A Sermon to Open Neglecters and Nominal Followers of Religion
A Sermon
(No. 742)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, March 24th, 1866, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Agricultural Hall, Islington
"But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the
first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard. He answered and
said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to
the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and
went not. Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say
unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That
the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him
not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye
had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe
him."–Matthew 21:28-32.
THE SIGHT OF THIS VAST ARENA, and of this crowded assembly, reminds me
of other spectacles which, in days happily long past, were seen in the
amphitheatres of the old Roman Empire. Around, tier upon tier, were the
assembled multitudes, with their cruel eyes and iron hearts; and in the
center stood a solitary, friendless man, waiting till the doors of the
lion's den should be uplifted, that he might yield himself up a witness
for Christ and a sacrifice to the popular fury. There would have been
no difficulty then to have divided the precious from the vile in that
audience. The most thoughtless wayfarer who should enter into the
amphitheatre, would know at once who was the disciple of Christ and who
were the enemies of the Crucified One. There stood the bravely-calm
disciple, about to die, but all around, in those mighty tiers of the
Colosseum, or of the amphitheatre of some provincial town, as the case
might be, there sat matrons and nobles, princes and peasants, plebeians
and patricians, senators and soldiers, all gazing downward with the
same fierce, unpitying look; all boisterous for their heathen gods, and
all vociferous in the joy with which they gazed upon the agonies of the
disciple of the hated Galilean, butchered to make a Roman holiday.
Another sight is before us to-day, with far more happy associations;
but alas! it is a far more difficult task this day to separate the
chaff from the wheat, the precious from the vile, than in the day when
the apostle fought with beasts at Ephesus. Here, in this arena, I hope
there are hundreds, if not thousands, who would be prepared to die for
our Lord Jesus; and in yonder crowded seats, we may count by hundreds
those who bear the name and accept the gospel of the Man of Nazareth;
and yet, I fear me, that both in these living hills on either side, and
upon this vast floor, there are many enemies of the Son of God, who are
forgetful of his righteous claims–who have cast from them those cords
of love which should bind them to his throne, and have never submitted
to the mighty love which showed itself in his cross and in his wounds.
I cannot attempt the separation. You must grow together until the
harvest. To divide you were a task which at this hour angels could not
perform, but which one day they will easily accomplish, when at their
Master's bidding, the harvest being come, they shall gather together
first the tares in bundles to burn them, and afterwards the wheat into
Jehovah's barn. I shall not attempt the division, but I shall ask each
man to attempt it for himself in his own case. I say unto you, young
men and maidens, old men and fathers, this day examine yourselves
whether you be in the faith. Let no man take it for granted that he is
a Christian because he has helped to swell the numbers of a Christian
assembly. Let no man judge his fellow, but let each man judge himself.
To each one of you I say, with deepest earnestness, let a division be
made by your conscience, and let your understandings separate between
him that feareth God and him that feareth him not. Though no man
clothed in linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side, shall go through
the midst of you to set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh
and cry for all the abominations of this city, let conscience take the
inkhorn and honestly make the mark, or leave the favored sign unmade,
and let each man question himself this morning, "Am I on the Lord's
side? Am I for Christ, or for his enemies? Do I gather with him, or do
I scatter abroad?" "Divide! divide!" they say in the House of Commons;
let us say the same in this great congregation this day. Political
divisions are but trifles compared with the all-important distinction
which I would have you consider. Divide as you will be divided to the
right and to the left in the great day when Christ shall judge the
world in righteousness. Divide as you will be divided when the bliss of
heaven, or the woes of hell, shall be your everlasting portion.
If the whole of us were thus divided into two camps, and we could say
these have made a covenant with God by sacrifice, and those on the
other hand are still enemies to God by wicked works, looking at the
last class we might still feel it necessary by way of personal
application to make a division among them; for although all unbelievers
are alike unpardoned and unsaved, yet they are not alike in the
circumstances of their case and the outward forms of their sins. Alike
in being without Christ, they are still very varied in their mental and
moral condition. I trust I was guided by the Spirit of God to my text
this morning, for it is of such a character, that while it enables me
to address the whole mass of the unconverted, it gives me a hopeful
opportunity of getting at the conscience of each by dividing the great
company of the unconverted into two distinct classes. O that for each
tribe of unbelievers, there may be a blessing in store this day.
