The vine is of all trees the most useless unless it bears fruit. You cannot make hardly anything of it; you would scarcely be able to cut enough wood out of a vine to hang a pot upon; you cannot turn it into furniture, and barely could you use it in the least degree for building purposes. It must either bear fruit, or else it must be consumed in the fire. The branches of the vine that bear no fruit are necessarily cut off, and they are used, as I have seen them used in the South of France many a time, in little twisted bundles for kindling the fire. They burn very rapidly, so there is soon an end of them, and then they are gone.

The vine is constantly used in Scripture as a picture of the nominal Church of Christ; so, like the vine, we must either bring forth fruit or we shall be accounted as good for nothing. Dear friends, we must serve God, we must bring forth from our very soul, love to God and service to him as the fruit of our renewed nature, or else we are useless, worthless, and shall only abide our time, and then we shall be cut down to be burned. Our end must be destruction if our life be not fruitful. This gives a very solemn importance to our lives, and it should make each of us seriously ask, “Am I bringing forth fruit unto God? Have I brought forth fruits meet for repentance? For if not, I must, by-and-by, feel the keen edge of the Vine-dresser’s knife, and I shall be taken away from any sort of union that I now have with the Church which is Christ’s vine, and be flung over the wall as a useless thing whose end is to be burned.”

Beloved, you all know that there is no possibility of bringing forth any fruit except we are in Christ, and except we abide in Christ. We must bear fruit, or we shall certainly perish; and we cannot have fruit unless we have Christ, we must be knit to Christ, vitally one with him, just as a branch is really, after a living fashion, one with the stem. It would be no use to tie a branch to the stem of the vine; that would not cause it to bring forth fruit. It must be joined to it in a living union, so must you and I be livingly joined to Christ. Do you know, by experience, what that expression means? For, if you do not know it by experience, you do not know it at all. No man knoweth what life is but the one who is himself alive, and no man knoweth what union to Christ is but he who is himself united to Christ. We must become one with Christ by an act of faith; we must be inserted into him as the graft is placed in the incision made in the tree into which it is to be grafted. Then there must be a knitting of the two together, a vital junction, a union of life, and a flowing of the sap, or else there cannot be any bearing of fruit. Again, I say, what a serious thing this makes our life to be! How earnest should be our questioning of ourselves! “For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart;” and so may there be about this matter. Let each one of us ask, “Am I bearing fruit? I am not unless I am vitally united to Christ. I have openly professed that I am in Christ, but am I bringing forth fruit unto his honour and glory?”

I think I hear someone say, “I hope I have begun to bring forth some fruit, but it is very little in quantity, and it is of very poor quality; and I do not suppose that the Lord Jesus will hardly stoop to notice it.” Well, now, listen to what the text says; it is the Heavenly Bridegroom, it is Christ himself, who, in this Song, speaks to his spouse, and bids her come into the vineyard, and look about her. For, saith he, “The vines with the tender grape give a good smell.” So, you see, there was some fruit, though it could only be spoken of as “the tender grape.” Some read the passage, “The vines in blossom give forth fragrance;” others think it refers to the grape just as it begins to form. It was a poor little thing, but the Lord of the vineyard was the first to spy it out; and if there is any little fruit unto God upon anyone here present, our Lord Jesus Christ can see it. Though the berry be scarcely formed, though it be only like a flower which has just begun to knit, he can see the fruit, and he delights in that fruit.

I want, as the Holy Spirit shall help me, to speak about those early fruits-those tender grapes-that are being brought forth by some who have but lately come to know the Lord; and first, we will enquire, what are these tender grapes? Secondly, what is the Lord’s estimate of them? and thirdly, what is the danger to these tender grapes? You will learn what that is from the 15th verse: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes.”

First, then, what are these tender grapes? What are these firstfruits of the Spirit of God of which our text says, “The vines with the tender grape give a good smell”? While I am preaching, I shall be going over my own experience and the experience of many of God’s people; and though I shall not be specially speaking to them, it will do them good to recollect what they passed through in the early days of their Christian life.

One of the first tender grapes that we spy out on living branches of the true Vine is, a secret mourning for sin, and very often, an open mourning, too. The man is no longer the mirthful, jovial, light-headed, dare-devil sort of fellow that he was. He has found out that his life has not been right in the sight of God; he has become conscious that he has done much that is altogether wrong, and that he has left undone a thousand things which he ought to have done, and he feels heavy of heart, and sad in spirit. His old companions notice that there is a change in him; he does not tell them much because they would only laugh at him, but he has a wound somewhere within his heart, an arrow has pierced his conscience, and his soul bleeds inwardly. The pleasure which he once took in sin is all gone now; and what is more, he grieves to think that he ever should have taken any pleasure in it. He hopes that God will forgive him, but he feels that he never will forgive himself. He smites upon his breast, and wishes he could smite so hard as to kill the sin which is there; but he discovers that, when he would do good, evil is present with him, and that makes him cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” He used to think that to believe in Christ was a very easy thing, and that to be a Christian was almost as simple a matter as kissing his hand; but he finds it quite another thing now. He has a heavy burden to carry, and it is crushing him to the ground; he is fighting with himself, and cannot get the victory. Whenever he sees his sin, it grieves him; and he is grieved because he does not grieve more than he does. He wishes his heart would become softer, and that by some means he could weep for sin more thoroughly, for he really does hate it with all his soul. Well now, this is one of the tender grapes; and if any of you are brought into that condition, I thank God for it. This is a crop that will ripen and sweeten before long. Surely, never was there a truly gracious soul who did not put forth this as one of the firstfruits of the Spirit, a secret mourning for sin.

Another tender grape is, a humble faith in Jesus Christ. The man, perhaps, has got no farther than to say, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief! I do trust myself with thee, and thou hast said I am saved if I do that, and therefore I conclude that I am saved; but, oh, that I had more faith! Oh, that I could trust thee without a doubt! But, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that, humbly, tremblingly, I do accept thee as my Saviour, and I am hopeful to be numbered among thy people, though meanest of them all. Though my faith be but as a grain of mustard seed, I bless thee that I have even that grain; and I know that it will grow, for it has within it the life thou didst impart.” That little trembling faith, like a freshly-lighted candle which is easily blown out, is, nevertheless, one of the tender grapes. It will grow, it will come to perfection in due time, for the least true faith has everlasting life in it. All the devils in hell could not quench a single spark of God-given faith, for it is a living thing, and it cannot be destroyed. This faith possesses immortality, it shall defy death itself; yet, while it is so little, it is like the tender grape which gives a good smell.

