Life's Ever-Springing Well
A sermon
(No. 864)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, APRIL 4, 1869, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water
springing up into everlasting life."- John 4:14.
YOU have been busy all the week with external things. You have had to
deal with the questions, "What shall we eat and what shall we drink and
with what shall we be clothed?" It is well that at least on this one
day in seven we should turn our eyes away from the external to the
internal–from the less to the greater–for as life is more than meat
and the body than raiment, so is the soul more important than all that
which surrounds it. It were most unwise in any man to be so continually
attending to the exterior of his house as to neglect the comforts of
the inner apartments and the warmth of the fireside. It were extreme
folly in any of us to be very careful in the dressing of our person and
meanwhile to permit our body to pine away under some dreadful disease.
That which is the more important should have the most of our thoughts,
and if it must, necessarily, be otherwise during the week, at least let
it be so now. Let us forget our buying and selling, toiling and
suffering, caring and enjoying! And turning away from all that lies
abroad, let us look at home and view our inner natures by the light of
the Word of God. We have a great tendency, dear Friends, to make even
our religion too much external. There are certain externals of religion
which are exceedingly important, but the danger is lest in our great
zeal for these, we forget that, after all, there is something better
and higher to be thought about.
I pity the man who takes no interest in the great discussion of the
hour with regard to the separation of Church and State, but I should
far more pity him if he were so absorbed in that discussion as not to
enquire whether he was, himself, a member of the true Church of Jesus
Christ. Assuredly the questions concerning ritualism, liturgies,
episcopacy and so on, are very important and a man who takes no
interest in them is unmindful of great interests. But still, if a man
were so occupied with the circumstances of outward worship as to forget
the inward drawing near unto God with heart and soul, it were a thing
to be deeply deplored.
I shall invite you, this morning, to forget everything that has to do
with the external part of religion, whether correct or incorrect.
Forget the form of worship, the mode of song, the manner of prayer, the
way of celebrating ordinances–all these may, for awhile, be put upon
the shelf and left there. We have now to do with the interior life, the
secret power which dwells within–we have to consider that water which
the Lord Jesus gives to Believers, which is in them, "a well of water
springing up into everlasting life."
In a word, the subject of this morning is the spiritual life–the
inward work of Divine Grace–the life which proves a man to be saved.
The life which comes from God and labors to ascend to God. The life on
earth which is the bud of the eternal life in Heaven.
I. Our first observation is that THE SPIRITUAL LIFE IS A DIVINE GIFT.
Observe the words, "The water that I shall give him." First, the new
life is a gift. It is not a principle dwelling in the man naturally and
to be brought out from obscurity. I have heard it said and I have been
horrified when I have heard so gross a falsehood, that there is in man
something good, noble, spiritual and that the object of the Christian
minister in delivering the Gospel is to take away the ignorance and
folly that may overlay this innate nobility and so to bring out and
train up the precious vital principles which otherwise had lain latent
within the human heart.
Taking holy Scripture to be the Truth of God, the doctrine I have just
stated is, of all lies, one of the grossest! There is nothing
spiritually good in man whatever by nature. The carnal mind is enmity
against God and is not reconciled to God, neither indeed can be. We
might long enough rake the dunghill of human nature before we found the
priceless jewel of spiritual life concealed within it. Man is dead in
sin! How long will you hunt the sepulcher before you shall discover
life
within the ribs of death? Long enough may you ransack yonder moldering
bones in the cemetery before you shall discover the germs of
immortality within the ashes of the departed.
If man were but faint, we might, perhaps, by a sort of spiritual
friction or electricity, arouse him to life. If he were lying in a
state of coma, we might, by some gracious surgery, at length rekindle
the embers and make the life burn forth in its strength. But when we
are informed, over and over again, by the Holy Spirit Himself, that man
is not only dead, but that he is corrupt–where is the hope of finding
life within him? The living and incorruptible seed of Divine Grace is a
gift, yet further, because it is not produced in men by efforts of
their own, through the imitation of good example, or through early
instruction, or gradual reform.
