Mesech was the son of Japheth, from whom, according to history, were descended the men who inhabited that most barbarous of all regions, according to the opinion of the ancients, the northern parts of Muscovy or Moscow, and Russia. The inhabitants of the tents of Kedar were the descendants of one of the sons of Abraham, who had taken to nomadic habits, and were continually wandering about over the deserts; and were, besides, thought, and doubtless were, guilty of plundering travellers, and were by no means the most respectable of mankind. We are to understand, then, by this verse, that the people among whom the psalmist dwelt were, in his esteem, among the most barbarous, the most fierce, the most graceless of men; and therefore it is that he cries, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!” He felt a woe in his heart because of that evil companionship in which he was compelled to abide.

This has been the cry of the children of God in all ages. Lot had his ears vexed with the filthy conversation of the men of Sodom. Many of the woes of Micah sprang from those men who were sharper than a thorn-hedge, every one of them ready to tear and scratch his neighbour. David’s deepest griefs came from the men who surrounded him;-on the one hand, the unfriendly sons of Zeruiah, who were too strong for him; and, on the other hand, Shimei and the sons of Belial, who made a reproach of every word he uttered, and every deed he did. Even Isaiah himself, that happy-spirited prophet, one day cried, “Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips!” and then he added another cause of his woe, “and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;” and I expect I may truly say that, to this day, you, my brothers and sisters, who are followers of Jesus, have often had to cry out, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!” and you have longed to be far away from this dusky world, so full of sin, and traps, and pit-falls, and everything that makes us stumble in our path, and of nothing that can help us onward towards heaven.

I propose, on this occasion, first, to say a word or two in justification of the psalmist’s complaint; secondly, to justify God’s dealings with us in having subjected us to this dwelling in the tents of Mesech; and thirdly, a few words, by way of comfort, to those who are sad at heart, by reason of those ill times, and those ill places, in which they abide.

First, then, brethren, a word or two in justification of the psalmist’s complaint. I will not say that it is thoroughly commendable, in a Christian man, to long to be away from the place where God’s providence has put him. But I will say, and must say, that it is not only excusable, but scarcely needs an apology, for that Christian man sometimes to cry out, “My soul is weary, I am almost weary of my life, because of those wicked men that surround me on every hand.”

Think, my brethren, of what Christians have to suffer from the wicked world, and you will not wonder, you will not feel, I am sure, that they should excuse themselves when they cry, “Woe is me;” for think how the wicked world slanders the Christian. There is no falsehood too base for men to utter against the followers of Jesus. There was a shameful slander, that was circulated among the heathen, that the early Christians, when they came together, met for the most obscene, and even cruel, rites; whereas those holy men and women only gathered together to eat bread and drink wine, in remembrance of him whom they loved; and, to this day, the chosen weapon of Satan, with which the evil one does great mischief, and on which he relies, as his masterpiece of hellish ordnance against the Church, is slander; and this often wounds the Christian, and cuts him to the quick, when he finds his good name suddenly blasted, when filth is thrown upon his snow-white garments. It is but little marvel, when he has sought studiously to avoid the very appearance of evil, when he has picked his steps, knowing the world is a miry place, when he has sought in everything to avoid giving offence to any man, and yet he sees himself abused on every hand,-it is but little marvel that he should cry, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech!”

But if slander were all, though this might suffice to apologize for the complaint, yet would there be something lacking; but, alas! the Christian, dwelling as he does among wicked men, finds his good things are continually marred, so that he has to cry, “When I would do good, evil is present with me; not only here in my own heart, but in my own house, and round about my neighbourhood.” I know that some of you live in crowded places, where you can scarcely pray without being overheard, and laughed at; and if you have a meeting for prayer, and friends join you in singing the songs of Zion, a crowd soon gathers round your little window, and the mockers make all manner of discordant sounds. If you would learn a lascivious song, you have but to throw up your window, and listen to what is being sung in the street; but if you would have thoughts of heaven, and sing of God, how hard it is when you have those about you who will cast these things in your teeth, suggest all manner of ribaldry, and turn your best words into a reproach against you! The Christian is like an eagle chained. How often does he fret over that chain, and bite it! He sees the stars up yonder, and he knows that he is brother to the lightnings, and he wants to be aloft there in his own native element; how he frets and fumes at his captivity! His mighty spirit struggles within his body, and he longs to stretch his wings, and fly straight to yonder lofty heights; and when he sees those about him feeding upon the husks that swine eat, or when they hurl their carrion at him, how often does he long to be free, to break down the bars of his cage, and get away to his own companionship, to some associates that are fit for him, some spirits that are congenial with his spirit; how he pants to be with his congeners, the cherubim and seraphim, the holy ones that, day without night, keep ceaseless watch and sing in unending harmony around the throne of Jehovah, who liveth and abideth for ever! Were he a worldling, he would be satisfied with the world; but since he is of nobler blood, these things here below all tend to check the aspirations and the longings of his heaven-born spirit. ’Tis, indeed, no strange thing that he should cry, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!”

But, besides this, the Christian is conscious that evil companionship is damaging to him. If he is not burnt, he is at least blackened by contact with the ungodly. This world is to him a place where, if he does not accumulate actual filth, it is hard to travel an hour along its roads without being covered with its dust. Though, by the grace of God, he is kept upright, yet he feels, when he goes upon his knees again, he has suffered from contact with poor, fallen humanity. He goes up into his chamber of communion with Christ, and his spirit seems to drink the dew of heaven fresh from the throne of God,-the drops from the womb of the morning,-but he has to go down into the world, and the hot sun of business shines upon him, and then comes the dustiness of this world to mar him, and he goes back to his chamber, and feels like Samson when his hair was shorn away. He begins to cry, “My soul lies cleaving to the dust.” Sometimes he longs to get away from his fellows; he would, if he could, keep himself abstracted and alone, that he might cultivate continual friendship with Christ, and abide near to the bleeding side of Jesus. That is a foolish wish, as I shall have to show by-and-by; but yet it is no wonder that he cries aloud, when he finds his spirit so confined, and his best things so deteriorated, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!”

There are divers other reasons, doubtless, why the Christian longs to be gone from the company of the ungodly, and why he would be far away from them if he could. I shall be content, however, with mentioning one other, namely, the continual process of temptation which surrounds the Christian who is situated in the midst of men of unclean lips. Men lay traps for us, and sometimes they lay them right warily and craftily; and unless our God has given us the wisdom of the serpent, as well as the harmlessness of the dove, we shall find our heels tripped up before we are aware. Often, in my own case, am I asked questions, apparently by enquirers who are anxious to know something about truth, only with the desire to entrap me in my words, and make some capital out of my answer; and, doubtless, it is so with each one of you. You are questioned merely that your answer may become the theme of ridicule. Some temptation is put in your way,-a supposed friend advises you to do this or to do that. Perhaps you do it, and he is the first man to accuse you of having done wrong. Before, he said, “Oh, it is just the thing I should do if I were in your place!” Perhaps he would; and when he has seen you do it, he has become your accuser; your tempter has afterwards turned round to bring an accusation against you. The Christian will long to be out of a world like this, where there is a Satanic rifleman behind every bush, where there is a devilish archer behind every crag; and where, oftentimes, while we are going along some quiet vale of life, all secluded and peaceful, the arch-fiend comes behind us, and we hear his flattering words, and, all of a sudden, he gives a shrill call, and from every side of the defile start temptations; we see every one of them armed to the teeth, and with their arrows winged for flight, and thirsty to destroy; and we wonder why we are brought into such a place, where all seemed so calm and secluded; and now we are surrounded by the enemy, and we have to cry, “Good Lord, deliver us; come from above, and snatch us out of this danger; cast down our foes, and put our feet in a large place.” Well may God’s dove long to roost in heaven, when there are so many snares here, and so many archers with their bows all ready, seeking its life. This made the psalmist talk of fleeing as a bird to the mountain. Well may we sometimes wish we could do so, and even begin to sing, in the language of the poet,-

“Jerusalem, my happy home,

Name ever dear to me;

When shall my labours have an end,

In joy, and peace, and thee?”

Having thus spoken a word of justification for the psalmist’s complaint, I am going, next, to justify the ways of God with us, in having subjected us to this dwelling in the tents of Kedar.

Well, brethren, whatever God does is right;-we believe that once for all; if he should do that which seemed, to our reason, to be the wrongest thing in the world, we should believe our reason to be a liar sooner than imagine that God would either be unkind or unwise. It is a happy thing when we can believe God to be right when we cannot see it, when we can trust him if we cannot trace him. It is pleasant to believe that, but we would rather see it. Now, I think, in this case, we can see a little why God deals thus with us.

It is right, and just, and good that God has spared us to be here a little longer; for, in the first place, my brothers and sisters, has not God put us here to dwell in the tents of Kedar, because these, though perilous places, are advantageous posts for service? The angels, those mighty spirits that serve God perfectly, seem to me to be like the soldiers in an army, who bring up the rear-guard; they are behind; there, the arrows do not reach them. When the volleys of Satanic malice are being fired off, the angels are behind, and can scarcely hear their echoes; but we men that are born of women must face the fire, and lead the vanguard in the heavenly battle between the Son of God and that great arch-traitor. We must go into the front rank, and every shot must tell upon our harness, and rattle upon our armour; and is it not a glorious thing to stand in the front? Who would care to be behind in such a battle as this? Angels might long to come where we are, and earnestly desire to stand in the front of the battle; for if this be a place of danger, it is the place of honour, too.

