Did it ever strike you how wonderfully calm and collected our Lord must have been at this time? He had been preaching in the temple, talking to a multitude of Jews. They grew furious with him; a number of stones which were used in repairing the temple were lying about on the floor, and they took up these stones to cast at him. He, by some means, forced a passage, and escaped out of the midst of them; and when he came to the gate of the temple with his disciples,-who seem to have followed him in the lane which he was able to make through the throng of his foes,-he saw this blind man; and as if there had been no bloodthirsty foes at his heels, he stopped-stopped as calmly as if an attentive audience had been waiting upon his lips,-to look at the blind man. The disciples stopped too, but they paused to ask questions. How like ourselves! We are always ready to talk. How unlike the Master! He was always ready to act. The disciples wanted to know how the man came to be blind, but the Master meant to deliver the man from his blindness. We are very apt to be entering into speculative theories about the origin of sin or the cause of certain strange providences; but Christ is ever for seeking out, not the cause, but the remedy; not the reason of the disease, but the way by which the disease can be cured. The blind man is brought to him. Christ asks him no questions; but, spitting upon the dust, he stoops down, and works the dust into mortar, and when he has done this, taking it up in his hands, he applies it to what Bishop Hall calls the eye-holes of the man (for there were no eyes there), and plasters them up, so that the spectators look on, and see a man with clay upon his eyes. “Go,” said Christ, “to the pool of Siloam, and wash.” Some kind friends led the man, who was only too glad to go. Unlike Naaman, who made an objection to wash in Jordan, and be clean, the blind man was glad enough to avail himself of the divine remedy. He went, he washed the clay from his eyes, and he received his sight,-a blessing he had never known before. With what rapture he gazed upon the trees! With what delight he lifted up his face to the blue sky! With what pleasure he beheld the costly, stately fabric of the temple; and methinks, afterwards, with what interest and pleasure he would look into the face of Jesus,-the man who had given him his sight.

It is not my object to expound this miracle to-night, but well it setteth forth, in sacred emblem, the state of human nature. Man is blind. Father Adam put out our eyes. We cannot see spiritual things. We have not the spiritual optic; that has gone,-gone for ever. We are born without it,-born blind. Christ comes into this world, and his gospel is despicable in men’s esteem even as spittle,-the thought of it disgusts most men. Gentility turns on its heel, and saith it will have nothing to do with it, and pomp and glory all say that it is a contemptible and base thing. Christ puts the gospel on the blind eye,-a gospel which, like clay, seems as if it would make men more blind than before, but it is through “the foolishness of preaching” that Christ saves them that believe. The Holy Spirit is like Siloam’s pool. We go to him, or rather he comes to us, the convictions of sin produced by the gospel are washed away by the cleansing influences of the Divine Comforter; and, behold, we, who were once so blind that we could see no beauty in divine things, and no excellence in the crown jewels of God, begin to see things in a clear and heavenly light, and rejoice exceedingly before the Lord.

The man no sooner sees than he is brought before adversaries, and our text is a part of his testimony in defence of the “Prophet” who had wrought the miracle upon him, whom not as yet did he understand to be the Messias.

“One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Although the parable would furnish us an admirable topic, we prefer to keep to this verse, and linger upon the various reflections it suggests.

We have before us, in these words, an unanswerable argument.

Every now and then, you and I are called into a little debate. Persons do not take things for granted in this age, and it is quite as well that they should not. There have been ages in which any impostor could lead the public by the nose. Men would believe anything, and any crazy maniac, man or woman, who might stand up, and pretend to be the Messiah, would be sure to have some followers. I think this age, with all its faults, is not so credulous as that which has gone by. There is a great deal of questioning. You know that there is some questioning where there should not be any. Men, who stand high in official positions, and who ought long ago to have had their faith established, or to have renounced their position, have ventured to question the very things they have sworn to defend. There is questioning everywhere, but to my mind it seems, brethren, that we need not be afraid. If the gospel of God be true, it can stand any quantity of questioning. I am more afraid of the deadness and lethargy of the public mind about religion than any sort of enquiry or controversy about it. As silver tried in the furnace is purified seven times, so is the Word of God; and the more it is put into the furnace, the more it will be purified, and the more beauteously the pure ore of revelation will glitter in the sight of the faithful. Never be afraid of a debate. Never go into it unless you are well armed; and if you do go into it, mind that you take with you the weapon I am giving you to-night. Though you may be unarmed in every other respect, if you know how to wield this, you may, through grace, come off more than a conqueror. The argument which this man used was this, “Whereas I was blind, now I see.”

It is forcible, because it is a personal argument. I heard a person, the other day, use a similar argument. I had been laughing at a certain system of medicine,-and really it seems to me pardonable to laugh at all the systems, for I believe they are all almost equally as good or bad as the others. The person in question said, “Well, I can’t laugh at it.” “Why?” I asked. “Because,” said he, “it cured me.” Of course, I had no further answer. If this person had really been cured by such-and-such a remedy, it was to him an unanswerable argument; and to me, could he produce many other cases, it would be one that I would not wish to answer. The fact is, the personality of the thing gives it power. People tell us that, in the pulpit, the minister should always say “We”, as editors do in writing. We should lose all our power if we did. The minister of God is to use the first person singular, and constantly to say, “I bear eye-witness for God that, in my case, such-and-such a thing has been true.” I will not blush nor stammer to say, “I bear my personal witness to the truth of Christ’s gospel in my own case.” Lifted up from sin, delivered from bondage, from doubt, from fear, from despair, from an agony intolerable,-lifted up to joys unspeakable, and into the service of my God,-I bear my own testimony; and I believe, Christians, that your force in the world will be mightily increased if you constantly make your witness for Christ a personal one. I daresay my neighbour, over there, can tell what grace has done for him. Yes; but to me, to my own soul, what grace has done for me will be more of an establishment to me for my faith than what Christ has done for him. And if I stand up, and talk of what God’s grace has done for this or that brother, it may do very well; but if I can say, “I myself have proved it,” here is an argument which drives in the nail,-ay, and clinches it, too. I believe, Christian men, if you would prevail when you have to argue, you must do so by bearing a personal testimony to the value of religion in your own case, for that which you despise yourself you can never persuade others to value. “I believed, therefore have I spoken,” said the psalmist. Luther was a man of strong faith, and therefore he kindled faith in others. That man will never move the world who lets the world move him; but the man who stands firm, and says, “I know, I know, I know such-and-such a thing, because it is burnt into my own inner consciousness,”-such a man’s very appearance becomes an argument to convince others.

Moreover, this man’s argument was an appeal to men’s senses, and hardly anything can be supposed more forcible than that. “I was blind,” said he; “you saw that I was; some of you noticed me at the gate of the temple; I was blind, now I see. You can all see that I can look at you; you perceive at once that I have eyes, or else I could not see you in the way I do.” He appealed to their senses. The argument which our holy religion needs, at the present moment, is a new appeal to the senses of men. You will ask me, “What is that?” The holy living of Christians. The change which the gospel works in men must be the gospel’s best argument against all opposers. When first the gospel was preached in the Island of Jamaica, some of the planters objected grievously to it. They thought it an ill thing to teach the negroes, but a missionary said, “What has been the effect of your negro servant Jack hearing the gospel?” and the planter said, “Well, he was constantly drunk before, but he is sober now. I could not trust him, he was a great thief; but he is honest now. He swore like a trooper before, but now I hear nothing objectionable come from his mouth.” “Well,” said the missionary, “then I ask you if a gospel, that has made such a change as that in the man, must not be of God, and whether you ought not rather to put your influence into its scale than to work against it.” When we can bring forward the harlot who has been made chaste, when we can also show the drunkard who has been made sober, or, better still, when we can bring the careless, thoughtless man who has been made sedate and steady; the man who cared not for God, nor Christ, who has been made to worship God with his whole heart, and has put his confidence in Jesus, we think we have then presented to the world an argument which they will not soon answer.

If our religion does no more in the world than any other, well then, despise it; or if men can receive the gospel of Christ, and yet live as they did before, and be none the better for it, then tell us at once, that we may be undeceived, for our gospel is not wanted. But we bring you forward proofs. I hope, my brethren, there are scores and hundreds here who are yourselves the proofs of what the living gospel can do. Many and many a story could I tell of a man who was a fiend in human shape, a man who, when he came home from work, made it an hour of peril, for his wife and children fled to hide from him; and that man now, see him when he goes home, how he is welcomed by his wife, how the children run down to meet him; you shall hear him sing more loudly now than ever he cursed before, and he who was once a ringleader in the army of Satan has now become a ringleader in the army of Christ. I shall not say where he is sitting to-night. I should want many fingers if I had to point out all such who are here. The Lord’s is the glory of it. That is the argument, “Whereas I was blind, now I see.” Do we not know of some who, when they came to make their profession before the church, said, “If anyone had told me, three months ago, that I should be here, I should have knocked him down. If any man had said I should make a profession of faith in Jesus, I should have called him all the names in the world. I become a canting Methodist! Not I!” But yet grace has changed the man; his whole life is different now. Those who hate the change cannot help observing it. They hate religion, they say; but if religion does such things as these, the more of it the better. Now we want, dear friends, in the dark lanes and alleys of London, ay! and in our great wide streets, too, where there are large shops and places of business, we want to give the grovelling world this argument, against which there is no disputing, that, whereas there were some men blind, now they see; whereas they were sinful, now they are virtuous; whereas they despised God, now they fear him; we believe this is the best answer for an infidel age. What a deal of writing there has been lately about and against Dr. Colenso! You need not think of reading the replies to his books, for most of them would be the best means of sending people to sleep that have ever been invented; and, after all, they don’t answer the man; most of them leave the objections untouched, for there is a speciousness in the objection which is not very easily got over. I think we should be doing much better if, instead of running after this heathenish bishop, we should be running after poor sinners; if, instead of writing books of argument, and entering into discussions, we keep on each, in our sphere, endeavouring to convert souls, imploring the Spirit of God to come down upon us, and make us spiritual fathers in Israel. Then we may say to the devil, “Well, sir, you have stolen a bishop, you have taken away a clergyman or so, you have robbed us of a leader or two; but, by the help of God, we have razed your territories, we have stolen away whole bands;-here they are, tens of thousands of men and women who have been reclaimed from the paths of vice, rescued from the destroyer, and made servants of the Lord.” These are your best arguments; there are no arguments like them,-living personal witnesses of what divine grace can do.

