Part 54
him to say? If he has, then be angry with his master if you must be,
or accept what his master says if you think fit. But let the poor man
that brought the message be held clear if he has faithfully reported
his master's words.
I claim that if I have preached my Master's Gospel, whether men
are saved or lost, whether they accept it or reject it, I must leave
that with themselves and not have their sin laid at my door. How
heartily do I cry to God that the Word may not be a savor of death
unto death but a savor of life unto life. But oh, my Hearers, if you
perish after hearing the Gospel of God, do not think that you can
cast the blame on me.
Now, the message Moses brought was rejected and he knew why
it was rejected. He could see the reason. The people were in such
bondage, they were so miserably ground down, they were so
unhappy and hopeless, that what he spoke seemed to them to be as
idle words. There are hundreds of reasons why men reject the
Gospel. We will not go into them tonight. He that wants to beat a
dog can always find a stick and he that wishes to reject Christ can
always find a reason for it. And, however unreasonable a reason
may be, it will serve a sinner's turn, when that turn happens to be
the making of some excuse for himself why he should not yield to
the Savior. Oh that men were less cunning in making apologies for
refusing the Lord Jesus!
Among all the reasons, however, that I ever heard, that with
which I have the most sympathy for, is this one–that some cannot
receive Christ because they are so full of anguish and are so
crushed in spirit that they cannot find strength of mind enough to
entertain a hope that by any possibility salvation can come to them.
It is to their sad case that I desire to speak. I think that I can speak
to the case, if God help me, for I have felt the same myself. I do
remember when I could not believe even Jesus Himself by reason
of sore anguish and straitness of spirit. And, therefore, as one who
has worn the chains, I speak to those who are still in chains.
I know the clanking of those fetters. I know what it is to feel the
damp of the stone walls and to fear that there is no coming out of
prison. I know and have felt the despair that even when the
emancipator turned the great key in the lock and set the door wide
open–yet still my heart had made for itself a direr cage. And I could
not believe in the possibility of liberty–therefore I sat bound in a
dungeon of my own creation. Ah, there is no Bastille so awful as
that which is built by despair and kept under the custody of a
crushed spirit. Many are the desponding ones whose eyes fail so
that they cannot look up or look out. To such I speak. May God
speak through me by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter!
And first, will you notice that what Moses brought to these people
was glad tidings. IT WAS A FREE AND FULL GOSPEL
MESSAGE. To them it was the Gospel of salvation from a cruel
bondage, the Gospel of hope, the Gospel of glorious promise. It is a
very admirable type and metaphorical description of what the
Gospel is to us. Moses' word to them was singularly clear, cheering
and comforting. But they could not receive it. "They hearkened not
unto Moses for anguish of spirit and cruel bondage."
First, Moses spoke to them about their God. He said, "You have a
God, and His name is Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of
Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob." They looked up from their bricks
and they seemed to say, "God? What have we to do with Him? Oh,
that the straw were given us to make our bricks! We are up to our
necks in this filthy Nile mud making bricks. And you come and talk
to us about God. Go and preach to Pharaoh and the taskmasters that
rule us. But as for us poor creatures, slaves that we are, we do not
understand you. What do you mean by Jehovah, our God? Bring us
more garlic and onions, or lessen our daily tasks, or take away the
sticks from our drivers and then we will listen to you."
And so they shook their heads and said that such mysteries and
theologies were not for them. And yet, dear Sirs, if any of you are
in such a case, it is for you–Jehovah, Israel's God, was indeed their
only hope and He is your only hope, also. Alas, that they should be
so unwise as to refuse to let the light shine upon them, for light it
was! What a poor reason for refusing light because the night is so
dark! Man's best hope lies in his God. O you whose lives are bitter
with toil and want, there is something for you after all, much better
than the hard saying, "What shall we eat and what shall we drink?"
There is an inheritance above the grinding toil of everyday life.
