No gold but pure gold can stand the fire, and if a man’s religion has been a pretentious sham, it is very likely to tumble to pieces under the rough hand of death. There have been a few hypocrites who have been able to brazen it out, even in the last solemn article, but these must always be the few. David, at any rate, was never the man who would play the hypocrite in the last extremity of death. You can see how true, how deep, how thorough his faith in God must have been, for his dying-bed was by no means an enviable one. His dying pillow was stuffed with sharp thorns. His was a life which, although it had much of grace about it, yet had much of sinful nature, too. He was dying as we might not wish to die in some respects, but his faith triumphed, as we may well desire that our faith may triumph, whatever the outward circumstances of our life or death may be. We shall go at once, and without further preface, to consider our text, and notice in turn the Psalmist-king’s grave lament, and then, blessed compensation, his glorious comfort. First, then, we shall ponder, and may the Holy Spirit make it greatly to profit everyone of us:-

His house, he declares, was “not so” with God; and the numbers and the power of that house did not grow as he could have wished. Brethren, there are some troubles that a man outgrows. There are some childish trials connected with our early Christian life which we without effort outlive, and which in due course pass away. We shall not have to feel-thank God!-ever again the special perils of our youth and of our early manhood. When we have passed into riper years, we leave these things behind us. But there are some troubles which accumulate as we grow. For instance, there is the peculiar trouble alluded to in the text. There are, no doubt, multitudes of cares and trials connected with a family of little children, but every parent knows that the trials connected with little children are as nothing compared with the sorrows of those who have grown-up children that cause them heart-ache and heartbreak.

We could better afford to bury them one by one in their infancy, than that they should live to dishonour their father’s name, and to blaspheme their father’s God. The mother might be well satisfied to watch over their sick couches night after night, and to weary herself as though she laboured in the very fire for their sakes. We could well put up with the little mistakes, and petulancies, and follies, and even sins of their earliest days; but the sting is when, having left our roof, they leave our teaching; when, having gone from our trainings, they do not abide in them, but plunge into sin, and prove to us most sadly that grace does not run in the blood, but that natural depravity most certainly does. Now, this particular form of trial accumulates as we grow older. Some of us here have not yet come to it. May God grant that we never may, but I know there are some here whose hairs are plentifully sprinkled with grey, who have this as their daily cross to carry, and who look back on all the troubles of their youth and say that they were as nothing compared with this, the house being amiss with God; the children being disobedient; the sons and daughters training up their children, but not in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This is a trial which comes when the battle of life, as we think, is almost over, and when we might naturally expect to take a little repose in the eventide of life, before the dawning of the everlasting morning. This seems to be one of the last thorns that is thrust into our rest. With some it has been a thorn which, as in the case of David, has pierced their heart in its last beats and throbs. I may be addressing some such to-night. At any rate, I am addressing a great many who have need to pray against this trial. Oh! it is a dreadful thing: a terrible thing to look forward to, but what must it be to bear, none can tell but those whose hearts have been wrung by the iron hand of such an affliction, but too deeply:-

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child.”

David had an Absalom and an Amnon, and a Tamar-of whom the less said the better-and outside his dying-chamber door there was an Adonijah trying to upset his father’s last will and testament; and although Solomon was, in some respects, a great deal better, yet he was not, in those days, all that might be wished.

The fact is that, taken as a whole, they were a bad set. Was it any wonder that they should be such? David had himself very much to blame for it, for polygamy can never by any possibility work well. Jacob’s trouble arose out of that, and no doubt David’s troubles began there, too, and this must have been the sting about it, to David, that some of his children could quote their father’s example for their sins. Not but what his life had had in it very many virtues; but children will put their finger on their eye and not observe those things when it does not suit their whim to see them; but if there be a fault in the parent, there is none more quick than the child to spy it, and to make the fall, the mistake of the parent, which was pardoned, because wept over, to be the one outstanding mark of that parent’s character, and in that alone to imitate it.

Now, my brethren and sisters, at such a time, when we are stung with such a trouble, so near to us-for the troubles of our own house ought always to affect us more than any other; there we get our first comforts, around the family hearth, and there we must expect to have our sweetest joys, and our deepest pangs. When, I say, we have this affliction, and have in them that drop of gall of knowing that we ourselves are somewhat responsible for the whole matter, and that we cannot throw it upon divine sovereignty, but must take some measure of it to ourselves-oh! it will be glorious faith if still, with all those pangs and griefs in their utmost bitterness, we can say, “Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure, for this is all my salvation and all my desire.” Believe me, it is one thing to read that text, but quite another thing to feel it, and it is one thing to suppose ourselves, under these circumstances, rejoicing in the Lord, but quite another thing to come into these depths-these very depths-with God’s waves and billows going over us, and yet by joyous faith to lift our head out of the waves and sing with bravest confidence in our God.

Now, we shall be allowed, since David’s is but one case among many, to show that apart from the family-supposing that to be right-that there may still be other forms of poignant sorrow under which we may labour, and in which our only stay will be to triumph in God’s covenant faithfulness to our souls.

The trial to some of us will come possibly from the church. The faithful minister makes the church that he serves his family. The earnest deacon, the truly-called elder, considers the church, too, to be his household. The excellent and devoted conductors of the Bible classes, and Sunday School classes will come in the faith and love of sanctified souls, to look upon those under their charge as children committed to them as a sacred trust, to train and nurture in Christian life and conduct. And some of us can say, who have known it, that it is a grief that cuts very deep into the soul when the church, or the class, or whatever our circle of service, is not so with God as we could desire. When we think of some who backslide: when we hear of some, as we have heard time and again, who fall into open sin, and, worst of all, into cruel unkindness to the very person who was the means of their conversion, but of whom it is not now possible for them to say anything too bad or too unkind, because, forsooth, they think they have received further illumination, and have learned something which God grant they may unlearn-whenever these things occur, and they occur very frequently in a large church, and occur very painfully in a small one-they throw the minister, they throw the Sabbath School teacher, they throw the earnest worker of any sort, flat on his face, and they make him shed many tears, and cry out to God in the bitterness of his soul, “Thou dost not make my church grow; thou dost not make my church to be as I would have it to be-like thyself; thou dost not give me the sheaves which I long to reap, nor the souls to be saved which I long to win.” It is a great and deep sorrow, and it is a great blessing if at such times we can come back to this, “Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant.” You know it is that precious doctrine which is meant to keep us quiet when we are succeeding, for the Lord Jesus said to his apostles when they came back overjoyed and said, “Lord, even the devils are subject to us”-“Ah! nevertheless, rejoice not in this; do not make this the mainstay of your joy, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Well, when it is not so with us as we would wish, but we have to experience the very opposite, I think that then I can hear our Lord saying, “Nevertheless, be not broken-hearted about this, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven, that my covenant with you is everlasting.”

