Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, February 5th, 1871 by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"She went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were
a bowshot; for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she
sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept."–Genesis 21:16.
BRIEFLY LET US REHEARSE the circumstances. The child Isaac was,
according to God's word, to be the heir of Abraham. Ishmael, the elder
son of Abraham, by the bondwoman Hagar, resided at home with his father
till he was about eighteen years of age; but when he began to mock and
scoff at the younger child whom God had ordained to be the heir, it
became needful that he and his mother should be sent away from
Abraham's encampment. It might have seemed unkind and heartless to have
sent them forth, but God having arranged to provide for them sent a
divine command which at once rendered their expulsion necessary, and
certified its success. We may rest assured that whatever God commands
he will be quite certain to justify. He knew it would be no cruelty to
Hagar or Ishmael to be driven into independence, and he gave a promise
which secured them everything which they desired. "Also of the son of
the bondwoman will I make a great nation;" and again, "I have blessed
him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly;
twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation." Had
they both been able to go forth from Abraham's tent in faith they might
have trodden the desert with a joyous footstep, fully assured that he
who bade them go, and he who promised that he would bless them, would
be certain to provide all things needful for them. Early in the morning
they were sent forth on their journey, with as much provision as they
could carry, and probably they intended to make their way to Egypt,
from which Hagar had come. They may have lost their way; at any rate,
they are spoken of as wandering. Their store of food became exhausted,
the water in the skin bottle was all spent; both of them felt the
fatigue of the wilderness, and the heat of the pitiless sand; they were
both faint and weary, and the younger utterly failed. As long as the
mother could sustain the tottering, fainting footsteps of her boy, she
did so; when she could do so no longer, he swooned with weakness, and
she laid him down beneath the slight shade of the desert tamarisk, that
he might be as far as possible screened from the excessive heat of the
sun. Looking into his face and seeing the pallor of coming death
gathering upon it, knowing her inability to do anything whatever to
revive him, or even to preserve his life, she could not bear to sit and
gaze upon his face, but withdrew just far enough to be able still to
watch with all a mother's care. She sat down in the brokenness of her
spirit, her tears gushed forth in torrents, and heartrending cries of
agony startled the rocks around. It was needful that the high spirit of
the mother and her son should be broken down before they received
prosperity: the mother had been on a former occasion graciously humbled
by being placed in much the same condition, but she had probably
relapsed into a haughty spirit, and had encouraged her boy in his
insolence to Sarah's son, and therefore she must be chastened yet
again; and it was equally needful that the high-spirited lad should for
little bear the yoke in his youth, and that he who would grow up to be
the wild man, the father of the unconquerable Arab, should feel the
power of God ere he received the fulfillment of the promise given to
him in answer to Abraham's prayer. If I read the text aright while the
mother was thus weeping, the child, almost lost to all around, was
nevertheless conscious enough of his own helpless condition, and
sufficiently mindful of his father's God to cry in his soul to heaven
for help; and the Lord heard not so much the mother's weeping (for the
feebleness of her faith, which ought to have been stronger in memory of
a former deliverance, hindered her prayer), but the silent, unuttered
prayers of the fainting lad went up into the ears of Elohim, and the
angel of Elohim appeared, and pointed to the well. The child received
the needed draught of water, was soon restored, and in him and his
posterity the promise of God received and continues to receive a large
fulfillment. I am not about to speak upon that narrative except as it
serves me with an illustration for the subject which I would now press
upon you.
Behold the compassion of a mother for her child expiring with thirst,
and remember that such a compassion ought all Christians to feel
towards souls that are perishing for lack of Christ, perishing
eternally, perishing without hope of salvation. If the mother lifted up
her voice arid wept, so also should we; and if the contemplation of her
dying, child was all too painful for her, so may the contemplation of
the wrath to come, which is to pass upon every soul that dies
impenitent, become too painful for us, but yet it the same time it
should stimulate us to earnest prayer and ardent effort for the
salvation of our fellow men.
I shall speak, this morning, upon compassion for souls, the reasons
which justify it, the sight it dreads, the temptation it must fight
against, the paths it should pursue, the encouragement it may receive.
I. COMPASSION FOR SOULS–THE REASONS WHICH JUSTIFY IT, NAY, COMPEL IT.
It scarce needs that I do more than rehearse in bare outline the
reasons why we should tenderly compassionate the perishing sons of men.
