It seems to me that the Lord’s supper should be received by us often. When the apostle says, in our text, “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup,” and our Lord said, in instituting the ordinance, “This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me,” I will not say that their words absolutely teach that we should frequently come to the table of communion; but I do think they give us a hint that, if we act rightly, we shall often observe this supper of the Lord. Once or twice in the year can hardly be thought to be a sufficiently frequent memorial of one so dear. In the early Church, it is possible that they broke bread every day; the expression “breaking bread from house to house” may signify that. From the records preserved in the Acts of the Apostles, it appears that, when the saints came together on the first day of the week, they usually broke bread. If there be any rule as to the time for the observance of this ordinance, it surely is every Lord’s day. At any rate, let it be often; do not, dear friends, absent yourselves long from the table; but, since your Lord has instituted this supper as a needful and admirable reminder of his death, take care that you celebrate it often.

This supper is, according to the verse before our text, to be received by all Christian people: “This do ye, as oft as ye drink it.” It is not to the apostles, nor to a few men who shall dare to call themselves priests, but to the members of the church at Corinth, and, by implication, to the members of all Christian churches, that the apostle writes, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” Though it be but half a dozen of the very poorest and most illiterate Christians who meet together to break bread, they are helping to show Christ’s death till he come. It is the duty and the privilege of all the people of God, and not merely of some of them, to observe this ordinance.

It is to be observed by eating and drinking; not by eating alone, as in the Romish church: “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” It is most strange that the Papists should have taken away the cup from the “laity” so-called, since our Lord never said to his disciples concerning the bread, “Eat ye all of it;” but, as if he foresaw that this error would arise, he did say concerning the cup, as he presented it to his apostles, “Drink ye all of it.” If you leave out the cup, you have marred the ordinance; and, as I shall have to show you presently, you have robbed it of a great part of its meaning. In the Romish church,-Romish, do I say? Why! there is another church, nearer home, that is twin sister to it, and is getting very like it; and there, too, it is taught that looking at the cup does the spectators good. It is not needful that they should “communicate”, but if they see the “priest” lift the cup, it will do them great good. This is a new way of blessing souls. Salvation used to come by the hearing of the Word; but now, forsooth, it is to be by seeing fine sights. But the apostle says, “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup,”-not as often as ye look on as spectators, but as often as ye actually become partakers in this symbolic feast, “ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.”

You notice that our translators have put this sentence in the indicative, but it is probable that the marginal reading is more correct, and that it may be read thus, “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, shew ye the Lord’s death till he come.” Endeavour to do it,-realize that you are doing it,-let your feelings be appropriate to the meaning of the ordinance: “shew ye the Lord’s death till he come.” As often as true believers meet together to eat this bread, and drink this cup, they do show, both to themselves and to all who look on, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Just in passing, notice that it is bread that they eat, and it is wine that they drink; nothing is said about transubstantiation here; but “as often as ye eat this bread,”-and it is bread, and nothing but bread,-“and drink this cup,” which still remains but a cup, and its contents just what they were before,-“ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.”

This will suffice upon the words of the text; and, now, the doctrine that I want to draw from it is that, at all times when we come to the communion table, we show the death of Christ. That is the great end and object of the Lord’s supper,-to set forth-to tell out anew-to proclaim afresh the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

First, let us consider how this ordinance does show the death of Christ.

It is all very simple; there is nothing but bread broken and eaten, and wine poured out, and afterwards drunk. How can this show the death of Christ? Well, it does. It has done so ever since it was instituted, and there are multitudes of believers who delight to see that death set forth by it.

First, it sets forth the painfulness of Christ’s death. It is death that is represented by these emblems, for there is the bread, and there is the wine, both separate from one another. When the flesh and the blood of a person are together, they do not present to us the image of death; but the bread, which represents the flesh, altogether separate from the wine, which represents the blood, is the picture of death, and death in a violent form,-death by wounding, by bleeding. The separation of the life-blood from the body is the form of death which is manifestly set forth here to all onlookers. To my mind, the very bread, as we break it, seems to say, “Thus Christ becomes our food.” Bread has to pass through many tortures before it becomes food to us. The wheat was sown in the ground; it was buried; it sprang up; it was exposed to cold winds and to hot sunshine before it ripened, and then it was cut down by a sharp sickle. After being cut down, it was threshed, then it was ground into flour, then the dough was kneaded into bread, which was baked in an oven, and cut with a knife,-all of which processes may be used as images of suffering. So the broken bread, which we eat at the communion, sets forth the suffering of Jesus; and the juice of the grape also sets forth suffering, for the clusters from the vine are flung together into the winepress, and trodden by the feet of men, or otherwise pressed until their lifeblood spurts forth. Even so was the Saviour pressed in the winepress of Jehovah’s wrath till his blood was poured forth on our behalf. This supper sets forth, to all who choose to see it, the painfulness of Christ’s death.

It sets forth, next, that it was a death of a peculiar kind, a death for others, just as that bread is for us to eat, and that cup is for us to partake of. So we say, by this ordinance, to all who look on, and especially to ourselves, “When the Lord Jesus died, he died for all his people.” We here declare that we believe in substitution,-that Christ died “the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God;” and that he, “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” That is the teaching of this supper, that Christ’s death was a painful death, and a death on behalf of others.

This supper also shows that we believe the death of Christ to be acceptable to God. Why do we spread this table here in the place where we customarily meet for worship? Is this also an act of worship? Assuredly it is, and one of the highest kind. But we should not dare to put these memorials of the death of Christ before the Father if we did not know that the Father had accepted him. But “it pleased the Lord to bruise him,” and he was pleased with the sacrifice which his Son offered. He smelled a sweet savour of rest in the death of his dear Son. Therefore, when we worship him in the most humble manner, and after the most solemn fashion, we say to the Lord, “We know that thou hast accepted the atonement offered by thy dear Son, and we set him forth before all mankind as the accepted sacrifice before his Father’s face.”

And I think that we also mean to say, by this ordinance, that Christ’s sacrifice is complete and perfect. We should not wish to show it to others if it were not worthy of being looked at? If it were incomplete, we might well keep it in the background until Christ had finished it; but because the cry, “It is finished,” rang out from the lips of the dying Sufferer of Calvary, we rejoice to set forth his death to all who come this way. Behold, and see that he hath not partly paid the price, but he hath paid it all. Look ye here, he hath so finished his atoning work that he hath spread a feast to which his servants may come, and rejoice with exceeding joy. If the sacrifice were not finished, it would not yet be feasting time; but it is complete, and, therefore, do we show it forth after this fashion.

Another great truth that we teach to everybody who sees us at the communion table is this,-Jesus Christ has died, and we live upon his death. This bread and this wine are the emblems of his broken body and his shed blood; and, therefore, we eat them, and drink them, and so say to you that Christ’s dying is our life. Whenever we want to get spiritually stronger, we always feed upon the truth that Christ died for us. Do any of you deny the doctrine of substitution? We tell you that it is the very essence of our being;-that, henceforth, it has become the wellspring of life to us. We could not be happy-we could not have any peace-if that were taken away from us. My heart speaketh now in words of truth and soberness, and says to you, “There is no truth which I dare to deny; but, concerning this truth of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ, it would be absolutely impossible for me to doubt it.” Tortures and racks may tear away the strings that are bound about my heart, but they can never make me relax the hold that I have of Jesus Christ my Lord. No; the Lamb of Calvary, bleeding in our room, and place, and stead, has become essential to our very being, and we cannot, we must not, we will not becloud that blessed doctrine of his substitutionary sacrifice. Is it not all in all to us?

We also say to dear friends who may look on at this feast that the death of Jesus Christ has now become to us the source of our highest joy. We are not about to celebrate a funeral. When we come to this table, we do not come there in mournful guise. I know that it has pleased the authorities of certain churches to make men kneel before what they call the altar; but why have they to kneel? Is there any passage of Scripture in which there is even the shadow of any teaching which looks that way. At the passover, the Israelites stood with their loins girt and their staves in their hand. Why was that? Because they were expecting to go out of Egypt, and were not then out of the land of bondage. He, who is under the law, when he eats his passover, must eat it with his loins girt and with his staff in his hand; but how did the disciples eat the Lord’s supper? Why, reclining in the easiest posture possible. It was a most solemn supper, but it was a supper. It was the ordinary meal consecrated by the Lord to the great purpose of setting forth his death; and to make us kneel to receive it is, to my mind, to take away a great part of the teaching of it. We should sit at the communion as easily as we possibly can,-as we would at our own table, because “we which have believed do enter into rest;” and part of the teaching of the Lord’s supper is that now, in Christ, we have perfect peace, and we rest in him as we feed upon him. This ordinance is a feast, not now a subject for sorrow, but a theme for delight.

And once more, beloved, when we come to the Lord’s table to show Christ’s death, we show it as the bond of Christian union. The point of union among Christians is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am afraid that it will be many long years before we shall get all believers to agree concerning baptism. I hope right views of that ordinance are spreading, but it does not seem to me to be a point where all Christians are likely yet to unite; but, concerning our Lord’s death, all who really are his people are agreed. If we are in him, we rejoice in that grand foundation truth, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” and we delight to think that, by his death, he has redeemed us from death. So, dear brothers and sisters, if you cannot meet your fellow-Christians on certain doctrines, because some of you are strong men in Christ, and others are but babes, and the babes cannot crack the nuts or eat the strong meat upon which some feed, you can all unite in Christ. He is like the manna, which suited all the Israelites in the wilderness; young or old, they could all feed on the manna, and so can all the saints feed on Christ. And when we sit at the communion table, we say to all the world, “We are all one in Christ Jesus; we do not come to this table as Baptists, or Episcopalians, or Methodists, or Presbyterians; we come here simply as those who form one body in Christ, they who agree to show forth to all mankind the death of our adorable Lord.”

Secondly, let us consider why the Lord has taken means to show this truth.

There are a great many important truths in the Bible, and every truth ought to be kept in remembrance; but it is not concerning every truth that the Lord has appointed an ordinance to keep it in memory. The doctrine of election is one that we firmly believe; but we have no special token, type, or symbol to set it forth.

