A Word with those who Wait for Signs and Wonders
A sermon
(No. 898)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, OCTOBER 31, 1869, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"This is an evil generation: they seek a sign."- Luke 11:29.
READING the Old Testament we observe that the Lord, in the olden times,
condescendingly gave signs to His servants when He saw that it would be
for their good. Moses, when he was called to undertake the great work
of bringing the chosen people up out of Egypt and conducting them into
the promised land, had a sign given him by which to assure him that he
was truly called of God. He put his hand into his bosom and when he
took it out it was leprous, white as snow. He thrust it into his bosom
again and again removed it and, lo, it was whole as the other! He cast
his rod upon the earth and the rod became a serpent, and when he took
it by the tail, it stiffened into a rod again.
So also in the case of Gideon, when he was commanded to go against the
Midianite oppressors of Israel, you remember how his fleece was wet
when all around was dry. And how the sign was reversed and when all
around was saturated with moisture, the fleece was dry. In the cases of
holy men favored with signs, there was faith. There was a real desire
for more faith and a willing obedience to God. But the work to which
the men were called was peculiar, difficult and even superhuman! And
the flesh being but weak, God in infinite tenderness to the weakness of
His servants, gave them signs and wonders that they might be
strengthened.
Doubtless, if again there should come a necessity for signs to any of
God's servants, such tokens would be given them. If there should ever
be a time when it was not possible for Christians to walk by faith
alone, or when it would be more to the honor of God that their
confidence should be somewhat assisted by marvels and tokens, then
would God go out of the ordinary way once again and His people should
receive miraculous seals. If it were utterly impossible for the anxious
and truly penitent spirit to find rest without a sign, I believe the
sign would be given. I also believe that in no case is such a thing at
all necessary under the present Gospel dispensation which is so
enriched with the most plain evidence, and that to add more would be to
hold a candle to the sun, or pour water into the ocean.
In addition to this first remark, let us add that signs have been given
and yet have not worked faith in those who have seen them, and there is
no necessary connection between seeing signs and believing that which
the signs attest. Israel in the wilderness saw great marvels worked by
the Lord their God and yet perished in unbelief. Pharaoh is a still
more notable instance–what signs and wonders God worked in the fields
of Zoan! How was the Nile crimsoned into blood and all Egypt filled
with lamentation! The Lord turned the dust of the land into lice and
the ashes into plagues! He brought up frogs into their chambers and
locusts devoured their fields. He darkened the heavens at midday and
deluged them with hail and rain such as the land had never seen before!
A grievous disease fell upon their cattle and death upon their
firstborn–yet all the wonders which God worked did not soften
Pharaoh's heart and, though, for awhile he trembled, yet again he
steeled himself against the God of Israel and said, "Who is the Lord,
that I should obey His voice?" My Hearers, if you do not believe Moses
and the Prophets. If you do not believe in Jesus Christ with the
testimonies which are already before you, neither would you believe
though one rose from the dead, or though all the plagues of Egypt
should be repeated upon you with tenfold fury! There is no necessary
connection between the seeing of wonders and the believing in God! We
learn clearly from Pharaoh's case and from many others that all the
displays of wonderful power, either of judgment or of mercy, do not
beget faith in unbelieving hearts.
I come, this morning, to deal with a class of persons very commonly
still among us–exceedingly common in all congregations where the
Gospel its faithfully preached–whom I shall attempt to describe, in
the first place, and then go on to deal with them as God shall help me.
I. First, then, I shall ask your attention while I DESCRIBE THE PERSONS
who are an evil generation that seek after a sign. We have among us
many individuals who are aware that they are sinners and are conscious
of their guilt to such an extent as to be very uneasy as to their
condition. They dearly perceive that sin will be punished by the Great
Judge and they are much afraid of the wrath to come. They anxiously
desire, moreover, to find salvation, and, having long listened to the
Gospel, they are not ignorant of the way in which salvation is
obtained. They understand the Gospel in the letter of it to the highest
degree.
