CHARLES SPURGEON THE MYSTERIES OF THE BRAZEN SERPENT
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:14
WE are told by wise men that all languages are based upon figures, that the
speech of men who are uncivilized is mainly composed of figures; and that
indeed the language of the most civilized, when cleaved so as to bring it to
its natural foundation, is based upon a set of metaphors perceived by the
mind, and then used in language. This much I know, that when we would
teach children to speak, we are accustomed to call things, not exactly by
the names by which they are known to us, but by some name which
represents, for instance, the kind of noise which is uttered by some animal;
but which in some way or other, by a species of figure, is easily understood
by the child to represent the things. But certain it is that among savage
nations, the speech is almost entirely composed of metaphors. Hear an
Indian warrior addressing the chiefs, and inflaming them for war; he
gathers together all the metaphors of heaven and earth to make his speech.
And you will note the same thing is true even in the names which the
Indian warriors have. Those of you who are acquainted with their
nomenclature will remember, that the strangest names are given to their
great men, by way of figure and metaphor to set forth the qualities of their
mind.
Now, beloved, it is the same in spiritual language as it is in natural speech.
Nicodemus was but a child in grace: when Jesus Christ would teach him to
speak concerning things of the kingdom, he did not talk to him in abstract
words, but he gave him metaphorical words whereby he might understand
the essence of the thing better than by giving him a mere abstract term.
When he talked to Nicodemus, he did not say anything about sanctification;
but he said, “Except a man be born of water.” He did not talk anything to
him about the great change of the heart; but he said, “Except a man be
born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He would not tell him
much about the Spirit when he began, but he said, “The wind bloweth
where it listeth.” And when he wanted to teach him faith, he did not begin
by saying, “By faith we are allied to Christ, and derive salvation from our
living head,” but he said — “Like as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness.” And so the first religious talk of converted men must always
be in figures. Not the epistles of Paul, which are pure didactic teaching, but
the words of Jesus, must first be applied to the sinner, before he is
enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and understands the mysteries of the
kingdom. And I believe I have hit upon the reason why our Master used
this figure, and talked to Nicodemus with metaphor after metaphor, and
figure after figure, because the root of all language must be in figures.
And now, to-day, I am about to address the mass of my congregation
concerning that simple subject of faith in the Lord Jesus, whereby men are
saved. And instead of addressing them in a didactic and doctrinal manner, I
shall adopt the parable of my text, and endeavor to imitate the example of
my Lord, in trying to make faith plain to those who are but children in
grace.
Allow me, then, dear friends, to describe first, the people in the wilderness
— the representatives of men who are sinners. Let me describe next, the
brazen serpent — the type of Jesus Christ crucified. Let me then note what
was to be done with the brazen serpent — it was to be lifted up; and so
was Christ to be lifted up. And then let us notice what was to be done by
the people who were bitten — they were to look at the serpent, and so
sinners must believe in Christ.
I. Our first figure represents MEN IN THE ESTATE OF SIN; and the figure is
borrowed from the children of Israel in the wilderness, when they were
invaded by the fiery serpents. Can you imagine the horror and dismay
depicted upon the countenances of the Israelites, when, for the first time,
they saw themselves invaded by an army of fiery flying serpents? They had
stood valiantly in fight against Amalek; but these were things that trembled
not at the sword. Moses had taught them the use of the bow, as it is
written in the book of Jasher, but these were things against which the
arrow could not prevail. They had endured weariness, and thirst and
hunger; the sun had sometimes smitten them by day, and the frost by night,
and but for God’s preservation, the hardships of the wilderness would have
cut them off. All these they had endured and were inured to them, but
these fiery serpents were novelties; and all new terrors are terrible from
their very novelty. Can you imagine how they began to tell one another of
the awful visitants which they had beheld! and can you imagine how their
terror spread like wildfire through the camp, and ere the rumor had spread
the serpents were devouring them?
And now, dear friends, if we could all of us see our position in this world,
we should this day feel as Israel did when they saw the serpents coming
upon them. When our children are born into this world, we believe there is
sin in them, but it is a terrible thing for us to reflect that even if the serpent
had not bitten them in the birth, yet they are surrounded everywhere by
innumerable evils! Can a father send his son into this wicked world with a
consciousness of all the evils that will surround him, without a sense of
terror? And can a Christian man trust himself to walk in the midst of this
ungodly and libidinous generation, without feeling that he is surrounded
with temptations, which, if he were left to himself, would be a thousand
times more dangerous to him than the most destroying of serpents?
