“Without faith,” says the text, “it is impossible to please God.” Yet all men have not faith; even among those who have heard the gospel, many have not obeyed it. Isaiah is not the only one who has had to cry, “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” If it be so, that “without faith it is impossible to please God,” what becomes of the multitude who have heard, but believed not, to whom the word of this salvation has come, but who have rejected it? It is to be feared that God may again swear in his wrath, “They shall not enter into my rest.” The Israelites could not enter into Canaan because of unbelief; and men in this day cannot enter into the privileges of the gospel because of unbelief. Let us pity and pray for those who have not faith. Oh, that God would hear the cries of his children, and work faith in men, for this also is the gift of God! Not only the blessing which he promises, but even the hand whereby we receive it, must come from him.

There are some men who have a kind of faith, and these are, perhaps, in a more dangerous condition than those who have none at all, because they are apt to deceive themselves, and fancy that they are in a state of grace, whereas they are still in a state of nature. The faith which pleases God is no mock faith, no dead faith, no false faith, no faith in a lie. It is faith in the truth, it is true faith, it is spiritual faith. The faith that saves the soul, and makes it pleasing before God, is real faith. Many say that they believe a thing, but they do not truly believe it, it is not real to them. They say, “Yes, such-and-such a doctrine is true,” and they write it down in their creed, and then put the creed away on the top shelf of their bookcase, and it lies there covered with dust. A man only believes that which affects his life. If it be an important truth, if he has really believed it, it will touch every nerve of his being. It will often hold him back from one course, and with equal force impel him to another. True faith is the most active motive power in the whole world. “Faith, which worketh by love,” works all sorts of marvels; and where there is this true faith, it will prove its reality by its practicalness. The faith of God’s elect is not a dead faith. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living;” neither is he the God of dead faith, but he is the God of living faith. God grant that we may each one of us possess this real God-given blessing! But if we have merely a notional, nominal, historical faith, which does not affect our lives at all, we are in the same condition as those who have no faith, and we come under the description of the text, “without faith;” and “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Ere I enter upon the consideration of the text, I should like to make a sort of search through this place to find out any who are without faith. Without faith, you are without God, for God is only apprehended by faith. Without faith, you are without hope, for a true hope can only spring out of a true faith. And you are without Christ,-consequently, without a Saviour, without the means of the removal of your sin, without a help with which to fight daily the battle of life against sin. Without Christ? Oh, it were infinitely better to be without your eyes, without your hearing, without wealth, without bread, without garments, without a home, rather than to be without the faith which brings everything that the soul requires! Without faith we are, indeed, spiritually naked, and poor, and miserable, lost and condemned, and without a hope of escape. “Without faith.” Could that be written as a correct label, and hung upon your back, you might not, perhaps, be ashamed to wear it; but if an angel can see it on your brow as the description of your character, I am sure that he is greatly concerned about you. But your brother-man, who would fain so speak that you shall not leave this place without faith, feels troubled that there should be anyone in this land of Bibles, this land of Sabbaths, this land of revivals, this land of the gospel, who should have come to years of discretion, and yet should be so dolefully indiscreet as to live “without faith.”

The text says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God;” and I am going to keep to the text. So note, first, dear friends, the necessity of faith asserted. After we have asserted it, we shall pass on to the necessity of faith proven, that you may see, each one with his own mental eye, that it must be so, that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” And then, we will close with the necessity of faith used for profit; we will try to gather some lessons from it for our own practical guidance.

First, then, here is the necessity of faith asserted: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

You notice that there is no limit put to this assertion, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” This law applies universally to every person under the gospel dispensation. There are a great many people who are very anxious to know about the future of the heathen, but we may well leave them to the great Judge of all, earnestly desiring to bring them to the faith which is in Christ Jesus. It is much more practical for us to think of those to whom faith is possible, because the gospel has come to them, and they have heard it. The declaration of our text, “without faith it is impossible to please God,” applies to every person, whoever that person may be. See how men are buried nowadays. A man has been a king, so of course he must be “his most religious majesty”; and though his soul, loaded with a thousand crimes, has sunk deep into the pit of woe, yet there are many who suppose that it must be well with him because he was a king. And if a man be a poet, and can write fine verses, though they be steeped in lust, yet there are some who suppose that such a “cultured” person cannot be lost “Surely,” said a profane man once, “God will think twice ere he damns such a gentleman as that.” And what the sceptic spoke sarcastically is, no doubt, a common notion of many people, that, if men happen to be in what are called the higher ranks of society, or happen to be largely gifted with a certain faculty, or happen to have been eminently successful in life, or to have been great inventors, and so forth, it must be well with them. But be it known to one and all that “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

“But,” says someone, “men have been very sincere in the pursuit of external religion, and they have been moral and amiable and benevolent; have not these pleased God?” It is not for me to use flattering speeches, for my text is very sweeping. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” He who has missed this faith has missed the vital point; had he begun with that, his amiability, his morality, his benevolence, had been acceptable, because in them there would have been the flower of life, the faith that makes them live; but without this, they are cold, soulless, dead, mere carcases of virtue, devoid of life. “Without faith,” in any case, and in every case, “it is impossible to please God.”

And as the text is universal as to persons, so is it universal at to every form of work and worship. No matter what is done, “without faith it is impossible to please God.” It was a fine row of almshouses that sprang out of that man’s munificent bequest; but those almshouses never pleased God, for they were not built with any faith in him. It was a generous gift that was bestowed upon the church; yes, and those who received it were grateful for such help; but God never accepted it, for he who gave it hoped to buy pardon thereby, or purchase a place in heaven, or make some atonement for his oppressions of the poor. Without faith, though it were millions that were poured into the treasury of the church, “without faith, it is impossible to please God.” I may say of faith what Paul said of love, “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not faith, it profiteth me nothing.” The most self-sacrificing and most heroic deeds, whenever they have been performed from any other motive than that of pleasing God, and without confidence in God, have remained outside his acceptance.

“Without faith it is impossible to please God.” This is not popular teaching, but we never wish to teach a popular theology. It is not one that will commend itself to the natural mind of men; we never thought it would, we should have been thunderstruck if our preaching had been admired by such persons, and we should have gone home, and felt that we were not sent of God to preach at all. But, nevertheless, this is true; “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Observe that the text mentions two things. It says, “He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” That is to say, in coming to God, and in seeking out God, there must be faith. In coming to God, if there be prayer, what is that prayer worth which is offered without any faith in God? If a man prays to a God whom he does not know as really existing, is he not, even from his own point of view, engaged in a very senseless exercise? And to God himself, it must be a piece of dreadful mockery. O sirs, there must be faith, or else prayer certainly becomes the most meaningless waste of time!

