The Perfuming of the Heart
A Sermon
(No. 829)
Delivered on Lord's Day Morning, September 6 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
at the [39]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
"And hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us."
Romans 5:5.
THE Apostle sets before us a ladder like that which Jacob saw–the foot
rests upon the earth, but the top ascends to Heaven. Tribulation is the
foot, but we mount as we see that it works patience. And we climb
again, for patience works experience. And we ascend yet once again, for
experience sustains hope, and hope that makes not ashamed climbs up to
the very heart of God–and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. I might compare these verses
to those songs of degrees which were sung by the people as they went up
to the Temple–as they halted at each stage of the pilgrimage they sang
a fresh Psalm–and so David said, "They go from strength to strength;
every one of them in Zion appears before God."
The pilgrim sets out from the dull and desolate vale of tribulation. He
journeys on to patience, and lifts up his Psalm under the shadow of the
rock. He removes his tent and journeys on to experience–beneath its
wells and palm trees he refreshes himself. Soon he marches on again
from experience to hope, and never stops till the love of God is shed
abroad in his heart and he has reached the New Jerusalem where he
worships the ever blessed God and drinks full draughts of His eternal
love.
In this text it seems to me as though our great Melchisedec, the Lord
Jesus, came forth to refresh His warring and wayfaring people with
bread and wine. You read of tribulations–these are the battles of the
faithful–and in them they overcome even as Abraham overthrew the kings
and made them as driven stubble before his bow. The Lord's warriors are
often faint and weary in them, but the love of God is graciously shed
abroad in their hearts–and this is that sacred bread and wine that
refreshes the Lord's people in their time of hunger. It becomes a sweet
morsel to refresh them by the way and keep them in good spirits till
they eat the heavenly bread and drink the new wine all fresh and
sparkling at the table of the marriage banquet. There they shall sit
forever and ever with the glorious Bridegroom.
This morning, if we may be so helped of the Holy Spirit, we shall,
first of all, say a little upon the love of God. Then upon the love of
God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. And then upon the
confirmation which this gives to our hope, since the Apostle tells us
that our hope is not ashamed for this reason–that the love of God
cheers and sustains us, being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Spirit.
I. First, then, some little upon THE LOVE OF God–a theme for breadth
and depth like unto the vast Atlantic– whereon my little skiff loses
itself as a mere speck on the infinite expanse! How shall I profess
fully to express Truths of God so vast that the greatest divines might
lose themselves and the most eloquent of speakers might fail? The love
of God–how shall I attempt to speak of it? I must but skim the
surface! To dive into its depths were impossible for me.
Think, for a minute, first of all, of what it is–the love of God. Now
the pity of God towards the suffering I can understand because of the
goodness of His Nature. The kindness of God towards the needy I can
comprehend because of the liberality of His Character. That He should
have compassion upon such as are ignorant and out of the way–that He
should look constantly with tenderness upon those that are sorely
broken and ready to perish is easy enough for me to believe.
But this is not what is spoken of in the text. It is not compassion,
nor tenderness, nor pity–it is LOVE–which is something more than all
these. You pity the beggar whom you could not love. You have compassion
upon the villain in whom you could have no complacency. You look with
tenderness upon sufferers who have nothing in their character or in
their persons to attract your affection. Men usually think that they
have gone far enough when they have rendered kindness. Even if the
heart glows with no affection, they, as a rule, take this to be the
rendering of love towards their neighbor. When they have permitted
their compassion and tenderness to exhibit themselves, they feel that
all is done that is demanded of them.
But the text speaks not of this, but of love–direct attachment and
affection–and of the love of God. I beseech you, my Brothers and
Sisters, as you sit here, lift up your souls–bid your understandings
stand on tiptoe and endeavor fully to grasp the idea of Divine love. If
you are in Christ Jesus, this day God loves you, but to what shall I
liken love as it streams from the heart of Jehovah? We try to guess at
what God's love to one of His people may be by our love to our own
children, to our spouse, to our friend. Now, in a far higher degree and
sublime sense, and after a loftier sort, even so God loves the people
of His choice. Consider this, Believer, and be astonished that love
should come from God to such a one as yourself!
The Lord loves you. He has a complacency and a delight in you. You give
Him pleasure! He watches for your good! You are one of His household!
Your name is written on His heart! He loves you! Can you catch the
thought? If so, there is no praise that can express your gratitude!
