Forgiveness and Fear

Forgiveness and Fear

(No. 2882)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1904.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
26, 1876.

"There is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." Psalm 130:4.

THIS is good news, indeed–the best of news–and they will prize it
most who are like the Psalmist was when he wrote these words. And who
are they?

First, they are those who are in soul-trouble–"Out of the depths have
I cried unto You, O Lord." Some of you may, perhaps, think this subject
is a very commonplace one, but the soul that is in deep spiritual
trouble will not think so. Bread is a very commonplace thing, but it is
very precious to starving men. Liberty is an everyday enjoyment to us,
but it would be a great gift to those who are in slavery. O you who are
in the depths of soul-trouble, like shipwrecked mariners who seem to be
sinking in the trough of the sea, or being dragged down by a
whirlpool–this text will bring sweet music to your ears! "There is
forgiveness." There is forgiveness with God.

This good news will also have a peculiar sweetness to those who have
begun to pray. Read the second verse–"Lord, hear my voice: let Your
ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications." Prayer makes men
value spiritual blessings. They are asking for them. They are sincerely
seeking them. They are knocking loudly at Mercy's gate in order to
obtain them. And they who are in earnest in their prayers prove that
they value the blessing they are seeking and they are delighted to hear
that they are likely to secure it. Oh, that it might be said, for the
first time, of someone here, "Behold, he prays." I am sure that such an
one will be right glad to listen to even the simplest language that
tells out these glad tidings–"There is forgiveness with God."

And if, to soul-trouble and earnest prayer, there should be added a
very deep sense of sin amounting, even, to utter self-condemnation,
then I am quite certain that there is no carol that will have sweeter
music in it than my text has! Read the third verse and see if you can
truly repeat it–"If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who
shall stand?" Do you feel that your iniquities condemn you? Are you
compelled to plead guilty before God? Well, then, though you cannot
claim acquittal on the ground that you have no sins, yet here is the
blessed information that there is forgiveness for sinners! Stand in the
dock where the guilty ought to stand and let the Judge condemn you. No,
spare Him the trouble– condemn yourself and, when you have done so,
and have also trusted the great Atonement made by His dear Son, He will
say to you, "There is forgiveness. Be of good cheer–your sins, which
are many, are all forgiven you." I do not expect to say anything to
delight deaf ears, but I do believe that the simple tidings I have to
tell will have great weight with those who are in soul-trouble, with
those who have begun to pray–and those who are self-condemned on
account of sin.

I am going to take the text thus. First, here is a most cheering
announcement–"There is forgiveness with You." Secondly, here is a most
admirable design–"That You may be feared."

I. First, here is A MOST CHEERING ANNOUNCEMENT–"There is forgiveness
with You."

This announcement has great force and value because it is most
certainly true. When a man hears some news which pleases him, he loses
that pleasure if he has reason to suspect that it is not true. The
first questions you ask, when someone tells you of some good fortune
that concerns you, are of this sort, "Are you quite sure it is so? Can
you give me good authority for your assertion?"

Well, this news is certainly true, for it is consistent with God's very
Nature. He is a gracious God. "He delights in mercy." Mercy was the
last of His attributes that He was able to reveal. He could be great
and good when the world was made, but He could not be merciful until
sin had marred His perfect handiwork. There must be an offense
committed before there can be mercy displayed towards the offender.
Mercy, then, I may say, is God's Benjamin–His last-born, His favored
one, the son of His right hand. I never read that He delights in power,
or that He delights in justice, but I do read, "He delights in mercy."
It is the attribute that is sweetest to Himself to exercise. When He
goes forth to punish, as He must, His feet are, as it were, shod with
iron–but when He comes to manifest His mercy, He rides, as David says,
"upon the wings of the wind." He delights to be gracious and,
therefore, I feel sure that there is forgiveness with Him.

We are even more sure that it is so when we remember that God has given
us the best pledge of forgiveness by giving us His dear Son. He could
not be merciful at the expense of His justice, for His Throne is
established in righteousness and that righteousness requires that He
should by no means spare the guilty. How, then, could He display His
Grace and mercy and yet be the just God? He did it thus. The offended
One took the nature and the place of the offenders and here, on this
earth, Jesus of Nazareth, who was "very God of very God," suffered all
that we had brought upon ourselves, that the Law of God might be
honored by executing its full penalty and yet that the Free Grace and
mighty mercy of God might be equally manifest. If any of you doubt
whether there is forgiveness with God, I pray you to stand on Calvary,
in imagination, and to look into the wounds of Jesus. Gaze upon His
nail-pierced hands and feet, His thorn-crowned brow, and look right
into His heart where the soldier's spear was thrust–and blood and
water flowed out for the double cleansing of all who trust Him. O
Christ of God, it could not be that You should die and yet that sinners
cannot be forgiven! It would be a monstrous thing that You should have
bled to death and yet that no sinner should be saved by that death! It
cannot be–there must be forgiveness–there is forgiveness since Jesus
died, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."

Moreover, we have God's promise of forgiveness, as well as the gift of
His Son. His Word says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He
will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon." It is declared by the Apostle John, under the Inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses
from all sin. Many other passages in the Bible teach the same glorious
Truth–"Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though
your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they
are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." "I, even I, am He that
blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and will not remember
your sins." "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions,
and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto Me, for I have redeemed you."
Time would fail me to mention all the Lord's promises of forgiveness,
they are so many. And remember that it is the God who cannot lie who
has given the promises, so you may be sure that they are all true and
that there is forgiveness with Him!

We are certain, also, that there is forgiveness, because there is a
Gospel, and the very essence of the Gospel lies in the proclamation of
the pardon of sin. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "Go you into
all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believes
and is baptized shall be saved." But no one can be saved without sin
being pardoned– therefore, there is pardon for the sin of everyone who
believes and is baptized according to the Gospel command. Christ's
ministers may all go home, for their office is useless, if there is no
forgiveness of sins! We may shut up all our houses of prayer, for it is
a mockery to God and man to keep them open if there is no forgiveness
of sins! We may abolish the Mercy Seat, itself, and burn this blessed
Bible if there is no forgiveness of sins! What value can there be in
the means of Grace– what can be the use or signification of any Gospel
at all–if sin is not pardonable? But it can be pardoned! There is
forgiveness. If you want evidence in confirmation of that declaration,
there are hundreds of us who are prepared to prove that we have been
forgiven–and there are hundreds of thousands, now alive, who know that
their sins have been pardoned and that they have been absolved from all
their guilt for Christ's sake! And there are millions of millions,
beyond all count, before yon burning Throne of God who continually
praise Him who loved them and washed them from their sins in His own
blood!

I bear my own personal testimony that I know there is forgiveness, for
I have been forgiven. If it were the proper time to do so, I would ask
all here who know that their sins have been forgiven, to stand up. If I
did so, some of you would be astonished to see how great an army of men
and women in this Tabernacle would declare that they, also, have been
saved by Grace, and that they have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb! Unless we are all de-

ceived–and we are not, for we have the witness of the Spirit of God
within us that we are not–and unless all who have fallen asleep in
Christ have perished, there is forgiveness with God! This fact should
make us very joyous because it is so certain. There is no need to
dispute it–I hope none of you will do so. If any of you doubt it, I
beg you to come and test it and try it for yourselves and, with the
blessing of God, you will say with the Psalmist, "There is
forgiveness."

