eChurch Christian Blog

“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.”
Hebrews 13:8

IT is well that there is one person who is the same. It is well that there is
one stable rock amidst the changing billows of this sea of life; for how
many and how grievous have been the changes of last year? How many of
you who commenced in affluence, have by the panic, which has shaken
nations, been reduced almost to poverty? How many of you, who in strong
health marched into this place on the first Sabbath of last year, have had to
come tottering here, feeling that the breath of man is in his nostrils, and
wherein is he to be accounted of? Many of you came to this hall with a
numerous family, leaning upon the arm of a choice and much loved friend.
Alas! for love, if thou wert all, and nought beside, o earth! For ye have
buried those ye loved the best. Some of you have come here childless, or
widows, or fatherless, still weeping your recent affliction. Changes have
taken place in your estate that have made your heart full of misery. Your
cups of sweetness have been dashed with draughts of gall; your golden
harvests have had tares cast into the midst of them, and you have had to
reap the noxious weed along with the precious grain. Your much fine gold
has become dim, and your glory has departed; the sweet frames at the
commencement of last year became bitter ones at the end. Your raptures
and your ecstacies were turned into depression and forebodings. Alas! for
our charges, and hallelujah to him that hath no change.

But greater things have changed than we; for kingdoms have trembled in
the balances. We have seen a peninsula deluged with blood, and mutiny
raising its bloody war whoop. Nay, the whole world hath changed; earth
hath doffed its green, and put on its sombre garment of Autumn, and soon
expects to wear its ermine robe of snow. All things have changed. We
believe that not only in appearance but in reality, the world is growing old.
The sun itself must soon grow dim with age; the folding up of the wornout
vesture has commenced; the changing of the heavens and the earth has
certainly begun. They shall perish; they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
but for ever blessed be him who is the same, and of whose years there is no
end. The satisfaction that the mariner feels, when, after having been tossed
about for many a day, he puts his foot upon the solid shore, is just the
satisfaction of a Christian when, amidst all the changes of this troublous
life, he plants the foot of his faith upon such a text as this — “the same
yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” The same stability that the anchor
gives the ship, when it hath at last got the grip of some immovable rock,
that same stability doth our hope give to our spirits, when, like an anchor,
it fixes itself in a truth so glorious as this — “Jesus Christ the same
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.”

I shall first try this morning to open the text by a little explanation; then I
shall try to answer a few objections which our wicked unbelief will be quite
sure to raise against it; and afterwards I shall try to draw a few useful,
consoling, and practical lessons from the great truth of the immutability of
Jesus Christ.

I. First, then, we open the text by a little EXPLANATION — “Jesus Christ
the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” He is the same in his
person. We change perpetually; the bloom of youth gives place to the
strength of manhood, and the maturity of manhood fades away into the
weakness of old age. But, “Thou hast the dew of thy youth.” Christ Jesus,
whom we adore, thou art as young as ever! We came into this world with
the ignorance of infancy; we grow up searching, studying, and learning
with the diligence of youth; we attain to some little knowledge in our riper
years; and then in our old age we totter back to the imbecility of our
childhood. But o, our Master! thou didst perfectly foreknow all mortal or
eternal things from before the foundations of the world, and thou knowest
all things now, and for ever thou shalt be the same in thine omniscience.
We are one day strong, and the next day weak — one day resolved, and
the next day wavering — one hour constant, and the nest hour unstable as
water. We are one moment holy, kept by the power of God; we are the
next moment sinning, led astray by our own lusts; but our Master is for
ever the same; pure, and never spotted; firm, and never changing —
everlastingly Omnipotent, unchangeably Omniscient. From him no attribute
doth pass away; to him no parallax, no tropic, ever comes; without
variableness or shadow of a turning, he abideth fast and firm. Did Solomon
sing concerning his best beloved, “His head is as the most fine gold: his
locks are bushy and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by
the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a
bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling
myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright
ivory overlaid with sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon
sockets of fine gold; his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the
cedars?” Surely we can even now conclude the description from our own
experience of him; and while we endorse every word which went before,
we can end the description by saying, “ His mouth is most sweet, yea he is
altogether lovely. His matchless beauty is unimpaired; he is still ‘the chief
among ten thousand,’ — ‘fairest of the sons of men.’ “ Did the divine John
talk of him when he said — “His head and his hairs were white like wool,
as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto
fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of
many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his
mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun
shineth in his strength.” He is the same; upon his brow there is ne’er a
furrow; his locks are grey with reverence, but not with age; his feet stand
as firm as when they trod the everlasting mountains in the years before the
world was made — his eyes as piercing as when, for the first time, he
looked upon a newborn world. Christ’s person never changes. Should he
come on earth to visit us again, as sure he will, we should find him the
same Jesus; as loving, as approachable, as generous, as kind, and though
arrayed in nobler garments than he wore when first he visited earth, though
no more the Man of Sorrows and grief’s acquaintance, yet he would be the
same person, unchanged by all his glories, his triumphs, and his joys We
bless Christ that amid his heavenly splendours his person is just the same,
and his nature unaffected. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day,
and for ever.”

Again: Jesus Christ is the same with regard to his Father as ever. He was
his Father’s well-beloved Son before all worlds; he was his well-beloved in
the stream of baptism; he was his well-beloved on the cross; he was his
well-beloved when he led captivity captive, and he is not less the object of
his Father’s infinite affection now than he was then. Yesterday he lay in
Jehovah’s bosom, God, having all power with his Father — to-day he
stands on earth man, with us, but still the same, for ever — he ascends on
high and still he is his Father’s son still by inheritance, having a more
excellent name than angels — still sitting far above all principalities and
powers, and every name that is named. O Christian, give him thy cause to
plead; the Father will answer him as well now as he did afore time. Doubt
not the Father’s grace. Go to thine Advocate. He is as near to Jehovah’s
heart as ever — as prevalent in his intercession. Trust him, then, and in
trusting him thou mayest be sure of the Father’s love to thee.

But now there is a yet sweeter thought. Jesus Christ is the same to his
people as ever. We have delighted in our happier moments, in days that
have rolled away, to think of him that loved us when we had no being; we
have often sung with rapture of him that loved us when we loved not him.

“Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God;
He to save my soul from danger
Interposed his precious blood.”

We have looked back, too, upon the years of our troubles and our trials;
and we can bear our solemn though humble witness, that he has been true
to us in all our exigencies, and has never failed us once. Come, then, let us
comfort ourselves with this thought — that though to-day he may distress
us with a sense of sin, yet his heart is just the same to us as ever. Christ
may wear masks that look black to his people, but his face is always the
same; Christ may sometimes take a rod in his hand instead of a golden
scepter; but the name of his saints is as much engraved upon the hand that
grasps the rod as upon the palm that clasps the scepter. And oh, sweet
thought that now bursts upon our mind! Beloved, you conceive how much
Christ will love you when you are in heaven? Have you ever tried to
fathom that bottomless sea of affection in which you shall swim, when you
shall bathe yourself in seas of heavenly rest? Did you ever think of the love
which Christ will manifest to you, when he shall present you without spot,
or blemish, or any such thing, before his Father’s throne? Well, pause and
remember, that he loves you at this hour as much as he will love you then;
for he will be the same for ever as he is to-day, and he is the same to-day as
he will be for ever. This one thing I know: if Jesus’ heart is set on me he
will not love me one atom better when this head wears a crown, and when
this hand shall with joyous fingers touch the strings of golden harps, than
he does now, amidst all my sin and care and woe. I believe that saying
which is written — “As the Father hath loved me, even so have I loved
you;” and a higher degree of love we cannot imagine. The Father loves his
Son infinitely, and even so to-day, believer, doth the Son of God love thee.
Every bowel yearns over thee; all his heart flows out to thee. All his life is
thine; all his person is thine. He cannot love thee more; he will not love
thee less. “The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.”

But let us here recollect that Jesus Christ is the same to sinners to-day as
he was yesterday. It is now eight years ago since I first went to Jesus
Christ. Come the sixth of this month, I shall then be eight years old in the
gospel of the grace of Jesus: a child, a little child therein as yet. I recall that
hour when I heard that exhortation — “Look unto me and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth, for I am God, and beside me there is none else.” And
I remember, how with much trembling and with a little faith I ventured to
approach the Saviour’s feet. I thought he would spurn me from him
“Sure,” said my heart, “if thou shouldst presume to put thy trust in him as
thy Savior, it would be a presumption more damnable than all thy sins put
together. Go not to him; he will spurn thee.” However, I put the rope
about my neck, feeling that if God destroyed me for ever, he would be just,
I cast the ashes on my head, and with many a sigh I did confess my sin; and
then when I ventured to draw nigh to him, when I expected that he would
frown, he stretched out his hand, and said, “I, even I, am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.”
I came like the prodigal, because I was forced to come. I was starved out
of that foreign country where in riotous living I had spent my substance,
and I saw my Father’s house a great way off, but little did I know that my
Father’s heart was beating high with love to me. O rapturous hour, when
Jesus whispered I was his, and when my soul could say, “Jesus Christ is my
salvation.” And now I would refresh my own memory by reminding myself
that what my Master was to me yesterday that he is to-day; and if I know
that as a sinner I went to him then and he received me, if I have never so
many doubts about my saintship I cannot doubt but what I am a sinner; so
to thy cross, O Jesus, I go again, and if thou didst receive me then, thou
wilt receive me now; and believing that to be true, I turn round to my
fellow-immortals, and I say, “He that received me, he that received
Manasseh, he that received the thief upon the cross, is the same to-day as
he was then. Oh! come and try him! come and try him! Oh! ye that know
your need of him, come ye to him; ye that have sold for nought your
heritage above may have it back unbought, the gift of Jesus’ love. Ye that
are empty, Christ is as full to-day as ever. Come! fill yourselves here. Ye
that are thirsty, the stream is flowing; ye that are black, the fountain still
can purify; ye that are naked, the wardrobe is not empty.

‘Come, guilty souls, and flee away,
To Christ, and heal your wounds;
Still ‘tis the gospel’s gracious day,
And now free grace abounds.’

I cannot pretend to enter into the fullness of my text as I could desire; but
one more thought. Jesus Christ is the same to-day as he was yesterday in
the teachings of his Word. They tell us in these times that the
improvements of the age require improvements in theology. Why, I have
heard it said that the way Luther preached would not suit this age. We are
too polite! The style of preaching, they say, that did in John Bunyan’s day,
is not the style now. True, they honor these men; they are like the
Pharisees; they build the sepulchres of the prophets that their fathers slew,
and so they do confess that they are their fathers’ own sons, and like their
parents. And men that stand up to preach as those men did, with honest
tongues, and know not how to use polished courtly phrases, are as much
condemned now as those men were in their time; because, say they, the
world is marching on, and the gospel must march on too. No, sirs, the old
gospel is the same; not one of her stakes must be removed, not one of her
cords must be loosened. “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou
hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” Theology hath
nothing new in it except that which is false. The preaching of Paul must be
the preaching of the minister to-day. There is no advancement here. We
may advance in our knowledge of it; but it stands the same, for this good
reason, that it is perfect, and perfection cannot be any better. The old truth
that Calvin preached, that Chrysostom preached that Paul preached, is the
truth that I must preach to-day, or else be a liar to my conscience and my
God. I cannot shape the truth. I know of no such thing as paring off the
rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox’s gospel is my gospel. That which
thundered through Scotland must thunder through England again. The
great mass of our ministers are sound enough in the faith, but not sound
enough in the way they preach it. Election is not mentioned once in the
year in many a pulpit; final perseverance is kept back; the great things of
God’s law are forgotten, and a kind of mongrel mixture of Arminianism
and Calvinism is the delight of the present age. And hence the Lord hath
forsaken many of his tabernacles and left the house of his covenant, and he
will leave it till again the trumpet gives a certain sound. For wherever there
is not the old gospel we shall find “Ichabod” written upon the church walls
ere long. The old truth of the Covenanters, the old truth of the Puritans,
the old truth of the Apostles, is the only truth that will stand the test of
time. and never need to be altered to suit a wicked and ungodly generation.
Christ Jesus preaches to-day the same as when he preached upon the
mount; he hath not changed his doctrines; men may ridicule and laugh, but
still they stand the same — semper idem written upon every one of them.
They shall not be removed or altered.

Let the Christian remember that this is equally true of the promises. Let the
sinner remember this is just as true of the threatenings. Let us each
recollect that not one word can be added to this Sacred Book. nor one
letter taken away from it; for as Christ Jesus is yet the same, so is his
Gospel, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever.

I have thus briefly opened the text, not in its fullest meanings, but still
enough to enable the Christian at his own leisure to see into thee depth
without a bottom — the immutability of Christ Jesus the Lord.

II. And now comes in one of crooked gait, with hideous aspect — one
that hath as many lives as a cat, and that cannot be killed anyhow, though
many a great gun hath been shot against him. His name is old Mr.
Incredulity — unbelief; and he begins his miserable oration by declaring,
“How can that be true? ‘Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and
for ever.’ Why, yesterday Christ was all sunshine to me — to-day I am in
distress!” Stop, Mr. Unbelief; I beg you to remember that Christ is not
changed. You have changed yourself, for you have said in your very
accusation that yesterday you rejoiced, but to-day you are in distress. All
that may happen, and yet there may be no change in Christ The sun may be
the same always though one hour may be cloudy, and the next bright with
golden light; yet there is no proof that the sun has changed. ‘Tis even so
with Christ.

“If to-day he deigns to bless us
With a sense of pardoned sin,
He to-morrow may distress us,
Make us feel the plague within.
All to make us,
Sick of self and fond of him.”

There is no change in him.

“Immutable his will
Though dark may be my frame,
His loving heart is still
Unchangeably the same.
My soul through many changes goes,
His love no variation knows.”

Your frames are no proof that Christ changes: they are only proof that you
change.

But saith old Unbelief again — “Surely God has changed: you look at the
old saints of ancient times. What happy men they were! How highly
favored of their God! How well God provided for them! But now, sir,
when I am hungry, no ravens come and bring me bread and meat in the
morning, and bread and meat in the evening. When I am thirsty, no water
leaps out of the rock to supply my thirst. It is said of the children of Israel
that their clothes waxed not old, but I have a hole in my coat to-day, and
where I shall get another garment I know not. When they marched through
the desert he suffered no man to hurt them; but, sir, I am continually beset
by enemies. It is true of me as it says in the Scriptures, ‘And the
Ammonites distressed Israel at the coming in of the year;’ for they are
distressing me. Why, sir, I see my friends die in clouds; there are no fiery
chariots to carry God’s Elijahs to heaven now. I lost my son; no prophet
laid upon him and gave him life again; no Jesus met me at the city gates, to
give me back my son from the gloomy grave. No, sir, these are evil times;
the light of Jesus Christ has become dim, if he walks among the golden
candlesticks, yet still it is not as he used to do. And worse than that, sir, I
have heard my father talk of the great men that were in the age gone by: I
have heard the names of Romaine, and Toplady, and Scott; I have heard of
Whitfields and of Bunyans; and even but a few years ago I heard talk of
such men as Joseph Irons — solemn and earnest preachers of a full gospel.
But where are those men now? Sir, we have fallen upon an age of
drivellings; men have died out, and we have only a few dwarfs left us; there
are none that walk with the giant tramp and the colossal tread of the
mighty fathers, like Owen, and Howe, and Baxter, and Charnock. We are
all little men. Jesus Christ is not dealing with us as he did with our fathers.”
Stop, Unbelief, a minute: let me remind thee that the ancient people of God
had their trials too. Know ye not what the apostle Paul says? “For thy sake
we are killed all the day long.” Now, if there be any change it is a change
for the better; for you have not yet “resisted unto blood, striving against
death”

But remember that still that does not affect Christ; for neither nakedness
nor famine, nor sword, have separated us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord. It is true that you have no fiery chariot; but then the
angels carry you to Jesus’ bosom, and that is as well. It is true no ravens
bring you food, it is quite as true you get your food somehow or other. It
is quite certain that no rock gushes out with water, but still your water has
been sure. It is true your child has not been raised from the dead, but you
remember that David had a child that was not raised any more than yours.
You have the same consolation as he had: “I shall go to him, he shall not
return to me.” You say that you have more heart-rendings than the saints
had of old. It is your ignorance that makes you say so. Holy men of old
said, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me?” Even prophets had to say — “Thou hast made me drunken with
wormwood, and broken my teeth with gravel stones.” Oh, you are
mistaken: your days are not more full of trouble than the days of Job, you
are not more vexed by the wicked than was Lot of old, you have not more
temptations to make you angry than had Moses; and certainly your way is
not half so rough as the way of your blessed Lord. The very fact that you
have troubles is a proof of his faithfulness; for you have got one half of his
legacy, and you will have the other half. You know that Christ’s last will
and testament has two portions in it. “In the world ye shall have
tribulation:” you have got that. The next clause is — “In me ye shall have
peace.” You have that too. “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the
world.” That is yours also.

And then you say that you have fallen upon a bad age with regard to
ministers. It may be so; but remember, the promise is true still. “Though I
take away from thee bread and water yet will I never take away thy
pastors.” You have still such as you have — still some that are faithful to
God and to his covenant, and who do not forsake the truth and though the
day may be dark, yet it is not so dark as days have been; and besides
remember, what you say to day is just what your forefathers said. Men in
the days of Toplady looked back to the days of Whitfield; men in the days
of Whitfield looked back to the days of Bunyan; men in the days of Bunyan
wept, because of the days of Wycliffe, and Calvin, and Luther, and men
then wept for the days of Augustine and Chrysostom. Men in those days
wept for the days of the Apostles; and doubtless men in the days of the
Apostles wept for the days of Jesus Christ; and no doubt some in the days
of Jesus Christ were so blind as to wish to return to the days of prophesy,
and thought more of the days of Elijah then they did of the most glorious
day of Christ. Some men look more to the past than the present. Rest
assured, that Jesus Christ is the same to-day as he was yesterday, and he
will be the same for ever.

Mourner, be glad! I have heard of a little girl who, when her father died,
saw her mother weeping immoderately. Day after day, and week after
week, her mother refused to be comforted. and the little girl stepped up to
her mother, and putting her little hand inside her mother’s hand, looked up
in her face, and said, “Mamma, is God dead? Is God dead, mamma ?” And
her mother thought, “Surely, no.” The child seemed to say “Thy maker is
thy husband; the Lord of hosts is his name. So you may dry your tears, I
have a father in heaven and you have a husband still” Oh! ye saints that
have lost your gold and your silver; ye have got treasure in heaven, where
no moth nor rust doth corrupt, where no thieves break through and steal!
Ye that are sick to-day, ye that have lost health, remember the day is
coming when all that shall be made up to you, and when ye shall find that
the flame has not hurt you, it has but consumed your dross and refined
your gold. Remember, Jesus Christ is “the same to-day, yesterday, and for
ever.”

III. And now I must be brief in drawing one or two sweet conclusions
from that part of the text.

First, then, if he be the same to-day as yesterday, my soul, set not thy
affections upon these changing things, but set thine heart upon him. O my
heart, build not thine house upon the sandy pillars of a world that soon
must past away, but build thy hopes upon this rock, which when the ram
descends and floods shall come, shall stand immovably secure. O my soul, I
charge thee, lay up thy treasure in this secure granary. O my heart, I bid
thee now put thy treasure where thou canst never lose it. Put it in Christ;
put all thine affections in his person, all thy hope in his glory, all thy trust in
his efficacious blood, all thy joy in his presence, and then thou wilt have
put thyself and put thine all where thou canst never lose anything, because
it is secure. Remember, O my heart, that the time is coming when all things
must fade, and when thou must part with all. Death’s gloomy night must
soon put out thy sunshine; the dark flood must soon roll between thee and
all thou hast. Then put thine heart with him who will never leave thee trust
thyself with him who will go with thee through the black and surging
current of death’s stream, and who will walk with thee up the steep hills of
heaven and make thee sit together with him in heavenly places for ever.
Go, tell thy secrets to that friend that sticketh closer than a brother. My
heart, I charge thee, trust all thy concerns with him who never can be taken
from thee, who will never leave thee, and who will never let thee leave him,
even “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” That is
one lesson.

Well, then, the next. If Jesus Christ be always the same, then, my soul,
endeavor to imitate him. Be thou the same too. Remember that if thou
hadst more faith, thou wouldst be as happy in the furnace as on the
mountain of enjoyment. Thou wouldst be as glad in famine as in plenty,
thou wouldst rejoice in the Lord when the olive yielded no oil, as well as
when the vat was bursting and overflowing its brim. If thou hadst more
confidence in thy God, thou wouldst have far less of tossings up and down;
and if thou hadst greater nearness to Christ thou wouldst have less
vacillation. Yesterday thou couldst pray with all the power of prayer;
perhaps if thou didst always live near thy master, thou mightest always
have the same power on thy knees. One time thou canst bid defiance to the
rage of Satan, and thou canst face a frowning world; to-morrow thou wilt
run away like a craven. But if thou didst always remember him who
endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, thou mightest always
be firm and stedfast in thy mind. Beware of being like a weather-cock.
Seek of God, that his law may be written on your hearts as if it were
written in stone, and not as if it were written in sand. Seek that his grace
may come to you like a river and not like a brook that fails. Seek that you
may keep your conversation always holy; that your course may be like the
shining light that tarries not, but that burneth brighter and brighter until the
fullness of the day. Be ye like Christ — ever the same.

Again: if Christ be always the same, Christian, rejoice! Come what may
thou art secure.

“Let mountains from their seats be hurled
Down to the deeps and buried there;
Convulsions shake the solid world;
Our faith shall never need to fear.”

If kingdoms should go to rack the Christian need not tremble. Just for a
minute imagine a scene like this. Suppose for the next three days the sun
should not rise; suppose the moon should be turned into a clot of blood,
and thine no more upon the world; imagine that a darkness that might be
felt, brooded over all men; imagine next that all the world did tremble in an
earthquake till every tower and house and hut fell down: imagine next that
the sea forgot its place and leaped upon the earth, and that the mountains
ceased to stand, and began to tremble from their pedestals; conceive after
that that a blazing comet streamed across the sky — that the thunder
bellowed incessantly — that the lightnings without a moment’s pause
followed one the other; conceive then that thou didst behold divers terrible
sights fiendish ghosts and grim spirits. imagine next, that a trumpet, waxing
exceeding loud, did blow, that there were heard the shrieks of men dying
and perishing; imagine, that in the midst of all this confusion there was to
be found a saint. My friend, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and
for ever,” would keep him as secure amidst all these horrors as we are today.
Oh I rejoice! I have pictured the worst that can come. Then you
would be secure. Come what may then, you are safe, while Jesus Christ is
the same.

And now, last of all, if Jesus Christ be “the same yesterday, to lay, and for
ever,” what sad work this is for the ungodly! Ah! sinner, when he was on
earth he said, “Their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.” When
he stood upon the mount he said, “It were better to enter life halt or
maimed, than having two hands or two feet to be cast into hell fire.” As a
man on earth, he said, that the goats should be on the left, and that he
would say to them. “Depart, ye cursed.” Sinner, he will be as good as his
Word. He has said, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” He will damn
you if you believe not, depend upon it. He has never broken a promise yet;
he will never break a threatening. That same truth which makes us
confident to day that the righteous shall go away into everlasting life
should make you quite as confident that unbelievers shall go into eternal
misery. If he had broken his promise he might break his threatening; but as
he has kept one he will keep the other. Do not hope that he will change, for
change he will not. Think not that the fire which he said was unquenchable
will after all be extinguished. No, within a few more years, my hearer, if
thou dost not repent, thou wilt find that every jot and every letter of the
threatenings of Jesus will be fulfilled; and, mark thee, fulfilled in thee. Liar,
he said, “All liars shall have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and
brimstone.” He will not deceive you. Drunkard, he has said, “Ye know that
no drunkard hath eternal life.” He will not belie his word. You shall not
have eternal life. He has said, “The nations that forget God shall be cast
into hell.” All ye that forget religion, moral people you may be, he will
keep his word to you; he will cast you into hell. O “kiss the Son lest he be
angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little;
blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” Come, sinner, bow thy
knee; confess thy sin and leave it; and then come to him; ask him to have
mercy upon thee. He will not forget his promise — “Him that cometh unto
me I will in no wise cast out.” Come and try him. With all your sins about
you, come to him now. “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be
saved;” for this is my Master’s gospel, and I now declare it — “He that
believeth and is immersed shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be
damned.” God grant you grace to believe, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen.

“What have I done?” Jeremiah 8:6

PERHAPS no figure represents God in a more gracious light than those
figures of speech, which represent him as stooping from his throne, and as
coming down from heaven to attend to the wants and to behold the woes
of mankind. We must have love for that God, who, when Sodom and
Gomorrah were reeking with iniquity, would not destroy those cities,
although he knew their guilt and their wickedness, until he had made an
actual visitation to them and had sojourned for awhile in their streets.
Methinks we cannot help pouring out our heart in affection to that God, of
whom we are told that he inclines his ear from the highest glory, and puts it
to the lip of the faintest that breathes out the true desire. How can we resist
feeling that he is a God whom we must love, when we know that he
regards everything that concerns us, numbers the very hairs of our heads,
bids his angels protect our footsteps lest we dash our feet against stones,
marks our path and ordereth our ways. But especially is this great truth
brought near to man’s heart, when we recollect how attentive God is, not
merely to the temporal interests of his creatures, but to their spiritual
concerns. God is represented in Scripture as waiting to be gracious, or, in
the language of the parable, when his prodigals are yet a great way off he
sees them; he runs and falls upon their neck and kisses them. He is so
attentive to everything that is good, even In the poor sinner’s heart, that to
him there is music in a sigh, and beauty in a tear; and in this verse that I
have just read, he represents himself as looking upon man’s heart and
listening — listening, if possibly he may hear something that is good. “I
hearkened and heard; I listened; I stood still, and I attended to them.” And
how amiable does God appear, when he is represented as turning aside,
and as it were with grief in his heart, exclaiming “I did listen, I did hearken,
but they spake not aright; no man repented of his wickedness, saying,
‘What shall I do?’ “ Ah! my hearer, thou never hast a desire towards God
which does not excite God’s hope; thou dost never breathe a prayer
towards heaven which he does not notice; and though thou hast very often
uttered prayers which have been as the morning cloud and as the early dew
that soon passeth away, yet all these things have moved Jehovah’s bowels;
for he has been hearkening to thy cry and noticing the breathing of thy
soul, and though it all hath passed away, yet it did not pass away
unnoticed, for he remembers it even now. And oh! thou that art this day
seeking a Savior, remember, that Savior’s eyes are on thy seeking soul to
day. Thou art not looking after one who cannot see thee; thou art coming
to thy Father, but thy Father sees thee even in the distance. It was but one
tear that trickled down thy cheek, but thy Father noticed that as a hopeful
sign; it was but one throb that went through thy heart just now during the
singing of the hymn, but God, the Loving, noticed even that, and thought
upon it as at least some omen that thou wast not yet quite hardened by sin
nor yet given up by love and mercy.

The text is “What have I done?” I shall just introduce that by a few words
of affectionate persuasion, urging all now present to ask that question:
secondly, I shall give them a few words of assistance in trying to answer it;
and when I have so done, I shall finish by a few sentences of solemn
admonition to those who have had to answer the question against
themselves.

I. First, then, a few words of EARNEST PERSUASION, requesting everyone
now present, and more especially every unconverted person, to ask this
question of himself, and answer it solemnly: “What have I done?”
Few men like to take the trouble to review their own lives; most men are
so near bankruptcy that they are ashamed to look at their own books. The
great mass of mankind are like the silly ostrich, which, when hard pressed
by the hunters, buries its head in the sand and shuts its eyes and then
thinks, because it does not see its pursuers, that therefore it is safe. The
great mass of mankind, I repeat, are ashamed to review their own
biographies. and if conscience and memory together could turn joint
authors of a history of their lives throughout, they would buy a huge iron
clasp and a padlock to it, and look the volume up, for they dare not read it.
They know it to be a book full of lamentation and woe, which they dare
not read, and still go on in their iniquities. I have therefore a hard task in
endeavoring to persuade you one and all to take down that book, and be its
pages few or many, be they white or be they black, I have some difficulty
in getting you to read them through. But may the Holy Spirit persuade you
now, so that you may answer this question, “What have I done?” For
remember, my dear friend, that searching yourself can do you no hurt. No
tradesman ever gets the poorer by looking to his books. he may find
himself to be poorer than he thought he was, but it is not the looking to the
books that hath hurt him; he hath hurt himself by some ill trading before.
Better, my friend, for you to know the past whilst there is yet time for
repairing it, than that you should go blindfolded, hoping to enter the gates
of Paradise and find out your mistake when alas! it is too late, because the
door is shut. There is nothing to be lost by taking stock; you cannot be any
the worse for a little self examination. This of itself shall be one strong
argument to induce you to do it; but remember you may be a great deal the
better; for suppose your affairs are all right with God, why then you may
make good cheer and comfort yourself, for he that is right with his God has
no cause to be sad. But ah! remember there are many probabilities that you
are wrong. There are so many in this world that are deceived, that there are
many chances that you are deceived too. You may have a name to live and
yet be dead; you may be like John Bunyan’s tree, of which he said “ ‘twas
fair to look upon and green outside, but the inside of it was rotten enough
to be tinder for the devil’s tinder box.” You may this day thus stand before
yourself and fellow creatures well whitewashed, and exceeding fair, but
you may be like that Pharisee of whom Christ said, “Thou art a whited
sepulcher, for inwardly thou art full of rottenness and dead men’s bones.”
Now, man, however thou mayest wish to be self-deceived, for my own part
I feel that I would a thousand times rather know my own state really than
have the most pleasing conceptions about it and find myself deceived.
Many a time have I solemnly prayed that prayer, “Lord, help me to know
the worst of my own case; if I be still an apostate from thee, without God
and without Christ, at least let me be honest to myself and know what I
am.” Remember, my friend, that the time you have for self-examination is,
after all, very short. Soon thou wilt know the great secret. I perhaps may
not say words rough enough to rend off the mask which thou now hast
upon thee, but there is one called Death who will stand no compliment.

You may masquerade it out to-day in the dress of the saint, but death will
soon strip you, and you must stand before the judgment seat after death
has discovered you in all your nakedness, be that naked innocence or naked
guilt. Remember, too, though you may deceive yourself, you will not
deceive your God. You may have light weights, and the beam of the scale
in which you weigh yourself may not be honest, and may not therefore tell
the truth; but when God shall try you he will make no allowances; when
the everlasting Jehovah grasps the balances of justice and puts his law into
one scale, ah, sinner, how wilt thou tremble when he shall put thee into the
other; for unless Christ be thy Christ thou wilt be found light weight —
thou wilt be weighed in the balances and found wanting, and be cast away
for ever.

Oh! what words shall I adopt to induce every one of you now to search
yourselves! I know the various excuses that some of you will make. Some
of you will plead that you are members of churches, and that, therefore, all
is right with you. Perhaps you look across from the gallery, and you say to
me, “Spurgeon, your hands baptized me but this year into the Lord Jesus,
and you have often passed to me the sacramental bread and wine.” Ah, my
hearer, I know that and I have baptized, I fear, many of you that the Lord
hath never baptized, and some of you have been received into the churchfellowship
on earth who were never received by God. If Jesus Christ had
one hypocrite in his twelve, how many hypocrites must I have here in
nearly twelve hundred? Ah! my hearers, in this age it is a very easy thing to
make a profession of religion: many churches receive candidates into their
fellowship without examination at all; I have had such come to me, and I
have told them, “I must treat you just the same as if you came from the
world,” because they said, “I never saw the minister, I wrote a note to the
Church, and they took me in,” Verily, in this age of profession, a man may
make the highest profession in the world, and yet be at last found with
damned apostates. Do not put off the question for that; and do not say, “I
am too busy to attend to my spiritual concerns; there is time enough yet.”
Many have said that, and before their “time enough” has come, they have
found themselves where time shall be no more. Oh! thou that sayest thou
hast time enough, how little dost thou know how near death is to thee.
There are some present that will not see New Year’s Day; there is every
probability that a very large number will never see another year. Oh, may
the Lord our God prepare us each for death and for judgment, and bless
this morning’s exhortation to our preparation, by leading us to ask the
question — “What have I done?”

II. Now, then, I am to help you to answer the question — “What have I
done?”

Christian, true Christian, I have little to say to thee this morning. I will not
multiply words, but leave the enquiry with thine own conscience. What
hast thou done? I hear thee reply, “I have done nothing to save myself, for
that was done for me in the eternal covenant, from before the foundation of
the world. I have done nothing to make a righteousness for myself, for
Christ said, ‘It is finished;’ I have done nothing to procure heaven by my
merits, for all that Jesus did for me before I was born.” But say, brother,
what hast thou done for him who died to save thy wretched soul? What
hast thou done for his church? What hast thou done for the salvation of the
world? What hast thou done to promote thine own spiritual growth in
grace? Ah! I might hit some of you that are true Christians very hard here;
but I will leave you with your God. God will chastise his own children. I
will, however, put a pointed question. Are there not many Christians now
present who cannot recollect that they have been the means of the salvation
of one soul during this year. Come, now; turn back: Have you any reason
to believe that directly or indirectly you have been made the means this
year of the salvation of a soul? I will go further. There are some of you
who are old Christians, and I will ask you this question: Have you any
reason to believe that ever since you were converted you have ever been
the means of the salvation of a soul? It was reckoned in the past, in the
times of the patriarchs, to be a disgrace to a woman that she had no
children; but what disgrace it is to a Christian to have no spiritual children
— to have none born unto God by his instrumentality! And yet there are
some of you here that have been spiritually barren, and have never brought
one convert to Christ; you have not one star in your crown of glory, and
must wear a starless crown in heaven. Oh! I think I see the joy and
gladness with which a good child of God looked upon me last week, when
we had heard some one who had been converted to God by her
instrumentality. I took her by the hand and said, “Well, now, you have
reason to thank God.” “Yes, sir,” she said, “I feel a happy and an honored
woman now. I have never, that I know of before been the means of
bringing a soul to Christ.” And the good woman looked so happy the tears
were in her eyes for gladness. How many have you brought during this
year? Come, Christian, what have you done? Alas! alas! you have not been
barren fig-trees, but still your fruit is such that it cannot be seen. You may
be alive unto God; but how many of you have been very unprofitable, and
exceedingly unfruitful? And do not think that while I thus deal hardly with
you I would escape myself. No, I ask myself the question, “What have I
done?” And when I think of the zeal of Whitfield, and of the earnestness of
many of those great evangelists of former times, I stand here astounded at
myself, and I ask myself the question, “What have I done?” And I can only
answer it with some confusion of face. How often have I preached to you,
my hearers, the Word of God, and yet how seldom have I wept over you as
a pastor should! How often ought I to have warned you of the wrath to
come, when I have forgotten to be so earnest as I might have been. I fear
lest the blood of souls should lie at my door, when I shall come to be
judged of my God at last. I beseech you, pray for your minister in this
thing, that he may be forgiven, if there has ever been a lack of earnestness
and energy, and prayerfulness, and pray that during the next year I may
always preach as though I ne’er might preach again,

“A dying man to dying men.”

I heard the moralist whilst I was questioning the Christian, say, “What have
I done? Sir, I have done all I ought to have done. You may, as a Gospeller,
stand there and talk to me about sins; but I tell you Sir, I have done all that
was my duty; I have always attended my church or chapel regularly every
Sunday as ever a man or woman could; I have always read prayers in the
family, and I always say prayers before I go to bed and when I get up in the
morning. I don’t know that I owe anybody anything, or that I have been
unkind to anybody; I give a fair shave to the poor, and I think if good
works have any merit I certainly have done a great deal.” Quite right, my
friend, very right indeed, if good works have any merit; but then it is very
unfortunate that they have not any; for our good works, if we do them to
save ourselves by them, are no better than our sins. You might as well
hope to go to heaven by cursing and swearing, as by the merits of your
own good works; for although good works are infinitely preferable to
cursing and swearing in a moral point of view, yet there is no more merit in
one than there is in the other, though there is less sin in one than in the
other. Will you please to remember then, that all you have been doing all
these years, is good for nothing ? “Well, but, Sir, I have trusted in Christ.”
Now, stop! Let me ask you a question. Do you mean to say, that you have
trusted partly in Christ and partly in your own good works? “Yes, sir.”
Well, then, let me tell you, the Lord Jesus Christ will never be a makeweight;
you must take Christ wholly, or else no Christ at all, for Christ will
never go shaves with you in the work of salvation. So, I repeat, all you
have ever done is good for nothing. You have been building a card house,
and the tempest will blow it down; you have been building a house upon
the sand, and when the rains descend and the floods come, the last vestige
of it will be swept away for ever. Hear ye the word of the Lord! “By the
works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.” “Cursed is every one
that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to
do them,” and in as much as you have not continued in all things that are
written in the law you are transgressors of the law, and you are under the
curse, and all that the law has to say to you is, “Cursed, cursed, cursed!
Your morality is of no help to you whatever, as to eternal things.”
I turn to another character. He says, “Well, I don’t trust in my morality nor
in anything else; I say,

‘Begone, dull care, I pray thee begone from me.’

I have nothing to do with talking about eternity, as you would have me.
But, sir, I am not a bad fellow after all. It is a very little that I ever do
amiss; now and then a peccadillo, just a little folly, but neither my country,
nor my friends nor my own conscience, can say anything against me. True,
I am none of your saints; I don’t profess to be too strict I may go a little
too far sometimes, but it is only a little, and I dare say we shall be able to
set all matters straight before the end comes.” Well, friend, but I wish you
had asked yourself the question, “What have I done?” — it strikes me that
if each of you would just take off that film, that films your heart and your
life over, you might see a grievous leprosy lurking behind what you have
done. “Well, for the matter of that” says one, “perhaps I may have taken a
glass or two too much sometimes.” Stop a bit! What is the name of that?
Stutter as much as you like! Out with it! What is the name of it? “Why, it is
just a little mirth, sir.” Stop: let us have the right name of it. What do you
call it in any one else? “Drunkeness, I suppose.” Says another, “I have been
a little loose in my talk sometimes.” What is that? “It has been just a merry
spree.” Yes, but please to call it what it ought to be called — lascivious
conversation. Write that down. “Oh! no, sir; things are looking serious.”
Yes, they are indeed; but they do not look any more serious than they
really are. Sometimes you have been out on the Sabbath day, haven’t you?
“Oh! yes; but that has been only now and then — just sometimes.” Yes,
but let us put it down what it is, and we will see what the list comes to.
Sabbath-breaking! “Stop,” you say, “I have gone no further sir, certainly I
have gone no further.” I suppose in your conversation, sometime; during
your life, you have quoted texts of Scripture to make jokes of them haven’t
you? And sometimes you have cried out, when you have been a little
surprised, “Lord have mercy upon me!” and such things. I don’t venture to
say you swear: though there is a Christian way of swearing that some
people get into, and they think it is not quite swearing, but what it is
besides nobody knows, and so we will put it down as swearing — cursing
and swearing. “Oh! sir, it was only when somebody trod on my toes, or I
was angry.” Never mind, put it down by its right name: we shall get a
pretty good list against you by-and-bye. I suppose that in trade you never
adulterate your articles. “Well that is a matter of business in which you
ought not to interfere.” Well, it so happens I am going to interfere — and
if you please, we will call it by its right name — stealing. We will put that
down. I suppose you have never been hard with a debtor, have you? You
have never at any time wished that you were richer, and sometimes half
wished that your opposite neighbor would lose part of his custom, so that
you might have it? Well, we will call it by its right name: that is
“covetousness, which is idolatry.” Now, the list seems to be getting black
indeed. Besides that, how have you spent all this year; and though you
have pretended sometimes to say prayers, have you ever really prayed? No,
you have not. Well, then there is prayerlessness to put down. You have
sometimes read the Bible, you have sometimes listened to the ministry; but
have you not, after all, let all these things pass away? Then I want to know
whether that is not despising God, and whether we must not put it down
under that name. Truly, we need go but very little further; for the list
already when summed up is most fearful, and few of us can escape from
sins so great as these, if our conscience be but a little awake.

But there is one man here who has grown very careless and indifferent to
every point of morality. and he says, “Ah! young man, I could tell you what
I have done during the year.” Stop, sir, I don’t particularly wish to know
just now; you may as well tell it to yourself when you get home. There are
young people here: it would not do them much good to know what you
have done perhaps. You are no better than you should be, some people
say; which means, you are so bad they would not like to say what you are.
Do you suppose in all this congregation we have no debauched men —
none that indulge in the vilest sin and lust? Why, God’s angel seems even
now to be flying through our midst, and touching the conscience of some,
to let them know in what iniquities they have indulged during the year. I
pray God that my just simply alluding to them may be the means of
startling your conscience. Ah! ye may hide your sins; the coverlet of
darkness may be your shelter; you may think they shall never be
discovered; but remember, every sin that you have done shall be read
before the sun, and men and angels shall hear it in the day of final account.
Ah! my hearer, be thou moral or be thou dissolute, I beseech thee, answer
this question solemnly to-day: “What have I done?” It would be as well if
you took a piece of paper when you went home, and just wrote down what
you have done from last January to December; and if some of you do not
get frightened at it I must say you have got pretty strong nerves, and are
not likely to be frightened at much yet.

Now I specially address myself to the unconverted man, and I would help
him to answer this question in another point of view. “What have I done?”
Ah! man, thou that livest in sin thou that art a lover of pleasure more than a
lover of God, what hast thou done? Dost thou not know that one sin is
enough to damn a soul for ever? Hast thou never read in Holy Scripture
that cursed is he that sins but once? How damned then, art thou by the
myriad sins of this one year! Recall, I beseech thee, the sins of thy youth
and thy former transgressions up till now; and if one sin would ruin thee for
ever, how ruined art thou now! Why man, one wave of sin may swamp
thee. What will these oceans of thy guilt do? One witness against thee will
be enough to condemn thee: behold the crowds of follies and of crimes
now gathered round the judgment sea that have gone before thee into
judgment. How wilt thou escape from their testimonies, when God shall
call thee to his bar? What hast thou done? Come, man, answer this
question. There are many consequences involved in thy sin, and in order to
answer this question rightly thou must reply to every consequence, what
hast thou done to thine own soul? Why, thou hast destroyed it; thou hast
done thy best to ruin it for ever, For thine own poor soul thou hast been
digging dungeons; thou hast been piling faggots; thou hast been forging
chains of iron — faggots with which to burn it, and fetters with which to
bind it for ever.

Remember, thy sins are like sowing for a harvest. What a harvest is that
which thou hast sown for thy poor soul! Thou hast sown the wind, thou
shalt reap the whirlwind; thou hast sown iniquity, thou shalt reap
damnation. But what hast thou done against the gospel? Remember, how
many times this year thou hast heard it preached. Why since thy birth there
have been waggon loads of sermons wasted on thee. Thy parents prayed
for thee in thy youth, thy friends instructed thee till thou didst come to
manhood. Since then how many a tear has been wept by the minister for
thee! How many an earnest appeal has been shot into thine heart! But thou
hast rent out the arrow. Ministers have been concerned to save thee, and
thou hast never been concerned about thyself. What hast thou done against
Christ? Remember, Christ has been a good Christ to sinners here; but as
there is nothing that burns so well as that soft substance oil, so there is
nothing that will be so furious as that gentle-hearted Savior, when he
comes to be your Judge. Fiercer than a lion on his prey is rejected love.
Despise Christ on the cross, and it will be a terrible thing to be judged by
Christ on his throne.

