Love and Jealousy
(No. 3516)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY JUNE 15, 1916.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave." Song of
Solomon 8:6.
TAKEN in its most natural sense, this is certainly true of creature
love. It is a mighty, all-constraining, irresistible passion. Even the
love of friendship occasionally has proved itself to be "strong as
death." "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life
for his friend." There have been those who were willing to sacrifice
their lives for their friends. Filial affection has sometimes proven to
be more than a match for the terrors of the grave. Some pleasing
instances are on record worthy to be written among the golden deeds of
manhood in which brothers and sisters have seemed to contend with each
other who should die first, if perchance a brother's precious life
might, by such a sacrifice, be preserved. What a mighty instinct of
love glows in the mother's heart! You recollect that famous story of
the mother whose child was taken from her by a Jesuit missionary to be
trained separate and apart from its parents–how she swam through
rivers and passed through what seemed to be impenetrable forests,
guided only by the midnight star–till she arrived at the place where
her offspring was–braving death in a thousand shapes from wild beasts
and venomous serpents, from floods and jungles, from fierce men and
relentless persecutors, might she but reach her child! Have there not
been instances where, in the stormy blasts of winter, a mother has
wrapped her garments about her infant and, exposing herself to the fury
of the elements, has sacrificed her own life that the little one might
live? Love has, indeed, often proved itself to be strong as death! When
merely the common passion which burns in the breast of ordinary men and
women towards each other, it has asserted its strength in a fond
devotion which reckoned no consequences, spared itself no pain and
fixed no limit to endurance, not counting life, itself, too dear to be
parted with on so high a service.
Nor do we lack painful proofs of the converse proposition as it is
stated in the second clause of our text. Jealousy has often proved
itself "cruel as the grave." You have only to recall the most appalling
murders that have been committed within your memory, or, if you please,
those you have read of in the history of nations, and you will find
that jealousy has instigated those that were most vindictive and
relentless. When jealousy begins to turn its sharp tooth upon a man's
heart, his reason fails him. Madness takes possession of his faculties.
A determined purpose, which he would not have dared to contemplate
under the influence of a well-balanced judgment, prompts, plans and
performs almost without premeditation, an atrocious crime, when
jealousy rules the cruel hour! We believe it and we deplore it! No
revenge has ever been found too bitter, too malicious, too lawless for
jealousy to inflict. Relentless as the grave, it spares not youth nor
beauty, respects not fame nor fortune, but accounts all comers for its
prey!
Not that these things, a phenomena of Nature, much concern the
Christian minister. He has to handle these themes because they concern
you as men. It is to men he speaks. He has to tell them of the
salvation of Jesus Christ! It is rather the business of the mental
philosopher than the faithful Evangelist to take up these phenomena of
the human mind. Our business is to understand these things spiritually
This Song of Songs is spiritual, or else it has no claim on our
attention–its very Inspiration were incredible. We cannot imagine the
Holy Spirit giving us this song merely for the purpose of entertaining
us with the figures and metaphors of Eastern allegory! There must be a
deep and hidden meaning in it.
