"As Thy Days, So Shall Thy Strength Be"
A Sermon
(No. 210)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, August 22, 1858, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens
"As thy days, so shall thy strength be;"–Deuteronomy 33:25.
BELOVED, IT SEEMS A SAD THING that every day must die and be followed
by a night. When we have seen the hills clad with verdure to their
summit, and the seas laving their base with a silver glory; when we
have stretched our eye faraway, and have seen the widening prospect
full of loveliness and beauty we have felt sad that the sunlight should
ever set upon such a scene, and that so much beauty should be shrouded
in the oblivion of darkness. But how much reason have we to bless God
for nights! for if it were not for nights how much of beauty never
would be discovered. Never should I have considered the heavens the
work of thy fingers, O my God, if thou hadst not first covered the sun
with a thick mantle of darkness: the moon and the stars, which thou
hast ordained, had never been bright in mine eyes, if thou hadst not
hidden the light of the sun and bidden him retire within the curtains
of the west. Night seems to be the great friend of the stars: they must
be all unseen by eyes of men, were they not set in the foil of
darkness. It is even so with winter. We might feel sad, that all the
flowers of summer must die, and all the fruits of autumn must be
gathered into their store-house, that every tree must be stripped. and
that all the fields must lose their fair flowers. But were it not for
winter we should never see the glistening crystals of the snow; we
should never behold the beauteous festoons of the icicles that hang
from the eaves. Much of God's marvellous miracles of hoar frost must
have been hidden from us, if it had not been for the cold chill of
winter, which, when it robs us of one beauty, gives us another,–when
it takes away the emerald of verdure, it gives us the diamond of
ice–when it casts from us the bright rubies of the flowers, it gives
us the fair white ermine of snow. Well now, translate those two ideas,
and you will see why it is that even our sin, our lost and ruined
estate, has been made the means, in the hand of God, of manifesting to
us the excellencies of his character. My dear friends, if you and I had
been without trouble, we never could have had such a promise as this
given to us:–"As thy days, so shall thy strength be." It is our
weakness that has made room for God to give us such a promise as this.
Our sins make room for a Saviour; our frailties make room for the Holy
Spirit to correct them; all our wanderings make room for the good
Shepherd, that he may seek us and bring us back. We do not love nights,
but we do love stars; we do not love weakness, but we do bless God for
the promise that is to sustain us in our weakness, we do not admire
winter, but we do admire the glittering snow; we must shudder at our
own trembling weakness, but we still do bless God that we are weak
because it makes room for the display of his own invincible strength in
fulfilling such a promise as this.
In addressing you this morning, I shall first have to notice the
self-weakness which is implied in our text; secondly, I shall come to
the great promise of the text; and then I shall try and draw one or two
inferences from it, ere I conclude.
I. First, the SELF-WEAKNESS HINTED AT IN THE TEXT. To keep to my
figure, if this promise be like a star, you know there is no seeing the
stars in the daytime when we stand here upon the upper land; we must go
down a deep well, and then we shall be able to discover them. Now,
beloved, as this is day-time with our hearts, it will be necessary for
us to go down the deep well of old recollections of our past trials and
troubles. We must first get a good fair idea of the great depth of our
own weakness, before we shall be able to behold the brightness of this
rich and exceeding precious promise. A self-sufficient man can no more
understand this promise, than a coal heaver can understand Greek: he
has never been in a position in which to understand it; he has never
learned his own need of another's strength, and therefore he cannot
possibly understand the value of a promise which consists in giving to
us a strength beyond our own. Let us for a few minutes consider our own
weakness.
Ye children of God, have ye not proved your own weakness in the day of
duty? The Lord has spoken to you, and he has said, "Son of man, run,
and do such and such a thing which I bid thee;" and you have gone to do
it, but as you have been upon your way, a sense of great responsibility
has bowed you down, and you have been ready to turn back even at the
outset, and to cry, "Send by whomsoever thou wilt send, but not by me."
