Joyful Transformations
A Sermon
(No. 847)
Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, December 27, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
at the [52]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
"I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things
straight."
Isaiah 42:16
IN the pursuit of holiness the pilgrim is often surrounded with
darkness. While in the pathway of evil the traveler is dazzled with a
glare of light. It is the way of the Tempter to make the downward path
as attractive as possible with the flaring splendor of carnal pleasure.
Sin is surrounded with a fascinating luster which enchants the unwary
seeker of pleasure and leads him to his own destruction. Look at the
palace of firewater, dedicated to the demon of drunkenness– it is
brighter than any other house in the street! See how it glitters with
abundant lamps, and mirrors, and burnished brass! Rich with color are
the flowers which bloom at the mouth of the old serpent's den.
As the sirens in the old classic fable enchanted mariners with their
songs, so that, beneath the spell of their music they turned the prows
of their vessels towards the rocks of sure destruction, even so sin
constrains the sons of men to make shipwreck of their souls. Evil seems
to be surrounded evermore with a light that dazzles and fascinates,
even as the brightness of the candle attracts the moth to its
destruction. As for the way of righteousness and truth, it appears from
the text that murky clouds frequently rest upon it and the way appears
rough and crooked, otherwise it were not necessary to say, "I will make
darkness light before them."
Neither were it necessary that a Divine hand should interfere to make
the crooked straight. Brothers and Sisters, the day of evil commences
with a flattering morning and changes into a tenfold night, but God's
day, the day of good, begins at eventide. Like the primeval days of the
creation, the evening and the morning were the first day. We who follow
the Lord Jesus have our night first and our day has yet to dawn–the
sun of which shall no more go down. God keeps the best wine until the
last for us, while at the banquet of Satan they set forth the best wine
and afterwards that which is worse. Yes, the dregs are wrung out in the
end for the wicked of the earth to drink. As for the righteous, they
have their draughts of wormwood here, before their high festival
begins, to give them appetite and zest for the banquets where wines on
the lees well-refined shall satiate their souls!
The subject of this morning is the great promise of God, that although
His people shall sometimes be enveloped in gloom, their darkness shall
be turned to light. Before the advance of faith the most terrible
things lose their terror. We shall use this one Truth of God in
reference to Believers first, and then briefly turn it to the
encouragement of earnest seekers.
I. First, in addressing THE BELIEVER, let us ring the bell of the text
again. It has a sweet silver voice–"I will make darkness light before
them, and crooked things straight." Believer, observe that there often
lies before you a grim darkness. Upon that darkness let us make these
comforting observations–first, that much of the darkness is of your
own imagining. As we feel a thousand deaths in fearing one, so do we
feel a thousand afflictions in the fear of sorrows which will never
come.
Probably the major part of our griefs are born, nourished, and
perfected entirely in an anxious, imaginative brain. Many of our
sorrows are not woven in the loom of Providence, but are purely
homespun and the pattern of our own invention. Some minds are specially
fertile in self-torture–they have the creative faculty for all that is
melancholy, desponding, and wretched. If they were placed in the
brightest isles beneath unclouded skies where birds of fairest wing
poured out perpetual melody and earth was rich with color and perfume,
they would not be content till they had imagined for themselves a
sevenfold Styx, an infernal Tartarus, a valley of death-shade! Their
ingenuity is stimulated even by the mercies of God, and that which
would make others rejoice causes them to tremble lest the enjoyment
should prove short-lived. Like certain painters, they delight in heavy
masses of shade.
My Brother, you may, perhaps, have before your mind this very morning
what seems a thick wall of horror, and yet it is nothing but a cloud!
Waiting, you imagine the obstruction to increase. But plucking up
courage and advancing to meet the imaginary horror, you will yet laugh
at yourself and at your foolish fears! And you will wonder how it was
that you ever could have been cast down at nothing at all–and
distressed by that which had no existence except in your dreams.
