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  SPURGEONS SERMONS VOLUME 28 1882
  by C.H. Spurgeon
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Volume 28 of Spurgeon's collected sermons, containing messages preached during
1882 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. These sermons showcase Spurgeon's powerful
biblical exposition, vivid illustrations, and passionate gospel proclamation
that drew thousands to hear the 'Prince of Preachers' during his Metropolitan
Tabernacle ministry.

  Chapters: 4

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    0. Spurgeons Sermons Volume 28 1882
    1. |Love and I|--A Mystery
    2. The Voice Behind Thee
    3. Brought Up from the Horrible Pit

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  CHAPTER 0: SPURGEONS SERMONS VOLUME 28 1882
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  CHAPTER 1: |LOVE AND I|--A MYSTERY
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A Sermon (No.1667) Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, July 2nd, 1882, by C. H.
SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington "I have declared unto them
thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be
in them, and I in them." -- John 17:26. FOR SEVERAL SABBATH MORNINGS my mind has
been directed into subjects which I might fitly call the deep things of God. I
think I have never felt my own incompetence more fully than in trying to handle
such subjects. It is a soil into which one may dig and dig as deep as ever you
will, and still never exhaust the golden nuggets which lie within it. I am,
however, comforted by this fact, that these subjects are so fruitful that even
we who can only scratch the surface of them shall yet get a harvest from them. I
read once of the plains of India, that they were so fertile that you had only to
tickle them with a hoe and they laughed with plenty, and surely such a text as
this may be described as equally fruitful, even under our feeble husbandry.
Pearls lie on the surface here as well as in the depth. We have only to search
its surface, and stir the soil a little, and we shall be astonished at the
plenitude of spiritual wealth which lies before us. Oh, that the Spirit of God
may help us to enjoy the blessed truths which are herein set forth! Here is the
priceless treasure, but it lies hid till he reveals it to us. You see, this text
is taken out of our Lord's last prayer with his disciples. He did as good as
say, "I am about to leave you, I am about to die for you; and for a while you
will not see me; but now, before we separate, let us pray." It is one of those
impulses that you have felt yourselves. When you have been about to part from
those you love, to leave them perhaps in danger and difficulty, you have felt
you could do no less than say, "Let us draw nigh unto God." Your heart found no
way of expressing itself at all so fitting, so congenial, so satisfactory as to
draw near unto the great Father and spread the case before him. Now, a prayer
from such a one as Jesus, our Lord and Master; a prayer in such a company, with
the eleven whom he had chosen, and who had consorted with him from the
beginning; a prayer under such circumstances, when he was just on the brink of
the brook of Cedron, and was about to cross that gloomy stream and go up to
Calvary, and there lay down his life -- such a prayer as this, so living,
earnest, loving and divine, deserves the most studious meditations of all
believers. I invite you to bring hither your best thoughts and skill for the
navigation of this sea. It is not a creek or bay, but the main ocean itself. We
cannot hope to fathom its depths. This is true of any sentence of this matchless
prayer; but for me the work of exposition becomes unusually heavy, because my
text is the close and climax of this marvellous supplication: it is the central
mystery of all. In the lowest depth there is still a lower deep, and this verse
is one of those deeps which still exceed the rest. Oh, how much we want the
Spirit of God. Pray for his bedewing: pray that his balmy influences may descend
upon us richly now. You will observe that the last word of our Lord's prayer is
concerning love. This is the last petition which he offers, "That the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." He reaches no
greater height than this, namely, that his people be filled with the Father's
love. How could he rise higher? For this is to be filled with all the fulness of
God, since God is love, and he that loveth dwelleth in God and God in him. What
importance ought you and I to attach to the grace of love! How highly we should
esteem that which Jesus makes the crown jewel of all. If we have faith, let us
not be satisfied unless our faith worketh by love and purifieth the soul. Let us
not be content indeed until the love of Christ is shed abroad in our hearts by
the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Well did the poet say, "Only love to us
be given, Lord, we ask no other heaven;" for indeed there is no other heaven
below, and scarcely is there any other heaven above than to reach to the fulness
of perfect love. This is where the prayer of the Son of David ends, in praying
"that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them." What a subject! The
highest that even our Lord Jesus reached in his noblest prayer. Again with
groanings my heart cries, Holy Spirit, help.I shall this morning try to speak
first upon the food of love, or what love lives upon; secondly, upon the love
itself, what kind of love it is; and then, thirdly, upon the companion of love.
"That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."I.
First, THE FOOD OF LOVE to God: what is it? It is knowledge. "I have made known
unto them thy name, and will make it known." We cannot love a God whom we do not
know: a measure of knowledge is needful to affection. However lovely God may be,
a man blind of soul cannot perceive him, and therefore is not touched by his
loveliness. Only when the eyes are opened to behold the loveliness of God will
the heart go out towards God who is so desirable an object for the affections.
Brethren, we must know in order to believe; we must know in order to hope; and
we must especially know in order to love. Hence the great desirableness that you
should know the Lord, and his great love which passeth knowledge. You cannot
reciprocate love which you have never known, even as a man cannot derive
strength from food which he has not eaten. Till first of all the love of God has
come into your heart, and you have been made a partaker of it, you cannot
rejoice in it or return it. Therefore our Lord took care to feed his disciples'
hearts upon the Father's name. He laboured to make the Father known to them.
This is one of his great efforts with them, and he is grieved when he sees their
ignorance, and has to say to one of them, "Have I been so long time with you,
and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?" Study much, then, the
word of God: be diligent in turning the pages of Scripture and in hearing God's
true ministers, that the flame of love within your hearts may be revived by the
fuel of holy knowledge which you place upon it. Pile on the logs of sandal wood,
and let the perfumed fires burn before the Lord. Heap on the handfuls of
frankincense and sweet odours of sacred knowledge, that on the altar of your
heart there may always be burning the sacred flame of love to God in Christ
Jesus.The knowledge here spoken of is a knowledge which Jesus gave them. "I have
known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared
unto them thy name, and will declare it." O beloved, it is not knowledge that
you and I pick up as a matter of book learning that will ever bring out our love
to the Father: it is knowledge given us by Christ through his Spirit. It is not
knowledge communicated by the preacher alone which will bless you; for however
much he may be taught of God himself, he cannot preach to the heart unless the
blessed Spirit of God comes and takes of the things that are spoken, and reveals
them and makes them manifest to each individual heart, so that in consequence it
knows the Lord. Jesus said, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee,"
and you and I would have been in the same condition, strangers to God, without
God and without hope in the world, if the Spirit of God had not taken of divine
things and applied them to our souls so that we are made to know them. Every
living word of knowledge is the work of the living God. If you only know what
you have found out for yourself, or picked up by your own industry apart from
Jesus, you know nothing aright: it must be by the direct and distinct teaching
of God the Holy Ghost that you must learn to profit. Jesus Christ alone can
reveal the Father. He himself said, "No man cometh unto the Father but by me."
He that knows not Christ knows not the Father; but when Jesus Christ reveals
him, ah! then we do know him after a special, personal, peculiar, inward
knowledge. This knowledge brings with it a life and a love with which the soul
is not puffed up, but built up. By such knowledge we grow up into him in all
things who is our head, being taught of the Son of God.This knowledge, dear
friends, comes to us gradually. The text indicates this. "I have declared unto
them thy name, and will declare it." As if, though they knew the Father, there
was far more to know and the Lord Jesus was resolved to teach them more. Are you
growing in knowledge, my brothers and sisters? My labour is lost if you are not
growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I
hope you know much more of God than you did twenty years ago when first you came
to him. That little knowledge which you received by grace when you found "life
in a look at the Crucified One" has saved you; but in these after years you have
added to your faith knowledge, and to your knowledge experience; you have gone
on to know more deeply what you knew before, and to know the details of what you
seemed to know in the gross and the lump at first. You have come to look into
things as well as upon things -- a look at Christ saves; but oh, it is the look
into Christ that wins the heart's love and holds it fast and binds us to him as
with fetters of gold. We ought every day to be adding something to this
inestimably precious store, that as we are known of God so we may know God, and
become thereby transformed from glory unto glory through his Spirit. Are you not
thankful for this blessed word of the Lord Jesus: "I will declare it": "I will
make it known"? He did do so at his resurrection, when he taught his people
things they knew not before; but he did so much more after he had ascended up on
high when the Spirit of God was given. "He shall teach you all things, and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." And now to-day
in the hearts of his people he is daily teaching us something that we do not
know. All our experience tends that way. When the Spirit of God blesses an
affliction to us, it is one of the Saviour's illuminated books out of which we
learn something more of the Father's name, and consequently come to love him
better: for that is the thing Christ aims at. He would so make known the Father,
that the love wherewith the Father hath loved him may be in us, and that he
himself may be in us.This knowledge distinguishes us from the world. It is the
mark by which the elect are made manifest. In the sixth verse of this chapter
our Lord says: "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out
of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy
word." The world does not know the Father, and cannot know him, for it abides in
the darkness and death of sin. Judge yourselves therefore by this sure test, and
let the love which grows out of gracious knowledge be a token for good unto
you.Now let me try to show you what the Saviour meant when he said, "I have
declared unto them thy name, and will declare." This knowledge which breeds love
is knowledge of the name of God. What does he mean by "Thy name." Now, I do not
think I should preach an unprofitable sermon if I were to stop with the
connection and say that the "name" here meant is specially the name used in the
twenty-fifth verse: "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee." This is
the name which we most need to know -- "righteous Father." Observe the singular
combination. Righteous and yet a Father. "Righteous": to us poor sinners that is
a word of terror when first we hear it. "Father," -- oh, how sweet. That is a
word of good cheer even to us prodigals; but we are afraid to lay hold upon it,
for our sins arise, and conscience protests that God must be righteous, and
punish sin. Our joy begins when we see the two united: "righteous Father," -- a
Father full of love, and nothing but love, to his people, and yet righteous as a
Judge, as righteous as if he were no Father. Dealing out his righteousness with
stern severity as the Judge of all the earth must do, and yet a Father at the
same time. I do protest that I never did love God at all, nor could I embrace
him in my affections, till I understood how he could be just and yet the
justifier of him that believeth in Jesus: how, in a word, he could be the
"righteous Father." That satisfied my conscience and my heart at the same time,
for my conscience said, It is well. God hath not put away sin without a
sacrifice, and hath not winked at sin nor waived his justice in order to indulge
his mercy, but he remains just as he ever was -- the same thrice holy God who
will by no means spare the guilty. He hath laid the punishment of our sins upon
Christ; he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. And all this he has done that he might act
to us as a Father, and save his own children from the result of their
transgressions. He has given his only begotten Son to die in our stead that many
sons might be brought to glory through him. It is at the cross we understand
this riddle. Here we see the righteous Father. But the world will not learn it,
and a large part of the professing church, which is nothing better than the
world wrongfully named with Christ's name, will not learn it. They do anything
they can to get away from atonement: love without righteousness is their idol.