Beloved, you may not have either of the two sorrows I have spoken of, but if you are a child of God, you will have fellowship with a third, namely, the inward state of your own soul.

In a certain very special sense, that is the definite household of every one of us. These powers and passions, imaginings and emotions, thinkings and desirings-these are, so to speak, the children of your house, and I am afraid that most of us will have to say, “Although my house is not so with God.” I read a book the other day, written by a brother whom I very highly esteem, and indeed reverence for his holiness, excellence, and usefulness, but when I found him speaking of himself as living in perfect allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ, and perfect love to him, and as having continued so for twenty years without sin, I must confess that I thought he must either use language in a different way from that in which I use it, or else that he and I must have very different kinds of hearts, for I do not find it as he said. I do believe I have sincerely striven to serve my Master, and have served him so as to have had given me many seals of my service, but I never did serve him in such a way as to be satisfied with my service. I never could dare to feel content with a prayer I ever prayed, or a sermon I ever preached. I have always cultivated the idea that if I were to feel satisfied, I should be proud, and that if I did feel content I should be going wrong, and so I have rather striven against the feeling of being satisfied with anything within me, but have tried to feel continually that I have still enemies to drive out of the Canaan of my heart, and corruptions still to subdue, glorifying God for anything that I could see that was gracious, but trying, at any rate, to mourn and lament over what was my own-and there is a good deal of that, and I find, if anything, more of it now than ever, not that there is more, but as we grow in grace I think we perceive it more clearly. A room is not more dusty when it is shut up than it is when the sun shines in through the little crevice in the shutter, where the beam of sunlight comes through. There is no more dust in that particular part of the room where the sun shines in than there is anywhere else, and yet how very full of dust that slanting sunbeam seems to be. The room is not more dusty there, but there is more light there than anywhere else. So it seems that the very coming in of light to the soul reveals more and more of the evil things, the spiritual unlovelinesses that yet lurk there, and which I fear will be there until the Lord takes us home. It is very pitiable to see so many persons perfectly content to be so very imperfect, sitting down as though they-knowing they cannot here be absolutely perfect-have no desire to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” It does such persons good to hear a sermon on the doctrine of Scriptural perfection. If it does not make them angry with it, it does them good, for it makes them see that there is something better to be obtained in this world than they have ever yet dreamed, and so stimulates their ambition. But for all that, I should still like to see the perfect man, and I would like to see Satan and he have a turn of conflict, and if Satan did not somehow or other get the better of him, I should be mistaken and surprised.

For this I know, that when we are most watchful and most guarded, still temptations will overtake us, and surely these men must have some tragically unguarded moments. Ah! brethren, it will not do! “Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” is as certainly the cry of the Christian as the rest of the sentence, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is, none the less, a sorrow to a truly sanctified soul, not to be sanctified perfectly. It is a most bitter grief to conceive that there should be any sin dwelling in him. It is his cross and his burden, and therefore at such times, when the burden is heaviest, it is a gracious thing for faith to be able to say, “Although my heart be not so with God as I would have it, and I do not live so near to him as I could desire, nor serve him as I wish, yet still for all that I am a sinner saved by grace, and he hath made with me, unworthy me, an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.”

The beauty of the comfort of the text is that it is set boldly, strikingly, upon so black a foil. In David’s case a sorrow of the bitterest kind is associated with a joy of the sweetest description, and what I am driving at is this-whether it be family trouble, church trouble, or inward spiritual trouble arising from personal experience, it is the work, and boast, and glory of faith to be able to see light in the midst of the darkness, to find a way through the sea, and a path through the desert, and to sing, “Though this be not what I would have it, nor that, nor the other thing, nor a thousand things, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.”

I shall not stay to say anything about the latter part of the verse, namely, about the house not growing. David did not see his family grow in the estimation of the people, grow in strength, grow in numbers. It is a great sorrow not to see our families growing up in piety, and advancing in holiness; a great grief not to see our churches making steady progress, and a heavy trouble, most of all, not to see our own hearts growing in love and other graces, and so going onward towards ripe maturity of blessed character.

Having thus spoken of David’s great lament, we now turn with joyful relief to speak of:-

As I said before, we will only give you a few plain, practical thoughts, praying the Holy Spirit to make them of divine power. The glorious comfort which David found lay in the covenant which God had made with him. With David it was a covenant of royalty for himself, and for his seed, but we believed he also had a further vision of the covenant of grace. At any rate, we of the gospel dispensation must do so, for though we shall not have earthly thrones, yet under Christ’s covenant we are made kings and priests unto God.

Now, let us suppose ourselves to be sitting down alone, soliloquising over all our griefs. There is a burden upon our mind, and this thought crosses us, “Yet”: I have a “yet” to set over against my “although.” I have a heavy “although” to mar my prospects, but I have a delightful, inspiring “yet” to shed its light upon them: “Yet hath he made with me a covenant.”

Observe, first, that this covenant made with us is a covenant of pure grace. It would scarcely console Adam to think of the covenant under which he was-the covenant of works. It would be very sorry consolation to think of the covenant of works now, for we have all broken it, and all that remains to us of its provisions is its curse. But we rejoice to know that that covenant of works is, as far as we are concerned, fulfilled completely by Jesus Christ, and there remains nothing but God’s side of it to be fulfilled. Christ undertook our side of it, and he declared, “It is finished,” when he gave up the ghost. Man’s side of the covanant of grace is fulfilled, and therefore the covenant stands now solely and only as a covenant of pure and unconditional promise on the part of God towards his elect people. A delightful thought is this, for on these terms it is a covenant of grace. “I will and they shall; I will give them a new heart, and a right spirit, and they shall walk in my ways; I will purge, and wash, and cleanse them, and they shall be clean.” It is a covenant without “ifs” or “buts,” or “peradventures” in it, because its elements are unalloyed grace-grace, grace, grace, and not a single jot or tittle of merit in it. Now, believer in Christ, you are under such a covenant, a covenant which is all promise to you, and no threatening. Ought not this to cheer and comfort you? These dark afflictions-what are they? You can say, as one of old said, “Strike now, Lord, if thou wilt, for I am forgiven; now do what thou wilt with me, for I am thy child.”

“If sin be pardoned, I’m secure

Death hath no sting beside.”

