Ephraim Bemoaning Himself
A sermon
(No. 743)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, MARCH 31, 1867, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Agricultural Hall, Newington
"I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus: You have chastised
me, and I was chastised as a bull unaccustomed to the yoke. Turn You
me, and I shall be turned, for You are the Lord my God."- Jeremiah
31:18.
THE heathen described their fabled deity, Jove, as sitting far aloft
regardless of the common affairs of this lower world. Upon a few kings
and princes he might turn an observant eye, but the most of men were
creatures far too insignificant to affect the mind of Jove. Whether
they lived or died was nothing to him–they fulfilled their destinies
and passed away, while Jove remained serenely still, or nodded as his
august will might be.
Not such is Jehovah, the God of Heaven and of earth! He compasses our
path and our lying down, and is acquainted with all our ways. "The ways
of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his going."
He regards the cries of the afflicted. "He heals the broken in heart,
and binds up their wounds." "Though the Lord is high, yet has He
respect unto the lowly." Though He is so great a God that the Heaven of
heavens cannot contain Him, yet He deigns to dwell with the man who is
of a contrite and humble spirit.
God has not left us as the ostrich leaves her young. Say not that we
are left without a Friend to care for us–our Maker has not gone away!
He has not shut up the gates of Heaven! He has not closed His ear from
hearing, neither has He restrained His hand from helping us! Still does
He hear His Ephraims when they bemoan themselves, and He sends them the
mercy for which they pine. Let us conceive, as far as may be, of the
nearness of God to every mourning soul, for it is marvelous and worthy
of admiration.
When her Majesty, some months ago, heard of the desolation which had
been caused by an accident in the pits, her tender heart hastened to
the relief of the widows and the fatherless, but at the moment of the
calamity she was not on the spot in person. She could not be in the pit
to hear the groans and sustain the faith of the dying. No, she could
not be in the cottage to mark the tears of the widow and to cheer her
with heavenly promises. But our God is on the spot where calamity
occurs, for in Him we live and move and have our being! He is the
greatest of comforters, and He is also the most approachable.
He is "a very present help in time of trouble." He needs no messengers
to bear to Him the news of our grief or penitence, for He is not far
from any of us. Mourner, your sigh is known to God as soon as you have
heaved it! No, before your grief thus found a vent He saw it struggling
within you! Yes, and the grief which you cannot express in words God
can see and interpret! He knows the language of our grief, the meaning
of our tears. Blessed be the ever-present God that He is upon the spot
where the bemoaning of penitents are heard and bends a gracious ear to
the cry of His children!
This morning my first desire is that each of us may feel that God is
here and may be reached by us–that whatever our condition of mind may
be, the Lord is well aware of it–and that if there should be caused by
this service even so much as the faintest ripple of a desire towards
Him, He will note it in His book–and if that desire should increase
into a wave of prayer, it will not be lost upon Him. "He will regard
the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer."
I shall now, as I am strengthened by God, first ask your kind attention
to a sinner bemoaning himself. Secondly, I shall wish you to remember
God as hearing Him. And thirdly, our largest subject probably will be
God fulfilling the desire of that bemoaning penitent, and turning him
effectually from his sins.
I. First, observe carefully, A SINNER BEMOANING HIMSELF. Last Sunday we
preached upon two sinners, but we had little or no bemoaning [#742–"A
Sermon to Open Neglecters and Nominal Followers of Religion.] One of
them said, "I will not go," and the other said, "I go, Sir," but went
not. We are a stage farther this morning. We introduce to you one whose
heart has been affected by Divine Grace–whose conscience has been
awakened, whose soul has been quickened–and we find him, according to
the expressive word of the text, "bemoaning himself."
