Footsteps Of Mercy
A sermon
(No. 905)
Delivered by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"If there is a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a
thousand, to show unto men His uprightness: Then He is gracious unto
him and says, Deliver him from going down to the Pit: I have found a
ransom."- Job 33:23,24.
WHEN God has distinct and definite purposes of mercy towards an
individual, He often begins with stern discipline and brings him low by
affliction and sorrow. As the good farmer cuts down the trees and makes
a clearance of the soil before he sows the grain and prepares for a
harvest, so does our God cut down all our goodly cedars, our pleasures,
and our pride in order that the heart may be afterwards plowed, broken,
harrowed and made ready to receive the good seed of the Word. Elihu
describes this preparatory breaking-up process as being brought about
by sickness. It is often so–I doubt not that a sickbed is one of God's
best orators to the sons of men.
But God is by no means restricted to any uniform method, nor is the
experience of the redeemed precisely similar in its details though,
notwithstanding all its diversities, it leads to one and the same
result. Sometimes a storm at sea has brought men to their senses and
aroused their conscience and so they have cried to the Lord in their
trouble. At other times serious losses in business have brought men
into such distress of mind that they have been driven to seek riches
more enduring than silver and gold–a competence more to be relied on
than the profits of trade or the stability of banks– and comfort more
genuine and lasting than wealth.
Yes, and without either of these the Holy Spirit has not infrequently
been pleased to convince men of their sin and reduce them to utter
self-despondency and abject self-abhorrence. This He has effected in
such a way as neither sickness nor poverty could have done of
themselves. He has brought the man very low, even to the gates of Hell.
In his own apprehension the man has been lost and then it is that Mercy
has commenced her work, her blessed work that shall open to him the
gates of righteousness and bring the soul up to Heaven itself!
I hope there are some here present whom God has been preparing for His
Divine Grace–to such there will be good tidings in the sermon! I shall
not delay you, but proceed at once to deal with the text in the natural
order it suggests, as the welcome facts are marshaled before us. Does
it not tell of a messenger–a message–a gracious disposition–a great
deliverance–and an amazing ransom?
I. When God has thus, in the way of Providence, prepared any human
heart for a work of Divine Grace, one of the first means of blessing
the chosen man is TO SEND HIM A MESSENGER. I suppose the passage before
us may be primarily referred to Christian ministers, who become,
through God the Holy Spirit, interpreters to men's souls. They should
be men of a thousand, well taught. They should have high moral and
spiritual qualifications. In fact, they should be the pick of mankind.
When God sends a faithful Gospel messenger to a man, it is a sign of
great love to that man's soul.
I ask no honor for ministers as men, but this I do ask, that when they
preach to you the Gospel of Jesus Christ they shall be accepted as
God's messengers and that their message, at least, shall be treated
with the respect which God's Word demands. But I prefer to believe,
with many expositors, that the full meaning of these words will never
be found in ministers of mortal race. We must rather refer it to the
Great Messenger of the Covenant, the Great Interpreter between God and
man whose Presence to the sin-sick soul is a sure prophecy of mercy.
Where God the Father sends His beloved Son to a man–where Christ comes
to the man's conscience and talks with him, showing the credentials of
a Savior and constraining the faith of the sinner–there it is that
salvation is obviously intended by the Lord and will be effectually
perfected in that man unto everlasting life.
With this view I proceed, regarding our Lord Jesus Christ as the herald
of mercy. Mark well the titles, a Messenger, an Interpreter, One Among
a Thousand. Is there any other than Jesus to whom they so fitly belong?
Let us contemplate Him as a Messenger. That is just what Jesus Christ
is. Now, a messenger comes not in his own name. He must be sent and
it is a great comfort to know that Jesus Christ did not come to save
men merely on His own account, but He came commissioned by the Father.
He was sent of God. God has appointed Christ to be the Savior. Those
who accept Christ and trust in Him accept the very Person God, Himself,
has ordained. Christ is no amateur Savior, who comes without a
commission. In His hands He bears the royal stamp of the Divine
authority. O trembling Sinner! Trust Him whom God has trusted! Lay hold
of Him whom God has appointed!