Reinforced by strength, you have gone to the duty, but while performing
it, you have at times felt your hands hanging exceeding heavy, and you
have had to look up many a time and cry, "O Lord, give me more
strength, for without thy strength this work must be unaccomplished, I
cannot perform it myself." And when the work has been done, and you
have looked back upon it you have either been filled with amazement
that it should have been done at all by so poor and weak a worm as
yourself, or else you have been overcome with horror because you have
been afraid the work was marred, like the vessel on the potter's wheel,
by reason of your own want of skilfulness. I confess in my own
position, I have a thousand causes to confess my own weakness every
day. In preparing for the pulpit how often do we discover our weakness
when a hundred texts exhibit themselves, and we know not which to
choose, and when we have selected our subject, distracting thoughts
come in, and when we would concentrate our minds upon some holy topic,
we find they are carried hither and thither, driven about like the
minds of children by every wind of thought. And when we bow our knees
to seek the Lord's help before we preach how often does our tongue
refuse to give utterance to the earnestness of our hearts. And alas!
how frequently too is our heart cold when we are about to enter upon an
occupation which requires the heart to be hot like a furnace, and the
lip to be burning like a live coal. Here in this pulpit I have often
learned my weakness, when words have fled from me, and thoughts have
departed too; and when that seal which I thought would have poured
itself forth like a cataract, has trickled forth in unwilling drops
like a sullen stream, the source of which doth almost fail, and which
seemeth itself as if it longed to be dried up and dead. And after
preaching, how have I cast myself upon my bed, and tossed to and fro,
groaning because I thought I had failed to deliver my message, and had
not preached my Master's Word as my Master would have me preach it. All
of you, in your own callings I dare say, have had enough to prove that.
I do not believe a Christian man can examine himself without finding
every day that weakness is proven even in the doing of his duty. Your
shop, however small, will be enough to prove to you your weakness, your
business, however little, your cares, however light, your family, how
ever small, will furnish you with enough proofs of the fact: "Without
me ye can do nothing;" "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same
bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."
But, beloved, we prove our weakness, perhaps more visibly, when we come
into the day of suffering. There it is that we are weak indeed. I have
sat by the side of those who have been exceedingly sick, and have
marked their patience; but I do not know that I ever wondered at the
patience of a sick man so much as I do when I am sick myself: then
patience is an extraordinary virtue. Women suffer, and suffer well; but
I do think there are very few men who could bear the tithe of the
suffering that many women endure, without exhibiting a hundred times as
much impatience. Most of us who are gifted with strong constitutions,
and have but little of sickness, have to chasten ourselves, that what
little sickness we have to contend with is borne with so little
resignation and with so much impatience; that we are so ready to
repine, so prepared to bow our heads and wish we were dead, because a
little pain is rending our body. Here it is that we prove our weakness
indeed. Ah! people of God, it is one thing to talk about the furnace;
it is another thing to be in it. It is one thing to look at the
doctor's knife, but quite another thing to feel it. You will find it
one thing to sip the cup of medicine, but quite another thing to lie in
bed a dreary week or month, and to drink on, and on, and on of that
nauseating draught. When you are on dry land most of you are good
sailors; out at sea you are vastly different. There is many a man who
makes a wonderfully brave soldier till he gets into the battle, and
then he wishes himself miles away, and except his spurs there is no
weapon he can use with much advantage. That man has never been sick who
does not know his weakness, his want of patience and of endurance.
Again, beloved, there is another thing which will very soon prove our
weakness, if neither duty nor suffering will do it–namely, progress.
You sit down to-morrow and you read the life of some eminent servant of
God: perhaps the life of David Brainard, and how he gave up his life
for his Master in the wilderness, or the heroic life of Henry Martin,
and how he sacrificed all for Christ: and as you read you say within
yourself, "I will endeavor to be like this man; I will seek to have his
faith, his self denial, his love to never-dying souls" Try and get
them, beloved, and you will soon find your own weakness. I have
sometimes thought I would try to have more faith but I have found it
very hard to keep as much as I had. I have thought, "I will love my
Saviour more," and it was right that I should strive to do so; but when
I sought to love him more I found that perhaps I was going backward
instead of forward. How often do we find out our weakness when God
answers our prayers!
"I ask'd the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of his salvation know
And seek more earnestly his face.
I hop'd that in some favor'd hour
At once he'd answer my request,
And by his love's constraining power,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.
