The Chief Of Sinners

The Chief Of Sinners
A SERMON DELIVERED BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN
TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Sinners; of whom I am chief." 1 Timothy 1:15.
WHO among all the Scriptural writers can compare with Paul in the
fullness of his testimony to the Grace of God? Upon the Doctrines of
Grace, upon the experience of Divine Grace, upon everything that has to
do with the exceeding abundant Grace of God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, Paul is the mighty master and the great teacher. If it were
right to look at him from an exclusively human point of view and speak
of his genius rather than his inspiration, I might say of him that so
mighty, so clear, so eloquent a teacher of the Truth of God has never
existed since the days of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Though Augustine was a particularly bright star and Calvin in after
generations rivaled, if he did not even excel Augustine, Paul far
excels both in the brilliance with which he exhibits every quality of
Grace and Grace in everything that has a good quality. Or, to use
another figure, Paul towers aloft above them all in the great mountain
range, lofty though full many of their summits are. One reason for his
clearness about Divine Grace was that he was himself a very pattern and
model of its power. In him God had expressly, as much as in any other
man, and perhaps more, shown forth the super-abundant power of His love
in passing by transgression, iniquity and sin–and in making the very
man who had been a ringleader of mischief, to become the leader of the
hosts of the Lord.
Paul calls himself in our text the chief of sinners. It is possible
that he literally exceeded every other sinner, dared more and sunk
deeper in crime than any of his fellows among the sons of men. If so,
let no man that lives despair of mercy. If the gate of Heaven is wide
enough for the chief of sinners to go through, then there must in that
respect be room enough for those who must be less than the chief, who,
though very great, yet cannot be quite so great as he. I say, though I
hardly think so, that it is just possible that, taking certain
circumstances into consideration, Paul really was in such sense the
very chief of sinners. And yet I hardly think so, because he himself,
in another place, calls himself less than the least of all saints,
which was the modest apprehension of one who in another place affirmed
that he was not a whit behind the very chief of the Apostles.
Might it not, then, rather have been that his deep view of his own
sinfulness and his clear sense of his guilt made him consider himself
to be the chief of sinners, though, probably, there have been tens of
thousands even greater than he? Tonight my business is to find out the
chiefs of sinners and endeavor to describe them. And then, to enquire
how it is that so often the very chiefs of sinners are saved.
I. First, dear Friends, as Saul hunted out Believers, I have, tonight,
TO TRY AND HUNT OUT THE CHIEFS OF SINNERS. Now who are they? They come
under various characters and may be classified in different lists. We
will begin with those who directly oppose themselves to God and to His
Christ. These are chiefs among sinners. Paul did join their ranks. He
set himself determinately against the name of Christ and thought with
himself that he ought to do very much against that name.
Now those who directly attack the Person of God come, first, under the
head of blasphemers. Paul says he was such. He had, no doubt, used
expressions quite as strong as those sometimes used by unbelieving Jews
when they are much irritated by Christians. He had said some foul
things about the Impostor crucified upon Mount Calvary–things,
perhaps, more vile than he ever cared to remember–much less to repeat.
He had been exceedingly mad, and when men are mad they say exceedingly
mad things. He had been a blasphemer, and a blasphemer challenges the
vengeance of the Almighty with no common effrontery.
Have I one here whose mouth is foul with oaths? Has there strayed into
this House of Prayer tonight one who has cursed God and dared in his
angry moments to lift his puny hand of rebellion and curse the Most
High God? Have I the misfortune–no, I will not call it so–have I the
hopeful privilege of talking to one who has spoken against Jesus of
Nazareth and who is determined to quench His religion, or to oppose it
to the utmost of his power? Is it so?
Then indeed, Friend, you are one of the chief of sinners, and I am glad
that you are here, that I may tell you that there is mercy even for
such as you are. For "all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven
unto men." No matter how often or how foully you have cursed the Most
High and damned yourself, He will not damn you if you will turn from
the error of your ways and seek mercy through the blood of Him whom you
have despised.
Others come under the same class. For instance, we must here put the
infidel, for although his words may not take the form of blasphemy, yet
the very thought that there is no God is blasphemy. And he that dares
to vent that thought is not only a fool, but one of the chief of
sinners. And so you have tried to stultify your conscience and to
silence its monitions by pretending to believe that there is no God!
You have tried to rake up the stale arguments of Tom Paine and of
Voltaire and you have chuckled when one who called himself a bishop of
God's heritage dared to vent some strong things against the Book of His
Divine inspiration.
