"Ready, Yes, Ready!"
(No. 2868)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 1904.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON A THURSDAY EVENING,
DURING THE WINTER OF 1861-2.
"Ready to perish." Isaiah 27:13.
"Ready to forgive." Psalm 86:5.
"The graves are ready for me." Job 17:1.
WHEN attempting to prepare for this service, I found it impossible to
fix my mind upon any one subject. This afternoon I had to take rather a
long journey to visit a friend who is sick unto death. And at his
bedside I trust I have learned some lessons of encouragement and have
been animated by witnessing the joy and peace which God grants to His
children in their declining hours. Finding that I could not fix upon
any one subject, I thought that I would have three. It may be that out
of the three, there will be one intended by Divine Grace for a third of
the audience, the second for another third and the other for the rest,
so that there will be a portion of meat in due season for all. You
know, dear Friends, that the motto of our navy is, "Ready, yes, ready!"
That is something like my present subject, for I have three texts in
which the word, "Ready," occurs, each time in a different connection.
I. The first text will be especially addressed to those who are under
concern of soul, having been led, by the enlightening influence of the
Divine Spirit, to see their state by nature and to tremble in the
prospect of their deserved doom. The text which will suit their case is
in Isaiah 27:13–"READY TO PERISH." "They shall come which were ready
to perish."
By nature, all men, whether they know it or not, are ready to perish.
Human nature is, like a blind man, always in danger. No, worse than
that, it is like a blind man upon the verge of a tremendous cliff,
ready to take the fatal step which will lead to his destruction. The
most callous and proud, the most careless and profane cannot, by their
indifference or their boasting, altogether evade the apprehension that
their state, by nature, is alarming and defenseless. They may try to
laugh it away from their minds, but they cannot laugh away the fact.
They may shut their eyes to it, but they shall no more escape, by
shutting their eyes, than does the silly ostrich escape from the hunter
by thrusting its head into the sand. Whether you will have it so, or
not, fast young man in the dawn of your days–whether you will have it
so, or not, blustering merchant in the prime of your age–whether you
will have it so, or not, hardened old man in the petrified state of
your moral conscience–it is so–you are ready to perish!
Your jeers cannot deliver you. Your sarcasms about eternal wrath cannot
quench it. And all your contemptuous scorn and your arrogant pride
cannot evade your doom–they do but hasten it. There are some persons,
however, who are aware of their danger–to them I speak. They are fitly
described by the Spirit of God in these words of the Prophet–"The
great trumpet shall be blown and they shall come which were ready to
perish." Having passed through this anguish, myself, I think I can
describe, from experience, what some of you are now suffering.
You are ready to perish, in the first place, because you feel sure that
you will perish. You did not think so once, but you do now. Once you
could afford to put away the thought, with a laugh, as a matter which
might, or might not, be true, but, anyway, it did not much concern you.
But now you feel that you will be lost as surely as if it could be
demonstrated to you by logic. In fact, the Divine logic of the Law of
God has thundered it into your soul and you know it. You feel it to be
certain that you shall, before long, be driven from the Presence of God
with that terrible sentence, "Depart, you cursed." If any unbeliever
should tell you that there is no wrath to come, you would reply, "There
is, for I feel it is
due me. My conscience tells me that I am already condemned and before
long I am quite certain to drink of the wormwood and the gall of the
wrath of God."
You have signed your own death warrant, you have put on the black cap
and condemned yourself. Or, rather, you have pleaded guilty before your
Judge–you have said, "Guilty, my Lord," and now you think you see
before your eyes the scaffold and yourself ready to be executed. You
feel it to be so sure that you even anticipate the Judgment Day–you
dreamed of it, the other night, and you thought you heard the trumpet
of the archangel opening all the graves and wakening all the dead. You
have already, in imagination, stood before the bar of God! You feel
your sentence to be so certain that conscience has read it over in your
hearing and anticipated its terrors. You are among those who are ready
to perish, so permit me to say that I am glad you have come here, for
this is the very spot where God delights to display His pardoning
Grace! He is ready to save those who are thus ready to perish. Those
who write themselves down as lost are the special objects of our
Savior's mission of mercy, for, "the Son of Man is come to seek and to
save that which was lost."
