"Eyes Right"
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, DECEMBER 23, 1888,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. DELIVERED ON THURSDAY
EVENING, JULY 14, 1887.
"Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before
you." Proverbs 4:25.
THESE words occur in a passage wherein the wise man exhorts us to take
care of all parts of our nature which he indicates by members of the
body. "Keep your heart," says he, "with all diligence. For out of it
are the issues of life. Put away from you a disobedient mouth, and
perverse lips put far from you. Let your eyes look right on and let
your eyelids look straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet and
let all your ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the
left: remove your foot from evil."
It is clear that every part of our nature needs to be carefully
watched, lest in any way it should become the cause of sin. Any one
member or faculty is readily able to defile all the rest, and
therefore, every part must be guarded with care. We have selected for
our meditation the verse which deals with the eye. These windows of
light need to be watched in their incomings, lest that which we take
into our soul should be darkness rather than light. And they need to be
watched in their outgoings, lest the glances of the eye should be full
of iniquity, or should suggest foolish thoughts. Hence the wise man
advises, "Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look
straight before you." Have eyes and use them. Using them, take care to
use them honestly.
Some persons are always as if they were asleep. They go though the
world moping about, seeing nothing or seeing men as if they were trees,
with a sight which is not sight but blindness. The shadows of this
transient life impress them and that is all–they have never awakened
yet to the true life and its solemn realities. They have never seen
anything in very truth–for it is faith that sees and of faith they
have none. That which is apart from faith is not visible to the soul,
however clear it may be to the eye. We have thousands around us who
need to be startled out of that slumber in which they see the fabrics
of their dreams and the unsubstantial fancies of the hour.
They say, "We see," but scales are on their eyes. I fear we have such
in all our congregations, lulled to sleep even by the preacher's tones,
to whom the fact of coming to their accustomed seat and listening to
the usual hymns tends rather to confirm them in a sluggard's slumber
than to stir their souls to action. O you Sluggards, may God awaken you
by Divine Grace, lest He arouse you by the thunderbolts of His
vengeance! It is time that your eyes began to look right on and your
eyelids straight before you.
Many others are somewhat awake mentally but they are not looking right
on, neither do their eyelids look straight before them. They are
staring about them, star-gazing, wondering what will be seen
next–always ready, like the Athenians, to hear and see some new thing.
They move, it is true, but it is in a labyrinth which leads to
nothing–in a circle which ends where it began. They toil and slave but
it is all in the shadow land–of substantial work they do nothing. An
active idleness, a diligent laziness is all that their life is made up
of. For, as yet, they have no purpose–no purpose worth being the aim
of an immortal soul.
An arrow will never strike the mark if it travels in a zigzag
direction. And the man whose life has no aim whatever, who pursues
this, and then that, and then the other, what will he achieve? Are not
many like "dumb driven cattle," going, they know not where? They have
never yet discovered that this life is a preface to a life of a more
Divine mold. They do not regard the present as the lowly porch of the
glorious edifice of the future. They have not thought that time is but
the doorstep of eternity, a thing of small account, save that it is
linked with the endless ages.
And so they seek after this, and then after that, and then after the
other. And always after that which is too poor, too trifling to be the
object of a mind capable of fellowship with God. How many there are
whose spirit is agitated by a mere nothing, resembling–
"Ocean into tempest tossed To float a feather or to drown a fly"! To
beings who lead such purposeless lives we would address the words of
the wise man, "Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look
straight before you." Have something to do and do it. Have something to
live for and live for it. Get to know the right way and, knowing the
right way, keep to it with full purpose of heart and concentration of
faculty.
O Man, see where you are going and go that way with your eyes open,
resolutely marking every step as you take it. Look where you ought to
look and then follow your eyes which shall thus be useful outriders to
your life and help to make your way safe and wise. When you have sent
your eyes before you to make sure of the way, it will be safe to
follow. Look before you leap and only leap when looking bids you do so.
If a man is to let his eyes look right on and his eyelids straight
before him, then he is to have a way, and that way is to be a straight
way–and in that straight way he is to persevere.