Substitution is a word that is hard for the world to spell: they cannot abide
it. That Christ should suffer in the stead of the guilty, and bear that we might
never bear the Father's righteous wrath, -- this they cannot away with. Many
pretend to keep the atonement, and yet they tear the bowels out of it. They
profess to believe in the gospel, but it is a gospel without the blood of the
atonement; and a bloodless gospel is a lifeless gospel, a dead gospel, and a
damning gospel. Let those take heed who cannot see God as a righteous Father,
for they are numbered amongst the world who know him not. "These have known
thee," saith our Lord. These who have been taught by Christ, and these alone,
come to find as much joy in the word "righteous" as in the word "Father"; and
blending the two together they feel an intense love to the "righteous Father,"
and their hearts rejoice in a holy gospel, a message of mercy consistent with
justice, a covenant salvation ordered in all things and sure, because it does no
violence to law and does not bind the hands of justice. Beloved, if this
revelation of the atoning blood does not make your heart love Jesus, and love
the Father, it is because you are not in him; but if you know this secret as to
how righteousness and peace have kissed each other, you know the name that wins
the affection of believers to God. My own heart is glad and rejoices every hour
because I find rest in substitution, safety in the vindication of the law, and
bliss in the glory of the divine character. "Lo! In the grace that rescued
manHis brightest form of glory shines!Here, on the cross, tis fairest drawnIn
precious blood and crimson lines."Here I behold his inmost heart,Where grace and
vengeance strangely join,Piercing his Son with sharpest smart,To make the
purchased pleasure mine."Oh, the sweet wonders of that cross,Where God the
Saviour loved and died!Her noblest life my spirit drawsFrom his dear wounds and
bleeding sides."Still, I would take the word "name" in a wider sense. "I have
declared unto them thy name," which signifies "thy character." The word "name"
is used as a sort of summary of all the attributes of God. All these attributes
are well adapted to win the love of all regenerate spirits. Just think for a
minute. God is holy. To a holy mind there is nothing in the world, there is
nothing in heaven more beautiful than holiness. We read of the beauties of
holiness; for to a soul that is purified, holiness is superlatively lovely. Now,
beauty wins love, and consequently when Jesus Christ makes known his holy
Father, and shows us in his life and in his death the holiness of the
Ever-blessed, then our heart is won to the Father. "Oh," say you, "but holiness
does not always win love." No, not the love of the defiled hearts that cannot
appreciate it; but those who are pure in heart, and can see God, no sooner
behold his holiness than they are enamoured of it, and their souls at once
delight in their Lord.Moreover, we learn from our Lord Jesus that God is good.
"There is none good but one: that is God." How inexpressibly good he is! There
is no goodness but what comes from God. His name, "God" is but short for "good,"
and all the good things that we receive in this life, and for the life to come,
are but enlargements of his blessed name. "Every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights." Blessings
enjoyed by us are streams that flow from the fountain head of God's infinite
goodness to the sons of men. A man cannot help loving God when once he knows him
to be good, for all men love that which they apprehend to be good to them. A man
says, "Gold is good; rest is good; fame is good;" and therefore he seeks after
these things, and when he comes to know that God is good, oh, then his spirit
follows hard after him. He cannot help but love that which he is persuaded is in
the highest sense good. The soul that knows the name of the Lord rejoices at the
very mention of him.To sinners like ourselves perhaps the next word may have
more sweetness. God is merciful; he is ever ready to forgive. Note how the
prophet saith,"Who is a God like unto thee, passing by transgression?" He does
not say, "Who is a man like unto thee?" for none among our race can for a moment
be compared with him; but even if the gods of the heathen were gods, none of
them could be likened unto the Lord for mercy. Now, when a man knows that he has
offended, and yet the person offended readily and freely forgives, why, it wins
his love. If he is a right-hearted man he cries, "I cannot again offend one who
so generously casts all my offences behind his back." The mercy of God is such a
love-winning attribute that, as I told you the other Sunday, twenty-six times in
a single psalm the ancient church sang, "His mercy endureth for ever." Free
grace and pardoning love sensibly known in the soul will win your hearts unto
God for ever, so that you shall be his willing servants as long as you have any
being.But then there is a higher word still. God is love, and there is a
something about love which always wins love. When love puts on her own golden
armour, and bares her sword bright with her own unselfishness, she goeth on
conquering and to conquer. Let a man once apprehend that God is love, that this
is God's very essence, and he must at once love God. I do not mean merely
"apprehend" that God is love in the cold intellect; but when this heart begins
to glow and burn with that divine revelation, then straightway the spirit is
joined unto the Lord, and rests with delight in the great Father of spirits.
Love knits and binds. Oh to feel more of its uniting power.Thus have I shown you
the manna which love feeds upon, the nectar which it drinks. Everything in God
is lovely, and there is no trait in his character that is otherwise than lovely.
All the lovelinesses that can be conceived are heaped up in God without the
slightest admixture or adulteration. He is love altogether, wholly, and
emphatically. Oh, surely our Lord and Master was wise when he fed his people's
love upon such meat as this.II. Brethren, we have as yet only been standing at
the furnace mouth: let us now enter into the devouring flame while we speak, in
the second place, upon THE LOVE ITSELF.Observe, first, what this love is not. "I
have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith
thou hast loved me may be in them." Do notice that the prayer is not that the
Father's love may be set upon them, or moved towards them. God does not love us
because we know him, for he loved us before we knew him, even as Paul speaks of
"His great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and
sins." Jesus has not come to set his Father's love upon the chosen. Oh, no; he
did not even die with that object, for the Father's love was upon the chosen
from everlasting. "The Father himself loveth you" was always true. Christ did
not die to make his Father loving, but because his Father is loving: the atoning
blood is the outflow of the very heart of God toward us. So do not make any
mistake. Our Lord speaks not of the divine love in itself, but in us. This is
not the eternal love of God towards us of which we are now reading, but that
love in us. We are inwardly to feel the love which proceeds from the Father, and
so to have it in us. We are to have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by
the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. It is to be recognized by us, felt in us,
made the subject of inward joy; this it is that our Lord wishes to produce, that
the love of God may be in us, dwelling in our hearts, a welcome guest, the
sovereign of our souls. And this love is of a very peculiar sort. Do let me read
the verse again: "That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them." It
is God's own love in us. The love of the Father towards Jesus springs up like a
crystal fountain, and then the sparkling drops fall and overflow, as you have
seen the fountains do, and we are the cups into which this overflowing love of
God towards Christ Jesus flows, and flows till we too are full. The inward love
so much desired for us by our Lord is no emotion of nature, no attachment
proceeding from the unregenerate will, but it is the Father's love transplanted
into the soil of these poor hearts, and becoming our love to Jesus, as we shall
have to show in the next point. But is not this a wonderful thing, -- that God's
own love to Jesus should dwell in our hearts? And yet it is so. The love
wherewith we love Christ, mark you, is God's love to Christ: "That the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them. "All true love, such as the Father
delights in and accepts at our hands, is nothing but his own love, which has
come streaming down from his own heart into our renewed minds.But what can this
mean? I must ask you to observe that it includes within itself four precious
things.First, the text means that our Lord Jesus Christ desires us to have a
distinct recognition of the Father's love to him. He wants the love wherewith
the Father loves him to be felt in us, so that we may say, "Yes, I know the
Father loved him, for I, who am such a poor, unworthy, and foolish creature, yet
love him; and, oh, how his Father must love him." I love him! Ay, by his grace,
it were a blessed thing to die for him; but if I love him, oh, how must his
Father love him who can see all his beauty, and can appreciate every distinct
piece of loveliness that is in him! God never loved anything as he loves Christ,
except his people, and they have had to be lifted up to that position by the
love which the Father has to his Son. For, first and foremost, the Father and
the Son are one: they are one in essence. The Saviour has been with the Father
from the beginning, and his delight has been with him, even as the Father
testified, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Oh, do try to
feel, if you can, the love of the Father to his Son, or else you will not love
the Father as you should for the amazing sacrifice which he made in giving Jesus
to us. Think what it cost him to tear his Well-Beloved from his bosom and send
him down below to be "despised and rejected." Think what it cost him to nail him
up to yonder cross, and then forsake him and hide his face from him, because he
had laid all our sins upon him. Oh, the love he must have had to us thus to have
made his best Beloved to become a curse for us, as it is written, "Cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree." I want you to get this right into your souls,
dear friends. Do not hold it as a dry doctrine, but let it touch your heart. Let
it flow into your heart like a boiling stream, till your whole souls become like
Icelandic geysers, which boil and bubble up and send their steam aloft into the
clouds. Oh, to have the soul filled with the love of the Father towards him who
is altogether lovely.Now, go a step further and deeper. Our text bears a further
reading. Remember that you are to have in your heart a sense of the Father's
love to you, and to recollect that it is precisely the same love wherewith he
loves his Son. "That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them." Oh,
wonder of wonders, I feel more inclined to sit down and meditate upon it than to
stand up and talk about it! The love wherewith he loved his Son -- such is his
love to all his chosen ones. Can you believe it, that you should be the object
of God's delight, even as Christ is, because you are in Christ; that you should
be the object of the Father's love as truly as Christ is, because he sees you to
be part and parcel of the mystical body of his well-beloved Son? Do not tell me
that God the Father does not love you as well as he does Christ: the point can
be settled by the grandest matter of fact that ever was. When there was a choice
between Christ and his people which should die of the two, the Father freely
delivered up his own Son that we might live through him. Oh, what a meeting
there must have been of the seas of love that day, when God's great love to us
came rolling in like a glorious springtide, and his love to his Son came rolling
in at the same time. If they had met and come into collision, we cannot imagine
the result; but when they both took to rolling together in one mighty torrent,
what a stream of love was there! The Lord Jesus sank that we might swim, he sank
that we might rise; and now we are borne onward for ever by the mighty sweep of
infinite love into an everlasting blessedness which tongues and lips can never
fully set forth. Oh, be ravished with this. Be carried away with it; be in
ecstasy at love so amazing, so divine: the Father loves you even as he loves his
Son; after the same manner and sort he loveth all his redeemed. But now this
goes to a third meaning, and that is that we are to give back a reflection of
this love, and to love Jesus as the Father loves him. A dear old friend speaking
to me the other day in a rapturous tone said, "I love Jesus as the Father loves
him." This is true; not equally, but like. Is not this a blessed thought? I
said, "O friend, that is a strong thing to say!" "Ah," said he, "but not
stronger than Jesus would have it when he prays that the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.'" His people love Christ as the
Father loves him, -- in the same way, though from want of capacity they cannot
reach to the same immeasurable force of love. Oh, to throw back on Christ his
Father's love. The Father is the sun and we are the moon, but the moonlight is
the same light as the sunlight. We can see a difference because reflection robs
the light of much of its heat and its brilliance, but it is the same light. The
moon has not a ray of light but what came from the sun, and we have not a live
coal of love to Christ but what came from the Father. We are as the moon,
shining by reflected light, but Jesus loves the moonlight of our love and
rejoices in it. Let us give him all of it: let us try to be as the full moon
always, and let us not dwindle down to a mere ring of love, or a crescent of
affection; let us render no half-moon love; let us not be half dark and cold,
but let us shine on Christ with all the light we can possibly reflect of his
father's love, saying in our very soul,"My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art
mine;For thee all the follies of sin I resign."And then fourthly, this love of
the Father in us is to go beaming forth from us to all around. When we get the
love wherewith the Father loves the Son into our hearts, then it is to go out
towards all the chosen seed. He that loveth him that begat loveth also them that
are begotten of him. Ay, and your love is to go forth to all the sons of men,
seeking their good for God's glory, that they may be brought in to know the same
Saviour in whom we rejoice. Oh, if the love of the Father to Christ once enters
into a man's soul it will change him; it will sway him with the noblest passion;
it will make him a zealot for Christ; it will cast out his selfishness; it will
change him into the image of Christ, and fit him to dwell in heaven where love
is perfected.So I conclude this second head by saying that this indwelling of
the Father's love in us has the most blessed results. It has an expulsive
result. As soon as ever it gets into the heart it says to all love of sin, "Get
thee hence; there remains no room for thee here." When the light enters in, the
darkness receives immediate notice of ejectment; the night is gone as soon as
the dawn appears. It has also a repulsive power by which it repels the assaults
of sin. As though a man did snatch the sun out of the heaven and make a round
shield with it, and hold it in the very face of the prince of darkness, and
blind him with the light, so doth the love of God the Father repel the enemy. It
girds the soul with the armour of light. It repels the devil, the love of the
world, the love of sin, and all outward temptations. And then what an impulsive
power it has. Get the love of Christ into you, and it is as when an engine
receives fire and steam, and so obtains the force which drives it. Then have you
strengthening, then have you motive power, then are you urged on to this and
that heroic deed which, apart from this sublime love, you never would have
thought of. For Christ you can live, for Christ you can suffer, for Christ you
can die, when once the Father's love to him has taken full possession of your
spirit. And, oh, how elevating it is. How it lifts a man up above self and sin;
how it makes him seek the things that are above! How purifying it is; and how
happy it makes the subject of its influence. If you are unhappy you want more of
the love of God. "Oh," say you, "I want a larger income." Nonsense. A man is not
made happy by money. You will do very well in poverty if you have enough of the
love of God. Oh, but if your soul be filled with the love of God, your spirit
will be ready to dance at the very sound of his name. You murmur and repine at
providence because the fire of your love is burning low. Come, get the ashes
together; pray the Spirit of God to blow upon them: beg him to bring fresh fuel
of holy knowledge, till your soul becomes like Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, heated
seven times hotter. This is the kind of love we should have towards Christ. No
blessing can excel it. Oh, Saviour, let thy prayer be fulfilled in me and in all
thy dear people this morning, and may the love wherewith the Father hath loved
thee be in us.III. Thirdly, here is THE COMPANION OF LOVE. "I in them." Look the
text a minute and just catch those two words. Here is "love" and "I" -- love and
Christ come together. Oh, blessed guests! "Love and I," says Christ; as if he
felt he never had a companion that suited him better. "Love" and "I": Jesus is
ever at home where love is reigning. When love lives in his people's hearts,
Jesus lives there too. Does Jesus, then, live in the hearts of his people? Yes;
wherever there is the love of the Father shed abroad in them, he must be there.
