This is Eliphaz, the Temanite, who is speaking, and he is telling Job what he thinks would be the condition of a man who had been sincere. He says that, surely, God’s presence would be with him; the light should shine upon his ways; and then, when he was himself happy in the light of God, when other men were cast down, he would be able to say to them, “There is lifting up.” Keeping that thought in mind, I will commence my discourse, this evening, by observing that, if any of us have light, it is not given to us for ourselves alone. There is nothing selfish in the gifts of God. The Jews were elected to receive the oracles of God, but it was in order that they might keep them for the rest of us, that in the midst of Israel the lamp of truth might be trimmed and kept burning for the nations that then waited in darkness. When God calls any man by his grace, it is with a view to others. Your salvation has many hooks to it, with which to draw on the salvation of many more. If a man is truly converted, the influence of his conversion will spread to others; it is an act of mercy from God to him with a view also to his children, his friends, his neighbours, his dependants. It is the same with the light in the believer’s heart. When thou art very merry, shut not up thy mirth within thine own soul, but sing psalms that others may hear thy gladness. When God makes thee a feast, eat not thy morsel alone; but call in many of the poor, and the lame, and the halt, and the blind, that they may feast with thee, for there are many such in God’s family, and they will be glad to come to spiritual as well as to temporal feasts. If thy face be made to shine in the light of God, it is not that thou mayest see it, for Moses “wist not that the skin of his face shone”; but it is that others may see what a light God has put in thy countenance, and may rejoice in that light. I fear that many Christian people have lost their comfort through trying to keep it to themselves. The manna was sweet, and they had gathered more than they could eat; they went, therefore, to their chest, and stored it up, and expected to go on the morrow, and have another feast all to themselves. But when they lifted the lid,-ah! you know what happened to manna if they kept it till the morning; and our joys also will breed worms and stink (that is the plain English of it,) when we keep them to ourselves. They are meant to be scattered abroad. In this respect, “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.”

Now, coming to our text, my talk will be on this wise. First, I will try to show you what the happy Christian ought to do; and, secondly, what downcast people ought to do.

First, then, what the happy believer ought to do: “When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up.”

Well, he ought to do this first, he should notice those who are cast down. We are such foolish creatures that, sometimes, when the Lord trusts us with a happy experience, we begin to grow mightily proud, and we look down upon his tried and afflicted people. Even among those who do know the Lord, if they have a very charming experience, and enter into high fellowship with God, there is a tendency to begin to think that the poor doubting and fearing ones are very much to be censured and blamed, or, at any rate, that they are to be ignored, and left to themselves. “Well,” says someone, “really it quite depresses me to talk with old Mrs. So-and-so. I could not keep my joy if I were to go and try to encourage that young man who is always so cast down.” Ah, my dear friend, but if you begin to talk like that, it may not be long before you will even envy that old lady you now despise, and wish you were half as hopeful of salvation as that young man whom you just now condemned! Remember that, when the fat cattle begin to push with horn and with shoulder, the Lord knows how to bring their fat down very speedily, so that they can be trusted among the lean cattle without being so domineering over them. The duty of a happy Christian is to take notice of those who are not so joyous as he is, to seek them out, to condescend to men of low estate. When thou hast abundant provision in thy house, it is thy duty to send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared. Mind that thou attendest to this matter, lest thy Lord should put thee on short commons, too, and make thee feel a little more as thou oughtest to do towards the afflicted.

The next thing a happy Christian ought to do is, when he has noticed and found out the sad ones, he should go and talk to them. “When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up.” I often speak upon this subject, and therefore I cannot say anything new; but I do wish to say over again that, if all joyful believers, who have attained to full assurance of faith, would oftener speak to troubled ones, they might do a vast amount of good. I think, dear friends, that you miss many opportunities of serving the Lord through forgetfulness or through diffidence. I notice that, when converts do not begin to speak a little for Christ very early in their Christian career, they become tongue-tied; that is how we get so many dumb members of the church, who seem as if they could not offer up a prayer to save their lives; and what is worse, they cannot talk to their personal friends about the things of God. It is a very great pity that it is so; and I think I must have an operation performed on some of you children who are dumb. It is a very sad thing for the father of a family to have a number of children who never speak. There is a sweetness about every child’s voice, is there not? There is a different tone, a different form of speech with each child, and it would not content the head of the household if he could say, “I can hear the older ones speak, but the youngest is quite silent.” We want them all to open their mouths, to begin their speech with childlike prattle, and then we shall be glad when they can all speak plainly the language of the land in which they were born. Dear Christian people, do try to be speaking Christians; especially when you come across any who are cast down. Remember what you yourself owe to some loving word spoken by a brother or sister in years gone by. Will you not repay it by speaking comfort to some of the sorrowing ones? Many of you owe your hope of heaven to the preaching of the Word. It may be that you cannot preach, and if you attempted it, you would be very unwise; but do try, with such ability as you have, to tell at least to one other bondaged one that there is liberty to be had, that his chain may be cut, and that he may escape from the taskmaster’s hand. Say to him, “Though thou art cast down, there is lifting up.” Find out the sad and sorrowful, and speak to them, and so be, each one of you, according to your ability, a comforter by the gracious aid of the Holy Spirit.

The particular thing I would have you say to them is this, remind them of the promises of God. When any persons say to you, “Well, if I were to meet with a desponding person, I should not know what to do,” tell them to commence by quoting a promise from the Scriptures. When that eminent German critic, Bengel, the very father of true Biblical criticism, lay sick, he was very sorely tried with doubts and fears, and he therefore sent for a young man from the College, and said to him, “Young brother, it is very dark with me; I want you to say something that will cheer me.” But the youth answered, “My dear sir, you are an old man; you cannot expect me to say anything that can comfort you.” “But,” said Bengel, “you are a student of divinity, and you will have to speak to men, like me, who are cast down, if you are to do any real service in the ministry; I hope you will have something cheering to say to me.” “Then, sir,” the student replied, “I do not know that I can say anything to you except that ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’ ” “Ah!” exclaimed Bengel, “what better thing could you have said? You have opened a window for me.” When that great saint and preacher, Augustine, lay dying,-and I venture to say of Augustine that, among all who were born of women, there has hardly ever been a greater than he,-his mind was equal to any philosophy for its depth, its length, and its breadth,-and as an instructor in theology he still remains, under Christ, next to the apostle Paul, the master-teacher of the churches,-yet, as he lay dying, he asked to have certain texts of Scripture printed in large capitals. Which do you suppose he chose? You may think that he selected some deep and mysterious passage about the high doctrine which he so greatly loved; but he did nothing of the kind. He chose those texts of Scripture which we commonly quote to sinking sinners,-such as these: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,” “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,”-and that great saint feasted his dying eyes on the texts which we usually give to babes in Christ’s faith, or those who are seeking the Saviour, for they just suited him then.

I want you who are very happy, you whom the Lord has made joyous and glad, so that you keep high festival from January to December, and all your days seem like heaven upon earth,-and there are some of us who have come to that blessed point,-to be sure to tell to others those rich and gracious words of God which abound in the Scriptures. Have them at your fingers’ end, so that you can find them in the Bible; have them at your tongue’s end, so that you can quote them without turning to the Bible; have them in the very centre of your heart, so that they shall cheer and warm you, and that the heat from them shall radiate to warm others also. It is a very bad stove that lets all the heat go out at the top of the chimney; we want a grate that will throw the warmth into the room. I pray that God may make us distributors of joy among those who have little or none of it in themselves.

We ought, with those who are cast down, not only to tell them the promises, but we should tell them our own experience. A recital of our personal experience of God’s goodness often helps a poor soul who is in deep trial. Just draw a chair up, and sit by the sick one’s bedside, and say, “I sought the Lord, and he heard me,” “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.” If you can tell something that happened to you when you were in a condition similar to that of the person you are trying to comfort, you have hit the nail on the head. Who can cheer the widow like those of you who are widows? Who can comfort a bereaved mother like one who has been herself bereaved? Who can speak with a man in a great business trial like one who has been in much the same business, and has been a loser, too? You feel so glad, somehow, that there is sympathy left in the world, that there is somebody whose face has been furrowed and tear-stained like your own. So, tell your own experience, dear friends. If you have not any, do not tell it; but if you have, spread it abroad to the honour of your great Father’s name, that others may be encouraged. Tell them, when they are cast down, that there is lifting up, for you were cast down, and you were lifted up; tell them that God dealeth thus with his children, and brings them low on purpose that they may see the power of his hand when he lifteth them up.

If you do this, you may hope to be successful in cheering other people. Our text says, “When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person,” and as the next verse puts it, very often the good man will “deliver the island of the innocent.” When it is in danger, the godly man shall interpose, and God will hear his prayer, and God’s suffering people shall be screened from danger. To all of you who are very joyful and happy, I would say,-Do not go to bed until you have found out somebody who is sitting in darkness, to whom you can say, “Friend, the Lord has, by his grace, made my lamp burn very brightly, so I have brought it to you, that your lamp may be lighted, too.” There is so much misery in this world that none of us ought to add to it; some, alas! do so by their nasty speeches, their cross-grained tempers, their cutting, sarcastic observations, and sometimes by their slanderous judgments. Let us, on the contrary, seek to increase happiness and joy wherever we can; let us try to cheer all the disconsolate, and spread throughout this weary world some of that savour of rest which the Lord smelled of old in Noah’s sacrifice, and which he makes us also to rejoice in as we take Christ’s yoke upon us, and learn of him, and so find rest unto our souls.

Now, secondly, I will pass on to tell you what downcast people ought to do.

What should they do when we speak to them in the spirit I have described? Ought they not to respond to our desire to comfort them? You know, dear friends, you cannot comfort a man against his will. You may lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. You may bring forward the most cheering promises, but you cannot lay them home to the heart that is weary if it refuses to receive them. What ought those who are cast down to do in order to help us in the task of cheering them?

Well, first, they should remember that they are not infallible. The most infallible people I have seen are those who are very much cast down, for they know so much better than we do who try to comfort them. “Ay, ay!” they exclaim, “that is all very well for you to talk like that, but if you were in our circumstances, it would be a very different thing.” Then you quote what you judge to be a suitable promise, but they say, “That does not apply to our case,” and they spy out some little real or supposed difference by which they escape from the comfort you are so anxious to administer to them. Some people are wonderfully ingenious in inventing a great variety of processes of self-torture. In the black days of the Spanish Inquisition, with their thumb-screws, and their racks, and their Virgin’s embrace, and other diabolical things, they went a very long way in torturing their fellow-men; but even the Spanish Inquisition had nothing like as much cleverness as the little inquisition that men and women set up in their own souls with which to torture themselves. About a month ago, you remember that my text was concerning those fools who abhor all manner of meat,* and there are still some persons of that kind left in the world. This dish is too hot, and that is too cold; this joint is too tender, and that other is too tough; they do not like this drink because it is so sweet, others cry out because it is so sour; their food is never cooked so as to suit them, but “their soul abhorreth all manner of meat.” My dear friend, without being in the least sarcastic, but speaking to you very tenderly, I should like to hint that you do, not know everything, after all. Though you may be a peer in the realm of misery, yet all wisdom does not lie with peers, in whatever house they may dwell. They sometimes make mistakes; and, perhaps, you also are making a mistake just now. Is it not just possible that some of us know at least a little which you do not know, which might really help you in your time of trouble? There is a saying that “lookers-on see more than players,” and I believe that, often, lookers-on can see the needs of a man’s case better than he can see them himself. If you were not much of a seaman, and were out at sea, tossed up and down, and almost ready to perish through the fury of the waves, I think you ought not to be above taking warning from the signal of some old sailor who can tell you just what you ought to do in the hour of your distress. Should you not be willing to say, “That man is not so much troubled as I am; his brain is clearer, his heart is calmer, I should not wonder but what he might direct me rightly”? The way for you sad souls to help us to comfort you, is for us to see that you are willing to receive the message that the comforter is anxious to bring you. Then the battle is well begun, and will soon end in a victory. Yet, how often, when we try to cheer the downcast, we meet with many who say, “We should never be convinced by that style of argument; it may be very good reasoning for some people, but it would never affect us.” If it had so happened that the style of address had been quite different, if the earnest pleader had spoken from quite another quarter of the heavens of truth, such a hearer would have said, “That is not the way to persuade me; there may be a good deal for some minds in that style of talking, but to persons of my disposition and of my peculiar culture, there is no force about it.” I have met with this gentleman numbers of times, and I have heard him confute himself again and again. He has said to-day what he denied yesterday, and will repeat to-morrow. It has been his method constantly to say and to unsay, only he must always hinder all who would be the means of comforting him. I wish that any of us who may be in that state of mind would try to get out of it; because, if there be a good thing to be had, we ought not to need much persuasion to accept it; and if this good thing should be peculiarly necessary to our welfare, and somebody who cannot have any motive but our good should entreat us to think of it, I fancy that it would be a sensible thing on our part to give a sober and discreet hearing to what he has to say. Why, ordinarily, when we are unprejudiced, if we are driving along a road, and somebody holds up his hands to alarm us, we pull up to know what he means; and if anybody were to shout at our door in the middle of the night, we should be anxious to enquire what was the reason for the disturbance. If there be a fire near us, we are usually ready enough to be warned, or if there be any good news to be heard, we are usually eager to be informed concerning it; and it is a strange thing that, in matters which relate to our higher nature, our immortal soul, which is to live for ever in happiness or woe, we are so apt to refuse instruction, and turn a deaf ear to those who seek our good. I beg you, dear friends, to believe that, in these matters, you are not infallible, and that some people know more than you do.

