Let no Christian imagine that he will ever have immunity from trouble while he continues in the body. Should you be favoured with visions and revelations of the Lord, caught up to the third heaven, admitted into Paradise, and privileged to hear things which it were not lawful for a man to utter, conclude not that you have escaped the rod; rather expect that such high privilege will need heavy affliction to balance it. If God has given you the great sail and the prosperous wind, he will also give you the heavy ballast to keep your keel deep in the stream. Do not expect, dear brethren, that because you have been strengthened in the faith, you will therefore be loosed from the burden of the flesh; neither because you may have been the means of strengthening others, that, therefore, trouble will be light to you. Even into your ship the deep waters may come. Think not that it is so water-tight that the billows will only dash against it. You may be called to feel heaviness, your faith may be all but staggered, and your soul may have to cry out from the depths, because of the slender strength you possess.

The Lord has such ways of chastising his children as make them feel. We think, some of us, after we have suffered a certain amount of trouble, that we have been so inured to it we shall no longer be moved as we used to be. The apostle Paul had been beaten with rods, tossed about in shipwrecks, yea, he had suffered hunger and thirst and nakedness, till he felt that, if any man had a right to glory after the flesh, he had. Still, even he found that the Lord had a way of getting at his heart, and making it smart. He had thorns in the flesh, messengers of Satan that did most effectually buffet him. We, too, must have trials,-trials of a kind that shall come right home to us, and touch us in our bones and in our flesh.

Neither let us think, dear friends, that even the privilege of the mercy-seat will shield us from the rod. When chastened we shall run to prayer; but we shall not, therefore, escape the chastisement. Paul, an apostle, prays; he, who certainly must have understood “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man”, beseeches the Lord thrice, yet the thorn in the flesh was not blunted, much less removed; he still had to suffer as he had done aforetime. Oh, how often we think we can use the mercy-seat for our own lusts! Is not prayer too sacred a thing for us to make a selfish use of it? When God gives us the key of his storehouse, and bids us take what we will, shall we use even a single promise of his Word merely to pander to our own desires, and to enable us to escape from enduring hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ? If we thus misuse prayer, we may be excused for it, but we shall not be accepted in it. Even Paul is nonsuited when he asks ease for the flesh. He gets no release from trouble. He gets something better, however; for the Lord says to him, “My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Thus, beloved, we must reckon upon the adversities that are sure to befall us. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” This is one of the divine shalls and wills. The Lord will chasten those whom he loves, and his children shall suffer it, of a surety. It is as sure as any other thing in the world, “Ye shall have tribulation.”

To those who have proved the truth of this declaration, the text will be peculiarly sweet. There are certain sore vexations of spirit, for which grace is the only balm. The Lord does not say, “My providence shall protect thee.” Nothing of the kind;-grace is the remedy in this case, and, I take it, this was because the apostle was suffering in the very core and centre of his being. There are many trials, the grief of which may be fully assuaged by ordinary providences; but these, that come and wound a man to the quick, require grace as their only effectual balm.

Past experience of grace is of no avail in such a case; it is present grace that is promised in the text, and it is present grace that is required. When we have sometimes been bowed down, and walked in darkness, and seen no light, we have called to remembrance our song in the night, and our spirit has made diligent search; but that very song has been turned into howling in the remembrance, and all that we thought we felt, and thought we knew, has vanished from before our eyes. I do not know how it has been with you, but there have been times with me when I could set no value upon my past experience. The devil has said it was all a delusion, my faith mere presumption, my hope mere excitement, and all my joys but the effusion of animal spirits. There will be a time when he will bid you look back, and all the way will look like the valley of the shadow of death. You cannot see one hopeful sign in it; and you turn over the books of experience, and read them, and you think, “Well, my spot is not the spot of God’s children, and my footprints do not seem to be at all like the footprints of the flock.” I tell you, if you have ever done business in deep waters, you have found that anchors at home are of no use in a storm, and that the anchor which stood so well a year ago, if it is left at home on shore, is of no use to you now in the storm. It is present grace, nothing but present grace, that will do now. You have eaten all the cold meats, and you have brought out from the cupboard every mouldy crust you can find, and now your soul is reduced to the very last, and fainteth within you, and now you must cry to your God in your trouble, and get present grace in this your time of need.

And if past experience is of no avail, much less is past success. Somebody might have touched the apostle on the shoulder, and have said, “Paul, Paul, Paul! What! must you feel the buffetings of Satan? Did you not establish the church at Corinth, and plant churches throughout all Asia Minor? Who has served his God so faithfully as you have done? Have you not been in journeyings often, in perils by waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the sword, in watchings and fastings? Have you not had the care of all the churches? Has not your Master highly distinguished you, and made you not a whit behind the very chief of the apostles? What multitudes of spirits are now before the throne that were born, under God, through your ministry! And what thousands are still on the road who call you their spiritual father, and to whom you have been as a nursing-mother in the faith!” If you had said this to the apostle, he would have replied, “Yes, sometimes this might have comforted me; if it had been a question of my apostleship, this would have been satisfactory; if the point in hand had been a question as to whether my ministry has been owned of God, this would have been decisive; but I am touched in another place now, and the wound is so deep, my sore is so grievous, and my heart is so exceedingly heavy, that no kindly thought of others, and no pleasant musings of my own, bring me the slightest relief. O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me!” The Lord knew how to succour him, and therefore he gave him that gracious assurance, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

I think it is well, dear friends, to remember the Lord’s past goodness; but we must not live on that, we must go and get fresh supplies from heaven. Old manna, to this day, though it comes from heaven, will always breed worms, and stink, if it is kept. There is no alteration in it from the days of Moses; it is the same at this moment. You must eat the manna as you get it, and go constantly for more; but the old manna will be of very little use to you. It is only on Sabbath days, when your soul is perfectly at rest and quiet,-it is only at those sweet resting seasons, which the soul sometimes enjoys, that the remembrance of the past becomes very sweet. You must have daily present dispensations of manna from the throne of God.

In such a case as this, to which the apostle was brought, we feel sure that the fact of his high office, and his eminent attainments of grace, would not have been a sufficient consolation. Paul, who shall match thee? So deep in knowledge, and so ardent in zeal, thou seemest to have a seraph’s spirit. So mighty in word, and yet, withal, so humble in thine own esteem, thou art surely a prince in Israel. Paul was not one of the young men, much less one of the babes in grace. He says, “There are not many fathers,” though certainly he himself was worthy to be called a patriarch. Yet that fact would not comfort him. And, brethren, you may come to such hard pinches that your growth in grace, and the flourishing of your virtues, will not afford so much as a drop of comfort to you; you will have to go to the eternal fountain to drink, for even these marble cisterns will have been broken, and will hold no water.

