Part 28
that their trial is purely imaginary. They are making it by their
unbelief. It has no other existence than that which their distrust of
God gives to it. While they are inquiring, "Where shall I find a
friend? Who will come to the rescue?" the friend is already in the
house, or, perhaps, will never be needed at all. While they are
saying, "How can I get out of this dilemma?" God has already
solved it. The riddle has been answered, the enigma has been
explained. They are troubled about an enemy whose head is already
struck off–they are repining about a difficulty which has already
been disentangled by the Divine hand.
We have known persons to be utterly surprised when God has
delivered them. This proves that their faith was small. With calm
trust there is quiet waiting. They might well have expected that He
would do it. Among the surprises such persons have expressed has
been this–that, after all, He should have delivered them by a means
so simple. "How could it have happened," they ask, "that I could
not have thought of this? That I should actually have the blessing I
crave hard by me, and yet not perceive it? That I should be thirsty
and crying out to God, in hope that perhaps He will rend the
heavens and send a shower of rain, and all the while there is the
well bubbling up with fresh water?" We have only to look to find,
and having found it, we have only to stoop down to take and drink
for our refreshment!
Children of God–you that are troubled about Providence, pray
God to help you to trust when you cannot trace your God. Ask Him
to give you, not what you wish for, but resignation to His wishes.
Ask to have His will casting its shadow over your soul and let that
shadow be your will from now on. O that we had learned, in
whatever state we are, to be content, basing our confidence on this
sure promise–He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
This is the best foundation for contentment that will ever be found.
Oh, for Grace to feel that if we cannot tell how God will deliver us,
it is no business of ours to be able to tell! That if God knows, that is
enough.
God has not set us to be the providers. He does not intend us to
hold the helm and to pull the leading strings. 'Tis ours to follow,
not to lead. 'Tis ours to obey and not to prescribe for God. Your
deliverance is near, O child of sorrow, or if it tarries for awhile, it
shall be but the richer blessing when it comes. Ships that are long
upon the sea are, perhaps, the more heavily freighted. And when
they come to the port, they will bring home a double cargo of
blessing. Those plants that come up quickly when they are sown in
the ground last but for a little while. Perhaps the blessing that is so
long in springing out of the soil of your expectancy will last you all
your life. Therefore, if the vision tarries, wait for it with patience.
Though this is true of Providence, I prefer rather to deal with the
matter of spiritual blessings. It often happens that souls are
disturbed in spiritual matters about things that ought not to disturb
them. For instance, a large proportion of spiritual distresses are
occasioned by a forgetfulness or an ignorance of the doctrines of
the Bible. We have frequently met with young persons who have
made the astounding discovery that their hearts are desperately
wicked. They were converted some time ago and made a profession
of their faith. They did, then, really repent of sin and they laid hold
on Christ, but their experience was comparatively superficial.
After awhile the Holy Spirit was pleased to show them more of
the hidden evils of their nature and to permit the fountains of the
great deep of their original depravity to be broken up–and they
have been in perfect consternation, as though some strange thing
had happened to them, and they have said, "Where is the comfort
for this?" Now, if they had known, at first, that our nature is
hopelessly bad and that the Scripture describes it as such, they
would not have been surprised when they discovered that Truth of
God.
And had they understood that the work of the Spirit is not to
improve our nature–that He never tried to do it and never intends to
do it–but that He leaves the old nature to die, to see corruption, to
be buried with Christ and gives us a new Nature which comes into
conflict with the old nature. And causes an eternal war and strife
within the Spirit–had they been acquainted with those Truths of
God when they found sin breaking loose in them, and felt the
conflict within, they would have said, "This is just what I was told
would happen. This is the experience of the children of God. This
is what Paul speaks of in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans, and I am, after all, in the same way as the saints of God."
Forgetting this, they think there is no comfort for them in what
seems to them to be the strangest of all human experiences, but
which, indeed, is an experience common to the people of God!
They are looking for the well of water when that very doctrine they
have forgotten would furnish them with the refreshment they stand
in need of. We meet with others whose trouble is about their
perseverance. They believe they are the people of God, but they
tremble lest they should fail to hold on and maintain the good
profession. Their trials are so severe and they feel their own
weakness to be so extreme, may they not one day slip with their
feet to a foul and final fall and be utterly destroyed?
Ah, if they understood what I feel sure is the indisputable Truth of
God, that "the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that has clean
hands shall wax stronger and stronger!" they would not have been
troubled about that question, provided they could answer the other
one–are they righteous? Do they belong to those made righteous in
Christ? "I give unto My sheep eternal life, and they shall never
perish; neither shall any pluck them out of My hand." What a
magnificent assurance of the safety of all the sheep of God! If I am
but one of them, may I not feel a perfect confidence that Christ,
who cannot lie, will make good His word?
There are, besides this, innumerable other promises to the same
effect and oftentimes a man distressed about that, might be relieved
of anxieties at once by the knowledge that it is a perfectly
unscriptural apprehension that is agitating him. We are all too
prone to judge by our feelings rather than to take counsel at the
Fountainhead and rely on the oracle of Inspiration. I used to know
an excellent Christian woman whose trouble was of a somewhat
strange character, for she said she knew she loved the Savior. And I
think all who knew her felt that she did. But though she knew she
loved the Savior, she was afraid that the Savior did not love her!
Nor was it easy to comfort her about that.
Now, truly, if she could have grasped the thought that, "We love
Him because He first loved us," the snare would have been broken.
Had she perceived that all that is in us must be first put into us if it
is of any good. That the Grace of God prevents us (goes before us)
that it is the root and origin of any good thing in us. That the
everlasting and eternal love of God is the fountain out of which our
love to God must flow–had she known that–she would not have
been troubled on that head. I wonder, sometimes, how those friends
who do not receive what is commonly called Calvinistic doctrine
manage to be comforted.
I certainly never have any quarrel with those on the other side of
the opinion, for if the tenets of Arminianism have any sweetness to
them, I am delighted to hear that any have tasted it. I am always
glad that everything in the world should be eaten up and if anybody
can find any food and comfort there, I am glad to hear it. I could
not, and therefore I do not, envy them. I would not wish to deprive
them of any comfort they could find there, as I have never been
able to find any myself. If I believed that my own final
perseverance rested with myself–if I thought that I might have a
love to God that sprang up because of my own will rather than as a
work of Grace–I do not know, but I might be driven to utter
distraction.
