Joy is the normal condition of a believer. His proper state, his healthy state, is that of happiness and gladness. As I have often reminded you, it has become a Christian duty for believers to be glad. “Rejoice in the Lord,” is a precept given to us over and over again, and I believe that, broadly speaking, the general condition of God’s people is one of joy. It is not a falsehood if we say, “Happy art thou, O Israel!” True Christians are the happiest people under heaven. They have many sorrows, but there is a text which says, “As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing;” and old Master Brooks has a good note upon the passage. He says that, it does not say, “As sorrowful, yet as alway rejoicing.” The “quasi”-the “as”-relates only to the sorrow, but the joy is real, without any “quasi.” Christians have quasi sorrow, but they have real rejoicing. They are oftentimes as if they were sad,-yea, as If they were of all men most miserable; but in the very depths of their soul they have “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,” to keep their heart and mind through Christ Jesus.

I will venture to assert that Christians, at least, always have matter for joy. They are never short of material out of which they may make melody unto the Lord. If they will, they may rejoice, for they have plenty of causes for joy. The Lord hath done great things for them, and they ought to add, “whereof we are glad.” And, as they have plenty of matter for joy, so they have ample motive for joy; for when they joy and rejoice, they glorify God, they prove the reality of their faith, and they make their religion attractive to others.

The joy of the Lord is their strength, their beauty, their charm. There are always reasons why a Christian should be happy, and as he has matter for joy, and motive for joy, so he always has a measure of joy. He may seem to be overwhelmed with trouble, but his barque still floats. He may seem to run short of joy, as the widow in Elijah’s day ran short of meal and oil; but there shall always be a cake for him to eat, and a little oil shall still remain in the cruse. His joy shall never utterly fail him; he shall always have a sufficient measure of hope to enable him to keep his lamp alight in the darkest night.

Above and beyond all this, the Christian always has a remainder of joy which shall be his in due time. What he has not yet in his own hand, is in the pierced hand of Jesus, held there fast and safe against all comers; and he may and he should always sing,-

“Glory to thee for all the grace

I have not tasted yet.”

Some people have but little in possession at present, but they have a reversionary interest in a large estate; and it is so with us. We have a heritage of joy that as yet we have not entered upon; but it is ours by a covenant of salt, and none can break the sacred entail. So let us again take up the language of the hymn we sang at the beginning of the service,-

“The hill of Zion yields

A thousand sacred sweets,

Before we reach the heavenly fields,

Or walk the golden streets.”

Thus you see, dear friends, that believers have matter for joy, and motive for joy, a measure of joy already possessed, and a greater remainder of joy yet to be realized. God’s people are a happy people, a blessed people. May my soul always be numbered among them!

Now coming to the text, which is intended to promote our joy, I gather two observations,-first, that the Lord Jesus enters into our sorrows. He does not overlook them, but he says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.” Secondly, the Lord Jesus creates our joy: “but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

First, then, dear friends, you who are sorrowful, listen to this former part of the discourse. The Lord Jesus Christ enters into our sorrows.

One point in which he enters into them is this,-He sees our quickness in sorrowing. Perhaps you did not notice that in the text, but it is there. You observe, in the 20th verse, that Jesus said to his disciples, “Ye shall be sorrowful,” and he compared them to a woman in travail; but then he did not say what we might have thought he would have said, “Ye will therefore have sorrow,” but he said, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.” He saw their faces begin to pale before the sorrow had really come. He had not gone away from them, for there he stood in their midst; but in the expectation that he would go, their eyes began to grow dim, and the tears commenced to roll down their cheeks, so he said as he looked at them, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.” And, beloved, you and I also are very quick at this work of sorrowing. I wish that we anticipated our joys with half the readiness that we anticipate our sorrows. We should be much happier if we did so; but there is many a child of God who cries long before he is hurt, and sorrows long before his troubles actually come to him. We often run to meet our troubles; we seem as if we were hungry to have our mouth full of bitterness, and eager to drink the waters of Marah. It is a pity that it should be so with us. These disciples had not yet lost their Master, he was still with them; and a childlike spirit might have said, “Ah, well, blessed Master, if you are only going to be with us five minutes, we may as well be happy for that five minutes! If you are going away in half-an-hour, at any rate you are here as yet. Let us not begin to be cast down until the parting moment really comes.” “Ah!” say you, “but it was very natural that they should begin to sorrow.” Yes, and that is exactly what I say. It is very natural, it is so wonderfully natural that it is pretty nearly universal with us; but it is not any the better for being natural, is it? You take your physic when the proper time comes for taking it; but do not be taking it all day long. There are many Christian people who chew their pills instead of swallowing them. If they took their sorrows, when they came, and accepted them as having been sent straight from God, there would not be half the bitterness in their mouths that there now is when they begin to think concerning some future trial, “Oh, it is coming! I know it is coming; I can see that it is coming.” The shadow of the sorrow is often worse than the sorrow itself; and as Young speaks of him who “feels a thousands deaths in fearing one,” so I doubt not that we often feel a thousand sorrows in anticipating one. They will come soon enough, brother; do not go to meet them. Go forth to meet the Bridegroom; but there cannot be any particular need to meet your troubles. Let them come when they must come, and welcome them then; but wherefore should you conjure up those which, perhaps, have no existence at all?

Notice, next, that our Lord has a very quick eye to observe our sorrows which relate to himself. He says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow;” that is, “sorrow because I am going away from you; sorrow because I am about to die.” I think that the Lord loves his people to have that kind of sorrow. While the Bridegroom is with the children of the bridechamber, it is fit and comely that they should rejoice; but when the Bridegroom is gone, it is loyalty to him, and it is a fit and comely thing that they should sorrow. Now, brothers and sisters, whenever your heart gets heavy because you have lost your Lord’s company, it is a proper sorrow. Whenever you hear His name blasphemed, whenever you find false doctrine preached instead of the truth, whenever you see men undermining the blessed gospel, when you notice apostates turning this way and that, and forsaking the paths of Christ, you should sorrow; and, if you do, I believe that your Lord looks upon such sorrow as a token of your loyal affection to him; and, so far from condemning it, he justifies it, and he says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.” He looks at the reason of it, and he says, “This is not a causeless grief.” He did not blame the disciples for sorrowing when he was gone; nay, he expected that they would do so; and he saw the reason for their grief, and spoke tenderly of it. If there can be found a reason for the sorrow of a child of God, Christ will find it. I know that, often, worldlings are unable to understand our sorrow; they say, “Why does this man fret and worry? He has everything that heart can wish.” But the Saviour knows the secrets of the soul, and he puts his finger on the source of our grief, and says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow;” and if that “therefore” is because of something touching himself, and his kingdom, and his work in the world, he justifies the sorrow, and he will help us to bear it, and in due time he will remove it. Let us, then, bless our Lord Jesus Christ that, while he knows how quick we are to sorrow before we need, yet he does approve of our sorrowing when there is a need for it, and specially when it concerns his own dear self.