Nor has life any either: for the worst sting is gone, sin is removed, and I am saved: now, Lord, I leave everything in thy hands, making no conditions or stipulations, but will be pleased, or strive to be pleased, with all thy will provides, since I know that the threatenings are all gone, and there remain for me nothing but promises full of boundless mercy which then shall be my heritage.”

The next thought is that this covenant is made with me. Beloved, I cannot preach on this as I would, but I pray that the Holy Spirit may bring home to your souls both the power and sweetness of the thought, “Yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant.” The doctrines in themselves are delightful, but it is the personal interest in, and realisation of, the doctrines that give real delight. The covenant-oh! yes, that is the well of Bethlehem: but it is “within the gate.” But a covenant made with me. Ah! that is the water from the well rippling at my very lips, I drink it, and am completely refreshed. It would be pleasant to hear of a covenant made with ten thousand men, that they might be saved, and our common humanity might make us rejoice therein. A covenant made with countless millions might well make us glad to overflowing, but, after all, it is not selfish, but only laudable, as the law of self-preservation God has himself implanted in us, for us most of all to rejoice in our own personal faith in Christ, our personal property in the covenant of which he is the Surety. “Yet he hath made with me.” You know sometimes, when I am thinking of God’s mercy, trying to get a grip of my adoption, and my acceptance in the Beloved, I find myself crying, and at other times laughing. It seems such a wonder that an “heir of wrath” should be made an heir of heaven-an evemy of God made to be his own dear son, to whom he has made absolute promises of infinite love and unutterable grace. Surely this ought to make our hearts leap like the heart of a warrior when the battle has come to a close, and the victory has been won. How joyous ought to be the Christian’s life! There ought to be a sacred exhilaration, a holy riot, in our spiritual life at the thought that God has made personally with us, unworthy, sinful, but pardoned and accepted men and women, “a covenant ordered in all things and sure.” There is a very poor man in this place, just come from his labour. He has not even had time to go home to wash his face. He is very poor. If you could see his room there is very little furniture in it, and the wages he earns come to a very little. He has been poor for years and years. You, perhaps, would scarcely notice him. He is a mere drudge, a weight-lifter, a carrier, one of the despised “masses,” and yet God has made with him an everlasting covenant! Why, what a contrast between the parties to this covenant! Here is the Infinite and Eternal God, with all the blazing splendour of his deity, and he has made a covenant with this poor despised child of poverty and toil. Well, now, if you come to think of it, there is no difference in spiritual need between the crossing-sweeper and the millionaire. They are only two frail mortals, with a little difference in their circumstances and surroundings; but there is no difference when they go to their last resting-place, and they sleep in the lap of mother earth. And yet, with either or both, God is ready to make an everlasting covenant-with such insignificant ones, with you and me! Oh! dear Christian brothers and sisters! there is the music of it-“with me.” Now, may your faith lay her hand on the dear Saviour’s head afresh, look to Christ anew, see his blood flowing for you, wash again, and feel that you are clean, and then say, “Yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.”

It may increase our joy to recollect the Person who has made this covenant. If the covenant had been made with men, it might have been kept, or it might not have been; for the surest treaties have been broken, and when men have been bound with fetters the proverb has not always been proved true, “Fast bind, fast find,” but men have slipped through a thousand noozes, and have been untrustworthy, even when solemn oaths and obligations have been used to bind them down. But God is true, so true that we might take his Word at once, and yet, since he knew our unbelief, he has been pleased to give us “two immutable things, wherein it is impossible for God to lie that we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us.” He has done this, he who has not twice destroyed the earth with a flood, notwithstanding all her sins; he who settled the mountains, and fixed the hills in their sockets, has said that the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but that his love shall not depart from us, neither shall his covenant be removed from us. He has said it whose power is equal to his truth, whose love, with golden hands, encircles both his power and his faithfulness. He has said it who never knows the shadow of a change, the sun without a parallax, and without a tropic. He has said it, the great I AM has made with us a covenant of grace.

Then comes the thrilling truth, “an everlasting covenant.” We must not, above all things, leave out that. It is the duration of the mercy which is always the great theme of joy to the Christian. I do not know where my brethren get their comfort from, who believe in a temporary covenant of grace. I am not disposed to controvert with them, because if they like it and can get any comfort out of it, I am very glad that somebody should, but it is a kind of land I should never think of ploughing, nor should I ever wish to add to my farm. I shall never be tempted to covet that as Ahab coveted Naboth’s vineyard. That system of theology seems to me to play fast and loose with divine things, and make man stronger than God, and so I am content not to desire its possession. I suppose I am a greater sinner than they, and have more need of grace, and I come back to my Master’s power alone to keep me, rather than depend on my own strength to keep myself. And here are my comfort and joy, that if God has made a covenant with me, he has not done it for to-day or to-morrow, and next week, or even next year, but for all eternity. When the hair turns grey, the covenant will still be young, and when the pulse beats low, and the death-sweat shall stand on our brow, the covenant will be as full of life as in our early days when first we knew the Lord. It is “an everlasting covenant,” and everlasting in the respect of its being made with me, not a covenant which is everlasting, but which changes with persons, and is first with one and then with another, but “he hath made with me an everlasting covenant.” Oh! Christian, rejoice! Do not be afraid of rejoicing in that doctrine of the safety of the saints. Depend upon it, though some have used it to their own destruction, and their end shall be terrible for having perverted the truth to make it a cloke for sin, yet the children of God have always found that when they are most happy they can be most active; when they feel most safe they are most grateful, and when they are most grateful they are most courageous and the most self-sacrificing. Do not be afraid of knowing that you are safe in Christ, for if your thoughts are troubled about your eternal security, you will not be able to give the integrity of your manhood and womanhood to the cause of God. But if you know that you are saved, if you are sure of it, if you know that your ship can never be driven on the rocks, if you can give your whole selves, body, soul, and spirit, unreservedly to God, out of no legal motives, but under the divine constraints of gratitude, gratitude to eternal love-you are the man that God the Spirit can make into a fine strong Christian. But if you are for ever struggling and striving, now believing, now doubting, and thinking that your safety depends on something you can do, and that the whole matter may possibly tumble down, you will get no joy out of your salvation, will be for ever a self-seeker of a certain kind. But grasp the truth that your salvation is finished once for all, you can then say, nay sing, “Now for the love I bear his name, my whole spirit, my whole time, talents, substance-all shall be laid upon the altar of him who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

“Loved of my God, for him again,

With love intense I burn:

Chosen of him ere time began,

I choose him in return.”

