eChurch Blog

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”-2 Corinthians 3:17

LIBERTY is the birthright of every man. He may be born a pauper; he may
he a foundling; his parentage may be altogether unknown; but liberty is his
inalienable birthright. Black may be his skin; he may live uneducated and
untaught; he may be poor as poverty itself; he may never have a foot of
land to call his own; he may scarce have a particle of clothing, save a few
rags to cover him; but, poor as he is, nature has fashioned him for freedom he has a right to be free, and if he has not liberty, it is his birthright, and he
ought not to be content until he wins it.

Liberty is the heirloom of all the sons and daughters of Adam. But where
do you find liberty unaccompanied by religion? True it is that all men have
a right to liberty, but it is equally true that you do not meet it in any
country save where you find the Spirit of the Lord. “Where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is liberty.” Thank God, this is a free country. This is a
land where I can breathe the air and say it is untainted by the groan of a
single slave; my lungs receive it, and I know there has never been mingled
with its vapours the tear of a single slave woman shed over her child which
has been sold from her.

This land is the home of liberty. But why is it so? I
take it, it is not so much because of our institutions as because the Spirit of
the Lord is here – the spirit of true and hearty religion. There was a time,
remember, when England was no more free than any other country, when
men could not speak their sentiments freely, when kings were despots,
when Parliaments were but a name. Who won our liberties for us? who
have loosed our chains? Under the hand of God, I say, the men of religion
men like the great and glorious Cromwell, who would have liberty of
conscience, or die-men who, if they could not reach kings’ hearts, because
they were unsearchable in cunning, would strike kings low, rather than they
would be slaves. We owe our liberty to men of religion to men of the stern
Puritanical school – men who scorned to play the craven and yield their
principles at the command of man. And if we ever are to maintain our
liberty (as God grant we may) it shall be kept in England by religious
liberty – by religion.

This Bible is the Magna Charta of old Britain; its
truths, its doctrines have snapped our fetters, and they never can be
rivetted on again, whilst men, with God’s Spirit in their hearts, go forth to
speak its truths. In no other land, save where the Bible is unclasped – in no
other realm, save where the gospel is preached, can you find liberty. Roam
through other countries, and you speak with bated breath; you are afraid;
you feel you are under an iron hand; the sword is above you; you are not
free. Why? Because you are under the tyranny engendered by a false
religion: you have not free Protestantism there, and it is not till
Protestantism comes that there can be freedom. It is where the Spirit of the
Lord is that there is liberty, and nowhere else. Men talk about being free:
they describe model governments, Platonic republics, or Owenite
paradises, but they are dreamy theorists; for there can be no freedom in the
world, save, “where the spirit of the Lord is.”

I have commenced with this idea, because I think worldly men ought to be
told that if religion does not save them, yet it has done much for them – that
the influence of religion has won them their liberties.
But the liberty of the text is no such freedom as this: it is an infinitely
greater and better one. Great as civil or religious liberty may be, the liberty
of my text transcendently exceeds. There is a liberty, dear friends, which
Christian men alone enjoy; for even in Great Britain there are men who
taste not the sweet air of liberty. There are some who are afraid to speak as
men, who have to cringe and fawn, and bow, and stoop, to any one; who
have no will of their own, no principles, no voice, no courage, and who
cannot stand erect in conscious independence. But he is the free man,
whom the truth makes free. He who has grace in his heart is free, he cares
for no one; he has the right upon his side; he has God within him – the in
dwelling Spirit of the Holy Ghost; he is a prince of the blood royal of
heaven; he is a noble, having the true patent of nobility; he is one of God’s
elect, distinguished, chosen children, and he is not the man to bend, or
meanly cringe. No! – sooner would he walk the burning furnace with
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – sooner would he be cast into the lion’s
den with Daniel, than yield a point in principle. He is a free man. “where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” in its fullest, highest and widest
sense.

God give you friends, to have that “Spirit of the Lord;” for without
it, in a free country, ye may still be bondsmen; and where there are no serfs
in body, ye may be slaves in soul. The text speaks of Spiritual liberty; and
now I address the children of God. Spiritual liberty, brethren, you and I
enjoy if we have “the Spirit of the Lord” within us. What does this imply; It
implies that there was a time when we had not that Spiritual liberty – when
we were slaves. But a little while ago all of us who now are free in Christ
Jesus, were slaves of the devil: we were led captives at his will. We talked
of free-will, but free-will is a slave. We boasted that we could do what we
pleased; but oh! what a slavish and dreamy liberty we had. It was a fancied
freedom. We were slaves to our lusts and passions – slaves to sin; but now
we are freed from sin; we are delivered from our tyrant; a stronger than he
has cast out the strong man armed, and we are free.
Let us now examine a little more closely, in what our liberty consists.

I. And first, my friends, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”
from the Bondage of Sin. Ah! I know I shall speak feelingly to some of you
when I talk about the bondage of sin. You know what that misery means.
Of all bondage and slavery in this world, there is none more horrible than
the bondage of sin. Tell me of Israel in Egypt preparing their tale of bricks
unsupplied with straw; tell me of the negro beneath the lash of his cruel
task-master, and I confess it is a bondage fearful to be borne; but there is
one far worse – the bondage of a convinced sinner when he is brought to feel
the burden of his guilt; the bondage of a man when once his sins are baying
him, like hounds about a weary stag; the bondage of a man when the
burden of sin is on his shoulder – a burden too heavy for his soul to bear – a
burden which will sink him for ever in the depths of everlasting torment,
unless he doth escape from it. Methinks I see such a person. He hath never
a smile upon his face; dark clouds hath gathered on his brow; solemn and
serious he stands; his very words are sighs; his songs are groans; his smiles
are tears; and when he seems most happy, hot drops of grief roll in burning
showers, scalding furrows on his cheek. Ask him what he is, and he tells
you he is “a wretch undone.” Ask him how he is, and he confesses that he
is “misery incarnate.” Ask him what he shall be, and he says, “he shall be
lost in flames for ever, and there is no hope.” Behold him alone in his
retirement: when he lays his head on his pillow, up he starts again: at night
he dreams of torment, and by day he almost feels that of which he
dreamed. Such is the poor convinced sinner under bondage. Such have I
been in my days, and such have you been, friends. I speak to those who
understand it. You have passed through that gloomy Slough of Despond;
you have gone through that dark vale of penitence: you have been made to
drink the bitter cup of repentance: and I know you will say, “Amen” when
I declare that of all bondage this is the most painful – the bondage of the law,
the bondage of corruption. “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me” from it? But the Christian is free; he can smile now, though he wept
before; he can rejoice now, whereas he lamented. “There is,” he says, “no
sin upon my conscience now, there is no crime upon my breast; I need not
walk through the earth fearful of every shadow, and afraid of every man I
meet, for; sin is washed away; my spirit is no more guilty; it is pure, it is
holy; there no longer resteth the frown of God upon me; but my Father
smiles: I see his eyes-they are glancing love: I hear his voice-it is full of
sweetness. I am forgiven, I am forgiven, I am forgiven! All hail, thou
breaker of fetters! glorious Jesus! Ah! that moment when first the bondage
passed away! Methinks I recollect it now. I saw Jesus on his cross before
me. I thought on him, and as I mused upon his death and sufferings,
methought I saw him cast a look on me; and when he gazed on me, I
looked at him, and said,

“Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly.”

He said “come,” and I flew to him and clasped him, and when he let me go
again, I wondered where my burden was. It was gone! There, in the
sepulcher, it lay, and I felt light as air; like a winged sylph, I could fly over
mountains of trouble and despair; and oh! what liberty and joy I had! I
could leap with ecstasy for I had much forgiven and now I was freed from
sin.” Beloved, this is the first liberty of the children of God. “Where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty “from the bondage of sin.

2. Liberty from the Penalty of Sin. – What is it? Eternal death – torment for
ever – that is the sad penalty of sin. It is no sweet thing to fear that if I died
now I might be in hell. It is no pleasant thought for me to stand here and
believe that if I dropped down I must sink into the arms of Satan and have
him for my tormentor. Why, sirs, it is a thought that would plague me; it is
a thought that would be the bitterest curse of my existence. I would fain be
dead and rotting in the tomb rather than walk the earth with the thought
that I might suffer such a penalty as this.

There are some of you here who
know right well that if you die hell is your portion. You don’t attempt to
deny it, you believe the Bible, and there you read your doom, “He that
believeth not shall be damned.” You cannot put yourselves among
believers. You are still without Christ. Have any of you been brought into
such a condition that you believe yourself so full of sin that God could not
be just if he did not punish you? Have you not felt that you have so
rebelled against God by secret crimes, ay, I say, by secret crimes, and by
open transgression, that if he did not punish you he must cease to be God
and lay aside his scepter? And then you have trembled, and groaned, and
cried out under the fear of the penalty of sin. You thought when you
dreamed, that you saw that burning lake whose waves are fire, and whose
billows are ever blazing brimstone, and each day you walked the earth it
was with fear and dred lest the next step should let you into the pit which is
without a bottom. But Christian, Christian, you are free from the penalty of
sin. Do you know it? Can you recognize the fact? You are free at this
moment from the penalty of sin. Not only are you forgiven; but you never
can be punished on account of your sins however great and enormous they
may have been.

“The moment a sinner believes,
And trusts in his crucified God;
His pardon at once he receives
Salvation in full through his blood,”

And he never can be punished on account of sin. Talk of the punishment of
a believer! there is not such a thing. The afflictions of this mortal life are
not punishments for sin to Christians, they are fatherly chastisements, and
not the punishments of a judge. For me there is no hell; let it smoke and
burn, if I am a believer I shall never have my portion there. For me there
are no eternal racks, no torments, for if I am justified, I cannot be
condemned. Jesus hath suffered the punishment in my stead, and God
would be unjust if he were to punish me again, for Christ has suffered
once, and satisfied justice for ever. When conscience tells me I am a sinner,
I tell conscience I stand in Christ’s place, and Christ stands in mine. True, I
am a sinner, but Christ died for sinners. True, I deserve punishment, but if
my ransom died, will God ask for the debt twice? Impossible! He has
cancelled it. There never was, and never shall be one believer in hell. We
are free from punishment, and we never need quake on account of it.
However horrible it may be – if it is eternal, as we know it is – it is nothing to
us, for we never can suffer it. Heaven shall open its pearly portals to admit
us; but hell’s iron gates are barred for ever against every believer. Glorious
liberty of the children of God!

3. But there is one fact more startling than both of these things, and I dare
say some of you will demur to it; nevertheless it is God’s truth, and if you
don’t like it, you must leave it! There is liberty from the guilt of sin. This is
the wonder of wonders. The Christian is positively not guilty any longer
the moment he believes. Now, if Her Majesty in her goodness spares a
murderer by giving him a free pardon, that man cannot be punished: but
still he will be a guilty man; she may give him a thousand pardons, and the
law cannot touch him, but still he will guilty; the crime will always be on
his head, and he will be branded as a murderer as long as he lives. But the
Christian is not only delivered from the bondage and from the punishment,
but he is positively absolved from the guilt. Now this is something at which
you will stand amazed. You say, “What? is a Christian no more a sinner in
God’s sight?” I answer, he is a sinner as considered in himself; but in the
person of Christ he is no more a sinner than the angel Gabriel; for snowy as
are angelic wings, and spotless as are cherubic robes, an angel cannot be
more pure than the poor blood-washed sinner when he is made whiter than
snow. Do you understand how it is that the very guilt of the sinner is taken
away? Here I stand today a guilty and condemned traitor, Christ comes
for my salvation, he bid me leave my cell, “I will stand where you are; I will
be your substitute; I will be the sinner; all your guilt is to be imputed to me;
I will die for it, I will suffer for it; I will have your sins.” Then stripping
himself of his robes, he says, “There, put them on; you shall be considered
as if you were Christ; you shall be the righteous one. I will take your place,
you take mine.” Then he casts around me a glorious robe of perfect
righteousness; and when I behold it, I exclaim, “Strangely, my soul, art
thou arrayed, with my elder brother’s garments on.” Jesus Christ’s crown
is on my head, his spotless robes are round my loins, and his golden sandles
are the shoes of my feet. And now is there any sin? The sin is on Christ; the
righteousness is on me. Ask for the sinner, Justice! Let the voice of Justice
cry, “Bring forth the sinner!” The sinner is brought. Who doth the
executioner lead forth? It is the incarnate Son of God. True, he did not
commit the sin; he was without fault; but it is imputed to him: he stands in
the sinner’s place. Now Justice cries, “Bring forth the righteous, the
perfectly righteous.” Whom do I see? Lo, the Church is brought, each
believer is brought. Justice says, “Are these perfectly righteous?” “Yes they
are. What Christ did is theirs, what they did is laid on Christ; his
righteousness is theirs; their sins are his.”

I appeal to you, ye ungodly. This
seems strange and startling, does it not? You have set it down to hypercalvinism, and you laugh at it. Set it down for what you please, sirs. God has set it up as his truth, he has made us righteous through the imputed
righteousness of Jesus Christ. And now, if I am a true believer, I stand here
freed from every sin. There is not a crime against me in the book of God, it
is blotted out for ever; it is cancelled; and not only can I never be punished,
but I have nothing to be punished for. Christ has atoned for my sins, and I
have received his righteousness, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty.”

4. Furthermore, the Christian man, whilst delivered from the guilt and
punishment of sin, is likewise delivered from the dominion of it. Every
living man before he is converted, is a slave to lust. Profane men glory in
free living and free thinking. They call this free living – a full glass, a
Bacchanalian revel, shouting wantonness, chambering.- Free living, sir! Let
the slave hold up his fetters and jingle them in my ears, and say, “This is
music, and I am free.” The man is a poor maniac. Let the man chained in
his cell, the madman of Bethlehem, tell me he is a king, and grin a horrible
smile; I say, “Ah, poor wretch, I know wherefore he counteth that he is a
king; he is demented, and is mad.” So it is with the worldling who says he
is free. Free sir! you are a slave. You think you are happy; but at night,
when you lay yourself upon your bed, how many times have you tossed
from side to side sleepless and ill at ease, and when you awaked have you
not said, “Ah! that yesterday – that yesterday!” And though you plunged into another day of sin, that “yesterday,” like a hell-dog, barked at you, and
followed at your heels. You know it, sir,- sin is a bondage and a slavery.
And have you ever tried to get rid of that slavery? “Yes,” you say, “I
have.” But I will tell you what has been the end of it. When you have tried,
you have bound your fetters firmer than ever; you have rivetted your
chains. A sinner without grace attempting to reform himself is like Sisiphus
rolling the stone up hill, which always comes down with greater force. A
man without grace attempting to save himself, is engaged in as hopeless a
task as the daughters of Danaus, when they attempted to fill a vast vessel
with bottomless buckets. He has a bow without a string, a sword without a
blade, a gun without powder. He needs strength. I grant you, he may
produce a hollow reformation; he may earth up the volcano, and sow
flowers around its crater; but when it once begins to stir again, it shall
move the earth away, and the hot lava shall roll over all the fair flowers
which he had planted, and devastate both his works and his righteousness.