For first, observe, the dreadful nature of the calamity which will
overwhelm them. Calamities occurring to our fellow men naturally awaken
in us a feeling of commiseration; but what calamity under heaven can be
equal to the ruin of a soul? What misery can be equal to that of a man
cast away from God, and subject to his wrath world without end! To-day
your hearts are moved as you hear the harrowing details of war. They
have been dreadful indeed; houses burnt, happy families driven as
vagabonds upon the face of the earth, domestic circles and quiet
households broken up, men wounded, mangled, massacred by thousands, and
starved, I was about to say, by millions; but the miseries of war, if
they were confined to this world alone, were nothing compared with the
enormous catastrophe of tens of thousands of spirits accursed by sin,
and driven by justice into the place where their worm dieth not, and
their fire is not quenched. The edge of the sword grows blunt at last,
the flame of war dies out for want of fuel, but, lo! I see before me a
sword which is never quiet, a fire unquenchable. Alas! that the souls
of men should fall beneath the infinite ire of justice. All your hearts
have been moved of late with the thought of famine, famine in a great
city. The dogs of war, and this the fiercest mastiff of them all, have
laid hold upon the fair throat of the beautiful city which thought to
sit as a lady for ever and see no sorrow; you are hastening with your
gifts, if possible to remove her urgent want and to avert her
starvation; but what is a famine of bread compared with that famine of
the soul which our Lord describes when he represents it as pleading in
vain for a drop of water to cool its tongue tormented in the flame? To
be without bread for the body is terrible, but to be without the bread
of life eternal, none of us can tell the weight of horror which lies
there! When Robert Hall in one of the grand flights of his eloquence
pictured the funeral of a lost soul, he made the sun to veil his light,
and the moon her brightness; he covered the ocean with mourning and the
heavens with sackcloth, and declared that if the whole fabric of nature
could become animated and vocal, it would not be possible for her to
utter a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing to express the magnitude
and extent of the catastrophe. Time is not long enough for the sore
lamentation which should attend the obsequies of a lost soul. Eternity
must be charged with that boundless woe, and must utter it in weeping
and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not the tongues of prophets, nor of
seraphs, could se forth all the sorrow of what it is to be condemned
from the mouth of mercy, damned by the Savior who died to save,
pronounced accursed by rejected love. The evil is so immense that
imagination finds no place, and understanding utterly fails. Brethren,
if our bowels do not yearn for men who are daily hastening towards
destruction, are we men at all?
I could abundantly justify compassion for perishing men, even on the
ground of natural feelings. A mother who did not, like Hagar, weep for
her dying child–call her not "mother," call her "monster." A man who
passes through the scenes of misery which even this city presents in
its more squalid quarters, and yet is never disturbed by them, I
venture to say he is unworthy of the name of man. Even the common
sorrows of our race may well suffuse our eyes with tears, but the
eternal sorrow, the infinite lake of misery–he who grieves not for
this, write him down a demon, though he wear the image and semblance of
a man. Do not think the less of this argument because I base it upon
feelings common to all of woman born, for remember that grace does not
destroy our manhood when it elevates it to a higher condition.
In this instance what nature suggests grace enforces. The more we
become what we shall be, the more will compassion rule our hearts. The
Lord Jesus Christ, who is the pattern and mirror of perfect manhood,
what said he concerning the sins and the woes of Jerusalem? He knew
Jerusalem must perish; did he bury his pity beneath the fact of the
divine decree, and steel his heart by the thought of the sovereignty or
the justice that would be resplendent in the city's destruction? Nay,
not he, but with eyes gushing like founts, he cried, "O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together as a
teen gathereth her chickens under her wings! and ye would not." If you
would be like Jesus, you must be tender and very pitiful. Ye would be
as unlike him as possible if we could sit down in grim content, and,
with a Stoic's philosophy, turn all the flesh within you into stone. If
it be natural, then, and above all, if it be natural to the higher
gracegiven nature, I beseech you, let your hearts be moved with pity,
do not endure to see the spiritual death of mankind. Be in agony as
often as you contemplate the ruin of any soul of the seed of Adam.
Brethren, the whole ruin and current, and tenour and spirit of the
gospel influences us to compassion. Ye are debtors, for what were ye if
compassion had not come to your rescue? Divine compassion, all
undeserved and free, has redeemed you from your vain conversation.