Then there comes another tender grape, and that is, a genuine change of life. The man has evidently turned right about; he is not looking the way he used to look, and he is not living as he used to live. At first he fails, and perhaps fails a good many times, like a child who is learning to walk, and has many a tumble; but it will never walk if it does not tumble a bit. So, when men begin to live the new life, they have many slips. They thought that ugly temper of theirs would never rise again, but it does, and it grieves them very much; and some old habit, from which they thought they had clean escaped, entangles them unawares, and they say, “Surely I cannot be a child of God if I do these things again;” and there is great sorrow, and brokenness of spirit, and soul-humbling. Well, that very soul-humbling is a tender grape. That effort to do better-not in your own strength, because you have none, and you are sure to fail utterly if you attempt such a task alone; but the effort to do better in the strength of God, yet with the full consciousness of your own weakness,-all that indicates a real change. I know that there are some men who have been so long steeped in evil that, to get their old habits down, is a very hard task. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” Nothing but almighty power could get the blackness out of the Ethiopian’s skin, or the spots out of the leopard. God can do it, and he can reverse the whole current of our lives; yet, nevertheless, while it is being done, there is often much of painful contrition and of brokenness of heart before him. See what a change it is that the Lord works in a man when he converts him from the error of his ways. There is Niagara, see the mighty flood come roaring down; what a sight it is! But can that Niagara be made to flow up-hill? Yes, God can accomplish that marvellous feat; but while it is being done, think of the twists, and twirls, and whirlpools, and sheets of spray that there will be. The vast mass of water has to stop, and then to rush up again. What roaring of waves and shaking of rocks there will be even while God is performing this great operation! So is it when there is a change of heart in one who has long been steeped in evil, one who has been an open sinner; there is a great deal of distress of heart while the work is being done. Yet, if there be a radical change in the man, it is like the tender grape, which is a sure sign of life in the vine which brings it forth.

Another very blessed fruit of spiritual life in the soul is, secret devotion. The man never prayed before; he went sometimes to a place of worship, but he did not care much about it. Now, you see that he tries to get alone for private prayer as often as he can. He may not have the privilege of a room to himself, but he climbs up into a hayloft, or goes down into a saw-pit, or retires behind a hedge; or, in order to be quite alone, perhaps he walks the streets of London. It is very easy to be alone in a crowded street; in busy Cheapside, there is many a man who is utterly lonely, for he does not know anybody in all the throng that rushes past him. It is a really awful loneliness that a man may have in the midst of a dense crowd, and his heart may then be talking with God as well as if he were shut up in some private room. A soul must get alone if it is really born again, it cannot live without private prayer. I like also to see the young beginners in the divine life carrying a pocket Testament, so that they may just read a short portion whenever they can get a few spare moments,-two or three verses to lie in their memory, like a lozenge under the tongue, to melt there, and dissolve into their inmost being. It is a grand thing to keep a man right, and it is one of the tender grapes on the vine when there is a love for the Word of God, and a love for private prayer; I am sure that it is one of the tokens by which we are not very often deceived. “Behold, he prayeth,” is an indication that God has renewed his heart.

Another of these tender grapes is an eager desire for more grace, a longing for more of the good things of the covenant. Why, those who are just brought to know the Lord would like us to preach seven sermons a day, and they would like to hear them all! I know that, when I was first brought to Christ, I was ravenous after the gospel. I felt like the great beast mentioned in the Book of Job, that “drinketh up a river, and trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth,” so thirsty did I seem to be after the river of the water of life. I do not think that the seats felt hard to me then, or that standing in the aisle was too tiresome so long as it was but the gospel that was preached to me, for there was an eager desire after it in my soul. If anyone can tell the poor seeking one, who has just a little light, where he can get ten times the grace he has, I warrant you that he will make the journey if he may but find it, that his feeble faith may grow to full assurance, that his repentance may be deeper, that his love to God may be more intense. If his whole soul is set on attaining this object, it is manifest that these are the tender grapes that grow out of the life that is within the branches of the Vine.

There is also, in such persons, another very precious sign of grace, and that is, a simple love to Jesus. The heart knows little, but it loves much; the understanding is not yet fully enlightened, but the affections are all on fire. “Thy first love” is mentioned with special commendation in the Book of the Revelation; and I think that some of us, who have known the Lord for thirty years or more, can look back upon our first love with something of regret. I hope that we love Christ better now than we did then, but there was a vividness about our first love which we do not always realize in our more matured experience. It was then very much as it is when your servant lights a fire; at the first, the shavings, or the paper, or whatever it may be at the bottom of the kindling, makes a great deal more of a blaze than appears afterwards, and the fire is at its best when it all gets into one great steady ruby glow. It is to this state that the ardent love of Christians should come; but still, there is something very pleasing about that first blaze, and I could almost wish that we always blazed away as we did in the fervour of our first love. That first flame was one of the sure tokens that the fire was there, just as the tender grapes prove that the life is in the Vine-branches. If, dear friends, you are now full of love to Christ, do not let anybody quench it, or even damp it down; but may it burn more and more, like coals of juniper, which have a most vehement flame! God grant that this love, and all the other tender grapes that I have mentioned, may be seen in everyone who has newly sought and found the Lord!

Now I must try to answer our second question,-what is the Lord’s estimate of these tender grapes? What does he think of that sorrow for sin, that little faith, that humble trust in his atoning sacrifice, that earnest attempt to live a changed life, that weariness of frivolity, that private prayer and study of the Scriptures, that eager desire for more grace, and that childlike love? What does the Lord think of all this?

Well, first, he thinks so much of it that he calls his Church to come and look at it. Look at the verses that precede our text: “My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.” We do not usually call our friends to look at things which we do not ourselves admire; so here the Bridegroom calls his spouse to share in his joy in these tokens of the heavenly life of the Church of God. Be always on the look out for the tender grapes. I think I know some Christians who do not appreciate these early fruits as they ought. When dear children are brought to know the Lord, we cannot expect that such little shoots as they are should at first bring forth anything but tender grapes. There are some who do not take that view of the matter. “Ah!” they say, “there is no flavour in those grapes.” Did you expect that there would be? “Oh!” they cry, “they are tart and sour.” Of course they are; while they are tender grapes, they must be so. You cannot get the ripeness or the sweetness of maturity in that which is just beginning to grow. Our Lord would not have us find fault with the fruit of young converts, but rather go and look at it, and admire it, and bless God that there is at least some, and that it is as good as it is. “Ah!” says one, “that young man does not know much.” Does he know that one thing, whereas he was blind, now he can see? Then, be thankful that he knows as much as that. “Oh!” you exclaim, “but he has not much prudence.” No, my dear friend, do you suppose that this young man is to have as much prudence as you have at your age, and you are perhaps sixty or seventy? I might possibly say with truth that you have not quite so much zeal as you might have to go with your prudence. “Oh, but!” you say, “we want the young man to be more mature.” Give him time, and he will get as mature as you are; but while the grapes are still tender, your Master and his calls you to look at them, and to thank him for them, for there is something very cheering in the sight of the first weak, faint tokens of the working of the Holy Spirit in the soul of a young believer.

