Judges 1

Judges 1:12-15

Judges 1:12-15 Achsah’s Asking, A Pattern of Prayer NO. 2312 FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, JUNE 11TH, 1893, BY C. H. , AT THE , , ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 2ND, 1889. Spurgeon, C. H. (1998). Vol. 39: Spurgeon’s Sermons: Volume 39 (Ed note: This sermon emphasizes application more than exposition) “And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kirjath-sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife. And it came to pass, when she came to him, that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she lighted from off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wilt thou? And she said unto him, Give me a blessing: for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.” — Judges 1:12-15 . IN domestic life we often meet with pictures of life in the house of God.

I am sure that we are allowed to find them there, for our Savior said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” God is a Father, and he likens himself to us as fathers; and we who are believers are God’s children; and we are permitted to liken ourselves to our own children; and just as our children would deal with us, and we would deal with them, so may we deal with God, and expect God to deal with us. This little story of a daughter and her father is recorded twice in the Bible. You will find it in the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Joshua, as well as in this first chapter of the Book of Judges. It is not inserted twice without good reasons. I am going to use it tonight simply in this manner — the way in which this woman went to her father, and the way in which her father treated her, may teach us how to go to our Father who is in heaven, and what to expect if we go to him in that fashion. I would hold up this good woman, Achsah, before you to-night as a kind of model or parable. Our parable shall be Achsah, the daughter of Caleb; she shall be the picture of the true successful pleader with our Father in heaven. ————— I. And the first thing that I ask you to notice is, Her Consideration Of The Matter before she went to her father. She was newly-married, and she had an estate to go with her to her husband. She naturally wished that her husband should find in that estate all that was convenient and all that might be profitable, and looking it all over, she saw what was wanted.

Before you pray, know what you are needing. That man, who blunders down on his knees, with nothing in his mind, will blunder up again, and get nothing for his pains. When this young woman goes to her father to ask for something, she knows what she is going to ask. She will not open her mouth till first her heart has been filled with knowledge as to what she requires. She saw that the land her father gave her would be of very little use to her husband and herself because it wanted water-springs. So she therefore goes to her father with a very definite request, “Give me also springs of water.” My dear friends, do you always, before you pray, think of what you are going to ask? “Oh!” says somebody, “I utter some good words.” Does God want your words? Think what you are going to ask before you begin to pray, and then pray like business men. This woman does not say to her father, “Father, listen to me,” and then utter some pretty little oration about nothing; but she knows what she is going to ask for, and why she is going to ask it.

She sees her need, and she prizes the boon she is about to request. Oh, take note, ye who are much in prayer, that ye rush not to the holy exercise “as the horse rusheth into the battle”; that ye venture not out upon the sea of prayer without knowing within a little whereabouts will be your port! I do believe that God will make you think of many more things while you are in prayer; the Spirit will help your infirmities, and suggest to you other petitions; but before a word escapes your lips, I counsel you to do what Achsah did, know what you really need. This good woman, before she went to her father with her petition, asked her husband’s help. When she came to her husband, “she moved him to ask of her father a field.” Now, Othniel was a very bravo man, and very bravo men are generally very bashful men. It is your cowardly man who is often forward and impertinent; but Othniel was so bashful that he did not like asking his uncle Caleb to give him anything more; it looked like grasping. He had received a wife from him, and he had received land from him, and he seemed to say, “No, my good wife, it is all very well for you to put me up to this, but I do not feel like asking for anything more for myself.” Still, learn this lesson, good wives, prompt your husbands to pray with you. Brothers, ask your brothers to pray with you. Sisters, be not satisfied to approach the throne of grace alone; but ask your sister to pray with you.

It is often a great help in prayer for two of you to agree touching the thing that concerns Christ’s kingdom. A cordon of praying souls around the throne of grace will be sure to prevail. God help us to be anxious in prayer to get the help of others! A friend, some time ago, said to me, “My dear pastor, whenever I cannot pray for myself, and there are times when I feel shut up about myself, I always take to praying for you: I God bless him, at any rate!’ and I have not long been praying for you before I begin to feel able to pray for myself.” I should like to come in for many of those odd bits of prayer. Whenever any of you got stuck in the mud, do pray for me. It will do you good, and I shall get a blessing.

Remember how it is written of Job, “The Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends.” While he prayed for himself, he remained a captive; but when he prayed for those unfriendly friends of his, then the Lord smiled upon him, and loosed his captivity. So it is a good thing in prayer to imitate this woman, Achsah.

Know what you want, and then ask others to join with you in prayer. Wife, especially ask your husband; husband, especially ask your wife. I think there is no sweeter praying on earth than the praying of a husband and a wife together when they plead for their children, and when they invoke a blessing upon each other, and upon the work of the Lord. Next, Achsah bethought herself of this one thing, that she was going to present her request to her father. I suppose that she would not have gone to ask of anybody else; but she said to herself, “Come, Achsah, Caleb is your father. The boon I am going to ask is not of a stranger, who does not know me; but of a father, in whose care I have been ever since I was born.” This thought ought to help us in prayer, and it will help us when we remember that we do not go to ask of an enemy, nor to plead with a stranger; but we say, “Our Father, which art in heaven.” Do you mean it? Do you really believe that God is your Father? Do you feel the spirit of sonship in your heart? If so, this ought to help you to pray with a believing tone.