Solemn silence will, perhaps, be the only vehicle that shall seem
fitting for your soul's adoration! Revolve the personal thought again
and again in your soul! He that made the heavens and the earth loves
me! He whose angels fly as lightning to obey His behests–the tramp of
whose marching shakes both Heaven and earth–whose smile is Heaven and
whose frown is Hell, loves me!
Infinite, Almighty, Omniscient, Eternal, a Mind inconceivable, a Spirit
that is not to be comprehended–but He, even He–has set His love upon
the sons of men, and upon me. Let each Believer say in his heart, "Upon
me among the rest." Oh, but this is astounding, this is marvelous! He
has said to us what He never said to angels, for unto which of the
angels said He at any time, "You are My son"? To which of all the
glorified spirits has He said, "I have loved you with an everlasting
love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you"? Where do you
read that He shed His blood for angels, or poured out His heart for
seraphim and cherubim?–
"Never did angels taste above Redeeming Grace and dying love."
God's dearest love has been hoarded up for worms, saved for the
creatures of a day, reserved for us poor ephemera who are and are
not–that we should be favored above all that live! It is not for
tongues to tell out this wonder, but spiritual minds helped from on
high may feel, in solemn stillness, what a mystery is here. If you
would have, this morning, this love shed abroad in your hearts, I must
ask you to consider carefully who it is that loves you, namely, the
Most High God!
To be loved, I have already said, is a sublime thought. But to be loved
of Him is a right royal thing, surpassing thought as far as the Heaven
is above the earth! A courtier will often think it quite enough for him
if he has the favor of his prince. What does that favor mean? It means
riches. It means pleasure. It means honor. All that the courtier needs
is wrapped up in the royal smile. And, Believer, what does the love of
the King of kings mean to you? If you estimate it rightly, not only all
that you now need, but all that you can ever need–all that the flights
of fancy or the conceptions of understanding can bring before you are
contained in that one fact–the Lord loves you!
When Jehovah loves He brings His power to help His love. He brings His
infinite wisdom to contrive ways for delighting the objects of His
choice. And every other attribute of His transcendent Nature works and
co-operates with love for the good of the chosen ones. You have all
things if you have your Father's love, O child of God! Here all your
aspirations may sit down content–to be loved of God is enough, and
more than enough, for the largest wish! Caesar's imperial couch is hard
compared with the bosom of God–Caesar's scepter is a cumbersome thing
compared with the ring of love which surrounds our finger.
Give us but the Father's love, and who will may have the Indies! Yes,
let the worlds be given to whom God may please, as men give husks to
swine, if we may but have His love, it is enough–our soul is filled to
the brim, and flows over with satisfaction! Consider, I say, who it is
that loves you and surely your heart will leap at the very sound of His
name, and feel it to be a matchless thing to be loved of Jehovah, the
only living God! Think, yet again, of what He is who so loves you. Very
much of the value of affection depends upon the object from whom it
comes. It would be a very small thing, certainly, to have the
complacency of some of our fellow creatures, whose judgment is so
perverted that their praise might almost be considered censure!
To have the love of the good, the holy, and the excellent–this is
truest wealth–and so to enjoy the love of God is an utterly priceless
thing! No mention can be made of coral. And as for rubies they shall
not be mentioned in comparison therewith. God, the thrice Holy One who
cannot love that which is unholy and defiled, cannot take complacency
in that which is contrary to Himself–yet looks on us through His Son,
and, viewing us in Christ Jesus, sees no sin in Jacob, neither iniquity
in Israel–and, therefore, can love us with complacency and delight.
Oh, how this exalts us! We are nothing in ourselves–but how this makes
us feel the gentleness of the Lord in making such base things to he so
great by merely loving them!
Don't you see how graciously the Lord can fit a man to be loved and
then can shed abroad within his heart an abundance of love which would
have been an unknown thing unless Divine Grace had changed and renewed
it? To be loved of God! O Sirs, some think it a great thing to be
applauded of the crowd–but watch the breath of the multitude–how soon
it is blown aside! From men upon whom it was most lavished, from them
it is soon taken! What do you think of the approval of the wisest and
best of men? What is their wisdom but folly in the sight of God? And
what is their approbation often but a mistake? But to be approved of
Him before whom the heavens are not pure and who charged His angels
with folly! Beloved, this is such a thing as might make you sit down
and lose yourselves in blissful meditation even until you found
yourselves in Heaven!
