Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, September 3rd, 1871, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children."–Isaiah
66:8.
ISRAEL had fallen into the lowest condition, but an inward yearning of
heart was felt in the midst of God's people for the return of the
divine blessing; and no sooner had this anxious desire become intense,
than God heard the voice of its cry, and the blessing came. It was so
at the time of the restoration of the captives from Babylon, and it was
most evidently so in the days of our Lord. A faithful company had
continued still to expect the coming of the Lord's anointed messenger;
they waited till he should suddenly come in his temple; the twelve
tribes, represented by an elect remnant, cried day and night unto the
Most High, and when at last their prayers reached the fulness of
vehemence, and their anxiety wrought in them the deepest agony of
spirit, then the Messiah came; the light of the gentiles, and the glory
of Israel. Then began the age of blessedness in which the barren woman
did keep house and become the joyful mother of children. The Holy Ghost
was given, and multitudes were born to the church of God, yea we may
say, a nation was born in a day. The wilderness and the solitary place
were glad for them, and the desert rejoiced and blossomed as the rose.
We are not, however, about to enter into the particular application of
our text as Isaiah uttered it: the great declarations of revelation are
applicable to all cases, and, once true, they stand fast for ever and
ever. Earnestly desiring that God may give a large spiritual blessing
to his church this morning, through the subject to which my mind has
been directed, I shall first ask you to note that in order to the
obtaining of an increase to the church, there must be travail, and
that, secondly, this travail is frequently followed by surprising
results. I shall then have to show why both the travail and the result
are desirable, and pronounce woe on those who stand back and hinder it,
and a blessing on such as shall be moved by God's own Spirit to travail
for souls.
I. It is clear from the text, "As soon as Zion travailed, she brought
forth her children," that THERE MUST BE THE TRAVAIL before there will
be the spiritual birth.
Let me first establish this fact from history. Before there has fallen
a great benediction upon God's people, it has been preceded by great
searchings of heart. Israel was so oppressed in Egypt, that it would
have been very easy, and almost a natural thing, for the people to
become so utterly crushed in spirit as to submit to be hereditary
bond-slaves, making the best they could of their miserable lot; but God
would not have it so; he meant to bring them out "with a high hand and
an outstretched arm." Before, however, he began to work, he made them
begin to cry. Their sighs and cries came up into the ears of God, and
he stretched out his hand to deliver them. Doubtless, many a
heart-rending appeal was made to heaven by mothers when their babes
were torn from their breasts to be cast into the river. With what
bitterness did they ask God to look upon his poor people Israel, and
avenge them of their oppressors. The young men bowed under the cruel
yoke and groaned, while hoary sires, smarting under ignominious lashes
from the taskmaster, sighed and wept before the God of Israel. The
whole nation cried, "O God visit us; God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of
Jacob, remember thy covenant, and deliver us." This travail brought its
result; for the Lord smote the field of Zoan with mighty plagues, and
forth from under the bondage of the sons of Misraim, the children of
Israel marched with joy.
As we shall not have time to narrate many instances, let us take a long
leap in history to the days of David. The era of the son of Jesse was
evidently a time of religious revival. God was honored and his service
maintained in the midst of Judea's land in the days of the royal bard;
but it is clear to readers of the Scriptures that David was the subject
of spiritual throes and pangs of the most intense kind. His bosom
throbbed and heaved like that of a man made fit to be the leader of a
great revival. What yearnings he had! He thirsted after God, after the
living God! What petitions he poured forth that God would visit Zion,
and make the vine which he had planted to flourish once again. Even
when his own sins pressed heavily upon him, he could not end his
personal confession without entreating the Lord to build the walls of
Jerusalem, and to do good in his good pleasure unto Zion. Now, David
was only the mouth of hundreds of others, who with equal fervency cried
unto God that the blessing might rest upon his people. There was much
soul-travail in Israel and Judah, and the result was that the Lord was
glorified, and true religion flourished.
