“Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.”-Psalm 123:2.

Notice, dear friends, that both these texts begin with the word “Behold.” That word is meant to attract the readers’ attention. In some books, which are intended to be sensational, you are asked to behold, and when you look, there is nothing to see; but when God’s Word bids you behold what it has to say, you may be sure that the exclamation is not superfluous or misleading. It would be a marring of the Word of God to leave out even one of its smallest expressions; and, therefore, when we see this word “Behold” placed at the beginning of each of these texts, we may rest assured that there is in both of them something worth noting, worth examining and considering, and worth remembering and carrying away.

A very useful series of discourses might be preached upon the “Beholds” of the Old and New Testaments, which culminate in John the Baptist’s “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;” and Pilate’s “Behold the man;” and still more in our Lord’s own message to John, “Behold, I come quickly.” But two Old Testament “Beholds” are to furnish us with a theme of meditation at this time. It is somewhat singular that they both relate to eyes. The first tells us about God’s eyes: “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” His eyes are never closed; no feeling of weariness or need of slumber ever causes them to be heavy and to shut. And the second text tells us about our eyes: “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.”

See, brethren, both our texts speak about eyes, and they ask for the use of our eyes by saying “Behold,” which is as though God said to us, “I am going to tell you about my eyes, which never slumber; therefore, look and see, for you shall find them ever open, and ever watchful over you.” Then the next text tells us about our eyes, and reminds us how God gives to his people clear and quick eyesight, so that they observe all the motions of their Master’s hand, and are glad to note them, and prompt to do as he directs. I have put these two texts together because I hoped that, when you saw with joy how the eye of the Lord is upon the righteous, and his ear is open to their cry, you would then feel that it was a fit return that your eyes should be unto the Lord your God, and that your ears should be open to receive his teaching and to learn his commands. God grant that this may be the result of the sermon upon these two texts!

First, then, I am to speak to you concerning the wakeful eyes of the Lord our God. We are told, in our first text, that the Lord, who keepeth Israel, shall neither slumber nor sleep.

We learn from these words, first, that the Lord keeps Israel. Read the 121st Psalm through, and you will find the word “preserve” or “keep” or “keeper” repeated many times. God has himself undertaken the work of keeping his people; it is his high office to preserve those who are his own chosen ones.

“He that keepeth Israel.” By this expression we understand that the Lord keeps his people as a shepherd keeps his flock. There is a great depth of meaning in that word “keep” as it is thus used; for a shepherd keeps the sheep by feeding them, by supplying all their needs, and also by guarding them from all their adversaries. He keeps the flock with vigilance so that it is not diminished either by the ravaging of the wolf or by the straying of the sheep. Both by night and by day, even an ordinary shepherd takes great pains and the utmost care to preserve his sheep; while “our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,” who was brought again from the dead, uses his omnipotence, his omniscience, and all his divine attributes in the keeping of his sheep. O beloved, if you are indeed his people, and the sheep of his pasture, rest assured that he will preserve you! You are in good keeping, for he is the good Shepherd, and the great Shepherd, and the chief Shepherd; and he will perform all the duties of his office well and faithfully, that he may keep securely all whom his Father has committed unto him.

Another figure may equally well illustrate the meaning of this expression. The Lord keeps his people, not only as a shepherd keeps his sheep, but as a king keeps his jewels. These are rare and precious things which are his peculiar treasure, and he will not lose them if he can help it. He will go to war sooner than be deprived of them. He will put them in the securest casket that he has in his strong room, and set his most faithful servants to guard the place wherein they are stored. He will charge those who have the custody of his crown jewels to take a full and accurate account of them, and to be careful to examine them from time to time to see that they are all there, for he greatly prizes them, and is not willing for one of them to be lost. They probably cost him a great price; or, if not, they are part of his royal heritage, and of the glory and honour of his kingdom, so he desires to keep them all. Even so does the Lord Jesus keep his people, for they are his jewels. He delights in them, they are his honour and his glory. They cost him a greater price than they can ever realize. He hides them away in the casket of his power, and protects them with all his wisdom and strength. Concerning those who feared the Lord, and thought upon his name, it is written, “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.” It is God’s work to keep his own jewels; he does not commit them even to the custody of the tall archangel who stands nearest to his throne, but the Lord himself keepeth them, and none shall be able to pluck them out of his hands.

This is not all, for we might multiply figures to almost any extent, and still not exhaust the meaning of the text. The Lord keeps his people as a governor keeps the city committed to his charge. He places his guards around the walls, he has his cannon on the battlements, to defend the place against those who besiege it, and he is himself constantly on the watch. Early in the morning, and late at night, he is on the walls; and through the night the watchmen keep their continual round, for the city must be preserved from scaling ladders and from assaults of every sort. The Lord will not let even the suburbs of the New Jerusalem be conquered by the foe. He will preserve the holy city, his own Church, until the day when his Son shall come to reign in her for ever.

I find that, in all probability, the figure here used is an allusion to the common custom of having guards to watch the tents of travellers passing through the desert. At this very time, if you were journeying through the Holy Land, you would find that, when you came to your camping ground, and nightfall drew on, there would be certain persons employed to watch over the different tents; for, otherwise, the wandering robbers of the desert would soon enter, and take away your valuables, or even your life. I have noticed, in the books of two or three travellers, this observation, “We found it exceedingly difficult to obtain a tent-keeper who could keep awake all night.” One gentleman speaks of discovering a thief in his tent, and when he went outside to call the watchman, he found that the man had gone so soundly to sleep that he could only be aroused by one or two gentle kicks. When a man has been travelling with you all day, it is unreasonable to expect him to keep awake through the night to take care of you. Hence, see the beauty of the expression used by the psalmist: “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” There shall be no deep sleep falling upon him; nay, there shall not even be a brief period of slumber, not even a wink of sleep shall ever overcome him. A man may say, “I am so tired that I cannot keep my eyes open;” but God says not so.

Now turn to the second part of our first text: “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,” and think, first, of God’s eyes as never wearying of his people. I suppose that the fondest mother is sometimes glad when she can put her children to bed, and have a little quiet time by herself. She at last grows weary even of their pretty ways, and she is willing to let them go out of her sight for a while. But the Lord never grows weary of his people. If some of you had such children as God has, you would never be able to endure their trying ways. None but the God of infinite patience could bear with such a family as he has; any one of us might exhaust the patience of a hundred Jobs rolled into one; yet, tell it out, and let even, the angels hear it, we have not exhausted the patience of God. He has never been so wearied and worried by us as to say, “I must go to sleep, my children; and leave you to take care of yourselves.” Our Saviour’s eyes are never weary of looking on us,-those eyes that closed upon the cross, and then that opened again, on the resurrection morning, like bright stars, those eyes that, from the heights of heaven, have looked down upon the redeemed with ineffable delight of love, those eyes never grow weary of the chosen ones. Our Lord Jesus has such joy in his people as keeps him from ever being weary of them. That is one meaning of his never slumbering or sleeping.