Observe, further, that our blessed Master is quick to notice the limit of our sorrow. Take your pencil, if you will, and put a black mark under that third word in our text, “And ye now therefore have sorrow.” I feel as if I could almost kiss that word, “Ye now therefore have sorrow.” What does that word “now” mean? Well, sometimes, it only means just the next few minutes: “Ye now therefore have sorrow.” But “now” cannot mean long; if “ye now therefore have sorrow,” it does not mean that you will have sorrow for ever. Listen: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” Did you ever read that in the Psalm? Sing it in deep bass tones; growl it out if you will: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” Up rises another singer, and sends up the soprano note higher than my voice can go,-“But the Lord delivereth him out of them all;” and that glorious note seems to kill the other. “Ye now therefore have sorrow.” Ah, but what is that little “now”? It is a mere drop that trembles on my finger’s tip. It is “an inch of time, a moment’s space.” “Ye now therefore have sorrow.” Perhaps, to-morrow morning, all that sorrow will be over; and if not, that “now” is driving away on red-hot axles, and will soon be gone; and there shall come the hereafter of endless joy and boundless bliss. Our Lord Jesus Christ recollects this fact when you do not. You say, “I am so sorrowful, so broken down;” and the Saviour puts his dear pierced hand on you, and he says, “Yes, you are so now, that is all. It is only now, and it will all soon be ended; and then you will take your harp down from the willows, and sing and rejoice with the happiest and the merriest of the saints of God.”

Notice, also, that the Lord Jesus Christ so enters into our sorrow that he has an eye to the outcome of it all. He says to each believer, “Yes, dear child, you have sorrow, you have great sorrow; but you know what it is to produce. A woman, when she is in travail, has great sorrow, but in a short time her sorrow is turned into joy when her child is born into the world.” So, every sorrow of a child of God is the birthpang of a joy. I do not know whether you have noticed, but I have, that most of our joys, if they are of an earthly kind, are very expensive before long. You cannot delight in the creature without sorrow coming of it; you cannot love your wife, your child, with a most lawful and laudable love, but one of these days it will be most expensive love, when the loved ones are taken away, or they sicken and suffer. The more we love them, the more they cost us; but our sorrows are fishes that come to us with money in their mouths. Whenever they come, they always bring us joy. If you dig round the roots of a deep sorrow, you shall find tubers of joy, with stores of heavenly bliss laid up therein. They who sorrow for Christ shall soon have Christ to make them forget their sorrow. They who sorrow for his kingdom, or sorrow for more of his righteousness, or sorrow for more of his likeness, or sorrow for closer communion with him, shall before long find to the delight of their soul that their sorrow is turned into joy. Is not that a wonderful promise? “Your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” If any man here were greatly in debt, and someone were to say, “All your debts shall be transformed into assets,” well, it is clear that then the richest man here would be the man that had the biggest debts. So is it with our sorrows; the more of them that we have, the more joys we shall have, because they are to be turned into joy. If, as believers, we have much sorrow, we shall have much joy coming out of it, wherefore, with the apostle, “we glory in tribulations also,” and triumph in the afflictions and trials of this mortal life, seeing that they shall work our lasting good.

Once more, upon this first point, our Lord Jesus Christ sees that our sorrows will come to an end, for he says, “Ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.” The Lord knows that his people are not hopelessly locked up in prison, they are not to be eternally in the shade. They shall soon come out of their sorrows, and the darkness shall be turned into the brightness of the day. Our Lord can see this, and he would have us see it, too, so he points it out to us. O sons and daughters of sorrow, I pray the Comforter to apply this word with power to your souls!

Now I have to play on a higher string; let me have your most earnest attention while I dwell for a little while on the latter part of our subject,-the Lord Jesus creates our joy. He says, in the second half of the text, “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”

Observe, first, that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to make his people glad, He always touches the very centre of their grief. The disciples’ grief was that Jesus would soon be gone from them. “Well,” said he, “I will see you again.” So, beloved, when the Lord Jesus shall come to you in your hour of sorrow, he will touch the centre of your grief, whatever it is. There is a wonderful adaptation in the Word of God to the peculiarities of all his people. There are some very odd texts in the Bible, and do you know why they are there? It is because there are so many odd people about, and those texts are meant specially for them. You may see upon a whitesmith’s ring a number of queerly-shaped keys; it is because there are so many strangely-made locks; and in God’s Word there is a key to fit every lock. There is a key for the queer lock that is inside your bosom, my brother or my sister; and the Lord knows how to meet your case exactly, and to touch your out-of-the-way, singular, special, peculiar, idiosyncrasy of sorrow. He can get at it, and put it right away from you.

Notice, next, that the Good Physician makes the plaster wider than the wound. He says, not what we might have thought that he would say, “You will sorrow because you cannot see me, but you shall see me again;”-that plaster would have just fitted the sore;-but he says, “I will see you again.” That is a great deal better, that covers the sorrow, and covers all the wounds of all God’s people right down to this day; for though we do not see him again just yet, yet he is still seeing us again as much as ever he saw those disciples when he stood in the midst of them, and said, “Peace be unto you.” Oh, I love this characteristic of my Master that, when he meets a poor believer who asks him for a penny, he says, “There, take seven.” When we knock at his door, and say, “A friend, who is on a journey, has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him; lend me three loaves;” he says, “Take as many as you need.” His liberality far outruns our need and our desire, and he is both able and willing “to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” So that our Lord Jesus Christ creates our joy by touching the very centre of our grief, and then by covering it with that which is greater than the grief itself.

Note, further whenever the Lord Jesus Christ comes to one of his sorrowing people to give him joy, He gives it most effectually. What does he say to his disciples? “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.” That is more than any mere man could say. When I get talking with God’s downcast people, I can say to them, “I will see you again, and talk with you again, and I shall be glad if I can make your heart rejoice;” but I can never be sure that I shall succeed in cheering them. You and I, dear friends, are very poor comforters, and we often fail; but when the Good Physician comes to any one of his patients, he knows how to make the medicine effectual to him. “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.” See how the Lord Jesus Christ handles human hearts. This morning,* we had a grand subject in which we showed how the Lord, in his omnipotence, by his authority and power, cast out devils with a word. But here we have another instance of his omnipotence; he does not say, “I will try to cheer your heart;” but he says, “Your heart shall rejoice,” just as if he had our hearts in his hand, and could do with them as he pleased, which is really the case. His Divine Spirit can now so effectually apply the comforts of the Word that it shall not be said, “You ought to rejoice,” but, “You shall rejoice.” The Lord can lift up the light of his countenance upon us till we are glad in him.

