The Amorites had indulged in the most degrading sin. God had observed this, but he did not at once execute vengeance upon them. He had determined that, as a nation, they should be destroyed and rooted out from under heaven, and that their land should be given to the seed of Abraham; but he tells Abraham that his seed must wait for it, for as yet the Amorites had not filled up the measure of their iniquity. It would take four hundred years and more, during all which time God’s patience would wait while these Amorites continued to heap sin upon sin, iniquity upon iniquity, until they reached a certain point, and then God would bear with them no longer. When the Lord uttered the words of our text, the Amorites had not come up to that fatal point, and therefore he did not at once mete out their punishment to them, for the measure of their iniquity was not yet full.

It is a well-known truth that God has great longsuffering, but that there is a point beyond which even his longsuffering will not go. It has been so in the great judgments of God in the world. Before the days of Noah, men had revolted from God; but Noah was sent to them as a preacher of righteousness, and he did preach, and the Spirit of God was with him; yet, for all that, the antediluvian world turned not from its sin; and when the 120 years had expired,-but not till then,-God opened the windows of heaven, and down came the deluge which destroyed the whole race with the exception of the eight souls who were preserved in the ark.* Those old-world sinners had had 120 years for repentance, and 120 years of earnest, faithful warning from holy Noah; and not till all those years had expired did God’s patience come to an end, and his judgments begin.

Remember also the case of the children of Israel in the wilderness. They were a rebellious people, constantly revolting, often murmuring, at one time setting up a golden calf in the place of the one living and true God, yet the Lord had long patience with them. His anger did sometimes wax hot against them, but Moses came in between them as a mediator, and God still postponed the punishment of his wayward people; but, at last, it seemed as though he could bear with them no longer, so he sware in his wrath, “They shall not enter into my rest;” and their carcases fell in the wilderness till the track of Israel through the desert could be marked by the graves of the unbelieving nation, and there were funerals every day. It was this sad fact that caused Moses so mournfully to sing, in the 90th Psalm, “Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon out off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.” Not a man of all that generation, save only Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, was permitted to enter the promised land.

You will also at once call to mind the history of the two nations of Israel and Judah in later years. They provoked the Lord exceedingly, and their land was therefore invaded by their enemies, and many of the people and their rulers were carried into captivity. But God did not cast off his people, nor expatriate them from their highly-favoured land till, by degrees, they had reached the climax of rebellion and idolatry, and then he delivered the chosen nations into the hand of their cruel adversaries. Israel was swept clean as a man’s threshing-floor when he hath purged it; and as for the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, they ceased any longer to dwell by the vine-covered hills of their own dear land, for they were carried away into captivity by the rivers of Babylon, where they wept when they remembered Zion. God is indeed longsuffering, but there is an end even to his longsuffering. The Jews in our Lord’s day, and especially the scribes and Pharisees, were so obstinate and perverse that, at last, our Saviour said to them, “Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.” He had borne long with them, and he still pleaded with them, and wept over them; but, at last, the nation, as a nation, was given up to blindness and hardness of heart, the beautiful city of Jerusalem was destroyed, and not one stone of the temple was left upon another.

I might, if it were necessary, say that a similar experience has befallen all the great nations of the earth, for all of them have been greatly sinful. The Crimes of the Assyrian king and people brought that mighty empire to an inglorious end. Babylon sank, not so much beneath the power of the Medes and Persians as beneath the sins of Belshazzar and his blasphemous princes and lords and ladies; and the Persian Empire, in its turn, passed not away because of Alexander’s valour so much as because the Medes and Persians were corrupt in the sight of the Lord. So was it with Greece,-her idolatries and her filthinesses brought upon her the ruin which makes her at once the admiration of all lands for her artistic beauty and the detestation of all lands for her festering corruption and iniquity. As for the Roman Empire,-who that reads the history of her rise and fall but knows that, long before the city of Rome began to crumble and decay, her virtue had departed, her ancient valour had declined, licentiousness had reached an awful pitch; and then the word of the Lord went forth that the iniquitous empire should be swept away? I might give modern instances of the working of the same law, but I shall not. Certain is it that God has long patience with the various nations and tribes of men that keep on sinning against him; but, at last, he utters that mysterious prophetic sentence (Isaiah 34:5), “My sword shall be bathed in heaven;” and then, woe be unto the men or the nations whom he smites, “for it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion.”

When we speak of this great law of God as it operates on a large scale among nations, many will admit the truth of it; but they are not so willing to admit the truth of it so far as it concerns themselves. I intend, therefore, to confine myself, in this discourse, to the great principle of my text as it can be applied to individuals. There is a fulness of the iniquity of every sinner in these days, just as there was a fulness of the iniquity of the Amorites in ancient times; and I will try to prove to you, first, that there is a time when the measure of a sinner’s iniquity is not yet full; secondly, that the measure of his iniquity is constantly being filled; and, thirdly, that the measure will soon be full; and I want you all solemnly and seriously to consider the question,-What will happen then?

First, then, there is a time when the measure of a sinner’s iniquity is not yet full.

There is a measure for all iniquity, and every iniquity is put into that measure. Flatter not yourself, sinner, with the false and foolish notion that your sin is forgotten. You may possibly forget it, but God never forgets. You may keep no record of your transgressions, but God’s recording angel does not fail to write them in his book of remembrance, and to grave them as “with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever,” as Job said concerning the preservation of his own words. All those sins of yours, the sins of your youth and of your manhood, are registered in God’s book. You shut your eyes, and-like the ostrich that has buried its head in the sand, and therefore thinks itself secure because it cannot see the danger that threatens it,-you delude yourself with the notion that, because you have forgotten your sin, it has ceased to be; but it is not so. Though you should seek to hide your sins in a cleft among the snow on the top of the Himalayas, Jehovah would speedily bring them down from those lofty heights, and though you should attempt to bury them in the depths of the Atlantic, God would bring them up from the lowest ocean bed. Sin is an everlasting thing,-unless it is put away by God himself, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake;-no grave in the world can hide it; no earthly sepulchre can conceal it from the all-seeing eye of Jehovah. If buried for a while, there will be a resurrection of sin as well as of sinners; and what a dread procession of sin, iniquity, unrighteousness, and transgression shall slowly march before your newly-awakened eye, O unrepentant and unforgiven sinner, when your iniquities shall rise up in judgment against you to condemn you!