You are ready to perish, in another sense, for you feel as if your
perishing was very near. You are like the dying man who gasps for
breath and thinks that each gasp will be his last–his pulse is feeble,
his tongue is dry with feverish heat, the clammy sweat is on his brow.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death casts its gloomy shade on his pale
cheeks and he feels that he will soon die. Is it not thus that some of
you feel just now? You feel that you are coming near to the wrath of
God. I have known the day when, as I lay down to rest, I dreaded the
thought that, perhaps, I should never awake in this world, or, at
mid-day I have walked in the fields and wondered that the earth did not
open and swallow me up! A terrible noise was in my ears–my soul was
tossed to and fro–I longed to find a refuge, but there seemed to be
none, while always ringing in my ears were the words, "The wrath to
come!" "The wrath to come!" "The wrath to come!"
Oh, how vividly is the wrath to come pictured before the eyes of the
awakened sinner! He does not look upon it as a thing that is to come in
ten, twelve, or 20 years, but as a thing that may be before long, yes,
even today! He looks upon himself as ready to perish because his final
overthrow appears to be so close. I am glad if any of you are in this
plight, for God does not thus alarm men unless He has purposes of mercy
concerning them and designs for their good! He has made you fear you
are perishing that you may have no perishing to fear! He has brought it
home to you in this life that He may remove it forever from you in the
life that is to come! He has made you tremble now, that you may not
tremble then. He has put before you these dreadful things that, as with
a fiery finger, they may point you to Christ, the only Refuge and, as
with a thundering voice, they may cry to you, as the angels cried to
Lot, "Escape for your life, look not behind you, neither stay you in
all the plain! Escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed!"
It may be that I am also addressing some who not only realize the
sureness and the nearness of their destruction, but they have begun to
feel it. "Begun to feel it," asks someone, "is that possible?" Yes,
that it is. When day and night God's hand is heavy upon us and our
moisture is turned into the drought of summer, we begin to know
something of what a sinner feels when Justice and the Law are let loose
upon him. Did you ever read John Bunyan's, Grace Abounding to the Chief
of Sinners? There was a man who had, even here, foretastes of the
miseries of the lost. And there are some of us who can, even now,
hardly look back to the time of our conviction without a shudder. I
hope there is not a creature alive who has had deeper convictions than
I had, or five years of more intolerable agony than those which crushed
the very life out of my youthful spirit. But this I can say–that
terror of conscience, that alarm about the wrath of God, that intense
hatred of past sin and yet consciousness of my inability to avoid it in
the future were such combinations of thought that I can only describe
them in George Herbert's words–
"My thoughts are all a case of 'knives Breaking my poor heart."
Oh, the tortures of the man who feels his guilt, but does not know the
remedy for it! To look leprosy in the face, but not to know that it may
be healed! To walk the hospital and hear that there is no physician
there! To see the flame, but not to know that it can be quenched! To be
in the dungeon, but never to know the rescue and deliverance! O you
that are ready to perish, I sympathize with you in your present
sufferings, but I do not lament them! This is the way in which God
begins with those whom He intends to bless–not to the same degree in
all, but yet after the same kind. He destroys our confidence in our own
works and then gives us confidence in Christ's work. You know how
Bunyan describes Christian as being much tumbled up and down in his
mind. And when his wife and children came round about him, he could
only tell them that the city in which they lived was to be
destroyed–and though his easy-going neighbors told him not to
believe it and not to make such a fuss about it, the truth had come
home to him with too much power to be put away. Atheist might say it
was all a lie and Pliable might give slight heed to it and pretend to
believe it for a season, but Christian knew it to be true, so he ran to
the wicket gate, and the Cross, that he might escape from the wrath to
come. To the careless, these words, "Ready to perish," should sound an
alarm. May God the Holy Spirit, while I preach upon the second text,
enable me to blow the great trumpet of the jubilee! May the gladsome
sound reach the heart of him that is ready to perish! May he know that
Divine Mercy brought him here that he might find a God ready to pardon!
II. My second text is in Psalm 86:5–"READY TO FORGIVE." Does not that
ring like a silver bell? The other was a doleful note, like that of St.
Sepulcher's bell when it tolls the knell of a criminal about to be
executed–"Ready to perish." But this rings like a marriage
peal–"Ready to forgive. Ready to forgive." What does it mean when it
says that God is ready to forgive?
