The Private Tutor
(No. 1842)
A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 24, 1885,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"He that loves Me not keeps not My sayings: and the Word which you hear
is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me. These things have I spoken
unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you
all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, Whatever I have
said unto you." John 14:24-26.
ALL through this thrice-blessed chapter, man cuts a very sorry figure.
Whoever it is that speaks, whether it is Philip, or Judas, or Thomas,
each one displays his own ignorance, either by asking an unwise
question or by making a mistaken request. Yet, Brothers and Sisters,
these Apostolic men were, by no means, inferior persons, but so
superior that we sink into insignificance in comparison with them!
Jesus made them heralds of His Gospel, master-builders of His Church
and, if they displayed such ignorance, even when the Lord Jesus Christ,
Himself, had personally spoken to them, we must not wonder that we are
apt to blunder. Neither should we despair if we find ourselves dull and
slow. If those fathers of the Church so greatly needed to be taught of
the Holy Spirit, how much more do we? If they could receive nothing
except by the Spirit of God, how can we hope to be wise apart from His
instructions? Our position should be sitting with Mary at the Master's
feet, varied with bowing into the dust before the Lord under a humble
sense of our folly. The chapter before us is well watered with streams
of comfort, but I confess it is always a valley of humiliation to me,
as I see what poor creatures even the chief of saints are when left to
themselves.
But, at the same time, how wonderfully, throughout this passage, do we
see the loving kindness of our God in condescending to the weaknesses
of His people. In one verse of our text, the 26th, we have the whole
Trinity at work upon the Believer–"The Comforter, which is the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name." There we have the Holy
Spirit, the Father and the Son, uniting Their sacred energies for the
illumination of the chosen! Each Divine Person seeks to make the Other
to be more fully known–the Son speaking what He hears from the
Father–and the Spirit taking the things of the Son and revealing them
to us! The whole Trinity working in us to will and to do according to
the Divine pleasure. What we are, my Brothers and Sisters, is of small
consequence compared with what He is who works all our works in us!
What if we are nothing but clay? The great Potter knows how to fashion
us to His praise. The great item is not what the clay is, but what the
Potter can make out of it. Let us not despond because of what we are by
nature, but let us rejoice as we remember the wisdom and power of God
who has begun a good work in us and will not cease from His working
till He has perfected His design! We must comfort one another with
these thoughts. Lie low and be more and more teach-able–but be
hopeful, for you shall be taught. Confess your own ignorance, but
confide in the Lord's power to teach you. Rest assured that even for
you there is a noble destiny–God shall reveal Himself to you and in
you–and you shall not only know for yourself, but shall declare to
principalities and powers in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of
God!
In handling my text at this time, I desire to be entirely under the
power of the Spirit of God. Not with enticing words of man's wisdom
would I preach. Not with the garnishing of oratory would I foolishly
dream of lending power to the Omnipotent Word of God, but with all
simplicity I would speak plainly that which the Holy Spirit teaches by
our text.
It appears to me that there are three things, here, worthy of patient
observation. One is, the test of a true Believer– "He that loves Me
not keeps not My sayings." A second is, the need of a true Believer–he
needs to be taught of the Holy
Spirit and to have his memory refreshed by the same gracious
Spirit–"He shall bring all things to your remembrance." The best
disciple needs help in his understanding and in his memory. Thirdly,
let us think of the privilege of a true Be-liever–"The Comforter,
which is the Holy Spirit, shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance, whatever I have said unto you."
I. Let us begin with THE TEST OF A TRUE BELIEVER and let each one
consent to be tested. Let each man put himself into the scale that he
may know his weight, for the Lord ponders the heart. He who never
judges himself will perish in the judgment of the Last Great Day.