Observe, further, brethren, that the Lord does not say, “The consolation of your brethren shall be sufficient for you.” Oh, how sweet it is to be comforted by our fellow-Christians! Let those who will, walk in isolation; give me sweet communion, for, to tell one’s trial to a true brother in Christ is often to lighten the weight, as if half of it were removed. Sometimes, it is to be wholly relieved, for the words of some wise men in our Israel are indeed as balm that bringeth speedy healing to the wound. But there are wounds which the stranger intermeddleth not with, nay, that even the dearest friend cannot touch; there are certain vexations of spirit, and disquietudes of soul, that mock human agency. I have had, sometimes, to converse with some members of the church, and I have never felt so much the littleness of my own power as when I have tried to comfort them, and failed. I thought it was because I was but as a little child in experience, and could not talk with them as a father in Israel might have done, whose years might have given him more wisdom; but I have found that even the fathers have failed, and that years have not always sufficed to give sufficient knowledge to comfort the troubled conscience, or to remove the burden from the galled shoulders. No, there are cases that mock the ordinary practitioner, and must be taken straight away to the great Physician, for the only thing that will subserve the purpose is the grace, the present grace of an all-sufficient God.

I might prolong this catalogue; but you, who experimentally know the truth, will know, from your own experience, that there are trials and there are points in affliction where nothing can possibly console but the immediate outpouring and receiving of the grace of God.

And now, beloved, in the second place, let me say that sufficient grace is a sure balm, that even for the most acute disorder, the most chronic disease, “grace” is “sufficient.”

Why, do you not perceive that it just meets the fear which trial excites? What is the Christian’s fear when he is buffeted, tried, and afflicted? If I know him in his sober senses, he has a fear of sin. Listen to him. “I am afraid of being poor,” says he, “not because I dislike poverty, but I am afraid of my faith, lest I should murmur against God. I am not afraid of suffering,” says he; “if God send it to me, I am willing to receive it; but I am afraid of my faith, lest the pangs should be too severe, and I should doubt my God. I am not,” says he, “afraid of slander or of persecution. I have learnt to rejoice in this, for so am I made a member of the goodly fellowship of the martyrs; but I am afraid lest I should deny my Lord, or be ashamed of him, or prove an apostate, after all. As I look forward to the temptations of the world, and the suggestions of Satan, and the corruptions of the flesh which shall yet assail me, I am not afraid of their coming if I can but be guaranteed that they shall not cause me to sin;” for the only real wound the Christian gets is when he has sinned. Sufferings are only scars, flesh wounds; sins are the real woundings. We are never trampled on by Satan, however low our spirits may sink; it is only when we give way, and would fain capitulate in very terror, and begin to be afraid, that Satan is really victorious. The battle of sin is the battle in which Satan gains the victory; but suffering, and shame, and distress, and peril, and nakedness, and sword, are no triumphs to Satan, for “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

You see then, brethren, that grace just meets the danger because it deals with sin. You are afraid that your patience will give out, so the Lord says, “My grace shall operate upon thy patience, and make thee to endure.” You think your faith will fail, so the Lord says, “My grace gave thee thy faith, and my grace, like oil secretly applied to the fire by One standing behind the wall, shall keep thy faith burning while the devil pours on his floods to quench it. It was my grace that first taught thee to love my great name; so, when persecuted, my grace shall make thee love me better. I have kept thee from apostacy until now, and, let what will come, my grace, by which I guaranteed thy final perseverance, shall be sufficient for thee, and thou shalt come out of all thy trials and troubles like silver out of the furnace, not defiled, but cleansed and purified by the flames.” You see then, brethren, that this assurance does actually touch the fear which the Christian ever has before his eyes; nay, it does not merely touch the fear, but it absolutely touches all the real danger. It is as though the Lord should say to one of his servants, who was standing alone, while thousands of his enemies were shooting at him with their arrows, “They shall shoot at thee, but I have covered thee with armour from head to foot.” Or it is as if you or I trembled at the thought of crossing the deep sea, and the Lord had said, “The sea is deep, and thou must cross it; but I will be by thee, and thou shalt go through it dryshod.” Or it is as if he said, “The fire is hot, and thou must walk through the midst of it, those glowing coals thy foot must know; but I will so cover thee by my power that the flames shall not hurt thee; thou shalt walk through the fire, and not so much as the smell of it shall pass upon thee.”

What matters it how much we suffer if we have grace to endure it? Put a believer where you will, if his Master gives him grace, he is in the best place he can be for security. I have heard brethren sometimes say, “Such a minister is in great danger; his position is lofty, his head will be turned.” Ah! brethren, if he had had the keeping of his own head, it would have been turned long ago. And your head will turn even if you are on the ground if you have the keeping of it; but if God set a man as high as the stars, and if he kept him there, he would be able to sing, “Thou makest my feet like hinds’ feet, and makest me to stand on high places.” It is the grace we have, not the position we occupy, that is the important matter. If a man had grace enough, you might put him in the worst haunts of sin, and he would be the better for being there. Now, do not think I say what I do not know. Solomon saw hyssops grow on walls, and cedars on Lebanon; howbeit, I have seen cedars grow on walls, and hyssops on Lebanon. I have seen the smallest Christians in the best places, and the best Christians in the worst positions. I have seen, in the midst of the haunts of the harlot, grace shining in all the purity and chastity of lovely womanhood; and in the haunt of the thief and of the burglar, God has been pleased to have some choice saint, that, for honesty, integrity, and holy living, might have been worthy to have walked in a bishop’s palace, or to have adorned the best Evangelical drawing-room in England. Brethren, it is not the position that is the main thing; the best of men may grow in the worst places, and some of the meekest of believers may be found where there ought to have been the bravest. I will leave this point, then, by repeating that, whatever may be the trial of heart which a man may have to endure, this assurance just meets the case, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

And, lastly, should not the assurance that we shall receive sufficient grace make us exceedingly glad?

“My grace is sufficient for thee,”-what then? “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities,”-not only gladly, but “most gladly.” Nothing else will make you happy. The grace of God comes to meet your case, and now how happy you should be! Think about the sureness of this fact, that sufficient grace will be ours. My dear brethren, I am not careful about preaching to-night, I merely talk right on about some things that you know, and can testify. It has been so, has it not, in your experience? If there be one saint here who has an accusation to make against his Lord, let him speak. He might well say to you, “Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? Which of you have I failed to succour? When have I violated my promise? You have been in the waters,-were you drowned? You have passed through the fire,-were you burned? What loss have you ever sustained by your troubles? Did I ever refuse to hear your cry when you called upon me? When was it that, in the day of battle, I did not cover your head, and that I left you as a prey to the destroyer?” My answer is,-O Lord, thou knowest all things, and thou knowest that thy servant’s witness is,-

“When trouble, like a gloomy cloud,

Has gather’d thick and thunder’d loud,

He near my soul has always stood,

His lovingkindness, oh, how good!”

