the day of their adversity. Dark days come to the brightest saints. A Christian may, perhaps, enjoy worldly prosperity for a long time; and then the tide may turn, and the man may find all that he had melt away before his eyes. Nothing that he does may succeed; he may be brought very low, even to poverty. In such a case as that, it is not hard to comfort the child of God, for the Lord helps him to say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” My brother, your riches consist not in gold and silver; you have in heaven a more enduring portion; and if God, by impoverishing you of these grosser things, enriches you with more refined treasures, you will be a gainer; your loss will turn to your eternal profit. Wherefore, we comfort you readily enough with words like these.

The same is true with God’s people in bereavement. We come to them, and tell them that it is the Lord who has done it, and ask, “Shall he not do what seemeth him good?” In many cases, we are able to tell them that they have not lost their relative or friend. Their beloved ones have only crossed the river a little before them, and they will soon pass over the same stream, and be for ever joined where they shall part no more. Though it be some beloved child, or other dear relative, or even the partner of one’s bosom, or a much-beloved friend, yet to find consolation for mourners of that kind, is not the hardest work that the pastor has to do. Refrain thine eyes from weeping, especially keep back thy heart from tears. They shall come again from the land of their captivity. They die but to live for ever, and thou shalt meet them before long.

And, dear friends, it is not so very difficult to find comfort for children of God who are under the trial of persecution. There are still many of God’s people who endure the trial of cruel mockings, and something worse than that. Some of you have to suffer in many ways for Christ’s sake. “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” Let not this trouble you; Christ has provided abundant consolation for all who suffer with him, for they shall reign with him, for ever and ever. They shall be-

“Brightest of the saints in light,

’Midst the bright ones doubly bright.”

They shall receive larger palms and brighter crowns than others who have suffered less for his dear name’s sake. We do not say about these dear Christians, “Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?” for we know where to point them to most effectual consolation.

Sometimes, we have to deal with fainting Christians, yet when we meet with them we do not find their case one of superlative difficulty. Every now and then, I suppose, almost all of us get into a condition, in which our joy and comfort have to be looked for, but can scarcely be found. Partly through ill-health, partly from the strain of high excitement, which is followed by a reaction, we get to be like Elias, when he said, “Now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.” There are times when the pulse scarcely beats, and the blood begins to cool, and the heart is faint. Beloved, whenever we meet with you in that condition, we tell you that we have been in that state ourselves; nay, we remind you that our Lord himself was in an agony, and was greatly depressed in spirit. We have to assure you that the condition of your frames and feelings does not affect your safety in Christ. We have to remind you that, though you are changed, God is not changed. The promise, the old covenant, stands just as fast when you are down in distress as when you are on the high places of exultation. You are saved by faith, not by feeling; and when feeling ebbs out to the very last degree, still hold on to Jesus; sink or swim, still trust in him. When you see no trace of his actual presence with you, rely upon him all the same, and be of good cheer. This is not hard, to say; and when the Spirit of God is with us, we find no lack of consolation for fainting saints.

Nor do we find ourselves much embarrassed by cases of disappointed workers. We hear them say, “Surely we have laboured in vain, and spent our strength for nought. Who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” But we tell them of many of God’s saints who laboured long without seeing any immediate result, and yet they were accepted of God. Jeremiah, the plaintive, weeping prophet, saw the people reject everything that he said; yet he was not rejected, but accepted of God; and amongst honourable men, there is none more excellent than the prophet Jeremy. Beloved, you may be sent to warn a people who never will be saved, and yet you will be blessed. When Isaiah saw the seraphim, and in answer to God’s call, “Whom shall I send?” said, “Here am I; send me,” you notice what his commission was. He was sent, not to bring the people to God, but to go and say to them, “Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes.” He obeyed his commission as it was given to him, and his Lord rewarded him. That may be your case. Besides, you are no judge of your own success. I think that it has been noticed by ministers very often, so often as to be like a Baconian induction, that, when we think that we preach worst, God usually blesses the people most, and that, when we appear to have had the least power, God displays his ability more clearly than at other times. Wherefore, when you go home weeping, while you have only sown in tears, you shall doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing your sheaves with you. But you are no judge of what you do yourself, and you cannot tell what the results of your work may be. If you see them not, the angels may have seen them; and while you are weeping, they are rejoicing. At any rate, you are not responsible for the harvest; you are responsible for ploughing and sowing. If you have done your work well, in the fear of God, what comes of it rests with God, and not with you.

Sometimes, beloved friends, we have the task of comforting dying believers, and that is no very difficult thing. There is one whom I could mention to you who, not long ago, spent all that he had in taking a new business, which he needed for his growing family, and he hoped to prosper in it. He had scarcely been in the house many weeks before his daughter was brought home to him, and when taken upstairs, she was found to be raving with madness. She was watched over carefully; but, to the breaking of his heart, she had to be put away. Not long after, another, dear to his heart, was suddenly taken away. By-and-by, he himself fell ill, and, at last, going to a physician, he was told that his case was a very serious one; he had better see a specialist. He saw the specialist, who told him that he had an internal cancer, that he might be operated upon, but that in all probability he would die under the operation, and he would advise him to live as long as he could. That happened not long ago. If I were to introduce him to you, what kind of a man would you expect him to be, with his bereavements, and with his prospect of soon dying probably a very painful death? You would suppose that he would look very dull, haggard, and so forth. There is not a more cheerful person beneath the cope of heaven; and when he crawled up to London, the other day, to do some business, and some persons wondered that he did it, he said, “While I can, I will do my best in the place where God has put me. When I can get out no more, I will sit still and praise God; and when the time comes, I will die with my face towards the New Jerusalem.” That is how Christians live, and that is how Christians die. We do not find, when we have to deal with a believer in Christ, that it is at all a difficult thing to cheer the heart either in the near or the distant prospect of death.

Nor, dear friends, do we find ourselves much troubled in seeking to comfort repenting backsliders. It is grievous that any should backslide; it is horrible that the Church of God should have her name disgraced, that the Christ of God should have his religion bespattered by the iniquities of professing Christians; but when the Lord touches the wandering heart, and it breaks under a sense of guilt, and the man turns back to his God, we find it easy to say, “The Lord delighteth in mercy. Return, ye backsliding children. God is willing to receive you, he is waiting to bless you.” The Word of God is full of consolation to backsliders who are seeking his face. Guilty as you are, the Lord says, “Return unto me, for I am married unto you.” He might well divorce you; but the Lord, the God of Jacob, says that he hates putting away. He will not cast off the people of his choice; he is glad to receive them back after all their uncleanness and filthiness. Yes, there is much comfort for returning backsliders; and if there are any such here to-night, I would put out my hand, and say, “Come back, my brother; come and welcome to the Saviour.”