First, we shall speak to those who are avowedly disobedient to God;
and, secondly, to those who are deceptively submissive to him.
I. First, we have a word for THOSE WHO ARE AVOWEDLY DISOBEDIENT TO GOD.
There are many such here. God has said to you as he says to all who
hear the gospel, "Son, go work to day in my vineyard;" and you have
replied, perhaps honestly, but certainly very boldly, very unkindly,
very unjustly, "I will not." You have made no bones about it, but given
a refusal point-blank to the claims of your Creator. You have spoken
your mind right out, not only in words, but in a more forcible and
unmistakable manner, for actions speak far more loudly than words. You
have said, over and over again, by your actions, "I will not serve God,
or believe in his Son Jesus." My dear friend, I am glad to see you here
this morning, and trust that matters will change with you ere you leave
this hall; but at present you have not yielded even an outward
obedience to God, but in all ways have said, "I will not." Practically
you have said, "I will not worship God, I will not attend a place of
worship on the Sunday–it is a weariness intolerable to me. I shall not
sing the praise of my Maker–I will not pretend to bless the God for
whom I have no love. In public prayer I shall not join–I have no heart
for it. I shall not make a pretense of repeating morning and nightly
prayer in private–what is the good of it? I will not pray at all; I do
not believe in its efficacy, and I will not be such a hypocrite as to
follow a vain practice in which I have no belief whatever. As for what
is called sin, I love it and will not give it up." You are proud of
being called an honest man, for you own the claims of your fellow men
upon you, but you scorn to be thought religious, for you do not admit
the rights of your Maker. To the righteous requests of others you yield
a cheerful obedience, but to the just and tender requests of God you
give a plain and evident denial. As clearly as actions can speak, you
say by your neglect of the Sabbath, by your disregard of prayer, by
your never reading the Bible, by your perseverance in known sin, and by
the whole course of your life, "I will not." Like Pharaoh, you have
demanded, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?" You are of
the same mind as those of old, who said, "It is vain to serve God, and
what profit is there if we keep his ordinances?"
Moreover, my friend, you have not as yet given an assent to the
doctrines of God's Word; on the contrary, intellectually as well as
practically, you go not at God's bidding. You have set up in your mind
the idea that you must understand everything before you will believe
it–an idea, let me tell you, which you will never be able to carry
out, for you cannot understand your own existence; and there are ten
thousand other things around you which you never can comprehend, but
which you must believe or remain for ever a gigantic fool. Still you
cavil at this doctrine and that doctrine, railing at the gospel system
in general; and if you were asked at a working man's conference, why
you did not go to a place of worship, you would perhaps say that you
kept away from worship because you did not like this doctrine or that.
Let me say on my own account, that as far as I am personally concerned,
it is a very small consideration to me whether you do like my doctrine
or do not; for your own sake I am anxious above measure that you should
believe the truth as it is in Jesus; but while you live in sin, your
dislike of a doctrine will very probably only make me feel the more
sure of its truth, and lead me to preach it with more confidence and
vehemence. Think you that we are to learn God's truth from the likings
or dislikings of those who refuse to worship him, and want an excuse
for their sins? O unconverted men and women, it is very long before we
shall come to you to learn what you would have us preach, and when we
fall so low as to do that, you yourselves will despise us. What! shall
the physician ask his patient what kind of medicine he would wish to
have prescribed? Then the man needs no physician, he can prescribe for
himself. Show the doctor out at the back door directly. What is the use
of such a physician? Of what service is a minister who will truckle to
depraved tastes and sinful appetites, and say, "How would you like me
to preach to you? What smooth things shall I offer you?" Ah souls! we
have some higher end to be served than merely pleasing you. We would
save you by distasteful truths, for honeyed lies will ruin you. That
teaching which the carnal mind most delights in, is the most deadly and
delusive. With many of you, your beliefs, and tastes, and likes, must
be changed, or else you will never enter heaven. I admit that in a
measure I like your honesty in having said outright, "I will not serve
God;" but it is an honesty which makes me shudder, for it betrays a
heart hard as the nether millstone.
