How strangely different was our Lord Jesus Christ from the philosophers of Greece! They were reserved in their demeanour; eclectic, or studiously choice, in their tastes; and jealous of contact with their fellow-creatures. Retiring from the busy haunts of men, to encircle themselves with an atmosphere created by their own breath, they wanted none in their society but those who were fit companions for men so exalted in wisdom. Their disciples looked up to them with profound and obsequious reverence; and they themselves, in their various halls and classrooms, talked as men might who were teaching little children, and their pupils were completely subject to their dictation; but they always kept “the common people” at a distance, for they concerned not themselves to instruct the many, but only to teach the few who were ambitious to become wise like themselves.

Our blessed Lord and Master was no philosopher of this sort, shut up with his few disciples by themselves. He had his chosen twelve, but he and they mingled freely with the populace. He was a man among men, and not a philosopher among those shut out from men. True, he taught greater wisdom than all the sages knew, and better philosophy than all the wise men of Greece understood; but, still, he was familiar with the people, tender-hearted, mild, and of a gentle spirit. We have an instance of this here, where we read of Jesus doing what Solon or Socrates would never have done; for he sat down to take a meal with the common people round about him, eating with publicans and sinners.

How different, moreover, we may add, was Christ from the great prophets of the olden time! With the utmost stretch of imagination, you cannot conceive of Moses sitting down to eat with sinners. He was a king in Jeshurun; an awful majesty surrounded the prophet of Horeb, who was mighty in word and deed. Wherever he went, he appeared as the man whom his high office had exalted above his fellows. His whole character, like his face on that memorable occasion when he had been in the mount with God, shone so brilliantly that ordinary men could scarcely gaze upon him unless he covered his face with a veil. More than once, he was hidden in complete seclusion with God. True, he was accessible enough, in the due exercise of his office, to all who had complaints or charges to be decided at the bar where he presided as judge; but who would presume to think of being a companion to the mighty Moses? Even his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam seem to have had a great gulf fixed between them and their truly regal brother; they could not approach him without becoming deference, nor could he come down to be on a social level with them.

Think also of Elijah, the very pattern and model of a prophet of the Most High God. How high he towered above the men of his age! The fire, which Elijah called from heaven upon the Carmel sacrifice, and upon the captains of fifties and their fifties, seemed to be a fitting type of his own character. One can admire him as a prophet, and follow him as a leader, but who could think of having him as a companion and friend? Stern, unflinching, faithful, he has little or no pity for the sinner; the only thing that an erring man could say to Elijah would be what Ahab said to him, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” His sternness in rebuking sin, his bold, thundering denunciation of idolatry, made men tremble before him; and we can hardly imagine that publicans and sinners would have been anxious to sit down to eat with him.

But, my brethren, the Christ, whose gospel we preach, is no unapproachable philosopher. The glory of his person reflects even a brighter lustre than the dignity of his office. He appeared among men, not as one who had been lifted up from the ranks to obtain a position for himself, but as one who bowed himself down from the heaven of heavens that he might bring blessings to the sons of men; yet the ignorant and the illiterate may find in him their best Friend. He is no stern law-giver, like Moses, who, wrapping around himself the robe of his own integrity, looks upon the transgressor simply with the eye of justice; neither is he merely the pitiless denouncer of iniquity and crime, or the bold enunciator of penalty and punishment. Christ is the gentle Lover of our souls; the good Shepherd, coming forth, not so much to slay the wolf as to save the sheep. As a nurse tenderly watcheth over the child committed to her charge, so doth Jesus watch over the souls of men; and like as a father pitieth his children, so doth he pity sinful men. He does not stand upon a lofty height, and bid sinners ascend to him; but, coming down from the mountain, and mingling in social intercourse with them, he draws them to himself by the magnetic force of his almighty love. “Jesus, the sinners’ Friend,”-that is his true title, for that is what he really is. O Jesus, may we personally know thee as our Friend just now! We are sinners; be thou our Friend.

Before I come directly to the subject, I want to paint three pictures, in order to show you, by the force of contrast, the way in which Christ, the Physician of souls, really cures and heals. There have been various schemes for cleansing society from the pollution that comes through sin. Even men, who were themselves sinners, have been conscious that iniquity so saps and undermines the foundations of society that it must, if possible, be uprooted and destroyed. Behold the many schemes which men have devised for this purpose; listen to the voices which have charmed men’s ears, and awed their hearts, but have not been able to change for the better their condition.

First came Severity, and he said, “There is a plague broken out among the people; clear out the tainted ones. There are the fatal spots upon their brows, the venom of the dread disease has worked its way to their skin, there is no doubt about their being infected; therefore, smite them, slay them, let them be destroyed. Take them away, executioner; it is better that they should be put to death than that the whole nation should perish. Cut off the few sickly sheep lest the whole flock should be affected.” But the Saviour came, and he said, “Nay, nay, not so; wherefore will ye destroy them? If ye do so, the disease will be spread all the more, for their blood shall be spattered on the men who slay them, and shall infect their executioners; and they, in their turn, will come back, and infect the man who condemned the plague-stricken to be slain; and here, in the very hall of judgment, the signs of the dread disease shall be seen even upon the judge’s brow. Wherefore deal ye thus hardly with your brethren? Ye are all yourselves diseased; there is a plague upon every one of you. If ye thus begin to uproot some of the tares, ye may not only uproot the wheat, but ye may uproot the whole field, which, after all, might bring forth something which would be better than absolute sterility. Nay, spare them, spare them; let them not die; give them into my hands.” His request was, of course, granted, and he went to those whom he had rescued, and he said, “Your forfeited lives are spared. It is well known that, according to the laws of your fellow-men, you deserve to die; but I have undertaken that, without the violation of law, you shall escape.” Then he touched them, and healed their running sores, and said to all who stood near, “Now these men shall spread life through your ranks, for I have restored them from their sickness; and now, instead of being to you well-springs of everything that is abominable and filthy, they shall become fountains of everything that is lovely, and pure, and of good repute.” Glory be unto thee, O Jesus; glory be unto thee, for thou hast done far more than Severity could ever have accomplished!

