Our subject this morning was the sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb upon the lintel and the two door-posts of the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt. As soon as that was done, and the lamb had been eaten, they had to start upon their journey to Canaan. They knew that they had to go, and they were prepared to go. They had their loins girt, and each man had his staff in his hand, and his sandals on his feet. After being prisoners so long, they were set free in order that they might become pilgrims to the land which the Lord their God had given to their fathers.

We, who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, are in a similar condition to theirs, for the Lord has redeemed us, and we can sing the new song, “He hath brought us up out of the house of bondage, and with a high hand and an outstretched arm he hath made us free.” And now we are pilgrims and strangers in this world, for we are on our way to a better land than the earthly Canaan ever was,-a land that floweth with something richer than milk and honey, and where there is an eternal and abounding portion appointed for each one of the redeemed. We are pressing on, through this great wilderness, towards the land into which the Lord will surely bring us in his own good time. Our text is a promise to pilgrims. It most appropriately follows the text of this morning: “The blood shall be to you for a token.” You have set out upon the road to heaven: you have entered the narrow way by Christ, who is the gate at the head of the way, and now you are wondering how you will get on while you are on the road, and whether you will be preserved in the right way so as to endure unto the end. This promise comes to you with much of real heart-cheer: “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

My first remark is rather by way of implication from the text than in direct exposition of it. It is this, there are some ways which are not included in this promise, because they are not our ways, and they are not God’s ways; but they are ways into which we may be tempted by Satan, and which we are jealously to avoid.

You know how, when the devil professed to quote this text to our Lord, he left out the latter part of it, “to keep thee in all thy ways,” because it would not have suited his purpose to mention that proviso. We, however, will begin with the words which the devil omitted, since the very fact of his omission of them seems to show how essential they are to a right understanding of the meaning of the text. O Christian, if you keep to the King’s highway, you will be safe; but there are by-ways, and, alas! crooked lanes, down which you must not go; if you do go there, you will go at your own hazard. He who travels on the King’s highway is under the King’s protection; but he who takes to by-roads must protect himself, and the probability is that he will meet with robbers who will make him rue the day that ever he turned to the right hand or to the left.

So, first, we must take care that we never go in the ways of presumption. This is what Satan would have had Christ do. “Cast thyself down,” said he, “for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee.” This temptation to presumption is by no means an uncommon one. I have heard of it from the lips of men who were evidently not the children of God, or they would have resisted the temptation, and not have yielded to it as they did. They have said, “Well, we are God’s children, so we may do as we like. We are saved, therefore we may live as we please;”-a dreadful inference from what, to other men, might be a precious truth. O dear friends, beware of tempting the devil to tempt you! Beware, too, of tempting the Lord your God, as some do, who venture a long way into evil company, or into doubtful paths, under the mistaken notion that they are so prudent that they will not be overtaken as others might be,-that they are so sage, and withal so experienced, that they may go where young people must not venture, and may do a great many things which less-instructed Christians had better not touch. Where you think you are perfectly safe, there you are often most in danger. Horses frequently fall just at the bottom of the hill, when the driver thinks that it is unnecessary to rein them up any longer. When you are so foolish as to say, “Now I am out of the reach of temptation,” you are in the very midst of temptation; and when you think you are not being tempted at all, you are being tempted the most by the very fancy that you are not being tempted.

O beloved friends, beware of presuming! Some have been so favoured in the dispensations of providence, so prosperous in everything they have undertaken, that they have thought they might speculate as far as ever they pleased; and, at last,-well, they have had very shady characters at the end of their lives. They have done once what they never ought to have done; and, because it succeeded, they have been tempted to do it again, and yet again. But, I pray you, sirs, never gather from the success of a wrong action that God is willing for you to repeat it; rather say, “God was very gracious to me in not punishing me that time, but I will never run such a risk as that again.” I do not believe that Jonah, after having been once thrown into the sea, and been cast forth upon the shore by the whale, ever wanted to be flung into the sea again; he might not have felt certain about another whale coming along to carry him to land. If you have been miraculously delivered once from the great deep, do not put yourself into such a position again. If you do, you may find that the next great fish is a shark, not a whale, and, instead of being brought to land, you may be destroyed. In brief, beware of all presumptuous ways, for God has not promised to keep you there.

And, brethren, you scarcely need to be told that you cannot expect to be preserved if you go into sinful ways. I trust that you do watch against the more coarse and vulgar sins to which others are prone, and that you will not be allowed to fall into them; but there is such a thing as falling by little and little. Mind, I pray you, the little evils. A man never falls into the great, unclean sins of lust all at once; it is usually by a long series of little familiarities that he reaches that terrible end. He is indecorous first, indecent next, and then, at last, criminal. Oh, keep back, keep back from the beginnings of evil. If you keep back at the very first, you will go no further; but if you slide just a little, you will find that this world is such a slippery place that you will surely fall, and fall frightfully, too. I trust that no Christian man would practise dishonesty in his business; yet you know that it is very easy for one to do a wrong thing because it is “the custom of the trade.” “They label this 100 yards, though it is only 90; but if I label it 90, I shall not sell it, and in the next shop it will probably be marked 110, so I must label mine a little more than it is.” Well, if you do, recollect that you are a thief. Though it is the custom of the trade, you are a liar if you conform to it, and you cannot expect God’s blessing upon you in doing it. Do you think that, in the day of judgment, God will say to men, “You are not guilty, for that deception was the custom of the trade”? By no means; what does the Lord care about the customs of your trade? Do right, at all hazards; if you do wrong, you do it at your peril, for you have no promise from God that he will keep you in such a way as that. I need not enlarge upon this point, because you know as much about such things as I do; and, therefore, you can make the application to your own particular case. But, O Christian, do keep altogether clear of every evil way! May God’s grace preserve you from straying into By-path Meadow!

The man who professes to be a Christian must not expect God’s angels to keep him if he goes in the way of worldliness. There are hundreds, and I fear thousands, of church-members, who say that they are the people of God, yet they appear to live entirely to the world. Their great aim is money-making, and personal aggrandizement, just as much as it is the aim of altogether ungodly men. The kingdom of Christ, the needs of his Church, the wants of perishing souls, have a very slender place in their hearts; but they live wholly for themselves, only they try to conceal it under the plea of providing for their families. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,” is a text from which we need to preach to professing Christians throughout London, and throughout the whole world.