But the picture blackens, we must have deeper shades to paint it. Behold
the people after they were bitten! Can you picture their writhings and
contortions when the poison of the serpent had infected their veins? We are
told by the old writers that these serpents when they bit caused vehement
heat, so that there was a pain throughout the body, as if a hot iron had
been sent along the veins. Those who had been bitten had a great thirst;
they drank incessantly, and still cried for water to quench the burnings
within. It was a hot fire which was lit in the fountain, and which ran
through every nerve and every sinew of the man, they were racked in pain,
and died in most fearful convulsions. Now my brethren, we cannot say that
sin instantly produces such an effect as this upon the men who are the
subjects of it; but we do affirm, that, let sin alone, and it will develop
itself in miseries far more extreme than ever the bite of the serpent could
have caused. It is true the young man who quaffs the poisoned cup of
intoxication, wots not that there is a serpent there; for there is no serpent
except in the dregs thereof. It is sure that the woman who boasts herself of
her riches, and arrays herself right gaudily in her pride, wots not that a
serpent binds the zone of her waist; for there is no serpent there as she
knoweth, but she shall know it when the days of her frivolity are ended. It
is true he that curseth God knows not that a viper hath infused the poison
which he speaks out against his Maker; but he shall know it in days to
come. Look ye at a bloated drunkard; see him after years of intoxication
have defaced all that was manlike in him, as he totters to his grave a poor
feeble creature; the pillars of his house are shaken, his strength has tailed
him, and that which God had meant to be his own image hath become the
image of misery incarnate! See the lascivious debauchee after his brief day
of pleasure has closed! — No, it is too loathsome for me to paint; my lips
refuse to depict the miseries which our hospitals see every day; the awful
loathsomeness, the accursed disease which eats up the very bones of those
who indulge in sin. Fiery serpents, ye are nothing when compared with
fiery lusts, ye may infuse poison into the blood, but lusts do that, and do
something more, for they infuse damnation into the soul! When sin has had
its perfect work; when its last fair conception has been brought forth, and
hath developed itself in the dire crime and the loathsome iniquity — then
we have a picture which serpent-bitten Israel would not set forth to us in
all its horrors!
And the shades thicken yet again; the darkness lowers, and the clouds are
heavier! How awful must have been the death of those who died by the
serpents! There are some deaths which are sweet to think upon. The death
of the late eminent preacher, Dr. Beaumont, who died in his pulpit, was a
death which all of us might envy, whose released spirit, whilst the singing
of God’s praise was ascending up to heaven, left his body, and was
forthwith raised to the throne of God. The death of him, who having
served his Master, sinks like a shock of corn fully ripe, or like a sun that
hath run its race, is something to be noted and remembered with delight.
But the death of the sinner, who hath been bitten by his lusts, and hath not
been saved by faith in Christ — oh, how terrible! It is not in the power of
mortal language to depict the horrors of the death-bed of a man who has
lived without God and without Christ. I challenge all the orators that have
ever lived, to draw forth from their vocabulary, words full enough of
horror and of terror to depict the departing scene of the man who has lived
at enmity with God, and who dies with his conscience quickened then.
Some men it is true live in sin, and take the last dregs of their infatuation
before they die, and sink into the pit blindfolded, without the slightest pang
of horror; but other men who have had their consciences awakened die not
so. Oh, the shrieks, the yells, the screams! oh, the face of anguish, the
contortions, the misery. Have you never heard how men do bend their fists
and swear they will not die, and how they start forth, and declare — “I
cannot, and I must not die, I am unprepared!” Starting back from the fiery
gulph, they clutch the physician, and desire him, if possible, to lengthen out
the thread of their existence! Ay, many a nurse has vowed that she would
never nurse such a man again, for the horrors would be with her till she
died.