You know in your heart that there is a God! Your conscience tells you
that He is a just God. You expect to be punished for your sins. That
start the other night when you were alone, that cold shiver when
someone spoke of death–all these prove that your infidelity is not so
stout and brave a thing as you have dreamed it was. A poor, craven,
cowardly thing it is, that turns pale at a sickbed and flies, with
coward paleness on its cheek, when once it thinks of judgment to come.
Oh, if you are here, you Atheist, you Deist, you disbeliever in Christ
Jesus, you are one of the chief of sinners and I am glad you are
here!–That I may tell you that a God of Love waits to embrace you and
that He still declares this to be true–that He is able to save to the
uttermost all them that come unto God by Him! Fling down your weapons,
Man! You cannot fight the Most High! End this unequal quarrel. Have
neither truce nor parley, but consider how you may be at peace with
Him. The hand of His love is stretched out to accept the hand of your
submission. Oh, be you reconciled to God through the death of His Son!
And here I ought to include those who hold views derogatory of the
Deity and the Person of Christ. Faithfulness to you, my Hearers,
compels me to put down the Socinian. I will not call him Unitarian, for
we all hold the unity of the Godhead. Trinitarians, but Unitarians are
we still. Far otherwise the Socinian and the Arian–I put them down
here–the men who say that Christ is not God, that the Redeemer of the
world was but the son of Mary, that He who walked the waters of the
deep, chained the winds, cast out evil spirits and made even Hades
startle with His voice when the soul of Lazarus came back–that He was
but a Prophet, a creature, a mere man!
Surely, Sir, you are one of the chief of sinners to have talked thus of
Him who is "very God of very God," the express image of His Father's
Person! But even to you is Jesus gracious, and He bids you still
believe in Him. You shall bow the knee to Him one day and worship Him,
for, "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue
confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Bow your
knee, NOW, and kiss the Son lest He be angry and you perish from the
way when His wrath is kindled but a little. He bids you come to Him,
then will He blot out your sins like a cloud and like a thick cloud
your iniquities. The chiefs of sinners, we are sure, are found among
those who directly attack the Person of Jehovah's Christ, yet even to
these is the Gospel of salvation sent.
Another group of princes and peers in the realm of evil may be
described as those who attack Christ's people and who seek to pervert
them from the right way. This sin pressed heavily upon the conscience
of Paul. He had not only put them in prison, which was bad enough, but
he had taken the saints into the synagogue and probably they had been
beaten before the assembly and compelled to blaspheme. You, perhaps,
know what that means–compel them to blaspheme. The Roman way of doing
it was to say, "Curse Christ." Often did the Roman Emperor command the
martyrs to curse Christ.
And you remember Polycarp's answer?–"How can I curse Him? Sixty years
have I known Him. He never did me a displeasure and I cannot and I will
not curse Him." Then the whip was applied, or the hand was held over
burning coals, or the flesh was pinched with hot irons. And then the
question was put again–"Will you curse Christ now?" Paul says that he,
though probably using milder means, compelled the professors of
Christ's faith to blaspheme. And there may be some such here–the
husband who persecutes his wife for Christ's sake. The father who
charges his child, upon his obedience, never to go to the sanctuary of
the Lord again.
The master who plagues his servant, mocks and jeers and can never be
content except when he is saying hard things against him. Have I not
many here who still practice the device of cruel mocking? You abhor
Christ and His people. You fight against God in His little ones.
Beware! Beware! For this is a high sin! Nothing puts a man on his
mettle like meddling with his children, "Touch me, if you will," the
father says, "if you are a man, smite me if you dare." But touch his
children, and the blood is in his cheeks and the mettle is up and there
is no knowing what a man will do when he sees the offspring of his own
heart ill-treated.
So God will avenge His own elect that cry day and night unto Him,
though He bears long with them. To you who thus rank with the chiefs of
sinners, I say that Paul the persecutor "obtained mercy," and so may
you! "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom" persecutors
rank among the chief.
There is another group whom you will all allow to be of the chiefs of
sinners–those who have sinned foully in the world's esteem–violating
the instincts of nature and outraging the common sense of morality and
decency. It scarcely needs that I should mention the harlot that
infests the streets and pollutes society. Or that worse wretch, the
whoremonger, who first leads her astray. I speak plain words, such as I
find in Scripture. Such God shall judge when He comes at the last day,
for this temptation is a deep ditch and the abhorred of the Lord shall
fall into it. This crying sin of our land needs to be sternly rebuked.
