With Christian men it is not a matter of question as to whether God hears prayer or not. There is no fact in mathematics which has been more fully demonstrated than this fact in experience-that God heareth prayer. About some other things in Christianity, young believers may have a question; but about the Lord’s answering prayer, even they cannot entertain a doubt; while, to the old and advanced believer, who has tested the power of the mercy-seat, and proved it thousands of times, it is a matter about which he never allows a question, for he knows that, as surely as that he himself exists, and that God lives in heaven, the prayers of puny but believing man have power to move the almighty arm of God.

Probably, in the course of the past week, some of us have met with as many as a dozen special answers to prayer. Sceptics spend their sneers in vain upon us. Facts are blessed, as well as stubborn, things. Men may say that it is not possible that the cries and petitions of man can move the heart of God. They may question it, they may raise doubts about it; but doubts upon this matter never enter our minds, they never touch our inner consciousness, for we know that answers to prayer are a fact; and until we can doubt that we are men, until we can doubt that we breathe the air or live on food, until we can doubt that which we see with our eyes and touch with our hands, we cannot doubt that God is, “and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

Of course, our confidence that God answers prayer is not an argument to another man. He who has not tried it cannot have proved it for himself. But to those who have tried prayer, and proved it, we insist upon it that it amounts to a demonstration as clear as logic itself can make it, when, having called upon God, not merely once or twice, but thousands of times throughout their lives, they have invariably met with the same result, namely, a gracious answer from him who really does and will hear prayer. Yet there is, sometimes, a strange thing which puzzles the earnest believer. There are times when it does seem as if his prayer were not heard, for certainly it is not answered, or, at least, not answered as he expected. There are seasons, even with God’s true children,-

“When at his feet they groan,

Yet bring their wants away.”

They present their petition before the Lord, yet their request does not seem to be complied with there and then. To those who know that this is no strange thing which has happened unto them, it is not a matter which staggers their faith, for they can say, with Ralph Erskine, that-

“They’re heard when answered soon or late;

Yea, heard when they no answer get;

Are kindly answered when refused,

And treated well when harshly used.”

They understand that God’s delays are not denials, and that his denials to particular requests are only intended to let us know that he will give us something richer and better than we have asked. If he doth not pay thy prayers in silver, he will pay them in gold; and if thy prayers be long in coming back, they shall be like a richly-laden ship which is all the longer on its way because of its costly freight, and which shall amply repay for the time spent on the voyage by the richness of the cargo it brings from the far country.

Yet I must again remind you that to some, and especially to young seekers, it is a staggering experience when, having long cried to Jesus, he answers them not a word; when, having prayed to him, they have seen no smile upon his benignant face, and have heard no word of comfort from those lips of his, which drop like honeycombs to others, but seem to be as dry wells to them. I am going to discuss this matter now as God the Holy Ghost may enable me, and I pray that he may make it comforting to many a distracted spirit. May some be graciously brought up out of the deep darkness of their prison-house, and be caused to rejoice in the liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free!

I shall speak of the text, first, in reference to those who have been praying for themselves; and, secondly, in regard to those who have been praying for others.

First, then, I am going to describe the case of some who have been praying for themselves, but to whom, as yet, Christ has answered not a word.

I can describe the case of these people experimentally, for I have felt the same. As some of you know, I passed through five years of agony, during which my young spirit was crushed almost to despair. During those five years, if ever a child prayed to God, I did; and if ever a lad groaned, out of a longing spirit, to Jehovah in heaven, I did. You may remember that part of John Bunyan’s “Grace Abounding” where he speaks of the exercises of his soul, and especially of his terror because his prayers seemed to reverberate from a brazen heaven, and not to pierce the skies. Such, too, was my experience. I am sure that I was sincere in my prayers, and in my groanings that could not be uttered; but yet, answers to my supplications there were none. I can speak, therefore, I trust, with all the more power because I can speak, sympathetically, of something which I have known and felt.

Poor soul, you have been praying for these last few months; and your complaint is, that you have not had one gracious answer to your petitions, or one precious promise applied with power to your soul. Let me remind you that the poor woman, of whom our text speaks, was in a similar condition. Indeed, not only did she not receive a promise, but she received a rebuff from Christ. Instead of a gracious invitation to come unto him, she had almost a command to go from him. When he did speak to her, he said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Yours, then, is not a singular case. You must not sit down in despair because no promise has come home to your soul. Still continue to cry unto the Lord, still be constantly in prayer unto him. He will, he must, hear you by-and-by, and you shall have your heart’s desire.

“Yes,” you say, “but not only have I not had a promise, but I have not had any comforting sign whatever. The more I pray, the worse I feel; and the more I groan, the more it seems that I may groan. If my prayers are arrows, they are arrows that fall downwards, and return into my own heart instead of flying up to God’s ear. I must pray, I cannot help it; my soul would burst if it did not express itself in words; yet my prayer does me little or no good. I rise from my knees more distressed than ever, and I come out of my closet, not as a man released from prison, but as he that passes from one dungeon to another. The Lord hath refused to listen to my supplication; he hath forgotten to be gracious, in anger he hath shut up the bowels of his compassion.” Perhaps you even go further than this, and say, “I feel as if my prayer never would be answered. Something within me tells me that I may pray, but that, after all, I shall perish; that there may be mercy for all others in the world, but not for me. I may lift the knocker of mercy’s gate, but the sound shall be only like that of a hammer upon my coffin; there shall be no music of hope as I rap at the golden gate. I know that God heareth prayer, but not the prayer of the wicked; that is an abomination unto the Lord. Such, I fear, is my prayer; and, therefore, he will not hear me.” Ah, poor soul! let me remind you that there is nothing that is so deluding as feelings. Christians cannot live by feelings, nor can you. Let me further tell you that these feelings are the work of Satan, they are not right feelings. What right have you to set up your feelings against the Word of Christ? He has expressly said, “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” It is not a question whether a man who truly prays shall be saved. He is saved, though he may not know it; he has the germs of salvation in his prayer. “Behold, he prayeth,” means, “Behold, he liveth; behold, he is accepted; behold, heaven openeth its gates for him.” He prays; Jehovah hears; mercy answers; the man is blessed. I pray thee, then, let not thy feelings fly in the teeth of God’s promises, but hope on; for, though thy case be very sad, it is not a strange one, and there is hope for thee.