Next came one called Stern Morality, and he said, “Let us not kill them; let not the laws be like those of Draco, written in blood; but let us build a lazar-house, with high walls, and let us thrust them in there, and shut them out from all contact with their kind; in this way they shall live, but shall do no injury to their fellows. And the self-righteous Pharisee said, “Let my house be far away from the infected spot, lest the wind should blow from them to me. Let them be shut away from their fellows, as persons under a curse; let not others speak to them, or go near them.” The Pharisees were practising that method in Christ’s day. They had tabooed the publicans and sinners, saying to them, “We will not touch you with so much as one of our fingers.” They drew their garments around them, and gave the moral lepers plenty of passage-room in the streets; and if, by any chance, they did come into contact with them, or were obliged to have any dealings with them in the market-place, they were careful to wash before they ate bread, lest they should have been defiled. So society decided that a lazar-house should be built, and that the infected sinners should be put in there to rot and die by themselves. But Jesus said, “Not so, not so; if you mean to shut up all the infected, every one of you must also be shut up, for you are all suffering from the same disease in a greater or less degree. Why shut up these few when all are affected? Ye do not well; if ye build the walls of the lazar-house as high as heaven, the festering disease within will still find an outlet, and taint your sons and your daughters, notwithstanding all that ye do; and that place will be the hotbed of everything that is foul and noxious, and will tend to your own destruction despite all your efforts to be removed from it.” You know how, even to this day, a certain class of sinner is considered by some good, reputable people as being unworthy even to be spoken of, or noticed, and some are foolish enough to try to forget that they are actually in existence. But our Divine Master went to the gate of the lazar-house, and knocked; and when it was opened, he said to those within, “Ye may come forth.” Society outside objected; so he said, “Well then, if they may not come out, I will go in with them.” And to those inside, he said, “Shut to the door, and keep out the over-righteous. I am come to eat bread, and to dwell with you, the infected and sinful ones.” He put out both his hands, and touched them, and healed their diseases, and the blood leaped again in their veins, and their flesh came to them again like the flesh of a little child. Then he opened the gate again, and, strange to say, society outside was infected this time, and he said to those who had once been lepers in the lazar-house, “Go ye forth, and heal them;” and they went forth to carry healing to those who formerly thought themselves to be well, and thus he made the very curse itself to be a channel through which to spread the blessing. Blessed be thou, O Jesus! Thou hast done for sinners what the sternest laws and the strictest customs of society could never have effected.

But there have been others of a gentler spirit,-Philanthropists,-who have been sensible of the claims of humanity upon them. They have said, “Let us look at the case of these rebellious sinners in the most favourable light possible. Let us consider them as hopeful; let us use remedies that will be the means of healing them, but let us keep them in quarantine for many a day before we let them out; let us fumigate them, and put their clothes out until every trace of infection has gone from them; and if, after a long probation, they are proved to be really healed and cleansed, then let them go forth to freedom.” But Jesus said, “Nay, not so; why would ye keep them thus shut up by themselves? If one of them should become better, contact with his fellows would make him sick again. Will ye deny them your help and your sympathy, and shut them away by themselves? Your quarantine arrangements will breed further disease, and all your fumigations will be in vain; for, while you are seeking to cure, you will be generating the very disease you seek to destroy. The only effective remedy is for me to go in with them where they are.” So he presented himself before them; they were covered with running sores, and they themselves were most obnoxious; yet he touched them;-nay, more, he embraced them. They were filthy, but he took them in his own hands, and washed them. They were ragged, but he himself took off their rags, clothed them in the spotless robe of his own righteousness, and gave them the kiss of his love upon their sin-stained cheeks. “Oh!” said they, “this is healing indeed. We were never healed before. People told us to get well, and said that, then, they would do something for us. They told us to cleanse ourselves, and said that, then, they would receive us; but thou, O blessed Saviour, didst take us just as we were,-all black, and defiled, and loathsome,-and thou hast made us clean.” Glory be unto thee, O Jesus, for thou hast done ten thousand times more for poor lost souls than Philanthropy ever even suggested! Thy wisdom has availed where our prudence has defeated its own ends. Our sympathy has been marred by our vanity; our counsels have been rendered valueless by our conceit. We have repelled the confidence of sinners, while thou hast won their hearts; for thou hast sat down to eat with them, and thy disciples have shared the feast.

I have thus tried to paint three pictures; I do not know whether I have held the brush steadily enough, or have had sufficiently good colours to paint them true to life. I only want to show you that, while we are condemning the outcasts, Jesus Christ comes forth, and saves them; while we are trying to keep sinners away from us, he goes to them, and heals them; and while we are hoping the best concerning them, and thinking of the means by which they can be gradually renovated, he goes to them, and restores them. Christ takes into his arms some whom we would not touch with a pair of tongs. He receives into his very heart some whose names we would hardly venture to mention. He uplifts the beggar from the dunghill, he raises the despairing from the Slough of Despond, he takes the vilest of the vile, transforms them by his grace, and makes them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

After so long an introduction, I must compress the rest of my discourse as much as I can; and, first, I am going to illustrate the way in which Christ receives sinners.

There was a man,-a tax-gatherer,-who had an ill name everywhere; no one was more obnoxious than he was to the proud, moral, orthodox Pharisees. One day, he heard that Jesus of Nazareth, the great Prophet and Miracle-worker, was about to pass through his native place,-the accursed city of Jericho; and having a great curiosity, and nothing but a curiosity, to see the mighty Saviour,-thinking, doubtless, no better of him than that he was a strange enthusiast,-he climbed up a tree, in the hope that, concealed amid its leaves, he might look down, unobserved, upon the famous Stranger. If a Pharisee had been walking that way, he would have avoided even the shadow of that tree, lest sin should be hidden by its shade, and he should thereby be defiled. But Christ, whose instincts of mercy always make him sharp-sighted where there is an object for his compassion, came right underneath that tree, and, looking up, cried aloud, “Zacchæus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy house.” No wonder that the Pharisees, and the people in general, murmured because Christ went to be a guest with a man who was “a sinner” in a very special sense. They were surprised that a man in such ill repute should have the honour of entertaining the Lord Jesus Christ. But our Lord entered the house of Zacchæus, and his truth entered the heart of Zacchæus; and there, on the spot, that “sinner” became a saint, practically proving the reality of his conversion by saying to Jesus, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold;” and Jesus said to him, “This day is salvation come to this house.” O Saviour, thou hast done right well! Suppose the Lord had passed by Zacchæus without taking any notice of him, he would have remained as great a sinner as ever. Suppose he had upbraided him; possibly, then, the tax-gatherer would have replied in language not at all complimentary; but that kind word, that sweet look of pity, that gracious token of forgiveness broke the hard heart of the rich oppressor, and he gladly entertained his Saviour, and became his disciple. This is the way in which Jesus still deals with sinners. Have we a sinner in this house,-the house where Christ has, for many a day, wrought miracles of mercy? Sinner, he will not despise thee, and we are rejoiced to see thee in the place where Christ is preached. His eye is on thee now; where thou art, I cannot tell, but he can; and it may be that, this very hour, he will say to thee, “Sinner, make haste, and come down, for to-night I must abide at thy house.” Who can tell? It may be with thee as it has been with many a score in this house;-thou mayest go home to forsake the drunkard’s cup, to leave the Sabbath-breaker’s haunts, to forsake the abodes of blasphemy, and to say, once for all, “Christ has called me; his I am, and him I desire to serve.” This is how Jesus deals with sinners, even with sinners who are only moved by curiosity to see him, as Zacchæus was.

