That which is the most simple lesson the gospel has to teach, is often the most difficult lesson for the Christian to learn. That simple lesson is, that we must not look to ourselves for anything good, but that we must look to the Lord alone for all our righteousness. The lesson is short, as well as simple; it is easy to repeat; but, as often as our faith is severely tried, we find how apt we are to forget that which is the very Alpha of the gospel, its rudiments,-That man, in himself, is wholly lost, and that all his hope of help and salvation must rest on Christ;-that, apart from God, there is nothing upon which faith can fasten itself;-and that, without the atoning sacrifice and justifying righteousness of Christ, the quickening and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and the everlasting love of the Father, there is neither joy, nor peace, nor comfort, nor hope to be found anywhere. This seems to be a very easy lesson; yet even aged believers, when their hair is getting grey, and they are about to enter the land of perfect peace and rest, still find the temptation to unbelief too much for them, and they begin to look for something good in the creature, and to seek for happiness in themselves, instead of seeking all good in God.

I want to try to teach you this lesson again, and also to learn it myself, for I need to learn it as much as you do,-the lesson of looking away from our temptations, and from our own weakness and inability to repel those temptations, to him who, having himself suffered being tempted, “is able to succour them that are tempted.” Let us fix our eye upon our great High Priest, and leave Satan and all his insinuations, his blasphemies and his temptations, out of the question. Or, rather, let us bring them to Christ, and see them all finished in him. I am going to address three separate characters that are represented here,-first, the confirmed believer; secondly, the young beginner; and, thirdly, the backslider; and then, summoning the attention of the whole company here assembled, I shall try to commend the comfort and instruction of the text to you all.

You all have your trials, and those trials are of an advanced character. The troubles, with which the plants of God’s right-hand planting are assailed, when they are saplings, are quite inconsiderable compared with those which come upon them when they are like cedars firmly rooted. As surely as our strength increases, so will our sufferings, our trials, our labours, or our temptations. God’s power is never given to a man to be stored up unused. The heavenly food, that is sent to strengthen us, like the manna given to the Israelites in the wilderness, is intended for immediate use. If the Lord sends you much, you shall have nothing beyond what you can use for him; though, blessed be his holy name, if you have but little, you shall have no lack. When the Lord puts upon our feet the shoes of iron and brass, which he has promised us in his ancient covenant, he intends that we should wear them, and walk in them,-not that we should put them into our museum, and gaze upon them as curiosities. If he gives us a strong hand, it is because we have a strong foe to fight with. If he gives us a great meal,-like that which he gave to Elijah,-it is in order that, in the strength of that meal, we may go for forty days, or even longer.

Perhaps, my brother or sister, you are, just now, in great trouble. You have grown in grace, and your troubles have also grown. You feel that you want someone to whom you can tell your trouble;-your trouble very likely arises from the absence of your Lord. Let me remind you that, in this respect, you are very like the Israelites in the wilderness, when Moses had been absent from them for forty days. They said, “What shall we do? Our leader is gone; he, who was king in Jeshurun, has departed from us, and we are left like sheep without a shepherd.” So they went-I dare not say that they went for counsel, but they went-to the high priest, and you remember what they said, and what he did. Alas! he gave them no good counsel, for he was as unwise as they were, and as untried; he had always had Moses by his side ever since the day that the Lord had said, “Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother?… He shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.” Aaron had never been left without his great leader; so, in his absence, he miserably failed, and led the people in the making and worshipping of the golden calf. How different it will be with you, who mourn the loss of the light of your Lord’s countenance, if you go to our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ! He knows the meaning of your present trial, for he had once to cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” You tell him that your “soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death,” and he tells you that it was so with him also, on that night in which he was betrayed, when, “being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” No untried priest is he; he can sympathize, and he can succour.

Take another case, that of Hannah, the “woman of a sorrowful spirit.” She was in a peculiarly trying position. Her husband’s other wife had children, but she had none; though she was greatly beloved of her husband, her adversary vexed her sorely to make her fret. Day by day, this was thrown in her teeth, that, because of some sin, God had not granted her the desire of her heart. A trial in one’s own house is one of the saddest places where it can come; the saddest, perhaps, with the exception of a thorn in the flesh, which comes still closer home. So poor Hannah, having that trial at home, thought she would go up to the sanctuary in Shiloh. There, she “prayed unto the Lord, and wept sore, and she vowed a vow.” But “she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.” So Eli, the high priest, thought that she was drunken; and, instead of comforting and consoling her, he spoke harshly to her, depressed and broken as her spirit was. You, my brethren, and you, my sisters, too, may have some trouble which you dare not tell to another, though it is sorely vexing you, and threatens even to break your heart. But when you go to the great High Priest, he will understand all about you, he will not need you to explain your sorrow to him, for he knows exactly what it is, and he will apply the healing balm to your sorrowful spirit, and send you on your way full of peace and comfort.

I offer, then, to you, who are advanced believers, this very comforting reflection,-in Christ’s sufferings, you are quite certain to find something akin to your own; and, in Christ’s heart, you are quite sure to find a deep well of divine sympathy; so you need not hesitate to go to him, or doubt that his loving heart will overflow with sympathy towards you, whatever your trial may be.

But, more than that, while I would console you by reminding you that Christ has suffered even as you have, I would also comfort you with the reflection that, this very day, he still suffers with you. Suppose, now, that a man could be so high in stature that his head could be in heaven while his feet were on earth, yet, whenever his feet suffered, his head would suffer, too. In the Canticles, the spouse says of her Heavenly Bridegroom, “His head is as the most fine gold, … his legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold.” As John saw him, “in the isle that is called Patmos,” “his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace.” This suggests to me a parable; the feet of Christ, which form His Church on earth, still glow “as if they burned in a furnace.” The glorious Head of the Church, up in heaven, “is as the most fine gold;” but there is not the least glow of heat, in the feet on earth, which is not felt by the Head in heaven. There is not a pang, that rends your heart, which Jesus does not feel. There is not a sorrow, that cuts deeply into your soul, which does not also cut into his; so you can still sing,-

“He feels at his heart all our sighs and our groans

For we are most near him, his flesh and his bones;

In all our distresses our Head feels the pain,

They all are most needful, not one is in vain.”

Does it not comfort you to know that Christ can sympathize with you, and that he must sympathize with you;-can, because he has suffered; must, because he suffers still?