Having thus described your case, let me now warn you of a danger. There is a danger to which all those are exposed who have prayed for any length of time without consciously receiving an answer from God, and that is, either to get despairing thoughts of themselves or else hard thoughts of Christ. That poor Canaanite was a brave woman. She came of an accursed race, but certainly there was a special blessing resting upon her. If you or I had been there when Christ spake to her so harshly, I wonder whether we should have taken his remarks so well as she did. Do you remember times when Christ has been silent to you? If so, you can imagine what her feelings must have been when “he answered her not a word.” Some of you, who have quick tempers, would have said, if that had been your experience, “Is this the Messiah of whom we have heard so much, and who is said to be so ready to relieve the distressed? Here have we been crying to him in tones that seemed piercing enough to make a heart of adamant melt for us, yet he has not deigned to answer us. He seems to be stone deaf; or, if he hears us, he does not condescend to give us any reply. Is this the kind and tender spirit of which we have heard so much?” And when at last he spake, and said, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs,”-some would have said, “If he would not grant us our request, he need not have used insulting epithets to us. Dogs, indeed! What means he by that term? He means that we do not belong to the favoured race of Israel; and a fine thing it would be for us if we did. Are they not oppressed under the Roman yoke, and cast off like withered branches?” The Canaanite woman might have said, “Why does he call me a dog? Am I not a woman, and an honest woman, too, and one who does not deserve such a title as that? I wish I had never asked for mercy at his hands. To get such an insult as to have the name of ‘dog’ thrown at me, is too bad; and I will not endure it.” That may be a strong way of putting the matter, but you and I have probably put it in just that way. Have we not thought, because Christ has not answered our prayers, that there was a mistake about his graciousness,-that he was not the Christ that some said he was-that he did not mean his invitation when he said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” that he desired to tantalize poor souls, making them pray and cry to him while he meant to be deaf to their requests? Have you not had hard thoughts of Christ like those? If you have, I pray you to put them all away from you, and not to fall into this snare of Satan. Jesus is the good Christ still. Though he may seem to be stonyhearted, he is not so in reality; he is always tender, he hath bowels of compassion. Slander him not, then; but be of good courage, and still cry unto him.

Possibly, Satan says to you, “Your prayer is not of the right sort; and, therefore, you never will be heard.” Yes, but that Canaanitish woman’s prayer to Christ was of the right sort, yet “he answered her not a word.” Notice what her prayer was: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David.” She gave him the right name. She might have said, “Thou Son of Abraham.” That would have signified that he was the one in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. That was the covenant which the Lord made with Abraham; but this woman said, “Thou Son of David.” The covenant made with David related, not only to blessing and increase, but also to a kingdom, so this woman seemed to say to Christ, “Man of sorrows though thou art, thou art of royal blood; thy visage is more marred than that of any man, and thou wearest not a diadem, yet art thou King.” She did, as it were, pay him the homage which Pilate unwittingly paid him when he placed over his head the inscription, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews.” “Thou Son of David,”-she knew how to address him.

Then notice how she pleaded with him; she appealed, not to his justice, but to his mercy, to the love of his tender and compassionate heart: “Have mercy on me.” This was the plea of the publican, the prayer by which he was justified, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” There was nothing wrong in this woman’s prayer to Christ, yet “he answered her not a word.” So then, poor heart, thy prayers also may be right and proper, and yet not be answered. If they are not answered, faint not; but continue to pray. The Lord will yet reply to thy petition; he will open the windows of heaven, and shower down his mercy upon thee, and thou shalt receive it with a gladsome heart.

Now, having reminded you of your danger, let me call to your recollection the grounds of your comfort. What had this woman to comfort her? Well, first, she had Jesus Christ’s face. He said to her, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” Now, my idea of the Saviour is that he could not utter that hard sentence without, somehow or other, letting the woman see, by the very expression of his countenance, that he was keeping something back, and that there was love yet in store for her. You know that your children can soon detect the meaning of what you say to them, for they can read your face as well as your words. So can poor beggars, and so could this poor woman who was begging of Christ so hard for her child. “Ay,” she seemed to say, “thy lips may utter hard words, but thy loving eyes flash not the fire that should go with such severe sentences. I see a tear lifting up thine eyelids even now. I believe the language of thy face; that marred face-marred with sympathy for others’ sorrows, marred with the cares and burdens of others, which have weighed thee down,-will not let me believe that thy heart is harsh.” So, sinner, for thy comfort let me beseech thee to look into the face of Jesus Christ. Dost thou believe that he-the Son of Mary, the Man of sorrows, grief’s acquaintance,-can reject thee? O Christ, when I picture thee before my eyes, especially when I see thy face bedewed with bloody sweat in Gethsemane, and listen to thine agonized groanings in the garden, I cannot, and I will not, believe that thou canst ever reject a supplicant who cries to thee, “Be merciful to me!”

Or, if that shall not be enough to cheer thee, remember that this poor woman had something more to comfort her, for she had heard the story of Christ’s good deeds. She had been told, even in Tyre, what he had done in Capernaum, and she had heard, though far away, what he had done in Chorazin, so she believed that he, who had done such good deeds to others, could not be hard to her. So, sinner, let me tell thee of the good deeds that Christ hath done to others. I could bring thee hundreds, or even thousands, who could truly say, with the psalmist, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.” Speak with your eyes, my brethren, and bear witness to the fact which I now testify,-has not God heard your prayers, though you were sinners even as others, as vile by nature, and as hopeless by depravity? Did he not bring us up out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set our feet upon a rock, and establish our goings? Sinner, he who did this for us will and must do the like for you if you plead for mercy through the precious blood of his dear Son.

But you have one comfort which this poor woman never had; she could not be told that Christ had died for her. Sinner, thou who art seeking Christ, say not that he is harsh, and that he will not hear thee. Come thou with me, and by faith look upon him on the cross. Canst thou behold his thorn-crown, with its lancets piercing his blessed brow, and the tears streaming down his cheeks already crimsoned with his bloody sweat? Canst thou see his hands and feet as, pierced by the nails, they become founts of blood? There he hangs, naked, despised and rejected of men. Yet he endured all this agony that he might save sinners; then, how canst thou think so wickedly of him as to suppose that he, who once died, the Just for the unjust, now that he lives again, has an adamantine heart, and no bowels of compassion? No, by his wounds, I beseech thee to trust him; by his bloody sweat, I implore thee to continue thy supplication unto him; by his rent side, I urge thee to wrestle with him yet again, for he will hear thee, his mercy shall come unto thee, and thou shalt rejoice in it.

Lend me your ears while I give you a word of counsel as to what you ought to do. It is the Spirit of God who has taught you to pray. He has made you feel your need of a Saviour; it is he who has compelled you to fall upon your knees, and to cry for mercy. Now remember that it is your duty, as well as your privilege, to obey the voice of the Holy Spirit. What does that voice say to you? “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” That is to say, even though thy prayers be not answered, in the teeth of every hard thought and every harsh word, trust Christ with thy soul. If thou doest that, thou art saved there and then. The way of salvation is not, “Pray, and be saved;” but, “Believe, and be saved.” Christ said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Remember that your main business is not with answers to prayer, but with your answer to God’s call to you; and his call to you, poor conscience-stricken, awakened sinner, is, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.” Come, then, to Christ just as you are, and so shall you find that answer to your prayers which has been so long delayed. Still keep on wrestling with God, until your prayers are answered. Jericho’s walls did not fall down the first day the hosts of Israel went round them; but they compassed the city seven days, and, on the seventh day, the walls fell flat to the ground. Elijah, on the top of Carmel, did not bring the rain the first time he prayed; but he said to his servant, “Go again seven times;” and there have been many other instances in which God has delayed the blessing, but has given it at the last.