Again, you have said, "I will not serve God," and up to this time it is
very possible that you have never been in the humor to repent of having
said it, for the ways of sin are sweet to you, and your heart is fixed
in its rebellion. You have never felt that conviction of sin, which the
Holy Spirit has wrought in some of us; if you had felt it, you would
soon have been shaken out of your "I will not." If God's power of
grace, of which thousands of us bear witness that it is as real a power
as that which guides the stars or wings the wind–if God's almighty
grace should once get a hold of you, you would no longer say, "I do not
believe this or that;" for, as tremblingly as any of those whom you now
despise, you would cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" Up till now
you have never felt that power, and therefore I cannot wonder that you
do not acknowledge it, although the testimony of honest witnesses ought
to have some weight with you. You are practically, intellectually, and
avowedly no Christian; you have never deceived yourself and others by
making a profession which you do not honor, but you have gone on in
your own chosen path, saying with more or less resolution, in answer to
every call of the gospel, "I will not."
We said just now that the answer of the son to his father as recorded
in our text was very plain; it was not, however, very genuine, or such
as his father might have expected. His father said, "Son, go work to
day in my vineyard;" and the son rudely said, "I will not, that is
flat;" and without another word of apology or reason went his way. This
is not quite as it should be. Is it? Even so, my friend, you may have
been too hasty and so have been unjust. Is it not very possible you
have denied to God and to his gospel the respect which both really
deserve? You have spoken very plainly, but at the same time very
thoughtlessly, very harshly to the God who has deserved better things
of you. Have you ever given the claims of the Lord Jesus a fair
consideration? Have you not dismissed the gospel with a sneer quite
unworthy of you? Have you not been afraid to look the matters between
God and your soul fairly in the face? I believe it to be the case of
hundreds here; I know it to be the case of thousands and tens of
thousands in London. They have put their foot down, and they have said,
"None of your religion for me! I have made up my mind and I will never
alter; I hate it and will not listen to it." Does no small voice within
ever tell them that this is not fair to themselves or to God? Is the
matter so easily to be decided? Suppose it should turn out that the
religion of Jesus is true, what then? What will be the lot of those who
despised him? My hearer, the religion of Jesus is true, and I have
proved its truth in my own case; do, I pray you, consider it, and do
not trifle away your immortal soul. Thus saith the Lord, "Consider your
ways."
It is now time for me to tell the openly ungodly what is his real
state. You have been more than a little proud of your honesty; and
looking down upon certain professors of religion you have said, "Ah! I
make no such pretences as they do, I am honest, I am." Friend, you
cannot have a greater abhorrence of hypocrites than I have; if you can
find a fair chance of laughing at them, pray do so. If by any means you
can stick pins into their wind-bags, and let the gas of their
profession out, pray do so. I try to do a little of it in my way, do
you do the same! You and I are agreed in this, I hope, in heartily
hating anything like sham and falsehood; but if you begin to hold your
head up, and think yourself so very superior because you make no
profession, I must take you down a little by reminding you that it is
no credit to a thief that he makes no profession of being honest, and
it is not thought to be exceedingly honorable to a man that he makes no
profession of speaking the truth. For the fact is, that a man who does
not profess to be honest is a professed thief, and he who does not
claim to speak the truth is an acknowledged liar; thus in escaping one
horn you are thrown upon another, you miss the rock but run upon the
quicksand. You are a confessed and avowed neglecter of God, a professed
despiser of the great salvation, an acknowledged disbeliever in the
Christ of God. When our Government at any time arrests persons
suspected of Fenianism, they have no difficulty about those gentlemen
who glory in wearing the green uniform and flaunting the big feather.