I would draw your attention to the fact that in this passage and
elsewhere in Scripture, men are divided into two classes and not a word
is said of a neutral or intermediate class. The 21st verse says, "He
that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me." And
the 24th verse says negatively, "He that loves Me not keeps not My
sayings." Evidently there are two sorts of persons in that part of the
world which is visited by the Gospel–he that loves Christ and he that
loves Him not. If you once hear the Gospel, you can never be
indifferent to it. You must either be its friend or its foe, its
disciple or its opposer. If once the Lord Jesus Christ crosses the
orbit of your life, you can never, again, be neutral. You must either
reject Him or receive Him–believe Him or call Him a liar. I would urge
home upon each of you that simple but solemn Truth of God, lest any
person should think himself omitted from the range of my discourse. I
would so spread the net that no fish may remain outside its meshes!
The Gospel must, in the nature of things, be to you who hear it, either
a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. By this Gospel you
shall be judged and it shall either bring you where there is no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, or it shall leave you
where you are condemned, already, because you have not believed upon
the Son of God! Do not, therefore, hope to live and die as if there
were no Christ! Attempt not to say, "He is nothing to me." Though you
pass by the Cross and refuse to look on Christ, yet the Crucified One
looks on you and casts His shadow on your path. His blood will be upon
you, either to cry out against you, as a murderer of the Son of God, or
else to be your cleansing from all sin! As to the Person of your Lord,
it is evident that you either love Him or do not love Him–one of the
two it must be. What is your condition at this hour? Sitting among the
people of God in this house on this Sabbath, are you lovers of the Lord
Jesus, or are you His enemies?
May God bless that stroke of the winnowing fan, so that by it the chaff
may be separated from the wheat. But the test is this, the loving of
Christ. Loving Christ is not the way of salvation–that can only be
ascribed to faith, as it is written, "He that believes on Me has
everlasting life." But the flower which comes out of the seed of faith
is love. And faith is not true faith unless it works by love and so
purifies the heart.
Observe that the love is personal–"He that loves Me not." He speaks
not, here, of love to doctrine, but of love to Himself–"He that loves
Me." There is a personal Christ and He is to be loved by each one of us
individually. Do not think of Christ as an historic person who came and
went away, whose memory may be dear, but who cannot personally be the
object of a present love. If you are truly His disciple and a partaker
of His salvation, you love Him. You realize Him as a living Person–as
much so as your own self, as your dear wife or your near friend–and
your heart, in deed and in truth, is bound to Him. The tendrils of your
affection must lay hold on Jesus, climbing upwards toward God by laying
hold upon His Son. You may not always be able to say that you are sure
that you love Him because your agony to be right may create in you a
painful anxiety and even a morbid jealousy as to your own
sincerity–but you do love Him if you are called by His Grace. But if
you do not love Him, you have never tasted of His power to save.
When I read those words just now, "He that loves Me not," I felt as if
I must repeat the words of Paul and say, "Let him be Anathema
Maranatha"–cursed at the coming of the Lord–for is it not an awful
thing for any heart to refuse to love Jesus? The most lovable of all
beings is Jesus! It is unnatural not to love One so amiable. As streams
of water naturally flow into the lowest part of the valley, so one
would have thought that the condescension of Jesus for our sakes made
it natural for the love of men to run towards Him and concentrate
itself within Him! Alas, our nature is now unnatural and it is only as
the Spirit of God creates a new love in the heart that we yield our
love to the ever-blessed Savior! If we are not lovers of the Lord
Jesus, the Spirit of all Grace has not made us to know and trust
Christ, for if we knew Jesus and trusted Him, our heart must be wedded
to Him. Christ trusted must be Christ loved! We must love God when once
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Judge yourselves, then–do you love Jesus truly and supremely? He says,
"He that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." He
claims the first place in the hearts of His people. He is an
all-engrossing Savior who will never be satisfied till He has
monopolized all our affections and carried our hearts away to abide
with Him in the treasury above. Let it be a matter, then, of personal
trial with each one of you. Hear your risen Lord saying, "Do you love
Me?" Not to Simon, alone, but to you, John, and to you, Mary, He says,
"Do you love Me?" He stands here this morning, as once He stood by the
lake of Galilee, and He puts this loving enquiry to each disciple, "Do
you love Me?" Is His adorable Person the object of your intense regard?
