John Bunyan pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to be found all kinds of merchandise, consisting of the pomps and vanities, the lusts and pleasures of this present life and of the flesh. Now all the dealers, when they saw these strange pilgrims come into the fair began to cry, as shopmen will do, “Buy, buy, buy-buy this, and buy that.” There were the priests in the Italian row with their crucifixes and their beads. There were those in the German row with their philosophies and their metaphysics. There were those in the French row with their fashions and with their prettinesses. But the one answer that the pilgrims gave to all the dealers was this-they looked up and they said, “We buy the truth; we buy the truth,” and they would have gone on their way if the men of the Fair had not laid them by the heels in the cage, and kept them there, one to go to heaven in a chariot of fire, and the other afterwards to pursue his journey alone. This is very much the description of the genuine Christian at all times. He is surrounded by vendors of all sorts of things, beautifully got up and looking exceedingly like the true article, and the only way in which he will be able to pass through Vanity Fair safely is to keep to this, that he buys the truth, and if he adds to that the second advice of the text, and never sells it, he will, under divine guidance, find his way rightly to the skies. “Buy the truth, and sell it not.”

Is not the parable we have just read a sort of enlargement of our text? When the merchantman all over the world had travelled to find out some pearl that should have no flaw, some diamond of the purest water fit to glisten in the crown of royalty, at last in his researches, he met with a gem the like of which he had never seen before, and, knowing that here was wealth for him, in the joy of his discovery, he sold all that he had that he might buy that pearl. Even so, the text seems to tell us, that truth is the one pearl beneath the skies that is worth having, and whatever else we buy not, we must buy the truth, and whatever else we may have to sell, yet we must never sell the truth, but hold it fast as a treasure that will last us when gold has cankered, and silver has rusted, and the moth has eaten up all goodly garments, and when all the riches of men have gone like a puff of smoke, or melted in the heat of the judgment day like the dew in the beams of the morning sun. Buy the truth. Here is the treasure. Cost it what it may, buy you it. Here is the piece of merchandise which you must buy, but must not sell. You may give all for it, but you may take nothing in exchange for it, since there is nothing that can be likened unto it.

With this as a preface, let us now come straight up to the text, and we shall notice:-

“Buy the truth.” I shall not speak to-night of those common forms of truth that relate to politics, to history, to science, or to ordinary life, yet would I say of all these-buy the truth. Never be afraid of the truth. Never be afraid in anything of having your prejudices knocked on the head. Always be determined, come what may, even though truth should prove you to be a fool, yet to accept the truth, and though it should cost you dear, yet still to pursue it, for in the long run they who build mere speculations, fancies, and errors, though they may seem to build suitable structures for the time, shall find that they are wood, hay, and stubble, and shall be consumed; but he that keeps to what he knows, to matters of fact, and matters of truth, builds gold, silver, and precious stones, which the trying fire of the coming ages shall not be able to destroy. I would sooner discover one fact, and lay down one certain truth, than be the author of ten thousand theories, even though those theories should for a while rule all the thought of mankind.

But I speak now of religious truth. Buy that truth; buy that truth above all others. And here we must have three heads. First, in the matter of doctrinal truth, buy the truth. Holy Scripture is the standard of truth. To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no truth in them. “Thy word is truth.” Here is silver tried in the furnace and purified seven times. Speak of Infallibility? It is not at Rome, but it is here in this Book. Here is an infallible witness to the truth of God, and he that is taught of the Holy Spirit to understand it gets at the truth. Now, dear brethren, do aim to get the right truth, the real truth, as to matters of doctrine. Count it not a trifle to be sound in the faith. Think no error to be harmless, for truth is very precious, and error, even when we do not see it to be so, may lead to the most solemn consequences of mischief. In this world we see too much of salvation without Christ-I mean we meet with many who believe that they are saved because they have been baptized, or confirmed, or passed through the ceremonies of the church to which they belong. They have not looked to the precious blood; they are not depending simply upon the finished work of the Redeemer, but something else than Christ has become their confidence. Now, avoid that, and buy the truth, which lies here, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” We hear too much now-a-days of regeneration without faith-the supposed regeneration of unconscious babes, the new birth of people through drops of water, when they are not able to understand what is performed upon them. I beseech you believe that there is no new birth where there is not a confidence in Christ, and that the regeneration which does not lead to repentance and faith, which is not, indeed, immediately attended therewith, is no regeneration whatever. Buy the truth in this matter. Stand to it that it is the work of the Holy Spirit in rational and intelligent beings, leading them to hate sin, and to lay hold of eternal life. Alas! we have in some quarters too much of faith without works. A kind of faith is preached, a kind of faith is trusted in, which is not practical. Men say they believe, but they do not prove it by their lives. They remain in sin, and yet wrap themselves up in the belief that they are God’s chosen ones. From such turn away, and remember that a faith without works is dead, and only the faith that changes the character, sanctifies the life, and leads the man to God, is the faith which will save the soul. We must see to it that in our doctrine we bow our judgment to the teachings of Scripture, and try to be conformed to all the revelation of God, and especially to all the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we not fall into one error or another. Scylla is there and Charybdis there, and he is a happy helmsman who can steer between the two. You shall fall into this ism or into that, unless you keep to the truth. Never mind whether you can make the truth always consistent to your own judgment or not. If it is the truth, believe it; and though it should seem to contradict another truth, yet hold to it, if it is in the Word, waiting till clearer light shall reveal to you that all these truths stood in a wonderful harmony and consistency which, at first, you could not perceive. In doctrine, buy the truth.

But, secondly, buy experimental truth. I know not another word to use; I mean truth within, the truth experienced. See that this be real truth. How easy it is to be deceived with the notion that we are converted when we still need to be converted; to fancy that, because we have the approbation of our minister and of our Christian friends, we must, therefore, necessarily be the people of God. There is only one true new birth, but there are fifty counterfeits of it. In this respect, then, buy the truth. Let me have you beware of an experience which has a faith in it that was never attended with repentance. I am afraid of a dry-eyed faith. That faith seems to me to be the faith of God’s elect, whose eyes are full of tears. If thou hast never felt thyself a sinner, never trembled under the law of God, never felt that thou hast deserved to be cast into hell, I am afraid thy faith is a mere presumption, and not the faith that looks to Christ. Beware of an experience that lies in talk, and not in feeling. Mr. Talkative, in Bunyan’s Pilgrim could speak very glibly about religion; no man more so than he; he was fit to take the chair in an assembly of divines; but it was not heart-work; it was all surface-work. Plough deep, my brethren. Feel what you believe. Let it be with you real home-work, soul-work, the work of God the Holy Ghost-not a temporary excitement, not head-knowledge, not theory. May the truth be burned into your souls by the operation of the Holy Ghost. In this respect, buy the truth. Alas! we see now-a-days in many professors a great deal of life without struggle, and I think I have learned that all spiritual life that is not attended with struggles is a mistake, for Isaac, the child of the promise, is sure to be mocked by Ishmael. No sooner does the seed of the woman come into the world than the seed of the serpent tries to destroy it. You must, and will, find a battle going on within you if you are a believer. Sin will contest it with grace, and grace will seek to reign over sinful corruptions. Be afraid of too easy an experience. “Moab is at ease from his youth; he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; for the time cometh when the Lord will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled upon their lees.” There must be strivings within, or we may well beware of such an experience. And I think I have noticed a growing feeling abroad of confidence without self-examination. I would have you hold to believe God’s Word, but do not take your own state at haphazard. Do not conclude that you are a Christian because you thought you were ten years ago. Day by day bring yourself to the touch-stone. He that cannot bear examination will have to bear condemnation. He that dare not search himself will find that God will search him. He that is afraid to look himself in the face had need to be afraid to look the Judge in the face when the great white throne shall be placed, and all the world summoned to judgment. Confidence is quite consistent with self-examination, and I pray you in this thing buy the truth, and seek to have a religion that will bear the test-a true faith, a living faith, a faith that moves your soul, a deep-rooted faith, a faith which is the supernatural work of the Holy Ghost, for the time cometh when, as the Lord liveth, nothing short of this will stand you in good stead.

Again, I spoke of three sorts of truth-doctrinal truth, experimental truth, and now practical truth. By practical truth I mean our actions being consistent, and those of a right and straightforward course. In this matter, buy the truth. You profess to be a Christion: be a Christian. You say that you are a follower of Christ: follow him, then. You know it is right to be a man of integrity and uprightness: be so. Let no dirty tricks of trade, let no meannesses, let none of those white lies which degrade commerce now-a-days, ever come across your path, except to be reprobated and abhorred. Walk straight forward. Learn not to tack. Do not wish to understand policy, and craft, and cunning. Buy the truth. It will shame the world yet. He that speaks out his mind, says what he means, and means what he says, does the just thing, does the right thing, fears no man, and lifts his head boldly in the face of all creation if it dares to whisper that it will enrich him by his doing wrong-that is the man that buys the truth practically. You know how it can be carried out in commerce readily enough, in the parlour, in the drawing-room, and in the kitchen. There is a truthful way for a shoe-black to black shoes in the street, and there is a lying way of doing it. There is a truthful way of doing the commonest actions, and there is a false method of doing the very self-same thing. In this respect, then, buy the truth, as to the straightforwardness, the clean, sharp transparency of your moral character and of your Christian conduct. Never seem to be what you are not, or if you must for a while be in that position, count that you are unfortunate, and escape from it as soon as you can. Never do what you are ashamed, of; it matters not who sees. Think always that God sees, and with God for a witness you have enough of observers. Only do that which you would have done if all eyes were fixed on you, and you were observed even of your most cruel critics. Never stifle conscience. Carry out your convictions. If the skies fall, stand upright. What God’s Holy Spirit tells you, that do. What you find in this Book, carry out. If you bring any mischief to other people through it, that is their business. If I keep on the right side of the road, and run over anybody-that is his fault; he should have kept out of the way. I would not run over him if I could help it, but I cannot turn aside from the right road. Stand in your place. Let malignant eyes look at you, but, like the sun, shine on, and if others envy you, yet fret not because of them, neither be you grieved to act the truth, but in this respect again fulfil the text and “buy the truth.”