A sinner without grace is a slave: he cannot deliver himself from his sins.
But not so the Christian! Is he a slave to his sin? Is a true-born heir of God
a slave? Oh, no. He does not sin, because he is born of God; he does not
live in uncleanness, because he is an heir of immortality. Ye beggars of the
earth may stoop to deeds of wrong, but princes of heaven’s blood must
follow acts of right. Ye poor worldlings, mean and pitiful wretches in
God’s sight — ye may live in dishonesty and unrighteousness, but the heir
of heaven cannot; he loves his Lord; he is free from the power of sin; his
work is righteousness, and his end is everlasting life. We are free from the
dominion of sin.

5. Once more: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” in all holy
acts of love-liberty from a slavish fear of law. Many people are honest
because they are afraid of the policeman. Many are sober because they are
afraid of the eye of the public. Many persons are seemingly religious
because of their neighbors. There is much virtue which is like the juice of
the grape – it has to be squeezed before you get it; it is not like the generous
drop of the honeycomb, distilling willingly and freely. I am bold to say, that
if a man be destitute of the grace of God, his works are only works of
slavery, he feels forced to do them. I know before I came into the liberty of
the children of God, if I went to God’s house, I went because I thought I
must do it; if I prayed, it was because I feared some misfortune would
happen in the day if I did not; if I ever thanked God for a mercy, it was
because I thought I should not get another if I were not thankful; if I
performed a righteous deed it was with the hope that very likely God
would reward me at last, and I should be winning some crown in heaven. A
poor slave, a mere Gibeonite, hewing wood and drawing water. If I could
have left off doing it, I should have loved to do so. If I could have had my
will, there would have been no chapel-going for me, no religion for me – I
would have lived in the world and followed the ways of Satan if I could
have done as I pleased. As for righteousness, it was slavery; sin would have
been my liberty. But now, Christian, what is your liberty? What makes you
come to the house of God to day?

“Love made your willing feet
In swift obedience move.”

What makes you bend your knee in prayer? It is because you like to talk
with your Father who seeth in secret. What is it that opens your purses,
and makes you give liberally? It is because you love the poor children of
God, and you feel, so much being given to you, that it is a privilege to give
something back to Christ. What is it that constrains you to live honestly,
righteously, and soberly; Is it the fear of the jail? No; you might pull the jail
down; you might annihilate the Convict settlements; you might hurl all
chains into the sea; and we should be just as holy as we are now.

Some people say, “Then, sir, you mean to say that Christians may live as they like.” I wish they could, sir. If I could live as I liked, I would, always live holily. If a Christian could live as he liked, he would always live as he
ought. It is a slavery to him to sin; righteousness is his delight. Oh! if I
could but live as I list, I would list to live as I ought. If I could but live as I
would I would live as God commands me. The greatest happiness of a
Christian is to be holy. It is no slavery to him. Put him where you will, he
will not sin, Expose him to any temptation, if it were not for that evil heart
still remaining, you would never find him sinning. Holiness is his pleasure;
sin is his slavery. Ah ye poor bondsmen who come to church and chapel
because ye must; ah! ye poor slavish moralists that are honest because of
the gyves, and sober because of the prison, ah! ye poor slaves! We are not
so; we are not under the law, but under grace. Call us Antinomians if you
will; we will even glory in the scandalous title; we are freed from the law,
but we are freed from it that we may obey it more than ever we did. The
true-born child of God serves his Master more than ever he did. As old
Erskine says:-

“Slight now his loving presence if they can;
No, no; his conquering kindness leads the van.
When everlasting love exerts the sway,
They judge themselves most kindly bound to obey;
Bound by redeeming love in stricter sense,
Than ever Adam was in innocence.”

6. But to conclude, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from
the Fear of Death. O death! how many a sweet cup hast thou made bitter.
O death! how many a revel hast thou broken up. O death! how many a
gluttonous banquet hast thou spoiled. O death! how many a sinful pleasure
hast thou turned into pain. Take ye, my friends, the telescope this morning,
and look through the vista of a few years, and what see you? Grim death in
the distance grasping his scythe. He is coming, coming, coming; and what
is behind him? Ay, that depends upon your own character. If ye are the
sons of God, there is the palm-branch; if ye are not, ye know what
followeth death – Hell follows him. O death! thy specter hath haunted many
a house where sin otherwise would have rioted O death! thy chilly hand
hath touched many a heart that was big with lust, and made it start
affrighted from its crime. Oh! how many men are slaves to the fear of
death. Half the people in the world are afraid to die. There are some
madmen who can march up to the cannon’s mouth, there are some fools
who rush with bloody hands before their Maker’s tribunal; but most men
fear to die. Who is the man that does not fear to die? I will tell you. The
man that is a believer. Fear to die! Thank God, I do not. The cholera may
come again next summer – I pray God it may not, but if it does, it matters
not to me: I will toil and visit the sick by night and by day, until I drop, and
if it takes me, sudden death is sudden glory.

And so – with the weakest saint
in this hall; the prospect of dissolution does not make you tremble.
Sometimes you fear, but oftener you rejoice. You sit down calmly and
think of dying. What is death? It is a low porch through which you stoop
to enter heaven. What is life? It is a narrow screen that separates us from
glory, and death kindly removes it. I recollect a saying of a good old
woman, who said, “Afraid to die, sir! I have dipped my foot in Jordan
every morning before breakfast for the last fifty years, and do you think I
am afraid to die now?” Die! beloved: why we die hundreds of times, we
“die daily,” we die every morning, we die each night when we sleep, by
faith we die, and so dying will be old work when we come to it. We shall
say, “Ah, death! you and I have been old acquaintances; I have had thee in
my bedroom every night. I have talked with thee each day; I have had the
skull upon my dressing table, and I have ofttimes thought of thee. Death!
thou art come at last, but thou art a welcome guest – thou art an angel of
light, and the best friend I have had “Why, then, dread death since there is
no fear of God’s leaving you when you come to die!

Here I must tell you
that anecdote of the good Welch lady, who, when she lay dying, was
visited by her minister. He said to her, “Sister are you sinking?” She
answered him not a word, but looked at him with an incredulous eye. He
repeated the question, “Sister, are you sinking?” She looked at him again,
as if she could not believe that he would ask such a question. At last, rising
a little in the bed, she said, “Sinking! Sinking! Did you ever know a sinner
sink through a rock? If I had been standing on the sand, I might sink; but,
thank God I am on the Rock of Ages, and there is no sinking there.” How
glorious to diet Oh, angels, come! Oh, cohorts of the Lord of hosts,
stretch, stretch your broad wings and lift us up from earth; O, winged
seraphs, bear us far above the reach of these inferior things; but till ye
come, I’ll sing,

“Since Jesus is mine, I’ll not fear undressing-
But gladly put off these garments of clay,
To die in the lord is a covenant blessing;
Since Jesus to glory, though death lead the way.”

And now, dear friends, I have shown you as briefly as I can the negative
side of this liberty. I have tried to tell you, as well as I could put it in a few
words, what we are freed from. But there are two sides to such questions
as this. There are some glorious things that we are free to. Not only are we
freed from sin in every sense from the law, and from the fear of death; but
we are free to do something. I shall not occupy many moments, but shall
just run over a few things we are free to; for, my brother Christians,
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;” and that liberty gives us
certain rights and privileges.

In the first place, we are free to heaven’s charter. There is heaven’s
charter – the Magna Charta – the Bible; and, my brother, you are free to it.
There is a choice passage here: “When thou passest through the river I will
be with thee, and the floods shall not overflow thee;” thou art free to that.
Here is another: “Mountains may depart, and hills may be removed; but my
lovingkindness shall not depart:” you are free to that. Here is another
“Having loved his own, he loved them unto the end.” You are free to that.
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Here is a chapter
touching election: you are free to that if you are elect. Here is another,
speaking of the non-condemnation of the righteous, and their justification;
you are free to that. You are free to all that is in the Bible. Here is a never
failing treasure filled with boundless stores of grace. It is the bank of
heaven: you may draw from it as much as you please without let or
hindrance. Bring nothing with you, except faith. Bring as much faith as you
can get, and you are welcome to all that is in the Bible. There is not a
promise, not a word in it, that is not yours. In the depths of tribulation let it
comfort you. Mid waves of distress let it cheer you. When sorrows
surround thee, let it be thy helper. This is thy father’s love-token: let it
never be shut up and covered with dust. Thou art free to it-use, then, thy
freedom.

Next, recollect that thou art free to the throne of grace. It is the privilege
of Englishmen, that they can always send a petition to Parliament; and it is
the privilege of a believer, that he can always send a petition to the throne
of God. I am free to God’s throne. If I want to talk to God tomorrow
morning, I can. If tonight I wish to have conversation with my Master, I
can go to him. I have a right to go to his throne. It matters not how much I
may have sinned. I go and ask for pardon. It signifies nothing how poor I
am – I go and plead his promise that he will provide all things needful. I have
a right to go to his throne at all times – in midnight’s darkest hour, or in
noontide’s heat. Wherever I am; if fate command me to the utmost verge
of the wide earth, I have still constant admission to his throne. Use that
right, beloved – use that right.

There is not one of you that lives up to his
privilege. Many a gentleman will live beyond his income, spending more
than he has coming in; but there is not a Christian that does that – I mean
that lives up to his spiritual income. Oh, no! you have an infinite income – an
income of promises – an income of grace; and no Christian ever lived up to
his income. Some people say, “If I had more money I should have a larger
house, and horses, and carriage, and so on.” Very well and good; but I
wish the Christian would do the same. I wish they would set up a larger
house, and do greater things for God; look more happy, and take those
tears away from their eyes.

“Religion never was designed
To make our pleasures less.”

With such stores in the bank, and so much in hand, that God gives you,
you have no right to be poor. Up! rejoice! rejoice! The Christian ought to
live up to his income, and not below it.

Then, if you have the “Spirit of the Lord,” dear friends, you have a right to
enter into the city. There are many of the freemen of the City of London
here, I dare say, and that is a great privilege, very likely. I am not a
freeman of London, but I am a freeman of a better city.

“Savior, if of Zion’s city,
I, by grace, a member am,
Let the world revile or pity,
I will glory in thy name.”

You have a right to the freedom of Zion’s city, and you do not exercise it.
I want to have a word with some of you. You are very good Christian
people, but you have never joined the church yet. You know it is quite
right, that he that believeth should be baptized; but I suppose you are afraid
of being drowned, for you never come. Then the Lord’s table is spread
once every month, and it is free to all God’s children, but you never
approach it. Why is that? It is your banquet. I do not think if I were an
alderman I should omit the city banquet; and being a Christian, I cannot
omit the Christian banquet; it is the banquet of the saints.

“Ne’er did angels taste above
Redeeming grace and dying love.”

Some of you never come to the Lord’s table; you neglect his ordinances.
He says, “This do in remembrance of me.” You have obtained the freedom
of the city, but you won’t take it up. You have a right to enter in through
the gates into the city, but you stand outside. Come in brother; I will give
you my hand. Don’t remain outside the church any longer, for you have a
right to come in.

Then, to conclude, you have the freedom of Jerusalem, the mother of us
all. That is the best gift. We are free to heaven. When a Christian dies, he
knows the open sesame that can open the gates of heaven, he knows the
password that can make the gates wide open fly; he has the white stone
whereby he shall be known as a ransomed one, and that shall pass him at
the barrier, he has the passport that shall let him into the dominions of
Jehovah; he has liberty to enter into heaven. Methinks I see you, ye
unconverted, in the land of shades, wandering up and down to find your
portion. Ye come to the porch of heaven. It is great and lofty. The gate
hath written o’er it, “The righteous only are admitted here.” As ye stand,
ye look for the porter. A tall archangel appeareth from above the gate, and
ye say, “Angel, let me in.” “Where is thy robe?” Thou searchest, and thou
hast none; thou hast only some few rags of thine own spinning, but no
wedding garment. “Let me in,” sayest thou, “for the fiends are after me to
drag me to yonder pit. Oh, let me in.” But with a quiet glance the angel
lifteth up his finger and saith. “Read up there;” and thou readest, “None but
the righteous enter here.” Then thou tremblest, thy knees knock together;
thy hands shake. Were thy bones of brass they might melt, and were thy
ribs of iron they might be dissolved Ah! there thou standest, shivering,
quaking, trembling; but not long, for a voice which frights thee from thy
feet and lays thee prostrate, cries, “Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire
prepared for the devil and his angels.” O dear hearers, shall that be your
portion? My friends as I love you, — I do this morning and hope I ever
shall,— shall this be your lot? Will you not have freedom to enter into the
city? Will you not seek that Spirit which giveth liberty? Ah! I know ye will
not have it if left to yourselves; some of you perhaps never will. O God,
grant that that member may be but few, but may the number of the saved
be great indeed!

“Turn, then my soul unto thy rest
The ransom of thy great High Priest,
Hath set the captive free.
Trust to his efficacious blood
Nor fear thy banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.”

Just three weeks after Tony Blair’s close adviser resigned, the former Prime Minister’s Faith Foundation is embroiled in further controversy.

A leading figure in the Catholic church has claimed that the charity threatens human rights and religious freedom.

At a conference in the Vatican, Prof Michel Schooyans, an expert on bioethics and demography, said Blair wanted to remake the world’s major religions and use them to expand “new rights”.

The Belgian priest argued that its goals could not be realised “except at the price of sacrificing religious freedom, of the imposition of a ‘politically correct’ interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures and of the sabotage of the natural foundations of law”. Mandrake reported earlier this month that William Chapman, the foundation’s director of policy, stepped down amid rumours of a dispute over Blair’s “lecturing” of the Pope on homosexuality.

Chapman said, however, that he could not turn down a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to work for the Lord Mayor of London. The foundation says it seeks “to encourage humanitarian action based on certain values which the great faiths share”.

In an interview with a magazine for homosexuals, Blair questioned the Pope’s attitude towards homosexuality, arguing that religious leaders must start “rethinking” the issue.

He was later rebuked by the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, the new Archbishop of Westminster, who said Catholic thinking was “rather different” from the kind promoted by the former PM.

This post has now been removed from this blog.

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“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block,
and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of
God.”- 1 Corinthians 1:23, 24

WHAT contempt hath God poured upon the wisdom of this world! How
hath he brought it to nought, and made it appear as nothing. He has
allowed it to work out its own conclusions, and prove its own folly. Men
boasted that they were wise; they said that they could find out God to
perfection; and in order that their folly might be refuted once and for ever,
God gave them the opportunity of so doing. He said “Worldly wisdom, I
will try thee. Thou sayest that thou art mighty, that thine intellect is vast
and comprehensive, that thine eye is keen, that thou canst unravel all
secrets; now, behold, I try thee: I give thee one great problem to solve.
Here is the universe; stars make its canopy, fields and flowers adorn it, and
the floods roll over its surface; my name is written therein; the invisible
things of God may be clearly seen in the things which are made.