Though for centuries the dead should be located in the neighborhood of
the living, they will not, thereby, come to life. The example of life
is lost upon dead men! For many a day might you read a homily upon life
in the ears of the corpse before you shall thereby cause the skeleton
to make any effort towards vitality. In fact, efforts after life are
efforts of life. Life is where there is a desire for life. Life is
already, in a measure, kindled in that heart where there is a true and
sincere effort made to lay hold on eternal life. Life, spiritual life,
is a gift, wholly a gift. It is given according to the good-will and
purpose of God. If the Lord gives the new life to some and not to
others, He is perfectly free to do as He wills with His own.
Gifts are not regulated according to the law of debts. If God owes to
any man eternal life, he shall have it, for God will be debtor to no
man. But He owes nothing to sinful man but wrath! And if He chooses
according to His good pleasure to give a new and spiritual life to His
chosen, none shall dare to question Him, or say to Him, "What are You
doing?" The Divine challenge is, "May I not do as I will with My own?
Is your eye evil because Mine is good?" The spiritual life which is
possessed by any man was given to him as the result of an eternal
purpose on God's part, framed absolutely according to His Sovereign
good will and pleasure–concerning which He has Himself told us–that
He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy and He will have
compassion on whom He will have compassion.
This life is never received in any other way than as a gift. It is not
obtainable in any other way but as a gift and, coming as a gift, it
always illustrates the sovereign rights of God to give or to withhold
as may please Him. Now, I said that it is not only a gift, but
according to the text it is a Divine gift. Christ has put it–"the
water that I shall give him," by which we are to understand that Jesus
Christ does not give us the inner life apart from the Father and the
Holy Spirit, but that still He does give it.
The fact is that the Father causes spiritual life in us in some
respects, for He has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As we are the children of
God the Father, we, therefore, salute Him by the name, "Abba, Father."
But this life also comes to us through Jesus Christ. "In Him was life
and the life was the light of men." He is the medium of life. It is as
the result of His atoning sacrifice that we receive it. It is when by
faith we look to Him that we begin to live and it is in proportion as
we live upon Him that we enjoy true life.
At the same time, this life comes to us from the Holy Spirit and is a
result of the Holy Spirit's graciously dwelling in us. He consecrates
our hearts into a temple. He resides within our spirits. Then we, who
once were dead, are made to live. It is the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit within the soul which is the great secret Source and spring of
the Divine Grace which wells up within us and causes us to live in the
life of Christ. Observe, then, if you or I would be real and true
Christians, renewed and quickened into celestial life, we must receive
a mysterious life from God Himself as a gift.
Take this doctrine to be true! And what is the practical lesson of it
but this? If this day I tremble lest I have it not, let me learn the
way by which this life must come to me if it come at all. Certainly not
by my own striving and struggles in the way of merit, for it is
represented not as a reward, but as a gift. Certainly not by any power
of my own apart from God, for it is spoken of as coming from Jesus
Christ and not as growing out of human nature. What, then, had I better
do than make a solemn appeal to the mercy of God?
This is the only attribute which smiles upon me! Justice awards me
nothing but death. Grace alone can bring me life! If the Lord should
refuse the living water to me, I could not complain, but His name is
love and I know that He has made a promise that whoever believes in
Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Let me come as an
undeserving sinner, then, this day and appeal to the bounty of God, and
ask Him for His name's sake and for His mercy's sake, to have pity upon
me!
Some of you think, perhaps, because you have been to a place of worship
from your youth up and have been doing your best to lead reputable and
respectable lives, that perhaps you shall obtain salvation as a matter
of course! But it is not so. You must learn that saving Grace can only
come to you as the gift of mercy–to that end you must feel that you do
not deserve any good thing from God and you must confess your
unworthiness, as I beseech you to confess it this morning. You must
turn to the Lord your God with penitential confession on your lips and
pray Him in all His infinite compassion to give to you a life which you
cannot create for yourself and cannot find within yourself, but which
He alone can bestow according to the riches of His mercy in Christ
Jesus.
