True friends are very scarce. We have a great many acquaintances, and sometimes we call them friends, and so misuse the noble word “friendship.” Peradventure, in some after day of adversity, when these so-called friends have looked out for their own interests, and left us to do the best we can for ourselves, that word friendship may come back to us with sad and sorrowful associations. The friend in need is the friend indeed, and such friends, I say again, are scarce. When thou hast found such a man, and proved the sincerity of his friendship; when he has been faithful to thy father and to thee, grapple him to thyself with hooks of steel, and never let him go. It may be that, because he is a faithful friend, he will sometimes vex thee and anger thee. See how Solomon puts it in this very chapter: “Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” It takes a great deal of friendship to be able to tell a man of his faults. It is no friendship that flatters; it is small friendship that holds its tongue when it ought to speak; but it is true friendship that can speak at the right time, and, if need be, even speak so sharply as to cause a wound. If thou art like many other foolish folk, thou wilt be angry with the man who is so much thy friend that he will tell thee the truth. If thou art unworthy of thy friend, thou wilt begin to grow weary of him when he is performing on thy behalf the most heroic act of pure charity by warning thee of thy danger, and reminding thee of thine imperfection. Solomon, in prospect of such a case, knowing that this is one of the greatest trials of friendship among such poor imperfect beings as we are, tells us not to forsake, for this reason,-nor indeed, for any other reason,-the man who has been to us and to our family a true friend: “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not.”

I do not think that I should waste your time if I were to give you a lecture upon friendship,-its duties, its dangers, its rights, and its privileges; but it is not my intention to do so. There is one Friend to whom these words of Solomon are specially applicable, there is a Friend who is the chief and highest of all friends; and when I speak of him, I feel that I am not spiritualizing the text in the least. He is a true and real Friend, and these words are truly and really applicable to him; and if ever the text is emphatic, it is so when it is applied to him, for there was never such another friend to us and to our fathers; there is no friend to whom we ought to be so intensely attached as to him: “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not.”

I want, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to speak upon this subject thus. First, here is a descriptive title, which may be fitly applied to Christ by very many of us; he is our own Friend, and also our father’s Friend. Secondly, here is suggestive advice concerning this Friend: “Forsake him not.” And ere I have done, I shall say a little upon a consequent resolution. I hope that we shall turn the text into a solemn resolve, and say, “My own Friend, and my father’s Friend, I will not forsake.”

First, then, here is a descriptive title for our blessed Lord and Master.

First, he is a Friend, the Friend of man. I know that Young calls him the “great Philanthropist.” I do not care to see that title used just so; it is not good enough for him, though truly the great Lover of man is Christ. Better still is the title which was given to him when he was upon earth, “the Friend of sinners.”

“Friend of sinners, is his name.”

Their Friend,-thinking of them with love when no other eye pitied them, and no other heart seemed to care for them. Their Friend,-entering in tenderest sympathy into the case of the lost, for “the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Their Friend,-giving them good and sound advice and wholesome counsel, for whosoever listens to the words of Christ shall find in his teaching and in his guidance the highest wisdom. Their Friend, however, giving far more than sympathy and mere words,-giving a lifetime of holy service for the sake of those whose cause he had espoused, and going further even than this, doing for them the utmost that a friend can do, for what is there more than that a man should lay down his life for his friend? Friend of man, and therefore born of man. Friend of sinners, and therefore living among them, and ministering to them. Friend of sinners, and therefore taking their sin upon himself, and bearing it “in his own body on the tree,” so fulfilling Gabriel’s prophecy, that he would come “to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.”

Christ has done for us all that needed to be done. He has done much more than we ever could have asked him to do, or expected him to do. He has done more for us than we can understand even now that he has done it, and more than you and I are likely ever to understand even when our intellect shall have been developed and enlarged to the utmost degree before the eternal throne, for even there I do not think we shall ever fully know how much we owe to the friendship of our best Friend. However self-denying and tender other friends may be, our Lord must ever stand at the head of the list, and we will not put a second there as worthy of any comparison with him.

It is a very blessed thing, next, to have the Lord Jesus Christ as having been our father’s Friend. There are some of us to whom this has been literally true for many generations. I suppose that there is some pride in being the fourteenth earl, or the tenth duke, or having a certain rank among men; but, sometimes, quietly to myself, I glory in my pedigree because I can trace the line of spiritual grace back as far as I can go to men who loved the Lord, and who, many of them, have preached his Word. Many of you, I know, in this church, and in other churches, have a glorious heraldry in the line of the Lord’s nobles. It is true that some of you have had the great mercy of being taken, like trees out of the desert, and planted in the courts of our God, for which you may well be glad; but others of you are slips from vines that, in their turn, were slips from other vines loved and cared for by the great Husbandman. You cannot tell how long this blessed succession has continued; your fathers, and your fathers’ fathers, as far back as you can trace them, were friends of Christ. Happy Ephraim, whose father Joseph had God with him! Happy Joseph, whose father Jacob saw God at Bethel! Happy Jacob, whose father Isaac walked in the fields, and meditated in communion with Jehovah! Happy Isaac, whose father Abraham had spoken with God, and was called, “the friend of God.” God has a habit of loving families; David said, “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children; to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.” Grace does not run in the blood, but often the stream of divine mercy has run side by side with it; and, instead of the fathers, have been the children, whom the Lord has made to be princes in the earth.

Some of you, perhaps, have fathers and mothers still living, whose example you may fitly follow; I charge you, never forsake your father’s God, or, what is tenderer still, the God of your mother. Others of you have parents in heaven; well, they are still yours; that sacred relationship is not broken. You remember your mother’s last grasp of your hand when she bade you follow her to heaven; you recollect your father’s appeals to you, in his long sickness, when he pleaded with you to take heed to your ways, and not neglect the things of God, but seek him in the days of your youth. Well, did you ever hear your father say anything against his God? Did your mother ever, in her confiding moments, whisper in your ear, “Mary, do not trust in God, for he has betrayed your mother’s confidence”? No; I know they did not talk like that, for he was their best Friend; and he who was such a Friend to the dear old man whom you can never forget, he who cheered the heart of that gracious matron whose sweet face rises before you now,-oh, I beseech you, forsake him not! “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not.”

Still, the sweetest part of the text lies in these words, “Thine own friend.” I do not think that I can preach on those words; I can take them in my mouth, and they are like honey for sweetness, but they must be personally enjoyed to be fully appreciated. There are some precious lines we sometimes sing,-

“The health is of my countenance,

Yea, mine own God is he;-”

which exactly describe the blessedness of “thine own friend.”

