No doubt, in the first place, David was speaking of the benefits of a wise and just ruler over men. In the East, where rulers are despotic, they can very soon lay on such heavy taxation and make such oppressive laws that the people are grievously impoverished. Sometimes, the inhabitants almost cease to cultivate their lands, since they feel that, if they do produce crops, they only produce them for a tyrant’s table. By such cruel exactions, the trade of a country is often driven away, and fruitful lands are turned into a desert. At the present moment, there seems to be little or no reason why Palestine, for instance, should not once again become as fruitful as it used to be, were it not that the Turkish rule is so severe and so unjust that the people have no reason for industry, and no motive for economy, since they are so ground down by those who are in power. It was largely so in David’s day. Nations were so completely subject to the rule of their kings that, according to the character of their ruler, was the state of the people. It is a happy circumstance for us that, as a nation, we have ended all that, but it was the prevailing state of things in the days of David. So, I suppose, as a description of what he himself had been, and as expressive of his hope of what Salomon would be, he says, “A good ruler is to a people like the rising of the sun.” Their troubles disappear; he conquers for them in foreign wars, and he deals out justice to them at home. A good ruler removes or at least reduces the sorrows of the people over whom he rules. He is to them as “a morning without clouds.” They cannot find fault with his administration, for he does them good, and no harm, all his days, and he makes even their past sorrows to conduce to their present good. Under his rule, they enjoy a season of clear shining after a long rain of sorrow; and, by his wise laws, he makes the land so fruitful, and the people so prosperous, that he is to them “as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.” No doubt that was a part of what David meant.

But, please to remember that this was David’s swan-song, for the chapter begins thus, “Now these be the last words of David.” And remember also that these last words of David are prefaced by this most important declaration, “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me.” So, under these circumstances, we cannot suppose that the meaning which I have given to the text can be the full interpretation of it, since there would be no necessity for inspiration to teach that, and no need whatever for the God of Israel so to speak, and the Rock of Israel thus to deliver himself. We may feel quite sure that there must be some deeper, fuller, more mystical and spiritual meaning here.

And Christians of all times, and Jews also of former ages, have all been agreed that this passage relates to the Messiah; and we, who know that the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, can, without the slighest difficulty, apply these words to him, and feel that they are most true concerning him. Even if they did not primarily refer to the Messiah, we should be quite right in making them do so, because, if it be a general rule that a good ruler is all this to his people, then Jesus Christ, being the best of rulers, must be all this to his people; and he, ruling among men as he does,-for this day we call him Master and Lord,-and ruling, as he does, most wisely and in the fear of God, he must be, to those who belong to his blessed kingdom, all that any other good ruler could possibly be, and far more; so that, for many reasons, we are quite right in ascribing to our Lord Jesus the language of our text: “He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”

I want to do two things; first, to show you that this passage describes our experience of the rule of Christ; and, secondly, to prove to you that our experience should encourage others to receive him as their Ruler.

First, then, there are many of you, my dear brethren and sisters in Christ, who can join with me in saying that the text is a truthful description of our own experience of the rule of Christ since that dear hour which brought us to his foot, cut up all our self-righteousness by the root, and blessedly taught us to trust and rest in him.

Let us take the sentences as they stand, and let the hearts of God’s children respond as I speak upon each one of them. Has it not been true, beloved, that Jesus has been to us as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth? Was he not so when first you saw him? You were in the dark; an Egyptian darkness that might be felt was upon you. You had aforetime walked in the feeble and fickle light of the sparks of your own kindling; but those sparks were at length all stamped out, and the light of all your candles was quenched in thickest gloom. Was it not like the rising of the sun when you-

“Saw One hanging on a tree,

In agonies and blood,”-

and as he fixed his languid eyes on you, you realized that he had suffered in your stead, and borne the wrath of God on your behalf? The weary sentinel, who has stood upon the watch-tower all night, keeping guard in the pitiless tempest, longs to see the first streak of daylight, and he will not readily forget the moment when, in the East, he first perceived the glow which betokened the rising of the sun. He may forget that, but we shall never forget the hour when, in our deepest sorrows, we caught the first glimpse of a Saviour, and of his wondrous plan of salvation. We saw that there was salvation for sinners, and we perceived that it was suitable for us; and we perceived yet more gladly the fact that we might have it,-that we might have it then and there,-by simply looking to Jesus crucified. And we did look to him; and, oh, the brightness and the glory that we then saw! I am sure that I have no need to enlarge upon that, and that I have only to awaken your joyful recollections of that wondrous period, and you will at once take down your harps from the willows, awaken all the strings to melodious praise of that rising sun which then arose with healing for you beneath its wide-spread wings.

Now, since that time, has not Jesus been as the sun in the morning, from the fact that he has never gone down? There have been clouds which have, for a time, obscured his light; in this misty world, there must be clouds. You have not always seen the golden light of Christ’s love as you have seen it at certain times in your experience; yet, since you first looked to him by faith, you have never been in the same darkness that you were in before, for Jesus has never forsaken you, even though he has, for a while, hidden his face from you. Your vessel has rocked to and fro, but you have not been driven from your anchorage, your anchor has held fast even in the stormiest gale. You have been, sometimes, in great straits, yet Jesus has always been your rest and your stay. You have wandered in heart from him again and again, but he has never refused to take you back to his bosom, as Noah took back the weary dove. O soul, you know that Jesus Christ is not like the sun at his setting, when he goes from brightness into shade, but Jesus is the Sun of righteousness, which continues increasing in brilliance until it attains its perfect noontide glory! Have you not found it to be so until now? O child of God, if it were right for you to stand up, and bear your testimony here, you would say, “Yes, he has not given me transient pleasure, but constant joy. He has given me peace like a river, and righteousness like the waves of the sea. By trusting in him, I have had a continual holiday and a perpetual festival; or if I have not, it has been because my faith has flagged, or my unstable heart has wandered from his love; but He has ever been ‘as the light of the morning when the sun riseth.’ ”

And, brethren and sisters in Christ, have we not a good hope that the light which we have enjoyed will continue with us all our journey through? Thank God, that Sun will not go down before the last stage of our life’s pilgrimage shall be over. Nay, it will still rise higher and higher until the perfect day; and the perfect day has not come yet, but it will come. By faith, our souls anticipate greater knowledge of Christ, greater enjoyment of him, greater likeness to him. We expect that, as years tell upon us, although the flesh will decay, the spirit will grow stronger and stronger. We believe that we shall still “bring forth fruit in old age” “to show that the Lord is upright.” We know and are fully persuaded that, with us, at eventide, it will still be light; and that, when the sun of our natural life goes down, the Sun of our spiritual life will not decline, but, rather, we shall be absent from this land of clouds, and eclipses, and shades, and enter into the glory that excelleth. Milton speaks of an angel who lives in the sun; but what will it be to live in the light of Christ,-to live in that Sun for ever and ever? The distant glintings of his glory, the transient gleams of his face, are heaven below to us; “but what must it be to be there” where they behold him with eyes supernaturally strengthened to bear the sight,-a sight which we could not bear now? John says, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead;” and that would be the case with us if we could see him now. But, by-and-by, we shall be able to endure that beatific vision, and then we shall be favoured with it, and then shall we understand to the full the meaning of these words, “He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth.”