Another description that belongs to Him, as I believe, is an
Interpreter. Jesus Christ is, indeed, a blessed Interpreter. An
interpreter must understand two languages. Our Lord Jesus understands
the language of God. Whatever are the great Truths of Divine
intelligence and infinite wisdom–too high and mysterious for us to
comprehend or even to discern, Christ fully understands them all! He
knows how to speak with God as the fellow of God, co-equal and
co-eternal with Him. His prayers are in God's language. He speaks to
God's heart. He can make out the sighs and cries and tears of a poor
sinner and He can take up the meaning and interpret them all to God. He
understands the Divine language and thus He can communicate with God.
Moreover, Jesus understands our language, for He is a Man like
ourselves, touched with a feeling of our infirmities and smarting under
our sicknesses. He can read whatever is in the heart of man, and so He
can tell God the language of man and speak to man in the language of
man what God would say to him. How happy we ought to be that there is
so blessed a Daysman to put His hand upon us both–that He can be equal
with God and yet can be Brother with poor simple men! The best of it is
that our Lord is such an Interpreter that He can not only interpret to
the ear but also to the heart and this is a great point.
I, perhaps, might be enabled to interpret a Scripture to your ears,
but, O Beloved, when you have heard the letter you may miss the
correct, heavenly and spiritual meaning. But our Lord can bring the
Word home to your soul! He can tell you of God's mercy, not in words
only, but with a sweet sense of mercy shed abroad in your heart. He can
make the sinner feel the way of salvation as well as know it. He can
make him rejoice in it as well as listen to it. He can lead him to
accept it as well as to understand it. Oh, blessed Interpreter! You are
mighty with God, so that the heart of God is affected with the woes and
griefs of men! You are mighty with men so that the great love of God,
which is an ocean without a bottom or a shore, is made intelligible to
us! Our poor stony hearts are softened and the adamant is made to run
like wax while the Divine Interpreter talks to our inmost souls!
This Messenger, then, this Interpreter, is He not "One Among a
Thousand"? O peerless Jesus! Who among the sons of the mighty can be
compared with You? Elihu may well be supposed to use a definite number
when an indefinite is intended! What is one of a thousand, or one of
ten thousand, when surely there is never the like of Christ between
Heaven and Hell? All the range of the universe cannot find His
equal–His equal as a Savior, as a Messenger–as an Interpreter! Oh,
but those who know Him will tell you that no words can ever set forth
His worth! Disciples of Jesus who have followed Him and held communion
with Him for the space of 20 years and more will tell you that His
preciousness grows upon them by acquaintance.
Whereas they thought Him sweet at first, they think Him sweetest and
best of all now, the loveliest of all the lovely, the fairest of all
the fair, the chief among 10,000, yes, and the altogether lovely! I
tell you that if there were a thousand Saviors, I would have none but
Christ! If the gods of the heathen and the saints of the papists could
help them. If the ceremonies of our modern papists could save their
souls instead of enslaving them, yet would we repudiate them! We would
have nothing to do with them in whole or in part! We would still cling
to Him who is the one Mediator between God and men, for He is the chief
among 10,000 to our souls.
He is such a Savior that there is no other who can vie with Him. All
rivalry must prove abortive, seeing that other foundation can no man
lay. He is the door of Heaven, all the rest is hard wall and there is
no passing through–a light from God and all other lights are
darkness–very God come down to us in our flesh to save us and where
shall you find the match of this? O cherubim and seraphim, what Savior
could you devise that should emulate the only-begotten Son of God? O
you angels, fairest among the goodly throng that salute Jehovah day and
night with your ceaseless music, whom will you laud and magnify but
Jesus in your jubilant worshipful songs?
As you survey the glorious company of the Apostles, the noble army of
the martyrs and the radiant fellowship of the Church redeemed, will you
chant any other name? Is He not in your esteem the chief among a
thousand, the sole heritor of all blessing and praise? Accept Him,
Sinner! Receive Him joyfully into your spirit for no one will ever woo
you as this
precious One, the chosen of God! Who, save Jesus, then, should be
chosen and precious to your soul? It is a great sign of mercy whenever
Christ comes to any sinner.
