It seems, then, that the best of men have a measure of foolishness in them, and that, sometimes, that foolishness shows itself. How gentle and tender ought we to be with others who are foolish when we remember how foolish we are ourselves! How sincerely ought we to rejoice in Christ as made of God unto us wisdom, when we see the folly that is bound up in our hearts, and which too often shows itself in our talk and in our acts! Yet while the best of men have folly in them, it is one of the marks of a good man that he knows it to be folly, and that he is willing to confess his sin before God. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” If we stand as the Pharisee stood in the temple, and cry, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are,” we shall go home, as the Pharisee did, without the justification which comes from God. It is the truly good man who stands afar off with the publican, and cries, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” and he also shall go to his house “justified rather than the other.”

There is one solemn thought which deeply impresses the man who is right at heart, but who sees his own foolishness and sin, and mourns it; and that thought is, that God sees it, and sees it more perfectly than he sees it himself. His own sight of it makes him repent, and humble himself; and his knowledge of God’s sight of it helps him to that repentance and humiliation. God sees everything concerning every man; but the most of men care not about God seeing them, they do not give it so much as a passing thought. It is the gracious man, the child of God who, from a broken heart, cries out, “O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.” And this it is that makes a Christian man so greatly value the precious blood of Christ, and the perfect righteousness which Jesus Christ has wrought out; albeit that omniscience still perceives sin, yet justice does not perceive it. God knows we are sinners, but he imputes to all believers the righteousness of Christ, and looks upon them as they are in him. He cleanses us in the precious blood of Jesus, so that we are clean in his sight, and “accepted in the Beloved.” What a wonderful atonement is that which hides from God that which cannot be hidden, so that God does not see what, in another sense, he must always see, and forgets what it is impossible for him, in another sense, ever to forget! In a just and judicial way, God casts our sin behind his back, and ceases to see iniquity in his people because they are clean every whit through washing in the-

“Fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins.”

Now, looking at our text, I am going to call attention to the great truth of the omniscience of God, desiring that each one of us may say from our heart, “O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.”

First, concerning God’s knowledge of man’s sin, I remark that it must be so. I am not going to argue, but just to talk a little to set this truth before you with greater assurance of certainty.

God must know our foolishness, for, first, he is infinite in knowledge. We cannot conceive of a God whose knowledge is bounded That condition belongs to the finite, the creature, but not to the Infinite, the Creator, the great First Cause of everything. God knows all the past, and all the present, and all the future. He knows all the things that might have been, and are not. He knows what might have come out of certain germs, and what yet may come, which at the present seems to be far remote. All knowable things must be known to the Most High; the very nature of God implies it; and, hence, he must know my foolishness, for I know something of it myself; he must know much more than I know; and my sins are not hid from him, for they are not altogether hidden from myself. God must know perfectly what I only perceive in part, though that partial perception be terrible to my own heart. Yes, the infinite knowledge of God is an absolute certainty; and, consequently, his knowledge of the folly and sin of every heart is beyond all question.

Moreover, God is everywhere present. At all times, he is in every place; and, hence, our foolishness and sin must be known to him. It is not merely that you committed a folly or a sin, and that it was reported to God. No, but he was there during the doing of it. What though the blinds were drawn, and the doors were fast closed? Yet He was there; and all through the sin, he stood by you, and observed your every thought and every movement. There is no darkness that hides from him, nor any other form of screen that can be used to shut out the glances of the eye of the Eternal. He does not see from a distance, but he is on the spot. You cannot conceive of a place where God is not, for he fills all space. There could no more be a boundary to his existence than to his knowledge; and, hence, we are sure that our text is true, “O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.”

Moreover, God is also everywhere perceiving. He is never a blind God, nor a blind-folded God. His knowledge is never, even for a moment, stayed, and rendered intermittent; but, as his presence is on the highest hill and in the deepest cavern, far away on the wild sea or in the plain where the foot of man has scarcely made a track, so, in that presence, there is a constant sight, an unfailing observation at all times. You would not, I hope, reduce God to the level of one who has eyes, and sees not. “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see?” The fact that eyesight and hearing come from him proves how abundantly he possesses those faculties himself. He sees and he hears in every place, and there was never anything done of man without his knowledge. The secret murder, the silent plot where everybody had sworn an oath of secrecy, all was known to God. There was never a thought in a human mind, although the man had not uttered it in words even to himself, but what the Lord perceived it. Does not this make the fact certain that he knows my foolishness, and that my sins are not hidden from him? Infinite in knowledge, everywhere present, and everywhere perceiving everything, he must know my foolishness and my. sin. Dr. Watts forcibly expresses this idea in his hymn on God’s omnipresence,-

“In all my vast concerns with thee,

In vain my soul would try

To shun thy presence, Lord, or flee

The notice of thine eye.

“Thy all-surrounding sight surveys

My rising and my rest;

My public walks, my private ways,

And secrets of my breast.

“If wing’d with beams of morning light,

I fly beyond the west;

Thy hand, which must support my flight,

Would soon betray my rest.

“If o’er my sins I think to draw

The curtains of the night;

Those flaming eyes that guard thy law

Would turn the shades to light.

“The beams of noon, the midnight hour,

Are both alike to thee:

Oh, may I ne’er provoke that power

From which I cannot flee!”

Beside that, God is ever reading the heart. We have heard a good deal about thought-reading; I hope that the most of you will never be gifted in that direction, for such a power would make it very unpleasant for many. One said that he wished that he had a window in his bosom, that everybody might read his thoughts. I think that, if he were at all a sensible man, he would want to pull the blind down before long. There is something which, now and again, crosses the purest mind which he would not wish another to perceive; and he who watches his thoughts with an exemplary vigilance will sometimes be off his guard, and tolerate an imagination which he would not wish to pollute any other person’s mind. But though we cannot read each other’s hearts, God can read them. There is no possibility of lying unto the Lord so as to deceive him. He reads the hypocrite when he puts on his fine vestments, and prays his prayer in the most devout style, and even when he gets into his closet, and bows before his God only after a formal manner. We may have performed what looked like a holy deed, we may have sung a solemn psalm, we may have appeared unto our fellow-men to be among the excellent of the earth; but if it be not really so, no one can hide himself in secret, or conceal the deceit of his spirit in the dark place from the eyes of the Most High. Though thou shouldst climb to the top of Carmel in the pride of thine heart, or go down with Jonah to the bottoms of the mountains in thy deceit, yet shall he find thee out, and strip thee, and unmask thee, and set thee in the sunlight to be despised of men and all intelligent beings, as they also shall see thy falsity. O beloved, God must have seen my foolishness, and my sins cannot be hid from him, since he reads the secrets of the heart, and the tortuous passages of the soul are easily threaded by his unerring wisdom!