So have I shown you what the commodity is-doctrinally, experimentally, and practically. “Buy the truth.” Now let us come and think specially to the first part of the text.

“Buy the truth.” Let us correct an error here. Some might suppose that Christ, and the gospel, and salvation-all of which are included in the truth-can be bought. They can, but they cannot. They can in the sense of the text; they cannot in any other sense. You cannot purchase salvation; merit cannot win it. Christ’s price is, “Without money and without price.” Has not the prophet so worded it? “Yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” Salvation is of free grace, and is from the very necessity of its nature, gratis. You cannot merit it; you cannot earn it. It is not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth, but “he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion.”

What, then, does the text mean? I will try to expound the Word. It means, first, to be saved, give up everything that must be given up, in order to your receiving the free salvation. Every sin must be given up. No man shall go to heaven while he lives in, and favours any one, sin. A man may sin and be saved, but he cannot love sin and be saved. Give up, then, thy drunkenness, if that be thy sin. Give up, then, thine unchaste living, if that be thy sin. Conquer that angry temper, that love of greed-whatever it is that keeps thee back from Christ. Buy the truth, and give up these. Thou wilt not merit salvation then; but if this must be given up, let it not stand in thy way. Give it up, man! Since thou canst not have thy sin and have Christ too, get a divorce from thy sin and take holiness, and take the Saviour. Thou must also give up all thy self-righteousness. Some are trusting in their prayers, some are trusting in their tears, their repentances, their feelings, their church-goings, their chapel-goings, and I know not what men will not trust in. Give them all up. They are all lies together. There is no reliance to be placed on anything you can do. Come and trust what Christ has done, and if it be, as it certainly is, needful for you to give up your own righteousness to win Christ and be found in him, then do it, and in this sense part with all you have that you may buy Christ. Yourself, your sinful self, and your righteous self-oh! that you might be willing to part with both, that you might buy the true salvation!

And the text means this, again, that if, in order to be saved, it should cost you a deep experience and much pain, yet never mind it. It is better that you should bear all that and get the truth, than that you should escape without this heart-searching work, and be deceived at the last. If the price at which you shall have a true experience is that of sorrow, buy the truth at that price. Be willing to let the doctor’s lancet wound you, if thereby he shall heal you. Be willing to lose the right eye or the right hand, if thereby you shall enter into life eternal.

It also means this-buy the truth; that is, be willing at all risks to hold to the truth. Buy it as the martyrs did when they gave their bodies to be burned for it. Buy it as many have done when they have gone to prison for it. Buy it if you should lose your situation for it. Lose your situation sooner than tell a lie. Like the three holy children, be rather willing to go into the fiery furnace, than to worship the image which Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Run the risk of being poor. Do not believe, as all the world says, that you must live. There is no absolute necessity for it. Sometimes it is a grander thing to die. Let the necessity be, “We must be honest; we must do the right; we must serve God,” for that is a far greater necessity than that of merely living. Count all things but dross that you may be a true man, a godly man, a holy man, a Christly man, and in this sense make sacrifice of all, and thus “buy the truth.”

I think that is what the word means. I expound it to mean this-give anything and everything, sooner than part with Christ, part with the living work of grace in your heart, or part with the integrity of your conduct. And now let me:-

“Buy the truth.” Then I say, buy only the truth. Do not be throwing away your life, and your abilities, and your zeal, and your earnestness, for a lie. Some are doing it. Thousands of pounds are given to erect edifices for doing mischief. Multitudes of sermons are preached, very zealously, to propagate falsehoods, and sea and land are compassed to make proselytes, who shall be ten times more children of hell than they were before. Buy only the truth. Do not buy the glittering stuff they call truth. Never mind the label; look to see if it be truth. Bring everything that is propounded as truth to the test, to the trial. If it will not stand the fire of God’s Word, then do not buy it; nay, do not have it as a gift; nay, do not keep it in the house. Run away from it. It doth eat as doth a canker; let it not come near you. Buy only the truth.

“Buy the truth” at any price, and sell it at no price. Buy it at any price. If you lose your body for it, if you lose not your soul, you have made a good bargain. If you lose your estate for it, yet if you have heaven in return, how blessed the exchange! You certainly will not need for it to lose your peace of mind, but you may lose everything else, and you shall make a good bargain. Come to no terms with Christ. Throw all into the soul-bargain. Let all go, as long as you may but have truth in the doctrine, truth in the heart, and truth in the life, and Christ, who is the Truth, to be your treasure for ever.

Buy all the truth. When you come to the Bible, do not pick and choose. Do not try to believe half of it, and leave out the other half. Buy the truth-that is, not a section of it that suits your particular idiosyncrasy, but buy the whole. Why need you break up pearls and dissolve them? Buy all that is true. One doctrine of God’s Word balances another. He who is altogether and only a Calvinist probably only knows half the truth, but he who is willing to take the other side, as far as it is true, and to believe all he finds in the Word, will get the whole pearl.

Buy now the truth-buy to-night the truth. It may not be for you to buy to-morrow. You may be in that land where God hath cast for ever the lost soul away from all access to the truth, where truth’s shadow, cold and chill, shall fall upon you, and you, in outer darkness, shall weep and wail, and gnash your teeth, because you shut out truth from you, and now truth has shut you out, and all your knockings at her door shall be answered with the dolorous cry, “Too late, too late! Ye cannot enter now!”

Thus I have paraphrased the text. Buy only the truth; buy all the truth; buy at any price the truth; and buy now the truth. Briefly let me give you:-

You want the truth, and you will never be received by God at last unless you bring the truth in your right hand. Only the truthful can enter those gates of pearl. You want the truth now. You are not fit to live any more than to die without an interest in the truth as it is in Jesus. Accept Christ to be truly yours, so truly yours as to make you true. You know not how to fight the battle of life at all without the truth. Your life will be a blunder, and the close of it will be a disaster, except you buy the truth. God grant that you may buy the truth now. You need it. You need it now, and you will for ever need it. Oh! I would to God that that hymn we sang should not merely be heard by you, but felt by you:-

“Hasten, sinner, to be wise,

And stay not for the morrow’s sun.”

Oh! that fatal “to-morrow”! Over the cliffs of “to-morrow” millions have fallen to their ruin. To-morrow, ay, to-morrow! Here are these put-offs, and these delays, and yet God has never given you a promise of mercy to-morrow. His word is “To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” A better day shall never come than this day. Oh! that you would accept it now.

“If you tarry till you’re better,

You will never come at all.”

And till times are more propitious, if you wait, you will wait on for ever and for aye. God grant you may buy the truth now, for the text is in the present tense, for now you need it. Let me direct you to:-

These are the words of Jesus Christ when he appeared to his servant John, “I counsel thee, buy of me,” said he. There is no place where truth can be found in its power and life, except in Jesus Christ. Truth is in his blood; it will wash away what is false in you. Truth is in his Spirit; it will eradicate what is dark and vile in you. His love will make you true by conforming you to himself. Come to Christ. Bring nothing with you. Come as you are, empty-handed, penniless, and poor. The rills of milk and wells of wine are all with him. He is the banquet-giver, and the banquet too. To trust him is to live. To look to him alone for salvation is to find salvation in that look. Oh! that these simple words might point someone to the place where he shall buy the truth! And now let me repeat my text again, “Buy the truth.”

Do not misread it. It does not say hear about the truth. That is a good thing, but hearing is not buying, as many of you tradesmen know to your cost. You may tell people where to go, but you do not want them merely to hear; you are not content with that; you want them to buy. Oh! that some of you, my hearers, would become buyers of the truth! I know some of you. I happen to look about, and find out here and there one-some of you, whom I know, and respect, and esteem, and pray for. I had thought that you would have bought the truth long ago, and it often staggers me why you have not. Oh! that you were decided for God! I am afraid I am preaching some of you into a hardened state. If the gospel does not save you, it will certainly be a curse to you, and I am afraid it is being so to some of you. Do think of this, I pray you! Why should you and I have the misery of doing each other hurt when our intention is on both sides, I am sure, to do that which is kind and good? Oh! yield you to my Master. The Light of the World is with his hand at your door knocking to-night softly. Do you not hear the knock of the hand that was pierced? Admit him! He comes not in wrath; he comes in mercy. Admit him! He has tarried long, even these many years, but no frown is yet upon his brow. Rise now and let him in. Be not ashamed. Though ashamed, be not afraid, but let him in, and blushing, with tears in your face, say to him, “My Lord, I will trust thee; worthless worm as I am, I will depend upon thee.” Oh! that you would do it now, this moment! The Lord give you grace to do it! Do not hear about it only, but buy the truth.

Do not merely commend the truth by saying, “The preacher spoke well, and he spoke earnestly, and I love what he said.” The preacher had almost rather that you said nothing than that, if you do not buy the truth. How it provokes the salesman when a customer says, “Yes, it is a beautiful article, and very cheap, and just what I want,” and then walks out of the shop. Nay, buy the truth, and you shall commend it better afterwards, and your commendation shall be worth the hearing.

And, I pray you, do not stand content with merely knowing about the truth. Oh! how much some of you know. How much more you know than even some of God’s people. You could correct many of my blunders. But ah! he that knows is nowhere unless he also has. To know about bread will not stay my hunger; to know that there are riches at the bank will not fill my pocket. Buy the truth, as well as know it; that is, make it your own.