I wish not, this morning, to preach mere dry doctrine which may seem to
be an iron bar to shut up a sinner in the prison of despair, but,
rather, I desire to turn this Truth of God to a practical and
stimulating purpose. You Sinners, seek the favor of your offended God
in Christ Jesus, for He is the Lord and Giver of life and your
quickening must come from Him and from Him alone!
II. Secondly, we gather from the text that the principle which makes
the Christian is something INWARD AND PERSONAL. "The water that I shall
give him shall be in him." "In him." Put the emphasis on another word
and we get another sense, "In him," that is, in the man himself. The
worth of true religion, like the value of gold, prompts men to
counterfeits. Where there is a life within, it naturally shapes for
itself some kind of outward manifestation. Unconverted men find it too
much trouble to look after the inward life, so they take an easier
method and carefully imitate its outward manifestation.
If a man who really hears God does this and that, then, although they
do not sincerely fear the Lord, they count it decorous to do the same.
Do they suppose that it is as easy to deceive the Lord as to satisfy
themselves, or having the imitation of godliness are they satisfied to
enquire no further and to rest without the reality? Many of the
superstitions which encrust the Christian religion, have, no doubt,
taken their rise from some harmless eccentricities on the part of
really gracious men. In them a practice might be pardonable and
possibly commendable, which in others, who have not their holy zeal,
has degenerated into a vain oblation. Life demands and should be
allowed great latitude of methods in its display–even Siamese twins,
dwarfs and giants must not be slain–but to set up mere monstrosities
of life as models is ridiculous! We can endure the odd ways of a really
fervent lover of Jesus, but the mere wax-work of superstition is not to
be tolerated.
I frequently see persons coming into a place of worship looking into
their hats, or shading their eyes with their hands, as if they were
praying to God to grant a blessing on what they were about to hear. But
I suppose, in three cases out of four, they are doing nothing of the
sort–it is only because it happened to be the custom with some good
people thus to pray, that, therefore, formalists must pretend, at any
rate, to do the same. In days gone by, certain Christian people set
apart days of fasting and then, in due time, everybody took to a course
of salt fish. True Christians love the Cross of Christ, therefore
formalists must needs wear crosses of wood or ivory on their bosoms.
If earnest Believers practice true family prayer, others must sham the
doing of it, though their heart is not in it. There is no Christian
practice, there is no Christian habit but what has been, or will be
before long, imitated by people who have no vital godliness whatever!
If there is no good cheer within, at least the landlord will hang out a
sign. If there is no kernel, men put up with the shell. Let all washers
of the outside of cups and platters remember that true religion is not
an outward but an inward thing! It is not a matter of the surface, but
of the core of our nature! It is not a robe to be put on and to be
taken off–it is a life, an inward principle which becomes a part of
the man's self! And if it is not so, it is not real at all. "The water
that I shall give him shall be in him."
How like to a Christian a man may be and yet possess no vital
godliness! Walk through the British Museum and you will see all the
orders of animals standing in their various places and exhibiting
themselves with the utmost possible propriety. The rhinoceros demurely
retains the position in which he was set at first. The eagle soars not
through the window. The wolf howls not at night. Every creature,
whether bird, beast, or fish, remains in the particular glass case
allotted to it. But you all know well enough that these are not the
creatures, but only the outward semblances of them! Yet in what do they
differ? Certainly in nothing which you could readily see, for the
well-stuffed animal is precisely like what the living animal would have
been!
And that glass eye even appears to have more of brightness in it than
the natural eye of the creature itself–yet you know well enough that
there is a secret inward something lacking, which, when it has once
departed, you cannot restore.
So in the Churches of Christ! Many professors are not living Believers,
but stuffed Believers, stuffed Christians! There are all the externals
of religion–everything that you could desire–and they behave with a
great deal of propriety, too! They all keep their places, and there is
no outward difference between them and the living, except upon the
vital point– the life which no power on earth could possibly confer!
There is this essential distinction–the life is absent.
It is almost painful to watch little children when some little pet of
theirs has died, how they can hardly realize the difference between
death and life! Your little boy's bird moped for awhile upon its perch
and at last dropped down in the cage–do you not remember how the
little fellow tried to set it up, and gave it seed and filled its glass
with water–and was quite surprised to think that Birdie would not open
his little eyes for his friend as it did before and would not take its
seed, nor drink its water? Ah, you had at last to make him know that a
mysterious something had gone from his little favorite and would not
come back again.
