Even Now
(No. 2249)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 27, 1892.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 8, 1891.
"Even now." John 11:22
I HOPE that there are a great many persons here who are interested in
the souls of those around them. We shall certainly never exercise faith
concerning those for whose salvation we have no care. I trust, also,
that we are diligent in looking after individuals, especially those who
are among our own family and friends. This is what Martha did–her
whole care was for her brother. It is often easier to have faith that
Christ can save sinners in general, than to believe that He can come
into our own home and save some particular member of our household.
But, oh, the joy when this comes to pass–when we are able to kneel
beside some of our loved ones and rejoice with them in being made alive
by the power of the Holy Spirit! We cannot expect to have this
privilege, however, unless, like Martha, we send our prayers to Jesus
and go to meet Him and tell Him of our need. In the Presence of Christ
it seems very natural to trust Him even at the worst extremity. It is
when we are at our wits' end that He delights to help us. When our
hopes seem to be buried, then it is that God can give a resurrection!
When our Isaac is on the altar, then the heavens are opened and the
voice of the Eternal is heard. Are you giving way to despair concerning
your dear friend? Are you beginning to doubt your Savior and to
complain of His delay? Be sure that Jesus will come at the right time,
though He will be the judge of which is the best time for Him to
appear.
Martha had a fine faith. If we all had such an honest belief in Christ
as she had, many a man who now lies dead in his sins, would, before
long, hear that Voice which would call him forth from his tomb and
restore him unto his friends. Martha's faith had to do with a dreadful
case. Her brother was dead and had been buried, but her faith still
lived and, in spite of all things which went against her, she believed
in Christ and looked to Him for help in her extremity. Her faith went
to the very edge of the gulf as she said, "But I know, that even now,
whatever You will ask of God, God will give it to You."
Still, Martha had not so much faith as she thought she had. But a few
hours after she had confessed her confidence in the power of the Lord
Jesus, or perhaps it was only a few minutes, she stood at the grave of
her brother and evidently doubted the wisdom of Him she professed to
trust. She objected to the stone being removed and, strong in the
admitted facts of the case, she urged her reason and said, "Lord, by
this time he stinks." Well, but, Martha, you said, not very long ago,
"I know that even now Christ can interpose." Yes, she said it–and she
believed it in the way in which most of us believe–but when her faith
was sharply tried by a matter of fact, she did not appear to have had
all the faith she professed! I suspect this also is true of most of us.
We often fancy our confidence in Christ is much stronger than it really
is.
I think I have told you of my old friend, Will Richardson, who said,
when he was 75 years of age, that it was a very curious thing, that all
the winter through, he had thought he should like to be a-harvesting,
or out in the hay field, because he felt so strong. He imagined that he
could do as much as any of the youngsters. "But," he said, "do you
know, Mr. Spurgeon, when the summer comes, I do not get through the
haymaking; and when the autumn comes, I find I have not sufficient
strength for reaping?" So it often is in spiritual things! When we are
not called upon to bear the trouble, we feel wonderfully strong–but
when the trial comes, very much of our boasted faith is gone in smoke!
Take heed that you examine well your faith! Let it be true and real,
for you will need it all.
However, Christ did not take Martha at her worst, but at her best. When
our Lord says, "According to your faith be it unto you," He does not
mean "According to your faith in its ebb," but, "According to your
faith in its flood." He
reads the thermometer at its highest point, not at its lowest–not even
using the "mean temperature" of our trust. He gives us credit for our
quickest pace, not counting our slowest, nor seeking to discover our
average speed in this matter of faith. Christ did for Martha all she
could have asked or believed–her brother did rise again and he was
restored to her, and to his friends. In your case, too, O you
trembling, timorous Believer, the Lord Jesus will take you at your
best, and He will do for you great things, seeing that you desire to
believe greatly and that your prayer is, "Lord, I believe; help You my
unbelief!"