This must suffice for the first sentence of our text. There is not one of us, who has believed in Christ, but can say that this is true; we have not all experienced it in the same measure, but we can all say that it has been true to us up to the measure of our capacity to see this Sun, and to bear the light of his beams upon us.

Now look at the next words: “even a morning without clouds.” And it is true that, to those, in whose heart Christ has risen, he has been a morning without clouds. When he first came to us, there was a great cloud-an inconceivably black cloud of sin which hung over us. Oh, what tempests there were hidden in its dense shadows! Eternal hurricanes and unending destruction were couched in the black bosom of that cloud; but we saw Jesus, and the cloud instantly vanished. Where had it gone? Perhaps, at that time, we scarcely knew more than that it was gone by reason of our having looked to him. But, oh, you know the story,-how a blessed wind came, and caught that cloud, and bore it away up where there stood a lofty hill that towered above the clouds, a mountain whose summit reached to heaven itself. Can you look up, and see it? Can you bear the dazzling glory of its brightness, for it was a mountain all of sapphire, like the terrible crystal for its brightness and its glory? But the cloud came sweeping over the head of this sapphire mountain, and, lo! it burst. Dread were the volleys of its thunder; terrific were the flashes of its flame. It shivered the peaks of that wondrous mountain, and the storm burst there in terrible fury. That mountain was the Lord Jesus Christ; and, for all of us who trust him, the thunder-cloud spent itself there for ever, leaving only mercy-drops to fall on us in the valley below. Christ’s coming was to us henceforth as a morning without clouds. There is now no accusation to be brought against God’s people anywhere. If all the believers who have ever lived, or who ever shall live, could be gathered together, we might maintain that there is not, in the whole universe, a single sin that can be laid to the charge of any soul that believes in Jesus. What saith the Scripture? “The inquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none.” The work of the Messiah was thus revealed to Daniel, “To finish the trangression, and to make an end of sins,”-dwell on that,-” to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness.” Do you not see, then, that, as compared to the black cloud of sin, Jesus Christ, when he came to us, was as “a morning without clouds,” since he took all that sin away?

And since that time, he has been the same to us, for no clouds have come. No clouds of fear, for instance, except some vain and foolish fears which our poor flesh has tolerated, but there has been no ground for fear. On the brightest day, in our changeful English climate, the fairest morning cannot always prophesy a clear day; and, oftentimes, in other lands, you may look long up to a cloudless sky; but, by-and-by, there may be a little cloud, like a man’s hand, and it will gather and grow until the storm bursts, and puts an end to the brightness of the morning. We have no fear of that happening to us, notwithstanding all our shortcomings, mistakes, errors, failures, and sins. Can any of us count them? None of us can; but they are not being treasured up against us; they are not gathering into a tempest, to burst over our devoted heads. We are not laying by in store a dreadful measure of divine wrath, to be dealt out to us by-and-by. That is to be the portion of those who are out of Christ; but those who are in Christ certainly have no need to fear any future storm of divine anger. As their sin is gone to-day, it is gone for ever, for Christ hath for ever perfected those whom he hath redeemed. Is it not a very delightful thing to live, in this sense, on a morning without clouds,-to look all around you, and to feel that there is nothing to dread now that Christ is yours, and that, above, beneath, around, there is no cause for fear? Why, sometimes, this glorious truth makes our heart beat so quickly with joy that we wonder whether it will not leap out of our physical frame,-to think that all is well, all well without, all well within, all well above, all well below, all well behind, all well before, all well for time, all well for eternity. “A morning without clouds,”-where will you find this, in a spiritual sense, but beneath the blessed rule of Jesus the King of kings, and Lord of lords?

So, brethren: and sisters, our morning is without clouds because we have no fear of any future trouble when we live under the rule of Christ. “Ah!” says one, “but I sometimes have.” But, my dear friend, if you are really a Christian, you have no reason to have any fear of future trouble. “But I shall grow old,” says one; “perhaps I shall not be able to earn my daily bread. I am very feeble even now; and, by-and-by, I may be completely bedridden, or I may have to undergo a painful operation. I am already sadly depressed in spirit, so what shall I be when I get into even worse troubles than I have now?” Ah, my dear friend, the Lord has provided for you, not merely for to-morrow, but for all your days, and you may say, with David, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” Some people may starve, but God’s saints shall not. Every one who “walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly,” may claim the ancient promise, “Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.” You may make clouds if you like. You may take down the telescope, and breathe on it with the hot breath of your anxiety, and then, when you look through it, you may say, “I can see clouds.” There are no clouds there; it is only your breath on the glass that makes you fancy that you see them. God will make all things work together for good to you. If he shall send you troubles, it will only be when it is better for you. to be troubled than to be at peace; and he will always make a way of escape for you out of them, and give you all needful support while you are in them. Your shoes shall be iron and brass; and as your days, so shall your strength be. Be of good cheer, Mrs. Despondency and Miss Much-afraid. Fetch out your harps, and let us have a joyful tune to the praise of our ever-gracious God. There are no clouds where Jesus dwells; and where he rules, it is as “a morning without clouds.”

There is not even the cloud of death to be feared. What a fuss many of us make about dying! Children of God, what a turmoil some of you sometimes make in your own souls about dying! I was speaking to a dear brother whom you all know, and he said to me, “I have once or twice lately been brought face to face with death. In extreme pain I thought that I should not be able to hold out many more minutes, and that I must die; and oh, my dear pastor,” he said to me, “it seemed the sweetest thing in all the world to expect to see my Saviour face to face in a few minutes. I have, sometimes,” he added, “dreaded death; but when I seemed to be in the very article of death, and thought that I must soon expire, I have wondered how I could ever have entertained such thoughts.” What is there for a Christian to fear in death? It is not dying,-it is living,-about which we ought to be anxious, if anxious at all. But you say, “It is the thought of the pains of death that troubles me.” But pains belong to life, so do not lay them upon poor death’s back. Death is the physician that eases pain; he does but lay his skeleton hand upon the patient, and, straightway, the fever has departed, and the sufferer is where the inhabitant shall no more say, “I am sick.”

“One gentle sigh, the fetter breaks:

We scarce can say, ‘They’re gone!’