And as to praise, how can we praise an unknown God? If we have no faith that there is a God, how can we praise him? How can our lives extol a being about whose very existence we raise a question? Nay, more than that, I cannot praise God unless I know that he is mine. How can I bless another man’s God? How can I offer to another man’s God thanksgivings for mercies that I have never tasted, and for favours in which I have never had a share? There must be a sense of personal relationship to God, and personal obligation, and personal confidence and laying hold upon him; or else in vain is the psalm sung even to the noblest music.

And I do believe, dear friends, that if I come to God in the matter of preaching and bearing testimony, yet if I do it without faith, my work cannot be acceptable to God. I do not think that it would long be acceptable to you. To me, it would seem a slavery to have to preach what I did not believe. If I had a shadow of a doubt about it, I would hide myself until I had something to say about which I felt sure. How can we expect the blessing of God upon the testimony of his Son, even though it should be in the very words of Scripture, and be doctrinally correct to a hair’s breadth, unless faith be mixed with it by him who preaches it, and by him who hears it? “Without faith” in any act whatsoever, however religious, devout, and self-denying, “it is impossible to please God.”

Further, dear friends, notice that while the text is thus sweeping in its universality, it is also very positive in its assertion. It does not say, “Without faith it is difficult to please God;” or, “Without faith it must require great monastic self-denial, rigid discipline, austerity, and misery, in order to please God.” No, for those things do not please him at all; but it says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” It does not, as I have sometimes seen it done in the country, put a five-barred gate across the road, and paint on it the word, “Private.” No, but it bricks the road right up, or it digs a gulf across this wrong road, and says, “It is impossible.” “Without faith it is impossible.” Our Saviour speaks of what is nearly impossible,-the difficulty of a rich man entering the kingdom of heaven, and compares it to a camel going through the eye of a needle, and then he says, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” But our text deals with something which is an impossibility with God himself. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” It is a double impossibility,-for an unbelieving man to please God, and for God to be pleased with an unbelieving man. It is not possible that he should be pleased with works done in unbelief, or with men abiding in unbelief.

Notice, also, that there is another strong word in the text, an imperative word: “for he that cometh to God must-must believe.” It is not, “He that cometh to God should believe, and in proportion as he believes he will get a blessing, but if he is unbelieving he will only get a smaller blessing.” No; but it is, “He that cometh to God must.” “Must” is the word of a king, or an emperor; it is an imperial truth and an imperious truth that “he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” We are sometimes styled dogmatic; is there any dogmatism that can be more intense than we have it in our text? It says, “impossible.” It says, “must.” These are words that are not to be bent and twisted. Some men have a great gift in wresting words and twisting expressions; they seem to bend them across their knee, and snap their meaning in two; but this text does not go to be bent or snapped. “Without faith it is impossible to please God: for he that cometh to God must believe.”

Further, observe that the text not only makes this positive assertion, but it is intended to be a message perpetually in force. “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” evidently refers to the past. Read the previous verse, and you will see that it is so: “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him.” It was always so, under all that ancient dispensation; with those mighty patriarchs, and kings, and prophets, it was impossible to please God without faith; so is it now, and so it always will be till time shall be no more. Still stands the immutable decree, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned,”-that being the gospel equivalent of this apostolic declaration, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” It is always so, dear friends, and it always will be so; there is no hope of any other gate being ever opened for those who refuse to enter the door of faith.

Yet once more, the text speaks most instructively. It tells us that there are certain things that really are, and certain things which are imperative: “He that cometh to God must believe that he is.” If you would come to God, you must believe that there is a God, and you must believe that God is what he says he is. Otherwise, if you make God to be other than he says he is, you make God to be an idol, your god is an imaginary being. You must accept God as he is revealed in Scripture. What he says he is, that he is; and what he is, you must believe, believing that he is, and that he is God. Oh, but how easy it is for a man to get away from that elementary truth, and to say, “Oh, yes; I believe in God!” But do you believe in inflexible justice? Do you believe in infinite mercy? Do you believe in an omniscience that cannot fail to see? Do you believe in the omnipresence that can never fail to be where you are? Do you believe all this? Because, if not, you do not believe in God; you may believe in your own idea of God, but you do not really believe in God. If you would come to God, you must believe that he is what he says he is. In his Word, he reveals himself as one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; will you accept his statements about himself? Then, when you pray, will you cease delivering an oration to the air, and speak into God’s ear, believing that he hears every word you utter, and more, that he is reading the thoughts that lie at the back of your words? That is the way to seek him aright; to come to him, we must come to him as the living God, having a real existence, a true personality. Otherwise, we cannot come to him at all.

And, further, we must believe that “he is a rewarder of them that seek him out,”-for that is the meaning of the Greek word. We must believe that God will reward the man who seeks him; that therefore God is worth seeking; that, although it may be costly to follow after God, and do his bidding, yet it will pay you; that there is a great reward in keeping his commandments; that he does hear prayer; that he does grant great blessings to those who truly seek him. We must believe this, or else there is no real seeking of him; it is imperative, if we would come to God, that we must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek him out. But God cannot reward them that seek him, on the ground of their merit, for they have none; it must therefore be upon the ground of grace. This introduces into our faith, as a point of necessary belief, that we believe in Jesus Christ, by whose merit we are accepted;-that, diligently seeking God, we find him in Christ; and this brings to us the great gospel reward. God bestows upon us his favour, his grace, and the blessings of his covenant, as a gracious reward, not because of our merit, but because of the merit of his Son Jesus Christ. This we must believe, or we have not really come to God aright. That is the doctrine asserted in our text, “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Now I want to dwell for a few minutes upon the necessity of faith proven. What is the reason why there is such a necessity for faith in order to pleasing God?

Our answer is, first, God has said so. Let it be enough that these are the words of inspiration, supported by many other similar words throughout the sacred and infallible Book. Here it stands: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” God says so; he knows what is the truth, he can speak about what pleases himself, and we are therefore not to doubt what he declares.

Still, as a confirmation of our faith, be it observed that in the nature of things it must be so. No man can be pleased with another who does not believe in him; if a person does not give you credit for uprightness and honesty, he may profess to do your will, and wish to please you, but you feel at once that, whatever he does, he misses the cardinal necessity for really pleasing you. Let a person have the conviction upon him that you are unkind and unjust, let him feel that he could not trust you,-well, I do not see how he can be a pleasing person to you, or how you are likely to get on with him in your household, whatever he may do. Distrust has divided men and women whose hearts seemed one; where trust has died out, love has always died out, too; and a more intolerable misery than for a man and woman, who have no trust in one another, to be bound together, I can hardly conceive. In the very nature of things, if we are to be united with God by his grace, one of the essential terms of the union must be, on our part, the fullest belief in God. I do not see how we can ever hope to be on speaking terms with God, how we can run on the same lines with God, how we can at all be reconciled to God, unless as a very preliminary step we are resolved that we will believe God, and that we will trust him. “Without faith, it is,” in the nature of things, “impossible to please God.”