I want you also to notice that, while the Lord’s application of joy to the heart is very effectual, it is very deep and very full: “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.” When the worldling is glad, you hear him laughing from his teeth outwards; he puts on a merry look, yet all the while there is heaviness in his heart. His wine vats are full to bursting, and the sound of the buyer is in his ears; but there is a fear in his conscience, and his soul is disquieted; but when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to deal with his people, he deals with their hearts, with the inmost core of their being, with the very centre of their soul: “Your heart shall rejoice.” Do you not know what this experience is, beloved brothers and sisters? I think you do. Sometimes, you could not tell your joy, it is too deep; it is so excessive that words and noise of any kind seem quite out of place. You want to get alone, and in the silence of your soul to sit still, like David before the Lord, and there to drink in full draughts of his love. “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.”

True Christians need never covet the poor joy of worldlings. We cannot fall into the insanity of living with such miserable ends and objects as those which are compassed within the short pale of our existence here below. It has become slavery to us; and I bear witness for myself and for you also, that we do not forsake the pleasures of the world because we think that we are denying ourselves. It is no self-denial to us, for they would not please us. I have gone by a whole line of sties, and seen the pigs feeding greedily; but I never thought that I was denying myself because I did not feed with them. I never wished to have a law passed that the unclean beasts should not have their swill. No, let them have it, and as much as they can eat; and we say just the same of the pleasures of the carnal man. We do not envy him that which is so great a relish, it is no self-denial to us to go without it; we have come out of that style of living, and we do not want to go back to it. When the man says that he is perfectly happy and satisfied, we think, “Just so; no doubt you are, and we have seen many a fat bullock in the field look perfectly content.” But Christians have different pleasures, and higher joys; and we cannot be bullocks, we cannot be swine. We have been brought out of that kind of merely animal life, we have been lifted up into another and a higher style of living; and it is nothing short of a miracle of the divine hand which has brought us right out of it, so that we have done with it for ever, and loathe it, and could not go back to it under any circumstances whatever. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. The Lord has brought us out of the region of darkness into his marvellous light, and delivered us for ever from the power and dominion of Satan.

I saw, the other day, a blind fish that had been accustomed to live in a dark cave; it had not any eyes, and it did not need any eyes, because it lived where light never came. There are some people who are just like that fish, they are perfectly satisfied to be blind; and, what is more, there are some blind persons who declare that there is no such thing as light, for they say that they never saw it. Just so; they have not any eyes with which to see it. The carnal mind cannot understand the things of God; there is not the faculty in it by which it can understand them. The carnal mind has not the Spirit of God, but spiritual things must be spiritually discerned; and until God the Holy Ghost comes, and creates in us the eye-faculty called the spirit, by which we become body, soul, and spirit, we are like the blind fish which has no eyes. We are just mere men, but not men of God; we have not passed into the new world of spiritual perceptions. But, by the grace of God, many of us have been made partakers of the divine nature, and so have been permitted to share the joy of which our text speaks.

But I must get to the end of my discourse by reminding you that the glory of the Christian’s joy lies in the fact that it is permanent. “Your joy no man taketh from you.” “Well,” says one, “I wonder what that joy is?” Let me just tell you, and then I will close. The sorrow about which Christ spoke to his disciples was that he was going away from them; therefore the joy of which he spoke is that now he sees us again. I want you, dear friends, specially to notice, as I have already told you, that it does not say that you see him, but that he sees you, and therefore to you Peter’s words may be applied, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet, believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

What, then, is our joy? It is, first, that Christ is not dead; he is alive, he is risen from the dead. Next, he reigns as well as lives, and he reigns for us; he is ruling all things on our behalf, and as he sees us with his royal eyes, he also pleads for us before the eternal throne. And he is coming again; we know not when, but we know that he is coming quickly, and that he is already on the road. He shall descend in like manner as they saw him go up into heaven.

All this is the joy of the Christian which no man taketh from him. No man shall ever take from me the joy that Christ rose from the dead. I know that he did; there is no historical fact that is so certainly attested as this, that Christ died, and was buried, and, on the third day, rose again from the dead, and therein I do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. If he rose not from the dead, then my preaching is vain, and your faith is also vain; but as he surely rose from the dead, then every trouble has gone. I do not think that those poor disciples had any joy while Christ was in the grave. They could not rejoice then; their big sorrow swallowed up all joy. And I do not think that, if you and I were what we ought to be, we should have any sorrow now that Christ is out of the grave, the joy because he has risen ought to swallow up every sorrow that we have; it should be a joy that no man can take from us.

There is this further joy that no man can take from me, that Jesus Christ reigns, King of kings and Lord of lords. I have often told you how, many years ago, that doctrine saved my reason, and I am alive and here to preach because of that glorious truth. After the terrible accident in the Surrey Gardens Music Hall, my mind seemed to fail me, and my reason reeled; I had to get away, and be alone; and I walked about a friend’s garden. Someone watched me, for they did not know what might happen to me; I was so unmanned that I did not seem able to pray or to read the Scriptures; but as I was walking in the garden, there came to me this passage, “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name;” and I said to myself, “I am a poor soldier, wounded in the battle, and lying in the ditch; but there rides the King, and all is well with him, for he is King of kings and Lord of lords.” I seemed to rouse myself up out of the ditch, and cry, “Hallelujah be to his blessed name!” and in that moment all my faculties returned to me, I walked into the house, and said, “I am perfectly well; I can preach next Sunday,” and I did preach, the following Sabbath,* from the text that had been so blessed to my own heart and mind. What matters it what becomes of me? Whether I live or whether I die, no man can take this joy from me, that Jesus Christ lives, and reigns, and triumphs, and that he shall surely come to judge the quick and the dead according to my gospel.

I preach to you, beloved, a joy that no man taketh from you. If you begin to live by your own feelings, you will sometimes be up and sometimes down, and be ever unsettled. Now live on this truth, first, that Jesus died; then if you believe on him, you died in him. Next, that he was buried, and that your sins were buried with him. Then, that he rose again, and you rose in him; and now that he lives and reigns for ever and ever, your cause is safe in his hands; and apart from your cause altogether, your spirit may rejoice that the cause of right, the cause of truth, the cause of God, is secure beyond all hazard, because he who went away from us for a little while, though we have not seen him, yet sees us, and our hearts do and will rejoice in him. Blessed be his holy name!

