DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with Me: I kill,
and I make alive; I wound, and I heal." Deuteronomy 32:39.
THERE is but one God–Jehovah is His name–the "I AM." That one God
will not endure a rival. Why should He? He made all things and sustains
all things. Should a creature that His own hands have made be set up in
rivalry with Him? If it is a great man like Nebuchadnezzar, if he says,
"Behold this great Babylon which I have built," God will send him to
eat grass among the bulls and make him to know that no man is great in
the sight of God! What a provocation it must be to God to see men
bowing down before idols fashioned by their own hands! What a
degradation to man that he should worship gold, or silver, or wood, or
stone–and what a grievous dishonor to the great God of all! And it
seems to me to be the worst of all dishonors when God sees the image of
His own dear Son made into an idol and men prostrate themselves to
worship the representation of the Cross on which redemption was lifted
on high!
This must touch His sacred soul and vex Him to the uttermost, for God
is God, alone, and beside Him there is no other. He will not give His
Glory to another, neither His praise to graven images. In the text
before us the great Ego is seen. The Lord says, "I, even I." That Ego
is so great that it fills all places and, therefore, there can be no
room for another. "I, even I, am God, and there is no god with Me."
"Besides Me," He says in another place, "there is none else." Oh, to
have such lofty thoughts of God that we can have no consideration for
anything that would rob Him of the Glory which is so exclusively His
own! Gladly would we burn with a holy jealousy which abhors the idea of
a rival god and casts the name of Baal out of its mouth with utter
loathing!
In the text the Lord claims the sovereign prerogative of life and
death. He says, "I kill, and I make alive." It is He from whom we first
of all receive our being. His hand kindles the torch of life and from
Him comes the quenching of the flame. No angel's arm could save us from
the grave, nor could a myriad of angels confine us there when once
again He shall bid us rise. God kills and God makes alive. Royal
personages have usually been very jealous of the prerogative of life
and death, but our great God has it without bound or limit. He reigns
supreme. "I kill," He says, "and I make alive." From the connection in
which the text stands, it is clear that the Lord alludes to the making
of nations, or to the destroying of nations.
It was God that made Israel to be a people. It was God that cast out
the Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites from being nations before Him. It
was God that raised up Chaldea and Babylon and then strengthened Persia
to break Babylon in pieces and Greece to destroy Persia–and Rome with
iron feet to break down Greece–and when the time had come it was He
who spoke to the city of the seven hills and she, too, lost her royal
power. Kingdoms and thrones belong to the Lord and the shields of the
mighty are lifted on high or laid in the dust as He wills. Though they
regard it not, there is a King of kings and Lord of lords–and when the
long page of history shall be unrolled and men shall be able to see the
end from the beginning with enlightened eyes–they shall know that all
through the ages the disregarded and neglected God, the unseen and even
unthought of God, was still reigning evermore! Across the pages of
earth's long record shall be written in right royal hand, "I kill, and
I make alive." In Providence God is absolute, the blessed and only
Potentate whose sovereign will knows no dispute.
At this time, however, I purpose to carry this great Truth of God away
from the realm of Providence into the kingdom of Grace. We shall
confine ourselves to that second sentence–"I wound, and I heal." On
this Word we shall make three observations, the first being that none
but the Lord can wound or heal. Secondly, that the Lord can wound and
heal. And, thirdly, that the Lord does wound and heal–three thoughts
which are closely connected and yet are marked by instructive shades of
difference.
I. First, NONE BUT THE LORD CAN WOUND OR HEAL. To begin at the
beginning–the Lord alone can spiritually wound. When we have to deal
with human hearts, our first effort has to be to wound them. Naturally,
man thinks himself whole-hearted and in sound health, but he is not so.
The great object of the Gospel ministry, at first, is to convince men
of sin, to humble them before God–in fact, to wound them, to cut them
to the heart. But no man can wound without the Lord. I speak without
any measure to my utterance–no preacher can truly wound the human
heart. He may speak very honestly and plainly. He may speak with deep
pathos and true affection. He may wield, at times, the thunders of God
and at other times the soft and gentle bands of love may be in his
hands, but in no way can the preacher get at the heart of men unless
his Master is with him.