We will change our view of the subject now. Our text presents us with a satisfactory piece of knowledge: “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”

An affectation of knowledge is not uncommon. The desire for knowledge is almost universal; the attainment of it, however, is rare. But if a man shall attain the knowledge of Christ, he may take a high degree in the gospel, a satisfactory degree, a degree which shall land him safe into heaven, put the palm-branch in his hand, and the eternal song in his mouth; which is more than any wordly degrees will ever do. “One thing I know.” The sceptic will sometimes overwhelm you with his knowledge. You simple minds, that have read but little, and whose business occupations take up so much of your time that you probably never will be very profound students, are often in danger of being attacked by men who can use long words, who profess to have read very great books, and to be very learned in sciences, the names of which you have scarcely ever heard. Meet them, but be sure you meet them with a knowledge that is better than theirs. Don’t attempt to meet them on their own ground; meet them with this knowledge. “Well,” you can say, “I know that you understand more than I do; I am only a poor unlettered Christian, but I have a something in here that answers all your arguments, whatever they may be. I do not know what geology saith; I may not understand all about history; I may not comprehend all the strange things that are daily coming to light; but one thing I know,-it is a matter of absolute consciousness to me,-that I, who was once blind, have been made to see.” Then just state the difference that the gospel made in you; say that, once, when you looked at the Bible, it was a dull, dry book; that when you thought of prayer, it was a dreary piece of work; say that, now, the Bible seems to you a honeycomb full of honey, and that prayer is your vital breath. Say that, once, you tried to get away from God, and could see no excellence in the divine character, but that now you are striving and struggling to get nearer to God. Say that, once, you despised the cross of Christ, and thought it a vain thing for you to fly to; but that, now, you love it, and would sacrifice your all for it. And this undoubted change in your own consciousness, this supernatural work in your own innermost spirit, shall stand you in the stead of all the arguments that can be drawn from all the sciences; your one thing shall overthrow their thousand things, if you can say, “Whereas I was blind, now I see.”

Says one, “I don’t know how that can be.” Let me suppose that someone has just discovered galvanism, and I have had a galvanic shock. Now, twenty people come and say, “There is no such thing as galvanism; we do not believe in it for a moment,” and there is one gentleman proves by Latin that there cannot be such a thing as galvanism, and another proves it mathematically to demonstration, and twenty others prove it in their different ways. I should say, “Well, I cannot answer you in Latin, I cannot overthrow you in logic, I cannot contradict that syllogism of yours; but one thing I know,-I have had a shock of it,-that I do know;” and I take it that my personal consciousness of having experienced a galvanic shock will be a better answer than all their learned sayings. And so, if you have ever felt the Spirit of God come into contact with you, (and that is something quite as much within the reach of our consciousness as even the shock of electricity and galvanism,) and if you can say of that, “One thing I know, which cannot be beaten out of me, which cannot be hammered out of my own consciousness, that, whereas I was blind, now I see;”-if you can say that, it will be quite sufficient reply to all that the sceptic may bring against you.

How often, dear brethren, are you assailed, not only by the sceptic, but by our very profound doctrinal brethren! I know some very great doctrinal friends, who, because our experience may not tally with theirs, will sit down and say, “Ah! you don’t know the power of vital godliness;” and they will write very severe things against us, and say that we don’t know the great secret, and don’t understand the inner life. You never need trouble yourself about these braggarts; let them talk on till they have done. But if you do want to answer them, do it humbly by saying, “Well, you may be right, and I may be mistaken; but yet I think I can say, ‘One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.’ ” And I have known them sometimes go to the length of saying, if we don’t hold all their points of doctrine, and go the whole eighteen ounces to the pound, as they do,-if we are content with sixteen, and keep to God’s weights and God’s measures,-“Ah! those people cannot be truly converted Christians, they are not so high in doctrine as we are.” Well, we can answer them with this, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” And you young Christians sometimes meet with older believers, very good people too, but very wise, and they will put you into their sieves. Some of our brethren always carry a sieve with them; and if they meet a young brother, they will try to sift him, and they will often do it very unkindly,-ask him knotty questions. I always compare this to a man’s trying a newborn child’s health by putting nuts into his mouth, and if he cannot crack them, saying, “He is not healthy.” Well, I have known very difficult questions asked about such things as sublapsarianism, or supralapsarianism, or about the exact difference between justification and sanctification, or something of that sort. Now, I advise you to get all that sort of knowledge you can; but, putting all of it together, it is not nearly equal in value to this small bit of knowledge, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Many and many an old Puritanic book have I studied, and tried to enrich my mind with the far-sought lore of the writers of them; but I tell you there are times when I would give up everything I have ever learnt, by nights and days of study, if I could but say for a certainty, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” And even now, though I have no doubt about my own acceptance in Christ, and my having been brought to see, yet, compared with this piece of knowledge, I do count all the excellency of human knowledge,-ay, and all the rest of divine knowledge, too,-to be but dross and dung, for this is the one thing needful, the one soul-saving piece of knowledge, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”

My dear hearer, do you see a beauty in Christ? Do you see a loveliness in the gospel? Do you perceive an excellence in God your Father? Can you read your title clear to mansions in the skies? You could not do this once. Once, you were a stranger to these things; your soul was dark as the darkest night without a star, without a ray of knowledge or of comfort; but now you see. Seek after more knowledge; but, still, if you cannot attain it, and if you tremble because you cannot grow as you would, remember this is enough to know for all practical purposes, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”

We will again change our view of the subject. This is a model confession of faith.

This blind man did not do as some of you would have done. When he found his eyes, he did not use them to go and hunt out a quiet corner so that he might hide himself in it; but he came out boldly before his neighbours, and then before Christ’s enemies, and said, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Why, there are some of you who, I hope, have grace in your heart, but you have not courage to confess it; you have not put on your regimentals. I suppose you call yourselves members of the Church Militant, but you are not dressed in the true scarlet; you do not come forward, and wear the Master’s badge, and openly fight under his banner. I think it is very unkind of you, and very dishonouring to your Master. There are not many who speak for him, and it is a shame that you should hold your tongue. If he has given you eyes, I am sure you ought to give him your tongue. If he has taught you to see things in a new light, I am sure you ought not to be unwilling to confess him before men. After so much kindness in the past, it is cruel ingratitude to be ashamed to confess him. You do not know how much you would comfort the minister. Converts are our sheaves, and you, who are not added to the church, do as it were rob us of our reward. No doubt you will be gathered into God’s garner, but then we do not know anything about that; we want to see you gathered into God’s garner here; we want to hear you boldly say, “Whereas I was blind, now I see.”

You cannot tell, besides, how much good you might do to others. Your example would move your neighbours, your confession would be valuable to saints, and might be a help to sinners. Your taking the decisive step might lead others to take it. Your example might be just the last grain cast into the scale, and might lead others to decide for the Lord. I am ashamed of you, who were once blind, yet now see, but do not like to say so. I pray you lay the matter to heart; and, ere long, come out, and say, “Yes, I cannot withhold it any longer. Whereas I was once blind, now I see.”

“Well,” says one, “I have often thought of joining the church, but I can’t be perfect.” Now this man did not say, “I was once imperfect, and now I am perfect.” Oh, no! If you were perfect, we would not receive you into church-fellowship; because we are all imperfect ourselves, and we should fall out with you if we did take you in. We don’t want those perfect gentlemen; let them go to heaven; that is the place for perfect ones, not here.

“Well,” says someone else, “I have not grown in religion as I should like to do; I am afraid I am not as saintly as I would desire to be.” Well, brother, strive after a high degree of holiness, but remember that a high degree of holiness is not necessary to a profession of your faith. You are to make a profession as soon as you have any holiness, and the high degree of it is to come afterwards.

“Ah!” says another, “but I could not say much.” Nobody asked you to say much. If you can say, “Whereas I was blind, now I see,” that is all we want. If you can but let us know that there is a change in you, that you are a new man, that you see things in a different light, that what was once your joy is now your sorrow, and what was once a sorrow to you is now your joy,-if you can say, “All things have become new;” if you can say, “I feel a new life heaving within my bosom; there is a new light shining in my eyes. I go to God’s house new in a different spirit. I read the Bible, and engage in private prayer, after quite a different fashion. And I hope my life is different, I hope my language is not what it used to be. I try to curb my temper. I do endeavour to provide things honest in the sight of all men. My nature is different; I could no more live in sin as I once did than a fish could live on dry land, or a man could live in the depths of the sea,”-this is what we want of you.

Suppose now a person getting up in the church-meeting, (and there are scores and hundreds here who attend church-meetings,) and saying, “Brethren, I come to unite with you. I know the Greek Testament; I have also read a good deal in Latin; I understand the Vulgate; I can now, if you please, give you the 1st chapter of Mark in Greek, or the 2nd chapter of Exodus in Hebrew, if you like. I have also, from my youth up, given myself to the study of the natural and applied sciences. I think I am master of rhetoric, and I am able to reason logically.” Suppose he went on then to say what he knew about business, what a skilful tradesman he had been; and after going through that should say, “I have a great deal of theological knowledge; I have read the Fathers; I have studied Augustine; I could talk about all the ponderous tomes that were written in the ancient times; I am acquainted with all the writers on the Reformation, and I have studied the Puritans through and through; I know the points of difference between the great Reformed teachers, and I know the distinction between Zwingle and Calvin,”-I am sure, dear friends, if a man were to say all that, before I put it to the vote whether he should be admitted to church-membership, I should say, “This dear brother has not any idea of what he came here for. He came here to make a confession that he was a living man in Christ Jesus, and he has been only trying to prove to us that he is a learned man. That is not what we want;” and I should begin to put to him some pointed questions, something like this, “Did you ever feel yourself a sinner? Did you ever feel that Christ was a precious Saviour, and are you putting your trust in him?” and you would some of you say, “Why, that’s just what he asked poor Mary, the servant girl, when she was in the meeting five minutes ago!” All that learned lumber is good enough in its place; I do not depreciate it; I wish you were all scholars; I love to see you great servants in the Master’s cause; but the whole of that put together is not worth a straw, compared with this, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” And this is all we ask of you; we only ask you, if you wish to join the church, to be able to confess that you are a changed character, that you are a new man, that you are willing to be obedient to Christ and to his ordinances, and then we are only too glad to receive you into our midst. Come out, come out, I pray you, ye that are hiding among the trees of the wood, come forth. Whosoever is on the Lord’s side, let him come forth. It is a day of blasphemy and rebuke. He that is not with Christ is against him, and he that gathereth not with him scattereth abroad. Come forth, come forth, ye that have any spark of love for God, or else this shall be your doom, “Curse ye Meroz, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.”