And, dear friends, the person who has no faith is unaccepted with God. All through Scripture, faith is spoken of as the great method of justification. We are justified by faith through Jesus Christ. If then I have no faith, I am not accounted just before God, and all the works of an unaccepted man must be unaccepted. If that man is an enemy to God, what matters it what he does, for how can he please God? You cannot expect that God should receive anything at your hands, when you begin by declaring that you will not trust him. It cannot be; however much you multiply your good works with a view of saving yourself, and pleasing God thereby, you are distinctly aiming at a purpose which God has declared is not according to his mind. “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.” If, then, you persist in working with a view to salvation, you are pursuing a plan which God has declared he never will accept. You must come to him as sinners to be justified by another righteousness better than your own, or else it will happen to you as happened unto ancient Israel. They had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge; and going about to establish themselves by their own righteousness, they did not submit themselves unto the righteousness of God; and hence they stumbled over that stone of stumbling and rock of offence, and were broken in pieces and perished. God save us from attempting to do what he says cannot be done! “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Observe, further, that the man who is without faith in God puts a gross slight upon God, and therefore cannot be pleasing to him. He does, in effect, deny God’s truth. “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar.” So says John, the softest-speaking and most tender-hearted of all the apostles. “He that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” Now, if a man begins by making God a liar, how can God be pleased with him?

Perhaps you say, “I do not doubt the truthfulness of God, but I question his power to fulfil his promise to such a sinner as I am.” But, my friend, do you not see that you have committed a gross insult against the Lord by such a statement? He claims to be omnipotent; he asks, “Is there any thing too hard for me?” He says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God and there is none else;” yet you dare to say that he cannot save you. You have insulted his power, how can you please him?

“Oh, but!” say you, “I-I have no doubt that God can keep his promise, and that God will; but still I cannot think that he could forgive such a sinner as I am.” Now you have insulted his goodness. He is so good that you cannot suppose him to be better, he is so ready to forgive that he swears with an oath that he has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but that he turn unto him and live. You must know that you dare not mistrust the truth, the power, or the goodness of God; or, if you will do so, then you cannot please him. What would you think of a child who was always doubting his father? saying, “Father said so-and-so, but I do not suppose it will come true. My father promised to give me so-and-so, but I do not expect that he will.” If a child stands up, and says, “I find it hard work to believe my father,”-oh, dear, dear, dear,-God save us from having such children as that! I do not see how they could possibly please us; they would be in a state of mind which would be radically displeasing because radically unjust and wrong. How dare you distrust your God? How dare you say that his testimony is not true? Let him say what he wills, here is one who is ready to believe him. God grant that I may never doubt him in the slightest degree! I do feel that, of all sins that I could ever commit against the majesty of heaven, one of the most heinous would be that of doubting one single syllable that comes from those divine lips. “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” He must keep his promise; there is no “if” or “but” about it; otherwise, he would cease to be God.

“As well might he his being quit

As break his promise, or forget.”

He must be true.

“His very word of grace is strong

As that which built the skies;

The voice that rolls the stars along

Speaks all the promises;”

and we must not dare to doubt anything that he says.

Brethren, in a word, faith is so much the root, the source, the mother of every good, that he who is without faith is without anything that can please God. How shall I love him in whom I do not believe? How can I be patient under the rod of him whom I do not trust? How can I have zeal for him whose veracity I doubt? How can I rejoice in him whose promise I mistrust? No; this would lay the axe at the root of the fruit-bearing tree, and destroy it utterly. “If ye will not believe, neither shall ye be established” There are no good works except those that spring from a living, loving, lasting faith in God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now, lastly, we are to consider the necessity of faith used for profit. What are the lessons this truth should teach us? When we have spoken of them, we have done; only may God bless our testimony to your hearts!

The first lesson is, I think, let us look carefully to our faith. Is it the faith of God’s elect? Is it childlike faith? Is it really faith in God, or is it faith in our own knowledge, or our own judgment? Is it confidence in God’s Word, or is it confidence in our own thinkings and inventions? I do not quarrel with modern theology merely because of what it teaches; I believe that it teaches a lie from top to bottom, but I have another quarrel with it, that it teaches a false principle. It takes man away from what is written to what is thought; it does not allow the sovereign authority of revelation; and in disallowing that, the very foundations are removed; and much of the abounding vice of this day is, I believe, the direct result of this abounding unbelief of God, this philosophical mistrust of infinite wisdom. Is it philosophy? It is philosophy falsely so-called, mere madness put into some sort of shape. As for us, let us come “to the law and to the testimony,” to God and to his Spirit, and test and try everything by what is here spoken, and by our personal proving of it before God in our own experience, making that to be true to ourselves which God says is true to his chosen.

The next lesson I would give you is, let us mix faith with all that we do. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” So, dear friend, you are going to teach in your Sunday-school class next Sabbath-day; well, then, teach with faith. Brother-minister, you are going to preach next Lord’s-day; then say to yourself, “By God’s grace, I will try to preach in faith,” because preaching in doubt does not come to much. You remember the story I have often told you, of my very first student going out to preach; and he came to me, and said that he had preached earnestly several times, and yet he had not seen any conversions. I said to him, “And do you suppose that God is going to bless the people every time you choose to open your mouth?” He answered, “Oh, no, sir! I don’t expect that.” “Ah, then!” I replied, “that is why God did not bless you, because you had not faith in him. You have confessed it.” I had caught him with guile. So, dear brother, you should believe that, if you preach the gospel, God must bless you; that it is not a may-be or a mere possibility that he will, but that, if you deliver his message in the full conviction that somebody or other is going to get a blessing, there will be a blessing for someone. Very often, just in proportion to our faith, is it done unto us. Oh, how many churches there are that I know of, where they hope that they may have some conversions; and, dear souls, if they do have two or three converts in a year, some of the old members are frightened at the quantity! They are afraid they cannot be all right, so many are coming in! If they ever were to hear a brother preach so that three thousand were converted at once, these dear old saints would rise up and say, “Now Peter, you are a regular revivalist sort of preacher; you are as bad as Moody and Sankey. Why, look at all these people brought in, we cannot possibly think of receiving so many into the church!” I am afraid that their god is a little god; but, oh, to believe in a great God, and to preach in faith! When everything is done in faith, it will be accepted.

A sister says, “Oh, that my dear children were converted!” She does not at all expect that they will be, she is sure they will all grow up bad, and she is teaching them with a view to their turning back when they get to be fifty years old. Ah, my dear friend, perhaps it will be so; but if you had faith, and would believe that those dear children of yours need never go out into the world of sin at all, but by God’s grace might be brought to him while they are yet at your knee, would not that be a great deal better? Without faith, you see, in bringing up your children, it will be impossible for you to please God by the way that you talk. Let us put plenty of faith into all we do. There is a good prescription in the Old Testament, you can find it out when you are at home: “Salt, without prescribing how much.” That is, you may put as much of the salt of faith as ever you like into all your work, and you will never overdo it; but it is leaving the salt out that prevents it from being pleasing to God. Oh, for more true confidence in God, who deserves to be confided in to the very uttermost!