There is just such a spiritual difference between the mere professor
and the genuine Christian. There is an invisible, but most real
indwelling of the Holy Spirit–the absence or the Presence of which
makes all the difference between the sinner and the saint. Beloved, as
saving Grace is an inward thing, so I also remark that it must be a
personal matter. The presence of life in 50 relatives of a family is of
no service to the 51st person if he is dead. If in the midst of this
vast congregation there should be one dead person, the existence of
life in us all could have no power whatever to resuscitate that corpse.
Everybody knows that is true and the remark is therefore trite, but
everybody does not appear to perceive that in religion the same
statement is correct!
"We are all Christians"–that is the common talk–"Why, we belong to a
Christian nation–are we not born Christians?" Or, "Surely we must all
be right. We have always attended our parish Church and is not that
enough?" Or, with some, "Our parents were always godly. We were born
into the Church, were we not? Did they not take us up in their arms
when we were little and make us members of Christ? What more do we
need?" Our solemn answer is that all the religion which is not personal
is vain and void! Men have no spiritual birthrights which can take them
into Heaven that come to them by the way of the flesh, for that which
is born of the flesh is flesh!
All Covenant heritages come by the new birth. We are not heirs of God
after the flesh but by the Spirit! You must be born of the Spirit in
order to partake of spiritual things! And if you are not so born, there
is no truth that you need more to hear than this, "You must be born
again." All the virtue that adorned your ancestors cannot save you. The
Divine Grace that was in your grandmother, Lois, or your mother,
Eunice, can be of no good to you unless you are a Timothy and love the
Scriptures for yourself!
Unless you unfeignedly repent and heartily believe in Jesus Christ, you
might as well, perhaps better, have been a Caffer than a Christian!
Unless you, yourself, lay hold on eternal life, you might as well be a
street Arab as the son or the daughter of the most godly saint in our
Zion! The water which Jesus gives us must be in each of us if we would
be saved. I shall now pause again and invite you to heart-searching,
for my one object is to be practical and to deal with each one
personally.
Dear Hearer, what about this matter? How fares it with you? Have you
this life within you? I do not ask, "Have you been baptized?" I make no
enquiry about whether you have taken the communion of late. Have you
within you a life which only God can give? Is your religion only a
thing of saying prayers and reading chapters and singing hymns, or is
it a life? Come, now, suppose there were no Churches, no Chapels, no
sermons, no assemblies for worship–would you still be a Christian?
Have you a secret something within you which cannot be weighed in the
scales, nor measured, nor comprehended in the balance? Have you a
secret something within you which the eagle's eyes have not seen and
which the lion's whelps have not discerned–a secret inner life which
philosophy cannot detect, which carnal reason will not perceive, but
which is most sure and true–the incorruptible seed within your soul?
Have you a life within you, strange, unearthly, supernatural? Do your
prayers come from within? Do your praises well up from the deeps of
your spirit? Have you had personal dealings with God? Say, have you
ever told Him your sins out of a broken heart? Have you looked to Jesus
with tearful, but believing eyes and for yourself rested on Him? For
oh, remember, as surely as this Book was written by the finger of God,
so is it true that you can never enter Heaven unless you have within
your own heart the Holy Spirit dwelling there and unless you are
yourself renewed in the spirit of your mind. "Except you be converted
and become as little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom." You
must be born again! How is it with you? God help you to search yourself
and give a just and true answer.
III. We must pass on to a third point which is clearly in the text. The
inward principle which Christ implants within those who are His is a
VIGOROUS AND ACTIVE PRINCIPLE. "The water that I shall give him shall
be in him a well of water springing up." Not a pool of water standing
still and becoming stagnant. Nor even a stream of water gently gliding
on–but a spring perpetually forcing itself upward. You have seen
springs at work and you have noticed that they never cease, they never
pause–there is never a moment in which they are quiet. Let all things
else change their occupation, the spring could fairly say–
"Men may come and men may go, But I go on forever."
