The man, to whom our Saviour addressed this question, had been born blind; but he had been the subject of one of the Master’s mightiest miracles, and was rejoicing in the possession of his newly-found sight. Our Lord is not accustomed to do things by halves; so, having given to this poor man natural sight, he intended also to give him spiritual sight. Having delivered him from the misery of living in this world in darkness, he would also deliver him from the dense darkness that brooded within his soul. Blessed be the name of the Lord, we are never straitened in him, but only in ourselves; and when we receive not, it is either because we ask not, or because we “ask amiss.” Our Lord had given to this man his left hand full of minor mercies, and now he finds him out with his right hand full of yet richer treasures, giving to him exceeding abundantly above what he had asked or even thought.

In order to effect this man’s salvation, our Lord asked him a question upon a most vital point: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” That question I will try to press home upon all my hearers, asking you, dear friends, high and low, rich and poor, old and young, learned and ignorant, to listen to the question, to give it an honest and earnest consideration, and to endeavour, as in the sight of God, to answer it from your inmost heart.

In the first place, the question of the text, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” is a most necessary question.

I believe it is a question which ought to be asked from the pulpit far oftener than it is. I have been frequently pained, in reading sermons, and on the rare occasions when I have had the opportunity of hearing sermons, to note that they have been addressed to the whole congregation just as though all were Christians. It is too much the custom for ministers to address the whole assembly as “brethren”, and to speak to a mixed multitude of men and women as if they all had a part and lot in spiritual things. It seems that, if anywhere, certainly in the pulpit, there should be a wise and constant use of discrimination. The preacher should make his hearers clearly understand that there are some who fear God, and some who fear him not;-some who are still dead in trespasses and sins, and others who are alive unto God through the quickening power of the Holy Spirit. It would be a very wicked thing for me to delude you with the notion that you are all saved, for I cannot help fearing that some of you are not yet saved. The outward lives of some here are quite sufficient evidence that they have never been sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Indeed, I feel sure that I am addressing some who would not venture to claim that they are Christians. They are too honest to do that, for they know that they are strangers to the saving power of the grace of God; and how dare these lips of mine call those the children of God who are, at present, the children of wrath, even as others? How can my tongue pronounce that to be gold which I know is but dress? How can I speak to those of you, who are living, and I fear will die, without a Saviour, as though you had an equal interest in the precious blood of Jesus with those who believe in him?

Further, the Sunday-school teacher must never take this matter for granted with his scholars, any more than the preacher must take it for granted with his hearers. Even when the dear children appear to be favourable to the reception of the truth, to be impressed by the story of the cross, and to have a sort of childish love to Jesus, I think it is still well for us to ask this question over and over again, with tearful earnestness, “Dear child, ‘dost thou believe on the Son of God?’ for, if not, all that pretty talk of thine, and all those hopeful feelings of thine, will bring thee no solid, lasting good. Unless thou believest in Jesus, thou art outside the bounds of the kingdom of grace.”

The people, who need to have this question most plainly put to them, are, probably, those who have had godly parents, and who have been brought up under religious influences. It is an untold blessing to have had godly parents; it is an unspeakable mercy to have been in the habit of attending a place of worship from our childhood; but there are dangers connected with even these blessings. It is not bigotry, it is not a want of Christian charity, it is not censoriousness when we say that there are tens of thousands of people, who have attended the services of the Church of England from their childhood, and who believe that, in their baptism, they were made members of Christ, the children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven; and that, since the bishop’s hands were laid upon them in their confirmation, there is no need to ask them whether they believe on the Son of God. Do they not say, in their Creed, “I believe in God the Father, … and in Jesus Christ, his Son”? To ask such people whether they believe in the Son of God must surely be a piece of impertinence! Yet I venture to say that there are no people in the whole world who need more to be asked that question than they do. And while it is specially so in the Church of England because the Prayer-book helps Episcopalians to imagine that they are Christians when they are not, it is very much the same among Dissenters. Many of you were taken to a place of worship in your mother’s arms; and, therefore, unless you have been privileged to sit under a very honest and faithful ministry, you may be led to conceive that you are the children of God through your godly ancestry, and to imagine that the grace of God runs in your blood, and that you are a Christian because your father was a Christian, and that you ought to join a Christian church because your ancestors, for many generations, have belonged to that church. Beware of a mere ancestral religion, which may be of no more value than the ancestral religion of the Chinese. Do not suppose that you are personally right in the sight of God because you have had a godly mother and father, or godly grandparents. Christ’s message to all who have not been regenerated by the Holy Spirit is, “Ye must be born again.” True religion is personal; it is a thing which concerns each man himself. In the Prayer-book there is some nonsense about a sponsor promising, in a child’s name, that he shall “renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh.” Why, the sponsor cannot promise to do all that for himself, much less can he promise it for the child! No; you must yourselves come to God through Christ, personally make confession to him of your own sins, seek pardon for your own selves, look with your own eyes to Christ upon the cross, and find salvation in him for yourselves. All teaching that is contrary to this is nothing but deception, the invention of priestcraft or of the devil; and may God graciously enable you to escape from its snares!

It also strikes me that this question ought to be frequently asked of all religious professors, and specially of all ministers of the gospel. It is a terribly easy matter to be a minister of the gospel and a vile hypocrite at the same time. My brethren in the ministry, I feel this to be only too true, and I often regret that I am not able to sit in one of those pews yonder, to listen to some faithful brother-minister, who would help me to see myself as I really am in the sight of God, and cause me to tremble before him, lest I should be either self-deceived or a deceiver of others. It is our misfortune that, if we begin to preach without being truly converted, there is little likelihood that we shall ever be converted. This thought makes the pulpit to become a place where our shoes may well be, metaphorically, put off our feet,-a place of trembling, and alarm, and anxiety, for who is to preach to the preacher if he is himself unregenerate? Who shall press upon him the question, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Oh, then, what solemn heart-searchings, what strict self-examinations the preacher should have! How he should lay bare his breast before the all-searching eye of God, implore the inspection of the Infallible, ask to be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, which cannot err, and seek to be judged by almighty wisdom lest, as Paul said, after having preached to others, he himself should be a castaway!

And it is very much the same, I am persuaded, with the deacons and elders of the church. Ah, my brethren, it is a high privilege to be officers of a Christian church; and for many of you I have long thanked God every time I have bowed my knees before him. Yet I must remind you that even you may be deceived, for some like you have been deceived. As I look back, with trembling, over the years of my pastorate in London, I cannot help recalling some who did run well, yet something or someone hindered them, so that they obeyed not the truth. As they turned back, may not any one of you, my brethren, do the same? May not I also go and do likewise? Nothing but the grace of God will prevent such a calamity.