We are clear also that he knows our foolishness and our sin because he knows what is yet to be. To know what men have already done, is a light matter compared with knowing what men will yet do. There are black crimes which are recorded by Moses in Scripture which Moses never could have known if God had not first seen them and then communicated the knowledge of them to him. There are many incidents mentioned in the Pentateuch which could only have come to the knowledge of Moses through the revelation of the Spirit of God, and therefore God himself knew all about those events; but, throughout the prophecies, there are intimations of the sins of men that would yet be committed, and more especially that sin of sins, the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ; that crime of crimes is described in all its dreadful details. Now, if God saw all that, and recorded it by the agency of his servants centuries before it happened, there can be no hope that anything which has ever occurred has escaped the observation of the Most High. You are all books, and every page is open to the eye of the great Reader, who reads you from the first letter to the last. There is nothing which any man here can possibly conceal from God. Men love what they call secrets, yet are there no such things in very truth where God is concerned, for he observes everything. It matters not what it may be, minute or majestic, malevolent or benevolent, a curse or a blessing, it all passes before that eye which never wearies or sleeps, or suffers anything to escape its notice. It is so, it must be so; if God be God, he knows my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from him.

Now let us just turn the current of our thought while I ask, concerning God’s knowledge of man’s sin, after what fashion is it? If God knows, in what particular way does he know?

The answer is, that it is complete knowledge; the Lord knows us altogether. I must confess that I cower down beneath that thought. That the Lord should know my public service, is sufficiently awestriking; but that he should know my private thoughts, ah! this sinks me into the very dust! The Lord knows not only the action, but the motive of the action; all the thoughts that went with my action, all the pride and self-seeking that came after it, and spoiled it, when else it might have been praiseworthy. “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts.” The word “pondereth” means that he weighs us, he takes the specific gravity of our actions. They may cover a great surface, yet there may be no real substance in them at all; but the Lord weighs them as goldsmiths weigh the metal that is subjected to their test. He takes care not to be deceived by anything that is apparent to our fellow-men. “The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the Lord trieth the hearts.” There is nothing hidden from God’s eye, every separate part of us is open to his perpetual inspection; think of that. God’s knowledge is complete, and baffles all evasion.

It is also the knowledge of a holy Being. You perhaps know some people who see all they can, yet do not see all that can be seen. It is with them as it was with the lady who said to Turner, as she looked upon one of his notable paintings, “Mr. Turner, I have never seen anything like that.” “No,” replied the artist, “I don’t suppose that you have seen it; don’t you wish that you could?” So, when God looks at a man’s life, he sees infinitely more in it than the man ever saw in it himself, or than all his fellow-creatures have seen. The keen eye of envy and of malice will detect a fault, if fault there be; but keener is the eye of perfect holiness. The Lord’s eyes are as a flame of fire; being himself essential truth, he truly discovers everything that is within us, and makes no mistakes. When we are dealing with God, mistakes on his part are quite out of the question. He knows us after the manner of a perfectly holy Being; and many a thing, that looked white to us, is absolutely black to God. His eyes can see according to the clear white light of heaven; but you and I can only see in some one ray of faint light; we see not as God seeth. We shall one day be holy as he is holy, and we shall then look upon the affairs of this life in a strangely different light from that in which we look upon them now; and when once we get to heaven, we shall realize how foolish we were to form the judgments that we did form while we were here. “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Think of this, dear friends; the eyes that see you are the eyes of a perfectly holy God, who therefore more readily discovers your shortcomings and your sins than all the eyes of men could do.

Reflect, again, that God knows us with an abiding knowledge. It is a great mercy that time brings with it an assuagement of our sorrows by the oblivion in which it steeps us. You lost your mother, and you could not have lived a month suffering the pangs that you felt in the moment that you realized your loss. All your losses are the same as they were when they first befell you; but they do not eat into your spirit with that terrible force which was in them at the first, for time has taken off their edge. It is so with sin; the first time that the youth told a lie, he could not sleep; but that first lie was forty years ago, and he is almost sorry that I have brought it to his recollection now. After a while, time covers up the remembrance of sin, and we think that God has covered it up; but every sin, even of fifty years ago, is present to God’s eye just as if you were committing it at this moment; and your whole life does not stand out to him as the dim past and the bright present, it is all present to him. As when a man looks on a map, and the whole of the country is before him, so does God look down upon our life as it is spread out for his inspection, and he sees it all at once. Up from the graves of forgetfulness where you have buried them, your sins perpetually rise, and confront the judgment-seat of God. Think seriously of this matter, for it is after this manner that God knows our foolishness, and that our sins are not hid from him.

The Lord has an eternal knowledge of our sins; he never will forget them. If they are not washed away by the blood of Christ, he never can forget or cease to be angry because of them. He has written the record of man’s sin in a book; he means it, therefore, to abide. He says, “Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?” It is as if he had put men’s sin by, to be called as a damning witness against them in that great day when every action and word and thought shall pass before the judgment-seat. I do not know how this thought makes you feel, but it makes me tremble while I speak of it.

For, further, all our sins are known to him who is to be our Judge. There will be no need of witnesses in that last dread day, for the Judge knows all about us. There will be no need to call this one and that to bear testimony as to our sin, for the Judge saw it, and heard it, and he has never forgotten it, nor does his memory fail him as to any of the details. He will flash that eternal light of his into the conscience of the criminal, and write upon the tablet of his heart the revived memory of all that he had forgotten; and there cannot be a more terrible hell for a man than to be in the grasp of his memory and of his conscience in the last great day. Yet so it will be, and I beg each unconverted man to recollect that his foolishness and his sin are known to him to whom he must give an account at the day of judgment.