Next to that, you should be willing to believe what is reported to you by credible persons. Suppose any of us, who have been troubled as you now are troubled, come to you, and say, “Dear friend, you will get out of this horrible pit and miry clay; he that is cast down, as you now are, will be lifted up again. You are feeling the burden of sin; but there is mercy and pardon even for you. You say that you have no strength; but there is One who is both able and willing to give you strength. I went to the Lord when I was just as downcast as you now are; and when I rested wholly on him, I found mercy, and if you will do the same, you will find mercy, too. Do you not think that you ought to believe my testimony? Do you imagine that I would deceive you? I know your sorrow of heart makes you feel a little bitter, yet do not say, in your haste, ‘All men are liars,’ for there are many who can join me in testifying to the Lord’s pardoning mercy. If it is a matter touching your body, you will trust yourself with the doctor when you believe he has some ability as a physician, and, in like manner, ought you not, when Christian people earnestly tell you the truth about the good Physician, to say to yourself, ‘They would not deceive me; they are speaking in accordance with God’s Word; I will believe them, and I will believe God, and I will not doubt that, through faith in Christ, I shall have as happy an issue out of my soul-trouble as they have had’?” If you will not go as far as that, you must permit me to say that I think you are acting very wrongly, and that I really fear you desire to remain somewhat in the dark. I pray you, do believe, first, that you are not infallible, and do believe, next, that which Christians testify to you.

Especially, dear sad heart, do believe the great truth of my text: “When men are cast down, there is lifting up.” Let me ask why you are cast down. “Oh!” you cry, “I am so sad because of my sin.” Then listen: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.” “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Oh, that you would believe these testimonies of God concerning the putting away of sin, and not be cast down any longer! “But,” you say, “I have no righteousness, and I cannot be accepted of God without a righteousness. I thought I had one once, but I see that it is only a heap of filthy rags.” Just so; I am glad you have discovered that fact; but the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, and worked out a perfect righteousness, which he puts upon every believing sinner. The righteousness of Christ will be set to your account, and imputed to you, if you believe in him; and then, with his spotless vesture on, you shall be, even in the sight of the Most High, holy as the Holy One. You are cast down, but “there is lifting up.” “Yes,” you say, “I know that the Lord says that there is lifting up; but I am so weak I cannot do anything.” Should you be cast down about that? The Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Ghost, is able to give you boundless strength. There is nothing that you will be called upon to do but what you shall be enabled to do if you will but trust the Lord. He will be your strength; he will help you to repent, he will help you to believe, he will help you to be gracious, to persevere, to resist temptation, and to conquer sin, if you will only trust him. You are cast down, but you have no need to be, for “there is lifting up.” I do not mind what it is about which you are cast down, dear soul, if you will but trust; all things are possible to him that believeth. Many of us have found it so ourselves, therefore we pray you to do as we have done; cease from all confidence in yourself, and rest wholly in Christ, for so shall you certainly find eternal salvation.

Do not neglect to notice the second part of the text, for there is something else to be believed there, which is, that God will save the humble. The margin has it, “He shall save him that hath low eyes;” the man who looks low. Now, dear friends, are you a man who looks low? Some men are always looking up to the stars; their heads are swimming with conceit of their own excellence. God will not save such people; at least, not while they continue to be so proud. He will bring you down, if you are so high as that in your own estimation, for God will not give his glory unto another; but if you are a man who looks low, he will save you. You have been looking to yourself, have you? You cannot see anything bright there; all is dark. I am glad it is so, for you are the sort of man God delights to save. You have been looking down to the earth, and you wondered you were not in your grave, or in hell. That is right; you are the sort of man on whom God looks with approval. You thought that the very poorest of his people were worth ten thousand times as much as you were; you have envied the door-keeper in the house of God; you are the sort of man God will save. We have some people about who are so big, so good, so intelligent, so wonderfully cultured, and altogether such superior persons, that they cannot be content in any ordinary position. But these very superior persons in their own opinion, are generally despised by God, and by men, too; but those who think nothing of themselves, those who feel that they deserve only condemnation from God, and who say that, if he will but save them, it will be all of grace, the gratitude for which they can never express,-these are the people whom the text tells us that God will save. I do like to hear sinners give themselves a bad character,-I mean, not in pretence, but in real earnest. There was a brother came to me, the other night, in deep distress of soul. I let him tell me all his case; by what he said, he seemed to have been a terrible sinner, and when he had gone through the long black list, I said, as I looked at him, “You are the very man Jesus Christ came to save,” and then I began to pick out the texts of Scripture that suited his case. I know he thought Jesus Christ came to save good people; but nowhere in the Bible is there anything of that kind, though we are told that “Christ died for the ungodly.” I got my poor sinful friend to see that Christ came to take the place of the guilty, and that great truth of substitution laid hold upon him. I would that you might be led to the same point, and to say, “I am a sinner, and I trust the sinners’ Saviour.” If you are cast down on account of your sin, “there is lifting up.” God will save the humble, the man of low eyes. If you are as nothing in your own sight, God will save you; if you are less than nothing, and yet trust Christ, he will be your all in all. I would that every downcast soul in the world would simply believe the promise of God, and rest on it, trusting in Jesus, and in Jesus only.

I have just two observations to make, and then I have done my sermon. First, what a very little difference there is, after all, between those who are up and those who are down! You, my brother, are full of joy, and you begin to comfort a man who has no joy at all. He tells you what a sinner he is; and if you feel as you ought, you say to yourself, “I was once just the same as this man now is, only perhaps he feels his sin more than I did.” And when you comfort and direct him, so that he says, “My faith would touch the hem of Christ’s garment,” I know it brings the tears into your eyes, and you say, “I will do the same; it may be that my past faith has been all a mistake, so I will begin again.” I like to meet with people who are always beginning, just resting in Christ after thirty years’ experience as they did at the first, and saying, “I am nothing, but Christ is everything; I am more and more decreasing, that he may more and more increase, and fill the full circle of my being to its utmost bound.”

Then, do you not think it would be a good thing if those who are very happy, and those who are very miserable, would alike give up walking by their feelings, and would both of them live by faith? If there were two women in Sarepta, and one of them had a bushel of meal and a great keg of oil, and the other had only just a little oil in a cruse, and a handful of meal in the barrel,-if they both lived by faith, it would not make any difference whether they had much or little meal and oil. Of the two, I should think that the one who had the big barrel would begin to see the meal diminish, and she might fret, while the woman who had so little, would never see her handful diminish, so she would not fret, for she lived by a miracle of faith; and I should think that the rich woman had better get down to be as poor as the other woman, and live in the best possible way, by faith in God. I find that I cannot get on when I live by my feelings. They are like a barometer, sometimes they point to “fair,” sometimes to “much rain.” There is very little in our feelings that is to be depended upon. The air may have something to do with them, or they may be affected by what we wear, or what we eat, or with the last person who spoke to us;-the most unreliable things in the world are our own feelings. Let us each one say, “Lord, I will believe thee though I feel heavy and dull; Lord, I will still believe thee, though I am now light and joyful. Lord, my hope is in thy Son, when I cannot see any evidence of grace in my soul; and my trust is alone in thy Son when all my evidences are bright and clear.” Our poor feelings may depend on which way the wind is blowing! When a man goes to France on business three times a week, he is not very particular to ask what sort of passage he will be likely to have; it is those who play at travelling that want to have the water as smooth as glass. So, children of God who do real business with their Heavenly Father, come to be almost indifferent whether they are very glad or very sad, for, after all, the safety of the man who crosses the sea does not depend upon his feelings, but on the boat in which he is sailing. So, our safety lies in the stability of the Christ to whom we have committed ourselves, and not in our feelings, which are as variable as the vapours that fill the sky. “Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” Put down your own feelings, and lift up the cross of Christ; cling to him, and say, with Job, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;” so shall it be well with you, both now and for ever. The Lord bless you all, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

JOB 23

We shall read, this evening, in the Book of Job. May the good Spirit instruct us during our reading!

Here we shall see Job in a very melancholy plight, grievously distressed in mind, and yet, for all that, holding fast to his God. We do not want any of you to get into this gloomy condition, but if you are in such a state as that, or if you ever should be, may you behave as well as Job did! It needs a deal of grace to travel all right in the dark, to keep in the good way when you cannot see it, to cling to God when you cannot even feel that he is near you; but the Lord can give grace even for such an emergency as that.

Verses 1, 2. Then Job answered and said, Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.

Job admitted that he groaned, but he claimed that he had good reason for doing so; that, indeed, the source of his grief was greater than the streams of his grief, so that he could not, even with his groans and tears, express half the anguish that he felt.

3, 4. Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.

Good men are washed towards God even by the rough waves of their grief; and when their sorrows are deepest, their highest desire is not to escape from them, but to get at their God. “Oh that I knew where I might find him!” Job wanted to spread out his whole case before the Lord, to argue it with him, to present his petitions to the Most High, and to find out from God why he was contending with him. It is all right with you, brother, if your face is towards your God in rough weather. It is all wrong with you, brother, if the weather be very calm, and your face is turned away from your God.

5. I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me.

I am not sure that Job would know and understand all that God said. The Lord says a great deal, even to men like Job, that they do not easily understand, and it is not for us to require that God should explain everything to us. “He giveth not account of any of his matters.” “Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” Our wisdom will be to plead with God our suit for pardon and for mercy, and to ask him at least to make us understand the way of salvation, that we may run in it, and be at peace with him.

6. Will he plead against me with his great power?

“If I were to go to God, and urge my suit with him, would he crush me with the might of his majesty? Would he overwhelm me with his omnipotence?”

6. No; but he would put strength in me.

Such was Job’s faith in God, that he was sure he would rather help him than hinder him: “He would put strength in me.”

7. 8. There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there;

“I look to the future, I try to forecast the days that are yet to come, but I cannot see God there.”

8. And backward, but I cannot perceive him:

“I remembered the days of old; I turned over the pages of my diary; but I could not find him there.” There are cases in which one who is a true child of God cannot for a while find his Father. Do not condemn yourself because you are in the dark; on the contrary, recollect then that there are many who fear the Lord, yet who walk in darkness, and have no light. Let all such trust in the name of the Lord, and stay themselves upon their God, and in due season the light will come to them.

9. On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him:

If this is the case with you, be thankful that you want to see your God. Let your very desires after him, your anxiety because you miss him, and the sorrow of your spirit when you are, apparently, deserted by him, encourage you to believe that you are one of his children. Another woman’s child will not cry after you, dear mother; it is your own child that cries after you, and if you were not a child of God, you would not long and cry for the joy of his presence. If you were not his child, that presence would be no delight to you, it would be your dread.

10. But he knoweth the way that I take:

Oh, what a mercy that is! “I cannot see him, but he can see me; my grief hath blinded mine eyes with floods of tears, but nothing blinds his eyes. Like as a father pitieth his children, so does he pity me, and regards me with the full observation of his gigantic mind: ‘He knoweth the way that I take.’ ”

10. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

It is grand to be able to say that while you are in the fire. It is very easy to say it about another man who is in the furnace; but when you are in there yourself, then to say, “I shall come forth as gold,” is the sublimity of faith! It is a very simple matter to say, “If I were again put into the fire, I know I should come forth as gold;” but it is when the burning heat is melting you, when you seem yourself to be shrivelled up in the crucible, and so little of you is left, then is the time still to say, “When the Lord hath finished his work upon me, when he hath thoroughly assayed me, I shall come forth as gold.”

11. My foot hath held his steps, his way have I kept, and not declined.

You cannot talk like that in the time of trouble if you have not led a sincere, and upright, and gracious life. Those battles into which men come in the Valley of Humiliation, are often brought about by their tripping when they are going down the hill. Our sins find us out at length; but if God enables us to walk uprightly, then we feel very confident,-not in our own uprightness, but in God’s love and grace.