But again: what have you done for your children this year? Oh! there be
some here present that have been doing all they could to ruin their
children’s souls. ‘Tis solemn what responsibility rests upon a father; and
what shall be said of a drunken father? — the father that sets his children
an example of drunkenness. Swearer, what have you done for your family?
Haven’t you too been twisting the rope for their eternal destruction? Will
they not be sure to do as you do? Mother you have several children, but
this year you have never prayed for one of them never put your arms round
their necks as they kneeled at their little chair at night and said, “Our
Father;” you have never told them of Jesus that loved children and once
became a child like them. Ah, then, you too have neglected your children. I
remember a mother who was converted to God in her old age, and she said
to me — and I shall never forget the woman’s grief — “God has forgiven
me, but I shall never forgive myself. For, sir,” she said, “I have nourished
and brought up children, but I have done it without any respect to
religion.” And then she burst into tears, and said, “I have been a cruel
mother, sir; I have been a wretch!” “Why,” said I, “my good woman, you
have brought your children up.” “Yes,” said she, “my husband died when
they were young, and left me with six of them, and these hands have
earned their bread and found them clothes, no one,” she said, “can accuse
me of being unkind to them in anything but this; but this is the worst of all,
I have been a cruel mother to them, for while I fed their bodies I neglected
their souls.” But some have gone further than this. Ah, young man, you
have not only done your best this year to damn yourself, but you have done
your best to damn others! Remember, last January when you took that
young man into the tavern for the first time, and laughed at all his boyish
scruples as you called them, and told him to drink away as you did.
Remember, when in the darkness of night you first led astray one young
man whose principles were virtuous, and who had not known lust unless
you had revealed it to him. you said at the time, “Come with me, I’ll show
you London life, I’ll let you see pleasure!” That young man, when he first
came to your shop, used to go to the house of God on Sunday, and seemed
to bid fair for heaven — “Ah,” you say, “I have laughed religion out of
Jackson, he doesn’t go anywhere on a Sunday now except for a spree, and
he is just as merry as any of us.” Ah! sir, and you will have two hells when
you are damned; you will have your own hell and his too, for he will look
through the lurid flames upon you, and say, “Mayhap, I had never been
here if you had not brought me here!” And ah! seducer, what eyes will be
those that will glare at you through hell’s horror? — The eyes of one
whom you led into iniquity! what double hells they will be to you as they
glare on you like two stars, whose light is fury, and wither your blood for
ever! Pause ye that have led others astray, and tremble now. I paused
myself, and prayed to God when first I knew a Savior. that he would help
me to lead those to Christ, that I had ever in any way led astray. And I
remember George Whitfield says when he began to pray, his first prayer
was that God would convert those with whom he used to play at cards and
waste his Sundays. “And blessed be God,” he says, “I got everyone of
them.”

O my God, can I not detect in some face here astonishment and terror.
Doth no man’s knees knock together? Doth no man’s heart quail within
him because of his iniquity? Surely it cannot be so, else were your hearts
turned to steel, and your bowels become as iron in the midst of you.
Surely, if it be so, the words of God are most certainly true, wherein he
saith in the seventh verse of this chapter — “The stork in the heaven
knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the
swallow, observe the time of their coming, but my people know not the
judgment of the Lord,” and certainly that prophet was true who said, “The
ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but my people doth
not know, Israel doth not consider.” Oh, are ye so brutish as to let the
reflections of that guilt pass over you without causing astonishment and
terror? Then, surely we who feel our guilt have need to bend our knees for
you, and pray that God might yet bring you to know yourselves; for, living
and dying as you are, hardened and without hope, your lot must be horrible
in the extreme.

How happy should I be if I might hope that the great mass of you could
accompany me in this humble confession of our faith; may I speak as if I
were speaking for each one of you? It shall be at your option, either to
accept what I say, or to reject it; but, I trust, the great multitude of you will
follow me. “Oh, Lord! I this morning confess that my sins are greater than
I can bear; I have deserved thy hottest wrath, and thine infinite displeasure;
and I hardly dare to hope that thou canst have mercy upon me, but
inasmuch as thou didst give thy Son to die upon the cross for sinners, thou
hast also said, ‘Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth,’
Lord I look to thee this morning, though I never looked before, yet I look
now; though I have been a slave of sin to this moment, yet Lord accept me
sinner though I be, through the blood and righteousness of thy Son, Jesus
Christ. Oh Father, frown not on me, thou mayest well do so, but I plead
that promise which says, ‘Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise
cast out.’ Lord, I come —

‘Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that thou bid’st me come to thee;
O Lamb of God, I come.’

‘My faith doth lay its hand,
On that dear head of thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin.’

Lord accept me, Lord pardon me, and take me as I am, from this time forth
and for ever, to be thy servant whilst I live, to be thy redeemed when I
die.” Can you say that? Did not many a heart say it? Did I not hear many a
lip in silence utter it? Be of good cheer, my brother, my sister, if that came
from your heart, you are as safe as the angels of heaven, for you are a child
of God, and you shall never perish.

III. Now I have to address a few words of AFFECTIONATE ADMONITION,
and then I have done. It is a very solemn thing to think how years roll
away. I never spent a shorter year in my life than this one, and the older I
grow the shorter the years get; and you, old men, I dare say, look back on
your sixty and seventy years, and you say, “Ah young man, they will seem
shorter soon.” No doubt they will. “So teach us to number our days, O
God, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” But is it not a solemn
thing that there is another year nearly gone; and yet many of you are
unsaved? You are just were you were last year. No, you are not, you are
nearer death, and you are nearer hell, except you repent; and perhaps even
what I have said this morning will have no effect upon you. You are not
altogether hardened, for you have had many serious impressions. Scores of
times you have wept under discourses and yet all has been in vain, for you
are what you were. I beseech you answer this question, “What have I
done?” for remember there will be a time when you will ask this question,
but it will be too late. When is that — say you — on the death bed? No, it
is not too late there.

“While the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.”

But it will be too late to ask, “What have I done?” when the breath has
gone out of your body. Just suppose the monument as it used to be, before
they caged it round. Suppose a man going up the winding staircase to the
top, with a full determination to destroy himself. He has got on the outside
of the railings. Can you imagine him for a moment saying, “What have I
done?” just after he has taken his leap. Why, methinks some spirit in the air
might whisper, “Done? you have done what you can never undo. You are
lost — lost — lost!” Now, remember that you that have not Christ, are today
going up that spiral staircase; perhaps to-morrow you will be standing
in the article of death upon the pallisading, and when death has gotten you,
and you are just leaping from that monument of life down to the gulf of
despair, that question will be full of horror to you. “What have you done?”
But the answer for it will not be profitable, but full of terror Methinks, I
see a spirit launched upon the sea of eternity I hear it say “What have I
done?” It is plunged in flaming waves, and cries, “What have I done?” It
sees before it a long eternity; but it asks the question again, “What have I
done?” The dread answer comes: “Thou hast earned all this for thyself.
Thou knewest thy duty, but thou didst it not, Thou wast warned, but thou
didst despise the warning.” Ah! hear the doleful soliloquy of such a spirit.
The last great day is come; the flaming throne is set, and the great book is
opened. I hear the leaves as with terrible rustle they are turned over. I see
men motioned to the right or to the left, according to the result of that
great book. And what have I done? I know that to me sin will be
destruction for I have never sought a Savior. What is that? The Judge has
fixed his eye on me. Now it is on me turned. Will he say, “Depart ye
cursed,” unto me? Oh! let me be crushed for ever rather than bear that
sight. There is no noise, but the finger is lifted, and I am dragged out of the
crowd, and singly I stand before the Judge. He turns to my page, and
before he reads it my heart quakes within me. “Be it so,” says he, “it has
never been blotted with my blood. You despised my calls; you laughed at
my people; you would have none of my mercy; you said that you would
take the wages of unrighteousness. You shall have them, the wages of sin
is death.” Ah! me, and is he about to say, “Depart, ye cursed?” Yes, with a
voice louder than a thousand thunders, he says, “Depart, ye cursed into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Ah! it is all true
now. I laughed at the minister because he preached about hell; and here am
I in hell myself, Ah! I used to wonder why he wanted to frighten us so. Ah!
I would to God he had frightened me more, if he might but have frightened
me out of this place. But now here am I lost, and there is no escape. I am
in darkness so dark, there is not a ray of light can ever reach me. I am shut
up so close, that not one of the bolts and bars can ever be removed. I am
damned for ever. Ah! that is a dreary soliloquy. I cannot tell it to you. Oh!
if you were there yourselves, if you could only know what they feel, and
see what they endure, then would you wonder that I am not more earnest
in preaching the Gospel, and you would marvel, not that I wish to make
you weep, but that I did not weep far more myself and preach more
solemnly. Ah! my hearers as the Lord my God liveth, before whom I stand,
I shall one day stand acknowleged by your conscience as having been a
true witness unto you this morning; for there is not one of you here to-day
but will be without excuse if you perish. You have been warned, I have
warned you as earnestly as I can. I have no more powers to spend, no
more arts to try, no more persuasion that I can use. I can only conclude by
saying, I beseech you, fly to Jesus. I entreat you, as immortal spirits that
are bound for endless weal or woe, fly ye to Christ; seek for mercy at his
hands; trust in him and be saved; and at your peril reject my solemn
warning. Remember ye may reject it, but ye reject not me, but him that sent
me. Ye may despise it, but ye despise not me, but a greater than Moses,
even Jesus Christ the Lord; and when ye come before his bar. piercing will
be his language, and terrible his words, when he condemns you for ever,
for ever, for ever, without hope, for ever, for ever, for ever. May God
deliver us from that, for Jesus’ sake Amen.

“These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.”
Jude 1:19

WHEN a farmer comes to thrash out his wheat, and get it ready for the
market there are two things that he desires — that there may be plenty of
it, of the right sort, and that when he takes it to market, he may be able to
carry a clean sample there. He does not look upon the quantity alone; for
what is the chaff to the wheat ? He would rather have a little clean than he
would have a great heap containing a vast quantity of chaff, but less of the
precious corn. On the other hand, he would not so winnow his wheat as to
drive away any of the good grain, and so make the quantity less than it
need to be. He wants to have as much as possible — to have as little loss
as possible in the winnowing, and yet to have it as well winnowed as may
be. Now, that is what I desire for Christ’s Church, and what every
Christian will desire. We wish Christ’s church to be as large as possible.
God forbid that by any of our winnowing, we should ever cast away one of
the precious sons of Zion. When we rebuke sharply, we would be anxious
lest the rebuke should fall where it is not needed, and should bruise and
hurt the feelings of any who God hath chosen. But on the other hand, we
have no wish to see the church multiplied at the expense of its purity. We
do not wish to have a charity so large that it takes in chaff as well as
wheat: we wish to be just charitable enough to use the fan thoroughly to
purge God’s floor, but yet charitable enough to pick up the most shrivelled
ear of wheat, to preserve it for the Master’s sake, who is the husbandman.
I trust, in preaching this morning, God may help me so to discern between
the precious and the vile that I may say nothing uncharitable, which would
cut off any of God’s people from being part of his true and living and
visible church; and yet at the same time I pray that I may not speak so
loosely, and so without God’s direction, as to embrace any in the arms of
Christian affection whom the Lord hath not received in the eternal
covenant of his love.

Our text suggests to us three things: first, an inquiry — Have we the
Spirit? secondly, a caution — if we have not the spirit we are sensual;
thirdly, a suspicion — there are many persons that separate themselves.
Our suspicion concerning them is, that notwithstanding their extrasuperfine
profession, they are sensual, not having the Spirit; for our text
says, “These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the
Spirit.”

I. First, then, our text suggests AN INQUIRY — Have we the Spirit? This is
an inquiry so important, that the philosopher may well suspend all his
investigations to find an answer to this question on his own personal
account. All the great debates of politics, all the most engrossing subjects
of human discussion, may well stop to-day, and give us pause to ask
ourselves the solemn question — “Have I the Spirit?” For this question
does not deal with any externals of religion, but it deals with religion in its
most vital point. He that hath the Spirit, although he be wrong in fifty
things, being right in this, is saved; he that hath not the Spirit, be he never
so orthodox, be his creed as correct as Scripture- ay and in his morals
outwardly as pure as the law, is still unsaved; he is destitute of the essential
part of salvation — the Spirit of God dwelling in him.

To help us to answer this question, I shall try to set forth the effects of the
Spirit in our hearts under sundry Scriptural metaphors. Have I the Spirit? I
reply, And what is the operation of the, Spirit? How am I to discern it?
Now the Spirit operates in divers ways, all of them mysterious, and
supernatural, all of them bearing the real marks of his own power, and
having certain signs following whereby they may be discovered and
recognised.

1. The first work of the Spirit in the heart is a work during which the Spirit
is compared to the wind. You remember that when our Savior spoke to
Nicodemus he represented the first work of the Spirit in the heart as being
like the wind, “which bloweth where it listeth ;” “even so;” saith he, “is
every one that is born of the Spirit.” Now you know that the wind is a
most mysterious thing; and although there be certain definitions of it which
pretend to be explanations of the phenomenon, yet they certainly leave the
great question of how the wind blows, and what is the cause of its blowing
in a certain direction, where it was before. Breath within us, wind without
us, all motions of air, are to us mysterious. And the renewing work of the
Spirit in the heart is exceedingly mysterious. It is possible that at this
moment the Spirit of God may be breathing into some of the thousand
hearts before me; yet it would be blasphemous if any one should ask,
“Which way went the Spirit from God to such a heart? How entered it
there?” And it would be foolish for a person who is under the operation of
the Spirit to ask how it operates: thou knowest not where is the storehouse
of the thunder; thou knowest not where the clouds are balanced; neither
canst thou know how the Spirit goeth forth from the Most High and enters
into the heart of man. It may be, that during a sermon two men are
listening to the same truth; one of them hears as attentively as the other and
remembers as much of it; the other is melted to tears or moved with
solemn thoughts; but the one though equally attentive, sees nothing in the
sermon, except, maybe, certain important truths well set forth; as for the
other, his heart is broken within him and his soul is melted. Ask me how it
is that the same truth has an effect upon the one, and not upon his fellow: I
reply, because the mysterious Spirit of the living God goes with the truth to
one heart and not to the other. The one only feels the force of truth, and
that may be strong enough to make him tremble, like Felix; but the other
feels the Spirit going with the truth, and that renews the man, regenerates
him, and causes him to pass into that gracious condition which is called the
state of salvation. This change takes place instantaneously. It is as
miraculous a change as any miracle of which we read in Scripture. It is
supremely supernatural. It may be mimicked, but no imitation of it can be
true and real. Men may pretend to be regenerated without the Spirit, but
regenerated they cannot be. It is a change so marvellous that the highest
attempts of man can never reach it. We may reason as long as we please,
but we cannot reason ourselves into regeneration; we may meditate till our
hairs are grey with study; but we cannot meditate ourselves into the new
birth. That is worked in us by the sovereign will of God alone.

“The Spirit, like some heavenly wind,
Blows on the sons of flesh,
Inspires us with a heavenly mind,
And forms the man afresh.”

But ask the man how: he cannot tell you. Ask him when: he may recognize
the time, but as to the manner thereof he knoweth no more of it than you
do. It is to him a mystery.

You remember the story of the valley of vision. Ezekiel saw dry bones
lying scattered here and there in the valley. The command came to Ezekiel,
“Say to :these dry bones, live.” He said, “Live,” and the bones came
together, “bone to his bone, and flesh came upon them;” but as yet they did
not live. “Prophesy, son of man; say to the wind, breathe upon these slain,
that they may live.” They looked just like life: there was flesh and blood
there; there were the eyes and hands and feet; but when Ezekiel had spoken
there was a mysterious something given which men call life, and it was
given in a mysterious way, like the blowing of the wind. It is even so today.
Unconverted and ungodly persons may be very, moral and excellent;
they are like the dry bones, when they are put together and clothed with
flesh and blood. But to make them live spiritually it needs the divine
afflatus from the breath of the Almighty, the divine pneuma, the divine
Spirit, the divine wind should blow on them, and then they would live. Say,
my hearer, hast thou ever had any supernatural influence on thine Heart?
For if not I may seem to be harsh with thee, but I am faithful: if thou hast
never had more than nature in thy heart, thou art “in the gall of bitterness
and in the bonds of iniquity.” Nay, sir, sneer not at that utterance; it is as
true as this Bible, for tis from this Bible it was taken, and for proof thereof
hear thou me. “except a man be born again (from above) of water and of
the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” What sayest thou to that? It
is in vain for thee to talk of making thyself to be born again; thou canst not
be born again except by the Spirit, and thou must perish, unless thou art.
You see, then, the first effect of the Spirit, and by that you may answer the
question.

2. In the next place, the Spirit in the word of God is often compared to
fire. After the Spirit, like the wind, has made the dead sinner live, then
comes the Spirit like fire. Now, fire has a searching and tormenting power.
It is purifying, but it purifies by a terrible process. Now, after the Holy
Spirit has given us the life of Christianity, there immediately begins a
burning in our heart: the Lord searches and tries our reins, and lights a
candle within our spirits which discovers the wickedness of our nature, and
the loathsomeness of our iniquities. Say, my hearer, dost thou know
anything about that fire in thine heart? For if not, thou hast not yet received
the Spirit. To explain what I mean, let me just tell a piece of my own
experience, by way of illustrating the fiery effects of the Spirit. I lived
careless and thoughtless; I could indulge in sin as well as others, and did do
so. Sometimes my conscience pricked me, but not enough to make me
cease from vice. I could indulge in transgression, and I could love it: not so
much as others loved it — mine early training would not let me do that —
but still enough to prove that my heart was debased and corrupt. Once on a
time something more than conscience pricked me: I knew not then what it
was. I was like Samuel, when the Lord called him; I heard the voice, but I
knew not whence it came. A stirring began in my heart, and I began to feel
that in the sight of God I was a lost, ruined, and condemned sinner. That
conviction I could not shake off. Do what I might it followed me. If I
sought to amuse my mind and take it off from serious thoughts it was of no
use; I was obliged still to carry about with me a heavy burden on my back.
I went to my bed, and there I dreamed about hell, and about “the wrath to
come.” I woke up, and this dreary nightmare, this incubus, still brooded on
me. What could I do? I renounced first one vicious habit, then another: it
mattered not; all this was like pulling one firebrand from a flame, that fed
itself with blazing forests. Do what I might, my conscience found no rest.
Up to the house of God I went to hear the gospel: there was no gospel for
me; the fire burned but the more fiercely, and the very breath of the gospel
seemed to fan the flame. Away I went to my chamber and my closet to
pray: the heavens were like brass, and the windows of the sky were barred
against me. No answer could I get; the fire burned more vehemently. Then
I thought, “I would not live always; would God I had never been born!”
But I dared not die, for there was hell when I was dead; and I dared not
live, for life had become intolerable. Still the fire blazed right vehemently;
till at last I came to this resolve: “If there be salvation in Christ, I will have
it. I have nothing of my own to trust to; I do this hour, O God, renounce
my sin, and renounce my own righteousness too.” And the fire blazed
again, and burned up all my good works, ay, and my sins with them. And
then I saw that all this burning was to bring me to Christ. And oh! the joy
and gladness of my heart, when Jesus came and sprinkled water on the
flame, and said, “I have bought thee with my blood; put thy trust in me; I
will do for thee what thou canst not do for thyself; I will take thy sins
away; I will clothe thee with a spotless robe of righteousness; I will guide
thee all thy journey through, and land thee at last in heaven.” Say, my dear
hearer, Dost know anything about the Spirit of burning? For if not, again I
say, I am not harsh, I am but true; if thou hast never felt this, thou knowest
not the Spirit.

3. To proceed a little further. When the Spirit has thus quickened the soul
and convinced it of sin, then he comes under another metaphor. He comes
under the metaphor of oil. The Holy Spirit is very frequently in Scripture
compared to oil. “Thou anointest mine head with oil; my cup runneth
over.” Ah! brethren, though the beginning of the Spirit is by fire, it does
not end there. We may be first of all convinced and brought to Christ by
misery; but when we get to Christ there is no misery in him, and our
sorrow results from not getting close enough to him. The Holy Spirit
comes, like the good Samaritan, and pours in the oil and the wine. And oh!
what oil it is with which he anoints our head, and with which he heals our
wounds! How soft the liniments which he binds round our bruises! How
blessed the eye-salve with which he anoints our eyes! How heavenly the
ointment with which he binds up our sores, and wounds, and bruises, and
makes us whole, and sets our feet upon a rock, and establishes our goings!
The Spirit, after he has convinced, begins to comfort; and ye that have felt
the comforting power of the Holy Spirit, will bear me witness there is no
comforter like him that is the Paraclete. Oh! bring hither the music, the
voice of song, and the sound of harps; they are both as vinegar upon nitre
to him that hath a heavy heart. Bring me here the enchantments of the
magic world, and all the enjoyments of its pleasures; they do but torment
the soul and prick it with many thorns. But oh! Spirit of the living God,
when thou dost blow upon the heart, there is not a wave of that
tempestuous sea which does not sleep for ever when thou biddest it be still;
there is not one single breath of the proud hurricane and tempest which
doth not cease to howl and which doth not lie still, when thou sayest to it,
“Peace be unto thee; thy sins are forgiven thee.” Say, do you know the
Spirit under the figure of oil? Have you felt him at work in your spirits,
comforting you, anointing your head, making you glad, and causing you to
rejoice?

There are many people that never felt this. They hope they are religious;
but their religion never makes them happy. There are scores of professors
who have just enough religion to make them miserable. Let them be afraid
that they have any religion at all; for religion makes people happy; when it
has its full sway with man it makes him glad. It may begin in agony, but it
does not end there. Say, hast thou ever had thine heart leaping for joy?
Hath thy lip ever warbled songs of ecstatic praise? Doth thine eye ever
flash the fire of joy? If these things be not so, I fear lest thou art still
without God, and without Christ; for where the Spirit comes, his fruits are,
joy in the Spirit, and peace, and love, and confidence, and assurance for
ever.

4. Bear with me once more. I have to show you one more figure of the
Spirit, and by that also you will be able to ascertain whether you are under
his operation. When the Spirit has acted as wind, as fire, and as oil, he then
acts like water. We are told that we are “born again of water and of the
Spirit.” Now I do not think you foolish enough to need that I should say
that no water, either of immersion or of sprinkling, can in the least degree
operate in the salvation of a soul. There may be some few poor creatures,
whose heads were put on their shoulders the wrong way, who still believe
that a few drops of water from a priest’s hands can regenerate souls. There
may be such a few, but I hope the race will soon die out. We trust that the
day will come when all those gentry will have no “other Gospel” to preach
in our churches, but will have clean gone over to Rome, and when that
terrible plague-spot upon the Protestant Church, called Puseyism, will have
been cut out like a cancer, and torn out by its very roots. The sooner we
get rid of that the better; and whenever we hear of any of them going over
to Rome, let them go — I wish we could as easily get rid of the devil, they
may go together — we do not want either of them in the Protestant
Church, anyhow. But the Holy Spirit when he comes in the heart comes
like water. That is to say, he comes to purify the soul. He that is to-day as
foul a liver as he was before his pretended conversion is a hypocrite and a
liar; he that this day loveth sin and liveth in it just as he was wont to do, let
him know that the truth is not in him, but he hath received the strong
delusion to believe a lie: God’s people are a holy people; God’s Spirit
works by love, and purifies the soul. Once let it get into our hearts, and it
will have no rest till it has turned every sin out. God’s Holy Spirit and
man’s sin cannot live together peaceably; they may both be in the same
heart, but they cannot both reign there, nor can they both be quiet there;
for “the Spirit lusteth against the flesh, and the flesh lusteth against the
Spirit;” they cannot rest, but there will be a perpetual warring in the soul,
so that the Christian will have to cry, “O wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?” But in due time the Spirit
will drive out all sin, and will present us blameless before the throne of his
Majesty with exceeding great joy.

Now, my hearer, answer thou this question for thyself, and not for another
man. Hast thou received this Spirit? Answer me, anyhow; if it be with a
scoff, answer me; if thou sneerest and sayest, “I know nothing of your
enthusiastic rant,” be it so, sir; say, nay, then. It may be thou carest not to
reply at all. I beseech thee do not put away my entreaty. Yes or no. Hast
thou received the Spirit? “Sir no man can find fault with my character; I
believe I shall enter heaven through my own virtues.” It is not the question,
sir. Hast thou received the Spirit? All that thou sayest thou mayest have
done; but if thou hast left the other undone, and hast not received the
Spirit, it will go ill with thee at last. Hast thou had a supernatural operation
upon thine own heart? Hast thou been made a new man in Christ Jesus!
For if not, depend on it, as God’s Word is true, thou art out of Christ, and
dying as thou art thou wilt be shut out of heaven, be thou who thou mayest
and what thou mayest.

II. Thus, I have tried to help you to answer the first question — the
inquiry, Have we received the Spirit? And this brings me to the CAUTION.
He that has not received the Spirit is said to be sensual. Oh, what a gulf
there is between the least Christian and the greatest moralist! What a wide
distinction there is between the greatest professor destitute of grace, and
the least of God’s believers who has grace in his heart. As great a
difference as there is between light and darkness between death and life,
between heaven and hell, is there between a saint and a sinner; for mark,
my text says, in no very polite phrase, that if we have not the Spirit we are
sensual. “ Sensual!” says one; “well, I am not converted man — I don t
pretend to be; but I am not sensual.” Well, friend, and it is very likely that
you are not — not in the common acceptation of the term sensual; but
understand that this word, in the Greek, really means what an English word
like this would mean, if we had such a one — soulish. We have not such a
word — we want such a one. There is a great distinction between mere
animals and men, because man hath a soul, and the mere animal hath none.
There is another distinction between mere men and a converted man. The
converted man hath the Spirit — the unconverted man hath none; he is a
soulish man — not a spiritual man; he has got no further than mere nature
and has no inheritance in the spiritual kingdom of grace. Strange it is that
soulish and sensual should after all mean the same! Friend, thou hast not
the Spirit. Then thou art nothing better — be thou what thou art, or
whatsoever thou mayest be — than the fall of Adam left thee. That is to
say, thou art a fallen creature, having only capacities to live here in sin, and
to live for ever in torment; but thou hast not the capacity to live in heaven
at all, for thou hast no Spirit; and therefore thou art unable to know or
enjoy spiritual things. And mark you, a man may be in this state, and be a
sensual man, and yet he may have all the virtues that could grace a
Christian; but with all these, if he has not the Spirit, he has got not an inch
further than where Adam’s fall left him — that is, condemned and under
the curse. Ay, and he may attend to religion with all his might — he may
take the sacrament, and be baptized, and may be the most devout
professor; but if he hath not the Spirit he hath not started a solitary inch
from where he was, for he is still in “the bonds of iniquity,” a lost soul.
Nay, further, he may pick up religious phrases till he may talk very fast
about religion; he may read biographies till he seems to be a deep taught
child of God; he may be able to write an article upon the deep experience
of a believer; but if this experience be not his own, if he hath not received it
by the Spirit of the living God, he is still nothing more than a carnal man,
and heaven is to him a place to which there is no entrance. Nay, further, he
might go so far as to become a minister of the gospel, and a successful
minister too, and God may bless the word that he preaches to the salvation
of sinners, but unless he has received the Spirit, be he as eloquent as
Apollos, and as earnest as Paul, he is nothing more than a mere soulish
man, without capacity for spiritual things.

Nay, to crown all, he might even have the power of working miracles, as
Judas had — he might even be received into the church as a believer, as
was Simon Magus, and after all that, though he had cast out devils, though
he had healed the sick, though he had worked miracles, he might have the
gates of heaven shut in his teeth, if he had not received the Spirit. For this
is the essential thing, without which all others are in vain — the reception
of the Spirit of the living God. It is a searching truth, is it not, my friends?
Do not run away from it. If I am preaching to you falsehood, reject it; but
if this be a truth which I can substantiate by Scripture, I beseech you, rest
not till you have answered this question: Hast thou the Spirit, living,
dwelling, working in thy heart?

III. This brings me, in the third place, to THE SUSPICION. How singular
that “separation” should be the opposite of having the Spirit. Hark! I hear a
gentle man saying, “Oh! I like to hear you preach smartly and sharply; I am
persuaded, sir, there are a great many people in the church that ought not
to be there; and so I, because there is such a corrupt mixture in the church,
have determined not to join anywhere at all. I do not think that the Church
of Christ now a days is at all clean and pure enough to allow of my joining
with it. At least, sir, I did join a church once, but I made such a deal of
noise in it they were very glad when I went away. And now I am just like
David’s men; I am one that is in debt and discontented, and I go round to
hear all new preachers that arise. I have heard you now these three months;
I mean to go and hear some one else in a very little time if you do not say
something to flatter me. But I am quite sure I am one of God’s special
elect. I don’t join any church because a church is not good enough for me;
I don’t become a member of any denomination, because they are all wrong,
every one of them.” Hark ye brother, I have something to tell you, that will
not please you. “These be they that separate themselves, sensual, having
not the Spirit.” I hope you enjoy the text: it certainly belongs to you, above
every man in the world. “These be they who separate themselves, sensual,
having not the Spirit.” When I read this over I thought to myself, there be
some who say, “Well, you are a dissenter, how do you make this agreeable
with the text, ‘These be they who separate themselves;’ “ you are separated
from the Church of England. Ah, my friends, that a man may be, and be all
the better for it; but the separation here intended is separation from the one
universal Church of Christ. The Church of England was not known in
Jude’s day: so the apostle did not allude to that. “These be they who
separate themselves,” — that is from the Church of Christ; from the great
universal body of the elect. Moreover, let us just say one thing. We did not
separate ourselves — we were turned out. Dissenters did not separate
themselves from the Church of England, from the Episcopal church; but
when the Act of Uniformity was passed, they were turned out of their
pulpits. Our forefathers were as sound Churchmen as any in the world, but
they could not take in all the errors of the Prayer Book, and they were
therefore hounded to their graves by the intolerance of the conforming
professors. So they did not separate themselves. Moreover, we do not
separate ourselves. There is not a Christian beneath the scope of God’s
heaven from whom I am separated. At the Lord’s table I always invite all
Churches to come and sit down and commune with us. If any man were to
tell me that I am separate from the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, or the
Methodist, I would tell him he did not know me, for I love them with a
pure heart fervently, and I am not separate from them. I may hold different
views from them, and in that point truly I may be said to be separate; but I
am not separate in heart, I will work with them — I will work with them
heartily; nay, though my Church of England brother sends me in, as he has
done, a summons to pay a churchrate that I cannot in conscience pay, I will
love him still; and if he takes chairs and tables it matters not — I will love
him for all that; and if there be a ragged-school or anything else for which I
can work with him to promote the glory of God, therein will I unite with
him with all my heart. I think this bears rather hard on our friends — the
Strict Communion Baptists. I should not like to say anything hard against
them, for they are about the best people in the world, but they really do
separate themselves from the great body of Christ’s people. The Spirit of
the living God will not let them do this really, but they do it professedly.
They separate themselves from the great Universal Church. They say they
will not commune with it; and if any one comes to their table who has not
been baptized, they turn him away. They “separate,” certainly. I do not
believe it is willful schism that makes them thus act; but at the same time I
think the old man within has some hand in it.

Oh, how my heart loves the doctrine of the one church. The nearer I get to
my Master in prayer and communion, the closer am I knit to all his
disciples. The more I see of my own errors and failings, the more ready am
I to deal gently with them that I believe to be erring. The pulse of Christ’s
body is communion; and woe to the church that seeks to cure the ills of
Christ’s body by stopping its pulse. I think it sin to refuse to commune with
anyone who is a member of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ. I desire
this morning to preach the unity of Christ’s church. I have sought to use
the fan to blow away the chaff. I have said no man belongs to Christ’s
church unless he has the Spirit; but, if he hath the Spirit, woe be to the man
that separates himself from him. Oh! I should think myself grossly in fault if
at the foot of these stairs I should meet a truly converted child of God,
who called himself a Primitive Methodist, or a Wesleyan. or a Churchman,
or an Independent, and I should say, “No, sir, you do not agree with me on
certain points; I believe you are a child of God, but I will have nothing to
do with you.” I should then think that this text would bear very hard on
me. “These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the
Spirit.” But would we do so, beloved? No, we would give them both our
hands, and say, God speed to you in your journey to heaven; so long as
you have got the Spirit we are one family, and we will not be separate from
one another. God grant the day may come when every wall of separation
shall be beaten down! See how to this day we are separate. There! you will
find a Baptist who could not say a good word to a Poedo-Baptist if you
were to give him a world. You find to this day Episcopalians who hate that
ugly word, “Dissent;” and it is enough for them that a Dissenter has done a
thing; they will not do it then, be it never so good.

Ah! and furthermore, there are some to be found in the Church of England
that will not only hate dissent, but hate one another into the bargain. Men
are to be found that cannot let brother ministers of their own church preach
in their parish. What an anachronism such men are! They would seem to
have been sent into the world in our time purely by mistake. Their proper
era would have been the time of the dark ages. If they had lived then, what
fine Bonners they would have made! What splendid fellows they would
have been to have helped to poke the fire in Smithfield! But they are quite
out of date in these times, and I look upon such a curious clergyman in the
same way that I do upon a Dodo — as an extraordinary animal whose race
is almost, if not quite extinct. Well, you may look, and look and wonder.
The animal will be extinct soon. It will not be long, I trust, before not only
the Church of England shall love itself, but when all who love the Lord
Jesus shall be ready to preach in each other’s pulpits, preaching the same
truth, holding the same faith, and mightily contending for it. Then shall the
world “see how these Christians love one another; “ and then shall it be
known in heaven that Christ s kingdom has come, and that his will is about
to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

My hearer, dost thou belong to the church? For out of the church there is
no salvation. But mark what the church is. It is not the Episcopalian,
Baptist, or Presbyterian: the church is a company of men who have
received the Spirit. If thou canst not say thou hast the Spirit, go thy way
and tremble; go thy way and think of thy lost condition; and may Jesus by
his Spirit so bless thee, that thou mayest be led to renounce thy works and
ways with grief, and fly to him who died upon the cross, and find a shelter
there from the wrath of God.

I may have said some rough things this morning, but I am not given much
to cutting and trimming, and I do not suppose I shall begin to learn that art
now. If the thing is untrue, it is with you to reject it; if it be true, at your
own peril reject what God stamps with divine authority. May the blessing
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit rest upon the one church of
Israel’s one Jehovah. Amen and Amen.

“That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is the devil” Hebrews 2:14

IN God’s original empire everything was happiness, and joy, and peace. If
there be any evil, any suffering and pain, that is not God’s work. God may
permit it, overrule it, and out of it educe much good; but the evil cometh
not of God. He himself standeth pure and perfect, the clean fountain out of
which gusheth forth ever more sweet and pure waters. The devil’s reign,
on the contrary, containeth nought of good, “the devil sinneth from the
beginning,” and his dominion has been one uniform course of temptation to
evil and infliction of misery. Death is a part of Satan’s dominion, he
brought sin into the world when he tempted our mother Eve to eat of the
forbidden fruit, and with sin he brought also death into the world, with all
its train of woes. There had been likely no death, if there had been no devil.
If Satan had not tempted, mayhap man had not revolted, and if he had not
revolted he would have lived for ever, without having to undergo the
painful change which is caused by death. I think death is the devil’s
masterpiece. With the solitary exception of hell, death is certainly the most
Satanic mischief that sin hath accomplished. Nothing ever delighted the
heart of the devil so much as when he found that the threatening would be
fulfilled, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” and
never was his malicious heart so full of hellish joy as when he saw Abel
stretched upon the earth, slain by the club of his brother. “Aha!” said
Satan, “this is the first of all intelligent creatures that has died. Oh how I
rejoice! This is the crowning hour of my dominion. It is true that I have
marred the glory of this earth by my guileful temptation; it is true the whole
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain by reason of the evil that I have
brought into it; but this, this is my masterpiece; I have killed man; I have
brought death into him, and here lieth the first — the first dead man.”
Since that time Satan hath ever gloated over the death of the human race,
and he hath had some cause of glory, for that death has been universal. All
have died. Though they had been wise as Solomon, their wisdom could not
spare their head; though they had been virtuous as Moses, yet their virtue
could not avert the axe, All have died; and therefore the devil hath boasted
in his triumph. But twice hath he been defeated; but two have entered
heaven without dying, but the mass of mankind have had to feel the scythe
of death; and he has rejoiced because this, his mightiest work, has had
foundations broad as earth, and a summit that reached as high as the
virtues of mankind could climb.

There is something fearful in death. It is frightful even to him that hath the
most of faith. It is only the gildings of death, the afterwards, the heaven,
the harp, the glory, that maketh death bearable even to the Christian. Death
in itself must ever be an unutterably fearful thing to the sons of men. And
oh! what ruin doth it work! It darkens the windows of the eyes; it pulls
down the polished pillars of the divine architecture of the body; it turns the
inhabitant the soul, out of its door, and bids it fly to worlds unknown; and
it leaves in place of a living man a corpse whose appearance is so wretched
that none can look upon it without emotions of horror. Now, this is
Satan’s delight. He conceives death to be his masterpiece, because of its
terror, and because of the ruin which it works. The greater the evil, the
better doth he delight in it. No doubt he gloats over our sicknesses; he
rejoices himself in our sin; but death is to him a theme of as much delight
as he can be capable of in his eternal misery. He, as far as he can, shouteth
for joy when he witnesseth how, by one fell deed of his, one piece of
treachery, he hath swept the world with the besom of destruction, and
hurried all men to the tomb.

And death is very lovely to the devil for another reason — not only
because it is his chief work on earth, but because it gives him the finest
opportunity in the world for the display of his malice and his craft. The
devil is a coward, the greatest of cowards, as most wicked beings are. A
Christian in health he will seldom attack; a Christian who has been living
near his Master, and is strong in grace, the devil will leave alone, because
he knows he will meet his match then; but if he can find a Christian either
weak in faith, or weak in body, then he thinks it a fair opportunity for
attack.

Now when death comes with all its terrors, it is usual for Satan to make a
fierce inroad into the soul. Usually with many of the saints, if not in the last
article of death, yet some little time before it, there is a ferocious onslaught
made by the great enemy of souls. And then he loves death, because death
weakens the mind. The approach of death destroys some of the mental
power, and takes away from us for a season some of those spirits by which
we have been cheered in better days. It makes us lie there, languid, and
faint, and weary. “Now is my opportunity,” says the evil one; and he steals
in upon us. Hence I believe for this reason he is said to have the power of
death, for I cannot conceive that the devil hath the power of death in any
other sense but this, that it was originated by him, and that he at such time
generally displays the most of his malice and of his power. For it is certain
my brethren the devil has not the power over death so as to cause death.
All the devils in hell could not take away the life of the smallest infant in
the world, and though we lie gasping and sick, so that the physician
despairs of us, it is nothing but the fiat of the Almighty that can cause us to
die, even in the extremity of our weakness As far as the cause is concerned,
the devil is not the cause of death. We rejoice to believe with Dr. Young,
that an angel’s arm cannot hurl us to the grave, even though it be the arm
of that fallen archangel Lucifer; and we rejoice to know that afterwards a
myriad angels cannot confine us there. So that neither for the unlocking of
the door, nor for the securing of it afterwards, hath the devil any power
whatever over the Christian in death.

Why, there are many persons here present who have such notion of religion
that they conceive it to be a thing of happiness and pleasure, and delight,
and living near the fountain of all bliss, that is their God, their path is filled
with sunshine, and their eye sparkles with perpetual happiness. They bear
the trials of this life manfully as Christians should; they take afflictions from
the hand of God with all resignation and patience. Now the devil says, “It
is of no use my meddling with that man with doubting thoughts; he is too
mighty for me; he is powerful on his knees, and he is powerful with his
God.” “Hands off!” says the Christian to the devil then. But when we begin
to be weak, when our mind through the influence of the body begins to be
sad, when we have either been starving ourselves by some wicked religious
asceticism, or when the rod of God hath bruised us, then in our evil plight
the foe will beset us. And for this reason the devil loves death, and hath the
power over it, because it is the time of nature’s extremity, and therefore is
the time of the devil’s opportunity.

The subject of our discourse this morning is this. Jesus Christ through his
death, hath destroyed what power the devil hath over death. Ay, and to
add a second truth which shall be our second head, he hath not only by his
death destroyed the power which the devil had over death, but he hath
destroyed the devil’s power entirely in every respect by the death which he
died.

I. Let us begin, then, at the beginning. BY THE DEATH OF CHRIST THE
DEVIL’S POWER OVER DEATH IS TO THE CHRISTIAN UTTERLY DESTROYED.

The devil’s power over death lies in three places, and we must look at it in
three aspects. sometimes the devil hath power in death over the Christian,
by tempting him to doubt his resurrection, and leading him to look into the
black future with the dread of annihilation. We will look at that first, and
we will endeavor to show you that by the death of Christ that peculiar form
of the devil’s power in death is entirely removed. When the poor spirit lieth
on the verge of eternity, if faith be weak, and if the eye-sight of hope be
dim, the Christian will most likely look forward into what? Into a world
unknown, and the language of even the infidel sometimes rush into the lips
of the most faithful child of God.

“My soul looks down on what?
A dread eternity; a dreary gulf.”

You may tell him of the promises; you may try to cheer him by reminding
him of the certain revelations of the future; but apart from the death of
Christ, I say, even the Christian himself would look forward to death as
being a dreary goal, a dark cloudy end to a life of weariness and woe.
Whither am I speeding? An arrow shot from the bow of God’s creation!
Whither am I speeding? And the answer cometh back from blank
nothingness thou camest, and thou art speeding to the same; there is
nought to thee; when thou diest thou art lost. Or if reason has been well
tutored it may perhaps reply to him, “Yes, there is another world, but
reason can only tell him that it thinks so. It dreams of it. but what that
other world shall be, what its tremendous mysteries, what its gorgeous
splendors, or what its horrible terrors, reason cannot tell.” And the sting of
death would be to such a man, who had no view of immortality in Christ,
the thought that he was to be annihilated — not to exist — or if to exist
that he knew not how, or where. But, beloved, by the death of Christ all
this is taken away. If I lie a-dying, and Satan comes to me and says, “Thou
art to be annihilated, thou art now sinking beneath the waves of time, and
thou shalt lie in the caverns of nothingness for ever; thy living, leaping
spirit, is to cease for ever and be not.” I reply to him, “No, not so: I have
no fear of that; O Satan, thy power to tempt me here faileth utterly and
entirely. See there my Savior! He died — he died really and actually, for
his heart was pierced, he was buried, he lay in his grave three days; but, O
Devil, he was not annihilated, for he rose again from the tomb on the third
day, and in the glories of the resurrection he appeared unto many
witnesses, and gave infallible proofs that he was risen from the dead. And
now, O Satan, I tell thee, thou canst not put an end to my existence, for
thou couldst not put an end to the existence of my Lord. As the Lord the
Savior rose, so all his followers must. ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’
and therefore I know that though the ‘worms destroy this body, yet in my
flesh shall I see God.’ Thou tellest me, O Satan, that I am to be swallowed
up, and be a thing of nought, and sink into the bottomless pit of nonenity. I
reply to thee, thou liest. My Savior was not swallowed up, and yet he died,
he died, but could not long be held a prisoner in the tomb. Come, death,
and bind me, but thou canst not destroy me. Come on, O grave; open thy
ghastly mouth, and swallow me up; but I shall burst thy bonds another day.
When that all-glorious morning shall dawn, I having a dew like the dew of
herbs upon me, shall be raised up and shall live in his sight. Because he
lives I shall live also.” So, you see, Christ, by being a witness to the feet of
the resurrection, has broken the power of the devil in death. In this respect
he has prevented him from tempting us to fear annihilation, because, as
Christians, we believe that because Christ rose again from the dead, even
so they that sleep in Jesus will the Lord bring with him.

But now for a more common temptation — another phase of the devil’s
power in death. Full often the devil comes to us in our life-time, and he
tempts us by telling us that our guilt will certainly prevail against us, that
the sins of our youth and our former transgressions are still in our bones,
and that when we sleep in the grave our sins shall rise up against us
“They have many of them,” saith he, “gone before you unto judgment, and
others shall follow after.” When the Christian getteth weak, and his heart
and his flesh do fail him, were it not, I say for the great doctrine of the
death of Christ the devil would be able to tempt him thus “Thou art about
to die. I dare not tell thee that there is no future state, for if I do thou
replies to me, ‘There is, for Christ rose from the dead and therefore I
shall,’ but I will tempt thee another way. Thou hast made a fine profession,
but I charge upon thee that thou hast been a hypocrite. Thou pretendest
that thou art one of the Lord’s beloved: now look back upon thy sins:
remember on such-a-day how thy rebellious lusts arose, and thou wast led
if not quite to indulge in a transgression, yet to long after it. Recollect how
often thou hast provoked him in the wilderness, how frequently thou hast
made his anger wax hot against thee.” The devil takes up our diary, and he
turns over the page, and with black finger points to our sins; and he reads
scornfully, with a leer upon his countenance. “See here saint” he says.
“Saint! Aha! a fine saint you were. There! Sabbath breaking. There! evil
thoughts of unbelief. There! departure from the living God.” And he turns
over page after page, and he stops over some very black page, and says,
“See here!” And he twits the Christian with the thing. “Ah!” saith he,
“David, remember Bathsheba. Lot, remember Sodom and the cave, Noah,
remember the vineyard and the drunkenness.” Ah! and it makes even the
saint quiver, when sin stares him in the face — when the ghosts of his old
sins rise up and stare upon him. He is a man that has got faith indeed that
can look sin in the face, and still say, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth
me from sin.” But were it not for that blood, were it not for the death of
Christ, you can easily conceive what power the devil would have over us in
the hour of death, because he would fling all our sins in our teeth just when
we came to die, But now see how through death Christ has taken away the
devil s power to do that. We reply to the temptation to sin, “In truth O
Satan thou art right; I have rebelled, I will not belie my conscience and my
memory; I own I have transgressed. O Satan, turn to the blackest page of
my history, I confess all,

‘Should he send my soul to hell
His righteous law approves it well.’