The point upon which Martha chiefly rested, when she expressed her
faith, was the power of Christ in intercession with His Father. "I
know," she said, "that, even now, whatever You will ask of God, God
will give it to You." Since the Omnipotence of God could be claimed,
she felt no anxiety as to the greatness of the request. "Whatever" was
asked could easily be gained, if it were only asked by Him who never
was denied! Beloved in the Lord, our Christ is still alive and He is
still pleading! Can you believe, even now, that whatever He shall ask
of God, God will give it to Him and give it you for His dear Son's
sake? What an anchorage is the intercession of Christ! "He is able also
to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever
lives to make intercession for them." Here is a grand pillar to rest
the weight of our souls upon–"He ever lives to make intercession for
them." Surely, we may have great faith in Him who never wearies, and
who never fails! Who lives, indeed, for no other purpose than to plead
for those who trust in His dying love and in His living power! "Who is
He that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes, rather, that is risen
again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes
intercession for us." Fall back upon the intercessory power of Christ,
in every time of need, and you will find comfort that will never fail
you!
It is a grand thing to have faith for the present, not bemoaning the
past, nor dreaming of some future faith which we hope may yet be ours.
The present hour is the only time we really possess. The past is gone
beyond recall. If it has been filled with faith in God, we can no more
live on that faith, now, than we can live, today, on this bread we ate
last week. If, on the contrary, the past has been marred by our
unbelief, that is no reason why this moment should not witness a grand
triumph of trust in the faithful Savior! Let us not excuse our present
lack of faith by the thought of some future blessing. No confidence
which we may learn to put in Christ, in the days to come, can atone for
our present unbelief. If we ever mean to trust Him, why should we not
do so now, since He is as worthy of our belief, now, as He will ever
be, and, since what we miss, now, we miss beyond recall–
"The present, the present, is all you have
For your sure possessing,
Like the Patriarch's angel, hold it fast,
Till it gives its blessing."
In this verse, "I know, that even now, whatever You will ask of God,
God will give it to You," I want to fix your attention only on the two
words, "Even now." We have just sung–
"Pass me not, O tender Savior, Let me lo ve and cling to You. I am
longing for Your favor, When You come, call for me–Even me." Our hymn
was "Even me." The sermon is to be "Even now." If you have been singing
"Even me" and so applying the truth to your own case, say, also, with
an energy of heart that will take no denial, "Even now," and listen
with earnest expectation to that Gospel which is always in the present
tense–"While it is said, Today if you will hear His voice, harden not
your heart, as in the provocation." Remember, too, that this is not
only the preacher's word, for the Holy Spirit says, "Today"–"Even
now."
I shall use these words, first, in reference to those who are concerned
about the souls of others, as Martha was about her dead brother.
Believe that Christ can save even now! Then I shall speak to you who
are somewhat concerned about your own souls. You believe, perhaps, that
Christ can save. I want you to be persuaded that He can save you even
now! That is to say, at this exact hour and minute, going by the clock,
while you hear these words–even now–Christ can forgive! Even now
Christ can save! Even now Christ can bless!
I. First, CAN WE BELIEVE THIS WITH REFERENCE TO OTHERS? If you are in
the same position as Martha, I can bring out several points of likeness
which should encourage you to persevere. You, Mother, have prayed for
your boy. You, Father, have pleaded for your girl. You, dear Wife, have
been much in prayer for your husband. You beloved
Teacher, have frequently brought your class before God–and yet there
is a bad case pressing upon your mind and your heart is heavy about
some dear one whose condition seems hopeless. I want you to believe
that now, even now, Christ can grant your prayer and save that soul!
That now, even now, He can give you such a blessing that the past delay
shall be more than recompensed to you.
There is one, for instance, in whom we are deeply interested, and we
can say that the case has cost great sorrow. So Martha could have said
of Lazarus. "Blessed Master," she might have said, "my brother took the
fever"–(for I should think it was a fever that he had)–"and I watched
him. I brought cold water from the well and I washed his burning brow.
I was by his bedside all night. I never took off my clothes. Nobody
knows how my heart was wrung with anguish as I saw the hot beads drops
upon his brow, and tried to moisten his parched tongue and lips. I
sorrowed as though I was about to die, myself, but in spite of all
that, I believe, even now, that You can help me. Even now." Alas! There
are many griefs in the world like this. A mother says, "Nobody knows
what I have suffered through that son of mine. I shall die of a broken
heart because of his conduct." "No one can tell," says the father,
"what grief that daughter of mine has caused me. I have sometimes
wished that she had never been born." There have been many, many such
stories told me, in which a beloved one has been the cause of untold
anguish and agony to gracious, loving hearts. To those so sorely
troubled I now speak! Can you believe that even now the Living
Intercessor is "mighty to save?" It may be that you are, at this
moment, trembling on the verge of the blessing you so long have sought.