There is a portion much better than this killing care which frets so
many of you and makes life a calamity to you. Do not, therefore,
because of the heaviness of your lot, refuse to hear about God, your
Maker, your Benefactor. In that direction lies your only real hope.
Have this God for a Father and a Friend, and life will wear another
aspect and you will be another man.
Then Moses went on to tell them about a Covenant. He said,
"You have a God and that God has said, 'I have also established
My Covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land
of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.' " Covenant?
Why, many of them would hardly know what it meant.
"Covenant?" they said, "God make a Covenant with us poor brick
makers, that have to slave from morning to night without wages
and now are forced to make bricks without straw?" God and a
Covenant–these are strange words in ears that hear the curses of
taskmasters and the crack of their whips. It sounded like mockery
to them to talk of such high matters.
I doubt not they muttered to themselves, "This Moses is a mad
philosopher who has grand mouthfuls of words. But what are
words to us? A bit of fish out of the Nile, or a cucumber from the
irrigated fields would be a deal better than talking to us about a
Covenant." And yet, hearken. If any of you are in a sad condition,
your best hopes may lie this way. What if God has entered into
Covenant with you that He will bless you for Jesus Christ's sake?
There may be a mint of wealth for the sons of poverty in this
Everlasting Covenant. And the best kind of wealth, too. There may
be for you a promised emancipation which will break the fetters
which now hold you–and set you free.
I tell you that in the Covenant of Grace lies the charter of the poor
and needy. At any rate, if you come under that Covenant it cannot
be worse with you than it is now. You seem now to be under a
covenant of bondage and of sorrow and any change will be for the
better. If there be another covenant–a Covenant of Grace and love
and peace and everlasting faithfulness–it were worth while to hear
about it and to seek it out until you discover whether you have part
and lot in it. I entreat you, look into this matter. Hearken diligently
to the voice of the Gospel. Hear and your soul shall live.
So, when Moses had spoken of the Covenant, he went on to speak
yet more about God's pity to them. He reported that Jehovah had
said, "I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom
the Egyptians keep in bondage and I have remembered My
Covenant." I fancy that those words opened their eyes a little. They
looked up and said to one another, "Is there, indeed, a God who has
heard our groanings? Oh but," they muttered, "look at the many
years we have been groaning. Why, it is forty years since this man
Moses first came out and saw our burdens. Where has he been
these forty years? What is the use of pity that is so tardy in its
movements?"
And yet, dear Sirs, if you are inclined to talk so, it may be that if
God is slow He is nevertheless sure. And if He is slow to you it is
out of patience and longsuffering to others. He knows best when
and how to save His people. Remember that when the tale of bricks
was doubled, then Moses came. And when you are getting to your
very worst and your night is darkening into a sort of hellish
midnight it may be that your darkness is coming to an end.
Therefore, be not so bowed down as to let the brick–earth–get into
your ears and eyes and make you deaf and blind. But listen to see if
there is anything to be heard that is better than your daily moans
and groans. Listen to the messenger of God who comes to tell of
what God is about to do. He is a God full of compassion and He
has respect unto broken hearts and tearful eyes.
And then Moses went on further with his blessed Gospel message
to tell them about the Lord's resolve to rescue them by a great
redemption. The Lord had said, "I am Jehovah and I will bring you
out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will rid you out
of their bondage." Do you notice that all along the Lord uses strong
words and speaks like a great king? "I am Jehovah. I will. I will. I
will." When you go home just notice what a number of "I wills"
there are in this declaration of the great God. When God says, "I
will," He means it. Depend upon it. He does not ask our leave, or
wait for our help. "I will" is omnipotence putting itself into speech.