12, 13. Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. But he is in one mind, and who can turn him?

Job looks at his grief, and says concerning it, “It is according to God’s mind that I should have this grief, and who can turn him?” There may be times when God wills that his servant should be in trouble; and when God lets down the iron bar, who can lift it up? When he shutteth up a soul in Doubting Castle, how shall it escape until he wills its deliverance?

13-15. And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth. For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him. Therefore am I troubled at his presence: when I consider, I am afraid of him.

Yet he longed for him. So, sometimes, we long for the presence of God, yet that presence strikes us with a solemn awe whenever we are favoured with it. We ask to see our Lord, yet when we do see him, we have to say, with John, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.” Or perhaps we are like Peter who, when the Lord Jesus was in his boat, fell down before him, and cried, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” The majesty of Christ’s pure presence was too much for poor imperfect Peter; so is it for us.

16, 17. For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me: because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither hath he covered the darkness from my face.

Now you see where you might be if you had Job’s experience. If you are not there, be very grateful; and if you are there, say, “There is a better man than I am who has been this way before me. I can see his footprints on the sands of time, and I am encouraged by his example to trust my Lord in the darkest hour.” You are not the only man who has been in the coalcellar; there have been better men than you in the dark places of the earth before now; therefore, still have hope, and be confident in God that in his own good time he will deliver you.

“RETURN! RETURN!”

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, December 12th, 1897,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, September 21st, 1884.

“Return ye now every one from his evil way.”-Jeremiah 18:11.

As I read the Scripture in your hearing, a few minutes ago, I was greatly startled by one word in the first part of the chapter: “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” How did those Galilæans perish? I am solemnly afraid that some of you will perish just as they did. Christ says, “likewise,” that is to say, in the same way as they perished, so will you, except ye repent. Well, how did they perish? Their blood was mingled with their sacrifices. Will it be,-can it be,-shall it be, that some of you will keep on coming to the house of prayer, that you will continue to join in all the exercises of our public service, and yet that you will not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, so that you will perish, and your blood will be mingled with your sacrifices? Think of it, dear friends; your blood on your chapel-going,-your blood on your church-going,-your blood on your hymn-singing and on your prayers,-because you have not yielded yourselves up to God, or obeyed the word of his gospel! If my blood must be spilt through an act of divine vengeance, let it fall anywhere but on my religion, for that would seem a doubly dreadful thing,-to die at the altar, and to let one’s blood be mingled with his sacrifice! Yet I do really fear that this must and will, in the necessary order of things, be the lot of some here who never forsake the gatherings of God’s people, and yet, at the same time, who have never yielded their hearts to God.

Then, think of those on whom the tower in Siloam fell,-how did they die? Christ says, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Why, they were destroyed by their own defences; the tower was built to defend the place, yet it fell upon eighteen of the inhabitants, and slew them! It is an awful thing when a man’s self-righteousness damns him, when that which is his confidence becomes his condemnation, when the very thing in which he trusted shall totter to its fall, and bury him beneath its ruins. That is the dread I have upon me, lest this calamity should happen to some of you, that your supposed tower of defence should prove to be your grave, and that you should find a sepulchre beneath your own confidences. Christ says it shall be so, “except ye repent.”

My text is all about repentance; it is an exhortation from God, very brief, and sententious, but very earnest and plain: “Return ye now every one from his evil way.” I want you all to notice that this is the call of mercy. God might have let you die, to mingle your blood with your sacrifices; he might have let your tower fall upon you, to destroy you. Instead of that, the voice of mercy still sounds in your ears: “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” And in the words of our text he says, “Return ye now every one from his evil way.” God help you to listen to the call, and to obey it! It is a message of mercy, and it means that God would have you saved, and therefore he cries to you, “Return,” because he is willing to receive you, and to blot out all your sin.

But remember that it is equally the call of a holy God, the God who knows that you cannot be saved except you turn from your evil ways. A holy God will give no salvation to the man who continues in his unrighteousness. There is no heaven for the man who will not leave his sin. Thou must quit thy sin, or renounce all hope of salvation; thou must turn or burn; thou must repent or perish. God’s unsullied holiness will never alter this law, thou must be driven from his face in the day of his wrath unless thou dost turn from thy evil way in the day of his mercy. Hope not that there shall be any exception made for thee to this rule, for there shall not be. Within the gate of pearl, none who are defiled, and who would defile the holy place, shall ever enter; if thou wouldst be a partaker in the glories of heaven, thou must be washed, cleansed, sanctified. Thou must be made to hate thy sin, or else, where God is, thou canst never come. Listen, then, to this urgent but gracious message which I trust that God, in his mercy, has sent for many of you: “Return ye now every one from his evil way.”

I want you to join me in looking at the words of my text as I try to press them home by the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and, first, I will answer this question, what does the text say? It says, “Return.”

The picture is that of a man who is going the wrong way. He is trespassing, he is on forbidden ground, he is advancing in a dangerous road, and if he shall continue to go in that direction, he will by-and-by come to a dreadful precipice over which he will fall, and there he will be ruined. A voice cries to him, “Return!” What does that word mean? It is very simple, and that I may make it plainer still, perhaps, for practical purposes, let me say that the first thing such a man would do would be to stop. If I was out in the country, on a road which I did not know, and I heard a voice crying out to me, “Return,” I should certainly stop, and listen; and if I heard the cry repeated, with great eagerness and earnestness, “Return! Return!” I should pause, and look round, and try to see who it was that had called to me. I should look in front to see whether there was any particular reason for bidding me return, and I should look all round about me to try and discover for what motive the man had bidden me go back. I wish that all of you who are wandering away from God, would stop, and consider where you are going. The trouble with some of you is that you will not think, but you go blundering on, like some wild beast that cannot keep still. I beg you just now to stop a little while, and think of what you have been doing, and to what your present course must lead, and in what woe it must end. Stop! In God’s name, I would arrest thee; as God’s officer, I would put my hand on thy shoulder, and say to thee, “Thou must stop; thou shalt pause; thou shalt consider thy ways. I cannot let thee go on carelessly to thy ruin, like a sheep into the slaughter-house, or a bullock going to be killed.” Stop, I pray thee.

Suppose a man did stop, that would not be returning; it is but the commencement of the return when a man stops, but it will be necessary for him, next, to turn round. The order for him to obey is, “Right about face.” He must turn his face in the opposite direction from that in which he was before travelling. I need not, perhaps, say much about what that opposite direction will necessarily be with some of you. If you are going on in sin, you know that your future direction must be the way of holiness. If you are trying to reach that refuge of lies, self-righteousness, the direction for you is, “Turn right round, and look to Christ.” If you are to be just the opposite of what you now are, your own conscience may be your instructor as to the particular road you are to take. When God says, “Return,” it is plain that he means, “Turn your face in exactly the opposite direction from that to which it is now turned. Love what you now hate; hate what you now love. Do what you have left undone; leave undone what you have been accustomed to do.” There must be a total, a radical change in you, if you are really to obey the command, “Return.” I think I hear you ask, “Who can effect this change?” And I am glad to hear that question, for I trust it will lead you to pray, “Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned!” May he, whose converting grace can turn the sinner from the error of his ways, turn you, dear friend, unto himself!

There is something done towards returning when a man stops, there is still more done when he turns round; yet he does not actually return until, with persevering footsteps, the wanderer hastens back to him from whom he had departed. What God desires is that all his prodigal children should come home, that his stray sheep should be brought back to the fold, that the lost pieces of silver should be put into the treasury again; that, indeed, you who have wandered in sin should be as they are whom Christ has washed in his precious blood, whom the Holy Spirit has regenerated, and whom the Father has adopted, and put among his children. Oh, that it might be so with you even now! I do charge you, never be content until it is so. Give no rest to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids, till you have obeyed that gracious summons, “Return,” and have said to the Lord, “Behold, we come unto thee, for we know that it is thy love which has bidden us return.”

So much in answer to the question, “What does the text say?”

Now I am going to dwell upon another word, and to ask a second question, when are sinners to return? The text says, “Return ye now every one from his evil way.”

I do not expect or wish to please you all by what I say; I should think my main purpose was defeated if I did. I want to carry out the unpleasing duty of pressing upon you that this return should be immediate: “Return ye now.” Men are quite willing to promise to return when they have gone a little further; when, perhaps, they will have gone past all possibility of returning; but “now,” is always an ugly word to them. “To-morrow,” they like much better. “Now,” is a monosyllable which seems to burn into their bosom like a hot coal, and therefore they pluck it out, and throw it from them.

But listen to me, dear friends. The voice of God bids you to return now, and I would urge you to do so, because life is so uncertain that, if you do not return now, you may not live to return at all. I need not quote the many instances of men, apparently strong and healthy, who have suddenly been taken from us. I often note, as you must have done, that sickly persons are spared to us while the robust and vigorous are called away. I could quote instances where the husband lives who, I thought, would have gone long ago, and the wife, who seemed the more healthy of the two, is dead and buried. But the sickly go, too, and go sometimes just when we thought they were recovering. There was great hope that they had outgrown the weakness, or that the disease would never return; but, in a moment, it leaped upon them, like a lion out of the thicket, and they were gone. He who would have his estate rightly ordered when he is dead should have his will made, everybody says that; and he who would have his eternal estate ordered aright should yield himself at once to the sovereign will of the Most High, for life is uncertain.

Return, now, for the calls of grace may not always come to you. You do sometimes hear a sermon now which touches you, and pricks your conscience; but, in a short time, you may be removed where you will hear no such sermons, or where, though you hear them, they may no longer impress you. I am afraid my voice is so familiar to some of you unconverted ones that you are getting like the miller who can go to sleep notwithstanding the click of the mill,-nay, who goes to sleep better in his mill than he does anywhere else; or like some men I have heard of, over there in Southwark, who work inside the great boilers. When a poor fellow first begins to labour in such a place, the deafening noise is horrible to him, he thinks he must die; but, after a while, he gets so used to the reverberation that he could well-nigh sleep notwithstanding all the hammering. It is much the same with hearing the Word; therefore, I pray you, if you have long listened to one who would fain do you good, yield to the message he delivers to you; before you grow so familiar with it that it loses all its power over your heart, accept it as good tidings of great joy. God grant that you may do so now! While grace calls, do not refuse.

Recollect, also, that your sin will be increased by delay. The longer you stay away from God, the more deeply you will sin. If you keep on in the wrong path, not only will you have sinned the more, but that sin will have taken a more terrible hold upon you. Habits begin like cobwebs, but they end like chains of iron. A man might more readily have swept away the temptation when it was new to him, than he will be able to do when, having yielded to it many a time, the devil has learnt the way to master him. May God help you to flee from sin as soon as you perceive it, lest you be caught in its net of steel, and be held in it to your eternal destruction!

Moreover, it is well for us to return unto our God now, because, the sooner we return to him, the sooner we shall enjoy his favour, and the more delightful will our life become. If to repent, and to return to God, involved a lifetime of misery, I would yet urge it, for it would be worth while to spend the remnant of our days in bitter grief, and then to be eternally blessed; it would be worth while to give away the pleasure of time for the sake of the joys of eternity. But it is not so, for he who repents of sin loses nothing of joy when he loses sin, and he who finds God, finds heaven. Peace with God makes even this life to be a blessed life; and he who has it begins, even here, to enjoy the felicities of the glorified. Come, then, dear friends; you cannot too soon be happy, and therefore you cannot too soon be holy. You cannot too soon be safe, and therefore you cannot too soon return from the evil of your ways.

Do you not see, too, that God will have the more service from you? The sooner you are brought to him, the longer will you have of life in which to serve him. I always bless God that I was brought to Christ in my youth, for it left a good long time of life to be spent in the Lord’s service. If any of you have gone past youth, into manhood, and to middle age, or even to old age, then the word “now” should come to you with a sharp, clear crack; as of a rifle. It comes like a staccato note in music, “Now! Now! Now!” It comes to you over and over again with a definite, imperious accent, “Now!” “Return ye now.” Why, my venerable friend, you are seventy years of age already; I have put the number too low, for if you are spared to see another birthday, your next will find you eighty; yet you are unsaved! God be merciful to you, aged sinner! Even now, may you return from your evil way!

Yet once more, return now, because, if ever there is a reason for returning, that reason points to the present moment. If there be a reason why you should repent before you die, that reason urges you to repent to-day. If it be reasonable that God should expect a man to leave his sin, it is reasonable that God should expect him to leave it now. If there is a hope that a man will leave his sin some time or other, there must be a better hope that he will leave it now than that he will leave it in a year’s time. Wisdom’s voice cries, “Now!” It is folly that says, “Tarry.” Oh, that God himself, by his own gracious Spirit, may now make you wise enough to turn from your evil way, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you may be saved!