We have his own word for it, and we are sure that Jesus knows where he is. We
are sure that he is where love is; for, first, where there is love there is
life, and where there is life there is Christ, for he himself says, "I am the
life." There is no true life in the believer's soul that is divided from Christ.
We are sure of that; so that where there is love there is life, and where there
is life there is Christ. Again, where there is the love of God in the heart
there is the Holy Spirit; but wherever the Holy Spirit is, there is Christ, for
the Holy Spirit is Christ's representative; and it is in that sense that he
tells us, "Lo, I am with you alway," namely, because the Spirit is come to be
always with us. So where there is love there is the Spirit of God, and where
there is the Spirit of God there is Christ. So it is always "Love and
I."Furthermore where there is love there is faith, for faith worketh by love,
and there never was true love to Christ apart from faith; but where there is
faith there is always Christ, for if there is faith in him he has been received
into the soul. Jesus is ever near to that faith which has himself for its
foundation and resting place. Where there is love there is faith, where there is
faith there is Christ, and so it is "love and I."Ay, but where there is the
Father's love toward Christ in the heart God himself is there. I am sure of
that, for God is love. So if there is love within us there must be God, and
where God is, there Christ is, for he saith, "I and my Father are one." So you
see, where there is love, there must be Jesus Christ, for these reasons and for
many others beside."I in them." Yes, if I were commanded to preach for seven
years from these three words only, I should never exhaust the text, I am quite
certain. I might exhaust you by my dulness, and exhaust myself by labour to tell
out the sacred secret, but I should never exhaust the text. "I in them." It is
the most blessed word I know of. You, beloved, need not go abroad to find the
Lord Jesus Christ. Where does he live? He lives within you. "I in them." As soon
as ever you pray you are sure he hears you, because he is within you. He is not
knocking at your door: he has entered into you, and there he dwells, and will go
no more out for ever.What a blessed sense of power this gives to us. "I in
them." Then it is no more "I" in weakness, but, since Jesus dwells in me, "I can
do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me." "I in them." It is the
glory of the believer that Christ dwells in him. "Unto you that believe he is
precious."Hence we gather the security of the believer. Brother, if Christ be in
me, and I am overcome, Christ is conquered too, for he is in me. "I in them." I
cannot comprehend the doctrine of believers falling from grace. If Christ has
once entered into them, will he not abide with them? Paul saith, "I am persuaded
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord." To that persuasion I set my hand and seal. Well, then, if
Christ is in us, whatever happens to us will happen to him. We shall be losers
if we do not get to heaven; but so will he be, for he is in us, and so is a
partaker of our condition. If it is an indissoluble union -- and so he declares
it is -- "I in them," then his destiny and ours are linked together; and if he
wins the victory we conquer in him: if he sits at the right hand of God we shall
sit at the right hand of God with him, for he is in us.I know not what more to
say, not because I have nothing more, but because I do not know which to bring
forward out of a thousand precious things; but I leave the subject with you. Go
home, and live in the power of this blessed text. Go home, and be as happy as
you can be to live, and if you get a little happier that will not hurt you, for
then you will be in heaven. Keep up unbroken joy in the Lord. It is not "I in
them" for Sundays, and away on Mondays; "I in them" when they sit in the
Tabernacle, and out of them when they reach home. No; "I in them," and that for
ever and for ever. Go and rejoice. Show this blind world that you have a
happiness which as much outshines theirs as the sun outshines the sparks which
fly from the chimney and expire. Go forth with joy and be led forth with peace;
let the mountains and the hills break forth before you into singing."All that
remains for meIs but to love and sing,And wait until the angels come,To bear me
to the King.""Oh, but I have my troubles." I know you have your troubles, but
they are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in you,
nor even with your present glory. I feel as if I could not think about troubles,
nor sins, nor anything else when I once behold the love of God to me. When I
feel my love to Christ, which is but God's love to Christ, burning within my
soul, then I glory in tribulation, for the power of God shall be through these
afflictions made manifest in me. "I in them." God bless you with the knowledge
of this mystery, for Jesus' sake. Amen. PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON
-- John 17.HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" -- 917, 797, 766.


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  CHAPTER 2: THE VOICE BEHIND THEE
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A Sermon (No.1672) Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, July 23rd, 1882, by C. H.
SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington "And thine ears shall hear a
word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the
right hand, and when ye turn to the left." -- Isaiah 30:21. ON the Sabbath
before last we spoke concerning "the still small voice." After the thunder and
the fire and the earthquake had passed away, for the Lord was not in them, there
came a still small voice unto Elijah, which reached the prophet's heart, and
brought him back to his former condition of communion with God. This hopeful
morning we shall hear that same "still small voice" actually speaking a warning
and teaching word, and we shall see how it operates upon the sinner, reaching
both his ear and his heart. God calls to the rebellious, and by his gentle word
they are brought to his feet with repentance, turned from their evil wandering,
and led in the way of obedience. The word behind us which is spoken of in the
text is mentioned as one among other covenant blessings. No "if" or "but" is
joined to it. It is one of those gracious, unconditional promises upon which the
salvation of the guilty depends. There are many comforts of the new life which
depend upon our own action and behaviour, and these come to us with "ifs"; but
those which are vital and essential are secured to the chosen of God without
"but" or "peradventure." It shall be so: God declares it shall, and he has power
to carry out every jot and tittle of every promise that he makes to his people.
I shall ask you at this good hour mainly to admire the free and sovereign grace
of God in making such a promise as this to anybody, and especially in making it
to a people whom he speaks of as "a rebellious people, lying children, children
that will not hear the law of the Lord." He severely upbraids them, and then in
great patience he says to them, even to them, "Your ears shall hear a word
behind you." God's grace is marvellous in itself, but its most marvellous point
is the singular channel in which it chooses to flow: it runs down into the Dead
Sea of sin and makes the waters pure. I. I invite you to notice first of all THE
POSITION OF THE WANDERER to whom this special blessing comes. How does God find
men when he declares that they shall hear a word behind them? First, he finds
them with their backs turned to him. This is clear enough, if you remember that
the word is to be heard "behind" them. The sinner has gone away from God, and
God calls after him from behind. He has turned his back upon his true Friend,
his best Friend, his only capable Friend, but that Friend does not therefore
change his temper and resent the insult; nay, he is provoked to a love more
pleading and persuasive than ever, and calls to him to come into the right way.
After having transgressed wilfully and wickedly, the rebel now distinctly turns
his back on God and truth; according to the Lord's complaint, "they have turned
unto me the back, and not the face." He turns his back on the law, on the
gospel, on mercy, on eternal life. He turns his back on the adoption of the
great Father, on pardon bought with the blood of Jesus, on regeneration which
can alone be wrought by the Holy Spirit: he turns his back upon holiness,
happiness, and heaven. He turns away from sunlight, and wanders down into deeper
and yet deeper night, striving to get away from God and holy influences. Yet the
Lord follows him, and with a voice of touching love and tender compassion he
calls to him, "This is the way, walk ye in it." The word of warning,
instruction, and entreaty follows the wanderer, and with ever-increasing pathos
beseeches him to turn and live. Again and again the wise, earnest, personal
voice assails his ear, as if love resolved that he should not perish if wooing
could win him to life. The wanderer seeks not God, but his God seeks him. Man
turns from the God of love, but the love of God turns not away from him. What
matchless grace is this, that God should thus call after sinners when they
openly renounce his rule, and flee from his mercy. Oh, if the Lord had turned
his back on us, where had we been? If he had given us up to our own devices, and
left us to ourselves, then our eternal ruin would want but a few more days and
months to consummate itself, and we should be driven for ever from the presence
of the Lord and from the glory of his power. Have we not said unto God, "Depart
from us: we desire not the knowledge of thy ways"? If he had replied to us,
"Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire in hell," it had only been the echo of
our own words. When we said to him "Depart," suppose he had turned round and
said, "Depart, depart yourselves." But instead of that, while we turn ourselves
deliberately away from God, he still calls after us; he will not let us go. We
have a freedom of will, but it is by that freedom of will that men are damned,
since they will not come unto Christ that they might have life, but they will to
follow the devices and desires of their own hearts. Free-will, thus held in
chains by evil lustings, becomes the most destructive agency in the world; but,
blessed be God, he has freedom of will too, and that freedom of sovereign grace
will not have its hands bound nor its lips closed, but it will act and speak in
omnipotent love. So when the Lord sees us in the wantonness of our wickedness,
dead in trespasses and sins, his great love wherewith he loves us seeks us out,
and from the lips of that love come tender accents bidding us return to God,
saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it." Observe that these persons had not
only turned their backs on God, but they were going further and further away
from him. Of course, when you have once turned your back upon the right, the
further you travel the more wrong you become. They were not content to be near
to God, even with their backs to him, but they hastened away. They are eager and
quick to escape from their own mercy. Like the prodigal, they are not satisfied
till they get into "a far country": they cannot rest in the same land with their
God: they journey with all speed away from the Lord, and the greater the
distance that they can set between themselves and their Father the more are they
at ease. In forgetting God they find a horrible peace: the peace of death, a
peace which will stupefy them into eternal destruction. Now, it is while they
are thus going hot foot away from God, further and further every day, madly
rushing along the downward road, never satisfied with the sin to which they have
attained, flying from God as if he were their terror and would be their
destroyer, it is even then that the word sounds behind them and they are
startled into thought. They have a powerful voice pleading with them thus, --
"Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O house of Israel? This is the way, walk ye
in it. The way you are now pursuing is not the way to peace and safety; return
at once, for this is the way, walk ye in it." Here again I admire the
overflowing riches of the grace of God, that he should call men to himself when
they are altogether taken up with other things, when every thought, and every
word, and every act is in rebellion against him. Paul saith, "Doth God care for
oxen?" but here is a far greater wonder, "Doth God care for worthless
revolters?" When a chosen man is desperately set on mischief, determined to
destroy himself, God is yet more determined to save him. The two determinations
meet, and we shall see which of the two will prove itself the stronger one. We
soon find that the determination of God overcomes the determination of man. The
iron breaks the northern iron and the steel. "Thus saith the Lord; your covenant
with death is broken, and your league with hell is disannulled:" for there was a
prior covenant, a covenant of grace made by God himself, which stands fast for
ever; and there was a prior league which God made with his Son on our behalf,
and that league shall overthrow our league with death and hell. Glory be to God
that even when the sinner is still rebellious, and shows no signs of repentance,
nor is conscious of any wish to turn from the error of his ways, even then,
while his heart is black as night, and his spirit is choke-full with rebellion,
God calls to him, "Return, O backsliding children." "They shall hear a voice
behind them, saying, This is the way." More than this, however, is true. They
had turned their backs on God, and were going further from him, though they were
warned not to do so, and they were pursuing their course in spite of warning.