There is also the way of pride which many tread. They must be “respectable”; they must move in “Society”-with a big S; and everything is ordered with a view to display. To be great, to be famous, to be esteemed, to keep up a high repute,-it is for this that they live. And some grow very strong, in a Christian sort of way, in that line; they profess to have attained to a “higher life” than ordinary Christians ever reach. I am not at all anxious to get up there, for I do not believe there is any higher life, in this world, than the life of God which is given to everyone who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. The highest life I aspire to is to live as Jesus Christ lived, and to walk as he walked; and that is the lowest kind of life with which any Christian ought to be contented. When we get such fine feathers as these, they do not make us fine birds.

There is also the way of wilfulness which I have known some follow. Very grievous is it to see some, whom we really think to be good men, shift their quarters apparently without any reason. They were doing very well, yet away they rush, for they cannot let well alone. Some brethren seem to be afflicted with a kind of perpetual fidgetiness. They are rolling stones, and gather no moss. They move from one position to another, not because there is any need for them to move, but just because they cannot stay still. They go away from their nest, and away from their home, and very often act in direct opposition to the order of God’s providence. Oh, beware of that spirit of wilfulness! We may get to be so very strong in the head that we may have to suffer there. It is often wise, as the old saying puts it, to take advice of our pillow. He who does not sleep upon a thing may have to weep upon it. Better look before you leap. Always follow the cloud of God’s providence, don’t run before it; for, if you run before it, you may find it hard work to get back again. Many have acted thus to their cost, and of course have had no blessing resting upon them in doing so.

One other way in which a Christian ought not to go is the way of erroneous doctrine. I know some professors who, as soon as a new heresy comes up, want to have taste of it. I confess that I never felt much temptation in that direction. I do not suppose, if you went into a chemist’s shop, you would say to him, “I have heard of somebody being killed at Norwood by taking such-and-such a poison; I should like a taste of it.” You would not ask him to take down his big bottles, and to give you a taste of all the deadly poisons he had in stock. “Oh, no!” you say, “we are in our right senses; we should not do such a foolish thing as that.” Yet I know people who, as soon as ever there is any teaching spoken of as being erroneous, say, “We must have a look at that; we must have a taste of that;”-never satisfied except when they are tasting poisons. There is a period in life when a Christian man should obey Paul’s injunction to the Thessalonians, “Prove all things;” but let him get that done as quickly as he can, and then let him get to the second part of the injunction, “Hold fast that which is good.” Never hold anything fast till you have proved it to be good, but do not be everlastingly proving it. Some things do not need any proving; they bear upon their forefront their character. But others need to be proved; so, having proved the right things to be right, and the true things to be true, hold them fast, and turn not aside from them. About every six weeks there is a new doctrine promulgated; sometimes, there is a new sect started. It is simply because there is somebody away there, up in his study, who is sorely troubled with bile or dyspepsia. He never went out to try to win a soul, he never did any practical work for Christ; but he edits a newspaper, or he writes for a magazine, and out of that wonderful brain of his, which is full of cobwebs, be excogitates a new doctrine; and as there are certain people, who are always waiting for such novelties, straightway they run off with it, and spread it wherever they can. These false-doctrine-makers and their disciples are the curse of the age in which we live. I implore you, my friends, to abide in the good old paths. What you know to be true, that hold fast. Your father’s God and your mother’s God forsake not; as for the truths which God has taught you by his own Spirit, grapple them to you as with hooks of steel; for, if you go in the way of error, you cannot expect divine protection.

Now, secondly, there are ways in which safety is guaranteed. I shall only have time to mention them very briefly.

There is, first, the way of humble faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know that way, brother; so walk in it. Oh, to be nothing, and to let Christ be everything;-to confess our own guilt, and to be clothed in his righteousness! Keep to that safe road; for it is the King’s highway, of which it may be said, “No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there.”

There is, next, the way of obedience to divine precepts. Do what God tells you, as God tells you, and because God tells you, and no hurt can come to you. The Lord told Moses to take by the tail the serpent from which he fled; he did so, and he was not bitten, but the serpent stiffened into a wonder-working rod. Obey the Lord in all things. Mind the jots and the tittles, for whosoever shall break one of the least of Christ’s commandments, “and shall teach men so, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Oh, to follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ, step by step, and to keep closely to his footprints! It is in such ways that angelic protection will be afforded to us.

There is, also, the way of childlike trust in providential guidance. Happy is that man who always waits upon God to know what he shall do,-who asks the Lord ever to guide him, and who dares not lean upon his own understanding. Watch the Lord’s providential leadings; wait for divine guidance. It is far better to stand still than to run in the wrong road. Pause a while, and pray for direction, and do not move until you hear the voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk ye in it.” In such a road as that, angels will certainly guard you.

There is, too, the way of strict principle and stern integrity. Travelling along that road will often involve a good many losses and crosses, and much reproach, and sometimes it will even appear to destroy your usefulness. But I charge you,-young men especially,-never violate any principle which you profess to hold. I believe that it has been a lasting blessing to some, whom I know, that they have scorned to trim their sails, even in the smallest degree, to please any living soul. Do you the same. “Be just, and fear not.” Keep to a cause that is despised if you believe it is a right one, and love it all the more because it is despised. Ask not what will pay; care not for the flatterer’s smile. Pursue truth even though she may go along very rough roads; she will always repay you in the long run. Cling to her, and win her smile; then the frowns of the whole world need not cause you a moment’s thought. The way of principle is the way of safety; God’s angels will keep you if you keep to that road.

And, dear brethren, I am quite sure that the way of consecrated service for God’s glory is another of these safe ways. It is well when a man says, “I choose my path by this rule,-how can I best serve my God? Having judged whether there is any principle involved, and having a fair choice between this and that, I say to myself, ‘In which way can I hope to be the more useful? In what course of life can I best glorify God?’ ” That is your way to heaven, Christian,-the way in which your Master can get the most glory out of you; and, if you walk in that way, you may depend upon it that you will be protected by his sovereign power.

And once again, there is the way of separation from the world, and close walking with God. No man ever suffered any real injury through keeping himself aloof from the ways of ungodly men; and, on the other hand, no man ever failed to be a gainer by close and intimate fellowship with God. “Enoch walked with God,” and he gained, not only escape from the pangs of death, but also the testimony that “he pleased God.” O Christian men, could not more of us choose this blessed path, and walk in it continually? If we did so, we should have the fulfilment, in its deepest meaning, of the promise of our text, “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

But I must pass on to note briefly, in the third place, that these right ways will lead us into differing circumstances.

Sometimes, the right way will lead us into very stony places, positions of great difficulty; yet here is the promise to meet that emergency, “They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” A way is none the less right because it is rough. Indeed, often it is all the more sure to be the right way because it is so displeasing to flesh and blood.