Charm you ever so wisely, O wise man, the adder is deaf and it is in
vain that you use your enchantments. As well convince the wild winds,
or convert the wayward waves, as hope to touch the human heart till God
makes bare His arm! It is the Holy Spirit's work to convince of sin and
until He puts forth His power, the preacher may preach himself dumb
with weariness and blind with weeping, but no result can possibly
follow. And what is true of preachers is true of all the teachers in
the Sunday school, of all the earnest folk that go about to speak
personally to men, yes, and of the most tender mother and the most
earnest father! There is no wounding the child's heart–there is no
breaking it down into contrition by the most tender arguments or the
wisest counsels! You will come back and say as we have done many times,
"Who has believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed?"
Yes, dear Friends, and the most solemn Truths of God which, in
themselves have a natural tendency to wound the heart, nevertheless
cannot do it apart from the work of God Himself. There is the Sword
and, in itself, it is sharp and cutting, but no man can handle it! The
eternal arm must be revealed, or the hide of behemoth will not feel the
weapon! A sword will cut through a coat of mail if a Coeur-de-Lion has
the wielding of it–but not in a child's hand will it wound to killing.
God must take the Scripture in His hands and use it to the dividing of
joints and marrow, or sinners will escape its power. Terrible Truths
there are in the Bible which ought to make men shake, but they hear
them and deny them–they even laugh at them and continue in sin!
Sweet truths there are which ought to make a rock shed tears, but you
may tell of Gethsemane's bloody sweat and the five dear wounds of Him
who was found guilty of excessive love and yet men will hear it and go
their way, each man to his farm and to his merchandise and forget it
all. I grant you the Truths of God are powerful, but not until the
mighty God applies them to the heart and conscience! And in addition to
the Truth of God, Providence itself may come and work upon the heart of
men, but cause no wounding of the right sort. I have seen the ungodly
brought to destitution and poverty by their extravagances and brought
to sickness and death's door by their lusts–and yet they have not been
wounded.
They have seen the result of sin; they have even felt it in the marrow
of their bones and yet the dogs have gone back to their vomit. They
have still clung to their idols and held to their abominations! The
burnt child dreads the fire, but the burnt sinner thrusts his hand into
the flames again. We have seen men so sick that they have trembled at
the thought of death and it has been supposed from what they said, that
they were really impressed–and if they were restored to health would
lead another life–but, alas, we have seen them restored to health and
sinning worse than before! The wicked breaks his bands asunder. They
cast their cords from them. All the terrors of
Providence–bereavements, losses, sicknesses–all have failed with the
unregenerate. Their stone heart has turned the edge of the plow which
sought to break it up. Men have wearied all the agencies of Grace and
Providence, but yet they have not been wounded! Their heart is stout as
that of leviathan, "yes, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone."
None can effectually wound the heart but God, alone.
Now, the same thing is true about the healing–none but the Lord can
heal. Of course there is no need with regard to those who were never
wounded. Nobody can heal such persons. I have known some preachers try
to do that, though it has always seemed to me to be poor work to try to
heal men who have never been wounded; to preach mercy to persons who
think that they have no sin; to preach Grace to men who dream that they
have merits of their own. Christ did not do so! He said, "I came not to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The whole have no need
of a physician, but those that are sick." There is no healing, then,
for those who are not wounded–and equally there is no healing those
who are wounded unless God lays His hands to their sore.
Have you ever met with spiritually wounded persons? If you have, if you
are a Believer, your whole heart has gone out towards them and, drawing
examples from your own experience and promises from the Word of God and
sweet encouragements from Gospel doctrine, you have labored to pour a
healing balm into their bleeding wounds. But have you not often failed?
No, apart from the Spirit of the living God, have you not always failed
and must you not fail? Ah, dear Friends, it is one thing to talk of a
wounded spirit, but it is quite another thing to feel a wounded spirit!
And you may talk about healing, too, but it is quite another thing to
receive the healing and quite another thing to apply it.
Let God cut a man with His great Sword as once He smote me, and I
guarantee you that no ordinances will heal him! "No," says a friend,
"come and hear a sermon." He hears it, but the preaching makes him
worse and he feels more sad than ever. I have known persons foolish
enough to persuade such seekers to come to the Communion Table! They
have only eaten and drunk condemnation to themselves! While they have
been at the Table they have known themselves to be intruders and their
hearts have bled more than ever. You can easily pacify a man whose
sense of sin is a mere pretense, just as you may soon heal the
imitation wound–but it is not so with one who has the arrows of the
Lord rankling within him–he needs Divine surgery!