Thus I have reminded you that there is a measure for all iniquity; but, happily, that measure is not yet full. That was a very remarkable vision that was seen by the prophet Zechariah, “a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.” And the angel said, “This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah;” so that evidently the measure had not been full; and it is still true that there is a time when a sinner’s measure of iniquity is “not yet full.” Let me, however, also remind you that it is only God’s infinite mercy that permits a sinner to continue to live after he has committed even one sin. There is no reason why, upon the basis of infallible justice, a man should be allowed to sin up to a certain point. A single sin is the transgression of the law of God; it is high treason against “the King eternal, immortal, invisible,” and deserves to be punished. However much or however little we may have sinned, “every transgression and disobedience” ought to receive “a just recompence of reward,” as in the days of which Paul wrote to the Hebrews. Apart from the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is not one sinner living in the whole world who could stand before God. It is not justice, but boundless compassion and infinite pity which put a measure to man’s iniquity, and allow him to live on until he has reached that point, for sin is death-worthy, in every case, and in any degree,-so saith the Word of the Lord.

I must also remark that, when we say that some sinners have not filled their measure of iniquity, it must not be imagined that the same measure of sin is to be filled up by every sinner. The measures differ; but when any man has filled his own measure, be it a large one or a small one, then will God come to him in his wrath, and punish him in his hot displeasure. Some great offenders, like Pharaoh and Judas, fill up a huge measure of transgression; some others, cut off in their earlier days, spend a hot and hasty manhood in sin, and go to their doom before they have committed any notorious offences against mankind in general. The measures differ in size; but, still, in each case, it gets filled sooner or later; and them, woe, woe, woe, unto the man whose measure of iniquity is full! It is through God’s longsuffering that we are able to tell you this solemn truth. I have reminded you already that, if it were not for his longsuffering patience, there would not be such a point for sinners to reach, but their first sin would bring the crushing, final, fatal blow from the hand of divine justice. It is God’s longsuffering that gives men space for repentance, that presents to them, under the gospel dispensation, the proclamations of mercy, that pleads with them to turn from their sins, and to lay hold on eternal life.

Because of this, does anyone here wickedly say that, as his particular measure is not yet full, he may still go on in sin? Ah, my friend, you know not how small your measure may be, nor how soon it may be full. But suppose it is a great measure which is to be filled by you, then the longer it is in getting filled, the heavier it will be when it is filled, and the more terrible will be your eternal doom. Little comfort can any man ever derive from the fact that he is permitted to live long in sin, for he will have to endure for ever the heavier punishment for the greater measure of guilt. Beware, beware, beware, ye who would draw the wrong kind of consolation from the subject we are now considering; for there is no consolation in it for the wilfully wicked, but only sorrow, and fear, and trembling of heart. Here we sit or stand together, in this house of prayer, some of us saved by the sovereign grace of God, and others, sitting side by side with us, only here because the measure of their iniquity is not yet full. Here is one who is forty years of age, but his measure is not yet full; he shall live another year. Over there is one who is sixty years of age, but his measure of iniquity is not yet full; he shall see yet another decade of years. Yonder is one who is seventy, and even his measure is not yet full; but it soon will be! Ah, and how short is the span of human life even when it is longest; and as I have already said, the heavier the sinner’s measure that takes so long to get filled, the more overwhelming shall be the punishment that shall be meted out to such a sinner in the great day of account.

When I have such a solemn theme as this, my words cannot flow freely from my lips. I wish that I could speak out the inmost emotions of my heart without even using my tongue, for my words fail to convey to you what I feel in the deepest recesses of my being. O impenitent sinner, it is so sad to think that you are only sitting here because the measure of your iniquity is not yet full. If there were half-a-dozen persons together in a room, and one of them was only there because the hour fixed for his execution had not yet come, I think that you would not take any particular interest in the other five individuals, whoever they might be, but all your thoughts would centre upon that one man, of whom you would say to yourself, sadly and sorrowfully, “He has been judged according to the law of the land, the death-sentence has been pronounced upon him, and he is only spared because the clock has not yet struck, and the bell has not yet tolled for him to go out to execution.” You unbelievers are, according to God’s Word, “condemned already” because you have “not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” Christians, do you know that such condemned persons are here, and have you no bowels of compassion for them? Children of God, do you know that some of your own sons and daughters are in this terrible position, and yet have you no tears to shed on their account? O preacher, canst thou stand here, and talk so coldly upon such a theme as this when words of flame would be all too cold to express the horror* that should fill thy soul in view of such an assembly as this? Oh, that we had tenderer hearts! For then should we more deeply pity those poor sinning souls whose iniquity is not yet full.

With a heavy heart, I must turn to my second point, which is, that, in the case of every unconverted sinner, the measure of his iniquity is constantly being filled.

Every sin that he commits helps to fill up the measure of his iniquity, and there is nothing that he can do without sin being mixed with it. Solomon says that “the ploughing of the wicked is sin;” that is to say, even his common actions, in performing the ordinary avocations of his daily life, bring sin upon him. Solomon also said, “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord;” so that even when he pretends to do that which is right in the case of a Christian, he is still heaping up sin, filling up the measure of his iniquity.

There are some persons who fill up their measure very quickly: wanton, dissolute, depraved sinners, they seem as if they could not heap up iniquity fast enough. They are so greedy that, with both hands, they labour to fill up the measure; they run, as Peter says, “to the excess of riot,” with body and with soul, apparently determined to go post haste to hell; and if anything can be found by which they can quicken their speed to destruction, they seek it out, and seem to prize it. Is it not strange that it should be so? Yet, in London, and I suppose it is the same elsewhere, anyone who walks along the streets, for a little while, will soon see evidences of the fact that there are many persons, to whom the usual methods of going to destruction seem to be all too slow. I trust that, if there are any young men here, who are thus rapidly filling up their measure of iniquity, they will stop and think. My friend, your candle will burn fast enough without your lighting it at both ends; you will ruin yourself fast enough without needing to heap up sin upon sin by becoming a drunkard and a gambler as well as profane and unchaste. O man, why art thou so diligent to be thine own destroyer?

“Sinner, oh why so thoughtless grown?

Why in such dreadful haste to die?

Daring to leap to worlds unknown,

Heedless against thy God to fly.”

Perhaps, among the sins that fill up a man’s measure very quickly, one of the chief is persecution of God’s people. A man will bear many insults and even much injury to himself; but if you touch his children, then the colour comes into his face, and he is swift to avenge the wrong that has been done to them. So is it in the case of God’s children and their Father. He said to Zion in Babylon, “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.” If you want to be damned out of hand, become a persecutor of the saints, for that is the quickest way to perdition. When holy Wishart was chained to the stake, he pointed to the cardinal who was gloating over the spectacle, and told him that God’s wrath would shortly fall upon him, and so it came to pass, for God avengeth his own elect, and sometimes does it very speedily. The sin of persecuting the Church of God is one which, perhaps more than any other, helps to fill up the measure of a sinner’s iniquity.