Philosophy, I give thee this problem – find me out. Here are my works – find
me out. Discover in the wondrous world which I have made, the way to
worship me acceptably. I give thee space enough to do it – there are data
enough. Behold the clouds, the earth, and the stars. I give thee time
enough; I will give thee four thousand years and I will not interfere; but
thou shalt do as thou wilt with thine own world. I will give thee men in
abundance, for I will make great minds and vast, whom thou shalt call
lords of earth; thou shalt have orators, thou shalt have philosophers. Find
me out, O reason, find me out, O wisdom; discover my nature, if thou
canst: find me out unto perfection, if thou art able; and if thou canst not,
then shut thy mouth for ever, and then I will teach thee that the wisdom of
God is wiser than the wisdom of man; yea that the foolishness of God is
wiser than men.”

And how did the reason of man work out the problem?
How did wisdom perform her feat? Look upon the heathen nations; there
you see the result of wisdom’s researches. In the time of Jesus Christ, you
might have beheld the earth covered with the slime of pollution – a Sodom
on a large scale, corrupt, filthy, depraved, indulging in vices which we dare
not mention, revelling in lusts too abominable even for our imagination to
dwell upon for a moment. We find the men prostrating themselves before
blocks of wood and stone, adoring ten thousand gods more vicious than
themselves. We find, in fact, that reason wrote out her own depravity with
a finger covered with blood and filth, and that she for ever cut herself out
from all her glory, by the vile deeds she did. She would not worship God.
She would not bow down to him who is “clearly seen” but she worshipped
any creature; the reptile that crawled, the crocodile, the viper, everything
might be a god, but not, forsooth, the God of Heaven. Vice might be made
into a ceremony, the greatest crime might be exalted into a religion, but
true worship she knew nothing of. Poor reason! poor wisdom! How art
thou fallen from heaven! Like Lucifer – thou son of the morning thou art
lost. Thou has written out thy conclusion, but it is a conclusion of
consummate folly. “After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them
that believe.”

Wisdom had had its time, and time enough; it had done its all, and that was
little enough; it had made the world worse than it was before it stepped
upon it, and now, says God, “Foolishness shall overcome wisdom; now
ignorance, as ye call it, shall sweep away your science; now, humble, childlike faith, shall crumble to the dust all the colossal systems your hands have piled.” He calls his army. Christ puts his trumpet to his mouth, and up
come the warriors, clad in fisherman’s garb, with the brogue of the lake of
Galilee – poor humble mariners. Here are the warriors, O wisdom! that are
to confound thee; these are the heroes who shall overcome thy proud
philosophers! these men are to plant their standard upon the ruined walls of
thy strongholds, and bid them fall for ever; these men, and their successors,
are to exalt a gospel in the world which ye may laugh at as absurd, which
ye may sneer at as folly, but which shall be exalted above the hills, and shall
be glorious even to the highest heavens.

Since that day, God has always
raised up successors of the apostles. I claim to be a successor of the
apostles, not by any lineal descent, but because I have the same role and
charter as any apostle, and am as much called to preach the gospel as Paul
himself: if not as much owned in the conversion of sinners, yet in a
measure, blessed of God; and, therefore, here I stand, foolish as Paul might
be, foolish as Peter, or any of those fisherman, but still with the might of
God I grasp the sword of truth – coming here to “preach Christ and him
crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of
God and the wisdom of God.”

Before I enter upon our text, let me very briefly tell you what I believe
preaching Christ and him crucified is. My friends, I do not believe it is
preaching Christ and him crucified, to give our people a batch of
philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truth of this
Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to
leave out the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God, and preach a
religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever.
I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get
through a sermon without mentioning Christ’s name once; nor does that
man preach Christ and him crucified who leaves out the Holy Spirit’s
work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the
hearers might say, “We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy
Ghost.” And I have my own private opinion that there is no such a thing as
preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is
called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is
a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I
do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification
by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his
dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable,
eternal, immutable, conquering, love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can
preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which
Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a
gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the
children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having
believed. Such a gospel I abhor. The gospel of the Bible is not such a
gospel as that. We preach Christ and him crucified in a different fashion,
and to all gainsayers we reply, “We have not so learned Christ.”

There are three things in the text. First, a gospel rejected — “Christ,
crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness;”
secondly, a gospel triumphant — “unto those which are called, both Jews
and Greeks;” and thirdly, a gospel admired – it is to them who are called “the
power of God; and the wisdom of God.”

I. First, we have here A GOSPEL REJECTED. One would have imagined that
when God sent his gospel to men, all men would meekly listen, and humbly
receive its truths. We should have thought that God’s ministers had but to
proclaim that life is brought to light by the gospel, and that Christ is come
to save sinners, and every ear would be attentive, every eye would be fixed,
and every heart would be wide open to receive the truth. We should have
said, judging favourably of our fellow creatures, that there would not exist
in the world a monster so vile, so depraved, so polluted, as to put so much
as a stone in the way of the progress of truth; we could not have conceived
such a thing; yet that conception is the truth. When the gospel was
preached, instead of being accepted and admired, one universal hiss went
up to heaven; men could not bear it; its first Preacher they dragged to the
brow of the hill, and would have sent him down headlong: yea, they did
more, they nailed him to the cross, and there they let him languish out his
dying life in agony such as no man hath borne since. All his chosen
ministers have been hated and abhorred by worldlings; instead of being
listened to, they have been scoffed at; treated as if they were the
offscouring of all things, and the very scum of mankind. Look at the holy
men in the old times, how they were driven from city to city, persecuted,
afflicted, tormented, stoned to death wherever the enemy had power to do
so. Those friends of men, those real philanthropists, who came with hearts
big with love, and hands full of mercy, and lips pregnant with celestial fire,
and souls that burned with holy influence; those men were treated as if they
were spies in the camp, as if they were deserters from the common cause
of mankind; as if they were enemies, and not, as they truly were, the best of
friends.

Do not suppose, my friends, that men like the gospel any better
now, than they did then. There is an idea that you are growing better. I do
not believe it. You are growing worse. In many respects men may be
better – outwardly better – but the heart within is still the same. The human
heart of today dissected, would be just like the human heart a thousand
years ago: the gall of bitterness within that breast of yours, is just as bitter
as the gall of bitterness in that of Simon of old. We have in our hearts the
same latent opposition to the truth of God; and hence we find men even as
of old, who scorn the gospel.

I shall, in speaking of the gospel rejected, endeavor to point out the two
classes of persons who equally despise the truth. The Jews make it a
stumbling block, and the Greeks account it foolishness. Now these two very
respectable gentlemen-the Jew and the Greek-I am not going to make these
ancient individuals the object of my condemnation, but I look upon them as
members of a great parliament, representatives of a great constituency, and
I shall attempt to show that if all the race of Jews were cut off, there would
be still a “rest number in the world who would answer to the name of Jews,
to whom Christ is a stumbling block; and that if Greece were swallowed up
by some earthquake, and ceased to be a nation, there would still be the
Greek Unto whom the gospel would be foolishness. I shall simply
introduce the Jew and the Greek; and let them speak a moment to you, in
order that you may see the gentlemen who represent you; the
representative men; the persons who stand for many of you, who as yet are
not called by divine grace.

The first is the Jew; to him the gospel is a stumbling block. A respectable
man the Jew was in his day; all formal religion was concentrated in his
person; he went up to the temple very devoutly; he tithed all he had, even
to the mint and the cummin. You would see him fasting twice in the week,
with a face all marked with sadness and sorrow. If you looked at him, he
had the law between his eyes; there was the phylactery, and the borders of
his garments of amazing width, that he might never be supposed to be a
Gentile dog; that no one might ever conceive that he was not a Hebrew of
pure descent. He had a holy ancestry; he came of a pious family; a right
good man was he. He could not endure those Sadducees at all, who had no
religion. He was thoroughly a religious man; he stood up for his
synagogue; he would not have that temple on Mount Gerizim; he could not
bear the Samaritans, he had no dealings with them; he was a religionist of
the first order, a man of the very finest kind; a specimen of a man who is a
moralist, and who loves the ceremonies of the law. Accordingly, when he
heard about Christ, he asked who Christ was. “The Son of a carpenter.”
“Ah!” “The son of a carpenter, and his mother’s name was Mary, and his
father’s name Joseph.” “That of itself is presumption enough,” said he,
“positive proof, in fact, that he cannot be the Messiah. And what does he
say?” “Why he says, ‘Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.’”
“That won’t do.” “Moreover,” he says, “‘It is not by the works of the flesh
that any man can enter into the kingdom of heaven.’” The Jew tied a
double knot in his phylactery at once; he thought he would have the
borders of his garment made twice as broad. He bow to the Nazarine! No,
no; and if so much as a disciple crossed the street, he thought the place
polluted, and would not tread in his steps. Do you think he would give up
his old father’s religion – the religion which came from Mount Sina i- that old
religion that lay in the ark and the overshadowing cherubim? He give that
up? not he. A vile impostor-that is all Christ was in his eyes. He thought
so. “A stumbling block to me! I cannot hear about it! I will not listen to it.”

Accordingly, he turned a deaf ear to all the Preacher’s eloquence and
listened not at all. Farewell, old Jew. Thou sleepest with thy fathers, and
thy generation is a wandering race, still walking the earth. Farewell, I have
done with thee. Alas! poor wretch, that Christ who was thy stumbling
block, shall be thy Judge, and on thy head shall be that loud curse: “His
blood be on us and on our children.” But I am going to find out Mr. Jew
here in Exeter Hall – persons who answer to his description – to whom Jesus
Christ is a stumbling block. Let me introduce you to yourselves, some of
you. You were of a pious family too, were you not? Yes. And you have a
religion which you love – you love it so far as the chrysalis of it goes, the
outside, the covering, the husk. You would not have one rubric altered,
nor one of those dear old arches taken down, nor the stained glass
removed for all the world; and any man who should say a word against
such things, you would set down as a heretic at once. Or, perhaps you do
not go to such a place of worship, but you love some plain old meeting house, where your forefathers worshipped, called a dissenting chapel. Ah;
it is a beautiful plain place; you love it, you love its ordinances, you love its
exterior; and if anyone spoke against the place, how vexed you would feel.
You think that what they do there, they ought to do everywhere; in fact
your church is a model one; the place where you go, is exactly the sort of
place for everybody; and if I were to ask you why you hope to go to
heaven, you would, perhaps, say, “Because I am a Baptist,” or, “Because I
am an Episcopalian,” or whatever other sect you belong to. There is
yourself; I know Jesus Christ will be to you a stumbling block. If I come
and tell you that all your going to the house of God is good for nothing; if I
tell you that all those many times you have been singing and praying, all
pass for nothing in the sight of God, because you are a hypocrite and a
formalist. If I tell you that your heart is not right with God, and that unless
it is so, all the external is good for nothing, I know what you will say — “I
shan’t hear that young man again.” It is a stumbling block. If you had
stepped in anywhere where you had heard formalism exalted; if you had
been told “this must you do, and this other must you do, and then you will
be saved,” you would highly approve of it. But how many are there
externally religious, with whose characters you could find no fault, but who
have never had the regenerating influence of the Holy Ghost; who never
were made to lie prostrate on their face before Calvary’s cross; who never
turned a wishful eye to yonder Savior crucified; who never put their trust
in him that was slain for the sons of men. They love a superficial religion,
but when a man talks deeper than that, they set it down for cant. You may
love all that is external about religion, just as you may love a man for his
clothes – caring nothing for the man himself. If so, I know you are one of
those who reject the gospel. You will hear me preach; and while I speak
about the externals, you will hear me with attention; whilst I plead for
morality, and argue against drunkenness, or show the heinousness of
Sabbath-breaking, all well and good; but if once I say, “Except ye be
converted, and become as little children, ye can in no wise enter into the
kingdom of God;” if once I tell you that you must be elected of God – that
you must be purchased with the Savior’s blood – that you must be converted
by the Holy Ghost-you say, “He is a fanatic! Away with him, away with
him! We do not want to hear that any more.” Christ crucified, is to the
Jew – the ceremonialist – a stumbling block.

But there is another specimen of this Jew to be found. He is thoroughly
orthodox in his sentiments. As for forms and ceremonies, he thinks nothing
about them. He goes to a place of worship where he learns sound doctrine.
He will hear nothing but what is true. He likes that we should have good
works and morality. He is a good man, and no man can find fault with him.
Here he is, regular in his Sunday pew. In the market he walks before men
in all honesty – so you would imagine. Ask him about any doctrine, and he
can give you a disquisition upon it. In fact, he could write a treatise upon
anything in the Bible, and a great many things besides. He knows almost
everything; and here, up in this dark attic of the head, his religion has taken
up its abode; he has a best parlour down in his heart, but his religion never
goes there – that is shut against it. He has money in there – mammon,
worldliness; or he has something else – self-love, pride. Perhaps he loves to
hear experimental preaching; he admires it all; in fact, he loves anything
that is sound. But then he has not any sound in himself: or rather, it is all
sound and there is no substance. He likes to hear true doctrine; but it never
penetrates his inner man. You never see him weep. Preach to him about
Christ crucified, a glorious subject, and you never see a tear roll down his
cheek; tell him of the mighty influence of the Holy Ghost – he admires you
for it, but he never had the hand of the Holy Spirit on his soul; tell him
about communion with God, plunging into Godhead’s deepest sea, and
being lost in its immensity – the man loves to hear, but he never experiences, he has never communed with Christ and accordingly when once you begin to strike home, when you lay him on the table, take out your dissecting knife, begin to cut him up, and show him his own heart, let him see what it is by nature, and what it must become by grace – the man starts, he cannot stand that; he wants none of that – Christ received in the heart and accepted.

Albeit, that he loves it enough in the head, ‘tis to him a stumbling block,
and he casts it away. Do you see yourselves here my friends? See
yourselves as others see you? See yourselves as God sees you? For so it is,
here be many to whom Christ is as much a stumbling block now as ever he
was. O ye formalists! I speak to you; O ye who have the nutshell, but abhor
the kernel; O ye who like the trappings and the dress; but care not for that
fair virgin who is clothed therewith: O ye who admire the paint and the
tinsel, but abhor the solid gold, I speak to you; I ask you, does your
religion give you solid comfort? Can you stare death in the face with it, and
say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth?” Can you close your eyes at night,
singing as your vesper song -

“I to the end must endure,
As sure as the earnest is given?”