Sometimes, also, the right way may be very terrible with temptation. If your path is so beset, do not, therefore, imagine that it is a wrong way, because the psalmist goes on to say, “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder.” Lions and adders will come to you, temptations will threaten to devour you even while you are in the right road; but, then, you are promised that, as long as it is the right road that you are in, you shall get the victory over the lion and the adder. The temptation may be of so mysterious a character that you cannot understand it. It may be like a dragon; but, if so, here is your comfort, “the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.”

And remember, beloved friends, that even if the road is not stony, and if no lion attacks you, you will be kept from the perils of the smooth and easy roads. You will always need divine and angelic keeping, for God would not have charged his angels to keep his people in all their ways if they did not need protection in all their ways. Some of you are just now prospering in business, but your way is not any safer than the way of the man who is losing his all; indeed, yours may not be as safe as his. To you who are in robust health, I venture to say that your path is more perilous than the path of the man who is always ailing; and to all of you I say, do pray for angelic keeping. Ask the Lord still to guard you with his celestial hosts; or else, in any of your ways, be they rough or smooth, you will fall to your serious hurt.

Now we come to the fourth point, which is this, while walking in all right ways, believers are secure. “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

O Christian man, if you have not violated your conscience,-if you have not forsaken the path of communion with your God, think what high privileges are yours! First, God himself concerns himself about you. He charges his angels to take care of you. David, when his soldiers went to battle against his rebellious son, Absalom, specially charged their leaders to deal gently with the young man, Absalom, for his sake; but he charged them in vain. In a far higher sense, God charges his angels to guard his saints, and he does not charge them in vain. This is not a mere general command; it is a sort of imperative personal charge that God lays upon his angels: “Take care of my children; they are in my road,-the King’s high road of rectitude. Watch over them; and do not suffer them to be hurt.” So you have God personally charging his angels to take care of you.

Next, you have mysterious agencies to protect you: “He shall give his angels charge over thee.” We speak of dragons, but we do not know much about them; and we do not know much about angels, but we feel sure that angels can overcome dragons, for they are more than a match for devils; and if mysterious temptations come to you, there shall also be mysterious defenders to thrust them back. You have more friends, poor Christian, than you know of. When you are fighting the battles of God, you may hear a rush of angels’ wings at your side if you only have your ears divinely opened. If all men forsake you, God can send his angels, though you see them not, to strengthen you in some secret manner that I cannot fully explain. “Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha,” the prophet who dared be true to his God, and to serve him faithfully. God would sooner empty heaven of all the angelic host, cherubim and seraphim included, than allow any one of his people, who has walked in his ways, to suffer defeat. He charges all his angels to take care of his saints, and to keep them in all right ways.

And as angels are on our side, so are all things, visible and invisible. Why believers, the very stones of the field are in league with you, and the beasts of the field are at peace with you. Wherever you go, you have friends ready to help you. It is true that you have enemies among the wicked, but their weapons shall not prevail against you; and wherever there is a messenger of God,-be it wind, or storm, or lightning, or hail,-it is your friend. The very stars in their courses fight for you. The forces, terrific and tremendous, which at times shake the world, are only your Father’s flaming swords unsheathed to protect you. If we are walking in the ways of God, we can truthfully sing,-

“The God that rules on high,

And thunders when he please,

That rides upon the stormy sky,

And manages the seas:

“This awful God is ours,

Our Father and our love;

He shall send down his heavenly powers

To carry us above.”

Sing then, ye saints of the Lord, for everything is on your side. “Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

What a very sweet thought is suggested by the word “thee” in our text! It teaches us that each one of the saints is personally protected: “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” God takes a personal interest in every traveller along the right road, and charges his angels to keep him. Perhaps you say, “I do not read the text, sir, as referring to me.” Well, I think you should do so. When you read the precept, “Thou shalt not steal,” do you suppose that it refers to you? “Oh, yes!” you say, “I would not like to suggest that it did not mean me; I would not plead exemption from the precept.” Well, then, my dear brother, do not seek to be exempted from the promise. Just as you feel sure that the precept applies to you, so, as a child of God, feel sure that the promise applies to you: “He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”

This protection is perpetual, as well as personal; God’s angels are “to keep thee in all thy ways;”-in thy ups and thy downs, in thy advancements and thy retirings;-to keep thee when thou art asleep, and when thou art awake;-to keep thee when thou art alone, and when thou art in company;-to keep thee if thou hast to preach, and to keep thee if thou hast to hear;-to keep thee if thou hast to serve, and to keep thee if thou hast to suffer. Thou always needest keeping, and thou shalt always have it, for the angels are charged “to keep thee in all thy ways.”

And how beautiful it is to remember that all this keeping brings honour with it: “He shall give his angels charge over thee.” Notice that: “He shall give his angels”-the very angels that wait upon God, and see his face;-the very angels that are the body-guard of the Eternal;-“He shall give his angels charge over thee.” “Mark you,” says the Lord to Gabriel, or Michael, or whatever the angel’s name may be, “I charge you to take special care of that poor girl, for she is a daughter of mine. Take care of that poor man whom so many despise, for he is a prince of the blood imperial. He belongs to me; he is an heir of God, and joint-heir with Jesus Christ.” Oh, what amazing dignity this promise puts upon the very least and lowliest of the followers of the Lamb!

Note just one more point, that all these privileges come to us by Jesus Christ, for Christ is that mystic ladder which Jacob saw, up and down whose wondrous rungs the angels came and went. The commerce between the saints and heaven is kept up by way of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, what joy is this! If Christ is yours, angels are yours, and all the principalities and powers in the heavenly places will delight to take care of you.

Now, if anyone here is going home to a lonely room, I should like you to feel that you are not going there alone. Father and mother are away in the country, perhaps, and some of you young people feel quite alone in London; but, if you are believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are not alone, for the Lord of all the holy angels is with you, and an innumerable company of blessed spirits is round about you. Take comfort from this glorious truth. God’s mysterious angelic agency, which you see not, and hear not, but which is most true and real, will form a cordon round about you to protect you in the midst of the temptations of this great city; and if you be but faithful to him, and keep in his ways, nothing shall hurt you between here and heaven. There may be many darts hurled at you, but the great shield of faith shall turn them all aside, or quench them for ever. You will have to encounter many temptations and trials, but you will be preserved amid them all. I heard a Primitive Methodist minister, speaking last Friday night, make use of a very strong expression while describing what a man could do by faith. Ha said, “He can not only overcome a legion of devils, but he could kick his way through a lane of devils if he did but rest in God.” I have had that idea in my mind ever since I heard him use that expression; and I am sure that it is true, for some of us have had to do it already. Those devils are great cowards; so, when God once takes entire possession of a man, he need not fear even though all hell were let loose upon him. One butcher is not afraid of a thousand sheep; and one man, whom God makes strong, can put to rout all the hosts of hell, and he need not fear all the trials of life whatever they may be. “If God be for us, who can be against us.”