And now, to conclude, my text may be used in a further way; for it sets before us a very clear and manifest distinction.

You cannot every one of you say, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” My hearers, solemnly, as in the sight of God, I speak to you; lend me your ears, and may these few words of truth sink into your hearts! Are there not some of you who cannot even say, “I was blind”? You do not know your own blindness; you have the conceit to imagine that you are as good as most people, and that if you have some faults, yet certainly you are not irretrievably lost. You have no idea that you are depraved, utterly depraved, saturated through and through, and rotten at the core. If I were to describe you in Scriptural language, and say, “Thou art the man,” you would be shocked at me for giving you so bad a character. You are amiable, your outward carriage has always been decorous, you have been generous and benevolent, and, therefore, you think there is no need for you to be born again,-no necessity for you to repent of sin. You think that the gospel is very suitable for those who have gone into foul, open sin; but you are too good rather than too bad! O my hearers, you are stone-blind, and the proof that you are so is this, that you do not know your blindness! A man who is born blind does not know what it is to lose sight; the bright beams of the sun never made glad his heart, and, therefore, he does not know his misery. And such is your state. You do not understand what it is that you have lost; what it is that you need. I pray God to do for you what you cannot do for yourselves,-make you feel now, once for all, that you are blind. There is hope for the man who knows his blindness,-there is some light in the man who says he is all darkness,-there is some good thing in the man who says he is all foul. If you can say,-

“Vile and full of sin I am,”-

God has begun a good work in you. You know that, when the leper was afflicted with leprosy from head to foot, the priest looked at him, and, if there was a single spot where there was no leprosy, he was unclean; but the moment the leprosy covered him everywhere, then he was made clean; and so you, if you know your sin so as to feel your utterly ruined, lost estate, God has begun a good work in you; and he will put away your sin, and save your soul. Alas! there are many who do not know that they are blind.

And yet I know, to my sorrow, there are many of you who know that you are blind, but you don’t see yet. I hope you may,-I hope you may. To know your blindness is well, but it is not enough. It would be a dreadful thing for you to go from an awakened conscience on earth to a tormenting conscience in hell. There have been some, who have begun to find out that they are lost here, and then have discovered that they are lost hereafter as well. I pray you, do not tarry long in this state. If God hath convinced you of sin, I pray you do not linger. I prayed to-night that the Lord would save us, and he is waiting now. The way of salvation-oh, how many times I have preached this! and how many times more will it be necessary to tell you over and over again the same thing?-the way of salvation is simply this, trust Christ, and you are saved; just as you are, rely upon him, and you are saved. With no other dependence, with no other shadow of a hope, sinner, venture on him, venture wholly, venture now. I hear the wheels of the Judge’s chariot behind thee. He comes! He comes! He comes! Fly, sinner, fly! I see God’s bow in his awful hand, and he has drawn the arrow to its very head. Fly, sinner! Fly! while yet the wounds of Christ stand open; hide thyself there as in the cleft of the Rock of Ages. Thou hast not a lease of thy life, thou canst not tell that thou shalt ever see another Sabbath-day to spend in pleasure; no more warnings may ever ring in your ears. Perhaps you will never have even another week-day to spend in drunkenness and blasphemy. Sinner, turn! God puts this alternative before some of you to-night,-turn or burn. “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” One of the two it must be,-die or turn. Believe in Christ, or perish with a great destruction. “He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” And you who are aroused and convinced to-night, I pray you to trust Christ, and live. The whole matter is very simple, “Whereas I was blind, now I see.” Dost thou to-night see that Christ can save thee? Dost thou believe that he will save thee if thou wilt trust him? Then trust him, and you are saved. The moment you believe, you are saved, whether you feel the comfort of it or not;-ay, and the thought arising from the full belief that you are saved will yield you the comfort which you will never find elsewhere. Have I trust in Christ, O my soul? Thou knowest, O Lord, I have; thou knowest I have.

“Other refuge have I none,

Hangs my helpless soul on thee.”

It is written, “He that believeth on him is not condemned.” Then I am not condemned. Perhaps I feel at this present moment no joy, but then the thought that I am not condemned will also make me feel joy by-and-by; yet I must not build on my joy, I must not build on my feelings, but simply on this, that God has said, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” I, believing in Christ, am saved. And that is true of you also,-you in the aisle over yonder; you by that door there, and you behind me here; it is true of every man, woman, or child in this place who has now come to put trust in Christ; it is true of the man in the smock frock, who did not intend to come here to-night, but who, seeing the people, strolled in, and who has been saying in his heart, “I will believe; I will trust Christ too.” Well, then, you are saved, your sin is blotted out, your iniquity is forgiven, you are a child of God, the Lord accepts you,-if you have really trusted Christ,-you are an heir of heaven. Go and sin no more; go and rejoice in pardoning love; and God bless you, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

MARK 10:46-52 and JOHN 9:1-7

We have several records of blind men being cured by the Lord Jesus Christ. One of them is in Mark 10:46-52.

Mark 10:46. And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people,-

For, now, his march to the battle was like a triumphal march, which was by-and-by to be attended with the waving of palms and the shout of Hosannas: “as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people,”-

46, 47. Blind Bartimæus, the son of Timæus, sat by the highway side begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth,-

That is all that the crowd called him “Jesus of Nazareth,”-

47. He began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.

He had advanced much further than the mass of the people. To him it was not “Jesus of Nazareth,” but it was “Jesus, thou Son of David.”

48-50. And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus.

Blind as he was, he found his way to the Saviour: I suppose the ear directed by the voice helped him to do so.

51. And Jesus answered and said unto him. What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.

His request was plainly put, but it was most respectfully and even adoringly addressed to Christ.

52. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.

You will find that it is often the Saviour’s way thus to give the credit of his own work, to the patient’s faith. “Thy faith,” saith he, “hath made thee whole.” Whereas, you and I, if we do a good thing, are very anxious that nobody else should take the credit of it. We are very willing to have all the honour put upon ourselves; but Jesus does not say, “I have made thee whole,” though that was true enough; but, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” And why is it, think you, that Christ takes the crown off his own head to put it on the head of faith? Why? Because he loves faith, and because faith is quite certain not to wear that crown, but to lay it at his feet; for, of all the graces, faith is the surest to deny herself, and ascribe all to him in whom she trusts.

52. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.

Another of these records is in John 9:1-7.

John 9:1-7. And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

I will not say anything now about this miracle, as it will form the subject of my discourse.

A HANDKERCHIEF

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, October 5th, 1905,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Lord’s-day Evening, June 13th, 1875.

“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?”-John 20:15.

In the garden of Eden, immediately after the Fall, the sentence of sorrow, and of sorrow multiplied, fell upon the woman. In the garden where Christ had been buried, after his resurrection, the news of comfort-comfort rich and divine,-came to a woman through the woman’s promised Seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. If the sentence must fall heavily upon the woman, so must the comfort come most sweetly to her. I will not say that the resurrection reversed the curse of the Fall; but, at any rate, it took the sting out of it, lifted it up, and sanctified it. There was reason enough for the woman to weep after the sentence had been pronounced upon her; but there is no reason for her to weep now that Jesus Christ has fulfilled the promise which followed upon man’s disobedience,-namely, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head.

Observe the wise method followed by the Divine Consoler. In order to comfort Mary Magdalene, our Lord put a question to her. It is often the wisest way to relieve minds that are swollen through grief to allow them to find the natural end of their sorrow by asking them why they are weeping. We have to do this with ourselves sometimes; we enquire, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?” The soul begins to ask for the reason of its grief, and often finds that it is insufficient to justify so bitter a sorrow; and perhaps it even discovers that the sources of its sorrow have been misunderstood, and that, if they had been rightly comprehended, they would have been sources of joy instead. He who would be wise in dealing with the daughters of grief must let them tell their own story; and, almost without a single sentence from you, their own story will be blessed by God to the relieving of their grief.

Moreover, it is always wise, before we attempt to comfort anyone, to know what is the peculiar form and fashion which grief has taken. The physician who, without investigation, should at once proceed to apply a remedy to his patient, might be giving the wrong medicine for the disease. He has to make his diagnosis of the malady, to see whence it came, what are its symptoms, and how it works, and then the physician adapts his medicine to the case. Sit thou down with thy sorrow, my friend, and let us hear what aileth thee. What causeth thee to fret? What causeth thy soul to travail? Possibly, the sorrowing ones will themselves direct thee to the right remedy for their malady, and so thou shalt be able to speak a word in season, and “a word spoken in due season, how good is it!” Thou art at present like a man groping in the dark, and thou wilt be as one pouring vinegar upon nitre if thou dost sing songs to a heavy heart, and thou wilt make matters worse which thou hadst hoped to make better unless thou dost find out the cause of the mourner’s tears.

My one object, at this time, is to take this question of our Lord to Mary, and apply it to all who are sorrowing here; and although I shall keep to the text, and repeat the question, “Woman, why weepest thou?” I shall hope that other sorrowers besides the women here will find comfort from the words which the Holy Spirit will teach me to speak. I shall ask, first, is it natural sorrow? And, secondly, is it spiritual sorrow?

We will, first, enquire about that which is common to us all without exception, Is it natural sorrow? Is it sorrow which springs from our human nature, and is common to all who are born of woman, to whom sorrow cometh as a portion of our heritage?

Well, my friend, what is the cause of thy grief? What aileth thee? Is it because thou art bereaved? Hast thou lost someone who was very dear to thee? Then thy grief is not unusual, and thy weeping is not unpardonable, for Jesus wept as he stood at the grave of his friend Lazarus. But let not thy weeping go beyond due bounds. Thy tears are right enough so far, but they may be wrong if they go any further. There is a weeping of regret, and of a lacerated spirit, upon which God looks with pity; but there may come a weeping of rebelliousness upon which even our Heavenly Father may feel that he must look with anger. “Why weepest thou?” Wilt thou look into thy heart, beloved, and see whether the cause of thy grief is such as doth fully justify it, or see whether thou hast carried it too far already? Thou hast lost a child,-a lovely child; but, my sister, thou hast not really lost thy child. Callest thou that lost which is in Christ’s keeping? Callest thou that babe lost which is up among the angels? If your child had been taken to be a prince in a palace, you would not have said that he was lost; inasmuch as he has been caught away to be with Jesus, say not that he is lost. Thou art the mother of one who can see the face of God, and thus saith the Lord unto thee, “Refrain thine eyes from weeping, for thy children shall come again from the land of their captivity.”