One thought more might, perhaps, tend to impress some who have not yet felt the force of this truth; and that is, that this knowledge will be published. If God knows about our sin, it is tantamount to everybody knowing about it. “Oh!” says someone, “I trust it will not be so; I hope that nobody knows of that dark deed of mine.” I tell you, sir, everybody shall know of it, “for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.” There shall come a day, the day for which all other days were made, when the books shall be opened, and every man shall give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether they have been good or whether they have been evil; and, further, our Saviour said, “That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” Can we bear to have it all known? Yet known it shall be, written as athwart the sky, when those we have deceived and deluded shall discover what we were, and we shall wake up to everlasting shame and contempt unless we find shelter in the atoning sacrifice, and be washed in the precious blood of Christ. If I could speak of these solemn truths as I ought to speak of them, they would move your hearts; I pray God that they may.

And now, thirdly, what then? If God sees everything, and sees it in the fashion I have tried to describe, what then?

Why, first, how frivolous must those be who never think about it! A man is about to commit a crime; but his child is present, so he hesitates; or somebody looks in at the window, and he cannot do the wrong he intended. How is it that men will tremble under the eye of a child, and almost at the presence of a dog, and yet God’s presence is nothing at all to them? A man, about to steal, had taken his child with him to help him secure the booty. He looked all round, and said; “There is nobody here, boy;” but the lad said, “Father, there is one way you did not look; you did not look up. God can see you.” Just so, men do not look up; and if you tell them that God sees them, of what account is he to them? This is practical atheism, yet men say that they would not have crucified Christ. Sirs, as far as you can, you do kill God, for you put him out of your thoughts, you make nothing of him, and what is that but the crucifixion of God? You despise him so much that his presence has no effect upon you, though the presence of any mortal man would have stopped you from your sin.

Next, dear brethren, what care this ought to work in us! How diligently we ought to do our work for God, how earnestly we ought to pray, when we know that we always have the great Taskmaster’s eye upon us; or, better still, that dear eye that looked in pity upon us, when we were lost and ruined! The eye of the Well-beloved, who gave himself for us, is always fixed upon us. “Fight, my children,” said a Highland chieftain, “fight and conquer; for your chieftain, though he lies here bleeding, has his eye upon you.” And they fought like tigers under their leader’s eye; and thus should Christians fight against sin when the eye of the beloved Captain, who died for them, is always upon them. There must be no sleeping, there must be no “scamping” of our work, as bad workmen do when the master is away. It must be gold, silver, and precious stones that we build with, and every atone must be well laid upon the one great foundation; everything must be done at the very best, because God sees it. You know how the heathen sculptor put it; he was working with his chisel and hammer upon the back part of a statue of which only the front was to be seen. The hinder part was to be built into the wall, so someone said to him, “Why are you toiling so elaborately at that which will be hidden in the wall?” He answered, “The gods can see inside the wall.” The heathen gods could not see, but our God can; and, hence, the secret part of our life is, perhaps, the most important part of it. That which is never meant for the eye of man, but wholly for the eye of God, ought to have a double care exercised in the perfecting of it, that his eye may rest upon it with a sacred complacency, according to his abounding grace and mercy.

And what holy trembling this ought to put within us! It is often a joy to think that God knows everything; it was a true comfort to Peter when he could say, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.” It is a great joy, when you are slandered and misrepresented, to be able to say, “Well, God knows the way that I take; and when he has tried me, he will bring me forth as gold. My true record is on high, so I need not fear what the record may be below.” That is a very delightful thought. At the same time, can any among you look forward to that last great day without some trembling? Does it not take all your faith in the atoning blood and in the Divine Substitute to gird up your loins that you may face that day without fear, ay, and even that you may live now in the full conviction that your life is all known to God?

Just let us think for a minute or two more about this subject, and then I will close. The Lord knows all about us, so that he knows our omissions. I do not know any subject that so much depresses me, humbles me, and lays me in the dust, as the thought of my omissions. It is not what I have done, about which I think so much as of what I have not done. “You have been very useful,” says one. Yes, but might I not have been ten times more useful? “You have been very diligent,” says another. Yes, but might I not somehow have been more diligent? Might I not have done my work in a better spirit? If I had been better, would not my work have been better? If I had borrowed more of my Master’s strength, which I might have had, might I not have accomplished much more? Do you ever feel satisfied with yourself? If so, I would advise you to fling that satisfaction out of the window, as Jehu said of the painted Jezebel, “Throw her down.” A sense of satisfaction with yourself will be the death of your progress, and it will prevent your sanctification. Many a man might have been sanctified if he had not thought that he was already sanctified; by that thought he clutched the shadow, and so he lost the substance. Mind that such a thing as that does not happen to you.

Our Lord knows all the faults of our holy things;-the coldness of our prayers, the wandering of our thoughts, the scantiness of our alms-giving, and the hardness of our hearts, so that they do not go in generous tenderness with the gift we feel bound to bestow. Our sermons, our Bible-readings, our Sunday-school teachings,-the Lord sees the faults of them; while our friends often see the excellences of them. I have had many abusive letters at different periods of my life, but specially in the early part of my career in London I think that I had as much abuse as ever fell to the lot of anybody; but, as I read letter after letter, I said to myself, “O foolish writers, if you knew me better, you could say sharper things than these, that would sting me much more; but, happily, you have never been able to lay your hands on the truth yet. You have had to tell a lie in order to abuse me, and that does not hurt me a bit. If you had known me as God does, you might have had something to say which would have caused me great sorrow.” If men could read the secrets of your soul, sincere though you have tried to be, they would see such failures, and slips, and errors, that you would not dare to set your holiest things in the light of day; yet the Lord knows the sins even of your holy things.

Then the Lord also knows our falsities. That is a very tender point. “We do not lie,” we say; but is there any man among us who is perfectly true? When you prayed, did you not say a little more than you had ever attained in your own experience? Or you were talking about yourself, and you wished to be very sincere and truthful, but you did put just a touch of colour into the picture, did you not? At least, you painted yourself with your finger over your scar; there are not many like Oliver Cromwell, who said, “If you do make a portrait of me, paint me as I am,-warts and all.” You may do that with the warts on your forehead, but I question whether you would like the warts on your character to be seen. “I hate flattery,” says one. Why, you are flattering yourself all the while that you are saying that. “But,” says one, “I do feel that I am humble.” Do you? Then I guess that you are not really so, for he who is humble still laments his pride, and thus shows his humility better than in any other way. But, whatever we are, God sees all our falsities, and there is nothing hidden from him.

