Jonah's Resolve–or, "Look Again!"
(No. 1813)
A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, DECEMBER 14, 1884,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Then I said, I am cast out of Your sight; yet I will look again toward
Your holy Temple." Jonah 2:4.
WHAT a complex creature is man! Those who fancy that they can fully
describe him, do not understand him. He is a riddle and a
contradiction. As says Ralph Erskine–
"I'm in my own and others' eyes A labyrinth of mysteries."
Here, for instance, is a confession from David. "So foolish was I, and
ignorant: I was as a beast before You. Nevertheless I am continually
with You: You have held me by my right hand" (Psa. 73:22, 23). Paul
says, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of
this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom. 7:24,
25). He is strengthened with all might by the Spirit of God in the
inner man and yet he is weakness itself! In the text before us, Jonah
appears to be in a despairing condition–"I am cast out of Your sight,"
but still he has hope, for he resolves, "Yet I will look again toward
Your holy Temple." Everything seems lost and yet, as long as a man can
look to God, nothing is lost! God cannot see him, so he thinks, yet he
talks about looking towards God–this is amazing, is it not? It is as
if he said, "I am cast out of Your sight and yet You are the Object of
my sight."
I do not know of a more gloomy sentence that human lips can speak than
this–"I am cast out of Your sight." I do not know of a more hopeful
resolution that the human heart can determine upon than this–"Yet I
will look again toward Your holy Temple." Oh, untried and inexperienced
Brothers and Sisters, be not at all disconcerted when you cannot
comprehend yourself! On the contrary, take it as one of the evidences
that there is a Divine life within you when you become a mystery to
yourself! If, like a schoolboy, you can draw your own likeness on a
slate with a piece of pencil and can say, "This is all myself," why,
then you will be rubbed out and your image will be forgotten! But an
immortal and divinely-inhabited spirit which is to survive sun, moon
and stars is not so readily sketched. While you are brother to the worm
and akin to corruption, you are, nevertheless, nearly related to Him
that sits on the Eternal Throne! Vast regions of wonder-land lie
between your condition, as the abject prey of Death, and your portion
as an heir of God by Christ Jesus. Manhood is a great deep. I set it
not side by side with the fathomless abyss of Godhead, but I know of
nothing else which surpasses it.
Our text, next, leads me to observe that faith in the child of God,
whatever may be his circumstances, still comes to the front. Here is
Jonah in such a wretched condition that he says, "I am cast out of Your
sight." And yet, despite this, he declares, "Yet I will look again
toward your holy temple." The huge Atlantic wave comes rolling on–it
sweeps not only over the feet and breast of Faith, but it rises far
above her head–and, for the moment, Faith seems to be drowned. Wait an
instant and with her face ruddy from the wave and her locks streaming
from the flood, Faith lifts up her head again and cries, "Yet I will
look again toward Your holy Temple." Write Faith's motto–INVICTA–she
always rides forth upon the white horse, conquering and to conquer!
Faith is the child of the Omnipotent and shares in His Omnipotence! She
is born of the Eternal and she possesses His immortality!
You may crush and grind her, but every fragment lives. You may cast her
into the fire, but she cannot be burned, neither can the smell of fire
pass upon her! You may hurl her into the great deeps but she is bound
to rise again. Faith has eyes that were made to drink in the sunlight
and, so long as God is a Sun, there will be eyes of faith to rejoice in
Him! If we have faith, there is that in us which overcomes the world,
baffles Satan, conquers sin, rules life and abolishes death. All things
are possible to him that believes. Faith triumphs in every place,
notwithstanding that her life is one of contin-
ued trial. Sense is broken like a potter's vessel and reason is frail
as a spider's web, but Faith abides and grows–and reigns in the power
of the Most High!