Still farther to lead your minds into this love of God, let me remind
you of the remarkable characteristics of that love. The love of God
towards His people is a Heaven-born affection. It sprang from no source
but itself. God loves His people because He will love them and for no
other reason known to us. Divine love is not caused by any excellence
in the creature, either created or foreseen–its springs are within
itself! We do not believe in the eternity and self-existence of matter,
but we do believe in the eternity and self-existence of Divine love!
The Godhead seeks no reason for love to fallen men beyond its own
determination and purpose.
The Lord chose His people at the first in the exercise of His Sovereign
will. He loved them, then, because "He will have compassion on whom He
will have compassion." He then united them to Christ, and viewing them
as Christ's bride–beholding them as members of Jesus' body, He loved
them with Divine complacency–the love not springing from anything in
them, but altogether from that which is within Himself and in His own
dear Son. His love is a causeless love so far as outward causes are
concerned–caused only by the fact that God in His Nature and Essence
is Love!
As this love was uncreated, so it is self-sustaining. It is like Deity
itself. It borrows nothing from without. It bears its life and strength
within its own heart. The Lord loves you today, Christian, not because
of anything you are doing, or being or saying or thinking. He loves you
because His great heart is full of love and it runs over to you. I do
rejoice to think that this love sits on no precarious throne nor
borrows leave to be. It lives and shall live as long as God lives! None
shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord! And so long as God exists, this fire of love, fed upon its own
fuel, unsupplied by any human hands, shall continue to flame forth
towards the chosen seed.
This love, too, it is sweet to remember, is utterly unbounded and
altogether unequalled. You cannot say of God's love it has gone so far
and shall go no further. It is impossible to conceive a point beyond
its glorious tide! But if there were such a point, it would yet reach
it, for the love of God glories to be without limit of any kind towards
His people. He loves us much better than we love our children, for we
often love them so badly that we bring them up to evil and we tolerate
them in sin. He loves us better than we love ourselves, for self-love
it is that ruins us–but God's love it is that saves us and lifts us up
to Heaven and to perfection.
There is no love that can any more be compared with God's than the
faint gleam of a candle can be likened to the blaze of the sun at
noonday. He loves His people so much that He gives them all that He
has. Earth, with all its Providential arrangements, He consecrates to
them that all things may work together for their good! Heaven itself He
gives them, and since He wills it so, they shall even sit upon the
Throne of Christ, to reign with Him. As for His own Son, His choicest
and greatest treasure–a treasure the like of which Heaven and earth
could not match–"God spared not His own Son, but freely delivered Him
up for us all. How shall He not, with Him, also freely give us all
things?"
The Divine love has no shore. Enterprising mariner, your thought may
spread its sail and catch the favoring wind of the eternal Spirit, but
if you shall fly on and on, forever and forever over ceaseless waves of
new discovery, yet shall you never find a limit either to the infinite
God or to His infinite love, for the two are as one! As the Father has
loved Christ, even so has He loved His people, and herein let them
rejoice, for they rest. A love without a parallel! Blessed be God for
it!
So, Beloved, let us reflect, too, that this love is unvarying and
unsleeping. He never loves them less. He cannot love them more. God
loves each one of His people as much as if there were only that one
created being in all Heaven or earth and as if there were no other
object for Him to set His love upon. For the multiplicity of the saints
does not diminish the infinite love which each one enjoys. The Lord
would not love better the one–the only redeemed one–if but one had
been bought with blood, than He loves each one ransomed from the Fall.
A greater excess of love there cannot be! God loves His people with all
His heart–diminution of love there shall not be, for He has said that
there is neither variableness nor shadow of a turning with the Father
of Lights. He changes not–therefore the sons of Jacob are not
consumed.
Brethren, how sweet it is to think that though a mother's love towards
a child cannot, when her weariness has worn her out, keep her awake
every night when the child is sick–and perhaps the little one may be
in great need while the mother necessarily is asleep–yet this can
never happen to our God! No fatigue, no exhaustion, no faintness can
ever make a pause in the Lord's loving oversight of the Believers!
Never for a single moment does He forget His Church. His heart always
beats high towards His elect, and at every moment He shows Himself
strong for the defense of those that trust Him.