Hast thou lost thy husband? It is a heavy blow, and well mayest thou weep; but, still, who took him from thee? Was it not he who lent him to thee? Bless the Lord that thou hast had all those years of comfort and joy, and say with Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” The loss of thy husband has made a great void in thy life, but the Lord will fill that void. Dost thou know him? Then, he will be a Husband unto thee, and a Father to thy fatherless children. He hath said, “Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.” Thou art a widow; then, trust thou in the Lord. If thou art a widow without faith in God, then thine is a sorrow indeed; but if the widow’s sorrow shall drive her to trust in Christ as her Saviour, if she shall look up, and in her deep sorrow trust herself with the great Helper of the helpless, she shall find her loss to be a gain.

“Woman, why weepest thou?” Whatever relative or friend thou hast lost, thy God will be more to thee than the loved one could ever be. The Well-beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ, is better to us than all earthly friends; and when they are taken away from us, he more than fills the space which once they occupied; so that, if we have less of human love, we have more of the divine, and thus we are gainers rather than losers. Look forward to the resurrection, and be comforted. Remember that the worm has not consumed the beauty for ever, neither has the precious temple of the body been given up to everlasting ruin. If they fell asleep in Christ, as surely as they were buried, they shall rise again in beauty, in the image of Jesus Christ; so let us net sorrow as those who are without hope. Brush away your tears; or, if they must fall, smile through them in sweet resignation to the divine will, and be still.

“Why weepest thou?” Is there another reason for your sorrow? Dost thou weep because thou art very poor? There are some, who do not know the sorrow of poverty, who will, perhaps, blame you; but I know that there are some of you, who have a hard task to find a livelihood,-a task at which a slave might be pitied. In this great city, how many toil till they wear themselves almost to skeletons, and even then scarcely find food enough to keep body and soul together! There are some of the choicest sons and daughters of the Lord who seem to be the lowest of all in the scale of this world’s possessions, and their lot, from morning to night, is one of incessant drudgery. Were it not for these sweet Sabbaths, to live on earth would be to them altogether a bondage. But weep not, my poor sister; weep not, my poor brother; there is One, who was poorer than thou art, who will bear thy burdens for thee. Jesus Christ was poorer than poverty, because he had once been so exceedingly rich; and none are so poor as those who come down from wealth to poverty. You know that, though he was rich, yet, for our sakes, he became poor, that we, through his poverty, might become rich. Poor mourner, remember the promise to him that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly, “Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.” Recollect also how the Lord Jesus said to his disciples, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” “Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.” So, will he not feed you also? Wipe away your tears; bend your back to the burden which God has laid upon you, “and be content with such things as ye have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

“Woman, why weepest thou?” Suppose that neither of these causes should account for your sorrow, hast thou a beloved sick one at home? Yes, and thou mayest well weep if that sickness has been long, and if it wears away the beauty from the cheek, and the brightness from the eye, and if it costs innumerable pains and anguish only to be understood by those who suffer it, and those who watch, hour by hour, by the sufferer. I can understand your weeping; and yet, beloved, your case is in Christ’s hands, and you may safely leave your dear ones in his hands. He never sent a trial to any child of his unless it was so necessary that, to have withheld it would have been unkind. Accept it as the Lord’s love-token. Besides, remember that he can recover our loved ones if he deems it wise, or he can sustain them in their sickness if he does not see fit to recover them, and he can give them a joyful exit from this world, and an abundant entrance into his everlasting kingdom. So, do not weep too much; but say, “It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.”

Possibly, however, the weeping may come to us because we have sickness in our own bodies. While we are sitting or standing here, some of us little know the amount of suffering that may be felt by the person who is sitting next to us. I have often wondered how some of my beloved hearers ever manage to get here at all; yet they are here, although full of pain. They find a sweet forgetfulnees, at least for a little time, while the Word is being preached; and they cannot forego the pleasure of mingling with the people of God, even though it costs them many a sharp pang. Yet I would urge even such sufferers to dry their tears. It may be that the dreaded disease of consumption is gradually wearing away the life; but, my sister, it is no ill thing just to swoon away into heaven, and gently to pass from this life to another and a brighter day. Perhaps you are suffering from some painful disease which is known to be fatal. Well, that is only another way of bringing a King’s messenger to take you swiftly home. If you have no Christ, you may well weep if you have received your death-wound, for after death comes judgment. This disease is a messenger sent to bid you prepare to meet your God. Suppose you were smitten down today, God has given you a timely warning. Take it, I pray you; and, instead of weeping over your sickness, may the Holy Spirit enable you to weep over your sin, and to trust in Christ as your Saviour, for then all shall be well. If we have believed in Jesus, we need not weep, even though the dread archer may have lodged the fatal shaft quite near our heart. What is there to weep about? When a Christian has received an intimation that he is soon to be with his Saviour in glory, we may congratulate him that he is the sooner to be out of the strife and the sin, and to wear the crown of victory and glory for ever, so we will not weep about that.

Perhaps I am addressing one who says, “My sorrow is neither bereavement, nor personal sickness, nor the sickness of friends nor poverty;-I sometimes think I could bear any or all of those trials; but I have been the victim of a treacherous friend, I trusted, and have been deceived. I gave my heart’s best affections, and have been betrayed.” Thou, too, dear friend, art not alone in that trial. There was One, better far than thou, on whose cheek came the hot kiss from the betrayer’s lips, so that Jesus said to Judas, “Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?” Many have had so-called friends, who, in the time of testing, have been more cruel than avowed foes. They have been as the cunning fowler who spreads his net so warily that he may catch the little birds. Well, if thy case is like that of the birds, fly away to Jesus; trust him, for he will never deceive thee. If Jesus shall fill that vacancy in thy heart, it will have been a blessed vacancy. A broken heart is best healed by a touch of the pierced hand of Jesus. Get thee away to him, thou Hannah, thou woman of a sorrowful spirit; go thou to the “Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” and he will find a balm for thy spirit.

I cannot go further into these natural sorrows; they are so many, and the river of grief is so deep and rapid; but, whatsoever thy sorrow may be, one piece of advice I have to give to every weeping one,-find thou the Divine Comforter; and, whatever thy griefs may be, they shall be assuaged.

Now I come to our main question, which is this, is it spiritual sorrow? If so, is it sorrow for others, or sorrow for yourselves?

I will begin with the nobler form. “Woman, why weepest thou?” Dost thou weep for others? Are there some, whom you love, and for whom you have often prayed, who remain in the gall of bitterness, and in the bonds of iniquity? This is a suitable subject for mourning. Weep not for those who have gone to be “for ever with the Lord,” for all is well with them; but weep for those who are living in sin,-for the young man, in his unbridled lust, who has dishonoured his father’s name,-for the daughter who, in her wilfulness, has gone astray into the paths of transgression. Weep for the heart that will not break. Weep for the eyes that will not weep. Weep for the sinners who will not confess their sins, but are resolutely seeking their own damnation. Ah, my dear friends, when you are weeping like that, you are weeping as your Saviour did when he wept over Jerusalem, and God will put your tears into his bottle. Be comforted, for those tears of yours are omens of good to the souls you pity; for, as surely as you groan and sigh and cry over these beloved ones, you are doing what you can to bring them the blessing, and I think that is a token that the blessing of God is on its way to them. You remember that it is written that “the power of the Lord was present to heal” on a certain occasion: why was it more present then than at any other time? Was it not because there were four men, who were breaking up the roof to let down a sick one into the room where Christ was? Wherever there is real concern for souls, although it be only in four persons, there is, about the ministry, a power of an unusual kind. Go on, then, and still weep, but not hopelessly, not with the bitterness of despair. The Lord will see thy tears, and will hear thy prayers, and will grant thy petition, even though thou mayest not live to see it. Peradventure, when thou art in heaven, thy son, thy husband, thy sister, over whom thou now art weeping, shall be brought to Christ.

Possibly, however, the sorrow for others relates to the church with which this mourner is connected. It is often my lot to meet with brethren and sisters coming from country towns, who say to me, “What are we to do? The place of worship, where we attend, might almost as well be pulled down, for there is no life, no energy, no power there.” Oh, it is wretched work indeed when that is the case! Many towns and villages would be all the better if the meeting-house and the parish church, too, were utterly demolished, because then they would feel that they had not any religious means at all, and would, perhaps, be stirred up to seek them. But now there is dead formalism in both places. There is nothing worse than sluggishness in the pastors and members of a church. What is the use of a dead church? It is no use at all. The fact is, the better a church is, the sooner it rots when it is dead. The man who is very stout is the very worst person to keep in the house when once he is dead, and the church that seems to be most packed with divine truth is the most obnoxious to all when once the life goes out of it. Well, my dear friends, if you are sorrowing over the low condition of the church to which you belong, and the state of religion in general in the neighbourhood where you live, I would not stay your tears, yet I would try to comfort you, and I would advise you to take the case to your Lord. He is the Head of the Church, so carry that burden to him. Do not go about finding fault; do not try to sow dissension and dissatisfaction, or you will do hurt instead of good; but lay the matter before your Lord and Master, and give him no rest till once again he puts forth his almighty power, and raises his Church to life.

Now I must leave this point; but I think that it is a grand thing to sorrow and weep for others. We ought to make it a rule of our life to bear the sorrows of other people. If sinners will not repent, we cannot repent for them; if they will not believe, we cannot believe for them; true religion can never be a matter of sponsorship, but we can do this for sinners. We can say to the Lord, “O Lord, these sinners will not themselves feel their sin, but we feel it, it grieves us, and cuts us to the heart! O Lord, wilt thou not give them repentance? Wilt thou not cause these sinners to believe in thee? We confess their iniquity before thee, for we know the guiltiness of their hearts in rejecting thee. We weep and mourn that they will not admire thy beauty, and will not yield their hearts to thee; but, dear Saviour, do win their hearts in answer to our prayer. They are far away from God by their wicked works; bring them nigh by thy precious blood.” That is what I mean; and if you can do this, appropriating, as it were, the sins and sorrows of mankind to yourself, you will be showing your sympathy with them in the best possible way. Woman, if thou weepest thus for others, blessed art thou among women.