Now we believe it will be fair to say that there are two high spiritual
forms of love and jealousy and that our text is lucid in its
description of both–first, the love and jealousy of the saints with
regard to Christ And secondly, the love and jealousy of Christ with
regard to His saints. We will begin with–
I. THE LOVE AND JEALOUSY OF THE SAINTS WITH REGARD TO CHRIST.
The saints love their Lord and Master, or else they could not be
saints. Love is the fountain of their saintship. They are sanctified by
love. It is the love of Jesus Christ which compels them to hate sin and
which leads them forward in the path of holiness. The Holy Spirit uses
the same passion of love to work in us the purging of ourselves from
every unhallowed thing and to inflame our desire after everything that
is agreeable to the mind of Christ. The saints have received, by the
Holy Spirit, a love to Christ which is "strong as death." And how
strong is death? Think for a moment how strong Death is! He is so
strong that the armies which lay encamped upon the field just now, and
could tread an empire beneath their feet, yield to his imperial sway,
and are, themselves, trod beneath the feet of Death. Xerxes, as he sat
on his golden throne, wept at the thought that death should so soon mow
down the myriads of his Persian hosts. Over all the multitudes which
have been born into the world, with but two exceptions, Death has
swayed his scepter. So strong is he, that he has up to now reigned as
an Universal Monarch. Nor will he ever resign his scepter until He
shall come whose Kingdom shall have no end–He who is, "death of death,
and Hell's destruction." The monarchy of death is not only universal,
but its behests are imperious and instantaneously obeyed! When, at
God's command, death seizes the body, it has no power to resist. The
vital energy at once ceases, the tongue of music is dumb and the hand
of skill is motionless forever! Then shall the dust return to the earth
as it was, and the spirit shall return to God, who gave it. In vain the
physician's skill–it cannot avert the stroke of death. No long siege
is necessary–it requires not years, nor months, nor weeks to scale the
ramparts of man's citadel of bodily strength! As Death knocks at the
door, it flies open. The arrest must be made. Willing or unwilling, the
prisoner must go with the officer. The demand is peremptory and the
obedience passive. Seems it not as if Nature had no parallel for this
strong irresistible force of Death?
Behold the love of our Lord Jesus Christ! Mark you, it is as strong as
death! It can and it does overcome all adversaries–yes, even death
itself! My Brothers and Sisters, it may, perhaps, strengthen your
courage if I remind you that some of your comrades have tried their
love in competition with death. They have "resisted unto blood,
striving against sin." They have met with death in the most cruel
forms. They were stoned! They were sawn in sunder! They were burned at
the stake. They were dragged at the heels of wild horses. Think of
Marcus of Arethusa, stung to death by wasps, or of holy Mr. Samuel,
starved to death in his dungeon with but a mouthful of bread and a drop
of water given him each day–only just enough to continue his lingering
existence! And yet these persons who thus met death with no downy
pillow to lean their heads upon and with no voice of friendship to
comfort them, never wavered in their attachment to their Master! They
suffered persecution, nakedness, peril and the sword–nothing could
separate them from the love of God which was in Christ Jesus the Lord!
Some of them met with death in the most gloomy formsas well as in the
most cruel shapes. They were cast into lonely dungeons where it was
almost literally true that "the moss grew upon their eyelids." Think of
our brethren in Holland, persecuted alike by Protestants and Romanists!
They have been despised of all men and have suffered death in deep
desertion! They have been thrown into dungeons and left there till the
slimy snails crawled over them, till the toads gathered about them,
till their emaciated frames absolutely rotted and decayed in the
nauseous places of their confinement! Not that they desired to escape,
or sought liberty at the expense of conscience–rather did they account
it a joy that they had fallen into divers trials for the sake of
Christ! With none to cheer them, with no Brother's voice to help them
to raise a tune, with no hymn to chant them on their way to public
martyrdom–without an eye to look upon them, except the eyes of the
Master–their love verily proved itself to have been "strong as death."
Still worse, I think, to bear–some of them met death in the most
lingering manner. Many a man could stand upon the burning firewood,
endure with heroism his hour of torture and then ascend in the chariot
of Elijah up to Heaven! But to be roasted before a slow fire, to be
starved by a low regimen, to be crushed by a vicious atmosphere–for
the martyrdom to extend over a week, a month, or a year–how shall this
be endured? The Supernatural Grace of God has made a bed of spikes to
be a bed of roses to some of the martyrs. Amidst the flames they have
even leaped and sung for very joy! That was a grand saying of one of
the martyr of Bloody Mary's time, who, when he was told by Bonner that
his life would be spared if he would recant, said, "Look here, Bishop,
if I had as many lives as I have hairs on my body, I would burn as many
times as that before I would bend myself down before the superstitions
of Rome!" Another of the martyrs, when his finger was put into the
flame of a candle that he might feel what kind of peril he was about to
encounter, told his persecutors if he had as much agony in all his body
as he then had in his finger, he would not give up the faith which he
had received from God, to adopt any of the traditions of men! Death has
thus come piecemeal to a man–he has had to "die daily"–in deaths
often like the Apostle Paul, continually having to face the grim fiend.