In the silent night watches, when no eyes gaze upon them, the springs
bubble on. And when the hot and broiling sun is parching the meadows,
cool and clear is the ever-flowing springs. Springs are in perpetual
motion and no known power can stop them. If for mischief heaps of
rubbish are piled upon them, they somehow percolate the mass, upheave
and find a vent for themselves at last–for their force must win a
course for itself. So Brethren, when God puts the new life into a man,
it is a very active and vigorous principle! How have I seen Divine
Grace well up from under a mass of ignorance! The man hardly understood
the Gospel, but yet he had a love to Christ and that love displayed
itself despite his defects.
Even when a man falls into error, if Divine Grace is in his heart it
will yet reveal itself. Even in the case of Romanists, where there has
been a true and genuine love to Christ, it is apparent in their looks
to every candid spiritual eye. Though all around it is the desert of
superstition, the gracious heart, like a wellhead, makes a little
verdure and creates a few lovely flowers which none could disdain. We
have known persons who could not read the Scriptures and have,
therefore, had very crude notions of what the doctrines of the Gospel
were and have, in fact, been much misled and much mistaken, to their
own sorrow and injury. But yet, for all that, God the Holy Spirit being
in them, they have shown a crystal life like sparkling well water for
purity.
How am I to account for it that there have been men of every extreme of
doctrine, from Dr. Hawker down to Fletcher of Madeley–men ranging from
semi-Pelagianism right up to the verge of Antinomianism–who,
nevertheless, were so eminently holy that one has hardly room for
selection, because they have been equally seraphic, equally consecrated
to Christ! Their doctrinal sentiments were so divergent that in some of
their minds it is clear that there must have been much confusion. But
the life-spring within was not to be stopped by the rubbish of their
misapprehensions– and through all their mistakes of doctrine the
Divine life came welling up in all its delightful purity and produced
its legitimate results!
God forbid we should foster ignorance, or that we should for a moment
settle down quietly under any errors of creed! But still it is a
delightful thought that the inner life is not destroyed by our
misapprehensions or lack of knowledge–it still gushes upward a
vigorous and powerful principle, overcoming all. The Divine life is
such a thing of force that surrounding circumstances do not operate
upon it as you might have supposed. In frosty weather, when we have
seen the rivers frozen across, we have been told by peasants that the
old springhead on the side of the hill was flowing on the same as ever.
Decorated with icicles up to the edge of the old spout, still the
stream gushes out!
So a Christian may be placed in the worst imaginable circumstances. He
may live in a family so ungodly that the name of Christ is only used to
blaspheme with. He may scarcely ever meet with a Christian associate.
He may even be denied the means of Grace–the Bible itself may be taken
from him–but if the inner life is there, such is its native heat that
you cannot freeze it! Such is its constant force and power that it will
continue flowing, still! It might have been more happy with the man–it
certainly would have been more for his comfort and usefulness–if he
had been under other conditions. But here is joy for our heart to
recollect that under the worst possible conditions such is the energy
of the Divine Grace which God implants, that it will continue to spring
upward into everlasting life!
Brothers and Sisters, pause a minute to remember that the life which
Jesus Christ places in our souls is one which passes through the most
severe ordeals and yet survives them. Some of you have been in acute
bodily suffering, but your love to Christ was not destroyed by that
long period of sickness. You have been very poor, but your faith made
you rich. You have been slandered–a trial always hard to bear–but
your heart was not broken. You still maintained and upheld your
integrity. Perhaps you have been under desertions of God's Spirit,
which are worst of all–the light of the Divine
Countenance has been hidden from you–still you have said, "Though He
slay me, yet will I trust in Him." And when you have walked in
darkness, and seen no light, you have still continued to trust in God.
Rough usage from God's hand is a severe trial to the life of the
true-born Christian and yet it is a trial in which the true Christian
life has triumphed a thousand times and it has come forth out of the
furnace like gold seven times purified. No afflictions, however severe,
can separate the child of God from Christ! None of the trials which
surround the believing heart can stamp out the vital spark of heavenly
flame. Temptations, too–how frequently they threaten to devour our
spiritual life! Have not some of you known temptations of so severe a
character that you would not like to communicate them to your closest
friends?