They are not unbelievers in any of the doctrines of the Gospel. They
accept the Deity of Christ. They believe Him to be verily the Son of
God. They believe that He died upon the Cross and offered Atonement for
iniquity. They, moreover, know that this atone-merit is effectual for
the putting away of transgressions and they are persuaded that if they
had an interest in it, it would wash away their sins and would give
them peace of mind. You will say to me, "Knowing all this, of course
they are Believers in Christ." No, they are not. We are very hopeful of
them but we are, at the same time, much alarmed about them.
They are not Believers, for they willfully persist in demanding some
sign or wonder within themselves, or around themselves, before they
will personally put their trust in the Lord Jesus. Having been taught
all they have been taught and accepting for the Truth of God all that
they do accept, the logical inference would be that they trust in
Christ and are saved–but illogical as their state is they still remain
unbelievers, with all this belief about them–and they justify their
remaining in unbelief by telling you that if they felt this, or if they
saw that, or if this happened, or if the other thing occurred, then
they would believe in Jesus, but not until then! They make different
demands. There are some, and these are generally the most uneducated,
who expect to experience remarkable dreams or to behold singular
visions.
I am sometimes astonished that there should linger among our
population, still, a notion that a certain kind of dream, especially if
it is repeated a number of times and if it is so vivid as to remain
upon the imagination for a long period, is an index of the Divine
favor. Nothing can be more grossly untrue! Nothing can be more baseless
and without the shadow of evidence to back it up! And yet many imagine
that if they, I was about to say, suffered so grievously from
indigestion that their sleep was spoiled by vivid dreams, then they
could put their trust in Jesus Christ! The notion is so absurd, that if
it is but mentioned to rational men they must ridicule it and yet I
have known many who have been, and still are, slaves to this delusion!
Not very long ago, after preaching in a remote country village, I was
earnestly sought for as a spiritual adviser by an importunate letter
from a woman who ascribed to me much greater wisdom than I ever claimed
to possess. I wondered what her spiritual difficulty was, and when I
went to her house and found her very sick, I was saddened to find her
the victim of a superstition in which, I fear, her minister had
comforted and so confirmed her. She solemnly informed me that she had
seen something standing at night at the foot of her bed. She was in
hopes that it was our blessed Lord, but she could not see his head. As
I knew so much of spiritual things, could I tell her who it was? I said
I thought she must have hung up her dress on a peg on the wall at the
foot of her bed and in the dark had mistaken it for an apparition.
Of course, that did not satisfy her. I fell at once in her estimation
to the dead level of a very carnal-minded man, if not a scoffer, but I
could not help it–I could not dally with such ridiculous
superstition–I was obliged to tell her it was all nonsense for her to
hope for salvation because she was silly enough to fancy that she saw
Jesus with her bodily eyes, for the saving sight was a spiritual one.
As to the question of the supposed apparition having a head or not, I
told her if she would but use her own head and heart in meditating upon
the Word of God, she would be in a far more hopeful condition.
There may have been, I will not deny it–for stranger things have
happened–there may have been dreams and even apparitions which have
aroused the conscience and so led to the commencement of spiritual life
in some rare cases where God has chosen specially to interfere. But
that these are to be looked for and to be expected is a thing as far
from the Truth of God as the east is from the west! What if you did see
anything–or dream anything–what would that prove? Why, prove nothing
whatever except that you were in an ill state of health and that your
imagination was morbidly active. Put such things away–they are
superstitions fit for Bushmen and Hottentots–but they are not fit for
Christians of the 19th Century! I do but mention them, not because I
think any of you may have fallen into them, but that you may deal with
them always very rigidly wherever you meet with them.
They are superstitions not to be tolerated by Christian men, yet there
are some who actually will not believe Christ's simple Gospel unless
some such absurdity as this can be joined into it. God deliver you from
such unbelief! Others we have met with who suppose that in order to be
saved they must feel some very peculiar physical sensation. Now, that
joy and peace of mind and the discovery of the Gospel when it for the
first time flashes on the mind may produce extraordinary sensations in
the body through the force of mental emotion, I do not doubt. But do, I
pray you, remember that the Divine Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ has
nothing to do with nerves and muscles and sinew and things to be seen
and to be felt in the flesh. The operations of Grace are a mental,
spiritual, work!
