The Pharisees in our Lord’s day were very fond of high-sounding titles. They had their diplomas, like our modern doctors of divinity, and they took good care to pride themselves upon them. Some were called “Rab”; others “Rabbi”; others “Rabbini.” They had their various degrees of respect-degrees which signified the respect due to them, and the attainments to which they had reached. In fact, they would not listen to a teacher unless he came with the title of “Rab,” or “Rabbi,” or “Rabbini.” He must be one who had about him a great air of self-importance. He must be a witness of himself, and that very abundantly too, or else the confraternity of the Scribes and Pharisees turned away from him.

Now our Lord asked no testimonials from anybody. He stood up and spoke very simply, but very earnestly the truth, and he did not quote, as these old Rabbis did, authors far gone back one upon another, and make glosses upon them, but he took the authority derived from God, and constantly said, “Verily this is the case,” and “Verily I say unto you that this other is the case”; and when these mighty Scribes and Pharisees turned upon their heels and could not receive him, he replied to them, “It was not at all likely that you would; you gentlemen are so given to complimentary phrases and to grandiloquent titles that there was no likelihood that you would listen to a man who came with truth on his lips, and still further, in his heart.” Perhaps there could be nothing more clear than that the position which the Scribes and Pharisees occupied was most dangerous. They were prejudiced. They considered that they had the key of knowledge themselves. They knew already by far too much to be taught anything more, and consequently while publicans and harlots heard Christ and rejoiced to listen to him, out of all those who were continually cavilling and finding fault, how few ever won the blessing.

Now this is an illustration of a general rule upon which I wish to speak to-night. The moral character has a great effect upon the faith. These men, through being proud, stilted, and fond of titles, were unable to believe in Christ, and there are other faults more common than these which effectually prevent men from becoming the disciples of our blessed Master. Of some of these I intend to speak this evening; and when I have so done I shall have a few words to address to the individuals here who cannot believe in Christ because there is a something within their hearts that very effectually prevents their coming to the faith of God’s elect. First, then, it is very clear that:-

It is not because a truth is plain that, therefore, all men see it.

There are some men in such a condition of mind, of such a blinding sort, that even if the truth could be plainer still, it would be the most unlikely thing in all the world that they should receive it. We will suppose for a moment that teetotalism is based upon the surest truth, and cannot for a moment be disputed. Some earnest brother is endeavouring to convince a man. He belabours him with the most potent arguments; he brings before him the most astonishing facts, and some of those wonderful “statistics” which the more we look at the less we believe; but after bringing all these to bear upon the man, he still remains unmoved. You are surprised, but somebody whispers in your ear, “He keeps a gin-palace,” and now you are not surprised at all. It would be a very unlikely thing that he should be convinced of the propriety of total abstinence while he himself gets his gain by selling the pernicious evils. But take another case of the same sort. A young gentleman, in conversation with a bishop, was endeavouring to show his lordship the unscriptural character of the episcopal body as now held in the Church of England. His lordship was observed to smile, and when he was asked the reason he replied, “Why, I wonder at the courage of this young gentleman that he should imagine he could ever convince me out of £3,000 a year”; and, indeed, it was not very likely that he would be converted from the errors of episcopacy, if these are errors, any more than our friend of the gin-palace was likely to be converted to anti-alcoholic principles. There is a something in both instances about the position of the men which renders them, probably, impervious to truth. These two illustrations just bring that point before your mind’s eye.

Now there are some men who do not believe in Jesus. They have godly parents; they have lived to see others who have believed; and though, perhaps, they have never been quite able to cast away the recollections of their early days, yet for all that they are almost and would be quite infidels, if it were not for a slender thread which still is held in the hand of God. Now the question comes to us-Why are not these people believers? Under so many good influences, why are they not decidedly believers in Christ? The answer may be found by the light of the truth which I have brought to your minds. There may be a something about their characters which renders it impossible for them to be believers in Christ, nay, which even reflects credit upon the gospel of Jesus, that they should not be able to believe it, for if, being as they are, they could receive it, it might prove that gospel to be a thing devoid of the power of God.

Let me just mention some of the things which effectually prevent men from believing in Christ, and one is a self-righteous idea of one’s self. Exceedingly common this! The man thinks that he is not as other men are, and though he does not say so, he is rather proud of himself. Though he is so humble as not to say it, yet at the bottom of his heart he is convinced that nobody is worthy of greater respect than he is. He has been scrupulously honest, and has brought up his family to the best of his knowledge in the ways of integrity. He is a good fellow, generous to the poor, and if he should have a fault or two, yet who has not his faults? As for himself, if the world were picked, he would at least take his place somewhere near the first. Now you cannot expect that man to believe the gospel, for that gospel tells him that he is fallen; that his sins have been so many that God has condemned him for ever; that he must escape from that condemnation or, if not, he must sink for ever into misery; that for him there is no salvation, except upon the footing of pure grace apart from merit. The gospel denies that he has any merit. It pulls off from him all those finely-woven raiments of his, in which he boasted himself, and makes him stand naked before the bar of God, and the man does not like that. “No,” he says, “I will not be treated so; the gospel gives me so ill a character that I will e’en run my chance-not believe the gospel, but hope still to be saved by my own natural goodness.” Well, dear hearer, if this be thy case, I should not advise thee to run the risk, for if thou art to look at thyself thou wilt find many omissions, and, above all, this glaring omission, that thou hast not loved the God that made thee, and thou hast not served him. He supplies thee with life, but thou dost not reverence him. If it had not been for his will, thou hadst long ago been among the dust that sleeps in the grave, or amongst the lost that howl in the pit, and yet, despite his long-suffering goodness, thou hast not thanked him, but gracelessly gone up and down the world with no more thought of thy Maker than the brute that dies and so comes to its end. I do pray thee look at thyself in the light of God’s law, that spiritual law which judges thy thoughts, which comes home to thine imaginations. What if thy outward life be pure, yet canst thou stand such a test as that? Thou knowest thou canst not. Believe not, then, thyself to be rich and increased in goods, for thou art poor, thou art penniless in the presence of God. Oh! that thou couldest feel this! Then wouldest thou come to Jesus and put thy trust in him; but, alas! this self-righteousness of thine is that which holds thee back from Christ. How can ye believe while ye take honour to yourselves and flatter yourselves? Ye must be humbled; ye must be brought low, or else faith in Christ can never reside in your bosoms.