What is Christ’s estimate of these tender grapes? Why, next, he calls them tender. He does not call them mature, he does not speak of them as ripe; he calls them “tender.” Do you know how he might have described them? He might have called them sour, but he does not; he calls them “tender.” He likes to use a sweet word, you see, the softest and best word that he can use; so, when you describe a young convert, my dear brother, do not at once point out his immaturity, but call him “tender.” Do not speak about his want of discretion, but call him “tender.” Do not say, “Oh, well, I question whether he can be a child of God or not!” He is one of God’s little ones. A little child is just as much its mother’s bairn as the biggest one in the family is; and no doubt that little one whose voice we heard just now is as much beloved of the mother as any of her older sons or daughters. So it should be with those who are the little children in God’s great family of love; therefore, imitate your Lord, and call them “tender.”

Then he says something more: “The vines with the tender grape give a good smell.” Of what do they smell?

Well, first, they smell of sincerity. You say, “That young man does not know much, but he is very sincere.” How many do I see, who come to make a confession of their faith in Christ, who do not know this doctrine, or have not had that experience, but they are very sincere! I can tell that they are genuine by the way they speak; they often make such dreadful blunders, theologically, that I know they have not learnt it by rote, as they might get up a lesson. They talk straight out of their loving but ignorant hearts, and I like that they should do so, for it shows how true they are in what they say; and our Lord Jesus always loves sincerity. There is no smell so hateful as the smell of hypocrisy; a religious experience that is made to order, religious talk such as some indulge in, which is all cant, is a stench in the nostrils of God. The Lord save us from it! But these vines with the tender grape give forth the sweet smell of sincerity.

Next, there is about these young believers a sweet smell of heartiness. Oh, how hearty they generally are, how earnest, how lively! By-and-by, some of the older folks talk about the things of God as if they were worn threadbare, and there was nothing of special interest in them; but it is not so with these new-born souls, everything is bright and fresh, they are lively, and full of earnestness, and Jesus loves that kind of spirit. He said to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, “I would thou wert cold or hot.” It is lukewarmness that he cannot bear, but he approves of warm, simple heartiness; it is to him like the smell of the vines that bear the tender grapes.

There is sure to be also about these young Christians the sweet smell of zeal; and, whatever may be said against zeal, I will take up the cudgels for it as long as I live. In the work of God, we cannot do without fire. We Baptists like water because our Master has ordained the use of it; but we must also have fire, fire from heaven, the fire of the Holy Ghost. When I see our young men and young women full of zeal for God’s glory, I say, “God bless them! Let them go ahead.” Some of the old folk want to put a bit in the mouths of these fiery young steeds, and to hold them in; but I trust that I shall ever be on their side, and say, “No, let them go as fast as they like. If they have zeal without knowledge, it is a deal better than having knowledge without zeal; only wait a bit, and they will get all the knowledge they need.”

These young believers have another sweet smell: they are teachable, ready to learn, willing to be taught from the Scriptures and from those whose instructions God blesses to their souls. There is also another delicious smell about them, and that is, they are generally very joyful. While they are singing, some dear old brother, who has known the Lord for fifty years, is groaning; what is the matter with the good man? I wish that he could catch the sweet contagion of the early joy of those who have just found the Saviour. There is something delightful in all joy when it is joy in the Lord, but there is a special brightness about the delight of those who are newly-converted.

You see that Christ forms a correct, condescending, wise estimate of these vines with the tender grape. He calls his Church to look at them, he calls them tender, he says that they have a sweet smell, and then he shows that he cares very much about them, for he says, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.” He does not want even the tender grapes to be spoiled.

Some people seem to think that none but advanced Christians are worth looking after, but our Lord is not of that opinion. “Oh, it was only a lot of girls that joined the church,” said somebody. “A lot of girls?” That is not the way that our Lord Jesus Christ speaks about his children. He calls them King’s daughters; and let them be called so. “They were only a pack of boys and young men.” Yes, but they are the material of which old men are made; and boys and young men, after all, are of much account in the Master’s esteem. May we always have many such in this church!

So I come to my third and closing question,-what is the danger to these tender grapes? The 15th verse says that they are in danger from foxes, and gives the command, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.”

Dear young friends who have lately found Christ, there are foxes about. We try all we can to stop the gaps in the hedge, that we may keep the foxes out; but they are very crafty, and they manage to get in sometimes. The foxes in the East are much smaller than ours, and they seem to be even more cunning and more ferocious than those we have in this country, and they do much mischief to the vines.

In the spiritual vineyard there are foxes of many kinds. There is, first, the hard censurer. He will spoil the vines if he can, and especially the vines that have the tender grapes. He finds fault with everything that he can see in you who are but young believers. You know that you are simply depending upon Christ for salvation; but this censurer says, “You are no child of God, for you are far from being perfect.” If God had no children but those who are perfect, he would have none under heaven. These censorious people will find fault with this and that and the other in your life and character, and you know well enough that you have all too many imperfections, and if they look for them, they can soon spy them out. Then they say, “We do not believe that there is any grace at all in you,” though you know that by the grace of God you are what you are. It may be that there is a fault in you which they have discovered, perhaps you were taken by surprise, and suddenly overcome. Possibly, they even set a trap for you, and allured you into it, provoking you to anger, and then turning round upon you, said, “You have made a profession, have you? That is your religion, is it?” and so on. May God deliver you from these cruel foxes! He will often do so by enabling you not to mind them. After all, this is only the way in which all Christians have been tried, there is nothing strange in your experience from these censurers; and they are not your judges, you will not be condemned because they condemn you. Go and do your best in the service of your Lord; trust in Christ, and do not mind what they say; and you will be delivered from that kind of fox.

A worse fox even than that one, however, is the flatterer. He comes to you smiling and smirking, and he begins to express his approval of your religion, and very likely tells you what a fine fellow you are. Indeed, you are so good that he thinks you are rather too precise, you have gone a little over the line! He believes in religion, he says, fully; though, if you watch his life, you will not think so; but he says that he does not want people to be righteous overmuch; he knows that there is a line to be drawn, and he draws it. I never could see where he drew it; but still he says he does, and he thinks that you draw the line a little too near the cross. He says, “You might be a little more worldly, you cannot get through life in your way; if you get out of society, you may as well get out of the world at once. Why do you make yourself appear so singular?” I know what he is after; he wants to get you back among the ungodly. Satan misses you, and he wants to have you again, and he is sending Mr. Flatterer to wheedle you back, if possible, into your former bondage to himself. Get away from that fox at once. The man who tells you that you are too precise ought to be precisely told that you do not want his company. There never lived a man yet who was too holy, and there never will live a man who will imitate Christ too closely, or avoid sin too rigidly. Whenever a man says that you are too Puritanical, you may always smell one of these foxes. It would be better if we were all more Puritanical and precise. Has not our Father said to us, “Be ye holy; for I am holy”? Did not our Lord Jesus say to his disciples, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”?