My dear Hearers, you must never imagine, when we talk about the heart,
that we mean that central organ within us from which the blood
circulates. We mean nothing which has to do with this fleshly
organization–the work of the Holy Spirit concerns itself with the
mind, the affections, the soul, the spirit, and His work is altogether
spiritual. God forbid that you should look for any physical work, or
strange affection of nerve and sinew, as some have talked of and others
have looked for. You must not put physical contortions or sensations as
a test before the Lord and say you will not believe in Him otherwise.
These, I hope, are rare cases, but in very frequent instances I have
met with people who will not believe in Jesus Christ to the salvation
of their souls because they have not felt wretched enough.
They have read in certain books of holy men who, when they were seeking
a Savior, were broken in pieces under the ponderous hammer of the Law.
They turn to such biographies and they find the subjects of them
uttering language similar to the book of Job, or to the words of Jeremy
in the Lamentations. Now these were good and holy men and the way by
which they were led to Christ was a way trod by many feet, but these
persons say, "Unless I can feel just this. Unless I can be led into
despair. Unless I can be tempted to destroy myself. Unless I become so
desponding that I am more fit for a lunatic asylum than to be in my own
family, I cannot believe in Jesus Christ."
Ah, poor demented one, to desire misery and to make your own
wretchedness and even your own unbelieving and wicked thoughts of God
to be a kind of preparation for faith in Jesus Christ! It is a most
insanely wicked thing and yet many, many, many persist in unbelief
because they think they are not yet wretched enough! Running to the
other extreme, I have met with others who would not simply trust Christ
because they were not happy enough. They have heard of the Christian's
joys and the peace, like a river, that evermore abides, and they have
said, "If I could get this peace. If this deep calm ruled in my spirit,
then I could believe." As much as to say, "If I saw the wheat full
grown in the fields of my soul, then I would begin to sow"–whereas the
sowing must precede the reaping! "If I had within me the flower in all
its beauty and bloom, then I would begin to plant the root"–whereas
the root must always precede the flower!
Peace of mind is the result of faith, but it demands that it shall be
the result of faith before you can exercise faith. In truth, they come
to God and ask for the wages before the work is begun! They demand
peace before they will believe! Believe me, if any of you thus act
willfully and strangely, you must not suppose that God will turn aside
from His wise proceedings to gratify your whims. Ah, no! You may tempt
the Lord, but He is not tempted of any man. What folly it is and yet
folly as it is, how common is it on all sides! I have met with some who
would not believe in Christ because they could not pray eloquently.
"Oh," they have said, "if I could pray like So-and-So, to whom we have
listened with the greatest pleasure at the Prayer Meetings, then I
could put my trust in Christ and there would be some hope for me!"
Now, praying fluently is sometimes only the result of oratorical gifts
and if you will never believe in Christ till you get oratorical gifts,
then how foolish you are to shut yourself out from Heaven because you
cannot play the orator! Because you cannot be a preacher, do you refuse
to be a child of God? True, fluency in prayer may also be the result of
great depth of piety, but do you expect to have a great depth of piety
before you even have the beginning of Divine Grace in your soul? Before
you will put your trust in Christ and become a babe in His family, you
claim you must be a man six feet tall? Before you will learn the "A B
C" of the language of Canaan, you declare that you must be able to
sound its very hardest syllables and pronounce its most difficult
sentences? That which is frequently the result of years of training and
long habit of deep, solitary contemplation, you expect to leap into at
once, or else you refuse to be saved?
O Madness, to what height will you not mount?! I have known others who
must feel precisely like certain eminent saints have felt many years
after their conversion, or else they cannot believe that they are
saved. They will reach down the life of some holy man who had mastered
his passions by long years of mortification–who had come to live near
to God and whose life was the heavenly life on earth, and they will
mentally vow–"I must be just like this man, or else I cannot believe
in Jesus." They say, in fact, to the Heavenly Physician, "I am sick and
ready to die, but, Good Physician,
You must make me as strong as Samson at once, and on the spot, or else
I will not receive Your medicine"–just as if the perfect spiritual
cure of the soul were not a lifelong work of Grace!