I do not know how to talk with you as I want to do concerning this sad condition of soul. My heart would, if it could, get rid of my tongue, and then it would speak to you something like this:-Did not some of you, at one time, the moment you awoke in the morning, begin communing with God? Were there not red-letter days, when, from morning light to evening shade, you were in fellowship with the Most High? You had your burdens, but you always carried them to Jesus; and you had your joys, but you always shared them with him. You lived for him; your heart was warm towards him; you walked with him in constant communion; but, now, can you really live without even thinking of him? Can you be happy without thinking of your God? Have you a better house than you used to have, and more money. more friends, more of this world’s good things, and do you now forget your God, and go the whole livelong day without any communication between your soul and him? Ah, then, you have indeed gone down in the world, not up; you are getting poorer and poorer; God help you! If you had come to me, and told me that you had lost everything, but that you loved Jesus better, I should have sympathized with you because of your trouble, but I should have congratulated you upon your grace. But now that you have got on so well in the world that you do not love your Lord as you once did, I can only pity you because of your dreadful prosperity, and mourn over the fearful loss which you have experienced.

And as for you who have been members of this church year after year, you who have been baptized into the name of the ever-blessed Trinity, you who have often gathered around your Master’s communion table, permit me to shake you out of the slumbers of your fancied security. If you have taken it for granted that all must be well with you because you are a member of a Christian church, I do beseech you to make diligent search, lest you should be mistaken. I am no advocate of doubts and fears, as you all well know; on the contrary, I delight to extol the blessings of a full assurance of faith; yet, at the same time, I am well aware that it is hardly possible to have too much holy anxiety and sacred suspicion lest we should not be right with God. I do solemnly conjure you, by the living God,-every one of you old professors, you venerable fathers in our Israel, again to put this question of questions to your own heart and conscience, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Have you a real, vital faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, or is it only a mere notion or name, a mere sham to which you are trusting? God grant that we may all answer the question, and answer it honestly, as in his sight, for it is a most necessary question for every one of us to answer.

Secondly, and but briefly, I want to remind you that the question of the text is a remarkably plain question: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

Some people delight to see difficulties even where there are none; they revel in reading the Bible through spectacles of various colours. When you and I read our Bibles, there are certain passages which seem perfectly plain to us; we can understand them without any difficulty. But when these sectaries read the Bible, they find out such novelties, such astounding marvels, such wonderful things that are to happen in the future, that I can only say that, if their interpretation of the Bible be the correct one, it is a strange sort of Bible for God to have given to ordinary Christians like ourselves, for we might have read the Bible through fifty times yet never have found out such mysterious doctrines and practices as these people profess to have discovered there. May God graciously preserve all of you from falling into the snares that are set by these inventors of novelties and absurdities! They are always hunting after some new thing, like the Athenians of old, and they lead away many from the simple truths of the gospel.

But the question in our text is not a difficult or obscure one; it is, as our proverb says, “as plain as a pike-staff,”-“Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Perhaps you would like me to explain to you the doctrine of election; well, I may do that another day. Possibly you would like to hear about the Second Advent, and that also I may tell you, as far as I can, in due time; but just now the question is concerning your soul’s most vital interests. How do you stand in relation to God, and especially in relation to Jesus Christ whom he hath sent to be the propitiation for the sins of all who believe in him? This question is short, simple, plain, pointed: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” That is to say, is Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, acknowledged by thee to be the Son of God? You know that he died in the room, and place, and stead of sinners, and that his sacrifice atoned for the sins of all who trust in him, so that God can be just, and yet the Justifier of all who believe in his Son; so again I ask, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” When we were singing, a little while ago,-

“Jesus our Lord is crucified,”-

didst thou feel that the crucified Christ was thy Lord and Saviour? Didst thou rest thy soul, for time and eternity, upon that blessed Substitute for sinners, Jesus Christ the Son of God, expiring upon the accursed tree? If so, it is well with thy soul; but if not,-if your answer to the question of the text is in the negative, it amounts to this,-“I will not accept the propitiation which God has set forth; the only Saviour, whom God has provided, shall not save me; I will not come unto him that I may have life; I will force my way to heaven by my own works or merits, or else I will go down to hell neglecting his great salvation.” That is the real meaning of thy negative answer; and I ask thee, as an honest man, to do one thing; if that be thine answer, say it to thyself in so many words; or, better still, write it down, and sign it with thy name. If thou meanest to serve Baal, say so. If thou meanest not to have Christ as thy Saviour, say so. Sit down, and write out the reasons why thou rejectest Christ; put them into black and white, that thou mayest see them, and weigh them, as every right-minded man should do when he takes such an extraordinary course. If you think that Christ is not worth having for a Saviour, say, in your own handwriting, “I will not have him; I will not trust him; I will not be saved by him.” If you do that, there will be something done, sad as it will be. But, at any rate, do answer the question of the text, for it is so plain and simple that it deserves a perfectly plain and straightforward answer.

Now, in the third place, and again with great brevity, I want to show you that this is a very personal question: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

You, young man, have been giving away tracts this afternoon; that is a very proper occupation, but “dost thou believe on the Son of God?” You, young woman, have been teaching a class in the Sabbath-school; that is well done on your part, I hope, but “dost thou believe on the Son of God?” You, my brother, have been preaching the gospel, this morning, according to your ability; so far, so good, but “dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Some of us sat, this morning, at the close of the public service, around our Master’s communion table, where we broke bread in his name, as is our wont on the first day of the week; but, my fellow-communicant, “dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Wife, thou hast nothing to do with thy husband in this matter; and, husband, thou and thy wife must be set apart in this instance. For the moment, forget that dear child of thine; hold him on thy knee if thou wilt, but apply not the question to him just now; but answer for thyself, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” That is to say, has thy heart really felt the weight of thine own sin, and hast thou come to Jesus Christ, and given that life-look at the crucified One which brings instantaneous pardon to all who believingly look? “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

Even our own prayers may come to be idols and hindrances to us. We may think that the way of salvation is to pray, which it certainly is not; for the way of salvation is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and to believe on him at once. Unbelieving prayers will leave us as they find us; they cannot yield us any comfort. As it is with the prayers of others, so is it with our own; unless faith in Jesus Christ be mingled with them, they can never be a sweet savour unto God, and they can never bring a blessing to our own souls. What you have to do, dear friend, broken-hearted and cast down, is to look away from yourself, and all your fellow-men, to him whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation for sin. Looking to him brings life to the soul, and the testimony concerning all the saints is this, “They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.” However feeble may be your eyesight, and however dark may be your surroundings,-