Please observe, for it may be for the comfort of some here present,
that Jonah was in a position altogether unique and yet his faith stood
him in good stead. You have read of Joseph in the dungeon, but his
imprisonment was nothing compared with the entombment of Jonah in the
belly of a fish! You have read of Job on a dunghill in utter misery–it
is a sorry plight–but there are many Jobs in one Jonah if we reckon by
present misery and distress! To lie as a living man in a living
sculpture was horrible. Jonah, no doubt, suffered from those
inconveniences which, apart from miracle, would have ended his life
right speedily. A dark, stifling, pestilential cell would have been
preferable to the stomach of a shark, or whatever great fish it may
have been which had swallowed him. The amazing thing is that he was
aware of his position and knew when the monster dived to the sea
bottom, when it passed through a meadow of seaweed, when it neared some
great mountain and when, again, it rose to the surface! This makes the
miracle all the more striking, for one is apt to imagine that the man
must have lain dormant, or at least, must, in a measure, have been
unconscious while in such singular hiding. His position was such as
never mortal man had known before or since.
Now, it sometimes happens that singularity gives a sting to sorrow.
When a man believes that nobody has ever suffered as he is doing, he
concludes his case to be well-near hopeless. Dear tried Friend, you
cannot say this with any certainty, I am sure, for you have comrades
with you in your every grief. But Jonah could say it with absolute
truthfulness–he was where no man had been before and where no man has
been since–and still to be alive. His trial was all his own. No
stranger intermeddled in it. In his affliction, he had no predecessor
and no successor. He was the first and the last that for three days and
nights had dwelt in the belly of a fish! He was singular to the last
degree and yet–here is the blessedness of it–his faith was equal to
his position!
You cannot banish Faith, her home is everywhere! You have seen upon the
Manx penny, the three legs which must always stand–turn the coin
whichever way you please! Such is faith–throw it wherever you may, it
always falls on its feet. If faith is in a little child, it gives the
child wisdom beyond its years. If it is in a decrepit old man, it makes
him strong out of feebleness. If it is faith in solitude, it blesses a
man with the best of company. If it is faith in the midst of
adversaries, it brings to a man the best of friends. Faith in weakness
makes us strong! In poverty it makes us rich and in death makes us
live! Get a firm confidence in God and you need not enquire what is
going to happen–all must be well with you. Winding or straight, up
hill or down dale, or through the fire or through the sea, if you
believes, your road is the King's highway!
If faith does not fail, nothing fails. Faith arms a man from head to
foot with mail through which neither sword, nor spear, nor poisoned
arrow can ever pierce. Though it is forged upon the anvil of the
devil's greatest subtlety, no weapon can prosper against you, O true
Believer! You are as safe as He in whom you believes, for, "He shall
cover you with His feathers and under His wings shall you trust. His
truth shall be your shield and buckler." If I might, at this time, help
any child of God who is in trouble, into a solid rest in God, I should
be, indeed, delighted. Oh that the ever blessed Spirit would help me to
that end! Carefully note, first, the verdict of sense–"I am cast out
of Your sight." And, secondly, the resolve of faith–"Yet I will look
again toward Your holy Temple." These, remember, were both found in one
man at one time.
I. First, here is THE VERDICT OF SENSE. Please notice that it comes
first in the text. Sense hurriedly decides, "I am cast out of Your
sight." It is noteworthy that unbelief is always first to speak.
Whenever David observes, "I said in my haste," you will notice that
something is to be confessed which was unwise and untrue. Unbelief
cannot wait, it must have its say–it blabs out all its silly soul at
its earliest opportunity! In your own case, if you can be calm and
patient, you will speak to God's Glory, but if you are hasty and
petulant and must talk as soon as the trial comes upon you, it is
almost an absolute certainty that you will say what you will be glad to
unsay! Our hasty words are often dipped in wormwood and handed back to
us that we may eat them! Hold still a while, my Brothers and Sisters,
or, if you must speak, speak to your God and not against Him–speak to
your God and not to yourself.
Soliloquies are frequently an increase of woe. The heart ferments and
heats itself, creating an inward fever which parches the soul. If a
vessel needs vent, it is not helped by being stirred within itself, yet
such is the case when we say with David, "I pour out my soul in me."