And is not that your case, my brother, my sister in the Lord? I am sure it is. Well, then, this ought to make you glad. “My grace is sufficient for you,” says the Lord. Your past experience proves it. Gladly, therefore, rejoice that you have an opportunity yet again of testing and trying the good Word of the Lord.

Again, is not God’s grace sufficient for you in your present emergency? Have you had some trouble to-day? I suppose you have had quite sufficient, too, for I never did find a day yet that had not enough trouble in it, and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof;-well, but, have you not had sufficient grace to-day? Do you feel dull, and heavy, and gloomy in God’s house of prayer? Well, but there is grace to be had; and, therefore, looking to him ere you go to your bed, you may still have another day to sing of the sufficient grace which was given in the needful hour. “Oh, but,” you say, “it is not now; I can trust God for to-day; but there are clouds looming before me, and I fear to enter the cloud.” Well but, my dear friend, if he is faithful to thee to-day, add that to the fact that he was faithful yesterday; is he not the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and oughtest thou not at once to rejoice in him? Furthermore, ask thy father, and he shall bell thee; turn thou to the records of inspiration, and they shall teach thee; were the righteous ever forsaken, and when did the Lord cast off his chosen? They have been certainly in quite as deep waters as you have ever known; you have not yet been brought to lose all that you have, to lose every child; not yet do you sit among the ashes, and scrape yourself with a potsherd, as Job did; not yet to the fullest extent can you say, “They that walked in the streets did contemn me;” not yet have ye drunk of that cup, and been baptized with the baptism of him who said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

“His way was much rougher and darker than thine,”-

and yet your Lord triumphed; and all his people, in all ages, and under every circumstance, have triumphed in him. If you could find one child of God who has been left, and if you could find one instance in which God has been untrue to you, then it would be fair for you to be depressed in spirit; but until then, most joyful should you be.

Recollect also, brethren, that we should never know how sufficient grace was if it were not for these troubles; therefore, we ought to be glad of all the lessons that assure us how ample and sufficient this grace is. I know not whether all soldiers love the thought of war, but there are many who pant for a campaign. How many an officer of low rank has said, “There is no promotion, no hope of rising, no honours, as if we had to fight. If we could rush to the cannon’s mouth, there would be some hope that we might gain promotion.” Men get few medals to hang upon their breasts who never know the smell of gunpowder. The brave days, as men call them, of Nelson and Trafalgar, have gone by, and we thank God for it; but still we do not expect to see such brave old veterans, the offspring of this age, as those who are still to be found lingering in our hospitals, the relics of our old campaigns. No, brethren, we must have trials if we are to get on. Young men do not become midshipmen altogether through going to the school at Greenwich, and climbing the mast on dry land; they must go out to sea, and be on deck in the storm; and if we are to be amongst the worthies, we must have stood side by side with King David, we must have gone down into the pit to slay the lion, or have lifted up the spear against the eight hundred, as Adino did. Conflicts bring experience, and experience brings that growth in grace which is not to be attained by any other means.

Besides, brethren, how is God’s grace to be seen by other men in the world except by our trials? Grace is given, to keep us from sin, which is a great blessing; but what is the good of grace except it is in the time when the trial comes? Certainly, the grace that will not stand in the hour of temptation or affliction, is a very spurious sort of grace; and we had better get rid of it, if we have it. When a godly woman’s child dies, the infidel husband sees the mother’s faith. When the ship goes down, and is lost in the sea, the ungodly merchant understands the resignation of his fellow-man. When pangs shoot through our body, and ghastly death appears in view, people see the patience of the dying Christian. Our infirmities become the black velvet on which the diamond of God’s love glitters all the more brightly. Thank God I can suffer, thank God I can be made the object of shame and contempt; for, in this way, God shall be glorified. This shall be the wonder of many, and to the praise of his own grace, that mean and so contemptible a thing was made the instrument of effecting his purpose.

I will say no more, except to commend this assurance to you, and ask you to take it home, and lay it on your tongue; it will be like a wafer made with honey. Mind you have it for your breakfast to-morrow morning, and let it be your constant daily meal; live on it: “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Let the word “thee” come home so your heart as though God spoke it to you, and as if he had never spoken it to anyone before.

There are some of you to whom the text does not apply, except in this light. You have many sins; but if you trust Christ, his grace is sufficient for you. You have been head over heels in the kennel of sin; but the power of his blood is sufficient to make you white; and even if you have become a very prince and peer in the dominions of evil, the grace of Christ is sufficient to wash you whiter than the driven snow. May the Lord add his blessing on these feeble rambling remarks, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

Expositions by C. H. Spurgeon.

ROMANS 3:9-27; 5:6-11; and 8:1-32.

Chapter 3 Verse 9. What then are we better than they?

The first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans contains so horrible an account of the manners of the Gentiles, the heathen of Paul’s day, that it is one of the most painful chapters in Scripture to read. Not long ago, one of our missionaries, out in China, was attacked concerning the Bible on this very ground. One of the learned men said to him, “This Bible of yours cannot be as ancient as you say that it is, for it is quite clear that the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans must have been written by somebody who had been in China, and who had seen the habits and ways of the people here,”-so accurate is the Holy Spirit, who knew right well what the ways and manners and secret vices of the heathen were, and still are. But the Jews said, “Ah, but this is a description of the Gentiles.” So Paul replies, “What then? are we better than they?”

9, 10. No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

Then he selects passages out of different parts of Scripture to show what man is by nature.

11-18. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes.

These are all quotations from Old Testament Scriptures, from their own psalmists and prophets, from whom Paul quotes to the Jews so that they might see what their own character was by nature.

19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

The law was given to the Jews, and the descriptions which it gives must be descriptions of the Jews. “Therefore,” says Paul, “as Gentile mouths have been already stopped by the descriptions of their vices, you also, the favoured people of God, have your mouths stopped by the descriptions of yourselves taken from your own prophets.”

20. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh-

Whether Jew or Gentile,-

20, 21. Be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now-

Since man is lost, since man is guilty,-

21-27. The righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets: even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then?

If salvation is given to the guilty, and if all are guilty,-if no one can claim exemption, and yet salvation is freely given,-what then? Why, salvation must be purely by the grace of God; so let grace have all the honour. “Where is boasting then?”