“There is life for a look at the Crucified One;”-

and whosoever looketh unto him shall live. Those who were bitten by the serpents in the wilderness were in various stages of poisoning. Some of them, no doubt, had their eyes well-nigh stopped up by the swellings that arose through the bites of the serpents; but, however feeble was the look they gave,-if it was only through the corner of the eye,-if they did but catch a glimpse of the serpent of brass that Moses set upon the pole, as God commanded him, they lived at once. And if, in your case, sin seems to prevent the full exercise of faith, and your consciousness of guilt hinders your belief in Jesus Christ, yet say to him, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” Touch at least the hem of his garment, and you shall find that it is not the measure of your faith, but the measurelessness of his grace, that will bring you the blessing you need. Though your faith is weak, his grace is strong. Though you can scarcely believe in him, all things are possible unto him, and he can cause even your weak faith to be the means of bringing salvation unto you.

Ah, my dear hearers, plainly as I am speaking to you,-and the gaudiness of oratory would be out of place here,-how hard it is to get you to do what I urge you to do! I would fain go down these stairs, and talk to you one by one; but I might fail even with such an expedient as that, and there are far too many of you for me to come round to each one; yet I remember how holy Richard Baxter pleaded with his people, “I would fain come, and kneel down before you, one by one, and say to you, ‘Why will you reject the Saviour? Why will you die? Why will you cast away your souls?’ ” If I cannot do that literally, my spirit shall do it. My hearer, I ask thee, each one, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” This is the question which must be put personally to thee, for thou must die alone, and thou must rise in thine own body, and thou must be judged alone, and if thou will not believe on the Son of God, thou must be condemned alone, thou must personally be cast into hell. There can be no sponsor for thee in the flames of hell, no substitute there to bear thine everlasting woe in thy stead. Thou thyself wilt be cast into hell, if thou remainest an unbeliever; and, therefore, again I ask thee, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

Thus I have shown you that the question of the text is a necessary, plain, personal question.

Now, fourthly, I have to tell you that this question is fundamental: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

This question goes right down to the very foundations of our faith;-the fundamentals, as we most properly call them. I do not think that we are right in asking for answers to very abstruse questions from young people. An aged Christian may be asked many questions concerning his experience, the depth of his sense of inward sin, the height of his enjoyment of fellowship with Christ. These are proper points to be brought before those “who are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” It would be very improper to put questions upon these points to a babe in grace; but it would not be improper to put to a babe in grace the question now before us. I venture to come to any man, who professes to be a Christian, and whether he is illiterate or not, to put to him this question, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

I wish that some of you would put this fundamental question to yourselves, instead of trusting to the nonsense and absurdity in which you sometimes put your trust. Why, to this very day, there are some people, who believe that they are Christians because, as they looked out of the window, they thought to themselves, “If the Lord is gracious to us, we hope the sun will shine upon us;” the sun did shine upon them, and therefore they think that God must be gracious to them! What fools they must be to talk like that! Others have said that, as they were at their work, or in their bed, they thought they heard a voice! Suppose you did, what then? If all the voices in the world were heard by you, I would not give a penny for your religion if you do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Another says, “I had such-and-such a text impressed upon my mind.” If it had been impressed upon your heart by the Holy Spirit, it would have been a different matter. There is a superstitious way of misusing the Bible, of which even Mr. Wesley was guilty when he put a pin into the Scriptures to find out what he ought to do in a certain emergency; I believe that was as wicked as if he had shuffled a pack of cards for the same purpose. God does not guide us in any such way as that. Neither is there any importance to be attached to what you dreamt, or what you heard, or what you saw; the one fundamental question is, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” If you do, and yet you never dreamed a dream in all your life, thank God that you have slept so well, and that you have not been troubled with indigestion, which is a great cause of dreams and visions of the night. If you have never heard mysterious voices, thank God that you have a well-regulated imagination and a well-balanced mind. If you have never had a text that seemed to speak to you like a mysterious incantation, thank God that, when you reverently read the Scripture, it speaks to you as the voice of God, and not as the voice of some witch of Endor, or as the voice of some old Delphic oracle speaking to a superstitious ear. My brother, if thou believest on the Lord Jesus Christ, all is well with thee, so far as thy salvation is concerned. Thou mayest ask thyself, “Am I growing in grace? Am I making such advances as I ought in the divine life?” These questions are right and proper, and deserve to be duly pondered by thee; but if thou believest on the Son of God, thou hast the root of the matter in thee, thou hast the tree of life planted in thy soul, and thou shalt assuredly find a place in the paradise of God. So, ask no further question upon this point, for this is the fundamental question: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

Now, just for a few moments, let me remind you of what you know so well, namely, that this question is all-important.

“Have you made your will?” somebody asks; and that is a very important question to one who has anything to leave. I think that people ought to see to that matter; and there are fifty other questions that might be asked, all of which would have their relative importance; but this is the weightiest question of all: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” How can I put that question, with due solemnity, to each person in this congregation? Dost thou not know, man, that life and death, heaven and hell, and bliss or woe unutterable depend upon thine answer to that short, simple question? If thou believest on Jesus, there are robes of whiteness and tearless eyes for thee; but if thou believest not, there are for thee-

“Flames that no abatement know

Though briny tears for ever flow.”

