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"SERMONS OF SPURGEON" in 6 html pages-
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A Sermon
(No. 118)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 22, 1857, by
the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens
"Without shedding of blood is no remission."
—Hebrews 9: 22.
will show you three fools.
One is yonder soldier,
who has been wounded on the field of battle, grievously wounded, well nigh unto death;
the surgeon is by his side, and the soldier asks him a question. Listen, and judge
of his folly. What question does he ask? Does he raise his eyes with eager anxiety
and inquire if the wound be mortal, if the practitioner's skill can suggest the means
of healing, or if the remedies are within reach and the medicine at hand? No, nothing
of the sort; strange to tell, he asks, "Can you inform me with what sword I
was wounded, and by what Russian I have been thus grievously mauled? I want,"
he adds, "to learn every minute particular respecting the origin of my wound."
The man is delirious or his head is affected. Surely such questions at such a time
are proof enough that he is bereft of his senses.
There is another fool.
The storm is raging, the ship is flying impetuous before the gale, the dark scud
moves swiftly over head, the masts are creaking, the sails are rent to rags, and
still the gathering tempest grows more fierce. Where is the captain? Is he busily
engaged on the deck, is he manfully facing the danger, and skilfully suggesting means
to avert it? No sir, he has retired to his cabin, and there with studious thoughts
and crazy fancies he is speculating on the place where this storm took its rise.
"It is mysterious, this wind; no one ever yet" he says, "has been
able to discover it." And, so reckless of the vessel, the lives of the passengers,
and his own life, he is careful only to solve his curious questions. The man is mad,
sir; take the rudder from his hand; he is clean gone mad! If he should ever run on
shore, shut him up as a hopeless lunatic.
The third fool I shall
doubtless find among yourselves. You are sick and wounded with sin, you are in the
storm and hurricane of Almighty vengeance, and yet the question which you would ask
of me, this morning, would be, "Sir, what is the origin of evil?" You are
mad, Sir, spiritually mad; that is not the question you would ask if you were in
a sane and healthy state of mind; your question would be: "How can I get rid
of the evil?" Not, "How did it come into the world?" but "How
am I to escape from it?" Not, "How is it that hail descends from heaven
upon Sodom?" but "How may I, like Lot, escape out of the city to a Zoar."
Not, "How is it that I am sick?" but "Are there medicines that will
heal me? Is there a physician to be found that can restore my soul to health ?"
Ah! you trifle with subtleties while you neglect certainties. More questions have
been asked concerning the origin of evil than upon anything else. Men have puzzled
their heads, and twisted their brains into knots, in order to understand what men
can never know—how evil came into this world, and how its entrance is consistent
with divine goodness? The broad fact is this, there is evil; and your question should
be, "How can I escape from the wrath to come, which is engendered of this evil?"
In answering that question this verse stands right in the middle of the way (like
the angel with the sword, who once stopped Balaam on his road to Barak,) "Without
shedding of blood is no remission." Your real want is to know how you can be
saved; if you are aware that your sin must be pardoned or punished, your question
will be, "How can it he pardoned?" and then point blank in the very teeth
of your enquiry, there stands out this fact: "Without shedding of blood there
is no remission." Mark you, this is not merely a Jewish maxim; it is a world-wide
and eternal truth. It pertaineth not to the Hebrews only, but to the Gentiles likewise.
Never in any time, never in any place, never in any person, can there be remission
apart from shedding of blood. This great fact, I say, is stamped on nature; it is
an essential law of God's moral government, it is one of the fundamental principles
which can neither be shaken nor denied. Never can there be any exception to it; it
stands the same in every place throughout all ages—"Without shedding of blood
there is no remission." It was so with the Jews; they had no remission without
the shedding of blood. Some things under the Jewish law might be cleansed by water
or by fire, but in no case where absolute sin was concerned was there ever purification
without blood—teaching this doctrine, that blood, and blood alone, must be applied
for the remission of sin. Indeed the very heathen seem to have an inkling of this
fact. Do not I see their knives gory with the blood of victims? Have I not heard
horrid tales of human immolations, of holocausts, of sacrifices; and what mean these,
but that there lies deep in the human breast, deep as the very existence of man,
this truth,—"that without shedding of blood there is no remission." And
I assert once more, that even in the hearts and consciences of my hearers there is
something which will never let them believe in remission apart from a shedding of
blood. This is the grand truth of Christianity, and it is a truth which I will endeavour
now to fix upon your memory; and may God by his grace bless it to your souls. "Without
shedding of blood is no remission."
First, let me show you the blood-shedding, before I begin to dwell upon the text.
Is there not a special blood-shedding meant? Yes, there was a shedding of most precious
blood, to which I must forthwith refer you. I shall not tell you now of massacres
and murders, nor of rivers of blood of goats and rams. There was a blood-shedding
once, which did all other shedding of blood by far outvie; it was a man—a God—that
shed his blood at that memorable season. Come and see it. Here is a garden dark and
gloomy; the ground is crisp with the cold frost of midnight; between those gloomy
olive trees I see a man, I hear him groan out his life in prayer; hearken, angels,
hearken men, and wonder; it is the Saviour groaning out his soul! Come and see him.
Behold his brow! O heavens! drops of blood are streaming down his face, and from
his body; every pore is open, and it sweats! but not the sweat of men that toil for
bread; it is the sweat of one that toils for heaven—he "sweats great drops of
blood!" That is the blood-shedding, without which there is no remission. Follow
that man further; they have dragged him with sacrilegious bands from the place of
his prayer and his agony, and they have taken him to the hall of Pilate; they seat
him in a chair and mock him; a robe of purple is put on his shoulders in mockery;
and mark his brow—they have put about it a crown of thorns, and the crimson drops
of gore are rushing down his cheeks! Ye angels! the drops of blood are running down
his cheeks! But turn aside that purple robe for a moment. His back is bleeding. Tell
me, demons who did this. They lift up the thongs, still dripping clots of gore; they
scourge and tear his flesh, and make a river of blood to run down his shoulders!
That is the shedding of blood without which there is no remission. Not yet have I
done: they hurry him through the streets; they fling him on the ground; they nail
his hands and feet to the transverse wood, they hoist it in the air, they dash it
into its socket, it is fixed, and there he hangs the Christ of God. Blood from his
head, blood from his hands, blood from his feet! In agony unknown he bleeds away
his life; in terrible throes he exhausts his soul. "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani."
And then see! they pierce his side, and forthwith runneth out blood and water. This
is the shedding of blood, sinners and saints; this is the awful shedding of blood,
the terrible pouring out of blood, without which for you, and for the whole human
race, there is no remission.
I have then, I hope, brought my text fairly out: without this shedding of blood there
is no remission. Now I shall come to dwell upon it more particularly.
Why is it that this story doth not make men weep? I told it ill, you say. Ay, so
I did; I will take all the blame. But, sirs, if it were told as ill as men could
speak, were our hearts what they should be, we should bleed away our lives in sorrow.
Oh! it was a horrid murder that! It was not an act of regicide; it was not the deed
of a fratricide, or of a parricide; it was—what shall I say?—I must make a word—a
deicide; the killing of a God; the slaying of him who became incarnate for our sins.
Oh! if our hearts were but soft as iron, we must weep, if they were but tender as
the marble of the mountains, we should shed great drops of grief; but they are harder
than the nether millstone; we forget the griefs of him that died this ignominious
death, we pity not his sorrows, nor do we account the interest we have in him as
though he suffered and accomplished all for us. Nevertheless, here stands the principle—"Without
shedding of blood is no remission."
Now, I take it, there are two things here. First, there is a negative expressed:
"No remission without shedding of blood." And then there is a positive
implied, forsooth, with shedding of blood there is remission.
I. First, I say,
here is A NEGATIVE EXPRESSED: there is no remission without blood—without the blood
of Jesus Christ. This is of divine authority; when I utter this sentence I have divinity
to plead. It is not a thing which you may doubt, or which you may believe; it must
be believed and received, otherwise you have denied the Scriptures and turned aside
from God. Some truths I utter, perhaps, have little better basis than my own reasoning
and inference, which are of little value enough; but this I utter, not with quotations
from God's Word to back up my assertion, but from the lips of God himself. Here it
stands in great letters, "There is no remission." So divine its authority.
Perhaps you will kick at it: but remember, your rebellion is not against me, but
against God, If any of you reject this truth, I shall not controvert; God forbid
I should turn aside from proclaiming his gospel, to dispute with men. I have God's
irrevocable statute to plead now, here it stands: "Without shedding of blood
there is no remission." You may believe or disbelieve many things the preacher
utters; but this you disbelieve at the peril of your souls. It is God's utterance:
will you tell God to his face you do not believe it? That were impious. The negative
is divine in its authority; bow yourselves to it, and accept its solemn warning.
But some men will say that God's way of saving men, by shedding of blood, is a cruel
way, an unjust way, an unkind way; and all kinds of things they will say of it. Sirs,
I have nothing to do with your opinion of the matter; it is so. If you have any faults
to find with your Maker, fight your battles out with him at last. But take heed before
you throw the gauntlet down; it will go ill with a worm when he fighteth with his
Maker, and it will go ill with you when you contend with him. The doctrine of atonement
when rightly understood and faithfully received, is delightful, for it exhibits boundless
love, immeasurable goodness, and infinite truth; but to unbelievers it will always
be a hated doctrine. So it must be sirs; you hate your own mercies; you despise your
own salvation. I tarry not to dispute with you; I affirm it in God's name: "Without
shedding of blood there is no remission."
And note how decisive this is in its character: "Without shedding of
blood there is no remission." "But, sir, can't I get my sins forgiven by
my repentance? if I weep, and plead, and pray, will not God forgive me for the sake
of my tears?" "No remission," says the text, "without shedding
of blood." "But, sir, if I never sin again, and if I serve God more zealously
than other men, will he not forgive me for the sake of my obedience?" "No
remission," says the text, "without shedding of blood." "But,
sir, may I not trust that God is merciful, and will forgive me without the shedding
of blood?" "No," says the text, "without shedding of blood there
is no remission;" none whatever. It cuts off every other hope. Bring your hopes
here, and if they are not based in blood. and stamped with blood, they are as useless
as castles in the air, and dreams of the night. "There is no remission,"
says the text, in positive and plain words; and yet men will be trying to get remission
in fifty other ways, until their special pleading becomes as irksome to us as it
is useless for them. Sirs, do what you like, say what you please, but you are as
far off remission when you have done your best, as you were when you began, except
you put confidence in the shedding of our Saviour's blood, and in the blood-shedding
alone, for without it there is no remission.
And note again how universal it is in its character. "What! may not I
get remission without blood-shedding?" says the king; and he comes with the
crown on his head; "May not I in all my robes, with this rich ransom, get pardon
without the blood-shedding?" "None," is the reply; "none."
Forthwith comes the wise man, with a number of letters after his name—"Can I
not get remission by these grand titles of my learning?" "None; none."
Then comes the benevolent man—"I have dispersed my money to the poor, and given
my bounty to feed them; shall not I get remission?" "None;" says the
text, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." How this puts
everyone on a level! My lord, you are no bigger than your coachman; Sir, squire,
you are no better off than John that ploughs the ground; minister, your office does
not serve you with any exemption—your poorest hearer stands on the very same footing.
"Without shedding of blood there is no remission." No hope for the best,
any more than for the worst, without this shedding of blood. Oh! I love the gospel,
for this reason among others, because it is such a levelling gospel. Some persons
do not like a levelling gospel; nor would I, in some senses of the word. Let men
have their rank, and their titles, and their riches, if they will; but I do like,
and I am sure all good men like, to see rich and poor meet together and feel that
they are on a level; the gospel makes them so. It says "Put up your money-bags,
they will not procure you remission; roll up your diploma, that will not get you
remission; forget your farm and your park, they will not get you remission; just
cover up that escutcheon, that coat of arms will not get you remission. Come, you
ragged beggars, filthy off-scourings of the world, penniless; come hither; here is
remission as much for you, ill-bred and ill-mannered though ye be, as for the noble,
the honorable, the titled, and the wealthy. All stand on a level here; the text is
universal: "Without shedding of blood there is no remission."
Mark too, how perpetual my text is. Paul said, "there is no remission;"
I must repeat this testimony too. When thousands of years have rolled away, some
minister may stand on this spot and say the same. This will never alter at all; it
will always be so, in the next world as well as this: no remission without shedding
of blood. "Oh! yes there is," says one, "the priest takes the shilling,
and he gets the soul out of purgatory." That is a mere pretence; it never was
in. But without shedding of blood there is no real remission. There may be tales
and fancies, but there is no true remission without the blood of propitiation. Never,
though you strained yourselves in prayer; never, though you wept yourselves away
in tears; never, though you groaned and cried till your heart-strings break; never
in this world, nor in that which is to come, can the forgiveness of sins be procured
on any other ground than redemption by the blood of Christ, and never can the conscience
be cleansed but by faith in that sacrifice. The fact is, beloved, there is no use
for you to satisfy your hearts with anything less than what satisfied God the Father.
Without the shedding of blood nothing would appease his justice; and without the
application of that same blood nothing can purge your consciences.
II. But as there
is no remission without blood-shedding, IT IS IMPLIED THAT THERE IS REMISSION WITHOUT
IT. Mark it well, this remission is a present fact. The blood having been already
shed, the remission is already obtained. I took you to the garden of Gethsemane and
the mount of Calvary to see the bloodshedding. I might now conduct you to another
garden and another mount to shew you the grand proof of the remission. Another garden,
did I say? Yes, it is a garden, fraught with many pleasing and even triumphant reminiscences.
Aside from the haunts of this busy world, in it was a new sepulchre, hewn out of
a rock where Joseph of Arimathea thought his own poor body should presently be laid.
But there they laid Jesus after his crucifixion.
He had stood surety for his people, and the law had demanded his blood; death had
held him with strong grasp; and that tomb was, as it were, the dungeon of his captivity,
when, as the good shepherd, he laid down his life for the sheep. Why, then, do I
see in that garden, an open, untenanted grave? I will tell you. The debts are paid,
the sins are cancelled—, the remission is obtained. How, think you? That great Shepherd
of the sheep hath been brought again from the dead by the blood of the everlasting
covenant, and in him also we have obtained redemption through his blood. There, beloved,
is proof the first.
Do you ask further evidence? I will take you to Mount Olivet. You shall behold Jesus
there with his hands raised like the High Priest of old to bless his people, and
while he is blessing them, he ascends, the clouds receiving him out of their sight.
But why, you ask, oh why hath he thus ascended, and whither is he gone ? Behold he
entereth, not into the holy place made with hands, but be entereth into heaven itself
with his own blood, there to appear in the presence of God for us. Now, therefore,
we have boldness to draw near by the blood of Christ. The remission is obtained,
here is proof the second. Oh believer, what springs of comfort are there here for
thee.
And now let me commend this remission by the shedding of blood to those who have
not yet believed. Mr. Innis, a great Scotch minister, once visited an infidel who
was dying. When he came to him the first time, he said, "Mr. Innis, I am relying
on the mercy of God; God is merciful, and he will never damn a man for ever."
When he got worse and was nearer death, Mr. Innis went to him again, and he said,
" Oh! Mr. Innis, my hope is gone; for I have been thinking if God be merciful,
God is just too; and what if, instead of being merciful to me, he should be just
to me? What would then become of me? I must give up my hope in the mere mercy of
God; tell me how to be saved!" Mr. Innis told him that Christ had died in the
stead of all believers—that God could be just, and yet the justifier through the
death of Christ. " Ah!" said he, " Mr. Innis, there is something solid
in that; I can rest on that; I cannot rest on anything else;" and it is a remarkable
fact that none of us ever met with a man who thought he had his sins forgiven unless
it was through the blood of Christ. Meet a Mussulman; he never had his sins forgiven;
he does not say so. Meet an Infidel; he never knows that his sins are forgiven. Meet
a Legalist; he says, "I hope they will be forgiven;" but he does not pretend
they are. No one ever gets even a fancied hope apart from this, that Christ, and
Christ alone, must save by the shedding of his blood.
Let me tell a story to show how Christ saves souls. Mr. Whitfield had a brother who
had been like him, an earnest Christian, but he had backslidden; he went far from
the ways of godliness; and one afternoon, after he had been recovered from his backsliding,
he was sitting in a room in a chapel house. He had heard his brother preaching the
day before, and his poor conscience had been cut to the very quick. Said Whitfield's
brother, when he was at tea, "I am a lost man," and he groaned and cried,
and could neither eat nor drink. Said Lady Huntingdon, who sat opposite, "What
did you say, Mr. Whitfield?" "Madam," said he, "I said, I am
a lost man." "I'm glad of it," said she; "I'm glad of it."
"Your ladyship, how can you say so? It is cruel to say you are glad that I am
a lost man." " I repeat it, sir," said she; "I am heartily glad
of it." He looked at her, more and more astonished at her barbarity. "I
am glad of it," said she, "because it is written, 'The Son of Man came
to seek and to save that which was lost.' " With the tears rolling down his
cheeks, he said, "What a precious Scripture; and how is it that it comes with
such force to me ? Oh! madam," said he, "madam, I bless God for that; then
he will save me; I trust my soul in his hands; he has forgiven me." He went
outside the house, felt ill, fell upon the ground, and expired. I may have a lost
man here this morning. As I cannot say much, I will leave you, good people; you do
not want anything.
Have I got a lost man here? Lost man! Lost woman! Where are you? Do you feel yourself
to be lost? I am so glad of it; for there is remission by the blood-shedding. O sinner,
are there tears in your eyes? Look through them. Do you see that man in the garden?
That man sweats drops of blood for you. Do you see that man on the cross? That man
was nailed there for you. Oh! if I could be nailed on a cross this morning for you
all, I know what you would do: you would fall down and kiss my feet, and weep that
I should have to die for you. But sinner, lost sinner, Jesus died for you—for you;
and if he died for you., you cannot be lost. Christ died in vain for no one. Are
you, then, a sinner? Are you convinced of sin because you believe not in Christ?
I have authority to preach to you. Believe in his name and you cannot be lost. Do
you say you are no sinner? Then I do not know that Christ died for you. Do you say
that you have no sins to repent of? Then I have no Christ to preach to you. He did
not come to save the righteous; he came to save the wicked. Are you wicked? Do you
feel it? Are you lost? Do you know it? Are you sinful? Will you confess it? Sinner!
if Jesus were here this morning, he would put out his bleeding hands, and say, "
Sinner, I died for you, will you believe me ?" He is not here in person; he
has sent his servant to tell you. Won't you believe him? "Oh!" but you
say, "I am such a sinner;" "Ah!" says he, "that is just
why I died for you, because you are a sinner." "But," you say, "I
do not deserve it." "Ah !" says he, "that is just why I did it."
Say you, "I have hated him." "But," says he, "I have always
loved you." "But, Lord, I have spat on thy minister, and scorned thy word."
"It is all forgiven," says he, "all washed away by the blood which
did run from my side. Only believe me; that is all I ask. And that I will give you.
I will help you to believe." "Ah!" says one, "but I do not want
a Saviour." Sir, I have nothing to say to you except this—"The wrath to
come! the wrath to come!" But there is one who says, "Sir, you do not mean
what you say! Do you mean to preach to the most wicked men or women in the place?"
I mean what I say. There she is! She is a harlot, she has led many into sin, and
many into hell, There she is; her own friends have turned her out of doors; her father
called her a good-for-nothing hussey, and said she should never come to the house
again. Woman I dost thou repent? Dost thou feel thyself to be guilty? Christ died
to save thee, and thou shalt be saved. There he is. I can see him. He was drunk;
he has been drunk very often. Not many nights ago I heard his voice in the street,
as he went home at a late hour on Saturday night, disturbing everybody; and he beat
his wife, too. He has broken the Sabbath; and as to swearing, if oaths be like soot,
his throat must want sweeping bad enough, for he has cursed God often. Do you feel
yourself to be guilty, my hearer? Do you hate your sins, and are you willing to forsake
them? Then I bless God for you. Christ died for you. Believe! I had a letter a few
days ago, from a young man who heard that during this week I was going to a certain
town. Said he, "Sir, when you come, do preach a sermon that will fit me; for
do you know, sir, I have heard it said that we must all think ourselves to be the
wickedest people in the world, or else we cannot be saved. I try to think so, but
I cannot, because I have not been the wickedest. I want to think so, but I cannot.
I want to be saved, but I do not know how to repent enough." Now, if I have
the pleasure of seeing him, I shall tell him, God does not require a man to think
himself the wickedest in the world, because that would sometimes be to think a falsehood;
there are some men who are not so wicked as others are. What God requires is this,
that a man should say, "I know more of myself than I do of other people; I know
little about them, and from what I see of myself, not of my actions, but of my heart,
I do think there can be few worse than I am. They may be more guilty openly, but
then I have had more light, more privileges, more opportunities, more warnings, and
therefore I am still guiltier." I do not want you to bring your brother with
you, and say, "I am more wicked than he is;" I want you to come yourself,
and say, "Father, I have sinned;" you have nothing to do with your brother
William, whether he has sinned more or less; your cry should be, "Father, I
have sinned;" you have nothing to do with your cousin Jane, whether or not she
has rebelled more than you. Your business is to cry, "Lord, have mercy upon
me, a sinner!" That is all. Do you feel yourselves lost? Again, I say,—
"Come, and welcome, sinner, come!"
To conclude. There is not a sinner in this place who knows himself to be lost and ruined, who may not have all his sins forgiven, and "rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." You may, though black as hell, be white as heaven this very instant. I know 'tis only by a desperate struggle that faith takes hold of the promise, but the very moment a sinner believes, that conflict is past. It is his first victory, and a blessed one. Let this verse be the language of your heart; adopt it, and make it your own:
"A guilty weak, and helpless worm.
In Christ's kind arms I fall;
He is my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my all."
A Sermon
(No. 78)
Delivered on Thursday Evening, November 22, 1855,
by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."—John 17:16.
HRIST'S prayer was for a special people.
He declared that he did not offer an universal intercession. "I pray for them,"
said he. "I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for
they are thine." In reading this beautiful prayer through, only one question
arises to our minds; Who are the people that are described as "them," or
as "they?" Who are these favoured individuals, who share a Saviour's prayers,
are recognized by a Saviour's love, have their names written on the stones of his
precious breastplate, and have their characters and their circumstances mentioned
by the lips of the High Priest before the throne on high? The answer to that question
is supplied by the words of our text. The people for whom Christ prays are an unearthly
people. They are a people somewhat, above the world, distinguished altogether from
it. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
I shall treat my text, first of all, docrtrinally; secondly, experimentally;
and thirdly, practically.
I. First, we shall
take our text and look at it DOCTRINALLY.
The doctrine of it is, that God's people are people who are not of the world, even
as Christ was not of the world. It is not so much that they are not of the world,
as that they are "not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world."
This is an important distinction, for there are to be found certain people who are
not of the world, and yet they are not Christians. Amongst these I would mention
sentimentalists—people who are always crying and groaning in affected sentimental
ways. Their spirits are so refined, their characters are so delicate, that they could
not attend to ordinary business. They would think it rather degrading to their spiritual
nature to attend to anything connected with the world. They live much in the air
of romances and novels; love to read things that fetch tears from their eyes; they
would like continually to live in a cottage near a wood, or to inhabit some quiet
cave, where they could read "Zimmerman on Solitude" for ever; for they
feel that they are "not of the world." The fact is, there is something
too flimsy about them to stand the wear and tear of this wicked world. They are so
pre-eminently good, that they cannot bear to do as we poor human creatures do. I
have heard of one young lady, who thought herself so spiritually-minded that she
could not work. A very wise minister said to her, "That is quite correct! you
are so spiritually-minded that you cannot work; very well, you are so spiritually-minded
that you shall not eat unless you do." That brought her back from her great
spiritual-mindedness. There is a stupid sentimentalism that certain persons nurse
themselves into. They read a parcel of books that intoxicate their brains, and then
fancy that they have a lofty destiny. These people are "not of the world,"
truly; but the world does not want them, and the world would not miss them much,
if they were clean gone for ever. There is such a thing as being "not of the
world," from a high order of sentimentalism, and yet not being a Christian after
all. For it is not so much being "not of the world," as being "not
of the world, even as Christ was not of the world." There are others,
too, like your monks, and those other made individuals of the Catholic church, who
are not of the world. They are so awfully good, that they could not live with us
sinful creatures at all. They must be distinguished from us altogether. They must
not wear, of course, a boot that would at all approach to a worldly shoe, but they
must have a sole of leather strapped on with two or three thongs, like the far-famed
Father Ignatius. They could not be expected to wear worldly coats and waistcoats;
but they must have peculiar garbs, cut in certain fashions, like the Passionists.