Other sins are without the body, but this pollutes both body and soul
and often sends down to generations yet unborn a horrid curse–at the
very thought of which the soul is sick!
Of all sins, young man, young woman, take care that you stand aloof
from this! Pass not by the house of the strange woman if you love your
life, for her gates lead down to death, even to the chambers of the
damned! Yet, glory be to Divine Grace! There is mercy, mercy for
such–and multitudes of these chiefs of sinners have become as the very
brightest stars in Heaven–snatched by the strong arm of Jesus from the
miry clay and out of that horrible pit. They are now clothed and in
their right mind, they have gone to sit at the feet of Jesus, to sing
of redeeming love.
There was that Mary, that Mary whom Jesus had forgiven. Well might she
love much! And many a loving spirit do I know, and there are some very
dear to God's Church here, who love their Lord, and often shame some of
us who stand more prominent than they who once drank deep of that
bitter cup and once went to the very depths of that sin. Publish it in
your streets! Tell it wherever you meet with the most loathsome and
most defiled! Jesus is able to save to the uttermost! He was the friend
of publicans and sinners. "This man receives sinners," is Jesus
Christ's motto. Other men reject the sinner. They turn aside from
her–woe unto her if she come between the wind and their nobility. But
"this Man receives sinners"–receives them to His heart and to His
bosom–to His Kingdom and to His Throne. You chiefs of sinners, rejoice
that if you believe in Jesus there is mercy for you!
And surely I may find another class of the chiefs of sinners among
those who have become not only adepts themselves, but the tutors to
others in the school of evil. Satan has a university and there are many
who have fairly won their diplomas as first-class professors there.
They have learned to sin with a high hand and with an outstretched
arm–until they not only sin themselves–but delight in the sins of
others. Have we not seen the old drunkard and how he gloats when he
sees another man won to the army of the bestial! Have you not seen the
eyes of some base old demon in a country village twinkle when he sees
that fair-haired boy for the first time pander to the infamous customs
in which he has long reveled?
Have we not known some of those foul-mouthed masters of all baseness
whose very talk is enough to make a whole parish sick with the
pestilence of vice–men that you had better go over hedge and ditch
seventy miles than meet! There are such. You have seen them, I dare
say. And, mark you, when that being is a woman, if anything, it is then
worse! The softer sex, usually by far more apt to teach, instills the
secret vice of evil and wraps it up in insidious enchantments, by
reason of which many a strong man has fallen when Delilah has been his
charmed tutor in sin! I may not, oh, I hope I may not have one such
being within earshot now.
Yet , it is possible, amidst the thousands that this house now
contains, but what there must be some of you who roll sin under your
tongue as a sweet morsel and talk of it with a gusto till you tickle
the fancies of others–and lead them into defilements which otherwise
they never might have touched. You artfully conceal the book while
putting the bait in the young man's way and thrusting the knowledge of
new vices upon those who should have shunned them! Oh, you are the
chief of sinners with a vengeance, and you shall be hung up like Haman
upon the lofty gallows forever if you repent not!
Yet, O Sovereign Grace! How can I tell Your heights? O sea of Love, how
can I ever fathom Your depths! There is even mercy proclaimed for such.
Turn, turn, why will you die, O house of Israel? Why will you perish?–
"While the lamp holds out to burn The vilest sinner may return."
I find no exception in the offer of mercy. All are included in the
invitation of welcome, "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the
water of life freely." "Though your sins are as scarlet they shall be
as wool, though they are red like crimson they shall be whiter than
snow." Here is a full, a free, a perfect and a complete pardon for all
your past offenses.
Though I have not yet finished the list, I would rather change the note
for a minute. I have another class of the chiefs of sinners to find
out. I, myself, belong to them, and I therefore speak with feeling. In
this section we include those who have had much light and yet have
sinned against it. They who have been taught better, who have had a
knowledge of the way of the Truth of God and yet have turned aside to
crooked paths. To have been nursed upon the lap of piety and dandled
upon the knee of Christian affection is no small privilege. To be
lighted to one's cradle by the lamps of the sanctuary, and to be hushed
to sleep with a lullaby in which the name of Jesus comes as a sweet
refrain–this involves an awful responsibility.