That was a noble speech of our old English king, at Agincourt, when he was surrounded by multitudes of enemies, “Well, be it so. I would not lose so great an honour, or divide my triumph. I would not,” said he, “have one man the fewer among my enemies, because then there would be a less glorious victory.” So, in like manner, let us take heart even from our difficulties. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge; Jehovah-Nissi is inscribed on our banner. We are privileged above all the creatures of God. We have a high and noble honour to fight for Jehovah; and standing out as the soldiers of the cross,-the Church militant of the Divine One,-we can do what the angels themselves have not the power to do; and therefore we have great reason to bless God that he lets us stop here, because we are doing something for him that even they cannot do. If you had been an angel, and never been a man, you might sit down, if such thoughts could ever pass through an angelic mind, on some sunny crag high up on the celestial hills, and muse thus:-“I am a glorious being. The great God has made me to be happy and blest; but, down yonder, on that little planet that is glittering in the light of the sun, there are glorious creatures living that are more blest than I am, for they can do what I must not. They tell of Jesus’ love; they wipe the tear from the eye of the mourner. I can carry the soul aloft, and glad am I when I have the commission to do so; but I cannot go and bring the wanderer back, and tell him how Jesus Christ has bought him with his precious blood.” Methinks an angel might almost fold his wings, and cherish that wish; if such a thought could ever go through a cherubic spirit, such a wish might be conceived to be quite natural. For really, my brethren, they cannot do what we can do. There are works of charity and resignation, and deeds of heroic suffering, that those blessed spirits can never perform. “Give me a body,” says the angel, “and let me be a martyr, for a martyr is greater than an angel. Give me a tongue, and let me be a preacher; for the noble army of the apostles is more noble than the glorious hosts of cherubim and seraphim. They have suffered for God; they have testified for God; they have stood in the midst of a multitude of enemies, firm as a rock in the time of storm; and they have been kept ‘steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.’ ” If there were nothing else to say upon this point, it should certainly be satisfactory enough to the Christian to remember that God has kept him here on purpose to do him honour.

Yet another thought, my brethren and sisters., You never will wish, I am sure, to get away from the tents of Kedar if you will recollect that it was through another Christian tarrying here,-when, perhaps, he wanted to be gone,-that you are this day a Christian. Look back upon the instrumentality that God used for your conversion. It may have been the teaching of some aged woman, who herself had long ago wished to go home to her Father and her God. But she was kept here, pale and shivering with old age, in order to point you to the City of refuge. Or, perhaps, it may have been some younger servant of God, who preached the gospel, and you heard it, and were blessed. But that man of God had often wished to be in heaven. Had he been in heaven when he wished it, where would you have been? It is true, God might have found other instruments; but we are to speak, as men, after the manner of men. Have we not reason to thank God that these instruments were spared, and still kept here, that we might be brought to him by them?

And now, mark, is it not the fact, and will you not look out, and see whether it be so, that there are many of God’s elect ones, purchased with the precious blood of Christ, who are parts of Christ’s mystical body, who are not yet brought in, and you are to bring them in? Brethren, if you were to go to heaven now, perhaps you would go almost alone; but you must stop till there is a companion to go with you. There are two stars very prominent just at this season of the year, the Gemini, the twins, glistening in the sky. You can see them, in about an hour’s time, almost overhead. Ay, and you, perhaps, would have been a star, all alone, in the heavenly firmament, if you had had your own way; but, now, there will be two of you glittering together. But with some of us, blessed be God who has given us this honour, there will be a whole constellation of stars, which, though they did not borrow their light from us, yet through us have been able to receive their light from Jesus Christ. And who would like to go to heaven alone,-to go through those bright fields of ether with no other redeemed spirit with him? I sometimes think it would be a noble thing for the minister of God to have a host behind him, and to look back, and say, “Who are ye that are following after me?” and to hear them reply, “We are they whom God has given you. As the sheaves come with the husbandman in the day of harvest, so we are coming after you;” and then to enter heaven, and cry, “Here am I, and the children that thou hast given me!” To say, “Here am I,” is a blessed thing; but that other clause, “and those whom thou hast given me,” that is a grand addition. What must it be to be in heaven? Glory be to God if we ever are there; but to be in heaven with others who are given to us,-this shall be to multiply heaven, to heap celestial mountains upon one another, to double the light of the sun, yea, to make it sevenfold, to make heaven more than heaven,-heaven multiplied in the heaven of others; to say, not simply, “I see the sun,” but the sun reflected from a thousand glasses,-the souls of others who have been led to Christ, and then reflect that enjoyment upon the man who, through God, was the means of bringing them to glory. Well, brethren, this should make us willing to stop here.

There is, however, one other reason left, namely, perhaps our Master keeps us in the tents of Kedar because it will make heaven all the sweeter. The old Romans-you hear a great deal of praise of the Greeks and Romans; but the Greeks were the biggest thieves who ever lived, and the Romans were about the greatest gluttons and bullies that ever existed;-well, the Romans were such gluttons that, before they came to their meals, they were accustomed to drink all the bitterest things they could get, that they might be thirsty, and that they might drink as much as they could;-very nasty things, such as one would not like to think of;-but they always liked to get their palates in such a state that, when they drank their wine, they should enjoy it. Verily, brethren, this is something like our case. After those draughts of wormwood which we have had to drink, how sweet will be heaven’s nectar! Yes, we have had to drink the gall, as we think, to the very dregs; but when that cup is drained, and God gives us some of the new wine of the kingdom, how sweet that will be! Nothing makes a day of rest so sweet to a man as having long laboured and long toiled. The tradesman, who goes home to his little country house, thinks, “Well, if ever I can make enough to come and live in this house always, I shall be so happy.” He does it, and yet he doesn’t like it. In a week, he cannot bear it. The reason he used to enjoy the rest was because the toil of the day sweetened it. Brethren, it will be so with us when we get into heaven;-then, when our rest shall last eternally, it will be sweet indeed. The long wilderness of drought shall make the joys of heaven rare and real. The waters of the Nile were considered by the Egyptians to have an excellent flavour. Our travellers say it is not so, but the reason is because the Egyptians have never drunk any water but that of the Nile; while we, who have it in all our streets so abundantly, think but little of that turbid stream. Now, we who have had much, but not too much, of sorrow from the men that dwell in the tents of Kedar, how blessed will it be there when we shall be-

“Far from a world of grief and sin,

With God eternally shut in”!

My third topic is, a word of comfort to the Christian while placed in these apparently evil circumstances.

Well, there is one word in the text that ought to console him in a case like this. “Woe is me, that I sojourn”-thank God for that word “sojourn.” Yes, I do not live here for ever; I am only a stranger and a sojourner here, as all my fathers were; and though the next sentence does say, “I dwell,” yet, thank God, it is a tent I dwell in, and that will come down by-and-by: “I dwell in the tents of Kedar.” Ye men of this world, ye may have your day, but your day will soon be over; and I will have my nights, but my nights will soon be over, too. It is not for long, Christian, it is not for long. They may laugh at you; every day, there is one day less for you to be laughed at. They may scoff and mock, and set you in the pillory with cruel mockings, but you will not stand there for ever. Perhaps, to-morrow, you may be in heaven; we never know how near we are to the gates of Paradise. But, at any rate, suppose we should live to the longest period of human life, it is not long after all.

When we get home to heaven, and come to look back, what a short way it will seem! While we are travelling in it, and our feet are covered with blisters and sores, we think all the inches are miles; but when we get up there, we shall say, “Why, that light affliction was but for a moment. I thought ’twas half a century; ’twas but for a moment; yet it has wrought out for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” We say, sometimes, “God has appointed unto us wearisome days, and nights of weeping.” But when we are there, we shall say, “Weeping endured but for a night, but joy came in the morning.” I say to the Christian,-

“The way may be rough, but it cannot be long;

So let’s smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song.”

Up, man! a few successful struggles, and you will not have one conflict more; another blow or two, and your foot shall be on your foeman’s neck. What! give up the battle when it is near its termination? Wouldst thou sit down in the shades when the sun is rising, and the morning star of promise is giving thee the first token of the dawn? Cheer up, cheer up, I beseech thee! The end will make amends for all that thou endurest, and thou wilt thank God that he kept thee, and blessed thee, and enabled thee to suffer and endure, and at last brought thee safely home.

This, however, is not all the comfort I have for you, because that would look like something at the end, like the child who has the promise of something while it is taking its medicine. No, there is something to comfort you during your trials. Remember that, even while you are in the tents of Kedar, you have blessed company, for God is with you; and though you sojourn with the sons of Mesech, yet there is Another with whom you sojourn, namely, your blessed Lord and Master. You are not alone, for Christ is with you. It is true that those who are round about you are uncongenial companions; but then, there is One who walks through the midst of all these scenes and snares, who says to you, “Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God.”, There may be a noise in the street, but Christ is with thee in thy chamber. There may be a storm within your very doors, a husband who will not let you rest, and children who cast your religion in your teeth; but there is another Husband in that house too, a heavenly Husband, and his consolations are far more powerful than all the sneers of the other husband; the manna that he gives is so sweet that it can take all the bitterness out of the sarcasms of your foes. Surely, when Christ is with us, the bitterness of death is past; much more, then, the bitterness of those little trials which daily come to us from those sons of Mesech, and those inhabitants of the tents of Kedar. If, my Lord, thou wilt go with me, I will not choose the path. If I must go alone, alas! alas! for me, though the road be grassy, and the sky be clear, and the sun be bright, and the rills be flowing on every side; though the birds are singing on the trees, and though my own eyes have a lustre in them, yet I am miserable, I am wretched, I am unsafe, I am in danger, if thou art not with me. But come, my Master, if the sun be set, if no moon or stars appear, if all around me there are found those that would devour me; if there be a ditch on this side, and a yawning gulf or a quagmire on the other; if there be all kinds of horrible things and evil spirits; if under my feet there be dead men’s bones, and snares, and chains, and pit-falls; if over me there be the shadow of death, that keeps the sunlight from reaching me; and if within my heart there is fear, yet, if thou art with me, into the very gates of hell itself my soul unharmed should enter; through the wall of fire, amidst the blazings of divine vengeance, my soul unscathed may walk. Nothing can harm me if Jesus be near. Does not this make the tents of Kedar as white and fair as the tents of Solomon if Jesus has visited them; and are not the men of Mesech, with their rough beards, their stern faces, and with their unknown tongues, as friendly angels when we know that Jesus Christ is with us for evermore?