As for the hypocritical penitent, give him outward sacraments and he
believes that he is all right. But if God has wounded him, all the
sacraments under Heaven will never minister consolation to him. He must
go to God for that, for only in Christ Jesus can it be found. All the
preachers, yes, and all the doctrines of the Bible, sound and true as
the preachers may be, and inspired as the doctrines certainly are, will
fail to comfort a bleeding soul until the eternal Lord shall bow
Himself from His Throne in Heaven and bind up the broken in heart! I
know it is so! Gospel Truth is sufficient, in itself, to comfort all
that mourn, but it will comfort nobody so long as the natural unbelief
of the heart remains.
Get a hold of a lacerated spirit, torn with unbelief and try what you
can do. Say, "Trust in the Lord, my Friend," and he replies, "I cannot
trust." Tell him Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and
he says he knows that, but he cannot get hold of it. Go on to tell him
how the Lord receives the very chief of sinners. Do your duty with him,
for whether you can heal him or not, you are bound to set the Gospel
before him–but you shall find that you have worked in vain if you have
gone in your own strength and forgotten the prayerful spirit and the
humble reliance which are so necessary to success. God can use you to
heal a broken heart, but you cannot do it yourself!
Unconverted Hearer, look not to us as though we could do anything for
you, but look only to Jesus! Ah, Friend, if I could wound you and if I
could heal you, it would do you no good! If I could convert every
sinner here, of what use would the human conversion be? Have you never
heard of Mr. Rowland Hill being met, one evening, by a drunken man who
staggered up to him and said, "Hallo, Mr. Hill, I am one of your
converts!" "Ah," said Mr. Rowland Hill, "very likely, but you are none
of God's converts, or else you would not be drunk."
Now, our converts, if they are our converts, will be very poor
productions. If one man can convert you, another man can unconvert you!
That which is worked by the flesh can be undone by the flesh! "You must
be born again. Except a man is born from above, he cannot see the
kingdom of God." Unless there is a work of Grace in the soul which the
will of man, the will of the flesh, blood, birth, education, teaching
can never work–unless, I say, there is a supernatural power exercised
upon us, we shall never see the face of God at the last with
acceptance! So there is the first Truth of God–God alone can wound and
God alone can heal.
II. And now, secondly, THE LORD CAN WOUND AND HE CAN HEAL. What a mercy
this is and how comfortably it encourages the Christian to go about his
work! The Lord can wound. He can pierce the most unlikely heart. Look
at Saul of Tarsus. You would never have thought, when he was hurrying
to Damascus to drag the saints to prison, that he would ever be humbled
and made to cry out, "What will You have me do?" The Lord knew His man
and just when he was on the brow of the hill and could see Damascus in
the plain, and was ready to devour the saints, the Lord let fly an
arrow! Down went one Saul of Tarsus, so wounded that it took three days
to extract the arrow!
This was amazing, for Saul was like leviathan, of whom we read, "The
sword of him that lays at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the
habergeon"–yet the arrow of the Lord laid him low! The Lord can wound
men in very unlikely places. I have known the arrow of conviction come
home to a man who had not entered a place of worship for years. Such is
the infinite Sovereignty of God that He calls them a people that were
not a people, and even those who sought Him not He seeks out. Yes, even
in the haunts of sin, a man is not safe from the arrows of God–I mean
the arrows of God's
infinite Love! God can still touch the conscience. Leviathan, you know,
is wrapped about with scales, "shut up together as with a close seal,"
yet there is a weak point even in leviathan!
The cunning hunter knows how to find it out and though there are some
men so skeptical, so atheistic, so obstinate, so profane, so abominable
that nobody dares to come near them, yet have we known it–attribute it
to the praise of Sovereign Grace–the Lord has smitten even these with
His great and strong Sword and afterwards He has healed them by His
mighty Grace. Never despair of anybody! If salvation were man's work
you might despair, but since it is God's work, despair of none! The
wretch who is the nearest approach to an incarnate devil may yet become
as an angel of God! Such is the Grace of God that though men make a
league with Death and a covenant with Hell, He can break their leagues
and disannul their covenants, take the prey from between the jaws of
the dragon and get to Himself renown! The Lord can wound, then.
He can wound some that have been sitting under the Gospel for years and
have defied its power. My arrows have rattled against your harness and
I have said, "It is all in vain," but I pray my Master, one of these
days when I am drawing a bow at a venture, may be pleased to direct it
between that joint of the harness which I feared did not exist– that
little joint where the shoulder piece does not fit close to the
breastplate. I have feared that you were encased as in the scales of
leviathan, of which we read, "One is so near to another that no air can
come between them: they are joined one to another." Yet the Lord can
send in His arrow and make the proud heart feel the power of His
glorious Truth! The most thoughtless, the most careless, the most
abandoned are still within range of the Lord's bow!