On another occasion, Christ was by the seaside, and he passed a certain toll-house where a tax-gatherer was “sitting at the receipt of custom.” His name was Levi;-at least, that was his name when he was at home; but now that he had become one of the hated publicans, he had taken the name of Matthew, just as many a young man, when he runs away from home, and enlists in the army or navy, takes a name which does not belong to him. Little did he think that, when Jesus was passing by, he would take any notice of him; but he did, for he said to him, “Follow me.” That was all he said, but there was a volume of meaning in those two words; and the glance of his eye, and the majesty with which he pronounced his divine command, produced instant and most willing obedience, for “he arose, and followed him,” and Matthew the publican became Matthew the apostle and Matthew the evangelist. Now, if Christ wanted an apostle, why did he not select one of the Pharisees? If he needed an evangelist, why did he not choose one of the scribes? The reason is, that a publican and a sinner was more adapted to his purpose. Perhaps the Lord is, at this moment, looking for a valiant preacher of the truth; and it may be that thou, my friend, away there among the crowd, art the man whom he has chosen for this high and noble enterprise. Christ found John Bunyan playing “tip-cat” on Elstow Green, and he found Richard Weaver down in the mines, blaspheming the name of God. Who knoweth whether he may not find thee for this high purpose, to bless thee, and to make thee a blessing? There may be some here, who will make hell’s old pillars shake, though they are, to-day, the sworn friends of sin and Satan; but he, who has permitted them to go so far into sin, may issue his divine mandate, concerning each one of them,-

“Almighty grace, arrest that man;”-

and he shall be renewed in heart, changed in life, and made to be “a new creature in Christ Jesus.” Certain it is that many of the most useful and honoured servants of the Lord Jesus Christ have been taken from that very class with whom Jesus and his disciples ate bread. There was a certain person needed, on one occasion, to be-if I may use the term,-lady in waiting to the King of kings. Queens might have been well content to part with their crowns in exchange for such an honour as that; yet “a woman in the city, which was a sinner,” was chosen to render this lowly service to the Lord Jesus Christ, and she “stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.” Simon, the Pharisee, found fault with Christ for allowing her to do this, but Jesus said it was her great love which had moved her to do what the Pharisee had neglected to do for his guest; and to the woman, Jesus said, “Thy sins are forgiven.… Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” Am I addressing any woman who might truly take the term “sinner” to herself? My sister, this is how Christ received this woman who was a sinner. He accepted the homage of her love,-love such as only she could render, love that could only come from a woman who had borne such a character as she had borne, and who therefore was filled with such intense gratitude to her Lord and Saviour. This is how Christ receiveth sinners; oh, that he might thus receive you just now!

Here is another case in which Christ received a sinner. I have reminded you how he visited the house of a sinner, how he chose a sinner to be one of his apostles, and how he was anointed by a woman who was a sinner; now he was about to die, and someone was needed to go with him from earth to heaven. When he returned home, it was not meet that he should go back alone. The great Conqueror must not re-enter heaven without some token of his victories here below. O mighty Hero, thou mayest not pass the gates of thy paternal metropolis without taking some captive with thee! Who shall accompany the Saviour into his glory? Shall it be some martyr, who, in fiery chariot, shall mount to heaven with his Redeemer? Shall it be some devout disciple and deacon, like Stephen, who, amid a shower of stones, shall see heaven opened unto him, and enter it side by side with his Lord? Nay; but there is a thief dying on the cross hard by the suffering Son of God, for Jesus was numbered with the transgressors, and died in the company of sinners even as he had lived amongst them. The thief prayed, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;” and Jesus answered, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise;” and, probably, the first soul to enter heaven after the return of the King was the soul of this poor penitent thief.

I will only mention one more case of Christ receiving a sinner. After he had gone back to heaven, he needed a man who should be his apostle to the Gentiles. Peter, the Jew, was far too bigoted, even when his nature was overruled by grace,-there was still so much of the Jewish exclusiveness in him,-that he was not fit to be the apostle of the Gentiles. The Master, therefore, resolved that, for once, he would call out of heaven with an audible voice, and that, as a pattern for all who should afterwards believe on him, he would have some one special soul. Who should that one be? You might send an officer through Greece and Rome, and he might find scores whom he would recommend for the post; but the least likely individual in the whole world was selected by Christ himself. There he is, “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord,” for he hates Christ, and his followers as well. When Stephen was stoned, he gloated over the dying martyr. He is constantly casting the Christians, both men and women, into prison; and he is now on his way to Damascus, being exceedingly mad against the saints, that he may persecute all whom he can find there who are followers of Christ. The sequel of the story is given in Paul’s own words to Agrippa, “At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying, in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” The further sequel is given in Paul’s words to the church at Ephesus, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” This is my Master’s way of dealing with sinners, even with him who called himself the chief. Proud professors, is this the way you deal with them? Professing Christians, whose hearts have grown callous, is this the way you act towards poor sinful souls? And O poor lost soul, is this the way that thou thoughtest Christ would deal with thee? He will do with thee as he did with them. He is as ready to save, to-day, as he was in the days gone by. He has as great a love for sinners now as he had when he went through the towns and villages of Galilee, teaching and healing the people, or when he poured out his soul unto death, that he might redeem the lost by purchasing them with his blood.

I now turn to my second point, and ask,-How is it that Christ is so willing to come down to poor sinners, and save them?

Do not imagine that it is because he is insensible to their guilt. Sinner, Jesus Christ knows far better than you do what an evil and bitter thing sin is. It is as hateful and loathsome to him as anything can possibly be. It is not, therefore, because he is insensible to their guilt that he seeks the society of lost souls. Why, then, does he desire to be in their company?

It is because he has such deep affection for sinners. There is a little child crying upstairs; some people in the house wish that noise could be stopped, for they say they cannot endure it; but the mother says, “It is my child who is weeping up there,” and she hurries up to comfort and soothe her babe. So, when we hear the sinner blaspheme, we are angry with him; but Christ weeps over him, and comes forth to save him. “He is my child,” saith he,-

“Joint heir with me he yet shall be

In glory everlasting.”

There is all the difference between what a wife will do for her sick husband and what a stranger might do for him. Imagine the husband suffering from some loathsome disease. The nurse says, “No; for no money in the world will I stay any longer. Besides, the disease is infectious, and I might take it to my dear ones at home.” But if it were as infectious as the plague itself, and as noxious as the great pit into which the uncoffined dead were cast, that wife would still remain with her loved one,-if need be, to sicken, and suffer, and die,-for she says, “He is my husband.” And here is a sinner, so full of filth that even the most sympathetic stand aside, and come not near him; but the Lord Jesus sees, in that abject sinner, a fit object for his pity and saving grace. “He is one with me,” saith he, “by eternal covenant and union, and I will stay with him till I have healed him; I will watch by him till I have saved him from all his filthiness and all his sin.”

Besides, poor sinner, there is another reason why the Lord Jesus Christ is so deeply interested in thee. He sees in thee the purchase of his precious blood. “I bought him,” saith he, “with my heart’s blood; do you think that I will lose him after that? “But, Lord, he blasphemes thee.” “Ay, but I have bought him with my blood.” “But, Lord, he has made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell.” “Yes,” saith Christ, “I know he hath; but I will disannul that covenant, and cancel that agreement, for I have bought him, and I will have him as my own.” Jesus never forgets the price he paid for the redemption of even one soul. Methinks I hear him say, my brothers, “By my agony and bloody sweat, by my cross and passion, by my death and burial, I will have him as my own, for I cannot have suffered all these things in vain.”