But how, you ask, can He come to a sinner? I will tell you. He has come
to you now, to every one of you. Jesus comes in the preaching of the
Gospel. There is never a Gospel sermon preached but it is, in fact,
Jesus coming with open arms of love to receive the sinner. He comes to
you in these Bibles and New Testaments of yours. Every one of those
volumes that lie in your house is a standing token of Christ's mission,
whispering to him that has ears to hear that He is still ready to
receive the sinner. And I trust He comes to some of you now, in the
motions of the Holy Spirit upon your heart, saying to you, "Close in
with Him. Reject Him no longer. Bow down your ear and listen to Him."
Lift up your eyes and look to Him, concerning whom we sang so truly
just now–
"There is life for a look at the Crucified One, There is life at this
moment for you."
This is the first stage.
II. Now, secondly, wherever this Divine messenger comes, according to
the text, HE REVEALS GOD'S UPRIGHTNESS. A lesson, let me assure you, of
deep interest and paramount importance. The occasion on which it is
taught is peculiarly impressive. You remember Elihu has been describing
a man greatly afflicted, chastened with pain, wasted with disease,
reduced to a skeleton and brought near to death. We have shown you that
before the Lord Jesus Christ comes in mercy to deal with a soul, such
tribulation is dealt out by God to break up the fallow ground of the
heart. No marvel that the sufferer is appalled with tokens of judgment.
What message, then, can the Divine messenger bring more suitable or
more refreshing than that which reveals to man the uprightness of God
in having afflicted him? You think, perhaps, that God has been very
hard with you. In your distraction you say, "How long I have been ill!
How long I have been out of work and how long my wife has been
afflicted! How many of my dear children have died? What strokes God has
laid upon me without intermission!" Now shall new views spring up and
comfortable thoughts arise. But who shall bridge the interval? When
Christ comes to you as an Interpreter He will make you discern the
wisdom and the love, and cause you to feel the pity and the tenderness
of Him, who, as a Father rebukes you not in anger but in His dear
Covenant love.
Instead of kicking against the pricks, you will say, "Ah, Lord, it is
of Your mercy I am not consumed! I can see there is a hand of love in
this. God would not let me go on in sin and wander into endless
woe–You are blocking up my road–You are putting massive chains across
the broad way to stop me. You are digging pits in my path that I may
come to a pause and so I will turn back from this." Depend upon it,
there is nothing more dreadful than a life that is happy in the
commission of sin! If you have prosperity and all that your heart can
wish while pursuing an evil course, tremble, for it is likely enough
that God will give you up–you are having your portion in this life! O
you Unconverted! Are any of you tried and troubled, vexed and
disquieted? While I am sorry for your troubles, I hope God has designs
of love towards you. If you look to Christ He will explain to you the
heavenly moral of these earthly trials and show you the uprightness of
God in dealing thus severely with His rebellious child.
Further than this, the Gospel of Christ explains to the sinner the
uprightness of God in the doom of the impenitent, even if He sends him
down to Hell. Oh, a man may find fault with Hell and say, "Will God
consign men to the devouring fire? Will He destroy their souls? Will He
damn men for their offenses?" But if once the Great Interpreter comes
to you, you will wonder not that God should destroy men for sin, but
that He has not destroyed you long ago! Oh, I could have argued with a
bold front against eternal punishment till I knew what sin meant! And
then I gave in at once and I wish that some of my Brothers and Sisters
who seem to speak dubiously about the wrath of God, could feel, as some
of us have felt, the horror of great darkness that sin brings across a
soul when it is made to feel the righteous ire that encompasses it!
There is no quibbling, then! The only cry is, "O my God, deliver me,
for I deserve all Your wrath can bring upon me, and if You should
strike me to destruction You will be justified when You judge and clear
when you condemn." Mark you, it is a blessed thing when Christ brings a
sinner to plead guilty–when he is quite willing to plead guilty and
when, instead of railing at the justice of the sentence, he stands dumb
with silence–feeling that God is upright and would not be upright if
He did not thus condemn. There is hope, there is more than hope! There
is confidence in our heart towards any sinner who is convinced of the
uprightness of God in his present affliction, or in any other that God
may please to send upon him–either in this life or in the life to
come!