Before the willing spirit takes

Her mansion near the throne.”

Blessed be God, where Jesus rules, even the thought of death is not a cloud. If you are not under the rule of Jesus Christ, you will have many clouds; but if you are under his rule, if you have faith in him, and live upon him, and are a subject of his kingdom, you will find that he is to you as “a morning without clouds.”

The other sentence of the text teaches us that Jesus Christ sanctifies to his people their varied experiences: “As the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”

Dear friends, even under the rule of Christ, we know that some trouble will come to us, there will be “rain.” There will be the rain of sorrow for sin. That is a blessed rain; I would like to be wet through with that. Sometimes, there will be the rain of depression of spirit; but God forbid that we should have too much of that! There will be the rain of affliction and trial; but we are taught to rejoice in affliction, and to count it all joy when we fall into divers trials. Sometimes, there comes the rain of spiritual humiliation. We are conscious of our own emptiness, and we seem to be in such a place as the Valley of Humiliation, of which Bunyan has written so sweetly in his “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

Yes, we do get times of rain, but there also come to us times of “clear shining.” You know what that means to you after a time of trouble. It is very sweet, after you have been ill, to feel that you are getting better. I do not know any enjoyment in life that, to my mind, is equal to that of getting better after a severe illness; that is the “clear shining after rain.” And when you have been depressed, and have got back your joy again, that is more clear shining. It is all the clearer because of the rain; and the clear shining does you the more good because there has been rain; for clear shining without rain might bring on dryness and barrenness; but when the soil has been well soaked, and the clear shining of the sun follows, then the tender grass appears; and what tender emotions of love, and joy, and peace, and rest, and gratitude, have often come into the soul when, after we have had a heavy rain, which has deluged us, there has come the clear shining,-the full assurance, the applied promise, the conscious love, the certain presence, the blessed manifestation, the sweet communion. Many of you know, from happy experience, what I mean. I am only giving you a brief summary, for I cannot fully describe that clear shining though I have felt it full often.

Then it is that Jesus becomes to us like “the tender grass springing out of the earth.” In the East, when there has been no rain for a long while, everything looks dry and brown; but travellers tell us that, in a few hours, after a heavy shower and a little sunshine, patches of green grass will be seen where everything was brown, and the daffodil, lily and all sorts of beautiful plants will spring up almost as if by magic. Is not that the case with us spiritually? When Jesus Christ appears to us, our soul, which had been saturated with sorrow, becomes joyous through the clear shining, and then brings forth the tender grass of gladness, gratitude, thankfulness, and holy service for the Lord Jesus Christ. But if there be anything of that kind brought forth in us, let us remember that it is Christ himself who is the sum and substance of it all, for it is he who is as the tender grass. “Without me, ye can do nothing,” said Christ to his disciples; and the fruit of the Christian is practically Christ, for if the Christian brings forth the fruit of holiness, it is the glory of Christ reflected in him; if he is bright with hope, it is Christ within him who is the hope of glory. If there be any graces in us, they are the virtues which Christ has given to us. Our green grass is Christ himself appearing in us. Our verdure, our beauty, our fruit, our everything, is Christ manifest in us.

I like this metaphor of the “tender grass springing out of the earth.” Jesus Christ is to us what the green grass is to the field. In the story of the creation, it is suggestive to read that, the same day that God separated the water from the land, and called this “Earth”, and that “Seas”, he saw that something was needed to make it perfect. Imagine this earth just lifted up out of the waters; there are the mountains, and the little hills, and the plains, and the valleys, but they are all like masses of mud, so God says, “Let the earth bring forth grass,”-“tender grass” is in the margin, the very expression we have in our text. It looks as though God himself could not bear to see the world naked, so he wrapped it up in those beautiful green garments which are like the holiday dress of this poor brown earth; and I believe that, whenever God makes a Christian, the moment he is born anew, God locks at him, and sees that he is just like the earth was before it was clothed with grass, so God gives him grace to enable him to bring forth fruit. One of the first instincts of a true convert is to ask, “What can I do for Jesus Christ?” Though it is not much that he can do, it is like the grass, it covers him. Very soon the fruits begin to appear, bearing seed after their kind; it is Christ being displayed in the convert’s life, and work, and fruit. I remember when Jesus Christ was to me the first fruit of righteousness that I ever brought forth; and, to this day, all the fruit I ever have-and I am sure it is the same with you, my brethren and sisters in Christ, and you are glad to confess that it is so,-comes from Christ alone. He is to us as “the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.”

Thus I have spoken about our experience of the rule of Christ tallying with the Word of God as we have it in our text.

I will spend only a few minutes in speaking upon the second part of our subject, lest I weary you. It is this, our experience should encourage others to receive Jesus Christ as their Ruler.

If we had found him a bad Master, we would tell you. As we have found him inexpressibly good to us, we come to you, and gladly bear our witness on his behalf. I am addressing a good many who have heard the gospel for a long time, and yet are not saved. When are you going to lay these things to heart? When shall the time of decision be? Listen to me with great earnestness for these last few minutes. I want you to receive Jesus Christ as your Ruler; but, before you do so, you must receive him as, your Saviour. You cannot truly say, “I will serve Christ,” until you have first said, “I will trust him.” The gospel message is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” May the Spirit of God enable you, at this very moment, sitting where you are, or standing in the crowd, to trust the Son of God, who lived and died that sinners might not perish. Trust him, and you are saved.

But, at the same time that you trust him, please remember that Jesus Christ has come to be a Prince as well as a Saviour; and if he is to save you, you must give yourself up to him to be ruled by him. Obedience to Christ must always accompany faith in him. Jesus says to you, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” but he adds, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Are there not some young men here who want a Leader,-who desire to have a Pilot who will conduct them safely through the voyage of life, and land them at the port of peace? Then, accept the Lord Jesus Christ, once crucified, but now risen, and gone into the glory. Take him as Saviour to cleanse you, and as Prince to govern you, and all shall be well with you for ever.