And now, my dear hearers, you are not dying now; but you will be dying
soon. None of you have taken a lease of your lives; it is impossible for you
to guarantee to yourselves existence for another hour. And if you are
Godless and Christless ye have all in your veins the venom of that death
unutterable which will make your departure doleful beyond expression! I
would to God I could cut the cords of my stammering tongue so as to
address you with vehemence and passion upon this subject. Men are dying
every day around us, at this very hour there are thousands departing into
the world of spirits. In upper chambers, where mourning relatives are
pouring floods of tears upon their burning brows; far away on the wild sea,
where the sea-gull utters the only scream over the shipwrecked mariner;
down, deep, deep, deep, in the lowest valley, and high upon the loftiest
hills, men are dying now, and dying in all the agonies I have sought to
describe, but have failed to do. Ah, and ye must die also! and will ye march
on heedlessly, will ye go on step after step, singing merrily all the way, and
dreaming not of that which is to come! Oh, will ye be like the silly bullock
that goeth easily to the slaughter, or will ye be like the lamb that licks the
butcher’s knife! Mad, mad O man, that thou shouldst go to eternal wrath
and to the chambers of fell destruction, and yet no sigh comes from thy
heart; no groan is uttered by thy lips! Thou diest every day, but groanest
never, till the last day of thy death, which is the beginning of thy misery.
Yes, the condition of the mass of men is just like the condition of the
children of Israel when they were bitten by the serpents.
II. And now comes THE REMEDY. The remedy of the bitten Israelites was
a brazen serpent; and the remedy for sinners is Christ crucified. “Stuff,
nonsense,” said some of the children of Israel, when they heard that a
brazen serpent lifted up on a pole was to be the means of their cure. Many
of them laughed in the jollity of unbelief — “absurd, ridiculous: who ever
heard of such a thing, how can it be? A serpent of brass lifted up upon a
pole, to cure us of these wounds, by being looked upon! why all the skill of
the physicians cannot do it, will a glance at a brazen serpent do it? It is
impossible!” This much I know, if they did not despise the brazen serpent,
there be many that despise Christ crucified. Shall I tell you what they say of
him? They say of him as they did of the brazen serpent. Some wise one said
— “Why it was a serpent that did the mischief, how can a serpent undo it?”
Yes, and men will say, “It was by man that sin and death came into the
world, and can a man be the means of our salvation?” “Ah,” says another,
having the prejudice of a Jew about him, “and what a man he was! No
king, no prince, no mighty conqueror; he was but a poor peasant, and he
died upon a cross.” Ah, so said some in the camp; they said it was only a
brazen serpent, not a golden one, and how could a brazen serpent be of any
use to them? It would not sell for much if it were broken up. What was the
use of it? And so men say of Christ. He is despised and rejected of men; a
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and they hide their faces from
him because they cannot see how he is adapted for their cure.
But some will have it that the preaching of the cross not only cannot save,
but will increase the evil. Old physicians tell us that brass was the most
likely thing in the world to make people die the quicker; the sight of
anything that is bright would have the effect of making the poison yet more
strong in its effects, so that it would be death at once to look upon brass.
And yet strange to say, to look at the brazen serpent saved them. “Now,”
says the infidel, “I cannot see how men are to be saved from sin by the
preaching of Christ.” “Truly sir,” he says “you go and tell men that though
they have sinned never so much, if they do but believe, their sins shall all be
washed away! Why they will take advantage of that, and they will be more
wicked than ever they were. You tell men that their good works are of no
avail whatever, that they must rest on Christ alone!” “Why,” says the
sceptic, “my dear fellow, it will be the destruction of all morality, instead of
a cure, it will be a death. Why preach it?” Ah, the preaching of the cross is
to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved, it is Christ the
power of God, and the wisdom of God. I cannot, myself, but admit, that at
first sight the brazen serpent seems to be the most absurd invention, in
itself, for curing those who were bitten, that ever mind of man could have
invented, and yet I see in the brazen serpent, when I come to study it, the
highest wisdom that even God himself could develop. I grant you that the
cross of Christ also does in its outward appearance seem to be the
simplicity of simplicities, something which any one might have thought of,
but which would have been beneath their thought. But when you come to
study and understand the marvellous scheme of God’s justice vindicated,
and man pardoned through the atoning blood of the cross, I say, that not
even the mighty intellect of God could have conceived a wiser plan, than
the wisdom of God displayed in Christ Jesus crucified.