Can you fall at His feet and say, "Lord, You know all things. You know
that I love You. Show me what You would have me to do."
Furthermore, as we look at this text, we observe that, inasmuch as it
is not always possible to gauge the emotions and the affections, a
further test is given us–"He that loves Me not keeps not My sayings."
I may know, therefore, whether I love the Lord Jesus Christ by
answering this further question, Do I keep His sayings? What does this
mean? It means, first, have we a reverent regard for all the teachings
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do we receive them as being our standard of
doctrine and our rule of life? Remember that, in effect, all that is in
the Old Testament as well as in the New must be considered to be the
sayings of Christ, for He says that He came not to destroy the Law, but
to establish it. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one tittle
of the Law shall fail. The whole record of Inspiration is endorsed by
Christ and may be said to be His sayings.
Now, do you accept these sacred Scriptures as your Infallible guide?
Remember, the sayings of Jesus are the Word of the Father. Mark how
Jesus says, "The Word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who
sent Me." I tremble as I see, in this day, such a trifling with the
Word of God–such a haste to criticize this and question that! There
are degrees of inspiration, so we are told, and if that is so, we can
be sure of nothing, since we have, first, to decide some subtle
question as to the measure of the inspiration! As well have no Bible as
such a Bible! Brothers and Sisters, the Word of the Lord shall have no
such treatment from me and I trust it will not be so served by any of
you, for if so, you will rob yourselves of comfort and offer grievous
disrespect to your Divine Lord! I hope we can declare concerning all
His sayings– "Your Word was found and I did eat it, and it was unto me
as my necessary food." More to be desired are these sayings than gold,
yes, than much fine gold–they are sweeter, also, than honey and the
honeycomb. Did a saying come from Christ? Has Jesus set forth a Truth
in these Scriptures? Then it is not ours to judge, not ours to doubt,
but ours to accept with implicit faith! The authority of Jesus stands
to us in the place of reasoning. We so reverence Him that we reverence
His sayings as being the Truth of God, themselves.
To keep His sayings means, further, to make careful storage of them in
the memory. To keep these sayings must mean to lay them up in the
heart. The blessed Virgin "kept all these things, and pondered them in
her heart," and so does every Christian. "Your Word have I hid in my
heart that I might not sin against You." It is a blessed thing when we
are not content to hear God's Word on the Lord's-Day, only, but listen
to its echoes every day in the week. We constantly chew the cud by
meditation and so we are nourished. We delight to know the meaning of
the Word by keeping it continually before our minds. We keep the
heavenly object long before the sensitive plate of our mind till it is
perfectly photographed there and we, ourselves, are changed by it from
glory to glory as by the image of the Lord. Oh, Brothers and Sisters,
unless we reverence the Word and hoard it up as the choicest of
treasures, we have no proof that we love Christ!
Further than this, to keep Christ's sayings must mean that, having
learned them and retained them in the memory, we also further keep them
in the mind by frequent contemplation. There is a great failure in this
respect, I am afraid, among many professors. But those who fervently
love Jesus and are sanctified to His service delight to be much engaged
in meditating upon the sayings of Jesus. Our earthly cares are our
burden, but our heavenly thoughts are our rest. What are human sciences
but glimpses at transient and shadowy things? But spiritual meditation
yields us views of eternal and substantial Truths of God! As I walk
through my house and rejoice in the comforts of my home, I say to
myself, "These are only mine for a little while. God has prolonged my
life, but at any moment these visible things may melt away and I may be
where things are real, though they are now invisible."
Everything that has to do with this world is a vain show! But as for
the world to come, he that has a possession therein has true riches!
Should not our thoughts go most after that which is most? Should we not
give the best of our consideration to that which is best? The most of
our time to that which is not of time, but of eternity? I am sure he
that
loves Jesus delights to think upon the choice Words which fell from His
lips. We sit down under His shadow, for He is to us the Tree of Life
and not a single leaf of His shall wither, nor the least of His sayings
fall to the ground.