And, lastly, let us take care to trust God most when the weather is worst. There is a brother here who is in a world of trouble; all his money is gradually melting away, he does not know how he is to make ends meet. Now, brother, whatever you lose, say, “If I do not please anybody else, or do not please myself, I will please my Master.” Walk with God, as Enoch did; how are you to do this? Listen: “without faith it is impossible to please God.” You had not any room for faith about temporals once, they came in so regularly; now there is an opportunity for you to exercise your faith, now you can trust in God, you have elbow-room now. Young fellows who enter the army or the navy rather like getting into a skirmish, or even a great battle; there is no chance of rising, they say, if there be no war. And you who enter Christ’s service may justifiably say the same. If I have no troubles, where is room for my faith? How can I trust if I have nothing to trust about? You cannot swim, you know, when the water is only up to your ankles; you may go paddling about, but there can be no swimming. But plunge into deep water, and then strike out like a man; now you will learn what faith is, when the last foot is off the ground, and you are just trusting in the eternal God. This will make a man of you, this will educate you for higher and grander doings in times to come, it will make you more fit to sing the song of angels before the eternal throne. I remember, before I came to London, a man praying a very extraordinary prayer for me. I did not understand it at the time, and I hardly think that he ought to have prayed it in public in that shape. He prayed that I might be able to swallow bush-faggots cross-ways. It was a very strange prayer; but I have many a time done just what he asked that I might, and it has cleared my throat wonderfully; and there is many a man who cannot now speak out for God, who will be obliged to have some of those bush-faggots thrust down his throat yet; and when those great troubles come, and he is obliged to swallow them, then he will grow to be a man in Christ Jesus.

Thus have I tried, as well as I can, to show you God’s remedy for sin’s malady; but I always feel as if this talking about faith in Christ was saying the same thing over and over again; yet we must keep to this one theme. You know that, when men tell us that they have fifty cures for a disease, we shake our heads, and say “Is there one specific? Because, if you will give me one thing that will cure me, you may keep the other forty-nine if you please.” So is it with the gospel of the grace of God. According to what some say, there are a great many ways of being saved; but is there one sure way? Because, if there is, you may, if you will, have the doubtful ones, but I will be content with the one that is not doubtful. I like that cry of the monk, who had, somehow or other, found out the gospel even in his cell; and when his mind could not get consolation from extreme unction, and from all the paraphernalia of the Romish church, he was heard to cry, “Tua vulnera, Jesu! Tua vulnera, Jesu!”-“Thy wounds, Jesus! Thy wounds, Jesus!” With that cry upon his lips, and that doctrine in his heart, he could die in peace; but he could find comfort nowhere else. Someone has contemptuously said that this is the gospel for old women and children; well, I am quite willing to be classed with them in this matter, for it exactly suits me. Somebody wrote to me, the other day, to say that he had met with some negroes who had read and enjoyed my sermons; and he evidently thought it was no compliment to me when he added, “I should think that uneducated black people are just the sort that you are fit to preach to.” I felt so glad to have such a compliment as that; I like to preach to uneducated black people, because, if the gospel can save them, it can also save the white-faced people who are so wonderfully well-instructed. Is it not still true, that, often, simple souls find their way to heaven while others are fumbling for the latch? But whatever men say or do not say, this is the truth of God, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Get away from all trust in yourself; you are full of sin, and you will never find any remedy in the disease. Go your way to Christ, and to none but Christ, for in him and in him alone, is salvation provided for you.

Human nature’s way of salvation is, “Do, do, do;” but God’s way of salvation is, “Done, done; it is all done.” Thou hast but to rely by faith upon the atonement which Christ accomplished on the cross; thou hast but to accept God’s way of salvation, and then Christ has saved thee, and thou mayest go in peace, and rejoice for evermore. The Lord will give grace to that man who looks to Christ upon the cross, and trusts alone in him. There are hundreds of us here who can at this moment say, “He is all my salvation, and all my desire.” The great Searcher of hearts knows that we have not a shadow of a shade of confidence anywhere but in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, and who rose again, and ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on high. I am sure it is so; and it may be so with you also, dear friends. A good man was once explaining to a poor humble Christian that, in that precious text, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” there are five negatives; he said, “The Lord seems to say, five times over, ‘I will not, not, not, leave you; I will never, never forsake you.’ There,” said the learned divine, “is not that delightful, to find God saying that five times over?” “Yes,” said the listener, “so it is; but I should have believed it if he had only said it once.” What a blessed thing it is to have a faith that takes God at his first word, and does not want him to say it over five times, but is perfectly satisfied that what he has promised he is able to perform, and what he is able to perform he will perform to the praise and glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved!

Is not this a sensible course which I am commending to you? Is not this a reasonable thing to say to a rational man? One might have supposed that, if men once believed the Bible to be God’s Word, and Jesus Christ to be God’s atoning sacrifice, they would be eager to have Christ as their Saviour; but it is not so. And often as I preach, I am driven back to this conclusion, at which I arrived long ago,-It is not your power, Sir Preacher, that can save men. You may preach, and argue, and reason as best you can; but until the arm of the Lord is revealed, and the power of the Holy Ghost sends home the argument, that which as a mere matter of argument would be irresistible to a rational man, yet as a spiritual force fails to have any influence over the carnal mind. It is not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord that the work of salvation is accomplished. O Spirit of the living God, send home the truth by thine own almighty power, for Jesus’ sake!

I have heard of a doctor who was somewhat severe in his method of treating his patients, but he healed a great many persons. A man who had a bad leg came to him. “Well,” said the doctor, “I will adopt such-and such a course with that leg, and I will restore the use of it to you, so that you shall go away from this place perfectly whole.” He told the patient what he was going to do, but the man said, “No; I could not bear to have that done, I shall have to go to someone else.” “Just so,” said the doctor, “you are not bad enough for me to cure you yet; when you get bad enough for me, you will come back, and say, ‘Do what you like with me, doctor, so long as you guarantee my restoration.’ ” There is many a soul that is not, in this sense, bad enough for Christ yet; that is to say, he thinks himself still too good to be saved in Christ’s way. I have heard of a swimmer who went to rescue a man who was drowning; the man was sinking, and the spectators wondered why he did not strike out at once, and lay hold of the man. He swam near him, but kept clear of him, and let him go down a second time; and after that he swam to him, and brought him out. Someone asked him, “Why did you let the man sink?” He answered, “He was too strong for me to rescue him at the first; while he was strong, he would have pulled me down with himself, so I let him begin to sink, and lose all strength, and then I knew that I could get him ashore.” In like manner, some of you will have to go down again a second time before you get weak enough to be saved. It is not your strength, it is your weakness; it is not your righteousness, it is your sin, that qualifies you for Christ. I mean this,-that just as poverty is the best qualification for alms, as misery is the best qualification for mercy, so, the lower you are lying before Christ’s cross, the more sure may you be that the grace of God will come to you so soon as you trust in Christ’s atoning work.