I remember well, one night, having been preaching the Word in a country
village. I was walking home alone along a lonely footpath. I do not
know what it was that ailed me, but I was prepared to be alarmed. When,
sure enough, I saw something standing in the hedge–ghastly,
giant-like–and with outstretched arms. Surely, I thought, for once I
have come across the supernatural! Here is some restless spirit
performing its midnight march beneath the moon, or some demon of the
pit! I deliberated with myself a moment, and having no faith in ghosts
I plucked up courage, and resolved to solve the mystery. The monster
stood on the other side of a ditch, right in the hedge. I jumped the
ditch and found myself grasping an old tree which some waggish body had
taken pains to color with a little whitewash–with a view to frighten
simpletons! That old tree has served me a good turn full often, for I
have learned to leap at difficulties and find them vanish or turn to
triumphs!
Half our afflictions are only appalling in prospect because we do not
know what they are. If we will but, in faith, patiently await them,
they will be but light and transient. Thus, by chasing away the gloom
of our dark imagination, God often makes darkness light before us.
Much, again, of the darkness which does really exist is exaggerated.
There is some cause for alarm, but not one half the cause which your
fancy pictures. "All these things are against me," says Jacob, "Joseph
is not, Simeon is not. And now you will take Benjamin away." There was
something in this complaint. Joseph was not with his father, Simeon was
kept in ward–but the old man had pictured Joseph devoured of an evil
beast, and Simeon given up to be a perpetual slave in a foreign land.
His fears had magnified the trouble which existed.
And, Believer, so probably it is with you. You shall find that the load
which seems now to be far too ponderous for you to lift, shall be
easily carried on the shoulders which Divine Grace shall strengthen if
you have but confidence enough to venture upon the task. That cross is
not made of iron–it is only a wooden one. It may be painted with iron
colors, but iron it is not. It has been carried, yes, and a weightier
one, by far, has been carried by other men before–shoulder it like a
man, shoulder it like a man of God! Take up your cross daily and go
forward with your Master, and you shall find that mountains shrink to
molehills, giants are seen to be but dwarfs, dragons and griffins are
but bats and owls, and the leviathan, himself, a defeated foe!
Remember, too, that in many cases troubles disappear at the very moment
when we expect them to be overwhelming. While we are anticipating them,
they seem to block up the pathway completely and leave no door of
escape. But on our venturesome advance to them, they are not there at
all, they have fled before us! See the host of Israel–they have
escaped out of Egypt but they are pursued by their taskmasters. They
come to a spot where they are enclosed on either hand by mountains,
while the chariots of Egypt are in the rear. How is it possible for
them to escape? They are entangled in the land. The wilderness has shut
them in!
"Forward," cries the Prophet, "forward, hosts of God!" But how can they
advance? The Red Sea rolls right in their path! But no sooner do the
feet of the priests touch the waters of the sea than the depths are
divided–the waters stand upright as a heap–for God has made a pathway
for His people through the heart of the sea! No better road could be
desired than that which they found in the sandy bed of the sea. The
trouble, which certainly did appear insurmountable, became the subject
of triumph! Miriam's song and the voices of the daughters of Israel had
in them a higher exultation than they could ever have known if they had
not been able to cry aloud, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed
gloriously: the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea."
Brothers and Sisters, your trials may, in a like case, vanish as soon
as you arrive at them! You do not know what plan God has in store. He
has an unused shaft which shall be the arrow of the Lord's deliverance
for you. The Lord has a counterplot for the plots of your enemies. You
see but a part of His scheme–you have not as yet discovered the whole
of His resources. And when He brings out His wonderful plan more fully,
you will stand in amazement and even bless His name for the trial
because it furnished so noble an opportunity for revealing to you the
faithfulness and the power of your God. The same thing which occurred
at the Red Sea happened, also, to the hosts of God when they came to
the Jordan, for Jordan was driven back and fled at the Presence of the
God of Israel.
If you should suffer trouble upon trouble, you, too, shall experience
deliverance upon deliverance! Think of that mighty instance in which it
was proved that God can clear the darkest skies and give us day for
night! I refer to the case of Hezekiah. What a blasphemous and
insulting letter was that which came from Rabshakeh! What reviling
language was that which the foul-mouthed lieutenant of Sennacherib
hurled at Judah's king! Poor Hezekiah was a man of a holy and tender
spirit, and was sorely dismayed. But when he spread that wretched
letter before the Lord and bowed himself in sackcloth, little did he
know how graciously God would prevent the sorrow from ever coming to
him in any other shape but in that of talk and boasting! "Thus says the
Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city,
nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a
bank against it. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return,
and shall not come into this city, says the Lord." And so it was! And
so, O child of God, may it be with the troubles which now block your
pathway–they shall vanish as you advance!