Remember also the days of Josiah, the king. You know well now the book
of the law was found neglected in the temple, and when it was brought
before the king, he rent his clothes, for he saw that the nation had
revolted, and that wrath must come upon it to the uttermost. The young
king's heart, which was tender, for he feared God, was ready to break
with anguish to think of the misery that would come upon his people on
account of their sins. Then there came a glorious reformation which
purged the land of idols, and caused the passover to be observed as
never before. Travails of heart among the godly produced the delightful
change.
It was the same with the work of Nehemiah. His book begins with a
description of the travail of his heart. He was a patriot, a man of
nervous, excitable temperament, and keen sensibility for God's honor,
and when his soul had felt great bitterness and longing, then he arose
to build, and a blessing rested on his efforts.
In the early dawn of Christian history, there was a preparation of the
church before it received an increase. Look at the obedient disciples
sitting in the upper room, waiting with anxious hope; every heart there
had been ploughed with anguish by the death of the Lord, each one was
intent to receive the promised boon of the Spirit. There, with one
heart and one mind, they tarried, but not without wrestling prayer, and
so the Comforter was given, and three thousand souls were given also.
The like living zeal and vehement desire have always been perceptible
in the Church of God before any season of refreshing. Think not that
Luther was the only man that wrought the Reformation. There were
hundreds who sighed and cried in secret in the cottages of the Black
Forest, in the homes of Germany, and on the hills of Switzerland. There
were hearts breaking for the Lord's appearing in strange places, they
might have been found in the palaces of Spain, in the dungeons of the
Inquisition, among the canals of Holland, and the green lanes of
England. Women, as they hid their Bibles, lest their lives should be
forfeited, cried out in spirit, "O God, how long?" There were pains as
of a woman in travail, in secret places there were tears and bitter
lamentations, on the high places of the field there were mighty
strivings of spirit, and so at length there came that grand revulsion
which made the Vatican to rock and reel from its foundation to its
pinnacle. There has been evermore in the history of the church, the
travail before there has been the result.
And this, dear friends, while it is true on the large scale, is true
also in every individual case. A man with no sensibility or compassion
for other men's souls, may accidentally be the means of a conversion;
the good word which he utters will not cease to be good because the
speaker had no right to declare God's statutes. The bread and meat
which were brought to Elijah were not less nourishing because the
ravens brought them, but the ravens remained ravens still. A
hard-hearted man may say a good thing which God will bless, but, as a
rule, those who bring souls to Christ are those who first of all have
felt an agony of desire that souls should be saved. This is imaged to
us in our Master's character. He is the great Saviour of men; but
before he could save others, he learned in their flesh to sympathize
with them. He wept over Jerusalem, he sweat great drops of blood in
Gethsemane; he was, and is, a high priest who is touched with the
feeling of our infirmities. As the Captain of our salvation, in
bringing many sons unto glory he was made perfect by sufferings. Even
Christ went not forth to preach until he had spent nights in
intercessory prayer, and uttered strong cryings and tears for the
salvation of his hearers. His ministering servants who have been most
useful, have always been eagerly desirous to be so. If any minister can
be satisfied without conversions, he shall have no conversions. God
will not force usefulness on any man. It is only when our heart breaks
to see men saved, that we shall be likely to see sinners' hearts
broken. The secret of success lies in all-consuming zeal, all-subduing
travail for souls. Read the sermons of Wesley and of Whitfield, and
what is there in them? It is no severe criticism to say that they are
scarcely worthy to have survived, and yet those sermons wrought
marvels, and well they might, for both preachers could truly say–
"The love of Christ doth me constrain
To seek the wandering souls of men;
With cries, entreaties, tears, to save,
To snatch them from the fiery wave."