They expect to be made perfect in an instant, or they will not trust
the ever faithful Savior. They look for the mature fruits of autumn in
the early spring and even if they bear even so much as a bud or
blossom, they must have the full ripe fruit or else they will not
believe. Well, this is marvelous and truly, if there is anything
amazing on earth beside the mercy of God it is the perversity of man,
and the strange way in which unbelief will dare impudently to set up
one demand after another as an excuse for rejecting the Lord Jesus
Christ.
We have met this mischief at other times in a somewhat indescribable
shape. "Sir," says the young convert, "you tell me that if I simply put
my trust in Jesus I shall be saved. But is not salvation a great
mystery?" Our reply must honestly be, "No doubt it is." Well, then,
they determine to wait until they are the subjects of some singular
feeling, some mysterious phenomenon within themselves. It is not to be
denied that the work of Divine Grace by the Holy Spirit in the soul is
the greatest of all mysteries, but it is never, also, to be forgotten
that it is one of the grandest of all simplicities! The mysteries of
the church of Rome are mock mysteries rendered dark by the veil which
she casts over the Truth of God. By her incantations, her
paraphernalia, her performances and her use of a strange tongue, that
which is simple is darkened into a mimic mystery–for what is really in
it is a plain lie for thoughtful men to laugh at!
This is a kind of mystery of which the Gospel knows nothing. The
mysteries of regeneration are not artificial, but natural. Now all
natural mysteries in the world are, from another point of view, clear
simplicities. Light, we know what it is, we see it every day. It is the
greatest of all mysteries, yet practically it is the most common of all
simplicities. When the sun scatters the darkness, there is no mystery
about it. Or when we light a candle, there is no need of wonder. Light
is a wondrous mystery, yet to obtain it, the least educated need not go
to school. The electric telegraph is practically, as a matter of every
day use, so simplified that a lad may officiate at the instrument and
yet it remains and ever will remain a mystery.
Understand that such is the mystery of regeneration. It is so
mysterious that no one can explain it, but it is so simple that
everyone that believes in Christ has experienced it already! It is so
mysterious that if the most learned authors were composed to define it,
all the writers in the world might fail in the definition. But it is
such a simplicity that whoever believes in Jesus Christ is born of God.
There is nothing mysterious about it, I was about to say, in the
artificial meaning of that word "mystery." The only mystery lies in the
operation of the Holy Spirit whose coming and going we cannot
comprehend. If you believe, you have felt the mystery! If you trust
Jesus, you possess the mystery! All that is meant in regeneration, all
that is wrapped up in the work of the Holy Spirit actually belongs to
every soul that has believed in Jesus Christ and in Him only!
But I know what it is, you will go to Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
Damascus, but you will not come to the blood of Christ and wash and be
clean! You will say, "I thought he would surely come and strike his
hand over the place and call upon the name of the Lord his God and
recover the leper," but you cannot accept the simple word, "Believe and
live," so grand in its simplicity. The most of men reject the Gospel
for that very reason of its simplicity. Signs and wonders they will
still demand–something artificially mysterious their soul still craves
after–but the naked grandeur of the sublime mystery of faith they
cannot perceive. Their folly is clear enough to all men that have eyes.
I have just described the character and if any have felt themselves
portrayed this morning, I hope they will prepare their hearts for what
will follow and be willing to receive my Master's Word.
II. I shall now, secondly, show THE FOLLY OF SUCH CONDUCT. My dear
Friend, I get you by the hand and look you in the face, anxiously
desiring, as I do, that you may be saved this very morning. You are
seeking a sign, one of these which I have described, or some other. You
seek what is quite unnecessary. What do you need a sign for? You need,
you say, a token of God's love. What token of God's love to you can
ever be needed, now that He has given His only-begotten Son–first to
live on earth and then to die in extreme pains, the Just for the
unjust–"that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life"?
I blush for you, that you should ask any token of God's love while
Jesus Christ is before you–for herein is such love as nothing else can
ever equal! What do you need a sign for? Why, to show, you say, that
there is mercy for you. How do you need that? The very fact that you
are alive shows how merciful God is! Had He been unmerciful, He would
long ago have cut you down, for what are you but a cumberer of the
ground, with your heart full of evil devices at this very
moment, at enmity against Him? I know you are so, or otherwise you
would not be so hard to lead to faith, yet are you spared by His mercy!