The next is, that God is never forgetful of his people for a single moment. You and I forget things which we most want to remember. Have you not, my sister, often shifted your ring from one finger to another that you may say to yourself, “How came it here?” and then recollect the reason why you removed it? Yes, I know you have done so; and we have had a hundred ingenious inventions to keep us in mind of something that we wished not to forget; yet we have forgotten it, after all. The fondest human heart at times forgets; but that divine heart alone, never does; and those eyes which look down on us, with infinite love flashing forth from them, are never sealed in the slumber of forgetfulness. We forget all things in our sleep, and lie completely indifferent to all that is happening round about us; but God never does so; he never forgets us, and he is never indifferent to us. Oh, what a blessed truth is this!

Sleep also throws us into a condition in which we are incapable of helping ourselves. But God is never in such a state as that. He is always awake to show himself strong on the behalf of those who trust him. You will never have to call to him in vain, or get from him the answer, “I cannot help you now.” Elijah, in his irony, said that perhaps Baal was sleeping, or on a journey; and the idol god was quite unable to deliver those that called upon him; but our God, who made the heavens, is quick to hear the faintest cry of any one of his people. He is perpetually girt with all might and energy; and if you do but appeal to him, he will speedily fly to your relief, yea, he will fly upon the wings of the wind; for he is prompt to deliver all those who put their case into his hands. God is never asleep in the sense that he is unable to help us.

And, moreover, God is never asleep in the sense that he ceases to consider us. I do not know whether you can catch the thought, so as to lay hold of it by faith; but we have an instance of it in the 40th Psalm, where David says, “I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me.” When? Now? Yes. To-morrow? Yes. And yesterday? Yes. He was always thinking upon us; and he is always thinking upon us. The infinite mind of God can think of all things at once. You and I, in thinking of one thing, often forget another; but it is not so with God. He is so great that his centre is everywhere, and his circumference is nowhere; and you, dear brother or sister, may be the very centre of God’s thoughts, and so may I; and all his redeemed may at the same moment have his thoughts fixed upon each one of them. Can you realize the wondrous truth that there never is a moment, night or day, in which the great mind of the Eternal ceases to think of you? Then, how safe you are with God always looking upon you! How happy you ought to be with God always thinking of you! Yea, how joyful you ought to be because, even if others forget you, he never does! You remember how Cowper represents Alexander Selkirk, when far away on that island of Juan Fernandez, saying,-

“My friends, do they now and then send

A wish or a thought after me?”

He could not bear, in his loneliness, to be altogether forgotten by everybody; and none of us would like to be in that condition; but even if we were in such a plight, we could still find comfort in that ancient promise, “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget.” It is rarely enough that mothers are so unnatural; stall, “they may forget; yet,” says the Lord, “will I not forget thee.” Oh, drink that down! Is it not a sweet draught? Of all the luscious drinks that men ever delighted in, there can be none with such flavour as this choice wine of covenant faithfulness.

So much, then, for our first text: “Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” I have only given you a few brief hints. Lay them up in your memories, and come with me to consider our second text: “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.”

The lesson of these words is, that the watchful eyes of the saints are fixed upon their god.

Which is the more wonderful text of the two? Certainly, it is a great marvel that God should always fix his eyes upon us; but I think it is a greater marvel that you and I should ever be brought to fix our eyes on God. For God to look at his people, is according to his own nature; but for us to look upon God, is something superior to human nature; it is the gift of God, and the work of sovereign grace. I think that both looks are to be regarded as miracles of mercy. For a child of God to be so sanctified that he always fixes his eyes upon God, as a servant does upon his master’s hand,-this is a very eminent degree of sanctification, and is a thing worthy to be looked at, and worthy to have the word “Behold” put before it. I wonder whether you and I ever yet reached such a height of consecration to God as to be able truly to use the language of this text.

Alas! in many cases we cannot get men’s eyes fixed upon God at all. There is this natural world, with all its wondrous beauty; God has painted every flower-bell, and tinged the clouds with the glory of the setting sun. He is everywhere; and yet men walk through his great house of nature, and-fools that they are!-they say, “There is no God.” It is hard to get men to see God. We put the Bible into their hands; they read it, and are interested in its stories, but they see not God in it. Providence comes to their very doors with marvels, yet they say that they do not see God’s hand in anything that happens to them; and even when we preach,-and this is the woe of woes!-we cannot get men to look to the Lord. God knows that I have never tried so to speak that you should think of me for a single moment. I have sought to tell my tale as plainly as I could, and to force it home on men’s hearts and consciences as God might help me; and yet, at the end of the sermon, often the hearer’s only remark is, “How did you like him?” It does not matter at all how you like him. Is that what we came here for,-to fiddle to you, as men do in your orchestras, or speak before you as if we were mere actors playing for your amusement? It is of no concern to us what you think of our style or manner; it is the truth itself which we would fain drive home to you; it is that truth which, if we could, we would make you feel as the ox feels the sharp goad. It is the blessed doctrine of Christ crucified which we would have you feed upon, as the hungry man devours the bread that is given to him, and does not care whether he ever knows the baker’s name, or not. Still, I must say again that it is a hard thing to get men to see God anyhow and anywhere. They look around, above, beneath, everywhere; but to get them to fix their eyes upon God, “This is the work; this is the difficulty.”

The man of God, who wrote this 123rd Psalm, had been taught to look to God in a very remarkable manner, and I call your attention to it, in the hope that many of you will do likewise. First, his eyes were reverentially fixed upon the Lord. He looked to God’s hand, wherever it was, with deep reverence: “as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters.” He was, of course, talking about Oriental servants;-the Hebrew word bears the meaning of slaves; and travellers tell us that, when they go into the house of a wealthy person in the East, the master will give certain signs to his slaves, and refreshments are brought in; but, except when they are called, the servants stand at a distance, watching for the slightest motion of their master’s hands; they do not have the liberties that we happily accord to our servants; but they are just nothing and nobody, mere tools for their master to use as he pleases. And, as to the maidens, I have heard that the women in the East have a harder time of it with their mistresses than the men do with their masters, and that the lady of the house is a more severe taskmaster than her husband is. So the maidens watch their mistresses very carefully, for they are sorely afraid of them, and they look with great care and fear to see what “Madam” would have them do. Now, casting aside everything of human fear out of the figure, this is the way in which we ought to look to God. He is in heaven; we are upon earth. He is great; we are nothing. He is good; we are lumps of sin. It is for us, therefore, with the utmost reverence to seek to learn God’s will in every point, in his Word, and in his works, and at once, without question, reverently to do what he commands us.