In closing, there are two or three thoughts which I think are worth remembering. The first is this. Dear brethren, we see, from this text, that the lowest employment is consistent with the highest enjoyment. The angels are our nurses: “they shall bear thee up in their hands,” just as nurses hold up little children who are not able to stand by themselves. Those angels continually behold God’s face, and live in the perfect bliss of heaven, yet they condescend to do such humble deeds as these. Dear brother, be like the angels in this respect; teach an infant class in the Sunday school, yet keep your face bright with the light of God’s countenance. Give away tracts, go and visit among the poor, look after fallen women, or do any other work for the Lord that needs to be done. Never mind what it is, but remember that the employment is all the more honourable because it appears to be so commonplace. Never was Christ grander, methinks, than when he washed his disciples’ feet; certainly, never are we more like him than when we also are willing to wash their feet, or render any lowly service that they may need.

The next thought is, as angels watch over us, how cheerfully ought we to watch over one another! How gladly you, who are older in the divine life, ought to watch over the younger ones of the Lord’s family! If God enables you to have any of the joy of angels over repenting sinners, mind that you take some of the care which angels exercise over those who walk in God’s ways. What can I, the pastor of this huge church, and my brother and all the elders, do by way of watching over five thousand of you? You must pastorize yourselves to a large extent. Watch over one another. “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” Visit each other in your sicknesses; seek to bring back to Christ and the church all the backsliders whom you can find; labour for the good of one another; for, in this way only, can our task be done, and you shall be like the angels if you bear up the feeble ones in your hands lest they trip up and fall to their grievous hurt.

Then, next, how safe and happy we ought to feel when we know that God has charged the angels to take care of us! Do not be so nervous, my dear sister, the next time there is a little storm, or even a great storm. Do not be afraid, my dear friend, when sickness comes into your house. Do not be alarmed, as perhaps you are, when you hear that there is fever next door to you. Remember the promise that precedes our text: “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” But suppose it should seem right to the Lord to let the plague come to you, and suppose you shall die of it, well, you will the sooner be in heaven. Wherefore, comfort one another with the reflection that all is well with you as long as you keep in the way of duty.

And, lastly, how holy we ought to be with such holy beings watching over us! If the angels are always hovering round you, mind what you are at. Would you, my dear friend, have spoken as you did when you were coming in at that door yonder, if you had seen an angel standing by your side, listening to what you were saying? Oh, no; you are wonderfully decorous when there is somebody near whom you respect! How often your glib tongue is checked when there is some Christian man or woman, whom you highly esteem, within hearing! How many a thing is done that would not be done under the eye of one whom you love! It is not only true that “a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter;” but it is also true that there are angels watching over us evermore. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that a woman in the public assembly ought to have her head covered because of the angels,-a certain decorum was due because of the angels who were there; and I am sure that I may use the same argument concerning all our actions. Whether we are alone or in company, let us not sin, because angels are ever watching us, and the angels’ Lord is also watching us. May he graciously keep us in his holy way; and if we are so kept, we shall be preserved from all evil while we are here; and, at last, we shall see his face with joy, and abide with him for ever. I would to God that all, who are now present, were in that holy way. I remind you once more that the entrance to it is by a door that has the blood-mark upon the lintel and the two door-posts: “The blood shall be to you for a token.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon.

PSALM 119:25-32.

Verse 25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust:

“It sticks to it as though it were glued to it; my soul cannot be lifted up, at least by myself, out of its sadness, and its earthiness.” The psalmist was not one who could boast of perfection. He had to lament that the earth which was in him by nature, made even his soul cleave to mother earth. He did not like it; he was not content that it should be so, and therefore he breathed this prayer:-

25. Quicken thou me according to thy word.

“Lord, there is nothing but life that can bring me up out of the dust, for death lurks in the dust, and the dust tends to death. Put life into me, Lord; thy life, the divine life. Thou hast promised to do this; therefore, do it, Lord, ‘according to thy word.’ ” That is a prayer which is always sure to succeed, for it is based upon the promise of God. Hath the Lord promised anything? Then he will surely perform it; and you cannot use a better argument in prayer than to say to him, “Do as thou hast said;” or, as the psalmist puts it, “Quicken thou me according to thy word.”

26. I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me:

“I have made a full confession to thee, my God. I have owned my fault wherein I was wrong, and I have thanked thee for thy grace given to me in anything wherein I was right.”

26. Teach me thy statutes.

“O Lord, let me not have such a sorry tale to tell again. If my copy of thy handwriting has been badly written, set it for me afresh, I pray thee: ‘Teach me thy statutes.’ ”

27. Make me to understand the way of thy precepts:

“Let me know, O Lord, what the way of thy precepts is; get me into that way; and then, oh, help me to keep in it all my life!”

27. So shall I talk of thy wondrous works.

A man never talks rightly of God’s works till he knows God’s ways, and it is idle to talk of them if there is no doing at the back of the talking; so the psalmist prays, “Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.” To preach, and not practise, is very bad preaching; but first to understand the way of the Lord, then to run in it, and then to speak of it, this is well.

28. My soul melteth for heaviness:

The Hebrew word is “droppeth.” The psalmist’s soul was like water dripping from the eaves of a house in time of rain. There are two sorts of sorrow,-the sorrow that rushes like a mighty torrent, and the sorrow, which is perhaps the worse of the two, which goes drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip,-like the constant dropping which wears away stones,-and which makes even the boldest heart to feel the attrition: “My soul melteth, dissolveth, droppeth, drippeth for heaviness:”-

28. Strengthen thou me-

The psalmist does not ask to have the trouble removed; but he prays, “Help me to bear it.” Whenever there is a thing that is hard, the right way to cut through it is to get something that is still harder. If God will give us an adequate supply of his grace, hard times will not wear us away. So the psalmist prays, “Strengthen thou me”-

28. According unto thy word.

See how he clings to that expression, “according unto thy word.” He knows the power of that argument, and therefore he uses it again and again.

29. Remove from me the way of lying:

“Do not let me fall into any untrue habits. Do not let me profess to have had an experience which I have never felt, or talk about holy things of which I know nothing experimentally. Keep me from everything that has any trace of falsehood in it.”

29. And grant me thy law graciously.

“For thy law is truth; and when thy grace brings thy law home to my heart, all that is false will be banished from me.”

30. I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me.

“I have laid them before me as a man puts his model in front of him that he may work to it.” It is well for us to have God’s way and God’s judgments always before our eyes, that we may be duly impressed and rightly guided by them.