And certainly there is no difficulty in trying to comfort seeking sinners. If any man is seeking the Saviour, the Saviour is seeking him.

“Thy seeking his face

Is all of his grace.”

He has begun with you, or else you would not have begun with him; and now, if you will simply trust him, only trust him, you shall have immediate peace. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” That is a glorious passage. “He that believeth on him is not condemned,” is another blessed phase of the same comforting truth. If thou hast received Christ, to thee he gives the power to become one of the sons of God, “even to them that believe on his name.” There is a whole hive full of real honey for a soul that comes to Christ You may even dip your hand in it, if you will, and eat as much sweetness as you please, for you will never exhaust it.

Thus I have explained how, sometimes, in seeking comforters, our work is easy.

But, dear friends, at other times it becomes so hard as to be impossible. Nahum says, concerning Nineveh, “Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?”

Assyria, of which Nineveh was the capital, was an empire which existed entirely for itself. No Assyrian monarch ever thought of what would be for the good of the nations that he conquered. I should think that, if anybody ever mentioned such a thing, he would have laughed at him, or he would have put out his eyes, or cut off his head. There was no idea that anybody else had any rights at all except the king of Assyria, for even his subjects were simply his puppets, destroyed by his will and pleasure; and Assyria was thus the incarnation of pure, or rather of impure, selfishness. Well, when a selfish man goes down as Nineveh did, who comforts him? He never did anybody any good, and he may say if he likes, “I cared for nobody, and nobody cares for me.” It is very hard, indeed, to say anything byway of comfort to a man who is broken down, and who never cared for other people. Do not get into that state of mind, I pray you, dear friends. I believe that selfishness is the front-door key of despair; for it never did any good to anybody; so, when it gets into trouble, nobody brings it comfort, and everybody says, “Who will bemoan thee? Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?”

The Assyrians also dealt very cruelly with others. On the great stones that Mr. Layard brought home, there are awful pictures of what was being done with the captives, heaps of heads cut off from men who had been taken in war, eyes gouged out, and all sorts of dreadful things with which I will not horrify you; and, consequently, when that cruel power was put down, who would wish to seek comfort for it? Oh, that we may be prevented from ever being cruel to others! If we are cruel to others, when our turn comes, there will be no comfort for us. These people plundered every nation wherever they went; they took away everything that they could, and left them penniless, devoured the fruits of the ground, and cared nothing what desolation they left behind. But when the time came for them to be robbed, and their capital to be despoiled, nobody thought of comforting them. They were left to reap what they had sown.

Besides that, they were famous for their pride, and that pride rose up into blasphemy. Remember how the Assyrian messenger, Rab-shakeh, defied Jehovah. He said “Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand?” So, when their corpses were all piled up in the streets, no nation wept for them, nobody cared for them. Oh, dear friends, do conduct your business in such a way that you do not crush the poor! Do manage everything in such a way that you rob nobody. Be straight; be just; be kind. “Live and let live,” or else, if your turn to fall should come, one of these days, nobody will bemoan you, or be sorry for you. If you lift up your hand in proud blasphemy against God, and he brings you down to the dust, you will be quoted as an instance of how the justice of God overtakes the proud. The Lord keep us from all this! I cannot help mentioning it, because it is in the chapter, and has to do with the text. It is much better that you and I should go humbly on in laborious poverty, and find our way to heaven with good repute, than that we should become even kings of the earth, and lords of all her wealth, and after all should be found to have lived only for self, and to have cared for none besides, for then our downfall will be terrible in the day of the Lord’s vengeance.

But, besides this, there are other people whom we cannot comfort. There is a man in a good deal of trouble about his soul, so he says. He comes to me, and, on talking with him, and probing him a bit, I find that he is living in the commission of a known sin. He says that he cannot believe; he cannot pray; he cannot get comfort. Of course, he cannot while he indulges any known sin. Whence shall we find comforters for thee? God will not forgive you while you continue in that sin. Christ will not cleanse you from the guilt of it, while you continue in the practice of it. You must part with sin, or we cannot comfort you; we will not try to do so.

And, next, there are some who do not get any comfort, though they have left off sin, because they have never made restitution. If you have robbed or wronged anybody, when you come to Christ, do what Zaccheus did, who said that, if he had taken anything from any man by false accusation, he would restore him fourfold. There was a minister in this city, a dear friend of mine, who preached a sermon upon the necessity of restitution when wrong had been done; and some of his friends told him that, if he preached in that way, he would drive the people away. But, during the week, he met in the street a man of about his own age, who said to him, “Were you not in Messrs. So-and-so’s warehouse once?” “Yes, I was.” “Did you not lose a watch while you were there?” “Yes, I did.” “Well, I was there at the same time. Do you recollect me?” “What is your name? Oh, yes, I recollect your name!” “I stole your watch. I came to hear you last Sunday night, and I cannot rest till I have given you ten pounds to make restitution for that watch.” “No,” said my friend, “I do not want money.” “But I must make restitution,” said the other. At last, my friend explained that the watch was not worth ten pounds, though it might have been worth four; so the man gave him the four pounds, and he came back to his critics, and said, “I have made four pounds profit by that sermon anyhow, whatever you may have thought of it. I had forgotten all about my lost watch; but my sermon has brought me back the money for it.” The man who thus made restitution is now, I believe, an honourable Christian man. I do not see how he could have been so with that watch on his conscience; and I do not believe that, do what we may, we can give comfort to people who have wronged others till, to their very utmost, they have made restitution. Whence shall I comfort thee, if thou repentest not of thy robbery, but keepest the proceeds of it?

Again, there is another sort of people whom we cannot comfort people who seem very concerned to get pardon, but when you come to understand them, you discover that they are living in enmity against somebody, a brother, a mother-in-law, a cousin, or a friend, whom they will not forgive. They keep on harbouring hatred in their minds. I am grieved to say that it is not altogether an unusual thing to find fathers who will not forgive a daughter, or a son. They did not happen to marry the person you would have liked to choose for them; and, of course, you have a perfect right, have you not, to make the selection for them? You thought you had a right to pick for yourself, but you will not give that right to your children; so you have an enmity against them on that account; and then you go whining to God to forgive you, and yet you will not forgive your daughter. Here you are on your knees, crying, “Lord have mercy upon me,” yet you will not have mercy upon that friend who did once wrong you, and whom you ought to have forgiven long ago. Now, remember, that it is of no use for you to pray, or do anything else, if you will not from your heart forgive those who have offended you; for neither will God, even for Christ’s sake, forgive you. There must be a clean sweep of everything like enmity out of your heart, or else you cannot be at peace with God. Enmity cannot lie down with love; darkness cannot weld with light. You cannot enter into the peace of God till you are willing to forgive others. There are many people who get hung up on that nail; I wish they could get released from it, by God’s grace.