"Ready" means, as you all know, prepared. A man is not ready to go by
railway until his trunk is packed and he is about to start. A man
cannot be said to be ready to emigrate till he has the means to pay his
passage and the different things needed for his transit, and for his
settling down when he gets to his destination. No road is ready till it
is cleared. Nothing is ready, in fact, till it is prepared. Sinner, God
is ready to forgive–that is, everything is prepared by which you may
be forgiven! The road used to be blocked up but Jesus Christ has, with
His Cross, tunneled every mountain, filled every valley and bridged
every chasm so that the way of pardon is now fully prepared. There is
no need for God to say, "I would pardon this sinner, but how shall My
justice be honored?" Sinner, God's justice has been satisfied, the sin
of all who believe, or who ever will believe, was laid upon Christ when
He died upon the tree! If you believes in Him, your sin was punished
upon Him and it was forever put away by the great Atonement which He
offered, so that, now, the righteous God can come out of the ivory
palace of His mercy, stretch out His hands of love and say, "Sinner, I
am reconciled to you. Be you reconciled to Me."–
"Sprinkled now with blood, the Throne, Why beneath your burdens groan?
All the wrath on Him was laid Justice owns the ransom paid." In the
case of the ancient Israelites, it was necessary that the sacrifice
should be slain and be burned upon the altar. So, the Divine Victim has
been slain upon Calvary. Once and for all, the Sacrifice for sin has
been offered by Jesus, accepted by the Father and witnessed by the Holy
Spirit. God is ready–that is to say, He is prepared–to forgive all
who will believe in Jesus Christ! You think that much preparation is
needed on your part, but you are greatly mistaken. All things are
ready! The oxen and the fatlings are killed, the feast is spread, the
servants are sent with the invitations to the banquet–all you have to
do, poor Penitent, is to come and sit down and eat with thankfulness to
the great Giver of the feast! The bath is filled, O black Sinner, so
come and wash! The garment is woven from the top throughout, O you
naked, so come and put it on! The price is paid, O you ransomed ones,
so take your blood-bought liberty! All is done. "It is finished," rings
from Calvary's summit! God is ready to forgive!
But the word, "ready," means something more than prepared. We sometimes
use the term to indicate that a thing can be easily done. We ask, "Can
you do such-and-such a thing?" "Oh, yes!" you reply, "readily." Or
perhaps we remind you of a promise you have given and ask if you can
carry it out. And you say, "Oh, yes! I am quite ready to fulfill my
engagement." Sinner, it is an easy thing for God to forgive you!
"Indeed," you say, "but you don't know where I was last night." No, and
I don't want to know. But it is easy for God to pardon anybody who is
not in Hell. But you ask, "How can He do it? "He speaks and it is done!
He has but to say to you, "Your sins which are many, are all forgiven,"
and it is done! Pardon is an instantaneous work! Justification is rapid
as a lightning flash. You may be black one moment and as white as
alabaster the next! Guilty–absolved! Condemned–Acquitted!
Lost–found! Dead–made alive! It takes the Lord no time to do this–He
does it easily.
O Brothers and Sisters, if He could make a world with a word. If He
could say, "Let there be light," and there was light–surely, now that
Christ has offered up Himself as a bleeding Sacrifice for sin, God has
but to speak and the pardon is given! As soon as He says, "I will. Be
you clean," the most leprous sinner is perfectly cleansed! O Sinner,
will you not offer the prayer, "Save, Lord, or I perish?" Will you not
ask the Lord to forgive you? Since He can so readily forgive,
will you not cry, "Jesus, save me, or I die"? Stretch forth your hand,
poor trembling woman up yonder, and touch the hem of His garment and
you shall be made whole, for He is ready to forgive–that is, He can do
it with ease!
Again, the word, "ready," frequently means promptly or quickly. In this
sense, also, God is ready to forgive. I know that some of you imagine
that you must endure months of sorrow before you can be forgiven. There
is no necessity that you should wait even another hour for this great
blessing! After what I have been saying concerning the experience
through which others have passed, some of you may fancy that you must
be for four or five years floundering about in the Slough of Despond,
but there is no need for you to do that. The plan of salvation is
this–"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Let
me give you a picture. Paul and Silas have been thrust into the inner
prison at Phi-lippi and their feet made fast in the stocks. Though they
have been brutally beaten, they are singing at midnight– singing of
pardon bought with blood, singing of the dying and risen Lamb of God
and, as they sing–suddenly there is an earthquake. The foundations of
the prison shake, the doors fly open and the jailer, fearing that his
prisoners have escaped, leaps out, draws his sword and is about to kill
himself! But he hears a voice crying, "Do yourself no harm! We are all
here."