I may also add, for your comfort, that all this-Christ’s suffering as you do, and his suffering with you,-must tend to shield you in your trials. A country minister, preaching upon the text, “Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?” made the remark that Christ is a good Physician. “Ah!” said he, “Christ is not like those doctors, who come and say they are sorry for you, whereas, in their hearts, they are glad you are ill; for, if you and others were not ill, there would be no work for them. Or else,” said the preacher, “they look down upon you, and pity you, but not half as much as if they themselves had your complaint, and felt all the pains that you are feeling. But suppose,” he added, “that the doctor had all your pains himself,-suppose you had the headache, and that he looked down on you, and had your headache;-suppose, when you had palpitation of the heart, he had palpitation of the heart, too;-why, he would be very quick to cure you; certainly, he would not let you lie there a moment longer than was necessary, because he himself would be suffering with you.” Now, there is just one objection that may be made to the countryman’s argument,-that is, that the physician might be willing to raise the patient up at once, because he was himself suffering with him; yet he might say, “Here are two of us in the same plight, but my skill fails me here. If I could deliver you, you can well imagine that I would gladly do so, for, in so doing, I should deliver myself as well; but, alas! it is beyond my power, I cannot lighten your burden, nor my own; we can only sit down together, and mingle our tears, but we cannot assist one another.”

But it is not so with the good Physician, for he has both the will and the power to heal us. One motion of that eternal arm, and every cloud, that is wrapped about the sky, shall be folded up, like a worn-out vesture, and cast away. Jesus speaks, and the boisterous billows cease their raging, and the wild winds are hushed to sleep. “Let there be light,” saith he; and, over the thick darkness of our affliction and adversity, comes the bright gleam of joy and prosperity He did but lift up his voice, and “kings of armies did flee apace.” O Jesus, our Lord, when thou comest forth for the deliverance of thy people, who can stand before thee? As the wax melteth before the fire, and as the fat of rams is consumed upon thine altar, so do our trials and troubles melt and vanish away when thou comest forth for the deliverance of thy people! Remember, believers, that you not only have the love of Christ’s heart, but you also have the strength of Christ’s arm at your disposal. He ruleth over all things, in heaven, and earth, and hell, so rest in him, for still he bears the scars of his wounds to show that he has suffered even as you do. Still doth he prove himself to be man, seeing that he suffers with you; yet is he also “very God of very God,” into whose hand all power in heaven and earth is committed. He can, he must, he will deliver his people, and bring them out of all their trials into his eternal kingdom and glory.

Secondly, I am going to speak to anxious enquirers and young beginners.

I hear a plaintive voice, over yonder, saying to me, “I know, sir, that the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin; and I know that, the moment I believe in him, I have nothing to fear concerning the past, for that sin is blotted out, once for all; but my fear is that, if I commence a Christian life, it will not last long. I am afraid I shall be like Pliable, and turn back at the Slough of Despond; or if my neighbours jeer at me, I fear that I shall be ashamed to go forward in spite of their opposition. Even if I get over that, I feel that I cannot trust my own evil heart, which is so apt to deceive me. If old temptations should be overcome, new ones will be sure to arise, and I cannot help fearing as to what will become of me. I have seen some, who made a fair show in the flesh, turn back, and go straight to perdition; and I tremble lest it should be so with me also. How can I hope to withstand the imperious lusts which were too strong for me when first they allured my simple heart? How much more shall they be too mighty for me now that sin has gathered the force of habit, and practice, like an iron net, has enfolded me in its cruel grip! When I was a youth, I could not stand against this great enemy of my soul; how, then, shall I be a match for him now that I have grown old and feeble? The old Adam will be too strong for the young Melancthon.”

Well, dear friends, I have seen some persons, who have been truly converted to God, who have been greatly troubled with this fear. Indeed, in some instances, I have even known of poor men kneeling down, and praying that God would let them die, there and then, sooner than that they should live to prove that their feelings were only a delusion, and that their supposed repentance was merely a passing excitement. Some of us can fully sympathize with those who pray such a prayer as that, for we have often felt that the most terrible death would be preferable to the disgrace of bringing dishonour upon the name of Jesus by turning back to the City of Destruction after we had once started for the Celestial City. But, my dear friend, if the Lord has begun a good work in thy soul, and led thee to trust in Jesus as thy Saviour, my text will just meet that fear of thine, for the apostle here says that Christ “is able to succour them that are tempted.” You will be tempted;-I will not delude you with the notion that you will not;-and you cannot, by yourself, stand up against that temptation; but Christ, “in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, is able to succour them that are tempted.” This truth we set before you as a shield against all these dark, mysterious thoughts;-Christ can, and he will, if you trust in him, protect you from the sin and the temptation which you rightly dread.

“But how is this to be done?” asks someone. Well, first of all, Christ can do it by the force of his own example. He can show you-as he has done in his Word; but he can show you, by his Spirit opening up that Word, how he was once subject to just the same temptation that now assails you. Are you poor, and are you tempted to use wrong means to get rich? Christ can tell you how, in the wilderness, “when he had fasted forty days, and forty nights, he was afterwards an hungred,” and Satan came to him, and said, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Are you a man in a high position, and are you tempted to do some daring and reckless deed? Christ can remind you how, when he was on a pinnacle of the temple, Satan said to him, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down.” Or do you seem, just now, to have great power within your reach if you will but stain your hand to grasp it? Christ can tell you how Satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to him, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Then he will remind you how he passed through all these ordeals without sin, for the prince of this world could find nothing in him to respond to his temptations. He was tried and tested again and again, but no trace of alloy could be discovered even by the devil himself. Though he was often shot at by his great adversary, he was never wounded by the fiery shafts; so, inspired by his glorious example, you may say,-

“Through floods and flames, if Jesus lead

I’ll follow where he goes.”

You not only have Christ’s example to keep you from sin, but you also have his presence. Do you know what this means? Let me give you an instance of it. There was a certain merchant, who had been, again and again, tempted to an act of sin. It was the usual custom in his trade, everybody else did it; but he knew that it was wrong, and his soul revolted against it. As he sat in his counting-house, he saw, pictured before his mind’s eye, his wife homeless, and his children crying for bread; and the demon whispered to him, “Do it; do it.” Then another picture flitted before his eyes,-he and his wife and children were rich, their home was filled with good things, and again the adversary said, “Do it; do it.” He saw the advantages that were to be gained by doing it, but he went home, and pondered the whole matter. His soul was heavy, and a stern struggle was proceeding within him. Then he went to his chamber, and shut himself in alone, and, falling upon his knees, told out all his difficulty and temptations to his Father in heaven. Then, suddenly, not before his eyes, but to faith’s inner eye, there appeared a vision of the crucified Christ, who showed him his pierced hands, and feet, and side, and then said to him, “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. Thou hast not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” The merchant, fixing his tearful eyes upon his Saviour, remembered Paul’s words, “Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds;” he came down from his bedroom, his soul was glad, for his mind was made up, and he said to himself, “I will not do it; I can be poor, but I cannot sin.” Others marked the man, and wondered at the change in his appearance. He walked erect, no longer like one bowed down beneath a heavy burden. Many men marvelled at him, and asked what had happened to him, but none could tell. The secret was, that the crucified Christ had appeared to him, and had given him the support of his divine presence. That was sufficient to succour him in the time of temptation, for Christ, having himself suffered being tempted, was able to succour his faithful follower when he also was tempted.