The love which Jesus Christ
has kindled in the souls of His people has been undiminished in
quantity and undimmed in brightness. In fact, I think that the love
which Christians have for Christ seems to flame the more vehemently,
the more troubles that they have to endure! Have you never seen a
chemist, when illustrating a lecture, take a small piece of solid
matter, put it in some water, and the moment it touches the water it
has begun to burn? In ordinary cases, contact with water extinguishes
fire, but this substance touches the water and burns there, as it burns
nowhere else! So seems it to be with the Christian. The best and most
brilliant part of the Christian's love comes out under some
overwhelming trouble. He triumphed when the opportunity arose that put
him to the test. "Love is strong as death."
Although you and I are not born in an age in which we are likely to
attain to the distinguished honor of wearing the ruby crown of
martyrdom, their example may excite our ambitions. Have you, dear young
Friend, been subjected to a litt1e jeering and sneering in the
workshop, or to a little harsh treatment at home? Maybe you have begun
to falter and flag. Consider for a moment, then, what part have you in
that love which is strong as death if it cannot bear this? If any of
you have been sorely tempted to do an unholy thing to get out of your
pecuniary embarrassments, ask yourselves, "Where is the love which is
strong in death," and will you dare to stoop? If you do not maintain
your integrity, you have not a drop of martyr's blood in you! And if
you have not the spirit of Christ, you are none of His! When I see
professors turn pale at a laugh of the thoughtless, or look terrified
when some article in a newspaper or a magazine thrusts hard at their
principles, I wonder how they would have behaved themselves in the
grand old times of Luther? Or had they belonged to the school of which
Calvin was the great exponent? Or might it have been their lot to
encounter the struggles, political and social, with which such bold
reformers as Wickliffe and Hugh Latimer were mixed up with? Let not
worthy sons of valiant sires pander to cowardly fears! Rather, let that
love which is as strong as death brace your nerves and replenish you
with a Divine inspiration! Doubtless, Brothers and Sisters, we shall
have an opportunity of testing this love, though not at the ignominious
stake, perhaps, nor yet in the desolate prison. The average trials and
troubles of life, the peculiar contingencies of each individual's
career, the special besetments and temptations that pertain to a child
of God–all these make it momentous to live–to live as becomes
godliness! And what do you think? Can it be child's play to die? To
finish one's course–to know that alterations and corrections cannot be
made? Our flesh creeps at the prospect of the grave–but our soul
trembles at the outlook and the judgment!
Our faith must be firm and our fellowship unwavering–then our love
will be strong–yes, as strong as death! You should not lose your
confidence when you lose your health. The animal spirits may sink, but
you are not dependent upon anything so contingent as they are on the
atmosphere. The spirit that sustains you is Divine! With decay comes
depres-sion–they are both the fruit of disease or of infirmity. Faith
can survive–love can triumph over both–
"Jesus can make a dying bed Feel soft as downy pillows are, While on
His breast you lean your head And softly breathe your life out there."
This is what Christ can do! Do you ask what He willdo? If you live to
His praise and rest in His love, you shall find that that love is
strong as death! Instead of its growing cooler and weaker when the
outward man decays, that love of yours shall get to the land of Beulah
and you shall sit upon the banks of Jordan, expecting the coming of the
Master and singing happy canticles and blessed love songs, even in the
prospect of your departure! Love is strong as death!
I wish every Christian would think it over in his own mind, whether his
love to Christ is not very poor and flat, compared with what it should
be? It seems to me that there is a notion abroad that a Christian may
be expected to betray weakness on other points. Is it not a fact that
evangelical or orthodox books are far the most part written in a feeble
style? How many devout ministers preach sound Gospel like simple
twaddle? If you want strong commonsense, you often get more of it in
secular than in religious periodicals! The ready pen and the forcible
tongue are frequently employed on the wrong side. I think the idea
prevails among pious people that everything we do for Christ ought to
be done in a quiet, gentle, soft, milk-sop fashion–that we must pray
in a very smooth tone of voice, speak in a whisper and sing so as not
to shock anybody's nerves! This seems to me to be totally inconsistent
and utterly alien to the spirit of genuine Christianity! When you
espouse godliness you need not renounce manliness! If anything is
fitted to develop all the energies of a man's nature and call forth all
the powers and faculties of his being, it should be his enlisting on
the side of King Jesus! My Master calls you to serve Him, not with a
timid, vacillating, fitful service, but He demands that you be bold and
brave, valiant and venturesome in His service. He provides you with
strength–He may well require your diligence! 'Tis
meet that you serve Him with all your powers of body, soul and spirit.