"Come along," says the constable, "you are the man, for you wear the
regimentals of a rebel." Even so when the angel of justice arrests the
enemies of the Lord, he will have no difficulty in accusing and
arresting you, for, laying his hand upon your shoulder, he will say,
"You wear the regimentals of an enemy of God; you plainly, and
unblushingly, acknowledge that you do not fear God nor trust in his
salvation." No witnesses need be called concerning you at the last
great day; you will stand up, not quite so bravely as you do to-day,
for, when the heavens are on a blaze, and the earth is rocking to and
fro, and the great white cloud fills the field of vision, and the eyes
of the great Judge shall burn like lamps of fire, you will put on a
different mien and a different carriage from that which you maintain
before a poor preacher of the gospel Ah! my ungodly hearer, with such a
case as thine there shall be no need to judge, for out of thine own
mouth shalt thou be condemned.
Yet I came not here to tell you of your sins only, but to help you to
escape from them. It is necessary that this much should be said, but we
now turn to something far more pleasant. I am in hopes this day that
some of you will listen to that little word in the text, "afterward."
He said, "I will not; but afterward he repented, and went." It is a
long lane, which has no turning, let us trust that we have come to the
turning now. There is space left you for repentance; though you may
have been a drunkard, or a swearer, or unchaste, the die is not yet
cast, a change is yet possible. May God grant that you may have reached
the time when it shall be said of you, "Afterward he repented; he
changed his mind; he believed upon Jesus, and obeyed the word of the
Lord, and went." Perhaps the son in the parable thought a little more
calmly about it. He said to himself, "I will consider the matter,
second thoughts are often best. I growled at my good father, and gave
him a sharp answer, and I saw the tear standing in the good man's eye.
I am sorry I grieved him. The thought of grieving him makes me change
my mind. I said No' to him," said he, "but I did not think about it. I
forgot that if I go and work in my father's vineyard, I shall be
working for myself, for I am his eldest son, and all that he has will
belong to me, so that I am very foolish to refuse to work to my own
advantage. Ah! now I see my father had my advantage at heart, I will
even go as he bade me." See, he shoulders his tools, and away he
marches to labor with all his might. He said, "I will not," but he
repented and went, and it is admitted by all that he did the will of
his father. Oh, I hope that many a man and woman now in this
Agricultural Hall will this day cry, "I do retract what I have said. I
will go to my Father, and will say to him, I will do thy bidding. I
will not grieve thy love. I will not lose the opportunity of advancing
my soul's best interest; I obey the gospel command.'" I will suppose
that I see one such before me, and I will speak to him. Perhaps he
said, "I will not," because he really did not understand what religion
was. How few after all know what the way of salvation is; though they
go to church, and to chapel, they have not yet learned God's plan of
pardoning sinners. Do you know the plan of salvation? Hear it and live
by it. You have offended God; God must punish sin; it is a fixed law
that sin must be punished; how then can God have mercy upon you? Why,
only in this way: Jesus Christ came from heaven and he suffered in the
room, place, and stead of all who trust him; suffered what they ought
to have suffered, so that God is just, and yet at the same time he is
able to forgive the very chief of sinners through the merits of his
dear Son. Your debts, if you be a believer in him, Christ has paid on
your behalf. If you do but come and rest upon Jesus and upon Jesus
only, God cannot punish you for your sins, for he punished Jesus for
them, and it would not be just of him to punish Christ and then to
punish you, to exact payment first from the Surety and afterwards from
the debtor. My dear hearer, whoever thou mayst be, whatever thy past
life may have been, if thou wilt trust Christ, thou shalt be saved from
all thy sin in a moment, the whole of thy past life shall be blotted
out; there shall not remain in God's book so much as a single charge
against thy soul, for Christ who died for thee, shall take thy guilt
away and leave thee without a blot before the face of God. Read the
last verse of my text, and you will see that it was by believing that
men entered into the kingdom of God of old, and it is still by
believing that men are saved. "Behold the Lamb of God," said John the
Baptist, and if you look to that bleeding Lamb, you shall live. Do you
understand this? Is it not simple? Is it not suitable to you. Will you
still refuse to obey it? Does not the Holy Spirit prompt you to relent?
Do you not even now say, "Is it so simple? I will even trust in Jesus:
'Guilty, but with heart relenting,
To the Savior's wounds I'll fly.'