I wish that all of you shared in this joy, but those who do not believe in Jesus cannot. Dear young people, I have a great longing that, very early in life, you should be reconciled to God by the death of his Son. It is such a joy to know the Lord early that I cannot understand why so many seem to wish to put it off. There is a young man who wants to be married, and he wrote to me to ask whether, on a certain day, I could marry him. I could not, for I should not be here, so I proposed to him to wait a week till I came back; instead of which, he proposed that it should be a week earlier, as he says, to accommodate me. I notice that there is no wish to put off a wedding, and I do not wonder that it is so; but I do marvel that, in the far higher joy of being married to Christ, the greater and truer delight of becoming one with him for ever, so many want it to be a week later, or a month later, or even a year later. Oh, did you know that happy day, when Jesus puts our sins away,-if there were a time fixed, and you knew it,-I think you would grow almost impatient to have it even earlier. Do not postpone this heavenly marriage. I pray you, who have been at enmity against God, do not put off being reconciled to him, for he who fights with God had better quickly end the battle; so be you silent, and end all your discussions with God without a word unless it be such a word as this, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” God grant that you may be led to believe in Jesus now, for his name’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

JOHN 16:16-33

Our Lord is speaking to his disciples before his departure from them to be crucified, and he says:-

Verse 16. A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.

It is wonderful how he could talk thus calmly about his death, knowing that it would be a death of bitter shame and terrible agony. Yet he does, as it were, pass over that view of it as he says, “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me,”-“because I die?” No. “Because I am crucified?” No; but, “because I go to the Father.” Beloved, always think of your departure out of the world in the same light: “I go to the Father.” Do not say, “I die; I languish upon the bed of pain; I expire.” No; but, “I go to the Father.”

17, 18. Then said some of his disciples among themselves, What is this that he saith unto us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said therefore, What is this that he saith, A little while? we cannot tell what he saith.

Then why not ask him? But are not you and I often very slow to ask the meaning of the Master’s words? You read in Scripture something that you cannot understand, and you say to yourself, “I cannot make out the meaning of that chapter;” but do you always pray over it, and ask the Writer to tell you what he intended when he wrote it? It is a grand thing to have this Inspired Book, and it is a grander thing still to have the Spirit of God, who inspired it, abiding with his people for ever; but we fail to learn many a secret from the Word because we do not pray our way into it. He who does not know can scarcely have his ignorance pitied when it remains wilful; if you can know for the asking, why not ask?

19. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye enquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me?

They might have enquired a long while among themselves, and all in vain; but to go to their Lord was the short way out of the difficulty, for he could explain it. See how ready he is to explain, for he expounds the truth even to those who had not asked for an exposition. In this matter, he was found of them that sought him not. Knowing that they were desirous to ask, he accepted the will for the deed, the wish for the prayer; and he answered the secret longing of their heart.

20. Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice:

“I am going away from you, and while I am gone, it will be all weeping and lamenting with you; but while I am gone, the world shall have its hour of triumph, it shall think that I am slain, and that my cause is defeated.”

20, 21. And ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

So, when Christ came back again, they would remember no more the sorrow of their travail hour in which they saw him bound, and spat upon, and taken off to execution, and mocked upon the tree. The joy that would come of it all would obliterate the remembrance of the sorrow.

22, 23. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing.

“Ye shall not need to make anymore enquiries of me, for everything shall then be explained to you by the Spirit.”

23. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.

“This shall be one fruit of my passion, that, henceforth, whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father, in my name, shall be given to you; and though you may not, perhaps, address your prayers to me personally, yet addressed to the Father, in my name, they shall succeed.”

24. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name:

“Ye have not yet learnt how to use my name in prayer.” Our Lord had not yet taught them so to pray; but now we know what it is to ask in the name of Christ, it is to pray with the authority of the risen and glorified Son of God.

24. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

See how our Lord continues to drive at that point, for he would have his people happy. He wants you, beloved, to be joy-full-full of joy; not merely to have a little joy hidden away in a corner somewhere, but “that your joy may be full.”

25, 26. These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father. At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you:

Though that is, indeed, what our Lord does.

27. For the Father himself loveth you,-

“The Father, whom you are so apt to think of as sterner than myself, and further off than I, the Son of man am, ‘the Father himself loveth you,’ ”-

27. Because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.

Have you, dear friends, love to Christ? Do you believe that Christ came forth from God? Then does the Father give his special love to you.

28. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.

Had he not clearly explained what he meant by being absent a little while, and then coming back again?

29, 30. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure-

Now they can give reasons for the hope that is in them. “Now are we sure”-

30. That thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that thou camest forth from God.

They are very positive; but notice the check that our Lord put upon all this confident assurance.

31, 32. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone:

Whenever there is any boasting upon your lips, even though you may think that you can rightly say, “Now we are sure,” stop a bit, dear friends, stop a bit. We have not any of us all the good we think we have; nay, they who think themselves perfect think the most amiss. They are altogether mistaken, and there is some latent unbelief even where faith is strongest. Christ still asks, “Do ye now believe?” You have only to be sufficiently tried, and to be tempted long enough, and in that very point where you think you are strongest you will fail. “Now are we sure,” say the confident disciples. “Ah!” says Christ, “do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone.”

32. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

How gloriously is that blessed truth put in just here! The awful solitude that Christ was about to pass through can hardly be understood by us. It was not only that every friend forsook him, but that there was not under heaven a single person who could sympathize with him. He was going through deeps that no other could ever fathom, he was to bear griefs which no other could ever bear. Ye may indeed sip of his cup, but ye can never drink it to its dregs as he did. Ye may be baptized with his baptism; but into the depths of the abyss of woe into which he was immersed, ye cannot come. “Alone! Alone!” Never was there a human being so much alone as was the man Christ Jesus in that dread hour; and yet he says, “I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” O brave Master, make us also brave! May we be willing to stand alone for thy sake, and to feel that we are never so little alone as when we are alone with thee!

33. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.

Your Lord wants you to have peace. Come, then, ye tried ones, ye who are tossed about with a thousand troublous thoughts, it is your Master’s wish and will that ye should have peace.

33. In the world ye shall have tribulation:

You have found that true, have you not? Perhaps you are finding it true just now: “In the world ye shall have tribulation.”

33. But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

And in that overcoming he has conquered for you also, and he guarantees to you the victory in his name.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-720, 786, 722.

“SPEAK, LORD!”

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, July 18th, 1897,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, March 20th, 1884.

“Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.”-1 Samuel 3:10.

The child Samuel was favoured above all the family in which he dwelt. The Lord did not speak by night to Eli, or to any of Eli’s sons. In all that house, in all the rows of rooms that were round about the tabernacle where the ark of the Lord was kept, there was not one except Samuel to whom Jehovah spoke. The fact that the Lord should choose a child out of all that household, and that he should speak to him, ought to be very encouraging to you who think yourself to be the least likely to be recognized by God. Are you so young? Yet, probably, you are not younger than Samuel was at this time. Do you seem to be very insignificant? Yet you can hardly be more so than was this child of Hannah’s love. Have you many troubles? Yet you have not more, I daresay, than rested on young Samuel, for it must have been very hard for him while so young a child to part from his dear mother, to be so soon sent away from his father’s house, and so early made to do a servant’s work, even though it was in the house of the Lord. I have noticed how often God looks with eyes of special love upon those in a family who seem least likely to be so regarded. It was on Joseph whom his brethren hated, it was upon the crown of the head of him who was separated from his brethren, that God’s electing love descended. Why should it not come upon you? Perhaps, in the house where you live, you seem to be a stranger. Your foes are they of your own household. You have many sorrows, and you think that waters of a full cup are wrung out to you; yet the Lord may have a very special regard for you. I invite you to hope that it is so, ay, and to come to Christ, and put your soul’s trust in him; and then I am persuaded that you will find that it is so, and you will have to say, “He drew me to him with cords of a man, with bands of love. Because he loved me with everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness has he drawn me.”