But remember, that much as those who heard of the brazen serpent might
have despised it, yet there was DO other means of cure. And, now hear me
for one moment, while I tell the whole story of salvation. Men, brethren
and fathers, we are born of a sinful generation, and we have ourselves
increased our guilt, for us there is no hope; do what we may, we cannot
save ourselves.
“Could our zeal no respite know
Could our tears for ever flow
All for sin could not atone.”
But brethren, Christ Jesus, God’s eternal Son, came into this world, and
was born of the virgin Mary, he lived a doleful life of misery, and at last he
died a death accompanied by unutterable pangs — that was the punishment
of the sins of those who, as penitents, come to Christ. If you this day so
repent, and put your trust in Jesus, you have in your trust and repentance a
sure proof that Christ was punished for you.
III. And now WHAT WAS TO BE DONE WITH THE BRAZEN SERPENT? The
text says, “Moses lifted it up,” and we read he was to lift it up upon a pole.
Ah, dear friends, and Christ Jesus must be lifted up. He has been lifted up,
wicked men lifted him up, when, with nails on an accursed tree, they
crucified him! God the Father hath lifted him up; for he hath highly exalted
him, far above principalities and powers. But the minister’s business is to
lift him up. There are some ministers who forget that their errand in the
world is to lift up Christ. Suppose Moses, when God told him to lift up the
brazen serpent, had said in himself, “It is becoming in me, before I lift it up,
that I should give some explanatory remarks. And instead of lifting it up
before the vulgar crowd, I will initiate a proved few, so that they may
understand about it. I will arrange around this serpent a few golden cloths,
I will garnish it with silver tapestry so that it may not be looked upon by
vulgar eyes, and I will endeavor to explain it to them.” Now this is what
many priestly persons in this age and in ages past have tried to do. The
gospels oh that must not be preached to the poor! “The Bible” says the
Church of Rome, “must not be read by the vulgar crowd! How can they
understand it? It is a thing too sacred for the common people to see! No,
wrap up the brazen serpent; wrap it up in a cloth, do not let it be
exhibited.” “No,” say our Protestant ministers, many of them, “the Bible
must be given, but we must never alter the translation of it!” There are
some passages in the present translation that are so dark, that no man can
understand them without an explanation. “But no,” say the divines of this
age, “we will not have the Bible translated properly, the people must
always put up with a faulty translation. The brazen serpent must be
wrapped up, because it would a little unsettle matters, if we were to have a
new translation!” “No,” say others, “we will have a new translation, if need
be; but there are some parts of the truth that ought not to be preached!” I
am not now misrepresenting some of my brethren in the ministry. I know
they hold that some doctrines of God’s Word ought not to be preached —
every day at least. They say Election is true; but they never mention it.
They say Predestination is no doubt a godly doctrine, but it ought to be
kept from the people. It must be in their creed, or else they would not be
sound; but in the pulpit it must not be mentioned at all. “No,” says the
Church of Rome, “if we have a brazen serpent, we will put it in the
sanctum, where it cannot be seen, and we will have the smoke of incense
before it, so that it shall not be plainly discerned, the pomp, and ceremony,
and trappings of formality, shall shield it from the vulgar gaze of the
people; we will have it girt all round with a thousand ceremonies, which
will abstract the gospel, and leave the people to be content with the
ceremonies!” Now in these days there are great tendencies to that. The
Puseyites are trying, instead of preaching the simplicity of the gospel, to
give us figures. “Oh,” they say “what an elevating thing is a Gothic church;
how it lifts the soul to heaven to sit in a place where there is a forest of
Gothic pillars! oh, what a sweet influence a well played organ has on the
mind!” They tell us there is a kind of heavenly influence poured forth from
vestments when well worn, and that to see the priest discharge his
functions in a holy and reverent manner, is a most excellent way of
impressing souls. They will have us believe that holly at Christmas time is a
most heavenly and spiritual thing. They teach us that our passions will be
carried to heaven by these little sprigs of green; that putting flowers now
and then where the gas lamps should be, has a most extraordinary influence
in carrying away our souls to paradise; that burning candles in the daylight
is just the most splendid way in all the world of showing forth the sun of
righteousness! Now, we do not exactly fall in with their views. We believe
that these places are good for children; they are not so liable to cry there,
for there are more things to amuse them. But we never could see how a
man — who was a man — could ever sit down to a thing so infamously
namby-pamby as the religion of a Puseyite. There is nothing in it but pure
nonsense, and all that the gospel may not be seen. It is as if Aaron had
filled his censer full of incense and waved it before the brazen serpent, and
made a great smoke, so that the people could not see; and then poor
Moses tarried behind and tried to look, but none of the poor souls could
see because there was the smoke before them. No, the only thing we have
to do with Christ Jesus crucified is, just to lift him up and preach him.