I have but one thing more to say, and with that I shall conclude. Brethren, ye may be comforted yet again with this sweet thought,-that not only is God with you, but your Master was once in the tents of Kedar; not merely spiritually, but personally, even as you are; and inasmuch as you are here too, this, instead of being painful, should be comforting to you. Have you not received a promise that you shall be like your Head? Thank God that promise has begun to be fulfilled. If you were happy in the tents of Kedar, you might think, “I am not like my Master, for he was a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;” but inasmuch as you have evil things thrown at you, and your way is hard and rough, you may say, “Now I know what it is to have fellowship with him in suffering, in some feeble measure. As I was buried with him in baptism unto death, so with him I trust I have had conformity unto his death.” When any pang rends your heart from slander or misrepresentation, then can you say, “Now I know what he meant when he said, ‘Reproach has broken my heart.’ ” When you find yourself abused and misrepresented, you can say, “Now I understand what Christ endured when they said, ‘He is a gluttonous man and a winebibber; a friend of publicans and sinners.’ ” It is worth while to be like Christ in the worst times, because that is an assurance that we shall be like him in the best times. If I carry a cross as he carried one, I shall wear a crown as he wears one. If I have been with him in the degradation of the flesh, I shall be with him in the glory of the Spirit. If I have been with him when men hooted and hissed, and dogs compassed him, and the bulls of Bashan beset him round, I shall be with him, too, when angelic hosts are round him, and he shall be admired of all that love him, and adored of all creation. You shall be like your Head, poor sufferer,-like your Head; then, what more can you want? Is not this a sufficient honour, that the servant is as his Master, and the subject is as his Sovereign?

This may seem strange language in the ears of some hearers. All that they know is, that they sometimes sneer at Christians themselves. Well, sir, you have spoken ill of your wife and children because they follow Christ. I would not be in your clothes for half the world, nor for the whole of it. Do you see that man there with the millstone round his neck? He is going to be cast into the midst of the sea; that man is better off than you are, for Christ has said it, “Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” Don’t laugh at a Christian or a professing Christian, even if he be a beggar; for he may be a child of God, and it will be an ill thing for you to be caught laughing at a child of God. There is nothing that makes a man so angry as to laugh at his children; there is nothing which brings a man’s spirit up like touching his children. “Say what you like against me, but don’t say anything against them. Touch them,” says the man, “and you touch me; touch them, and you shall feel my wrath.” Our Father loves them, and he that touches them touches the apple of his eye. If you want to be damned, go and do something else, but don’t do that; but if you want to go to perdition, and to the hottest fire of hell, go and vent your spleen on God’s people. If you do it, you shall surely be punished for it. Herod shall be eaten of worms, though the voice be as the voice of a god, and not of a king. There shall be creatures who, like Antiochus, shall have their very bowels burnt because they hurt the people of God; and you who touch them with your little finger shall feel the weight of the divine arm; and if you have smitten them with the arm, you shall find his loins crushing you to the very lowest hell. But, remember, there is mercy for the persecutor. Did not the Lord say, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” “John, John, why persecutest thou me?” “Lord, I only laugh at my little daughter.” “Thou hast persecuted me; it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” “Thomas, Thomas, why persecutest thou me?” “But, Lord, I only told my wife I would shut her out if she went to the week-night services.” “Thou hast done it unto me, inasmuch as thou hast done it unto the least of these my people.” But he cries to you, and says, “It is hard for thee to kick with naked feet against these pricks.” And do you say, “Who art thou, Lord?” his answer is, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” And then, if thou sayest, “Canst thou forgive me, Lord?” his answer is, “I am ready and willing to forgive. ‘Come now, and let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’ ” Trust in Jesus, and you are safe. Cast yourself once for all on him, and you cannot be lost, for he that relies on Jesus is a saved man. May God add the blessing of his Spirit, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

MARK 16

Verse 1. And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

True love had made a mistake; but it was true love for all that, and the Lord accepted it, although he had no need of the sweet spices that the women brought.

2. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.

There had already been another rising of the sun that morning, for the Sun of righteousness had risen; and, with his rising, our hopes had risen, and eternal life had come to light.

These holy women proved their affection to their Lord by being there so early. Love will not wait; it delights to render its service as speedily as ever it can: “They came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.”

3, 4. And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.

Take comfort from this verse, you who are seeking to serve your Lord. There will be sure to be stones in your way, and some of them may be very great ones; but they will be rolled away in the Lord’s good time, and in the rolling away of them you will have all the greater joy. If the effort shall need the strength of an angel, then an angel will be sent from heaven for the purpose. There might have been no angel if there had been no stone; and you might have no revelation of the power of heaven to help you if you had not first had a revelation of your own weakness and inability to roll away the stone.

5. And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.

An angel had assumed the appearance of a young man sitting inside the sepulchre.

6. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted:

Why should they be affrighted? They had come to serve their Lord, and so had the angel, so there was no cause for fear. Those who love Jesus need never be afraid of angels; nor, for the matter of that, of devils either; for the Lord, whom they serve, will take care of them.

6. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified:

This was the first gospel sermon preached after the resurrection, so note particularly how the angel describes Christ. He calls him by his lowly name, “Jesus of Nazareth,” and does not speak of him as the risen or reigning Christ, but as “Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified.” The angels are evidently not ashamed of the cross of Christ, they do not attempt to hide the shame of it; for this one speaks of “Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified.”

6. He is risen; he is not here:

That is the epitaph inscribed on Christ’s tomb: “He is not here.” On other people’s graves it is written, “Here lies so-and-so;” but on Christ’s sepulchre it is recorded, “He is not here.” He is everywhere else, but “he is not here.” He is with us in our solitude, he is with us in our public assemblies; but there is one place where he is not; and that is, in the empty tomb. Thank God that he is not there; we do not worship a dead man lying in the grave. He, on whom we rely, has risen from the dead, and gone up into the glory, where he ever liveth to carry out the great design of salvation. “He is not here.”

6-8. Behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you. And they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither said they any thing to any man; fur they were afraid.

There was a mixture of joy with their fear, and of fear with their joy, and that tended to keep them silent for a while. Some people tell all they know, even when it would be wiser not to speak; but these godly women waited till they reached those to whom they were bidden to speak. They said nothing to anybody by the way, but hurried on to find the disciples, that they might give them the blessed tidings of their Lord’s resurrection.

9. Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.

Where grace had wrought its greatest wonders, there Christ paid his first visit: “He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.”

10, 11. And she went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.

I can imagine that scene,-the weeping and mourning disciples, and this eager woman telling out her story, and telling it with evident truthfulness and deep pathos, but they believed her not. Do you expect to be believed whenever you tell the story of your Lord’s resurrection, or any other part of the gospel message? You have to tell it, not to Christ’s disciples, but to those who are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; and, probably, you do not tell it as well as Mary Magdalene did. Marvel not, therefore, if many a time those who hear your message believe it not. Mind that you believe it yourself, and keep on telling it whether others believe it or not, and God will bless it to some of them by-and-by.

12, 13. After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country. And they went and told it unto the residue: wither believed they them.

Unbelief is not easily driven out of even true disciples; but let none of us ever harbour it in our hearts. As we see how unbelieving these disciples were, and know how wrong their unbelief was, let us not be like them.

14-20. Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.

God bless to us the reading of his holy Word! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-127, 550, 309.

JESUS CALLING

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, June 1st, 1902,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, April 14th, 1878.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”-Matthew 11:28.

I have often preached from this text. I hope, if I am spared, often to preach from it in the future.* It is one of those great constellation texts which, like certain stars which shine so brightly in the sky, have served as a guide to mariners; they have helped to direct many a poor tempest-tossed seaman into the harbour he wanted to reach; and these texts have guided many into the haven of everlasting peace. Among the many stars up yonder in the heavens, there are some that are so conspicuously set, and so peculiarly brilliant, that they are sure to be observed; and amidst the many precious promises in God’s Word, this is one of the very brightest; and it has gladdened thousands of weary eyes, and cheered untold myriads of burdened souls. This morning,† we were meditating upon the thirst of Christ while hanging on the cross, and I tried to show you the mystic meaning hidden within the letter-meaning of his short but suggestive cry, “I thirst.” Our Lord Jesus Christ still thirsts for the souls of men, he thirsts for our salvation; and here is one of his thirst-cries: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

I am not going to look at our text, as we usually do, and as we most properly do, from man’s point of view; but, rather, from Christ’s. I shall speak, at this time, of the longing desire which was deep down in his soul, and which made him give to sinners these frequent and urgent invitations to come unto him. What was it that made him so anxious that men should come to him? They were, many of them, most unwilling to accept his invitations; nay, worse than that, they often derided him; but still he cried, not merely once or twice, but his whole life-cry was, “Come unto me;” and so long as mercy’s gate stands open, Christ’s continuous cry, until he comes again, will be, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This sacred passion of our Saviour’s soul moved him to entreat sinners to come unto him almost as if they would, thereby, confer some favour upon him by coming; whereas it was only that they might receive of his mercy, “and grace for grace.”

To help in bringing out of the text the thought of our Saviour’s longing for the souls of men, I want, first, to answer the question,-Who is he? Who is he that thus saith, “Come unto me”? Who is this who so anxiously desires that those who labour and are heavy laden should come unto him, that he may give them rest?

If you look at the connection of our text, you will see that the answer to this question is, that it is One who has often been rejected. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” When he mingled freely with the sons of men, in all the gentle manliness, cordiality, and sympathy, which were so characteristic of him, when he sat with them at their tables, and ate and drank with them, instead of saying, “How condescending he is!” they murmured at him, and said that he was “a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.” When he walked through their streets, and wrought his wondrous miracles of grace and mercy, they attributed them to Satanic agency; yet, after all that, he still stood and cried, again and again, “Come unto me; come unto me.” Their rejection of him could not chill the warmth of his affection; he would not take their cruel negative, but he kept on crying, even as he did on that last great day of the feast, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” They turned their backs upon him, but he cried so much the more, “Come unto me.” They called him all that was evil, yet his only answer was, “Come unto me.” That same rejected Saviour, whom, perhaps, dear friend, you yourself have also rejected, lo, these many years, still stands as if he were rooted to the spot, and cries unto you, “Come, come, come unto me, and I will give you rest.”