If thou canst truly say, as thou lookest, by faith, to the precious blood of Jesus, “I am washed in that crimson flood, and I am clean every whit;”-if it be indeed so, then all things are thine, whether things present or things to come, life or death, time or eternity, all are thine, for thou art Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. All is well with thee now, and all shall be well with thee for ever and ever. But, oh! if thou hast to shake thy head, and sorrowfully say, “No, I never was cleansed by Christ’s blood; I never accepted him as my Saviour;” dost thou know what thy portion must be? Come, man; do not close thine eyes, like the silly ostrich, and then think to escape the hunter because thou dost not look upon him. Come man, come; look at the portion that awaits thee. Dost thou start at sight of it? Canst thou see thy dying bed, surrounded with gloom and darkness? Art thou afraid of that? That is a fair sight compared with what I have yet to show thee. There, move away that bed, and let the next scene appear: dost thou see that? What! darest thou not look at it? It is thy naked spirit shivering before the face of God while he pronounces its doom! Doth that affright thee? I have to show thee a more terrible picture by far than that! It is the earth on a blaze; the mountains are reeling to and fro, like drunken men; the stars, like withered fig-leaves, are falling from the sky; the sun is becoming black as sackcloth of hair; and all the while thou art crying to the hills to cover thee, and to the rocks to give thee shelter, for the great day of God’s wrath has come, and thou art unable to endure it. Canst thou not gaze upon that picture? It is what thou wilt come to if thou remainest unsaved. But if thou art afraid of the picture, why art thou not afraid of the dreadful reality, for I have not yet shown you the worst of your doom? I scarcely dare to lift the curtain which hides that dreadful prison of the lost, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;” where the wrath to come, like a mighty ocean, never ceasing in its fiery flow, beats over the guilty for ever and ever, where the fierce tornado of the wrath divine blows upon the lost for ever and ever, leaving them never a restingplace, nor a moment’s cessation from their awful agony. My poor words, which may seem, to some, terrible in their intensity, are feeble compared with the weighty words of the Lord Jesus as recorded in the Gospels; and, therefore, as a man who cares for you, and who fain would have you care for your own immortal souls, I do implore you, each one, to ask your own self this question, “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” If you must honestly answer, “No;” then I ask you, “Will you not believe in Jesus now? Oh, that the Holy Spirit would graciously enable you, this very hour, to trust wholly to that glorious finished work which, on the cross, my Master has concluded once for all, and the merit of which, even in heaven, he delights to bestow upon all the sons and daughters of men who will believe on him.

I feel persuaded, further, that this is a question which can be answered, and which ought to be answered: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

I did not put into “Our Own Hymn Book” the hymn which begins,-

“ ’Tis a point I long to know,

Oft it causes anxious thought,-

Do I love the Lord or no?

Am I his, or am I not?”

I deliberated a good deal about it, and I left it out, not because I doubt whether a Christian may sing it, not because I have not sung it myself, but because I am not quite clear that I ought to ask any congregation to sing it; for I hope that most of those in any ordinary congregation will not be in such a state of mind as that. It is a suitable hymn for one to sing sometimes in private, when one cannot sing anything better; but it would scarcely suit a company of true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. A man may be, and I think sometimes will be in doubt as to whether he really believes in Jesus; but chronic doubt is a sin that is not to be tolerated. Constant questioning as to whether you are saved, or not, is an unhealthy state for any of you to be in; you can tell, and you ought to tell, whether you believe in Christ, or whether you do not believe in him. Faith is, in one sense, the gift of God; but, in another sense, it is a mental act for which we are responsible. God gives us faith, but he does not believe for us. He does not give us faith as we give our children bread; but he, by the gracious operation of his Holy Spirit, makes us willing in the day of his power; and then we will to believe in Jesus, and we do believe in him. Well, then, this being the case, I should think that you can, each one, tell whether you have ever believed in God’s Son as readily as you can tell whether you have ever trembled at God’s Word. One mental act must surely be as much under the cognizance of your inner consciousness as another mental act is.

Besides, you can judge whether you have faith by seeing whether you have its fruits. If you have believed on the Son of God, you have a care about spiritual things which you never had while you were an unbeliever, you are living in a world that is new to you,-in the spiritual realm where God rules by his Spirit;-and you are no longer confined to that which you can see with your eyes, and touch with your fingers. You see, and hear, and feel, and know now a thousand things of which you were formerly utterly unaware. If you have truly trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are “a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” You love what once you hated, and you hate what once you loved. You have altogether new tastes; you would not now find pleasure where once you revelled in it; and the weariness which you formerly felt in the services of God’s house is all gone now, and you find the Sabbath to be a delight, and the company of God’s people to be a foretaste of heaven. Are you, dear friend, at this moment desirous to be obedient to all the Lord’s commandments? Obedience to God is a flower that never grew on nature’s dunghill; it grows only where the Spirit of God has tilled the soil, and planted the root from which it springs. Surely thou knowest whether thou believest in Christ, or not. At any rate, go not to thy bed this night till thou knowest the truth about thy case. Fall not asleep with even the possibility that thou mayest awake in hell. Rest not, man, till thou art for ever safe; sleep not till thou knowest that God is thy Friend, and that Christ is thy Saviour, lest, in the watches of the night, the hair of thy head should stand on end with horror as thou art awakened to find that thy last hour has come, and thou art not prepared to stand before thy Judge!

“How will thy heart endure

The terrors of that day;

When earth and heaven, before his face,

Astonish’d shrink away?”

Now I must come to the conclusion of my discourse, and I do so by saying that this question demands an immediate reply: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?”

Possibly, one of you says, “Well, sir, I will give you my answer when I have a more convenient season.” No, you will not; for you will probably forget all about it unless you give the answer now. Oh, what a lot of hammering and beating the iron of the human heart will stand! I am sure that, if the iron that comes out of the bowels of the earth were half as difficult to soften, and to cast into moulds as the nature of man is, the iron-worker would give up his task as hopeless. Oh, how many times I have tried to preach the gospel to some of you,-not without tears, and not without headaches and heartaches, too,-not without earnest pleadings in secret with God,-not without thinking and planning how I could set the old truth in a new light, and by what means I might enlighten your understandings, or interest your imagination, and capture your heart. But, alas! thus far, with some of you, the hunter has lost his prey, and the fisherman has waited in vain for his fish, and he is bitterly disappointed at his failure. When will the day come when we shall capture you for Christ? What weapon of truth will pierce you who are like leviathan in his pride? When shall we draw you ashore to life, and peace, and holiness, and happiness?

The great mischief with many of you is that you always talk about what you will do to-morrow! Yet there are newly-dug graves every day, and the grave-diggers hide the bodies of your fellows beneath the sod of the cemetery. It is true that, thus far, you have been spared; but are you, therefore, foolish enough to dream that you are immortal? Do you think that there is no tree growing out of which your coffin is to be made? Ah, sirs; some of you will never see another year! This is not a matter of guess-work with me; I know that it is the truth that a certain proportion out of every thousand persons now living must die this year. Everybody knows that, and here we have some six or seven thousand persons gathered together. Well, then, there must be so many of us who must go to the grave within the next twelve months. You know that you are not immortal; you know that you must die sooner or later; and some of you know that, if you were to die now, you would die without hope, for you have not believed in Jesus, and you would be eternally lost. I do beseech you, if you have any wits left, to use them now, and to be startled as I put to you that ancient question, “Why will ye die?” Where is the sense of it? Where is the reason for being damned? Do anything that is reasonable, man, and who can blame you? If you have a good excuse for doing a certain thing, if it pays you well to do it, if it is the right thing to do for your country even though it does not pay you,-go and do it. Cassius did a noble deed when he rode into the chasm in the Forum, and so filled it up, for he did good to Rome; but what good will your damnation do to you or anybody else? What good will it do even to the lost in hell? Even they might wish to keep you out of that dread place of torment, as the rich man wished to warn his brethren; for they would get no good through your ruin. What possible good can ever come to you if you are lost? It will be all hurt, and no good; all loss, and no gain; all wretchedness, and no joy; all darkness, and no light; all hell, and no heaven, for ever and ever. In the name of the living God, I beseech you, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, I implore you to trust Christ, and live. He, who stayed the storm on the Galilean lake, and saved the all-but-shipwrecked crew of the little ship, can stay the waters of wrath that threaten to beat upon your bark, and save you even now. He, who said to the dying thief, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,” can do as much for you. His precious blood still pleads for mercy; his almighty power is still engaged on mercy’s side. O my Master, enable these poor souls to trust in thee! Father, call the prodigal home! Welcome him now; give him the kiss of forgiveness now; clothe him with the best robe now! Spirit of the living God, descend and do what we cannot do; turn hearts of stone to flesh, and to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shall be the praise for ever and ever. Amen.