I have thus preached, as God has enabled me, to poor seeking souls. O Spirit of God, apply the Word, and bring sinners to Christ, that they may find mercy in his wounds!

Now, for a few minutes, let us turn to the case of those believers, who have long been praying for others without any apparent result.

There is a father here, who has been pleading with God for his daughter; and though years of supplication have passed away, she is still unconverted, and as hardened as ever. There is a mother here, who has laid her children upon her bosom, in prayer, as once she did for nourishment when they were but babes; and yet, though she cries day and night for them, they are not saved. My dear brothers and sisters, I beseech you never to give up praying for your children, or your other relatives, because, although God may not answer you for a while, you shall certainly yet have the desire of your heart. Let me just give you one or two instances in which the power of prayer has been distinctly proved.

There was a young man who, because of his love for sin, and his wish to be easy in it, became an infidel. As I have often said, infidelity is far more a matter of the heart than of the head. I am persuaded that men think there is no God because they wish there were none. They find it hard to believe in God, and to go on in sin, so they try to get an easy conscience by denying his existence. This young man was not only an infidel, but he was a very earnest one, and he used to distribute certain newspapers brought out by the infidel press. His employer was just as earnest a Christian as the young man was an infidel, and he used constantly to burn those papers whenever he could get hold of them; but the young man just as perseveringly procured others, and tried to lend them among the apprentices and journeymen, that he might advance his own views. He was always a bold blasphemer, and a desperate sinner. He cared little what others thought of him, and he was, at least, honest in his iniquities. One day, in a joke, he said to one of his companions, “I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll show you that there is nothing in any of the Methodist cant and hypocrisy; the very first time there is a prayer-meeting at such-and-such a chapel, I’ll go and offer myself to the minister to be prayed for by the members, and I shall get some fun out of them.” He went; and, with all the impudence and coolness possible, told the minister that he was a poor troubled soul, who wished to find peace, and that he would be very glad if the brethren would pray for him. He did not know what he was doing; for, whether it was that the very deed awoke his slumbering conscience, or whether the Spirit of God was pleased to show the sovereignty of his grace at that moment, I cannot tell; but, as soon as one or two humble individuals had prayed for this young man, with tears in their eyes, he was down on his knees, with tears in his own eyes, praying for himself. Nay, not only did he pray then, but he never ceased to pray, and he is praying still, for he could not live without prayer. He found it no matter of fun, after all; he intended to tempt God, and to vex his people; but in that very act of sin he was arrested and converted. Do you think, then, if prayer only asked for in sport prevailed with God, that he will not hear your earnest cries for your own offspring? O Christians, be fervent in your supplications; for God will surely hear you, and your children shall be saved!

Another instance. There lived, in the village of Berwick St. John, in Wiltshire, a godly woman who had an ungodly husband. He not only hated good things, but he hated her for her goodness, for he turned her out of doors, on a Sabbath night, because she had gone to the meetinghouse. She, like a prudent woman, never told her neighbours, but walked the fields alone that she might not be noticed by others, and that her husband’s shame might not be discovered. She was sometimes driven to the greatest straits, and to a sadness which seemed as if it would bring her to a premature grave. She resolved to pray for her husband, one hour a day, for a year. She did so; and, at the end of the year, he was as bad as before, if not worse. Then she thought she would try another six months; her faith was weak, and she was going to give her husband up then if her prayers were not heard. This was wrong, for we must not limit the Holy One of Israel. But it so happened that, ere the six months were over, her husband came home once, in the middle of the day, looking dejected and downcast. Like a true and tender wife, she asked what was the matter with him, but he could not tell her. He went upstairs, he did not want his dinner, and he did not return to his work that afternoon, for God was at work with him. When his wife got him to speak, he said, “O wife, I can’t pray!” “Do you want to pray?” she asked, and he replied, “Oh, I must pray! I do not know how it was; but, about twelve o’clock to-day, such a strange feeling came over me. I feel that I am a lost man, for I cannot pray; will you pray for me?” You may guess what her feelings were when asked by that obdurate wretch to pray for him. She did pray, then they prayed together, and their united prayers were answered. The next Sabbath, they were both in God’s house; and, in a few more Sabbaths, they were side by side at the Lord’s table. The godly woman’s prayers were heard at last, and God again proved that he has not said to the seed of Jacob, “Seek ye me in vain.”

Yet another instance. There was a captain, whose name I will not give in full just now; I will call him Mitchell, for that will suffice. This captain was a godly man, and he once went to sea, leaving his wife at home expecting soon to give birth to their firstborn child. While he was at sea, one day, a time of deep solemnity came over him, in the course of which he penned a prayer. This prayer was for his wife and for his yet unborn child. He put the prayer into the oak chest in which he kept his papers. He never came home again, for he died at sea. His chest was brought home to his wife; she did not open it to look at his papers, but she thought they might be of use to her son when he should grow up. That son lived; and, at the age of sixteen, he joined a regiment at Boston. In that regiment, he became exceedingly debauched, profane, blasphemous, and sinful in every way. At the age of fifty-four, while he was living in sin with a wicked woman, it struck him that he would like to look through the contents of the old chest which his father had left. He opened it, and, at the bottom, found, tied up with red tape, a paper, on the outside of which was written, “The prayer of Mitchell K-- for his wife and child.” He opened it, and read it; it was a most fervent plea with God that the man’s wife and child might belong to Christ, written fifty-four years back, and before that child was born. He shut it up, and put it where it was before, and said that he would not look into “that cursed old chest” again. But that did not matter, for the prayer had got into his heart, and he could not lock his heart up in that chest. He became thoroughly miserable; and the wretched woman, with whom he lived, asked him what was the matter with him. He told her what he had read in that paper, and she said she hoped he would not become a hypocrite. All the jokes and frivolities of his companions could not take out the dart which God had sent into his heart; and, ere long, by true repentance and by living faith, that man was in Christ a saved soul, married honourably to the woman with whom he had lived in sin, and walking in uprightness, serving his father’s God, as the result of a prayer which had lain in an old chest for fifty-four years, but which God’s eye had seen all the while, and which, at last, he had answered when the set time had come.

Be of good courage, all ye who are pleading for your children, for God will yet answer your supplications. As one of the old divines says, “Prayer is the rope which hangs down on earth, and there is a bell in heaven which it rings, and which God hears.” Pull that rope again to-night, praying father and mother. Make the great bell in heaven ring again and again, and let its notes be, “Save my children; save my husband; save my wife; save my brother; let my sister live before thee.” Your prayers shall be heard, and God shall yet grant your requests. The instances I have given you are authenticated, and I could give you more which have come under my own notice; but time fails, and I have said enough upon that matter.