We meet with some also who profess to be very anxious to be saved; perhaps I have some such here to-night, and yet they do not pray. You rise in the morning, and you go to bed at night, without a prayer; and all day long God is not in all your thoughts. Do you expect, then, to be saved by accident? Do you really reckon that, one of these days, as you walk down the street, salvation will drop on you, whether you will or not? Beloved, if you desire this great boon of God, ask for it: “He that asketh, receiveth.” If you want to find this treasure, look for it: “He that seeketh, findeth.” If you would get heaven’s door opened, I pray you use the knocker: “To him that knocketh, it shall be opened.” No prayer, no Bible-reading, no going to hear the Word with the earnest intent to find out what the way of salvation is, why, dear me, how can you escape if you neglect so great salvation? You are evidently living in constant neglect. Nobody ever prospers in business who does not pay attention to it; and no man can expect to enter into peace with God when he goes on in a sort of slipshod way, going sometimes to a place of worship, occasionally feeling a little earnest, but never seeking the Lord with his whole heart. Men, you will have to be aroused out of this fatal lethargy; may the Spirit of God awaken you this very night! Resolve that you will not let the angel go unless he bless you. May the great Master bring you to that state of mind at once!

There are others, and these are the people we have so often to deal with, who feel their sin, and who really wish to be saved, and they do a great deal in the hope of being saved; but there is one thing they will not do, they will not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They try to be saved by their prayers, as if there was any promise that God would save us for our praying. They try Bible-reading, for in the Scriptures they think they have eternal life; but they forget that eternal life is not in the Bible except as the Bible testifies of Christ, and points to Christ. They have been christened, they have been confirmed, they are members of churches, and so on, and there they rest; no, they do not “rest.” They feel that there is still something wanted, which they have not yet obtained. That which is wanted, my friend, is that thou shouldst come, and-

“Cast thy deadly doing down,

Down at Jesu’s feet,”

and trust in what he has done, and then art thou saved. That is the whole philosophy of salvation. There are two ways of salvation; the one is self-salvation, and it is a dream, an empty thing, an awful disappointment. The other is Christ’s salvation; come, and put yourself wholly into his hand, and say, “Save me, Lord. By profession, thou art a Saviour; execute thy holy craft upon me, and save me. Save me from my sin, the guilt of it. Save me from sinning, the practice of it. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, purify me from the love of evil, and make me clean. Thou canst do it, and thou alone canst do it.” Now, if you trust the Saviour, you are saved. I will repeat again that declaration of Christ, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” But if thou wilt not believe, I know of nothing whereby I can comfort thee. If thou wilt not have Christ, there remains nothing but condemnation for you; there can be no other sacrifice for sin. Thou hast insulted God by rejecting his Son, and thou must go before thy God unsaved and unforgiven. Beware thou of such a doom as that.

Sometimes we have to feel what an awful thing it would be if we had to deal with a soul that was eternally lost. Then, indeed, we might say, in the language of our text, each word dripping with tears of blood, “Whence shall I seek comforters for thee?” Will any of my hearers be lost? Will any here die without Christ? Will any here refuse the great salvation to the last? If so, what comfort could I administer to such? I shall have, on the contrary, to put it thus, “You knew the way of salvation, but you chose the other road, ay, chose it deliberately; and if you have come into the place of wrath and death, who shall bemoan you? Who shall comfort you?” You made your choice, and you must have your choice for ever. All that you will suffer in the next world will be the fruit of your own sin. Hell is sin fully ripe. Drunkenness, lechery, dishonesty, lying, enmity, when these come to seed, they make hell. They pain men enough in this world; and if the softening influences of Christianity were taken away, and men were just left in the world together to act according to their own passions and their own lusts, that would be all the hell they would need. You will have to feel, in every pang that you endure for ever, “This is nothing but my old sin.” Whenever you are overwhelmed with woe in the next world, and look your own woe in the face, you will say to yourself, “Why, that is what I used to call ‘pleasure’, and it has come to me here in this shape; and I was told that I should say that; I was warned, and yet I perished despite the warning.” If you are lost, my hearers, you will have refused the great sacrifice of which you know, for to the best of my power, in the simplest words that I could find, I have set forth Christ among you evidently crucified, and I have said, “There is your only hope of salvation. Look to Jesus, and live.” If you will not have God’s gift, if you put far from you the Christ who alone hath life eternal, you need not wonder when he leaves you to yourselves.

Besides, in that day, some of you especially will have to remember how you stifled conscience. You have gone into some worldly pleasure on purpose to silence the voice of conscience. Sometimes, sitting in this house, you have been almost brought to decision. You have said, “Please God I get home, I will seek my chamber, and fall upon my knees before him in prayer.” How often have you been brought very near the kingdom; and how terrible is it to be so near, and then deliberately to turn back! Your blood will be upon your own heads; and, truly, if it be so, whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

Some of you would not be persuaded. You have had a mother’s tearful admonition; teachers have pleaded with and for you in the most earnest way; you have had judgments, too, from God, sicknesses that have shaken every bone of your body. You have been brought to feel that there is a God, and that he would deal with you. Remember that solemn prophecy, “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” I sometimes start in my sleep at the thought of one of my hearers being in hell. Ah, sirs, if you do not care about your own souls, we at least will care about them for you. How can I be clear of the blood of you all, so many of you, and so often addressed? Do you wonder that I am often distressed beyond measure at my own position? It were better for me to have broken stones on the road than to have preached to you, if I have been unfaithful to your souls; for then, in the next world, you will curse me, and it shall be my hell to bear the reproaches that you shall justly fling at me. But I beseech you, by the living God, and as you believe yourselves to be immortal beings, accept to-night his way of salvation, so simple and so easy. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” “He that believeth and is baptized”-which is the Christian method, the Biblical method of confessing your faith-“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

I leave you all in God’s hands. Pray, dear Christian people, that every one who has heard me to-night may be saved, and that this rainy night may be indeed memorable as the night in which many a sinner cried,-

“I do believe, I will believe,

That Jesus died for me;

That on the cross he shed his blood,

From sin to set me free.”

Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

NAHUM 2:11-13, and 3

This is a prophecy of the destruction of Nineveh. Remember that Assyria had been one of the great powers that swayed the world, a cruel, tyrannical empire; and God at last determined to destroy Nineveh, which was its seat of government. In a high poetical strain, the prophet cries out,-

Chapter 2 Verse 11. Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion’s whelp, and none made them afraid?

You will remember how Mr. Layard took out of the ruins at Nineveh those immense lions that now stand in the British Museum. They were the very type of this great empire, that boasted itself in its lion-like strength and ferocity. So the prophet cries, “Where is the lair of the lion?”