It is the death of Christ which is set forth by this memorial supper. Why was that chosen? I answer, because it is the most vital of all truths. Concerning the sacrificial death of Christ, there must not be tolerated any dispute in the Christian Church. That must for ever stand as a settled doctrine of the gospel. The atoning death of Jesus Christ once put away, you have taken the sun out of the Church’s heavens. Indeed, you have taken away all reason for the very existence of the Church of Christ. I think it was Dr. Priestley, who was a Unitarian, and who had a brother, who was a sound Calvinistic divine, and who came and visited him, and he agreed to let him preach for him, one Sabbath morning, on condition that he promised not to preach on any controversial subject. The good man gave the promise, but rather repented, afterwards, that he had done so; yet he managed to redeem his promise and also to clear his conscience, for he preached, on the next Sabbath morning, from this text: “Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh;” from, which he proved that the Godhead of Christ is a truth about which no controversy could be allowed. We put the doctrine of his substitutionary sacrifice in the same category; there is no true Christianity without it. You have given us merely the shell and the husk if you take away this great central truth of the gospel,-God’s justice vindicated by the death of his dear Son, and, on that ground, free pardon published by the grace of God to the very chief of sinners who believe in him. This doctrine, which some despise and decry, is the very essence of the gospel of Christ. We have no question with regard to the truth of it, neither do we speak with bated breath concerning it; for our Lord Jesus instituted this supper in order to keep this truth before men’s minds, because it is the point above all others that is vital to the gospel.

Another reason is, because so many combat this doctrine. It has been the Hougomont of the great Waterloo which has been fought against Christ. All his adversaries rally against, this truth. When any man becomes unsound upon other points, if you probe deeply enough, you will find that he has become unsound upon the doctrine of the atonement. The substitutionary sacrifice of Christ is the one thing which his enemies are aiming to overthrow. They cannot endure it; they profess to be greatly offended by our frequent use of the word blood; yet that word is one of the most conspicuous in both the Old and the New Testaments, so still will we say, “Without shedding of blood is no remission,” and “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” This communion table sets forth the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, and so brings his atoning sacrifice before men’s minds; and thus his Church, so often as she observes this ordinance, shows Christ’s death in the teeth of all opposers, and this she means still to do “till he come.”

No doubt the Lord also instituted a symbol for the maintenance and propagation of this truth, because it is a most blessed one to sinners. Poor souls, there is no comfort for you till you know that Christ died in your stead. Your conscience, if it be really aroused, will never be pacified with ceremonies; nor will it be contented with moral precepts which you cannot carry out; nor will it be lulled to slumber with the idea of your own religiousness ever saving you. Your awakened conscience makes you ask, “How can God be just and yet pardon me?” And it is the martyred body of your Lord that answers that question.

“Till God in human flesh I see,

My thoughts no comfort find;

The holy, just, and sacred Three

Are terrors to my mind.”

But when you come to see Christ on the cross dying instead of you, then will comfort come into your mind, O distracted seeker; but not till then. Therefore is it that God bids his ministers preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, and therefore is it that, as often as we come to this table, we show his death, because sinners need that beyond everything else.

And, beloved, there is another reason, I think, why this truth was selected to be set forth in this memorial supper, namely, that it might certify the truth to your own soul. What arrow will ever pierce the heart of sin unless it be dipped in the blood of Jesus? But when I see sin punished on Christ, I see the evil of it. When I see Christ dying for my sin, I see the great motive for my dying to my sin. When I behold his griefs and pangs on my behalf, I see a reason why I should make abundant sacrifices in order that I may glorify him. Beloved, the death of Christ is the great sin-killer; and he who truly knows it, and understands it, will feel its sanctifying power.

At the same time, this truth greatly glorifies God. When do you ever praise God so well as when you, a poor guilty sinner, stand at the foot of the cross, and see that there Christ died for you? The sweetest songs in all the world are those that are sung around the cross by sinners saved by sovereign grace; and each one sings unto the Lord, “Wash me in the fountain, and make me whiter than snow; then shall every part of my being praise thee, and my whole nature shall break forth in ecstatic joy magnifying and blessing the name of the Lord who is able to put away such offences as mine through the precious blood of his dear Son.” You will thus be enabled to glorify God when you come to this table, and meditate on the great atoning sacrifice by which your sin is for ever put away.

I feel that I can say, without boasting, that my ministry and this ordinance agree well together. I have long preached to you Jesus Christ and him crucified, I have fully preached to you his vicarious sacrifice; and when you come to this table, you can realize that the truth which I have preached to you links on to this ordinance. But how anyone can piece together a dry philosophy and this service, I do not know; having left out the grand fundamental doctrine of atonement, how they can make anything but a farce of the communion, I cannot even guess. I should think they might as well abolish it from their services, and let the symbol go when the substance has already gone. But it cannot be so with us, for we feel that God would have his people think of Jesus always; he would have them speak of Jesus often; he would have them bear witness to the death of Jesus continually; and, therefore, he makes this communion to be the sweetest of ordinances to point us, with unerring finger, to Christ on the cross.

Now, thirdly, will you please to notice the perpetuity of this ordinance, and the reason for that perpetuity? “Ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” When he comes, we shall not need these symbols, for we shall have the Master himself with us, but “till he come” we are to observe this ordinance.

What do I learn from this? Why, dear friends, that his death will be efficacious “till he come.” You are not called to show to the world something that is worn out; you do not come to this table to set forth to the people who will look on something whose force is spent. Oh, no! You can still sing,-

“Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood

Shall never lose its power,

Till all the ransom’d Church of God

Be saved to sin no more.”

And every time any of you, who are unconverted, but are seeking the Lord, see this table spread, you should say to yourselves, “Those people believe that there is still efficacy in Christ’s blood, or else they would not keep up the observance of that supper.” Yes, we do believe just that, and we believe that Jesus is able to save you now if you come to him,-able at once to speak peace and pardon to your heart if you do but trust him.

Another thing I learn from our text is that, as this supper is to be celebrated “till he come,” it shows that there will always be a Church of Christ to celebrate it. There always has been a Church of Christ since he founded it. In the darkest Popish days, Christ always had his little Church to observe this ordinance. In the catacombs at Rome, in the mountains of Bohemia, in the Vaudois valleys, in the wild glens of Scotland, and in almost every land, in the simple breaking of bread and the pouring out of wine believers still remembered Christ’s death, even though they met together at the peril of their lives; and right on down to these brighter days, in which we can meet two or three at a time, or hundreds or thousands at once, to break bread and to drink wine in remembrance of our dying Lord, there has always been a Church of Christ, and there will always be a Church of Christ, so do not despair however dark the days may yet be. Neither Rome nor hell itself can put out the candle which has been lit by the Lord, and there will be a Church of Christ “till he come.”

It is true that there will always be people to oppose this doctrine, and one reason why you are to continue to observe this ordinance is because there will always be some people who will deny Christ’s substitutionary death. Dear friends and fellow-helpers in the Lord, it seems such a sweet thing to me to think that all the communicants at this ordinance to-night will be helping to preach a sermon upon our text. I alone must do the talking, but you, who will presently gather around the communion table, will unite in this act, by which we shall all say, “Christ died on Calvary’s cross, Christ died for us;” and all the other truths that I have been mentioning to you. By the very eating of the bread, and the drinking of the wine, you will proclaim again that there are some who believe in the bleeding Saviour,-some who still believe in him as dying in their room, and place, and stead. Let others deny it if they will, you will maintain that testimony.

Beloved, this ordinance is to be perpetual, because Christian hearts will always need it. There were some people, a little while ago, who were getting so wonderfully perfect (in their own estimation) that I thought, at the time, they would soon give up the observance of ordinances. I read of one of them, who said that he did not pray any longer, for his mind was so perfectly sanctified and conformed to the will of God that he did not need to ask anything of God! Poor fool! That was all I could say of a person in such a state of heart as that. When any man gets beyond the need of prayer, he has urgent need to begin his Christian life again; and it is the same with those who have got beyond the need of ordinances. Christ knew that we should never, in this life, be able to do without outward ordinances; he knew that his people would be forgetful, even of himself, so he gave us this double “forget-me-not”-this sweet memorial of his death, that as oft as we observe it, we may observe it in remembrance of him.

Moreover, the world itself will always need this ordinance. There will never come a day when the world will not need to have the crucified Christ set before it; there will never be an hour in which there will not be breaking hearts that need consolation, wandering souls that need reclaiming, and others who are seeking self-salvation, who will need to be taught that salvation lies in Another, and is to be found only in the bleeding Lamb of Calvary. May God help us to maintain this testimony for the world’s sake, for the poor sinner’s sake, for our own sake, and for Christ’s sake “till he come.”

I have done when I have made one other remark, which, is this; if what I have said about this ordinance is true, then, let us attend to it. If in this way we set forth Christ’s death,-if our coming to the table of communion calls attention to that great fact,-if we unite, in this act of fellowship, in testimony to the death of Christ, let us attend to it.

What shall I say to some of you who, I trust, have Christ as your Master, but who have never yet obeyed this command of his? Let me ask you whether he has ever given you exemption from the observance of this ordinance, and let me also ask you whether, as he thought it wise to ordain this ordinance, you ought not to think it wise to observe it. Did he institute it in order that you might neglect it? Has he instituted any ordinance which it is right for his people to neglect? Do you know how much you have already lost through your disobedience to your Lord’s command? You tell me that it will not save you. I know that; and you know as well as I do that you should not come to the communion if you thought it would save you, for none are invited to come but those who are already saved. But I should like you to look at this matter in the way in which a poor young man spoke of the other ordinance instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ. He had not all his wits, but the grace of God had been at work within him, and as he lay dying, his chief regret was that he had not been baptized. His sister said to him, “Well, but you know, Isaac, that baptism will not save you.” He answered, “I know that very well, for I am already saved; but,” he added, “I expect to meet the Lord Jesus Christ very soon, and I should not like him to say to me, ‘Why did you not do that little thing to please me?’ ” There is much force in that remark. The smaller the thing is, the greater reason is there why we should attend to it directly, lest we should be supposed to say, “I would not do even that little thing to please Christ.” If coming to the communion table would save you, of course you would come out of sheer selfishness; but if your religion is nothing but selfishness, may the Lord have mercy upon you, and give you a far better one! It is the privilege of those who are saved to show their obedience to Christ, and their love to him by coming to his table. Do you think that you can look him in the face, and say, “My Lord, thou hast instituted this ordinance to be observed in remembrance of thee, but I have never observed it”? May he not look upon you, and say, “It is but a small thing, and it is for your soul’s good, can you not do that for me?” You ought to question whether you are in a right state of heart if you can be negligent of this command of your Lord.

