Fallen Angels a Lesson To Fallen Men
(No. 1820)
Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the [5]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
"God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and
delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment."
2 Peter 2:4.
THESE ARE ANCIENT THINGS." Most men hunger after the latest news; let
us on this occasion go back upon the earliest records, and think of the
hoar past, before man was made. It does us good to look back upon the
past of God's dealings with his creatures; herein lies the value of
history. We should not confine our attention to God's dealings with
men, but we should observe how he acts towards another order of
beingshow he dealt with angels before man had become the second
sinner. If angels transgress, what is his conduct towards them? This
study will enlarge our minds, and show us great principles in their
wider sweep. We shall inevitably make mistakes in our judgment as to
God's conduct towards men if we do not remember sufficiently how he has
dealt with beings who are in certain respects much superior to the
human race. By seeing how God treated the rebellions angels, light may
be cast upon his dealings with us, and thereby misapprehensions may be
removed.
We shall go to our subject at once, asking aid from the Spirit of all
grace. We will first view the mysterious fact of the fall of the
angels, and their casting away, for our warning. Then, secondly, we
shall regard the fact of the hopeless doom of the angels that sinned as
it stands in contrast to the amazing mercy of the Lord towards men.
Thus our second head will lead us to view the text for our admiration:
I hope for the increase of our grateful love and reverent wonder.
I. First, then, let us consider our text FOR OUR WARNING. "God spared
not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell." Behold here a
wonder of wickedness, angels sin; a wonder of justice, God spared them
not; a wonder of punishment, he cast them down to hell; a wonder of
future vengeance, for they are reserved unto judgment! Here are deep
themes, and terrible. Black as tempest are the facts, and flashes of
terrible lightning flame forth therefrom.
Let us receive a warning, first, against the deceivableness of sin, for
whoever we may be, we may never reckon that, on account of our position
or condition, we shall be free from the assaults of sin, or even
certain of not being overcome by it. Notice that these who sinned were
angels in heaven, so that there is no necessary security in the most
holy position. We know that they were in heavenly places, for it was
from that high abode that they were cast down to hell, by the terrible
right hand of the Eternal King. These angels, that kept not their first
estate, but sinned against God, dwelt with their brethren in the courts
of the Most High; they seemed to be, as it were, walled round with fire
to keep out all evil from them. Their communications were only with
perfect spirits like themselves; but yet, as they were undergoing a
probation, they were made capable of choosing evil if they willed so to
do, or of cleaving to good if their hearts were steadfast with their
God. There were none about them to tempt them to evil; they were, on
the contrary, surrounded with every good and holy influence: they saw
God, and abode in his courts, they conversed with seraphim and
cherubim. Their daily engagements were all of a holy order; worship and
service were their duty and delight. Their company was select; there
were no lapsed classes among them to render the moral atmosphere
impure. They were not only in a paradise, but in the central abode of
God himself. Yet evil entered into the breasts of angelseven envy,
ambition, pride, rebellion; and they fell, fell never to rise again,
"High in the bright and happy throng,
Satan, a tall archangel sat;
Amongst the morning stars he sung,
Till sin destroy'd his heavenly state.
"'Twas sin that hurled him from his throne.
Grovelling in fire the rebel lies:
'How art thou sunk in darkness down,
Son of the morning, from the skies!'"