No man can go to Hell over a mother's tears without accumulated
vengeance. No son can rebel against a father's affectionate and tearful
admonitions without perishing ten times more frightfully than as if he
had never been thus privileged. Ah, my Hearers, alas, alas, for the
hardness of your hearts–there are many such here now. I would
charitably suppose that very few of you belong to the other classes I
have been speaking of, but the great mass of you who are unconverted
belong to this class. Do you remember young Man, how your mother put
her arms around your neck and wooed you to turn to Christ?
Do you remember that little Bible when you first went to school and
that verse she inscribed as a motto–she watered it with her tears as
she wrote it. Do you recollect those letters she addressed to you? She
is now in Heaven, is she? Then let them be the more sacred to your
recollection. And do you remember that Sunday school teacher? Was he
not a father to you? Was not that excellent woman who used to entreat
you to turn from the error of your ways a very mother to you in Israel?
Do you not remember, young Woman, some of you, the earnest exhortations
that my beloved Sister, Mrs. Bartlett, has addressed to you?
If ever there was a woman that could, under God, move the heart and
soul, she is that woman. And yet, there are some of you that listen to
her voice and yet you are unconverted! You have the light shining upon
your eyes and yet they are sightless still! You live in the land of
mercy, where its bell summons you to come to its assembly of Divine
Grace, but you will still not come! You have the light, but you shut
your eyes against it! Remember, young Man, young Woman, when you sin
you sin with seven-fold atrocity, because you know better! No–seventy
sins are rolled into one in your sin of daring deliberate willfulness.
Within that egg of sin there sleeps the seed of your greater damnation
because you know the right and yet you choose the evil. Have I not now
the privilege of speaking to some whose old familiar associations are
awakened up by these feeble glances at your life story? Do you not feel
just now as if you were kneeling down again in that little room and
heard the native accents of your mother's prayer, while your lips
hardly refrain from repeating afresh the words of your own prayer which
she taught your lips to frame before she put you to your rest? Do you
not remember it? And do you not remember sometimes when your conscience
was awakened and your heart was almost broken, and your soul said, "I
could almost be a Christian," but you excused yourself with a frivolous
delay–"Go your way for this time. When I have a more convenient season
I will send for you"?
But, alas, that convenient season has never yet come. And your
conscience grows seared. Drugged with the opiates of sin, you grow less
and less tender of the affectionate appeal. Woe will be the day of your
visitation, for it shall be cloudy indeed, unless you turn at the voice
of reproof. But even to you, O chief of sinners, is the word of this
salvation sent.
There are those, too, who sit under an earnest ministry and yet go on
in sin–they surely belong to the class of chief sinners. O, my
Hearers, how I would to God that I could be as earnest with you as I
want to be! The Lord knows there are times when I am not in the pulpit,
when I feel that I could weep you to a Savior. But sometimes when
standing here, the influence of this mighty throng seems rather to
distract me than to bring my whole soul into play. And yet, the Lord
knows how earnestly I long for you in the heart of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God
as far as I have known it. I know I have failed in knowledge, but never
in honesty.
Yet I know there are some of you who come here and yet you live in sin.
The world says, "So-and-So goes to Spurgeon's Tabernacle," and they
expect you to be better for going there. And yet they say, "Ah, how
they drink!" or, "Hear how they will swear!" Where are you? You used to
have your shop open on the Sunday morning, but it is shut now. I am
glad you have got as far as that. Still, let me tell you, you only
compound your sin and make a covenant with Hell, if you outwardly pay
respect to the Sabbath and secretly indulge in other profanities.
Drunkenness may destroy you without Sabbath-breaking. It is not giving
up one sin, it is giving up the whole.
It is not the barter of one sin for another to quiet your conscience,
which will satisfy justice or rescue you from destruction. Man, there
must be a divorce between you and your sins! Not a mere separation for
a season, but a clear divorce. Cut off the right arm! Pluck out the
right eye and cast them from you, or else you cannot enter into eternal
life. Are there not some of you who have for years listened to my
ministry and yet you are none the better? And some of you are rather
the worse, I fear. You are getting Gospel-hardened by it all.
Well, by God's Grace, there is mercy for you, too! You are the chief of
sinners, but the red flag is not run up yet– the white flag still
floats mast-high–the flag of invitation–the flag of love–the flag of
mercy. Come to it! Come to Jesus now. You may never have another
invitation. Soon may this tongue be cold in death, or your ears may be
deaf forever, like clay-cold marble. Turn you, at this rebuke, for if
after being often reproved, you harden your necks, you shall suddenly
be destroyed and that without remedy. To you, even to the chief of
sinners, is the word of this salvation sent!