But I must also speak to those who do observe the ordinance in a fashion, but who do not enter into the true spirit of it. Those who come rightly to the table show Christ’s death “till he come;” but I am afraid that there are, at all communion services, some who do not think aright concerning Christ’s death. I always feel very sad, when I am presiding at this ordinance, if I find my thoughts wandering away from the last dread scene upon the cross. I would rather not be at the table of my Lord than be here thinking of something else beside his sufferings and death. What can be the use of the outward ordinance if inward and spiritual grace be lacking? Beg the Lord to tether all your thoughts to the cross. Make this your prayer, “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords to the horns of the altar,” and let that altar be the broken body of your Lord upon the tree. Of him let me think, and in him let me rest, all through the communion service, and let me see to it that I do reverently, humbly, heartily show his death “till he come.”

Come then, beloved, unworthy as you are, come to his table. Come trembling because of your sin, but rejoicing in his sacrifice, and grateful for his great love. Come and trust him over again; come and give yourselves up to him once more; come and renew your vows of affection and devotion. Come and put your finger into the print of the nails, and thrust your hand into his pierced side. Nay, more than that, say what the spouse does as she begins the song of songs, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.” Seek to get near to him, to come into close contact with him; and when you do so, hold him fast, and do not let him go, but call together your friends and Christian brethren, and say to them, “Here is the Master; come with me, and let us together have sweet fellowship with him.” If, to-night, at the communion table, I might thus lay hold of the great Angel of the Covenant, I think I should feel inclined to hold him till the break of day, as Jacob did at Jabbok; and if he should make my sinews shrink, yet would I bless his name for condescending to tarry and wrestle with me. If you can get into contact with him, make this your resolve, that you will hold fast, and will say to him, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 22:1-9; and MATTHEW 27:33-44

Psalm 22 Verse 1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

What a dolorous cry! How terrible it must have been to have heard that cry, but how much more terrible to have uttered it! For the dear Son of God, the Well-beloved, with whom the Father is always pleased, to be forsaken of his God, was indeed grief unfathomable.

1. Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

It seems as if the Saviour’s voice, and almost his mind, had failed him, for he calls his prayer “roaring”, likening himself to a wounded beast. When any of you cannot pray, or think you cannot, remember these words of your Lord. If he, the ever-blessed Son of God, speaks of his own prayer as a “roaring”, what must ours be! You know that Isaiah spoke of his own prayer as being like the chattering of a crane or a swallow, or the mourning of a dove, as if there were no articulate utterance about it; but to the ear and eye of God, there is music in a sigh, and beauty in a tear. As our Lord had to pray like this, do not wonder if we, sometimes, should feel that God has forsaken us. If there were such dark clouds for Christ, there may well be some for us also.

2. O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

If we remember Gethsemane, and think how Jesus prayed there, even to an agony and a bloody sweat, shall we wonder if, sometimes, our prayers seem to be put on one side, and we do not immediately receive answers of peace to them? Yet, you see, our Lord kept on crying to God both day and night.

3. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Settle it in your hearts that, whatever God does, he is holy. Never harbour a thought against him; never imagine that he is bard, or unjust, or unfaithful. That cannot be; so, if the worst comes to the worst, never let your faith have any question upon this point.

4, 5. Our fathers trusted in thee; they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

Look back, and see how God helped our ancestors. Recall how, in the past ages, the Lord always was the Deliverer of all those that trusted in him. Was a righteous man ever finally forsaken of God? Since the world began, has not the Lord, sooner or later, appeared to deliver his children? It is wonderful to hear our Divine Master pleading in this fashion; but most wonderful of all is that next verse:-

6. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

There is a little red worm which seems to be nothing else but blood; when it is crushed, it seems all gone except a blood-stain; and the Saviour, in the deep humiliation of his spirit, compares himself to that little red worm. How true it is that “he made himself of no reputation” for our sakes! He emptied himself of all his glory; and if there be any glory natural to manhood, he emptied himself even of that. Not only the glories of his Godhead, but the honours of his manhood he laid aside that it might be seen that, “though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor.”

7, 8. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

Or, as the passage is quoted in Matthew, “Let him deliver him now, if he will have him.”

9. But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.

This is a very wonderful thing. I do not think we remember as we ought that, for years after our birth, we could do nothing to help ourselves, yet we were taken care of even then. He who has passed safely through his infancy need not be afraid that God will not help him through the rest of his life; and if we should live so long that we come to a second infancy, the God who carried us through the first will carry us through the second. He has already done so much for us that we are bound to trust him for all the future.

Now let us see, as I reminded you just now, how this passage is referred to in the Gospel according to Matthew.

Matthew 27 Verses 33, 34. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say a place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.

This was a stupefying draught, which was usually given to prisoners about to die in order to mitigate their pain, and therefore Christ would not drink it, for he was determined to suffer even to the bitter end. He did not come to have any mitigation of his agony when he was offering his atonement for us; and so, “when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.”

35. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.

This is a point upon which we cannot say much; but, to the peculiarly sensitive soul of Jesus, it must have been a great part of his shame thus to be stripped of every garment, and hung up before the sun.

36, 37. And sitting down they watched him there; and set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

By their own confession, he died for being a King, and he died for being too greatly good, too royal in his love. He, being King of kings, died that you and I might live for ever, and be kings and priests unto God,

38, 39. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,

Not only they that sat there, such as the scribes, and Pharisees, and soldiers, and they that hung there, the thieves that were crucified with him, but the passers-by must needs revile him, indulging in a sneer.

40-43. And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, he saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

That is the cry of the mockers to-day. If we will but give up the Atonement, men say that they will believe in Christ. His character is so excellent that they will accept him as an example, (so they say,) but they will not have his Godhead, nor his precious blood. This proves that they are enemies, for they use the same language as his bitterest foes did when he hung upon the cross. As for the scribes, they were learned in the Psalms, and therefore they quoted what we have already read.

43, 44. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

Thus the Master passed through bitter trial and ignominy for our sakes.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-282, 284.

RESTRAINING PRAYER

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, July 6th, 1905,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

In the year 1863.

“Thou … restrainest prayer before God.”-Job 15:4.

This is one of the charges brought by Eliphaz the Temanite against Job, “Yea, thou castest off fear, and restrainest prayer before God.” I shall not use this sentence as an accusation against those who never pray, though there may be some in this house of prayer whose heads are unaccustomed to bow down, and whose knees are unaccustomed to kneel before the Lord their Maker. You have been fed by God’s bounty, you owe all the breath in your nostrils to him, yet you have never done homage to his name. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but you know not, neither do you consider the Most High. The cattle on a thousand hills low forth their gratitude, and every sheep praiseth God in its bleatings; but these beings, worse than natural brute beasts, still continue to receive from the lavish hand of divine benevolence, but they return no thanks whatsoever to their Benefactor. Let such remember that that ground, which has long been rained upon, and ploughed, and sown, which yet bringeth forth no fruit, is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned. Prayerless souls are Christless souls, Christless souls are graceless souls, and graceless souls shall soon be damned souls. See your peril, ye that neglect altogether the blessed privilege of prayer. You are in the bonds of iniquity, you are in the gall of bitterness. God deliver you, for his name’s sake!

Nor do I intend to use this text in an address to those who are in the habit of formal prayer, though there are many such. Taught from their childhood to utter certain sacred words, they have carried through youth, and even up to manhood, the same practice. I will not discuss that question just now, whether the practice of teaching children a form of prayer is proper or not. I would not do it. Children should be instructed in the meaning of prayer, and their little minds should be taught to pray; but it should be rather the matter of prayer than the words of prayer that should be suggested; and I think they should be taught to use their own words, and to speak to God in such phrases and terms as their own childlike capacities, assisted by a mother’s love, may be able to suggest. Full many there are who, from early education, grow up habituated to some form of words, which either stands in lieu of the heart’s devotion, or cripples its free exercise. No doubt there may be true prayer linked with a form, and the soul of many a saint has gone up to heaven in some holy collect, or in the words of some beautiful liturgy; but, for all that, we are absolutely certain that tens of thousands use the mere language without heart or soul, under the impression that they are praying. I consider the form of prayer to be no more worthy of being called prayer than a coach may be called a horse; the horse will be better without the coach, travel much more rapidly, and find himself much more at ease; he may drag the coach, it is true, and still travel well. Without the heart of prayer, the form is no prayer; it will not stir or move, it is simply a vehicle that may have wheels that might move; but it has no inner force or power within itself to propel it. Flatter not yourselves that your devotion has been acceptable to God, you that have been merely saluting the ears of the Most High with forms. They have been only mockeries, when your heart has been absent. What though a parliament of bishops should have composed the words you use, what though they should be absolutely faultless, ay, what if they should even be inspired, or though you have used them a thousand times, yet have you never prayed if you consider that the repetition of the form is prayer. No! there is more than the chatter of the tongue in genuine supplication; more than the repetition of words in truly drawing near to God. Take care lest, with the form of godliness, you neglect the power, and go down to the pit, having a lie in your right hand, but not the truth in your heart.