And now note, very briefly indeed, that this everlasting covenant is ordered and sure. This, too, should fill us with holy musing and sacred exultation. It is so ordered that divine justice is not infringed, while divine mercy is magnified: so ordered that the safety of the soul is secured, and yet the soul is delivered from its sin: so ordered that holiness excludes the sinful from heaven, and yet the sinful are admitted, having been washed in the precious blood of the covenant. “Ordered in all things”-its great things and its little things. Every wheel, and every cog of every wheel, was in the mind of the divine Artificer, and has been placed in its proper position to work out the divine result. Ordered with regard to the past, the present, and the future; ordered with regard to nature and to providence; ordered with regard to my body and my soul; ordered as to the perfection of my divine manhood before the throne of God.

It is ordered in all things, and is therefore sure. It would not have been sure had it not been well ordered, but being well ordered, and fixed according to the truest law, there is no fear of any division of its parts or any dislocation of its members. It will never be a house divided against itself. You know that when a house has no order in it, nothing can be relied upon. Wills run contrary to one another, and discord reigns. But there is nothing of the kind in the covenant of grace. There are no conflicting elements. All the elements are of one kind. Boasting is excluded. Human merit is cast out. It has grace for its Alpha, and grace for its Omega. It has grace for its foundation, and the topstone shall be brought forth with shoutings of “Grace, grace,” unto it. Infinite wisdom planned it, and so the ideas of human fallibility and mistake have been excluded from it. “Ordered in all things and sure.”

Let our souls then fall back upon this truth with the exclamation of David, “This is all my salvation and all my desire.” If, indeed God has made such a covenant with me, then am I saved. I rest upon Christ whom God has said he has set forth to be a covenant for the people-a leader and commander to the people. My dear friends, are you all trusting in Christ alone? Is he all your salvation? Is he all your desire? I think that is one of the ways by which to discover the true sons of Zion from those that are not so, by seeing whether Christ is all their salvation. There are some who save a little corner for something else besides Christ. Beloved, it must come to this: if you and I are ever saved, that Christ as he is revealed in the covenant of grace must be all our salvation. He must be made unto us of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Christ is all. Oh! what blessed truth that is! How it drives all priestcraft out of the world. How it makes absurd and profane all pretendedly soul-saving ceremonies! How it brings us to the Saviour, simply and alone to him, “This is all my salvation”-what Christ has done for me, and what God promises to give me as the result of what Christ has done in fulfilling the covenant of grace on my behalf-this is all my salvation.

And now, sinner, you who have never come to Christ, recollect that this must be all your salvation if ever you are saved. And does not this cheer you? You thought you were to get some good feelings. You need not. You may come to Christ for them. “Oh!” say you, “but I must repent.” He is exalted on high to give you repentance. It is his work to give you repentance. Come to him as you are, with nothing of your own, and rest wholly in him, and you have then in your soul the true sign of God’s electing love. If you rest wholly upon Jesus, do not truoble your head about either the glorious past or the glorious future, but rejoice now. To lay hold on Christ is to lay hold on everlasting love, and to find a resting-place that shall last you when the world has melted away like a moment’s foam dissolves into the wave that bears it, and is gone for ever. Rest in God patiently, with your whole soul relying upon the merit of Jesus, and the everlasting covenant is yours.

And the text closes with saying-“and all my desire.” “I do not want anything else to rest upon, but this one thing do I covet-no other source of joy than this.” So David seems to say. Ah! but some of you Christian people cannot say, “This is all my desire.” Your desire is to make a great deal of money. Your desire is to dress so that people may think you a person of great taste and refinement. Or your desire is to be respectable, or your desire is to be something far away from the thoughts of God. You smile, but it is really not at all a thing at which to smile. It is a great pity that so many whom we would fain hope to be Christian people do not find their chief delights in God, and do not let their desires end in him. This is a sad, sad thing. If there were a wife here who found her greatest pleasure in somebody else’s company rather than her husband’s, it would be a very great disgrace to her: and it is a terrible dishonour to a Christian when, in order to get his pleasures, he has to get out of the circle of communion with Christ. I have heard of such Christians. “Oh!” they say, “well, we try to be circumspect, and so on, as a matter of duty, but may we not enjoy ourselves?”

Well, but where-where-where? You do not like to say where, and I will not press the enquiry, but there are some who enjoy themselves most when they are where Christ would not go, nay, where Christ would not have them go, and where they would not like Christ to come and find them there. Now, question yourselves whether you belong to Christ at all, if that is the case, for our sweetest pleasures, if we are true Christians, we find when we are most conformed to Christ, doing his will most conscientiously in his sight, most denying ourselves, and most completely giving up our own wills and wishes, after a carnal sort, that the will of Christ may reign in our mortal bodies to his glory. “This is all my salvation and all my desire.” Let others roam through the world as they may, but the soul of the Christian is satisfied at home. He can say, in the words of our hymn:-

“I need not go abroad for joy;

I have a peace at home;

My sighs are turned into songs,

My heart has ceased to roam.

Down from above the blessed Dove

Has come into my breast,

To witness there eternal love,

And give my spirit rest.”

So may it be with you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

ROMANS 3:9

Verses 9, 18. What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth qood, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre: with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.

This is a description of man given by prophets in the olden times. “Now,” says Paul, “we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law.” So that this is a description of the Jews, a description of the people who had the light, the best people that then were upon the face of the earth, and if these be the good people, where are the Gentiles, the bad ones, without the light?

19, 22. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets: Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

There is no righteousness of works on the face of the earth. The law itself describes men as being sinful from their throat to their feet. Almost every member of the body is mentioned and described as being foul with sin. But, says Paul, there is another righteousness on the face of the earth, and that is the righteousness of God’s grace, which comes through believing in Christ.

23, 31. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God: To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

HEEDFUL HEARING

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, June 5th, 1913.

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

On Lord’s-day Evening, August 23rd, 1868.

“Take heed, therefore, how ye hear.”-Luke 8:18.