12. The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with ravin.

They were always destroying, and plundering, and carrying home the spoil, so that everybody was fattened with the rapine of the nations.

13. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts,

And whenever that is the case, a man does not need any other adversary. If God be against you, O my dear hearer, what will become of you? Though you should have all the power of the world, and possess robust health, abundant riches, and keen wit, what can you do against God? “I am against thee, saith Jehovah of hosts.” He throws down the gauntlet to Nineveh.

13. And I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.

It is time that they were stopped. You remember in what foul-mouthed language Rab-shakeh addressed king Hezekiah; and God now declares that there shall be no more such letters as his. God may allow evil to lord it over his people for a while; but he puts a hook in the mouth of the leviathan by-and-by. He that restraineth the sea and the waves thereof, Jehovah is his name, and he restraineth the wickedness of men.

Chapter 3 Verse 1. Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;

Assyria became a great empire through violence, falsehood, and robbery. The soldiery had no respect for justice; they trod out the last spark of liberty, and crushed all nations under their feet.

2, 3. The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:

When the Medo-Babylonian army came against the great city, it inflicted a terrible slaughter, killing the inhabitants without mercy, making a very holocaust of human bodies; but, inasmuch as it was a den of criminals, this horrible execution was well deserved. Yet is the story dreadful.

4, 5. Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts;

These people had been steeped in sin of the worst kind, they had led other nations into it; and had practised the witchcrafts which God abhors. Therefore again Jehovah says, “I am against thee.” When God is in arms against a triumphant nation, he soon makes an end of it.

5, 6. And I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.

See what God can do. They were the proudest of the proud, and now he makes them the scorn of the scorner, and sets them as a gazingstock. May God never deal in that way with any proud man here! He can easily do it; when we set ourselves up to be little gods, he can soon make us utterly mean and contemptible, and bring us down to nothing at all. It is his way to deal thus with the proud.

7. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

If you could go to-day, and see the vast heaps of Kouyunjik, and of the great monuments of that mighty city all destroyed and crumbling into powder, you would know something of what God can do. It does not look likely to you that London can ever become a heap of ruins; and yet it may be, for its sins reek up to heaven as the sins of Nineveh did. The Lord can smite this city as he smote that.

8. Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?

The prophet quotes the destruction of the city called No-Amon, probably Thebes, as an instance of what God can do.

9. Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite;

There seemed to be no measure to her strength. If she wanted assistance from other nations, she had only to call them in, and the mercenary tribes were ready to defend her.

9, 10. Put and Lubim were thy helpers. Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

So one city is a warning to another. No in Egypt is a warning to Nineveh in Assyria, and both of these a warning to our city, and a warning to every man who is proud, and haughty, and domineering, and oppressive to the poor, great in his own wisdom, and careless for the comfort of others.

11. Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.

Nineveh never dreamed of doing that; she said, “I am a queen, I shall see no sorrow; I am the greatest of all cities.”

12. All thy strong holds shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.

As figs do when they are ripe. These castles, towers, fortresses, built to stand the siege, would be no sooner attacked than they would fall into the hand of the enemy.

13. Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women:

You see, on those great Assyrian stones, the strong men that are sculptured there, with their enormous muscles, telling of gigantic force. When God came to deal with them, they became weak and cowardly.

13, 14. The gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars. Draw thee waters for the siege,

The prophet challenges them to defend themselves.

14. Fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.

That was, to mend the walls whenever they were broken. They did this with great industry. “Do it,” says God, “yet you shall not be able to stand.”

15-17. There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm; make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.

What marvellous poetry is this! How terrible! Their soldiers, their rulers, their captains, were as many as the locusts and the grasshoppers; but when they were wanted, all these hosts would flee away. What cannot God do when he comes out to fight with men? “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.” He brings confusion to his enemies. Oh, fight not against him! Beloved, let us be at peace with him, the strong and mighty God. Let us confess our faults to him, acquaint ourselves with him, and be at peace.

18. Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria:

They who should have taken care of the people, the chief governors, neglected them; they who should have defended the people were out of the way when they were wanted: “Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria.”

18. Thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.

Let not the same be said of London. Are there any who can say, “No man careth for my soul”? Let them not be without a helper.

“Oh, come, let us go and find them!

In the paths of death they roam;

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

‘I have brought some lost one home.’ ”

Brothers and sisters, rouse yourselves; be shepherds to the people of this modern Nineveh, and seek to gather the scattered flock of Christ.

19. There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous:

Thank God, we have not come to that point yet, there is healing for the bruised sinner! Though the wounds of our people are grievous, there is a balm for them; we know where it is, and what it is; let us not be slow to tell them about it.

19. All that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee:

I think that is the old Norman-French word, “bruit,” signifying noise or tumult, that has been left in our Bible.

19. For upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?

Nineveh had been so wicked, and had done so much evil, that when men heard that it was destroyed, they would even clap their hands for very joy that such an evil-doer was out of the way.

I know not to what purpose I was moved to read this passage; but it is specially meant for some one, to whom may God apply it by his Spirit!

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-497, 515, 591.

OBEDIENCE REWARDED

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, August 27th, 1893, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, August 1st, 1889.

“And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.”-Matthew 28:8-10.

These holy women, these consecrated Maries, shall be our instructors to-night. They were highly-favoured to be the first witnesses for our risen Lord. Do you wonder why he chose them? Was it because their hearts were tender, and they were very sad at his death, more sad than the men? And is it not his wont to come first to those who need him most, and to pour in oil and wine where the wound gapes widest? It may be so. Was it because they had been the more faithful of the two; and while some men had denied him, and all had forsaken him, the women were last at Golgotha, as they were now first at the sepulchre? Did their Lord reward them by dealing with them as they had dealt with him? That is but his wont. “If ye will walk contrary unto me, then will I also walk contrary unto you,” said the Lord to Israel; and he also said, “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.” These holy women did seek their Lord early on the morning of his resurrection, and they found him to a certainty before all others. Was this because Jesus had found the women more spiritual than the apostles? Certainly, I think that was the case. They had attained the very climax of love, washing his feet with their tears. They had reached the very centre of discipleship; one of them had chosen the good part, and sat at his feet. Sometimes, where there is less power of understanding, Jesus does give keener powers of perception; and though Mary Magdalene and the other Mary would never have become Pauls, yet they were of quick eye, like John, and were, therefore, the fittest to see the Saviour in the dawning of the morning, and they were permitted to have the first glimpse of him.