Better is that word, "You people, pour out your heart before Him," even
before the living God! Brothers and Sisters, speak not to yourself,
lest you seem to be a madman–you may vex your soul exceed-
ingly by those lone maunderings–speak to your God! Even if you utter
hasty words and words of unbelief, they are better uttered in His
Presence than muttered within your own heart. He will hear them in
either case, but when He perceives that in your spirit there is no
guile, though much impatience, He will freely forgive you all your
childish error of too hasty speech and help you to bear up under your
woe. Speak, for silence slays! But speak to God, for He is full of
compassion. Take the warning of the text, however, and be slow to
murmur, remembering that the carnal nature is ever swift to speak and
sure to speak amiss.
This verdict of sense, in the next place, was apparently very correct.
"I said, I am cast out of Your sight." Did it not seem so? Jonah had
tried to get away from God and God had pursued him with a tempest and
almost broken the ship to pieces in order to be at him. As the result
of the tempest, Jonah had been hurled into the sea and in the sea a
great fish had swallowed him and he had been carried down till the
floods compassed him about. Did not all his surroundings confirm his
suspicion that he was a castaway? Could he expect, ever again, that the
Word of the Lord would come to Jonah, the son of Amittai? Could he
hope, ever again, to stand with the joyful multitude that kept holy day
in the courts of the Lord's house, or to present his sacrifice of
thanksgiving upon Jehovah's altar? No, if he judged by his feelings, he
was shut up to the conclusion which he expressed.
There remained nothing for him but bare life and that in such a
condition that one could hardly desire to have it continued. He
reckoned, with abundant show of reason, that he must be cast out of
God's sight. Yet it was not so and, therefore, I invite those of you
who have begun to judge your God by what you feel and by what you see,
to revise your judgment–and in the future to be very diffident as to
your power to come to any just conclusion as to God's dealings with
you! Thank God, you will be wrong if you despair. It is much better for
you to show your faith by relying on your God than to display your
folly by saying, "I am cast out."
As this verdict of sense seemed to be correct, Jonah must have felt
that it was assuredly deserved. If the Lord had dealt with Jonah
according to his sins, he would have been a castaway. He had hurried to
Joppa and taken a passage in a ship to go to Tarshish, or anywhere
else, to flee from the Presence of God. Now, what was a fitter
punishment for him than that he should be cast out from the sight of
God? Had not this been his inquiry at Joppa, "Where shall I go from
Your Spirit?" Was not this his demand, "Where shall I flee from Your
Presence?" Now he has his answer–he is carried down till the depth
closed him round about! His waywardness had come home to him–he had
been paid in his own coin and what could Jonah feel, but that he was
filled with his own ways? Had he died in the sea, he could not have
doubted the Lord's justice. If he had been driven away as an outcast,
it would have been righteous retribution to a runaway who refused his
Master's service. This must have made him doubly sorrowful! A guilty
conscience is the most sour ingredient of all. When each wave howled in
Jonah's ear, "You deserve it," he was in an evil plight, indeed.
One sharp part of Jonah's misery was that God's hand was so evidently
in his misery. He sees it and trembles. Observe how he ascribes all to
God–"You have cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the
floods compassed me about; all Your billows and Your waves passed over
me." We can bear a blow from an enemy, but a wound from our best friend
is difficult! If the Lord, Himself, goes forth against us, the war is
one to tremble at! If the messenger of grief is commissioned by
Jehovah, Himself, and we know it–mere carnal reason concludes that all
is finally over–and that henceforth all we can do is to sit down and
die! Faith thinks not so, but this is after the manner of flesh and
sense.
Observe that this verdict of sense, "I am cast out from God," was very
bitter to Jonah. You can see by the way in which he speaks that it is a
heavy burden to him and yet it seems strange that it should be so. Here
is a man who, when he was in a wrong state of heart, sought to flee
from the Presence of the Lord and, therefore, went to the seacoast on
purpose; rejoiced to find a ship bound for a distant and almost unknown
land; paid the fare to sail therein of set purpose that he might get
away from God–and now that he thinks he is away from God, he is filled
with horror and dismay! By this we know the children of God–even at
their worst estate.
Oh, you that are the people of God, you may sometimes, in your
willfulness, wish that you could get away from the all-searching eyes
of God, but if you could do so it would be Hell for you! If you are a
child of God, you must dwell in the Presence of God. It is your life
and you cannot be happy anywhere else. Oh, redeemed, regenerate man, it
is impossible, now, for your once renewed spirit ever to be happy in
the beggarly elements of your former condition! Except in the Divine
atmosphere of heavenly love there is no rest for you. You are spoiled
for this world, O heir of the world to come!