You cannot see to the end of a crooked way. You can only see a small
part of a way that twists and winds. Choose, then, a direct path which
has an end which you dare think of and look upon. Some men's lives are
such that they dare not think of what the end of them must be. They
would not long pursue their present track if they were forced to gaze
into that dread abyss which is the only possible close of an evil
course. The way of transgressors is hard in itself but it is hardest of
all when we behold their dreadful end. "Surely you have set them in
slippery places. You cast them down into destruction." You need to have
a way and a straight way and a way whose end you dare contemplate or
else you cannot carry out the advice of Solomon, "Let your eyes look
right on and let your eyelids look straight before you."
Every wise man will conclude that the best way for a man is the way
which God has made for him. He that made us knows what He made us for,
and He knows by what means we may best arrive at that end. According to
Divine teaching, as gracious as it is certain, we learn that the way of
eternal life is Jesus Christ. Christ Himself says, "I am the Way, the
Truth and the Life." And he that would pursue life after a right
fashion must look to Jesus and must continue looking unto Jesus–not
only as the Author but as the Finisher of his faith. It shall be to him
a golden rule of life, when he has chosen Christ to be his Way, to let
his eyes look right on and his eyelids straight before him. He need not
be afraid to contemplate the end of that way, for the end of the way of
Christ is life and glory with Christ forever.
"It does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He
shall appear, we shall be like He. For we shall see Him as He is." A
friend said to me the other day, "How happy are we to know that
whatever happens to us in this life it is well!" "Yes," I added, "and
to know that if this life ends it is equally well, or better." Then we
joined hands in common joy to think that we were equally ready for life
or death and did not need five minutes' anxiety as to whether it should
be the one or the other. Brethren, when you are on the King's
Highway–that way which is a perfectly straight one–you may go ahead
without fear and sing on the road.
With all my heart I invite any who have never yet begun to live after a
right fashion, to take Christ to be the way of life to them. And then I
entreat them to let their eyes look straight on and their eyelids
straight before them and to follow Jesus without giving a glance either
to the right hand or to the left till it shall be said of them, even in
glory, "These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes."
I. I shall make my earnest appeals to the heart and conscience by
beginning with this first exhortation–LET CHRIST BE YOUR WAY. You that
are young, let Him be your way from your youth. You that have up to now
gone the wrong road until your hairs have grown gray in the service of
iniquity, turn, I beseech you, and take to the way of salvation. May
His Spirit turn you and you will be turned–then will Jesus become your
way from henceforth.
If Christ is your way, you will begin first to seek to have Christ.
"How shall I have Him?" says one. Do you desire Him? Will you accept
Him? He is yours. The act of accepting Christ secures Christ to us. For
the Father freely gives Him to all who freely accept Him. Some are
troubled through ignorant and unbelieving fears and are saying, "I wish
I could lay hold on Jesus! I wish I knew that Christ were mine!" Are
you willing to have Him? Who made you willing? Do you desire Him? Who
made you desire Him? Who but the Spirit of the Lord? Will you now take
Jesus to be your Savior, to save you from your sin? Then depend on it
He is yours. There was never any difficulty with Him to give Himself to
you.
The difficulty was to bring you to receive Him. And now that you do
receive Him, remember this–"As many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His
name." Jesus Himself has said it, "Him that comes to Me I will in no
wise cast out." And therefore, since you come, you shall never be cast
out. Jesus has accepted you, for you have accepted Him. But I pray that
none of you will rest until you have Christ. Let your eyes look right
on and your eyelids straight before you, till you find Him. Look
nowhere else but to Him and after Him. Shut yourself up in your
room–determine not to come out again until you have Him and it shall
not be long before you find Him.
Concentrating all your gaze upon the Crucified, light shall come from
Him, causing the scales to fall from your eyes and you shall see Him,
even you that could not see. And you shall cry in delight, "He is mine,
He is mine." Remember how David said to his son, "If you seek Him, He
will be found of you." Think of the words of the Prophet, "Seek you the
Lord while He may be found, call you upon Him while He is near." When
you have Christ, the next business of your life must be to know Christ.
Seek to know more of Him, to know Him better, to know Him more
practically, to know Him more assuredly. "That I may know Him," said
the Apostle, after he had been a believer in Him for fifteen years.
That same man of God speaks of "the love of Christ, which passes
knowledge," even his knowledge, which was of the fullest sort–so that
he meant to go on learning more and more of Christ and he did not count
himself to have attained. Christian Men and Women, you do not know your
great Master yet. Here have some of us been nearly forty years in His
service and yet we could not describe Him to our own satisfaction. Why,
we hardly know the power of the hem of His garment yet. We have not
descended far down into the mines of His perfections. How little we
know of our hidden wealth in Christ Jesus!