This fact gathers additional sweetness from another source, namely,
that the declaration is in the present tense. "There is forgiveness."
When? Now–at this moment there is forgiveness. Possibly you are 80
years of age, but there is forgiveness. Or you may be very young–a
little boy or girl, but there is forgiveness for the young as well as
for the old! You tell me that you have already rejected many
invitations? Yes, but there is forgiveness. It is to be had now,
blessed be God, for, "behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is
the day of salvation." Believe right now in Jesus Christ, God's Son,
and you have forgiveness now–in a moment! It takes no appreciable
period of time for God to forgive sin. Swifter than the lightning flash
is the glance from the eye of God that conveys peace and pardon to the
soul that trusts in Jesus! You would need time to get a pardon signed
and sealed by an earthly monarch, but time is out of the question with
the God of Everlasting Love. A sigh, a groan, a genuine confession of
sin, a believing glance of the eye to Christ on Cal-vary–and all is
done–your sin has passed away, there is forgiveness and you have
received it! Therefore, go and rejoice in it!

You must not forget to notice, however, that this is a fact which
refers to GodHimsel–"There is forgiveness with You"–and with nobody
else. I charge you to spurn, with the utmost indignation, the so-called
"absolution" by a so-called "priest," whether of the Church of England
or the Church of Rome! Such absolution as that is not worth the foul
breath that utters it! I marvel, sometimes, how any man can ever,
apparently, delude himself and try to deceive his sinful fellow
creature by daring to say, "I forgive you your sins." I suppose it is
use and habit that makes men do strange things at which an
unsophisticated conscience shudders, but, to me, the blasphemer's
coarse oath that makes my blood curdle as I go down the street has not
half the iniquity in it of the man who deliberately puts on certain
specified vestments, claims to be a priest of the Most High God, and
then says to a sinner like himself, "I absolve you." I think the time
has come when all Christians ought, in every way they can, to shake
themselves from these abominable priestcraft and lies altogether! The
very dress we wear, the very position we occupy in the congregation,
should be a protest against this wickedness in the sight of God–for
wickedness it is, of the most extreme kind–though I believe the
perpetrators of it do not always know what they do, so we may pray,
"Father, forgive them and open their blind eyes."

Go, Sinner, straight to God for pardon, through Jesus Christ! But
never, never, go to man! As to confessing your sins to a man–pouring
the dirty sewage of your filthy nature into another man's ear and
making that ear the common cesspool of the parish–oh, that is
intolerable even to ordinary decency–and much more to the purity which
the Grace of God suggests! Go to Jesus, the one Mediator between God
and men! Go and kiss His pierced hands and feet, and confess your sin
to Him who made the propitiation for it! But go nowhere else, I charge
you, at your soul's peril–lest, like Judas, who first went and
confessed to a priest and afterwards went out and hanged himself, you
should be driven to despair and a similar awful suicide! O God, as
"there is forgiveness with You," deliver Your poor fallen creatures
from the further dreadful degradation of bowing themselves down before
sinners like themselves, confessing their sins and seeking pardon where
it cannot be found! There is forgiveness, but that forgiveness is only
to be obtained from God, through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Notice, next, in the text, the unlimited character of this
forgiveness–"There is forgiveness with You." You see, there is no word
to limit it–it does not say that there is forgiveness only for a
certain number–there is no such restriction as that. Nor does it say
that there is forgiveness only for a certain sort of sin–there is no
such limit as that. Nor is it said, "There is forgiveness up to a
certain point, or forgiveness up to a certain date." No, but the
declaration, "there is forgiveness with You," stands out in all its
glorious fullness and simplicity, with no abridging or qualifying words
whatever. Do not, poor Sinner, put a limit where God puts none, but
build your hope of pardon and salvation on this declaration and go to
God, through Jesus Christ, and you shall find that there is forgiveness
for you–even for you, at this very hour! I pray that you may prove it
to be so.

Let me also add that the forgiveness which God gives to a sinner is
complete. He blots out all sin. It is also sincere. He really does
forgive when He says that He does. It is lasting, too. God does not
forgive us today and accuse us again tomorrow. No, let me give you a
better word than lasting–God's forgiveness is everlasting. He who is
once forgiven is

forgiven to all eternity! Forgiveness is one of the gifts of God that
are without change–He never gives it and then regrets that He has done
so. If you get forgiveness from God, you have the first link in an
endless chain of mercies. You shall become God's child–His beloved. He
will teach you, care for you, keep you, sanctify you, bless you,
perfect you and, in due time, bring you to Heaven! Oh, the heap of
blessedness which lie in this one gracious gift of God–the forgiveness
of sins! I wish that, by any power of mine, I could induce all of you
to seek this forgiveness. No, I retract that expression–I do not wish
that any power of mine should do it, lest I should have the honor of
it–but I do pray that God'spower may do it for all of you–that you
may be made conscious of sin, believe in Jesus Christ and so find that
perfect pardon which God is waiting and willing to give to all who
trust His Son!

II. Now I pass on to the second part of our subject which is A MOST
ADMIRABLE DESIGN–There is forgiveness with You, that You may be
feared." How does forgiveness cause men to fear God?

First, it is clear that God's design in proclaiming forgiveness is the
opposite of what some men have said and thought. We have known many who
have said, "There is forgiveness, so let us keep on sinning." Others,
not quite so base, have said, "There is forgiveness, so we can have it
whenever we please." Holding this idea, they have trifled with sin and
they have delayed to seek forgiveness, drawing–oh, I am ashamed to say
it of my fellow men!–drawing the infamous inference that, as God is
merciful, they may live in sin as long as they like and then find mercy
at the last! I would like any man who has adopted that strangely cruel
and wicked way of dealing with God's mercy to look straight at it for a
minute. I think that if I had a friend whom I had grieved and I knew
that he was ready to forgive me, I would not, therefore, put off the
reconciliation and so grieve him still more! I would be very base,
indeed, if I acted like that! Or if I were a child and I had vexed my
father, but he was very gentle and forgiving, I think that if I were to
say, "It does not matter much–father will forgive me whenever I ask
him, so I shall not ask him for months, or perhaps years." If I did
talk so, it would be very base on my part. I ask you, Brothers and
Sisters, not to talk so and not to act so. It is not fair and just
treatment of our gracious God! It is not even worthy of man. Why, if
even a beast is treated kindly, it will scarcely return a kick for
kindness. Some perverse animals will do that, but most will generally,
at length, yield to kindness. And the long-suffering of God ought much
more to lead you to repentance and not induce you to continue in your
sins.

This design of God is quite contrary to what some other men have said
would naturally arise out of the Doctrine of Free and Full Forgiveness.
So-called "priests" have said, "If men can have pardon by simply
believing in Jesus, they will cast off all restraint, so, let us keep
them under our thumb–tell them that there are certain 'sacraments'
that they must attend and that they must look up to us and then we will
get them into Purgatory. And then, when sufficient money is paid to us,
we will get them out." But pardon–free pardon, perfect pardon, pardon
given on the spot to simple faith– they tell us that this would tend
to demoralize people! Well, that is a subject on which they can speak,
for nobody has demoralized people more than so-called "priests" have
done! But it is evident that God does not agree with them. It is
written here, by the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "There is
forgiveness with You, that You may be feared, "so that, instead of
destroying any man's fear, or reverence, or religion, the gift of a
free pardon is to be the very means of producing such a condition of
heart and life! Let us look at this point for a minute or two.