Notice also that, while God had a very special regard for young Samuel, he had, in that regard, designs concerning the rest of the family. God’s elect are chosen, not merely for their own sake; they are chosen for God’s name’s sake, and they are also chosen for the sake of mankind in general. The Jews were chosen that they might preserve the oracles of God for all the ages, and that they might keep alight the spark of divine truth that we Gentiles might afterwards see its brightness; and when God’s special love is fixed upon one member of a family, I take it that that one ought to say to himself or herself, “Am I not called that I may be a blessing in this family?” Young Samuel was to be God’s voice to Eli, he was chosen to that end; and in a much more pleasant way than Samuel was, I trust that you, dear friend, favoured specially of God, are intended to be a messenger of better tidings than Samuel had to carry,-perhaps to an aged father whose eyes are growing dim, perhaps to some brother wayward and wandering into the world, perhaps to some sister whose heart is careless about divine things. I think the first instinct of one who has been himself called by grace is to go and call others. When Christ appears to Mary, Mary runs to the disciples to tell them that the Lord has spoken unto her. Samuel is chosen that he may carry the message to Eli; and let each believer feel that he is favoured of God that he may take a blessing to others; “for none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.” I trust that we are not like the Dead Sea, which perpetually drinks in Jordan’s streams, but never gives the waters out, and therefore itself becomes salter and yet more salt,-the lake of death. We are not to be receivers only, taking in the good that God sends by this means or by that; but we are to pour out as fast as he pours in, working out that which God works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Our subject is to be, God speaking with us; and I trust that everyone here, who has any fear of God at all, will take the prayer of Samuel, and make it his or her own: “Speak; for thy servant heareth.”

And, first, I will speak to you upon the soul Desiring,-desiring to be spoken to by God: “Speak, Lord.”

Oh, how often has our heart felt this desire in the form of a groaning that cannot be uttered! “Lord, I want to know thee; thou art behind a veil, and I cannot come at thee. I know that thou art, for I see thy works; but, oh, that I could get some token from thine own self, if not for my eyesight, yet at least for my heart!” We cannot endure a dumb God. It is a very dreadful thing to have a dumb friend, a very painful thing to have a wife who never spoke with you, or a husband who could never exchange a word with you, or a father or mother from whom you could never hear a single word of love; and the heart cannot bear to have a dumb God, it wants him to speak.

For what reason does the soul desire God to speak to it? Well, first, it desires thus to be recognized by God. It seems to say, “Speak, Lord, just to give me a token of recognition, that I may know that I am not overlooked, that I am not flung away like a useless thing upon the world’s dust heap, that I am not left to wander like a waif and stray, a derelict upon the ocean. Oh, that I may be sure that thou seest me, that thou hast some thoughts of love concerning me! How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! If I do not know that thou thinkest of me, I pine, I die. Speak, Lord, just to show that thou dost notice me. I am not worthy that thou shouldst regard me; but still speak to me, Lord, that I may know that thou dost observe me.”

More than that, this desire of the soul is a longing to be called by God. When the Lord said to the child, “Samuel, Samuel,” it was a distinct, personal call, like that which came to Mary: “The Master is come, and calleth for thee,” or that which came to another Mary when the Lord said to her, “Mary,” and she turned herself, and said, “Rabboni,” that is to say, “my dear Master.” All who have heard the gospel preached have been called to some extent. The Word of God calls every sinner to repent and trust the Saviour; but that call brings nobody to Christ, unless it is accompanied by the special effectual call of the Holy Ghost. When that call is heard in the heart, then the heart responds. The general call of the gospel is like the common “cluck” of the hen which she is always giving when her chickens are around her; but if there is any danger impending, then she gives a very peculiar call, quite different from the ordinary one, and the little chicks come running as fast as ever they can, and hide for safety under her wings. That is the call we want, God’s peculiar and effectual call to his own; and I would, if I could, put into the heart and mouth of each person now present this prayer, “Speak, Lord, speak to me; call me. When thou art calling this one and that, Lord, call me with the effectual call of thy Holy Spirit. Be pleased so to call me that, when I hear thee saying, ‘Seek ye my face,’ my heart may say unto thee, ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek.’ ”

“Speak, Lord, moreover, that I may be instructed.” I am afraid that there are some persons who do not want to be instructed in the things of God; they are afraid of knowing too much. I know some good Christian people,-good in their way,-who cautiously avoid portions of Scripture that are contrary to their creed; and I know a good many more who, when they get hold of a text, stretch it a little, or squeeze it a little, to make it fit in with what they by prejudice conceive ought to be the truth; but that should not be your method or mine. Let us say, “Speak, Lord, and say to me what thou wilt. Whatever thou hast to say to me, Master, say on.” The Lord Jesus may perhaps reply to us, “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” Howbeit, it is for us to ask him to lead us into all truth. If there is a truth that quarrels with you, depend upon it there is something in you to quarrel with; you cannot alter the truth, the simplest way is to alter yourself. It is not for us to shorten the measure, but to endeavour to come up to it. Let us lay our hearts before God, and pray him to write his truth upon them. Let us yield our understanding, and every faculty that we have, to the supreme sway of Jesus, and like Mary, sit down at his feet, and receive his gracious words. “Speak, Lord, to instruct me; tell me all about this and that truth which it is needful for me to know.”

We sometimes mean by this expression, “Speak, Lord, for our guidance.” We have got into a great difficulty, we really do not know which way the road leads,-to the right or to the left,-and we may go blundering on, and have to come all the way back again; so we specially need the Lord to speak to us for our guidance. It is an admirable plan to do nothing without prayer,-neither to begin, nor continue, nor close anything except under divine guidance and direction. “Speak, Lord. Do give me some answer. If not by Urim and Thummim, yet by such means as thou art pleased to use in these modern times, speak, Lord; for whether thou pointest me to the right or to the left, I will go whichever way thou biddest me. Only let me hear Thy voice behind me, saying, ‘This is the way: walk ye in it.’ ”

At times, also, we want the Lord’s voice for our comfort. When the heart is very heavy, there is no comfort for it except from the mouth of Christ by the Holy Spirit. You may hear the sweetest discourse, you may read the most precious chapters of Scripture, and yet your grief may not be assuaged, even in the least degree; but when the Lord Jesus Christ undertakes to speak to you, when the great Father opens his mouth, when the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, applies the truth to your heart, then are you filled with joy.