Your Father will give you whatever you need. If there was anything that I wanted, and I should ask it of him, I expect that my dear father, old and feeble as be is, would give it to me if it were within the range of his possibility; and surely, our great and glorious Father, with whom we have lived ever since we were newborn, has favored us so much that we ought to ask very boldly, and with a childlike familiarity, resting assured that our Father will never be vexed with us because we ask these things. Indeed, he knoweth what things we have need of before we ask him. So this good woman, Achsah, feeling that it was her father of whom she was going to ask, and seeing that her husband hesitated to join her in her request, made the best of her way to go and pray alone. “Well, well, Othniel, I would have liked you to have gone with me; but as you will not, I am going alone.” So she gets upon the ass, which was a familiar way for ladies to ride in that day, and she rides off to her father. The grand old man sees his daughter coming, and by the very look of her he knows that she is coming on business; there is a something about her eye that tells him she is coming with a request. This was not the first time that she had asked something of him. He knew her usual look when she was about to petition him; so he goes to meet her, and she alights from her ass, a token of great and deep respect, just as Rebecca, when she saw Isaac, alighted from the camel. She wished to show how deeply she reverenced that grand man, of whom it was an honor to be a child. Caleb survived Joshua a little while, and still in his old age went out to fight the Canaanites, and conquered Hebron, which the Lord had given him.

Achsah pays reverence to her father; but yet she is very hearty in what she is going to say to him. Now, dear friends, learn again from this good woman how to pray. She went humbly, yet eagerly. If others will not pray with you, go alone; and when you go, go very reverently. It is a shameful thing that there should ever be an irreverent prayer. Thou art on earth, and God is in heaven; multiply not thy words as though thou wert talking to thine equal. Do not speak to God as though thou couldst order him about, and have thy will of him, and he were to be a lackey to thee. Bow low before the Most High; own thyself unworthy to approach him, speaking in the tone of one who is pleading for that which must be a gift of great charity. So shalt thou draw near to God aright; but while thou art humble, have desire in thine eyes, and expectation in thy countenance.

Pray as one who means to have what he asks. Say not, as one did, “I ask once for what I want; and if I do not get it, I never ask again.” That is unchristian. Plead on if thou knowest that what thou art asking is right. Be like the importunate widow; come again, and again, and again. Be like the prophet’s servant, “Go again seven times.” Thou swilt at last prevail. This good woman had not to use importunity. The very look of her showed that she wanted something; and therefore her father said, “What wilt thou?” I think that, at the outset of our meditation, we have learnt something that ought to help us in prayer. If you put even this into practice, though no more was said, you might go away blessed thereby.

God grant us to know our need, to be anxious to have the help of our fellow-believers; but to remember that, as we go to our Father, even if nobody will go with us, we may go alone, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and plead our case with our Father in heaven! ————— II. Now, secondly, in this story of Achsah, kindly notice Her Encouragement. Here we have it: “She lighted from off her ass; and Caleb said unto her, What wilt thou?” “Oh!” says one, I could ask anything if my father said to me, ’What wilt thou?’ “This is precisely what your great Father does say to you to-night, What wilt thou?” With all the magnanimity of his great heart, God manifests himself to the praying man or pleading woman, and he says, “What wilt thou? What is thy petition, and what is thy request?” What do I gather from that question, “What wilt thou?” Why, this. First, You should know what you want. Could some Christians here, if God were to say to each of them, “What wilt thou?” answer him? Do you not think that we get into such an indistinct, indiscriminate kind of a way of praying that we do not quite know what we do really want? If it is so with you, do not expect to be heard till you know what you want.

Get a distinct, definite request realized by your mind as a pressing want; get it right before your mind’s eye as a thing that you must have. That is a blessed preparation for prayer. Caleb said to his daughter, “What wilt thou?” and Christ says to you to-night, “Dear child of mine, what dost thou want of me? Blood-bought daughter, what dost thou want of me?” Will you not, some of you, begin to find up a request or two if you have not one ready on the tip of your tongue? I hope that you have many petitions lying in the contre of your hearts, and that they will not be long in leaping to your lips. Next, as you ought to know what you want, you are to ask for it. God’s way of giving is through our asking. I suppose that he does that in order that he may give twice over, for a prayer is itself a blessing as well as the answer to prayer. Perhaps it sometimes does us as much good to pray for a blessing as to get the blessing.

At any rate, this is God’s way, “Ask, and ye, shall receive.” He puts even his own Son, our blessed Savior, under this rule, for he says even to him, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” It is a rule, then, without exception, that you are to know what you want, and you are to ask for it. Will you do this, dear friend, while the Lord says to you, “What wilt thou?” And when Caleb said, “What wilt thou?” did he not as good as say to Achsah, “You shall have what you ask for”? Come, now, to-night is a sweet, fair night for praying in; I do not know a night when it is not so; but to-night is a delightful night for prayer. You shall have what you ask. “All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Desires written in your heart by the Holy Ghost will all of them be fulfilled. Come, then, bethink you of these three things, you must know what you want, you must ask for what you want, and you shall have what you want. Thy Father says to thee, as Caleb said to Achsah, “What wilt thou?” And, once more, it shall be a pleasure to thy Father to hear thee ask. There stands Caleb, that good, brave, grand man, and he says to his daughter, “What wilt thou?” He likes to see her open that mouth that is so dear to him; he loves to listen to the music of her voice. The father delights to hear his child tell him what she wants; and it shall be no displeasure to thy God to hear thee pray to-night.