Some persons need solid food and must have it, or their health
would fail. So the firm belief that salvation is of Grace from first to
last, and that where God begins a good work He will carry it on, is
essential to my Christian existence and therefore I cannot give it
up. Those who can do without it, let them, but as for me, I cannot. I
have not any comfort left me if anyone shall prove that these things
are not the Truths of Holy Scripture. They are the Truths of
Scripture, however, and let any who are distressed remember them.
May God open their eyes to see them and they need to be thirsty no
more!
Sometimes, Beloved, Holy Scripture has its well near to the
troubled heart, not so much in the form of doctrine, as in the form
of promise. There was never a trouble yet in human experience
among God's people, but what there was a promise to meet it. You
have only to look long enough, and you shall find the counterfoil.
You shall discover that God has in His Book that which exactly
meets your case. "Oh," said Christian, in Bunyan's Pilgrim, "what
a thousand fools have I been to lie rotting in this stinking dungeon
all these weeks when I have a key in my bosom which, I am
persuaded, would fit the locks of all the doors in Doubting Castle.
Come, good Brother, let us try it." And so Christian plucked up
courage and he found his key of promise, though it grated a little.
And Bunyan says that one of the doors went, as he puts it in his old
edition, "damnably hard." He did not know how to put it strong
enough until he used that word. Yet the key did open every single
door and even the iron gate itself, the external gate of the castle,
opened by the help of that key.
O, dear Hearts, some of you have laid, fretting and worrying
yourselves about things which God has dealt with already in His
own Word. You have said, "Would God He would do that!" And He
has done it. You have asked Him to give you something and you
have got it. I have used, sometimes, the simile of a man in the dark
dying of hunger and yet he is shut up in the pantry. There is food all
round him, if he could only put out his hand and take it. Did he
know it to be there, and would he grasp it, there is just what he
needs. I am persuaded, Beloved, if you search the Scriptures well,
there is not one child of God here that need despair of finding that
the Master has opened a well of promise for him.
At other times the well appears in the form neither of a doctrine
nor of a promise, but in the shape of an experience of someone
else. Perhaps nothing more effectually comforts, under the blessing
of God, than the discovery that some undoubtedly good man has
passed through the same state of heart in which we are found.
When we see the footsteps of the flock, we hope that we are in the
Shepherd's path. Now, if you are in deep trouble, may I invite you
to read the 88 thPsalm? What a Psalm that is–that prayer of
David's! Was ever man so cast out from God's sight and banished
from all hope as he? Yet there was no brighter saint in the olden
times than that renowned sufferer!
If you have deep castings down of spirit, I would invite you to
consort with Job. Read that book through. See how terrible are
some of his utterances, yet who shall doubt that Job was not only
saved from his sins and redeemed from all adversity, but that he
holds a name among the most illustrious of those who by faith have
overcome the world? Turn, if you need other examples, to the sighs
of king Hezekiah, or to the lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet.
Surely there you shall find your own case in some chapter or
another! And if it is a matter of inward contention, read the Epistle
to the Romans, especially that part where Paul, in wondrous
paradox, describes himself as doing that evil which he would not,
and not doing that good which he would, and yet that which he did,
he did not allow–till he cries, "O wretched man that I am! Who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
You would find, my dear Christian Brother or Sister, that instead
of your present pinch and trial being a strange thing, you are only
suffering what God's children have the most of them suffered. You
imagine yourself to be sailing over unknown seas, when you are
but following the ordinary track-way of the saints around that cape
of storms which, when it is better known, will be to you a Cape of
Good Hope. Be of good comfort! Be of good cheer, for the
experience of others may refresh you, as well as the promises and
the doctrines which abound in the Word of God. And, Beloved,
sometimes it pleases the Holy Spirit to open a well of living waters
for us in the Person, and work, and life, and sympathy, and love, of
our Well-Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Full often when I have found myself depressed in spirit, I have
challenged my soul, as it were, with this question–"Why are you
cast down? Did not Jesus feel this?" And the depression has
vanished. The thought that Christ has sympathy in this particular
trial is an inexpressibly sweet one. When the Holy Spirit brings it
home to the soul, we can bless the Savior's name that He did not
merely carry our sins, but that He carried our sorrows. That He was
not merely a Substitute, which is the greatest of all consolations,
but a Sympathizer, which is also inexpressibly delightful to us.
Jesus suffers with you, O child of God–suffers in you. You are a
member of His body and therefore He endures in you.
You are making up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ
for His body's sake, which is the Church. There is so much of
suffering allotted to the entire mystical body of Christ that there is
some of it left behind as yet, and you will have your share of it. Be
thankful when you have it, that it is a part of the suffering of the
body of Christ. And, oh, to look into His face by faith, and to feel
that He is not hard or pitiless, whatever others may be! To look into
His face, when we are distressed by reason of the wrongs of others
and the dishonor done to Christ's Church, and to feel that He
knows it, notices it, and has sympathy with us in our sorrow over
declining zeal, or over the worldliness of His people–why that
nerves us with new strength! Does Jesus feel what we feel? Does
He sympathize in it? Are we bearing it for His sake? Then we will
welcome the trouble and be glad to bear it, that He may be honored
thereby. Beloved, if you have forgotten your Lord–(and perhaps
some of you may, during this week, have been forgetting Him–it is
no unusual thing)–think of Him again and you shall find a well of
water close to you.
Besides, once more, our sorrows often arise from our not
observing the Holy Spirit. He is in us and He shall be with us
forever. We are troubled about the little progress of the kingdom of
God in the world, but if we believe in the Holy Spirit we shall soon
get our courage back again. There is no reason why the simplest
sermon, preached in the humblest place, should not at any time be
the commencement of a great revival. There is no reason known to
us why the simple preaching of Jesus Christ, on any Sunday, should
not prove to be the conversion of all the hearers, and, through the
hearers, very speedily of an entire nation! We do not know as yet–
we have none of us, probably, any notion of–the great power of the
Spirit of God.
Some years ago there left this coast a convict vessel full of the
lowest class of men that could be got together–convicts sent out for
long periods of exile. On board that vessel was a surgeon
superintendent who loved the Savior–who believed in the Gospel
and prayed mightily. He called the convicts together, stated to them
that he had an intense desire for the good of their souls–that he
intended during the time of their voyage that such-and-such rules
for their good should be observed–that he particularly wished that
they should all learn to read that they might be able to read the
Scriptures–that he should hold meetings each day–that he should
pray for them individually. Within a very short time a few convicts
were converted to God.