Read the twentieth verse: "Thine eyes shall see thy teachers": there they stood,
good men, right in the way, entreating their hearers to cease from provoking
their God and destroying their own souls. Hear them cry, "Turn ye from your
iniquities, for this way leads to death: turn ye, turn ye." They can see their
teachers stretching out their hands with eager importunity, pleading even unto
boiling tears, persuading them to turn from the way and the wages of sin. Still
they push on, as if eternal destruction were a prize to be sought rather than a
doom to be dreaded. Was it not so with many of us in the days of our
unregeneracy? Mother and father endeavored to block up the evil road: in them
our eyes beheld our teachers. How they taught us: how they prayed with us: how
they laboured if possible to turn us from the error of our ways! But we
persevered with obstinate resolve. It is hard going to hell over a pleading
mother, and equally hard to destroy one's self by pushing aside an earnest
father's good advice; but we seemed resolved to do so. Then perhaps followed
Sunday-school teachers, full of intense love to us; and how they pleaded! How
wisely they set the case before us, and how tenderly they pleaded: our eyes did
see our teachers, but still our eyes would not see the right way, nor would our
hearts desire it; we were determined that we would by hook or by crook land
ourselves in hell. Our soul was given to her idols, and after those idols we
resolved to go. We loved the wages of iniquity, the pleasures of the flesh, the
pride of life, the conceit of self-salvation: we loved anything better than our
God; and though our teachers were before us, ready to help and eager to teach we
made small account of them. In after-life it may be our teachers were earnest
pastors, who could not preach dull, dead sermons, and would not suffer us to
sleep ourselves into perdition. They cried aloud and spared not: they were in
anguish about us: they gave themselves no rest until we would turn from our
iniquities. We could see our teachers, and we had a loving respect for them too,
yet we cast their word behind our back: it was of no use to us: we loved
iniquity, and that way we would go, come what might of it. Yet even then, when
we were despising God's prophets and paying no regard to all the words of
warning, the Lord was still loving us, looking after us, and crying after us,
and saying, "This is the way; this is the way: walk ye in it. Come back, come
back, come back: you are destroying yourselves: return unto your Father and your
God." Why did he not throw the reins on our necks, and say, "Let them alone;
they are given unto idols: I have hewed them with the prophets, I have ploughed
them with men of God, but all has come to nought; they have stiffened their
necks, they have hardened their hearts, they have made their forehead like unto
an adamant stone; therefore let them reap the result of their transgressions"?
But it was not so, for God had made this word an unconditional promise of his
covenant, "They shall hear a voice behind them."One more mark of the ungodly
condition of those whom God would call was this, that they had many ways in
which to wander. Sometimes they roamed to the right hand, at other times they
wandered to the left, but they never turned face about. Hear ye the way to
heaven; it is right about face then keep straight on to glory. Nay, but we will
turn this way, we will turn that way, we will turn any way except to God. Some
men have right-hand sins, respectable iniquities which challenge little censure
from their fellows; not black, but whitewashed sins. Such men are not thieves,
they are not licentious, they are not drunkards, but their sins take a quieter
form; they mock God with their self-righteousness, and insult him with their
prayers, which are no prayers, but only pretences and fictions, and not the real
prayers of God's elect ones. Others have left-hand sins; they plunge into the
sins of the flesh; no vice is too black for them. Only propose to have a little
pleasure and they will plunge into any vice to gain it: ay, and almost without
pleasure, altogether without present profit, they will sin, as if for sin's own
sake. When they have burned their finger in the candle they will after that hold
their arm in the fire; when they have brought disease into their bodies by sin
they will return to the evil which caused it; when they have beggared their
purse by their extravagant lusts yet still they will go on playing the
profligate; when they have filled themselves with despair till they are as a
bucket running with gall and wormwood, and this has been emptied out for them by
God's grace, they will fill it up again, for they are infatuated with sin; they
find a delight in it and they will not, they cannot give it up. Shall the
Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may they that have
been accustomed to do evil learn to do well. Alas, such a miracle has not
happened to them. They choose all shapes of evil, but the good they will not
have. I say their right-hand sins, their left-hand sins, sins of their life,
sins of their heart, -- they will follow all these eagerly, but unless God by
his own omnipotent voice shall call them back they will not come to him, to
Jesus, to grace, to holiness, and heaven. Tell it, tell it, tell it; sound it
forth beneath the sky for ever and ever, that the Lord does call to himself such
wanton wanderers. "Go and proclaim these words toward the north, saith the Lord:
Turn, O backsliding children; for I am married unto you." Oh, the pity of God,
not only for the miserable, but for the wicked; it surpasses thought. "In due
time Christ died for the ungodly." Favour to the guilty is the choicest of
favour. We come not to preach salvation to the righteous -- for where shall we
find them? -- but we proclaim it to the unrighteous and to the ungodly. "The
whole have no need of a physician; but they that are sick"; and Christ has come
after the sick, calling, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Oh, if
anything will touch the heart it should be this word of free grace, this fact
that God doth bid men return to him. Mercy is full of patience; it bears and
forbears, and still it cries, "This is the way, walk ye in it"; oh, who would be
so cruelly ungrateful as to close his ear against its pleadings? Thus I have
spoken sufficiently upon the position of the wanderer.II. Now, for a little
while, we will dwell upon THE CALL OF MERCY. "Thine ears shall hear a word
behind thee."Notice, it is a call that is altogether undesired, and comes
unsought to the man who has gone astray. He hears the inward call whose voice is
"Return:" he looks for a moment, and then puts his foot down to pursue his
journey. "Never," he says, "will I alter my course," and he boldly hastens on,
though before him lie death and hell. As he is persevering in his ruinous course
the same word again bids him "Return." He hears the admonition, but still he
pushes on; he must not and will not return from the way of evil. If he could
reach a spot where such disturbing voices would never trouble him how gladly
would he hasten towards it. Hence so many altogether forsake the place of
worship: they prefer the stagnant pool of stupid obstinacy to the sweet river of
the water of life. So far from desiring to be warned, if they could voyage to a
distant Tarshish, where voices of warning would never reach them more, it would
be a delightful journey; and if ship could be taken, they would, like Jonah, pay
the fare to the shipmaster, and secure a berth in the next vessel. I have heard
of one in the backwoods of America who was unloading his furniture, and while
doing so up rode a Methodist minister. "Confound you," said he, "I have moved
half-a-dozen times to get away from you Methodist fellows: I am never
comfortable where you are. I will put the things on the cart again, and find a
spot where I shall be free from you." On they went to another clearing, but when
they reached it the first thing that happened, before the man took up his
lodging, was the appearance of a Methodist minister. "Where shall I go to get
away from you Methodist preachers?" "There is nowhere I know of," said the
minister, "that you can go, for I am afraid if you go to hell you will find some
of them there, for preachers have been lost. The very best thing you can do is
to yield at once, and let me hold a service to-night in your camp." That was
sound advice; and so some of you will be pestered and worried as long as you
live if you will not come to Christ. Omnipotence has servants everywhere, and
these are all charged to warn you of your peril. I knew one who would not go to
a place of worship, and turned every Bible out of his house; but he found a copy
of the holy Book in his house, and as he cursed and swore he learned that it was
the property of a daughter whom he loved too much to scold, and he was obliged
to let the sacred volume rest where she had placed it. A Bible in a house where
it is forbidden to be read is a splendid power for good, as he soon discovered.
In a house where it is outwardly honoured the Bible may have little influence,
but if it gets where it must not be allowed, everybody reads it. If you can make
God's Word to be forbidden fruit, Eve will feed on it, and Adam will follow her.
Thus the grace of God came into the house, and it would never be expelled. Down
by Mitcham, when the lavender is growing, if you take a house there you will
discern a smell of lavender; you may shut the windows and close the doors, but
when any persons enter a whiff of lavender enters with them, you cannot help it;
and if you live where the gospel is preached at all you will be sure to hear it,
and made to know of it. It is God's intention that you should. It is a voice
that comes unasked and undesired, but come it does."A word behind thee"; it is
the voice of an unseen caller whose existence has been almost forgotten. It is
not the teachers that speak in this powerful way. The teachers you have seen
with your eyes, and they have done you no good; but someone calls whom you never
saw and never will see till he sits on the throne of judgment at the last great
day; but still he utters a word which cannot be kept out of your ears. It will
come to you mysteriously at all sorts of hours crying, "Return, return, return."
It will sound often at dead of night, and make the chambers of conscience ring
with its notes. I have known it to wake a man out of his slumbers: I have known
it sound in his dreams till he dreamed of hell, and woke up and felt the torment
in his own conscience. Though he has done all he could, has been off to the
theatre, to the gay party, to the entertainment, to deeper sin, yet still even
there the word has haunted him. I recollect one who in this very city plunged
into all manner of gaiety to try to get rid of this word, yet God met him in a
play; words were used in the performance which touched his conscience, and he
fled from the playhouse as from a burning building, fell on his knees, and
sought and found the Saviour. This call of mercy is the word of a hidden One:
you cannot see who it is that speaks, yet you cannot shut your ears to his
admonitions nor refuse reverence to his warnings.This voice pursues and
overtakes the sinner. Do you see him running, -- with all his might rushing to
his own destruction? The word comes, at first, rather feebly -- "Return." He
scarcely looks back, but on he flies. Lo, the voice follows. He runs faster from
it to show his determination to carry out his own will. The voice still follows
him, saying, "Return." Then he stops a minute, but being desperately enamoured
of his transgressions, he again takes to his heels to fly away from God; still
the word pursues his footsteps, and in pleading accents cries, -- "Return,
return, return, return;" till at last he is constrained to sit down and listen
to the word which comes from he knows not where. He cannot understand how and
why it comes so home to him, but it is a fulfillment of the promise; it is the
word behind him saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it." That voice when it
comes to sinners is generally most opportune, for according to the text they are
to hear this voice behind them when they turn to the right hand or to the left.