Still, I have no doubt that the main meaning of keeping Christ's
sayings is found in obeying Him. Dear Friends, I do not want to say
anything that will be severe, but yet I shall put to you a question
which ought to alarm many professors. Did you ever spend a whole day,
from morning to night, in distinctly and resolutely doing that which
would honor Christ? I do not mean did you give up your business? Did
you quit your family? Such strange conduct would not honor Jesus, but
would do the reverse! But have you, day after day, thought and acted as
if Jesus were your Master and you His servant? Is it habitual with you
to say, "I will only do that which Christ would do if He were in my
place? His example shall be my Law. I will not be ruled by the hope of
personal advantage or selfish comfort–to me the supreme rule shall
be–"What would Jesus do? What would Jesus have me to do?"
I am afraid certain professors fancy that to hold a sound creed, to
attend a faithful ministry and to subscribe, now and then, to
charitable works, is about the whole of religion. But you utterly miss
the mark if you judge such matters to be the chief items of godliness.
The chief matter is to love Christ so that we live for Him and honor
Him by obedience to Him! We cannot serve Christ by following our own
whims. He who follows his own vagaries is a vagrant–only he who obeys
Jesus is His follower. By doing what Jesus bids us–by catching His
Spirit, by seeing things in His way of seeing them and by acting both
towards man and towards God in His way of acting–we may make men see
what a glorious Savior we have! We ought to so display the sweet fruit
of the Holy Spirit in our lives that men may be filled with admiration
of our Lord! May God help us to do this, for if we do not keep our
Lord's sayings by our holy living, we have no proof that we love
Christ–and if we do not love Him, then we are not His disciples!
I beg you, my fellow Brothers and Sisters, to apply this text to
yourselves! Is the Lord Jesus reverenced by you as your Teacher? Do you
bow before the authority of His Word? Do you turn to the Bible and say
of it–
"This is the judge that ends the strife, Where wit and reason fail"?
Have you subjected your intellect to His teaching? The loose thinkers
of the present day imagine that they may believe what they like and
think what they please. But it is not so. They do as good as say, "Our
minds are our own. God shall never rule over us." But this becomes not
a saint. Our Lord Jesus will be King of our entire nature, or of none
of it! I claim the province of the understanding for my Lord, for it is
a part of His empire which He will not leave in the hands of the enemy!
We are as responsible for our beliefs as for our acts! We are never in
full subordination to our Lord till we yield ourselves devoutly and
reverently to His instruction, calling Him Master and Lord, because so
He is!
Brethren, do you yield your whole lives to Jesus? Do you aim at perfect
obedience? Do you repent your failures? Do you cry to Him daily, "My
Master, mold me to Your will, for to bear Your image is my ambition. I
would re-live Your life and be Your representative on earth, even as
You are my Representative in Heaven. Oh, that I could say of Your
Father and my Father, 'I do always the things which please Him!'"
II. So much for the test of discipleship. Now, in the second place, I
beg you to follow me while I speak for a minute or two upon THE NEEDS
OF A TRUE BELIEVER.
The Believer, though he truly loves his Lord is, nevertheless, a most
necessitous person and sadly full of needs. He does not need any better
Gospel–the Lord Jesus Christ taught us the best Gospel that could be
and, indeed, there can be no other. When Paul spoke of "another
Gospel," he added, "which is not another; but there are some that
trouble you." We desire nothing wiser, fuller, or better than the
doctrine which our Lord once delivered to the saints. I heard of a
mother speaking to her boy the other day words of truth and soberness.
Her hopeful and eager son was tempted to run after certain loyalties of
doctrine and practice and she said to him, "What we have heard from our
minister is enough for me, for it is according to Scripture. Your
father and mother have lived on this Gospel and it has helped them
through a thousand troubles, even to this day. And your dear old
grandfather and grandmother lived on the same Gospel and died upon it
triumphantly! Therefore, hold fast by it. We have tried it and proved
it, therefore do not depart from it."