A second remark may come closer home to others, and I do desire to come very close home to you. There are men who never will believe in Jesus because their very idea of religion is a mistake. You ask them what their religion is, and, if they spoke very plainly, they would say that they like good music, excellent music, and they like the best of architecture, and they like floral decorations, and they like millinery, and some of them like images on altars, and I know not what other devout and admirable things besides. They take religion to be simply the indulgence of their tastes, the pleasing of the eye, the gratification of the senses, and, if they can sit while the pealing organ pours forth floods of music and they are charmed thereby, they call that adoration. True, as excellent music might be heard at the theatre or the opera, but that would be an abomination. The ears are tickled with the same sounds, precisely the same, and yet in the one case it is sin, and in the other case it is holiness. I confess I cannot quite see the difference; I can perceive none whatever. The gratification of the senses, of the ear and the eye cannot be devotion. It is for the heart to draw near to God; it is to learn that God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. It is to learn that the broken heart is the best sacrifice; that the tear stealing down the cheek is that which is received by the great Father who is in heaven; that to come humbly and confess our sins, to come with lowly reverence and trust in the great Lamb of God is acceptable worship, not the mere chanting or singing of the lips, or the bending of the knee, or the joining in a liturgical service, but for the inner man to bow itself before the unseen God, the vital part of our nature to come into contact with him that liveth and that heareth prayer. Now you cannot expect a man who has imbibed his notions of religion from a thing that is theatrical and full of show, to accept the simple teaching of Jesus Christ. How can they believe while they are duped by these gewgaws? How can they believe in Jesus while they are taken up with these mere externals, these fancies, these sweet perfumes and sounds which can never be acceptable to the great God who is in heaven? There is something greater, something deeper about salvation than this.

There are not many here who will come under that head, but they will come under another. There are many who cannot believe in Jesus because-now let them themselves estimate the force of this-they cannot believe in Jesus because they have a besetting sin that they cannot give up. There is the bottom of most men’s doubts. They would not doubt if they did not sin. If they could have their sins and be believers, they would be believers fast enough, but there is that company must be given up, that company which, instead of sanctifying the soul, depraves it. There are those amusements which are not merely recreations which might invigorate the jaded mind, but which are in truth a sort of debauchery which turns aside the mind from its true force and vigour. Oh! how many things there are in this great London that we know nothing of, and which it were better not to know, which are the secret source of the doubts and scepticism that come up on the surface of society. It were a very curious thing to trace these men home, to trace those home, I say, who say they doubt this and doubt that. Yes, when you see them drunk you do not wonder that they doubt a sober gospel; it were a pity but what they did. When you see them cheat, you do not wonder that they doubt an honest gospel; it were a great pity that they should believe it. When you hear them swear, you do not wonder that they doubt a sacred gospel; why, to keep up any appearance of consistency, not to say sanity, they must doubt it. There is a kind of honesty about this professed doubt which I like, for it is better for a man to doubt those things which contradict his life than that he should be such a damnable hypocrite as to pretend to believe in them; better than that he should stand to them in theory, and yet deny them in his life. But to return to the subject, there lies the secret spring that makes up the non-belief in Jesus in many hearts. It is because they feel that his service is too hard, and exacts too much, too great a self-denial, too much of coming out from the world, and so they cannot believe in him. And yet Jesus asks us to give up nothing that is really for our good. Jesus, I say, takes away from us no pleasure that is a true pleasure, no enjoyment that exalts the mind, or that makes a man truly blessed. ’Tis true he takes away that poisoned cup. Who would permit you to drink it who had a care for you? ’Tis true he takes away from you that dagger of sin, that poisoned viper that is only nestling in your bosom to destroy you. Who that loved you would let you have these dangerous things about you? Jesus Christ asks us only for such self-denial as shall promote our everlasting welfare. Ah! men and women, you will find your sins won’t pay you when you come to die, and I suppose you intend to do that. I hope you think not that you shall live for ever. Then that little drink will seem sour enough when you come to have it for the last time. Then the giddy merriment of this world will seem foolishness enough when the curtain begins to be drawn, and you look athwart the river of death into an eternity that is dark, unlit by a single star of hope. You know that you will not perish like brutes. You know, for God has put a trembling conscience within you, that you will start upon a voyage that is never to end. Oh! sirs, how is it that you thus wreck your vessels for a little joy, and for a paltry pleasure give up the welfare of your souls for ever?

There are some men, too, who are kept from believing in Jesus Christ because they are lovers of gain. How could they believe in Jesus when their whole life is spent in money-grabbing? Mammon, “the least erect of spirits,” says Milton, but he is the god of London. Does not Mammon rule and reign abundantly, and do not men fall down and say their prayers to him? “All hail, thrice glorious Mammon! Fill our pockets full, and help us to blow out our bubble-companies and cheat the public!” Are not these the prayers offered by many? Ay, and among those in sober trade, how many spend their whole lives in getting and scraping for themselves alone-no consideration for the Church of Christ, or for the poor and needy, but only for themselves. Now when Christ comes and says, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steel,” you do not wonder that they do not like that. “No,” say they, “it is contrary to social economics.” When he tells them that this world will pass away, and the fashion of it, and bids them seek another and a better portion, where things endure without end, they will not have it. This world is quite enough for them, and they are gone from Christ. How can they believe in him if they live for gain?

So, too, there are some others who never can believe in Jesus because they are so downright cowardly that it would be very difficult for them to believe in anything which involves the slightest opposition. Yes, many a man and many a woman has been influenced by that mean thought, “I should be laughed at; I should be ridiculed if I became a real believer in Jesus Christ. Why, how could I meet my old companions? What would they say to me if they heard that I had become a saint? How could I stand the sneers of the commercial room? How could I run the gauntlet down that long workshop where all the benches are?” “How,” says the young woman, “could I have it known in that book-folding room that I have been baptized?” And among your upper circles it is just the same. How men are afraid of one another, afraid of poor worms, afraid of poor sinners like themselves who shall wither before the face of the terrible Judge of all the earth! Oh! that men should be so afraid of men, and not afraid of God; that they will consent to be his enemies, and lose his good opinion, but the good opinion of a drunken set or of an arrant fool is thought to be of more weight to them than the good opinion of their God! Sirs, I scarcely like to talk to you on this subject, because it is not manly for you to be ashamed of your convictions. If you do love Christ, say so, and if the world hiss, what does it matter to you if you get Christ’s smile? Are we the sons of those brave old sires who at Edgehill met sword with sword and feared not? What have we to do to cringe before the world’s frown, or to court its smile? God grant it may be otherwise, and may you rise into the full stature of spiritual manhood, and be not ashamed to follow Jesus through good report and through ill-report.

Now I might enlarge, but I shall not. You clearly see that there are many moral faults which keep men back from believing in Jesus. Now for:-

A few plain, earnest words with those of you who have not believed.