I know that I am addressing someone, who says,-I will use, as far as possible, his own words,-“Look here, sir; I have always been in the habit of being a jolly fellow, meeting with a number of boon companions to drink, and chat, and sing, and so on. I do not know that we did very much amiss; but, still, I could not do it again if I became a Christian. Suppose, now, that I should be invited to join the same company to-morrow;-I am not sure what I might do, I might refuse their invitation;-but if I were asked again and again, and they jeered at me for refusing, I might give in. Suppose that I did not yield, there is another difficulty. I have been a man of such-and-such a character, and have formed such-and-such habits; now, how in the world am I to overcome those habits? How am I to become a Christian, and to continue so to the end?”

These are very proper questions, and I answer,-You are utterly helpless, apart from him who is able to succour them that are tempted; but if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, he will give you a new nature. That new nature, it is true, will not at once cast out the old nature; your old nature will still be there, but the new nature will struggle against it; and, ultimately, through the effectual working of the Holy Spirit, the new nature will prevail over the old nature, and you will be “a new creature in Christ Jesus;” old things will have passed away, and all things will have become new. You will say, as a young convert did, when he came to join the church, “I don’t know which it is, but either everything else is changed, or else I am.” It was in himself, of course, that the great change had been wrought, but that changed the aspect of everything else.

Let me give you a little parable to illustrate this point. A lion and a tiger used, frequently, to roam the forests together, in search of prey that might satisfy their bloodthirsty appetites. But, one day, an angel came, touched the lion, and changed him into a lamb. The next day, the tiger came, and wanted the lion to go with him to his feast of blood. Do you think it was difficult for him to refuse the invitation? Oh, no! “I have no inclination to go,” said he. The tiger laughed scornfully, and said, “Aha! you have become pious, have you? Now you will go to the sheepfolds, and sneak behind the shepherds’ heels,-you that were once so brave!” And the tiger despised him, and said, “You are miserable to be thus tied up like a dog, and not to dare to come and do as we have always done.” “Nay,” said the lion, “it is not that I dare not go with you, but I have no wish to go. I am not miserable because I cannot go with you on such an errand,-I should be miserable if I did go. The fact is, I cannot now do what I once did, for I am not what I once was. My new nature has brought me new loves, new hatreds, new preferences, new pursuits, so I cannot go with you on your bloodthirsty expedition.”

If God has wrought a similar change in you, and transformed the lion into a lamb, and the raven into a dove, it will not be difficult for you to be kept from sin, for you will hate sin with a perfect hatred, and have no fellowship with it; and, besides that, as your nature will be renewed, day by day, by the Holy Spirit, with a constant infusion of everything that is good, and gracious, and Godlike, do you not see that sin shall no longer be like a strong spear to pierce you, but as a fragile reed which shall snap against the armour of proof which your soul shall wear?

Let me remind you, who are thinking of going upon pilgrimage, but are afraid of the lions and the dragons in the way, that he, under whose banner you hope to enlist, never suffered one soldier, who was in his service, to perish. If you become a sheep under the care of the good Shepherd, remember that-

“His honour is engaged to save

The meanest of his sheep.”

If you are a mariner, bound for the Fair Havens of eternal felicity, recollect that the Lord High Admiral of the seas of providence and grace has safely convoyed into port every vessel that has yet been committed to his charge; not one has ever been wrecked or lost in any way. Trust yourself to his protection and guidance, and he will bring you also in safely. What if your temper be, naturally, furious? What if your evil propensities have been indulged until they have become as giants holding you in cruel captivity? What if your passions boil, and burn, and blaze, like Vesuvius in eruption? What if your temptations should come upon you as the Philistines came upon Samson? He, to whom you commit the keeping of your soul, shall make you master over all; and you shall yet be, with the great multitude whom no man can number, more than conqueror through him who hath loved you. Oh, that the Holy Spirit would constrain many of you, straightway, to leave your old master, and to enter the service of the Saviour! You will never find a better master than the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Ah!” said a sailor, seventy years of age, who had heard a sermon that had deeply affected him, and, I trust, had been the means of renewing his nature, “I am going to haul down my old flag to-day. I have sailed under the colours of the Black Prince all these years, but they are coming down to-day; and I am going to run up the blood-red cross in their place, and I hope to sail under that flag until I die.” So may it be with many of you! Say, “O Satan, we have served thee far too long! Miserable is thy service, despicable are thy ways, degrading is our position, and awful must be our end if we remain in thy power.” Then turn to the Lord, and appeal to him. Say, “O God, help us! We cry to thee. Bring us, we pray thee, from under the tyrant’s sway. Help us to yield ourselves up to thee this very hour. Take our hearts, black as they are, and wash them in the precious blood of Jesus Christ, thy well-beloved Son. Change the hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. Make us to be thy servants while we live, and to enter into thy rest and thy glory when we die.”

I have thus, I hope, spoken somewhat to the comfort of young beginners and anxious enquirers.

Now, in the third place, I am going to speak briefly to backsliders.

Where art thou, backslider? I cannot pick thee out; but there is an eye that sees thee, and that weeps over thee. Ten years ago, you used to sit down at the communion table; twenty years ago, you were a reputable member of the church; but you fell, and, oh, what a fall was yours! Since that time, you have not wholly forsaken the house of God, though you have wandered hither and thither; but you have never dared to call yourself a Christian again. You lost the light of God’s countenance long ago; and you find the service of Satan very hard, yet you think you must go downward to despair. You feel that you are in the iron cage of which Bunyan wrote, and you fear that you will never get out of it. Poor backslider, I cannot mention thy name without a tear; and if I, a fellow-creature, thus weep over thee, much more does that compassionate Saviour, who suffered being tempted, and who is able to succour them that are tempted.