27. It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

The law of works sometimes aids boasting, for a man rejoices and glories in what he has done; yet the law of works ought to stop our boasting because we are guilty in God’s sight. The law of faith does stop our mouth, because we are under obligation to God, and do not dare to boast, seeing that we have nothing of good but what we have received from God.

Chapter 5 Verse 6. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

What a wonderful sentence that is! Not, “Christ died for the saints;” not, “Christ died for righteous men;” but, “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

7-9. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

What an argument this is for the final safety of believers! If Christ died for us when we were enemies, surely he will save us now that he has died for us, and made us his friends, his reconciled subjects: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”

10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

There is a threefold argument there. We were enemies, yet God blessed us even then, so will he not bless us even more now that we are reconciled to him? When we were enemies, he reconciled us unto himself. Having done that, will he not certainly save us? We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; so much more shall we be saved by the life of the risen and glorified Jesus, which has almighty, irresistible power.

11. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

Chapter 8 Verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,-

Observe that Paul writes “There is therefore,” for he is stating a truth which is founded upon solid argument. “There is therefore now”-at this very day, at this very moment,-“no condemnation”-none of any sort,-none that will lie in the Court of Conscience or in the Court of King’s Bench above: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Our forefathers used to read this verse, “There is therefore now no damnation.” One of the martyrs, being brought before a Popish bishop, the bishop said to him, “Dying in thy heresy, thou wilt be damned.” “That I never shall be,” answered the good man, “for ‘there is therefore now no damnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.’ ” He had caught the very spirit of the text, for there is nothing that can condemn the man who is in Christ Jesus.

1. Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

This is the distinctive mark of a man in Christ Jesus. He does not let the flesh govern him, but the Spirit. The spiritual nature has come to the front, and the flesh must go to the back. The Spirit of the living God has entered into him, and become the master-power of his life. He walks “not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

And nothing else can do that. Every man is, by nature, under bondage to that which Paul describes as “the law of sin and death.” There is a law in our nature, which is so powerful that, even when we would do good, evil is present with us, and we cannot get away from that law, except by introducing another, which is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Dr. Chalmers has a remarkable sermon upon “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection;” and it is this new affection for Christ, which is the accompaniment of the new life in Christ, which expels the old forces that used to hold us under bondage to sin and death.

3, 4. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

The law never made anybody holy, and it never will do so. The law says to a man, “This is what you ought to do, and you will be condemned if you do not do it.” That is quite true, but the law supplies no power to enable us to do this. It says to the lame man, “You must walk;” and to the blind man, “You must see;” but it does not enable them either to walk or to see. On the contrary, our nature is such that, when the law issues its commands, there is a tendency in us at once to disobey them. There are some sins, which we never should have thought of committing if we had not been commanded not to do them; so that the law-not because of its own nature, but because of the wickedness of our nature, is weak and ineffectual for the producing of righteousness. But the Lord Jesus Christ has come, has lived, and has died,-died for us who are his people, and has put away our sin. Now we love him; now, being delivered from all condemnation, we love him who has delivered us, and this becomes the force by which we are inclined to holiness, and led on further and further in a course, not merely of morality, but of holiness before God. What a blessed system this is, which saves the sinner from the love of sin, delivers a man from sinning, gives him a new nature, and puts a right spirit within him!

5. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;

Flesh cares for flesh. The man who is all body cares only for the body. The man, whose mind is under subjection to his body, minds “the things of the flesh.”

5. But they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

Where the Holy Ghost is supreme, where the spiritual world has become predominant over the heart and life. There, men live for something nobler than the worldly man’s trinity, “What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?” The carnal life is only becoming to a beast, or a bird, or an insect. But when a man cares for his immortal spirit, and lives for divine and spiritual things, he has attained to the life that is life indeed.

6, 7. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

As long as a man lives only for this present evil world, lives for self, lives under the domination of the flesh, he cannot really know God, or truly serve him. Such a mind as his “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”

8. So then they that are in the flesh-

That is, those who are under its condemnation and power-

8-10. Cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

So that, although Christ dwells in a man, he must not reckon that he will be free from suffering, and pain, and sickness, for the body has not yet risen from the dead, and does not yet feel the full effect of regeneration. The soul is risen from the dead by regeneration, and it therefore “is life because of righteousness;” and the body will, in due time, also share in the power of Christ’s Spirit. The day draweth near when we “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

11, 12. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

We have got nothing good out of the flesh at present, for it is not yet “delivered from the bondage of corruption,” though it is to be delivered.

13. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die:

For the flesh is to die.

13. But if ye through the Spirit do mortify-

Or, kill-

13. The deeds of the body, ye shall live.

Shall a dying body, then, be my master? Shall the appetite for eating and drinking, or anything else that comes of the flesh, dominate my spirit? God forbid! Let death go to death, and the flesh is such; but the newly-given Spirit of God, the Spirit who has quickened us with immortal life, shall rule and reign in us evermore.

14-21. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

We are part and parcel of creation, and we shall draw it along with us. There shall be new heavens and a new earth. The curse shall be taken from the garden; thorns and thistles shall no longer grow there; and there shall be no killing or devouring in all God’s holy mountain. The galling yoke, which we have laid on the whole of creation by our sin, shall be taken off from it by our Redeemer.

22, 23. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of our body.

We groan in unison with a groaning creation, and we shall not at present get rid of our aches, and pains, and sicknesses altogether.

24-32. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-757, 729.

FORGETTING GOD

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, February 15th, 1906, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On Thursday Evening, September 9th, 1875.

“Therefore have they forgotten me.”-Hosea 13:6.

Our text reminds us that God does take notice of what men do, or of what they do not do. Here he complains,-and there is a kind of mournful plaintiveness about his words,-“Therefore have they forgotten me.” It is not a matter of indifference to God whether men remember him or not. It seemed to be a subject of surprise to David that God should think of man, for he wrote, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him?” Yet God is mindful of man, and it grieves him that man is not mindful of him. It would not disturb our minds if some tiny emmet should forget or ignore us; yet we did not create it, and we have not the claims upon it that God has upon us. Yet, little though we are,-and so insignificant that the emmet itself is a great thing in comparison with us if we reckon what we are in comparison with God,-it seems that he does want us to remember him, to think of him, and to trust, and love, and serve him; and when we do not, he is vexed and grieved. At least, speaking after the manner of men, we are taught to believe that it pains him at his heart, so that he cries out by the mouth of his servant the prophet, “They have forgotten me,-their Maker, their best Friend, and their greatest Helper.”