Then there comes another foul fox, Mr. Worldly-wiseman. He says, “You are a Christian, but do not be a fool. Carry your religion as far as you can make it pay; but if it comes to losing anything by it, well then, don’t you do it. You see, this practice is the custom of the trade; it is not right, I know, but still, other people do it, and you ought to do it. If you do not, you will never get on in business.” Mr. Worldly-wiseman further says, “Never mind if you tell a lie or two, make your advertisements say what is not true; everybody else does it as a matter of course, and why should not you? Then try whether you cannot get a slice out of your customer here and a slice there when he does not know it, it is the custom of the trade; it is the way other people do, and, as it is the custom, of course you must do it.” To all such talk I reply that there is another custom, a custom that God has, of turning all liars into hell; mind that you do not come under that divine rule and law. There is another custom that God has, namely, that of cutting down as hypocrites those who do not walk honestly and uprightly towards their fellow-men. The plea of custom will not stand for a moment at the judgment-seat of Christ; and it ought to have no weight with us here. I know that there are many young people who, unless they are watchful and careful at the very beginning of their spiritual life, will get lamed, and never walk as they ought to do, because this fox has bitten them.

There is another ugly fox about, and that is, a doubting fox. He comes and says, “You seem very happy, and very joyful; but is it true? You appear to have become quite a different person from what you used to be; but is there, after all, such a thing as conversion?” This fox begins nibbling at every doctrine, he even nibbles at your Bible, and tries to steal from you this chapter and that verse. God save you young people from all these foxes!

There are some foxes of evil doctrine, and they generally try to spoil our young people. I do not think anybody ever attempts now to convert me from my belief; the other day, when a man was arguing with another, I asked him, “Why don’t you try me?” “Oh!” he said, “I have given you up as a bad case, there is no use trying to do anything with you.” It is so when we get to be thoroughly confirmed in our convictions of the truth; they give us up, and they generally say that we are such fools that we cannot learn their wisdom, which is quite correct; and so we intend to be as long as ever we live. But with some of the younger folk, they manage it thus. They say, “Now, you are a person of considerable breadth of thought, you have an enlarged mind, you are a man of culture; it is a pity that you should cling to those old-fashioned beliefs, which really are not consistent with modern progress;” and the foolish young fellow thinks that he is a wonder, and so is puffed up with conceit. When a man has to talk about his own culture, and to glory in his own advancement, it is time that we suspected the truth about him. When a man can despise others who are doing vastly more good than he ever dreamed of doing, and call such people antiquated and old-fashioned, it is time that he should get rebuked for his impudence, for that is what it really is. These clever men, as far as I know them, are simply veneered with a little learning, not the sixteen-thousandth of an inch thick. There is nothing in the most of them but mere pretence and bluster; but there are some who hold firmly to the old gospel, who have read as much as they are ever likely to do, and are fully their equals in learning, though they do not care to boast of their acquirements. Do not any of you young people be carried away with the notion that all the learned men are heretics; it is very largely the reverse, and it is your sham, shallow philosopher who goes running after heresy. Get out of the way of that fox, or else he will do much mischief to the tender grapes.

So, brethren, I close with this remark. If you have any sign of spiritual life, if you have any tender grapes upon your branches, the devil and his foxes will be sure to be at you; therefore, endeavour to get as close as ever you can to two persons who are mentioned hard by my text, namely, the King and his spouse. First, keep close to Christ, for this is your life; and next, keep close to his Church, for this is your comfort. Get among elderly Christian people, seek to catch up with those who have long known the Lord, those who are farther on the heavenly road than you are. Pilgrims to Zion should go to heaven in company, and often, when they go in company, and they can get a Mr. Greatheart to go before them, it saves them from many a Giant Slay-good and many a Giant Grim, and they get a safe and happy journey to the Celestial City where else they might have been buffeted and worried. Keep close to God’s people, whoever they may be; they are the best company for you, young believers. Some Christians may, like Bunyan’s pilgrim, start on the road to heaven alone; but they miss much comfort which they might have with companions of a kindred spirit. As for Christiana and her children, and the younger folk especially, they will do well to keep in company with some one of the Lord’s champions, and with the rest of the army with banners who are marching towards the Celestial City. God bless and comfort all of you who know his name, henceforth and for ever! Amen.

Expositions by C. H. Spurgeon

SOLOMON’S SONG 8:11-14; ISAIAH 5:1-7; and LUKE 13:6-9

Song of Solomon. Chapter 8. Verses 11, 12. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, which is mine, is before me:

“The great Husbandman has graciously let his vineyard out to me, that I may keep it, and dress it; he has made it mine for the time being. I have some ground to till, some plants to tend, some vines to prune. It may not be a very large vineyard; still, it is mine, and I am accountable for it, and must look well to it. It is before me, I am thinking of it, I am caring for it, I am praying about it.”

12. Thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.

This is our resolve,-that our greater Solomon shall have the profits and proceeds of his own vineyard. It is ours on lease, but the freehold is his. He “must have a thousand,” and we shall be well content with our share of the vintage, joyful and glad that we may have “two hundred.”

13. Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it.

“For to hear that voice will be far better than the ‘two hundred’ which shall be my share of the fruit. If I may have thee with me, O my Lord, I will be better pleased, though my portion of fruit should be very small indeed, for in having thee my portion will be great indeed! I hear, my Lord, that some of thy people live with thee until they are called thy companions. There are some whom thou dost call thy friends, there are disciples whom Jesus loves. These ‘hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it.’ Unstop my deaf ear, give me a sensitive spirit, let my soul thrill, and my heart throb, and my whole being delight to obey every syllable that falls from thy blessed lips. ‘Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it.’ ”

14. Make haste, my beloved,

“Do not let me have to wait long for thee, O my Beloved! Even at the beginning of this service, cause me to realize thy presence.”

14. And be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

“Are there mountains that divide me from thee? Come and leap over them; for thou art swift of foot, and sure of standing: ‘Be thou like to a roe or to a young hart,’ and when thou comest, the mountains of division shall change into mountains of spices, and all around me shall be sweet.”

Isaiah 5. Verse 1. Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

You and I, dear friends, are placed in a position where we have very choice opportunities of glorifying our God; we are like “a vineyard in a very fruitful hill,” most favourably placed for fruitfulness. The Wellbeloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:-

2. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

Is that my case? Is it your case, dear friend? Has even our religion been a false thing? Has it been like wild grapes or poisonous berries? Have we been at times right only by accident, and have we never carefully and sedulously sought to serve our Lord, or to bring forth fruit to his praise? O Lord, thou knowest!

3-6. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste:

There is no destruction like that which comes when God destroys the fruitless vineyard. When a human enemy or the wild boar out of the wood lays it waste, it may be restored again; but if, in righteous wrath, the Divine Owner of the vineyard himself lays it waste, what hope remains for it? “It shall be trodden down; and I will lay it waste:”-

6, 7. It shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

This passage has a special reference to God’s ancient people, and one cannot read it without noting how literally this terrible threatening has been fulfilled.

Luke 13. Verse 6. He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.

Let us, every one, read this parable as if our Lord Jesus Christ were now speaking it for the first time to each of us. There is a lesson here which we shall do well to heed.

7-9. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

“In that case, I will plead for it no longer, for it will have had its full time of testing, and every opportunity of bearing fruit: ‘After that thou shalt cut it down.’ ” The parable is so simple that it needs no explanation, and therefore our Lord Jesus has not given any. May we all make a personal application of its solemn teaching! Amen.