Hark! If you will but incline your ear, you may hear a note that will cheer your heart, and yet break it, too! ’Tis God who speaks, and he is having a controversy with himself over you. Justice says, “Destroy him;” but Mercy says, “Spare him.” The very gospel, which thou hast despised, witnesses against thee; but, at the same time, pleads for thee. The Lord still says to backsliders, as he did to his ancient people when they wandered from him, “Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you.” “Married unto you!” This marriage bond cannot be broken; thou hast played the harlot, and gone after many lovers; but thy first Husband hates putting away, and even now invites thee to return to him. So,-

“To thy Father’s bosom pressed,

Once again a child confessed;

From his house no more to roam,

Come, O poor backslider, come!”

I may even be addressing some, who once drank from the cup of communion, but who have turned aside to drink the cup of devils. I may be speaking to some, to whom, for years, the Sabbath has been a day for business instead of a day for worship. Yet you could never get the sound of the Sabbath bell out of your ears; and, even now, you cannot forget the profession you once made, nor the joys you once knew; and you cannot be easy in your sins. There is a spark of heavenly fire that still lingers within you, and it will not die out, even though you seek to quench it that it may not hinder you from going after your lusts. That is God’s grip still upon you; oh, that I might be his ambassador of peace, to fling wide the doors of his mercy to you! Poor prodigal, thou art clad in rags; the sty is thine only sleeping-place, and the swine thine only companions; thou wouldst fain fill thy belly with the husks that they eat: but thou must not, for thou art a God-made man, and swine’s food can never satisfy thee. As thou standest here, perhaps there is a tear trickling down thy cheek because of the many years that thou hast spent in sin, and thou art saying, “I would arise, and go unto my Father, but I fear that he has forgotten me.” Oh, say not that! But do as the prodigal did; arise, and come unto thy Father, for he will give thee such a reception as the prodigal received. You shall have the kiss of forgiveness upon your brow, the best robe of your Saviour’s perfect righteousness shall be cast all around you, the ring of everlasting love shall be placed upon your finger, the shoes of peace shall be fitted to your feet, you shall eat the fat things of the promises of God; there shall be music in your ears, music in your house, music on earth, and music in heaven itself, because he that was dead is alive again, he that was lost is found.

This should be your consolation: “In that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” Did I hear you say, “But I cannot see how Christ was ever in the same position that I am in, for he was never a backslider”? That is quite true; but what are your trials? First, you are tried by the burden of sin that is resting upon you; and Christ had the sins of all his people resting upon him, so he knows what that burden means. Next, you are tried by the loss of the light of God’s countenance; so was he, for he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Then, you say that you have lost all your friends; so had he, for, in his time of trial, “they all forsook him, and fled.” You say, also, that you are despised, that you are the subject of the song of the drunkard and the mirth of the mocker; so was he, for he could truly say, “Reproach hath broken mine heart.” So Christ can sympathize-not with your sin, for he never had any of his own,-but with your sorrow, which is the consequence of sin, for he had to bear all that before you did.

Now I have to close by speaking to the whole assembly.

I think I might liken you, on a large scale, to that little band of pilgrims,-Christiana, and Mercy, and Matthew, and James, and the rest of them who started from the City of Destruction,-who, when they came to the Interpreter’s House, were put under the escort of Mr. Greatheart. I am not Mr. Greatheart;-I am but one of the children;-but our great Saviour is Mr. Greatheart, and he is going with us all the way to the Celestial City. We are but like those boys and girls, and we are afraid of what we may meet on the road. There are lions in the way; but Mr. Greatheart can kill them, or restrain them from hurting us. There is Apollyon in the valley, but our Greatheart is more than a match for the arch-fiend. We shall have to go through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, yet each one of us shall be able to say, “I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” We shall have to go through the Enchanted Ground; but, as Christ will be with us, we shall not fall asleep there to our grievous hurt. We shall have to go through Vanity Fair, and to bear the jeer and the jibe of the mocking mob; but we can bear all that, for we shall have our great Captain with us. But,-and here comes the dark thought to some,-we shall at last come to the dark river without a bridge. Mr. Greatheart-whom Bunyan meant to be the minister, had to go through the stream with the rest; but when we come to the river, our Mr. Greatheart, Christ himself,-will go through the river with each one of us. He will put his almighty arm around us; and when we get where our feet cannot feel the bottom, he will say to each one of us, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.” To die with Jesus is better even than living with him except that higher style of living with him beyond the river of death, for-

“Jesus can make a dying bed

Feel soft as downy pillows are,

While on his breast I lean my head,

And breathe my life out sweetly there.”

In this sense, our text shines like a cluster of stars. Jesus died, Jesus rose again; in that he died, he can sympathize; in that he rose again, he can succour. Lay hold of this text whenever you think of death with any gloomy cast in your mind; and let us go on our way, each one singing,-

“Since Jesus is mine, I’ll not fear undressing,

But gladly put off this garment of clay;

To die in the Lord is a covenant blessing,

Since Jesus to glory through death led the way.”

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

2 CORINTHIANS 6:1-18

2 Cor. Chap. 6 Verse 1. We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.

God’s servants are called to take many different positions. They are ambassadors under one aspect; they are workers under another. As ambassadors, they are ambassadors for Christ; as workers, they are workers together with God. Oh, how much it costs to win a soul! I mean, not only how much it cost the Saviour, so that he broke his very heart over it, and poured out his life’s blood;-but also how much it must cost the messenger of peace! He must know how to beseech and implore; and when even this fails, he must still go on toiling, labouring, as a worker together with God.

2. (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)

I trust that, if I am addressing any who say that it is too late for them to be saved, and that their sin is too great to be forgiven, this text will drive away that unholy and unwarranted fear: “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Then the apostle goes on to speak of himself, and the rest of the apostles and other preachers of the Word:-

3, 4. Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God,

As those early servants of the Lord really did.

4-10. In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

All these things Paul and his brethren were to be and to do in order to win souls for Christ; just as the hunters in the cold North seek after furs, and try all sorts of plans to catch the wild creatures on which they grow. They will trap them, or snare them, or shoot them; but, somehow or other, they will get them. They will be on the alert all day, and all night, too. They will learn the habits of every creature they have to deal with, but they will get the furs somehow. And so must the true minister of Christ be willing to be anything, to do anything, to suffer anything, to bear reproach and shame, to be nothing, or to be all things to all men, if by any means he may save some.

11, 12. O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.

If they were not saved, it was not because Paul did not open his mouth to speak to them, and to warn and invite them, nor because he did not open his heart, and feel, in his very bowels, the movements of a sacred compassion for them.

Now, having thus spent himself in his endeavour to bring them to Christ, he writes to those whom he did bring:-

13. Now for a recompence in the same,

There must be some wages for this blessed work. The apostle wisely puts it on that footing, as if, surely, they were indebted to him; but the payment that he seeks is, of course, no personal gain to him; he only puts it in that form, but it is a gain to them.

