The Faithfulness of Jesus

The Faithfulness of Jesus

A Sermon
(No. 810)

Delivered on Sunday Morning, May 10th, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the [21]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

"Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto
the end."–John 13:1.

WE SHALL CONSIDER these words first in their evident relation to the
apostles, and those who were the companions of Jesus during his sojourn
on earth, and afterwards we shall take them in their broader
signification, as relating to all the Lord's own whom he loves and will
love even to the end.

"Having loved his own." Those four words are a brief but complete
summary of the Savior's conduct towards his disciples. He always loved
them. There was never a single action or word which was contrary to the
rule of love. He loved them with a love of pity when he saw them in
their lost estate, and he called them out of it to be his disciples;
touched with a feeling of their infirmities he loved them with a tender
and prudent affection, and sought to train and educate them, that after
his departure they might be good soldiers of his cross; he loved them
with a love of complacency as he walked and talked with them and found
solace in their company. Even when he rebuked them he loved them. He
subjected them to many trials: for his sake they renounced all that
they had; they shared his daily cross-bearing and hourly persecution,
but love reigned supreme and undiminished and it all. On Tabor or in
Gethsemane he loved his own; alone or in the crowd his heart was true
to them; in life and in death his affection failed not. He "loved his
own which were in the world." It is a multum in parvo, a condensed life
of Christ, a miniature of Jesus the Lover of souls. As you read the
wonderful story of the four evangelists, you see how true it is that
Jesus loved his own: let me cast in by way of interjection, this
sentence, that when you come to read your own life's story in the light
of the New Jerusalem, you will find it to be true also concerning your
Lord and yourself. If you are indeed the Lord's own, he at all times
deals lovingly with you, and never acts in unkindness or wrath.

"He may chasten and correct,

But he never can neglect;

May in faithfulness reprove,

But he ne'er can cease to love."

Our Savior's faithfulness towards the chosen band whom he had elected
into his fellowship was most remarkable. He had selected persons who
must have been but poor companions for one of so gigantic a mind and so
large a heart. He must have been greatly shocked at their worldliness.
They groveled in the dust when he mounted to the stars. He was thinking
of the baptism wherewith he was to he baptized, and he was straitened
until it was accomplished, but they were disputing which among them
should he the greatest. He was ready to deny himself that he might do
his Father's will, and meanwhile they were asking to sit on his right
hand and on his left hand in his kingdom. They often misunderstood him
because of the carnality of their mind; and when he warned them of an
evil leaven, they thought of the loaves, which they had forgotten.
Earth-worms are miserable company for angels, moles but unhappy company
for eagles, yet love made our great Master endure the society of his
ignorant and carnal followers. They were but babes in Christ, and
possessed but slight illumination, and yet for all that, he who knew
all things and is the wisdom of God, condescended to call them his
mother, and sister, and brother.

Worse than the fact of their natural worldliness perhaps, was the
apparent impossibility of lifting them out of that low condition; for
though never man spake as he spake, how little did they understand! and
though he took them aside and said to them, "Unto you it is given to
know the mystery of the kingdom of God," yet after many and plain
teachings he was compelled to say to one of the best of them, "Have I
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?"
They were dull scholars. There is no teacher here who could have had
patience with such heavy intellects, but our Lord and Master's love
remained evermore at flood-tide, notwithstanding their incorrigible
stupidity. His love was stronger than their unbelief and ignorance.

My brethren, when we love a person, we expect to have some little
sympathy from him in the great design and aim of our life. I suppose it
would he difficult to maintain any deep affection towards persons who
had no sort of communion with us in our all-absorbing passion; and yet
it was so, that our Lord loved disciples who could not be brought to
enter at all into the spirit which ruled and governed him. They would
have taken him and forced upon him a crown, while he sought only for a
cross. They imagined and desired for him the worldly splendor of a
terrestrial throne; but he foresaw the reality of glory in sweat of
blood and cruel death. Our Lord was all for self-denial, employing
himself and acting as the Servant of servants. They could not
comprehend the rule of self-sacrifice which governed his actions, nor
could they see what he aimed at. Had they dared, they would rather have
thwarted than assisted him in his self-sacrificing mission. They were
fools and slow of heart to understand, even though again he plainly
told them of his decease. When he set his face steadfastly towards
Jesusalem, humanly speaking he needed friends to have aided and abetted
him in his high resolve, but he found no help in them. When, in that
dark, that dreadful night, he bowed in prayer, and sweat the bloody
sweat, he went backward and forward thrice, as if seeking a little
sympathy from men so dearly loved; but he had to complain of them,
"What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" Still, having loved them,
neither their worldliness nor their stupidity, nor their want of
sympathy with him could prevent him from loving them unto the end. Many
waters could not quench his love, neither could the floods drown it.