May God bless you all with this faith which pleases him, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-734, 623, 624.

SERVUS SERVORUM

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, April 25th, 1897,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, September 6th, 1885.

“I am among you as he that serveth.”-Luke 22:27.

Observe, dear friends, that our Lord, in order to impress a great practical truth upon his twelve apostles, refers them to himself. He very often does so, quoting his own doings as an example to his servants. Does not this fact give us a hint that there is someone greater than a man here; for no mere man, modest and true and right-minded, would continually make himself the object of imitation. We should not consider it right if we found Abraham, or Moses, or David constantly pointing to himself as an example. Such a course is very proper for certain persons in certain special cases; as, for instance, Paul might occasionally allude to himself when he was addressing his own converts, even then rarely doing it, and doing it with extreme diffidence. But our Lord acts thus very often, and with the utmost possible naturalness; neither did it ever suggest itself to any one of his people that there was anything immodest in his so doing. Such an idea never occurred to us, because we have ever recognized in him something which entitled him to speak thus, something which rendered it quite right that he should so speak. He is Master and Lord, he is very God of very God, he is perfect, he is out of the lists of ordinary men, he rises like a lone Alp above us all; and when he speaks as he does in the words before us, the very fact that he does so speak without our feeling any objection thereto proves that there is a something altogether unique about his character, and that something, I believe, is the existence of perfection, and the evidence of Deity combined with his humanity.

At any rate, dear brethren, this is a matter of fact in our holy faith, that the best lesson for a Christian to learn is to be learned from Christ himself. I am afraid that, in these days, some are preaching in a lop-sided way. Years ago, Christ was set forth almost exclusively as an example. “Concerning the Imitation of Christ” was the great matter of public discourse, and many books were written upon that important theme; but, inasmuch as in those days they forgot and undervalued the sacrifice of Christ, and did not preach justification by faith in his precious blood, their preaching was but dim and inefficient, and Christ was not largely imitated after all, although men were bidden to imitate him. Now, we preach his sacrifice; in many of our places of worship the atonement of Christ is very clearly proclaimed, and the plan of salvation by virtue of his precious blood is very widely declared with more or less of clearness, for which I thank God. But we must take care that we do not forget that Christ is our example as well as our atonement,-and that, while by his death we live, the life which we live is to be conformed to the life of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us. He did not merely come to save us from the guilt of sin, but he came to save us from the power of sin. He does not merely bring us pardon, but he brings us holiness, and he comes to make us like himself. This, indeed, is the end of his life and of his death, that we might grow into his image, and become truly replicas, repetitions of Christ, according to our degree, among the sons of men.

I want, therefore, to say to you who are Christ’s people,-As he has saved you, follow him. If you are washed in his blood, be like him. If, indeed, he is your Master and Lord, obey him. In all that you do, ask yourselves this question, “What would Christ have done under these circumstances?” And then act according to the answer which God’s Word and your own conscience give you. “As he is, so are we also in this world;” and if we fulfil our destiny to the glory of God and the honour of our Redeemer, we shall make men see in our own proper persons what Christ was when he was here,-“holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” Christ always does point us to himself. If he bids us trust him, he also bids us follow him. If he bids us hope in him, he bids us also obey him, and be like him; and they who will not have his holiness shall not have his atonement. If we do not care to be like him, we cannot be saved by him.

The particular evil at which our Lord aimed when he uttered the words of our text was the evil which is so common in the church, even down to the present day, that is, each man seeking to be somebody. We are all born great the first time, it is only when we are born the second time, born from above, that we come to be little. When we were born the first time, we were so great that we were really nothing; but when we are born a second time, we are so little that we are everything in Christ. At first, self seeks to gain the mastery; it has a head that must wear the crown, and feet that must be shod with silver slippers. Self will wear no sackcloth, it must be clad in silk at the very least. Self ever exalts itself above all its fellows; it even pines after the throne of God, for self has the ambition of Lucifer, and will never be satisfied, however high it mounts. Now, our Saviour wants, in his disciples, that selfhood should be crushed, that all desire to be great should be quenched, and that, instead of all of us wanting to be masters, we should see which of us can be servants. If we are as Christ was, we shall catch the spirit which made him say, “I am among you as he that serveth.”

To that point I bend all my strength just now; and, first, I want to speak a little upon our Lord’s position amongst his own followers: “I am among you as he that serveth.”

The twelve apostles came together to the last supper. There was usually a servant or slave in the room to wash the feet of the guests, but there does not appear to have been such a person on that occasion. Peter did not offer, even John did not think of it, Thomas was probably considering who ought to do it, and Philip, the arithmetician of the apostles, was calculating how much water it might take; but nobody offered to do it. Everybody’s business, you know, is nobody’s business; so nobody offered to wash anybody’s feet. They had already taken their positions, reclining about the table; then, without any suggestion from anybody else, the Master himself rose from their midst, laid aside his garments, took a towel and girded himself with it, and then poured water into a basin, and went from one to another, and washed their feet. After he had done that, and was again reclining with them, he said to them in effect, “I am among you as the slave, the domestic who does the most menial work; you see that I am.” They could not contradict it, for he had actually and literally taken that position among them.

But, dear friends, this act of our Lord’s was no novelty; what he did literally that evening, he had been doing ever since they had formed a community. He was always the servant of them all. He was constantly looking out for their interests, and laying himself out to do them good. They did not come to him to bring him anything, they came to receive from him. They did not come to teach him, or even to comfort him with their company. They all came for what they could get from him,-to learn the truth from his lips, some of them hoping to be led by him to a kingdom which they did but dimly understand; but they were all, as it were, sitting at a table all the time they were with him, being fed with heavenly and spiritual food; and he was all the while their servant, washing their feet, bearing with their ill manners, sweetly correcting their mistakes, and ever patient notwithstanding their slowness of learning. He could truly say, not only of that supper night, but of his whole life, “I am among you as he that serveth.”

When Christ thus spoke, he called himself not merely a servant, one that serveth, but specially the servant; the deacon, the attendant, is really the word: “I am among you as the waiter; you are the gentlemen who sit at the table, and I am the servant who waits upon you.” Our Lord meant to remind the apostles by this act that he had always taken among them the very lowest place. He had never exercised any sort of domineering authority over them, he had never been exacting in his demands upon them, he had never sought his own comfort at their expense; but he was ever meek and lowly in heart, and seeking their welfare rather than his own. There was not one of them but knew that this was true. He was less than the least among them, although he was greatest of them all; as the old writers used to say, he was servus servorum, the servant of servants.