In order to understand such preaching, you need to see and hear the
man, you want his tearful eye, his glowing countenance, his pleading
tone, his bursting heart. I have heard of a great preacher who objected
to having his sermons printed, "Because," said he, "you cannot print
me." That observation is very much to the point. A soul-winner throws
himself into what he says. As I have sometimes said, we must ram
ourselves into our cannons, we must fire ourselves at our hearers, and
when we do this, then, by God's grace, their hearts are often carried
by storm. Do any of you desire your children's conversions? You shall
have them saved when you agonize for them. Many a parent who has been
privileged to see his son walking in the truth, will tell you that
before the blessing came he had spent many hours in prayer and in
earnest pleading with God, and then it was that the Lord visited his
child and renewed his soul. I have heard of a young man who had grown
up and left the parental roof, and through evil influences, had been
enticed into holding skeptical views. His father and mother were both
earnest Christians, and it almost broke their hearts to see their son
so opposed to the Redeemer. On one occasion they induced him to go with
them to hear a celebrated minister. He accompanied them simply to
please them, and for no higher motive. The sermon happened to be upon
the glories of heaven. It was a very extraordinary sermon, and was
calculated to make every Christian in the audience to leap for joy. The
young man was much gratified with the eloquence of the preacher, but
nothing more; he gave him credit for superior oratorical ability, and
was interested in the sermon, but felt none of its power. He chanced to
look at his father and mother during the discourse, and was surprised
to see them weeping. He could not imagine why they, being Christian
people, should sit and weep under a sermon which was most jubilant in
its strain. When he reached home, he said, "Father, we have had a
capital sermon, but I could not understand what could make you sit
there and cry, and my mother too?" His father said, "My dear son, I
certainly had no reason to weep concerning myself, nor your mother, but
I could not help thinking all through the sermon about you, for alas, I
have no hope that you will be a partaker in the bright joys which await
the righteous. It breaks my heart to think that you will be shut out of
heaven." His mother said, "The very same thoughts crossed my mind, and
the more the preacher spoke of the joys of the saved, the more I
sorrowed for my dear boy that he should never know what they were."
That touched the young man's heart, led him to seek his father's God,
and before long he was at the same communion table, rejoicing in the
God and Saviour whom his parents worshiped. The travail comes before
the bringing forth; the earnest anxiety, the deep emotion within,
precede our being made the instruments of the salvation of others.
I think I have established the fact; now for a minute or two let me
show you the reason for it. Why is it that there must be this anxiety
before desirable results are gained? For answer, it might suffice us to
say that God has so appointed it. It is the order of nature. The child
is not born into the world without the sorrows of the mother, nor is
the bread which sustains life procured from the earth without toil: "In
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," was a part of the primeval
curse. Now, as it is in the natural, so is it in the spiritual; there
shall not come the blessing we seek, without first of all the earnest
yearning for it. Why, it is so even in ordinary business. We say, "No
sweat no sweet," "no pains no gains," "No mill no meal." If there be no
labor there shall be no profit. He that would be rich must toil for it;
he that would acquire fame must spend and be spent to win it. It is
ever so. There must ever be the travail and then the desire cometh. God
has so appointed it: let us accept the decree.
But better still, he has ordained this for our good. If souls were
given us without any effort, anxiety or prayer it would be our loss to
have it so, because the anxieties which throb within a compassionate
spirit exercise his graces; they produce grateful love to God; they try
his faith in the power of God to save others; they drive him to the
mercy-seat; they strengthen his patience and perseverance, and every
grace within the man is educated and increased by his travail for
souls. As labor is now a blessing, so also is soul-travail; men are
fashioned more fully into the likeness of Christ thereby, and the whole
church is by the same emotion quickened into energy. The fire of our
own spiritual life is fanned by that same breath which our prayers
invite to come from the four winds to breath upon the slain. Besides,
dear friends, the zeal that God excites within us is often the means of
effecting the purpose which we desire. After all, God does not give
conversions to eloquence, but to heart. The power in the hand of God's
Spirit for conversions is heart coming in contact with heart. This is
God's battle-axe and weapons of war in his crusade. He is pleased to
use the yearnings, longings, and sympathies of Christian men, as the
means of compelling the careless to think, constraining the hardened to
feel, and driving the unbelieving to consider. I have little confidence
in elaborate speech and polished sentences, as the means of reaching
men's hearts; but I have great faith in that simple-minded Christian
woman, who must have souls converted or she will weep her eyes out over
them; and in that humble Christian who prays day and night in secret,
and then avails himself of every opportunity to address a loving word
to sinners. The emotion we feel, and the affection we bear, are the
most powerful implements of soul-winning. God the Holy Ghost usually
breaks hard hearts by tender hearts.