Now, if it be true that Christ is thine own Friend, then thou hast spoken with him, thou hast held sweet converse with him, thou hast placed thy confidence in him, thou hast told him thy lost estate and sinfulness, and thou hast reposed in him as thine own Saviour. Thou hast put thy cause into his hands, and thou hast left it there. If he be indeed thine own Friend, then he has helped thee. Thou wast a stranger, and he has taken thee in; thou wast naked, and he has clothed thee; thou wast spiritually sick and in prison, and he came to thee, and healed thee. Yea, and he wore thy chains, and bade thee go free; and he took thy sicknesses, and bade thee take his health, and so he made thee whole. Ay, and he restored thee even from the grave, and went into that grave himself that, by his death, thou mightest live. Thou knowest that it is so; and day by day thou dost keep up communion with him; thou couldst not live without him, for he is such a Friend to thee, and thou dost rest on him with all thy weight as thou comest up from the wilderness with him, leaning on thy Beloved, “thine own friend.”

Nor is the friendship all on one side, though thy side is a very little one. Thou wouldst make it greater if it were in thy power, for thou hast confessed his name, thou hast united thyself with his people, thou lovest to join with them in prayer and praise. Thou art not ashamed to be called by Christ’s name as a Christian, or to speak well of that name, and thou desirest to consecrate to him all that thou hast. Better than all this, while thou dost call him Friend, he also calls thee friend, as he said to his disciples, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.” Dare I say the words, yet, dare I doubt the truth of the words,-Jesus is my Friend? There is one we read of in the Bible who was David’s captain of the host, and there was another who was David’s counsellor; but there was one man whom we always call “David’s friend, Jonathan;” and I envy him such a title. Yet Jesus gives this name to all those who come and put their trust in him, and so find him to be their Friend.

Now, inasmuch as the Lord Jesus is “thine own friend, and thy father’s friend,” the injunction of the text comes to thee with peculiar force: “Forsake him not.” Canst thou forsake him? Look at his face, all red with bloody sweat for thee; nor his face alone, for he is covered all over with that gory robe wherein he wrought out thy redemption. He that works for bread must sweat, but he that worked for thine eternal life did sweat great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Canst thou forsake him? He stands at Pilate’s bar, he is mocked by Herod’s men of war, he is scourged by Pilate, and all for thee; and canst thou forsake him? He goes up to the cross of Calvary, and the cruel iron is driven through his hands and feet, and there he makes expiation for thy guilt; he is thy Friend, even to the ignominy of a felon’s death; and canst thou forsake him? He lays his pierced hand on thee, and he says, “Wilt thou also go away?” or, as he worded it to the twelve, “Ye also will not go away, will you?” So it might be read: “Many of my supposed friends have gone, and so have proved themselves to be, not friends, but traitors; but ye also will not go away, will you?” And he seems to make an appeal to them with those tearful, tender eyes of his,-“as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set,”-“Ye also will not go away, will you?”

And when you turn your eye another way, and think not merely of the shame your Friend endured for you, but recollect what is an equal proof of his love, that he is not ashamed of you now that he is in his glory; that, amidst the throng of angels and cherubim and seraphim that frequent his courts above, he does not disdain to know that he is the brother of these poor earth-worms down below, for even there he wears the body which proves him to be our next of kin,-ay, and wears the scars which proved that for us he endured the death-penalty itself, and even now he is not ashamed to call us brethren;-as you think of all this, can you forsake him? Because you are somewhat better off than you once were, will you leave the little gathering of poor folk with whom you used to worship so happily, and will you go to some more fashionable place where there is music, but little of the music of the name of Jesus,-where there is gorgeous architecture, it may be, and masquerading, and mummery, and I know not what, but little of the sweet savour of his presence, and the dropping of that dew which he always brings with him wherever he comes? Oh, it is a pity, it is a sorrowful pity, it is a meanness that would disgrace a mere worldling, when a man, who once confessed Christ, and followed him, must needs turn his back upon his Lord, because his own coat is made of better material than it used to be, and his balance at the bank is heavier! I had almost said,-Then let the Judas go, be his own place what it may,-it were almost a dishonour to Christ to wish the traitor back. Oh, will ye go away, either from the Crucified or from the Glorified, for if ye will forsake this Friend, “Behold, he cometh!” Every hour brings him nearer; the chariots of his glory have glowing axles, and you may almost hear them as they speed toward us; and then what will you do when you have forsaken your own Friend and your father’s Friend, and you hear him say, “I never knew you; I never knew you”? God grant that it may never be the lot of any of us here present to hear those awful words!

Now I pass on to our second head, as the Holy Spirit may help me; it is, suggestive advice: “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not.”

There is, to me, in the text, a suggestion which the text itself does not suggest; that is to say, it suggests something by not suggesting it. The text does not suggest to me that my own Friend and my father’s Friend will ever forsake me. It seems to hint that I may forsake him, but it does not suggest that he will ever forsake me, and he never will do so. If the Lord had ever meant to forsake me, he has had so many good reasons for doing it, that he would have done it long ago. The apostle says of those who are journeying to the better country, that, “if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned,” and, certainly, our blessed Lord and Master, if he had desired to leave us to perish, had many an opportunity to return to heaven before he died; and, since then, he has had many occasions when he might have said, “I really must withdraw my friendship from you,” if he had ever wished to do so. But his love is constant to its line: “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” His is a friendship which never changes. You shall never fall back on him, and find that he has withdrawn the arm with which he formerly upheld you. You shall find, in life and in death, that “there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Let us be cheered by the assurance that he will never forsake us.

Now let us go on to what the text does suggest in so many words: it suggests to us the question, In what sense can we forsake Christ? Well, there is more than one sense in which a man may forsake Christ. Two passages rise to my mind at this moment: “Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.” That was one sort of forsaking; they were all afraid, and ran away from their Lord, in the hour of his betrayal into the hands of sinners; but it is quite another kind of forsaking when we read: “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” The first forsaking was the result of a sudden fear, much to be deplored, and very blameworthy, but still only temporary in its effects; the other was the deliberate act of those who, in cool blood, refused to accept Jesus Christ’s doctrine, or to follow him any farther, and so turned back, and walked no more with him. This last forsaking is incurable. The former one was cured almost as soon as the sudden fear that caused it was removed, for we find John and even Peter following the Master to the judgment hall, and the whole of the disciples soon gathered around him after his resurrection. I would say to you, dear friend, “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not” in any sense at all. Forsake him not even in thy moments of alarm. Pray God that then thou mayest play the man, and not forsake him, and flee. And then, in the other sense, let no quarrel ever arise between you and Christ’s most precious truth, so as to lead you deliberately to leave him, for this is the worst of all kinds of forsaking. If we never forsake him in any sense at all, then it is quite certain that we shall never forsake him in the worst sense. I remember a little merriment I had with a good Wesleyan brother, the clerk of the works, when the Tabernacle was being built. He wanted me to go up a ladder right into those lantern lights; and I said, “No, thank you; I would rather not.” “But,” he replied, “I thought you had no fear of falling.” “Yes,” I answered, “that is quite true; I have no fear of finally falling away, but the belief that the Lord will preserve me does not exercise any evil influence over me, for it keeps me from running unnecessary risks by climbing up ladders; but you good brethren, who are so afraid of falling, do not seem to show it practically in your conduct, for you go up and down the ladders as nimbly as possible.” I have sometimes met with persons who think that, if we believe that we shall never fall so as to perish, we are apt to become presumptuous; but we do not, dear brethren. There are other truths that come in to balance this one, so that what they think might come of it is by God’s good grace prevented; and I am not quite sure that those who think that they may finally fall and perish are sufficiently impressed with that belief so as to be always careful. The fact is, that your carefulness of walk does not depend merely upon your view of this doctrine or that; but it depends upon your state of heart, and a great many other things besides; so that you have no reason to judge what you might do if you believed such-and-such a truth, because if you did believe it, perhaps you would at the same time be a better man, and the possibility that appears to linger around the doctrine would vanish so far as you are concerned. Let this be the language of all of us who love the Lord, as we look up confidently and reverently to him,-