FAITH VICTORIOUS

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, September 6th, 1896,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, July 25th, 1886.

“Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.”-Matthew 15:21-28.

We learn from this chapter, dear friends, that our Master was tired of battling with hypocrites and formalists, and therefore withdrew himself from them. They had come to him with their foolish charges that his disciples did not observe the traditions of the elders, and they made a great fuss about meats, and drinks, and washing of hands, and all sorts of trifles. The Saviour spoke very effectively to them; what if I say that he fired his great gun once for all, and silenced them? He told them that the real defilement, which rendered men unclean before God, was not a matter of externals, but it concerned the heart; and that it was not that which entered into a man by way of meats and drinks which defiled him, but that which came out of him in his words and actions, which were the result of the impure desires within his heart.

Having thus, as it were, annihilated their flimsy arguments, or scattered them to the four winds of heaven, the Master went right away from the cavillers. Do you not feel sometimes as if you would like to act in the same way? If you are true believers, if you have learnt to worship God in spirit and in truth, do you not get weary with the endless wrangles about ritual, and outward ceremonial, and the special and particular way in which divine worship should be performed? Do you not feel as if there were something better for you to do than to be always fighting about these secondary matters?

Besides this, the atmosphere that was round about these hypocrites and formalists was so heavy, so laden with miasma, so unfit for a spiritually-minded person to breathe, that the Lord wanted to get right away from it to some quiet place where he might rest awhile, and, as it were, recover himself from the sense of oppression and weariness which had come over him in such company, so he proceeded far from his usual haunts, to the very verge of his diocese, to the edge of heathendom: “Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.” Mark tells us that he “entered into a house, and would have no man know it.” He did not go there to preach; he went into that far-off region that he might rest, unknown and in quiet for a brief season, and then go back to Galilee, and once more preach the gospel to those who might gather to hear him.

Let us, from this narrative, learn to avoid making much of little insignificant things, lest by so doing we drive Christ away from us. Let us beware of giving heed to the traditions of men, and putting them in the place of the commandments of God, lest Christ betake himself to some other place, and so the candlestick be taken out of our midst, and we be left in the dark.

I would have you notice, dear friends, that even when Jesus Christ goes away weary, he still has designs of love toward the people elsewhere. He is not merely turning with disgust away from Scribes and Pharisees, but he is going to meet one whom his far-seeing eye has beheld, a lonely, sorrowful woman who is coming to meet him. Eternal decrees have appointed that at a certain spot this needy one shall meet him, and he knows that it is so; and therefore he is on his way to the borders of Tyre and Sidon to accomplish the purpose of almighty grace. See how much the Saviour thought of a single soul; to his heart it was worth while to walk many weary miles even to bless one. We are ambitious to bring hundreds to Christ, and we are quite right if we desire it only for his glory; let us even enlarge our longing, but we shall never bring many to the Saviour until we first feel overjoyed at the thought of bringing even one. We have not yet sufficiently learned the value of an immortal soul if we do not feel that we would be willing to live, say seventy years, to be the means of saving one soul, and be willing to compass the whole globe, and preach in every city, and town, and village, if we might only be rewarded at the last with just one convert. Evidently, our Lord Jesus realized intensely the value of one lost sheep, and he left the ninety and nine that he might go and find this solitary sad soul, and bring her to himself.

“Oh, come let us go and find them!”

Let us be ever on the watch, and be willing to be drifted by providence anywhere if, in that drifting, we may come across some shipwrecked soul, who may hail us, and we may effect its rescue, and take it home to the port of peace.

I want to try to set forth the case of this woman, not going fully into the whole story,-for I have preached upon this narrative many times,-but specially dwelling upon the one point that this woman had great faith in Jesus Christ, an intense persuasion that he was able to heal her daughter; and, moreover, that he had a most loving heart, and was willing to work the cure she craved. She was determined that, whatever might be her disadvantages, she would press her suit with the Son of David until she obtained from him the boon she was asking. There may be someone, to whom I am now speaking, who is at a great disadvantage with regard to salvation; but, dear friend, if you can believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is both able and willing to save you, I want to encourage you to press your suit with him, and never to cease your pleading until you get the desire of your heart, and he sends you away saying, “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”

First, then, concerning this woman, notice that she was an outsider altogether.

She was not a Jewess, she did not belong to God’s chosen people, she was not one to whom Christ came to preach, for he said that he was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She was what we sometimes call, “a rank outsider.” To herself or her fathers, no covenant promise had ever been given, no prophet had ever spoken, no gospel message had ever been delivered. So far from being within the church, she was not even within the congregation; she had no connection whatever with the whole gospel system, except such a connection as infinite grace was pleased to make.

I delight to think that, every now and then, there come into this congregation persons who were not born and brought up in the midst of godly surroundings,-for whom no mother has ever prayed, to whom no father has ever spoken a loving word concerning Christ,-persons who were never regular occupants of seats in the house of prayer, and perchance have only a very few times in their lives ever entered such edifices, who have not read the Bible, and have not been in the habit of bowing the knee in prayer. Perhaps they have never breathed a prayer except in an hour of extreme sickness, or in some time of great alarm, as in the midst of a storm at sea. Well, this woman was a type of persons in this condition. She was no Israelitess; she was a Canaanitish woman, and the Canaanites were condemned to die, they were to be exterminated out of the country. She was one of the handful who remained of the aboriginal tribes that were not slain by the sword of justice, but had lived on, as it were stealing their lives from the edge of the sword; she was one of a condemned race, a people who, though spared from execution, continued to worship false gods, and who did much harm to Israel by introducing the worship of Baal among them. You remember the mischief wrought by that Sidonian queen, proud Jezebel, who tried to stamp out the worship of Jehovah, and to set up instead thereof her idol gods.

This woman, who came to Christ, was a descendant of those heathen tribes that inhabited the northern part of the country which God had given to Israel, yet she was the one who, almost beyond any other woman, exhibited a mighty faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I wonder whether I am addressing any who are, apparently, as far off from every religious hope as this poor Canaanitess was, who, nevertheless, shall feel within their hearts faith in him who is the Son of David and the Son of God,-faith in the Christ who, from the highest heaven, descended far that he might tread this guilty earth, and bow his shoulders to bear his people’s guilt that he might lift them from the deeps of hell up to the heights of the happiness of God. I should not be at all surprised if this should prove to be the case, for God has often found his best servants among his worst enemies. Some of the brightest diamonds in Christ’s crown have been dug out of the darkest mines. Oh, that it might be so, that while I am preaching, someone who is far off from God might hear the great silver trumpet blow, and might say in his heart, “I will go to Jesus with my cries and tears, for I believe him to be the Son of God, mighty to save; and if mercy is to be had, I will find it, though I deserve it not, but am far off from him. I will press toward him, I will break through every obstacle and barrier till I come to him, and obtain salvation at his hands.”

That is our first point, this woman was altogether an outsider, and I do hope our meditation on it may cheer some far-off one, and induce him or her also to come to Jesus for salvation.

