A Sad Confession
(No. 3530)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1916.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"We hid, as it were, our faces from Him." Isaiah 53:3.
You will find in the margin of some of your Bibles that this passage is
rendered, "He hid, as it were, His face from us." The literal
translation of the Hebrew would be, "He was as a hiding of faces from
him," or, "from us." Some critical readers think these words were
intended to describe our Lord as having so humbled Himself and brought
Himself to such a deep degradation, that He was comparable to the leper
who covered his face and cried, "Unclean, unclean!" hiding himself from
the gaze of men. Abhorred and despised of men, he was like one put
aside because of his disease, and shunned by all mankind. Others
suppose the meaning to be that on account of our Lord's terrible and
protracted sorrow, His face wore an expression so painful and grievous
that men could scarcely bear to look upon Him. They hid, as it were,
their faces from Him–amazed at that brow all carved with lines of
anxious thought, those cheeks all plowed with furrows of deep care,
those eyes all sunk in shades of sadness–that soul bowed down,
exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death! It may be so. We cannot tell.
So let it pass. I have a plain, practical purpose to pursue. Here is an
indictment to which we must all plead guilty. Let us make the
reflection our own, as we humbly bow at the dear pierced feet of our
Lord and remember how cruelly we slighted our kindest Friend, when, "We
hid, as it were, our faces from Him."
At sundry times and in divers manners we may have done this. Where
shall I begin? Alas, I fear that contempt and contumely, alone, will
interpret some men's sayings and doings. Their conversation is so
profane that their crime becomes indisputable. Sometimes men hide their
faces from Jesus–
I. IN COOL CONTEMPT OF HIM.
How astounding! How revolting! He, the Lord of Glory, the Creator of
Heaven and earth, out of compassion to the children of men,
condescended to take upon Himself our nature! Should we, therefore,
slight Him? Being found in fashion as a Man, He was subjected to all
the pains and miseries of this mortal life and encountered the horrors
of death, itself–should we, therefore, revile, or should we not revere
Him? He ought surely to be esteemed by all mankind! I have sometimes
felt that had He not redeemed my soul, I must reverence Him for
redeeming others. Had I never tasted of His love at all, myself, yet
the story of His love to His enemies is such that I think I could fall
down and worship Him! His Character claims our admiration and appeals
to the most tender feelings of our heart. So disinterested was the love
of Christ, so self-denying, so unwavering in its constancy, He
surpassed every instance on record and excelled any ideal that the most
gifted imagination could paint!
Greater love has no man than this, that he laid down his life for his
friends. There, creature generosity exhausts itself! Mere human love
has reached its limit! But God commends His love toward us in that,
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And this blessed Man,
Christ Jesus, personally shows and makes evident this love to His
enemies, His persecutors, His murderers! Still there are those who can
revile His name while they scan His history. We can scarcely speak of
Him but forthwith the vials of their wrath begin to distil. Strange is
it that a fame so lively, and a name so altogether lovely should so
commonly set a man against his fellows and become the innocent cause of
strife and persecution in the world! That name of Jesus–a name of
highest heavenly Glory, a name of profound peace, a name of universal
good will, a name to knit all mankind in one common brotherhood–has
become, by the perversity of human nature, a by-word and a reproach!
Their Savior in every age they have not known! Their day of visitation
they have not heeded! Hence His name has excited wrath and opposition
among the sons of men, where it should have excited reverence and love!
Some show their opposition by attempting to ignore or to tarnish the
dignity of His Person. These blatant infidels, I trust, are
getting fewer and fewer. The rough, bullying speech of Tom Paine we
sincerely hope will never be heard on earth again! There are thinkers
(as they would have us call them) abroad in these days more courteous
in their address and far more cautious in their language, than the
disbelievers of former times–but too often they are as full of
malignity and deadly venoms against the Christ of God as were the
coarsest scoffers who uttered their blasphemy before we were born–so
persistently is the Person of Christ held in contempt alike by Greek
and barbarian!