Moreover, Christ views the sinner, not as he is in himself, but as he is in the purpose of redemption. “His whole head is sick,” saith Christ, “but I can cure him; his whole heart is faint, but I can restore him, and I will do it. His feet have gone astray, his mouth is an open sepulchre, his eyes are windows of lust, his hands are stained with blood; but I will amend all that, and make him a new creature, meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light.” Jesus looks, you see, not so much to what the sinner is in himself, as to what he can make him. He sees, in every sinner, the possibility of making a glorified saint, who shall dwell with him for ever and ever. If he chose you, poor sinner, before all worlds were made, and bought you with his blood, he sees you, not as you now are, but as you shall be when he has perfected you. Oh, what a wonder it will be when that poor drunkard, over there, shall sing in heaven as one of the spirits of just men made perfect, and when yonder harlot shall have a golden harp in her hand, and sound forth the praises of him who hath loved her, and washed her from her sins in his own blood! Yet he, who has said it, will do it; he, who is “mighty to save,” will redeem by power those whom he has secured by purchase. And, penitent sinner, Jesus already hears thee hymning his praise; and he sees thee, as thou wilt be, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, washed in his blood, renewed by his Spirit, brought safely home, and glorified with him for ever. No wonder, then, that Christ is willing to come to poor sinners, and to dwell with them. He can see what you and I cannot see,-what they shall be when he has fulfilled his purposes of mercy and grace concerning them.

Sinner, thou art so ashamed of thy sin that thou darest not approach a minister, but thou canst approach Christ. There is no pride in him, and no cautious reserve, such as we might rightly exercise in dealing with thee. Though thou canst not tell even thine own father all about thyself, thou canst tell it all to Jesus. Thou canst not tell all the story of thy sin and thy repentance to the wife of thy bosom, but thou canst tell it to Jesus. There is no music that he loves so much as the voice of a sinner confessing his sin; there are no pearls that he prizes so highly as those pearly tears which repentance forms in the eye of the soul that trembleth at his Word. Do not imagine that he is hard to please, for he loves sinners; do not fancy that it is difficult to obtain access to him. Like the father in the parable, he can see a sinner when he is a great way off, and he will run to meet you, and give you a hearty reception, and a loving welcome. You will be happy in being saved, but he will be more happy in saving you. You will rejoice in being pardoned, but he will rejoice more in pardoning you. I cannot put this blessed truth about Christ’s compassion for sinners in such words as I fain would do if I could. If you do not admit that you are a sinner, I have no gospel to preach to you; but if you stand self-condemned, I have a message of mercy to deliver to you. To the self-convicted, to the law-condemned, the prisoners that plead guilty, those who are ready to confess that they are undeserving, ill-deserving, hell-deserving sinners, I have to say that Christ is an approachable Saviour. Nay, more than that, he is waiting to be gracious; he stands, with arms outstretched, longing to clasp poor sinners to his heart. Why do you wait?

Now I close my discourse by endeavouring to teach you the practical lesson which ought to follow from the fact that Christ receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

Let me just utter a word of warning here. When we speak of Christ receiving sinners, everybody says, “Well, I am a sinner.” It is a curious proof that people do not know what a sinner is, or they would not be so ready to admit that they are in that class. If I were to say to almost any man I met, “You are a criminal,” in almost every case, he would reply, “No, sir, I am not.” But what is the difference between being a criminal and being a sinner, except that the sinner is the worse of the two? A criminal is a person who offends against the laws of men; “a sinner” is a theological term, signifying one who offends against the laws of God. People say, “To be criminals,-oh, that is horrible! But to be sinners,-well, we are all sinners;” and they do not appear to think anything of that terrible truth. Ah! but, unless the grace of God shall change you, the day will come when you will think it would have been better to have been a frog, a toad, a viper, or any other creature, rather than to have been a sinner; for, next to the word “devil”, there is no word which has so much that is dreadful in it as that word “sinner.” “A sinner” means one who cares nothing for God, one who breaks God’s laws, despises God’s mercy, and who will, if he continues as he is, have to endure God’s wrath as a punishment for his sin.

Yet these are the persons whom Jesus Christ is willing to receive. You cannot, therefore, any of you say, if you perish, that you perish because he would not receive you. “Oh, but!” say you, “he would never receive such a sinner as I am.” How do you know that? Have you ever tried him? There is not, even in hell itself, a sinner, who will ever dare to say that he came to Jesus, yet Jesus refused to receive him. There is not a lost soul, in the pit, who can look up to God, and truthfully say to him, “Great God, I asked for mercy through the precious blood of Jesus, but thou saidst, ‘I will not grant it to thee.’ ” No, that can never be; neither on earth, nor in hell, shall there ever be one soul that trusted in Christ, and then perished. You say that Christ will not save you, so I ask again,-Did you ever try him? Did you ever give him a fair trial? Did you ever, on your knees, conscious of your lost condition, say to him, “Jesus, save me, or I die”? You are spiritually blind; did you ever say to him, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me”? Did you cry to him, again and again, and did he turn his back upon you, and leave you still in darkness? Leper, you are loathsome in his sight by reason of your sin; but did you ever say to him, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean”? No, you know you never did that, though you have often resolved that you would do so. Under an earnest sermon, you have said, “I will seek the Lord;” but when you got outside the house of prayer, some idle companion met you, and you soon forgot all about your good resolution.

But let me say to thee now,-Despite all the years in which thou hast heard the gospel in vain, if the Holy Spirit shall move thee even now to confess thy sin to Jesus, and to say to him, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me; I put my soul’s affairs into thy hands from this moment;”-sinner, he will save thee. Or, if he will not, then I will perish with thee, and the whole Church of God will also perish with thee; for this is all our hope, that Jesus died to save the lost; and if one soul, believingly gazing upon his wounds, can perish, then all must perish, and the pit must engulf the whole blood-bought family of God. But that can never be.

There is an old tradition, which I will repeat as a rebuke to the self-righteous, and a comfort to the sinner. Dean Trench, quoting from a Persian moralist, tells one of his old fables about Jesus. Of course, it is only a fable; but it contains the very spirit of the truth about which I have been preaching. When Christ, according to this fable, was travelling through a certain region, he stayed at the cave of a hermit. It so happened that there was, living in the neighbouring town, a young man, whose vices were so great that, according to common report, the devil himself did not dare to associate with him lest he should become worse than he was before. This young man, hearing that the Saviour, who could pardon sin, was in the hermit’s cave, went to him. Falling down on his knees, he made confession of his guilt, and acknowledged that he was utterly unworthy of mercy, but entreated Christ, in the love of his gracious heart, to forgive him for the past, and make him a new man for the future. The monk, who lived in the cave, said to the young man, “Get you gone; you are not worthy to be in such a holy spot as this;” and, turning to the Saviour, he said, “Lord, in the other world, appoint me a place as far away as possible from this wretch.” The Saviour answered, “Thy prayer is heard; thou art self-righteous, so I appoint thee thy place in hell; this man is penitent, and seeks mercy at my hands; I appoint him his place in heaven. Thus both of you shall have your heart’s desire.” There is the very essence of the doctrine of justification by faith in that old fable. Go you, who trust in your own good works, and perish. Come, you who confess your evil deeds, hate them, flee from them, and trust in Jesus, and you are saved, while they who go about to establish their own righteousness shall perish everlastingly. Oh, that my Master would draw some of you to him at this moment! What say you? Will you go with this Man, who receiveth sinners? He bids you come to him; will you come? You cannot plead that you are too vile, for he takes the very off-scourings of men,-the devil’s outcasts, he will not cast out if they will but come unto him. However despairing of yourself you may be, you must not say of him, “He will reject me.” Trust him to receive you, and trust him now. O Spirit of the living God, prove the divinity of Christ’s gospel, this very hour, by turning lions into lambs, and ravens into doves, and let the chief of sinners prove thy power to save! Amen.