Now may God help me, for a minute or two, while I try to answer this third question, who is the person that is to Return? The text says, “Return ye now every one from his evil way.”

“Every one.” Many of you have returned, blessed be God for that! But every man, every woman, every child who has not returned, should hear the voice of the Lord repeating this message, “Return ye now every one from his evil way.” “Oh!” you thought to yourself, “I wonder whether So-and-so will think of what is being said.” Will you kindly forget him, and think only about yourself. It would not be proper for me to point out individuals in this great crowd; but will you consider that I do point you out, one by one. The message of the text to each friend here who is unconverted is, “Return ye now every one from his evil way.”

“Well,” says one, “perhaps there will be some people converted through this sermon.” Do not talk so, I pray you. Will you be converted through it? “Thou art the man,” said the prophet to David, and I would be just as personal in my address to every sinner here. I want you, my friend, by mighty grace to be turned from the error of your way. Why not? Some of you have been coming here a very long time; and there are some of you who are unhappy if you cannot come. You love the very sound of the gospel, and you are interested in everything which has to do with Christian work here; I cannot quite make you out, you are indeed strange people. I love you very much, but I cannot make out why you do not love your own souls better. You run about the house with the knives, and the forks, and the plates, and the dishes, so that others may be fed, and yet you never eat anything yourself. I see you at the well, and you are always ready, if you can, to turn the wheel, and help to bring up the water for other people, but you never drink it yourself. What are you at? What are some of you at,-you whom I might truly call loafers about this house of prayer? I wish you would be real loafers, and eat of the gospel loaf that is set on the table for all hungry sinners; take a slice of it for yourselves this very hour. But no; you like to be here, yet you are mere hangers-on; you take your turn in helping every good work, yet you do not give God your hearts. You must be fools, to act in such a fashion. I do not want to say anything harsh or unkind, but that is exactly what you are. If you said that we were all wrong, and laughed at our religion, I could understand you. You would be very wrong, but you would at least be consistent in it. You seem by your action to say that we are right, and yet not right; at least, you seek to help us in our service, but you do not give yourself to the Lord. Why, man, you are yourself dying, and yet you run for the doctor for somebody else, and all the while think yourself perfectly well! You are starving, and yet you are eager to hand the bread out to the hungry; but why do you not also take a bite yourself? O dear hearts, what can be your hindrance in trusting the Saviour? What is it that keeps some of you away from Christ? I do try to put the gospel so plainly and simply that all may understand it. I have had it said to me, lately, I daresay a dozen times, by persons in spiritual trouble who have come many a mile to see me,-ay, some of them from the very ends of the earth,-“Nobody has encouraged and helped us as you have by your sermons; you seemed as if you did not want to put any of us back, but as if you longed to bring us all to the Saviour; and that is why we have come to see you.” Well, now, I think they would not have said that so often if it had not been true. I do not frighten you away from Christ; at least, I do not mean to do so, I would much rather beckon you to come to him. It is not fear, I think, that has kept you back. What is it, then? Ah! perhaps we shall find out before we have done; for you are staked down somehow, and cannot escape. Possibly, some of you are like the man we read of in the papers some time ago. He was walking by the seaside, and trod on a large chain, and slipped his foot right through one of the links. When he tried to draw it back again, he could not, for he was held fast. The tide was coming in, and there he was a prisoner. He had to call long and loud before anybody came; and by the time the people arrived, he had very much hurt his foot in endeavouring to extricate himself. He begged them to run for the smith, that he might come, and break the iron. He came, but he brought the wrong tools with him, so he could not accomplish the task. It would be some time before he could be back, and, meanwhile, the tide had come in, and the water was up to the man’s feet, so he cried, “Run for the surgeon. Let him come, and cut my leg off; it is the only hope of saving my life.” But by the time the surgeon came, the water was up to the man’s neck, so the doctor could not get down to where his foot was fast in the iron chain, and there was nothing that could be done for him. There he was, poor fellow, and the tide rolled over him, and he was drowned. Some of you seem to me to be just like that man, held fast by some invisible force; yet when I try to get at the chain, I cannot find out what it is, it is so far under the water. Perhaps you do not yourself know what it is. I am going to make a dive to try to get at it, as I ask my last question concerning the text.

“From his evil way.” Then, each man has a way of his own,-an evil way of his own,-some personal form of sin. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” Well now, my friend, what is your evil way? If we can find that out, perhaps we shall learn why it is that you are not saved.

What is your own way? Is it some constitutional sin to which you are prone? There can be no doubt that we have all some infirmity, or weakness, or tendency to sin, more fully developed in us than in other people. There is one man who is a fine fellow in many ways, but he is dreadfully impulsive, and gets into furious tempers. He is soon cool again, and he is very sorry for what he has said and done, but there is not much good in that; because, if you scald anyone to death, and then say that you are sorry, that does not bring him back to life again. There are others, whose tendency would be to the sins of the flesh, much more than is the case with a great many of their neighbours; some are more inclined to pride, and some to sloth; but there is something about the constitution of men, inherited from their parents, or brought on by their circumstances, which leads each man towards some particular sin rather than to others. You know, dear friends, what contrasts there are among men; there are some mean, stingy, cold-blooded fellows, who would never become spendthrifts; it is a very great difficulty to extract even a sixpence from them. They could not be prodigals and spendthrifts, and there are others who never could be misers, except by a miracle, for they never could keep a penny in their pockets, it always burnt a hole through directly. These observations may help some of you to see whereabouts your own evil way may lie, according to the peculiarity of your constitution, and circumstances, and habits.

“Well,” asks one, “what do you think is my evil way?” I will answer by putting another question to you, What is the sin into which you most frequently fall? I should think you can tell that, and that is the evil way from which you have most to fear. It is from that one way that you are called upon specially to return. What sin can you be most easily led into? Read the Bible through, and you will find that one man was led into drunkenness, another into licentiousness, one man into anger, another into lying. Which has the greater power over you? To-night, if you were tempted, to which temptation would you be most likely to yield? You do not know, you say; well then, let me put another question to you.

When do you get most angry if anybody rebukes you? If you are rebuked for a sin you do not commit, you need not get angry about that. You can calmly say, “My friend, you have made a mistake.” If you are chided for having done a thing of which you feel that you are perfectly innocent, you may even say, “Now, that is a lie;” but yet you need not be very greatly provoked. But, oh, if we know your tender places, and we begin just to hint at some of your private goings on,-just lay bare a little of your secrets,-ay, then you get furious, do you not? Now what is it about religion that you dislike most? “What is it in the preaching that makes you say, “There, I will never go to hear that man again; he cuts my hair so short, he comes quite close to the skin”? Well now, that will help you to find out what is your own personal evil way; and it is from that way that you are to return.

Again, what sin of yours eats up the other sins? Look at a miser; he will not fall into licentiousness, because it is expensive, and he cannot afford it. He is greedy for money, so he sins by covetousness, which is idolatry. He does not go and get drunk, for that is an expensive sin, and he thinks he cannot afford it. The love of money is his besetting sin; his covetousness is like Aaron’s rod, it opens its mouth, and swallows up all the other sins. Here, on the other hand, is a man who is proud; he does not try to save money, for he spends it to flatter his pride. Everything must be in grand style for such a grand man as he is. You will not find him falling into drunkenness, or into the gross sins of certain other men, because he is proud of being a respectable person; he has a character to keep up, so his pride swallows up all the other kinds of sin, and people call it “a decent pride,” “a respectable pride,” “a proper pride.” Yes, that is one kind of devil that kills some other devils. So far, it is a good thing to have devils killed; but if he kills them by swallowing them, it only makes him so much the worse. Ah! look next at the man who is given to the sins of the flesh; you will not find that he is a miser; poor wretch, he has not anything left that he can store up. I heard but yesterday of a man who was once in a good position of life, with a wife and children. I have known him as what is called a respectable man, worth several thousands of pounds. At the present moment, he is only earning a few shillings a week, and I fear he will fall lower yet. He has had another house beside his own to maintain, and a house that has swallowed up all his substance. He parted with his business for £500, and within a few weeks all that money was gone; and if it had been £50,000, it would have gone, for whoredom is a deep ditch that swallows a man, body and soul, fortune and everything. Mark my words, that man will die in the streets, one day, though he could have bought some of us up not so very long ago. That sin of his, you see, has swallowed everything up; it all disappears when he once goes that way. It is the same with gambling; when a man takes to the gaming-table, it seems as if his whole soul ran out at that sluice, and his entire life is just nothing to him. Wife, children, substance,-all must go at the throw of the dice, or be staked on the running of a horse. So, you see, dear friends, you can find out which is your sin if you can discover what it is that swallows up all others, and becomes the master of your entire being. Where does your money mostly go? You could have told that Joseph was Jacob’s favourite, because he made him a coat of many colours; and there are some sins that wear the coat of many colours, and often, as it were, it is dipped in the man’s own blood, for everything goes for that particular sin.

I know that I am speaking to some such people. Turn you, I beseech you, for ere long you will be beggars if you do not. Turn you from your sins, for ere long you will be where hope can never come, where no messenger of mercy will invite you to return, but where the bell of eternity shall ring out its dreadful knell, “For ever, for ever, for ever.”

“There are no acts of pardon passed

In the cold grave to which we haste;

But darkness, death, and long despair

Reign in eternal silence there.”

Therefore, “return ye now every one from his evil way.”

But I have not hit on your sin yet, my friend, have I? You have an evil way which you will not tell to anyone; it is not as bad as any I have mentioned, it is a very respectable kind of evil way which you have. Your evil way is this, the evil way of self-righteousness. You do your very best; in fact, you think you do a little better than most people. You are not a Christian, but you are rather better than some Christians. In truth, you are so good a fellow that it is perfectly wonderful how the world bears up with such a good person as you are upon its surface! You utterly despise the evils I have been talking about, and the people who commit them. You will not associate with them, nor say “Good morrow” to them; you are so good. Ah, yes! but do you know where such “good” people as you are go to? Not to heaven, mark you, for all those who are in heaven have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; and yours, according to your own account, do not need to be washed. The day will come, I assure you, when, if this has been your evil way, it shall turn out to be as destructive as the way of the worst transgressor, for self-righteousness is an open and gross insult to God. It makes out that the death of Christ was a superfluity; it tells God that he is wrong in charging a man with sin; it raises a clamour against God; it claims as a right every good thing that God has to give; it does, in fact, uncrown the Saviour, bid the Holy Spirit go his way as no longer needed, and throws the gospel, which is the crown jewel of God, into the mire.

I wish that we were all agreed, by the power of the good Spirit, that we would turn unto our God with contrite hearts! Come, dear friends, let us first own our sin. Come, let us trust in the great Sacrifice. Come, let us lay our hand on thy dear head, O Christ, while we stand here, and confess our sin. Come, let us ask the Holy Spirit to make us strong enough to forsake our sin. Let us ask him to give us new hearts, and right spirits, that we may turn effectually from all sin, and follow on to know the Lord. Children of God, pray for the whole congregation now. Let us pray.

O Lord, turn us; turn us, and we shall be turned! And, if thou has turned us, help us to persevere in righteousness, and let us not turn again to folly. But oh, turn men and women to-night, for thy love’s sake,-for thy mercy’s sake,-for Christ’s sake! Turn the whole congregation of unsaved ones with their face to the cross; and may they look on him whom they have pierced, and mourn for their sin; and then may they look again unto him, and be lightened, as they see their sin effectually and eternally put away by the substitutionary sacrifice of their redeeming God! Answer, O Christ, the cries of our soul, for thine own name’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

LUKE 13:1-22

Verse 1. There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilæans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

It was a cruel and wicked act on the part of Pilate to wreak his vengeance upon the Galilæans when they were occupied in offering the sacrifices of their religion.

2. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilæans were sinners above all the Galilæans, because they suffered such things?

If men die violent deaths, if they perish in an accident, are they therefore to be accounted more guilty than the rest of mankind?

3-5. I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

Here, then, is a word of warning to those who have seen others die on a sudden, and who have wrapped themselves up in the robe of self-conceit, saying to themselves, “No doubt these people were much worse than we are. They have been taken away, but we still live.” Take heed, sirs; for God’s justice is equal, and unerring, and he will deal with you even as he has dealt with others.

Our Lord next spoke a parable of warning to those who live in the midst of privileges, but who bring forth no fruit unto God. Let those to whom this parable belongs take note of the message it is intended to convey to them.

6, 7. He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?