In the second place, this woman was not only herself far from all outward religious privileges, but she had a very dreadful case to plead.

She came to Christ to plead for her daughter who was “grievously vexed with a devil.” Now, if one comes to Christ to ask him to cure blindness, or sickness of any ordinary kind, it is a very simple case compared with this woman’s. “Lord, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil; a demon has come and made her body to be the place of his abode. O Lord, thou Son of David, interfere in this horrible case! The devil’s hand is in it, and only thou canst cast him out.” I know that there are some,-it may be that they have stolen into this Tabernacle, perhaps driven in by the rain,-whose case is so bad that they have to conclude that the devil himself must have had a hand in it. When they come before Christ, it is no common sin they have to confess, no ordinary soul-ruin they have to set before him; it seems as if there has arisen from the infernal pit some demon who has made them to be the special objects of his attack. The devil is in thee, is he? Nevertheless, bring thy case before Christ; if there were seven devils within thee, instead of only one, remember her out of whom he cast seven devils; ay, and if it were a legion, if a whole band of demons had taken possession of thee, remember the Gadarene demoniac out of whom Christ cast a legion of devils. I know that you are ready to say, “My case is so horrible that I could not relate it.” Do not relate it, except to Christ. “Oh, but my sin is so great that I could not tell you!” Do not tell me; I have heard enough of late about horrible sin, and I do not want to hear any more about it; but tell it to Jesus, tell it into his ear, and though thou art compelled to feel that in that sin there is something more sinful than usual, something extraordinary and out of the common, yet, I pray thee, have faith in Jesus Christ that, if thou canst but get at him, he can deliver even thee out of all this mischief, and all this ruin, and all this filthiness. Though the devil himself be in thee, yet, if thou believest in Jesus Christ, and thou dost come and trust him, thou shalt be saved.

“He is able, he is willing;

Doubt no more.”

Oh! that some poor heart, driven almost to despair, might nevertheless cry, “I do believe, I will believe, in the dying living Saviour, and I will never rest until I receive from his lips my sentence of pardon, and from the touch of his hand obtain that eternal life which shall deliver me from the wrath to come.” You may well be encouraged by the case of this woman, who became a great believer although she began far off from God, and in her desperate sorrow the devil himself had a large share.

Further, when this woman came to Christ, she found that he was shut up away from her.

That fact does not appear in Matthew’s account, but, as I have reminded you, it is recorded in Mark’s Gospel. When our Lord Jesus Christ went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, he “entered into a house, and would have no man know it.” It is quite clear that he wanted rest. He had travelled, as it were, incognito; for he did not want to be known, and he had gone into a house, and the door was shut. Then Mark adds, “But he could not be hid, for a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet.” It did seem a dreadful thing to think that Christ could heal her daughter, and she believed that he was willing to do it, yet there he was inside the house, shut away from her; and Peter said, “You really cannot see him;” and even John said, “Do not trouble the Master, for he is very weary, and must rest;” and practical James said, “My good woman, this is a matter that must rest with us, and we cannot have the Master interrupted just now.” They all conspired to keep her away, for he would have no man know where he was. He had asked them to guard the door a little while, to let him be in quiet. He wanted to recover from the sickness of heart that he felt at the remembrance of those carping Pharisees, so he must be a little while alone. Those who work for Christ know how much they sometimes need to be left quite alone; yet it was very discouraging to the woman to find that the door was shut where Christ was within the house.

Now, dear sirs, are there any of you here who have great faith in what the Lord Jesus Christ would do for you if you could but come to him? He well deserves that you should have, for there is none like him, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him. He is willing to forgive all manner of sin and blasphemy, and he has said, “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” But, peradventure, with all your faith, it has seemed to you as if the door was shut against you. I used to feel that, if my brother found peace with God, I could understand it; and if my sisters rejoiced in the salvation of Christ, I was very glad, and could well believe it; but I thought that for myself there was no door of hope, no promise that could be intended for me. It is often quite easy to believe for other people; the difficulty is in believing for yourself, and sometimes this is the form of the devil’s temptation, “The Saviour is not accessible to you, he does not mean even to speak to you, your case is such that you are shut out from his mercy.” If Satan lies to you like that, I do trust that you will say, like this woman, “Well, if the door is shut, I mean to go in all the same. The Son of David is hiding, is he? But he cannot be hid.” I like what someone calls, “this woman’s glorious impudence.” The angels, when they come before their Lord, are full of holy reverence, and veil their faces with their wings. I doubt not that this woman also had her fears, but at that particular time she exercised a grace that was more to the purpose. Forgetting all her fears, she said, “He cannot be hid; I must see him, and I will. My child at home is rent and torn with a demon, thrown into the fire and into the water, and I am full of agony on her account. A mother’s heart is in me, and I cannot rest until I have seen this great Physician. He can heal my child, and I believe he will; and I must get to him.” So she forces her way past the body-guard of apostles, and gets within the door, and falls at Christ’s feet, and there she lies and cries, “O Lord, thou Son of David, have mercy on me, my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil!”

I wish that each of you would act like that poor woman did, and say, “Oh, if the door of mercy is shut against me, yet still I must try to open it! Whatever be the barrier in my way, it will have to yield, for I must be saved. I cannot be lost, I cannot be content to sit down and perish in my sin, I must get to Jesus Christ, and cry to him for pardon, and I am resolved that I will do so. With holy impudency, as it may seem to others, I am determined that I will approach him, and cast myself at his dear feet.”

I like the splendour of this woman’s faith. She is a Canaanite, whose case has the devil mixed up with it, and from whom Christ conceals himself, yet she must and will somehow get to him. Now, what happens next?

The woman’s faith was so great that our Lord delighted to see it, and he wanted to see how far it would go, so he put it to a further test. Therefore, next, when she cried to Christ, he refused her any answer.

She had broken in upon his privacy, she had daringly invaded the apartment where he sought to be in quiet, and she lay at his feet, and prayed a sweetly-appropriate prayer. She expressed her faith in his divinity, calling him “Lord,” and her faith in his blessed royal humanity, calling him the “Son of David,” after she had said, “Have mercy on me,” asking only for mercy. It was the only plea she used, “Mercy, Lord, mercy! Son of David, mercy!” Yet this was at first all the answer she received: “He answered not a word.” As Augustine says, “The Word spoke not a word,” and that was so unlike him. He who was always so ready with responses to the cry of grief had no response for her. As if he were made of stone, he scarcely gave her a glance; and when she looked up to those lips which are as lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh, they dropped not a syllable on her. Oh, what would she not give if he would but speak? He could heal her daughter with a word, yet not a word did he utter; an awful silence filled the room as she waited for him to speak. But she did not give up in despair; there is the point, she still had faith in him, and when there was nothing for her ear to hear, there was still something for her heart to believe.