In the first place, if there were no pardon, it is quite certain that
nobody would fear God at all. There is no forgiveness for the devil and
all his legions–and there is not a devil that has any reverence or
love or adoration for God. No, they abide in sullen despair. They know
that there is no hope for them and, being shut up to despair because
their sin is unpardonable, they rage and rave against the God of
Heaven! You never read of a devil on his knees in prayer. Whoever heard
of a devil saying, "Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice: let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my
supplications"? And why do the devils not pray like that? Why, because,
among other reasons, there is no forgiveness for devils and, therefore,
none of the right kind of fear of God! They tremble, I grant you. They
have a certain sort of dread and, without pardon, there may be a dread
and horror of God. But that is not what our text means, for the fear of
God, in Scripture, does not signify dread–it signifies true religion,
holy reverence and awe–"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom." And, unless there is pardon of sin, it is clear that its
absence drives the sinners to despair and prevents them from
worshipping God.

Again, if there were no pardon, there would be nobody to fear God, for,
Brothers and Sisters, if God had not had mercy upon us, He would long
ago have swept us away! It is mercy–even if it is not pardoning mercy,
it is mercy–

which permits us to live! If God had no pardon for any of the whole
human race, there would be no necessity for reprieving men at all–the
tree of humanity would long since have been cut down as a cumberer of
the ground.

Now turn to the positive side of this subject. When the Gospel is
faithfully preached and attentively heard, the very hearing of it,
under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, breeds faith in the soul, for
"faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." But,
Brothers, suppose we had no pardon to preach–would there be any faith?
Could there be any faith then? Have you ever heard of a man who
believed in an unpardoning god? Did anybody ever yet hear of a sinner
believing in a god who manifests no mercy and bestows no forgiveness?
Only the heathen trust to such gods, which are no gods! The very fact
that pardon is proclaimed and carried to the heart by the power of the
Holy Spirit, produces faith in the soul–and faith is the root and
foundation of all true fear of God.

After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin
brother and is born at the same time. Nobody ever repented until he
heard of pardon. Let a man be certain that he cannot be pardoned and
you may be quite sure that he will not repent. He may feel remorse. He
may regret and lament his sin because of the penalty which follows it,
but that gentle softening of the soul which makes us hate sin because
it is committed against such a good and gracious God is not possible
until, first of all, the heart has believed that there is forgiveness
with God. Evangelical repentance is one of the fruits of the Gospel of
forgiveness and no other tree can produce it. So, you see, Beloved,
that because there is forgiveness, men exercise faith and they also
experience repentance–and these two Divine Graces are a very large
part of what is meant by the Scriptural term, "the fear of the Lord."

It is also the good news of pardon that inclines the heart to prayer.
You would never have heard of a man praying for mercy if there had been
no mercy to be obtained! If Jesus had never died and the Gospel had
never been sent into the world–if there had been no proclamation of
pardon, it would never have been said of Saul of Tarsus, "Behold, he
prays." No, prayer arises in the soul as a result of the telling of the
glad tidings that pardon is to be had. And prayer, like faith and
repentance, is a large part of "the fear of the Lord." The man who
truly prays is certainly one who fears God.

When a man really receives the pardon of all his sins, he is the man
who fears the Lord. This is clearly the case, for pardon breeds love in
the soul and the more a man is forgiven, the more he loves. Where great
sin has been blotted out, there comes to be great love. Well, is not
love the very core of the true fear of God? If a man really loves God,
has he not discovered the very essence of true religion? But how could
he love God if there was no pardon to be had?

Pardon also breeds obedience. A man says, "Have I been forgiven? Then I
will seek to avoid all sin in the future. Out of love to God I will
labor to do that which He bids me do." And, surely, obedience is a very
large part of the fear of

God.

And, oftentimes, this forgiving love of God breeds in the soul deep
devotion andintense consecration to Him. There have lived and there are
living now, men and women who have given their whole selves to Jesus,
many of whom are laboring for Him even beyond their strength–yes, and
many such men and women have died, for His sake, the most cruel deaths,
without shrinking back or seeking to escape that terrible cross. Where
came such a fear of God as that? Why, it could never have come into
their hearts if they had not received the forgiveness of their sins for
Christ's sake, but, having been forgiven, they came to love and
fear–not with a servile fear, but with a holy awe–the Blessed One
through whose precious blood they have been cleansed! Thus forgiveness
of sin is essential to true fear of God–and wherever it is enjoyed, it
is the main motive which moves them to fear God and brings them into
that blessed condition. Is not that clear to all of you?

I finish my discourse by asking and trying to answer this question–As
there is forgiveness to be had, why should YOU not have it? I may not
be able to point "you"out, though, often, God does direct my finger, or
eye, or word, to the very person for whom there is forgiveness. So I
ask again–As there is forgiveness to be had, why should you not have
it? Young man under the gallery, why should you not have it? Young
woman down in that area, why should you not have it? Suppose you should
never get it? Suppose you should die without being forgiven? Oh, that
would greatly aggravate all the ordinary pains of death! If you die
unpardoned, your doom will be the more terrible because there is
forgiveness with God, yet it is of no use to you!

One of my predecessors, Dr. Rippon, had considerable influence with the
government of his day. Those were what some foolish people call, "the
good old days," when they used to hang people on a Monday morning, as a
regular thing, and take little notice of it. It so happened that one
who was related to a former member of this church was condemned to

die. It was believed that he was innocent, so there was much
intercession offered on his behalf to the government–and a pardon was
granted and signed by King George III. Very Providentially, it happened
that one of the members of the church, going to the prison, said to the
governor, "I hear that you have eight prisoners to hang tomorrow." He
answered, "I have nine for tomorrow." "No," said the other, "there were
nine, but one of them has been pardoned." "I know nothing about that,"
said the governor, "I have received no pardon and, unless I do receive
one, I shall hang him tomorrow morning."

The news came to Dr. Rippon, and he took the post chaise [a closed,
four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage, formerly used to transport mail and
passengers]–in those times, that was the only way of travelling–and
rode down to Windsor. He went to the castle and, by dint of that
modesty which is always becoming in a minister of the Gospel, if it is
not carried too far, he pushed himself in and demanded to see the king!
He managed, at last, to get to the ante-room, next to the one where His
Majesty was sleeping. Hearing a noise, the king asked, "What is that?"
His attendant answered, "Here is a Dr. Rippon who says he must see Your
Majesty." "Show him in, then," he said, and Dr. Rippon saw the king in
bed and said to him, "Your Majesty gave a pardon to such-and-such a
man." "Yes, I know I did." "But they have not got it at the prison and
the man is going to be hanged in the morning if I do not get back to
London in time." So the king posted the good doctor back with another
pardon–and the man was saved!