OUR CHAMPION

A Sermon

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

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

In the year 1864.

“And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron.”-Judges 16:3.

Poor Samson! We cannot say much about him as an example to believers. We must hold him up in two lights,-as a beacon, and as a prodigy. He is a beacon to us all, for he shows us that no strength of body can suffice to deliver from weakness of mind. Here was a man whom no fellow-man could overcome, but he lost his eyes through a woman;-a man mighty enough to rend a lion like a kid, yet, in due time, though himself stronger than a lion, he was bound with fetters of brass. When I think of the infatuation of which Samson was the subject, and remember that we are men of like passions with him, I can only, for myself, put up the prayer, “Lord, hold thou me up, and I shall be safe;” and urge you to do likewise.

And Samson is also a prodigy. He is more a wonder as a believer than he is even as a man. It is marvellous that a man could smite thousands of Philistines with no better weapon than the jaw-bone of a newly-killed ass; but it is still more marvellous that Samson should be a saint, ranked among those illustrious ones saved by faith, though such a sinner. The apostle Paul has put him among the worthies in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and Paul wrote by inspiration; therefore there can be no mistake about the fact that Samson was saved. Indeed, when I see his childlike faith, and note the way in which he dashed against the Philistines, and smote them, hip and thigh, with a great slaughter,-the way in which he cast aside all reckonings and probabilities, and in simple confidence in his God achieved the most tremendous feats of valour,-when I see this, I cannot but wonder and admire.

The Old Testament biographies were never written for our imitation, but they were written for our instruction. Upon this one matter, what a volume of force there is in such lessons! “See,” says God, “what faith can do. Here is a man, full of infirmities, a sorry fool; yet, through his childlike faith, he lives. ’The just shall live by faith.’ He has many sad flaws and failings, but his heart is right towards his God; he does trust in the Lord, and he does give himself up as a man consecrated to his Lord’s service, and, therefore, he is saved.” I look upon Samson’s case as a great wonder, put in Scripture for the encouragement of great sinners. If such a man as Samson, nevertheless, prevails by faith to enter the kingdom of heaven, so shall you and I. Though our characters may have been disfigured by many vices, and we may have committed a multitude of sins, if we can but trust Christ to save us, he will purge us with hyssop, and we shall be clean; he will wash us, and we shall be whiter than snow; and in our death we shall fall asleep in the arms of sovereign mercy to wake up in the likeness of Christ.

But now I am going to leave Samson alone, except as he may furnish us with a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. Samson, like many other Old Testament heroes, was a type of our Lord. He is specially so in this case, and I shall invite you to look at Christ rather than at Samson. First, come and behold our Champion at his work; then, let us go and survey the work when he has accomplished it; and, thirdly, let us enquire what use we can make of the work which he has performed.

Come with me, then, brethren, and look at our mighty Champion at his work.

You remember when our Samson, our Lord Jesus, came down to the Gaza of this world, ’twas love that brought him; love to a most unworthy object, for he loved the sinful church which had gone astray from him many and many a time; yet he came from heaven, and left the ease and delights of his Father’s palace to put himself among the Philistines, the sons of sin and Satan here below.

It was rumoured among men that the Lord of glory was in the world, and straightway they took counsel together how they should slay him. Herod makes a clean sweep of all the children of two years old and under, that he may be sure to slay the newborn Prince. Afterwards, scribes and priests and lawyers hunt and hound him. Satan tempts him in the wilderness, and provokes him when in public. Death also pursues him, for he has marked him as his prey. At last, the time comes when the triple host of the Saviour’s foes has fairly environed him, and shut him in. They have dragged him before Pilate; they have scourged him on the pavement; they drag him to the place called Calvary, while his blood drips upon the stones of Jerusalem’s streets; they pierce his hands and his feet; they lift him up, a spectacle of scorn and suffering; and now, while dying in pangs extreme, and especially when he closes his eyes, and cries out, “It is finished,” sin, Satan, and death all feel that they have the Champion safe. There he lies silently in the tomb. He, who is to bruise the old serpent’s head, is himself bruised. O thou who art the world’s great Deliverer there thou liest, as dead as any stone! Surely thy foes have led thee captive, O thou mighty Samson!

He sleeps; but think not that he is unconscious of what is going on. He knows everything. He sleeps till the proper moment comes, and then our Samson awakes; and what happens now? He is in the tomb, and his foes have set a guard and a seal that they may keep him there. Will any help him now to escape out of their charge? Is there any man who will aid him now? No, there is none! If the Champion escapes, it must be by his own single-handed valour. Will he make a clear way for himself, and come up from the midst of his foes? You know he will, my brethren, for the moment the third day comes, he touches the stone, and it is rolled away. He has defeated death; he has pulled up the posts of the grave, and taken away its gates and bars. As for sin, he treads that beneath his feet: he has utterly o’erthrown it; and Satan, too, lies broken beneath the heel that once was bruised; he has broken the old dragon’s head, and cut his power in pieces for ever. Solitary and alone, his own arm brings salvation unto him, and his righteousness sustains him. Methinks I see him now as he goes up that hill which is before Hebron-the hill of God. He bears upon his shoulders the uplifted gates of the grave,-the tokens of his victory over death and hell. Doors and posts, and bar and all, he bears them up to heaven. In sacred triumph he drags his enemies behind him. Sing to him! Angels, praise him in your hymns! Exalt him, cherubim and seraphim! Our mightier Samson hath gotten to himself the victory, and cleared the road to heaven and eternal life for all his people. You know the story. I have told it ill, but it is the most magnificent of all stories that e’er were told. “Arms, and the man, I sing,” said one of the great classic poets of old; but I can say, “The cross and the Christ, I sing.” ’Tis my delight to tell of him who espoused the cause of his people, and, though for a while a captive, broke the green withs and fetters of brass; and, having gained the victory for himself, liberated others also, then goes, at the head of his emancipated people, along the way which he has opened,-the new way which leadeth to the right hand of God.