There is many a man who could only speak in a ploughman’s dialect, who
will wear a bright and starry crown in heaven, because he lifted Christ up,
and sinners saw and lived. And there is many a learned doctor, who spoke
with the brogue of the Egyptian, and, with dark and mysterious language,
he talked he knew not what who, after having ended his course, shall enter
heaven without a solitary star in his crown, never having lifted up Christ,
nor won crowns for his Master. Let each of us who are called to the
solemn work of the ministry remember, that we are not called to lift up
doctrine, or church governments, or particular denominations, our business
is to lift up Christ Jesus and to preach him fully. There may be times when
church government is to be discussed, and peculiar doctrines are to be
vindicated. God forbid that we should silence any part of truth: but the
main work of the ministry — its every day work — is just exhibiting
Christ, and crying out to sinners, “Believe, believe, believe on him who is
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.”
And let it be remembered, that if the minister doth but preach Christ
plainly, that is all he has to do; if with affection and prayer he preaches
Christ fully, If there were never a soul saved — which I believe would be
impossible — he would have done his work, and his Master would say,
“well done.” I have gone away from this hall, after preaching upon divers
doctrines, and though many have complimented me, foolishly, I have said
to myself, “I can but groan that I had such a subject at all.” And at another
time, when I have been faltering in my delivery, and committed a thousand
blunders in my speech, I have gone away as happy as a prince, because I
have said, “I did preach Christ.” There was enough for sinners to be saved
by; and if all the papers in the world should abuse me, and all the men in
the world should say ‘cry him down;’ he will still dive and still breathe as
long as he feels in himself, “I have preached to sinners, and Christ has been
preached to them, so as they could understand and lay hold on him and be
saved.”
IV. And now, dear friends, I have almost concluded, but I have come to
that part of the discourse which needs most of power. WHAT WERE ISRAEL
TO DO? What are convinced sinners to do? The Israelites were to look; the
convinced sinner must believe Do you picture Moses with his reverend
head standing erect, and boldly crying out with all his might — “Look,
look, look!” Do you see him, as with his right hand he grasps the pole, and
lifts it up, and marches with it through the camp like a greet standardbearer,
pointing with his finger, and speaking with hand, and eye, and lip,
and foot, and every part of the body, as he passionately bids poor bitten
Israel to look? You can, perhaps, conceive the scene as men roll over one
another, and the dying and almost dead behold the brazen serpent, and
begin to live. Now note, there may be some in the camp who would not
look; they obstinately shut their eyes, and when the pole was brought near
them they would not look. Perhaps it was through unbelief; they said,
“What was the use of it? it could do them no good!” There is the wretch,
the pole is before him, and yet he will not look. Well what will become of
him? Oh, the death-pangs are upon him; see how death is twitching him!
How his flesh seems to writhe in agony! He has shut his eyes with all the
force and passion he can command, lest they should be opened on that
brazen serpent, and he should liver Ah! my hearer, and I have such an one
here to-day. I have many here who will not come to Christ that they may
be saved — men, who when the gospel is preached to them resist it,
despise it, and reject it. Though the reception of the gospel be all of grace,
yet the rejection of it is all of man. And I have some here who have often
been touched in their conscience; they have often been moved to believe,
but they have been desperately set on mischief, and they would not come
to Christ. Ah, sinner, thou little knowest how direful thy doom shall be.