31. I have stuck unto thy testimonies:

Just now, the psalmist said that his soul stuck to the earth; yet, at the same time, he was sticking to God’s testimonies, for every good man is two men. There is a new-birth-man who sticks to God’s testimonies, and there is that old carnal nature in us which cleaves to the dust.

31, 32. O Lord, put me not to shame. I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.

That is, “When thou shalt give me liberty of heart, then I will run in the way of thy commandments. When the impediments are removed,-when the sin, which doth so easily entangle me, is taken away, then will I run with delight in the way of thy commandments.”

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-91, 720; and from “Sacred Songs and Solos”-48.

GOD’S JEWELS

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, January 11th, 1906, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.”-Malachi 3:17.

These words were spoken in a very graceless age, when religion was peculiarly distasteful to men; when they scoffed at God’s altar, and said of his service, “What a weariness it is!” and scornfully asked, “What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance?” Yet, even those dark nights were not uncheered by bright stars. Though the great congregations of God’s house were but a mockery, yet there were smaller assemblies which God gazed upon with delight; though the house of national worship was often deserted, there were secret conventicles of those who “feared the Lord,” and who “spake often one to another,” and our God, who regards quality more than quantity, had respect to these elect twos and threes. He “hearkened and heard,” and he so approved of that which he heard that he took notes of it, and declared that he would publish it. “A book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.” Yea, and he valued so much these hidden ones, “faithful among the faithless found,” that he called them his “jewels”; and he declared that, in the great day when he should gather together his “segullah”, his regalia, the peculiar treasure of kings, he would look upon these hidden ones as being more priceless than emeralds, rubies, or pearls. “They shall be mine,” said he, “in the day when I gather up my jewels into my casket to be there for ever.”

We will try to work out this metaphor of jewels. Our first point shall be that God’s people are compared to jewels; our second, the making up of the jewels; and our third, the privilege of being found among them.

The Lord compares his people to jewels.

From the remotest antiquity, men have thought much of precious stones. Almost fabulous prices have been paid for them, and there have been instances in which most bloody wars have been waged for the possession of a certain jewel renowned for its brilliance and size. Men hunt after gold, but the diamond they pursue with even greater eagerness. Five hundred men will work for a whole twelve-month in the diamond mines of Brazil when the entire produce of the year might be held in the hollow of your hand; and princes will give whole principalities, or barter the estates of half a nation in order to possess one peculiar brilliant of rare excellence. We wonder not, therefore, that the Lord, who elsewhere likens the precious sons of Zion to fine gold, should here compare them to jewels. However little they may be esteemed by men, the great Jewel-Valuer, the Lord Jesus Christ, esteems them as precious beyond all price. His life was as dear to him as life is to us, and yet all that he had, even his life, did he give for his elect ones. He counted down the price of his jewels in drops of bloody sweat in the gloomy garden of Gethsemane. His very heart was set abroach, streaming with priceless blood in order that he might redeem his people. We may compare our Lord to that merchantman seeking goodly pearls, who, when he had found the one pearl of his Church, for the joy thereof went and sold all that he had that he might make it his own.

Our God sets great value upon those whom he calls his jewels, as we may gather, not only from their costly redemption, but from the fact that all providence is but a wheel upon which to polish and perfect them. Those stupendous wheels, which Ezekiel saw, were but a part of the machinery of the great Lapidary, by which he cuts the facets of his true brilliants, and makes his diamonds ready for his crown, for is it not written that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”? The Lord values his people very highly; not only the rich among them, not alone the most gracious among them, but the very least and most unworthy among believers are Jehovah’s jewels. To fear the Lord, and think upon his name, are very simple indications of piety; yet, if we only come up to the standard which these evidences indicate, we are dear to God. What though we may possess no singular gifts or eminent graces, what though our voice may never be heard among the crowds of populous cities, yet still, if we “think upon his name,” and our hearts are set towards the Lord Jesus, we are precious to him.

Jewels well portray the Christian, because they are extremely hard and durable. Most jewels will scratch glass; some of them will cut it, while they themselves will not be cut by the sharpest file, and many of them will be uninjured by the most potent acids. The Christian is such an one. He has within him a principle which is incorruptible, undefiled, and destined to endure for ever. In Pompeii and Herculaneum, diggers have discovered gems in an excellent state of preservation, while statuary and implements of iron have been destroyed. Jewels will last out the world’s lifetime, and glitter on as long as the sun shines; the rust doth not corrupt them, nor doth the moth devour them, though the thief may break through and steal them. The Christian is born of an incorruptible seed, which liveth and abideth for ever. The world has often tried to crush or destroy God’s diamonds, but all the attempts of malicious fury have failed. All that enmity has ever accomplished has only been, in the hands of God, the means of displaying the preciousness and brilliance of his jewels. The sham Christian, who is but a paste gem, soon yields to trial; he evaporates into a little noxious gas of self-conceit, and it is all over with him. A little heat of persecution, and the man-made Christian,-where is he? But the genuine Christian, the true gem, the choice jewel of God, will survive the fires of time, and when the last dissolving day shall arrive, he shall come forth from the furnace without a flaw.

The jewel is prized for its lustre. It is the brilliance of the gem which, in a great measure, is the evidence and test of its value. It is said that the colours of jewels are the brightest known, and are the nearest approaches to the rays of the solar spectrum that have yet been discovered. Certainly, there is no light like that which is reflected from the sincere Christian. The renewed heart catches the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and reflects them;-not without some refraction, for we are mortal; but, still, with much of glory, for we are immortal, and God dwelleth in us. See how the diamond flashes and sparkles! It is of the first water when, with certain other conditions, it is also without cloudiness and without spots. And oh! when a Christian man is truly what a saint should be, what a lustre, what a brilliance there is about him! He is like the Lord Jesus Christ, humble yet bold, teachable yet firm, gentle yet courageous; like his Master, he goes about doing the will of him that sent him, and though the wicked world may not love him, it cannot but perceive his brightness.

Look at Richard Baxter, in Kidderminster, what a flashing diamond was he! He had some spots, no doubt; but his brightness was most surprising; even swearers on the ale-bench could not but know that he was a heaven-born spirit. We might quote honoured names out of all Christian churches, which would be at once discerned by you as God’s flashing brilliants, because there is about them so little of the cloudiness of nature, and so much of the brightness of grace, that he must be blind indeed who does not admire them. Precious stones are the flowers of the mineral world, the blossoms of the mines, the roses and lilies of earth’s caverns. Scarcely has the eye ever seen a more beautiful object than the breast-plate of the high-priest, studded with the twelve gems, each with its own separate ray melting into a harmony of splendour; and, albeit that the trickeries of pomp have but little influence over men of sober mind, I scarcely believe that there exists a single person who is altogether impervious to the influence of a crown bedight with ruby, and pearl, and emerald, and a bright array of other costly gems.