But O fiend, let me tell thee my sins were numbered on the scape-goat’s
head of old. Go thou, O Satan, to Calvary’s cross, and see my substitute
bleeding there, Behold, my sins are not mine; they are laid on his eternal
shoulders, and he has cast them from his own shoulders into the depths of
the sea. Avaunt, hell-hound! Wouldst thou worry me? Go thou and satisfy
thyself with a sight of that Man, who entered the gloomy dungeons of
death, and slept awhile there, and then rent the bars away, and led captivity
captive as a proof that he was justified of God the Father. and that I also
am justified in him.” Oh! yes, this is the way that Christ’s death destroys
the power of the devil. We can tell the devil that we care not for him, for
all our sins are passed away, covered in the thick cloud, and shall not be
brought against us any more for ever, “Ah!” said an aged saint once who
had been much teased by Satan, “at last I got rid of my temptations, sir,
and I enjoyed much peace,” “How did you do it?” said a Christian friend
who visited him, “I showed him blood, sir; I showed him the blood of
Christ.” That is a thing the devil cannot endure. You may tell the devil,
“Oh! but I prayed so many times.” He will sniff at your prayers. You may
tell him, “Ah! but I was a preacher” He will laugh in your face, and tell you
you preached your own damnation You may tell him you had some good
works, and he will lift them up and say, “these are your good works —
filthy rags: no one would have them at a gift.” You may tell him, “Ah! but I
have repented.” He will sneer at your repentance. You may tell him what
you like, he will sneer at you, till at last you say,

“Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;”

And it is all over with the devil then; there is nothing now that he can do,
for the death of Christ has destroyed the power that the devil hath over us
to tempt us on account of our guilt. “The sting of death is sin:” our Jesus
took the sting away, and now death is harmless to us, because it is not
succeeded by damnation.

Once more, you may suppose a Christian who has firm confidence in a
future state. The evil one has another temptation for him. .”It. may be very
true,” saith he, “that you are to live for ever and that your sins have been
pardoned; but you have hitherto found it very hard work to persevere, and
now you are about to die you will be sure to fail. When you have had
troubles you know you have been half inclined to go back again to Egypt.
Why, the little hornets that you have met have worried you, and now this
death is the prince of dragons; it will be all over with you now. You know
that when you used to go through a cart-rut you were crying for fear of
being drowned: what will you do now that you have got into the swellings
of Jordan? “Ah!” says the devil, “you were afraid of the lions when they
were chained: what will you do with this unchained lion? How will you
come off now? When you were a strong man and had marrow in your
bones, and your sinews were full of strength, even then you trembled at
me: now I shall have at you, when I get you in your dying-time and your
strength fails, and if I once get the grip of you

‘That desperate tug your soul shall feel,
Through bars of brass and triple-steel.’

Ah! you will then be overcome.” And sometimes the poor feint-hearted
Christian thinks that is true; I shall surely fall one day by the hand of the
enemy. Up gets the Arminian divine, and says, “that is a very proper sort of
feeling, my friend; God often does desert his children and cast them away.”
To which we reply “Thou liest, Arminian; shut thy mouth, God never did
desert his children, neither can he, nor will he.”

And having answered the Arminian we turn to answer the devil, and we say
to him, “O fiend, thou temptest us to think that thou wilt conquer us;
remember Satan, that the strength that has preserved us against thee has
not been our own; the arm that has delivered us has not been this arm of
flesh and blood, else we had long since been overcome. Look thou there,
fiend, at him that is Omnipotent: his Almightiness is the power that
preserves us to the end; and, therefore, be we never so weak, when we are
weak then we are strong, and in our last hour of peril we shall yet
overcome thee.”

But please to notice, that this answer springs and arises from Christ’s
death. Let us just picture a scene. When the Lord Jesus came down to
earth, Satan knew his errand. He knew that the Lord Jesus was the Son of
God, and when he saw him an infant in the manger, he thought if he could
kill him and get Him in the bonds of death what a fine thing it would be! So
he stirred up the spirit of Herod to slay him; but Herod missed his mark.
And many a time did Satan strive to put the personal existence of Christ in
danger, so that he might get Christ to die. Poor fool as he was, he did not
know that when Christ died he would bruise the devil’s head. Once, you
remember, when Christ was in the synagogue, the devil stirred up the
people, and made them angry; and he thought, “Oh! what a glorious thing
it would be if I could kill this man; then there would be an end of him, And
I should reign supreme for ever.” So he got the people to take him to the
brow of the hill, and he gloated over the thought that now surely he would
be cast down headlong. But Christ escaped. He tried to starve him, he tried
to drown him; he was in the desert without food, and he was on the sea in
a storm; but there was no starving or drowning him, and Satan no doubt
panted for his blood and longed that he should die. At last the day arrived;
it was telegraphed to the court of hell that at last Christ would die. They
rung their bells with hellish mirth and joy. “He will die now,” said he,
“Judas has taken the thirty pieces of silver. Let those Scribes and Pharisees
get him, they will no more let him go than the spider will a poor
unfortunate fly. He is safe enough now.” And the devil laughed for very
glee, when he saw the Savior stand before Pilate’s bar. And when it was
said, “Let him be crucified,” then his joy scarce knew bounds, except that
bound which his own misery must ever set to it. As far as he could he
revelled in what was to him a delightful thought, that the Lord of glory was
about to die. In death, as Christ was seen of angels, he was seen of devils
too; and that dreary march from Pilate’s palace to the cross was one which
devils saw with extraordinary interest. And when they saw him on the
cross, there stood the exulting fiend, smiling to himself. “Ah! I have the
King of Glory now in my dominions, I have the power of death, and I have
the power over the Lord Jesus.” He exerted that power, till the Lord Jesus
had to cry out in bitter anguish, “My God, my God, Why hast thou
forsaken me ?” But ah! how short-lived was hellish victory! How brief was
the Satanic triumph! He died, and “It is finished!” shook the gates of hell.
Down from the cross the conqueror leaped, pursued the fiend with
thunder-bolts of wrath; swift to the shades of hell the fiend did fly, and
swift descending went the conqueror after him; and we may conceive him
exclaiming —

“Traitor! this bolt shall find and pierce thee through,
Though under hell’s profoundest wave thou div’st,
To find a sheltering grave.”

And seize him he did — chained him to his chariot wheel; dragged him up
the steps of glory; angels shouting all the while, “He hath led captivity
captive, and received gifts for men.” Now, devil, thou saidst thou wouldst
overcome me, when I came to die. Satan I defy thee, and laugh thee to
scorn! My Master overcame thee, and I shall overcome thee yet. You say
you will overcome the saint, do you? You could not overcome the saint’s
Master, and you will not overcome him. You once thought you had
conquered Jesus: you were bitterly deceived. Ah! Satan, thou mayest think
thou shalt overcome the little faith and the faint heart; but thou art
wondrously mistaken — for we shall assuredly tread Satan under our feet
shortly; and even in our last extremity, with fearful odds against us, we
shall be “more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
You see that thus, my brethren, Christ’s death has taken away from Satan
the advantage which he has over the saint in the hour of death; so that we
may joyfully descend the shelving banks of Jordan, or may even, if God
calls us to a sudden death, glide from its abrupt cliffs, for Christ is with us,
and to die is gain.

II. But now, I want just a moment or two, whilst I try to show you that
not only has Christ by his death taken away the devil’s power in death; but
HE HAS TAKEN AWAY THE DEVILS POWER EVERYWHERE ELSE OVER A
CHRISTIAN. “He hath destroyed,” or overcome, “him that had the power of
death, that is, the devil.”

Death was the devil’s chief intrenchment: Christ bearded the lion in his den,
and fought him in his own territory; and when he took death from him and
dismantled that once impregnable fortress, he took away from him not only
that, but every other advantage that he had over the saint. And now Satan
is a conquered foe, not only in the hour of death, but in every other hour
and in every other place. He is an enemy, both cruel and mighty, but he is a
foe who quakes and quails when a Christian gets into the lists with him; for
he knows that though the fight may waver for a little while in the scale, the
balance of victory must fall on the side of the saint, because Christ by his
death destroyed the devil’s power.

Satan, my brethren, may to-morrow get much power over you, by
tempting you to indulge in the lusts of the flesh, or in the pride of life; he
may come to you and say, “Do such-and-such a thing that would be
dishonest, and I will make you rich; indulge in such-and-such a pleasure,
and I will make you happy. come,” saith Satan, “yield to my blandishments;
I will give you wine to quaff that shall be richer than ever came from the
wine-vats of Holy Scripture; I will give you bread to eat that you know not
of. Eat thou the tempting fruit; it is sweet; it will make thee like a god.” .
“Ah!” saith the Christian, “but Satan, my Master died when he had to do
with thee, and therefore I will have nothing to do with thee. If thou didst
kill my Lord, thou wilt kill me too if thou canst, and therefore away with
thee! but inasmuch as thou layest down silver for me, and tellest me I can
have it if I do wrong, lo, Satan, I can cover thy silver with gold, and have
ten times as much to spare afterwards. Thou sayest I shall get gain if I sin.
Nay, but the treasures of Christ are greater riches than all the treasures of
Egypt. Why, Satan, if thou wert to bring me a crown, and say, ‘There!
thou shalt have that if thou wilt sin.’ I should say, ‘Poor crown! Why,
Satan, I have got a better one than that laid up in heaven, I could not sin
for that, that is a bribe too paltry,” In he brings his bags of gold. and he
says, “Now, Christian, sin for them.” The Christian says, “Why fiend, that
stuff is not worth my looking at. I have an inheritance in a city where the
streets are paved with solid gold; and, therefore, what are these poor
chinking bits to me? Take them back!” He brings in loveliness, and he
tempts us by it. but we say to him, “Why, devil, what art thou at? What is
that loveliness to me? Mine eyes have seen the King in his beauty and the
land that is very far oft; and by faith I know that I shall go where beauty’s
self, even in her perfection, is excelled — where I shall see my Savior, who
is ‘the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.’ That is no
temptation to me! Christ has died, and I count all these things but dross,
that I may win Christ and be found in him.” So that you see, even in
temptation, the death of Christ has destroyed the devil’s power
“You will not yield, will you?” says the devil “You cannot be tempted! Ah!
well,” says he, “if you cannot be drawn aside, I’ll pull you aside. What are
you, that you should stand against me? A poor puny man! Why, I have
made angels fall, and I am not afraid of you. Come on!” And he puts his
foot to our foot, and with his dragon yell he frights the echoes till they dare
not reply. He lifts his blazing sword, and thinks to smite us to the ground.
You know, my brethren, what the shield is that must catch the blow. It is
the shield of faith in Christ that died for us. He hurls his darts, but his darts
hurt not, for lo, we catch them also on this all-powerful shield, Christ and
his cross. So that, let his insinuations be never so direful, the death of
Christ has destroyed the devil’s power either to tempt or to destroy. He
may be allowed to attempt either the one or the other, but he can be
successful in neither. The death of Christ has “destroyed him that had the
power of death, that is, the devil.”

Some people say they don’t believe in a devil. Well, I have only to tell them
I don’t believe in them because if they knew themselves much they would
very soon find a devil. But it is quite possible that they have very little
evidence of there being any devil; for you know the devil never wastes his
time. He comes up a street, and he sees a man engaged in business,
hoarding, covetous, grasping. He has got a widow’s house in his throat, he
has just swallowed the last acre of a poor orphan’s lands. “Oh,” says the
devil, “drive by, I shall not stop there; he does not need me; he will go to
hell easily enough.” He goes to the next house: there is a man there, a
drunkard. spending his time in riotousness: he marches by, and says,
“There’s no need for me here; why should I trouble my own dear friends?
Why should I meddle with those whom I am sure to have at last? There’s
no need to tease them.” He finds a poor saint upon his knees, exercising
but very little power in prayer. “Oh!” says the devil, “I shant have this
creature at last; I’ll howl at him now.” There is a poor sinner just returning
from his evil ways and crying, “I have sinned and done evil in thy sight;
Lord, have mercy upon me “ “Losing a subject,” says Satan; “I’ll have him;
I’m not going to lose my subjects like this.” So he worries him. The reason
why you don’t believe there is a devil, very likely is, that the devil very
seldom comes to you because you are so safe that he does not take any
trouble to look after you, and you have not seen him, because you are too
bad for him to care about, and he says, “Oh no, there’s no need for me to
waste time to tempt that man, it would be carrying coals to Newcastle to
tempt him, for he is as bad as he can be, and therefore let him alone.” But
when a man lives near to God, or when a man’s conscience begins to be
aroused, then Satan cries, “To arms! to arms! to arms!” For two good
reasons: first, because he wants to worry him, and secondly, because he
wants to destroy him. Well, we bless God that though the devil may direct
his utmost scorn and craft and malice against the Christian, the Christian is
safe behind the rock Christ Jesus, and may rest secure.

And now, in conclusion, suffer a word or two of comfort to the people of
God, and a warning to those that know him not.

O children of God! death hath lost its sting, because the devil’s power over
it is destroyed. Then cease to fear dying. Thou knowest what death is: look
him in the face, and tell him thou art not afraid of him. Ask grace from
God, that by an intimate knowledge and a firm belief of thy Master’s death,
thou mayest be strengthened for that dread hour. And mark me, if thou so
livest, thou mayest be able to think of death with pleasure, and to welcome
it when it comes with intense delight. It is sweet to die: to lie upon the
breast of Christ, and have one’s soul kissed out of one’s body by the lips of
divine affection. And you that have lost friends, or that may be bereaved,
sorrow not as those that are without hope; for remember the power of the
devil is taken away. What a sweet thought the death of Christ brings us
concerning those who are departed! They are gone, my brethren; but do
you know how far they have gone? The distance between the glorified
spirits in heaven and the militant saints on earth seems great; but it is not
so. We are not far from home.

“One gentle sigh the spirit breaks,
We scarce can say ‘tis gone,
Before the ransomed spirit takes
Its station near the throne.”

We measure distance by time. We are apt to say that a certain place is so
many hours from us. If it is a hundred miles off and there is no railroad we
think it a long way; if there is a railway, we think we can be there in no
time, But how near must we say heaven is? For it is just one sigh and we
get there. Why, my brethren, our departed friends are only in the upper
room, as it were, of the same house; they have not gone far off; they are up
stairs, and we are down below.Yea, more as the poet says,

“Ten thousands to their endless home,
This solemn moment fly,
And we are to the margin come,
And soon expect to die.”

And then he describes them.

“Part of the host have crossed the flood.”

There they are, on the other side the banks. Here is another part, deep in
the stream. Here are we on the margin, just about to step down. They are
all one army; there is not one gap, right down from Abel to the one that is
now departing; and they never shall be but one, till the pearly gates are shut
for ever, and they are all secure.

“E’en now by faith we clasp our hands
With those that went before,
And greet the blood-besprinkled bands
Upon the eternal shore.”

And now I close by saying this word to the sinner O thou that knowest not
God, thou that believest not in Christ, death is to thee a horrible thing. I
need not tell thee that; for thine own conscience tells it to thee. Why, man,
thou mayest laugh sometimes at religion; but in thine own solitary moments
it is no laughing thing. The greatest brags in the world are always the
greatest cowards. If I hear a man saying, “Oh, I am not afraid of dying, I
don’t care about your religion,” he does not deceive me; I know all about
that. He says that to cover up his fears, when he is alone of a night. You
should see how white his cheek is if a leaf falls against the window When
there is lightning in the air you should look at him. “Oh that flash” he says.
Or if he is a strong man perhaps he does not say a word, but he feels in
such horror all the time the storm is on. Not like the Christian man: not like
the man who has courage. Why, I love the lightnings; God’s thunder is my
delight. I never feel so well as when there is a tremendous thunder and
lightning storm. Then I feel as if I could mount up, and my whole heart
sings. I love then to sing —

“This awful God is mine
My Father and my love,
He shall send down his heavenly powers
To carry me above.”

Yes, you are afraid of dying I know; and what I shall say to you is this —
You have good need to be afraid of dying, and you have good need to be
afraid of dying now. Because you have escaped many times you think you
shall never die. Suppose we should take a man and tie him to that pillar,
and a good marksman should take bow and arrows and shoot at him. Well,
one arrow might glance and strike some one that sits at the right, and
another might glance and strike some one that is to the left; one might go
above his head, and another beneath his feet, but you cannot suppose that
man would laugh and mock, when the arrows were flying about his ears,
and if he was quite certain that it only wanted the marksman to take an aim
at him, and he would be shot, then, my friends, you cannot conceive how
he would tell you what terror he would experience. But certainly there
would be no laughter. He would not say, “Oh! I shall not die, see, the man
has been shooting all these others.” No, the risk of dying would be enough
to steady him and the thought that that marksman had an eye so true and a
hand so steady that he had but to pull the string, and the arrow would
certainly reach his heart, would be enough at least to sober him, and keep
him always watchful; for in a moment, when he thought not that arrow
might fly. Now, that is you to-day, God puts the arrow to the string: your
neighbor is dead on the right, and another on the left; the arrow will come
to you soon, it might have come before, if God willed it. Oh, mock not at
death, and despise not eternity, but begin to think whether you are
prepared for death, lest death should come and find you wanting. And
remember, death will make no delays for you. You have postponed the
time of thought: death will not be postponed to suit you, but when you die,
there will be no hour allowed for you in which then to turn to God. Death
comes with its first blow; damnation comes afterwards, without the hope
of reprieve. “He that believeth and is immersed shall be saved; he that
believeth not shall be damned.” Thus do we preach the Gospel of God unto
you as God would have us. “Go ye into all the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature.” “Go ye and teach all nations, immersing them in
the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Behold, I tell
you, faith in Jesus is the soul’s only escape; profession of that in immersion
is God’s own way of professing faith before men. The Lord help you to
obey him in the two great gospel commandments, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

“He heard the sound of the trumpet. and took not warning:
his blood shall be upon him.” Ezekiel 33:5

IN all worldly things men are always enough awake to understand their
own interests. There is scarce a merchant who reads the paper who does
not read it in some way or other with a view to his own personal concerns.
If he finds that by the rise or fall of the markets he will be either a gainer or
a loser, that part of the day’s news will be the most important to him. In
politics, in everything, in fact, that concerns temporal affairs, personal
interest usually leads the van. Men will always be looking out for
themselves, and personal and home interests will generally engross the
major part of their thoughts. But in religion it is otherwise. In religion men
love far rather to believe abstract doctrines, and to talk of general truths,
than the searching inquiries which examine their own personal interest in it.
You will hear many men admire the preacher who deals in generalities, but
when he comes to press home searching questions, by-and-by they are
offended. If we stand and declare general facts, such as the universal
sinnership of mankind; or the need of a Savior, they will give an assent to
our doctrine, and possibly they may retire greatly delighted with the
discourse, because it has not affected them; but how often will our
audience gnash their teeth, and go away in a rage, because like the
Pharisees with Jesus, they perceive, concerning a faithful minister, that he
spoke of them. And yet, my brethren, how foolish this is. If in all other
matters we like personalities — if in everything else we look to our own
concerns, how much more should we do so in religion ? for surely every
man must give an account for himself at the day of judgment. We must die
alone, we must rise at the day of resurrection one by one, and each one for
himself must appear before the bar of God; and each one must either have
said to him, as an individual, “Come ye blessed;” or else he must be
appalled with the thundering sentence “Depart ye cursed.” If there were
such a thing as national salvation, if it could be possible that we could be
saved in the gross and in the bulk, that so, like the sheaves of corn, the few
weeds that may grow with the stubble, would be gathered in for the sake of
the wheat, then, indeed, it might not be so foolish for us to neglect our
own personal interests; but if the sheep must, every one of them, pass
under the hand of him that telleth them, if every man must stand in his own
person before God, to be tried for his own acts — by everything that is
rational, by everything that conscience would dictate, and self-interest
would command, let us each of us look to our own selves, that we be not
deceived, and that we find not ourselves, at last, miserably cast away.
Now, this morning, by God’s help, I shall labor to be personal, and whilst I
pray for the rich assistance of the Divine Spirit, I will also ask one thing of
each person here present — I would ask of every Christian that he would
lift up a prayer to God, that the service may be blessed, and I ask of every
other person that he will please to understand that I am preaching to him,
and at him; and if there be anything that is personal and pertinent to his
own case, I beseech him, as for life and death, to let it have its full weight
with him, and not begin to think of his neighbor, to whom perhaps it may
be even more pertinent, but whose business certainly does not concern him.
The text is a solemn one — “ He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took
not warning: his blood shall be upon him.” The first head is this — the
warning was. all that could be desired — “he heard the sound of the
trumpet.” Secondly, the excuses for not attending to the startling warning
are all of them both frivolous and wicked: and therefore, in the third place,
the consequences of inattention must be terrible, because man’s blood
must then be on his own head.

I. First, then, THE WARNING WAS ALL THAT COULD BE DESIRED. When in
time of war an army is attacked in the night, and cut off and destroyed
whilst asleep, if it were impossible for them to be aware of the attack, and
if they had used all diligence in placing their sentinels, but nevertheless the
foe were so wary as to destroy them, we should weep; we should attach no
blame to anyone, but should deeply regret, and should give to that host our
fullest pity. But if, on the other hand, they had posted their sentinels and
the sentinels were wide awake, and gave to the sleepy soldiers every
warning that could be desired, but nevertheless the army were cut off,
although we might for common humanity regret the loss thereof, yet at the
same time we should be obliged to say, if they were foolish enough to sleep
when the sentinels had warned them; if they folded their arms in
presumptuous sloth, after they had had sufficient and timely notice of the
progress of their bloodthirsty enemy, then in their dying, we cannot pity
them: their blood must rest upon their own heads. So it is with you. If men
perish under an unfaithful ministry, and have not been sufficiently warned
to escape from the wrath to come, the Christian may pity them, yea, and
methinks, even when they stand before the bar of God, although the fact of
their not having been warned will not fully excuse them, yet it will go far to
diminish their eternal miseries, which otherwise might have fallen upon
their heads; for we know it is more tolerable for unwarned Tyre and Sidon
in the day of judgment, than it is for any city, or any nation that has had the
Gospel proclaimed in its ears. My brethren, if on the other hand, we have
been warned, if our ministers have been faithful, if they have aroused our
conscience, and have constantly and earnestly called our attention to the
fact of the wrath to come, if we have not attended to their message, if we
have despised the voice of God, if we have turned a deaf ear to their
earnest exhortations, if we perish, we shall die warned — die under the
sound of the Gospel, and our damnation must be an unpitied one, for our
blood must fall upon our own heads. Permit me then, to try, if I can, to
enlarge upon this thought, that the warning has been in the case of many of
you, all that could have been needed.

In the first place, the warnings of the ministry have been to most of you
warnings that have been heard — “ He heard the sound of the trumpet.” In
far off lands the trumpet sound of warning is not heard. Alas! there are
myriads of our fellow creatures who have never been warned by God’s
ambassadors, who know not that wrath abideth on them, and who do not
yet understand the only way and method of salvation. In your case it is
very different. You have heard the Word of God preached to you. You
cannot say, when you come before God, “Lord. I knew no better.” There is
not a man or a woman within this place who will dare then to plead
ignorance. And moreover, you have not only heard with your ears, but
some of you have been obliged to hear it in your consciences. I have before
me many of my hearers whom I have had the pleasure of seeing now for
some years. It has not been once or twice, but many a time, I have seen the
tear guttering your cheeks when I have spoken earnestly, faithfully, and
affectionately to you. I have seen your whole soul moved within you. and
yet, to my sorrow, you are now what you were: your goodness has been as
the early cloud and as the morning dew that passeth away. You have heard
the Gospel. You wept under it, and you loved the sound of it, and you
came again, and wept again, and many marvelled that you did weep, but
the greatest marvel was, that after having wept so well, you wiped away
your tears so easily. Oh, yes, God is my witness, there are some of you not
an inch nearer heaven, but ye have sealed your own damnation doubly sure,
unless ye repent: for ye have heard the Gospel, ye have despised
prophesyings, ye have rejected the counsel of God against yourselves; and,
therefore, when you shall die ye must die pitied by your friends, but at the
same time with your blood on your own heads.

The trumpet was not only heard, but more than that, its warning was
understood. When the man supposed in the text heard the trumpet, he
understood by it that the enemy was at hand, and yet he took not warning.
Now, my brethren, in your case, the sound of the Gospel warning has been
understood. A thousand faults your minister may have, but there is one
fault from which he is entirely free, and that is, he is free from all attempts
to use fine language in the expression of his thoughts; ye are all my
witnesses, that if there be a Saxon word or a homel phrase, a sentence that
is rough and market-like, that will tell you the truth,; always use that first. I
can say solemnly, as in the sight of God, that I never went out of my pulpit,
except with the firm belief, that whatever might have happened, I was
perfectly understood. I had sought at least so to gather wise words, that no
man might mistake my meaning; gnash his teeth he might, but he could not
say, “The preacher was misty and cloudy, talking to me of metaphysics,
beyond my comprehension;” he has been obliged to say, “Well, I know
what he meant, he spoke plainly enough to me.” Well, sirs, then if it be so,
and if ye have heard warnings that ye could understand, so much the more
guilty are ye, if ye are living this day in rejection of them. If I have
preached to you in a style above comprehension. then on my head must be
your blood, because I ought to have made you understand; but if I come
down to men of low estate, and pick even vulgar phrases to suit common
people, then if you understood the warning, and if ye then risked it, mark
you, my hands are clean of your blood. If ye be damned. I am innocent of
your damnation; for I have told you plainly, that except ye repent, ye must
perish, and that except ye put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is
for you no hope of salvation.

Again, this trumpet sound was startling. The trumpet’s sound is ever
considered to be the most startling in the world. ‘Tis that which shall be
used on the resurrection morning to startle the myriads of sleepers and
make them rise from their tombs. Ay, and ye have had a startling ministry.
Ye have sat, some of you, under ministers that might have made the devil
himself tremble, so earnest have they been. and they have made you
tremble sometimes, so much, that you could not sleep. The hair of your
head was well nigh moved to stand upright. They spake as though they
ne’er might speak again: as dying men to dying men. They spoke as if they
had been in hell, and knew the vengeance of the Almighty, and anon they
spoke as if they had entered into the heart of Jesus, and read his love to
sinners. They had brows of brass, they knew not how to flinch. They laid
your iniquity bare before your face, and with rough language that was
unmistakeable they made you feel that there was a man there who told you
all things that ever you did. They so declared it, that you could not help
feeling under it. You always retained a veneration for that minister,
because you felt that he at least was honest with you, and you have
sometimes thought that you would even go and hear him again, because
there at least your soul was moved, and you were made to hear the truth.
Yes, you have had a startling ministry, some of you. Then, sirs, if ye have
heard the cry of fire, if ye are burned in your beds, your charred ashes shall
not accuse me. If I have warned you that he that believeth not must be
damned, if you are damned, your miserable souls shall not accuse me. If I
have startle you sometimes from your slumbers, and made your balls and
your pleasure parties uneasy, because I have sometimes warned you of
these things, then, sirs, if after all you put away these warnings, and you
reject these counsels, you will be obliged to say, “My blood is on my own
head.”

In many of your cases the warning has been very frequent. If the man heard
the trumpet sound ONCE and did not regard it, possibly we might excuse
him; but how many of my audience have heard the trumpet sound of the
gospel very frequently. There you are, YOUNG man. You have had many
years of a pious mother’s teaching, many years of a pious minister’s
exhortations. Waggon loads of sermons have been exhausted upon you.
You have had many sharp PROVIDENCES, many terrible sicknesses. Often
when the death bell has tolled for your friend, your CONSCIENCE has been
aroused. To you warnings are not unusual things; they are very common.
Oh ! my hearers, if a man should hear the gospel but once, his blood would
be upon his own head for rejecting it, but of how much sorer punishment
shall you be thought worthy who have heard it many and many a time. AH!
I may well weep, when I think how many sermons you have listened to,
many of you, how many times you have been CUT to the heart. A hundred
times every year you have gone up to the house of God, and far oftener
than that, and you have just added a hundred billets to the eternal pile. A
hundred times the trumpet has sounded in your ears, and a hundred times
you have turned away to sin again, to despise Christ, to neglect your
eternal interests, and to pursue the pleasures and the CONCERNS of this
world. Oh! how mad this is, how mad! Oh, sirs, if a man had but once
poured out his heart before YOU concerning your eternal interests, and if
he had spoken to you earnestly, and you had rejected his message, then,
even then, ye had been guilty. But what shall we say to you upon whom
the shafts of the Almighty have been exhausted? Oh, what stall be done
unto this barren ground that hath been watered with shower after shower,
and that hath been quickened with sunshine after sunshine? What shall be
done unto him who being often rebuked, still hardeneth his neck? Shall he
not be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy, and shall it not then
be said, “His blood lieth at his own door, his guilt is on his own head?”
And I would just have you recollect one thing more. This warning that you
have had so often, has come to you in time. “ Ah,” said an infidel once,
“God never regards man. If there be a God, he would never take notice of
men.” Said a Christian minister, who was sitting opposite to him in the
carriage, “The day may come, sir, when you will learn the truth of what
you have just said.” “I do not understand your allusion, sir,” said he. “Well,
sir, the day may come, when you may call, and he will refuse; when you
may stretch out your hands, and he will not regard you, but as he has said
in the book of Proverbs, so will he do, ‘Because I called and ye refused.
because I stretched out my hands, and no man regarded, I also will mock at
your calamity, I will laugh when your fear cometh.’ “ But oh, sirs, your
warning has not come too late. You are not warned on a sick bed, at the
eleventh hour, when there is but a bare possibility of salvation, but you are
warned in time, you are warned to-day, you have been warned for these
many years that are now past. If God should send a preacher to the
damned in hell, that were an unnecessary addition to their misery. Surely, if
one could go and preach the gospel through the fields of Gehenna, and tell
them of a Savior they had despised, and of a gospel that is now beyond
their reach, that were taunting poor souls with a vain attempt to increase
their unutterable woe; but Oh my brethren, to preach the gospel now is to
preach in a hopeful period; for “now is the accepted time: now is the day of
salvation.” Warn the boatman before he enters the current, and then, if he
is swept down the rapids, he destroys himself. Warn the man before he
drinks the cup of poison, tell him it is deadly; and then, if he drinks it, his
death lies at his own door. And so, let us warn you before you depart, this
life; let us preach to you while as yet your bones are full of marrow, and
the sinews of your joints are not loosed. We have then warned you in time,
and so much the more shall your guilt be increased, because the warning
was timely, it was frequent, it was earnest, it was appropriate, it was
arousing, it was continually given to you, and yet you sought not to escape
from the wrath to come.

And so even this morning would I say to you, if ye perish. my skirts are
free from your blood; if ye are damned, it is not for want of calling after,
nor for want of praying for, nor for want of weeping over. Your blood
must be on your own heads, for the warning is all that is needed.

II. And now we come to the second point. MEN; MAKE EXCUSES WHY
THEY DO NOT ATTEND TO THE GOSPEL WARNING, BUT THESE EXCUSES
ARE ALL FRIVOLOUS AND WICKED. I will just go over one or two of the
excuses that people make. Some of them say, “Well, I did not attend to the
warning, because I did not believe there was any necessity for it.” Ah! You
were told that after death there was a judgment, and you did not believe
there was any necessity that you should be prepared for that judgment.
You were told that by the works of the law there shall no flesh living be
justified, and that only through Christ CAN sinners be saved; and you did
not think there was any necessity for Christ. Well sir, you ought to have
thought there was a necessity. You know there was a necessity in your
inner consciousness. You talked very large things when you stood up as an
unbeliever, a professed unbeliever: but you know there was a still small
voice that while you spake belied your tongue. You are well aware that in
the silent watches of the night you have often trembled; in a storm at sea
you have been on your knees to pray to a God whom on the land you have
laughed at; and when you have been sick nigh unto death, you have said,
“Lord, have mercy upon me,” and so you have prayed, that you have
believed it after all. But if you did not believe it, you ought to have
believed it. There was enough in reason to have taught you that there was
an hereafter; the Book of God’s revelation was plain enough to have
taught it to you, and if you have rejected God’s Book, and rejected the
voice of reason and of conscience, your blood is on your own head. Your
excuse is idle. It is worse than that, it is profane and wicked, and still on
your own head be your everlasting torment.

“But,”cries another, “I did not like the trumpet. I did not like the Gospel
that was preached.” Says one, “I did not like certain doctrines in the Bible.
I thought the minister preached too harsh doctrines sometimes, I did not
agree with the Gospel, I thought the Gospel ought to have been altered,
and not to have been just what it was.” You did not like the trumpet, did
you? Well, but God made the trumpet, God made the Gospel. and
inasmuch as ye did not like what God made, it is an idle excuse. What was
that to you what the trumpet was, so long as it warned you? And surely, if
it had been time of war, and you had heard a trumpet sounded to warn you
of the coming of the enemy, you would not have sat still, and said, “Now I
believe that is a brass trumpet, I would like to have had it made of silver.”
No, but the sound would have been enough for you and up you would
have been to escape from the danger. And so it must be now with you. It is
an idle pretense that you did not like it. You ought to have liked it, for God
made the Gospel what it is.

But you say, “I did not like the man that blew it.” Well, if you did not like
one messenger of God, there are many in this city. Could you not find one
you did like? You did not like one man’s manner: it was too theatrical, you
did not like another’s: it was too doctrinal; you did not like another’s: it
was too practical — there are plenty of them, you may take which you do
like, but if God has sent the men, and told them how to blow, and if they
blow to the best of their ability, it is all in vain for you to reject their
warnings, because they do not blow the way you like. Ah, my brethren, we
do not find fault with the way a man speaks, if we are in a house that is on
fire. If the man calls, “Fire! Fire!” we are not particular what note he takes,
we do not think what a harsh voice he has got. You would think any one a
fool, a confounded fool, who should lie in his bed, to be burned, because
be said he did not like the way the man cried, “Fire” Why his business was
to have been out of bed and down the stairs at once, as soon as he heard it.
But another says, “I did not like the man himself; I did not like the minister;
I did not like the man that blew the trumpet; I could hear him preach very
well, but I had a personal dislike to him, and so I did not take any notice of
what the trumpet said.” Verily, God will say to thee at last, “Thou fool,
what hadst thou to do with that man; to his own master he stands or falls;
thy business was with thyself.” What would you think of a man? A man has
fallen overboard from a ship, and when he is drowning, some sailor throws
him a rope, and there it is. Well he says, in the first place, “I do not like
that rope, I don’t think that rope was made at the best manufactory, there
is some tar on it too, I do not like it; and in the next place, I do not like
that sailor that threw the rope over, I am sure he is not a kind-hearted man,
I do not like the look of him at all;” and then comes a gurgle and a groan,
and down he is at the bottom of the sea; and when he was drowned, they
said, that it served him right, if he would not lay hold of the rope, but
would be making such foolish and absurd objections, when it was a matter
of life and death. Then on his own head be his blood. And so shall it be
with you at last. You are so busy with criticising the minister, and his style,
and his doctrine, that your own soul perishes. Remember you may get into
hell by criticism, but you will never criticise your soul out of it. You may
there make the most you can of it. You may be there and say “I did not like
the minister I did not like his manner, I did not like his matter;” but all your
dislikings will not get one drop of water to cool your burning tongue. nor
serve to mitigate the unalleviated torments of that world of agony.
There are many other people who say, “Ah, well, I did none of those
things, but I had a notion that the trumpet sound ought to be blown to
everybody else, but not to me.” Ah! that is a very common notion. “All
men think all men mortal, but themselves,” said a good poet; and all men
think all men need the Gospel, but not themselves. Let each of us recollect
that the Gospel has a message to each one of us. What saith the Gospel to
thee my hearer? What saith the Word to thee? Forget thy neighbors, and
ask this question. Doth it condemn thee? or doth it assure thee of thy.
pardon? for recollect, all thou hast to do in the hearing of the Word, is to
hear with thine own ears for thine own soul, and it will be idle for any one
to say “ I did not think it applied to me,” when we know that it is to be
preached to every creature under heaven, and therefore there must be
something in it for every creature or else it would not be preached to every
creature.

Well, says another, “ But I was so busy, I had so much to do, that I could
not possibly attend to my soul’s concerns. What will you say of the man
who has so much to do that he could not get out of the burning house, but
was burnt to ashes? What will you say of the man that had so much to do,
that when he was dying, he had not time to send for a physician? Why, you
will say, then he ought not to have had so much to do. And if any man in
the world has a business which causes him to lose his own soul for want of
time, let him lay this question to his heart, “What shall it profit a man, if he
gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” But it is false — it is false
— men have got time. It is the want of will, not want of way. You have
time, sir, have you not, despite all your business, to spend in pleasure? You
have time to read your newspaper — have you no time to read your Bible?
You have time to sing a song — have you no time to pray a prayer? Why,
you know when farmer Brown met farmer Smith in the market one day, he
said to him, “Farmer Smith, I can’t think how it is you find time for
hunting. Why, man, what with sowing and mowing and reaping and
ploughing, and all that, my time is so fully occupied on my farm, that I
have no time for hunting.” “Ah,” said he “ Brown, if you liked hunting as
much as I do, if you could not find time, you’d make it.” And so it is with
religion, the reason why men cannot find time for it is, because they do not
like it well enough. If they liked it, they would find time. And besides, what
time does it want? What time does it require? Can I not pray to God over
my ledger? Can I not snatch a text at my very breakfast, and think over it
all day? May I not even when I am busy in the affairs of the world, be
thinking of my soul, and casting myself upon a Redeemer’s blood and
atonement? It wants no time. There may be some time required; some time
for my private devotions, and for communion with Christ, but when I grow
in grace, I shall think it right to have more and more time, the more I can
possibly get, the happier I shall be, and I shall never make the excuse that I
have no time.

“Well,” says another, “but I thought I had time enough; you do not want
me, sir, to be religious in my youth, do you? I am a lad, and may I not have
a little frolic and sow my wild oats as well as anybody else?” Well — yes,
yes; but at the same time the best place for frolic that I know of, is where a
Christian lives. the finest happiness in all the world is the happiness of a
child of God. You may have your pleasures — oh yes! you shall have them
doubled and trebled, if you are a Christian. You shall not have things that
worldlings call pleasures, but you shall have some that are a thousand times
better. But only look at that sorrowful picture. There, far away in the dark
gulf of woe, lies a young man, and he cries. “Ah! I meant to have repented
when I was out of my apprenticeship, and I died before my time was up.”
“Ah! “ says another by his side, “and I thought, whilst I was a journeyman,
that when I came to be a master, I would then think of the things of Christ,
but I died before I had got money enough to. start for myself.” And then a
merchant behind wails with bitter woe, and says, “Ah! I thought I would be
religious when I had got enough to retire on, and live in the country, then I
should have time to think of God, when I had got all my children married
out, and my concerns settled about me, but here I am shut up in hell, and
now what are all my delays worth, and what is all the time I gained for all
the paltry pleasures in the world ? Now I have lost my soul over them.”
We experience great vexation if we are unpunctual in many places; but we
cannot conceive what must be the horror and dismay of men who find
themselves too late in the next world! Ah! friends, if I knew there was one
here who said, “I shall repent next Wednesday.” I would have him feel in a
dreadful state till that Wednesday came, for what if he should die? Oh!
what if he should die! Would his promise of a Wednesday’s repentance
save him from a Thursday damnation ?

Ah, these are all idle excuses. Men make not such when their bodily life is
concerned. Would God that we were wise, that we would not make such
pitiful pretences to apology, when our soul, our own soul, is the matter at
stake. If they take not warning, whatever their excuse, their blood must be
upon their own head.

III. And now, I come most solemnly to conclude with all the power of
earnestness; the warning has been sufficient, the excuse for not attending to
it has been proved profane. Then the last thought is “HIS BLOOD SHALL BE
ON HIS OWN HEAD.” Briefly thus — he shall perish; he shall perish
certainly, he shall perish inexcusably. He shall perish. And what does that
mean? There is no human mind, however capacious, that can ever guess
the thought of a soul eternally cast away from God. The wrath to come is
as inexpressible as the glory that shall be revealed hereafter. Our Savior
labored for words with which to express the horrors of a future state to the
ungodly. You remember he talked of worms that die not, and fires that are
never quenched, of a pit without a bottom, of weeping and wailing and
gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness. No preacher was ever so loving as
Christ but no man ever spoke so horribly about hell; and yet even when the
Savior had said his best and said his worst, he had not told us what are the
horrors of a future state. Ye have seen sicknesses, ye have heard the
shrieks of men and women when their pangs have been upon them. We, at
least, have stood by the bed-sides even of some dear to us, and we have
seen to what an extent agony may be carried in the human body; but none
of us know how much the body is capable of suffering. Certainly the body
will have to suffer for ever — “He is able to cast both body and soul into
hell.” We have heard of exquisite torments, but we have never dreamt of
any like unto this. Again, we have seen something of the miseries of the
soul. Have we never marked the man that we used to know in our
childhood who was depressed in spirits. All that ever could be done for him
never could evoke a smile from him — never did the light of cheerfulness
light up his eye — he was mournfully depressed. Ay, and it was my
unhappy lot to live with one who was not only depressed in spirits, but
whose mind had gone so far amiss, that it did brood fancies so mournful
and dismal, that the very sight of him was enough to turn the sunlight of
summer into the very darkness of a dreary winter. He had nothing to say
but dark, groaning words. His thoughts always had a sombre appearance
about them. It was midnight in his soul — a darkness that might be felt.
Have you never seen yourselves what power the mind has over us to make
us full of misery? Ah, brethren and sisters, if ye could go to many of our
asylums, and to our sick wards — ay, and dying beds, too, you might
know what acute anguish the mind may feel. And remember that the mind,
as well as the mortal frame, is to endure damnation. Yes, we must not shirk
that word, the Scripture saith it, and we must use it. Oh! men and women,
except we repent, except we do each of US cry for mercy to him that is
able to save, we must perish. All that is meant by that word “hell,” must be
realized in me except I be a believer. and so all that is meant by “Depart, ye
cursed,” must be thine, unless thou dost turn unto God with full purpose of
heart.

But again, he that turneth not at the rebuke of the minister shall die, and he
shall die certainly. This is not a matter of perhaps or chance. The things we
preach, and that are taught in Scripture, are matters of solemn certainty. It
may be that death is that bourne from which no traveler returns, but it is
not true that we know nothing of it. It is as certain as that there are men,
and a world in which they live, that there is another world to come, and
that if they die impenitent, that world will be to them one of misery. And
mark you — there is no chance of escape, die without Christ, and there is
no gate out of which you can escape — for ever, oh, for ever lost, and not
one hope of mercy — cast away, and not one outlet for escape, not one
solitary chance of ransom. Oh, if there were hope that in the world to
come, men might escape, we need not be so earnest; but since once lost,
lost for aye — once cast away, cast away without hope, without any
prospect of a hope, we must be earnest. Oh, my God, when I remember
that I have to-day some here present who in all probability must be dead
before next Sabbath, I must be earnest. Out of so large an assembly, the
chances are that we shall not all of us be found pilgrims in this world within
another seven days. It is not only possible, but probable that some one out
of this vast audience will have been launched upon a world unknown. Shall
it be myself, and shall I sail to the port of bliss or must I sail over fiery
waves for ever, lost, shipwrecked, stranded, on the rocks of woe? Soul,
which shall it be with thee? It may be, thou shalt die, my greyheaded hearer
or thou young lad, thou boy, thou mayest die — I know not which nor can
we tell — God only knoweth. Then let each one ask himself. Am I
prepared, should I be called to die? Yes, you may die where you are, on
the benches where you are sitting — you may now die — and whither
would you go? for recollect that whither ye go, ye go for ever. Oh! eternity
— eternity — eternity must I climb thy topless steeps for ever, and never
reach the summit, and must my path be ever misery or joy? Oh! eternity,
thou depth without a bottom, thou sea without a shore, must I sail over thy
boundless waves for ever in one undeviating track — and must I either
plough through seas of bliss, or else be driven by the stormy wind of
vengeance, over gulfs of misery? “Then what am I?” “My soul awake and
an impartial survey take.” Am I prepared? Am I prepared? Am I
prepared?” For prepared or not, death admits of no delay, and if he is at my
door, he will take me where I must go for ever, prepared or not.