God give you faith to grasp it "even now!"
With other persons we are met with a fresh difficulty. The case has
already disappointed us. That is how some of you have found it, is it
not? "Yes," you say, "I have prayed long for a dear friend, and I
believed, some time ago, that my prayer was heard and that there was a
change for the better. Indeed, there was an apparent change, but it
came to nothing." You are just like Martha. She kept saying to herself,
"Christ will come. Brother is very ill, but Jesus will come before he
dies! I know He will. It cannot be that He will stay away much longer.
And when He comes, Lazarus will soon be well." Day after day, Mary and
she sent their messenger to look toward the Jordan, to see if Jesus was
coming. But He did not come. It must have been a terrible
disappointment to both these sisters–enough to stagger the strongest
faith that they had ever had in the sympathy of Christ! But Martha got
the better of it and she said, "Even now, though disappointed so
bitterly, I believe that You can do whatever You will." Learn from
Martha, my discouraged Brothers and Sisters! You thought that your
friend was converted, but he wanted to go back, again. You thought that
there was a real work of Grace upon his heart, but it turned out to be
a mere disappointment and disappeared like the mist of the sun. But can
you not believe over the head of your disappointment and say, "I
believe even now, even now"? Blessed shall your faith be, if it gets so
far!
Perhaps further difficulties have met us. We have attempted to help
someone and the case has proved our helplessness. "Ah, yes," says one,
"that exactly describes me. I never felt so helpless in my life! I have
done all that I can do and it amounts to nothing. I have been careful
in my example. I have been prayerful in my words. I have been very
patient and long-suffering. I have tried to induce my beloved one to go
and listen to the Gospel here and there. I have put holy books in his
way and, all the while, I have seized opportunities to plead with
him–often with tears in my eyes–but I can do nothing! I am dead
beat." Yes, that is just where Martha got to–she had done everything
but nothing seemed to be of the least use. None of the medicines she
applied seemed to soothe the sufferer. She had gone down to the
village–perhaps to the home of Simon the leper, who was a friend of
hers, and he possibly advised some new remedies–but nothing seemed to
make the least difference. Her brother grew worse and worse, until she
saw that, though she had nursed him back to health the last time he had
been ill, she was now utterly powerless. Then he died. Yet, even though
things had gone as far as that, she had faith in Christ! In like
manner, your case is beyond your skill, but can you not believe that,
even now, the end of nature will be the beginning of Grace? Can you not
even now feel that you shall find that word true, "He shall not fail"?
Christ never failed, yet, and He never will! When all the doctors give
a patient up, the Great Physician can step in and heal! Can you
believe, concerning your friend, "even now"?
But perhaps you are in a worse plight. The case has been given up. I
think I hear one kind, gracious soul, whose hope has been crushed, say,
"Well, Sir, that is just what we have come to about my boy. We held a
little family meeting and said we must get him to go away to Australia,
if we can. If he will only go to America, or somewhere abroad, it will
be a relief to have him out of our sight. He keeps coming home
intoxicated and gets brought before the magistrates. He is a disgrace
to us! He is a shame to the name he bears. We have given him up."
Martha had come to this. She had given her
brother up and had actually buried him–yet she believed in the power
of Christ! Ah, there are many people that are buried alive! I do not
know that such a thing ever happens in the cemetery, but I know it
happens in our streets and homes. Many are buried, morally, and given
up by us before God gives them up. And, somehow, it is often the
given-up people that God delights to bless! Can you believe that even
now–even now–prayer can be heard? That even now the Holy Spirit can
change the nature and that even now Christ can save the soul? Do you
believe this? I shall rejoice if you can and you, too, shall rejoice
before long!