Beloved hearer, this should teach us not to presume upon anything
connected with our position here below. You may be the child of godly
parents who watch over you with sedulous care, and yet you may grow up
to be a man of Belial. You may never enter a haunt of iniquity, your
journeys may be only to and from the house of God, and yet you may be a
bond-slave of iniquity. The house in which you live may be none other
than the house of God and the very gate of heaven through your father's
prayers, and yet you may yourself live to blaspheme. Your reading may
be bound up with the Bible; your companions may be of the choicest;
your talk may concern holy things; you may be as if you were in the
garden of the Lord, shut in to everything that is good, and every evil
shut out from you; and yet you may have no part nor lot with the people
of God. As there were a Ham and an ungodly Canaan even in Noah's Ark,
so may it turn out that you may be such in the very midst of all that
should make you gracious and sanctified. It is unhappy indeed to read
the annals of human life, and to meet with men that have gone from
their mother's sidehave gone from where their father knelt in
prayerhave gone out from brothers and sisters whose piety was not only
unquestionable, but even remarkable,and they have gone to be leaders
in every form of wickedness. Many of the enemies of the cross of Christ
have been so trained in godliness that we find it hard to believe that
they can indeed be so vile; an apostle must declare it with tears ere
he is believed. The sons of God they seemed to be, but they turned out
to be sons of perdition after all. Let no man, therefore, arise and
shake himself, as though no sins could ever bind him, because he feels
himself to be a very Samson through his connections and surroundings.
Yes, sir, it may be that you shall fallfall foully, fall desperately,
unless the grace of God be in youfall so as never to come to God, and
Christ, and find eternal life. It was so with these angels. The best
natural thing that creation can work is not sufficient to preserve the
fickle creature from sin: regeneration must come inthe work of the
Holy Ghost, a yet higher work than the material creating power of God,
or else you may put the creature where you please, and that creature
may be perfect, and yet sin will reach and destroy him. You and I are
far from perfect. We are not angels unfallen: we are not angels at all;
but we have evil hearts within us; therefore let us not imagine for a
moment that the most select position can screen us from the worst of
sin.
The next thought is that the greatest possible ability, apparently
consecrated, is still nothing to rely upon as a reason why we should
not yet fall so low as to prostitute it all to the service of the worst
of evils. Angels are beings of remarkable power. We know that they have
amazing intelligence and beauty. We read of one whose face was like
that of an angel of God. When a thing is spoken of as being exceedingly
good, it is often connected with angels: "men did eat angels' food." It
is supposed that everything with regard to them is of superior order
and of refined quality. I suppose that a spirit that is not cumbered
with flesh and blood, as we are, must be delivered from much that
hampers and beclouds. Oftentimes a clear judgment is dimmed by a
headache, or an attack of indigestion. Anything that affects the body
drags down the mind; but these angelic beings are delivered from such
weakness, and they are clothed with a glory of strength, and beauty,
and power.
Hear then and observe! However great Lucifer was, he degenerated into
Satan: the Son of the Morning became Apollyon the Destroyer. However
excellent the fallen angels may once have been, they have now become
potent only for mischief; their wisdom has curdled into cunning, and
their strength has soured into a vicious force; so that no man may say
within himself, "I am a clear thinker, therefore I shall never become a
blaspheming infidel;" or, "I am gifted in prayer, therefore I shall
never become a blasphemer." You know not what you may become. There is
a great difference between gift in prayer and grace in prayer: gift
will breed pride, and pride will ensure destruction; it is only grace
that can preserve unto eternal glory. There is also a great difference
between office and person; therefore, a man may not say, "I am a
minister: I shall be kept faithful in the church of God." Ah me! But we
have seen leaders turn aside, and we need not marvel; for if angels
fall, what man may think that he can stand? To trust our office as a
security is to rest upon a broken reed. The grace of God can keep the
least and weakest of us; but apart from that heavenly power how dare
any man hope to be preserved to the end? Self-confidence is the
beginning of declension. He that reckons that he is past temptation, is
already entangled in its net. We must never presume. Angels fell: why
should not men? An angel occupies a high position near the throne of
God: "Are they not all ministering spirits?" We have evidence in
Scripture that they are called on grand occasions to discharge high
commissions for the King of kings. And yet these courtiers, these
household messengers of the palace of heaven, these domestics of glory,
even these went astray, and fell, and turned to devils. Let no man
dream that because he occupies an office in the church his salvation is
therefore secure: an apostle fell. The arrows of the prince of darkness
can reach the highest seats of the synagogue. The high places of the
field of service are not free from danger; nay, they are the more
perilous as they are the more notable. The powers of darkness make
their direst onset upon the foremost soldiers of the cross, hoping to
overthrow the standard-bearers, and create confusion throughout the
camp.