I do not know what particular state you may be in, but this prayer of little Samuel can be turned all sorts of ways. Are you doubtful about your interest in Christ? A great many people make fun of that verse,-

“’Tis a point I long to know,

Oft it causes anxious thought,

Do I love the Lord, or no?

Am I his, or am I not?”

If they ever find themselves where some of us have been, they will not do so any more. I believe it is a shallow experience that makes people always confident of what they are, and where they are, for there are times of terrible trouble, that make even the most confident child of God hardly know whether he is on his head or on his heels. It is the mariner who has done business on great waters who, in times of unusual stress and storm, reels to and fro, and staggers like a drunken man, and is at his wits’ end. At such a time, if Jesus whispers that I am his, then the question is answered once for all, and the soul has received a token which it waves in the face of Satan, so that he disappears, and the soul goes on its way rejoicing.

Do pray this prayer: “Speak, Lord.” If you will not, it shall always be my prayer. I would seek the presence of my God, and cry, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?” But when my heart can answer, “Here he is, he is with me,” then does my soul begin to sing at once,-

“My God, the spring of all my joys,

The life of my delights,

The glory of my brightest days,

And comfort of my nights.

Use the prayer of Samuel at this moment, even if you are rejoicing; and if you are beginning to wander, if you are getting heavy and dull and lukewarm, ask the Lord to speak to you so that you may be quickened out of that state, that your declining may be stopped.

“Speak, Lord.” I have known the time-and so have some of you,-when one word of his has saved us from a grievous fall. A text of Scripture has stopped us when our feet had almost slipped. A precious thought has helped us when we were ready to despair, and when we could not tell what to do. One word out of the inspired Book, applied to the soul by the Holy Spirit, has made a plain path before us, and we have been delivered from all our difficulties. I commend to you then, very earnestly, the personal prayer of the soul desiring: “Speak, Lord.”

Now, secondly, let us think of the Lord speaking.

Suppose that the Lord does speak to us; just think for a minute what it is. First, it is a high honour. Oh, to have a word from God! There cannot be any honour that comes from man that can for a moment be compared with having an audience with God, familiar intercourse with the Infinite, sitting down at the feet of eternal love, and listening to the voice of infallible wisdom. The peers of the realm are not so honoured when they see their Queen as you are when you see your God, and he speaks with you. To be permitted to speak with him, is a delight; but to hear him speak with us, is heaven begun below.

And while it is so great an honour, we are bound to recollect that it is a very solemn responsibility. If any man here can say, “The Lord once spoke with me,” my brother, you are under perpetual bonds of obligation to him. Jesus Christ spoke to Saul of Tarsus out of heaven, and from that hour Paul felt himself to be the Lord’s, a consecrated man, to live and die for him who had spoken to him. “Speak, Lord;” and when thou dost speak, help us to feel the condescension of thy love, and yield ourselves up wholly to thee, because thou hast spoken to us.

“Oh!” says one, “if God were to speak to me, I am sure it would make a change in me of a very wonderful kind.” It would, my friend; it would convert you, it would turn you right round, and start you in quite a new direction. Someone said to me, concerning Paul, that he had “a twist” at that time when he was going to Damascus, and everybody afterwards asked, “Is that Saul of Tarsus, the philosopher, the clever young Rabbi, the learned pupil of Gamaliel? Why, there he is, talking plainly and simply to those poor people, and trying to bring them to Christ, the very Christ whom he used to hate! What has made such a change in him?” “Oh!” they said, “he has had a strange twist; something has happened to him which has quite altered him.” Oh, that the Lord would make something of the same kind happen to everyone here to whom it has not yet happened! This is the mainspring of a holy life, “God has spoken to me, and I cannot live as I used to live.” This is the spur of an impetuous zeal, “Jesus Christ has spoken to me, and I must run with diligence upon his errands.” This, I believe, comes like fire-flakes upon the spirit, and sets the whole nature on a blaze. To hear God speak, to have his voice go through and through the soul, involves a great responsibility, yet he who truly feels it will never wish to shirk it.

To hear God speak to us, will bring to us many a happy memory. I appeal to those who have heard that voice before. Do you not remember, dear friends, many places where the Lord spoke to you? You have forgotten many of the sermons which you have heard, but there is one sermon you have never forgotten, perhaps there are a dozen that you can recall if you think a little. Why do you remember them? Why, because you were in great trouble, and you went into the house of prayer, and the sermon seemed made on purpose for you. You said to the person who sat with you, “I am glad that I was here, for I am sure that, from the opening sentence to the close, it was all for me.” Or else you were getting into a very dull and stupid state, and you went to the house of God, and there was a sermon which cut you to the very quick, and woke you up. You never could go back to where you were before God spoke to you. No, we can never forget these voices-sweet yet strong,-which thrill our very soul, which wind not through the ear, and so waste half their strength, but come directly to the heart, and in the heart enshrine themselves! Oh, yes; if God has spoken to you, your heart will dance at the memory of the many times in which he has done so!

I think I must also say that it is a probable mercy that God will speak to you. I know that, if you are a father, it is not improbable that you will speak to your child; and our Heavenly Father will speak to his children, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is married to us, surely will not be a silent Husband, but will be willing to speak to us, and to reveal his heart to us. Only pray just now, “Speak, Lord! Speak, Lord!” and he will speak. I feel encouraged to expect that he who died for me, will speak to me. He who did not hesitate to reveal himself in human flesh, bearing our infirmities and sorrows, surely will not hide himself from his own flesh now. He will not be here among us according to his promise, “Lo, I am with you alway,” and yet never speak to us at all. Oh, no; he waits to be gracious! Therefore, let not our prayers be restrained, but let us cry, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.”

“But how does the Lord speak?” someone asks. That is a very important question. I know that he has many ways of speaking to the hearts of his people. We do not expect to hear audible words; it is not by sense that we live,-not even by the sense of hearing,-but by faith. We believe, and so we apprehend God.

God often speaks to his children through his works. Are there not days when the mountains and the hills break forth before us into singing, and the trees of the field clap their hands, because God is speaking by them? Do you not lift up your eyes to the heavens at night, and watch the stars, and seem to hear God speaking to you in the solemn silence? That man who never hears God speak through his works is, I think, hardly in a healthy state of mind. Why, the very beauty of spring with its promise, the fulness of summer, the ripeness of autumn, and even the chilly blasts of winter, are all vocal if we have but ears to hear what they say.