Ah, but this is learning to some profit for a man to see the
uprightness of God in everything and then by contrast to bewail his own
ignorance and foolishness! Mercy is surely come to you when you can
think of God's holiness with reverence and upbraid yourself with bitter
reproach for what an unholy creature you halve been. It is a rough
wind, that north wind, but, O my Brothers and Sisters, what a healthy
wind it is! It sweeps away the fevers of our pride and drives away the
mists of our self-righteousness. Self-righteous, indeed! Such wretches
as we are, such offenders against God and Truth as we have been–for us
to talk of goodness when we are altogether vile, for us to boast of
something hopeful in us when the whole head is sick and the whole heart
faint–this is sheer insanity!
When the Blessed Interpreter comes and deals graciously with the
spirit, we confess that God is upright, but as for ourselves we have
gone astray like lost sheep. We have done the things which we ought not
to have done. We have left undone the things which we ought to have
done and there is no health in us. Oh, those visions of God, how
humiliating they are! Job, himself, made confession, "I have heard of
You by the hearing of the ear. But now my eyes see You. Wherefore I
abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." This supplies us with the
second stage in the experience of Divine mercy–Christ is recognized,
the uprightness of God is revealed and understood.
III. The third stage is this–"THEN HE IS GRACIOUS UNTO HIM." God deals
with convinced sinners in a way of Grace. Every word here is weighty.
"Then He is gracious unto him." Mark the time–then! God is gracious to
a man when Christ, having come to him as a Messenger and an
Interpreter. He is led to discern his own sin and God's uprightness.
When he is humble, then God shows Himself to be gracious. No debts are
pronounced forgiven by the Great Master of All till they are
acknowledged and no release from the pains of bankruptcy are granted
until we feel that we have nothing with which to pay.
When a soul pleads total insolvency and is truly penniless, then there
is free forgiveness. When men admit the justice of God if He should
punish them, then, not till then, mercy comes in and the punishment is
put away. It is not consistent with the holiness of God to pardon a
sinner while he denies his guilt, or invents excuses to justify his
crimes. Nor is it reasonable for a sinner to expect remission while he
vaunts his self-righteousness. How shall the hardness of a man's heart
move the compassion of his judge? Come, poor Soul, fall on your knees!
Confess that God is upright and then He will be gracious to you. The
way as well as the time demands your notice. It is through the
Messenger that God is gracious!
Then–that is when the Messenger comes. When Jesus interposes, then God
is gracious. You shall never taste of Divine Grace except out of the
golden cup of Christ's Atonement. It is into that golden cup that God
has poured the infinity of His Grace. Drink of it, Sinner, by simply
trusting in Christ. You cannot drink it in any other way. Narrowly
observe what the text says, "Then He is gracious unto him." All
salvation comes by way of Grace. The word "Grace" as used by us in its
Latin form explains its own meaning. We speak of "Gratis"–a thing free
from cost–like the prescription of a physician if given without fee,
or the medicine supplied at the dispensary without charge.
All God's mercy to a sinner is Gratis. He never sells, He always gives.
He asks no payment. He acts from no motives raised or suggested by
anything in us–but because He will have mercy on whom He will have
mercy and He will have compassion on whom He will have compassion. Dear
Heart, it is a blessing for you when you can see that nothing but
Christ can serve your turn! When you have done with appealing to
justice and all your knocks are at Mercy's door. O Sinner, you cannot
be saved except by Divine Grace in the beginning, Divine Grace in the
middle and Divine Grace in the end! What but Grace can pardon sins such
as yours and mine? What but Grace could take such as we are and make us
God's children? What but Grace could snatch us from Hell and lift us up
to Heaven?
When the man is humbled and Christ is revealed to him, then it is that
God deals graciously with the man and then it is that the man knows he
has found Divine Grace in the eyes of the Lord. And I like the thought
that it does not say God ever leaves off being gracious to that man.
Where we do not read that God ceases, we may believe that He continues!
Does He once deal graciously with a sinner? He will always be gracious
to that sinner! Never will He change. That sinner once blessed, shall
be blessed through life and blessed in death and blessed in eternity
through the sovereign, overflowing, immutable Grace which is in Jesus
Christ our Lord!
Well, we have come a long way. We have found the sinner sick and near
to death. The Interpreter has come. He has shown him the uprightness of
God, and given him an assurance of God's gracious disposition–now the
sinner knows that Christ, alone, can save him.