What I do intend, however, is to address this text to the true people of God, who understand the sacred art of prayer, and are prevalent therein; but who, to their own sorrow and shame, must confess that they have restrained prayer. If there be no other person in this congregation to whom the preacher will speak personally, he feels shamefully conscious that he will have to speak very plainly to himself. We know that our prayers are heard; we are certain-it is not a question with us,-that there is an efficacy in the divine office of intercession; and yet (oh, how we should blush when we make the confession!) we must acknowledge that we do restrain prayer. Now, inasmuch as we speak to those who grieve and repent that they should so have done, we shall use but little sharpness; but we shall try to use much plainness of speech. Let us see how and in what respect we have restrained prayer.

Do you not think, dear friends, that we often restrain prayer in the fewness of the occasions that we set apart for supplication?

From hoary tradition and modern precedents, we have come to believe that the morning should be opened with the offering of prayer, and that the day should be shut in with the nightly sacrifice. We do ill if we neglect those two seasons of prayer. Do you not think that often, in the morning, we rise so near to the time of labour, when duty calls us to our daily avocation, that we hurry through the wonted exercises with unseemly haste, instead of diligently seeking the Lord, and earnestly calling upon his name? And even at night, when we are very weary and jaded, it is just possible that our prayer is uttered somewhere between sleeping and waking. Is not this restraining prayer? And throughout the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, if we continue thus to pray, and this be all, how small an amount of true supplication will have gone up to heaven!

I trust there are none here present, who profess to be followers of Christ, who do not also practise prayer in their families. We may have no positive commandment for it, but we believe that it is so much in accord with the genius and spirit of the gospel, and that it is so commended by the example of the saints, that the neglect thereof is a strange inconsistency. Now, how often this family worship is conducted in a slovenly manner! An inconvenient hour is fixed; and a knock at the door, a ring at the bell, the call of a customer, may hurry the believer from his knees to go and attend to his worldly concerns. Of course, many excuses might be offered, but the fact would still remain that, in this way, we often restrain prayer.

And then, when you come up to the house of God,-I hope you do not come up to this Tabernacle without prayer,-yet I fear we do not all pray as we should, even when in the place dedicated to God’s worship. There should always be a devout prayer lifted up to heaven as soon as you enter the place where you would meet with God. What a preparation is often made to appear in the assembly! Some of you get here half an hour before the service commences; if there were no talking, if each one of you looked into the Bible, or if the time was spent in silent supplication, what a cloud of holy incense would go smoking up to heaven!

I think it would be comely for you and profitable for us if, as soon as the minister enters the pulpit, you engaged yourselves to plead with God for him. For me, I may especially say it is desirable. I claim it at your hands above every other man. With this overwhelming congregation, and with the terrible responsibility of so numerous a church, and with the word spoken here published within a few hours, and disseminated over the country, scattered throughout all Europe, nay, to the very ends of the earth, I may well ask you to lift up your hearts in supplication that the words spoken may be those of truth and soberness, directed of the Holy Spirit, and made mighty through God, like arrows shot from his own bow, to find a target in the hearts that he means to bless.

And on going home, with what earnestness should we ask the Master to let what we have heard live in our hearts! We lose very much of the effects of our Sabbaths through not pleading with God on the Saturday night for a blessing upon the day of rest, and through not also pleading at the end of the Sunday, beseeching him to make that which we have heard abide in our memories, and appear in our actions. We have restrained prayer, I fear, in the fewness of the occasions. Indeed, brethren, every day of the week, and every part of the day, should be an occasion for prayer. Ejaculations such as these, “Oh, would that!” “Lord, save me!” “Help me!” “More light, Lord!” “Teach me!” “Guide me!” and a thousand such, should be constantly going up from our hearts to the throne of God. You may enjoy a refreshing solitude, if you please, in the midst of crowded Cheapside; or, contrariwise, you may have your head in the whirl of a busy crowd when you have retired to your closet. It is not so much where we are as in what state our heart is. Let the regular seasons for devotion be constantly attended to. These things ought ye to have done; but let your heart be habitually in a state of prayer; ye must not leave this undone. Oh, that we prayed more, that we set apart more time for it! Good Bishop Farrar had an idea in his head which he carried out. Being a man of some substance, and having some twenty-four persons in his household, he divided the day, and there was always some person engaged either in holy song or else in devout supplication through the whole of the twenty-four hours; never was there a moment when the censer ceased to smoke, or the altar was without its sacrifice. Happy shall it be for us when, day without night, we shall circle the throne of God rejoicing; but, till then, let us emulate the ceaseless praise of seraphs before the throne, continually drawing near unto God, and making supplication and thanksgiving.

But, to proceed to a second remark, dear friends, I think it will be very clear, upon a little reflection, that we constantly restrain prayer by not having our hearts in a proper state when we come to its exercise.

We rush into prayer too often. We should think it necessary, if we were to address the Queen, that our petition should be prepared; but, often, we dash before the throne of God as though it were but some common house of call, without even having a thought in our minds of what we are going for. Now, just let me suggest some few things which I think should always be subjects of meditation before our season of prayer, and I think, if you confess that you have not thought of these things, you will also be obliged to acknowledge that you have restrained prayer.

We should, before prayer, meditate upon him to whom it is to be addressed. Let our thoughts be directed to the living and true God. Let me remember that he is omnipotent, then I shall ask large things. Let me remember that he is very tender, and full of compassion, then I shall ask little things, and be minute in my supplication. Let me remember the greatness of his covenant, then I shall come very boldly. Let me remember, also, that his faithfulness is like the great mountains, that his promises are sure to all the seed, then I shall ask very confidently, for I shall be persuaded that he will do as he has said. Let me fill my soul with the reflection of the greatness of his majesty, then I shall be struck with awe; with the equal greatness of his love, then I shall be filled with delight. We should pray better than we do if we meditated more, before prayer, upon the God whom we address in our supplications.

Then, let me meditate also upon the way through which my prayer is offered; let my soul behold the blood sprinkled on the mercy-seat; before I venture to draw near to God, let me go to Gethsemane, and see the Saviour as he prays. Let me stand in holy vision at the foot of Calvary, and see his body rent, that the veil which parted my soul from all access to God might be rent too, that I might come close to my Father, even to his feet. O dear friends, I am sure, if we thought about the way of access in prayer, we should be more mighty in it, and our neglect of so doing has led us to restrain prayer.

And yet, again, ought I not, before prayer, to be duly conscious of my many sins? Oh! when I hear men pray cold, careless prayers, surely they forget that they are sinners, or else, abjuring gaudy words and flowing periods, they would smite upon their breast with the cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner;” they would come to the point at once, with force and fervency. “I, black, unclean, defiled, condemned by the law, make my appeal unto thee, O God!” What prostration of spirit, what zeal, what fervour, what earnestness, and then, consequently, what prevalence would there be if we were duly sensible of our sin!

If we can add to this a little meditation upon what our needs are, how much better we should pray! We often fail in prayer because we come without an errand, not having thought of what our necessities are; but if we have reckoned up that we need pardon, justification, sanctification, preservation; that, besides the blessings of this life, we need that our decaying graces should be revived, that such-and-such a temptation should be removed, and that through such-and-such, a trial we should be carried, and prove more than conquerors, then, coming with an errand, we should speed before the Most High. But we bring to the altars bowls that have no bottom; and if the treasure should be put in them, it would fall through. We do not know what we want, and therefore we ask not for what we really need; we affect to lay our necessities before the Lord, without having duly considered how great our necessities are. See thyself as an abject bankrupt, weak, sick, dying, and this will make thee plead. See thy necessities to be deep as the ocean, broad as the expanse of heaven, and this will make thee cry. There will be no restraining of prayer, beloved, when we have got a due sense of our soul’s poverty; but because we think we are rich, and increased in goods, and we have need of nothing, therefore it is that we restrain prayer before God.

How well it would be for us if, before prayer, we would meditate upon the past with regard to all the mercies we have had during the day, what courage that would give us to ask for more! The deliverances we have experienced through our life, how boldly should we plead to be delivered yet again! He that hath been with me in six troubles will not forsake me in the seventh. Do but remember how thou didst pass through the fires, and wast not burnt, and thou shouldst be confident that the flame will not kindle upon thee now. Christian, remember how, when thou passedst through the rivers aforetime, God was with thee; and surely thou mayst plead with him to deliver thee from the flood that now threatens to inundate thee. Think of the past ages too, of what he did of old, when he brought his people out of Egypt, and of all the mighty deeds which he has done,-are they not written in the book of the wars of the Lord? Plead all these, and say unto him in thy supplications:-“O thou that art a God that heareth prayer, hear me now, and send me an answer of peace!” I think, without needing to point that arrow, you can see which way I would shoot. Because we do not come to the throne of grace in a proper state of supplication, therefore it is that too often we restrain, prayer before God.

Now, thirdly, it is not to be denied, by a man who is conscious of his own error, that, in the duty of prayer itself, we are too often straitened in our own bowels, and so restrain prayer.

Prayer has been differently divided by different authors. We might roughly say that prayer consists, first, of invocation: “Our Father, which art in heaven.” We begin by stating the title and our own apprehension of the glory and majesty of the Person whom we address. Do you not think, dear friends, that we fail here, and restrain prayer here? Oh! how we ought to sound forth his praises! I think, on the Sabbath, it is always the minister’s special duty to bring out the titles of The Almighty One, such as “King of kings, and Lord of lords!” He is not to be addressed in common terms. How should we endeavour, as we search the Scripture through, to find those mighty phrases which the ancient saints were wont to apply to Jehovah! And how should we make his temple ring with his glory, and make our closet full of that holy adoration with which prayer must always be linked! I think the rebuking angel might often say, “Thou thinkest that the Lord is such an one as thyself, and thou talkest not to him as to the God of the whole earth; but, as though he were a man, thou dost address him in slighting and unseemly terms.” Let all our invocations come more deeply from our souls’ reverence to the Most High, and let us address him, not in high-sounding words of fleshly homage, but still in words which set forth our awe and our reverence while they express his majesty and the glory of his holiness.