The next point is, that the truly sanctified man looks to God’s hands with obedience as well as with reverence. Orientals, as a general rule, speak far less than we do, except when they sit around the fire, at eventide, and tell their tales. But an Eastern master seldom speaks. A gentleman went, some time ago, into an Eastern house, and as soon as ever he entered, the master waved his hand, and the servants brought in sherbet. He waved his hand again, and they brought dried fruits; then he moved his hands in a different way, and they began to spread the table; and, all the time, not a word was spoken, but they perfectly understood the motion of his hand. They had to look sharply to see how the master moved his hand, so that they might do what that motion meant. We have not very much of that dumb action amongst us; but, on board a steamboat, you may see the captain moving his hands this way or that, and the call-boy is ready at once to pass the word down to those who are in charge of the engine. That is just how the child of God should watch the hand of God, in the Bible, and in providence, so as to do at once whatever he plainly perceives to be his Lord’s will. Ah, me! I know some professing Christians who will not do God’s will till they have had a good whipping, or not until they have been chastened again and again. Remember that ancient injunction, “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee.” You know how the drivers have to pull at their reins; they say, “This creature is so hard in the mouth that we do not know how to manage him at all.” And some of God’s people are terribly hard in the mouth, they need very rough handling to make them move. Yet we ought to be different from horses and mules; we ought to be ready at once, at a beck, or a wink, or a nod, to know what God would have us do, and do it reverently and obediently.

Then, also, our eyes should be absolutely fixed upon our Lord. The eyes of servants ought to be so directed to their masters that they not only see the sign, but obey it, whatever it means. It may be a very little thing, but yet the little thing should not be neglected. I would again say what I sometimes feel ashamed of having to say. I sometimes meet with a person who says, with regard to the matter of believers’ baptism, “Now, you know that baptism will not save me.” You mean, miserable soul! Will you do nothing but what is necessary for your salvation? Is that the spirit that actuates you? Will you do only what is necessary to save your poor soul, which is hardly worth saving if you talk like that? It is too small a thing to be worth anything; but unless baptism will save your soul, you will not attend to it. “Well,” says another, “I have reversed the Scriptural order; I have put my baptism before my believing.” Who gave you leave to alter the Lord’s order? If servants were to act like that, what mischief we should have! Suppose they were to bring us in our dessert before they brought in our dinner;-that would be a very small affair, yet it is important to observe the right order even in such matters. Or suppose we were to tell them to sweep the room, and dust it; and they should dust the room, and then sweep it. It is only altering the order, but you know what would happen. So is it with those who put baptism first and believing afterwards; it just spoils the whole transaction, and it violates the intention of God in the ordinance. You have no right to act like that.

I may remind you of a story which I think I told you some time ago. A poor youth earnestly wished to join the church, but his friends thought he was somewhat deficient in brain power, and that he had better not be baptized. He lay sick, and was evidently dying; and he said to his mother, “Mother, I wish I had been baptized, and joined the church.” She replied, “My dear boy, you know that being baptized would not have saved you; you will go to heaven because you have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Oh, yes!” he said, “I know that; you do not think I am so stupid as to fancy that baptism would save me. I know that has nothing to do with going to heaven; but when I get there, I shall see my Saviour, and, perhaps he will say to me, ‘Isaac, why did you not join the church?’ If I should say, ‘Lord, that was a very little thing,’ he would say, ‘Yes, then you might have done it to please me.’ ” That story is just to the point; the smaller the matter is, the more careful we should be to attend to it, if it would please the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not be so clever, you servants who fancy that you know better than your Master, for perhaps he may find somebody else to be his servant if you behave like that. Suppose that I was starting on a journey, early in the morning, and I said to my servant, “I should like a cup of coffee before I start,” and suppose that, when I came down, she brought me a glass of cold water, I should ask her, “Why did you do that?” If she should reply, “Oh, sir, I thought that the water would be better for you than coffee!” I should say, “Well, I am very much obliged to you for thinking of me in that considerate way; but I shall have to engage another servant who does what she is told.” So I advise you not to alter or judge God’s Word, but to obey it. Do not begin to calculate as to whether what you read there is right in your sight, or in the eyes of other people; the one question for you is,-Has my Lord bidden me do this? If so, then, as the eyes of the maiden are to her mistress, so let your eyes be unto the Lord your God.

Once more, our eyes are to be turned to the Lord solely. The Eastern servant is not allowed to think; it is no business of his to have his eyes upon his master’s guests; they are to be fixed upon his master. And the maiden does not think it to be her business to watch the movements of the hand of the lady who calls to see her mistress; her eyes are to be on the hands of her mistress. She does not dare to take them off, for, perhaps, just when she is looking out of the window, or gazing in curiosity at some object, her mistress may be waving her hand, and she may not see it; and then there will be a serious scolding and possibly something worse when the mistress gets her alone. So you and I must not take our eyes off our God at any time; but his way, and his will must be our sole law; and for this we must live, that we may please him whose servants we are, for has he not bought us with his precious blood? So we are not our own, we are “bought with a price.”

“Ah!” says one, “we have not come to that yet.” No, I fear you have not; but you ought to. There is no peace for us till we do. He who, either by omission or commission, neglects to do or goes beyond his Lord’s command, will find sorrow in his soul. Depend upon it, the roots of our bitterest griefs strike into our sins; and, if our sins were overcome, the major part of our sorrows would be removed. Oh, that God would give us grace to be very tender in conscience, to tremble before him, as well as to rejoice before him, for in very deed the man who does not tremble at his Word has not yet learned truly to love him!

Now I must speak to some here who, perhaps, know nothing about all I have been saying, for they have lived without God. I will finish my sermon by just reminding you that this may do very well for this world,-though it is a poor business at the best,-but when you come to die, you will need God then. Now, when I die, and go to be with God, I know that Christ will not say to me, “I never knew you.” I am sure he cannot, because he has long known me. I was about to say that he has known me to his cost, for I have long been a beggar at his door every day, and I cannot live without him. I am naked, and poor, and miserable, apart from him. I have always some errand or other to make me go to him,-some sin to confess, or some want to be supplied. So he knows me well enough. You are sure to know a beggar who is always at your door. Perhaps he says that he has not been there before, but you reply, “Why! you have been here every morning for the last six weeks. I have always seen you begging here the first thing in the morning.” You cannot say that you do not know him; yet that is what will happen to those of you who have never sought the Lord Jesus Christ, and never prayed to him. Christ will say to you, “I never knew you.”