A man may go steadily plodding on in his course of ungodliness and hear no such
word of pleading, but how often it has happened that there has been a temptation
of a more than usually forceful character, and the traveller was about to turn
to the right, and then, at that precise moment, he has heard the word of God
behind him giving him warning. His feet had almost gone; his steps had well-nigh
slipped, but the word of the Lord upheld him, and he went not into the deadly
sin. Or it may be it is what I have described as a left-handed sin: the man was
carried on to an action which, if he had actually performed it, would have
involved his sure destruction; but just as he was about to turn down Deadman's
Lane there came a voice behind him, "Return, return." Often it is so, and even
if the man does not return and seek the right way, but keeps steadily on as
carelessly as ever, still he is slackening his speed, and he dares not take that
left-hand turning into gross sin which he would have followed if the word had
not checked him. Even where the Spirit of God does not save a man it keeps him
from many a sin; and when men rebel against the light and will not yield to it,
yet still that light has a restraining influence over them of which they may be
unconscious. Those who watch them know that if that bit and bridle had not been
supplied by the word they would have gone to an excess of riot which would have
been dangerous to others as well as totally destructive to themselves. Blessed
be God for the opportuneness of the word of mercy. Men delay to come, but God
does not delay to call.And you see, to close this second point, that it is
absolutely necessary that the potent word should be spoken and should be heard.
For the man had seen his teachers, but they had not wrought him any good. How
often the Lord seems to put us ministers right up in the corner with our faces
to the wall, till we are little in the eyes of our hearers and little in our own
eyes. He does so with me, and while I can glorify his name and bless him
abundantly for the many that are brought to Christ, yet I never take the
slightest congratulation to myself about it, for what am I but the driest and
most barren stick that there is in all my Master's garden apart from his
watering? If sinners had nothing to save them but us poor preachers, not one of
them would be brought up from death and hell. Sinners would laugh at us as
simpletons if God were not with us: they do so as it is, and I do not wonder at
it, because there is enough in us that deserves to be laughed at. They are ready
to despise us, and we cannot be broken-hearted if they do, for we ourselves used
in former days to despise the servants of God, and if we do not do so now, it is
because the grace of God has made a change in us: we cannot expect better
treatment than we ourselves rendered to better men when they pleaded with us.
The word behind us is needful, that "still small voice" which no mortal man can
speak, but only God himself, that inward monition of the conscience, that
touching language of the heart which is as much beyond the power of man as to
make a world or breath life into an image of clay. Therefore pray ye mightily to
the blessed Spirit that he may breathe on men and save them, and that the word
of God may still follow and pursue them till they turn from the way of
transgression.I leave that point. You have seen the position of the rambler, and
the grace of God in the call of mercy.III. But what was THE WORD OF THAT CALL?
It is stated at full length, "This is the way, walk ye in it." That is the word
of the call. It contains within itself, first, specific instruction. "This is
the way." There is a kind of preaching which has nothing specific, definite, and
positive in it: it is a bit of cloud-land, and you may make what you like out of
it -- God's grace or man's merit, faith in Christ or faith in self. You need to
be your own instructor, and then like the child looking into the fire you will
see whatever your own eye chooses to create. Too much preaching is of a kind so
mixed that it reminds me of the showman when his visitors asked, "Which is
Wellington and which is Napoleon?" "Whichever you please," said he; "you have
paid your money and you may take your choice." So it seems to be with many
preachers as to doctrine. You may have what kind of doctrine you like so long as
you pay your pew-rent. "Cleverly put," cries one, when he had heard a smart
sermon. Is not that enough? I answer, it is not enough: we want the sure
testimony of revelation, sealed in the heart by the Holy Ghost. Cleverness is
not God's way of blessing men. Conjectures and loose opinions are not worth the
breath which is expended in expressing them. The Lord lays down a definite
pathway, and he says, "This is the way." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt be saved; this is the way. Repent and be converted, every one of you;
this is the way. To leave sin, to quit self, to trust in Christ: this is the
way." Something definite is laid down before those who desire to be taught of
God, and they are told what is to be done, what is to be received, what is to be
given up. "This is the way." Definite instruction is given. This may not suit
the Broad School, but it is exactly what the anxious seeker needs. This definite
instruction may also be said to be a special correction. When the voice behind
says, "This is the way," it does as good as say that the opposite path is not
the way; for there is only one way to heaven, and there never will be two; and
when men hear a voice saying, "This is the way," it does in effect remind them
that the opposite is not the way. If ye are going the reverse of the right way,
turn ye from it, and ye shall live. How much we ought to bless God that the
gospel comes in as a corrective, kills the false and introduces us to the true.
May falsehood be slain within us, and truth reign there for ever. May we leave
all other roads, since the Lord has said of one road only, "This is the way."It
is also a word of sure confirmation. "This is the way." When that is heard many
times, -- "This is the way," "This is the way," "This is the way;" when,
according to our hymn,"We hear our Saviour say,'Come hither, soul, I am the
Way,'"if we have already believed it to be the way we are strengthened in that
conviction. Hearing the mysterious word declaring again and again, "This is the
way," men grow to believe the truth of God's word, and out of that by-and-by
there is begotten a living faith in a living Saviour. Oh, this is a great mercy,
to hear the same thing many times, to hear the voice proclaim again and again
and again, "This is the way," "This is the way." "Other foundation can no man
lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ, the righteous." May the repetitions
of the Spirit effectually preserve us from the deadly shadow of doubt, and fix
us as a nail in a sure place.This is followed up by a word of personal
direction. "Walk ye in it." Do not merely hear about it, but "walk ye in it." Be
not content to be critics, thinkers, and considerers, but become doers of the
word. "This is the way," -- here is the doctrine: "Walk ye in it," -- there is
the practice. Well is it when the Lord by his Spirit speaks to the runaway
sinner and tells him what he is to do and to believe; then he makes the way and
the walk to be vividly present, -- "This is the way, walk ye in it" without
delay.This takes the form of encouraging permission. Some think they may not
come to Christ. They actually ask the question, "May I believe in him? Is there
salvation for me?" Why, saith the text, "This is the way." Do not sit looking at
it: "walk ye in it." "But I am so big a sinner." "Christ is the way; walk ye in
it." There is room enough for big sinners in Jesus. "But I have been so long
coming." Never mind: this is the way, "walk ye in it." Never mind if you have
been seventy years coming if you have come to the way at last, "Walk ye in it."
"But I am afraid my feet are so polluted that I shall stain the way:" "This is
the way, walk ye in it." You are not told to stand on one side and wait till
something shall happen to you which shall persuade you to come, but here is the
king's highway, walk ye in it. Walking is the simplest of all exercises. There
is no great artistic skill required in order to walk, but walking is all that is
wanted. Come to Christ, -- come to him anyhow. Oh soul, tumble to him somehow;
trust him as best you can: and if you cannot do it without question, trust him
because you must trust him, since you have nobody else to trust to. Throw
yourself into Jesus' arms; swoon away on the bosom of Christ. It is the essence
of faith, to die into the life of God in Christ Jesus. This is the message which
comes behind many a runaway sinner, -- "This is the way, walk ye in it."IV.
According to our text success is promised to the word. "Thine ears shall hear a
word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it." Notice, THE SUCCESS
OF THE WORD, -- thine ears shall hear. God not only gives us something to hear,
but he gives us ears to hear with. Oh, the mercy of God! he spreads the table,
and then he gives the appetite; he furnishes the garments, and he gives us the
sense of nakedness, and so leads us to put them on. Everything that is wanted to
bear a man from the gates of hell to the gates of heaven free-grace provides.
Nothing is left out: the catalogue is complete: he that sends the tidings also
opens the ears. "Thine ears shall hear." This is effectual grace. Teachers
cannot make men hear. They can appeal to the external ear, and after that they
have no more that they can do; but God can make men hear. Without violating the
freedom of their wills he can get at their hearts, at their consciences, at
their understandings, and he can press the truth home to their souls. When the
Lord does it, it is done. When we do it, it is often so done that afterwards it
is undone, but verily I know that what God doeth shall be for ever. All that is
of nature's spinning will be unravelled one day; but when God spins, it will
last throughout eternity.I take it when we read here, "Thine ears shall hear,"
it means first, that the message of divine love shall come to the man's mind so
as to create uneasiness in it. He is jauntily traversing the road to
destruction: he has chosen the path, and he delights in it. It often looks to
him to be a flowery way, a pleasant road. So he walks on, and he would be very
happy but for that word behind him crying, "Turn ye! turn ye! turn ye!" Just as
he was turning down that glade in the wood to the right, where all the flowers
of spring are found in profusion, that call troubled him again! He would sooner
have seen a serpent hissing in the pathway, or heard a lion roar from the
thicket, than have heard that word. The man says, "I never can be quiet: I can
see other people going to amusements and pleasures, and they heartily enjoy
themselves; but the fact is, the more amusement I have the less I am amused, and
I am never more miserable than when everybody else is laughing. Why am I thus?"
He thinks he is hardly done by, and is the special object of God's hatred.
Everybody else is jolly, but he is gloomy. They can look on the wine when it is
red, when it moveth itself aright, when it giveth its colour in the cup; and so
could he once look into the rosy depths, but now he sees that serpent at the
bottom of it, and he is afraid to touch it lest the draught should turn to venom
in his veins. He almost curses the arrangements of heaven which have made him so
ill at ease. He wishes he had never heard the parson preach the sermon which
bothered him so; he wishes he had never had a godly mother at all, that he might
have gone straight away into sin, and have been as merry as a cricket; but now
there is that voice again behind him, boring its way into his tingling ears. For
a moment he had forgotten it, but there it comes again -- "Turn! turn! turn!
turn!" He stops his ears; but it bombards his soul with worse than cannon balls;
as if the word of God pounded him with shells, he hears the thunders of the
cannonade, -- "Return! Return! Return!" What can he do? He longs to escape from
the divine rebuke. The word has made him quiver and quake. So far so good. We
shall see next what will happen to him. After a while there gets to be a desire
in his heart. It is only a faint and spasmodic desire, -- nothing very strong or
constant -- but there it is, and it cannot be quenched. "I wish I could get
right somehow: for in my present condition I am in an evil case; I am sailing in
the wrong boat; I wish I could land somewhere, and take the return boat and get
to my home. I do not feel at all easy; I wish I knew what to do to be saved. I
do know it somehow, for I have heard it every Sabbath day, but yet I do not
understand it; I cannot get hold of it; I wish I could, for I am anxious to be
forgiven, to be renewed in the spirit of my mind, to be made a new creature in
Christ Jesus." "Do you know," he says to someone, "that voice I could not bear,
that used to wake me up at nights, that kept me out of pleasure? There is a kind
of music in it now; I like to hear it: I wish I heard it so that it had an
effect upon me, for I am afraid I shall go down to the pit, and be lost under
accumulated responsibilities for having neglected the call of divine love. Oh,
help me to come to Christ, for I am anxious to reach him, but I feel as if I
could not come. I do not feel as I ought. I am told to believe, but I do not
know what it means, or I cannot do it."I would but can't believe,Then all would
easy be.I would but cannot, Lord, relieve:My help must come from thee."He is
getting on all right, friends. We shall have a better bulletin concerning him
directly. He is wonderfully improving: a great deal of the fever of pride has
gone out of the man; we shall have him yet in perfect health. He could not rest
because he heard too much of the word behind him, and now he cannot rest because
he cannot hear enough of it: he desires that it may penetrate his soul and
change him from darkness to light.What shall happen next? As that voice
continues to sound, it pulls him up, and leads to resolve. The word of the Lord
has put a bit into his mouth and a bridle between his jaws; he does not dare go
any further; he sits down to consider. I think I saw him on his knees too, and
he is resolved if heaven is to be had he will have it; if mercy is to be found
he will find it; he will rake the world over, but he will gain the pearl of
great price. I think I heard him say he would not go to sleep till he found
Jesus. I am glad he has come to that pass. Friend, you are just like the
prodigal when he said, "I will arise and go to my father"; only take care you do
not end in resolutions. Let it be said of you as of that same prodigal, "He
arose, and came to his father"; for all our resolutions are not worth the making
unless they be most earnestly and speedily carried into effect. Observe the
effect of the word behind the wanderer. Cannot you see the man who was running
so fast? He has pulled up. He sees a line drawn across his path, and he must not
go over it. He feels that if he goes further he may never have another call of
mercy, and this makes him pause. Did not we sing this morning,"Soon that voice
will cease its calling"?The man is anxious to obey while he may. He is not yet
resolved to go back, but he dares not go further.Watch him, for the voice is
calling again, and he is every now and then turning his ear round as if he
wanted to hear it. "Return, return, return." He smites upon his breast and
cries, "Would God I could return; I will return, for I cannot perish; I cannot
let things go as once I did; I cannot leave everything to take its own way while
I take my chance. No, I must have Christ or else I die, and I must have him
soon, or else I shall seal my eternal destiny, and prove a castaway for ever. O
God, call again, call again; keep on calling, till I come; for lo, my spirit
answers, Draw me, and I will run after thee.' When thou saidst unto me, Seek ye
my face,' my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek.'"What will be
the last stage of this inner work? Since the man dares not go any further in
this wrong way, what is he to do? He cannot turn to the right or to the left,
for God has hedged up his way with thorns. Now, listen to what he will say, "I
will return unto my first husband, for it was better with me then than now."