Jehovah will accomplish what He promises. He told them,
therefore, that He meant to come to their rescue. "I will bring you
out from under the burdens of the Egyptians and I will rid you out
of their bondage. I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and
with great judgments." God means to save you. Poor, troubled,
confessedly guilty Sinner, believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God
and trust yourself with Him and the Lord will save you. He will
deliver you from all the guilt of your past life, from the evil habits
of your present life and from the temptations of your future life. He
will break the yoke of Satan from off your neck and make you to be
no more the slave of sin but you shall become the child of the
living God.
Moses told them about the Lord's ways of Divine Grace and the
inheritance which He had prepared for them. My message is after
the same sort. Thus says Jehovah tonight, in the preaching of the
Gospel to everyone that will believe in Jesus, "I will save and I will
deliver you. And I will be to you a God–and you shall know that I
am your God, which brings you out from under the burdens of the
Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land which I did swear
to give it to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. And I will give it you
for an heritage–I am the Lord."
These are great words but they come from the mouth of the great
God who cannot lie. Therefore believe them and take heart of hope.
God will take you, poor guilty ones, to be His children. He will
promote you to be His willing servants. He will use you for His
Glory though now you dishonor His name. He will sanctify you
and cleanse you and He will bring you to Heaven, even you who
have lain among the pots and have been deified in the brick kilns of
sin. He will never rest till He makes you sit upon His Throne with
Him, where He is glorified, world without end. This I speak to you
who are in bondage. Even as Jesus said of old, so say I in my
measure as His messenger–"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.
Because he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are
bound."
Believe in Christ Jesus and He who has come to save the lost will
give you as clear and clean a deliverance from the power of sin as
Jehovah gave Israel deliverance from the power of the Egyptian
tyrant. He will bring you out of bondage and guide you through the
wilderness till you come into the eternal rest, even to a better land
than Canaan, though it flowed with milk and honey.
II. We come now to note that IT WAS RECEIVED WITH
UNBELIEF CAUSED BY ANGUISH OF HEART. The message
was from the Lord and it was full of hope for them but they were
too much broken down to receive it. We can quite understand what
that meant. Let us look into the scene. They could not now receive
this Gospel because they had at first caught it and had been
disappointed. They were under a misapprehension, for they
expected to be free at once, as soon as Moses went to Pharaoh. And
as they did not get immediate relief, they fell back into sullen
despair. When Moses came to them and said that God had appeared
to him at the bush and had sent him to deliver them, they bowed
their heads and worshipped.
Great things they looked for on the morrow, for they were at the
end of their patience. But after that, when Moses went in unto
Pharaoh and the tyrant doubled their labor by denying them straw,
then they could not believe in God or in His messenger. In the
process of salvation it often happens–I have seen it many times–
after persons have come to hear the Gospel, after they have, in
some measure, become attentive to its invitations, they have for a
season been much more miserable than they were before. Have you
never noticed, in taking a medicine, how often you are made to feel
more sick before you are made well? It is often so in the workings
of the great remedy of Divine Grace–it shows us our disease that
we may the more heartily accept the heavenly medicine.
Yes, and in special cases there may be evils within the spiritual
system which must be thrown out in the flesh to be made visible
and so to become the subjects of repentance and abhorrence. The
man who judges with shortness and straitness of judgment demands
a remedy that will cure his soul of all evils on the spot. And if it
does not evidently and immediately do this, he cries, "Away with
it." I find that the Hebrew word translated "anguish" here signifies
shortness. Your marginal Bibles have "straitness." So they could
not believe because of the shortness of their judgment–they
measured God by inches. They limited the great and infinite God to
minutes and days.
And so, as they found themselves, at first, getting into a worse
case than before, they said to Moses, deliberately," Let us alone,
that we may serve the Egyptians." They did as good as say–"You
have done us no good. Indeed, you have increased our miseries.
And we cannot believe in you or accept your message as really
from God, seeing it has caused us a terrible increase of our
sufferings." Grace may truly and effectually come to a heart, and
for a while cause no joy, no peace. I have known many a man
coming to this Tabernacle who has been prospering in business,
and so on, and yet he has been going down to Hell as fast as ever
he could travel.