They must wear particular dresses, particular garments, particular habits. And we
know that some men are "not of the world," by the peculiar mouthing they
give to all their words—the sort of sweet, savoury, buttery flavor they give to the
English language, because they think themselves so eminently sanctified that they
fancy it would be wrong to indulge in anything in which ordinary mortals indulge.
Such persons are, however, reminded, that their being "not of the world,"
has nothing to do with it. It is not being "not of the world," so much
as being "not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world."
This is the distinguishing mark—being different from the world in those respects
in which Christ was different. Not making ourselves singular in unimportant points,
as those poor creatures do, but being different from the world in those respects
in which the Son of God and the Son of man, Jesus Christ, was not of the world in
nature; that he was not of the world again, in office; and above all, that he was
not of the world in his character.
1. First, Christ
was not of the world in nature. What was there about Christ that was worldly?
In one point of view his nature was divine; and as divine, it was perfect, pure unsullied,
spotless, he could not descend to things of earthliness and sin; in another sense
he was human; and his human nature, which was born of the Virgin Mary, was begotten
of the Holy Ghost, and therefore was so pure that in it rested nothing that was worldly.
He was not like ordinary men. We are all born with worldliness in our hearts. Solomon
well says, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child." It is not
only there, but it is bound up in it; it is tied up in his heart, and is difficult
to remove. And so with each of us; when we were children, earthliness and carnality
were bound up in our nature. But Christ was not so. His nature was not a worldly
one; it was essentially different from that of every one else, although he sat down
and talked with them. Mark the difference! He stood side by side with a Pharisee;
but every one could see he was not of the Pharisee's world. He sat by a Samaritan
woman, and though he conversed with her very freely, who is it that fails to see
that he was not of that Samaritan woman's world—not a sinner like her? He mingled
with the Publicans, nay, he sat down at the Publican's feast, and eat with Publicans
and sinners; but you could see by the holy actions and the peculiar gestures he there
carried with him, that he was not of the Publicans' world, though he mixed with them.
There was something so different in his nature, that you could not have found an
individual in all the world whom could have set beside him and said, "There!
he is of that man's world," Nay, not even John, though he leaned on his bosom
and partook very much of his Lord's spirit, was exactly of that world to which Jesus
belonged; for even he once in his Boanergean spirit, said words to this effect, "Let
us call down fire from heaven on the heads of those who oppose thee,"—a thing
that Christ could not endure for a moment, and thereby proved that he was something
even beyond John's world.
Well, beloved, in some sense, the Christian man is not of the world even in his nature.
I do not mean in his corrupt and fallen nature, but in his new nature. There is something
in a Christian that is utterly and entirely distinct from that of anybody else. Many
persons think that the difference between a Christian and worldling consists in this:
one goes to chapel twice on a Sabbath-day, another does not go but once, or perhaps
not at all; one of them takes the sacrament, the other does not; one pays attention
to holy things, the other pays very little attention to them. But, ah, beloved, that
does not make a Christian. The distinction between a Christian and a worldling is
not merely external, but internal. The difference is one of nature, and not of act.
A Christian is as essentially difference from a worldling as a dove is from a raven,
or a lamb from a lion. He is not of the world even in his nature. You could not make
him a worldling. You might do what you liked; you might cause him to fall into some
temporary sin; but you could not make him a worldling. You might cause him to backslide;
but you could not make him a sinner, as he used to be. He is not of the world by
his nature. He is a twice-born man; in his veins run the blood of the royal family
of the universe. He is a nobleman; he is a heaven-born child. His freedom is not
merely a bought one, but he hath his liberty his new-born nature; he is essentially
and entirely different from the world. There are persons in this chapel now who are
more totally distinct from one another than you can even conceive. I have some here
who are intelligent, and some who are ignorant; some who are rich, and some who are
poor; but I do not allude to those distinctions: they all melt away into nothing
in that great distinction—dead or alive, spiritual or carnal, Christian or worldling.
And oh! if ye are God's people, then ye are not of the world in your nature; for
ye are "not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world."
2. Again: you are
not of the world in your office. Christ's office had nothing to do with worldly
things. "Art thou a king them?" Yes; I am a king; but my kingdom is not
of this world. "Art thou a priest?" Yes; I am a priest; but my priesthood
is not the priesthood which I shall soon lay aside, or which shall be discontinued
as that of others has been. "Art thou a teacher?" Yes; but my doctrines
are not the doctrines of morality, doctrines that concern earthly dealings between
man and man simply; my doctrine cometh down from heaven. So Jesus Christ, we say,
is "not of the world." He had no office that could be termed a worldly
one, and he had no aim which was in the least worldly. He did not seek his own applause,
his own fame, his own honour; his very office was not of the world. And, O believer!
what is thy office? Hast thou none at all? Why, yes, man! Thou art a priest unto
the Lord thy God; thy office is to offer a sacrifice of prayer and praise each day.
Ask a Christian what he is. Say to him: "What is your official standing? What
are you by office?" Well, if he answers you properly, he will not say, "I
am a draper, or druggist," or anything of that sort. No; he will say, "I
am a priest unto my God. The office unto which I am called, is to be the salt of
the earth. I am a city set on a hill, a light that cannot be hid. That is my office.
My office is not a worldly one." Whether yours be the office of the minister,
or the deacon, or the church member, ye are not of this world is your office, even
as Christ was not of the world; your occupation is not a worldly one.
3. Again, ye are
not of the world in your character; for that is the chief point in which Christ
was not of the world. And now, brethren, I shall have to turn somewhat from doctrine
to practice before I get rightly to this part of the subject; for I must reprove
many of the Lord's people, that they do not sufficiently manifest that they are not
of the world in character, even as Christ was not of the world. Oh! how many of you
there are, who will assemble around the table at the supper of your Lord, who do
not live like your Saviour. How many of you there are, who join our church and walk
with us, and yet are not worthy of your high calling and profession. Mark you the
churches all around, and let your eyes run with tears, when you remember that of
many of their members it cannot be said, "ye are not of this world,"
for they are of the world. O, my hearers, I fear many of you are worldly,
carnal, and covetous; and yet ye join the churches, and stand well with God's people
by a hypocritical profession. O ye whitewashed sepulchres! ye would deceive even
the very elect! ye make clean the outside of the cup and platter, but your inward
part is very wickedness. O that a thundering voice might speak this to your ears!—"Those
whom Christ loves are not of the world," but ye are of the world; therefore
ye cannot be his, even though ye profess so to be; for those that love him are not
such as you. Look at Jesus character; how different from every other man's—pure,
perfect, spotless, even such should be the life of the believer. I plead not for
the possibility of sinless conduct in Christians, but I must hold that grace makes
men to differ, and that God's people will be very different from other kinds of people.
A servant of God will be a God's-man everywhere. As a chemist, he could not indulge
in any tricks that such men might play with their drugs; as a grocer—if indeed it
be not a phantom that such things are done—he could not mix sloe leaves with tea
or red lead in the pepper; if he practised any other kind of business, he could not
for a moment condescend to the little petty shifts, called "methods of business."
To him it is nothing what is called "business;" it is what is called God's
law, he feels that he is not of the world, consequently, he goes against its fashions
and its maxims. A singular story is told of a certain Quaker. One day he was bathing
in the Thames, and a waterman called out to him, "Ha! there goes the Quaker."
"How do you know I'm a Quaker?" "Because you swim against the stream;
it is the way the Quakers always do." That is the way Christians always ought
to do—to swim against the stream. The Lord's people should not go along with the
rest in their worldliness. Their characters should be visibly different. You should
be such men that your fellows can recognise you without any difficulty, and say,
"Such a man is a Christian." Ah! beloved, it would puzzle the angel Gabriel
himself, to tell whether some of you are Christians or not, if he were sent down
to the world to pick out the righteous from the wicked. None but God could do it,
for in these days of worldly religion they are so much alike. It was an ill day for
the world, when the sons of God and the daughters of men were mingled together: and
it is an ill day now, when Christians and worldlings are so mixed, that you cannot
tell the difference between them. God save us from a day of fire that may devour
us in consequence! But O beloved! the Christian will be always different from the
world. This is a great doctrine, and it will be found as true in ages to come as
in the centuries which are past. Looking back into history, we read this lesson:
"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." We see them
driven to the catacombs of Rome; we see them hunted about like partridges; and wherever
in history you find God's servants, you can recognise them by their distinct, unvarying
character—they are not of the world, but were a people scarred and peeled; a people
entirely distinct from the nations. And if in this age, there are no different people,
if there are none to be found who differ from other people, there are no Christians;
for Christians will be always different from the world. They are not of the world;
even as Christ is not of the world. This is the doctrine.
II. But now for
treating this text EXPERIMENTALLY.
Do we, dearly beloved, feel this truth? Has it ever been laid to our souls, so that
we can feel it is ours? "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the
world." Have we ever felt that we are not of the world? Perhaps there is a believer
sitting in a pew to-night, who says, "Well, sire, I can't say that I feel as
if I was not of the world, for I have just come from my shop, and worldliness is
still hanging about me." Another says, "I have been in trouble and my mind
is very much harassed—I can't feel that I am different from the world; I am afraid
that I am of the world." But, beloved, we must not judge ourselves rashly, because
just at this moment we discern not the spot of God's children. Let me tell you, there
are always certain testing moments when you can tell of what kind of stuff a man
is made. Two men are walking. Part of the way their road lies side by side. How do
you tell which man is going to the right, and which to the left? Why, when they come
to the turning point. Now, to-night is not a turning point, for you are sitting with
worldly people here, but at other times we may distinguish.
Let me tell you one or two turning points, when every Christian will feel that he
is not of the world. One is, when he gets into very deep trouble. I do believe
and protest, that we never feel so unearthly as when we get plunged down into trouble.
Ah! when some creature comfort hath been swept away, when some precious blessing
hath withered in our sight, like the fair lily, snapped at the stalk; when some mercy
has been withered, like Jonah's gourd in the night—then it is that the Christian
feels, "I am not of the world." His cloak is torn from him, and the cold
wind whistles almost through him; and then he says, "I am a stranger in the
world, as all my fathers were. Lord, thou hast been my dwelling-place in all generations."
You have had at times deep sorrows. Thank God for them! They are testing moments.
When the furnace is hot, it is then that the gold is tried best. Have you felt at
such a time that you were not of the world? Or, have you rather sat down, and said,
"Oh! I do not deserve this trouble?" Did you break under it? Did you bow
down before it and let it crush you while you cursed your Maker? Or did your spirit,
even under its load, still lift itself unto him, like a man all dislocated on the
battle-field, whose limbs are cut away, but who still lifts himself up as best he
can, and looks over the field to see if there be a friend approaching. Did you do
so? Or did you lie down in desperation and despair? If you did that, methinks you
are no Christian; but if there was a rising up, it was a testing moment, and it proved
that you were "not of the world," because you could master affliction;
because you could tread it under foot, and say—
"When all created streams are dry,
His goodness is the same;
With this I well am satisfied,
And glory in his name."
But another testing moment is prosperity. Oh! there have been some of God's people, who have been more tried by prosperity than by adversity. Of the two trials, the trial of adversity is less severe to the spiritual man than that of prosperity. "As the fining pot for silver, so is a man to his praise." It is a terrible thing to be prosperous. You had need to pray to God, not only to help you in your troubles, but to help you in your blessings. Mr. Whitfield once had a petition to put up for a young man who had—stop, you will think it was for a young man who had lost his father or his property. No! "The prayers of the congregation are he has need of much grace to keep him humble in the midst of riches." That is the kind of prayer that ought to be put up; for prosperity is a hard thing to bear. Now, perhaps you have become almost intoxicated with worldly delights, even as a Christian. Everything goes well with you; you have loved, and you are loved. Your affairs are prosperous; your heart rejoices, your eyes sparkle; you tread the earth with a happy soul and a joyous countenance; you are a happy man, for you have found that even in worldly things, "godliness with contentment is great gain." Did you ever feel,—
"These can never satisfy;
Give me Christ, or else I die."
Did you feel that these comforts were nothing but the leaves
of the tree, and not the fruit, and that you could not live upon mere leaves? Did
you feel they were after all nothing but husks? Or did you not sit down and say,
"Now, soul, take thine ease; thou hast goods laid up for many years; eat, drink,
and be merry?" If you did imitate the rich fool, then you were of the world;
but if your spirit went up above your prosperity so that you still lived near to
God, then you proved that you were a child of God, for you were not of the world.
These are testing points; both prosperity and adversity.
Again: you may test yourselves in this way in solitude and in company. In
solitude you may tell whether you are not of the world. I sit me down, throw the
window up, look out on the stars, and think of them as the eyes of God looking down
upon me! And oh! does it not seem glorious at times to consider the heavens when
we can say, "Ah! beyond those stars in my house not made with hands; those stars
are mile-stones on the road to glory, and I shall soon tread the glittering way,
or be carried by seraphs far beyond them, and be there!" Have you felt in solitude
that you are not of the world? And so again in company. Ah! beloved, believe me,
company is one of the best tests for a Christian. You are invited to an evening party.
Sundry amusements are provided which are not considered exactly sinful, but which
certainly cannot come under the name of pious amusements. You sit there with the
rest; there is a deal of idle chat going on, you would be thought puritanical to
protest against it. Have you not come away—and notwithstanding all has been very
pleasant, and friends have been very agreeable—have you not been inclined to say,
"Ah! that does not do for me; I would rather be in a prayer meeting; I could
be with the people of God, than in fine rooms with all the dainties and delicacies
that could be provided without the company of Jesus. By God's grace I will seek to
shun all these places as much as possible." That is a good test. You will prove
in this way that you are not of the world. And you may do so in great many other
ways, which I have no time to mention. Have you felt this experimentally, so that
you can say, "I know that I am not of the world, I feel it; I experience it."
Don't talk of doctrine. Give me doctrine ground into experience. Doctrine is good;
but experience is better. Experimental doctrine is the true doctrine which comforts
and which edifies.
IV. And now, lastly
we must briefly apply this in PRACTICE. "They are not of the world, even as
I am not of the world." And, first, allow me, man or woman, to apply this to
thee. Thou who art of the world, whose maxims, whose habits, whose behaviour,
whose feelings, whose everything is worldly and carnal, list thee to this. Perhaps
thou makest some profession of religion. Hear me, then. Thy boasting of religion
is empty as a phantom, and shall pass away when the sun rises, as the ghosts sleep
in their grave at the crowing of the cock. Thou hast some pleasure in that professioned
religion of thine wherewith thou art arrayed, and which thou carriest about thee
as a cloak, and usest as a stalking-horse to thy business, and a net to catch the
honour of the world, and yet thou art worldly, like other men. Then I tell thee if
there be no distinction between thyself and the worldly, the doom of the worldly
shall be thy doom. If thou wert marked and watched, thy next door tradesman would
act as thou dost, and thou actest as he does; there is no distinction between thee
and the world. Hear me, then; it is God's solemn truth. Thou art none of his. If
thou art like the rest of the world, thou art of the world. Thou art a goat, and
with goats thou shalt be cursed; for the sheep can always be distinguished from the
goats by their appearance. O ye worldly men of the world! ye carnal professors, ye
who crowd our churches, and fill our places of worship, this is God's truth! let
me say it solemnly. If I should say it as I ought, it would be weeping tears of blood.
Ye are, with all your profession, "in the gall of bitterness;" with all
your boastings, ye are "in bonds of iniquity;" for ye act as others and
ye shall come where others come; and it shall be done with you as with more notorious
heirs of hell. There is an old story which was once told of a Dissenting minister.
The old custom was, that a minister might stop at an inn, and not pay anything for
his bed or his board; and when he went to preach, from place to place, he was charged
nothing for the conveyance in which he rode. But on one occasion, a certain minister
stopped at an inn and went to bed. The landlord listened and heard no prayer; so
when he came down in the morning, he presented his bill. "Oh! I am not going
to pay that, for I am a minister." "Ah!" said the landlord, "you
went to bed last night like a sinner, and you shall pay this morning like a sinner;
I will not let you go." Now, it strikes me, that this will be the case with
some of you when you come to God's bar. Though you pretended to be a Christian, you
acted like a sinner, and you shall fare like a sinner too. Your actions were unrighteous;
they were far from God; and you shall have a portion with those whose character was
the same as yours. "Be not deceived;" it is easy to be so. "God is
not mocked," though we often are, both minister and people. "God is not
mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
And now we want to apply this to many true children of God who are here, by
way of caution. I say, my brother Christian, you are not of the world. I am not going
to speak hardly to you, because you are my brother, and in speaking to you I speak
to myself also, for I am as guilty as thou art. Brother, have we not often been too
much like the world? Do we not sometimes in our conversation, talk too much like
the world? Come, let me ask myself, are there not too many idle words that I say?
Ay, that there are. And do I not sometimes give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme,
because I am not so different from the world as I ought to be? Come, brother; let
us confess our sins together. Have we not been too worldly? Ah! we have. Oh! let
this solemn thought cross our minds: suppose that after all we should not be his!
for it is written, "Ye are not of the world." O God! if we are not right,
make us so; where we are a little right, make us still more right; and where we are
wrong, amend us! Allow me to tell a story to you; I told it when I was preaching
last Tuesday morning, but it is worth telling again. There is a great evil in many
of us being too light and frothy in our conversation. A very solemn thing once happened.
A minister had been preaching in a country village, very earnestly and fervently.
in the midst of his congregation there was a young man who was deeply impressed with
a sense of sin under the sermon; he therefore sought the minister as he went out,
in hopes of walking home with him. They walked till they came to a friend's house.
On the road the minister had talked about anything except the subject on which he
had preached, though he had preached very earnestly, and even with tears in his eyes.
The young man thought within himself, "Oh! I wish I could unburden my heart
and speak to him; but I cannot. He does not say anything now about what he spoke
of in the pulpit." When they were at supper that evening, the conversation was
very far from what it should be, and the minister indulged in all kinds of jokes
and light sayings. The young man had gone into the house with eyes filled with tears,
feeling like a sinner should feel; but as soon as he got outside, after the conversation,
he stamped his foot, and said, "It is a lie from beginning to end. That man
has preached like an angel; and now he has talked like a devil." Some years
after the young man was taken ill, and sent for this same minister. The minister
did not know him. "Do you remember preaching at such-and-such a village?"
asked the young man. "I do." "your text was very deeply laid to my
heart." "Thank God for that," said the minister. "Do not be so
quick about thanking God," said the young man. "Do you know what you talked
of that evening afterwards, when I went to supper with you. Sir, I shall be damned!
And I will charge you before God's throne with being the author of my damnation.
On that night I did feel my sin; but you were the means of scattering all my impressions."
That is a solemn thought, brother, and teaches us how we should curb our tongues,
especially those who are so light hearted, after solemn services and earnest preachings,
that we should not betray levity. Oh! let us take heed that we are not of the world,
even as Christ was not of the world.
And Christian, lastly, by way of practice, let me comfort thee with this. Thou art
not of the world for thy home is in heaven. Be content to be here a little, for thou
art not of the world, and thou shalt go up to thine own bright inheritance by-and-bye.
A man in travelling goes into an inn; it is rather uncomfortable, "Well,"
says he, "I shall not have to stay here many nights; I have only to sleep here
to-night, I shall be at home in the morning, so that I don't care much about one
night's lodging being a little uncomfortable." So, Christian, this world is
never a very comfortable one; but recollect, you are not of the world. This world
is like an inn; you are only lodging here a little while. Put up with a little inconvenience,
because you are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world; and by-and-bye,
up yonder, you shall be gathered into your father's house, and there you will find
that there is a new heaven and a new earth provided for those who are "not of
the world."
A Sermon
(No. 96)
Delivered on Sabbath Evening, August 10, 1856, by
the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At Exeter Hall, Strand.
"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors."–Romans 8:12.
BSERVE the title whereby he addressed the
Church–"Brethren." It was the gospel which taught Paul how to say brother.
If he had not been a Christian, his Jewish dignity would never have condescended
to call a Roman–"brother;" for a Jew sneered at the Gentile, and called
him "dog." But now in the breast of this "Hebrew of Hebrews,"
there is the holy recognition of Christian fraternity without reserve or hypocrisy.
The gospel softened the breast of Paul, and made him forget all national animosities,
otherwise, one of the down-trodden race would not have called his oppressor, "brother."
The Roman had his iron foot on the Jew; yet Paul addresses those, who subjugated
his race, as "brethren." We repeat, a third time, it was the gospel which
implanted in the soul of Paul the feeling of brotherhood, and removed every wall
of partition which divided him from any of the Lord's elect. "So then,"
he said, "we are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with
the saints, and of the household of God." He proclaimed the doctrine of the
"one blood," and gloried in the fact of "one family" in Christ.
He felt within him affinities with all the blood-bought race, and loved them all.
He had not seen many of those whom he addressed; yet they were known to him, in the
Spirit, as partakers of one glorious and blessed hope, and, therefore, he called
them "brethren." My friends, there is a cementing power in the grace of
God which can scarcely be over estimated. It resets the dislocated bones of society,
rivets the bonds of friendship, and welds the broken metal of manhood into one united
mass. It makes all brethren who feel its power. Grace links mankind in a common brotherhood;
grace makes the great man give his hand to the poor, and confess a heavenly relationship;
grace constrains the intellectual, the learned, the polite, to stoop from their dignity
to take hold of the ignorant and unlettered, and call them friends; grace weaves
the threads of our separate individualities into one undivided unity. Let the gospel
be really felt in the mind and it will toll the knell of selfishness, it will bring
down the proud from their elevated solitude, and it will restore the down-trodden
to the rights of our common manhood. We need only the gospel thoroughly preached
to bring about "liberty, equality, and fraternity," in the highest and
best sense of these words. Not the "liberty, equality and fraternity,"
which the democrat seeks for, which is frequently another name for his own
superiority, but that which is true and real–that which will make us all free in
the Spirit, make us all equal in the person of Christ Jesus, and give us all the
fraternity of brethren, seeing that we are all one with our Lord, in the common bond
of gospel relationship. Let the truths of Christianity work out their perfect work:
and pride, bitterness, wrath, envy, and malice, must see their graves. This and this
alone can restore the peace of divided families, and unite disputing relatives. Only
let the gospel be preached, and there shall be an end of war; let it thoroughly pervade
all ranks of society, and saturate the mind of nations, and there shall be no more
lifting of the spears, they shall be used for pruning hooks; no bathing of swords
in blood, for they shall be turned into the peaceful ploughshares of the soil; we
shall then have no hosts encountering hosts; we shall have no millions slain for
widows to deplore; but every man shall meet every other man, and call him "brother."
And men of every kindred, and of every tribe, shall see in the face of every man,
a relative allied to them by ties of blood. I am sure I feel, myself, the force of
this word "brother," with regard to many of you. If ye be partakers of
that glorious hope, if ye be believers in our glorious Redeemer, if ye have put your
trust under the shadow of his wings, my hand and my heart with it, there is that
word "brother" for you. And so addressing you, who love the Lord, under
that title; I come at one to the text, "Brethren, we are debtors."
We are all of us under obligations; let us consider the fact in the following manner:–First,
how are we to understand this? and secondly, how ought it to affect us?
I. HOW ARE WE
TO UNDERSTAND THIS, "Brethren, we are debtors"? We may understand it in
a thousand sense, for indeed we are debtors. Brethren, we who know and love the Lord,
are debtors, not to one creditor, but to many.