What a very sweet side of the Truth is the second part of it–namely,
that He can heal. There are some awful cases of bleeding wounds! I
wonder whether I have in this audience any souls desperately wounded? I
have known the heart bleed as though it would bleed to death beneath
the sword of conviction. Some are driven to despair and have been ready
to lay violent hands upon themselves in the bitterness of their souls.
Let it ring out like a trumpet that these poor despairing ones may hear
it–the Lord can heal! There is no case so desperate but what
Jehovah-Jesus can recover it! Despair, you must let your captives go!
Despondency, you must open your prison when Jesus comes! Has He not
come forth from the Father on purpose that He may loose the captives
and say to the shackled ones, "Go free"?
The wounds which God gives are apt to fester. You remember how the
Psalmist said, "My wounds stink and are corrupt"? When there is bad
blood, we have known men's wounds to become horrible and some souls who
have had their conscience awakened have become a terror to themselves.
"I cannot be saved," they say. "I cannot pray. How should such a wretch
as I am ever pray? I cannot hope for mercy. It would be an astonishment
to Heaven and Hell, too, if ever I found mercy." Listen to me and let
your heart believe it–you may certainly recover! God, who does all
things and to whom nothing is impossible, can heal your wounds though
they reek with corruption! If you lie at Hell's gate; if you seem to be
half in Topher already, His arm is strong enough to help you!
If you will look to Christ lifted up on the Cross, there is pardon,
life, acceptance, joy and Heaven for you, even for you! He that wounded
you will heal you! He that has broken you will bind you up! He that has
killed you will make you alive! Let your ears take in the gladsome
message which I am bid to deliver you–"I wound, and I heal." Yet let
me charge you not to look for a cure anywhere but to God in Christ
Jesus! Shun the thought of being healed except the Lord shall heal you!
I dread lest a wounded soul should go to a minister or to a priest, or
to the most religious person in the world and think to get healing from
man! Your wounds are meant to drive you to your God. Seek Him and no
one else!
To your knees, now, in your private chamber, or if you have not one,
get alone even in the street, for you can be alone in a crowd–but go
to God with your bleeding heart! Tell Him, "I am a sinner. Lord, I am
all but a damned sinner! I have been such an offender that I scarcely
dare to hope, but I hear that You can heal me and give me comfort. Oh,
for Jesus' sake be merciful to me! I thank you that you have wounded
me–it were better for me to be wounded than to be as indifferent and
careless as I used to be. But now, Lord, do not altogether break me to
pieces and treat me as an enemy! My spirit fails unless You comfort me.
Oh, look upon me!" If you cannot say as much as that, yet let your
tears drop and look up, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Do
but cry to Him and you shall find healing, for God can heal you and
none else.
Away with those who dream that outward religiousness can do you good!
Away, away with the deceivers who would tell you that they can give you
pardon! No man living can absolve his fellow sinners–the pretense is
the superlative of blasphemy! God is in Christ Jesus reconciling the
world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. And He
has committed to us the Word of reconciliation and we are glad to
proclaim that Word and point you to the Lord Jesus who is exalted on
high to give repentance and remission of sins!
III. Now I come to my third and last point, and that is–THE LORD DOES
WOUND AND DOES HEAL. I have
two things, here, tonight. I will only show them to you and have done.
First, I have a bundle of arrows which I have seen shot at different
times from the bow of God so as to wound men. I cannot shoot them at
you just now, but I will show them to you. I have known Him shoot this
arrow at a man–the arrow of continual gentleness. He has been very
good to the sinner and continued His kindness to him for years.
Augustine tells of one to whom God was so wonderfully kind and the man
was so wonderfully bad, that at last he grew astonished at God's
goodness! And since the Lord continued to load him with benefits, he
turned round and cried, "Most benignant God, I am ashamed of being Your
enemy any longer. I confess my sin and repent of it." How I wish that
that arrow would pierce your hearts! It is one which readily penetrates
a noble mind. The more gross and animal natures do not feel it, but
where God has left some little spark of nobility, a man more readily
feels, "I cannot go on and sin against a God so good." It is a very
sharp arrow, but it is dipped in love and it wounds most sweetly.