A servant, you know, is one who has to care for other people. When she gets up in the morning, it is not her work to look to her own comfort; the true servant in the house glides along quietly, watching to see what can be done for the comfort of all the inmates. Such a person forgets herself, or himself, in thinking of others. This is just what our Lord Jesus did; he never seems to have given himself a thought, he was only thinking of the poor multitudes that gathered about him, and of the sick folk that he could heal, and of the humble few that came into his more intimate acquaintance, and called him Lord and Master. Wonderfully unselfish was he whose whole care was for others, and who could truly say to his disciples, “I am among you as he that serveth.”

A true servant ignores his own will. He does not do what he would like to do, he does what his master tells him to do. He is engaged as a servant, and he lives as a servant, and obeys the will of him who has employed him. Was it not just so with our Lord in the whole course of his life? “I came not,” he said, “to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” From his childhood, he must be about his Father’s business; and until his last hour, when he could say to his Father, “It is finished,” he never had two businesses in hand. His one sole concern was to take upon himself the form of a servant, to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Beloved, I cannot imagine a better picture of a servant than the full-length portrait of him who is truly Lord of all. “King of kings” is a title full of majesty, but “servant of servants” is the name which our Lord preferred when he was here below.

A servant is one who bears patiently all manner of hardness. Many servants have had to endure a great deal of hardship, sometimes also much misjudgment and harshness; but this blessed Servant of the Father bore cold, and nakedness, and hunger, and even death in his servitude. And though he was despised and rejected by the very men whose good he sought, though he was maltreated, maligned, and slandered, yet still he never turned aside even for self-defence. He held on in his holy and sacred course as servant of all. I do not know how to put this truth as I should like to do, but I want you to recognize that he who this day sitteth on the highest throne in glory amid a hierarchy of angels, adored of blood-redeemed spirits, was among us here below as the servant of his own servants. Your blessed Lord, whose face outshines the sun at noon-day, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, who is this day Head over all things to his Church,-your Lord, who shall shortly come with myriads of saints and angels to judge the world in righteousness, was when he was here nothing more than this,-“he that serveth.” That was his position.

I have entrenched upon what I meant to make the second subject of discourse, namely, the wonder of this position, for it is among the greatest of all wonders that Jesus, the Lord of all, should have become the servant of all.

Very briefly let me suggest to your minds that the marvel was all the greater as He was Lord of all by nature and essence. Our Lord Jesus was Divine, he was “God over all, blessed for ever,” “Son of the Highest,” that eternal Word, without whom was not anything made that was made; yet to his disciples he says, “I am among you as he that serveth.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” Verily, it was a marvellous condescension on our Lord’s part.

Remember, too, that He was infinitely wise. There was never another teacher like to Christ, for he could answer every question, and solve every difficulty. Those piercing eyes of his looked through every secret place, and revealed the darkest mysteries of human life. Then, surely, they set him on high in the church of his day, they made him professor, they paid him every homage; but, did they? No; he said, “Though I be Rabboni, the Great Master, yet I am among you as he that serveth.” Is this how ye treat your wise men, O ye gracious ones? Do ye set them to wash the disciples’ feet?

Recollect, also, that He was immaculately pure and incomparably good. There was never such another man among all the sons of men; there can never be another character so charming as his. All perfections meet in him to make up one perfection; all the sweets of the highest morality and spirituality are blended in him to make one perfect and essential sweet. Yet he is among us as the one that serveth. There was a certain preacher, who cried out in his sermon, “O virtue, if thou wert once embodied, and shouldst come down among mankind, all men would worship thee!” But see, here is virtue perfected, and incarnate, and down among us serving as a servant. This is how man treats the perfect One; and it is a great wonder.

Besides that, the Lord was our superlative Benefactor. He was here simply to bless us. Eyes, lips, hands, feet, all scattered benedictions. He was a sun in the midst of human darkness, his every thought was a beam of light and comfort for mankind. Yet he could say, “I am among you as he that serveth.” In order to be our Benefactor, he takes the very lowest place; and men were content to keep him there, and let him wash their feet. Oh, ’tis strange, ’tis passing strange, ’tis wonderful, yet true!

It is wonderful, too, that he should be a servant among such poor creatures as they were. I have heard of some who have been willing to wash the feet of saintly men; but these disciples were a band of poor sinners. I have heard of some who would have been willing to perform menial offices for great philosophers, or men of high dignity; but these disciples were mainly a company of Galilean fishermen who had lately left their boats and nets, or peasants fresh from the soil of their fields, full of all the faults and infirmities natural to men of their class. Yet our blessed Lord said to them, “I am among you-you fishermen, you countrymen, you poverty-stricken men,-I am among you as he that serveth.” O gracious Master, thou wast humble indeed, and it did well become thee! Thou seemest, despite thine ineffable glory, to be quite at home when thou art acting as slave to Peter and James and John, taking their soiled feet into thy pure hands, and washing them clean.

Now, in the third place, let us enquire, what is the explanation of this wonder? Why did our Lord Jesus Christ, when he was amongst the twelve, take the place of him that serveth? Why did he, who was Lord of all, become servant of all?

First, because he was so truly great. The little man is always jealous lest he should be treated as little; the little selfish being tries to wriggle himself into notice somehow. He wants to be observed; and then he wants to do something for which he may have a vote of thanks, and he would like it to be proposed in very special terms. Do you expect him to wash any men’s feet? Well, he might wash the feet of gentlemen, in a golden basin, with a crystal ewer, and rose-water, and a damask napkin; oh, yes; my lord would do it that way very prettily, and think a great deal of his condescension! But actually to take the feet of poor men into his hand, and to wash them, really to do some such service to those who need it, he could not manage that, he is so little that he could not rise to such a dignified position. Brethren, it was because our Lord was so superlatively great that he could do little things, that he could stoop, and be lowly. It is in the nature of such a great heart as his to be willing to do any necessary thing for those whom it loves.

But the second answer to the question is this. Our Lord was among men as one that serveth because he had such immeasurable love. Love is always happiest when it can do something for its object; it is no toil for love to labour for that which it loves, it would be slavery to it to be withheld from so delicious an exercise. Look at the mother with her child; with all the many trials she has with it, it is so dear that she counts it a relaxation rather than a bondage to take care of her own beloved offspring. And have you never known a loving woman sit by the bedside of her sick husband? The nights have been long and dreary, but she has not left him whose life was ebbing away. The candle has burnt low, and the daylight has peeped in through the blinds; but there she is sitting still, and unless she verily faints away through sheer exhaustion, you cannot get her from that sick room, for love holds her there, and keeps those weary eyelids from dropping down, and makes her to feel it to be a sad joy, a grief but a pleasure, to be near him whom she loves. And our blessed Lord was so full of love to us that nothing seemed a stoop to him. “For the joy that was set before him,” the joy of blessing his people, “he endured the cross, despising the shame.” “Will I wash their feet?” he seemed to say; “that is very little; I will wash them altogether in my heart’s blood. I will bear their sins in my own body on the tree, and will be indeed among them as he that serveth to the fulness of a sacred service such as never was exhibited before or since.” It was love, it was wondrous love, excessive love, that would not let him stay in heaven, amid the splendours of his royalty, but made him come to earth, amid the sorry surroundings of penury and grief, that he might save us.