If there were a minute in which God left you, child of God, you might,
indeed, be wretched! But since there is no such period, rejoice
exceedingly in the daily Presence of your heavenly Father and endeavor
to walk worthy of it. Let every day be a holy day bright with the light
of this constant love. Put on your garments as though they were
priestly vestments! Go forth to your daily labor as to sacerdotal
service! Go to your house as to a temple! Come here to the assembly of
God's saints like a great congregation of priests who come together on
the feasts of the Most High to offer sacrifices to their ever present
God! Well may you, into whose eyes this love has gleamed, and upon
whose hearts the Divine warmth of this love is perpetually streaming,
live after a nobler fashion than the common herd of men!
Lastly upon this matter of the love of God, we triumphantly believe
that it is undying and unfailing. God will never cease to love the
objects of His choice. They shall grow gray with age but not His love.
They shall live on when this poor earth has melted and the elements
have dissolved, but His love shall remain with them! It shall not
perish in the conflagration, nor shall the Covenant of His Divine Grace
be consumed. They shall live on when the universe has gone back to its
original nothingness, if so the Lord ordains it, but in the eternities
to come still shall that love of God be ever fresh and ever new!
To my mind it always seems to be the very sweetest part of the Gospel,
that when the love of God has once been shed abroad in a man's soul and
he has really enjoyed it and known, by the witness of the Holy Spirit,
that he is the object of the Divine affection, there is no fear that he
shall ever be driven from the Divine Presence, or become an outcast and
an apostate! For whom Jesus loves He loves even to the end. He keeps
the feet of His saints–none of those that trust in Him shall be
desolate. He gives unto His sheep eternal life, and they shall never
perish–neither shall any pluck them out of His hand.
"Because I live, you shall live also," He says. Oh, precious Truth of
God! The very marrow and fatness of the Word of God! May you have the
Grace to feel it, as well as believe it–to rejoice in it as well as
understand it–and so may the love of God be shed abroad in your heart
by the Holy Spirit which He has given unto you.
II. THE LOVE OF GOD IS SHED ABROAD. Shall we try to illustrate these
words by common things? Here is an alabaster box of very precious
ointment. It holds within the costly frankincense of the love of
God–but we know nothing of it–it is closed up, a mystery, a secret.
The Holy Spirit opens the box and now the fragrance fills the chamber
in which the 10,000 times 10,000s of the elect are sitting, for now the
love is shed abroad. Every spiritual taste perceives it! Heaven and
earth are perfumed with it!
Frequently at the great Roman games the emperors, in order to gratify
the citizens of Rome, would cause sweet perfumes to be rained down upon
them through the awning which covered the amphitheatre. Behold the
vases, the huge vessels of perfume! Yes, but there is nothing here to
delight you so long as the jars are sealed. But let the vases be opened
and the vessels be poured out–and let the drops of perfumed rain begin
to descend–and everyone is refreshed and gratified. Such is the love
of God. There is a richness and a fullness in it, but it is not
perceived till the Spirit of God pours it out like a rain of fragrance
over the heads and hearts of all the living children of God.
See, then, the need of having the love of God shed abroad in the heart
by the Holy Spirit! Observe that no one can shed abroad the love of God
in the heart but the Holy Spirit. It is He that first puts it there.
Men live in neglect of this love till He first impresses them with a
sense of the value of it. And they continue to seek after it in vain
till He opens the door and introduces them into the secret chamber of
its mystery. It is the Holy Spirit who educates us in the art of Divine
love! Not a letter can we read in God's love-book till we are taught of
the Holy Spirit! He is the great Master of the house, the great Steward
bringing forth the precious things of God to our souls.
No man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Spirit, much
less can a man be assumed that he is the object of eternal love but by
a revelation made to him by the Holy Spirit who makes this delightful
Truth of God clear to his mind. Do you enquire in what way is the love
of God shed abroad? I reply that to the best of my knowledge and
experience, the gracious operation is somewhat upon this wise–the Holy
Spirit enables the man to be assured that he is an object of the Divine
love in the first place.
The man comes to the Cross as a guilty sinner, looks up to the five
wounds–those dear fountains of pardoning Grace–trusts himself in the
living Savior's hands, and then he cries, "I am saved, for I have God's
promise to that effect. Now, since I am saved, I must have been the
object of the Lord's love! There must have been a marvelous love which
gave that blessed Son of God to bleed for me." The man does not doubt
it. He is assured of it in his own spirit and then the Spirit of God,
whose operations are far beyond all our knowledge, confirms the
testimony of his conscience.
