The second temple was never intended to be as magnificent as the first. The first was to be the embodiment of the full glory of the dispensation of symbols and types, and was soon to pass away. This comparative feebleness had been proved by the idolatry and apostasy of the people Israel, and when they returned to Jerusalem they were to have a structure that would be sufficient for the purposes of their worship, but they were not again to be indulged with the splendours of the former house which God had erected by the hand of Solomon. Had it been God’s Providence that a temple equally magnificent as the first should be erected, it might have been very readily accomplished. Cyrus appears to have been obedient to the divine will, and to have been a great favourer of the Jews, but he expressly by edict diminished the length of the walls and gave express command that the walls should never be erected so high as before. We have also evidence that a like decree was made by Darius, an equally great friend of the Jews, who could with the lifting of his finger have outdone the glory of Solomon’s temple, but in God’s Providence it was not arranged that so it should be, and though Herod, not a Jew, and only a Jew by religious pretence to suit his own particular purpose, lavished a good deal of treasure upon the second temple, for the pleasure of the nation he ruled, and to gain some favour from them, yet he rather profaned than adorned the temple, since he did not follow the prescribed architecture by which it ought to have been built, and he had not the divine approval upon his labours. No prophet ever commanded, and no prophet ever sanctioned, the labours of such a horrible wretch as that Herod. The reason seems to me to be this. In the second temple, during the time it should stand, the dispensation of Christ was softly melted into the light of spiritual truth. The outward worship was to cease there. It seems right that it should cease in a temple that had not the external glory of the first. God intended there to light up the first beams of the spiritual splendour of the second temple, namely, his true temple, the Church, and he would put a sign of decay on the outward and visible in the temple of the first. Yet he declares by his servant, Haggai, that the glory of the second temple should be greater than the first. It certainly was not so as in respect of gold, or silver, or size, or excellency of architecture; and yet it truly was so, for the glory of the presence of Christ was greater than all the glory of the old temple’s wealth; and the glory of having the gospel preached in it, the glory of having the gospel miracles wrought in its porches by the apostles and by the Master, was far greater than any hecatombs of bullocks and he-goats-the glory of being, as it were, the cradle of the Christian Church, the nest out of which should fly the messengers of peace, who, like doves, should bear the olive branch throughout the world. I take it that the decadence of the old system of symbols was a most fitting preparation for the incoming of the system of grace and truth in the person of Jesus Christ; and the second temple hath this glory which excelleth, that while the first was the glory of the moon in all its splendour, the second is the moon going down: the sun is rising beyond her, gilding the horizon with the first beams of the morning.

I intend to speak to you at this time about the true spiritual temple; the true second temple, the spiritual temple, which, I think, is here spoken of-although the second temple literally is also intended-the true spiritual temple built up, according to the text, of the desire of all nations.

I find this passage a very difficult one in the original; and it bears several meanings in itself. The first meaning that I give you, though it runs contrary to the great majority of Christian expositors, is the most accurate explanation of the original. We shall bring in the other explanations by-and-by. Reading it thus, “I will shake all nations,” and the desire-the desirable persons, the best part, or as the Septuagint reads it, the elect of all nations-shall come. They shall come-the true temple of God, and they shall be the living stones that shall compose it; or, as others read it, “The desirable things of all nations shall come,” which is, no doubt, the meaning, because the eighth verse gives the key: “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts.” The desirable things of all nations are to be brought in as voluntary offerings to this true second temple, this spiritual living temple.

Let us begin, then, and take that sense first, and in this case we are told, in the text concerning this second temple, what these living stones are:-

The choice men, the pick, the best of all men shall come and constitute the true temple of God. Not the kings and princes, not the great and noble after the flesh-these are but the choice of men after the manner of man’s choice; but not many great men after the flesh, not many mighty are chosen and called; but still, those whom God chooses must be the choice ones of mankind. They will not claim to be so by nature; on the contrary, they will repudiate any idea of any natural betterness in themselves. But God sees them as what they are to be, as what he intends them to be, as what he makes them to be, and in this respect they are the desire, they are the choice of all nations. To God, his people are his royal treasure, his secret jewels, the treasury of kings-they are very precious in his sight. Their very death is precious. He keeps record of their bones, and will raise their dust at the last day. If the nation did but know it, the saints in a nation are the aristocracy of that nation. Those who fear God are the very soul, and marrow, and backbone of a nation. For their sakes God has preserved many a nation. For their sakes he gives unnumbered blessings. “Ye are the salt of the earth”: the earth were putrid without them. “Ye are the light of the world”: the world would be dark without them. They are the desire, I say, though often the world treats them with contempt, and would cast them out. It has ever been thus with the blind world-to treat its best friends worst, and its worst enemies often receive the most royal entertainment. Now what a joy it is to us to think that God has been pleased to make unto himself a people according to his own sovereign will and good pleasure, and that he has made these to be the desirable ones out of all nations-that with these choice and elect ones he will build up his Church.

But the text not only tells us of the stones, but of the remarkable mode of architecture. “The desire of all nations shall come”-they shall be brought together. Human means shall be used to bring each one to its place, to excavate each one from its quarry; but while it is God who speaketh, he speaks like God, for he uses shalls and wills most freely, and according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus, or ever the earth was, so shall the fulfilment be. We who preach the gospel may preach with devout assurance of success. The desire of all nations shall come. Out of this congregation the truly desirable ones shall come to Christ. Out of the soil in which the sower sowed-the honest and good ground-is brought forth the harvest. Out of the nations, though they reject Christ and continue in their idolatry, yet there are some choice spirits who come; some whom the Lord looks upon with great delight, and these shall come. We do not labour in vain, neither do we spend our strength for nought. We fall back upon the doctrine of divine working and divine choice for consolation-certainly not for an excuse for indolence, but for consolation when we have done our best, that God is glorified in the end-“the desire of all nations shall come.”

And if you will notice in the whole text, it appears that they do not come without much shaking. In one sense, no man comes to God with compulsion; and in another sense, no man comes without compulsion. You see two boxes opened. There are two ways of opening them. You see one box wrenched: there has been used evidently rough means. Who opened it? A thief. God never opens men’s hearts in that way. You see another box open-no sign of damage, no sign of any particular labour. Who opened it? The person who had the key-probably the owner. Hearts belong to God, and he has the keys and opens them-sweetly opens them. And yet, though no force is used, that puts aside the positive, free agency of man which God interferes not with; yet there is a spiritual force which may well be described as a shaking. It is only when the tree of the nation has a thorough shaking, that at last the prime, ripe fruit will drop down into the great Master’s lap. He shakes by Providence, by the movement of the human conscience. He shakes by the impulses of his Holy Spirit; he shakes the spirit, and as the result the desirable persons out of all the nations are brought to himself. Stones that he would have, come at last out of the quarry, and he builds them up into a temple.