Peradventure, I am addressing some poor lost one who has been praying. You have been crying to Christ for mercy as best you could; you have called him “Lord,” you have called him “Son of David,” you have lain at his feet, you have wept, you have implored, you have entreated mercy, crying, “Lord, have mercy upon me;” yet he has answered you not a word. You have been to hear the gospel, but you seem to be worse rather than better for hearing it. You have spoken to a Christian friend about your fears, but he has not been able to remove them; and all the while you have prayed, and prayed again, and yet again. I will tell you what happened to me long ago. When I was convinced of sin, I began to pray. After my own fashion, in deep distress, and from my very heart I prayed many a time, yet I received no answer, and scarcely a ray of hope had found its way into my soul. I heard my mother say, as she was talking to us children about our souls, that she did not believe there was living a single man who dared to declare that he had truly sought the Saviour, and that the Saviour had refused him. She said she did not think that even in hell there was one who would be bold enough to accuse the Saviour of having refused him when he sought him with prayer and in faith. I did not say so to her, but I thought within my heart, “I am one who has really and sincerely sought for salvation through Jesus Christ, and I have not found it;” and I made up my mind that I would tell to others that Christ did not hear prayer, and that one might seek him with all his heart, and yet not find him. Friends, I have never told that untruth to anyone yet, for before I had an opportunity of declaring what I thought was true, I had found him myself. I discovered that, after all, it was I who was deaf to his voice, and not he who was too far off to answer me. I heard that blessed text, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,” and at once I looked to him, and I found peace through the blood of the cross. So will you, dear friend, as soon as you look to him by faith. If you have prayed, keep on praying. If you have cried apparently in vain, still cry to him.

Remember that there is no other door at which you can knock, therefore you had better continue to knock at this one. If you were on a wild prairie at night, and had lost your way, and at last you saw a light in a window, and you came to a lone house, and knocked there, but no one came to the door at first, you would say to yourself, “Well, I must knock again, because there is probably not another house within twenty miles. I may be eaten of wolves before I find another, so I will just knock, and knock, and knock, and knock again, till I gain admission.” Keep on knocking, dear friend, there is somebody hearing you, depend upon it; and though he may seem slow in coming, he is sure if he is slow. He is just trying you a little to see if you really are in earnest. You have heard of run-away knocks at our doors; there is a loud rap, and the poor servants go to answer it, but there is nobody there, for the mischievous boys have run away. Well, the Master is seeing whether you are going to play with him with run-away knocks. If you are a genuine seeker of entertainment in his great house of mercy, you will stand, and say, “I will still knock, and perish knocking if I must, but I will never go away from this spot. Jesus Christ can save me, he alone can save me, I believe that he will save me, and I will never cease to pray while my heart beats and my tongue moves. If I have to die praying, I will die so; but I will never cease from it till I get an answer of peace. Oh, that God would bless this message to some who have been discouraged by having to wait long for answers to their prayers!

This woman had a further discouragement, for Jesus refused the prayer of his own apostles. They began to help her in prayer; as she was not herself heard, they took some sort of pity on her, and went to the Master, and said to him, “Please, Lord, send her away; she makes such a noise, crying after us.” Not out of pity to her, so much as from love of quiet for themselves, they became intercessors for her with the Lord Jesus Christ. Probably I am speaking to someone who says, “Sir, all you have said is true about me, and I have prayed hitherto in vain; but I have asked a Christian friend to pray for me. The other Monday night, I pencilled a little note, and put it on the table in the Tabernacle, and they prayed for me at the prayer-meeting. I have asked you, dear sir, to pray for me, and I hope you have; but no good has come of it, I am just in the same state of sorrow and misery after all the prayers that have been presented on my behalf.” Yes, dear friend, and do you remember what happened in the case before us? The disciples soon gave up the task; they prayed their little bit of prayer, and they did not get the answer they wanted, so they left off; but the woman did not, she had more perseverance in her than the apostles had. The Master answered them, and then they stopped, and said no more; but that did not stop her. They might all cease praying, but she would not cease. Now, suppose the prayers of a whole church have failed with regard to you, still pray on; ay, if all the saints who live on earth had joined in one common intercession, and had all cried to God for you, and they had received no favourable answer about you, and therefore had ceased praying, still you should not cease crying to the Lord. Go on praying, for he will yet hear you, even in such a case as that, if you can have the splendid faith to be a forlorn hope, and go alone, and only pray the more because others cease to pray for you. Like this woman, worship the Lord, and say, “Lord, help me.” Though your prayer grows shorter because you are getting weary, if it grows very intense, and you still keep on pleading, it cannot be long before a prayer-hearing Saviour will give you the desire of your heart.

I like this point in the woman, although the apostles had ceased praying, she had not.

Next, notice that, in answer to the apostles, the Lord Jesus Christ gave her a very heavy rebuke. He said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

That seemed to exclude her altogether, yet still she persevered, and I want to draw a parallel between her case and yours. Dear friend, possibly someone has whispered in your ear, “Suppose you are not one of the elect.” Well, that was very much what our Lord’s expression meant to her. She was not one of the chosen people, and she had heard Christ say, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Notice that this woman does not battle with that truth at all, she does not raise any question about it; she wisely waives it, and she just goes on praying, “Lord, help me! Lord, have mercy upon me!” I invite you, dear friend, to do just the same. You are not at present in a state of mind to understand the glorious doctrine of election, you have now the dark side of it turned towards you, and I suppose it will be so with you until you exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, when you will be able to see it from another point of view. But, anyhow, there is Christ able to save you, and he never yet did reject a sinner who came to him, therefore come along with you. As to that difficulty about your election, leave it. If you ask me to set up a ladder, and to climb to heaven, and turn over those leaves, folded and sealed, of God’s great Book of Life, I cannot do it, neither can you. But I can again remind you that he has said, “Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.” He has bidden me go, and “preach the gospel to every creature;” and you are a creature, so I preach it to you; on the strength of being commanded to preach it to you, I invite you to say, “Of the house of Israel, or not of the house of Israel, O Son of David, have mercy on me!” Whether you seem to be sheep or goat, still cry, “Son of David, have mercy on me! I will never leave thee, nor cease to pray to thee till thou shalt grant my petition.”

This is the kind of faith that Jesus Christ delights in; he was hearing this woman’s prayer all the while, and he was resolved to answer it. His heart was getting rest out of her faith; it was such a blessed change for him from those hypocritical Pharisees with all their rubbish about washing pots and cups. It was such a delight to him to see this woman believing in him in real earnest. Faith is the food on which Christ feeds, it is the wine he drinks. This is the cluster that fills the chalice he holds in his hand; these are the apples that are delicious to his taste. He does love being trusted; and if the biggest sinner out of hell will trust him, that trust is sweetest of all to Christ. O thou Canaanitish woman, thou with whom the devil has had to do, thou who hast not been heard in thy prayers up till now, if thou canst have the courageous faith still not to take “No” for an answer, but to press on, and believe that the Son of David must and will accept thee, thou shalt be accepted. It is but a little while, and he will say, “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”

Lastly, she kept on pleading until she prevailed. The disciples had given up praying, as I have shown you, and the woman had received a severe rebuff from Christ, yet she continued her prayer. See, she worships Christ, adores him, crying, “Lord, help me!” Even when she has done that, she gets only this for an answer, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs,”-the word really means, “the little dogs.” Oh, but that was a hard saying, was it not? It was a good nut, with a sweet kernel, and she knew how to crack it; but it had a very hard shell. There are many who would have turned away after such an answer as that; but this Syrophenician was a grand woman, and Christ knew it. She had splendid faith, and he prized it, else he would not have tried it so. He knew that she could bear even this test, so he called her “dog.”