We are debtors to the past. Methinks I see the fathers at their midnight lamps,
the ancient saints in their much-frequented closets, the thrice brave preachers in
their pulpits denouncing error, and the faithful pastors reproving wrong. To such
who have preceded us we owe the purity of the Church, and to them we are debtors.
methinks I see the martyrs and confessors rising from their tombs–I mark their hands
still stained with blood, and their bodies scarred with the wound of persecution.
They tell me, that they of old maintained the truth, and preached it, in the midst
of fire and sword–that they bore death in defence of the cause of God, that they
might hand down his holy word inviolate to us! I look on them, and see among their
glorious ranks, some whose names are celebrated in every Christian land as the bold
"lions of God," the immovable pillars of truth; men of whom the world was
not worthy, whose praise is in all the churches, and who are now nearest the eternal
throne. And as I look on them, and they on me, I turn to you all and say, "Brethren,
we are debtors." We are debtors to the men who crossed the sea, and laughed
at the fury of the storm, who risked the journeying, and the weariness, and all the
various perils to which they were exposed, by reason of robbers and false brethren;
we are debtors to each stake at Smithfield; we are debtors to the sacred ashes of
the thousands who have there followed Jesus even unto death; we are debtors to the
headless bodies of those who were beheaded for Christ Jesus; we are debtors to those
who dared the lions in the amphitheatre and fought with wild beasts at Ephesus; we
are debtors to the massacred thousands of the bloody church of Rome, and the murdered
myriads of her pagan predecessors; we are debtors to them all. Remember the bloody
day of St. Bartholomew, the valleys of Piedmont, and the mountains of Switzerland.
Let the sacred mounds of our fathers' sepulchres speak to us. Is not this Bible opened
and read by us all, the gift of their self-denying faithfulness? Is not the free
air we breathe the purchase of their death? Did not they, by bitter suffering, achieve
our liberty for us? And are we not debtors to them? Shall we not, in some degree,
repay the immense debt of our obligation by seeking to make the future also debtors
to us, that our descendants may look back and acknowledge that they owe us thank
for preserving the Scriptures, for maintaining liberty, for glorifying God? Brethren,
we are debtors to the past.
And I am quite sure we are debtors to the present. Wherever we go, we gather
fresh proofs of the common observation, that we are living in a most marvellous age.
It is an oft-repeated truth, and one which, perhaps, has almost lost its meaning
from being so oft repeated, that this is the very crisis. The world has always been
in a crisis, but this seems to use to be a peculiar one. We have around us appliances
for doing good, such as men never possessed before; we behold around us machinery
for doing evil, such as never was at work even in earth's worst days. Good men are
labouring, at least with usual zeal, and bad men are strenuously plying their craft
of evil. Infidelity, popery, and every other phase of anti-Christ are now straining
every nerve. The tug of war is now with us. Look around you and learn your duty.
The work is not yet done, the time of folding of hands has not yet arrived; our swords
must not yet see their scabbards, for the foe is not yet slain. We see, in many a
land, the proudest dynasties and tyrannies still crushing, with their mountain-weight,
every free motion of the consciences and hearts of men. We see, on the other hand,
the truest heroism for the right, and the greatest devotion to the truth in hearts
that God has touched. We have a work to do, as great as our forefathers, and, perhaps,
far greater. The enemies of truth are more numerous and subtle than ever, and the
needs of the Church are greater than at any preceding time. If we be not debtors
to the present, then men were never debtors to their age and their time. Brethren,
we are debtors to the hour in which we live. Oh! that we might stamp it with truth,
and that God might help us to impress upon its wings some proof that it has not flown
by neglected and unheeded.
And, brethren, we are debtors to the future. If we, the children of God, are
not valiant for truth now, if we maintain not the great standard of God's omnipotent
truth, we shall be traitors to our liege Lord. Who can tell the fearful consequences
to future generations if we now betray our trust. If we suffer orthodoxy to fail,
or God's truth to be dishonored, future generations will despise and execrate our
name. If we now suffer the good vessel of gospel truth to be drifted by adverse winds
upon the rock, if we keep not good watch to her helm, and cry not well to her great
Master that she may led to a prosperous end, surely those who are to succeed us will
look on us with scorn, and say, "Shame on the men, who had so great and glorious
a mission, and neglected it, and handed down to us a beclouded gospel and an impure
Church." Stand up ye warriors of the truth, stand up firmly, for ye are debtors
to the future, even as ye are debtors to the past. Sow well, for others must reap.
You are fountains for coming generations; O, be careful that your streams are pure.
May the Spirit of God enable you so to live, that you can bequeath your example as
a legacy to the future.
And as we are debtors to all times, so we are all debtors to all classes.
But there are some that always get well paid for what they do, and, therefore, I
shall not mention them, since I am not aware that their claims need my advocacy.
We may be remarkably indebted to members of parliament, but for the little they do
they are tolerably well rewarded; at least, we take it that the place is more an
honour to some of them than they are to their place. It may be true that we owe a
great deal to the higher ranks of society; we may possibly, in some mysterious way,
be much under obligation to the sacred personages who are styled lords and bishops,
but it is not necessary that I should stand up for their claims, for I have no doubt
they will take good care of themselves; at any rate they have usually done so, and
have not allowed themselves to be robbed of much of their deservings. (Who would
wish that they should? but it is possible to pay too dear, especially when you could
get on as well without them as with them.) I shall not refer to any class of society,
and say of them, we are debtors, except to one, and that is the poor. My brethren,
we are debtors to the poor. "What!" says some one, "I, debtor to the
poor?" Yes, my lady, thou art a debtor to the poorest man that ever walked the
earth. The beggar shivering in his rags, may owe thee something, if thou givest him
alms; but thou owest him something more. Charity to the poor is a debt. We are not
at liberty to give or to refuse. God requires us to remember the poor, and their
poverty is a claim upon our generosity. But in the case of the believing poor,
their claim upon us is far more binding, and I beseech you do not neglect it. O how
much we owe them. When I think how the poor toil day after day and receive barely
enough to keep their souls within their bodies: when I think how frequently they
serve their Church, unhonored and unrewarded, when I know some of them who perform
the hardest deeds of service for our common Christianity, and are yet passed by with
neglect and scorn; when I remember how many of them are toiling in the Sabbath-school,
having neither emolument nor reward; when I consider how many of the lower classes
are as prayerful, as careful, as honest, as upright, as devout, as spiritual as others
are, and frequently more so, I cannot but say that we are debtors to all God's poor
in a very large degree. We little know how many a blessing the poor man's prayer
brings down upon us. I beseech you then, beloved, wherever you see a poor saint,
wherever you behold an aged Christian, recollect he cannot be so much in debt to
you as you are to him, for you have much, and he has but little, and he cannot be
in debt for what he has not. Many of you will not feel the force of Christian reasons,
let me remind you, that even you are obliged to the laboring poor. The rich man hoards
wealth, the poor man makes it. Great men get the blessing, but poor men bring it
down from heaven. Some men are the cisterns that hold God's rain; but other men are
those who pray the rain from heaven, like very Elijahs, and many of these are to
be found in the lower ranks of society. "Brethren, we are debtors;" what
I have is not my own, but God's; and if it be God's, then it belongs to God's poor.
What the wealthiest man has is not his own, but God's, and if it be God's then it
is Christ's, and if Christ's, then his children's; and Christ's children are often
those who are hungry, and thirsty, and destitute, and afflicted, and tormented. Take
care then of that class, brethren, for we are debtors to them.
But while I have thus mentioned some of the different classes to whom we are debtors,
I have not yet come to the point on which I desire to press your attention. Brethren,
we are debtors to our covenant God; that is the point which swallows up all.
I owe nothing to the past, I owe nothing to the future, I owe nothing to the rich,
and nothing to the poor, compared with what I owe to my God. I am mainly indebted
to these because I owe so much to my God. Now, Christian, consider how thou art a
debtor to thy God. Remember thou art now a debtor to God in a legal sense, as thou
art in Adam, thou art no longer a debtor to God's justice as thou once wast. We are
all born God's creatures, and as such we are debtors to him; to obey him with all
our body, and soul, and strength. When we have broken his commandments, as we all
of us have, we are debtors to his justice, and we owe to him a vast amount of punishment,
which we are not able to pay. But of the Christian, it can be said, that he does
not owe God's justice a solitary farthing; for Christ has paid the debt his
people owed. I am a debtor to God's love, I am a debtor to God's grace, I am a debtor
to God's power, I am a debtor to God's forgiving mercy; but I am no debtor to his
justice–for he, himself, will never accuse me of a debt once paid. It was said, "It
is finished!" and by that was meant, that what'er his people owed was wiped
away for ever from the book of remembrance. Christ, to the uttermost, has satisfied
divine justice; the debt is paid, the hand-writing is nailed to the cross, the receipt
is given, and we are debtors to God's justice no longer. But then because we are
not debtors to God in that sense, we become ten times more debtors to God than we
should have been otherwise. Because he has remitted all our debt of sin, we are all
the more indebted to him in another sense. Oh! Christian, stop and ponder for a moment!
What a debtor thou art to Divine Sovereignty! Thou art not as some, who say,
that thou didst choose thyself to be saved; but thou believest that God could have
destroyed thee, if he had pleased and that it is entirely of his own good pleasure
that thou art made one of his, while others are suffered to perish. Consider, then,
how much thou owest to his Sovereignty! If he had willed it, thou wouldst have been
among the damned; if he had not willed thy salvation, all thou couldst do would have
been utterly powerless to deliver thee from perdition. Remember how much thou owest
to his disinterested love, which rent his own Son from his bosom that he might
die for thee! let the cross and bloody sweat remind thee of thine obligation. Consider
how much you owe to his forgiving grace, that after ten thousand affronts
he loves you as infinitely as ever; and after a myriad of sins, his Spirit still
resides within you. Consider what you owe to his power; how he has raised
you from your death in sin, and how he has preserved your spiritual life, how he
has kept you from falling, and how, though a thousand enemies have beset your path,
you have been able to hold on your way! Consider what thou owest to his immutability.
Though thou hast changed a thousand times, he has not changed once; though thou hast
shifted thy intentions, and thy will, yet he has not once swerved from his eternal
purpose, but still has held thee fast. Consider thou art as deep in debt as thou
canst be to every attribute of God. To God thou owest thyself, and all thou hast.
"Brethren, we are debtors."
We are not only debtors to God in the light of gratitude for all these things; but
because of our relationship to him. Are we not his sons, and is there
not a debt the son owes to the father which a lifetime of obedience can never remove?
I feel that to the knee that dandled me and the breast that gave me sustenance, I
owe more than I can ever pay; and to him who taught me, and led me in the paths of
truth I owe so much, that I dare not speak of the tremendous weight of obligation
due to him. Beloved, if God be a father, where is honor? And if we be his sons, are
we not thereby bound to love, serve, and obey him? Sonship towards an earthly parent
brings with it a host of duties, and shall the Everlasting Father be unregarded?
No. The true son of God will never blush to acknowledge that he is in subjection
to the Father of spirits. He will rather glory in his high connection, and with reverence
obey the commands of his Heavenly Parent. Remember again, we are Christ's brethren,
and there is a debt in brotherhood. Brother owes to brother what he cannot pay until
he dies. It is more than some men think to have been rocked in the same cradle and
dandled on the same knee. Some esteem it nothing. Alas! it is a well-known truth,
that if you want help you must go anywhere for it, save to your brother's house.
Go not into thy brother's house in the day of thine adversity. Go to the greatest
stranger, and he shall help thee; go to thy brother, and he shall oft upbraid thee.
But this should not be so. Brotherhood has its ties of debt, and to my brother I
owe what I shall not yet pay him. Beloved, are ye brothers of Christ, and do ye think
that ye owe him no love? Are ye brothers and sisters of the saints, and think ye
that ye ought not to love and serve them, even to the washing of their feet? Oh,
yes, I am sure ye ought. I am afraid none of us feel enough how much we are debtors
to God. Yea, I am certain that we do not. It is astonishing how much gratitude a
man will feel to you if you have been only the instrument of doing him good; but
how little gratitude he feels to God, the first cause of all! There have been many
who have been won from drunkenness by hearing the preaching of God's Word even under
myself, and those persons have been ready to carry me on their shoulders, from very
gratitude, for joy; but I would be bound to say they make a far more feeble display
of their thankfulness to my Master. At least, they seem to have lost their first
love to him far sooner than they did to his servant. We remember to be grateful to
all except our God. Our little debts we can pay. Debts of honor, as we call them–which
are no debts in some men's eyes–we can discharge; but the great and solemn debt we
owe to God is ofttimes passed by, neglected and forgotten. "Brethren, we are
debtors."
II. In the second
place, very briefly, WHAT OUGHT WE TO DRAW FROM THIS DOCTRINE, that we are debtors?
First, we think we
should learn a lesson of humility. If we be debtors we never ought to be proud.
All we can do for God is but a trifling acknowledgment of an infinite obligation;
yea, more, our good works are gifts of his grace, and do but put us under greater
debt to the author of them. Stay, then, ye who are puffed up by your achievements,
consider ye have but poorly performed, not a deed of supererogation, but of ordinary
duty. How much have you done after all, young man? I thought I saw you the other
day looking amazingly great, because on such an occasion you really had done some
little service to Christ's Church; and you looked astonishingly proud about it. Young
man, didst thou do more than thou oughtest to have done? "No, I did not,"
you say; "I was a debtor." Then who should be proud of having paid only
a part of his debt, when, after all, he owes a great deal more than he is worth?
Is there anything to be proud of in having paid a farthing in the pound? I take it
there is not. Let us do what we may, it is but a farthing in the pound that we shall
ever be able to pay of the debt of gratitude we owe to God. It is curious to see
how some men are proud of being greater debtors than others. One man has ten talents,
and oh how proud he is, and how he looks down upon another who has but one, and says:
"Ah, you are a mean man; I have ten talents." Well, then, thou owest ten
talents, and thy brother owes only one; why should you be proud that you owe more
than he does? It would be a foolish pride indeed, if two prisoners in the Queen's
Bench were to boast, one saying, "I owe a hundred pounds," and the other
replying, "I am a greater gentleman than you are, for I owe a thousand."
I have heard that in the Marshalsea of old they did take rank according to the greatness
of their debts. It is often so on earth: we take rank at times according to the greatness
of our talents. But the greatness of our talents is only the amount of our debt;
for, the more we have, the more we owe. If a man walks the streets, sticking his
bill upon his breast, and proclaiming with pride that he is a debtor, you would say,
"Sure he must be a madman; lock him up." And so if a man walk through the
earth and lift up his head because of what God has given him, and say, "I am
not to notice the poor, I am not to shake hands with the ignorant, because I am so
great and mighty," you may with equal reason say, "Take away that poor
creature, his pride is his insanity; put him in safe custody, and let him learn that
all he has is his debt, and that he has no cause for pride."
Then again, how
zealous we should be for our Master! Though we cannot pay all, we can at least
acknowledge the debt. It is something on the part of a debtor if he will but acknowledge
the claim of his creditor. Oh! how ought we day by day to seek, by living unto God,
to acknowledge the debt we owe to him; and, if we cannot pay him the principal, yet
to give him some little interest upon the talent which he has lent to us, and upon
those stupendous mercies which he has granted to us. I beseech you, my dear friends,
take this thought with you wherever you go: "I am a debtor, I must serve my
God. It is not left to my pleasure whether I will do it or no; but I am a debtor,
and I must serve him."
If we all believed this, how much easier it would be to get our churches into good
order! I go to one brother, and I say, "Brother, there is such-and-such an office
in the Sabbath-school; will you take it?" "Well, sir, you know how much
I love the cause, and how earnest I am in doing everything that I can to serve my
Maker; but (now comes the end of it all) I really work so hard all the week that
I cannot afford to go out on the Sabbath to Sunday-schools." There you see,
that man does not know that he is a debtor. I take him a bill to-morrow morning,
and he says, "Do you coming begging?" I say, "No; I have brought a
bill; look at it." "Oh, yes," he says, "I see; there is the cash."
Now that is the way to act; to feel and acknowledge that you are a debtor; when there
is a thing to be done, to do it, and to say, "Do not thank me for it, I have
only done what I ought to have done; I have only paid the debt that I owed."
Then let me give you just one piece of homely advice before I send you away. Be just
before you are generous, and especially before you are generous to yourselves. Take
care that you pay your debts before you spend money upon your pleasures. I would
recommend that to many Christians. Now, there are some of you here incommoding us
to-night, and making us very hot. You have been very generous to yourselves by coming
here, but not very just to your ministers in neglecting the places of worship where
you ought to have gone. You said to yourselves, "We have no doubt we ought to
be there; that is our debt; nevertheless we should like to gratify our curiosity
for once, by hearing this singular preacher, who will be sure to say something extravagant
that will furnish the occasion for a joke for the next fortnight." Now, why
did you come here till you had paid your debt? You should have rallied round your
own minister and strengthened his hands in the work of the Lord. Again; how many
a man is there who says, "I want such-and-such a luxury; I know the cause of
God demands of me more than I give it, but I must have that luxury, that shilling
shall go to myself, and not to God." Now if you had a debtor who owed you more
than he could pay, and you saw him going off on pleasure in a horse and gig to-morrow,
you would say, "It is all very well his having that fine horse and gig, and
going down to Greenwich; but I would rather that he should pay me the ten pound note
I lent him the other day. If he cannot afford to pay, he ought to keep at home till
he can." So in regard to God. We come and spend our time and our money upon
our pleasures before we pay our just and fair debts. Now, what is not right towards
man is not right towards God. If it is robbing man to spend the money in pleasure
wherewith we ought to pay our debts; it is robbing God if we employ our time, our
talents, or our money, in anything but his service, until we feel we have done our
share in that service. I beseech you, members of churches, deacons, or whatever you
may be, lay this to heart. To God's cause you are debtors. Do not expect to get thanked
at last for doing much, for after all you have done, you will only have done what
is your duty.
Now, farewell to such of you as are debtors in that sense; but just one word to those
who are debtors in the other sense; Sinner, thou who owest to God's justice, thou
who hast never been pardoned; what wilt thou do when pay-day comes/ My friend over
there, you who have run up a score of black sins, what will you do when pay-day comes,
and no Christ to pay your debts for you? What will you do if you are out of God and
out of Christ at the last pay-day, when the whole roll of your debts to God shall
be opened, and you have no Christ to give you a discharge? I beseech thee, "Agree
with thy creditor quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him; lest he deliver thee
to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer to cast thee into prison:
verily I say unto thee, thou shall not come out till thou hast paid the uttermost
farthing." But if thou agreest with thy creditor, he will, for Jesus' sake,
blot out all thy debts, and set thee at liberty, so that thou shalt never be amenable
for thine iniquities.
A Sermon
(No. 2200)
Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 12th,
1891, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"And I will put my spirit within you."–Ezekiel 36:27.
o preface is needed; and the largeness of
our subject forbids our wasting time in beating about the bush. I shall try to do
two things this morning: first, I would commend the text; and secondly, I
would in some measure expound the text.
I. First, as for
THE COMMENDATION OF THE TEXT, the tongues of men and of angels might fail. To call
it a golden sentence would be much too commonplace: to liken it to a pearl of great
price would be too poor a comparison. We cannot feel, much less speak, too much in
praise of the great God who has put this clause into the covenant of His grace. In
that covenant every sentence is more precious than heaven and earth; and this line
is not the least among His choice words of promise: "I will put my spirit within
you."
I would begin by saying that it is a gracious word. It was spoken to a graceless
people, to a people who had followed "their own way," and refused the way
of God; a people who had already provoked something more than ordinary anger in the
Judge of all the earth; for He Himself said (verse 18), "I poured my fury upon
them." These people, even under chastisement, caused the holy name of God to
be profaned among the heathen, whither they went. They had been highly favoured,
but they abused their privileges, and behaved worse than those who never knew the
Lord. They sinned wantonly, wilfully, wickedly, proudly and presumptuously; and by
this they greatly provoked the Lord. Yet to them He made such a promise as this–"
I will put my spirit within you." Surely, where sin abounded grace did much
more abound.
Clearly this is a word of grace, for the law saith nothing of this kind. Turn to
the law of Moses, and see if there be any word spoken therein concerning the putting
of the Spirit within men to cause them to walk in God's statutes. The law proclaims
the statutes; but the gospel alone promises the spirit by which the statutes will
be obeyed. The law commands and makes us know what God requires of us; but the gospel
goes further, and inclines us to obey the will of the Lord, and enables us practically
to walk in His ways. Under the dominion of grace the Lord worketh in us to will and
to do of His own good pleasure.
So great a boon as this could never come to any man by merit. A man might so act
as to deserve a reward of a certain kind, in measure suited to His commendable action;
but the Holy Spirit can never be the wage of human service: the idea verges upon
blasphemy. Can any man deserve that Christ should die for him? Who would dream of
such a thing? Can any man deserve that the Holy Ghost should dwell in him, and work
holiness in him? The greatness of the blessing lifts it high above the range of merit,
and we see that if the Holy Ghost be bestowed, it must be by an act of divine grace–
grace infinite in bounty, exceeding all that we could have imagined. "Sovereign
grace o'er sin abounding" is here seen in clearest light. "I will put my
spirit within you" is a promise which drops with graces as the honeycomb with
honey. Listen to the divine music which pours from this word of love. I hear the
soft melody of grace, grace, grace, and nothing else but grace. Glory be to God,
who gives to sinners the indwelling of His Spirit.
Note, next, that it is a divine word: "I will put my spirit within you."
Who but the Lord could speak after this fashion? Can one man put the Spirit of God
within another? Could all the church combined breathe the Spirit of God into a single
sinner's heart? To put any good thing into the deceitful heart of man is a great
achievement; but to put the Spirit of God into the heart, truly this is the finger
of God. Nay, here I may say, the Lord has made bare His arm, and displayed the fulness
of His mighty power. To put the Spirit of God into our nature is a work peculiar
to the Godhead, and to do this within the nature of a free agent, such as man, is
marvellous. Who but Jehovah, the God of Israel, can speak after this royal style,
and, beyond all dispute, declare, "I will put my spirit within you?" Men
must always surround their resolves with conditions and uncertainties; but since
omnipotence is at the back of every promise of God, He speaks like a king; yea, in
a style which is only fit for the eternal God. He purposes and promises, and He as
surely performs. Sure, then, is this sacred saying, "I will put my spirit within
you." Sure, because divine. O sinner, if we poor creatures had the saving of
you, we should break down in the attempt; but, behold the Lord Himself comes on the
scene, and the work is done! All the difficulties are removed by this one sentence,
"I will put my spirit within you." We have wrought with our spirit, we
have wept over you, 'and we have entreated you; but we have failed. Lo, there cometh
One into the matter who will not fail, with whom nothing is impossible; and He begins
His work by saying, "I will put my spirit within you." The word is of grace
and of God; regard it, then, as a pledge from the God of grace.
To me there is much charm in the further thought that this is an individual and
personal word. The Lord means, "I will put my spirit within you": that
is to say, within you, as individuals. "I will put my spirit within you"
one by one. This must be so since the connection requires it. We read in verse 26,
"A new heart also will I give you." Now, a new heart can only be given
to one person. Each man needs a heart of his own, and each man must have a new heart
for himself. "And a new spirit will I put within you." Within each one
this must be done. "And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,
and I will give you an heart of flesh"–these are all personal, individual operations
of grace. God deals with men one by one in the solemn matters of eternity, sin, and
salvation. We are born one by one, and we die one by one: even so we must be born
again one by one, and each one for himself must receive the Spirit of God. Without
this a man has nothing. He cannot be caused to walk in God's statutes except by the
infusion of grace into him as an individual. I think I see among my hearers a lone
man, or woman, who feels himself, or herself, to be all alone in the world, and therefore
hopeless. You can believe that God will do great things for a nation, but how shall
the solitary be thought of? You are an odd person, one that could not be written
down in any list; peculiar sinner, with constitutional tendencies all your own. Thus
saith God, "I will put my spirit within you"; within your
heart–even yours. My dear hearers, you who have long been seeking salvation,
but have not known the power of the Spirit–this is what you need. You have been striving
in the energy of the flesh, but you have not understood where your true strength
lieth. God saith to you, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith
the Lord"; and again, "I will put my spirit within you." Oh, that
this word might be spoken of the Lord to that young man who is ready to despair;
to that sorrowful woman who has been looking into herself for power to pray and believe!