Let me just preach the gospel at the close plainly and simply, and then I have done. The gospel is this-Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, dead and buried; the third day he rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven. He came into the world to die for sinners; he hung upon the cross and bled for sinners. All that he died for will be saved: he died for sinners, and sinners will be saved. Your only question is, are you in the true Scriptural sense of the term a confessed and acknowledged sinner? If so, Jesus died for you. On my door step the other night, when I reached home after preaching, stood a man. I asked him what he wanted, and he fell on his knees and cried, “I want to know what I must do to be saved.” I thought the man was mad to be there at that time of night on such an errand; but he cried out concerning his sin, told me I did not know his guilt, that he had been near committing suicide, and that he dared not go home to rest till he was told the way of salvation. “Well,” said I, “I will tell you;” but I could not make it plain to his poor darkened understanding until I told him a story which I have often told concerning an event which happened to me some time ago. One evening when sitting to see enquirers, there came an Irishman upstairs. “Well, Pat,” I said. “How’s your riverence?” said he. “Don’t call me reverence,” I said, “because I am no reverence at all: but how is it you have not gone to your priest?” Said he, “I have come here to ask you a question, and if you can answer it, that will do.” “Well, what is the question?” “Why, you said, last Sunday, that God would forgive sin; what I want to know is how that can be, for I have been such a great sinner that if he doesn’t punish me, he ought.” Well, I thought I had got a sinner to deal with, and one who spoke from his heart what he felt. I said, “God pardons sinners for the sake of Jesus.” But he replied, “I do not know what you mean.” I told him that Jesus Christ died, and that for the sake of that, God pardoned sinners. Still he could not comprehend, and he said, “I want to know how God can be just: he ought to punish sin, and yet he does not; how can that be?” “Well,” said I, “suppose you had been committing a murder, and the judge were to say you must be hanged.” “I should deserve it,” said he. “Well, how is Pat to be got off, and yet the sentence to be carried out?” “Faith!” says he, “that’s what I don’t exactly see.” “Well,” I continued, “suppose I go to the Queen, and say, ‘Please, your Majesty, I am very fond of this poor Irishman; I admit he ought to be hanged, but I want him to live: will you be so good as to have me hanged instead?” Well, she couldn’t say, “Yes,” Pat; but suppose she did, and suppose I went to prison and were hanged instead of you, the murderer, would the Queen be unjust in letting you go afterwards?” “Faith!” says he, “I shouldn’t ask that; how could she meddle with me afterwards? because I should say a gentleman was hung for me, and sure enough I was free. But,” he added, “I don’t see what that has to do with the matter.” “Why just this,” said I,-“Jesus Christ loved sinners so much that rather than they should perish he was content to die himself instead of them; and now, since Christ died for sinners, can you not see how God can be just in letting sinners go free?” “Oh, yes,” says he, “I see it now; but then how am I to know that Christ died for me, so that I cannot be punished? You say there are some people that Christ died for, so that God could not punish them; then how am I to know whether I belong to them?” “Why, by this-are you a sinner? Because if you are-not in the matter of compliment, but if you are really so, and feel it, then Christ died in your stead, and you cannot die because God will never enforce the sentence twice; he will not ask payment first at the bleeding Surety’s hands and then at ours.” I think I see that man putting his hands together, and saying, “There! that’s Bible, I know, that’s true, that must be true; no man could have made that up; that’s wonderful; I know it’s God’s Bible, for it just fits me; I am a poor sinner, and God has pardoned me.” And he went on his way rejoicing. Now, doesn’t that fit you, too? What would you give to-night if you could believe that Jesus Christ was punished instead of you, so that all your sins shall never be mentioned any more, but all be forgiven, because God punished Christ Jesus instead of you? I repeat, the only way you can tell is by answering this question-Are you a sinner? “Well, we are all sinners,” says one. No, no; you are all sinners, but you are not all the sort of sinners that I mean. Some people say they are sinners, but they don’t mean it. They are like the beggars in London apparently full of sores. Many a man we see in the streets with his leg tied up, and seeming desperately lame, will take off the bandage when he gets to his lodging house, and will dance before he goes to bed at night. Another man standing against the wall says he is stone blind; but he will see to count his money when he gets home, after begging all day. There are plenty of people of that sort. Now, if I invited the lame and the blind, do you think I should receive those who were only shamming? No, I would only have those who were really lame and blind. So Christ died only for those who are real sinners.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

EPHESIANS 2

Verse 1. And you hath he quickened,-

Is it so? Can anyone lay his hand on your shoulder, and say right into your ear, “You hath he quickened”? If so, why this deadness of spirit? Why this worldliness? Why these wanderings? “You hath he quickened,”-

1, 2. Who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world,-

You were dead to all that was good, but you were alive enough to that which was evil. It seems, from this passage, that dead men walk, yet not in the way of God, but “according to the course of this world,”-

2, 3. According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

We were not in the least better, by nature, than the very worst of men; and if we were any better in practice, it was only because we were restrained by providence and by grace from going into gross sin, as others did. Look unto the hole of the pit whence ye were digged, and see how humble was your origin. If you are proud of your fine feathers, as the peacock is, remember his black legs; see whence you came, and recollect the sin from which you were delivered. Bless God for your deliverance, and be humble as you think of the grace that has caused you to differ from others.

4, 5. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

This is a wondrous truth, that God loves the sinner even while he is dead in sin. This love is not caused by any goodness in him, for he is dead, he is wrapped up in the cerements of his sins. There is nothing lovable about him; yet God, “for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.”

6-8. And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.

That great truth was put, in the 5th verse, into a parenthesis. Why did Paul write it twice? Because we cannot too often be reminded that we were saved by grace. It is a truth which we so soon forget that we had need to have it rung in our ears as by a peal of bells, “By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

9. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

God cannot endure boasting; and one great object of the plan of salvation by grace is to extinguish boasting, to shut it out. It is intolerable to God, he cannot endure it.

10. For we are his workmanship,

If we have anything good in us, it was all made by him.

10-12. Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:

That is a true description of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, who were certainly heathen of the heathen, the wildest and most savage of men when Paul wrote this Epistle; and yet, by sovereign grace, we have been brought to the very forefront of the nations of the earth, and we are no longer without God, nor yet without hope, nor yet without Christ, neither are we now strangers to the covenants of promise, nor aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.

13-22. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

Happy are the people who enjoy these high privileges.

THE SOWER

A Sermon

Intended for Reading on Lord’s-day, August 2nd, 1903,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, September 6th, 1888.

“Behold, a sower went forth to sow.”-Matthew 13:3.