I am afraid, dear friends, that the accusation in our text may be brought against a very large number of us. Certainly, it can be laid to the charge of all those who have lived without thinking of God, and who have never turned to him with repentance and faith, and who, consequently, are still strangers to him. How many such people there are, God alone can accurately compute; the great mass of our fellow-creatures would come under that category. But, worst of all, among the Lord’s own people there are, alas! some against whom this accusation can be brought. They have forgotten their God;-not absolutely, so as to be utterly and altogether like the thoughtless sinner, yet very sadly and grievously, so that God himself complains of them, “They have forgotten me.” For, mark you, if God observes what ordinary men do, much more does he take notice of what his own people do. An unkind word from a stranger may have a very slight effect upon us; but if such a word should come from the lips of one whom we love, it would cut us to the quick. We could put up with a thousand things from those who are mere acquaintances; but from a beloved child, or from the wife of our bosom, such a thing would be very hard to bear. Remember, O Christian, that ancient declaration, “The Lord thy God is a jealous God.” Because he loves us so much, he is in that very proportion jealous; for the greatest jealousy grows out of limitless love; and the Lord our God, who bought us with the heart’s blood of his dear Son, counts us so dear to him that a wandering thought in our mind becomes a crime against him, and the giving up of any part of our heart to love of the world, or of self, or sin, or Satan, or any other of his rivals, becomes to him a cause of grief and sadness. If there are any children of God here,-and I fear there may be many,-who have grown cold in heart, and who have wandered from the Lord, I hope the text will come like a lament from him who hung upon the cross of Calvary, “Therefore have they forgotten me. Therefore have they forgotten me.”

I am going to call your attention, first, to the time when this sin was committed. “Therefore,” says the Lord, “have they forgotten me.” When was that? If we ascertain that, we shall also find out when we ought to be most upon our guard against falling into a similar sin.

It appears, dear friends, to have been when the Israelites had come out of the wilderness into Canaan,-when they had escaped from troubles, and had come into an easy condition, for so the context reads: “I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.” It is a very sorrowful fact that, in this case, the greater God’s goodness was to his people, the less was their gratitude to him; just in proportion as he was kind to them, they were cold to him. These people had been delivered from excessive toil. In Egypt, they had been a. nation of slaves; and in the wilderness, they had been for forty years pilgrims with weary feet. They seldom tarried long in any place, but backwards and forwards across that “waste howling wilderness” they marched almost continuously; and concerning all that time God says, “I did know thee in the wilderness.” He knew them, morning by morning, as the manna fell. He knew them when the quails came on swift wings to bring them flesh to eat. He knew them when the morning and evening lambs were offered in sacrifice for them, sinners as they were, all the while they were in the wilderness, and he says, “I did know thee then.” So, brethren, it has happened to some men that, when they have had hard times, long hours, and stem labour, they have managed to be up in the morning early to get a quiet season of communion with God; and, though they scarcely could have been thought capable of doing it, for they worked so hard, yet they could find leisure to teach a few children in the Sunday-school, or to distribute tracts, or to speak a word for Christ at an open-air service. They had very hard bondage in their daily occupation; yet, whenever there was a week-night service, they always managed to get there. They were very apt to fall asleep when they sat down in the pew, out of sheer weariness because they had been toiling so hard during the day; still, they said that half a loaf was better than no bread, and they were glad to get a message from any of the Lord’s servants in those trying days.

But, dear friends, you remember that, in due time, the children of Israel came to Canaan. Then there was no more marching to and fro in the wilderness for them. They found houses built ready for them to occupy, and they could sit every man under his own vine, and under his own fig tree; and then it was that the Lord said, “They were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.” It is just the same with the man who used to come to the house of God, Sabbath-days and week-nights, though he was sorely weary with his heavy work. He has what men call “an easy berth” now, and has very little to do; so, being no longer a poor galley-slave, tugging at the oar, you might have thought that he would have given the more time to God’s service, and have become one of the most industrious Christiana living; instead of which, he does not do as much now as he used to do with the fag-ends of time which his hard toil allowed him. Ah, brethren! when you get into smooth and easy places, then is the time when you should be most anxious lest of you, as of the Israelites, the Lord should have to say, “Therefore have they forgotten me.” I would fain wish for every one of you that you may be able to earn your daily bread without any excessive labour. I would that every man, who has to toil beyond due and reasonable hours, were delivered from such semi-slavery; yet do I know that there are many who make an ill use of any leisure that they get, and some who are not nearly as fervent in the cause of God, now that they have leisure, as they used to be before they were so privileged.

These Israelites, also, were now delivered from the pressure of urgent want. At the very beginning of their wilderness journey, they had to go for three days without water. “And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter.” They cried to Moses, “What shall we drink?” and he cried to the Lord, and soon the bitter waters were made sweet. Before long, they had eaten up all that they had brought with them out of the land of Egypt, and they murmured again, and then the Lord gave them a daily supply of manna; their bread dropped from the sky morning by morning. But now that they have got into Canaan, they have broad fields that are very fruitful, they reap abundant harvests, their barns are full to bursting, and the hillsides are clad with vines, and olive trees, and fig trees, and all manner of dainties. Instead of having to gather one day’s food at a time, they have many months’ supplies laid up in store. Some of them became very rich; but, alas! it was of them that the Lord had to say, “According to their pasture, so were they filled; … therefore have they forgotten me.” You must have known or heard of men and women, who have loved the Lord when in poverty,-or, at least, who have seemed to do so,-and who were very fervent and active while they had to look up to the Lord from day to day, and pray, “Give us this day our daily bread;” but, in the order of God’s providential dealings, they have been lifted up into another station in life. You would naturally have supposed that they would have loved the Lord more, and have done more for his cause, and laid themselves out with greater alacrity for his service; but, instead of that, it has been the very reverse with them. When they were financially poor, they were spiritually rich; but now that they are financially rich, they are spiritually poor. As they have gone up temporally, they have gone down spiritually. Their barn has become full, but their heart has become empty. Their winepress has overflowed, but the joy of the Lord has departed from them. It is a sad, sad thing whenever this happens; some of us know that it often happens. Let it not be so with any of you, beloved.