Another sin of a similar character is that of attending gospel ordinances, and yet despising them. The Lord will deal more leniently with those who are ignorant of the gospel, and have no opportunity of hearing it, than he will deal with you to whom the gospel has long been familiar as a household word, yet in whom familiarity with it has only bred contempt. Christ has been knocking at the door of some of your hearts for many years. I can personally bear witness that the message of salvation has come to you in many forms and various ways. I have searched the Word of God with the view of finding the most impressive texts, and I have prayed to God to guide me to subjects which might savingly affect you. These topics have often affected my own heart while I have been preparing for the pulpit; yet, so far, they have not affected your hearts, or not sufficiently to lead you to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Depend upon it, you sermon-hearers are bringing a curse upon yourselves by despising and refusing the blessing which has so long been made known to you in vain. God may well say, “I will not always send my servant to preach to those who judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life. Why should I cast my gospel pearls before such swinish creatures? Why should I continue to call to those who will not heed my voice?” Well may he say, as he did of old, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh.” It is no small sin to have heard the gospel, and yet to have rejected it. You know how our Saviour upbraided the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackoloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.”

It is another great help in filling up the measure of iniquity when a man has had serious personal affliction, yet it has not softened, but rather has hardened him. You, my friend, were laid low a little while ago. Was it a malignant fever, or some other dangerous disease that you had? Your relatives said, “He cannot recover;” and you turned your face to the wall, in the bitterness of your spirit, for you feared that you would die, and you knew that you were unprepared to meet your God. You were glad enough if somebody would pray with you then; and, after a fashion, you shuffled into some sort of prayer of your own, and you promised what you would do if the Lord would spare your forfeited life. But where are your good resolutions now? There are some of you, who used to be Sabbath-breakers; and when, you were likely to die, you said, “If God will but spare me, the shop shall be closed on his holy day.” Yet you have opened it again though he did spare you. You were a drunkard up to the time of your great illness, but you said, “If God will spare my life, I will never touch the intoxicating cup again.” God did spare your life, yet you are as abject a slave of drink as ever you were, and you have proved yourself to be a liar in the sight of God. Young man, you got into a sad trouble once; but God, by a very special providential deliverance, helped you out of it, and you then said, “I will walk more guardedly for the future.” Yet you have gone back to the same sin, as the dog turns to his own vomit again, “and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” But God will not waste his pains on you much longer. A husbandman ploughs his field, and if it brings forth no harvest, he may plough it again; but he will not always go on ploughing a field that is as barren as a rock.* A gardener may come to a fig-tree, and if it bears no fruit, he may prune it, and dig about it, and dung it, but he will not go on doing that year after year; and he will at last say, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” And it must be so with you if you still remain impenitent after all God’s dealings with you. By refusing to heed God’s warning message which came to you in the chamber of affliction, by forgetting the gentle pressure of God’s hand of mercy which raised you up to health and strength again, you are helping to fill up the measure of your iniquity.

And let me further say that,-and I know that my words will go home to some here,-when a man has been subject to convictions,-whether those convictions may be set down to an alarmed conscience, or to what I may call the secondary operations of God’s Holy Spirit, I will not say;-but, when a man has been the subject of these convictions, and has stifled them, it greatly adds to the measure of his guilt. The other night, a young man was in the street, and a temptation was set before him, and he knew it to be a temptation. He stood still a while, and thought within himself, “I know that this is a wrong thing for me to do. It would break my mother’s heart if she knew that I committed this sin; and as for my father, I should never dare to look him in the face again if he knew that I had done this; and, besides, I am an attendant at a place of worship, and I know that this is an evil thing, and that it might be my eternal ruin.” Now, after that young man had weighed the matter, if he had deliberately chosen to commit that sin, there would have been ten times the guilt in it that there might have been in the case of another who was overtaken unawares by sudden temptation, and had no time to consider what was the right thing for him to do. In proportion to the violence that a man has to do to himself in order to commit a certain transgression, the measure of his guilt may be estimated. I believe there are people here, who, on many occasions, have sat and trembled at the Word of the Lord, and have been softened in spirit till they have wept in silence, and sometimes openly; and they have whispered to themselves, “We really will seek the great change; we will cry to God for help that we may repent of sin, and believe in Jesus, as the preacher urges us,” But, on those steps outside, they have met with some worldly companion, and while talking with him, all their good resolutions have melted away; and the sinner, who seemed to be impressed, remains a sinner still; the one, who appeared to be awakened a month ago, is now a drunkard; and the conscience, that was thought to be getting tender six months ago, is fast becoming as hard as the nether millstone. These are dreadful facts, but they all go to show that a man may be, even in the house of prayer, and under the means of grace, continually filling up the measure of his iniquity. These are terrible truths for me to have to preach, but it is needful for them to be told; may you all feel the force of them, and may God thus drive you to seek shelter in his Son, who died upon the cross of Calvary, “the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.”

My third point is, that the measure of iniquity will one day be full.

It will take time to fill it, but it will be filled in due time; and, at the rate at which some men go in sinning, they will soon fill up the measure of their transgression. The tares are green, and God will not have them cut down yet, for he lets even the tares ripen. He allows even the poisonous fruit of evil to hang on the tree till it grows mellow, and then it drops with its own weight. But the tares will ripen, and the evil fruit will become mellow, and then will their end come; and it will take time for you, sinners, to ripen in sin; but you will ripen, and then you will be shaken from the tree, and this life shall know you no more.

I want you unconverted ones to think, for a minute or two, how nearly full your measure probably is even now. Begin with your early childhood, and think over your many acts of wilful disobedience and sin. I cannot trace your whole career, but let me remind you of your early manhood. Is there nothing for you to be ashamed of, and nothing for you to repent of there? I am sure that there are some here who cannot think of that period of life without blushing for very shame. Then think of the later days of your riper manhood. O sirs, what heaps of sin are there! The measure of your iniquity must be nearly full. Do not forget, too, that we are usually very bad judges of our real state in the sight of God. The probability is, that the measure of our iniquity is a great deal fuller than we think it is. I hope none of you were ever bankrupts; but if you ever were insolvent, I expect that, when you came actually to look into your books, you found that you were much more deeply in debt than you ever thought that you were. It is a common thing for men, who are in an unsound state in their business, to fancy that their position is better than a rigid examination proves it to be; and I believe it is so, in spiritual things, with many of you. Take care, take care. You suppose that only the bottom of the measure is full as yet; but the recording angel sees that your iniquity is nearly up to the top. It is a very mournful reflection, dear friends, that there may be some here, and that there probably are some here, who have only to commit one more sin to fill up the measure of their iniquity! One more lie, and the measure is full! One more lascivious song, and it is full. One more act of theft, one more drunken bout, and it is full! I have known some people come here,-and perhaps some such are here now,-who have had delirium tremens! It is a wonder that they were not cast into hell then,-a marvel of mercy that they were spared a little longer. But the next time that happens to you, sir, it may be a delirium that will never have an end. The next time you put that poison cup to your lips, and dare to drink till you are drunken, you will drink yourself into eternal damnation. O beware, beware, beware! It is not merely a man who speaks thus to you, there is a warning voice from heaven which is speaking to some people here through my lips. Stop, sir; for, if you take only one step more, you will be plunged in eternal ruin! Do you ask what concern it is of mine whether you are lost or saved? It is just so much my concern that, as I would, if I could, save your temporal life if I saw you in danger, much more would I desire to point out to you the danger of your immortal soul, that you may, by God’s infinite grace, be saved from spiritual and everlasting ruin.