It shall be a joy to him to have thy petition spread before him. Many fathers would quite as soon that their children did not tell them all their wants; in fact, the fewer their wants, the better pleased will their parents be; but our Father in heaven feels a pleasure in giving to us all we need, for giving does not impoverish him, and withholding would not enrich him. He as much delights to give as the sun delights to shine. It is the very element of God to be scattering bounties. Come, then, and pray to him; thou wilt thus please him more than thou wilt please thyself. I wish that I could so speak to-night that every child of God here would say, “The preacher is talking to me.

He means that I have to pray, and that God will hear me, and bless me.” Yes, that is precisely what I do mean. Take my advice, and prove it yourself to-night; and see if it be not so, that God takes delight in thy poor, feeble, broken prayer, and grants thy humble petition.

Thus we have seen Achsah’s consideration before prayer, and her encouragement to pray. ————— III. Now comes Her Prayer itself. As soon as she found that she had an audience with her father of the kindliest sort, she said to him, Give me a blessing.” I like that petition; it is a good beginning, Give me a blessing.” I should like to put that prayer into every believing mouth here to-night, “Give me a blessing. Whatever thou dost not give me, give me a blessing. Whatever else thou givest me, do not fail to give me a blessing.” A father’s blessing is an inheritance to a loving child. “Give me a blessing.” What is the blessing of God? If he shall say, “Thou art blessed,” thou mayest defy the devil to make thee cursed. If the Lord calls thee blessed, thou art blessed. Though covered with boils, as Job was, thou art blessed. Though near to death, like Lazarus, with the dogs licking his sores, thou art blessed.

If thou shouldst be dying, like Stephen, beneath the stones of murderous enemies, if God bless thee, what more canst thou wish for? Nay, Lord, put me anywhere that thou wilt, as long as I get thy blessing. Deny me what thou wilt, only give me thy blessing. I am rich in poverty, if thou dost bless me. So Achsah said to her father, “Give me a blessing.” I wish that prayer might be prayed by everybody here to-night. Printers here to-night, pray for once, if you have not prayed before, “Lord, give me a blessing.” Soldiers, pray your gracious God to give you a blessing. Young men and maidens, old men and fathers, take this prayer of Achsah’s upon your hearts to-night, “Give me a blessing.” Why, if the Lord shall hear that prayer from everybody in this place, what a blessed company we shall be; and we shall go our way to be a blessing to this City of London beyond what we have ever been before! Notice next, in Achsah’s prayer, how she mingled gratitude with her petition: “Give me a blessing: for thou hast given me a south land.” We like, when people ask anything of us, to hear them say, “You did help me, you know, sir, a month ago;” but if they seem to come to you, and quite forget that you ever helped them, and never thank you, never say a word about it, but come begging again and again, you say to yourself, “Why, I helped that fellow a month ago! He never says a word about that.” “Have I not seen you before?” “No, sir I do not know that you ever have.” “Ah!” you say to yourself, he will get no more out of me.

He is not grateful for what he has had.” I do believe that ingratitude seals up the springs of blessing. When we do not praise God for what we have received from him, it seems to me but just that he should say, “I am not going to cast my pearls before swine. I shall not give my precious things to those who set no value upon them.” When thou art praying, take to praising also; thou wilt gather strength thereby. When a man has to take a long jump, you have seen him go back a good distance, and then run forward to get a spring. Go back in grateful praise to God for what he has done for thee in days gone by, and then got a spring for thy leap for a future blessing, or a present blessing. Mingle gratitude with all thy prayers. There was not only gratitude in this woman’s prayer, but she used former gifts as a plea for more: “Thou hast given me a south land; give me also.” Oh, yes, that is grand argument with God: “Thou hast given me; therefore, give me some more.” You cannot always use this argument with men, for if you remind them that they have given you so much, they say, “Well, now, I think that somebody else must have a turn. Could you not go next door?” It is never so with God. There is no argument with him like this, “Lord, thou hast clone this to me; thou art always the same; thine all-sufficiency is not abated; therefore, do again what thou hast done!” Make every gift that God gives thee a plea for another gift; and when thou hast that other gift, make it a plea for another gift: he loves you to do this.

Every blessing given contains the eggs of other blessings within it. Thou must take the blessing, and find the hidden eggs, and lot them be hatched by thine earnestness, and there shall be a whole brood of blessings springing out of a single blessing. See thou to that. But this good woman used this plea in a particular way: she said, “Thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water.” This was as much as to say, “Though thou hast given me the south land, and I thank thee for it, it is no good to me unless I have water for it. It is a very hot bit of ground, this south land; it wants irrigating. My husband and I cannot get a living from it unless thou give us springs of water.” Do you see the way you are to pray? “Lord, thou hast given me so much, and it will all be good for nothing if thou dost not give me more. If thou dost not finish, it is a pity that thou didst ever begin; thou hast given me very many mercies, but if I do not have many more, all thy generosity will be lost. Thou dost not begin to build unless thou meanest to finish; and so I come to thee to say, ’Thou hast given me a south laud, but it is dry; give me also springs of water to make it of real value to me.’“ In this prayer of Aclisah’s there is a particularity and a speciality: “Give me also springs of water.” She knew what she was praying for; and that is the way to pray. When you ask of God, ask distinctly: “Give me springs of water.” You may say, “Give me my daily bread.” You may cry, “Give me a sense of pardoned sin.” You may distinctly ask for anything which God has promised to give; but mind that, like this woman, you are distinct and plain in what you ask of God: “Give me springs of water.” Now, it seems to me, to-night, as if I could pray that prayer, “Give me springs of water.” “Lord, thou bast given me a south land, all this congregation, Sunday after Sunday, all this multitude of people; but, Lord, how can I preach to them if thou dost not give me springs of water? ’All my fresh springs are in thee.’ What is the use of the hearers if there be not the power of the Holy Spirit going with the Word to bless them?