And do not, I pray you, intend to buy it. Oh! intentions, intentions, intentions! The road to hell-not hell-that is a mistake of the proverb-the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Oh! ye laggards, pull up the paving-stones and hurl them at the devil’s head. He is ruining you; he is decoying you to your destruction. Turn your intentions into actions, and no longer intend to buy, but buy the truth.

And do not to-night wish that the truth were yours, but buy it. You say the cost is too great. Too great? It is nothing. It is “without money and without price.” Do you mean, however, to say, that it is too great a cost to give up a sin? What, will you burn in hell rather than give up a lust? Will you dwell in everlasting burnings for ever, sooner than give up those cups that intoxicate you? Must you have your silly wantonness, and lascivious mirth, or any kind of sin? Must you have it? Will you sooner have it than heaven? Then, sirs, your blood be on your own heads. You have been warned. I hope you are sober, and have not yet gone to madness, and if you be, you will see that no pleasures of an hour can ever recompense for casting yourselves under the anger of God for ever and for ever. Buy the truth. Do not merely talk about it, and wish for it, but buy, buy the truth. And then, lastly:

“Sell it not.” My time has gone, and therefore, as I never like to exceed it, there shall be but these few words. When you have once got the truth, I know you will not sell it. You will not, I am sure, at any price; but the exhortation, nevertheless, is a most proper one. There have been some who have sold the truth to be respectable. They used to hear the gospel, but now they have got on in the world, and keep a carriage, and they do not like to go where there are so many poor people, so away they go where they can hear anything or nothing, so that they may be respectable. Ah! I have the uttermost contempt for this affectation of gentility and respectability that leads men to be so mean as to forsake their Christian friends. Let them go; they are best gone. Such chaff had better not be with the wheat, and those that can be actuated by such motives are too base to be worth retaining.

Some sell the truth for a livelihood. I pity these far more. “I must have a situation; therefore, I must do what I am told there; I must break this law of God and that, for I must keep my family.” Ah! poor soul, I pity thine unfortunate position, but I pray that thou mayest have grace even now to play the man, and never sell the truth, even for bread.

Some sell the truth for the pleasures of the world. They must have enjoyment, they say, and so they will mingle with the multitude that do evil, and give up their Christian profession.

Others seem to sell the truth for nothing at all. They merely go away from Christ because religion has grown stale with them. They are weary of it, and they go away. I shall put the question painfully to all, Will ye also go away? Will ye to be respectable, will ye to have a livelihood, will ye to have the pleasures of sin for a season, will ye out of sheer weariness-will ye go away? Nay, we can add:-

“What anguish has that question stirred,

If I will also go!

Yet, Lord, relying on thy Word,

I humbly answer, No.”

Sell it not; sell it not; it cost Christ too dear. Sell it not; you made a good bargain when you bought it. Sell it not. Sell it not; it has not disappointed you; it has satisfied you, and made you blessed. Sell it not; you want it. Sell it not; you will want it. The hour of death is coming on, and the day of judgment is close upon its heels. Sell it not; you cannot buy its like again; you can never find a better. Sell it not; you are a lost man if you part with it. Remember Esau, and the morsel of meat, and how he would again have found his birthright if he could. Remember Demas; remember Judas, the son of perdition. You are lost without it. It is your life. Skin for skin, yea all that you possess, part with for it, and be resolved, come fair or come foul, come storm or come calm, come sickness or come health, come poverty or come wealth, come death itself in the grimmest form, yet none shall separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus your Lord, and none shall make you part from the truths you have learned and received from his Word, the truths you have felt and have had wrought into your soul by his Spirit, and the truths which in action you desire should tone and colour all your life.

God bless you, dear friends, and keep you, and when the Great Shepherd shall appear may you have the mark of truth upon you, and appear with him in glory.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

MATTHEW 13:24-50

Verse 24. Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

He knew that it was good. It had been tested: it was unmixed: it was good throughout.

25. But while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

It was a very malicious action. The thing has been done many times. Bastard wheat was sown in among the true wheat, so as to injure the crop.

26-27. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

We often have to ask that question. How comes this about? It was a true gospel that was preached, from whence then come these hypocrites-these that are like the wheat, but are not wheat? For it is not the tare that we call a tare in England that is meant here, but a false wheat-very like to wheat, but not wheat.

28. He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.

The enemy could not do a worse thing than to adulterate the Church of God. Pretenders outside do little hurt. Inside the fold they do much mischief.

28-30. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

The separation will be more in season, more easily and more accurately done when both shall have been fully developed-when the wheat shall have come to its fulness, and the counterfeit wheat shall have ripened.

31, 32. Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds:

Commonly known in that country.

32-35. But when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

How thoroughly impregnated our Lord was with the very spirit of Scripture. And he ever acted as if the Scriptures were uppermost in his mind. They seemed to be ever in their fulness before his soul.

36. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him,

Those house-talks, those explanations of the great public sermons and parables-were sweet privileges which he reserved for those who had given their utter confidence to him.

36-44. Saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found,

Stumbling upon it, perhaps, when he was at the plough-turning up the old crop in which it was concealed.

44. He hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Some persons do stumble upon the gospel when they are not looking for it. “I am found of them that sought me not” is a grand free grace text. Some of those who have been most earnest in the kingdom of heaven were at one time most indifferent and careless, but God in infinite sovereignty put the treasure in their way-gave them the heart to value it, and they obtained it to their own joy.

45. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:

He does not stumble on it: he is seeking pearls.

46, 47. Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:

Bad fish and good fish, and creeping things, and broken shells, and bits of seaweed, and pieces of old wreck. Did you ever see such an odd assortment as they get upon the deck of a fishing vessel when they empty out the contents of a drag net? Such is the effect of the ministry. It drags together all sorts of people. It is quite as well that we have not eyes enough to see one another’s hearts to-night, or else I dare say we should make about as queer a medley as I have already attempted to describe as being in the fisherman’s vessel.

48. Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.

All a mixture. We cannot sort one from the other now, but when the net comes to shore then will be the picking over the heap. No mistakes will be made. The good will go into vessels, and the bad, and none but the bad, will be cast away.

49, 50. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just. And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Not fire, then, which annihilates, but fire which leaves in pain and causes weeping and gnashing of teeth.

DANGEROUS LINGERING

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, March 18th, 1915.

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

“He lingered.”-Genesis 19:16.

Lot was highly favoured. In the midst of a general destruction angels were sent to take care of him. He had received a warning which many had not heard, and he had felt the terror that warning should excite, while some who had heard the tidings little heeded their imminent moment. Lot stood in the condition of one who knew that he must leave the city, for it was about to be destroyed, who intended to leave it, who was just about to take his departure, but who, nevertheless, hesitated a little, halted a while, avoided hurry, protracted his stay with some attachment to the place where he had dwelt, and so, in the face of danger, he delayed; being slow to move when fully aware that judgment was swift to overtake. “He lingered.” I believe Lot to be in this respect the exact counterpart of a great many hearers of the gospel. They understand at least its threatenings; they know something about the way of escape; they have resolved to follow that way; and they intend to do so very soon. Yet for a long time they have halted on the verge of decision, almost persuaded to be Christians. Strong as their resolution to become followers of the Saviour seems to be, unhappily they stop short, they linger still in their old condition, halting between two opinions. To such persons I propose to address a few words of exhortation this evening. First of all, to expostulate with you personally upon personal matters; then to speak to you about others, for I have the full conviction that the man who lingers puts others in danger as well as himself, just as Lot’s lingering was hazardous to his daughters and to his wife; and lastly, to commend the means which I trust God will use to-night, similar to those which he used with Lot, that some angelic hand or some providential force may lay hold upon the lingerer, that he may be brought out from the City of Destruction and made to flee for help to Christ the Lord. I must begin by speaking to:-

The person who is lingering.

I should like to be looked upon, just now, less as a preacher than as a friend who is talking to the lingering one, the one almost decided-talking to him in the most familiar tones, but at the same time with the most earnest purpose. There are certain thoughts which have been, and are still, fermenting in my soul. I have heard that a conclave was held in pandemonium. In the lower regions Satan had called together all the devils who showed him allegiance, and he said to them, “I want one of you to go forth as a lying spirit from this place to deceive many. The gospel is being faithfully preached, and men are being won to Christ, my rival. Spirits of the infernal pit, I desire your help that this gospel may not spread further. I pause while each one of you, my liege servants, shall tell me of the devices you will use to prevent men from fleeing to Christ. His device that shall seem wisest to my subtlety shall be most fully employed among the sons of men.” Then outspake one and said, “O prince of the infernal pit, I will go forth and tell men that there is no God, no heaven, no hell, no hereafter.” But the arch-fiend said, “It is in vain. The gospel has already gone so far with the men of whom I am thinking now, that this would not avail. They know there is a God-they are sure of it. The testimony which has been borne in the world has brought so much light into it, that they cannot close their eyes to the fact, and thy device, though admirable, will not succeed.” Then up rose another, and he said, “I shall insinuate doubts as to the authenticity of Scripture; I shall belie the teachings of the doctrines of the Word of God, and so shall I keep them from Christ.” But again the leader of that conclave objected that this would scarcely suffice, for the multitude had so heard the gospel, and those whose conversion he was most anxious to prevent were so conversant with its historical facts, that they could not seriously question them; neither could they live in systematic doubt who had been schooled in positive belief. There were many devices; but I will tell you which most of all struck Satan, which he determined to use most among the sons of men. It was this: One foul spirit said, “I will not insinuate doubts about the existence of God or the truth of Scripture. I know it would not avail. But this thing I will do-I will tell men that, though these things are true and important, there is no hurry about them, there is time enough and to spare-that they may wait a little, till there is a more convenient season, and then shall they attend to them.” Now the subtlety of Satan was pleased with this, and he said, “Servant, go thy way. Thou hast invented the net in which the fowler shall take more birds than in any other. Good speed to thine enterprise. This deadly poison will destroy innumerable souls.” Feeling this to be the case, it shall be my earnest endeavour to tear that net to pieces, and to expose this poison, that none may be entangled unawares and perish unwarned.