The Redeemer's love was made to endure even sterner strains than these.
On one or two occasions certain of them were even guilty of
impertinence. It was no small trial to the Savior's affection when
Peter took him and began to rebuke him. Peter rebuking his Master!
Surely thy Lord will have done with thee, thou son of Jonas! The Lord
turned him about and said, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" but after using
that strong expression to rebuke a temptation which was evidently
Satanic, his affection to Peter remained unabated. That was a stern
trial, too, when at a later period than our text, "all the disciples
forsook him and fled;" when not even the loving John remained constant
to his Master in the hour of betrayal; when one, the boldest of them,
with oaths and cursing said, "I know not the man." Carrying the text
beyond its original position, we may say that over the head of all
infirmities, ignorances, selfishnesses, desertions, and denials, Jesus
Christ, who had loved his own that were in the world, loved them to the
end. It was not possible for them, with all their follies, failings,
and sins, to break through the magic circle of his affection; he had
hedged them in once for all, bad bound them to himself with bonds
firmer than brass, and stronger than triple steel, and neither could
the temptations of hell, nor the suggestions of their own corruption's,
tear them from his heart. The attachments of Jesus were abiding;
fickleness and instability could never be charged on him. Others love
for a little while and then grow cold; they profess eternal attachment
and yet forsake; they admire and esteem us till a slight
misunderstanding snaps every bond of friendship; but our Lord was the
mirror of constancy, the pattern of fidelity, the paragon of unchanging
love. As Jonathan clave to David, even so did Jesus cleave to his
people.

The proofs which our Lord gave of his love to his people were very
many, and for a little while we will ponder them: they will all go to
prove that he loved his people, even to perfection, as the text may be
read. Observe how our Master, having chosen to himself a people, proved
his love by his continual companionship. He sought no other company
than theirs among the sons of men. There were minds far deeper in
philosophic lore, but he communed not with them; there were the great
and mighty of this world, but our Savior did not court them; he was
content to dwell among his own people; he had made his choice and to
that choice he kept–fishermen and peasants were his bosom friends. You
would not expect a master to find rest in the society of his scholars;
you do not expect men of mind and mark affectionately to consort with
those who are far beneath them in attainments; and yet herein was love,
that Jesus, passing by angels, and kings, and sages, chose for his
companions unlettered men and women. Those fishermen of Galilee were
his companions at all times; and only when he withdrew himself into the
silent Mount, and the shadows of midnight, did he remove the link of
companionship from them, and then only that he might make intercession
for them with the eternal God. Yes, it was a deep proof of the
unlimited love of Jesus, a sure sign of its going to the end and verge
of possibilities, that he abode so long in affectionate fellowship with
so poor, so illiterate, so earthbound a company of men.

He proved his love by being always ready to instruct them on all
points. His teachings were very simple, because he loved them so well.
The epistles of Paul are, in some respects, far deeper than the
teachings of Jesus; for instance, Paul more explicitly lays down the
doctrine of justification by faith, of total depravity, of election,
and kindred truths. And why? Observe the humility and loving-kindness
of the Master. He knew infinitely more than Paul, for he is essential
wisdom, but he was pleased, because their weak eyes were not able at
that time to bear the full blaze of light, to leave the fuller
manifestation of gospel mysteries until the Spirit had been given, and
then he raised up his servant Paul to write under his guidance the deep
things of God. His love to his disciples is shown as clearly in what he
kept back from them as in what he revealed to them. How loving it was
on the part of the great Teacher to dwell so often upon the simpler
truths, and the more practical precepts; it was as though a senior
wrangler of the university should sit down in the family and teach boys
and girls their alphabet day after day, or spend all his time in
teaching village urchins simple addition and subtraction. A man who is
thoroughly acquainted with the highest branches of knowledge finds it a
terrible drudgery to go over and over the first principles–and yet
this very thing our Lord did, and made no trouble of it; he, by the
space of three years, taught the simplicities of the faith, and thus
indisputably proved his condescending love to perfection towards his
own which were in the world.