That was common-sense talk. I am afraid of the new gospel. I have not
proved it, but what I have seen of its results in others makes me
tremble! Let those who will, go to sea in ships of reed or of
cardboard–heart-of-oak suffices for me! Such vessels have carried men
to the ends of the world and home again for many years and in these,
alone, will I cross the ocean. Those who seek after the novelties of
this conceited century seek to push their Lord from His place, that a
philoso-
pher may fill His Throne! They seem to say, "Stand back, You Galilean!
You were good enough for the dark ages, but we need a brighter light
for these brighter times." I return to what I said before–we need no
better Gospel than that which God Himself has set forth in the Person
of His Son Jesus Christ.
These disciples to whom our Lord spoke did not need any better
Preacher–they could not imagine a better. "Never man spoke like this
Man." What power and authority there was in Him and what an unction of
the Holy One was upon Him! I cannot say that of you, for you, beloved
Friends, might often sigh for an abler preacher and it may be that in
some places where you live, your Sabbaths are a bondage to you because
the pure Gospel is not declared and the sheep are not fed. But in the
case of these Apostles, they could not have had a better Preacher and
yet, for all that, because the Holy Spirit was not yet fully given and
was not dwelling in them, they had really learned very little. You see
the Lord Jesus Christ says of Himself, "These things have I spoken unto
you." He does not say that He had actually taught them. The last Words
of my text are, "All things whatever I have said unto you." All that
Jesus had done, if we view Him merely as a Preacher, was to speak and
to say. But He could not teach the heart, apart from the Holy Spirit!
Between Christ on earth and His disciples what a distance there was! In
His condescension He came very near to them, yet you always perceive a
gulf between the wise Master and the foolish disciples. Now the Holy
Spirit annihilates that distance by dwelling in us!
The best instructed of the Apostles failed to understand his Lord while
He merely spoke to them. Often the disciples ran away with the words
which He had uttered and dwelt upon their letter, altogether missing
their spiritual meaning. Frequently when they obtained a glimpse of the
spiritual meaning, they beclouded it with some prejudice or tradition
of their own, which, like smoke, obscured their vision. As to memory,
they displayed but little of that faculty towards spiritual
things–they were constantly forgetting what the Lord had told
them–and acting in a manner directly the opposite of His precept and
example.
Externally, all was provided–outward ministries of the noblest order
were vouchsafed. But they needed something within them–an inward and
effectual Teacher, a secret and powerful Remembrancer! Yes, more, they
required to be caused to enjoy what they knew and remembered–they
needed the Comforter to extract for them the honey of consolation from
the honeycomb of doctrine! Their Lord had taught them all manner of
comfortable Truths and yet He had to say to them, "Let not your heart
be troubled." He had supplied them with the best arguments for courage
and yet they were afraid. They required a Helper who would make them
understand the Truth, remember the Truth and enjoy the Truth. And this
is just what you and I stand in need of every hour, for we may sit
under the most edifying preacher and remain unedified if we look to his
words, only. We may hear the best doctrine and yet be unable to get at
it so as to receive it and feel the power of it. Truth without the
Spirit of God profits not the soul.
Even if you understand, you may forget. I dare say you have often to
lament that the good Word of God slips away from you and this is a
great evil. Why do we forget? Is it not largely through ignorance and
lack of understanding? When a child does not understand his lesson, he
soon forgets it. He who does not obtain a clear view of the Truth of
God will fail to remember it, just as you soon forget a person whom you
have only seen casually for a few moments and in a dim light. We cannot
easily hold in the memory that which we have not firmly grasped with
the mind. Again, we forget heavenly things because we are so occupied
with worldly things–our cares, our joys, our pleasures, our pursuits
often crowd the things of God into a corner and even tread them down
with heedless fury! We forget our eternal prospects because we are
thinking of our immediate interests. Our circumstances compel us to
think of lower objects, but we need Divine help to abide in communion
with the higher matters. We need Someone to bring these things to our
remembrance and to elevate us to a superior region of mind and heart.