You are without strength or hope in and of yourself; but this meets your case in
all points. "I will put my spirit within you"–within you as an individual.
Enquire of the Lord for it. Lift up your heart in prayer to God, and ask Him to pour
upon you the Spirit of grace and of supplications. Plead with the Lord, saying, "Let
thy good Spirit lead me. Even me." Cry, "Pass me not, my gracious Father;
but in me fulfil this wondrous word of thine, 'I will put my spirit within you.'"
Note, next, that this is a separating word. I do not know whether you will
see this readily; but it must be so: this word separates a man from his fellows.
Men by nature are of another spirit from that of God, and they are under subjection
to that evil spirit, the Prince of the power of the air. When the Lord comes to gather
out His own, fetching them out from among the heathen, He effects the separation
by doing according to this word, "I will put my spirit within you." This
done, the individual becomes a new man. Those who have the Spirit are not of the
world, nor like the world; and they soon have to come out from among the ungodly,
and to be separate; for difference of nature creates conflict. God's Spirit will
not dwell with the evil spirit: you cannot have fellowship with Christ and with Belial;
with the kingdom' of heaven and with this world. I wish that the people of God would
again wake up to the truth that to gather out a people from among men is the great
purpose of the present dispensation. It is still true, as James said at the Jerusalem
Council, "Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles,
to take out of them a people for his name." We are not to remain clinging to
the old wreck with the expectation that we shall pump the water out of her and get
her safe into port. No; the cry is very different–"Take to the lifeboat! Take
to the lifeboat!" You are to quit the wreck, and then you are to carry away
from the sinking mass that which God will save. You must be separate from the old
wreck, lest it suck you down to sure destruction. Your only hope of doing good to
the world is by yourselves being "not of the world," even as Christ was
not of the world. For you to go down to the world's level will neither be good for
it nor for you. That which happened in the days of Noah will be repeated; for when
the sons of God entered into alliance with the daughters of men, and there was a
league between the two races, the Lord could not endure the evil mixture, but drew
up the sluices of the lower deep and swept the earth with a destroying flood. Surely,
in that last day of destruction, when the world is overwhelmed with fire, it will
be because the church of God shall have degenerated, and the distinctions between
the righteous and the wicked shall have been broken down. The Spirit of God, wherever
He comes, doth speedily make and reveal the difference between Israel and Egypt;
and in proportion as His active energy is felt, there will be an ever-widening gulf
between those who are led of the Spirit and those who are under the dominion of the
flesh. The possession of the Spirit will make you, my hearer, quite another sort
of man from what you now are, and then you will be actuated by motives which the
world will not appreciate; for the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Then you will act, and speak, and think, and feel in such a way, that this evil world
will misunderstand and condemn you. Since the carnal mind knoweth not the things
that are of God–for those things are spiritually discerned–it will not approve your
objects and designs. Do not expect it to be your friend. The spirit which makes you
to be the seed of the woman is not the spirit of the world. The seed of the serpent
will hiss at you, and bruise your heel. Your Master said, "Because ye are not
of this world, but I have chosen you out of the world; therefore the world hateth
you." It is a separating word this. Has it separated you? Has the Holy Spirit
called you alone and blessed you? Do you differ from your old companions? Have you
a life they do not understand? If not, may God in mercy put into you that most heavenly
deposit, of which He speaks in our text: "I will put my spirit within you"!
But now notice, that it is a very uniting word. It separates from the world,
but it joins to God. Note how it runs: "I will put my Spirit within you."
It is not merely a spirit, or the spirit, but my spirit. Now
when God's own Spirit comes to reside within our mortal bodies, how near akin we
are to the Most High! "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost?" Does not this make a man sublime? Have you never stood in awe of your
own selves, O ye believers? Have you enough regarded even this poor body, as being
sanctified and dedicated, and elevated into a sacred condition, by being set apart
to be the temple of the Holy Ghost? Thus are we brought into the closest union with
God that we can well conceive of. Thus is the Lord our light and our life; while
our spirit is subordinated to the divine Spirit. "I will put my spirit within
you"–then God Himself dwelleth in you. The Spirit of Him that raised up Christ
from the dead is in you. With Christ in God your life is hid, and the Spirit seals
you, anoints you, and abides in you. By the Spirit we have access to the Father;
by the Spirit we perceive our adoption, and learn to cry, "Abba, Father";
by the Spirit we are made partakers of the divine nature, and have communion with
the thrice holy Lord.
I cannot help adding here that it is a very condescending word–"I will
put my spirit within you." Is it really so, that the Spirit of God who displays
the power and energetic force of God, by whom God's Word is carried into effect–
that the Spirit who of old moved upon the face of the waters, and brought order and
life from chaos and death–can it be so that He will deign to sojourn in men? God
in our nature is a very wonderful conception! God in the babe at Bethlehem, God in
the carpenter of Nazareth, God in the "man of sorrows," God in the Crucified,
God in Him who was buried in the tomb–this is all marvellous. The incarnation is
an infinite mystery of love; but we believe it. Yet, if it were possible to compare
one illimitable wonder with another, I should say that God's dwelling in His people
and that repeated ten thousand times over, is more marvellous. That the Holy Ghost
should dwell in millions of redeemed men and women, is a miracle not surpassed by
that of our Lord's espousal of human nature. For our Lord's body was perfectly pure,
and the Godhead, while it dwells with His holy manhood, does at least dwell with
a perfect and sinless nature; but the Holy Spirit bows Himself to dwell in sinful
men; to dwell in men who, after their conversion, still find the flesh warring against
the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; men who are not perfect, though they
strive to be so; men who have to lament their shortcomings, and even to confess with
shame a measure of unbelief. "I will put my spirit within you" means the
abiding of the Holy Spirit in our imperfect nature. Wonder of wonders! Yet is it
as surely a fact as it is a wonder. Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have
the Spirit of God, for "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of his." You could not bear the suspicion that you are not His; and therefore,
as surely as you are Christ's, you have His Spirit abiding in you. The Saviour has
gone away on purpose that the Comforter might be given to dwell in you, and He does
dwell in you. Is it not so? If it be so, admire this condescending God, and worship
and praise His name. Sweetly submit to His rule in all things. Grieve not the Spirit
of God. Watch carefully that nothing comes within you that may defile the temple
of God. Let the faintest monition of the Holy Spirit be law to you. It was a holy
mystery that the presence of the Lord was specially within the veil of the Tabernacle,
and that the Lord God spake by Urim and Thummim to His people; it is an equally sacred
marvel that now the Holy Ghost dwells in our spirits and abides within our nature
and speaks to us whatsoever He hears of the Father. By divine impressions which the
opened ear can apprehend, and the tender heart can receive, He speaketh still. God
grant us to know His still small voice so as to listen to it with reverent humility
and loving joy: then shall we know the meaning of these words, "I will put my
spirit within you."
Nor have I yet done with commending my text, for I must not fail to remind you that
it is a very spiritual word. "I will put my spirit within you" has
nothing to do with our wearing a peculiar garb–that would be a matter of little worth.
It has nothing to do with affectations of speech–those might readily become a deceptive
peculiarity. Our text has nothing to do with outward rites and ceremonies; but goes
much further and deeper. It is an instructive symbol when the Lord teaches us our
death with Christ by burial in baptism: it is to our great profit that He ordains
bread and wine to be tokens of our communion in the body and blood of His dear Son;
but these are only outward things, and if they are unattended with the Holy Spirit
they fail of their design. There is something infinitely greater in this promise–"I
will put my spirit within you." I cannot give you the whole force of the Hebrew,
as to the words "within you," unless I paraphrase them a little, and read
"I will put my spirit in the midst of you." The sacred deposit is put deep
down in our life's secret place. God puts His Spirit not upon the surface of the
man, but into the centre of his being. The promise means–"I will put my spirit
in your bowels, in your hearts, in the very soul of you." This is an intensely
spiritual matter, without admixturing of anything material and visible. It is spiritual,
you see, because it is the Spirit that is given; and He is given internally within
our spirit. It is true the Spirit operates upon the external life, but it is through
the secret and internal life, and of that inward operation our text speaks. This
is what we so greatly require. Do you know what it is to attend a service and hear
God's truth faithfully preached, and yet you are forced to say, "Somehow or
other it did not enter into me; I did not feel the unction and taste the savor of
it"? "I will put my spirit within you," is what you need. Do you not
read your Bibles, and even pray, and do not both devotional exercises become too
much external acts? "I will put my spirit within you" meets this
evil. The good Spirit fires your heart; he penetrates your mind; he saturates your
soul; he touches the secret and vital springs of your existence. Blessed Word! I
love my text. It love it better than I can speak of it.
Observe once more that this Word is a very effectual one. "I will put
my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my
judgments and do them." The Spirit is operative–first upon the inner life, in
causing you to love the law of the Lord; and then it moves you openly to keep His
statutes concerning Himself, and His judgments between you and your fellow-men. Obedience,
if a man should be flogged to it, would be of little worth; but obedience springing
out of a life within, this is a priceless breastplate of jewels. If you have a lantern,
you cannot make it shine by polishing the glass outside, you must put a candle within
it: and this is what God does, He puts the light of the Spirit within us, and then
our light shines. He puts His Spirit so deep down into the heart, that the whole
nature feels it: it works upward, like a spring from the bottom of a well. It is,
moreover, so deeply implanted that there is no removing it. If it were in the memory,
you might forget it; if it were in the intellect, you might err in it; but "within
you" it touches the whole man, and has dominion over you without fear of failure.
When the very kernel of your nature is quickened into holiness, practical godliness
is effectually secured. Blessed is he who knows by experience our Lord's words–"The
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life."
If I should fail in expounding the text, I hope I have so fully commended it to you,
that you will turn it over and meditate upon it yourselves, and so get a home-born
exposition of it. The key of the text is within its own self; for if the Lord gives
you the Spirit, you will then understand his words–"I will put my spirit within
you."
II. But now I
must work upon THE EXPOSITION OF THE TEXT. I trust the Holy Spirit will aid me therein.
Let me show you how the good Spirit manifests the fact that He dwells in men. I have
to be very brief on a theme that might require a great length of time; and can only
mention a part of His ways and workings.
One of the first effects of the Spirit of God being put within us is quickening.
We are dead by nature to all heavenly and spiritual things; but when the Spirit of
God comes, then we begin to live. The man visited of the Spirit begins to feel; the
terrors of God make him tremble, the love of Christ makes him weep. He begins to
fear, and he begins to hope: a great deal of the first and a very little of the second,
it may be. He learns spiritually to sorrow: he is grieved that he has sinned, and
that he cannot cease from sinning. He begins to desire that which once he despised:
he specially desires to find the way of pardon, and reconciliation with God. Ah,
dear hearers! I cannot make you feel, I cannot make you sorrow for sin, I cannot
make you desire eternal life; but it is all done as soon as this is fulfilled by
the Lord, "I will put my spirit within you." The quickening Spirit brings
life to the dead in trespasses and sins.
This life of the Spirit shows itself by causing the man to pray. The cry is the distinctive
mark of the living child. He begins to cry in broken accents, "God be merciful
to me." At the same time that he pleads, he feels the soft relentings of repentance.
He has a new mind towards sin, and he grieves that he should have grieved his God.
With this comes faith; perhaps feeble and trembling, only a touch of the hem of the
Saviour's robe; but still Jesus is his only hope and his sole trust. To Him he looks
for pardon and salvation. He dares to believe that Christ can save even him. Then
has life come into the soul when trust in Jesus spring up in the heart.
Remember, dear friends, that as the Holy Spirit gives quickening at the first, so
He must revive and strengthen it. Whenever you become dull and faint, cry for the
Holy Spirit. Whenever you cannot feel in devotion as you wish to feel, and are unable
to rise to any heights of communion with God, plead my text in faith, and beg the
Lord to do as He hath said, namely, "I will put my spirit within you."
Go to God with this covenant clause, even if you have to confess, "Lord, I am
like a log, I am a helpless lump of weakness. Unless thou come and quicken me I cannot
live to Thee." Plead importunately the promise, "I will put my spirit within
you." All the life of the flesh will gender corruption; all the energy that
comes of mere excitement will die down into the black ashes of disappointment; the
Holy Ghost alone is the life of the regenerated heart. Have you the Spirit? and if
you have Him within you, have you only a small measure of His life, and do you wish
for more? Then go still where you went at first. There is only one river of the water
of life: draw from its floods. You will be lively enough, and bright enough, and
strong enough, and happy enough when the Holy Spirit is mighty within your soul.
When the Holy Spirit enters, after quickening He gives enlightening. We cannot
make men see the truth, they are so blind; but when the Lord puts His Spirit within
them their eyes are opened. At first they may see rather hazily; but still they do
see. As the light increases, and the eye is strengthened, they see more and more
clearly. What a mercy it is to see Christ, to look unto Him, and so to be lightened!
By the Spirit, souls see things in their reality: they see the actual truth of them,
and perceive that they are facts. The Spirit of God illuminates every believer, so
that he sees still more marvellous things out of God's law; but this never happens
unless the Spirit opens his eyes. The apostle speaks of being brought "out of
darkness into His marvellous light"; and it is a marvellous light, indeed, to
come to the blind and dead. Marvellous because it reveals truth with clearness. It
reveals marvellous things in a marvellous way. If hills and mountains, if rocks and
stones were suddenly to be full of eyes, it would be a strange thing in the earth,
but not more marvellous than for you and me by the illumination of the Holy Spirit
to see spiritual things. When you cannot make people see the truth, do not grow angry
with them, but cry, "Lord, put thy spirit within them." When you get into
a puzzle over the Word of the Lord, do not give up in despair, but believingly cry,
"Lord, put thy Spirit within me." Here lies the only true light of the
soul. Depend upon it, all that you can see by any light except the Spirit of God
you do not spiritually see. If you only see intellectually, or rationally, you do
not see to salvation. Unless intellect and reason have received heavenly light, you
may see, and yet not see; even as Israel of old. Indeed, your boasted clear sight
may aggravate your ruin, like that of the Pharisees, of whom our Lord said, "But
now ye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth." O lord, grant us the Spirit
within, for our soul's illumination!
The Spirit also works conviction. Conviction is more forcible than illumination:
it is the setting of a truth before the eye of the soul, so as to make it powerful
upon the conscience. I speak to many here who know what conviction means; still I
will explain it from my own experience. I knew what sin meant by my reading, and
yet I never knew sin in its heinousness and horror, till I found myself bitten by
it as by a fiery serpent, and felt its poison boiling in my veins. When the Holy
Ghost made sin to appear sin, then was I overwhelmed with the sight, and I would
fain have fled from myself to escape the intolerable vision. A naked sin stripped
of all excuse, and set in the light of truth, is a worse sight than to see the devil
himself. When I saw sin as an offence against a just and holy God, committed by such
a proud and yet insignificant creature as myself, then was I alarmed. Sirs, did you
ever see and feel yourselves to be sinners? "Oh, yes," you say, "we
are sinners." O sirs, do you mean it? Do you know what it means? Many of you
are no more sinners in your own estimation than you are Hottentots. The beggar who
exhibits a sham sore knows not disease; if he did he would have enough of it without
pretences. To kneel down and say, "Lord, have mercy upon us miserable sinners,"
and then to get up and feel yourself a very decent sort of body, worthy of commendation,
is to mock Almighty God. It is by no means a common thing to get hold of a real sinner,
one who is truly so in his own esteem; and it is as pleasant as it is rare, for you
can bring to the real sinner the real Saviour, and He will welcome him. I do not
wonder that Hart said:
"A sinner is a sacred thing,
The Holy Ghost hath made him so."
The point of contact between a sinner and Christ is sin.
The Lord Jesus gave Himself for our sins, He never gave Himself for our righteousnesses.
He comes to heal the sick, and the point He looks to is our sickness. When a physician
is called in he has no patience with things apart from his calling. "Tut, tut!"
he cries, " I do not care about your furniture, nor the number of your cows,
nor what income tax you pay, nor what politics you admire; I have come to see a sick
man about his disease, and if you will not let me deal with it I will be gone."
When a sinner's corruptions are loathsome to himself, when his guilt is foul in his
own nostrils, when he fears the death that will come of it, then he is really convinced
by the Holy Spirit; and no one ever knows sin as his own personal ruin till the Holy
Spirit shows it to him. Conviction as to the Lord Jesus comes in the same way. We
do not know Christ as our Saviour till the Holy Spirit is put within us. Our Lord
says–"He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you," and you never
see the things of the Lord Jesus till the Holy Ghost shows them to you. To know Jesus
Christ as your Saviour, as one who died for you in particular, is a knowledge which
only the Holy Spirit imparts. To apprehend present salvation, as your own personally,
comes by your being convinced of it by the Spirit. Oh, to be convinced of righteousness,
and convinced of acceptance in the Beloved! This conviction cometh only of Him that
hath called you, even of Him of whom the Lord saith, "I will put my Spirit within
you."
Furthermore, the Holy Spirit comes into us for purification. "I will
put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep
my judgments, and do them." When the Spirit comes, He infuses a new life, and
that new life is a fountain of holiness. The new nature cannot sin, because it is
born of God, and "it is a living and incorruptible seed." This life produces
good fruit, and good fruit only. The Holy Ghost is the life of holiness. At the same
time, the coming of the Holy Ghost into the soul gives a mortal stab to the power
of sin. The old man is not absolutely dead, but it is crucified with Christ. It is
under sentence, and before the eye of the law it is dead; but as a man nailed to
a cross may linger long, but yet he cannot live, so the power of evil dies hard,
but die it must. Sin is an executed criminal: those nails which fasten it to the
cross will hold it fast till no breath remains in it. God the Holy Ghost gives the
power of sin its death wound. The old nature struggles in its dying agonies, but
it is doomed, and die it must. But you never will overcome sin by your own power,
nor by any energy short of that of the Holy Spirit. Resolves may bind it, as Samson
was bound with cords; but sin will snap the cords asunder. The Holy Spirit lays the
axe at the root of sin, and fall it must. The Holy Ghost within a man is "the
Spirit of judgment, the Spirit of burning." Do you know Him in that character?
As the Spirit of judgment, the Holy Spirit pronounces sentence on sin, and it goes
out with the brand of Cain upon it. He does more: He delivers sin over to burning.
He executes the death penalty on that which He has judged. How many of our sins have
we had to burn alive! and it has cost us no small pain to do it. Sin must be got
out of us by fire, if no gentler means will serve; and the Spirit of God is a consuming
fire. Truly, "our God is a consuming fire." They paraphrase it, "God
out of Christ is a consuming fire"; but that is not Scripture: it is, "our
God," our covenant God, who is a consuming fire to refine us from sin. Has not
the Lord said, "I will purely purge away all thy dross, and take away all thy
sin"? This is what the Spirit does, and it is by no means easy work for the
flesh, which would spare many a flattering sin if it could.
The Holy Spirit bedews the soul with purity till He saturates it. Oh, to have a heart
saturated with holy influences till it shall be as Gideon's fleece, which held so
much dew that Gideon could wring out a bowl full from it! Oh, that our whole nature
were filled with the Spirit of God; that we were sanctified wholly, body, soul, and
spirit! Sanctification is the result of the Holy Spirit being put within us.
Next, the Holy Ghost acts in the heart as the Spirit of preservation. Where
He dwells men do not go back unto perdition. He works in them a watchfulness against
temptation day by day. He works in them to wrestle against sin. Rather than sin a
believer would die ten thousand deaths. He works in believers union to Christ, which
is the source and guarantee of acceptable fruitfulness. He creates in the saints
those holy things which glorify God, and bless the sons of men. All true fruit is
the fruit of the Spirit. Every true prayer must be "praying in the Holy Ghost."
He helpeth our infirmities in prayer. Even the hearing of the Word of the Lord is
of the Spirit, for John says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard
behind me a great voice." Everything that comes of the man, or is kept alive
in the man, is first infused and then sustained and perfected of the Spirit. "It
is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." We never go an
inch towards heaven in any other power than that of the Holy Ghost. We do not even
stand fast and remain steadfast except as we are upheld by the Holy Spirit. The vineyard
which the Lord hath planted He also preserves; as it is written, "I the Lord
do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night
and day." Did I hear that young man say, "I should like to become a Christian,
but I fear I should not hold out? How am I to be preserved?" A very proper inquiry
for "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." Temporary Christians
are no Christians: only the believer who continues to believe will enter heaven.
How, then, can we hold on in such a world as this? Here is the answer. "I will
put my spirit within you." When a city has been captured in war, those who formerly
possessed it seek to win it back again; but the king who captured it sends a garrison
to live within the walls, and he said to the captain, "Take care of this city
that I have conquered, and let not the enemy take it again." So the Holy Ghost
is the garrison of God within our redeemed humanity, and he will keep us to the end.
"May the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus." For preservation, then, we look to the Holy Spirit.
Lest I weary you, I will be very brief upon the next point: the Holy Spirit within
us is for guidance. The Holy Spirit is given to lead us into all truth. Truth
is like a vast grotto, and the Holy Spirit brings torches, and shows us all the splendour
of the roof; and since the passage seems intricate, He knows the way, and He lead
us into the deep things of God. He opens up to us one truth after another, by His
light and by His guidance, and thus we are "taught of the Lord." He is
also our practical guide to heaven, helping and directing us on the upward journey.
I wish Christian people oftener inquired of the Holy Ghost as to guidance in their
daily life. Know ye not that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? You need not always
be running to this friend and to that to get direction: wait upon the Lord in silence,
sit still in quiet before the oracle of God. Use the judgment God has given you;
but when that suffices not, resort to Him whom Mr. Bunyan calls "the Lord High
Secretary," who lives within, who is infinitely wise, and who can guide you
by making you to "hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way, walk ye in
it." The Holy Ghost will guide you in life; He will guide you in death; and
He will guide you to glory. He will guard you from modern error, and from ancient
error, too. He will guide you in a way that you know not; and through the darkness
He will lead you in a way you have not seen: these things will He do unto you, and
not forsake you.
Oh, this precious text! I seem to have before me a great cabinet full of jewels rich
and rare. May God the Holy Ghost Himself come and hand these out to you, and may
you be adorned with them all the days of your life!
Last of all, "I will put my spirit within you," that is, by way of consolation,
for His choice name is "The Comforter." Our God would not have His children
unhappy, and therefore, He Himself, in the third Person of the blessed Trinity, has
undertaken the office of Comforter. Why does your face such mournful colours wear?
God can comfort you. You that are under the burden of sin; it is true no man can
help you into peace, but the Holy Ghost can. O God, to every seeker here who has
failed to final rest, grant Thy Holy Spirit! Put Thy Spirit within him, and he will
rest in Jesus. And you dear people of God, who are worried, remember that worry and
the Holy Ghost are very contradictory one to another. "I will put my spirit
within you" means that you shall become gentle, peaceful, resigned, and acquiescent
in the divine will. Then you will have faith in God that all is well. That text with
which I began my prayer this morning was brought home to my heart this week. Our
dearly beloved friend Adolph Saphir passed away last Saturday, and his wife died
three or four days before him. When my dear brother, Dr. Sinclair Patterson, went
to see him, the beloved Saphir said to him, "God is light, and in him is no
darkness at all." Nobody would have quoted that passage but Saphir, the Biblical
student the lover of the word, the lover of the God of Israel. "God is light,
and in him is no darkness at all." His dear wife is gone, and he himself is
ill; but "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." This is a deep
well of overflowing comfort, if you understand it well. God's promise is light as
well as his promise, and the Holy Spirit makes us know this. God's word and will
and way are all light to his people, and in him is no darkness at all for them. God
himself is purely and only light. What if there be darkness in me, there is no darkness
in him; and his Spirit causes me to fly to him! What if there be darkness in my family,
there is no darkness in my covenant God, and his Spirit makes me rest in him. What
if there be darkness in me by reason of my failing strength, there is no failing
in him, and there is no darkness in him: his Spirit assures me of this. David says–
"God my exceeding joy"; and such He is to us. "Yea, mine own God is
he"! Can you say, "My God, my God"? Do you want anything more? Can
you conceive of anything beyond your God? Omnipotent to work all for ever! Infinite
to give! Faithful to remember! He is all that is good. Light only: "in him is
no darkness at all." I have all light, yea, all things, when I have my God.