The love we bear to Christ should not be a mere complacency, bland and
gentle, a matter for well-bred reticence, rather than for blind avowal.
No, let it be a mighty, all-constraining potion that gets hold of a man
like a whirlwind, and carries him along! Ah, I think this love of Jesus
should be dearer to the heart than light to the eyes! It should throb
with every pulse of life! It should warm one's blood as it circulates
through the veins. It should inflame the heart with zeal and mold the
constitution of one's soul! The cold, quiet man, or the passive,
lukewarm man, are alike unfit to engage in our Master's service! Should
not the love of disciples to their Lord be stronger than the love of
the husband to his wife, of the mother to her child, or of friend to
friend–a love compared with which there is no love on earth to be
found–a love that is strong as death? Connected with this love and as
a result of it, jealousy is brought under our notice.
"Jealousy is cruel as the grave." Whenever love absorbs the heart,
jealousy will guard the object of affection. Only let a provocation
occur, something of jealousy is sure to appear! Your love to Christ
especially lacks the genuine stamp if it is never awakened to jealousy
by the malice of foes and the faithlessness of professed friends of our
Lord. Many Christians, nowadays, have a kind of love which is too fond
of ease and too full of compromise to kindle any jealousy in their
breasts. The saints of olden times–how sensitive they were! How
quickly their hot indignation was kindled! When Baal, the abomination
of Moab, was worshipped in Israel, Moses said to the judges, "Slay,
everyone, his men who were joined unto Baal Peor." So, too, at the time
that the golden calf was made in the wilderness, you will remember that
Moses' anger waxed hot and he stood at the gate of the camp and said,
"Who is on the Lord's side, let him come unto me," and all the sons of
Levi gathered themselves unto him. At his bidding, by the word of the
Lord, they took, every man, his sword, and went in and out from gate to
gate to slay every man–his brother, his companion and his neighbor!
There fell of the people that day about 3,000 men! Their love to
Jehovah gave them a jealousy which was cruel as the grave in avenging
idolatry! You remember how it was accounted to Phineas, the son of
Eleazar, for righteousness, that he rose against Zimri, a prince among
the Simeonites, and thrust him through with a javelin when he was
caught in sin with a Midianite woman. Such jealousy was cruel as the
grave! Men like Elijah did not say, in gentle accents, "Comprehensive
charity is better than Covenant Truth. Give us full liberty to worship
Jehovah and you shall have perfect liberty to worship Baal." No! He
contested the question with the idolatrous priests. The verdict came by
fire from Heaven! The frightened multitude saw it and cried out,
"Jehovah, He is the God." Then said Elijah, "Take the prophets of
Baal–let not one of them escape." This was the voice of a man who
loved the Lord! Who was jealous for His name–and these excited in him
a holy anger and a righteous enmity against the worshippers of idols!
Now, under the Christian dispensation, we can have no such anger
against individuals! Our Lord has taught us, by His example, that they
are rather to be pitied than hated by us. But, on the other hand, in
zeal for the Lord of Hosts and in hatred of every false way, a
Christian walking in the light of the Gospel should excel the most
devout Jew under the old dispensation! Persecution is unprincipled. It
violates the law of love to which we owe a supreme allegiance. But true
faith never can hold fellowship with infidelity! Vital godliness must
be at hostility with all unrighteousness of men. Do we seem to speak
bitterly? I suppose it never will be a very sweet thing to tell people
of their faults. We should like to know whether Luther did not speak
bitterly. What kind of honey did he use? Did Calvin declaim in soft and
silvery tones? Did Hugh Latimer, when he encountered Popery, line his
mouth with velvet and deliver himself in delicate phrases?