There is a beauty, a divine and superhuman beauty, about a Christian. He may be humbly clad and miserably housed, he may be poor, and his name may never be mentioned among the great; but jewellers value a rare stone none the less because of its ill-setting. Beloved, nothing so delights God, next to the person of his own dear Son, as the sight of one of those whom he has made like unto the Lord Jesus. Know ye not that Christ’s delights are with the sons of men, and that the holiness, the patience, the devotion, the zeal, the love, and the faith of his people are precious to him? The whole creation affords no fairer sight to the Most High than an assembly of his sanctified people, in whom he sees the beauty of his own character reflected. May you and I have much of “the beauty of holiness” given to us by the Holy Spirit! May the Lord look upon us with divine complacency, because he sees in us the rays of the solar spectrum of his own ineffable perfection!

Christians are comparable to jewels because of their rarity. There are not many precious stones in the world. Of the smaller sorts, there may be many; but, of the rarer gems, there are so few that a little child might write them. Only six very large diamonds (called paragons) are known in the world; and God’s people are but few compared with the unregenerate multitude who are as the pebbles in the brook. The Christian belongs, like the ruby, the diamond, and the emerald, to the choicest of created things. These stones are the aristocracy of minerals, and Christians are the aristocracy of men. They are God’s nobles. The roll of Battle Abbey,-have you ever looked it through? Well, it is of little consequence. There is a better roll by far; and if your name is written there, it will be of infinitely more consequence to you. In Doomsday Book,-is there a name there at all like yours? Never mind whether there be or not. There is a Doom’s-day Book which will be of more value in the day of doom than Doomsday Book has ever been among the sons of men. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many great and noble have their names inscribed there; but all who are written in heaven are, in another sense, wise, and great, and noble, for God has made them so through his own grace. Not many are the gems which enrich the nations, and not many are the saints who shine among men. The way to heaven is narrow, and the Saviour sorrowfully says, “Few there be that find it.” There is a city where pearl, and jasper, and carbuncle, and emerald are as common things. O fair Jerusalem, when shall these eyes behold thy turrets and thy pinnacles?

It is worthy of observation, too, that a jewel is the production of God. Diamonds have been burned, and other jewels have been resolved into their elements; but, after the most laborious attempts, no chemist has yet been able to make a diamond. Men can cut the Gordian knot, but they cannot tie it again. Lives have been wasted in attempts to produce precious stones, but the discovery is still unmade; they are the secret productions of God’s own skill, and chemists fail to tell how they were produced, even though they know their elements. So the world thinks it knows what a Christian is, but it cannot make one. All the wit in the world put together could not find out the secret of the heaven-born life; and all the sacraments, vestments, priests, prayers, and paraphernalia of Popery cannot create a Christian. “Yes,” says one, “we take a little water, and we make an infant ‘a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.’ ” Sir, you make yourself a liar, and nothing better, when you so speak, for it is neither in your power, nor in the power of any other man, to regenerate a soul by any performance, either with or without water. You may wash a flint long enough before you can wash it into a diamond. To make jewels for Christ’s crown is God’s work, and God’s work alone. We might preach until our tongues grew dumb, and men’s ears grew deaf, but not a living soul would ever receive divine grace by our talk alone; the Spirit must go with the word, or it is so much wasted breath. The Lord alone can create a child of grace, and a Christian is as much a miracle as was Lazarus when he rose from the tomb. It is as great a work of Deity to create a believer as it is to create a world.

It is worthy of remark, too, that jewels are of many kinds. Perhaps there is not a single ray in the spectrum which is not represented amongst them, from the purest white of the diamond, the red of the ruby, the bright green of the emerald, to the blue of the sapphire. So is it with God’s people. They are not all alike, and they never will be; all attempts at uniformity must fail, and it is very proper that they should. We need not wish to be one in the sense of uniformity, but only in the sense of unity; not all one jewel, but many gems set in one crown. It little matters whether we shine with the sapphire’s blue, or the emerald’s green, or the ruby’s red, or the diamond’s white, so long as we are the Lord’s in the day when he makes up his jewels.

Jewels are of all sizes, yet they are all jewels. One is a Koh-i-noor, a very mountain of light; but it is not any more a diamond because it is large, though it is more precious. The smallest dust of the diamond that comes from the lapidary’s wheel is made of the same material as the richest jewel that sparkles in the monarch’s crown; and even so, those Christians who have but little faith, and little grace, are still as much the divine workmanship as the brightest and most precious in the believing family; and what is more, they shall be in the casket when the others are there, for it is said of them all, “They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels,”

Once more, jewels are found all over the world. In the most frozen regions, on the tops of mountains, and in the depths of mines, jewels have been discovered; but they are said to be most numerous in tropical regions. So, Christians are to be found everywhere. Blessed be the name of God, the Esquimaux have sung the praises of Immanuel in the regions of eternal ice, and the children of the sun have learned to adore the Sun of Righteousness in the midst of the torrid zone; but in England, which is the tropical region of divine grace, the land where the gospel is preached in our streets, we find the most of believers, as also in a few other happy lands which, like our own fair island, lie upon the Equinoctial line of gospel privilege, where the grace of God has given the gospel in its greatest purity.

Wherever the jewels have been found, though they differ in some respects, yet they are all alike in others, and kings delight in them, and are glad to use them as regal ornaments. So, wherever the Lord finds his precious ones, East or West, or North or South, he sees something in them in which they all agree, and he delights in them. Our Lord Jesus counts them to be his true ornaments, with which he arrays himself as a bridegroom adorneth himself with ornaments, and as a bride decketh herself with jewels. God delights in Christians, come from whatever part they may. Although they may be of many tongues, and though the colours of their skins may vary, yet are they still very, very precious in his sight, and they shall be his in that day when he makes up his jewels.

In the second place, let us consider the making up of the jewels.

We have not come to the day of the making up of the jewels, for some of them are at this hour hidden and undiscovered. There is no doubt that many precious stones will yet be found. Diamond-hunters are, at this moment, looking after them in the caverns of the earth, and washing the soil of the mines to find them. Many of the chosen of God are not yet manifested. The missionaries in heathen lands are toiling to discover them amid the mire of idolatry. My daily business and calling is that of a jewel-hunter, and this pulpit is the place where I try to separate the precious from the vile. Sunday-school teachers and other workers are diamond-hunters too; they deal with gems far more precious than millions of gold and silver. Oh, that all Christians were seekers of souls, for there is much need of all hands, and it is a work which well rewards the labourer. All the chosen are not saved yet. Blood-bought multitudes remain to be ingathered. Oh, for grace to seek them diligently! Because of the absence of so many of the Lord’s gems, the “making up” of the jewels has not yet taken place, but the time for that is hastening on.