Reflect, again, that where this does not exactly occur and the trial
does really come, yet the Lord has a way of making the trials of His
people to cease when they reach their culminating point. As the sea,
when it reaches the highest mark of flood, can advance no further–but
after pausing for awhile to enjoy the fullness of its strength, must
then return to its ebb–so with our most desperate sorrows. They reach
the point designed and then they recede. See Abraham! God had bade him
sacrifice his son. Abraham, probably mistaking the Lord's meaning,
thought that he was to slay the child of promise. He proceeds to Mount
Moriah, piles the altar, takes with him the wood, binds his son, and
places him upon the altar.
But just as he has unsheathed the knife and is about to perform the act
of solemn obedience by sacrificing that which he held most dear, a
voice is heard–"Lay not your hand upon the lad, neither do you
anything unto him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have
not withheld your son, your only son from Me." In the nick of time God
intervenes–but mark when that is–namely, when the Patriarch has
proved the complete renunciation of his own will, and given up
everything to the will of God–then deliverance comes. So shall it be
with you, O tried Believer! When the trial has been submitted to in
your own heart and you have laid aside your self-will and
obstinacy–and are no longer murmuring and repining and rebelling–then
shall God take away the coals of the furnace because the gold is
purified!
That is a grand story of Alexander's confidence in his friend and
physician. When the physician had mixed him a potion for his sickness,
a letter was put into Alexander's hand warning him not to drink the
medicine, for it was poisoned. He held the letter in one hand and the
cup in the other, and in the presence of his friend and physician, he
drank up the draught. And after he had drained the cup, he bade his
friend look at that letter and judge of his confidence in him.
Alexander had unstaggering faith in his friend, which did not admit of
doubt. "See now," said he, "how I have trusted you."
This is the assurance which the Believer should exercise towards his
God. The cup is very bitter, and some tell us it will prove to be
deadly. They tell us that it is so nauseous that we shall never survive
the draught. Unbelief whispers in our ear, "Your coming tribulation
will utterly crush you." Drink it, my Brothers and Sisters, and say,
"If He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." It cannot be that God should
be unfaithful to His promise, or unmindful of His Covenant! Your trial,
then, will cease when it culminates–He will make darkness light before
you when the darkest hour of the night has struck.
Brothers and Sisters, there is one most encouraging reflection
concerning the adversity which lies before us, namely, that every trial
of our pilgrimage life was foreseen of God, and we may depend upon it
that it has been forestalled. Many a besieged city has been captured
because the siege was not expected and therefore stores of provision
and ammunition were not laid up for the evil day. But God, who laid up
seven years of food in Egypt against the seven years of famine which He
foresaw, takes care to lay by in store for His saints against coming
emergencies. How readily might Moses have been anxious about the
commissary of the tribes in the desert! "How shall such a host be fed?
Where shall we find water? Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?"
But in simple faith Moses led the chosen people into the wilderness,
and lo, the heavens dropped with a rain of plenty and the flinty rock
gave forth its cooling streams so that the host knew no lack for 40
years! Though they had neither gathered harvests nor vintage in all
that space of time, yet Jehovah provided!
Once more be it remembered that if trial should come upon any one of us
in its fullest force, and in no way should God mitigate the fury of the
storm, yet we have His promise for it and may rest confidently,
therefore, that as our days our strength shall be. I think I have
before remarked to you that to be exempt from trouble would not be a
desirable thing, for the life of a man who has no trial is uneventful,
poor of incident, uninteresting, ignoble, barren. But the life of a man
who has done business in great waters has something noble and manly in
it. And considering that Divine Grace is always proportioned to the
trial, I think it were wise to choose the trial for the sake of
obtaining the Grace which is promised with it!
I noticed in a shop window last week, a little invention of singular
interest. A small metal wire with a circular disk at each end was
suspended by a thread and continued, without ceasing, to oscillate
between two small galvanic batteries, first touching one and then the
other. A little card informed me that this piece of metal had continued
to move to and fro between those two batteries for more than 30 years,
and had, during that time passed over 6,000 miles! The whole affair was
so enclosed within a glass case that nothing was likely to disturb it,
and so it kept the even tenor of its way with a history which could be
summoned up in two lines of plainest prose–to and fro, to and fro, for
30 years, and that was its whole monotonous history!