The very word is doleful to the ear–it reminds us of the mourning of
doves–we cannot pronounce it without feeling that it reveals a depth
of sorrow. It is a word which tells of pain, anguish, fear,
restlessness, sad remembrances, terrible forebodings and raging
desires. Ephraim was "bemoaning himself." Viewing the sorrow before us,
we note that he who bemoaned himself was bowed down with a peculiar
grief. He did not lament for his children with the bitter weeping of
Rachel. He did not mourn oven friends and kinsfolk withered under the
blast of death. He was not as one crying out through pangs of bodily
pain because a limb was crushed, or a bone was broken.
He bemoaned himself, but not because he had lost his goods. Not because
the ship had foundered at sea, or the house was wrapped in flames, or
his riches had taken to themselves wings and flown away. No, his sorrow
was of another kind. He bemoaned himself with a more mysterious and
more bitter grief. The cause of the sorrow lay within–he was
"bemoaning himself! This is, I say, a peculiar sorrow–one which the
most of men look down upon with scorn. I pray God, my Hearers, that you
may not be strangers to it for, unless you bemoan yourselves you shall
never make the angels merry, for their rejoicing is over "one sinner
that repents."
There is no weight of glory for those who have never mourned the weight
of sin! If you have never bemoaned yourself you have never enjoyed
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The sorrow of the text is
that of a soul visited by God the Holy Spirit–the inward grief of a
man who has been convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.
It is bitter sorrow, but so blessed are its results that I will call it
a bitter sweet! It brings darkness with it, but it is the darkness of
the last hour of the night which heralds the dawn of the day! Godly
sorrow is well-founded sorrow. I will try to describe its sources.
When a sinner bemoans himself in this way, "Alas! Alas!" he says, "I
have found out that all is true which I have oftentimes been told by
God's ministers. I have, indeed, offended my Maker! I have grieved the
God who gave me my being! I have made my best Friend to be my enemy
because of my sin. I have set myself in opposition to the King of
kings! I cannot fight it out with Him, for He is too great for me. What
shall I do? To where shall I fly? It is surely true and just that He
should punish me, and woe is me, for I cannot bear His anger! If my
ribs were iron and my flesh were granite, I should dissolve in the heat
of His wrath. I can no more resist Him than flax can stand against
fire, or stubble against the flame.
"Woe is me! I have roused Omnipotence to be my enemy! I have set all
Heaven in array against me! I cannot resist, and I cannot escape–what,
then, shall I do? Shall I promise that I will be better? Alas, my
reformations cannot blot out my past sins, for my old offenses will
still demand a punishment even if I commit no more! But worse and
worse, I now discover that my nature is full of sin and will rebel
continually! Thorns and thistles will grow in the accursed soil of my
heart, no matter what I do to pluck them up by the roots! I am not only
thus an enemy to God by my actions, but by my very nature. Woe is me!
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then might
I, who have been accustomed to evil, learn to do well. Alas, I am a
traitor to my God, a stranger to peace and happiness, a slave to sin,
in bondage to evil."
To the mind in this state it is no wonder if the thought occurs, "Oh,
that I had never been born! Would to God I had been created a dog or a
toad sooner than have become a sinful man, for I see my end, my
dreadful end! I shall march on from bad to worse, and when I shall die
the wrath of God will come upon me to the uttermost! Forever shall I be
banished from all hope of happiness. I cannot endure the wrath to come!
To where shall I fly, or what shall I do? If I try to pray, my lips
refuse to express my heart's desires–no, I cannot tell what to desire
nor how to pray. Alas! Alas! I am undone, indeed! I am lost! Lost!
Lost! Would God that there were mercy for me."
There is good ground in the sinner's state for all his bemoaning. The
fears to which I have given utterance are all reasonable and
well-grounded–fears so truly the offspring of a sound judgment and an
enlightened conscience that if, dear Hearer, you have never felt
them–I pray that you may do so before you sun has set! This sorrow is
humble sorrow. Notice, it is not written, "I hear Ephraim excusing
himself," or "flattering himself," or "making new resolutions," but, "I
have heard him bemoaning himself."