All this while, there is one very sad but most true reflection that I must mention to you. It is this, while the unconverted are ever putting the more sin into the measure, it is not in their power to take out anything that is already in the measure. I can fill the ephah of my transgression, but I cannot empty it, and I cannot even diminish it. Somebody says to me, “Suppose, sir, that I never sin again?” Well, what then? Even if you get no further into debt, that will not pay off the old score. “Then, sir, what shall we do? Shall we stand here, and weep over our sins;-will not our tears wash them out?” No, though you shed a Niagara of penitential tears, there is no power in them to blot out a single sin. “But what if we perform many good works?” No, though you could fill an Atlantic with your good works, you would not have washed out the crimson stain of even one of your innumerable transgressions. No, you cannot take one sin out of the measure, though you can keep on putting in sin upon sin, sin upon sin, and so the measure is being filled, and it must soon be full.

I was reading in the New Testament, the other night, and there were half-a-dozen words that impressed me with peculiar force. I think they are, on the whole, as dreadful as any words that ever were spoken. I may venture to say that even the Scripture itself contains no more terrible words than these which I am about to quote to you; yet they were spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the loving, tender, gentle Jesus, who called the little children to him. They are recorded in the 8th chapter of John’s Gospel, at the 21st verse; and then, as though one thunder-clap must follow another, they are repeated in the 24th verse. These are the words,-

“Ye shall die in your sins.”

Hear them again: “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” I heard of a man who died in a ditch; but that is nothing compared with dying in the ditch of your sins! I heard of one who fell down dead in the street; but what is that compared with dying in sin? Some die starved; but that is nothing to dying in sin! Near my house, the other day, there was one who sat down to eat, and some coals from a fire flew out, and caught her clothes; the people around tore her clothes from her back, but she was so burnt that she died; but the flames of sin are worse than coals of fire. “Ye shall die in your sins.” I have no choice as to how or where I shall die except in this one respect,-that I may never die in sin, with iniquity, like the fabled poisoned shirt, killing its unhappy wearer. He tried to tear it off, and even tore away his flesh, but the poison burnt into his bones; but it is worse than that to die in sin. Man, you must die in your sins if you continue to live in them! You cannot escape from the consequences of sin if you keep following in the pursuit of sin. Work, and you shall have your wages; and “the wages of sin is death.” Sow, and you shall reap your harvest; and if you sow to the flesh, you must and shall of the flesh reap corruption. I pray God that none of you may ever know, in your own persons, the full meaning of those awful words of the Saviour, “Ye shall die in your sins.” If ye believe not,-

“YE SHALL DIE IN YOUR SINS.”

But I cannot send you away like this, although yonder clock has struck the usual hour for closing the service. Thank God that no clock has struck to forbid me to proclaim the tidings of mercy as long as men are yet in this world. I told you that you could not take any sin out of that measure, and most truly did I speak; but let me whisper in your ears that there is One, the ever-blessed Son of God, who can empty it. He can take the measure of your sin, just as it is, and not merely take out a little, but he can take it all, and put it on his own shoulders, and carry it right away, and hurl it into his own sepulchre where it shall be buried so deep that even the eye of God himself shall never see it again. “Oh, would to God,” says one, “that he would do that with my sins!” Sir, he will do it with thy sins, now, at this moment, if thou believest on him. “Believest on him?” asks one; “I believe that he is the Son of God, and the Saviour of men.” Go further then, and trust him as thine own Saviour. Give up thy sins, give up thy self-reliance, and cast thyself into those dear arms that were out-stretched upon the cross that great sinners might be folded in them, and find eternal shelter there.

“There is life for a look at the Crucfied One;

There is life at this moment for thee,”-

if thou wilt but look unto him. May God’s gracious Spirit enable thee now to look away from self to his great substitutionary sacrifice, to the full atonement he made, to the utmost ransom that he paid! Close thou in with Christ, and the measure of thine iniquity shall be emptied out.

But remember that, if Christ be not received, there is no other hope of salvation; and what is more, after this night, there may not even be another proclamation of the way of salvation for some of you. I do not know when I am more pained than when I have to go to visit young men who are dying, perhaps of consumption, and without hope; it is dreadful work to try to set forth the gospel to them. I sometimes feel as if I must proclaim the law, though they are so sick and weak. And, sometimes, the mother stands beside the bed, and weeps, and says, “Ah, I have prayed for him many times; but, oh, that I knew that he was saved!” Then she says to me, on the stairs, “I could give him up, sir, though I love the dear boy,-I could give him up without a sigh; but, oh, it breaks my heart to think that he is dying without a Saviour!” Yes, and every Christian ought to feel the same, in his measure, about every sinner. It is a trying thing to me, when I am walking in the street, to see an accident; I feel as if my heart were in my mouth at once. If I were in a railway accident, and saw somebody killed, I do not think I should be able to hold up my head for days. But, oh, to know that some of you are losing your souls, and that you are every day getting nearer and nearer to your eternal doom! “Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?” I often wonder why some of you come to hear me as you do; it puzzles me, for I see no reason why you should do so. I offer you no amusement, I tell you no droll stories; but I seek to break your hearts with the hammer of the Word. You come, and you go, yet you get no blessing so far as I can see; are you content to have it so always? If you are. I am not content; I am at least responsible for faithfully warning you, and honestly preaching to you the great gospel message, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Every time I stand in this pulpit, there is somebody here who never comes again; he cannot come again, for he dies before the next Lord’s-day. So large is the congregation here that I may almost say, speaking according to the laws of probability, that it is almost certain that some one of us will have gone the way of all flesh ere this week is gone. Who will it be? May God take the ripe, and spare the green! May he take those who are ready, and let those be spared who are not ready; but, better still, may he lead us all to trust in the Saviour, and then we shall all be ready whenever the summons shall come! May he do so, for his name’s sake! Amen.

SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATIONS.

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, June 13th, 1907, delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington,

On a Thursday Evening in the year 1865.

“Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”-Isaiah 55:13.