Men's quiet lives are much after the same order. They have gone to
business on Monday morning and home at night. The same on Tuesday and
all the days of the year–no dire struggles, no fierce temptations, no
gracious victories–no Divine experiences of heavenly love. Their whole
inner life is meager of interest because so free from every trial. But
look at the man who is subject to trials–temporal and spiritual, and
acquainted with difficulties of every sort–he is like yon mass of iron
on the prow of a gallant ship which has crossed the Pacific, and bathed
itself in the Atlantic! Storms have dashed upon it. A myriad waves have
broken over it. It has seen the terrors of all the seas and gleamed in
the sunlight of both hemispheres. It has served its age most
gloriously–and when old and worn with rust–a world of interest
surrounds it.
Let us, if our trials multiply, remember that Divine Grace in abundance
will be given with them, and the mingled trial and the Grace will make
our lives sublime, prevent our being mere dumb driven cattle, and give
us kinship with those who, through much tribulation, have ascended to
their thrones! The battle and the storm, the strife and the victory,
the depression and the uplifting–and all else that betides us in a
varied and eventful life–shall help to make our eternal rest and glory
the more sweet to us. Let us leave these musings upon expected glooms,
relying confidently upon the promise that the Lord will make darkness
light before us, by some means or other, and will in no wise fail us in
the hour of need!
For a minute or two let me more especially invite you again, children
of God, to dwell upon the promise that the Lord will make your darkness
light. How soon can Omnipotence accomplish this! It takes us much time
to create light. We must form companies and erect machinery before we
can tarn the night of our great cities into a partial day! But tomorrow
morning, however black the previous night may have been, the great
Father of Lights will illuminate our whole nation in a few minutes! He
will make each wave of the sea and each dewdrop of the lawn to gleam
with silvery sheen! God has but to bid the sun accomplish his course
and the world is lit up and the shadows flee away! How perfectly the
work is done! The illumination is unrivalled in lavish glory. All our
means of enlightenment are poor when compared with the sunlight–and so
scant that we must measure its cubic feet and dole it out for
gold–while the Lord pours His infinitely superior illumination in
measureless oceans over hill and dale, field and city–gladdening the
cottage as well as the palace, and burnishing the beetle's wings as
well as the eagle's pinions.
Even thus our heavenly Father can readily enough turn the deepest
sorrows of His people into the most sublime joys, and He needs not to
vex the sons of men with labor in order to achieve His purpose of pity!
His own right hand, His own gracious Spirit can pour forth a fullness
of consolation in a moment. Notice for your comfort some of the ways in
which the Lord of Love banishes the midnight of the soul. Sometimes He
removes all gloom by the sun of His Providence. He bids prosperity
shine into the window of the hovel, and the poor grow rich. He lifts
the beggar from the dunghill, and sits him among princes. The wings of
angels bear healing to the sick, and the man long tossing on his bed
walks forth to breathe the pure sweet air so long denied him.
The great Arbiter of all events does but turn the wheel of fortune, and
those who were lowest are highest–the last are first and the first
last! He can do the same for any of us, both in temporals and in
spirituals, if so it seems good to Him. He has but to ordain it so and
our poverty will be exchanged for plenty. Our Lord often cheers His
people with the moon of their experience, which shines with borrowed
light, but yet with a brightness calm and tranquil, well-beloved of the
sons of sorrow. He bids us remember the days of old and our spirit
makes diligent search–we find that He has never left His people,
neither has He been treacherous to us. We remember when we were in a
like case to the present–we note that we were well sustained and
ultimately delivered–and so we are encouraged to believe that today
shall be as the past and yet more abundant.
Frequently our heavenly Father cheers His children by a sight of Jesus
going before them. That path between overhanging rocks is so dark, that
I, a poor timid child, shrink back from it. But how is my courage
restored as I see Jesus bearing the lantern of His love and going
before me into the thick darkness! I hear Him say, "Follow Me," and
while He speaks I perceive a light streaming from His sacred Person.