Besides, the travail qualifies for the proper taking care of the
offspring. God does not commit his new-born children to people who do
not care to see conversions. If he ever allows them to fall into such
hands, they suffer very serious loss thereby. Who is so fit to
encourage a new-born believer as the man who first anguished before the
Lord for his conversion? Those you have wept over and prayed for you
will be sure to encourage and assist. The church that never travailed,
should God send her a hundred converts, would be unfit to train them;
she would not know what to do with little children, and would leave
them to much suffering. Let us thank God, brethren, if he has given us
any degree of the earnest anxiety and sympathy, which marked
soul-wining men and women, and let us ask to have more for, in
proportion as we have it, we shall be qualified to be the instruments
in the hand of the Spirit, of nursing and cherishing God's sons and
daughters.
Once more, there is a great benefit in the law which makes travail
necessary to spiritual birth, because it secures all the glory to God.
If you want to be lowered in your own esteem, try to convert a child. I
would like those brethren who believe so much in free will, and the
natural goodness of the human heart, to try some children that I could
bring to them, and see whether they could break their hearts and make
them love the Saviour. Why, sir, you never think yourself so great a
fool as after trying in your own strength to bring a sinner to the
Saviour. Oh! How often have I come back defeated from arguing with an
awakened person whom I have sought to comfort: I did think I had some
measure of skill in handling sorrowful cases, but I have been compelled
to say to myself, "What a simpleton I am! God the Holy Ghost must take
this case in hand, for I am foiled." When one has tried in a sermon to
reach a certain person who is living in sin, you learn afterwards that
he enjoyed the sermon which he ought to have smarted under; then, you
say, "Ah, now I see what a weak worm I am, and if good be done, God
shall have the glory." Your longing, then, that others should be saved,
and your vehemence of spirit, shall secure to God all the glory of his
own work; and this is what the Lord is aiming at, for his glory he will
not give to another, nor his praise to an arm of flesh.
And now, having established the fact, and shown the reasons for it, let
us notice how this travail shows itself.
Usually when God intends greatly to bless a church, it will begin in
this way:–Two or three persons in it are distressed at the low state
of affairs, and become troubled even to anguish. Perhaps they do not
speak to one another, or know of their common grief, but they begin to
pray with flaming desire and untiring importunity. The passion to see
the church revived rules them. They think of it when they go to rest,
they dream of it on their bed, they muse on it in the streets. This one
thing eats them up. They suffer great heaviness and continual sorrow in
heart for perishing sinners; they travail in birth for souls. I have
happened to become the centre of certain brethren in this church; one
of them said to me the other day, "O sir, I pray day and night for God
to prosper our church; I long to see greater things; God is blessing
us, but we want much more." I saw the deep earnestness of the man's
soul, and I thanked him and thanked God heartily, thinking it to be a
sure sign of a coming blessing. Sometime after, another friend, who
probably now hears me speak, but who did not know any thing about the
other, felt the same yearning, and must needs let me know it; he too is
anxious, longing, begging, crying, for a revival; and thus from three
or four quarters I have had the same message, and I feel hopeful
because of these tokens for good. When the sun rises the mountain tops
first catch the light, and those who constantly live near to God will
be the first to feel the influence of the coming refreshing. The Lord
give me a dozen importunate pleaders and lovers of souls, and by his
grace we will shake all London from end to end yet. The work would go
on without the mass of you, Christians; many of you only hinder the
march of the army; but give us a dozen lion-like, lamb-like men,
burning with intense love to Christ and souls, and nothing will be
impossible to their faith. The most of us are not worthy to unloose the
shoe-latches of ardent saints. I often feel I am not so myself, but I
aspire and long to be reckoned among them. Oh, may God give us this
first sign of the travail in the earnest ones and twos.
By degrees the individuals are drawn together by sacred affinity, and
the prayer-meetings become very different. The brother who talked
twenty minutes of what he called prayer, and yet never asked for a
single thing, gives up his oration and falls to pleading with many
tears and broken sentences: while the friend who used to relate his
experience and go through the doctrines of grace, and call that a
prayer, forgets that rigmarole and begins agonizing before the throne.