The Holy Spirit makes us apprehend this when He is put within us. Holy Comforter,
abide with us, for then we enjoy the light of heaven. Then are we always peaceful
and even joyful; for we walk in unclouded light. In Him our happiness sometimes rises
into great waves of delight, as if it leaped up to the glory. The Lord make this
text your own–"I will put my Spirit within you." Amen.
A Sermon
(No. 5)
Delivered on Sabbath Evening, January
21, 1855, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."–John 14:26.
ood old Simeon called Jesus the consolation
of Israel; and so he was. Before his actual appearance, his name was the day-star;
cheering the darkness, and prophetic of the rising sun. To him they looked with the
same hope which cheers the nightly watcher, when from the lonely castle-top he sees
the fairest of the stars, and hails her as the usher of the morn. When he was on
earth, he must have been the consolation of all those who were privileged to be his
companions. We can imagine how readily the disciples would run to Christ to tell
him of their griefs, and how sweetly, with that matchless intonation of his voice,
he would speak to them, and bid their fears be gone. Like children, they would consider
him as their Father; and to him every want, every groan, every sorrow, every agony,
would at once be carried; and he, like a wise physician, had a balm for every wound;
he had mingled a cordial for their every care; and readily did he dispense some mighty
remedy to allay all the fever of their troubles. Oh! it must have been sweet to have
lived with Christ. Surely, sorrows were then but joys in masks, because they gave
an opportunity to go to Jesus to have them removed. Oh! would to God, some of us
may say, that we could have lain our weary heads upon the bosom of Jesus, and that
our birth had been in that happy era, when we might have heard his kind voice, and
seen his kind look, when he said, "Let the weary ones come unto me."
But now he was about to die. Great prophecies were to be fulfilled; and great purposes
were to be answered; therefore, Jesus must go. It behoved him to suffer, that he
might be made a propitiation for our sins. It behoved him to slumber in the dust
awhile, that he might perfume the chamber of the grave to make it–
"No more a charnel house to fence
The relics of lost innocence."
It behoved him to have a resurrection, that we, who shall
one day be the dead in Christ, might rise first, and in glorious bodies stand upon
earth. And if behoved him that he should ascend up on high, that he might lead captivity
captive; that he might chain the fiends of hell; that he might lash them to his chariot-wheels,
and drag them up high heaven's hill, to make them feel a second overthrow from his
right arm, when he should dash them from the pinnacles of heaven down to the deeper
depths beneath. "It is right I should go away from you," said Jesus, "for
if I go not away, the Comforter will not come." Jesus must go. Weep, ye disciples;
Jesus must be gone. Mourn, ye poor ones, who are to be left without a Comforter.
But hear how kindly Jesus speaks: "I will not leave you comfortless, I will
pray the Father, and he shall send you another Comforter, who shall be with you,
and shall dwell in you forever." He would not leave those few poor sheep alone
in the wilderness; he would not desert his children, and leave them fatherless. Albeit
that he had a mighty mission which did fill his heart and hand; albeit he had so
much to perform, that we might have thought that even his gigantic intellect would
be overburdened; albeit he had so much to suffer, that we might suppose his whole
soul to be concentrated upon the thought of the sufferings to be endured. Yet it
was not so; before he left, he gave soothing words of comfort; like the good Samaritan,
he poured in oil and wine, and we see what he promised: "I will send you another
Comforter–one who shall be just what I have been, yea, even more; who shall console
you in your sorrows, remove your doubts, comfort you in your afflictions, and stand
as my vicar on earth, to do that which I would have done had I tarried with you."
Before I discourse of the Holy Ghost as the Comforter, I must make one or two remarks
on the different translations of the word rendered "Comforter." The Rhenish
translation, which you are aware is adopted by Roman Catholics, has left the word
untranslated, and gives it "Paraclete." "But the Paraclete, which
is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things."
This is the original Greek word, and it has some other meanings besides "Comforter."
Sometimes it means the monitor or instructor: "I will send you another monitor,
another teacher." Frequently it means "Advocate;" but the most common
meaning of the word is that which we have here: "I will send you another Comforter."
However, we cannot pass over those other two interpretations without saying something
upon them.
"I will send you another teacher." Jesus Christ had been the official
teacher of his saints whilst on earth. They called no man Rabbi except Christ. They
sat at no men's feet to learn their doctrines; but they had them direct from the
lips of him who "spake as never man spake." "And now," says he,
"when I am gone, where shall you find the great infallible teacher? Shall I
set you up a pope at Rome, to whom you shall go, and who shall be your infallible
oracle? Shall I give you the councils of the church to be held to decide all knotty
points?" Christ said no such thing. "I am the infallible paraclete, or
teacher, and when I am gone, I will send you another teacher, and he shall be the
person who is to explain Scripture; he shall be the authoritative oracle of God,
who shall make all dark things light, who shall unravel mysteries, who shall untwist
all knots of revelation, and shall make you understand what you could not discover,
had it not been for his influence." And, beloved, no man ever learns anything
aright, unless he is taught of the Spirit. You may learn election, and you may know
it so that you shall be damned by it, if you are not taught of the Holy Ghost; for
I have known some who have learned election to their soul's destruction; they have
learned it so that they said they were of the elect, whereas, they had no marks,
no evidences, and no works of the Holy Ghost in their souls. There is a way of learning
truth in Satan's college, and holding it in licentiousness; but if so, it shall be
to your souls as poison to your veins and prove your everlasting ruin. No man can
know Jesus Christ unless he is taught of God. There is no doctrine of the Bible which
can be safely, thoroughly, and truly learned, except by the agency of the one authoritative
teacher. Ah! tell me not of systems of divinity; tell me not of schemes of theology;
tell me not of infallible commentators, or most learned and most arrogant doctors;
but tell me of the Great Teacher, who shall instruct us, the sons of God, and shall
make us wise to understand all things. He is the Teacher; it matters not what
this man or that man says; I rest on no man's boasting authority, nor will you. Ye
are not to be carried away with the craftiness of men, nor sleight of words; this
is the authoritative oracle–the Holy Ghost resting in the hearts of his children.
The other translation is advocate. Have you ever thought how the Holy Ghost
can be said to be an advocate? You know Jesus Christ is called the wonderful, the
counsellor, the mighty God; but how can the Holy Ghost be said to be an advocate?
I suppose it is thus; he is an advocate on earth to plead against the enemies of
the cross. How was it that Paul could so ably plead before Felix and Agrippa? How
was it that the Apostles stood unawed before the magistrates, and confessed their
Lord? How has it come to pass, that in all times God's ministers have been made fearless
as lions, and their brows have been firmer than brass; their hearts sterner than
steel, and their words like the language of God? Why, it was simply for this reason;
that it was not the man who pleaded, but it was God the Holy Ghost pleading through
him. Have you never seen an earnest minister, with hands uplifted and eyes dropping
tears, pleading with the sons of men? Have you never admired that portrait from the
hand of old John Bunyan?–a grave person with eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of
books in his hand, the law of truth written on his lips, the world behind his back,
standing as if he pleaded with men, and a crown of gold hanging over his head. Who
gave that minister so blessed a manner, and such goodly matter? Whence came his skill?
Did he acquire it in the college? Did he learn it in the seminary? Ah, no. He learned
it of the God of Jacob; he learned it of the Holy Ghost; for the Holy Ghost is the
great counsellor who teaches us how to advocate his cause aright.
But, beside this, the Holy Ghost is the advocate in men's hearts. Ah! I have known
men reject a doctrine until the Holy Ghost began to illuminate them. We, who are
the advocates of the truth, are often very poor pleaders; we spoil our cause by the
words we use; but it is a mercy that the brief is in the hand of a special pleader,
who will advocate successfully, and overcome the sinner's opposition. Did you ever
know him fail once? Brethren, I speak to your souls; has not God in old times convinced
you of sin? Did not the Holy Ghost come and prove that you were guilty, although
no minister could ever get you out of your self-righteousness? Did he not advocate
Christ's righteousness? Did he not stand and tell you that your works were filthy
rags? And when you had well-nigh still refused to listen to his voice, did he not
fetch hell's drum and make it sound about your ears; bidding you look through the
vista of future years, and see the throne set, and the books open, and the sword
brandished, and hell burning, and fiends howling, and the damned shrieking forever?
And did he not convince you of the judgment to come? He is a mighty advocate when
he pleads in the soul–of sin, of righteousness, and of the judgment to come. Blessed
advocate! Plead in my heart; plead with my conscience. When I sin, make conscience
bold to tell me of it; when I err, make conscience speak at once; and when I turn
aside to crooked ways, then advocate the cause of righteousness, and bid me sit down
in confusion, knowing by guiltiness in the sight of God.
But there is yet another sense in which the Holy Ghost advocates, and that is, he
advocates our cause with Jesus Christ, with groanings that cannot be uttered. O my
soul! thou art ready to burst within me. O my heart! thou art swelled with grief.
The hot tide of my emotion would well-nigh overflood the channels of my veins. I
long to speak, but the very desire chains my tongue. I wish to pray, but the fervency
of my felling curbs my language. There is a groaning within that cannot be uttered.
Do you know who can utter that groaning? who can understand it, and who can put it
into heavenly language, and utter it in a celestial tongue, so that Christ can hear
it? O yes; it is God the Holy spirit; he advocates our cause with Christ, and then
Christ advocates it with his Father. He is the advocate who maketh intercession for
us, with groanings that cannot be uttered.
Having thus explained the Spirit's office as a teacher and advocate, we now come
to the translation of our version–the Comforter; and here I shall have three
divisions: first, the comforter; secondly, the comfort; and thirdly,
the comforted.
I. First, then,
the COMFORTER. Briefly let me run over in my mind, and in your minds too, the characteristics
of this glorious Comforter. Let me tell you some of the attributes of his comfort,
so that you may understand how well adapted he is to your case.
And first, we will
remark, that God the Holy Ghost is a very loving Comforter. I am in distress,
and I want consolation. Some passer-by hears of my sorrow, and he steps within, sits
down, and essays to cheer me; he speaks soothing words, but he loves me not; he is
a stranger; he knows me not at all; he has only come in to try his skill. And what
is the consequence? His words run o'er me like oil upon a slab of marble–they are
like the pattering rain upon the rock; they do not break my grief; it stands unmoved
as adamant, because he has no love for me. But let some one who loves me dear as
his own life, come and plead with me, then truly his words are music; they taste
like honey; he knows the password of the doors of my heart, and my ear is attentive
to every word; I catch the intonation of each syllable as it falls, for it is like
the harmony of the harps of heaven. Oh! there is a voice in love, it speaks a language
which is its own; it has an idiom and a brogue which none can mimic; wisdom cannot
imitate it; oratory cannot attain unto it; it is love alone which can reach the mourning
heart; love is the only handkerchief which can wipe the mourner's tears away. And
is not the Holy Ghost a loving comforter? Dost thou know, O saint, how much the Holy
Spirit loves thee? Canst thou measure the love of the Spirit? Dost thou know how
great is the affection of his soul towards thee? Go measure heaven with thy span;
go weigh the mountains in the scales; go take the ocean's water, and tell each drop;
go count the sand upon the sea's wide shore; and when thou hast accomplished this,
thou canst tell how much he loveth thee. He has loved thee long, he has loved thee
well, he loved thee ever, and he still shall love thee; surely he is the person to
comfort thee, because he loves. Admit him, then, to your heart, O Christian, that
he may comfort you in your distress.
But next, he is a
faithful Comforter. Love sometimes proveth unfaithful. "Oh! sharper than
a serpent's tooth" is an unfaithful friend! Oh! far more bitter than the gall
of bitterness, to have a friend turn from me in my distress! Oh! woe of woes, to
have one who loves me in my prosperity, forsake me in the dark day of my trouble.
Sad indeed; but such is not God's Spirit. He ever loves, and loves even to the end–a
faithful Comforter. Child of God, you are in trouble. A little while ago, you found
him a sweet and loving Comforter; you obtained relief from him when others were but
broken cisterns; he sheltered you in his bosom, and carried you in his arms. Oh,
wherefore dost thou distrust him now? Away with thy fears; for he is a faithful Comforter.
"Ah!, but," thou sayest, "I fear I shall be sick, and shall be deprived
of his ordinances." Nevertheless he shall visit thee on thy sick bed, and sit
by thy side, to give thee consolation. "Ah! but I have distresses greater than
you can conceive of; wave upon wave rolleth over me; deep calleth unto deep, at the
noise of the Eternal's waterspouts." Nevertheless, he will be faithful to his
promise. "Ah! but I have sinned." So thou hast, but sin cannot sever thee
from his love; he loves thee still. Think not, O poor downcast child of God, because
the scars of thine old sins have marred thy beauty, that he loves thee less because
of that blemish. O no! He loved thee when he foreknew thy sin; he loved thee with
the knowledge of what the aggregate of thy wickedness would be; and he does not love
thee less now. Come to him in all boldness of faith; tell him thou hast grieved him,
and he will forget thy wandering, and will receive thee again; the kisses of his
love shall be bestowed upon thee, and the arms of his grace shall embrace thee. He
is faithful; trust him, he will never deceive you; trust him, he will never leave
you.
Again, he is an unwearied
Comforter. I have sometimes tried to comfort persons, and have been tired. You, now
and then, meet with a case of a nervous person. You ask, "What is your trouble?"
You are told; and you essay, if possible, to remove it; but while you are preparing
your artillery to battle the trouble, you find that it has shifted its quarters,
and is occupying quite a different position. You change your argument and begin again;
but lo, it is again gone, and you are bewildered. You feel like Hurcules, cutting
off the evergrowing heads of the Hydra, and you give up your task in despair. You
meet with persons whom it is impossible to comfort, reminding one of the man who
locked himself up in fetters, and threw the key away, so that nobody could unlock
him. I have found some in the fetters of despair. "O, I am the man," say
they, "that has seen affliction; pity me, pity me, O, my friends;" and
the more you try to comfort such people, the worse they get; and, therefore, out
of all heart, we leave them to wander alone among the tombs of their former joys.
But the Holy Ghost is never out of heart with those whom he wishes to comfort. He
attempts to comfort us, and we run away from the sweet cordial; he gives us some
sweet draught to cure us, and we will not drink it; he gives some wondrous potion
to charm away all our troubles, and we put it away from us. Still be pursues us;
and though we say that we will not be comforted, he says we shall be, and
when he has said, he does it; he is not to be wearied by all our sins, nor by all
our murmurings.
And oh, how wise
a Comforter is the Holy Ghost. Job had comforters, and I think he spoke the truth
when he said, "Miserable comforters are ye all." But I dare say they esteemed
themselves wise; and when the young man Elihu rose to speak, they thought he had
a world of impudence. Were they not "grave and reverend seigniors?" Did
not they comprehend his grief and sorrow? If they could not comfort him, who could?
But they did not find out the cause. They thought he was not really a child of God,
that he was self-righteous, and they gave him the wrong physic. It is a bad case
when the doctor mistakes a disease and gives a wrong prescription, and so perhaps
kills the patient. Sometimes, when we go and visit people, we mistake their disease;
we want to comfort them on this point, whereas they do not require any such comfort
at all, and they would be better left alone, than spoiled by such unwise comforters
as we are. But oh, how wise the Holy Spirit is! He takes the soul, lays it on the
table, and dissects it in a moment; he finds out the root of the matter, he sees
where the complaint is, and then he applies the knife where something is required
to be taken away, or puts a plaster where the sore is; and he never mistakes. O how
wise is the blessed Holy Ghost; from ever comforter I turn, and leave them all, for
thou art he who alone givest the wisest consolation.
Then mark, how safe
a Comforter the Holy Ghost is. All comfort is not safe, mark that. There is a young
man over there very melancholy. You know how he became so. He stepped into the house
of God and heard a powerful preacher, and the word was blessed, and convinced him
of sin. When he went home, his father and the rest found there was something different
about him, "Oh," they said, "John is mad, he is crazy;" and what
said his mother? "Send him into the country for a week; let him go to the ball
or the theatre." John, did you find any comfort there? "Ah no; they made
me worse, for while I was there I thought hell might open and swallow me up."
Did you find any relief in the gayeties of the world? "No," say you, "I
thought it was idle waste of time." Alas! this is miserable comfort, but it
is the comfort of the worldling; and, when a Christian gets into distress, how many
will recommend him this remedy and the other. "Go and hear Mr. So-and-so preach;"
"have a few friends at you house;" "Read such-and-such a consoling
volume;" and very likely it is the most unsafe advice in the world. The devil
will sometimes come to men's souls as a false comforter; and he will say to the soul,
"What need is there to make all this ado about repentance? you are no worse
than other people;" and he will try to make the soul believe, that what is presumption,
is the real assurance of the Holy Ghost; thus he deceives many by false comfort.
Ah! there have been many, like infants, destroyed by elixirs, given to lull them
to sleep; many have been ruined by the cry of "peace, peace," when there
is no peace; hearing gentle things, when they ought to be stirred to the quick. Cleopatra's
asp was brought in a basket of flowers; and men's ruin often lurks in fair and sweet
speeches. But the Holy Ghost's comfort is safe, and you may rest on it. Let him speak
the word, and there is a reality about it; let him give the cup of consolation, and
you may drink it to the bottom; for in its depths there are no dregs, nothing to
intoxicate or ruin, it is all safe.
Moreover, the Holy
Ghost is an active Comforter; he does not comfort by words, but by deeds.
Some comfort by, "Be ye warmed, and be ye filled, giving nothing." But
the Holy Ghost gives, he intercedes with Jesus; he gives us promises, he gives us
grace, and so he comforts us. Mark again, he is always a successful Comforter;
he never attempts what he cannot accomplish.
Then, to close up,
he is an ever-present Comforter, so that you never have to send for him. Your
God is always near you; and when you need comfort in your distress, behold the word
is nigh thee; it is in thy mouth, and in thy heart. He is an ever-present help in
time of trouble. I wish I had time to expand these thoughts, but I cannot.
II. The second
thing is the COMFORT. Now there are some persons who make a great mistake about the
influence of the Holy Spirit. A foolish man, who had a fancy to preach in a certain
pulpit, though in truth he was quite incapable of the duty, called upon the minister,
and assured him solemnly, that it had been revealed to him by the Holy Ghost that
he was to preach in his pulpit. "Very well," said the minister, "I
suppose I must not doubt your assertion, but as it has not been revealed to me that
I am to let you preach, you must go your way, until it is." I have heard many
fanatical persons say the Holy Spirit revealed this and that to them. Now, that is
very generally revealed nonsense. The Holy Ghost does not reveal anything fresh now.
He brings old things to our remembrance. "He shall teach you all things, and
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have told you." The canon
of revelation is closed, there is no more to be added; God does not give a fresh
revelation, but he rivets the old one. When it has been forgotten, and laid in the
dusty chamber of our memory, he fetches it out and cleans the picture, but does not
paint a new one. There are no new doctrines, but the old ones are often revived.
It is not, I say, by any new revelation that the Spirit comforts. He does so by telling
us old things over again; he brings a fresh lamp to manifest the treasures hidden
in Scripture; he unlocks the strong chests in which the truth has long lain, and
he points to secret chamber filled with untold riches; but he coins no more, for
enough is done. Believer! there is enough in the Bible for thee to live upon forever.
If thou shouldst outnumber the years of Methuselah, there would be no need for a
fresh revelation; if thou shouldst live till Christ should come upon the earth, there
would be no need for the addition of a single word; if thou shouldst go down as deep
as Jonah, or even descend as David said he did into the belly of hell, still there
would be enough in the Bible to comfort thee without a supplementary sentence. But
Christ says, "He shall take of mine, and show it unto you." Now, let me
just tell you briefly what it is the Holy Ghost tells us.
Ah! does he not whisper to the heart, "Saint, be of good cheer; there is one
who died for thee; look to Calvary, behold his wounds, see the torrent gushing from
his side–there is thy purchaser, and thou art secure. He loves thee with an everlasting
love, and this chastisement is meant for thy good; each stroke is working thy healing;
by the blueness of the wound thy soul is made better." "Whom he loveth
he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Doubt not his grace,
because of thy tribulation; but believe that he loveth thee as much in seasons of
trouble, as in times of happiness. And then, moreover, he says, "What is all
thy suffering compared with that of thy Lord's? or what, when weighed in the scales
of Jesus' agonies, is all thy distress? And especially at times does the Holy Ghost
take back the veil of heaven, and lets the soul behold the glory of the upperworld!
Then it is that the saint can say, "O thou art a Comforter to me!"
"Let cares like a wild deluge come,
And storms of sorrow fall;
May I but safely reach my home,
My God, my heaven, my all."
Some of you could follow, were I to tell of manifestations
of heaven. You, too, have left sun, moon, and stars at your feet, while, in you flight,
outstripping the tardy lightning, you have seemed to enter the gates of pearl, and
tread the golden streets, borne aloft on wings of the Spirit. But here we must not
trust ourselves; lest, lost in reverie, we forget our theme.
III. And now,
thirdly, who are the comforted persons? I like, you know, at the end of my sermon
to cry out, "Divide! divide!" There are two parties here–some who are comforted,
and others who are the comfortless ones–some who have received the consolations of
the Holy Ghost, and some who have not. Now let us try and sift you, and see which
is the chaff and which is the wheat; and may God grant that some of the chaff may,
this night, be transformed into his wheat!
You may say, "How am I to know whether I am a recipient of the comfort of the
Holy Ghost?" You may know it by one rule. If you have received one blessing
from God, you will receive all other blessings too. Let me explain myself. If I could
come here as an auctioneer, and sell the gospel off in lots, I should dispose of
it all. If I could say, here is justification through the blood of Christ–free; giving
away, gratis; many a one would say, "I will have justification; give it to me;
I wish to be justified; I wish to be pardoned." Suppose I took sanctification,
the giving up of all sin, a thorough change of heart, leaving off drunkenness and
swearing; many would say, "I don't want that; I should like to go to heaven,
but I do not want that holiness; I should like to be saved at last, but I should
like to have my drink still; I should like to enter glory, but then I must have an
oath or two on the road." Nay, but, sinner, if thou hast one blessing, thou
shalt have all. God will never divide the gospel. He will not give justification
to that man, and sanctification to another–pardon to one, and holiness to another.
No, it all goes together. Whom he call, them he justifies; whom he justifies, them
he sanctifies; and whom he sanctifies, them he also glorifies. Oh; if I could lay
down nothing but the comforts of the gospel, ye would fly to them as flies
do to honey. When ye come to be ill, ye send for the clergyman. Ah! you all want
your minister then to come and give you consoling words. But, if he be an honest
man, he will not give some of you a particle of consolation. He will not commence
pouring oil, when the knife would be better. I want to make a man feel his sins before
I dare tell him anything about Christ. I want to probe into his soul and make him
feel that he is lost before I tell him anything about the purchased blessing. It
is the ruin of many to tell them, "Now just believe on Christ, and that is all
you have to do." If, instead of dying, they get better, they rise up white-washed
hypocrites–that is all. I have heard of a city missionary who kept a record of two
thousand persons who were supposed to be on their death-bed, but recovered, and whom
he should have put down as converted persons had they died; and how many do you think
lived a Christian life afterwards out of the two thousand? Not two. Positively he
could only find one who was found to live afterwards in the fear of God. Is it not
horrible that when men and women come to die, they should cry, "Comfort, comfort?"
and that hence their friends conclude that they are children of God, while, after
all, they have no right to consolation, but are intruders upon the enclosed grounds
of the blessed God. O God, may these people ever be kept from having comfort when
they have no right to it! Have you the other blessings? Have you had the conviction
of sin? Have you ever felt your guilt before God? Have your souls been humbled at
Jesus' feet? And have you been made to look to Calvary alone for your refuge? If
not, you have no right to consolation. Do not take an atom of it. The Spirit is a
convincer before he is a Comforter; and you must have the other operations of the
Holy Spirit, before you can derive anything from this.