Oh, that we studied Scripture more, that we were more teachable and
waited more humbly upon the Lord for the light of His Spirit from day
to day! Well says our singer–
"Hoard up His sacred Word, And feed thereon and grow;
Go on to seek to know the Lord, And practice what you know."
In this matter let your eyes look right on and your eyelids straight
before you. Other men may have their pursuits, this is yours–stick to
it earnestly. The science of a crucified Savior shines like the moon in
the midst of the stars as compared with all the other sciences which
men may know–study it with your whole power of mind and heart. The
angels on the Mercy Seat of the ark stood always looking downward and
bending over. Hence the Apostle says, "Which things the angels desire
to look into." And if they desire to look into the Ark of the Covenant
and its sacred mysteries, how much more should we!
When you come to know somewhat of what He is, then go on to obey
Christ. Is there anything that He has bid you do? Do it. Some
Christians have never yet been baptized–how will they answer for
willful neglect of a known duty? Others have been Christians for years
and yet have never communed at the Lord's Table. Jesus said, "If you
love Me, keep My commandments." Do they keep His Commandments? It was
His dying request, "This do in remembrance of Me," and yet they will
not fulfill it. Even such a tender request they slight, as though it
were of no importance whatever, as if their Lord was a mere nobody
whose wishes might well be overlooked.
What shall I say of many of the biddings of our holy Gospel, many of
those sweet precepts which are to be used in the family and in the
business and in the field? What forgetfulness there is of them! What
refusing to follow Christ! He might come to us and say, "If I am a
Master, where is My honor?" Truly, it ought to be one of the first
thoughts of a Christian to find out the Lord's will. And when he knows
it, obedience should follow immediately. His eyes should look right on
and his eyelids straight before him. What said the blessed virgin to
those who were at the feast? Note the words, "Whatsoever He says unto
you, do it." It was well spoken of the favored mother and it remains as
a golden precept for us all– "Whatsoever He says unto you, do it."
Make no reserve, exercise no choice–obey His command. When you know
what He commands, do not hesitate, question, or try to avoid it–"do
it"–do it at once, do it heartily, do it cheerfully, do it to the
full. It is but a little thing that as our Lord has bought us with the
price of His own blood, we should be His servants. The Apostles
frequently call themselves the bond slaves of Christ. Where our
Authorized Version softly puts it "servant," it really is "bond slave."
The early saints delighted to count themselves Christ's absolute
property, bought by Him, owned by Him and
wholly at His disposal. Paul even went so far as to rejoice that he had
the marks of his Master's brand on him and he cries, "Let no man
trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." There
was the end of all debate–he was the Lord's and the marks of the
scourges, the rods and the stones were the broad-arrow of the King
which marked Paul's body as the property of Jesus, the Lord.
Now, if the saints of old time gloried in obeying Christ, I pray that
you and I, forgetting the sect to which we may belong, or even the
nation of which we form a part, may feel that our first object in life
is to obey our Lord. Not to follow a human leader, or to promote a
religious or political party. This one thing we mean to do and so
follow the advice of Solomon as he says, "Let your eyes look right on
and let your eyelids look straight before you." Beloved, let us
endeavor to be obedient in the minute as well as in the greater
matters, for it is in details that true obedience is best seen. Let us
copy the faintest touches in the life of our great Exemplar.
That being attended to, remember, if Christ is your way, you have
further to seek to be like He, not only to do as He did but to be as He
was. For "as He was, so are we in this world." What a man does is
important, but what a man is, is all-important. The ring of the metal
is something but if its ring could be imitated by a base coin, it would
be nothing. It is, after all, the substance of the metal that decides
its value. O Man, what are you? If you are a twice-born man, you are a
partaker of the nature of Christ. But if not, you are under the curse
which cleaves to the old nature as leprosy cleaves to the leper.
"As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image
of the heavenly." And we must begin to bear that heavenly image even
now. As born again into the headship of the Second Adam, we should seek
to be as much like the Second Adam as we are already by nature like the
first Adam, through our first birth. The second birth should be as
operative to produce the image of the second Adam, as the first was to
produce the image of the first Adam. Alas, "the earthy" is impressed
upon us very distinctly. We cannot spend an hour without discovering
the clear stamp of nature's die. Oh, that "the heavenly" could be quite
as clearly discerned!