“We have no fear that thou shouldst lose

One whom eternal love could choose;

But we would ne’er this grace abuse,

Let us not fall. Let us not fall.”

I know that, if we are truly the Lord’s, he will not suffer us to forsake him; but I must have a wholesome fear lest I should forsake him, for who am I that I should be sure that I have not deceived myself? And I may have done so; and, after all, may forsake him after the loudest professions, and even after the greatest apparent sincerity in avowing that I never will turn away from him.

So, I ask again,-In what sense can we forsake our Lord? Well, there are many senses, but perhaps you will see better what I mean if I describe the general process of forsaking a friend. I hope that you have never had to undergo it; I do not know that I ever had; but, still, I can imagine that it is something like this. The old gentleman was your father’s friend, he also had been your own friend, and has done you many a good turn; but, at last, he has said something which has provoked you to anger, or he has done something which you have misunderstood or misinterpreted; and now you feel very cool towards him when you meet. You pass the time of day, and perhaps say very much the same things which you used to say, but they are said in a very different fashion. Now, that is how we begin to forsake our God; we may keep up the appearance of friendship with Christ, but it is a very cool affair. We go to a place of worship, but there is no enjoyment, no enthusiasm, no earnestness. Then the next thing is, that you do not call to see your friend as frequently as you used to do. It has not come to an open rupture between you, so you do look in at certain set times when you are expected, but there are none of those little flying visits, and that popping in upon him unawares, just to get a look at his face as you used to do. And, on his part, he does not come to see you much. And that is how our forsaking of Christ generally continues. We do not go to talk with him as we once did, and when we do go to his house, we find that he is not at home. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” Then, by-and-by, perhaps there is a sharp word spoken, and your friend feels that you do not want him, You have said something that cuts him to the quick, and grieves him. It was not anything so very bad if it had been spoken to a stranger; but to be said to him who was your father’s friend, to him whom you always expected to come in, and whom you loved to see,-to say it to him was very hard, and he naturally took umbrage at it. That is how it comes to pass between Christ and professors. There is something done which might not be of so much account in the case of non-professors or the openly ungodly; but it is very bad in one who professed to have Christ for his Friend. And do you know what happens, by-and-by, when your friend is being discarded? At last, he does not call at all, and you do not go to see him. Perhaps the breach is still further widened, and little presents are sent back or treated with contempt. There is that oil painting which your father would have, though he could scarcely afford it, because he loved his friend so much, and which he hung up in so conspicuous a place in his house; well, the other day, the string broke, and you did not buy a fresh piece of cord to hang it up again; in fact, you put the picture away in the lumber-room, and you really do not care what becomes of it. The little tokens of past affection are all put away, for there is an open rupture now; and when somebody spoke to you about him, lately, you said, “Oh, pray don’t mention him to me! He is no friend of mine now. I used to be on intimate terms with him once, but I have altered my opinion about him altogether.” So do some professors act towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Those little tokens of love which they thought they had from him they send back. They do not remain in fellowship with his Church. They do all that they possibly can to disown him. In the meanwhile, the blessed Lord of love is obliged to disown them, too; and his Church disowns them; and, by-and-by, the rupture has become complete. May that never be the portion of any of you!

“No,” says one, “it never will be.” My dear friend, if you are so confident as that, you are the person about whom I am most afraid. I recollect one, who used to pray among us, but we had to put him out of the church for evil living; and there was one of our members who said, that night, “If that man is not a child of God, I am not one myself.” I said, “My dear brother, do not talk like that. I would not pit my soul against the soul of any man, for I do know a little of myself, but I do not know other men as well as I know myself.” I am very much afraid that neither of the two men I have mentioned was a child of God; by their speech they seemed to be Christians, but their acts were not like those of God’s people. It does not do for us to talk as that man did, but to pray to the Lord, “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.” That is the proper prayer for us; or else it may happen even to us as happened to them, and we may forsake our own Friend and our father’s Friend.

Now, what reasons can we possibly have for forsaking Christ? We ought to do nothing for which we cannot give good reasons. I have known persons very properly forsake their former friends because they have themselves become new creatures in Christ Jesus, and they have rightly and wisely given up the acquaintances with whom they used to sin. They cannot go now to the house where everything is contrary to their feelings. But it is not so with Christ, Some so-called friends drag a man down, lower him, injure him, impose upon him, and at last he is obliged to let them go; but we cannot say that of Christ. His friendship has drawn us up, helped us, sanctified us, elevated us; we owe everything to that friendship. We cannot have a reason, therefore, for forsaking this Friend. I have known some to outgrow an acquaintance or friend. They really have not been able to continue to have common views and sympathies, for, while their friend has remained in the mire, they have risen into quite different men by reason of education and other influences; but we can never outgrow Christ. That is not possible; and the more we grow in a right sense, the more we shall become like him. A man who has been the friend of our father and of ourselves is the very man to have still as a friend, because he probably understands all about the family difficulties, and the family troubles, and he also understands us. Why, he nursed us when we were children, and therefore he knows most about us. I remember that, when lying sore sick, I had a letter from a kind old gentleman who said that he had that day celebrated his eightieth birthday, and the choicest friend he had at his dinner table was the old family doctor. He said, “He has attended to me so long that he thoroughly knows my constitution, he is nearly as old as myself; but the first time I was ill I had him, and he has attended me now for forty years. Once,” he said, “when I had a severe attack of gout, I was tempted to try some very famous man, who very nearly killed me; and until I got back to my old friend, I never was really well again.” So he wrote to advise me to get some really good physician, and let him know my constitution, and to stick to him, and never go off to any of the patent medicines or the quacks of the day. Oh, but there is a great deal of truth in that in a spiritual sense! With the utmost reverence, we may say that the Lord Jesus Christ has been our family Physician. Did he not attend my father in all his sicknesses, and my grandfather, too? And he knows the ins and outs of my constitution;-he knows my ways, good and bad, and all my sorrows; and therefore I do not go to anyone else for relief; and I advise you also to keep to Jesus Christ, do not forsake him. If you ever are tempted to go aside, even for a little while, I pray that you may have grace enough to come back quickly, and to commit yourself again to him, and never go astray again. There is the blessing of having one who is wise, one who is tried, one whose sympathy has been tested, one who has become, as it were, one of your family, one who has taken your whole household to his heart, and made it part and parcel of himself. Such a Friend to your own soul, and to your father’s soul, forsake not.