When God the Holy Spirit gives genuine conviction of sin to a man, how
he changes in his own esteem! He finds that all his righteousnesses are
just a bundle of filthy rags. He thought them to be clean, white
vestments, fair as the robes of the redeemed in Heaven. And he was
proud to think of arraying himself in them. But when he unpacked them
in the daylight he saw them to be full of holes, reduced to rags and
tatters and, what was worse, polluted with horrible filth! So he threw
them all away and fell to bemoaning himself.
An awakened conscience does not say, "I could not help it, it was my
nature, I was led into it by my passions. I was tempted by my
circumstances." No, it gives up all excuses because it sees their
hollowness. "I sinned," says the man, "I knew it was sin. I chose it
willfully. I might have avoided it, but I would not. I set darkness for
light and light for darkness. I am a willful offender." Instead of
laying a flattering unction to his soul, he sees sin to be exceedingly
sinful and laments it.
My Hearers, am I describing some of you? I trust, before the Lord, some
of you can see your own photographs here, and if so, I have joyful news
from the Lord for you, for broken hearts shall be bound up by the Lord
Jesus Himself–and eternal life shall be given you if you rest in Him!
Please notice that this sorrow was thoughtful sorrow, for Ephraim
reviews his past life–"You have chastised me." What came of it? Why,
"I was chastised," and that was all. Are there not some of you in this
Hall who might say, "Great God, You Yourself must deal with me, for
none but Yourself can ever save me. I have been laid upon a bed of
sickness, and I have recovered from it. And there was an end of the
sickness, but I was none the better for it.
"I lost my wife, I buried my children, I have suffered hard blows, but
that is all–all my afflictions have produced no good result. Lord, I
have had sickness after sickness but I am rather worse than better!
Like a bull unaccustomed to the yoke, beaten but not subdued, struck
but still obstinate." The more the untrained bull is goaded, the more
it kicks, and it will not wear the yoke with patience. Have you not
been like it? When you have heard a sermon, you have laughed at it!
When your mother's tears have fallen for you, you have despised them.
When your wife's prayers have gone up to Heaven, you have turned them
into ridicule. You have been chastised and chastised, but no good has
followed it.
Some of you have wearied the Lord with your iniquities, till He asks,
"What shall I do with you?" Take heed, for patience endures not
forever! The Lord will not always plow upon a rock. He will not always
sow upon the thankless sand. "For the earth which drinks in the rain
that comes often upon it, and brings forth herbs meet for them by whom
it is dressed, receives blessing from God. But that which bears thorns
and briars is rejected, and is near unto cursing, whose end is to be
burned." I trust that many of you are sensible that no outward
Providences, persuasions, or preaching will suffice to save you–you
need effectual Grace to convert your soul or you will perish forever.
I beg you to notice the bemoaning of the text in one more respect,
namely, that it was hopeless and yet hopeful. Eph-raim says, "Lord, it
is of no use to chastise me, for I only get worse. But do You turn me,
and I shall be turned." I was staying one day at an inn in one of the
valleys of Northern Italy, where the floor was dreadfully dirty. I had
it in my mind to advise the landlady to scrub it, but when I perceived
that it was made of mud, I reflected that the more she scrubbed the
worse it would be.
The man who knows his own heart soon perceives that his corrupt nature
admits of no improvement. There must be a new nature implanted, or the
man will be only "washed to deeper stains." "You must be born again."
Ours is not a case for mending, but for making new. The meaning of the
prayer in my text is, "Lord, do not chastise me, but turn me. Do it
Yourself, and then it will be done. Turn me, and I shall be turned, but
if You do not do it I am past hope." O troubled Soul, if the Lord shall
put His hand to the work this morning, what a wonderful change will He
work in you! But only His own right hand can do it. Pray, then, this
prayer–
"'Turn me, and I shall be turned." "No outward forms can make you
clean, Your leprosy lies deep within."