It is implied in this verse that you do hear. A man cannot take heed how he hears if he does not hear at all. Hence, how great is the sin of a vast proportion of the inhabitants of this city who utterly forsake the ministry of the Gospel, who never hear it, or hear it but only now and then. We have frequently met with people who, before they came to this house, never attended any place of worship. They were taken there, they say, to be christened, and they went there to be married, and they expected to be carried there, or somewhere like it, to be buried, but that was all their church-going, and all their respect for the worship of God. Unhappy they-to have the light and to refuse to see; to have God’s pearl lying, as it were, at their very feet, and yet to refuse to pick it up! The day will come when wasted Sabbaths will be a burning accusation against the inhabitants of this privileged, but wicked city. With churches in almost every street, with preachers of the Gospel to be found here and there declaring fully the saving truth of God, it shall go harder with the citizens of London than with the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day when the Lord cometh to judge the quick and the dead. Do I address any who have merely dropped in here to-night, but who are not often hearers of God’s Word? Ah! my dear friends, you little know the sweetness of the Gospel, for if you did, “not tents of ease nor thrones of power” could tempt your feet away from the place where God specially reveals himself on the Day of Rest.

Do bethink you, how unjustly you are treating your God. There are seven days in the week, and he gives you six, but you rob him of the seventh. You are like a man on the highway who met a beggar, and, seeing him to be in great want, and having but seven pounds in his pocket, he gave the beggar six, and then the beggar knocked him down and stole the seventh from him. He was an ungrateful wretch; and what are you? You shall answer for yourselves.

It is implied, again, in the text that a man hears the gospel; for it does not signify much how you hear, if it is not God’s message, if it is not the truth. The best way to hear a lie is not to hear it at all. The best way to hear preaching that is not according to God’s gospel is to hear enough of it to know what it is, and then walk off and hear no more. But it is implied that you do hear the Gospel, and here comes the enquiry-Do those who frequent places of worship invariably ask themselves the question, “Is the preacher a gospel preacher? Does he preach according to the Holy Scriptures? Does he deliver to me the truth, or is it a cunningly-devised fable or invention of his own?” I do fear me that the most of our hearers only ask, “Is he a fluent speaker? Is he a high-soaring rhetorician? Can he pile his words one upon another? Or is he amusing? Does he use many illustrations and metaphors? Will there be something to interest me?” Ah! but, my hearers, if the bread be poisoned, it is of small concern that the baker makes it up into pretty loaves. If it be not a gospel draught that is given you to drink, it is a small matter to you whether the cup be richly chased or not. Better that you have it in the poorest pipkin, and drink from that, if it be from the river of the water of life, than that you receive untruth out of a golden cup. The chief matter with a hearer when he goes to a town to live, and has to enquire, “Where shall I attend on the Lord’s Day?” should be this, “Where can I hear most concerning the Lord Jesus Christ? Where shall I hear a man who can touch my conscience? Where shall I hear truth that will be quick, and powerful, and sharp as a two-edged sword to my soul? Where may I hope to be saved? Where may I trust, being saved, that I may be helped on the road to heaven?” All the rest is mere matter of taste, but this is a matter of the utmost importance. Is it the gospel or not? If it be not the gospel, let not your feet tread the floor; but if it be the gospel of Jesus, then “forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.”

But now, these two things being granted-that we ought to hear, and that it ought to be the gospel-the text graciously counsels us, “Take heed how ye hear.” We purpose to handle our theme after this fashion. First, there is a caution implied in the text; secondly, there are rules intended in it; and then again, there are strong reasons for it. First, there is:-

A caution implied in the text.

“Take heed how ye hear.” The caution is that we should not think it a trifling thing to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. “Take heed”-as though you had to stop on the threshold and remember where you are. Take heed, take heed, and remember, then, that it is no trifling thing to hear a sermon if it be a gospel sermon. Some think it is a simple work to preach, and child’s play to sit and listen. When the great trumpet peals, and the dead are awakened, they will think very differently. They will reckon that speech was never put to so noble a purpose as when it was used to bring men to reconciliation with their Maker, and that ears were never used to so good an end as when they were used attentively to hear what God the Lord would speak, when he would bid the rebel come to him and find mercy. The preacher, if he be what he should be, does not think it a light or easy thing to preach. It is said of Luther, that he never feared any man, and yet he declares that he never preached a sermon without his knees knocking together, because he trembled lest he should be guilty of the blood of any of his hearers. This is the great burden of my life, lest I should miss anything that should be profitable to you; lest, in dealing with God’s Word, I should be like some untaught chemist’s lad who is mixing medicines which were meant for health-giving, but who introduces poisons into them. No! But I would tell you all I know, tell you all God’s Word as I have learned it, and speak it honestly, affectionately, and plainly, trusting thus to be clear of the blood of all men.

But in proportion as it is solemn work to preach, it is also solemn work to hear. When men enter king’s palaces, they become at once respectful, they regard their company: they pay marked attention to the head of the household. And should they not, when they come into the assembly of God’s people to join in the worship of the Most High, should they not, after the same sort, say, “How awe-inspiring is this place where the gospel is preached! It is none other than the house of God, and the very gate of heaven.”

Because, then, it is no light and trivial thing to hear a sermon, take heed how ye hear.

Again, it is no easy thing to hear a sermon well, and hence the appeal of the text, “Take heed how ye hear.” The fool cannot hear it well. He lets it in at one ear, and out at the other. The mere critic hears it, but without any profit to himself. Multitudes have heard hundreds, possibly thousands, of sermons, but they have not been benefited thereby; they have let the golden stream run past them, but not one single drop of the precious treasure have they themselves retained. The art of listening to the preaching of the gospel is one of the highest arts in the world, and conduces to the best results. Don’t you suppose when you have come up those steps, and taken your seats, that you are all ready for the sermon. Nay. Nay, it is not so. If you would have good fruit of it, there ought to be as much preparation on your part as on mine. Am I to pray that I may be a blessing to you, and are you not to pray that you may get a blessing out of the words? Are you to come flippantly, or even carelessly, into these seats and sit down, and then hope to be edified? If so, indeed, you shall usually find your hopes disappointed. Take heed how ye hear, because it is not a little thing, nor an easy thing, to listen to the gospel of Jesus.

Take heed how ye hear, implies this caution-that it is no light thing to hear the gospel ill, for on the bad hearing may hang not only the loss of the blessing which might have come, but the infliction of a punishment which shall be the greater for careless hearing. Men never listen to a gospel sermon and remain as they were. They are either bettered by it, or-shall I say worsened?-if there be such a word. It is not possible that the gospel should have shone upon those eye-balls without either giving light or increasing the blindness. I do not believe that any man has regularly sat under the sound of a gospel ministry for three months without being either sensibly hardened or manifestly softened by it. You know how children’s characters are formed, how day after day, and week after week, bring impressions for good or for evil upon their sensitive minds. And it is just the same with ourselves. Every truth that passes before the camera of our soul leaves some degree of impression upon the sensitive plate of our character, and we are either blessed by it, or cursed by it, as the case may be. It must be either a savour of life unto life to us, or of death unto death. It is no light thing to have heard amiss.