There was a time when its dainties would have been sweet to your taste
and your soul could have been filled with them, but that day is over,
now–you must eat the Bread of Heaven or starve!
If you are not happy in your God, you are doomed to be happy nowhere.
There is no choice left for you. Your very nature is so affected, now,
that as the needle rests not unless it points to the pole, so can your
heart never be quiet except in Jesus! The light of His Countenance must
be light to you, or you must walk in darkness! Your music must come
from Jesus' lips, or else there is nothing for you but wailing and
gnashing of teeth! Your Heaven must be in His embrace– there is no
Heaven elsewhere for you! Nor would we wish to have it different. I am
sure I can say from my very soul that if God would leave me, it would
be to me a Hell worse than Dante or Milton could imagine! What if I
still had to pursue my holy calling and to preach! What woe to preach
without Him! What a hollow mockery! If I were bound to continue the
outward form of prayer and of a moral life, what vanity of vanities
would it all be without my Lord!
Without God? Brothers, Sisters, can you bear the thought? It is not the
pang of Hell, nor its fires, nor its undying worm, nor anything else
that can be pictured of amazing terror that causes such alarm as the
bare thought of being severed from God! To be cast out from His sight
were Hell, indeed! Now, I should think that if Jonah had been in a calm
state of mind and had been able to consider things in the light of the
Truth of God, it ought to have given him some ground of hope that he
was not cast out from God, after all, because he was so unhappy at the
idea of being so cast out. Will the Lord leave a soul that is
distressed by such leaving? No spirit is wholly cast off from God if it
longs after God. If you can be content without God, you are, indeed, a
lost one! But if there is in you a wretched rankling discontent at the
very thought of being severed from your God, then you are His and He is
yours–and no eternal division shall come between you and Him!
Thus I have brought out somewhat the force of this verdict of sense–"I
am cast out of Your sight." But I want you, further, to notice that it
was not true. There was ground for grief, but not for this despairing
inference. The verdict was not sustained by sufficient evidence. It was
a great deal more than Jonah should have said, "I am cast out of Your
sight." What? Alive in the sea, Jonah? Alive in the deep? Alive in the
belly of a fish? And you say that you are cast out from God's sight!
Surely if God were anywhere in the world, it were in that great fish!
Where else could there have been surer proof of His present power and
Godhead than in keeping a man alive in a living morgue? There was a
constant standing miracle for three days and nights! And where there is
a miracle, there is God most visibly seen! If Jonah could have asked
the seas and asked the deep places of the earth, they would have told
him that the Lord was not far away. If he could have asked the fish,
itself, it would have acknowledged that God was there!
If those who go down to the sea in ships, see the works of the Lord and
His wonders in the deep, much more might he have seen them who went
into the sea in a fish's belly! There is a text that Jonah could never
have heard, which I commend to you against the time when you get to be
where Jonah was. I do not suppose you will ever be literally buried
alive in a fish, but you may spiritually sink as deep as the Prophet
did. What is that text? "Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast
out" (John 6:37). Jonah said, "I am cast out"–but that was not true.
Poor Jonah! The mariners cast him out, but God did not–he was cast out
of the ship, but not out of the sight of God! The Lord of old was
faithful and it was His rule never to cast away His people. Even as
David says, "For the Lord will not cast off forever: but though He
causes grief, yet will He have compassion, according to the multitude
of His mercies."
Mark the text I quoted from our Lord's own lips–"Him that comes to Me
I will by no means cast out." Never question this sacred Word of God!
He will never, never cast out a single one that trusts Him! So that if
ever you should be in a condition which seems, to you, quite as forlorn
as that of this Prophet in the midst of the sea, you may yet be sure
that you are not cast off, nor cast out. He who says he is cast out,
says more than can possibly be true since the Infallible promise is,
"Him that comes to Me I will by no means cast out." It is not for us to
forge a lie against the God of the whole earth! He does not speak that
which is false, but out of His mouth proceeds Truth. Even if all things
in earth and Hell should swear that the Lord has cast away one of His
own believing people, it will be our duty to disbelieve them all, for
it is impossible that He should cast out any Believer, for any reason
or motive whatever!