Give me springs of water.” Now, I can suppose a Sunday-school teacher here to-night saying, “Lord, I thank thee for my interesting class, and for the attention that the scholars pay to what I say to them; but, Lord, what is the good of my children to me unless thou give me springs of water? Oh, that, out of myself, out of my very soul, might flow rivers of living water for my dear scholars, and that I might have the power of thy Holy Spirit with all my teaching! Give me springs of water.” I can imagine a Christian parent here saying, “Lord, I thank thee for my wife and my children; I thank thee that thou hast given me servants over whom I have influence; I thank thee for all these; but what is the use of my being the head of a family unless thou give me springs of grace that, like David, I may bless my household, and see my children grow up in thy fear? Give me springs of water.” The point of this petition is this, “O Lord, what thou hast given me is of little good to me unless thou give me something more.” O dear hearers, if God has given you money, pray that he will give you grace to use it aright; or else, if you hoard it up or spend it, it may, in either case, prove a curse to you! Pray, “Give me springs of water; give me grace to use my wealth aright.” Some here have many talents. Riches in the brain are among the best of riches.

Be thankful to God for your talents; but cry, “Lord, give me of thy grace, that I may use my talents for thy glory. Give me springs of water, or else my talents shall be a dry and thirsty land, yielding no fruit unto thee.

Give me springs of water.” You see, the prayer is not merely for water; but for springs of water. “Give me a perpetual, eternal, ever-flowing fountain. Give me grace that shall never fail; but shall flow, and flow on, and flow for ever. Give me a constant supply: “Give me springs of water.” This woman’s prayer, then, I have thus tried to commend to you. Oh, that we might all have grace to copy her! ————— IV. Now, lastly, see Her Success. Upon this I will not detain you more than a minute or two. “Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.” Observe, her father gave her what she asked. She asked for springs, and he gave her springs. “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?” God gives us what we ask for when it is wise to do so.

Sometimes we make mistakes, and ask for the wrong thing; and then he is kind enough to put the pen through the petition, and write another word into the prayer, and answer the amended prayer rather than the first foolish edition of it. Caleb gave Achsah what she asked. Next, he gave her in large measure. She asked for springs of water, and he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs. The Lord “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask, or think.” Some use that passage in prayer, and misquote it, “above what we can ask or even think.” That is not in the Bible, because you can ask or even think anything you like; but it is “above all that we ask, or think.” Our asking or our thinking falls short; but God’s giving never does. And her father gave her this without a word of upbraiding. He did not say, Ah, you Achsab, you are always begging of me!” He did not say, Now that I have given you to your husband, it is too bad of him to let you come and ask for more from me, when I have given you plenty already.” There are some gruff old fathers who would speak like that to their daughters, and say, “No, no, no! Come, come, I cannot stand this; you have a good portion already, my girl, and I have others to think of as well as you.” No, Caleb gave her the upper and the nether springs, and never said a word by way of blaming her; but I will be bound to say that he smiled on her, as he said, “Take the upper and the nether springs, and may you and your husband enjoy the whole! You have only asked, after all, what my heart delights to give you.” Now, may the Lord grant unto us to-night to ask of him in wisdom, and may he not have to upbraid us, but give us all manner of blessings both of the upper and the nether springs, both of heaven and earth, both of eternity and time, and give them freely, and not say even a single word by way of upbraiding us! I have done with this last point when I have asked a plain question or two. Why is it that, to-night, some of you dear friends have a very parched-up inheritance?

The grass will not grow, and the corn will not grow, nothing good seems to grow. You have been ploughing, and turning the plot up, and sowing, and weeding, and yet nothing comes of it. You are a believer, and you have an inheritance; but you are not very much given to song, not very cheery, not very happy; and you are sitting here to-night, and singing, to the tune Job, — “Lord, what a wretched land is this, That yields us no supply!” Well, why is that? There is no need for it. Your heavenly Father does not want you to be in that miserable condition. There is something to be had that would lift you out of that state, and change your tone altogether. May every child of God here go to his Father, just like Achsah went to Caleb! Pour out your heart before the Lord, with all the simple ease and naturalness of a trustful, loving child. Do you say, “Oh, I could not do that”?