And are there not others who affect great admiration for Jesus of
Nazareth as an example of virtue and benevolence, who, nevertheless,
reject His mediatorial work as our Redeemer? As a substitutionary
Sacrifice they do not and cannot esteem Him! Isaiah, in the Chapter
before us, was holding up Christ as the Lamb led to the slaughter, the
Victim of our transgressions, bearing our chastisement. How the anger
of some men kindles at this representation of the Gospel! They sneer at
the Doctrine of Substitution, Vicarious Sacrifice, Atonement–at the
simple fact, indeed, that, "His own Self bore our sins in His own body
on the tree." That He was a true Philanthropist, an admirable Teacher
and an Inspired Prophet, they will readily allow–but that our
iniquities were laid on Him, that He was punished in our place, that He
died, the Just for the unjust–they set aside as though it were an idle
tale, a baseless fiction! This noblest of all Doctrines, the grandest
of all conceptions is here brought down to the humblest capacity of the
most simple understanding. The learned can find no flaw in the logic.
But learning and logic have little enough to do with it. The heart that
believes it, can tell its worth–"He loved me and gave Himself for me."
Angels have but to hear of it, and they sing of it! Marvel of marvels
that there should be men on earth so wise that they hoot at it and
count it worthy of nothing but their scorn! They hide, as it were,
their faces from the Crucified Savior.
And then they will pour contempt upon other Doctrines of His Gospel.
Not satisfied with opposing the main and cardinal Truth of God, they
will hold up other parts of Revelation to ridicule. If a man likes to
laugh, and wishes to scoff, he can find folly in Infinite Wisdom. No,
he can, if he has eyes that are full enough of lies, discover faults
even in the Immaculate God, Himself! Given but the desire to deride and
parody, the occasions and opportunities will always be plentiful. And
with what pitiful disdain the Lord's people are slighted! The followers
of Christ are, as it is commonly said, poor people–illiterate and
uninstructed–and but few of the great ones of the earth, or the
learned men, will give their names as adherents of the Savior! Well, so
it always has been! And yet the day shall come when the Lord shall
vindicate His own election and prove how infinitely superior it is to
man's reputation! What though He choose the base things of the world
and the things that are not, yet by these will He be exalted when His
enemies are rolled in the dust!
Do I address anybody who has despised the Lord Jesus Christ? Ah, my
Friend, little do you consider what you have done! Your wantonness can
offer no excuse but your ignorance. And as for your ignorance, it is
without excuse! You are unacquainted with our Lord, or you would not
decry Him. Think, I pray you! Have you really studied His Character?
Have you looked into the proofs of His being the Messiah? Have you
weighed the evidence of His Divinity? If you have not, surely you
should be ashamed of your recklessness! Can it be that out of mere
prejudice you have condemned One who, to us, is all our hope? One who
has lifted some of us out of despair and given us peace of mind? One
who is now so dear to us that we feel we could cheerfully die for Him?
Do not affront Him! Do not disparage His claim upon our tender regard!
Do not speak ill of His blessed name! He is a Friend to some of us, the
like of whom we never found elsewhere! Were it not wiser and fitter
every way, that you should listen to our testimony and go to Him–and
see whether He cannot and whether He will not save you and make you
partakers of our joy? If He rejects you, or if you find Him false to
His promises, then speak against Him! But we beseech you, do not begin
to rail before you have any reason! He that builds upon this Stone
builds securely, but alas, for the man that falls foul of this Stone,
it will assuredly grind him to powder! As surely as Christ is God,
those who oppose Him will one day wonder and perish! The peril is
looming as the day is coming. The glorious apocalypse for which saints
look will bring about a total eclipse of everyone that is proud and
lofty, everything that is high and lifted up! I will not linger on so
dreadful a subject, but I earnestly admonish you to lay it to heart!
A second and far more common way in which men hide their faces from
Christ is– II. BY THEIR HEEDLESSNESS, THEIR INDIFFERENCE, THEIR
NEGLECT.