God also speaks to his children very loudly by his providence. Is there no voice in affliction? Has pain no tongue? Has the bed of languishing no eloquence? The Lord speaks to us sometimes by bereavement: when one after another has been taken away, God has spoken to us. The deaths of others are for our spiritual life,-sharp physic for our soul’s health. God has spoken to many a mother by the dear babe she has had to lay in the grave, and many a man has for the first time listened to God’s voice when he has heard the passing bell that spoke of the departure of one dearer to him than life itself. God speaks to us, if we will but hear, in all the arrangements of providence both pleasant and painful. Whether he caresses or chastises, there is a voice in all that he does. Oh, that we were not so deaf!

But the Lord speaks to us chiefly through his Word. Oh, what converse God has with his people when they are quietly reading their Bibles! There, in your still room, as you have been reading a chapter, have you not felt as if God spoke those words straight to your heart there and then? Has not Christ himself said to you, while you have been reading his Word, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me”? The text does not seem to be like an old letter in a book; rather is it like a fresh speech newly spoken from the mouth of the Lord to you. It has been so, dear friends, has it not?

Then there is his Word as it is preached; it is delightful to notice how God speaks to the heart while the sermon is being heard,-ay, and when the sermon is being read. I am almost every day made to sing inwardly as I hear of those to whom I have been the messenger of God; and my Lord has many messengers, and he is speaking by them all. There was one man, who had lived a life of drunkenness and unchastity, and had even shed human blood with his bowie knife or his revolver, yet he found the Saviour, and became a new man; and when he died, he charged one who was with him to tell me that my sermon had brought him to Christ. “I shall never tell him on earth,” he said, “but I shall tell the Lord Jesus Christ about him when I get to heaven.” It was by a sermon, read far away in the backwoods, that this great sinner was brought to Christ; but it is not only in the backwoods that the Lord blesses the preached Word, it is here, it is everywhere where Christ is proclaimed. If we preach the gospel, God gives a voice to it, and speaks through it. There is a kind of incarnation of the Spirit of God in every true preacher; God speaks through him. Oh, that men had but ears to hear! But, alas, alas! too often they hear as if it were of no importance; and the Lord has to say to his servant as he said to Ezekiel, “Lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.” Oh, that each one of our hearers always came up to the sanctuary with this prayer in his heart, and on his lips, “Speak, Lord, by thy servant; speak right down into my soul.”

But the Lord has a way of sometimes speaking to the heart by his Spirit,-I think not usually apart from his Word,-but yet there are certain feelings and emotions, tendernesses and tremblings, joys and delights, which we cannot quite link with any special portion of Scripture laid home to the heart, but which seem to steal upon us unawares by the direct operation of the Spirit of God upon the heart. You who know the Lord must sometimes have felt a strange delight which had no earthly origin. You have, perhaps, awakened in the morning with it, and it has remained with you. A little while after, you have had some severe trial, and you realize that the Lord had spoken to you to strengthen you to bear the affliction. At other times, you have felt great tenderness about some one individual, and you have felt constrained to pray, and perhaps to go for some miles to speak a word to that individual, and it turned out that God meant to save that person through you, and he did so. I think we are not half as mindful as we ought to be of the secret working of the Holy Spirit upon the mind. There are certain fanatics who get delirious, and dream that they are prophets, and I know not what; but we just put them on one side. This is a very different thing from being guided by the Spirit of God in all the actions of life so as to obey the will of the Lord, sometimes in cases where we might not have known it to be his will, or might have omitted it. Whenever you feel moved to do anything that is good, do it. Do it even without being moved, because it is your duty, for “to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” But, above all, when there comes a gracious influence on the conscience, a gentle reminder to the heart, quickly and speedily do as the Spirit prompts, taking note within your heart that the Lord has laid this particular burden upon you, and you must not cast it from you. I should like to imitate one dear man of God with whom I sometimes commune. On one occasion, he seemed to feel in his soul that he must go to a little port in France to deliver the Lord’s message, and as the boat went in, a person on the quay spoke to him, and he said, “You are the one to whom I was sent.” Within a month, that godly man was in Russia, seeking the souls of others of whom he knew nothing; but God had guided him, and they were brought to the Saviour’s feet. I know him as one who, I believe, lives so near to God that the Lord speaks to him otherwise than he does to the most of men, for all Christians are not alike favoured in this respect. One may be a child of God, like Eli, and yet so live that God will not speak with him; and, on the other hand, one may be a child like Samuel, obedient, beautiful in character, and watchful to know God’s will, praying, “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth;” and then God will speak to you. It is not to all that he speaks, but he would speak to all if they were ready to learn what he had to say.

Now I must close with just a few words upon the last part of my subject, which is, the soul hearing. We have had the soul desiring, and the Lord speaking; now for the soul hearing: “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.”

And, first, I think we have here an argument: “Lord, do speak, for I do hear.” “There are none so deaf as those that will not hear;” so I fear that some people are very deaf indeed. But, oh, when you feel, “Only let the Lord speak, I will hear; only let him come to me, and I will set the door wide open for him to enter, glad if he, my gracious God, will come and be a sojourner with me,”-he will come, he will speak to you. It is a good argument, and you may use it if you can; God help you to do so!

Yet it appears to be an inference, as well as an argument, for it seems to run like this, “Lord, if thou speakest, of course thy servant heareth.” Shall God speak, and his servant not hear? God forbid! Strangers and sojourners may not listen, but his servant will. “Speak, Lord; for if thou wilt but speak, I must hear. There is such a force about thy voice, such wisdom about what thou sayest, that hear thee I must and will.” It is an argument from God speaking, but it is also an inference from God speaking.

“Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth,” seems also to contain a promise within it, namely, that if the Lord will but speak, we will hear. I am afraid that, sometimes, we really do not listen to God. Suppose that we pray the Lord to speak to us, and when we have done praying we go away, and engage in worldly conversation, this is surely not acting consistently. I remember being asked to see a person, and I thought that he wanted to learn something from me; but when I saw him for three-quarters of an hour, he spoke the whole time, and afterwards he told a friend that I was a most delightful person to converse with! When I was told that, I said, “Oh, yes, that was because I did not interrupt the man! He was wound up, and I let him run down.” But conversation means two people talking, does it not? It cannot be a conversation if I do all the talking, or if my friend does it all; so, in conversing with God, there must be, as we say, turn and turn about. You speak with God, and then sit still, and let God speak with you; and, if he does not at once speak to your heart, open his Book, and read a few verses, and let him speak to you that way. Some people cannot pray when they wish to do so. I remember George Müller sweetly saying, “When you come to your time for devotion, if you cannot pray, do not try. If you cannot speak with God, do not try. Let God speak with you. Open your Bible, and read a passage.” Sometimes, when you meet a friend, you cannot begin a conversation. Well then, let your friend begin it; then you can reply to him, and the conversation will go on merrily enough. So, if you cannot speak to God, let God speak to you. It is also true communion with the Lord, sometimes, just to sit still, and look up, and say nothing, but just, “in solemn silence of the mind,” find your heaven and your God. “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth. I have prayed to thee, I have told thee my grief, and now I am just sitting still to hear if thou hast anything to say to me. I am all ear, and all heart. If thou wilt command me, I will obey. If thou wilt comfort me, I will believe. If thou wilt reprove me, I will meekly bow my head. If thou wilt give me the assurance of thy love, my heart shall dance at every sound of thy voice. Only speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.”