Neither, dear friendsto continue my warningmust any of us suppose
that we shall be kept by the mere fact that we are engaged in the
sublimest possible office. Apart from the perpetual miracle of God's
grace, nothing can keep us from declension, apostacy, and spiritual
death. "Oh, but I spend my time," one may say"I spend my time wholly
in the service of God! I go from door to door seeking the lost souls of
men, as a city missionary"; or "I conduct a large class in the school,
and I have brought many to the Savior." All this is good; but if thou
trustest in it for thy standing before God it will certainly fail thee.
If any one of us were to say, "But I am a minister, called to offer
prayer, and to preach the precious word: my engagements are so
sanctified, they bring me into such hallowed fellowship with holy
things, that it is not possible that I should fall,"this would be the
height of folly. We need not go beyond the pale of professed ministers
of Christ to find specimens of every infamy of which man is capable.
After having preached to others there is grave cause for trembling lest
we be castaways ourselves. No, there is nothing in the most sacred
office in the church to preserve us or our characters. Office, if we
trust in it, may even become, as in the case of Judas, a Tarpeian rock,
from which we may be cast down to our destruction; for the angelic
office in heaven did not keep the angels from being hurled over the
battlements of glory when once they dared to sin. Let not the angels of
the churches hope to be kept from falling unless he that beareth the
seven stars in his right hand shall keep them even to the end.
I want you to notice, as a great warning, that this sin of the angels
was not prevented! even by the fullest happiness. Oh, what a change,
dear friends, from the joy they once knew, when they were the servants
of God, to being cast down to hell in chains of darkness, as they now
are! The devils go about the world tempting men, but they are never
released from their darkness. They cannot escape from the prison which
they make for themselvesthe blackness and horror of God's judgment
which always shuts them in, be they where they may. What a difference
between that and the throne of God, and the vision thereof, which was
once their joy! The service of God was once theirs, but now the slavery
of evil holds them in iron bonds. Once they took delight in the high
praises of their Creator, and now they curse him in their heart of
hearts. Once, on high days, when the servants of God came together,
they sang for joy as they beheld new worlds created by their great Lord
and King; now, everything he does is as gall and wormwood to them. They
curse him and themselves, and they are busily occupied always in
seeking to pull down his kingdom, and to quench his light among the
sons of men. Oh, the misery of these old offenders! They once were
supremely happybut this happiness of theirs did not suffice to
preserve their fidelity. The most golden wages will not keep a servant
loyal to the kindest of masters. The most blessed experience will not
preserve a soul from sinning. You may come here and be greatly blessed
under a sermon, and sweetly sing, and pray with intense fervor, and
seem carried up to the gates of heaven by itbut do remember that no
feelings of joy or happiness can be relied upon as sufficient holdfasts
to keep us near the Lord. We have seen men drink of the cup of the Lord
till they appeared to be full of love to him; and yet they have gone
back to be drunken with the cup of devils. We have known men preach the
gospel, and yet afterwards blaspheme every truth of revelation, and
deny the inspiration of the Book of God. We have known them appear to
be among the holiest and the best, and yet they have come at last to be
common frequenters of the most evil haunts of the city, and to be
ringleaders in folly. Is not this a dreadful thing, and should it not
be a warning to every one of us? "Let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall." There is one who is able to keep us from
falling, and to present us faultless before his presence with exceeding
great joy; but if we do not trust in him, and abide in him, we shall
perish. If we dare to confide in our position, our ability, our office,
our service, or our experience, we shall, sooner or later, discover
that we are prone to sin, and that when we sin God will not spare us
any more than he spared the angels that sinned.
This warning, be it noted, applies itself to the very foulest of sin.
