Plain Words With the Careless
A sermon
(No. 778)
Delivered on Lord's-day Evening, OCTOBER 13, 1867, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before Him, and with a loud
voice said, 'What have I to do with You, Jesus, You Son of the Most
High God? I beg You, do not torment me.."- Luke 8:28.
IF we understand these words to be the exclamation of the evil spirit
which tormented this poor demonian, they are very natural words and one
can very readily understand them, for the Presence of Christ is such a
great torment to the Prince of Evil, that he might well cry out, "Are
you come to torment us before our time?" If we would put Satan to rout
we have only to preach the Lord Jesus in the power of the Spirit, for
this is the Hell of devils. Hence it is that he roars so much against
Gospel preachers–he roars because the Gospel makes him hurt.
But if these words are looked upon as the language of the man himself,
they are most extraordinary. In fact, they are so singularly mad and
foolish that we can only account for them by the fact that though it
was a man who spoke, yet the devil was in him–for surely none but a
man possessed with a devil would say to Jesus, who alone could bless
him, "Depart from me!" or say, "Torment me not!" And yet there are tens
of thousands of men in this world who are saying just the same thing!
Thousands of persons appear to be far more anxious to escape from
salvation than to escape from eternal wrath! They avoid Heaven's love
with scrupulous diligence and the prayer of their life seems to be,
"Keep me, Lord, from Heaven! Prevent me ever being saved! Give me the
full swing of my sins and let me live so as to ruin my soul!"
Conduct most strange! From where comes such folly? The desire and
determination of some men to destroy themselves are fixed and resolute
to the last degree. Their self-hate and their suicidal avoidance of
mercy's thousand exhortations and entreaties are so extraordinary that,
I repeat, we can only account for men being so besotted and maddened by
the fact that Satan has mastery over them and leads them captive at his
will.
Before I proceed to discuss the words, themselves, there is, however
something to be learned from them. We may learn that a man may know a
great deal about true religion and yet be a total stranger to it. He
may know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Most High, and yet he may
be possessed of a devil–no, as in this case he may be a den for a
whole legion of devils! Mere knowledge does nothing for us but puff us
up. We may know, and know, and know and so increase our responsibility
without bringing us at all into a state of hope. Beware of resting in
head-knowledge! Beware of relying upon orthodoxy, for without love,
with all your correctness of doctrine you will be as a sounding brass
and a tinkling cymbal!
It is well to be sound in the faith, but the soundness must be in the
heart as well as in the head. There is as ready a way to destruction by
the road of orthodoxy as by the paths of heterodoxy. Hell has thousands
in it who were never heretics. Remember that the devils "believe and
tremble." There are no sounder theoretical believers than devils, and
yet their conduct is not affected by what they believe and consequently
they still remain at enmity to the Most High God. A mere head-believer
is on a par, therefore, with fallen angels and he will have his portion
with them forever unless Divine Grace shall change his heart.
We learn, also, from the words of the text, that there are a great many
bad prayers prayed in the world. The man said, "I beseech You, torment
me not." He was earnest to get Christ to let him alone–very earnest.
Many, many, many well-worded prayers which have been excellent in
themselves, have not had half so much earnestness in them as this. Both
men and swine run hard when Satan drives them, but the best of us are
slow, indeed, in going to Heaven. A sinner's prayer for his own misery
is often a grim and awful thing to look upon from its horrible
earnestness. Yes, how often have we heard men offer prayers which it
would be a very dreadful thing if God were to hear? What are oaths and
blasphemies
but prayers? They are prayers of the worst kind! A thousand mercies,
indeed, that God has never granted the swearer's prayer but has been
pleased to spare him though he has often invoked curses on his own
head.
Swearer, down on your knees this moment and thank the Almighty that He
has not taken you at your word! If you have ever made a league with
death and a covenant with Hell and have asked that God would destroy
you, be thankful that He has not done so. Take that as a sign of mercy,
and pray that the long-suffering of God may lead you to repentance. I
hope and pray that his having spared you is with the intent that He may
save you eternally.