Coming back, then, to the purpose with which I started, earnestly and personally to speak to the lingerer, I should like to ask you, my beloved friend, if this matter about which you are still hesitating is not of vital importance to you? It concerns your soul, yourself, your true self; it deals with your destiny, your impending, your eternal destiny. You are immortal; you acknowledge a deathless principle within you; and you are conscious that you shall live for ever in happiness or woe. Do you think you ought to put off all preparation for the future that awaits you? If I knew that someone was about to defraud you of your estate, and that unless you were diligent about it you would lose all your property, I think I should say to you, “Bestir yourself.” If I knew that some deadly disease had begun to prey on your constitution, and that, if neglected, it would soon gain an ascendancy with which ’twere hard to grapple, I think I should say, “Go to the physician. Do not delay; for bodily health is very precious.” But, dear friend, if your estate is precious, much more your soul; and if the health of this poor clay ought to be looked to, much more the welfare of your soul-the welfare of your soul for ever. Do you not think, if anything should be postponed, it should be something of less importance? Was not Christ right when he said, “Seek, first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness”? Does not your reason agree that he was right in putting that first? I shall not need to argue with you. I speak as to a man who has his wits about him. Is it not so? Suppose you look to getting on in the world first, you may die and be lost before you have got on! Suppose the taking of a degree at the university should be your first concern-that would be a poor recompense. The honours of learning could not mitigate the terrors of judgment. Do you not feel now (if you will let your better nature speak) that the very first thing a man should see to should be this-to be reconciled to God, and have all right with him for eternity? I will then ask you another question-is there anything so very pleasant in a state of enmity to God, that you should wish to remain in it? Why should Lot want to linger in Sodom? He had often been vexed there. The very night before he had his house beset with rioters. Why should he want to linger? Have you found any great comfort in being undecided? Is there anything very fascinating in remaining hesitant and halting between two opinions? Dear friend, if your condition is at all like what mine was before I believed in Jesus, I know you would be glad enough to get out of it. Oh! how earnest I was sometimes in seeking Christ! Oh! how wretched I was at other times that I could not find him! Then, again, I was stupidly senseless about divine things, and my self-upbraidings would not let me be at peace. It is a most unhappy condition to be in-to have light enough to know that you are in the dark and no more, to have just enough grace to feel that you have not the grace that can save you, to be enough awakened to feel that, if you remain as you are, you must perish for ever. I do not see anything in this hesitating condition that should allure you to keep in it any longer than you can help. Beloved friends, have you ever seriously weighed, if not I will ask you to do so, the solemnity of the destruction which must come upon you if you are not decidedly a believer in Christ, and, on the other hand, the unspeakable glory and bliss which will belong to you if you are led to trust in Jesus and are saved? I can scarcely give you the details of a little incident in Russian history which might illustrate the emergency. The Czar had died suddenly, and in the dead of night one of the councillors of the empire came to the Princess Elizabeth and said to her, “You must come at once and take possession of the crown.” She hesitated, for there were difficulties in the way, and she did not desire the position; but he said, “Now sit down, Princess, for a minute.” Then he drew her two pictures. One was the picture of herself and the Count thrown into prison, racked with tortures, and presently both brought out to die beneath the axe. “That,” he said, “you can have if you like.” The other picture was of herself with the imperial crown of all the Russias on her brow, and all the princes bowing before her, and all the nation doing her homage. “That,” said he, “is the other side of the question. But, to-night, your Majesty must choose which it shall be.” With the two pictures vividly depicted before her mind’s eye, she did not hesitate long, but cast in her choice for the crown. Now I would fain paint to you two such pictures, only I lack the skill. You will either sink for ever down in deeper and yet deeper woe, filled with remorse because you brought it all upon yourself, or else, if you decide for Christ and rest in him, you shall enter the bliss of those who for ever and for ever without admixture of grief enjoy felicity before the throne of God. To my mind there ought to be no halting as to the choice. It should be made. I pray God’s Holy Spirit to help you to make it to-night. On this winged hour eternity is hung. The choice of this night may be the cooling of the wax which now is soft. Once cooled, it will bear the impress throughout eternity. God grant it may be a resolve for Christ, for his cause, for his cross, for his crown.

I would like still, dear friend, to hold you by the button which I laid hold of just now, and to say to you, What is it that has kept you waiting so long? Did not I meet you some years ago in the street, and you said to me, “Sir, I have been a hearer of yours for many years”; and I said, “Oh! yes, and when did you join the Church?” and you said, “Ah! I have never done that”; and I said, “Why not?”; and you were honest enough to say, “Because I am afraid I should be very much out of place there; for I am not a believer in Christ”? Do you recollect how I squeezed your hand and said, “Ah! I hope it will not be long before you give your heart to the Lord,” and you said, “Well, I hope not too”? It is a good long while now; and you have been getting grey since then. I dare say, if I saw you to-night and put the same question to you, you would make the same reply; and in ten years’ time, if you and I live, we shall be still relatively in the same position, I still pleading, and you still saying, “Yes, yes, yes, it is very right.” Nay, nay, I answer, it is very wrong; that consenting without complying; not doing what the gospel bids you do, yielding and resisting, as it were, by turns; repenting and then forgetting. Forgetting! ay, forgetting, and forgetting, till these delays will cast you into irrevocable ruin. What is it you are waiting for, my friend? Is there some sin you cannot give up? What sin is worth being damned for? If there be one, keep on with it. I defy you to defend your negligence. Put it to this test-if there be any supposable delight that is worth the endurance of eternal wrath, pursue that delight, however sensual it may be, with avidity, but if there be not, do not play the fool or act the madman. Do I hear you plead ignorance? I would make some excuse for you, if I thought the plea was just and true, but suppose for a minute that it is so. Then, dear friend, ought not you to begin to search the Scriptures now? Should not you be making intensely earnest enquiries that you might know the certainty of these things? For the soul to be without knowledge is not good, but if you are perishing for lack of knowledge there certainly is no reason why you should. Many of us would only be too delighted if we might tell you still more fully what is the way of salvation. Well, but it is inconvenient just now. Are you promising yourself a more favourable opportunity? Let me ask you, Do you imagine you will be any better off to-morrow than you are to-day? Do you think in ten years’ time you will be more likely to lay hold on Christ than you are now? I do not think you will. Have you ever seen sponges that have been turned into flints? Well, that is a slow process, it takes a long time. The like process, however, is gradually happening to you; every year you are getting more flinty. The drip, drip, drip of this world’s care and sin is petrifying you. You are getting stony. It strikes me the best time to repent in is this moment; and the very best season in which to fly to Jesus is now. Ere yet the clock has ticked again, your heart will have grown more callous. It certainly does not soften. When will there be any influence more potent than there is now to help you? The Spirit of God is ready now. Do you want more than his power? The blood of Christ is a full atonement for sin. Do you want anything more than that for your salvation? Do you expect Christ to come down again on earth to save you? Do you want any promise fuller than that which the Bible has in it now, or any invitation more gracious than that which the gospel gives to you now? “To-day is the accepted time: to-day is the day of salvation.” I pray you, my lingering friend, linger no longer. Oh! how I wish I could put my hand in thine and lead thee to the Saviour; but I cannot. I will, however, pray him to lead thee this very night. “I will think of it,” say you. No, that is the very thing I do not want you to do. I want you to believe in Jesus now, and not talk about thinking of it to-morrow. In your seat, if you will rest in Jesus, and trust your soul in his hands, you are saved this very moment. It is an instantaneous work.

“The moment a sinner believes,

And trusts in his crucified God,

His pardon at once he receives,

Salvation in full through his blood.”

Oh! that thou would’st exercise that simple faith now, and not talk about thinking of it to-morrow; for to-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow, alas! to-morrow never comes! It is in no calendar, except the almanack of fools. Each day to the wise man is to-day as it comes. The fool waste to-day, and so wastes all his life. O lingerer, I beseech thee think now of the long time thou hast lingered. It may well suffice thee: it has surely been long enough, and I would say to thee, in the words of one of old, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” and quote the saying of yet another, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve,” and may God the Holy Ghost guide the choice, and he shall have the praise. Now I want to speak a little upon another topic.

Remind the lingerer that while he lingers he endangers the souls of other people.

When Lot went to his sons-in-law, and told them that the city was to be destroyed, “he was to them as one that mocked.” How would they say to him, “Go to, old dotard! dost thou think we believe thee? The sky is clear and blue, and the sun has risen: dost thou think we believe thy nonsense about fire and brimstone coming out of heaven? We don’t believe thee.” When Lot lingered-he was defeating his own purpose, and doing the worst imaginable thing, if he wanted to convince his sons-in-law that he spake the truth; for while he lingered, they would say, “The old fool does not believe it himself, for if he did believe it he would pack up and haste away: nay, he would take his daughters by the hand and lead them out of the city at once.” A little hesitancy in the conduct of a man who said that he believed a dreadful judgment was imminent would be sufficient to give them umbrage-quite reason enough to make them say “He does not believe himself what he tells us.” Have not some of you spoken seriously to others about the value of their souls, though you are not saved yourselves? Did you try the other day to rebuke a swearer? I am glad you did. You are a member of a Temperance Association, and you do what you can to stay drunkenness. I am glad you do. You will not allow sin to pass unrebuked in your presence. But, hark ye, man, with what face dost thou reprove others whilst thou art not decided thyself? Where is thy consistency? Should they turn round on thee and say, “If there is anything reliable in the grace of God, why are you not reconciled to him? If there is anything desirable in religion, why do you not walk according to its precepts? If Christ be a Saviour, why do you not yield to him, and obey his ordinances?” I know not what answer you could give. I cannot imagine any response but a blush that should betoken your shame and confusion of face.