No resolving of yours can cleanse you any more than the Ethiopian can
make himself white by resolving to be so! Only the Holy Spirit can
purify you with the blood of Jesus. He who gives life to the dead can
give spiritual life to you. He can take away the heart of stone and
give you a heart of flesh! I invite you, therefore, to pray, "Turn me,
O God, and I shall be turned." And I bid you exercise the appropriating
Grace of faith and say, "for You are the Lord my God." Are you made
willing to take Jehovah to be your God today, my Hearer? Are you
willing to give up the world, its pleasures, and its gains?
Are you willing to give up self, fashion, pomp, self-indulgence, and
sin in every shape? If you are, then I beseech you wait not till you
get home, but, standing or sitting where you now are, let Ephraim's
bemoaning prayer be yours, "Turn me, Lord! Convert me! Make a new man
of me! Turn me, and I shall be turned–for You can do it so that it
will be well done, thoroughly done, effectually done, permanently done,
unhesitatingly done. Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be
turned, even I. Though I have been set on mischief. Though none beside
could ever move my flinty soul. Though I was so dogged and resolved
that one might as well have tried to rule the winds or command the
tempest as to curb my will, yet, Lord You can do it."
I see at this moment some of you dashing at full speed down the hill
like wild horses, and none can restrain you. In vain we may call to
you! In vain we throw fences across the road–you leap over every
barrier, determined to be lost! But let Almighty Grace interpose! Let
the Lord Himself appear! He can twist His hand in the neck which seemed
clothed with thunder! He can throw back the maddened steed! He can
thrust the bit of Divine Grace into its foaming mouth and constrain the
once untameable being to bear the yoke of love. May such a feat of
Grace be performed in some sinner's heart this day!
II. I do not know where Ephraim was when he bemoaned himself, but I SEE
THE LORD OBSERVING HIM. I know not where some of you hide yourselves
now that you are pricked in your conscience. Some retire to their
bedrooms. Some shut themselves in their closets. Many a countryman has
wept behind the hedge, or climbed into a hayloft, or leaped into a saw
pit to pray. It little matters where you seek the Lord. He will be sure
to see you–and even if it is in the crowded street of Cheapside or
Cornhill–if your soul is in prayer, all the din of noisy London cannot
stop the prayer from reaching the ear of God!
You know, Mothers, how quick you are at night to hear your children if
they are ill. If you had a nurse, she might slumber on–but as for you,
with little Jane upstairs sick–if you fall asleep, the faintest noise
wakes you. Yet you are not one-half so wakeful as God is! For He
neither slumbers nor sleeps. When your heart begins to say, "My God, my
God, I would be reconciled! My Lord, I would be cleansed," the Lord is
waiting to be gracious. Before you call, God hears you, for He is a God
ready to pardon.
Observe that God heard all that Ephraim had to say. I do not know that
anybody else cared to do so, and so, if you have not a Christian
friend, although I am sorry for you, I would say never mind–God is
enough for you without a friend! No one else might have understood
Ephraim if they had heard him, but God knew all about him and He
understood him well. If you cannot utter your prayer in good English,
never mind. Breathe it out anyway–God can understand it. Broken
prayers are the best prayers. Do not suppose that you require fine
words and elegant phrases in order to affect the Lord. Your tearful
eyes shall be more mighty than trope or metaphor, and your heavy sighs
shall be more eloquent than the polished period and lofty climax of the
orator.
Only prostrate your soul before God with humble heart and downcast eyes
and your Father will accept you. What man among you can stand against
his children's tears? When King Henry II in the ages gone by was
provoked to take up arms against his ungrateful and rebellious son, he
besieged him in one of the French towns, and the son, being near unto
death, desired to see his father and confess his wrongdoing. But the
stern old sire refused to look the rebel in the face. The young man,
being sorely troubled in his conscience, said to those about him, "I am
dying. Take me from my bed and let me lie in sackcloth and ashes, in
token of my sorrow for my ingratitude to my father."