13. (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged.

“There has been so much earnest labour to secure your conversion, so be ye also in earnest to bring in others. Get large thoughts of God; be fully consecrated to him; spend and be spent for him. Follow a good example.” Paul could well urge them to that consecration when he had given himself so completely to the work of winning souls: “Be ye also enlarged.”

14. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers:

Not in any way,-neither in marriage, which is the chief of all forms of yoking, nor yet in business or other partnerships.

14. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

You must be in the same world with them, but keep yourself distinct from them. Go not into their society by your own choice, nor seek your pleasure with them.

15-18. And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

RESTLESS! PEACELESS!

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, June 2nd, 1904,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, May 21st, 1876.

“But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”-Isaiah 57:20, 21.

Among the greatest privileges of the believer in Christ are those choice blessings, rest and peace. Believing in Christ Jesus unto eternal life, he knows that his sin is pardoned, that he is a child of God, that omnipotence will preserve him even to the end, and that he will, by-and-by, be with Christ where he is, not only to behold, but also to share his glory for ever and ever. Consequently, his heart is at rest, for he leaves all that concerns him, whether in the present or the future, in the hands of his Heavenly Father, casting all his care upon him who careth for him; and, therefore, he has peace, perfect peace, in his soul. This peace and rest, which the believer enjoys even here and now, will deepen and increase until, in eternity, they will reach their perfection, and the child of God will, for ever and for evermore, in the blessed state above, be without even the slightest disturbance of heart, and will rest in the presence of God with his glorified spirit as full of joy as it can possibly be. The apostle Paul truly writes, “We which have believed do enter into rest;” but he also adds, just as truly, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.”

These choice privileges of rest and peace belong, however, exclusively to believers; “the wicked” have no portion in them. They are, according to the testimony of Holy Writ, like the restless sea, which is never quite quiet, even in its greatest calm; and is never to be trusted for a resting-place; but, ever and anon, is lashed into fury, seething like the contents of a huge cauldron, and hurling up from its depths the mire and dirt which have lain there unseen;-such is the condition of the unregenerate heart of unrenewed man.

There are two things, in our text, of which I am going to try to speak. The first is, a fact observed: “the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” The second is, a sentence pronounced; and it is pronounced by God himself: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”

First, then, here is a fact observed,-that the wicked are like the troubled sea. Who are these wicked people, who are like the restless waves of the turbulent ocean? I take the term to describe two classes of sinners.

First, by the expression, “the wicked”, as used in the Scriptures, we must often understand overt transgressors,-persons who are living in the indulgence of open and known sin. Then, secondly, there is another class of sinners,-not open transgressors, like the others I have mentioned; still, they have heard the gospel, and they have rejected it; and, consequently, since we cannot put them down in any other category, and since their sin has a special aggravation about it because of the light and privileges which they have enjoyed, and yet despised, or neglected, they also must be put down with “the wicked”, for they, too, “are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest.” Let us begin with those, whose sins, as Paul says, “are open beforehand, going before to judgment.” Why are they unrestful and unpeaceful?

First, because they are themselves swayed by restless passions. There are some sins, which will not let a man be quiet so long as he indulges in them. Take the sin of lust, for instance; who can ever satisfy its cravings? Let a man once indulge his evil passions, and can those passions ever be satisfied? Nay, they keep on getting more and more hungry, as a man would become the more thirsty through drinking brine. Does lust ever, of its own accord, cease its cravings? Nay; it is as insatiate as the grave itself, and it will suck a man’s very life away unless the grace of God shall mercifully and miraculously interpose. If thou, young man, dost give thyself up to what is erroneously called the pursuit of pleasure, it is quite certain that thou wilt not find rest for thy soul in that direction! Thou hast taken a dose of poison that will make thy blood hot and feverish, and that will cause true rest to flee from thy pillow. This is a subject upon which I cannot say more, in this public assembly, except to add, with the preacher of old, “Know thou, O young man, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment!” Let the solemn admonition of good Dr. Doddridge come home to thy heart, and say thou with him,-

“How will my heart endure

The terrors of that day;

When earth and heaven before his face,

Astonish’d shrink away?”

Then listen to his earnest exhortation, and not only listen to it, but at once obey it,-

“Ye sinners, seek his grace,

Whose wrath ye cannot bear;

Fly to the shelter of his cross,

And find salvation there.”

Take, next, the sin of anger. There are some persons, who very soon get angry, but they do not as quickly cool down; or, if they do, they nurse their hatred, and watch for any opportunity of paying back their adversary in the base coin of revenge. Let me say to such a man,-You cannot enjoy real rest and peace unless you fully and freely forgive all who have wronged you. You may try to lay a salve upon your conscience, and to preach peace to your heart; but if resentment still lingers in your bosom, and especially the resentment which seeks an opportunity to display itself in an act of ill-will, you cannot rest. There are some animals that seem born to fight; and if they cannot tear others in pieces, they seem as if they must tear themselves; or, like a serpent, which, in its rage, will poison itself. Such is anger; such is malice; and thou, O man, must get rid of these evil things if thou desirest to know what real rest means!

“Sin, like a venomous disease,

Infects our vital blood;

The only balm is sovereign grace,

And the physician God.

“Madness by nature reigns within,

The passions burn and rage;

Till God’s own Son, with skill divine,

The inward fire assuage.”

Such, too, is envy,-a very common sin which is not spoken of as often as it should be. This is the sin of the poor man, who cannot bear to see another man better off than he himself is. This is the sin of the sick man, who is envious of the healthy. Ay, but envy may be found, not only among the poor, but also among princes; not only among the sick, but also among the strong. And when a man once becomes so envious that another man’s joy is his sorrow, and another man’s gain is his loss, and he cannot be content with his own lot because another man has more honour, or more money, or more friends than he has, he has a poisoned arrow rankling within him, which will breed a thousand woes, and make rest of heart impossible to him. Envy even grows by feeding upon itself; therefore, I charge thee, whatever thou doest, get rid of it, if thou desirest to find real rest.

Pride is another enemy of peace and rest. If you see a proud man, you may feel sure that he is not a restful man. It is in the Valley of Humiliation that the flowers of peace will be discovered. As for the pompous people, who are so high in their own esteem that they look down on all others,-pity them, my brethren; do not get angry with them. It is a sad disease from which they are suffering; their brain is turned, so deal gently with them, think as kindly of them as you can, and pray to God to heal them. Mind, also, that you do not catch their complaint, for it is very contagious, and there are many who are proud of their humility, and who condemn the pride of others when, all the while, they are really still prouder themselves.