Every thorn of His crown gleams like a star! The jewels of His
breastplate flash like lamps, and His wounds gleam with celestial
splendor! "Fear not," says He, "for in all your afflictions I have been
afflicted. I was tempted in all points like as you are, though without
sin." Who can tell the encouragement given to the heir of Heaven by the
fact that the elder Brother has passed through all the dark passages
which leads to the promised rest!
God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without
chastisement. He who always did His Father's will, yet had to suffer.
Courage, my Heart! Courage! If Jesus suffered–if that pang which tears
your heart first was felt by Him– you may be of good cheer, indeed!
Better still is the comfort derived from the grand Truth of God that
Jesus is actually present in the daily afflictions of Believers. Jesus
knocks at my door and says, "Come with Me from Lebanon, My Spouse. Come
with Me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of
Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the
leopards!"
I look forth from the window into the cold and dreary night, and I
answer Him, "The night is black and cheerless. I have put off my coat,
how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?
I cannot arise and follow You." But the Beloved is not thus to be
refused. He knocks again, and He says, "Come forth with Me into the
fields, let us lodge in the villages. There will I give you My loves."
Overcome by His love, I arise and go with my heavenly Bridegroom. If
the raindrops fall pitilessly upon me, yet it is most sweet to see that
His head is also filled with dew, and His locks with the drops of the
night. The howling wind tosses His garments as well as mine. His feet
tread the same miry places as my own, and all the while He calls me His
Beloved, His Love, His Dove, His Undefiled and tells me of the land
which lies beyond the darkness.
And He speaks of the mountains of myrrh and of the beds of spices–the
top of Amana, Shenir, and Hermon! My soul is melted while my Beloved
speaks and my heart feels it is sweet beyond expression to walk with
Him, for lo, while He is near me the night is lit up with innumerable
stars, the sky is aglow with glory–every cloud flames like a seraph's
wing–while the pitiless blast is all unable to chill the heart which
burns within while He talks with me by the way. In later years you and
I are apt to speak to one another of that dark night and its marvelous
brightness–of that cold wind that was so strangely tempered. And we
will say to one another, "I would gladly pass through a thousand nights
in such Company! I would be willing to go on a midnight journey
evermore with that dearest of friends, for oh, where He is, night is
day! In His Presence, suffering is joy! When He reveals Himself, pains
are pleasures and earth blossoms with flowers of Eden." Thus does the
Well-Beloved by His Presence make our darkness light.
Oftentimes you and I have known, by experience, how the Lord has made
our darkness light when in a moment a text of Scripture has flashed up
before our eyes like a beacon fire. I bless God there are parts of this
precious Book which I do not only retain in my memory but in my heart.
They have been so applied to my soul in times of need, that to forget
them would be utterly impossible! They have burned their way into my
inner nature and have become part and parcel of my consciousness. You
cannot, of yourself, make a text so full of life and power by merely
thinking of it–nor by praying over it, nor by studying the
original–but the Holy Spirit quickens the Word even as He quickens us.
A Word from the Lord will, at times, rise up from the page as though it
had lain there like a sleeping angel. It will grasp us by the hand,
embrace us and revive us till in wonder we cry out, "Oh, precious and
inexhaustible Word of God! Oh, sweet Word fresh from the lips of Jesus,
how is it I could have read you so often but never understood your
fullness and preciousness till now?" This is one of the ways of the
Lord by which He makes darkness light, by snatching a firebrand from
the altar of His Word and waving it as a torch before us that we may
advance in its light! Thus you see, Beloved, God can readily turn our
darkness into light.
Now the text leads us a little further, and speaks of "crooked things."
So, Christian, for a moment think of the crooks of your lot. Like the
pathway of the children of Israel through the wilderness, your course
appears to be backward and forward like the path which winds deviously
through the woods among briers and thorns. The faithful Friend of
pilgrims knows the way that you take–all your steps are ordered of the
Lord–and in due time, according to His Word, He will make them all
straight for you.