He calls for a light, springs in and falls tremblingly at his
prisoners' feet and says, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" What
would some of you have said in reply to that question? "Well, you must
first believe the guilt of your sin more than you do at present–you
had better go home and pray about the matter." That was not Paul's
answer. He said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be
saved, and your house." And, to prove that he was saved, the Apostle
baptized him and all his, straightway, and we are expressly told that
they all believed. What do you say to that, you old deacons who say, as
many country deacons still do, that the young converts ought to be
"summered and wintered" before they are baptized? I have known scores
of good old souls in the country who have said, "We must not take Mrs.
So-and-So into the church. We have not had time to prove her enough."
But the Apostle knew that as they had believed, they were fit to be
baptized because they were pardoned–
"The moment a sinner believes,
And trusts in His crucified God,
His pardon at once He receives,
Redemption in full through His blood." If the Lord wills, you may be
pardoned this very moment. Jehovah needs not months and years in which
to write out the charter of your forgiveness and put the great seal of
Heaven to it. He can speak the word and swifter than the lightning
flash, the message shall come to you, "Your sins, which are many, are
all forgiven." And you shall say, "I'm forgiven–
"'A monument of Grace
A sinner saved by blood!
The streams of love I trace
Up to the Fountain, God
And in His sacred bosom see
Eternal thoughts of love to me.'" The word, "ready," is also frequently
used to signify cheerfulness. When a person says to you, "Will you give
me your help?" you say, "Oh, certainly, with readiness!" That means
with cheerfulness. The Lord loves a cheerful giver and I am sure that
He is, Himself, a cheerful Giver. You do not know, poor Soul, how glad
God is when He forgives a soul. The angels sang when God made the
world, but we do not read that He sang. Yet, in the last chapter of the
prophecy of Zephaniah, we read, "The Lord your God in the midst of you
is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over you with joy; He will
rest in His love, He will joy over you with singing." Only think of
it–the Triune God singing! What a thought–the Deity bursting out into
song! And what is this about? It is over His pardoned people, His
blood-bought chosen ones! O Soul, you think, perhaps, that God will be
hard to be entreated and that He will give His mercy grudgingly! But
the mercy of the Lord is as free as the air we breathe. When the sun
shines, it shines freely, otherwise it were not the sun. And when God
forgives, He forgives freely, else He were not God! Never did water
leap from the crystal fountain with half such freeness and generous
liberality as Grace flows from the heart of God! He gives forth love,
joy, peace and pardon–and He gives them as a king gives to a king! You
cannot empty His treasury, for it is inexhaustible. He is not enriched
by withholding, nor is He impoverished by bestowing!
Soul, you do libel Him when you think that He is unwilling to forgive
you. I once had, as you now have, that hard thought of my loving Lord,
that He would not forgive me. I thought He might, perhaps, do so one
day, yet I could hardly think so well of Him as to believe that He
would. I came to His feet very timidly and said, "Surely, He will spurn
me." I supposed that He would say to me, "Get you gone, you dog of a
sinner, for you have doubted My love." But it was not so. Ah, you
should see with what a smile He received the prodigal, with what fond
tenderness He clasped him to His breast, with what glad eyes He led him
to His house and with what a radiant Countenance He set him by His
side, at the head of the table, and said, "Let us eat, and be merry:
for this My son was dead, and is alive again: he was lost, and is
found."
I would that I could write upon every heart here and engrave upon every
memory those sweet words, "Ready to forgive." Are there any of you who
do not want to be forgiven? The day will come when you will want this
blessing. Sailor, are you in this building? Within a little while you
may be out upon the lonely sea, the waves may have swallowed up your
vessel and you may be clinging to just an oar. When the waters surge
around you, how gladly you will remember that God is ready to
forgive–but how much better it would be to trust your soul to Him now!