Thou mayest this day tell me thou dost not believe in the Savior, thou
mayest turn away thine ear from the warning, and say, “What need to make
so great a noise about it? I would rather die than believe, for I do not think
that Christ can save! What good is there in it?” Ah, sir, you may reject me;
but remember there is a greater preacher than I am coming to you soon. He
with a skeleton arm, and bony finger, and cold speech, he will freeze, and
yet convince! It is one called Death! Look me in the face to-day; and tell
me I preach you a lie — you can do that easily! Look death in the face to622
morrow, and tell him that, and you will find it harder work. Ay, and if you
have the fool-hardiness to do that, you will not look at the face of the
Great Judge, when he shall sit upon the throne, and tell him that his gospel
was not true; for affrighted and alarmed you shall rush hither and thither to
hide yourselves from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne. Perhaps
there were some in the camp who said they would look by-and-by, “Oh,”
said they, “there is no need to look now, the venom has not yet worked its
effects: we are not yet dead; a little longer!” And ere they uttered the last
word they were stiff and clay-cold! How many do the same? They will not
be religious yet; another day, another hour. They believe they can be pious
when they like, which is a fallacy; and therefore they will postpone the
matter as long as they may. How many have postponed the day of
salvation, until the day of damnation has come, before they had repented!
Oh, how many have said, “A little sleep, a little folding of the hands!” and
they have been like men on shipboard, when the ship was foundering, who
would not escape while they might, but still tarried on deck; at last a sea
swallowed them, and they went down alive into the depths. Take heed of
procrastination, delays are dangerous, and some delays are damnable!
Look hither, look hither to Christ bleeding on the cross. Look now, for the
Spirit saith, “to-day, if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in
the day of provocation.”
I doubt not, there were some there who tried physicians: “Look at the
brazen serpent?” said they, “not we. Doctor, come hither, bring your
balsam; can you not take the caustic and burn out this poison from my arm,
and then pour in some cordial that will save me? Physician, have you no
antidote that might cool my blood? Ah, I laugh at that brazen serpent; I
will not look at it; I trust to your skill, O learned physician!” And how
many now do the same? They say “I will not believe in Christ; I will try and
do better, I will reform myself, I will attend to all the ceremonies of the
church. Can I not help myself, and so improve myself that I shall have no
need of Jesus?” Ah, ye may try, ye may lay that flattering unction to your
souls, and film the ulcerous wound, but all the while dark corruption shall
sleep within, and shall at last break out in sore flames upon thee; when
thou shalt have no time to attempt a cure, but shalt be swept away — not
to the hospital of mercy, but like the leper, without the city, thou shalt be
cast away from hope of blessedness.
It may be there were some who were so busy looking at their sores, that
they did not think of looking at the serpent. Poor creatures, they lay in their
misery, and kept looking first at that wound on the foot, and then at that
one on the hand, and crying over their sores, and never looked at the
serpent. Scores and hundreds perish in that way. “Oh,” says the sinner, “I
have been so sinful!” Man, what has that to do with it? Christ is all
meritorious, look at him. “No, no,” says another, “I cannot look at Christ.
Oh, sir, you do not know what crimes I have committed; I have been a
drunkard, I have been a swearer, I have been a whoremonger, or what not;
how can I be saved!” My dear man, your wounds have nothing to do with
it: it is just Christ on the cross. If any poor creature, bitten by the serpent,
had said to me — “Now it is no good my looking there; see how often I
have been bitten; there is a huge serpent twisting round my loins, there is
another devouring my hand, how can I live?” I should say to him, “My dear
fellow, do not take any notice whether you have got one serpent or fifty
serpents, one bite or fifty bites, all you have to do is to look. You have
nothing to do with these bites except that you have to feel them, and perish
by them unless you look. But just look straight to Christ.” And now thou
chief of sinners, believe in the Lord Jesus; and be thy sins never so many,
he is able to save unto the uttermost, them that come unto God by him.
And yet how many perish through those divers delusions, with the gospel
before their very eyes, lifted up on the pole so plainly that we wonder they
do not see it.
And now I must tell you one or two sweet things for the encouragement of
the poor sinner. Oh, you that are guilty this morning, and know that you
are so, let me say to you, “Look to Christ.” For remember the brazen
serpent was lifted up, that every one in the camp who was bitten might live,
and now Christ is lifted up to you that “whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have eternal life.” Sinner, the devil says you are shut out;
tell him that “whosoever” shuts out none. Oh that precious word,
“whosoever.” Poor soul, I see thee clutch at it and say, “Then, Sir, if I
believe, he will not cast me away.” I see the harlot in all her guilt
bemoaning her iniquity; she says it is impossible that Christ should save.