This poor soul looks on him whom he pierced. He did not know he was piercing his
Redeemer; but now he sees it all, and while his eyes begin to stream with tears,
he turns unto this Christ upon the cross, and finds life while looking at him.
See him get up and feel as if he did not know what to do with himself as he
cries,"Blest cross; blest sepulchre; blest rather beThe man that here did shed
his blood for me."Now he enquires, "Which is my way? Speak, sweet voice; speak,
sweet voice; tell me which is my way." And now the voice moves and speaks in
front of him; for shepherds go before their sheep. The man looks and sees the
Crucified One with pierced hands and feet leading the way, and he delights to
follow him: ay, and he shall follow him until at the last he shall see his face
in glory everlasting. Redeemed by blood and rescued by power eternal, and
brought home to the great Shepherd's fold, to go no more out for ever, the
sinner shall be filled with gladness. Listen, then, listen, ye that have turned
your backs on God! Infinite mercy woos you, boundless compassion entreats you to
be saved. Turn ye; turn as you are, all black and filthy and bemired; tarry not
to mend or wash, but come to Jesus all unholy and unclean, without a single
sound speck upon your leprous frame, utterly lost and ruined. Christ died for
such as you. I say again, tarry not to improve yourselves, but come now, while
mercy's voice incites you, while the Holy Ghost not only entreats, but sweetly
constrains. Come and welcome, sinners, come. The Lord bless you. Amen. PORTION
OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON -- Isaiah 30.HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" --
909, 496, 497.


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  CHAPTER 3: BROUGHT UP FROM THE HORRIBLE PIT
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A Sermon (No.1674) Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, August 13th, 1882, by C. H.
SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington "I waited patiently for the
LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an
horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established
my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God:
many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord." -- Psalm 40:1-3. THIS
PASSAGE HAS BEEN USED with great frequency as the expression of the experience
of the people of God, and I think it has been very rightly so used. It is a very
accurate picture of the way in which sinners are raised up from despair to hope
and salvation, and of the way in which saints are brought out of deep troubles,
and made to sing of divine love and power. Yet I am not certain that the first
verse could be truthfully uttered by all of us; I question, indeed, whether any
of us could thus speak. Could we say -- "I waited patiently for the Lord." Think
ye, brethren, might it not read -- "I waited impatiently for the Lord," in the
case of most of us? All the rest may stand true, but this would need to be
modified. We could hardly speak in our own commendation if we considered our
conduct in the matter of patience, for that is, alas, still a scarce virtue --
upon the face of the earth. If we read the psalm through we shall see that it
was not written exclusively to describe the experience of God's people.
Secondarily we may regard it as David's language, but in the first instance a
greater than David is here. The first Person who uttered these words was the
Messiah, and that is quite clear if you read the psalm through; for we fall upon
such language as this: "Sacrifice and offering, Thou didst not desire; mine ears
hast Thou opened; burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required. Then
said I, come I in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do
thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." We need not say with the
Ethiopian, "Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself or of some other?" For
we are led at once by the plainest indications to see that He is not speaking of
Himself, but of our Lord and if we needed confirmation of this we get it in
Hebrews 10, where Paul expressly quotes this passage as referring to the Lord
Jesus. To Him, indeed, alone of all men can it with accuracy be applied. So this
morning I shall have to show that this text of ours is most fit to be the
language of the Lord, our representative and covenant Head. When I have shown
this, you will then see how we can use the self-same expressions, because we are
in Him. Each believer becomes a mirror in which is reflected the experience of
our Lord; but it would be ill for us to be so taken up with the mere reflection
as to forget the express image by which this experience is formed in us. I shall
ask you, then, at this time, to observe our divine Lord when in His greatest
trouble. Notice, first, our Lord's behavior -- "I waited patiently for the Lord;
and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry": then consider, secondly, our Lord
deliverance, expressed by the phrase, "He brought me up also out of a horrible
pit, out of the miry clay," and so forth: then let us think, thirdly of the
Lord's reward for it -- "many shall see, and fear, and trust in the Lord": --
that is His great end and object, and in it He sees of the travail of His soul
and is satisfied. We shall close, fourthly, by perceiving the Lord's likeness in
all His saved ones; for they also are brought up from the pit of destruction,
and a new song is put into their mouths. He is not ashamed to call them
brethren, since in each one of them his own experience is repeated though upon a
smaller scale. I. First, let us think of OUR LORD'S BEHAVIOR. "I waited
patiently for the Lord." Here we greatly need the teaching of the Holy Ghost;
may it be given us abundantly. First, our Lord's conduct when He was under the
smarting rod was that of waiting. He waited upon the Lord all His life, and this
waiting became more conspicuous in His passion and death. He went down into
Gethsemane, and there He prayed earnestly; but with sweet submission; for He
said, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Complete submission was
the essential spirit of His prayer. He rose up from prayer all crimson with His
bloody sweat, and He went to meet His foes, delivering Himself up voluntarily to
be led as a sheep to the slaughter. He did not unsheathe the sword as Peter did;
much less did He flee, like His disciples, but He waited upon the will of the
Most High, enduring all things till the Father should give Him deliverance. When
they took Him before Annas and Caiaphas, and Pilate and Herod, hurrying Him from
bar to bar, how patiently He kept silence, though false witnesses appeared
against Him. Like a sheep before her shearers He was dumb, submitting Himself
without a struggle. In the omnipotence of patience He held His Peace even from
good, because it was so written of Him. When they led Him away to crucifixion
through the streets of Jerusalem He did not even encourage the lamentations of
the sympathizing women who surrounded him; but in His wondrous patience He said,
"Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me." He did not refuse to bear His cross,
or to let the cross bear Him. He did not complain of contempt and contumely,
since these were appointed Him. When they nailed Him to the tree, and there He
hung in the burning sun, tortured, fevered, agonizing, the words that escaped
Him were those of murmuring and repining, but those of pity, pain, patience, and
submission. Till He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost, He bowed His whole
being to His Father's will, waiting His time and pleasure. He steadily took a
long draft at the appointed cup, and drained it to the bitter end. His eyes were
unto the Lord as the eyes of servants are to the hands of their masters; He
waited in service, in hope, in resignation, and in confidence. He knew that God
would help Him and deliver Him, He knew that His head would be raised on high
above the sons of men; but still He waited for the Father's time, and meanwhile
made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the form of a servant, and
as a servant yielded all His strength to the work which was given Him to do. He
was willing in the hour of His passion to be treated as the scum and scorn of
all mankind, nor did He hurry the hour when all the shame and scorn should
blossom into glory and honor. He went down in His waiting even to the utmost of
self-denial, and truly proved that He came not to do His own will, but the will
of Him that sent Him. Never man served and waited like this man. Our text adds
to this word "waited" the word "patiently." "I waited patiently." If you would
see patience, look not at Job on the dunghill, but look at Jesus on the cross.
Job, the most patient of men, was assuredly impatient at the same time; but this
blessed Lord of ours gave Himself up completely, and showed not the slightest
sign of repining. Not a speck of impatience can be detected in the crystal
stream of our Lord's submission. His soul was all melted, and it all flowed into
the mold of the Father's will: no dross was in or about Him, nothing which
refused to melt and to run into the mold. One would have supposed that He would
have spoken an angry word to Judas, who betrayed Him; instead of which He gently
asked of Him, "Friend, wherefore art thou come?" It would not have seemed
wonderful if He had upbraided the Jews who so falsely accused Him, or the rulers
who so unjustly treated Him; but here is the patience of the saintly One, He was
perfect master of His own Spirit. His answer to His murderers was the prayer,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." So meek and lowly in
heart was He that to men He gave no sharp replies: His answers were all steeped
in gentleness; take for example His word to the high priest: "If I have spoken
evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?" They sat down
around the cross and mocked Him, jeered at Him, insulted over Him, and made
mirth even of His cries and prayers; but He did not utter a single word of
rebuke, much less did He leap from the cross to dash His mockers in pieces, and
prove by their destruction that He was indeed the mighty Son of God. "I waited
patiently," saith He. No thought or word or deed of impatience can be charged
upon Him; waiting, He waited, and waited still. We are in such a hurry when we
are in trouble; we hasten to escape from it at once; every minute seems an hour,
and every day an age. "Help me speedily, my God!" is the natural cry of the
child of God under the rod; but our Saviour was in no ill haste to get from the
chastisement which came upon Him for our sakes: He was at leisure in His woe. So
thoroughly was He resolved to do His Father's will that even on the morning of
His resurrection He arose with deliberation, and quitted the grave in order,
folding His grave -- clothes and laying the napkin by itself. He steadily
persevered in all His work of holiness and sorrow of sacrifice, never accepting
deliverance till His work was done. Patiently He endured to have His ear bored
to the door-post, to have His head encircled with thorns, His cheeks disdained
with spittle, His back furrowed with the lash, His hands and feet nailed to the
wood, and His heart pierced with the spear. In His body on the tree patience was
written out in crimson characters. Now, this was needful for the completeness of
His atonement. No expiation could have been made by an impatient Saviour. Only a
perfect obedience could satisfy the law; only an unblemished sacrifice could put
away our sins. There must not, therefore, be about our Substitute a trace of
resistance to the Father's will, nor as a sacrifice must He struggle against the
cords, or turn His head away from the sacrificial knife. In truth, His was a
willing, patient doing and suffering of the divine will. "He gave His back to
the smiters and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: He hid not His
face from shame and spitting." "I waited patiently for the Lord," saith He; and
you know, brethren, how true was the declaration. But while the Saviour thus
waited, and waited patiently, we must not forget that He waited prayerfully, for
the text speaks of a cry which He lifted up, and of God's inclining Himself to
it. That patience which does not pray is obstinacy. A soul silent to God is apt
to be sullen rather than submissive. A stoical patience hardens itself against
grief, and asks no deliverance; but that is not the patience which God loves, it
is not the patience of Christ. He used strong crying and tears unto Him that was
able to save Him from death. Let Gethsemane tell of that wrestling which
infinitely excelled the wrestling of Jacob: Jabbok is outdone by Kedron. His was
a wrestling, not to sweat alone, but unto sweat of blood: he sweats who works
for bread, the staff of life; but He sweats blood who works for life itself.