There came a storm in which a companion vessel containing two
hundred men went to the bottom and this alarmed and aroused the
consciences of the ungodly on board this vessel, made them more
susceptible of impression and rendered the task of teaching them
the Gospel much more easy than it had been before. Of course the
terror was transient and being but a natural shock, wore away. Still,
in the meanwhile, the good man had availed himself of the
opportunity. There suddenly broke out in that vessel a Divine work
and all over it might have been heard, at almost any hour of the day
or night, hardened men, criminals exiled from their country, crying
out, "What must we do to be saved?" When they landed there was
not one man or child out of all on board who did not profess to
have found the Savior, for the Spirit of God had worked strangely
among them.
They had become, before they reached the distant clime of their
destination, instead of a nest of swearing beings, whose very talk
was profanity and whose breath was blasphemy, a Church of the
living God! Such results were produced by the power of God's
Spirit in answer to prayer. And if the Spirit of God were to come
upon anyone here, be he who he might, a like transformation would
be worked! Though he were the most abandoned character, though
his infidelity might have entrenched itself, as he imagines, behind a
thousand arguments, the Spirit of God would pull those down,
convince him of sin, renew him and change his heart at once. Oh,
would to God the Church could say, "I believe in the Holy Spirit,"
for today she is like Hagar in the wilderness crying, and the angel
says, "What ails you, Hagar?" And she says, "I need more
ministers, more missionaries. I need more zeal, more earnestness."
Good God, open her eyes, I pray You! Were her eyes opened she
would see that in the possession of the Holy Spirit there is a well of
water close to her hand and all she craves is there–more, indeed,
than she craves–a great deal more than she yet knows that she
needs. Oh, for faith in the eternal Spirit, and the griefs we feel for
the Church of God would come to an end.
II. But I must pass on. I think I hear someone say, "I have no
doubt, Sir, that God has provided a supply for necessities, but may
I partake of that supply? May I participate in the provisions of
Divine love?" I will answer you by saying, in the second place, that
THIS SUPPLY IS FOR YOU. Need I remind you that there are
passages of Scripture which lay the provisions of the Gospel
singularly open? There are invitations in the Word which are not
confined to any spiritual character. "The spirit and the bride say,
Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And whoever will, let him
take the water of life freely." If there are any invitations there, it is,
"whoever will." Well, but you "will." O poor Soul, you would give
your eyes to have Christ. You know you would! You, poor troubled
seeking one, if you had a thousand worlds you would freely forfeit
them, if you could but say, "I am pardoned. My sin is blotted out."
What, then, hinders you? What keeps you back? "Whoever will, let
him come," and you will–therefore come!
We are told to "preach the Gospel to every creature. He that
believes and is baptized shall be saved." Are you a "creature"? If
so, if you believe and are baptized you shall be saved. That is
God's own Word to you. Prove that you are not a creature. Then I
cannot speak to you. But if you are a creature, to you as a creature
is that Gospel sent. "Ah," I hear some say, "I was reading the other
day–
'All the fitness He requires
Is to feel your need of Him,'
but I don't feel my need as I ought, so I have not got the fitness."
My dear Friend, do you ever like to be interrupted in the middle of
a sentence? "Oh," you say, "no! That makes me say what I did not
mean. Let me finish my sentence."
Well, then, let that good poet, Hart, finish his verse without your
interrupting him. He says–
"Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requires
Is to feel your need of Him.
This He gives you!
'Tis the Spirits rising beam."
You never have any sense of your need of Christ unless He gives
you that sense of need. That is as much His work as full assurance
is. The first breath, the first pang that indicates life, is as much the
Divine work as the songs of angels or perfect saints before the
Throne of God. There is another passage that has often yielded
comfort to the downcast. "Come unto Me all you that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." You are "laboring," are you
not? Why, you have been laboring self-righteously to make a
righteousness of your own! Give up that laboring and come to
Christ "heavy laden." You are loaded, are you not? Loaded with
troubles, loaded with sins, loaded with weaknesses, loaded with
doubts.
Jesus says, "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest." Does not that describe you? The
water is for you, then. You "labor." You are "heavy laden." You are
"willing." You are a "creature." "The Son of Man is come to seek
and to save that which was lost." Not long ago I tried to show you
that there could not be a case of sin and misery that could not slip
in there. "Lost, lost." Is that what you say of yourself? The Son of
Man is come to seek and to save such! If we were to open
tomorrow a free dining house, I believe it would be necessary to
put up at the door, before long, some kind of prohibition to prevent
everybody's coming. We should have to draw a line somewhere.
But I am quite certain that there is no poor man in London that was
hungry who would refuse to go in if he saw no prohibition there.
He would say, "If there is no special invitation for me, yet I mean
to go in and try it on till there is a special prohibition against me." I
am sure that is the way with most of us. If there were a distribution
to be made of gold and silver, I think most of us would go and
begin to take some until there was a special order that we were not
to have any. I wish that any sinner who is troubled about election,
for instance, would wait till God tells him he is not elected, or, if he
has any misgiving about whether he may come to Christ, he would
wait till he finds a passage which tells him that he may not come. If
he would find that, then there might be some cause for disquiet.
Will you also find somewhere in this world a sinner that did try to
come to Christ, yet Christ would not have him? If you have ever
found one of the sort, bring him here, for we have been boasting
here very loudly that none ever did come to Christ whom He cast
away.
If you will find one who did come and to whom Christ said, "No,
no! You are not one of those I died for, not one of those I chose"–if
you will find us one of the sort, we shall be sorrowfully glad to see
him–glad because we would be glad to know the truth, but very
sorrowful to think that that should be the truth. No, we defy Satan
to find one in Hell that cried to Christ for mercy and cast himself
upon the Savior, and yet was rejected! All the demons of the Pit, if
they search to all eternity, cannot find such an instance! There
never was, there never shall be one!
Stand not back, then, you who are athirst. When you see the
water, the living water, stand not back, but freely come and take!
For whoever takes of it God will make him freely welcome and the
angels will rejoice concerning him. The water is for you–assuredly
for you.
III. Now to our last point. IT IS AVAILABLE WITHOUT ANY
EXTRAORDINARY EXERTION. Hagar went and filled her bottle
with water and she gave her child a drink. No hydraulic inventions
were required. No exceedingly difficult pumping, no mechanical
contrivances to obtain the water when the spring was perceived.
She did a very simple thing–she held her bottle in the water till it
was full, poured it into the child's mouth–and the dilemma which
had imperiled her life was over.