Let us go now, dear brethren, and calmly survey the work which Christ has accomplished.

We will stand at the gates of old Gaza, and see what the champion has done. Those are ponderous hinges, and they must have held up huge doors. We will look at these doors, and posts, and this bar. Why, it is a mass of iron that ten men could hardly lift, and it might take fifty more to carry those huge doors. They were scarcely moved, even on their hinges, without the efforts of a dozen men; and yet this one man carried them all, and I read not that his shoulders were bent, or that he grew weary. Seven miles at least Samson carried that tremendous load, up hill all the way, too! Still he bore it all without staggering, nor do I find that he was faint as he was aforetime at Ramath-lehi.

I will not linger upon Samson’s exploits, rather would I lift up your thoughts to the great Captain of our salvation. See what Christ has carried away. I said that he had three enemies. These three beset him, and he has achieved a threefold victory over them.

There was death. My dear friends, Christ, in being first overcame by death, made himself Conqueror over death, and he hath given us also the victory; for, concerning death, we may truly say that Christ has not only opened the gates, but he has taken them away; and not the gates only, but the very posts, and the bar, and all. Christ “hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light.”

He hath abolished it in this sense,-that, in the first place, the curse of death is gone. Believers die, but they do not die for their sins. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” We die, but it is not any longer as a punishment. It is the fruit of sin, but it is not the curse of sin that makes the believer die. To other men, death is a curse; to the believer, I may almost put it among his covenant blessings, for to sleep in Jesus Christ is one of the greatest mercies that the Lord can give to his believing people. The curse of death, then, being taken away, we may say that the posts are pulled up.

Christ has also taken away the after results of death, the soul’s exposure to the second death. Unless Christ had redeemed us, death, indeed, would have been terrible; for it would have been the shore of the great lake of fire. When the wicked die, their punishment at once begins; and when they rise again, at the general resurrection, it is but to receive in their bodies and in their souls the due reward of their sins. The sting of death is the second death,-that which is to come afterwards.

“To die;-to sleep:-

To sleep! perchance, to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come!”

said the world’s poet;-nay, not what “dreams” may come, but what substantial pains, what dread miseries, what everlasting sorrows will come! These are not for Christians. There is no hell for you, believer. Christ has taken away posts, and bar, and all. Death is not to you any longer the gate of torment, but the gate of paradise.

Moreover, Christ has not only taken away the curse, and the after results of death, but from many of us he has taken away even the fear of death. He came on purpose to “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” There are not a few here who could conscientiously say that they do not dread death; nay, but rather look forward to it with joyful expectation. We have become so accustomed to think of our last hours that we die daily; and when the last hour shall arrive, we shall only say, “Our marriage day has come.”

“Welcome, sweet hour of full discharge,

That sets my longing soul at large.”

We shall joyfully hail the summons to mount beyond this land of woes, and sighs, and tears to be present with our God. The fear of death having been taken away, we may truly say that Christ has taken away posts, and bar, and all.

Besides, beloved, there is a sense in which, it may be said that Christians never die at all. Jesus said to Martha, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Saints do not die; they do but-

“Sleep in Jesus, and are blessed.”

But the main sense in which Christ has pulled up the posts of the gates of death is that he has brought in a glorious resurrection. O grave, thou canst not hold thy prisoners; for they must rise! O death, thy troops of worms may seem to devastate that fair land of human flesh and blood; but that body shall rise again blooming with more beauty than that with which it fell asleep. It shall upstart from its bed of dust, and silent clay, to dwell in realms of everlasting day. Conceive the picture if you can! If you have imagination, let the scene now present itself before your eyes. Christ, the greater Samson, sleeping in the dominions of death; death boasting and glorifying itself that now it has conquered the Prince of life; Christ waking, striding to that gate, dashing it aside, taking it upon his shoulders, carrying it away, and saying as he mounts to heaven, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

Another host which Christ had to defeat was the army of sin. Christ had come among sinners, and sins beset him round. Your sins and my sins beleaguered the Saviour till he became their captive. “In him was no sin,” yet sins “compassed him about like bees.” Sin was imputed to him; the sins of all his people stood in his way to keep him as well as them out of heaven. When Christ was on the cross, my brethren, he was looked upon by God as a sinner, though he never had been a sinner; and when in the grave, he could not rise until he was justified. Christ must be justified as well as his people. He was justified not as we are, but by his own act. We are not justified by acts of our own as he was. All the sin of the elect was laid upon Christ; he suffered its full penalty, and so was justified. The token of his justification lay in his resurrection. Christ was justified by rising from the dead, and in him all his people were justified too. I may say, therefore, that all our sins stood in the way of Christ’s resurrection; they were the great iron gate, and they were the bar of brass, that shut him out from heaven. Doubtless, we might have thought that Christ would be a prisoner for ever under the troops of sin; but, oh, see him, my brethren! See how the mighty Conqueror, as he bears our sins “in his own body on the tree,” stands with unbroken bones beneath the enormous load, bearing-

“All that incarnate God could bear,

With strength enough, but none to spare.”

See how he takes those sins of ours upon his shoulders, and carries them right up from his tomb, and hurls them away into the deep abyss of forgetfulness, where, if they be sought for, they shall not be found any more for ever. As for the sins of all God’s people, they are not partly taken away, but they are as clean removed as ever the gates of Gaza were,-posts, gates, bar, and all; that is to say, every sin of God’s people is forgiven.

“There’s pardon for transgressions past,

It matters not how black their cast;

And, oh, my soul, with wonder view,

For sins to come there’s pardon too!”

Every sin that all the elect ever did commit, are now committing, or ever shall commit, was taken away by Christ, taken upon his shoulders in his great atoning sacrifice, and carried away. There is no sin in God’s book against any of his people; he seeth no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity in Israel; they are justified in Christ for ever.