Thus he died, and when the tidings came to the old man outside the
walls that his boy had died in ashes, repentant for his rebellion, he
threw himself upon the earth like another David, and said, "Would God I
had died for him!" The thought of his boy's broken heart touched the
heart of the father. If you, being evil, are overcome by your
children's tears, how much more shall your Father who is in Heaven find
in your bemoaning and confession an argument for the display of His
pardoning love through Christ Jesus our Lord?
This is the eloquence which God delights in–the broken heart, and the
contrite spirit! He heard and He understood all that Ephraim said, and
He was moved by it. Did you note that word, "I have surely heard
Ephraim"? As if nothing were more sure! If God should not hear the
music of Heaven, He would hear the prayers of penitents! If the booming
of the storm and the roar of the tempest, when the thunders roll like
drums in the march of the God of armies–if the clapping of the
thousand hands of the roaring sea when it rejoices in its strength
should not be heard by the Eternal ear– yet, surely, the bemoaning of
a single sinner should be regarded!
The crash of thunder is to the Lord no more than the sound of the
falling of a sere leaf on a still summer's eve, but the cry of one of
His children peals through Heaven, and moves the Infinite heart, so
that swift on wings of love the God of mercy flies. Nor is it mere
pity. God gives to us practical aid–He gave to Ephraim what Ephraim
asked for. Our God is full of compassion. He is a terrible God when He
has to deal with sin–thunderbolts are in his hands, and lightning
flashes from His eyes of fire, "for our God is a consuming fire." But
when He has to deal with penitents His name is Love. He rides in a
chariot of mercy and holds out a silver scepter of Divine Grace!
O seeking souls, Jehovah will hear you through the merits of His Son!
Seek His face and you shall not seek in vain!
III. Let us now turn to the third point and view THE LORD WORKING IN
HIS EFFECTUAL GRACE. Beloved Friends, recollect that the only turning
in the world that is saving and Divine is the turning of the heart. As
for a mere change of notions–the turning of the head–many mistake it
for conversion, but it is quite another matter. "Oh, yes!" says a man,
"I used to be an Arminian, now I have become a Calvinist." Or, "I used
to be a Churchman, and now I have joined the Baptists." Or, "I used to
be a Papist, and I have become a Protestant." Well, and what difference
will that make if you have not a new nature?
A thief is a thief, whatever name he may bear–no change of name will
make him honest. You may be quite as bad in one denomination as in
another, for hypocrisy and formalism are found among all sorts of
professors. If you take a raven and put it in a brass cage, or a silver
cage, or a golden cage–it is still a raven–and so, if you, join this
Church or that Church, unless your nature is changed, you are an
unsaved sinner! Let me add that thought is a useful thing to have the
outward conversation changed, yet that is not enough. It is a great
blessing when a drunkard becomes a teetotaler. It is a great blessing
when the thief becomes honest. It is a great blessing when any vice is
given up, and the opposite virtue is carried out–but that is not the
matter. "You must be born again."
All the changes that you can ever work in yourselves will not avail for
your entering Heaven. Go to St. Paul's Cathedral and see the statues in
white marble–they are not living men, and you cannot make them so.
Wash them, clothe them, paint them! Do what you will with them, still
they cannot join in the songs or prayers of living men, because they
are marble and not alive. Even so is it with you, unregenerate ones.
You have no spiritual life in you–we would have you washed, we would
have you moralized, for that is a good thing–even a corpse should he
clean! But all the washing and the cleaning will not make you live! You
must have the Divine influence from on high. No turning is good for
anything everlastingly except the renewing of the inward nature by a
work of Divine Grace in the soul.
How is this done? This is the work, this is the difficulty! I will show
you God's mode of working as briefly as I can. The Lord's way of
turning a man in the main is much as follows, but the exact method
varies in each case. If a man is going on in any one road and you want
to turn him, the first thing is to stop him. What would one of you
think if tomorrow, as you were walking to your labor, you should
suddenly see the earth open before you as though a volcano had split
open the earth from its lowest depths? I warrant you would go no
further in that way! You would stand with hair on end and gaze down in
into the dread abyss, or fly back in alarm.