I will come, by God's help, this morning, lest death should come before
the sun sets. I will trust Christ to save me. Precious way of
salvation! Why should I not be saved?"
It is possible too, that you may have said, "I will not," because you
really thought there was no hope for you. Ah! my friend, let me assure
you–and oh! how glad I am to be able to do it–that there is hope for
the vilest through the precious blood of Jesus. No man can have gone
too far for the long arm of Christ to reach him. Christ delights to
save the biggest sinners. He said to his apostles, "Preach the gospel
to every creature, but begin"–where? "begin at Jerusalem. There live
the wretches who spat in my face. There live the cruel ones that drove
the nails throught my hands. Go and preach the gospel to them first.
Tell them that I am able to save, not little sinners merely, but the
very chief of sinners. Tell them to trust in me and they shall live."
Where are you, you despairing one? I know the devil will try to keep
the sound of the gospel from your ears if he can, and therefore, I
would "cry aloud and spare not." O ye despairing sinners, there is no
room for despair this side the gates of hell. If you have gone through
the foulest kennels of iniquity, no stain can stand out against the
power of the cleansing blood.
"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose ALL their guilty stains."
Oh, I trust, now that you know there is hope for you, you will say, "I
will even come at once, and put my trust in Jesus."
While I would thus encourage you to repent of your neglect of God, let
me invite you to come to Jesus, and press it upon you yet again. Ah! my
dear friend, you will soon be dying, and though some wicked men, in
their stupid insensibility, die very calmly, and as David said, "They
are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like other
men, but their strength is firm," yet, whether they perceive it or not,
it is a dreadful thing to die with unpardoned sin hanging about you.
What will your guilty soul do when it leaves the body? Think of it a
minute. It is a matter worthy of your thought. Some of you, in all
probability, will die this week. It is not probable that so many
thousands of us will march through a whole week, and be found alive at
the other end of it. Well then, as we may some of us go soon, and all
of us must go ere long, let us look before us and think a bit. Imagine
your soul unclothed of the body. You have left the body behind you, and
your disembodied spirit finds itself in a new world. Oh, it will be a
glorious thing if that separated spirit shall see Jesus whom it has
loved, and fly at once into his bosom, and drink for ever of the
crystal fountain of ever-flowing bliss: but it will be a horrible thing
if instead of it, your naked shivering spirit should wake up to find
itself friendless, homeless, helpless, hopeless, tormented with
remorse, afflicted with despair. What if it should have to cry out
forever, "I knew my duty but I did it not, I knew the way of salvation
but I would not run in it. I heard the gospel, but I shut my ears to
it. I lived and at length left the world without Christ, and here I am,
past hope, no repenting now, no believing now, no escaping now, for
mercy and love no longer rule the hour." Have pity on thyself, my
hearer. I have pity on thee. Oh, if my hand could pluck thee from that
flame, how cheerfully would I do it! Shall I pity thee and wilt thou
not pity thyself? Oh, if my pleadings should by God's grace persuade
you to trust in Christ this morning, I would plead with you while
voice, and lungs, and heart, and life held out! But oh, have pity on
thyself! Pity that poor naked spirit which so soon will be quivering
with utmost agony, a self-caused agony, an agony from which it would
not escape, an agony of which it was warned, but which it chose to
endure sooner than give up sin and yield to the scepter of sovereign
grace.