How willing he always was, all his life long, to render any kind of
assistance to his followers! Whensoever they were in trouble, he was
their willing and able friend. When the sea roared and was tempestuous,
and he slept for awhile hard by the helm, they had but to wake him, and
he rebuked the sea, and straightway the winds and waves were still.
When Peter's wife's mother was sick of a fever, he did but enter the
house and speak the word, and the fever left her; and when one of his
dearest friends had passed beyond ordinary bounds of hope, and was not
only dead, but had been four days buried, yet he loved even to that
far-reaching end, and proved that he was the resurrection and the life
by effectually crying, "Lazarus, come forth." Everywhere, at all times,
he was at the beck and call of his disciples, whom he truly called his
friends. They might freely express their desires–if these were right,
they were granted; and if they were wrong, they were reproved with such
gentleness that a refusal was better than a grant.

The Master displayed his love to his disciples throughout his life by
the way in which he sought to comfort them when he foresaw that they
would be cast down; especially was this true at the period before his
passion–when one would have thought he might have sought for comfort,
he was busy distributing it. Those choice words which have flown like a
dove into many a mourner's window bearing the olive branch of peace,
were the fond utterances of a thoughtful heart. "Let not your heart be
troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house
are many mansions." Many such bottles of oil and wine did he apply to
the wounds of his disciples. He would not have them suffer any kind of
spiritual turmoil. "In the world ye shall have tribulation" said he,
"but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." His peace he
distributed right liberally, and left it as his last legacy: "Peace I
leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give
I unto you." In the private life of every one of those chosen men,
there must have been incidents of matchless tenderness; but they are
not recorded, because if all were written which Jesus did, even the
world itself would not contain the things, which should have been
written. Enough is written to let us see that no tenderness of mothers,
or care of friends, could match the ever, generous forethought of the
Friend of man.

That he loved his disciples to the end is seen further in the fact that
he constantly pleaded for them when he poured out his strong cryings
and tears. He watched them with an eye that was quick to perceive their
perils, and before they knew their danger, he had already provided a
refuge from it. Ere the poison was injected by the old serpent, the
antidote was at hand. "Satan hath desired to have thee that he may sift
thee as wheat:" the temptation had not reached the stage of actual
fact, it was only a desire on Satan's part, but the Lord outran the
enemy with his intercessions, and so saved poor Peter from the sieve.
The High Priest, chosen from among men, pleaded in his midnight
wrestlings for all his people, mentioning their names one by one before
the Majesty of heaven, and so averting evils which otherwise had
destroyed them. Surely those sacred pleadings brought down upon the
apostolic band those matchless blessings which qualified them in after
years to be the spiritual fathers of the church and the heralds of
salvation to nations. Who doubts the love of such an Intercessor?

The text affords us one other illustration, for Jesus took the towel
and washed his disciples' feet. This is, no doubt, marked out by our
text as a clear proof of boundless love, in that he humbled himself,
made himself of no reputation, took upon him the form of a servant, and
fulfilled a menial's office. But yet, beloved, all these things put
together do not amount to so overwhelming a proof of abounding love as
the fact that, after having lived out his love, the Lord Jesus then
died to exhibit it yet more. From Gethsemane to Golgotha, along the
blood–he sprinkled road, you see proof that having loved his own he
loved them to the end. Not all the pains of death could shake his firm
affection to his own. They may bind his hands, but his heart is not
restrained from love; they may scourge him, but they cannot drive out
of him his affection to his beloved; they may slanderously revile him,
but they cannot compel him to say a word against his people; they may
nail him to the accursed tree, and they may bid him come down from the
cross, and they will believe on him, but they cannot tempt him to
forsake his work of love; he must press forward for his people's sake
until he can say, "It is finished." Oh! that tragedy upon Calvary was a
going to the end indeed, when, having yielded up comfort, reputation,
liberty, he gave up even his last rag of covering, and then resigned
his breath. Standing, as it were, at the world's end, at the grave's
mouth, and at hell's door, the cross of Jesus reveals love to the
utmost end, and is a grand display of the immutability and
invincibility of the affection of the heart of Jesus.