Many jewels are found, but they are not yet polished. They are precious gems, but it is only lately that they have been uplifted from the mine. When the diamond is first discovered, it glitters but little; you can see that it is a precious gem, but perhaps one-half of it will have to be cut away before it sparkles with fullest splendour. The lapidary must torment it upon his wheel, and many hundreds of pounds must be spent before perfection is reached. In some cases, thousands of pounds have been expended before the diamond has been brought to its full excellence. So it will be with many of the Lord’s people; they are justified, but they are not completely sanctified. Corruption has to be subdued, ignorance removed, unbelief cut away, worldliness taken off, before they can be set in the crown of the great King; for this also the King tarries, and his jewels are not “made up.”

Many of the Lord’s gems are but partly polished; indeed, there are none on earth perfect yet. This is not the land of perfection. Some persons dream of it; their pretensions are but a dream. We have heard some say that they were perfect, but they were not perfect in the virtue of humility, or they would not have boasted after so vain-glorious a fashion. The saints are still in the Lapidary’s hand. The Master is taking off first one angle and then another, and rending away much which we have foolishly cherished; but through this cutting process we shall sparkle gloriously ere long, so that those who knew us on earth will wonder to see the difference in heaven. Perhaps it will be part of the joy of heaven to perceive our conquest over sin, to see how the divine hand has shed a glory and beauty upon the poor dull stones of earth.

The making up is delayed, too, because certain of the gems, which have been partly polished, are missing. “Oh!” say you, “does the Lord ever lose any of his gems?” No, not for ever, but for a time they may be missing. A certain blue diamond, that was very greatly renowned, was by some means lost at the time of the French Revolution, and has never been heard of since. It is somewhere, however, and God knows where it is, and it is a diamond still; and so there are some of his people who go astray, and we cannot tell where they are; but, still, “the Lord knoweth them that are his,” and “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Backslider, you were once a jewel in the church; you were put down in the book as a church-member, but from the casket of the church Satan stole you. Ah, but you did not belong to him, and he cannot keep you! You have agreed to be his, but your agreement does not stand for anything. You did not belong to yourself, and so you could not give yourself away. Christ has the first and only valid claim to you, and will yet obtain his rights by the omnipotence of his grace. Because of these missing jewels, the longsuffering of God waiteth; but the day is coming-its axles are hot with speed,-when sardius, and topaz, and carbuncle, shall glisten in the same crown with emerald, and sapphire, and diamond, nor shall ligure, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, or jasper be wanting; they shall all be “set in gold in their inclosings.”

Upon the honourable privilege of being numbered with the crown jewels of Jehovah, we will utter hardly more than a few sentences, and we will preface them with words of self-examination.

“They shall be mine.” This does not include all men, but only “those that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.” Standing in the midst of this immense assembly, and remembering that a very large proportion of my hearers are professors of faith in Christ, I am happy to be in such a great jewel-house; but when I reflect that it is a very easy thing indeed to imitate a jewel so that the counterfeit cannot be detected except by the most skilful jeweller, I feel solemnly impressed with the desire that none of you may be deceived. It is not very long ago that a lady possessed a sapphire supposed to be worth £10,000. Without informing her relatives, she sold it, and procured an imitation of it so cleverly fashioned that, when she died, it was valued by a jeweller in order that the probate duty might be paid upon it, and the trustees of the estate actually paid probate duty upon it to our government on £10,000 for what was not really worth more than a few pence, for they imagined that it was the real sapphire. Now if, in examining material jewels, men well skilled have been thus deceived, you will not wonder if, in connection with the jewels of mind and spirit, it is so difficult to detect an imposition. You may deceive the minister, the deacons, and the church; nay, you may easily deceive yourselves, and even pay the probate duty; you may be making sacrifices and discharging duties on account of true religion as you think, but really for something which is not worth the name. Beloved in the Lord, be zealous for vital godliness, hate hypocrisy, shun deception, and watch against formality. I will make a pause, and give you time, in a few minutes of silence, to pray that ancient and needful prayer, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” All paste gems, and all the glass imitations, will surely be detected in the day which will burn as an oven. May we be found among the Lord’s genuine jewels in that dread testing day!

If we are the Lord’s, then what privileges are ours! Then are we safe. If we really pass the scales at the last, there will be no more questionings, suspicions, testings, weighings, or cuttings. If the Great Valuer accepts us as being genuine, then we shall be secure for ever.

Nor is this all, beloved; we shall also be honoured. Remember where the jewels are to shine for ever. Jesus himself shall wear them as his glory and joy. Believers will be unrivalled illustrations of the glory of divine grace throughout all ages. Can you see our glorious Well-beloved? There he sits; the adored of angels and admired of men! But what are the ornaments he wears? Worlds were too small to be signets upon his fingers, and the zodiac too poor a thing to bind the sandals of his feet. But, oh, how bright he is, how glorious! And what are the jewels which display his beauty? They are souls redeemed by his death from going down into the pit. Blood-washed sinners! Men and women who, but for him, would have been tormented for ever in the flame, but who now rejoice to sing, “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.” So that, once acknowledged to be Christ’s, you are not only safe, but you will be in the closest communion with Christ throughout eternity. It is a bliss, the thought of which may well flash with vehement flame through your hearts even now, that you are, one day, to display the glory of Immanuel; that unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places shall be made known, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God. You are to be his “gold rings set with the beryl;” with you as his reward, his person will be “as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.” You are so dear to him that he bought you with his own blood because you could not be “gotten for gold, neither could silver be weighed for the price thereof.” Your redemption by his death proves that your soul could not be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire; and when the ever-glorious God shall exhibit your sanctified spirit as an illustration of has glorious character and work, no mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for your worth will be above rubies; the topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal you, nor shall the precious crystal be compared to you.