But there is still a lower depth. Here is one who is much concerned
about an individual and the case is loathsome. "Though we loved him
once," he says, "his character has now become such that it is
pestilential to the family. He leads others astray. We cannot think of
what he has done without the very memory of his life spreading a taint
over our conscience and over our mind." There are persons alive in the
world who are just masses of living putridity. There may be such here.
I would be glad if a word I said could reach them. It is a shocking
thing that there are men and women, made in the image of God, with
talents and ability, with capacity and conscience, who, nevertheless,
seem to live for nothing else but to indulge their licentious passions
and to lead others into vices which otherwise they had never known.
There must come an awful day of reckoning to such when the Christ of
God shall sit upon His Throne and shall weigh before all men the secret
doings of libertines, of debauched men and depraved women!
If any of you have such a one related to you, can you believe that even
now Christ can raise that one? Yours is just the same sort of case as
Martha had. She could have said, "Brother is buried! Worse than that,
he stinks." She did not like to say that of dear Lazarus, her own
brother, but she could not help saying it. And there are some men of
whom we are compelled to say, no matter how much our love seeks to
shield them, that their character stinks. But can you still believe
that, even now, there is hope that God can intervene and that Grace can
save? Why, my dear Friend, you and I know that it is so! I believe
it–we must all believe it! If it comes to a case very near and dear to
you and you begin to be a little bit staggered, remember what you used
to be–not openly so depraved, perhaps, but inwardly, quite the
same–and take hope for these foul men and women from the remembrance
of what you were! "And such were some of you; but you are washed."
When John Newton used to preach at St. Mary Woolnoth, he always
believed in the possibility of the salvation of the worst of his
hearers, for he had been, himself, one of the vilest of the vile! When
he was very old and they said, "Dear Mr. Newton, you are too old to
preach. You had better not go into the pulpit, now," he said, "What?
Shall the old African blasphemer who has been saved by Grace leave off
preaching the Gospel while there is a breath in his body? Never!" I
think while there is breath in the body of some of us, we must go on
telling the Gospel, for, if it saved us, it can save the worst of
sinners! We are bound to believe that even now, Christ can save even
the most horrible and the most vile–
"His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me!"
Perhaps there is still even a more desperate difficulty with reference
to someone whom we would wish to see living for God. The case is beyond
our reach. "Yes," that Brother quickly answers, "now you have come to
my trouble. I do not even know where my boy is! He ran away and we have
not heard from him for years. How can I help him?" Why, believe that,
"even now," Christ can speak to him and save him! He can send His Grace
where we can send our love. The great difficulty which lies like a
stone at the door of the sepulcher will not prevent Him speaking the
life-giving Word! He has all forces at His command and when He says the
Word, the stone shall be rolled away and the son that is lost shall be
found! Even the dead shall be made alive! Though you cannot reach your
son, or your daughter, Christ can meet with them! "The Lord's hand is
not shortened that it cannot save; neither is His ear heavy, that it
cannot hear." Though your prodigal boy or your wandering girl is at the
end of the earth, Christ can reach them and save them! "Have faith in
God." "Even now" Christ can aid you–
"Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to God alone,
Laughs at impossibilities,
And says, 'It shall be done.'"
I know there are some Christian people who have drifted into the
terribly wicked state of giving up their relatives as hopeless. There
was a Brother here, who is now in Heaven–a good, earnest Christian
man–whose son had treated him very shockingly, indeed, and the father,
justly indignant, felt it right to give his son up. He had often tried
to help him,
but the young man was so scandalous a scapegrace that I did not wonder
that the old man turned him away. But one night, as I was preaching
here, I spoke in something like the same way in which I have spoken
now, and the next morning the old man's arm was about his child's neck.
He could not help himself! He felt he must go and find his son out and
seek, again, to reclaim him. It seemed to have been the appointed time
for that boy's salvation, for it pleased God that within a few months
that son died and he passed away with a good hope, through Grace, that
he had been brought to his Savior's feet by his father's love! If any
of you have a very bad son, go after him, seeking, until, by the Grace
of God, you shall find him! And you that have grown hopeless about your
relatives, you must try not to give them up. If other people cast them
off, you must not, for they are allied to you by the ties of blood.