This is he, too, who, but a little while before, had warned them that, to reject him, involved the most fearful guilt. “Tyre and Sidon,” said he, “suffer not such a heavy penalty as guilty Capernaum does. Sodom and Gomorrah were swept away, but not with so dire a doom as awaits Chorazin and Bethsaida, which have rejected my message of mercy.” Jesus looks, with deep pity upon his countenance, on the many who spurn him, and warns them of their terrible fate if they continue to refuse his invitations; but having done so, he again says to them, “Come unto me.” He tells them that they will surely die unless they do come to him, and then he cries to them, “Why will ye die? Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” No lips of mortal man ever spake so honestly, and so terribly, concerning the wrath to come, as did the lips of Jesus; but that was because they were the lips of infinite love. He courted not popular applause by endeavouring to make out that the punishment of the guilty will be slight. It was he who spake of hell, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” It was he who said, concerning the ungodly, “These shall go away into everlasting punishment;” yet he turns round,-nay, I must correct myself, and not say “yet”,-but because of that honest affection which makes him speak the truth even when it is most unpalatable, he turns round again and again, and repeats the cry, “Come unto me; come unto me; this is your sole hope; come unto me, and I will give you rest.”

Do you ask again who he is that utters these words? I answer,-it is he who knows his Father’s eternal purpose, and yet fears not to give this invitation. Just before he uttered our text, he said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” Yes; he knows all about the everlasting decrees of God. He is the Lamb that can take the sealed book from his Father’s right hand, and he can open every one of its seals, for he alone knoweth the things of God; yet that great and glorious doctrine of divine predestination had never steeled his heart, nor made him grow callous and indifferent to the needs of the souls of men; but all the knowledge that he had of the decrees of God did but constrain him to cry the more earnestly, “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” There is nothing, then, written in God’s blessed Book, that can render it unlawful for you to come to Jesus, for he who knows all that is there still bids all of you, who labour and are heavy laden, to come unto him; and more than that, it is he who knows all things who invites you to come.

Who is he that speaks thus? Why, it is he who has all power. Just before he uttered this invitation he had said, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father.” So, in one sense, he does not need you to help him. He is not beating up recruits because his army is short of soldiers; nor is he seeking your support to buttress his falling throne. All things have been delivered into his hand by his Father; all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth; and it is he who saith to you, “Come unto me.” He does not invite you in order that you may bring power to him, but that you may receive power from him. If you come unto him, he will help you to overcome your sins, and to bear your daily burdens; or he will uplift them from your galled shoulders, and bear them all himself. It is “The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,” who saith, in the words of our text, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Once more, it is he who is the Son of God, and infinitely blessed, who says to sinners, “Come unto me.” It is, to me, a very wonderful fact that he should stand there, in the streets of Jerusalem, or Capernaum, or Jericho, or walk along the highways of Palestine, crying to unwilling hearers, “Come, come, come unto me,” as if he needed them. Yet he needed them not, and he needs us not, in that sense. Myriads of angels are waiting to fly at his command. He hath but to will it, and he can create as many more legions as he pleases. What is our whole race to him? If we had all passed away, like the gnats of a summer’s evening, our Lord Jesus Christ would have been just as glorious as he now is; and yet,-oh, wondrous condescension!-he cries out for the souls of men. He begs, he pleads, he entreats them, with tears that well up from his very soul, to come unto him; and when they will not come,-oh, wonder, ye angels!-he still stands, and gazes on them, with the tears streaming from his eyes, as when he wept over guilty Jerusalem, and still he says, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

It is a strange sight,-the Son of God entreating sinners to have mercy on themselves, yet the guilty ones unwilling to receive the mercy! One would have thought that we had but to proclaim a full and free salvation, and all would have accepted it. One would have dreamt that the Christ of God had but to come to earth, and men would at once flock around him, and beseech him to exercise his divine and saving power; but it was not so; and, still, it is he who pleads with men, not men who plead with him. They have not to cry to him, “Come unto us, and give us rest;” but he has to stand, and plead pathetically with them, “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me;” for they will not come, and still they turn their backs upon him; alas! that it should be so.

But now, secondly, let us ask,-Whom does he call, and why?

Whom does he call? I could almost have understood it if he had said, “Come unto me, ye kings and princes.” He is King of kings, and he might well invite them to come to him, but he does not invite them any more than others. I might have understood it if he had chosen to gather about him the wisest men in the world, and the choicest spirits in each generation, and had said to them, “Come to me, ye Solomons, ye philosophers, ye great thinkers.” But he did not talk so.

It seems strange that he should choose such company as he did, and be so anxious to bring to himself, first, those that labour,-ye hardworking men, ye sons of toil; and especially you, who are labouring hard to obtain salvation, but who will never gain it in that way,-he invites you to come unto him. You who are heavy laden, too,-you who, in your labouring for salvation, have been burdened with ceremonies,-burdened by the work-mongers, who tell you to do this and to do that in order that you may be saved,-you, whose poor, heavy hearts have been made heavier than they were before because you have had a false gospel preached to you,-it is you whom Jesus calls to come unto him. You who are sad, and sick, and sorry,-you who would fain be delivered from sin and all its consequences,-you are poor company for anyone. Your friends think you melancholy, and they shun your society as much as possible; your serious conversation has no attractions for them. You get away alone, and keep silence, and the tears oftentimes steal unbidden down your cheeks; yet Jesus calls you, and he says to you, “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.” He is himself pure, yet he is anxious to call to himself the impure. He never sinned, yet he spent most of his time on earth with publicans and sinners, and still he seeks the sinful. Even harlots were never spurned by him; but they drew near to him, and were delighted to hear him speak of piety and mercy and grace for the very chief of sinners. “That was a strange taste,” you say. But, as the magnet seeks the steel, so does my Master, in his magnetic and magnificent mercy, search out those who most need him. Not you whole ones, does the great Physician seek; but it is the sick whom he invites to come unto him. Not you good people, who hope to enter heaven by your own works, does he call; but you sinful ones. “In due time Christ died for the ungodly.” It is sinners whom he calls to come unto him; ay, and those sinners who fail in all their attempts at improvement; those who labour to get better, yet who are not better, but are burdened more and more with the despairing fear that they must ultimately be lost;-it is such as these whom Jesus invites to come unto him. Oh, hear this, ye labouring ones, and ye who are heavy laden! The Lord of glory cries to sinful worms of the dust, and beseeches them to come unto him that he may give them rest.

It is the ignorant whom he invites to come unto him, that he may teach them. It is those who have need of a Lord and Master whom he bids to come unto him,-the rebellious and the self-willed, that he may put his easy yoke upon their shoulders. It is the weary and the restless whom he calls to come unto him, that he may give them rest. Are any of you troubled? Then, come to Jesus, and so end your trouble. Are you sick or sad? Come to Christ, and so lose your sadness. It is for this very purpose that my Master bids me stand here, and, in his name, as though he spake the words himself, cry to you, “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Now, thirdly, let us enquire,-What causes this desire of Christ after such persons?

I hope I am speaking very personally to a great many people who are here; I should like to feel as if I had a firm yet tender grip of the hand of every unconverted person present, or that I were able to “button-hole” everyone here who has not yet, by faith, laid hold on Christ. Well, dear friend, possibly you think that you do not want Christ, but he wants you. Now, why can he want you? It cannot be because he will get anything out of you. What are you worth to him at your best? What necessity can he have for you? If he were hungry, he would not tell you, for the cattle on a thousand hills are his; all things are his; the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.

He wants you, for your own sake, to do you good,-not to get anything good out of you. He does not want you because he sees some excellence in you. If you really know yourself, you know that you have none. All that is naturally good about you is marred in many ways, and you know that it is so. Jesus does not love you because he sees anything lovable in you, but out of pure pity. Nor does he want you because of anything you ever will be or do; for, could your zeal no respite know, could you labour on for him throughout a life as long as that of Methuselah, yet would you still be to him an unprofitable servant, doing no more than you ought to have done. I do confess, concerning myself, that my blessed Master took me into his service of his own free sovereign grace, and he has helped me to do my best for him; but I make this frank confession to him and to you, that I never was worth my keep to him. I have cost him infinitely more than I have ever been able to bring to him. Even when I have done my best, I have often been to him such a servant as a man might be glad to see the back of, because he was no profit to his master whatsoever. So it is not with any view of getting anything out of us that Jesus is so hungry after the souls of men.

Why, then, does he want us? He wants us, first, because he loves our race. He has a special affection for men; for, verily, he took not up angels when they fell. He left the fallen spirits in their ruined state, and it is eternal; but he took up the seed of Abraham. He was found in fashion as a man, and he came to seek and to save lost men. I know not if there are any other fallen beings in yonder rolling worlds that we call stars; but this I know, that Christ’s “delights were with the sons of men.” “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

Another reason why he cries to men to come unto him is, (wonder of wonders, and mystery of mysteries!) because he is himself a man, the Son of Mary as truly as he was the Son of God. He is the great model Man, the pattern of what mankind ought to be; and, therefore, standing in the midst of those whom he is not ashamed to call his brethren, he looks out of his Church, and he cries to other men outside as yet, and he says to them also, “Come unto me; come unto me. I also am a man, and I know your struggles, and infirmities, and griefs;-yea, I have even tasted of the gall and wormwood that you deserved to drink as a punishment for your sins. Come unto me; come unto me; for I will lead you upward to perfection and to everlasting life and glory.” It is a man’s voice that speaketh, albeit that it is also divine.

Why, further, does Jesus say, “Come unto me”! It is, because he has done so much for men, that he loves them for what he has done for them. I heard a story, only this last week, of a captain on board a vessel, who had a cabin boy whom he treated very roughly, and to whom he scarcely spoke without an oath. But, one day, the boy fell overboard, and the captain, who had a kind heart beneath a rough exterior, sprang into the sea, and rescued him from drowning. The next time a gentleman, who had noticed his ill conduct to the lad, was on board the vessel, he observed him speak to the boy very gently, and almost affectionately; and he could not help saying to him, “Captain, you seem to speak to that boy very differently from what you used to do.” “Look here, sir,” he replied, “that boy fell overboard, and I saved his life; and I took to him wonderfully afterwards, and I have loved him almost as if he were my own son ever since.” Oh, yes! if you do a good turn to a person, you are sure to love him afterwards. Now, one reason why our Lord Jesus Christ loves sinners so much is because he died to save them; and, therefore, he still stands, and cries, “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me. Have not I loved you? Have not I proved my love upon the accursed tree?” Do you wonder, therefore, that he still says, “Come unto me”?