Then, again, these Israelites had become very self-indulgent. They enjoyed themselves, and lived only for pleasure; and they despised everybody who would not or could not do the same. Being “rich, and increased with goods,” they looked down upon those who were not rich; and, worse than that, they began to forget their God. O my brothers and sisters, I have often looked upon those who have been in sore trouble, and I have wished that, by some magic touch, I could lift the daughters of sorrow out of their sad state; but I have lived long enough to feel that, if I could do it, I would deliberately stay my hand until I had consulted with infinite wisdom to know whether it would be for their good or not. If it were in my power to lift the cross from every brother and every sister’s shoulders here, and to give all of you your heart’s desire, I would not do so, however much I might feel prompted to do it. As I see how often the plant, that bloomed in the shade, is burnt up in the sunshine,-and how some natures have never yielded the sweetest perfume except in grief’s sad dripping-well,-when I perceive that some of God’s saints never seem to honour him when they are lifted up into high places,-I feel that you and I had better be satisfied to let the Lord put his people wherever he pleases, and keep them on “short commons” sometimes, and even chasten them every morning, as the psalmist says was done to him. Perhaps, some of them, if the Lord did not make them cry every morning, would make themselves cry twice as much before night; and if he did not afflict them, they would very soon bring far worse afflictions upon themselves by falling into some great sin. I think I know the reason why God does not trust some of us with the bright eye and the elastic step which he bestows upon others. I think I can see why he does not give some of us more prominent positions in his Church, and greater influence amongst the workers for him. I think I can tell why that sister is lame, and that brother is blind; why that one hangs her harp upon the willows, and that other toils amid continual poverty. It is because God will not risk all his ships on the roughest seas. He has constructed some of his vessels so that they can stand the storm, and these he sends away into the thick of the tempest; but his little ships he keeps nearer the shore. Some of his seamen see less of his wonders in the deep because they are not able to bear the sight as others can. I think it is so; and, certainly, this is true,-that seasons of prosperity, of any sort, are seasons of great trial to Christians. According to our text, it was at the time of their prosperity that the Israelites forgot their God.

Now, secondly, let me indicate the progress of this evil whenever it happens to a man.

It has happened that some men have lived all their lives forgetting God. It may be that some of you, who are here at this service, have never really thought of God, you have forgotten all about him. A gentleman was walking down a country road, one Sabbath morning, and he met a man with a cartload of hay; he was asked by the man who was driving the cart whether he had seen two lads on in front. “Yes,” said the gentleman, “I have, and I think they are the boys of a father with a short memory, are they not?” He said he did not know whether it was so or not, but they were his lads. “Well,” said the gentleman, “I thought that you were their father, and that you had a short memory, for you do not seem to have recollected that there is a text of Scripture which says, ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.’ ” That short memory concerning the Sabbath day affects a great many people concerning everything else that is good. Some of you, I fear, have such short memories that you have never even recollected the God who made you. You have eaten just as the cattle eat, and you have drunk as they drink; but you have never blessed the Giver of the unnumbered mercies that you have received, any more than the cattle have done. Some of you go on from morning to night without any recognition of God. There are hundreds of men who might be compared-as Rowland Hill did once compare them,-to hogs under an oak. “They eat the acorns,” said he, “but they never look up, and thank the oak.” They live in this world, and feed upon the bounties which God has provided for them, yet they have no thought of him. It is his air that they breathe, and it is by his power that they breathe that air; they could not exist for a single moment if it were not for him; yet he is not in all their thoughts. If God were blotted out of the universe,-if such a thing could be, that he should no longer exist, but that they could still exist, they certainly would not be grieved; possibly, they would feel all the easier in their mind because there would be no judgment to come, and no punishment for all their ill-doing. Ah, my friend! you must be in a very bad plight if you think you can get on better without God than with him. If your boy were to say concerning you, “I wish I might never see my father again.;”-if that little child, who eats at your table every day, whom you clothed but the other day with new garments,-if he were to say, “I never want to speak to my father again; I wish he were dead;”-there must be something radically wrong in that child, his morals must be thoroughly bad. Even if nobody has ever found him out in thieving or lying, I am sure, from that one fact, that he is a bad boy. Now, my friend, even if I cannot point to any sinful act of yours, I am sure that there must be something very wrong with you if you have lived in this world all these years without thinking of God.

If I am invited to go and stay with a friend in the country, and I simply see his beautiful park and his fine gardens, and indoors I receive all that I want in the way of refreshment during the day, and a comfortable bed at night, but my host never puts in an appearance, and I do not know whether he is anywhere about the premises,-I do not enjoy my visit. I came down to see him, so I cannot be content with seeing his park, and his gardens, and so on. I say to the servants, “Where is your master? I came down here to pay a visit to him, and I cannot find any pleasure here without I see him.” And, dear friends, I feel just like that with regard to my God. When I look at this beautiful world which he has made,-and it is a beautiful world, after all, let who will speak against it,-I always feel that I want to see him who made it. Even our lovely gardens, which seem to me to be a thousand times more beautiful than all the vineyards of the Continent, would give me no pleasure in looking at them unless I could always realize that God is there. The sea itself,-the wide and open sea,-what is it if there is no God to rule its waves, and to speak in its storms? I must see traces of God in everything that happens; but some of you have lived all this while, and God’s cry concerning you,-over hill and dale, up and down the street, in the house where you live, across the table at which you eat, and over the pillow on which you sleep,-is, “They have forgotten me. I have made them, and kept them alive, and blessed them in a thousand ways, yet they have forgotten me;-me, of whom they ought first to have thought, for it was essential with them that they should first have thought of me; and through not thinking of me they have bred within themselves all manner of evils.” O unconverted people, I wish you could put yourselves into God’s place for a few minutes, and just think how you would feel if others had treated you as you have treated him! Let the sharp arrows of conviction stick fast in your conscience as you realize that you have acted in a mean, dastardly, ungenerous, ungrateful way towards your God,-the tender, loving, gracious Creator, Preserver, and Friend of men.

But, now, turning to you Christian, people, I want to speak of the progress of this evil in you. I will show you how it often works. When God prospers you in business, and takes away sickness, and removes causes of sorrow, it sometimes happens that the evil of forgetting God begins with an almost imperceptible alienation of heart from him. You do not notice it; you would be very grieved if you did; but your heart begins to grow cold, and the love to your Lord, that once burned in your soul, is not as fervent as it used to be, and this condition of spirit very speedily shows itself in increasing fondness for worldly things. To have riches, may be a blessing to you; but for the riches to have you, must be a great curse to you. There are some, who have abundance of temporal things given to them, and they make a good use of them, so they may be thankful for them; but there are others, who are carried away by these temporal things, which thus become the source of all sorts of calamities. A man may have a fine house and a beautiful garden, and he may be thankful for them; so far, so good: but he may fall into the sin of making a heaven of that house and garden, and so they will be the cause of sin. He may be wealthy, and that will be a good thing if he uses his money aright; but, by-and-by, he may begin to feel that the one tiling worth living for is to have money, and that will be an evil. If you have acquired a certain amount of money, and you feel that you are a person of importance simply because you have so much wealth, you are putting earthly things into the place which God alone should occupy. As old Master Brooks says, it is as when a husband, whose wife used to dote upon him, has given her rings, and chains, and other ornaments, and now that she has them, she dotes upon them, and forgets him. It is very sad when this is the case; and it is often so with some who profess to be the Lord’s. If we accept his gifts as tokens of love from him, and see him in them, then they are helpful, and not hurtful; but when we get thinking of them, and not of him, then they become mischievous to us.