I would fain hope that you are saying, "I do now repent, and by God's
grace I will go." If so, let me tell you there are a great many in
heaven who once, like you, said, "I will not," but they afterwards
repented and are now saved. I will give you one picture. Yonder, I see
a company of men on horseback, and there is one, the proudest of them
all, to whom they act as a guard; they are going to Damascus, that he
may take Christians to prison and compel them to blaspheme. Saul of
Tarsus is the name of that cruel, murderous persecutor. When Stephen
was put to death, God said to this man Saul, "Go, work in my vineyard,"
but Saul said plainly, "I will not," and to prove his emnity, he helped
to put Stephen to death. There he is riding in hot haste, upon his evil
errand, none more set and determined against the Lord. Yet my Lord
Jesus can tame the lion, and even make a lamb of him. As he rides
along, a bright light is seen, brighter than the sun at noonday; he
falls from his horse, he lies trembling on the ground, and he hears a
voice out of heaven, saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"
Lifting up his eyes with astonishment, he sees that he had ignorantly
been persecuting the Son of God. What a change that one discovery
wrought in him. That voice, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest," broke
his hard heart, and won him to the cause. You know how three days after
that, that once proud and bigoted man was baptized upon profession of
the faith of Christ, whom he had just now persecuted! and if you want
to see an earnest preacher, where can you find a better than the
apostle Paul, who, with heart on fire, writes again and again, "God
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ." I hope there is a Saul here, who is to be struck down this
morning. Lord, strike him down! Eternal Spirit strike him down now! You
did not know perhaps, that you had been fighting God, but you thought
the religion of Jesus to be a foolish dream. You did not know that you
had insulted the dying Savior; now you do know it, may your conscience
be affected, and from this day forth may you serve the Lord.
I must leave this second point when I have just said this. If there be
one here who after a long refusal, at last relents, and is willing to
become a servant of God by faith in Jesus Christ, let me tell him for
his encouragement, he shall not be one whit behind those who have been
so long making a profession without being true to it, for the text
says, "The publicans and harlots go into the kingdom;" but what else?
"Go into the kingdom" before those who made a profession of serving
God, but who were not true to it. You great sinners shall have no back
seats in heaven! There shall be no outer court for you. You great
sinners shall have as much love as the best, as much joy as the
brightest of saints. You shall be near to Christ; you shall sit with
him upon his throne; you shall wear the crown; your fingers shall touch
the golden harps; you shall rejoice with the joy which is unspeakable
and fall of glory. Will ye not come? Christ forgets your past ill
manners, and bids ye come to-day. "Come," saith he, "unto me all ye
that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." Thirty years
of sin shall be forgiven, and it shall not take thirty minutes to do it
in. Fifty, sixty, seventy years of iniquity shall all disappear as the
morning's hoar-frost disappears before the sun. Come and trust my
Master, hiding in his bleeding wounds.
"Raise thy downcast eyes, and see
What throngs His throne surround!
These, though sinners once like thee,
Have full salvation found.
Yield not then to unbelief;
He says, There yet is room:'
Though of sinners thou art chief,
Since Jesus calls thee, come."
II. Bear with me a little time while I speak to the second character,
THE DECEPTIVELY SUBMISSIVE, by far the most numerous everywhere in
England, probably the most numerous in this assembly. Oh! you, my own
regular hearers, you who have heard my voice these thirteen years many
of you are in this class. You have said to the Great Father, "I go,
sir!" but you have not gone. Let me sorrowfully sketch your portraits:
you have regularly frequented a place of worship, and you would shudder
to waste a single Sunday in an excursion, or in any form of Sabbath
breaking. Outwardly you have said," I go, sir." When the hymn is given
out, you stand up and sing, and yet you do not sing with the heart.
When I say, "Let us pray!" you cover your faces, but you do not pray
with real prayer. You utter a polite, respectful "I go, sir," but you
do not go. You give a notional assent to the gospel. If I were to
mention any doctrine, you would say, "Yes, that is true. I believe
that." But your heart does not believe: you do not believe the gospel
in the core of your nature, for if you did, it would have an effect
upon you. A man may say, "I believe my house is on fire," but if he
goes to bed and falls to sleep, it does not look as if he believed it,
for when a man's house is on fire he tries to escape. If some of you
really believed that there is a hell, and that there is a heaven, as
you believe other things, you would act very differently from what you
now do. I must add that many of you say, "I go, sir," in a very solemn
sense, for when we preach earnestly the tears run down your cheeks, and
you go home to your bedrooms, and you pray a little, and everybody
thinks that your concern of mind will end in conversion: but your
goodness is "like the morning cloud and the early dew." You are like
dunghills with snow upon them: while the snow lasts you look white and
fair, but when the snow melts the dunghill remains a dunghill still.