I need not detain you longer on the text as it related to his people
when he was here in the flesh, for I shall want your earnest attention
for but a short time while, by the power of the Holy Ghost, I would set
forth this precious truth as it relates to all his people, to all his
saints.

We read that our Lord "Came unto his own, and his own received him
not;" and here in this case we read, " Having loved his own." Now, the
words are different in the original. In the first case it is a neuter
noun–"He came to his own (things)"; but in this instance it is a
masculine–"Having loved his own (persons)." Now, a man may part with
his own things; he may sell his own house, or cattle, or merchandise;
he may give away his own money; but a man cannot part with his own when
it relates to persons; he cannot part with his own child, his own wife,
his own father, or his own brother. We hold indisputable property in
our own relatives; this is real property with an emphasis, our own
freehold, our entail, our perpetual possession. The Lord Jesus has just
such a property in his own people–they are his brethren, forever near
of kin to him.

Now of these "own" persons. We read that our Lord, "Having loved his
own that were in the world, loved them to the end." The text opens
three windows for us, with three outlooks upon the past, the present,
and the future.

1. And first, as to the past; let us with holy contemplation review it.
He has loved his own people from of old. A most blessed fact! He has
loved them eternally. There never was a time when he did not love them.
His love is positively dateless: before the heavens and earth were
made, and the stars were first touched with the torch of flame, Jesus
had received his people from his Father, and written their names on his
heart. This everlasting love has a speciality about it. Our Lord has a
general love of benevolence towards all his creatures, for "God is
love;" but he has a special place in his heart for his own peculiar
ones. There is a discriminating and distinguishing power about that
love that is spoken of in the text, for it is not said, "Having loved
all men," but "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved
them unto the end." Jesus, before all the world, set the crown of his
peculiar love upon those whom he foreordained unto his glory.

This love of his is infinite. Jesus does not love his own with a little
of his love, nor regard them with some small degree of affection, but
he says, "As the Father hath loved me, even so have I loved you," and
the Father's love to the Son is inconceivably great, since they are one
in essence, ineffably one. The Father cannot but love the Son
infinitely, neither doth the Son ever love his people less than with
all his heart. It is an affection which no angelic mind could measure,
inconceivable, unknown.

Jesus loved his people with a foresight of what they would be. Love is
blind, they say, but not the Savior's love. He knew that "his own"
would fall in Adam; he knew that as they lived personally each one
would become a sinner; he understood that they would be hard to reclaim
and difficult to retain, even after they had been reclaimed; he saw
every sin that they would commit in the glass of the future, for from
his prescient eye nothing can be hidden. And yet he loved his own over
the head of all their sins, and their revoltings, and their
shortcomings. Hence we see that he bears towards them an affection
which cannot be changed, for nothing can occur which he has not
foreseen, nothing therefore which has not already been taken into
calculation in the matter of his choice. No new circumstance can shed
unexpected light upon the case. No startling and unforeseen event can
become an argument for a change. Hence Jesus' love is full of
immutability. There are no ups and downs in the love of Christ towards
his people. On their highest Tabors he loves them, but equally as well
in their Gethsemanes. When they wander like lost sheep his great love
goes after them, and when they come back with broken hearts his great
love restores them. By day, by night, in sickness, in sorrow, in
poverty, in famine, in prison, in the hour of death, that silver stream
of love ripples at their side, never stayed, never diminished. Forever
is the sea of divine grace at its flood; this sun never sets; this
fountain never pauses.

The love of Christ is more than a passion. You and I are moved by
passion, but the Son of God is not so. As man, he may be, but as God,
he has no passion. Hence the love of Christ towards his people is a
settled principle–self-created and self-sustained; not subject to
changes like terrestrial things, but firm and stable, built on a rock.
Glory be to God, there was something in the very nature of Christ which
made him love us, something in the very character of that blessed
divine Person which constrained him to manifest affection towards his
people: it was nothing from without, that mighty love was born from
within. Here again we come back to the same precious truth, that hence
that love cannot be destroyed, because the source from which it comes
is eternal, and is found within himself.