But, now, “why weepest thou?” Is it for thyself? Are these spiritual sorrows on thine own account? Art thou a sorrowing child of God? Dost thou know thyself to be a Christian, and yet dost thou weep? Then, what is the cause of thy grief? Dost thou miss thy Lord’s presence? If so, there is reason enough for thy weeping; yet why shouldst thou weep? He is present even now; you have not seen him, but he has seen you, and is gazing upon you at this very moment. Beloved mourner, do not say, “I am out of fellowship with Christ, and I am afraid I cannot return to that blessed experience for months.” Listen to this text: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door,”-that is all-“I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” It was to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans, the lukewarm Laodiceans, that these words were written, and they are also written to thee, my sister, and to thee, my brother, if thou hast grown lukewarm. Be willing for Christ to come to you; and, ere ever you are aware, your soul shall make you like the chariots of Amminadib. Do not imagine that restoration to communion with Christ need occupy a longer time than conversion, and conversion is often wrought instantaneously. So thou mayest be lifted up from the depths of despondency to the heights of sacred fellowship with thy Lord before this present service closes. Be of good cheer, and let thy joy be renewed this very hour.

But perhaps thou sayest, “I weep because I have grieved my Lord.” Those are blessed tears, although the offence which caused them is grievous. Well may we be grieved when Christ has been grieved by us; but, mourning soul, though he is rightly grieved with thee, remember this gracious declaration, “He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever;” and this comforting promise, “For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.” Only confess that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy Redeemer, and thou mayest come back to him at once; nay, even now he comes to meet with thee, and he brings with him the basin and the towel, that he may wash thy soiled feet, for he has washed thee once in his blood, and now he will again wash thy feet, and thou shalt be clean every whit, and shalt walk with cleansed feet in renewed fellowship with thy Lord.

Possibly, some of you say that your sorrow is that you are not as holy as you wish to be. Ah! that is a sorrow which I share with you, for I can say with the apostle Paul, “When I would do good, evil is present with me;” and though I hear of some who do not find that evil is present with them, I suspect that the reason is, because they do not know themselves as they really are, or they would find that it was so with them, at least at times. If I could, I would be without one sinful thought, or word, or deed, or imagination, or wish, and so would you; and because you cannot be so at present, you weep. It is well that such tears should fall, only do not let those tears dim your view of Christ. Do not let those longings prevent your knowing that you are perfect and complete in Christ Jesus. Do not let your struggles hinder you from believing that Christ has conquered for you, and that he will yet conquer sin in you. Do not let anything take away from you the full conviction that sin shall be altogether destroyed in you, and that Christ will present you to his Father, “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,” “holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.”

Perhaps you say that your sorrow is because you can do so little for Christ. Ah! there again, I have sympathy with you; but do not fret about that. Those of us, who have the largest opportunities, are often those who most regret that we can so little avail ourselves of them. But I know some godly women, who are confined to the house with the care of a numerous family, or, worse still, are confined to their bed, in constant pain, and one of their greatest griefs is that they can do so little for Christ. But, brother, sister, do you not know the rule of David, and the rule of David’s Lord? They that abide by the stuff shall have the same portion as they who go out to the battle. You are like the soldiers who have to keep in the rear, and guard the baggage; but when the King comes back, with all the active troops who have been doing the fighting, you will share the victory with them. You who are at home keeping the camp preserve many things which might be forgotten if we were all on active service. Be you comforted, then, if you are called to suffer or to be in obscurity; you shall be equal to the man and woman who are called to labour more prominently. Do what you can; I do not know that Christ himself ever praised anybody more than he did that woman of whom he said, “She hath done what she could.” I daresay she wanted to do a great deal more, but she did what she could; and if you have done what you could, it is well.

“Ah!” says another, “but I am conscious of a great deal of weakness. What I do is done so badly. Even in prayer, I do not always prevail; my petitions often seem to come back to me unanswered.” Well, dear friend, do not altogether regret thy weakness, for there was one, who said that, when he was weak, he was strong. If you have many infirmities, which make you weak, there is a way of glorying in infirmities because the power of Christ doth rest upon you. Suppose that you are not only weak, but that you are weakness itself,-that you are nothing and nobody; for, when you have reached that point, the cause of your weeping will have vanished, because, where you end, there God begins; and when you have done with self, then Christ will be all in all to you, and you will lift up your voice in praise of him who hath done such great things for you.

Many strange things happen to young Christians between the time of their conversion and their entrance into heaven. Their programme of life is seldom carried out. The map which they make of the route is not according to the true geography of it. They reckon that, as soon as they have believed in Jesus, they will enter into sweet peace and rest, which is probably correct, but they also suppose that this peace and rest will always continue, and probably increase, that they will go to heaven, singing all the way, along pleasant roads and paths of peace, and that the light upon their way will get brighter and brighter, till it comes to the perfect day. They feel so happy, and they sing so sweetly, that they imagine it will always be with them just as it was in the first hours of their Christian experience. They are like persons who have, for the first time in their lives, come into the bright light of day, after having lived in a deep mine, or been immured in a dark dungeon. They ask what season of the year it is, and they are told that it is springtime, that the flowers have begun to bloom, but that there are more to follow. They hear the birds singing, but they are told that there are brighter days to come, that May is a fairer month than April, and June brighter still, and then will come the months of harvest, when the sickle shall be thrust in amongst the golden grain.

All this is very cheering, so this new beginner plans that, to-morrow, he will be out all day upon the green grass, or in the gardens admiring the bursting buds, and gathering for himself many a delightful garland of flowers; but, perhaps, when he gets up, to-morrow morning, the heavens are black with clouds, and a torrent of rain is falling. “Oh!” saith he, “I never reckoned upon this.” Then, perhaps, in June, there comes such a hurly-burly in the sky as he never thought of,-flames of fire and loud thunders out of the heavens, and dreadful drenching showers intermixed with rattling hail. “Oh!” saith he, “I never calculated upon this; I thought the months were to grow brighter and brighter, and that, at last, there would come the golden harvest.” We tell him that these rains and storms all conduce to the very result which we promised him, and that they are by no means contrary to our statement. We were only giving him a brief outline of the year’s history, and these things are by no means contrary to our outline, nor need he fear but that the month of harvest will come in due season. It is true, young Christian, that you will have a light upon your road, and that it will grow more and more bright unto the perfect day. It is true that the ways of wisdom “are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” Your highest conception of the joy to be found in Christ is not an exaggerated one. However much delight you may anticipate, you shall have all that, and you shall also have even more, as you are able to bear it; but intermittent times will come,-strange times to you,-in which your joy will seem to be dead, and your peace will be fearfully disturbed. Your soul will be “tossed with tempest, and not comforted.” You will sorrowfully sit in sackcloth and ashes, and you will not go to the table of feasting, but to the house of mourning. There will you be made to drink the water of tears, and have your bread salted with grief. Be not surprised, then, when this comes to pass, as though some strange things had happened to you. Remember that we have told you of it; we, who have gone further on the road to heaven than you have gone, tell you that there will come dark times, and stormy times, and we bid you prepare for them.

Now I must turn to others in our assembly. “Woman, why weepest thou?” Perhaps thou sayest, “O sir, I dare not put myself down among the saints!” Well, then, will you put yourself down among the sinners? “Yes, I am a sinner,” you reply; “yet I think-I hope-I am not altogether without some little faith in Christ. I sometimes feel myself inclined to love him; but, oftentimes, I am of another mind, averse to all that is good.” Ah, my friend, I know you; and I have met with many like your class. I said once to one of your sort, “You say that you are not a Christian.” “No,” she said, “I fear I am not.” “Then,” I asked, “why do you go to the house of God on the Sabbath? Why don’t you stop at home, or go where sinners go?” “Oh, no, sir!” she answered, “I could not do that; when I hear people blaspheme the name of Christ, it cuts me to the quick; and I am never so happy as when I am with the people of God. I enjoy the hymns that they sing; and, while I am with them, my heart gets so warm that I feel as if I must praise the Lord. I think it is a great mercy that I cannot help blessing and praising God.” “Well, then,” I said, “I think that you must really have some faith in Christ, or you would not feel and act as you do.”

I remember hearing of a minister, who wrote down these words, “I do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and asked a person, who was full of doubts, to sign her name to that declaration, but she would not do that. She did believe in Christ, though she did not think that she believed. I once offered a person, who said she had no faith, a five pound note if she would give up her faith, but she said that she would not take a thousand worlds for it! Mrs. Much-afraid, and Mr. Despondency, and Mr. Feeble-mind, and Mr. Ready-to-halt,-there are plenty of that family still living; and I know why thou weepest, good woman, for thou also belongest to that tribe. Well, then, if thou canst not come to Christ as a saint, come to him as a sinner. If thou hast made a mistake, and hast never trusted in Christ, do it now. If you really have not repented, and have not believed, and have not been renewed in heart, remember that it is still written, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” “and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” If the title-deeds of your spiritual estate are not genuine, but forgeries, do not dispute the question with one who is wiser than yourself; but come straight away to Jesus Christ, empty-handed, in the manner in which he bids all sinners come to him, and then I shall not have to ask, “Why weepest thou?”

But, last of all, is this person, who is weeping, a seeking sinner? Christ not only said to Mary Magdalene, “Why weepest thou?” but also, “Whom seekest thou?” for he knew that she was seeking HIM. I would give all I possess if I might always preach to weeping sinners who are seeking Christ. I sometimes think that I would like to be always weeping on account of sin, if I might be always sure that I was seeking Jesus. It is possible that there has come into this place someone who is seeking a Saviour. Ah, weeping woman! dost thou weep because sin burdens thee? Dost thou weep because sweet sin has become bitter to thee? Dost thou weep because the things, wherein thy soul once delighted, have now become thy torment and thy grief? Then I rejoice over thy tears, for they are precious in God’s sight; they are more valuable than the finest diamonds in the world. Blessed is the soul that can repent of sin.

But, possibly, thy weeping is because thou art afraid of being rejected by Christ. Put every tear of that kind away, for there is no fear of one sinner, who comes to Christ, being rejected by him. As I reminded you just now, he hath said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Come, then, thou burdened sinner; come, thou heavy-laden soul; and trust thyself with Jesus, and then he cannot-unless he can completely change, and that is impossible,-he cannot reject thee. Come and trust him even now, and thou shalt be saved this very hour.