Seek them out! You are the best person in the world to seek them and
the most likely to find them, if you can believe that even now, when
the worst has come to the worst, "even now," almighty Grace can step in
and save the lost soul.
Oh, that some here may have faith to claim, at this moment, the
salvation of their friends! May desire be worked into expectancy and
hope become certainty! Like Jacob at Jabbok, may we lay hold of God,
saying, "I will not let You go, except You bless me." To such faith the
Lord will give a quick response. He that will not be denied shall not
be denied! My Friend, Hudson Taylor, who has done such a wonderful work
for China, is an instance of this. Brought up in a godly home, he, as a
young man, tried to imitate the lives of his parents. But failing in
his own strength to make himself better, he swung to the other extreme
and began to entertain skeptical notions. One day, when his mother was
from home, a great yearning after her boy possessed her and she went up
to her room to plead with God that, "even now," He would save Him.
If I remember aright, she said that she would not leave the room until
she had the assurance that her boy would be brought to Christ. At
length her faith triumphed and she rose quite certain that all was well
and that, "even now," her son was saved! What was he doing at that
time? Having half an hour to spare, he wandered into his father's
library and aimlessly took down one book after another to find some
short and interesting passage to divert his mind. He could not find
what he wanted in any of the books, so, seeing a narrative tract, he
took it up with the intention of reading the story and putting it down
where the sermon part of it began. As he read, he came to the words,
"the finished work of Christ," and almost at the very moment in which
his mother, who was miles away, claimed his soul of God, light came
into his heart! He saw that it was by the finished work of Christ that
he was to be saved. And kneeling in his father's library, he sought and
found the life of God.
Some days afterwards, when his mother returned, he said to her, "I have
some news to tell you." "Oh, I know what it is!" she answered, smiling,
"You have given yourself to God." "Who told you?" he asked in
astonishment! "God told me," she said, and together they praised Him,
who, at the same moment, gave faith to the mother and the life to the
son–and who has since made him such a blessing to the world! It was
the mother's faith, claiming the blessing, "even now," that did it! I
tell you this remarkable incident that many others may be stirred up to
the same immediate and importunate desire for the salvation of their
children and relatives. There are some things we must always pray for
with submission as to whether it is the will of God to bestow them upon
us–but for the salvation of men and women we may ask without fear. God
delights to save and to bless; and when the faith is given to us to
expect an immediate answer to such a prayer, thrice happy we are! Seek
such faith even now, I beseech you, "even now."
II. But, in the second place, I want to speak very earnestly to any
here who are concerned about their own souls. Jesus came to save you
"even now." CAN WE BELIEVE THIS FOR OURSELVES? Can you expect the Lord,
even while you hear these words, to speak to you the Word of Power and
bring you forth from your sleep of sin?
For some of you, the time is late, very late–yet it is not too late.
You are getting into years, my Friend. I want you to believe that even
now Christ can save you. I often notice the number of old people who
come to the Tabernacle. I am glad to see the aged saints, but among so
many elderly people, no doubt, there are some unsaved sinners whose
gray hairs are not a crown of glory, but a fool's cap! But, however old
you are, though you are 60, seventy, 80 or even 90 years of age, yet,
"even now," Christ can give you life! Blessed be God for that! But it
is not altogether the years that trouble you–it is your sins. As I
have already said, if you have gone to the very extremity of sin, you
may believe that, after all those years of wandering, the arms of Free
Grace are still open to receive you–"even now." There is an old
proverb, "It is never too late to mend." It is always too late for us
to mend ourselves, but it is never too late for Christ to mend us!
Christ
can make us new and it is never too late for Him to do it. If you come
to Him and trust Him, He will receive you, "even now!"