Perhaps the crookedness of your lot lies in your poverty. You never
have more than barely enough. Food and raiment you have had, but still
it has been dry bread and scant raiment. So far from faring
sumptuously, you have almost known the need of Lazarus at the rich
man's gate. You have reached thus far on your journey, but still yours
has been a life of need and great distress. You thank God! You do not
repine–still you know well that need is a crooked thing. Or, perhaps
you have suffered some very crooked calamity. Your dear husband was
taken away when the children needed most his training care, and when
the labor of those strong arms was wanted to find sustenance for the
little ones. Alas, poor widow, that was a very crooked loss for you!
Or, perhaps yonder husband has buried his beloved wife and feels that
his loss is irreparable–a crooked thing which he cannot understand. He
cannot guess why the all-wise God has permitted such a mother to be
taken from children who needed her molding hand. If some other people
had died, you could have comprehended the reason–they were ripe and
ready–but here was the young and active whose life appeared so
necessary! And she has been taken away from you, leaving behind a
fountain of perennial tears. This is the crooked thing in your lot.
Perhaps during the late panic you suffered very severely. You had not
been one of the speculators and had not ventured beyond your depth, but
still, incidentally, the fall of others dragged you down. You do not
quite understand the reason for that heavy blow–it is a crooked thing
altogether–you have looked at it this way and that way, but you cannot
see the why and the wherefore. You believe that God is wise, but it
remains a matter of belief in this case–you cannot as yet see it to be
a wise thing.
Possibly your crook lies in a trying family at home. Woe to those who
have crooked sons–sharper than an adder's tooth is an unthankful
child. Have you a graceless daughter? Alas, what a trial is yours! Have
you an ill-tempered, malicious wife, or a harsh, unchristian husband?
Do you, yourself, love the Truth of God, and have you a partner who
hates good things? Will you go home today to hear the voice of
blasphemy from your next of kin? Yours is a crook, indeed! Worse than
all, if you have no other crook, I am sure you will confess to a
crooked self. If your own heart were not your plague, all the rest
would matter little. Oh, what with our pride, our sloth, our evil
desires, our angry temper, our doubts, and fears, and despondencies,
self is the worst crook a man has to carry!
Then it may be you have crooked temptations, too. You are tempted to
profanity. You hate the very thought of it, but still, the horrible
suggestions haunt you! You are tempted to vices from which, by Divine
Grace, you have been preserved, but towards which, as with a hurricane,
Satan would whirl you! Your temptations abound day by day. You appear
to yourself to be like a man beset with 10,000 bees–they compass you
about, yes, they compass you about–and you know not how to destroy
them! As many as your thoughts, so many your temptations seem to be.
Well, these are all crooked things, and in such a fallen world as this,
crooked things will always be very common.
Now comes the promise–"God will make all the crooked things in the way
of His people straight." It may be that they are straight now, and that
the making straight is only to make them seem so to us, for oftentimes
that which we thought to be a misfortune was the best thing that could
ever occur to us! We complain of our crosses, yet are not our crosses
our best estates? How often we kick against our highest good! We tear
up that herb in the garden which has the noblest medicine in every
leaf. O for Grace to know that there is much real good in sorrow, and
that our trials are only crooked because our eyes are not focused!
The Lord also can bend the crooked straight and what will not bend He
can break. How often in a family the ungodly Saul has been made into a
holy Paul! The crooked character has been bent straight–and where the
man would not bend straight, the terrible judgment of God has taken
away the crook out of the household–so that the righteous might have
peace and comfort! Do not be afraid, Believer–the Lord's great axe can
clear a way through the thick forests of your greatest trials! Do you
not see the great Pioneer going before you–His goings forth were of
old, and by the name of "The Breaker" is He known, since He breaks down
all that can hinder the march of His people. Like the engineers in the
advance of an army, those grand old sappers and miners who clear the
way for the host–even so will the Lord cast up a highway for all His
saints until He shall bring them to the City that has foundations whose
Builder and Maker is He.
If He does not do this, He will give you power to leap over the
difficulty. He will bid you, His servant, go straight on in the path of
duty–and strength–not your own, shall be given you so that you shall
say with one of old, "By my God have I gone through a troop! By my God
have I leaped over a wall." You shall cry like Deborah, "O my Soul, you
have trod down strength." If our pathway were always clear in the way
of duty, where were our faith? But when we force our way to Heaven
through crowds of enemies–hewing a lane by main force through the
squadrons of Hell–then is our great Captain glorified and His Grace
made resplendent! Let us be of good courage, then, for the Lord will
make the crooked straight at the end!