Do not forsake him, dear friends, because I almost tremble to say it,-you will want him some day. Even if you would never need him in the future, you ought not to forsake him. I do not quite like that verse of the hymn at the end of our hymn-book,-

“Ashamed of Jesus! yes, I may,

When I’ve no guilt to wash away;

No tear to wipe, no good to crave,

No fears to quell, no soul to save.”

No, I may not; when all my guilt is gone, I shall not be ashamed of Jesus. When I am in heaven, and need no more the pardon of sin, I certainly shall not be ashamed of him who brought me there; no, but I shall glory in him more than ever. Your friendship to Christ, and mine, ought not to depend upon what we are going to get out of him. We must love him now for what he is, for all that he has already done, and for his own blessed person, and personal beauties, which every day should hold fast our love, and bind us in chains of affection to him.

But suppose you do think of forsaking Christ, where are you going to get another friend to take his place? You must have a friend of some sort; who is going to sit in Christ’s chair? Whose portrait is to be hung up in the old familiar place when the old Friend is discarded? To whom are you going to tell your griefs, and from whom will you expect to receive help in time of need? Who will be with you in sickness? Who will be with you in the hour of death? Ah! there is no other who can ever fill the vacuum which the absence of Christ would make. Therefore, never forsake him.

Now I must close with the consequent resolve, about which I can say very little, as my time has gone.

Let this be your resolve, by his grace, instead of forsaking him, you will cling to him, more closely than ever; you will own him when it brings you dishonour to do so; you will trust him when he wounds you, for “faithful are the wounds of a friend;” you will serve him when it is costly to do it, when it involves self-denial; resolved that, by the help of his ever-blessed Spirit, without whom you can do nothing, you will never, in any sort of company, conceal the fact that you are a Christian. Never, under any possible circumstances, wish to be otherwise than a servant of such a Master, a friend of such a Lord. Come now, dear young friends who are getting cool towards Christ, and elder friends to whom religion is becoming monotonous, come to your Lord once more, and ask him to bind you with cords, even with cords to the horns of the altar. You have had time to count the cost of all Egyptia’s treasure; forego it and forswear it once for all. But the riches of Christ you can never count; so come and take him again to be your All-in-all.

Those about to be baptized will feel, I trust,-as we shall when we look on,-and say, each man and woman for himself, or herself,-

“’Tis done! The great transaction’s done:

I am my Lord’s, and he is mine.”

Nail your colours to the mast. Bear in your body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Ay, let everyone of us who has been baptized into Christ feel that our whole body bears the water-mark, for we have been “buried with him by baptism into death.” It was not for the putting off of the filthiness of the flesh, but as a declaration that we were dead to the world, and quickened into newness of life in Christ Jesus our Saviour. So let it be with you, too, dear friends, as you follow your Lord through the water; cling to him, cleave to him: “Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not.” May God add his blessing, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

JOHN 15:9-27

Verse 9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you:

Oh, drink this nectar down! It is as when Cleopatra dissolved the pearl into a single draught; for here is the choicest pearl of truth that ever was dissolved into a single verse to be a delicious draught for his people to drink: “As the Father hath loved me,”-as surely as the Father hath loved me; and, then, “as”-that is,-in the same manner “as the Father hath loved me,”-without beginning, without ending, without measure, without change, “so have I loved you.”

9, 10. Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love;

Note this point of the Lord’s discipline;-not that Christ ever casts away his people, but that he does take from them the sweet sense of his love, the realization of it, if they are disobedient to him, and keep not his commandments.

10, 11. Even at I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you,-

That he might joy in us,-feel a sacred delight in thinking of us as he does when he sees us keeping his commandments, and treasuring up his words, and so living in his love, and being mighty in prayer.

11. And that your joy might be full.

If Christ is not pleased with us, we cannot be glad; and if he has no joy in us, we cannot have joy in him. These two things rise and fall together. When the father of the family looks with joy upon his boy, then the boy is happy; but when the father has no joy in his son, then be sure of this, the son has no joy in his father, but he is sad at heart. O God, may we never grieve thee, for if we do, we shall be ourselves grieved; at least, I trust that we shall, we would not have it otherwise. But, oh! that we might have the testimony that Enoch had before his translation, that we have pleased God! Then shall we have true pleasure in ourselves.

12-14. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down, his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

Obedience, then, is rewarded with a holy friendship, for Christ becomes in the highest sense our Friend; but we are not his friends till we cease to delight in sin, and turn away from it into the paths of holiness.

15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

The servant works in a building, and it is enough for him that he is laying part of a line of brick or stone. Perhaps he has never seen the design of the structure, nor had a wish to do so. But you and I have the great Architect constantly coming to us to tell us what the building is to be, and to explain to us his plans, and so we work with greater pleasure and joy than a mere labourer might. The very heart of Christ is laid bare to his people: “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” Happy are his people; glad to be his servants,-gladder still to be his friends.

16. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

There you see divine election leading on to fruit-bearing, and perpetuated in perseverance: “that your fruit should remain.” It brings also to every one of its objects this conspicuous favour, prevailing power in prayer: “that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”

17. These things I command you, that ye love one another.

O you professors, who have no love to one another, you are breaking the King’s commandment! You are living in direct violation of a plain command that is most dear to his heart. Oh, that we might constantly hear it and obey it! “These things I command you, that ye love one another.”

18. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

That is what you have reason to expect, and you may feel honoured if they treat you as they have treated your Lord.

19-22. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep your’s also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin.

There is an awful increase of sin produced by Christ speaking to a man; and if any of you have been very near to the Kingdom, and your conscience has been aroused, and your mind has been impressed by the truth, and yet you have gone back to your sin, you have multiplied that sin a thousand-fold. The times of your ignorance God may have winked at; but now you are sinning against light and knowledge; and unless you repent, terrible will be your doom.