And now observe that these persons, according to another rendering of the text, when they come to build up the Church, they always bring their desire with them-they bring with them the most desirable thing. The desirable things of all nations shall give the silver, and the gold, and so on. He that comes to Christ brings with him all he has, and he has not come to Christ who has left his true substance behind him. What, now, is the desire of all the nations when hearts are renewed? Well, silver and gold will always be desirable, and men who give their hearts to Christ will bring what they have of that to Christ. But the most desirable things of manhood are not metals-dirt, mere dross, hard materialisms-no, the desirable things of manhood are things of the soul, the heart, the spirit; and into the temple, the great second temple, there shall come, not masses of gold and silver merely, that can adorn with outward splendour, but also love, and faith, and holy virtue, more priceless than gems, far richer in value than rarest mines. Oh! what a sight the Church of God is when holy angels look upon it. We hear of some of the first Spanish invaders going into the temple of Peru, and seeing floors, roofs, and walls made of slabs of gold, and standing astonished. But oh! in the Church there are slabs of faith on the floor of that great temple, and walls of love, of Christian self-sacrifice, and roofs of holy joy and Christian consolation. It is a temple that makes spiritual eyes flash with gladness. What care they for the splendour of kings and princes? But they care much for the true, desirable things of nations-holy emotions, holy desires, ascriptions of gratitude, and devout acts of service for the Lord God. Oh! how glorious is the second temple then, when the desirable men come to it, and bring with them all the desirable things to make it glorious in the sight of God.

And then this temple, thus built and thus adorned, will continue The text implies that “I will shake all nations.” The apostle says that this signifies the things that can be shaken; that the things that cannot be shaken will remain, and that the desire of all nations must be put down as a thing that cannot be shaken. The Church, then, shall never be shaken, and the precious things that the Church gives to her God shall not be shaken. Time will change many things. Great princes will be considered mere beggars by-and-by in the esteem of men who know how to judge by character. Great men will shrivel into very small things-when they come to be tried, even by posterity. And the judgment-day-ah! how will that try the great ones of this earth? But the Christian Church-the very gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Time shall not be able so much as to chip one of her polished stones. Her treasures of faith, and what not, the rich things that God hath given her-these things shall never be stolen: they can never be shaken. And then the crown of all is, “I will fill this house with my glory, saith the Lord.” This is the reason, the great charm of it all. God himself dwells, as he dwells nowhere else, in his glory. The Church, which we think two, and call militant and triumphant, is but one, after all, and God dwelleth in it. Oh! if we had but eyes to see it, the glory of God on earth is not much less than the glory of God in heaven, for the glory of a king in peace is one thing, but the glory of a conqueror in war is another thing, though I know which I prefer; yet if I transfer the figure, I have no preference between the glory of the God of peace in the midst of his obedient servants in his ivory palaces, and the glory of the Lord of Hosts in the thick of this heavenly war, as he conflicts with human evil, and brings forth glory to his saints out of all the mischief that Satan seeks to do to his throne and to his sceptre. God is known in the Jerusalem below, as well as in the Jerusalem above. “The Lord is in the midst of her.” Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. God is in the midst of her: she shall not be moved; and though the kings gather together for her destruction, yet his presence is the river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. Yes, glorious things may well be spoken of Zion when we have such stones as precious men, such gifts as precious graces, such abiding character as God gives, and such a presence as the presence of God himself. But now in the next place, if we take the other rendering of the text:-

The glory of the spiritual second temple is actually the incarnation of Christ.

“I will shake all nations,” and he who is the desire of all nations shall come-a rendering which is not incorrect, and is established by a great mass of theologians, though, according to some of the ablest critics, a rendering scarcely to be sustained by the original. He who is the desire of all nations shall come, and that shall be the glory of the second spiritual temple. Jesus Christ, then, is the desire of all nations, if so we read the text, and this is doubtless true. All nations have a dark and dim desire for him. I say a dark desire, for without that adjective I could scarcely speak the truth. Most interesting chapters have been written by students of the history of mankind upon the preparedness of men’s hearts for the coming of Christ at his incarnation. It is very certain that almost all nations have a tradition of the coming one. The Jews, of course, expected the Messiah. There were persons instructed according to the culture of various nations, which, though they do not expect the Messiah quite so clearly as the Jews, had almost as shrewd a guess as to what he might be and do as the mere ritualistic and Pharisaic Jews had. There was a notion all over the world at that time of Christ’s coming, that some great one was to descend from heaven, and to come into this world for this world’s good. He was in that respect darkly and dimly the desire of all nations. But in all nations there have been some persons more instructed to whom Christ has really been the object of desire with much more of intelligence. Job was a Gentile and a fearer of God We have no reason to believe that Job was a solitary specimen of enlightened persons: we have reason rather to hope that in all countries all over the world God has had a chosen people, who have known and feared him, who have not had all the light which has been given to us, but who better used what light they had, and were guided by his secret Spirit to much more of light, perhaps, than we think it right, with our little knowledge, to credit them with. These, then, as representatives of all the nations, were desiring the coming of the great Deliverer, the incarnate God; and in this sense, representatively, the whole of the world was desiring Christ in that higher sense, and he was the desire of all nations. But, my brethren, does this mean, or does it not mean, that Christ is exactly what all the nations need? If they did but know, if they could but understand him, he is just what they would desire and should desire. Were their reason taught rightly, and were their minds instructed by the Spirit to desire the best in all the world, Christ is just what they want. All the world desire a way to God. Hence men set up priests and anoint them with oil, and smear them with I know not what, only that they may be mediators between them and God. They must have something to come between their guilt and God’s glorious holiness. Oh; if they knew it, what they want is Christ. You want no priest, but the great “Apostle and High Priest of our profession.” You want no mediator with God, but the one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus, who is also equal with God. Oh! world, why wilt thou gad about to seek this priest and that other deceiver, when he whom thou wantest is appointed by the Most High? He whom Jacob saw in his dream as the ladder which reached from earth to heaven is the only means-the Son of Man and yet the Son of God. The world wants a peacemaker; oh! how badly it wants it now! I seem as I walk my garden, as I go to my pulpit, as I go to my bed, to hear the distant cries and moans of wounded and dying men. We are so familiarised each day with horrible details of slaughter, that if we give our minds to the thought, I am sure we must feel a nausea, a perpetual sickness creeping over us. The reek and steam of those murderous fields, the smell of the warm blood of men flowing out on the soil, must come to us and vex our spirits Earth wants a peacemaker, and it is he, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, and the friend of Gentiles, the Prince of Peace, who will make war to cease unto the ends of the earth. Man wants a purifier. Very many nations feel, somehow or other, that political affairs do not go as one could wish. There are great excellences in personal government, but great disadvantages. There are great excellences in republican government, but remarkable difficulties too. There are supreme excellences, as we think, in our own form of government, but a great many things to be amended, for all that; and this world is altogether out of joint; it is a crazy old concern, and does not seem as if it could be amended with all the tinkering of our reformers in the lapse of years. The fact is, it wants the Maker, who made it, to come in and put it to rights. It needs the Hercules that is to turn the stream right through the Augean stable; it wants the Christ of God to turn the stream of his atoning sacrifice right through the whole earth, to sweep away the whole filth of ages, and it never will be done unless he doeth it. He is the one, the true Reformer, the true rectifier of all wrong, and in this respect the desire of all nations. Oh! if the world could gather up all her right desire; if she could condense in one cry all her wild wishes; if all true lovers of mankind could condense their theories and extract the true wine of wisdom from them; it would just come to this, we want an Incarnate God, and you have got the Incarnate God! Oh! nations, but ye know it not! Ye, in the dark, are groping after him, and know not that he is there.