Lastly, the Lord knows-and this is the best thing that he does know about us,-he knows, concerning some of us, that we are clinging to Christ alone. Unless I am utterly deceived, I can truth, fully say to the Lord Jesus Christ,-

“Other refuge have I none,

Hangs my helpless soul on thee.”

Cannot you say the same, dear friend? If you can, take heart. Do not be afraid of God knowing all, but rather say, as we read a little while ago, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Pray with David, “Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.” Come and cast yourself upon the omniscience of God, desiring to be cleansed,-spirit, soul, and body,-and made meet to enter where the redeemed and glorified Church adores the Lord for ever without fault before his throne.

God bless this searching message to every one of you, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

psalm 139

1. O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

God does not need to “search” us, for that implies a want of knowledge, a knowledge obtained by search. But the meaning of the text is, that God knows us as well as if he had examined us through and through, just as an excise officer searches a house to find contraband goods. “O Lord, thou has searched me, and known me.”

2. Thou knowest my downsitting, and mine uprising.

“Such common-place things as these, my sitting down at home, my rising up to go to my business, thou, O Lord, dost observe and know even such minor matters as these.”

2. Thou understandest my thought afar off.

“Before the thought has entered my mind, thou knowest what it will be. When I run far away from thee in my own apprehension, thou art still so near to me that thou canst hear my mind think, and thou knowest the meaning of my thought when I try to think crookedly.”

3. Thou compassest my path and my lying down.

“Thou surroundest me when I go out, or when I rest at home; when I labour, or when I sleep. Thou dost set a ring-fence round about my every action and my non-action, too.”

3. And art acquainted with all my ways.

“Thou knowest all that I do, as one that is most intimate and familiar with me. Thou, great God, ‘art acquainted with all my ways.’ ”

4. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

“Not only the words of my tongue, but the words in my tongue, are known to thee, O Lord.” As we sang just now,-

“My thoughts, before they are my own,

Are to my God distinctly known;

He knows the words I mean to speak,

Ere from my opening lips they break.”

5. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

“I am taken as in an ambush: I am held captive; I cannot get away. ‘Thou hast beset me behind and before;’-more than that, thou hast arrested me, ‘laid thine hand upon me.’ ”

6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

“Thou hast it, but I cannot reach it. Thou hast it, but ‘I cannot attain unto it.’ ”

7, 8. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou there:

For so it runs in the Hebrew. The translators put in the word “art”, as you can see by the italics. “If I ascend up into heaven, thou there,” that is all the psalmist says.

8. If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou.

Again it is more emphatic without the words supplied by the translators. “Thou, O God, art in the depths as well as in the heights. Thou art everything in every place, all in all art thou.”

9, 10. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me.

“I cannot go anywhere except thou dost enable me to go.”

10, 11. And thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

“There is no escaping that way, for the night shall be transformed into light; and I shall be as clearly perceived in the darkness as in the daylight.”

12. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;

It hides from eyes which are but mortal; but thou art pure spirit, and thou discernest not through the impinging of light upon the retina of the eye.”

12. But the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

Now the psalmist goes back to the very foundation and origin of his being.

13. For thou hast possessed my reins:

“Thou art within the secret portions of my bodily frame.”

13, 14. Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:

Hence Galen, the oldest and the best-known of the ancient surgeons, was wont to say that an undevout anatomist must be mad, as another said that an undevout astronomer was mad, for there is such a marvellous display of skill and wisdom, delicacy and force, in the making of a man, that we may each one say, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

14-16. Marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

Still he dwells upon his birth, and all that went before it, and he did well to speak of those marvels. We are too apt to forget God’s goodness to us in our infant days; but we should remember that we come not into this world without a Creator, and in that Creator we find a Friend, the best we have ever had, the best we ever can have. Oh, for grace never to wish to stray away from him in whom we live, and move, and have our being!

17. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

How often God has thought of each one of us! Remember that, if you were the only man in all the world, he would not think more of you than he does now that you are only one of myriads of myriads. The infinite mind of God is not divided by the multiplicity of the objects brought before it, but his whole mind, goes forth to contemplate each individual. What deep thoughts, what bright thoughts, what faithful thoughts, God has had concerning us! “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!”

18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

“Whether I sleep or wake, thou art with me; but, better still, I am with thee. Ere I fell asleep, I put my soul into thy hands; and when I awoke, I found it there.”

19. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God:

It cannot be that God, who sees everything, will for ever endure the wickedness of men. It cannot be that he will suffer all crime and villainy and blasphemy to escape with impunity: “Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God.”

19. Depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.

“I do not want to be with you, or to have you with me, in the day when God metes out vengeance upon the ungodly.”

20-22. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

We are bound to love our own enemies, but we are not bound to love God’s enemies. We are to wish them, as enemies, a complete overthrow; but to wish them, as men, a gracious conversion, that they may obtain God’s pardon, and become his friends, and followers, and servants.

23. Search me, O God,-

Is it not wonderful that what the psalmist started with as a doctrine, now becomes a prayer? Before, he said, “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.” Now he cries, “Search me, O God,”-

23. And know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

Every attribute of God works for the good of those who trust him; if you are a believer, you may ask for his infinite power to protect you, and his infinite knowledge to search you.

24. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

May God first make that our prayer, and then graciously hear it, for his great name’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-182, 190, 139 (Song 1).

“Take Heed, Brethren”

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, January 16th, 1898,

delivered by

C. H. Spurgeon.

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, October 23rd, 1884.

“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”-Hebrews 3:12.