From invocation we usually go to confession, and how often do we fail here! In your closet, are you in the habit of confessing your real sins to God? Do you not find, brethren, a tendency to acknowledge that sin which is common to all men, but not that which is certainly peculiar to you? We are all Sauls in our way, we want the best of the cattle and the sheep; those favourite sins, those Agag sins, it is not so easy to hew them in pieces before the Lord. The right eye sin, happy is that Christian who has learned to pluck it out by confession. The right hand sin, he is blessed and well taught who aims the axe at that sin, and cuts it from him. But no, we say that we have sinned,-we are willing to use the terms of any general confession that any church may publish; but to say, “Lord, thou knowest that I love the world, and the things of the world; I am covetous;” or to say, “Lord, thou knowest I was envious of So-and-so, because he shone brighter than I did at such-and-such a public meeting; Lord, I was jealous of such-and-such a member of the church, because I evidently saw that he was preferred before me;” and for the husband also to confess before God that he has been overbearing, that he has spoken rashly to a child; for a wife to acknowledge that she has been wilful, that she has had a fault,-this would be letting out prayer; but the hiding of these things is restraining prayer, and we shall surely come under that charge of having restrained prayer unless we make our private confessions of sin very explicit, coming to the point.

I have thought, in teaching children in the Sabbath-school, we should not so much talk about sin in general as the sins in which children most commonly indulge, such as little thefts, naughty tempers, disobedience to parents; these are the things that children should confess. Men in the dawn of their manhood should confess those ripening evil imaginations, those lustful things that rise in the heart; while the man in business should ever make this a point, to see most to the sins which attack business men. I have no doubt that I might be very easily led, in my confession, to look to all the offences I may have committed against the laws of business, because I should not need to deal very hardly with myself there, for I do not have the temptations of these men; and I should not wonder if some of you merchants will find it very easy to examine yourselves according to a code that is proper to me, but not to you. Let the workman pray to God as a workman, and confess the sins common to his craft. Let the trader examine himself according to his standing, and let each man make his confession like the confessions of old, when every one confessed apart,-the mother apart and the daughter apart, the father apart and the son apart. Let each one thus make a clean breast of the matter, and I am sure there will not be so much need to say that we have restrained prayer before God.

As to the next part of prayer, which is petition, lamentably indeed do we all fail. We have not, because we ask not, or because we ask amiss. We are ready enough to ask for deliverance from trial, but how often we forget to ask that it may be sanctified to us! We are quite ready to say, “Give us this day our daily bread;” how often, however, do we fail to ask that he would give us the Bread which cometh down from heaven, and enable us blessedly to feed upon his flesh and his blood! Brethren, we come before God with such little desires, and the desires we get have so little fervency in them, and when we get the fervency, we so often fail to get the faith which grasps the promise, and believes that God will give, that, in all these points, when we come to the matter of spreading our wants before God, we restrain prayer.

Oh, for the Luthers that can shake the gates of heaven by supplication! Oh, for men that can lay hold upon the golden knocker of heaven’s gate, and make it ring and ring again as if they meant it to be heard! Cold prayers court a denial. God hears by fire, and the God that answers by fire let him be God. But there must be prayer in Elijah’s heart first-fire in Elijah’s heart first-before the fire will come down in answer to the prayer. Our fervency goeth up to heaven, and then God’s grace, which gave us the fervency, cometh down, and giveth it the answer.

But you know, too, that all true prayer has in it thanksgiving. “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.” What prayer is complete without the doxology? And here, too, we restrain prayer. We do not praise, and bless, and magnify the Lord as we should. If our hearts were more full of gratitude, our expressions would be far more noble and comprehensive when we speak forth his praise. I wish I could put this so plainly that every Christian might mourn on account of his sin, and mend his ways. But, indeed, it is only mine to speak; it is my Master’s to open your eyes, to let you see, and to set you upon the solemnly important duty of self-examination. In this respect, I am sure even the prayers that you and I have offered to-day may well cry out against us, and say, “Thou hast restrained prayer.”

Yet, again, I fear also we must all join in acknowledging a serious fault with regard to the after-part of our prayers. When prayer is done, do you not think we very much restrain it?

For, after prayer, we often go into the world immediately. That may be absolutely necessary; but we go there, and leave behind us what we ought to carry with us. When we have got into a good frame in prayer, we should consider that this is like the meat which the angel gave to Elijah that he might go on his forty days’ journey in its strength. Have we felt heavenly-minded? Yet, the moment we cross the threshold, and get into the family or business, where is the heavenly mind? Oh, to get real prayer, inwrought prayer,-not the surface prayer, as though it were a sort of sacred masquerading after all,-to have it inside, in the warp and woof of our being, till prayer becomes a part of ourselves; then, brethren, we have not restrained it. We get hot in our closets,-when I say “we”, oh, how few can say so much as that!-but, still, we get hot in our closets, and go out into the world, into the draughts of its temptations, without wrapping ourselves about with promises, and we catch well-nigh our death of cold. Oh, to carry that heat and fervour with us! You know that, as you carry a bar of hot iron along, how soon it begins to return to its common ordinary appearance, and the heat is gone. How hot, then, we ought to make ourselves in prayer, that we may burn the longer; and how, all day long, we ought to keep thrusting the iron into the fire again, so that, when it ceases to glow, it may go into the hot embers once more, and the flame may glow upon it, and we may once again be brought into a vehement heat. But we are not careful enough to keep up the grace, and seek to nurture and to cherish the young child, which God seems to give in the morning into our hands that we may nurse it for him.

Old Master Dyer speaks of locking up his heart by prayer in the morning, and giving Christ the key. I am afraid we do the opposite,-we lock up our hearts in the morning, and give the devil the key, and think that he will be honest enough not to rob us. Ah! it is in bad hands when it is trusted with him; and he keeps filching all day long the precious things that were in the casket, until at night it is quite empty, and needs to be filled over again. Would God that we put the key in Christ’s hands, by looking up to him all the day!

I think, too, that after prayer, we often fail in unbelief. We do not expect God to hear us. If God were to hear some of you, you would be more surprised than with the greatest novelty that could occur. We ask blessings, but do not think of having them. When you and I were children, and had a little piece of garden, we sowed some seed one day, and the next morning, before breakfast, we went to see if it was up; and the next day, seeing that no appearance of the green blade could be discovered, we began to move the mould to look after our seeds. Ah! we were children then. I wish we were children now, with regard to our prayers. We should go out, the next morning, to see if they had begun to sprout, and disturb the ground a bit to look after our prayers, for fear they should have miscarried. Do you believe God hears prayer?

I saw, the other day, in a newspaper, a little sketch concerning myself, in which the author, who is evidently very friendly, gives a much better description of me than I deserve; but he offers me one rather pointed rebuke. I was preaching at the time in a tent, and only part of the people were covered. It began to rain just before prayer, and one petition was, “O Lord, be pleased to grant us favourable weather for this service, and command the clouds that they rain not upon this assembly!” Now he thought this very preposterous. To say the least, it was rash, if not blasphemous. He admits that it did not rain a drop after it. Still, of course, he did not infer that God heard and answered the prayer. If I had asked for a rain of grace, it would have been quite credible that God would send that; but when I ask him not to send a temporal rain, that is fanaticism. To think that God meddles with the clouds at the wish of a man, or that he may answer us in temporal things, is pronounced absurd. I bless God, however, that I fully believe the absurdity, preposterous as it may appear. I know that God hears prayer in temporal things. I know it by as clear a demonstration as ever any proposition in Euclid was solved. I know it by abundant facts and incidents which my own life has revealed. God does hear prayer. The majority of people do not think that he does. At least, if he does, they suppose that it is in some high, clerical, mysterious, unknown sense. As to ordinary things ever happening as the result of prayer, they account it a delusion. “The Bank of Faith!” How many have said it is a bank of nonsense; and yet there are many who have been able to say, “We could write as good a book as Huntington’s ‘Bank of Faith,’ that would be no more believed than Huntington’s Bank was, though it might be even more true.”

We restrain prayer, I am sure, by not believing our God. We ask a favour, which, if granted, we should attribute to accident rather than ascribe it to grace, and we do not receive it; then the next time we come, of course we cannot pray, because unbelief has cut the sinews of prayer, and left us powerless before the throne.

You are a professor of religion. After you have been to a party of ungodly people, can you pray? You are a merchant, and profess to be a follower of Christ; when you engage in a hazardous speculation, and you know you ought not, can you pray? Or, when you have had a heavy loss in business, and repine against God, and will not say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord;” can you pray? Pity the man who can sin and pray, too. In a certain sense, Brooks was right when he said, “Praying will make you leave off sinning, or else sin will make you leave off praying.” Of course, that is not meant in the absolute sense of the term; but as to certain sins, especially gross sins,-and some of the sins to which God’s people are liable are gross sins,-I am certain they cannot come before their Father’s face with the confidence they had before, after having been rolling in the mire, or wandering in By-path Meadow. Look at your own child; he meets you in the morning with a smiling face, so pleased; he asks what he likes of you, and you give it to him. Now he has been doing wrong, he knows he has; and you have frowned upon him, you have chastened him. How does he come now? He may come because he is a child, and with tears in his eyes because he is a penitent; but he cannot ask with the power he once had. Look at a king’s favourite; as long as he feels that he is in the king’s favour, he will take up your suit, and plead for you. Ask him to-morrow whether he will do you a good turn, and he says, “No, I am out of favour; I don’t feel as if I could speak now.” A Christian is not out of covenant favour, but he may be experimentally under a cloud; he loses the light of God’s countenance; and then he feels he cannot plead, his prayers become weak and feeble.