By God's Grace he has come and heard the Gospel and he has
made a great many improvements in his conduct. And he has even
become a regular and attentive hearer. And at that very time he has
fallen into an affliction, the like of which he had never experienced
before. And he has consequently complained, "Why, I am worse
instead of better. I find my heart grows more rebellious against God
than ever it was before." I do not wonder that it should be so, for I
have seen so many examples of it. The discipline of the household
of God begins very early. But a present increase of sorrow has
nothing to do with what the main result will be, except that it works
towards it in a mysterious manner.
Perhaps what you at first thought was genuine faith was not faith–
and God is going to knock down the false before he builds up the
true. If you had an old house and any friend of yours were to say,
"John, I will build you a new house. When shall I begin?" "Oh,"
you might say, "begin next week to build the new house." At the
end of the week he has pulled half your old house down. "Oh," you
say, "this is what you call building me a new house, is it? You are
causing me great loss–I wish I had never consented to your
proposal." He replies, "You are most unreasonable–how am I to
build you a new house on this spot without taking the old one
down?"
And so it often happens that the Grace of God does seem in its
first work to make a man even worse than he was before, because it
shows to him sins which he did not know to be there, evils which
had been concealed, dangers never dreamed of. Thus the work of
Divine Grace even makes his bondage seem to be heavier than ever
it was. And yet this is all done in wisdom, in love and in fulfillment
of the promise which God has given. I am never very much
astonished when I find people ready almost to turn away from the
hearing of the Gospel, because, after having at first heard it with
pleasure, they find that, for the time being, it involves them in even
greater sorrow than before.
How earnestly would I persuade them to overcome their very
natural tendency to a hasty judgment! Press on, dear Friend. Be of
good courage. Pharaoh will not long be able to make you keep up
that enormous number of bricks. Within a very few days he will be
glad to get rid of you. Wait hopefully. For the God who begins in
darkness will end in light and before long you will come to
understand those ways of mercy which are now past finding out.
Not many weeks after the sobbing and sighing at the brickyards,
Moses and the children of Israel sang this song unto the
Lord–"Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously–the
horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea." The work of
deliverance began very grimly but it ended very gloriously.
The inability of Israel to believe the message of Moses arose also
from the fact that they were earthbound by heavy oppression–the
mere struggle to exist exhausted all their energy and destroyed all
their hope. The extreme hardness of their lot made them
despondent and sullen. They had to work from morning to night.
The Egyptian of the present age knows what it is to work very, very
hard and to let their earnings go into the coffers of their precious
princes. It seems always to have been so with wretched Egypt–it is
ever the house of bondage. But these Israelites, being not even
Egyptians, but strangers in Egypt, were worked without any pity or
mercy. It was a daily question with them whether life was worth
living under such cruel conditions.
I do not wonder that a great many are unable to receive the
Gospel in this city of ours because their struggle for existence is
awful. I am afraid that it gets more and more intense, though even
now it passes all bounds. If any of you can do anything to help the
toil-worn workers, I pray you, do it. The poor workwoman who sits
so many hours with the candle and needle and does not earn
enough, when she has worked all those hours, and can just pay the
rent and keep body and soul together–do you wonder that she
thinks that this Gospel of ours cannot be for her and does not care
to listen to it? I know that it would be her comfort but her soul
refuses to be comforted, she is so crushed.
The dock laborer who comes home five days out of the six having
earned nothing and hears his little children crying for bread–is it
any wonder that he cannot hear about heavenly things? Why, it is
with our white population very much as it was with the Negro
population of Jamaica. When there was work to be had and they
could get enough to eat and more, our Churches were crowded with
them. They were the best of hearers and the speediest of converts.
They were soon gathered into immense Churches. But when
everything went badly with them and they had to work very hard
barely to live, there were groups of backsliders and multitudes who
did not feel that they could go to the House of God at all.