Two lessons, and then I shall turn to address a few words to the
seeker. One is to the child of God. If God will thus make all your
darkness light and all your crooked things straight, do not forestall
your troubles. They are darkness now. Leave them alone, Man, and they
will turn to light. They are crooked now–well, leave them to
ripen–and God will make them straight. Some fruit which you gather
from your trees is of such a nature that if you were to try and eat it
in the autumn it would be very sour, and would make you very sick. But
just store it up a little, and see how luscious and juicy it becomes!
It is a pity to destroy the fruit and pain yourself by premature use!
It is just so with your troubles–they are all darkness now–do not
meddle with them. Leave them till God has ripened them and turned them
into light. Yonder man is employed in carrying sacks of flour every
day. He carries so many hundredweight each time and in the day it comes
to tons–and so many tons a day will come to an enormous mass in a
year. Now, suppose, on the first of January, this man were to calculate
the year's load, and say, "I have all that immense mass to carry! I
cannot do it!" You would remind him that he has not to carry it all at
once–he has all the workdays of the year to carry it in. So we put all
our troubles together and we cry, "However shall I get over them?"
Well, they will only come one at a time, and as they come the strength
will come with them!
A man who has walked a thousand miles did not traverse the thousand
miles at a step, nor in a day–he took his time and did it. And we,
also, must take our time. With patience we shall accomplish our work. A
fine lesson for us all is that word wait, wait, wait. Our second remark
is this, always believe in the power of prayer, for if God promises to
make your darkness light, He will be required to do it for you. And
when you enquire of Him to do it, He will do it because He has so
promised. I wish we believed in prayer. I am afraid most of us do not.
People will say, "What a wonderful thing it is that God hears George
Muller's prayers!"
But is it not a sad thing that we should think it wonderful for God to
hear prayer? We are come to a pretty pass, certainly, when we think it
wonderful that God is true! Much better faith was that of a little boy
in one of the schools at Edinburgh who had attended the Prayer
Meetings, and at last said to his teacher who conducted the Prayer
Meeting, "Teacher, I wish my sister could be got to read the Bible. She
never reads it." "Why, Johnny, should your sister read the Bible?"
"Because if she should once read it, I am sure it would do her good,
and she would be converted and be saved." "Do you think so, Johnny?"
"Yes, I do, Sir, and I wish the next time there's a Prayer Meeting you
would ask the people to pray for my sister, that she may begin to read
the Bible." "Well, well, it shall be done, John."
So the teacher gave out that a little boy was very anxious that prayers
should be offered that his sister might begin to read the Bible. John
was observed to get up and go out. The teacher thought it very unkind
of the boy to disturb the people in a crowded room and go out like
that, and so the next day when the lad came, he said, "John, I thought
that was very rude of you to get up in the Prayer Meeting and go out.
You ought not to have done it." "Oh! Sir," said the boy, I did not mean
to be rude, but I thought I should just like to go home and see my
sister reading her Bible for the first time."
That is how we ought to believe, and wait with expectation to see the
answer to prayer. The girl was reading the Bible when the boy went
home! God had been pleased to hear the prayer, and if we could but
trust God after that fashion we should often see similar things
accomplished. Do not say, "Lord, turn my darkness into light," and then
go out with your candle as though you expected to find it dark. But,
after asking the Lord to appear for you, expect Him to do so, for
according to your faith so will it be unto you.
II. And now, just a few words before we depart, TO THE SEEKER. Some
here have long been desirous of finding peace with God, but they are
still troubled and tossed to and fro in their minds. Now, my dear
Friend, we have felt great joy in seeing your anxiety, but we are
beginning to feel great sorrow to think that that anxiety should last
so long and that you should be so unbelieving as not at once to put
your trust in the blessed Lord Jesus. He is able to save you, and He
will save you, now, if you trust Him.
It seems a very simple thing to rest alone on Him–simple as it is, it
is most effectual for the soul's peace and joy. We are grieved to think
that you have been so long refusing to give Christ the credit which He
so richly deserves. Now, perhaps, it may be you are puzzled about some
doctrinal question. You have been asking your friends to explain this
and that to you, and you have not yet had it all cleared up. Let me
say, I am afraid you never will–for there are difficulties about our
holy religion which will never be explained on this side the
grave–and, perhaps, not on the other.