Can you bless God for affliction; Can you plunge in accoutred as ye are,
and swim through all the floods of trial? Can you march triumphant
through the lion’s den, laugh at affliction, and bid defiance to hell? Can
you? No! Your gospel is an effeminate thing; a thing of words and sounds,
and not of power. Cast it from you, I beseech you: it is not worth your
keeping; and when you come before the throne of God, you will find it will
fail you, and fail you so that you shall never find another; for lost, ruined,
destroyed, ye shall find that Christ who is now skandalon, “a
stumbling block,” will be your Judge.

I have found out the Jew, and I have now to discover the Greek. He is a
person of quite a different exterior to the Jew. As to the phylactery, to him
it is all rubbish; and as to the broad hemmed garment, he despises it. He
does not care for the forms of religion; he has an intense aversion, in fact,
to broad brimmed hats, or to everything which looks like outward show. He
appreciates eloquence; he admires a smart saying; he loves a quaint
expression; he likes to read the last new book; he is a Greek, and to him
the gospel is foolishness.

The Greek is a gentleman found in most places
now-a-days: manufactured sometimes in colleges, constantly made in
schools, produced everywhere. He is on the exchange; in the market; he
keeps a shop; rides in a carriage; he is a noble, a gentleman; he is
everywhere; even in court. He is thoroughly wise. Ask him anything, and
he knows it. Ask for a quotation from any of the old poets, or any one else,
and he can give it you. If you are a Mahommedan, and plead the claims of
your religion, he will hear you very patiently. But if you are a Christian,
and talk to him of Jesus Christ, “Stop your cant,” he says, “I don’t want to
hear anything about that.” This Grecian gentleman believes all philosophy
except the true one; he studies all wisdom except the wisdom of God; he
seeks all learning except spiritual learning; he loves everything except that
which God approves; he likes everything which man makes, and nothing
which comes from God; it is foolishness to him, confounded foolishness.

You have only to discourse about one doctrine in the Bible, and he shuts his ears; he wishes no longer for your company; it is foolishness. I have met
this gentleman a great many times. Once when I saw him, he told me he did
not believe in any religion at all; and when I said I did, and had a hope that
when I died I should go to heaven, he said he dared say it was very
comfortable, but he did not believe in religion, and that he was sure it was
best to live as nature dictated. Another time he spoke well of all religions,
and believed they were very good in their place, and all true; and he had no
doubt that if a man were sincere in any kind of religion, he would be all
right at last. I told him I did not think so, and that I believed there was but
one religion revealed of God – the religion of God’s elect, the religion which
is the gift of Jesus.

He then said I was a bigot, and wished me good morning. It was to him
foolishness. He had nothing to do with me at all. He either liked no
religion, or every religion. Another time I held him by the coat button, and
I discussed with him a little about faith. He said, “It is all very well, I
believe that is true Protestant doctrine.” But presently I said something
about election, and he said, “I don’t like that; many people have preached
that and turned it to bad account.” I then hinted something about free
grace, but that he could not endure, it was to him foolishness. He was a
polished Greek, and thought that if he were not chosen, he ought to be. He
never liked that passage – “God hath chosen the foolish things of this world
to confound the wise, and the things which are not, to bring to nought
things that are.” He thought it was very discreditable to the Bible; and
when the book was revised, he had no doubt it would be cut out. To such a
man – for he is here this morning, very likely come to hear this reed shaken
of the wind -I have to say this: Ah! thou wise man, full of worldly wisdom;
thy wisdom will stand thee here, but what wilt thou do in the swellings of
Jordan?

Philosophy may do well for thee to lean upon whilst thou walkest
through this world; but the river is deep, and thou wilt want something
more than that. If thou hast not the arm of the Most High to hold thee up
in the flood and cheer thee with promises, thou wilt sink, man; with all thy
philosophy, thou wilt sink; with all thy learning, thou shalt sink, and be
washed into that awful ocean of eternal torment, where thou shalt be for
ever. Ah! Greeks, it may be foolishness to you, but ye shall see the Man
your Judge, and then ye shall rue the day that e’er ye said that God’s
gospel was foolishness.

II. Having spoken thus far upon the gospel rejected, I shall now briefly
speak upon the GOSPEL TRIUMPHANT. “Unto us who are called, both Jews
and Greeks, it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Yonder man
rejects the gospel, despises grace, and laughs at it as a delusion. Here is
another man who laughed at it too; but God will fetch him down upon his
knees. Christ shall not die for nothing. The Holy Ghost shall not strive in
vain. God hath said, “My word shall not return unto me void, but it shall
accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I
sent it.” “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be abundantly
satisfied.” If one sinner is not saved, another shall be. The Jew and the
Greek shall never depopulate heaven. The choirs of glory shall not lose a
single songster by all the opposition of Jews and Greeks; for God hath said
it; some shall be called; some shall be saved; some shall be rescued.

“Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorred,
And the fool with it, who insults his Lord.
The atonement a Redeemer’s love has wrought
Is not for you – the righteous need it not.
Seest thou yon harlot wooing all she meets,
The worn-out nuisance of the public streets,
Herself from morn to night, from night to morn,
Her own abhorrence, and as much your scorn:
The gracious shower, unlimited and free,
Shall fall on her when heaven denies it thee.
Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift,
That man is dead in sin, and life a gift.”

If the righteous and good are not saved, if they reject the gospel, there are
others who are to be called, others who shall be rescued, for Christ will not
lose the merits of his agonies, or the purchase of his blood.

“Unto us who are called” I received a note this week asking me to explain
that word “called;” because in one passage it says, “Many are called but
few are chosen,” while in another it appears that all who are called must be
chosen. Now, let me observe that there are two calls. As my old friend
John Bunyan says, “The hen has two calls, the common cluck, which she
gives daily and hourly, and the special one which she means for her little
chickens.” So there is a general call, a call made to every man; every man
hears it. Many are called by it; you are all called this morning in that sense;
but very few are chosen. The other is a special call, the children’s call. You
know how the bell sounds over the workshop to call the men to work – that
is a general call. A father goes to the door and calls out. “John, it is dinnertime?”- that is the special call.

Many are called with the general call, but
they are not chosen; the special call is for the children only, and that is
what is meant in the text, “Unto us who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” That call is always a
special one. While I stand here and call men, nobody comes; while I preach
to sinners universally, no good is done; it is like the sheet lightning you
sometimes see on the summer’s evening, beautiful, grand, but who have
ever heard of anything being struck by it? But the special call is the forked
flash from heaven; it strikes somewhere, it is the arrow sent in between the
joints of the harness. The call which saves, is like that of Jesus, when he
said, “Mary,” and she said unto him, “Rabboni.”

Do you know anything
about that special call my beloved? Did Jesus ever call you by name? Canst
thou recollect the hour when he whispered thy name in thine ear, when he
said, “Come to me?” If so, you will grant the truth of what I am going to
say next about it,- that it is an effectual call. There is no resisting it. When
God calls with his special call, there is no standing out. Ah! I know I
laughed at religion; I despised, I abhorred it; but that call! Oh! I would not
come. But God said, “Thou shalt come. All that the Father giveth to me
shall come.” “Lord, I will not.” “But thou shalt,” said God. And I have
gone up to God’s house sometimes almost with a resolution that I would
not listen, but listen I must. Oh! how the word came into my soul! Was
there a power of resistance? No; I was thrown down; each bone seemed to
be broken; I was saved by effectual grace. I appeal to your experience, my
friends. When God took you in hand, could you withstand him? You stood
against your minister times enough. Sickness did not break you down;
disease did not bring you to God’s feet; eloquence did not convince you;
but when God put his hand to the work, ah! then what a change; like Saul,
with his horses going to Damascus, that voice from heaven said, “I am
Jesus whom thou persecutest. Saul, Saul, why persecutes thou me?” There
was no going further then. That was an effectual call Like that, again,
which Jesus gave to Zaccheus, when he was up in the tree: stepping under
the tree, he said, “Zaccheus, come down, today I must abide at thy
house.” Zaccheus, was taken in the net, he heard his own name; the call
sank into his soul; he could not stop up in the tree, for an Almighty impulse
drew him down.

And I could tell you some singular instances of persons
going to the house of God and having their characters described, limned
out to perfection, so that they have said, “He is painting me, he is painting
me.” Just as I might say to that young man here who stole his master’s
gloves yesterday, that Jesus calls him to repentance. It may be that there is
such a person here; and when the call comes to a peculiar character, it
generally comes with a special power. God gives his ministers a brush, and
shows them how to use it in painting life-like portraits, and thus the sinner
hears the special call. I cannot give the special call; God alone can give it,
and I leave it with him. Some must be called. Jew and Greek may laugh,
but still there are some who are called, both Jews and Greeks.

Then to close up this second point, it is a great mercy that many a Jew has
been made to drop his self-righteousness; many a legalist has been made to
drop his legalism and come to Christ, many a Greek has bowed his genius
at the throne of God’s gospel. We have a few such. As Cowper says:

“We boast some rich ones whom the gospel sways,
And one who wears a coronet and prays;
Like gleamings of an olive tree they show,
Here and there one upon the topmost bough.”

III. Now we come to our third point, A GOSPEL ADMIRED; unto us who
are called of God, it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Now,
beloved, this must be a matter of pure experience between your souls and
God. If you are called of God this morning, you will know it. I know there
are times when a Christian has to say;

“Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought;
Do I love the Lord or no?
Am I his, or am I not?”

But if a man never in his life knew himself to be a Christian, he never was a
Christian. If he never had a moment of confidence, when he could say,
“Now I know in whom I have believed,” I think I do not utter a harsh thing
when I say, that that man could not have been born again; for I do not
understand how a man can be born again, and not know it; I do not
understand how a man can be killed and then made alive again, and not
know it; how a man can pass from death unto life, and not know it; how a
man can be brought out of darkness into marvellous light without knowing
it. I am sure I know it, when I shout out my old verse,

“Now free from sin, I walk at large,
My Savior’s blood’s my full discharge;
At his dear feet content I lay,
A sinner saved, and homage pay.”

There are moments when the eyes glisten with joy; and we can say, “We
are persuaded, confident, certain.” I do not wish to distress anyone who is
under doubt. Often gloomy doubts will prevail; there are seasons when you
fear you have not been called; when you doubt your interest in Christ. Ah!
what a mercy it is that it is not your hold of Christ that saves you, but his
hold of you! What a sweet fact that it is not how you grasp his hand, but
his grasp of yours, that saves you. Yet I think you ought to know
sometime or other, whether you are called of God. If so, you will follow
me in the next part of my discourse which is a matter of pure experience;
unto us who are saved, it is “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of
God.”

The gospel is to the true believer a thing of power. It is Christ the power of
God. Ay, there is a power in God’s gospel beyond all description. Once, I,
like Mazeppa, bound on the wild horse of my lust, bound hand and foot, in
capable of resistance, was galloping on with hell’s wolves behind me,
howling for my body and my soul, as their just and lawful prey. There came
a mighty band which stopped that wild horse, cut my bands, set me down,
and brought me into liberty. Is there power, sir? Ay, there is power, and he
who has felt it must acknowledge it. There was a time when I lived in the
strong old castle of my sins, and rested in my works. There came a
trumpeter to the door, and bade me open it. I with anger chid him from the
porch, and said he never should enter. There came a goodly personage,
with loving countenance; his hands were marked with scars, where nails
were driven, and his feet had nailprints too; he rifted up his cross, using it
as a hammer; at the first blow the gate of my prejudice shook; at the
second it trembled more; at the third down it fell, and in he came; and he
said, “Arise, and stand upon thy feet, for I have loved thee with an
everlasting love.” A thing of power! Ah! it is a thing of power. I have felt it
here, in this heart; I have the witness of the Spirit within, and know it is a
thing of might, because it has conquered me; it has bowed me down.

“His free grace alone, from the first to the last,
Hath won my affection, and held my soul fast.”

The gospel to the Christian is a thing of power. What is it that makes the
young man devote himself as a missionary to the cause of God, to leave
father and mother, and go into distant lands? It is a thing of power that
does it – it is the gospel. What is it that constrains yonder minister, in the
midst of the cholera, to climb up that creaking staircase, and stand by the
bed of some dying creature who has that dire disease? It must be a thing of
power which leads him to venture his life; it is love of the cross of Christ
which bids him do it. What is that which enables one man to stand up
before a multitude of his fellows, all unprepared it may be, but determined
that he will speak nothing but Christ and him crucified? What is it that
enables him to cry, like the warhorse of Job in battle, Aha! and move
glorious in might? It is a thing of power that does it – it is Christ crucified.
And what emboldens that timid female to walk down that dark lane in the
wet evening, that she may go and sit beside the victim of a contagious
fever? What strengthens her to go through that den of thieves, and pass by
the profligate and profane? What influences her to enter into that charnel house of death, and there sit down and whisper words of comfort? Does
gold make her do it? They are too poor to give her gold. Does fame make
her do it? She shall never be known, nor written among the mighty women
of this earth. What makes her do it? Is it love of merit? No; she knows she
has no desert before high heaven. What impels her to it? It is the power of
the gospel on her heart; it is the cross of Christ; she loves it, and she
therefore says

“Were the whole realm of nature mine.
That were a present far too small;
Love so mazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

But I behold another scene. A martyr is hurried to the stake; the halberd
men are around him; the crowds are mocking, but he is marching steadily
on. See, they bind him, with a chain around his middle, to the stake; they
heap faggots all about him: the flame is lighted up; listen to his words;
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”
The flames are kindling round his legs; the fire is burning him even to the
bone; see him lift up his hands, and say, “I know that my Redeemer liveth,
and though the fire devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see the Lord.”
Behold him clutch the stake, and kiss it as if he loved it, and hear him say,
“For every chain of iron that man girdeth me with, God shall give me a
chain of gold, for all these faggots, and this ignominy and shame, he shall
increase the weight of my eternal glory.” See, all the under parts of his
body are consumed; still he lives in the torture; at last he bows himself, and
the upper part of his body falls over; and as he falls you hear him say, “Into
thy hands I commend my spirit.” What wondrous magic was on him, sirs?
What made that man strong? What helped him to bear that cruelty? What
made him stand unmoved in the flames? It was the thing of power; it was
the cross of Jesus crucified. For “unto us who are saved it is the power of
God.”

But behold another scene far different. There is no crowd there; it a silent
room. There is a poor pallet, a lonely bed: a physician standing by. There is
a young girl; her face is blanched by consumption; long hath the worm
eaten her cheek, and though sometimes the flush came, it was the deathflush
of the deceitful destroyer. There she lieth, weak pale, wan, worn,
dying: yet behold a smile upon her face, as if she had seen an angel. She
speaketh, and there is music in her voice. Joan of Arc of old was not half
so mighty as that girl. She is wrestling with dragons on her death-bed; but
see her composure, and hear her dying sonnet:

“Jesus! lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly,
While the billows near me roll,-
While the tempest still is high!
Hide me, O my Savior! hide
Till the storm of life is past!
Safe into the haven guide;
Oh, receive my soul at last!”

And with a smile she shuts her eye on earth, and opens it in heaven. What
enables her to die like that? It is the power of God unto salvation; it is the
cross; it is Jesus crucified.