Now, the last thing is, the sinner will perish — he will perish certainly, but
last of all, he will perish without excuse — his blood shall be on his own
head. When a man is bankrupt ,if he can say, “It is not through reckless
trading — it has been entirely through the dishonesty of one I trusted that I
am what I am;” he takes some consolation, and he says, “I cannot help it.”
But oh, my hearers, if you make bankrupts of your own souls, after you
have been warned, then your own eternal bankruptcy shall lie at your own
door. Should never so great a misfortune come upon us, if we can trace it
to the providence of God, we bear it cheerfully; but if we have inflicted it
upon ourselves, then how fearful is it! And let every man remember that if
he perish after having heard the Gospel, he will be his own murderer.
Sinner, thou wilt drive the dagger into thine heart thyself. If thou depisest
the Gospel, thou art preparing fuel for thine own bed of flames, thou art
hammering out the chain for thine own everlasting binding; and when
damned, thy mournful reflection will be this: — I have damned myself, I
cast myself into this pit; for I rejected the Gospel, I despised the message; I
trod under foot the Son of Man; I would have none of his rebukes. I
despised his Sabbaths: I would not hearken to his exhortations, and now I
perish by mine own hand, the miserable suicide of my own soul.
And now a sweet reflection strikes me. A good writer says, “There are,
doubtless, spots in the world that would be barren for ever, if we
recollected what had happened there.” Says he, “I was once in St. Paul’s
cathedral, just under the dome, and a friend just touched me gently, and
said, ‘Do you see that little chisel mark?’ and I said ‘Yes.’ He said ‘That is
where a man threw himself down, and there he fell, and was dashed to
atoms.’ “ The writer says, “We all started aside from that little spot, where
a fellow creature’s blood had been shed. It seemed an awful place when we
remembered that.” Now, there is many a street, there is many a way-side,
there is many a house of God, where men have taken the last decision, and
damned their own souls. I doubt not, there are some here this morning,
standing or sitting, to whom the voice of conscience says, “Decide for
God,” and now Satan and the evil heart together are saying, “Reject the
message; laugh it off, forget it: take a ticket for the theater to-morrow: do
not let this man alarm us: it is his very profession to talk to us like this; let
us go away, and laugh if off; and let us spend the rest of this day in
merriment.” Yes, that is the last warning thou wilt ever have. It is so with
some of you. There are some of you that will this hour decide to damn
yourselves, and you will look for ever throughout eternity, to that place
under the gallery of the Surrey Music Hall, and you will say, “Alas! woe
was the day I heard that man. I was half impressed — almost he persuaded
me to be a Christian, but I decided for hell” And that will be a solemn spot
to angels where you are standing, or where you are sitting, for angels will
say to one another, “Stand aside, that is a spot where a man ruined his own
soul for ever and ever.” But the sweet thought is, that there are some
places just the reverseWhy, you are sitting, my friend, this morning, on a spot
where some threeweeks ago one sat who was converted to God; and that place where
youare sitting you ought to venerate, for in that place there sat one who was
one of the chiefest of sinners like yourself, and there the Gospel message
met him. And far back there behind the door, many a soul has been brought
to Christ. Many a piece of good news have I heard from some in yonder
upper gallery. “I could not see your face, sir, all the sermon through, but
the arrow of the Lord found its way round the corner, and reached my
heart notwithstanding that, and I was saved.” Ah, well, may God so bless
this place, that every seat of it this day may be solemnized by his own
grace, and a spot to be remembered in your future history by reason of the
beginning of your blessedness, the dawn of your salvation. “Believe on the
Lord Jesus, and be baptized, and thou shalt be saved.” This is the gospel
we are told to preach to every creature — “He that believeth, and is
immersed, shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned.”

“As man, as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
Revelation 3:19

THE dealings of God towards the sons of men have always puzzled the
wise men of the earth who have tried to understand them. Apart from the
revelation of God the dealings of Jehovah towards his creatures in this
world seem to be utterly inexplicable. Who can understand how it is that
the wicked flourish and are in great power? The ungodly man flourishes
like a green bay tree; behold, he stretcheth out his roots by the river; he
knoweth not the year of drought; his leaf withereth not; and his fruit doth
not fall in an untimely season. Lo, these are the ungodly that flourish in the
world; they are filled with riches; they heap up gold like dust, they leave
the rest of their substance to their babes; they add field to field and acre to
acre, and they become the princes of the earth. On the other hand, see how
the righteous are cast down. How often is virtue dressed in the rags of
poverty! How frequently is the most pious spirit made to suffer from
hunger, and thirst, and nakedness! We have sometimes heard the Christian
say, when he has contemplated these things, “Surely, I have served God in
vain, it is for nothing that I have chastened myself every morning and
vexed my soul with fasting; for lo, God hath cast me down, and he lifteth
up the sinner. How can this be?” The sages of the heathen could not
answer this question, and they therefore adopted the expedient of cutting
the gordian knot. “We cannot tell how it is,” they might have said;
therefore they flew at the fact itself, and denied it. “The man that prospers
is favored of the gods; the man who is unsuccessful is obnoxious to the
Most High.” So said the heathen, and they knew no better. Those more
enlightened easterns, who talked with Job in the days of his affliction, got
but little further; for they believed that all who served God would have a
hedge about them, God would multiply their wealth and increase their
happiness; while they saw in Job’s affliction, as they conceived, a certain
sign that he was a hypocrite, and therefore God had quenched his candle
and put out his light in darkness. And alas! even Christians have fallen into
the same error. They have been apt to think, that if God lifts a man up
there must be some excellence in him; and if he chastens and afflicts, they
are generally led to think that it must be an exhibition of wrath. Now hear
ye the text, and the riddle is all unriddled; listen ye to the words of Jesus,
speaking to his servant John, and the mystery is all unmysteried. “As many
as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”

The fact is, that this world is not the place of punishment. There may now
and then be eminent judgments; but as a rule God does not in the present
state fully punish any man for sin. He allows the wicked to go on in their
wickedness; he throws the reins upon their necks; he lets them go on
unbridled in their lusts; some checks of conscience there may be; but these
are rather as monitions than as punishments. And, on the other hand, he
casts the Christian down; he gives the most afflictions to the most pious;
perhaps he makes more waves of trouble roll over the breast of the most
sanctified Christian than over the heart of any other man living. So, then,
we must remember that as this world is not the place of punishment, we are
to expect punishment and reward in the world to come; and we must
believe that the only reason, then, why God afflicts his people must be this:

“In love I correct thee, thy gold to refine
To make thee at length in my likeness to thine.”

I shall try this morning to notice, first, what it is in his children that God
corrects: secondly, why God corrects them, and thirdly, what is our
comfort, when we are laboring under the rebukes and correctings of our
God. Our comfort must be the fact that he loves us even then. “As many as
I love, I rebuke and chasten.”

I. First, then, beloved, WHAT IS IT IN THE CHRISTIAN THAT GOD
REBUKES? One of the Articles of the Church of England saith right truly,
that, naturally, “man is very far gone from original righteousness and is of
his own nature inclined to evil so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to
the spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth
God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea
in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called by the
Greek, fponema sarkos which some do expound the wisdom some
sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject
to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that
believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence
and lust hath of itself the nature of sin,” and because evil remains in the
regenerate there is therefore a necessity that that evil should be upbraided.
Ay, and a necessity that when that upbraiding is not sufficient, God should
go to severer measures and after having failed in his rebukes, adopt the
expedient of chastening. “I rebuke and chasten.” Hence God has provided
means for the chastisement and the rebuking of his people. Sometimes God
rebukes his children under the ministry. The minister of the gospel is not
always to be a minister of consolation. The same Spirit that is the
Comforter is he who convinces the world of sin, of righteousness, and of
judgment, and the same minister who is to be as the angel of God unto our
souls, uttering sweet words that are full of honey, is to be at times the rod
of God, the staff in the hand of the Almighty, with which to smite us on
account of our transgessions. And ah! beloved, how often under the
ministry ought we to have been checked when we were not? Perhaps the
minister’s words were very forcible, and they were uttered with true
earnestness, and they applied to our case, but alas! we shut our ear to
them, and applied them to our brother instead of to ourselves. I have often
marvelled when I have been preaching. I have thought that I have
described the cases of some of my most prominent members. I have
marked in them divers sins, and as Christ’s faithful pastor, I have not
shunned to picture their case in the pulpit that they might receive a welldeserved
rebuke, but I have marvelled when I have spoken to them
afterwards, that they have thanked me for what I have said because they
thought it so applicable to such another brother in the church, whilst I had
intended it wholly for them, and had, as I thought, so made the description
accurate, and so brought it out in all its little points, that it must have been
received by them. But alas! you know, my friends, that we sit under the
sound of the Word, and we seldom think how much it belongs to us,
especially if we hold an office in the Church. It is hard for a minister when
he is hearing a brother minister preach, to think, it may be, he has a word
of rebuke to me. If exalted to the office of elder or deacon, there groweth
sometimes with that office a callousness to the Word when spoken to
himself, and the man in office is apt to think of the hundreds of inquirers
unto whom that may be found applicable, and of the multitudes of the
babes in grace to whom such a word comes in season. Ay, friends, if we
did but listen more to the rebukes of God in the ministry, if we hearkened
more to his Word as he speaks to us every Sabbath day, we might be
spared many corrections, for we are not corrected until we have despised
rebukes, and after we have rejected those, then out comes the rod.
Sometimes, again, God rebukes his children in their consciences, without
any visible means whatever. Ye that are the people of God will
acknowledge that there are certain times, when, apparently without any
instrumentality, your sine are brought to remembrance; your soul is cast
down within you, and your spirit is sore vexed. God the Holy Spirit is
himself making inquisition for sin; he is searching Jerusalem with candles;
he is so punishing you because you are settled on your lees. If you look
around you there is nothing that could cause your spirits to sink. The
family are not sick; your business prospers, your body is in good health;
why then this sinking of spirit? You are not conscious at the time, perhaps,
that you have committed any gross act of sin, still this dark depression
continues, and at last you discover that you had been living in a sin which
you did not know — some sin of ignorance, hidden and unperceived, and
therefore God did withdraw from you the joy of his salvation, till you had
searched your heart, and discovered wherein the evil lay. We have much
reason to bless God that he does adopt this way sometimes of rebuking us
before he chastens.

At other seasons the rebuke is quite indirect. How often have I met rebuke
where it never was intended to be given! But God overruled the
circumstance for good. Have you never been rebuked by a child? The
innocent little prattler uttered something quite unwittingly which cut you to
your heart and manifested your sin. You walked the street mayhap, and
you heard some man swear; and the thought perhaps struck your mind,
“How little am I doing for the reclaiming of those who are abandoned!”
And so the very sight of sin accused you of negligence and the very hearing
of evil was made use of by God to convince you of another evil. Oh! if we
kept our eyes open there is not an ox in the meadow, nor a sparrow in the
tree, which might not sometimes suggest a rebuke. There is not a star in
midnight there is not a ray in the noon-day, but what might suggest to us
some evil that is hidden in our hearts, and lead us to investigate our inner
man, if we were but awake to the soft whispers of Jehovah’s rebukes. You
know our Savior made use of little things to rebuke his disciples. He said
“Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. Behold the fowls of the air
how they are fed!” So he made lilies and ravens speak to his disciples, to
upbraid their discontent. Earth is full of monitors: all that we need are, ears
to hear. However, when these rebukes all fail, God proceeds from rebuke
to correction. He will not always chide; but if his rebukes are unheeded,
then he grasps the rod, and he uses it. I need not tell you how it is that God
uses the rod. My brethren, you have all been made to tingle with it. He has
sometimes smitten you in your persons, sometimes in your families
frequently in your estates, oftentimes in your prospects. He has smitten you
in your nearest and dearest friend; or, worse still, it may be he has give you
“a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet you.” But you all
understand if you know anything of the life of a Christian, what the rod and
the staff of the covenant are, and what it is to be corrected by God. Let me
just particularize for a few minutes, and show what it is that God corrects
in us.

Very frequently God corrects inordinate affection. It is right of us to love
our relatives — it is wrong of us to love them more than God. You
perhaps are yourselves to-day guilty of this sin, At any rate, beloved, we
may most of us look at home when we come to dwell on this point. Have
we not some favored one — perhaps the partner of our heart, or the
offspring of our bosom, more dear to us than life itself? Have I not here
some man whose life is bound up in the life of the lad, his child? — some
mother whose whole soul is knit unto the soul of her babe — some wife,
some husband, to whom the loss of the partner would be the loss of life?
Oh there are many of us who are guilty of inordinate affection towards
relations. Mark you, God will rebuke us for that. He will rebuke us in this
way. Sometimes he will rebuke us by the minister; if that is not enough he
will rebuke us by sending sickness or disease to those very persons upon
whom we have set our hearts, and if that rebuke us not, and if we are not
zealous to repent, he will chasten us: the sickness shall yet be unto death.
The disease shall break forth with more fearful violence, and the thing
which we have made our idol shall be smitten, and shall become the food
of worms. There never was an idol that God either did not or will not pull
out of its place. “I am the Lord thy God; I am a jealous God;” and if we
put any, however good and excellent their characters may be, and however
deserving of our affection, upon God’s throne, God will cry, “Down with
it,” and we shall have to weep many tears; but if we had not done so we
might have preserved the treasure and have enjoyed it far better, without
having lost it.

But other men are baser than this. One can easily overlook the fault of
making too much of children, and wife, and friends, although very grievous
in the sight of God; but alas! there are some that are too sordid to love
flesh and blood, they love dirt, mere dirty earth, yellow gold. It is that on
which they set their hearts. Their purse they tell us is dross; but when we
come to take aught from it, we find they do not think it is so. “Oh,” said a
man once, “if you want a subscription from me Sir, you must get at my
heart, and then you will get at my purse.” “Yes,” said I, “I have no doubt I
shall, for I believe that is where your purse lies, and I shall not be very far
off from it.” And how many there are who call themselves Christians, who
make a god out of their wealth! Their park, their mansion their estate, their
warehouses, their large ledgers, their many clerks their expanding business,
or if not these, their opportunity to retire, their money in the Three per
Cents. All these things are their idols and their gods, and we take them into
our churches, and the world finds no fault with them. They are prudent
men. You know many of them; they are very respectable people, they hold
many respectable positions, and they are so prudent, only that the love of
money, which is the root of all evil, is in their hearts too plainly to be
denied. Every one may see it, though perhaps they see it not themselves.
“Covetousness, which is idolatry,” reigns very much in the church of the
living God. Well, mark you, God will chasten for that. Whosoever loveth
mammon among God’s people shall first be rebuked for it, as he is rebuked
by me this day, and if that rebuke be not taken, there shall be a
chastisement given. It may be that the gold shall melt like the snow-flake
before the sun or if it be preserved it shall be said, “Your gold and silver
are cankered; the moth shall eat up your garments and destroy your glory.”
Or else the Lord will bring leanness into their souls, and cause them to go
down to their graves with few honors on their heads, and with little
comfort in their hearts, because they loved their gold more than their God,
and valued earthly riches more than the riches that are eternal. The Lord
save us from that, or else he will surely correct us.

But this is not the only sin: we are all subject to another crime which God
abhors exceedingly. It is the sin of pride. If the Lord gives us a little
comfort, we grow so big that we hardly know what to do with ourselves.
Like Jeshurun of old, of whom it is said, “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.”
Let us for a little time enjoy the full assurance of faith; self-conceit
whispers, “You will retain the savor of that all your days;” and there is not
quite a whisper, but something even fainter than that — “You have no
need to depend upon the influence of the Holy Spirit now. See what a great
man you have grown. You have become one of the Lord’s most valued
people; you are a Samson; you may pull down the very gates of hell and
fear not. You have no need to cry, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me.’” Or at
other times it takes a different turn. He gives us temporal mercies, and then
we presumptuously say, “My mountain standeth firm; I shall never be
moved.” We meet with the poor saints, and we begin to hector over them,
as if we were something and they were nothing. We find some in trouble,
we have no sympathy with them, we are bluff and blunt with them, as we
talk with them about their troubles, yea, we are even savage and creel with
them. We meet with some who are in deep distress and faint-hearted; we
begin to forget when we were faint-hearted too, and because they cannot
run as fast as we can, we run far ahead and turn back and look at them, call
them sluggards, and say they are idle and lazy. And perhaps even in the
pulpit, if we are preachers, we have got hard words to say against those
who are not quite so advanced as we are. Well, mark, there never was a
saint yet that grew proud of his fine feathers but what the Lord plucked
them out by-and-bye. There never yet was an angel that had pride in his
heart but he lost his wings and fell into Gehenna, as Satan and those fallen
angels did; and there shall never be a saint who indulges self-conceit, and
pride, and self-confidence, but the Lord will spoil his glories and trample
his honors in the mire, and make him cry out yet again “Lord have mercy
upon me, less than the least of all saints, and the very chief of sinners.”
Another sin that God rebukes is sloth. Now I need not stop to picture that.
How many of you are the finest specimens of sloth that can be discovered!
I mean not in a business sense, for you are “not slothful in business,” but
with regard to the things of God and the cause of truth, why, nine out of
ten of all the professors of religion, I do hazard the assertion, are as full of
sloth as they can be. Take our churches all around, and there is not a
corporation in the world, however corrupt, that is less attentive to its
professed interest than the church of Christ. There certainly are many
societies and establishments in the world that deserve much blame for not
attending to those interests which they ought to promote; but I do think the
Church of God is the hugest culprit of all. She says that she is the preacher
of the gospel to the poor: does she preach it to them? Yes, here and there:
now and then there is a spasmodic effort: but how many are there that have
got tongues to speak and ability to utter God’s Word that are content to be
still! She professes to be the educator of the ignorant, and so she is in a me
sure: there are many of you who have no business to be here this morning
— you ought to have been teaching in the Sabbath-school, or instructing
the young and teaching others. Ye have no need of teachers just now; ye
have learned the truth and should have been teaching it to other people.
The church professes that she is yet to cast the light of the gospel
throughout the world. She does a little in missionary enterprise; but ah!
how little! how little! how little compared with what her Master did for her
and the claims of Jesus upon her! We are a lazy set. Take the church all
round, we are as idle as we can be; and we have need to have some
whipping times of persecution, to whip a little more earnestness and zeal
into us. We thank God this is not so much the case now as it was even
twelve months ago. We hope the church may progress in her zeal; for if not
she as a whole, and each of us as members will be first rebuked, and if we
take not the rebuke we shall afterwards be chastened for this our great sin.
I have no time to enter into all the other reasons for which God will rebuke
and chasten. Suffice it to say that every sin has one twig in God’s rod
appropriated to itself. Suffice it to say, that in God’s hand there are
punishments for each particular transgression; and it is very singular to
notice how in Bible history almost every saint has been chastened for the
sin he has committed, by the sin itself falling upon his own head.
Transgression has been first a pleasure, and afterwards it has been a
scourge. “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways,” and
that is the severest punishment in all the world.

Thus I have tried to open the first head — it is that God rebukes and
chastens.

II. Now, secondly, WHY DOES GOD REBUKE AND CHASTEN? “Why,” says
one, “God rebukes his children because they are his children; and he
chastens them because they are his children.” Well, I will not go the length
of saving that is false, but I will go the length of saying it is not true. If any
one should say to a father, after he had chastened his child, “Why is it you
have chastened the child?” he would not say, it is because I am his father.
It is true in one sense, but he would say, “I have chastened the child
because he had done wrong.” Because the proximate reason why he had
chastened his child would not be that he was his father, though that would
have something to do with it as a primary reason, but the absolute and
primary cause would be, “I have chastened him because he has done
wrong, because I wish to correct him for it, that he might not do so again.”
Now, God, when he chastens his children, never does it absolutely, because
he is their Father; but he does it for a wise reason. He has some other
reason besides his fatherhood. At the same time, one reason why God
afflicts his children, and not others, is because he is their Father. If you
were to go home to-day and see a dozen boys in the streets throwing
stones and breaking windows it is very likely you would start the whole lot
of them; but if there is one boy that would get a sweet knock on the head it
would be your own, for you would say, “What are you at, John? What
business have you here?” You might not be justified, perhaps in meddling
with the others — you would let their own fathers attend to them; but
because you were his father you would try to make him remember it.

Certain special chastisements are inflicted on God’s children, because they
are his children but it is not because they are his children that he chastens
them at any one time but because they have been doing something wrong.
Now, if you are under chastisement, let this truth be certain to you. Are the
consolations of God small with thee? Is there any secret thin” with thee?
Art thou chastened in thy business? Then what sin hast thou committed?
Art thou cast down in thy spirit? Then what transgression has brought this
on thee? Remember, it is not fair to say, “I am chastened because I am his
child;” the right way to say it is, “I am his child, and therefore when he
chastens me he has a reason for it.” Now, what is it? I will help you to
judge.

Sometimes God chastens and afflicts us, to prevent sin. He sees that the
embryo of lust is in our hearts, he sees that that little egg of mischief is
beginning to hatch and to produce sin, and he comes and crushes it at once
— nips the sin in the bud. Ah! we cannot tell how much guilt Christians
have been saved from by their afflictions. We are running on madly to- our
destruction, and then some dark apparition of trouble comes, and stretches
itself across the way, and in greet fright we fly back astonished. We ask,
why this trouble? Oh! if we knew the deluge into which we were rushing
we should only say, “Lord, I thank thee that by that direful trouble thou
didst save me from a sin, that would have been far more troublous and
infinitely more dangerous.”

At other times God chastens us for sins already committed. We perhaps
have forgotten them; but God has not. I think that sometimes years elapse
between a sin and the chastisement for it. The sins of our youth may be
punished in our grey old age: the transgressions you did twenty years ago,
those of you who have grown old, may this very day be found in your
bones. God chastens his children, but he sometimes lays the rod by. The
time would not be seasonable perhaps; they are not yet strong enough to
hear it: so he lays his rod by, and he says, as surely as he is my child,
though I lay the rod by, I will make him smart for it, that I may at last
deliver him from his sin, and make him like unto myself. But mark, ye
people of God, in all these chastisements for sin there is no punishment.
When God chastises you he does not punish as a judge does; but he
chastens as a father. When he lays the rod on, with many blows and smart
ones, there is not one thought of anger in his heart — there is not one look
of displeasure in his eye; he means it all for your good; his heaviest blows
are as much tokens of his affection as his sweetest caresses. He has no
motive but your profit and his own glory. Be of good cheer, then, if these
be the reasons. But take care that thou dost fulfill the command — “Be
zealous, therefore, and repent.”

I read in an old Puritan author the other day a very pretty figure. He says,
“A full wind is not so favorable to a ship when it is fully fair as a side wind.
It is strange,” says he, “that when the wind blows in an exact direction to
blow a ship into port, she will not go near so well as if she had a cross
wind sideways upon her.” And he explains it thus: “The mariners say that
when the wind blows exactly fair it only fills a part of the sails, and it
cannot reach the sails that are ahead, because the sail, bellying out with the
wind, prevents the wind from reaching that which is further ahead. But
when the wind sweeps sideways, then every sail is full, and she is driven on
swiftly in her course with the full force of the wind. Ah!” says the old
Puritan, “there is nothing like a side wind to drive God’s people to heaven.
A fair wind only fills a part of their sails; that is, fills their joy, fills their
delight; but,” says he, “the side wind fills them all; it fills their caution, fills
their prayerfulness, fills every part of the spiritual man, and so the ship
speeds onwards towards its haven.” It is with this design that God sends
affliction, to chasten us on account of our transgressions.

III. And now I am to conclude by noting WHAT IS OUR COMFORT WHEN
GOD REBUKES AND CHASTENS US?

Our great comfort is, that he loves us still. Oh! what a precious thing faith
is when we are enabled to believe our God, and how easy then it is to
endure and to surmount all trouble! Hear the old man in the garret, with a
crust of bread and a cup of cold water. Sickness has confined him these
years within that narrow room. He is too poor to maintain an attendant.
Some woman comes in to look to him in the morning and in the evening,
and there he sits, in the depths of poverty. And you will suppose he sits and
groans. No, brethren; he may sometimes groan when the body is weak, but
usually he sits and sings; and when the visitor climbs the creaking staircase
of that old house, where human beings scarcely ought to be allowed to live,
and when he goes into that poor cramped-up room that is more fit to
accommodate swine than men, he sits down upon that bottomless chair,
and when he has squatted himself as well as he can upon the four cross
pieces of it he begins to talk to him, and he finds him full of heaven. “Oh!
sir,” he says, “my God is very kind to me.” Propped up he is with pillows,
and full of pain in every member of his body? but he says, “Blessed be his
name, he has not left me.” “Oh! sir, have enjoyed more peace and
happiness in this room, out of which I have not gone for years,” — (the
case is real that I am now describing) “I have enjoyed more happiness here
than I ever did in all my life. My pains are great, sir, but they will not be for
long; I am going home soon.” Ay, where he more troubled still, had he
such rich consolation poured into his heart, he might endure all with a
smile and sing in the furnace. Now, child of God, thou art to do the same.
Remember, all thou hast to suffer is sent in love. It is hard work for a child,
when his father has been chastening it, to look at the rod as a picture of
love. You cannot make your children do that: but when they grow up to be
man and women how thankful are they are to you then? “O father,” says
the son, “I know now why it was I was so often chastened; I had a proud
hot spirit; it would have been the ruin of me if thou hadst not whipped it
out of me. Now, I thank thee, my father, for it.”

So, while we are here below we are nothing but little children; we cannot
prize the rod: when we come of age, and we go into our estates in
Paradise, we shall look back upon the rod of the Covenant as being better
than Aaron’s rod, for it blossoms with mercy. We shall say to it. “Thou art
the most wondrous thing in all the list of my treasures. Lord, I thank thee
that thou didst not leave me unafflicted, or else I had not been where I am,
and what I am, a child of God in Paradise.” “I have this week,” says one,
sustained so serious a loss in my business that I am afraid I shall be utterly
broken up.” There is love in that. “I came here this morning,” says one,
“and I left a dead child in the house — dear to my heart.” There is love in
that. That coffin and that shroud will both be full of love; and when your
child is taken away, it shall not be in anger. “Ah!” cries another, but I have
been exceedingly sick, and even now I feel I ought not to have ventured
out: I must return to my bed.” Ah! he makes your bed in your affliction.
There is love in every pain, in every twitch of the nerve; in every pang that
shoots through the members, there is love. “Ah!” says one, “it is not
myself, but I have got a dear one that is sick.” There is love there, too. Do
what God may, he cannot do an unloving act towards his people. O Lord!
thou art Omnipotent; thou canst do all things, but thou canst not lie, and
thou canst not be unkind to the elect. No, Omnipotence may build a
thousand worlds, and fill them with bounties; Omnipotence may powder
mountains into dust, and burn the sea, and consume the sky; but
Omnipotence cannot do an unloving thing towards a believer. Oh! rest
quite sure, Christian, a hard thing, an unloving thing from God towards one
of his own people is quite impossible. He is kind to you when he casts you
into prison as when he takes you into a palace, He is as good when he
sends famine into your house as when he fills your barns with plenty. The
only question is, Art thou his child? If so, he hath rebuked thee in affection,
and there is love in his chastisement.

I have now done, but not until I have made my last appeal. I have now to
turn from God’s people to the rest of you. Ah I my hearers, there are some
of you that have no God; you have no Christ on whom to cast your
troubles. I se! some of you to-day dressed in the habiliments of mourning; I
suppose you have lost some one dear unto you. Oh! ye that are robed in
black, is God your God? Or are you mourning now, without God to wipe
every tear from your eye? I know that many of you are struggling now in
your business with very sharp and hard times. Can you tell your troubles to
Jesus, or have you to bear them all yourself, — friendless and helpless?
Many men have been driven mad, because they had no one to whom to
communicate their sorrow; and how many others have been driven worse
than mad, because when they told their sorrows their confidence was
betrayed. O poor mourning spirit, if thou hadst, as thou mightest have
done, gone and told him all thy woes, he would not have laughed at thee,
and he would never have told it out again. Oh! remember when once my
young heart ached in boyhood, when I first loved the Savior. I was far
away from father and mother, and all I loved, and I thought my soul would
burst; for I was an usher in a school, in a place where I could meet with no
sympathy or help. Well, I went to my chamber, and told my little griefs into
the ears of Jesus. They were great griefs to me then, though they are
nothing now. When I just whispered them on my knees into the ear of him
who had loved me with an everlasting love, oh I it was so sweet, none can
tell. If I had told them to somebody else, they would have told them again;
but he, my blessed confidante, he knows my secrets, and he never tells
again. Oh! what can you do that have got no Jesus to tell your troubles to?
And the worst of it is, you have got more troubles to come. Times may be
hard now, but they will be harder one day — they will be harder when they
come to an end. They say it is hard to live, but it is very hard to die. When
one comes to die and has Jesus with him, even then dying is hard work; but
to die without a Savior! Oh! my friends, are you inclined to risk it? Will
you face the grim monarch, and no Savior with you? Remember, you must
do it, you must die soon. The chamber shall soon be hushed in silence; no
sound shall be heard except the babbling watch that ever tells the flight of
time. The physician shall “Hush!” and hold up his finger, and whisper in a
suppressed voice, “He cannot last many minutes longer.- And the wife and
the children, or the father and the mother, will stand around your bed and
look at you, as I have looked at some, with a sad, sad heart. They will look
at you a little while, till at last the death-change will pass o’er your face.
“He is gone!” it shall be said; and the hand uplifted shall be dropped down
again, and the eye shall be glazed in darkness, and then the mother will turn
away and say, “O my child, I could have borne all this if there had been
hope in thine end!” And when the minister comes in to comfort the family,
he will ask the question of the father, “Do you think your son had an
interest in the blood of Christ?” The reply will be, “O sir, we must not
judge, but I never saw anything like it; I never had any reason to hope: that
is my greatest sorrow.” There, there! I could bury every friend without a
tear, compared with the burial of an ungodly friend. Oh! it seems such an
awful thing, to have one allied to you by ties of blood, dead and in hell.
We generally speak very softy about the dead. We say, “Well, we hope.”
Sometimes we tell great lies, for we know we do not hope at all. We wish
it may be so, but we cannot hope it; we never saw any grounds that should
lead us to hope. But would it not be an awful thing if we were honest
enough to look the dread reality in its face — if the husband were simply to
look at it, and say, “There was my wife; she was an ungodly, careless
woman. I know at least, she never said anything concerning repentance and
faith; and if she died so, and I have every reason to fear she did, then she is
cast away from God.” It would be unkind to say it; but it is only honest for
us to know it — to look dread truth in the face. Oh! my fellowmen and
brethren, oh I ye that are partners with me of an immortal life! We shall
one day meet again before the throne of God; but ere that time comes, we
shall each of us be separated, and go our divers ways down the shelving
banks of the river of death. My fellowman, art thou prepared to die alone?
I ask thee this question again — Art thou prepared to arise in the day of
judgment without a Savior? Art thou willing to run all risks and face thy
Maker, when he comes to judge thee without an advocate to plead thy
cause? Art thou prepared to hear him say, “Depart ye cursed!” Are ye
ready now to endure the everlasting ire of him who smites, and smiting
once, doth smite for ever? Oh! if you will make your bed in hell, if you are
prepared to be damned, if you are willing to be so, then live in sin and
indulge in pleasures; — you will get your wish. But if ye would not; if ye
would enter heaven and ye would be saved, “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye
die, O house of Israel?” May God the Holy Spirit, enable you to repent of
sin and to believe on Jesus; and then you shall have a portion among them
that are sanctified: but unrepenting and unbelieving, if ye die so, ye must be
driven from his presence, never to have life, and joy, and liberty, as long as
eternity shall last.

The Lord prevent this, for Jesus’ sake.

“Therefore let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”
1 Thessalonians 5:6

WHAT sad things sin hath done. This fair world of ours was once a
glorious temple, every pillar of which reflected the goodness of God, and
every part of which was a symbol of good, but sin has spoiled and marred
all the metaphors and figures that might be drawn from earth. It has so
deranged the divine economy of nature that those things which were
inimitable pictures of virtue, goodness, and divine plenitude of blessing,
have now become the figures and representatives of sin. ‘Tis strange to
say, but it is strangely true, that the very best gifts of God have by the sin
of men become the worst pictures of man’s guilt. Behold the flood!
breaking forth from its fountains, it rushes across the fields, bearing plenty
on its bosom; it covers them awhile, and anon it doth subside and leaves
upon the plain a fertile deposit, into which the farmer shall cast his seed
and reap an abundant harvest. One would have called the breaking forth of
water a fine picture of the plenitude of providence, the magnificence of
God’s goodness to the human race; but we find that sin has appropriated
that figure to itself. The beginning of sin is like the breaking forth of
waters. See the fire! how kindly God hath bestowed upon us that element,
to cheer us in the midst of winter’s frosts. Fresh from the snow and from
the cold we rush to our household fire, and there by our hearth we warm
our hands, and glad are we. Fire is a rich picture of the divine influences of
the Spirit, a holy emblem of the zeal of the Christian; but alas, sin hath
touched this, and the tongue is called “a fire,” “it is set on fire of hell,” we
are total, and it is so evidently full often, when it uttereth blasphemy and
slanders, and Jude lifts up his hand and exclaims, when he looks upon the
evils caused by sin, “Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth.” And
then there is sleep, one of the sweetest of God’s gifts, fair sleep.
“Tired nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep.”

Sleep God hath selected as the very figure for the repose of the blessed.
“They that sleep in Jesus,” saith the Scripture. David puts it amongst the
peculiar gifts of grace: “So he giveth his beloved sleep.” But alas! sin could
not let even this alone. Sin did override even this celestial metaphor, and
though God himself had employed sleep to express the excellence of the
state of the blessed, yet sin must have even this profaned, ere itself can be
expressed. Sleep is employed in our text as a picture of a sinful condition.
“Therefore let us not sleep as do others but let us watch and be sober.”
With that introduction I shall proceed at once to the text. The “sleep” of
the text is an evil to be avoided. In the second place, the word “therefore”
is employed to show us that there are certain reasons for the avoiding of
this sleep. And since the apostle speaks of this sleep with sorrow, it is to
teach us that there are some, whom he calls “others,” over whom it is our
business to lament, because they sleep, and do not watch, and are not
sober.

I. We commence, then, in the first place, by endeavoring to point out the
EVIL WHICH THE APOSTLE INTENDS TO DESCRIBE UNDER THE TERM
SLEEP. The apostle speaks of “others” who are asleep. If you turn to the
original you will find that the word translated “others” has a more emphatic
meaning. It might be rendered (and Horne so renders it,) “the refuse,” —
”Let us not sleep as do the refuse,” the common herd, the ignoble spirits,
those that have no mind above the troubles of earth. “Let us not sleep as
do the others,” the base ignoble multitude who are not alive to the high and
celestial calling of a Christian. “Let us not sleep as do the refuse of
mankind.” And you will find that the word “sleep,” in the original, has also
a more emphatic sense it signifies a deep sleep, a profound slumber; and
the apostle intimates, that the refuse of mankind are now in a profound
slumber. We will now try if we can explain what he meant by it.

First the apostle meant, that the refuse of mankind are in a state of
deplorable ignorance. They that sleep know nothing. There may be
merriment in the house, but the sluggard shareth not in its gladness, there
may be death in the family, but no tear bedeweth the cheek of the sleeper.
Great events may have transpired in the world’s history, but he wots not of
them. An earthquake may have tumbled a city from its greatness, or war
may have devastated a nation, or the banner of triumph may be waving in
the gale, and the clarions of his country may be saluting us with victory,
but he knoweth nothing.

“Their labor and their love are lost
Alike unknowing and unknown.”

The sleeper knoweth not anything. Behold how the refuse of mankind are
alike in this! Of some things they know much, but of spiritual things they
know nothing, of the divine person of the adorable Redeemer they have no
idea; of the sweet enjoyments of a life of piety they cannot even make a
guess; towards the high enthusiasms and the inward raptures of the
Christian they cannot mount. Talk to them of divine doctrines, and they are
to them a riddle, tell them of sublime experiences, and they seem to them
to be enthusiastic fancies. They know nothing of the joys that are to come;
and alas! for them they are oblivious of the evils which shall happen to
them if they go on in their iniquity. The mass of mankind are ignorant; they
know not they have not the knowledge of God, they have no fear of
Jehovah before their eyes; but, blind-folded by the ignorance of this world,
they march on through the paths of lust to that sure and dreadful end, the
everlasting ruin of their souls. Brethren, if we be saints, let us not be
ignorant as are others. Let us search the Scriptures, for in them we have
eternal life, for they do testify of Jesus. Let us be diligent; let not the Word
depart out of our hearts, let us meditate therein both by day and night, that
we may be as the tree planted by the rivers of water. “Let us not sleep as
do others.”

Again, sleep pictures a state of insensibility. There may be much
knowledge in the sleeper, hidden, stored away in his mind, which might be
well developed, if he could but be awakened. But he hath no sensibility, he
knoweth nothing. The burglar hath broken into the house, the gold and
silver are both in the robber’s hands; the child is being murdered by the
cruelty of him that hath broken in, but the father slumbereth, though all the
gold and silver that he hash, and his most precious child, are in the hands of
the destroyer. He is unconscious, how can he feel, when sleep hath utterly
sealed his senses! Lo! in the street there is mourning. A fire hath just now
burned down the habitation of the poor and houseless beggars are in the
street. They are crying at his window, and asking him for help. But he
sleeps, and what wots he, though the night be cold, and though the poor
are shivering in the blast? He hath no consciousness; he feeleth not for
them. There! take the title deed of his estate, and burn the document,
There! set light to his farm-yard! burn up all that he hath in the field, kill his
horse and destroy his cattle; let now the fire of God descend and burn up
his sheep let the enemy fall upon all that he hath and devour it. He sleeps as
soundly as if he were guarded by the angel of the Lord.

Such are the refuse of mankind. But alas! that we should have to include in
that word “refuse” the great bulk thereof! How few there are that feel
spiritually! They feel acutely enough any injury to their body, or to their
estate, but alas! for their spiritual concerns they have no sensation
whatever! They are standing on the brink of hell, but they tremble not; the
anger of God is burning against them but they fear not; the sword of
Jehovah is unsheathed, but terror doth not seize upon them. They proceed
with the merry dance, they drink the bowl of intoxicating pleasure; they
revel and they riot; still do they sing the lascivious song, yea they do more
than this; in their vain dreams they do defy the Most High, whereas if they
were once awakened to the consciousness of their state, the marrow of
their bone” would melt, and their heart would dissolve like wax in the
midst of their bowels. They are asleep, indifferent and unconscious. Do
what you may to them; let everything be swept away that is hopeful, that
might give them cheer when they come to die, yet they feel it not; for how
should a sleeper feel anything! But “Therefore let us not sleep, as do
others, but let us watch and be sober.”

Again: the sleeper cannot defend himself. Behold yonder prince, he is a
strong man, ay, and a strong man armed. He hath entered into the tent. He
is wearied. He hath drunken the woman’s milk; he hath eaten her “butter in
a lordly dish;” he casteth himself down upon the floor, and he slumbereth.
And now she draweth nigh. She hath with her, her hammer and her nail.
Warrior! thou couldst break her into atoms with one blow of thy mighty
arm, but thou canst not now defend thyself. The nail is at his ear, the
woman’s hand is on the hammer and the nail hath pierced his skull; for
when he slept he was defenceless. The banner of Sisera had waved
victoriously over mighty foes; but now it is stained by a woman. Tell it, tell
it, tell it! The man, who when he was awake made nations tremble, dies by
the hand of a feeble woman when he sleepeth.

Such are the refuse of mankind. They are asleep; they have no power to
resist temptation. Their moral strength is departed, for God is departed
from them. There is the temptation to lust. They are men of sound principle
in business matters, and nothing could make them swerve from honesty,
but lasciviousness destroyeth them, they are taken like a bird in a snare,
they are caught in a trap, they are utterly subdued. Or, mayhap, it is
another way that they are conquered. They are men that would not do an
unchaste act, or even think a lascivious thought; they scorn it. But they
have another weak point, they are entrapped by the glass. They are taken
and they are destroyed by drunkenness. Or, if they can resist these things,
and are inclined neither to looseness of fire nor to excess in living, yet
mayhap covetousness entereth into them, by the name of prudence it
slideth into their hearts, and they are led to grasp after treasure and to heap
up gold, even though that gold be wrung out of the veins of the poor, and
though they do suck the blood of the orphan. They seem to be unable to
resist their passion. How many times have I been told by men, “I cannot
help it, sir, do what I may, I resolve, I re-resolve, but I do the same; I am
defenceless; I cannot resist the temptation!” Oh, of course you cannot,
while you are asleep. O Spirit of the living God! wake up the sleeper! Let
sinful sloth and presumption both be startled, lest haply Moses should
come their way, and finding them asleep should hang them on the gallows
of infamy forever.

Now, I come to give another meaning to the word “sleep.” I hope there
have been some of my congregation who have been tolerably easy whilst I
have described the first three things, because they have thought that they
were exempt in those matters. But sleep signifies also inactivity. The
farmer cannot plough his field in his sleep, neither can he cast the grain into
the furrows, nor watch the clouds, nor reap his harvest. The sailor cannot
reef his sail, or direct his ship across the ocean, whilst he slumbereth. It is
not possible that on the Exchange, or the mart, or in the house of business,
men should transact their affairs with their eyes fast closed in slumber. It
would be a singular thing to see a nation of sleepers; for that would be a
nation of idle men. They must all starve; they would produce no wealth
from the soil, they would have nothing for their backs, nought for clothing
and nought for food. But how many we have in the world that are inactive
through sleep! Yes, I say inactive. I mean by that, that they are active
enough in one direction but they are inactive in the right. Oh how many
men there are that are totally inactive in anything that is for God’s glory, or
for the welfare of their fellow creatures! For themselves, they can “rise up
early, and sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness;” — for their
children, which is an alias for themselves, they can toil until their fingers
ache — they can weary themselves until their eyes are red in their sockets,
till the brain whirls, and they can do no more but for God they can do
nothing. Some say they have no time, others frankly confess that they have
no will: for God’s church they would not spend an hour, whilst for this
world’s pleasure they could lay out a month. For the poor they cannot
spend their time and their attention. They may haply have time to spare for
themselves and for their own amusement, but for holy works, for deeds of
charity, and for pious acts they declare they have no leisure; whereas, the
fact is, they have no will.

Behold ye, how many professing Christians there are that are asleep in this
sense! They are inactive. Sinners are dying in the street by hundreds; men
are sinking into the flames of eternal wrath; but they fold their arms, they
pity the poor perishing sinner, but they do nothing to show that their pity is
real. They go to their places of worship, they occupy their well-cushioned
easy pew; they wish the minister to feed them every Sabbath; but there is
never a child taught in the Sunday-school by them; there is never a tract
distributed at the poor man’s house; there is never a deed done which
might be the means of saving souls. We call them good men, some of them
we even elect to the office of deacons, and no doubt good men they are;
they are as good as Anthony meant to say that Brutus was honorable, when
he said, “So are we all, all honorable men.” So are we all, all good, if they
be good. But these are good, and in some sense — good for nothing; for
they just sit and eat the bread, but they do not plough the field, they drink
the wine, but they will not raise the vine that doth produce it. They think
that they are to live unto themselves, forgetting that “no man liveth unto
himself, and no man dieth unto himself.” Oh, what a vast amount of
sleeping we have in all our churches and chapels; for truly if our churches
were once awake, so far as material is concerned, there are enough
converted men and women, and there is enough talent with them, and
enough money with them, and enough time with them, God granting the
abundance of his Holy Spirit, which he would be sure to do if they were all
zealous — there is enough to preach the gospel in every corner of the
earth. The church does not need to stop for want of instruments, or for
want of agencies we have everything now except the will; we have all that
we may expect God to give for the conversion of the world, except just a
heart for the work, and the Spirit of God poured out into our midst. Oh!
brethren, “let us not sleep as do others.” You will find the “others” in the
church and in the world: “the refuse” of both are sound asleep.

Ere, however, I can dismiss this first point of explanation, it is necessary
for me just to say that the apostle himself furnishes us with part of an
exposition, for the second sentence, “let us watch and be sober,” implies
that the reverse of these things is the sleep, which he means. “Let us
watch.” There are many that never watch. They never watch against sin;
they never watch against the temptations of the enemy; they do not watch
against themselves, nor against “the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye,
and the pride of life.” They do not watch for opportunities to do good,
they do not watch for opportunities to instruct the ignorant, to confirm the
weak, to comfort the afflicted, to succor them that are in need; they do not
watch for opportunities of glorifying Jesus, or for times of communion,
they do not watch for the promises; they do not watch for answers to their
prayers; they do not watch for the second coming of our Lord Jesus. These
are the refuse of the world: they watch not, because they are asleep. But let
us watch: so shall we prove that we are not slumberers.