Brethren, I may add, Christ is certainly the desire of all nations in this respect, that we desire him for all nations. Oh! that the world were encompassed in his gospel! Would God the sacred fire would run along the ground, that the little handful of corn on the top of the mountains would soon make its fruit to shake like Lebanon. Oh! when will it come, when will it come that all the nations shall know him? Let us pray for it: let us labour for it.

And one other meaning I may give to this: he is the desirable one of all nations, bringing back the former translation of this text. He is the choice one of all nations. He is the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely. He, whom we love, is such an one that he can never be matched by another, his rival could not be found amongst the sons of men. There is none like him; there is none like him amongst the angels of light; there is none that can stand in comparison with him. The desire, the one that ought to be desired, the most desirable of all the nations, is Jesus Christ, and it is the glory of the Christian Church, which is the second temple that Christ is in her, her head, her Lord. It is never her glory that she condescends to make an iniquitous union with the State. It is her glory that Christ is her sole King; it is her glory that he is her sole Prophet, and that he is her sole Priest, and that he then gives to all his people to be kings and priests with him, himself the centre and source of all their glory and their power.

I cannot stay longer, though the theme tempts me, but must just give you the last word, which is this, the visible glory of the true second temple will be Christ’s second coming. He, himself, is her glory, whether at his first coming, or at his second coming. The Church will be no more glorious at the second coming than now. “What!” say you, “no more glorious!” No; but more apparently glorious. Christ is as glorious on the cross as he is on the throne; it is the appearance only that shall alter. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, but they evermore are brightness itself, in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, brethren, we are to expect, as long as this world lasts, that all things will shake that are to be moved. They will go on shaking. We call the world sometimes “terra firma”; it is not this world, surely, that deserves such a name as that; there is nothing stable beneath the stars; all things else will shake, and as the shaking goes on, Jesus Christ will, to those who know him, become more and more their desire. I suppose, if the world went on, in some things mending and improving, and were to go up to a point, we should not want Christ to come in a hurry; we would rather that things should be perpetuated; but the shaking will make Christ more and more the desire of the nations. “The whole creation groaneth,” is groaning up to now, but it will groan more and more “in pain together travailing”-the apostle saith-“even until now.” The travailing pains grow worse and worse, and worse, and it will be so with this world; it will travail till at last it must come to the consummation of her desire. The Church will say, “Come, Lord Jesus.” She will say it with gathering earnestness; she will continue still to say it, though there are intervals in which she will forget her Lord, but still her heart’s desire will be that he will come; and at last he will surely come and bring to this world not only himself, the desire of all nations, but all that can be desired, for those days of his, when he appeareth, shall be to his people as the days of heaven upon earth, the days of their honour, the days of their rest-the day in which the kingdoms shall belong unto Christ. Oh! brethren, it is not for me to go into details on a subject which would require many discourses, and which could not be brought out in the few last words of a discourse. But here is the great hope of that splendid building, the Church, which is desired. Her glory essentially lies in the Incarnate God, who has come into her midst. Her glory manifestly will lie in the second coming of that Incarnate God, when he shall be revealed from heaven to those that look and are waiting for and hasting unto the coming of the Son of God-looking for him with gladsome expectation. And this is the joy of the Church. He has gone, but he has left word, “I will come again, and will receive you unto myself, that where I am, ye may be also.” Remember the words that were spoken of the angels to the Church, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye here, gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is gone up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven.” In propria persona-in very deed and truth, he shall come:-

“These eyes shall see him in that day,

The God that died for me;

And all my rising bones shall say,

Lord, who is like to thee?”

Then shall come the adoption, the raising of the body, the reception of a glory to that body re-united to the soul, such as we have not dreamed of, for eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love him. Though he hath revealed them unto us by his Holy Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God, yet have our ears heard but little thereof, and we have not received the full discovery of the things that shall be hereafter. The Lord bless you! May you all be parts of his Church, have a share in his glory, and a share in the manifestation of that glory at the last.

Dear hearer, I would send thee away with this one query in thine ear-Is Christ thy desire? Couldest thou say, with David, “He is all my salvation and all my desire”? Could you gather up your feet in the bed, with dying Jacob, and say, “I have waited for thy will, O God”? By your desire shall you be known. The desire of the righteous shall be granted. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desire of thine heart.

But the desire of many is a grovelling desire: it is a sinful desire: it is a disgraceful desire-a desire which, if it be attained, the attainment of it will afford very brief pleasure. Oh! sinner, let thy desires go after Christ. Remember if thou wouldest have him, thou hast not to earn him-fight for him-win him-but he is to be had for the asking. “Lay hold,” says the apostle, “on eternal life.” As if it were ours, if we did but grip it. God give us grace to lay hold on eternal life, for Jesus from the cross is saying, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth,” and from his throne of glory he still is saying, “Come unto me,” exalted on high, to give repentance and remission of sin,” and he will give them both to those who seek him. Seek him, then, this night. God grant it for his Son’s sake. Amen.