Drawing the bow at a venture, there is another class I would single
out–those who are gifted from their childhood with a tender
conscience. There are men who seem to be born without a conscience. So
hard and dull of impression are they that if they have any faculty of
distinguishing between good and evil, it is as though they had eyes and
saw not, and ears but they hear not. And does it ever speak, the voice
is so weak, you can never hear it. But there are those, on the other
hand, who have naturally a quick understanding, a delicate
sensitiveness, a ready perception of right and wrong, a strong and
vigorous conscience. They never do sin without being aware of what they
are doing and they are troubled and pestered, as they say, about it.
They cannot sleep at night after they have been committing any serious
breach of propriety. Even when they are walking the streets, or when
they are busy, they are quickly startled at the recoil of their own
transgressions. Oftentimes there is a certain uneasiness and
fretfulness which comes over them because they are conscious that they
are not pursuing the right course. Now, if you are gifted with this
tender conscience and yet you constantly violate it and directly act in
the face of your own convictions, you are the chief of sinners. But
still, still Paul, the chief of sinners, found mercy–and so may you!
And again–if you have had warning in sickness and especially if on
your sick bed you have vowed unto the Lord that you would turn to Him,
then you are covenant-breakers, you that violate vows made to the Most
High–you must also be put among the first and foremost of
transgressors. When the cholera was here some nine years ago, you vowed
that if God would spare you, things should be different. He did spare
you, but things are no better now than they were before. When the fever
prostrated you, what promises you made and where are they now? You have
lied unto the Eternal God! Is it little for you that you should have
promised and not have paid–have vowed unto Him and not performed? Now,
Sinner, you are a liar, as well as anything besides. You are a rogue, a
dishonest one against God, with Whom the compact was made. But the
invitation is still freely tendered unto you–come unto the Lord Jesus
Christ and believe in Him–and you shall be made whole.
The chiefs of sinners comprises so numerous a body. I believe everyone
of us must be included in the list in some shape or other. I know
this–if ever you and I are saved–if God shall give us very great
mercy, we shall feel that we were the greatest sinners. When Paul saw
how kindly his Master treated him, it seemed to break his heart–"What?
Did I ever curse that Christ who has blessed me? He that is so rich in
loving kindness, did I ever spurn Him?" Verily, now, I think I have had
the blackest sight of sin when I have had the brightest sight of mercy.
When my dear Lord and Master has privileged me, by allowing me to come
near Him in prayer, and I have felt His love shed abroad in my
heart–then it is that I have felt as if I could bring imprecations
upon myself for ever having been a traitor to Him.
What? Could I spit in Your face, my Redeemer and my Lord? Could I ever
crown Your head with thorns, which now it shall be my life's task to
crown with jewels? What? Did You love me so? Did You forgive me so and
could I ever speak against You? It is great mercy that sets forth our
great sin, for we only come to reckon ourselves the chief of sinners
when we see the great love of God. So then, without amplifying any
longer, I will put the invitation thus–whoever among you have sinned
against the Most High, you are all on a level, and the invitation of
mercy is put to you, each and all, and this is the Gospel–"He that
believes and is baptized shall be saved, he that believes not shall be
damned." May you be led to believe and to profess your faith according
to God's way.
II. Well, now, but a few minutes remain to me and I will endeavor to be
brief while I try to answer the question, WHY ARE THESE WHO ARE
PROVERBIALLY THE CHIEF OF SINNERS ARE VERY FREQUENTLY SAVED?
One reason is to illustrate Divine Sovereignty. There is no jewel of
His crown of which God is more jealous than His Sovereignty. "I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion." Now, when He saves the harlot, when He
calls the persecutor by Sovereign Grace, then all men see that this is
the finger of God and that He dispenses His love and kindness according
to the purposes of His own absolute and uncontrollable will. He chooses
the chief of sinners that He may show to all men that He will take the
base things of the world and the things which are not, and things which
are despised, to bring to nothing the things that are–that no flesh
may glory in His Presence.