We need not attempt to comprehend the working of the Holy Spirit, for
as we know not even how the wind blows, much less shall we know how the
Comforter works. But this we know, that He adds a confirmatory
testimony to the witness of our own hearts. He bears witness with our
spirits that we are born of God, and so we become infallibly and beyond
all possibility of mistake assured that the love of God is ours, and
that we have a part and an interest in it. Then, the next thing the
Spirit of God does, is to make the man clearly understand what kind of
love this is which God gives to him. He leads him not all at once,
perhaps, but by degrees, into all the Truth of God.
He takes of the things of Christ and reveals them to the Believer's
heart, till the Believer understands that this love of God to him is
such a love as I have been describing just now. He clearly perceives
Jehovah's love in its length and breadth, and height–and wonders at it
for all the marvels which it has worked! This admirable enlightenment
is no small part of the shedding abroad of the love of God. A man must
know before he can enjoy, and in proportion as the eyes of his
understanding are opened will he be able to enter into the delightful
experience of the secret love of Jesus. And then comes the point–the
essence of the matter–the Holy spirit enables the soul to meditate
upon this love.
He casts out the cares of the world, lifts it up above doubts and
fears, and temptations. He makes a blessed quiet, a Divine Sabbath
within the heart–and then the man, while he meditates–finds a fire
begins to burn within his soul! Meditating yet more, he is, as it were,
carried off his feet, lifted up from the things of the earth.
Meditating still, and considering, and weighing, he comes to be in an
amazement–he marvels, he is astonished–and then he is filled with
strong emotion. He is devoutly grateful. "Blessed be the Lord," he
says, "Who has remembered my low estate and has loved one so unworthy."
He breaks out into a song like that of the Virgin, "My soul does
magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." Then
while gratitude is still within his soul, a Divine resignation to all
the Master's will keeps rule within him. Jehovah loves me–then what
matters though every bone should ache and the heart should throb, and
the head be heavy? What matters though the cottage walls are bare and
the table is but scantily famished? My Father, do as You will! Then
follows a rapturous leaping over this devout calm! A joy unutterable,
next akin to Heaven fills the heart–and this joy sometimes takes the
character of ecstasy until whether the man is in the body or out of the
body, he cannot tell, only God knows!
Then if he is alone, perhaps time flies and he seems to anticipate
eternity, forgetting the lapse of hours. And if he is in company with
others, his lips teach many–his words are better than pearls, and his
sentences than strings of coral. The Master's love makes him to wear a
brightness about his countenance and a transfiguration glory about his
character which others who have tasted of the like, understand–but
which to the worldling seems to be the effect of madness or of
drunkenness with new wine–like that of the famous Pentecostal morning!
Yes, Brothers and Sisters, if you know what it is to have the love of
God shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Spirit, you will perhaps
wonder that I cannot paint it better, but I would like any of you to
try!
You shall find it far easier to enjoy it than to depict it, for this
seems to me to be one of those things in its heights and depths which
it were almost unlawful for a man to utter! This master-thought of
Jehovah's love to us bears us as on eagles' wings! It takes us up
beyond the smoke and din and dust of this poor world! It sets us in the
heavenly places at the right hand of Christ! It enthrones us! It puts a
crown upon our head! It ennobles us, wraps us about with the white
linen that we are to wear forever! It makes us, while yet we are poor,
to be as angels in the midst of the sons of men!
May the Lord give us this soul-elevating influence more and more! May
this transcendent experience be our constant and daily enjoyment as we
are ripening for Heaven, and it will not be long before the gates of
pearl shall open to admit us into the Presence of God for which this
experience is a most fitting preparation!
III. Lastly, this inexpressible sweetness of which we have spoken
becomes THE CONFIRMATION OF OUR HOPE. Hope rests itself mainly upon
that which is not seen. It builds itself upon the promises of God,
which eyes have not beheld. Still it is exceedingly sweet to us, while
we are in this body, if we receive some evidence and token of Divine
love which we can positively enjoy even now.
You remember Master Bunyan in the Pilgrim, how he writes the dialogue
which took place when the Pilgrim was met by Atheist? Atheist snaps his
fingers and he cries, with jeer and laugh, "You fools! You are seeking
for a New Jerusalem and there is no such place! I have been seeking
this city these 20 years but find no more of it than I did the day I
first set out. I tell you there is no such thing as a world beyond the
stream! There are no harps of gold, no brightness– you are deceived
men."