Suppose he had been hanged? What would his parents have said? Well,
they might have said, "There was forgiveness, yet he was hanged." I
think that would have been the bitterest ingredient in their
grief–that they had obtained forgiveness for him and yet, after all,
that he was hanged. Happily, it was not so, but, Sirs, as there is
pardon to be had–if you will not ask for it–as there is pardon to be
had by confessing your sin and believing in Jesus, yet you will not
seek it– why, then, when you are lost, you will say to yourself, "Oh,
what a fool I was! There was forgiveness, but I neglected to seek it!
There was forgiveness, but I did not realize that I needed it, so I
have perished by my own folly." I charge you, men and women, to
remember that if you are lost, your doom will be far more terrible than
that of those who have never heard the Gospel because you have had the
way of salvation plainly set before you and I have again exhorted you,
as best I can, to walk in it! Oh, how I wish I could exhort you with
more earnestness, and in more persuasive words, but, perhaps even then
there would be an equal failure! I implore you, do not put eternal life
away from you! Do not refuse the pardon that the Lord Jesus Christ
presents to all who trust Him! Trust Him, I pray you, trust Him now!
And the pardon shall be yours.

"But," says someone, "I am afraid of what I may do in the future. If I
were forgiven now, I am afraid I should again act just as I have done
before." Well, then, take the text as a whole–"There is forgiveness
with You, that You may be feared." If you receive the forgiveness of
God, you will have the fear of God put into your heart at the same
time, for this is a part of the ancient Covenant–"I will put My fear
in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me." "A new heart also
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Poor Sinner,
here is a wonder of Grace for you–the past forgiven and the future
guaranteed by a wondrous miracle of mercy worked within your
heart–making you a new creature in Christ Jesus!

Blessed Spirit, apply this message to the Lord's own chosen ones and
save many precious souls through it, for the Redeemer's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: PSALMS 32; 130.

Psalm 32:1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered. No man knows the blessedness of pardoned sin but the man who
has felt the weight of guilt upon his conscience. If you have ever been
burdened and crushed under a load of sin, it will be a joy worth more
than ten thousand worlds for you to get the burden lifted from your
shoulders! "Blessed"–blessed beyond description–"is he whose
transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."

2. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputes not iniquity, and in
whose spirit there is no guile. He has no need to dissemble, for his
sin is forgiven. David had tried to tamper with his conscience after
his great sin. He invented all sorts of excuses and schemes to try to
hide his guilt, but when, at last, he was fully convinced of the awful
sinfulness of his sin, and when God had put it away forever–then–when
the guilt was gone, the guile went, too.

3, 4. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all
the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my
vitality was turned into the drought of summer Selah. As if he was
parched and scorched with inward grief. The agony of his soul kept him
from sleeping, prevented him from taking his necessary food and made
him seem like a prematurely old man.

5. I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I
said I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and You forgave
the iniquity of my sin. Selah. O blessed termination of a terrible
condition of heart! Confession pulled up the floodgates of his soul and
God caused the black stream to flow away and disappear! Friend, are you
trying to conceal any sin or to excuse yourself in any wrong course?
Then your soul will fret and worry more and more. But make a clean
breast of it before God–in the humblest and most honest language you
can use–and then you shall receive the Lord's full and free
forgiveness!

6. For this shall everyone who is godly pray unto You in a time when
You may be found. Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not
come near unto him. A man who can pray shall see even the ocean driven
back, as Moses did! If you get near to God and stay near to Him, the
floods of great waters shall never get near to you.

7. You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You
shall compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah. The world is
full of music to the man to whom God has said, "I forgive you." Do not
rest, dear Friend, till you really know that you are forgiven, for if
you do, you will rest short of all true happiness. But if you have
sought God's mercy and had your sin forgiven, you are already at the
gates of Heaven!

8. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go: I
will guide you with My eye. When God forgives, He also sanctifies. When
He has brought back the sheep that wandered off into the wrong road, He
afterwards leads it in the right track. Notice how the Lord says, "I
will guide you with My eye." A look from the Lord ought to be enough to
guide us–we should not need a blow, nor even a word, but be ready to
be directed by the very gentlest monition of God's gracious Spirit.

9. Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no
understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest
they come near unto you. Do not be difficult to manage. Be not
hard-mouthed. Be ready to be guided by the eye of God. Be not like
stubborn beasts that must be held in with bit and bridle–and that
often need the whip, too.

10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. Wicked man, that is the
portion that is to come to you–and it will surely come to you if you
continue in your present evil course. This is the title deed of your
future inheritance–do you like the prospect of such a possession as
that? "Many sorrows shall be to the wicked."

10, 11. But he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about
Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, you righteous, and shout for joy, all
you that are upright in heart. Let your joy be demonstrative! Do not be
ashamed to let others see how happy you are. The Lord has done great
things for you–therefore, "be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, you
righteous, and shout for joy, all you that are upright in heart." Be so
jubilant that others shall be compelled to glorify God with you and to
ask, "May not we also share this great blessing with you?"

Psalm 130:1. Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O LORD. "Sinking,
sinking, sinking–drowning, dying– hope all but gone, almost
everything gone–yet I have cried unto You with much fear and little
hope. 'Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O Lord.'"

2, 3. Lord, hear my voice: let Your ears be attentive to the voice of
my supplications. If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who
shall stand? Judged by ourselves, on the ground of absolute justice,
none of us can hope to stand before His Judgment Seat without being
condemned. I trust that we all know and feel that this is true.

4, 5. But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared. I wait
for the LORD, my soul does wait, andin His word do I hope. Never yet
has any poor soul perished that could use such language as this! It may
be a long while before you get the full comfort of all the Lord's
promises, but you are sure to have it, sooner or later, if you can but
hope "in His Word." Well did good John Newton sing–

"Rejoice, Believer, in the Lord, Who makes your cause His own! The hope
that's built upon His Word Can never be overthrown!"

6-8. My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for the
morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel
hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with Him is
plenteous redemption. And

He shall redeem Israel from all her iniquities. Children of God, plead
that precious promise–"He shall redeem Israel from all her
iniquities." And never rest till you are fully freed from the bondage
of sin, for God will work a perfect work in you and then He will take
you Home to be with Him forevermore!

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–202, 556, 559.

–Adapted from The C. H. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0, Ages
Software, 1.800.297.4307

PRAY THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL USE THIS SERMON TO BRING MANY TO A SAVING
KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST.Sermon #2883

Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit

Prisoners Delivered

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1904.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON, LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
APRIL 2, 1876.

"As for you also, by the blood of your covenant Ihave sent forth yourr
prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold, you
prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render double
unto you."

Zechariah 9:11,12.

THIS text primarily relates to Israel–to the Jews–and there can be no
doubt whatever that there are great blessings in store for God's
ancient people. Although blindness in part has happened unto Israel,
yet, in due time, we know from the Word of God that the seed of Abraham
will recognize our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as the long-promised
Messiah When that happy day comes, the Lord will give to the whole
world times of amazing blessing. The fullness of the Gentiles also will
then be experienced. Then, too, shall come the latter-day glory of
Jerusalem and all nations shall rejoice with her.