Now we shall come to the words themselves, though we shall not take
them quite in the order in which they stand. The first thing to which I
shall call your attention is a mischievous misapprehension–there are
many foolish people in the world who imagine that Christ comes to
torment them and that His religion would make them miserable. The
second thing is a querulous question, "What have I to do with You?"
Many, many think that they have nothing to do with religion, nothing to
do with Christ, and they ask, more or less contemptuously or earnestly,
as their state of mind may be, "What have 1 to do with You, Jesus, You
Son of God Most High?"
I. First, we have to do with A VERY MISCHIEVOUS MISAPPREHENSION. It is
currently thought among mankind that to receive the Gospel of Christ
would be to cease to be happy–to give up all joyfulness and
cheerfulness–and to doom one's self to a life of melancholy. I shall
argue upon that point a little, and I shall begin by admitting some
things which are, frankly, to be acknowledged. An honest man, when he
has espoused a cause, must not go in for it blindly but must be willing
to make admissions where truth requires them, even should they appear
to be dead against him.
Now, I will admit that if men will turn from their sins, the Gospel
will, if it gets at their consciences, make them miserable. It will act
as salt to raw wounds or as a whip to rebellious backs. There are some
of you of this sort whose pictures I could easily paint so that you
would know yourselves at once. I have heard of and personally known
persons who have been in the habit of glaring vices, say, for instance,
drunkenness, and yet they are here with remarkable regularity. They
have been pleased, either with the greatness of the congregation, or
else with the particular manner of the minister and they have come
again and again! And there has been some kind of impression produced
that they had a hankering after the best things.
They have, by-and-by, reasoned with themselves, "I cannot go on as I
have done and yet continue here–the man makes his knife too sharp. I
must give up my sins or leave him altogether." And so, after awhile,
feeling themselves rendered perfectly wretched by the sermons to which
they have listened, they have given up attending the means of Divine
Grace. Many and many a man has gone down those steps under the columns
in front, yonder, grinding his teeth and stamping his feet, and vowing
that he would never come again! And yet he is the very man who is sure
to come again before long! I am often very glad when that is the effect
produced, for I have hope of men who have enough conscience left to be
irritated by the Truth of God.
Better a wrathful hearer than a forgetful hearer! If the arrow
irritates, let us hope that it has gone deep. I admit, then, I must
admit it, that if men are resolved to keep their sins it will be a very
uncomfortable thing for them to hear about Christ Jesus, and holiness,
and happiness, and sin, and the wrath to come. Jesus Christ's coming
near them in the preaching of the Gospel will torment impenitent
sinners and make them feel alarm and terror which they will try to
drown by opposing the Truth.
Why, in the old Methodist times when they took John Nelson and
impressed him to make him a soldier, they said, "Take the fellow away!
Why, a man cannot nowadays get comfortably drunk, nor swear a round
oath but what there is some Methodist cant or other who is sure to
reprove him!" Just so–wherever true religion is in the world it makes
sinners sin uncomfortable. The Christian is a standing rebuke to the
ungodly! A man who is honest, and sober, and decent, and chaste, and
who lives as a Christian should live is such a rebuke to the wicked
that if they cannot burn him–and perhaps they would like to do so in
these times, yet, if they can but ignore him, or insinuate that he is a
hypocrite and that he has some sinister motive–they can, then, be a
little comfortable at the service of evil and warm their hands at
Satan's fire.
I trust this Tabernacle will always be too hot a place for such of you
as mean to indulge in secret sins and hold on to hidden wickedness.
Never will I, so long as God spares this tongue, flinch from telling
you of your sins, for if I did I should expect that your guilt would
rest upon me and that the blood of your souls would lie at my door. O
that we may
have Grace to be far more faithful even though your approbation should
turn to rancor! Yes, admit it if you mean to go to Hell! Then you need
not come to hear the Gospel because your doing so will only make you
uncomfortable in this world and be of no service to you in the next.
Again, I must make another admission, namely, that a great many people,
when they become serious for the first time and give themselves to
Christ, are rendered for a time very miserable. There are some whose
repentance is so exceedingly bitter that they make the very worst of
company. They shun company themselves, and those who love merriment
shun them. The terrors of the Lord are upon them and they are feeling
the burden of sin–it is no wonder that a cloud hangs over their brows!