Then I shall have to ask you this question, “Are we truly the children of God if we never feel towards him any of that holy boldness?” Do you not think that every child must feel a measure of that confidence towards his father? If there is a son in the world who says, “No, I-I-I really could not speak to my father,” well, I shall not make any enquiries, but I know that there is something wrong up at his home, there is something not right either with the father or with the boy. Wherever there is a loving home, you never hear the son or daughter say, “You know, I-I-I could not ask my father.” I hope that we have none of us got into that condition with regard to our earthly fathers; let none of us be in that condition with regard to our heavenly Father. “My soul, ask what thou wilt, Thou canst not be too bold; Since his own blood for thee he spilt What else can he withhold?” Come, then, while in the pew to-night, before we gather at the communion-table, and present thy petition with a childlike confidence, and expect it to be heard, and expect to-night to have fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And you, poor sinners, who cannot pray like children, what are you to do? Well, you remember how the Savior said to the Syrophenician woman, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.” But she answered, “Yes, Lord; yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” You come in for the crumbs to-night; for if a man is satisfied to eat crumbs with the dogs, God will not be satisfied till he makes him eat bread with the children. If thou wilt take the lowest place, God will give thee a higher place before long. Come thou to Jesus, and trust in him henceforth and for ever. Amen. Judges 4:22 Sin Slain July 29, 1860 by C. H. (1834-1892) “And, behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him, and said unto him.

Come, and I will shew thee the man whom thou, seekest. And when he came into her tent, behold, Sisera lay dead and the nail was in his temples."— Judges 4:22 . If the story of the world’s sufferings under different tyrants could all be written, there would be no man found who would be capable of reading it. I believe that even the despots themselves, who have committed the atrocities to which I refer, would not be sufficiently cold-blooded to sit down and read the account of the agonies which their own victims have endured. I have been struck in passing through many lands with the horrible sufferings which in the olden times were endured by the poor at the hands of the rich kings and lords who were their oppressors. In almost every town in which you enter, you either have shown to you the rack, the dark dungeon, the thumb-screw, or the infernal machine, or instruments too horrible to describe—that make one’s blood run chill at the very thought and sight of them. Verily, O earth, thou hast been scarred; thy back has been ploughed with many a furrow; from thy veins have gushed forth plenteous streams of blood, and thy sons and thy daughters have had to suffer agonies extreme! But oh! my brethren, I speak in sober earnestness when I declare that all the sufferings that have ever been exercised upon man have never been equal to the tyranny which man has brought upon himself—the tyranny of sin. Sin has brought more plagues upon this earth than all the earth’s tyrants.

It has brought more pangs and more miseries upon men’s bodies and souls than the craftiest inventions of the most cold-blooded and diabolical tormentors. Sin is the world’s great Despot. It is the serpent in whose subtle folds earth’s inhabitants are crushed. It is such a tyranny that none but those whom God delivers have been able to escape from it. Nay, such a tyranny that even they have been scarcely saved; and they, when saved, have had to look back and remember the dreadful slavery in which they once existed; they have remembered the wormwood and the gall; and at the remembrance the iron has entered into their souls. We have before us, in this chapter, a picture of the children of Israel attacked by a very wicked and powerful king—Jaban, the king of Canaan. It is but a faint emblem, a very indistinct picture of the oppression which sin exercises upon all mankind—the oppression which our own iniquities continually bring upon us.

I want to picture to you to-night, if I can, three acts in a great history—three different pictures illustrating one subject. I trust we have passed through all three of them, many of us; and as we shall look upon them, whilst I paint them upon the wall, I think there will be many here who will be able to say, I was in that state once;” and when we come to the last, I hope we shall be able to clap our hands, and rejoice to feel that the last is our case also, and that we are in the plight of the man with a description of whom I shall conclude.

First, I shall picture to you the sinner growing uneasy in his bondage and thinking about rebellion against his oppressors; secondly, the sinner putting to rout his sins and seeking their entire destruction; and, thirdly, I shall seek to bring to you that notable picture of the open door, and I shall stand at it and cry to those who are seeking the life of their sins—“Come hither, and I will show you the man whom ye seek; here he lies—dead; slain by the hammer and the nail; held not in the hand of a woman, but in the hand of the seed of the woman—the man Christ Jesus.”

I.

First, then, let us try to picture THE SINNER GROWING UNEASY UNDER THE YOKE OF HIS SINS, AND A REVOLT AGAINST HIS .

It is said that when a man is born a slave, slavery is not near so irksome as when he has once been free. You will have found it, perhaps, in birds and such animals that we keep under our control. If they have never known what it is fly to and fro in the air from tree to tree, they are happy in the cage; but if, after having once seen the world, and floated in the clear air, they are condemned to live in slavery, they are far less content. This is the case with man—he is born a slave. The child in the cradle is born under sin, and as we grow up we wear our manacles and scarcely know that they are about us. Use, we say, is second nature, and certainly the evil nature we have received makes the usages of sin seem as if they were not so slavish as they are.

Nay, some men have become so used to their bonds, that they live with no true idea of liberty, and yet think themselves free. Nay, they take the names of freedom, and call themselves libertines, and free-thinkers, and free-doers, when they are the very worst of slaves, and might hear their chains rattle if they had but ears to hear.

Until the Spirit of God comes into the heart—so strange is the use of nature—we live contented in our chains; we walk up and down our dungeon, and think we are at large. We are driven about by our task-masters, and imagine that we are free. Once let the Spirit of God come into us—once let a word of life and liberty sound in our ears—once let Jehovah Jesus speak, and we begin to be dissatisfied with our condition. Now the chain frets us; now the fetter feels too small; now we long for a wider march than we had before, and are not content to be fettered for ever to a sinful lust. We begin to have a longing for something better, though we know not what it is. Now it is that the man begins to find fault with what he at one time thought was so passing excellent.