This, therefore, we must aim at, though as yet we have not attained it.
Here is something to be thought of very carefully, and I charge you by
the Holy Spirit–let your eyes look right on and your eyelids straight
before you, that you may be transformed from glory to glory into the
image of the Lord. God grant that it may be so with everyone of us!
Now, supposing that we have attended to all this, if Christ is our way
and our model, there is something more, namely, that we seek to glorify
Christ, and labor to win others to Him. Here is a grand field for all
our energies. O Christian people, what are we left in this world for,
except to bring others to Jesus? Are we not left in this wilderness
that we may find out more of the good Shepherd's stray sheep and work
for Him and with Him to bring them in? I fear we forget this. Are not
some of you indifferent as to whether your fellow men are lost or
saved? Have not some of you, in your families, come to this pass–that
you see your brother an infidel, your sister frivolous, your parents
godless–and yet it does not fret you?
I think that if I had a godless relative, it would break my night's
rest, not now and then, but always. A brother, a father, a child
unsaved! What do you mean by taking your ease? If the spirit of Christ
is in us, the tears that fell from the eyes of Jesus will find their
like upon our cheeks. We shall weep day and night because men are not
gathered unto eternal life. Nor will this be a loss to us, for blessed
are the mourners in Zion. Blessed are they that mourn because others
abide in sin and reject the Lord!
Now, concerning the salvation of our fellow men. We shall never compass
it unless our eyes look right on and our eyelids straight before us.
Before we win souls, we must live for souls. We need men and women who
live to convert others to Christ. The minister had better quit his
pulpit if it is not his one burning desire to bring hearts to Jesus'
feet. If a Divine impulse is not upon him, driving him to seek the
souls of men, let him go elsewhere with his windy periods. Professors
have little right to be in Christ's Church unless they are passionately
in earnest to increase His kingdom by the salvation of their fellow
men.
O my Brothers and Sisters, on whom is the blood-mark of redemption, I
charge you concerning this matter to "let your eyes look right on and
let your eyelids look straight before you"! Seek souls as dogs hunt
their game–eyes, nostrils, ears all open and every muscle strained.
Converts are not gained by dreamers. We cannot imitate Jesus as a
Savior of men by being dull and heartless. In any point in which we
follow our Lord let us do it with all our soul. Thus much upon the
first point–let Christ be your way in all things and keep to that way.
II. Following the text again, only working it a little differently, the
second exhortation is, SET YOUR EYES ON HIM AS YOUR WAY. If Christ is
your way and you follow Him to have Him, to know Him, to obey Him, to
be like He and to glorify Him, then set your eyes on Him as the way.
Think of Him, consider Him, study Him and in all things regard Him as
first and last to you.
First, that you may know the way of life, let your eyes be fixed on
Him. Soul, are you in the dark? Kneel down and pray and look
Christ-ward. Saint, are you bewildered? Go by the way of the Cross, the
way of the Crucified, for that is the true and sure path. Sinner, are
you burdened? Would you be rid of your burden? Run Christ-ward. Any
direction given you to go anywhere else will misdirect you. I say not
to anyone I meet tonight, "Go to the wicket-gate." Neither will I bid
you look to any light within and run that way. My only direction is,
"Go to Jesus." You see that Cross and Him who bled thereon! Stand still
and look that way and your burden shall fall from your shoulders.
Where Jesus died, you shall live. Where Christ was wounded, you shall
be healed. "Let your eyes look right on and let your eyelids look
straight before you." Know the road. You will never know it too
well–the more you know it, the happier you will be in it. "To Christ!"
"To Christ!" "To Christ!" That is the sole inscription upon every
sign-post of the road to Heaven. Keep to the King's Highway. Since
Christ is the Way, let your eyes be fixed on Him as the way that you
may follow Him well, may follow Him wholly. Gather up all your
faculties to go after your Lord. Be not like Lot's wife who longed and
looked and lingered and was lost. Away, away, away from Sodom,
altogether away–let no eye steal in that direction.
Away, away, away to Christ, to Christ alone. All eyes must be for
Jesus, who cries, "Look unto Me and be you saved." As the plowman looks
to the end of the furrow and keeps right on, even so must you look only
to Jesus. What have you to do with anything but Christ, Sinner? I tell
you that you have nothing even to do with your own sins but to lay them
down at His feet. He is All. The Beginning and the End. "Let your eyes
look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you."