I have finished my discourse; but I do wish that some poor sinner here would say, before he goes away, “Lord, speak to me! Speak to my soul. Let this be the last night of my spiritual death, and the birth-night of my spiritual life.” As for you who love the Lord, I am sure that you will pray this prayer, and that you will keep on praying, “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth;” and then what blessed conversations there will be between you and your Father in heaven! The Lord bless you all, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

1 SAMUEL 3

Verse 1. And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli.

Samuel was but a child, yet he was a faithful servant of God up to the light he had received. The grown-up sons of Eli were rebelling against God, but “the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord.” It is a great aggravation of sin for ungodly men to persist in it when even little children rebuke them by their careful walk and conversation; it made the sin of Eli’s sons all the worse because “the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli.”

1. And the word of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision.

God spake with very few, and his speech to them was private: “There was no open vision.” What was spoken was very rich and rare, but there was little of it. The Lord, in anger at the sin of Eli’s sons, took away the spirit of prophecy from the land.

2. And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see;

He was a good old man, but he was almost worn out, and he had been unfaithful to God in not keeping his family right. He must have found some comfort in having such a sweet and dear companion and servant as little Samuel was.

3-5. And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep; that the Lord called Samuel: and he answered, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down.

Servants and children are to be attentive and obedient to the calls they hear, but masters must also be gentle, and kind, and considerate to them. Eli did not call the child a fool, or speak harshly to him; he knew that Samuel had a good intention, and even if he had been mistaken, and no one had called him, yet it was a good thing on the part of the child to act as if he had been spoken to; and Eli quietly and gently said, “I called not; lie down again. And he went and lay down.”

6. And the Lord called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me.

He felt sure of it, confident that he had not been mistaken.

6, 7. And he answered, I called not, my sons; lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord,-

There was the beginning of the work of grace in his heart, he was well-intentioned; but as yet God had not revealed himself to him: “Samuel did not yet know the Lord,”-

7, 8. Neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time.

We do not blame Samuel, for he was but a child, and spiritual understanding had not yet fully come to him; but what shall I say of some to whom God has spoken for years till their hair is grey, and yet they have not understood the voice of the Lord even to this hour? I pray God that he may call them yet again. The Lord did not disdain to call Samuel four times, for when he means effectually to call, if one call is not sufficient, he will call again and again and again: “The Lord called Samuel again the third time.”

8, 9. And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. Therefore Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

It was a chastisement to Eli that God did not speak directly to him, but sent him a message by another; and it must have been very humiliating to the aged man of God that God should select a little child to be his messenger to him. Yet, as Eli had not been faithful, it was great mercy on God’s part to speak to him at all; and no doubt the old man did not resent the fact that God, instead of speaking to one of his sons, or to himself, spoke by this little child. Eli loved Samuel, and finding that the Lord intended to use this child, he did not grow jealous and angry, and begin to damp the child’s spirit; but he gave him wise directions how to act in case God should speak to him again.

10. And the Lord came, and stood,-

From which we learn that there was some kind of appearance to Samuel such as that which was manifested to others. Some spiritual being was before him, though he could not make out the form thereof: “Jehovah came, and stood,”-

10. And called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel.

This time the child’s name was spoken twice, as though God would say to him, “I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” It was no doubt to make a deeper impression upon the child’s mind that his name was twice called by the Lord.

10. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.

You observe that he did not say, “Lord;” perhaps he hardly dared to take that sacred name upon his lips. He was impressed with such solemn awe at the name of God, that he said, “Speak; for thy servant heareth.” I wish that some Christian men of my acquaintance would leave out the Lord’s name a little in their prayers, for we may take the name of the Lord in vain even in our supplications. When the heathen are addressing their gods, they are accustomed to repeat their names over and over again. “O Baal, hear us! O Baal, hear us!” or, as the Hindoos do when they cry, “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!” repeating the name of their god; but as for us, when we think of the infinitely-glorious One, we dare not needlessly repeat his name.

11-13. And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth;-

What a striking expression,-“the iniquity which he knoweth.” There is a good deal of iniquity about us which we do not know; that is a sin of ignorance. But deep down in his heart Eli knew that he had been afraid to speak to his sons about their sins, and that, when he had spoken, it had been in such lenient terms that they made light of them. Possibly, he had never chastened them when they were young, and he had not spoken to them sharply when they were older. Remember that he was a judge, he was a high priest, and he ought not to have allowed his sons to remain priests at all if they were behaving themselves filthily at the door of the tabernacle. He ought to have dealt with them as he would have dealt with anybody else; he did not, so God said, “I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth;”-

13. Because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.

A man said to me, one day, “I never laid my hand upon my children;” and I answered, “Then I think it is very likely that God will lay his hand upon you.” “Oh!” he said, “I have not even spoken sharply to them.” “Then,” I replied, “it is highly probable that God will speak very sharply to you; for it is not God’s will that parents should leave their children unrestrained in their sin.”

14, 15. And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever. And Samuel lay until the morning,-

I wonder whether he went to sleep; I should think not. After such a visitation and revelation, it is a marvel that the child could lie still. One wonders that he did not go at once to Eli, but then the message was so heavy that he could not be in a hurry to deliver it: “And Samuel lay until the morning,”-

15. And opened the doors of the house of the Lord.

Dear child! There are some of us who, if God had spoken to us as he had spoken to Samuel, would feel a deal too big to go and open doors any more. If God were to come, and speak to some who are poor, they would run away from their trade. If God were to speak to some who are young, they would give themselves mighty airs. But Samuel meekly accepted the high honour God had conferred upon him; and when he rose in the morning, he went about his usual duties: “He opened the doors of the house of the Lord.”

15. And Samuel feared to shew Eli the vision.

The old man must have felt that it was nothing very pleasant; still, he wanted to know the Lord’s message. I hope he was in such a frame of mind that he could say, “Lord, show me the worst of my case! Let me know all thy mind about it, and let me not go on with my eyes bandaged, in ignorance of thy will concerning me.”

16-18. Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I. And he said, What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee? I pray thee hide it not from me: God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide any thing from me of all the things that he said unto thee. And Samuel told him every whit, and hid nothing from him.

Samuel was obeying the divine command which had not then been given: “He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.”

18. And he said, It is the Lord:let him do what seemeth him good.

This was a grand speech of old Eli. Terrible as it might be, he bowed his head to the divine sentence, and owned that it was just.

19-21. And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan even to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh; for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-711, 766, 102. (Part I.)