We read John Bunyan's life and we cannot but admit that for years he
was rendered, by religion, as wretched a man as he well could–and many
others have passed through just that same state of mind, some for days,
some for months, and others even for years. But allow me to remind you
that this is not at all the fault of our Lord Jesus Christ, for if
these people had come at once to Him and obeyed the great Gospel
command, "Believe and live," they would have had instantaneous peace!
Did you note that verse in the hymn which was given out just now? It
told us that no preparations were needed before coming to Jesus. I will
quote it again–
"This fountain, though rich, from charge is quite clear. The poorer the
wretch, the more welcome here! Come needy, and guilty, come loathsome
and bare; You can't come too filthy, come just as you are."
Now, if a soul will but cast itself at once upon the glorious work of
the great Redeemer, it shall then and there be saved. If those who were
so long in soul trouble had but come to Christ, and had trusted Him
with all their sins about them, they would have had peace at once! And
the reason why they were so long a time in misery was because they did
not go to Jesus Christ but kept on looking to themselves–looking for
this feeling and that good action, and that other experience–and
dreaming that because they did not see these, they could not be saved.
O that they had accepted at once the simple Truth of God that, "the
blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son, cleanses us from all sin."
Now, if a man is under a physician's care and he has a medicine sent to
him, if he should be months in getting well you cannot blame the
physician if you find that the medicine stands untasted upon the
mantel! Why the man has been trying 20 other things and he has only
gotten worse and worse. It is a good thing that he wishes to be
healed–but how much better would it be if he would but try the right
medicine which alone can cure him? If he does not try the prescription
it is not the fault of the physician if he is long a sufferer–it is
his own fault!
Even so, if a man will not believe in Jesus, blame not the Master if he
finds no salvation. O, poor troubled hearts, you need not go that
roundabout way of sorrow–tempted and tossed about, and tormented with
a thousand doubts and fears–there is a far nearer and surer way to
eternal life! If you come to Jesus Christ straightway and fall down
before the Cross, and rest your soul simply there, you shall find joy
and peace this very night–before you go to your rest you shall know
that you are "accepted in the Beloved."
But even if this pain were necessary, notice this–is it not a very
small cost to pay–to be rendered wretched for a little time if
afterwards there shall come perfect peace, and if, especially, as the
result of that there shall be eternal salvation in the world to come?
Why, supposing a part of your foot has become diseased and a bone has
to be taken out. You do not say, "Oh, but the surgeon cuts so deep, and
he has to use so many dreadful tools!" Of course he has, but if he can
save the limb, or preserve your life, nobody thinks of a little pinch
so long as his life is preserved! Ah, if you had to stand waiting for
Jesus at Mercy's gate in the cold with the hailstorm of wrath pelting
you for ages upon ages, it would be a small thing to endure if you
might afterwards enter into the rest which remains for the people of
God! Even on that computation the thing is a good bargain, and he that
is wise will reckon the cost to be little enough.
But now that I have admitted this, I want to ask those who say that
Jesus Christ would make them miserable a question or two. I have
admitted a great deal–now be fair and open with me in return. You are
afraid of being made miserable. Are you so mightily happy, then, at the
present moment? You are afraid that if you became a Christian you would
be melancholy. Now, tell me, are you so wonderfully full of joy at the
present moment? Are you so marvelously happy that you are afraid of
damaging your little paradise? Excuse me if I say that I rather
question whether those Elysian fields of yours are so very delightful!
I have my doubts about those charming pleasures of yours and suspect
them to be more paint than reality.
Ah, my Friends, we little know the miseries of the wicked. Take the
drunkard, for instance–what a jolly, genial fellow he is! Yes, but
what does Solomon say? "Who has woe?" Hear that word again, "Who has
woe?" Why, this man whom the world calls "such a jolly fellow" has woe
because he tarries long at the wine and mingles his strong drink. If
men were rational, none of them would take the drunkard's woe for the
drunkard's mirth. There is no comparison–he has a dear price, a heavy
penalty to pay for all his apparent joy. Rare old cordials turn out to
be blue ruin and fine sparkling wines end in darkness and death!