Take heed unto yourselves, and consider your ways. The path of declension is very abrupt in some parts. We may go on gradually declining in prayer till faith grows weak, and love cold, and patience is exhausted. We may go on for years, and maintain a consistent profession; but, all of a sudden, the road which had long been descending at a gradual incline may come to a precipice, and we may fall, and that when we little think of it; we may have ruined our reputation, blasted our comfort, destroyed our usefulness, and we may have to go to our graves with a sword in our bones because of sin. Stop while you may, believer; stop, and guard against the temptation. I charge you, by the trials you must meet with, by the temptations that surround you, by the corruptions that are within, by the assaults that come from hell, and by the trials that come from heaven, “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” To the members of this church I speak especially. What hath God wrought for us! When we were a few people, what intense agony of prayer we had! We have had prayer-meetings in Park Street that have moved our souls. Every man seemed like a crusader besieging Jerusalem, each man determined to storm the Celestial City by the might of intercession; and the blessing came upon us, so that we had not room to receive it. The hallowed cloud rests o’er us still; the holy drops still fall. Will ye now cease from intercession? At the borders of the promised land, will ye turn back to the wilderness, when God is with us, and the standard of a King is in the midst of our armies? Will ye now fail in the day of trial? Who knoweth but ye have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Who knoweth but that he will preserve in the land a small company of poor people who fear God intensely, hold the faith earnestly, and love God vehemently; that infidelity may be driven from the high places of the earth; that Naphtali again may be a people made triumphant in the high places of the field? God of heaven, grant this! Oh, let us restrain prayer no longer! You that have never prayed, may you be taught to pray! “God be merciful to me a sinner,” uttered from your heart, with your eye upon the cross, will bring you a gracious answer, and you shall go on your way rejoicing, for-

“When God inclines the heart to pray,

He hath an ear to hear;

To him there’s music in a groan,

And beauty in a tear.”

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

1 JOHN 2

1 John 2 Verses 1-4. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for our’s only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

Holy living is the sure fruit and proof of anyone being in Christ. Where it is not manifest, the profession of being in Christ is a lie.

5. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

Note the gradation: we know him, we are in him, we know that we are in him.

6. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

Abiding in Christ helps us to live as Christ lived; not, as one well observes, that we can walk on the water as Christ walked upon it, but that we can walk in our daily life even as he did, because we abide in him.

7. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

The old commandment is the word which we have heard from the beginning, yet it is always fresh and new.

8-10. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

Love is the great and sure way of abiding in the light, abiding in Christ.

11-14. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.

Having overcome him, at the first by your faith in Christ, you still go on to conquer him by abiding in Christ.

15-17. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Everything else is transient, fleeting, and soon passeth away; but he that doeth the will of God has entered into the eternal regions, and he has himself become one of those who abide for ever. Do not be carried away, therefore, from your old firm foundation, and from your eternal union to Christ.

18-20. Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.

You are taught of God, so you know all that is needful for the attainment of true godliness, and the accomplishment of the divine purposes.

21-25. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also. Let that therefore abide in you, which ye have heard from the beginning. If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.

Not transient life, but eternal life, is the great promise of the covenant of grace, and abiding in Christ we possess it.

26, 27. These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you,

What a wonderful declaration this is,-not only that we have this holy anointing, but that we have it always.

27, 28. And ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him;-

See how the apostle rings out this note again and again. Our Saviour repeated the word “abide” or “remain” many times in the short parable of the Vine, and now John strikes this same silver bell over and over again: “And now, little children, abide in him;-

28, 29. That, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.

HASTENING LOT

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, July 13th, 1905,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, April 25th, 1875.

“When the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot.”-Genesis 19:15.

I will not spend even a minute in considering whether these were divine persons veiled in angelic form, or whether they were actually angels. In either case, I should make the same remark, and lead to the same practical result. Let us learn from these angels how to do our work. “Unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak.” As a rule, they are not sent to be the means of saving men. They are not called to be teachers, or preachers, or pastors; but, on this occasion, they were sent to bring Lot out of Sodom; and we may take them as exemplars in our endeavours to win souls for Christ.

How did these angels do their work? Well, first, they went to Lot’s house; they got at Lot himself; and if we want to be the means of saving men, we must, somehow or other, get at them. I have seen the fishermen, in the Scotch rivers, stand right down in the water while they are fishing, and I believe that is the best way to fish; and if we stand right down amongst you, and come to you in your homes, we shall be likely to be the means of blessing to your souls.

These angels told Lot very distinctly what was going to happen in Sodom. They did not mince the matter, but revealed what its doom was to be. The city was to be destroyed, and he must get out of it, or else he also would be destroyed. In like manner, we too must warn men of their danger; and we must not at all flinch even if we have to utter words that have a very harsh sound about them, for love does not manifest itself by lying, smooth utterances, but by speaking the truth,-speaking even most threatening words, yet mixing sobs with them, predicting most sorrowful judgments in a most sorrowful tone.

After these angels had told Lot the truth about his peril, they were not content with doing that, but began pressing and urging him to flee out of the doomed city: “The angels hastened Lot;” and when that hastening did not seem to be sufficient to convince him, they laid hands upon him, and upon his wife, and upon his daughters. And if, my brother, you and I, saved ourselves, wish to be the means of saving others, we must not merely tell them the old, old story, however simply, and earnestly, and often we tell it; but we must come to wrestling with them. We must plead with them, we must, weep over them, and we must make up our minds that, if we cannot break their hearts, we will break our own; and if we cannot get them to flee out of Sodom, at any rate it shall not be because we did not labour with all our might to bring them out. Oh, that we might be as clear of the blood of all men as these angels were clear concerning the fate of Lot’s wife! We shall not be able to rescue them all; even the angels did not do that. Lot’s wife was a signal example of a person perishing after the best possible instruction, and Lot’s sons-in-law were examples of how, with some men, the most earnest, pleading may only end in mockery. Yes, dear friend, we cannot wonder if some reject our message when so many rejected the teaching of the Master himself; but we must so deliver it that, at any rate, if they do refuse it, the blame shall lie entirely at their own door.

The special point in the angelic ministry, to which I desire to call your attention on this occasion, is the fact that they hastened Lot; and I am going to use that fact in two ways. First, I will try to show you that the righteous need to be hastened, for Lot was a righteous man, notwithstanding his imperfections; and, secondly, that sinners-of whom, being in Sodom, Lot had become a type,-sinners especially need earnest hastening. We must try not only to preach about these two things, but to do them, as the Holy Spirit shall help us.

So my first remark is, that even the righteous need to be hastened.

In what? Well, in almost everything good, for Dr. Watts well said,-

“Look how we grovel here below,

Fond of these trifling toys;

Our souls can neither fly nor go

To reach eternal joys;”-

and old Francis Quarles, in one of his emblems, writes,-

“When our dull souls direct our thoughts to thee,

As slow as snails are we:

But at the earth we dart our wing’d desire;

We burn, we burn like fire.”

Some Christians need quickening even concerning common matters of Christian duty. I used to know a man,-he is dead now,-who professed to have been converted for forty years, yet he had never made a profession of his faith, in baptism, though he believed it to be his duty to do so. When I stirred him up a little concerning his neglect, he said to me, “He that believeth shall not make haste;” but I replied, “That is a shameful perversion of Scripture; you profess to have been converted for forty years, yet you have not obeyed your Saviour’s command.” I explained to him the meaning of the text which he had so wickedly perverted, and then I said to him, “David says, ‘I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments.’ That is a more suitable text for you.” Why, if that good brother had been baptized that very day, or the next morning before breakfast, I do not think he could have been considered guilty of any haste, after the long time that he had waited. Some people, when they are young, know that they ought to unite themselves with the Church of God, but they put it off; and when they grow older, they seem confirmed in continuing in a condition which is not a right one for a Christian.

I do not lay undue stress upon baptism, as though it were the main thing in a Christian’s life; still, it is an important matter, in which some Christians need hastening, as they take such a long time over it. It seems to me that half the beauty of obedience consists in obeying the command at once. Suppose you have a boy, and you say to him, “John, I want you to go on an errand,” and he says, “Very well, father, I will go next week;” what sort of a lad is he? Suppose he says, “Yes, father, I really mean to go, but not until to-morrow;” is not that virtually disobedience? Call it what you may, delaying to obey is disobedience. Has it ever struck you, dear friends, that, when you postpone attendance to a duty, you sin in the postponement? How many times do you sin? I cannot calculate. If it is a duty you ought to do at this hour, yet you put it off hour after hour, do you not sin as many times as there are hours in which you delay? Perhaps it would be even more correct to say that, for every moment that a duty is neglected, there is a sin every time the clock ticks; certainly, you are keeping on in one long-continued act of sin, and thereby provoking God to anger.

Neglect of duty is continuous sin. Let that little sentence abide in your memory, and let it get down into your heart, and irritate you into prompt obedience, for there are some of you, who seem to fancy that, when you have made up your minds to do a certain thing, and have good intentions concerning it, you have practically done the thing, and need not trouble yourself any further about it. But it is not so, for “to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him”-particularly, and above other men,-“it is sin.” There was a certain prince of Monaco, who left instructions that this inscription should be put on his grave, “Here lies So-and-so, prince of Monaco, a man of good intentions.” That was all he could say about himself. He had not done anything, but he had intended to do something; and this is the epitaph that will have to be put over some of you unless you turn intention into action. But what is this but a confession that you have the responsibility of knowing what you ought to do, but you lack either the manliness, or the grace, or something else to impel you to do what you ought long ago to have done? As the angels hastened Lot, so, my Christian brother, who art slow to move in the path of duty, would I hasten thee. Lie not down to-night with any duty undischarged if thou canst attend to it to-night; rest not while there are any arrears of obedience due to thy God. Even when thou hast done all thy duty, thou wilt be but an unprofitable servant to thy God; but what shall be said of thee if precept after precept shall be left neglected? At any rate, be not so foolish as to imagine that intending to obey is the same thing as having really obeyed the commandment of thy God.