Is not that proof enough?
And, moreover, the Gospel is preached to you. You are told that, "he
that believes and is baptized shall be saved." He must be a good God
who lets you hear such a Gospel and who bids me plead with you, as
though Christ pleaded with you, that you would lay hold of Him. Why,
the Gospel itself is the greatest of signs and wonders! Why do you need
more that that? "Oh," you say, "can the Gospel save me?" My dear
Friend, you do not need any sign to prove that! You have your own
relatives, your own sons and daughters who have been saved. You are a
witness to what Divine Grace has done for them–what more evidence can
you require? Remember the dying bed of your sainted mother! Remember
the joyous departure of your brother, or your converted child!
Evidently Grace did wonders for them. What more do you need to convince
you?
Mark you, if you did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. If you
did not believe that His blood could cleanse from sin, I might talk
somewhat differently to you. But you do believe all this and I say, in
the name of all that is reasonable, what makes you ask for any greater
sign than the signs which God has already given you? You are seeking
for altogether unnecessary things! You are also asking for useless
signs. What evidence could there be now, for instance, in mere
dejection of spirit? You want to feel miserable, you say–what evidence
would that be of your salvation? It seems to me that you are like a man
who should say that he would catch hold of a rope if he could sink so
many fathoms deeper in the ocean, or that he would avail himself of a
hospital if his disease were so much worse. How strange that a rational
man should talk like this!
Despair is no help to faith. Sinful doubts cannot assist you to
Christ–they may most effectually keep you from
Him–
"Why those fears, poor trembling Sinner? Why those anxious, gloomy
fears? Doubts and fears can never sa ve you, Life is never won by
tears! 'Tis believing,
Which the soul to Christ endears. Tears, though flowing like a river,
Never can one sin efface. Jesus' tears would not avail you– Blood
alone can meet your case. Fly to Jesus!
Life is found in His embrace."
"Oh," but you say, "I have desired to feel ecstatic joy!" But if you
did, how could that help you to believe in Christ? Your joy might be no
more than worldlings feel when their wealth increases. It might spring
of mere excitement. It might all be based upon a lie and your joy might
be your damnation! O Man, Christ is worthy of confidence, but your joys
and your sorrows are not! They may be good or they may be bad, they may
be hopeful or they may be delusive. Why do you look at them, or seek
another foundation than God has laid? Your feelings are fickle things.
Believe and live!
Are you not also seeking most unreasonable things? To ask a sign from
God when He pledges His Word seems to me to be out of all reason. You
are a beggar, remember, and we have an old proverb that beggars must
not be choosers. Above all, how dare a beggar demand a sign before he
will receive an alms? I am walking in the street and am accosted by a
hungry man and if I offer him a loaf of bread, is he to refuse to take
it unless I will fly in the air or help him to turn a stone into bread?
"Let the man starve, Sir," you will say, "if he is so unreasonable as
to demand a sign." And yet that is just like you! You will not take the
mercy which the Gospel freely offers you, which God even commands you
to accept– you will not take it unless some astonishing sign or wonder
shall be worked in you!
Let your folly appear still further when I remind you that you are
asking for unpromised signs. God has promised that everyone that
believes in Jesus Christ shall live. He has promised to hear prayer.
But He has never promised to give any one of you a sign or a wonder!
And yet you will ask Him to give you a sign which He has never promised
and dare not ask Him to give you eternal life which He has promised?
Folly indeed! Some of you are seeking for injurious signs. That
depression of spirit which some think would be such an encouragement to
them, why it is even sinful! And how should I
ask a sinful thing of God? To be distracted in my mind. To be so
depressed and melancholy as to make myself and all my household
miserable–is that a good thing? It is a great sin against God! And am
I to ask God to give me this sign in order to help me to believe?