Alas, all of us are guilty, or have been guilty in this respect. Allow
me to ask you, my beloved Friends in Christ, to look back a little
while to the period before your conversion. Was not Jesus as worthy of
your love, then, as He is now, as glorious, as admirable? And yet for
how long a time did you hide your face from Him! Surely you must
remember the
days gone by when you did not care even to hear about Him! Any kind of
amusement was more fascinating for you than discourse or converse
concerning your Savior and your King! There is music in His name
now–it was dull enough to you once. You heard sermons without heeding
them. Perhaps some of you were compelled by force of circumstance to
attend the sanctuary, though no part of the service was attuned to your
taste. You mixed with the multitude, but you did not see or draw near
the Master. They were dreary hours–you were glad when they were spent
and you were liberated! You listened, but what came in at one ear went
out at the other. Scarcely that, for you did not allow it to go far
enough into your brain for that! Listlessly you listened, with no
desire to learn anything about that Christ who is your only true
Savior, your only rightful Sovereign. If you had been in the market and
someone had been describing the prices of goods, telling you of the
probabilities of a rise or fall, you would have been all attention and
you would have no difficulty in carrying home the bulk of what you had
heard, especially that part which was about your own business! But oh,
in those days Christ was nothing to you! The preacher might lift Him up
with all his might and tell you with tears that if you rejected Him,
you must perish. You took no heed. You did not care whether you
perished or not! You did not give Christ a thought. He was put before
you, but you hid, as it were, your faces from Him!
Although the Bible was in your house, bearing witness to Jesus Christ,
you never searched it. You may have taken the Book down sometimes and
read a Chapter here, or picked out a verse there, and congratulated
yourself not a little upon your good deed–but as to searching the
Scriptures through and comparing passage with passage, spiritual things
with spiritual, that you might know Jesus Christ, who is hidden there
like a pearl in the field–oh, no, you did not care to give any
diligence in this matter! Why, some of you young men were studying hard
years ago! You rose up early and sat up late over professional and
profound books and, truly, if you were to be proficient in your secular
calling, you had need to do so. But all that while you never sat up an
hour later than usual to make a search concerning your soul and the
Lord who bought it with His blood! Neither did you ever rise from your
soft couch at daylight on purpose that you might bow the knee and seek
your Lord and worship Him. No, everything was sought except the Savior,
every duty you would scrupulously fulfill except that which you owed
your Lord–all the world was fair except the Altogether Lovely! And,
perhaps, at that very time there were pursuits that gratified you
utterly unworthy of your preference! You had loves which have proved
bitterness to you–things that fascinated your heart that did but
degrade you. He was your best Friend–He who only meant you good, He
who elevates the man that does but look to Him, He whose very name
fills the soul with refreshment, He, the love of whose Person is Heaven
begun–He was all this while cast into the background!
I am not speaking of you, my Friends, as if you had a monopoly of
reproach. I speak of myself with many deep regrets of heart. I hid, as
it were, my face from Him, and I let the years run round not without
twitches of conscience–not without rebukes, when I knew how much I
needed a Savior, not without the warnings which came from others whom I
saw happy and rejoicing in Christ, while I had no share in His
salvation! Still I put it off, as perhaps some of you are doing, from
day to day, and month to month, and thought that Christ might come in
some odd hour and when I had nothing else to do I might think of Him,
whose blood could cleanse me! O my Soul, I could gladly smite you now!
I have heard of a minister who preached for several years before he was
converted, and when converted he became a very earnest preacher of the
Gospel. But one day as he rode along the street, he was observed to
stop and cane a dog which was lying in front of a door. When they said
to him, "Mr. McPhayle, why did you beat the dog?" He said, "He was so
exactly like myself, lying in the sun sleeping–a dumb dog that didn't
bark–that I could not but give him a touch of the rod, though I meant
it all the while for myself." Truly I could lay this rod about my own
heart to think that weeks and weeks should have rolled over my head and
I should have hid, as it were, my face from Christ in willful neglect
of my dear Lord, whose heart has bled for me! Does not this come home
to anybody here? Are there not some who might justly chastise
themselves?