The love of Jesus Christ in the past has been attested by many deeds of
love. That he loved us he proved by the fact that he stood surety for
us when the covenant was made, and entered into stipulations on our
behalf that he would fulfill the broken law, and that he would offer
satisfaction to the justice of God, which had been provoked. In the
fullness of time he took upon himself our nature. What higher proof of
love than that? In that nature he lived a life of blameless service, in
that nature he died a death in which all the weight of divine vengeance
for sin was compressed into a few hours of bodily and spiritual
anguish. Now that he lives exalted in the highest heaven, he is still
his people's servant, interceding for them, representing them at the
right hand of God, preparing a place for them, and by his mighty Spirit
fetching them out from the mass of mankind, and preparing them for the
place which he has prepared for them in glory. All these proofs show
indeed, my dear brethren and sisters, how in the past Jesus Christ has
loved his people. Grasp it, I pray you, now, for a minute, grasp it!
realize it by putting out the hand of individual faith, and saying, "He
loved me in those hoary ages; he loved me ere time began to be counted,
and days and years were first mapped out; he loved me ere he had made a
star or given light to the sun; he loved me, yes, me in particular, me
with a speciality, me as much as any of those on whom his heart is
set." Dost thou believe in him this morning? Say, poor sinner, dost
thou cast thyself upon him, and take him to be thine only trust and
confidence? Then thou mayst take the text with full assurance as being
thine–having loved his own, he loved you, even you. I always feel,
when I speak upon this topic, as if I would rather sit down and be
silent than speak, because it is not so much a theme for speech as for
meditation. Expressive silence must sing this hymn in your soul's ears.
Jesus did not merely think of you, and pity you, but loved you and
betrothed you unto himself for ever. That an angel should love an emmet
would be a remarkable stoop, but that Jesus should love you is a
miracle of miracles, a wonder which never could be excelled. Let each
one adoringly bless the name of the Lord, who doeth great wonders.

2. The second window looks out upon the present. The text saith,
"Having loved his own which were in the world." It does not seem to
strike one as an extraordinary thing that Jesus should love his own who
are in heaven. See them yonder, white robed and fair to look upon, with
melodious voices, without fault, before the eternal throne. Well may
Jesus love them, for there is much beauty in them; his grace has made
them lovable; but to love his own which are in the world is quite
another and stranger thing, and yet it is the blessed fact to which the
text calls attention. May you now by faith feed upon it–Jesus Christ
loved those who were in the world when he was here, and he now loves
his own who are in the world to-day. You are in the world, and, as you
all too surely feel, temptations have shown you that you are not yet in
heaven; you have sighed for a lodge in some vast wilderness, that you
might cease from the troublers of earth, for what with the evil
language which you hear, the corrupt practices which come under your
notice, the temptations that are thrust in your own way, and the
persecutions and the cruel mockings with which you are tried, you feel
that this is a wretched world to live in. Now mark, Jesus loves his own
who are in the world. You working men that have to work with so many
bad fellows, you tradesmen who have to go in among many who shock you,
you good work girls, who meet with so many tempters, if you are his, he
loves his own which are in the world. "Behold," saith he, "I send you
forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." Now, if the shepherd sends
forth the sheep into the midst of wolves, you may rest assured that if
he takes his eye off any sheep he will not remove it from them; he will
have a peculiar regard, a watchful affection, for those who are exposed
to peculiar perils through the sinfulness of the generation among whom
they dwell. He loves his own which are in the world. "Oh!" says one, "I
would not mind if it were only temptations, and trials, and
persecutions, but oh! I find I am in the world by the fact that I sin
myself. If I could but keep my own nature clean, all would he well;
but, alas! I fall. My angry temper betrays me; proud thoughts are
indulged, vanities lodge with me. I have to come groaning up to the
house of God this morning, and feel half ashamed to sit with the Lord's
people, for I am less than the least of them all." This is the result
of your being in the world, for so long as you are in this world, you
will have to wrestle hard with the old nature and its inbred sins.
Well, but Jesus loves his own which are in the world. He sees your
imperfection, he knows what you have to struggle with, he understands
well enough the uprisings of your nature, and he loves you
notwithstanding all. "Ah!" says another, "I have come hither to-day,
burdened with a very heavy trouble. The partner of my life is sick at
home and near to death." "Alas!" cries another, "my dear child is
dying, and I found it hard to tear myself away from the bedside."
"Worse still," moans another, "I have a living cross to carry, one of
my sons is breaking my heart." "Ah!" exclaims a fourth, "I have a bill
to meet to-morrow, and I do not know how it will be done. I fear I
shall be ruined." All these things go to show that we are yet in the
world of sorrow. As the sparks fly upward, so were we born to
trouble–why do we count it a strange thing? But Jesus loves his own
which are in this dolorous world: this is the balm of our grief's, and
I call upon you to hold to it, and not let the devil delude you into
the idea that the Lord does not love you because affliction happens to
you as it does to other men. Of course it must so happen so long as you
are in the world. How can you expect exemption? Would you have a glass
case made for you to keep you snug away from all the frosts and winds
of this world? Would you have your heavenly Father indulge you with all
the sweet things of this life, and spoil you for the life to come?
Would you strike the root in this world and never be transplanted to
the heavenly Eden? Do you wish to have your rest and portion in this
life? Oh! no; you could riot wish for that. Well, then, take what God
sends to you, receive evil as well as good from Jehovah's hand, as Job
aforetime did; but never let it be the thought of your heart that Jesus
does not love you because you are subjected to evils which are
necessary to the place in which, for wise reasons, he suffers you for a
little to remain. He prizes his gold as much while it is in the furnace
as when it is drawn forth. Believe in his love now. Do as Rutherford
did: he tells us that when banished by his enemies, and shut up as it
were in the world's dark cellar, he began to feel about him for the
wine bottles (for God keeps his choice wines in the vaults of sorrow),
and he soon found the wine of heavenly consolation, wines on the lees,
well refined, and drank freely and was refreshed; so do you. When you
are brought low, believe that there is always a comfort near. When you
have much of this world's prosperity you may suspect some danger near.
After a profound calm comes the terrible tempest. Whenever you are
overwhelmed with great trouble, you may rest assured that choicest
blessings are on the road to you. Jesus Christ will make your
consolations to abound in proportion as your tribulations abound; if
one scale be heavy, the other shall balance it. While you are in the
world, you shall be cheered with tokens of the Bridegroom's regard.