Expositions by C. H. Spurgeon

HAGGAI 1-2:1-9; HEBREWS 7:15-28

HAGGAI 1.

The subject is the building of the second temple. The people had been busily employed in building their own houses-some of them had gone to great expense and much labour upon these houses, but they had not built the temple of God. The prophet Haggai was sent to incite them to this holy labour.

Verse 1, 2. In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerrubbabel the son of Shealtiel, Governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.

A bad excuse is thought to be better than none. These people would not object to the building of the Lord’s house, but they were willing to postpone so expensive a matter. There are always some persons who will not say that they decline self-sacrifice for Christ-that were more honesty than it were reasonable to expect from them, and honesty might cost their feelings too much, but they have some other reason or pretence of reason-“The time is not come that the Lord’s house should be built.” Men are generally quick enough for anything that is for their own interest. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” We must catch time by the forelock. Oh! if we had the same desire in the work and service of God-if we had the same desire-we should have the same promptitude to do our task. “The time is not come-the time that the Lord’s house should be built.”

3, 4. Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste!

They had wainscoted their houses with cedar and odoriferous wood, decorated them with carving, whereas the plainest edifices would have sufficed. God will allow them to build their own house for necessary dwelling, but next to that should certainly come his house, before they took to decorating their own. “Is it time for you to do this?” and, indeed, it may well be said to many a wealthy man, “It does not appear to you to be time to aid foreign missions, but it does seem to you to be time to put another thousand pounds in Consols. It does not seem time for you to help the Bible Society, but it seems to be time to make another investment, and purchase another estate that adjoins your own.” “Is it time for you, oh! ye, to dwell in your cieled houses?”

5, 6. Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

These people did not prosper: they were very prudent after a worldly sort, but somehow they did not get on. No! it is not what we do so much as God’s prospering us that will make us really succeed. It is vain to rise up early and sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness. God must give us prosperity, and he often withholds this where he sees it is not right. A man will not trust a bad steward, and though God hath trusted many and many a bad steward for wise reasons, yet among his own people he often gives chastisements, and deprives them of worldly comfort, when they use not what they have for his service. I think I have heard some people say that ministers never ought to talk about money in the pulpit. The prophet Haggai did, however; and it is because ministers say so little about the consecration of their substance to God’s cause that this most important part of true piety is often treated with levity, and with some even by disgust. Nay, brethren, we must speak often. The great sin of the Christian Church is withholding from God. Now is it the sin as in the days of Haggai. “Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways.” If you considered your ways, you would see that you have been losers by your attempts to gain. Consider your ways practically by altering them.

7, 8. Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountains, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.

That should be the great object that we should aim at in all we do, that God may be glorified-that God may take pleasure in it. It does not matter who we please if God is not pleased, nor who gets honour from what we give, if God is not glorified thereby.

9. Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little.

It vanished: the breeze was so strong that the unconsecrated substance went away like chaff.

9-11. I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house. Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.

Men make an inventory: item so many cattle, item so much, corn item so much, wine. God can make items, too, and he can curse all our blessings one by one. This catalogue looks like it. If they have saved in all these, robbing God, God will take care that they shall get nothing by their doing.

12. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord.

There is good bottom in those men who are led to duty when they are reminded of neglect, and it is blessed work preaching where there is a conscience quick to accede to the admonition. I do not suppose it was so with all the people of Jerusalem, but it was with some of them, and those the leading men. Where high priests and men of authority lead the way, others, if not so prompt, are often guided by the principle of imitation, and they follow the leader.

13. Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messenger in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying. I am with you, saith the Lord.

Here was the best cheer for them. They had engaged in God’s business, and God would be with them

14, 15. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts their God. In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year or Darius the king.

Notice that date-the four and twentieth day of the sixth month.

HAGGAI 2:1-9.

Verse 1. In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month.

Not very long after.

2, 3. Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?

It appears that the spirit of idleness had broken cut again. As the walls began to rise, the older men wept at the recollection of what an inferior structure it would be, compared with the former building of Solomon, and the idolers, ready enough to get an excuse, are ready enough to cease work. Therefore, God’s prophet is at it again. If the fire begins to die out, the bellows must be used again. The zeal of the Christian is very like the zeal of these men of Jerusalem-very apt to flag; and the zeal of God’s messenger must come to stir them up again.

5, 6. According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. For thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while.

Though as some read it, it is “but a little structure,” but our reading is, perhaps, better-it is but a little while.

6-9. And I will shake the heavens, and the eavth, and the sea, and the dry land; And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.

Clearly encouraging them to proceed with their work.

HEBREWS 7:15-28.

15-18. And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchisedec there ariseth another priest. Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.

The old Levitical law is disannulled; it became weak and unprofitable; and now a higher and better dispensation is ushered in with a greater and undying priesthood.

19. For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.

That is all it did; it was a stepping-stone towards something better. “by which we draw near unto God.” “The Lord hath sworn and will not repent.”

20-24. And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest. (For those priests were made without an oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto him, the Lord sware and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec:) By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better Testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death; But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.

I think they reckoned that there were eighty-three high priests in regular succession from Aaron to the death of Phineas, the last high priest at the siege of Jerusalem. One succeeded another, but this one goes on continually, for ever hath an untransferable priesthood. That word “untransferable” is nearer to the meaning than this “unchangeable.” If any of you have old Bibles with the margin, you will see “hath a priesthood which cannot be passed from one hand to another,” and the margin happens in this case to have the true rendering, “This man hath an untransferable priesthood.”

25. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

“For such an high priest became us.”

We want just that high priest who would live on throughout all the ages for ever to sustain his people, and do for them all they should need to have done for them, until time should have been no more.

26-28. For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.

There is our joy.

SEEING JESUS

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, January 28th, 1915.

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

On Thursday Evening, September 9th, 1896.

“Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me.”-John 14:19.