Have you come to him? That is the important point; how you come is quite a secondary matter. There is much discussion about how we are to come to Christ, but the great discussion should be about him to whom we are to come;-not so much about your coming, as about the Christ to whom you come;-not so much about your faith, as about the object of your faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you build upon the Rock of ages, you build securely; and if you rest in Jesus, you rest safely. If you come to him, you come to the right place, or, rather, to the right Person. O poor souls, there are some of you who, if you had to come to Jesus Christ in very beautiful order, marching like the Life Guards on parade, would never come; but you may come creeping like little children who fall at every second step that they take. So long as you do but come, you may come in the most irregular fashion, with some faith and a great deal of unbelief,-with many a doubt and many a struggle,-many a pang and many a cry,-many a groan and many a mistrust; yet, so long as you do but believe in Jesus, lean upon him, and trust in him, he will not cast you out. I sometimes find that all I can do is just to swoon away into Christ’s arms; but as long as I get there, he never caste me out. It is a very blessed thing, I find, to come to Christ arguing with myself as to why I come, and understanding much concerning his blessed person and offices, his finished work, his everlasting covenant, and the election of grace. That is a very happy way of coming to Christ; but there are hundreds of people, who are such babes in spiritual things, that they do not know these great truths; they are so weak that they cannot grasp them, and so confused in their minds that they cannot understand them. Well, then, they must come as they can; but him that cometh, enabled by the grace of God to come straightway to Jesus,-for that is the vital point,-him that cometh to Jesus anyhow, he will in no wise cast out.

Christ says nothing about coming to a priest for pardon. We read, in the Scriptures, of one who had sinned very grossly against Jesus; he went to the priests, and confessed his sin, and then he went out, and hanged himself; and I do not wonder that he did so, for there is no comfort to be got from a priest. But if Judas had gone to Christ, if he had been like Peter, and had gone to the Saviour, and confessed his sin, he might have been forgiven, and might have rejoiced in being pardoned. It will not do to go to man for forgiveness, you must go to Christ; and it will not do to look to yourself. Christ does not say, “Him that amends himself, I will in no wise cast out.” No; but, “Him that cometh to me.”*

Is not this a very simple matter? I have read a great many definitions of faith, and a great many books explaining what faith is; and I have always felt, when I have finished reading them, like the good woman who read Thomas Scott’s explanation of Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” After that worthy minister had lent his book to an old lady, he went round to see her, and he said to her, “Have you been reading the book I lent you?” “Oh, yes, sir,” said she. “Could you understand it?” asked Scott. “Well, sir,” she said, “I can understand what Mr. Bunyan wrote, and I think that, one day, by the grace of God, I may be able to understand your explanation of it.” It is just like that with explanations of faith. I can understand the gospel, and I have no doubt that, one day, I shall be able to understand the explanations that some writers give concerning what faith means. Very often, a cloud of words is only like a cloud of dust, and explanations of faith often minister confusion rather than edification. There is Jesus Christ; will you trust him? If you do, he will not cast you out. May he help you to trust in him now!

Do you still hang back? Then let me plead with you. You surely do not hold back from Christ because you think his service will be hard. Many of us have tried it, and we have proved that his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. Oh, if you could but look the Prince Immanuel in the face,-if those blind eyes of yours could be opened, so that you could see him,-you would fall in love with him. The poet was right when he wrote,-

“His worth if all the nations knew,

Sure the whole world would love him too.”

A spiritual sight of the Prince Immanuel would so enamour you of him that you would count it your honour and glory even to be allowed to unloose his shoe-latchets. I would, young men, that you would so value the Christian experience of others that you would trust Christ for yourselves. He has been a good Master to me; I have served him now for five and twenty years, and, blessed be his name, he has never once done me or mine an ill-turn! His work is good, and his wages are good, and he himself is best of all. Oh, that you all would trust, and love, and serve him!

Do you still hang back? Then, what is your reason for doing so? Is it that you want more light? Listen. Christ is “as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth,” and you say that you are wanting more light. Wanting more light, yet not coming to the sun! You are awake, in the morning, with your shutters closed, and your blinds down, and you are fumbling about to find a match, and you are going to strike it, and light a farthing candle,-what for? Well, after you have lit it, you are going to open the shutters, and see whether the sun is up! Very sensible behaviour on your part, is it not? Yet this is what the sinner often does. He wants to get light enough to see whether Jesus, the Sun of righteousness, is shining! Oh, put away your matches and your candles! Do not look for any spiritual light but that which comes from Christ, for all the light that you ever get, unless it comes from Christ, is gross darkness. Go in your darkness to Jesus Christ, for he has light enough in himself without your carrying any light to him. We have an old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, but there is no folly in that compared with the folly and sin of carrying light to the Sun of righteousness. Go in your darkness to Jesus Christ, and he will be light to you.

“Oh, but!” you say, “there are the clouds!” Yes, I know there are,-your sins, your doubts, your fears, your hard hearts, and you are going to get all these put away, and then you are coming to Christ, are you? You are something like a man who might be foolish enough to say, “My heart is affected, my limbs are full of pain, and my eyes are bad; but when I get my heart better, and my limbs better, and my eyes better, I am going to a physician.” And why are you going to see a physician then? To show him what a fine fellow you are, I suppose! Why, man, the time to go to a physician is when you are sick; and the time to go to Christ is when you are sinful, when you are surrounded by clouds, for he is as “a morning without clouds.” You can never get rid of the clouds; but He can; so you must go to him with all the clouds, and all the sins, and all the doubts about you;-with a thousand ills wrapped round you, if so it must be;-as full of devils as that poor man was out of whom Christ cast a whole legion. If you have all hell within you, if you will but go to Christ just as you are, he will deliver you, here and now, with a single word. If thou believest in him, man, thou needest no preparation for going to him.

“But,” says one, “I really want to be doing something before I come to Christ.” Possibly you have noticed what a fuss is being made in various newspapers concerning that hymn which contains the words,-

“ ‘Doing’ is a deadly thing,

‘Doing’ ends in death.”

Certain gentlemen are very fond of talking about the immorality of the doctrine of justification by faith, and trying to show how it is destructive of good works. I think that those who talk thus should try to practise a few good works on their own account, and one of the good works I would suggest to them is that of being honest enough to quote the whole of a verse, instead of half. Suppose I were to go about, and say, “Oh, the Bible is a dreadful book; it says, ‘There is no God;’ ” somebody would very probably say to me, “How dare you make such a statement as that? The Bible says, ‘The fool hath said in his heart, There is not God.’ You have quoted only part of the verse.” That is just what these objectors have done. The whole verse says,-

“Till to Jesus’ work you cling

By a simple faith,

‘Doing’ is a deadly thing,

‘Doing’ ends in death.”

That is true; but if you cut off the first two lines, you have not quoted fairly, and you have made the poet say what he did not say; and then you go on to say that teaching people to sing like that is teaching them to sing against good works. I am sick of this canting, hypocritical talk on the part of worldlings. They say that there is cant in the Church, and among Christians. Well, perhaps there is a little, but not half so much as there is among those who quote half a verse, and then, go on to rail at Evangelical preachers as if that were all that they taught. Yet there is much of that kind of evil in many unrenewed hearts; they want to get some good thing first, and then they will come to Christ. They want to get the tender grass without coming to Christ, but they never will; for the fruits of holiness will never be produced in any man’s soul until he comes to Jesus, for Jesus is “as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.” Come to Jesus Christ for fruit, not with fruit. Come to him for all good things; and, poor sinners, he will give them to you.