3. The third window of the text looks out to the future. Having loved
his own he "loved them unto the end." He will love his people to the
utmost end of their unloveliness. Their sinfulness cannot travel so far
but what his love will travel beyond it; their unbelief even shall not
be extended to so great a length but what his faithfulness shall still
be wider and broader than their unfaithfulness. He never will suffer
one of his chosen to fall into such deadly sin, or to go so far in it
that he cannot yet outstrip all the strides, which his iniquities may
have taken. If our sins be mountains, his love shall be like Noah's
flood, and the tops of the mountains shall be covered, and not so much
as a sin shall be found against us.

He will love his own to the end, that is, to the end of all their
needs. Deep as their helpless miseries are shall be the extent of his
grace. If their need of pardon abound, the blood shall be more able to
pardon than their sins shall be able to defile. They may need more than
this world can hold, and all that heaven can give, but Jesus will go to
the end of all their necessities, and even beyond them, for he is "able
to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him." He will love
them to the end of their lives; so long as they live here his love
shall be with them; and as there shall be no end of their existence
hereafter, he will continue still the same fondness to them. And what
if I say he will love them to the end of his own life, if such thing
were allowable? Until the eternal God shall die, his love shall never
depart from any one of his beloved. Unless the heart of Jesus shall
cease to beat, and the eternal Savior shall expire in death, that heart
shall never fail in affection towards his people, nor shall his love
ever depart from them. Oh! how charming it is to reflect that to the
end Jesus loves, because you cannot raise any objection, or think of
any difficulty, but what the text meets. If you go ever so far, still
it is evident that when you are there you are not beyond the end, and
Jesus' love will and must go up to the end, and that is as far as
either the sin or the sorrow, the needs or the difficulties of his
people can possibly go. The word translated end in the Greek frequently
signifies to perfection–he loved them to perfection. Oh, the
perfectness of the love of Jesus Christ. All that his love can do he
will do for his people. None shall be able to say that he has omitted
anything, which was good for them. "No good thing will he withhold from
them that walk uprightly." Out of all their wants and necessities there
shall not be one left unsupplied, but from the first dawn of grace in
them, even to the last, the perfection of Jesus' love shall be
manifested.