UNBELIEVERS UPBRAIDED

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, June 30th, 1904,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, June 8th, 1876.

“He … upbraided them with their unbelief.”-Mark 16:14.

I shall not dwell so much upon this particular instance of the disciples’ unbelief as upon the fact that the Lord Jesus upbraided them because of it. This action of his shows us the way in which unbelief is to be treated by us. As our loving Saviour felt it to be right rather to upbraid than to console, he taught us that, at least on some occasions, unbelief should be treated with severity rather than with condolence.

Beloved friends, let us never look upon our own unbelief as an excusable infirmity, but let us always regard it as a sin, and as a great sin, too. Whatever excuse you may at any time make for others,-and I pray you to make excuses for them whenever you can rightly do so,-never make any for yourself. In that case, be swift to condemn. I am not at all afraid that, as a general rule, we shall err on the side of harshness to ourselves. No; we are far too ready to palliate our own wrong-doing, to cover up our own faults, and to belittle our own offences. I very specially urge every believer in Jesus to deal most sternly with himself in this matter of unbelief. If he turns the back of the judicial knife towards others, let him always turn the keen edge of it towards himself. In that direction, use your sharpest eye and your most severely critical judgment. If you see any fault in yourself, you may depend upon it that the fault is far greater than it appears to be; therefore, deal more sternly with it. It is a very easy thing for us to get into a desponding state of heart, and to mistrust the promises and faithfulness of God; and yet, all the while, to look upon ourselves as the subjects of a disease which we cannot help, and even to claim pity at the hands of our fellow-men, and to think that they should condole with us, and try to cheer us. Perhaps they should; but, at any rate, we must not think that they should. It will be far wiser for each one of us to feel, “This unbelief of mine is a great wrong in the sight of God. He has never given me any occasion for it, and I am doing him a cruel injustice by thus doubting him. I must not idly sit down, and say, ‘This has come upon me like a fever, or a paralysis, which I cannot help;’ but I must rather say, ‘This is a great sin, in which I must no longer indulge; but I must confess my unbelief, with shame and self-abasement, to think that there should be in me this evil heart of unbelief.’ ”

Notwithstanding what I said, just now, concerning our dealings with others, I must give very much the same advice with regard to them as to ourselves, though in a somewhat mitigated form. When we see any of our friends falling into sin and unbelief, we must seek to deal wisely with them,-always kindly,-never harshly. Let us reserve all our severity for ourselves, as I have already urged upon you. Still, I am sure that it is quite possible for us to be doing our fellow-Christians serious harm by excusing their unbelief, and by pitying them for it, instead of pointing out to them, tenderly, yet faithfully, the great sin they are committing by this doubting.

Have you never seen a “coddled” lad? I have seen one, who ought to be in the open air at play, shut in a close room because his parents were fearful that he was delicate, and unable to do as other lads do. He ought to have been taking part in various healthy exercises that would have developed and strengthened every muscle in his body; but, instead of that, he was sitting down, tied to his mother’s apron strings, and so was being made weaker than he was before. He was kept in an atmosphere which was not fit for him to breathe because his foolish parents were afraid the fresh air might be too trying for him; and long before he was ill, he was dosed and physicked until he really became ill. Many a child has been murdered by being thus coddled; or, if he has lived to grow up to manhood, he has been a poor, feeble, effeminate creature, because the abundant love, which has been lavished upon him, has been linked with equally abundant folly. You can easily treat Christians, and especially young converts, in the same senseless fashion. If they are unbelieving, you can keep back from them the stern truth about the sinfulness of such a state of heart and mind, because you fear that they will be discouraged if you deal faithfully with them. That is quite as wrong as saying to the unconverted, over and over again, “Only believe,” without ever mentioning the need of repentance and regeneration. There is a way of misapplying even the promises of God to unbelieving hearts, and of giving the consolations of the gospel to those who are not in a condition to receive them, as one might give sweetmeats to sick children, and so do them harm. People, who are thus unwisely treated, are apt to remain in the same sad state until their unbelief becomes chronic, and their unhappiness becomes a lifelong burden to them. Sometimes, when a man is in great pain, it is wise to give him something that will afford him even temporary relief; but the better course is, if possible, to strike at the root of his disease, and eradicate it once for all. That should be our method of dealing with the unbelief of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We must make it clear to them that unbelief is no trifle, and that it is a thing for which its owner is not to be pitied, but to be blamed, and to be severely blamed, for it is a most grievous fault and sin. Our Saviour dealt thus with the eleven when he upbraided them because of their unbelief. He did not excuse them, or comfort them, but he upbraided them. Upbraiding does not seem to be in harmony with the usual character of Jesus, does it? Yet, you may depend upon it that it was the right thing for him to do, and the kind thing, too; otherwise, he would not have done it.

Jesus upbraided these disciples of his because of their unbelief upon a very special point on which they ought to have been the first to believe. Many persons had seen their Lord after he had risen from the dead; and the eleven apostles, who ought, by reason of their greater spiritual advantages, and their more intimate companionship with Christ, to have been the readiest to believe the good tidings, were not so; and, therefore, Christ “upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he had risen.” Yet these eye-witnesses-Peter and John, Cleopas and his companion, and Mary Magdalene, Joanna, the other Mary, and the rest of the holy women,-who had come to the eleven, were their own brethren and sisters in the faith; so Christ might well say to them,-and I daresay he did,-“Why did you doubt their testimony? You did them an injustice by acting in such a manner. They are honest and truthful, and they have told you the truth. You have not been accustomed to doubt their word; so, as you have believed their witness concerning other matters, why did you not believe them in this instance? Moreover,” our Lord might well say, “there were many of them; it was not merely one, who might have been mistaken; but a considerable number saw me, and I spake with them; and they came and told you that it was even so, yet you did not believe them. The number of the witnesses, and their well-known character, are sure signs that you must have been in a wrong state of heart and mind, not to be able to receive such clear evidence as theirs; and, therefore, you are blameworthy for your unbelief.”