IV. Let us proceed to the next stage–GOD DELIVERS THE SINNER. He says,
"Deliver him from going down into the Pit." What shall we understand by
this? Does it refer to "the grave," which is dug like a pit? Well, such
an interpretation may harmonize with Elihu's discourse as he describes
the man whose soul draws near to the grave and his life to the
Destroyer. But when delivered from going down into the pit, his flesh
shall be fresher than a child's, he shall return to the days of his
youth. So the Psalmist celebrates the loving kindness of the Lord–"O
Lord, You have brought up my soul from the grave. You have kept me that
I should not go down into the pit."
What more shall we understand by the pit from which the soul is
delivered? The pit is often used in Scripture as the emblem of great
distress and misery. Captives in the East were frequently shut up in
pits all night. So Isaiah says, "They shall be gathered together as
prisoners are gathered in the pit and shall be shut up in the prison"
(Isa. 24:22). And again, in another place, "The captive exile hastens
that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that
his bread should fail" (Isa. 51:14). There is a bondage of soul which
involves depression of spirits and failing of heart that may well be
likened to confinement in a pit from which there appears no way of
escape.
But may we not understand still more by the pit? Alas, then, dear
Friends, we sometimes read of the pit, when the word is pregnant with
deeper meaning, even of the Pit that is bottomless, that place of
torment prepared for devils and lost souls! Oh, if there were time,
what a picture we have before us! The Pit, the bottomless Pit–an awful
representation, a horrible vision of the future wrath of God! The
Pit–black, dark, descending down which the soul slips and slides and
falls headlong! Going down into the Pit–what a dreadful expression!
Not going down as miners do to seek for ore, but being hurled by the
strong hand of the avenging angel downwards into the abyss!
There, on the verge of the precipice you are! Though not falling down
that abyss yet, your feet have almost gone! Your steps have well-near
slipped. At such a crisis the Mercy of God comes to the sinner's aid
and cries in thrilling tones, "Deliver him!" It is not a mere shout of
warning, it is a voice that has power in it. It is the clear silvery
note of rescue and the man is delivered just as he is about to sink to
rise no more! Kings and emperors, when they have condemned men to die,
can exercise the prerogative of mercy. Let the royal mandate issue
concerning a prisoner, "Deliver him," then the prison doors are opened,
for the king's pardon has been given.
Just such a thing does God with condemned sinners when they bow down
before Him and confess the righteousness of the sentence. Through Jesus
Christ, the heavenly Messenger, He says, "Deliver him! Deliver him!"
There is a legal pardon. The man is set free from the bonds of the
jailer, instead of being given over to the hands of the executioner.
Therefore he shall live in peace and joy. "Deliver him!" Perhaps the
three significations of the pit I have alluded to may be combined in
one dark picture. Sickness brings the sinner to the immediate prospect,
not of death only, but of his endless doom. The sorrows and remorse of
his soul produce, as it were, a foretaste of that anguish which knows
no abatement. And soon Hell does yawn at his feet "a universe of
death"–"worse than fables yet have reigned, or fear conceived."
How many witnesses we might call to speak to the truth of all this!
Why, Elihu said, "Lo, all these things works God oftentimes with man."
The anguish is real and the joy of rescue is real, likewise. Did not
Hezekiah feel them both? The message came to him, "Thus says the Lord,
set your house in order, for you shall die and not live." Then he
prayed vehemently and he wept sorely. Afterwards the Word of the Lord
came to him that his prayer was heard, that his tears were seen and
that his life should be spared. And this is what he said–"Behold, for
peace I had great bitterness. But You have in love to my soul delivered
it from the Pit of corruption, for You have cast all my sins behind
Your back."
What a shout ofjoy is that of David when he says, "He brought me up out
of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and
established my goings"! In like manner Jonah speaks, "You have brought
up my life from the pit, O Lord my God." Very memorable, too, is the
sweet promise of God to the daughter of Zion, by the mouth of the
Prophet Zechariah, "As for You, also, by the blood of Your Covenant I
have sent forth Your prisoners out of the pit wherein is at water."
Yes, my dear Friends, and I feel bound to say for myself, to the praise
of my God–
"Your love was great, Your mercy free, Which from the Pit delivered
me."