What do you think, Brothers and Sisters? Did ever patriot stand upon
maudlin civilities when he saw conspirators plotting against his
country? Did any noble-minded philanthropist cringe with misgivings, or
apologize for interfering with the miscreant libertines who defile the
youth and beauty, or debauch the homes of the people? And can it be
possible that any lover of God, and valiant defender of the faith ever
did, or ever shall, buckle to those damnable heresies which are alike
insulting to the Lord, who bought us, and destructive to the souls of
men whose redemption is inestimably precious in His sight? No, but they
only cared to clear themselves of the blood of souls against the Last
Great Day. What I long to see in every Church is not a breach of
charity between man and man, but the utter destruction of that pseudo
charity which is now the curse of the Christian Church! If you have a
partiality towards what Christ hates. If you have pity for Agag, whom
God abhors. If you have a wish to tolerate that which exalts human
pride, though it is utterly derogatory to your Master, truly, then, you
are a traitor, however unintentionally to your Master! You do not show
any wise and discriminating love to Him, for if your love were
vehement, you would be jealous of His crown jewels and you would not
suffer any other to be recognized as the Head of the Church but your
Lord. If you love Him, you will be jealous of His
Atonement, and you will not allow that anything else can cleanse from
sin but that blood He shed for our remission. If you love Him, you will
become jealous of His Spirit and you will not be willing that the new
birth which comes of His operations should be set down to any mere
ceremony! If you love Jesus Christ, you will be jealous of His Deity
and you will not be party to bits of bread and drops of wine being
adored as the body and blood of Christ–when you know that He is in the
body up above, dwelling before the Eternal Throne of God! You will feel
that error, instead of being stared at as an object of scientific
interest, is a thing to be shuddered at as a malignant disease–and to
be guarded against as an epidemic! With Jezebel, you can have no peace
while she loves her vicious unions. You will contend against every
faction which conspires to tarnish the Redeemer's Glory and cast Him
down from His excellence.
"Jealousy is cruel as the grave." "Hard" is the word. "Jealousy is
hardas the grave." Truly the grave is hard. It has not the slightest
compunction. It holds fast the prey that is taken by its master. As
Christians we are, and we must be, lovers of mankind. Men we love–men
we would at all times help and serve. No clime nor caste, no
geographical line or national character can define the boundary of our
heart's yearning for the welfare of humanity while we act on the
commission to preach the Gospel to every creature. But error we must
expose and cry out against–and rest not day nor night till the arm of
God has torn it up, root and branch! This seems to me to be a natural
consequence of loving Christ much. If you love Christ but little, you
will hate error but little. If you do not love the Truth of God at all,
you will not hate error at all. You will say, "Oh, what does it matter?
It is a mere theologian's dispute–let it be left to the schools to
wrangle over." Not so! When you once begin to think, "Such-and-such a
Truth of God is precious to me as my life! It is identified with my
being and my well-being"–from that very moment you will be filled with
a jealousy which is hard as the grave! Turning now from our love and
jealousy for our Savior, let us speak a little of–
II. THE SAVIOR'S LOVE AND JEALOUSY TOWARDS US.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, we know, has a love for us that passes all
understanding and, however it may seem to grate upon the ear, it is
equally true that He has a jealousy over His people which watches them
with incessant care. I need not prove to you that the love of Jesus
Christ for us is as strong as death–He verified that when He tasted
death in all its bitterness–forsaken, not only by men, but, worst of
all, forsaken by His God. "Eli, Eli, lama, Sabachthani" was the
concentration of all griefs! Such was His cry upon the accursed tree.
Death never made Him flinch. He faced and felt its extreme agonies, and
loved us then, as He loved us before, and as He still loves us with
Infinite tenacity! The fact that His love is strong as death admits of
no question. But here is the point I am coming to–His jealousy is
cruel, or hard as the grave. He is never cruel towards His people, but
He is very hard on foe or rival that would come between His people and
Himself–yes, hard as the grave!
Consider this, my beloved Friends. You and I once cherished a
self-righteousness that stood in the way of our receiving Christ. We
would not look to Him, nor trust Him, but we loved our own works. We
thought ourselves at least as good as others and we rested there. Now
how relentless the Lord was in cutting down that self-righteousness of
ours! He never gave it any quarter. How He denounced it, doomed it and
utterly destroyed it! We thought so much of it that we would have
harbored it, but He would not tolerate a bit of it. He turned our
beauty into ashes and our glory into confusion of face–for He loathed
our self-righteousness more than we ever loathed our uncleanness and
impiety! He accounted it neither fit for the land nor yet for the
dunghill. How He then dealt with us in severity! What cuts and wounds
we had! We were killed, some of us, by His Law. We cried out of the
depths to Him, but still He apparently had no pity and no mercy! We
seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the mire, till, as we read the
Book of Job, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, we felt that the
expressions we found there had been written on purpose for us! We tried
to pray, but our prayers came back from the brazen sky reverberating in
our ears in notes of despair! We went to the House of God, but we found
no comfort there. We turned to the Bible, but not a promise cheered us,
for the Lord Jesus was jealous of our self-righteousness and He would
not give us a comfortable word, nor so much as one kind look till that
self-righteousness was wholly gone! When that was turned out of us, oh,
the love passages, the blessed Revelations of His Divine Grace that He
then gave us! But He would not give us so much as a glance of kindness,
or a sentence of cheer until first He had got rid of the unholy things
that provoked His jealousy!