And not only this, but little knots here and there come together in
their cottages, and in their little rooms cry mightily to God. The
result will be that the minister, even if he does not know of the
feeling in the hearts of his people, will grow fervent himself. He will
preach more evangelically, more tenderly, more earnestly. He will be no
longer formal, or cold, or stereotyped; he will be all alive.
Meanwhile, not with the preacher only will be the blessing, but with
his hearers who love the Lord. One will be trying a plan for getting in
the young people; another will be looking after the strangers in the
aisles, who come only now and then. One brother will make a vehement
attempt to preach the gospel at the corner of the street; another will
open a room down a dark court; another will visit lodging-houses and
hospitals; all sorts of holy plans will be invented, and zeal will
break out in many directions. All this will be spontaneous, nothing
will be forced. If you want to get up a revival, as the term is, you
can do it, just as you can grow tasteless strawberries in winter, by
artificial heat. There are ways and means of doing that kind of thing
but the genuine work of God needs no such planning and scheming; it is
altogether spontaneous. If you see a snowdrop next February in your
garden, you will feel persuaded that spring is on the way; the
artificial-flower maker could put as many snow-drops there as you
please, but that would be no index of coming spring. So you may get up
an apparent zeal which will be no proof of God's blessing; but when
fervor comes of itself, without human direction or control, then is it
of the Lord. When men's hearts heave and break, like the mould of the
garden under the influence of the reviving life which lay buried there,
then in very deed a benediction is on the way. Travail is no mockery,
but a real agony of the whole nature. May such be seen in this our
church, and throughout the whole Israel of God.
II. Now, with great brevity, let us consider that THE RESULT IS OFTEN
VERY SURPRISING. It is frequently surprising for rapidity. "As soon as
Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." God's works are not
tied by time. The more spiritual a force is the less it lies within the
chains of time. The electric current, which has a greater nearness to
the spiritual than the grosser forms of materialism, is inconceivably
rapid from that very reason, and by it time is all but annihilated. The
influences of the Spirit of God are a force most spiritual, and more
quick than any thing beneath the sun. As soon as we agonize in soul the
Holy Spirit can, if he pleases, convert the person for whom we have
pleaded. While we are yet speaking he hears, and before we call he
answers. Some calculate the expected progress of a church by
arithmetic; and I think I have heard of arithmetical sermons in which
there have been ingenious calculations as to how many missionaries it
would take to convert the world, and how much cash would be demanded.
Now, there is no room here for the application of mathematics;
spiritual forces are not calculable by an arithmetic which is most at
home in the material universe. A truth which is calculated to strike
the mind of one man to-day may readily enough produce a like effect
upon a million minds to-morrow. The preaching which moves one heart
needs not be altered to tell upon ten thousand. With God's Spirit our
present instrumentalities will suffice to win the world to Jesus;
without him, ten thousand times as much apparent force would be only so
much weakness. The spread of truth, moreover, is not reckonable by
time. During the ten years which ended in 1870, such wondrous changes
were wrought throughout the world that no prophet would have been
believed had he foretold them. Reforms have been accomplished in
England, in the United States, in Germany, in Spain, in Italy, which
according to ordinary reckoning, would have occupied at least one
hundred years. Things which concern the mind cannot be subjected to
those regulations of time which govern steamboats and railways; in such
matters God's messengers are flames of fire. The Spirit of God is able
to operate upon the minds of men instantaneously: witness the case of
Paul. Between now and to-morrow morning he could excite holy thought in
all the minds of all the thousand millions of the sons of Adam; and if
prayer were mighty enough, and strong enough, why should it not be done
on some bright day? We are not straitened in him, we are straitened in
our own bowels. All the fault lies there. Oh for the travail that would
produce immediate results.