I feel that the spot I occupy just now is a very solemn one; for, like the captain of a ship, I can see all over this place. Often, when I come here on a Sunday, somebody says, “So-and-so has gone.” There is one gone out of that seat which you occupy, my friend. He was there last Sabbath-day, but he has gone. And I can point to many of you, and say, “You are sitting in the seat where one used to sit whose face was very familiar to me, but he has gone home.” And some go to my great surprise; I have thought to see them again many times; and when I have missed them, I have said, “Oh, she has gone to the seaside for a little holiday;” but someone has said to me, “No, she is dead; she was suddenly taken away;” or, “he was called away only this last week.” Ah, me! Ah, me! And what faces I may be looking into now that I shall never see again! Give me your hand, my friend; for this is the last time I may ever speak to you. I do beg you to get ready to go on that last long journey. Oh, do not die unsaved! I do beseech you, do not attempt to enter the eternal world, with all its dread, without a Saviour. This is the way of salvation. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, trust yourself with him; put your soul, as a sacred deposit, into the hand of that dear Banker whose bank has never failed,-nay, more, who has never lost a penny that was entrusted to him; and ere you sleep, just rest in Jesus. God help you to do so, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-194, 119 (Song VI.), 123, 538.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

JEREMIAH 30:1-22

Verses 1, 2. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord God of Israel, saying, Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book.

We believe in verbal inspiration; and, though some people treat with contempt the very idea of words being inspired, be you sure of this, if you have not inspired words, you are not likely to get inspired men. Besides, words are to the thought what the shell is to the egg; and if you break the shell, you have destroyed the egg; somehow or other, the thought will ooze out unless it is conveyed in God’s own words. Observe that the Lord does not say to Jeremiah, “Write thee all the thought that I have given thee;” but, “Write thee all the words that I have spoken unto thee in a book.”

3. For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

And so they did, and so they shall in a yet fuller sense, for this is a promise that has fulfilments and fulfilments. Man’s promises, once kept, are ended; but God’s promises are perpetual; they are springing wells, which never run dry. That which he fulfilled once, he often takes the opportunity to fulfil again on a yet larger scale, as he will doubtless do to his ancient people in the latter days. You who are in spiritual captivity to-night may derive comfort from these words, “I will bring again the captivity of my people.” It is the way of God to deliver the captives. What he does once, is only an index of what he is in the habit of doing. It is God’s delight to devise means by which he will bring back his banished ones. So, in due time, he will end your captivity, and you shall enjoy the blessed liberty which is the portion of his people.

4, 5. And these are the words that the Lord spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.

God hears his people’s voices when they cry; he knows the tone and accent which they use; and, sometimes, when he is listening to them, he hears “a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.” Possibly that may be the condition of some who are here to-night; if so, may the Lord, who heareth their cry, bring them out of their tremblings, and fears, and fill their mouth with laughter, and their tongue with singing!

6, 7. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.

This passage evidently alludes to a time of very great distress, when men’s hearts were swollen within them as if they would burst for very grief. Not simply here and there one, but the great mass of the people seemed to be in sore trouble; even the stout-hearted ones began to feel inward pangs of affliction; yet it was then that the Lord said, “It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.”

8. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him:

Here is a word for you tried ones. God, who sometimes permits his child to wear the yoke of the oppressor, will take that yoke away. He will snap the bands that are around thy neck, and enable thee to rise into the glorious liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free. O bondaged ones, be of good comfort, and look for speedy deliverance through the power of the great Emancipator!

9, 10. But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them. Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid.

There are great things in reserve for God’s ancient people Israel, and there are not less laid up for God’s spiritual Israel, for by them shall the greatest fulfilment of the promise be realized. They shall indeed be quiet, and none shall make them afraid. Note that these are the very men who had their hands upon their loins, and whose faces were pale with fright. These are they who were ready to die of heartbreak; yet even they shall, by the rich grace of God, be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make them afraid. I wish that we could all realize the fulfilment of that promise even now; and that our gracious God would dwell with us as he is wont to abide with those who bear his name, and thus give us that blessed quiet and rest which we so much need.

11. For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.

Look abroad, and see what God has done to Israel. This is peculiarly the time of Israel’s trouble, and the Jewish people were, perhaps, never worse persecuted than they now are in certain parts; yet the Lord will not allow any nation to crush them, and he will himself avenge all wrongs that they suffer. He still says to them, “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye;” and it is very noteworthy that, whenever God has used any nation as a rod to chasten the Jews,-and he has used many in that way,-he has always broken that kingdom up when he has done with it. Think of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome; look at Spain, and see how mean and despicable that nation has become because of its cruelty to the people of God. Now, if this be true of Israel after the flesh, depend upon it that it is also true concerning God’s spiritual people. Though he will correct us when we deserve chastening, it will always be in measure, and he will not make a full end of us. God has measureless wrath against the ungodly for their measureless sin; but as for his own people, he has cast their sin behind his back, and only as a wise and faithful Father does he chasten them for their profit.

12-14. For thus saith the Lord, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous. There is none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou hast no healing medicines. All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased.

God never gave his people leave to sin; and sin in them is worse than sin in any other people, for they sin against more light, and more love; and therefore it grieves the Lord the more, and he smites all the more heavily; and, mark you, when God smites, there is nobody who can comfort us. A quaint old writer, whose book I was reading the other day, commenting on that part of the parable where the friend, disturbed at midnight, said, “My children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee,” wrote something like this, “When God is in bed, there are none of his children up to help us; if he does not open the door, there are none of his saints to give us a crust; all must come from him.” Therefore we must cry unto him, and say, “Awake for my help, O God; for all my lovers have forgotten me; they seek me not in the time of my distress.” When God wounds us, men often desert us; and those that seemed to be most fond of us forsake us when God smites us.

15, 16. Why criest thou for thine affliction? thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquity: because thy sins were increased, I have done these things unto thee. Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured;-

How striking is this sentence, and what a surprise it gives us as we read it! We might have thought, after the Lord had spoken as he did, that he would have given his people up to their enemies; but, instead of doing so, he says, “Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured;”-

16, 17. And all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey. For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.

Did you notice that word, “therefore,” in the 16th verse? Can you see any “therefore” in it,-any logical conclusion that could be drawn from the prophet’s premises? The argument seems to be, “Because thy disease is incurable, therefore will I restore health unto thee. Because no one else can heal thy wounds, therefore I will heal them.” It is a blessed thing to feel that you are incurable, for then it is that God will cure you. When there is an end of you, then you shall begin with God; but as long as you are full of self or sin, that passage shall be fulfilled to you, “He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.”

18, 19. Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwellingplaces; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.