For many centuries, the Holy Land has been covered with thorns and briers. Travellers tell us it is so exceedingly barren, that, except upon the dreary desert of Sahara, you cannot find a more absolute sterility than in many parts of Judæa and Israel. But the land will not remain for ever thus unproductive. Even now, in spots where it can be cultivated, it flows with milk and honey; and the day is coming when the chosen people shall return to their own land, which God has given to them and to their fathers by a covenant of salt, and when again they shall begin to irrigate the hills, and to plant the vales, and to cultivate the vineyards, and to scatter the seed broadcast into the well-ploughed furrows. The Holy Land will again blossom: “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.” When this is done, the whole world will ring with the fame thereof. They will say, “Is this the Zion whom no man sought after? Is this the land which was called desolate? Is this the city whose name was forsaken?” Then shall mount Zion again be “beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth;” and then shall the whole land flow with fertility, “and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

But the spiritual meaning of our text, to which we draw more immediate attention to-night, is this,-God, by his grace, is able to work moral and spiritual transformations. Men, comparable to thorns and briers, are, by the sovereign grace of God, changed and renewed, so that they may then be compared to fir trees and to myrtles. This wonderful transformation is to the glory of God, and is to him “an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” Let us talk a little with one another, first, concerning these transformations; secondly, concerning how they are wrought; and, thirdly, let us contemplate their happy result: they “shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be out off.”

Let us talk concerning these transformations.

It appears, from our text, that there are some men who may fitly be compared to thorns and briers. The similitude may be applied to their original. Here we must all take our share. The thorn is the child of the curse; the brier is the offspring of the Fall. There were no thorns and briers to cause the sweat to flow from Adam’s face until after he had sinned. Then did the Lord say to him, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” And we, too, are the offspring of the curse. What says David? “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” We are born under sin; we are subject to it from our very earliest moments, and we go astray, not merely by the imitation; of bad example, but from the force of a corrupt nature. It may be that there are some here, this evening, who feel that they are under the curse. You cannot look back upon your original without discovering this. It may be, my friends, that your parents taught you to sin; you cannot remember ever having been instructed in the way of God. It may be that, this very moment, you can recollect some of the earliest training that you received, and you remember that it was such as might fit you for the service of Satan, but could not lead you to the cross of Christ. You feel that you are under the curse, and you have met with such afflictions, and your own heart is so heavy, that, if I were to write anyone down as a child of the curse, you would boldly say, “Put my name in the list. Indeed, I am of a traitor born, and I feel in my blood the taint of his sin.” There is comfort for us, however, even though this is true of us. We are thorns, but the Lord can transform us into myrtles. Jehovah knows how to remove the curse of the first Adam by the blessing of the second Adam. He can tear up by the roots everything that is vile, and sinful, and accursed, and can plant, in the stead thereof, everything that is lovely and of good repute, and so we shall inherit his blessing. So, be of good comfort; though thou art under the curse just now, the Lord Jesus, who was made a curse for us, is able yet to pronounce thee blessed.

Again, the thorn is the true image of the sinner because it is of no sort of service. I suppose almost everything has its use, but I do not know that there has been discovered any use for the thorn and the brier. So has it been with many of us, and it is so with some of you to-night. What have you done for God? Twenty years, young man, have brought you to maturity, but what quit-rent has the Almighty ever received from you? Perhaps forty years have ripened your manhood; but, hitherto, what songs of praise have gone up to heaven from you? What acceptable fruits have you laid upon God’s altar? You are his vineyard: what ripe grapes have ever come to him from you? He has digged about you, protected you by the wall of his providence, and watched over you with tenderest care. How is it that, when he looks for grapes, you bring forth only wild grapes? When he expects to have some return for the talent which he has committed to your care, how is it that you have wrapped it in a napkin, and have hidden your Lord’s money? You have been useless: not exactly so to your fellow-men; your children have received your care; you have been, perhaps, some help to your neighbours and to your friends; but, as far as God is concerned, the natural man is perfectly useless; he brings no harvest to the great Owner of the ground. Did I say, just now, you were forty years old? What if there should be, in this place, some unconverted person of sixty, seventy, or even eighty? And, all these years, in vain has the light of heaven shone for you; in vain has the divine longsuffering said, “Spare him, yet another year;” in vain the preaching of God’s Word to you, and all the ordinances of his house; you are still bare, leafless, fruitless. You have only lived unto yourself, and you have in nowise glorified your Creator and your Preserver. You are a thorn and a brier. Yet be of good comfort; if you have a heart for better things, God can make you into the fir tree and the myrtle, that yield genial shade, and gladden the gardens of the Lord. He can yet transform your uselessness into true service, and take you from amongst the idlers in the market to go and work actively and with success in his vineyard.

The thorn, too (we have only commenced upon this point), wastes the genial influences which, falling upon good wheat, would have produced a harvest. The rain fell to-day, but it fell upon thorns and briers as well as upon the green blades of the wheat. The dews will weep, and they will fall quite as copiously upon the thickly-tangled thistles and matted briers as upon the cottager’s well-weeded garden; and when the sun shines out with cheering ray, he will have rays quite as genial for the thistles and for the briers as for the fruit trees and for the barley and the wheat. So it is with you unconverted men and women. You have received God’s daily favours in as great abundance as the righteous have. Nay, perhaps you have had even more: you have been sitting, clothed in fine linen, like Dives, while God’s own saints have been rotting at your gates, like Lazarus. You have not pined for lack of the outward influences of the means of grace. Some of you are sermon-hearers; you are constantly within God’s gates; you frequent the place where the proclamation of mercy is freely made; your Bibles are not unknown to you; and yet all this has been wasted on you. Are you not nigh unto cursing? Visited by daily favour, rebuked by conscience, aroused at times by the natural motion of your own heart, awakened by God’s Spirit, awed under his Word, and yet, for all this, you are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; yet despair not! If your souls seek after better things, God is able to transform these wasteful thorns, these briers that bear no fruit, into fig trees, that shall shower their luscious fruit all around. It was a foolish saying of a certain preacher that the tares would never become wheat; what business had he to strain Christ’s parable? This I know,-the brier can become a myrtle, and the thistle can become a fir tree by divine grace. Did the man mean to deny the possibility of conversion? Did he mean to say that almighty grace could not turn the lion into a lamb, the raven into a dove? If so, he uttered a direct blasphemy, for there is no miracle of grace which God cannot perform. He can take the black lumps of ebony, and make them alabaster. He can cast the tree of the cross into Marah’s bitter waters, and make them sweet as the water of the well of Bethlehem for which David thirsted. He can take the poison out of the asp, and the sting out of the cockatrice, and make them serviceable to God and man. The camel can go through the needle’s eye. Know, of a surety, that nothing is too hard for the Lord; he can accomplish whatever he pleases.