Then there is avarice; and when a man is once possessed by the desire to amass gain, there is no peace or rest for him. Suppose he acquires what he reckons to be wealth; it ceases to be wealth as soon as he has gained it. He thought that, if ever he should secure a certain sum which he had set his heart on, he would retire from business; but, having saved that amount, he now regards it as quite insufficient; and ten times as much is the mark at which he now aims. If he should ever succeed in hoarding that amount, he will find that he is further off the goal of his desire than he was when he started. Some there are, I do verily believe, who, if they could claim the whole world as their own, would want the sun and moon and stars as well, for nothing could ever satisfy them. Once get into the grip of avarice, and rest is impossible.

And it is much the same also with ambition,-not the desire to use one’s capacities to the full, especially for God’s glory, and the good of our fellow-creatures; but that craving for so-called “glory” which makes a man court, the homage of his fellow-men, and which will not let him be content unless he is set up on a high pedestal for fools to stare at Ah, sir, if thou art ambitious, in that sense, thou and peace have parted company, and are not likely to meet again. But if thou wilt do the right, and leave thy reputation in the hands of God, and especially if thou wilt leave those lofty pathways, which, after all, lead only to the grave, then mayest thou find peace; but thou canst not find it so long as any of these evils, that I have mentioned, are reigning within thy heart.

The first reason, then, why the wicked man’s heart is like the troubled sea is, because there are evil passions within it which will not let it rest.

The next reason is, because the wicked man is agitated by the memory of his old sins. Suppose him to have been, for some years, engaged in an evil course,-in dishonesty or unchastity; he cannot, even if he tries, forget his sins. They have burnt themselves into his very soul; and, what is even worse than the memory of sin, I suppose that you know how every sin breeds other sins, so that, every time you sin, you have a still greater tendency to commit more sin. This is a fact that is strangely true both as to the body and as to the soul; we wear tracks for ourselves where there were none before. If we have, at first, to force our way through the brushwood of conscience, and to cut down, as it were, the old timber of our early instruction and the gracious examples set before us in our childhood; by-and-by we make a trail for ourselves, and then a beaten track, so that it becomes ever easier and yet easier to sin; nay, more than that, there seems to be a pressure put by habit upon a wicked man so that, what he once did from choice, he comes at last to do because he must. Sin in the soul is like leaven in the dough; it heaves, and ferments; and though it was, perhaps, put into you twenty years ago, or more, it will go on fermenting and working until the whole of your manhood shall be soured by it.

Beside all this, the ungodly man is like the sea for restlessness, because, like the sea, he is governed by a greater power than his own. The sea feels the force of the moon, and is agitated and stirred by the mysterious agency of the winds; and the wicked man is under the dominion of the prince of the power of the air. If, for a while, he would be at rest, Satan will not permit him to be in peace. He puts opportunities of sinning before him, and then excites the desire to indulge in the evil thing. Satan is no myth; they, who think that he is, cannot, surely, have opened their eyes, or else they would have discovered, in their very unbelief in his existence, that he had given them that unbelief. Those, who have stood foot to foot with Apollyon, and fought with him, and overcome him in the hour of temptation, will never doubt that there is a great fallen spirit who strives to lead men into sin. Satan and his myriads of myrmidons still lie in wait for the ungodly, or openly drive them into fierce lusts and evil passions so that they sin again and again.

Nor is this all, for wicked men-those who go into open sin,-are kept, by the action of others, from becoming quiet. If it were not for the restraints of society, what horrible places would those be where the utterly dissolute and abandoned assemble! Even as it is, every now and then, we read, in the newspapers, records of the doings of so-called “gentlemen” that reveal to us something of what goes on when Bacchus rules or riots. Then there are the brutalized beings at the other end of the social ladder, the “fiends” who use their boots so heavily upon their wives. Put a few dozen of them together, and let them have their own sweet will. Do not restrain them at all, and see what they will do. God only knows what wondrous patience he has with such men when they get together, and egg each other on in sin. I have often marvelled that he does not speedily put an end to their blasphemy and indecency and cruelty. Yet are they spared, notwithstanding their sin; but they cannot rest, for one will not let the others be quiet; and if, at any time, a good resolution should be formed by one of the company, another laughs that resolution down, and keeps the whole society “like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.”

I do not wonder that a wicked man cannot rest, because such a man is out of gear with the entire universe of God. Lift up your eyes to yonder starry orbs, and remember there is not one of them disobedient to the law of its Maker. The comet, which was thought to be eccentric, obeys in all respects its great Creator’s will. Everything that you can see, from the tiny atom of dust that is borne along by the wind, up to the huge Atlantic billow in which the leviathan feels at home, is under the power of the divine law. From the archangel before the throne of God, down to the midge that dances in the summer sunbeam, everything is obedient to the Lord of all, except the wicked man, and he says, “I will not obey him.” Well, as he is out of gear with all the rest of the universe, is it any wonder that he is restless as the waves of the sea, and that there is no peace for him? If you were to set yourselves to disobey the physical laws of the universe, for instance, paying no regard to the law of gravitation, but leaping from a church spire, or falling down a precipice, you know what would come of such madness. If you ever set yourself up in opposition to law, you may depend upon it that law will get the mastery over you; and the man, who lives in disobedience to God’s moral law, will find that it will be the same with him, and he will have no rest for ever and ever. As God’s servant, I must say to you, very plainly, and very earnestly,-You cannot possibly find rest and peace in the course you are now pursuing. May God enable you to escape from your sins, and to trust in Jesus Christ, his Son, that you may have both joy and peace in believing!

Now I have to speak, very briefly, to those who could not be put down among the outwardly and notoriously wicked. I thank God that you could not; but, still, you have heard the gospel, perhaps for many years, and you understand it, yet you have never received it. There is reconciliation with God to be had, yet you remain his enemy. Now, I will not say, for a moment, that the moral man, who is not a Christian, is to be put in the same category as the immoral. In many respects, he does not do so much harm in the world as the other man does; but let me tell you this, my friend, if you sin against light and knowledge, there may be an intensity of guilt in your sin which may not be found in the man who is, apparently, worse than you are. He may never have had such teaching and advantages, nor such a tender conscience as you have had; and hence his sin, bad as it is, like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, may be such that it shall be more tolerable for him at the day of judgment than for you, who have not sinned one tithe as much, according to the judgment of others, but who have sinned against the gospel,-sinned against the dying Saviour’s blood,-sinned against the Holy Ghost. God grant that you may never run this terrible risk!