The mischief that Lot did to his daughters-in-law was yet more aggravated, for all the while he was hesitating they were sure to hesitate too. He was keeping them waiting. They were in jeopardy as well as himself. How many comrades, young man, you might have instructed in the faith before now had you been yourself decided! It is a happy circumstance when a young married couple become converted to God before their little ones are able to imitate a bad example. I thank God for a father whom I know and honour; that of his children there is only one that can recollect the time when the evening was spent in playing cards, and that one recollects the night when they were all thrown into the fire and burnt. Only one of his children recollects when the Sabbath Day was wont to be spent in quiet walks and pleasant recreations, but not in public worship or private devotion. He recollects the rearing of the family altar, when prayer was made a household institution. He can well remember the earnest entreaties made that the father’s sin might not be visited upon the children. Oh! happy circumstance! Had the parents been converted later in life, the ill example might never have been wiped out. The converted father might have found that the children did not emulate the good example of his regenerate state; but did rather imitate him in the negligence and sinfulness of his natural unrenewed life. When you, who are parents, habitually demur and hesitate, do you not think that other members of your family will hesitate too? I have noticed it frequently, where there is a man or a woman knowing the truth in a measure, but not decided. It almost always happens that when the husband or the wife is in the same condition, the moment the father gets savingly converted, the wife comes and avows her faith. Not unfrequently the children follow suit. It only wanted somehow, in God’s providence, the decision of the head of the household. This has led the others to decision. It becomes, therefore, a very mournful reflection that there should be men and women lingering upon the brink of the grave who are helping others to halt; their example being the means of keeping others in a state of perilous hazard. You must know, many of you, that it is so with you; therefore, I shall leave the truth to weigh upon your conscience, hoping it will stir you up to decision.

Let me venture to make one other observation here. I should not wonder if, perhaps, the death of Lot’s wife might partly be attributed to Lot himself. If you think that this is a severe reflection, I would remind you that she must have seen her husband hesitate. She was a woman far lower down in the scale than he was: when, therefore, she saw him lingering, it was no wonder if that contagious example led her to look back. Perhaps, amongst the regrets of Lot throughout the rest of his life, there would be this one, “I did not hasten myself out of that city as I should I was in no hurry; I tarried, and lingered, and paused; I had almost to be dragged out by the angels’ hands myself; and this, it may be, led her to look back with lingering, and then to be turned into a pillar of salt.” O undecided man! I would not like thee to feel that the blood of thy wife was on thy skirts. O undecided father! I should dread to have thee think, in years to come, “The loss of my children’s souls was due to my procrastination.” Alas! it may be so-it may be so! Therefore now, with a brother’s earnest affection, let me come to thee and say. “Thou dost intend to believe; thou hast resolved to be a Christian; thou art no Atheist, and no scoffer; thou art not hardened and rebellious; thy heart is soft and tender, and ready for these things-then yield it now, yield it up completely this night, to that dear hand that once was crucified. That hand shall mould thee according to its own will. Thus saith the Spirit of God to thee to-night. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, for “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved”: he that believeth not-though he may have resolved to believe, if he dies believing not-must be damned! Our last word was to be this:-

Let us pray for the lingerers, that they may by some means be hastened. I do not expect to see angels come walking down these aisles, or threading their way through these pews to-night; but I do trust that a messenger from God will come, notwithstanding that. Sometimes lingerers have been quickened and decided by their own reflections being blessed to them by the Holy Spirit. A very simple observation was once the means of deciding a man. He was a mechanic, and a man of a mathematical turn of mind. He had attended a meeting. The meeting was held in an upper room, and on going below stairs his attention was attracted by the beam that had supported the people, and he said to himself, “What a weight there must have been upon that!” Just at that very minute, into his mind there flashed, “And what a weight there is resting upon you!” How that thought should have followed the other, I cannot tell; but as he turned it over it did seem to him that he had a weight of sin enough to crush him; that he could not bear up under such a weight as that, and that his soul would come down in ruin like many a building whose beams have not been strong enough, that has given way at last. I mind not what form the thought may take: I only pray that some such thought may come home and decide you. Occasionally, a good man has been the means of suggesting the deciding thought. A smith was blowing his bellows in a smithy one day, when the saintly McCheyne stepped into the smithy for a shelter from a shower of rain. As the smith was blowing the coals and they were at a great heat, he simply said to him, “What does that fire make you think of?” He never gave an answer, but he went his way. It made the smith think of the wrath to come, and it made him flee from it too. We cannot tell what may be, in the gracious providence of God, the means of bringing you to decision. He that used an angel’s hand with Lot, can use a well-timed observation with you. Therefore, I urge all Christian people, that they use every opportunity and study to season their conversation with grace. Sow beside all waters, for you know not which may prosper-this or that. Sometimes men have been decided by the deaths of their relatives or their friends. “I may be the next,” has been suggested to them. When the dear child has been buried, it has made the afflicted father reflect that he shall never meet it in heaven unless he mends his ways. So, too, the bereaved mother, in the bitterness of her heart, has sought a Saviour, in the hope that she might meet her babe again in the better land. Such things are good. They are blessed deaths that bring eternal life to the survivors! These little ones well spend their lives in winging their flight to Paradise, and showing us the way. But surely, dear friend, you don’t require a distressing visitation to decide you. I trust your heart will be given to Christ without the dire necessity that you should lose those you love on earth. Occasionally, and very occasionally, persons have been decided by personal sickness. Some, but oh! how few, have witnessed the good confession in the hour of death. A soldier in the army of the Potomac, of whom I somewhere read, was taken to the rear to die. He was badly wounded; he was also suffering from fever. Someone had told him, just before the fever came on, of a soldier found asleep at his post who was condemned to die. The poor fellow, in his delirium imagining that he was that soldier, cried out to the doctor who was attending him, “Sir, I am to be shot to-morrow morning; and as I wish to have all right, I want you to send for the chaplain at once. I want to see him.” The doctor, to calm his fears, said. “No, no; you are not to be shot to-morrow morning; it’s a mistake.” “Oh! but I am,” he said; “I know I shall.” “But I will be here,” said the doctor, “and if anyone comes to touch you, I will have him arrested. I will take care you shall not die.” “Is it so, doctor?” said he, in calmer accents, “then you need not send for the chaplain; I shall not want him just yet.” So the truth came out that fear, not faith, animated him, though it was but spoken in a feverish dream. How many men, if they thought they were going to die, would say, “Oh! yes; let all be said and done that it is right to say and do”; but persuade them that they are likely to live a little longer, they will wait, and adjourn their faith while they can allay their fear. Not very often is the decision genuine which men arrive at under the stress of that fear which comes of impending dissolution. May God’s spirit deepen in some here present their sense of sin. May your crimes sting you. May you feel your guilt. May you hate yourselves because of your transgressions. May you be distressed because of your ingratitude, your disobedience, your unbelief. Then you will long to get rid of this horrible evil, this enmity against God. May you feel to-night what a mischievous thing it is for the creature to be at variance with his Creator, for man to be out of order with his God. What a shameful thing it is for the most favoured of creatures to be inimical to the Sovereign that favours him. What an incredible thing it is, that while the ox knoweth its owner and the ass its master’s crib, man, the object of love divine, should not know his Lord, his Friend, his Benefactor. Oh! may you give no rest to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids till you have opened your mouth to profess the name of the Lord, and fled for refuge to take hold of his righteousness and strength. Oh! that you might be too agitated to sleep till you have confessed your sin into the ear of the Great Elder Brother, and sought pardon from your God through Christ your Saviour. There is forgiveness; there is mercy to be had-to be had now. Whosoever believeth in Christ Jesus shall be saved. Believing is trusting, relying in simple but sincere dependence. May his grace enable you to cast yourselves upon his mercy and credit his promise in this good hour, so you shall be this night enrolled among the saved, and he shall have all the praise. The Lord grant it, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

LUKE 15:1-24

Verse 1. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.

The attraction of his love brought them into the inner circle. Had he been a self-exalting Pharisee, they would have stood as far off as they could if they listened to him at all; but the Saviour spake so gently, so earnestly, with such evident love in his heart, that “then drew near unto him the publicans and sinners for to hear him.”

2. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.

The thunder and lightning of their anger could not turn the milk of his human kindness, but rather did it take an opportunity from their bitter speech to speak all the more sweetly to those who gathered near to him.

3. And he spake this parable unto them, saying.

And then we read three parables-yet are they one. As you have sometimes seen a picture in three panels, so this is one picture in three panels, in which we see three views of lost sinners, and the three divine persons of the ever blessed Trinity in unity seeking men-saving men.

4-7. What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.

A very complete answer to the murmuring Pharisees. Where should the shepherd be but looking after the lost sheep? Is not that one of his first businesses-to seek after that which is gone astray? Does he not derive from it his highest joy? All the sheep that remain at home do not afford him so intense a delight as that one wanderer that his love has sought, and that his power has rescued. So Jesues Christ seems to say, taking them on their own ground, “You Pharisees are like sheep that never went astray. That is your own view of yourselves. You can never afford me so much pleasure as these poor publicans and sinners that have wandered. When I shall find them, I shall have special joy over them. Why should I look after you? Am I not, first of all, called to look after the lost sheep of the house of Israel?” And thus he answered their complainings.