To continue our remarks upon the thorn, and its transformation into the fir tree,-Is not the thorn a hurtful thing? It rends and tears the passers-by. Sometimes, if I would pursue my path straight across to yonder point, I must break through a hedge of briers; and how often has the Christian been tormented and torn by the thorns of the ungodly! Let the age of martyrs tell how God’s saints have had their flesh rent from their bones by these thorns and briers; and let a weeping mother tell how her son has broken her heart, and turned her hair prematurely grey; and let a sorrowing wife tell how an ungodly husband has sent her to her chamber with briny tears streaming from her eyes; and let us all tell how sometimes our ungodly relatives have made our hearts beat fast with dread anxiety for them. Lot cannot live in Sodom without being vexed, and David cannot sojourn in Mesech without crying, “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!” But remember, however much you have persecuted God’s saints, however hardly you may have dealt with the followers of Christ, the Lord is able to transform you into one of them. Paul little thought, when he was riding to Damascus, that it would be so with him. He had his precious documents all safe. “I will harry the Nazarenes,” he seemed to say; “I will bring them to the whipping post; I will drag them out of the synagogue, and compel them to blaspheme.” Little dost thou know, Paul, that thou shalt soon bend the knee to that very Jesus of Nazareth whom thou hatest. A light shines about him, brighter than the noonday sun; he falls from his horse; he hears a voice which says, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Then meekly he asks, “Who art thou, Lord?” and the answer comes, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Ah, sinner, perhaps you do not know that you are persecuting Jesus. You think that it is only your child, or your wife, or your mother; but, in persecuting the members of the body of Christ, you persecute the Head. Saul of Tarsus is led by the hand to Damascus; and after his conversion, who is more bold than he? The preacher upon Mars’ hill, the witness before Nero, the aged man of God sitting in the dungeon, the child of God with his head upon the block,-this is the man who persecuted the saints of God, but is now full of zeal above all others for the spread of the knowledge of Christ. The thorn is turned into a fir tree, and the brier into a myrtle tree.

Nor have I yet exhausted the figure. The thorn sows its own seed; and when the winds get up, they bear upon their wings the thistledown, and the seed is dropped here and there and everywhere. You cannot keep thistles to themselves. If you grow them in your own garden, they will be in your neighbour’s garden before long; and if your neighbour grows them, it will be difficult for you to keep them out of your plot. And here is the worst point about an unconverted man. If thou hast been doing mischief, thy children grow up in thine own image, or thy servants imitate their master. If you are an unscrupulous trader, you assist to make other traders, if not palpably dishonest, yet scandalously lax. Your language pollutes the air you breathe; or if you keep that tolerably right, your sentiments are not without their influence upon your fellow-men. You live not unto yourselves. If you were to lead a hermit’s life, your very absence from society would have its influence. If thou art literally a leper, I may shut thee up, and make thee cover thy lip, and cast ashes on thine head, and cry, “Unclean! unclean!” but with thy spiritual leprosy, I cannot so seclude thee. Thou wilt taint the air wherever thou goest; it is not possible for thee to do otherwise than to spread pollution round about thee. O thorn, seed-sowing thorn, may God change thee!

Do I to-night address some infidel who has been very earnest in the propagation of his views? How would my heart leap if the Lord would make thee just as earnest in uplifting the cross upon which thou hast trampled! He can do it; I pray God that he may. Do I speak to-night to one who has been furiously set against the things of God? Brethren, the worst of sinners make the best of saints; and if the Lord shall please to touch you, you shall be just as hot for him as you now are against him. He that has much forgiven shall love much. No one could break an alabaster box of precious ointment but the woman who was a sinner. John Bunyan used to say that he believed there would be a great band of saints in the next generation, for his own generation was noted for its many great sinners; and he did hope that, as these great sinners grew up, God would transform them into great saints. We could mention many names of men who have been, as it were, the devil’s sergeants, but who, when God has once transformed them into his own soldiers, have made most blessed recruiting sergeants for the kingdom of Christ. Look at John Newton, and John Bunyan, and other men of that stamp, and see what sovereign grace can do in similar cases.

Yet once more. I cannot help remarking that it was the thorn and the brier that composed the crown that pierced the Saviour’s temples; and it is our sins, our cruel sins, that have been his chief tormentors. Every soul that lives without Christ, after having heard of him, is piercing Christ’s temples afresh. When you think that he is unwilling to forgive you, that ungenerous thought wounds him more than anything else. And when you speak ill of his name, when you slander his people, and despise his saints, what are you doing but plaiting another crown of thorns to put upon his head? Yet thou, thou who hast pierced the Saviour’s brow, thou canst yet become a myrtle to crown that brow with victory. The Saviour, having fought for thee, and won thee, having bought thee with his heart’s blood, will put thee as a chaplet about his brow, “and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” The meaning of the whole is that God does, by the power of the gospel, transform his enemies into his friends; he turns men from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the kingdom of Christ, from being possessed with devils to become full of the Holy Spirit, from being a den of dragons, full of sin, to be temples where every grace shall shine to reflect the glory of the Most High. Some of you can bear witness to this as a matter of experience; others of you contemplate it with strong desire.

Secondly, we are to consider how this transformation is wrought in men.

It is wrought by the secret and mysterious agency of God the Holy Spirit. Certainly, dear friends, it can never be wrought in us by the power of man. Let us tremble if our religion rests upon any man, for that is a poor, unstable foundation. I learn, each day, more and more, my utter inability to do good to my fellow-men apart from the Spirit of God. There come to me, sometimes, cases that completely stagger me. I try, for instance, to comfort a broken heart. I seek, but in vain, all sorts of metaphors to make the truth clear; quote the promises, bow the knee in prayer, and yet, after all, the poor troubled spirit has to go away unbelieving still, for only God can give it faith. There are other cases, where we know of men who have lived in sin, and God has been pleased to put his afflicting hand upon them, and we do not know what to say to them. They profess repentance, but we fear it is only remorse; they talk of faith in Christ, but we are afraid it is a delusion. We would convince them of sin if we could; we remind them of the past, and they give an assent to every sentence we utter against them, but yet they feel not the evil of their own ways. Oh, it is hard work to deal with sinners! It needs a sharper tool than man can keep in his tool-basket. Only God himself can break hearts; and when they are broken, only the same hand that broke them can bind them up.

It is the Holy Spirit, then, who is everywhere in the midst of his Church, who comes forth and puts himself into direct contact with a human spirit, and straightway a change is effected. I cannot tell you with what part of man the Holy Spirit begins; but this I can tell you, he changes the whole man. The judgment no longer takes darkness for light, and light for darkness; the will is no longer obstinately set against God, but bows its neck to the yoke of Christ; the affections are no longer set upon sinful pleasure, but they are set upon Christ. It is true that corruption still remaineth in the heart, but a new heart and a right spirit are given. There is put into the quickened soul a living seed, which cannot sin, because it is born of God,-a living seed which liveth and abideth for ever. “I don’t know,” said one, “whether the world is a new world, or whether I am a new creature, but it is one of the two, for ‘old things are passed away, and all things are become new.’ ” When Christ descends into the human heart to reign, he seems to take this motto, “Behold, I make all things new.” There is “a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,” within that poor sinner’s heart. It is a complete change. You will observe that it is not the thorn somewhat trimmed and pruned; it is not the brier made to grow upon a wall, and trained into order: that is reformation. But it is the thorn turned into a fir tree: this is a perfect re-creation, a making anew of the man; and this must happen to every one of us, by the power and energy of the Divine Spirit, or else in the garden of the Lord we shall never bloom, nor ought we to join the Church of God on earth, for we have no part nor lot in the matter.