But the result is surprising, not only for its rapidity, but for the
greatness of it. It is said, "Shall a nation be born at once?" As soon
as ever Zion was in distress concerning her children, tens of thousands
came and built up Jerusalem, and re-established her fallen state. So,
in answer to prayer, God not only bestows speedy blessings, but great
blessings. There were fervent prayers in that upper room "before the
day of Pentecost had fully come," and what a great answer it was when,
after Peter's sermon, some three thousand were ready to confess their
faith in Christ, and to be baptized. Shall we never see such things
again? Is the Spirit straitened? Has his arm waxed short? Nay, verily,
but we clog and hinder him. He cannot do any mighty work here because
of our unbelief; and, if our unbelief were cast out, and if prayer went
up to God with eagerness, and vehemence, and importunity, then would a
blessing descend so copious as to amaze us all.
But enough of this, for I must needs pass on to the next point.
III. THIS TRAVAIL AND ITS RESULT ARE ABUNDANTLY DESIRABLE;
pre-eminently desirable at this hour. The world is perishing for a lack
of knowledge. Did any one among us ever lay China on his heart? Your
imagination cannot grapple with the population of that mighty empire,
without God, without Christ, strangers to the commonwealth of Israel.
But it is not China alone; there are other vast nations lying in
darkness; the great serpent hath coiled himself around the globe, and
who shall set the world free from him? Reflect upon this one city with
its three millions. What sin the moon sees! What sin the Sabbath sees!
Alas for the transgressions of this wicked city. Babylon of old could
not have been worse than London is, nor so guilty, for she had not the
light that London has received. Brethren, there is no hope for China,
no hope for the world, no hope for our own city, while the church is
sluggish and lethargic. Through the church the blessing is usually
bestowed. Christ multiplies the bread, and gives it to the disciples;
the multitudes can only get it through the disciples. Oh, it is time,
it is high time that the churches were awakened to seek the good of
dying myriads. Moreover, brethren, the powers of evil are ever active.
We may sleep, but Satan sleepeth never. The church's plough lies
yonder, rusting in the furrow; do you not see it to your shame? But the
plough of Satan goes from end to end of his great field, he leaves no
headland, but he ploughs deep while sluggish churches sleep. May we be
stirred as we see the awful activity of evil spirits and persons who
are under their sway. How industriously pernicious literature is spread
abroad, and with what a zeal do men seek for fresh ways of sinning. He
is eminent among men who can invent fresh songs to gratify the
lascivious tongue, or find new spectacles to delight unclean eyes. O
God, are thine enemies awake, and only thy friends asleep? O Sufferer,
once bathed in bloody sweat in Gethsemane, is there not one of the
twelve awake but Judas? Are they all asleep except the traitor? May God
arouse us for his infinite mercy's sake.
Besides this, my brethren, when a church is not serving God, mischief
is brewing withing herself. While she is not bringing others in, her
own heart is becoming weak in its pulsations, and her entire
constitution is a prey to decline. The church must either bring forth
children unto God, or else die of consumption: she has no alternative
but that. A church must either be fruitful or rot, and of all things, a
rotting church is the most offensive. Would God we could bury our dead
churches out of our sight, as Abraham buried Sarah, for above ground
they breed a pestilence of scepticism; for men say, "Is this religion?"
and taking it to be so, they forego true religion altogether.
And then, worst of all is, God is not glorified. If there be no
yearning of heart in the church, and no conversions, where is the
travail of the Redeemer's soul? Where, Immanuel, where are the trophies
of thy terrible conflict? Where are the jewels for thy crown? Thou
shalt have thine own, thy Father's will shall not be frustrated; thou
shalt be adored; but as yet we see it not. Hard are men's hearts, and
they will not love thee; unyielding are their wills, and they will not
own thy sovereignty. Oh! weep because Jesus is not honored. The foul
oath still curdles our blood as we hear it, and blasphemy usurps the
place of grateful song. Oh! by the wounds and bloody sweat, by the
cross and nails, and spear, I beseech you followers of Christ, be in
earnest, that Jesus Christ's name may be known and loved through the
earnest agonizing endeavors of the Christian church.