This is exactly what happened to me when God turned me. I went on easy
enough in my sins. I thought them pleasant, and that I should continue
in them–till, by God's Grace I came to feel that Hell was a real
thing, and that I was on the brink of it! I saw clearly that if the
brittle thread of my life were snapped, infinite misery would be my
portion in the place where fiends forever bite their bonds of iron,
unable to escape or to endure! Oh, how a distinct sight of wrath to
come stops a man! How he pauses when he perceives in his own soul that
the wages of sin are death! A sight of the everlasting burnings makes
him cry "STOP!" and though, before, he went on gaily dancing to
destruction, he now waits awhile, puts his finger to his brow, takes
counsel with his cooler judgment, and says to himself, "Now what shall
I do?"
When a man is awakened by the Holy Spirit to feel that Hell is his just
desert, it is no wonder that his mind is turned from the love of sin to
a perfect horror of it. "Oh," he says, "if Hell is kindled by my sin,
how can I love the sin which prepared such wrath for me?" The old
naturalist, Ulysses Androvaldus, tells us that a dove is so afraid of a
hawk that she will be frightened at the sight of one of its feathers.
Whether it is so or not, I cannot tell. But this I do know, that when a
man has had a thorough shaking over the jaws of Hell he will be so
afraid of sin that even one of the feathers of it, any one sin, will
alarm and send fear through his soul! This is a part of the way by
which the Lord turns us when we are, indeed, turned.
Furthermore, the awakened conscience is led to see the real nature of
sin. We have all seen bears in a pit, and lions in stone, and have seen
them without alarm. But I can readily imagine that if a lion were
suddenly to leap from my platform into the midst of this throng you
would regard it with a very different eye! A wild beast let loose among
you would be a very different thing from what it is in a picture or a
statue. Now sin, as the preacher talks of it, is to most of you like a
painted lion. But when a man feels it in his own soul as an evil full
of mischief, it is a very different thing. We are like the
man in the fable who warmed a frozen viper in his bosom–when it came
to life he knew its poisonous nature, for he felt the venom in his
veins.
Men, before God quickens them, nurse the viper of sin in their bosom,
and say, "Look at its azure scales. How fair it is to look upon! Do you
suppose so harmless a creature could ever do me injury?" They put it in
their bosom with much fondness. But when it bites them, and the hot
poison runs through their veins and conscience is thoroughly awake,
then they loathe it and cast it from them, or rather would do so if
they could! But as Laocoon, in the old story tried in vain to tear the
serpent's coils from his limbs, so is it with them until Divine Grace
comes to their aid. At any rate, a true sight of sin soon turns a man
most thoroughly from his former love of it.
There once lived a great religious impostor, of whom it is said–
"O'er his features hung The veil, the silver veil which he had flung In
mercy there, to hide from mortal sight His dazzling brow, till man
could bear its light." When that veil was at last uplifted, the foulest
leprosy was seen! So Sin comes to men covered with its silver veil, and
it whispers with softest accents sweet as music, "Trust me, I cannot
deceive you. I bring you richest joy. See how the cup sparkles, how the
wine moves itself aright! How merry is the dance! How joyous is the
chambering and the wantonness!" But ah, when once that silver veil
comes off, and sin's leprous brow is seen, then man, enlightened by his
God, turns from it, crying," Get you behind me, Satan."
As John said of Jezebel, "Throw her down," so do men abhor the accursed
thing that by her witchcrafts could lead their souls to destruction. A
sight of Hell and a sense of sin are great means in the hands of God to
turn the sinner from his ways. The grand turning point I have not come
to yet–it is a sight of Christ on the Cross. If you ever, by the eyes
of faith, see Jesus Christ dying for you, sin will never be sweet to
you again. What was it slew our blessed Lord? It was our sin–
" 'Twere you, my sins, my cruel sins, His chief tormentors were! Each
of my crimes became a nail, And unbelief the spear."