You notice that the text begins with the words, "As for you also,"
which might be translated so as to run parallel with that pathetic
exclamation of our Savior when He wept over Jerusalem and said, "If you
had known, even you, at least in this, your day, the things which
belong unto your peace: but now they are hid from your eyes." The
Hebrew of our text might be rendered, "As for you, even you," and the
meaning of the expression is, "There is some very special blessing for
you, O Jerusalem! It is not for the heathen, but, as for you, O
Zion–you seed of Abraham according to the flesh–there is something
special in store for you." I think we ought to pray for the Jews more
often than we do, and to look more hopefully upon the Jews than we
usually do–and not to speak of them as an unbelieving race. The fact
is, they have been, in some respects, too believing, for they have
blindly clung to the old faith of their fathers instead of going on to
know the Lord Jesus Christ. When they do accept Him, that firm
adherence which they have shown to the traditions of their sires will
make them grandly strong in faith in the only true Messiah. I suppose,
however, that we have no Jews with us here, so it is no use, just now,
for me to address them. But I may use the text as a message to
ourselves. While I do so, may the Holy Spirit bless it to us all! When
we read in the Scriptures concerning Israel, we may fairly translate it
to mean, spiritually, the Church of God, for, as all who believe are
the children of believing Abraham, so all who have been born-again, by
the power of the Holy Spirit, belong to the chosen Seed and may be
rightly called, "Israel." In this spiritual sense, how sweetly has our
text been fulfilled in the experience of many of us who are the true
Israel of God, though Abraham is ignorant of us and Sarah acknowledge
us not!

What a wonderful history "the Church of the living God" has had! She
has been, so Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "persecuted, but not
forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." I have sometimes seen, in
Scotland, what they call vitrified forts which have, evidently, passed
through the fire to such an extent that the whole of the wall has
become vitrified into one firmly united mass–and the Church of God
seems to me to have been like those vitrified forts, for the fire has
been concentrated upon her seven times hotter than anywhere else. Yet
to this day the Church of Christ still firmly stands! The Truth of God
is still to the front and the name of Jesus is still–

"High over all,

In Hell, or earth, or sky

Angels and men before it fall–

And devils fear and fly."

So shall it be even to the end!

The 48th Psalm reminds us of the glory of the ancient "city of the
great King," and of the terror that fell upon her adversaries–"For,
lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. They saw it, and
so they marvelled; they were troubled and hastened away. Fear took hold
upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail." So shall it be
with the present race of skeptics and rejecters of Christ! Hundreds of
generations of skeptics have come and gone like the sere leaves of
autumn. They were fresh and green for a little while and then they
professed to be a shade to the Church with their philosophy and vain
deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the
world–but not after Christ. And before long they withered, fell and
rotted into the soil from which they sprang. Yet still the Truth of God
abides and "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth," still stands fast, awaiting the grand consummation when the
topstone shall be placed upon the glorious temple amid shouts of
"Grace, Grace unto it."

Looking into this passage, we notice, first, that there are some
prisoners mentioned and they are said to be in a terrible plight Then,
in the second place, there is an emancipation spoken of and the cause
of that emancipation is mentioned.

I. First, THERE ARE SOME PRISONERS MENTIONED AND THEY ARE SAID TO BE IN
A TERRIBLE PLIGHT. We need not look long to find those prisoners, for
some of them are here in our midst–and there are others here who were
once imprisoned thus–but they have been set free.

These prisoners are said to be in a pit. It was a common custom and
still is, in the East, not to go to the expense of building prisons,
but to make use of dry wells–and the authorities were not always very
particular in seeing that they were dry. They just let the prisoner
down by a rope, which they pulled up, leaving him in what was, usually,
a very secure prison, indeed. No trouble was taken to fit up a proper
cell. No money was expended upon ventilation, or anything of the kind.
The pit was usually deep and dark–and a great stone was rolled over
the mouth of it–and there the prisoner was left, in solitary
confinement, often to die of hunger and thirst. If anyone thought or
cared to bring him bread and water, it was well for him, but, in many
cases, the prisoners were forgotten and nobody ever heard of them
anymore. In fact, they were buried alive–and that was, spiritually,
our condition when we were in the pit where there is no water.

I look back, 20 years or so, ago, and see myself, as I then was, in
that horrible pit–consciously in that pit. We were all there by
nature, but we did not know it. But, at the time I am recalling, I
didknow it. The Lord had opened my eyes and led me to see that I was in
a deep, waterless pit by reason of the original sin in the fall of
Adam. I saw that I was cast down into a deep pit from which I could not
get out by my own exertions–with a nature averse to everything that
was good–with a will that was strong for evil, but impotent for
good–with a judgment that was out of gear–a taste that put bitter for
sweet and sweet for bitter–a heart that had turned aside unto
idols–with everything about me as wrong as wrong could be! I
distinctly remember that I did not trouble so much about the original
sin through the Fall as I did about my own actual sins and
transgressions. Oh, those dreadful walls of guilt that rose up all
around me! Dense was the darkness in which I was enveloped and the few
gleams of light that ever pierced that darkness only made me see more
clearly the huge black walls of my old sins–my youthful sins, not
forgotten to this day, but remembered with deep regret–sins of
thought, sins of imagination, sins of word, such sins as I was capable
of committing at that period of my life. Well do I remember that pit of
actual sin. Perhaps some of you are in it at this moment. It is a
horrible pit for anyone to be in and it is peculiarly so to some men.
If a man has lived for many years in sin, but only in his later
life–perhaps when verging on old age–has begun to get enough of the
Light of God to show him what he really is in God's sight, it is an
awful thing for him to wake up and find himself in the pit of
condemnation as the result of both original and actual sin!

There was a man, once, who lay asleep and, as he slept, he dreamt that
he was in a gorgeous palace with marble halls and gold and gems in the
utmost profusion. But, as a matter of fact, he was all the while asleep
in a loathsome hole where everything was polluted and foul. When he
awoke, the gilded walls had all gone and the marble halls had all
vanished– and, realizing where he was, the fleeting pleasure of his
dream was changed to the abiding misery of the actual facts of his
sorrowful experience! Possibly I am addressing some who have just
awakened out of their life's dream and have discovered where they
are–where they are by nature and where they are by practice,
too–down, down, down in a deep pit where there is no water! For, be it
known to you that whenever a man finds himself lost by nature, and by
practice, too, he very soon finds that he is also lost by the just
condemnation of God–for the thrice-holy Jehovah cannot look upon a
polluted heart without abhorrence! It is not possible for Him to see
sin without being angry. Some people, in these degenerate days, have
invented for themselves a god who equally loves all men whatever their
characters may be–who looks

upon loathsome imaginations and filthy thoughts with an altogether
indifferent eye–and still goes on to bless, let men do what they may.
But such a god as that is not the God revealed to us in this
old-fashioned Book! Nor is he my father's God, nor mine, nor yours!
Indeed, he is like the idols that are no gods at all! No, where there
is sin, justice demands that there should be condemnation–and it also
requires that there should be punishment as well. So this is the
dreadful thing about our condition by nature–that when we were held in
the bonds of sin, we were also condemned and lay in the condemned cell,
only awaiting the hour of execution. That was our condition,
spiritually–like prisoners in a pit.