This message is not addressed to strangers far away, but to “brethren.” Paul wrote it to the Hebrews, who were his brethren according to the flesh; it was kind of him to call them by that name. He also writes it to all of us who are believers in Christ, and we ought to receive his word with all the greater intensity of attention because he writes to us as his brethren. The term applies to all who are brethren in Christ,-really so,-those who are quickened by the one Spirit, made children of the one Father, and going to the one heavenly home. The apostle would not have us begrudge this title to any genuine member of our Lord Jesus Christ’s true Church. It is not for us to read men’s hearts; we have not the Lamb’s Book of Life in our possession, so we cannot discover whether such-and-such a man’s name is really written in it, or not; but, in the judgment of Christian charity, all those who have joined themselves to Christ’s Church are our brethren, and the more we recognize that relationship, the better. To all of you, therefore, who bear the Christian name, this message comes with power, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”

There are other persons, who are associated with us in our congregations, who do not profess as yet to have passed from death unto life, although they come up with us to the house of the Lord. They swell the chorus of our praise, they bow their heads with us in prayer, they are in many respects our fellow-worshippers, and they have, apparently, a warm heart towards good things, though not yet fully one with us in the highest spiritual sense. We will not exclude them from this message of the apostle, for they are our brethren as men, even if they are not our brethren as Christians, and the word comes to them as well as to us who are avowedly on the Lord’s side, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief.”

You see, then, that we are all of us called upon to “take heed.” The word means that we are to be careful, to be watchful. True religion is not a thing that can be acquired by carelessness or neglect; we must take heed, or we shall never be found in the narrow way. You may go to hell heedlessly, but you cannot so go to heaven. Many stumble into the bottomless pit with their eyes shut, but no man ever yet entered into heaven by a leap in the dark. “Take heed, brethren.” If ever there was a matter that needed all your thought, all your prudence, and all your care, it is the matter of your soul’s salvation. If you do trifle with anything, let it be with your wealth, or with your health, but certainly not with your eternal interests. I recommend all men to take heed to everything that has to do with this life, as well as with that which is to come, for in the little the great may lie concealed, and the neglect of our estate may end in mischief to our immortal spirit. Certainly, the neglect of the body might lead to great injury to the soul; but if ever neglect deserves condemnation, it is when it concerns our higher nature; if we do not carefully see to it, that which is our greatest glory may become our most tremendous curse. Brethren, the watchword for every one of us is, “Take heed.” You are an old Christian; but “take heed.” You are a minister of the gospel, and there are many who look up to you with veneration; but “take heed.” You have learned the doctrines of grace, and you know them well; there is little that any human being can teach you, for you have been well instructed in the things of the kingdom; but, still, “take heed.” Ay, and if you were so near to Heavengate that you could hear the song within, I would still whisper in your ear, “Take heed.” Horses fall oftenest at the bottom of the hill when we think that we need not hold them up any longer, and there is no condition in life which is more dangerous than that feeling of perfect security which precludes watchfulness and care. He who is quite sure of his strength to resist temptation may be also equally certain of his weakness in the hour of trial. God grant us grace, whatever sort of “brethren” we may be, to listen to the admonition of the apostle, “Take heed.”

Paul means, not only take heed for yourself,-though that is the first duty of each one of us, for every man must bear his own burden, and it becomes every prudent man to look well to the matter of his own salvation;-but the apostle says, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief.” You are to watch over your brethren, to exhort one another daily, especially you who are officers of the church, or who are elderly and experienced. Be upon the watch lest any of your brethren in the church should gradually backslide, or lest any in the congregation should harden into a condition of settled unbelief, and perish in their sin. He who bids you take heed to yourself, would not have you settle down into a selfish care for yourself alone, lest you should become like Cain, who even dared to say to the Lord himself, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Nothing can be more horrible than the state of mind of a man whose talk is like to that of Cain, who slew his brother. “Take heed,” therefore, ye who are in the Church of God, not only to yourselves, but to those who are round about you, especially to such as are of your own family.

The text naturally divides itself into an exhortation: “Take heed, brethren;” a warning: “lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief;” and a description of the danger which would follow from a neglect of this warning: “in departing from the living God.” Lay up those three things in your memory and heart, and may God cause them to work there for the effectual blessing of your spiritual life!

I purpose, as I may be helped of God’s Spirit, to take the text, and apply it to the three classes of persons whom I indicated at the outset of my discourse;-first, to the inner church, the true, elect, redeemed, regenerated, called, sanctified people of God. The message of the text is for you, my brethren. Secondly, to the visible church, to all who are, I trust, as truly saved and regenerated as the first class are; but yet I have a fear that there is a mixture in the nominal church, that there is chaff mingled with the wheat upon Christ’s floor, and bad fish caught in the gospel net along with the good ones. To all these persons I speak with great earnestness, and say, “Take heed, brethren.” Then I am going to take the whole congregation, and address the message of the text to all without exception: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”

First, then, to the inner church, God’s own chosen people, to you who are really his, the apostle says, “Take heed, brethren.” If you dare to put yourself among that privileged company, and say, “Yes, by God’s Holy Spirit I have been quickened, renewed, sealed, preserved, and I have the witness of the Spirit himself within my own spirit, that I am indeed born of God,”-then, to you comes the apostolic watchword, “Take heed.”

For, first, dear friend, even you may fall into unbelief. Are you not aware of that fact? Have you not been already tormented with it? I daresay, like myself, you did at one time indulge the idea that old Incredulity would soon die. You took him by the heels, and you put him in the stocks, and you said to yourself, “He will never trouble me again; I shall never doubt the promise of God any more as long as I live. I have had such a wonderful experience of God’s faithfulness, he has been so exceedingly gracious to me, that I cannot doubt him any more.” You remember how Mr. Bunyan says, in The Holy War, that, after the enemies of King Shaddai had been sentenced to death, “One of the prisoners, Incredulity by name, in the interim betwixt the sentence and time of execution, brake prison, and made his escape, and gets him away quite out of the town of Mansoul, and lay lurking in such places and holds as he might, until he should again have opportunity to do the town of Mansoul a mischief for their thus handling of him as they did.” Incredulity will work his wicked will upon you if he can, and you must ever remember that it is possible even for you to fall into unbelief,-you who are rejoicing, you who have hung out all your flags, and are keeping high festival,-oh, tell it not in Gath!-even you may yet be found doubting your God. May the Lord grant that you may be delivered from this evil! But it is only almighty grace which can keep you with faith pure and simple, and free from any tincture of doubt and unbelief. Pressure of circumstances may drive you into an unbelieving state of mind. Depression of soul, due to physical causes, may do it; the spirit often truly is willing and believing, but the flesh is weak, and it may pull you down. Association with doubters may have a similar effect. Conflict for the truth may make you familiar with the poisoned arrows of sceptics, and in attempting to do them good you may imbibe mischief from them. The Lord will preserve you from the positive, stark, black Egyptian darkness of unbelief; but there are other grades and degrees of it which you may have to endure. It is bad for a Christian to have any admixture of darkness with his light, and to have any measure of doubt mingled with his faith; yet it may be so, and therefore the Spirit of God says to the people of God, “Take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”