It is so with all vices–they froth a little and then turn to
wormwood–the dregs of which all the wicked of the earth shall drink.
Who does not know that the penalty of fleshly vices is too horrible for
us to describe? A man cannot sin without bringing upon himself some
sorrow even in this life. Wretchedness follows at the tail of
transgression. Do not tell me a working man who spends his money at the
gin palace, or the beer shop can have a happy home. The woman who gads
about here and there, visiting this and that place of pleasure and
amusement and neglecting her family does not find it all happiness. I
am sure she does not–her face is evidence to the contrary. Those who
lie, and cheat, and swear and forget God–I am quite sure they do not
find so much joy as they profess to have.
So, then, to make short work of the business, you who whine about
religion as being melancholy are generally a set of hypocrites! So come
here, Sir, and let me tell you a little plain truth. Why, you pitiful
creature! You tell me that religion would make you melancholy when you
are as melancholy, now, as you can pretty well live! You have looked
after this excitement and that to try and forget yourself! And when you
sit down when you are sober and calculate what you are, and where you
are going, you know very well that nothing could make you much more
miserable than you are, and you are about as dull now as you could be!
Do not make this mighty fuss about religion making you miserable when
you are miserable already! But, like a sensible man, find no fault with
what you have not tried.
There is another question I would like to ask you, and that is, if you
reply that you are happy now, I should be glad to know whether the
present happiness which you enjoy, or say you enjoy, will last you very
long? The leaves are now falling very rapidly from the trees and they
remind us that we, too, must die. Will your mirth and your jollity
support you in your dying hour? Do you expect that these things will
buoy you up amidst the chill waves of the black sea of Death? No, you
admit that all your rare jollity must end then–well, is not this a
poor prospect for a dying pillow? Is this a wise choice, to choose to
die without a hope? And after death–what then?
Will your present worldly delights minister comfort to you in another
state? Do you expect that the gaieties and vanities of life, in which
both rich and poor indulge, will be a comfort to you in looking back
upon them when your soul is separated from your body, and you stand
before the bar of God? And if you die unsaved, and God condemns you,
driving you from His Presence, do you think that the merriment of the
ballroom, the theater, and the drinking bar will, in their remembrance,
yield drops of water to your burning tongue in eternity? Will these
things be pillows for your aching head in Hell? Will the sinful joys of
earth breathe the soft breath of consolation upon you when Christ has
said, "Depart, you cursed"?
You know very well they will not! Listen to me, then. These joys of
yours which you are so afraid of losing–they are but bubbles and they
burst. They are mere child's toys and you break them and have done with
them. And you yourself will soon be where no more bubbles are blown and
no more toys made to sport with! Do not, therefore, make so much noise
about your joy–there is nothing in it. Sirs, you might throw your joys
to the dogs and even they would refuse them! The joys that a man can
know apart from Christ are unworthy of an immortal being–they are
unsatisfactory, delusive, and destructive. And if the religion of
Christ does take all such joys from you, it only removes from you
mischiefs which you ought to be most glad to lose.
But now we will go farther in dealing with this mischievous
misapprehension. You have a notion that if Jesus Christ should come
into your heart you would have to give up your pleasures. Now, what
pleasures? The pleasures of the hearth and family fireside? The
pleasures of seeing your children growing up around you to call you
blessed? The pleasures of doing good? The pleasures of discharging your
duties as in the sight of God? The pleasures of a quiet conscience? The
pleasures of knowing that you can look both your fellow men and your
God in the face? None of these pleasures will Christ take away from
you! The pleasure of having a good hope as to the hereafter? The
pleasure of having a good friend to whom to tell all your troubles? The
pleasure of going to your heavenly Father with all your griefs and
sorrows? None of these will Jesus take away!
Nor can I conceive of any pleasure that is worth calling a pleasure,
which a man will lose by becoming a Christian. Ah, yes, I know what you
mean! You mean that you will not be able to go after your sins! Now I
understand you! Why did you not say so before and call a spade a spade?