Instead of this he made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart,
And let the angry power of hell
Assault my soul in every part.
'Lord why is this?' I trembling cried
'Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?'
'Tis in this way,' the Lord replied;
'I answer prayer for grace and faith.'"
That is, the Lord helps us to grow downward when we are only thinking
about growing upward. Let any of you try to grow in grace, and seek to
run the heavenly race, and make a little progress, and you will soon
find, in such a slippery road as that which we have to travel, that it
is very hard to go one step forward, though remarkably easy to go a
great many steps backward.
If neither of these three things will prove thy weakness, Christian, I
will advise thee to try another. See what thou art in temptation. I
have seen a tree in the forest that seemed to stand fast like a rock, I
have stood beneath its widespreading branches, and have sought to shake
its trunk, to see if I could, but it stood immovable. The sun shone
upon it, and the rain descended, and many a winter's frost sprinkled
its boughs with snow, but it still stood fast and firm. But one night
there came a howling wind which swept through the forest, and the tree
that seemed to stand so fast lay stretched along the ground, its gaunt
arms which once were lifted up to heaven lying hopelessly broken, and
the trunk snapped in twain. And so have I seen many a professor strong
and mighty, and nothing seemed to move him; but I have seen the wind of
persecution and temptation come against him, and I have heard him creak
with murmuring, and at last have seen him break in apostasy and he has
lain along the ground a mournful specimen of what every man must become
who maketh not the Lord his strength, and who relieth not upon the Most
High. "Ah!" says one, "I do not believe I could be tempted to sin." My
friend, it depends upon what kind of temptation it should be. There are
many of us who could not be tempted to drunkenness, and others who
could not he tempted to lust. If the devil should set before some of
you cups of the richest wines that ever came from the vintages of
Burgundy or of Xeres, you would not care for them, if you did but sip
them it would suffice you; it would be in vain to tempt you with the
drunkard's song; nothing could induce you to lose your equilibrium by
intoxicating liquors; but perhaps you are the very man whom a
temptation of lust might overthrow. While there be other men whom
neither lust nor wine can overcome, who may be led by a prospect of
profit into that which is dishonest; and others again, whom neither
profit, nor lust, nor wine, would turn aside, may be overthrown by
anger, or envy, or malice. We have all our tender points. When Thetis
dipped Achilles in the Styx, you remember she held him by the heel; he
was made invulnerable wherever the water touched him, but his heel not
being covered with the water, was vulnerable, and there Paris shot his
arrow, and he died. It is even so with us. We may think that we are
covered with virtue till we are totally invulnerable, but we have a
heel somewhere; there is a place where the arrow of the devil can make
way: hence the absolute necessity of taking to ourselves "the whole
armor of God," so that there may not be a solitary joint in the harness
that shall be unprotected against the arrows of the devil. Satan is
very crafty; he knows the ins and outs of manhood. There is many an old
castle that has stood against every attack, but at last some traitor
from within has gone without, and said "I know an old deserted passage,
a subterranean back way, that has not been used for many a-day. In such
and such a field you will see an opening; clear away a heap of stones
there, and I will lead you down the passage: you will then come to an
old door, of which I have the key and I can let you in; and so by a
back way I can lead you into the very heart of the citadel, which you
may then easily capture." It is so with Satan. Man knoweth not himself
so well as Satan knows him. There are back ways and subterranean
passages into man's heart which the devil doth well understand. and he
who thinketh that he is safe, let him take heed lest he fall. That is
not a bad hymn of Dr. Watts, after all, where he tells us that Samson
was very strong while he wore his hair, but
"Samson, when his hair was lost,
Met the Philistines to his cost:
Shook his vain limbs with vast surprise,
Made feeble fight, and lost his eyes."
The reason was, because there was a back way into Samson's heart. The
Philistines could not overcome him: "Heaps upon heaps, with the
jaw-bone of an ass, have I slain a thousand men." Come on, Philistines,
he will rend you in pieces as he did the young lion; bind him with
green withes, and he will snap them as tow; weave his locks with a
weaver's beam, and he will carry away loom and all, and go out like a
giant refreshed with new wine. But, O Delilah, he hath a back way to
his heart; thou hast found it out, and now thou canst overthrow him.