IV. And now I must come near to a close, by, in the fourth place,
noticing THE WOE WHICH WILL SURELY COME TO THOSE WHO HINDER THE TRAVAIL
OF THE CHURCH, and so prevent the bringing forth of her children. An
earnest spirit cannot complete its exhortations to zeal without
pronouncing a denunciation upon the indifferent. What said the heroine
of old who had gone forth against the enemies of Israel, when she
remembered coward spirits? "Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of the
Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not
to the help of the Lord against the mighty." Some such curse will
assuredly come upon every professing Christian who is backward in
helping the church in the day on her soul's travail. And who are they
that hinder her? I answer, every worldly Christian hinders the progress
of the gospel. Every member of a church who is living in secret sin,
who is tolerating in his heart any thing that he knows to be wrong, who
is not seeking eagerly his own personal sanctification, is to that
extent hindering the work of the Spirit of God. "Be ye clean that bear
the vessels of the Lord," for to the extent that we maintain known
unholiness, we restrain the Spirit. He cannot work by us as long as any
conscious sin is tolerated. It is not over breaking of commandments
that I am now speaking of, brethren, but I include worldliness also–a
care for carnal things, and a carelessness about spiritual things,
having enough grace just to make us hope that you are a Christian, but
not enough to prove you are; bearing a shriveled apple here and there
on the topmost bough, but not much fruit; this I mean, this partial
barrenness, not complete enough to condemn, yet complete enough to
restrain the blessing, this robs the treasure of the church, and
hinders her progress. O brethren, if any of you are thus described,
repent and do your first works; and God help you to be foremost in
proportion as you have been behind.
They are also guilty who distract the mind of the church from the
subject in hand. Anybody who calls off the thoughts of the church from
soul-saving is a mischief maker. I have heard it said of a minister,
"He greatly influences the politics of the town." Well, it is a very
doubtful good in my mind, a very doubtful good indeed. If the man,
keeping to his own calling of preaching the gospel, happens to
influence these meaner things, it is well, but any Christian minister
who thinks that he can do two things well, is mistaken. Let him mind
soul-winning, and not turn a Christian church into a political club.
Let us fight out our politics somewhere else, but not inside the church
of God. There our one business is soul-winning, our one banner is the
cross, our one leader is the crucified King. Inside the church there
may be minor things that take off the thoughts of men from seeking
souls,–little things that can be made beneath the eye that is
microscopical, to swell into great offences. Oh, my brethren, let us,
while souls are perishing, waive personal differences. "It must need be
that offences come, but woe unto him by whom the offence cometh;" but,
after all, what can there be that is worth taking notice of, compared
with glorifying Christ. If our Lord and Master would be honored by your
being a doormat for his saints to wipe their feet on, you would be
honored to be in the position; and if there shall come glory to God by
your patient endurance, even of insult and contumely, be glad in your
heart that you are permitted to be nothing that Christ may be all in
all. We must by no means turn aside to this or that; not even golden
apples must tempt us in this race! There lies the mark, and until it is
reached, we must never pause, but onward press, for Christ's cause and
crown.
Above all, my brethren, we shall be hindering the travail of the church
if we do not share in it. Many church members think that if they do
nothing wrong, and make no trouble, then they are all right. Not at
all, sir; not at all. Here is a chariot, and we are all engaged to drag
it. Some of you do not put out your hands to pull; well, then, the rest
of us have to labor so much the more; and the worst of it is we have to
draw you also. While you do not add to the strength which draws, you
increase the weight that is to be drawn. It is all very well for you to
say, "But I do not hinder;" you do hinder, you cannot help hindering.
If a man's leg does not help him in walking, it certainly hinders him.
Oh, I cannot bear to think of it. That I should be a hindrance to my
own sou's growth is bad indeed; but that I should stand in the way of
the people of God and cool their courage, and damp their ardor–my
Master, let it never be! Sooner let me sleep among the clods of the
valley, than be a hindrance to the meanest work that is done for thy
name.
V. And now I shall close, not with this note of woe, but with A WORD OF
BLESSING. Depend upon it there shall come a great blessing to any of
you who feel the soul travail that brings souls to God. Your own heart
will be watered. You know the old illustration, so often used that it
is now almost hackneyed, of the two travelers, who passed a man frozen
in the snow, and thought to be dead; and the one said, "I have enough
to do to keep myself alive, I will hasten on;" but the other said, "I
cannot pass a fellow-creature while there is the least breath in him."