Thoughts of suicide! Why, my Brothers and Sisters, they are awful–they
are not to be allowed! There is murder in them! He that even thinks of
them has committed murder already in his heart! And are these terrible,
these devilish things, to be helps to you to believe? Why, they would
just drive you into Hell! How can they help you to Heaven? You are
asking for that which would be your ruin. You ask for a scorpion. You
ask for a stone. You ask for a serpent and then you think that after
having all these evil things you would be more fit to receive the bread
of the Divine blessing? God will deny you, I trust, what you so
foolishly ask for. Oh, be content to be led in a gentler way! Be
willing to be blown to Christ by the soft south wind–ask not for
tempests! Be satisfied to be drawn by the cords of love! Demand not by
the bands of a man–demand not whips and chains! Enquire not for the
thunder and lightning of Sinai–be satisfied with the turtle-notes of
Calvary–
"Hark! the voice of Jesus calling, 'Come, you laden, come to Me, I have
rest and peace to offer Rest, poor laboring one, for you. Take
salvation, Take it now and happy be.' Life is found alone in Jesus,
Only there 'tis offered you– Offered without price or money, 'Tis the
gift of God sent free! Take salvation, Take it now and happy be."
Remember, my dear Hearers, that some of you who are not believing are
seeking signs which others have never had. To give you an instance or
two. There stood the prodigal son feeding the swine, so hungry that he
would gladly have filled his belly with the husks. The thought crossed
his mind, "I will arise and go unto my father." What sign had he? He
sets off to seek his father's face. What sign had he, I say? There does
not appear to have been even an invitation sent, but he sought his
father and he found forgiveness. Take another case. Christ has likened
seeking souls to the widow who sought help of the unjust judge. She
cried to him. She continued to cry to him until she gained her suit!
But what sign had she? If any sign, it was all negative–all from the
opposite quarter–yet on she went.
Look at the Canaanite woman. She desired that her daughter might be
healed. What sign had she? Christ said, "It is not meet to take the
children's bread and cast it to dogs." Instead of a sign to help her it
was a hard word to discourage her, but yet she won her suit! And why
not you, my Hearers, why not you? The poor woman who touched the hem of
Christ's garment in the press of the crowd, what sign had she of His
willingness to help her? It was her own earnest, intense desire and her
faith in Jesus that made her touch the hem out of which the virtue
came. Wait not, then, for signs to be given to you when they have not
been given to others, but do as others have done and obtain the like
blessing.
III. I shall now need a few minutes more and your very serious
attention, while I now LAY BARE YOUR SINS, your grievous sins. My dear
Hearers, in the first place, you make God a liar. Is not this the
testimony of the Holy Spirit, "he that believes not has made God a
liar"? How do we treat liars? If they tell us a thing, we say, "I am
doubtful of it." We need more evidence. Now, I feel persuaded that many
of you respect even me so well that if I made a statement you would
accept it without any further evidence.
But here is the Everlasting God who declares that whoever trusts His
Son shall be saved and you practically give Him the lie–for if you
believed what He testifies, since you want to be saved–you would
surely trust His Son! But you practically say, "We do not believe it.
We do not believe it! We need more evidence. We need a sign and a
wonder." You make God a liar. In the next place, you insult God's
Sovereignty. He has a right to give signs or not, as He wills, but you,
as it were, say, "You shall give me a sign or else I will be damned. I
will not have Your mercy if I cannot have it in my own way. Great God,
I will not be saved unless I can feel as I want to feel. I have a whim
in my mind as to how the work of Grace shall be worked, and if it
begins not as I think best, I will sooner make my bed in Hell than
accept Your Son."
Is the preacher too hard on you? Ah, it is love that makes me hard! In
truth, it is you who are hard with GOD! And hard with your own souls. O
fling away this accursed pride of yours and kiss His silver scepter and
say, "Lord, save me as You will. I believe, help You my unbelief." I
must tell you what is more–you are acting the part of an idolater.
What does an idolater do? He says, "I cannot believe in an unseen God.
I must have a golden calf or an image that I can see with my eyes and
touch with my hands." You say just the same. You cannot believe God's
naked Word–you demand something you can feel, something you can see.
Sheer idolatry!