Surely those who receive mercy should show mercy; those who owe all
they have to the pity of God, should not be pitiless to their brethren.
The Savior never for a moment tolerates the self-righteous isolation
which would make you despise the prodigal, and cavil at his
restoration, much less the Cainite spirit which cries, "Am I my
brother's keeper?" No doctrine is rightly received by you if it freezes
the genial current of your Christian compassion. You may know the truth
of the doctrine, but you do not know the doctrine in truth if it makes
you gaze on the wrath to come without emotions of pity for immortal
souls. You shall find everywhere throughout the gospel that it rings of
brotherly love, tender mercy, and weeping pity. If you have indeed
received it in its power, the love of Christ will melt your spirit to
compassion for those who are despising Christ, and sealing their own
destruction.
Let me beseech you to believe that it is needful as well as justifiable
that you should feel compassion for the sons of men. You all desire to
glorify Christ by becoming soul-winners–I hope you do–and be it
remembered that, other things being equal, he is the fittest in God's
hand to win souls who pities souls most. I believe he preaches best who
loves best, and in the Sunday-school and in private life each
soul-seeker shall have the blessing very much in proportion to his
yearning for it. Paul becomes a saviour of many because his heart's
desire and prayer to God is that they may be saved. If you can live
without souls being converted, you shall live without their being
converted; but if your soul breaketh for the longing that it hath
towards Christ's glory and the conversion of the ungodly, if like her
of old you say, "Give me children, or I die," your insatiable hunger
shall be satisfied, the craving of your spirit shall be gratified. Oh!
I would to God there should come upon us a divine hunger which cannot
stay itself except men yield themselves to Jesus; an intense, earnest,
longing, panting desire that men should submit themselves to the gospel
of Jesus. This will teach you better than the best college training how
to deal with human hearts. This will give the stammering tongue the
ready word; the hot heart shall burn the cords which held fast the
tongue. You shall become wise to win souls, even though you never
exhibit the brilliance of eloquence or the force of logic. Men shall
wonder at your power–the secret shall be hidden from them, the fact
being that the Holy Ghost shall overshadow you, and your heart shall
teach you wisdom, God teaching your heart. Deep feeling on your part
for others shall make others feel for themselves, and God shall bless
you, and that right early.
But I stand not here any longer to justify what I would far rather
commend and personally feel.
"Did Christ o'er sinners weep,
And shall our cheeks be dry?
Let floods of consecrated grief
Stream forth from every eye,"
Is God all love, and shall God's children be hard and cold? Shall
heaven compassionate and shall not earth that has received hearer's
mercy send back the echo of compassion? O God, make us imitators of
thee in thy pity towards erring men.
II. We shall pass on to notice THE SIGHT WHICH TRUE COMPASSION DREADS.
Like Hagar, the compassionate spirit says, "Let me not see the death of
the child," or as some have read it, "How can I see the death of the
child?" To contemplate a soul passing away without hope is too terrible
a task! I do not wonder that ingenious persons have invented theories
which aim at mitigating the terrors of the world to come to the
impenitent. It is natural they should do so, for the facts are so
alarming as they are truthfully given us in God's word, that if we
desire to preach comfortable doctrine and such as will quiet the
consciences of idle professors, we must dilute the awful truth. The
revelation of God concerning the doom of the wicked is so overwhelming
as to make it penal, nay, I was about to say damnable, to be
indifferent and careless in the work of evangelising the world. I do
not wonder that this error in doctrine springs up just now when
abounding callousness of heart needs an excuse for itself. What better
pillow for idle heads than the doctrine that the finally impenitent
become extinct? The logical reasoning of the sinner is, "Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die," and the professing Christian is not slow
to feel an ease of heart from pressing responsibilities when he accepts
so consolatory an opinion. Forbear this sleeping draught, I pray you,
for in very deed the sharp stimulant of the truth itself is abundantly
needful; even when thus bestirred to duty we are sluggish enough, and
need not that these sweet but sleep-producing theories should operate
upon us.