Now, the way by which we get a hold of Christ is faith. A great
many questions are asked about what faith is and there are large
books written about it. If you want to study the philosophy of faith
till you are bewildered, read a book about faith. But if you really
would know its latent power and its potent charm, put your trust in
Christ now, and you have got all the faith that is needed, and that,
too, in vital energy. There are some who hold that the intrinsic
virtue lies in the personal appropriation, so they say that faith is to
believe that Christ died for me. These same persons tell us, "He
died for everybody, consequently he must have died for me."
I do not see anything of a saving character in that belief at all.
That does not appear to me to be in any degree the faith of God's
elect. Properly, faith is a belief of God–what God says and what
God promises. Its practical outcome is a reliance upon the ipse
dixit of the Almighty. "Thus says the Lord" is the warrant of faith.
What is it? It is trust and whoever trusts Christ is saved. I am
leaning here now, all my weight, and if this rail gives way I must
go down. I am leaning here. Well, now, that is like faith in Christ.
Lean right on Him, lean on Him with all your weight. Lean hard.
Have no other confidence, throw yourself on Him.
It is not faith to put one foot on Christ as the angel put one foot on
the land, and then to put the other foot on our works as the angel
put his other foot on the sea. To rest both feet on Christ–that is
faith. It is to do as the slave said he did–he fell right down flat on
the promise–"And den, massa," he said, "when I am down there I
can't fall not no lower." Nor you, if you are flat on the promise.
God has said it–that is the Truth of God and I believe it. And I
expect Him to fulfill it. This is the testimony that God has given
concerning His Son–that we have everlasting life in Him and if we
trust Him we are saved.
"But I cannot believe," says one. "Cannot believe" what? Do you
say you cannot believe God? No, but Man, when has God ever
lied? Find me once when He has forfeited His Word. Find me once
when He has broken His promise! If you say, "I cannot believe
Him," do you not see that in that incredulity of yours you have
maligned God? You have blasphemed Him! You have made Him a
liar! That is exactly what the Scripture says–"He that believes not
has made God a liar." "But it seems too good to be believed," says
one, "that God, for Christ's sake, forgives men simply on their
trusting Christ."
Yes, it is good. But then we have a good God, a great God. Can
you not believe it when God says it? Do you feel in your heart,
"Why I must believe it if God says it." Then, Beloved, if you trust
on Christ because God has said it, you have the faith which is the
gift of God! The faith which is the work of the Holy Spirit! For this
is the work of God, the greatest work that He does in us–that you
believe in Jesus Christ whom He has sent. "It is so simple," says
one. Yes, and that is the reason why it is so difficult. If it were
difficult, people would do it. But because it is so simple they won't
have it. It was a very hard thing for Naaman to go and wash in the
Jordan. And why hard? Because it was so easy! If it had been a
difficult thing it would not have been hard and he would have done
it.
"If the Prophet had bid you do some great thing, would you not
have done it?" But when he says, "Wash, and be clean," oh, that is
hard–and so it is here because we are proud–THAT is the hardness
of it. It is hard to trust Christ because we are self-righteous!
Because we need to have a finger in this, ourselves. But, oh, when
the Spirit of God cuts us down to the ground, takes away all power,
strength, merit, boasts and glorying, then it seems a blessed thing to
have nothing to do but just to put the bottle in the water and let the
blessed Water of Life go gurgling into it till it fills up to the brim!
I think I hear another person say, "Well, but surely there is
repentance. We must repent if we would be saved." Truly so, but I
would put it rather thus–he that is saved always repents–repentance
and faith go together–they are born at the same time. They will
accompany every Christian as long as he is in this life, but take
care that you do not make a mistake about what repentance is.
There is a Law-work which some Believers feel–but that is not
repentance–it is quite another thing over and above repentance.
There are dark thoughts and horrid forebodings, but those are not
repentance. They may or they may not be of advantage to the
Christian after he has passed through them, but they are not
repentance.
Repentance is simply the consciousness of sin and the loathing of
sin. And if you have these–and they are the gift of God, always the
gift of God–then do not chastise yourself because you have not all
the dark feelings of all the good men that ever lived. Why should
you need more midnight? You are dark enough, poor Soul, without
fretting for more darkness! Better far that you pray for more light!
You have already, I will take leave to say, the repentance you are
sighing after, for I know you hate sin and you do loathe yourself to
think you should be a sinner at all, and you would do anything to
be rid of sin–to escape from it. Would not you be glad to suffer
anything if you could be perfect? I know you would. Well, that is
repentance–that is the sign of repentance within your soul.
"Well," says one, "but we must pray, you know." Yes, granted.
Every saved soul prays. But look here, do you know what prayer
is? Do you think that prayer consists in the attitude of the body, or
the ordering of the speech, or the utterance of petitions for a quarter
of an hour, as I may have done in the course of the present service?
I grieve to say that I may have done all that custom required in that
fashion and not have prayed at all! It is true prayer if you can only
look up to God and sigh, or if your heart does but groan before
Him. Do not think that it is necessary to use fine expressions. Far
from it! "God be merciful to me a sinner" was the prayer that
brought justification to the publican–and some of the best prayers
that have ever reached God's ears are the shortest prayers that ever
escaped man's lips.
Do not measure prayers by their length, I beseech you. God will
help you to pray. Prayer is His gift. If you do cast yourself on
Christ, sink or swim, throwing everything away, even your own
prayers and your own repentance–if you do come and rest on what
Christ is and what He has done, you cannot perish! Look not within
yourself! There is nothing but blackness there. If you look within
you, expect to despair. But look yonder to that Cross on Calvary.
There is life in a look at Him! O, my dear Hearers, how I wish we
all looked at Him this moment! I have no hope but what I find there
in those dear wounds, and in that head bowed down with anguish–
"All my hope in You is stayed,
O Christ of God, made sin for me, my
Substitute and Ransom!"
And every eye that is now looking to that Christ, and every heart
that is trusting in that Christ, has salvation. There is salvation in
none other"There is none other name given under Heaven whereby
you must be saved." There is life for a look at Him. God grant you
Grace to look at Him.
"The Word is near you," on your lip and in your heart. "If with
your heart you do believe in the Lord Jesus, and with your mouth
you do make confession of Him, you shall be saved." Oh, that God
would open the eyes of many a Hagar! Let her see that there is the
water, that the water is free to her and that she has but to dip in her
bottle and fill it to the full. I have used an illustration here before,
but I cannot think of a better one. At the risk of repetition, I will
give it to you again. It just illustrates the case of many persons here
present.