Here is another–God is angry with the wicked every day. Oh, if that
Truth of God would go home to some of you, "God is angry with me, for I
have broken His holy Law." Surely it would cut you to the quick! I do
not like anybody to be angry with me, but oh, to have the Lord angry
with me! How could I endure it? Dear Hearer, I hope you will feel the
smart of this warning. It is very easy for you to hear it and for me to
speak it, but if you once feel it, it will tear your heart and fill
your loins with agony!
Another arrow–"He that believes not is condemned already." You are not
to be condemned at the last in the future–you are condemned NOW! You
are not in a state of probation–you have already been proven and you
have failed–and you are walking this earth at this moment as a
condemned criminal! Ah, if that barbed iron were to enter your soul, it
would wound you, indeed. Here is another arrow–"The wicked shall be
turned into Hell, with all the nations that forget God." "These shall
go away into everlasting punishment." Many have been playing with that
arrow lately–it is a very sharp tool and he had best beware who toys
with it! Let the Lord send it home and it will kill a man's proud hopes
and vain presumptions as quickly as any arrow in the quiver of the
Almighty!
Here is another–"You have destroyed yourself." Your present state of
ruin and danger is your own fault! You have brought it upon yourself
and you have nobody to blame but yourself that you are a lost man. Ah,
that will rankle and pain the soul as though a sword were in the bones!
And here is another–"You are dead in sin. You have destroyed yourself,
but you cannot save yourself." I have seen a man get that into his
flesh a little way and he has been livid with anger. He has bit his
lips and said, "I will never hear that preacher again. Why, he made out
my case to be hopeless!" The man is sure to come again. He is like a
great fish in a stream with a hook in his jaws. He will draw out a good
deal of line and we will let him have it, but he must come to a stop
before long with that solemn Truth of God to hold Him! He struggles
hard but that sharp text is not soon dislodged from the heart–"O
Israel, you have destroyed yourself."
Thus I might continue to show you a sample of the weapons with which
God wounds men. He has His two-edged sword, His spear, His arrows, His
battle axe and weapons of war. You say, "I do not feel them." No, and I
cannot make you feel them. I have told you before that it is not my arm
that can wield them! But when God is pleased to use any of these, the
people fall under Him. "Well," says one, "I do not think that I shall
be wounded." No, but I am glad you are in the battle, because when the
arrows are flying they may strike you as well as anybody else! I have
had to deal with wounded ones that I never reckoned upon seeing in such
a condition.
Oh, what gashes have I seen in men that had been given to all sorts of
fashionable sins and who had sneered at religion! They have come here,
at first, from the most miserable motives, but they have had to come
again and weep and cry before the Lord with broken hearts! You never
know where bullets may find their mark! You who are the servants of
Satan are on dangerous ground when you come near a faithful ministry.
No, I will alter it–you are on blessed ground–where the slain of the
Lord have been many and where the people of God are earnestly praying
for you! I know at this moment they are putting up the prayer, "Lord,
send the arrows home! Send the arrows home." Their prayers will prevail
with God and He will bare His arm. There is no mistake about this
matter–He "will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will
have compassion on whom He will have compassion." When He puts His arm
to
the work, who shall stand against Him? He will do all His pleasure.
Glory be to His blessed name, He can wound and He does wound according
to His eternal purpose!
Now I will hold up before you the bottle of balm. When a soul is
wounded, the Lord applies His sacred surgery to the heart. He has
healed some of us. The particular bottle of balm which He used in
healing me is one which I know well and shall never forget. This was
the label, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth,
for I am God, and beside Me there is none else." Why, do you know I was
afraid of God until I heard that God was in Christ and that I was to
look to God in Christ and that the very God whom I dreaded would save
me? That Revelation came home with Divine power to my soul! The
preacher said, "Look. This is all that is needed." "There," he said, "a
fool can look! A little child can look! A half idiot can look! A dying
man can look!" "Look," he said, "and it is done."
Did I really understand him–that I was only to look to Christ dying on
the Cross for me and see God making an Atonement for my sins in the
Person of His Son–that I was only to look and I should live at once?
It was even so and I did look! My burden passed away and from that hour
I can say what Cowper has so sweetly said in the hymn–
"Ever since by faith I saw the stream
Your flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming lo ve has been my theme,
And shall be tiil I die."