I have little time to discourse upon the other point, and be it far from me to
weary you by a lengthened and prosy sermon, but we must glance at the
other statement: Christ is, to the called ones, the wisdom of God, as well as
the power of God. To a believer, the gospel is the perfection of wisdom,
and if it appear not so to the ungodly, it is because of the perversion of
judgment consequent on their depravity.

An idea has long possessed the public mind, that a religious man can
scarcely be a wise man. It has been the custom to talk of infidels, atheists,
and deists, as men of deep thought and comprehensive intellect; and to
tremble for the Christian controversialist, as if he must surely fall by the
hand of the enemy. But this is purely a mistake; for the gospel is the sum of
wisdom; an epitome of knowledge; a treasure house of truth; and a
revelation of mysterious secrets. In it we see how justice and mercy may be
married; here we behold inexorable law entirely satisfied, and sovereign
love bearing away the sinner in triumph. Our meditation upon it enlarges
the mind; and as it opens to our soul in successive flashes of glory, we
stand astonished at the profound wisdom manifest in it. Ah, dear friends! if
ye seek wisdom, ye shall see it displayed in all its greatness; not in the
balancing of the clouds, nor the firmness of earth’s foundations; – not in the
measured march of the armies of the sky, nor in the perpetual motion of the
waves of the sea; not in vegetation with all its fairy forms of beauty; nor in
the animal with its marvellous tissue of nerve, and vein, and sinew: nor
even in man, that last and Loftiest work of the Creator. But turn aside and
see this great sight! -an incarnate God upon the cross; a substitute atoning
for mortal guilt; a sacrifice satisfying the vengeance of heaven; and
delivering the rebellious sinner. Here is essential wisdom; enthroned,
crowned, glorified. Admire ye men of earth, if ye be not blind: and ye, who
glory in your learning, bend your heads in reverence, and own that all your
skill could not have devised a gospel at once so just to God, so safe to
man.

Remember, my friends, that while the gospel is in itself wisdom, it also
confers wisdom on its students; she teaches young men wisdom and
discretion, and gives understanding to the simple. A man who is a believing
admirer and a hearty lover of the truth, as it is in Jesus, is in a right place to
follow with advantage any other branch of science. I confess I have a shelf
in my head for everything now, Whatever I read I know where to put it;
whatever I learn I know where to stow it away. Once when I read books, I
put all my knowledge together in glorious confusion; but ever since I have
known Christ, I have put Christ in the center as my sun, and each science
revolves round it like a planet, while minor sciences are satellites to these
planets. Christ is to me the wisdom of God. I can learn everything now.
The science of Christ crucified is the most excellent of sciences, she is to
me the wisdom of God. Oh, young man, build thy studio on Calvary! there
raise thine observatory, and scan by faith the lofty things of nature. Take
thee a hermit’s cell in the garden of Gethsemane, and lave thy brow with
the waters of Siloa. Let the Bible be thy standard classic — thy last appeal
in matters of contention. Let its light be thine illumination, and thou shalt
become more wise than Plato; more truly learned than the seven sages of
antiquity.

And now, my dear friends, solemnly and earnestly, as in the sight of God, I
appeal to you. You are gathered here this morning, I know, from different
motives; some of you have come from curiosity; others of you are my
regular hearers; some have come from one place and some from another.
What have you heard me say this morning? I have told you of two classes
of persons who reject Christ; the religionist who has a religion of form and
nothing else; and the man of the world, who calls our gospel foolishness.
Now put your hand upon your heart and ask yourself this morning, “Am I
one of these?” If you are, then walk the earth in all your pride; then go as
you came in; but know that for all this the Lord shall bring thee into
judgment, know thou that thy joys and delights shall vanish like a dream,
“and, like the baseless fabric of a vision,” be swept away for ever. Know
thou this, moreover, O man, that one day in the halls of Satan, down in
hell, I perhaps may see thee amongst those myriad spirits who revolve for
ever in a perpetual circle with their hands upon their hearts. If thine hand
be transparent, and thy flesh transparent, I shall look through thy hand and
flesh, and see thy heart within. And how shall I see it? Set in a case of firein
a case of fire? And there thou shalt revolve for ever, with the worm
gnawing within thy heart, which shall never die-a case of fire around thy
never-dying, ever-tortured heart. Good God! let not these men still reject
and despise Christ; but let this be the time when they shall be called.

To the rest of you who are called, I need say nothing. The longer you live,
the more powerful will you find the gospel to be; the more deeply Christ taught you are, the more you live under the constant influence of the Holy
Spirit, the more you will know the gospel to be a thing of power, and the
more also will you understand it to be a thing of wisdom. May every
blessing rest upon you; and may God come up with us in the evening!

“Let men or angels dig the mines
Where nature’s golden treasure shines;
Brought near the doctrine of the cross,
All nature’s gold appears but dross.
Should vile blasphemers with disdain
Pronounce the truths of Jesus vain,
We’ll meet the scandal and the shame.
And sing and triumph in his name.”

“A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgement unto victory.” Matthew 12:20

BABBLING fame ever loves to talk of one man or another. Some there be
whose glory it trumpets forth, and whose honor it extols above the
heavens. Some are her favorites, and their names are carved on marble, and
heard in every land, and every clime. Fame is not an impartial judge; she
has her favorites. Some men she extols, exalts, and almost deifies; others,
whose virtues are far greater, and whose characters are more deserving of
commendation, she passes by unheeded, and puts the finger of silence on
her lips.

You will generally find that those persons beloved by fame are
men made of brass or iron, and cast in a rough mould. Fame caresseth
Ceasar, because he ruled the earth with a rod of iron. Fame loves Luther,
because he boldly and manfully defied the Pope of Rome, and with knit
brow dared laugh at the thunders of the Vatican. Fame admires Knox; for
he was stern, and proved himself the bravest of the brave. Generally, you
will find her choosing out the men of fire and mettle, who stood before
their fellow-creatures fearless of them, men who were made of courage;
who were consolidated lumps of fearlessness, and never knew what
timidity might be.

But you know there is another class of persons equally
virtuous, and equally to be esteemed-perhaps even more so-whom fame
entirely forgets. You do not hear her talk of the gentle-minded
Melancthon-she says but little of him-yet he did as much, perhaps, in the
Reformation, as even the mighty Luther. You do not hear fame talk much
of the sweet and blessed Rutherford, and of the heavenly words that
distilled from his lips; or of Archbishop Leighton, of whom it was said, that
he was never out of temper in his life. She loves the rough granite peaks
that defy the storm-cloud: she does not care for the more humble stone in
the valley, on which the weary traveler resteth; she wants something bold
and prominent; something that courts popularity; something that stands out before the world.

She does not care for those who retreat in shade. Hence
it is, my brethren, that the blessed Jesus, our adorable Master, has escaped
fame. No one says much about Jesus, except his followers. We do not find
his name written amongst the great and mighty men; though, in truth, he is
the greatest, mightiest, holiest, purest, and best of men that ever lived; but
because he was “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” and was emphatically the
man whose kingdom is not of this world, because he had nothing of the
rough about him, but was all love; because his words were softer than
butter, his utterances more gentle in their flow than oil; because never man
spake so gently as this man; therefore he is neglected and forgotten. He did
not come to be a conqueror with his sword, nor a Mohammed with his
fiery eloquence, but he came to speak with a “still small voice,” that
melteth the rocky heart, that bindeth up the broken in spirit; and that
continually saith, “Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden;”
“Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of
heart, and ye shall find rest unto you souls.” Jesus Christ was all
gentleness; and this is why he has not been extolled amongst men as
otherwise he would have been.

Beloved! our text is full of gentleness; it
seems to have been steeped in love; and I hope I may be able to show you
something of the immense sympathy and the mighty tenderness of Jesus, as
I attempt to speak from it. There are three things to be noticed!: first,
mortal frailty, secondly, divine compassion; and thirdly, certain triumph-
“till he send forth judgement unto victory.”

I. First, we have before us a view of MORTAL FRAILTY-bruised reed and
smoking flax-two very suggestive metaphors, and very full of meaning. If it
were not too fanciful – and if it is I know you will excuse me – I should say
that the brusied reed is on emblem of a sinner in the first stage of his
conviction. The work of God’s Holy Spirit begins with bruising. In order
to be saved, the fallow ground must be ploughed up, the hard heart must
be broken, the rock must be split in sunder. An old divine says there is no
going to heaven without passing hard by the gates of hell-without a great
deal of soul-trouble and heart-exercise. I take it then that the bruised reed
is a picture of the poor sinner when first God commences his operation
upon the soul; he is a bruised reed, almost entirely broken and consumed,
there is but little strength in him. The smoking flax I conceive to be a
backsliding Christian; one who has been a burning and a shining light in
his day, but by neglect of the means of grace, the withdrawal of God’s
Spirit, and falling into sin, his light is almost gone out – not quite – it never
can go out, for Christ saith, “I will not quench it;” but it becomes like a
lamp when ill supplied with oil-almost useless. It is not quite extinguished it
smokes – it was a useful lamp once, but now it has become as smoking
flax.

So I think these metaphors very likely describe the contrite sinner as a
bruised reed, and the backsliding Christian as smoking flax. However, I
shall not choose to make such a division as that, but I shall put both the
metaphors together, and I hope we may fetch out a few thoughts from
them.

And first, the encouragement offered in our text applies to weak ones.
What in the world is weaker than the bruised reed, or the smoking flax? A
reed that groweth in the fen or marsh, let but the wild duck light upon it,
and it snaps; let but the foot of man brush against it and it is bruised and
broken; every wind that comes howling across the river makes it shake to
and fro, and well nigh tears it up by the roots. You can conceive of nothing
more frail or brittle, or whose existence depends more upon circumstances
than a bruised reed. Then look at smoking flax-what is it? It has a spark
within it, it is true, but it is almost smothered, an infant’s breath might blow
it out, or the tears of a maiden quench it in a moment; nothing has a more
precarious existence than the little spark hidden in the smoking flax. Weak
things, you see, are here described. Well, Christ say of them, “The smoking
flax I will not quench; the bruised reed I will not break.” Let me go in
search of the weaklings. Ah! I shall not have to go far. There are many in
this house of prayer this morning who are indeed weak. Some of God’s
children, blessed be his name are made strong to do mighty works for him.

God hath his Samsons here and there who can pull up Gaza’s gates, and carry them to the top of the hill; he hath here and there his mighty Gideons,who can go to the camp of the Midianites, and overthrow their hosts; he hath his mighty men, who can go into the pit in winter, and slay the lions; but the majority of his people are a timid, weak race. They are like the starlings that are frightened at every passerby, a little fearful flock. If temptation comes, they fall before it; if trial comes, they are overwhelmed by it: their frail skiff is danced up and down by every wave; and when the wind comes, they are drifted along like a sea-bird on the crest of the billows; weak things, without strength, without force, without might,without power

Ah! dear friends, I know I have got hold of some of your
hands now, and your hearts too; for you are saying, “Weak! Ah that I am.
Full often I am constrained to say, I would, but cannot sing; I would, but
cannot pray; I would, but cannot believe.” You are saying that you cannot
do anything; your best resolves are weak and vain; and when you cry, “My
strength renew,” you feel weaker than before. You are weak, are you?
Bruised reeds and smoking flax? Blessed be God, this text is for you then. I
am glad you can come in under the denomination of weak ones, for here is
a promise that he will never break nor quench them, but will sustain and
hold them up.

I know there are some very strong people here – I mean
strong in their own ideas. I often meet with persons who would not confess
any such weakness as this. They are strong minds. They say, “Do you think
that we go into sin, sir? Do you tell us that our hearts are corrupt? We do
not believe any such thing, we are good, and pure, and upright; we have
strength and might.” To you I am not preaching this morning; to you I am
saying nothing; but take heed-your strength is vanity, your power is a
delusion, your might is a lie – for however much you may boast in what you
can do, it shall pass away, when you come to the real contest with death,
you shall find that you have no strength to grapple with it: when one of
these days of strong temptation shall come, it will take hold of you, moral
man, and down you will go; and the glorious livery of your morality will be
so stained, that though you wash your hands in snow water, and make
yourselves never so clean, you shall be so polluted that your own clothes
shall abhor you. I think it is a blessed thing to be weak. The weak one is a
sacred thing; the Holy Ghost has made him such. Can you say, “No
strength have I?” Then this text is for you.

Secondly, the things mentioned in our text are not only weak, but
worthless, things. I have heard of a man who would pick up a pin as he
walked along the street, on the principle of economy; but I never yet heard
of a man who would stop to pick up bruised reeds. They are not worth
having. Who would care to have a bruised reed – a piece of rush lying on the
ground? We all despise it as worthless. And smoking flax, what is the
worth of that? It is an offensive and noxious thing, but the worth of it is
nothing. No one would give the snap of a finger either for the bruised reed
or smoking flax. Well, then, beloved, in our estimation there are many of us
who are worthless things. There are some here, who, if they could weigh
themselves in the scales of the sanctuary, and put their own hearts into the
balance of conscience, would appear to be good for nothing – worthless,
useless.

There was a time when you thought yourselves to be the very best
people in the world – when if any one had said that you had more than you
deserved, you would have kicked at it, and said, “I believe I am as good as
other people.” You thought yourselves something wonderful – extremely
worthy of God’s love and regard but you now feel yourselves to be
worthless Sometimes you imagine God can hardly know where you are;
you are such a despicable creature — so worthless — not worth his
consideration. You can understand how he can look upon an animalcule in
a drop of water, or upon a grain of dust in the sunbeam, or upon the insect
of the summer evening; but you can hardly tell how he can think of you,
you appear so worthless – a dead blank in the world, a useless thing. You
say, “What good am I? I am doing nothing.

As for a minister of the gospel,
he is of some service, as for a deacon of the church he is of some use; as
for a Sabbath-school teacher, he is doing some good, but of what service
am I? “But you might ask the same question here. What is the use of a
bruised reed? Can a man lean upon it? Can a man strengthen himself
therewith? Shall it be a pillar in my house? Can you bind it up into the
pipes of Pan, and make music come from a bruised reed? Ah! no; it is of no
service. And of what use is smoking flax? the midnight traveler cannot be
lighted by it; the student cannot read by the flame of it. It is of no use: men
throw it into the fire and consume it. Ah! that is how you talk of
yourselves. You are good for nothing, so are these things. But Christ will
not throw you away because you are of no value. You do not know of
what use you may be, and you cannot tell how Jesus Christ values you
after all.