We are also told, in our text, there was no water Now, generally, in a
pit, you do find some water–it drops from the clouds, if it comes from
nowhere else. When Jeremiah was let down, with cords, into the dungeon
of Malchiah, we read that, "in the dungeon there was no water, but
mire: so Jeremiah sank in the mire." It is only natural that in deep
holes sunk in the earth, the water should stand in a pool at the
bottom. But this pit, of which our text speaks, has all the
disadvantages and none of the advantages of an ordinary pit. It is
called, as though with an emphasis, "the pit where there is no
water"–and there are some ungodly men who are in just such a pit as
that. There are others who are up to their armpits in water–very muddy
stuff it is–I should not like to drink it, yet they seem able to
quench their thirst with it. They are the men who take pleasure in sin
and enjoy iniquity!

But Brothers and Sisters, when God means to save a man, He makes him
realize that he is in a pit in which there is no water. When a man has
reached that point, all "the pleasures of sin" have vanished. He finds
that he cannot any longer be pleased with that which once used to
afford him great delight. Some of you know what this strange experience
means– that the very things you used to crave have become most
loathsome to you. Your soul lusted after them and you said, in your
youth, "If I could only have these things, I would be the happiest
mortal on the earth." Well, you have had your fill of them and you do
not want any more! You are sick of them, as one may eat honey till he
loathes the very sight of it. I have heard of a poor flower girl in the
streets of London who used to sell violets all day long, taking home at
night those she had left. Having them always about her, she said that
she hated the smell of violets–and God can make men hate the smell of
their sweetest sins and flee from them with disgust! He can turn their
sweet wine into the most sour vinegar so that they will be as glad to
get away from it as they once were fond of running to it!

When a soul is in this condition, in the pit where there is no water,
it often happens that even the lawful comforts of earth lose their
usual comforting force. Well do I recollect the time when I was in this
waterless pit. It mattered very little to me what I ate or drank. It
made but a slight difference to me whether it was day or night, for, by
day I dreaded the wrath of God. And if I fell asleep at night, I dreamt
of it and wondered, when I awoke, that I was not already in Hell. Even
those youthful games and those lawful amusements into which, as a lad,
I entered, lost all charm for me. If you have read John Bunyan's "Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners," you know that at the time when he
was under conviction of sin, nothing comforted him at all. There seemed
to him to be no brightness in the sky, no flowers on the earth, and no
melody in the sweetest songs of the birds. Well, if it is so with any
of you, dear Friends–if you are in a pit where there is no water–none
whatever–I hope my text applies to you and that you belong to the
special class of prisoners to whom the Lord thus speaks–"As for you
also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent forth your prisoners
from the waterless pit."

The Lord is speaking of those who secretly belong to the Covenant race
of Israel, His own chosen and redeemed ones. Though you know it not as
yet, your name is recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life. Though His love
has not, as yet, been fully made known to you, He has ordained you unto
everlasting life and, therefore, though you are at present in the pit,
you cannot die there and you cannot always lie there. Though you are at
present without water, you shall never perish of thirst. You may be
brought to dire distress, but you shall then prove that man's extremity
is God's opportunity. As the Lord lives, who chose you by His Grace
long before He made the heavens and the earth, He will bring you, as
His prisoners, out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, set your feet
upon a rock and establish your goings! That is the first thing
mentioned in the text–prisoners in a very terrible plight.

II. Secondly, THE TEXT SPEAKS ABOUT EMANCIPATION. AND THE CAUSE OF THAT
EMANCIPATION IS MENTIONED–"By the blood of your covenant I have sent
forth your prisoners from the waterless pit."

Delivered from that horrible pit! How did they get out? The text tells
us that God sent them out of it. Oh, that awful pit of natural
depravity–that dreadful pit of actual sin–that fearful pit of just
damnation! Nobody ever yet came out of that pit except by Divine
Power–nor need anybody ever wish to escape by his own power, for if he
did so escape, he

might be dragged back again into the dungeon. If a prisoner is released
by the king himself, who will dare to re-arrest him? If the Lord,
Himself, delivers us, where is the power that can put us back into the
pit? It is Jehovah who says, "I have sent forth your prisoners out of
the pit where there is no water." Some of us recollect the time when
the Lord did thus send us forth. None but He could have done it, but He
did it–and did it thoroughly! He snapped every fetter that was upon
us, lifted us right up out of the abyss and fully and forever
emancipated us–all glory to His ever-blessed name!

Then our text tells us how God did it–"By the blood of your covenant."
Oh, what a grand way of deliverance this is! Do you know what this
expression, "by the blood of your covenant," means? There was a
Covenant between God and His chosen people, made of old, before the day
star had first cast his bright beams into the darkness. To make that
Covenant sure, God's only-begotten and well-beloved Son had agreed with
His Father that He would ratify it with His own blood. And, in due
time, He came to this earth and fulfilled that Covenant by offering up
Himself as the God-appointed Victim in the place of guilty men. Now,
Brothers and Sisters, it is by that blood of the Everlasting Covenant,
offered in our place, that we were set free from the bondage of sin! I
heard, the other day, that some wise man had said that if a preacher
wanted to be popular–by which I suppose he meant to draw many to hear
the Gospel–He must preach blood, and fire, and smoke! I do not know
what the smoke has to do with it but I do know that there is nothing
that has such power as the precious blood of Christ which cleanses from
all sin, and that, next to the blood of Jesus, there is nothing that
has such power as the blessed fire which comes down from Heaven,
touches the preacher's lips and makes him speak with fervor and
enthusiasm of that precious blood!

There is no man, either living or dead, who was ever sent forth out of
the pit of soul-despair except by the blood of the covenant. I can
assure you of one thing–the man who can do without the atoning
Sacrifice of Christ has never known what true conviction of sin is. Men
and women who received their "religion" by natural descent, or who
jumped into it in the excitement of a revival meeting, may, perhaps, be
content to do without the blood, but, if the Lord has put you into the
pit where there is no water and brought you up out of it, you know that
there was no deliverance for you until God, in human flesh, made
Atonement for your sin by His blood. And, to this hour, if ever you are
disturbed and doubtful concerning your true position in God's sight,
you always come back to the blood of the Everlasting Covenant offered
upon Calvary's Cross! And you sing–

"Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power, Till
all the ransomed Church of God Is saved to sin no more."

If, Sirs, you take away the atoning Sacrifice, you make that blessed
Book to be a mere husk from which the kernel has been withdrawn. If you
take away expiation by the precious blood of Jesus, you tear away the
sinner's only ground of hope! Indeed, his only hope–and you leave us,
of all men, most miserable. I know that when I understood that Jesus
Christ bore, in my place, all that I deserved to bear of the wrath of
God–and that His death had made the Law of God honorable, so that the
Lord Jehovah could pardon me without doing an injustice to the rest of
mankind and without suffering the honor and glory of His righteous rule
to be tarnished–I grasped it at once. It seemed to me to be far better
than the balm of Gilead to my wounds when the great Physician laid His
pierced hand upon me and the blood of His Covenant cleansed me from all
guilt. And I pray that many others here may have the same experience.
Of one thing I am sure–if you really grasp this Truth of God, you will
never let it go–you never can let it go! This precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, will be to you,
your hope, your rest, your joy, the seal of your Covenant with God and
the cause of your walking at liberty forever, for if the Son shall make
you free, you shall be free indeed!