Or, there have been times with some of us, when the temptation which
has beset us has been perfectly horrible, devilish! We have stood still
and wondered with amazement how such a thing could be suggested to us
and, on the other hand, how we have marveled that we came out of it
untouched, without the smell of fire having passed upon us! Ah, there
may be temptations yet to assail us of which we have not dreamed. Satan
is studying us. He knows most of our weak points already. Every day he
is considering the Lord's servants to see where will be the best joint
in their armor through which to send a poisoned arrow–and he will
probably assail us from some fresh quarter in a way quite new to us.
But here is the blessed part of it–let man cast what rubbish he may or
will into a living spring, the spring will still, by degrees, purify
itself and eject the filth and still continue to flow–and so will the
truly living Christian! Whatever may be the temptations that would
beset him, his life within him will conquer all, to the praise and the
glory of Divine Grace. If afflictions and temptations thus are
overcome, so is it with prosperity. Many a professed Christian has been
ruined by his prosperity. When the man was poor, he was well enough,
but when he grew rich–then he did not like to associate with the poor
saints–he carried his head much too high to enter the gates of Heaven.
Alas! Alas! Alas, Prosperity! If Adversity has slain its thousands, you
have slain your ten thousands! Garnished as you are with gold and
silver, yet are your robes purple with the blood of men who have
fallen, slain under you. But the genuine Christian is not destroyed by
his prosperity. He might be rich as Croesus, yet would he serve his
God. He might be wrapped in purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously,
yet would he still banquet with Christ! As poverty could not make him
envious, so wealth could not make him vain!
Brethren, the inward spiritual life is so vigorous that it is not
suffered to be destroyed by negligence and sins. I speak guardedly
here–I wish to do so, at any rate. Alas, alas, some Believers have
become very negligent in spiritual things. Who among us must not
confess that he has been? But though I hope we shall never try this in
order to discover what comes of it, yet we are bound to say that such
is the power of life in a genuine Christian that no Believer ever could
be happy while living in disobedience and backsliding! Whenever I have
been base enough to restrain prayer, I have never been at peace. There
was no one to drag me to my knees, but I could not help praying! Nobody
would report upon me whether I spent so many minutes or so many hours
in supplication, but, for all that, I could as soon cease to breathe as
cease to pray!
What if I could not rise from my bed, or reach my accustomed place to
kneel, it did not matter–the inward life pleaded, "Forget not to draw
near unto God. Lift up your heart! And if the monitor was put aside and
multiplicity of work called one away, yet if there was a minute's
peace, the inner life could be felt welling up and producing a
condemnation of conscience not to be endured. "You have forgotten your
God today! You are not walking in communion with Him today as you
should!" Such voices as these would ring in the ears and the conscience
would whisper, "You are out of joint today with yourself and out of
order with your God."
A true Christian finds it impossible to live long away from his
God–the Divine life will not let him leave his Father's house. Though
he may sin and this is a dreadful possibility–he may even sin
foully–yet this Divine life checks him the moment the sin is past.
"How could you do this great wickedness and sin against God?" He cannot
go on in sin as another man does! His heart smites him! And when the
heart smites, it is a strike, indeed! A wandering Believer is not
merely pricked by conscience, but all the powers of the mind together
cry to him, "After such love, such mercy and such goodness and such
favor, can you, the elect of God, redeemed by Jesus' blood, act as you
have acted? Oh, what shame is upon you! What a disgrace are you to the
name of Christian, that after receiving so much you could act so
ungratefully!"
No, the Divine life will not be quiet! Like the troubled sea, it will
not rest! If it is really in a man, he will have no peace except when
he is walking in conformity with God's will. And when he once gets out
of the straight and narrow
path of obedience and of communion, the Divine life will be a continual
source of pain to him. Like David in the penitential Psalms, he will
groan and cry out because his heart feels the Divine displeasure–till
with many a sigh and many a cry he comes back again to the Cross where
his Master waits to be gracious, still–receives once more pardon
through the precious blood and goes on his way restored to acceptance
with God and to conscious enjoyment of communion with Him.