8-10. Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

A second blow for them. “These souls of publicans and sinners are as precious as yours. If you are like pieces of money, so are they. I need not sit and look at you,” says Christ, “like the miser, who counts his hoard which he has in the box, but I do what the woman did who had lost the piece. She could afford to leave the rest laid by in her purse, but she spent all her strength, her eyesight-all her diligent labour upon that one piece.” Here we have the work of the Holy Spirit, only the Holy Spirit works through the church, who is the woman. It is her business to light a candle-to carry the light of the gospel. It is hers business to sweep the house-often to stir up the dust by the besom of the law. It is hers to seek diligently in every corner and cranny in the deserted and filthy places after that precious piece of money, which has not lost a pennyworth of its value through having rolled away into the mousehole or lost itself among the cobwebs. She has to seek until she find it. Christian diligence is not to stop short of conversion. We are not to try to bring men to Christ, but literally to bring them by the power of his eternal Spirit. And when the church finds her piece of money, she, too, has her merry-making. She calls together her friends and rejoices, and the Holy Spirit delights to view his own work in and through his church.

11. And he said,

And here comes the grandest of the three parables-that which sets forth the eternal Father’s love.

11, 12. A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

He was not content to remain and share everything with his father. The other one would have wished his father to keep all that he had, only too delighted to be a guest in his father’s house; but no, “Give me-let me have it myself-let me be independent-let me have something to call my own. Human nature-poor human nature! It is not the true spirit of a child. Very ungenerous, unfilial, ungrateful. Why did the father divide the living between them, but that it is God’s way to allow men to go as they will?

13. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

He could not have done that at home. His father’s eye would have been a check upon him. Man wants to get away from God because he wants to do wrong. At the bottom of all infidelity there lies a love of sin. Men quarrel with divine truth because that truth quarrels with them.

14. And when he had spent all,

For there is an end to all carnal joy. Man can only go a certain length. When he has got to the bottom of the cup, it will not spring up like a fountain and fill itself again. “When he had spent all.”

14. There arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

Just when he wanted all his money, then provisions were dearer than ever. When he had nothing to buy with, everything grew dear.

He never had been, while he lived with his father, and never would have been, if he had kept there. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” “He began to be in want.”

15. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; And he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

There was a kindness in that, but it was a degrading kindness. “The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” He sent him into his fields to feed swine. A Jew, who could not bear the unclean animals, and he must feed swine. When a man gets discontented with the world, the devil and his friends generally suggest that he should do something worse than he has ever done before. They give him some gay amusement-some fouler sin than he has ever plunged into. They tell him that there is no hope, and, therefore, he may have all his fling, and go the whole length of his tether. “He sent him into his field to feed swine.”

16. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat:

So he could not earn his bread, and he could not get it by charity. To what a state of destitution was he brought. But of all destitution in the world, the destitution of a sinner who has at last grown sick of his sin, but cannot find comfort anywhere else, is about the worst. The old nest is pulled down, and you have not got another. The pleasures of the world have fooled you. The joys and delights of ungodly society pall upon your taste, and you want no more of them, but yet you do not know of any other delight or any other joy, and dare not hope that there can be another joy to you.

16, 17. And no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself,

He had been out of his mind all the while. He had been beside himself with sin. “When he came to himself.”

17. He said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

“Still his child, though. Still he is my father, and I know that there is bread enough for me. Why do I not get it? How sad that I should starve when in my father’s house there is so much.” What a motive that is for a poor hungry soul to go to God, namely, that God has so much-so much that he feeds his servants till they cannot eat it all. They have bread enough, and to spare. Why should his child then, though a wanderer, die of hunger in a foreign land?

18-20. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father.

It was a mercy for him it did not end in resolution. He came to matter of fact.

20. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

Then did he come to his father, or did his father come to him? Well, methinks it was both, but still, chiefly that the father came to him. “When he was yet a great way off”-he had not gone half the distance-his father ran the bigger half of the way. He saw him. He had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

21. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

He was going on to say, I dare say, “Make me one of thy hired servants,” but his father kissed him on the mouth, and he never prayed that prayer. It was not a gospel prayer, and would not do, and so he stifled it with love. It was good as far as he did go.

22-24. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son as dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry.

Full of joy, intense joy, overflowing joy, sparkling joy. I love that old Saxon word, “merry.” Some are frightened at it. I heard somebody the other day account it quite wicked to say “A merry Christmas.” Oh! that we had merry days all the year round, especially if we could make merry with such merriment as this. Do begin to be merry.

GRAND GLORYING

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, March 25th, 1915.

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

On Lord’s day Evening, July 5th, 1868.

“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”-Galatians 6:14.

With that “God forbid,” Paul makes a clean sweep of every other ground of boasting, and casts himself upon the one only chosen object of his soul’s glorying. And yet, if you will think of it, Paul had, after the fashion of other men, many things in which he might have gloried. If it had so pleased him, he might have boasted of his pedigree, for he was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews.” He could trace his genealogy, as the pure Hebrews could, up to that great fountain of nobility-Abraham himself. If he had pleased, he might have boasted in the precision of the former ritual which he had practised, for he could say that as touching the law he had been a Pharisee-a man observant of the minutest points of the very letter of the law, careful for its doctrinal tittles, not suffering even the gnat to escape him, but straining after it with care. And yet the apostle did not care to boast, either of his pedigree or of his ritualism. He casts them both aside, and though he had once gloried in them, he now counted them but dross, that he might win Christ and be found in him. Surely, if the apostle had wished it, he might have gloried in his martyr-life. He did once give a list of what he had suffered, and he added, “I have become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me.” Had he not been beaten with rods, shipwrecked, subject to perils from robbers, perils from false brethren, imprisonment, and stones? And yet you never hear him glory in that wonderful martyr-life of his. Amongst the apostles, he was no less than the chief in that which he suffered, and yet he saith, “God forbid that I should glory in it.” He might have gloried in the revelation which he received. Who among us has ever seen or heard what Paul was made to see and hear when he was caught up into the third heavens to hear things which it is not lawful for a man to utter? He might, if he had chosen to boast, have boasted in this revelation, but he did not do so. “God forbid,” said he, “that I should glory,” and that “God forbid” includes even that revelation. Amongst scholars Paul might have taken an eminent position. He was well qualified to speak in the Areopagus, for even there, in that profound assembly, was probably not one with greater knowledge and of more subtle mind than he, who was once called “Saul of Tarsus.” Read the Epistles, brethren. Why, the apostle has the instinct of Bacon, and the insight of Sir Isaac Newton. The man seems to have looked through a question, where others would have looked round about it and have seen nothing. Yet, though he must have felt a human delight in the talents which God had given him, and must have known that he possessed them, yet still he saith concerning them, “God forbid that I should glory.” He seems to take all that he had, all that he did, and all that he was, and put it all away, and come forward with no other theme upon his lip, and no great love in his heart, except this-Jesus crucified for the sons of men; Jesus to be great among the nations; Jesus, the slaughtered Lamb, to be made unto men their life from the dead, their salvation from going down into the pit. “God forbid,” saith he-that memorable speech, that eloquent declaration, that glorious self-denying, yet exalting resolve-“God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!” We shall be brief upon each point at this time, but the first enquiry must naturally be:-

What is this cross in which paul resolved to glory?

You need not to be told, my brethren, that Paul set no store by the material cross, or by the sign of the cross. You know that the making of the sign of the cross, and the paying of religious reverence to that, is as great a superstition as the belief in witches, and perhaps, as men come to be enlightened, they will wonder how it is that some men could have thought that there could be more sanctity about a cross than about a circle or the parallelogram, for really there is no holiness in the sign of the cross, and I sometimes wish that some Christian persons would not countenance that emblem, since it seems to imply a superstitious reverence to that kind of thing. Paul meant no such thing. He would have abandoned in contempt any superstitious use of the cross or the crucifix, and he would do so now if he were, and I hope the result would be that, as at Ephesus they burned their conjuring hosts, so now men would put their chasubles, and their albs, and all their fripperies and upholstery together, and burn them in one glorious pile as the result of the preaching of the true cross of Christ.

What did the apostle men, then? He meant, in a single word, the great doctrine of the atonement offered for sin by the Son of God upon Mount Calvary. “The cross” is the short term for “substitutionary suffering,” for “vicarious sacrifice,” for the offering up of the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. The apostle was never cloudy about this matter. Wherever he went he preached that God was in Christ reconciling the world with himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. His declarations were always clear. “Him hath God set forth to be a propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.” He was always saying that Jesus Christ took our sins, and bore them in his own body on the tree; that he was punished instead of us; that the claims of divine justice were met by the death of the Redeemer; that he was made a curse for us that we might be enriched and blessed of God in him; that he made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Paul’s great master-point was that Jesus actually suffered to vindicate the divine justice by enduring, instead of us, the punishment due to our sins.

And he meant also by it that gospel which springs out of the cross, and which is contained in these few words, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” “He that believeth on him is not condemned. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Paul told the people that the Son of God was made man, and suffered in human form to take away human guilt, and that whoever, the wide world over, would come and rest in what Christ had done should be saved. This was the gospel which he proclaimed in every place. For barbarian and Scythian, this was the gospel; for the Greek and the Jew, the same; for the illiterate, for the learned; for the king, and for the peasant; ’tis evermore his one theme-a bleeding Saviour, and a sinner looking to him; a living Christ dying, that a dying world might live. This is that gospel which we preach from Sabbath to Sabbath, which will save your souls, and which you delight to sing of in words like these:-

“There is a fountain filled with blood

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood

Lose all their guilty stains.”

This was “the cross” which Paul resolved to glory in.

What was there in this particular doctrine or fact for the apostle to glory in at all?