There have been many arguments which have been used at different times to bring over the sceptical to the faith. I will just tell you what has often strengthened my own mind, so that, my dear friends, if God inclines you to overcome the moral difficulty you may not have a mental difficulty. In the first place, the doctrine that we are called upon to believe is, that having sinned we are condemned, but that God, full of mercy, had pity upon us, and that his Son, God himself, came down on earth to suffer what was due on account of our sins. In order that the justice of God might not even seem to be robbed of its due, Jesus, God’s only-begotten Son:-

“Bore that we might never bear

His Father’s righteous fire.”

Now I have turned that over, and it looks to me as if it must be true, because I cannot conceive where else it came from but from the realm of facts. A God condescending to bleed and die for his own enemies out of respect to justice, and moved by love, where in all heathen mythology is there anything like it? Where have the most refined of men ever hit upon anything that at all approaches to it? Their gods are usually lustful, and the highest honours of their gods are crimsoned with blood. But if this is not true, it ought to be, for it is the grandest conception that ever flashed upon the human mind. The superlatively Just, the superlatively Great must suffer sooner than that his creature should suffer, and sooner than that the laws of his kingdom should for a moment be dishonoured. I do not know how it is, but I never want arguments about it my own self. It seems to me so plainly a divine thing, so standing out of all conceptions of poetry, so distinctly rising out of all the realms of philosophy that it must be true.

Then, again, another thing which often helps me is this: ever since I have trusted in the Son of God to save me, I have been conscious of a very remarkable change that has passed over my entire nature. Now I desire to speak very soberly, and I claim to be believed. I have as good a claim to be believed as any other man. I do not wish to distort the truth, but now this I know, I look up to the starlit sky at night, and I think, “The God who made this great universe and orders it all, I really love; I would not do a thing contrary to his will if it were not for my poor infirmities; I would do and I would wish to be whatever that great invisible God would wish me to do and to be; I feel I would.” Now I know there was a time when I did not think about him at all, or, if I did, I never could say, “I am reconciled to him; I am one with him; his will is my will; and I desire to do whatever he bids me do.” Now I know that that same thing that has made me love God has made me desire to be truthful, to be honest, to be kind, to be generous, and when I have not done right I feel a pricking within my heart that I did not feel once, so that I do know that there is set up in me a wonderful standard which was not there before. Now a thing that makes me love God, and makes me live and feel so, cannot be a lie. If so, it is a very wonderful kind of lie which produces holiness and goodness. And indeed, my brother, if you would try this for yourself, you would get the same evidence; it would produce in you the self-same change. There would be your old nature, and you would have to grapple with it, to your own shame and sorrow, but still there would be a new nature, with better desires and feelings, and with this new nature within me I am convinced, for myself at any rate, that this thing is true.

Moreover, knowing a great many of those who have believed in Jesus, I am obliged to say of them that they are all imperfect-I wish they were not; I wish they were what God himself is for purity, and gentleness, and love-but for all that, if I had to pick the people I should like to live with, I would choose them, and, with all their faults, I am persuaded that you would sooner have the world full of them than you would of any other sort. If you were going down a dark lane to-night, and you did not know what sort of people were going along it, I would be bound to say it would be a wonderful consolation to you to be told that they were believers in Christ; you would feel pretty safe, and though there are professors, rotten professors that are a very stench both to the Church and to the world, it is but natural that there should be hypocrites. There never was a good thing in the world but what people did make shams of it. When people say, “They are all hypocrites,” I say, “Then I suppose all the sovereigns are bad ones.” Why, if there were no good sovereigns, people would not make bad ones, for it is the good ones that pass off the bad ones; and if there were not some real, genuine children of God, people would not pretend to be so; it would not pay. It is because the world, after all, knows that faith in God makes men happier and nobler that men make pretence of having what they have not. Now when I see the effects of the gospel upon God’s people, making them patient under pain, joyful in the hour of trouble, making them pray to God and receive answers as indisputable facts, I am able to receive Jehovah’s word, and believe the gospel of Jesus as sent from God.

Now a word with regard to you, dear friend, who are still a doubter. We are driven to believe two things about you and about everybody like you, namely, that you will never come to know Christ unless the Holy Ghost deals with you, for all the arguments in the world do not convince the human heart unless the Spirit of all grace shall come and change the nature. And we believe another thing of you, that you must first give up that belief in yourself before you are ever likely to believe in Jesus. How simple it all seems! God hath punished Jesus, his dear Son, instead of those that trust him. Those who trust him are forgiven. That trust, that sense of forgiveness operates upon the mind, leads the mind to gratitude, influences it to love. The man loves God, chooses what he once rejected, and runs now in the ways of God which were once tedious to him. There is the whole theory of salvation, and the experimentally acting of it out. It does seem to me hard that you turn from it. If it were a gospel full of superstitions, like Romish teachings; if we asked you to believe in certain miracles that were so strange, so weirdlike, that you could not conceive them to be true, I could well excuse your unbelief, but when it is simply to trust the incarnate God who did hang on Calvary and bleed for sinners, a thing which looks so true, and which to tens of thousands has been proved to be true in their lives and in their hearts-oh! I would that you would doubt no longer, but close in with Christ, and find safety in him! These reflections will do to close with, namely, that:-

If we do not believe in Jesus, our non-belief will not change the facts.

If a man shall say, “I am no sinner,” he remains a sinner. If he shall say, “I do not believe that God will punish sin,” the punishment will be just as sure. If he shall say, “There is no hereafter,” the future will not end for him. If he shall doubt as to the punishment of the wicked, his scepticism shall not mitigate God’s wrath. The facts remain. Oh! think not, when you have blotted out your own recollection, that you have blotted out God’s determination. There it stands.

And then think again-those facts are coming nearer every hour. We shall soon be into another year. How these years do fly! How the multitudes of men fly too! They were dying last year when the snowflakes fell upon their tombs; they died while the sweet flowers were blossoming from the sod as though to remind us of resurrection; they fell when the mower’s scythe laid the grass in the meads; and they are dying now, dying fast now while the sere leaves are descending and heaping up their sepulchres. How is it that we presume that we shall not die? Persons well a week ago are gone, and our own hearts are merely like muffled drums which beat sadly funeral marches to the tomb, and here are still the facts-the fact of sin and a tortured conscience; the fact of punishment and no forgiveness; the fact of eternity and no hope; the fact of hell and no escape. Oh! ye that have doubted, if you push these off by your doubting, let alone annihilating them, there might be some excuse for you; but they come, they come, like some huge express train thundering down the line, and there are you like children playing on the metals, and you tell us that your games are full of merriment, and there is time enough, and you will think of it; or you do not believe the express is coming, though there it is with its great red eyes and its great mouth of fire, and it comes rushing on and crushing everything that shall be in its pathway. Fly, in God’s name, man! This may be the last hour you may have in which to fly. Think not that you can postpone it, or that you can stop it. Over you with a crash will the divine vengeance go. He shall tear you in pieces, and there shall be none to deliver you. But this is not yet! And meanwhile be wise and escape! Lay hold on eternal life. Trust Jesus, and the infinite mercy of God shall blot out the past and secure the future, and you shall be saved in Christ Jesus with an everlasting salvation.