Well might the Lord introduce such a promise as this with the word, “Behold.” Again I remind you that these are the people who had their hands on their loins; these are they who were in sore trouble of soul, yet now they are merry, and full of gladness; and we also have learned to sing,-

“My mourning he to dancing turns,

For sackcloth, joy he gives,

A moment, Lord, thine anger burns,

But long thy favour lives.”

20, 21. Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them. And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the Lord.

There is One, whom we call Master and Lord, who approaches the throne of God on our behalf; One who fulfils that ancient word, “I have exalted One chosen out of the people.” Our glorious Saviour, through his humanity, is one of ourselves; and he appears before God on our behalf, blessed be his holy name!

22. And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Happy are we if we can rejoice in this precious truth.

DECIDED UNGODLINESS

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, December 31st, 1899,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, August 20th, 1882.

“They have refused to return.”-Jeremiah 5:3.

There is, in the heart of every one of us, the primary evil of sin; we have all transgressed against the Lord. So far, so bad; but that natural sin of ours may be greatly increased by a refusal to turn from it. It is bad enough to have violated God’s righteous law, but to refuse to repent, and to continue presumptuously in our iniquity, must greatly increase our guilt in the sight of God. This guilt may also be still further increased if we refuse to return unto the Lord when we are earnestly and affectionately invited to yield submission to him. If gracious terms of peace are presented to us, and matchless promises of blessing are made to us on condition that we do return,-and if we are often warned, and often entreated, and often threatened, and yet we still refuse to return, then we continue to pile sin upon sin, till we make our first transgression to be incredibly great. If I were now to preach to men as simply sinners, it would be a weighty message for me to have to tell them that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” but, alas! I have to preach to impenitent sinners, to those who, as our text puts it, “have refused to return,” ay, and to some who have given that refusal with great deliberation, after having been long entreated and persuaded to turn from the error of their ways. Some have been addressed in such tender, pleading language as this, “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” or this: “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” If we have heard such language as that, and yet have persisted in refusing to return, we have heaped guilt upon guilt, and the wrath of God will be in proportion to our sin.

My first object, at this time, is to try to find out who are the persons to whom our text refers; and, to do so, I ask this question, Who have refused to return? Peradventure, I am addressing some persons who say, “You speak of those who have refused to return, who are they? We have done no such thing.” Listen, and let conscience be at work while I am answering the question.

First, there are some who have refused to return, and who have said as much. Perhaps not many of you, who are in this house of prayer, have gone as far as that, but certainly many people in the great world have actually declared that they will not yield to God. Pharaoh said, “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice?” and there are many who talk in the same fashion to-day. You may cry to them, “Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?” but they will not turn, they will rather die. They will sooner burn than turn, they will rather perish in their iniquities than be pardoned after repenting of their sins. And some even accompany their refusal with many a jest and gibe; they sneer at the majesty of divine mercy, and ridicule that which is their only hope of safety. Concerning sinners of this type, the Lord says, “They have refused to return.”

Others there are, who have promised to return, but they have spoken falsely. They have uttered fair words and pretty speeches, but there the matter has ended. When the Lord has said, “Go work to-day in my vineyard,” they have promptly answered, “Yes, we will go,” but they have not gone. In a very emphatic sense, “they have refused to return,” because they have promised to do so, and then have not done it. He who says, “I will repent,” and then does not turn from his evil ways, is certainly no better than the man who said that he would not repent. As a matter of fact, he is even worse, for there is an honesty of outspokenness about the other man who says, “I will not,” while there is the falseness of gross hypocrisy in the one who says, “I go, sir,” but who does not go. I fear I have a large number of this order of persons in my congregation; they have never flatly refused the gospel invitation, as some have openly done, yet they have practically refused it.

There is many a man who has said to the preacher, by his actions if not in words, what Felix said to Paul, “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee;” but the convenient season has not arrived yet, and in all probability it never will, for they have no more idea of receiving the gospel message to-day then they had ten years ago. With all their friendly appearance and flattering words, they must be put down among those who “have refused to return.” I am sure that, when I say this, I do but speak the words of truth and justice.

There are some others who “have refused to return,” and who have tried to palliate their offence, and quiet their conscience, by offering something else to God instead of really returning to him. They will not turn from sin, but they will “take the sacrament,” as they call the ordinance of the Lord’s supper. They will not leave their lusts, but they will go to a place of worship. They will not cease from their wicked ways, but they will go on giving to various charities. They will not leave off lying, or committing other offences against God, but they will assume a pious appearance, they will sing a hymn, they will spend half an hour in reading the Scriptures and a form of prayer, though such an occupation is a great burden to them; but all that is utterly useless. The Lord has said that he will have mercy, and not sacrifice; he desires us to turn from our wicked ways, and to return to him; and if we will not, any sacrifices that we may bring to him will be but vain oblations, and God will put them away from him as things that are abhorred and detestable in his sight. Solomon tells us of three things that are an abomination unto the Lord, “the sacrifice of the wicked,” “the way of the wicked,” and even “the thoughts of the wicked.” We may do, or say, or give anything we like, but nothing will please God except our turning from our sin, and trusting in the atoning sacrifice of his dear Son. We may pray till our knees grow hard as iron, and weep our eyes away till their sockets are empty, but we shall never obtain the great blessing of salvation while we link our arm with sin, and go on delighting in iniquity. Alas! the Lord still has to say of many who make some sort of profession of being religious, “they have refused to return.” They are willing to do almost anything except that; they will repeat the creed, be confirmed, “take the sacrament,” go to chapel, go to church, go anywhere you like, but they will not leave their sin, they will not turn from their evil way. They will be content to put upon themselves all manner of external religiousness, but they will not be cleansed from their iniquity.

There are others who, practically, “have refused to return,” because they have only returned in part. They have given up some forms of sin, but their heart is not right in the sight of God. Yet a man cannot truly turn in part; he must turn altogether, or not at all. If I am walking along a certain road, I cannot send one of my legs backward and the other one forward; and, in like manner, I cannot send half my soul in one direction, and the other half another way, though a great many try to do so. They will give up the grosser sins to which they have been accustomed; but the smaller sins, the more respectable sort of sins, these they will keep on committing; yet God is not pleased by their changing the form of their guilt. You say that you do not worship Baal; but, if you bow down to Ashtaroth, or any other false god, you are an idolater; and if there be any sin to which you cling, you are a sinner in God’s sight. You read, sometimes, a dreadful story of a man being entangled in machinery; perhaps it was only one cog of a wheel that caught a corner of his coat, but it gradually drew him in between the works, and rent him limb from limb till he was utterly destroyed. Oh, if that piece of cloth could but have given way, so that the man’s life might have been spared! But it did not; and though he was only held by the tiniest part of his garment, yet that was sufficient to drag him in where the death-dealing wheels revolved. And it is just so with sin; you cannot get in between the wheels of iniquity, and say, “I shall go just so far, but no farther.” No; if you once get in there, you will be ground to pieces as certainly as you are now alive! There is no way of escape but to turn yourself right away from the evil thing that God hates. There must be no union between our heart and that which God abhors, but we must have a clean bill of divorcement separating us once for all from the love of sin.