This was a very important event. I do not say that it was important if you took the individual case alone; but if you took the multitudes of cases in which it was also true, it was overwhelmingly important in the aggregate: “A sower went forth to sow.” Yes, Christ thinks it worth while to mention that a single sower went forth to sow,-that a Christian man went out to address a meeting on a village green, or to conduct a Bible-class, or to speak anywhere for the Lord. But when you think of the hundreds of preachers of the gospel who go out to sow every Lord’s-day, and the myriads of teachers who go to instruct the children in our Sabbath-schools, it is, surely, in the aggregate, the most important event under heaven. You may omit, O recording angel, the fact that a warrior went forth to fight; it is far more important that you should record that “a sower went forth to sow.” You may even forget that a man of science went into his laboratory, and made a discovery, for no discovery can equal in importance the usual processes of husbandry. Do you hear the song of the harvest home? Do you see the loaded waggons follow one another in a long line to the farmer’s barn? If so, remember that there would be no harvest home if the sower went not forth to sow. As the flail is falling upon the wheat, or the threshing machine is making the grain to leap from among the chaff, and the miller’s wheels are grinding merrily, and the women are kneading the dough, and the bread is set upon the table, and parents and children are fed to the full, do not forget that all this could never happen unless “a sower went forth to sow.” On this action hinges the very life of man. Bread, which is the staff of his life, would be broken, and taken from him, and his life could not continue did not a sower still go forth to sow. This seems to me to prove that the event recorded in our text is of prime importance, and deserves to be chronicled there.

And, dear friends, the spiritual sowing stands in the same relation to the spiritual world that the natural sowing occupies in the natural world. It is a most important thing that we should continually go forth to preach the gospel. It may seem, to some people, a small matter that I should occupy this pulpit, and I shall not lay any undue importance upon that fact; yet eternity may not exhaust all that shall result from the preaching of the gospel here; there may be souls, plucked like brands from the burning, saved with an everlasting salvation, lamps lit by the Holy Spirit that shall shine like stars in the firmament of God for ever and ever. Who knoweth, O teacher, when thou labourest even among the infants, what the result of thy teaching may be? Good corn may grow in very small fields. God may bless thy simple words to the babes that listen to them. How knowest thou, O my unlettered brother, when thou standest up in the cottage meeting to talk to a few poor folk about Christ, what may follow from that effort of thine? Life or death, heaven or hell, may depend upon the sowing of the good seed of the gospel. It is, it must be, the most important event that can ever happen, if the Lord goeth forth with thee when thou goest forth as the sower went forth to sow. Hark to the songs of the angels; see the overflowing brightness and excessive glory of thy Heavenly Father’s face. He rejoices because souls are born to Christ; but how could there be this joy, in the ordinary course, and speaking after the manner of men, without the preaching of the Word? For it still pleases God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. I shall not, therefore, make any apology for again preaching upon an event which is so important, even though it is recorded in such simple words: “A sower went forth to sow.”

I am going to try to answer three questions concerning this sower. First, who was he? Secondly, what did he do? And, thirdly, what was he at?

First, who was he?

We do not know anything at all about him except that he was a sower. His individuality seems to be swallowed up in his office. We do not know who his father was, or his mother, or his sister, or his brother; all we know is that he was a sower, and I do like to see a man who is so much a minister that he is nothing else but a minister. It does not matter who he is, or what he has, or what else he can do, if he does this one thing. He has lost his identity in his service, though he has also gained it over again in another way. He has lost his selfhood, and has become, once for all, a sower, and nothing but a sower.

Observe, dear friends, that there are many personal matters which are quite unimportant. It is not mentioned here whether he was a refined sower, or a rustic sower; and it does not matter which he was. So is it with the workers for Christ, God blesses all sorts of men. William Huntington, the coal-heaver, brought many souls to Christ. Some have doubted this; but, in my early Christian days, I knew some of the excellent of the earth who were the spiritual children of the coal-heaver. Chalmers stood at the very opposite pole,-a master of cultured gracious speech, a learned, well-trained man; and what multitudes Chalmers brought to Christ! So, whether it was Huntington or Chalmers, does not matter: “A sower went forth to sow.” One preacher talks like Rowland Hill, in very plain Saxon with a touch of humour; another, like Robert Hall, uses a grand style of speech, full of brilliant rhetoric, and scarcely ever condescending to men of low degree, yet God blessed both of them. What mattered it whether the speech was of the colloquial or of the oratorical order so long as God blessed it? The man preached the gospel; exactly how he preached it, need not be declared. He was a sower, he went forth to sow, and there came a glorious harvest from his sowing.

Now, my dear brother, you have begun earnestly to speak for Christ, but you are troubled because you cannot speak like Mr. So-and-so. Do not try to speak like Mr. So-and-so. You say, “I heard a man preach, the other night; and when he had done, I thought I could never preach again.” Well, it was very naughty, on your part, to think that. You ought rather to have said, “I will try to preach all the better now that I have heard one who preaches so much better than I can.” Just feel that you have to sow the good seed of the kingdom; and if you have not so big a hand as some sowers have, and cannot sow quite so much at a time, go and sow with your smaller hand, only mind that you sow the same seed, for so God will accept what you do. You are grieved that you do not know so much as some do, and that you have not the same amount of learning that they have. You regret that you have not the poetical faculty of some, or the holy ingenuity of others. Why do you speak about all these things? Our Lord Jesus Christ does not do so; he simply says, “A sower went forth to sow.” He does not tell us how he was dressed; he mentions nothing about whether he was a black man, or a white man, or what kind of man he was; he tells us nothing about him except that he was a sower. Will you, my dear friend, try to be nothing but a soul-winner? Never mind about “idiosyncrasies”, or whatever people call them. Go ahead, and sow the good seed, and God bless you in doing so!

Next notice that, as the various personal matters relating to the man are too unimportant to be recorded, his name and his fame are not written in this Book. Do you want to have your name put to everything that you do? Mind that God does not let you have your desire, and then say to you, “There, you have done that unto yourself, so you can reward yourself for it.” As far as ever you can, keep your own name out of all the work you do for the Lord. I used to notice, in Paris, that there was not a bridge, or a public building, without the letter “N” somewhere on it. Now, go through all the city, and find, an “N” if you can. Napoleon hoped his fame would live in imperishable marble, but he had written his name in sand after all; and if any one of us shall, in our ministry, think it the all-important matter to make our own name prominent, we are on the wrong tack altogether. When George Whitefield was asked to start a new sect, he said, “I do not condemn my brother Wesley for what he has done, but I cannot do the same; let my name perish, but let Christ’s name endure for ever and ever.” Do not be anxious for your name to go down to posterity, but be more concerned to be only remembered by what you have done, as this man is only remembered by Christ’s testimony that he was a sower.