Some, whom I am now addressing, will probably die this week. I am not
making a rash assertion–my statement is based upon the statistics of
mortality. O Soul, you say that it is nothing to you now, but when you
are in the article of death–and that may be before another Sabbath's
sun shall rise–how might this note ring like music in your dying ears,
"Ready to forgive"!
Am I speaking to some abandoned woman who thinks that she will destroy
herself? See you do it not, for God is ready to forgive! Am I
addressing some man who is cast out of society as a reprobate for whom
nobody cares? Soul, give not up hope, for God is ready to forgive!
Though your father has shut the door against you and your mother and
sister shun you because of your vices and sins, yet God is ready to
forgive you if you will repent and turn from your iniquity! Turn you,
turn you–'tis a brother's voice that entreats you to turn! By the love
with which He pardoned me. By the mercy which made Him pass by my
innumerable transgressions, I beg you to turn, no, more, linking my arm
in yours, I say to you, "Come, and let us return unto the Lord and let
us say unto Him, 'Receive us graciously, and love us freely, so will we
render unto You the calves of our lips.'" Ready to perish are you, but
ready to forgive is He! Blessed be His holy name!
III. My third text is intended as a hammer to drive home the last nail.
This sentence, in Job 17:1, is most solemnly true of each one of
us–THE GRAVES ARE READY FOR ME.
About three years ago I gazed into the eternal world. It then pleased
God to stretch me upon a bed of the most agonizing pain and my life
hung in jeopardy, not merely every hour, but every moment. Eternal
realities were vivid enough before my eyes, but it pleased God, for
some purpose which is known to Him, to spare my life and I went to
spend a little season, that I might fully recover, with a beloved
friend who seemed, then, far more likely to live than I was. This day,
it is his turn to lie upon the borders of the grave and mine to stand
by his bedside. The grave then seemed ready for me–it now seems ready
for him. As I stood talking to him this afternoon, he said with greater
force than Addison, "See how a Christian can die." When I asked him
about his worldly goods and possessions, he said that he had been
content to leave them all, some time ago. "And what about your wife and
your little ones?" I asked. And he replied, "I have left them all with
God." "And how about eternal things?" I enquired. "Oh," said he, "you
know that God's love is everlasting and His Grace is unchanging, so why
should we fear?"
He had no doubt about his acceptance in the Beloved, or about the power
of Christ to carry him through his dying moments. When I said, "The
battle's fought, the victory's won forever," I saw his eyes sparkle as
though he heard the melodious voice of the great Captain of our
salvation saying to him, "Well done! Enter into your rest." I never saw
a bride at her marriage look more happy than this man upon the eve of
death. I never saw a saint more peaceful, when retiring at eventide,
than he was when about to undress himself that he might stand before
his God. "Ah," he exclaimed, "remember what you said to me, 'Sudden
death, sudden glory!'" and his eyes sparkled again at the prospect of
soon beholding his Lord–
"Onegentle sigh, the fetter breaks"–
and you are gone, O earth, and my soul is in Heaven! One gasp and you
have melted, O shadowy Time, and I have come to you, you welcome
substance of Eternity! Blessed be God that the graves are ready for us!
Christian, does the idea of a long life charm you? Do you want to
remain long in this prison? Would you cling to these rags of mortality,
to this vile
body, whose breath is corrupt, whose face is so often marred with
weeping and upon whose eyelids hangs the shadow of death? Would you
long to creep up and down this dunghill world, like some poor worm that
always leaves a slimy track behind it? Or would you not rather–
"Stretch your wrings, O Soul, and fly
Straight to yonder world of joy"?
Were we wise, we would–
"Long for evening, to undress, That we might rest with God."
"The graves are ready for me." Young men and young women, and all of
you who are here, can you look upon the grave which is ready for you
with as much complacency as my friend did this afternoon? O Death, you
do not need to furbish up your darts, or whet your scythe! You are
always ready to slaughter the sons of men. O Eternity, your gates need
not to be unlocked and thrown back on their hinges with long and
tedious toil, for they are always open! O world to come, you do not
need long intervals to make yourself ready to receive the pilgrims who
have finished their journey! You are an inn whose doors are always
open–you are whose gates are never closed! Our grave is ready for us.
The tree is grown that shall make our coffin–perhaps the fabric that
shall make our winding sheet is already woven and they, who will carry
us to our last home, are ready and waiting for us!