“Well,” says one, “I have given up strong drink, I am no longer a drunkard.” That is well, but you may go to hell as a sober man. “I have given up Sabbath-breaking,” says another. I am very glad to hear it, my friend, but you may perish by dishonesty. “Oh, but I am no thief; I am as honest as the day!” Yes, that may be true, and yet you may perish through pride. “But I am not proud,” you say. But you may go to perdition through your lust, or even through your self-righteousness; any one sin harboured, and indulged in by the soul, will be the means of your everlasting ruin. Any single poison may suffice to kill a man; he need not take fifty different drugs, one will be enough to destroy him. So, if there be but one sin that is loved, that one sin will be as deadly poison to the soul; and as long as you cling to even one sin, I lay this charge at your door, that you “have refused to return.” God grant that you may not continue any longer this fatal folly and guilt!

I will only mention one more class of those who “have refused to return.” It is those who return to God only in appearance, yet not in heart. What a very long way a man may go towards being a Christian, and yet miss the mark! He may give up all outward sin, such as his fellow-men condemn, and yet he may be lost. Very solemnly would I say to you, my friend, that you may even be a professed disciple of Christ, but so was Judas. You may preach; so did Judas. You may work miracles; so did Judas. And you may keep with Christ under much opposition and persecution; so did Judas. It was only at a certain point, when the glitter of the pieces of silver was too much for him, that he at last betrayed his Lord and Master. Many covetous persons are the most respectable people we know; yet covetousness is idolatry. They are not likely to give way to sinful lusts; that form of iniquity is too expensive for them. They are too mean even to spend anything on themselves; they are not generally the men who drink to excess, and waste their substance in riotous living. Oh, no! they are in the shop from early morning till late at night; see how they work in their shirt sleeves, doing all they can to get money, and perhaps doing it all honestly; but, still, covetousness is the master-thought with them, and to be rich is the end and aim of their whole life; that is the one thing for which they are striving. If it be covetousness that remains in the soul, there may be great outward reformations even through that very covetousness, for one sin will often sweep away another. There are very many sins that are like sharks, that swallow up other devouring monsters. A man may devote himself to some one evil in such a way that he denies himself all the rest, and yet that one will bore such a hole in the vessel of his life that the water will get in, and sink it, just as surely as if there had been a thousand augers doing their desperate work.

So, you see, dear friends, that there are many, many persons who “have refused to return” to God; and in telling you about them I have answered my first question.

Here is a second one. What does this refusal to return to God unveil?

Well, I think that it shows, first, that there is, in the heart of such a person, an intense love of sin. The man not only sins, but he loves to sin; and therefore he will not return unto the Lord. The paths of sin are pleasant to him, so, if you cry to him, “Return, return, return,” he heeds you not because he loves both the way and the wages of iniquity.

This refusal to return also unveils a great want of love to God. The prodigal son did at last return home because, with all his failings and wickedness, he remembered his father, and his father’s house; and there was some sort of love still lingering in his heart, so he said, “I will arise and go to my father.” But many have no such love in their souls, and, consequently, the word “Return” has no power over them. They love their sin, but they love not God, so “they have refused to return.”

In many people, there can be no doubt whatever that this refusal to return unveils a disbelief in God,-perhaps not a disbelief in the existence of God so much as a denial of the evil of sin. These refusers of God’s mercy say to themselves, “Sin is not half so bad as God makes it out to be, and it will not bring such consequences as he threatens.” When we read to them what the apostle says about those who “obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power,” they do not believe that such a sentence as that will ever be executed upon them, so they harden their faces like flints, and go on in their sin, and refuse to return unto the Lord. Even when he tells them that, unless they turn to him, he will shut them out of heaven at last, they seem to fancy that it does not matter much. Heaven is no very wonderful and desirable place, after all; so they dream, and again they harden their hearts, and continue in their evil ways. There is, in the heart of every unconverted man, a real atheism; he would be ashamed to be called an atheist, yet he acts like one, and he is one practically. He may not be such a fool as to say with his mouth, “There is no God;” but in his heart he is all the while saying, “No God for me! I wish there were none; I would fain escape from the belief even in his existence.”

But, oh! this is a dreadful thing, for a man to love sin, and not to love God, and not even to believe that God speaks the truth; yet is there a worse evil still. This refusal to return is really a despising of God; it is as if a man said, “I will not submit to him; I defy him to do his worst! Let him smite me if he can. I am not afraid of his hell, and I do not want his heaven. I would sooner have the pleasures of sin for a season than dwell with God, and behold the glory of Christ, to all eternity.” Perhaps you think that I am putting the matter too strongly, but I am not. I am only speaking the truth, and I wish to speak it in love to the souls of those of you who are refusing to return unto the Lord. You have not that reverence and fear of God which he deserves from you, else you would turn at his reproof, and he would pour out his Spirit upon you.

Yet once more, I am afraid that this refusal to return shows that there is, in your heart, a secret resolve to continue in sin. If you “have refused to return,” and done so for years, I fear that you are fixed in your evil course, and that your mind is made up to remain as you are. I would to God that you would think a little of what the end of such a life must be. As you read of the eternal doom of others, you may hear the Lord saying to you, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” There is no way of salvation for a man who perseveres in the way of evil. Then, “Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways,” for only by turning from sin, and unto God, can you find salvation; yet, alas! many have resolved not to turn unto the Lord.

There are some who regard their refusal to return as a trifling matter. They trifle with everything. Heaven and hell seem to them to be of no more worth than a boy’s battledore and shuttlecock; their soul appears to be, at least in their estimation, the merest trifle. I verily believe that some people think more of their fingernails than they do of their souls, and there is many a man who spends more on the blacking of his boots than he does on the cleansing of his soul from sin. Thus are these all-important things despised by those who “have refused to return.” They make mirth about those matters which have been upon God’s heart from all eternity; and, whereas he has given his well-beloved Son to be the Saviour of sinners, many sinners act as if salvation, were not worth the having, or as if it were merely a thing to be talked about for a while, and then to be forgotten for ever. O sirs, surely, these are the mischiefs of the heart which the refusal to return manifestly sets before you!

I must not say more upon this point, for I want to answer a third question. What is it that deepens the sin of refusing to return?