Moreover, as the guilt of sin was taken away, the punishment of sin was consequently taken away too. For the Christian there is no stroke from God’s angry hand; nay, not so much as a single frown of punitive justice. The believer may be chastised by a Father’s hand; but God, the Judge of all, has nothing to say to the Christian, except, “I have absolved thee: thou art acquitted.” For the Christian, there is no hell, no penal death, much less any second death. He is completely freed from all the punishment as well as the guilt of sin, and the power of sin is removed too. It may stand in our way to keep us in perpetual warfare; but, oh, my brethren, sin is to us a conquered foe. There is no sin which a Christian cannot overcome if he will only rely upon his God to enable him to do so. They who wear their white robes in heaven overcame through the blood of the Lamb, and you and I may do the same. There is no lust too mighty, no besetting sin too strongly entrenched; we can drive these Canaanites out; though they have cities walled unto heaven, we can pull their cities down, and overcome them through the power of Christ. Do believe, Christian, that thy sin is virtually a dead thing. It may kick and struggle. There is force enough in it for that, but it is a dead thing. God has written condemnation across its brow. Christ has crucified it, “nailing it to his cross.” Do you go now and bury it for ever, and the Lord help you to live to his praise! Oh, blessed be his name, sin, with the guilt, the power, the shame, the fear, the terror of it, is gone. Christ has taken posts, and bar, and all up to the top of the hill.

Then there was a third enemy, and he also has been destroyed,-that was Satan. Our Saviour’s sufferings were not only an atonement for sin, but they were a conflict with Satan, and a conquest over him. Satan is a defeated foe. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church of Christ, but Christ has prevailed against the gates of hell. As for Satan, the posts, and bar, and all have been plucked up from his citadel in this sense,-that Satan has now no reigning power over believers. He may bark at us like a dog, and he may go about like a roaring lion, but to rend and to devour us are not in his power. There is a chain about the devil’s neck, and he can only go as far as God likes, but no further. He could not tempt Job without first asking God’s leave, and he cannot tempt you without first getting God’s permission. There is a permit needed before the devil dares so much as look on a believer; and so, being under divine permission, he will not be allowed to tempt us above what we are able to bear.

Moreover, the exceeding terror of Satan is also taken away. A Man has met Apollyon foot to foot, and overcome him. That Man in death triumphed over Satan; so may you and I. The prestige of the old enemy is gone. The dragon’s head has been broken, and you and I need not fear to fight with a broken-headed adversary. When I read John Bunyan’s description of Christian’s fight with Apollyon, I am struck with the beauty and truth of the description, but I cannot help thinking, “If Christian had but known how thoroughly Apollyon had been thrashed in days gone by, by his Master, he would have thrown that in his face, and made short work of him.” Never encounter Satan without recollecting that great victory that Christ achieved on the tree. Do not be afraid, Christian, of Satan’s devices or threatenings. Be on your watch-tower against him. Strive against him, but fear him not. Resist him, being bold in the faith, for it is not in his power to keep the feeblest saint out of heaven, for all the gates which he has put up to impede our march have been taken away, posts, and bar, and all, and our God the Lord has gotten to himself the victory over all the hosts of hell.

We will now see how we can use this victory.

Surely there is some comfort here,-comfort for you, dear friend, over yonder. You have a desire to be saved; God has impressed you with a deep sense of sin; the very strongest wish of your soul is that you might have peace with God. But you think there are so many difficulties in the way,-Satan, your sins, and I know not what. Beloved, let me tell thee, in God’s name, there is no difficulty whatever in the way except in thine own heart, for Christ has taken away the gates of Gaza,-posts, bar, and all. Mary Magdalene said to the other Mary, or the women said to one another, when they went to the sepulchre, “Who shall roll us away the stone?” That is what you are saying. And when they came to the place, the stone was rolled away. That is your case, poor troubled conscience; the stone is rolled away. What! you cannot believe it? Here is God’s testimony for it: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” You want an atonement for your sins, do you? “It is finished.” You want someone to speak for you. “He is able to save unto the uttermost, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us.” Canst thou believe in the mercy of God in Christ, and rest thy poor guilty soul upon the merit of his doing and the virtue of his dying? If thou canst, God is reconciled to thee. There may have been great mountains between thee and God, but they are all gone. There may have been the Red Sea of thy sins rolling between thee and thy Father. That Red Sea is dried up. I tell thee, soul, if thou believest in Christ Jesus, not only is there a way of access between thy soul and God, but there is a clear way. You remember, when Christ died, the veil of the temple was rent in twain. There was not a little slit for sinners to creep through, but it was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom, so that big sinners might come, just in the same way as when Samson pulled up gates, posts, bar, and all, there was a clear way out into the country for all who were locked up in the town. Prisoner, the prison doors are open. Captive, loose the bonds on thy neck; be free! I sound the trumpet of jubilee. Bond-slaves, Christ hath redeemed you. Ye who have sold-

“Your heritage for nought,

Shall have it back unbought,

The gift of Jesu’s love.”

The Lord hath anointed his Son Jesus “to preach deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” Trust thou him. May his mercy lead thee to trust him now, for there is really nothing to prevent thy salvation if thou restest in him. Between thy soul and God, I tell thee, there is no dividing wall. “He is our peace, who hath made both one; … and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.” May these precious words be treasured up by such as need them! Some of you need them. May the Spirit of God put them into your hearts, and lay them up there, that you may find comfort in Christ!

But is there not something more here? Is there not here a ground of exhortation to Christians? Brethren, have not some of you been tolerating some sin,-some besetting sin, which you think you cannot overcome? You would be more holy, but the thought that you are not able to overcome it makes your arm nerveless against your own sin. So you think that Christ has left the posts, do you? I tell you, no; “whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.” He that is born of God sinneth not with allowance; he sinneth not with constancy; and it is in his power, with the Holy Spirit’s aid, to overcome his sin; and it is his duty, as well as his privilege, to go to war against the stoutest of his corruptions till he shall tread them under foot. Now, will you believe, brethren, that, in the blood of Christ, and in the water that flowed with it from his side, there is a sovereign virtue to kill your sins? There is nothing standing between you and the pardon of your sins but your unbelief; and if you will but shake that off, you shall march triumphantly through the gate of glory.

Once more, and I have done. Is not this an incentive for us, who profess to be servants of Christ, to go out and fight with the world, and overcome it for Christ? Brethren, where Jesus leads us, it needs not much courage for us to follow. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.” Let us go and take it for him! Nations that sit in darkness shall see a great light. Satan may have locked up the world with bigotry, with idolatry, and with superstition, as with posts and bars, but the kingdom is the Lord’s; and if we will but rouse ourselves to preach the Word, we shall find that the Breaker has gone up before us, and broken and torn away the gates, and posts, and bar, and all; and we have nothing to do but to enjoy an easy victory. God help us to do so!