They said that they had no garments to wear and no money to
spare. And do you wonder at it? Their poverty was so grinding and
their toil so severe that the services they had once delighted in they
had no heart for. It is all very easy to say that it ought not to be so.
But it is so. And it is so with multitudes in London. And yet, dear
Friend–if such a one has come in here tonight–I pray you do not
throw away the next world because you have so little of this. This
is sheer folly. If I have little here, I would make sure of the more
hereafter. If you have such a struggle for existence here, you should
seek that higher, nobler, better life, which would give you, even in
penury and want, a joy and a comfort to which you are a stranger
now.
May the Holy Spirit come upon you and raise you out of this
present evil world into newness of life in Christ Jesus! I do not find
that God's people get into a condition of utter desolation–they are,
at their very worst, kept from total desertion. For the Lord has said,
"I will never leave you, nor forsake you." They have to work hard
and they may come very near to want but my observation satisfies
me that they are happy still. They are joyful still. They are uplifted
by the inner life above the down-dragging depression of external
trials. I would to God that I could say a word that might comfort
any child of poverty who should happen to be here tonight. And I
pray the Lord Himself to be their comforter and helper.
But, worst of all, there are some who seem as if they could not lay
hold on Christ because their sense of sin has become so intolerable
and the wretchedness which follows upon conviction has become
so fearful. They have grown almost to be contentedly despairing. I
hardly know any condition of mind that is worse than chronic
despair when at last that which seemed alarming enough to drive to
madness settles down into a lifeless, sullen moroseness. These
Israelites had at last sunk so low that they said, "Let us alone, that
we may serve the Egyptians."
But your lot is terrible. "We know it is," they said, "but we shall
never get out of it." But your bondage is horrible. "Yes but you
may make it worse by interfering. You will only aggravate our
taskmasters and bring upon us that last straw which breaks the
back. Let us alone. We are doomed to suffer–we are predestined to
be bondsmen. Let us go on as quietly as we may in our slavery. It
may be that like poor fishes in the cave, we may lose our eyes yet
and then we shall not know that it is dark, for we shall have lost the
capacity for light."
Oh, it is a dreadful thing when a heart gets to that–when a man
desires that Christ would depart from him and let him alone to
perish. Do not some men virtually say, "I know I am lost. Let me
enjoy myself as well as I can. I cannot–I cannot enjoy sin. But
don't vex my conscience. Do not worry me with your talk, for I
shall suffer enough hereafter. Do not tantalize me about saving
faith, for I shall never believe. Do not begin talking to me about
repentance. I shall never have a soft and tender heart. I know I
never shall."
A man who has begun to be numbed with cold, cries to his
comrades, "Leave me to sleep myself to death." And thus do
despairing ones ask to be left in their misery. Dear Soul, we cannot,
we dare not, thus desert you. I will tell you what you shall do, dear
Soul–give me a hearing. In the name of God, believe that there is
yet hope –that even now Christ Jesus invites men and especially
such as you, to put their trust in Him. O you who are burdened with
sin, He calls you to let him be your Savior! If there is a man in the
world He died for, you are the man.
If I see a physician hurrying down the street in his brougham and
anybody says to me, "Where is that doctor going?" If I knew every
house in the street, I should pick out the case of a man that I knew
to be in the worst condition and most near to death's door. "Sir," I
should say, "the doctor is going there. That dying person needs him
most and I believe that he is hurrying to his bedside." If there is one
man here that is worse than any other, more sad, more sick, more
sorry, more despairing than another, my Lord Jesus Christ, who is
here, has come to meet with such a one.
O troubled Heart, Jesus has come to seek and to save you! I am
sure it is so. Hope! Just hope! Hope! You are not beyond hope of
salvation–
"See, O Soul, you are yet alive,
Not in torment. Not in Hell.
Still does His good Spirit strive,
With the chief of sinners dwell."