He who thus stands, and pleads with men, delights to do yet more and more for them. It is Christ’s nature to scatter blessings wherever he goes. When a man can act according to his nature, he is sure to be pleased. A large-hearted man is never so happy as when he is doing good to others. When a man, of a tender spirit, is looking after the poor, and the needy, and the sorrowing, and the suffering, he cannot help being happy because he is doing good to them. So is it with my Master and his blessed service on your account. You are nothing in yourselves; and you cannot do him any good,-he is too great to need anything from you;-yet he cries after you, because he wants to do you good. He is a Physician, so he wants to heal you. He is the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother, so he wants to befriend you. He is the one and only Saviour, so he delights to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by him. Heaven itself could not continue to hold him when men were lost, and needed him to come to earth to save them. It would not have been heaven to him had he been always shut up there. No; he must seek and save the lost; his great heart could not be happy until that glorious work was accomplished. We know some generous men, of whom it is said that they are never so happy as when they are giving their money away. If you know where they live, I advise you to go and take it; everybody thinks that it is common sense to do so. And when Jesus is so happy in distributing the riches of his mercy and his love, I pray you to go and take from him all that he is willing to give. You will be happy in receiving, but he will be happier still in giving, for even to him “it is more blessed to give than to receive;” and he still rejoices more over those who come unto him than the coming ones themselves rejoice.

I will tell you, sorrowfully and solemnly, one reason why Jesus wants you to come unto him. It is, because he knows what must become of you if you do not come. No man, in this world, knows what the wrath of God is, nor how terrible are the flames of hell; but Jesus knew all about them, for he was the Creator even of the dreadful place of torment. He also knew something of the agony of the lost when he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And though now he is reigning in his glory, he remembers well when his soul drank the wormwood and the gall, and suffered, on behalf of guilty sinners, the fierceness of the wrath of God. He would not have you feel that unquenchable fire, or that undying worm, or cry in vain for a drop of water to cool your burning tongue, for he is very pitiful, and therefore he warns you to flee from the wrath to come.

Have you not, sometimes, when a wreck was just outside the harbour, and the waves were washing over it, known men ready to give all they had to anyone who could save the poor sailors who could be seen clinging to the masts? “Go, my brave fellows,” someone has cried, “take my purse; all that is in it is yours if you will but risk your lives to save those perishing men out yonder.” Why! I have known a crowd gather on the beach, when a wreck has been driven ashore, and the seamen were in imminent peril, and all the onlookers seemed frantic together. Men and women would all have given all they had if it could be the means of saving the lives of their fellow-creatures. And our Lord Jesus, as he sees some of you drifting away on the wreckage that will so soon all go down, and be engulfed in the fiery sea, cries to you,-for he knows there is no other hope for you,-“Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me.” You may think that it is a trifling thing for your soul to be damned, but Jesus knows better. You may scoff over the very brink of the pit, but Jesus knows what an awful doom that pit contains. Oh, how I wish that every unrepenting one here would listen to those tender tones, so oft repeated, “Come unto me; come unto me.” I wish my face could shine like the face of Jesus did; I wish I could have as sweet and silvery a voice as he had, that my tones could be as persuasive as were his when he said, “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

I think, too, I may give you one other reason why Jesus invites sinners to come to him; and that is, he knows what our bliss will be if we do come to him. Our Lord Jesus Christ has ever before his eyes the sight of heaven, his throne of glory, the gates of pearl, the streets of gold, and the walls and foundations of all manner of precious stones. His ears are constantly hearing the songs of angels and of the redeemed from among men; and, as he looks on those blessed spirits round about him, he thinks of those who will not come unto him, and he says, “If they live and die as they now are, they cannot enter here.” There is but one door of salvation, and Christ said, “I am the door;” and he also said, “Come unto me. I am the gate of paradise, I am the way to heaven. Come unto me.” There will come a day when all the sheep will pass under the hand of him that telleth them; shall I then miss any of you into whose faces I have gazed, perhaps for a score of years? Will your name not be read out then? You have heard the gospel very attentively, and you have even been an admiring hearer; but you are not yet a doer of the Word; and if you remain a hearer only, you will not be among the redeemed in glory. If you are not believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, your names will be left out when he reads the muster-roll of his blood-washed people. It will be all in vain for you to lament then,-“My name not there? Can I have heard aright? Christ has reached the last name, but he has not called mine. Yet I was a hearer of the Word; I was at many revival services; I was often prayed for, yet my name has not been called. Oh, that I could cease to be! Would God I had never been born!” All such regrets shall be useless then. Then shall a man seek death, and shall not find it, as the Book of Revelation tells us; and he shall wring his hands, in everlasting despair, to think that the glorious gift of immortality, which was meant to make him a peer with the angels, has been so misused by him that, now, he must be a comrade of the devils who are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. God grant, dear hearers, that you may hear Christ say to you individually, “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me;” and that you may accept his gracious invitation; or else to his heaven and his glory you can never go.

You see, then, that the motives which led Christ to call men to come unto him were those of pity and affection. He could not bear to think of their perishing; neither can those of his servants who are in the least degree like him. And why should you perish? Sirs, why should you perish? I spoke to one, the other day, to whom I said, “Your brother is very anxious about your soul.” He said, “I know he is.” And then I said to him, “And so am I; I wish you were a believer in Jesus;” and he answered me, “My time is not yet come.” “No,” I replied, “but God’s time has, for he says, ‘To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts;’ ‘Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.’ ” I wish that, if any here have such a notion as that in their minds, they would put it away from them, for the text does not say, “Wait.” There is no text, except in the devil’s bible, that bids you delay; there is no command for you to lie at the pool. No; Christ’s invitation still is, “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me; come unto me.” That is Christ’s one cry, and therefore I reiterate it again and again: “Come unto me; come unto me; come unto me; come unto me; come unto me now, come now; come now; come now.” Jesus says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” and he means, “Come now.”

I will close when I have answered one other question; or, rather, when I have asked you to answer it. If Jesus bids us come to him in this fashion, and for these reasons, what shall we do with the invitation?

I would say, first, he is in such awful earnest that we ought to be in earnest in listening to him. Sirs, there are many of you who do not seem to believe that you must live for ever, in raptures or in woe; and, therefore, you sit, from day to day, taking your ease, and caring nothing about your immortal souls. It seems as if it were a trifling thing to you whether you are with God or with his enemy,-whether you would be lost or saved for ever if you were now to die. Is it not strange that Christ should be in such earnest about you, and yet that you should not be in earnest about yourselves? I could look at some of you, till the hot tears forced themselves from my eyes, fearing lest you should be lost; yet no tears of penitence run down your cheeks, nor do you seem to care about your souls in the least.

I recollect, years ago, having several times befriended one of the basest men I ever knew. I had helped him till, at last, I said that I would do no more for him, so extraordinary had been his wickedness. One day, wet through from a drenching shower, he stood at my gate, and I had to break my promise, and help him yet again. After a little while, he came again, and I refused to help him, for nothing could be done with him. My wife saw him standing in rags of the most wretched kind, and she carried me away when she said, bursting into tears, and almost screaming out, “O you poor lost soul, you poor lost soul, how can you act as you have done? We have clothed you, and you have gone away, and sold the garments we gave you, and the very shoes from your feet. We have picked you up from the gutter, and taken you, when you have come out of prison, and helped you again and again. You poor lost soul,” she said, “you had a mother, and she was a gracious woman. You had a father, and he is in heaven; and we will help you once more, though I fear it will be no good, you poor lost soul.” Yet, all the while, he never shed a tear; there seemed to be no impression made upon him at all. I felt, after that, there was no hope for him, if that did not touch him when she, who was no relation of his, stood there, and wept as if she would faint, and when I was moved with pity, too. But be was not moved; reason, thought, manliness, all appeared to have left him, and he was little if anything better than a brute beast; in many respects, he was worse than the beasts that perish. Oh, shall it be so, my hearers, that other people shall care about you, and yet you will not care about yourselves? Remember that it is your own souls that are in peril. Whether you get to heaven, or not, will not affect the eternal happiness of any one of us who have believed in Jesus; yet I can truly say, with the apostle, “I could wish myself accursed, in your stead, if I could but save you.” This thought has often crossed my mind; if any dire affliction could but save your souls, I would gladly endure it. And will you never think about your own souls? Must Jesus continue to cry, “Come; come; come; come;” and yet will you not come? Choked with his tears, must he break down in saying, “Come; come; come;” and yet will you never think about your own souls? Oh, by the solemn earnestness of the Christ of God,-and I might add, by the earnestness of his poor servant, who is speaking to you now,-be at least a little concerned about this all-important matter, and begin to think over it now!

Now, as Christ says to us, “Come unto me,” let us come unto him. We are great sinners, so let us come unto him, for he will freely forgive us if we do come to him. We have often treated him ill, but let us come to him, for he will not upbraid us, but will welcome us. We feel so heavy, but let us come to him. We do not feel as heavy as we should, but let us come to him with all our load of sin and sorrow, and just leave our case in his hands, for that is what he wants us to do. Let us, each one, say to him, “Jesus, Master, I trust thee to save me. I will follow thee; I will be thy disciple; I will take thy yoke upon me, and wear it for thy sake if thou wilt only save me.” You are saved, mark, when you have reached that point; that is, when you come to him, and trust him. That is the point, trust him; rely upon him; lean upon him; depend upon him. Trust his blood to cleanse you, his righteousness to clothe you, himself to keep you. Have done with yourself, and begin with him; that is all. Hark! he is still gently whispering “Come; come; come.” Linger no longer. Come away, my brother. Hesitate not, poor doubter. Come along; it is the voice of Jesus that calls thee. Come just as thou art; tarry not to amend or cleanse thyself; but come to him to do it all. He hath said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” God help you to come even now, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

Exposition* by C. H. Spurgeon

MATTHEW 11:25-30

Verses 25, 26. At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.