Call your sins, sins, but do not call them pleasures! And learn that
the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season, are but Satan's baits
by which he takes souls upon his hook to their destruction. You shall
lose no pleasure but that which is unhealthy, unfit for your soul,
unsatisfactory in itself, and unworthy of your nature. If you come to
the Cross you shall find of a truth that, "Religion never was designed
to make our pleasures less." It multiplies our truest and purest
pleasures a thousand-fold.
"Oh," you say, "but I shall have to give up my liberty!" Your liberty?
In what respect? Your liberty to be honest and to be upright? Your
liberty to love your neighbor? Your liberty to be kind to the
unthankful and the ungenerous? Your liberty to go about doing good?
Your liberty to search, and judge, and know for yourselves? You will
have to give up none of this in becoming a Christian! In fact, I dare
to tell you that you will have a liberty conferred upon you far more
wonderful than any liberty which you as yet have known. "He is the free
man whom the Truth of God makes free, and all are slaves besides."
Jesus Christ gives a man such an independence of spirit that he fears
no one, but does what is right actuated by the spirit of right within
him. And then he goes through the world fearless of oppressors,
dauntless and courageous under all circumstances, the Lord's free man.
You will not have, then, to give up your liberty. Yes, I know what you
mean–you mean liberty to sin, that is to say, liberty to ruin
yourselves! Thank God that liberty will be taken from you, for you
never had any right to possess so terrible an engine of destruction!
But it shall be so taken from you that you yourself will be glad to
miss it.
Why, look at that swine, yonder, wallowing in the mire–a miracle
transforms it into an angel–has not that angel liberty to go and
wallow in the same filth as before? Certainly he has! But does he ever
use it? No, it is contrary to his seraphic nature to be found reveling
in mire. So will it be with you. You will not care for those things
which are now your delight, but, being made free from sin you will
count it foul scorn to serve it any longer. Oh, it will be no loss of
liberty, but the unloosing of all your bonds! Still you say, "If I were
a Christian it would make me melancholy!" What for? Why should it make
you melancholy? Make you melancholy to think that, if you live, God
will be your Shepherd, and you shall not want? Make you melancholy to
think that when you die–
"Jesus can make your dying bed feel soft as downy pillows?" Make you
melancholy to believe that you are on the way to Heaven, and that when
the trials of this poor life are over you shall be with Jesus forever?
I cannot imagine it! Let not Satan's lies deceive you. It will drive
your melancholy most effectually away if Jesus Christ comes into your
soul.
Now, I will put a few things to you, with the deepest earnestness, for
I long to see you turned from your evil ways and saved by the Sovereign
Grace of God. O that the Holy Spirit may press home upon you the
arguments which I try to use! You have heard the story of the Savior
who came from Heaven to earth to die for His enemies. Do you believe
that He came to make us miserable? Can you look into the face of that
Man who bled for sinners, that they might live, and believe that He
came here with the malevolent design of making men wretched? You know
better! In your heart you know better!
There must be joy in that which such a man works out–so gracious a
Redeemer must intend our best happiness. Listen to His teachings and I
will ask you, then, whether they tend to make anyone miserable? Point
me to a precept where the Savior bids us cease to rejoice. I invite you
to find in the Word of God a commandment against sober, solid, pure,
holy joy! I will find you words like these, "Rejoice in the Lord
always: and again I say, Rejoice." "Rejoice you in that day, and leap
for joy." What day? A bright day? No. "When they shall say all manner
of evil against you falsely, for My sake."
He began His first sermon with the word, "blessed," and He repeated the
word many times. And as He was at first, so He was at the last, for He
was blessing His disciples when He ascended into Heaven! He came into
the world that His teaching might make men blessed, both here and
hereafter. I will ask you again whether you notice in His followers any
particular misery. Some of them, through sickness, may be sad, and
there may be some who profess to be Christians who have not enough
religion yet to make them happy. But the most of us are a happy people.
I will bear my witness, and speak for myself. I believe I have a spirit
which delights in happiness and that I am not, naturally, one of the
dullest of
mankind. I am not conscious, now, of being anything but simply honest
in what I am about to say, and I can assure you that nothing has ever
given me such joy as the knowledge that Jesus Christ is mine.
I have had to suffer a great deal of pain lately. And nothing has
assisted me to bear its sharpest twinges, and they have been sharp,
indeed, like the thought that–
"His way was much rougher and darker than mine."