Whatever religious privileges men of the world may have, they will lose them. It was a great favour to see Christ in the flesh. Kings and prophets had desired to see his day, and had died disappointed because he had not come, but that sight of him which the generation in which Christ lived enjoyed was taken from them. They were none the better, but in some respects they were all the worse for having seen him, whose blood was on them and on their children. So, as a general truth, all the outward religious privileges which any of you may enjoy, if you do not become spiritual men and are not, indeed, Christ’s disciples, will be taken from you, speedily taken from you, leaving no blessing behind, but rather a curse. You are hearers of the gospel to-day, some of you, though unconverted; but you shall not always hear it. There is a land where Sabbath-bells never ring, where the joyful feet of the messengers of mercy are never seen, and where no loving expostulations and no affectionate entreaties will be addressed to you. Now you join in song with God’s people, but you will not do so soon; another sound, more strange and full of trembling, will be in your ear. Some of you, it may be, unconverted as you are, even venture to touch the ordinances, and have been baptized and have come to the Lord’s Table. There will be another baptism for you, and you will eat bread at a far different table from that of the Lord by-and-bye, for except you be converted, these, instead of being means of grace, shall be swift messengers against you to your condemnation. It is a very sorrowful case when a man is so bad that that which is good becomes bad to him, and a fearful proof of the fall of our race, and the depravity of our unregenerate nature, that even the best religious privileges will only become a savour of death unto death unto us, unless the grace of God shall change our hearts.

Note, then, that as the text saith that the world which saw Christ should soon see him no more, so it teacheth us that there are many outward privileges in religion that even worldly people enjoy that they shall soon enjoy no more, for, as they would not have the inward spiritual grace, they shall not have the outward and visible sign, for ever to tread beneath their feet; as they would not receive the grace of God into their hearts in the power of it, so shall the very offers of love and the outward ministrations of mercy be withdrawn from them.

With that black foil, the gem of our text may shine the brighter. “But ye see me; ye, my people, ye that have believed, ye who, by grace, have received the new nature, ye that have passed from death unto life, when the world sees Christ no more, ye shall see him in his glory, and even now while a blind world beholds him not, you are enjoying a sight of him. Our first word to-night, after this preface, shall be:-

Spiritual differences.

The world seeth him no more, but ye see him. The difference lies in the kind of sight. The world’s sight of Christ, in the first place, was only a sight to the eyes, and consequently the moment Christ was gone out of this world, the world saw him no more. But when he was gone, there were others who had seen him with a different sight, which was not affected by his corporeal absence; they continued still to see, because their seeing had been something other than the sight of the eyes. Now, when Jesus Christ was here upon earth, all that an ungodly man saw of Christ was just his outward form-as some think incomparably beautiful, and so I suppose it was at the first. So perfect a spirit must surely have been enshrined within a matchless, outward form. I can conceive him to have been full of grace, even in the common sense of that term, as well as in its higher meaning. But in after years, such were the griefs of his spirit, that we know that he appeared to be older than he was, for the Jews said, “Thou art not yet fifty years old,” when he was but a little more than thirty. Such was the decay probably, such the emaciation that grief brought upon him, that he had no form or comeliness, and when men looked upon him they saw him as the man of sorrows and the acquaintance of grief. Whatever the outward form may have been, it was certainly all that the ungodly man saw, all that the Pharisee saw, all that Pilate saw, all that Herod saw-just that outward form. They did not, therefore, see the real Christ of God at all, and in proof that they did not see him we find that some of them could only see in him an impostor, who pretended to be what he was not; others could only see in him an ordinary prophet, a remarkable man, but still one of the common race of prophets, and no more. They could not see in him what his disciples saw, namely, his glorious inward character, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Now, you do not know a man because you happen to know the colour of his eyes, the peculiar curl of his hair, or what kind of feature he may possess. You know a man better when you have lived with him, when you know his spirit, when you have traced his virtues, when you have read his secrets. That is the man. The spirit is the man. The body is, after all, but the shrine in which the spirit dwells. The world saw Christ only as to his outward form, and when he was gone they saw him in that respect no more. But his disciples had seen his inward nature. Some of them had seen what flesh and blood could not reveal to them; they had been made to see, by having their eyes spiritually anointed with heavenly eye-salves, and consequently, when Christ was gone from their natural optics, they continued still to see; and I venture to say they saw more clearly than they had done before, for now, when he was taken up from them, they began to read what he had said to them with greater understanding; they began to see some of his actions in a different light, and much that they did not understand at one time when he was with them, because they could not bear it, they began to understand now that he was gone, because his Spirit revealed it, their understandings being capable of receiving the deeper truth. They saw the better for his absence, while the world saw not at all.

Beloved friend, I shall ask thee, before I pass on-Hast thou ever had such a sight of Jesus Christ? No; I do not mean, did you ever dream you saw him? I do not mean, did you ever think you saw a vision? I do not care whether you have or have not. If you saw the devil that would not send you to hell, and if you saw Christ, it would not send you to heaven. But have you ever had that spiritual sight of him which has made you to understand his character? Have you ever seen him as the Christ of God, the God-man, the Only Begotten, the Well-beloved, the Saviour, the King of your spirit? Have you so seen him as to be subdued by the sight, and to be at once enlisted in his service? Oh! this is the sight which he giveth to his own people, the sight which saveth, the sight of which he speaks when he saith, “The world seeth me no more, but ye see me”; the difference between the sight of the eyes and the sight of the inner man.

We have a sight of Christ, further, which not only lasts when Christ is gone, but which lasts when our eyes are gone. The world can only see while the eye endures. If the eye should by any means be filmed, or if especially the eye and all the powers of the body should be smitten by death, then there would be to the world no sight of Christ. But in our case our sight of Jesus Christ is one which has been known to be even brightened by the eyes being quenched, a sight which grows more and more clear as the flesh decays, a sight which will be clearest of all when we have done with eyes altogether, when we shall be in the disembodied and spiritual state-then shall we see the King in his beauty to perfection, and though after a while there shall be added to that sight a corporeal sight, when the body shall rise again from the grave, yet meanwhile our sight is such that, if our eyes were taken away from us, we thank God it would not dim our sight of Christ one jot. There are some in this place to-night whom I remember with affectionate regard, who have not seen the light of the sun for many years, and yet their eyes see the face of Christ almost always, for their love to Christ is so fervent, and the communion they have with Christ is so constant that the loss of their eyes seems to be, in their case, almost a privilege; they see the better because that drop screen has crossed the optic glass and shut them out from the world. Yes, and if any of us should be overtaken by the gradual closing of the eyes, heavy as such an affliction must be, we thank God we shall still be able to see him, and when the eye-strings break in death, then, even then, shall we see him, and while we lie pining there, and friends think us shut out from everything that is happy, we shall but consider ourselves shut in, waiting for the full appearing of the Lord our Saviour. The sight, then, which God gives to his people is a sight which is not dependant upon Christ’s bodily presence, and is not dependant, in the next place, upon our bodily eyes.