Look alone to Jesus and do this to keep your spirits up. Some men's
eyes do not look right on and their eyelids do not look straight before
them for they look back upon that part of the road which they have
traversed and grow content with that which they have already attained.
They live in retrospection. When you begin to look back at what you
have done and rub your hands and say with self-satisfaction, "I
remember when I did right well," wisdom warns you that this is not the
right kind of look. What have you to look back upon? Poor, weak
creature! Forget that which is behind and press forward to something
better and higher. When you sinful souls get to looking back upon your
past bad lives, I am glad of that, but still I do not want you to keep
your eyes always in that direction. You will get no comfort in looking
into the foul ditch of your own transgressions.
Look, look, look before you! Look where the Cross stands. Run that way.
Let your eyelids look straight before you to the atoning
sacrifice–away from the past, which He will graciously blot out–to
Jesus only. Some spend much of their time in what is called
introspection. Now introspection, like retrospection, is a useful thing
in a measure. But it can readily be overdone–and then it breeds morbid
emotions and creates despair. Some are always looking into their own
feelings. A healthy man hardly knows whether he has a stomach, or a
liver. It is your sickly man who grows more sickly by the study of his
inward complaints.
Too many wound themselves by studying themselves. Every morning they
think of what they should feel–all day long they dwell upon what they
are not feeling. And at night they make diligent search for what they
have been feeling. It looks to me like shutting up your shop and then
living in the counting-house taking account of what is not sold. Small
profits will be made in this way. You may look a long while into an
empty pocket before you find a sovereign and you may look a long time
into fallen nature before you find comfort. A man might as well try to
find burning coals under the ice, as to find anything good in our poor
human nature.
When you look within, it should be to see with grief what the
filthiness is. But to get rid of that filthiness you must look beyond
yourself. I remember Mr. Moody saying that a mirror was a capital thing
to show you the spots on your face. But you could not wash in a mirror.
You want something very different when you would make your face clean.
So let your eyes look right on–
"To the full atonement made, To the utmost ransom paid."
Forget yourself and think only of Christ.
Some not only unduly practice retrospection and introspection but they
carry much too far a sort of circumspection. They look all around
them–they look upon their past and their present and their fears and
their doubts–and from all these things they judge their condition and
decide their state of mind. You recollect Peter. He cried to his Lord,
"Bid me come unto you on the water." He receives permission. Down the
side, over the boat, goes Peter. To his intense surprise he is standing
on a wave. Peter had never done such a thing before in his life as walk
on the water.
He might have kept on standing on the wave and he might have walked all
the way to Jesus if he had kept his eyes on his Master until he reached
Him. The waters would have borne him up as well as a granite pavement.
But Peter began to look at the billows and he listened to the howling
of the wind and then to the beating of his own heart. And down he went.
And then he had to cry to his Master. "Let your eyes look right on and
let your eyelids look straight before you"–you can walk the waters all
the way to the golden shore if you can but stop your eyes looking to
other things.
Surely I may use the text as an illustration of that closing of the
eyes. "Let your eyes look right on." "I understand that," says one,
"for I trust. But you cannot look with your eyelids." What can that
mean? Remember that you can shut your eyes with your eyelids to a great
many things and so cease to see them. And in the matter of faith-sight
a great many things are best not seen. So when you would otherwise see
the danger and all the difficulties and the doubts, do not look with
your eyes but look with your eyelids. Not to look at the difficulties
at all is all the look they deserve.
Let your eyelids shut out the view which would create distrust. Do not
see, do not feel, "only believe." Believe Christ and believe nothing
else. "Let God be true but every man a liar." If all the sins you have
ever done should come rolling up like Atlantic billows and if all the
devils in Hell should come riding on the crests of those waves, howling
as they come, take no notice of them. Christ has said he that believes
in Him has everlasting life. Believe in Him and you have the
everlasting life as surely as Christ is the Christ of God. Draw down
the blinds and see nothing, know nothing, believe nothing but the
living Word of the living Savior. "Let your eyes look right on and let
your eyelids look straight before you."