But she hears it said, “Whosoever,” and she looks and lives! Remember, it
mattered not how old they were, nor how much bitten they were, nor
whereabouts in the camp they lived; they did but look and live. And now ye
that have grown grey in iniquity, whose hairs might rather be black than
white, if they showed forth your character, for it has been blackened by
years of vice. Remember there is the same Christ for big sinners as for little
sinners, the same Christ for grey heads as for babes, the same Christ for
poor as for rich, the same Christ for chimney sweeps as for monarchs, the
same Christ for prostitutes as for saints: “Whosoever.” I use broad words
that I may take a broad range, and sweep the whole universe of sinners
through — whosoever looketh to Christ shall live. And remember it does
not say that if they looked but little they should not live. Perhaps there was
some of them so bitten that their eyelids were swollen and they could
scarcely see Old Christopher Ness says, “There may have been some of
them that had so little sight that they could but squint from one eye.” Says
he, in his strange language, “If they did but dart a little glance at the brazen
serpent, they lived.” And you who say you cannot believe; if God gives you
only half a grain of faith, that will carry you to heaven. If you can only say,
“O Lord, I would believe, help thou mine unbelief,” if you can but put out
your hand with Simon Peter, and say “Lord save, or I perish,” it is enough.
If you can only pray that poor publican’s prayer — ”God be merciful to me
a sinner,” that will do. And if you cannot sing with some of the old
experienced saints —
“My name from the palms of his hands,
Eternity cannot erase;”
remember it is quite enough, if you can only sing —
“I can but perish if I go,
I am resolved to try;
For if I stay away, I know
I must for ever die.”
And now poor soul I have almost done. But I cannot let thee go. I see thee
with the tear in thine eye. I hear thee confessing thy guilt, and bemoaning
thy sin; I bid thee look to my Master and live. Be not afraid to try my Lord
and Master I know what thy bashfulness is; I have felt the same, and
thought he never would save me. Come soul, thou art in secret now with
thyself, for though there be thousands around thee, thou thinkest I am
speaking alone to thee. And so I am. My brother, my sister, you are
weeping to-day on account of sin — look to Jesus. And for your
encouragement note these three things. Note first that Jesus Christ was put
on the cross on purpose for you to look at. The only reason why he died,
was that poor sinners might look at him and be saved. Now, my dear
brethren, if that was Christ’s purpose in being hung on the tree, you need
not think you may not do it. If God sends a river, and sends it for us to
drink of, will you disappoint him in not drinking? No, rather you will say,
“Did he design me to drink it? Then will I drink it.” Now, Jesus hung on
the cross on purpose to be looked at. Look at him, look at him, and live.
Remember again for your encouragement, he asks you to look; he invites
you to believe, he has sent his minister this day, even to command you to
do it, he has said to me, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature, he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved.” Now I
need not simply say that my Master’s door is wide open for you; I will say
something more: he has told me to ask you to come in. Wisdom crieth
aloud, she uttereth her voice in the streets, she inviteth you, she saith, “My
oxen and my fatlings are killed, all things are ready, come ye to the
supper.” Yea, my Master has given instructions to his Holy Spirit that if
men will not come of themselves, he should compel them to come in that
his house may be filled. Then, poor sinner, you must be welcome, he will
have enough sinners to fill his table; and if he has made you feel your
sinnership — come and welcome, sinner, come. And my last
encouragement is this: Come to my Master and try him, because he
promises to save you. The promises of Jesus Christ are all of them as good
as oaths; they never fail. He says — “Whosoever believeth in him shall not
perish, but have everlasting life.” Now, if I had here a man who declared
himself to be the vilest wretch on earth, I would say to him — Young man,
I am very fond of proving the truthfulness of God’s promises, now God
says, if you believe you shall not perish. My dear friend, when a common
sinner tries, and it does not fail, it is some proof of its truthfulness: but you
are an extraordinary sinner. Now, thou extraordinary sinner, venture
thyself on this promise, he says thou shalt not perish, come and try him.
And remember, God must undeify himself, and cease to be true, before he
can ever damn a sinner who has believed in Christ. Come risk it, thou who
art so laden with sin that thou staggerest under thy burden; fall down on
the simple promise, “He is able to save to the uttermost.” Just cast thyself
wholly on Christ, and if thou art not saved, God’s book is a lie, and God
himself has broken his truth. But that cannot be. Come thou and try it.
“Whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”