23-26. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come,-

And he has come; he is here, he has never been taken away; he still abides with and in the Church.

26. Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

By this mark you may know whether that which has been taught you is of the Spirit of God. If it does not testify of Christ, if he is not the head and front of it all, there is nothing in it for you to accept. If any man comes to you with what he calls a revelation, if it is not all concerning Christ, by this shall you judge it; it is not of the Spirit of God if it does not testify of Christ.

27. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

May we all bear witness according as we have been with Christ, for there is no bearing witness to Christ unless we have first been with him.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book,”-376, 668, 667.

“ALL HAIL!”

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, June 25th, 1899,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, March 5th, 1882.

“And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him. Then said Jesus onto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.”-Matthew 28:9, 10.

On Sabbath mornings, lately, we have been meditating upon the sorrows of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have been, in thought, travelling with him from dark Gethsemane to still darker Golgotha. We have pictured him under accusation before Caiaphas, Herod, and Pilate; we have, in imagination, heard the cruel shouts of the Jews, “Away with him! Crucify him!” These solemn events have been full of pain to us; even the bliss that comes to us through the cross of Christ has been toned down with intense sorrowfulness as we have thought of the agonies our Saviour there endured. But as soon as we get to the other side of the cross, and realize that Christ has risen from the dead, everything is calm, and quiet, and peaceful. There are none of those rough winds and stormy blasts that come sweeping around us as we stand outside Pilate’s palace and Herod’s judgment hall. All is springlike,-summerlike, if you will,-ay, and autumn-like, for there are most luscious fruits to be gathered in the garden wherein was a new sepulchre out of which the living Christ arose in all the glory of his resurrection from the dead.

There was just one painful memory during the interview which Christ had with his disciples, when he said to Peter the third time, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” And “Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me?” But all the rest of the manifestations of our Lord to his disciples were singularly placid, joyful, restful.

So, dear friends, I want it to be with you now as you enter into the spirit of the scene described in our text. I pray that the Master may set you on the other side of the sepulchre, and make you feel as if he breathed upon you as he breathed upon his disciples, and said to you as he said to them, “Peace be unto you!” We need this experience, at least sometimes; for while the lessons to be learned at Calvary are inestimably precious, and it is beyond all things necessary to sorrow over our sin as we see how we are reconciled to God by the death of his Son, yet we must ardently desire to gather all the fruit that grows even on the accursed tree, and part of that fruit will give us the sweet rest of reconciliation through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

This is the time for fellowship with your Lord, beloved. You cannot tread the winepress with him; you cannot pour out your blood to mingle with his, for the atonement is complete, and needs no suffering on your part; anything added to it would spoil it. But now, on the other side of the tomb, you can stand beside your risen Saviour. He can come into our midst, and say, as he has often done, “Peace be unto you!” As we journey to our homes after this service, we can walk and talk with him as they did who went to Emmaus in company with him. We can take him with us into our daily labours, on the morrow, even as he went to the sea where his disciples were fishing, and taught them how to catch a multitude of fish. Familiar acquaintance with Christ should spring out of the fact that he is no longer dead, that he is not now in the grave, but that he has risen in fulness of life, and that, most wonderful truth of all, that life is in all his people.

Our meditation upon this text will, I trust, help us to enjoy fellowship with Christ. Read the beginning of it, and learn from it this first lesson. The Lord Jesus often meets with his people in the way of holy service: “As they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them.”

My brother said, just now in prayer, that we do not expect actually to meet Jesus in flesh and blood, but we know that there is a great blessedness in store for those who have not seen him with their mortal eyes, and yet have believed in him; and we do expect to meet him, after a spiritual fashion, so that faith can recognize him; nay, more, we know that he is here in his real though invisible presence. We may expect this blessed experience when we are in the way of holy service. I grant you that our Lord Jesus comes to us at other times as well.

“Sometimes a light surprises

The Christian while he sings:

It is the Lord who rises

With healing in his wings.”

Ay; and, sometimes, the light of the Sun of righteousness surprises the Christian when he cannot sing. “Or ever I was aware,” says the sweet singer of the blessed Canticle,-“Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib,” for the presence of Christ may be suddenly manifested to his people, and they may be as though they were caught away altogether from earthly scenes, and were with Christ in the heavenly places. We have known this to happen, sometimes, in the lonely night watches; and we have said with David, “When I awake, I am still with thee,” even in the darkness of the night. We have known it to happen in the very midst of the hurry and worry of business. On a sudden, everything has been calm and quiet. We could not make it out; it seemed like a Sabbath in the middle of the week,-a very oasis in the wilderness. The Lord Jesus Christ has come to some of us when we have been amidst the busy throng in Cheapside. In fact, there is nothing but sin that can keep him away from us, since he is not dependent upon the ordinary rules that regulate the movement of earthly bodies. He was not so on earth after he had risen from the dead, for though I doubt not that he often came and went just as others did, yet, at other times, he came like an apparition, “the doors being shut,” and he could be here and there at his own sweet will, passing from place to place, holding the eyes of those to whom he was nearest, or opening their eyes just when he pleased to do so. That is how he acts toward us now. Do not some of you recollect when Christ first appeared to you? Ah! it is years ago with some of us, but we mind the place, the spot of ground where Jesus first manifested himself to us. The joy of marriage,-the joy of harvest,-these were as nothing compared with the joy that came to us from the vision of his face. Many days have passed since then, and we have had fresh visitations from him. He has come to us, and come again, and yet again. He has not been strange to us; and, now, some of us can say that we are not strangers to him, for he is our dear familiar Friend. Yet are there times, even with those who dwell with him, when the light is clearer, and the voice is nearer, and the sense of his presence is more delightful than usual.

These times, I say, come by Christ’s own appointment whenever he pleases; yet I again remind you of the lesson we learn from our text, which is, that we may expect these visits from Christ when we are going about his business. These devoted women had been to the sepulchre, and had there seen “the angel of the Lord,” who had bidden them go quickly, and tell his disciples that he had risen from the dead, and would meet them in Galilee. So they hastened with all their might to tell the cheering tidings to the sorrowing followers of Jesus; “and as they went to tell his disciples, behold, Jesus met them.” It is better to be actively working for Christ than to sit still, and read, and study, and hope to enjoy his company so. There must be alternations between the contemplative and the active life of a Christian. Sometimes, it is best to sit quietly with Mary, and leave Martha and the dishes alone; but, at another time, it is better to bestir yourself, and to run hither and thither with all the diligence of a Martha, for then Jesus will be most likely to meet with you. I notice-and I think that my observation is correct,-that my brethren and sisters who do most for Christ, know most about him, and have most fellowship with him. The Sabbath-school teacher, diligent in his class, and weary, perhaps, now that the Sabbath is well-nigh spent, yet rejoicing that he has set forth Christ before his class, is the one to whom the Lord will come and manifest himself. The man who has been in the street preaching, or going from door to door trying to speak for Christ by a tract or by his own voice, and all of you, indeed, who have done anything for your Lord and Master, are the most likely persons for him to meet with at this time.