I talk thus somewhat strongly because I feel strongly, and I often puzzle myself with this question-why I do feel concerned about some of your souls when you are not concerned about them at all. Why, you come and hear me to-night, and it only seems a little kind of music. Well, it may be sport to you, but it is none to me. I have to answer for this, and if I speak not so that you understand, and speak not earnestly, I know I shall have to account to my Master. I would not be some that occupy the pulpit for all the worlds that God ever made if they were threaded on one string. To get a sermon and read it coldly, to read out statements which do not concern your hearers, and deliver them as if it did not matter whether they were true or not, to be an iceberg in the midst of an assembly-how will God call us to account if such be our way of ministry! But I beseech you, men and women, if you have not believed in Christ, to remember that that is the only door of safety according to God’s own revelation. “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ, the righteous.” To deny him, to neglect him, is to perish. To trust him, to accept him, is to be saved. May God’s blessed Spirit move you to trust him this very night, and as there will be on earth, so will there be joy in heaven, and God’s shall be the glory world without end. Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

JOHN 3:1-21

We can scarcely find a chapter in which the gospel lies so compact and so plainly stated.

1. There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:

Christ’s door is open at all hours. You may come to Christ by day. You may come to Christ by night. There is never a time when Christ is from home. He that seeketh findeth, and, to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. “The same came to Jesus by night.” Perhaps he was timid. It is just as likely that he was prudent, and did not wish to commit himself till he had seen what it was that Jesus taught. Perhaps, too, he was busy, and had no time except at night. Better come at night than not come at all. “The same came to Jesus by night.”

2. The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou does, except God be with him.

The miracles were accepted as a proof of Christ’s mission, and if they do not seem to be quite such a proof to us at this distance, they were a most marvellous and necessary proof at the first. Perhaps they have ceased because, that first work being done, the testimony can now stand upon its own strength, and men reading it may judge it to be of God if they will. But to Nicodemus it was quite clear that Christ could not have worked his miracles, except God were with him.

3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Here is a greater miracle than I have wrought in the outside world. Here is a spiritual miracle. This is what you must receive as well as others. You cannot even understand my kingdom, and know what it means-you cannot see it, except you are born again.

4. Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

Thus do men interpret Christ’s figures literally, and this has been the basis of a great many mischiefs and false doctrines. When he is using metaphors to make the thing plain, they straightway use the metaphor rather as a cloak to hide the meaning than as a glass through which to see it. This is the reason why the doctrine of transubstantiation has come up. Because our Saviour said, “This is my body,” men have not been able to understand that he meant, “This represents my body. This is a figure.” Truly “the letter killeth.” It is the inner spirit that gives life.

5. Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

He cannot be Christ’s professed disciple except he receive the Spirit, and except he be baptized-if the water here relates to baptism at all, which we judge it does not. He must be renewed, and washed, and purified. That must be the water; and he must have the Holy Ghost dwelling in him, or else, as he cannot see, so he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

A man may have the best parents that ever lived, but all that is born of the flesh is flesh, at the very best. Your father may be a saint, and your mother a saint, but thou art born in sin, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and unless thou be born of the Spirit, thou canst not understand or see spiritual things, and thou canst not enter into the spiritual kingdom, for thou hast no spiritual capacity. “The carnal mind discerneth not the things that are of God, for they are spiritual, and must be spiritually discerned.” Therefore, we must be born again so as to receive that Spirit by which spiritual things are discerned and entered into.

7, 8. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

There are mysteries in nature. There are mysteries in grace. Every new-born soul is a mystery. He cannot explain himself. He can scarcely understand himself.

9, 10. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be. Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

These simple things-these elementary principles-these rudiments of the school book of believers.

11. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen: and ye receive not our witness.

This was an additional hint to Nicodemus of the unbelief that still lingered in him. “Ye receive not our witness.”

12. If I have told you earthly things,

Things that have to do with men while here below.

12 And ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?

If I lift the veil, and talk to you about greater mysteries still, if you do not believe about regeneration, where will you be if I begin to talk of my Godhead, and of all the inner secrete?

13. And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

A riddle, doubtless, to Nicodemus, which in after days he understood.

14, 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Oh! that blessed “whosoever”! Hear it, ye sons of men, and tell it to your neighbours-“That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

16-18. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world: but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned:

He may be very faulty. His conscience may accuse him, but he is not condemned.

18 But he that believeth not is condemned already,

Hear that “condemned already”; not in a state of probation. Never was there a greater mistake than to say that men are in a state of probation. That probation has passed long ago. They have been proved in the world, and, if they are unbelievers, they are condemned already. “Condemned already.”

18-19. Because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation,

The condemnation-the head and front of it.

19, 20. That light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

This is the secret of infidelity. This is the reason of all opposition to Christ. It is love of sin. Trace it home to its den and lair, and you shall find that it is love of sin that breeds hatred of Christ. Men do not see because they do not want to see. They do not want to see too much lest they should be uneasy in their present state of life. So they kick against Christ, and try to put out the light of his gospel, lest they be reproved by it.

21. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

God give us the heart that seeks the light, and sooner or later we shall find it. We shall find it in Christ.

TRUE WORSHIP

A Sermon

Published on Thursday, June 24th, 1915.

delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

at the metropolitan tabernacle, newington.

On Thursday Evening, 1st September, 1870.

“Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the Most High: and call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”-Psalm 50:14, 15.

Even in the Christian Church we have great diversities of opinion as to what is the true form of worship. One stoutly cries, “Lo here,” and another as earnestly says, “Lo there!” There are some who think that the more simple and plain the outward worship can be, the better; others think the more gorgeous and resplendent it can be, the better. Some are for the quietude of the Friends’ meeting-house; some are for the stormy music of the cathedral. Some will have it that God is best praised in silence; others that he is best honoured with flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and I know not what kinds of music. Is it so difficult, then, to know what kind of worship God will accept? It is very difficult if it be left to the guesses of men; it is not at all difficult if we turn to the Word of God. There we shall find, I think, great room for diversities of mode, but we shall find ourselves shut up by a consecrated intolerance to a few matters of spirit. We shall there be told what is not essential, but we shall be certainly assured of what is essential to the true worship of God. And I suppose it will be enough for any one of us who are sincerely anxious to worship God ourselves, if we find out for ourselves by the teaching of God’s Spirit the way to do it, and we shall be content to let others find out the way also for themselves, satisfied if we be approved of God ourselves-for we have very little to do with sitting on the throne of judgment, and either condemning or approving others. Now on turning to this Psalm we shall find out what worship is not acceptable with God, and we shall find out what is; and these will make the main points of our sermon this evening. In reading this Psalm to you, you must all have noticed:-

What sort of offerings are not acceptable to God.