I heard that a vessel, after having crossed the Atlantic, had arrived
in the mouth of the great river Amazon without being aware that it
was there. The water was all spent and they were ready to die of
thirst. They sighted another vessel, and ran up the signal. And when
the vessel came within hail of them she said, "What do you need?"
The answer went back, "Water! We are dying for water." And you
may imagine their surprise when there came across the waves this
sound–"Dip it up. You are in a fresh-water river." They had nothing
to do but to throw the bucket overboard and get as much as ever
they would.
So likewise there is many a sinner crying, "What must I do to be
saved? Oh, what hard thing shall I bear? What sharp thing shall I
feel? What expensive thing shall I give? What tedious work shall I
do?" God's answer is, "Throw the bucket of faith overboard, Man.
It is all round you. It is near you. You are floating on a stream of
mercy. You are in a shoreless river of Grace. If you believe that
Jesus is the Christ, you are born of God. If you trust yourself with
Jesus, your sins, which are many, are forgiven you."
Go in peace, and God grant you Grace to give to Him the glory
through all your remaining days. May God bless these wandering
words of mine to the consolation of some of His mourners, and my
heart shall give Him praise, and your hearts shall overflow with
gratitude! Amen. PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE
SERMON–Genesis 21.
Ge 21:19; Lu 24:31 • Eyes Opened
ERMON 0681
Eyes Opened
"And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water."
Genesis 21:19
Through the Fall the spiritual taste of man became perverted so
that he puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. He chooses the
poison of Hell and loathes the bread of Heaven. He licks the dust of
the serpent and rejects the food of angels. The spiritual hearing
became grievously injured, for man naturally no longer hears God's
Word but stops his ears at his Maker's voice. Let the Gospel
minister charm ever so wisely, yet the unconverted soul, like the
deaf adder, hears not the charmer's voice. The spiritual feeling by
virtue of our depravity is fearfully deadened. That which would
once have filled the man with alarm and terror no longer excites
emotion.
Even the spiritual smell with which man should discern between
that which is pure and holy and that which is unsavory to the most
High has become defiled. Now man's spiritual nostrils, while
unrenewed, derive no enjoyment from the sweet savor which is in
Christ Jesus but seeks after the putrid joys of sin. As with other
senses so is it with man's sight. He is so spiritually blind that things
most plain and clear he cannot and will not see. The understanding,
which is the soul's eye, is covered with scales of ignorance and
when these are removed by the finger of instruction, the visual orb
is still so affected that it only sees men as trees walking.
Our condition is thus most terrible, but at the same time it affords
ample room for a display of the splendors of Divine Grace. We are
so naturally and entirely ruined, that if saved, the whole work must
be of God, and the whole Glory must form the head of the Triune
Jehovah. There must not only be a Christ lifted up of whom it can
be said, "There is life in a look at the crucified One," but that very
look, itself, must be given to us or else in vain should Christ hang
upon the Cross!
Taking Hagar's case first, I shall address myself this morning to
certain unconverted ones who are in a hopeful condition.
Taking Hagar's case as the model to work upon, we may see in
her and in many like her a preparedness for mercy. In many
respects she was in a fit state to become an object of mercy's help.
She had a strong sense of need. The water was spent in the bottle,
she herself was ready to faint and her child lay at death's door. This
sense of need was attended by vehement desires. It is a very hard
thing to bring a sinner to long after Christ–so hard that if a sinner
does really long and thirst after Jesus–the Spirit of God must have
been secretly at work in his soul, begetting and fostering those
desires.
When the invitation is given, "Ho, every one that thirsts," you can
honestly say, "That means me." That precious Gospel invitation,
"Whoever will, let him come," is evidently yours, for you will it
eagerly and vehemently. The Searcher of all hearts knows that there
is no objection in your heart either to be saved or to the way of
being saved–no, rather you sometimes lift your hands to Heaven
and say, "O God, would that I might say, 'Christ for me!' " You
know that the water of life is desirable–you know more than that–
you pine with an inward desire to drink of it. Your soul is now in
such a state that if you do not find Jesus you never will be happy
without Him. God has brought you into such a condition that you
are like the magnetized needle which has been turned away from
the pole by the finger of some passerby, and it cannot rest until it
gets back to its place.
Your constant cry is, "Give me Christ! Give me Christ, or else I
die!" This is hopeful, but let me remind you that it, alone, will not
save you. The discovery of a leak in a vessel may be preparatory to
the pumping of the ship, and to the repair of the leak–but the
discovery of the leak will not of itself keep the boat afloat. The fact
that you have a fever is well for you to know, but to groan under
that fever will not restore you to health. To desire after Christ is a
very blessed symptom, but mere desires will not bring you to
Heaven! You may be hungering and thirsting after Christ, but
hungering and thirsting will not save you! You must have Christ!
Your salvation does not lie in your hungering and thirsting, nor in
your humbling, nor in your praying–salvation is in Him who died
upon the Cross–and not anything in you.
Like Hagar you are humbled, and brought to despair. There was a
time when you did not admit your need of a Savior. You found
comfort enough in ceremonies, and in your own prayers,
repentances, and so on. But now the water is spent in your bottle
and you are sitting down with Hagar wringing your hands and
weeping in despair–a blessed despair! God bring you all to it!
Despair is next door to confidence in Christ! Rest assured, until we
are empty Jesus will never fill us! Until we are stripped He will
never clothe us! Until self is dead Christ will not live in us!
It is quite certain that in Hagar's case the will was right enough
with reference to the water. It would have been preposterous,
indeed, to say to Hagar, "If there is water are you willing to drink?"
"Willing?" she would say, "look at my parched lips, hear my
dolorous cries, look at my poor panting, dying child! How can you
ask a mother if she is willing to have water while her babe is
perishing for thirst?" And so with you. If I were to propose to you
the question, "Are you willing to be saved?" you might look me in
the face and say, "Willing? Oh Sir, I have long passed beyond that
stage! I am panting, groaning, thirsting, fainting, dying to find
Christ! If He would come to me this morning I would not only
open both the gates of my heart and say, 'Come in,' but the gates
are opened now before He comes. And my soul is saying, 'Oh, that
I knew where I might find Him, that I might even come to His
seat!' "
All this is hopeful, but I must again remind you that to will to be
rich does not make a man rich, and that to will to be saved cannot
in itself save you. Panting after health does not restore the sick man
though it may set him upon using the means, and so he may be
healed. And with you, your panting after salvation cannot save
you–you must get beyond all this to the great Physician Himself.