The angels did not merely sin and lose heaven, but they passed beyond
all other beings in sin, and made themselves fit denizens for hell.
When Christ was describing the most wicked of men, he said that he was
a devil. "One of you is a devil," was his expression; for the devil is
the wickedest form of existence. Now, is it not singular that after
being in heaven it remained possible for an angel to become so dreadful
a being as a devil in hell now is? If any of us come very near to the
kingdom, and yet the life of God is not in us; if we are joined with
the church of God, and perform holy duties, and yet we depend upon
ourselves, and so fall into sin, we may fall into the foulest of sins.
I do not think that Judas could have been what he was if he had not
been an apostle. The best of that which looks like goodness must be
used as the raw material with which to make a traitor who will sell his
Master. The devils have gone into open war with God: the same beings
that once bowed before his awful majesty are now openly and defiantly
at war with the God that made them. They once could sing their chorales
with delight, and day without night circle the throne of God
rejoicingly, but now they blaspheme, and rage, and rave against all
that is good in earth or heaven. They go about like roaring lions
seeking whom they may devour,even they who once would have been
ministering spirits, eager to save and bless. They were once loyal
subjects, but now they are traitors, rebels, seducers. They try to lead
the people of God astray; they do their utmost to stir up sin in every
human bosom. So bad have they become that their leader actually met the
Son of God himself, and tempted him to fall down and worship him. Was
ever such infamous, such infernal impudence as for the devil himself to
ask the eternal Son of God to do him homage? O base proposal, that the
purity of the Most High should bow itself before the impiety of a
fallen spirit! Yet, so far have devils proceeded that in them evil has
reached its ripeness and maturity. Let this be a lesson to us. I must
not for a moment think that apart from the keeping of God's Spirit I am
incapable even of the foulest sin. Recall the story of Hazael. When the
prophet told him what he would do, he exclaimed in amazement, "Is thy
servant a dog that he should do this thing?" He was not only dog enough
to seek the Syrian throne, but he was devil enough to suffocate his
master with a wet cloth, and then to carry out with eagerness all those
terrible deeds of barbarity which the prophet had foretold. We may yet
do horrible deeds which we think ourselves incapable of doing. How much
of devil there lies within the unregenerate heart no man can tell. O my
unrenewed hearer, I would not slander thee, but I must warn thee: there
are all the makings of a hell within thy heart! It only needs that the
restraining hand of God should be removed, and thou wouldst come out in
thy true colors, and those are the colors of iniquity. If it were not
for the restraints of society and providence, there would be eruptions
of evil, even in the most moral, sufficient to shake society to its
foundations. An officer in India had tamed a leopard. From the time
when it was quite a kitten he had brought it up, till it went about the
house like a cat, and everybody played with it; but he was sitting in
his chair one day asleep, and the leopard licked his handlicked it in
all innocence; but as he licked, the skin was broken, and the taste of
blood came to the leopard, and from that moment it was not content to
dwell with men. It rushed forth to kill, and was no more at ease till
it reached the jungle. That leopard, though tamed, was a leopard still.
So a man, sobered by moral motives, but unchanged in heart, is a fallen
man still, and the taste of blood, I mean the taste of sin, will soon
reveal the tiger in him. Wash a Russian, and you find a Tartar; tempt a
moralist, and you discover a sinner! The thin crust of goodness, which
is formed by education, soon disappears under temptation. You may be
everything that looks like good, but except you have been born again
you are still capable of the direst evil. It does seem a horrible thing
to me that there should stream from a man's lips the foulest blasphemy,
and yet he that utters it was once accustomed to sing in the house of
God, and bow his knee with the saints. O God, that ever a creature
bidding fair to serve his Maker, should sink to such a depth! Yet such
horrors abound! The vessel which adorned the lordly festival is broken
and thrown on the dunghill, and even so the excellent and honorable are
defiled and cast away. I know what some are whispering, "I never should
become an open reprobate I" How know you that? You already question the
warnings of Scripture, you may go further before long. He that is the
most sure is the most insecure; but he that cries, "Hold thou me up,"
shall be made to stand. Be this our confession, "O Lord, I know that I
shall become utterly vile except thy sovereign grace prevent! "In
humility let us cast ourselves upon the mighty grace of God, and we
shall be kept. In fervent earnestness let us cry to the strong for
strength, and we shall not be overcome of evil. He that presumes shall
fall; he that confides shall stand.