“True belief, and true repentance,

Every grace that brings us nigh,

Without money,

Come to Jesus Christ and buy.”

We preach good works with all our hearts, but they can only be wrought by and through Jesus Christ; and we never dare tell sinners to do good works, and then come to Christ. That would be putting the cart before the horse, planting the stem instead of planting the root, and reversing the natural order of things, which God forbid that we should ever do! Come, ye guilty; come, ye lost; come, ye ruined; my Lord Jesus loves such as you are. He has not come to heal the healthy, but the sick; he came, “not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” May he call you, and bring you, for his own name’s sake! Amen.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-716, 711, 30; and from “Sacred Songs and Solos”-39.

BATTLEMENTS

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, August 2nd, 1906, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.”-Deuteronomy 22:8.

This interesting law, which in its letter was binding on the Jewish people, in its spirit furnishes an admirable rule for us upon whom the ends of the world are come.

It is not necessary to inform this audience that the roofs of Eastern dwellings were flat, and that the inhabitants were accustomed to spend much of their time upon the tops of their houses, not only conversing there during the day, but sleeping there at night. If the roofs were without any fencing or protection around their edge, it might often happen that little children might fall over, and not unfrequently grown-up persons might inadvertently make a false step, and suffer serious injury, if not death itself. Where there were no railings or low walls around the roof, accidents frequently occurred; but God commanded his people, while they were yet in the wilderness, that, when they came into the promised land, and proceeded to build houses, they should take care in every case to build a sufficient battlement that life might not be lost through preventable casualty.

This careful command clearly shows us that God holds life to be very valuable, and that, as he would not permit us to kill by malice, so he would not allow us to kill by negligence, but would have us most tender of human life. Such rules as the one before us are precedents for sanitary laws, and give the weight of divine sanction to every wise sanitary arrangement. No man has a right to be filthy in his person, or his house, or his trade; for, even if he himself may flourish amid unhealthy accumulations of dirt, he has no right by his unclean habits to foster a deadly typhus, or afford a nest for cholera. Those whose houses are foul, whose rooms are unventilated, whose persons are disgusting, cannot be said to love their neighbour; and those who create nuisances in our crowded cities are guilty of wholesale murder. No man has a right to do anything which must inevitably lead to the death or to the injury of those by whom he is surrounded, but he is bound to do all in his power to prevent any harm coming to his fellow-men. That seems to be the moral teaching of this ordinance of making battlements around the housetops,-teaching, mark you, which I should like all housewives, working-men, manufacturers, and vestrymen, to take practical note of.

But, if ordinary life be precious, much more is the life of the soul, and, therefore, it is our Christian duty never to do that which imperils either our own or other men’s souls. To us there is an imperative call from the great Master that we care for the eternal interests of others, and that we, so far as we can, prevent their exposure to temptations which might lead to their fatal falling into sin.

We shall now lead you to a few meditations which have, in our mind, gathered around the text.

First, God has battlemented his own house. Let this serve as a great truth with which to begin our contemplations. God takes care that all his children are safe. There are high places in his house, and he does not deny his children the enjoyment of these high places, but he makes sure that they shall not be in danger there. He sets bulwarks round about them, lest they should suffer harm when in a state of exaltation.

God, in his house, has given us many high and sublime doctrines. Timid minds are afraid of these, but the highest doctrine in Scripture is safe enough because God has battlemented it; and as no man need be afraid in the East to walk on the roof of his house when the battlement is there, so no man need hesitate to believe the doctrine of election, the doctrine of eternal and immutable love, or any of the divine teachings which circle around the covenant of grace, if he will at the same time see that God has guarded those truths so that none may fall from them to their own destruction.

Take, for instance, the doctrine of election. What a high and glorious truth this is, that God hath, from the beginning, chosen his people unto salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the truth! Yet that doctrine has turned many simpletons dizzy through looking at it apart from kindred teachings. Some, I do not doubt, have wilfully leaped over the battlement which God has set about this doctrine, and have turned it into Antinomianism, degrading it into an excuse for evil living, and reaping just damnation for their wilful perversion. But God has been pleased to set around that doctrine other truths which shield it from misuse. It is true he has a chosen people, but “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Though he has chosen his people, yet he has chosen them unto holiness; he has ordained them to be zealous for good works. His intention is not that they should be saved in their sins, but saved from their sins; not that they should be carried to heaven as they are, but that they should be cleansed and purged from all iniquities, and so made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

Then there is the sublime truth of the final perseverance of the saints. What a noble height is that! A housetop doctrine indeed! What a Pisgah view is to be had from, the summit of it; “The Lord will keep the feet of his saints.” “The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.” It will be a great loss to us if we are unable to enjoy the comfort of this truth, There is no reason, for fearing presumption through a firm conviction of the true believer’s safety. Mark well the battlements which God has builded around the edge of this truth! He has declared that, if these shall fall away, it is impossible “to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” If those who are true saints should altogether lose the life of God that is within their souls, there would remain no other salvation; if the first salvation could have spent itself unavailingly, there would be no alternative, but “a certain looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.” When we read warnings such as, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,” and others of that kind, we see how God has made a parapet around this tower-like truth, so that saints may ascend to its very summit, and look abroad upon the land that floweth with milk and honey, and yet their brains need not whirl, nor shall they fall into presumption and perish.

That wonderful doctrine of justification by faith, which we all hold to be a vital truth, not only of Protestantism but of Christianity itself, is quite as dangerous by itself as the doctrine of election, or the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints; in fact, if a man means to sin, he can break down every bulwark, and turn any doctrine into an apology for transgression. Even the doctrine that God is merciful, simple as that is, may be made into an excuse for sin. To return to the doctrine that we are justified by faith, and not by the works of the law, Luther put it very grandly, very boldly, and for him very properly; but there are some who use his phrases, not in Luther’s way, and without Luther’s reasons for unguarded speaking, and such persons have sometimes done serious damage to men’s souls by not mentioning another truth which is meant to be the battlement to the doctrine of faith, namely, the necessity of sanctification. Where faith is genuine, through the Holy Spirit’s power, it works a cleansing from sin, a hatred of evil, an anxious desire after holiness, and it leads the soul to aspire after the image of God. Faith and holiness are inseparable. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” Good works are to be insisted on, for they have their necessary uses. James never contradicts Paul, after all; it is because we do not understand him, that we fancy he does so. Both the doctrinal Paul and the practical James spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Paul builds the tower, and James puts the battlement around it; Paul conducts us to the summit of God’s house, and bids us rejoice in what we see there; and then James points us to the balustrade that is built up to keep us from overleaping the truth to our own destruction, Thus is each doctrine balanced, bulwarked, and guarded, but time would fail us to enter into detail; let it suffice for us to know that the palace of truth is battlemented with wisdom and prudence.