In the case of these apostles, unbelief was peculiarly sinful, for they had the promise of their Lord to back up the testimony of his disciples. He had often told them that he would rise again from the dead, and had even foretold the very day of his resurrection, so that the unbelief of the apostles was altogether inexcusable. Yet this very fact, which was a cause of stumbling to the apostles, appears to me to give point and power to the appeal which I make to myself, and to you, against our unbelief. We all believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead; we have no difficulty in accepting that great fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith; all of us, who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, fully endorse Paul’s words to the saints in Rome, and say that our Lord “was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Well, then, brethren and sisters in Christ, if we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, the ground is completely cut from under the feet of unbelief, for his promise is, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” If he lives, then the gospel is true, and the promises of the gospel are sure to all who believe in him. If he lives, then he lives to intercede for us; and, through his intercession, every covenant blessing is certain to come to us. Therefore, if we harbour unbelief in our hearts, we are doubly guilty; and if the Saviour were here in bodily presence, though his face would still beam with infinite love to us, I am quite sure that he would, even in sterner tones than he used towards those eleven apostles, upbraid us because of our unbelief. If Thomas will not believe that Christ is risen until he has put his finger into the print of the nails in his hands, and thrust his hand into his Saviour’s wounded side, that is bad enough; but it is worse if you, who do believe that he is risen, and who do not doubt any one of the doctrines that he has taught you, still have unbelief mingled with the faith which you do possess. Whether that supposed faith is all true, or not, is more than I can say; but, with so much faith as you profess to have, how can you still continue to doubt?

I want, in this discourse, to upbraid myself, and you also, for any unbelief that we may have harboured, by noticing, first, the evil of unbelief in itself; and, then, the evils that surely flow out of unbelief.

First, then, I have to say to any of God’s children who have given way to unbelief in any degree,-Your unbelief is an evil thing in itself.

This truth will come very closely home to you if you will just think how you would feel if others disbelieved you. If anyone were to question your veracity, you would be very vexed; and if you made a promise to any man, and he expressed a doubt as to the fulfilment of it, you would feel hurt; but if those, with whom you are most closely connected, were to disbelieve you, you would feel still more grieved, for you expect absolute confidence from them. If mutual trust were taken away from any family, how unhappy the members of that family would be;-the children suspecting the sincerity of their parents’ love,-the wife doubting the reality of her husband’s affection,-the husband dubious of his wife’s faithfulness! Try to conceive, if you can, what it would be if those, who now call you friend, or child, or husband, or wife, or brother, or sister, should no longer accept what you say as being true. Suppose, also, that you were perfectly conscious that you had never broken your word to them,-that you had faithfully kept every promise that you had made to them, and had been in all things honest, and true, and sincere, would you not feel their doubts and suspicions most acutely? I am sure you would; they would touch the very apple of your eye, and cut you to the quick; you could not endure such treatment from them. Then, how can you mete out to the Lord Jesus Christ such treatment as would be so painful to yourself? And, further, how can you expect your child to trust you when you doubt your Saviour? How can you look even to your wife for confidence in you when, if there be some little trouble, or things go somewhat awkwardly, you straightway begin to mistrust your God and Saviour?

Remember, too, that the sin of your unbelief may be measured by the excellence of the Person whom you mistrust. I said, just now, that, if you were conscious of your absolute sincerity, you would be the more deeply wounded by the suspicion of those who doubted you. What think you then, of the sin of doubting Christ, who cannot lie, who is “the Truth” itself? I know, beloved, that you have a very high opinion of your Lord and Saviour; do you not worship him as Divine? Do you not also feel his truly human sympathy? You know that there is no clause in his everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, which he has not already fulfilled, or which he will not fulfil at the appointed time. His incarnation, his life here below, his shameful sufferings, his vicarious death;-all these he promised to undergo, and all these he performed in due season, and he will go right through, to the end, with the great work of your eternal salvation. By the mouth of his servant Jeremiah, the Lord asked, long ago, “Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness?” And the Lord Jesus might well say to his professed followers, “Have I been as the barren fig tree was to me when I found on it nothing but leaves?” As he points to the long list of his favours to us, he may well ask, “For which of them do you thus misjudge and mistrust me?” And when he spreads out the whole roll of his life and work before you, he may well enquire, “Upon which part of my life or work do you base your suspicions? What is there in my nature, as Divine and human,-what is there in my character,-what is there in my life below, or in my life above,-that should lead you to question my faithfulness to you, my power to help you, my readiness to sympathize with you, my willingness to bless you?” Why, you are doubting him whom the angels adore and worship! You have felt, sometimes, as if you would like to wash his feet with your tears. How, then, can you ever insult him with your doubts? You have even said that you could die for him; and it has been your great ambition to live for him; yet you cannot trust him! If you have run with the footmen in the matter of these minor trials of your faith, and they have wearied you, what would you do if you had to contend with horsemen, as many others have had to do in the day of martyrdom? And if, in the favourable circumstances in which you have been placed, you have doubted your Saviour, what are you likely to do when you are in the swellings of Jordan? Ah, my brethren, when you think of unbelief as aiming her darts at Jesus Christ, the Well-beloved of our soul, surely you will say that it is a shameful sin, and a disgraceful crime against infinite love!

Then, remember, beloved in the Lord, the relationship in which Jesus Christ stands to you. You know that, the more closely we are allied to a person, the more painful any suspicion on the part of that person becomes. I have repeatedly used, in this connection, the figure of a child’s trust in a parent, a husband’s trust in his wife, and the wife’s trust in her husband; and you have readily accepted the comparisons because you have felt that the nearness of the relationship would involve a corresponding degree of trust. How near-how very near-we are in kinship to Christ! Are we not married to him? Has he not espoused us unto himself for ever? There is a conjugal union between Christ and his Church of which the marriage bond on earth is but a feeble type. Then, can you, who have been renewed in heart by the Holy Spirit, and washed in the blood of the Lamb, doubt him whom your soul loveth? Can you distrust him to whom you are so closely allied? Oh, shame, shame, shame, that want of confidence should come in to mar such a wondrous union as that!

But we are even more closely knit to Christ than the marriage union implies, for “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” I cannot explain that secret, mystical union of which the Scripture speaks; but it is a true union, whatever mystery there may be about it. Then, shall there be such disunion amongst the members of the body that the eye shall begin to doubt the heart, and the hand to mistrust the foot? It would be pitiful if such a state of things could prevail in our bodies; then, what must it be if such a state of things prevails among the members of the mystical body of Christ? Beloved, may God render this unbelief impossible by sending such life floods of grace through all the members of Christ’s body that never more shall a single thought of mistrust of our glorious covenant Head enter our minds even for a single instant!

Consider next, I pray you, dear friends, how many times some of us have doubted our Lord. The sin of unbelief becomes all the greater because it is so frequently committed. God be thanked that it is not so with all Christians: for there are some who walk in faith, and dwell in faith. I suppose that, as birds fly over everybody’s head, so doubts fly around all good men’s minds; but our old proverb says, “You need not let birds build in your hair,” although there are some people, who let doubts come and lodge in their minds, and even dwell in their hearts. We know some persons of this kind, who seem to be very easily led into despondency, and doubt, and mistrust of Christ. Well now, if a man has done this only once, I think he might well say to himself, “I did once question everlasting truth. I did once stain the spotless robe of infinite veracity with a dark blot of suspicion;” and I think that he might find it difficult to forgive himself for having done a thing so vile even once. But when it comes to many times, and when it comes to long periods of doubt and mistrust, it is still worse. I want to press this point home upon all whom it concerns, and I want your consciences to be wide awake, so that, as you recall the many times in which you have thus sinned against your Heavenly Father, and against his blessed Spirit, and against his Divine Son, you may recollect that each distinct act of unbelief is a sin,-each act of mistrust is another wounding of the Lord. God grant that we may truly repent as we think of the many times in which we have been thus guilty!