Well do I remember when the sentence went forth to my soul, "Deliver
him!" The time did, indeed, seem long at first. I was years and years
upon the brink of Hell–I mean in my own feeling. I was unhappy, I was
desponding, I was despairing. I dreamed of Hell. My life was full of
sorrow and wretchedness, believing that I was lost. But oh, the blessed
Gospel of the God of Grace came to me at length with that soft voice,
"Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the earth!" With it
came a Sovereign Word, "Deliver him!" and I who was but a minute before
as wretched as a soul could be, could have danced for very merriment of
heart! And as the snow fell on my road home from the little house of
prayer I thought every snowflake talked with me and told of the pardon
I had found! I was white as the driven snow through the Grace of God.
Oh, that word, "Deliver him!" It so restrains the temptations of Satan
and quells the strivings of conscience, that the poor soul has
instantaneous liberty and rejoices with joy unspeakable! Mark you, my
dear Friend, if ever you should look to Christ by simple faith and God
should say, "Deliver him," that, "Deliver him" will last forever! God
does not play fast and loose with sinners! If He pardons today He will
not condemn tomorrow. He does not loose and then bind again. He opens
and no man shuts. Once He says, "Deliver him," you may walk through all
the earth and who shall lay anything to your charge? For who is he that
can arrest you and cast you into prison against this, "Deliver him"?
There may have come into this place some great offender. It is
impossible for me to discriminate among you, or single out any one of
these thousands, but there may be here one of the very blackest class
of sinners. To you Christ's Gospel has come! I hope you have been led
to feel that you are guilty, to confess your sin, and to admit that you
can only be saved through God's Grace and mercy. Well now, if you will
but trust my Savior, the Lord Jesus, who once died on Calvary's Cross
and now lives enthroned in Glory. If you will but trust Him now, the
sentence shall come from the Truth of God, "Deliver him," or, "Deliver
her from going down into the Pit."
Oh, there have been many outcasts in these very aisles who have found
Grace and obtained remission of their sins! The harlot has heard the
word, "Deliver her from going down to the Pit." The thief and the
drunkard, too, though in their own conscience on the very brink of
Hell, and all but sliding in, have heard it and they are here among the
happy worshippers that praise God! Some of us who never fell into those
fouler vices, though as depraved in our hearts as they, have heard that
blessed sound and we are here to express our soul's desire that you all
knew it! O that you all trusted Christ! O that you were all saved by
that blessed mandate, "Deliver him from going down into the Pit"!
V. The last thing is that GOD EXPLAINS TO THE SINNER WHOM HE DELIVERS
THE REASON OF HIS DELIVERANCE. "Deliver him from going down into the
Pit: I have found a ransom." "I have found a ransom"–a covering. Catch
the thought. There are your sins like a putrid slough, reeking with
corruption. They are black. Like a huge pool of blood they are scarlet.
It is abhorrent to the pure eyes of God to look upon the heart that is
a very reservoir of pollution. He must strike you if He looks at it.
Listen–"I have found a covering." Christ comes in and covers it all.
"Blessed is that man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered."
As the Mercy Seat covered the Law and was called a covering, so does
the Atonement of Christ cover the perfect Law of God–and it puts out
of God's sight every sin of all those who trust in Christ. But take the
word as we get it in the English version–a ransom–that means a price.
When a man was in debt, he used to be, according to the old law, put
into prison. Well, how did he get his discharge? He came out if the
debt was paid, of course, at once. So God says, "Deliver him: I have
found a price, I have found a recompense, I have found a Substitute, I
have found a ransom." The Lord Jesus Christ has suffered for us what
God's wrath demanded of us–
"He bore, that we might never bear, His Father's righteous ire."
Christ stood in our place that we might go free! I have told you this
grand old tale so many times in this house that sometimes as I am
coming here I think to myself–"I can find no new metaphor to
illustrate it and no new words to rouse the languid attention. They
will tell me that I am always harping on the same string." Still,
still, I must continue to expound and enforce this substitutionary
suffering of Christ! I cannot help it. It is as much as my soul is
worth to keep it back, for I am persuaded that it is the very essence
of the Gospel–the vicarious suffering of Christ. At any rate, I have
no Gospel to preach to you but this–that God has punished Christ
instead of you that will believe on Christ and therefore He cannot
punish you–you are clear. Christ has paid your debts! The receipt is
given! You are liberated!