But, perhaps, thy weeping is for this reason; thou sayest, “Alas! I have been aroused before this, and I thought that I would seek the Lord, and I did get some hope, and I fancied that I was relieved of sin; but I have gone back, and my last end has been worse than the first.” Well may you weep if that is really the case, and I cannot forbid you to do so. But, my dear friend, if you came falsely once, that is only one more reason why you should come truly now. If you built on the sand once, and that house is gone, it is but another argument for building on the rock. If you were excited, and mistook a transient emotion for the work of the Spirit of God,-if you put presumption in the place of faith, do not do so again; but come, just as you now are, and rest your weary soul on Christ’s atoning sacrifice, and you shall find peace, immediate and permanent peace.

But, possibly, you weep because you say, “If I came to Christ, I fear I should not hold on to him to the end.” I know you would not by yourself, but I also know that he will hold you on if you will but come and trust him. It is not you who have to keep Christ, it is Christ who has to keep you. I should not wonder if your former failure arose from your having so much to do with it. So, have nothing to do with it this time. If you are very weak, lean all the more heavily on your Beloved; nay, if you are nothing, let Christ be all the more to you because of your nothingness. If you are black, give all the more praise to the blood that can make you whiter than snow. If you realize that you are lost, and fear that you will be found amongst the damned, flee the more eagerly to those bleeding wounds which give life, not merely to perishing sinners, but to sinners dead in trespasses and sins.

“Ah!” saith one, “I think you have invited me, but I feel as though I could not come, and I weep because I cannot come, for I do not properly understand the matter.” Well, then, dry your tears, and listen while I tell you the story again, and we who believe in Jesus will pray the Holy Spirit to lead you to understand the truth. The Father, whom you have offended, does not ask you to do anything to make him pleased with you; he does not wish you to contribute either good works or right feelings in order to make an atonement for your sin. His dear Son, Jesus Christ, has made the only atonement for sin that can ever be made; what the Father bids you do is to accept of what his Son has done, and trust alone to that. Can you not do this? What more do you need, you doubting, sorrowing seekers, but that you trust in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was nailed to Calvary’s cross, but is now risen from the dead, and gone back to his glory with the Father? We sometimes sing, in one of our hymns,-

“What more can he say than to you he hath said,

You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?”

And I say the same to you who are seeking Christ, “What more can he say to you?” What sort of a promise would you like him to make to you? Shall it be one like this, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”? You say that you would like such a promise as that; well, there is that very one in the Bible. Or would this one suit you, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon”? Or would this one meet your case, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin”? Surely this one must suit you, “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Or this message, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Or this, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.” If these do not meet your case, I do not know what you would wish to have. My Lord, by his blessed Spirit, seems to have put the gospel into all sorts of lights to suit all sorts of eyes, and he tells us, his ministers, to labour for this end, to get you to look at Jesus Christ. I have tried to do this, and I beseech you not to be content with your weepings, or your feelings, or your Bible-searchings; do not be content even with prayer. The way of salvation is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ;” so, rest you in him; that is believing. Trust in him, depend upon him; that is another way of believing in him; and when you have done that, you are saved,-saved the moment you believe in Jesus. The great work of salvation then commences in you, as the work of salvation for you is already complete, and you shall be saved from your sins, made new creatures, and made holy creatures, through the power of that blessed Spirit whom Jesus Christ bestows upon those who believe in him.

May God bless the words I have spoken to the comfort of some! I believe he will; I expect he will; I know he will; and he shall have the glory. Amen.

ADVANCE!

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, October 12th, 1905,

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, June 24th, 1875.

“The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.”-Deuteronomy 1:6.

It is a good thing sometimes to look back,-to take a retrospective view of our life. It is a very bad thing to live upon the past,-to say, “I believe I am a child of God because I had certain, spiritual enjoyments and experiences ten or twelve years ago.” Ah! such stale fare as this will not feed hungry souls. They need present enjoyment, or, at least, present confidence in the ever-living God. Yet, brethren, we may sometimes gather fuel for to-day from the ashes of yesterday’s fire. Remembering the mercies of God in the past, we may rest assured concerning the present and the future.

If we have wisely learnt by experience, we may, from our own failures in the past, gain wisdom which shall enable us to avoid the evils which overcame us on former occasions. It is well to do as you may sometimes have seen the bargemen do on a river or canal. They walk backward, pushing with all their might backward, to drive their barge forward; and, sometimes, we may go backward just far enough to help us to push forward, but no further than that. Never must any one of us say to himself, “What I was in my youth, or what I was in middle life, is a sufficient comfort for me now. Soul, take thine ease, for I have much goods laid up for many years.” That will never do, for we need to exercise a present faith, to enjoy a present love, and to live in present holiness and fear of the Lord. Yet it will help us if we remember all the way whereby the Lord our God has led us these many years in the wilderness.

But, coming to our text, we are reminded that we must expect changes: “Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.” Secondly, we ought not to make these changes without the authorization of our Divine Leader: “The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.” But, thirdly, in our spiritual pilgrimage, there are times when it becomes very clear that we have been long enough in a certain condition, and have need to make an advance towards the Canaan which is our blest inheritance.

To begin, then, we must expect changes.

Israel was not always to dwell at Horeb, and even the choicest place of divine manifestation is not always to be ours. The land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, and the hill Mizar, though very precious to us because of the spiritual experiences we have enjoyed there, are not to be our permanent places of abode. We have to journey onward, and pitch our tent somewhere else.

We need not wonder at this, my brethren and sisters, for this is a changing world. We should be out of gear with the whole creation if we did not frequently change. Behold how the year changes. It seems but yesterday that the rivers were locked in ice. Anon, we saw the flowers peeping up from the soil, and now we have reached midsummer, and shall soon be looking for the appointed weeks of harvest, and it will not be long before winter will be here again. On this earth, on the greatest or on the minutest scale, all things change, whether it be an empire that rises and passes away, or a crocus or a harebell that blooms and fades. All things that are, once were not, and by-and-by shall not be; or, at least, the place which knoweth them now shall know them no more for ever. The forest once slept in an acorn cup. That same forest, beneath the axe, shall pass away, and vanish into smoke. All things change, and therefore we also must expect to change.

And, mark you, we have already changed. Perhaps we had a happy childhood, and can remember even now the songs of the nursery and the holy hymns of our cradle days. But there came a time when we had dwelt long enough in that mount, for it would have been ill for us always to continue children. Then we were youths, and were at school, and perhaps we recollect with pleasure those free days of boyhood and girlhood when, if we did not know the value of knowledge, at any rate we found that those who taught us had more pleasant ways of teaching than our fathers knew. But it was not well for us always to stay at school; there came a time when our parents felt, and we also felt, that we had stayed long enough in that mount. Since that, some of us have passed from change to change till we have come to the full maturity of spiritual life; and some of you I see, with the snows of many a winter lying on your brows, are approaching yet another change; you know that, by-and-by, you must come to another, for it will be said of you, “Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.” And so, through all the seven stages of man we shall pass till we come to the blessed mount where we shall never dwell too long, nor ever feel that we have dwelt there long enough. But while we are beneath the moon, there must be waxings and wanings to all who come under the moon’s spell; and where the very heart of the earth, like a great sea, has its ebbs and its floods, we cannot but expect that we, too, should have our ebbs and our floods without us and within us.

We must expect to have changes, next, because it is good for us to have them; for, if not, we might become rooted to the earth. This is not our rest; but if we were always in one place, and in one state, we should begin to think that it was. Have you not noticed, with regard to those brethren who are free from trouble,-who, to use a Scriptural simile, have not been emptied from vessel to vessel,-how they settle on their lees, and what a scum generally rises upon the surface of such people’s hearts? Because they have no changes, they begin to think that they shall continue for ever as they are. They do not put that thought into words, they are not quite so foolish; yet they have the notion treasured up in their hearts that to-morrow will be as this day, only more abundant, and all the future in a similar fashion. If we have a long-continued spell of calm weather, we are apt to think that it will always be so; and if it always were so, perhaps we should get into as bad a condition as Coleridge pictures in his “Ancient Mariner.” Because there was no wind to drive the ship along, and the tropical sun was everywhere shining, everything was becoming corrupt. God knows that our tendency is in that direction, and therefore he makes us to be pilgrims and strangers here, as all our fathers were.

Were it not for changes, too, some would grow utterly weary. Some of God’s children would welcome almost any change from their present condition. They suffer, perhaps, from abject poverty,-perhaps, from unkindness on the part of those who ought to love and care for them. It may be that their condition is one in which the iron enters into their soul. Possibly, their sorrow is a secret sorrow, and the more severe because it must be kept to themselves, and cannot be communicated to others. A worm, unseen by any human eye, is gnawing at their heart. They dare not mention it; if they did, they would not be sympathized with, and might even be ridiculed. Ah! we little know the sorrows of others; and there are some, who look most cheerful, and are wise to look so, who ought to be praised because, with sacred patience, they keep their sorrow to themselves. There are some, whom you, perhaps, are envying, who far more need your pity than they deserve your envy. There is much sorrow even among God’s saints, and it is a great mercy for them that the Lord sometimes turns their captivity. It seemed a pity that, when Job had all his treasures, there should come such a change to him, and that he should have to sit down among the ashes; but when he sat among the ashes, it was a happy circumstance for him that a change came, and that “the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.” What if you are the lowest spoke of the wheel just now? You will be the highest spoke in less than a minute, for the wheel is always turning round. You are not in a permanent position as to your low estate any more than as to your high estate; if prosperity does not endure, neither doth adversity. It is written, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning;” the hours of the night will pass away in due course, and the joys of the morning will recompense you for the sorrows of the season of darkness.

Besides, dear friends, it is well that we should have these changes, because, if we did not, we might all of us become unwatchful. I do not know anything that helps more to take away the freshness and vigour with which a man does a thing, than for him to do that particular thing every day. The same kind of thing happens when he does many times something that at first is very trying. If you put a man into one of the big boilers over in Southwark, when they are putting in the rivets,-well, I should not like to be that man, for the hammering is apt to make him deaf; yet I am told, by those who have to be inside the boiler to hold the rivet-head, that they do not know anything about the great noise, for they have got used to it. They are like the blacksmith’s dog, that will go to sleep under the anvil when the sparks are flying all around him; and it is possible to get used to anything in life. The sentinel, who stands still in his box, must not be very severely blamed if he goes to sleep. It is a good thing for him if he has a little walk to take, so that he can go to and fro with his rifle on his shoulder, and thus may be able to keep awake by a change of posture. He may have a difficulty in doing that, however, if the watch is too long continued. The mill-horse, that goes round and round perpetually in a certain track, learns to sleep as he goes his round. There was a prisoner, who was sentenced to the cruel punishment of being awakened every quarter of an hour throughout the night; but, at last, he learned to answer to the knock, and still sleep right on, and so was not disturbed one whit.