“In the first year, it may have been a bad season; the second may have been the same; but for a tree to be fruitless for three years, to have so long a time of probation, and yet to bear no fruit, proves it to be worthless. If I had found even a little fruit on it, I would have been hopeful that more would come by-and-by; but ‘these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none.’ Surely, there never will be any. It has had every opportunity; there is no need of any longer delay: ‘cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?’ ”

8, 9. And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

The vine-dresser has much patience; but there is a limit to it. He will not willingly lose a tree; but only one more year is to be given to this cumberer of the vineyard. Who can tell but that, in the case of some who are here, that final year is coming to a close? Oh, that the Lord would cause the fruitless to become fruitful ere the year ends!

Next, in the chapter, we have a word of comfort to those who have been under the dominion of sin for many a day, and who are almost in despair. Here is one of Christ’s Sabbath miracles.

10-17. And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed:

So they will be again one of these days,-all his present adversaries as well as all the old ones,-those who deny his Deity, those who dispute his doctrines, those who refuse to yield obedience to his commands, those who know nothing of him, and who call themselves “agnostics.” “All his adversaries were ashamed.”

17. And all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.

There is a very striking contrast between the two parts of this verse: “All his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.”

The next parable is full of comfort to those in whom there is at present little grace; but, being a living seed, it will become more.

18-22. Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and where-unto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it. And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. And he went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem.

With his face toward the place where he should offer an atonement for the sin of men, which was to be the climax of all his labours.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-509, 605, 368.

FOUR CONTRASTS

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, December 19th, 1897,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, September 28th, 1884.

“But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.… But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”-Isaiah 43:1-4; 22-25.

Beloved friends, there are many lights in which we can see sin; and our perception of sin very much depends upon the light in which we look at it. Sin is very terrible by the blaze of Sinai, when the mountain of law and terrors is altogether on a smoke. It is a dreadful thing to look at sin when God speaks in thunder, and all the earth trembles before him. It is an awful thing to see sin by the light of your dying day. More terrible still will it be to see it by the light of the judgment day. When Abraham rose up early in the morning, and looked towards Sodom, it was a lurid light that met his gaze as he saw the guilty cities blazing and smoking up towards heaven like a vast furnace. To see sin in that light, is a solemn thing; but of all the lights that ever fall upon sin, that which makes it “like itself appear” is that which falls upon it when it is set in the light of God’s countenance. To see sin by the light of God’s love, to read its awful character by the light of the cross,-beholding Christ bleeding and dying,-is the way to see sin. Nothing makes us feel sin to be so vile and guilty a thing as when we realize that it was perpetrated against the God of infinite love.

I am going to speak at this time mainly concerning God’s own people; they are to be the direct object of my talk, and I want to set their sins in the light of God’s love to them; I mean, beloved, your sins and my own. Let us set our sin in the light of God’s eternal love, and if the sight should break us down, so much the better; if it should send us away humbled and ashamed, so much the better; and if it should make us praise eternal love beyond anything we have ever done before, so much the better. My one object will be to set before you the contrast between God’s action towards his people and his people’s usual action towards him. He is all love; But I fear that some of us, who do love him in the bottom of our hearts, do not always show it in our lives, and we give much cause for him to set our conduct in direct contrast to his own.

I pray, dear brethren and sisters, that your consciences may be wide awake while I am preaching, and that you will not so much listen to me as make heart-searching inquisition into your own spiritual state, and your own behaviour towards your God. I do not want so much to preach to you, as just to help you while you take the candle and the broom, and sweep the house; there may be some piece of silver that you have lost, which you will find very speedily by that process. It may be that you will learn to love the Saviour better after you have thoroughly searched yourself, and seen the contrast between his action towards you and yours towards him.

The first contrast lies in the call. Please open your Bibles at the first verse, and read with me: “I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name.” Now read in the 22nd verse: “But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.”

We will begin by speaking of God’s call to us. God has had much converse with those of us who are his people; we are not strangers to the sound of his voice; and that method of communication from God came forth toward us even before we knew anything about it, for, first, God called us out of nothing. See how he begins this chapter: “Thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob.” Our creation is entirely due to God. An ungodly man can hardly bless God for having made him, for his end may be terrible; but you and I can bless the day of our birth, and praise the Lord that ever we were created to be his sons and his daughters, and to enjoy so much as we already do of his infinite love and mercy. Blessed be God for our being, because it is followed by our well-being! Blessed be God for our first birth, because we have also experienced a second birth! We do praise the Lord that ever it pleased him to make us to be his people.

Our Lord has done more than make us, for he has educated us; he has continued the fashioning of us. We are still like the unfinished vessel in the potter’s hands; the wheel is yet revolving, and God’s finger is still at work upon us, moulding and shaping us as he himself would have us to be. “Thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel.” Israel is the “formed” Jacob; by God’s grace, Jacob grows into Israel. Let us think for a minute of all the sweet experiences of God’s forming and fashioning touch that we have had. Sometimes, it has been a rough stroke that was necessary for the moulding of our clay; only by affliction could we be made to assume the shape and pattern that the Lord had determined for us. At other times, it has been the touch of very soft fingers. Divine love and kindness and tenderness have moulded us. As David said to the Lord, in his Psalm of thanksgiving, so can each true child of God say, “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” “The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.” He has had wonderful dealings with us in creating us, and in forming us.

Think what wonderful dealings he has had, next, in consoling us, for the Lord goes on to say, “Fear not.” Oh, how often he has cheered us up when our spirit was sinking! With the psalmist, we have been able to say, “My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” When it has been very dark with us, the Lord has lighted our candle. When we have been quite alone, then we have not been alone, for he has been with us. “A Syrian ready to perish,” was a true description of Israel going down into Egypt; but the Lord did not leave him to perish, and he has not left us to perish, and he never will. Friends have sometimes failed to cheer us; but the Best of friends has always comforted us. There are many who call themselves comforters, to whom we can truly say, “Miserable comforters are ye all.” But what a Comforter is the God of all comfort! He knows how to comfort those that are cast down; he takes care that his comforts are given to us just as we need them, and that they always come to us in the best possible way. O beloved, the Lord has had strange dealings with some of you, which you could not tell! You could not even recount them to yourself in quiet soliloquy. You have lost, one after another, those who were dear to you, and yet you have not been permitted to sink down into despair. You have been brought into great straits, yet you have not been deserted by your God. You have been cast down, but not destroyed. You have gone through fire and through water, yet you have been brought out into a wealthy place, and your soul has had to extol the Lord who has dealt with you in lovingkindness and tender mercy.

So, you see, we have had from God the blessings of creation, formation, and consolation.

But that is not all, for the Lord has also called us, and conversed with us, in the matter of redemption. How sweetly it runs, “for I have redeemed thee.” Yes, blessed be God, whether we are poor, or sick, or obscure, we who believe in Jesus are bought with his precious blood. I would give up my eyes rather than give up that thought, “I am bought with the precious blood.” I would give my hands, and arms, and every sense I have, sooner than give up that inward delightful confidence, “He loved me, and gave himself for me. Upon the cross of Calvary, when he was paying down his life-price, he gave himself a ransom for me, and I am a sharer in the effectual purchase of his redeeming blood.” Beloved, has not the Lord also told you that, sometimes, in his Word, and by his Spirit? Has he not made it come home so blessedly to you, that you have cried out with joy, “It is true, it is verily true, the Lord says to me, ‘I have redeemed thee’ ”? This is a choice way in which God has spoken to you, cheering and comforting your heart by a sense of his redeeming love.

The Lord has done even more than that for each of his children. He has given a special nomination: “I have called thee by thy name.” You know what your name was once; but, blessed be God, he has given you a new name, and he has called you to himself by name as much as Mary of Bethany was called, when her sister Martha said to her, “The Master is come, and calleth for thee,” or when Mary Magdalene turned herself, and said, “Rabboni,” because her beloved Master had called her by her name, “Mary.” The Lord delights to call his people by their name, just as mothers and fathers do, but specially as mothers do when they repeat the child’s pet name which they have given it,-some fondling name which is the mother’s own particular register and mark upon the child. “I have called thee by thy name.” Then comes this blessed appropriation: “Thou art mine.” Dear child of God, thy Heavenly Father says to thee, “Thou art mine. Thou dost not belong to the world now, much less to the devil; thou dost not even belong to thyself; I have made thee; I have formed thee; I have consoled thee; I have upheld thee; I have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine; and I will never part with thee.”

This is the way that God talks to us; you recognize that divine language, do you not? You have heard it many a time; you are, perhaps, hearing it now. Then turn with me to the other side of the question, the neglected call on our part. Listen again to this sad sentence from the 22nd verse: “But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.” That may not mean that there has been literally no calling upon God on thy side, but it does mean that there has been too little of it. Come, brothers and sisters, let us put this matter to the test; what about our prayers? I have no wish to judge anybody, but I know that there are some who, I trust, do love the Lord, who have so little of the spirit of prayer that, broadly speaking, this accusation is true, “Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.” Are there not some of you who spend only a very little time in secret prayer with God? Just a few hurried words in the morning, just a few more at night, when you are tired out and half asleep; but few, if any, ejaculations all day long. Now, I consider ejaculatory prayer to be the very best form of prayer. I do not think that length in prayer often ministers to strength in prayer; but those breathings of the soul’s desire during the day,-

“The upward glancing of an eye,

When none but God is near;”-

that sigh, that “Ah!” “Oh!” “Would that!” “O God!”-that is the style of supplication which reaches the throne of God. Yet are there not some of you who forget to present these ejaculatory prayers? Thus there is much less prayer than there ought to be, and the Lord has to say, “Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.” Some who do, I trust, love the Lord, are very lax about prayer with their brethren and sisters. I think that, next to united praise, united prayer is the most delightful thing that can ever occupy the human mind. I do believe that our Monday evening gatherings, and our other prayer-meetings, are among the sweetest enjoyments that Christians can have this side heaven; yet there are some who never come to them at all, and to them the Lord seems to address the language of the text, “Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.”

True as this is of our prayers, I am sure that it is still more true of our praises. How little praise, my brothers and sisters, does the Lord get from us! Our “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” we sing here; but how little of singing is there usually in our own houses! I will not blame you if you cannot sing vocally; but how little is there of that heart-music which is the very heart of music, that praising with the soul without any words, when we sit still, and bless the Lord, and all that is within us magnifies his holy name! Is there not too little of this heart-music? The revenue of praise paid into the divine exchequer is so sadly little that I am sure that the Master is robbed. We do not send in a fair estimate of our income of mercy, and we do not pay unto the Lord that portion of praise that is due to him; and, therefore, he is obliged to say to us, “Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.”

I will tell you what I think this sentence further means, and that is, that there are many, with whom God has dealt well, who do not venture to call upon him for special help in his service. They keep plodding along the old roads, and mostly in the old ruts; but they do not dare to invoke the aid of the Lord for some novel form of service, some fresh enterprise upon which they can strike out for God. It has been my lot, in years past, to call upon God to help me in what men judged to be rash and imprudent enterprises; but oh, how grandly the Lord always answers to the holy courage of his people if they will but do and dare for him! Yet, too often, he has to say, “Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob.” I wish we would put God to the test, and see what he is both able and willing to do for us and by us. There are the promises, but they are often like locked-up boxes; they lie, like that mass of coin which the German Emperor is said to be storing up in a fortress, keeping it all idle and useless, to come in handy, I suppose, one day, for blood and iron; but, meanwhile, it is doing no service to anybody. Let us not keep God’s mercies locked up after that fashion, but let us utilize them wherever we can.

I am also afraid that, sometimes, in our trouble, we do not call upon God as we should. I may be addressing a Christian here who is in deep trouble, and who has in vain tried fifty ways of getting out of it, but he has not yet tried what calling upon God would do. They have in Jersey, as you may know, the habit, when they think they are being wronged, of calling “Ha! Ro! Ha! Ro! Ha! Ro!” and straightway, having called upon the prince, according to the feudal custom, to come to their defence, all action must be stayed, for the prince is supposed to intervene to take up the quarrel of his subjects; and it is always a wise thing, when you are getting into the deep waters of trouble, not to battle, and worry, and fret, but just to say, “O God, my God, I do invoke thee! I put this case into thy hand. This man has slandered me, but I will never answer him. Thou shalt answer for me, O God! I am being wronged, but I shall not go to law. I will bear this burden, O God, until thou, who art the Judge of the oppressed, shalt see fit to right me!” Whenever Christian men can act like this in time of trouble, or in time of service, then they do well. But the Lord still has to say to many of his people, “I have been speaking to you in love, and mercy, and tenderness, but you have not called upon me.” If this accusation touches the heart of any believer here, let him pray for forgiveness, and begin, from this time, to call upon the name of the Lord.

Now, secondly, and more briefly, let us consider another contrast which is equally striking; that is, upon the matter of the converse between the Lord and his people.