But there is also a sweet caution that springs out of the text if you think it over. “Take heed how ye hear,” for it may be a blessed thing to hear, and no one can tell the weight of mercy that may come from the hearing. I have heard of a child who used to lean forward so earnestly to catch every word, and he told his mother it was because he had heard the preacher say that if there was a sentence in the sermon that was likely to save one soul, the devil would, if it were possible, be sure to get you to be inattentive while that was being said. Now, the boy was right, and there was a great truth in it. If men did but always catch the word, speaking after the manner of men, what chances there would be that that word would be blessed to them! And what a blessing it would be! Why, there may be some here to-night-for there have been such here many nights-who have come in here having had a miserable life of it up till now, and their wife and children a more miserable life still, if it is possible, for they have been frequenters of the ale-house, spending their money in riotousness; but what if they should be sobered to-night by grace, and get new hearts and right spirits-that would be blessed hearing-blessed for the family, for the wife, and children, as well as for the man himself!

There may have come in here some poor desponding men and women, ready to make away with themselves. Oh! perhaps in the hearing to-night the joy of the Lord may come to them, and they may be saved! Many and many have found out that they were the children of God while they were hearing: found out that Christ was theirs, pardon of sin was theirs, heaven was theirs. And they would never have found it out if it had not been for hearing it; but whilst they were listening, God’s Holy Spirit opened their hearts to perceive and receive what had all the while been written in the Scriptures.

Oh! may it be a blessed night to some of you, while you are here! Pray for it, people of God. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Let your prayer go up that souls here may so hear the word of the gospel of salvation, as being a great message from God, and therefore may hear it with all their hearts, and so listen to it that it may be salvation unto them, according to the Master’s promise, “Incline your ears, and come unto me: hear and your souls shall live.”

Now, and at somewhat greater length:-

The text implies some rules as to hearing.

The text is multum in parvo-much in little. “Take heed how ye hear,” means many things. Do not be alarmed when I say that we shall have seven points under this head. That you may recollect them, I have put them in the order of the alphabet.

“Take heed how ye hear”; that is, first, take heed that you hear attentively; and it will not burden your memories if I hook on to that word another like it-retentively-that heed that ye hear attentively and retentively. I have heard of a poor idiot who was an excellent hand, idiot though he was, at carrying messages, and the way in which he did it was to deliver the message exactly as he had it, word for word. But he had a great peculiarity. While the person told him the message he always stood with one hand closing one of his ears, and as soon as ever he had got the message he put the other hand up and closed the other ear, so that both ears were shut, and away he ran. When asked why he did it, he said that when the message came he did not want it to get out at one ear, and then when he had received it he shut the other ear in order that it might not get out that way. Observe, fool though he was, there was wisdom in the action. I wish there were as much wisdom in some who would not like to be called fools, for they hear the truth with one ear, and it goes out at the other. It were well if they took care not to let it escape them. Have your ears open with keen, attentive listening, and then have both of them shut as being retentive to keep in the truth you have received. But alas! many do not even hear at all. The gospel is being preached, but they are thinking of a thousand other things. Distracting thoughts fill their minds.

We all know how hard it is for the marksman to shoot the running deer, and how difficult it must be for the preacher to strike the running judgment, and the moving, restless mind that is pre-occupied with other things! But if we can get the whole mind fixed on the subject before us, as it should be, then we may hope to make an impression. Do labour, dear friends, to whomsoever you may be listening, to put these distractions away, the thoughts of house, and home, and all besides, while the gospel is operating upon your minds, and when you have heard it, try to store it up, and keep it there. If it be good for to-day, it is good for to-morrow, and if it do not bless you to-day in the hearing, perhaps God may bless it to you in years to come. We have read of a man who was converted through a sermon, but he heard the sermon seventy years before it was blessed to him. Mr. Flavel had preached it, and the man was sitting seventy years after under a hedge in the United States, and he recollected that it was seventy years ago that day that he had heard the sermon, and God there and then blessed the sermon to him, and he was saved. Hear, then, attentively and retentively.

The second point is-hear believingly, and, as all true belief ends in practice, hear obediently. That which we do not accept as being true can be of no service to us, especially in the economy of grace, where everything comes to us by faith, and where unbelief restrains the hand of God and keeps back the blessing. Faith, however, as I have said, must always be obedient if it be true. When you have heard the Word, put it in practice at once. What a grand close to a sermon that was after Paul had preached in the streets of Ephesus, when they brought out their books of witchcraft, and made a pile of them in the street, and burned them before the apostle’s face! Ah! it were well if men would bring out their sins, their hard thoughts of God, their fancied self-righteousness, and everything contrary to the divine will. It were blessed preaching, and blessed hearing, if such were the result, hear believingly and obediently.

Thirdly, hear candidly, and so honestly. Too many are prejudiced against the Word. Prejudiced because they do not like the preacher, though I see not why they should not accept the truth wherever it may be found. A man would prize a jewel, though he found it on a dust-heap; and the gospel of Jesus is to be valued, let who will proclaim it. Some make up their mind before they hear, that they will not receive it. This is neither honest to the truth, nor to themselves. They show not wisdom, but folly here. But many will tell you that they cannot be expected to change their religion, as if they half-felt that if they were to think a little they must do so. Surely that religion that will not bear deep consideration must be a poor, poor thing. Nay, sir, but hear what is to be said! Judge thou it by the Word of God. Judge thou it honestly, and when thou hast so done, if it be not truth, cart it away to the winds, but if it be truth, then accept it, and may God bless it to thee. It is a pity that men are not more candid in hearing the gospel, and in applying it to themselves. How many, if they hear a truth, will say, “I wonder how that will suit So-and-So,” and straightway cast their eyes around the place to see if Mrs. So-and-So be there, and wonder how she will like it. The old Roman said, “Lend me your ears,” but I may say-keep your ears at home; hear for yourselves. Constantly this process ought to be going on in the hearer’s mind, “What has that truth to do with me? That promise-is it mine? That threatening-ought it to make me tremble? That caution-does it apply to me? That command-am I the man who ought to carry it out?” Oh! for such candid, personal applications of gospel truth by each hearer to himself! We should then have blessed results.