"The graves are ready for us." Are we ready for the graves? Are we
prepared to die–prepared to rise again– prepared to be
judged–prepared to plead the blood and righteousness of Christ as our
ground of acceptance before the eternal Throne of God? What is your
answer, my Hearer? Do you reply, in the words I quoted at the beginning
of my discourse, "Ready, yes, ready!"? Did you say Death, that I was
wanted? Here I am, for you did call me! Did you say, O Heaven, that you
need to receive another blood-bought one? "Ready, yes, ready!" O
Christian, always keep your houses in such good order that you will
always be "Ready, yes, ready!" Always keep your heart in such a state,
your soul so near to Christ and your faith so fully fixed on Him, that,
if you should drop dead in the street, or some Providence should take
away your life, you would be able to cheerfully say, "Ready, yes,
ready! Ready for you, O Death! Ready to triumph over you and to pluck
away your sting! Ready for you, O Grave, for where is now your victory?
Ready for you, O Heaven, for, with your wedding garment on, we are
ready, yes, ready!" The Lord make us ready, for Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 8:1-27.
Verse 1, 2. When He was come down from the mountain, great multitudes
followed Him. And, behold, there came a leper. You see that particular
mention is made of this one special case and, in any congregation,
while it may be recorded that so many people came together, the special
case that will be noted by the recording angel will be that of anyone
who comes to Christ with his own personal distresses and who thereby
obtains relief from them–"Behold, there came a leper."
2, 3. And worshipped Him, saying, Lord if you will, you can make me
clean. And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will; be
you clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. His faith was not
as strong as it might have been. There was an, "if," in it, but still,
it was genuine faith and our loving Lord fixed His eye upon the faith
rather than upon the flaw that was in it. And if He sees in you, dear
Friend, even a trembling faith, He will rejoice in it and bless you
because of it. He will not withhold His blessing because you are not as
strong in faith as you should be. Probably you would have a greater
blessing if you had greater faith, but even little faith gets great
blessings from Christ! The leper said to Him, "If you will, you can
make me clean." So Christ answered to the faith that he did possess,
"and touched him, saying, I will; be you clean. And immediately his
leprosy was cleansed."
4-7. And Jesus said unto him, See you teelno man; but go your way, show
yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a
testimony unto them. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there
came unto Him a centurion beseeching Him, and saying, Lord, my servant
lies at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus said
unto him, I will come and heal him. He had not asked Christ to "come
and heal him." He wished his servant to be healed, but he considered
that it was too great an honor for Christ to come to him. I am not
sure, but I think that this man's judgment is correct–that for Christ
to come to a man is better than for healing to come to him. Indeed,
Brothers
and Sisters, all the gifts of Christ fall far short of Himself! If He
will but come and abide with us, that means more than all else that He
can bestow upon us.
8, 9. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that You
should come under my roof: but only speak the word and my servant shall
be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me:
and I say to this man, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he
comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it. From his own power
over his soldiers and servants, he argued that Christ must have at
least equal power over all the forces of Nature and, as a centurion did
not need to go and do everything himself, but gave his orders to his
servant and he did it, so, surely, there could be no need for the great
Commander, to whom he was speaking, to honor the sick man with His own
personal Presence. He had simply to utter the command and it would be
obeyed, and the centurion's servant would be healed. Do you think this
is an ingenious argument? It is so, certainly, but it is also a very
plain and very forcible one. I have read or heard many ingenious
arguments for unbelief and I have often wished that half the ingenuity
thus vainly spent could be exercised in discovering reasons for
believing–so I am pleased to notice that this commander of a hundred
Roman soldiers did but argue from his own position–and so worked in
his mind still greater confidence in Christ's power to heal his sick
servant. Is there not something about yourself, from which, if you
would look at it in the right light, you might gather arguments
concerning the power of the Lord Jesus Christ?
10. When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to them that followed,
Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no not in
Israel. "Not in Israel"–where the Light of God and the knowledge were,
there was not such faith as this centurion possessed! This Roman
soldier, rough by training and experience, who was more familiar with
stern fighting men than with those who could instruct him concerning
Christ–had more faith than Jesus had so far found "in Israel."