The answer is, first, that there is glory in the fact itself. It is a fact entirely by itself, unique, unparalleled. The mythology of the heathens had invented many, many strange things, but among them all there is nothing so beautiful, even if it were not true, nothing so perfect in its imagery, as this, that God, the offended One, should give up his Only Begotten that, in order that justice might not be injured, at the same time his mercy might have full sweep; that the Only Begotten should die, that the offending ones might live. There is nothing like this in the whole range of human poetry. Men had fine poetic imaginings before, and there were prophetic declarations of the coming of Christ, and they prophesied some wonderful things, but of all the poets of all the nations it may be said that they never conceived anything like this. The offended One dies, that the offenders might live. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God first loved us.” “Beloved, behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.” That one fact that God descended from the royalties of heaven, that he might take upon himself the servitude of earth in the form of man, and offer himself a sacrifice for sin, reveals the infinite wisdom, together with the infinite love of God, besides casting a brilliant light upon all his other attributes. It stands a marvel of marvels, a wonder of wonders, in which the believer may glory, glory as much as he will. You know we do not doubt about this fact. We hold it; nay, we are sure of it, and it is a very great reality to us. I was passing, some years ago, a Socinian chapel in this great London of ours, and I saw an announcement of the subjects upon which sermons were to be delivered. If I remember rightly, there was to be a sermon on the morning of one Sunday upon some political subject, and in the evening there was to be a sermon upon the crucifixion, but the word was spelt “crucifiction.” And I thought, “Ah! just so; and though you do not mean it, it is just that with you; it is nothing more to you than a mere fiction, but to us it is real.” We believe that the blood of Jesus really takes away sin. We believe that he really laid down his life to redeem us from our iniquity, and to us the most real, sublime, grand, soul-moving thing beneath heaven, and even in heaven, is this, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and died that he might save them. The apostle, then, gloried in the fact as a fact.

And next, the apostle gloried in the fact viewing the simplicity of it-the simplicity of the doctrine which grew out of the fact. It is frequently said, “Oh! these evangelical preachers, these men that preach up Christ, these popular preachers-they are very shallow-brained men; they talk mere platitudes; they do not read the German philosophers; they do not go to the bottom of the thing and stir the mud; they are content with just telling the people really such plain and common things that you cannot expect enlightened people in this nineteenth century to care to go and hear them.” It is a very odd thing that they are the only people who do go to hear them. That only shows, I suppose, that there are plenty of people who are shallow too. But we boast, if in anything, in the sheer simplicity of this truth that we preach. If the cross of Christ were a marvellous conundrum, the answer to which none could guess, but a philosopher trained for fifty years, if we understood it so, we should feel as if it were scarcely worth while for us to tell it, since there would be so few that could be benefited by it. But we thank God that we have a simple gospel to preach to you, because there are so many in this world who want saving quite as much as the wisest, but who could not be saved if the gospel were not simple. I thank God that, when Christ is preached in the Union House, he is believed there, and when Christ is preached to the most benighted nation, he is received there, and he is just as sweet and precious to those who cannot read as to those who are the best educated. No, we do not, and never will, blush, because the gospel is simply “Believe and live.” We think that every statement of great truth before it can do good to the heart must be simple. It seems to us that its simplicity is a part of its grandeur; that it is more God-like to give us a gospel which can be spoken in few words by simple men, than to give us something involved and intertwisted, the meaning of which we should never be able to guess. We thank God, dear hearer, that it does not want many minutes to tell you what you must do to be saved. Believe in Jesus; that is, trust him; trust him with all your heart; cast yourself flat upon him; you cannot fall any lower when you are down there; cast yourself on his arms; rely upon his merits, and you are saved. God forbid that we should glory save in this very simplicity, which some persons so fiercely decry.

Paul gloried, and we glory, in the next place, in the freeness and suitability of the gospel. The apostle never found himself in a place where the gospel was not suitable. Sometimes some of you young men who are here to-night may have to go out to supply pulpits, and you may be apt to ask yourselves and ask one another, “Well, what subject shall I take?” I answer you-wherever you go, preach Jesus Christ, and that will suit every congregation, and if it does not, the congregation that is unsuited by it will not be suited at all, and they ought to have twice as much of it till they are suited with it. Preach up Jesus Christ, no matter how noble the audience, or how poor; still preach the atonement. Preach up the dying Saviour, instead of men, and it never can be out of season. Those men who, for the sake of variety and freshness, run away from their Bibles are like men who, for the sake of wealth, should run away from a substantial business which brings them in their thousands in order to speculate where bankruptcy must be their only gain. Close to the cross! There is no such variety as in that one theme. It is like a diamond with a thousand facets, each one reflecting its own sweet light. You shall preach Jesus Christ to the angels in heaven throughout eternity, and make known to them the unsearchable riches of God in Christ Jesus, but the theme will be quite inexhaustible. What a blessing, though, that this cross of Christ should be so suitable to every person we meet with! If you take the cross of Jesus Christ into the condemned cell, there is nothing else that is so likely to awaken that slumbering soul. If you take it to our criminals-alas that there are so many!-it is the only balm of Gilead to them. Go with it to the lodging-houses, and the back slums, and the street corners of St. Giles’s, or where you will, and this story of the man Christ Jesus, who loved and died, touches all hearts. You have heard of the Greenlanders. The missionaries thought they ought first to instruct them in the doctrine of the Trinity; so they preached away to them of the Godhead, but the Greenlander did not care about it; but one of them, while interpreting, I think, the third chapter of John, came across that blessed passage, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life,” and the Greenlanders stopped him and said, “Why didn’t you tell us that before?” “Oh! I thought I had better begin by telling you of some of the other truths.” “But we knew all those, or could have guessed them; why didn’t you tell us this before?” From that moment the good Moravians lifted up Christ as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and the eyes and hearts of the Greenlanders began to look to him, and Jesus Christ was the glory of that land. We may say of this doctrine of the cross, as David did of Goliath’s sword, “There is none like it.” It is suitable in all places, wherever we may be found.

Truly, brethren, Paul might well glory in the cross, if you will kindly remember the great results which are sure to come from its constant and faithful preaching. There is not land where the cross has been lifted up, but is the better for it. Even those countries in which we have been compelled to regard missions as a failure have still received much blessing as the result. If the people have not been converted, yet still the bringing of the light into contact with their thick darkness has done something, though not all that we could wish. See yonder South Sea Islands, where the savage is clothed and in his right mind. Go to-night, if you can, on the wings of imagination, to the Bechuana villages, where Mr. Moffat laboured amongst the Bushmen, about the existence of whose souls even there was once some doubt, and see what has been done there! Ay, and even in this land, with all our sins, how different are we from our savage forefathers, and how can Edinburgh, and London, and Glasgow tell you how the putting down of a district church or chapel has turned the heathen population of these days into a Christian community. This is the great lever to uplift the masses. Where Jesus is preached, signs and effects follow in which we may well rejoice. How many a home that was once filthy and miserable has been cheered and comforted now that father is a Christian. How many a man who used to reel in and out of the gin-shop or the public-house now delights to sing another song, and to drink of other wines on the lees, well refined! What changes grace is making among us! How some of us could tell of them as long as we live, we ourselves being changed! We will then say, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

You know, as I was last night turning over this text in my mind, I shut my eyes and saw-for you see a great deal more with your eyes shut than with them open sometimes-as I looked I thought I saw a cross before me, and it began to grow. I saw it as I had never seen it before. It grew upon me-grew every moment. I saw it go downward, into the earth, and as its foot descended graves began to open-for resurrection comes from the cross-and hell itself began to tremble, for nothing shakes the infernal kingdom like the cross. Then I looked up, and the cross had been growing till it reached up to heaven, bearing with it tens of thousands of souls redeemed, and I thought of that verse:-

“In the cross of Christ I glory,

Tow’ring o er the wreeks of time;

All the light of sacred story

Gathers round its head sublime.”

I turned my eye lower, and I saw its transverse beams, and these began to stretch to the east and to the west, and they took away the sins of all God’s people, and carried them into the place of forgetfulness, where they never shall be found; while a shadow, broad as the universe, seemed to fall upon creatures of all kinds, and wherever it fell the shadow dropped with the benedictions of heaven. Oh! that crucifixion of the Lord Jesus-how deep, how high, how broad! The imagination cannot conceive it, but the soul delights in it.

And then, as I seemed to look with eyes closed, I thought I saw in my vision a flock of doves, fluttered and afraid, and well they might be, for there were archers after them, and the sharp arrows all but pierced their breasts. Nay, some fell wounded sore, and they flitted to the groves, and they flew to the far-off sea, and to the wilderness, but the sharp shafts pursued them everywhere, and the doves found no rest for the soles of their feet. At last one day they lighted on the cross, and they marked that every shaft fell short, and some that were shot at them with double force were splintered and broken, and fell upon the ground. Not a single dove was hurt, but all found shelter there. Lord, make me one of those doves, and may my soul escape the arrows of my spiritual foes; let me find shelter on my Saviour’s precious cross, for there is shelter there, and there alone.

And then the picture changed, and I saw before me the whole earth, as it now looks without rain, and it was all parched and browned, and seemed ready to be burned, and the plants hung down their heads, and the flowers seemed to be pining for the tears of the angels to drop down upon them from heaven, but nothing came. Yet I noticed that all along wherever the shadow of the cross fell it was all verdant as in spring, and every flower seemed as if it did drink in the dew, and opened its cup towards the light that streamed from the cross. ’Twas all fertile there where the cross-shadow fell, but all barren elsewhere. And is it not so? Wherever there is the influence of the atoning blood, wherever the cross is fully preached and received, every soul is blessed, and happy, and fruitful, but where it is not so there is an arid waste, on which the dew of heaven falleth not.