For a moment, I beseech you, contemplate that which causes horror to
every tender heart; behold, I pray you, a soul lost, lost beyond all
hope of restitution. Heaven's gates have shut upon the sanctified, and
the myriads of the redeemed are there, but that soul is not among them,
for it passed out of this world without having washed its robes in
Jesus' blood. For it there are no harps of gold, no thrones of glory,
no exultation with Christ; from all the bliss of heaven it is for ever
excluded. This punishment of loss were a heavy enough theme for
contemplation. The old divines used to speak much of the poena damni,
or the punishment of loss; there were enough in that phase of the
future to make us mourn bitterly, as David did for Absalom. My child
shut out of heaven! My husband absent from the seats of the blessed! My
sister, my brother not in glory! When the Lord counts up his chosen, my
dear companion outside the gates of pearl, outside the jewelled
battlements of the New Jerusalem! O God, tis a heartbreaking sorrow to
think of this. But then comes the punishment added to the loss. What
saith the Savior? "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched." "These shall go away into everlasting punishment." And yet
again, "And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the
hypocrites." And yet again, "Into outer darkness: there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth." "Metaphors," say you. It is true, but
not meaningless metaphors. There is a meaning in each expression–and
rest assured though man's metaphors sometimes exaggerate, God's never
do; his symbols everywhere are true; never is there an exaggeration in
the language of inspiration. Extravagances of utterance! He uses them
not; his figures are substantial truth. Terrible as the scriptural
emblems of punishment are, they set forth matters of undoubted fact,
which if a man could look upon this day, the sight might blanch his
hair, and quench his eye. If we could hear the wailings of the pit for
a moment, we should earnestly entreat that we might never hear them
again. We have to thank God that we are not allowed to hear the
dolorous cries of the lost, for if we did they would make our life
bitter as gall. I cast a veil over that which I cannot paint; like
Hagar I cannot bear to look at the dread reality which it breaks my
heart to think upon.
How all this gathers intensity, when it comes to be our own child, our
own friend! Hagar might perhaps have looked upon a dying child, but not
upon her dying Ishmael. Can you bear now to think for a moment of the
perdition of your own flesh and blood? Does not your spirit flinch and
draw back with horror instinctively at the idea of one of your own
family being lost? Yet, as a matter of stern fact, you know that some
of them will be lost if they die as they are now living? At God's right
hand they cannot stand unless they be made new creatures in Christ
Jesus. You know that, do not try to forget it.
It will greatly add to your feeling of sorrow if you are forced to feel
that the ruin of your child or of any other person may have been partly
caused by your example. It must be a dreadful thing for a father to
feel, "My boy learned to drink from me; my child heard the first
blasphemous word from his father's lips." Or mother, if your dying
daughter should say, "I was led into temptation by my mother's
example," what a grief will this be! O parents, converted late in life,
you cannot undo the evil which you have already done; God has forgiven
you, but the mischief wrought in your children's characters is
indelible, unless the grace of God step in. I want you to seek after
that grace with great earnestness. As you must confess that you have
helped to train your child as a servant of sin, will you not long to
see your evil work undone before it ends in your child's eternal
destruction?
If we shall have to feel that the ruin of any of our friends or
relations is partly occasioned by our own personal neglect of religion,
it will cause us bitter pangs. If our example has been excellent and
admirable in all respects, but that we have forgotten the Lord and his
Christ, it will have been none the less injurious to men's souls. I
sometimes think that these examples are the very worst in their effect.
Immoral, ungodly men can hardly work the same measure of mischief as
moral but unchristian men. I will tell you why. The ungodly quote the
orderly life of the moralist as an argument that there can be goodness
apart from Christianity, and this often helps men to rest satisfied
apart from Christ Jesus. And what, O moralist, though you never taught
your child a vice, if you taught it unbelief, and if your example
helped to harm its heart in bold rebellion against God! Ah! then, how
will you blame yourself when you are converted, or curse yourself if
both you and your child perish.
Dear friends, it makes a terrible addition to the sight of a soul being
lost if we have to feel we were under responsibility concerning it, and
have been in any measure unfaithful. I cannot bear the idea of any of
my congregation perishing, for in addition to the compassion I hope I
feel, I am influenced by a further additional consideration, for I am
set as a watchman to your souls. When any die, I ask myself, "Was I
faithful? Did I speak all the truth? And did I speak it from my very
soul every time I preached?" John Walsh, the famous Scotch preacher,
was often out of bed in the coldest night, by the hour together, in
supplication; and when some one wondered that he spent so many hours
upon his knees, he said, "Ah, man, I have three thousand souls to give
account of in the day of judgment, and I do not know but what it is
going very ill with some of them." Alas! I have more than that to give
account of, and well may I cry to God that I may not see you perish. O
may it never be that you shall go from these pews to the lowest hell.