And now I have done. You have heard what this babbler hath said once more. What has
it been? Something about the Comforter. But let me ask you, before you go, what do
you know about the Comforter? Each one of you, before descending the steps of this
chapel, let this solemn question thrill through your souls–What do you know of the
Comforter? O! poor souls, if ye know not the Comforter, I will tell you what you
shall know–You shall know the Judge! If ye know not the Comforter on earth, ye shall
know the Condemner in the next world, who shall cry, "Depart, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire in hell." Well might Whitefield call out, "O earth, earth,
earth, hear the word of the Lord!" If ye were to live here forever, ye might
slight the gospel; if ye had a lease of your lives, ye might despise the Comforter.
But, sirs, ye must die. Since last we met together, probably some have gone to their
long last home; and ere we meet again in this sanctuary, some here will be amongst
the glorified above, or amongst the damned below. Which will it be? Let you soul
answer. If to-night you fell down dead in your pews, or where you are standing in
the gallery, where would you be? in heaven or in hell? Ah! deceive
not yourselves; let conscience have its perfect work; and if in the sight of God,
you are obliged to say, "I tremble and fear lest my portion should be with unbelievers,"
listen one moment, and then I have done with thee. "He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." Weary sinner,
hellish sinner, thou who art the devil's castaway, reprobate, profligate, harlot,
robber, thief, adulterer, fornicator, drunkard, swearer, Sabbath-breaker–list! I
speak to thee as well as to the rest. I exempt no man. God hath said there is no
exemption here. "Whosoever believeth on the name of Jesus Christ shall
be saved." Sin is no barrier; thy guilt is no obstacle. Whosoever–though he
were as black as Satan, though he were filthy as a fiend–whosoever this night believes,
shall have every sin forgiven, shall have every crime effaced; shall have ever iniquity
blotted out; shall be saved in the Lord Jesus Christ, and shall stand in heaven safe
and secure. That is the glorious gospel. God apply it to your hearts, and give you
faith in Jesus!
"We have listened to the preacher–
Truth by him has now been shown;
But we want a GREATER TEACHER,
From the everlasting throne;
APPLICATION
Is the work of God alone."
A Sermon
(No. 173)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January
24, 1858, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand."–Isaiah 53:10.
HAT myriads of eyes are casting their glances
at the sun! What multitudes of men lift up their eyes, and behold the starry orbs
of heaven! They are continually watched by thousands–but there is one great transaction
in the world's history, which every day commands far more spectators than that sun
which goeth forth like a bridegroom, strong to run his race. There is one great event,
which every day attracts more admiration than do the sun, and moon, and stars, when
they march in their courses. That event is, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. To
it, the eyes of all the saints who lived before the Christian era were always directed;
and backwards, through the thousand years of history, the eyes of all modern saints
are looking. Upon Christ, the angels in heaven perpetually gaze. "Which things
the angels desire to look into," said the apostle. Upon Christ, the myriad eyes
of the redeemed are perpetually fixed; and thousands of pilgrims, through this world
of tears, have no higher object for their faith, and no better desire for their vision,
than to see Christ as he is in heaven, and in communion to behold his person. Beloved,
we shall have many with us, whilst this morning we turn our face to the Mount of
Calvary. We shall not be solitary spectators of the fearful tragedy of our Saviour's
death: we shall but dart our eyes to that place which is the focus of heaven's joy
and delight, the cross of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Taking our text, then, as a guide, we propose to visit Calvary, hoping to have the
help of the Holy Spirit whilst we look upon him who died upon the cross. I would
have you notice this morning, first of all, the cause of Christ's death–"It
pleased the Lord to bruise him." "It pleased Jehovah to bruise him,"
saith the original; "he hath put him to grief." Secondly, the reason
of Christ's death–"When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin."
Christ died because he was an offering for sin. And then, thirdly, the effects
and consequences of Christ's death. "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Come, Sacred
Spirit, now, whilst we attempt to speak on these matchless themes.
I. First, we have
THE ORIGIN OF CHRIST'S DEATH. "It pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath put
him to griefs." He who reads Christ's life, as a mere history, traces the death
of Christ to the enmity of the Jews, and to the fickle character of the Roman governor.
In this he acteth justly, for the crime and sin of the Saviour's death must lay at
the door of manhood. This race of ours became a deicide and slew the Lord, and nailed
its Saviour to a tree. But he who reads the Bible with the eye of faith, desiring
to discover its hidden secrets, sees something more in the Saviour's death than Roman
cruelty, or Jewish malice: he sees the solemn decree of God fulfilled by men, who
were the ignorant, but guilty instruments of its accomplishment. He looks beyond
the Roman spear and nail, beyond the Jewish taunt and jeer, up to the Sacred Fount,
whence all things flow, and traces the crucifixion of Christ to the breast of Deity.
He believes with Peter–"Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain."
We dare not impute to God the sin, but at the same time the fact, with all its marvelous
effects in the world's redemption, we must ever trace to the Sacred Fountain of divine
love. So cloth our prophet. He says, "It pleased Jehovah to bruise him. He overlooks
both Pilate and Herod, and traces it to the heavenly Father, the first Person in
the Divine Trinity. "It pleased the Lord to bruise him, he hath put him
to grief."
Now, beloved, there be many who think that God the Father is at best but an indifferent
spectator of salvation. Others do belie him still more. They look upon Him as an
unloving, severe Being, who had no love to the human race, and could only be made
loving by the death and agonies of our Saviour. Now, this is a foul libel upon the
fair and glorious grace of God the Father, to whom for ever be honor: for Jesus Christ
did not die to make God loving, but he died because God was loving.
"Twas not to make Jehovah's love
Toward his people flame,
That Jesus from the throne above,
A suffering man became.
"Twas not the death which he endured,
Nor all the pangs he bore,
That God's eternal love procured,
For God was love before."
Christ was sent into the world by his Father, as the consequence
of the Father's affection for his people. Yea, he "so loved the world, that
he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life. The fact is, that the Father as much decreed salvation,
as much effected it, and as much delighted in it, as did either God the Son, or God
the Holy Spirit. And when we speak of the Saviour of the world, we must always include
in that word, if we speak in a large sense, God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Ghost, for all these three, as one God, do save us from our sins. The text
puts away every hard thought concerning the Father, by telling us that it pleased
Jehovah to bruise Jesus Christ. The death of Christ is traceable to God the Father.
Let us try if we can see it is so.
1. First it is traceable
in decree. God, the one God of heaven and earth, hath the book of destiny entirely
in his power. In that book there is nothing written by a stranger's hand. The penmanship
of the solemn book of predestination is from beginning to end entirely divine.
"Chained to his throne a volume lies,
With all the fates of men,
With every angel's form and size
Drawn by th' eternal pen."
No inferior hand hath sketched even so much as the least
minute parts of providence. It was all, from its Alpha to its Omega, from its divine
preface to its solemn finis, marked out, designed, sketched, and planned by the mind
of the all-wise, all-knowing God. Hence, not even Christ's death was exempt from
it. He that wings an angel and guides a sparrow, he that protects the hairs of our
head from falling prematurely to the ground, was not likely, when he took notice
of such little things, to omit in his solemn decrees the greatest wonder of earth's
miracles, the death of Christ. No; the blood-stained page of that book, the page
which makes both past and future glorious with golden words,–that blood-stained page,
I say, was as much written of Jehovah, as any other. He determined that Christ should
be born of the Virgin Mary, that he should suffer under Pontius Pilate, that he should
descend into Hades, that thence he should rise again, leading captivity captive,
and then should reign for ever at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Nay, I know
not but that I shall have Scripture for my warrant when I say, that this is the very
core of predestination, and that the death of Christ is the very center and main-spring
by which God did fashion all his other decrees, making this the bottom and foundation-stone
upon which the sacred architecture should be builded. Christ was put to death by
the absolute foreknowledge and solemn decree of God the Father, and in this sense
"it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief."
2. But a little further,
Christ's coming into the world to die was the effect of the Father's will and pleasure.
Christ came not into this world unsent. He had laid in Jehovah's bosom from before
all worlds, eternally delighting himself in his Father, and being himself his Father's
eternal joy. "In the fullness of time" God did rend his Son from his bosom,
his only-begotten Son, and freely delivered him up for us all. Herein was
matchless, peerless love, that the offended judge should permit his co-equal Son
to suffer the pains of death for the redemption of a rebellious people. I want your
imaginations for one minute to picture a scene of olden times. There is a bearded
patriarch, who rises early in the morning and awakes his son, a young man full of
strength, and bids him arise and follow him. They hurry from the house silently and
noiselessly, before the mother is awake. They go three days, journey with their men;
until they come to the Mount, of which the Lord hath spoken. You know the patriarch.
The name of Abraham is always fresh in our memories. On the way, that patriarch speaks
not one solitary word to his son. His heart is too full for utterance. He is overwhelmed
with grief. God has commanded him to take his son, his only son, and slay him upon
the mountain as a sacrifice. They go together; and who shall paint the unutterable
anguish of the father's soul, whilst he walks side by side with that beloved son,
of whom he is to be the executioner? The third day has arrived; the servants are
bidden to stay at the foot of the hill, whilst they go to worship God yonder. Now,
can any mind imagine how the father's grief must overflow all the banks of his soul,
when, as he walked up that hill-side, his son said to him, "Father, behold the
fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?" Can you conceive
how he stifled his emotions, and, with sobs, exclaimed, "My son, God will provide
himself a lamb." See! the father has communicated to his son the fact that God
has demanded his life. Isaac, who might have struggled and escaped from his father,
declares that he is willing to die, if God hath decreed it. The father takes his
son, binds his hands behind his back, piles up the stones, makes an altar, lays the
wood, and has his fire ready. And now where is the artist that can depict the anguish
of the fathers countenance, when the knife is unsheathed, and he holds it up, ready
to slay his son? But here the curtain falls. Now the black scene vanishes at the
sound of a voice from heaven. The ram caught in the thicket supplies the substitute,
and faith's obedience need go no further. Ah! my brethren, I want to take you from
this scene to a far greater one. What faith and obedience made man do, that love
constrained God himself to do. He had but one son, that son his own heart's delight:
he covenanted to yield him up for our redemption, nor did he violate his promise;
for, when the fullness of time was come, he sent his Son to be born of the Virgin
Mary, that he might suffer for the sins of man. O! can ye tell the greatness of that
love, which made the everlasting God not only put his Son upon the altar, but actually
do the deed, and thrust the sacrificial knife into his Son's heart? Can you think
how overwhelming must have been the love of God toward the human race, when he completed
in act what Abraham only did in intention? Look ye there, and see the place where
his only Son hung dead upon the cross, the bleeding victim of awakened justice! Here
is love indeed; and here we see how it was, that it pleased the Father to bruise
him.
3. This allows me
to push my text just one point further. Beloved, it is not only true that God did
design and did permit with willingness the death of Christ; it is moreover, true
that the unutterable agonies that clothed the death of the Saviour with superhuman
terror, were the effect of the Father's bruising of Christ in very act and deed.
There is a martyr in prison: the chains are on his wrists, and yet he sings. It has
been announced to him that to-morrow is his burning day. He claps his hands right
merrily, and smiles while he says, "It will be sharp work to-morrow, I shall
breakfast below on fiery tribulations, but afterward I will sup with Christ. Tomorrow
is my wedding-day, the day for which I have long panted, when I shall sign the testimony
of my life by a glorious deaths." The time is come; the men with the halberts
precede him through the streets. Mark the serenity of the martyrs countenance. He
turns to some who look upon him, and exclaims, "I value these iron chains far
more than if they had been of gold; it is a sweet thing to die for Christ. There
are a few of the boldest of the saints gathered round the stake, and as he unrobes
himself, ere he stands upon the fagots to receive his doom, he tells them that it
is a joyous thing to be a soldier of Christ, to be allowed to give his body to be
burned; and he shakes hands with them, and bids them "Good by" with merry
cheer. One would think he were going to a bridal, rather than to be burned. He steps
upon the fagots; the chain is put about his middle; and after a brief word of prayer,
as soon as the fire begins to ascend, he speaks to the people with manful boldness.
But hark! he sings whilst the fagots are crackling and the smoke is blowing upward.
He sings, and when his nether parts are burned, he still goes on chanting sweetly
some psalm of old. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble;
therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed and the mountains be carried
into the midst of the sea."
Picture another scene. There is the Saviour going to his cross, all weak and wan
with suffering; his soul is sick and sad within him. There is no divine composure
there. So sad is his heart, that he faints in the streets. The Son of God faints
beneath a cross that many a criminal might have carried. They nail him to the tree.
There is no song of praise. He is lifted up in the air, and there he hangs preparatory
to his death. You hear no shout of exultation. There is a stern compression of his
face, as if unutterable agony were tearing his heart–as if over again Gethsemane
were being acted on the cross–as if his soul were still saying, "If it be possible
let this cross pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."
Hark! he speaks. Will he not sing sweeter songs than ever came from martyr's lips?
Ah! no; it is an awful wail of woe that can never be imitated. "My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?" The martyrs said not that: God was with them. Confessors
of old cried not so, when they came to die. They shouted in their fires, and praised
God on their racks. Why this? Why doth the Saviour suffer so? Why, beloved, it was
because the Father bruised him. That sunshine of God's countenance that has cheered
many a dying saint, was withdrawn from Christ; the consciousness of acceptance with
God, which has made many a holy man espouse the cross with joy, was not afforded
to our Redeemer, and therefore he suffered in thick darkness of mental agony. Read
the 22nd Psalm, and learn how Jesus suffered. Pause over the solemn words in the
1st, 2nd, 6th, and following verses. Underneath the church are the ever lasting arms;
but underneath Christ there were no arms at all, but his Father's hand pressed heavily
against him; the upper and the nether mill-stones of divine wrath pressed and bruised
him; and not one drop of joy or consolation was afforded to him. "It pleased
Jehovah to bruise him; he hath put him to grief." This, my brethren,
was the climax of the Saviour's woe, that his Father turned away from him, and put
him to grief.
Thus have I expounded the first part of the subject–the origin of our Saviour's worst
sufferings, the Father's pleasure.
II. Our second
head must explain the first, or otherwise it is an insolvable mystery how God should
bruise his Son, who was perfect innocence, while poor fallible confessors and martyrs
have had no such bruising from him in the time of their trial. WHAT WAS THE REASON
OF THE SAVIOUR'S SUFFERING? We are told here, "Thou shalt make his soul an offering
for sin." Christ was thus troubled, because his soul was an offering for sin.
Now, I am going to be as plain as I can, while I preach over again the precious doctrine
of the atonement of Christ Jesus our Lord. Christ was an offering for sin, in the
sense of a substitute. God longed to save; but, if such a word may be allowed, Justice
tied his hands. "I must be just," said God; "that is a necessity of
my nature. Stern as fate, and fast as immutability, is the truth that I must be just.
But then my heart desires to forgive–to pass by man's transgressions and pardon them.
How can it be done? Wisdom stepped in, and said, "It shall be done thus;"
and Love agreed with Wisdom. "Christ Jesus, the Son of God, shall stand in
man's place, and he shall be offered upon Mount Calvary instead of man.
Now, mark: when you see Christ going up the Mount of Doom, you see man going there:
when you see Christ hurled upon his back, upon the wooden cross, you see the whole
company of his elect there; and when you see the nails driven through his blessed
hands and feet, it is the whole body of his Church who there, in their substitute,
are nailed to the tree. And now the soldiers lift the cross, and dash it into the
socket prepared for it. His bones are every one of them dislocated, and his body
is thus torn with agonies which can not be described. 'Tis manhood suffering there;
'tis the Church suffering there, in the substitute. And when Christ dies, you are
to look upon the death of Christ, not as his own dying merely, but as the dying of
all those for whom he stood as the scape-goat and the substitute. It is true, Christ
died really himself; it is equally true that he did not die for himself, but died
as the substitute, in the room, place, and stead of all believers. When you die you
will die for yourselves; when Christ died, he died for you, if you be a believer
in him. When you pass through the gates of the grave, you go there solitary and alone;
you are not the representative of a body of men, but you pass through the gates of
death as an individual; but, remember, when Christ went through the sufferings of
death, he was the representative Head of all his people.
Understand, then, the sense in which Christ was made a sacrifice for sin. But here
lies the glory of this matter. It was as a substitute for sin that he did actually
and literally suffer punishment for the sin of all his elect. When I say this, I
am not to be understood as using any figure whatever, but as saying actually what
I mean. Man for his sin was condemned to eternal fire; when God took Christ to be
the substitute, it is true, he did not send Christ into eternal fire, but he poured
upon him grief so desperate, that it was a valid payment for even an eternity of
fire. Man was condemned to live forever in hell. God did not send Christ forever
into hell; but he put on Christ, punishment that was equivalent for that. Although
he did not give Christ to drink the actual hells of believers, yet he gave him a
quid pro quo–something that was equivalent thereunto. He took the cup of Christ's
agony, and he put in there, suffering, misery, and anguish such as only God can imagine
or dream of, that was the exact equivalent for all the suffering, all the woe, and
all the eternal tortures of every one that shall at last stand in heaven, bought
with the blood of Christ. And you say, "Did Christ drink it all to its dregs?"
Did he suffer it all? Yes, my brethren, he took the cup, and
"At one triumphant draught of love,
He drank damnation dry."
He suffered all the horror of hell: in one pelting shower
of iron wrath it fell upon him, with hail-stones bigger than a talent; and he stood
until the black cloud had emptied itself completely. There was our debt; huge and
immense; he paid the utmost farthing of whatever his people owed; and now there is
not so much as a doit or a farthing due to the justice of God in the way of punishment
from any believer; and though we owe God gratitude, though we owe much to his love,
we owe nothing to his justice; for Christ in that hour took all our sins, past, present,
and to come, and was punished for them all there and then, that we might never be
punished, because he suffered in our stead. Do you see, then, how it was that God
the Father bruised him? Unless he had so done the agonies of Christ could not have
been an equivalent for our sufferings; for hell consists in the hiding of God's face
from sinners, and if God had not hidden his face from Christ, Christ could not–I
see not how he could–have endured any suffering that could have been accepted as
an equivalent for the woes and agonies of his people.
Methinks I heard some one say, "Do you mean us to understand this atonement
that you have now preached as being a literal fact?" I say, most solemnly, I
do. There are in the world many theories of atonement; but I can not see any atonement
in any one, except in this doctrine of substitution. Many divines say that Christ
did something when he died that enabled God to be just, and yet the Justifier of
the ungodly. What that something is they do not tell us. They believe in an atonement
made for every body; but then, their atonement is just this. They believe that Judas
was atoned for just as much as Peter; they believe that the damned in hell were as
much an object of Jesus Christ's satisfaction as the saved in heaven; and though
they do not say it in proper words, yet they must mean it, for it is a fair inference,
that in the case of multitudes, Christ died in vain, for he died for them all, they
say; and yet so ineffectual was his dying for them, that though he died for them
they are damned afterward. Now, such an atonement I despise–I reject it. I may be
called Antinomian or Calvinist for preaching a limited atonement; but I had rather
believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended,
than an universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody, except the will
of man be joined with it. Why, my brethren, if we were only so far atoned for by
the death of Christ that any one of us might afterward save himself, Christ's atonement
were not worth a farthing, for there is no man of us can save himself–no, not under
the gospel; for if I am to be saved by faith, if that faith is to be my own act,
unassisted by the Holy Spirit, I am as unable to save myself by faith as to save
myself by good works. And after all, though men call this a limited atonement, it
is as effectual as their own fallacious and rotten redemptions can pretend to be.
But do you know the limit of it? Christ hath bought a "multitude that no man
can number." The limit of it is just this: He hath died for sinners;
whoever in this congregation inwardly and sorrowfully knows himself to be a sinner,
Christ died for him; whoever seeks Christ, shall know Christ died for him; for our
sense of need of Christ, and our seeking after Christ, are infallible proofs that
Christ died for us. And, mark, here is something substantial. The Arminian says Christ
died for him; and then, poor man, he has but small consolation therefrom, for he
says, "Ah! Christ died for me; that does not prove much. It only proves I may
be saved if I mind what I am after. I may perhaps forget myself; I may run into sin
and I may perish. Christ has done a good deal for me, but not quite enough, unless
I do something." But the man who receives the Bible as it is, he says, "Christ
died for me, then my eternal life is sure. I know," says he, "that Christ
can not be punished in a man's stead, and the man be punished afterwards. No,"
says he, "I believe in a just God, and if God be just, he will not punish Christ
first, and then punish men afterwards. No; my Saviour died, and now I am free from
every demand of God's vengeance, and I can walk through this world secure; no thunderbolt
can smite me, and I can die absolutely certain that for me there is no flame of hell,
and no pit digged; for Christ, my ransom, suffered in my stead, and, therefore, am
I clean delivered. Oh! glorious doctrine! I would wish to die preaching it! What
better testimony can we bear to the love and faithfulness of God than the testimony
of a substitution eminently satisfactory for all them that believe on Christ? I will
here quote the testimony of that pre-eminently profound divine, Dr. John Owen:–"Redemption
is the freeing of a man from misery by the intervention of a ransom. Now, when a
ransom is paid for the liberty of a prisoner, does not justice demand that he should
have and enjoy the liberty so purchased for him by a valuable consideration? If I
should pay a thousand pounds for a man's deliverance from bondage to him that retains
him, who hath power to set him free, and is contented with the price I give, were
it not injurious to me and the poor prisoner that his deliverance be not accomplished?
Can it possibly be conceived that there should be a redemption of men, and those
men not redeemed? That a price should be paid and the ransom not consummated? Yet
all this must be made true, and innumerable other absurdities, if universal redemption
be asserted. A price is paid for all, yet few delivered; the redemption of all consummated,
yet, few of them redeemed; the judge satisfied, the jailer conquered, and yet the
prisoners inthralled! Doubtless 'universal,' and 'redemption,' where
the greatest part of men perish, are as irreconcilable as 'Roman, and 'Catholic.'
If there be a universal redemption of all, then all men are redeemed. If they are
redeemed, then are they delivered from all misery, virtually or actually, whereunto
they were inthralled, and that by the intervention of a ransom. Why, then, are not
all saved? In a word, the redemption wrought by Christ being the full deliverance
of the persons redeemed from all misery, wherein they were inwrapped, by the price
of his blood, it can not possibly be conceived to be universal unless all be saved:
so that the opinion of the Universalists is unsuitable to redemption."
I pause once more; for I hear some timid soul say–"But, sir, I am afraid I am
not elect, and if so, Christ did not die for me." Stop sir! Are you a sinner?
Do you feel it? Has God, the Holy Spirit, made you feel that you are a lost sinner?
Do you want salvation? If you do not want it it is no hardship that it is not provided
for you; but if you really feel that you want it, you are God's elect. If you have
a desire to be saved, a desire given you by the Holy Spirit, that desire is a token
for good. If you have begun believingly to pray for salvation, you have therein a
sure evidence that you are saved. Christ was punished for you. And if now you can
say,
"Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling."
you may be as sure you are God's elect as you are sure of
your own existence; for this is the infallible proof of election–a sense of need
and a thirst after Christ.
III. And now I
have just to conclude by noticing the BLESSED EFFECTS of the Saviour's death. On
this I shall be very brief.
The first effect
of the Saviour's death is, "He shall see his seed." Men shall be saved
by Christ. Men have offspring by life; Christ had an offspring by death. Men die
and leave their children, and they see not their seed; Christ lives, and every day
sees his seed brought into the unity of the faith. One effect of Christ's death is
the salvation of multitudes. Mark, not a chance salvation. When Christ died the angel
did not say, as some have represented him, "Now by his death many may
be saved;" the word of prophecy had quenched all "buts" and "peradventures;"
"By his righteousness he shall justify many. There was not so much as
an atom of chance work in the Saviour's death. Christ knew what he bought when he
died; and what he bought he will have–that, and no more, and no less. There is no
effect of Christ's death that is left to peradventure. "Shalls" and "wills"
made the covenant fast: Christ's bloody death shall effect its solemn purpose. Every
heir of grace shall meet around the throne,
"Shall bless the wonders of his grace,
And make his glories known."