I tell you, young men, you who want to see life, you must see Christ!
You who want to have true happiness, a happiness to rise up and to
sleep with, a happiness to live with and to die with–not the happiness
of those silly butterflies that fly from flower to flower and are never
content except they are in the theater or the ballroom–but the
happiness of a man that is worth calling a man–I tell you such solid
happiness is to be found only in vital godliness! I am of the same mind
as the poet Young, who said–
"A Deity believed is joy begun. A Deity adored is joy advanced. A Deity
beloved is joy matured: Each branch of piety delight affords." God is
my witness, I lie not, there is a joy to be found in knowing Christ
which all this round world beside cannot be found–search it through
and through! "O that you had hearkened to My commandments! Then had
your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the
sea."
One thing I will also say and then have done with this point. You
really believe that religion is a happy thing, though you pretend you
do not. You must confess, and you do confess, that you desire to die
like a Christian. You like for the present, perhaps, to indulge in this
folly and that iniquity, but you would like to die with Christ, would
you not? Then if you would be like a Christian in death, you must be
like a Christian in life. You have down deep in your heart, even though
you may deny it, a consciousness that faith in Jesus is worth having
and that it would be worlds better for you if you were converted and
had the Holy Spirit dwelling in your hearts.
Now, do not check that thought. Do not, I pray you, quench that inward
consciousness. Believe it, for it is true, and oh, may you tonight, by
Divine Grace, be led to seek the Savior! And may you find Him before
you give sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids. My longing for
you is that you may be saved! My heart bleeds over the prospect of your
eternal ruin. O that you may be led to Jesus! May you trust your soul
in the hands of Jesus who was crucified, and you shall find that He
does not torment you, but is comfort, fullness of comfort to your
spirit.
II. My time flies by me all too rapidly and I shall need all there is
left for the second point, which is A QUERULOUS QUESTION–"What have I
to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God Most High?" "What have I to do
with You?" This is a question which we have heard many times. Poor
people often ask it. I heard a workman say, "Well, I have nothing to do
with religion. I know it is all very well for my master, for parsons
and fine ladies, and aristocrats and old women– but it is of no use to
me. I have to work hard and I have a family to bring up–it has nothing
to do with me."
Now give me your hand, my good fellow, and, believe me, you are quite
mistaken. Why there is nobody in the world whom it has more to do with
than it has with you, for "the poor have the Gospel preached to them."
Jesus Christ sends His Gospel especially to those who labor and are
heavy laden. Moreover, I do not know anyone who could need it more than
you do, for you have not very much in this life to cheer or comfort
you. It is a hard fight to get through this world at all in times like
these. But if you have a good hope for the next world to help you in
the battles of this life, then you will bear your trials and you will
cheerfully endure the hardships which heavenly wisdom appoints for you.
There are a great many working men and their wives here tonight who are
members of this Church, and I know if they were to stand up for the
purpose–and hundreds of them could–each one of them would tell you
that the best inheritance they have ever had has been an interest in
Christ, and that they never found themselves so truly blessed as when
they laid hold on eternal life and trusted in Jesus! It has everything
to do with you working people! I love you and I long that you may
believe this great Truth of God and put it to the test.
But very often the wealthy say, "What have we to do with You?" Lavender
kid gloves and the Gospel are not always well agreed–the upper circles
are none the nearer Heaven because of their imaginary elevation. There
are also certain learned gentlemen who are instructed in metaphysics
and philosophy who patronizingly inform us that the restraint of
religion is a very proper thing to keep the working classes in some
kind of order, but really, they, themselves, are several degrees above
it. Thus they say, as plainly as they can, "What have I to do with
You?" Ah, the greatest fools in the world
are those who despise other people, and they certainly do this who say
that a thing is good enough for others, but quite unworthy of such
excellent people as themselves! Who are they that they should lift up
their heads so high?