Well, first, it is when correction does not lead to repentance. Let me read the sentences that precede our text: “Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.” This passage may be applied to any of you who have been very ill, and who then made promises of repentance, all of which you have forgotten. It may also be pressed home upon the consciences of some of you who, perhaps through your own fault, have been thrown out of a situation, and cast adrift in the world; you have been corrected by poverty, and, possibly, you have also been stricken by affliction, but all that has not touched your heart, and you “have refused to return.” I have known some, who have lost child after child, and friend after friend. Those bereavements have been God’s method of correcting them, so as to bring them to their senses; yet they have not turned to him; nay, they have even grown all the harder the more they have been chastened. They have stood out, like Pharaoh, against God’s sternest plagues, and still have said, “Who is Jehovah that we should obey his voice?” If they have not said so in words, they have said it in their acts, which have spoken louder than words.

This refusal to return also leads to deepening sin when conscience is violated. If I were to put the question to any one of you who have not turned to God, “Ought you not to repent of sin, and trust the Saviour?” I feel sure that your answer would be, “Of course I ought. Do you think that I am so ignorant as not to know that it is right to forsake sin, and to follow that which is good and holy?” Then, mark you, if you know this, yet do it not, your doom will be terrible, according to our Lord’s words, “That servant which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” It is an awful thing, a dreadful thing, to know what you ought to do, to feel that it is right that you should do it, and yet still to remain stubborn and disobedient.

All this adds greatly to a man’s guilt in refusing to return unto the Lord. So it does when he knows that it would be the best thing for him. I have often heard a man say, “Oh, yes, sir! I know that, if I repented of sin, if I believed in Jesus, if I became right with God, I should be much happier than I am now; indeed, I cannot rest as I am, I want to find something better.” Then why do you not find it? You cannot have peace with God all the while that you keep your sins; then why do you not give them up? Why not turn unto the Lord with full purpose of heart? But when you know that it would be for your present and eternal good, when you know that you would be happier and holier, and yet you continue as you are, who shall be found to plead for you? Where is the advocate, in heaven or on earth, who will take up the cause of a man who knows the right, and yet will not do it; who is well aware that turning to God will save him, and yet acts in direct opposition to his own highest interests? It seems incredible that anyone should be so foolish, yet multitudes are.

It greatly adds to a man’s sin, also, if this refusal to return to the Lord has been long continued; and I am afraid, in the case of some here,-and, oh! how tenderly would I grasp their hands if I could, and ask them whether it is not so,-that this refusal has gone on for many years. Is it not so, my dear friend? You had a tender conscience in your childhood, and you have not quite lost it yet. You have often been moved to tears under earnest, faithful preaching; and, to-night, you hardly know how to sit on your seat. You are ready to cry out to me, “Leave off urging me thus, for I cannot bear it.” And do you expect that God will spare you for another ten years, or another twenty years? You cannot tell that he will; you have no right to think that he will; and, if he does, will you fling the sins of those additional years on to the heap of your past and present iniquities? Will you make the millstone of your guilt bigger, and yet bigger, till at last it sinks you into the lowest hell? Take heed, I pray you. It is a great blessing to turn to God in youth, for early piety often becomes eminent piety; but it is terrible to be living year after year without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world. Turn unto the Lord speedily, I pray you. Let the time past suffice for you to have refused the mercy of your God; and, now, this very hour, I charge you, ere you dare to go from under this roof, turn unto your God, and seek and find pardon and salvation through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, his Son.

There is one other thing which sometimes makes this refusal to return to God become even greater sin, and that is, when there is some vile reason at the bottom of it. I cannot pry into the hearts of my hearers, but I did know a man, once, and he was very fair to look upon, and I often wondered why he did not become a decided Christian. He was respected by all who knew him, until they found out his awful secret,-he had another family in addition to his own family at home. How could he turn unto God when he was living in sin? I have known others who seemed to be sure of salvation, but they were drinking in private;-I mean women as well as men;-but how could they turn to God when they were secretly indulging in excess? Perhaps it is a very mean and contemptible thing that is keeping you from the Saviour. You would turn to God, but you have an old friend who would laugh at you if you became a Christian. Possibly, it is your own father who would despise you; or, perhaps, dear wife, it is your husband who would oppress you if you gave yourself up to the Lord. But shall any of these be allowed to ruin your soul? They may laugh you into hell, but they cannot laugh you out again. They may put cruel pressure upon you till your fear of them drives you away from God; but it would be well if your fear of them could be slain by a greater fear, for it is infinitely better to dread the wrath of God than to fear the anger of man. For what can man do, after all, even if he should kill the body? Remember the words of our Lord Jesus upon this matter, “I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.” Be not such cowards as to be lost for ever through indulging your cowardice. Pluck up courage enough to seek your own salvation, for “what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Oh, flee ye, flee ye, from the wrath to come! Whatever the ribald crowd may say, what will it matter to you in the tremendous day when you stand before the great white throne? How can you then escape from the wrath of the Lamb if you do not fly to him now that you are exposed to the wrath of ungodly men?

Well, first, it may be ignorance. I hope it is, for then Christ can pray, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Notice how the prophet put it: “Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God.” He hoped that it was downright ignorance that kept some of them from yielding their hearts to God, but he said that he would go and try the rich ones: “I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God.” But he fared no better there: “These have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.” It is very much the same still; rich and poor alike refuse to return unto the Lord their God.

Then, next, while there are some who are kept away from Christ through ignorance, there are many others who fail to come to him through self-conceit. Perhaps,-though it is but a choice of evils,-it is better not to know the way of salvation, than to know it, and yet not to walk in it. Some poor soul says, “I cannot come to Christ, for I do not know the way.” He is the way; trust him, and you have already come to him. But some great man says, “I do not want to go to Christ; I am good enough, I have always been religious.” Ah, poor deluded creature! You are defying God by setting up your own righteousness in the place of Christ’s righteousness; and so your “sacraments”, and your hearing of sermons, and your few miserable good works, are to stand instead of yonder amazing sacrifice upon the cross where there hangs the Son of God in agonies and blood! You set up your filthy rags to compete with the spotless robe of his matchless righteousness! This is an atrocity which, even if you had committed no other sin, would sink you to the lowest hell.

But, to tell you the real reason of this refusal to return, I must say that men do not turn to Christ because they do not want to be made holy. An eminent man of God said, “To some sinners, the gospel comes as a threatening from God that it will make them holy.” Is it not a dreadful thing, that men should actually turn what is the greatest of all blessings, the being made holy, into a thing of which they are afraid? They do not want to be true, they do not want to be good, they do not want to be right in God’s sight; they prefer their own ways, they choose to follow their own devices. That is the top and bottom of the mischief; now I have laid my finger upon the very core of the evil. If you willed to be saved, you would be saved; if you really desired to be made holy, you would be made holy. It is because your heart’s longings still go after that which is evil, that therefore you do not turn unto the Lord. O mighty Spirit of God, change the very nature of men, and bring them to desire the holiness which they now despise; for then wilt thou work it in them, and they shall be saved!