Again: let us “be sober.” Albert Barnes says, this most of all refers to
abstinence, or temperance in eating and drinking. Calvin says, not so: this
refers more especially to the spirit of moderation in the things of the world.
Both are right; it refers to both. There be many that are not sober; they
sleep, because they are not so; for insobriety leadeth to sleep. They are not
sober — they are drunkards, they are gluttons. They are not sober — they
cannot be content to do a little business — they want to do a great deal.
They are not sober — they cannot carry on a trade that is sure — they
must speculate. They are not sober — if they lose their property, their
spirit is cast down within them, and they are like men that are drunken with
wormwood. If on the other hand, they get rich, they are not sober: they so
set their affections upon things on earth that they become intoxicated with
pride, because of their riches — become purse-proud, and need to have the
heavens lifted up higher, lest their heads should dash against the stars. How
many people there are that are not sober! Oh! I might especially urge this
precept upon you at this time, my dear friends. We have hard times
coming, and the times are hard enough now. Let us be sober. The fearful
panic in America has mainly arisen from disobedience to this command —
“Be sober,” and if the professors of America had obeyed this
commandment, and had been sober, the panic might at any rate have been
mitigated, if not totally avoided. Now, in a little time you who have any
money laid by will be rushing to the bank to have it drawn out, because
you fear that the bank is tottering. You will not be sober enough to have a
little trust In your fellow-men, and help them through their difficultly, and
so be a blessing to the commonwealth. And you who think there is
anything to be got by lending your money at usury will not be content with
lending what you have got, but you will be extorting and squeezing your
poor debtors, that you may get the more to lend. Men are seldom content
to get rich slowly, but he that hasteth to be rich shall not be innocent. Take
care, my brethren — if any hard times should come in London, if
commercial houses should smash, and banks be broken — take care to be
sober. There is nothing will get us over a panic so well as every one of us
trying to keep our spirits up — just rising in the morning, and saying,
“Times are very hard, and to-day I may lose my all; but fretting will not
help it, so just let me set a bold heart against hard sorrow, and go to my
business. The wheels of trade may stop; I bless God, my treasure is in
heaven; I cannot be bankrupt. I have set my affections on the things of God
I cannot lose those things. There is my jewel; there is my heart!” Why, if all
men could do that, it would tend to create public confidence; but the cause
of the great ruin of many men is the covetousness of all men and the fear of
some. If we could all go through the world with confidence, and with
boldness, and with courage, there is nothing in the world that could avert
the shock so well. Come, I suppose the shock must; and there are many
men now present, who are very respectable, who may expect to be beggars
ere long. Your business is, so to put your trust in Jehovah that you may be
able to say, “Though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be
carried into the midst of the sea, God is my refuge and strength a very
present help in trouble therefore will I not fear,” and doing that, you will be
creating more probabilities for the avoidance of your own destruction than
by any other means which the wisdom of man can dictate to you. Let us
not be intemperate in business, as are others; but let us awake. “Let us not
sleep” — not be carried away by the somnambulism of the world, for what
is it better than that? — activity and greed in sleep “but let us watch and be
sober.” Oh, Holy Spirit help us to watch and be sober.

II. Thus I have occupied a great deal of time in explaining the first point
— What was the sleep which the apostle meant? And now you will notice
that the word “therefore” implies that there are CERTAIN REASONS FOR
THIS. I shall give you these reasons; and if I should cast them somewhat
into a dramatic form, you must not wonder; they will the better, perhaps,
be remembered. “Therefore,” says the apostle, “let us not sleep.”

We shall first look at the chapter itself for our reasons. The first reason
precedes the text. The apostle tells us that “we are all the children of the
light and of the day; therefore let us not sleep as do others. I marvel not
when, as I walk through the streets after nightfall, I see every shop closed,
and every window-blind drawn down, and I see the light in the upper room
significant of retirement to rest. I wonder not that a half an hour later my
foot-fall startles me, and I find none in the streets. Should I ascend the
staircase, and look into the sleepers’ placid countenances, I should not
wonder; for it is night, the proper time for sleep. But if some morning at
eleven or twelve o’clock, I should walk down the streets and find myself
alone, and notice every shop closed, and every house straitly shut up, and
hearken to no noise, I should say, “‘Tis strange, ‘tis passing strange, ‘tis
wonderful. What are these people at? ‘Tis day-time, and yet they are all
asleep. I should be inclined to seize the first rapper I could find, and give a
double knock, and rush to the next door, and ring the bell, and so all the
way down the street; or go to the police station, and wake up what men I
found there, and bid them make a noise in the street; or go for the fire
engine, and bid the firemen rattle down the road and try to wake these
people up. For I should say to myself “There is some pestilence here, the
angel of death must have flown through these streets during the night and
killed all these people, or else they would have been sure to have been
awake.” Sleep in the day-time is utterly incongruous. “Well, now,” says the
apostle Paul, “ye people of God, it is day-time with you; the sun of
righteousness has risen upon you with healing in his wings; the light of
God’s Spirit is in your conscience ye have been brought out of darkness
into marvellous light; for you to be asleep, for a church to slumber, is like a
city a-bed in the day, like a whole town slumbering when the sun is shining.
It is untimely and unseemly.”

And now, if you look to the text again, you will find there is another
argument.

Let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and
love.” So, then, it seems, it is war-time; and therefore, again, it is unseemly
to slumber. There is a fortress yonder, far away in India. A troop of those
abominable Sepoys have surrounded it. Blood-thirsty hell-hounds, if they
once gain admission, they will rend the mother and her children, and cut
the strong man in pieces. They are at the gates: their cannon are loaded;
their bayonets thirst for blood, and their swords are hungry to slay. Go
through the fortress, and the people are all asleep. There is the warder on
the tower, nodding on his bayonet. There is the captain in his tent, with his
pen in his hand and his dispatches before him, asleep at the table. There are
soldiers lying down in their tents, ready for the war, but all slumbering.
There is not a man to be seen keeping watch; there is not a sentry there. All
are asleep. Why, my friends, you would say, “Whatever is the matter here?
What can it be? Has some great wizard been waving his wand, and put a
spell upon them all? Or are they all mad? Have their minds fled? Sure, to be
asleep in wartime is indeed outrageous, Here! take down that trumpet, go
close up to the captain’s ear, and blow a blast, and see if it does not awake
him in a moment. Just take away that bayonet from the soldier that is
asleep on the walls, and give him a sharp prick with it, and see if he does
not awake.” But surely, surely, nobody can have patience with people
asleep, when the enemy surround the walls and are thundering at the gates.
Now, Christians, this is your case. Your life is a life of warfare the world
the flesh, and the devil, are a hellish trinity, and your poor nature is
wretched mudwork behind which to be intrenched. Are you asleep?

Asleep, when Satan has fire-balls of lust to hurl into the windows of your
eyes — when he has arrows of temptation to shoot into your heart —
when he has snares into which to trap your feet? Asleep, when he has
undermined your very existence, and when he is about to apply the match
with which to destroy you, unless sovereign “race prevents? Oh! sleep not,
soldier of the cross! To sleep in war-time is utterly inconsistent. Great
Spirit of God forbid that we should slumber.

But now, leaving the chapter itself, I will give you one or two other
reasons that will, I trust, move Christian people to awake out of their sleep.
“Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!“ Then
comes the ringing of a bell What is this? Here is a door marked with a
great white cross. Lord, have mercy upon us! All the houses down that
street seem to be marked with that white death cross. What is this? Here is
the grass growing in the streets here are Cornhill and Cheapside deserted;
no one is found treading the solitary pavement, there is not a sound to be
heard but those horse-hoofs, like the hoofs of death’s pale horse upon the
stones, the ringing of that bell that sounds the death-knell to many, and the
rumbling of the wheels of that cart, and the dreadful cry, “Bring out your
dead! Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!” Do you see that house?
A physician lives there. He is a man who has great skill, and God has lent
him wisdom. But a little while ago, whilst in his study God was pleased to
guide his mind, and he discovered the secret of the plague. He was plaguesmitten
himself, and ready to die, but he lifted the blessed phial to his lips,
and he drank a draught and cured himself. Do you believe what I am about
to tell you? Can you imagine it? That man has the prescription that will
heal all these people; he has it in his pocket. He has the medicine which, if
once distributed in those streets, would make the sick rejoice, and put that
dead man’s bell away. And he is asleep! He is asleep! He is asleep! O ye
heavens! why do ye not fall and crush the wretch? O earth! how couldst
thou bear this demon upon thy bosom? Why not swallow him up quick? He
has the medicine; he is too lazy to go and tell forth the remedy. He has the
cure, and is too idle to go out and administer it to the sick and the dying!
No, my friends, such an inhuman wretch could not exist! But I can see him
here to-day. There are you! You know the world is sick with the plague of
sin, and you yourself have been cured by the remedy, which has been
provided. You are asleep, inactive, loitering. You do not go forth to

“Tell to others round,
What a dear Savior you have found.”

There is the precious gospel: you do not go and put it to the lips of a
sinner. There is the all-precious blood of Christ: you never go to tell the
dying what they must do to be saved. The world is perishing with worse
than plague: and you are idle! And you are a minister of the gospel; and
you have taken that holy office upon yourself; and you are content to
preach twice on a Sunday, and once on a week-day, and there is no
remonstrance within you. You never desire to attract the multitudes to hear
you preach; you had rather keep your empty benches, and study propriety,
than you would once, at the risk of appearing over-zealous, draw the
multitude and preach the word to them. You are a writer: you have great
power in writing; you devote your talents alone to light literature, or to the
production of other things which may furnish amusement, but which
cannot benefit the soul. You know the truth, but you do not tell it out.
Yonder mother is a converted woman: you have children, and you forget
to instruct them in the way to heaven. You yonder, are a young man,
having nothing to do, on the Sabbath-day, and there is the Sunday-school;
you do not go to tell those children the sovereign remedy that God has
provided for the care of sick souls. The death-bell is ringing e’en now; hell
is crying out, howling with hunger for the souls of men. “Bring out the
sinner! Bring out the sinner! Bring out the sinner! Let him die and be
damned!” And there are you professing to be a Christian, and doing
nothing which might make you the instrument of saving souls — never
putting out your hand to be the means in the hand of the Lord, of plucking
sinners as brands from the burning! Oh! May the blessing of God rest on
you, to turn you from such an evil way, that you may not sleep as do
others, but may watch and be sober. The world’s imminent danger
demands that we should be active, and not be slumbering.

Hark how the mast creaks! See the sails there, rent to ribbons. Breakers
ahead! She will be on the rocks directly. Where is the captain? Where is the
boatswain? Where are the sailors? Ahoy there! Where are you? Here’s a
storm come on. Where are you? You are down in the cabin. And there is
the captain in a soft sweet slumber. There is the man at the wheel, as sound
asleep as ever he can be; and there are all the sailors in their hammocks.
What! and the breakers ahead? What! the lives of two hundred passengers
in danger, and here are these brutes asleep? Kick them out. What is the
good of letting such men as these be sailors, in such a time as this
especially? Why, out with you! If you had gone to sleep in fine weather we
might have forgiven you. Up with you, captain! What have you been at?
Are you mad? But hark! the ship has struck she will be down in a moment.
Now you will work, will you? Now you will work when it is of no use, and
when the shrieks of drowning women shall toll you into hell for your most
accursed negligence, in not having taken care of them. Well that is very
much like a great many of us, in these times too.

This proud ship of our commonwealth is reeling in a storm of sin; the very
mast of this great nation is creaking under the hurricane of vice that sweeps
across the noble vessel, every timber is strained, and God help the good
ship, or alas! none can save her. And who are her captain and her sailors,
but ministers of God, the professors of religion? These are they to whom
God gives grace to steer the ship. “Ye are the salt of the earth;” ye
preserve and keep it alive, O children of God. Are ye asleep in the storm?
Are ye slumbering now? If there were no dens of vice, if there were no
harlots, if there were no houses of profanity, if there were no murders and
no crimes, oh! ye that are the salt of the earth, ye might sleep; but to-day
the sin of London crieth in the ears of God. This behemoth city is covered
with crime, and God is vexed with her. And are we asleep, doing nothing?
Then God forgive us! But sure, of all the sins he ever doth forgive, this is
the greatest, the sin of slumbering when a world is damning — the sin of
being idle when Satan is busy, devouring the souls of men. “Brethren let us
not sleep” in such times as these; for if we do, a curse must fall upon us,
horrible to bear.

There is a poor prisoner in a cell. His hair is all matted over his eyes. A few
weeks ago the judge put on the black cap, and commanded that he should
be taken to the place from whence he came, and hung by the neck until
dead. The poor wretch has his heart broken within him, whilst he thinks of
the pinion, of the gallows, and of the drop, and of after-death. Oh! who can
tell how his heart is rent and racked, whilst he thinks of leaving all, and
going he knoweth not where? There is a man there, sound asleep upon a
bed. He has been asleep there these two days, and under his pillow he has
that prisoner’s free pardon. I would horsewhip that scoundrel, horsewhip
him soundly, for making that poor man have two days of extra misery.

Why, if I had had that man’s pardon, I would have been there, if I rode on
the wings of lightning to get at him, and I should have thought the fastest
train that ever run but slow, if I had so sweet a message to carry, and such
a poor heavy heart to carry it to. But that man, that brute, is sound asleep,
with a free pardon under his pillow, whilst that poor wretch’s heart is
breaking with dismay! Ah! do not be too hard with him: he is here to-day.
Side by side with you this morning there is sitting a poor penitent sinner;
God has pardoned him, and intends that you should tell him that good
news. He sat by your side last Sunday, and he wept all the sermon through,
for he felt his guilt. If you had spoken to him then, who can tell? He might
have had comfort, but there he is now — you do not tell him the good
news. Do you leave that to me to do? Ah! sirs, but you cannot serve God
by proxy; what the minister does is nought to you; you have your own
personal duty to do, and God has given you a precious promise. It is now
on your heart. Will you not turn round to your next neighbor, and tell him
that promise? Oh! there is many an aching heart that aches because of our
idleness in telling the good news of this salvation. “Yes,” says one of my
members, who always comes to this place on a Sunday, and looks out for
young men and young women whom he has seen in tears the Sunday
before, and who brings many into the church, “yes, I could tell you a
story.” He looks a young man in the face, and says, “Haven’t I seen you
here a great many times?” “Yes.” “I think you take a deep interest in the
service, do you not?” “Yes, I do: what makes you ask me that question?”
“Because I looked at your face last Sunday, and I thought there was
something at work with you.” “Oh! sir,” he says, “nobody has spoken to
me ever since I have been here till now, and I want to say a word to you.
When I was at home with my mother, I used to think I had some idea of
religion, but I came away, and was bound apprentice with an ungodly lot of
youths, and have done everything I ought not to have done. And now, sir, I
begin to weep, I begin to repent. I wish to God that I knew how I might be
saved! I hear the word preached, sir, but I want something spoken
personally to me by somebody.” And he turns round, he takes him by the
hand and says, “My dear young brother, I am so glad I spoke to you; it
makes my pour old heart rejoice to think that the Lord is doing something
here still. Now, do not be cast down; for you know, ‘This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners.’” The young man puts his handkerchief to his eyes and
after a minute, he says, “I wish you would let me call and see you, sir,”
“Oh! you may,” he says. He talks with him, he leads him onward, and at
last by God’s grace the happy youth comes forward and declares what God
has done for his soul, and owes his salvation as much to the humble
instrumentality of the man that helped him as he could do to the preaching
of the minister.

Beloved brethren, the bridegroom cometh! Awake! Awake! The earth
must soon be dissolved, and the heavens must melt! Awake! Awake! O
Holy Spirit arouse us all, and keep us awake.

III. And now I have no time for the last point, and therefore I shall not
detain you, suffice me to say in warning, there is AN EVIL HERE
LAMENTED. There are some that are asleep, and the apostle mourns it.
My fellow sinner, thou that art this day unconverted, let me say six or
seven sentences to thee, and thou shalt depart. Unconverted man!
unconverted woman! you are asleep to day, as they that sleep on the top of
the mast in time of storm; you are asleep, as he that sleeps when the waterfloods
are out, and when his house is undermined, and being carried down
the stream far out to sea; you are asleep, as he who in the upper chamber,
when his house is burning and his own locks are singeing in the fire, knows
not the devastation around him; you are asleep — asleep as he that lies
upon the edge of a precipice, with death and destruction beneath him. One
single start in his sleep would send him over, but he knows it not. Thou art
asleep this day; and the place where thou sleepest, has so frail a support
that when once it breaks thou shalt fall into hell: and if thou wakest not till
then, what a waking it will be! “In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in
torment;” and he cried for a drop of water, but it was denied him. “He that
believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ and is baptized, shall be saved; he that
believeth not shall be damned.” This is the gospel. Believe ye in Jesus, and
ye shall “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

“And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people
a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of
marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.”Isaiah 25:6

WE have nearly arrived at the great merry-making season of the year. On
Christmas-day we shall find all the world in England enjoying themselves
with all the good cheer which they can afford. Servants of God, you who
have the largest share in the person of him who was born at Bethlehem, I
invite you to the best of all Christmas fare-to nobler food than makes the
table groan-bread from heaven, food for your spirit. Behold, how rich and
how abundant are the provisions, which God has made for the high festival
which he would have his servants keep, not now and then, but all the days
of their lives!

God, in the verse before us, has been pleased to describe the provisions of
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Although many other interpretations have been
suggested for this verse, they are all fiat and stale, and utterly unworthy of
such expressions as those before us. When we behold the person of our
Lord Jesus Christ, whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink
indeed-when we see him offered up upon the chosen mountain, we then
discover a fullness of meaning in these gracious words of sacred
hospitality, “The Lord shall make a feast of fat things, of fat things full of
marrow.” Our Lord himself was very fond of describing his gospel under
the selfsame image as that which is here employed. He spoke of the
marriage-supper of the king, who said “My oxen and my fatlings are killed,
and all things are ready;” and it did not seem as if he could even complete
the beauty of the parable of the prodigal son without the killing of the fat
calf and the feasting and the music and dancing. As a festival on earth is
looked forward to and looked hack upon as an oasis and a desert of time,
so the gospel of Jesus Christ is to the soul its sweet release from bondage
and distress, its mirth and joy. Upon this subject we intend to speak this
morning, hoping to he helped by the great Master of the feast.
Our first head will be the feast; the second will be the banqueting hail in
this mountain; “the third will be the Host-”The Lord shall make a feast; and
the fourth shall be the guests-he shall make it “unto all people.”

I. First, then, we have to consider THE FEAST.

It is described as consisting of viands of the best, nay, of the best of the
best. They are fat things, bat they are also fat things fall of marrow. Wines
are provided of the most delicious and invigorating kind, wines on the lees,
which retain their aroma, their strength, and their flavour; but these are
most ancient and rare, having been so long kept that they have become
well refined; by long standing they have purified, clarified themselves, and
brought themselves to the highest degree of brightness and excellence. The
best of the best God has provided in the gospel for the sons of men.
Let us attentively survey the blessings of the gospel, and observe that they
are fat things, and fat things full of marrow.

One of the first gospel blessings is that of complete justification. A sinner,
though guilty in himself, no sooner believes in Jesus than all his sins are
pardoned. The righteousness of Christ becomes his righteousness, and he is
accepted in the Beloved. Now, this is a delicious dish indeed. Here is
something for the soul to feed upon. To think that I, though a deeply guilty
one, am absolved of God, and set free from the bondage of the law! To
think that I, though once an heir of wrath, am now as accepted before God
as Adam was when he walked in the Garden without a sin; nay, more
accepted still, for the divine righteousness of Christ belongs to me, and I
stand complete in him, beloved in the Beloved, and accepted in him too!
Beloved, this is such a precious truth, that when the soul feeds on it, it
experiences a quiet peace, a deep and heavenly calm, to be found nowhere
on earth besides. This is a kind of honey which never cloys, to be assured
by the word of God, and by the witness of the Holy Ghost within you, that
you are reconciled and brought nigh by the blood and the righteousness of
Jesus Christ. This is a choice mercy. This is a fat thing indeed; but this is
not all, it is a fat thing full of marrow too. There is an inner lusciousness in
it when you reach the heart and soul of the matter, transcendent in
richness; for remember that this righteousness, this acceptance, this
justification, becomes ours in a perfectly legal way, one against which
Satan himself cannot raise a demurrer, for our Substitute has paid our debt,
therefore are we righteously discharged. Christ has fulfilled the law, and
made it honorable for us, and therefore are we justly accepted and beloved.
Here is marrow indeed when we perceive the truth and reality of the
substitution of Jesus, and grasp with heart and soul the fact of our great
Surety standing in our stead at the bar of justice, that we might stand in his
stead in the place of honor and love. What bliss it is to cry with the apostle,
“Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that
justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that
is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh
intercession for us.” Come hither, all ye whose spiritual tastes are purified
by grace, and feed upon this choice provision, which shall be sweet to your
taste, sweeter, also, than honey and the honeycomb.

Meditate upon a second blessing of the covenant of grace, namely, that of
adoption. It is plainly revealed to us, that as many as have believed in
Christ Jesus unto the salvation of their souls, are the sons of God.
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” Here, indeed, is a fat thing. What,
shall a worm of the dust become a child of God? A rebel be adopted into
the heavenly family? A condemned criminal not only forgiven, but actually
made a child of God? Wonder of wonders! “Behold what manner of love
the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of
God!” To which of the kings and princes of this earth did he ever say,
“Thou art my son”? He has not spoken thus to the great ones and to the
mighty, but God hath chosen the base things of this world and things that
are despised, yea, and things that are not, and made these to be of the seed
royal. The wise and prudent are passed over, but babes receive the
revelation of his love. Lord, whence is this to me? What am I and what is
my father’s house, that thou shouldst speak of making me thy child? This
gloriously fat thing is also “full of marrow.” There is an inner richness in
adoption, for, “if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with
Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified
together.” Well does the apostle remind us that if children, then heirs, for
we are thus assured of our blessed heritage. “All things are yours; whether
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things
present or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is
God’s.” “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Here are royal
dainties of which the Word has said most truly, “They shall be abundantly
satisfied with the fatness of thy house.”

Passing on from the blessing of adoption, let us remember that every child
of God is the object of eternal love without beginning and without end.
This is one of the fat things fall of marrow. Is it so, that I, a believer in
Jesus, unworthy as I am, am the object of the eternal love of God? What
transport lies in that thought! Long before the Lord began to create the
world, he had thought of me. Long ere Adam fell or Christ was born, and
the angels sung their first choral over Bethlehem’s miracle, the eye and the
heart of God were towards his elect people’. He never began to love them,
they were always “a people near unto him.” Is it not so written, “I have
loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore, with loving-kindness have I
drawn thee”? Some kick at the doctrine of election, but they are ill advised,
since they labor to overturn one of the noblest dishes of the feast; they
would dam up one of the coolest streams that flow from Lebanon; they
would cover over with rubbish one of the richest veins of golden ore that
make rich the people of God. For this doctrine of a love that hath no
Commencement, is the best wine of our Beloved, and “that goeth down
sweetly, causing the lips of them that are asleep to speak.” How joyously
doth the heart exult and leap for very joy when this truth is brought home
by the witness of the Spirit of God! then the soul is satisfied with favor,
and full with the blessing of the Lord.

Equally delightful is the corresponding reflection that this love which had
no beginning shall have no end. He is a God that changeth not. “The gifts
and calling of God are without repentance.” Where he has once set his
heart of love upon a man, he never turns away from doing him good. He
saith by the mouth of his servant the prophet, that he hateth putting away.
Though we sin against him often, and provoke him to jealousy, yet still, as
the waters of Noah, so is his covenant to us; for as the waters of Noah
shall no more go over the earth, so he swears that he will not be wroth
with us nor rebuke us. “The mountains shall depart, and the hills be
removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the
covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.”
“I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not
consumed.” “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not
have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I
not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;
thy walls are continually before me.” Why, beloved, this indeed is a fat
thing; and I may add that it is full of marrow when you remember that not
merely has the Lord thought of you from everlasting, but loved you. Oh!
the depth of that word “love,” as it applies to the infinite Jehovah, whose
name, whose essence, whose nature is love! He has loved you with all the
immutable intensity of his heart, never more and never less; loved you so
much that he gave his only begotten Son for you; loved you so well that
nothing could content him but making you to be conformed into the image
of his dear Son, and causing you to partake of his glory that you may be
with him where he is! Come, feed on this, ye heirs of eternal life, for here
are fat things fall of marrow.

We should not, beloved, have completed this list if we had omitted one
precious doctrine, which needs a refined taste perhaps, but which, when a
man hath once learned to feed on it, seemeth to him to be best of all-I mean
the great truth of union to Christ. We are plainly taught in the word of God
that as many as have believed are one with Christ: they are married to him,
there is a conjugal union based upon mutual affection. The union is closer
still, for there is a vital union between Christ and his saints. They are in him
as the branches are in the vine; they are members of the body of which he is
the head. They are one with Jesus in such a true and real sense that with
him they died, with him they have been buried, with him they are risen,
with him they are raised up together and made to sit together in heavenly
places. There is an indissoluble union between Christ and all his people: “I
in them and they in me.” Thus the union may be described:-Christ is in his
people the hope of glory, and they are dead and their life is hid with Christ
in God. This is a union of the most wonderful kind, which figures may
faintly set forth, but which it were impossible for language completely to
explain. Oneness to Jesus is one of the fat things fall of marrow. For if it be
so, indeed, that we are one with Christ, then because he lives we must live
also; because he was punished for sin, we also have borne the wrath of
God in him; because he was justified by his resurrection, we also are
justified in him; because he is rewarded and for ever sits down at his
Father’s right hand, we also have obtained the inheritance in him and by
faith grasp it now, and enjoy its earnest. Oh, can it be that this aching head
already has a right to a celestial crown That this palpitating heart has a
claim to the rest which remaineth for the people of God! That these weary
feet have a title to tread the sacred halls of the New Jerusalem! It is so, for
if we are one with Christ, then all he has belongs to us, and it is but a
matter of time, and of gracious arrangement when we shall come into the
full enjoyment thereof. Truly, in meditation upon this topic, we may each
of us exclaim, “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and
my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.”

I cannot bring forth all the courses of my Lord’s banquet; one serving man
cannot bear before you the riches of such a surpassing feast; but I would
remind you of one more, and that is the doctrine of resurrection and
everlasting life. This poor world dimly guessed at the immortality of the
soul, but it knew nothing of the resurrection of the body: the gospel of
Jesus has brought life and immortality to light and lie himself has declared
to us of Jesus, that he that believeth in him shall never die. “He that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet should he live.” Jesus is the
resurrection and the life. Not the soul only, but the body also shall partake
of immortality, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed. We expect to die, but we are
assured of living again. If the Lord come not, we know that our bodies
shall see corruption; but here is our comfort, we dread no annihilation, that
dark shadow never crosses our spirits; we dread no hell, no purgatory, no
judgment-Christ hath perfected for ever them that are set apart; none can
condemn whom he absolves. The saints shall judge the angels, and sit with
their Lord in the day of the great assize. To us the coming of Christ will be
a day of joy and of rejoicing: we shall be caught up together with him; his
reign shall be our reign, his glory our glory. Wherefore comfort one
another with these words, and as ye see your brethren and your sisters
departing one by one from among you, sorrow not as those that are
without hope, but say unto each other, “They are not lost, but they have
gone before,” for,” blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from
henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and
their works do follow them.” Here are fat things full of marrow, for ours is
a glorious hope, and full of immortality. Our expected immortality is not
that of mere existence, it is not the barren privilege of life without bliss,
existence without happiness-it is full of glory; for “we shall be like him
when we shalt see him as he is;” we shall be with God, at whose right hand
there is fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore. He shall make us to
drink of the river of his pleasures; songs and everlasting joy shall be upon
our heads, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

“Oh, for the no more weeping,
Within that land of love!
The endless joy of keeping
The bridal feast above!
Oh, for the hour of seeing
My Savior face to face!
The hope of ever being
In that sweet meeting-place.”

Thus I have set before you a few of the fat things full of marrow which the
King of kings has set before his guests at the wedding feast of his love.
Changing the run of the thought, and yet really keeping to the same
subject, let me now bring before you the goblets of wine. “Wines on the
lees-wines on the lees well refined.” These we shall consider as symbolizing
the joys of the gospel. What are these? I can only speak of those which I
have myself been permitted to sip at. One of the dearest joys of the
Christian life is a sense of perfect peace with God. Oh, I tell you when one
is quiet for awhile, and the din and noise of business is out of one’s ears, it
is one of the most delicious things in all the world to meditate upon God,
and to feel he is no enemy to me, and I am no enemy to him. It is beyond
comparison cheering, amusingly to feel, I love him. If there be anything
that I can do to serve him, I will do it. If there be any suffering which
would honor him, if he would give me the strength to endure it, it should
be my happiness, though it caused me to die a martyr’s death a thousand
times. If I could but honor my God, my Father, and my Friend, all should
be acceptable to me. There is nothing between the Lord and me by way of
difference or alienation; I am brought nigh through the blood of his dear
and only begotten Son. He is my God, my Father, and my all, and I am his
child. Some of us have tried the imaginary happiness of laughter; we have
mixed with the giddy throng, and tasted the wines of the house of carnal
merriment, but our honest experience is that one single draught from the
cup of salvation is worth rivers of worldly mirth.

“Solid joys and lasting pleasures
Only Zion’s children know.”

A quiet heart, resting in the love of God, dwelling in perfect peace, hath a
royalty about it which cannot for a moment be matched by the fleeting joys
of this world.

Our joy sometimes flashes with a brighter light, but even then it is not less
pure and safe. You may look upon this wine when it is red, when it
sparkles in the cup, when it moveth itself aright, for there is no woe, no
redness of the eyes reserved for those who drink even to inebriation of this
sacred wine. This sacred exhilaration is caused by a sense of security. A
child of God, when he has looked well to his Redeemer, and seen the merit
of the precious blood, and the power of the never-ceasing plea, feels
himself safe, perfectly safe. I do not understand the child o God reading his
Bible and yet being afraid of being cast into hell. I can understand that the
fear may cross his mind lest after all he should prove a castaway; but as he
approaches once again to the foot of the cross, and looks up to Jesus, he
feels that it cannot be. None were ever cast away who stood at the cross
foot; for it is written, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” A
child of God, with no hope but what he finds in Christ, has no cause to
think his eternal state to be insecure. All are safe who are in Christ, even as
all were safe who were in Noah’s ark. No flood, no storm could hurt the
man of whom it was said, “The Lord shut him in.” The Lord has shut in all
his people in Christ, and they are eternally safe in Christ. When the spirit
knows that “there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in
Christ Jesus,” then is it replenished with delight. When one feels that live or
die, or work or suffer, all is well, how free from care is the heart! How
divinely joyful to know that if one should lose all his earthly substance, the
Lord will provide; that if one should be tempted, tempted greatly, yet with
the temptation the way of escape shall be made! here is assurance rich with
consolation. When one feels that all is safe, all safe eternally, for life or
death all secured, I tell you that this is wine on the lees, wine on the lees
well refined, and he who wins a draught thereof need not envy the angels
their celestial banquets.

This joy of ours will sometimes rise to an elevation yet more sublime, when
it is caused by communion with God. Believers, while engaged in prayer
and praise, in service and in suffering, are enabled by the Holy Spirit to
hold high converse with their Lord. Do not imagine that Abraham’s speech
with God was an unusual privilege. The father of the faithful did but enjoy
what all the faithful ones participate in according to the grace given them.
We tell to God our grief’s; discoursing upon our sorrows not in fiction, but
declaring them in real conversation, as when a man speaketh with his
neighbor: meanwhile the Lord’s Spirit whispers to us with the still small
voice of the promise, such words as calm our minds and guide our feet.
Yes, and when our Beloved takes us into the banqueting-house of real
conscious fellowship with himself, and waves the love-banner over us, our
holy joy is as much superior to all merely human mirth, as the heavens are
above the earth. Then do we speak and sing with sacred zest, and feel as if
we could weep for very joy of heart, for our Beloved is ours and we are
his. His left hand is under our head, and his right hand doth embrace us,
and our only fear is lest anything should grieve our Beloved and cause him
to withdraw himself from us; for it is heaven on earth, and the fair antepast
of heaven above to see his face, to taste his love. Communion with Christ
is as the wine on the lees well refined.

We will place on the table one goblet more, of which you may drink as
much as you will. We have provided for us the pleasures of hope, a hope
most sure and steadfast, most bright and glorious-the hope that what we
know to-day shall be outdone by what we shall know to-morrow; the hope
that by-and-by what we now see, as in a glass darkly, shall be seen face to
face. We shall say, as in heaven, as the Queen of Sheba did in Jerusalem,
“The half hath not been told us.” We are looking forward to a speedy day
when we shall be unburdened of this creaking tabernacle, and being absent
from the body shall be present with the Lord. Our hope of future bliss is
elevated and confident. Oh, the vision of his face! Oh, the sight of Jesus in
his exaltation! Oh, the kiss of his lips-the word,” Well done, good and
faithful servant” from that dear mouth and then for ever to lie in his bosom.
Begone, ye cares, begone, ye sorrows; if heaven be so near, ye shall not
molest us. The inn may be a rough and poverty-stricken one, but we are
only travelers, not tenants upon lease. This is not our place of resting; we
are on our journey home! Beloved, in the prospect of the quiet restingplaces
in the land, which floweth with milk and honey, you have wines on
the lees well refined.

If we were not limited to time this morning, as, alas! we are, I should have
reminded you that these joys of the believer are ancient in their origin, for
that is shown in the text. Old wines are intended by “wines well refined;”
they have stood long on the lees, have drawn out all the virtue from them,
and have been cleared of all the coarser material. In the East, wine will be
improved by keeping even more than the wines of the West! and even so
the mercies of God are the sweeter to our meditations because of their
antiquity. From old eternity, or ever the earth was, the covenant
engagements of everlasting love have been resting like wines on the lees,
and to-day they bring to us the utmost riches of all the attributes of God. I
should also have reminded you of the fatness of their excellence, because
the wine on the lees holds its flavour, and retains its aroma; and there is a
fullness and richness about the blessings of divine grace which endears
them to our hearts. The joys of grace are not fantastical emotions, or
transient flashes of a meteoric excitement, they are based on substantial
truth; are reasonable, fit, and proper. They belong not to the superficial and
frothy emotions of mere feeling, but are deep, solemn, earnest motions,
justified by the clearest judgment. Our bliss is not of the foam and the
surge, it dwells in the innermost caverns of our heart. I would also remind
you of their refined nature. No sin mingled with the joys of the gospel and
the delights of communion-they are well refined. Gospel joys are elevating,
they make men like angels. As in the gospel God comes down to men, so
by the gospel men go up to God. I might also have shown you how
absolutely peerless are the provisions of grace. There is no feast like that of
the gospel, no meat like the flesh of Jesus, no drink like his blood, no joys
like that which crowns the gospel feast.

II. I can say no more the table is before you, and now we must pass on
with great brevity to notice THE BANQUETING-HALL.

“In this mountain.” There is a reference here to three things-the same
symbol bearing three interpretations. First, literally, the mountain upon
which Jerusalem is built. I do not doubt that the reference is here to the hilt
of the Lord upon which Jerusalem stood; the great transaction which was
fulfilled at Jerusalem upon Calvary hath made to all nations a great feast. It
was there where that center cross bore upon it One who joined earth and
heaven in mysterious union; it was there where amidst thick darkness the
Son of God was made a curse for men; it was there where sorrow
culminated that joy was consummated. On that very mountain where Jews
and Gentiles met together, and with clamorous wrath cried, “Let him be
crucified” it was there in the giving up of the Only-begotten, whose flesh is
meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed, that the Lord made a feast
of things. Everything I have spoken of this morning is found in Christ. He
is the resurrection and the life: in him we are justified, adopted, and made
secure; every drop of joy we drink streams from his flowing veins.
A second meaning is the church. Frequently Jerusalem is used as the
symbol of the church of God, and it is within the pale of the church that the
great feast of the Lord is made unto all nations. I am in the truest sense a
very sound churchman. I am indeed a high churchman; a most determined
stickler for the church. I do not believe in salvation outside of the pale of
the church. I believe that the salvation of God is confined to the church,
and to the church alone. “But,” says one, “what church?” Ay! that’s the
question: God forbid I should mean by that either the Baptist church, or
the Independent church, or the Episcopalian church, or the Presbyterian, or
any other-I mean the church of Jesus Christ, the company of God’s chosen,
the fellowship of the blood-bought, the family of believers, be they where
they may, for them is provided the feast of fat things. Whatever outward
and visible church they may have associated themselves with, they shall
drink of the wines on the lees well refined; but the feast is only to be found
where they are found who put their trust in Jesus. There is but one church
in heaven and earth, composed of men called by the Holy Ghost, and made
to live anew by his quickening power; and it is through the ministry of this
church that an abundant feast is spread for all nations, a feast to which the
nations are summoned by chosen herald, whom God calls to proclaim the
good news of salvation by Jesus Christ.

But, brethren, the mountain sometimes means the church of God exalted to
its latter-day glory. This mountain is to be exalted above the hills, and all
nations shall flow unto it. This text will have its grandest fulfillment in the
day of the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Then shall the
glory of the gospel be unveiled more clearly than at this present. Men shall
have a fuller perception of the glory of the Lord, and a deeper enjoyment
of his grace; while happiness and peace shall reign with unmolested quiet.
Soon shall come the golden age, which has been so long foretold, for
which we cry with unceasing expectation. The Lord send it speedily, and
his be the praise.

III. Thirdly, let us think of THE HOST of the feast.

“In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat
things.” Mark well the truth that in the gospel banquet there is not a single
dish brought by man. The Lord makes it, and he makes it all. I know some
would like to bring a little with them to the banquet, something at least by
way of trimming and adornment, so that they might have a share of the
honor; but it must not be, the Lord of hosts makes the feast, and he will
not even permit the guests to bring their own wedding garments-they must
stop at the door and put on the robe which the Lord has provided, for
salvation is all grace from first to last, and all of him who is wondrous in
working, and who doeth all things according to the counsels of his will.
Out of all the precious truths which I spoke of at the beginning of this
sermon, there is not one which comes from any source but a divine one;
and of all the joys which I tried feebly to picture there is not one which
takes its rise from earth’s springs; they all flow from the eternal fount. The
Lord makes the feast; and, observe, he does it, too, as Lord of hosts, as a
sovereign, as a ruler, doing as he wills amongst the sons of men, preparing
what he wills for the good of his creatures, and constraining whom he wills
to come to the marriage-feast. The Lord provides sovereignly as Lord of
hosts, and all-sufficiently as Jehovah. It needed the all-sufficiency of God
to provide a feast for hungry sinners. No other than the infinite “I AM”
could provide a feast substantial enough to supply the wants of immortal
spirits; but he has done it, and you may guess of the value of the viands by
the nature of our entertainer. If God spread the feast it is not to be
despised; if the Lord has put forth all the omnipotence of his eternal power
and Godhead in preparing the banquet for the multitude of the sons of men,
then depend upon it it is a banquet worthy of him, one to which they may
come with confidence, for it must be such a banquet as their souls require,
and such as the world never saw before. O my soul, rejoice thou in thy
God and King. If he provides the feast, let him have all the glory of it. “Not
unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.” O King immortal,
eternal, invisible, thou feddest thy children in the wilderness with manna
which dropped from heaven, and with water that flowed out of the flinty
rock, and they gave thanks unto thy name; but now thou fillest us with
nobler food. They did eat manna and are dead, but we live on the immortal
bread, even Jesus, and therefore we can never die. They drank of the water
which flowed from the rock, and yet they thirsted again, but we shall never
thirst, but for ever abide near to thyself, while the Lamb that is in the midst
of the throne shall feed us, and lead us unto living fountains of water.
Therefore, blessed by thy name, yea, a thousand times blessed be thy name,
O thou Most High! Let all heaven say “Amen” to the praises of our hearts,
and let the multitude of thy children here on earth, for whom this feast is
spread, laud and magnify and bless thy name from the rising of the sun unto
the going down of the same.

IV. Lastly, a word or two upon THE GUESTS.

The Lord has made this banquet “for all people.” What a precious word
this is! “For all people.” Then this includes not merely the chosen people,
the Jews, whose were the oracles, but it encompasses the poor
uncircumcised Gentiles, who by Jesus are brought nigh. The barbarian is
invited to this feast; the Scythian is not rejected. The polished Greek finds
an open door; the hardy Roman shall meet with an equal welcome.
Caesar’s household, if they come, shall receive a portion, and so shall the
beggar’s brethren. Blessed be God for that word, “unto all people,” for it
permits missionary enterprise in every land; however degraded a race may
be, we have here provision made for it. This feast of fat things is made as
much for the Sudra as for the Brahmin; the gospel is as much to be
preached to the degraded Bushman as to the civilized Chinese. Dwell on
that word, “all people,” and you will see it includes the rich, for there is a
feast of fat things for them, such as their gold could never buy; and it
includes the poor, for they being rich in faith shall have fellowship with
God. “All people.” This takes in the man of enlarged intelligence and
extensive knowledge; but it equally encompasses the illiterate man who
cannot read. The Lord makes this feast “for all people;” for you old people,
if you come to Jesus you shall find that he is suitable to you; for you young
men and maidens, and you little children, if you put your trust in God’s
appointed Savior, there shall be much joy and happiness for you- “For all
people”? Methinks, if I were now seeking and had not laid hold on Christ,
this word, “all people” would be a great comfort to me, because it gives
hope to all who desire to come. None have ever been rejected of all who
have ever come to Christ and asked for mercy. Still is it true, “Him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Some very odd people have come
to him, some very wicked people, some very hardened people, but the door
was never, closed in any one’s face. Why should Jesus begin hard dealings
with you? He cannot, because he cannot change. If he says, “Him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,” make one of the “hims” that
come, and he cannot cast you out. There is another thought, namely, that
between the covers of the Bible there is no mention made of one person
who may not come. There is no description given of a person who is
forbidden to trust Christ. I should like you to look the book through, you
who dream that Jesus will reject you, and find where it is said, “ Such a one
I will reject; such a one I will refuse.” When you find such a rejecting
clause, then you will have a right to be unbelieving, but till you do I
beseech you do not needlessly torment yourself. Why needlessly sow
doubts and fears? There will be enough of them without your making them
for yourself. Do not limit what the Lord does not limit I know he has an
elect people; I rejoice in it-I hope you will rejoice in it too one day; and I
know that his people have this marrow and fatness provided for them and
for them alone; but still this does not at all conflict with the other precious
truth that whosoever believeth in the Son of God hath everlasting life. If
you believe in Jesus Christ, all these things are yours. Come, poor trembler,
the silver trumpet soundeth, and this is the note it rings, “Come and
welcome, come and welcome, come and welcome.” The harsher trumpet of
the law, which waxed exceedingly loud and long at Sinai had this for its
note, “Set bounds about the mount: let none touch it lest they die.” But the
trumpet for Calvary sounds with the opposite note; it is, “Come and
welcome, come and welcome, sinner, come! Come as you are, sinful as you
are, hardened as you are, careless as you think you are, and having no
good thing whatsoever, come to your God in Christ!” O may you come to
him who gave his Son to bleed in the sinner’s stead, and casting yourself
on what Christ has done, may you resolve, “If I perish, I will trust in him; if
I be cast away, I will rely on him.” You shall not perish, but for you there
shall be the feast of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well
refined. The Lord bless you very richly, for his name’s sake. Amen.

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the
first commandment.” — Mark 12:30.

OUR Savior said, “This is the first and great commandment.” It is “the
first“ commandment — the first for antiquity, for this is older than even
the ten commandments of the written law. Before God said, “Thou shalt
not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal,” this law was one of the
commands of his universe; for this was binding upon the angels when man
was not created. It was not necessary for God to say to the angels, “thou
shalt do no murder, thou shalt not steal;” for such things to them were very
probably impossible; but he did doubtless say to them, “Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart;” and when first Gabriel sprang out of his
native nothingness at the fiat of God, this command was binding on him.
This is “the first commandment,” then, for antiquity. It was binding upon
Adam in the garden; even before the creation of Eve, his wife, God had
commanded this; before there was a necessity for any other command this
was written upon the very tablets of his heart — “Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God.”

It is “the first commandment,” again, not only for antiquity, but for dignity.
This command, which deals with God the Almighty must ever take
precedence of every other. Other commandments deal with man and man,
but this with man and his Creator. Other commands of a ceremonial kind
when disobeyed, may involve but slight consequences upon the person who
may happen to offend; but this disobeyed provokes the wrath of God, and
brings his ire at once upon the sinner’s head. He that stealeth committeth a
gross offense, inasmuch as he hath also violated this command; but if it
were possible for us to separate the two, and to suppose an offense of one
command without an offense of this, then we must put the violation of this
commandment in the first rank of offenses. This is the king of
commandments; this is the emperor of the law; it must take precedence of
all those princely commands that God afterwards gave to men.