At any rate, be it how it may, they were the first to see their risen Lord, and we will try to learn something from them to-night. It should be an encouragement to those members of the Church of Christ who are neither pastors nor teachers that, if they live very near to God, they may yet teach pastors and teachers. Get clear views of your Lord, as did these holy women, who had no office in the Church, and yet taught the officers, for they were sent to bear to the apostles the tidings that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. Not first to them who were the heads of the Church, as it were, but first of all to lowly women, did the Lord appear; and the apostles themselves had to go to school to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to learn that great truth, “The Lord is risen indeed.” We will go to school with the apostles to-night; and may the Lord grant that, while we learn from these holy women, he who taught them may come and teach us! May he who met them meet with us in this house of prayer to-night!

First, I ask you to look at these women in the way of obedience active. They ran to bring the disciples word. Secondly, look at them in the way of obedience rewarded; for, as they went to tell his disciples, Jesus met them. And then, thirdly, we will go back to the point where we started, and see these women in the way of obedience refreshed; for, after they had seen the Lord, they persevered in their heavenly errand, and still went to tell his disciples that he would go before them into Galilee, and that there they should see him.

First, then, notice these women in the way of obedience active.

They had gone to the sepulchre to see and also to embalm the body of Christ; but while they were there, an angel appeared to them, and committed to them this charge, “Go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead;” and they went upon their errand with most commendable alacrity. Now, you and I, dear friends, must try to copy them. What thou hast seen, thou must tell; what thou hast been taught, thou must teach. To thee, believer, has been committed the oracle of God. See that thou keep it. Hold it fast, and hold it forth. Thou hast not this light for thyself alone; but that it may shine before men. See thou to this. Peradventure, these women may help thee in so doing.

Observe first, then, that they went about their errand not doubting the revelation. The angel said to them, “Tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee.” They did not stop to ask any question, to make any demur, to utter any critical doubts; but they believed. Now, it is to be thus with you; you cannot be a messenger from God unless you believe. If you do not believe the gospel, do not pretend to preach it. Go home, my dear friends, and bury your head in your doubts, and twist your brains about, and tie them up into knots, and amuse yourself as you like; but do not pretend to go and tell that of which you are not yourself sure. Otherwise, you will lack the accent of confidence, and consequently you will lack the power of persuasion. He that is not firm himself cannot move others. If there be no fulcrum for your lever, where is your power? “I believed; therefore have I spoken,” said the psalmist, and he did well; for there must first be the believing, and then the speaking. Leave thou the message to another if thou art not sure of it; let another who is sure of it, tell it till thou, too, art sure of it; then mayest thou also run with good tidings from thy Lord. These godly women leaped at once into the full conviction that Christ was risen, and therefore they hastened to tell the tidings to the disciples.

And, again, they obeyed, not discussing their authority to go and proclaim this news. What avails it if I believe the truth, and yet am not empowered to teach it? According to some, I can only be authorized by some special ceremonial; I must undergo certain processes before I may be permitted to preach; but the angel said to these women, “Go and tell,” and they went to tell. They did not hesitate, they asked no question about apostolical succession, or episcopal ordination, or anything of the kind. They were told to go, and they went. Hast thou heard Jesus speak to thee? Dost thou know his love? Hast thou an inward persuasion that thou hast to tell thy friends what great things he has done for thee? Then, go in this thy might. If thou hast any hesitancy about thy right to labour for thy Lord, if thou doubtest that passage, “Let him that heareth say, Come,” then go not; for, if thou dost not believe that thou hast a right to go, thy going will be with an inward weakness, and thou wilt be taken up rather with thyself than with thy message, and with the heart of him to whom thou carriest it. I love to hear men say that they must do this and that, for only that which is done under the imperious necessity of a divine impulse will ever be followed by any great result. If thou canst live without preaching the gospel, do live without preaching it; for if God has sent thee, thou wilt say with Paul, “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” And thou, my sister, if thou art sent to do any work for God, and hast a yearning to win souls, thou hast a fire in thy bones which cannot be restrained; thou couldst no more be stayed from speaking of Jesus than the sun can be stayed from shining in mid heaven. May God grant that we may have among us many who, in going forth to work for Christ, are sure about what they have to tell; and sure about their authority to tell it!

This being so with these women, we notice, next, that they went on their errand not declining on account of weakness. They might have said, “Oh, we are not the people to go to the apostles! “Mary Magdalene might have said, “You know what I used to be; would you have me go and talk to John, and James, and Peter?” Indeed, the holy women might at once have refused the commission, and said, “We do not feel ourselves qualified; we have a natural timidity and modesty which put it out of the question that we should go on such a service as this.” But not a word of that kind did they utter; and dear brethren and sisters, while souls are dying, dare we hesitate on account of weakness? Do you not think that it is the man who is most conscious of weakness who is usually the chosen man for the Lord’s service? Did not Moses wish to decline the office of leader of Israel because he was slow of speech? Did not Isaiah cry, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips”? And if you are conscious of weakness as great as that of these godly women, or greater even than theirs, yet still I say that the pressure of human necessity, and the pressure of the divine message, should be so heavy upon you that you should say, “I will go even as did the lepers of old, when they had found out the plenty that there was in the camp of the Syrians, and knew of the sore famine in Samaria.” They could not sit still; but, all over leprosy as they were, they must go to the king’s household, and tell them that there was bread enough and to spare, and that the people need not die of hunger. Oh, yes, we must go; even we must go! The time may have been when only the choice and pick of the Church were needed for holy service, but these times are not now. When sin abounds, when error rages, when the faithful are but few, then every man, and every woman, and even every babe in grace, must speak, or lisp, or prattle the good news that Christ is risen from the dead, and is able to save and bless.

Then, dear friends, as these women were not detained from this work by a sense of weakness, so they obeyed, not held back by curiosity. They might have stayed to look at the sepulchre. They were invited to come and see the place where the Lord lay; and, like the two disciples, they might have gone in, and observed how the napkin was laid by itself, and the linen cloths were folded. I think that, if you and I had had the opportunity of looking into that wonderful sepulchre where the Lord lay, we should have liked to linger there all through that day, to worship and adore. But no curiosity, nay, no devotion, kept them at the sepulchre when they once had the command to go and tell the disciples that Christ was risen from the dead. Now, these days are full of temptation. We have a thousand fields for curiosity to wander in. How shall we settle this debate? How shall we answer that criticism? Every day brings to light some fresh objection, some new theory. Shall we stop till we have answered every objection, till we have destroyed every theory? No, my brethren, we cannot afford to stop. Let others debate; we must declare. Let others discuss; we must proclaim that Jesus Christ has come into the world to save sinners. Sinners, look you to him; and, looking, you shall live. We must make this the burden of our daily conversation, the constant theme of our talk,-“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the very chief of them.” We must keep to this. As these women were not turned aside to make any curious observation, so must not we be; but we must keep to our one work of telling his disciples where to look for him, and bidding them follow him.