The text may lead us a little farther before we leave it, by giving us
a warning against the punishment of sin as well as against the sin
itself. Read this,"God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast
them down to hell." They were very great; they were very powerful; but
God did not spare them for that. If sinners are kings, princes,
magistrates, millionaires, God will cast them into hell. If they were
commanders of all the forces of the world, he that is a just and
righteous judge would not spare them because of their dignities and
powers. "God spared not the angels," why should he spare you, ye great
ones of the earth? They were very numerous, too. I do not know how many
there were, but we read of legions of devils on one occasion. But God
did not spare angelic sinners because there were so many of them: he
made room in hell for them all; and set them in darkness and in bonds,
every one of them. God will not spare sinful men because of their
millions: "the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations
that forget God." Be they few or many, sinners must be punished, and
God will not turn away his wrath from those who do iniquity. God did
not spare the rebel angels because of their unity. I never heard of
devils quarrelling: it is very wonderful in Scripture to notice their
unanimitytheir concord with one another; but "though hand join in
hand, yet shall not the wicked go unpunished." You unbelievers may
combine together to hate and oppose the gospel, but it matters not, God
will deal with your confederacies and break up your unities, and make
you companions in hell even as you have been comrades in sin. "God
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell."
Neither did he spare them because of their craft. There were never such
subtle creatures as these areso wise, so deep, so crafty; but these
serpents and all the brood of them had to feel the power of God's
vengeance, notwithstanding their cunning. Men often escape at the bar
of their country because of their long-headed ways of evading the law;
they keep within legal bounds, and yet are great villains; or if they
go over the line they hire a clever tongue to plead for them, be they
as guilty as they may, and through crafty pleading they escape from a
righteous sentence. Thus is it with men, but no counsellors can pervert
judgment with the Most High. He will deal out justice even to a hair's
breadth, and he will by no means spare the guilty. "God spared not the
angels that sinned:" why should he spare any guilty son of Adam? Be
sure that he will not spare any one of us, if we live in sin. Unless we
accept the way of salvation by Jesus Christ our sin will find us out,
and God will find our sin out, and he will cast us also down to the
place prepared for the devil and his angels. Let the flatterers of
to-day preach what they may, the Lord will punish men who live and die
in their sins. He spared not the angels that sinned; certainly he will
not spare men if they sin. Let this stand as a warning to us.
II. But now I want to carry you on and ask all your attention to this
second point for OUR ADMIRATION.
I want you to admire, dear friends, the fact that though angels fell
the saints of God are made to stand. The angels sinned fatally; but the
saints of God "cannot sin, for they are born of God." You know the
sense in which the apostle means that; not that we do not all sin, but
that we do not so sin as to depart from the living God, give up our
allegiance to him, and cease to be his loving children. No. "He keepeth
himself," says the Scripture, "and that wicked one toucheth him not."
But what a wonder it is! I tell you, when the tales of God's people
shall be written, and the records of the saints shall be read by the
light of glory, we shall be miracles of grace to ourselves and to one
another. "Oh," we shall say, "I had almost gone, but the hand of grace
interposed, and snatched me from slipping over the awful precipice. My
mind almost consented to that sin, and yet I was able to cry out, 'How
can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?' There was great
stress of weather, and my poor barque was almost on the rocks; but
still, though I grazed the bottom, yet I did not make shipwreck." "Oh,
if I had been left at that moment," one will say, "what would have
become of me? Though I had tasted of the heavenly gift, and the powers
of the world to come, yet, had I been left to myself at that hour, I
should have so fallen that I could never again have been brought to
repentance. But I was kept; preserved by as great a miracle as if a
spark should fall into the sea and yet burn on, or a straw should be
blown into a heated furnace and should not be consumed, or a moth
should be trodden on by a giant and yet remain uncrushed.