But we pass on to a third form of this same folly. We hid, as it were,
our faces from Him, many of us– III. BY PREFERRING ANY OTHER MODE OF
SALVATION TO SALVATION BY FAITH IN CHRIST. The great Gospel fact is
that whoever looks to Christ is saved. The moment Faith, with her
intelligent eyes, beholds Christ on the Cross and depends on Him, the
man that exercises that faith is forgiven, rescued, saved! Now when we
were awakened to something like anxiety about our souls, we were told
this. Some of us were told it very plainly, others perhaps not quite so
clearly, but we did not like this way of being saved, simply by
believing! Did not we try to merit salvation by our own good works? Oh,
we would do this, and that, and the other! We would correct ourselves
in this depart-
ment, and we would push on and make progress in the other–or at least
we triedto do so. Oh, I could pour scorn upon myself to think of some
of the good resolutions I made! I blew them up like children with their
pipes and their soap. Fine bubbles they were, reflecting all the colors
of the rainbow. But a touch and they dissolved! They were good for
nothing–poor stuff to build eternal hopes upon! Oh, that working of
ours! What slavery it was, but what small results it produced! We came
to grief whenever we began to get a little comfortable with ourselves.
Just when we said, "Now my tower will stand," there came an earthquake
and it all went to a heap of ruins. Then, if we remember well, we tried
our feelings–we said, "It cannot be that if I believe in Jesus just as
I am, I shall be saved–I must felsomething." How we resorted to sharp
books, terrible sketches of death, judgment and perdition–I know I
did. Baxter's Call to the Uncon-vertedcut me to the quick and harrowed
up my gloomiest apprehensions. We expected to feel something
indescribable, and when we began to feel a little alarm and distress of
mind, we found it was not the thing that brought satisfaction to the
mind, or peace to the heart, for the more we did feel, the less we
thought we felt! And the more we felt, the less we considered our
feelings to be of the right kind! So, after tossing, and toiling, and
rowing with feelings, we found we had got no farther than we did with
works! And all this while there stood the Savior with this simple
counsel, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth."
Still, we wrapped ourselves in our mantle and hid, as it were, our
faces from Him. We kept looking at ourselves and enquiring in the
biographies of good men after this feeling and after the other, while
we hid, as it were, our faces from Him! And when we were beaten off
from that false refuge, we took to a fresh conceit. Thinking we could
pray ourselves into Heaven, we began to pray! This would have been
quite right had not we put the exercise of prayer before the
commandment to believe. "He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved"–that is the Gospel! We were reluctant to surrender ourselves to
an implicit confidence in our Lord. We resolved to pray. Prayer seemed
to us a proper performance– a religious duty acceptable to God and
much to be commended. We did not understand that we must first be
quickened into life before we could breathe freely. Looking upon daily
prayer as a kind of ecclesiastical exercise, albeit there was no real
heart in it, we thought some good would come of making it a habit. But
no good came! Our prayers became a form, and we disquieted ourselves in
vain. We found we could not pray. Oh, what fools we were! What fools
all of us are to look anywhere for salvation but to Jesus Christ! God
the Father has set forth Christ to be a Propitiation for sin. If God
has done that, cannot I be content? If the Lord has accepted Christ
instead of me, and promised that if I believe in Jesus I shall be
saved, why need I go about to find some other way of peace, pardon and
full salvation? Is not God's way good enough for me? If God accepts it,
why should not I rejoice in it? Oh, dear Friends, if we have been
covering our faces, let us uncover them right now! And if they are
black as soot with sin, let us just look up to the Cross with a black
face, and say, "Savior of sinners, I, the very chief among them, put my
sole trust in You! Hiding my eyes no more from the Light of God, I will
look to You and trust You with all my heart."