But, while I have said that it is the Spirit who works this change, you are enquiring by what means he does it. If you will kindly refer to the chapter from which my text is taken, you will observe that the Lord Jesus has to do with it: “Behold, I have given him for a Witness to the people, a Leader and Commander to the people.” That verse comes before my text. We must know Christ before we can ever be changed. Some people think they are to change themselves, and then come to Christ. Oh, no! Come to Jesus just as you are! It is the work of his Spirit to change you. You are not to work a miracle, and then come to show the miracle to Christ; but you are to come to Christ to have the miracle wrought. It is Christ’s work to begin with the sinner as the sinner, even as the good Samaritan did with the man who fell among thieves. He did not wait for him to be cured before he helped him, but he poured oil and wine into his wounds, lifted him upon his beast, and then carried him to the inn; and Christ is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him.

But the chapter seems to teach another lesson. You say, “I know that the Holy Spirit brings Christ home to the heart and conscience, but how am I to get at Christ?” The chapter tells you. It says that God’s Word shall not return unto him void. The way by which Christ is discovered and found out by a sinner, is by Christ being preached to him. “Hear, and your soul shall live.” That is the gospel. The way by which Christ comes into the soul is through Ear-gate. “Satan tries to stop up Ear-gate with mud,” says John Bunyan; but, oh, it is a glorious thing when God clears away the mud of prejudice, so that men are willing to hear the truth. There was an old man, a member of this church, who used to preach every Sunday in Billingsgate, and many persons tried to begin a controversy with him; but he was an old soldier in more senses than one, and his answer was, when anybody tried to dispute or enter into an argument with him, “ ‘Hear, and your soul shall live;’ I have not come to controvert; but to preach the truth, ‘Hear, and your soul shall live.’ ” That was a plain answer, sure enough. Now, you know that simple trust in Christ is all that he asks of you, and even that he gives you. ’Tis the work of his own Spirit. Hear this, then, ye thorns and briers, before God sets himself in battle array against you,-before his fires devour you. Hear the gentle notes of a Father’s heart as he speaks in gospel invitations to you, “Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” May you all be brought there! May God’s grace bring you all to lay hold on Christ!

And then, to close,-What is the result of this transformation?

To whose honour shall so beneficial a change redound? “It shall be to the Lord for a name.” As soon as that great sinner gets converted, it makes a buzz and a noise in the workshop where he goes. “What!” they ask, “has that wretch become a saint?” He used to curse, but, “Behold, he prayeth!” He could drink with the drunkard, but now he walks in the fear of God “in all temperance and sobriety.” He could not be trusted, but now temptation cannot turn him from his integrity. The name of Christ at one time brought the blood into his cheeks, but now,-

“Sweeter sounds than music knows

Charm him in Immanuel’s name.”

I say there is a buzz about the workshop; the men say to one another, “What is the meaning of this? How came this about?” and, though they hate the change, yet they gaze at it, and admire it. They cannot understand it; they are like the magicians of Egypt; they cannot do these things with their enchantments, and therefore they are compelled to say, “This is the finger of God.” If God converts some ordinary sinners, he does not get half so much glory out of them as he does out of these extraordinary ones. The man, whose vile character was known in a whole parish, whose name was foul in the court where he lived, who had acquired a reputation for evil in the whole district,-when this thorn becomes a fir tree, then everyone wonders. If I had in my garden a great brier which had once torn my hand, and one day, when I walked down, I saw, instead of that brier, a fir tree growing, and a genial shade could be enjoyed under its boughs, how astonished I should be! I should naturally ask, “Who hath done this? Who could have transformed this brier into a fir tree?” And so, when a great sinner is converted, the finger of God is recognized, and God is glorified. Even the ungodly are compelled to honour the name of the Most High when other ungodly ones are saved.

And then as to the church, the members are, perhaps, at first rather shy, and cannot believe it is true; they hear that he, who once persecuted the brethren, now professes the name of their Master; and, at last, they get good evidence of the truth of it; and oh, what hallowed glee there is amongst the sons of God! There is a church-meeting, and he comes forward to confess his faith; they know how foully he has crrod, and they rejoice to see him brought back again. There may be one “elder brother” who is angry, and will not come in; but, for the most part, the household is very glad when the prodigal returns; and chief in joy among you all, when such a scene occurs, is the one who has preached the gospel to you. Oh, the joy of my soul when some of you were brought to Christ! I remember the cheering nights I had, and how I went to my house rejoicing and triumphant in my God because of some of you. You were once foul, “but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God;” and, truly, there would be more of such joy if others were brought in. Some of the best of the members of this church are those who were brands plucked out of the burning. May we have more such sinners saved by the blood of Jesus!

Nor is this all. There was an angel present when the deed was done; they are always present in the assemblies of the saints; hence it is that the women have their heads covered,-“because of the angels.” If no one else could see it, yet the angels, who cover their faces when they bow before God, would have us come into his presence in decency and in order. This angel hears us weep; a stream of light ascends to the regions of the blessed; straightway the bliss spreads throughout the celestial fields, and, as the news is propagated, “A prodigal has returned, another heir of glory is born,” they take their harps, and tune their strings anew; they bow with greater reverence; they sing with loftier joy; they shout with more glorious praise, “Unto him that loved the souls of men, and washed them in his blood, to him be glory, and honour, and power, and dominion, for ever and ever;” and thus the songs of heaven are swollen, made more deep, more mighty with tumultuous joy by sinners saved on earth. Yes, they tell it in heaven that the thorn-brake has become a grove of firs, that the brier has become a myrtle; and, what shall I dare to say?-even the Divine Trinity break forth in joy. Their joy cannot be increased, for God over all is “blessed for ever;” but, still, it is written, “He will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” Is it not said that, when the prodigal was yet a great way off, his father saw him? Can it be that, among the servants and friends, there was joy, and none in the father’s heart? Impossible! The Eternal God, Jehovah himself, views with delight the chosen of his heart; Jesus sees the purchase of his blood; the Spirit sees the result of his own power; and so, up to the very throne of God, the impulse of a sinner saved is felt. She came from the brothel; he came from the prison; and yet even heaven thrills with the news. She had defiled herself with sin; he had polluted others with his crimes; and yet angels tune their harps to Jehovah’s praise because of him. Was that prophetic when the woman broke the alabaster box, and filled the house with the perfume? Was that prophetic of what every penitent sinner does when his broken heart fills heaven and earth with the sweet perfume of joy because he is saved? And when she washed the Saviour’s feet, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, was that prophetic too? Did that show how Jesus gets his greatest honour, his purest love, his fairest worship, and his sweetest solace from sinners saved by blood? Methinks it was so. May he get such joy from us! Truly, Jesus died for me; and, at the foot of his cross, weeping I stand now to tell of his true love to sinners; and O poor sinner, Christ is able to save thee! Whosoever cometh to him, he will in no wise cast out. Oh, that thou wouldst come! May sovereign grace compel thee to come in!