You, too, my fellow Christian, have your own responsibilities, each one
in your measure–your children, your school classes, your servants, ay,
and your neighbors, for if you are not doing any good and do not assume
any responsibility towards the regions in which you dwell, that
responsibility rests upon you none the less. You cannot live in a
district without being responsible to God for doing something towards
the bettering of the people among whom you reside. Can you endure it
then, that your neighbors should sink into hell? Do not your hearts
long for their salvation?
Is it not an awful thing that a soul should perish with the gospel so
near? If Ishmael had died, and the water had been within bow-shot, and
yet unseen till too late, it had been a dreadful reflection for the
mother. Would she not have torn her hair with double sorrow? And yet
many of you are being lost with the gospel ringing in your ears; you
are perishing while Christ is lifted up before you; you are dying in
the camp through the serpent's bite, though the brazen serpent is
yonder before your eyes, and with many tears we cry to you, "Look unto
Jesus Christ, and live!" Ah, woe is me, woe is me, if you perish when
salvation is brought so close home to you. Some of you are very near
the kingdom of God; you are very anxious, very concerned, but you have
not believed in Jesus; you have much that is good, but one thing you
lack. Will you perish for lack of only one thing? A thousand pities
will it be if you make shipwreck in the harbour's mouth and go to hell
from the gates of heaven.
We must add to all this, the remembrance that it is not one soul which
is lost, but tens of thousands are going down to the pit. Mr. Beecher
said in one of his sermons, "If there were a great bell hung high in
heaven which the angels swung every time a soul was lost, how
constantly would its solemn toll be heard!" A soul lost! The thunder
would not suffice to make a knell for a lost spirit. Each time the
clock ticks a soul departs out of this world, perhaps oftener than
that, and out of those who make the last journey how few mount to the
skies; what multitudes descend to endless woe! O Christians, pull up
the sluices of your souls, and let your hearts pour out themselves in
rivers of compassion.
III. In the third place, I said I would speak upon COMPASSION FOR THE
SOULS OF MEN–THE TEMPTATION IT MUST RESIST.
We must not fall into the temptation to imitate the example of Hagar
too closely. She put the child under the shrubs and turned away her
gaze from the all too mournful spectacle. She could not endure to look,
but she sat where she could watch in despair. There is a temptation
with each one of us to try to forget that souls are being lost. I can
go home to my house along respectable streets, and naturally should
choose that way, for then I need not see the poverty of the lowest
quarters of the city, but am I right if I try to forget that there are
Bethnal Greens and Kent Streets, and such like abodes of poverty? The
close courts, the cellars, the crowded garrets, the lodging-houses–am
I to forget that these exist? Surely the only way for a charitable mind
to sleep comfortably in London is to forget how one half of the
population lives; but is it our object to live comfortably? Are we such
brute beasts that comfort is all we care for; like swine in their stye?
Nay, brethren, let us recall to our memories the sins of our great
city, its sorrows and griefs, and let us remember also the sins and
sorrows of the wide, wide world, and the tens of thousands of our race
who are passing constantly into eternity. Nay, look at them! Do not
close those eyes! Does the horror of the vision make your eyeballs
ache? Then look until your heart aches too, and your spirit breaks
forth in vehement agony before the Lord. Look down into hell a moment;
open wide the door; listen, and listen yet again. You say you cannot,
it sickens your soul; let it be sickened, and in its swooning let it
fall back into the arms of Christ the Savior, and breathe out a cry
that he would hasten to save men from the wrath to come. Do not ignore,
I pray you, what does exist. It is a matter of fact that in this
congregation many are going down to hell, that in this city there are
multitudes who are hastening as certainly to perdition as time is
hastening to eternity. It is no dream, no fiction of a fevered brain
that there is a hell. If you think so, then why dare you call
yourselves Christians? Renounce your Bible, renounce your baptism,
renounce your profession if one spark of honesty remains in you. Call
not yourselves Christians when you deny the teaching of your Master.