I can well understand how, abiding in one state, we may get to be mechanical as a matter of routine, with no life, and no vigour. I wonder how some of you would feel if you had to preach as often as I have; I wonder whether you would not find that it was apt to become rather mechanical. That is one of the things which I dread almost beyond all else, and I trust that it will never become so with me; for I feel that, if our ministry ever becomes merely mechanical, our usefulness will be completely destroyed. But the same thing may happen in Christian life; you may get to live mechanically. I have seen professedly Christian people, who have done the right thing, but they have done it while they have been sound asleep. Did you ever go into a congregation-it has not been my lot to see such a sight often, but I have seen such a sight,-where the minister has been fast asleep, and the preaching has been nothing better than articulate snoring? There, the people sing while they are asleep, and pray while they are asleep; there is no life, no force, no power, no change of any sort. Well now, if you could burn that meeting-house down, and the good man had to preach to-morrow in the little meadow by the side of it, why, he would be wide awake then, and so would all his people be. The mere change of position would do them good. Sometimes, sitting in a different seat might help people to feel a little more attentive to the message. It is for this reason that the Lord comes, and shakes us up, and we begin to awake out of sleep, and each one says, “Where am I? New troubles have given me new grace and new comforts; so, Lord, I bless thee for them. Give me new praises.” Thus the change begins to do us good; it lifts us out of the old ruts, and sets us doing something different from what we have done before, which we are able to do with a measure of freshness which we have not previously known. That may be one reason why we have changes.

Another reason is this; if we have no changes in our pilgrimage, it is quite clear that we shall make no progress. If the children of Israel had remained at Horeb, they would never have reached the land of Canaan. We cannot stay in one place, and go on to another at the same time. So, shifts and changes are often promotive of growth. See, there is a tree, which has grown in the place it now occupies as much as it can grow there, because there is not much earth there, and there is, besides, a pan of rock just underneath it from which it cannot derive any nutriment. Now, if with care the husbandman lifts the tree, and shifts it to another position where the soil is deeper and richer, the tree will develop wondrously; and, sometimes, it is so with us. We have grown as big in Christ as we ever shall grow in that particular position, so now we must be shifted into a new one. Why, our very comforts may be like a pan of rock under the tap-root of our soul. We cannot get down any deeper, and it may be that our circumstances shut us in like huge walls through which the roots of our spiritual being cannot penetrate to get fresh nourishment. To make us grow, it is a good thing that we do not always remain in one position.

And, moreover, I believe that our removes help us to grow in proportion; for one condition of life may make us grow only in one way. There is one set of trials that we have, and they develop a certain set of graces; or there is one kind of service that we perform, which brings out one special faculty, and strengthens and sanctifies it; but God does not want his children to grow so as to have their arms twice as long as their legs, and he does not want the trees of his own right-hand planting to be lop-sided trees, sending all their branches out either toward the East or the West, and having no boughs for the other points of the compass. God would have us to be developed as manhood should be,-each faculty and limb and muscle having its fair share of harmonious growth, and the whole keeping up that equilibrium which is characteristic of all God’s works. My dear brethren, you have been in a very comfortable position for a long time, and you know that you have never had a trial to test your patience. The result is, that you have not any patience. You are very impatient if you have ever such a little trouble. Now, the Lord is going to shift you into a place where you will need a great deal of patience, and he will give it to you. And there is another side of your character of which you know next to nothing, and which none of your friends suppose that you possess; but the Lord is going to bring that out. He has painted one part of your portrait, and he is now going to turn his attention, by his blessed Spirit, to another side of it, that it may be seen that you are a representation of all the graces of the Christian character. You ought to be glad that it is so, for who knoweth how much of glory God is about to get from you through this change, which, perhaps, you are looking upon with the greatest possible dread?

Once more, and then I shall have given reason enough why we must expect changes. It may be, brethren, that we undergo changes in order that we may do more good. Some Christian man, perhaps, who has long been in one position, has practically brought to Christ all who ever will be brought in by him in that place. I know that it is so with ministers. We sow our seed, and we reap our harvest, and it would be very wise of some brethren if they would just take their sickles, and go off to another field, and sow and reap there. After you have been a long while fishing in one pond, and have caught all the best of the fish, it will be a weary task to go on fishing there; so, do as a wise angler would do, take your rod and line off to another pond, and try there. Changes for God’s servants are not at all things for which they ought to be blamed; at least, I know some ministers, whom I would not blame if they were to make a change; neither do I think that the people of their charge would be particularly anxious to retain them. It is the same with us in our Christian life. It may be that we have done all the good we can do in our own family at home. Well, then, God is going to put us into another family. It may be that, from our present standpoint, we are only capable of a certain form of good; so the Lord is going to shift us, and make different men and women of us, that we may be fitted for another form of service; and it is a blessed thing to be furnished and equipped for all the work of the Lord, whatsoever it may be that he commits to our charge.

And now, secondly, and very briefly, the Lord’s people are to be careful that they do not make changes without Divine authorization: “The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.”

The children of Israel had a fiery-cloudy pillar to guide them in their many wanderings; and if the pillar did not move, they stopped. Whether it was a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, they stopped while the pillar stopped; and when the pillar moved, then they moved, even though they had scarcely pitched their tents; and, brethren, let us also always seek divine guidance, let us put ourselves under the protection of providence, especially in making changes.

Some make changes out of mere love of novelty. Some make changes because they think that anything new will be better than what they have at present. My dear brother, you know the temptations that assail you now, so I should not advise you to seek to have a new set, about which you know nothing. My dear sister, the cross that you have been carrying did not at first seem to fit your shoulders, but your shoulders have by degrees become fitted to it, so you had better keep that cross than seek another. There are many people who leap out of the frying-pan into the fire, as our old proverb says. They think that things are going to be much better with them as soon as they make a change, but they had better “let well alone,” as another proverb says, for “as a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place.” There have been many people who have changed from side to side, just as sick persons restlessly move to and fro, merely shifting their position, yet all the while keeping their pain. One of the greatest blessings that we can have is a contented mind; and if we have that, we shall not be anxious for a change.

Do not change because of a mere whim; let not that be your reason for altering your position. Do not change from worldly motives, and be not always seeking the best for yourself. Do not change because of distrust, or because of anger with thy God. If he bids thee stand where thou art, stand thou there, and die at thy post if need be; but if he bids thee go, then go, though it would make a rent as if thy very heart were cleft in twain. It will be better for thee thus to suffer than to disobey thy Lord. We do not make many mistakes in life when we absolutely give ourselves up to God’s guidance, because, though we do not hear a voice speaking out of the oracle, and we have not our way mapped out for us as on a chart, yet, somehow or other, if we are honestly seeking to do right, and yet are about to make a mistake, God graciously interposes, and prevents the mistake, or he overrules what evidently was a mistake in such a way that it turns out to be the right thing after all. Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. You are not fatherless; you are not left without a guide. Poor tempest-tossed and weather-beaten barque, thou still hast a helmsman; thou art not a derelict, left to drift upon the sea, at the mercy of every current and every gale. There is within thee, O believer, One who is strong of hand and keen of eye, who steers thee through the fiercest storms and direst tumults of the sea, making even these to contribute to thy progress towards the desired haven. Be not swift to change because of any reason of thine own, but be not slow to change if God bids thee do so. When the time comes, and you have dwelt long enough in this mount, up with the stakes, roll up the tent lines, and put the canvas on the camel’s back, and be off to the next halting-place which the Lord has marked out for thee, for he has gone before thee to prepare thy way.

I will not dwell longer upon that topic, but pass on to notice that there are some places, spiritually, in which God’s people have dwelt quite long enough. I wish to speak to the heart of everyone here; take home what belongs to you, and may the Spirit of God be pleased to apply it to your soul!

Some of you know that you are not happy, and that you lack something, but you do not know what it is that you lack. Some of you used to be very happy, at one time, in the pleasures of the world; but, somehow, either they have changed or else you have. You have an empty space in your heart now, and you cannot fill it. The gloss seems to have come off the world’s amusements; and your business, which used to occupy you from morning to night, has become distasteful to you. You feel that you want something, but you do not know what that something is; let me tell you that what you really want is your God. Surely you have lived long enough without him, you have lived long enough in sin, you have lived long enough in impenitence, you have lived long enough in danger of the wrath to come. O prodigal son, thy father calls thee to come home! Thou surely hast had enough of riotous living, enough of the swine-trough and the company of the hogs, enough of the citizens of that country, and their scorn and cruelty, enough of rags, and enough of the husks that the swine feed upon. Say now, “I will arise, and go to my father;” and if thou sayest this, the Spirit of God helping thee so to do, this very hour thou shalt be in the embrace of thy God, thou shalt receive the kisses of his love, the best robe shall be put upon thee, and thou shalt be welcomed home even as the prodigal in the parable was.

The mount mentioned in our text was Mount Horeb, or Sinai,-the mount that burned with fire, the mount around which they set bounds so that, if so much as a beast touched the mount, it should be stoned or thrust through with a dart. It was that mountain from which they heard the thunder pealing while the law was being proclaimed in a voice so terrible that they entreated that they might not hear it any more. I believe there are some here,-I had almost said that I hope there are,-who have been long standing at the foot of Sinai. You have heard the thunder of that dreadful voice, and you have felt condemned; your soul is in bondage even now. If ever there was a slave in this world, you are one; you have the fetters on you, and you have the cruel whip perpetually flagellating your conscience. Other slaves do have rest sometimes, but you get none; you are tortured and tormented; you are almost like the fiend himself when he walked through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none. Well do I remember when I was in your present condition, and I was in it, oh, so long! And blessed was the day when my Lord said to me, “Thou hast dwelt long enough in this mount;” and then I came to Calvary, and the blood of sprinkling, and I had done with Sinai. Yet I have never felt regret that I lingered so long at the foot of Sinai. I shall regret it if any of you do so; but I do not regret it in my own case, because I think it was needful for one, who was to be a public teacher, that he should have more depression of spirit and more trial than anybody else, that he might know the ins and outs of this matter in his own experience, and so be able to help others who may be tortured in a similar way. But there is no reason why you, my friend, should have this experience, for it may be that you are not to be a public teacher; and it would be well for you if, this very moment, the spirit of bondage were cast out of you, and the Spirit of adoption took possession of your soul. You need not remain at the foot of Sinai, for, as I found out, there is another hill, called Calvary. You need not listen to the threatenings of the law, for there is another voice, the voice of the blood of Jesus, “which speaketh better things that that of Abel.” If you will, by simple faith, but listen to that voice, you will learn that it speaks peace, not punishment, and cries out for mercy, not for justice. O tempted, distressed, despairing soul, thou hast dwelt long enough in mount Sinai! At this glad hour, the silver trumpet proclaims a jubilee for thee. Thine inheritance, which thou hast forfeited, has been redeemed; and thou thyself, once sold into slavery, art now manumitted, for the price of thy redemption has been paid to the utmost farthing.