There is a good woman there, a mother, perhaps, she says, “Well,
I do not often go out – I keep house with my children, and seem to be doing
no good.” Mother, do not say so, your position is a high, lofty, responsible
one, and in training up children for the Lord, you are doing as much for his
name as yon eloquent Apollos, who so valiantly preached the word. And
you, poor man, all you can do is to toil from morning till night, and earn
just enough to enable you to live day by day, you have nothing to give
away, and when you go to the Sabbath school, you can just read, you
cannot teach much – well, but unto him to whom little is given of him little is
required. Do you not know that there is such a thing as glorifying God by
sweeping the street crossing? If two angels were sent down to earth, one
to rule an empire, and the other to sweep a street, they would have no
choice in the matter, so long as God ordered them. So God, in his
providence, has called you to work hard for your daily bread; do it to his
glory. “Whatsoever ye do, whether ye eat or drink, do all to his honor.”

But, ah! I know there are some of you here who seem useless to the
Church. You do all you can; but when you have done it, it is nothing; you
can neither help us with money, nor talents, nor time, and, therefore, you
think God must cast you out. You think if you were like Paul or Peter you
might be safe. Ah! beloved, talk not so; Jesus Christ saith he will not
quench the useless flax, nor break the worthless bruised reed; he has
something for the useless and for the worthless ones. But mark you, I do
not say this to excuse laziness – to excuse those that can do, but do not, that
is a very different thing. There is a whip for the ass, a scourge for idle men,
and they must have it sometimes I am speaking now of those who cannot
do it; not of Issacher, who is like a strong ass, crouching down between
two burdens, and too lazy to get up with them I say nothing for the
sluggard, who will not plough by reason of the cold; but of the men and
women who really feel that they can be of little service – who cannot do
more; and to such, the words of the text are applicable.

Now we will make another remark. The two things here mentioned are
offensive things. A bruised reed is offensive, for I believe there is an
illusion here to the pipes of Pan, which you all know are reeds put
together, along which a man moves his mouth, thus causing some kind of
music. This is the organ, I believe which Jubal invented, and which David
mentions, for it is certain that the organ we use was not then in use. The
bruised reed, then, would of course spoil the melody of all the pipes; one
unsound tube would so let the air out, as to produce a discordant sound, or
no sound at all, so that one’s impulse would be to take the pipe out and put
in a fresh one. And, as for smoking flax, the wick of a candle or anything of
that kind, I need not inform you that the smoke is offensive. To me no
odour in all the world is so abominably offensive as smoking flax. But
some say, “How can you speak in so low a style?” I have not gone lower
than I could go myself, nor lower than you can go with me; for I am sure
you are, if God the Holy Ghost has really humbled you, just as offensive to
your own souls, and just as offensive to God as a bruised reed would be
among the pipes, or as smoking flax to the eyes and nose. I often think of
dear old John Bunyan, when he said he wished God had made him a toad,
or a frog, or a snake or anything rather than a man, for he felt he was so
offensive. Oh; I can conceive a nest of vipers, and I think that they are
obnoxious; I can imagine a pool of all kinds of loathsome creatures,
breeding corruption, but there is nothing one half so worthy of abhorrence
as the human heart. God spares from all eyes but his own that awful sight – a
human heart; and could you and I but once see our heart, we should be
driven mad, so horrible would be the sight. Do you feel like that? Do you
feel that you must be offensive in God’s sight that you have so rebelled
against him, so turned away from his commandments, that surely you must
be obnoxious to him? If so, my text is yours.

Now, I can imagine some woman here this morning who has departed from
the paths of virtue, and, while she is standing in the throng up there, or
sitting down she feels as if she had no right to tread these hallowed courts,
and stand among God’s people. She thinks that God might almost make
the chapel break down upon her to destroy her, she is so great a sinner.
Never mind, broken reed and smoking flax! Though thou art the scorn of
man, and loathsome to thyself, yet Jesus saith to thee, “Neither do I
condemn thee, go, and sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”
There is some man here who hath something in his heart that I know not
of – who may have committed crimes in secret, that we will not mention in
public; his sins stick like a leech to him, and rob him of all comfort. Here
you are young man, shaking and trembling, lest your crime should be
divulged before high heaven; you are broken down, bruised like a reed,
smoking like flax. Ah! I have a word for thee too. Comfort! comfort!
comfort! Despair not; for Jesus saith he will not quench the smoking flax,
he will not break the bruised reed.

And yet, my dear friends, there is one thought before I turn away from this
point. Both of these articles, however worthless they may be, may yet be of
some service, When God puts his hand to a man, if he were worthless and
useless before, he can make him very valuable. You know the price of an
article does not depend so much upon the value of the raw material as
upon workmanship put upon it. Here is very bad raw material to begin
with – bruised reeds and smoking flax, but by Divine workmanship both
these things become of wondrous value. You tell me the bruised reed is
good for nothing; I tell you that Christ will take that bruised reed and mend
it up, and fit it in the pipes of heaven. Then when the grand orchestra shall
send forth its music, when the organs of the skies shall peal forth their
deep-toned sounds, we shall ask, “What was that sweet note heard there,
mingling with the rest?” And some one shall say “It was a bruised reed.”
Ah! Mary Magdalene’s voice in heaven, I imagine, sounds more sweet and
liquid than any other; and the voice of that poor thief, who said “Lord,
remember me,” if it is a deep bass voice, is more mellow and more sweet
than the voice of any other, because he loved much, for he had much
forgiven him. This reed may yet be of use. Do not say you are good for
nothing; you shall sing up in heaven yet. Do not say your are worthless; at
last you shall stand before the throne among the blood washed company,
and shall sing God’s praise Ay! and the smoking flax too, what good can
that be? I will soon tell you. There is a spark in that flax somewhere; it is
nearly out, but still a spark remaineth. Behold the prairie on fire! See you
the flames come rolling on? See you stream after stream of hot fire
deluging the plain till all the continent is burnt and scorched – till heaven is
reddened with the flame. Old night’s black face is scarred with the burning,
and the stars appear affrighted at the conflagration. How was that mass
ignited? By a piece of smoking flax dropped by some traveler, fanned by
the soft wind, till the whole prairie caught the flame. So one poor man one
ignorant man, one weak man, even one backsliding man, may be the means
of the conversion of a whole nation. Who knows but that you who are
nothing now may be of more use than those of us who appear to stand
better before God, because we have more gifts and talents? God can make
a spark set a world on fire-he can light up a whole nation with the spark of
one poor praying soul. You may be useful yet; therefore be of good cheer.

Moss groweth upon gravestones; the ivy clingeth to the mouldering pile,
the mistletoe groweth on the dead branch, and even so shall grace, and
piety, and virtue, and holiness, and goodness, come from smoking flax and
bruised reeds.

II. Thus, then, my dear friends, I have tried to find out the parties for
whom this text is meant, and I have shown you somewhat of mortal frailty;
now I mount; step higher to DIVINE COMPASSION. “The bruised reed he
will not break, the smoking flax he will not quench.”
Notice what is first of all stated, and then let me tell you that Jesus Christ
means a great deal more than he says. First of all, what does he say? He
says plainly enough that he will not break the bruised reed. There is a
bruised reed before me – a poor child of God under a deep sense of sin. It
seems as if the whip of the law would never stop. It keeps on, lash, lash,
lash; and though you say, “Lord, stop it and give me a little respite,” still
comes down the cruel thong, lash, lash, lash. You feel your sins. Ah! I
know what you are saying this morning: “If God continues this a little
longer my heart will break: I shall perish in despair, I am almost distracted
by my sin; if I lie down at night I cannot sleep; it appears as if ghosts were
in the room – ghosts of my sins – and when I awake at midnight, I see the
black form of death staring at me, and saying, “Thou art my prey, I shall
have thee;” while hell behind seems to burn. Ah! poor bruised reed, he will
not break you, conviction shall be too strong, it shall be great enough to
melt thee, and to make thee go to Jesu’s feet; but it shall not be strong
enough to break thy heart altogether, so that thou shouldst die. Thou shalt
never be driven to despair; but thou shalt be delivered; thou shalt come out
of the fire, poor bruised reed, and shalt not be broken.

So there is a backslider here this morning, he is like the smoking flax.
Years gone by you found such happiness in the ways of the Lord, and such
delight in his service, that you said, “There I would for ever stay.

‘What peaceful hours I then enjoyed;
How sweat their memory still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.’”

You are smoking, and you think God will put you out. If I were an
Arminian, I should tell you that he would, but being a believer in the Bible,
and nothing else, I tell you that he will not quench you. Though you are
smoking, you shall not die. Whatever your crime has been, the Lord says,
“Return ye backsliding children of men, for I will have mercy upon you.”
He will not cast thee away, poor Ephriam; only come back to him – he will
not despise thee, though thou hast plunged thyself in the mire and dirt,
though thou art covered from head to foot with filthiness; come back, poor
prodigal, come back, come back! Thy father calls thee. Hearken poor
backslider! Come at once to him whose arms are ready to receive thee.

It says he will not quench – he will not break. But there is more under cover
than we see at first sight. When Jesus says he will not break, he means
more than that he means, “I will take that poor bruised reed; I will plant it
hard by the rivers of waters, and (miracle of miracles) I will make it grow
into a tree whose leaf shall not wither, I will water it every moment, I will
watch it; there shall be heavenly fruits upon it, I will keep the birds of prey
from it, but the birds of heaven, the sweet songsters of paradise shall make
their dwellings in the branches.” When he says that he will not break the
bruised reed, he means more; he means that he will nourish, that he will
help, and strengthen, and support, and glorify-that he will execute his
commission on it, and make it glorious for ever. And when he says to the
blackslider that he will not quench him, he means more than that – he means
that he will fan him up to a flame.

Some of you, I dare say, have gone
home from chapel and found that your fire had gone nearly out; I know
how you deal with it, you blow gently at the single spark, if there is one,
and least you should blow too hard, you hold your fingers before it, and if
you were alone and had but one match, or one spark in the tinder, how
gently would you blow it. So, backslider, Jesus Christ deals with thee, he
does not put thee out, he blows gently; he says, “I will not quench thee,”
he means, “I will be very tender very cautious, very careful;” he will put on
dry material, so that by-and-by a little spark shall come to a flame and blaze
up towards heaven, and great shall be the fire thereof.

Now I want to say one or two things to Little-Faiths this morning. The
little children of God who are here mentioned as being bruised reeds or
smoking flax are just as safe as the great saints of God. I wish for a
moment to expand this thought, and then I will finish with the other head.
These saints of God who are called bruised reeds and smoking flax are just
as safe as those who are mighty for their Master and great in strength, for
several reasons. First of all, the little saint is just as much God’s elect as
the great saint. When God chose his people, he chose them all at once and
altogether, and he elected one just as much as the other. If I choose a
certain number of things, one may be less than the rest, but one is as much
chosen as the other, and so Mrs. Fearing and Miss Despondency are just as
much elected as Great-Heart, or Old Father Honest. Again: the little ones
are redeemed equally with the great ones! the feeble saints cost Christ as
much suffering as the strong ones, the tiniest child of God could not have
been purchased with less than Jesus’ precious blood, and the greatest child
of God did not cost him more. Paul did not cost any more than Benjamin – I
am sure he did not – for I read in the Bible that “there is no difference.”
Besides, when of old they came to pay their redemption – money, every
person brought a shekel. The poor shall bring no less, and the rich shall
bring no more than just a shekel. The same price was paid for the one as
the other.

Now then little child of God, take that thought to thy soul. You
see some men very prominent in Christ’s cause – and it is very good that
they should be – but they did not cost Jesus a farthing more than you did; he
paid the same price for you that he paid for them. Recollect again, you are
just as much a child of God as the greatest saint. Some of you have five or
six children. There is one child of yours, perhaps who is very tall and
handsome, and has, moreover, gifts of mind; and you have another child
who is the smallest of the family, perhaps has but little intellect and
understanding. But which is the most your child? “The most!” you say;
“both alike are my children, certainly, one as much as the other. “And so,
dear friends, you may have very little learning, you may be very dark about
divine things, you may but “see men as trees walking,” but you are as much
the children of God as those who have grown to the stature of men in
Christ Jesus. Then remember, poor tried saint that you are just as much
justified as any other child of God. I know that I am completely justified.

“His blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress.”

I want no other garments, save Jesus’ doings, and his imputed
righteousness.

The boldest child of God want no more; and I who am “less than the least
of all saints,” can be content with no less, and I shall have no less, O
Ready-to-Halt, thou art as much justified as Paul, Peter, John the Baptist,
or the loftiest saint in heaven. There is no difference in that matter. Oh I
take courage and rejoice.

Then one thing more. If you were lost, God’s honor would be as much
tarnished as if the greatest one were lost. A queer thing I once read in an
old book about God’s children and people being a part of Christ and in
union with him. The writer says — “A father sitteth in his room, and there
cometh in a stranger, the stranger taketh up a child on his knee, and the
child hath a sore finger so he saith; My child, you have a sore finger;”
“Yes!” Well, let me take it off, and give thee a golden one! The child
looketh at him and saith, “I will not go to that man any more, for he talks
of taking off my finger; I love my own finger, and I will not have a golden
one instead of it.”’ So the saint saith, “I am one of the members of Christ,
but I am like a sore finger, and he will take me off and put a golden one
on.” “No,’’ said Christ, “no, no; – I cannot have any of my members taken
away; if the finger be a sore one, I will bind it up, I will strengthen it.”
Christ cannot allow a word about cutting his members off.

If Christ lose
one of his people, he would not be a whole Christ any longer. If the
meanest of his children could be cast away Christ would lack a part of his
fullness, yea, Christ would be incomplete without his Church. If one of his
children must be lost, it would be better that it should be a great one, than
a little one. If a little one were lost, Satan would say “Ah! you save the
great ones, because they had strength and could help themselves; but the
little one that has no strength, you could not save him.” You know what
Satan would say, but God would shut Satan’s mouth, by proclaiming
“They are all here, Satan, in spite of thy malice, they are all here; every one
is safe; now lie down in thy den for ever, and be bound eternally in chains,
and smoke in fire!” So shall he suffer eternal torment, but not one child of
God ever shall.

One thought more and I shall have done with this head. The salvation of
great saints often depends upon the salvation of little ones, Do you
understand that; You know that my salvation, or the salvation of any child
of God, looking at second causes, very much depends upon the conversion
of some one else. Suppose your mother is the means of your conversion,
you would, speaking after the manner of men, say, that your conversion
depended upon hers, for her being converted, made her the instrument of
bringing you in. Suppose such-and-such a minister to be the means of your
calling; then your conversion, in some sense, though not absolutely,
depends upon his. So it often happens, that the salvation of God’s
mightiest servants depends upon the conversion of little ones. There is a
poor mother; no one ever knows anything about her, she goes to the house
of God, her name is not in the newspapers, or anywhere else, she teaches
her child and brings him up in the fear of God; she prays for that boy; she
wrestles with God, and her tears and prayers mingle together. The boys
grows up. What is he? A missionary – a William Knibb – a Moffat – a Williams.
But you do not hear anything about the mother Ah! but if the mother had
not been saved, where would the boy have been? Let this cheer the little
ones, and may you rejoice that he will nourish and cherish you, though you
are like bruised reeds and smoking flax.