I have known some, who have been for years members of churches, but who have never done anything for the Saviour; they are the kind of people who do not get on with my ministry long, they say that they are not able to feed upon it. They are generally wanderers who go about from one place to another looking for new light, and they never get to be very happy or very useful; nor do they often have much communion with Christ. No; our Lord is very choice in his company, and he does not frequent the house of the sluggard; but wherever there is one who spends and is spent for Jesus, there we may expect that Jesus will be. If we heartily serve him, the state of mind into which we shall be brought will be congenial to his own; fellowship will be likely between the labouring Saviour and his labouring servant. Follow the example of him who went about doing good, and you will thus be in sympathy with him, and you will find that he will come and walk with you because you two are agreed.

That is certainly one reason why Christ comes to those who are busy about his errands, because he is in agreement with them, and they are therefore travelling in the right road to meet with him. “If any man will not work, neither shall he eat,” is a rule that Christ observes; and those who will not work for him get but scant morsels from him. Few of the bits my brother spoke of, that are dipped in the dish with Christ, come to those who never lift a hand to do him any service; but if he brings us into loving obedience, into joyful alacrity and sacred earnestness in doing his will, then it is that he will in all probability meet with us by the way, and manifest himself to us. Sit ye down, then, ye who have come to the end of another day of holy service; and just pray, “Jesus, Master, come and meet us now.” Oh, that you might feel as though he stood behind you, and looked over your shoulder,-as if the shadow of the Christ fell upon you, and you felt even now his pierced hand touching you; and that prostrate at his feet your spirit might lie, holding him by the feet and worshipping him!

I do not feel as if I needed to preach upon this subject; I want only to set you longing for larger and deeper communion with Christ, and aspiring after it, especially you to whom this Sabbath has been a day of service, from which service, perhaps, you have not as yet seen any good come. You have come from that field weary,-not weary of it, though weary in it,-for you are ready still to serve your Lord. Now, I want you to feel that Christ is here, and that he comes to commune with you.

So we advance a step to our second remark. When Jesus meets us, he has ever a good word for us: “Jesus met them, saying, All hail.”

That is, first, a word of salutation, as if he had said, “Welcome, friends! Glad to see you, friends! All hail, my friends!” There is nothing cold and formal about that word; it seems full of the warmth of brotherly kindness and affectionate condescension. “All hail!” says our Lord to the women. “You are glad to see me, and I am glad to see you. ‘All hail!’ ” How much more sweet that sounds than that bitter sarcasm of the soldiers, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And yet it seems almost like an echo of it, as though Christ caught up the cruel word, crushed the bitterness out of it, and then gave it back to the holy women before him full of delicious sweetness. “All hail!” says he. “All hail!”

My dear Christian brother or sister, would you be glad to see the Saviour if he could now be made visible to you? Yet you would not be so glad to see him as he would be to see you. He is very dear to you; but he is not so dear to you as you are to him. Out of two friends, the greater affection is always found in the one who has conferred the most favours upon the other. I will not dare to compare for a moment the love which exists between you and Christ, for what have you ever done for him compared with what he has done for you? He loves you more than you can ever love him. Well, then, he says, “All hail! I am glad, my son,-I am glad, my brother,-I am glad, my friend, that thou hast come up to this place where my people meet. All hail! I welcome you.”

Besides being a word of salutation, it is a word of benediction. Our Lord, by this expression, seems to say, “All health be to you,-everything that can do you good! I wish for you every good thing.” He speaks it to you, believer. “May you have the haleness, the wholeness, that makes holiness; and, so, may it be all well with you,-all hale with you!”

Then it is also a word of gratulation, for some render it, “Rejoice;” and, indeed, that is the meaning of the term, “Let us joy and rejoice together.” Jesus gives to you, beloved, this watchword as he meets you, “Rejoice.” The children in your class are not yet all converted; nevertheless, rejoice in Christ. All in the congregation, about whom some of us are concerned, are not saved; nevertheless, let us rejoice in Christ. You yourself cannot run as quickly on your Lord’s errands as you wish you could; nevertheless, rejoice in Christ Jesus, though you can have no confidence in the flesh. It is a blessed thing when it becomes a sacred duty to be glad. What man, to whom our Lord Jesus Christ says, “Rejoice,” can have an excuse for misery? So, “All hail!” is a word of gratulation.

And, according to some versions, it may be read, “Peace be unto you!” That is a word of pacification,-as though our Lord had said, “Ah! you women did not run away from me, as the men did; but, still, you were afraid and very timid; and though you were at the sepulchre, you went there trembling. You did not believe my word, or you scarcely believed it,-that I would rise from the dead, but I am not going to have any back reckonings with you. ‘Peace be to you!’ ” Now, dear friends, have you heard your Lord and Saviour say to you, “It is all forgiven,-every omission and every commission, every slip and every fault,-all the lukewarmness, and all the coldness; it is all gone”? That is the meaning of the greeting, “All hail!” from the lips of Christ. “There is nothing between me and thee, dear heart, but perfect peace and unbroken love. I rejoice to see thee; and I would have thee rejoice, and rest, and be quiet, for I have come near unto thee, to bless and cheer thee.”

That is the second lesson I learn from the text. First, that, when we are running on our Master’s errands, we may hope that he will meet us; and, next, when he does meet us, we may expect that he will always have a good word for us.

Thirdly, when Jesus meets us, it behoves us to get as near to him as we can: “And they came and held him by the feet.”

Note that they first stood still. They had been running quickly to carry the angel’s message to the disciples, but at the sound of their Lord’s voice they stopped, half out of breath, and they seemed to say by their looks, “It is indeed our blessed Master. It is the very same Lord whom we saw laid in the tomb, the best-beloved of our soul.” Then, next, they approached him. They did not flee away backward at all, but they came right up to him, “and held him by the feet.” Now, dear friends, if Jesus is near to you, come closer still to him. If you feel that he is passing by, come near to him by an act of your will. Be all-alive and wide-awake; do not be half-asleep in your pew; but say, “If he is here, I will get to him. If he is anywhere about, I will speak with him, and beg him to speak to me.” If ever our heart was active in all our lives, it ought to be active in the presence of Christ. And let us try to be all aglow with joy, for so were these women. They were delighted to behold their risen Lord, so they drew nearer to him; and, all intent with earnest, burning, all-conquering love, they came so close to him that they could grasp him, for they felt that they must adore him.