Let me say to you, who are living without Christ, that, however excellent and amiable you may be, I know that you are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest. I know some special times when you cannot rest,-when you hear of others being converted,-your brothers or sisters coming forward to confess Christ,-your friends or relatives rejoicing in Jesus as their Saviour. “Ah,” you say to yourself, “they are restful and peaceful; but I am not.” I know how you feel, on communion nights, sometimes, when you have to go away, or to look on at others gathered around the table of the Lord. You do not feel easy, then, do you? And you feel very uneasy, too, when any of your companions die,-those who are very much of your own sort. You attend their funeral, and the thought strikes you, “Shall I die as they have done, without Christ, and without hope? Shall I pass away from under the sound of the gospel without having given any evidence of conversion?” You do not feel easy then, I know; and, sometimes, you feel very much like the troubled sea when conscience begins to call you to account. John Bunyan, in his “Holy War,” gives a graphic description of what happened to Mr. Conscience when Mansoul was being besieged by Immanuel, and that is very much what has happened to some of you. They said that he was out of his wits, but he was never more truly in his wits than when he was crying out for Mansoul to yield to the great King Shaddai; and I feel sure that some of you have felt, upon the door of your conscience, the blows of the great battering-ram that Bunyan describes, and you have been ready to open it; yet, still, you are not at rest, for you have not come to Christ, who alone can give you rest. It is still true, as Dr. Watts wrote, long ago,-

“In vain the trembling conscience seeks

Some solid ground to rest upon;

With long despair the spirit breaks,

Till we apply to Christ alone.”

If you hear the gospel faithfully preached, you cannot be at rest. Some of you try to be satisfied with a false peace; but, by God’s grace, we will plague you to Christ yet; we will love you to Christ; we will incessantly worry you till, at last, you yield yourself up to Jesus. Some of you are getting on in business; God has been very gracious in preserving you in life, restoring you from sickness, or keeping you in health; you have a better situation now than you ever had before, yet you are not restful. You feel grateful to God for all his goodness to you, yet you say, “There is something more needed.” Yes, and that something is the one thing needful. I am thankful that God is prospering you, but I hope you will never be able to rest until you have that one thing needful,-the grace of God. Some of you are very thoughtful, and when you get alone for half an hour, it is very awkward for you, for there are certain problems that you cannot solve, and they sorely perplex you. Worst of all are your forecasts of the future. Sometimes, you look ahead, and you picture yourself upon a sick bed, and you say, “Can I die triumphantly as I am?” You know you cannot. And then, sometimes, you picture yourself rising from the dead, when the angel’s trumpet blast is sounding, and the quick and the dead are standing before the judgment-seat of Christ. You cannot bear to think of that great white throne, and the separation of the righteous from the wicked, for you know where you must go, unless a great change is wrought in you. Though not outwardly wicked, you do not belong to the sheep; then you must go with the goats; and when you think of this, and the future stands, for the moment, present before your mind’s eye, your spirit is “like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast, up mire and dirt.” I would that you had rest. God grant it to you this very hour! But let Augustus Toplady’s prayer be your prayer also,-

“Oh, may I never rest

Till I find rest in thee,

Till of my pardon here possessed,

I feel thy love to me!

“Turn not thy face away,

Thy look can make me clean;

Me in thy wedding robes array,

And cover all my sin.

“Tell me, my God, for whom

Thy precious blood was shed;

For sinners? Lord, as such I come,

For such the Saviour bled.”

Now, secondly, and only for a minute or two, in our text there is a sentence pronounced: “No peace”-you notice that the words, “there is,” are in italics, because they are not in the original; so the text runs, “No peace, saith my God, to the wicked”

It is God himself who says it. There may be a truce, for God is slow to anger; but there is “no peace.” God is at war with you if you are among “the wicked.” You may be under the delusion that there is peace, but God’s voice of truth shatters that delusion to pieces. There can be no peace where there is unpardoned sin. Until you have humbled yourself before God, and sought and found mercy, God is at war with you, and you are at war with him. There can be no peace where there is no purity. God has no peace with sin, and never can have. Like a devouring fire, his holiness burns against sin; and thou must be made pure, thy nature must be changed, the love of sin must be killed in thee, and thou must as vehemently love that which is good and right; or, else, still God’s voice thunders from heaven’s burning throne, “No peace! No peace! No peace!”

“But I will go to church, and receive the sacrament,” says one. You will get no peace that way, except a false peace that is worse than none. “But I will attend the means of grace with the Dissenters,” says another. You will get no peace that way, if that is all that you do. If your sin be unforgiven by God, and if your nature be unchanged by the Holy Spirit, all the religiousness in the world will bring you no peace. “But I will weep an ocean of tears, and I will offer prayers continually.” No peace will come to you, that way, so long as you remain wicked, for God says. “No peace! No peace!” And “wicked” you must remain till Jesus washes you white in the fountain filled with his precious blood, and until the Spirit of God renews your nature.

“Not all the outward forms on earth,

Nor rites that God has given,

Nor will of man, nor blood, nor birth,

Can raise a soul to heaven.

“The sovereign will of God alone

Creates us heirs of grace;

Born in the image of his Son,

A new peculiar race.

“The Spirit, like some heavenly wind,

Blows on the sons of flesh;

Creats a new,-a heavenly mind,-

And forms the man afresh.”

“Oh!” says another, “but I will promise to be better, and to do better; I will amend my ways.” So you may, and so you should; but still saith my God unto the wicked, “No peace!” What say you to all this? Behold your God in arms against you! Omnipotence comes forth to war against you, the creature of an hour! Will you submit? Be wise, I pray you; cast down your weapons, cry for mercy; accept the reconciliation which Christ has wrought. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has suffered, “the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.” If thou wilt but trust him, what he did shall be accounted as thine; that is to say, the punishment that he suffered shall be reckoned as if thou hadst suffered it; and the righteousness he wrought shall be counted as if thou hadst wrought it; and God shall accept thee in his Son’s place, and for his Son’s sake. More than that, the Spirit of God will overshadow thee, and give thee a new heart, and a right spirit, and take away the heart of stone out of thy flesh, and give thee a heart of flesh. Art thou willing now to yield, and end this unequal war, and be at peace with God? Then the Lord, who gave his Son once, gives thee his Son over again into thine heart, and he says, “Peace! Peace! Go in peace; thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee.” He who with his heart forsakes his sin, and unfeignedly believes in Jesus, shall have the peace of God, which passeth all understanding; but he who will keep his sin, and so remain among the wicked, or who will keep his self-righteousness, and so refuse the salvation of Christ, has nothing to go home with but this, “No peace! No peace!” And, oh, to die with that terrible knell ringing in one’s ears! To look up to God, and to hear him say, “No peace!” To have the prayers of your friends for you, but to feel no peace! To lift your own eye to heaven, but to find prayer freeze upon your soul as you hear again this sentence from God the Judge, “No peace!” And then follows the eternity, in which there is no peace! God grant this may not be the sad portion of any one of us, but may the Lord give to each of us peace, perfect peace, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 23, and ISAIAH 55

We will first read that choicest of all the Psalms,-the twenty-third. It is like a precious pearl shining with a mild lustre. This Psalm is, among the other Psalms, what the lark is among the other birds; it soars and sings till it is lost in the heights to which it ascends.