Since assuredly there is a dreadful hell, shut not your eyes to it, put
not the souls of your fellows away among the shrubs, and sit not down
in supineness. Come and look, come and look, I say, till your hearts
break at the sight. Hear the cries of dying men whose consciences are
awakened too late. Hear the groans of spirits who are feeling the sure
consequences of sin, where sin's cure will never avail them. Let this
stir you, my brethren, to action–to action immediate and intense. You
tell me I preach dreadful things; ay, and they are wanted, they are
wanted. Was there ever such a happy age as this? Were there ever such
sleepy persons as ourselves? Take heed lest you take sad precedence of
all others in the accusations of conscience, because knowing the
gospel, and enjoying it, you nevertheless use so little exertion in
spreading it abroad among the human race. Let us shun the temptation
which Hagar's example might suggest.
IV. I will now speak upon THE PATH WHICH TRUE COMPASSION WILL BE SURE
TO FOLLOW; and what is that?
First of all, true pity does all it can. Before Hagar sat down and
wept, she had done her utmost for her boy; she had given him the last
drop from the bottle; she had supported his tottering footsteps, she
had sought out the place under the shrubs where he might be a little
sheltered she had laid him down gently with soothing words, and then,
but not till then, she sat herself down. Have we done all that it is
possible for us to do for the unconverted around us? There are
preventible causes of men's ruin. Some causes you and I cannot touch,
but there are some we ought at once to remove. For instance, it is
certain that many perish through ignorance. It ought never to be that a
soul should perish of ignorance within a mile of where a Christian
lives. I would even allot a wider area in regions where the people
dwell not so thickly. It should at least be the resolve of each
Christian, "Within this district where I live, so far as my ability
goes, everybody shall know the gospel by some means or other. If I
cannot speak to each one will send something for him to read; it shall
not be said that a man lost his way for ever because he had no Bible.
The Holy Ghost alone can lead men into the truth, but it is our part to
put the letter of the word before all men's eyes.
Prejudice, too, is another preventible cause of unbelief. Some will not
hear the gospel, or listen to it, because of their notions of its
sternness, or of the moroseness of its professors. Such a prejudice may
effectually close their hearts; be it yours to remove it. Be kind to
the ungodly; be loving, be tender, be affable, be generous to them, so
that you may remove all unnecessary antipathy to the gospel of Jesus.
Do them all the good you can for their bodies, that they may be the
more likely to believe in your love towards their souls. Let it be said
by each one here, "If a soul perishes, I, at least, will have done all
in my power to reclaim it."
But what next does compassion do? Having done all it can, it sits down
and weeps over its own feebleness. I have not the pathos wherewith to
describe to you the mother sitting there and pouring out her tears, and
lifting up her plaintive voice over her child. The voice of a broken
heart cannot be described, it must be heard. But, ah! there is
wonderful power with God in the strong crying and tears of his people.
If you know how to weep before the Lord, he will yield to tears what he
will not yield to anything besides. O ye saints, compassionate sinners;
sigh and cry for them; be able to say, as Whitfield could to his
congregation, "Sirs, if ye are lost, it is not for want of my weeping
for you, for I pour out my soul day and night in petitions unto God
that ye may live." When Hagar's compassion had wailed itself out, she
looked unto God, and God heard her. Take care that your prayers be
abundant and continuous for those who are dying without hope.
And then what else doth Hagar teach us? She stood there ready to do
anything that was needful after the Lord had interposed. The angel
opened her eyes; until then she was powerless, and sat and wept, and
prayed, but when he pointed to the well, did she linger for a minute?
Was she unprepared with the bottle wherewith to draw water? Did she
delay to put it to her child's lips? Was she slack in the blessed task?
Oh, no! with what alacrity did she spring to the well; with what speed
did she fill the bottle; with what motherly joy did she hasten to her
child, and gave him the saving draught! And so I want every member here
to stand ready to mark the faintest indication of grace in any soul.