Oh, how many very impressible hearts are like that! You sin, and yet
you come to a place of worship, and tremble under the word; you
transgress, and you weep and transgress again; you feel the power of
the gospel after a fashion, and yet you revolt against it more and
more. Ah! my friends, I can look some of you in the face and know that
I am describing some of your cases to the letter. You have been telling
lies to God all these years, by saying, "I go, sir," while you have not
gone. You know that to be saved you must believe in Jesus, but you have
not believed. You know that you must be born again, but you are still
strangers to the new birth. You are as religious as the seats you sit
on, but no more; and you are as likely to get to heaven as those seats
are, but not one whit more, for you are dead in sin, and death cannot
enter heaven. O my dear hearers, I lament that ever I should be called
to say such a thing as this, and not be more affected by the fact; and,
wonder of wonders, that you, some of you, know it to be true, and yet
do not feel alarmed thereby! It is the easiest thing in the world to
impress some of you by a sermon, but, I fear me, you never will get
beyond mere transient impressions. Like the water when lashed, the
wound soon heals. You know, and you know, and you know; and you feel,
and feel, and feel again, and yet your sins, your self-righteousness,
your carelessness, or your willful wickedness, cause you, after having
said, "I go, sir," to forget the promise and lie unto God.
Now, I spoke very honestly to the other class, and must be equally
plain with you. You, too, criminate yourselves. There will be no need
of witnesses against you. You have admitted that the gospel is true.
You did not quarrel with the doctrine of future punishment or future
glory. You attended a place of worship, and you said that God was good
and worthy to be served; you confessed that you owed allegiance to him,
and ought to render it. You have even knelt down and in prayer you have
said, "Lord, I deserve thy wrath." The great God has only to turn to
some of your formal prayers to find quite enough evidence to secure
your condemnation. Those morning prayers of yours, those evening
prayers, hypocritical every one of them, will be more than sufficient
to condemn you of your own mouth. Take heed! take heed, I pray you,
while you are yet in the land of hope.
All this while, as the thirty-second verse reminds me, while you have
remained unsaved, you have seen publicans and harlots saved by the very
gospel which has had no power upon you. Do not you know it, young man?
You, I mean, the son of a godly mother? You know that you are not
saved, and yet you had a drunken workman in your father's employment,
and he has been these last few years a sober Christian man, he is
saved, and you perhaps have taken to the habits which he has forsaken.
You know that there have been picked off of the streets poor fallen
women who have been brought to know Christ, who are among the sweetest
and fairest flowers in Christ's garden now, though they were once
castaways; and yet some of you respectable people who never committed
any outward vice in your lives, are still unconverted, and still saying
to Christ, "I go, sir," but you have not gone. You are still without
God! Without Christ! Lost, lost, lost! Yet fairer outward characters
could scarcely be found. I could fain weep for you! Oh! beware, beware
of being like the apples of Sodom, which are green to look upon, but
when crushed, crumble to ashes. Beware of being like John Bunyan's
trees that were green outside, but inwardly rotten, and only fit to be
tinder for the devil's tinder-box. Oh! beware of saying as some of you
do, "I go, sir," while you go not. I sometimes see sick people who
quite alarm and distress me. I say to them, "My dear friend, you are
dying; have you a hope?" There is no answer. "Do you know your lost
state?" "Yes, sir. "Christ died for sinners." "Yes, sir." "Faith gives
us of his grace." "Yes, sir. They say, "Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir;
yes, sir; yes, sir." I sometimes wish before God they would contradict
me, for if they would but have honesty enough to say, "I do not believe
a word of it," I should know how to deal with them. Stubborn oaks are
leveled by the gale, but those who bend like the willow before every
wind, what wind shall break them? O dear brethren, beware of being
gospel hardened; or, what is the same thing, softened but for a season.
Beware of being a promising hearer of the word, and nothing more!
I do not mean to close my discourse by speaking to you in this
apparently harsh way, which; harsh as it seems, is full of love to your
soul. I have a good word for you too. I trust that you, in this
Agricultural Hall, will have a change wrought in you by the Holy Ghost,
for although these many years you have made false professions before
God; there is yet room in his gospel feast for you. Did you notice the
text? "The publicans and sinners enter into the kingdom of heaven
before you." Then it is clear you may come after them, because it could
not be said they entered before you, if you did not come after them. If
the Lord shall break your heart, you will be willing to take the Lord
Jesus for your all in all in just the same way as a drunkard must,
though you have not been a drunkard. You will be willing to rest in the
merit of Jesus just as a harlot must, though you have never been such.