Psalm 23 Verse 1. The Lord is my Shepherd;-

What a precious title the psalmist used in speaking of his God! It is right to call the Lord a Shepherd. “The Shepherd of Israel” is a very blessed and true title for him; but “my Shepherd” is best of all. I wish, beloved, that each of you could truthfully say, with David, “ ‘The Lord is my Shepherd.’ He owns me; and as I am his property, he will preserve me, protect me, provide for me, guide me, and be everything to my weakness, and folly, and necessity, that a shepherd is to a sheep.” “The Lord is my Shepherd;”-

1. I shall not want.

“Not only do I not want at the present moment, but I never shall want. I may sometimes foolishly fancy that I shall come to want; but I never shall as long as God provides for me. How could such a Shepherd as he is, almighty and all-sufficient, ever suffer one of his sheep to lack any good thing? No; ‘I shall not want.’ All the world beside may want, but I shall not while Jehovah is my Provider. Famine may be sore in the land; there may be neither dew nor rain, and even the brook Cherith may at last be dried up; but since ‘Jehovah is my Shepherd, I shall not want.’ ”

As a guarantee of his care of us in the future, we turn to our experience in the past and the present. What is our experience of our great Shepherd even now?

2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

Here is blessed rest, and here is also gracious provision for the needs of the sheep. The pasture is sweet and tender; and there is so much of the green grass that it cannot all be eaten, and the superabundance makes a soft bed for the tired sheep: “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” Repose, O believer, in the abundant provision of God’s grace! A sheep needs sometimes to lie down. It is as necessary for its health that it should have time to digest its food as that it should have proper and sufficient food to eat. May the Lord graciously give to each of you the sweet rest of meditation and contemplation,-that blessed rest, to which faith attains when it grows into firm confidence and full assurance, so that you may be able to say with David, “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”

But our spiritual life is not to be all spent in lying down; there must come a time for going forward, so David adds:-

2. He leadeth me-

What a peerless Guide he is, since infallible wisdom is his! And how gracious and condescending it is, on his part, to go first in the way which he means us to take! David does not say, “He driveth me;” but “He leadeth me”-

2, 3. Beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness-

“In each one of them; he is my Exemplar in every virtue, for he himself has endured all temptations that are incident to my life’s pathway; and, all the way, ‘he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness’ ”-

3. For his name’s sake.

“Not because of any goodness in me, but because of the goodness that is in him, and for the glory of his holy name, ‘he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness.’ ”

“Also, ‘He restoreth my soul.’ When I wander, he restores my soul to the right road. When I become empty, he stores my soul again with good things; he re-storeth my soul.”

4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:

“Not only shall there be none, but I will fear none.” A sense of the Lord’s presence lifts a Christian above even fear. You know how often it is true that we “feel a thousand deaths in fearing one.” But if we have a sense of our Saviour’s presence, when we do really walk through the valley of death-shade, not a trace of fear shall come across our peaceful souls.

4. For thou art with me;

The presence of Christ is all that his people can ever want. The all-powerful, ever-faithful, infinitely-compassionate One being with us, what cause for fear can possibly remain?

4. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

“To see thy sceptre, and even to feel thy chastising rod;-to know that thou art a King, and that thou rulest over Israel;-to know that, as a Shepherd, thou carriest a crook to guide thy flock; shall be enough to comfort my heart, and to sustain my spirit.”

How sweet is the next verse!

5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

How calmly the psalmist writes! He realizes that he has enemies, yet he means to sit down to a feast; he is not going to snatch a hurried mouthful or two, but “a table” is “prepared” for him as though for a banquet. His enemies may look on while he is feasting, but they cannot take away his enjoyment of the feast.

5. Thou anointest my head with oil;

He receives a fresh anointing for new service, even the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

5. My cup runneth over.

“I have all I want, and even more than I need, so that others, not so favoured as I am, may come and catch some of the droppings from my overflowing cup. It is so full, O Lord, that it cannot hold all that thou givest me! Till thou dost enlarge my capacity, I shall still have to say, “My cup runneth over.”

The psalmist’s next word also has much meaning and force in it:-

6. Surely-

There are no ifs, no doubts, no fears about the matter: “Surely”-

6. Goodness and mercy shall follow me-

“These two holy angels shall watch over my footsteps, and track me wherever I go;-‘goodness’ to preserve me, and ‘mercy’ to pardon me!-‘goodness’ to supply my needs, and ‘mercy’ to blot out my sins.” And these angels shall follow me-

6. All the days of my life:

“Not merely now and then, but all my days;-my dark days as well as my bright ones;-these heavenly messengers will never forsake me.”

6. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

This life begins here, for this earth is but the lower part of God’s house; and when the time shall come for us to leave this earth, we, who are the Lord’s own children, shall only go upstairs to the higher rooms, to “dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

This, then, is the portion of the children of God; but there are some to whom David’s language will seem strange. They cannot sing this sweet Psalm, for their life is as restless as the waves of the sea. No quiet pastoral poem could set forth their joy, for the sound of war is heard in the streets of their city of Mansoul. If any such souls are seeking rest and peace, let them hearken to the voice of God, as it speaks to them from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter fifty-five.

Isaiah 55 Verses 1, 2. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?

Why have you sought rest where it can never be found? Why have you craved delights which can never satisfy you? Cease from such folly.

2. Hearken diligently unto me,-

Thus speaks the Lord Jehovah: “Hearken diligently unto me,”-

2, 3. And eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you,-

“With you” who have any desire for it,-“with you” who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and who have no other recommendation than that, poor as it is,-“I will make an everlasting covenant with you,”-

3, 4. Even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given him-

The Son of David,-“great David’s greater Son,”-and God’s own well-beloved and only-begotton Son, even Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. God says, “I have given him”-

4-7. For a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Blessed be his holy name!

8-13. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and making it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains, and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-661, 614, 658.