On this matter of spiritual differences we remark, next, that the sight which is here meant is one which is an available thing when everything else goes to the contrary. When everything prospers with a man of the world, even he seeth, and saith, “Perhaps God is here.” If he be an outwardly religious man, though not inwardly so, if he mingles in a congregation where there is some degree of religious excitement, if his own mind be gratified, he will say he thinks Christ is there. But the child of God can see Jesus Christ where nobody else can, namely, in the midst of the storm and the tempest, where everything threatens present destruction. The believer hears him say, “It is I,” and sees him walking upon the waves-sees him not only in exciting religious meetings, but in the quiet of solitude. Worldlings in solitude see nothing, have no holy thoughts, but there the Christian perceives Jesus, and if that solitude be attended with never so much of trial, and temptation, and inward sorrow, and distress, yet faith is fully at work, and the believer looks through every mist and cloud, and still seeth Jesus, according to his promise-“Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” It is a poor faith that can only see Christ in the sunlight; it is a brave faith that sees him at midnight. It is poor faith that believes that Jesus is there when all prospers, but it is right faith that knows he is there when nothing prospers, except faith, which prospers most when tried. It is glorious to be able to read God’s Word sometimes backwards-not to believe that his hard messages mean unkindness, but to understand that there is love in every stroke of the rod, eternal love in every hard word that falls from the Saviour’s lips. Faith, then, not only sees Jesus when he is corporeally absent, and sees him without corporeal eyes, but sees him when to sense it seems quite impossible that Jesus should be there. Note these differences, and let us pass on. Now we have here:-

Spiritual discernment.

I shall ask you, brethren and sisters, now quietly to look into yourselves to see whether you have the spiritual discernment we shall now speak of. We see him. We see him, first, with a trust which hangs all its confidence upon him. The world does not see Christ as the great foundation-stone of its hope. It sees its own works; it hopes in ceremonies and in outward forms. But we see him. Whenever our faith looks abroad, she sees nothing but Jesus. “No man, but Jesus only.” On that dear cross my soul hangs all her confidence; not a rag anywhere else.

“All my trust on thee is stayed,

All my help from thee I bring.”

This is an essential mark of a Christian, that he sees Jesus with the simple faith that relies alone upon him. Dear hearer, do you in this respect see Jesus? If so, rest assured that where he is in his glory, you shall shortly be. There is life in that look; there is more than life present-there is life eternal in a look at him. I hope you are not among those who say, “I did look to Jesus once.” No; we see him still. The life of our faith dwells in a perpetual life-look at Christ. We do not say that we have seen him, and then we have withdrawn our glance, but we continue still to look. Our faith does not depend on something done in the past in us, but on that finished work which abideth still for us, and to which we look day by day. We see him with the look of a simple faith.

We see him, next, with the look of a reverent worship. Where is he to-night, Christian, think you? He is yonder as to his body; he is yonder at the right hand of the Father. I will not try to use my imagination to picture him there in that supernal splendour which far outshines the lamps of heaven, otherwise we might so speak of him that you might seem to hear him pleading now for you, and see him wearing your names engraven on the jewels of his breast-plate, displayed before the Father’s face for you at this hour. But though we will not thus picture him, yet we see him there by faith, and our soul bows and worships. All hail! All hail! Immanuel, Son of Mary and Son of God! Man and God, we worship thee with all our hearts! Had we crowns, we would cast them at thy feet; but as these are not ours as yet, we bring thee our songs, and our prayers, and our hearts’ love; and here to-night, in the assembly of thy saints, we look at thee and we worship thee!

Now, I am conscious in my own heart to-night of a clearer sight of Christ than the sight which I take of you sitting in your pews. As I see you in your pews, I do but glance upon the flesh in which you live. As for What you really may be, I cannot see you. Your thoughts and your feelings are all unseen of me. But when I look at Christ to-night, though I cannot see his flesh, nor behold his scars, nor all the glory of his risen body, yet I can see him, for I know what he is thinking of, I know what he is feeling, I know what he is looking for, I know what his heart is bent on. He is full of love to his people; he is thinking of their interests; he is pleading for us; he is working for us as an intercessor before the throne. We see him with the glance of reverent adoration, then, and see him clearly too.

Again, we see the Lord Jesus Christ to-night-I trust we do-with the eye of sanctified obedience. We believe that he is here; we believe that when we go to our homes he will be with us in spirit; that when we go to our business or to our work to-morrow morning he will be with us still. Now we could not sin in his presence as other men sin. We dare not plunge into the common customs of the world. We could not use the world’s talk; we would not yield to its maxims, and why? Because Jesus is there, and a sense of his presence is always a check to us against temptation, and oftentimes it is not only a negative force, but a sense of his presence constrains us to serve him as best we may. I wish we saw Jesus more usually in this sense, and yet, my brethren, I hope some of us do, as a general rule, see him daily thus, as though he were overshadowing us. I know I often do when I am sitting and thinking of what I shall say to you, and I start, as though I could look up and see him looking down on me, and as I am walking by the way it often happens that I almost seem to check myself as though I heard his foot-fall at my side. I know it cannot be, but I am conscious of his presence, conscious that he talks with me and I with him. Is it so with you? I know it is with many of you. Oh! cherish this more. Some of us lose his presence by the week or the month together, and it is very sad, sore sad, to be living in such a world as this, far off from Christ. Oh! sheep, you cannot afford to be so far off the Shepherd when the wolf is so near. Child, you cannot afford to be so far away from your Elder Brother when the pestilence is walking in darkness and the arrows are flying by day, and none but himself can shield you. Oh! try to get into the fulness of this thought-we see him, not only up there, reverently to be worshipped, but here to be worshipped by our feeling the restraints and the constraints of his presence, feeling with regard to him as Hagar did with regard to Jehovah in the wilderness when she said, “Thou God seest me”-thou Christ seest me; thou Crucified One, thou art with me; thou exalted Lord, I tread in thy footsteps; how can I consent to sin when thou art so near me? Still we see him.