Now, beloved, let it be so with you and with me. Do not let us lose a single word that our Lord is ready to speak to us. If this be the time of his appearing to us, let him not come and find us asleep. If he be knocking at the door, if he be saying to us, “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled,” let us not reply that we cannot leave the bed of sloth to let him in; but now, if ever in our lives, let us breathe a mighty prayer, “Come, O thou blessed One whose voice I know full well, and commune with me.” If Jacob held the angel whom he did not know,-if, as our hymn puts it, he said,-

“Come, O thou Traveller unknown,

Whom still I hold, but cannot see!

My company before is gone,

And I am left alone with thee;”-

let us much more say,-

“Come, O thou Traveller well-known,

Whom still I hold, but cannot see;”-

“I must have thy company. My spirit craves it, sighs for it, pines for it; I must have thee. I will hold thee. Leave me not, but reveal thyself to me now.”

That is the third lesson we may learn from our text.

And the fourth I have almost touched upon; I could not help it. It is this, when Jesus meets us, we should retain him, and worship him: “They came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.”

When Mary Magdalene first sought to hold her Lord, Jesus said to her, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father;” but now he permits what he had formerly forbidden: “They came and held him by the feet”-those blessed feet that the nails had held but three days before. He had risen from the grave, and therefore a wondrous change had taken place in him,-but the wounds were there, still visible, and these women “held him by the feet.” And, beloved, whenever you get your Lord Jesus near to you, do not let him go for any little trifle,-nay, nor yet even for a great thing; but say, with the spouse in the Canticles, “I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go.” The saints themselves will sometimes drive Christ away from those who love him; therefore the spouse said, “I charge you, ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.” Be jealous lest you lose him, when you have realized the joy, the rich delight, of having him in your soul! You feel, at such a time as that, as if you scarcely dared to breathe; and you are so particular about your conduct that you would not venture to put one foot before the other without consulting him, lest even inadvertently you should cause him grief. Bow thus at his feet; be humble. Hold him by the feet; be bold, be affectionate. Grasp him, for though he is your God, he is also your Brother, bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh.

But take care that, in it all, you worship him: “They came and held him by the feet, and worshipped him.” This is not the Socinians’ christ; they cannot worship their saviour, for he is but a mere man. This is our Christ, “the Son of the Highest,” “very God of very God,” “God over all, blessed for ever.” As we hold him by the feet, we feel a holy awe stealing over us, for the place whereon we stand is holy ground when he is there. We hold him, but still we reverently bow before him, and feel like John in Patmos when he wrote, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.” Well spoke one of old, to whom it was said, “Thou canst not see Christ, and live.” “Then,” replied the saint, “let me see him, and die.” And we would say the same; for, whatever happens to us, we wish for a sight of him. I have read of one who cried, under the overpowering weight of divine manifestations, “Hold, Lord! Hold! I am but an earthen vessel, and if thou dost fill me fuller, I must perish.” Had I been in his place, I think I would not have spoken quite as he did, but I would have said, “Go on, Lord, with the blessed manifestation of thyself. Let the earthen vessel be broken if need be; it cannot possibly come to a better end than by being crushed and even annihilated by the majesty of thy glorious presence.” At any rate, we will hold him, and worship him; the Lord help us to do so more and more!

The last remark I have to make is a practical one, which also comes out of our text. From such a meeting with Christ, we should go on a further errand for him: “Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee; and there shall they see me.”

When we have such a meeting with Christ as these women had, let us go on some further errand for him, as soon as he permits us to do so. It is a very blessed thing to have fellowship with Christ, but it would be a very ill result of our communion with him if it led any one of us to say, “Now I shall not go back to my service any more. I shall not go to my class again. I might be provoked by the scholars; I might be careless there, and so I might lose the fellowship I am now enjoying with Jesus. I shall not go and preach again; I shall stop at home, and have communion with Christ all the day.” I knew one brother, who got into such a condition that he really thought that, to see the face of his people on the Lord’s-day, robbed him of fellowship with Christ. All the week long, he never saw anybody, for his fellowship with Christ, he said, was so intense that he could not bear to look upon mankind; and when the Sabbath came, and he had to meet with his people, he would, if he could, have preached out of a box so that they might hear his voice, and he might never see them. Now, I do not think that such a spirit as that is at all right. Who is the man who can best bear witness for Christ, but the man who has been with him in secret and sacred fellowship? And what is a better return for Christ’s wondrous grace to us than that we should consecrate ourselves to the holy task of showing forth his glory amongst our fellow-men?

There is a striking legend illustrating the blessedness of performing our duty at whatever cost to our own inclination. A monk had seen a beautiful vision of our Saviour, and in silent bliss he was gazing upon it. The hour arrived at which it was his duty to feed the poor at the convent-gate. He would fain have lingered in his cell to enjoy the vision; but under a sense of duty, he tore himself away from it to perform his humble service. When he returned, he found the blessed vision still waiting for him, and heard a voice saying, “Hadst thou stayed, I would have gone. As thou hast gone, I have remained.” So, dear friend, ask thyself, “Since Jesus is very precious to me, what more can I do for him? I was running to his disciples when he met me; so when he bids me go to them, I will run the faster that no time may be lost to the disciples before they also share the enjoyment with which my Master has indulged me. And when I get to them, I shall have more to tell them than I had before. I was going to tell them that I had seen the angel of the Lord; but I shall be able to tell them that I have seen the Lord himself, and I shall tell the message so much more brightly and powerfully now that I have had it confirmed from his own lips.”

Those holy women were full of fear and joy, strangely mingled emotions, before; but now, surely fear must have taken to flight, for Jesus had said to them, “Be not afraid;” and it must have been joy, and joy alone, with which these blessed women would break in upon the eleven, and say, “We have seen what is far better than a vision of angels, for we have seen the Master himself. We held him by the feet till we knew that it was really our Lord, we held him till we had worshipped him, and heard him say, ‘Be not afraid;’ and then he gave us a message from his own dear lips, and this is what he said to us, ‘Tell my brethren that they go into Galilee; and there shall they see me.’ ”

Happy preacher, who, on his way to his pulpit, is interrupted by meeting his Master! Happy preacher, who has lost the thread of his discourse, for few discourses are worth much that have too much thread in them, but who has found something infinitely better than thread,-some links of sacred fire,-some chains of heavenly love, that go from end to end of the discourse, so that he tells what he knows, and testifies what he has seen, for men must give heed to such a witness. His countenance is all aglow with the light that shines from the face of Jesus; it is bright with the joy that fills the preacher’s own soul, and those who listen to him say, “Would God we knew that joy!” and those that do share it say, “Yes, we know it,” and they respond to it till hearts leap up to speak with hearts, and they sing together a chorus of praise unto him whom they unitedly love. I wish it were so at this moment. I should like, dear friends, to be able to tell my message the better because of having met my Master; and I should like you to go out to the work and service of another week strengthened, and rendered mighty and wise for all you have to do, because Jesus has met you, and has said to you, “All hail,” and you have held him by the feet, and worshipped him.