“Jesus answered”: sovereign grace is the answer to abounding guilt. With rejoicing spirit Jesus sees how sovereign grace meets the unreasonable abounding of human sin, and chooses out its own, according to the good pleasure of the Father’s will. Here is the spirit in which to regard the electing grace of God: “I thank thee.” It is cause for deepest gratitude. Here is the author of election: “O Father.” It is the Father who makes the choice, and reveals the blessings. Here is his right to act as he does: he is “Lord of heaven and earth.” Who shall question the good pleasure of his will? Here we see the objects of election, under both aspects; the chosen and the passed-over. Babes see because sacred truths are revealed to them, and not otherwise. They are weak and inexperienced. They are simple and unsophisticated. They can cling, and trust, and cry, and love; and to such the Lord opens up the treasures of wisdom. The objects of divine choice are such as these. Lord, let me be one among them! The truths of the heavenly kingdom are hid, by a judicial act of God, from men who, in their own esteem, are “the wise and prudent.” They cannot see, because they trust their own dim light, and will not accept the light of God.

Here we see, also, the reason of election, the divine will: “So it seemed good in thy sight.” We can go no further than this. The choice seemed good to Him who never errs, and therefore it is good. This stands to the children of God as the reason which is above all reason. Deus vult is enough for us. If God wills it, so must it be, and so ought it to be.

27. All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

Here we have the channel through which electing love works towards men: “All things are delivered unto me of my Father.” All things are put into the Mediator’s hands; fit hands both towards God and towards man; for he alone knows both to perfection. Jesus reveals the Father to the babes whom he has chosen. Only the Father can fill the Son with benediction, and only through the Son can that benediction flow to any one of the race of men. Know Christ, and you know the Father, and know that the Father himself loveth you. There is no other way of knowing the Father but through the Son. In this our Lord rejoiced; for his office of Mediator is dear to him, and he loves to be the way of communication between the Father whom he loves, and the people whom he loves for the Father’s sake.

Observe the intimate fellowship between the Father and the Son, and how they know each other as none else ever can. Oh, to see all things in Jesus by the Father’s appointment, and so to find the Father’s love and grace in finding Christ!

My soul, there are great mysteries here! Enjoy what thou canst not explain.

28. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Here is the gracious invitation of the gospel in which the Saviour’s tears and smiles were blended, as in a covenant rainbow of promise.

“Come:” he drives none away: he calls them to himself. His favourite word is, “Come.” Not,-go to Moses; but, “Come unto me.” To Jesus himself we must come, by a personal trust. Not to doctrine, ordinance, or ministry are we to come first; but to the personal Saviour. All labouring and laden ones may come: he does not limit the call to the spiritually labouring, but every working and wearied one is called. It is well to give the largest sense to all that mercy speaks. Jesus calls me. Jesus promises “rest” as his gift: his immediate, personal, effectual rest he freely gives to all who come to him by faith.

To come to him is the first step, and he entreats us to take it. In himself, as the great sacrifice for sin, the conscience, the heart, the understanding obtain complete rest. When we have obtained the rest he gives, we shall be ready to hear of a further rest which we find.

29, 30. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

“Take my yoke and learn:” this is the second instruction; it brings with it a further rest which we “find.” The first rest he gives through his death; the second we find in copying his life. This is no correction of the former statement, but an addition thereto. First, we rest by faith in Jesus, and next we rest through obedience to him. Rest from fear is followed by rest from the turbulence of inward passion, and the drudgery of self. We are not only to bear a yoke, but his yoke; and we are not only to submit to it when it is laid upon us, but we are to take it upon us. We are to be workers, and take his yoke; and at the same time we are to be scholars, and learn from him as our Teacher. We are to learn of Christ and also to learn Christ. He is both Teacher and lesson. His gentleness of heart fits him to teach, to be the illustration of his own teaching, and to work in us his great design. If we can become as he is, we shall rest as he does. We shall not only rest from the guilt of sin,-this he gives us; but we shall rest in the peace of holiness, which we find through obedience to him. It is the heart which makes or mars the rest of tine man. Lord, make us “lowly in heart,” and we shall be restful of heart.

“Take my yoke.” The yoke in which we draw with Christ must needs be a happy one, and the burden which we carry for him is a blessed one. We rest in the fullest sense when we serve, if Jesus is the Master. We are unloaded by bearing his burden; we are rested by running on his errands. “Come unto me,” is thus a divine prescription, curing our ills by the pardon of sin through our Lord’s sacrifice, and causing us the greatest peace by sanctifying us to his service.

Oh, for grace to be always coming to Jesus, and to be constantly inviting others to do the same! Always free, yet always bearing his yoke; always having the rest once given, yet always finding more: this is the experience of those who come to Jesus always, and for everything. Blessed heritage; and it is ours if we are really his!

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-735, 980, 552; and from “Flowers and Fruits of Sacred Song”-1.

LOVE’S LAMENTATION

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, June 8th, 1902,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, April 28th, 1878.

“I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?”-Malachi 1:2.

The children of Israel had passed through great trouble, but all of it was brought upon them by their own sin. Yet, in their time of trouble, God had remembered them in the greatness of his grace and mercy. They had been carried into captivity in Babylon, and there they had wept when they remembered Zion. They had been scattered over the face of the earth, but God had heard their groanings, and had restored them to their own land, and given them a period of peace and prosperity. But now that they were cured of idolatry, they fell into self-righteousness, indifference, and worldly mindedness. The ordinances of God’s house were neglected; or, if they were attended to outwardly, it was in such a careless, heartless manner that God was insulted by their worship rather than adored thereby. For these reasons, new sorrows were caused to fall upon them; for, under the old dispensation, it was God’s rule that his obedient people were a prosperous people; but that, whenever they wandered in heart away from him, then they began to suffer. His message to them, by Moses, was, “If ye will walk contrary unto me, I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins;” and so they found it. They were, therefore, now in a very sad condition; but they had no consciousness of the real cause of it. They were fretting and fuming against God instead of striking out boldly at their sins,-complaining of the severity of the divine chastisement rather than confessing the iniquity by which they had brought the rod upon themselves.

So God sent his servant Malachi, the last of a long train of prophets, to seek to bring them to repentance,-to try to touch their hearts and consciences by reminding them of his manifold favours, and of their base ingratitude towards him who had treated them so graciously, and with such undeserved mercy. This is to be the subject of my discourse; I want, if I can, to get at men’s hearts. I shall not have much to say by way of instruction; I want rather to speak so as to impress and arouse my hearers, seeking to set your consciences at work, so that all of us-for I hope there will be something to touch us all,-may be constrained to bow before God in true penitence, and with genuine confession of sin.

The text seems to me to contain, two things, and to suggest a third. First, here is the lamentation of love: “I have loved you, saith the Lord.” Secondly, here is the insensibility of ingratitude: “Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?” They would not see any signs and tokens of God’s love, for they did not believe in it. And the third thing, on which I am going to speak, is the discoveries of grace; for, though it is not in the text, the text leads us to think of it, and the 5th verse tells us of it: “Your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel.”

Our first theme, then, is to be, the lamentation of love: “I have loved you, saith the Lord.”

The lamentation is abrupt, and appears to end without completing its own sense. It is the exclamation of unrequited affection: “I have loved you, saith the Lord.” It is a sorrowful lament; as the eye of God rests on his rebellious people, he seems to say to them, “You are acting thus wickedly against me, yet I have loved you. You offer polluted bread upon mine altar; you bring the blind, and the lame, and the sick, as sacrifices unto me; and thus you treat me with derision, yet I have never treated you so, for ‘I have loved you, saith the Lord;’ ” as if he were about to say a great deal more, but suddenly stopped. His grief would not let him say more, so the sentence stands in its rugged majesty of pathos, “I have loved you, saith the Lord.”

Taking this expression, first, in its lowest sense, namely, the love of benevolence, it applies to all mankind. The Lord can still say, to those who forget him, and care nothing for him, “I have loved you.” Great masses of mankind live as if there were no God. If God were really dead, it would, apparently, not make the slightest difference in their thoughts and feelings. They are, practically, dead to him, and they act as if he were dead to them. The Lord seems to me to be speaking to some of you, who never appear to have any thought about him, and he says to you, “I have treated you lovingly. I have permitted you to live, and kept you in being; you are not suffering pain, the blood leaps in your veins, you are in robust and vigorous health; yet, alas! you are spending that strength in sin. Your children have been spared to you; your house is replete with comfort; and you have no little satisfaction in the things of this life. I gave you all these things,-your corn, and your wine, and your oil;-and I have clothed you, and kept you alive. Shall I still keep on loving you in this fashion, loading you with benefits, causing you to prosper, giving you all that heart can wish, and will you, in return, continue to be hard, and cold, and indifferent to me? Must I still be your Benefactor, and you remain an ingrate? Must I, from morning to night, and from night to morning, visit you with kindness, and shall I never have anything from you but sullen silence and heartless indifference?” There are some of you, who have been so prospered in the things of this world, and who have been made so happy in your homes, that you ought to love the Lord who has done such great things for you; and he seems to say to you, through my lips, “I have loved you; will you never remember me, never thank me, never give yourself up to me, never accept me as your Father and your friend?” It is a natural and just lament of love that it should have done all this, and yet should be requited by forget fulness.

Certain men, however, go further than simply forgetting God, for they actively oppose him. They can never seem to find language foul enough to apply to the religion of Jesus Christ. Those who are zealous on behalf of religion are described by them as cants, and hypocrites, and I know not what beside; and anything like conscientiousness is ridiculed by them as Phariseeism. They know better, but that is the way in which they oppose God; yet, as he looks upon them in pity, he can say to them, “I have loved you. You oppose me, but why do you act so?” When our Lord Jesus was upon the earth, and the Jews took up stones again to stone him, he said to them, “Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” He had healed their sick, satisfied their hunger, and bestowed upon them countless boons; yet, again and again, they took up stones to stone him, so he said to them, “Why do ye act thus towards me?” And God might speak to many of you in similar style, and say, “I have dealt with you in love, and you have scoffed at me, and opposed me; but I have only met your opposition with a still greater display of love. With a strange perseverance of unappreciated and unrequited love, I have still pursued you; then, why do you rebel against me as you do?”