There is another mount, a little further on, to which some of my friends have come,-the mount of Little Faith. They do believe in God now; they have looked to Jesus, and have been lightened; yet they still see men as trees walking. Now and then, they have high days and holidays, and then they know whom they have believed, and have great joy in the Lord; but, at other times, they get down in the dumps, and sing,-or rather, moan,-

“’Tis a point I long to know,

Oft it causes anxious thought,-

‘Do I love the Lord, or no?

‘Am I his, or am I not?’ ”

Some of these are the very best people in the world, and I would sooner see a man always doubting his interest in Christ, and walking humbly and carefully before God, than presuming upon his own safety, and getting proud, and then venturing into temptation, and falling into sin. There are some of God’s children, who are truly his, but who seem to be like those flowers that grow best in shady places. If they had too much sunshine, I do not know what might become of them; but these people do not allow themselves that luxury. They are constantly troubled. They say that they believe, yet the petition always has to be added, “Lord, help our unbelief.”

Now, my brother or my sister, if you are in this condition, do you not think that you have dwelt long enough in this mount? I knew you when you used to be raising such doubts and questions five years ago. Is it not time that you abandoned that bad habit? You never complain of a baby for cutting its teeth, and you do not wonder if it has a lot of little complaints while it is a baby; but you do not expect it to cut its teeth, and to have all these little infantile diseases, when it gets to be a man. Do you not think that it is time that you had grown from being little children to become young men? And should not the young men begin to grow into fathers in the Christian church? We watch and tend you while you are the lambs of the flock; but are you always going to be lambs? You, who are forty, fifty, sixty years of age, and who ought to set an example to others by being courageous, and full of confidence, are you always going to be Feeble-minds and Ready-to-halts? What, are you always going to use crutches? Will you never outgrow them? Must we always wheel you about in a perambulator of rich consolation? Will you never walk alone? Will you never outgrow your days of weakness? You must have dwelt long enough, and far too long, in this mount. Remember that Jesus Christ declared that he had come that his people “might have life.” Well, you have that, have you not? But he added, “and that they might have it more abundantly.” You have not that, but do not rest satisfied until you have it.

There is another company of professors,-men of brain, but with less heart than brain;-men of the Thomas order, who want a great deal of evidence to convince them;-who tarry in the mount of questioning. We have some persons of this kind, who, we trust, are Christians, but they always have some question to ask, and they come to see the pastor about it; and after that one is answered, they ask another, and then another and another. We are very glad to see them so thoughtful; we wish everybody was thoughtful, and we do not want people to take things for granted just because we say them, we like to have them enquiring. But these people are always enquiring, and they seem to have been always enquiring. If I have lost my way, on a foggy night, I do not mind enquiring; but I like to move on a little, and not stand still, and keep on enquiring which is the way. There are some people who are always in a fog, and always enquiring, and every new heresy that is started gives them a new set of enquiries. It is a wretched life that they lead themselves, and other people, too; and I may well say to them, “Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.”

Just think, my Christian brother, while you have been vainly trying to find out how many angels can stand on the point of a needle, your brother has been winning souls for Jesus Christ. You have been sitting up at night seeking to discover the meaning of the tenth toe of the great image mentioned in the book of Daniel, and of the little horn on the fourth beast, and you have been puzzling yourself as to what is going to happen at a certain period of the world’s history; but you have not found out much yet. Now, if you had been visiting the sick, and the poor, and the ignorant, and going after the lost sheep of the house of Israel, would not your occupation have been much more remunerative? Would it not have brought you a brighter crown at the last great day? Enquire, certainly, as to all truth revealed in the Scriptures; but many of you have already dwelt quite long enough in that mount of questioning; it is time that you had ascertained that there are some things that are settled. I spoke with a man, some time ago who said that he made his creed every week. I thought that he must be a disciple of the moon, though I did not call him a lunatic; yet he was very like one, and you might as well measure the moon for a suit of clothes as judge such a man by the creed which he is constantly changing. Oh, but there are some things about which we are sure; and I bless God that some of us can say that the gospel, which we preached more than twenty years ago, is precisely the same gospel that we preach now; we are not conscious of having shifted our ground with regard to any of its doctrines, precepts, warnings, or invitations. It is a grand thing when an old divine is able to say, as my own dear grandsire said to me not long before he died, “For sixty years I have preached the gospel, and the sermon that I preached the first time I went into the pulpit, I could have preached the last time I went there, for I have made no alteration in my sentiments. The truths that God taught me at the beginning, I have held fast, though I have been continually learning more and more of the meaning of them.” It is very needful, if we are to do any good to others, though for a while we go to the mount of enquiry, that we should feel that there comes a time when we have made up our minds, and have learned something which we never mean to question again; we have dwelt long enough in that mount.

At Horeb, Moses divided the people, and marshalled them, and said that such-and-such a tribe should go first, and another second, and another last. He drilled them as an army, yet they were not always to be content with being marshalled and drilled, they were to go forward, and possess the land of Canaan. They had dwelt long enough in that mount of marshalling and drilling, and some of you Christian people have had quite enough marshalling and drilling. Is it not time for those of you, who are not doing anything for Christ, to begin to do something for him? I do not think that, when a young man is converted, he ought at first to begin working for Jesus Christ as the main business of his life. He should go to Christ’s school, and try to learn something that he can afterwards talk about to others. I was very pleased with a dear brother, a working-man, who joined the church here a month or two ago. When I put to him the question, “What are you doing for Christ?” he said, “Well, sir, I have the heart to do a good deal, and I hope I shall yet do it; but, at the present time, I am trying to learn more about him; for, if I were to go and speak to some of my mates about Jesus Christ, they would be more than a match for me, and I should not like to have my Saviour made a subject of ridicule.” I thought there was sanctified common sense in that answer, and I would advise other young Christians to go and do likewise; only do not forget to serve your Master when you have learned the way to do it. You Mr. Recruit, have surely practised “the goose step” long enough; can you not now go forward? To my certain knowledge, you have been in the army for a dozen years; could you not do a little fighting if you were to try? Could you not learn to load a gun, and fire it? Have you been studying the properties of gunpowder all this time, and done nothing else to prove that you are a soldier? Fie on you!

I fear that the Church of Christ, as a whole, has been tarrying far too long in the mount of marshalling and drilling. Some clever brother draws up a fine plan, and the next thing is to form a committee, with a president, and a vice-president, and all manner of officers. You are getting on now, like a house afire; and that is how the thing usually ends,-in smoke! There is the paraphernalia; there is the marshalling; there is the grand parade; and there is the army,-on paper! But when will the army begin the battle in real earnest? When will the Church of Christ get to close quarters with sinners? When will every Christian man and woman really begin working for Christ, and cease talking about it? We have had the resolutions which have been proposed and seconded, and carried unanimously, and then forgotten! It is significant that there is no book containing the resolutions of the apostles, but we have the Acts of the apostles; and there will be something worth recording in the Lord’s “book of remembrance” if we turn our good resolutions into acts of holy service. Let us get to the work, for we have tarried long enough in this mount.

There are many other “mounts” that I might mention, but I do not think I need do so. Unto whatsoever truth you have attained, dear friend, make sure of that, and then go on to something beyond. Do not stop anywhere, for you have not yet attained, neither are you yet perfect. You can buy a box of the patent perfection paint, and cover over all the knots and imperfections in the wood, but the wind and the rain will test your fine-looking house, and you will find the paint cracking and the bad joints and the holes in the wood showing before long. At least, it is so with me in a spiritual sense. Imperfections will reveal themselves very soon, and the paint will not answer after all. But, brother, never be satisfied with yourself, for self-satisfaction is the end of all progress. A painter said to his wife, one morning, “I shall never paint again.” “Why, my husband?” asked the good woman. “Because the picture, that I have just finished, perfectly satisfies me; it realizes my ideal; and, therefore, I know that, now, my genius is exhausted.” When a man says, “Yes, I am a splendid fellow. I will tell everybody what I am, only I will do it very cunningly, and say this is what grace has done for me; I will thank God for it, for the Pharisee in the temple had grace enough to do that;”-then, depend upon it, brother, the very power to grow has gone from you; for, if you were growing, you would have growing pains; you would feel like the chick in the egg, that wants to get out. Oh, how often my soul feels cribbed, and cabined, and confined, within my imperfect self! She will get completely free one day; and, in anticipation of that blessed time, I joyously sing,-

“Welcome, sweet hour of full discharge,

That sets my longing soul at large,

Unbinds my chains, breaks up my cell,

And gives me with my God to dwell.”

Till that “sweet hour” arrives when you will dwell with God for ever, do not delude yourself with the notion that you have got where you may stop. “Forward, onward,” must still be your motto. O eagle of God, if you are of the true royal breed, though you have looked the very sun in the face with eye undimmed, and soared till you have left the clouds far below you, yet still higher, higher, higher, must you soar! If you could distance the sun himself, and reach a yet more distant orb, still higher, higher, must you soar. “Excelsior” is the motto of every Christian until, at last, he comes into the very presence of his God, and sees him face to face. You never see an eagle roosting upon a thorn-bush, and saying, “I can get no higher;” and if any of God’s birds of paradise do that, I would bid them beware of the fowler. My self-satisfied brother, he is after you, and his big net will enclose you if you are not careful. Mount higher, brother! Higher yet, for, however high you have ascended, you have dwelt long enough in that mount, and must advance to something higher and better still. May God help you so to do, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-741, 703, 850.