"But," said Hopeful, "how say you so? Did we not see the gate of the
city from the Delectable Mountains?" He might have added, "I do
remember, when I stood with the shepherds on the top of Mount Clear,
that I saw the city. I looked through the telescope and I saw it, and
therefore I am not deceived. I follow after that which my eyes have
gazed upon." See you then how the present enjoyments of Divine love in
the soul become to us arguments for the reality of the things which we
are hoping for–and our hope is not ashamed because God gives to us,
even here, such emotions of spiritual delight that we anticipate the
raptures of the hereafter and confidently press forward to reach the
promised rest!
Why, blessed be God, there are some of us who do not need Butler's
Analogy, or Paley's evidences to back our faith! We have our own
analogy and our own evidences within our own souls, written by the holy
Spirit on the day when we tasted that the Lord is gracious! No Jesus
Christ!? With whom, then, have we spoken all these years, and upon
whose bosom have we leaned? No Holy Spirit!? What mysterious agency,
then, is that which strings the chords of our soul and fetches
superhuman music from them, causing us to delight in sublime and
celestial themes to which once we were strangers?
What is that power which casts us down to the earth in solemn awe of
the Great Invisible, and then again bears us out of ourselves up to the
seventh Heaven? No Father God!? Tell not His children so barefaced a
lie! It was not long ago, I am informed, that a certain infidel
lecturer gave an opportunity to persons to reply to him after the
lecture and he was, of course, expecting that some young men would rise
to bring the general arguments for Christianity which he was quite
prepared to overturn and laugh at. But an old lady, carrying a basket,
and wearing an ancient bonnet and altogether dressed in the antique
fashion which marked both her age and her poverty, came on the
platform.
Putting down her basket and umbrella, she began, and said, "I paid
three-pence to hear of something better than Jesus Christ, and I have
not heard it. Now let me tell you what religion has done for me, and
then tell me something better, or else you've cheated me out of the
three-pence which I paid to come in. Now," she said, "I've been a widow
40 years. I had 10 children and I trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ in
the depth of poverty, and He appeared for me and comforted me, and
helped me to bring up my children so that they have grown up and turned
out respectable. I was often very sorely pressed, but my prayers were
heard by my Father in Heaven and I was always delivered.
"Now you are going to tell me something better than that? Better for a
poor woman like me? I have been to the Lord sometimes when I've been
very low, indeed, and there's been scarcely anything for us to eat, and
I've always found His Providence has been good and kind to me. And when
I lay very sick–I thought I was dying–and my heart was ready to break
at leaving my poor fatherless little ones–there was nothing kept me up
but the thought of Jesus and His faithful love to my poor soul! And you
tell me it was all a mistake? Now, tell me something better, or else
why do you cheat us of these three-pence? Tell us something better."
Well, poor soul, the lecturer was a good hand at an argument, but such
a mode of controversy was novel and not readily met. And therefore he
gave up the contest, and merely said, really the dear old woman was so
happy in her deception that he should not like to undeceive her. "No,"
she said, "that won't do. Facts are facts. Jesus Christ has been all
this to me, and I could not sit down in the hall and hear you talk
against Him without coming and saying this, and asking you whether you
could tell me something better than what He has done for me. I've tried
and proved Him, and that's more than you have."
Ah! It is that! It is the testing and proving of God! It is the getting
the love really shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit which
affords us an argument which cannot be answered! Experience is the iron
file against which the viper breaks his teeth but cannot prevail! God
gives us, even here, a foretaste of Heaven's supernatural enjoyment in
the forms of peace, calm, bliss, exultation and delight. This may seem
fanatical talk to some, and a mere dream to others–but, Sirs, we are
as honest men as you are and we as much claim to be believed when we
assert that we enjoy these things as you claim our credence when you
make an assertion. And if this convinces you not and you still doubt
us, rest assured that it convinces us, and that shall suffice!
The love of God shed abroad in the heart makes our hope so that it is
not ashamed. See, Brothers and Sisters, the love of God is often shed
abroad in the heart when we are very sick. When pain is most severe,
joy has often been at its fullest. This love has come to paupers in the
union house and turned the workhouse into a palace. It has come to the
dying in the hospitals and made the wards to ring with heavenly music!
It has come to some of us in nights of the deepest depression through
which the human mind could pass–and it has lifted us right up out of
the mist and the cloud, and set us in the sunlight of God!