I might speak to some of you in another strain. O sir, your mother died rejoicing in hope; then, why do you hate that Christ who was her joy and delight? Has the Lord Jesus Christ ever made your children become unkind to you? Has he ever been the means of any wrong being done to you? You know that it has not been so, but that all his influence among the sons of men has been for the good of the whole commonwealth, and for the establishment of peace and righteousness the wide world over. Why, then, do men oppose him so fiercely? Some of them seem almost to foam at the mouth whenever they mention his sacred name. Well may he, then, as he looks upon the atheist and the Socinian, say to them, as he says to so many more, “I have treated you with love, yet this is the only return I receive from you. Shall it always be so?”

The same expression may be used concerning the many who have long heard the gospel, and who yet remain unsaved. Now I can speak personally to a great many of you who are here. God has indeed shown his love to you in permitting you to meet with us in this house of prayer. You might have been born in some far-off country, where you would have been taught the abominations of Paganism, or Romanism, or Mohammedanism. The name of Jesus might never have been sounded in your ears; yet it has been, and with many of you, from your very childhood. I will not speak in praise of my own ministry; but I will say this,-I have always preached the gospel to the best of my ability. All that I have known of the Word of God, I have spoken; and I have tried to use the best words that I could get together in proclaiming the gospel message; and seeing that so many hundreds, and even thousands, have found the Lord Jesus Christ here, I am right in saying that you have been in a highly privileged place. You have had opportunities given to you which are denied to a great many people, and God has proved that he has loved you in giving you such privileges. If you still remain hearers only, and not doers of the Word, I can fancy my Lord and Master weeping over you, as he wept over Jerusalem, when he said, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”

The words of our text will also be applicable to many when they come to die. When God comes to look back upon the whole of a man’s life, and to recall the way in which he has treated that man from the first day of his history to the last, he will be able to say to many a man who will die unregenerate, “Yet, I loved you. I put you into the arms of a woman who taught you to fear my name; I placed you in circumstances that ought to have led you to thought, to prayer, to repentance, and to faith; I have preserved your life, and cared for you, until now that you lie there dying, and you will be lost because of despised mercy and unrequited love. I called, but ye refused; I stretched out my hand, but ye regarded not; and now you are lost, and must be driven away from my presence for ever,-not because I treated you roughly, or denied to you the message of salvation, or shut you out of heaven, but because ye yourselves spurned my love, and set at nought all my entreaties.”

I think I told you, once, the story of a godly woman who was wonderfully kind to her very unkind and wicked husband. She was so obedient, and gentle, and affectionate, and patient, that he even boasted about what a good wife he had; and in company, one night, long past the hour of midnight, he said that, if he took his drunken companions home with him, late as it was, she would receive them like a lady, and prepare a supper for them, and never show by word or sign that it was hard upon her, or that they were not welcome. And it came true; when he took them home, she got together such things as she had, and made a decent feast for them; and one of them addressed her afterwards, and said that they had come there as the result of a wager, and they could not understand how she could have patience with such a man as her husband was, for they themselves felt ashamed of the way he had acted towards her. When they pressed her for her answer, she said, with tears, “I am afraid that my husband’s only happiness will be in this life; I have prayed for him, and sought in vain to bring him to a better mind; and my fear is that, when this life is over, there will be no more happiness for him, so I mean to make him as happy as ever he can be in his present condition.” It seems to me that God sometimes acts upon that plan, for he gives to some men more than heart can wish; their eyes stand out with fatness, and he multiplies to them all earthly blessings, because he is a God who would make men as happy as they can be, so he will let them have happiness here, for, in the eternity to come, it will not be possible for his justice to deal out anything to them but those sorrows which are the inevitable consequence of perseverance in sin.

Even in this first part of my theme, there seems to me to be much that ought to touch many hearts; but when I come to the higher sense of the term “love”, and speak of God’s own chosen people, to whom he can with emphasis say, “I have loved you,” oh, how sad it is that the Lord has often to say this to them while they are in their unregenerate state! He has chosen them unto eternal life; he has written their names in the Lamb’s book of life; his well-beloved Son has already bought them with his precious blood; yet look at them,-slaves to lust, rioting in sin, or merely hearers of the Word, but not doers of it, still rejecting the Saviour, and continually going from bad to worse. Oh, could someone only echo in their ears this little message of God, “I have loved you,” could they-would they-remain as they are, without the love of God shed abroad in their hearts, or any desire to be drawn towards him? God knows all about his eternal love towards them, and the choice that he has made of them; and often must he say, as he beholds their heart of stone, and brow of brass, and neck of steel, “Yes, I have loved you, O you poor foolish creatures, and you shall yet be mine, and shall sing among the angels, though now you are rioting in sin, and revelling in iniquity!” I think I hear the Lord thus graciously expressing the inmost feelings of his heart, and the very repetition of the message ought to touch all our hearts.

But, further, think how the Lord must express himself, in a similar style, concerning wandering backsliders. There are some whom we have every reason to regard as his people. In times past, they have given abundant evidence that they were his, but they have grown spiritually cold, as if a death-chill had struck them in their heart. They have, apparently, gone back to the world, and they are now far off from the place where they used to be; but the Lord looks upon them in their wretchedness and sin, and he says to them, “I have loved you. You may be trying to live without prayer, but I have loved you. You may have ceased to frequent the house of God, but I have loved you. ‘I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.’ ‘Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.’ ‘Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you.’ ” “The Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away.” He hath not sued for a divorce from his unfaithful spouse, as he might well have done. “Only acknowledge thine inquity,” saith he, “confess that thou hast trangressed against the Lord thy God, and thou shalt be fully and freely forgiven, for I have loved thee.”

I pray that my blessed Master may himself speak to any poor backslider who is here; for, surely, his gentle, gracious accents ought to melt even a heart of stone. If you ever were really his, however far you may have wandered from him, do not hesitate to come back to him, for he still saith to you, “I have loved you.” Yes, dear friends, whenever any of the Lord’s people get into a sad, lean, low condition,-when they begin to grow cold, and to doubt whether they can be the children of God at all, it is well for them to hear the great Father say to them, again and again, “I have loved you; I have loved you; I have loved you. I, who made the heavens and the earth, have loved you; I have loved you from before the foundation of the world. I have not merely pitied you, as a man might pity a starving dog, but I have loved you with all my heart. I have loved many others beside you; but, still, I have as much love for you as if there were nobody else for me to love in all the world.” Surely, God will cause this simple but most comforting truth to come home to the hearts of his people, and then they will cry, “We will arise, and go to our Father, and confess our wanderings and our sins, that we may once more be at peace with him.”

Are you, dear friend, very sorrowful just now? Have you lost the light of God’s countenance? Are you sighing and crying for the peace you once enjoyed? Well, then, just do what I have been bidding the sinner do. Come to Christ over again; and, at the same time, make diligent enquiry to find out whether there is any wrong thing in your character that is bringing you into this state of misery. How long is it since you have thoroughly swept out the secret chambers of your heart? If you leave a room unswept for a little while, you know how the cobwebs and the dust gather and settle all over it. Look even at the snow after it has been lying for a day or two in such a foggy, smoky, grimy city as this; it is positively black. Well, if the snow gets black in this smoke, do you not think that your soul will also get foul and dirty? This world is a bad place to live in. To maintain a high condition of purity, you will need a deal of grace, or you certainly will not do it. Ah, me! How little there is around us that can help us toward God, and how much there is to draw us away from him! Now, because of all this impurity by which you are surrounded, your soul needs to be constantly swept out. You had need cry to the Holy Spirit to light the candle, and frequently sweep out the room, for unless there is a constant cleansing, there will be continual filth, and the heart will never be fit for Christ to come into it, and to abide in it.

So much, then, concerning the lamentation of love.

Now, in the second place, I have to speak upon the insensibility of ingratitude.

That is a very cruel answer in our text; can you detect the heartless ingratitude in it? I am afraid I do not know how to pronounce the words aright so as to bring out all the evil that is in them. First, you hear God saying, in very plaintive tones, “I have loved you;” and then, instead of that declaration touching the hearts of those who had wandered from him, and constraining them to ask for mercy at his hands, you get this wicked question, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” That is all the reply they give; it is short and sharp, full of unbelief, and pride, and rebellion: “Wherein hast thou loved us?” Does anybody ever ask that question of God nowadays? Oh, yes! I have heard it many times.

That question is sometimes asked by men who are loaded with temporal mercies. There is nothing that God has denied to them. When they were younger, if anybody had told them that they would be worth as much as they now actually possess, they would have said that it was beyond their utmost expectations; yet now that they have all that their heart can desire, and their eyes stand out with fatness, they put to God this shameful question, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” They say that they cannot see any sign of the goodness of God in their prosperity; they trace all their riches and their increase to their own wit, and wisdom, and industry, and perseverance, but they leave God out of the matter altogether. And so, although his mercies stare them in the face, and they wear the tokens of those mercies on their backs, and carry them within their physical frame, yet they continue to say to him, “Wherein hast thou loved us?”

I have known others, who have practically said the same thing by the way in which they have slighted gospel privileges. A man of this stamp, who has been a hearer of the gospel for, perhaps, twenty or thirty years, yet says, “I do not see any proofs of any particular favour that God has shown to me.” O sir, if you had been cast into hell, you would have learnt to prize the privilege of listening to the gospel when you had lost it for ever! If you had been, for even a little while, in a lunatic asylum, you might, when you came out, begin rightly to value the blessing of restored reason, with which you are able to understand at least something of that gospel which you have so long neglected and despised. It is strange that there should be people living on praying ground, and on pleading terms with God, with heaven to be had for the asking, who yet say to the Lord, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” Ah, sirs! some of you see what kings and prophets desired to see, but died without the sight; yet you say to God, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” How happy ought to be your ears, that hear the gospel’s joyful sound, yet, as you hear it not in your hearts, you cry to the Lord, “Wherein hast thou loved us?”