"Kept alive with death so near,
I to God the glory give."
To think that men should stand where angels fall! We are by sovereign
grace called to be as near to God as the angels ever were, and in some
respects we are nearer still. We are the body-guard of Christ, his
chosen ones with whom he communes. We are the table companions of our
Lordwe eat of his bread, and drink of his cup, and are made partakers
with him. We are lifted up to be one with him, and are made to be
"members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones;" yet God's eternal
unbounded power keeps us in the day of temptation, and leads us so that
if we go through the rivers we are not drowned, and when we pass
through the fires we are not burned. O, the splendor of triumphant
grace! Neither the glory of our calling, nor the unworthiness of our
original, shall cause us to be traitors; we shall neither perish
through pride nor lust; but the new nature within us shall overcome all
sin, and abide faithful to the end.
"Now, unto him that is able to keep us from falling, unto him be honor
and glory, and dominion and power for ever and ever." I cannot look
back on my past life without feeling the tears rush into my eyes at the
remembrance of how I have been preserved in the trial-hour. We could
not possibly tell, nor would we wish to tell in public, of those hours
of weakness, those times of strong delusion, those moments of
foot-slipping and of heart-fainting, which have happened to us. We
grieve as we remember our worse than childish weaknesses. And yet we
have not stained our garments; we have not dishonored the holy name by
which we are named; we have not been suffered to turn aside from the
straightness of our path so as to bring grief to the Holy Ghost and
dishonor to the Church of God. Verily this is a wonder. Mr. Bunyan
tells us that Christian by the light of day looked back on the Valley
of the Shadow of Death which he had passed through in the nighttime,
and saw what a narrow path he had kept, and what a quay there was on
one side, and what a miry place on the other, and where the hobgoblins
were, and all the fiends of hell. When he looked back on it he was lost
in admiration and gratitude. So it must be, and will be with you if
through a dangerous way you have yet held on in your plain course, and
have not turned from your integrity. We shall be brim full of gratitude
and love. Grace shall reign unto eternal life. Redeemed men shall stand
where angels fall, for God shall keep them. He is able to hold them up,
and he will do it even to the end.
Now, let us learn another lesson full of admiration, and that is that
God should deal in grace with men and not with angels.
"From heaven the sinning angels fell,
And wrath and darkness chained them down;
But man, vile man, forsook his bliss,
And mercy lifts him to a crown.
"Amazing work of sovereign grace
That could distinguish rebels so!
Our guilty treasons called aloud
For everlasting fetters too."
Now, you that do not believe in the doctrine of election, but kick at
it, and bite your lips at the mention of it, listen to this! God gave
fallen angels no Savior, no gospel, no space for repentance, yet he
gives these to men: why is this? What reason was there? Can you
conceive one? Why did God pass the fallen angels by, and yet look in
love upon the sons of men? "Oh," says one, "perhaps fallen angels were
the greater offenders of the two." I do not think it; certainly many
men go far to rival devils in rebellion.
"Perhaps men were tempted and angels were not." Stop, let us be clear
on this point. Very likely Satan, the first angel that fell, was not
tempted; but just as likely all the others were. Their leader tempted
them as much as Eve tempted Adam, or the serpent tempted Eve. The mass
of fallen angelhood may have been seduced by the example of Satan, the
Prince of devils. I do not therefore see any great difference as to
that matter. This I do know, that some men are greater sinners than
devils. "No," say you, "how is that?" I answer that the devil never yet
rejected free grace and dying love; the devil never yet struggled
against the Holy Spirit in his own conscience; the devil never yet
refused the mercy of God. These supreme pinnacles of wickedness are
only reached by you who are hearers of the gospel, and yet cast its
precious message behind your backs. Singular it is that God should deal
in mercy with men who act so wickedly, while yet he never discoursed of
mercy to the fallen angels, nor set before them terms of peace. They
were given over there and then to be bound in chains of darkness until
the judgment of the last great day.