What shall we say to all this in closing the sermon this morning? We
shall only say this, if Jesus Christ thus loves to the end, how ought
we to persevere in our love to him. Sometimes, dear brethren, we become
warmed up, and we do a great deal very zealously, but soon, too soon,
we grow cold again. It is one of my temptations, and I suppose it is
yours, to begin to flag, to cease from one's earnestness, to say,
"Well, the thing can go on pretty well without my being quite so fast
and zealous." The true way of living for Christ is to live always at
the highest possible rate of force. Zealous, not now and then, but
always, in a good thing for Christ. Sometimes you are very generous,
prayerful, and earnest in looking after souls, why not always so?
Suppose Jesus were sometimes loving to you, sometimes thoughtful of
you; and imagine that there were intervals of forgetfulness on his
part, as there are in your case, what a sorry matter it would be for
us! Let us repent that we have been so spasmodic in our affection to
him, and let us pray him that his Spirit may dwell in us, that he
himself may abide with us, that we may be every day, as we are
sometimes, "always abounding in the work of the Lord," steadfast,
unmoveable. Beloved, I would have you always winning souls, always
adorning the doctrine of God your Savior by holiness, always much in
prayer, always in communion. Would God we were so! The constant
faithfulness of our Lord should lead us to this.

The second practical remark will be, if these things be so, that Christ
loves his own to the end, let us not indulge the wicked thought that he
will forsake us. It is impossible that Jesus should leave a soul that
hangs upon him. You may be brought very low, but still underneath you
shall be the everlasting arms. You may feel as if you were crushed by
the wheels of providence, your spirit may sink nearly into despair, but
neither "things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate you from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus your Lord." Give not way to the fainting-fit
of unbelief; believe in Christ, and not in your own feelings; believe
in his promise and not in your own frames. What matters it whether it
is day or night with you, whether it is winter or summer? Christ Jesus
is the same, and he has said, "Because I live, ye shall live also."
Resort to your unfailing Friend; lean on the arm whose sinews cannot
crack; cast your weight on the shoulders, which cannot grow weary. Play
the man, and be of good courage, for the honor of the gospel; for if
the gospel does not cheer us in time of trouble, what is the good of
it? If it will not buoy us up when the floods are out, where is the
service of it? But, my brethren and sisters, it will. We are not of
those who have to deal with a vacillating Redeemer, who casts away his
people for their sins, and rejects them for their backslidings, who
loves his own to-day and hates them to-morrow–a Christ in whom I have
no confidence, and in whose existence I do not believe; but we have to
deal with one who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, one who
never did flinch from his purpose, nor turn from his decree; and having
to deal with such a one, let us not dishonor his name by wavering, and
doubting, and fearing. Cast yourselves on the Lord, ye mourners, and
rejoice in him; lean yourselves upon him, ye burdened ones, and take up
your psalm of praise this morning, and go on your way rejoicing.

The last practical remark is, what a misery it must be to be without
such a Savior! I scarcely know of any two words more sorrowful than
these two–"without Christ;" and yet those words are applicable, I
fear, to many in this congregation; you have no heavenly Friend into
whose ear to whisper your sorrow; you have no faithful Brother, or
mighty Savior, to help you in your time of need. Your sins are upon
you; your iniquities are written in the book of God, graven as with an
iron pen, and written with the point of the diamond. The day of death
will soon come, and you will have no one to help you over Jordan's
swelling billows. You will stand before the tremendous throne, where
the voice shall be as thunder, and the eyes of the Judge like
lightning, and you shall have no advocate to plead your cause, no
Redeemer to take your soul beneath his sheltering wing. There is still
hope, for Jesus is the friend of sinners still. Come unto him, ye
weary; hasten to him, ye laboring and heavy laden; for he shuts out
none–he welcomes all who come to him, with broken hearts and downcast
eyes, seeking pardon through his precious blood. O that you would come
to him this morning! Ere another day shall pass away, may you have
ended your career of rebellion, and commenced a course of obedience.
Then will you sing with us of everlasting love; then will you rejoice
with us in immutable grace; then shall our God be your God, and our
heaven shall be your heaven.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Acts 3.
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Unto You, Young Men

A Sermon