But I hear a mournful voice crying, “All this is concerning the precious ones, but there is nothing for me; I was in hopes that there would have been something for a sinner like me.” Well, what are you then? Are you not a jewel? “No,” you cry, “I am not a jewel; I am only a common stone; I am not worth the picking up; I am just one of the many pebbles on the shore of life, and the tide of death will soon wash me into the great ocean of eternity; I am not worthy of God’s thoughts; I am not even worth his treading upon; I shall, with multitudes of others, be swallowed up in the great deep of wrath, and never be heard of more!” Soul, didst thou never hear this text? “I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” What stones were they? They were ordinary loose stones in Jordan’s bed. John was standing in the river baptizing, and pointing to those worthless pebbles, not worth picking up, he said, “God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” Even so, this night, God is able, of these stones around me in this vast throng, to make gems which shall be his treasure in the day when he makes up his jewels. You cannot thus exalt yourselves, nor can I do it for you; but there is a secret and mysterious process by which, by divine art, the common stone is transmuted into the diamond; and though you are a stone black with sin, or blood-red with crime, though you are a flinty stone with jagged edges of blasphemy; though you are such a stone as Satan delights to throw at the truth, yet God can transform you into a jewel? He can do it in an instant. Do you know how he can do it? There is a wondrous rod with which he works matchless transformations; that rod is the cross. Jesus Christ suffered that sinners might not suffer. Jesus Christ died that sinners might not die, but that “whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Sinner though you be, if you come beneath the cross, and trustingly look up to God’s dear Son, you shall be saved; and that salvation includes a complete change of nature, by which you shall fear the Lord, and think upon his name, and mingle with those who speak often one to another, with the certainty of being the Lord’s when he makes up his jewels.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon.

MALACHI 3, and 4.

Chapter 3 Verse 1. Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me:

The name Malachi means “my messenger.” The reference here is, of course, to John the Baptist, who was to prepare the way of the Lord.

1. And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,-

Now, the temple at Jerusalem is utterly destroyed, so how can the Jews still think the Lord, whom they profess to seek, will suddenly come to his temple? He must have come there already,-as we know he did,-for there is not one stone of the temple left standing upon another: “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,”-

1. Even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

Christ was the great Messenger of the covenant, the Messenger of mercy; and the Lord’s own people, even in that ancient time, delighted in anticipating the coming of the Christ of God, the anointed and appointed Messenger of the Lord of hosts.

2. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ sope:

All that only looked like religion, but was not real and genuine, was purged away at his coming. He was like a refiner’s fire, consuming the false pretensions of the Pharisees, and the vain boastings of the Scribes. There is, in the religion of Jesus Christ, a power that is a great purgative and a great refiner.

3. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver:

Christ comes suddenly, but he comes to stay: “He shall sit.” If he comes into our heart at this moment,-and he may come there suddenly,-he will come to stay there, and he will sit there “as a refiner and purifier of silver.”

3. And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

Those men, called to holy service, shall offer unto the Lord offerings in righteousness after he has cleansed and purified them. You cannot worship God aright until you have been cleansed by Christ. Till then, you are like priests with defiled feet, unfit to come into the sanctuary of God; but when Christ has purified you, fail not to draw near to God, and to present your thankoffering unto him.

4, 5. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years. And i will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.

See how hard taskmasters are put, by divine inspiration, with sorcerers, and adulterers, and false swearers. They do not think badly of themselves, but the Lord thinks badly of them, and his judgment is always just.

6. For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

This is their comfort; even the immutability of God is on the side of his people. He is just, and always just, he hates sin, and always hates sin; yet that unchangeableness of his is always on the side of the people of his choice.

7. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.

Ye wanderers from God, take this invitation home to your hearts, and act upon it. Arise, and return unto your Father; for when you are yet a great way off, he will see you, and will run to meet you, and have compassion upon you: “Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.”

7. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?

God takes notice of what men say to him after he has spoken to them. He will take notice of what you say when you go out of this house of prayer. Erring men usually have something to say for themselves. The self-righteous can always invent some excuse, or ask some question, as they did here: “Wherein shall we return?”

8. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me.

They were always ready to deny or question a just accusation, instead of letting it operate upon their conscience, so they asked about this charge.

8. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.

They had kept back from God’s service the money which was needful for the carrying on of the worship of his house. We read, in Nehemiah 13:10, that “the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field,” for they could not live at Jerusalem, because “the portions of the Levites had not been given them,”-their supply of provisions having been stopped through the meanness of the people who had thus robbed the Lord “in tithes and offerings.”

9. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.

They could not make out why they were so poor, and why they could not get on; the real reason was that there was a curse resting upon all that they did, because they had robbed God.

10. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

They had kept themselves poor by their own meanness. If they had behaved rightly towards God, he would have enriched them with the bounties of his providence; the very windows of heaven would have been thrown open to give them abundance for all their needs.

11. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.

The locust and the caterpillar came up and ate their harvests, all because God was angry with them; and he alone could change their miserable circumstances.

12. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.

God is able, simply with a turn of his hand, or a glance of his eye, to enrich or to impoverish. He gives in a thousand ways that we cannot control, and he takes from us in as many ways which perhaps we cannot understand. It is always best to be right with God.

13-15. Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.

Those were indeed bad old times when the mass of the people looked only to their own temporal comfort; when they saw the wicked become rich, they wished that they were wicked too, in order that they might be rich. They thought that it was of no use to serve God; but happily there was another set of people in the land, as there always is, more or less. God never leaves himself without witnesses; and when the wicked are proudest, God’s people are often boldest.

16. Then-

At that very time,-

16. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another:

They could not bear to hear their God thus spoken of, so they went to one another’s houses, they found one another out, and talked to one another.

16. And the Lord hearkened,-

He loves to listen to the holy talk of a holy people: “The Lord hearkened,”-

16. And heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.

That is a very precious expression; you cannot perhaps, speak much for the Lord, yet you think the more about him; and God remembers those who think upon his name. Yet, often, thinking leads to speaking; and there ought to be no speaking without previous thought. God loves to listen to the thoughtful conversation of a loving people who stand true to him in the midst of an ungodly crowd, and he thinks very highly of them.

17. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.

“Others, who thought much of themselves, shall be thrown away like worthless pebbles; but these faithful ones shall be mine in that day when I am putting my jewels into my crown, for they shall be precious in my sight.”

17. And I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

When the sword of the foeman is drawn from its sheath, when disease is cutting down its myriads, when God’s vengeance has laid hold upon the ungodly, he will be a hiding-place for his people, and will care for them as a man would anxiously care, not only for his son, but for his only son, one who is obedient and faithful to his father: “his own son that serveth him.”

18. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked.

Not now, but then; by-and-by, there shall be a distinguishing mark set upon all mankind: “Then, shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked,”-

18. Between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

Chapter 4 Verses 1, 2. For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you-

Here is the difference: “But unto you”-

2. That fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise-

Not like a scorching and burning oven as the sun of the heavens is in the East, but he shall arise-

2. With healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

All is right with those who are right with God.

3-6. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

The Old Testament ends with the mutterings of a curse, but the New Testament begins with a message of blessing concerning the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. What a mercy to come from under the old covenant unto the new!