What prayers those must have been under such a fearful physical, mental, and
spiritual agony which were so fervent that they brought an angel from the
throne, and yet so submissive that they are the model of resignation. He
agonized as earnestly as if He sought His own will, and yet He wholly resigned
Himself to the Father, saying, "Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is
written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God." Our Lord was always praying:
there never was a moment in His life in which He was not in full communion with
God, unless we except the period when He cried, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" He
did often go aside to pray a more special prayer, but yet even when He spoke to
the people, even when He faced His foes, His soul was still in constant
fellowship with His Father. But ah, when He came between the upper and the
nether millstones, when this good olive was ground in the olive press, and all
the oil of His life was extracted from Him, then it was that His strong crying
and tears came up before the Lord His God, and He was heard in that He
feared.Now, brothers and sisters, look at your pattern, and see how far short
you have come of it. At least, I will remember with regret how far short I have
come of it. Have we waited? Have we not been in too great a hurry? Has it not
been too much our desire that the Lord might make His will like our will rather
than make our will like His? Have you not had a will of your own sometimes, and
a strong will too? Have you not been as the bullock unaccustomed to the yoke?
Have you not kicked against the pricks? You have not waited, but you have
worried. Can we say that we waited patiently? Oh, that patience! Every man
thinks he has it until he needs it, but only let his tender point be touched,
and you will see how little patience he possesses. It is the fire which tires
our supposed resignation, and under that process much of our palace of patience
burns like wood, hay, and stubble. Old crosses fit the shoulder, but let a new
cross be laid upon us and we writhe under it. Suffering is the vocation of a
Christian, but most of us come short of our high calling. Our Lord Jesus has
joined together reigning and suffering, for we read of "the kingdom and patience
of Jesus Christ"; He was the royal example of patience, but what are we?
Remember, again, that Jesus prayed importunately while He waited: "being in an
agony, he prayed more earnestly." Have we not at time restrained prayer? Have we
not pleaded as an excuse for our feeble petitions the very facts which ought to
have been a spur to our earnestness? "I felt too ill to pray." Coldest thou not
pray for health with all the more fervency? "I felt too burdened to pray."
Shouldst thou not pray for help to bear thy burden? Can we ever safely say to
ourselves, "I may be excused from supplication now, for my sorrow is great."
Talk not so. Here is thy balm and benediction, thy comfort and thy cordial: here
is thy strength and succor, thy constancy and confidence. Even in the midnight
of the soul let us arise and pour out our hearts like water before the Lord. O
tried believer, get thee to thy knees, and from above the mercy-seat the glory
of the Lord shall shine forth upon thee. Pray even as Jesus did, and as all His
saints have done, so shall you in patience possess your soul. In due time the
Lord inclined to the afflicted suppliant, listening to his moaning from the
bottom of the pit; of this it is high time for us to speak. Yet let us not leave
this first point till we learn from the example of our Lord that patience is
seen in waiting as well as in suffering. To bear a great weight for an hour or
two is nothing compared with carrying a load for many a day. Patience knows its
letters, but waiting reads the page, and praying rehearses it in the ears of
God. Let us add to our patience waiting, and to waiting prayer.II. We come,
secondly, to consider OUR LORD'S DELIVERANCE. In due time, when patience had had
her perfect work, and prayer had at last prevailed, our suffering Lord was
brought up again from the deeps of sorrow. His deliverance is set forth under
two images.First, it is represented as a bringing up out of a horrible pit. It
is a terribly suggestive metaphor. I have been in the dungeon in Rome in which,
according to tradition, Peter and Paul were confined (though, probably, they
were never there at all). It was indeed a horrible pit, for originally it had no
entrance but a round hole in the rock above; and when that round hole at the top
was blocked with a stone, not a ray of light nor a particle of fresh air could
possibly enter. The prisoners were let down into the cavern, and there they were
left. When once the opening was closed they were cut off from all communication
with their fellow men. No being has ever been so cruel to man as man. Man is the
worst of monsters to his kind, and his cruel inventions are many. He has not
been content to leave his fellows their natural liberty, but he built prisons
and digged pits in which to shut up his victims. At first they would place a man
in a dry well merely for custody and confinement, or they would drop him into
some hollow cavern in the earth in which corn or treasure had been concealed;
but afterwards with greater ingenuity of malice they covered over the top of
these pits so that the prisoners could not be partakers of God's bountiful air,
or the merciful light of the sun, or the silver sheen of the moon. Covered all
over and shut in, the captives were buried alive. Even in modern times we have
seen what they call oubliettes, or dungeons in which prisoners were immured, to
be forgotten as dead men out of mind, buried so as never to come forth again.
Such unfortunates as were doomed to enter these tombs of living men bade
farewell to hope. They were inhabitants of oblivion, dwellers in the land of
death shade, to remain apart from their kind, cut off from memory. These worst
of dungeons may illustrate our text -- "He brought me up also out of a horrible
pit." In the original we get the idea of a crash, as when some mailed warrior in
the midst of the battle stumbles into a pit, and there he lies bruised and
broken: and there is the thought of the fall of waters rushing strangely,
furiously, mysteriously. The Hebrew hath it, "The pit of noises," or as some
render it, "the pit of destruction." Such was the condition of our dear Redeemer
when He was bearing our sin and suffering in our stead.Just notice, first, that
our Lord was like a man put into a pit, and so made to be quite alone. Imagine
yourself now confined in one of those caverns, with the big stone rolled over
the mouth of it. There would be neither hearing nor answering. Now will you know
the dread solemnity of silence. You may speak, but no gentle whisper of sympathy
will reach your ears in return; you may cry again and again and make the
dungeon's dome echo to your voice, but you are speaking as to brass -- no man
cares for your soul. You are alone; alone in a fearful solitude. Thus it
happened to our Saviour. All His disciples forsook Him and fled, and what was
infinitely worse, His God forsook Him too. He cried, "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?" Can any man tell me all that was meant by that infinite
lament?Of course, a prisoner in such a pit as that was in total darkness. He
could not see the walls which enclosed him, nor so much as his own hand. No beam
of sunlight ever wandered into that stagnant air; the captive would have to
grope for the pitcher of water and the morsel of bread which a cruel mercy would
allot to him. Our Lord was in the dark; midnight brooded over His spirit. He
said -- "Now is my soul troubled." "My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto
death." His was a pit of gloom, the region of the shadow of death, a land of
darkness as darkness itselfWhen a man is shut up in a pit he is, of course, full
of distress. If you were, any of you, to go into one of the solitary cells of
our own jails, I warrant you a short sojourn in it would be quite enough. These
cells some years ago were thought to be wonderful cures for all sort of evil
dispositions in men, but probably they have oftener destroyed reason than
conquered depravity. Go in, if you dare. Ask the warder to shut to the door, and
leave you in the dark all alone, that you may try the solitary system for
yourself. No, I should not advise you to try it even for five minutes, for you
might even in that short pace inflict such an injury upon your nervous system as
you would never recover. I believe that many of the gentler ones here would be
quite unable to bear total darkness and solitude even for the shortest space. In
the grim gloom the soul is haunted with phantom fears, while horror peoples the
place which is empty of human beings; the heart is worried with evil
imaginations, and pierced with arrows of distress; grief takes hold of the
spirit, and alarm conquers hope. In our Lord's case, the grief and sorrow which
He felt can never be described, nor need it be conceived. It was something
tantamount to the miseries of damned souls. The holy Jesus could not feel the
exact misery which takes hold on abandoned rebels, but He did suffer what was
tantamount to that at the judgment -- seat of God. He gave a quid pro quo, a
something which in God's esteem, reckoning the dignity of His mighty person,
stood instead of the sinner's eternal suffering. He felt woe upon woe, night
blackening night. Do not try to realize His agony; He wills that you should
note, for He has trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there we're none
with Him, as if to show that none could understand His sorrows, and that we can
do no more than speak of His "unknown sufferings."But I must add, to complete
the figure, that shut up in such a pit there might be a great tumult above, like
to the tramping of armed hosts, or there might be a rush of waters underneath
the captive deep in earth's bowels. He could not tell what the noise was, nor
whence it came; and hence he would often be in terrible fear while he sat alone
in the thick darkness. Our lord had His fears, for we read that He was heard in
that He feared. Torrents of sin rushed near Him; floods of wrath were heard
around Him, and cataracts of grief fell upon Him. Besides, there was a mystery
about this anguish which intensified it -- a mystery not to be written or
explained. Our Redeemer's spirit was cast down within Him far beyond anything
that is common to men; in that horrible pit, that pit of destruction, He lay
with none to pity or sustain.But, Oh, change the strain, and sing unto the Lord
awhile, as we read the verse, "He brought me up out of a horrible pit." The Lord
Jesus Christ was lifted up from all sorrow of spirit at that moment when He said
so bravely, "It is finished," and though He died yet was He lifted up from
death, as it is written, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou
suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." His Spirit ascended to God, and
by-and-by, when the third day had blushed with morning light, His body rose from
the tomb, to ascend in due time to glory. He came up out of the pit of the
grave, delivered from all fear of corruption, pain, or defeat. Now His sorrow is
ended, and His brow is clear from care. His visage is marred no more: He bears
the scars which do but illumine His hands and feet with splendor, but No more
the bloody spear,The cross and nails no more,For hell itself shakes at his
name,And all the heavens adore.Sing ye unto the Lord, ye saints of His, as ye
behold your Master brought up again from among the sorrowful, the despised, the
deserted, the dead.A second figure is, however, used here to express our Lord's
grief and deliverance from it -- "Out of the miry clay." Travelers tell us that
wherever pits are still used as dungeons, they are damp, foul and utterly
loathsome; for they are never cleansed, however long the prisoner may have been
there, or however great the number of victims shut up within them. You know what
the prisons of Europe were in Howard's days, they were even worse in the East in
periods further back. The imprisoned wretch often found himself sinking in more;
he found no rest, no hope of comfort, and when extricated he needed a hand to
drag him out of the thick clay. Our blessed Lord and Master found Himself when
He was suffering for us where everything appeared to give way beneath Him; His
spirits sank, His friends failed Him, and His heart melted like wax. Every
comfort was taken from Him. His blessed manhood found nothing upon this earth
upon which it could stay itself, for He had been made sin for us, made a curse
for us, and so every foundation of comfort departed from Him. He was deprived of
visible support, and reduced to a sad condition. As a man who has fallen into a
slough cannot stir so as to recover himself, so was it with our Redeemer, who
says in the Psalms -- "I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing." Some
morasses are so destructive that, if a man should once fall into them, he might
give up his life for lost unless some one came that way to drag him out. So did
the Saviour sink in the miry clay of our sin and misery until the Lord Almighty
lifted Him out. The clay of sorrow clung to Him; it held to Him while He was
performing the great work of our redemption. But the Lord brought Him up out of
it. There is no mire upon His garments now: his feet no longer sink, He is not
held by the bands of death, He slides not into the grave again. He was dragged
down, as it were, by hearing our sin, but that is over, and He hath ascended on
high: He hath led captivity captive, and received gifts from men. All honor be
unto Him, and to His Father who delivered Him.As we read our text we pursue this
story of out Master's deliverance, and we are told that He was brought up out of
the lowest deeps. Say the words or sing them as you choose -- "He brought me
up." God upraised His obedient Son from the depths into which He had descended
on our account. He was brought up, like Jonah who went to die bottom of the
mountains, and yet was landed safely on the shore. He was brought up like
Joseph, who rose from a pit to a palace; like David, who was led up from the
sheepfold to the kingdom. "The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord; and in
thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! His glory is great in thy salvation:
honor and majesty hast thou laid upon him. For thou hast made him most blessed
forever: Thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance."Then we are
told He was set on a rock, and oh, the glory of our blessed Lord in this matter,
for now He stands on a firm foundation in all that He does for us. Judgment and
truth confirm His ways, and the Judge of all the earth approves His doings.