You must also let your eyes look right on, dear Friends. For if you
begin to look two ways at a time, you will miss the Lord Jesus, who is
your Way. Under the Jewish Law no man who had a squint was allowed to
be a priest. He is described as one who had "a blemish in his eye." I
wish they would make a similar law with regard to spiritual sight in
preachers nowadays, for certain of them are sadly cross-eyed. When they
preach Free Grace they squint fearfully towards free will. And if they
look to the atonement, they must needs see in it more of man than of
Christ. See how they look to Moses and to Darwin, to Revelation and to
speculation!
A great many people would gladly be saved but they squint–they look a
little towards sin and the flesh and the world–and they make provision
for personal gain and personal ease. In this case they fail to see
Christ's strait and narrow way of the denial of self and the
crucifixion of the flesh. If you would have salvation, "Let your eyes
look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you." Look not
a little this way and a little that way, or you will never run aright.
"I could believe that I was a Christian," says one, "if I felt more
happy. I could trust Christ if I felt my nature changed." That is a
squint which ruins the faith-look. That is trying to look two ways at
once. You cannot do it–it will ruin you.
It would spoil the beauty of the sweetest countenance if we could use
our eyes to look otherwise than straight on. We have some friends who,
if they wish to see us, look over there and yet we are not there. Avoid
this spiritual blemish. It has no advantages–"Let your eyes look right
on." Look to Christ alone, to Him as your whole salvation. Have nothing
to do with your good works as a ground of trust, or you are a lost man.
I charge you, have nothing to do even with your faith and your
repentance as a ground of trust. Trust not your trust–but trust alone
in what Christ has done. If you shall trust your best feelings or your
worst feelings, your prayers or your praises, your almsgivings or your
consecration in any degree–you have made an antichrist of them.
Strip yourself of your last rag and let Christ clothe you from top to
bottom. Be you hungry unto famishing and clean out the last crumb you
have in the pantry, for then only will you feed on Christ, the Bread of
Life. Let Him be both bread and wine and make up the whole of a feast
for you. You shall have salvation surely enough if this is what you do.
But let not Jesus bring the bread, and carnal confidence the wine–take
a whole Christ to be all your salvation and all your desire and your
peace shall be unbroken. Let the Holy Spirit bring you to that oneness
of trust which makes both eyes meet
at their proper focus and let that focus be the Lord Jesus. "Let your
eyes look right on and let your eyelids look straight before you."
III. But my time has almost expired and I have only to lay emphasis on
one more matter. LET YOUR EYES DISTINCTLY AND DIRECTLY LOOK TO CHRIST
ALONE. I have gone over this before, but I need to hammer at it
again in order to clench the nail. Look not to any human guide but look
to Christ Jesus alone. We have no faith in priests. But it is a very
easy thing to fix your faith upon a minister and hear what he says and
believe it because he says it. I charge you, believe nothing that I
tell you if it cannot be supported by the Word of God. I am content to
stand or to fall by this–"To the Law and to the testimony: if they
speak not according to this Word, there is no light in them."
I will quote the authority of no other book, whoever may have composed
it–no ancient book–let it belong even to the earliest days of the
Church. This one inspired volume is the text-book of our religion.
Follow Holy Scripture and you have an infallible chart. Our Lord Jesus
Christ is the one Apostle and High Priest of our profession–follow
Him. Not even mother or father, or the brightest saint that ever lived
must divide you from your perfect Guide. "Let your eyes look right on
and let your eyelids look straight before you," and hear the gracious
words of Him who bought you with His blood as He cries, "Follow Me."
Then, again, look to Christ directly and distinctly for yourself. I
warn you against putting any trust in national religion, or in family
and birthright godliness. A personal Christ must be laid hold of by a
personal faith. You must yourself repent, yourself believe, yourself
get a grip of Him and of none but Him. You must use your own eyes–"Let
your eyes look right on, and let your eyelids look straight before
you."
Again–look not to any secondary aims. Seek first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness. In seeking Christ make no bargain with gain or
reputation. Be content to lose all gold and all honor if you may but
win Christ. To follow religion for self would be a mean act of
hypocrisy and to leave it for the same reason is equally vile. Let your
eyes be fixed on following your Lord and as to any worldly
consequences, bring your eyelids into use, keep them fast closed and go
right on in implicit obedience to your Lord.