We see him further, dear friends, oftentimes with a trust which consoles us in hours of difficulty. Mark what I mean here Oftentimes the servant of God, when he sees how ill things go in the world, and especially in the religious world, is apt to think that Jesus is not there. Indeed, it wants a great deal of faith to see Jesus when things are sluggish in the church, when there are ministers who do not seem to care about souls being saved, when there are churches that fall asleep, and when the world seems to grow more wicked, more lascivious in its amusements, and more blatant in its atheistic blasphemy. But faith learns to know that Jesus is still here, that he cannot be away from the army. He is the Prince, and he is concerned in the victory. He cannot be away. The whole of what goes on in the world is still under his direction and his control. He has not put away the keys, blessed be his name; nor has he left them to the devil, but they are at his girdle. There they hang-the sovereign keys of death and hell, still entrusted to him alone. He has not left the chariot for some diabolic Jehu to drive, and bring confusion upon this world. The government shall be upon his shoulder; he shall be called the Wonderful, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Still:-

“He everywhere hath sway,

And all things serve his might.”

When he suffers for a while the powers of evil to have a longer tether than usual, it is that afterwards he may pull them in again and prove his power, and lift them up to scorn by defeating then, even with all the advantages they seem to gain. Have confidence, child of God! The Church of God is safe. There is no danger to that. The pillars of that house no Samson shall ever remove. The house goeth on building, stone by stone, both by night and by day, most surely and most certainly, and the top stone shall be brought forth with shoutings of “Grace, grace unto it.” We see him, then, with the eye of a confidence that consoles us greatly in the times of darkness and of despair.

And, brethren, I trust we see Christ oftentimes with a joy which enlivens us. Do you not think that a believer ought to be ashamed to be sad? “Oh!” says one, “we have a great deal of trouble.” Yes, I know we have, and what a mercy it is that we have! I have a great many things that God has given me that I much value, but of all the things I ever had, next to his dear Son, that which I value most is the cross that is the heaviest. I have got more good out of my affliction than out of all my prosperity. I would not be without a cross for all the world. Blessed be God, one loves to learn to bear his sorrows, for one does not seem to want faith to see that it is good; one gets by experience to see how good it is, and to love our Father’s cup, out of which he gives us the gall every morning which is so bitter; but oh! it has done us so much good. Like the man subject to fever, walking through the malaria districts, he does not shudder to drink the quinine as the child does who thinks it is so bitter; the man feels the tonic effects of it, so that at last he comes to accept that cup with thankfulness-so, brethren, our afflictions ought not to make us sad; when they come to us we should remember that their ordinary tendency is sadness, but their extraordinary tendency, when they are rightly used, is to make us rather rejoice because our Father pleases to send us these things. An old German writer tells us of some birds which were in the house of a neighbour of his, and which were being taught to sing. Some were bullfinches, I think, and they were teaching them to pipe, but there were some other birds-larks, and nightingales, and so on, and these were in the dark. It was very cruel; the poor little things were in the dark, and could see no light. But, he said, these were they that could sing the sweetest. And oftentimes the child of God, when he gets a sense of the Lord’s presence, is one of the birds that can sing best in the dark. Why, when it is all light, you know, there are plenty of things to distract our attention; but when it is all dark, and Christ comes in, and he is the only thing to be seen, why, then he is better than all the things we do not see, and his light is brighter than all the stars that have been put out; and now we can sing more clearly about his presence than we could about all the world’s gifts, and about all the outward joys that have been taken away. Do but let a child of God know that Christ is with him, and his joy will be unspeakable and full of glory.

“Since Christ is rich, while I am poor,

What can I want beside?”

Since my Beloved is mine, and I am his, I will e’en sit down by Babel’s stream and sing the Lord’s song, for the land is not strange where he is. Even Kedar’s tents are bright as the silken embroideries of Solomon when Jesus comes there, and Meshech is no longer a name of lamentation and of sorrow, but a name of joy and gladness when Jesus sojourns with us, a pilgrim and a stranger, as we also are. We see Jesus with the joy that enlivens us. And so once more, beloved, we have learned to see Jesus with the hope that inspires us, for, having seen him once here, we do not believe that he is tantalising us. We cannot, we will not, be led to imagine that if we have lived to see him here as in a glass darkly, we shall be denied that for which we have been educated, even a face-to-face view of him. No, beloved, the day is coming-every winged hour is bringing it nearer-when we shall see the King in his beauty for ourselves, and not another for us. Did you ever try to put yourselves into that happy condition when you shall see him? I have been sometimes on to the top of a Swiss mountain to see the sun rise. I must confess I never was successful yet. I have strained my eyes in watching to see when he should rise, but the clouds have generally concealed him. But a sunrise is always a glorious thing, and what will the everlasting sunrise be, when from the top of Pisgah we shall see him, when from the top of Nebo we shall see our Saviour? Beloved, it is well that we shall not be in the body then, for surely that sight of him would be too much for us. It is well that when this body shall see him, it shall be a risen body, strengthened and accommodated to such an excess of bliss, for if he were to reveal himself now to us, as he doth to the saints in heaven, I suppose we must die with the excess of brightness. But do you ever try to picture to yourselves that you see him? Christiana asked Mercy what made her laugh. “Did I laugh?” said she. “Yes; last night you laughed in your sleep.” Then Mercy told her dream, of how she had seen the land, had been within the gates of pearl, and seen the King; and Christiana said that well she might laugh. And have you never laughed at the thought that your eyes shall soon see the Christ of God, the Man that died for you, that these weeping eyes shall weep no more, but shall look full on him? Oh! ‘tis well worth the pilgrimage. When Godfrey had led his troops up to Jerusalem, they had not yet captured the city, but the very sight of it did make their hearts leap for joy. But what will it be to see, not the new Jerusalem only, but the King of the new Jerusalem, to have him for ever as ours, and to lie in his embrace without fear of banishment world without end? Come, ye disconsolate, pluck up courage! Come over the thorny way, for the end is sweet, and it will make amends for all the toil of the road. Oh! that we were but looking at him now, and that the kisses of his mouth were ours for ever and ever!