I have thus gone through three points. The fourth is-hear devoutly and hear sincerely. I reckon that but little good will come of the hearing which some people give when they hear of loaves and fishes being given away. If there are so many loaves to be given away on the Sunday, a certain number of poor people will be sure to be there-a vile hypocrisy which cannot be too much condemned. Take heed, dear hearers, that none of you ever hear with such low and sinister motives; but that you come to hear the gospel as God’s voice to us, and therefore as in God’s presence, with simple and lowly hearts, you desire to know his truth, that you may sincerely live it. Never should there be mixed therewith anything so gross and carnal as that which brings some men and women to the house of God.

Why, do not even some of you come merely because it is the custom to go somewhere, or because it looks respectable, as if the Lord’s own worship were to follow and honour the fashion of the day. This is all mischievous and rotten as a motive. If I did not think it were some good to me to come to worship, or that it was my duty to God to do it, do you think I would do it to please my neighbours? No! let my neighbours please themselves. The honest, upright man in these things remembers that religion is a personal thing, and that to be the mere slave of fashion and custom of others is sinful degradation.

Oh! I beseech you lay aside that slavery of men’s fashion, and when you do listen to the gospel, let it be with a direct and devout feeling in your soul that you have come to worship God, and to hear what God the Lord shall speak to you.

I will not stay on any one point, and therefore pass on to observe take heed that ye hear earnestly, and therefore spiritually. Some men get no blessing from the gospel, and who wonders that they do not? They never put their hearts into it. Oh! methinks if I were this night under conviction of sin, and were seeking a Saviour, I would listen with all my heart and soul to the preaching of Jesus Christ. Have you not known times, some of you, when you would have stood in the aisles by the hour to hear of Christ, if perchance you might have got rid of the burden of your sins? Ah! these are the men that get the blessing, but those who are half-asleep, and in their minds quite asleep, are not likely to receive the Word. How can it come to them with power? What probability is there that it will, when they themselves care not whether it will or not?

And then, dear friends-coming to the letter “f”-take care that you hear feelingly, asking the Lord to make the Word cut into your souls. Those get the blessing in whom the Word ploughs a furrow, not those to whom it is like whipping the water, no impression being made but for an instant. Oh! pray God that you may not get gospel-hardened. Ask him to make you tender under all threatenings, and to keep you like a well-ploughed field that is ready to receive the good seed when it is scattered upon it. Try if you can, and may God’s Holy Spirit help you to be warned under the threatenings, to be cheered by the promises, to be comforted by every good word of the Lord, so that, feeling the power of the Word, it may be life and salvation to you.

Again, “take heed how you hear,” and mind that you hear gratefully and prayerfully. It is a privilege beyond all price to live in a land of Bibles, to be brought where the gospel is proclaimed. Thank God for it. Do not be indifferent, lest he take the candlestick out of its place, and leave you in the dark. Do hear prayerfully. I wish it were a habit with you, when you get home, to take a few minutes in a quiet room, and pray for a blessing upon what has been heard. We might expect to see great results if this were your constant practice, to pray after your hearing, and even before, to get the ground ready, and when the seed is sown, to rake it, and water it, so that it may have congenial soil in which to take root. Ah! but how many come to hear the gospel, and then all the way home get into some idle company after the service, and whatever word might have been blessed, fails to produce any result, for the evil birds of the air have devoured the seed that fell upon such a hard highway.

May God give you grace to put in practice these seven hints that I have given you. “Take heed how ye hear.” And now, lastly, there are:-

Certain obvious reasons for taking heed how you hear.

And the first is because it is God’s Word. Not everything that I say, or that any minister says, is God’s Word. Hence you should take heed to separate between what is God’s and what is our’s. But wherein we speak according to Holy Scripture, it is as much God’s Word as if God himself spoke. And let me remind you that God’s Word, whoever speaks it, is a much more solemn matter than a king’s word. Where the word of a king is, there is power; but where the Word of God is, though a boy should speak it, there is irresistible power. It is better for you to hear God’s Word from your fellow-men than it would be to hear it from an angel, for God would have employed angels on such messages if they had been better. But because men can enter with greater sympathy into your feelings, God has not given this ministry unto angels, but has “committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” It is better for you to hear it from us than it would be to hear it from one who should rise from the dead, for if not, God would bid them rise from the dead and preach to you. But he would not send any from the dead to preach to Dive’s kinsmen.

He said, “They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them.” I will go further, and say it is better for you to hear the Word of God from a poor preacher than it is to hear it from God himself, for men did hear it from God himself at Sinai, and they prayed that he would no more speak with them, for the voice was too terrible. “Ye cannot see God’s face and live,” but in tender mercy he speaks through the lips of one like yourselves, who has passed through your sinnership, has fled to Jesus, and can speak from living experience. Therefore “take heed how ye hear,” for though it be but a man that speaketh, it is more than a king, or an angel, or one risen from the dead; it is, after all, the voice of God, the King of kings, speaking through his ambassador; therefore despise it not.

“Take heed how ye hear,” because it is most precious truth which is proclaimed-truth which may save your soul. The only chance, my unconverted hearer, that you have of heaven lies in the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do you know the story? God became man that he might suffer what was due for human sin, and whosoever trusts in Jesus Christ, the Substitute for sinners, shall be saved. If thou reliest simply and entirely upon him, thou shalt live. Now, that is the gospel. If ever thou shalt enter heaven, it shall be through that gate. If ever thou hast true peace, it will be through that precious balm of Gilead. I beseech thee, then, despise it not. This treasure is better than gold. No mention shall be made of coral or jewel in comparison with it. Oh! come and buy thou it, without money and without price. But trifle not in that sacred market of a preached gospel, in which alone thou canst buy the salvation of thy soul.

Take heed how you hear, because it is by this gospel that you will be judged. Paul says that Christ will judge the world, and he adds, “according to my gospel.” The gospel, the gospel! You have heard that word till you have grown sick of it, but you shall see that word pointing the sword of justice if you despise it. When God stands and holds out mercy to sinners, if they reject it, surely their destruction shall be the more severe! Oh! my dear hearers, if you understand the gospel of Jesus, I do beseech you so act towards it that you may not be afraid when the big books are opened, and the thundering voice of the Judge shall read out the history of your life, and shall pronounce your final and eternal destiny.

Take heed how you hear, for many who heard the gospel once are now among the lost. Terrible reflection! These pews have held some whose spirits are now for ever banished from hope. Take heed how you hear, for you may be sitting in such a seat, the successor of such an one, and you also may tread in his footsteps, and despise the truth, and so die without hope.

Take heed how you hear, for there are many nearing the end, who will hear no more.