Again, it is “the first commandment,” for its justice. If men cannot see the
justice of that law which says, “Love thy neighbor,” if there be some
difficulty to understand how I can be bound to love the man that hurts and
injures me, there can be no difficulty here. “Thou shalt love thy God”
comes to us with so much divine authority, and is so ratified by the dictates
of nature and our own conscience, that, verily, this command must take the
first place for the justice of its demand. It is “the first” of commandments.
Whichever law thou dost break, take care to keep this. If thou breakest the
commandments of the ceremonial law, if thou dost violate the ritual of thy
church, thine offense might be propitiated by the priest, but who can
escape when this is his offense? This mandate standeth fast. Man’s law
thou mayest break, and bear the penalty; but if thou breakest this the
penalty is too heavy for thy soul to endure, it will sink thee, man, it will
sink thee like a mill-stone lower than the lowest hell. Take heed of this
command above every other, to tremble at it and obey it, for it is “the first
commandment.”

But the Savior said it was a “great commandment,” and so also it is. It is
“great,” for it containeth in its bowels every other. When God said,
“Remember to keep holy the Sabbath-day,” when he said, “Thou shalt not
bow down unto the idols nor worship them,” — when he said, “Thou shalt
not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” he did but instance
particulars which are all contained in this general mandate. This is the sum
and substance of the law; and indeed even the second commandment lies
within the folds of the first. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor,” is actually to
be found within the center of this command, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God;” for the loving of God would necessarily produce the loving of our
neighbor.

It is a great command, then, for its comprehensiveness, and it is a great
command for the immense demand which it makes upon US. It demands all
our mind, all our soul, all our heart, and all our strength. Who is he that
can keep it, when there is no power of manhood which is exempt from its
sway? And to him that violateth this law it shall be proven that it is a great
command in the greatness of its condemning power, for it shall be like a
great sword having two edges, wherewith God shall slay him. It shall be
like a great thunder-bolt from God, wherewith He shall cast down and
utterly destroy the man that goeth on in his wilful breaking thereof. Hear
ye, then, O Gentiles, and O house of Israel, hear ye, then, this day, this first
and great commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength.”

I shall divide my discourse thus — first, What saith this commandment
unto us? secondly, What say we unto it?

I. And in discussing the first point, WHAT SAITH THIS COMMANDMENT
UNTO us? we shall divide it thus. Here is, first, the duty — ”Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God,” here is, secondly, the measure of She duty —
“Thou shalt love him with all thy heart, mind, soul, strength;” here is,
thirdly, the ground of the claim, enforcing the duty — because he is “thy
God.” God demandeth us to obey, simply upon the ground that he is our
God.

1. To begin, then. This command demands a duty. That duty is, that we
should love God. How many men do break this? One class of men do break
it wilfully and grievously; for they hate God. There is the infidel, who
gnashes his teeth against the Almighty; the atheist, who spits the venom of
his blasphemy against the person of his Maker. You will find those who rail
at the very being of a God, though in their consciences they know there is a
God, yet with their lips will blasphemously deny his existence. These men
say there is no God, because they wish there were none. The wish is father
to the thought; and the thought demands great grossness of heart, and
grievous hardness of spirit before they dare to express it in words; and
even when they express it in words, it needeth much practice ere they can
do it with a bold, unblushing countenance. Now, this command beareth
hard on all them that hate, that despise, that blaspheme, that malign God,
or that deny his being, or impugn his character. O sinner! God says thou
shalt love him with all thy heart; and inasmuch as thou hatest him, thou
standest this day condemned to the sentence of the law.

Another class of men know there is a God, but they neglect him, they go
through the world with indifference, “caring for none of these things.”
“Well,” they say “it does not signify to me whether there is a God or not.”
They have no particular care about him; they do not pay one half so much
respect to his commands as they would to the proclamation of the Queen.
They are very willing to reverence all powers that be, but he who ordained
them is to be passed by and to be forgotten. They would not be bold
enough and honest enough to come straight out, and despise God, and join
the ranks of his open enemies, but they forget God; he is not in all their
thoughts. They rise in the morning without a prayer, they rest at night
without bending the knee, they go through the week’s business, and they
never acknowledge a God. Sometimes they talk about good luck and
chance, strange deities of their own brain, but God, the over-ruling God of
Providence, they never talk of, though sometimes they may mention his
name in flippancy, and so increase their transgressions against him. O ye
despisers and neglecters of God! this command speaks to you — ”Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul.”
But I hear one of these gentlemen reply, “Well, sir, I make no pretensions
to religion, but still I believe I am quite as good as those that do; I am quite
as upright, quite as moral and benevolent. True, I do not often darken the
door of a church or chapel, I do not think it necessary, but I am a right
good sort, there are many, many hypocrites in the church, and therefore I
shall not think of being religious.” Now, my dear friend, allow me just to
say one word — what business is that of yours? Religion is a personal
matter between you and your Maker. Your Maker says — “Thou shalt
love me with all thine heart:” it is of no use for you to point your finger
across the street, and point at a minister whose life is inconsistent, or at a
deacon who is unholy, or to a member of the church who does not live up
to his profession. You have just nothing to do with that. When your Maker
speaks to you, he appeals to you personally; and if you should tell him,
“My Lord, I will not love thee, because there are hypocrites,” would not
your own conscience convince you of the absurdity of your reasoning?
Ought not your better judgment to whisper “Inasmuch, then, as so many
are hypocrites, take heed that thou art not; and if there be so many
pretenders who injure the Lord’s cause by their lying pretensions, so much
the more reason why thou shouldst have the real thing, and help to make
the church sound and honest.” But no; the merchants of our cities, the
tradesmen of our streets, our artizans and our workmen, the great mass of
them, live in total forgetfulness of God. I do not believe that the heart of
England is infidel. I do not believe that there is any vast extent of deism or
atheism throughout England: the great fault of our time is the fault of
indifference; people do not care whether the thing is right or not. What is it
to them? They never take the trouble to search between the different
professors of religion to see where the truth lies; they do not think to pay
their reverence to God with all their hearts. Oh, no, they forget what God
demands, and so rob him of his due. To you, to you, great masses of the
population, this law doth speak with iron tongue — “Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind.”

There are a class of men who are a great deal nobler than the herd of
simpletons who allow the sublimities of the Godhead to be concealed by
their Barking care for mere sensual good. There are some who do not
forget that there is a God, no they are astronomers, and they turn their eyes
to heaven, and they view the stars and they marvel at the majesty of the
Creator. Or they dig into the bowels of the earth, and they are astonished
at the magnificence of God’s works of yore. Or they examine the animal,
and marvel at the wisdom of God in the construction of its anatomy. They,
whenever they think of God, think of him with the deepest awe, with the
profoundest reverence. You never hear them curse or swear: you will find
that their souls are possessed of a deep awe of the great Creator. But ah!
my friends, this is not enough: this is not obedience to the command. God
does not say thou shalt wonder at him, thou shalt have awe of him. He asks
more than that; he says “Thou shalt love me!” Oh! thou that seest the orbs
of heaven floating in the far expanse, it is something to lift thine eye to
heaven, and say —

“These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty, thine this universal frame.
Thus wond’rous fair; thyself how wond’rous then!
Unspeakable, who sit’st above these Heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and pow’r divine.”

‘Tis something thus to adore the great Creator, but ‘tis not all he asks. Oh,
if thou couldst add to this — “He that made these orbs, that leadeth them
out by their hosts, is my Father, and my heart beats with affection towards
him.” Then wouldst thou be obedient, but not till then. God asks not thine
admiration, but thine affection. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart.”

There are others, too, who delight to spend time in contemplation. They
believe in Jesus in the Father, in the Spirit, they believe that there is but one
God, and that these three are one. It is their delight to turn over the pages
of revelation, as well as the pages of history. The contemplate God; he is to
them a matter of curious study; they like to meditate upon him; the
doctrines of his Word they could hear all day long. And they are very
sound in the faith, extremely orthodox and very knowing, they can fight
about doctrines, they can dispute about the things of God with all their
hearts; but alas! their religion is like a dead fish, cold and stiff, and when
you take it into your hand you say there is no life in it; their souls were
never stirred with it; their hearts were never through into it. They can
contemplate, but they cannot love; they can meditate, but they cannot
commune; they can think of God, but they can never throw up their souls
to him, and clasp him in the arms of their affections. Ah, to you, coldblooded
thinkers — to you, this text speaks. Oh! thou that canst
contemplete, but cannot love, — ”Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart.”

Another man starts up, and he says, “Well this command does not bear on
me; I attend my place of worship twice every Sunday, I have family prayer.
I am very careful not to get up of a morning without saying a form of
prayer; I sometimes read my Bible; I subscribe to many charities.” Ah! My
friend, and you may do all that, without loving God. Why, some of you go
to your churches and chapels as if you were going to be horsewhipped. It is
a dull and dreary thing to you. You dare not break the sabbath, but you
would if you could. You know very well that if it were not for a mere
matter of fashion and custom you would sooner by half be anywhere else
than in God’s house. And as for prayer, why it is no delight to you; you do
it because you think you ought to do it. Some indefinable sense of duty
rests upon you; but you have no delight in it. You talk of God with great
propriety, but you never talk of him with love. Your heart never bounds at
the mention of his name; you eyes never glisten at the thought of his
attributes; our soul never leapeth when you meditate on his works, for your
heart is all untouched and while you are honoring God with your lips, your
heart is far from him, and you are still disobedient to this commandment,
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.”

And now , my hearers, do you understand this commandment? Do I not
see many of you seeking to look for loop-holes through which to escape?
Do I not think I see some of you striving to make a break in this divine
wall which girds us all. You say, “I never do anything against God.” Nay,
my friend, that is not it: it is not what thou dost not do — it is this, “Dost
thou love him?” “Well, sir, but I never violate any of the proprieties of
religion.” No, that is not it; the command is, “Thou shalt love him.” “Well,
sir, but I do a great deal for God; I teach in a Sunday school and so on.”
Ah! I know,; but dost thou love him? It is the heart he wants, and he will
not be content without it. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” That is the
law, and though no man can keep it since Adam’s fall, yet the law is as
much binding upon every son of Adam this day, as when God first of all
pronounced it. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.”

2. That brings us to the second point — the measure of this law. How
much am I to love God?? Where shall I fix the point? I am to love my
neighbor as I love myself. Am I to love my God more than that? Yes,
certainly. The measure is even greater. We are not bound to love ourselves
with all our mind, and soul, and strength, and therefore we are not bound
to love our neighbor so. The measure is a greater one. We are bound to
love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And we deduce from that, first that we are to love God supremely. Thou
art to love thy wife, O husband. Thou canst not love her too much except
in one case, if thou sholdst love her before God, and prefer her pleasure to
the pleasure of the Most High. Then wouldst thou be an idolater. Child!
thou art to love thy parents; thou canst not love him too much who begat
thee, nor her too much who brought thee forth; but rmember, there is one
law that doth over-ride that. Thou art to love thy God more than thy father
or thy mother. He demands thy first and thy highest affection: thou art to
love him with all thy heart.” We are allowed to love our relatives: we are
taught to do so. He that doth not love his own family is worse than a
heathen man and a publican. But we are not to love the dearest object of
our hearts so much as we love God. Ye may erect little thrones for those
whom ye rightly love; but God’s throne must be a glorious high throne;
you may set them upon the steps, but God must sit on the very seat itself.
He is to be enthroned, the royal One within your heart, the king of your
affections. Say, say hearer, hast thou kept this commandment? I know I
have not; I must plead guilty before God; I must cast myself before him,
and acknowledge my transgression. But nevertheless, there standeth the
commandment — “Thou shalt love God with all thy heart “ — that is, thou
shalt love him supremely.

Note, again, that from the text we may deduce that a man is bound to love
God heartily: that is plain enough, for it says, “Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart.” Yes, there is to be in our love to God a
heartiness. We are to throw our whole selves into the love that we give to
him. Not the kind of love that some people give to their fellows, when they
say, “Be ye warmed and filled,” and nothing more. No: our heart is to have
its whole being absorbed into God, so that God is the hearty object of its
pursuit and its most mighty love. See how the word “all” is repeated again
and again. The whole going forth of the being, the whole stirring up of the
soul, is to be for God, and for God only. “With all thy heart.”

Again: as we are to love God heartily, we are to love him with all our
souls. Then we are to love him with all our life; for that is the meaning of
it. If we are called to die for God, we are to prefer God before our own
life. We shall never reach the fullness of this commandment, till we get as
far as the martyrs, who rather than disobey God would be cast into the
furnace, or devoured by wild beasts. We must be ready to give up house,
home, liberty, friends, comfort, joy, and life, at the command of God, or
else we have not carried out this commandment, “Thou shalt love him with
all thy heart and with all thy life.”

And, next we are to love God with all our mind. That is, the intellect is to
love God. Now, many men believe in the existence of a God, but they do
not love that belief. They know there is a God, but they greatly wish there
were none. Some of you to day would be very pleased, ye would set the
bells a-ringing, if ye believed there were no God. Why, if there were no
God, then you might live just as you liked; if there were no God, then you
might run riot and have no fear of future consequences. It would be to you
the greatest joy that could be, if you heard that the eternal God had ceased
to be. But the Christian never wishes any such a thing as that. The thought
that there is a God is the sunshine of his existence. His intellect bows
before the Most High; not like a slave who bends his body because he
must, but like the angel who prostrates himself because he loves to adore
his Maker. His intellect is as fond of God as his imagination. “Oh!” he
saith, “My God, I bless thee that thou art, for thou art my highest treasure,
my richest and my rarest delight. I love thee with all my intellect; I have
neither thought, nor judgment, nor conviction, nor reason, which I do not
lay at thy feet, and consecrate to thine honor.

And once again, this love to God is to be characterised by activity; for we
are to love Him with all our heart, heartily — with all our soul, that is, to
the laying down of our life — with all our mind, that is mentally; and we
are to love him with all our strength, that is, actively. I am to throw my
whole soul into the worship and adoration of God. I am not to keep back a
single hour, or a single farthing of my wealth, or a single talent that I have,
or a single atom of strength, bodily or mental from the worship of God. I
am to love him with all my strength.

Now what man ever kept this commandment? Surely, none; and no man
ever can keep it. Hence, then, the necessity of a Savior. Oh! that we might
by this commandment be smitten to the earth, that our self-righteousness
may be broken in pieces by this great hammer of “the first and great
commandment!” But oh! my brethren, how may we wish that we could
keep it! for, could we keep this command intact, unbroken, it would be a
heaven below. The happiest of creatures are those that are the most holy,
and that unreservedly love God.

3. And now, very briefly, I have just to state God’s claim upon which he
bases this commandment. “Thou shalt love him with all thy heart, soul,
mind, strength.” Why? First, because he is the Lord — that is, Jehovah;
and secondly because he is thy God.

Man, the Creature of a day, thou oughtest to love Jehovah for what he is.
Behold, him whom thou canst not behold! Lift up thine eyes to the seventh
heaven; see where in dreadful majesty, the brightness of his skirts makes
the angels veil their faces, lest the light, too strong for even them, should
smite them with eternal blindness. See ye him, who stretched the heavens
like a tent to dwell in, and then did weave into their tapestry, with golden
needle, stars that glitter in the darkness. Mark ye him who spread the earth,
and created man upon it. And hear ye what he is. He is all-sufficient,
eternal, self-existent, unchangeable, omnipotent, omniscient! Wilt thou not
reverence him? He is good, he is loving, he is kind, he is gracious. See the
bounties of his providence; behold the plenitude of his grace! Wilt thou not
love Jehovah, because he is Jehovah?

But thou art most of all bound to love him because he is thy God. He is thy
God by creation. He made thee; thou didst not make thyself. God, the
Almighty, though he might use instruments, was nevertheless the sole
creator of man. Though he is pleased to bring us into the world by the
agency of our progenitors, yet is he as much our Creator as he was the
Creator of Adam, when he formed him of clay and made him man. Look at
this marvellous body of thine, see how God hath put the bones together, so
as to be of the greatest service and use to thee, See how he hath arranged
thy nerves and blood vessels; mark the marvellous machinery which he has
employed to keep thee in life! O thing of an hour! wilt thou not love him
that made thee? Is it possible that thou canst think of him who formed thee
in his hand, and moulded thee by his will, and yet wilt thou not love him
who hath fashioned thee?

Again, consider, he is thy God, for he preserves thee. Thy table is spread,
but he spread it for thee. The air that thou dost breathe is a gift of his
charity; the clothes that thou hast on thy back are gifts of his love; thy life
depends on him. One wish of his infinite will would have brought thee to
the grave, and given thy body to the worms; and at this moment, though
thou art strong and hearty, thy life is absolutely dependent upon him. Thou
mayest die where thou art, instanter: thou art out of hell only as the result
of his goodness. Thou wouldst be at this hour sweltering in flames
unquenchable, had not his sovereign love preserved thee. Traitor though
thou mayest be to him, an enemy to his cross and cause, yet he is thy God,
so far as this, for he made thee and he keeps thee afire. Surely, thou mayest
wonder that he should keep thee alive, when thou refusest to love him.
Man! thou wouldst not keep a horse that did not work for thee. Would you
keep a servant in your house who insulted you? Would you spread bread
upon his table, and find livery for his back, if instead of doing your will and
good pleasure he would be his own master, and would run counter to you?
Certainly you would not. And yet here is God feeding you, and you are
rebelling against him. Swearer! the lip with which you cursed your Maker
is sustained by him; the very lungs that you employ in blasphemy are
inspired by him with the breath of life, else you had ceased to be. Oh!
strange that you should eat God’s bread, and then lift up your heel against
him; Oh! marvellous that ye should sit at the table of his providence and be
clothed in the livery of his bounty, and yet that you should turn round and
spit against high heaven, and lift the puny hand of your rebellion against the
God that made you, and that preserves you in being. Oh, if instead of our
God we had one like unto ourselves to deal with, my brethren, we should
not have patience with our fellow-creatures for an hour. I marvel at God’s
longsuffering towards men. I see the foul-mouthed blasphemer curse his
God. O God! how canst thou endure it? Why dost thou not smite him to
the ground? If a gnat should torment me, should I not in one moment crush
it? And what is man compared with his Maker? Not one half so great as an
emmet compared with man. Oh! my brethren, we may well be astonished
that God hath mercy upon us, after all our violations of this high command.
But I stand here to-day his servant, and from myself and from you I claim
for God, because he is God, because he is our God and our Creator — I
claim the love of all hearts, I claim the obedience of all souls and of all
minds, and the consecration of all our strength.

O people of God, I need not speak to you. Ye know that God is your God
in a special sense; therefore you ought to love him with a special love.
II. This is what the commandment says to us. I shall be very short indeed
upon the second head, which is, WHAT HAVE WE TO SAY TO IT?

What hast thou to say to this command, O man? Have I one here so
profoundly brainless as to reply, “I intend to keep it and I believe I can
perfectly obey it, and I think I can get to heaven by obedience to it?” Man,
thou art either a fool, or else wilfully ignorant; for sure, if thou dost
understand this commandment, thou wilt at once hang down thine hands,
and say, “Obedience to that is quite impossible; thorough and perfect
obedience to that no man can hope to reach to! Some of you think you will
go to heaven by your good works, do you? This is the first stone that you
are to step upon — I am sure it is too high for your reach. You might as
well try to climb to heaven by the mountains of earth, and take the
Himalayas to be your first step; for surely when you had stepped from the
ground to the summit of Chimborazo you might even then despair of ever
stepping to the height of this great commandment; for to obey this must
ever be an impossibility. But remember, you cannot be saved by your
works, if you cannot obey this entirely, perfectly, constantly, for ever.
“Well,” says one, “I dare say if I try and obey it as well as I can, that will
do.” No, sir, it will not. God demands that you perfectly obey this, and if
you do not perfectly obey it he will condemn you. “Oh!” cries one, “who
then can be saved!” Ah! that is the point to which I wish to bring you. Who
then can be saved by this law? Why, no one in the world. Salvation by the
works of the law is proved to be a clean impossibility. None of you,
therefore will say you will try to obey it, and so hope to be saved. I hear
the best Christian in the world groan out his thoughts — “O God,” saith
he, “I am guilty; and shouldst thou cast me into hell I dare not say
otherwise. I have broken this command from my youth up, even since my
conversion; I have violated it every day; I know that if thou shouldst lay
justice to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, I must be swept away
for ever. Lord, I renounce my trust in the law; for by it I know I can never
see thy face and be accepted.” But hark! I hear the Christian say another
thing. “Oh!” saith he to the commandment, “Commandment I cannot keep
thee, but my Savior kept thee, and what my Savior did, he did for all them
that believe; and now, O law, what Jesus did is mine. Hast thou any
question to bring against me? Thou demandest that I should keep this
commandment wholly: lo, my Savior kept it wholly for me, and he is my
substitute; what I cannot do myself my Savior has done for me; thou canst
not reject the work of the substitute, for God accepted it in the day when
he raised him from the dead. O law! shut thy mouth for ever; thou canst
never condemn me; though I break thee a thousand times, I put my simple
trust in Jesus, and in Jesus only; his righteousness is mine, and with it I pay
the debt and satisfy thy hungry mouth.”

“ Oh!” cries one, “I wish I could say that I could thus escape the wrath of
the law! Oh that I knew that Christ did keep the law for me!” Stop, then,
and I will tell you. Do you feel to-day that you are guilty, lost, and ruined?
Do you with tears in your eyes confess that none but Jesus can do you
good? Are you willing to give up all trusts, and cast yourself alone on him
who died upon the cross? Can you look to Calvary, and see the bleeding
sufferer, all crimson with streams of gore? Can you say

“A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
Into thine arms I fall;
Jesus be thou my righteousness,
My Savior and my all!”

Canst say that? Then he kept the law for you, and the law cannot condemn
whom Christ has absolved. If Law comes to you and says, “I will damn you
because you did not keep the law,” tell him that he dares not touch a hair
of your head, for though you did not keep it, Christ kept it for you, and
Christ’s righteousness is yours; tell him there is the money, and though you
did not coin it Christ did; and tell him, when you have paid him all he asks
for, he dares not touch you; you must be free, for Christ has satisfied the
law.

And after that — and here I conclude — O child of God I know what thou
wilt say; after thou hast seen the law satisfied by Jesus thou wilt fall on thy
knees and say, “Lord, I thank thee that this law cannot condemn me, for I
believe in Jesus. But now, Lord, help me from this time forth for ever to
keep it. Lord, give me a new heart, for this old heart never will love thee!
Lord, give me a new life, for this old life is too vile. Lord, give me a new
understanding: wash my mind with the clean water of the Spirit; come and
dwell in my judgment, my memory, my thought; and then give me the new
strength of thy Spirit, and then will I love thee with all my new heart, with
all my new life, with all my renewed mind, and with all my spiritual
strength, from this time forth, even for evermore.”

May the Lord convince you of sin, by the energy of his divine Spirit, and
bless this simple sermon; for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

“As the mountains are round about Jerusalam, so the Lord is round about his
people from henceforth even for ever.” Psalm 125:2

THE changes of society may well illustrate the immutability of God. In the
days of David, Jerusalem was looked upon as an impregnable fortress. It is
surrounded by a natural rampart of hills; and appears to lie in the center of
an amphitheatre raised purposely for its defense. By the ancient Jew it was
considered to be an impregnable citadel. How changed now are the
manners of war! A small troop could easily take the city, and it must
indeed be a strong army that would be able to garrison it in its present
condition. Yet whilst Jerusalem is changed, and the figure has become
inappropriate, Jerusalem’s God remains, for with him is “no variableness,
neither shadow of turning.” We must this morning consider the text, not as
we should understand it in our day, but as we should have understood it in
David’s time. David looked upon the city of Jerusalem, and he thought
within himself, “No army can ever be able to surprise this city, and
however numerous may be the invading hosts, my people will always be
able to hold their own in the midst of a city so firmly fortified both by
nature and by art.” In his time, indeed, and in the time of his son Solomon,
I suppose it would have been utterly impossible for any enemy, possessed
only of the tactics of ancient warfare, to have scaled those mighty ramparts
of earth which God had piled about the city. And therefore, when David
said in his day, “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord
is round about his people;” he meant this — “As Jerusalem is fortressed by
the mountains, so are God’s people castled in the covenant, fortressed in
the Omnipotence of God, and therefore they are impregnably secure. We
shall thus understand the text, and endeavor this morning to work out the
great thought of the security of God’s people in the arms of Jehovah their
Lord.

We shall consider the text, first, as relating to the Church as a whole, and
then we shall endeavor to note how it applies to every individual in
particular.

I. FIRST, THE CHURCH AS A WHOLE is secured by God beyond the reach
of harm. She is ably garrisoned by Omnipotence, and she is castled within
the faithful engagements of the covenant. How often has the Church been
attacked; but how often has she been victorious? The number of her battles
is just the number of her victories. Foes have come against her; they have
compassed her about, they have compassed her about like bees, but in the
name of God she has destroyed them. The bull of Bashan and the dog of
Belial, the mighty and the insignificant, have all conspired to overthrow the
Church; but he that sitteth in heaven hath laughed at them, the Lord hath
had them in derision, and his church hath been as Mount Zion, which
cannot be removed, but which abideth for ever. Turn ye now to the roll of
history and read how the Church has been fortressed by God, when fiercely
attacked by men.

1. Persecution has unsheathed its bloody sword, and sought to rend up the
Church by its roots, or fell it with its axe. Tyrants have heated their
furnaces, have prepared their racks, have erected their stakes, the martyrs
of Christ have been dragged by thousands to a terrible death, the
confessors have had to stand forth at the risk of their lives, protesting the
gospel of God against the dominant of the times. The little flock has been
scattered hither and thither, and the dogs of persecution have worried them
in every corner whither they have fled. Into every nation of the earth have
they wandered; in sheepskins and goatskins have they been clothed; their
houses have been in the rocks and their sleeping places in the caves of the
earth. Like the stag pursued by the hounds, they have not had a moment’s
space for so much as to take their breath. But has the Church been
subdued? Has she ever been overcome? O God, thou hast proved the
invincibility of thy truth; thou hast manifested the power of thy Word, for
thou hast not only preserved thy Church in the time of greatest trouble,
but, blessed be thy name thou hast made the hour of her peril the hour of
her greatest triumph. You will find that whenever the Church has been the
most persecuted she has been the most successful. The heathen Proconsuls
wondered when they saw the many who were prepared to die.

They said, “Surely a madness must have seized upon mankind, that they
cannot be content to commit suicide, but are so fond of death that they
must come to our bar and plead that they are lovers of Christ as if they
sought to compel us to execute them.” God gave grace for the moment and
in the day of persecution he braced the nerves of his people, and made
them mighty to do or die, as God would have it. But, surely, had not
Christ’s Church been surrounded by the mountains of God’s Omnipotence,
she must have fallen a prey to her numerous enemies.

2. But by-and-bye the devil grew wiser. He saw that overt persecution
would not suffice for the putting down of God’s Church, and he therefore
adopted another measure not less cruel but more crafty. “I will not only
slay them,” said he, “I will malign them.” Did you ever read in history the
horrible reports which were set afloat in the early ages of Christianity
concerning the Christians. I dare not tell you with what vices the early
Christians were charged in their private assemblies. It is certain that they
were the purest and most virtuous of men, but never were men so fearfully
belied. The very heathens who revelled in vice, despised the followers of
Jesus on account of crimes which the voice of the liar had laid to their
charge. A few years elapsed and the mud which had been cast upon the
snow-white garments of Christ’s Church fell off from them, leaving them
whiter than before, the clouds that sought to obscure the light of the
heaven of the gospel were blown away, and “fair as the moon and clear as
the sun” the innocence of Christ’s Church shone forth again. But the devil
has adopted the same plan in every period. He has always sought to slander
any race of Christians who are the means of revival. I would not believe
any minister to be eminently successful, if I were informed that everybody
praised him. I am certain that such a case would be an exception, a glaring
exception to all the rules of history. You remember what was said of
Whitfield in his day. He was charged with crimes that Sodom never knew;
and yet a more pure and heavenly man God never sent to tread this wicked
earth. And it ever must be so. The Church struggling with sin and
wickedness, must through the enmity of the evil one find herself
bespattered and besmeared with slander. The wicked when they can do
nothing else against the righteous, will spit falsehood on them. But has the
Church suffered through their slander, or hath ever a solitary Christian lost
aught by it? No, the Lord God who set the mountains round about
Jerusalem has so put himself about his people, that no weapon that is
formed against us shall prosper, and every tongue that riseth against us in
judgment we shall condemn. This is the heritage of the people of the Lord.
Fear not, O Church of Christ, the slimy serpent of slander for even in thy
cradle, like Hercules, when the snakes of slander came against thee thou
didst slay them in thine infantile grasp, more than a conqueror through him
that loved thee. And now that God is with thee, and the shout of a king in
thy midst, fear not, though all men should speak against thee, thy Master
will yet honor thee, and thou wilt come up from the pool of slander like a
sheep from the washing, the fairer for thy black baptism, the more admired,
the more lovely for all the scorn and ignominy that men have cast upon
thee.

3. Again, Satan learned wisdom, and he said, “Now inasmuch as I cannot
destroy this people, neither by sword nor slander, lo, this will I do, I will
send into their midst wolves in sheeps clothing, I will inspire divers
heretics, carried away with their own lusts, who shall in the midst of the
church promulgate lies and prophecy smooth things in the name of the
Lord. And Satan has done all this with a vengeance. In every era of the
church there have been numberless bands of heretics. Only a small
company have in certain times adhered to the truth, whilst the mass of
professing Christians have gone aside and have perished in the gainsaying
of Korah. Look at the earliest days of Christianity. Scarcely were the
apostles in their graves, and their souls in paradise, than there sprang up
men who denied the Lord that bought them — some who did evil that
good might come, whose damnation was just. Heresies of all kinds began
to spring up, even in the first fifty years after the departure of our Master.
Since that time the world has been very prolific of every shape and form of
doctrine except the truth, and down to these modern times heresies have
prevailed. Now behold how Satan seeks to quench the light of Israel. There
is the heresy of Rome, she that sitteth upon many waters seeketh as far as
she can to delude the Church, and to draw the rest of the world aside from
the truth of God. She, with all the craft of hell, seeketh to proselyte
where’er she may from those who are the professed followers of the truth;
she will change her shape in every land; in her own dominions she will
build the dungeon, and practice intolerance — in a land of freedom she can
plead for liberty, and pretend to be its warmest friend. Base harlot that she
is, her whoredoms have not yet ceased, nor is the cup of her fornications
full. She seeketh still to devour the nations and swallow them up quick.
There is her sister the Puseyism of the Church of England, I speak nothing
now concerning my evangelical brethren. God Almighty shield them and
bless them! My only marvel is, that they do not come out altogether, and
touch not the unclean thing. But, alas, Puseyism is seeking to eat out the
very vitals of our godliness, telling the masses that the priest is everything
— putting down Christ and exalting the man, putting baptismal water in
the place of the influences of the Divine Spirit, and exalting sacraments into
the place which is only to be held by the Lord our God. Truly this
dangerous and deceptive, beautiful and foolish system of religion is much
to be feared, although we know that the true Church of God must ever be
safe, for against her the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Alas! that we should have to say something else! and this concerning those
who are commonly called evangelical, who have a form of error more
insidious and evil still. Alas that I should have to “cry aloud and spare not,”
concerning these matters. These are days when a false charity would have
us hold our tongues against the evils that we hate. My brethren, in the
midst of our dissenting churches especially there is a system which does
not deserve the name of system, except from its systematic desire to crush
every system. There is a system springing up which takes out of the Gospel
every truth that makes it precious plucks every jewel out of the crown of
the Redeemer, and tramples it under the foot of men. In a large number of
our pulpits at this time you will not hear the Gospel preached by a month
together. Anything else you like you may hear preached: Anti-state
Churchism, political affairs — these are the current staple of the day;
Christ and him crucified may go to the dogs for them. Polities fill up the
pulpits, and philosophy stands in the place of theology. And when there is a
little theology, what say they? Instead of exalting the Holy Spirit as the first
and prime agent, they are ever exhorting men to do what only God’s Spirit
can do for them, and not reminding them that the effectual grace of God is
necessary; the covenant, the “everlasting covenant, ordered in all things
and sure” is sneered at the banner once held so manfully by Calvin, who
took it from the hand of Augustine leaping over centuries to grasp it, who
again received it from the hand of the apostle Paul — the banner of the old
fashioned truth is to a great degree furled, and we are told that these old
doctrines are effete and out of date. Puritanical divinity, they say, is not the
divinity for these times; we must have a new gospel for a go-a-head era.
We must have sermons preache I which, if they be not absolute denial of
every doctrine of the gospel, are at least sneers at them all. The man effects
to be so supremely wise, that he in his own brain can devise a gospel
better, fairer than the ancient gospel of the blessed God, Now, this is one
of the attempts of the enemy to put down the truth, but he will never be
able to do it, for “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord
is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.”

I will not be hard, but I must say a word to many of my brethren of the
denomination to which I belong. There are many of you call yourselves
Particular Baptists, by which you mean that you are Calvinists, and yet,
gentlemen, your consciences are easy, and some of you have never
preached upon election since you were ordained. The peculiarities of “the
five points” are concealed. These things, you say, are offensive. And so,
gentlemen, you would rather offend God than you would offend man. But
you reply, “These things, you know, are high doctrines; they had better not
be preached: they will not be practical.” I do think that the climax of all
man’s blasphemy is centred in that utterance. Will you dare to say, “There
are some parts of God’s truth that we do not want to preach to the
people.” Tell me that God put a thing in the Bible that I am not to preach!
You are finding fault with my God. But you say, “It will be dangerous.”
What! God’s truth dangerous? I should not like to stand in your shoes
when you have to face your Maker on the day of judgment after such an
utterance as that. If it be not God’s truth, let it alone; but if you believe the
thing, out with it. The world will like you just as well for being honest, and
if the world does not your Master will. Keep back nothing; tell the whole
gospel out. Tell out man’s responsibility: do not stutter at it. Tell out divine
sovereignty: do not refuse to talk of election, use the word, even if they
sneer, tell men that if they believe not the blood is on their own heads, and
then if the high people turn against you, snap your finger in their face; tell
them you do not care — that to you it is nothing, nothing at all to please
man; your Master is in heaven, and him will you please, come fair, come
foul. This done, Satan would be balked and defeated; but at the present
moment, he is mightily striving thus to overthrow the church by ill
doctrine.

4. The craftiest invention of the devil, with which he seeks, in the last place
to put out the church, is a device which has amazed me above every other.
“Now;” says Satan, “If I can quench the church, neither by persecution, nor
slander, nor heresy, I will invent another mode of destroying her.” And I
have often marveled at the depths of deceit which are centred in this last
invention of Satan. Satan seeks to divide the church, to set us apart from
one another, and not allow those who love the same truth to meet with
each other and to work together in love, and peace, and harmony. “Now,”
says the devil, “I have it. Here is one body of good men — they are very
fond of one part of God’s truth. Now, there are two sets of truths in the
Bible. One set deals with man as responsible creature, the other class of
truths deals with God as the infinite Sovereign, dispensing his mercy as he
pleases. Now these dear brethren are very fond of man’s responsibility:
they will preach it, and they will preach it so that if they hear the brother
over the other side of the street preach God’s sovereignty, they will be very
wroth with him. And then I will make the brethren who preach divine
sovereignty forget the other part of the truth, and hate the brethren that
preach it.” Do you not see the craft of the enemy? Both of these good men
are right; they both preach parts of truth; but they each so set their part of
truth at the top of the other that a rivalry commences. Why, I have stepped
in and heard a godly brother preach a sermon that sent my blood through
my veins at a most rapid rate, whilst he earnestly preached of sin, of
righteousness, and of judgment to come but he spoilt all his sermon by
indirectly hinting — “Now, take care you don’t hear Mr. So-and-so,
because he will contradict all this, and tell you that you are saved by grace,
and that it is not of yourself but it is the gift of God.” I went, of course,
and heard the good man, because I was told not to go. Well, he was
preaching that “it is not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but
of God,” and I thought he handled the text very manfully, when he showed
that God was the author of all salvation; only in a parenthesis he told us
not to go to that work-mongering shop on the other side of the road. Why,
they were both right, but they had each got different parts of the truth; one,
that truth which dealt with man as responsible; the other, that which deals
with God as a Sovereign; and the devil had so perverted their judgment
that they could not see that both things were true, but they must go
fighting each other just to make sport for Satan. Now, I wonder that the
church has not been utterly destroyed by this last device, for it is the
craftiest thing, I believe, that Satan has yet brought under our notice,
though without doubt his depths are too deep for our understanding. But,
brethren, despite all this, let bigotry rave, let intolerance rail till it goes
mad, the church is just as secure, for God hath set himself round about her,
“even as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, from henceforth even
for evermore.”

And now just notice, before we leave this point, that as the Church always
has been preserved, the text assures us she always will be, henceforth even
for ever. There is a nervous old woman here. Last Saturday night she read
the newspaper, and she saw something about five or six clergymen going
over to Rome: she laid down her spectacles, and she began crying, “Oh!
the Church is in danger, the Church is in danger.” Ah! put your spectacles
on; that is all right; never mind about the loss of those fellows. Better gone;
we did not want them; do not cry if fifty more follow them, do not be at all
alarmed. Some church may be in danger, but God’s Church is not. That is
safe enough, that shall stand secure, even to the end. I remember with what
alarm some of my friends received the tidings of the geological discoveries
of modern times, which did not quite agree with their interpretation of the
Mosaic history of the creation. They thought it an awful thing that science
should discover something which seemed to contradict the Scriptures.
Well, we lived over the geological difficulty, after all. And since then there
have been different sets of philosophic infidels, who have risen up and
made wonderful discoveries, and poor timid Christians have thought,
“What a terrible thing! This surely will be the end of all true religion; when
science can bring facts against us, how shall we be able to stand?” They
just waited about another week, and on a sudden they found that science
was not their enemy, but their friend, for the Truth though tried in a
furnace like silver seven times, is ever a gainer by the trial. Ah! ye that hate
the church, she shall ever be a thorn in your side! Oh! ye that would batter
her walls to pieces, know this, that she is impregnable, not one of her
stakes shall be removed, not one of her cords shall be broken. God hath
fixed her where she is, and by divine decree established her on a rock. Do
you hate the Church? Hate on: it will never be moved by all your hate. Do
you threaten to crush it? It shall crush you, but you shall never injure it. Do
ye despise and laugh at it? Ah! the day is coming when the laugh shall be
on the other side. Wait a little while, and when her Master shall suddenly
come in his glory, then shall it be seen on whose side is the victory, and
who were the fools that laughed.

Thus we have disposed of the first point; THE CHURCH impregnably secure,
fortressed, and castled by God.

II. What is true of the mass is true of the unit. The fact which relates to
the Church includes in it EVERY MEMBER OF THE CHURCH. God has
fortressed his people; so that every believer is infallibly secure. There are in
the world certain people who teach that Christ gives grace to men, and tells
them, “Now, you shall be saved it you will persevere; but this must be left
to yourself.” This reminds me of an old Puritanical illustration, “The Duke
of Alva having given some prisoners their lives, they afterwards petitioned
him for some food. His answer was, that, ‘he would grant them life but no
meat.’ And they were famished to death.” The deniers of final perseverance
represent the Deity in a similar view. ‘God promises eternal life to the
saints if they endure to the end,’ but he will not secure to them the
continuance of that grace without which eternal life cannot be had! Oh!
surely if that were true, eternal life were not worth a fig to any of us.
Unless our God who first saves us did engage to keep us alive and to
provide for all our necessities, of what use were eternal life at all? But we
bless his name,

“Whom once he loves he never leaves,
But loves them to the end.”
Once in Christ, in Christ for ever,
Nothing from his love can sever.”

The Christian is fortified and secured from all harm. And yet, O child of
God, there be many that will seek to destroy thee, and thy fears will often
tell thee that thou art in the jaws of the enemy. Providence will often seem
against thee, thine eyes shall be seldom dry; it may be funeral shall follow
funeral. Loss shall follow loss; a burning house shall be succeeded by a
blasted crop. The Christian in this world is not secured against the perils
which happen to manhood. Oh! child of God, it may seem that all things
are against thee; perhaps all God’s waves and billows will go over thee;
thou mayest know what hunger, and nakedness, and thirst do mean; thou
mayest be found in this world houseless, friendless, fatherless, motherless,
but oh! remember, that neither famine, nor hunger, nor poverty, nor
sickness, nor weakness, nor contempt, can separate thee from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus thy Lord. Thou mayest sink ever so low, but
thou canst never sink lower than the arm of God can reach. Thy poor ship
may be drifted before the gale, but it shall never go so fast but God can
keep her off the rocks. Be of good cheer, the trials of this mortal life shall
work out for thee “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
Again, you may be tempted by the world! traps may be set for you on
every hand, you may be tempted by your flesh, your corruptions may have
great power over you, and often stagger your faith, and make you tremble,
lest you should be utterly overthrown, and the devil may set upon you with
fiery darts, he may pierce you with foul insinuations, he may almost make
you blaspheme, and with terrible suggestions he may drive you well-nigh to
despair. But oh! remember,

“Hell and thy sins obstruct thy course,
But hell and sin are vanquished foes;
Thy Jesus nailed them to his cross
And sang the triumph when he rose.”

And thou mayest, too, be overcome by sin. Thou mayest fall God grant
thou mayest not; but though thou be kept eminently consistent and
extremely virtuous, thou wilt sin and sometimes that sin will get such a
head against thee that thou canst scarcely stem the torrent. Conscience will
whisper, “How couldst thou be a child of God, and yet sin thus?” And
Satan will howl in thine ears, “He that sinneth knoweth not God.” And so
thou wilt be ready to be destroyed by thy sin. But do thou then, in the hour
of thy dark distress, read this verse — “As the mountains are round about
Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for
ever.” Be thou confident in this, that even sin itself shall not be able to cut
the golden link which joins thee to thy Savior.

Have you never heard the sermons of those people who believe in the
apostacy of the saints? Have you not heard them very pathetically enlarge
on the dangers of Christians? They say, “Yes, you may serve God all your
life, but perhaps in the last article of death your faith may faint, sin may
prevail, and you may be destroyed.” And they illustrate their very beautiful
and comfortable idea by the figure of a ship foundering just as she reaches
the harbour. Now, many wooden ships, I doubt not, do founder, and many
ships built in free-will dockyards founder too; but the chosen vessels of
mercy are insured against perishing, and were never known to be
shipwrecked yet. As an old divine says, there are no wrecks to be seen on
the sea which rolls between Jerusalem on earth and Jerusalem above. There
are many tempests, but never any shipwrecks. Bishop Hooker sweetly says
“Blessed for ever and ever, be that mother’s child whose faith hath made
him the child of God. The earth may shake, the pillars thereof may tremble
under us, the countenance of the heavens may be appalled, the sun may
lose his light, the moon her beauty, the stars their glory, but concerning the
man that trusted in God, if the fire have proclaimed itself unable as much as
to singe a hair of his head; if lions, beasts ravenous by nature and keen by
hunger, being set to devour, have, as it were, religiously adored the very
flesh of a faithful man; what is there in the world that shall change his
heart, overthrow his faith, alter his affections towards God, or the affection
of God to him?” Oh, when we once believe this doctrine and receive it in
our hearts as true, what a tendency it has to make the spirit buoyant in the
deep waters, to enable us to sing in the midst of the fierce billows. Who
need fear, if our salvation is made secure by the covenant of God?

And now for a few moments, without detaining you too long, I will try to
show some reasons why it is quite certain that the believer cannot by any
possibility perish. I want to do this, because I have a multitude of letters
from this large congregation every week, and I have to say to the glory of
God, there are many of those letters that make me so glad I can scarcely
contain myself, whilst others arouse all the anxiety of my heart. Among
them is one something like this. “Sir, I know that I was once a child of
God; many years ago I had such delightful feelings, and such ecstacies, that
I cannot doubt but what if I had died then I should have gone to heaven;
but now, sir, I am in such distress that I am quite sure if I were to die now
I should be lost.” Now, my brother, I know you are here. You may take it
to yourself. There are only two solutions to your mystery. If you were a
child of God then, you are a child of God now, and if you would have gone
to heaven then you will go to heaven now, be you what you may; if you
ever were regenerated, regeneration is a work that is never done but once,
and if it has been done once for you, it has not lost its efficacy — you are a
child of God yet. But I am inclined to think you never were a child of God:
you had a few fine ecstacies; but you never knew the plague of your own
heart; I am afraid, young man, you were never taken into God’s stripping
room, never were tied up to the halberts, and never had the ten-thonged
whip of law on your back. But, anyhow, do not tell me any more that you
were converted once but not now, because if you were converted to God,
God would have kept you. “The righteous shall hold on his way, and he
that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.”