III. Now, to finish up, there is a CERTAIN VICTORY. “Till he send forth
judgment unto victory.”

Victory! There is something beautiful in that word. The death of Sir John
Moore, in the Peninsular war, was very touching, he fell in the arms of
triumph and sad as was his fate, I doubt not that his eye was lit up with
lustre by the shout of victory. So also, I suppose, that Wolfe spoke a truth
when he said, “I die happy,” having just before heard the shout, “they run,
they run.” I know victory even in that bad sense-for I look not upon earthly
victories as of any value-must have cheered the warrior. But oh! how
cheered the saint when he knows that victory is his! I shall fight during all
my life, but I shall write “vici” on my shield. I shall be “more than
conqueror through him that loved me.” Each feeble saint shall win the day;
each man upon his crutches: each lame one each one full of infirmity,
sorrow, sickness, and weakness, shall gain the victory. “They shall come
with singing unto Zion, as well the blind, and lame, and halt, and the
woman with child together.” So saith the Scripture. Not one shall be left
out; but he shall “send forth judgment unto victory.” Victory! victory!
victory! This is the lot of each Christian; he shall triumph through his dear
Redeemer’s name.

Now a word about this victory. I speak first to aged men and women. Dear
brethren and sisters, you are often, I know, like the bruised reed. Coming
events cast their shadows before them; and death casts the shadow of old
age on you. You feel the grasshopper to be a burden, you feel full of
weakness and decay, your frame can hardly hold together. Ah! you have
here a special promise. “The bruised reed I will not break.” “I will
strengthen thee.” “When thy heart and thy flesh faileth, I will be the
strength of thy heart and thy portion for ever.”

“Even down to old age, all my people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn
Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.”

Tottering on thy staff, leaning, feeble, weak, and wan; fear not the last
hour; that last hour shall be thy best; thy last day shall be a consummation
devoutly to be wished. Weak as thou art, God will temper the trial to thy
weakness; he will make thy pain less, if thy strength be less; but thou shalt
sing in heaven, “Victory! victory! victory! “There are some of us who
could wish to change places with you, to be so near heaven – to be so near
home. With all your infirmities, your grey hairs are a crown of glory to
you; for you are near the end, as well as in the way of righteousness.

A word with you middle-aged men, battling in this life’s rough storm. You
are often bruised reeds, your religion is so encumbered by your worldly
callings, so covered up by the daily din of business, business, business, that
you seem like smoking flax, it is as much as you can do to serve your God,
and you cannot say that you are “fervent in spirit” as well as “diligent in
business.” Man of business, toiling and striving in this world, he will not
quench thee when thou art like smoking flax; he will not break thee when
thou art like the bruised reed, but will deliver thee from thy troubles, thou
shalt swim across the sea of life, and shalt stand on the happy shore of
heaven, and shalt sing, “Victory “through him that loved thee.”

Ye youths and maidens! I speak to you, and have a right to do so. You and
I ofttimes know what the bruised reed is, when the hand of God blights our
fair hopes. We are full of giddiness and waywardness, it is only the rod of
affliction that can bring folly out of us, for we have much of it in us.
Slippery paths are the paths of youths, and dangerous ways are the ways of
the young, but God will not break or destroy us. Men, by their over
caution, bid us never tread a step lest we fall; but God bids us go, and
makes our feet like hind’s feet, that we may tread upon high places. Serve
God in early days; give your hearts to him, and then he will never cast you
out, but will nourish and cherish you.

Let me not finish without saving a word to little children. You who have
heard of Jesus, he says to you “The bruised reed I will not break, the
smoking flax I will not quench.” I believe there is many a little prattler, not
six years old, who knows the Savior. I never despise infantile piety; I love
it. I have heard little children talk of mysteries that gray-headed men knew
not. Ah! little children who have been brought up in Sabbath-schools, and
love the Savior’s name, if others say you are too forward, do not fear, love
Christ still.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild
Still will look upon a child;
Pity thy simplicity,
And suffer thee to come to him.

He will not cast thee away; for smoking flax he will not quench, and the
bruised reed he will not break.

The following is from the Church of England newspaper:-

The government had better start building more prison space — for Christians and moral conservatives generally. We are now used to hearing of such folk being sacked and losing their appeals for daring to air any view which criticises or disapproves of gay sex. The new Equality Bill issued by Harriet Harman last week lumps together groups needing special legal status to ensure them against discrimination including disabled people, women and homosexuals, for example.

The Bill aims to permeate all society with the requirement that employers in all sectors show they have a percentage of such group in their workforces, in the various echelons of seniority, that their specific requirements are being provided for. The news media focused on the issue of women’s pay and the need to ensure it gains total equality with that of men, and that the figures be published accordingly. The homosexual component was kept very quiet, but is clearly there.

The ‘Christian Institute’ website is worth consulting on this issue, at the very least for information on the legal facts. The extraordinary success of the gay rights campaign in securing a special place for practitioners of gay sex in the legal framework is now moving ahead to suppress any who dissent from their agenda. It seems that the clause inserted into the recent Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill by Lord Waddington, guaranteeing freedom of speech to religious people who disagree with gay sex, has been overturned by a whipped vote in the Commons.

So the steady build-up of the gay agenda is accompanied by the steady removal of dissent, even for religious groups. This has all been achieved by the success of making homosexuality a fixed ‘identity’, and removing the focus of discussion from activity. Homosexuals are defined into a legal distinct group, joining minorities similarly defined into existence by government diktat. It should be said that the Anglican Communion, according to its Lambeth Conference of 1998, disagrees with this pseudo-scientific labelling of people, and so do the more intelligent secular commentators, see for example Professor Weeks’ contribution to this secular seminar: http://www.danacentre.org.uk/events/2006/07/18/155

So Christians, and of course Muslims and others who just disagree with the Stonewall line, are being told to shut up and get into their closet — the gays are not tolerant of dissent and have got the state to crack-down. This agenda is also being pursued in schools. Section 28, banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools, has been totally inverted and children are to be educated in the moral neutrality, indeed the moral merit, of gay sex. The Times last week worryingly said that the right of parents to withdraw children, as young as 11, from such sex lessons, was to be stopped.

Now churches and mosques up and down the land will not be happy with this, and parents are bound to want to withdraw their youngsters from lessons with a major component of the Stonewall ideology woven into them. A time of persecution is at hand.

One of the UK’s leading theological research centres is launching a series of one-day seminars to help resource the Church as it faces challenges to its very core beliefs – including the reliability of the Bible.

At a time when the Church is under attack from post-modernism and secularist attitudes, Tyndale House in Cambridge is launching a new service to help Christians and Church leaders defend orthodox Christian beliefs. The first event is to be held on June 20 at Westminster Chapel, London, is entitled Bible and Church Conference. Organisers of the day-long gathering want “to provide Christians with reliable scholarly evidence in support of the historical basis of the faith and, to equip Christians to share that faith with confidence”.

Dr Peter Williams, Warden at Tyndale House, and an acknowledged expert in the study of ancient languages related to the Bible, will address the issue of history, and how early core Christian beliefs were established. He will then discuss whether early Christian records were legend, myth or fabrication before addressing how easy it would have been for fabricated accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry to be circulated in the early Church. Delegates will then be offered contributions by Dr Dirk Jongkind, an expert on the Codex Sinaiticus (the oldest complete copy of the New Testament) who will explain the evidence for the New Testament text, before addressing whether the Bible has been deliberately corrupted or changed through the passage of time.

After lunch, the editor of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Dr Simon Gathercole, will focus on why there are only four Gospels, the significant differences between them, before exploring contemporary views and books referring to the gospels of Mary, Thomas and Judas. Delegates will be given extensive opportunity to ask questions of a panel of experts.

Dr Williams said: “Society is being bombarded with misinformation about the Bible, such as allegations that it has been corrupted by power-hungry Christians who, for example, omitted books they did not like, and changed the original message of Jesus. When these and other wild claims are made in the media, and by members of the public, most Christians do not know how to respond. Some even find their faith shaken.

“During this first day conference we will expose false claims about the New Testament, show how the New Testament can be trusted, as well as equip ordinary Christians to share their faith with real confidence and conviction. We see these conferences as the start of a new series of resources to help Christians and Church leaders face the many philosophical and secular challenges to orthodox Christian beliefs.”

The event is free of charge, but a free-will offering will be taken to help cover expenses. For full details of the event, and for details of future events, visit www.bibleandchurch.com

The following article was written by Pastor Chris Jordan – April 2009 and is reproduced with kind permission:-

Do you remember the story of Snow White? When the magic mirror tells Snow White’s wicked stepmother, the queen, that Snow White is the fairest in the land, the queen is furious, and sets out to kill her step-daughter. Using magic to turn herself into an old hag, the queen visits Snow White at the cottage of the seven dwarfs, and tricks her into biting into a poisoned apple, sending the beautiful princess into a deep sleep. It’s too bad that there wasn’t someone around who knew what the wicked queen was plotting that could have kept Snow White from eating the poisoned fruit! Although we know that the story of Snow White is only a fairy tale, there is a lesson in this story for us. There’s an insidious plot afoot today, designed to poison the minds of people, in the form of a cunning novel called Angels and Demons

WHAT IS ANGELS AND DEMONS?
Angels & Demons is a bestselling mystery novel written by Dan Brown that was published in 2000. It tells the story of Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon who tries to unravel the mysteries of a secret society called the Illuminati, and prevent them from destroying Vatican City using an antimatter bomb. This character is also the protagonist of Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, another toxic book of lies and false claims against the Christian church. (For more info about the deceptions in The Da Vinci Code, see my article Exposing The Da Vinci Deception, available to download at our website: http://www.beausejourchurch.ca/). Here is a look at some of the main lies and errors that are found in Brown’s Angels and Demons novel:

THE LIES IN ANGELS AND DEMONS:

LIE #1 – CHRISTIANITY IS LIKE A CANCER:
“Looming before them was a rectangular, ultramodern structure of glass and steel. Langdon was amazed by the building’s striking transparent design. He had always had a fond love of architecture. “The Glass Cathedral,” the escort offered.
“A church?”
“Hell, no. A church is the one thing we don’t have. Physics is the religion around here. Use the Lord’s name in vain all you like,” he laughed, “just don’t slander any quarks or mesons.” (Brown, pg. 22).

Right at the very beginning of this tale, Brown reveals his true intentions. This is no adrenaline laced fiction ride – this is a blatant, all-out attack against God, the church, and Christianity. One of the characters tells Langdon, “We don’t want a church here, we don’t like church, in fact, let’s go break the Ten Commandments – eat, drink and be merry, we don’t want any ‘god’ telling us what to do!” This is a harbinger of the poison to follow.

A few pages later, another character’s dialogue is used to reveal Brown’s hatred for the church:

“Miracles?” The word “miracle” was certainly not part of the vocabulary around Harvard’s Fairchild Science Building. Miracles were left for the School of Divinity.
“You sound skeptical,” Kohler said.” I thought you were a religious symbologist. Do you not believe in miracles?”
“I’m undecided on miracles,” Langdon said…
“Perhaps miracle is the wrong word. I was simply trying to speak your language.”
“My language?” Langdon was suddenly uncomfortable. “Not to disappoint you, sir, but I study religious symbology – I’m an academic, not a priest.”
Kohler slowed suddenly and turned, his gaze softening a bit. “Of course. How simple of me. One does not need to have cancer to analyze its symptoms.”
Langdon had never heard it put quite that way.” (Brown, pg. 26-27).

If you didn’t catch the subtle slander here, what Brown’s character is saying is that Christianity is like a cancer, and cancer is defined as any evil condition or thing that spreads destructively. Brown studies religious symbology – symbolism in the church – but he is not a Christian or a religious man. And the other character, Kohler, says in essence, “You are not a part of the church, but you are studying the church, which is like a cancer – it’s evil and destructive.” You might think that I’m reading too much into this here, but as you read on in the novel, you will see that the author relentlessly slanders Christianity. One example of this is a statement Langdon makes on page 48: “the superstitious dogma spewed forth by the church was mankind’s greatest enemy… if religion continued to promote pious myth as absolute fact, scientific progress would halt, and mankind would be doomed to an ignorant future of senseless holy wars.”

How does one respond to this lie about the church? By looking to the words of Jesus Christ Himself, the founder of the Christian faith: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35). The mission of the church is to provide love, acceptance, forgiveness, healing and restoration to all people!

LIE #2: ALL GODS WILL BE PROVEN TO BE FALSE:
“The men and women of CERN are here to find answers to the same questions man has been asking since the beginning of time. Where did we come from? What are we made of?”
“And these answers are in a physics lab?”
“You sound surprised?”
“I am. The questions seem spiritual.”
“Mr. Langdon, all questions were once spiritual. Since the beginning of time, spirituality and religion have been called on to fill in the gaps that science did not understand. The rising of the sun was once attributed to Helios and a flaming chariot. Earthquakes and tidal waves were the wrath of Poseidon. Science has now proven those gods to be false idols. Soon all Gods will be proven to be false idols. Science has now provided answers to almost every question man can ask.” (Brown, pg. 31).

This passage of dialogue is wrong on so many levels. First of all, one of the distinctions that Brown tries to make in his novel is between science and religion, or Christianity. Later on in the novel, the protagonist Langdon says, “Since the beginning of history, a deep rift has existed between science and religion… Religion has always persecuted science.” (Brown, pg. 39). He says that the two are totally separate and incompatible, but that is completely false. The reality is that all areas of science validate and confirm the Biblical account of creation, and there are no errors of geology, biology or any other sciences contained in the Scriptures.

Another bold claim that the author makes is that science will soon prove all Gods to be false idols. Notice the capital ‘G’– he is undoubtedly referring to the Christian God of the Bible here! And yet, contrary to his claims, more and more scientific discoveries are being made every day that point to the reality of Intelligent Design, that simply says, “Where there is a design, there is a designer.” (Note – it is beyond the scope of this paper to lay out all of the many scientific evidences and support for scientific creationism, but if you are interested in learning more about this topic, I would encourage you to check out http://www.answersingenesis.org/).

In regards to the questions that man has been asking since the beginning of time, such as: Where did we come from? The Bible gives us the only answers that provide real purpose and meaning for our lives. The lie of evolution says that we are all one big cosmic accident, that we are merely the product of billions of years of evolution, and therefore complex animals, with no greater purpose or destiny than to one day become worm food, rotting in a grave. The Bible on the other hand tells us that we have been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and therefore, we have incredible intrinsic value, and our ultimate destiny is to know God, to glorify Him, and enjoy Him forever in Heaven.

LIE #3: CALLING EVIL GOOD AND GOOD EVIL:
“Langdon quickly explained how most people pictured satanic cults as devil-worshipping fiends, and yet Satanists historically were educated men who stood as adversaries to the church.” (Brown, pg. 46).