Note, next, that in proportion as unbelief does get into your heart, you will begin to depart from the living God. I am not speaking now of open glaring sin; you have not fallen into that, and I pray God that you never may. But, beloved, we may have all the decencies of morality, and all the proprieties of Christian conduct, and yet we may be all the while “departing from the living God.” The moment we begin to trust in man, and to make flesh our arm, we have to that extent forgotten Jehovah, and departed from the living God. The moment our heart’s deepest affections twine about the dearest creature,-be it husband, or wife, or child,-we are to that degree “departing from the living God.” To the true believer, in his best estate, the sweetest line that he can ever sing, is that which we sang just now,-

“Yea, mine own God is he.”

That is the circle which surrounds all his joy; it is the centre of his soul’s highest delight. He has God for his very own. On his God he relies, and towards him he sends out the full streams of his earnest affection. Remember what the Lord wrote by the pen of the prophet Jeremiah: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.” Brothers, it is easy to depart from the living God spiritually,-gradually to lose that serene and heavenly frame which is our highest privilege, to forget him who ought ever to be before our eyes as the chief factor in our entire life, the great All-in-all, compared with whom everything else is but as a dream, a fleeting shadow. I bear my witness that, to walk with the living God, is life; but to get away from him, is death; and that, in proportion as we begin to depart and put a distance between ourselves and the great Invisible, in that proportion our life ebbs away, and we get to be sickly, and scarcely alive. Then doubts arise as to whether we are the people of God at all; and it is sad that such a question as that should ever be possible. We ought to live like the angel whom Milton pictures as living in the sun,-in the very centre of the orb of light,-so near to God that we do not merely sometimes enjoy his presence, but that in him we live altogether, and never depart from him. I remember a minister calling upon a poor old saint, and before coming away he said he hoped that the Divine Father would constantly visit the sick man; but he replied, “O sir, I do not want you to ask that the Father should merely visit me, for by these many months together he has been abiding with me, and I have been abiding in him.” So may it be with each one of you, my brethren; and that it may be so, give attention to the message of the text: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing”-in any measure or degree-“from the living God.”

“But,” say you, “wherefore should we take such heed about that matter? We are believers, and, therefore, we are saved.” Are you believers? They who can trifle with heavenly things are not true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ; and if ever it becomes a thing of small importance to you whether you dwell with the living God, or not, the question may well arise in your heart, “Am I truly a believer in Jesus Christ with the faith of God’s elect,-the faith that really saves the soul?”

But, my brethren, if you do not continue steadfast and firm in your faith in its simplicity, if your evil heart of unbelief begins to prevail, and you are turned aside from your confidence in Christ, and so begin to get away from God, you will be great losers thereby even if you do manage to get to heaven, “saved, yet so as by fire.” For, first, you will lose your joy. That is no small thing. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” The joy of the Lord is one of the means by which you are to be made useful. The joy of the Lord sweetens trial, lightens care, and turns service into delight; but if you lose that joy, you are as one who travels alone in the dark, and who stumbles and falls. I pray you, do not depart from the living God in any degree, for if you do so, your joy will begin to get clouded, the brightness and the warmth of it will be taken from you, and you will become faint-hearted, trembling, timorous, and sad. If the evil heart of unbelief shall prevail against you, depend upon it you will lose your joy.

Then you may be certain, also, that you will lose your assurance. Full assurance cannot exist with unholiness. One has well said, “If thine assurance doth not make thee leave off sinning, thy sinning will make thee leave off enjoying assurance;” and I am sure that it is so. If we begin to look to second causes, and do not trust in God, we shall then put forth our hand to some one sin or another; and when we do that, we cannot be certain that we are children of God at all. That man who feels sure of his safety, and yet can play with sin, and find pleasure in it, may be assured of his own damnation. I remember, in my boyhood, one who never talked so religiously as when he was the worse for drink; and in public, before ungodly men, he used to boast of his full assurance of salvation, when he was much too far gone to be assured that he would get home in safety that night. That kind of conduct is atrocious, and no one would excuse it for a moment; we know that men who talk so only proclaim their own shame to their own eternal disgrace. But do not let any of us indulge even in a measure of that kind of sin. That evil heart of unbelief will not only lead us away from a holy walk with God, but it will also take from us our assurance if it is an assurance that is worth the having.

Then, next, it will take from us our fruitfulness. Dear child of God, I am sure that you do not wish to live here without doing good to others; but how can you do good if you are not yourself good? You cannot bring forth fruit unto holiness unless you are watered with the dew of heaven, and the sunlight of God shines upon you; and you will not have either of those blessings if you live carelessly, and if you fall into an unbelieving state of mind, and get away from contact with the ever-living God. If any of you have tried this kind of life, you must have become painfully aware what it is to have all the sap and juice, out of which the clusters ought to come, dried up within the tree, and everything turned to barrenness because you have yourself departed from God.

These are all serious losses to a child of God; it is no light matter for you to lose joy, and assurance, and fruitfulness; but the evil heart of unbelief will cause you also to lose purity. There is a delicate bloom upon the fruit that grows in Christ’s garden, where he, as the Gardener, cultivates it with tender care; but sin comes, and rubs away that bloom, and spoils the fruit. If you and I fall into sin, we shall have to weep bitterly over it; we shall not be able to enjoy the high privilege which belongs to those who keep their garments unspotted from the world. Of these the Saviour says, “They shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy.” I believe that, of all forms of spiritual loss, one of the worst is to lose tenderness of conscience, quickness of apprehension when sin is near,-to lose a sense of cleanness of heart and of sanctification by the Spirit of God. When those are gone, we are something like Adam when he lost Paradise, and we turn our faces back again toward that purity, and cry to the Lord to restore it, as we moan rather than sing,-

“Where is the blessedness I knew

When first I saw the Lord?”