You noticed with me, I dare say, that, first, those are not accepted in which men place the reliance upon the form itself, and are contented when they they have gone through the form, though their hearts have had no communion with God, and they have brought to the Most High no spiritual sacrifice whatever. Lay it down, then, beyond all question, that formal worship which is not attended with the heart, which is not the worship of the spirit, can never be acceptable with the Most High.

And here we will remind ourselves, too, that even when the form is actually prescribed of God, yet without the heart it is not a worship of God at all in the true sense of language. With what indignation of eloquence doth God here speak to the Israelitish people, who imagined that when they had brought their bulls and their goats-when they had kept their holy days, consecrated their priests, presented their offerings, been obedient to the ritual, then that all this was enough. He puts it to them: he enquires of them whether they can be so foolish as to think that there is anything in sacrifices of bulls and rams that could content the mind of the Most High. If he wanted bullocks and rams, he says, he has enough of them: all living creatures are his, and he has infinite power to make as many more as he would. Do they fancy that if he wanted bulls and goats he would come to them for them-that the Creator would crave and turn beggar to his own creatures, and ask for bullocks out of their houses and goats out of their field? He puts it to them, do they really think that he, the Infinite God, who made the heavens and the earth, the great I AM, actually eats the flesh of bulls and drinks the blood of goats? And yet their idea was that the mere outward sacrifice contented him. Was God as gross as that, and what was involved in that? Now I will put it to you, you who profess to be Christians, and yet in your worship, whatever it may be, rest in it. Do you really believe that God is honoured by your eating a piece of bread and drinking a few drops of wine? The thousands of creatures that he has in the world eat more bread and drink more wine. Do you really believe that your sitting at a table brings any satisfaction to him who is in the company of angels, and who has choicer spirits than you are to enter into fellowship with him? No, sirs; if you rest in the outward form, what you do can bring no amount of entertainment to him. He might say to those priests who think that they offer unto God a sacrifice in the Mass, “Do I eat bread that is made by the baker, leavened or unleavened? Do you think that I drink wine expressed from the grape?” Fancy you, you that find satisfaction in these things-oh! fools, and slow of heart-that the infinite Jehovah taketh any delight in these matters? And if you come to baptism as God himself commands it-if you trust in that, might he not say to you, “Do you think that I am pleased with water, when the rivers, and the lakes, and the seas, and the deeps that lie beneath are all my own? Does that immersion in water bring any satisfaction to me, in itself considered? What can there be in it that can delight my infinite mind or satisfy my soul? If we rest in any outward form, though God prescribes it, we must have a very gross and carnal idea of God indeed if we conceive that he is served or glorified thereby. It cannot be so. If men were not idiotic, they would shake off from themselves all idea of sacramental efficacy and everything that is akin to it. They would see that what God wants is the heart, the soul, the love, the trust, the confidence of rational, intelligent beings-not the going through of certain forms. The forms are useful enough when they teach us the truth of which they are the emblems. The forms are precious, and, as ordained of God, to be reverently used by those who can see what they mean, and who are helped by the emblem to see the inner meaning, but by none besides. The mere outward thing is but the shell, the husk-useless, unless there be within it the living kernel, the embryo which the shell protects. The mere form of outward worship is just nothing: it is not acceptable with God.

Now if this be true-and we know it is-of even ordinances ordained of God, how much more must it be true of ceremonies that are not of God’s ordaining? I am not about to judge, but I will say of all ceremonies and absence of ceremony, if there be no divine prescription, we feel certain that there cannot be a divine acceptance, and even if that could be supposed, yet if the heart were not there, and there were reliance in these outward things of man’s devising, it were utter folly to suppose that God accepts them. For instance, there are certain people who think that God is glorified by banners, by processions, by acolytes, by persons in white, in blue, in scarlet-(I know not what colours)-by golden crucifixes, or brass, or ivory-by very sweet music, by painting, by incense. Now what an idea they must have of God! What a thought they must have of him! I remember standing on the Monte Cenis one afternoon on a very broiling summer’s day, in a cool place where I could look all over the wide plains of Italy and see the blue sky-such a blue as we never see, and the innumerable flowers, and all the land fair as a dream; and then I looked to my right hand and there stood a shrine-a shrine to which there came a worshipper. There was a doll: they called it “the Blessed Virgin.” It was adorned with all sorts of trinkets-just such things as I have seen sold at a country fair for children. It had little sprigs of faded artificial flowers-little bits of paint; and I said to myself, “The God that made this glorious landscape in which everything is true and real-do they fancy that he is honoured by this kind of thing-these baubles? What an idea they must have of God.” Sirs, if he wanted banners, he would deck his escutcheon with the stars. If he wanted incense, ten thousand thousand flowers would shed their sweet perfume upon the air. If he wants music, the wind shall sound it, and the woods shall clap their hands, and every forest tree shall give out its note, and angelic harpers standing on the glassy sea shall give such music as your ears and mine have never conceived. If he wants an alb, behold the snow! If he wants your many-coloured raiments, see how he decks the meads with flowers, and strews with both his hands, rainbow hues on every side. If he wanted garments, he would bind the sky’s azure round him with a belt of rainbows, and come forth in his glory; but your dolls, and your boys and men, and all their millinery! Sirs, do you know what you are at? Have you got souls? If you worshipped a calf, calves, like you, might well worship him in such a style, but the great I AM, that builded heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, that is to say, in these buildings; and he is not worshipped by such trumpery as this. All this, of men’s inventing, never can be acceptable to the Most High. Common-sense tells us so-much more the revelation of God.

But, mark you, my censure does not tell alone against them. Suppose a man should say, “Well, I am far enough from that. On the morning of the first day of the week I resort to a meeting-house-white-washed, a few forms, a raised desk at the end of it; and I sit down there. I have not any minister-nobody to speak, unless he believes the Spirit moves him. We all sit still-many times sit still the whole morning. We worship God.” Do you believe you have. If your heart was there-if your soul was there-I am the last man to complain of the absence of form. I love your simplicity, I admire it; but if you trust it, I believe your simplicity will as certainly ruin you as the gorgeousness that goes to the opposite extreme; for if there be any reliance in that sitting still-if there be any reliance in that waiting-(take our own case)-if there be any reliance in your coming up to these pews, and listening to me, do you think you have served God merely by coming here to sing those hymns, and cover your faces during prayer, and so on? I tell you, you have not worshipped God. You are mistaken if you suppose the mere act tells for anything. You know not what you think: you know not what your mind is drifting to. It is the heart that gets to God-it is the eye that pours out penitential tears-it is the soul that loves, and blesses, and praises-this is the sacrifice. But all the outward, whether God himself ordained it, or man devised it-or whether it be a matter of mere convenience, it cannot be received by the Most High.