In the second place, mercy was prepared for Hagar, and is
prepared for those in a like state. There was water. She thought it
was a wilderness without a drop for her to drink, but there was
water. Troubled Conscience, there is pardon! You think it is all
judgment, thunder and thunderbolts, curses and wrath, but it is not
so. There is mercy! Jesus died. God is able justly to forgive sinners.
God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not
imputing their trespasses unto them. He is a God ready to pardon,
ready to forgive! There is forgiveness with Him that He may be
feared. There is water, there is mercy. What is more, there is mercy
for you! There is not only that general mercy which we are bound
to preach to every creature, but for many of you whom I have
described I am persuaded that there is special mercy.
Your names are in His Book. He has chosen you from before the
foundation of the world, though you do not know it. You shall be
His–you ARE His! The hour is not far distant, when, washed in the
fountain and made clean, you shall cast yourselves at the Savior's
feet and be His captives in the bonds of love forever. There is
mercy for you now if you trust Jesus!
The water was not created as a new thing to supply Hagar's
thirst–it was there already. If she could have seen it she might have
had it before, but she could not see it. There is mercy, there is
mercy for you. All that is wanted is that you should see it, poor
troubled Conscience, and if you could have seen it there would
have been no necessity whatever that you should have been so long
a time as you have been in despair, and doubt, and fear. The water
was near to Hagar, and so is Christ near to you. The mercy of God
is not a thing to be sought for up yonder among the stars, nor to be
discovered in the depths–it is near you, it is even in your mouth and
in your heart!
The Savior who walked along the streets of Jerusalem is in these
aisles and in these pews–a God ready to forgive, waiting to be
gracious. Do not think of my Master as though He had gone up to
Heaven out of your reach and had left no mercy behind Him. Let
Him tell you that He is as near in spirit now as He was to the
disciples when He spoke to them at Emmaus. Oh that you could see
Him! He is "the same yesterday, today, and forever." He is passing
by! Cry to Him, you blind man, and you shall receive your sight!
Call to Him, you deaf! Speak, even you whose lips are dumb–His
ears can hear your soul's desires! He is near–only believe in His
Presence and trust His Grace–and you shall see Him.
It is a notion abroad that the act of faith is very mysterious. Now
faith, so far as it is an act of man, (and an act of man it most
certainly is, as well as the gift of God, for "with the heart men
believe"), is one of the simplest acts of the human intellect. To trust
Jesus, to lean with the soul upon Him–just as with my body I am
leaning on this rail–to make Him all my confidence and all my rest
needs no learning, no previous education. It needs no straining or
mental effort. It is such an action that the babe and the suckling
may glorify God by it!
The faith of Sir Isaac Newton, with all his learning, is not a whit
more saving or less simple than the faith of the child of three years
old, if brought to rest on Christ alone. The moment the dying thief
looked to the Crucified and said, "Lord remember me," he was as
saved as Paul, when he could say, "I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course." I am very anxious to be understood, and
therefore I am trying to speak very simply, and to talk right home
to those whom I am driving at.
My own case is to the point. I was for some few years, as a child,
secretly seeking Jesus. If ever heart knew what the bitter anguish of
sin was, I did. And when I came to understand the plan of salvation
by the simple teaching of a plain, illiterate man, the next thought I
had after joy that I was saved, was this–"What a fool I was not to
trust Jesus Christ before!" I concluded that I never could have
heard the Gospel, but I think I was mistaken. I think I must have
heard the Gospel thousands of times, but did not understand it. I
was like Hagar with my eyes closed. We are bound to tell you
every Sunday that trusting Jesus Christ is the way of salvation, but
after you have heard that 50,000 times, you really will not even
understand what we mean by it till the Spirit of God reveals the
secret.
But when you do but know it and trust in Jesus, simply as a child
would trust his father's word, you will say of yourself, "How could
it be? I was thirsty with the water rippling at my feet! I was
famishing and perishing for hunger, and the bread was on the table!
I was fretting as though there were no entrance into Heaven, but
there stood the door wide open right before me, if I could but have
seen it!" "Trust Christ, and He must save you." I will improve upon
it: "Trust Him, you are saved." The moment you begin to live by
faith in His dear Son, there is not a sin left in God's book against
you!
We pass on, then, in the third place, to notice that although Hagar
was prepared and mercy was prepared, yet there was an
impediment in the way for she could not see the water. There is
also an impediment in your way. Hagar had a pair of bright
beaming eyes, I will be bound to say, and yet she could not see the
water. And men may have first-rate understandings, but not
understand that simple thing–faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You do
not suffer so much from lack of power to understand faith as from a
kind of haze which hovers over your eyes to prevent their looking
into the right place. You continue to imagine that there must be
something very singular for us to feel in order to have eternal life.
Now this is all a mistake! Simple trust in Jesus has this difficulty
in it–it is not difficult–and therefore the human mind refuses to
believe that God can intend to save us by so simple a plan. What
blindness is this! So foolish and so fatal! Is not this ignorance
partly caused by legal terrors? Master Bunyan, who had a keen
insight into spiritual experience, says that Christian was so troubled
with the burden on his back that in running he did not look well
enough to his steps. Therefore, being much tumbled up and down
in his own mind, as he says, he also tumbled into the Slough of
Despond.
You may have heard the thunder of God's Law so long that you
cannot hear anything so soft and sweet as the invitation of the
loving Jesus. "Come and welcome! Come and welcome!" is
unheard because of the din of your sins.
The main reason I think why some do not attain early to peace is
because they are looking for more than they will get and thus their
eyes are dazzled with fancies. You who dare not take Christ
because you are not a full-grown Christian, be content to be a babe
first! Be satisfied to go through the seed state, and the blade state,
and the ear state, and then you will get to be the full corn in the ear!
Be content to begin with Christ and with Christ, alone. I verily
believe some of you expect that you will experience a galvanic
shock, or a superhuman delirium of horror. You have an idea that to
be bornagain is something to make the flesh creep or the bones
shiver–an indescribable sensation, quite out of the compass of
human feeling.
Now believe, that to be born-again involves the ending of
superstition and living by feeling, and brings you into the world of
plain and simple truth where fools need not err. "Whoever believe
in Him is not condemned." If you can understand that and claim it
as your own, you are born-again. But though you should
understand all human mysteries, if you are not born-again you
could not truly understand that simplest of all teachings, "He that
believes and is baptized shall be saved."