At times we forget our Lord's sayings and become bewildered by many
afflictions. Trouble follows trouble–we go from darkness to deeper
darkness in our experiences–and we are so worried that we forget. When
we most need the promise, we are most apt to forget it. There are good
solid steps all through the Slough of Despond–but when a man is
passing through that horrible place, he is usually so hurried and
confused that he cannot see the steppingstones, but slips into the deep
mire where there is no standing. It is ill for us to be in a storm and
our anchor at home. The promise is admired when we do not require it,
but how often is it forgotten when it would be of the utmost service!
We need a Prompter, a Friend out of sight to suggest the proper word,
or else we blunder and flounder and do not act our parts aright. It is
the work of the Holy Spirit to refresh our memories.
Sometimes, I am afraid, our memories fail us because we are not
particularly anxious to remember. Certain precepts are so contrary to
the carnal mind that if we can forget them we are sure to do so. You
know how easy it is, in your family reading, to omit parts of God's
Word which are too close and personal. We are afraid of the razor which
cuts too close to the skin. Have you not felt, in the morning, when
your servants have been gathered together, that you could not well read
a certain passage because you had been out of temper, or unkind, or in
some other way out of proper form? You feared that they would say, "Our
master and the Bible do not agree." In your own private thoughts, a
precept occurs to you, but you feel it convenient to ignore it because
it would stand in the way of a design which you are cherishing. You
intend to go through with your purpose and, therefore, you shut your
eyes to an inconvenient text.
But if we are under the guidance of the Spirit of God, He will bring to
our remembrance the duty in its proper time and we shall bring forth
our fruit in its season. It is extremely easy to be wise after folly
and to be calm after the danger is over. We find the candle when the
night is ended. We cry, "Dear me, if I had felt, yesterday, what I feel
today, how differently I would have acted!" We are so often a little
behind the market. We lock the door after the horse is stolen. Fruit
out of season is always deficient in flavor–never are the scent and
the taste so perfect as in the middle of the season. Oh, that we may
bring forth our fruit in its due season–patience in tribulation,
courage in danger, holiness in life and hope in death! We fail to do
this because that evil nature which is in us makes us forget at the
precise moment what we ought to remember. It is the office of the Holy
Spirit to bring before us the sayings of Christ in their due order and
time. Do you not need this?
III. Hoping to retain your prayerful attention, I proceed to notice THE
PRIVILEGE OF THE TRUE BELIEVER. It is the true disciple's privilege to
possess, in the Holy Spirit, a private Tutor, a Prompter and a
Comforter.
The Lord Jesus says, "The Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things." Christ, in
His sayings, gave us our class book, complete and Infallible, but
through our dullness, we need more. That young man has gone to college.
He has with him all necessary books and in them is to be found all that
he will need to learn. Even thus the Lord Jesus has given us, in His
sayings, all that we need to know. But the young man's father wishes
him to become a learned man and, therefore, he engages a private tutor
for him–one who will teach him what the books contain. With his
tutor's help, his books are of far greater use to him than before. If
any passage is difficult, the tutor explains it. He puts the youth into
the way of reading his books so as to get the full value of them.
Spiritually, this is the office of the Holy Spirit–He finds us the key
wherewith to open up the mystery which otherwise would be out of our
reach.
He really teaches us. To teach you is a very different thing from
speaking to you. A person may speak to a company of young people and
yet teach them nothing. If I am anxious to instruct a Brother on any
point, I do not merely speak to him, but I go over the ground
carefully, set out each point distinctly, repeat my statements
deliberately and illustrate them appropriately. The Spirit of God, when
He takes the child of God out of the company and speaks privately to
his heart, goes over the Truth of God with him till it is made clear
and happily apprehended. We need to have the Truth of God opened up to
the understanding, impressed upon the heart, made real to the
apprehension, applied to the mind, worked into the affections and
endeared to the soul. It is one thing to hear the Word of God, but it
is another thing to learn the Word of God–it is one thing to be told,
but quite another thing to be taught.