Forget all things else when seeking Christ and when you have found
Christ. It is no ill thing for a man, when he is under concern of soul,
to let his business and everything go till he finds his Savior. I urge
no one to such a course but I have noticed many converts who have done
this who have soon found rest. If a captain were busy about the comfort
of his passengers in their cabins but all the while knew that there was
a great leak in the ship and it would soon go down and to this he paid
no heed whatever, you would say to him, "How foolish you are to mind
the little and neglect the great!" But if he told the passengers,
"Breakfast cannot be prepared with our usual care, for all hands are
pumping or repairing the vessel," you could not blame him when you knew
that every man's help was needed to save the ship from going down.
In times of extreme danger, secondary things must give place to the
main thing. If this house were to take fire, you would not stay to sing
the last hymn, even if I gave it out. May the Holy Spirit lead some of
you to feel that you must be saved! You must be saved, and therefore
you must put other things into a second place. Remember how Bunyan
pictures the man running for his life–when his neighbors called to him
to stop–he put his fingers in his ears and as he ran he shouted,
"Eternal life! Eternal life! Eternal life!" That man was a wise man.
Imitate him. If you have not found eternal life, run for it, with your
"eyes right on and your eyelids straight before you."
And, lastly, take care that you continue gazing upon Christ until you
have faith in Him. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of
God." Go on hearing the Word of God till faith comes. Do you ask me how
faith comes? It is the gift of God but it usually comes in a certain
way. Thinking of Jesus and meditating upon Jesus, will breed faith in
Jesus. I was struck with what one said the other day of a certain
preacher. The hearer was in deep concern of soul and the minister
preached a very pretty sermon indeed, decorated abundantly with
word-painting. I scarcely know any Brother who can paint so daintily as
this good minister can.
But this poor soul, under a sense of sin, said, "There was too much
landscape, Sir. I did not want landscape. I wanted salvation." Dear
Friend, never crave word-painting when you attend a sermon. But crave
Christ. You must have Christ to be your own by faith, or you are a lost
man. When I was seeking the Savior I remember hearing a very good
doctrinal sermon. But when it was over I longed to tell the minister
that there was a poor lad there who wanted to know how he could be
saved. How I wished he had given half a minute to that subject! Dr.
Manton, who was usually a clear and full
preacher of the Gospel, when he preached before the Lord Mayor, gave
his lordship something a cut above the common citizens and so the
poorer folk missed their portion.
After he had done preaching his sermon, an aged woman cried, "Dr.
Manton, I came here this morning under concern of soul, wanting a
blessing and I have not got it, for I could not understand you." The
preacher meekly replied, "The Lord forgive me! I will not so offend
again." He had overlooked the poor and had thought mainly of my Lord
Mayor. Special sermons before Mayors and Queens and assemblies are
seldom worth a penny a thousand. The Gospel does not lend itself to
show performances. I am not here to give you intellectual treats–my
eyes look right on to your salvation. Oh that yours may look that way!
Go after Christ, dear Friend. Seek after Christ with your whole heart
and soul. Feel that the one thing you must have is to be reconciled to
God by the death of His Son. Keep on with that cry, "None but
Christ–none but Christ." Make this your continual litany–
"Give me Christ, or else I die; Give me Christ, or else I die."
Then you will soon find Him. "Let your eyes look right on and let your
eyelids look straight before you," and you shall see the Lord of Grace
appearing to you through the mist and through the cloud–that same
Savior who stands in the midst of us even now and cries, "Look unto Me,
and be you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God and there is
none else."
LETTER FROMMR. SPURGEON
BELOVED FRIENDS–We are in our measure partaking in the change of
weather which plunged England from an almost summer heat into cold and
fog, for we have a cold wind blowing with a force which overpowers the
warm sun. This has a depressing influence upon many invalids but does
not affect me. Each day I make a little progress. I could not yet stand
through a discourse, much less walk a mile. But I can walk further than
I could a week ago and I am conscious of renewed vigor. I thank God
that the swelling of the feet is also decreasing and so I may look for
complete restoration and then for a speedy return to my happy work.
I hope and pray that this week's sermon may prove useful. Purposely I
have made it striking and plain, with the design that it should be
suitable for wide distribution. It contains the Gospel in its
simplicity, stated in a pleasant manner.
I have prepared three sermons, as a double number, to close the year
with and I hope they will be a fit top stone to the thirty-fourth
volume, which I am glad to have completed. Receive my sincere love in
Christ Jesus. May all Grace abound towards you. Yours till death, C. H.
Spurgeon. Mentone, Dec. 13th, 1888