By the long-suffering of God, there is a time left to you in which you
may turn to Him. What a thousand mercies it is that, "even now," is a
time of mercy to you–it might have been the moment of your everlasting
doom! You have been in accidents–you have been within an inch of the
grave many times! You have been ill, seriously ill. You have been
well-near given up for dead and here you are, still alive, but still an
enemy of God! Plucked by His hand from the fire and flood and, perhaps,
from battle. Delivered from fever and cholera–and still ungrateful,
still rebelling, still spending the life that Grace has lent you in
resisting the love of God! Long years ago you should have believed in
Christ, but the text is, "even now." Do not begin to say, "I believe
that God could have saved me years ago"–there is no faith in that. Do
not meet my earnest plea by saying, "I believe that God can save me
under such-and-such conditions." Believe that He can save you now, up
in the top gallery there, just as you are! You came in here careless
and thoughtless, yet, even now, He can save you! Away yonder, quite a
man of the world, free and easy, destitute of all religious
inclinations though you may be, He can save you even now! O God, strike
many a man down, as You did Saul of Tarsus, and change their hearts by
Your own supreme love, as You can do it, even now, on the very spot
where they sit or stand!
But though God waits to be gracious to you, though you have yet time to
repent, remember, it is but a time, therefore seize it. Your
opportunity will not last forever. I believe that even now God can
save, but if you reject Christ, there will come a time when salvation
will be impossible. On earth, as long as a man desires to be saved, he
may be saved–while there is life there is hope. I believe that if a
man's breath were going from his body, if he could then look to Christ,
he would live. But–
"There are no acts of pardon passed In the cold grave, to which we
haste! But darkness, death, and long despair, Reign in eternal silence
there!"
Do not venture on that last leap without Christ, but even now, before
the clock strikes another time, fly to Jesus! Trust Him "even now!"
It is a time of hope. Even now there is still every opportunity and
every preparation for the sinner's salvation. "Behold, now is the
accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Shall I give you
some reasons for believing that "even now" is a time of hope? There are
many good arguments which may be brought forward in order to banish the
thought of despair.
First, the Gospel is still preached. The old-fashioned Gospel is not
dead. There are a great many who would like to muzzle the mouths of
God's ministers, but they never will. The old Gospel will live when
they are dead and, because it is still preached to you, you may believe
and live! What is the old Gospel? It is seeing that you are helpless to
save yourself, or bring yourself back to God, Christ came to restore
you–that He took those sins of yours, which were enough to sink you to
Hell–and bore them on the Cross, that He might bring you to Heaven! If
you will but trust Him, even now, He will deliver you from the curse of
the Law of God, for it is written, "He that believes on Him is not
condemned." If you will trust Him, even now, He will give you a life of
blessedness which will never end, for, again, it is written, "He that
believes on the Son has everlasting life." Because that Gospel is
preached, there is hope for you! When there is no hope, there will be
no presentation of the Gospel. God must, by an edict, suspend the
preaching of the Gospel before He can suspend the fulfillment of the
Gospel promise to every soul that believes! Since there is a Gospel,
take it! Take it now, even now! God help you to do so!
In the second place, I know there is hope now, "even now," for the
Christ still lives. He rose from the dead, no more to die, and He is as
strong as ever. "I am He that lives and was dead." He says, "and
behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen." These words were spoken to the
Apostle John and when he saw Him, he said that, "His head and His hairs
were white like wool, as white as snow." But when the spouse saw Him,
she said, "His locks are busy, and black as a raven." Yet both truly
saw! John's vision of the white hair was to show that Christ is the
Ancient of Days, but the view of the spouse was to show His everlasting
youth, His unceasing strength and power to save! If there is any
difference in Him, Christ is, today, more mighty to save than He was
when Martha saw Him. He had not, then, completed the work of salvation,
but He has perfectly accomplished it now and, therefore, there is hope
for everyone who trusts in Him. My Lord has gone up yonder where a
prayer will find Him with the keys of death and Hell jingling at His
belt, and with the Omnipo-
tence of God in His right hand! If you believe on Him, by His "eternal
power and Godhead" He will save you, and save you even now, on the
spot, before you leave this house!
Moreover, I know that this is a time of hope, in the next place,
because the precious blood still has power. All salvation is through
the blood of the Lamb. Still–
"There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins,"
and still, "even now"–
"Sinners, plunged beneath the flood, Lose all their guilty stains."
The endless efficacy of the atoning Sacrifice is the reason why you may
come and believe in Jesus, "even now!" If that blood had diminished in
its force, I should not dare to speak as I do. But I can, "even now,"
say with confidence–
"Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till
all the ransomed Church of God Be sa ved to sin no more."