I should like to have said more upon this blessed theme, but time fails
me, so I must only say, in passing–"Let every Christian remember that
if once he knows the power of the blood of Jesus, there is a Covenant
existing between him and his God, and he can say with David, "He has
made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure."
Believer, between your soul and the Maker of Heaven and earth there is
a compact which can never be broken! Though earth's huge pillars bow
and break, this Covenant stands forever sure. You being in Christ and
Christ being in you, you shall be saved, world without end, for God has
declared it and His truth stands fast forever!

III. Thirdly, our text contains A RECOMMENDATION TO THOSE WHO ONCE WERE
PRISONERS–"Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope." I
thought, dear Friends, that you were pulled up out of the pit–have you

been made prisoners again? If it is so, it is very sad, but you can
never be imprisoned as you were before. Perhaps you have not been
living as carefully as you ought. Or, for some other reason your faith
has become weak and so you have fallen into the pit again. But you are
not now in prison as you were before, for now you believe you will get
out again. No, better than that, you are surethat you will. Albeit that
sometimes Giant Despair tells you that you will die in the dungeons of
Doubting Castle, you know that you have a key called, "Promise," in
your bosom–and though you have not used it as you should have done,
you have the firm conviction that it will open any lock that old tyrant
has made– and you hope, some day, to employ it to such good purpose
that you will again be free! But, Sirs, you had no business to get into
that pit again. When the Lord once set you free, you should have taken
good care not to go back again into bondage.

It is a great mercy that you can never go back to such bondage as you
once experienced. You are prisoners, it is true, but you are "prisoners
of hope." Therefore, take the good advice of the text–"Return to the
stronghold, you prisoners of hope." That same Lord Jesus Christ, who,
by His precious blood, once set you free, is still a refuge from every
storm and every enemy. And if you are wise, you will cry to Him to
deliver you this very hour! I address myself to every Brother and every
Sister in Christ who has, in any sense, and to any degree, become a
prisoner again. My dear Friend, the Lord delivered you, years ago, did
He not? Do you not recollect, with intense gratitude, what He did for
you then? Well, He can deliver you again at this very moment! You
remember how joyfully you sang–

"He took my feet from the miry clay, And set me upon the King's
Highway"? Well, He can do the same thing, again, and do it now. Go to
Him at once! You do not need a better Deliverer than the Lord who is
"mighty to save," do you? And as He was able to deliver you when you
were so far gone as you used to be, He can surely deliver you now. You
say that you are so foolish and so insensible that you cannot make
yourself enjoy the means of Grace as you once did. It seems to you that
as you get older you get more insensible. Well, but, my dear Brothers
and Sisters, you are not spiritually dead, are you? And yet, when you
were really dead in trespasses and sins, Christ quickened you! Then,
surely He can bring you out of this state of torpor and restore you
from this strange swoon into which your soul has fallen. Return to
Jesus now, just as you came to Him at the first! If you cannot come to
Him as a saint, come as a sinner!

Oh, the many hundreds of times that I have done that! And I expect to
do it many more times before I get to Heaven. "What?" someone asks, "do
you have to do that Mr. Spurgeon?" Oh, yes, that I do! The devil says
to me, sometimes, "you are no child of God." It is no use to begin
arguing with him about that matter! The best way to answer him is to
say, "Well, Satan, if I am not a child of God, I soon will be, for I
will receive Christ as my Savior and that will make me God's child."
"Then," says the devil, "you talk about your faith, but you have no
faith to talk about." "Very well," I reply, "if I have not any, I soon
will have some, for I will begin to believe in Jesus now." Then he
says, "Your Christian experience, as you call it, is all a delusion."
Well, I never argue with him about that, but I say, "Suppose it is a
delusion, it is still true that 'Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners' and He has promised to save all who trust in Him. So,
here and now, I do trust Him and I am saved." Satan is a very old
lawyer. He has been in the profession for many centuries and he knows
how to raise all manner of quibbles and difficulties–and he can argue
and reason in a very crafty fashion. So your best plan is not to answer
him at all, except to say, "I have put my case into the hands of my
great Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have anything to say, you
must say it to Him."

That is my earnest advice and it is the advice of the text, too, to all
Christians who have, in any sense, come into bondage again–"Return to
the stronghold, you prisoners of hope." If you do that, you shall soon
come once more into light and liberty and joy and peace!

IV. The last thing in our text is A DOUBLE BLESSING PROMISED–"Even
today do I declare that I will render double unto you." If you turn to
Christ, you shall get a double blessing! What does this part of the
text mean?

Well, it means that God has such abundant Grace to give that He will
not only give you what you really need, but He will give you twice as
much as that!All the flowers in God's spiritual garden bloom double.
There never was any mercy of His which had not many other mercies
wrapped up in it. Every one of them contains far more blessing than we
thought it did. Now, dear Brother, dear Sister–can you open your mouth
wide and ask from God some great thing? If you do so, you shall receive
from God twice as much as you asked for! Do you feel a great need
within your soul–a need that is

truly dreadful? It craves so much that it seems to be like the two
daughters of the horseleech, crying, "Give, give!" Well, God will give
you so much that you shall have enough to satisfy that craving twice
over! Have you had some very great trouble? Then believe in the Lord
and you shall have double as much joy! Have you had deep depression of
spirit? You shall have double as much of holy exultation and delight!
Has the Lord laid His rod very heavily upon you and made you sorely
smart? Then He will give you two kisses to every blow! Has He made you
drink out of the bitter cup? Then He will bring you a double draught of
the spiced wine of the juice of His pomegranate, two cups of that
heavenly nectar for every cup of quassia that you have had! He will
make you consolations to abound and super-abound far above all your
tribulations!

"Well," you say, "I am expecting something very great from the Lord." I
am glad of it, but you will receive twice as much! The Queen of Sheba
expected a great deal when she went to see Solomon, yet she had to say,
"The half was not told me." So shall you find it with God. I read in
the Scriptures that God is Love, but His love to me has been a thousand
times better than I ever expected it would be! I thought that when I
came to trust under the shadow of His wings, that I should have mercy
and Grace and peace–but I never dreamt how much mercy, Grace and peace
I would have! And, Brothers and Sisters, I believe it is better than
before and that there is something brighter and sweeter than anything I
have ever known yet to come! And it shall be the same with you. The
Lord will go on to double your blessings and give you yet more and
more, according to that blessed text, "Of His fullness have we all
received, and Grace for Grace"– Grace upon Grace.

I especially beg you to notice that this is a present promise–"Even
today do I declare that I will render double unto you." Then why should
you not get some of this double joy this very moment? I know that you
said, as you were coming to this service, "I do not think I ought to
stay for the Communion–I do not feel fit to go to the Table of the
Lord. I seem to be as lifeless as a log. If I go and sit there, it will
merely be to eat the bread and to drink the wine, but not to enjoy real
fellowship with the Lord." Ah, my Brother, my Sister, if that is true
concerning you, it is to you that the text says, "Return to the
stronghold." Turn to Christ as you did at the first and then it may be
that your fellowship with Him will be sweeter than even that which you
enjoyed when first you came to His Table! It is the Lord who says,
"Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you." Plead the
promise in silent prayer right now–if you do so in faith, I shall be
surprised if you do not get a double blessing from the Lord very
speedily.