The fact is, and this is the last reason for refusing to return, there is, in most men, a preference for present joy above future blessing. “Heaven” they say,-“well, heaven-heaven-we do not know where it is; it is a long way off, and we cannot tell when we shall get there; but here is an opportunity of spending an evening in pleasurable sin, and we prefer that. ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’ ” O foolish men! Your poor little bird in the hand is not worth one of the birds in the paradise of God. Others cry, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” What! are you no better than the brute beasts that perish,-the cattle in the pasture, fattening for the slaughter? What! has God given us immortal souls, and yet are we never to look beyond the present life? Has he adapted us to live with him at his right hand, and yet is the dim horizon of this little life to shut in all What we care to know? Is it so that, when you are in your coffin, you will have had your all? “I have no fear,” says one. But have you any hope, sir? That is the point; for, many a man has so drugged his soul with the opiate of self-deception that fear, which was meant to be like a watchman, has been lulled into deadly slumber. So hark again,-Have you any hope? “No,” you answer. Then you are in a desperate condition; but why are you without hope? Because you are without God. I would not change places with you, even to get rid of all fear as you have done, for I have a good hope that, through grace, though my spirit must be parted for a while from this flesh, yet it will never be divided from Christ my Lord, and it shall be my delight to be-

“Far from a world of grief and sin

With God eternally shut in.”

God bless you, dear friend! Believe in Jesus, and you live at once. Believe in him this moment, and this moment you are saved. Trust Christ now, as soon as this word reaches your ear, and your sin is forgiven, you are justified and accepted, and you may go your way, a sinner saved,-saved to all eternity. God give you that blessed privilege, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

HEBREWS 2

Verse 1. Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

It is well to give heed to what you are now hearing, but it is also important to give heed to what you have heard. Oh, how much have we heard, but have forgotten! How much have we heard, which we still remember, but do not practise! Let us therefore listen to the words of the apostle here: “We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip;”-as it were, slipping through our fingers, and flowing down the stream of time to be carried away into the ocean of oblivion.

2. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward;

See, brethren, the punishment for disobeying the word spoken by angels was death; what, then, must be the penalty of neglecting the great salvation wrought by the Divine Redeemer himself? He who does not give earnest heed to the gospel treats with disdain the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will have to answer for that sin when the King shall sit upon the throne of judgment. Trifle not, therefore, with that salvation which cost Christ so much, and which he himself brings to you with bleeding hands. And, oh! if you have hitherto trifled with it, and let it slip, may you now be brought to a better mind, lest haply, despising Christ, the “just recompence of reward” should come upon you. And what will that be? I know of no punishment that can be too severe for the man who treats with contempt the Son of God, and tramples on his blood: and every individual who hears the gospel, and yet does not receive Christ as his Saviour, is committing that atrocious crime.

3. How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation:

If we neglect that salvation, is there any other way by which we can be rescued from destruction? Is there any other door of escape if we pass that one by? No, there is none.

3, 4. Which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?

This gospel of ours is stamped with the seal of God; he has set his mark upon it, to attest its genuineness and authority. The miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit were the seal that the gospel was no invention of man, but that it was indeed the message of God. Gifts of healing, gifts of tongues, gifts of miracles of divers kinds, were God’s solemn declaration to man, “This is the gospel; this is my gospel which I send to you; therefore, refuse it not.”

5. For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.

We have no angelic preachers; we sometimes speak of “the seraphic doctor;” but no seraph ever was a preacher of the gospel of the grace of God; that honour has been reserved for a lower order of beings.

6. But one in a certain place testified, saying. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?

God speaks to men by men. He has made them to be the choice and chosen instruments of his wondrous works of grace upon earth. Oh, what a solemn thing it is to be a preacher of the everlasting gospel! It is an office so high that an angel might covet it, but one that is so responsible that even an angel might tremble to undertake it. Brethren, pray for us who preach, not merely to a few, but to many of our fellow-creatures, that we may be the means, in the hand of God, of blessing to our hearers.

7, 8. Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.

It was so with Adam in his measure. Before he fell, through his disobedience, all the animals which God had made were inferior to him, and owned him as their lord and master. It is infinitely more so in that second Adam who has restored to humanity its lost dignity, and, in his own person, has elevated man again to the head of creation: “Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.”

8. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.

Man does not yet rule the world. Wild beasts defy him. Storms vanquish him. There are a thousand things not at present submissive to his control.

9. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

Thus lifting man back into the place where he first stood so far as this matter of dominion is concerned.

10. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Is it not wonderful that the Christ, who is the head over all things, could not be perfected for this work of ruling, or for the work of saving, except by sufferings? He stooped to conquer. Not because there was any sin in him, but that he might be a sympathetic Ruler over his people, he must experience sufferings like those of his subjects; and that he might be a mighty Saviour, he must be himself compassed with infirmity, that he might “have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way.” Brothers and sisters, do you expect to be made perfect without sufferings? It will never be so with you.

“The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”

We shall never be fit for the Heavenly Canaan unless we first pass through the wilderness. There are certain things about us which require this, so thus it must be.

11. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one:

One family; one by nature with Christ our glorious Head.

11. For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,-

Oh, this blessed condescension of Christ! We are often ashamed of ourselves; alas! we are sometimes so base as to be ashamed of him; but he is never ashamed to call us brethren.

12. Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.

Christ, the centre of the celestial choirs, is also the centre of all the bands of true singers that are yet here below.

13. And again, I will put my trust in him.

This is our Lord Jesus Christ putting his trust in the Father, overcoming by faith, even as we do. Oh, what a marvellous oneness there is here between Christ and his people! Well might the apostle say that “both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.”

13, 14. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same;

We know what it is to be partakers of flesh and blood; we often wish that we did not. It is the flesh that drags us down; it is the flesh that brings us a thousand sorrows. I have a converted soul, but an unconverted body. Christ has healed my soul, but he has left my body still to a large extent in bondage, and therefore it has still to suffer; but the Lord will redeem even that. The redemption of the body is the adoption, and that is to come at the day of the resurrection.

But think of Christ, who was a partaker of the Eternal Godhead, condescending to make himself a partaker of flesh and blood;-the Godhead linked with materialism; the Infinite, an infant; the Eternal prepared to die, and actually dying! Oh, wondrous mystery, this union of Deity with humanity in the person of Christ Jesus our Lord! Why did he become a partaker of flesh and blood, and die upon the cross? Listen:-

14. That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

That, through dying, he might overthrow Satan’s power for all who trust him.

15-18. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

Glory be to his holy name for ever and ever! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-587, 527, 521, 522.