What he did, in his sowing, is some of it recorded, but only that which refers to his special work. Where his seed fell, how it grew or did not grow, and what came of it or did not come of it,-that is all there; but nothing else about his life, or history, is there at all. I pray you, do not be anxious for anything that shall embalm your reputation. Embalming is for the dead; so the living may be content to let their name and fame be blown away by the same wind that blows it to them. What does our reputation matter, after all? It is nothing but the opinion or the breath of men, and that is of little or no value to the child of God. Serve God faithfully, and then leave your name and fame in his keeping. There is a day coming when the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

We have no record of the name and the fame of this man, yet we do know something about him. We know that he must have been, first of all, an eater, or he never would have been a sower. The gospel is seed for the sower, and bread for the eater; and every man, who really goes out to sow for God, must first have been an eater. There is not a man, on the face of the earth, who treads the furrows of the field, and sows the seed, but must first have been an eater of bread; and there is not a true servant of God, beneath the cope of heaven, but has first fed on the gospel before he has preached it. If there be any who pretend to sow, but who have never themselves eaten, God have mercy upon them! What a desecration of the pulpit it is for a man to attempt to preach what he does not himself know! What a desecration it is of even a Sunday-school class for an unconverted young man, or young woman, to be a teacher of others! I do not think such a thing ought to be allowed. Wherever it has been permitted, I charge any, who have been trying to teach what they do not themselves know, to cry to God to teach them, that they may not go and pretend to speak in the name of the Lord, to the children, till, first of all, Christ has spoken peace and pardon to their own hearts, and he has been formed in them the hope of glory. May every worker here put to himself the question, “Have I fed upon and enjoyed that good Word which I am professing to teach to others?”

Next, having been an eater, he must also have been a receiver. A sower cannot sow if he has not any seed. It is a mere mockery to go up and down a field, and to pretend to scatter seed out of an empty hand. Is there not a great deal of so-called Christian work that is just like that? Those who engage in it have not anything to give; and, therefore, they can give nothing. You cannot pump out of a man or a woman what is not there; and you cannot preach or teach, in God’s way, what is not first in your own heart. We must receive the gospel seed from God before we can sow it. The sower went to his master’s granary, and received so many bushels of wheat, and he then went out, and sowed it. I am afraid that some would-be sowers fail in this matter of being receivers. They are in a great hurry to take a class, or to preach here, or there, or somewhere else, but there is nothing in it all. What can there be in thy speech but sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal, unless thou hast received the living Word from the living God, and art sent forth by him to proclaim it to men?

A true sower, also, is a disseminator of the Word of God. No man is a sower unless he scatters the truth. If he does not preach truth, he is not a sower in the true meaning of that term. A man may go whistling up and down the furrows, and people may mistake him for a sower, but he is not really one; and if there is not, in what we preach, the real, solid truth of God’s Word,-however prettily we may put our sweet nothings, we have not been serving the Lord. We must really scatter the living seed, or else we are not worthy of the title of sower.

We seem to know a little about this sower now, and we further know that he was one of a noble line. What our Lord really said was, “The Sower went forth to sow;” and I think I see him coming forth out of the ivory palaces, from the lone glory of his own eternal nature, going down to Bethlehem, becoming a babe, waiting a while till the seed was ready, and then standing by the Jordan, and by the hill-side, and at Capernaum, and Nazareth, and everywhere scattering those great seeds that have made the wilderness and the solitary place to be glad, and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. See how all Christendom has sprung from the sowing of that Man; and our glorious Lord has long been reaping, and this day is reaping still, the harvest of the seed-sowing on the hill-sides of Galilee. “The Sower went forth to sow.” Are you not glad to be in that noble line? Do you not feel it to be a high honour, even if you are the very least of the sowers, to be one of those who have sowed the gospel of God?

But who are the sowers who came next? Men “of whom the world was not worthy,”-men who suffered for their Lord and Master, his apostles, and those who received their word, and who were faithful even unto death, a goodly army of all sorts of people, old and young, rich and poor, wise and unlettered. And there has always continued a band of sowers going forth to sow,-men who could not help doing it, like the tinker of Bedford, to wit. They commanded him not to sow any more of the seed, and they cast him into prison because he would still do it; but, through the window of that prison he kept on sowing great handfuls of seed which are, even now, falling upon the broad acres of our own and other lands. When they bade him be quiet, he said, “If you let me out of prison to-day, I will preach again to-morrow, by the grace of God.” “Oh, then!” they answered, “go back to your cell, sir.” “Yes,” he said, “and I will lie there till the moss grows on my eyelids, before I will make you any promise that I will be silent.” He must sow, he could not help it. Well, now, to-day, it is imagined by some that the new theology is to put an end to our sowing of the good seed of the kingdom; but will it? I believe that the sowers will still go to every lane and alley of the city, and to every hamlet and village of our country, when God wills it, for the gospel is as everlasting as the God who gave it, and, therefore, it cannot die out; and when they think that they have killed the plant, it will spring up everywhere more vigorous than before.

The sower is not only a man of an honourable line, but he is also a worker together with God. It is God’s design that every plant should propagate and reproduce its like; and especially is it his design that wheat, and other cereals so useful to men, should be continued and multiplied on the face of the earth. Who is to do it? God will see that it is done; and, usually, he employs men to be his agents. There are some seeds that never can be sown by men, but only by birds. I need not go into the details, but it is a fact that no man could make the seed grow if he did sow it; it must be done by a bird. But as to wheat, man must sow that; you cannot go into any part of the world, and find a field of wheat unless a man has sown the seed to produce it. You may find fields full of thistles, but wheat must be sown. It is not a wild thing, it must have a man to care for it; and God, therefore, links himself with man in the continuance of wheat on the face of the earth; and he has so arranged that, while he could spread the gospel by his Spirit without human voices, while he could bring untold myriads to himself without any instrumentality, yet he does not do so; and, as means to the end he has in view, he intends you to speak, that he may speak through you, and that, in the speaking, the seed may be scattered, which he shall make to bring forth an abundant harvest.

Now, secondly, what did this sower do? He “went forth.” I am going to dwell upon that fact for a few minutes.

I think this means, first, that he bestirred himself. He said, “It is time that I went forth to sow. I have waited quite long enough for favourable weather; but I remember that Solomon said, ‘He that observeth the wind shall not sow.’ I feel that the sowing time has come for me, and I must set about it.” Can I look upon some here, who have been members of the church for years, but who have never yet done anything for the Lord? Brother or sister, if you have been a servant of God for many years, and have never yet really worked for the salvation of souls, I want you now just to say to yourself, “Come now, I must really get at this work.” You will be going home soon; and when your Master says to you, “Did you do any sowing for me?” you will have to reply, “No, Lord; I did plenty of eating. I went to the Tabernacle, and I enjoyed the services.” “But did you do any sowing?” “No, Lord; I did a great deal of hoarding; I laid up a large quantity of the good seed.” “But did you do any sowing? he will still ask, and that will be a terrible question for those who never went forth to sow. You are very comfortable at home, are you not? In the long winter evenings that are coming on, it will be so pleasant to enjoy yourselves at home of an evening. There, stir the fire, and draw the curtain close, and let us sit down, and spend a happy time. Yes, but is it not time for you, Mr. Sower, to go forth? The millions of London are perishing; asylums for the insane are filling, jails are filling, poverty is abounding, and drunkenness at every street-corner. Harlotry is making good men and women to blush. It is time to set about work for the Lord if I am ever to do it. What are some of you doing for God? Oh, that you would begin to take stock of your capacity, or your incapacity, and say, “I must get to work for the Master. I am not to spend my whole life thinking about what I am going to do; I must do the next thing, and do it at once, or I may be called home, and my day be over before I have sown a single handful of wheat.”