Then there is this further point,-some of these actions have been repetitions of former ones. For instance, a man is in trouble, and he has doubts concerning the providence of God; but he is delivered, God is gracious to him, and helps him out of his difficulty. Well, now, if he falls into a similar trouble, and if he is again guilty of harbouring doubt, this is far worse. If a man should doubt your word the first time you speak to him, you might say, “Well, he does not know me.” The second time, you might say, “When he has proved me more, he will trust me.” But what shall I say of those, whose hair has a sprinkling of grey in it, and whose Christian experience extends to a score of years, or more,-perhaps, two score,-possibly, three score? Oh, if you doubt the Lord now, it will be a crying shame! It will not be surprising if some of us act thus, for so did Israel for forty years in the wilderness; but that does not mitigate the evil in our case. It is a desperately evil thing that God should be mistrusted over and over again, and that he should have to say, “How long will it be ere ye believe me?”

I scarcely like to linger on such a sad theme; yet it does our hearts good to be thus upbraided; so, recollect that, oftentimes our unbelief has come in the teeth of our own assurance to the contrary. Do you not sometimes catch yourself saying, after a very great mercy, “Well, I never can doubt the Lord again”? When you have had an answer to prayer of a very memorable kind, you have said, “Oh, I must believe in the power of prayer now! For me ever to think that the Lord will deny me, must be impossible.” Yes, in that respect also, we are just like the Israelites, who promised to keep the covenant, yet speedily broke it.

There is also this aggravation of your sin; although you do not trust the Lord as you should, you do trust your fellow-creatures. You can believe that lie of the old serpent,-

“The Lord hath forsaken thee quite;

Thy God will be gracious no more;”-

yet you cannot so readily believe the oath and promise of God. If an earthly friend were to say to you, “I will help you,” how readily you would jump at his offer! If there be an arm of flesh near, how cheerfully you lean upon it; and, though, perhaps, there be nothing for you to stay yourself upon but a broken reed, you think it is a strong staff, and throw all your weight upon it. It is quite true that ungodly men, who have no faith, generally have any amount of credulity. They cannot believe the truth, but they can believe lies to any extent. So is it, alas! with God’s own people when they get off the track of faith. They seem to become credulous concerning the things seen, which are temporal, in proportion as they become dubious of the things unseen, which are eternal. Is not this a sin of the greatest blackness? Thou canst not trust thy husband, but thou canst trust a flatterer who deceives thee! Thou canst not trust thy God, but thou makest idol gods unto thyself, and trustest to them. Thou canst not stay thyself on Jehovah, but thou canst stay thyself on Egypt. Thou canst stay thyself on the promise of man who is but as a moth which is soon crushed; but as for him who made the heavens and the earth, and all things that are, thou canst not rely upon him. I feel as if I could sit down and cover my face for shame, when I think of those occasions wherein I have been guilty of this sin. Perhaps the best thing we could all do would be to go home, and fall on our knees, and ask our blessed Saviour to wash away all this unbelief, and not to believe us when we talk about doubting, but only to believe that, as he knows all things, he knows that, after all, we do trust him.

Now, with great brevity, I have to speak upon the second point, which is, the many evils which come out of unbelief to those of us who love the Lord.

Brethren and sisters, it is enough of evil-if there were no more,-that unbelief is so cruel to Christ, and grieves his Holy Spirit so much. I should but repeat myself if I reminded you how mistrust grieves you; and, speaking after the manner of men, in the same fashion it grieves the Holy Spirit. He dwells in you; shall he dwell in you to be grieved by you? He assuages your grief; will you cause him grief? Your vexations vanish because he is the Comforter; will you vex the Comforter? And what can vex him more than suspecting the ever-faithful heart of Christ? That is evil enough,-to wound Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Next, remember,-though this is a more selfish argument,-how much unrest and misery unbelief has caused to yourself. You have never had half as many trials from God as you have manufactured for yourself. Death, which you so much dread, is nothing compared with the thousand deaths that you have died through the fear of death. You make a whip for yourself, and you mix bitter cups for yourself, by your unbelief. There is quite enough trial for you to bear, and God will help you to bear it; but you put away the helping hand when you are unbelieving, and then you increase your own burden. Oh, you can sing, even by the rivers of Babylon, if you have but faith! You may lie on your sick bed, and feel great pain; yet your spirit shall not smart, but shall dance away your pangs, if your heart be but looking in simple confidence to Christ; and you shall die, as the negro said his master died,-“full of life,”-if you have true faith in Jesus. But if faith shall fail you, oh, then you are distressed when there is no cause for distress, and full of fear where no fear is!

And, then, how much you lose, in other things, besides happiness! A thousand promises are missed because there is not the faith to claim them. There are the caskets, and you have the keys; yet you do not put the keys into the locks to open them. There are Joseph’s granaries, and you are hungry; but you do not go unto Joseph, and show your confidence in him by asking for what you need. Ye are not straitened in God, but in yourselves. If you believe not, you shall not be established, neither shall your prayers prevail, nor shall you grow in grace. If you believe not, your experience shall not be of that high and lofty kind that otherwise it might have been. We live down here in the marsh and the mist, when, had we faith, we might live in the everlasting sunshine. We are down below in the dungeons, fretting under imaginary chains, when the key of promise is in our bosom, which will open every door in Doubting Castle. If we will but use it, we may get away to the tops of the mountains, and see the New Jerusalem, and the land which is very far off.

Further, unbelief weakens us for all practical purposes. What can the man who is unbelieving do? O brothers and sisters in Christ, it is a terrible thing to think how much work there is that falls flat because it is not done in faith. You saw the trees when they were covered with bloom; there seemed to be a promise of much fruit; but there were chilling winds, and sharp frosts, and so, perhaps, only one in a hundred of the blossoms ever turned to fruit. The tree of the Church seems, at times, covered with beauteous blossoms; what can be more lovely to the sight? But the blossoms do not knit,-faith is the bee that carries the pollen, it is faith that fructifies the whole, and makes it truly fruitful unto God. What might my sermons not have done had I believed my Master more? You, Sunday-school teacher, may say, “Had I taught in greater faith, I might have won my scholars.” Or you may say, “Had I gone to my visitings of the poor and the sick in the strength of the Lord, who knows what I might have done for him?” Faith is the Nazarite lock of Samson; if it be shorn away, Samson is weak as other men. Then, as to suffering, wonderful is the power of faith there. If you are trusting your Heavenly Father, believing that all is right that seems most wrong, that everything that happens is ordered or permitted by him, and that his grace will sweeten every bitter cup, you can suffer patiently; and, as your tribulations abound, so will your consolations abound in Christ Jesus. Like the ark of Noah, as the waters deepen, you will rise upon them, and get nearer to heaven in proportion as the great floods increase.

Unbelief, in any Christian, no doubt has a very injurious effect upon other Christians. There are some, who are like sickly sheep, which-

“Infect the flock,

And poison all the rest.”