Take another view of the same thought. The Lord has guarded the position of his saints if endowed with wealth. Some of God’s servants are, in his providence, called to very prosperous conditions in life, and prosperity is fruitful in dangers. It is hard to carry a full cup without a spill. A man may travel on the ground well enough, and yet find it hard work to walk on a high rope. A man may be an excellent servant who would make a bad master; and one may be a good tradesman in a small way who makes a terrible failure of it as a merchant. Yet be well assured that, if God shall call any of you to be prosperous, and give you much of this world’s goods, and place you in an eminent position, he will see to it that grace is given suitable for your station, and affliction needful for your elevation.

The Lord will put battlements round about you, and it is most probable that these will not commend themselves to your carnal nature. You are going on right joyously, everything is “merry as a marriage bell;” but, on a sudden, you are brought to a dead stand. You kick against this hindering disappointment, but it will not move out of your way. You are vexed with it, but there it is. Oh, how anxious you are to go a step farther, and then you think you will be supremely happy; but it is just that perfect happiness so nearly within reach that God will not permit you to attain, for then you would receive your portion in this life, forget your God, and despise the better land. That bodily infirmity, that want of favour with the great, that sick child, that suffering wife, that embarrassing partnership,-any one of these may be the battlement which God has built around your success, lest you should be lifted up with pride, and your soul should not be upright in you. Does not this remark cast a light upon the mystery of many a painful dispensation? “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy Word;” that experience may be read another way, and you may confess, “Had I not been afflicted, I should have gone far astray; but now have I kept thy Word.”

The like prudence is manifested by our Lord towards those whom he has seen fit to place in positions of eminent service. Those who express great concern for prominent ministers, because of their temptations, do well; but they will be even more in the path of duty if they have as much solicitude about themselves. I remember one, whose pride was visible in his very manner, a person unknown, of little service in the church, but as proud of his little badly-ploughed, weedy half acre, as ever a man could be, who informed me very pompously, on more than one occasion, that he trembled lest I should be unduly exalted and puffed up with pride. Now, from his lips, it sounded like comedy, and reminded me of Satan reproving sin. God never honours his servants with success without effectually preventing their grasping the honour of their work. If we are tempted to boast, he soon lays us low. He always whips behind the door at home those whom he most honours in public. You may rest assured that, if God honours you by enabling you to win many souls, you will have many stripes to bear, and stripes you would not like to tell another of, they will be so sharp and humbling. If the Lord loves you, he will never let you be lifted up in his service. We have to feel that we are but just the pen in the Master’s hand; so that, if holiness be written on men’s hearts, the credit will not be ours, but the Holy Spirit must have all the praise; and this our Heavenly Father has effectual means of securing. Do not, therefore, start back from qualifying yourself for the most eminent position, or from occupying it when duty calls. Do not let Satan deprive God’s great cause of your best service through your unholy bashfulness and cowardly retirement. The Lord will give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. If God sets you on the housetop, he will place a battlement round about you. If he makes you to stand on the high places, he will make your feet like hind’s feet, so that you shall not fall. If God commands thee to dash against the enemy single-handed, still, “as thy days, so shall thy strength be.” He will uphold thee and preserve thee; on the pinnacle thou art as secure as in the valley, if Jehovah set thee there.

It is the same with regard to the high places of spiritual enjoyment. Paul was caught up to the third heavens, and he heard words unlawful for a man to utter: this was a very, very high place for Paul’s mind, mighty brain and heart as he had; but then, there was the battlement: “Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.” Paul was not in love with this drawback, he besought the Lord thrice to remove it; but, still, the thorn could not be taken away, for it was necessary as a battlement around the eminent revelations with which God had favoured his apostle. The temptation, if we are at all happy in the Lord, is to grow secure. “My mountain standeth firm,” say we, “I shall never be moved.”

Even much communion with Christ, though in itself sanctifying, may be perverted, through the folly of our flesh, into a cause of self-security; we may even dream that we are brought so near to Christ that common temptations are not likely to assail us, and by these very temptations we may fall. Hence it is that, as sure as ever we have high seasons of enjoyment, we shall sooner or later endure periods of deep depression. Scarcely ever is there a profound calm on the soul’s sea, but a storm is brewing. The sweet day so calm, so bright, shall have its fall, and the dew of the succeeding night shall weep over its departure. The high hill must have its following valley, and the flood-tide must retreat at ebb. Lest the soul should be beguiled to live upon itself, and feed on its frames and feelings, and by neglect of watchfulness fall into presumptuous sins, battlements are set round about all hallowed joys, for which in eternity we shall bless the name of the Lord.

Too many of the Lord’s servants feel as if they were always on the housetop,-always afraid, always full of doubts and fears. They are fearful lest they shall after all perish, and of a thousand things besides. Satan sets up scarecrows to keep these timid birds from feeding upon the wheat which the great Husbandman grows on purpose for them. They scarcely ever reach the assurance of faith. They are stung by “ifs and “buts”, like Israel by the fiery serpents, and they can scarcely get beyond torturing fear, which is as an adder biting their heel. To such we say, Beloved, you shall find, when your faith is weakest, when you are just about to fall, that there is a glorious battlement all around you; a gracious promise, a gentle word of the Holy Spirit shall be brought home to your soul, so that you shall not utterly despair. Have you not felt sometimes that, if it had not been for a choice love-word heard in the past, your faith, must have given up the ghost; or if it had not been for that encouraging sermon which came with such power to your soul, your foot had almost gone, your steps had well-nigh slipped? Now, the infinite love of God, dear child of God, values you far too much to allow you to fall into despair.

“Mid all your fear, and care, and woe,

His Spirit will not let you go.”

Battlemented by eternal grace shall this roof of the house be, and when you are tremblingly pacing it, you shall have no cause for alarm.

From the fact of the Lord’s carefulness over his people, we proceed, by an easy step, to the consideration that, as imitators of God, we should exercise the like tenderness; in a word, we ought to have our houses battlemented.

A man who had no battlement to his house might himself fall from the roof in an unguarded moment. He might be startled in his sleep, and in the dark mistake his way to the stair-head, or, while day-dreaming, his steps might slip. Those who profess to be the children of God should, for their own sakes, see that every care is used to guard themselves against the perils of this tempted life; they should see to it that their house is carefully battlemented. If any ask, “How shall we do it?” we reply:-

Every man ought to examine himself carefully, whether he be in the faith, lest professing too much, taking too much for granted, he should fall and perish. At times, we should close our spiritual warehouse, and take stock; a tradesman who does not like to do that is generally in a bad way. A man, who does not think it wise sometimes to sit down and give half a day, or such time as he can spare, to a solemn stocktaking of his soul, may be afraid that things are not going right with him. Lest we should be after all hypocrites, or self-deceivers; lest, after all, we should not be born again, but should be children of nature, neatly dressed, but not the living children of God, we must prove our own selves whether we be in the faith. Let us protect our souls’ interests with frequent self-examinations.