Next, the sower quitted his privacy. He came out from his solitude, and began to sow. This is what I mean. At first, a Christian man very wisely lives indoors. There is a lot of cleaning and scrubbing to be done there. When the bees come out of their cells, they always spend the first few days of their life in the hive cleaning and getting everything tidy. They do not go out to gather honey till they have first of all done the housework at home. I wish that all Christian people would get their housework done as soon as they can. It needs to be done. I mean, acquaintance with experimental matters of indwelling sin, and overcoming grace. But, after that, then the sower went forth to sow. He was not content with his own private experience, but he went forth to sow. There are numbers of people who are miserable because they are always at home. They have cleaned up everything there, even to the bottoms of the saucepans outside, and now they do not know what to do; so they begin blacking them over again, and cleaning them once more; always at work upon the little trifles of their own kitchen. Go out, brother; go out, sister. Important as your experience is, it is only important as a platform for real usefulness. Get all right within, in order that you may get to work without.

The sower, when he went forth to sow, also quitted his occupation of a learner and an enjoyer of the truth. He was in the Bible-class for a year or two, and he gained a deal of Scriptural knowledge there. He was also a regular hearer of the Word. You could see him regularly sitting in his pew, and drinking in the Word; but, after a while, he said to himself, “I have no right to remain in this Bible-class; I ought to be in the Sunday-school, and take a class myself.” Then he said to himself, on a Sabbath evening, “I have been to one service to-day, and have been spiritually fed, so I think I ought to go to one of the lodging-houses in the Mint, and speak to the people there, or find some other holy occupation in which I can be doing some good to others.” So he went forth to sow, and I want to stir you all up to do this. Perhaps I do not need to say much upon this matter to my own people here, but there are also many strangers with us. I would like to do with you what Samson did with the foxes and firebrands. We have far too many professing Christians who are doing next to nothing. If I could send you among the standing corn of some of the churches, to set them on fire, it would not be a bad Thursday evening’s work.

“A sower went forth to sow.” Where did he come from? I do not know what house he came from, but I can tell you the place from which he last came. He came out of the granary. He must have been to the granary to get the seed. At least, if he did not go there before he went to sow, he did not have anything that was worth sowing. O my dear brothers and sisters, especially my brethren in the ministry, we must always go to the granary, must we not? Without the diligent and constant study of Scripture, of what use will our preaching be? “I went into the pulpit,” said one, “and I preached straight off just what came into my mind, and thought nothing of it.” “Yes,” said another, “and your people thought nothing of it, too.” That is sure to be the case. You teachers, who go to your classes quite unprepared, and open your Bible, and say just what comes first, should remember that God does not want your nonsense. “Oh, but!” says one, “it is not by human wisdom that souls are saved.” No, nor is it by human ignorance. But if you profess to teach, do learn. He can never be a teacher who is not first a learner. I am sure that, when the sower went forth to sow, the last place he came from was the granary; and mind that you go to the granary, too, dear worker.

I wonder whether this sower did what I recommend every Christian sower to do; namely, to come forth from the place where he had steeped his seed. One farmer complained that his wheat did not grow, and another asked him, “Do you steep your seed?” “No,” he replied, “I never heard of such a thing.” The first one said, “I steep mine in prayer, and God prospers me.” If we always steep our heavenly seed in prayer, God will prosper us also. For one solitary man to stand up, and preach, is poor work; but for two of us to be here, is grand work. You have heard the story of the Welsh preacher who had not arrived when the service ought to have been begun, and his host sent a boy to the room to tell him that it was time to go to preach. The boy came hurrying back, and said, “Sir, he is in his room, but I do not think he is coming. There is somebody in there with him. I heard him speaking very loudly, and very earnestly, and I heard him say that if that other person did not come with him, he would not come at all, and the other one never answered him, so I do not think he will come.” “Ah!” said the host, who understood the case, “he will come, and the other one will come with him.” Oh! it is good sowing when the sower goes forth to sow, and the Other comes with him! Then we go forth with steeped seed, seed that is sprouting in our hands as we go forth. This does not happen naturally, but it does happen spiritually. It seems to grow while we are handling it, for there is life in it; and when it is sown, there will be life in it to our hearers.

Further, this sower went forth into the open field. Wherever there was a field ready for the sowing, there he came. Beloved friends, we must always try to do good where there is the greatest likelihood of doing good. I do not think that I need to go anywhere else than here, for here are the people to whom I can preach; but if this place was not filled with people, I should feel that I had no right to stand here, and preach to empty pews. If it is so in your little chapel, if the people do not come,-I do not desire that the chapel should be burnt down, but it might be a very mitigated calamity if you had to turn out into the street to preach, or if you had to go to some hall, or barn, for some people might come and hear you there who will never hear you now. You must go forth to sow. You cannot sit at your parlour window, and sow wheat; and you cannot stand on one little plot of ground, and keep on sowing there. If you have done your work in that place, go forth to sow elsewhere. Oh, that the Church of Christ would go forth into heathen lands! Oh, that there might be, among Christians, a general feeling that they must go forth to sow! What a vast acreage there still is upon which not a grain of God’s wheat has ever yet fallen! Oh, for a great increase of the missionary spirit! May God send it upon the entire Church until everywhere it shall be said, “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.” There is a “behold” in my text, which I have saved up till now: “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.” He went as far as ever he could to sow the good seed, that his master might have a great harvest from it; let us go and do likewise.

When did this man go forth to sow? Our farming friends begin to sow very soon after harvest. That is the time to sow for Christ. As soon as ever you have won one soul for him, try and win another by God’s grace. Say to yourself what the general said to his troops when some of them came riding up, and said, “Sir, we have captured a gun from the enemy.” “Then,” said he, “go and capture another.” After the reaping, let the sowing follow as speedily as possible. In season, this sower sowed. It is a great thing to observe the proper season for sowing, but it is a greater thing to sow in improper seasons also, for out of season is sometimes the best season for God’s sowers to sow. “Be instant in season, out of season,” was Paul’s exhortation to Timothy. Oh, for grace to be always sowing! I have known good men to go about, and never to be without tracts to give away, and suitable tracts, too. They seem to have picked them out, and God has given them an occasion suitable for the tracts; or if they have not given tracts, they have been ready with a good word, a choice word, a loving word, a tender word. There is a way of getting the gospel in edgewise, when you cannot get it in at the front. Wise sowers sow their seed broadcast, yet I have generally noticed that they never sow against the wind, for that would blow the dust into their eyes; and there is nothing like sowing with the wind. Whichever way the Holy Spirit seems to be moving, and providence is also moving, scatter your seed, that the wind may carry it as far as possible, and that it may fall where God shall make it grow.

Thus I have told you what the man did: “A sower went forth to sow.”