I sat, this afternoon, looking at one with a withered countenance and a sunken cheek, marked out for death, once a member of this church, but foully fallen, and gone far astray; and I remember two or three of his age, once also professors, who, strange to say, went also away from God as he did. When I talked to him about the Lord and his infinite compassion, I could but have in my mind’s eye the prodigal who wasted his substance with riotous living, and yet his father did not spurn him, did not even rebuke him; but he-

“--was to his Father’s bosom pressed,

Once again a child confessed,

From his house no more to roam.”

And I thought I would say to you to-night,-

“Come and welcome, sinner, come.”

Do not think that God is harsh: think not that Christ is untender. There is no breast so soft as his, no heart so deeply full of sympathy. He cries over the very worst of you, “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me; my repentings are kindled together. I cannot destroy thee, for I am God, and not man.” Oh, shall my Saviour plead with you in vain? Shall the tears of Jesus fall to the ground? Shall the love of God have no attracting influence? Shall not mercy, as it rings its silver bell, draw you to the feast of love? Oh! wherefore will you die? Is sin so sweet that you will suffer for it for ever? Are the trifles of this world so important in your estimation that you will lose heaven and eternal life? I pray you “seek the Lord while he may be found: call ye upon him while he is near,” and think not that he will reject you, for “he will abundantly pardon.” Oh, may he do this to-night!

“My God, I feel the mournful scene;

My bowels yearn o’er dying men;

And fain my pity would reclaim,

And snatch the firebrands from the flame.

“But feeble my compassion proves,

And can but weep where most it loves;

Thy own all-saving arm employ,

And turn these drops of grief to joy.”

O Lord, do thou do it, for thou canst! Come forth, O Jesus; mount thy chariot now! Hell shakes at thy majesty; heaven adores thy presence; earth cannot resist thee; gates of brass fly open, and bars of iron are snapped. Come, Conqueror, now, and ride through the streets of this city, and through the hearts of all of us, and they shall be thine, “and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” May God command his blessing on you, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 84

Verse 1. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!

“Though they are only tabernacles, temporary structures that are soon to be taken down, and carried away, they are very dear to us. Thy tabernacles are so lovely to us because thou dost meet us there.”

2. My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.

A little starving brings on an appetite for health-giving food, and a brief absence from the house of God, through sickness, or by reason of distance, makes a Christian sigh and cry for the dainties of the divine table. Even the heavy flesh, which is so slow to move, at last joins the heart in crying out for the living God.

3. Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God.*

He envies even the sparrows, which have no sort of bashfulness, but boldly enter God’s house, and find a house for themselves there. O Lord, make me like the sparrows, blessed in finding shelter in the courts of thy house! As for the swallow, she makes God’s house a nest for herself, and a place where she may lay her young; and it is blessed when our children, as well as ourselves, love the house of God,-when they have been so nurtured and cherished that they are at home there. We may well envy the sparrows and the swallows when we and our families are unable to go up to the house of the Lord; and it is as sad for those who have to go up to a place where there is nothing good to be had, a place where the gospel is not preached, and so their souls are not fed.

4. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house:

The men who are always occupied in the Lord’s service, or those who are in God’s house even when they are in their own houses,-the men who are always at home with God, who feel that the canopy of heaven is the roof of God’s house in which they dwell, and who therefore never go away from God’s house, but always dwell there with him.

“Bless’d are the souls that find a place

Within the temple of thy grace.”

4. They will be still praising thee. Selah.

How can they do otherwise? When they are God’s children, at home with their Heavenly Father, and behold his glory, what can they do but praise, and praise, and praise yet again?

5. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them.

Or, as it might be rendered, “In whose heart are thy ways.” The man whose strength is wholly derived from God, and who spends all his strength in God’s service,-the man who has God’s ways in his heart, and his heart in God’s ways, must be blessed. This is the man to get the blessing that the Lord is waiting to give. Half-hearted worshippers do not even know what the blessing is like, but the whole-hearted not only taste of it but drink it down with delight.

6. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.

They get a blessing on the road to God’s house as well as a blessing in the house itself. It does their heart good even to be on the way to the assembly of God’s people, and they sing, with good Dr. Watts,-

“How did my heart rejoice to hear

My friends devoutly say,

‘In Zion let us all appear,

And keep the solemn day!’ ”

They also sing, with the same writer,-

“I love her gates, I love the road.”

The very road to God’s house has a blessing in it for those whose hearts are right with the God of the house.

7. They go from strength to strength,

They get stronger as they proceed on their happy, heavenward way. The men who love God, and who live with God, grow stronger and stronger;-not always in body, for the flesh may be growing weaker while “the inward man is renewed day by day.”

“They go from strength to strength,” or, as it is in the margin, “They go from company to company,” from the company of mourners to the company of hopers; from the company of hopers to the company of believers; from the company of the men and women of feeble faith to the company of those who rejoice in full assurance.

7. Every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.

That is the glory of going to God’s house, that we go there to appear before God, to spread our wants before him, to confess our sin to him, to sun our souls in the light of his countenance. It is little for us to appear before our fellow-men, but to appear before God is a blessed prelude to that day “when he shall appear,” and “we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

8. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah

O God of wrestling Jacob, hear my prayer! O God, thou who didst make such a gracious covenant with Jacob, be a covenant God to me!

9. Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.

Look upon the face of Christ, O God, for he is “thine Anointed”!

“Him, and then the sinner see;

Look through Jesu’s wounds on me.”

10. For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.

That is, better than a thousand days spent anywhere else. Feasting and rioting with the ungodly are not worthy to be compared with feasting and praising in the courts of God’s house.

10. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

I hope many of us can say, again with Dr. Watts,-

“Might I enjoy the meanest place

Within thy house, O God of grace!

Not tents of ease, nor thrones of power,

Should tempt my feet to leave thy door.”

11, 12. For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.

Let us share that blessedness, dear friends, and be as happy as we can by trusting in the Lord of hosts as he deserves to be trusted.