11,12. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west,
and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the Kingdom
of Heaven. But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer
darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is a
strange thing, yet it is continually happening, despite its
strangeness, that the persons who are placed in such positions of
privilege, that you naturally expect that they would become Believers,
remain unbelievers, while others, who are placed at a terrible
disadvantage, nevertheless often come right out from sin and right away
from ignorance and become believers in Christ! Oh, that none of us who
sit under the sound of the Gospel from Sabbath to Sabbath, might be sad
illustrations of this Truth of God, while others, unaccustomed to
listen to the Word, may be happy instances of the way in which the Lord
still takes strangers and adopts them into His family!
13. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go your way; and as you have
believed, so be it done unto you. And his servant was healed in the
same hour. Jesus will treat all alike according to this rule–"As you
have believed, so be it done unto you." If you can believe great things
of Him, you shall receive great things from Him. If you think Him good,
great and mighty, you shall find Him to be so. If you can conceive
greater things of Him than anyone else has ever done, you shall find
Him equal to all your conceptions and your greatest faith shall be
surpassed! It is a Law of His Kingdom, from which Christ never
swerves–"According to your faith, be it unto you."
14, 15. And when Jesus was come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's
mother lying sick of a fever, and He touched her hand, and the fever
left her: and she arose and ministered unto them. That was, perhaps,
the most remarkable thing of all, for, when a fever is cured, it
usually leaves great weakness behind it. Persons recovered of fever
cannot immediately leave their bed and begin at once to attend to
household matters! But Peter's wife's mother did this. Learn,
therefore, that the Lord Jesus can not only take away from us the
disease of sin, but all the effects of it as well! He can make the man
who has been worn out in the service of Satan, to become young again in
the service of the Lord. And when it seems as if we never, even if
converted, could be of any use to Him, He can take away the
consequences of evil habits and make us into bright and sanctified
Believers. What is there that is impossible to Him? In the olden time,
kings claimed to have the power of healing with a touch. That was a
superstition. But this King can do it–all glory to His blessed name!
May He lay His gracious hand upon many of you, for, if it could heal
before it was pierced, much more can it now heal every sin-stricken
soul it touches!
16-18. When the evening was come, they brought unto Him many that were
possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and
healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by Isaiah the Prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bore
our sicknesses. Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave
commandment to depart unto the other side. For He neither loved nor
courted popularity, but did His utmost to shun it. It followed Him like
His shadow but He always went before it. He never followed it, or
sought after it–"When Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave
commandment to depart unto the other side."
19. And a certain scribe came and said unto Him, Master, I will follow
You wherever You go. How bold he is with his boasting! But Jesus knows
that the fastest professors are often just as fast deserters, so He
tests him before He takes him into the band of His followers.
20. And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes and the birds of the
air have nests; but the Son of Man has not where to lay His head.
Christ means–"Can you follow the Son of Man when there is no reward
except Himself–not even a place for your head to rest upon, or a home
wherein you may find comfort? Can you cleave to Him when the lone
mountainside shall be the place where He spends whole nights in prayer
while the dews falls heavily upon Him? Can you follow Him then?" This
is a test of love which makes many to be "found wanting."
21. 22. And another ofHis disciples said unto Him, Lord, suffer me
first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, Follow Me; and
let the dead bury their dead. It must be Christ, first, and father
afterwards. We pay no disrespect to our dearest relatives and friends
when we put them after Christ–that is their proper place. To put them
before Christ–to prefer the creature to the Creator–is to be traitors
to the King of kings. Whoever may come next, Christ must be first.
23-26. And when He was entered into a boat, His disciples followed Him.
And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the
ship was covered with the waves: but He was asleep. And His disciples
came to Him, and awoke Him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And He
said unto them, Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? Then He
arose, and rebuked the winds; and the sea; and there was a great calm.
Probably no calm is so profound as that which follows the tempest of
the soul which Jesus stills by His peace-speaking word. The calm of
Nature, the calm of long-continued prosperity, the calm of an easy
temper–these are all deceitful and are apt to be broken by sudden and
furious tempests. But, after the soul has been rent to its
foundations–after the awful groundswell and the Atlantic billows of
deep temptation–when Jesus gives peace, there is "a great calm."
27. And the men marvelled, saying, What manner of Man is this, that
even the winds and the sea obey Him?We have often marvelled in the same
way, but we know that it is not any "manner of Man" alone, but it was
He who was truly Man, who was also "very God of very God," the God-Man,
the Man Christ Jesus, the Mediator between God and men!