He finds that now the cup which seemed to be all honey has traces of bitter in it; the cane once so sweet and palatable has lost its lusciousness, and he says within himself “I wish I had some nobler food than these swine’s husks; this is not fit food for me.” He does not know that God has begun to kindle in him new life and a diviner nature; but he knows this, that he cannot be content to be what he was before. He frets and chafes like the lion in bonds that longs to range in the forest and wilderness.

He cannot endure it. And now, I say, it is that the man begins to act. His first action is the action of the children of Israel; he begins to cry unto the Lord. Perhaps it is not a prayer, as we use the term in ordinary conversation. He cannot put many words together. It is a sigh—a sigh for he knows not what.

It is a groan after something—an indescribable something that he has not seen or felt, but of the existence of what he has some idea. “Oh God,” saith he, “deliver me! Oh God, I feel I am not what I should be; I am not what I wish to be; I am discontented with myself.” And if the prayer does not take the actual shape of “God be merciful to me a sinner,” yet it means all that, for he seems to say “Lord, I know not what it is—I know not whether it be mercy or grace, or what the name of it may be; but I want something.

I am a slave. I feel it all. Oh that I could be free! Oh that I could be delivered!” The man begins now, you see, to look for something higher than he has seen before. After this prayer comes action; “Now,” says the man," I must begin to be up and doing." And if the Spirit of God is truly dealing with him, he is not content with prayer; he begins to feel that though it is little enough that he can do, yet he can do at least something. Drunkenness he forsakes; at one blow he lays that enemy in the dust. Then there is his cursing and his swearing—he tries to overcome that enemy, but the oath comes out when he leasts expects it. Perhaps it gives him weeks of struggling, but at last that too is overcome.

Then come the practices of his trade—these, he feels, hurt his conscience. Here is another chain to be filed off—another rivet to be torn off. He toils, he strives still crying evermore to God, and at last he is free, and that enemy is overthrown. He is like Barak; the Lord is helping him, and his enemies flee before him. Oh my brethren, I speak from experience now. What a struggle that was which my young heart waged against sin! When God the Holy Ghost first quickened me, I scarcely knew of that strong armour whereon my soul could venture. Little did I know of the precious blood which has put my sins away, and drowned them in the seas for ever.

But I did know this, that I could not be what I was; that I could not rest happy unless I became something better—something purer than I felt; and oh how my spirit cried to God with groanings—I say it without any exaggeration—groanings that could not be uttered! and oh! how I sought in my poor dark way to overcome first this sin and then another, and so to do battle in God’s strength against the enemies that assailed me, and not, thank God, altogether without success, though still the battle had been lost unless he had come who is the Overcomer of sin and the Deliverer of his people, and had put the hosts to flight. Have I not some here to-night who are just in this position? They have not come to Mount Zion yet, but are fighting with the Amalakites in the wilderness. They have not come to the blood of sprinkling, but somehow or other—they don’t know exactly what condition theirs is,—they are fighting up hill against a dread something which they would overcome. They cannot renounce the struggle; they sometimes fear they will be vanquished in the end. Oh, my brother or sister, I am glad to find the Lord has done so much for thee. This is one of the first marks of divine life when we begin to fight against sin.

Then courage, brethren! There shall be another picture painted soon, and that shall be thy picture too, when thou shalt be more than a conqueror, through him that hath loved thee.

But I dare say this is not the picture of all here. There are some of you who say you are not slaves, and, therefore, you do not wish to be freed. But I tell you, sirs, if any earthly potentate could command you to do what the Devil makes your do, you would think yourselves the most oppressed beings in the world. If there should be a law passed in Parliament, and there should be power to put it into execution, that you should go and sit several hours of the nigh until midnight, and drink some vile poisonous stuff that would steal away your brains, so that you have to be wheeled home, you would say, “What vile tyranny! to force men to destroy their souls and bodies in that way;” and yet you do it wilfully of yourselves. And of the one blessed day of rest—the only one in seven that we have to rest in—if there were an enactment passed that you should open your shops on that day, and pursue your trade, you would say," This is a wretched land, to have such tyrants to govern it;" you would declare you would not do it and yet the devil makes you, and you go and take down your shutters as greedily as if you would win heaven by your Sunday trading. What slaves do men make of themselves when they most think themselves free!

I have seen a man work harder and spend more money in seeking pleasure in that which makes him sick and ill—which makes his eyes red and his whole body feverish—than he would have done if a thousand acts of parliament had tried to drive him to do so. The devil is indeed a cruel tyrant with his subjects, but he is such a tyrant that they willingly follow him.

He rivets on them his chains, and whilst they think they are going of their own free will, he sits grinning all the while and thinking how when their laughter will change to bitterest tears, they shall be undeceived in the dread day in which hell’s fire shall burn up their delusion, and the flames of the pit shall scatter the darkness that has concealed the truth from their eyes. Thus much, then, concerning the first picture—the sinner discontented and going to war with his sins.

II. And now we have the second picture—THE SINNER HAVING GONE TO WAR WITH HIS OWN SINS, HAS, TO A GREAT EXTENT, BY GOD’S GRACE, THEM; but he feels when this is done, that it is not enough—that external morality will not save the soul. Like Barak, he has conquered Sisera; but, not content with seeing him flee away on his feet, he wants to have his dead body before him. “No,” says he, “it is not enough to vanquish, I must; destroy; it is not sufficient to get rid of evil habits, I must overcome the propensity to sin. It is not sufficient to put to flight this sin or the other; I must trample the roots of corruption beneath my feet, that sin itself may be slain.” Mark, my dear hearers, that is not a work of the Spirit which is not a radical work. If you are content merely to conquer your sins and not to kill them, you may depend upon it, it is the mere work of morality—a surface work—and not the work of the Holy Spirit.