Tremble, for ye may yet be overcome! Ye are as weak as water if God
shall leave you alone.
Now, I think, if we have well surveyed these different points of our
moral standing on earth, every child of God will be ready to confess
that he is weak. I imagine there may be some of you ready to say, "Sir,
I am nothing." Then I shall reply, "Ah! you are a young Christian."
There will be others of you who will say, "Sir, I am less than
nothing." And I shall say, "Ah! you are an old Christian;" for the
older Christians get, the less they become in their own esteem, the
more they feel their own weakness, and the more entirely they rely upon
the strength of God.
II. Having thus dwelt upon the first point, we shall now come to the
second–THE GREAT PROMISE,–"As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
In the first place, this is a well-guaranteed promise. A promise is
nothing unless I have good security that it shall be fulfilled. It is
in vain for men to promise largely unless their fulfillment shall be as
large as their promise, for the largeness of their promise is just the
largeness of deception. But here every word of God is true. God has
issued no more notes for the bank of heaven than he can cash in an hour
if he wills. There is enough bullion in the vaults of Omnipotence to
pay off every bill that ever shall be drawn by the faith of man or the
promises of God. Now look at this one–"As thy days, so shall thy
strength be." Beloved, God has a strong reserve with which to pay off
this promise; for is he not himself omnipotent, able to do all things?
Believer, till thou canst drain dry the ocean of omnipotence, till thou
canst break into pieces the towering mountains of almighty strength,
thou never needest to fear. Until thine enemy can stop the course of a
whirlwind with a reed, till he can twist the hurricane from its path by
a word of his puny lip, thou needest not think that the strength of man
shall ever be able to overcome the strength which is in thee, namely,
the strength of God. Whilst the earth's huge pillars stand, thou hast
enough to make thy faith firm. The same God who guides the stars in
their courses, who directs the earth in its orbit, who feeds the
burning furnace of the sun, and keeps the stars perpetually burning
with their fires–the same God has promised to supply thy strength.
While he is able to do all these things, think not that he shall be
unable to fulfill his own promise. Remember what he did in the days of
old, in the former generations. Remember how he spoke and it was done;
how he commanded, and it stood fast. Do you not see him in the black
eternity? When there was nothing but grim darkness, there he stood–the
mighty Artificer: upon the anvil there he cast a hot mass of flame, and
hammering it with his own ponderous arm, each spark that flew from it
made a world; there those sparks are glittering now, the offspring of
the anvil of the eternal purposes, and the hymned of his own majestic
might. And shall he, that created the world, grow weary? Shall he fail?
Shall he break his promises for want of strength? He hangeth the world
upon nothing; he fixed the pillars of heaven in silver sockets of light
and thereon he hung the golden lamps, the sun and the moon, and shall
he that did all this be unable to support his children? Shall he be
unfaithful to his word for want of power in his arm or strength in his
will? Remember again, thy God, who has promised to be thy strength, is
the God who upholdeth all things by the power of his hand. Who feedeth
the ravens? Who supplies the lions? Doth not he do it? And how? He
openeth his hand and supplieth the want of every living thing. He has
to do nothing more than simply to open his hand. Who is it that
restrains the tempest? Doth not he say that he rides upon the wings of
the wind, that he maketh the clouds his chariots, and holds the water
in the hollow of his hand? Shall he fail thee? When he has put such a
promise as this on record, shalt thou for a moment indulge the thought
that he has out-promised himself, and gone beyond his power to fulfill?
Ah! no. Who was it that cut Rahab in pieces, and wounded the dragon?
Who divided the Red Sea, and made the waters thereof stand upright as a
heap? Who led the people through the wilderness? Who was it that did
oust Pharoah into the depths of the sea, his chosen captains also, in
the depth of the Red Sea? Who rained fire and brimstone out of heaven
upon Sodom and Gomorrah? Who chased out the Canaanite with the hornet,
and made a way of escape for his people Israel? Who was it that brought
them again from their captivity and did settle them again in their own
land? Who is he that hath put down kings, yea and slew mighty kings,
that he might make room for his people wherein they might dwell in a
quiet habitation? Hath not the Lord done it: and is his arm shortened
that he cannot save: or is his ear heavy that he cannot hear? O thou
who art my God and my strength, I can believe that this promise shall
be fulfilled for the boundless reservoir of thy grace can never be
exhausted, and the unlimitable storehouse of thy strength can never be
emptied or rifled by the enemy. It is, then, a well guaranteed promise.