And now shall I tell you why it is certain a believer cannot perish? In the
first place, how can a believer perish if that Scripture be true, which saith,
that every believer is a member of Christ’s body! If you will only grant me
my head afloat above the water I will give you leave to drown my fingers.
Try it: you cannot do it. As long as a man’s head is above the flood you
cannot drown him — it is clean impossible — nor yet drown any part of his
body. Now, a Christian is a part of Christ, the Head. Christ, the head of the
body, is in heaven, and until you can drown the head of the body, you
cannot drown the body, and if the head be in heaven, beyond the reach of
harm, then every member of the body is alive and secure, and shall at last
be in heaven too. Dost thou imagine, O heretic, that Christ will lose a
member of his body! Will Christ dwell in heaven with a mangled frame?
God forbid! If Christ hath taken us into union with himself, though we be
the meanest members of his heavenly body, he will not allow us to be cut
away. Will a man lose a arm, or a leg, or an hand, whilst he can help
himself? Ah! no, and whilst Christ is omnipotent, nought shall pluck his
children from his body, for they are of “his flesh and his bones.”
But again: how can a believer perish, and yet God be true? God has said
“When thou passest through the rivers I will be with thee, and the floods
shall not overflow thee.” Now, if they should overflow us, how can God be
true? “When thou passest through the fires thou shalt not be burned,
neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” Then if we could ever find a
believer consumed, we could prove God’s promise broken. But we cannot
do that. God is with his children, and ever will be. Besides has he not said,
“I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any pluck them out of my hands?” Ay, beloved, how can God be God, and
yet his people plucked out of his hand? Surely he were no God to us, if he
were unfaithful to a promise so oft repented and so solemnly confirmed.
Besides, mark ye this. If one saint should fall away and perish, God would
not only break his word, but his oath, for he hath sworn by himself,
because he could swear by no greater, “that by two immutable things, in
which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation,
who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.” No, an
oath-breaking God, a promise-despising Jehovah, were an impossibility;
and therefore a perished child of God is alike impossible.

But we need not fear, beloved, that we shall ever perish, if we love the
Savior for the last reason is all potent. Will Christ lose that which he has
bought with his own blood? Yes, there are men with judgments so
perverted, that they believe Christ died for those that are damned, and
bought with his own blood men that perish. Well, if they choose to believe
that, I do not envy them the elasticity of their intellects; but this I conceive
to be but an axiom, that what Christ has paid for so dearly with his own
heart’s blood he will have. If he loved us well enough to bear the
excruciating agonies of the cross, I know he loves “well enough to keep us
to the end.” If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the
death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his
life.” For I am persuaded that he that spared not his own life, but delivered
it up for his people, will not withhold aught that Omnipotence can “ire.
And now I close by addressing myself for a moment or two to ungodly
persons present. Thinking persons they must be, or else what I say will not
be likely to be noticed by them. When I was a boy I remember having a
meditation something like this: “Now, I should not like to be a thief or a
murderer, or an unclean person.” I had such a training that I had an
abhorrence of sin of that sort. “And yet,” thought I to myself, “I may be
hung yet; there is no reason why I should not turn out a thief,” because I
recollected there were some of my schoolfellows, older than I was, who
had already become very eminent in dishonesty; and I thought, “why may
not I?” No one can tell the rapture of my spirit, when I thought I saw in my
Bible the doctrine that if I gave my heart to Christ he would keep me from
sin and preserve me as long as I lived. I was not quite sure of it — not
quite certain that was the truth of the Bible, though I thought so; but I
remember when I heard the minister of some small hyper chapel utter the
same truth. Oh! my heart was full of rapture; I panted after that gospel.
“Oh!” I thought, if God would but love me, if I might but know myself to
be his!” For the enchanting part of it was, that if I were so he would keep
me to the end. That made me so in love with the gospel, that boy as I was,
knowing nothing savingly about the gospel, it made me love the thought of
being saved, because, if saved, God would never turn me out of doors.
That made the gospel very precious to me in my childhood; so that when
the Holy Spirit showed me my guilt and led me to seek a Savior, that
doctrine was like a bright star to my spirit. I always looked forward to that.
I thought, “Well, if I can once look to Christ, and cast myself on him, then
he will grant me grace that I shall to the end endure.” And oh! that doctrine
is so precious to me now, that I do think if anybody could possibly
convince me that final perseverance is not a truth of the Bible, I should
never preach again, for I feel I should have nothing worth preaching. If you
could once make me believe that the regeneration of God might fail of its
effect, and that the love of God might be separated from his own chosen
people, you might keep that Bible to yourself; between its cover there is
nothing that I love, nothing that I wish for, no gospel that is suitable for
me. I count it to be a gospel beneath the dignity of God, and beneath the
dignity of even fallen manhood, unless it be everlasting, “ordered in all
things and sure.”

And now poor trembling sinner, thou that knowest thy sins, believe on
Christ this morning, and thou art saved, and saved for ever. Do but this
moment look to him that died upon the tree, and, my brother, my sister,
give me thine hand, and let us weep for joy that thou believest, and let our
joy accumulate when we remember that the pillars of the heavens may
totter, the solid foundations of the earth may reel, the countenance of the
heavens may be astonished, the sun may be turned into darkness and the
moon into blood, but nought shall pluck thee from the strength of Israel’s
hands. Thou art, thou shalt be infallibly secure. Come, O Holy Spirit, bless
these words; for Jesus sake. Amen.

“It shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light.”
Zechariah 14:7

I SHALL not stay to notice the particular occasion upon which these words
were uttered, or to discover the time to which they more especially refer; I
shall rather take the sentence as a rule of the kingdom, as one of the great
laws of God’s dispensation of grace, that “at evening time it shall be light.”
Whenever philosophers wish to establish a general law, they think it
necessary to collect a considerable number of individual instances, these
being put together, they then infer from them a general rule. Happily, this
need not be done with regard to God. We have no need, when we look
abroad in providence, to collect a great number of incidents, and then from
them infer the truth; for since God is immutable, one act of his grace is
enough to teach us the rule of his conduct. Now, I find in this one place it
is recorded that on a certain occasion, during a certain adverse condition of
a nation, God promised that “at evening time it should be light.” If I found
that in any human writing, I should suppose that the thing might have
occurred once, that a blessing was conferred in emergency on a certain
occasion, but I could not from it deduce a rule, but when I find this written
in the book of God, that on a certain occasion when it was evening time
with his people God was pleased to give them light, I feel myself more than
justified in deducing from it the rule, that always to his people at evening
time there shall be light.

This, then, shall be the subject of my present discourse. There are different
evening times that happen to the church and to God’s people, and as a rule
we may rest quite certain that at evening time there shall be light.
God very frequently acts in grace in such a manner that we can find a
parallel in nature. For instance, God says, “As the rain cometh down and
the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, even so shall my word be,
it shall not return unto me void, it shall accomplish that which I please, it
shall prosper in the thing whereto I have sent it.” We find him speaking
concerning the coming of Christ, “He shall come down like rain upon the
mown grass, as showers that water the earth.” We find him likening the
covenant of grace to the covenant which he made with Noah concerning
the seasons, and with man concerning the different revolutions of the year
— ”Seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and
day and night shall not cease.” We find that the works of creation are very
frequently the mirror of the works of grace, and that we can draw figures
from the world of nature to illustrate the great acts of God in the world of
his grace towards his people. But sometimes God oversteps nature. In
nature after evening time there cometh night. The sun hath had its hours of
journeying; the fiery steeds are weary; they must rest. Lo, they descend the
azure steeps and plunge their burning fetlocks in the western sea, while
night in her ebon chariot follows at their heels. God, however, oversteps
the rule of nature. He is pleased to send to his people times when the eye
of reason expects to see no more day, but fears that the glorious landscape
of God’s mercies will be shrouded in the darkness of his forgetfulness. But
instead thereof, God overleapeth nature, and declares that at evening time
instead of darkness there shall be light.

It is now my business to illustrate this general rule by different particulars. I
shall dwell most largely upon the last, that being the principal object of my
sermon this morning.

1. To begin, then, “At evening time it shall be light.” The first illustration
we take from the history of the church at large. The church at large has
had many evening-times. If I might derive a figure to describe her history
from anything in this lower world, I should describe her as being like the
sea. At times the abundance of grace has been gloriously manifest. Wave
upon wave has triumphantly rolled in upon the land, covering the mire of
sin, and claiming the earth for the Lord of Hosts. So rapid has been its
progress that its course could scarce be obstructed by the rocks of sin and
vice. Complete conquest seemed to be foretold by the continual spread of
the truth. The happy church thought that the day of her ultimate triumph
had certainly arrived, so potent was her word by her ministers, so glorious
was the Lord in the midst of her armies, that nothing could stand against
her. She was “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army
with banners.” Heresies and schisms were swept away, false gods and idols
lost their thrones.

Jehovah Omnipotent was in the midst of his church, and he upon the white
horse rode forth conquering and to conquer. Before long, however, if you
read history, you find it always has happened that there came an ebb-tide.
Again the stream of grace seemed to recede, the poor church was driven
back either by persecution or by internal decay, instead of gaining upon
man’s corruptions it seemed as if man’s corruption gained on her, and
where once there had been righteousness like the waves of the sea, there
was the black mud and mire of the filthiness of mankind, mournful tunes
the church had to sing, when by the rivers of Babylon she sat down and
wept, remembering her former glories, and weeping her present desolation.
So has it always been — progressing, retrograding, standing still awhile,
and then progressing once more, and falling back again. The whole history
of the church has been a history of onward marches, and then of quick
retreats — a history which I believe is, on the whole, a history of advance
and growth, but which read chapter by chapter, is a mixture of success and
repulse, conquest and discouragement. And so I think it will be, even to the
last. We shall have our sunrises, our meridian noon, and then the sinking in
the west; we shall have our sweet dawnings of better days, our
Reformations, our Luthers and our Calvins; we shall have our bright full
noon-tide, when the gospel is fully preached, and the power of God is
known; we shall have our sunset of ecclesiastical weakness and decay. But
just as sure as the evening-tide seems to be drawing over the church, at
evening time it shall be light.” Mark well that truth all through the sacred
history of the church. In the day when every lamp of prophecy seemed to
have ceased, when he who once thundered in the streets of Rome was
burned at the stake and strangled; when Savanarola had departed, and his
followers had been put to confusion, and the black clouds of Popery
seemed to have quenched the sunlight of God’s love and grace upon the
world; in those dark dim ages when the gospel seemed to have died out, no
doubt Satan whispered in himself; “The church’s sunset is now come.” It is
evening time with her. Only a few rays are struggling from the sun of
righteousness to cheer the darkness. Satan thought, mayhap the world
should lie for ever beneath the darkness of his dragon wing. But lo! at
evening time it was light. God brought forth the solitary monk that shook
the world; he raised up men to be his coadjutors and helpers; the sun rose
in Germany; it shone in every land, nor have we ever had an even-tide so
near to darkness since that auspicious time. Yet there have been other
seasons of dark foreboding. There was a time when the church of England
was sound asleep, when the various bodies of Dissenters were quite as bad,
when religion degenerated into a dead formality, when no life and no
power could be found in any pulpit throughout the land, but when an
earnest man was so rare that he was almost a miracle. Good men stood
over the ruins of our Zion, and said, “Alas, alas, for the slain of the
daughter of my people! Where, where are the days of the mighty puritans
who with the banner of the truth in their hand crushed a lie beneath their
feet? O truth I thou trust departed; thou hast died.” “No,” says God, “it is
evening time; and now it shall be light.” There were six young men at
Oxford who met together to pray; those six young men were expelled for
being too godly; they went abroad throughout our land, and the little
leaven leavened the whole lump. Whitfield, Wesley, and their immediate
successors flashed o’er the land like lightning in a dark night, making all
men wonder whence they came and who they were, and working so great a
work, that both in and out of the Establishment, the gospel came to be
preached with power and vigor. At evening time God has always been
pleased to send light to his church.

We may expect to see darker evening times than have ever been beheld.
Let us not imagine that our civilisation shall be more enduring than any
other that has gone before it, unless the Lord shall preserve it. It may be
that the suggestion will be realised which has often been laughed at as
folly, that one day men should sit upon the broken arches of London
Bridge, and marvel at the civilisation that has departed, just as men walk
over the mounds of Nimroud, and marvel at cities buried there. It is just
possible that all the civilisation of this country may die out in blackest
night, it may be that God will repeat again the great story which has been
so often told — “I looked, and lo, in the vision I saw a great and terrible
beast, and it ruled the nations, but lo, it passed away and was not.” But if
ever such things should be — if the world should ever have to return to
barbarism and darkness — if instead of what we sometimes hope for, a
constant progress to the brightest day, all our hopes should be blasted, let
us rest quite satisfied that “at evening time there shall be light,” that the
end of the world’s history shall be an end of glory. However red with
blood, however black with sin the world may yet be, she shall one day be
as pure and perfect as when she was created. The day shall come when this
poor planet shall find herself unrobed of those swaddling bands of darkness
that have kept her lustre from breaking forth. God shall yet cause his name
to be known from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof,

“And the shout of jubilee,
Loud as mighty thunders roar,
Or the fullness of the sea
When it breaks upon the shore,
Shall yet be heard the wide world o’er.”
“At evening time it shall be light.”

II. This rule holds equally good in the little, as well as in the great. We
know that in nature the very same law that rules the atom, governs also the
starry orbs.

“The very law that moulds a tear
And bids it trickle from its source
That law preserves the earth a sphere
And guides the planets in their course.”

It is even so with the laws of grace. “At evening time it shall be light” to
the church, “at evening time it shall be light” to every individual. Christian
let us descend to lowly things. Thou hast had thy bright days in temporal
matters: thou hast sometimes been greatly blessed: thou canst remember
the day when the calf was in the stall, when the olive yielded its fruit, and
the fig-tree did not deny its harvest, thou canst recollect the years when the
barn was almost bursting with the corn, and when the vat overflowed with
the oil, thou rememberest when the stream of thy life was deep, and thy
ship floated softly on, without one disturbing billow of trouble to molest it.
Thou saidst in those days, “I shall see no sorrow, God hath hedged me
about; he hath preserved me, he hath kept me, I am the darling of his
providence, I know that all things work together for my good, for I can see
it is plainly so.” Well, Christian, thou hast after that had a sunset; the sun
which shone so brightly, began to cast his rays in a more oblique manner
every moment, until at last the shadows were long, for the sun was setting,
and the clouds began to gather; and though the light of God’s countenance
tinged those clouds with glory, yet it was waxing dark. Then troubles
lowered o’er thee; thy family sickened, thy wife was dead, thy crops were
meagre, and thy daily income was diminished, thy cupboard was no more
full, thou wast wandering for thy daily bread thou didst not know what
should become of thee, mayhap thou wast brought very low; the keel of
thy vessel did grate upon the rocks; there was not enough of bounty to
float thy ship above the rocks of poverty. “I sink in deep mire,” thou saidst,
“where there is no standing; all thy waves and thy billows have gone over
me.” What to do you could not tell; strive as you might, your strivings did
but make you worse. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain
that build it.” You used both industry and economy, and you added
“hereunto perseverance; but all in vain. It was in vain that you rose up
early, and sat up late and ate the bread of carefulness; nothing could you
do to deliver yourself; for all attempts failed. You were ready to die in
despair. You thought the night of your life had gathered with eternal
blackness. You would not live always, but had rather depart from this vale
of tears. Christian! bear witness to the truth of the maxim of the text! Was
it not light with thee at evening time? The time of thine extremity was just
the moment of God’s opportunity. When the tide had run out to its very
furthest, then it began to turn; thine ebb had its flow; thy winter had its
summer; thy sunset had its sunrise; “at evening time it was light.” On a
sudden by some strange work of God, as thou didst think it then, thou wast
completely delivered. He brought out thy righteousness like the light, and
thy glory as the noonday. The Lord appeared for thee in the days of old; he
stretched out his hand from above; he drew thee out of deep waters; he set
thee upon a rock and established thy goings. Mark, thou then, O heir of
heaven! what hath been true to thee in the years that are past, shall be true
to thee even till the last. Art thou this day exercised with woe, and care,
and misery? Be of good cheer! In thine “evening time it shall be light.” If
God chooseth to prolong thy sorrow he shall multiply thy patience; but the
rather, it may be, he will bring thee into the deeps, and thence will he lead
thee up again. Remember thy Savior descended that he might ascend: so
must thou also stoop to conquer and if God bids thee stoop, should it be to
the very lowest hell, remember, if he bade thee stoop he will bring thee up
again. Remember what Jonah said — “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and
thou heardest me.” Oh! exclaim with him of old, who trusted in God when
he had nothing else to trust: “Although the fig-tree shall not blossom,
neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail and the
fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there
shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the
God of my salvation.” Do thou so, and be blessed; for “at evening time it
shall be light.”

III. But now we seek a third illustration from the spiritual sorrows of
God’s own people. God’s children have two kinds of trials, trials temporal
and trials spiritual. I shall be brief on this point, and shall borrow an
illustration from good John Bunyan. You remember John Bunyan’s
description of Apollyon meeting Christian, Bunyan tells it figuratively, but
it is no figure: he that hath ever met Apollyon will tell you that there is no
mistake about the matter, but that there is a dread reality in it. Our
Christian met Apollyon when he was in the valley of humiliation, and the
dragon did most fiercely beset him; with fiery darts he sought to destroy
him, and take away his life. The brave Christian stood to him with all his
might, and used his sword and shield right manfully, till his shield became
studded with a forest of darts, and his hand did cleave unto his sword. You
remember how for many an hour that man and that dragon fought together,
till at last the dragon gave Christian a horrible fall, and down he went upon
the ground; and woe worth the day I at the moment when he fell he
dropped his sword! You have but to picture the scene: the dragon drawing
up all his might, planting his foot upon the Christian’s neck, and about to
hurl the fiery cart into his heart. “Aha! I have thee now, saith he, “thou art
in my power.” Strange to say, “at evening time it was light.” At the very
moment when the dragon’s foot was enough to crush the very life out of
poor Christian, it is said, he did stretch out his hand; he grasped his sword,
and giving a desperate thrust at the dragon he cried. “Rejoice not over me,
O mine enemy; for when I fall I shall arise again;” and so desperately did he
cut the dragon that he spread his wings and flew away, and Christian went
on his journey rejoicing in his victory. Now, the Christian understands all
that; it is no dream to him. He has been under the dragon’s foot many a
time. Ah! and all the world put on a man’s heart at once is not equal in
weight to one foot of the devil. When Satan once gets the upper hand of
the spirit, he neither wants strength, nor will, nor malice, to torment it.
Hard is that man’s lot, that has fallen beneath the hoof of the evil one in his
fight with him. But blessed be God, the child of God is ever safe as safe
beneath the dragon’s foot as he shall be before the throne of God in
heaven. “At evening time it shall be light.” And let all the powers of earth
and hell, and all the doubts and fears that the Christian ever knew, conspire
together to molest a saint, in that darkest moment, lo, God shall arise and
his enemies shall be scattered, and he shall get unto himself the victory. Oh
for faith to believe that. Oh! for confidence in God never to doubt him, but
in the darkest moment of our sorrows, still to feel all is well with us! “At
evening time it shall be light.”

IV. Bear with me whilst I just hint at one more particular, and then I will
come to that upon which I intend to dwell mainly at the last. To the sinner
when coming to Christ this is also a truth. “At evening time it shall be
light.” Very often when I am sitting to see inquirers, persons have come to
me to tell me the story of their spiritual history; and they tell me their little
tale with an air of the greatest possible wonder, and ask me as soon as they
have told it whether it is not extremely strange. “Do you know, sir, I used
to be so happy in the things of the world, but conviction entered into my
heart, and I began to seek the Savior; and do you know that for a long time
sir, when I was seeking the Savior I was so miserable that I could not bear
myself? Surely sir, this is a strange thing.” And when I have looked them in
the face, and said, “No, it is not strange; do you know I have had a dozen
to-night, and they have all told me the same; that is the way all God’s
people go to heaven,” they have stared at me, as if they did not think I
would tell them an untruth, but as if they thought it the strangest thing in
all the world that anybody else should have felt as they have felt. “Now, sit
down,” I say sometimes, “and I will tell you what were my feelings when I
first sought the Savior.” “Why, sir,” they say, “that is just how I felt, but I
did not think any one ever went the same path that I have gone.” Ah! well,
it is no wonder that when we hold little acquaintance with each other in
spiritual things our path should seem to be solitary; but he who knows
much of the dealings of God with poor seeking sinners, will know that their
experience is always very much alike, and you can generally tell one by
another, while they are coming to Christ. Now, whenever the soul is truly
seeking Christ it will have to seek him in the dark. When poor Lot ran out
of Sodom, he had to run all the way in the twilight. The sun did not rise
upon him until he got into Zoar. And so when sinners are running from
their sins to the Savior they have to run in the dark. They get no comfort
and no peace, till they are enabled by simple faith to look for all to him
who died upon the cross. I have in my presence this morning many poor
souls under great distress. Poor heart! my text is a comfort to thee. “At
evening time it shall be light.” You had a little light once, the light of
morality; you thought you could do something for yourself. That is all cut
out now. Then you had another light: you had the wax taper of
ceremonies, and you thought full sure that it would light you; but that is all
out now. Still you thought you could grope your way a little by the
remaining twilight of your good works, but all that seems to have gone
now. You think “God will utterly destroy such a wretch as I am! O sir! O
sir!

‘I the chief of sinners am.’

There never lived a wretch so vile; or if there ever lived such an one, surely
God must have cast him into hell at once; I am certain there is no hope for
me. Why, sir, do what I may, I cannot make myself any better. When I try
to pray I find I can’t pray as I should like; when I read the Bible it is all
black against me; it is no use, when I go to the house of God the minister
seems to be like Moses, only preaching the law to me — he never seems to
have a word of comfort to my soul. Well, I am glad of it, poor heart, I am
glad of it; far be it from me to rejoice in thy miseries as such, but I am glad
thou art where thou art. I remember what the Countess of Huntingdon
once said to Mr. Whitfield’s brother. Mr. Whitfield’s brother was under
great distress of mind, and one day when sitting at tea, talking of spiritual
things, he said, “Your ladyship, I know I am lost, I am certain I am!” Well,
they talked to him, and they tried to rally him; but he persisted in it, that he
was absolutely undone, that he was a lost man. Her ladyship clapped her
hands, and said, “I am glad of it, Mr. Whitfield, I’m glad of it.” He thought
it was a cruel thing for her to say. He knew better when she explained
herself by saying, “For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which
was lost; so, then, he came to seek and to save you.” Now, if there be any
here who are lost, I can only say, I am glad of it too, for such the mighty
Shepherd came to rescue. If there are any of you who feel that you are
condemned by God’s law, I thank God you are; for those who are
condemned by the law in their consciences shall yet be pardoned by the
gospel.

“Come, guilty souls, and flee away
To Christ, and heal your wounds;
This is the glorious gospel day
Wherein free grace abounds.”

Nay, this very hour, when you have no day in your heart, when you think
the evening time has come, and you must perish for ever — now is the time
when God will reveal himself to you. Whilst thou hast a rag of thine own
thou shalt never have Christ; whilst thou hast a farthing of thine own
righteousness, thou shalt never have him, but when thou art nothing, Christ
is thine; when thou hast nothing of thyself to trust to, Jesus Christ in the
gospel is thy complete Savior; he bids me tell thee he came to seek and to
save such as thou art.

V. And now I am about to close, dwelling rather more largely upon the
last particular — “At evening time it shall be light.” If our sun do not go
down ere it be noon, we may all of us expect to have an evening time of
life. Either we shall be taken from this world by death, or else, if God
should spare us, ere long we shall get to the evening of life. In a few more
years, the sere and yellow leaf will be the fit companion of every man and
every woman. Is there anything melancholy in that? I think not. The time of
old age, with all its infirmities, seems to me to be a time of peculiar
blessedness and privilege to the Christian. To the worldly sinner, whose
zest for pleasure has been removed by the debility of his powers and the
decay of his strength, old age must be a season of tedium and pain; but to
the veteran soldier of the cross, old age must assuredly be a time of great
joy and blessedness. I was thinking the other evening, whilst riding in a
delightful country, how like to evening time old age is. The sun of hot care
has gone down; that sun which shone upon that early piety of ours, which
had not much depth of root, and which scorched it so that it died — that
sun which scorched our next true godliness, and often made it well-nigh
wither, and would have withered it, had it not been planted by the rivers of
water — that sun is now set. The good old man has no particular care now
in all the world. He says to business, to the hum and noise and strife of the
age in which he lives, “Thou art nought to me; to make my calling and
election sure, to hold firmly this my confidence, and wait until my change
comes, this is all my employment; with all your worldly pleasures and cares
I have no connection.” The toil of his life is all done, he has no more now
to be sweating and toiling, as he had in his youth and manhood; his family
have grown up, and are no more dependent upon him; it may be, God has
blessed him, and he has sufficient for the wants of his old age, or it may be
that in some rustic alms-house he breathes out the lass few years of his
existence. How calm and quiet! Like the laborer, who, when he returns
from the field at evening time casts himself upon his couch, so does the old
man rest from his labors. And at evening time we gather into families, the
fire is kindled, the curtains are drawn, and we sit around the family fire, to
think no more of the things of the great rumbling world; and even so in old
age, the family and not the world are the engrossing topic.

Did you ever notice how venerable grandsires when they write a letter fill it
full of intelligence concerning their children? “John is well,” “Mary is ill,”
“all our family are in health.” Very likely some business friend writes to
say, “Stocks are down,” or, “the rate or interest is raised;” but you never
find that in any good old man’s letters; he writes about his family, his lately
married daughters, and all that. Just what we do at evening time; we only
think of the family circle and forget the world. That is what the grayheaded
old man does. He thinks of his children and forgets all beside. Well,
then, how sweet it is to think that for such an old man there is light in the
darkness! “At evening time it shall be light.” Dread not thy days of
weariness, dread not thine hours of decay, O soldier of the cross; new
lights shall burn when the old lights are quenched; new candles shall be lit
when the lamps of life are dim. Fear not! The night of thy decay may be
coming on; but “at evening time it shall be light.” At evening time the
Christian has many lights that he never had before; lit by the Holy Spirit
and shining by his light. There is the light of a bright experience. He can
look back, and he can raise his Ebenezer saying, “Hither by thy help I’ve
come.” He can look back at his old Bible, the light of his youth, and he can
say, “This promise has been proved to me, this covenant has been proved
true. I have thumbed my Bible many a year; I have never yet thumbed a
broken promise. The promises have all been kept to me; ‘not one good
thing has failed.’” And then if he has served God he has another light to
cheer him: he has the light of the remembrance of what good God has
enabled him to do. Some of his spiritual children come in and talk of times
when God blessed his conversation to their souls. He looks upon his
children, and his children’s children, rising up to call the Redeemer blessed;
at evening time he has a light. But at the last the night comes in real
earnest: he has lived long enough, and he must die. The old man is on his
bed; the sun is going down, and he has no more light. “Throw up the
windows, let me look for the last time into the open sky,” says the old man.
The sun has gone down; I cannot see the mountains yonder; they are all a
mass of mist; my eyes are dim, and the world is dim too. Suddenly a light
shoots across his face, and he cries, “O daughter! daughter, here! I can see
another sun rising. Did you not tell me that the sun went down just now?
Lo, I see another; and where those hills used to be in the landscape, those
hills that were lost in darkness, daughter, I can see hills that seem like
burning brass; and methinks upon that summit can see a city bright as
jasper. Yes, and I see a gate opening, and spirits coming forth. What is that
they say? O they sing! they sing! Is this death?” And ere he has asked the
question, he hath gone where he needs not to answer it, for death is all
unknown. Yes, he has passed the gates of pearl; his feet are on the streets
of gold; his head is bedecked with the crown of immortality; the
palmbranch of eternal victory is in his hand. God hath accepted him in the
beloved.

“Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in,”

he is numbered with the saints in light, and the promise is fulfilled, “At
evening time it shall be light.”

And now, my gray-headed hearer, will it be so with thee? I remember the
venerable Mr. Jay once in Cambridge, when preaching, reaching out his
hand to an old man who sat just as some of you are sitting there, and
saying, “I wonder whether those grey hairs are a crown of glory or a fool’s
cap; they are one or else the other.” For a man to be unconverted at the
age to which some of you have attained is indeed to have a fool’s cap made
of grey hairs; but if you have a heart consecrated to Christ, to be his
children now, with the full belief that you shall be his for ever, is to have a
crown of glory upon your brows.

And now, young men and maidens, we shall soon be old. In a little time
our youthful frame shall totter, we shall need a staff by-and-bye. Years are
short things; they seem to us to get shorter, as each one of them runs o’er
our head. My brother, thou art young as I am; say, hast thou a hope that
thine even-title shall be light? No, thou hast begun in drunkenness; anui the
drunkards eventide is darkness made more dark, and after it damnation.
No, young man; thou hast begun thy life with profanity, and the swearer’s
even-tide hath no light, except the lurid flame of hell. Beware thou of such
an even-tide as that! No, thou hast begun in gaiety; take care lest that
which begins in gaiety ends in eternal sadness. Would God we had all
begun with Christ! Would that ye would choose wisdom: for “her ways are
ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” Some religious men are
miserable; but religion does not make them so. True religion is a happy
thing. I never knew what the hearty laugh and what the happy face meant,
till I knew Christ, but knowing him I trust I can live in this world like one
who is not of it, but who is happy in it. If keeping my eye upward to the
Savior, I can say with David, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is
within me bless his holy name,” and bless him most of all for this, that I
know how to bless him. Ah! and if ye in your prime, in the days of your
youth, have been enabled by the Holy Spirit to consecrate yourselves to
God, you will, when you come to the end, look back with some degree of
sorrow upon your infirmities, but with a far greater degree of joy upon the
grace which began with you in childhood, which preserved you in
manhood, which matured you for your old age, and which at last gathered
you like a shock of corn fully ripe into the garner. May the great God and
Master bless these words to us each, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“We know that all things work together far good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

I. WE have here the description of a true Christian, and a declaration of
that Christian’s blessedness. We have him first very succinctly, but very
fully described in these words — “Them that love God, them who are the
called according to his purpose.” These two expressions are the great
distinguishing marks whereby we are able to separate the precious from the
vile, by discovering to us who are the children of God.

The first contains an outward manifestation of the second — “Them that
love God.” Now, there are many things in which the worldly and the godly
do agree, but on this point there IS a vital difference. No ungodly man
loves God — at least not in the Bible sense of the term. An unconverted
man may love a God, as, for instance, the God of nature, and the God of
the imagination; but the God of revelation no man can love, unless grace
has been poured into his heart, to turn him from that natural enmity of the
heart towards God, in which all of us are born. And there may be many
differences between godly men, as there undoubtedly are; they may belong
to different sects, they may hold very opposite opinions, but all godly men
agree in this, that they love God. Whosoever loveth God, without doubt, is
a Christian; and whosoever loveth him not, however high may be his
pretensions, however boastful his professions, hath not seen God, neither
known him for “God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God,
and God in him.” True believers love God as their Father; they have “the
spirit of adoption, whereby they cry Abba, Father.” They love him as their
King, they are willing to obey him, to walk in his commands is their
delight; no path is so soft to their feet as the path of God’s precepts, the
way of obedience thereunto. They love God also as their Portion, for in
him they live and move and have their being; God is their all, without him
they have nothing, but possessing him, however little they may have of
outward good, they feel that they are rich to all the intents of bliss. They
love God as their future Inheritance, they believe that when days and years
are past they shall enter into the bosom of God; and their highest joy and
delight is the full conviction and belief, that one day they shall dwell for
ever near his throne, be hidden in the brightness of his glory, and enjoy his
everlasting favor. Dost thou love God, not with lip-language, but with
heart-service? Dost thou love to pay him homage? Dost thou love to hold
communion with him? Dost thou frequent his mercy-seat? Dost thou abide
in his commandments, and desire to be conformed unto his Image? If so,
then the sweet things which we shall have to say this morning are thine.
But if thou art no lover of God, but a stranger to him, I beseech thee do
not pilfer to-day and steal a comfort that was not intended for thee. “All
things work together for good,” but not to all men; they only work
together for the good of “them that love God, to them who are the called
according to his purpose.”

Note the second phrase, which contains also a description of the Christian
— “the called according to his purpose.” However much the Arminian may
try to fritter away the meaning of this 8th chapter of the Romans we are
obliged as long as we use terms and words to say, that the 8th chapter of
the Romans and the 9th, are the very pillars of that Gospel which men now
call Calvinism. No man after having read these chapters attentively, and
having understood them, can deny that the doctrines of sovereign,
distinguishing grace, are the sum and substance of the teaching of the
Bible. I do not believe that the Bible is to be understood except by
receiving these doctrines as true. The apostle says that those who love God
are “the called according to his purpose” by which he means to say two
things — -first, that all who love God love him because he called them to
love him. He called them, mark you. All men are called by the ministry, by
the Word, by daily providence, to love God, there is a common call always
given to men to come to Christ, the great bell of the gospel rings a
universal welcome to every living soul that breathes; but alas! though that
bell hath the very sound of heaven, and though all men do in a measure
hear it, for “their line is gone out into all the earth and their Word unto the
end of the world” yet there was never an instance of any man having been
brought to God simply by that sound. All these things are insufficient for
the salvation of any man; there must be superadded the special call, the call
which man cannot resist, the call of efficacious grace, working in us to will
and to do of God’s good pleasure. Now, all them that love God love him
because they have had a special, irresistible, supernatural call. Ask them
whether they would have loved God if left to themselves, and to a man,
whatever their doctrines, they will confess —

“Grace taught my soul to pray,
Grace made my eyes o’erflow,
‘Tis grace that kept me to this day
And will not let me go.”

I never heard a Christian yet who said that he came to God of himself, left
to his own free-will. Free-will may look very pretty in theory, but I never
yet met any one who found it work well in practice. We all confess that if
we are brought to the marriage-banquet —

“‘Twas the same love that spread the feast
That gently forced us in
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.”

Many men cavil at election; the very word with some is a great bug ear;
they no sooner hear it than they turn upon their heel indignantly. But this
know, O man, whatever thou sayest of this doctrine, it is a stone upon
which, if any man fall, he shall suffer loss, but if it fall upon him it shall
grind him to powder. Not all the sophisms of the learned, nor all the
legerdemain of the cunning, will ever be able to sweep the doctrine of
election out of Holy Scripture. Let any man hear and judge. Hearken ye to
this passage in the 9th of Romans! “For the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to
election might stand not of works, but of him that calleth; It was said unto
her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid! For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I
will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy.” “Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth
he yet find fault? for who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art
thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that
formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over
the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another
unto dishonor! What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his
power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted
to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on
the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory. Even us,
whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.” These
are God’s words; if any man doth cavil at them, let him cavil; he rejecteth
the testimony of God against himself. If I promulgated the doctrine on my
own authority, I could not blame you if you should turn against me, and
reject it; but when, on the authority of Holy Scripture, I propound it, God
forbid that any man should quarrel therewith.

I have affirmed, and I am sure most Christians will bear witness, that what
I said was the truth, that if any man loveth God he loves him because God
gave him grace to love him. Now, suppose I should put the following
question to any converted man in this hall. Side by side with you there sits
an ungodly person; you two have been brought up together, you have
lived in the same house, you have enjoyed the same means of grace, you
are converted, he is not; will you please to tell me what has made the
difference? Without a solitary exception the answer would be this — “If I
am a Christian and he is not, unto God be the honor.” Do you suppose for
a moment that there is any injustice in God in having given you grace
which he did not give to another? I suppose you say, “Injustice, no; God
has a right to do as he wills with his own; I could not claim grace, nor
could my companions, God chose to give it to me, the other has rejected
grace wilfully to his own fault, and I should have done the same, but that
he gave ‘more grace,’ whereby my will was constrained.” Now, sir, if it is
not wrong for God to do the thing, how can it be wrong for God to
purpose to do the thing? and what is election, but God’s purpose to do
what he does do? It is a fact which any man must be a fool who would dare
to deny that God does give to one man more grace shall to another; we
cannot account for the salvation of one and the non-salvation of another
but by believing, that God has worked more effectually in one man’s heart
than another’s — unless you choose to give the honor to man, and say it
consists in one man’s being better than another, and if so I will have no
argument with you, because you do not know the gospel at all, or you
would know that salvation is not of works but of grace. If, then, you give
the honor to God, you are bound to confess that God has done more for
the man that is saved than for the man that is not saved. How, then, can
election be unjust, if its effect is not unjust? However, just or unjust as man
may choose to think it, God has done it, and the fact stands in man’s face,
let him reject it as he pleases. God’s people are known by their outward
mark: they love God, and the secret cause of their loving God is this —
God chose them from before the foundation of the world that they should
love him, and he sent forth the call of his grace, so that they were called
according to his purpose, and were led by grace to love and to fear him. If
that is not the meaning of the text I do not understand the English
language. “We know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Now, my hearers, before I proceed to enter into the text, let the question
go round. Do I love God? Have I any reason to believe that I have been
called according to his purpose? Have I been born again from above? Has
the Spirit operated in my heart in a manner to which flesh and blood never
can attain? Have I passed from death unto life by the quickening agency of
the Holy Ghost? If I have, then God purposed that I should do so, and the
whole of this great promise is mine.

II. We shall take the words one by one, and try to explain them.

1. Let us begin with the word “work.” “We know that all things work.”
Look around, above, beneath, and all things work. They work, in
opposition to idleness. The idle man that folds his arms or lies upon the
bed of sloth is an exception to God’s rule; for except himself all things
work. There is not a star though it seemeth to sleep in the deep blue
firmament, which doth not travel its myriads of miles and work; there is not
an ocean, or a river, which is not ever working, either clapping its thousand
hands with storms, or bearing on its bosom the freight of nations. There is
not a silent nook within the deepest forest glade where work is not going
on. Nothing is idle. The world is a great machine, but it is never standing
still: silently all through the watches of the night, and through the hours of
day, the earth revolveth on its axis, and works out its predestinated course.
Silently the forest groweth, anon it is felled; but all the while between its
growing and felling it is at work. Everywhere the earth works; mountains
work: nature in its inmost bowels is at work; even the center of the great
heart of the world is ever beating; sometimes we discover its working in
the volcano and the earthquake, but eyen, when most still all things are
ever working.

They are ever working too, in opposition to the word play. Not only are
they ceaselessly active, but they are active for a purpose. We are apt to
think that the motion of the world and the different evolutions of the stars
are but like the turning round of a child’s windmill; they produce nothing.
That old preacher Solomon once said as much as that. He said — “The sun
also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he
arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north;
it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his
circuits.” But Solomon did not add, that things are not what they seem.
The world is not at play; it hath an object in its wildest movement.
Avalanche, hurricane, earthquake, are but order in an unusual form;
destruction and death are but progress in veiled attire. Everything that is
and is done, worketh out some great end and purpose. The great machine
of this world is not only in motion, but there is something weaving in it,
which as yet mortal eye hath not fully seen, which our text hinteth at when
it says, It is working out good for God’s people.

And once again, all things work in opposition to Sabbath. We morally
speak of work, especially on this day, as being the opposite of sacred rest
and worship. Now, at the present moment all things work. Since the day
when Adam fell all things have had to toil and labor. Before Adam’s fall
the world kept high and perpetual holiday; but now the world has come to
its work-days, now it hath to toil. When Adam was in the garden the world
had its Sabbath: and it shall never have another Sabbath till the Millennium
shall dawn, and then when all things have ceased to work, and the
kingdoms shall be given up to God, even the Father, then shall the world
have her Sabbath, and shall rest; but at present all things do work.
Dear brethren, let us not wonder if we have to work too. If we have to toil,
let us remember, this is the world’s week of toil. The 6,000 years of
continual labor, and toil, and travail, have happened not to us alone, but to
the whole of God’s great universe; the whole world is groaning, and
travailing. Let us not be backward in doing our work. If all things are
working, let us work too — “work while it is called to-day, for the night
cometh when no man can work.” And let the idle and slothful remember
that they are a great anomaly; they are blots in the great work-writing of
God; they mean nothing; in all the book of letters with which God has
written out the great word “work,” they are nothing at all. But let the man
that worketh, though it be with the sweat of his brow and with aching
hands, remember that he, if he is seeking to bless the Lord’s people, is in
sympathy with all things — not only in sympathy with their work, but in
sympathy with their aim.

2. Now, the next word, “All things work together.” That is in opposition to
their apparent confliction. Looking upon the world with the mere eye of
sense and reason, we say, “Yes, all things work, but they work contrary to
one another. There are opposite currents; the wind bloweth to the north
and to the south. The world’s barque, it is true, is always tossed with
waves, but these waves toss her first to the right and then to the left; they
do not steadily bear her onward to her desired haven. It is true the world is
always active, but it is with the activity of the battle-field, wherein hosts
encounter hosts and the weaker are overcome.” Be not deceived; it is not
so; things are not what they seem; “all things work together.” There is no
opposition in God’s providence; the raven wing of war is co-worker with
the dove of peace. The tempest strives not with the peaceful calm — they
are linked together and work together, although they seem to be in
opposition. Look at our history. How many an event has seemed to be
conflicting in its day, that has worked out good for us? The strifes of
barons and kings for mastery might have been thought to be likely to tread
out the last spark of British liberty; but they did rather kindle the pile. The
various rebellions of nations, the heavings of society, the strife of anarchy,
the tumults of war — all, all these things, overruled by God, have but made
the chariot of the church progress more mightily; they have not failed of
their yredestinated purpose — “good for the people of God.” I know my
brethren, it is very hard for you to believe this. “What!” say you? “I have
been sick for many a day, and wife and children, dependent on my daily
labor, are crying for food: will this work together for my good?” So saith
the word, my brother, and so shalt thou find it ere long. “I have been in
trade,” says another, “and this commercial pressure has brought me
exceedingly low, and distressed me: is it for my good?” My brother, thou
art a Christian. I know thou dost not seriously ask the question, for thou
knowest the answer of it. He who said, “all things work together,” will
soon prove to you that there is a harmony in the most discordant parts of
your life. You shall find, when your biography is written, that the black
page did but harmonize with the bright one — that the dark and cloudy day
was but a glorious foil to set forth the brighter noon-tide of your joy. “All
things work together.” There is never a clash in the world: men think so,
but it never is so. The charioteers of the Roman circus might with much
cleverness and art, with glowing wheels, avoid each other; but God, with
skill infinitely consummate, guides the fiery coursers of man’s passion,
yokes the storm, bits the tempest, and keeping each clear of the other from
seeming evil still enduceth good, and better still; and better still in infinite
progression.

We must understand the word “together,” also in another sense. “All things
work together for good:” that is to say, none of them work separately. I
remember an old divine using a very pithy and homely metaphor, which I
shall borrow to-day. Said he, “All things work together for good; but
perhaps, any one of those ‘all things’ might destroy us if taken alone. The
physician,” says he, “prescribes medicine; you go to the chemist, and he
makes it up; there is something taken from this drawer, something from
that phial, something from that shelf: any one of those ingredients, it is very
possible, would be a deadly poison, and kill you outright, if you should
take it separately, but he puts one into the mortar, and then another, and
then another, and when he has worked them all up with his pestle, and has
made a compound, he gives them all to you as a whole, and together they
work for your good, but any one of the ingredients might either have
operated fatally, or in a manner detrimental to your health.” Learn, then,
that it is wrong to ask, concerning any particular act of providence; is this
for my good? Remember, it is not the one thing alone that is for your good;
it is the one thing put with another thing, and that with a third, and that
with a fourth, and all these mixed together, that work for your good. Your
being sick very probably might not be for your good only God has
something to follow your sickness, some blessed deliverance to follow
your poverty, and he knows that when he has mixed the different
experiences of your life together, they shall produce good for your soul
and eternal good for your spirit. We know right well that there are many
things that happen to us in our lives that would be the ruin of us if we were
always to continue in the same condition. Too much joy would intoxicate
us, too much misery would drive us to despair: but the joy and the misery,
the battle and the victory, the storm and the calm, all these compounded
make that sacred elixir whereby God maketh all his people perfect through
suffering, and leadeth them to ultimate happiness. “All things work
together for good.”