This is an evil which continually grows; for this man, who is beginning to mind earthly things, keeps on indulging himself. He takes more of what he calls pleasure than he used to do; and, indulging himself thus, he gets into a wrong state for prayer, for searching the Bible, for attending the means of grace; and the more he enjoys this world, the less does he think of the next world. As the things that are seen eat like a canker into him, the things that are unseen seem to lose their power over him. If he still attends the place where he went aforetime to hear the gospel, he says that the minister does not preach as he used to do, and the singing is not as lively as it used to be. Other Christian people say that they cannot see any difference at all, but he can. You know, dear friends, what is very often the difference between one dinner and another. It is not the fault of the cook; it is the want of an appetite. There are some brethren who have lost their spiritual appetite. They cannot eat this, and they cannot eat that, and they cannot eat the other. They have lost their appetite; that is the reason. “To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet,” says Solomon; but this man, who has prospered in the world, and has had much enjoyment in it, is now beginning to lose all relish even for those very spiritual things that were once the delight of his soul. So he begins to drop off coming to the house of God, and gradually declines, first a little in this way, and then in that. He has more money now than he used to have, so it takes him a longer time to count it. He has more business than he used to have, so it takes more time to look after it. He cannot come to week-night services; and if, on the Lord’s-day, for appearance sake, he does not cease going to the place of prayer, he carries his ledger with him in his carriage,-metaphorically, if not literally. There is many a man who comes into his pew with acres of land hanging to has boots; and there is many a woman who site there in a fine new dress,-not only the one she has on, but the other one that is to be made up on Monday.

It is sad when worldly things thus get into the soul, and come right into God’s house. Why, the preacher himself knows what it is to find a thousand distracting thoughts come to his mind while he is addressing you; and, therefore, his knows that they must come to your minds while you are listening to the Word of the Lord. Thus it happens that, in one thing after another, the love of God and his Word withers, and the love of the world grows. By-and-by, family prayer gets pushed into a corner,-very short, and not very sweet; and private prayer hardly knows where to find a place for the sole of its foot. Private prayer, as there are none but yourselves to note its observance, is a very convenient place for retrenchment. You want to save time, as you have so much to do, and therefore you snip off a piece here, and another piece there, and who but God is the wiser? You do not yourselves perceive any very great difference; for your conscience is getting seared. So, by degrees, a Christian, who is declining in spiritual things, gives up private prayer;-not altogether, perhaps, but the sweetness and the enjoyment of it depart as he trifles with it, instead of entering into the holy exercise with all his heart and soul.

In some professing Christians, this declension goes further still. At last, they give up all religious profession. I wonder whether there is any man here, who once declared, and probably believed, that he was a Christian, but who has now given up even the name of Christian. If so, my friend, one of two things is true concerning you,-either you never were converted at all, and so have been a mere professor; or else, if you ever were truly converted, you will have to come back again. As surely as ever the Lord looked upon you with an eye of love, you must come back to him; for, after he has once set his seal upon you, he cannot and will not let you go. Oh, that you would come back to him now! You will have to come back, poor wandering sheep, for you belong to the good Shepherd who will not lose one of his flock. Wayward as you are, he will have you with him; and if you will not come back to him when he calls you, he keeps some rough dogs that will worry you back; but back from the paths of sin you must come, and I pray God that you may come back right speedily, and so once more enjoy the blessings of peace with him. I sometimes pass persons, who used to sit in these pews, and who were, I thought, ardent Christians. Even now, some of them have respect for me; but I fear that they have none for my Master. If I get anywhere near them, they slink away, for fear I should speak to them. I wish they had as much anxiety about the grief they have caused my Lord as they have about any grief they may have caused me. May God grant, through his sovereign grace, that all of us, who have professed to be his, may be preserved, lest,-

“When any turn from Zion’s way,

(Alas, what numbers do!)”-

we also should turn away, as we shall certainly do unless his grace shall hold us fast!

Now, thirdly, and very briefly, a few words about the peculiar evil of this sad condition: “They have forgotten me.”

It is so grossly ungrateful that every Christian, who realizes that he is apt to slide into such a condition, should at once bestir himself, and watch against it. What! shall I love the Lord less because he gives me more? Shall I set the gifts, which his goodness bestows upon me, upon his throne, and let them be idols to deprive him of my heart’s love and warship? If I do this, surely I shall be worse than the brute beasts. God grant, dear brethren, that we may be ashamed of such a condition as this, and fly from it!

Remember that, if any of us do begin to set our hearts upon the things of this world, whatever we gain, we must be losers. The man who has scarcely a rag to cover him, but who delights in God, may be the bean ideal of a happy man; but the man who is robed in purple, and who calls an empire his own, but who has forgotten his God, is to me the model of misery mocked by majesty. God save you from being able to delight yourselves in anything but your God! May he put so much bitterness into every other cup that you will be compelled to take the cup of salvation, and calling upon the name of the Lord, to drink only of that! You will be dreadful and eternal losers, whatever else you gain, if you lose the Lord.

If you forget God, you who are indeed his children,-and I am speaking only to such people just now,-it must be a terrible thing for you to be led into a condition in which you forget your Heavenly Father. If there were a wife, who was very poor, but who, as long as she was poor, clung to her husband, and found all her delight in his love; but who, when they became rich, no longer cared for him, it would be wretched riches that could turn away her heart from him who ought to possess it all. If I love my brother, and find great comfort in fellowship with him, and I should suddenly get to be so great that I should not know my brother, what a miserable being I should be! Many a man does not know his own relations when he begins to get rich. He thinks he is somebody of importance, but really he is a big nobody,-a very great and dreadful nobody; and when a man, just because God prospers him, does not know Jesus Christ, his great elder Brother, and gets to be ashamed of mixing with God’s poor people who go to the little Ebenezer Chapel, or of being seen with those poor commonplace sort of Christians who try to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth,-he is a poor, poor specimen of a man, much less of a Christian man. God give us minds and hearts quickened by his grace, that will enable us to live above all such meanness as that!