Christ has no sandy foundation for His work of mercy or His word of comfort.
When He saves He has a right to save: when He puts away sin He does it on
indisputable grounds: when He helps and delivers His people He does it according
to law, according to the will of the Highest. As Justifier, Preserver, and
Perfecter of His people, He stands upon a rock. This day I delight to think of
my Lord as settling His church with Himself upon the immutable foundations of
the covenant, on the decree of God, on the purpose of the Father, on His own
work, and on the promise of God that He would reward Him in that work. Well may
we say that His feet are upon a rock, for He is Himself, by another figure, the
Rock of ages, the Rock of our salvation.And now the goings of our glorious
Christ are established. When He goes out to save a sinner, He knows that He can
do it, and has a right to do it. When He goes up to His Father's throne to make
intercession for sinners, His goings are established, and the desire of His
heart is given Him. When He comes in among His church, or marches forth with his
people to the ends of the earth, His goings are established. "For the king
trusteth in the Lord, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be
moved." He shall surely come a second time without sin unto salvation, for so
has the Father decreed: His glorious goings are as surely established as were
those of His labor and suffering. We shall never be without a Saviour: we shall
never have a fallen or a vanquished Saviour; for His goings are established for
continuance, certainty, and victory. Such honor have all His saints; for "the
steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord"; and again, "none of his steps
shall slide." Best of all, there is a new, song in the mouth of our
Well-beloved. It is grand to think of Jesus singing. Read the twenty-second
Psalm, and you will find Him doing it, as also in the Hebrews: "In the midst of
the church will I sing praise unto thee." Toward the end of His earthly career
you hear Him bursting into song. Was not that a grand occasion just before His
passion, when He was going out to die; we read that "after supper they sang a
hymn." If we had been bound to die that night, as He was, we should rather have
wept or prayed than sang. Not so our Lord. I do not know what psalm they sang:
probably a part of the great Hallel, usually sung after the Passover, which
consists of those Psalms at the end of the book which are so full of praise. I
believe the Saviour Himself pitched the tune and led the strain. Think of Him
singing when near His hour of agony! Going to scorn and mockery, singing! Going
to the thorn-crown and the scourge, singing! Going to death, even the death of
the cross, singing! For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross,
despising the shame! But now, what must that new song be which He leads in
heaven? "They sang, as it were, a new song before the throne"; but it is He that
leads the heavenly orchestra. How greatly He excels Miriam, the sister of Moses,
when she took her timbrel and led forth the women in their dances, saying, "Sing
unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he
thrown into the sea." This is called "the song of Moses, the servant of God and
of the Lamb"; so I gather that the Lamb's new song is after the same triumphant
fashion: it is the substance of that which Moses' song foreshadowed. In Christ
Jesus the Lord our God has led captivity captive. Let us praise Him on the high
sounding cymbals. Sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. The
powers of darkness are destroyed; sin, death, and hell are drowned in the
atoning blood: the depths have covered them: there is not one of them left. Oh,
"sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously." "Ascribe ye greatness
unto our God."III. Such is the exalted condition of our Lord at this hour; let
us turn and look upon THE LORD'S REWARD. The Lord's reward for having gone down
into the horrible pit, and having gunk in the miry clay for us, is this -- that
"Many shall see, and fear, and trust in the Lord. "Many!" Not all mankind, but
"many" shall look to Jesus and live. Alas! Vast numbers continue in unbelief,
but "many' shall believe and live; and the Lord's "many" means very many. As I
was thinking over my text, I thought, "I hope there will be some at the
Tabernacle this morning that belong to the I many who shall see and fear and
trust in the Lord." "Many shall" for the Lord hath promised it. But, Lord, they
will not. "But they shall," says God. Oh, but many refuse. "But they shall,"
says God and He hath the key of men's hearts, and power over their judgments and
their wills. "Many shall." Do you, oh ye unbelievers, think that Jesus shall die
in vain? Oh, sinners, if you will nor have Christ, others will. You may despise
Him, but He will be none the less glorious. You may reject His salvation but He
shall be none the less mighty to save. He is a king, and ye cannot pluck a
single jewel from His crown. If you arc so foolish as to provoke His iron rod so
that He shall break you in shivers with it, yet He will be ijorious in the sight
of God, and He will save His own. Notwithstanding your hardness of heart, be
this known unto you, oh House of Israel, that "many shall see, and fear, and
trust in the Lord."What shall the many do? They shall "see." Their eyes shall be
opened, and they shall see their Lord in the horrible pit, and in the miry clay,
and as they look they shall see that He was there for them. What joy this will
create in their spirits! If they do not see the Lord Jesus as their Substitute
they shall, at any rate, be made to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. If when
Jesus only takes imputed sin, and has no sin of His own, yet He must be cast
into the horrible pit and sink in the miry clay; then what will become of men
who have their owns sins about them, provoking the fierce anger of the Lord? If
God thus smites His well -- beloved, oh sinner, how will He smite you! Beware,
ye that forget Him, lest He tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver
you. By the suffering Surety all covered with His own gore, I do beseech you,
provoke not God; for if His Only -- Begotten must suffer so, you must suffer yet
more if you break His law, and next reject His gospel."Many shall see." Do you
wonder that it is added, "and shall fear?" It makes men fear to see a bleeding
Christ, and to know that they crucified Him. It makes men fear, however, with a
sweet filial fear that is akin to hope, when they see that Jesus died for
sinner, the Just for the unjust, to bring them to God. Oh, when they see the
Lord of love acting as a scapegoat, and bearing their sins away into the
wilderness of forgetfulness, they begin to hate their evil ways, and to have a
reverent fear of God; for so saith the Scripture, "there is forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared." But best of all -- and this is the chief point
-- they come to "trust in the Lord." They build their hope of salvation upon the
righteousness of God as manifested in Christ Jesus. Oh, I would to God that some
of you would trust Him at once. Beloved friend, are you trying to be saved by
your own works? That is a delusion. Are you hoping to be saved by your own
feelings? That is a lie. But you can be saved, you shall be saved: if you will
trust yourself with that blessed One who was alone in the dark pit of noises for
the sake of sinners, and slipped in the miry clay for the ungodly, you shall
assuredly be saved from wrath through Him. Trust Him, and as surely as He liveth
you shall be saved; for he that trusteth in Him cannot perish. God's
truthfulness were gone if the believer could be lost. Hath He not said, "He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved." The throne of God must rock and reel
before the cross.IV. Fourthly, let us see THE LORD'S LIKENESS in His people.
This whole passage, as I said in the beginning, has often been used by
individual believers as a description of their own deliverance. It is a true
picture, because we are made like unto our Head, and all the brethren are
partakers of that which the Head has endured. Do I speak to any of my Master's
servants in sore trouble? Dear friends, are you made to wait, though your trial
is sharp and severe? Is it so that your prayer has not yet been answered? Then
remember the waiter's place was once occupied by the Lord Jesus, for He says, "I
waited patiently." If the Lord keeps you waiting for a certain blessing year
after year do not despair. He will give it at length if it be truly for your
good, for He hath said, "no good thing will I withhold from them that walk
uprightly." He kept His Son waiting, and He may very well keep you in like
posture, for how long did you delay, and cause the Lord of grace to wait on you!
"Blessed are they that wait for Him." I have seen people very uppish when they
have called on a public man and have had to wait a little; they feel that they
ought not to be kept in the lobby, but suppose some young man said to them, "I
am his own son, and yet I have been waiting an hour." Then they are more
patient. So when God keeps you waiting do not be proud, and say, "Wherefore
should I wait for the Lord any longer?" but remember "It is good for a man both
to hope and quietly wait for the salvation of God." Jesus waited -- "waited
patiently." Seek to be like Him, and in patience possess your soul. "I cannot
see how I am to be delivered." Wait. "Ah, this is such a heavy burden." Wait.
"But I am ready to die under this terrible load." Wait! Wait on! Though He
tarry, wait for Him: He is worth waiting for. "Wait" is a short word, but it
takes a deal of grace to spell out its full meaning, and still more grace to put
it in practice. Wait: wait. "Oh, but I have been unfortunate." Wait. "But I have
believed a promise, and it has not been fulfilled." Wait; for you wait in
blessed company: you may hear Jesus saying, "I waited patiently." Blessed be His
name, He is teaching us to do the same by His gracious Spirit.Next, the Lord may
send you, His dear child, a very heavy sorrow: you may fall into the horrible
pit, and see no light, no comfort, and no one may be able to cheer you or help
you. Some that have a touch of despondency in their nature have been brought so
low as almost to despair of life. They have sat in darkness and seen no light:
they have felt the walls of their prison and have not discovered a crack or
cranny through which escape was possible: they have looked up, and even then
they have seen nothing to console them. Ah, well, here is a word I commend to
you -- the Saviour says it: "He brought me up." The Lord God can and will bring
up His troubled ones. You will have to write in your dairy one of these days.
"He brought me up." I was in the dark, I was in the dungeon, but "He brought me
up." I can personally say this with gladsome gratitude, for He hath brought me
up," again and again. My heart is glad as I reflect upon my past deliverances. I
have often wondered why I so often shut up in prison, and bound as with fetters
of steel; but I cease to wonder when I think of the many among you who are
called to wear the like bonds. This is my portion, that I may be a
witness-bearer for my God, and that I may be able to speak to the experiences of
God's tempted people, and tell how graciously the Lord delivers His servants who
trust in Him. Faith shall never be shamed or confounded, world without end. God
can and will hasten to the rescue of the faithful. I set to my seal also that
"He brought me up"; and, beloved brother in tribulation, He will bring you up;
only rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him."Ah," say you, "But I do not
know how to stand, for I sink as in miry clay, through faintness of heart: I
cannot find the slightest foothold for my hope." No, you are sinking in the miry
clay like your Master; but in answer to prayer the Lord will bring you up out of
your hopeless state, and He will set your feet upon a rock and establish your
goings, and give you joy, and peace, and delight. Wherefore see, and fear, and
trust in God, and give glory to His blessed name. Lastly, do I address any
seeking one who finds no rest for the sole of his foot? Dear friend, are you
sinking in the deep mire of your guilt? The Lord can pardon you, for "the blood
of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." Are you shut up by
conscience in the prison-house under a just sense of deserved wrath? Jesus will
give you immediate rest if you come to Him. Do you feel as if you cannot kneel
to pray, for your very knees slip in the mire of doubt? Remember, Jesus makes
intercession for the transgressors. Do you seem as if, every time you move, you
are burying your hope, and slipping deeper and deeper into ruin? The Lord hath
plenteous redemption. Do not despairs You cannot not deliver yourself, but God
can deliver you: you cannot stand of yourself, but God can make you to stand.
You cannot go to Him nor go abroad among your fellow-men with comfort, but the
Lord can make you to run in His ways. You shall yet go forth with joy and be led
forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into
singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Only see Christ,
and fear and trust your God, and you too shall sing unto Jehovah your deliverer,
and this shall be your song: -- He raised mc from a horrid pit,Where mourning
long I lay,And from my bonds released my feet,Deep bonds of miry clay.Firm on a
rock he made me stand,And taught my cheerful tongueI praise tire wonders of his
handIn a new thankful song.PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON -- PSALM
40.HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" -- 196, 40, 332.


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