“My heart is with him on his throne,

And ill can brook delay,

Each moment listening for the voice,

‘Rise up, and come away.’ ”

May we have such a sight as this, then, inflaming our hope inspiring our desires, and making us long for the bright day when we shall see him face to face. I shall close these fragmentary thoughts with two or three:-

My brethren and sisters, some of you, perhaps, have been following me while I talked about a sight of Christ, and you said, “Yes; well, I hope I know something about these things-not what I want, or what I wish, or what I hope I shall know, but still I know something of them.” Well, then, please remember that if you see Jesus, the Holy Ghost made you see him. You would never have seen Jesus in that spiritual way by the power of human nature, or if you had been left to yourselves. Here is a clear mark, then, that the Holy Spirit has begun to work in your soul. Be grateful to-night; oh! be grateful that ever he should come to those blear eyes of yours and open them; that ever he should come to that dead soul of yours and make it live. Tens of thousands who are wiser, greater, and perhaps better than you in some respects, are left as blind as bats, while you, through sovereign grace, are made to see. Will you not praise him? Have you no music for him? Are there no good works that shall be like palm-branches, with which you can strew his pathway in your joyful adoration of his grace to you to-night?

Please remember, too, that if you have received this sight, this sight will lead you to other sights. We see him-lay the stress there a moment. There are some here who do not see the doctrine of election. My dear brother, I wish you did; but if you can see him, be glad for that. There are some who cannot see the mysterious doctrines of the Word; they are often puzzled with the higher mysteries which belong to men in Christ. My dear friends, you shall see all these by-and-bye if you see him. See Jesus first, and in Jesus, and through Jesus, you shall be led into all truth. “What body of divinity,” said someone to me the other day, “do you recommend?” I answered, “I have never heard of but one.” “But there are several.” No; there is only one; the only body that divinity ever had was the body of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and the study of that body of divinity will make you systematic theologians of the best kind. Begin at the centre, with the sun, and you will understand astronomy; and if you put anything in the centre of your system, except Christ, you will be sure to be in a thousand muddles, and never will be able to understand the things of the kingdom. A sight of Jesus secures a sight of other things. He that hath seen him hath seen the Father, seen the Spirit, and shall see all the rest.

Let us encourage ourselves with the thought that a sight of Jesus Christ makes amends for a great deal else that we do see. And what do I see? I see wars on all sides. I see sin in my members, but I see him, and, therefore, I know that he will subdue sin. “Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.” I see a thousand imperfections and weaknesses in my daily walk and conversation, but when I see him it covers all, for his blood and righteousness shall cover all the iniquities of Israel, and if they be searched for, they shall not be found. My dear brethren, perhaps some of you see poverty to-night; some of you see many difficulties in your calling; some brother-minister here, perhaps, sees much disappointment about his sphere of labour. But, my dear friends, if you can see him, you shall find that that one sight will make amends for all the black and dreary visions that rise before you, and you shall be content, and look on them with holy cheerfulness if you have fully learned to look on him.

To look on him, again, is, as we have said before, to prepare our eyes for the greatest sight that ever eyes can see. If we see him to-day, it is a small thing compared to that. It is a small thing to see angels, as we shall see them, hovering about our dying bed. It is a small thing to see the shining ones, as we shall see them, meeting us at the river’s brink to help us up the hill whereon the city doth stand. If we see him, it will be, comparatively, no very great advance to see the innumerable company of angels, and the glorious church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven, for in seeing him we have had the earnest and the pledge of all these wondrous sights. We shall not fear to see the world on fire, though the elements dissolve with fervent heat. We shall not fear to see the graves all rent, and the myriads of the saints departed starting up from their graves. We shall not fear to see the dread assize and the judgment-seat, and the King with the balances in his hand, weighing out the fates of men. We shall not fear to look upon yonder hell, with all its horrors past conception dire, nor on yon eternity, through which the terrors of divine justice shall blaze forth as consuming fires. There is nothing that can alarm the man who has seen the Lord. Nay, there shall be little that shall astonish him, for the sight of Jesus is the sight of all things glorious in embryo. It is the sight that shall make a heaven within us, while teaching us, by his Spirit, what the heaven shall be in which we shall dwell hereafter. Press forward for more of this sight of Christ. Get your eyes clear, and God grant that you may continue to see him, and only him.

If any here have never seen Jesus, let me remind them of this one text, “Like as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” To believe on him is to trust him. If you trust him, you shall have everlasting life, but if you trust not in Jesus Christ, you shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on you. May these words never be forgotten by you till you have looked to Christ. Amen.

Expositions by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 110:1-7; HEBREWS 7:1-14

PSALM 110:1-7.

Verse 1. The Lord said unto my Lord.

Or Jehovah said unto my Adonai.

1, 2. Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

This is the Messiah, this is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords. Where are his subjects?

3. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.

A willing people shall make up the forces of this great King, and upon them the freshness of the morning shall rest.

4. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.

King end priest. None other of the house of David save our Lord Jesus Christ could claim the union of these two offices. In Christ we have a King and a priest, as also with Melchisedech of old, a great type of Jesus.

5-7. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.

This conqueror shall be refreshed in his journey; therefore, shall he lift up the head.

HEBREWS 7:1-14.

Verse 1, 2. For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blest him: To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace.

His very names being instructive, Righteousness first, and Peace afterwards, as it is with our divine Lord, who has brought in everlasting righteousness, and speaks peace to guilty men.

3. Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; abideth a priest continually.

Melchisedec just passed across the page; he has no predecessor, he has no successor. We see him in Scripture, and we know nothing of his descent; we know nothing of his death; we only know that he was a priest of the Most High God; and this very silence about him is highly significant and instructive, for in this he is “like unto the Son of God, who abideth a priest continually.” Now consider who this great man was, unto whom even “the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth part of his spoil.” If Abraham, the father of the faithful, the friend of God, paid tribute to him, how great must he have been, how high his office!

5-7. And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham: But he whose descent is not counted from them receive tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better.

Therefore, Abraham was less than Melchisedec: he could not bless Melchisedec, but Melchisedec could bless him. How great, then, was he! How far greater still is that Lord of ours of whom Melchisedec was but a type!

8-10. And here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.

Thus the old priesthood, the Levitical and Aaronic priesthood, did homage unto the Melchisedec priesthood, which is greater still.

11. If therefore perfection were by the Levetical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron.

We read in the psalm just now, “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec,” which proves that the priests of the order of Levi were not sufficient: there was need of a still greater priesthood.

12. For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.

The law of the priesthood alters since the person of the priest, the character of the priest, and the very office of the priest had altered too.

13. For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar

According to the belief of the Jewish people, the Messiah was to come of the tribe of Judah, yet none of the house of David or of the tribe of Judah ever presumed to present themselves as priests of the order of God.

14. For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.

So there was an entire change of the priesthood, and of the law of priests.