In yet another way we hid our faces from Him. After we were quite sure
that we could not be saved other than by the one Mediator, do you
remember how we continued to hide our face from Jesus–
IV. BY PERSISTENT UNBELIEF IN HIM?
I know it for myself. I held up the handkerchief before my eyes,
saturated with my own tears. This sympathy for our sorrows I could not
credit. It is the sullen sulk of sad souls. Their distress of mind has
come between them and the Redeemer. Strange to tell, some men will
reason against themselves. No doubt if there were a gift to be bestowed
upon all the poor people in the parish, everybody who needed anything
would try to prove himself to be in the parish. If there were a man who
lived with half his house in one parish and half in another, I'll be
bound to say he would try to prove he lived in the parish where the
gifts were to be had! But somehow or other, awakened sinners try to
prove that they are notthe sort of people Christ died for! They used to
have in Rome, when they were canonizing saints, an Advocatus Diaboli,
or advocate of the devil, who used to plead against the person being
canonized and offer all the objections he could. It seems strange that
so many people should turn Advocati Diaboli against themselves! I can
tell you how they argue, for I have talked with them by the hour, and
this has been the fashion of their counterpleading–"But, Sir, I
don'tfeel my need of it." We reply, "If you cannot go to Christ with a
broken heart, go to Christ fora broken heart." "Oh, but, Sir, I don t
feel that I am fit to go." "Your unfitness is the only evidence He
needs." "But I don't think I have repented enough." "Granted. And you
never will repent enough, could your tears flow forever. You cannot be
saved by the merit of your repentance. Jesus Christ will forgive your
impenitence as well as your other sins. Certainly if you need more
repentance,
you must go to Him for it." "Well, but, Sir, do you know I cannot help
fearing that perhaps I am not one of the elect?" We have replied,
"Perhaps you are. And anyhow, you had better go to Christ, because He
has given an invitation to every creature. He says, 'Whoever will, let
him come and take of the water of life freely.'" "Ah, Sir, but you
don't know–I am so indifferent." "Well, but you will never be
otherwise than indifferent as long as you stay away from the Savior. If
you go to Him and put your trust in Him, He will remove your
indifference. He alone can roll away this stone from the door of your
heart." One moment they will say they do not feel–and almost in the
same breath they will turn round and say they feel the horrors of
despair! When they tell you of the dreadful blasphemies that come into
their mind, you may answer that it is written, "All manner of sin and
of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, and whoever believes in Him is
not condemned," feel, or notfeel as he may!
Well, I have pursued that business till I have been pretty nearly tired
of it, when all of a sudden the person I have been trying to comfort
has begun again where he commenced, as if he had never said those
things before! He has gone over the same round of objections and I
have, no doubt, would have continued to repeat himself, had I continued
to answer him, 50 times over! And so did he encourage the morbid
apprehension that he could not, himself, be saved. You see a man put
into the condemned cell at Newgate and you go in and tell him that Her
Majesty presents him with a free pardon. I guarantee you he will not
put his hand to his brow and say, "Well, but I think there is this or
that objection to my accepting it." "No," he thinks, "if there is any
objection, let those find it out that like–it is no business of mine."
And so with the soul that is bid to come to Christ! I say, let it come,
objections or no objections, and if there are objections, let somebody
else find them out, but as for you, poor Sinner, don't cover your face
from Jesus, but come as you are, just as you are, and say, "Here I am,
my Savior! If You can, save–and I believe You can–save me! At any
rate, if I perish, I will perish trusting in You." Rather, Sinner,
shall Heaven and earth pass away than even a soul perish that acts on
this firm resolve! Hide not your eyes from the Savior! It is a dreadful
temptation of Satan, this mistaken notion of humility. People think, or
affect to think, that it would be arrogant or presumptuous on their
part to believe in Jesus. I tell you solemnly that unbelief is not
humility! It is a foul conceit. Humility trusts the Savior. Base,
indeed, is the ingratitude which casts a slur upon His truthfulness and
refrains from venturing to accept His promises! Oh, Brothers and
Sisters, we once hid, as it were, our faces from Him–let us pray for
others who are hiding their faces–and beseech the Lord to incline them
to turn their faces right round to His dear Cross, and then let us
gently take off the mantle that obscures their vision, and say to them,
"Look, look through your tears! Look even now, for there is life in a
look at the Crucified One."