Take care that you do not lose it, for it will hardly be likely to be restored to you in the same degree as you had it at the first. The child of God who wanders away also loses peace, and many other attainments of the spiritual life. He is like a boy who is sent down from the top of the class; it may take him a long time to get up again. Or he is like the man who has risen from the ranks, but who has misbehaved himself, and is therefore made a private again. He who once could lead the people of God has to be very thankful that he is permitted to go into the rear rank, and to follow where others lead. He who could talk for God boldly now has to sing very small, and let others speak. He who used to encourage others now needs to be encouraged himself. He was once strong in faith, and a mighty man of valour, but now he has to use Mr. Ready-to-halt’s crutches, and to go along with the feeble ones among the pilgrims, because an evil heart of unbelief has made him depart from the living God.

This brings, of course, a loss of influence with the people of God, and with worldlings, too; for when a man has injured his reputation, it is not soon repaired again. If he has slipped and fallen, brethren weep over him, and love him, and seek to restore him, but they do not trust him as they used to do. They are some little while before they dare to follow where he leads the way. I have seen a man, whose judgment was like that of Solomon, whose position in the midst of his brethren was that of a hero inciting them to daring deeds; but he has fallen, and all Israel has wept over him. Perhaps there has been no shameful sin, but yet there has been an evident decline in spirituality, and in force and power. The Lord has left him, and great Samson, though he shakes himself as aforetime, is fast bound in chains, and his eyes have been put out. Happy will he be if, at some future day, when the locks of his hair have grown again, he shall be able to pull down the temple of the Philistine lords upon them; but so far as his brethren are concerned, he will have to be the object of loving pity rather than of joyful confidence.

Do not tell me, then, that you do not lose anything by getting into a state of unbelief, and departing from God, for, in addition to all this, such a child of God loses power in prayer. It is “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man” that “availeth much.” Our Lord Jesus told his disciples, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” But disobedient children will find that the Father will turn a deaf ear to their supplication. “No,” he will say, “you would not hearken to me, neither will I hearken to you,” for God has a way of walking contrary to them that walk contrary to him. Then there very often follow, at the back of that, chastisements heavy and multiplied. Take heed, my brethren, as ye remember the history of David. What a blessed life, what a glorious life, is that of David until the unhappy day when kings went forth to battle, but the king of Israel went not! He tarried in inglorious ease at home, and as he walked upon the top of his palace, he saw that which tempted him to ill desire, to that ill desire he fell a prey, and the man after God’s own heart became an adulterer and a murderer. Alas! alas! all the rest of his life he travels on toward heaven with broken bones and sorrowful spirit. At every step, he limps; his prayers are sighs; his psalms lack the jubilant notes that once made them ascend joyously unto the Lord. He is a true man of God still, and in his deep repentance he becomes a pattern to us all in repenting of sin; but the brave joyous David is not there, and at the last, though he pleads the covenant, he has to say, “Although my house be not so with God.” There was a great mass of heart-break packed away in those few words, more than we need to explain just now. What a dreadful family David had! None of us have had a family like his; that was his chastisement in his own children. What a mercy it was for him that sovereign grace did not cast him away! After he had uttered that deep bass note, “Although my house be not so with God,” then came the sweet assurance of faith, “Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, although he make it not to grow.” There came in again the note of deep sorrow mingled with his holy faith in God. O brothers, I have heard men say that a broken leg, when it is mended, is sometimes stronger than it was before. It may be so; but I am not going to break my leg to try the experiment. I know one who says that his arm was broken when he was a boy, and that he believes it is stronger than the other one. So it may be; but I will not break my arm if I can help it. May the Lord rather keep me in his hands lest I dash my foot against a stone! There is a great deal of experience which I hope you will never have, and that is the kind of experience which comes of an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. Take heed that you never come to know that sorrow.

Now, in the second place, and very briefly, I want to apply my text to all in the visible church, whether they are indeed God’s people or not. If you profess to belong to Christ, it is enough for my present purpose. “Take heed,” I pray you, professing Christians, “lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”

For, first, many professors have had an evil heart. It is not every church-member who has a new heart and a right spirit. Judas was in the church, but he had an evil heart, and was a devil. It may be so with me, my brother, or with you. There are some in the church who have no real faith in Christ. Their very heart is crammed full of unbelief, though they pretend that they have believed in Christ. I know that it is so; we cannot help observing that there are unbelievers who bear the name of Christians.

Many of these have turned aside. To our sorrow, we have lived to see it in far too many cases; they were members of churches, but they grew weary of the good way. Nothing pleased them; the preacher who used to charm them has lost all his power over them. Prayer-meetings are dull, and they would rather not have anything at all to do with religion. We have known some go back to the world for no reason that they dared even to tell themselves; it was because of the fickleness of their unregenerate spirits. We have seen this happen to others when they have been strongly tempted. Satan knew their particular weakness, and he assailed them there. How many professors have given way to strong drink! They would have a little, and who could condemn them? But when they began by taking a little, they soon took what was not little to others, and it turned out by-and-by not to be little to themselves; and he who should have been a pattern of self-denial to the people of God, has become a victim of intoxication. Others have fallen through the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. A man has been tempted to get gain by dishonesty; at first, the bribe did not affect him; but it was doubled, or trebled, and then he fell. Many more have we seen very gradually turning aside; it was almost impossible to tell exactly when they left the line of strict integrity; it was only by a hair’s breadth that they turned aside at first, but afterwards their apostacy was visible to all. Some have been frost-bitten; they have grown lukewarm, and then at last icy cold, and we have lost them. Some professors have been turned aside by pride. They were too rich to join with any but a “respectable” worldly church; or they were so learned-so conceited, is the right word,-that the plain gospe was too inferior an article for their profound minds! Some, alas!-and I fear, very many,-have turned aside through poverty. We meet with cases where the visitor in the lowest haunts of degradation says that he has come across a woman in the depths of penury, and with scarcely rags enough to cover her, yet she has produced a communion ticket, for in better days she was a member of the church, but she could not get clothes quite good enough, as she thought. She fancied that she would be looked down upon if she came when poor, and so she ceased to attend the means of grace, and by-and-by gave up everything like a profession of religion. Oh, if there are any members of the church of that sort here, I pray you, if you ever do become very poor, do not go away from us because of that; and if your clothes should be all rags, I am sure that none of us will despise you, or if there should be any who do so, I will bear the responsibility of despising them; but do not you ever stay away from the house of God, or the company of your Christian brethren and sisters, because of poverty. Why, it seems to me that, the less you have of earthly good things to comfort you, the more you want of divine treasure and the companionship of Christ; and you should rather seek the society of your friends in Christ than for a moment to shun it. Yet it has been so, and therefore I put it to all here who profess to be followers of Christ: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”

Now I have only a very few minutes left in which to apply my text to those who are simply in the congregation.