But now I want you to notice it is a limited promise. "What!" says one,
"limited" Why it says, As thy days, so shall thy strength be.' " Ay, it
is limited. I know it is unlimited in our troubles, but still it is
limited. First, it says our strength is to be as our days are; it does
not say our strength is to be as our desires are. Oh! how often have we
thought, "How I wish I were as strong as so and so"–one who had a
great deal of faith. Ah! but then you would have rather more faith than
you wanted, and what would be the good of that? It would be like the
manna the children of Israel had–if they did not eat it in the day it
bred worms and stank. "Still," says one, "if I had faith like
so-and-so, I think I should do wonders." Yes, but you would get the
glory of them. That is why God does not let you have the faith, because
he does not want you to do wonders. That is reserved for God, not for
you,–"He only doeth wondrous things." Once more, it does not say, our
strength shall be as our fears. God often leaves us to shift alone with
our fears,–never with our troubles. Many of God's people have a
manufactory at the back of their houses in which they manufacture
troubles; and home-made troubles, like other home made things, last a
very long while, and generally fit very comfortably. Troubles of God's
sending are always suitable–the right sort for our backs; but those
that we make are of the wrong sort, and they always last us longer than
God's; I have known an old lady sit and fret because she believed she
should die in a workhouse and she wanted God to give her grace
accordingly; but what would have been the good of that? because the
Lord meant that she should die in her own quiet bedroom? I have heard
of and known men who, being sick, believed they were dying, and wanted
grace to die complacently; but God would not give it because he
intended them to live, and why should he give them dying grace till
they came to die? And we have known others who said they wanted grace
to endure many troubles which they expected to come upon them. They
were going to fail in a fortnight or so, but they did not fail and it
was no wonder they had not grace given to carry them through it,
because they did not require it. The promise is "As thy days, so shall
thy strength be." "When your vessel gets empty then will I fill it; I
will not give you any extra, over and above. When you are weak then I
will make you strong; but I will not give you any extra strength to lay
by: strength enough to bear your sufferings, and to do your duty; but
no strength to play at matches with your brethren and sisters in order
to get the glory to yourselves." Oh! if we had strength according to
our wishes we should soon all of us be like Jeshurun,–wax fat, and
begin to kick against the Most High. Then again, there is another
limit. It says "As thy days so shall thy strength be." It does not any,
"as thy weeks," or "months," but "as thy days." You are not going to
have Monday's grace given you on a Sunday, nor Tuesday's grace on a
Monday. You shall have Monday's grace given you on Monday morning as
soon as you rise and want it; you shall not have it given you on
Saturday night; you shall have it "day by day"–no more than you want,
no less than you want. I do not believe God's people are to be trusted
with a week's grace all at once. They are like many of our London
workman: they get their wages on Saturday night, and then the rascals
go and have Saint Monday and Saint Tuesday, and never do a stroke of
work till Wednesday, when they go to the pawnbrokers with their tools
to help them over till the next Saturday night. Now, I think God's
children would do the same. If they had grace given them on Saturday to
last them all through the week, I question whether the devil would not
get a good deal of it,–whether they would not be pawning some of their
old evidences before the week was out, in order to live upon them:
spending all their grace on Monday and Tuesday. spending very much of
their strength in indulging in pride and boasting, instead of walking
humbly with their God. No, "as thy days, so shall thy strength be."
Now, having said that the promise is limited, perhaps I am bound to
add–what an extensive promise this is! "As thy days, so shall thy
strength be." Some days are very little things, in our pocket book we
have very little to put down, for there was nothing done of any
importance. But some days are very big days. Ah! I have known a big
day–a day of great duties, when great things had to be done for
God–too great, it seemed, for one man to do; and when great duty was
but half done there came great trouble, such as my poor heart had never
felt before.