But not to tarry, I am afraid there are some of us who must plead
guilty to another charge. We have hidden, as it were, our faces from
Him since He has saved us, and since we have known His love–
V. BY OUR SILLY SHAME AND OUR BASE COWARDICE.
Perhaps I speak to some Christians here, who, though they love the
Lord, have never professed His name! Dear Brother, dear Sister, do you
think this is right–is it loyal? Had He kept His love to you a secret
and never openly espoused your cause, and given up Himself for your
salvation, where would you now have been? Howbeit He boldly declared He
was not ashamed to call us "brethren," and, true to His word, He acted
a brother's part and carried through the work of our Redemption! Since
Jesus Christ was not ashamed of us, surely we need never be ashamed of
Him! "But I think I may go to Heaven by myself," said one, "for I am
afraid I shall compromise other people if I dishonor Christ." And do
you not think, my dear Brother, that you are dishonoring Him by such a
suggestion? "Oh, but suppose I were to fall into sin?" Do you not think
that even now you are living in sin while you are refusing what He
demands, that you should confess Him before men? His promise is that he
that with his heart believes, and with his mouth makes the good
confession, shall be saved. Or, as it is put in another form, we read,
"He that believes and is baptized" (which is the open confession of
Him) "shall be saved." Do not, I entreat you, play the coward! "Suppose
I should fall," you ask, "after I have made a profession?" Which do you
think the safer place–where your Lord bids you, or where you choose to
be yourself? Come forward if you are His followers and put on His
regimentals. I wonder what our Government would say if Her Majesty's
soldiers were to take off their red coats and protest, "We should be
just as good soldiers, and as true, without this uniform, as with it."
They would be suspected of treason! They would be taken up as deserters
And are there no deserters here? I would like to send the officer round
and find you out–
"Are you the soldiers of the Cross, The followers of the Lamb?
How can you blush to acknowledge His cause, Or fear to speak His
Name?''
Come out Brothers and Sisters, come out! If you want your Master's
blessing, come and join your Master's servants! Yes, but some of us who
have made a profession of our faith may, nevertheless, have sometimes
hid our faces from Christ–
VI. BY COWARDICE.
Have you ever been in company where religion was jested at and felt,
"Well, I had better hold my tongue here"? There are seasons when that
is prudent, and even proper–when you are so weak a champion that you
might damage the cause. At the same time, even the weakest champion had
better have his lance broken than be altogether a coward! How often
might we have spoken for Jesus when nothing has kept us back except
cowardice? It was not prudence–it was cowardice, downright cowardice!
We thought they would give us a bad name, and so we dishonored Christ
lest we should encounter a rude joke or a coarse jest from a person
whose opinion was never worthy of a moment's thought! I wish there were
more boldness for Christ everywhere. In the higher circles he that
confesses Christ may have to run the gauntlet for it, but let him do so
boldly! And among working men in the shop or factory there is a deal of
"chaffing" goes on, often of a cruel kind, against the Christian, but
he who is such a feather-bed soldier that he cannot bear the reproach
is not worthy of such a Lord! Our sires were not so tame that they
could be intimidated with a taunt. They never drew back at the stake,
or in the fire! They were ready to die for the Lord Jesus. What do you
think, then–should we play the coward– shall a little maid make us
afraid, or shall some silly fools who scoff at all that is holy, drive
us to disown our Savior? Oh, Brothers and Sisters, do not surrender
your souls so cheaply! Never mind their sneers! Never hide your face
from Him. Come out and have no fellowship with the profane, the
profligate, or the persecutors. Is Christ in the pillory? Put me in
with Him, and then throw what you like at me! Is Christ's name rolled
in the mud, and made a by-word and a proverb? Link my name with His and
make a by-word and a proverb of it! Twist the two together and let us
be the object of your slanders. I will glory in it! The reproach of
Christ is greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt! Hide not,
then, your faces from Him, Beloved, nor shrink from espousing His
cause!