Another reason is that He may show His great power. Oh, how Hell is
made angry when some great champion falls! When their Goliaths are
brought down, how the Philistines take to their heels! How Heaven rings
with songs when some chief of sinners becomes a trophy of the Divine
power! And how men talk, with glib tongues, of the great and mighty
deeds of God, when the drunkard and the swearer and the prostitute are
washed and made saints! What a noise it made at Elstow, when they said
at the public-house on the green–"You know John Bunyan?" "Oh, yes, we
know him! You mean the fellow that was always first at a game of
tip-cat–he that could always drink the longest! Oh, yes, we know him."
"Well, do you know, he was preaching over at Bedford yesterday."
"What?" says one, "preaching at Bedford? I would as soon have thought
of the devil preaching as John Bunyan! What a wonderful thing the
Gospel must be, to change such a man as that!" And yet it was true!
John Bunyan, who frequented the ale-house, who knew more about the
county jail and more about the Celestial City that is on the other side
the flood than most men of his times. It shows the power and the
Sovereignty of God when such men are saved.
And next, how it shows His Grace! When I have sometimes sat to see
enquirers I have seen a number come in one after the other that have
been born and brought up in the midst of piety and I have blessed God
for them. But, by-and-by there has come in one whose tale has been
terrible to tell and it was not easily told–except with many sighs and
sobs and tears. But when it was disclosed, there have sat two weeping
together–I scarcely know which wept more–he who wept because of
Divine Grace illustrated in him or the other because he saw in another
the Divine Grace which he had tasted for himself.
Oh, when great sinners tell out their tales, they are so
straightforward, so explicit! There is no muddle about it, no questions
about when they were converted, or how, but there they are. They
say–"Ah, Sir, it must be Divine! Such a change has been worked in me
that nothing could have thus turned the lion to a lamb, the raven to a
dove, but the Grace of God." In great sinners, then, the Grace of God
is made conspicuous.
Again–great sinners are very frequently called by God for the purpose
of attracting others. You know that when some great transgressor finds
mercy, straightway many hearts say–"Ah, then there is mercy for me." I
am glad, I am very glad that there was a Manasseh, that there was
David, that there was a Saul of Tarsus, and I am glad they are in the
Bible. The wicked cut the stories out and they laugh at us and say,
"These are your saints?" Ah, we can bear that, while we can say–"No,
this is what they were by nature, but they were saved, for all that, by
the distinguishing Grace of God, who saves men through faith and not by
their works."
Now, I believe that that case of David has been a solace to thousands,
if not to millions. The hurt he did in his lifetime was certainly very
great–but the incalculable benefit which has flown to the universal
Church from the penitential Psalms–puts altogether into the shade the
damage which the fall of David did to the Church in his own time. Not
that there is less shame to the sinner, but that there is more glory to
the Savior where sin abounded in the first instance and
Divine Grace did much more abound in the sequel. We can well bear this
spot, for the sake of the light which comes from the sun.
Sinners! All of you! If you would put yourselves among the little ones,
if your lives have never been grossly vile (I am glad if they have
not)–let the fact that the great sinner enters and is washed, attract
you. I have heard it said of the elephant, that sometimes before he
crosses a bridge he puts his trunk and perhaps one foot, upon it. He
wants to know if it is quite safe, for he is not going to trust his
bulky body to things that were built only for horses and men. Well,
after he has tried it, if he finds it strong enough, away he goes and
his great carcass is carried right across the stream.
Now, suppose you and I sat on the other side and said we were afraid
the bridge would not bear us! Why, how absurd our unbelief would be! So
when you see a great elephantine sinner, like the Apostle Paul, go
lumbering over the bridge of mercy and not a timber creaks and the
bridge does not even strain under the load–why then, methinks you may
come rushing in a crowd and say–"It will bear us, if it will bear
him–it will carry us across, if it can take the chief of sinners to
Heaven!"
And then, dear Friends, the saving of the chiefs of sinners is useful,
because, when they are saved they generally make the most fiery zealots
against sin. Have we not a proverb that, "The burnt child dreads the
fire"? I noticed my host, on one preaching excursion, particularly
anxious about my candle. Now, as everybody ought to know how careful I
am, I was a little surprised and I put the question to him why he
should be so wonderfully particular. "I had my house burned down once,
Sir," said he. That explained it all. No man is so much afraid of fire
as he, and they who have been in sin and know the mischief of it,
protest against it the most loudly.