Oh! what a great day it was! there was a night of lamentation in this
place, and the cry of weeping, and of mourning, and of death. Ah! but
blessed be God's name, though the day was big with tempest, and though
it swelled with horror, yet as that day was, so was God's strength.
Look at poor Job. What a great day he had once! "Master," says one,
"The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding beside them, and the
Sabeans fell upon them and took them away." In comes another and he
says, "The fire of God hath fallen on the sheep." "Oh," says another
"the Chaldeans have fallen upon the camels and taken them away, and I,
only I, am left to tell thee." Still, you see, grace kept growing with
the day. Still strength grew as the trouble grew. At last comes the
back stroke: "A great wind came from the wilderness, and smote the
house where thy sons and daughters were feasting, and they are dead,
and I, only I, am left to tell thee." Grace still kept growing, and at
last the grace did overflow the trouble, and the poor old patriarch
cried, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord." Ah! Job, that was a big day indeed, and it was big
grace that went with that big day. Satan sometimes blows up our days
with his black breath till they grow to such a cursed height that we
know not how great the days must be. Our head whirls at the thought of
passing through such a sea of trouble in so short a space of time. But
oh! how sweet it is to think that the bed of grace is never shorter
than a man can stretch himself upon it; nor is the covering of Almighty
love ever shorter than that it may cover us. We never need be afraid.
If our troubles should become high as mountains. God's grace would
become like Noah s flood: it would go twenty cubits higher till the
mountains were covered. If God should send to you and to me a day such
as there was none like it, neither should be any more, he would send us
strength such as there was none like it, neither should there be any
more. Do you see Martin Luther riding into Worms? There is a solitary
monk going before a great council: he knows they will burn him; did not
they burn John Huss, and Jerome of Prague? Both those men had a safe
conduct, and it was violated and they were put to death by Papists, who
said that no faith was to be kept with heretics. Luther placed very
little reliance on his safe conduct; and you would have expected as he
rode into Worms that he would have a dejected countenance. Not so. No
sooner does he catch sight of Worms, than some one advises him not to
go into the city. Said he, "If there were as many devils in Worms as
there are tiles on the roofs of the houses, I would enter." And he does
ride in. He goes to the inn, and eats his bread and drinks his beer, as
complacently as if he were at his own fire-side; and then he goes
quietly to bed. When summoned before the council, and asked to retract
his opinion, he does not want time to consider, or debate about it; but
he says, "These things that I have written are the truth of God, and by
them will I stand till I die; so help me God!" The whole assembly
trembles, but there is not a flush upon the cheek of the brave monk,
nor do his knees knock together. He is in the midst of armed men and
those that seek his blood. There sit fierce cardinals and bloodthirsty
bishops and the Pope's legate; like spiders longing to suck his blood.
He cares for none of them; he walks away, and is confident that "God is
his refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." "Ah! but,"
you say, "I could not do that."" Yea you could, if God called you to
it. Any child of God can do what any other child of God has done, if
God gives him the strength. You could not do what you are doing even
now, without God's strength; and you could do ten thousand times more,
if he should be pressed to fill you with his might. What an expansive
promise this is!
Once more, what a varying promise it is! I do not mean that the promise
varies but adapts itself to all our changes. "As thy days, so shall thy
strength be." Here is a fine sunshiny morning; all the world is
laughing; everything looks glad; the birds are singing, the trees seem
to be all alive with music. "My strength shall be as my day is," says
the pilgrim. Ah! pilgrim, there is a little black cloud gathering. Soon
it increases; the flash of lightning wounds the heaven, and it begins
to bleed in showers. Pilgrim, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
The birds have done singing, and the world has done laughing; but "as
thy days, so shall thy strength be." Now the dark night comes on, and
another day approaches–a day of tempest, and whirlwind, and storm.
Dost thou tremble, pilgrim?–"As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
"But there are robbers in the wood."–"As thy days, so shall thy
strength be." "But there are lions which shall devour me."–"As thy
days. so shall thy strength be." "But there are rivers: how shall I
swim them?" Here is a boat to carry thee over: "As thy days, so shall
thy strength be." "But there are fires: how shall I pass through them?"