He stooped down and began to warm the frozen man by rubbing him with
great vigor; and at last the poor fellow opened his eyes, came back to
life and animation, and walked along with the man who had restored him
to life; and what think you was one of the fist sights they saw? It was
the man who so selfishly took care of himself frozen to death. The good
Samaritan had preserved his own life by rubbing the other man; the
friction he had given had caused the action of his own blood, and kept
him in vigor. You will bless yourselves if you bless others.
Moreover, will it not be a joy to feel that you have done what you
could? It is always well on a Sunday evening for a preacher to feel
when he gets home, "Well, I may not have preached as I could wish, but
I have preached the Lord Jesus, and poured forth all my heart and I
could do no more." He sleeps soundly on that. After a day spent in
doing all the good you can, even if you have met with no success, you
can lean your head on Christ's bosom and fall asleep, feeling that if
souls be not gathered, yet you have your reward. If men are lost, it is
some satisfaction to us that they were not lost because we failed to
tell them the way of salvation. But what a comfort it will be to you
supposing you should be successful in bringing some to Christ. Why it
will set all the bells of your soul ringing. There is no greater joy
except the joy of our own communion with Christ, than this of bringing
others to trust the Saviour. Oh seek this joy and pant after it. And
what if you should see your own children converted? You have long hoped
for it, but your hopes have been disappointed; God means to give you
that choice blessing when you live more nearly to him yourself. Yes,
wife, the husband's heart will be won when your heart is perfectly
consecrated. Yes, mother, the girl shall love the Saviour when you love
him better. Yes, teacher, God means to bless your class, but not until
first of all he has made you fit to receive the blessing. Why, now, if
your children were to be converted through your teacher, you would be
mightily proud of it: God knows you could not bear such success, and
does not mean to give it until he has laid you low at his feet, and
emptied you of yourself, and filled you with himself.
And now I ask the prayers of all this church, that God would send us a
time of revival. I have not to complain that I have labored in vain,
and spent my strength for nought; far from it. I have not even to think
that the blessing is withdrawn from the preaching of the word, even in
a measure, for I never had so many cases of conversion in my life as I
have known since I have been restored from sickness; I have never
before received so many letters in so short a time, telling me that the
sermons printed have been blest, or the sermons preached here; yet I do
not think we ever had so few conversions from the regular congregation.
I partly account for it from the fact, that you cannot fish in one pond
always and catch as many fish as at first. Perhaps the Lord has saved
all of you he means to save; sometimes, I am afraid he has; and then it
will be of little use for me to keep on preaching to you, and I had
better shift quarters and try somewhere else. It would be a melancholy
thought if I believed it:–I do not believe it, I only fear it. Surely
it is not always to be true that strangers, who drop in here only once,
are converted, and you who are always hearing the gospel remain
unaffected. Strange, but may it not be strangely, lamentably true of
you? This very day may the anxiety of your Christian friends be excited
for you, and then may you be led to be anxious for yourselves, and give
your eyes no slumber till you find the Saviour. You know the way of
salvation; it is simply to come with your sins and rest them on the
Saviour; it is to rely upon or trust in the atoning blood. Oh that you
may be made to trust this morning, to the praise of the glory of his
grace. The elders mean to meet together tomorrow evening to have a
special hour of prayer; I hope, also, the mothers will meet and have a
time wrestling, and that every member of the church will try to set
apart a time for supplication this week, that the Lord may visit again
his church, and cause us to rejoice in his name. We cannot go back; we
dare not go back. We have put our hand to the plough, and the curse
will be upon us if we turn back. Remember Lot's wife. It must be onward
with us; backward it cannot be. In the name of God the Eternal, let us
gird up our loins by the power of his Spirit, and go onward conquering
through the blood of the Lamb. We ask it for Jesus' sake. Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Isaiah 66.
Of this sermon, a copy was sent to every Baptist and Congregational
minister in Great Britain, and several letters have been received,
acknowledging the quickening thereby received. May the like result be
far more abundant in the New World.