God "has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the
face of the earth." And I reckon that that which is good for the
poorest dustman, with his bell, is also good for the richest nobleman
with his stars and garters. And that which may be a blessing to the
most ignorant will also be a blessing to the most learned. O my
Brethren, educated, refined, wealthy, as you may be–the Gospel of
Jesus has everything to do with you! The giant minds of Milton and of
Newton found ample room in the Gospel! They delighted to bathe, like
leviathan, in the ocean of Divine Truth. Speak of philosophy? There is
nothing so philosophic as the doctrine of the Cross of Christ! And as
to metaphysics, if a man shall delight himself in these, he shall find
arm room and elbowroom enough in the study of the Doctrines of Grace!
Here the stoutest champions of logic may meet each other in the arena
of debate. Here is room for the most profound erudition. And if you
should study till you know all things, yet shall you find that the
knowledge of Christ Jesus surpasses all knowledge, and that His Cross
is the most excellent of sciences. There is much to do with you, you
great ones! May Grace bow your necks to the yoke of Jesus!
"What have I to do with You?" say this and that individual in this vast
assembly. There may be many here who are saying, "Religion has nothing
to do with me." But, young woman in your beauty, religion will add a
new charm to your attractions, an unfading luster such as nothing
besides can yield! The knowledge of Christ Jesus shall give you a
beauty of mind that shall last when the worm has furrowed that fair
brow, and your well-fashioned form has dissolved into the old brown
dust which is the residue of all living. Young man with all your
manhood about you, full of life and spirit, Jesus Christ has much to do
with you! He can make you more manly than you otherwise would have
been. He can bring out the noble points of your character and educate
you to be something more than school or university can make you.
And you who are in business, this will help you in your cares. You who
have to toil, and slave, and bear the troubles of life–Jesus Christ
will comfort and sustain you. And you gray-heads–who can need Jesus
Christ more than you? Here is your staff, your dying pillow, your
immortal rest. What has He to do with you? Why, I trust that you have
much to do with Him, and if you have not, yet at least He has something
to do with you which I will now show you. What have you to do with
Christ? There are two or three matters in which all of you have to do
with Christ, whether you will or not, and the first is this–it is
because of His intercession that you are alive tonight.
Your tree brought forth no fruit, and the Master said, "Cut it down."
Why, then, does it stand? Why? Because the Husbandman said, "Spare it
yet another year." Shall that tree ungratefully say, "What have I to do
with the Husbandman," when it owes itself to Him? Ah, Friend, the Jesus
whom you despised has interposed and lifted His pierced hand between
you and the sword of Justice or your body would at this hour have been
in the grave, and your soul would have been tormented in the pit! You
have something to do with Him, then. Feel you no motions of penitence
at the thought? Does not the Spirit of God lead you to honor the Author
of your continued existence?
Again, you have this to do with Christ: that it is entirely owing to
Him that you are now in a place where the Gospel can be proclaimed to
you! O Sinner, there could have been no hope, no Gospel hope for you if
Jesus had not died! What balm would there have been in Gilead, what
physician there, if Jesus had not come from Heaven to save? The fact
that you are able to hear me say, and that I am able to say it,
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved"–that fact
you owe to Christ! Otherwise, if we had met together it would only have
been to remind each other that we were under God's curse, and that when
this life was over we should go to a world of misery. Now we hear the
silver trumpet sounding with the love notes of the heavenly invitation,
"Come to the banquet of mercy, you lame, and halt, and blind!" The
chief of sinners may come, and, if they trust in Jesus, they shall be
saved! But were it not for the Crucified Son of the highest, no note of
hope could reach the ears of the guilty!
I remind you, further, that if you ask, "What have I to do with
Christ?" the time is hastening when that question will receive a most
conclusive answer. At the Last Great Day, if you have nothing to do
with Him as a Savior, you will have to appear before Him as Judge. The
days of Divine Grace will then be over. The Great White Throne will be
set in the heavens and a congregation infinitely greater than any we
have ever seen will be gathered around that dreadful tribunal. All men
must put in a personal appearance at the last assize, and each one will
hear his final sentence. Ah, you cannot escape! You cannot hide
yourselves from the eye and hand of the Judge! The mountains refuse to
bow their heads to cover you, and the rocks will not open their flinty
heart to receive you!