3. Now we must take the next words. “All things work together for good.”
Upon these two words the meaning of my text will hinge. There are
different senses to the word “good.” There is the worldling’s sense: “Who
will show us any good?” — by which he means transient good, the good of
the moment. “Who wilt put honey into my mouth? Who will feed my belly
with hid treasures? Who will garnish my back with purple and make my
table groan with plenty?” That is “good,” — the vat bursting with wine,
the barn full of corn! Now God has never promised that “all things shall
work together” for such good as that to his people. Very likely all things
will work together in a clean contrary way to that. Expect not, O Christian,
that all things will work together to make thee rich; it is just possible they
may all work to make thee poor. It may be that all the different
providences that shall happen to thee will come wave upon wave, washing
thy fortune upon the rocks, till it shall be wrecked, and then waves shall
break o’er thee, till in that poor boat, the humble remnant of thy fortune
thou shalt be out on the wide sea, with none to help thee but God the
Omnipotent. Expect not, then, that all things shall work together as for thy
good.

The Christian understands the word “good” in another sense. By “good,”
he understands spiritual good. “Ah!” saith he, “I do not call gold good, but
I call faith good! I do not think it always for my good to increase in
treasure, but I know it is good to grow in grace. I do not know that it is for
my good that I should be respectable and walk in good society; but I know
that it is for my good that I should walk humbly with my God. I do not
know that it is for my good that my children should be about me, like olive
branches round my table, but I know that it is for my good that I should
flourish in the courts of my God, and that I should be the means of winning
souls from going down into the pit. I am not certain that it is altogether for
my good to have kind and generous friends, with whom I may hold
fellowship; but I know that it is for my good that I should hold fellowship
with Christ, that I should have communion with him, even though it should
be in his sufferings. I know it is good for me that my faith, my love, my
every grace should grow and increase, and that I should be conformed to
the image of Jesus Christ my blessed Lord and Master.” Well, Christian,
thou hast got upon the meaning of the text, then. “All things work
together,” for that kind of good to God’s people. “Well!” says one, “I
don’t think anything of that, then.” No, perhaps thou dost not; it is not
very likely swine should ever lift their heads from their troughs to think
aught of stars. I do not much wonder that thou shouldst despise spiritual
good, for thou art yet “in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity;” a
stranger to spiritual things, and let thy despising of spiritual things teach
thee that thou art not spiritual, and therefore thou canst not understand the
spiritual, because it must be spiritually discerned. To the Christian,
however, the highest good he can receive on earth is to grow in grace.
“There!” he says, “I had rather be a bankrupt in business than I would be a
bankrupt in grace; let my fortune be decreased — better that, than that I
should backslide; there! let thy waves and thy billows roll over me —
better an ocean of trouble than a drop of sin, I would rather have thy rod a
thousand times upon my shoulders, O my God, than I would once put out
my hand to touch that which is forbidden, or allow my foot to run in the
way of gainsayers.” The highest good a Christian has here is good spiritual.
And we may add, the text also means good eternal, lasting good. All things
work together for a Christian’s lasting good. They all work to bring him to
Paradise — all work to bring him to the Saviour’s feet. “So he bringeth
them to their desired haven,” said the Psalmist — by storm and tempest,
flood and hurricane. All the troubles of a Christian do but wash him nearer
heaven; the rough winds do but hurry his passage across the straits of this
life to the port of eternal peace. All things work together for the Christian’s
eternal and spiritual good.

And yet I must say here, that sometimes all things work together for the
Christian’s temporal good. You know the story of old Jacob. “Joseph is
not, Simeon is not, and now ye will take Benjamin away; all these things
are against me,” said the old Patriarch. But if he could have read God’s
secrets, he might have found that Simeon was not lost, for he was retained
as a hostage — that Joseph was not lost but gone before to smooth the
passage of his grey hairs into the grave, and that even Benjamin was to be
taken away by Joseph in love to his brother. So that what seemed to be
against him, even in temporal matters, was for him. You may have heard
also the story of that eminent martyr who was wont always to say, “All
things work together for good.” When he was seized by the officers of
Queen Mary, to be taken to the stake to be burned, he was treated so
roughly on the road that he broke his leg; and they jeeringly said, “All
things work together for good, do they? How will your broken leg work
for your good?” “I don’t know,” said he, “how it will, but for my good I
know it will work, and you shall see it so.” Strange to say, it proved true
that it was for his good; for being delayed a day or so on the road through
his lameness, he just arrived in London in time enough to hear that
Elizabeth was proclaimed queen, and so he escaped the stake by his broken
leg. He turned round upon the men who carried him, as they thought, to
his death, and said to them, “Now will you believe that all things work
together for God?” So that though I said the drift of the text was spiritual
good, yet sometimes in the main current there may be carried some rich
and rare temporal benefits for God’s children as well as the richer spiritual
blessings.

4. I am treating the text as you see, verbally. And now I must return to the
word “work” — to notice the tense of it. “All things work together for
good.” It does not say that they shall work, or that they have worked; both
of these are implied, but it says that they do work now. All things at this
present moment are working together for the believer’s good. I find it
extremely easy to believe that all things have worked together for my
good. I can look back at the past, and wonder at all the way whereby the
Lord hath led me. If ever there lived a man who has reason to be grateful
to Almighty God, I think I am that man. I can see black storms that have
lowered o’er my head, and torrents of opposition that have run across my
path, but I can thank God for every incident that ever occurred to me from
my cradle up to now, and do not desire a better pilot for the rest of my
days, than he who has steered me from obscurity and scorn, to this place to
preach his word and feed this great congregation. And I doubt not that
each of you, in looking back upon your past experience as Christians,
could say very much the same. Through many troubles you have passed,
but you can say, they have all been for your good. And somehow or other
you have an equal faith for the future. You believe that all things will in the
end work for your good. The pinch of faith always lies in the present tense.
I can always believe the past, and always believe the future, but the
present, the present, the present, that is what staggers faith. Now, please to
notice that my text is in the present tense. “All things work,” at this very
instant and second of time. However troubled, downcast, depressed, and
despairing, the Christian may be, all things are working now for his good;
and though like Jonah he is brought to the bottom of the mountains, and he
thinks the earth with her bars is about him for ever, and the weeds of
despair are wrapped about his head, even in the uttermost depths all things
are now working for his good. Here, I say again, is the pinch of faith. As
an old countryman once said to me, from whom I gained many a pithy
saying — “Ah! sir, I could always do wonders when there were no
wonders to do. I feel, sir, that I could believe God; but then at the time I
feel so there is not much to believe.” And he just paraphrased it in his own
dialect like this — “My arm is always strong, and my sickle always sharp,
when there is no harvest, and I think I could mow many an acre when there
is no grass; but when the harvest is on I am weak, and when the grass
groweth then my scythe is blunt.” Have not you found it so too? You think
you can do wondrous things; you say,

“Should earth against my soul engage,
And hellish darts be hurled,
Now I can smile at Satan’s rage,
And face a frowning world.”

And now a little capful of wind blows on you and the tears run down your
cheeks, and you say, “Lord, let me die; I am no better than my fathers.”
You, that were going to thrash mountains, find that molehills cast you
down.

It behoveth each of us, then, to comfort and establish our hearts upon this
word “work.” “All things work.” Merchant; though you have been sore
pressed this week, and it is highly probable that next week will be worse
still for you, believe that all things even then are working for your good. It
will cost you many a pang to keep that confidence; but oh! for thy Master’s
honor, and for thine own comfort, retain that consolation. Should thine
house of business threaten to tumble about thine ears so long as thou hast
acted honourably, still bear thy cross. It shall work, it is working for thy
good. This week, mother, thou mayest see thy first-born carried to the
tomb. That bereavement is working for thy good. O man, within a few
days, he that hath eaten bread with thee may lift up his heel against thee. It
shall work for thy good. O thou that art high in spirits to-day, thou with
the flashing eye and joyous countenance, ere the sun doth set some evil
shall befal thee, and thou shalt be sad. Believe then that all things work
together for thy good; if thou lovest God, and art called according to his
purpose.

5. And now we close by noticing the confidence with which the apostle
speaks. “A fiction!” says one; “a pleasant fiction, sir!” “Sentimentalism!”
says another; “a mere poetic sentimentalism.” “Ah!” cries a third; “a
downright lie.” “No,” says another, “there is some truth in it, certainly;
men do get bettered by their afflictions, but it is a truth that is not valuable
to me, for I do not realize the good that these things bring.” Gentlemen,
the apostle Paul was well aware of your objections; and therefore mark
how confidently he asserts the doctrine. He does not say, “I am
persuaded;” he does not say, “I believe;” but with unblushing confidence he
appears before you and says, “We“ (I have many witnesses) we know that
all things work together.” What Paul are you at? So strange and startling a
doctrine as this asserted with such dogmatic impudence? What can you be
at? Hear his reply! “‘We know;’ In the mouth of two or three witnesses it
shall all be established; but I have tens of thousands of witnesses.” “We
know,” and the apostle lifts his hand to where the white-robed hosts are
praising God for ever. — “These,” says he, “passed through great
tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb: ask them!” And with united breath they reply, “We know that all
things work together for good to them that love God.” Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, David, Daniel, all the mighty ones that have gone before, tell out the
tale of their history, write their autobiography, and they say, “We!“ It is
proven to a demonstration in our own lives; it is a fact which runs like a
golden clue through all the labyrinth of our history — “All things work
together for good to them that love God.” “We,” says the apostle again —
and he puts his hand upon his poor distressed brethren — he looks at his
companions in the prisonhouse at Rome; he looks at that humble band of
teachers in Rome, in Philippi, in all the different parts of Asia, and he says,
“We!” “We know it. It is not with us a matter of doubt; we have tried it, we
have proved it. Not only does faith believe it, but our own history
convinces us of the truth of it.” I might appeal to scores and hundreds here,
and I might say, brethren, you with grey heads, rise up and speak. Is this
true or not? I see the reverend man rise, leaning on his staff, and with the
tears “uttering his old cheeks, he says, “Young man it is true, I have
proved it; even down to grey hairs I have proved it; he made, and he will
carry; he will not desert his own!” Veteran! you have had many troubles,
have you not? He replies, “Youth! troubles? I have had many troubles that
thou reckest not of, I have buried all my kindred, and I am like the last oak
of the forest, all my friends have been felled by death long ago. Yet I have
been upheld till now, who could hold me up but my God!” Ask him
whether God has been once untrue to him and he will say, “No; not one
good thing hath failed of all that the Lord God hath promised; all hath
come to pass!” Brethren, we can confidently say, then, hearing such a
testimony as that, “We know that all things work.” Besides, there are you
of middle age, and even those of us who are young: the winter has not
spared our branches, nor the lightnings ceased to scathe our trunk; yet here
we stand; preserved by conquering grace. Hallelujah to the grace that
makes all things work together for good!

O my hearer, art thou a believer in Christ? If not, I beseech thee, stop and
consider! Pause and think of thy state; and if thou knowest thine own
sinfulness this day, believe on Christ, who came to save sinners, and that
done, all things shall work for thee, the tumbling avalanche, the rumbling
earthquake the tottering pillars of heaven, all, when they fall or shake, shall
not hurt thee, they shall still work out thy good. “Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and be baptized, and thou shalt be saved,” for so runneth the
gospel. The Lord bless you! Amen.

“Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.” Genesis 49:4

PERFECT stability has ceased from the world since the day when Adam fell.
He was stable enough when in the garden he was obedient to his Master’s
will, but when he ate of the forbidden fruit he did not only slide himself, but
he shook the standing places of all his posterity. Perfect stability belongs
alone to God he alone, of all beings, is without variableness or shadow of a
turning. He is immutable, he will not change. He is all-wise, he need not
change. He is perfect; he cannot change. But men, the best of them are
mutable, and therefore to a degree, they are unstable, and do not excel. Yet
it is remarkable that, although man has lost perfect stability, he has not lost
the admiration of it. Perhaps there is no virtue, or, rather, no compound of
virtues, which the world more esteems than stability of mind. You will find
that, although men have often misplaced their praise, and have called those
great who were not great, morally, but were far below the level of
morality, yet they have scarcely ever called a man great who has not been
consistent, who has not had strength of mind enough to be stable in his
principles. I know not how it is, but so it is, whenever a man is firm and
consistent, we always admire him for it. Though we feel certain that he is
wrong, yet his consistency in his wrong still excites our admiration. We
have known men whom we have thought to be insane, they have conceived
a design so ridiculous that we could only laugh at them, and despise their
idea; but they have stuck to it, and we have said, “Well, there is nothing
like a man standing to a thing,” and we have admired even the senseless,
brainless idiot, as we have thought him, when we have seen him
pertinaciously insisting that his idea would at last triumph, and persevering
in futile endeavors to realize his wish. The weathercock man is never
admired, as a politician or as anything else he will never succeed; he must
be one thing or another, or the world will never respect him.

Now, my brethren, if it be so in earthly things, it is so also in spiritual.
Instability in religion is a thing which every man despises, although every
man has, to a degree, the evil in himself, but stability in the firm profession
and practice of godliness, will always win respect, even from the worldly,
and certainly will not be forgotten by him whose smile is honor and whose
praise is glory, even the great Lord and Master, before whom we stand or
fall. I have many characters here to-day whom I desire to address in the
words of my text. “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.” I propose,
first, briefly to notice, the common and unavoidable instabilities which
necessarily attach themselves to the best of Christians. I shall then note the
character of a Christian who is noted for glaring instability, but who,
notwithstanding, has sufficient of godliness to bid us hope that he is a child
of God, I shall then have to do with the mere professor, who is “unstable
as water,” and cannot excel in any way whatever; and then I must deal with
the unstable sinner who, in any pretensions he may ever make to better
feelings, is always like the early cloud and the morning dew.

I. First, then, to ALL Christians, permit me to address myself. Our father
Adam, spoilt us all; and, although the second Adam has renewed us, he has
not yet removed from us the infirmities, which the first Adam left us as a
mournful legacy. We are none of us stable as we should be. We had a
notion when we were first converted, that we should never know a change;
our soul was so full of love that we could not imagine it possible we should
ever flag in our devotion; our faith was so strong in our Incarnate Master,
that we smiled at older Christians who talked of doubts and fears; our faces
were so stedfastly set Zionward that we never imagined Bye-path Meadow
would ever be trodden by our feet. We felt sure that our course would
certainly be “like the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the
perfect day.” But, my brethren, have we found it so? Have we not this day
to lament that we have been very changeable and inconstant, even unstable
as water? How unstable have we been in our frames? To-day we have
climbed the top of Pisgah, and have viewed the heavenly landscape over by
the eye of faith; to-morrow we have been plunged in the dungeon of
despair, and could not call a grain of hope our own; to-day we have feasted
at the banquetting table of communion; to-morrow we have been
exclaiming, “Oh! that I knew where I might find him, that I might come
even unto his feet.” At night I have said, “I will not let thee go except thou
bless me,” to-morrow has beheld my grasp loosened, and prayer neglected
until God has said “I will return unto my rest, until thou hast acknowledged
thy transgressions, which thou hast committed against me.” High frames
one day, low frames the next We have had more changes than even this
variable climate of ours. It is a great mercy for us that frames and slings are
not always the index of our security, for we are as safe when we are
mourning as we are when we are singing; but verily, if our true state before
God had changed as often as our experience of his presence, we must have
been cast into the bottomless pit years ago.

And how variable have we been in our faith! In the midst of one trouble we
have declared, “though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” We have
courted the jeer, we have laughed at the scorn of the world, and have stood
like rocks in the midst of foaming billows, when all men were against us;
another week has seen us flying away, after denying our Master, because,
like Peter, we were afraid of some little maid, or of our own shadow. After
coming out of a great trouble, we have resolutely declared “I can never
doubt God again,” but the next cloud that has swept the sky, has darkened
all our faith. We have been variable in our faith.

And have you not also, at times, my friends, felt variable in your love?
Sweet Master, King of heaven, fairest of a thousand fairs! my heart is knit
to thee — my soul melteth at the mention of thy name; my heart bubbleth
up with a good matter, when I speak of the things which I have made
touching the King.

The strings that bind around my heart,
Tortures and racks may tear them off;
But they can never, never part,
The hold I have of Christ, my love.”

Sure, I could die for thee, and think it better than to live, if so I might
honor thee. This is the sweet manner of our spirit when our love is burning
and fervent: but anon we neglect the fire, it becomes dim, and we have to
rake among the ashes even for a spark, crying,

“‘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?”

How unstable we are! At one time we are quite certain we are the Lord’s.
though an angel from heaven should deny our election, or our adoption, we
would reply that we have the witness of the Spirit that we are born of God,
but perhaps within two minutes we shall not be able to say that we ever
had one spiritual feeling. We shall perhaps think that we never repented
aright, never fled to Christ aright, and did never believe to the saving of the
soul. Oh! it is no wonder that we do not excel, when we are such unstable
creatures. Alas! my brethren I might enlarge on the inconsistencies of the
mass of Christians. How unfaithful we have been to our dedication vows!
how negligent of close communion! How unlike we have been to holy
Enoch! how much more like Peter, when he followed afar off! I might tell
how one day, like the mariner, we mounted up to heaven, and how the next
moment we have gone to the lowest depths when the waves of God’s
grace have ceased to lift us up. I wonder at David, at Jacob, and at every
instance we have in Scripture of excellent men. Marvel! O ye angels, that
God should ever make such bright stars out of such black blots as we are.
How can it ever be that man, so fickle, so inconstant, should nevertheless
be a pillar in the house of his God, and should be made to stand “steadfast,
immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord!” How is it, O our
God, that thou couldst have steered a vessel so safely to its port which was
so easily driven by every wind and carried away by every wave! He is a
good marksman who an shoot so crooked an arrow straight to its target.
Marvel not that we do not excel — marvel that we do excel in anything
unstable as we are.

II. And now leaving these general remarks I have to single out a certain
class of persons. I believe them to be TRUE CHRISTIANS but they are
Christians of a singular sort. I would not be so harsh as to condemn them,
though I must certainly condemn the error with which I am about to find
fault. I doubt not that they have been converted in a genuine manner, but
still they are often a mystery to me, and I should think they are a mystery
to themselves. How many Christians have we in our churches that are
unstable as water! I suppose they were born so. They are just as unstable in
business as they are in religion; they open a grocer’s shop, and shut it in
three months, and turn drapers, and when they have been drapers long
enough to become almost bankrupts, they leave that and try something
else. When they were boys they could never play a game through, they
must always be having something fresh, and now they are just as childish as
when they were children. Look at them in doctrine: you never know where
to find them. You meet them one day, and they are very full of some superlapsarian
doctrine, they have been to some strong Calvinist place, and
nothing will suit them except the very highest doctrine and that must be
spiced with a little of the gall of bitterness, or they cannot think it is the
genuine thing. Very likely next week they will be Arminians; they will give
up all idea of a fixed fate, and talk of free-will, and man’s responsibility like
the most earnest Primitive Methodist. Then they steer another way.
“Nothing is right but the Church of England. Is it not established by law?
Ought not every Christian to go to his parish church?” Ah! ah, Let them
alone, they will be at the most gross schismatical shop in the metropolis
before long. Or if they do not change their denomination they are always
changing their minister. A new minister starts up; there is no one, since the
apostles, like him; they take a seat and join the church; he is everything to
them. In three months they have done with him, another minister rises up
some distance off, and these people are not particular how far they walk;
so they go to hear him. He is the great man of the age; he will see every
man’s candle out, and his will burn on. But a little trouble comes on the
church, and they leave him. They have no attachment to anything; they are
merely feathers in the wind or corks on the wave. They hear a sermon
preached, and they say, “I think it did me good” but they do not venture to
be sure till they speak to some great man who is a member of the church,
and he says “Oh! there was nothing in it.” “Ah! just so,” they say, and
cannot make up their minds whether it was a good sermon or not. They are
unstable; they could easily be talked into anything or out of anything, they
never had any brains in their head, I suppose, or if they ever had any they
gave them to somebody else to muddle as he liked. They believe the last
man they hear, and are easily guided and led by him.

Now, if the matter ended there it would not be so bad; but these poor
people are just the same with regard to any religious enterprize they take in
hand. There is a Sunday-school, they are enchanted with the thought. What
a lovely thing it must be to sit on a form and try to teach half-a-dozen boys
the way to heaven. They go to the Sunday-school and are alarmed the very
first day, when they hear all the boys talking louder than the teachers. After
about ten minutes they think it is not quite so nice as they thought. Perhaps
they think it is that particular school they do not like, and they try another,
and at last they give up all Sunday-school teaching, and make up their
minds that it is not a good thing, at least not for them. Then there is a
Ragged-school. What a divine enterprize! They will be Ragged-school
teachers, and off they go with their hearts full of fire, and their eyes full of
tears over these poor ragged-school children they are going to teach. Ah!
how soon is their zeal withered and all their glory departed! Hear them talk
about Ragged-schools a month afterwards: they shake their heads and say
it is a very arduous enterprise. They do not think they had a call to it, they
will try something else, and so they keep on to the end of the chapter, they
are “everything by turns, and nothing long.” There are some brethren in the
ministry very much of the same sort. They never preach in one pulpit long,
(though some say they preach there too long, for they ought never to have
preached there at all) but I sometimes think that if they had had a little
more courage, and bore a little more of the brunt of the battle, they might
have done good to some of the villages where they were placed. But they
are unstable as water, and everybody sees that they cannot excel. The same
instability men will carry out in their friendships; they meet a person one
day, and are as friendly as possible with him; they meet him the next day,
he does not know what he has done to offend them, but they turn their
head another way. And some carry their instability a little farther, they
carry it into their moral character. I shall not deny their Christianity, but
they are a queer sort of Christians. For these people will sometimes, at
least, stretch the cords of godliness a little too far, and though they
certainly do act in the main conscientiously, yet their conscience is a large
one, and it admits a great many things which tender-hearted people would
think were wrong. We cannot find out any crime for which we could
excommunicate them, yet in our hearts we often say, “Dear me! what a sad
disgrace so-and-so is to the cause; we could do far better without him than
with him, for he casts such a slur on the name of Christ.”

Now, do not think I am drawing a fancy picture. I beg to inform you I am
not; there are persons here who are furnishing me with the model; and if
they choose to think me personal I shall be obliged to them, for I intend to
be. These persons are to be found in all churches and among all
denominations. You have met them everywhere. They are as unstable as
water; they do not excel.

Now, let me address these persons very earnestly. My brother, I would be
far from dealing in a censorious manner with thee, for I am inclined to
think that thine instability is a little owing to some latent insanity. We are
no doubt all of us insane to a degree; there is some little thing in us, which
if we saw in another we should regard as being a little madness. I would
therefore, my brother, deal very leniently with you, but at the same time let
me very solemnly address you as a Christian minister speaking to a
professedly Christian man. My brother, how much moral weight you lose
in the church, and in the world by your perpetual instability. No one ever
attaches any importance to your opinion, because your opinion has no
importance in it, seeing that you yourself will contradict it in a very short
time. You see many persons growing up in the church who have an
influence over their neighbor for good; you sometimes wish that you too
could strengthen the young convert, or reclaim and guide the wanderer.
My brother you cannot do it, because of your inconsistency. Now is it not
a fearful thing that you should be throwing away the whole force and
weight of your character, simply because of this insane habit of yours of
being always unstable? I beseech thee, my brother, recollect that thou art
responsible to God for thine influence; and if thou canst have influence and
dost not get it thou art as sinful as if, having influence, thou hadst misused
it. Do not, I beseech thee, suffer this instability to continue, lest thou
shouldst become like the chaff which the wind driveth away — of no
account to the world at all. Remember, my brother, how your instability
ruins your usefulness. You never continue long enough in an enterprise to
do good. What would you think of the farmer who should farm just long
enough to plough his ground and sow his wheat, but not long enough to
get a harvest? You would think him foolish; but just so foolish are you.
You begin time enough to be overworked before you have well
commenced. My brother, review your history, what have you done? You
have made hundreds of futile attempts to do something, but a list of
failures must be the only record of your labors. What do you think will be
your distress of mind when you come to die, when you look back upon
your life, and see it all the way through, a host of blunders? Do you not
think it will stuff the pillow of your dying bed with thorns, to think that you
were so wayward in disposition, so unstable in heart, that you were unable
to accomplish anything for your Master, so that when you lay your crown
at his feet you will have to say, “There is my crown, my Master but it has
not a solitary star in it for I never worked long enough for thee in any
enterprise to win a soul; I only did enough to fail and to be laughed at by
all.” And I would have thee think also, my brother, how canst thou be a
growing Christian, and yet be so changeable as thou art? If a gardener
should plant a tree to day, and take it up in the course of a month, and
transfer it to another place, what crop would he have when autumn came?
He would not have much to repay his toil. The continual changing of the
tree would put it into such a weakly condition, that if it did not actually die,
it would certainly produce nothing. And how can you expect to grow in
knowledge when you have no steadfast principle? The man who espouses
one form of doctrine, and does it honestly, will, though it be a mistaken
form, at least understand it, but you do not know enough of Calvinism to
defend it from its opponents, or enough of Arminianism to defend it from
the Calvinists. You are not wise in anything, you are a rolling stone, you
gather no moss. You stay in one school only long enough to read through
the curriculum, but you learn nothing. You are smiling I see. And yet some
of those who smiled are just the men we smile at. They are here. But alas! I
have noticed one sad thing respecting these people, they are generally the
most conceited in all the world; they are excellent men they think; they are
at home everywhere. If they are in error they know they can get right tomorrow,
and then if some one else will again convince them they are in
error, they know no difference between error and truth, except the
difference which other people like to point out to them. O ye unstable
Christians, hear ye the word of the Lord! “Unstable as water thou shalt not
excel.” Your life shall have little of the cream of happiness upon it: you
shall not walk in the midst of the king’s highway, in which no lion shall be
found, but you shall walk on the edge of the way, where you shall
encounter every danger, feel every hardship and endure every ill. You shall
have enough of God’s comfort to keep you alive, but not enough to give
you joy in your spirit and consolation in your heart. Oh, I beseech you
ponder a little. Study the Word more, know what is right, and defend what
is right. Study the Law more, know what is right, and do what is right.
Study God’s will more, know what be would have you do, and then do it.
For an unstable Christian never can excel.

III. But now there is another class of persons whom we dare not, in the
spirit of the widest charity admit to be true Christians. They are
PROFESSORS they have been baptized, they receive the Lord’s Supper, they
attend prayer meetings church meetings, and everything else that belongs
to the order of Christians with which they are connected. They are never
behindhand in religious performances; they are the most devout hypocrites,
they are the most pious formalists that could be discovered, range the wide
world o’er. Their religion on the Sabbath day is of the most superfine
order; their godliness when they are in their pews cannot be exceeded.
They sing with the most eloquent praise, they pray the longest and most
hypocritical prayer that man could utter; they are just up to the mark in
every religious point of view, except on the point which looks to the heart
As far as the externals of godliness go there is nothing to be desired. They
tithe the anise, the mint, and the cummin; they fast twice in the week; or if
they do not fast, they are quite as religious in not fasting, and are just as
godly in not doing it, as if they did it.

But these people are unstable as water, in the worst sense; for whilst they
sing Watts’s hymns on Sunday, they sing other songs on Monday, and
whilst they drink sacramental cups on Sabbath evenings, there are other
cups of which they drink too deep on other nights; and though they pray
most marvellously, there is a pun on that word pray, and they know how to
exercise it upon their customers in business. They have a great affection for
everything that is pious and devout; but alas! like Balaam, they take the
reward of wickedness, and they perish in the gainsaying of Core. “These
are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding
themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of
winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by
the roots. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame;
wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.”
They bring a disgrace upon the cause which they profess: not the vilest
profane swearer brings more dishonor on God’s holy name than they do.
They can find fault with everything in the church, whilst they commit all
manner of wickedness, and are, as the apostle said, even weeping “enemies
of the cross of Christ, for their God is their belly, and they glory in their
shame.” O hypocrite, thou thinkest that thou shalt excel, because the
minister has been duped, and gives thee credit for a deep experience,
because the deacons have been entrapped and think thee to be eminently
godly, because the church members receive thee to their houses, and think
thee a dear child of God too! Poor soul! mayhap thou mayest go to thy
grave with the delusion in thy brain that all is right with thee; but
remember, though like a sheep thou art laid in thy grave, Death will find
thee out. He will say to thee, Off with thy mask, man! away with all thy
robes! Up with that whitewashed sepulcher! Take off that green turf; let
the worms be seen. Out with the body; let us see the reeking corruption!
and what wilt thou say when thine abominably corrupt and filthy heart shall
be opened before the sun, and men and angels hear thy lies and hypocrisies
laid bare before them? Wilt thou play the hypocrite then? Soul, come and
sing God’s praises in the day of judgment with false lip! Tell him now,
while a widow’s house is in your throat, tell him that you love him! Come,
now, thou that devourest the fatherless, thou that robbest, thou that dost
uncleanness! tell him now that thou didst make thy boast in the Lord! tell
him that thou didst preach his word, tell him that thou didst walk in his
streets! tell him thou didst make it known that thou wert one of the
excellent of the earth! What! man, is thy babbling tongue silent for once?
What is the matter with thee? Thou wast never slow to talk of thy
godliness. Speak out, and say “I took the sacramental cup; I was a
professor.” Oh how changed! The whitewashed sepulcher has become
white in another sense, he is white with horror. See now; the talkative has
become dumb; the boaster is silent; the formalist’s garb is rent to rags, the
moth has devoured their beauty; their gold has become tarnished, and their
silver cankered. Ah! it must be so with every man who has thus belied God
and his own conscience. The stripping day of judgment will reveal him to
God and to himself. And how awful shall be the damnation of the
hypocrite! If I knew that I must be damned, one of my prayers should be,
“Lord, let me not be damned with hypocrites,” for surely to be damned
with them is to be damned twice over. Conceive of a hypocrite going into
hell. You know how one of the prophets depicted the advent of a great
monarch into hell, when all the kings that had been his slaves rose up and
said, “Art thou become like one of us?” Do you not think you see the
godly Christian deacon, so godly that he was a liar all his life? Do you not
think you see the eminent Christian member that kept a bank, took the
chair at public meetings, swindled all he could, and died in despair? Do you
not think you see him coming into the pit? There is one man there that was
a drunkard all his life. Hear his speech, “Ah! you were a sober man! you
used to talk to me, and tell me that drunkards could not inherit the
kingdom of heaven. Aha! and art thou become like one of us?“ Says
another, “About a month ago, when we were on earth, you met me and
rebuked me for profane swearing, and told me that all swearers should
have their portion in the lake. Ah! there is not much to choose between
thee and me now, is there?” And the profane man laughs as well as he can
laugh in misery at his desperately religious adviser. “Oh!” says another —
and they look round at one another with demoniac mirth; as much mockery
of joy as hell can afford — “The parson here? Now preach us a sermon;
now pray us a long prayer! Plenty of time to do it in!” “No!” sans another,
“there is no widow’s house to eat, here, and he only prayed on the
strength of the widow’s house.”

This is a hard scene for me to describe; but I doubt not of its truthfulness.
It may be given to you in rough language, but it needs far rougher to make
you know the dread reality. And what a solemn thought it is! there is not
one man nor one woman in this place who has not need to ask, “Is it so
with me?” Many have been deceived — I may be — you may be, my
hearer. “I am not deceived,” says one, “I am a minister.” My brethren,
there are many of us who are preachers who are like Noah’s carpenters; we
may help to build an ark, and never get in it ourselves. Says another, “I
shall not endure such language as that; I am a deacon.” You may be all
that, and yet, after having ministered, instead of earning to yourself a good
degree, you may be cast from the presence of God. “No,” says another,
“but I have been a Christian professor these last forty years, and nobody
has found fault with me.” Ah! I have known many A rotten bough to have
stopped on a tree forty years, and you may be rotten and yet stand all that
time; but the winds of judgment will crack you at last, and down you will
fall. “Nay,” says another. “I know I am not insincere I am sure I am right.”
I am glad that you think so, but I would not like you to say it. “Let him
that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” There have been many
great bubbles that have burst ere this, and your piety may be one of them.
“Let not him that putteth on the harness boast as though he put it off.” It
will be time enough for you to be quite sure when you are quite safe. Yet
blessed be God, we hope we can say, “O Lord, if not awfully deceived we
have given our hearts to thee! Lord thou knowest all things; thou knowest
that we love thee, and if we do not, Lord thou knowest we pray this prayer
from our hearts: ‘Search me, O God, and try my ways, prove me and know
my heart, and see if there be any evil way in me and lead me in the way
everlasting.’” May God the Holy Spirit strengthen and settle each of us.
IV. And now I have the last word to address to those who MAKE NO
PRETENSION TO RELIGION whatever. I have heard hundreds of persons in
my short life excuse their sin by saying, “Well, I make no profession,” and I
have always thought it one of the strangest excuses, one of the most wild
vagaries of apology to which the human mind could ever make resort.
Take an illustration, which I have used before. To-morrow morning, when
the Lord Mayor is sitting, there are two men brought up before him for
robbery. One of them says he is not guilty, he declares that he is a good
character, and he is an honest man in general though he was guilty in this
case. He is punished. The other one says, “Well, your worship, I make no
profession; I’m a down right thorough thief, and I don’t make any
profession of being honest at all.” Why you can suppose how much more
severe the sentence would be upon such a man. Now, when you say I do
not make any profession of being religious, what does that mean? It means
that you are a despiser of God and of God’s law; it means that you are in
the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. You that boast of making
no profession of religion, you are boasting you know not what of. You
would think it a strange thing for a man to boast that he made no
profession of being a gentleman, or no profession of being honest, or no
profession of being sober, or no profession of being chaste. You would
shun a man who did this, at once. And you who make no pretensions to
religion, just make your trial the more easy for there will be no need for
any dispute concerning you. When the scales of justice are lifted up at last
you will be found to be light weight, and that upon your own confession. I
cannot imagine you urging such a plea as that when God shall judge you.
“My Lord, I made no profession.” “What” saith the King, “did my subject
make no profession of obedience?” “O Lord, I made no profession.”
“What!” saith the Creator, “make no profession of acknowledging my
rights?” “I made no profession of religion.” “What!” saith the Judge, “did I
send my Son into the world to die, and did this man make no profession of
casting his soul upon him? What! did he make no profession of his need of
mercy? Then he shall have none. Does he dare tell me to my face that he
never made any profession of faith in Christ, and never had anything to do
with the Savior? Then insomuch as he despised my Son, and despised his
cross, and rejected his salvation, let him die the death;” and what that death
is with its everlasting wailings and gnashing of teeth, eternity alone can tell.
O sinner! thou hast some part and lot in my text Thou art “unstable as
water.” Let me remind thee that though thou makest no profession of
religion now, there was a time when thou didst. Strong man! you are
laughing now: I repeat it, there was a time when you did talk about
religion; it is not quite gone from your memory yet. You lay sick with fever
for six weeks: do you recollect when the delirium came on, and they all
thought that you must die? Do you recollect when your poor brain was
right for a moment how you asked the physician whether there was any
hope for you, and he would not exactly say “NO,” but he looked so blank
at you, that you understood what it meant? Do you recollect the agony
with which you looked forward to death? Do you recollect how you
groaned in your spirit, and said, “O God, have mercy upon me?” Do you
recollect that you got a little better, and you told your friends that if you
lived you would serve God?

“Oh! it is all over now,” you say, you were a fool! Yes, you were a fool,
that is true, you were a fool, to have said what you did not mean and to
have lied before God. You do not profess religion! But you remember the
last time the terrific thunder and lightning came. You were out in the
storm. A flash came very near you. You are a bold man, but not so bold as
you pretend to be. You shook from head to foot, and when the thunder
clap succeeded, you were almost down on your knees, and before you
knew it you were in prayer. “Please God I get home to-night,” you said, “I
shall not take his name in vain again!” But you have done it. You are
unstable as water. You went sometime ago to a church or a chapel — I
mind not which: the minister told you plainly where you were going. You
stood there and trembled; tears ran down your cheeks, you did not knock
your wife about that Sunday, you were a greet deal more sober that week,
and when your companion said you looked squeamish, you denied it, and
said you had no such thoughts as he imagined. “Unstable as water.” Oh!
and there are some of you worse than that still: for not once, nor twice, but
scores of times you have been driven under a faithful minister, to the very
verge of what you thought repentance, and then, just when something said
in your heart, “This is a turning point,” you have started back, you have
chosen the wages of unrighteousness, and have again wandered into the
world. Soul! my heart yearns for thee! “Unstable as water thou shalt not
excel.” No, but I pray the Lord to work in thee something that will be
stable; for we all believe — and what I say is not a matter of fiction, but a
thing that you believe in your own hearts to be true — we all believe that
we must stand before the judgment bar of God, and ere long give account
of the things done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be
evil. Friend, what account wilt thou give of thy broken vows, of thy
perjured soul? What wilt thou have to say why judgment should not be
pronounced against thee? Ah! sinner, you will want Christ then! What
would you give then for one drop of his blood? “Oh! for the hem of his
garment! Oh, that I might but look to him and be lightened. Oh, would to
God that I might hear the gospel once again!” I hear you wailing, when
God has said, “Depart ye cursed!” And this is the burden of your song
“Fool that I was, to have despised Jesus, who was my only hope, to have
broken my promise, and gone back to the poor vain world that deluded me,
after all!” And now I hear him say “I called, but ye refused, I stretched out
my hand, but no man regarded; now I will laugh at your calamity, and
mock when your fear cometh.” I always think those two last sentences the
most awful in the Bible. “I will laugh at your calamity.” The laugh of the
Almighty over men that have rebelled against him, that have despised him,
and trodden his gospel underfoot! “I also will laugh at your calamity I will
mock when your fear cometh.” Rail at that if you like, it is sure, sirs.
Remember that all your kicking at God’s laughter will not make him leave
it off; remember that all your rebellious speeches against him shall be
avenged in that day, unless ye repent, and that speak as ye will against him
your blasphemy cannot quench the flames of hell, nor will your jeers slay
the sword of vengeance: fall it must, and it will fall on you all the more
heavily because you did despise it.

Hear the gospel, and then farewell. Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God
was born of the Virgin Mary and became a man, he lived on earth a life of
holiness and suffering; at last he was nailed to the cross, and in deep woe
he died. He was buried; he rose again from the deed, he ascended into
heaven. And now God “commandeth all men everywhere to repent;” and
he telleth them this — “Whosoever believeth on the Son of God shall not
perish, but have eternal life.” And this is his gospel. If you this day feel
yourself to be a sinner, if that be a feeling wrought in you by the Holy
Spirit and not a casual thought flashing across the soul, then Christ was
punished for your sins; and you cannot be punished; for God will not
punish twice for one offense. Believe in Christ; cast your soul on the
atonement that he made; and although black as hell in sin, you may this day
find yourself, through the efficacious blood of Christ, whiter than the snow.
The Lord help thee, poor soul, to believe that the Man who died on
Calvary was God, and that he took the sin of all believers upon himself —
that thou, being a sinner and a believer, he has taken thy sins, and that
therefore thou art free. Thus believe, and by faith thou wilt have peace with
God through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom also we have received the
atonement.

“And thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 41:14

AND why does it say, “and thy Redeemer?” What was the use of
appending the Redeemer’s name to this precious exhortation? By God’s
help it shall be the business of this evening to show why there is a peculiar
blessedness in the fact that God hath not only said, “I will help thee, saith
the LORD,” but has added, “and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”

You will please to notice that it looks as if this were a repetition by three
different persons. Israel was cast down; and Jehovah, for that is the first
word — (you will notice that the word “LORD” is in capitals, and should
be translated “Jehovah”) — says to his poor, tried, desponding servant, “I
will help thee.” No sooner is that uttered than we think we shall not be
straining the text, if we surmise that God the Holy Spirit, the Holy One of
Israel, adds his solemn affidavit also; and declares by oath and covenant, “I
will help thee.” Does not this, we say, look somewhat like repetition? Was
it not sufficient that Jehovah the Father should declare that he would help
his people! Why did the other persons of the divine Trinity unite in this
solemn declaration? We think we shall be able, if God shall help us, to
show great usefulness therein, especially dwelling to-night upon that word,
“thy Redeemer,” and marking how the repetition of the word by our Lord
Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, adds a peculiar blessedness to the exhortation
— “Fear not, thou worm Jacob.”

First, methinks this was added for amplification; secondly, for sweetness;
thirdly, for confirmation.

I. First; when it says, “and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.” it was
added FOR AMPLIFICATION. There are some preachers from whom you will
never learn anything; not because they do not say much which is
instructive, but because they just mention the instructive thought once, and
immediately pass on to another thought, never expanding upon the second
thought, but immediately passing on, almost without connection, to a third-
-just casting forth, as it were bare thoughts, without opening them up and
explaining them to the people. Such preachers are generally complained of
as being very unprofitable to their hearers. “Why,” said the hearer, “it made
no impression upon me; it was good, but there was so much of it that I
could not recollect it. I had nothing to bring away.” Other preachers, on
the other hand, follow a better method. Having given one idea, they
endeavor to amplify it, so that their hearers, if they are not able to receive
the idea in the abstract, at least are able to lay hold upon some of its points,
when they come to the amplification of it. Now, God, the great Author of
the book, God, the great Preacher of the truth by his prophets, when he
would preach it, and when he would write it, so amplifies a fact, so extends
a truth, and enlarges upon a doctrine, says, “I will help thee, saith
Jehovah.” That means Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. “Oh! but,” said God,
“my people will forget that, unless I amplify the thought; so I will even
break it up; I will remind them of my Trinity. They understand my Unity; I
will bid them recollect that there are Three in the One, though these Three
be One;” and he adds, “thy Redeemer, the holy One of Israel.” Jehovah —
Redeemer — Holy One of Israel — three persons, all included, indeed, in
the word Jehovah, but very likely to be forgotten unless they had been
distinctly enumerated.

Now, brethren, suffer your thoughts for a moment to enlarge upon the fact,
that the promise contained in this verse, “Fear not, I will help thee” (I will
help thee), is a promise from Three Divine Persons. Hear Jehovah, the
everlasting Father, saying, “I will help thee.” “Mine are the ages: before the
ages began, when there were no worlds, when nought had been created,
from everlasting I am thy God. I am the God of election, the God of the
decree, the God of the covenant; by my strength I did set fast the
mountains, by my skill I laid the pillars of the earth; and the beams of the
firmament of heaven; I spread out the skies as a curtain, and as a tent for
man to dwell in; I the Lord made all these things. ‘I will help thee.’” Then
comes Jehovah the Son. “And I also, am thy Redeemer, I am eternal; my
name is wisdom. I was with God, when there were no depths, before he
had digged the rivers, I was there as one brought up with him. I am Jesus,
the God of ages; I am Jesus, the man of sorrows: ‘I am he that liveth and
was dead, I am alive for evermore.’ I am the High Priest of your
profession, the Intercessor before the throne, the Representative of my
people. I have power with God. ‘I will help thee.’” Poor worm, thy
Redeemer vows to help thee; by his bleeding hands he covenants to give
thee aid. And then in comes the Holy Spirit. “And I,” saith the Spirit, “am
also God — not an influence, but a person — I, eternal and everlasting coexistent
with the Father and the Son — I, who did brood over chaos, when
as yet the world was not brought into form and fashion, and did sow the
earth with the seeds of life when I did brood over it, — I, that brought
again from the dead your Lord Jesus Christ, the Shepherd of the sheep —
1, who am the Eternal Spirit, by whose power the Lord Jesus did arise
from the thraldom of his tomb — I, by whom souls are quickened, by
whom the elect are called out of darkness into light — I, who have power
to maintain my children and preserve them to the end — ‘I will help thee.’”
Now, soul, gather up these three; and dost thou want more help than they
can afford? What! dost thou need more strength than the Omnipotence of
the United Trinity? Dost thou want more wisdom than exists in the Father,
more love than displays itself in the Son, and more power than is manifest
in the influences of the Spirit? Bring hither thine empty pitcher! Sure this
well will fill it. Haste! gather up thy wants, and bring them here — thine
emptiness, thy woes, thy needs. Behold, this river of God is full for thy
supply. What canst thou want beside? Stand up, Christian, in this thy
might. Jehovah Father, Jehovah Jesus, Jehovah Spirit,–these are with thee
to help thee. This is the first thing. It is an amplification.

II. And now, secondly, concerning that word, “thy Redeemer,” it is a
SWEETENING OF THE PROMISE. Did you never notice that a promise always
seems all the sweeter for having Jesus in it? All the promises are yea and
amen in him; but when a promise mentions the name of the Redeemer, it
imparts a peculiar blessedness to it. Brethren it is something like, if I may
represent it by such a figure, the beautiful effect of ce