Some Christians also need hastening concerning coming out from the world, and taking up the place of separation. Lot was in sinful Sodom, and the great concern of the angels was to get him out of it. There are many righteous men still in Sodom; they have never thoroughly taken their place with Christ, “without the camp, bearing his reproach.” Many a Christian knows that there is a higher spiritual life than he has ever yet reached. He feels that his standard is too low, and that his household is too much conformed to the world in its manners and customs. He knows that his business is not conducted as his Lord and Master would wish it to be, and he intends that these things shall all be set right some time or other. Possibly, there is one person in the household of whom he is afraid. If that person should, in the order of God’s providence, be removed, then the way would be cleared for him to make the necessary alteration; or it may be that there is one engagement which has been made, which he thinks must be fulfilled, and after that is over things will take quite a different complexion. My dear brother, wherever you may be just now, I do charge you, before the living God, never palter with your convictions, and never postpone the coming away from sin and the world until it shall be more convenient for you. Do you not see what it is that you thus say to the Lord? “I will follow Jesus when it pleases me; I will follow him when it will not cost me anything; I will follow him when everybody will clap hands at my doing it; but when the task is difficult, I must decline it.” That is very like the talk of a rebel, not like the talk of a true disciple of our blessed Lord. Oh, that you might have the grace to say,-

“ ‘Through floods and flames, if Jesus lead,

I’ll follow where he goes;’-

“fashionable or unfashionable, condemned or applauded, loved or hated, I will take up the cross for Christ, and be as he would have me to be in the midst of an ungodly world.” The angels are hastening you to this decision, dear brother, as once they hastened the lingering Lot to escape from sinful Sodom.

Again, many good men need hastening with regard to their attempts to be of service to others. Lot went to his sons-in-law, to try to persuade them to leave Sodom; but, though the morning light was beginning to break, and Sodom’s doom was imminent, he did not hurry to conduct his wife and daughters out of the doomed place. It is wonderful how long Christians linger over the work of seeking the conversion of their own children. I know, dear friend, that you have resolved in your heart to pray with your boy; you say that you mean to do it, yet you never seem to screw yourself up to the decisive point. I know, dear mother, that you do not intend that your daughter Jane shall go away from home until you have talked with her about her soul, and set forth Christ to her. You have that new Bible ready to give to her as a kind of help to you-a thin end of the wedge-that you may have some reason for getting her alone, and talking to her. But why do you keep putting it off so? Should it ever be hard work for a mother to talk with her own child about her soul? Yet, to some parents, this is a very difficult task. Should it ever be hard, good woman, for a wife to put her arms about her unconverted husband’s neck, and plead with him to see to his soul’s affairs, and lay hold on eternal life? Yet, perhaps, you feel as if you cannot do it; you know that you ought, but you cannot. Should it ever be hard, dear sister, for you to talk to that brother of yours, who scoffs so much at sacred things that he often hurts your feelings? I know it does seem hard, but ought it to be so? You love him, and if you knew that he was in any bodily danger, you would not hesitate to warn him; and now that you know that he is in spiritual and eternal peril, do not, I pray you, delay to give the warning word. “I mean to do so;” says one. Yes, you mean to, but I want you to do it to-night. “But perhaps I may not have a suitable opportunity to-night.” Well, if there should be no opportunity to-night, you may be excused; but do not make a pretext, let it be a genuine want of opportunity that alone will excuse you; and, for common humanity’s sake, far more for Christ’s sake, for his dear wounds’ sake, do seek immediately the salvation of all that are round about you. The angels hastened Lot, so what can I do to hasten you? You will probably find your task a great deal easier than you think, and you may receive a response that you little expect. I believe that, in nine cases out of ten, when a Christian begins to speak thus to his unsaved friend, the friend gratefully says, “I have been long expecting you to speak to me about my soul; how is it that you have not done it before?”

I will tell you what happened in a case with which I was personally connected. There was a young man, whose minister used to come to his father’s house very frequently, and this young man was in great distress of soul. Every time the minister came in, the young man used to say to himself, “I hope Mr. So-and-so will speak to me about my soul to-day.” He put himself in the minister’s way, but the minister never spoke to him as he wished and hoped. After a time, that young man went to another place of worship, and there found the Lord. He told his father, and the father told the minister, and then the minister came to see him, and said, “My dear brother, I am glad to hear that you have been converted; I have always felt anxious about you.” “Have you?” asked the young man. “Yes, I have,” replied the minister. “But, sir, you never said a word to me to show that you were anxious.” There the interview ended, and I am afraid that they have had little esteem for one another ever since, and I know that the young man said, “When I was converted, the minister wanted to get me into his church; but as long as I was unconverted, he never made the slightest effort to win me to Christ.” I should not like to have that said of any minister here present, and I should not like to hear that you are always looking after other people’s sheep. There is a certain denomination which is constantly engaged in stealing the sheep that are in other flocks; it would be much better if such people would ask the Lord, by his almighty grace, to turn lions into lambs and sheep, so that they might gather their own flocks. That is the proper spirit in which all Christians should act; so, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, let us without delay set about the task of endeavouring, in the name and in the strength of God, to bring our relatives and neighbours to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Putting a great many things under this general head, I may say that Christians need hastening all round. Occasionally, I hear or read remarks about the great excitement caused by our brethren Moody and Sankey in their evangelistic services, but I must confess that I have failed to see the excitement, although I have been to several of their meetings. We Londoners do not know anything about real religious excitement; we have not begun to be excited yet, though I pray God that we soon may. I would like to see such a stir, all over the metropolis, that the press would rave and rage about our fanaticism, and I shall not believe that God has done very much among us until we are accused of something like that. We are enjoying a spiritual spring-time; we have heard the cuckoo, and have seen one swallow, but we must not yet say that the summer has come. Our friends from America have done something, but little compared with what we ought to desire, and pray for, and expect; little indeed compared with what we shall see if we are but true to God. We still need the angels to come and hasten lingering Lots; may we be hastened ourselves!

Why is it that Christians need so much hastening? The best answer I can make is, that their spirit is willing, but their flesh is weak. Another reason is, that it is easier to run fast at first than to keep on at a rapid pace; and perhaps they have found their breath failing them. If so, may they drink in fresh air from the upper realm! Some Christians, too, are passing through the Enchanted Ground, the air of which Bunyan says made the pilgrims sleepy. Some Christian brethren appear to have taken up their residence in that perilous place. In the case of others, the prevailing langour in the hearts of so many professing Christians tends to make them idle, just as, in a chilly atmosphere, we are colder than we should be if our surroundings were warmer. I fear that some Christians need quickening for God’s service because they have so much to do for themselves. The shop shutters are down so long that there is little time for anything but business, and the ledger is such a big book that it quite hides the Bible. Some, on the other hand, need to be hastened because they have not anything to do. Of the two things, it is better to have too much to do than to have nothing to do; and those people, who do not know how to occupy their time, are often the most difficult to move to anything like earnestness in spiritual things.

Whatever may be the cause of the lingering, ministers are bound to be continually hastening God’s people onward in the spiritual life and warfare. Under what great obligations we are, brethren! We are not our own, we are bought with a price. How much Christ has done for us, brethren! What manner of persons ought we to be! What a destiny awaits us! Ought we not to walk worthily of that which is to be our heritage? See how fast time is flying. We cannot make up for that which we have already lost, but let us lose no more. See how rapidly our cemeteries are being crowded; and dare even to look down, and see how hell is being thronged with souls that have perished through ignorance. See how Christ’s name is being constantly blasphemed, and how little power the ministry of the gospel seems to have, and what great power we find attending erroneous teaching. Oh, may God quicken us, dear friends! Sometimes, when I look at myself, and look at my fellow-Christians, I can scarcely believe that we can be the result of such a great work as God has been carrying on. In Amsterdam, I went into workshops where great wheels and much machinery were at work cutting diamonds. They were very small things to have all that machinery operating upon them; still, they were diamonds; and when I look at some Christians, I suppose they must be diamonds, but they appear to be very insignificant in comparison with the work which is being wrought upon them. Here is Jesus Christ ploughing that field with his agonies, watering it with his bloody sweat, casting himself like a seed into it; and what comes up as the result? Only that poor shrivelled thing! O God, must eternal election, and immutable love, and a bleeding Saviour’s heart, and the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit all be set to work to produce such a result as that? God forbid that I should ever slight any of his work, but the question naturally arises, “Can it be his if it only comes to that?” Here is a man, who goes to a prayer-meeting, perhaps, once in seven years, gives a fourpenny piece to the collection if he has not a threepenny piece in his purse, takes a sitting in the place of worship, and then considers that all his work is done. He never opens his mouth for the Lord Jesus Christ from the first of January to the last of December; he is, at home, about as worldly as other people, yet he says that he is-

“A monument of grace,

A sinner saved by blood.”

We have heard of mountains bringing forth mice, but we can scarcely think that Mount Zion can bring forth such creatures as these. We ought to be something better than this, brethren, and we must be. In the name of the dying Saviour, now exalted in heaven, whose disciples we profess to be, let us arouse ourselves, and let us seek, with heart and soul and strength, to glorify Christ throughout the rest of life that may be allotted to us, lest we go back, dishonoured, to the dust from whence we sprang, after having had grand opportunities, and noble possibilities, and a divine calling, and yet having lived beneath the dignity of any one of them.

Now I must turn to the second part of my subject, which is, that sinners need to be hastened as much as saints do, for sinners also are very slow.

I thought, this afternoon, when my head was almost splitting with pain, and I could not fix my thoughts upon my theme for this evening, “Oh, dear, dear, dear, if these sinners were only sensible, preaching would be very easy work, for all I should have to do would be just to set before them the way of salvation, and they would at once walk in it!” But we have to rack our brains, and to pour out our very heart in order to get you to attend to your chief business, and to give heed to that which is for your lasting good. Sometimes, our hearers say, “The preachers always tell us that same story, and their sermons are not as polished as we should like them to be.” Ah, but! if you would only believe in Jesus, and so be saved, we would polish our sermons up for you. If you would only seek and find Jesus Christ as your Saviour, we would try to give you some eloquence then; but, so long as you will not have Christ, and resolve to remain as you are, the only thing we can do is to keep on persuading, entreating, and even compelling you to come in to the great gospel feast. We are obliged to put the old truth in very much the same old way. It is not poetical work to be a Royal Humane Society’s officer, seeking to pull drowning people out of the river; and there is not much poetry about our work in trying to be the means of saving your souls.