Notice that God gave the angels no respite. He did not wait for them to
continue in sin for years; but when they sinned, they fell. The
punishment followed hard on the crime. They cast God out of their
hearts, and he cast them out of heaven. How different is his conduct to
some of you! You have sinned through a series of years. How old are
you? Twenty years? Thirty? Forty? Fifty? Sixty? Seventy? Is it eighty
years that you have lived in rebellion against God? And yet he has not
cut you down! Wonderful patience! The angels he banished from his
presence at once. He spared not the angels, but he has spared you. Why
is this?
The Lord never entered into any parley with the angelsnever invited
them to repentance or to mercy. Oh, but what parleys God has had with
some of you! I am not the only one who has entreated and persuaded you,
but yet with some of you I have pleaded very earnestly that you would
turn from the error of your ways and livethat you would believe in
Christ and find eternal life. But why should the Lord treat concerning
peace with men and not with fallen angels?
For the angels God never made a covenant of grace, "ordered in all
things and sure." They broke their covenant of works, and they fell
never to rise again. For the angels there was never a sacrifice: no
dying Son of God for them: no bloody sweat and wounded hands and feet
for them! And yet a great atonement is prepared for men. What
sovereignty of God's grace is here displayed! He opens the golden gates
of love for us, and shuts the iron gate on beings nobler than we are.
The Spirit of God strives with us, but he never strives with fallen
angels. Devils are left to themselves; but concerning man the Lord
cries "how can I give thee up?" How justly might God have left us
alone, for we have been given unto idols, and yet he follows us with
the admonitions of his mercy.
For the devils there is no pardon, no hope, no gate of heaven; and yet
there is all this for men. Oh, dear hearers, do not, I pray you, reject
these choice gifts of Almighty love. If God is so specially gracious to
the race of men, let not man become singularly ungrateful to his God,
presumptuously wanton in his sin. Let us turn unto the Lord with full
purpose of heart, seeing that he turns to us with such speciality of
favor.
I am sure that it is a great wonder and a thing for admiration that God
should look upon us and not on fallen angels; because, as I have
already said, angels certainly are not worse sinners than some men have
been. Angels are not more wilful than we have been, for we have sinned
against light and knowledge with deliberate intent and purpose.
Angels are certainly more valuable: if God had wanted one of the two
races to be employed as his servants, the best would have been chosen,
and these are not men, but angels. Angels can do more for God than we
can: yet he has chosen us. Angels must, surely, be more missed than
men: their downfall made a great gap in heaven. We go there to fill the
space, and to repair the breach which was made when they were cast down
from glory. But, surely, it were easier to restore the angels who came
from heaven than to take up inferior creatures who had never been
there. If we make a distinction between men in the distribution of our
charity, we very properly say, "Let us do good to those first who would
be the most miserable without it." Now, men have never known heaven,
and consequently cannot so much feel the loss of it as those who have
been there and have fallen from it. We are like people that have always
been poor; but the angels have been in heaven, and are therefore like
wealthy persons who have come down to poverty. What a hell to them to
be out of heaven! What misery to those spirits to miss the eternal
glories which they once enjoyed! One would have thought, therefore,
that God would have restored the angels before he upraised the human
race. But he has not: he has redeemed us, and left the elder race of
rebels unrestored. No man knoweth why, and in our amazement we cry,How
is this? Whence this election of grace?
Tell me, ye who would leave God no choice, but would deify the will of
man, what all this means? Where is your proud theory that God is bound
to treat all alike, as if we had a claim on God? I point you to the
fallen angels, and what can you say?