The Spirit teaches the saints, either at once or by degrees, all the
Truths of Christ. Some parts of that whole you will never learn, except
upon a sick bed, or in deep depression of spirit, or in bereavement and
adversity–while other Truths will only be learned on the bright
mountains of assurance and communion with God. It is the Spirit's
province to burn Truth into the soul, to engrave it upon the renewed
heart and make the mind sure and certain as to what it knows. No
knowledge is so sure as that which the Holy Spirit communicates to our
spirit. Inward teaching is effectual teaching. A man taught of God
knows and cannot be made to question what he knows. Time was, whenever
I heard a skeptical remark, I felt wounded and somewhat shaken. I am no
longer shaken by these wandering winds. There are certain things of
which I am as sure of as my own existence! I have seen, tasted and
handled them–and I am past being argued out of them by those who know
nothing about them.
I am a lost man if the old, old Gospel is not true! There is no way of
salvation for me if it is not of Grace through faith in the atoning
Sacrifice! And as I know that I am not lost, but am surely a saved man,
I know that the Word which has saved me is the Truth of God! Those who
are familiar with spiritual realities defy denial–they set their
inward con-
sciousness against 10,000 skepticisms–if they cannot convince others,
they are convinced themselves. We must be taught by the Spirit of God
in a secret, personal, unquestionable, effectual manner! We must be
made to feel the power of the Truth of God by a spiritual inoculation
with it, so that it enters into our very life and becomes part and
parcel of ourselves.
It is promised us that the Comforter will teach us all things–that is,
all the things which Jesus said and did. Have we realized this
far-reaching privilege? There is a great variety in the knowledge of
Christ. Nobody need think that he will exhaust it. There is, moreover,
a proportion in the things of Christ, and we need to know all that our
Lord has set forth. Jesus does not teach only doctrine, though some
professors crave doctrine and doctrine, alone. Jesus does not teach all
practice–He teaches practice wondrously–but He also declares
doctrine! Our Lord does not teach either doctrine or practice without
experience, but He makes a perfect blend to our edification. The way
with some of God's people is either to have nothing but doctrine, or
else nothing but practice, or else nothing but experience–and this
warps and spoils them. Give yourself up to the Spirit of God and He
will teach you all things–here a little and there a little–here a
little of what you should know, there a little of what you should feel
and then, again, a little of what you should do.
Remember that especially in the doing part of it, the Spirit of God
must be your Teacher. A lad is put apprentice to a handicraft. How does
he learn it? Why, by seeing how his master does it and by doing it,
himself! At first he spoils the material and his master needs to have
much patience with him–but, at last, practice makes perfect and the
apprentice becomes a journeyman. The Spirit of God, with wonderful
condescension, puts us to practice a little patience. We soon get weary
of that task. When He gives us an opportunity of producing love–love
to some poor wretched waif on life's rough sea–we are apt to grow
chilled by his ingratitude and wearied with our non-success. The Holy
Spirit drills us in heavenly marching till we keep step with our Lord
and men take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus and have
learned of Him.
Brothers and Sisters, you are to keep your Lord's sayings and never go
beyond them, but to do this will need the private tutoring of the Holy
Spirit–and you must not be satisfied unless He wakens you morning by
morning and opens your ears to hear what He has to say, bringing home
to your heart and conscience the things that make you wise unto
salvation.
As we need something beside this, it is a mercy that we have it. We
require that our memories be strengthened. What wretched memories we
have as to Divine things! As I have already said, we recollect when it
is too late and thus our memories serve, rather, to minister to our
regret than to our improvement. It should not be so and if we will put
ourselves under the teaching of the Spirit of God it shall not remain
so. He will strengthen our memories spiritually. He often brings the
Truth of God to our minds–do you not find it so? While you are sitting
here, this morning, flashes of the Light of God have been around you.