Since then we have had many visits from Him, yet He has not ceased to
be jealous. I have held interviews today with a goodly number of those
who have lately found Christ, and I observed among them many who were
brought to seek His face by the death of a husband, or a child and, in
some cases it was not only the loss of one child, but of another and
another. I have frequently met with instances where a woman has been
bereaved both of her child and of her husband before she yielded up her
heart to Jesus. He has had to be "cruel as the grave" before He got rid
of the object of His jealousy! She was wrapped up in the affections of
earth–she had given herself up wholly to earthly things and so one
gourd must wither, and then another, till there was nothing earthly
left to shelter her–and then the poor weeping eyes were turned to the
Cross–and only then did consolation come. Christ's jealousy is thus
"cruel," but oh, what a blessed cruelty it is! It is better to enter
into life halt and maimed, and having only one hand, than having two
eyes and all our friends and kinsfolk about us, to be cast into the
fires of Hell! It is better that we should suffer from cruel
Providences, here, than that we should be permitted to go wafting along
streams of pleasure down to the gulf of everlasting ruin! Blessed
cruelty that makes us love the Savior by revealing the Savior's
inextinguishable love for us!
And since the day of our conversion, how many times have you and I
cherished tastes and habits which we preferred before Christ and the
walk of faith with Him? It is so easy to let the creature come in and
usurp the place of the Beloved–thus to live half for God and half for
our friends! But that will not do, for God will have us all love and
serve Him with all our heart, and soul, and strength. Our dearest
friends, the partners of our every joy and sorrow, every hope and fear
of our mortal lives, if they take away our hearts from Christ, will
either prove a bane to us, or else they will be taken away from us! I
recollect the story of a Christian woman who had made a great idol of
her child. He was her only son, and she lost him. Nothing then could
console her, till at length one day she went into a Quakers' meeting.
She sat there a long time, and not a word was spoken. Presently one of
the members rose up and simply said, "Verily I perceive your children
are idols." Not another word was uttered during the whole of the
meeting. That word, however, was sent, by the Providence of God, and
fastened like a nail in a right place! It had done its work–the
mother's heart was comforted. She saw the reason of her loss and
submitted her soul to the discipline. Now it is not only for children
which we make idols. There are 20 other things. Twenty, did I say? Why,
the world swarms with idols! Man is such an idolater that if he cannot
idolize anything else, he will idolize himself and set himself up, and
bow down and worship himself! But the Lord Jesus will never tolerate
idolatry in any heart which belongs to Him! If He did not love you, you
might do as you liked–but if He loves you, and has chosen you–and
your heart then goes after idols–He will chasten you, vindicating His
affection as well as His authority by the rod! What would it matter to
me what your children did, in comparison with the responsibility I feel
for my own? Whatever mischief they might do in the street, I might not
feel called upon to interfere. You and I, alike, feel that we are each
accountable to punish our own children when they are disobedient. And
so is it with God. If you were not His children, you might live as you
like and enjoy a measure of immunity for a while. But if you are His
people, you are not your own masters and you will have a cross, if not
a curse, come into your house! The spell of the idol will spoil your
blessing. "Jealousy is cruel as the grave."