Now, these things coming at such times tend greatly to make the child
of God feel that his hope is as sure in the dark as it is in the
light–and that he can trust his God though all things should seem to
belie the promise. These things are of such an elevated nature that
they help to maintain an elevated hope. If our comforts were gross and
carnal–to be received by the mouth or by the ears–of what service
would they be to that high and holy hope which comes from God Himself?
But the enjoyments of which I have been speaking in the reception of
the Divine love in the heart are so elevating that they precisely suit
the character of our hope, and our hope is confirmed. For, Beloved, a
sense of the love of God confirms everything that we hope for!
If God loves me, then I am forgiven! If God loves me, then I am secure!
If God loves me, then my circumstances are well ordered! If God loves
me, then He will bear me through my trials! If God loves me, then He
will keep me from the touch of sin! If God loves me, He will not suffer
temptation to overcome me, but He will keep me pure and holy, and
receive me to Himself at the last! If God loves me, then the Heaven
which He has prepared for His people must be mine! And with those that
have gone before, I shall see His face! I shall drink draughts of His
love and be with Him forever and ever! Like a master-key that locks up
every lock in the house, so does the sense of the love of God lock up
every treasure in the Covenant of Grace! And if we have it within us it
affords us admission to every blessed thing so that we may take at our
will, and rejoice in God on account of it!
Now I have no more to say upon this point, upon which I have spoken so
exceedingly feebly to my own consciousness. But I would to God that you
all knew, spiritually, even the little that I can tell you. To hear of
Divine love with the ear is nothing–it is like the rattle of the
dishes in the ear of a hungry man when there is nothing given to him to
eat. To understand this theoretically is nothing. It is like being able
to cast up thousands of pounds upon the slate, but having not a
farthing in the purse.
My dear Hearer, what is your hope? What are you resting upon? Has your
hope anything to do with the love of God shed abroad in your heart by
the Holy Spirit? Depend upon it–if your hope is founded on anything
that you have done for yourself, or that any man may do for you–it
will not excite in your soul a sense of the love of God! The thought of
it, if it is a mere ceremonial hope, will excite no such emotions as
those I have described. But if your hope is true and genuine, fixed on
the Rock of Ages, built on the Substitutionary Sacrifice of Jesus
Christ, then the thought of that hope will make you love God–and a
sense of God's love to you will sway you to obedient service! Such a
hope will endure the hour of trial, but no other hope will.
And what will you do if your hope shall fail you? What will you do if,
at last, you are made ashamed of your hope? O see then, Sirs! See,
then, the overwhelming downfall which awaits you! The house was hastily
built. It was fair and lofty, with many-colored windows and fine gables
and rare ornaments. But the floods are out! The rain descends! The wind
blows and where is the palace now? Its foundation was on sand and it is
gone like a dream! See the fragments of it floating down the torrent,
while the owners are washed away and lost! And so shall it be with your
fine hopes, O self-righteous or careless!
O build on rock, on the rock of what Christ has done! Build with a
humble faith! Build with an earnest love! Build not with wood, hay and
stubble, but build with gold, silver and precious stones of love, and
trust, and holy fear! And when the deluge comes you shall laugh at it
and sing in the midst of storm, for God is your Preserver and under His
wings shall you trust. Ah, I would that everyone now listening to this
voice could enter into so bright a hope and enjoy such a love! And if
they long to do so, behold the open door! The entrance into a good hope
is by the door of Divine love!
And would you see Divine love, there it shines in its resplendence on
yonder Cross where the Son of God, made flesh, gave His hands to the
nails and His feet to be fastened to the wood. There, where every nerve
is a road for the hot feet of pain to travel on! Where His whole body
is tortured with pangs unutterable, and the soul pressed as beneath the
feet of Deity, in the winepress of eternal wrath! There, Sinner, there
is your hope!
Not your tears, but His blood! Not your sufferings, but His woes! Not
your penance, but His agonies! Not your life nor your death, but His
life and death. O look to Him! "There's life in a look at the Crucified
One." Guilty one, depraved one, you all but damned one–look through
the mists of Satan's temptations and the dews of your tears–look to
Jesus dying on Calvary and you shall live this day! God help you by His
blessed Spirit so to look–yours shall be the salvation, and His the
honor of it. Amen and Amen!
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Gray Hairs
A Sermon