There is room for you, young people, yet, though you have broken your
vows, and quenched your convictions. Ay, and you grey-headed people may
be brought yet, though you have lived so long in the outward means, but
have never given up your hearts to Jesus. Oh, come! This twenty-fourth
day of March, may the Lord bring you in this very place may the Lord
lead you to say silently, "By the grace of God I will not be an open
pretender any longer; I will give myself up to those dear hands that
bled for me, and that dear heart that was pierced for me, and I will
this day submit to Jesus' way.
The fact is, to close the subject, there is, my dear friends, the same
gospel to be preached to one class of men as to every other class. I
pray God the day may never come when we shall be found in our preaching
talking about working classes, and middle classes, and upper classes. I
know no difference between you, you are the same to me when I preach
the gospel, whether you are kings and queens, or crossing sweepers;
satin and cotton, broadcloth and fustian, are alike to the gospel. If
you are peers of the realm, we trim not our gospel to suit you, and if
you are the basest of thieves, we do not exclude you from the voice of
mercy. The gospel comes to men as sinners, all equally fallen in Adam,
equally lost and ruined by sin. I have not one gospel for Her Majesty
the Queen, and another gospel for the beggar-woman. No, there is but
one way of salvation, but one foundation, but one propitiation, but one
gospel. Look to the cross of Christ and live. High was the brazen
serpent lifted, and all that Moses said was, "Look." Was a prince of
the house of Judah bitten, he was told to look; without looking his
lion standard of costly emblazonry could not avail him; was some poor
wretch in the camp bitten, he must look, and the efficacy was the same
for him as for the greatest of the host. Look! look! look to Jesus.
Believe in the Son of God and live! One brazen serpent for all the
camp, one Christ for all ranks and conditions of men. What a blessing
would it be if we were all enabled to trust Christ this morning! My
brethren, why not?–He is worthy of the confidence of all. The Spirit
of God is able to work faith in all. O poor sinner, look to him! Dear
hearers, I may never speak to some of you again, and I would therefore
be pressing with you; by the hour of death, by the solemnities of
eternity, I do implore and beseech you accept the only remedy for sin
which even God himself will ever offer to the dying sons of men, the
remedy of a bleeding Substitute, suffering in your room and stead,
believed on and accepted in the heart. Cast yourself flat upon Christ.
The way of salvation is just this–rest alone upon Christ! Depend
wholly upon him. The negro was asked what he did, and he said, "I jest
fall down on de rock, and he dat is down on de rock cannot fall no
lower." Down on the rock, sinner! Down on the rock! The everlasting
rock of ages! You cannot fall lower than that. I will conclude with a
well-known illustration. Your condition is like that of a child in a
burning house, who, having escaped to the edge of the window, hung on
by the window-sill. The flames were pouring out of the window
underneath, and the poor lad would soon be burnt, or falling would be
dashed to pieces; he therefore held on with the clutch of death. He did
not dare to relax his grasp till a strong man stood underneath, and
said, "Boy! drop! drop! I'll catch you." Now, it was no saving faith
for the boy to believe that the man was strong–that was a good help
towards faith–but he might have known that and yet have perished; it
was faith when the boy let go and dropped down into his big friend's
arms. There are you, sinner, clinging to your sins or to your good
works. The Savior cries, "Drop! drop into my arms!" It is not doing, it
is leaving off doing. It is not working, it is trusting in that work
which Jesus has already done. Trust! that is the word, simple, solid,
hearty, earnest trust. Trust and it will not take an hour to save you,
the moment you trust you are saved. You may have come in here as black
as hell, but if you trust in Jesus you are wholly forgiven. In an
instant, swifter than a flash of lightning the deed of grace is done. O
may God the Spirit do it now, bringing you to trust, that you may be
saved.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 103.
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Ephraim Bemoaning Himself
A sermon