II. Follow me, dear Friends, and may the Lord make it profitable to you
while I dwell during the rest of my time upon THE RESOLVE OF FAITH. Oh
that the Holy Spirit may work in us "like precious faith" with Jonah!
"Yet," Jonah says, "even if I am cast out, yet I will look again toward
Your holy Temple." Jonah was a man of God when he was in his worst
state of mind–at no time was the eternal life quite extinct within
him. An ugly kind of saint this Jonah, when
he was in the sulks! A proud, self-conscious, willful and morose
being–hard to love! Yet, as an oyster may bear a precious pearl within
its rough shell, so did the harsh Prophet contain, within his being, a
priceless jewel of faith–faith eminent, prevalent, triumphant–faith
of the highest degree!
This faith put him upon prayer. The chapter begins, "Then Jonah prayed
unto the Lord his God out of the fish's belly." Jonah had not prayed
when he went down to Joppa. He had taken the management of himself into
his own hands and referred nothing to God as to that rash voyage. How
could he pray in such a temper? He paid his fare to go to Tarshish–he
did not pray God's blessing on that expenditure, I am quite sure. When
the sea began to work and was tempestuous, he was in the sides of the
ship, but he did not pray. No, he went to sleep! His conscience had
become stupid and seared as with a hot iron–there was no prayer in
him–but there was a certain numbness of mind and lethargy of heart.
And now he gets into the fish's belly, a very close, dead place, where
one would think he would lie in a state of coma, or in a sort of
fainting fit, if it were possible for him to live at all! Yet there he
begins to pray. You will find God's children praying where you thought
they would despair and, on the other hand, you may discover that they
do not pray where you thought they would abound in supplication. "Oh,"
says one man, "if I could have my time all to myself and had not the
worry of this family and this business, what a deal of time I would
spend in prayer!" Would you? I would not guarantee your abundant
devotion!
Some of those who have least time for prayer, pray most, and those who
have most opportunity and everything congenial, are too often found to
be most slack in their petitions. Jonah's oratory was narrow and this
pressed the prayer out of him. He did not pray in the sides of the
ship, where he had room enough and to spare. He prayed where he could
not get upon his knees, or hear his own voice. Laid out in his living
coffin, he began his pleading. One would think it hard to make the
belly of Hell, the gate of Heaven, but Jonah did. He prays and one of
the surest evidences of a living faith is prayer. If you cannot do
anything else, you can pray–and if you are a child of God, you will as
surely pray as a man breathes or as a child cries–you cannot help it!
Prayer is your vital breath, your native air. Whether on the land or in
the sea, prayer is your life and you cannot exist without it if you
are, indeed, born from on high. Answer, dear Hearer, is it not so? It
is not the prayer-boo^, but the prayer-faith that we must have! Have
you such faith?
I beg you to notice, however, that this faith of Jonah showed itself
not in prayer to God in general, but the passage runs, "Then Jonah
prayed unto the Lord HIS God." There is a mint of meaning here! If you
go upstairs and pray to God, as everybody's God, you have done what
every Jack, Tom and Harry may do. But to go to your closet and cry to
the Lord as your own God is what none but an heir of Grace can do. Oh
to cry–"My Father and my Friend! My God in Covenant! My God to whom I
have spoken years ago and from whom I have heard full many a time! You
whom I love! You who loves me, Jehovah, my God!"
This laying hold upon God as our own God is a business which the
outer-court worshipper knows nothing of. Have some of you got a God at
all? "Oh," you say, "I know there is a God." Yes, I know there is a
bank, too, but that does not make me rich! What is your God to me? I
want to say, "my God," or I cannot be happy! Have you a God to
yourself, all to yourself, for if it is so, you will pray the prayer of
faith when you draw near to Him–and this will prove that whatever your
condition may be, you are not cast out from the sight of the Most High!