When we discover that our iniquities put our dearest and best Friend to
death, we vow revenge against our iniquities, and from that day forth
hate them with a perfect hatred. Let me illustrate this very simply.
Here is a knife with a richly-carved ivory handle, a knife of excellent
workmanship. Yonder woman, we will suppose, has had a dear child
murdered by a cruel enemy. This knife is hers. She is pleased with it,
and prizes it much. How can I make her throw that knife away? I can do
it easily, for that is the knife with which her child was killed. Look
at it. There is blood still upon the handle. She drops it as though it
were a scorpion–she cannot bear it.
"Put it away," she says, "it killed my child! Oh, hateful thing!" Now,
sin is such a thing–we play with it till we are told it was sin that
killed the Lord Jesus, who died out of love to us–pure, disinterested
love. Then we say, "Hateful thing, get you gone! How can I endure you?"
Remember how Mark Anthony stirred up the Romans to a fury against
Caesar's murderers? Holding up the mantle of dead Caesar, he pointed to
the tears and gashes in the garment–"In this place ran Cassius' dagger
through. Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed." And thus he
inflamed the multitude to such a pitch of fury that they snatched up
the seats around them, and away they went to the houses of the
conspirators to set them on a blaze.
Ah, if my lips could speak as my heart bids them, I would cry, "See
there the wounds of the Son of God! Behold the crimson stains which
mark His blessed body! Mark the crown of thorns! Gaze upon the pierced
hands! Weep over the nailed feet! See the deep gash which the lance
made in His side! Sin did this cruel work, this bloody deed! Down with
our sins! Drag them to the Cross! Slay them at Calvary! Let not one of
them escape, for they are the murderers of Christ!" This is the way in
which the Lord turns the sinner, and he is turned, indeed.
Further, one of the most blessed ways by which God makes the sinner
turn is this–He manifests His everlasting love to him. You remember
the fable of the traveler going along wrapped up in his cloak, and the
contest between the wind and the sun as to which should get his cloak
from him? The wind blustered and blew with a cold driving rain but the
traveler wrapped his cloak about him the more tightly, and went
shivering on his journey. The wind could not tear away
the garment. Then the genial sun burst forth, and shone full upon the
traveler's face. It dried his garments and cheered him with its warmth.
By-and-by the traveler loosed his cloak and at last threw it off–the
sun's kindness had won the day.
Now, when God's Law blusters about a sinner, it sometimes happens that
he says, "I will go on in my sins." But when God's love comes, who can
stand against it? "I have loved you with an everlasting love," says God
to the sinner. "Is it so?" cries the renewed heart. "Then, Lord, I
cannot be Your enemy any longer." Oh, if some of you did but know that
God has chosen you from before the foundation of the world! If you did
but know that you are His darlings, His favor-ites–that He gave His
own Son to die for you! Oh, if you did but know that your name, your
worthless name, is written upon the hands of Christ–would you not love
Him then?
I pray that He may reveal that love to you today, and, if He does, you
will sing–
"Your mercy is more than a match for my heart, Which wonders to feel
its own hardness depart. Dissolved by Your goodness, I fall to the
ground, And weep to the praise of the mercy I've found." When this
sense of love has done its work, new loves and new desires fill the
soul and the man is a new man. Some worldlings cannot make out why
Christians abstain from certain pleasures. "Why," they say, "I am not
going to deny myself of every pleasure!" Do not you know, my dear
Friends, that it is no denial to us to go without sin? It is no denial
to the sheep to live without licking blood, because the sheep would
dread the sight of blood! It desires the sweet green grass, but does
not care for carnage. So when God gives us new hearts and right
spirits, we do not find it a denial to renounce sin– our tastes are
changed–our new loves and our new desires are not those of our former
estate!