There is a large number of you, who come to worship with us, who are only camp-followers. You are not in the regular regiments of the Lord’s army, yet you cling to us, and we cannot help regarding you with much affection as “brethren” so far as you allow that brotherhood to be true. We wish that you would make it truer still, but we do not want any of you to perish because of your unbelief. Remember, dear friends, that your unbelief is an affair of your heart. It is not an evil head of unbelief, but “an evil heart of unbelief” of which the apostle speaks; and that is what is wrong with you. You know that you believe everything that is in the Bible; you look with horror upon any heretical doctrine; you love to hear the gospel, and yet you have not received it for yourselves. I want you to do my Lord the credit to think him no liar; but a true Saviour; and if he be such, then come and trust him. You are fit to come to him, for your fitness lies in your need of him, and I am sure you need him. Come and do him this act of justice,-trust him. He is so strong, so true, so tender, that if you will but commit your soul to him, he will take care of it. If you will bring your sins to him, he will wash them away. If you will bring your weakness to him, he will strengthen you. If you will really come to him, he will take you as you are at this moment, for he never did cast out one who came to him; it is not like him, he could not do it. It is no more possible for Christ to reject a sinner who trusts him than it is for God to lie. It is contrary to the nature of God, and he cannot do what is contrary to himself. Come, then, and do not depart from the living God by an evil heart of unbelief. Nothing will bring you near to God but believing; and nothing can shut you out from God, and from the life and light and liberty that there is in God in Christ Jesus, but your unbelief. Only trust him; that is the whole of the matter. I pray God, of his infinite mercy, to make you “take heed, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief,” which shall get such mastery over you, that you shall depart, not only from the living God, but even from the ways of morality, till God shall say to you, at the last, “Depart, ye cursed. You always were departing, keep on departing.” And this shall be the punishment of your sin; you shall reap it fully developed, for hell is sin full-grown. God save us from the babe, which is sin, that we may not know the man, which is hell;-save us from the seed, which is sin, that we may not know the harvest, which is hell;-save us from the spark, which is sin, that we may not know the conflagration, which is eternal damnation! God save and bless you, dear friends, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

Hebrews 3:1-16

Verse 1. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;-

Oh, that he had more consideration at our hands! Consider him; you cannot know all his excellence, all his value to you, except he is the subject of your constant meditation. Consider him; think of his nature, his offices, his work, his promises, his relation to you: “Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;”-

2. Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.

See how our Lord Jesus Christ condescended to be appointed of the Father. In coming as a Mediator, taking upon himself our humanity, he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,” and being found in fashion as a servant, we find that he was faithful; to every jot and tittle, he carried out his charge.

3. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house.

And Moses was but one stone in the house. Though in a certain sense he was a servant in it, yet in another, and, for him, a happier sense, he was only a stone in the house which the Lord Jesus Christ had builded. Let us think of our Lord as the Architect and Builder of his own Church, and let our hearts count him worthy of more glory than Moses; let us give him glory in the highest. However highly a Jew may think of Moses,-and he ought to think highly of him, and so ought we,-yet infinitely higher than Moses must ever rise the incarnate Son of God.

4. For every house is builded by some;-

By someone or other;-

4. But he that built all things is God.

And Christ is God; and he is the Builder of all thing in the spiritual realm,-ay, and in the natural kingdom, too, for “without him was not anything made that was made.” So he is to have eternal honour and glory as the one great Master-builder.

5, 6. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

You see, then, that the apostle had first made a distinction between Christ and Moses on the ground of the Builder being greater than the house he builds; now, in the second place, he shows Christ’s superiority to Moses on the ground that a son in his own house is greater than a servant in the house of his master. How sweetly he introduces the truth that we are the house of Christ! Do we realize that the Lord Jesus Christ dwells in the midst of us? How clean we ought to be, how holy, how heavenly! How we should seek to rise above earth, and keep ourselves reserved for the Crucified! In this house, no rival should be permitted ever to dwell; but the great Lord should have every chamber of it entirely to himself. Oh, that he may take his rest within our hearts as his holy habitation; and may there be nothing in our church life that shall grieve the Son of God, and cause him even for a moment to be withdrawn from us: “whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” Perseverance-final perseverance-is the test of election. He whom God has chosen holds on and holds out even to the end, while temporary professors make only a fair show in the flesh, but, by-and-by, their faith vanishes away.

7. Wherefore-

Now comes a long parenthesis:-

7-11. (As the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)

Oh, that none of us, as professors of the faith of Christ, may be like Israel in the wilderness! I fear there is too much likeness; God grant that it may be carried no further! May we hear the voice of God, as they did not hear it, for their ears were dull of hearing! May we never harden our hearts, as they did, for they kicked against the command of God, and rebelled against the thunders of Sinai! May God grant that we may never tempt him, as they did, when they were continually proposing to God to do other than he willed to do,-something for their gratification which would not have been right, and which therefore he did not do! Oh, that we might never grieve him as they did, for they grieved him forty years! He bore with them, and yet they bored him. He forgave and overlooked their errors only to be provoked by the repetition of them, for they would not know what God made very plain. His works were such that the wayfaring men might have read them; but they did not know God’s ways, and at last he banished them from all participation in his rest. Their carcases fell in the wilderness, and they entered not into the land of promise. “Wherefore”-

12, 13. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Watch over each other as well as over yourselves. Take heed lest sin hardens you before you are aware of it; even while you fancy that you have wiped it out by repentance, petrifaction will remain upon your heart “through the deceitfulness of sin.”

14-16. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; while it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.

Not all, for there were two faithful ones. See how the Spirit of God gathers up the fragments that remain. If there are but two faithful ones out of two millions, he knows it, and he records it.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-42 (Version 1.), 512, 621.