Now, lastly, I am coming to what I have been driving at all the while, and that is, the imitation of our Lord’s humility. I suggest to you at once the power by which you shall learn to imitate your Lord. If you get his love in your hearts, you will ever long and wish to take up a position like his, and be among your fellow-Christians as one that serveth.

If we are to imitate Christ, it will involve, dear friends, that we who are saved by him should joyfully undertake the very lowest service. If there is a door to be kept, if there is a path to be swept, let us aspire to that dignity. If there is a class of men more degraded than another, let us wish to go to them. If there is a rank of women more fallen than another, let us pray and labour specially for them. If there are any members of the church that are more neglected and despised than others, let us be most attentive to them. If there is somebody who really is quite a worry when we visit her, let us visit her. If there is a person who really is so exceedingly poor, and, perhaps, so very dirty that it takes a good deal of self-denial to go and sit by her bedside when she is sick, let us go. If we are to be like Christ, we shall all be eager for the lowest work, we shall all be seeking which can take the lowest room. If you want this pulpit, dear friends, you can have it if you can fill the position better than I do; but then, perhaps, you might not; but there will not be much competition for the lowest place. If you become a candidate for that position, you will get it. There are not likely to be too many applicants for the post, and by degrees one and another will edge out; so I recommend you, if you really want the place that Christ would have you take, that is, the very lowest position in the Church of God, to go in for it, for you will get it. You have all heard of David Brainerd, the great missionary to the Red Indians. He was seen, one day, lying in his hut, teaching a little Red Indian child to say, “a, b, c.” Somebody said, “What, is this David Brainerd teaching that little dunce his letters?” “Yes,” he said, “I have prayed God that, as long as I live, I might be useful; and now I am too weak to preach, I am too feeble to do anything else but just teach this little child the alphabet; and I shall keep on doing something for my Master till I die.” So, dear friend, if you cannot teach the thousands, teach two or three. If you could not even venture on two or three, yet teach your own child, or look after somebody else’s child, some gutter child, some Arab of the street. Be as your Master would have you be, “as he that serveth,” by seeking to fill the very lowest office in his Church.

Show the same spirit, also, in being at all times lowly in your esteem of yourself. You know the gentleman who is always being insulted, I know him very well indeed; you could not wink an eye at him but you would insult him. He has a very thin skin, you must mind how you think when you are near him; he is always being treated in a disrespectful manner. Nobody ever seems to treat him as he ought to be treated, in the place where he now is; if he were to get among people of greater sense, and better education, he says that there he should be respected I almost wish he would go; still, I must not say so, because, perhaps we can mend him if we let him stop, and all of us seek to do him good. But, brethren, do not any of you be of that character, but be among those sensible persons of whom a disrespectful thing could not be said because they would not treat it as disrespectful. Some time ago, a man said a very unkind and untrue thing of me, and I felt quite pleased, because I thought that, if he had known me better, he might have said something worse; but I was quite satisfied to take the bad thing as it was. I never told anybody about it, and I do not intend to, for it really did not trouble me at all. As far as I remember, I slept as long that night as I had done before. There is no use in believing that you are such an important personage that the wind must not blow on you, because the wind will blow on you, and the world is, as a rule, regardless of assumed dignity. Do you not find it so? Well, suppose that we do not have any dignity, suppose that we each one say, “I am among you as he that serveth. Now, then, find as much fault as ever you please.” In wet weather, one of the most useful things in a house is the doormat; and a door-mat never complains of persons wiping their boots on it, because it was put there for that very purpose; and if you are quite willing to let people wipe their dirty boots on you, you will come to feel, “What a capital mat I am! How beautifully that man cleaned his boots on me just now! He found great fault with me; but he was not finding fault with somebody else just then. It did not hurt me, and it might have hurt somebody else; so I am doing good service in bearing what, after all, does not so much offend me now I have brought my mind to it.” So, have a lowly estimate of yourself, for then you will be like Christ, who said, “I am among you as he that serveth.”

Furthermore, brethren, may I earnestly inculcate upon Christians that we should always be seeking to do good, to others, for that is what Christ meant. He made his disciples recline at the table, but he waited on them; it was his high office to be the lowest among them. Now, Christian people, look out for opportunities of doing good to others. “I do not know,” says one, “that I get much good out of the church.” But that is not the point; the question for you to ask is, “How much good have I done to the church?” for, after all, our being here is not with a view of getting so much out of it, but putting so much into it. The Christian man’s way of living is by giving out, for he realizes that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

If you really want to serve somebody, there is a wide field open to you. You need not go to Africa to do it; you can stop in your own house, and serve somebody there. It seems to me that a Christian should be trying from morning to night what he can do to bless other people for their good. It should be the mother’s ambition to make the children happy, and to train them for Christ. It should be the father’s wish that all under his care in the house should enjoy being at home, and should think that there never was such a home as he makes. It should be the girl’s wish that brothers and sisters at home should be glad to think that Mary is there, for she is quite a light in the house; and the brother should make it his joy to do everything that can minister to the comfort of his mother and sisters. In fact, this is the point wherein Christians would carry Christianity on to a greater triumph, if they each one sought the good of others; but some are so snarly, so snappy, that they cannot do even a good thing without doing it badly. If they do you a favour, you feel that it is just the same as if they had offended you. Let it not be so with us, dear friends; let us seek to exhibit an amiable, gracious, loving spirit, not by pretending to have it, but by really loving others, and desiring their present, their future, and their eternal welfare. This is what Jesus did when he said, “I am among you as he that serveth.” Let us do the same as far as in us lies. In a word, dear brethren, let us imitate our Lord Jesus Christ in being willing to bear and forbear even to the end. The true Christian is the man who, when he is reviled, reviles not again,-when he is falsely accused, scarcely thinks it worth his while to answer,-who often foregoes his rights, and is willing so to do,-who is not for self, not even for justice to himself, but is willing to bear and suffer wrong rather than inflict wrong.