Lift up your eyes, for you are not yet where the rich man was
after his death and burial. Do not yet despair. Maybe there awaits
you yet a happy life of joy in God. The sun may yet bring you
brighter days, days of peace and rest and usefulness.
Did you ever hear the story of John Newton on the coast of
Africa? He had got himself into such a state by his sins, his
drunkenness, his vice, that at last he was left on the coast of Africa
and virtually became a slave. Did John Newton dream, when he
wandered up and down with a hungry belly, full of fever and at
death's door that the day would come when he would be the
companion and dear Friend of Cowper? And did he dream that the
Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, over there in the city, would be
crowded every time he stood up to preach of Free Grace and dying
love? He did not think it but it was so predestined.
Something equally gracious may be ordained for you.
Blasphemer, you may even preach the Gospel! O you Magdalene,
full of filthiness, you will yet wash his feet with your tears and
wipe them with the hairs of your head. You sin-stained villain, you
may yet stand among that white-robed host of whom the angel
asked, "Who are these and from where came they?" You, even you,
will sing more sweet and loud than any of them unto Him that
loved you and washed you from your sins in His precious blood.
God make it so and unto His name shall be praise forever and ever!
III. I have many more things to say but I might weary you with
them rather than bless you. The message was at first not received
by Israel by reason of their anguish of soul but IT WAS TRUE
FOR ALL THAT AND THE LORD MADE IT SO. What did the
Lord do when He found that these people did not hearken to Moses
for anguish of spirit and for cruel bondage? What did the Lord do?
He was not going to give them up because of their wretched
condition. He had said, "I will bring them out," and he meant to do
it.
The first thing the Lord did to prove His persevering Grace was to
commission Moses again. (Exo. 6:1; 7:2). So the Lord God, in
everlasting mercy, says to His minister, "You have to preach the
Gospel again to them. Again proclaim My Grace." It seems a
terrible thing to have to pour our souls into deaf ears. Yet I shall not
give up, for I have done it with some here for nearly thirty-three
years and I may as well go on. Why should I lose so much labor? I
will try again, like Peter, who, after toiling all night and taking
nothing, yet let down the net at the Lord's bidding. One of these
days those dead ears will be made to live. God in mercy says, "Go
on with it. As long as there is breath in your body, tell them to
believe in My Son and they shall live. Tell them till you die that,
'He that with his mouth confesses and with his heart believes that
God has raised Christ from the dead shall be saved.' "
But the Lord did more than that for Israel. As these people had
not listened to Moses, He called Moses and Aaron to Him and He
renewed their charge. He laid it upon them–gave them again their
marching orders–"He gave them a charge unto the children of
Israel and unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the children of
Israel out of the land of Egypt." A monstrous Aaron have to do it,
however impossible it may appear. There is to be no backing out of
it. They must know of a surety that Israel is to be delivered by their
means.
It is a grand thing when the Lord lays the conversion of men on
the hearts of His ministers and makes them feel that they must win
souls. Moses was bound to bring out Israel. "But there is Pharaoh."
Pharaoh is included in the Divine charge. They have to beat
Pharaoh into submission. "But these children of Israel will not
obey." The Lord put them in the charge–did you not observe the
words, "He gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, and unto
Pharaoh"? Moses and Aaron, you have to bring Israel out. Pharaoh
is to let them go and Israel is to go willingly. God has issued His
royal decree and be you sure it will stand.
I believe that God is saying to His Church, "You have to do it.
You have to gather out My elect out of every nation under
Heaven." To the Church in London He says, "Bring this people out
of the bondage of sin." That terrible London with all its poverty, its
drunkenness, its infidelity and licentiousness–you are to save it in
the name of the Lord Jesus. Its darkness is dense. You are to shine
till it is enlightened. You have to save London. So do not back out
of it.
"Oh," says one man, who lives down some street near this place,
"Sir, I can hardly live in the street. It teems with illliving women."