So let me add, beloved friends, a matter which may touch some of you. The mere repetition of holy words can never be acceptable sacrifices to God. There are some who from their childhood have been taught to say a form of prayer. I shall neither commend nor censure, but I will say this: you may repeat that form of prayer for twenty, forty, fifty years, and yet never have prayed a single word in all your life. I am not judging the words: they may be the best you could possibly put together: they may be the words of inspiration; but the mere saying of words is not prayer, neither does God receive it as such. You might just as well say the Lord’s Prayer backwards as forwards for the matter of its acceptance with God, except you say it with your heart. I believe some people fancy that the reading of prayers in the family, and especially that the reading of prayers at the bedside of the sick, has a kind of charm-that it somehow or other has a mysterious influence, helps to prepare men for life or for death. Believe me, no grosser error could exist. When the soul talks with God, it matters not what language it uses. If it finds a form convenient, and it uses it with its heart, let it use it if so it will; but if, on the other hand, the words come bubbling up, and come never so strangely and irregularly, yet if the heart speaks, God accepts them as prayer, and that is worship. So, too, in singing. If we have the sweetest hymn that ever was written-yea, though it were an inspired hymn, and if we sang it to the noblest tune that ever composer wrote, yet we do not praise God by the mere repetition of the words and the production of those sounds. Ah! no; the whole of it lies in the soul after all. “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him,” Let there be good music by all means, and noble words, for these are congruous to noble thoughts; but oh! let the thoughts be there; let the soul be there; let the flames of love burn on the altar of the heart. Be the outward expression what it may, let the praise be winged by the ardent affections of the soul; otherwise far from you be the thought that you have worshipped God when you have used solemn words with thoughtless hearts. Does not this touch some of you? You have never prayed in all your lives. You have said a prayer, but never talked with God. You have been to the house of God, perhaps, from your infancy, but never worshipped God. Though oftentimes the preacher said, “Let us worship God,” yet have you never done so. O sirs, what!-all these formalities, all these routines, all these outward forms, and yet no heart, no soul?-nothing acceptable with God? Alas! for you! and will you go on so for ever? You will, so long as you rest contented with the outward. I do pray that God may put in you a sacred discontent with the merely outward worship, and make you long and cry that you may offer unto him the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart through Jesus Christ the Saviour, by the power of the eternal Spirit, for that will the Lord accept.

Thus I have mentioned one form of sacrifice that God does not accept, namely, that of formalists. Now this Psalm shows us that:-

There are other sacrifices which God rejects, namely, those offered by persons who continue their wicked lives. Now some will preach and yet live in an ungodly manner. Some can lead prayers in the prayer-meeting, and yet can lie and thieve. There be those that, for a pretence, make long prayers. Their minds are occupied upon the widow’s house, and how they shall devour it, while their lips are uttering consecrated words. Now observe no man’s praying is accepted with God who is a hater of instruction. Turn to the seventeenth verse of the Psalm: “Seeing thou hatest instruction, and casteth my words behind thy back.” Let me look a man in the face who never reads the Bible-who does not want to know what is in it-who has no care about what God’s Word is: I see there a man that cannot worship God. If he says, “Oh! I am sincere in my own way”-sir, your “own way”-but that way is sure to be the way of rebellion. A servant does not have his own way, but his master’s way. You are not a servant of God while you think that your will and your fancy are to settle what God would have you do. “To the law and to the testimony.” Every devout mind should say, “I will search and see what God would have me to do.” What does he say to me? Does he tell me that I am by nature lost and ruined? Lord, help me to feel it! Does he tell me that only by faith in a crucified Saviour can I be saved? Lord, work that faith in me! Does he tell me that they who are justified must also be sanctified and made pure in life? Lord, sanctify me by thy Spirit, and work in me purity of life! The really accepted man desires to know the divine will, and to that man there is not one part of Scripture that he would wish not to know, nor one part of God’s teaching that he would wish to be ignorant of. The Lord does not expect you, beloved, while you are in this world at any rate, to know everything, but he does expect that you who call yourselves his people should also be as little children, who are quite willing to learn. Oh! it is an ill-sign with us when there are some chapters that we would like to see pasted over-when there are some passages of Scripture that grate on our ears-when we do not want to be too wise in what is written-do not want to know too well what the Lord’s will is. If thou shuttest thine ear to God’s instruction wilfully, and wilt not listen to his will, neither will he listen to thy prayer, nor canst thou expect that thy sacrifice will be received by the Most High. Such things are not acceptable, and yet-and yet-how large a proportion of Christendom has never recognised the duty of learning the will of God from God’s own Spirit! They take it from their party leaders: one borrows from this body of divinity, another from his Prayer Book; one borrows from his parents, and must needs be what his father was; and another borrows from his friend, or thinks that the National Church must necessarily be the right one. But the genuine spirit says, “Lord, I would have that which is thy mind-not mine, nor man’s. Oh! teach thou me.” And though he judgeth not others, he desireth ever to be judged of God himself-to stand before the Most High, and say, “Search me, O God, and try me, and know my way, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the right way everlasting.”

The Psalm goes on to say that God does not accept the sacrifices of dishonest men. “When thou sawest the thief, thou consentedst with him.” When a man’s common trade is dishonesty-when frequently he excuses himself, as some servants do, in little pilferings-as some masters do in false markings of their goods-when the man knows he is not walking uprightly before his fellow-men, he comes to the altar of God and brings a sacrifice which he pollutes with every touch of his hand. No, sir! no; say not that thou hast fellowship with God when thy fellowship is with a thief. Thinkest thou to have God on one side, and the thief on the other? Surely thou knowest not who he is. If we be not perfect, yet at least let us be sincere; and if there be sins into which we fall through inadvertence and surprise, yet at least uprightness before our fellow-men is one thing that must not be lacking-cannot be lacking in a gracious soul-in a true child of God whom God accepts.