And now, as we come to the Lord’s table, let us have before us this vision of our glorious Samson achieving his mighty victory; and, while we weep for sin, let us praise his superlative power and love that have wrought such marvels for us. The Lord give us to enjoy his presence at his table, and he shall have the praise! Amen.

Exposition by. C. H. Spurgeon.

PSALM 51.

A psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, and rebuked him, in the name of God, for his great sin with Bath-sheba.

Verse 1. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

This is not a Psalm to be sung to the joyous music of the harp and the viol, but rather to the minor music of sighs, and groans, and tears. You must have the picture of weeping David before your mind’s eye if you would really get to the heart and soul of his language here. There is only one thing on the psalmist’s heart, and that is the consciousness of his great sin, which seemed to swallow up everything else. He feels that he must have that sin forgiven; he cannot rest until he knows that it is pardoned.

Note how he makes his appeal to the lovingkindness and tender mercies of God. A sinner under a sense of sin has a keen eye for the mercy of God, for he knows that there is his only hope, and therefore he looks for it as a mariner at sea looks for a star, and will not allow even one to escape his observation if there be but one visible between the rifts of the clouds. David urges the most powerful plea with God: “According to thy lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”

2. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For he loathes it; it is abominable in his sight, his whole spirit seems sickened at the very recollection of it. He not merely prays, “Wash me,” but “ ‘Wash me throughly.’ Wash me thoroughly, not only from sin, but from the in-equity of it, the wrongdoing of it, that wherein it was essentially sin; and when thou hast washed me, cleanse me, for, perhaps, washing will not be enough; there may need a cleansing by fire. Lord, cleanse me anyhow, only do cleanse me from my sin.”

3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

He had tried to forget it, but he could not, for it haunted him wherever he went. He had put it behind his back, but now it had got in front of his eyes. It seemed as if it were painted on his eye-balls, and he could not see without seeing through his sin. This is how God makes men repent,-how he makes sin to be like gall and wormwood to them.

4. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

David had sinned against a great many others beside God, but the virus, the very poison of the sin, seemed to him to lie in this, that he had sinned against God. The unregenerate usually take no account of that; they care nothing about sinning against God. Offending men, doing some injury to their fellow-creatures, may cause them trouble; but as for offending God, they snap their fingers at that, and count it to be something not worth even thinking of. But when a man is really awakened by divine grace, he sees that sin is an attack upon God, an offence against God’s very nature; and this becomes the heaviest burden to him. Do you know what this experience means, dear friends?

5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

David has got further than seeing sin upon him; he sees that he is himself sinfulness, that his nature, his very being, is steeped and dyed in sin The evil is, not merely that thou hast sinned, but that thou art a sinner. Sin would never come out of thee if it were not in thee. And, oh, what a mine of sin, what a bottomless deep of sin, there is in human nature! No wonder that it bursts forth as it does. As the volcano is but the index of a mighty seething ocean of devouring flame within the bowels of the earth, so any one sin is only a token of far greater sinfulness that seethes and boils within the cauldron of our nature: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

6. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts:

“Alas, O Lord, it is not there! I have looked there, but have seen only sin. It is not truth, but the reverse of truth, that I find in my inward parts. Lord, thou wilt never have what thou desirest to see in me unless thou dost put thy hand to the work.”

6. And in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

Yes, God can teach us. Even those hidden parts which no human teaching can reach, God can touch, and there he can make us to know wisdom.

7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:

“Sprinkle the blood of atonement upon me; give me a sacrificial cleansing, and then I shall be clean.”

7. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

To my mind, this is a wonderful expression of faith; I do not know of any Scripture that seems more full of holy confidence than this is. David had such a deep sense of his sinfulness that it was a wonderful thing that he should have, side by side with it, such a perfect confidence in the power of God to cleanse him. It is easy enough to say, “I shall be whiter than snow,” when we do not realize what scarlet sinners we are; but when the crimson is before us, and we are startled by it, it requires a real and living faith to be able to say to God, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

8. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

God has a way of making our sins come home to us like the blows of great bonebreaking hammers. I suppose that no pain can be much worse than that of a broken bone, but God can make the pain of sin in the conscience to be as continuous and as intense as that of broken bones; and then, blessed be his name, he knows how to heal the bones which he has broken, and to make each broken bone to sing and rejoice. Whereas it groaned before, he can give it a new power, and make that very bone to be a mouth out of which shall come praise to God.

9. Hide thy face from my sins,

“Lord, look no more at them. Do not hide thy face from me, but hide it from my sins.”

“O thou that hear’st when sinners cry,

Though all my crimes before thee lie,

Behold them not with angry look,

But blot their memory from thy book!”

9. And blot out all mine iniquities.

“Do not let them be recorded any longer, O Lord! Run thy pen through them; let them not stand against me in thy books of remembrance!”

10. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Here the truly quickened man speaks. It is not salvation from punishment he asks for, but salvation from the power of sin. He wants a new heart. He wants to have removed from him the defiling power of sin over his affections; “ ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God.’ It will need the Creator to do it. Only the God who made the world can make me what I ought to be. Great Creator, put thy hand to this work: ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.’ ”

11. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

“O Lord, do not thrust me into a dungeon, and say, ‘Thou shalt never be a favoured child of mine again.’ ‘Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.’ That I should dread beyond everything else.”

12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

“Lord, I shall slip again unless thou dost hold me up; and, since thou canst not trust thy little child by himself, come and teach me how to walk.”

13. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

“If thou wilt but teach me, and save me, and cleanse me, then I will tell to others what great things thou hast done for me. I will tell out the story of thy love that others also may prove its power.”

14. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

This was a wonderful prayer, but it was not wonderful that David should get relief when he called his sin by its right name. Another man, in his place, might have said, “I did not kill Uriah. It is true that I had him put where he was likely to be slain, but then the sword devoureth one as well as another.” That was the way that David did hypocritically talk at first; but now that his conscience has been aroused, he confesses that he is a murderer: “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God.”

15, 16. O Lord open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

How wonderfully a true sense of sin puts a man on the track of Evangelical doctrine; David could see that sin was too grievous a thing for the blood of sheep and bullocks to wash it away; and though he did not despise the ritual which God had ordained, he looked beyond it to something greater and better of which it was but a type.

17, 18. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

This is a blessed end to David’s mournful Psalm. He felt that his sin had a tendency to do injury to the Church of God,-that he had, in fact, pulled down the towers of Zion by his iniquity, so he prays “Build thou the walls of Jerusalem.”

19. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.