And, dear friends, again, I want you to notice that they were not hampered by their emotions. It is a very blessed thing sometimes to have an opportunity of indulging your emotions. These women were subject to the influences of two opposite currents, “fear and great joy.” Fear put wings to their heels; and great joy seemed to lend them extra speed. By the two together they ran to bring the disciples word. It may be very pleasant to get alone, and spend much time in close communion with Christ; the more of it the better. It may be well to practise introspection until you see the evil of your heart, and are filled with fear. It may be well to look up, and see the beauties of your Lord, and the glories of his Advent, till you are filled with great joy. But neither of these must be allowed to keep you away from actual service, and the continual telling out of the gospel of Christ. I have known it to be the case. I remember a good man, who was a great authority on the Book of the Revelation. I am sorry to say that, great as he was on the Revelation, his influence was very bad on his children at home. He knew all about the seven trumpets, but he did not know much about the seven boys and girls he had at home; so they grew up very badly. Never break the balance of holy emotions and sacred duties; let us have our fear and our great joy; but, at the same time, we must not sit down because we have great joy, but we must run on the Lord’s errand, joy and all. Let us run as fast as we can, whether we fear or whether we rejoice. Learn that lesson from these godly women. You feel very dull; go to your Bible-class. You feel as if you had done no good for a long time; go on in the Lord’s work. But God has greatly blessed you, and you are getting rather old, and you want rest; go on with your work, run to bring the disciples word whether you feel fear or joy. Stand you over your work, be in-stant-standing over it, in season and out of season, constant and instant in the service of your blessed Lord and Master. If you are not, these holy women will put you to shame, and I must send you to this dames’ school, old as you are, to learn a little lesson from these godly dames as to how you ought to serve God.

Once more, notwithstanding all that might have been said to make their footsteps slow, we find that they were not hindered by propriety or indifference. They travelled to their work as quickly as they could: “and did run to bring his disciples word.” Now, one hardly likes to think of Mary Magdalene and that other Mary running. My good sisters here are many of them very diligent in their service, but they do not forget that there is a kind of reputable pace for ladies; yet these holy women ran. They will get out of breath by running! Never mind; never mind. “They did run to bring the disciples word.” We are great slaves to propriety, are we not, the most of us? The other day, a brother called out in the middle of a sermon; and on another morning, a sister exclaimed while I was preaching; and some of you thought that it was very improper, did you not? Well, I suppose that it was, but I was very glad of it; and I did not see the slightest objection to the impropriety when I felt that the truth that was being preached was enough to make the stones speak. Why should not those persons cry out? When you are about the Lord’s work, you know that it is well to be very quiet and calm, and take things steadily. That is well; but sometimes we can do better than well. We have the steam up, and we cannot help it, and we have to go ahead, and we must go. Thus these godly women were running along. They will put their garments out of shape; they will spoil the look of their faces! I do not know what will not happen; but they do not care about that. “They did run to bring the disciples word.” How often have I seen it, in the country, when somebody has stepped into a cottage; perhaps it has been the minister, or some dear Christian friend, and the good woman has said, “I must run and fetch in my neighbour,” and she has rushed out of the door, and down the front garden, and across the street, and she has brought her sister or her friend to come and hear the good word, and she has never thought that it was at all improper for her to do it. Dear friend, in the service of God, impropriety is often piety. It was said that Mr. Rowland Hill “rode upon the back of Order and Decorum.” “Well,” said he, “I will try to make that true,” so he called his two horses Order and Decorum; and thus, if he did not ride on their backs, he made them pull him to and from Surrey Chapel. Order and decorum are hardly worth more than to be used as horses. They are very respectable animals; but sometimes disorder and the want of decorum may be predicated of an earnest, zealous heart, and may be very much to the credit of that heart. “They did run to bring his disciples word.” Brethren and sisters, some of us ought to run, for we have not much time. We are getting grey, years are telling upon us; so let us run. We may not have many more opportunities; we may be kept to our bed, or tied to the house; let us run while we can. Sometimes we are warned not to do too much: let us try to do too much; let us be indiscreetly loving to our Lord, let us run to bring the disciples word, even at the cost of putting ourselves out of breath.

I think that we have now learned all that we need to learn from these good women about their being in the way of obedience, that is to say, if we have learned it; but have we learned it? Are all of you Christian people who are here to-night running on your Master’s errands? Have all of you received a commission from Christ? Have you all had a message from him? Are you carrying it? Some of you are strangers here this evening. Let me beg you not to live a single week without having something to do for your Lord, knowing what it is, and getting to it in the spirit of these holy women.

But now, secondly, observe these holy women in the way of obedience rewarded.

First, they were rewarded by a most delightful visitation: “As they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them.” He has ways of meeting his disciples now, in the power of his Spirit, manifesting himself to them. There are some of his disciples who never get these visitations, and I think that it is because they are not running to bring his disciples word. Nobody fidgets a busy person like an idle body. Have you never had a servant doing some work for you, and crawling about in such a way that you could hardly bear yourself? Well now, the Lord Jesus Christ does not feel at home with lazy Christians; and I believe that he reserves his fellowship for the sufferers and the workers. When you are in the way of service, he will meet you. So you have not seen his face for a long time? Have you a class in the Sabbath-school? Are you a tract-distributor? Are you a preacher in the villages? “No, dear sir, I do nothing of the sort.” Well, then, I do not think that you will meet him just yet; but I think that, if you had a call to some of these good works, and you obeyed it, it is highly probable that you would then say, “Being in the way, the Lord met with me.” Oh, yes, when you have love, and joy, and light in your heart, it will often happen that, while you are talking about Christ to others, you will have a blessing come to your own soul! Many times has it occurred to the preacher that, if he has not edified anybody else, he has preached himself into a right state of heart, and he is sure that he has had one hearer who was the better for the sermon. Beloved Christian brothers and sisters, especially sisters, for the text, you see, comes from the sisters, and ought to go back to the sisters, get into the path of duty if you would win this reward of a delightful visitation. You sometimes sing,-

“When wilt thou come unto me, Lord?”

You can answer your own prayer, to a large extent, by running upon your Lord’s errands.

The next reward these women received was a very cheering salutation: “Jesus met them, saying, All hail.” I do not know whether it was in the Hebrew that he spoke; if so, I suppose that he uttered the usual salutation, “Peace be unto you!” As we get it in the Greek, one is inclined to think that he used the Greek language, and spoke the word which signifies, “Rejoice! Joy be unto you!” Our translators very properly thought that the best thing they could do was to give you the old Saxon expression, “All hail! Health be to you! May you be in good health, may you be hale!” “All hail!” You know that we use the expression, “Hail fellow, well met!” Well, that indicates great sociability; and hence you can see the wrong of a Christian saying it to an ungodly man; but Christ comes to his people, and says, “All hail!” I often wonder that he ever used that word, since by it he was betrayed when the traitor said, “Hail, Master!” But yet it was his mother’s word. Did not the angel Gabriel say to Mary, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women”? And he used it here, “All hail!” Well, when Jesus Christ comes to us with words of such endearment, such brotherhood, it ought to make us glad.