Better still, and safer by far, go often to the cross, as you think you went at first. Go every day to the cross; still with the empty hand and with the bleeding heart, go and receive everything from Christ, and seek to have your wounds bound up with the healing ointment of his atoning sacrifice. These are the best battlements I can recommend you: self-examination on the one side of the house, and a simple faith in Jesus on the other.

Battlement your soul about well with prayer. Go not out into the world to look upon the face of man till you have seen the face of God. Never rush down from your chamber with such unseemly haste that you have not time to buckle on your helmet, and gird on your breastplate, and your coat of mail.

Be sure and battlement yourself about with much watchfulness, and, especially, watch most the temptation peculiar to your position and disposition. You may not be inclined to be slothful; you may not be fascinated by the silver of Demas into covetousness, and yet you may be beguiled by pleasure. Watch, if you have a hasty temper, lest that should overthrow you; or if yours be a high and haughty spirit, set a double watch to bring that demon down. If you be inclined to indolence, or, on the other hand, if hot passions and evil desires are most likely to attack you, cry to the Strong for strength; and as he who guards well seta a double guard where the wall is weakest, so do you.

There are some respects in which every man should battlement his house by denying himself those indulgences, which might be lawful to others, but which would prove fatal to himself. The individual who knows his weakness to be an appetite for drink should resolve totally to abstain. Every man, I believe, has a particular sin which is a sin to him, but may not be a sin to another. No man’s conscience is to be a judge for another, but let no man violate his conscience. If thou canst not perform a certain act in faith, thou must not do it at all; I mean, if thou dost not honestly and calmly believe it to be right, even if it be right in itself, it becomes wrong to thee. Watch, therefore, watch at all points. Guard yourselves in company, lest you be carried away by the force of numbers: guard yourselves in solitude, lest selfishness and pride creep in. Watch yourselves in poverty, lest you fall into envy of others; and in wealth, lest you become lofty in mind. Oh, that we may all keep our houses well battlemented, lest we fall and grieve the Spirit of God, and bring dishonour on Christ’s name!

As each man ought to battlement his house, in a spiritual sense, with regard to himself, so ought each man to carry out the rule with regard to his family.

Family religion was the strength of Protestantism at first. It was the glory of Puritanism and Nonconformity. In the days of Cromwell, it is said that you might have walked down Cheapside, at a certain hour in the morning, and you would have heard the morning hymn going up from every house all along the street; and at night, if you had glanced inside each home, you would have seen the whole household gathered, and the big Bible opened, and family devotion offered. There is no fear of this land ever becoming Popish if family prayer be maintained; but if family prayer be swept away, farewell to the strength of the church. A man should battlement his house for his children’s sake, for his servants’ sake, for his own sake, by maintaining the ordinance of family prayer. I may not dictate to you whether you should sing, or read, or pray; or whether you should do this every morning or evening, or how many times a-day; I shall leave this to the free Spirit that is in you, but do maintain family religion, and never let the fire on, the altar of God burn low in your habitation.

So in the matter of discipline. If the child shall do everything it chooses to do, if it shall do wrong, and there be no admonition, if there be no chastisement, if the reins be loosely held, if the father altogether neglects to be a priest’ and a king in his house, how can he wonder that his children one by one grow up to break his heart? David had never chastised Absalom, nor Adonijah, and remember what they became; and Eli’s sons, who never had more than a soft word or two from their father, how were his ears made to tingle with the news of God’s judgments upon them! Battlement your houses by godly discipline, see that obedience be maintained, and that sin is not tolerated; so shall your house be holiness unto the Lord, and peace shall dwell therein.

We ought strictly to battlement our houses, as to many things which in this day are tolerated. I am sometimes asked, “May not a Christian subscribe to a lottery? May not a Christian indulge in a game of cards? May not a Christian dance, or attend the opera?” Now, I shall not come down to debate upon the absolute right or wrong of debatable amusements and customs. The fact is that, if professors do not stop till they are certainly in the wrong, they will stop nowhere. It is of little use to go on till you are over the edge of the roof, and then cry, “Halt.” It would be a poof affair for a house to be without a battlement, but to have a network to stop the falling person half-way down; you must stop before you get off the solid standing. There is need to draw the line somewhere, and the line had better be drawn too soon than too late; and whereas the habit of gambling is the very curse of this land,-ah! during the last Derby week, what blood it has shed! how it has brought souls to hell and men to an unripe grave!-as the habit of speculating seems to run through the land, and was doubtless the true cause of the great panic which shook our nation a few years ago, there is the more need that we should not tolerate anything that looks like it.

For another reason, we should carefully discern between places of public amusement. Some that are perfectly harmless, recreative, and instructive,-to deny these to our young people would be foolish; but certain amusements stand on the border ground, between the openly profane and the really harmless. We say, do not go to these; never darken the doors of such places. Why? Because it may be the edge of the house, and though you may not break your neck if you walk along the parapet, yet you are best on this side of the battlement. You are least likely to fall into sin by keeping away, and you cannot afford to run risks. We have all heard the old story of the good woman who required a coachman. Two or three young fellows came to seek for the situation; each of them she saw and catechised alone. The first one had this question put to him, “How near could you drive to danger?” He said, “I do not doubt but that I could drive within a yard of danger.” “Well, well,” the lady said, “you will not do for me.” When the second came in, the good woman questioned him in like manner, “How near could you drive to danger?” “Within a hair’s breath, madam,” said he. “Oh! “she said, “that will not suit me at all.” A third was asked the same question, and he prudently replied, “If you please, madam, that is one of the things I have never tried; I have always tried to drive as far from danger as ever I can.” “You are the coachman for me,” said she; and surely that is the kind of manager we all should have in our households. Oh, let us not so train up our children that in all probability they will run into sin! Let us, on the contrary, exhibit such an example in all things that they may safely follow us. Let us so walk that they may go step by step where we go, and not be cast out of the Church of God as a reproach, nor be cast away from the presence of God. Battlement your houses, then: do not be afraid of being too strict and too Puritanic; there is no fear of that in these days; there is a great deal more danger of bringing solemn judgments on our families through neglecting the worship of God in our households.

The preacher would now remind himself that this church is, as it were, his own house, and that he is bound to battlement it round about.