Oh, what a bottle of balm that is–redeeming love! How sweetly it drops
into the soul! The Lord shows the wounded man that though he is full of
sin, He can put that sin away without any violation of Justice when the
soul believes in Jesus! Now let the balm drop a minute. "All we like
sheep have gone astray: we have turned everyone to his own way"– that
fact gives us wounds. But now, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity
of us all"–no balm of Gilead was ever so potent as that!
Poor guilty Sinner, if you will now trust Christ, your sin is yours no
longer! It was laid 1,800years ago upon the back of Christ, your great
Surety! He was punished for it and He has cast it into the depths of
the sea. You are forgiven, go in peace! Here is another drop of
balm–When a man is wounded he feels that he cannot help himself–but
then there comes in this precious Truth–the Spirit of God can do it!
God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son and that Spirit helps our
infirmities so that, though we know not what we should pray for as we
ought, that Spirit is waiting to help us to pray!
O you wounded ones, may the great Spirit show you at this time the
Person of the dear Son of God–God and Man! May He show you that Person
wounded, covered with a bloody sweat and put to death! And may He
sweetly whisper in your ear tonight, "He was your Substitute–He bore
that you might never bear the wrath of God." Then you will say as you
go out of this house, "He can heal, for He has healed me. He has made
me leave my despair and even my doubts behind me. Now will I sing unto
my Beloved a song–
' Jesus has become at length My salvation and my strength.'"
So have I preached to you nothing but God in Christ Jesus and I am glad
to have Him to preach to you. Suppose that there is a bad young man
here at this time who has left his home and run away from his father?
He has done wrong, very wrong, and, instead of going to a tender loving
father and saying, "Father, forgive me," he is afraid of punishment
and, therefore, he has run away. There is an advertisement for him in
the paper, inviting him to come home. Now, what has he to do to be
right with his father? This poor, wandering, wayward, lost boy has got
among the very scum of London and he is being ruined and starved to
death. What must he do?
Boy, you must go home to your father! Go home to your father! He loves
you; he is pining for you; he is grieved at heart about you! Oh, if he
saw you tonight, it would break his heart to see you in your rags! He
wants you to come home! Do you not see that it would be very foolish
for that lad to say, "I shall get into an institution," or, "I shall
try to earn money." Your father is rich, good, wise and kind–the best
thing you can do is to go home to your father! Going home to your
father, all will be right.
Now, take up the parable. All of us have left our Father and have
journeyed into a far country. We shall never get right, again, except
by going back to Him from whom we have gone astray. And Jesus–God in
Christ Jesus–is waiting to welcome us! He is grieving over us right
now! We have only to go to Him, for He says that He will never cast out
one that comes to Him. "I do not know how He can receive me," says one.
Well, go anyway and try Him! "I cannot pray."
You can pray, dear Friend. "But not properly." Do not try to pray
properly. Pray your heart out, as you can, and ask to be helped.
I know that some poor souls are in such a state that they would be glad
if we would write them out a prayer. I was talking only a little while
ago to one in distress and he said to me, "Oh, Mr. Spurgeon, you do not
know how ignorant we are and when we are under a sense of sin, you do
not know how foolish we are. If you would sometimes put the very words
into our mouths it would do us good." And I thought he was right,
because I find the Lord saying in Scripture, "Take with you words and
say"–and He tells them what to say. Come now, poor Soul, if you want
to find God, let us pray a minute:
"O God, save us, for You alone can do it. Of Your great mercy heal our
wounds, or else we must bleed to death. We cast ourselves upon Your
promise in Christ Jesus Your Son–grant us now Your salvation, we
beseech You, for His sake! Amen."
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Deuteronomy32:1-39. HYMNS FROM
"OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–187, 233, 235.
LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:
DEAR FRIENDS–I had intended to be home to preach on April 6, but as
dear friends at home press me to make the rest longer, I have so far
yielded as to wait here another week. And I now propose to be home on
the 13th of April. My knees are still feeble, but in all other respects
I feel fit to return. Moreover, I long to be preaching in my own pulpit
among my own people and I must come home, though I somewhat dread the
cold weather. Please pray for me, that I may have an active mind in a
body which will allow of its full exercise and that the blessing of God
may rest on my future labors far more than on those of past years. I
find that funds are coming in very slowly for the College and the
Colportage has a pressing need. Earnest fellow workers will only need
to know this. Yours to serve in love for Jesus' sake,
C. H. SPURGEON,
Mentone, March 20, 1879
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The Three Whats