The eyes of fire find you out, and the voice of thunder says, "I was
hungry, and you gave Me no meat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me no
drink." "Because I have called, and you refused, I have stretched out
My hand, and no man regarded." "Depart from Me, you cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." We must have
to do with Christ. You may get away tonight or any other night, and go
into the haunts of sin and say, "I will not be followed by the arrows
of the Gospel," but the arrows of Justice will surely overtake you! You
may escape from the Savior, but you will rush into the arms of the
Judge! You may fly from your Friend, but you will only make Him your
enemy. You may waste your life in neglecting Him but the next life will
never end, and your neglect shall bring upon you a remorse which can
never know an alleviation.
"What have I to do with You?" The question is invested with great
solemnity! Dear Hearer, trifle no longer. Weigh well the question we
have been considering and never venture to ask it again! Shall I tell
you, before I close, what Jesus Christ may have to do with you and what
He has to do with many now present who have trusted Him? It would be a
thousand mercies, and a thing to sing of in Heaven, if some who came in
here utterly careless tonight should go away impressed. I am so
thankful to be able to preach to you again in the evening. I thank God
I am able to be here. I thirst and pant to be at my solemn but beloved
work again. I am so glad to be again employed by my Lord as the means
of warning and entreating poor sinners. I thought I could not better
show my thankfulness than by seeking the conversion of some who are
farthest away from seriousness.
I do hope many of the people of God have been praying that a blessing
may come. My own soul keeps praying as I speak. O that the Lord may
hear me! I may have some here who have never heard the Gospel before,
and others who have only dropped in out of curiosity. May this be "a
word in season" to such. Some of us were once as careless, as godless,
as hopeless and as sinful as any of you can be, and Jesus Christ has
had this to do with us–He showed us our lost estate! He broke our
hearts and then He bade us look to Him! Oh, happy day when we did so!
We saw Him, by faith, hanging on the tree and we believed that He had
suffered there for us. We rested our souls upon what He had done and
ever since that day, instead of saying, "What have I to do with You?"
we have felt that we have everything to do with Him!
He washed us from our sins–our sins could never have been taken away
from us by any other means. He clothed us with His righteousness–we
have no other righteousness to wear than that which He has worked out
and brought in. Since we have been brought into fellowship with Him we
have found it to be our pleasure to be obedient to His commands, our
privilege to believe His promises, our joy to plead His name at the
Mercy Seat, our transport to have converse with Him, and our delight to
expect the time when we shall be like He, and shall see Him as He is.
You are no judges of what the Christian knows of enjoyment if you are
not Christians yourselves! You can no more judge of spiritual delights
than a horse in a field can judge of the pleasures of the mathematician
or the astronomer. You have not the nature that qualifies you for it.
There is another world inside this world, another life within this
life, and no one knows it but the man who has believed in Jesus. But,
having believed in Jesus, thousands of us who are not enthusiasts nor
fanatics bear our witness that Jesus Christ is so precious that if men
did but know Him, they must love Him! If you did but know what delight
it is to be a Christian, you would blame yourselves that you have lived
so long without being one, too. If you could but know the sweetness of
having Christ to be yours, you would not wish another hour to pass over
your heads before you could say, "Christ is mine."
The way to have Christ is to trust Him. There is life in a look at
Jesus. There is nothing for you to do, nor even to feel, but simply to
come just as you are and trust Jesus. This is the Gospel, "He that
believes and is baptized, shall be saved." Baptism is the outward
expression of your faith. You are immersed in water to signify that you
believe that you are buried with Christ, and that you rise again to
life in Him. But the saving matter is the believing–the trusting is
the great soul-saving Grace. Baptism follows as a test of obedience,
and a means of refreshment to the soul. "He that believes on Him has
everlasting life." "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power
to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."
This night, eternal Father, give your Son to see of His soul's travail.
This night, we beseech You, grant that some may no longer reject Your
Son, but may the eternal Spirit, who can plead as we cannot, work
effectually with the wills and consciences of men and compel those to
come in who, up to now, have stood outside, that Your House of Mercy
may be filled. The Lord answer the desire of our hearts, for Jesus'
sake. Amen.
__________________________________________________________________
God's Foreknowledge of Man's Sin
A sermon