Last Tuesday night, I saw a brother who, I trust, has just been converted to God. He may be here to-night; if so, he must excuse my telling you this. He cannot read well; but he is teaching himself to read, and he said to me something that touched me very much. He said, “Do you know, I read this week the most wonderful thing I ever heard of; I dare say you know all about it, sir; but it was a very wonderful thing to me”? I asked, “What was it?” “Well,” he replied, “you know, I was spelling it over, and I found that Christ said, ‘I call you not servants; but I have called you friends.’ That knocked me over,” he said, “me a friend of his, me a friend of his? And he calls me so. I was obliged to think that I must have made a mistake, and I had to read it over to see if it could be so, that he really called me a friend. And further down he said, ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.’ There, I thought, what difference would it make to him if I were offended? And to think of my being offended with him! It is much more likely that he will be offended with me. It is very wonderful.” That is a most blessed way of reading the Bible for the first time, to see these wonders as they break upon you. Well, now, it is just as my friend found it to be; the Lord does come to us with very sweet familiarity, he uses what the French call “tutoyage.” In speaking to us, he utters the familiar “thee” and “thou”; and he sits down to eat in company with us, calls us to his table, and there bids us eat and drink with him. It is wonderful, as my friend said; but it is thus that Jesus deals with those who love and serve him. And what a reward it is for the Lord’s servants when he says to them, “All hail! I am your Companion; I have done well to meet you; I am glad to see you. All health be to you! Every blessing rest upon you!” Something more than “Salem”, the “peace” of the old Covenant, is this “All hail!” of the new Covenant, of which the Incarnate God is the great Expositor. That was the cheering salutation with which the risen Saviour rewarded the obedience of these godly women.

They had also an assuring satisfaction as another reward of their obedience, for they were permitted to prove that their Lord was really risen from the dead. Before Thomas had done it, they did it. “They came and held him by the feet.” He was no spectre, no phantom; it was no dream that deceived them. Christ was really risen; there he stood in solid flesh and blood, and they held him by the feet. I believe that, when we are at work for the Lord with all our heart, he sometimes enables us to get grips of truth that we do not have at other times, and we lay hold on it with unrelaxing grasp. People talk about “honest doubt”; and ask me to doubt. I cannot doubt; I live in the enjoyment of the eternal facts. I could sooner doubt my own existence than doubt the doctrines of Christ, they have become such substantial verities to me; I have tasted and handled them; I cannot have a doubt about them. It was so with these godly women, they knew that Christ was risen, for they came and held him by the feet.

But, at the same time, they had, mixed with this experience, a rapturous adoration. “They held him by the feet, and worshipped him.” It is of no use to be persuaded of a doctrine,-that is, mentally to hold it,-unless there is the spirit of worship going with it, so that you adore your Lord while you hold to him and his truth. These women not merely felt that Jesus was there as a man, but they knew that he was also God, they were sure of it, and therefore they worshipped him. It takes a lot of faith, while you are holding a man, to worship him at the same time, because your grip of the human body is a proof of its materialism, and you say to yourself, “This is a man,” and therefore you do not worship him; but these women knew that Jesus was God as well as man, so they could mingle the holding by his feet with the worship due to his Godhead. In a natural sense, none of us can exactly imitate these worshipping women; but those who are taught of God the Holy Ghost, and who know how to be familiar and yet to be devout, will draw near to Christ, and hold him by the feet, and at the same time, worship him with solemn awe and sacred joy.

Now, this is the reward that I want my dear friends here to have. I know that the most of you have some work on hand for the Master; if you are getting at all dull and heavy, I beg you not to give it up. Stick to it; but pray the Lord to meet with you. May he meet you here to-night! If not, may he meet you on the way home, or in your bed-chamber! Nothing is so sweet as the sight of our Lord risen from the dead, to know that he lives, and that we also shall live because he lives, and to get a sight of him as alive, and living for us. This puts nerve into us, and sends us back to our service greatly refreshed. That is to be my last point, and upon it I will speak very briefly.

Thirdly, notice these holy women in the way of obedience refreshed, for, having seen and touched their Lord, they were now sent away to his brethren.

Before they went forth the second time, they were perfectly calm, and happy in the Lord. I think that it is almost essential to any great success in serving the Lord that we should be on the best of terms with him, and not be fluttered, frightened, worried, perturbed, questioning. Having worshipped, and held him, and heard him say, “All hail,” you will then feel that, by the power of his love and the authority of his divinity, he sends you forth as his messenger.

Notice, next, that the angel said to the women, “Go quickly, and tell his disciples”; but Jesus said, “Go tell my brethren.” Thus, their commission was sweetened. And if it be with you as it was with them, you will get to be more tender in the delivery of your message. You will begin to feel nearer of kin to those to whom you speak; you will perceive more of the love of Christ to them. You will not merely be talking in your Sunday-school class to “boys and girls out of the street”, you will feel that you are speaking to those of whom Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” I shall not be preaching to mere “men and women of our fallen race”, but to those in whom I hope to find the brethren of my Lord. In seeking to do good, there is nothing like the plan of getting close to the people. Up in Scotland, I have often seen the fishermen standing right in the middle of the river; that is a good place to fish; it is better than being on the bank. Get among the fish, and you will catch them. Get to feel your relationship to the soul you deal with, and your Lord’s relationship to him, and you will preach or teach much better than you have ever done in the past. Thus these women went with their commission sweetened by their Lord’s loving words, “Go tell my brethren.”

Notice, again, that their confidence in their message was increased. They believed it when the angel uttered it; but they believed it still more emphatically when their Master repeated it to them. Besides, his telling it to them was the best proof that it was true. He could not have told them that he was risen from the dead, if he had not been risen from the dead. So truth, when it comes to us in Christ, is its own proof. You may doubt it while it is simply preached by men; but you surely will never doubt it when Jesus himself, in his own person, comes to you, and says himself, “This is the truth; open your heart and soul, and receive it.” May the Lord do this for many here!

And then, these women went on their way with increased joy. They had no great fear, nay, not even a little fear, for their great joy had swallowed up their fear. I should have liked to have seen them go in among the apostles, exclaiming, “The Lord is risen indeed.” They might say, “But Mary, we saw you last night looking as miserable as possible.” “Ah!” she would answer, “but Christ is risen. I have seen him, and he said to me, ‘Be not afraid,’ and I am not afraid either of the Jews or of anybody else, for he is risen. He said to me, ‘All hail,’ and it is all hail; all is well, for the Lord is risen.” Testifying of their Lord in this spirit, they expected to be believed, and they were believed. May the Lord put you also into such a condition to-night, that you may say, “I know now more than I ever did before the truth of my Lord’s gospel, and I will tell it as though I could not think that anybody would doubt it. I will tell it expecting that they must believe it;” and they will believe it, for according to your faith so shall it be unto you.