You have to save them. Passing a little shop as I did the other day, I
saw written up in the window, "If any poor girl that wishes to lead
a better life will only step inside she will find a friend." That is one
of our dear members. I felt so pleased as I saw it. I should like to
see such a notice in a great many windows. I would like to see you
live among the wicked and put up in your windows, "If anybody
wants a friend, there is one inside. Come in."
You are called to save them! They must not be lost. Somebody
says, "What are you talking about, Mr. Spurgeon? We cannot save
them." I am talking as God said, when He told Moses and Aaron
that He gave them a charge to bring His people out of Egypt. They
could not do it–but yet they did it. Anyone can do what he can do
but it is only God's servant that can do what he cannot do. We, my
Brethren, are called to perform the impossible. We are to be
familiar with miracles.
Look at Ezekiel. There is a valley full of dry bones. Ezekiel is to
go and say to them, "Thus says the Lord, you dry bones, live."
What a preposterous thing! An able Divine of good repute once
said that to preach the Gospel to dead sinners was as preposterous
as to wave a pocket-handkerchief over a grave. Ah, just so!
Therefore, I would not have him do it. If the Lord has not sent him
to do it he would do no good if he were to attempt to preach to the
sinner dead in sin. But it is a different thing when it is my case, for
I feel that I am sent to do it and therefore I am not vexed at being
thought to be acting absurdly.
If God had sent me to wave a pocket-handkerchief over the dead
in Nunhead Cemetery that they might live, I would go and wave
that pocket-handkerchief, and they would live. To the eye of reason
there is no use in preaching to men dead in sin. I freely admit that.
But if it is a commission from God, then it is not ours to raise
questions but to do as we are bid. God has commissioned His
servants to preach the Gospel to every creature. Whatever those
creatures may be, we are to say to them, "He that believes and is
baptized shall be saved. But he that believes not shall be damned."
This is our message and our mission and we are just to tell the
Truth of God and leave God to apply it to the heart.
Oh that He may give us Divine Grace to tell the Gospel and to
keep on doing it till He has brought His own elect out of the
bondage of sin and Satan and saved them with an everlasting
salvation!
Once more–as I told you in the reading, I greatly admire this
chapter. I cannot help admiring the next thing that God did when
He told His servant what to do. The Lord began to count the heads
of those whom He would redeem out of bondage. You see the rest
of the chapter is occupied with the children of Reuben and the
children of Simeon and the children of Levi. God seemed to say,
"Pharaoh, let My people go!" "I will not," said the despot.
Straightway the Lord goes right down into the brick-town where
the poor slaves are at work and he makes out a list of all of them, to
show that He means to set them free.
So many there of Simeon. So many here of Reuben. So many
here of Levi. The Lord is counting them. Moreover He numbers
their cattle, for He declares, "There shall not a hoof be left behind."
Men say, "It is of no use counting your chickens before they are
hatched." But when it comes to God's counting those whom He
means to deliver, it is another matter. For He knows what will be
done, because He determines to do it and He is almighty. He knows
what is to come of the Gospel and He knows whom He means to
bless. And so let Satan rage and let adversaries do what they will,
"The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, the Lord
knows them that are His."
And to prove this, He goes on writing down their names and
taking an account of them. "They shall be Mine, says the Lord, in
that day when I make up My jewels." Now, my Hearers, if you do
not come to Christ, it will be your own loss and not His. If you
refuse Him, it will be because you are not Christ's sheep. As He
said to you, He has a people and He will save them, whether you,
my Hearer, believe in Jesus or willfully refuse to do so.
Out of the mass of mankind a company shall come to Him and
shall glorify His name, as it is written, "This people have I formed
for Myself. They shall show forth My praise." Oh, that you had
such a mind in you that you would accept His Gospel! Will you do
so even now? Trust Christ and you are saved. Look unto Him and
be saved. The Lord bless you, for His name's sake. Amen.