Someone perhaps says that I am teaching you hard lessons. Yes; but if you are the children of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is the kind of lesson that you will love and try to practise; and as you become proficient in it, there will be a peculiar sweetness stealing into your spirit. I pray God that we may have the mind of Christ, that we “may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation.” if any treat you ill, love them all the more. If they make you angry, try to get over it as quickly as possible. “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Pay them off the next day by doing them some kindness which you would not have done if they had not treated you badly. Always try to speak as well of everybody as you can. When you hear anything against them, cut it in halves; cut each half into two more halves; and then throw all away as if you had never heard it. Go through the world with the full conviction that there are some good people in it; and that, if there are not, it is time that you should be one, and should help to increase the number by yourself exhibiting a holy, humble, gentle, gracious spirit. If you have this mind in you, your Lord will be glorified, and men will say, “Is this a Christian? Then let me be a Christian, too.” God help you so to do, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

LUKE 22:1-39

Verses 1, 2. Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and scribe sought how they might kill him; for they feared the people.

Dastardly fear often drives men to the greatest crimes. He who is not brave enough to be master of his own spirit, and to follow the dictates of his own conscience, may do, before long, he little knows what. Because of the fear of the people, the chief priests and scribes were driven to compass the death of Christ by craft, and to bring him to his death by the cruel betrayal of Judas, one of his own apostles.

3-6. Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them. And they were glad, and covenanted to give him money. And he promised, and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude.

Was it not a sad thing that the betrayer of Christ should be one of the twelve? Yet deeply trying as it must have been to the heart of Christ, there is something useful about even that horrible transaction. It says to all the professing Church of Christ, and it says to us who claim to be Christ’s followers, “Do not think yourselves safe because you are in the visible church; do not imagine that even holding the highest office in the church can prevent you from committing the basest crime. Nay, for here is one of the twelve apostles, yet he betrays his Master. Sometimes, we have found this betrayal to be a source of comfort. I have myself desired, in receiving members into the church, to be very careful if possible only to receive good men and true; yet, though pastors and elders of the church may exercise the strictest watch, some of the worst of men will manage to get in. When that is the case, we say to ourselves, “No new thing has happened to us, for such a sinner as this marred the Church from the very beginning.” Here is Judas, when Christ himself is the Pastor, when the twelve apostles make up the main body of the Church, here is Judas, one of the twelve, ready to betray his Master for the paltry bribe of thirty pieces of silver, just the price of a slave. Yes, we might have been put out of heart in building up the Church of God if it had not been for this sad but truthful narrative concerning Judas and his betrayal of our Lord.

7, 8. Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat.

Notice how carefully our Lord respected the ordinances of that dispensation so long as it lasted. The passover was an essential rite of the Jewish faith, and our Lord therefore duly observed it. Learn hence, dear brethren, to esteem very highly the ordinances of God’s house; let baptism and the Lord’s supper keep their proper places. You do them serious injury if you lift them out of their right places, and try to make saving ordinances of them; but, in avoiding that evil, do not fall into the opposite error of neglecting them. What Christ has ordained, it is for his people to maintain with care until he comes again; and if he kept up the passover even when, in himself, it was already on the point of being fulfilled, let us keep up the ordinances which he has enjoined upon us. If any of you have neglected either of them, let me remind you of his gracious words, “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness,” and “This do ye,.… in remembrance of me.”

9-13. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in. And ye shall say unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready. And they went, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.

Observe in this passage a singular blending of the human and the Divine; no mention is made of either as a matter of doctrine, but incidentally our Lord’s Divinity and humanity are most fully taught. Here is Christ so poor that he has not a room in which to celebrate the most necessary feast of his religion; he has made himself of no reputation, and he has no chamber which he can call his own; yet see the Godhead in him. He sends his messengers to a certain house, and tells them to say to the goodman of the house, “Where is the guestchamber?” It all turns out just as he said it would be, and he is welcomed to this man’s best room, and to the furniture thereof. Jesus speaks here as did his Father when he said to Israel in the olden time, “Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” All the guestchambers in Jerusalem were really at Christ’s disposal; he had but to ask for them, and there they were all ready for him. Here we see the majesty of his Deity; but, inasmuch as he had no room that he could call his own, we see also the humility of his manhood.

14-16. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: for I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

This was to be his last meal with his disciples before he died, and he had looked forward to it with great desire. It was a most solemn occasion, and yet to him a most desirable one. May something of the Master’s desire overflow into your hearts, beloved, whenever you are about to partake of the sacred feast which he instituted that night!

17-20. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves: for I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying. This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

Do you see how this new memorial was blended with the passover, how it melted into that social meal which formed part of the paschal celebration? There was a cup, then bread, and then the cup after supper; so there was a gracious melting of the one dispensation into the other. We see our Lord’s wisdom in thus leading his children on from step to step, without a break, conducting them from one line of service to another and a still higher one.

21. But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.

This was a sad and solemn fact; yet it has often been so since that night. The nearer to Christ, the farther from him,-so has it sometimes happened since. He who was in some respects the highest in the College of the Apostles became the lowest in the ranks of the children of perdition.

22, 23. And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed! And they began to enquire among themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing.

Let us also pass that question round among ourselves.

“When any turn from Zion’s way,

(Alas, what numbers do!)

Methinks I hear my Saviour say,

‘Wilt thou forsake me, too?’

“Ah, Lord, with such a heart as mine,

Unless thou hold me fast,

I feel I must, I shall decline,

And prove like them at last.

“The help of men and angels join’d

Could never reach my case;

Nor can I hope relief to find

But in thy boundless grace.

“What anguish has that question stirr’d,

If I will also go;

Yet, Lord, relying on thy Word,

I humbly answer, No.”

God grant us more grace, that we may be held fast by the cords of love!

24. And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest.

Let me read you these two verses together; they strike me as being very remarkable. Here are two questions: “They began to enquire among themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing,” that is, betray their Lord. “And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest.” What poor creatures we are! How we are tossed with contrary winds! The new question comes up; and yet the old question, which ought to have been smothered by it, still remains there. It is possible that Luke is here alluding to some dispute which the apostles had previously had; and now the Lord, remembering that even in the ashes of contention lived the wonted fires of ambition, would quench the last sparks of the evil fire.

25. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.

The people are compelled to use sweet terms to express a very bitter bondage; so they call their tyrants “benefactors.”

26, 27. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth?

The guest, or the waiter at the table?

27-31. Is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth. Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on-thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:

As our Lord Jesus looked upon his eleven apostles, he felt that their time of greatest trial was fast approaching. Beyond anything they had ever endured before, they were now to be put into the devil’s sieve, and Satan would toss them to and fro, and seek, if possible, to destroy them.

32. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not:-

“I have made thee, Simon, a special object of my prayer. All the brotherhood will be tried, but for thee I have especially prayed, for thou, who seemest to be the strongest, art the weakest of them all, so I have prayed specially for thee, that thy faith fail not.”

32. And when thou art converted,-

“When thou art restored,”-

32-39. Strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. And he said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing. Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. For I say unto you, that this that is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among the transgressors: for the things concerning me have an end. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough. And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-262, 666, 259.