Branch roads have opened up as we have proceeded. Vistas of the Truth
of God have rejoiced your vision. You have cried with wonder, "I never
saw that before!" That is the Spirit of God! Frequently a doctrine
comes home to you with the force of a new discovery–you had heard the
Truth, before, but you had never seen it–but the Spirit brings it to
your remembrance with singular vivacity and force!
He refreshes the mind by vivid recollections. He refreshes the heart by
melting gratitude. I have known times when my memory of the love of
Christ has made me sit down and weep for very joy! Oh, what gratitude
wells up in the heart when the Holy Spirit brings all that Christ did
to remembrance and we hear Him say from His Cross, "I did all this for
you–what have you done for Me?" It is the Spirit's work to refresh the
memory of the heart as well as the memory of the mind. Often He
refreshes the memory of the conscience–not quite so pleasant an
operation. I have been doing, for years, wrong things without knowing
them to be wrong. I have been neglecting a manifest duty for a long
time, but all of a sudden that duty has been brought to my remembrance
as one of the things which Jesus told me. I bless the Holy Spirit for
thus sanctifying me by giving me a higher standard of holiness and
making me more particular about things which I glossed over with but
slight attention This is a part of the work of the Holy Spirit of God,
to bring all things to your remembrance, whatever He has told you.
I am sure the Spirit of God often blesses us by bringing things to the
memory of our hope. Perhaps this is an odd way of putting it, for how
can hope have a memory? But I mean this, that hope seems to forget that
the Lord has said, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you," Hope
seems to forget that–
"There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign."
And sometimes the Spirit of God brings all that glorious revelation of
the world to come before our minds. Have you never felt Glory begun
below? Have not the pearly gates seemed to stand, not ajar, but wide
open–and have you not, in spirit, walked down the streets of gold and
worn your crown–and cast it at your Savior's feet? Then you have said
to yourself, "I can bear this pain. I can put up with these depressions
and these inconveniences, for I know that there is laid up for me, in
Heaven, a crown of life that fades not." The Spirit of God thus brings
all things to our remembrance!
I shall say no more, but pray the Spirit of God to come upon you this
very day and bring to your remembrance all things that Christ has ever
said to you. There will be a mixture of sunny memories and sorrowing
memories, but they will be blessed memories, all of them! I thought,
when I was trying to prepare a subject for this morning, "All that I
have preached for these many years is taken from me and printed, so
that I cannot repeat it–what shall I do?" And then this Truth of God
came to me, "He shall teach you." "He shall teach you," and I begged
Him to teach me that I might teach you. I thought, "Alas, I have had
many bright and sparkling thoughts at times, but they do not come just
now." I sat still, waiting–and then the fact came to me that the Holy
Spirit would bring all things to my remembrance whatever the Lord Jesus
had said. I find my natural memory to be less powerful than it used to
be in the days of my youth. Shall I, therefore, be allowed to forget
when I am teaching? No, "He shall teach you, and bring all things to
your remembrance." How beautiful!
I have noticed old people whose memories have been sadly feeble. I knew
one who forgot his children. But I never knew an old saint, yet, who
forgot the name of the Savior, or failed to remember His love!
Sometimes the Holy Spirit bears such witness in the heart that the
memory is very strong about Divine things even when it fails about
spiritual things. So, my dear old Friend, you that the youngsters
sometimes amuse themselves with because your memory has got to be like
an old sieve that lets everything through–it will not let your Lord
through–you will always feel the music of His name! You will never
forget your Well-Beloved if you live to be as old as Methuselah!
Memory, though it leaves no other name, shall leave that name recorded
there! Christ's love is not hung upon us like a garland on a tree, but
it is cut into us and, as the tree grows, the letters grow deeper and
broader every day! The Holy Spirit, who is the life of Believers,
writes more and more clearly upon that life the glorious and blessed
name of Jesus!
I wish that any here who do not know Christ would cry for the Spirit of
God to teach Him to them. If you long to be saved, pray that by His
Spirit the Lord Jesus may bring you into the bond of the Covenant, for
His love's sake. Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–John 14:15-31; 16:1-14.
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A Question for a Questioner