Again, I am afraid some persons with the water at their feet do
not drink it because of the bad directions that are given by
ministers. When a minister closes up an address to the unconverted
with this exhortation–"Now, my dear Friends, go home and pray,"
that is a very right exhortation–but it is given to the wrong people,
and in the wrong place. I do not say to you this morning, I dare not
say to you, as though it were the Gospel message, "Go home and
pray." I hope you will pray! But there is another matter to come
before prayer, namely, faith in Jesus!
When Christ told His disciples to go and preach the Gospel to
every creature, He did not say to them, "He that prays shall be
saved," though that would be true if he prayed aright. But Christ
said, "he that believes shall be saved." Your present duty is not
praying, but believing. You are to look to Jesus Christ upon the
Cross just as the poor serpent-bitten Israelites looked to the bronze
serpent and lived. Your praying will not do you a farthing's worth
of good if you refuse to trust Jesus Christ. When you have trusted
Jesus Christ prayer will become your breath, your native air–you
will not be able to live without it! But prayer, if put in the place of
a child-like trust in Jesus, becomes an antichrist.
It is not going to places of worship, or Bible reading which saves.
I am not depreciating these duties but I am putting them in their
proper position. It is depending upon the Lord Jesus Christ alone
which is the true vital act by which the soul is quickened into
spiritual life. If you, trusting in Christ, do not find peace and
pardon, the Gospel which I preach is a lie and I will renounce it!
But then the Bible would be false, also, for it is from that Book my
message comes. This is the Gospel which we have received and
which Christ has sent us to preach–that whoever believes in Him is
not condemned.
Now why do you hurry about after this and that? Why follow this
man's and that man's directions? Why look to your baptism and
confirmation? Why do you go about to your Church-goings and
your Chapel-goings, your Biblereadings and your praying, your
good works about this and about the other–they are all but dross
and dung if you put them in the place of Christ! But Christ Jesus, if
you rest on Him, is precious, and after your receive Him, your
works and your prayers shall become precious, too, because they
will be performed through faith in Him. But until you come to
Him, they are all nothing and vanity–unacceptable in the sight of
God–because you put them into the place which should be
occupied by the Savior.
I feel certain that there are some here upon whom the Lord
intends to work this morning–so we will speak, in the fourth place,
upon the Divine removal of the impediment. Hagar's blindness was
removed by God. No one else could have removed it. God must
open a man's eyes to understand practically what belief in Jesus
Christ is. That simple Truth of God–salvation by trust in Jesus
Christ–still remains a point too hard to be seen. Until the whole
power of Omnipotence is made to bear upon the intellect man does
not really comprehend it!
But while this was Divinely removed, it was removed
instrumentally. An angel spoke out of Heaven to Hagar. It matters
little whether it is an angel or a man–it is the Word of God which
removes the difficulty. Dear Friend, I pray that the Word of God
may remove your unbelief. May you see today the light of Jesus
Christ by simply trusting Him! I believe there are some who are
saved who still are afraid they will be lost. I have heard of a
butcher who, at his work, was accustomed to put his candle in a
little candlestick which was tied by a belt around his forehead. One
day he needed his candle in his hand and he looked all around his
slaughterhouse for it by the light of the candle on his forehead. He
looked about everywhere to fine it and, of course, he could not
have looked at all if he had not had the light which he looked for
already! Many a man is looking within himself to see the evidence
of Divine Grace when his anxiety and the very light by which he
looks ought to be sufficient evidence. I hope there are many of you
who are just on the verge of salvation without knowing it.
I looked last Friday night at a very remarkable sight–the burning
of a huge rug factory. I was returning home from my Master's
work, when I saw a little blaze, and in an incredibly short time a
volume of fire rolled up in great masses to the skies! Why did it
blaze so suddenly? Why, because for months before many men had
been busily employed in hanging up the rugs and saturating the
building in combustible materials. I do not mean with the intention
of starting a fire, but in the ordinary course of their work. And in
due time, when the first spark came it immediately grew into a
great sheet of flames.
So, sometimes, when the Gospel is faithfully preached, a sinner
gets present peace and pardon and he is so full of joy that his
friends cannot make him out, his progress is so rapid. But
remember that God has been mysteriously at work months before
in that man's heart–preparing his soul to catch the heavenly flame
so that there was only a spark needed and then up rolled the flames
to Heaven! Oh that I could be that spark to some heart in whom
God has been working this morning–by HE alone can make me so!
I noticed when that factory was on fire from top to bottom that it
seemed to glow like pure gold, or like transparent glass, and then I
expected to see it fall and, by-and-by, fall it did, for after about
half-an-hour, all of a sudden, one timber went over and the whole
mass fell with a tremendous crash!
I venture to compare that final crash with the actual salvation of a
soul long prepared, by God's Grace, to receive it. The heart has
been glowing with a Divine desire, a heavenly flame for even
months and years, and then, at last, and in a moment, the final
movement is made–and doubts and fears and sins fall to the
ground–and there is room to build a Temple for the living God.
May it be so with you this morning!
There has been much preparatory work in you, for you are
brought to long after a Savior and you are desirous to be saved by
Him. There He is! Take Him! Take Him! The cup of water is put
before you. Drink it! No need to wash your mouth first, or to
change your garments. Drink it at once! Come to Jesus as you are!–
"Come and welcome, sinner, come!"
II. Oh that the Spirit of God would give me power from on high
while I try to talk to the saints from the second case–that of the
disciples in Luke 24:31. This is no Hagar, but "Cleopas and another
disciples." And yet these two suffered under the same spiritual
blindness as Hagar, though not, of course, in the same phase of it.
Carefully observe the case of these disciples, for I believe it is often
our own. They ought to have known Jesus for these reasons. They
were acquainted with Him. They had been with Him for years in
public and in private. They had heard His voice so often that they
ought to have remembered its tones. They had gazed upon that
marred face so frequently that they ought to have distinguished its
features. They had been admitted into His privacy and they ought
to have known His habits. That Savior walking there ought not to
have been incognito to them though He was to the rest of men.
So it is with us. Perhaps you have not found Jesus Christ lately.