There is one thing about Jonah I want you particularly to notice, that
as his faith made him pray and made him pray to the Lord, his God, his
faith made him deal familiarly with holy Scripture. "What?" you
ask–"how do you know that?" He had but a small Bible compared with
ours, but he had laid much of it up in his memory. Evidently he loved
the Book of Psalms, for his prayer is full of David's expressions.
Kindly look at Jonah's prayer. I think I am right in saying that there
are no less than seven extracts from the Psalms in that prayer and its
preface. It was Jonah's own prayer and no man compiled it for him, for
he was far away from the haunts of men. Yet his heart led him to his
former readings and his memory came to his aid with expressions most
suitable and forcible, borrowed from a former much tried servant of the
Lord.
A deep experience is bound to resort to Scripture for its expression.
Human compositions suffice for surface work, but when all God's waves
and billows have gone over us, we quote a Psalm. When our soul faints
within us, we are not to be revived by human songs, but we turn to the
grave sweet melodies of Inspiration. When a true child of God is in
trouble, it is wonderful how dear the Bible becomes to him–yes, the
very words of it! I say the very words of it, for I care
nothing about the scorn which attaches to a belief in, "Verbal
Inspiration." If the words are not Inspired, neither is the sense,
since there can be no sense apart from the words. My soul knows what it
is to hang her hope upon a single Word of God and to find her trust
accepted! I would not even change the expression of our translation in
many places–not that I am bound by a translation, for God's original
is that which we accept as Infallible, but yet there are translations
which are evidently accurate, for the Lord's own Spirit has made them
unutterably dear to His saints.
There are circumstances connected with the very words of many a text
and with God's dealing with us through those words–and in such
instances we cling even to the English text with all our might. I think
you will find that tried saints are the most Biblical saints. In summer
weather we delight in hymns, but in winter's storms we fly to Psalms.
Your frothy professors quote Dickens or George Eliot, but God's
afflicted quote David or Job! Those Psalms are marvelous! David seems
to have lived for us all–he was not so much one man as all men in one.
Somewhere or other, the great circle of his experience touches yours
and mine–and the Holy Spirit, by David, has furnished us with the best
expressions which we can utter before the Lord in prayer. Give me the
faith which loves the Scriptures! Faith comes by hearing and hearing by
the Word of God–and true faith always loves the Word from which it
sprang–it feeds thereon and grows thereby!
In proportion as people begin to criticize the Scriptures and to doubt
the authenticity of this and that–in that proportion they move out of
the latitude of faith. The region of criticism is cold as the polar
seas. Faith loves a warmer atmosphere. The faith of God's elect clings
to God and reverences His Word. By every Word that proceeds out of the
mouth of God shall man live–and upon such meat Jonah lived where
others would have died.
I desire to come close up to my text, while I bid you note that faith
dares come to God with a, "yet." Jonah said, "Yet I will look again
toward Your holy Temple." Faith in her worst circumstances trusts God.
Clog her, load her, shut her up, yet she looks to God, alone! "O God, I
trusted You once when I was but young and I felt my need of a Savior! I
came to You, then, and, by Your Grace I looked to Jesus and found peace
at once! But then I did not know the evil of sin as I know it now."
What then? Why, with this new knowledge, yet will I look to Jesus! I
did not know, then, the depravity of my heart as I know it now, but yet
with this fresh sense of guilt I will, by God's Grace, look as at the
first! I did not know, then, Your great and exceeding wrath against sin
as I know it now, but yet, with this fuller discovery, I will look to
You. I did not know the burden of life, then, as I know it now. I did
not know the power of Satan over me, then, as I know it now–yet will I
look again unto Your holy Temple!
With all these new weights and fresh encumbrances I do, today, by Your
Grace, what I did many years ago–I throw myself on You, my Lord, and
trust in Your matchless plan of salvation through the precious blood of
Christ! It charmed me once, it charms me yet again. This is the
perseverance and determination of Faith. She leaps over all walls and
dashes through all hedges with her, "yet." Come what may, she has
looked to Christ and she means to do so whatever may arise to suggest
some other course.
According to the Hebrew, the word should be rendered, "only," instead
of, "yet"–"only I will look again toward Your holy Temple." Faith
looks to God only. Faith comes alone to her God and seeks no company to
keep her in countenance. When we were first saved, it was by faith,
only, and we must still be saved in the same way. In Jonah's case all
props were knocked away–he had nothing to look to in the whale's belly
at the bottom of the sea. But then and there he trusted God and that
was all. He could not think very clearly, nor confess before men.