How many have already entered into Glory by the blood of the Lamb! When
a man comes to die, nothing else will do for him but this! Our own
works are a poor staff for us when we pass through the river. All those
who are now in the Land of Light have but one confidence and but one
song–they stand upon the merit of Jesus Christ–and they praise the
Lamb who was slain, by whose blood they have been cleansed and
sanctified! There is no other way of salvation but that! "Even now"
that blood has virtue to take away your sin! Christ is a sufficient
Savior because His death has unexhausted power. Believe that He can
save you "even now."
Again, I would remind you that "even now" is a time of hope to you
because the Spirit still can renew. He is yet at work, regenerating and
sanctifying. He came down at Pentecost to dwell with His people and has
never gone back. He is still in the Church! Sometimes we feel His
mighty power more than at other times, but He is always at work. Oh,
you that do not know anything about the power of the Holy Spirit, let
me tell you that this is the most wonderful phenomenon that can ever be
observed! Those of us who have seen and known His mighty energy can
bear testimony to it! In my retirement, at Mentone, during the last few
weeks, if you had seen me, you would have found me sitting every
morning, at half-past nine o'clock, at my little table, with my Bible,
just reading a chapter and offering prayer–my family prayer with the
little group of 40 to 50 friends, who gathered for that morning act of
worship. There they met–and the Spirit of God was manifestly moving
among them, converting, cheering, comforting! It was because of no
effort of mine–it was simply the Word of God, attended by the Spirit
of God, binding us together and binding us all to Christ!
And here, in this House of God, for 37 years I have, in all simplicity,
preached this old-fashioned Gospel. I have just kept to that one
theme–content to know nothing else among men–and where are they that
preached new gospels? They have been like the mist upon the mountain's
brow! They came and they have gone. And so it will always be with those
who preach anything but the Word of God, for nothing will abide but the
Mountain, itself, the everlasting Truth of the Gospel to which the Holy
Spirit bears witness! That same Holy Spirit is able to give you a new
heart "even now," to make you a new creature in Christ Jesus at this
moment! Do you believe this?
Once more. I know that "even now" Christ can save you and I pray you to
believe it, for the Father is still waiting to receive returning
prodigals. Still, as of old, the door is open and the best robe hangs
in the hall, ready to be put upon the shoulders of the son who comes
back from the far country, even though he returns reeking with the odor
of the swine trough. How longingly the Father looks along the road to
see whether, at last, some of you are turning homeward! Ah, did you but
know the joy that awaits those who come, and the feast which would load
the welcoming table, you would "even now" say, "I will arise and go to
my Father." You should have returned long ago, but, blessed be His
love, which "even now" waits to clasp you to His heart!
Last of all, faith is but the work of a moment. Believe and live! You
have nothing to do! You need no preparations! Come as you are, without
a single plea, but that He bids you to come! Come now, "even now!" If
Christ were far away, the time that is left to some of you might be too
short to reach Him. If there were many things which first of all you
had to do, your life might close before they were half done! If faith
had to grow strong before it received salvation, you might be in the
place of eternal despair before your faith had time to be more than a
mere mustard seed! But Christ is not far
away–He is in our midst–He is by your side! You have nothing to do
before you trust Him–He has done it all and, however weak your faith,
if it but comes in contact with Christ, it will convey instant
blessings to you! "Even now" you may be saved forever, for–
"The moment a sinner believes, And trusts in His crucified God, His
pardon at one He receives, Redemption in full, through His blood."
Surely all these are sufficient reasons why, "even now," is a time of
hope to you! May it also be a time of blessing! It shall be so if you
will but, at this instant, cast yourself on Christ. He says to you that
if you will but believe, you shall see the Glory of God! Martha saw
that Glory! You shall see it, too, if you have the same precious faith.
I long that God would give me some souls tonight, on this first
occasion when I have met an evening congregation since my return from
the sunny South. I desire earnestly that He would set the bells of
Heaven ringing because sinners have returned and heirs of Glory have
been born into the family of Grace! I stirred you up to pray this
morning. Pray mightily that this word, tonight, simple but pointed, may
be blessed to many!
Portion of Scripture Read before Sermon–John 11.