You have been to His table and you have not met Him there. You
are in a dark trouble this morning, and though He says, "It is I, be
not afraid," yet you cannot see Him there. Brothers and Sisters, we
ought to know Christ! We ought to discover Him at once. We know
His voice. We have heard Him say, "Rise up, My love, My fair one,
and come away." We have looked into His face. We have
understood the mystery of His grief. We have leaned our head upon
His bosom. Some of you have had an experience of fifteen or
twenty years, some of forty or fifty years–and yet, though Christ is
near, you do not know Him this morning–and you are saying, "Oh
that I knew where I might find Him!"
They ought to have known Him because He was close to them.
He was walking with them along the same road. He was not up on
a mountain at a distance. Even then they ought to have known
Him–but He was there in the same way with them! And at this hour
Jesus is very near to us, sympathizing with all our griefs.
"In every pang that rends the heart,
The Man of Sorrows has His part."
He bears and endures with us still, though now exalted in Glory's
Throne in Heaven. If He is here, we ought to know Him. If He is
close to His people every day and in all their affliction is afflicted,
we ought to perceive Him. Oh, what poor vision is this, that Christ
should be near, our own well-beloved Redeemer, and yet we should
not be able to detect His Presence!
They ought to have seen Him because they had the Scriptures to
reflect His Image, and yet how possible it is for us to open that
precious Book and turn over page after page of it and not see
Christ. They talked concerning Christ from Moses to the end of the
Prophets, and yet they did not see Jesus. Dear Child of God, are
you in that state? He feeds among the lilies of the Word and you are
among those lilies, and yet you do not see Him? He is accustomed
to walk through the glades of Scripture and to commune with His
people, as the Father did with Adam in the cool of the day, and yet
you are in the garden of Scripture but cannot see your Lord though
He is there and is never absent?
What is more, these disciples ought to have seen Jesus, for they
had the Scriptures opened to them. They not only heard the Word,
but they understood it. I am sure they understood it, for their hearts
burned within them while He spoke with them by the way. I have
known what it is, and so have you, to feel our hearts burn when we
have been thinking of the precious Truth of God, and yet we have
said, "Oh that I could get at Him!" You have heard of election, and
you have wondered to yourself whether you should ever see again
the face of God's first elect One. You have heard of the Atonement,
and the mournful story of the Cross has ravished you. You have
gone from page to page of Scripture doctrine and have received it
and felt its influence, and yet that best of all enjoyments,
communion with the Lord Jesus Christ, you have not comfortably
possessed.
There was another reason why the disciples ought to have seen
Him, namely that they had received testimonies from others about
Him. "But we trusted that it had been He which should have
redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since
these things were done. Yes, and certain women of our company,
which were early at the sepulcher, made us astonished. For when
they found not His body, they came, saying, that they had also seen
a vision of angels, which said that He was alive." There He was
close to them. Oh, it is so strange that in the ordinances of God's
house Jesus should be there, and yet in sad intervals our hearts
should get so cold and so worldly that we cannot see Him!
It is a blessed thing to want to see Him, but oh, it is better still to
see Him. To those who seek Him He is sweet. But to those who
find Him, He is dear beyond expression! In the Prayer Meeting you
have heard some say, "If ever I loved You, my Jesus, 'tis now," and
your hearts burned within you as they thus spoke, and yet you
could not say the same yourself. You have been up in the sick-
chamber, and you have heard the dying saint sing–
"I will love You in life, I will love You in death,
And praise You as long as You lend me breath;
And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,
If ever I loved You, my Jesus, 'tis now."
You have envied that dying saint because you could not just then
feel the same confident love.
Well this is strange, passing strange–it is amazing–a present
Savior, present with His own disciples who have long known Him
and who long to see Him–and yet their eyes are shut so that they
cannot discover Him. Why do we not see Him? I think it must be
ascribed in our case to the same as in theirs, namely, our unbelief.
They evidently did not expect to see Him, and therefore they did
not discover Him. Brethren, to a great extent in spiritual things we
shall get what we expect. The ordinary preacher of the Gospel does
not expect to see present conversions and he does not! But there are
certain Brethren I have known who have preached with the full
faith that God would convert souls and souls have been converted!
Some saints do not expect to see Christ. They read the life of
Madame Guyon and her soul-enchanting hymns, and they say, "Ah,
this was a blessed woman." They take down the letters of Samuel
Rutherford, and when they read them through, they say,
"Enchanting epistles! A strange, marvelously good man was this."
It does not enter into their heads that they may be as Madam Guyon
and that they may have as much nearness to Christ, and as much
enjoyment as Samuel Rutherford! We have got into the habit of
thinking the saints gone by stand up in elevated niches for us to
stare at them with solemn awe, and fancy that we can never attain
to their elevation.
Brothers and Sisters, they are elevated, certainly, but they beckon
us to follow them, and point to a something beyond! They invite us
to outstrip them, to get greater nearness to Christ, a clearer sense of
His love, and a more ravishing enjoyment of His Presence. You do
not expect to see Christ, and therefore you do not see Him. Not
because He is not there to be seen–but because your eyes are shut
through your unbelief! I do not know any reason why we should
not be full of joy this morning–every believing soul among us.
Why hang those harps on the willows, Beloved? You have a trial,
you say. Yes, but Jesus is in it! He says, "When you pass through
the rivers, I will be with you, the floods shall not overflow you."
Why not rejoice then, since the dear Shepherd is with you? What
matters it though there are clouds? They are full of rain when He is
there, and they shall empty themselves upon the earth. Up, my
Brothers and Sisters, up! With everything that may discourage and
cast you down, you have 10 times as much to encourage and life
you up! He love you and gave Himself for you. His blood has
cleansed you. His righteousness has clothed you. His Grace has
decked you with jewels. This world and the world to come are
yours–and Christ who is better than both worlds–is yours forever
and ever! Take down those harps and strike the strings with glad
fingers–and wake them into melodies of joy!
Now, dear Friends, I am sure it is the duty of every Christian, as
well as his privilege, to walk in the conscious enjoyment of the
love of the Lord Jesus Christ. It may be that you came here on
purpose that you might begin such a walk. The disciples had
walked a long way without knowing Christ, but when they sat at
His table it was the breaking of bread that broke the evil charm,
and they saw Jesus clearly at once. Do not neglect that precious
ordinance of the breaking of bread! There is much more in it than
some suppose. Sometimes when the preaching of the Word affords
no joy, the breaking of bread might–and when reading the Word
does not yield consolation–a resort to the Lord's Table might be the
means of comfort.
It may even happen that some other neglected means may be that
which God intends to bless to your soul. I am afraid many of God's