Neither could he be or do anything, for he was packed away in quarters
too close for action. But he could look again towards the Temple of God
and this, alone, he did!
He could give the faith-look when all looking with the eyes was far out
of the question. How could he tell in which direction to look for the
Temple when all around him rolled the dark sea? His look was inward and
spiritual and he was content to do that, and only that. His state was
looking, looking–only looking. Be it ours to believe, to believe and
yet again to believe! Jonah looked, again, to the place where God
revealed Himself and we look to the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, in
whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily! He looked to the
Mercy Seat sprinkled with the blood of Sacrifice, where the Lord was
known to pardon and bless all suppliant sinners. And we, also, look to
Jesus as the great Propitiation.
To this look we will add nothing as a ground of trust! Jesus only is
our hope and we will only look to Him! We will add nothing to our look,
our look to Christ! He alone is our stay and our comfort. It is a
blessed thing to get clear of all secondary hopes and to live by faith
alone. Mixtures will not do in the hour of trial. A single eye is what
is needed–the
least division in your trust is painful and dangerous. If you have lost
some of your first light, look again! Look toward His holy Temple at
once and the Light of God shall surely return to you!
Do you notice here that faith is driven to do according to her first
acts–"Yet I will look again." You know faith is described in other
ways beside looking. It is taking, grasping, possessing, feeding, but
faith, first of all, is looking, and so, whenever you fall into
grievous trouble, it will be wise to resort to the beginning of your
confidence and hold it fast to the end. If you cannot grasp, yet look!
There are several grades of faith and when you cannot reach the higher
grade, it will be wise to enter fully into the lower one. Remember, the
lowest form of faith will save–and even the smallest measure of faith
is effectual for salvation, though not for consolation. Look! Look to
Jesus! "There is life in a look." There is Heaven in a look. "Look unto
Me and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." Look! If you cannot go
forth to fight by faith, stand still and look by faith. If you cannot
declare the glory of the Lord, yet look! If you cannot tell what God
has done for you, yet keep on looking by faith to see what God will do
for you! Do your first work and, as your first work was a simple look
at the Crucified One, look again to Him!
With this I shall close, urging dear friends here present, even if they
forget all the rest of my text, to remember those two words, "Look
again." If any of you are in trouble, I will bid you go home with only
these two words ringing in your ears, "Look again!" If you did look
once, but have fallen into new darkness, look again! I mean, this
morning, and I would ask you to follow me in it–to look to my Lord
Jesus Christ, again, as I did at the first. It is frequently a great
benefit to overhaul the foundations and begin again at the beginnings.
I looked to Christ 33 years ago, or more–and so did some of you. But
the devil may say, "Your faith was fancy; your conversion was a
delusion." Be it so, O Satan! We will not dispute with you, but we will
begin again from this moment!
It is such a mercy that faith does not need to grow old before it saves
us–the faith born this moment saves the soul in its very birth! Is it
so, that your faith is not more than five minutes old, my Brothers and
Sisters? Have you only just begun to trust Christ? Well, your faith has
saved you quite as effectually as the faith of a man who has believed
in Christ for 50 years! We must believe anew each day–yesterday's
believing will not do for today. Let us now look to Jesus Christ upon
the Cross and trust Him, this morning, as if we never trusted Him
before. "I will look again toward Your holy Temple." It will do each
man good to look anew to that Cross which is the sole hope of his soul.
There is nothing more sweetening to the spirit than to confess sin and
accept mercy in the original style–and to go to Jesus anew just as we
went at first. Let us do so at this moment!
A person proudly said, the other day, that he could no longer sing–
"I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my All in
All." He had got beyond that! Highty tighty, here's a fine fellow! He
has just risen from the dunghill and is come to be a grand gentleman
all at once! Nothing will do for him but–
"See the conquering hero comes, Sound the trumpets; beat the drums."
Alas, for the top-lofty hypocrite! Shame on the proud self-magnifier!