Here is the garment that will protect thee: "As thy days so shall thy
strength be." "But there are arrows that fly by day." Here is thy
shield: "As thy days so shall thy strength be." "But there is the
pestilence that walketh in darkness." Here is thy antidote: "As thy
days so shall thy strength be." Wherever you may be, and whatever
trouble awaits you, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." Children
of God, cannot you say that this has been true hitherto? I can. It
might seem egotistical if I were to talk of the evidence I have
received of this during the past week, but nevertheless I cannot help
recording my praise to God. I left this pulpit last Sunday as sick as
any man ever left the pulpit, and I left this country too as ill as I
could be, but no sooner had I set my foot upon the other shore, where I
was to preach the gospel, than my wonted strength entirely returned to
me. I had no sooner buckled on the harness to go forth and fight my
Master's battle, than every ache and pain was gone, and all my sickness
fled; and as my day was, so certainly was my strength. I believe if I
were lying upon a dying couch, if God called me to preach in America,
and I had but faith to be carried down to the boat, I should have
strength given me, though I seemed to be dying, to minister as the Lord
had appointed me. And so would each of you, wherever you might be find
that as your day was, so your strength should be.
And, in conclusion, what a long promise this is! You may live till you
are never so old, but this promise will outlive you. When thou comest
into the depths of the river Jordan, "as thy days, so shall thy
strength be;" thou shalt have confidence to face the last grim tyrant,
and grace to smile even in the jaws of the grave. And when thou shalt
rise again in the terrible morning of the resurrection, "as thy days,
so shall thy strength be:" though the earth be reeling with dismay thou
shalt know no fear; though the heavens are tottering with confusion
thou shalt know no trouble. "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."
And when thou shalt see God face to face, though thy weakness were
enough to make thee die, thou shalt have strength to bear the beatific
vision: thou shalt see him face to face, and thou shalt live; thou
shalt lie in the bosom of thy God; immortalized and made full of
strength, thou shalt be able to bear even the brightness of the Most
High.
III. What INFERENCE shall I draw except this? Children of the living
God, be rid of your doubts, be rid of your trouble and your fear. Young
Christians, do not be afraid to set forward on the heavenly race. You
bashful Christians, that, like Nicodemus, are ashamed to come out and
make an open profession, don't be afraid, "As your day is, so shall
your strength be." Why need you fear? You are afraid of disgracing your
profession, you shall not; your day shall never be more troublesome, or
more fun of temptation, than your strength shall be full of
deliverance.
And as for you that have not God to be yours, I must draw one inference
for you. Your strength is decaying. You are growing old, and your old
age will not be like your youth, You have strength–strength which you
prostitute to the cause of Satan, which you misuse in the service of
the devil. When you grow old, as you will do, unless your wickedness
shall bring you to an early grave; they that look out of the windows
must be darkened, and the grasshopper must be burden to you; and your
strength shall not be as your day. And when you come to die, as die you
must, then you shall have no strength to die with; you must die alone;
you must hear yon iron gates creak on their hinges, and no guardian
angel to comfort you as you go through the dreary vault. And you must
stand at God's great bar at the day of resurrection, and no one to
strengthen you there. How will your cheek blanch with terror! How will
your soul be affrighted with horror when you shall hear it said,
"Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire in hell, prepared for the
devil and his angels." You have no such promise as this to cheer you
onward, but you have this to drive you to despair: your days shall
become heavier, but your strength shall become lighter; your sorrows
shall be multiplied, and your joys shall be diminished; your days shall
shorten, and your nights shall lengthen; your summers shall become
dimmer and your winters shall become blacker; all your hopes shall die,
and your fears shall live. Ye shall reap the harvest of your sins in
the dreadful vintage of eternal wrath. May God give us all grace, so
that when days and years are past, we all may meet in heaven. There are
some people here that I have seen a great many times, and I thought
they would have been converted before now. I ask them one question,
(there are some of them whom I sincerely respect) and it is this–what
will you do in the swellings of Jordan? When death shall get hold upon
you? What, what will you do then? May God help you to answer and
prepare to meet Him!
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