Here is one of the examples of how Brown tries to paint evil as good and good as evil. The Bible teaches that the devil is the source of all evil – the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy in people’s lives. And yet, in the passage quoted above, you see how the author tries to portray Satanists as normal, good and educated men. Along with this picture of evil Satanists as being good men, he portrays the characters that are church members as being evil, hypocritical and fanatical. He says that the church has “crushed (the) opposition with lies and prophecies of doom. (The church) has manipulated the truth to serve (its) needs, murdering those whose discoveries did not serve (its) politics.” (Brown, pg. 190). Here he says that Christians are liars, manipulators, and murderers.

In response to this claim, we freely admit and acknowledge that as Christians, we aren’t perfect. There are definitely a number of people in the church who claim to be followers of Christ, but who in reality do not follow His teachings. But those who are true disciples of Jesus Christ are committed to striving to be more kind, loving and peaceful, even though we may never be perfected in it. But to brand all Christians with this broad stroke of evil, sinful men is slanderous, and incorrect. The church exists for two primary purposes – to love God, and to love all people. Here again we see Brown’s animosity towards the church proclaimed loud and clear.

LIE #4: THE BIBLE IS A MAN-MADE BOOK OF STORIES:
“Holy Scripture is stories… legends and history of man’s quest to understand his own need for meaning.” (Brown, pg. 137). This lie is very similar to this quote from Brown’s other poisonous book of lies, The Da Vinci Code, where he writes: “The Bible is a product of man… Not of God… Man created it as a record of tumultous times, and it has evolved through countless translations, additions and revisions. History has never had a definitive version of the Book.” (Brown, pg. 250-251). Later on in Angels and Demons, Brown takes another jab at the inspiration of the Bible by saying that the Secret Vatican Archives contain “unpublished books of the holy Bible.” (pg. 222).

Here’s how I responded to this brazen lie in my article, Exposing the Da Vinci Deception: Second Timothy 3:16 tells us, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The Bible, which is actually a collection of 66 different books, written by about 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years is indeed the very Word of God. Second Peter 1:20-21 says, “no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” As Christians, we have an absolutely certain promise from God Himself that He will preserve His Word to all generations! “But the word of the Lord endures forever.”“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.” (Matthew 25:35). One of the factors that Dan Brown takes out of the Bible equation is the reality of the existence of God. Because there is a God, and because the Bible is His own Word, we can trust that the same God who inspired the Scriptures over two thousand years ago will also preserve that truth wholly intact and without error to our generation today.

LIE #5: GOD IS A FEMALE, MOTHER EARTH:
“Vittoria was silent for a long time. “Science tells me God must exist. My mind tells me I will never understand God. And my heart tells me I am not meant to.”
“So you believe God is fact, but we will never understand Him.”
“Her,” she said with a smile. “Your Native Americans had it right.”
Langdon chuckled. “Mother Earth.”
“Gaea. The planet is an organism. All of us are cells with different purposes. And yet we are intertwined. Serving each other. Serving the whole.”

Here we see another one of the main characters of the story – one of the good guys – who claims to believe in God. At first, this might seem like a good thing, until we discover what she means when she says she believes in God. She does not believe in “God the Father Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth” as He is described in The Apostle’s Creed. Rather, she says that she believes God is a she, not a he, and that she is Gaia, Mother Earth, the earth goddess from ancient Greek mythology. This is an example of an incorrect New Age belief about the nature of God. If we want to know who God really is, we need to examine how He describes Himself in His Holy Word, the Bible. First Timothy 1:17 says, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever.” Let’s us reject outright the lies of human beings who would try to twist and distort our image of who God really is, and allow the Scriptures to frame in our hearts and minds what God is really like!

LIE #6: JESUS IS A FABLE:
“Do you truly believe they stake their lives on a fable about a man who walks on water?” (Brown, pg. 192).

Although this reference to Jesus is a subtle one, there is no question about who the author is referring to here. In his other volume, The Da Vinci Code, Brown slanders the good name of Jesus by bringing into question His divinity, and also fabricates a lie that says Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children. The Bible teaches us that Jesus Christ is the unique, only begotten Son of God, God Himself in the flesh, who healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out devils, and performed many miracles. History tells us that this man Jesus Christ really lived and walked on the Earth. The question is – was Jesus really who He said He was? The answer to that is a confident, unwavering YES! If you have questions about the divinity of Jesus Christ, I would recommend to you two great resources that will answer any questions you may have:

The first one is New Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell. This classic defense of the faith provides a wealth of historical, archaeological, and bibliographical evidences for the basic beliefs of the Christian faith, answering questions such as: Is the Bible historically reliable? Is there credible evidence of Christ’s claim to be God? Will Christianity stand up before 21st century critics? Josh McDowell is a classic example of an agnostic college student who believed that Christianity was worthless. But a group of Christians challenged him to examine the claims of Christianity on an intellectual basis. Instead of succeeding in discrediting the truth of Christianity, Josh discovered compelling historical evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. As a result, Josh accepted Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour, and his life was changed through God’s love and grace. (http://www.josh.org/).

The second one is The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus by Lee Strobel. This author is another example of an atheist who approached Christianity from the outside, examined the evidence, and came to the logical conclusion that Jesus Christ truly is the only begotten Son of the Living God who was raised from the dead. Time after time, intellectual men and women who come to the Scriptures with integrity of heart come away with no other conclusion than to say that the Bible is true, God is real, and Jesus is alive.

LIE #7: FAITH IS FUTILE:
“Faith does not protect you. Medicine and airbags… these are things that protect you. God does not protect you. Intelligence protects you… Put your faith in something with tangible results. How long has it been since someone walked on water? Modern miracles belong to science… computers, vaccines, space stations… Who needs God? No! Science is God!”

As I’m writing these words in the year 2009, we are almost at the close of the first decade of the 21st century. We are living in a world that is engulfed by fear, terrorism, wars and rumours of wars, and multitudes of natural disasters. If ever there was a time that we as the human race needed faith, it is now! A contemporary Christian artist penned these words, describing the difference between atheism and faith:
“Atheism is the wedge under the foundation of our faith, trying to topple our relationship with Christ. When the fool said in his heart, there is no God, he rejects the truth God painted on the canvas of the night. Atheism has never created an artistic masterpiece, never healed a fatal disease or calmed a fear. Atheism has never still given answers to our existence, peace to a troubled mind or even dried a tear.
For it’s God who created heaven and earth and flung the stars in space and breathed in the handful of dirt and it became a man. It’s God who sits on the circle of the earth and measures the mountains in a scale, and holds the seven seas in the palm of His hand. It’s God who sent His only begotten Son to the cross of Calvary to save our souls from Hell and the grave. It’s God who creates, God who delivers, God who heals and God who is worthy of a thunderous ovation of praise.
There is a hope, there is a light, there is an answer to all answers
There is a flame that burns in the night, and I know, I know, I know there is a God.” (Carman).

Although I am not anti-science, I want to declare to you today that science is NOT God. Science is defined as systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. A miracle is in many ways the antithesis of science, for it is defined thus: an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. The reality of miracles in our world testifies to the reality of a living, loving God. The Bible declares that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, and He’s still transforming lives today! Faith saves. Faith heals. Faith protects. Faith provides. The Bible declares that our Heavenly Father is a living, loving God who generously gives good gifts to His children. Don’t believe Brown’s lie that says faith is futile!

Later on in the novel, one of Brown’s characters, the camerlengo, continues bashing God and the church by saying, “God has become obsolete. Science has won the battle… Religion cannot keep up. Scientific growth is exponential… The rift between us grows deeper and deeper, and as religion is left behind, people find themselves in a spiritual void… To science, I say this. The church is tired.” (pg. 474-475).

Don’t believe that lie! Jesus Christ is alive and well, and He is still seated on the throne. Two thousand years ago, Jesus Himself said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). No matter what forces of darkness rise up against His church, or what form it may come in – including a subtle yet poisonous book from an atheist named Dan Brown – Jesus Christ has declared that His church will arise victorious.

CONCLUSION: by Dan Brown. This is no harmless little fairy tale, but an all-out attack against the church of Jesus Christ! This critical response is designed to point out some of the deceptive messages hidden in this malicious novel, to help prevent you from falling prey to its treacherous falsehoods. (1 Peter 1:25). Jesus Christ Himself declared, (Brown, pg. 139). (Brown, pg. 218).

With the arrival of Ron Howard’s movie adaptation of Angels and Demons, many Christians are wondering whether or not they should go and see this movie, or read the book that it is based upon. Knowing that Brown has crafted this story as a poisonous little morsel designed to erode your faith in God, the church and the Bible, it would make sense to avoid his malignant piece of lies. If you are looking for entertainment in the form of a good book, or an adrenaline pumping thrill ride of a movie, there are dozens of better choices than Angels and Demons. And although I wouldn’t go so far as to say we should boycott this movie, I will leave you with this challenging question: Why would you want to waste two hours of your life on a movie based on a book that was designed by the author to deceive you? You wouldn’t eat a poisoned apple, so why would you fill your heart and mind with poisonous words?

- Pastor Chris Jordan
http://www.beausejourchurch.ca/

Article from our friends at Christian Concern for our Nation:-

Article Published: 15th May 2009

People who have concerns about homosexuals adopting children are ‘retarded homophobes’ who are merely ‘whinging’, according to a pamphlet published by the Government-funded national adoption agency.

The British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), which is funded by the taxpayer, used the slur in a guide published to help homosexual couples to adopt children. It was then repeated in the BAAF newspaper By My Parent.

The BAAF’s guidance stated:

‘Most importantly, don’t worry about society.’

‘Children need good parents much more than retarded homophobes need an excuse to whinge, so don’t let your worries about society’s reaction hinder your desire and ability to give a child a loving caring home.’

The insulting description prompted outrage among senior politicians and former Cabinet Ministers, Roman Catholic and Church of England leaders, and family campaigners. It also angered disability campaigners who accused the charity of using ‘out-dated discriminatory language’ as they have been trying to discourage the use of the word ‘retarded’ for years. (The page was later edited. Click here to see excerpts.)

Julian Brazier, Conservative MP and co-chairman of the All-Party Commons Group on Adoption and Fostering, said: ‘I work with BAAF all the time and I know how much they bring to adoption.

‘I must say I am very sad that they should use this language about people who have an honest disagreement with them.’

Author Patricia Morgan, who has published a study of gay adoption, said:

‘It is disgraceful that they do not wish to discuss the pros and cons of gay adoption. They just go in for abuse. They do not appear interested in evidence about the outcomes for children. And it is a disgusting phrase to use.’

The publishing of the BAAF guidance follows the launch of a book – the Pink Guide to Adoption for Lesbians and Gay Men – aimed at encouraging homosexual couples to consider taking on a child in need of new parents. The book was written by former Guardian journalist and charity writer Nicola Hill. It offers advice to couples in the face of ‘prejudice against adoption’ by homosexuals.

On Wednesday 13 May 2009, Channel 4, in a clear propaganda attempt, had shown a documentary in which two homosexuals, John, 56, and Anthony, 38, expressed their wish to become parents, and had ‘ decided that adoption is the way for them’.
(See http://adoptionexperience.channel4.com/find-me-a-family/programme-3)

Apart from religious objections, there is clear evidence which supports the principle that the traditional complementary marriage with gender diversity serves for the best interests of the child. (See expert evidence at
http://www.ccfon.org/docs/Evidence_of_damage_to_children_raised_in_same_sex_households.pdf)

The most reputable scientists would agree that the research on children raised by homosexual couples is either non-existent or in its infancy. Yet the BAAF is taking a leap into the unknown and gambling with children’s welfare by actively encouraging homosexuals to adopt, whilst turning married couples away.

There has been a steady increase in homosexuals seeking to adopt children since a 2005 law change, after the Government’s Sexual Orientation Regulations 2007 forced adoption agencies to consider homosexual couples as potential adopters. In 2008, Vincent Matherick, 65, and his 61-year-old wife Pauline, a Christian couple who have taken in 28 children, have been forced by Somerset Social Services to give up being foster parents after they refused to promote homosexuality (see http://www.ccfon.org/view.php?id=182). After the intervention of the Christian Legal Centre (CLC) they won the right to have their personal convictions and conscientious objections recognised.

Likewise, Eunice and Owen Johns, committed Christian couple and foster parents, were told by Derby City Council that their views on homosexuality were out of line with diversity standards, and had their application withdrawn. CLC intervened and their foster care application was successfully reinstated (see http://www.ccfon.org/view.php?id=264).

There were 80 homosexual adoptions in England in 2007-08, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, Director of CCFON stated ‘The Bible tells us that God’s fundamental building block for society is a man and a woman united in marriage and for children to be raised within that framework. When the state sanctions and promotes adoption by same sex couples it is acting contrary to biblical principles. All the evidence shows that children do best when they are raised by a mother and a father.’

Christians are being forced to pray in secret for “fear of offending others”, according to a leading clergyman.

The Very Rev John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, said believers were increasingly keeping their faith to themselves.

He criticised the decision to suspend a nurse who offered to pray for an elderly patient, insisting it was “not a sin and should not be regarded as an offence”.

The comments follow the decision put Caroline Petrie on unpaid leave for two months. The community nurse got into trouble after visiting a 79-year-old woman at her home in Winscombe, north Somerset, last December.

Speaking yesterday, Dr Hall said prayer had a key role to play alongside modern medicine.

“Discussion of spiritual matters and of faith is often strange to people,” he said. “We tend to keep our spiritual motivation and our faith to ourselves. That is a mistake but not surprising.

“We keep it to ourselves for fear of offending others or out of fear of contradiction or because we are unsure of the right language in which to express elusive concepts.

“And yet the human spirit and spiritual health is fundamental to healing and wholeness. So every health professional, every doctor, every nurse needs to be easy and familiar with the language of the spirit in order to express the almost inexpressible.

“And I should say that offering to pray for someone is not a sin and should not be regarded as an offence.”

The comments were made in sermon to almost 2,000 nurses at Westminster Abbey.

The annual Florence Nightingale service – staged to commemorate the life of the nurse famed for her work in the military hospitals of the Crimea – is attended by health workers from the NHS, armed forces and private sector.

A decision to suspend Mrs Petrie, 45, sparked a national debate on the role of Christianity in public life. Last year, a British Airways check-in worker who was banned from wearing a cross around her neck lost her claim of religious discrimination.

Dr Hall said: “Those of us who have not suffered in these ways are full of admiration for the human spirit, for what can be achieved against the odds. The human spirit is capable of extraordinary and apparently impossible feats. Human beings are not body and mind alone, but body, mind and spirit.

“Our spirit has a huge part to play in our health and wholeness – and in our healing, working alongside all the scientific brilliance of modern medicine. Those of you who unlike me are health professionals will have seen this countless times.

“You will be well aware of the fact that it is the interaction of physical and mental healing with the human spirit that leads to health and wholeness. Spiritual care and spiritual healing are therefore fundamental to the work of doctors, nurses and all health professionals.”