God has no claims upon you from His justice now–they are all
discharged. Christ has discharged all your liabilities! "By Him all
that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be
justified by the Law of Moses." Never listen, I entreat you, my dear
Hearers, to the derisive sneer of the scorner as he attempts to cast
discredit upon the righteousness of God in the imputation of your sins
to the great Redeemer. I know that it is not in the power of skeptic,
rationalist, Socinian, or infidel to bring forth one argument that can
refute the plain testimony which abounds in the Scriptures. But they
can and they do ask if our moral sense of rectitude is not shocked at
inflicting punishment on the Innocent and bestowing rewards as well as
pardon on the guilty.
Do they object to you that it were unjust on the part of God to make
one Man suffer personally for another man's sin? Tell them if they
better understood the doctrine, they would see that instead of
outraging the morality of men, it manifests the righteousness of God!
Tell them, as one of our most famous Puritans did, that the Redeemer
and redeemed have such an intimate relation that what one does or
suffers, the other may be accounted to do or suffer. It is no
unrighteousness if the hands offend, for the head to be struck. Christ
is our Head and we are His members. Tell them that He who suffered, the
Just for the unjust, had power to lay down His life and power to take
it again. His submission, therefore, was voluntary.
Tell them that He who bore our sins in His own body on the tree agreed
and stipulated to bear our iniquities–the whole matter was settled in
Covenant between the Father and the Son. Tell them once more that our
Lord Jesus Christ counted the cost and estimated the recompense when
He, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the Cross. He shall
see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied–with honor and
glory shall He be crowned. Because He humbled Himself, God also has
highly exalted Him. And because He made Himself of no reputation, to
Him is given a name which is above every name. Tell them His
mediatorial Glory surpasses thought! Bid them cease their pitiless
clamor and leave us to our joys. It is the sweetest music out of Heaven
and it is the source of the music of Heaven. "I have found a ransom."
Christ's ransom for enslaved sinners is the world's good news. Tell it,
then, and as you hear it let your hearts rejoice! You notice these
words, "I have found a ransom." You did not find it for yourselves. You
could not ever have discovered it, much less have brought it into the
world. But God found it. The infinite wisdom of God was needed to find
the way of salvation by a Substitute. "I have found a ransom." Now,
since God has found it and God is satisfied with it, let me, chief of
sinners though I am, find rest in this Divine satisfaction! Conscience
says to me, "Well, but how can your sins be forgiven?" Again Conscience
thunders, "Recollect such a day, such a night, such an act, such a
blasphemy. Do you think Christ can wash such a devil as you?" I answer,
"Well, if God is satisfied, I am sure I will be."
If you owe a debt, and your creditor takes the money of another and he
is quite easy about it, why, Man, do not be uneasy about it! If he is
satisfied you may be, and if God is content with Christ, so, poor
Sinner, let you and I be satisfied, and let us begin to sing–
"I will praise You every day! Now Your anger's turned away, Comfortable
thoughts arise From the bleeding Sacrifice. Jesus is become at length
My salvation and my strength And His praises shall prolong,
While I live, my pleasant song."
O bless the dear name of Him who suffered in your place! O take His
ransom price! Look at it! Turn over every sacred drop of it in your
memory and your gratitude! Be satisfied and more than satisfied!
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad to be delivered from going down into
the Pit! God has found an all-sufficient and a most blessed Ransom for
your souls and therefore you are delivered!
What more can I say to you, my dear Hearers! I have told you the way of
mercy and I have described to you the footsteps of mercy in the
experience of those who have proved its saving efficacy. But I cannot
bring Christ to your souls, or when Christ comes near unto you, as He
does now in the ministry of His Gospel, I cannot make you open the
doors of your hearts to receive Him. O you who do not believe and are
yet in your sins, what more can I do for you than thus to cry aloud in
your ears and proclaim to you the path of life?
This one thing I can do–I can stand here and break my heart to think
that you refuse Him. But no, I cannot take leave of you thus. I must
again beseech and entreat and implore you as you love your souls, turn
not away from the Divine Messenger, from Jesus Christ the Friend of
sinners! He asks no great thing of you! He bids you not pass through
ceremonies that will take you days and months, but NOW, one believing
glance at yonder Cross! One glance at Him who died there for sinners
and it is done! Christ is honored! God is satisfied! You are saved!
Go your way and tell your friends what great things He has done for
you, and God bless you. Amen.