Watch always for the beginning of their conversion, be ready with the
bottle of promise to carry a little comfort to their parched lips;
watch with a mother's earnestness, watch for the opportunity of doing
good to souls; yearn over them, so that when God shall work you shall
work with him instanter, and Jesus shall not be hindered because of
your carelessness and want of faith. This is the path which the true
Christian should pursue. He is earnest for souls, and therefore he lays
himself out for them. If we did really know what souls are, and what it
is for them to be cast away, those of us who have done very little or
nothing would begin to work for Christ directly. It is said in old
classic story, that a certain king of Lydia had a son who had been dumb
from his birth, but when Lydia was captured, a soldier was about to
kill the king, when the young man suddenly found a tongue, and cried
out, "Soldier, would you kill the king?" He had never spoken a word
before, but his astonishment and fear gave him speech. And methinks if
ye had been dumb to that moment, if ye indeed saw your own children and
neighbors going down into the pit, you would cry out, "Though I never
spoke before I will speak now. Poor souls, believe in Christ, and ye
shall be saved." You do not know how such an utterance as that, however
simple, might be blessed. A very little child once found herself in
company with an old man of eighty, a fine old man who loved little
children, and who took the child upon his knee to fondle it. The little
one turning round to him said, "Sir, I got a grandpa just like you, and
my grandpa love Jesus Christ, does you?" He said, "I was eighty-four
years of age and had lived always among Christian people, but nobody
ever thought it worth his while to say as much as that to me." That
little child was the instrument of the old man's conversion. So have I
heard the story. He knew he had not loved the Savior, and he began to
seek him, and in his old age he found salvation. If as much as that is
possible to a child it is possible to you. O dear brother, if you love
Jesus, burst the bonds of timidity, or it may be of supineness; snap
all fetters, and from this day feel that you cannot bear to think of
the ruin of a soul, and must seek its salvation if there be in earth or
heaven ways and means by which you can bring a blessing to it.
V. But I must close, and the last point shall be THE ENCOURAGEMENT WITH
TRUE COMPASSION FOR SOULS WILL ALWAYS RECEIVE.
First take the case in hand. The mother compassionated, God
compassionated too. You pity, God pities. The motions of God's Spirit
in the souls of his people are the footfalls of God's eternal purposes
about to be fulfilled. It is always a hopeful sign for a man that
another man prays for him. There is a difficulty in getting a man to
hell whom a child of God is drawing towards heaven by his
intercessions. Satan is often defeated in his temptations by the
intercession of the saints. Have hope then that your personal sense of
compassion for souls is an indication that such souls God will bless.
Ishmael, whom Hagar pitied, was a lad about whom promises had been made
large and broad; he could not die; she had forgotten that, but God had
not. No thirst could possibly destroy him, for God had said he would
make of him a great nation. Let us hope that those for whom you and I
are praying and laboring are in God's eternal purpose secured from
hell, because the blood of Christ has bought them, and they must be the
Lord's. Our prayers are ensigns of the will of God. The Holy Ghost
leads us to pray for those whom he intends effectually to call.
Moreover, those we pray for, we may not know it, but there may be in
their souls at this time a stirring of divine life. Hagar did not know
that her son was praying, but God did. The lad did not speak, but God
heard his heart cry. Children are often very reticent to their parents.
Often and often have I talked with young lads about their souls, who
have told me that they could not talk to their fathers upon such
matters. I know it was so with me. When I was under concern of soul the
last persons I should have elected to speak to upon religion would have
been my parents, not out of want of love to them, nor absence of love
on their part; but so it was. A strange feeling of diffidence pervades
a seeking soul, and drives it from its friends. Those whom you are
praying for may be praying too, and you do not know it; but the time of
love will come when their secret yearnings will be revealed to your
earnest endeavors.
The lad was preserved after all, the well of waters was revealed, and
the bottle put to his lips. It will be a great comfort to you to
believe that God will hear importunate prayers. Your child will be
saved, your husband will be brought in yet, good woman, only pray on.
Your neighbor shall be brought to hear the truth and be converted, only
be earnest about it.
I do not know how to preach, this morning; the tongue cannot readily
speak when the heart feels too much. I pray that we may have a great
revival of religion in our midst as a church; my spirit longs and pants
for it. I see a great engine of enormous strength, and a well-fashioned
machine: the machine cannot work of itself, it has no power in it, but
if I could get the band to unite the machine with the engine, what
might be done! Behold, I see the omnipotence of God, and the
organisation of this church. O that I could get the band to bind the
two together! The band is living faith. Do you possess it? Brethren,
help me to pass it round the fly wheel, and oh, how God will work, and
we will work through his power, and what glorious things shall be done
for Christ! We must receive power from on high, and faith is the belt
that shall convey that power to us. The divine strength shall be
manifest through our weakness. Cease not to pray. More than you ever
have done, intercede for a blessing, and the Lord will bless us: he
will bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear him. Amen.
PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Romans 10.; and Genesis
21:1-21.