Notice, first, God’s side of it, as it is given in the second verse: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.” Now read the other side, in the 22nd verse: “But thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.” Notice how God is with his people in strange places. Wherever they are, he will not leave them; he will go right through the waters with them. God also keeps close to his people in dangerous places, fatal places as they seem: “When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” There is God keeping pace with his people through fire and through water; never leaving them, but ever making this cheering message to be the comfort of each one of them, “I am with thee! I am with thee! I am with thee!” Our faithful God ever keeps close to his people. Is it not perfectly wonderful how close Christ has kept to his Church? Even when she had sinned, he would not leave her. When she had fallen, and was ready to perish, he would not desert her.

“ ‘Yea,’ saith the Lord, ‘with her I’ll go

Through all the depths of sin and woe;

And on the cross will even dare

The bitter pangs of death to share.’ ”

He cannot be sundered from his people; to every one of them he has given the personal promise, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

Now listen to your side of this matter of converse with God: “But thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.” Has it not been so with regard to private prayer? A very little of that is quite enough for you, for you soon get tired of it; you actually went to sleep, the other night, in the middle of your prayer. Was it not so? Well, I am not going to blame you too much; but it is truly sad if this is the case with you.

Is it not the same, often, with your reading of the Scriptures? When you have taken your Bible to read a portion, have you not had to school yourself to do it? It has been quite a task to you. Did you ever hear how Hone, the author of the Every Day Book, who had been an infidel, was brought to the Saviour’s feet? He was in Wales, one day; he never read the Bible, or thought of God; but he saw a girl, sitting at the cottage door, and reading her Bible. He said, “Oh! the Bible?” “Yes, sir,” she answered, “it is the Bible.” He said, “I suppose you are getting your task.” “Task?” she enquired. “Task?” “Yes, my dear, I suppose your mother has set you so much to read.” “Mother set me so much to read?” “Yes,” he replied, “I suppose you would not read the Bible else; it is a task, is it not?” “Task?” she said, “Oh, no! I only wish I could read it all day long. It is my joy and my delight, when my work is done, to get a few minutes to read this precious Book.” That simple testimony was the means of converting the infidel, and of bringing him to trust the Saviour for himself. I am afraid that there are many who could not have said what that girl did, for they have been weary of God’s Word, and weary of God himself.

When they have come up to God’s house, they have been weary of hearing the Word. Look at many, many, many professors. I trust that they are God’s children;-but, oh! they like very short sermons; and if they do attend to what the preacher says, he has to be very careful to put in plenty of illustrations and striking sayings. Then they will listen; but if he does not preach so as to please them, they say, “Well, you know, it was very warm, and I could not help just dropping off into a dose.” Yes, I know; I know. “He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep;” but poor Israel himself often sleeps, to his own serious loss; and the Lord has to say to him, “Thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.”

Are there not some, also, whom God loves, who get weary of their work? They used to be Sunday-school teachers, but, you see, they now live out in the country, and they want the Sabbath day’s quiet, so they cannot teach any longer. They used to preach at the corner of the street, or in a room somewhere, or do anything that they could for Christ; but they are getting old, they say, and so they must just do a little less. They used to give generously to the cause of God, but their means are reduced, and they are obliged to draw in, so they draw in first in the matter of giving to God; they begin to pinch God’s cause before they pinch themselves. So the Lord has again to say, “Thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.” Possibly, there are some things in which each one of us has failed to take that delight in God which we ought to have taken. We have not been half so delighted with God as he has been with us; and we have not been so willing to converse with him as he has been willing to go with us through the floods and through the flames.

Now, next, and very briefly indeed, I want you to notice the contrast in the sacrifice. Turn to the third verse: “I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.” Now read in the 23rd verse: “Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices.… Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.”

Here is God giving up everybody else for the sake of his people. Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba were great nations, but God did not choose the greatest. Is it not an extraordinary thing that the Lord should ever have loved some of us? We are nothing in particular, and there are mighty men, learned men, men of rank and station, yet he has passed them by. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence.” That is a very wonderful declaration on God’s part: “I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee;” that is to say, “I passed others by, and chose thee.”

“We may see another meaning in these words, for God has given fur us his choicest gift. Christ is infinitely more precious than Egypt, and Ethiopia, and Seba, though they were lands of great abundance of wealth. God had but one Son, yet he gave him up that he might die for us, and that, through his death, we might live. There can be no gift equal to this, for that Son of God was God’s own self; and in the death of Christ, it was God himself who came to earth for our redemption. Will you just try, dear child of God, to think over that great fact, for you know that it is true?

Now look at the other side; will any of you, to whom this applies, remember the charge God here makes? “Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings.” I wonder how little some people really do give to God! I believe, in some cases, not as much as it costs them for the blacking of their boots. If you were to set it all down, there are some professors whose sacrifice to God might be put--, I was about to say, in their eye, but certainly they would not feel it if it were put in their mouths, for it is so little. “I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee; yet thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings.”

Then the Lord adds, “Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money.” Not even the smallest offering has been given to the Most High by some who profess to have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. How little is given by the most generous of us! How little even by those who live nearest to God! As if his words ought to touch our consciences, the Lord says, “I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense;” as much as to say, “I have left it entirely to you what you would bring. I have not demanded anything, I have not fixed any rate, I have not taxed you; and this voluntary principle-has it failed? I have not put you under the law, and said that you shall give just so much; I have left it wholly to your love.” I read somewhere that, in the Romish times, men were very generous, because they thought that they could purchase salvation by their alms and their gifts to the church; and it is said that the doctrine of free grace makes people stingy. I do not believe that it is so; I believe that the natural effect of grace upon any true heart is to make the man feel that, if God has done so much for him, it is his joy and his delight to do all that lies in his power for God and his cause. At any rate, dear friends, let us be sure to make it so in our case. I am not going to press this matter upon you, but I want you to take it home to yourselves, as I take it home to myself. Let not the Lord have to say to any one of us, “I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee;.… but thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money.”

I close with one more contrast, which refers to the honour given by God, and the honour given to God.

Read with me in verse four: “Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee.” Then here is the contrast, in the 23rd verse: “Neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices.” The words seem to answer to each other in the declaration of God’s love to his people and in his lamentation for the want of their love to him: “Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable.” This is a very wonderful passage, but it is blessedly true that God gives great honour to those whom he saves. I have known persons who, before their conversion, were unclean in their lives, men who had been everything that was despicable, and women who had lost all honour; and when they have been converted, they have joined a Christian church, and in the society of God’s people they have become honourable. They have been taken into the fellowship of the saints just as if there had never been a fault in their lives; nobody has mentioned the past to them, it has been forgotten. If ever any professed Christian has spoken of it, it has been a disgrace to him to do so; but in the Church of God in general, we take in those who have been the vilest of the vile; and if they have but new hearts and right spirits, they are our brethren and our sisters in Christ, and they are honourable among us, and the Lord says to each one of them, “Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable.” All God’s people are honourable people, they are the true “right honourables,” for God has made them so. They are honourable as to their new nature, for that is holy, and they seek after holiness. They are honourable as the sons of God, for they are of the blood royal of heaven. They are honourable as wedded to Christ, for he becomes their Husband. They are honourable because of their inheritance, for they can sing,-

“This world is ours, and worlds to come:

Earth is our lodge, and heaven our home.”

They are honourable as to their station throughout eternity, for they shall dwell for ever at the right hand of God. Even those who were once so dishonourable that we could not have associated with them then, are brought nigh by the blood of Christ, and God makes them honourable.

I do think that, if you and I, poor creatures that we are, are made honourable by God, the very least thing we can do is to honour him in return. This is the highest honour that God can put upon us, that he fixes his love upon us: “Thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee.” Drink in that nectar if you can. I cannot preach about it; I always feel as if, when I get to that theme, I must just sit down, and think over this great wonder, that God loves me! “I have loved thee,-I, the great, the infinite Jehovah, have loved thee.” Well, then, the very least thing we can do, is to honour with our whole heart and soul him who has so greatly honoured us.

Now, beloved, have you honoured God? He says, in our text, “Neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices.” Have you honoured God by your lives, dear brethren? Have you honoured God by your confidence in him? Have you honoured God by your patience? Have you honoured God by defending his truth when it has been assailed? Have you honoured God by speaking to poor sinners about him? Are you trying every day to honour him? Surely, it is the very least thing we can do who have been-

“Chosen of him ere time began,”

and then redeemed with the heart’s blood of the Son of the Highest. It is the least we can do, to make every faculty we possess subordinate to this end of honouring and glorifying God. It is for this he has created us, for this he has called us, for this he has redeemed us, for this he has sanctified us. Therefore, let us set about it at once, and think and plan within our hearts what we can do for the glory and honour of him who has redeemed us unto himself. The Lord bless this message to all here present, for Jesus’sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

ISAIAH 43:1-7; 21-28; and 44:1-5.

Chapter 43 Verse 1. But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

“Fear not,” is a command of God; and is a command which brings its own power of performance with it. God, who created and formed us, says to us, “Fear not,” and a secret whisper is heard in the heart by which that heart is so comforted that fear is driven away.

“Fear not: for I have redeemed thee.” That is a good reason why we should never fear again; redemption is a well of consolation, and the redeemed of the Lord have nothing whatever to fear.

2. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee;

The godly have the best company in the worst places in which their lot is cast.

2. And through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee:

The godly have special help in their times of deepest trouble.

2. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned;

The godly are the subjects of miracles of mercy in seasons of greatest distress.

2. Neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

Thou shalt come out of the furnace as the three holy children did, with not so much as the smell of fire upon thee; for, where God is, all is safe: “Thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”

3. For I am the Lord thy God,-

This is the grandest possible reason for not fearing. Fall back upon this when you have nothing else upon which to rely. If you have no goods, you have a God. If thy gourd is withered, thy God is still the same as he ever was: “For I am Jehovah, thy God,”-

3, 4. The Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.

All that, God has given; if it were not enough, he would still add to it. He has redeemed us, so there is no need of more; but if there were, God would go through with it even to the end.

5. Fear not: for I am with thee:

This is the second time that the blessed words, “Fear not,” ring out like the notes of the silver trumpet proclaiming the jubilee to poor trembling hearts: “Fear not, for I am with thee.” The Lord seems to say to each troubled believer, “My honour is pledged to secure thy safety, all my attributes are engaged on thy behalf right to the end; yea, I am myself with thee; wherefore, fear not.”

5-7. I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called by my name:

Whatever happens, God will be with his Church. His own chosen people shall all be gathered in. There shall be no frustration of the divine purpose. From East or West, North or South, all his sons and daughters shall come unto him, even every one that is called by his name.

7. For I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

And God will be glorified in his people; the object of their creation is the glory of their God, and that end shall, somehow or other, be answered in the Lord’s good time.

Now I want you to notice the other side of the question. God says, in the twenty-first verse,-

21. This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise. But-

A sorrowful “but”; and the strain sinks from a triumphant shout to a doleful lamentation: “But”-

22. Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.

How sad it is that those who have been loved so much, should make such a shameful return for it all!

23. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings;-

No kids of the goats, or lambs from the fold,-

23. Neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense.

“I have not been a cruel taskmaster, or tyrant, demanding of thee more than thou couldst give.”

24. Thou hast brought me no sweet cane with money,-

“No calamus has sent forth its perfume from mine altar,”-

24. Neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.

These are the people whom God had loved so long and so well, those upon whom he had set his unchanging affection; yet they acted thus shamefully. What will follow upon such conduct as this? Their swift destruction? No. Listen to the Lord’s gracious message,-

25. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

Here is a great wave of mercy washing away everything that could bear witness against the people of God.

26-28. Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified. Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me: Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.

Chapter 44 Verses 1-5. Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen: thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen. For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord’s; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel.

There are different ways of making the same profession of attachment to the Lord. All do not acknowledge in the same way their faith in God, but it is a great blessing when our offspring do acknowledge it. Let us end our reading with that sweet blessing upon our children: “I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.” May it come to pass in all our families, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-732, 742, 640.

LUMINOUS WORDS

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, December 26th, 1897,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, December 28th, 1884.

“Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries.”-1 Peter 4:1-3.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has suffered for sin, and he has suffered to the utmost extent, for he has paid the death penalty on his people’s behalf. Look at the 18th verse of the previous chapter: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” Christ has fought with sin to the bitter end. He has now done with sin, for he has died to it. He has borne the capital sentence pronounced upon the guilty, dying “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” Now, as many as have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ are one with him: and what he did, he did representatively for them, so that they virtually did it in him. Therefore, every believer ought to regard himself as having been put to death on account of sin,-as having undergone, in the person of his great Substitute the capital sentence on account of sin; and now, as a man who has been executed is clear of the guilt, so are we; and as a man who has been executed should not return, could he live again, under the old sin, so neither must we. “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Now read between the lines of our text. In Christ we have died unto sin once; but now that we live, we live in newness of life, and we live unto God; we are as if we had actually died to sin, and had passed into a new state and condition by virtue of our union with Jesus Christ our Lord. But while this is true, there is an experience of it which we have to undergo within our own spirits; hence the apostle says, “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind.” As he has died to sin, we are to die to sin also. This takes place-the commencement of it, at any rate,-at the time of conversion. The man who formerly loved sin, begins to hate it. The sin which he used to swallow greedily, he now loathes and shuns. There is such a change wrought by the Spirit of God in the heart of the believer, that sin can no more have dominion over him. It is dethroned from the place which it occupied over his nature. It once put its foot upon his neck, but now he puts his foot upon its neck. He is dead to sin, and he ceases from it;-not but that, in the sight of the all-seeing Jehovah, he has his infirmities, his failures, and his sins; but still, as far as his heart is concerned, he has done with it. There is not any sin which he would willingly do There is no sin which he wishes to spare. “Destroy them all,” says be; “there is not one of them which is not a deadly viper which would cause my ruin; sweep them all out, my happiness can never be complete till my character is perfect. O Lord, I can never have my heart’s desire till-

“ ‘The dearest idol I have known,

Whate’er that idol be,’-

“shall be once and for ever torn from off thy throne, that I may-

“ ‘Worship only thee.’ ”

You see, dear friends, what a wonderful change it is that is wrought in those who are united to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is as though a man were made to be dead to all for which he once lived, and were made to live for that to which he was aforetime dead. He has passed from death unto life, from loving evil into loving righteousness, from hating that which is good to the following after it with all his heart and soul and spirit. I am not going to enlarge upon that great truth except to say this. I beg you to remember that there is no getting quit of sin-there is no escaping from its power-except by contact and union with the Lord Jesus Christ. I may stand here and preach against the prevalent vices of the age, as I hope I never shall be ashamed to do, but no vice will be put down merely by my denunciation of it. I may charge this man to shake off his sins by righteousness, and to escape for his life; but I have set him a task which is quite impossible to him unless I also tell him where the power is to be found by which this work is to be done. You will not bring a man into the humour to break off his sin by merely telling him that it is his duty, or by warning him that he will be ruined unless he does so. No; but if you can lay that dead man at the foot of the cross,-if you can bring the pierced hand of Jesus to touch that dead and powerless sinner,-then he will live. If he does but look to Christ, a glance at him will give that moral and spiritual power which shall enable the man to make a total alteration in his life, because inwardly there shall be made by the Holy Ghost a complete transformation in his inner self. You may take a lantern which has no candle in it, and you may clean the exterior as long as you like; but it will not guide you through the darkness. There must be a candle placed within, or else it will be useless to you, cleanse it as you may. And within man’s se set nature there must be put the divine candle of faith in Christ; otherwise, all his outward moralities will leave him a dark lantern still. You may take a sow from the trough, and you may wash it with much soap, and expend much toil upon it; but, whatever you may do, as soon as it is set free, the creature will go back to its wallowing, and be as filthy as the rest of the swine. It can never be cleanly, like the sheep, unless an almighty hand shall transform the sow into a sheep; and, in like manner, sinners are never really changed until they are born again. It is a good thing for the sow to be washed, I have no doubt; it is all the better for it. It is a good thing for the lantern to be cleaned, though it has no candle; it is all the better for it. And so, it is a good thing for the drunkard to become a total abstainer; it is a right thing for the thief to become honest; it is a wise thing for the impure to become chaste. All these things are good; but, still, they fall short of what is wanted to enable a man to enter heaven; and there comes down again this great Nasmyth hammer which, at every blow, crushes all self-righteousness: “Ye must-ye must-ye must be born again.” There is no escaping from the bondage of sin except by that wonderful means which God has ordained: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” There is no way of getting the power with which we can smite sin, the great adversary of our souls, except by laying hold upon the conquering cross of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

That is the great truth I shall try to enforce all through my discourse, but I intend just to light up portions of my text as I have sometimes seen, at illuminations, a few oil lamps lit up, and not the rest. I am going to select a few words here and there, and to try to illuminate them by the light of the Holy Spirit.

The first words I want to light up are but two,-“No longer.” “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.”

Those words, “no longer,” strike me as exceedingly suggestive to some of you. If God the Holy Ghost shall open your eyes to see Jesus Christ as having died for you, and you shall look to him, and find life in that look, then you will “no longer” be what you are, you will “no longer” wish to do what you have been doing. You will not ask even for an hour’s furlough or respite, but this will be your cry, “No longer! No longer would I spend my time in the flesh to the lusts of men.” It is near the end of the year, the last Sabbath evening in another year. My heart, hast thou been living to please thyself, and have thine own passions been thy master? Then, O my God, help me to say that it shall be so no longer!

For, first, it is a dishonourable thing for a man to let his body, which is his baser part, rule his spirit, which is his nobler part. It is a disgraceful thing for a man to live only for the pleasures of the day, and never cast a glance into futurity, and think about his immortal soul which will outlive the stars. Say to yourself, “Why should I act so dishonourably? Come, my spirit, wake thyself up; if thou art indeed a man, with intellect and soul within thee, let thy spirit take its right position, and say to the body, ‘Thou shalt no longer rule; but thou shalt be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water to my mind and my spirit, which shall henceforth come to the front, for no longer will I seek after the lusts of the flesh.’ ”

And for this reason also, because it is not only dishonourable, but it is wrong “to live in the flesh to the lusts of men.” Are you not conscious, you who have never lived unto God, that you are living altogether a wrong kind of life? I do not mean, necessarily, that you are leading a vicious life; but is your Maker, your Creator, getting glory out of you, or does this complaint of God apply to your case, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” Have I not often put it to you that you would not keep a dog if it never followed at your heel? You would not care to have an engine that never worked according to your will; you would soon say, “I must get rid of this useless thing.” Yet here is God, who has created you, and provided for you, and preserved you in being, and all this while you have scarcely thought of him. You have never loved him, you have never truly worshipped him; and whatever kind of outward homage you have rendered to him, you have had no real delight in it. You have been a trembling slave, but you have never been an obedient servant to him. Well, then, as this is all wrong, we must alter it. A man who is a man says, “If this course is wrong, I am going no further in it. If this is a dishonest thing, I will have no more to do with it. No longer! No longer! No, not a moment longer will I continue as I have been; if I can have an alteration made, that alteration shall be made at once, for this is my motto, ‘No longer.’ ”

Let me also say to you, dear friend, that you ought “no longer” to live “in the flesh to the lusts of men,” because the tendency is for you to get hardened in that evil state. Remember that text on which I spoke to you, a fortnight ago:* “Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope.” As cords of vanity grow into cart-ropes, so little evil practices consolidate into dreadful habits which hold a man as with bands of steel. There are some of you who, if you mean to go to heaven, must start at once; I feel that there are some here to whom God seems to say, “Now, or never!” I can hear the great pendulum of the clock of time, and as it goes to and fro it says, “Now, or never! Now, or never! Now, or never!” Before, like Lot’s wife, you stiffen into a pillar of salt that can never move, I charge you, escape for your life, run to the only refuge set before you; may God help you so to do, looking unto Jesus! Let the words “no longer,” enter into your heart, as they now come forth from my mouth.

“No longer;” for if, dear friend, you have found out that Jesus has loved you, and that he gave himself for you, you will say to yourself, “No longer will I harbour his enemies.” I pray the Holy Spirit to help me to lead you right away to Calvary, where Jesus hangs bleeding on the cross. Will you not sit down with me upon the ground, and look up, and see him die? Mark the precious blood flowing from his many wounds, and hear him cry, “I thirst,” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Look unto him. Oh, that you would look, as I now do! I am looking unto Jesus, and trusting myself entirely with him to save me; and I feel in my heart that he has saved me. Now I cannot live as I once lived; I cannot sin as I once sinned; I must have done with sin if I have, indeed, trusted in Christ. Do you not feel the same? I am sure that, if you do now look to him, and live by him, you will not want to have your sins spared you even until the end of this year; but you will say, “No; bring them out; hang them up; let them all be put away for ever. There is no darling sin that I would keep back; let them all die, for no longer would I seek to find a perilous and poisonous enjoyment in them, but my delight shall consist in seeking to be holy, and in endeavouring to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.” If you have received the new life into your soul, then I know that you will say, “No longer would I abide in sin.” I have been charmed, this week, by some whom I have seen, who have found the Saviour just lately; and I am pleased to find that the Lord is at work in many ways bringing sinners to himself. Why should he not bring you? And what better time could there be than just at the close of this year?

Remember that it must be short work with every sin; your watchword must be, “No longer.” There must be no parleying, no trifling; you have parleyed too long and trifled too long already. Now for the one deadly shot that shall penetrate the very heart of sin-love, and make it fall slain within you. It will have to be sharp work, with some of you, as well as short work. It will be like cutting off your right arm or tearing out your right eye; but it must be done. It must be with you as it was with John Bunyan, “Will you have your sins, and go to hell; or will you give them up, and go to heaven?” There is no other alternative. As God lives, it must be one of these two. As it is short work, and sharp work, it will be saving work, for, when you have parted with your sins, you will be joined to Christ; and when at Christ’s feet you have laid down your love of sin, then you may go your way hearing the apostle’s comforting message, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Trusting in Christ, you are a saved man, and you may sing of it, and bless the name of the Most High.

So much for these two words, “No longer.”

Now I want you kindly to turn to my text again, that I may light up five words in the second verse. They are these, “The rest of his time.”

“The rest of his time.” I do not know how much there may be; but, in any case, it cannot be very long. “The rest of his time,” cannot be very long even with the longest-lived among us. Some have good constitutions, and they are yet only in the beginning of their days, so they may live a considerable time; still, they cannot be sure that it will be so. God has been visiting this congregation very frequently of late; every day, almost, somebody is taken away from us. Elderly persons have gone in immense numbers during the last two months; some of our young friends are also going; and we shall have to carry to the grave, this week, some who have scarcely reached middle life. The hand of God is at work among us in a very marked manner, taking away one and another from our midst. “Who’ll be the next? Who’ll be the next?” One who was here on Sabbath week has now gone into the world of spirits. I know of one, there may be many more besides. Well, then, dear friends, it is clear that the rest of our time cannot be very long.

“The rest of his time.” With some, it must be very short,-persons who are very sickly; others who are very aged; and to some, who are neither sickly nor aged, the bolt of death shall be let fly in a moment, and they will be in the unseen world. Come, then, dear friends, let us think this matter over; I would like to think it over myself. There is this consideration which we must not forget, while we are talking about the rest of our life, it is already going. Every moment that we are here, we are travelling at an immense rate, speeding onward to the great goal of death. We had need be in earnest, for while we are making up our minds to be earnest, our time is slipping away. We say that we will find a firm foundation to build on for eternity; and while we are thinking and talking of the foundation, the earth is crumbling from underneath our feet, and we are gradually gliding away. “It is time to live,” said Anacreon, “for I grow old;” and surely we may each one of us say, “It is time to live, since, whether old or not, my life is continually passing away.”

I should like to cheer up some of you, who are not yet converted, with the belief that, although the rest of your time for serving the Lord cannot be as long as it would have been if you had been converted earlier, yet, if you yield yourself to Christ at once, there may be enough time left to you to do good work for your Lord and Master. I have known an aged man converted to Christ long after grey hairs have been upon him; even when tottering to his grave, he has not been wholly useless, but he has still brought forth fruit in his old age, to show that the Lord is upright. It has been the happy lot of some of us to be working for our Lord and Master ever since our boyhood, but we have not done enough yet. We feel, indeed, hungry to do much more, and we have the satisfaction of hoping that we may be spared to do in the future more than we have ever done up to the present. Who knows? God may give us fresh health and strength, and we may be enabled to accomplish more even than in the past; we shall do so if it pleases him. But if any of you are converted in your old age, if you are brought to Christ at a period when your years must be few, yet take care to redeem the time, because the days are evil. It is wonderful how God can use even you; there is a testimony for you to bear yet, do bear it; and may God bless it very abundantly!