The second effect
of Christ's death is, "He shall prolong his days." Yes, bless his name,
when he died he did not end his life. He could not long be held a prisoner in the
tomb. The third morning came, and the conqueror, rising from his sleep burst the
iron bonds of death, and came forth from his prison house, no more to die. He waited
his forty days, and then, with shouts of sacred song, he "led captivity captive,
and ascended up on high." "In that he died he died unto sin once; but in
that he liveth he liveth unto God," no more to die.
"Now by his Father's side he Sits,
And there triumphant reigns,"
the conqueror over death and hell.
And, last of
all, by Christ's death the Father's good pleasure was effected and prospered. God's
good pleasure is, that that this world shall one day be totally redeemed from sin;
God's good pleasure is, that this poor planet, so long swathed in darkness, shall
soon shine out in brightness, like a new-born sun. Christ's death hath done it. The
stream that flowed from his side on Calvary shall cleanse the world from all its
blackness. That hour of mid-day darkness was the rising of a new sun of righteousness,
which shall never cease to shine upon the earth. Yes, the hour is coming when swords
and spears shall be forgotten things–when the harness of war and the pageantry of
pomp shall all be laid aside for the food of the worm or the contemplation of the
curious. The hour approacheth when old Rome shall shake upon her seven hills, when
Mohammed's crescent shall wane to wax no more, when all the gods of the heathens
shall lose their thrones and be cast out to the moles and the bats; and then, when
from the equator to the poles Christ shall be honored, the Lord paramount of earth,
when from land to land, from the river even to the ends of the earth, one King shall
reign, one shout shall be raised, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth." Then, my brethren, shall it be seen what Christ's death has accomplished,
for "the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand."
A Sermon
(No. 2656)
Intended for Reading on Lord's-Day, January
7th, 1900,
Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
On a Lord's-day Evening in the winter of
1857.
"He laid down his life for us."
–1 John 3:16.
OME, believer and contemplate this sublime
truth, thus proclaimed to thee in simple monosyllables: "He laid down his life
for us." There is not one long word in the sentence; it is all as simple as
it can be; and it is simple because it is sublime. Sublimity in thought always needs
simplicity in words to express itself. Little thoughts require great words to explain
them; little preachers need Latin words to convey their feeble ideas, but great thoughts
and great expressers of those thoughts are content with little words.
"He laid down his life for us." Here there is not much upon which any man
can display his eloquence; here is little room for metaphysical discussion or for
deep thought; the text sets before us a simple yet sublime doctrine. What, then,
shall I do with it? If I would speak of it profitably to myself, since I need not
employ my wit to dissect it, nor my oratory to proclaim it, let me exercise my adoration
to worship it; let me prostrate all my powers before the throne, and, like an angel
when his work is done, and he has nowhere else to fly at his Lord's command, let
me fold the wings of my contemplation, and stand before the throne of this great
truth, and meekly bow myself, and worship him that was, and is, and is to come,–the
great and glorious One who "laid down his life for us."
It will be well for me, in commencing my discourse, to remind you that there is no
understanding the death of Christ unless we understand the person of Christ. If I
were to tell you that God died for us, although I might be telling you a truth, and
you might possibly not misunderstand what I meant, yet I should be at the same time
uttering an error. God cannot die; it is, of course, impossible, from his very nature,
that he could even for a moment cease to exist. God is incapable of suffering. It
is true that we sometimes use words to express emotions On the part of God; but,
then, we speak after the manner of men. He is impassive; he cannot suffer; it is
not possible for him to endure aught; much less, then, is it possible for him to
suffer death. Yet we are told, in the verse from which our text is taken, "Hereby
perceive we the love of God." You notice that the words "of God"
are inserted by the translators. They are in italics because they are not in the
original. A better translation would be, "Hereby perceive we love." But
when we read "of God," it might lead the ignorant to fancy that God could
die; whereas, God could not. We must always understand, and constantly remember,
that our Lord Jesus Christ was "very God of very God," and that, as God,
he had all the attributes of the Most High, and could not, therefore, be capable
either of suffering or death. But then he was also man, "man of the substance
of his mother," man, just like ourselves, sin alone excepted. And the Lord Jesus
died not as God; it was as man that he gave up the ghost; as man, he was nailed to
the cross. As God, he was in heaven, even when his body was in the tomb; as God,
he was swaying the sceptre of all worlds even when the mock sceptre of reed was in
his hand, and the imperial robe of universal monarchy was on the eternal shoulders
of his Godhead when the soldier's old purple cloak was wrapped about his manhood.
He did not cease to be God, he did not lose his Omnipotence, and his eternal dominion,
when he became man; nor did he, as God, die or suffer; it was as man that he "laid
down his life for us."
Come, now, my soul, and worship this man, this God. Come, believer, and behold thy
Saviour; come to the innermost circle of all sanctity, the circle that contains the
cross of Christ, and here sit down; and, whilst thou dost worship, learn three lessons
from the fact that "he laid down his life for us." The first lesson should
be,–Did he lay down his life for us? Ah! then, my brethren, how great must have
been our sins that they could not have been atoned for at any other price! Secondly,
did he lay down his life for us? Ah! then, beloved, how great must have
been his love! He would not stop short anywhere, until life itself had been resigned.
Thirdly, did he lay down his life for us? Ah! then, my soul, be of good cheer; how
safe art thou! If such an atonement hath been offered, if such a sure satisfaction
hath been given to Almighty God, how secure thou art! Who is he that can destroy
him who hath been bought with the blood of such a Redeemer?
I. Come, then,
let me believingly meditate on the first sad fact. Did Christ lay down his life for
me? Then, HOW GREAT MUST HAVE BEEN MY SINS!
Ah! my brethren, I will speak a little of my own experience, and in so doing I shall
also be describing yours. I have seen my sins in many different ways. I saw them
once by the blazing light of Sinai; and, oh! my spirit shrank within me, for my sins
seemed exceeding black. When the sound of the trumpet waxed loud and long, and the
lighting and fire flashed into my heart, I saw a very hell of iniquity within my
soul, and I was ready then to curse the day that I was horn, that I should have had
such a heart, so vile and so deceitful. I thought that then I had seen the exceeding
blackness of my sin. Alas! I had not seen enough of sin to make me loathe it so as
to leave it, for that conviction passed away. Sinai was but a volcano, and it was
hushed to silence; and then I began to play with sin again, and loved it as much
as ever.
I beheld another sight one day; I saw my sins by the light of heaven. I looked up,
and I considered the heavens, the work of God's fingers; I perceived the purity of
God's character written on the sunbeams, I saw his holiness engraved upon the wide
world, as well as revealed in Scripture; and as I compared myself with him, I thought
I saw how black I was. O God! I never knew the heinousness of my own guilt, until
I saw the glory of thy character; but now I see the brightness of thy holiness, my
whole soul is cast down at the thought of my sinfulness, and my great departure from
the living God. I thought that, then, I had seen enough. Ah! I had seen enough to
make me worship for a moment; but my gladness was as the early cloud and as the morning
dew, and I went my way, and forgot what manner of man I was. When I had lost the
sense of the majesty of God, I lost also the consciousness of my own guilt.
Then there came to me another view, and I beheld God's lovingkindness to me; I saw
how he had dandled me upon the knee of Providence,–how he had carried me all my life
long,–how he had strewn my path with plenty, and given me all things richly to enjoy.
I remembered how he had been with me in the hour of trial, how he had preserved me
in the day of hurricane, and kept me safe at the moment of storm. I remembered all
his goodness to me; and, struck with surprise at his mercy, I looked upon my sin
in the light of his grace; and I said, "O sin, how base thou art, what dire
ingratitude dost thou manifest against a God so profoundly kind!"
I thought, then, surely I had seen the worst of sin, when I had laid it side by side,
first with the character of God, and afterwards wit his bounties. I cursed sin from
my inmost heart, and thought I had seen enough of it. But, ah! my brethren, I had
not. That sense of gratitude passed away, and I found myself still prone to sin,
and still loving it.
But, oh, there came a thrice-happy, yet thrice-mournful hour! One day, in my wanderings,
I heard a cry, a groan; metought 'twas not a cry such as came from mortal lip, it
had in it such unutterable depths of wondrous woe. I turned aside, expecting to see
some great sight; and it was indeed a great sight that I saw. Lo, there, upon a tree,
all bleeding, hung a man. I marked the misery that made his flesh all quiver on his
bones; I beheld the dark clouds come rolling down from heaven, like the chariots
of misery; I saw them clothe his brow with blackness; I saw even in the thick darkness,
for mine eyes were opened, and I perceived that his heart was as full of the gloom
and horror of grief as the sky was full of blackness. Then I seemed to look into
his soul, and I saw there torrents of unutterable anguish,–wells of torment of such
an awful character that mortal lip dare not sip, lest it should be burned with scalding
heat. I said, "Who is this mighty sufferer? Why doth he suffer thus? Hath he
been the greatest of all sinners, the basest of all blasphemers?" But a voice
came forth from the excellent glory, and it said, "This is my beloved Son; but
he took the sinner's sin upon himself, and he must bear its penalty." O God!
I thought, I never saw sin till that hour, when I saw it tear Christ's glories from
his head,–when it seemed for a moment even to withdraw the lovingkindness of God
from him,–when I saw him covered with his own blood, and plunged into the uttermost
depths of oceans of grief. Then I said, "Now shall I know what thou art, O sin,
as never before I knew it!" Though those other sights might teach me something
of the dire character of evil, yet never, till I saw the Saviour on the tree, did
I understand how base a traitor man's guilt was to man's God.
O heir of heaven, lift now thine eye, and behold the scenes of suffering through
which thy Lord passed for thy sake! Come in the moonlight, and stand between those
olives; see him sweat great drops of blood. Go from that garden, and follow him to
Pilate's bar. See your Matter subjected to the grossest and filthiest insult; gaze
upon the face of spotless beauty defiled with the spittle of soldiers; see his head
pierced with thorns; mark his back, all rent, and torn, and scarred, and bruised,
and bleeding beneath the terrible lash. And O Christian, see him die! Go and stand
where his mother stood, and hear him say to thee, "Man, behold thy Saviour!"
Come thou to-night, and stand where John stood; hear him cry, "I thirst,"
and find thyself unable either to assuage his griefs or to comprehend their bitterness.
Then, when thou hast wept there, lift thine hand, and cry, "Revenge!" Bring
out the traitors; where are they? And when your sins are brought forth as the murderers
of Christ, let no death be too painful for them; though it should involve the cutting
off of right arms, or the quenching of right eyes, and putting out their light for
ever; do it! For if these murderers murdered Christ, then let them die. Die terribly
they may, but die they must. Oh! that God the Holy Ghost would teach you that first
lesson, my brethren, the boundless wickedness of sin, for Christ had to lay down
his life before your sin could be wiped away.
II. Now we will
come to the second head, and here we will lift up our hearts from the depths of sadness
to the heights of affection. Did the Saviour lay down his life for me? We will read
it now, "He laid down his life for me;" and I pray the Lord to help each
of you, by faith, to read it so, because, when we say "us", that is dealing
in generalities,–blessed generalities, it is true,–but let us, at this time, deal
in specialities, and say, each one of us who can do so truthfully, "He laid
down his life for me." Then, HOW GREATLY HE MUST HAVE LOVED ME!
Ah, Lord Jesus! I never knew thy love till I understood the meaning of thy death.
Beloved, we shall try again, if we can, to tell the story of our own experience,
to let you see how God's love is to be learned. Come, saint, sit down, and meditate
on thy creation, note how marvellously thou hast been formed, and all thy bones fitted
to one another, and see love there. Mark, next, that predestination which placed
thee where thou art; for the lines have fallen unto thee in pleasant places, and,
notwithstanding all thy troubles, thou hast, compared with many a poor soul, "a
goodly heritage." Mark, then, the love of God displayed in the predestination
that has made thee what thou art, and placed thee where thou art. Then look thou
back, and see the lovingkindness of thy Lord, as displayed to thee in all thy journey
up till now. Thou art getting old, and thy hair is whitening above thy brow; but
he hath carried thee all the days of old; not one good thing hath failed of all that
the Lord thy God hath promised. Recall thy life-story. Go back now, and look at the
tapestry of thy life, which God has been working every day with the golden filament
of his love, and see what pictures of grace there are upon it. Canst thou not say
that Jesus has loved thee? Turn thine eye back, and read the ancient rolls of the
everlasting covenant, and see thy name amongst the firstborn, the elect, the Church
of the living God. Say, did he not love thee when he wrote thy name there? Go and
remember how the eternal settlements were made, and how God decreed and arranged
all things so that thy salvation should come to pass. Say, was there not love there?
Pause at the remembrance of thy convictions; think of thy conversion; recollect thy
preservation, and how God's grace hath been working upon thee, in adoption, in justification,
and in every item of the new covenant; and when thou hast summed up all these things,
let me ask thee this question,–Do all these things produce in thee such a sense of
gratitude as the one thing that I shall mention now, the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ? For, my brother, if thy mind is like mine, although thou wilt think highly
enough of all these things that God hath given thee, thou wilt be obliged to confess
that the thought of the death of Christ upon the cross swallows them all up. This
I know, my brethren, I may look back, I may look forward, but whether I look back
to the decrees of eternity, or look forward to the pearl-gated city, and all the
splendours that God has prepared for his own beloved children, I can never see my
Father's love so beaming forth, in all its effulgence, as when I look at the cross
of Christ, and see him die thereon. I can read the love of God in the rocky letters
of the eternal covenant, and in the blazing letters of heaven hereafter; but, my
brethren, in those crimson lines, those lines written in blood, there is something
more striking than there is anywhere else, for they say, "He laid down his life
for us" Ah, here it is ye learn love. You know the old story of Damon and Pythias,–how
the two friends struggled together as to which should die for the other; there was
love there. But, ah! there is no comparison between Damon and Pythias, and a poor
sinner and his Saviour. Christ laid down his life, his glorious life, for a poor
worm; he stripped himself of all his splendours, then of all his happiness, then
of his own righteousness, then of his own robes, till he was naked to his own shame;
and then he laid down his life, that was all he had left, for our Saviour had not
kept anything back.
Just think of that for a moment. He had a crown in heaven; but he laid that aside,
that you and I might wear one for ever. He had a girdle of brightness–brighter than
the stars,–about his loins; but he took it off, and laid it by, that you and I might
eternally wear a girdle of righteousness. He had listened to the holy songs of the
cherubim and seraphim; but he left them all that we might for ever dwell where angels
sing; and then he came to earth, and he had many things, even in his poverty, which
might have tended to his comfort; he laid down, first one glory, and then another,
at love's demand; at last, it came to this, he had nothing left but one poor garment,
woven from the top throughout, and that was clinging to his back with blood, and
he laid down that also. Then there was nothing left, he had not kept back one single
thing. "There," he might have said, "take an inventory of all I have,
to the last farthing; I have given it all up for my people's ransom." And there
was nought left now but his own life. O love insatiable! couldst thou not stay there?
Though he had given up one hand to cancel sin, and the other hand to reconcile us
unto God; and had given up one foot that we might have our sinful feet for ever transfixed,
and nailed, and fastened, never to wander, and the other foot to be fastened to the
tree that we might have our feet at liberty to run the heavenly race; and there was
nothing left but his poor heart, and he gave his heart up too, and they set it abroach
with the spear, and forthwith there came out thence blood and water.
Ah, my Lord! what have I ever given to thee compared to what thou hast given for
me? Some poor things, like some rusty farthings, I have given thee; but how little
compared with what thou hast given me! Now and then, my Lord, I have given thee a
poor song upon an ill-toned instrument; sometimes, my Lord, I have done some little
service for thee; but, alas! my fingers were so black, they spoiled what I intended
to have presented to thee white as snow. It is nought I have done for thee, my Lord.
No, though I have been a missionary, and surrendered home and friends; no, though
I have been a martyr, and given my body to be burned, I will say, in the last hour,
"My Master, I have done nothing for thee, after all, in comparison with what
thou hast done for me; and yet, what can I do more? How can I show my love to thee,
for thy love to me, so peerless, so matchless? What shall I do? I will do nothing
but–
"'Dissolved by thy goodness, I'll fall
to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy I've found.'
"That is all I can do, and that I must and will do."
III. Now, beloved,
we will change the theme, and go one note higher. We have run up the gamut a long
way, and now we have just reached the height of the octave. But we have something
else to get out of the text: "He laid down his life for us." Did my Saviour
lay down his life for me? Then, HOW SAFE I AM!
We will have no controversy to-night with those who do not see this truth; the Lord
open their blind eyes, and show it to them! That is all we will say. We, who know
the gospel, see, in the fact of the death of Christ, a reason that no strength of
logic can ever shake, and no power of unbelief can remove, why we should be saved.
There may be men, with minds so distorted that they can conceive it possible that
Christ should die for a man who afterwards is lost; I say, there may be such. I am
sorry to say that there are still to be found some such persons, whose brains have
been so addled, in their childhood, that they cannot see that what they hold is both
a preposterous falsehood and a blasphemous libel. Christ dies for a man, and then
God punishes that man again; Christ suffers in a sinner's stead, and then God condemns
that sinner after all! Why, my friends, I feel quite shocked in only mentioning such
an awful error; and were it not so current as it is, I should certainly pass it over
with the contempt that it deserves. The doctrine of Holy Scripture is this, that
God is just, that Christ died in the stead of his people, and that, as God is just,
he will never punish one solitary soul of Adam's race for whom the Saviour did thus
shed his blood. The Saviour did, indeed, in a certain sense, die for all; all men
receive many a mercy through his blood, but that he was the Substitute and Surety
for all men, is so inconsistent, both with reason and Scripture, that we are obliged
to reject the doctrine with abhorrence. No, my soul, how shalt thou be punished if
thy Lord endured thy punishment for thee? Did he die for thee? O my soul, if Jesus
was not thy Substitute, and did not die in thy very stead, then he is no Saviour
to thee! But if he was thy Substitute, if he suffered as thy Surety, in thy stead,
then, my soul, "Who is he that condemneth?" Christ hath died, yea, rather,
hath risen again, and sitteth at the right hand of God, and maketh intercession for
us. There stands the master-argument: Christ "laid down his life for us,"
and "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." If the agonies
of the Saviour put our sins away, the everlasting life of the Saviour, with the merits
of his death added thereunto, must preserve his people, even unto the end.
This much I know,–ye may hear men stammer when they say it,–but what I preach is
the old Lutheran, Calvinistic, Augustinian, Pauline, Christian truth,–there is not
one sin in the Book of God against anyone that believeth. Our sins were numbered
on the Scapegoat's head, and there is not one sin, that ever a believer did commit,
that hath any power to damn him, for Christ hath taken the damning power out of sin,
by allowing it, to speak by a bold metaphor, to damn himself, for sin did condemn
him; and, inasmuch as sin condemned him, sin cannot condemn us. O believer, this
is thy security, that all thy sin and guilt, all thy transgressions and thine iniquities,
have been atoned for, and were atoned for before they were committed; so that thou
mayest come with boldness, though red with all crimes, and black with every lust,
and lay thine hand on that Scapegoat's head, and when thou hast put thine hand there,
and seen that Scapegoat driven into the wilderness, thou mayest clap thine hands
for joy, and say, "It is finished, sin is pardoned."
"Here's pardon for transgressions pest,
It matters not how black their cast;
And oh, my soul, with wonder view,
For sin's to come, here's pardon too!"
This is all I want to know; did the Saviour die for me? Then I will not continue in sin that grace may abound; but nothing shall stop me of thus glorying, in all the churches of the Lord Jesus, that my sins are entirely removed from me; and, in God's sight, I may sing, as Hart did sing,–
"With Christ's spotless vesture on,
Holy as the Holy One."
O marvellous death of Christ, how securely dost, thou set the feet of God's people on the rocks of eternal love; and how securely dost thou keep them there! Come, dear brethren, let us suck a little honey out of this honeycomb. Was there ever anything so luscious and so sweet to the believer's taste as this all-glorious truth that we are complete in him; that in and through his death and merits we are accepted in the Beloved? Oh, was there ever anything mare sublime than this thought, that he hath already raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, far above all principalities and powers; just where he sits? Surely there is nothing more sublime than that, except it be that a master-thought stamps all these things with more than their own value,–that master-thought that, though the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, the covenant of his love shall never depart from us. "For," saith Jehovah, "I will never forget thee, O Zion;" "I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." O Christian, that is a firm foundation, cemented with blood, on which thou mayest build for eternity! Ah, my soul! thou needest no other hope but this. Jesus, thy mercy never dies; I will plead this truth when cast down with anguish,–Thy mercy never dies. I will plead this when Satan hurls temptations at me, and when conscience casts the remembrance of my sin in my teeth; I will plead this ever, and I will plead it now,–
"Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress."
Yea, and after I die, and even when I stand before thine eyes, thou dread Supreme,–
"When from the dust of death I rise,
To take my mansion in the skies,
E'en then shall this be all my plea,
'Jesus hath lived and died for me.'
"Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay ?
While through Christ's blood absolved I am
From sin's tremendous curse and shame."
Ah, brethren, if this is your experience you may come to
the table of communion now right happily; it will not be coming to a funeral, but
to a feast of gladness. "He laid down his life for us."
A Sermon
(No. 98)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 2, 1856, by
the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
NOTE: This sermon was Spurgeon's first message following the disaster at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens–in which seven people lost their lives when some miscreants purposely started a panic while Mr. Spurgeon was preaching. |
"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted
him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father."
–Philippians 2:9-11.
ALMOST regret this morning that I have
ventured to occupy this pulpit, because I feel utterly unable to preach to you for
your profit. I had thought that the quiet and repose of the last fortnight had removed
the effects of that terrible catastrophe; but on coming back to the same spot again,
and more especially, standing here to address you, I feel somewhat of those same
painful emotions which well-nigh prostrated me before. You will therefore excuse
me this morning, if I make no allusion to that solemn event, or scarcely any. I could
not preach to you upon a subject that should be in the least allied to it. I should
be obliged to be silent if I should bring to my remembrance that terrific scene in
the midst of which it was my solemn lot to stand. God shall overrule it doubtless.
It may not have been so much by the malice of men, as some have asserted;
it was perhaps simple wickedness–an intention to disturb a congregation; but certainly
with no thought of committing so terrible a crime as that of the murder of those
unhappy creatures. God forgive those who were the instigators of that horrid act!
They have my forgiveness from the depths of my soul. It shall not stop us, however;
we are not in the least degree daunted by it. I shall preach there again yet; ay,
and God shall give us souls there, and Satan's empire shall tremble more than ever.
"God is with us; who is he that shall be against us?" The text I have selected
is one that has comforted me, and in a great measure, enabled me to come here to-day–the
single reflection upon it had such a power of comfort on my depressed spirit. It
is this:–"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which
is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in
heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."–Philippians
2:9-11.
I shall not attempt to preach upon this text; I shall only make a few remarks that
have occurred to my own mind; for I could not preach to-day; I have been utterly
unable to study, but I thought that even a few words might be acceptable to you this
morning, and I trust to your loving hearts to excuse them. Oh, Spirit of God, magnify
thy strength in thy servant's weakness, and enable him to honour his Lord, even when
his soul is cast down within him.
WHEN the mind is intensely set upon one object, however
much it may by divers calamities be tossed to and fro, it invariably returns to the
place which it had chosen to be its dwelling place. Ye have noticed in the case of
David. When the battle had been won by his warriors, they returned flushed with victory.