So next, the sin of unchastity prevents our worshipping God. You come and say, “Lord, have mercy upon us! Christ have mercy upon us!”; or you say, “We praise thee, O God: we acknowledge thee to be the Lord”; or you stand up here and sing, “All hail the power of Jesu’s name,” and you have come from lascivious talking-perhaps from worse than talking. You have even now upon your mind some scheme of what is called “pleasure,” and you think that “life” means what in this assembly and in the assembly of God’s people it were best not to mention, for you count it no shame to do what believers count it shame, even to think of. Polluted hands! polluted hands! how can you be lifted up before God? Use what forms you may, your praises are an abomination; your prayers, while you continue as you are, are a loathing and a stench in the nostrils of God. Turn ye; repent ye; seek washing in the Saviour’s blood, and then may ye offer acceptable praises, but not till then.

The Psalmist goes on to say that so it is with slanderers. Slanderers cannot be accepted with God-those (and oh! how many these are) who count it sport to ruin other people’s characters-who seem to take a joy and a delight in finding fault with the people of God. How canst thou expect that God will bless thee when thou art cursing thy fellow-men; and while thy mouth is full of bitterness, how can it also be full of praise? Now these are not things that will cheer and comfort the people of God. I trust in my own ministry it is a main point with me to comfort God’s people, but the axe also must be laid to the root of the tree; and let it be known to all who come into these courts, that if they come here with defilement in their spirits and with lust or unrighteousness in their daily practice, and love to have it so, from this pulpit they shall find no apologies and gather no comfort, and from God’s Word, too, they shall have denunciation, but not consolation; they shall have threatening and judgment, but not the promised blessing. Now we must have a few minutes on the next part of our subject, on which I hope to enlarge on another occasion, which is:-

What sacrifices are acceptable with God?

The text tells us, first, thanksgiving. “Offer unto God thanksgiving.” Let us come and worship then, brethren: let us come and worship. We were lost, but Jesus came to seek the lost. Blessed he his name. We were foul and filthy, but his mercy brought us to the fountain filled with blood. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive honour, and glory, and majesty, and power, and dominion, and might.” Since that very day in which he washed us he has given us all things richly in his covenant. “He maketh us to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth us beside the still waters.” “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name.” Now if that be your spirit-if you can even keep up that spirit when the husband sickens, when the child dies, when the property melts away, and you can say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord”-what if there be no hymn from your lips, if there be no bull on the altar, yet these are the calves of your lips-the offering of your heart; and they are a sacrifice of a sweet smell if they are presented through Jesus Christ, the great atoning High Priest. This is a sacrifice that God accepts, and I dare say it is often offered to him in a garret-often presented to him in a cellar-often, I hope, by you when your hands are grimy at your work, and, perhaps, even when your cheeks are scalding with tears you yet can say, “I am his child: I have innumerable mercies. When he smites me, yet it is in tenderness. Glory be to his name! Blessed be his name!” That is the sacrifice for a spiritual God: that is spiritual worship. Have you ever offered it, dear hearer, or have you been living on God’s favour and yet never thanked him? Have you had your life preserved, and your daily food constantly given, and yet have you never blessed God for it? Oh! then you have never worshipped him. I do not mind though you are a good singer-although you put on a chasuble, or whatever you have done; if you have not thanked him from your soul, devoutly and intensely, you know not what the worship of Jehovah is.

Next the text tells us that performance of our vows is worship. “Pay thy vows unto the Most High.” Now I shall interpret that not after the Jewish form, but adapt it to our own. You, beloved, profess to be a Christian. Live as a Christian. Say, “The vows of the Lord are upon me. How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? I am a servant of Jesus: I am not my own: I am bought with a price. What can I do to praise him to-day? How can I win another soul for him who bought me with his precious blood? I declared myself, when I joined his Church, to be one of his, and, therefore, a cross-bearer. Let me take up my cross to-day, whatever it is, though I may be ridiculed, separated, and laughed at. Let me do it-bear it cheerfully for his truth, and let me say:-

‘If on my face, for thy dear name,

Shame and reproach shall be;

I’ll hail reproach, and welcome shame,

If thou’lt remember me.’

Let me do everything as in his sight. I was in outward form buried in baptism: I profess then to be dead to the world. Oh! let me try to be so! Let not its pleasures cheat me: let not its gains enchant me. I profess to be even risen with Christ. Oh! God, help me to lead a risen life-the life of one who is risen from the dead with Jesus Christ, and quickened with his spirit.” Now if that be your thought, that is true worship, that is real sacrifice to the Most High-when a soul desires to walk before the Lord in conformity with its vows and gracious obligations, not with a view of merit, for it lays all its hope upon Jesus, and finds all its merit there, but simply cries, “I am his, and I wish to live as one that bears a blood-bought name.”

We are told, too, in the text-and that is a very sweet part of it-(I wish I had an hour or two to talk of it)-that prayer in time of trouble is also a very sweet form of worship Men are looking for rubrics, and they are contending whether the rubric is “so-and-so according to the use of Sarum.” Now here is a rubric according to the use of the whole Church of God bought with Jesu’s blood, “Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” You are in great distress of mind: now you have an opportunity of worshipping God. Trust him with your distress: call to him as a child calls to its mother. Show how you honour him-how you love him-how you trust him. You shall honour him even in that; but when you get the answer to your prayer, which will be a sure proof that God has accepted your offering, then you will honour him again a second time by devoutly thanking him that he has heard your prayer. O sinner, this is a way in which you can worship God. Does your sin lie heavy upon your conscience? Call upon God in the day of trouble, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” That is true worship. Have you brought yourself to poverty for your sin? Say, “Lord, help me.” That is prayer. Worship, then, can never go up from all the pealing organs in the world if men’s hearts go not therewith. Are you a Christian just now under a cloud? Have you lost the light of Jesu’s face? Call upon him now in the day of trouble. Believe that he will appear for you. Say, “I shall praise him. His countenance is my aid”; and you will be bringing better sacrifice than if you brought he-goats, and bullocks, and rams. This is what the Lord loves-the trust, the child-like confidence, the loving seeking after sympathy which is in his children’s hearts. Oh! bring him this!

Then he adds-if you will turn to the last part of the Psalm, which I must incorporate in the text-“Whoso offereth praise glorifieth him.” True praise glorifieth God. I must confess that I do not particularly like to hear voices that jar in the singing, but I should not like to stop one voice, certainly not if it stopped one heart. I think it is said of Mr. Rowland Hill, that an old lady once sat upon his pulpit-stairs who sang so very bad a voice that the good gentleman really could not feel that he could worship while be had her voice in his ear, and he said, “Do be quiet, my good soul.” She answered, “I sing from my heart, Mr. Hill.” “Sing away!” said he, “and I beg your pardon. I will not stop you.” And I think I could beg the pardon of the most cracked voice I ever heard if it is really accompanied with a real loving, grateful heart. God gets some of his richest praise amidst dying groans, and he gets delightful music from his people’s triumphant cries. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” To praise God-to sing an excelsis in extremis-to give him the highest praise when we are in the deepest waters-oh! this is acceptable with him! The best worship comes from the Christian that is most tried-at least in this case. When the soul is most bowed down with trouble, if he can say, “I will praise him: I will praise him in the fire: I will praise him in the jaws of death itself”-ah! these are sacrifices better than hecatombs of bulls, and better than the blood of fed beasts. Not your architecture, not your music, not your array, not your ordinations or your forms, but your hearts prostrate, your souls with veiled faces, worshipping the mysterious, the unseen, but everywhere present great I AM-this is worship. Through Jesus Christ, it is accepted: it is of the Spirit’s own creation: it only comes from truly spiritual, regenerate men, and wherever it comes it reaches the Majesty on high, and God smiles and accepts it.