But what makes you men and women so slow to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the only way of salvation? Are you so fond of your sins that you are not willing to give them up, or are you really so self-righteous that you do not believe that you need to be saved? I think the most of you do believe, in a way, that there is a hell, and that you will go there unless you are converted, but you do not really believe it, you do not realize what it means. You are very earnestly listening to me just now, but if somebody, over there by the door, were to cry out because a piece of plaster had dropped off the ceiling, how wide awake you would become compared with what you are now when I am talking about your going to hell, and being lost for ever. Somehow or other, there is a want of reality about you when spiritual matters are being discussed. I fear that the same spirit is getting into some good people’s prayers. We do not pray real prayers; at least, not as real as they ought to be. I do try to preach to you as if I meant it, and I would willingly lay down my life if, by doing so, I could save you; yet you listen to me as if it were merely a very proper thing for me to preach, and for you to hear, on Sunday, but as if you had nothing to do with the gospel on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You hear that the city in which you are dwelling is to be destroyed. You do not tell the angel that the prophecy is a lie; but you sit down so comfortably that it is clear that you do not believe it, or if you do, you need to be pressed again, and again, and again, to act as if it were true. Just now, as you took your seat, you missed a diamond ring off your finger, and you will not be at all comfortable until you get home, and see if it is there. You are concerned about the loss of a ring, yet your souls are lost, and you are quite unconcerned about them. This terrible truth does not fret and worry you; I wish it would, so that you would say, “I will never rest again till I know that I am saved through Jesus Christ the Saviour.” Surely, madness is bound up in the heart of sinners, or else they would not need to be hastened to escape.

“Well,” say some of you, “we intend to think about this matter.” I know you do, and that thought of yours is Satan’s biggest net. He has a number of nets of different sorts and sizes; some of them are only meant for eagles, and he does not often use them, for there are not many eagles about, but he has a big net which he uses for catching small birds. I picture the great enemy of souls going out with his big net, and I fancy I can hear him whistling with unholy glee at the thought of the many birds he will take in it. This is the style of his temptation,-you are not to cavil at the truth, you are not to be an avowed infidel, you are not to despise the Saviour, you are not to say that the salvation of your soul is an unimportant matter; but you are to say to the minister, “Yes, sir, what you preach is all very true, and I am glad you put it in the way that you do. I like earnest preaching; I like to be told personally about my need of salvation, and I will attend to the matter very soon; to-morrow, if possible. Oh, I just remember there is something on that day which will be rather in the way; but, as soon as that is over, I will give heed to what you say.” That is just what has happened a long while with some of you, but you are no nearer the deciding point. A gentleman in this neighbourhood told me that he could not come to hear me preach again. I asked him, “Why is that?” “Well,” he answered, “I only came once, and then you pointed me out, and said, ‘There sits a grey-headed old fool.’ At least, you said that a grey-headed old sinner is a grey-headed old fool.” “Well,” I said, “I do not remember seeing you before; but are you a grey-headed old sinner? Because, if you are, then you are the other thing as well.” He just looked at me, and said nothing, and I have not seen him since that time. I am afraid there are others here to whom I might say just the same, and it would be true. They must be foolish, for they have not done what they have admitted it would be wise for them to do. Again and again, a man has said, “I will do it.” Now, sir, you are a fool to say, “I will do it,” if it was a foolish thing; but if it was a wise thing, and you said, “I will do it,” yet you have not done it, what are you?

Some of you are good arithmeticians; will you take your pencils, and work out a sum for me? Here is a man of fifty years of age, and I want you to calculate the probabilities of his ever being saved. He had an excellent early training from a very godly father and mother, whose many prayers for him he cannot forget, though he remained unsaved in spite of them all. He went to a Sunday-school, and had a very gracious teacher, who set him a good example, and was very earnest in pleading with him; but he would not yield. As he grew up, he had many Christian friends, who wrote letters to him, and used every possible opportunity to impress him. He resisted all that, and for twenty years attended the ministry of a very earnest preacher. There was a great revival, and many were saved, but he was not one of them. Since then, he has been sitting under another very faithful minister of God’s Word, and he has been impressed again and again. Put that down, and figure it out if you can. He has been impressed fifty times, or a hundred, perhaps a couple of hundred times, and he has got over all that; what are the probabilities that he will ever be saved? To tell you the truth, I greatly fear that the probability is that the man will be lost, that he never will be converted, but will continue as he has been already despite every instrumentality that has been employed on his behalf.

O you sinners, with such terrible probabilities against you, you do indeed need to be hastened, and fain would we put our hands upon you, and urge you to escape for your lives, and to do it now, for it is now or never with some of you who are present here tonight! I have no doubt that, if we could read the past history of some who are here, we should see abundant reasons for urging them to immediate decision. I have already shown you where these reasons would be found, and the probabilities against their conversion. But, as to the future, happily, that is hidden from all of us. I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet; and, therefore, I shall not attempt to utter a prediction; but you all must know that, out of some six thousand persons assembled here, there is a great probability that we shall not all be alive next Lord’s day. It is a certainty that we shall never all of us meet here again, and the probability that some of us will have gone from this earth before next Sabbath is very great. In the membership of this church, I notice, as regularly as the year rolls round, that our death-list comes to between fifty and seventy. There is usually one death a week; or, if there should happen to be one week in which a member of the church does not die, there will be two or three in the week following. The average is one a week; so that, if not out of this present assembly, yet out of the usual congregations at this Tabernacle, it is a certainty that two will die in a week. Two in a week!

I wonder where the two victims for this week are; perhaps at home, dying by degrees, with a good hope in Jesus Christ. Blessed be God if that is the case; we will shout the harvest home as they are gathered in. Possibly, they are lying at home sick, yet without hope. Let us pray for them if that is their condition. Lord, help them to believe in Jesus Christ this very night; ere they tread death’s awful road, O Lord, save them! But perhaps one out of the two may be here, in good health, and unconverted. I am not saying what is at all improbable, am I? It may be so, and if I knew that someone here would die before next Sabbath day, I would beg him to stop after the service, that I might give him a squeeze of the hand, and say to him, “My dear friend, do not let this day go by without your looking to Christ, and committing your soul into his hands.” “Now, as I do not know who it is to be, give me your hands, all of you, all round the building. I should like to look you dear men and women in the face, and say to each one of you, “Now, dear soul, do not live and die without the Saviour. Do lay this matter to heart. I am not an angel, but I am one who would fain do you good. If it be right to believe in Jesus Christ, the sooner you do it, the better; and if it be right to love and serve God, the sooner you do it, the better. And if to trust in Christ’s precious blood be the only safe course, the sooner you do that, the better. May the eternal Spirit come and lead you, even now, to lay hold on Jesus Christ, and find eternal life in him this very hour!”

Now, look me in the face, and say whether it shall be so or not. I will not ask you to speak; there will be too much noise if you all do so. But, in your heart, I ask you to say, will you, or will you not? This may be the turning point in your life’s history. There is a spot, under the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where there is a mark made by the chisel of a man, who fell from the top, and was killed. There is also a mark, which angel eyes can see, in that pew, or in that aisle, or up in that gallery, where you have sat, and said, “Not to-night; I will decide to-morrow;” or where you have said, “No, I will not have anything to do with Christ.” I wish that, instead of such a mark as that, there could be a star let into the floor, which would mean, “Here, a poor soul believed in Jesus.” I know a little Primitive Methodist chapel in Colchester. I went to see it some time ago, and I went into the very pew where I sat, as a boy fifteen years of age, and heard a sermon from the text, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” I should have liked to buy the seat, and take it home, for I love the spot where Jesus met with me and saved me; and there are some of you who feel like that concerning these pews. They are very sacred to you, and always will be, for there you were born for God. Oh, that some of you might be born here this very night! Some of you are in no need of instruction; you need hastening. You do not need to be impressed concerning the guilt of your sins so much as to be urged to give them up, and to put your trust in Jesus Christ. You do not need to be brought to the water so much as to be made to drink of it. There it is. Oh, that you would open your mouths, and let the blessed stream flow in, for that is all that is needed. Receive Christ; receive Christ now, by a simple act of faith, and he will give you grace and strength to battle with your sins, and to make you holy. Oh, that now, now, now, the great work may be done! I do not suppose you can hear this clock tick; but when you get home, listen to your old clock on the stairs, or in your room, and it will say to you, “Now, now, now, now.” I have sometimes thought that, in the night, I have heard the clock say, “Now or never! Now or never! Now or never! Now or never! Now or never!” You need not listen to me any longer, but listen to that message from the clock. May the Holy Spirit speak to you through it, and may you answer, “Now, even now, I will believe in Jesus Christ, and be saved.” May God bless you! May Christ save you! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

LUKE 17:11-32

Verses 11, 12. And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:

Leprosy was very common in Palestine in Christ’s day. How thankful we ought to be that, in this country, at any rate, it has almost entirely died out! There used to be, in almost every town, a lazar-house provided for lepers, so common was leprosy in this country. Certain diseases seem to die out by degrees, and we should be very grateful that some of the worst forms of disease, by which men have been afflicted, have passed away. In this case, there were no less than ten in one village. They “stood afar off,” as was most proper, lest they should communicate the contagion to others. They had to cry out, and warn men not to come too near them, saying, with covered lip, “Unclean! unclean! unclean!” The muffled sound that they made, if the word could not be distinguished, helped to warn the passers-by to give them a wide berth.

13, 14. And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests.

For no man could be pronounced clean even if he were healed, until he had undergone the ceremony prescribed in the Mosaic law. These lepers were to go to the priests just as they were, so their going was an act of faith.

14. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.

What a wonderful thing that must have been!

15, 16. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.

One of those off-casts and out-casts that the Jews would not own,-one of the men that they said were of a mongrel breed,-only half Israelite and half idolater.

“O grace, it is thy wont

Into unlikeliest hearts to come!”

17-25. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.

Though our Lord purposely left much with regard to his coming indefinite, he gave his disciples two instances, from the early history of the world, of the condition in which many would be found at his appearing.

26-32. And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot’s wife.