Sometimes princes, when they mean to give pardon according to their
will, say to themselves, "We will pardon the man who will be most
dangerous if we leave him to be our enemy." Now, bad as men are, and
great enemies of God as they become, yet the devil has more power to
harm God than a man can haveand yet God does not pardon the devil. He
lets Satan go on with all his dreadful power and do his worst in
reviling his Lord; and yet the Lord's mercy comes to us whose powers
are within so narrow a range, compared with the fallen angels; he makes
choice of puny man to receive his grace.
One would think that to restore an angel was more easy and more
agreeable to the plan of the universe than to exalt fallen man. There
is nothing to do but to put an angel back in his place; but men must be
taken into a new existence. Christ himself must come and be a man; and,
to wash away the sin of man, Christ must die; nothing more could have
been needed had devils been saved. I cannot conceive the salvation of
angels to be more difficult than the salvation of men. I rather
conceive it to have been the easier thing of the two if the Lord had so
willed it. And yet, involving as it did the incarnation of the Son of
God and his death to make atonement, the infinitely gracious Father
condescended to ordain that he would take up men, and would not take up
the fallen angels. It is a marvel: it is a mystery. I put it before you
for your admiration. Oh, sirs, do not despise it! Let not such amazing
sovereignty of grace be treated with contempt by any one of us. Talk no
more about the injustice of the election of certain men, for if you do
the devils will bear witness that you are cavilling at the royal
prerogative of the great Lord who saith, "I will have mercy on whom I
will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
compassion."
Now, I think that I see in this a great argument with God's people. Has
the Lord given up angels and chosen you? It reminds me of that famous
text, "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable,
and I have loved thee. Therefore will I give men for thee, and people
for thy life. I gave Egypt for thy ransom; Ethiopia and Seba for thee."
See, he has passed angels by, and he has made choice of us; what a
height of grace! Behold how he loves us! What shall we do in return?
Let us do angels' work. Come, brothers and sisters, let us glow with
such a fire of devotion as might have burned in an auger's heart. Let
us be as intensely zealous as a redeemed angel might have been. Let us
glorify God as angels would have done had they been restored and made
again to taste divine favor and infinite love. What manner of people
ought we to be? What manner of lives ought we to live? What manner of
consecration ought to be upon us? Should not our whole being live unto
God?
I have given you this somewhat in the rough, for time flies; but think
it over, and profit by it. Think it over, you ungodly ones, and not
cast away mercy like this. When you read, "He took not up angels, but
he took up the seed of Abraham," be full of surprise, and fly at once
to Jesus. And, O ye saints, as ye read it, say to yourselves
"For more love than seraphs know
We will like seraphs burn."
God bless you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMONJohn 17.
HYMNS FROM OUR OWN HYMN BOOK261, 668, 869.
TO MY CONGREGATION OF HEARERS AND READERS.
By the great mercy of God I was permitted to leave my house on Tuesday
and commence my journey to the South of France. It seemed impossible
for me to recover while in our trying climate, and so, in great
weakness, I have ventured to make a move. I beg your prayers for my
recovery, and especially for the sanctification of my grievous pains,
so that they may turn out to be for God's glory. Week by week I shall
carefully prepare these Sermons, and I hope they will be attended with
the divine blessing. In them I hope to keep up my communion with
thousands of dear friends, though we are divided by many a league.
Friends at the Tabernacle, I have heard of one enthusiastic friend who
so misses my ministry that he wished he could fall asleep till I
return. That is exactly what I hope you will not do. Be doubly alive.
Seek for a revival of religion: labor for it. Everything passes through
the fire while the Builder is absent; let it be seen that our building
is not wood, hay, and stubble, which will disappear, but precious metal
that will remain to the glory of God. KEEP UP THE PRAYER-MEETINGS.
Sustain every holy work. Live near to God. Continue in concord. Devote
yourselves wholly unto the Lord.
With Christian love to my dear hearers and readers,
I am yours, for I am Christ's, C. H. SPURGEON.
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