I feel sure that many, if not all of us, who are Believers will
penitently confess that we have sometimes hidden our faces from
Christ–
VII. BY NOT WALKING IN CONSTANT FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM.
I once asked a Brother how long it was since he had enjoyed fellowship
with Jesus. His reply was remarkable. "I feel sorry," he said, "you
have asked me that question, and yet I must thank you. Had you asked me
whether I continued in prayer, I would have said 'Yes,' for, with more
or less fervor, I do constantly pray. Had you inquired whether I
endeavored to walk honestly and uprightly before my fellow creatures, I
would have said, 'Yes, thank God I hope I have not slipped with my
feet.' But when you say, 'How long is it since you really have had
fellowship with Jesus?' I blush to admit that many a day has passed
since I have known this high privilege." Is that so with you, my dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ? If so, it is very, very sad. Our heart,
if we are Christians, is married to Christ. Say, then, would it not be
strange if a wife should live with her husband and hide her face from
him by the week and month together? Should there be scarcely a
comfortable word between them? Should there only be just the decent
civilities of a daily routine, without much concern or any confiding?
Yet perhaps some of you pray a little every morning and every night
because you think it is proper. At special times you do your reverence
to Christ and then you go out into the world, and there, in a measure,
you estrange yourselves from Him. And then you return home, far from
being eager and anxious for communion with your Lord–so, not seeking
His face for yourselves–you do, in effect, hide your face from Him.
There is no face to face fellowship. Remember, I entreat you, that His
love to you is constant, although your love to Christ may grow cold. If
you can dispense with His company, remember that He delights in
yourcompany! There it stands in the Canticles, "Let Me see your face.
Let Me hear your voice, for sweet is your voice and your countenance is
comely." Now had you said that to Christ, it might be easily
understood, but when He says that to you, it is most admirable! His
love makes Him desire to hold fellowship with you–will you refuse it?
Will you deny Him? Surely you will say, "Do You think so much of me? I
ought to have said to You what You have said to me, 'You have ravished
My heart, My sister, My spouse, with one look of your eyes, and one
chain of your neck.' No, but these are the words of Him from whom I
have often hid my face! And is this precious Christ so enamored of me?
Has He, the Prince of Life, so fixed His affections on my spirit? Does
He love to hear me speak with Him? Does He delight in my communing with
Him? Oh, then I cannot forbear! I must cry, 'Come to
me, my Lord, and I will tell You my griefs, and my joys, and You shall
tell me all Your heart, and we will thus confer and confide with
secrets of which the world knows not!'"
The secret of the Lord is with them who fear Him. Let us, therefore,
tell our heart's love to Christ. We hid, as it were, our faces from
Him. Say, when and how did you begin thus to act? You used to revel in
the light of His Countenance, once–why did you hide your face? Did you
get worldly? Did you dote too much upon some earthly object? Did you
neglect prayer? Did you give way to temptation? Beloved, whatever may
have been the cause, remember Jesus Christ has not divorced you! He has
said, "Return, you backsliding children; I am married unto you, says
the Lord." Come back then! Come back, now, as we meet around the Lord's
Table, you that love your Lord, but have lost fellowship with Him!
Pray–pray that this may be the beginning of a happier era. Oh, that we
might keep looking on to Jesus, and Jesus looking to us! Oh, that we
might maintain that dear fellowship and never have it broken till it
shall melt into the yet nearer and more glorious communion on the other
side of the river where nothing can disturb the profound enjoyment! Get
up, get up, Believers, from your sorrows, from your cares, from your
anxieties and distractions! Get up to the Master's feet and sit there
with Mary, and look up into His dear loving face, and listen to His
gracious words of promise! Hide not your face from Him! He will not
hide His face from you! Say, like the spouse in the Canticles, "Let Him
kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for His love is better than
wine," and He will answer your prayer, and make your heart burn within
you with the holy ecstasy of fervent love! May it be ever so with us!
Amen.