Notice that she kept on with her pleading whether she was a dog or no dog. Instead of turning back when called a dog, she just pressed forward all the more. She did not raise any question, and say, “Now, Lord, that is really too bad; I may be a wretched woman, but I am not a dog.” No, after Christ had called her a dog, she took the title to herself, and found no fault with it; and, dear friends, whatever the Bible calls you, accept it, do not quarrel with it, for it is quite true. God’s Word was not sent to flatter human nature, but to give a faithful description of it. Then, believe it, accept it. Say, “Well, Lord, thou callest me ‘dog.’ It is quite true, I am only a dog.”

See how this woman turns this title round; she seems to say, “Lord, I am a dog; but, then, I am thy dog, and even dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” By this it is implied that she meant, “Lord, I am thy dog; and I am happy to be thy dog. I would sooner be thy dog than be the devil’s darling. But, Lord, thou callest me ‘little dog.’ Well, the little dogs are those that are allowed to come indoors, and to come near their masters, so I am permitted to come near thee. And being under the table, if a crumb falls, the little dog gets it. Lord, let me have the crumbs! Thou givest a loaded table to thy sheep of whom thou speakest so much,-the house of Israel; there is bread enough and to spare for them. Thou canst give me this crumb that I crave, and there will be quite as much left as the children can eat.” I like to hear this woman talk in this fashion. As one says, “the children of Israel, that Christ had been with, had turned into dogs; but here is a dog of a Canaanite, and she has turned into a child.” I am sorry to say that there are some who seemed to be children of the kingdom, who turn into dogs, and leave Christ; but there are many poor dogs, with no privileges, that are made willing, by sovereign grace, in the day of Christ’s power, and the dogs are turned into children. Now, whatever thou really art, poor sinner, confess that thou art just that; and whatever hard word Christ gives thee, say, “It is true, Lord,” and then, come with the hard words, and with thy broken heart, and just lie at his feet, and say, “Lord, still hear me, and grant me this great blessing, for it will be but a crumb to thee. Dogs get crumbs, let me get grace.” That was a grand utterance of faith; I wish that some to whom I am now speaking would exercise such faith in Jesus Christ. Speak after this fashion, “Though all men shall tell me that I shall be lost, I will not believe them. There is a Saviour, and I mean to have him as mine. Though all men shall tell me that Christ cannot save me, I will not believe it, for Christ can save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, and I cannot have gone beyond the uttermost, so I will believe that he is able to save me.”

Do I speak to anyone who says, “But you do not know how I am discouraged”? Well, then, I put this question to you,-“Are you a Canaanite?” No, you are not of that accursed race, you are of the same race as the most of us, many of whom have been saved. Yet remember that, Canaanite as this woman was, she believed in Christ; then, why should not you? Have you prayed as she did, distinctly, definitely, and received no answer? Well, if you have, your discouragement is not greater than hers was. But more. Did the Lord Jesus Christ ever say that he was not sent to you? Did he ever anywhere in Scripture indicate that his commission excluded you? He did seem to say that to this woman; yet she could bear even that discouragement, and you have never had as heavy a cross as that to carry. Next, did the Lord Jesus Christ ever call you a dog? Tell me anywhere in Scripture where he calls you “dog.” But if he did, this woman overcame that difficulty, and so should you. O dear soul, if there should stand between you and Christ all the legions of the infernal lake, you might venture through them all in the name of Christ! If there did lie between my soul and Christ seven hells, I would swim through them that I might get at him. He must be able to save me; it cannot be possible that I should have gone beyond the power which is omnipotent, or that I have sinned beyond the virtue of the blood of the Son of God. It cannot be that I should have sins that should be mightier than almighty mercy. Write me down the blackest of the black and vilest of the vile; what then? So much the more glory to the grace of God when he shall save such a sinner as I am, therefore I will come and trust him. O blessed and gracious Spirit, sweetly compel some to believe in Jesus! Thou deservest, O Lord Jesus, that we believe thee up to the hilt, that we believe thee to the uttermost, for thou art more than our faith can ever make thee to be. Help us to believe thee. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” This is the gospel; accept it, and you shall find it true. God grant it! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

MATTHEW 15:18-31

Verses 18-21. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

He went right away, not because he was afraid to speak the truth, but because, having done so, he did not care to remain in the company of those who were round about him. He would rather go even to the verge of heathendom than live in the midst of Pharisaic hypocrisy: “Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.”

22. And, behold,-

There is something here that is worth beholding, so the Holy Ghost draws attention to it, just as we sometimes print N.B., Nota bene; mark well; “behold,”-

22. A woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts,

Possibly she did not know that Christ had come; but, anyhow, when Christ comes, sinners come. He journeyed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and this woman met him.

22, 23. And cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

Perhaps they meant, “Give her the blessing, and let her go. Thou art seeking quiet here, and she will not let thee, nor us either, have any. ‘Send her away.’ ” They made a great mistake when they said, “She crieth after us.” It was Christ to whom she cried, not his disciples.

24. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

“My ministerial commission is only to the Jews.” As a Saviour, he comes to save sinners out of all nations; but as the Messiah, his special mission was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

25. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

“Then came she, and worshipped him.” If Jesus Christ was not really and truly God, he was a base impostor to allow this woman to worship him. She had called him “Lord,” once before, and he did not rebuke her; and now she not only calls him “Lord,” but she worships him. She was doing quite right, for he is none other than very God of very God: “Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.”

26. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.

Or, “to little dogs,” for the word is in that form in the Greek.

27. And the said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.

It was well for her that the Master had used that diminutive form of the word, for the bigger dogs in the East were not permitted in the house, but the little dogs were admitted to play with the children. She seemed to snatch at that idea as she cried, “Truth, Lord: yet the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table,” as though the greatest possible boon to her was but a crumb to him, and but a crumb compared with the bread which he was putting upon the table of Israel. The greater blessing which he was giving to the children might prompt him to give a crumb to her.

28. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Oh, the triumph of faith! God grant it to us! Yet this woman may surely shame many of us; we have not half her discouragements, and we have not half her confidence in Christ.

29. And Jesus departed from thence,

He is always on the move, for he has always something else to do. As soon as his deed of grace is done in one part, he hastens to another: “And Jesus departed from thence,”-

29-31. And came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them: insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.

This was Israel’s table indeed; and when you see these many mighty cures that Christ wrought, you can easily justify the speech of the Syrophenician woman, and agree with her that what she sought was only a crumb compared with the bountiful feast of fat things that was prepared for the favoured nation.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-387, 542, 593, 538.