There may be a gentleman here who has risen in the world. He was once a
farmer's boy, but now he rides in his carriage. When he was a farmer's
boy, he used to think what a grand thing it would be to be a king and
swing on a gate and eat bacon all day long. But now I will be bound to
say he does not want to swing on a gate, and has little relish for the
rustic dainty of which he was once so fond. He has reached a different
rank of society, and his tastes and habits are all different.
So is it with the Christian. God makes a king of him, and how can he go
back to play with beggars? God has put a heavenly nature into him, and
he abhors to grovel in the dust of sin. Dear Friends, I would to God
that you might know your standing in Christ–sons of God, heirs with
Christ, joint heirs with Him–and when you do it will turn you away
from the base things of sin and you will be turned, indeed!
Once more, and I shall not detain you. There is something which binds
the Christian very fast to holiness and restrains him from sin, and
that is the prospect of yon bright world to which he is wending his
way. This week I had my faith much strengthened in visiting a sick
woman. I would gladly change places with her. Glad enough should I be
to lie upon that sick bed and die in her room, for though she has been
long on the borders of the grave, and knows it–knows that each hour
may probably be the last–her joy is so great, her bliss is so
abundant, that you have only to speak with her and her joy overflows!
She told me, "I prayed that if God would spare me, He would give me one
soul, and He has given me five converts while I have been on this bed!"
And I did not wonder at it, as I saw the five dear friends sitting in
the room. I did not wonder at it–it was enough to make one a Christian
to see her joy and her peace, and hear her talk so confidently about
the time when she should see her Lord and be in His embrace forever!
"Ah," says the devil to the Christian, "I will give you so much if you
sin." Our reply is, "What could you give me compared with our
inheritance? O Fiend, you bring me counterfeit riches, but I can count
down ten thousand times as much in real solid gold!
"You proffer me your paste gems, but here are diamonds and pearls of
the first water and of the rarest value! Away with you, you tempter!
You know not how to tempt a Christian! For his gains are greater than
anything you can give him." Surely this would turn your hearts, my
Hearers, if you could but know and feel the glory of our inheritance!
If you had a vision of the land of the hereafter, where the birds of
Paradise forever sing, and the sun forever shines, and the day is never
ended, surely sin would no longer enchant you. "We are on our journey
home," say the host of the elect. The city which has foundations has
turned their stops from sin, and they are turned, indeed, so that they
never can be turned back again.
Now I have done, but I do not like to send you away without making
again the personal enquiry. Are you bemoaning yourself? Do you desire
to be turned? Would you have these gracious motives operating upon you?
Then do not put it off, but this moment breathe the silent prayer,
"Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned." I have a great desire in my
heart. I should like to tell you of it–it is that there should be more
converted in this place than ever were converted at one time in any
place since the world was–for never before was such an audience
gathered to hear one man! Whether that desire shall be granted I do not
know, but if we have faith enough for it, it may come, and it will
come! Why should
it not?
Oh, that some great sinners might be saved, for they always make the
best saints! Oh, that the Lord might take some of the ringleaders in
the devil's army and make them lieutenants in His service! None so
brave for Christ as those who were brave for sin! You great
sinners–may great mercy meet with you! Remember the way of salvation
is this–Trust Jesus and you shall be saved! Look to Him I have
pictured just now bleeding, groaning, dying on the tree! Look, look,
and live! Only depend upon Him! Only give your heart to Him, and rest
in Him, and it is not possible that one should perish who comes to
Jesus and puts his trust in Him!
Brethren, pray for us! If you, the members of this Church, do not pray
for me, I feel I shall have much to lay to your charge. Never was
anyone called to so great a work as this. I have, this morning, 20,000
claims upon your prayers! I beseech you by the living God pray for me!
It were better for me that I never were born than to have this
responsibility upon me if I have not your prayers! Who can tell?–the
service of this morning may, when it is thought over and remembered by
the hearers–bring forth fruit a hundred-fold, and God shall have the
glory! Do pray for me! And, Sinner, unconverted Sinner, do pray for
yourself, and may God hear you for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
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Jesus At Bethesda–or, Waiting Changed for Believing
A sermon