Finally, note how true the promise is. When God says, "Even today do I
declare that I will render double unto you," who among us dares to
doubt His declaration? I have sometimes heard people say, when they
have needed to be believed, "I declare to you that it is so." And you
know that the law of the land now allows those of us who object to the
taking of an oath, to make an affirmation and to say, "I do solemnly
declare that such-and-such is the fact." And, in that fashion, God
says, "Even today do I declare that I will render double unto you."
Well, then, take Him at His word and "turn you to the stronghold."
While you are sitting here, trust the Lord to give you the double
blessing that He has promised! If you do that, you may, each one, say,
as you go home, "'Before I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots
of Ammi-nadib.' I had no idea, when I went into the House of Prayer,
that I could be so changed. I was singing, no, I mean, howling or
growling–as I went up the steps–

"'Dear Lord, and shall I always lie At this poor dying rate? My love so
faint, so cold to You And Yours to me so great?' yet, when I came out,
I was able to sing, and almost to shout–

"'If ever I loved You, my Jesus, it is now.

God grant that this may be the happy experience of many of you, for
Christ's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ZECHARIAH9.

Verse 1. The burden of the word of the LORD in the land of Hadrach. Or
Syria.

1, 2. And Damascus shall be the rest thereof: when the eyes of man, as
of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the LORD. And Hamath also
shall border thereby. Tyrus. That is, Tyre.

2-4. And ZidOon, though it is very wise. And Tyrus did build herself a
stronghold, and heaped up silver and the dust, and fine gold as the
mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will cast her out and He will
smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured with fire. This
prophecy was literally fulfilled. Tyre was attacked by Alexander the
Great and after withstanding a long siege, was destroyed by him. The
strength of the city lay in the fact that it was built right out into
the sea and that it was protected by a vast, massive hole. Also, as a
great trading center, it possessed enormous wealth and so was able to
hire mercenary soldiers. But all its power and its wealth could not
preserve it from destruction! And although we read of Tyre in the New
Testament, it is now only a place for the drying of the nets of a few
poor fishermen, even as Ezekiel foretold that it would be (26:14). When
God foretells destruction, it always comes. But, blessed be His holy
name, when He promises blessing, that comes just as surely!

5. Ashkelon shall see it, and fear; Gaza also shallsee it, and be very
sorrowful, andEkron; for her expectation shall be ashamed; and the king
shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. When
Alexander invaded the country, the Philistines expected that he would
be hindered by the Tyrians, but, when Tyre fell, the Philistines were
easily conquered. That shows you the meaning of the prophecy and how
literally it was fulfilled.

6. And a bastard. Or, stranger.

6. 7. Shall dwellin Ashdod, andl will cut off thepride of the
Philistines. Andl wiil take away his blood out ofhis mouth. That is,
the prey that he had caught–"I will snatch it out of his mouth."

7. And his abominations from between his teeth: but he that remains,
even he shall be for our God, and he shall be as a governor in Judah,
andEkron as a Jebusite. There is no doubt that after the days of
Alexander, many Philistines became proselytes to the faith of the Jews
and were absorbed into the Jewish nation, so that an Ekronite became
like an Israelite–and this is a symbol of what God is doing all over
the world! He takes men who are strangers and foreigners to the
citizenship of Zion and puts them among His people, and treats the
Ekronite as a Jerusalemite. Blessed be His name for this great act of
Sovereign Grace.

8. And I will encamp about My house because of the army, because of him
that passes by, and because of him that returns: and no oppressor shall
pass through them any more: for now have I seen with My eyes. And so it
was. Alexander went to Jerusalem, after destroying Tyre, but he did not
attack the city. There was a strange restraint resting upon him which
prevented him from touching the house of the living God. I need not
repeat the well-known story of how he was met by the high priest whom
he recognized as the man whom he had seen in a dream, and so, though he
smote Tyre and Philistia, he allowed the people of God to go free. But,
after that time, something better happened. That great event is marked
off by a new paragraph in our Bible–and well it may be.

9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, daughter of Jerusalem:
behold, your King comes unto you. Not Alexander the Great, but, "your
King." "Your King comes unto you."

9. He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and
upon a colt the foal of an ass. What a beautiful and faithful
description of our Lord Jesus Christ! We wonder that Israel cannot see
the Messiah here. Had this verse been written afterthe coming of
Christ, it could not more accurately have described the blessed Person
and Character of our Lord Jesus. His very riding into Jerusalem upon an
ass, with her colt trotting by her side, is most plainly foretold here.

10. And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from
Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and He shall speak
peace unto the heathen: and His dominion shall be from sea even to sea,
and from the river even to the ends of the earth. This is our glorious
King–the King whose conquests are not achieved by horses, chariots and
battle-bows, but by the more powerful panoply of the Truth of God and
love! Blessed are all who dwell beneath the rule of such a King as He
is!

11. 12. As for you also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent
forth your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold,
you prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render
double unto you. Christ has come to set the prisoners free and to be
the stronghold of His people. Therefore turn to Him and all manner of
precious blessings shall be yours.

13. For I have bent Judah for Me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and
raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and made you
as the sword of a mighty man. This is a truly wonderful passage,
setting forth how God is going to use His people as the weapons by
which He will conquer the world. He will bend Judah and make her into a
bow, and

take Ephraim, and make her into an arrow–and then he will shoot His
strangely-fashioned shaft against His adversaries and ours! What does
this mean but that He is going to use those of us who are His own saved
ones, that He may conquer the world by us? And what a blessed battle
this is! "Your sons O Zion against your sons, O Greece"–the simple
Believer against the cultured man of reason without faith–the humble
truster in the Lord Jesus Christ against the man who proudly boasts of
his own learning and eloquence! How will this battle end? We know which
side will win, for "the Lord of Hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is
our refuge."

14. And the Lord shall be seen over them. As He has in the midst of His
people of old.

14. And His arrows shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord God
shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south. Here
you have a foresight of Pentecost and the grand era which succeeded the
outpouring of the Spirit. Oh, that we might once again prove what God's
Almighty Spirit can do!

15. The LORD ofHosts shall defend them; and they shall devour, and
subdue with sling stones and they shall drink, and make a noise as
through wine; and they shall be filled like bowls, and as the corners
of the altar You remember that the mockers said, on the day of
Pentecost, "These men are full of new wine." They were not, as Peter
plainly declared, "these are not drunken, as you suppose." Neither does
this prophesy mean that they would be so, but that the Spirit of God
should fall so copiously upon them as to fill them, like bowls brimming
over with precious liquid, or like the corners of the altar drenched
for Elijah's sacrifice. It is a grand thing when Believers in Christ
are thus filled to overflowing with the Spirit of God and Divine
energy–they are the men who will win the battle for the cause of God
and His Truth.

16. 17. And the LORD their God shall sa ve them in that day as the
flock of His people; for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted
up as an ensign upon His land. For how great is His goodness, and how
great is His beauty! Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new
wine the maids.