Thus you see, Beloved, the power of the inner life as it works within
the soul. It is a living, active, energetic principle, like a spring
within a man. I shall earnestly ask all of you again, before leaving
this point–are you conscious of the existence within yourself of such
an active power as this? I pause to let every man give the reply
honestly. "My spiritual life seems very dead," says one. But do you
mourn your deadness? Do you feel you cannot be happy while it is so
dead? Well, that mourning is one of the signs that you are alive! It is
a poor sign, but still it is a true one. "Ah," says one," I am not what
I want to be." No, my dear Friend, I am glad to hear you say that, for
if you were all you wanted to be, I should be afraid you had set up a
very poor standard of what a Christian ought to be.
"Alas!" cries another, "I am very conscious that my private prayers, my
secret inner life, is not at all in the healthy state it should be."
Then amend it, my dear Brother! Earnestly seek to improve it, but at
the same time be very thankful that you do not feel satisfied. Bless
God that you are not content, that you do not say, "Peace, peace,"
where there is no peace. I tell you the living spring cannot be stopped
in its action. If you have but a cistern full of water, it will be
quiet enough, but if it is a spring, it is forever seething, bubbling,
gushing.
When I have watched certain springs, I have seen them apparently
casting up little particles of sand and dust, making and casting down
little circular mounds of earth–and so the inner life within the
spirit often brings to light to our own minds, our faults and our
imperfections, so that nothing appears to be so active as our
corruptions! Then we anxiously ask, "Is it living water that is
bubbling up, or is it only the sand of my sin that is so full of
energy?" Beloved, Grace lives and aspires! It is a rising flame, a
springing well and not a waterfall flowing down! It is a great mercy
when the master principle within our spirits is not a going down, but a
springing up! Be thankful for upward tendencies and say unto the Lord–
"You of life the fountain are– Freely let me take of You. Spring up
within my heart, Rise to all eternity."
IV. I shall now turn, in the fourth place, to another Truth of God
taught us by the text. This Divine life is A CONTINUAL AND EVERLASTING
THING–"It shall be in him a well of water, springing up into
everlasting life." Jesus was sitting upon Jacob's well and He might
well have brought to the woman's memory how many classes of people had
gathered around that well and had passed away forever. Men had gone.
Harvests had been reaped. Cattle had drunk and flocks had been watered.
Generations of men and beasts innumerable had come and gone–but there
was the old well unchanged.
So all in the world may change and alter, but the life within the
Christian is intrinsically identical. It is evermore the same. Because
Jesus lives we live, also. Some tell us of a godliness which comes and
goes–beware of it, it is of no use! I have heard some speak of a grace
that may be in a man and yet he may lose it! Brethren, lose it? It is
not worth having– lose it at once and so avoid disappointment! But
there is a Grace–and of that the text speaks–which cannot be expelled
from a man, but springs up into everlasting life! Get it, my Brethren!
And if you get it, it shall hold you fast and abide in you, not to some
degree of life–but to life everlasting!
What is the reason why the inward principle in a Christian does not
decay? Is it not because it is essentially immortal? This flesh would
soon corrupt, but it is kept from corruption by the presence of the
soul which acts as a refined salt to preserve the frame! Genuine Grace
is preserving and is in itself incorruptible! The Christian's spring
never dries up for this reason–he has struck the main fountain. I have
heard of some wells which are drained dry by drought, or because some
deeper well has taken away the supplies. The well which strikes the
main fountain can never be dried under the severest drought.
I am not afraid that anybody will reach a deeper life than the true
Christian has found, for his life is hid with Christ in God! All his
fresh springs are in God! He has struck into the eternal fountains of
the Divine life in Christ Jesus! None can go deeper! None can deprive
him, therefore, of the hidden sustenance of his soul! You who live upon
excitement will
be but deceitful brooks. You whose religion depends upon the elocution
of the preacher, you whose piety depends on sacraments, you whose
godliness rests in your own doings–you may very well become like the
dry and stony beds of occasional torrents–but those who depend upon
the work of Christ which He has finished and upon the indwelling power
of the Holy Spirit, who shall abide with them forever–shall renew
their strength like the eagle's! They shall run and not be weary! They
shall walk and not faint!