As for you, my dear hearers, who do not know my Lord, how I wish that you did! He is a living Christ; he is no lifeless picture on the walls, not a dead character in a book. He is the living Lord. He has come to us, and given us eternal life; and if you come to him, he will in no wise cast you out. If you only look to him, you shall live. If you take his yoke upon you, and learn of him, you shall find rest unto your souls. I would that you might do so this very night; may the Lord bless you in so doing!

Thus I have preached to you, and now there are some believers to be baptized. That is the second part of our work. At the end of this chapter we read, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” We will at another time go on with the teaching that follows this evening’s meditation, if the Lord will.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

MATTHEW 28:1-15

Verses 1, 2. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.

See what concern angels have about our Lord. Are they here to-night? Do they make a habit of coming where the saints meet together? I think they do. We have intimations in Scripture that that is the case. Let us behave ourselves aright to-night “because of the angels”; and as they worship and count it their highest honour to serve the Son of man, let us also worship Jesus, and adore him. What a picture this scene would make!

3, 4. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

He said nothing as he rolled back the stone; he did not shake a sword at them, or over them, to thrill them with terror. The presence of perfect purity, the presence of heavenly things, is a terror to ungodly men. May you and I be such that our very presence in company will cast a hush over it! “It was e’en as though an angel shook his wings,” they said of one good man, when he spake in common conversation. May there be about us enough of the heavenly to make the powers of evil quail before us!

5. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye:

But I notice that they did fear, although the angel said, “Fear not.” Neither men nor angels can so speak as to silence fears in trembling hearts; but Jesus can, as we shall see farther on. One word from his lips has infinitely more power than all the words of angels or of saints.

5. For I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.

And if you and I to-night can truly say that we are on the side of Jesus, that we seek him who was crucified, then we can bear all the shame with which philosophy would fain cover the cross, and we have no cause for fear. Ridicule and all that it brings from this ungodly generation will not hurt you.

6. He is not here; for he is risen, as he said.

“As he said.” A few words, but what a world of meaning! “As he said.” He always does “as he said.” He always gives “as he said.” He always reveals himself “as he said;” not otherwise. He never fails to fulfil a promise, or forgets even the mode of promising; not only does he do what he said, but as he said: “He is risen, as he said.”

6. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

For even the place where he lay is hallowed to you. And, beloved, if there is a place where you have ever had communion with Christ, you will remember it. You might bless the spot of ground where Jesus met with you. Here, to-night, I hope that some of you can see the place where the Lord appeared to you.

7. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead;

Such good news ought to be spread quickly. “Go and tell his disciples,”-they are trembling, they have fled,-“that he is risen from the dead.”

7. And, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.

Brethren, this is good news for us to-night, though all may not, perhaps, feel the power of it. “He is risen.” We have no dead Christ; we serve a living Saviour. He is risen, and therefore he can come to us to-night in the power of his resurrection-life, and he can make us glad. “Behold, he goeth before you into Galilee.” There is a great deal about Galilee in Matthew’s Gospel; it is the Gospel of the Kingdom, and yet it often talks about Galilee, that border-land which touches Gentiles, as well as the chosen seed of Abraham. There is the place where Jesus will meet his people, in the border-land between Jew and Gentile, there the risen Christ will hold the first general assembly of his Church.

8. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy;

What a mixture, fear and joy! But notice that the fear was not great, and the joy was: “Fear and great joy.” Observe the proportions of the mixture; and if to-night you have some fear, yet I hope you will have great joy; and then the bitterness of the fear will pass away. A holy fear, mixed with great joy, is one of the sweetest compounds we can bring to God’s altar. Some of us have brought those spices with us to-night. These holy women brought other spices to the sepulchre; but these were the spices that they took away from it, “Fear and great joy.”

8, 9. And did run to bring his disciples word. And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

He would not let Mary Magdalene do that when they were alone, but he said to her, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: it is more needful for you to go now and tell my disciples that I have risen from the dead. There will be time by-and-by for further fellowship with me.” But now Jesus permits these godly women to hold him by the feet. It was an act of humility, worshipping and holding; and holding not his hands, but his feet. They must have seen the nail-prints before Thomas did, as they held him by the feet, and worshipped him, I do not find that these women ran to the angels, they rather shrank back from them; but they came to Jesus, for we are told that they came, and held him by the feet. I think that there must have been a new attraction about Christ after he had risen from the dead, something more sweet about the tones of his voice, something more charming about the countenance that had been so marred at Gethsemane, and Gabbatha, and Golgotha.

10. Then said Jesus unto them,

As he saw their palpitating hearts, and perceived that they were still all in a flurry, for the angel had not dispelled their fears,-

10. Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.

The angel talked of “disciples”; Christ talks of “brethren.” He always has the sweeter word.

11. Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.

While good people were active, bad people were active, too. It is wonderful to think of how much good and evil is being done at the same time. While we are thankful that holy women are running with holy messages for Christ, here come the soldiers of the watch, and they are going in to those vile priests.

12. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel,

They ought at once to have repented when the watch came, and told them that Jesus was risen. Ought they not to have gone, and fallen at his feet, and begged for mercy? But instead of that-

12. They gave large money unto the soldiers,

Money, wherever it comes in, seems to do mischief. For money Christ was betrayed, and for money the truth about his resurrection was kept back as far as it could be. Money has had a hardening effect on some of the highest servants of God, and all who have to touch the filthy lucre have need to pray for grace to keep them from being harmed by being brought into contact with it.

13. Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.

If they were asleep, how did they know what happened? How could they know it if they were asleep? Evidence which is borne by men who were asleep at the time is evidently not worth regarding; but when you have to tell a lie, I suppose that, as any stick is good enough to beat a dog with, any lie will do to slander one whom you hate.

14, 15. And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you. So they took the money, and did as they were taught:

No doubt you have heard of the man who said that he did not believe all the articles of his church because his salary was so small that he could not be expected to believe them all for the money. Oh, the depraving and debasing power of the whole system of bribery and falsehood! May none of us ever be affected by considerations of profit and loss in matters of doctrine, matters of duty, and matters of right and wrong!

15. And this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

You may start a lie, but you cannot stop it; there is no telling how long it will live. Let us never teach even the least error to a little child, for it may live on and become a great heresy long after we are dead. There is scarcely any limit to its life and to its power.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-319, 766, 814.