And while I thought I saw before me a caravan, and there were camels, and hundreds of men, the drivers of the camels, and they were all hot, and panting, and fainting. They went to the well and rolled away the stone, but they found no water there. So they went onward, ready to drop at every step. Before them they thought they saw a cooling stream, but it was a mirage, and they were mocked. But I thought I saw them suddenly halt at the foot of the cross, and just at the bottom of it there sprang up a clear and crystal spring, and each one drank, and went on his way refreshed. And what are the sons of men, but a great caravan on the way to realms unknown, and where is there water for so much as one of them, except at the cross-foot? If they drink there, they live; if they drink not there, there is for them naught beside.

Many other things passed before me, but I cannot detail them now, for we have had too much time upon this second point, and must pass to the third. The third point, very briefly discussed, is this:-

If we do glory in the cross of Christ, how shall we prove it?

We must prove it by trusting in the cross. The atonement must have our only confidence, or else it were vain to say that we glory in it.

We must prove it, next, by holding fast the doctrine when others impugn it. We must be confident about this vicarious sacrifice of Christ, let others say what they may.

We must prove it by our zeal in propagating it according to the best of our ability. We must endeavour as much as lieth in us to tell the good news to others, that whosoever believeth hath everlasting life.

But there are some here who are called to the ministry, and, therefore, to them let me say that we must prove that we glory in it most by being prepared to suffer for it. Any man who is called to the ministry may, if he will take an example from yonder dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. There you see the cross above the globe. You must put from henceforth the cross above the world in all your calculations. To preach Jesus and to win souls, and not to gain money or human applause, must be the way in which you prove that you glory in the crops.

But the principal way is by constantly preaching about it. What shall I say to young men who are about to enter the ministry that shall be more useful to them than this? Keep to the cross; keep to the cross! Always preach up Jesus Christ! Always preach up Jesus Christ! I think no sermon should be without the doctrine of salvation by faith in it. I would not close a single discourse without at least something about believing in Jesus and living. Oh! that our tongues would speak of nothing but Jesus! Oh! that we were something like Rutherford, who is said to have had a squeaking voice on every other subject, but when he begun to speak of Christ the little man would grow tall and his voice become full, so that the duke who was one of his hearers called out, “Now man, you’re on the right string!” Oh! surely, this is a theme that might inspire the very dumb, and make the dead to rise, to tell of Jesus Christ’s most wondrous love.

I have thus, as well as the short time I had allowed, shown how we may glory in the cross. But if we do so, according to the text, we are not to expect to go to heaven in silver slippers, for the apostle adds, “By which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” There are two crosses in that saying-there is the world crucified there, and there is Paul crucified here. What means he by this? Why, he means that ever since he fell in love with Jesus Christ, he lost all love for the world. It seemed to him to be a poor, crucified, dying thing, and he turned away from it just as you would from a criminal whom you might see hanging in chains, and would desire to go anywhere rather than see the poor being. So Paul seemed to see the world gibbeted, hung up there. “There,” said he, “that is what I think of thee, and all thy pomp, and all thy power, and all thy wealth, and all thy fame! Thou art on the gibbet, a malefactor, nailed up, crucified! I would not give a fig for thee; I would not turn on my heel to speak to thee; all that thou couldest give me would no more suit my taste than as if husks were given to me. Give them to thine own swine, and let them fatten thereon!” You know the world is not crucified to “the successors of the apostle,” and all others who preach merely as a profession. They get their living out of it; they are endowed by the world; the State or the church pays them; the world is not crucified to them.” That is the change that has come over the times, but to the first apostle the world was crucified. And now observe the other cross. There is Paul on that. The world thinks as little of Paul as Paul does of the world. The world says, “Oh! that hair-brained Paul! He was sensible once, but he has gone mad upon that crotchet about the Crucified One; the man is a fool.” So the world crucifies him. It was something like the case of Luther, when he said, “There is no love lost between me and the Pope of Rome; he hates me, and I also hate him with all my heart, and soul, and strength.” So is it with the world and the genuine Christian. If he glories in Christ he must expect to be misunderstood, misrepresented, and attacked. And, on the other hand, he will say that he would sooner have the world’s scorn than its honour, he would sooner have its hate than its love, for the love of the world is enmity against God. Blessed are ye when they shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s. Set your account, ye Christians, upon rough weather, and get seaworthy vessels that will stand a gale or two. Ask the Lord to give you grace enough to suffer and endure for that precious Saviour who will give you reward enough when you see him face to face, for one hour with him will make up for it all. Therefore, be faithful, and may the Lord help you thus to glory in the cross of Christ. Amen.

Expositions by C. H. Spurgeon

GALATIANS 4:12-31; 5:1-4, 19-26; 6:1-11

GALATIANS 4:12-31.

Verse 12. Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all.

He had told them the gospel, and other teachers had come in and alienated their affections. He says, “Now I am just the same to you as ever I was; I wish you would have the same love to me.”

13, 14. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

He dwells upon that. They had been so enthusiastic about his teaching when he first taught them, that he feels grieved that now they have gone aside to other teaching-not because it injured him, but because it injured them.

15. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of?

When you said that you were happy to live in Paul’s days, glad to listen to so simple and plain a teacher.

15, 16. For I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?

Ah! there are many who have incurred enmity through speaking the gospel very plainly, for the natural tendency of man is towards ceremony, towards some form of legal righteousness: he must have something æsthetic, something that delights his sensuous nature, something that he can see and hear, to mix up that with the simplicity of faith; and Paul was as clear as noonday against everything of that kind, and so the Galatians got at last to be angry with him. Well, he could not help that, but it did grieve him.

17. They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.

They would, if they could, turn you out of our love that you might run after them. These false teachers would shut us out of your hearts that your hearts might go after them.

18-21. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law.

Will you not listen to what the law itself teaches? Here is a little bit from one of its first books, the book of Genesis.

22, 23. For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, and the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh;

In the strength of Abraham.

23. But he of the freewoman was by promise.

In the power of God, born after both father and mother had ceased to be capable of becoming parents, born in the power of God.

24. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants: the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

Those that are under the law are the children, therefore, of the bondwoman: they are born slaves.

25. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

It is old Judaism coming from Sinai, “This do, and thou shalt live,” and all the children that are born under it are children of nature, and they are not the children of promise.

26. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

This is Sarah, and they that believe are the Isaac-children, the children of holy laughter, born according to the power of God.

27-29. For it is written, Rejoice thou barren that bearest not: break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

The child of Hagar could not bear the child of Sarah, and they that seek salvation by the works of the law, and by outward ceremonies, cannot endure the children of faith.

30, 31. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.

CHAPTER 5.

Verse 1-4. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ had made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondaye. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he ie a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

If you mean to have anything to with salvation by works, get you gone; you are the children of the bond-woman.

Verses 19-21. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like:

A black catalogue, but sin is very prolific. We must take care that we avoid each one of these works of the flesh, or else we shall give no proof that we are led by the Spirit of God and possess the grace of God.

21. Of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Read over the list. Put the question to conscience, “Am I guilty of such things?” If so, do not suppose that the holding of orthodox doctrine will save you, or that any kind of religious ceremony will save you. You must be delivered from these lusts of the flesh-these deeds of the flesh, or you cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

22, 23. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Surely, neither human nor divine. These are things which are commended on all hands. But if we do not have them-if they are not found in us-then we have not the Spirit, for if we had the Spirit, we should bear the fruit of the Spirit.

24-26. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory,

A very common sin-wishing to shine. Whether we deserve to be honoured or not, still wanting to be fore-horse in the team, and to take the leading place. “Let us not be desirous of vain glory.”

26. Provoking one another, envying one another.

If each would strive who should do the greatest deeds of love, and each were willing to take the lowest place, then this evil would never be known again.

CHAPTER 6.

Verse 1. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

When Christians fall into a fault, it is on account of their travelling slowly on the road to heaven. Hence the expression, “If he be overtaken with a fault.” He would not have been overtaken if he had been travelling faster. If his heart had been quick in the ways of the Lord, he would have outstripped the temptation. Now, when a brother falls into sin, it is too often the habit to push him down-to cast him out and forget him. But spiritually-minded persons must not do so. We must seek the restoration of the brother. Is there not more joy over the sheep that was lost than other those that went not astray? Have we not the best reason to deal tenderly with wanderers, since we cannot tell that we may not need the same generous offices for ourselves? “Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” He seems to take it for granted that we probably should, if we were tempted as the other brother was.

2. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

Help each other. If you have a light load, take a part of somebody else’s.

3. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.

Mainly deceives himself. Other people generally find it out. It is no use estimating your fortune at so many millions, for it will not make it so; and it is of no use estimating yourself at a very high price, because it does not make it so. “He deceiveth himself.”

4-5. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden.

There are burdens of care and sorrow which we can help others to bear; but the burdens of responsibility each man must carry for himself. The load of service for the Master must be carried personally; and let us be glad to shoulder it, since Christ has done so much for us. And how else can we express gratitude but by serving him?

6. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that reacheth in all good things.

If he gives you spirituals, do not suffer him to lack for temporals.

7, 8. Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap

What the flesh always comes to by-and-bye.

8. Corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit

By faith in Christ-by being led of the Spirit.

8-10. Shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

They have a first claim upon us. They are nearest of kin. They are our brethren in Christ. Let them have a Benjamin’s portion.

11. Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand.

Paul did not often write his own epistles. It is thought that he had a defect of the eyes. He employed an amanuensis generally. When he did write, he wrote generally in great capitals. I suppose that is what he meant. “You see how emphatic my writing is-what great characters I have made in writing to you.” Or he may have meant that for a letter, written by him, this was a lengthy one.