If our religion were within our comprehension, we should feel it did
not come from God–but being greater than our brain can grasp, we see
in this some traces of the infinite God who, in revealing Himself, does
not display all His Glory, but only a part of it to the sons of men.
Dear Friend, believe that God's dear Son is able to save you, and trust
in Him! When you have done that, all these doctrinal difficulties, so
far as they are at all important, will vanish! He has said it and you
shall prove it true, "I will make darkness light before them, and
crooked things straight." You shall say to yourself, "How could I have
raised so many quibbles? How foolish it was of me to be always debating
and questioning when eternal mercy was freely presented to me!"
Perhaps your darkness today arises from a very deep depression of mind.
Your notion is that you can never believe in Jesus Christ till this
depression is removed. But let me tell you your notion is wide of the
truth, for the fact is, you are not at all likely to rise out of your
depression until you first believe in Jesus. Sad and sorrowful as you
are, what hinders you to believe in the infinite Son of God as able to
put away your sin? He must be able. The death of such a One must have
had an amount of merit in it not to be limited. Oh, if you can do Him
the honor to trust Him, though you are like poor smoking flax, He will
not quench you! Though you are worthless and weak as a bruised reed,
yet if you can trust Him you are saved! O rely on Him, I pray you! For
your soul's sake rest in the precious blood and you shall find your
depression vanish, your darkness shall be light, your crooked things
shall be made straight.
"Ah," you say, "but I labor under a load of sin!" Truly there is enough
in your sin to make you troubled were it not that for this purpose
Christ was born and came into the world, that He might take away sin!
Why that great Sacrifice on Calvary's Cross, if not for great offenses?
Don't you see that it is the very blackness of your sin that makes you
need a Savior? Don't you know that Christ came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance? In due time He died for the
ungodly such as you. O throw your weary soul into His arms! Why do you
look about after this and that? Why are you deceived with, "Lo here,
and lo there!"? Looking to this and that for comfort? Come to Him! Come
empty, naked, filthy! Come to be made everything that is good through
Him!
"Yes, but," you say, "my nature is so evil." Well, but your depravity
is known and provided for in the text. Your sinfulness, like the
crookedness mentioned in the text, shall be made straight! The Lord can
overcome your natural disposition. Whatever the peculiar form of your
besetting sin, the Holy Spirit is more than a match for it. Though you
have sinned very foully, He can forgive–and though you feel a strong
temptation to sin in the same way again–He can correct the tendency in
your nature and give you new longings which shall overcome the old. O
that my Lord had His due of you, then you would not doubt Him!
Blessed Savior, King of kings, and Lord of lords deigning to stoop to
suffer and to die, how can men doubt You? How can they look into Your
dear face and yet distrust You? How can they see Your blessed hands and
feet and riven side, and yet suspect You? O Sinner, cast yourself on
Jesus and you shall have joy and peace given you today!
Three things I want you to notice in the text, and I have done. That
which saves us is not what is, but what will be. "I will make darkness
light." "I will make crooked things straight." The crooked thing is
really crooked now, but there is a transformation in store. Sinner, it
is not what you are now that is to be your salvation. You are dark and
crooked, but your salvation shall yet be given to you. You shall be
light in the Lord, and upright through His Grace.
Note, secondly, it is not what you can do, but what God can do. "I will
make darkness light." The sinner shall not turn his darkness into
light, but "I," Jehovah–I who can do all things. I, who can create and
can destroy, "I will make darkness light before you, and crooked things
straight." Notice again, that this work may not be yours at once, but
it shall be soon. It does not say, "I will make darkness light today."
Still it does say, "I will."
Ah, then, let us look forward to the brightness which we cannot yet see
and rejoice in the straightness which as yet we do not discern! God
will keep His word to the minute, and His eternal "shalls" and "wills"
shall never fall to the ground. I pray God will bless the Word to you
who are tried Believers–to give you peace and confidence. And to you
who are seeking sinners, that you may trust in Christ and find
salvation. The Lord bless you richly, for His name's sake. Amen.
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