Yes, and I have heard this question put very bitterly by some who have murmured at their temporal trials. “How has God been gracious to us?” say they. “Look at me,” says one; “I am very poor; I work as hard as any slave, yet I get but little return for all my toil, and my lot is a truly pitiable one. In what respects has God loved me?” “Look,” says another, “at this broken leg;” or perhaps the lament is, “I was born deformed;” or, “I lost an eye early in life; don’t talk to me about God loving me.” Yet there are many, now in heaven, who might never have gone there if it had not been for their poverty, their infirmity, and their pain. Often, when God is hedging up a man’s way with thorns, to stop him from going to destruction, he thinks that the Lord is unkind to him, whereas the thorns in the way are the surest tokens of divine love to him. Yes, sir, you were once able to drink greedily from the muddy stream of worldly pleasure, and you kept on at it as long as you could. I do not know where you might have been by this time, had not God struck you down, taken away your power of enjoyment, and deprived you of the means by which you indulged yourself in sin. What better service could he have rendered to you? The silly, self-willed child will not thank his father for the rod; but when he becomes a man, if that rod has been really useful to him, he will respect and love the wise and kind father who did not spare him for all his crying. And you, dear friend, who are in trouble and sorrow, say that God is dealing harshly with you; yet those trials are all sent in love. That sharp affliction of yours is the surgeon’s knife that is cutting away the proud flesh and deadly cancers which, otherwise, would destroy you. God is working for your good in all that he is doing; it is his love that is doing it all.

I am sorry to say that I have known some, who appeared to be the Lord’s people, who have said to him, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” because they have become very doubting; they have not looked at eternal things, they have kept looking at their outward inconveniences and sorrows. The poor man has said, “With this leaky roof to my cottage, can God really love me?” And the poor woman has said, “With this rheumatism in my aching bones, and my poor little children half clad and ill fed, can God really love me?” And even the heirs of heaven have sometimes asked of God, “Wherein hast thou loved us?” But when they have come back to their right mind, and have rightly understood the ways of the Lord, they have blessed him for their troubles as much as for their joys, and they have seen how all things work together for good to them that love God.

It shows how wrong is the state of our heart if we can live in the midst of God’s continued mercies, and yet cannot realize that he loves us. If any of you cannot see any tokens of the benevolence and goodness of God to you, surely you must be blind; and if, dear child of God, you fail to perceive what the Lord has done for you, anoint your eyes with eye-salve, that you may see, for he has done everything for you. He has given you this world, and worlds to come. Ay, and he has given himself to you, to be your Father; his Son, to be your Saviour; his Spirit, to be your constant Comforter. What more can he do than for you he hath done, you who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before you in the gospel? Therefore, never let this thought flit across your soul, and never let this question pass the door of your lips, “Wherein hast thou loved us?”

Thus have I spoken upon the insensibility of ingratitude as well as the lamentation of love.

Now, lastly, I have to speak, for just a few minutes, upon the discoveries of grace. I am hoping and praying that these last words, which I am about to utter, may come true in the experience of a great many in this place, as well as of others who will read the discourse when it is printed.

Suppose you should be converted,-become a child of God, and be saved,-the first thing you will discover will be, that God has loved you. What a change that will make in all your feelings towards him! You will never again say to the Lord, “Wherein hast thou loved me?” but, if you feel as I did when I first found out the love of God to me, you will begin tracing your whole history, from your cradle up to the moment of your conversion, and you will say, “I can see the Lord’s loving hand there, and there, and there, and there, and there.” You will look upon your trials, your losses, your crosses, your removals from one village or town to another, and you will say, “Ah! it was love that watched over me all the while, it was love that was arranging all that happened for my good.” And you will be amazed at the difference that feeling will make in your life. Before you knew the Lord, you could not realize his love; but, as soon as ever you really know him, you will say, “All his dealings with me have been proofs of his love.” You will put up your hands in wonder, and say, “How could I have been such a mad fool as to go on sinning against God in spite of such wondrous love? It really seems to me now as if, the more I sinned, the more he loved me; and the worse I was to him, the better he was to me. Over against my black sin, he set the whiteness and brightness of his grace; and he seemed as if he conquered me, not by the sheer force of his might, but by the superior power of his boundless love.”

Further, if you shall be converted, you will not be long before you will find out that, in addition to God being loving and kind to you in his providence, he so loved you that he gave his only-begotten Son to die for you. The general truth that Christ died for sinners, is unspeakably precious; but the sweetest truth in all the world is, for any one of us to be able to say, “He died for me.” O my dear hearer, if thou wert ever to find out that Christ thought of thee in his last moments upon the cross,-that he distinctly and personally poured out his life for thee, and that thy name-I mean, thy very own name-is graven upon the palms of his hands, and that thou, in thine own person, art continually before him, surely that would be a heart-breaker for you. All the law and the terrors in the world might only harden thee in thy rebellion, but one glance of the dear languid eyes of him who hung upon the cross-one gracious look of his-will make your spirit flow like the streams of water that ran out of the rock in the wilderness. May the Lord, in his mercy, enable each one of you to say, “He loved me, and gave himself for me,” for then you will soon be at his feet as weeping yet rejoicing penitents.

Again, if you are really converted, so that you come to know the love of God, and the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, another thing which you will soon find out will be, God’s election of you from eternity. How well I recollect when first that ray of light struck into my soul, as I seemed to hear him say to me personally, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” That great truth was revealed to me in this way. I said to myself, “Here am I converted, pardoned, saved. There are my schoolfellows, the boys and young men with whom I used to be associated; they are not saved. Who has made the difference between us?” I dared not say that I had, and so put the crown of salvation on my own head. I saw, in a single moment, that God must have made the distinction if I was, in any degree whatever, different from my fellow-creatures. Then I said to myself, “If God has made this difference in me, and done more for me than he has done for others, there must always have been, in his heart, thoughts of love towards my soul, since he never changes. What he does to-day, is the result of the purpose which was in his heart from before the foundation of the world.” So there rolled into my heart, like a stream of honey, the assurance that he had loved me, with complacency, long before the earth was formed, or the day-star knew its place, or planets ran their round. Then I said to myself, “O thou fool of fools, that thou shouldest ever have treated thy God as thou hast done! Art thou indeed one of his elect and chosen people, and yet hast thou lived all these years without hardly a thought of him who has loved thee from eternity?” I blamed myself, as I do still, that I was so slow to recognize his eternal choice of me; and if the Lord shall be pleased to say to you, in the words of my text, “I have loved you,”-when you once really know his love to you, his redemption of you, and his election of you personally, you will no more say, “Wherein hast thou loved me?” but you will bow, in speechless but grateful reverence, at his dear feet, worshipping and adoring the greatness of his infinite love.

I do not know how you feel, brethren and sisters who know the Lord; but I feel that, if I could live a thousand lives, I would like to live them all for Christ, and I should even then feel that they were all too little a return for his great love to me. And if any of us could have grace and strength enough given to us to die a thousand deaths for Christ, he well deserves them for having loved us as he has done.

There are just two things that I want to say to you, and with them I will finish my discourse.

First, some of you are still living in sin. Perhaps you hardly know why you came to the Tabernacle to-night; possibly, it was only out of curiosity. I am no thought-reader or mind-reader, but I can imagine that some of you have been in the habit of pooh-poohing all religion, ridiculing it; and you have done so for a long while. Now, suppose that, one of these days, you should preach the very faith which now you despise, just as the apostle Paul did. Do not utter more words than you can help, in reply to this suggestion of mine, for you will have to eat them up, however many there are of them. Do not go any further in the wrong road than you can help, because you will have to come all that way back. I dare to tell you, in my Master’s name, that some of you, who hate him, will love him before long; though now you oppose him all you can, by-and-by you will be among the first to vindicate his cause. My Lord knows all about you; and as he has bought you with his precious blood, do you think he will not claim you as his own? He has written your name in his book of life, so the devil himself, and all his legions, cannot take from you the life everlasting to which his predestinating grace has ordained you. You shall yet bow down before him. The day draweth nigh when you, who talk in a hectoring fashion now, will be found lying at his feet as suppliants. Then, when he has drawn you to himself, and has favoured you with much of his love, when one of these Sabbath nights, you shall be found sitting at his table, and the spikenard shall give forth a sweet smell, and your very soul shall seem to be carried away to heaven because of the presence of your Beloved, I wonder what you will think of yourself then? Suppose he were then to whisper in your ear,-I know he will not do so,-but suppose he were to remind you of all your ill behaviour towards him;-he will not do so, because he giveth liberally, and upbraideth not;-but suppose your own memory should be your accuser, and should say to you, “Remember that thou wast a bondslave in the land of Egypt. Recollect those black sins that came out of thine heart, those foul words that issued from thy lips,”-do you not think that, as you look up into the face of Jesus, your Lord and Master, you will say, “Ah, my gracious Saviour, I have thought of a fresh reason for loving thee. I knew it before, but it has come home to me more vividly now than ever; should not they love most who have had most forgiven? That is my case, my Lord; therefore, bind me to thyself, and let me never again wander away from thee, but let me love thee even to the end.”

And lastly, dear friends, I wonder what we shall think of ourselves when we get away from communion with the saints on earth, and sit up yonder with our Saviour in heaven. There is one who was once a drunkard; what a strange thing it will be for him to find himself in heaven! Here he was stuttering and stammering, and could not speak plainly, because of his drunkenness, but he has been washed and cleansed in the blood of Jesus, and there he is singing more sweetly even than the angels. Would you believe it? That very man up there-that bright spirit, robed in white, who sings the loudest of them all, used to curse and swear, and ill-treat his wife because she went to the house of God; yet there he is, purified and glorified. See what sovereign grace can do! But what must he think of himself when he gets up there? I was trying to imagine what must be the emotion of such a man as Paul, who had been a persecutor, and injurious, when he looks into the face of his dear Lord and Master, and casts his crown before him, and yet all the while thinks, “But I persecuted him!” I wonder whether that man is there, who pierced his side, and those soldiers who nailed him to the tree. Certainly, he is there who railed at him on the cross, and then repented, and was forgiven; and he is there who said, “I know not the man.” When they are singing, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing,” I think that, sometimes, Peter pauses a while, and those around wonder why Peter has left off singing, but he cannot help it. Emotions of unutterable gratitude are coming over him as he remembers that he has been forgiven through the wondrous grace of Christ, who loved him even when he was being denied by him with oaths and curses. I wish that I could communicate to you the emotions of my own spirit as I think of the greatness of man’s sin, and set it side by side with the greatness of God’s grace;-as I think of love unspeakable, and of sin unutterably vile which that love puts away. Come, dear friends, and let us all join together to bless and magnify the wondrous love which God has revealed to us in his Word, and may we all meet in heaven, to the praise of the glory of his grace, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-561, 579, 735.