Do you not see it? You make your own feelings and emotions, or strange
impressions, to be more worthy of trust than even God Himself! You make
them idols and put them into God's place. You, so far as you can,
undiefy the Deity. O tremble at such a crime as this! Do you not see,
moreover, that you crucify the Savior? Those who nailed His hands to
the tree were not greater sinners, even if they were so great, as you
are who say to Him, "Bleeding Savior, I believe that You have died on
the Cross. I believe that Your blood could cleanse my sin, but I cannot
trust You to do it. I have no confidence in You. I cannot, will not
trust You. I trust my husband, but I cannot trust my Savior. I trust my
child, but I cannot trust my God. I trust my minister, but I cannot
trust the Son of God exalted in the highest heavens."
Why, this is crucifying Him–this is treating Him as a dog should be
treated! I know not what can be worse than this! Nails in His hands are
not more cruel than this mistrust of His deep love and His Divine
power. "Ah," says one, "I do not mean that, but I need to see the work
of the Holy Spirit in my soul." Ah, then, I have another charge to
bring against you–you are wanting to trust in the work of the Holy
Spirit instead of trusting in the work of Jesus Christ! There is no
text in all the Bible which tells you to make the work of the Holy
Spirit the foundation of your confidence! Nowhere is it set forth as
the ground for a sinner's reliance! It occupies quite another place. If
you try to put the work of the Spirit where the work of Christ should
be, you grieve the Holy Spirit, for the very last thing that ever the
Holy Spirit would do would be to supplant the Lamb of God!
It is His office and mission to glorify Christ! How, then, shall He
supplant Him? When you say, "I cannot trust the blood, I cannot trust
the righteousness of Christ. I must have something from the Holy Spirit
to trust to," you do, as it were, try to make a clash between the work
of the Holy Spirit and the work of Christ–and this grieves the Spirit
to the last degree.
IV. Ah, I have thought over this subject carefully and I have tried to
speak upon it earnestly, but I am conscious when I have done my best
that you will go on in this folly and continue still in this sin. Yet I
do pray the Holy Spirit that it may not be so, for now during the last
few minutes I desire to show YOU YOUR DANGER as I have shown you your
folly and sin. My dear Friends, you are in danger of death! You admit
that, and now, suppose you die in the state you are in? Why, you are
almost saved! You are awakened, you are aroused, you have many good
desires, but a man who is only almost saved will be altogether damned!
There was a householder who almost bolted his door at night, but the
thief came in. A prisoner was condemned to be hanged and was almost
pardoned, but he hung on the gallows. A ship was almost saved from
shipwreck, but she went to the bottom with all hands on board. A fire
was almost extinguished, but it consumed a city. A man almost decided
remains to perish in the flames of Hell! So is it with you unless you
believe! All these things which you possess of good desire and emotion
shall be of no service to you at all, for, "he that believes not shall
be damned." Remember, Friend, you may be damned before the sun goes
down today–the flames of Hell may enclose you before the sun shall
gild another morning with his light.
O seek the Savior now while the Gospel message comes with fresh power
on this Lord's-Day! "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
saved," for, "he that believes and is baptized shall be saved."–
"Soon that voice will cease its calling,
Now it speaks and speaks to you–
Sinner, heed the gracious message,
To the blood for refuge flee!
Take salvation,
Take it now and happy be."
There is one other thing of which you are in danger, namely, that if
you are spared for years to come, yet, through long procrastination
your conscience may become seared as with a hot iron. If you believe
this day, whatever you may have
been, your sins are all forgiven you in a moment. If you do now look to
Christ upon Calvary and trust your soul with Him, you shall now live,
for–
"There is life in a look at the Crucified One,
There is life at this moment for you." But if you will look to your
good works, to your preparations, to your fears, to your joys–if,
indeed–you look to anything but Christ, it may be the Holy Spirit will
never strive with you again–your conscience will become hardened and
you, being given up to your idols, will perish, utterly perish, under
the sound of the Gospel–perish with the light of the Gospel shining on
your eyeballs! Perish of the serpent bite while the bronze serpent is
lifted high! Perish of thirst when the Water of Life runs rippling at
your feet because you are not content to stoop down and take it as God
presents it to you! O that you would this very day end these follies
and these sins, believing in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy
Spirit!–
"Jesus, the eternal Son of God, Whom seraphim obey, The bosom of the
Father lea ves And enters human clay."
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Luke 11:14-44.