Now, brethren, I send you home with this reflection. Some of you have never worshipped God. Then think of that, and God help you to begin! Others of us who have worshipped him ought to consider how large a proportion of our worship is good for nothing. Oh! how often you come and hear now on Thursday night! Why, have not you built a ship in the pew sometimes-mended a plough-darned your husband’s stockings-seen to the sick child-done all sorts of things, when you should be worshipping God? Now these distracting thoughts mar worship, and I do pray God that you as a people never may get to think that coming here is of any use if you do not bring your hearts with you. Thomas Manton says that if we sent on the Sabbath day a man stuffed with straw to sit in our pews for us, and thought that was worshipping God, it would be very absurd, but not one whit more than when we bring ourselves stuffed with evil thoughts or dead, cold thoughts that cannot rise to God. I cannot always get to God, I know, but I at least hope I may groan until I do. Oh! it does seem an awful thought that some of us may have no more feeling than the pews we sit on-no more worship God than those iron columns and those lamp-glasses. Oh! may you never be that sort of slumbering congregation, with whom it is all form! We have read a strange poem of one who has pictured a ship manned all by dead men. Dead men pulled the sails, a dead man steered, and a skeleton eye kept a look-out. I am afraid there are congregations like that, where all is dead and all is form. Oh! may it not be so with you or me, but may we all realise, through Jesus Christ, who stands at the throne, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, “have fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ,” and that evermore to God’s glory! Amen. I speak on this theme but very feebly, but I do feel it from my very heart. I do pray that we may all be accepted worshippers because the heart is found in us. It was always a bad sign-by the Roman augurs it was pretended to be the worst sign-when they found no heart in the victim. It is a dreadful sign when in all our worship there is no heart. God forbid that it may be so! Amen.

Exposition by C. H. Spurgeon

PSALM 50:1-10

A Psalm of Asaph

Whether this means that Asaph wrote it, or that it was committed to him to sing, we do not know. Certainly Asaph did write some Psalms. There are twelve ascribed to him in the book of Psalms. He wrote some, and it is equally certain that some others were dedicated to him. He had the leadership of the orchestra, who sang the Psalm in the temple. This is a very marvellous Psalm. If we only consider the poetry of it, it is one of the chief of the Psalms, but its matter is very deep-august. It should be read with great reverence of spirit. The Psalm begins with a prologue in which the scene is introduced. God is represented as coming forth out of Zion to judge those who profess to be his people-to discern between the precious and the vile-to separate between mere professors and pretenders. The first six verses represent God as coming.

Verse 1. The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.

The Hebrew hath it, “El Elohim, Jehovah hath spoken”-three names of God-great and mysterious-the strong God, the only God, the self-existent God. He speaks-calls upon the whole earth from the east to the west to listen to his voice.

2. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined

There he dwelt. Now in this scene he is represented as shining forth from it. As he had described the earth as being lighted by the sun from the east to the west, so now God himself, who at first speaks and demands a hearing, now shines forth with beams of glory which altogether eclipse the brightness of the sun. “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.”

3. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.

The voice was heard saying that God would come, and then the beams of glory which warned men that he was coming; and here his people stand attentive, expecting him to come. “They expect him to speak.” Fire and rushing wind are usually used in Scripture as attendants of the throne of God, fire representing justice in action, and the tempest representing his power when it is displayed. Think of God’s coming thus. The poet here pictures it, but it will be so in very deed. “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance upon those that know not God.” He will even come after this manner, “for our God is a consuming fire.”

4. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.

Do you catch the thought? There comes the great Judge with the fire burning before him. He rides upon a cherub-yea, rides upon the wings of the wind, and then he calls heaven, with all the angels and glorified spirits, and he calls to earth, with all its inhabitants, to stand and witness what he does while he judges his people.

5. Gather my saints together unto me: those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.

God has a separated and chosen people. It will be a part of the proceedings at the last great day to gather these together unto God. There will be a day when he will make up his jewels-a time when he will gather his wheat into his garner. But as this Psalm stands, this is a larger gathering. It refers to a picture of all professing saints being brought before the throne of God-true saints that made a covenant with God by sacrifice. They see Jesus Christ, who ratifies the covenant of grace by blood, and they have laid their hands on Christ, and the covenant is made between them and God. But there were others in the Psalmist’s day who had offered sacrifice and pretended to have made a covenant with God, and there are their representatives in these days. They are now to be gathered before the throne of judgment, for God has come to judge them.

6. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness: for God is judge himself. Selah.

The very heavens, as they look down upon the august assize where God himself, not by deputy, but in the person of his dear Son, shall sit and judge-the heavens shall declare his righteousness. Now I doubt not the heavens often wonder how it is that God permits the ungodly to be mixed with the righteous in his Church; but ah! when the fan shall be in his hand, and he shall thoroughly purge his floor-when he shall lay justice to the line and righteousness to the plummet-the angels shall wonder at the exactness and accuracy of the divine judgment. “Selah.” Pause, rest, consider, admire, adore, humble yourself, pray. It is good to have a pause when such a scene as this is before us.

Now from the 5th verse down to the 15th verse you have God’s dealing with his people. The Judge is sitting on the throne. He begins to speak thus:-

7. Hear, O my people, and I will speak: O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

It is with his nominal people, the Jews; it is with his visible Church, God is now dealing. He himself has seen the ways of his professing people: he need not, therefore, call any witnesses. He who cannot err will testify against us; and he declares himself here not only as God, but under that name, “thy God.” It was thus the law began: “I am the Lord thy God that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage.” It is thus the judgment and rebuke begin: “I am God, even thy God.”

8. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me.

He is going to deal with weightier matters than that. Whether they have, or have not, offered abundant sacrifices, that is not the thing which God looks at. “I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices. Nay, I have done with thy sacrifices.”

9. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats out of thy folds.

“Do you think that these things in themselves are of any value to me, O ye formalists? I will not even take them.”

10. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.

Though men call them theirs, yet they are thy God’s.