Yet, let me say it again, this is blessed cruelty. We are very apt to
think that a surgeon must have a hard heart and a cruel nature when we
take a shallow view of the operations he performs and the nerve with
which he performs them. A better judgment might convince you that the
surgeon's knife is dictated by necessity, wielded with skill, careful
to spare pain and designed to restore health. "Oh," you say, "only
amputation will save his life–my child's leg must be taken off! It
festers. It mortifies. I could not touch it. I could not do it–it
cannot be done!" And when you hear that the surgeon has cut through the
flesh and the bone, you are apt to think, "What a cold heart he must
have! Ah, but which is the more profitable–that love of yours that
would let the child die rather than do violence to its feeling, or that
which would cut off its leg, in spite of all entreaties–to save its
life? Oh, thank God for the surgeon! His deep incisions are tender
mercies! His misgiving would be our undoing! And has not our God thus
to deal with us when He takes those things from us which tend to be
fatal issues and might otherwise prove our destruction?
A fable has been sometimes told of a little plant which grew under a
big tree and was thereby shielded from the storm–and kept tranquil and
happy. The little plant prayed that it might grow into a tree, and its
prayer was heard. The woodman came along and cut down the tree. Then
the poor plant was exposed to the rain and the wind, and the snow and
the frost–and it said, "Alas, for me, I am left in a pitiful
condition!" But the angel of the tree told it that was the only way by
which it could ever grow into a tree. So, dear Friends, when you lost
your property, when the bank went bankrupt, when you lost your friend,
when your mother died, when you lost, perhaps, your reputation through
a slander which was abroad–it was only the taking down of the tree
that the plant might grow–which could not have grown otherwise! You
may think the discipline of Nature is harsh and cruel. Ah, well, the
Lord lets you think as you like, and
misjudge Him if you please, for He knows that time will soon correct
your judgment! And then you will think very differently as you see the
end from the beginning. You will judge more wisely when your faith is
brought into active exercise. You yourself will then begin to abhor
idolatry as Christ does, and you will marvel as much with thankfulness
as though-tfulness that it is taken away. I have been reminded by this
of what Rutherford said to Lady Erskine when she had lost her husband.
"Well, your Ladyship," he said, "the Lord Jesus Christ sets great store
by your love, for it is clear that He will have it all. He has taken
away those who might have had a part of it and He has said, 'I will
have it all! I have bought it, and I will have it.'" Perhaps the Master
has been doing the same, or will do the same with some of us, so that
He may get all our hearts to Himself.
Now for our practical conclusion. Let our jealousy towards Christ now
be cruel as the grave. Is there anything which keeps our heart from
perfectly loving Christ? Let us have done with it at once! Have you got
into any habit which keeps you from living near to Jesus? Is there any
favorite sin which mars your communion with Him? Have you any little
practice which, in itself, may be excusable, but which, in its
tendency, may be injurious? Give it all up! He who is poor for Christ's
sake is richer than the richest of men! And he who gives up a pleasure
for the sake of Christ has more enjoyment in so doing than he would
ever have had in the pleasure itself! It may be that you have been for
some time trifling with a conviction which you would have embraced as a
Truth of God, only it would have involved a sacrifice–and, therefore,
you have halted and wittingly overlooked it. I know there are very many
Christians just now who are in a position which they cannot justify,
but they say they cannot see their way out of it. They apologize for
themselves with questions like these–"How am I to get right? What
shall I do?" Now, dear Friends, ask yourselves, Does not the Lord Jesus
Christ deserve to have from you simple, absolute, unhesitating
obedience? "Yes," you say. Then yield it to Him and ask for Grace, that
from this day forth you may look with holy jealousy upon the most
pleasant things that in any form or disguise come between you and your
Lord and Master! Oh, what a happy life! What a blessed life you would
lead! Yours will be a path of separation! You may have to journey over
a rough road, nevertheless, let your love be strong as death and your
jealousy cruel as the grave–and you will enjoy a communion with Christ
dearer than life, and a Sabbath of peace that is like the days of
Heaven upon earth!
Well, my dear Hearers, there are some of you who have no part nor lot
in the inheritance that we esteem beyond all other possessions. May God
give you a share in it! Oh, if you have no love to Christ in this life,
what can there be for you in the next but a fearful looking for
ofjudgment and fiery indignation?! But trust in Jesus, trust in Jesus
and you shall be saved! Being saved, you shall love Him and, loving
Him, you shall be jealous of everything that comes in the way to divide
you from Him. You shall be with Him at last in the land where doubts
and fears can never enter, and where jealousy can no longer intrude.
Thus you shall be forever with the Lord! Amen.