Many come here, Sabbath after Sabbath, to hear the gospel; the immense number and the constancy of it surprise me. I do not know why the multitudes come and crowd these aisles. When I preached yesterday in Worcestershire, and saw the thronging crowds in every road, I could not help wondering to see them, and the more so because they listened as though I had some novel discovery to make,-they listened with all their ears, and eyes, and mouths. I could but marvel and thank God. Ah! but it is a dreadful thing to remember that so many people hear the gospel, and yet perish under the sound of it. Alas! the gospel becomes to them a savour of death unto death, and there is no lot so terrible as perishing under a pulpit from which the gospel is preached.

Now, what shall I say to prevent any of my hearers falling from this blessed gospel,-falling from the house of mercy,-dashing themselves from the roof of the temple to their ruin? What shall I say to you? I beseech you, do not be hearers only. Do not think that, when you come here Sundays, and Mondays, and Thursdays, it is all done. No, it is only begun then. Praying is the end of preaching, and to be born again is the great matter. It is very little to occupy your seat, except you hearken diligently, with willing hearts; looked upon as an end, sitting at services is a wretched waste of time. Dear hearers, be dissatisfied with yourselves unless ye be doers of the Word. Let your cry go up to God that you may be born again. Rest not till you rest in Jesus.

Remember, and I hope this will be another battlement, that if you hear the gospel, and it is not blessed to you, still it has a power. If the sun of grace does not soften you as it does wax, it will harden you as the sun does clay. If it is not a savour of life unto life, to repeat the text I quoted just now, it will be a savour of death unto death. Oh, do not be blind in the sunlight! Do not perish with hunger in the banqueting-house! Do not die of thirst when the water of life is before you!

Let me remind you of what the result of putting away the gospel will be. You will soon die; you cannot live for ever. In the world to come, what awaits you? What did our Lord say? “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.” The righteous enter into life eternal, but the ungodly suffer punishment everlasting. I will not dwell upon the terrors of the world to come, but let me remind you that they are yours except Christ is yours; death is yours, and judgment is yours, and hell will be yours, and all that dreadful wrath which God means when he says, “Beware, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you.” Oh, run not on in sin, lest you fall into hell! I would fain set up this battlement to stay you from a dreadful and fatal fall.

Once more, remember the love of God in Christ Jesus. I heard, the other day, of a bad boy whom his father had often rebuked and chastened, but the lad grew worse. One day he had been stealing, and his father felt deeply humiliated. He talked to the boy, but his warning made no impression; and when he saw his child, so callous, the good man sat down in his chair, and burst out crying as if his heart would break. The boy stood very indifferent for a time; but, at last, as he saw the tears falling on the floor, and heard his father sobbing, he cried, “Father, don’t; father, don’t do that: what do you cry for, father?” “Ah! my boy,” he said, “I cannot help thinking what will become of you, growing up as you are. You will be a lost man, and the thought of it breaks my heart.” “O father!” he said, “pray don’t cry. I will be better. Only don’t cry, and I will not vex you again.” Under God, that was the means of breaking down the boy’s love of evil, and I hope it led to his salvation. Just like that is Christ to you. He cannot bear to see you die, and he weeps over you, saying, “How often would I have blessed you, and you would not!” Oh, by the tears of Jesus, wept over you in effect when he wept over Jerusalem, turn to him! Let that be a battlement to keep you from ruin.

God bless you, and help you to trust in Jesus, and his shall be the praise! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon.

JOHN 6:1-14; 30-45.

Verses 1-6. After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.

That verse is worth thinking over. How often does Christ seem to ask us riddles, and place us in difficulties, so that we begin to say, “What will come of this? How shall we escape from this temptation; or how shall we stand under this trial?” He himself knows what he will do; and it is a very blessed thing when, our faith being tried, it shows itself to be strong enough to leave the burden with him who can bear it, and to leave the difficulty with him who can meet it: “He himself knew what he would do.”

7. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

That is our way. When our faith is little, we begin calculating the pennyworths that are wanted, and we make them out to be so much more than we possess or can possibly scrape together. That is not faith; it is reason,-poor, dim, shallow reason, which forgets the Infinite, and begins to calculate its own limited and insufficient forces.

8-10. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.

When Christ bids men sit down, he has a dainty carpet for them to sit upon: “There was much grass in the place.” One might have thought that some of those people would have refused to sit down, for it is not everybody who will sit at a table that has nothing on it; but God knows how to move the hearts of men, so these people, if they had not strong faith, yet had faith enough to do as they were bidden; I wish that we all had as much faith as that.

11. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.

“As much as they would.” Note those words, for they are the rule at Christ’s feasts. Of earthly things, he gives us as much as we need; and of heavenly things, as much as we would! “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” “According to your faith be it unto you.”

12, 13. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

“Waste not, want not,” Heavenly economy is to be practised in the things of God. Christ is no niggard, but he is no waster.

14. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle which Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.

They were convinced through their stomachs. They came to this conviction merely through eating and drinking; and that faith which comes by the senses is no faith at all, or it is a sensual faith which cannot save the soul. These people, who came to this belief through eating, were very poor followers of Christ, as he said to them, “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.”

30-32. They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

Jesus did not say to them, “I gave that bread to your fathers in the wilderness,” as he might truly have said. It was not Moses who fed their fathers in the wilderness; it was God who had fed them, and if they would but think, they would clearly see that it was so. But the Master took them on to another tack, and led their thoughts to a higher topic.

33, 34. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

Not knowing the meaning of their own request.

35-39. And Jesus said unto them, I am, the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father’s will-

Many want to pry between the closed leaves of God’s secret purposes, to see what his will is. Now this is it: “This is the Father’s will”-

39-44. Which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:

Note how that doctrine of sovereign grace is used by Christ. He seems to wave it, like a lighted torch, in the faces of his adversaries, as if he said to them, “I did not expect you to understand me; I did not expect you to receive me. Do not think that you surprise me by your action. Imagine not that you frustrate my eternal purposes by rejecting me. I knew that you would not receive me; and that, as you are, you could not come to me; for ‘no man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.’ ”

44, 45. And I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

May we so hear, and so learn of the Father, that we may come to Jesus Christ!

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-533, 546.

N.B.-The foregoing Exposition and Hymns relate to the Sermon to be published on Thursday, August 9th, under the title, “NO. 3,000; or, Come and Welcome;” the 3,000th Sermon by C. H. Bpurgeon to be issued in regular weekly euccession since January, 1855. In order to celebrate this unparalleled literary event, the publishers are offering to send a copy of No. 3,000 free to any address in the world from which a post card is received by Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.C. Special prayer is asked for continued blessing to rest upon the whole series of Sermons, all of which are always kept in stock, and can be supplied in any quantity by the publishers, and all booksellers, oolporburs, &c.