A sad part of the wretchedness of this condition is that it involves so much trifling with God. If we have forgotten God, dear brethren, we have forgotten the many deliverances we have had in the days that are past. We have forgotten the wiping away of our tears of sorrow. Worse still, we have forgotten the precious blood of Jesus, that spoke peace to our soul; and we have forgotten the Holy Ghost, who came into our hearts, and gave us joy and rest in Jesus Christ. And if we have forgotten God, we have forgotten his gracious promises which are yet to be fulfilled, and the glorious covenant of his grace, ordered in all things and sure, on which our hopes of heaven are based. We have also forgotten his claims upon us,-forgotten that we are his children, his beloved, his elect, his redeemed. We have forgotten all that, and we are living in such a condition that we are trifling even with his threatenings. He has threatened that he will chasten us, and we seem to make light of his threatenings, and to defy his chastisements. We must have got into a state that is piteous and lamentable to the last degree if we can live from day to day in forgetfulness of God.

I will say no more about this sad decline, but finish my discourse by telling you how this evil can be cured.

If any of us, brethren and sisters in Christ, are suffering from this dreadful decline, it is a good help towards its being cured when we see the mischief of it. When a man has this sad condition pointed out to him, and the Spirit of God enables him to see it, that is a great help towards lifting him out of it. But I think that the best thing for us all to do is, just for the moment, to sink all differences, and not ask any questions about whether we are saints or sinners,-whether we ever did love the Lord, or whether we did not; and let us all go straight away to the cross, just as if we had never gone there before. By nature, and by practice too, we are all guilty, and we all deserve to be cast into hell,-the best of us as well as the worst. So, let us all go where the Saviour carried the great load of sin upon himself, and bore its consequences, that he might set us free from it for ever. Let us look up to him, and, by faith, view the flowing of the blood from those many wounds that he received on our behalf. Let us look into that dear face of his,-the image of matchless misery and majesty combined; let us note the thorn-crown, and all the marks of ignominy and shame that cruel men put upon him. Let us hear him cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and, as we see him die, let us believe in him again, or believe in him for the first time. My Saviour, my Redeemer, wherever I may have wandered, I come back to thee. My soul believes in thee, trusts thee, hangs all her hopes for time and eternity upon thee; wilt thou not speak peace and pardon to my guilty spirit? Ah, if you come to him with such a confession and cry as this, you will get your love back again. The best place to get it back again is the place where it was born. It was born at the cross, and you will get it back again if you go to the cross, just as you went at the first, and stand there, with this as your soul’s confession of faith,-

“I the chief of sinners am,

But Jesus died for me.”

I cannot say more except just this,-if God is prospering you, keep very close to the cross. Do you not see that if, the richer you get, the oftener you go to the cross, it will be safe for you to be trusted with wealth? Take care to sanctify everything that God gives you by giving him his proper portion, and do not use your own portion till you have given him his. Then, if you look at every blessing as coming to you by the way of the cross, and say, “Jesus Christ has sent me this, for-

“ ‘There’s ne’er a gift his hand bestows

But cost his heart a groan,’ ”-

if you receive everything as through him, and then desire to use everything for him, you may be as rich as the Rothschilds and yet you may be as gracious as the apostle Paul. You might have all the world given you, and yet, for all that, it would not hurt you. If you had as much of God as you had of gold, God would see that the gold was safe in your hands. He could trust us with prosperity if he saw that all our prosperity only bound us more closely and more completely to the cross of his dear Son. So, if any of you have forgotten him, conclude this evening’s service by coming to the cross; and, thus, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shall get glory from you. May it be so, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon.

HOSEA 13:1-9.

Hosea was full of complaints against the people of God; for, in his day, they had very sadly wandered from the Lord. They had even forgotten him. In Hosea’s prophecy, we have the plaintive voice of a loving God chiding his backsliding children.

Chapter 13 Verse 1. When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.

A modest, humble, trembling heart is often by far the sounder heart; but when we begin to sin, and to sin boastfully, and to wrap ourselves about with the robe of self-complacency, then is death very near to us: “When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.”

2. And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

When Jeroboam became king of the new kingdom of Israel,-in order to prevent his subjects from going to Jerusalem to worship God in Solomon’s temple,-he started two shrines at Dan and Bethel, and there he set up what Holy Scripture calls in derision “calves.” I suppose that his idea was to make images of a bull, the emblem of power, intending them to be the symbol of the Divine Being, and that the people intended still to worship God, but to worship him under the image of a bull. It is the same in Roman Catholicism to this day,-the worship of God, the worship of Christ, by means of crucifixes, and emblems and symbols of various kinds. But when men once begin that kind of idolatry, there is no knowing where they will stop; for the worship of God, through the medium of symbols, soon grows into the worship of other gods. Saints and saintesses, “blessed virgins” and I know not what besides, are pretty sure to be set up when once people begin to make use of outward and visible emblems of the Deity. So it was with these ancient Israelites. From worshipping the bull, which was meant to be a type of the omnipotent God, they went on to the worshipping of “molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding.” Brethren, let us take warning from these idolaters, and always keep to the simplicity of worship ordained by God in his Word. However comely and beautiful, or grand and imposing, and, consequently, fascinating, any form of idolatry may be to some minds, let us utterly despise it if it is not according to the mind of God, and the teaching of his Spirit, as revealed in his Word.

3. Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.

Those who will have gods of their own making shall have but a brief enjoyment of them. He who truly worships the everlasting God shall have an everlasting blessing; but he who worships gods that he has himself made,-mere objects of this mortal day, shall have but a short day of it. He shall be as the early dew, which glistens brightly, but is soon gone; or as the morning cloud, which is banished by the rising of the sun.

4, 5. Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shall know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.

The Israelites drew near to God when they wanted bread and water in the wilderness. God says, “I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought;” and the Lord might say to his people nowadays, “I did know you when you were very sick, when you were very poor, when you were in great trouble. You sought me then; how is it that you are trying to do without me now?”

6-8. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beasts shall tear them.

When men forget God, they may expect that they will meet with some terrible judgments; and God’s own people especially will find this to be the case with them if they forget the Lord. Our God is a very jealous God; and when his children will set their hearts on other objects instead of upon himself, he will take care to embitter those objects of their affection to them, he will make their idols to be loathed by them. If God did not love us very much, he would think little of our faults; but just because he loves us so much, he cannot bear that any part of our heart’s affection should go away from himself. So, if he sees that we deal unfaithfully with him, he will make us realize that sin is an exceedingly evil and bitter thing. His anger against us will be like that of a bear that is robbed of her whelps, or of a lion or leopard leaping upon his prey.

9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself: but in me is thine help.

“You have gone away from me, but I will bring you back again. You have destroyed yourself by your sin, but I will restore you to my favour by my grace. You may look within yourself for causes of repentance, but you must not look to yourself for the means of restoration; you must look to me, your Saviour and your God.” So this verse teaches us: “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help.”