V. The last point is this. According to the text, this inward principle
is PRE-EMINENTLY AND CONSTANTLY
SATISFACTORY. Read the whole verse–"Whoever drinks of the water that I
shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him
shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
That is to say, he who has Christ in him, the hope of Glory, is
perfectly satisfied. He could not have been content with all the world
beside– learning would only have revealed his ignorance! Fame would
only have made him more ambitious! Wealth would have bowed him down
with avarice! But Christ in his soul has filled him–he is perfectly
satisfied!
His heart is satisfied. He needs no better Person to love than Christ.
Once he pined for a lover worthy of his immortal nature, but he has
found the Son of God and his soul goes out in rapturous affection
towards Him. As for his intellect, the more that expands with ripening
years and enlarged experience, the more satisfied he is with the Truth
which is in Christ Jesus. He believed it once, but he perceives its
Truth more clearly now! He accepted it before on the testimony of
others–he receives it now on the testimony of the Holy Spirit within
his own spirit! As year rolls after year, he becomes more in love with
his Savior than ever he was.
Other things lose their novelty, but Jesus has the dew of his youth.
Strange is it, but I am sure it is so, the Gospel never seems so fresh
to a man as when he is just about to close his eyes on earth! It never
beams with so new and glorious a light as when he has known it longest.
The babe in Christ thinks that he has perceived the whole of the
doctrines of the Gospel, but the veteran soldier feels that he is at
the doorsteps, and has scarcely entered upon the knowledge of Christ
Crucified.
Dear Hearers, I shall leave you when I have put to you again the same
question which I have before suggested, namely, "Have you a satisfying
life within your soul? Have you a life which makes you feel that there
is nothing more for you to desire except to know more of God and more
of Christ? Is your soul at peace?" Now suppose the result of these
questions should be to make you reply, "I am persuaded I do not know
anything about this!" I shall be much more happy if you come to that
conclusion, than if you should merely listen to my sermon and think of
the preacher only. Forget me, but do, I pray you, reason with yourself,
"This man has told us very simply and in plain language, about a
spiritual, supernatural, inward life–I do not understand it. Then is
the man mistaken, or am I in deplorable ignorance?–Which of the two is
the fact?"
I invite you to try that question by the standard of God's Word. If you
find I am mistaken according to the tenor of this Book, why it need
give you no further anxiety! You may pity me for my fanaticism! But if
you find that I am right, as I am sure you will, O then, do not
hesitate to condemn yourself for ignorance, but rather confess it and
seek your chamber and say, "Now, in the name of God, if there is this
new life to be had, I will have it! If there is no entering Heaven
without it, I will not live without it! If I must be cast away if I
possess it not, then I will find it–I will find it now."
Never did a man sincerely seek but what he found the Lord willing to
give! Go to your chamber. Look at your past life– survey your mistakes
and your sins and confess them! And then lift up your eyes to the Cross
and say, "O Jesus, given for sinners, have mercy upon a guilty
one–have mercy upon me!" He cannot refuse you! As I read in an old
Puritan this week, he says, "Come to Jesus, Sinner! And if you are
lame, come lame! And if you say you have no feet, come on your stumps!
Come as you can, for He cannot reject you till He denies Himself. He
must cease to be faithful before He can reject any sinner that comes
humbly to rest upon Him."
Try Him today, you aged people! Seek Him and He will be found of you!
You young people, turn not your backs upon Him! And you in middle life,
O close in with Him this day, and may He give you the water of life!
Did not He say to that woman, "If you knew the gift of God and who it
is that says to you, Give Me to drink, you would have asked of Him and
He would have given you living water"?
Ask and He will give! What? Not ask when it is to be had for the
asking? Ah, Lord, we ask! Grant it now for Jesus' sake. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Romans 8