There I leave the subject with you. Perhaps some of you are saying, “We wish we could hold him by the feet.” Ay, but in this blessed supper, which is spread upon the table, you have an outward emblem of how to hold him better than by the feet, for, in the eating of bread and the drinking of wine in memory of him, he sets forth to us how his whole self can be spiritually received into the innermost chambers of our being,-how he can come unto us, and sup with us, and we with him,-how he can dwell in us, and we can dwell in him. Not only the peace of God, but his very self, can now come, and abide in your very self, and there can be a union between you and him that never shall be broken. God grant that you may enjoy it even now!

But I know that some here present cannot understand what I have been talking about; it must have seemed like an idle tale to them. Ah, dear friends! and if we were to go into a stable, and were to talk to horses about the ordinary concerns of our home life, what would they know about it all? They understand about oats, and beans, and hay, and straw; but what can they know of the themes that interest intelligent human beings? So, there are some men in this world, of whom Dr. Watts truly says,-

“Like brutes they live, like brutes they die.”

They have no spiritual nature, even as the horse has no immortal soul, and they cannot therefore comprehend spiritual things. And as I might pity the horse because it is a stranger to mental enjoyments, so I would pity the unregenerate man who is a stranger to spiritual enjoyments. For, as much as the mind of man is above the living something that is within the brute, so much is the spirit of the believer above the ordinary mind of the unregenerate man. We have joys, the sweetness of which is such that honey is not to be compared with them; we have bliss, the like of which all Solomon’s wealth could not have purchased; and we have been introduced into a world which is as much fairer than this material universe as the sunlight is better than the darkest midnight of a dungeon. Oh, that you did all know it! May God, of his grace, give you his Spirit, create you anew, and breathe faith in Jesus into your soul! Then will you know the bliss of meeting with him, and of serving him.

God bless the Word, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book,”-974, 814.

Expositions by C. H. Spurgeon

ACTS 3:11-26; 4:1-4; and 2 PETER 3

You remember, dear friends, how Peter denied his Lord in the time of his trial. Now notice what a change was wrought in him after the Holy Spirit had fallen upon him on the day of Pentecost. We have often read the story of the man healed at the beautiful gate of the temple; now let us see what followed:-

Acts 3:11. And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.

It is always easy to draw a crowd, but there was really something wonderful to be seen that day. The apostle was careful to turn to the very best account the curiosity of the crowd. See how quickly he carried their thoughts away from the man before him to the greater Man, the Divine Man, the Son of God whom they had rejected.

12-23. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.

Hear this, then, you who have heard Christ, through his Word and through his servants, and have heard him preach,-ay, scores and hundreds of times. Let me read this text to you again; and as I read it, may it sink into your hearts; “It shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.”

24-26. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away everyone of you from his iniquities.

They were to have the first proclamation of the gospel; from among them would be gathered many of the first converts. The preacher did not know immediately what result this sermon produced; it was not like the sermon preached at Pentecost, for he did know what happened after its delivery. This is quite as good a sermon every way, and we have every reason to believe that as many were converted by it. The Spirit of God was with Peter; yet even the Spirit of God does not always work in the same way upon men. You see, the apostles had no opportunity to have a talk with the people afterwards, and to find out what had been done, as they had on the day of Pentecost.

Chapter 4 Verses 1-4. And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day: for it was now eventide. Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.

So that, though they could not tell there and then how many were converted, and though they could not baptize them at once, for they were taken away, yet, though there was no after-meeting, there were probably just as many saved as at Pentecost. Just as grand a result came of it. You cannot judge of the result of a sermon on the particular day that it is preached; it may seem as if that sermon had produced no effect, and it may be so; but, still, this time it was not so. Whenever you go home sad that you have not had an after-meeting, or you are interrupted, and cannot tell what good was done, though you do not know what has been accomplished, the record is in heaven, and God will reveal it by-and-by; and, peradventure, even here you will discover that you made a mistake, and that the service which seemed lost was one of the most blessed that you ever conducted. God grant that it may be so, for Christ’s sake!

Now let us read Peter’s second Epistle, the third chapter.

2 Peter 3 Verses 1-3. This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,-

This prophecy is most certainly being fulfilled in these days.

4. And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

“Inviolable laws still govern the material creation. Men are still swift to sin. Oppressors are not overthrown; and, oftentimes, the good are left to languish in poverty and suffering. ‘Where is the promise of his coming?’ ”

5. For this they willingly are ignorant of,-

Ignorant that there has been one great interposition of God to avenge the insults to his holy law, and to overturn the rule of sin: “For this they willingly are ignorant of,”-

5, 6. That by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

God did destroy man, and sweep away sin, with water once.

7. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

There will come a second interposition; we know not when, but assuredly it shall come; and if the visitation tarry, we must wait for it; for it shall come, it shall not really tarry, however long it may seem to be delayed.

8. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

There are no years to him; there are no days to the great Ancient of days. A thousand years must seem to be a mere speck in comparison with his everlasting existence,-as a dream when one awaketh, it has swiftly passed away; but God still remaineth.

9. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Therefore does he wait. If men ask why there is no interposition of wrath to overthrow the ungodly, the answer is, because this is part of God’s great reign of love. He waits, because he is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance;” yet there will be a limit even to his patience.

10. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

The next and great judgment will be by fire.

11, 12. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

This should be the practical outcome of the anticipation of coming judgment. Let us look on “all these things” as passing away.

13. Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

The end of this world will be the beginning of a new and better one, of which “righteousness” will be the great characteristic.

14. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

There is, again, the practical note.

15, 16. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

The Scriptures are given for our learning; and, rightly used, guide us to the Saviour; yet, alas! some “wrest” them “unto their own destruction.” Let none of us ever be found committing such fatal folly as that.

17, 18. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord, and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

I should like to point out to young Christians, and to all Christian people, how Peter finishes this Epistle, first with a warning and then with a counsel. He says, “Beware lest ye be led away,” and then he puts in a “but”-“but grow in grace.” If you go into a plantation, at a certain time of the year, you may see a great number of trees that have no leaves upon them; how are you to know which are alive, and which are not? Well, you would soon know if you could look at their roots. If a tree has been growing, if its roots have taken hold upon the soil, you may pull it, but you will not stir it. There it stands; and, in like manner, growth in grace brings fixity in grace. You who have faith, pray God that you may have growing faith. A living faith is a growing faith, and a growing faith is a living faith. Pray, therefore, that you may “grow in grace.”