Sirs, be not content with driving out thy foes, or they will come back again to thee; be not satisfied with wearing the sheep’s skin; be not content till thy wolfish nature is taken from thee, and the nature of the sheep imparted. It is not enough to make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, it must be broken and a new vessel must be given; be not satisfied with whitewashing the tomb. The charnel house must be empty, and where death reigned, life must reign.

There is no mistake perhaps more common in these dangerous times than to mistake externals for internals, the outward sign for the inward grace, the painted imitation of mortality for the solid jewels of spirituality. Up, Barak! Up, thou son of Abinoam! thou hast routed the Sisera of thy drunkenness; thou hast put the hosts of thy sins to flight: but this is not enough. Sisera will return again upon thee with twice nine hundred chariots, and thou shalt yet be overcome. Rest not content till the blood of thine enemy stain the ground, until he be crushed and dead, and slain. Oh, sinner, I beseech thee never be content until grace reign in thy heart, and sin be altogether subdued.

Indeed, this is what every renewed soul longs for, and must long for, nor will it rest satisfied until all this shall be accomplished. There was a time when some of us thought we would slay our sins.

We wanted to put them to death, and we thought we would drown them in floods of penitence. There was a time, too, when we thought we would starve our sins; we thought we would keep out of temptation, and not go and pander to our lusts, and then they would die; and some of us can recollect when we gagged our lusts, when we pinioned their arms, and put their feet in the stocks, and then thought that would deliver us. But oh, brethren, all our ways of putting sin to death were not sufficient; we found the monster still alive, insatiate for his prey. We might rout his myrmidons, but the monster was still our conqueror. We might put to flight our habits, but the nature of sin was still in us, and we could not overcome it. Yet did we groan and cry daily, “Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” It is a cry to which we are accustomed even at this day, and which we shall never cease to utter, till we can say of our sins, “They are gone,” and of the very nature of sin, that it has been extinguished, and that we are pure and holy even as when the first Adam came from his Maker’s hands. Well, I have some here, I have no doubt, who are like Barak pursuing after Sisera, but who are faint-hearted. You are saying, “My sin can never be forgiven, it is too great, it must escape from me, and, even if it were put to flight it never could be overcome; I am so great a stinner, a sinner of such a double dye, a scarlet sinner I must always be. I was born in sin, and I have grown up in it; and as the twig is bent the tree is inclined.

Who can make straight such a gnarled oak as I am? Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? if so, I, who am accustomed to do evil, may learn to do well.” You begin to think that rivers might sooner run up-hill, than you could run to God and righteousness. You are tired of the battle, and ready to lay down your arms and die. But you cannot, you must not go back to be the drunkard and the swearer that you were before, and die in despair of ever overcoming the sin within; nor must you think, “Oh, I have entered upon a fight that is too much for me, I shall yet fall by the hands of mine enemy.”

III. Come hither, I bring you to the third picture. I stand at THE DOOR today, not of a tent, but of a TOMB, and as I stand here I say to the sinner who is anxious to know how his sins may be killed, how his corruption may be slain, “Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest, and when you shall come in, YOU SHALL SEE YOUR SINS LYING DEAD, AND THE NAILS IN THEIR TEMPLES.”

Sinner, the sin thou dreadest is forgiven, thou hast wept sore before God, and thou hast cast thyself on Christ and on Christ alone. In the name of him who is the Eternal God, I assure thee that thy sins are all forgiven. From the book of God’s remembrance they are blotted out.

They are as clean gone as the clouds that floated through the sky last year, and distilled their showers on the ground. Thy sins are gone; every one of them; the sin over which thou hast wept, the sin which caused thee many a tear is gone, and is forgiven.

Further—dost thou ask where thy sin is? I tell thee thy sin is gone, so that it never can be recalled. Thou art so forgiven that thy sins can never have a resurrection. The nail is not driven through the hands of thy sins, but through their temples. If thou shouldest live twice ten thousand years no sin could ever be laid to thy charge again if thou believest in Christ Jesus. Thou hast no conscience of sin left. “As far as the east is from the west,” so far hath he removed thy transgressions from thee. God hath spoken and said,—“Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,” and it is done; none can reverse the sentence.

He has cast thy sins into the depth of the sea, and they can never be found again. Nay, further, sinner, for thy peace and comfort, thy sins are not only forgiven and killed so that they cannot rise again, but thy sins have ceased to be. Their dead bodies, like the body of Moses, are brought where they never can be found. More than this, they do not exist. Again, O child of God, there doth not remain so much as a shadow of sin: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?"—much less prove it against them. What dog can wag his tongue to accuse?—much less, what witness shall rise up to condemn?

God hath justified thee, O sinner! if thou believest; and if thou art so justified, thou art as much accepted in God’s sight as if thou hadst never sinned. Had thy life been blameless and thy path been holy even to perfection, thou hadst not been more pure in the eyes of Divine justice than thou art to-night if thy faith is fixed on the cross of Christ. Right through the brain of all thy sins, the hammer has driven the nail of Christ’s grace.