Among the regrets that too often make dying such stern and crushing work is this, “I knew the gospel, but I did it not. I was told of Christ, but I never trusted him. I was pressed and persuaded, and prayed, to give my heart up to him, but I put off decision until now my last few hours have come, and ’tis enough for me to be thinking of the pain I suffer; I have no time to think upon eternal things, and do such weighty business with a God who has now come so near to me, dressed in robes of wrath.” Oh! as you will prize your Sabbaths when they are over, as you will value the discourses when you cannot listen to any more of them, think well of them now, and make this resolution, and God help you to make it in his strength, that you never will again read the Bible, or listen to gospel-preaching or gospel-talking, without the solemn desire of your whole soul that it may be made a saving blessing to you, that you may not perish while hearing the Word.

Oh! I pray you take heed how you hear, for there are many in heaven now who never could have been there if they had not heard the Word. And they were such as you are; then, why should not you find the way there by the self-same road which they, though wayfaring men, were able to tread without mistake. Children, recollect that:-

“Many dear children are gathering there,

For of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

There are children in heaven who were saved by hearing the Word in the Sunday School, saved by listening to it from this platform when they were but boys and girls. Dear children, may you trust Jesus, and become lambs in his flock. Young men and maidens, there are multitudes of your age who are amongst the choristers of the skies, making eternal melody before the great white throne, and they came there by hearing of the name of Jesus, and trusting to him. Will you not follow them? They were taken from you, some of you recollect them when they died, and you sat side by side with them in the class one Sunday, and the next Sunday they were in heaven. Or you watched them fading slowly, like lilies broken a little at the stalk, and at last they withered. Nay, they withered not, except to our poor eyes, for they bloomed anew in heaven.

Will not you bloom there, too? If so, listen to the word of Jesus, and, above all, accept it, and accept it now. Trust him whose hands were pierced, rest in him whose heart was smitten with a spear. He will save you. He rejecteth none who yield to him: yield to him now. And you, ye men of business, ’tis hard work to get you away a little while from the desk and ledger, you are so absorbed and eaten up with many of the business cares of life; and you, working man, so apt to close your ears to anything about another world-yet hear me. There are merchants like yourselves, and working men like yourselves, who stand amongst the white-robed host and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. They came there, and if you ask them how, they will tell you that they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They found out that precious blood by listening to the gospel with attentive ears, and will not you be found there? Oh! what will it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul? Sirs, it will be bad business if you make ten thousand pounds, and ruin your souls for ever. It will be hard business, you working men, if you toil on, and on, and on, bricklaying and carpentering, and I know not what besides, and yet throw away your best selves, your immortal natures. I beseech you, by every grain of sense you have, and all the wits that are within your brains, be wise and trifle not with your souls-your better part, your immortal part. As for your body, the worms will eat it, do what you may with it; but your soul-oh! I pray God that no undying worm may ever feed on that, but may you escape from that danger, safely be sheltered in Christ Jesus, and be eternally blessed in him.

I have given you good enough reasons, then, for taking heed how you hear, but what is wanted is, not reasons, but reason, or better still-grace, the grace of God. What is wanted is not more argument, but the willingness to yield to those already felt. Oh! yield now to the saving grace of God in Christ Jesus. Look to him and be saved, I pray you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

2 TIMOTHY 2

Verse 1. Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

This is an exhortation to every one of us, not only to have grace, but to be strong in it. There are many professors who, so long as they are just saved, are content. We are not content with being barely alive spiritually; we do not wish to have our life shivering with cold, but we seek after comfort as well as existence, and we seek to be in health, as well as to be in life. So should it be with the Christian. He should pray, “Lord, make me strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Oh! that these words might be, not merely an exhortation, but a divine fiat, that as God said, “Let there be light,” so he may say to his children, “Be ye strong,” and then oh! how soon shall the weakest of us leap into immortal strength!

2. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.

So, then, there is to be a succession of teachers in the church, and these do ill who are always speaking against the ministry of God. Timothy receives his ministry of Paul; he is to commit it to faithful men, and these are to hold it in custody to teach to others also. But there are some who say that all Christians should be teachers. To which we answer, if the whole body were a mouth, where were the ear? The mouth is, after all, but a vacuum; if the whole body be mouth, there will be no body at all. If all are to be shepherds, where are to be the sheep. If all are to sow, where are we to find the ground? Nay, brethren, we must be careful to pray God to continue the ministry in our midst, for without it we miss many blessings. “The same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”

3. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

If thou desirest delicacy, join not the army. A soldier’s calling is not to be linked with softnesses, and if thou desirest ease and comfort, join not the army of Christ, for a Christian’s profession and these go not together.”

4. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

So Timothy, as a Christian minister, is to act as the Roman soldier did. It was a law in Rome that no soldier was to plead in court for another as a lawyer, or to act in business for another as a bailiff, or to have anything to do, while a soldier, with either husbandry or merchandise. And so should it be with the men of God who have to break the Word, and every Christian indeed, though he meddleth with common things, is to take care that he be not entangled by them, not to be caught, as it were, as game is entangled in a net. There is a way, you know, of making the actions of common life subservient to the purposes of divine grace. This is the Christian’s business; let him take care that he be not entangled with the cares of this life.

5. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

There were rules in the Grecian games. When they struck each other, the blow was not to be given except upon a certain part of the body, and if a man fought unlawfully, he could not get the prize. So there are laws, too, for the Christian ministry, and also holy regulations for the great wrestling of Christians.

6. The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.

This is a law. No man has any right to be a preacher at all till he has first tasted of the fruits of the field. Until we have first tasted that the Lord is gracious, we cannot effectively or properly minister the things of God.

7, 8, 9. Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things. Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel. Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer; even unto bonds; but the word of God is not bound.

See how the apostle comforts himself. Here he is in prison, but the truth is free. He sits with the chains about his wrists, but the Word of God travels from nation to nation, from continent to continent, like the free spirit that dwelleth in it.

10. Therefore I endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Not that the sufferings of Paul had anything meritoriously to do with the salvation of the elect, but that by his earnest strivings and sufferings the word of the gospel was brought to their hearing; faith then came by hearing, and so they were saved.

11, 12, 13. It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

Glory be to God, the unbelief of man cannot make God break his promises. Christian, all thine unbelief has not made God unfaithful to thee; and sinner, though thou cast out the promise of God as being good for nothing, yet he will not therefore miss the recompense of reward, for Jesus will save others if he save not thee. “He abideth faithful.”

14. Of these things put them in remembrance, charging them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers.

There are some Christians who want to have this exhortation given to them in these days, for they are always striving about words to no profit. Beware of these men, if you would not have your faith staggered.