On this occasion, he did not go forth to keep the seed to himself. He went forth to throw it to the wind; he threw it away from himself, scattered it far and wide. He did not go out to defend it; but he threw it about, and left it to take its chance. He did not go, at this time, to examine it, to see whether it was good wheat, or not. No doubt he had done that before; but he just scattered it. He did not go out to winnow it, and blow away the chaff, or pick out any darnel that might be in it. That was all done at home. Now he has nothing to do but to sow it to sow it, to sow it; and he sows it with all his might. He did not even come to push others out of the field who might be sowing bad seed, but he took occasion, at this particular time, to go forth to sow, and to do nothing else.

“One thing at a time, and that done well,

Is a very good rule, as many can tell;”

and it is especially so in the service of God. Do not try to do twenty things at once: “A sower went forth to sow.” His object was a limited one. He did not go forth to make the seed grow. No, that was beyond his power; he went forth to sow. If we were responsible for the effect of the gospel upon the hearts of men, we should be in a sorry plight indeed: but we are only responsible for the sowing of the good seed. If you hear the gospel, dear friends, and reject it, that is your act, and not ours. If you are saved by it, give God the glory; but if it proves to be a savour of death unto death to you, yours is the sin, the shame, and the sorrow. The preacher cannot save souls, so he will not take the responsibility that does not belong to him.

And he did not, at that time, go forth to reap. There are many instances in which the reaper has overtaken the sower, and God has saved souls on the spot while we have been preaching. Still, what this man went forth to do was to sow. Whether there is any soul saved or not, our business is to preach the gospel, the whole gospel, and nothing but the gospel; and we must keep to this one point, preaching Jesus Christ, and him crucified. That is sowing the seed. We cannot create the harvest; that will come in God’s own time.

This man’s one object was positively before him, and we are to impart the truth, to make known to men the whole of the gospel. You are lost, God is gracious, Christ has come to seek and to save that which is lost. Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life. On the cross he offered the sacrifice by which sin is put away. Believe in him, and you live by his death. This sowing, you see, is simply telling out the truth; and this is the main thing that we have to do, dear friends, to keep on telling the same truth over, and over, and over, and over again, till we get it into the minds and hearts of men, and they receive it through God’s blessing. If the sower had sat down at the corner of the field, and played the harp all day, he would not have done his duty; and if, instead of preaching the simple gospel, we talk of the high or deep mysteries of God, we shall not have done our duty. The sower’s one business is to sow; so, stick to your sowing, brothers and sisters. When that is done, and your Master calls you home, he will find you other work to do for him in heaven; but, for the present, this is to be your occupation.

Now, to close, let me remind you that sowing is an act of faith. If a man had not great faith in God, he would not take the little wheat he has, and go and bury it. His good wife might say to him, “John, we shall want that corn for the children, so don’t you go, and throw it out where the birds may eat it, or the worms destroy it.” And you must preach the gospel, and you must teach the gospel, as an act of faith. You must believe that God will bless it. If not, you are not likely to get a blessing upon it. If it is done merely as a natural act, or a hopeful act, that will not be enough; it must be done as an act of confidence in the living God. He bids you speak the Word, and makes you his lip for the time, and he says that his Word shall not return unto him void, but that it shall prosper in the thing whereto he hath sent it.

This sowing was also an act of energy. The word sower is meant to describe an energetic man. He was, as we say, “all there.” So, when we teach Christ, we must teach him with all our might, throwing our very soul into our teaching. O brothers, never let the gospel hang on our lips like icicles! Let it rather be like burning lava from the mouth of a volcano; let us be all on fire with the divine truth that is within our hearts, sowing it with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength.

This sowing was also an act of concentrated energy. The sower “went forth to sow.” He went forth, not with two aims or objects, but with this one; not dividing his life into a multitude of channels, but making all run in one strong, deep current, along this one river-bed.

Now I have done when I invite my brothers and sisters here to go forth from this Tabernacle to sow. You will go down those front steps, or you will go out at the back doors, and scatter all over London. I know not how far you may be going, but let it be written of you to-night, “The sowers went forth to sow,”-they went forth from the Tabernacle with one resolve that, by the power of the living Spirit of God, they who are redeemed with the precious blood of Jesus would make known his gospel to the sons of men, sowing that good seed in every place wherever they have the opportunity, trusting in God to make the seed increase and multiply. Ah, but do not forget to do it even within these walls, for there are some here whom you may never be able to get at again. So, if you can speak to your neighbour in the pew, say a good word for Christ. If you will begin to be sowers, nothing is better than to begin at once. Throw a handful before you get outside the door; who knows whether that first handful shall not be more successful than all you have sown, or shall sow, in after days?

As for you, dear souls, who have never received the living seed, oh, that you would receive it at once! May God, the Holy Spirit, make you to be like well-prepared ground that opens a thousand mouths to take in the seed, and then encloses the seed within itself, and makes it fructify! May God bless you; may he never leave you barren or unfruitful, but may you grow a great harvest to his glory, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-427, 483, 539.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 76

This is one of the “Songs of Degrees.” They are supposed to have been sung as the pilgrim caravan was going up to the temple at Jerusalem. Every time they halted and pitched their tents, they sang a Psalm. If carefully read, it will be found that these Psalms exhibit a real advance in experience. For instance, the keynote of the 125th is stability, while that of the 126th is joy, and especially joyful hope. Each one appears to advance a stage higher than the one that precedes it.

Verse 1. When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.

“It seemed too good to be true. We were in a delirium of joy: ‘We were like them that dream.’ Our slumber had been profound; we thought that God had altogether forgotten us; but when we found that he was coming to our rescue, ‘we were like them that dream.’ ”

2. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing:

“We wanted to express our joy, so laughter came, which is a natural, unartificial mode of expressing delight. Our mouth was filled with laughter. We not only laughed, but we laughed again and again, even as Abraham laughed when a son was promised to him, and as Sarah laughed when Isaac was born.”

2. Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them.

It is a fine time when even the heathen begin to see the joy of believers. They could not help hearing and seeing it, and with astonishment they said, “Jehovah hath done great things for them,” to which the godly replied that it was so. They were not at all ashamed to own it. They had not any of that unhallowed modesty which is afraid to speak to the glory of God, but they said:-

3. The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.

I heard a brother, at a prayer-meeting some time ago, say, “Whereof we desire to be glad.” That is not what these people said; and if the Lord has done great things for you, you are glad,-not only do you desire to be glad, but you are so. It is always a pity to try to improve on Holy Scripture, for it does not go to be improved upon. When the Lord does great things for his people, they are as glad as they can be, and they cannot help saying so.

4. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south.

The river-beds, when the Southern torrents have been dried up, seem to be nothing but a gathering of stones and dust. Then comes a copious rain, bringing a sudden flush of water, and the captivity of the stream is gone. That is the meaning of the prayer: “Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south.”

5, 6. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

Notice that word “doubtless.” If you have any doubt about it in your own case, may the Lord drive all your doubts away! When God says “doubtless”, we must not be doubtful: “shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”