The spear that pierced the Saviour’s heart, pierced the heart of thine iniquity; the grave in which he was buried was the tomb of all thy sins; and his resurrection was the resurrection of thy spirit to light and joy unspeakable. “Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest.” This is a refreshing sight, even to the child of God, who has seen it long ago, and it will ever be solemn for us to contemplate the sin. It must ever be a direful spectacle; for an enemy, even when dead, is a ghastly sight. The head of Goliath, even though it makes us smile when it is cut off, is yet the head of a grim monster, and he is a monster even when he is slain. God forbid we should ever glory in sin, but it is a theme for joy to a Christian when he can look upon his sins drowned in the blood of Jesus, “Plunged, as in a shoreless sea; Lost, as in immensity.” My soul looks back to the days of my youth, and remembers her former transgressions,—she drops a tear of sorrow; she looks to the cross, and sees them all forgiven, and she drops there tears of gratitude. My eye runs along the days of manhood, and observes, with sorrow, omissions and commissions innumerable; but it lights up with a smile most rapturous when I see the flood of Jesus’ blood swelling over the sands of my sins till they are all covered and no eye can behold them. Oh! child of God, come and see the man whom thou seekest, here he lies slain before thee. Come and see all thy sins for ever dead; fear them not; weep for them; avoid them in days to come, and remember they are slain. Look at thy sins as vanquished foes, and always regard them as being nailed to his cross—to his cross who “Sang the triumph when he rose.” But I hear you say, “Well, I have faith enough to believe that my sins are overcome in that way, and that they are conquered and dead in that respect; but O, sir, as to this body of sin within me—I cannot get it killed, I cannot get it overcome.” Now, when we begin the divine life, we believe that we shall get rid of our old Adam entirely.

I know most of you had a notion when you first started in the pilgrimage, that as soon as ever you received grace, depravity would be cast out—did you find it so, brethren? I have heard some preachers laugh at the theory of the two natures. I never answered them, for I dare say they would not have comprehended me if I had tried the experiment; but one thing I know—that the theory of the two natures in a Christian is no theory to me, but a truth which daily proves itself. I cannot say with Ralph Erskine— “To good and evil equal bent, And both a devil and a saint;” but if that is not the truth it is very near to it; it is next door to it; and while on the one hand I am able to see sin perishing within, on the other hand I cannot fail to see the struggle which my soul has to wage against it, and the daily warfare and fightings that necessarily ensue. I know that grace is the stronger principle, and that it must overcome at last; but there are times when the old man seems for a little to get the upper hand—Ishmael prevails, and Isaac is cast to the ground; though this I know, that Isaac has the promise and Ishmael must be driven out. Well, child of God, if you have to look upon the Sisera of your sin still fleeing from you—be of good cheer; it is but the experience of all the people of God. Moreover, there have been many who have said they did not feel this; but my dear brethren, they did feel it, only that they did not use the same language as we do who have felt it. I know one or two good brothers who say they believe in perfection, but I find all the perfection they believe in is the very perfection that I preach.

It is perfection in Christ, but they do not believe in perfection in themselves. Nor do I believe that any Christian who reads his own heart for a single day, can indulge the idea of being totally free from the risings of depravity, and the risings of the heart after sin. If there be such, I can only say, “I wish I could change places with thee, brother, for it is my hard lot to have wars and fightings day by day, and it seems difficult to say sometimes which way the matter will end, or how the battle will be decided.” Indeed, one could not know it at all except by faith, for sight seems to lead to an opposite opinion. Well, be of good cheer, Christian. Though the old man is not slain in you, as you know personally yet I would have you remember that as you are in Christ, the old man is crucified. “Knowing that your old man is crucified with him.” And know this, that the day shall come when the angels shall open wide the door, and ye that have been panting after your enemy, like Barak pressing after Sisera, shall hear the welcome Spirit say, “Come, and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest,” and there shall lie thine old inbred lusts, and he who is the father of them, old Satan himself, all chained and bound and cast into the lake of fire. Then will you sing indeed unto the Lord, “Oh! sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; his right hand and his holy arm hath gotten him the victory.” Till then, brethren, pursue after your sins. Spare them not, neither great nor small, and God speed you that you may fight valiantly, and by his aid utterly overcome them.

As for thee, poor sinner, whom I lately reminded that thou canst not slay thy sins, nor work out thy salvation, thou canst not be thine own deliverer. Trust in thy Master.

Put thy soul into the hands of him who is able and willing to preserve and keep it, and to protect it; and mark me, if to-night thou wilt have nothing to do with thyself, but wilt give thyself to Christ entirely, then to-night thou art saved. What if my Master should give me to-night some fishes at the first shaking of the net, and what if some poor sinner should say within himself— “I’ll go to Jesus, though my sin, Hath like a mountain rose; I know his courts, I’ll enter in, Whatever may oppose.” Come, sinner, come! Nay, do you say you cannot come? “My sins, my sins!” Come, and I will show thee thy sins nailed to the cross of Christ. “But I must not come,” says one; “I have so hard a heart.” Come, and I will show thee thy hard heart dissolved in a bath of blood divine. “Oh! but,” still thou sayest, “I dare not come.” Come, and I will show thee those fears of thine lulled into an eternal sleep, and thy soul resting on Christ shall never need to fear again, for thou shalt be his in time, his in life and death, and his in an eternity of bliss.

May the Lord add his blessing now, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.