David's mind had doubtless suffered much perturbation in the mean time; he had dreaded
alike the effects of victory and defeat; but have you not noticed how his mind in
one moment returned to the darling object of his affections? "Is the young man
Absalom safe?" said he, as if it mattered not what else had occurred, it his
beloved son were but secure! So, beloved, it is with the Christian. In the midst
of calamities, whether they be the wreck of nations, the crash of empires, the heaving
of revolutions, or the scourge of war, the great question which he asks himself,
and asks of others too, is this–Is Christ's kingdom safe? In his own personal afflictions
his chief anxiety is,–Will God be glorified, and will his honour be increased by
it? If it be so, says he, although I be but as smoking flax, yet if the sun is not
dimmed I will rejoice; and though I be a bruised reed, if the pillars of the temple
are unbroken, what matters it that my reed is bruised? He finds it sufficient consolation,
in the midst of all the breaking in pieces which he endures, to think that Christ's
throne stands fast and firm, and that though the earth hath rocked beneath his
feet, yet Christ standeth on a rock which never can be moved. Some of these feelings,
I think, have crossed our minds. Amidst much tumult and divers rushings to and fro
of troublous thoughts our souls have returned to the darling object of our desires,
and we have found it no small consolation after all to say, "It matters not
what shall become of us: God hath highly exalted him, and given him
a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow."
This text has afforded sweet consolation to every heir of heaven. Allow me, very
briefly, to give you the consolations of it. To the true Christian there is much
comfort in the very fact of Christ's exaltation. In the second place, there
is no small degree of consolation in the reason of it. "Wherefore,
also, God hath highly exalted him;" that is because of his previous humiliation.
And thirdly, there is no small amount of really divine solace in the thought of the
person who has exalted Christ. Wherefore God also"–although men despise
him and cast him down–"God also hath highly exalted him."
I. First, then,
IN THE VERY FACT OF CHRIST'S EXALTATION THERE IS TO EVERY TRUE CHRISTIAN A VERY LARGE
DEGREE OF COMFORT. Many of you who have no part nor lot in spiritual things, not
having love to Christ, nor any desire for his glory, will but laugh when I say that
this is a very bottle of cordial to the lip of the weary Christian, that Christ,
after all, is glorified. To you it is no consolation, because you lack that condition
of heart which makes this text sweet to the soul. To you there is nothing of joy
in it; it does not stir your bosom; it gives no sweetness to your life; for this
very reason, that you are not joined to Christ's cause, nor do you devoutly seek
to honour him. But the true Christian's heart leapeth for joy, even when cast down
by divers sorrows and temptations, at the remembrance that Christ is exalted, for
in that he finds enough to cheer his own heart. Note here, beloved, that the Christian
has certain features in his character which make the exaltation of Christ a matter
of great joy to him. First, he has in his own opinion, and not in his own opinion
only, but in reality, a relationship to Christ, and therefore he feels an
interest in the success of his kinsman. Ye have watched the father's joy, when step
by step his boy has climbed to opulence or fame; ye have marked the mother's eye,
as it sparkled with delight when her daughter grew up to womanhood, and burst forth
in all the grandeur of beauty. Ye have asked why they should feel such interest;
and ye have been told, because the boy was his, or the girl was hers. They delighted
in the advancement of their little ones, because of their relationship. Had there
been no relationship, they might have been advanced to kings, emperors, or queens,
and they would have felt but little delight. But from the fact of kindred, each step
was invested with a deep and stirring interest. Now, it is so with this Christian.
He feels that Jesus Christ, the glorified "Prince of the kings of the earth."
is his brother. While he reverences him as God, he admires him as the man-Christ,
bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, and he delights, in his calm and placid
moments of communion with Jesus, to say to him, "O Lord, thou art my brother."
His song is, "My beloved is mine, and I am his." It is his joy to sing–
"In the blood with sinners one,"
Christ Jesus is; for he is a man, even as we are: and he
is no less and no more man than we are, save only sin. Surely, when we feel we are
related to Christ, his exaltation is the source of the greatest joy to our spirits;
we take a delight in it, seeing it is one of our family that is exalted. It is the
Elder Brother of the great one family of God in heaven and earth; it is the Brother
to whom all of us are related.
There is also in the Christian not only the feeling of relationship merely, but there
is a feeling of unity in the cause. He feels that when Christ is exalted,
it is himself exalted in some degree, seeing he has sympathy with his desire of promoting
the great cause and honour of God in the world. I have no doubt that every common
soldier who stood by the side of the Duke of Wellington felt honoured when the commander
was applauded for the victory; for, said he, "I helped him, I assisted him;
it was but a mean part that I played; I did but maintain my rank; I did but sustain
the enemy's fire; but now the victory is gained. I feel an honour in it, for I helped,
in some degree, to gain it." So the Christian, when he sees his Lord exalted,
says, "It is the Captain that is exalted, and in his exaltation all his soldiers
share. Have I not stood by his side? Little was the work I did, and poor the strength
which I possessed to serve him; but still I aided in the labour;" and the commonest
soldier in the spiritual ranks feels that he himself is in some degree exalted when
he reads this–"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name
which is above every name:" a renown above every name–"that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow."
Moreover, the Christian knows not only that there is this unity in design, but that
there is a real union between Christ and all his people. It is a doctrine
of revelation seldom descanted upon, but never too much thought of–the doctrine that
Christ and his members are all one. Know ye not, beloved, that every member of Christ's
church is a member of Christ himself? We are "of his flesh and of his bones,"
parts of his great mystical body; and when we read that our head is crowned, O rejoice,
ye members of his, his feet or his hands, though the crown is not on you, yet being
on your Head, you share the glory, for you are one with him. See Christ yonder, sitting
at his Father's right hand! Believer! he is the pledge of thy glorification; he is
the surety of thine acceptance; and, moreover, he is thy representative. The seat
which Christ possesses in heaven he has not only by his own right, as a person of
the Deity, but he has it also as the representative of the whole church, for he is
their forerunner, and he sits in glory as the representative of every one of them.
O rejoice, believer, when thou seest thy Master exalted from the tomb, when thou
beholdest him exalted up to heaven. Then, when thou seest him climb the steps of
light, and sit upon his lofty throne, where angels' ken can scarcely reach him–when
thou hearest the acclamations of a thousand seraphs–when thou dost note the loud
pealing choral symphony of millions of the redeemed; think, when thou seest him crowned
with light–think that thou art exalted too in him, seeing that thou art a part of
himself. Happy art thou if thou knowest this, not only in doctrine, but in sweet
experience too. Knit to Christ, wedded to him, grown into him, parts and portions
of his very self, we throb with the heart of the body; when the head itself is glorified
we share in the praise; we felt that his glorification bestows an honour upon us.
Ah! beloved, have you ever felt that unity to Christ? Have you ever felt a unity
of desire with him? If so, you will find this rich with comfort; but if not–if you
know not Christ–it will be a source of grief rather than a pleasure to you that he
is exalted, for you will have to reflect that he is exalted to crush you, exalted
to judge you and condemn you, exalted to sweep this earth of its sins, and cut the
curse up by the roots, and you with it, unless you repent and turn unto God with
full purpose of heart.
There is yet another feeling, which I think is extremely necessary to any very great
enjoyment of this truth, that Christ is exalted. It is a feeling of entire surrender
of one's whole being to the great work of seeking to honour him. Oh! I have striven
for that: would to God I might attain unto it! I have now concentrated all my prayers
into one, and that one prayer is this, that I may die to self, and live wholly to
him. It seems to me to be the highest stage of man–to have no wish, no thought, no
desire but Christ–to feel that to die were bliss, if it were for Christ–that to live
in penury and woe, and scorn, and contempt, and misery, were sweet for Christ–to
feel that it did not matter what became of one's self, so that one's Master was but
exalted–to feel that though, like a sear leaf, you are blown in the blast, you are
quite careless whither you are going, so long as you feel that the Master's hand
is guiding you according to his will. Or rather to feel that though like the diamond
you must be cut, that you care not how sharply you may be cut, so that you may be
made fit to be a brilliant in his crown; that you care little what may be
done to you, if you may but honour him. If any of you have attained to that
sweet feeling of self-annihilation, you will look up to Christ as if he were the
sun, and you will say of yourself, "O Lord, I see thy beams; I feel myself to
be not a beam from thee–but darkness, swallowed up in thy light. The most I ask is,
that thou wouldst live in me, that the life I live in the flesh may not be my life,
but thy life in me, that I may say with emphasis, as Paul did, 'For me to live is
Christ.'" A man that has attained to this, never need care what is the opinion
of this world. He may say, "Do you praise me? Do you flatter me? Take back your
flatteries: I ask them not at your hands; I sought to praise my Master; ye have laid
the praises at my door; go, lay them at his, and not at mine. Do ye scorn
me? Do ye despise me? Thrice happy am I to bear it. If ye will not scorn and despise
him!" And if ye will, yet know this, that he is beyond your scorn; and,
therefore, smite the soldier for his Captain's sake; ay, strike, strike; but the
King ye cannot touch–he is highly exalted–and thou ye think ye have gotten the victory,
ye may have routed one soldier of the army, but the main body is triumphant. One
soldier seems to be smitten to the dust, but the Captain is coming on with his victorious
cohorts, and shall trample you, flushed with your false victory, beneath his conquering
feet. As long as there is a particle of selfishness remaining in us, it will mar
our sweet rejoicing in Christ; till we get rid of it, we shall never feel constant
joy. I do think that the root of sorrow is self. If we once got rid of that, sorrow
would be sweet, sickness would be health, sadness would be joy, penury would be wealth,
so far as our feelings with regard to them are concerned. They might not be
changed, but our feelings under them would be vastly different. If you would
seek happiness, seek it at the roots of your selfishness; cut up your selfishness,
and you will be happy. I have found that whenever I have yielded to the least joy
when I have been prepared to feel acutely the arrows of the enemy; but when I have
said of the praises of men, "Yes, what are ye? worthless things!"–then
I could also say of their contempt–"Come on! come on! I'll send you all where
I sent the praises; you may go together, and fight your battles with one another;
but as for me, let your arrows rattle on my mail–they must not, and they shall not,
reach my flesh." But if you give way to one you will to another. You must seek
and learn to live wholly in Christ–to sorrow when you see Christ maligned
and dishonoured, to rejoice when you see him exalted, and then you will have
constant cause for joy. Sit down now, O reviled one, poor, despised, and tempted
one; sit down, lift up thine eyes, see him on his throne, and say within thyself,
"Little though I be, I know I am united to him; he is my love, my life, my joy;
I care not what happens so long as it is written, 'The Lord reigneth.'"
II. Now, briefly
upon the second point. Here also is the very fountain and well-spring of joy, in
THE REASON OF CHRIST'S EXALTATION. "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him."
Why? Because, "he being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal
with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself, and because obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore
God also hath highly exalted him." This of course relates to the manhood of
our Lord Jesus Christ. As God, Christ needed no exaltation; he was higher than the
highest, "God over all, blessed for ever." But the symbols of his glory
having been for a while obscured, having wrapped his Godhead in mortal flesh, his
flesh with his Godhead ascended up on high, and the man-God, Christ Jesus, who had
stooped to shame, and sorrow, and degradation, was highly exalted, "far above
all principalities and powers," that he might reign Prince-regent over all worlds,
yea, over heaven itself. Let us consider, for a moment, that depth of degradation
to which Christ descended; and then, my beloved, it will give you joy to think, that
for that very reason his manhood was highly exalted. Do you see that man–
"The humble Man before his foes,
The weary Man and full of woes?"
Do you mark him as he speaks? Note the marvellous eloquence
which pours from his lips, and see how the crowds attend him? But do you hear, in
the distance, the growling of the thunders of calumny and scorn? Listen to the words
of his accusers. They say he is "a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a friend
of publicans and sinners;" "he has a devil, and is mad." All the whole
vocabulary of abuse is exhausted by vituperation upon him. He is slandered, abused,
persecuted! Stop! Do you think that he is by this cast down, by this degraded? No,
for this very reason: "God hath highly exalted him." Mark the shame
and spitting that have come upon the cheek of yonder man of sorrows! See his hair
plucked with cruel hands; mark ye how they torture him and how they mock him. Do
you think that this is all dishonourable to Christ? It is apparently so; but list
to this: "He became obedient," and therefore "God hath highly exalted
him." Ah! there is a marvellous connection between that shame, and spitting,
and the bending of the knee of seraphs; there is a strange yet mystic link which
unites the calumny and the slander with the choral sympathies of adoring angels.
The one was, as it were, the seed of the other. Strange that it should be, but the
black, the bitter seed brought forth a sweet and glorious flower which blooms for
ever. He suffered and he reigned; he stopped to conquer, and he conquered for he
stooped, and was exalted for he conquered.
Consider him further still. Do you mark him in your imagination nailed to yonder
cross! O eyes! ye are full of pity, with tears standing thick! Oh! how I mark the
floods gushing down his checks! Do you see his hands bleeding, and his feet too,
gushing gore? Behold him! The bulls of Bashan gird him round, and the dogs are hounding
him to death! Hear him! "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" The earth startles
with affright. A God is groaning on a cross! What! Does not this dishonour Christ?
No; it honours him! Each of the thorns becomes a brilliant in his diadem of glory;
the nails are forged into his sceptre, and his wounds do clothe him with the purple
of empire. The treading of the wine-press hath stained his garments, but not with
stains of scorn and dishonour. The stains are embroideries upon his royal robes for
ever. The treading of that wine-press hath made his garments purple with the empire
of a world; and he is the Master of a universe for ever. O Christian! sit down and
consider that thy Master did not mount from earth's mountains into heaven, but from
her valleys. It was not from heights of bliss on earth that he strode to bliss eternal,
but from depths of woe he mounted up to glory. Oh! what a stride was that, when,
at one mighty step from the grave to the throne of The Highest, the man Christ, the
God, did gloriously ascend. And yet reflect! He in some way, mysterious yet true,
was exalted because he suffered. "Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God
also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name."
Believer, there is comfort for thee here, if thou wilt take it. If Christ was exalted
through his degradation, so shalt thou be. Count not thy steps to triumph by thy
steps upward, but by those which are seemingly downward. The way to heaven is down-hill.
he who would be honoured for ever must sink in his own esteem, and often in that
of his fellow-men. Oh! think not of yon fool who is mounting to heaven by his own
light opinions of himself and by the flatteries of his fellows, that he shall safely
reach Paradise; nay, that shall burst on which he rests, and he shall fall and be
broken in pieces. But he who descends into the mines of suffering, shall find unbounded
riches there; and he who dives into the depths of grief, shall find the pearl of
everlasting life within tis caverns. Recollect, Christian, that thou art exalted
when thou art disgraced; read the slanders of thine enemies as the plaudits of the
just; count that the scoff and jeer of wicked men are equal to the praise and honour
of the godly; their blame is censure, and their censure praise. Reckon too, if thy
body should ever be exposed to persecution, that it is no shame to thee, but the
reverse; and if thou shouldst be privileged, (and thou mayest) to wear the blood-red
crown of martyrdom, count it no disgrace to die. Remember, the most honourable in
the church are "the noble army of martyrs." Reckon that the greater the
sufferings they endured, so much the greater is their "eternal weight of glory;"
and so do thou, if thou standest in the brunt and thick of the fight, remember that
thou shalt stand in the midst of glory. If thou hast the hardest to bear, thou shalt
have the sweetest to enjoy. On with thee, then–through floods, through fire, through
death, through hell, if it should lie in thy path. Fear not. He who glorified Christ
because he stooped shall glorify thee; for after he has caused thee to endure awhile,
he will give thee "a crown of life which fadeth now away."
III. And now,
in the last place, beloved, here is yet another comfort for you. THE PERSON who exalted
Christ is to be noticed. "GOD also hath highly exalted him." The emperor
of all the Russians crowns himself: he is an autocrat, and puts the crown upon his
own head: but Christ hath no such foolish pride. Christ did not crown himself. "GOD
also hath highly exalted him." The crown was put upon the head of Christ by
God; and there is to me a very sweet reflection in this,–that the hand that put the
crown on Christ's head, will one day put the crown on ours;–that the same Mighty
One who crowned Christ, "King of kings, and Lord of lords," will crown
us, when he shall make us "Kings and priests unto him for ever." "I
know," said Paul, "there is laid up for me a crown of glory which fadeth
not away, which God, the righteous judge, shall give me in that day."
Now, just pause over this thought–that Christ did not crown himself, but that his
Father crowned him; that he did not elevate himself to the throne of majesty, but
that his Father lifted him there, and placed him on his throne. Why, reflect thus:
Man never highly exalted Christ. Put this then in opposition to it–"God
also hath highly exalted him." Man hissed him, mocked him, hooted him. Words
were not hard enough–they would use stones. "They took up stones again to stone
him." And stones failed; nails must be used, and he must be crucified. And then
there comes the taunt, the jeer, the mockery, whilst he hangs languishing on the
death-cross. Man did not exalt him. Set the black picture there. Now put this, with
this glorious, this bright scene, side by side with it, and one shall be a foil to
the other. Man dishonoured him; "God also exalted him." Believer,
if all men speak ill of thee, lift up thy head, and say, "Man exalted not my
Master; I thank him that he exalts not me. The servant should not be above his master,
nor the servant above his lord, nor he that is sent greater than he that sent him."
"If on my face for his dear name,
Shame and reproach shall be;
I'll hail reproach and welcome shame,
For he'll remember me."
God will remember me, and highly exalt me after all, though
man casts me down.
Put it, again, in opposition to the fact, that Christ did not exalt himself. Poor
Christian! you feel that you cannot exalt yourself. Sometimes you cannot raise
your poor depressed spirits. Some say to you, "Oh! you should not feel like
this." They tell you, "Oh! you should not speak such words, nor think such
thoughts." Ah! "the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth
not therewith,"–ay, and I will improve upon it, "nor a friend either."
It is not easy to tell how another ought to feel and how another ought to act. Our
minds are differently made, each in its own mould, which mould is broken afterwards,
and there shall never be another like it. We are all different, each one of us; but
I am sure there is one thing in which we are all brought to unite in times of deep
sorrow, namely, in a sense of helplessness. We feel that we cannot exalt ourselves.
Now remember, our Master felt just like it. In the 22nd Psalm, which, if I read it
rightly, is a beautiful soliloquy of Christ upon the cross, he says to himself, "I
am a worm, and no man." As if he felt himself so broken, so cast down, that
instead of being more than a man, as he was, he felt for awhile less than man. And
yet, when he could not lift finger to crown himself, when he could scarce heave a
thought of victory, when his eye could not flash with even a distant glimpse of triumph,–then
his God was crowning him. Art thou so broken in pieces, Christian? Think not that
thou art cast away for ever; for "God also hath highly exalted him" who
did not exalt himself; and this is a picture and prophecy of what he will do for
thee.
And now, beloved, I can say little more upon this text, save that I bid you now for
a minutes meditate and think upon it. Oh! let your eyes be lifted up; bid heaven's
blue veil divide; ask power of God–I mean spiritual power from on high, to look within
the veil. I bid you not look to the streets of gold, nor to the walls of jasper,
nor to the pearly-gated city. I do not ask you to turn your eyes to the white-robed
hosts, who for ever sing loud hallelujahs; but yonder, my friends, turn your eyes,
"There, like a man, the Saviour sits;
The God, how bright he shines;
And scatters infinite delight
On all the happy minds."
Do you see him?
"The head that once was crowned with
thorns,
Is crowned with glory now;
A royal diadem adorns
That mighty Victor's brow.
No more the bloody crown,
The cross and nails no more:
For hell itself shakes at his frown,
And all the heavens adore."
Look at him! Can your imagination picture him? Behold his transcendent glory! The majesty of kings is swallowed up; the pomp of empires dissolves like the white mist of the morning before the sun; the brightness of assembled armies is eclipsed. He in himself is brighter than the sun, more terrible than armies with banners. See him! See him! O! hide your heads, ye monarchs; put away your gaudy pageantry, ye lords of this poor narrow earth! His kingdom knows no bounds; without a limit his vast empire stretches out itself. Above him all is his; beneath him many a step are angels, and they are his; and they cast their crowns before his feet. With them stand his elect and ransomed, and their crowns too are his. And here upon this lower earth stand his saints, and they are his, and they adore him; and under the earth, among the infernals, where devils growl their malice, even there is trembling and adoration; and where lost spirits, with wailing and gnashing of teeth for ever lament their being, even there, there is the acknowledgment of his Godhead, even though the confession helps to make the fire of their torments. In heaven, in earth, in hell, all knees bend before him, and every tongue confesses that he is God. If not now, yet in the time that is to come this shall be carried out, that ever creature of God's making shall acknowledge his Son to be "God over all, blessed for ever. Amen." Oh! my soul anticipates that blessed day, when this whole earth shall bend its knee before its God willingly! I do believe there is a happy era coming, when there shall not be one knee unbent before my Lord and Master. I look for that time, that latter-day glory, when kings shall bring presents, when queens shall be the nursing mothers of the church, when the gold of Sheba and the ships of Tarshish, and the dromedaries of Arabia shall alike be his, when nations and tribes of every tongue shall
"Dwell on his name with sweetest song,
And infant voices shall proclaim
Their early blessings on his name."
Sometimes I hope to live to see that all-auspicious era–that
halcyon age of this world, so much oppressed with grief and sorrow by the tyranny
of its own habitants. I hope to see the time, when it shall be said, "Shout,
for the great Shepherd reigns, and his unsuffering kingdom now is come"–when
earth shall be one great orchestra of praise, and every man shall sing the glorious
hallelujah anthem of the King of kings. But even now, while waiting for that era,
my soul rejoices in the fact, that every knee does virtually bow, though not willingly,
yet really. Does the scoffer, when he mouths high heaven, think that he insults God?
He thinks so, but his insult dies long ere it reaches half-way to the stars. Does
he conceive, when in his malice he forges a sword against Christ, that his weapon
shall prosper? If he does, I can well conceive the derision of God, when he sees
the wildest rebel, the most abandoned despiser, still working out his great decrees,
still doing that which God hath eternally ordained, and in the midst of his wild
rebellion still running in the very track which in some mysterious way before all
eternity had been marked as the track in which that being should certainly move.
"The wild steeds of earth have broken their bridles, the reins are out of the
hands of the charioteer"–so some say; but they are not, or if they are, the
steeds run the same round as they would have done had the Almighty grasped the reins
still. The world has not gone to confusion; chance is not God; God is still Master,
and let men do what they will, and hate the truth we now prize, they shall after
all do what God wills, and their direst rebellion shall prove but a species of obedience,
though they know it not.
But thou wilt say, "Why dost thou yet find fault; for who hath resisted such
a will as that?" "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 honour,
and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his
power known, endured with much longsuffering 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." Who is he that shall blame him? Woe unto
him that striveth with his Maker! He is God–know that, ye inhabitants of the land;
and all things, after all, shall serve his will. I like what Luther says in his bold
hymn, where, notwithstanding all that those who are haters of predestination choose
to affirm, he knew and boldly declared, "He everywhere hath sway, and all things
serve his might." Notwithstanding all they do, there is God's sway, after all.
Go on, reviler! God knoweth how to make all thy revilings into songs! Go on, thou
warrior against God, if thou wilt; know this, thy sword shall help to magnify God,
and carve out glory for Christ, when thou thoughtest the slaughter of his church.
It shall come to pass that all thou dost shall be frustrated; for God maketh the
diviners mad, and saith, "Where is the wisdom of the scribe? Where is the wisdom
of the wise?" Surely, "Him hath God exalted, and given him a name which
is above every name."
And now, lastly, beloved, if it be true, as it is, that Christ is so exalted that
he is to have a name above every name, and every knee is to bow to him, will we not
bow our knees this morning before his Majesty? You must, whether you will or no,
one day bow your knee. O iron-sinewed sinner, bow thy knee now! Thou wilt have to
bow it, man, in that day when the lightnings shall be loosed, and the thunders shall
roll in wild fury: thou wilt have to bow thy knee then. Oh! bow it now! "Kiss
the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled
but a little." O Lord of hosts! bend the knees of men! Make us all the willing
subjects of thy grace, lest afterward, we should be the unwilling slaves of thy terror;
dragged with chains of vengeance down to hell. O that now those that are on earth
might willingly bend their knees lest in hell it should be fulfilled, "Things
under the earth shall bow the knee before him."
God bless you, my friends, I can say no more but that. God bless you, for Jesus'
sake! Amen.
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