Meanwhile, as for the rest of our life, it has immediate demands; and I beg to impress that thought upon everybody here. The way to do a great deal, is to keep on doing a little. The way to do nothing at all, is to be continually resolving that you will do everything. Let that grand dreams of yours, “baseless fabric of a vision” as it is, go where dreams must go; and begin to do the day’s work in the day; ay, and to-night’s work-the work of the hour upon which we have entered,-do that while the hour is here. I am sure that there are many of you, professing Christian people, who do not bring anybody to Christ, because, although you know how it ought to be done, you keep on finding fault with those that do it. Now, just leave your fellow-servants alone, and get to your own work. “Oh!” you say, “there is a person who is constantly trying to speak to others; he is really quite intrusive.” Yes, I know him very well; but, instead of bothering your head about him, would it not be as well for you to do the work better yourself if you can? If you tried to do so, you would not then have any inclination to find any fault with your fellow-servant. If we were all determined to do what we could, and to do it well, we should serve the Lord acceptably, and be blessed in doing it. “When I get home,” says someone, “I know what I can do. I am a nursemaid, and I shall hear the children say their prayers.” Yes, hear them say their little prayers, but be sure to teil them something about “Gentle Jesus.” “Oh, but!” says another, “I have such a number of children around me that I hardly ever get out; it is only now and then, on a Sunday evening, that I can come here; it seems as if there is nothing that I can do for Jesus.” “My dear good soul, you are the very person who has much to do for Christ. You have a great and precious charge entrusted to you; seek to bring all those dear children to the Saviour.” “Well,” says another, “I really do not know what I can do.” Now, for a person who lives in London to say that, is really wicked. You know what Solomon says about our work, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” I should have thought that he would have said, “Whatsoever thine eyes can see that needs to be done.” No; he seems to say, “You may shut your eyes, and put out your hand, and do the first thing that comes within your reach.” In such a city as this, there is so much to be done that you may just put out your hand, and do the first thing that comes within your reach; that is the best thing for you to do.

“The rest of his time.” I have tried to light up those words, and I want every Christian and every unconverted person also to go away thinking in some such fashion as this, “The rest of my time,-let me use it, Lord, for thee. Let me work at double-quick speed. Lord, help me to make forced marches for thee. Lord, help me to do thoroughly what I do. Enable me to throw my whole soul into it; and by thy Divine Spirit so inspire me, so fill me with thine own power and grace, that what I do may be done effectually and efficiently.” Know ye not that ye are labourers together with God, and that what you do aright God does through you? If you can but realize this, how honourably and gloriously will the rest of your life be spent!

Now, to close, I would throw the lamp-light on six words in the third verse. The words are these,-“The time past of our, life.”

“The time past of our life.” Well, that has gone past recall. Oh, if you could only get your life back again! But you cannot,-not even a moment of it. What is done can never be undone.

“Could your tears for ever flow,

Could your zeal no respite know,”

you cannot undo anything that is done; there your past life will always stand. If you are a believer in Jesus, the sin of your past life is forgiven; still, it was your sin. The penalty of it will never be executed; still, you did have that evil feeling, you did think that rebellious thought, you did say that wicked word, you did commit that transgression, you did omit the keeping of that precept. There it is, and it cannot be altered.

And, further, there is no way of making up for the past of your life. The duties of to-day are not the duties of ten years ago. If I live unto myself during the first twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years of my life, I had need to be doubly zealous in the ardour of my service for God in the future; but, still, that does not fill up the void in the past; that does not remove the fact that all those fields behind me lay untitled through many a year, bringing forth nothing but thorns and thistles,-no acceptable harvest for my God Ah, me! This makes “the time past of our life” appear very solemn. Certainly it is true that it has sufficed “to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.” There is no man here, whom God has converted by his grace, who wishes that he had spent more of his life in sin. No doubt, it has given him a knowledge of the world, but it is a knowledge of the world which those who have would be glad to be rid of. I know many a child of God who, when he is in prayer, will have suggested to him, even by the words he uses, some lascivious song; and even what the preacher says, though perfectly pure, may raise before the mind some impure thought, some unhallowed act. It is a blessed thing for a man, who has been steeped up to his throat in the bogs of devilry, to be converted; but he who has never seen the world at all, has seen quite enough of it. He who has never seen even the hoof of the devil, nor a print which he has made in the earth, has seen enough of him. The time past may well suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. If we were converted to God in boyhood, we had had quite enough of sin. Enough, did I say? Far too much, for a single drop of that burning acid will leave a scar upon the flesh even after it has no longer any power to destroy the spirit.

“The time past of our life” seems to me to be a matter of humiliation to us all without exception, but most of all to those who are newly converted. I never mind hearing a man tell that he is converted; but I must confess to feeling a kind of sickness come over me when I have heard some people tell what they used to do before they wert converted. I have thought, “I wish that brother would get away in a corner somewhere, and tell that story where nobody could hear it.” I have heard some men tell the tale of their past lives as if it really was very grand and very creditable to them to have done such abominable things. A man gets up in a meeting, and says, “My dear friends, I have done that which, if it had been known, would have brought me to the gallows.” “Then sit down,” says someone, “sit down.” A very sensible thing to say, because perhaps the man might die on the gallows if he went on with his story. But some fellows will get up, and, under the pretence that they are going to glorify God, will tell of all manner of filthiness and vice which cannot do any good to anybody. Stand up and cry, brother, that is the best thing you can do; or else, sit down, and cover your face, and say, “Concerning those things whereof I am now ashamed, I only pray God, as he has blotted them out of his memory, to put them out of my own also.”

“The time past of our life” ought also to come before us as a matter of contrast. A Christian should say, “I cannot do this or that; I used to do it, but that is the very reason why I cannot do it now. I cannot make the angry answer that I once would have done to a man who injured me; the time was, when my blood would have been up, and I would soon have let him know that he could not insult me in that fashion; but now he may insult me if he pleases, for I am changed, and I have become a Christian. Time was when, in my business, I should not have minded how the weights went; but now, I would far rather defraud myself than injure another.” The Christian should recollect the time past, to make his present converted life to be a strict contrast to it.

And he should sometimes recollect it that it may be a stimulus to him. I remember a man, who came a considerable distance to worship with us in the house of God, as some of you do. I often notice, when you come to join the church, if you have to walk five miles here and five miles back, and I say to you, “It is a very long way,” you exclaim, “Oh, it is nothing, sir! It does me good, and I like a walk on Sundays.” After you have been here a few years, if you get lukewarm or cold in spirit, those same miles grow terribly long,-do they not?--and you go somewhere nearer home. There is a great difference between a mile and a mile,-as much difference as there is between a heart and a heart; and when the heart alters, the length of the miles increases directly. Well, this man, of whom I was telling you, one day was going to his place of worship, and he felt very tired, and his legs said, “Don’t go this morning.” So he just pulled up, and said, “Ah, you old rascals, you used to go further than that to the theatre, and I will make you go to the Tabernacle;” so, on he walked. And, sometimes, it is a good thing to put it to yourself, “Why, I have stood up in the gallery of the theatre among the ‘gods’ when it has been hot enough to bake me; and I will go though the place is hot, or though the place is cold, to hear the gospel!” Some of you would have sat on a very bare seat in the days of your flesh to take your enjoyment, and paid your money down as freely as possible to see what only did you hurt; but now it often happens that, in a place of worship, you must have a very soft cushion, and be very comfortable, and everybody must be very polite to you, or else you get sick and tired of it. O friend, recollect the past, in order to chide yourself about the present, and say, “I went; through thick and thin for the devil, and I will go through thick and thin for Christ. I was never ashamed to own my old master, I could swear and curse among the worst of his servants; and surely I will not be ashamed to own Christ, but I will sing to his praise, and avow that I belong to him.”

I would like you all to take up these three threads,-“No longer.” “The rest of his time,” “The time past of our life.” Wind them round your finger, and keep them in your memory; and may God grant that we may all start afresh from this time, to the praise of the glory of his grace! Amen and amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

1 PETER 4

Verse 1. Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind:

Accepting this great truth, that it is well that the flesh should die that the spirit may triumph, even as it was with Christ.

1. For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;

If he has indeed died with Christ, and the power of Christ’s sufferings has made him dead to sin, he has ceased from it.

2-4. That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice, us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:

For the very thing in which they ought to speak well of you, men will speak evil of you. If you will not drink as they do, if you will not follow after sinful pleasures as they do, if you will not sing their songs, or use their language, then straightway they will hate you, and call you a hypocrite. It is a pity that, if we are not willing to go into sin as they do, they should for that reason speak ill of us; yet this is what we must expect.

5. Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.

There will be a day, when those who are alive at the coming of Christ will be judged; and those who were dead long before that time will not escape the judgment, for they shall be raised from their graves to appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

6. For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

Men who heard the gospel, and believed it, are now dead; they have undergone the sentence of death like other men; but, still, they are living “according to God in the spirit.”

7. But the end of all things is at hand:

We are never told the exact date of the times or seasons which are yet to come; it is the evident aim of the Holy Spirit to keep us on the tip-toe of expectation. We are always to be as men whose Lord may come at any minute of the day or night: “The end of all things is at hand:”-

7. Be ye therefore sober,

Do not get intoxicated with anything, neither with pride, nor with covetousness, nor with the cares of this world. Maintain your equilibrium; stand steadfast and firm: “Be ye therefore sober,”-

7, 8. And watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves:

For, when Christ comes, he will know you as his disciples if you love one another; but if there be an absence of Christian affection when he comes, he will say at once that you have missed the main mark of discipleship.

8. For charity shall cover the multitude of sins.

Not your own sins, but the sins of your friends, so that you will not see them. Where love is thin, there faults are always thick. Wherever there is true love in the heart, we make many apologies and allowances for the weaknesses and infirmities of our friends. Often, we cannot see the faults in them; and when we know they are there, we go backward, like the godly sons of Noah, and cover the nakedness upon which we will not think of looking, “for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.”

9. Use hospitality one to another without grudging.

Whenever saints of God travelled in those days, there were few public inns available for their accommodation, so they stayed with brethren in Christ as they went on their way.

10. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

God’s grace takes many shapes, it is manifold; and he gives to one brother one form of grace, and to another quite a different form; and, to a third, yet another form of his blessing. Now, as nations increase their wealth by mutual commerce, so do Christian men increase their grace by a sweet fellowship in the good things with which God has entrusted them.

11. If any man speak,-

Let him speak thoroughly well; but, in order that he may do so, what shall be his model?

11. Let him speak as the oracles of God;

As truthfully, carefully, solemnly, as the Book itself speaks: “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God.”

11. If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth.

“If any man minister,” or serve,-if he is called to serve the church in any capacity,-“let him do it as of the ability which God giveth.”

11. That God in all things may he glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

Note how Peter has the same spirit in him as that which burned in the breast of Paul, for he stops in the middle of a letter, lays down his pen, and lifts up his heart to God in an adoring strain of thanksgiving: “To whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

12. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

In Peter’s day, the Christians were called, not only to what might he metaphorically termed, “the fiery trial,” but they had literally to suffer thus for Christ’s sake. Nero had multitudes of Christians brought to his gardens, and tied to stakes, that he might light up his midnight revelries by the burning of these godly men and women smeared with pitch. They had to bear even that fiery trial for the name of Christ. Many periods of martyrdom have passed since then, in which the saints of God have willingly died rather than deny their Lord. We have fallen upon comparatively silken times; a jest, a slander, a calumnious observation,-these are the only weapons with which our enemies can smite the most of us.

13, 14. But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye;

Did not your Saviour say, “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.” So, be glad about it.

14. For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.

Whenever they speak against you that which is not true, they think that they shall slander the name of God by slandering you; but they do no such thing. As far as they are concerned, God is evil spoken of; but, then, that is all you could have expected from such people. “But on your part”-and that is the thing you have to look to,-“on your part he is glorified.”

15. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters.

A curious mixture that,-is it not? A murderer is classed with “a busybody in other men’s matters.” But, really, people of this latter sort are very obnoxious. There are some who seem as if they cannot mind their own business; I have heard that it is for two reasons; first, because they have not any business to mind, and, secondly, they have no mind at all with which to mind their business. But these very people think they can mind other people’s business; and the more is the pity. See how strongly Peter condemns them, and asks that none of those to whom he writes may have to suffer because of such wrongdoing.

16, 17. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God:-

Trial and testing must begin there; we must not expect to have our religion taken for granted, and ourselves to be saved simply upon our own warranty. We must be tried: “The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.” “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God:”-

17. And if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

If the wheat is winnowed, what is to become of the chaff? If God puts even the gold into the fire, what is to become of the dross? If that which is really valuable yet has to be tested, what is to be done with the mire and the clay? Oh, that all who have no part or lot with Christ would consider this solemn truth!

18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved,-

If they be saved with difficulty,-

18. Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

If even men who live godly lives are often hard put to it to know whether they shall be saved or not,-if they raise the question again and again with a terrible seriousness, “where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”

19. Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

The whole run of the chapter is that we are to prefer any suffering of the flesh to the sin of the spirit; and we are to be prepared to endure whatever trial or pain may come upon us for Christ’s sake, and to hear it joyfully, rather than to seek the pleasures of sin, and to be plunged under the waves of the wrath of God. May he give us the grace thus to glorify him, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

END OF VOLUME XLIII.