Especially is it so, dear brethren, if you happen to be in office in the church, or to be doing any prominent work for Christ. If the commander-in-chief trembles, the army is already conquered; if the captain begins to fear, fear will take possession of every soldier’s heart in his company. Was it not grand of Paul, in the shipwreck, when all others were dismayed, and thought they should go to the bottom, but he said, “Have no fear, sirs,” and he bade them eat, as he ate,-calmly giving thanks to God before them all? Why, Paul saved them all by his calm confidence in God. If we have but faith, we shall strengthen our brethren; and if we have it not, we shall weaken them. I am sure, too, that the influence of unbelief in Christians, upon the unconverted, is very serious indeed. If we do not play the man in times of trial,-if we do not show them what faith in God can do,-they will think that there is nothing in it. And suppose, brethren, you should make anyone think there is nothing in religion, how sad that would be! When the devil wants a friend, surely he could not find one more able to do him service than a child of God who is full of mistrust. The children say, “Our father only trusts God for bread when there is plenty in the cupboard.” And the servants say, “The master is only happy in the Lord when he is in good health.” And those who know our business affairs say, “Oh, yes! So-and-so is a great believer; but, then, he has a big balance at his banker’s; you should see him when trade is bad; you should see him when there are bad debts; and you will find that he is not a bit more a believer in Jesus Christ than any of the rest of us. He is a fair-weather Christian; he is like the flowers that open when the sun shines; but take away the summer prosperity, and you will see but little of his religion.” Let it not be so with any of us, but may God deliver us from this tremendous evil of unbelief!

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

HEBREWS 11:1-13; and 32-40

Verses 1, 2. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report.

So it was written, in the olden time, that believers “obtained a good report;” and this second verse shows that they obtained it by their faith. The best part of the report about them is, that they believed their God, and believed all that was revealed to them by his Word and his Spirit.

3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

The facts about creation must be the subject of faith. It is true that they can be substantiated, by the argument from design, and in other ways; still, for a wise purpose as I believe, God has not made even that matter of the creation of the universe perfectly clear to human reason, so there is room for the exercise of faith. Men like to have everything laid down according to the rules of mathematical precision, but God desires them to exercise faith; and, therefore, he has not acted according to their wishes.

4. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

The first of the long line of martyrs triumphed by faith; and if you are to be strong to bear witness for God, you must be made strong by the same power which wrought so effectually in Abel. If, like his, your life is to be a speaking life,-a life which shall speak even out of the grave,-its voice must be the voice of faith.

5. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

It is faith that muzzles the mouth of death, and takes away the power of the sepulchre. If any man, who had not been a believer, had been translated as Enoch was, we should have been able to point to a great feat accomplished apart from faith. It has never been so; for this, which was one of the greatest things that was ever done,-to leap from this life into another, and to overleap the grave altogether,-was only achieved “by faith.”

6, 7. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet,

These are the things with which faith always deals;-not with the things that are seen or are apprehensible by the senses or the feelings.

7. Moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

So you see that faith has a condemning power towards an ungodly world. You do not need to be constantly telling worldlings that they are doing wrong; let them see clearly the evidence of your faith, for that will bear the strongest conceivable witness against their unbelief and sin, even as Noah, by his faith, “condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”

8. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.

That is, surely, the very masterpiece of faith. God bade Abraham go forth from his native land; he believed that God knew where he was to go, though he did not himself know; so he left the direction of his wanderings entirely in the Lord’s hands, and obeyed, and “went out, not knowing whither he went.” We are not to ask for full knowledge before we will be obedient to the will of the Lord; but we are to obey God in the dark, even as Abraham did.

9. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:

It is one of the great evidences of true faith for her to keep on, to continue, to abide, without any visible signs or tokens of what she knows is hers. The life of faith is wonderful, but so also is the walk of faith. Her walk has much about it that is mysterious; she knows that the land she treads on belongs to her; and yet, in another sense, she cannot claim a solitary foot of it. She knows that she is at home, even as Abraham was in his own land; yet like him, she knows herself to be a sojourner in a strange land, and is quite content to be so.

10. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

What a depth of meaning there is in those five words, “a city which hath foundations,”-as if all other cities had none! They come, and they go, as if they were molehills raised on the surface of the earth, or little mounds of sand made by the children’s wooden spades upon the seashore, which the next tide will wash away. What vast numbers of cities have been destroyed already! We are constantly picking up the relics of them; but there is, blessed be the name of the Lord, “a city which hath foundations,” a city founded on eternal power, and we are on our way to that city, I hope.

11, 12. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.

Perhaps the reference is to Abraham, who was as good as dead, being so old; or to Isaac, who was as good as dead, for he was laid upon the altar, and was practically “offered up” as a sacrifice unto the Lord. There were many deaths to work against the life of faith; yet life triumphed over death after all.

13. These all died in faith,

That is the epitaph which God has carved over the resting-place of his faithful ones: “These all died in faith.” Will this be the record concerning all of us, “These all died in faith”?

13. Not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

The chapter is a very long one so I must condense it, as the apostle himself did when he came to the 32nd verse; there was so much to be said that he added,-

32. And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:

There are some names, in this chapter, which we should hardly have expected to see there, the characters mentioned having been so disfigured by serious faults, and flaws, and failings; but the distinguishing feature of faith was there in every instance, and especially in the case of Samson. Perhaps there was no more childlike faith, in any man, than there was in him; who but a man full of faith would have hurled himself upon a thousand men with no weapon in his hand but the jawbone of an ass? There was a wondrous confidence in God in that weak, strong man, which, though it does not excuse his faults, yet nevertheless puts him in the ranks of the believers. Happy is the man or woman who believeth in God. There were multitudes of others, beside those whom the apostle named,-

33. Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,

Is that as great an exploit as subduing kingdoms? Yes, that it is; to have, by faith, preserved a holy character, in such a world of temptation as this, is a far grander achievement than to have conquered any number of kingdoms by force of arms.

33, 34. Obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong,

Do you notice how, every now and then, there is the mention of a feat which seems altogether beyond you; but then there follows one, in which you can be a partaker with these heroes and heroines of faith? It may be that you have never “quenched the violence of fire;” yet, often enough, it has been true of you that, by faith, “out of weakness” you have been “made strong.” Others-

34, 35. Waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance: that they might obtain a better resurrection:

What wondrous faith it was which sustained the saints under the awful tortures to which they were subjected! The story harrows one’s heart even to read it; what must it have been actually to endure?

36-39. And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:

These worthies lived before Christ came; but, since then, equally noble exploits have been performed by the heroes and heroines of faith. The Christian martyrs have shown the extremity of human endurance when they have been sustained by faith; and the bead-roll of Christian heroes, since their Lord ascended to heaven, is longer and even brighter than that of the faithful ones who came before them in the earlier dispensation.

40. God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

The new dispensation is necessary to complete the old; the New Testament is the complement of the Old Testament, and New Testament saints join hands with Old Testament elders. Let us all be worthy of our high pedigree; and may God grant that, if the saints of these latter days are to perfect the history of the Church of Christ, the end may not be less heroic than the beginning was! A true poem should gather force as it grows, and its waves of thought should roll in with greater power as it nears its climax; so should the mighty poem of faith’s glorious history increase in depth and power, as it gets nearer to its grand consummation, that God may be glorified, yet more and more, through all his believing children. So may it be! Amen.