They can speak experimentally. They talk of what they have tasted and
handled to their own smart and ruin! Oh, what revenge there seems to be
in the Apostle's heart against his sin! He seems to bring out the great
battle-axes and weapons of war against it–and wherever he can see sin
he smites right and left–anywhere. Persecution, death, martyrdom–all
these are nothing to him if he can but get a blow at sin. He always
seems to have the gun charged to the muzzle and no devil comes in his
way but what he has a shot at him. There are no ramparts or hellish
bulwarks but what Paul thinks he must take them, whether they are in
Asia, or Italy, or Spain. This great knight-errant of the Cross is
everywhere the great antagonist of sin, and so must those always be who
are saved out of great iniquity.
And then, again, they always make the most zealous saints. I have said
and it will come true, though I am no prophet nor the son of a
prophet–I have said that the Lord will deliver this city and deliver
this age, not by ministers from col-leges–not by the sons of gentlemen
or the inheritors of titles. But He will yet shake London and bring
about a religious revival with the men who will come from St. Giles's
and from White Chapel–from the slums, and from the dens and kens of
infamy. God will take such men by-and-by, and He is beginning to work
it already.
There are one or two names that will come to your
recollection–illustrious names in connection with the preaching in
theatres–God will raise up more such and you shall see that when human
wisdom and creature devices have done their utmost to make the Church
of God the dull lethargic thing it now is, God, in the plenitude of His
might will raise up some who have tasted that He is gracious and have
drunk deeply of the cup of His love that will turn the world upside
down. It is all an idle and a wicked tale that our places of worship in
the City of London cannot be supported. I see them building new places
in the suburbs and leaving the City itself destitute of the means of
Divine Grace.
Were the right men found, the Churches in the City of London might be
as crowded as those in the suburbs. Only put into their pulpits men who
know the guilt of sin and who know that Gospel in which is revealed the
righteousness of God–men who know and preach Christ–then the effect
would be palpable. Give us the men who do not talk as botanists might
do upon botany, when they had not seen a flower, or as some might speak
of various lands who have never traveled a league. But give us men who
know experimentally those things that they labor to teach and let their
tongues be set on fire of the Holy Spirit, and you shall then see
London as full of the glory of the Lord as was Jerusalem of old.
May this come to pass! May it begin to come to pass tonight! May the
Lord find out, as He moves among this mass, some stray, strange being
that has given himself up to desperation, to work mischief with both
his hands–and may He say to him tonight, "I have need of you and I
will have you." Oh, mighty Grace, do it tonight! He will have you, Man!
Your will must be subdued. Your pride must come down. That proud temper
of yours shall yield. "I am your Master. I made you. I bought you with
My blood, and do you think I will lose you? I am mighty to save, do you
think that you can overcome Me? I came forth on purpose to redeem you!
Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" O that the Lord would speak thus
personally to some individual now!
And now I have done when I have just put this before you. My Hearers,
here is life and death. If you despise Christ, there is death for you.
If you turn aside from the love and mercy which streams from the wounds
of Jesus, the angry God shall find you in your sin and cut you in
pieces and there is none that can deliver you. If you go on in your
sin, you will soon meet with death. But a few Sundays ago we had to
mark how sudden death thinned our ranks. Sometimes it is a working man.
There was one, you know, some weeks ago, who lost his life in building
the great bridge at Blackfriars, who was often a hearer here.
There is scarcely a day passes but we hear of someone gone out of this
great assembly. We are going one after another. The pastor may go soon,
but perhaps before he goes he may see many of you carried to your
graves–he cannot tell. But, oh, why will you remain without God and
without Christ? If you had a lease of your lives you might go on in sin
until the lease was out. But even then you would be foolish to be
enemies to God and enemies to yourselves so long. But as you may die
today, God help you to repent tonight.
On the other hand, I set mercy before you–no man can say he has not
been invited–no soul can say that I did not set the gate open wide
enough! You are without excuse in the Day of Judgment. When the trumpet
peals through Heaven and earth and awakes the slumbering dead–when
Christ shall come in the clouds to judge the earth, I must give an
account of the Gospel I have preached to you tonight. I would to God I
could preach it better, but I cannot. You know what it is. You are
without excuse. You have been invited. You have been entreated.
You have been bid to come to the marriage supper. All things are ready.
The oxen and the fatlings are killed–come to the supper. You that are
in the highways and hedges, we would compel you to come in, that God's
House may be filled. Come. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let
him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whoever
will, let him take the water of life freely."
But if you come not, I must be a swift witness against you at the last.
I am clear of your blood. I am clear of the blood of you all. God save
you, for Christ's sake. Amen.