If he did but know himself, he would confess his nothingness with a
deeper emphasis than ever–and he would, like the publican, cry–"God
be merciful to me, a sinner!" I believe that as a child of God grows in
sanctification, he deepens in humility. And as he advances to
perfection, he sinks in his own esteem. Oh that men would give over
that bladder-blowing which seems to be so much admired in certain
quarters! We have had much occasion to mourn over the lower life of
some professors, but the higher life of others is not a bit better–it
is false, proud, censorious, and unpractical!
Those who boast of perfection will have much to grieve over when once
they come to their senses and stand in truth before the living God! No
man talks of living without sin till he is taken in the net of
self-deception! I have walked with God for many years and enjoyed the
light of His countenance, but my experience is that I am, this day,
obliged to take a far lower place before Him than ever I took before,
while–
"Less than nothing I can boast, And vanity confess."
Brothers and Sisters, whether you will do so or not, I flee to the
Cross again! In the Rock of Ages I again hide myself! Who among us
dares to come forth from that Divine shelter? "Jesus, lover of our
soul, let us to Your bosom fly." Let all of us sing as though it were
for the first time–
"Just as I am–without one plea But that Your blood was shed for me,
And that You bid me come to You,
O Lamb of God, I come."
Dear Friends, it is due to God, it is due to Christ, it is due to the
Gospel that we should, every day, believe with the same simplicity of
undivided trust. Keep on believing in Christ, "to whom coming as unto a
living stone." We are to live by faith! You may be quite sure that you
are permitted to do this, for Christ is always a sinner's Savior. If
you cannot come to Him as saints, come to Him as sinners! If your
unfitness for fellowship as a servant comes before your mind and breaks
your heart, yet remember that you may always return as a prodigal son!
If you cannot feed in green pastures as sheep of the fold, yet yield to
the strong hand of Him who seeks the lost sheep. If you cannot come to
Jesus as you should, yet come just as you are. If your garments are not
clean as they should be, yet come and wash them white in the blood of
the Lamb.
This ought to be done more readily by us every day, for it should be a
growingly easy thing to believe our God as experience proves His
faithfulness. When we are at our worst, let us trust with unshaken
faith. Remember that then is the time when we can most glorify God by
faith. To trust Christ when you have a shallow sense of sin, when your
heart is glad and your face is bright, is but a slender trusting Him.
But to believe that He can cleanse you when your heart is black as
Hell–when you cannot see one good trait in all your character, when
you see nothing but fault and imperfection about your entire life, when
all your outward circumstances seem to speak of an angry God and all
your inward feelings threaten you with doom from His right hand–this
is to believe, indeed! Such faith the Lord deserves of you.
Oh, if you are only a little sinner, a little Savior and a little faith
may serve your turn. If you have but little fear and a little burden,
and little care, and little need–why then you cannot greatly prove or
trust your Lord! But if you are up to your neck in sorrow, yes, if you
are drowned in it as Jonah was, and are driven well-near to despair,
then you have a great God and you should glorify Him by greatly
trusting Him! If you are tempted to lay violent hands upon yourself, or
to do some other rash and evil deed, do no such thing, but trust
yourself with your God and this will give Him more Glory than seraphim
and cherubim can do.
To believe in the promise of God, as you read it in His Word, is a
grand thing. To believe it though you are sick and sorry–though ready
to die–this is to glorify the Lord! Brothers and Sisters, if I live, I
will believe the promise! If I die I will believe the promise! And when
I rise again I will believe the promise! Let us resolve to believe
though the world is in flames and the pillars thereof are removed. Let
us believe though the sun is turned into darkness and the moon into
blood! Let us believe though all the powers of the earth are marshaled
in fight and Gog and Magog gather themselves together to battle. Let us
believe though the trumpet sounds for judgment and the Great White
Throne is set in the open Heaven!
Why should we doubt? The Covenant confirmed by promise and by oath–and
ratified with the blood of Jesus– places every Believer under the
broad shield of Divine Truth–so what cause can there be for fear? O my
Hearer, do you believe in Christ? Do you trust your God? If you can
stand to that, you are not only a saved man, but you already give glory
to God. So may He help you to do. Amen.