From Death To Life

From Death To Life
A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING, JULY 26, 1863, BY THE REV. C. H.
SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
The Lord kills and makes alive: He brings down to the grave, and brings
up."
1 Samuel 2:6.
THIS sentence occurs in the very remarkable song of Hannah, who was
equally illustrious as a poetess and prevalent as a suppliant. She
sings an experimental song, for her deep sorrow had been a living death
to her, and her joyful exaltation was a triumphant resurrection. Her
hymn is a golden bracelet set with the jewels of sparkling contrasts.
And this verse, with its vivid opposition between life and death,
restoration and the grave, bears in it diamonds of the finest quality.
Like the ewes in the Canticles, this verse bears twins.
There is the double blessing of Othniel's wife in this text–it has
both the upper and the nether springs as its inheritance. It has its
own plain and natural meaning, which lies upon its surface like dust of
gold. It has, moreover a spiritual meaning, which needs to be dug for
like silver in the mine.
I. In reference to ITS FIRST AND MOST MANIFEST MEANING, "The Lord
brings down to the grave and brings up." Here the agency of God, in
life and death, is clearly revealed to us. How well it is to discern
the Lord's hand in everything. Our Puritan forefathers were custom to
speak of God as restraining the bottles of Heaven, or sending a
gracious rain; as sending forth the wind, or hiding it in His
storehouse. But we have grown so wise that we begin to understand how
the rain is formed, and we talk about the winds as if we had been into
the chambers from which they come howling forth and had discovered all
the secrets of the universe.
We ascribe events to second causes, to the laws of nature, and I know
not what. I think it were far better if we would go back to the good
old way of talking and speaking of the Lord as being in everything.
While we do not deny the laws of nature, nor decry the discoveries of
science, we will suffer none of these to be hung up as a veil before
our present God. O foolish wisdom, which widens the distance between me
and my heavenly Father! O sweet simplicity of love, which sees the God
of love in every place, at every hour! I need no telescope to see my
God–behold, O sons of men, He is here–and my heart joyfully perceives
Him.
God is in life and death, in sickness and in health. This, surely, will
soften the pains of sickness and gild the joys of recovery. If you look
upon sickness and restoration as merely the products of natural causes,
you will not feel humbled when you are stretched upon the bed, nor
grateful when you walk out again, and breathe the fresh air. But if you
see God's finger in touching your bones and your flesh, you will be
humbled under the chastisement. And if you discern His hand in
restoring your youth, like the eagle's, you will be able, like David,
to say, "Bless the Lord, O my Soul, and forget not all His benefits."
Let others forget God if they will, that is the attribute of the
wicked. But let His saints remember Him and let them speak well of His
name and have it in their mouths all the day long–
"It is God who lifts our comforts high, Or sinks them in the grave."
This most precious fact should produce several gracious results in our
hearts.
First of all, it should awaken gratitude. What a mercy it is that we
are here this evening! You would think it more a mercy, perhaps, if
certain of yonder seats had been left unoccupied because those who sat
there but a few days ago have gone the way of all flesh. If those pews
could tell you where their former owners now are, you would praise the
preserving hand of God far more heartily. Why, I looked just now with
solemn gaze upon a spot where was custom to sit one who has heard me
preach for years, but God has lately called him to His bar.
And I turn my head and look upon another spot–just there–where used
to sit another friend, but this last week, while journeying in Wales
for his health, he ran down a slope on one of the beautiful mountains a
little more rapidly than he should have done. The fence at the bottom
gave way and he was precipitated into an eternal world. Even in our
recreations, what dangers dog our heels!
You sometimes smile at old-fashioned people who thank God for
"journeying mercies," and "journeying protections," but, indeed, such
petitions are as fitting as ever they were. I always like to offer to
my God thanksgivings for mercies known and mercies unknown. Christ had
unknown sufferings and we enjoy, as the result, unknown mercies. When
we know that–
"Dangers stand thick through all the ground,
To push us to the tomb,
And fierce diseases wait around, To hurry mortals home," our
preservation from these dangers should make us bless our God, "who
redeems our life from destruction." Glory be to that solitary arm which
shields us from a vast array of foes!
While it causes gratitude, dear Friends, it should compel consideration
and lead us to pray that sickness and health may be sanctified to us.
"The Lord brings down to the grave," and it is His rule never to do
anything without a purpose. "He does not afflict willingly nor grieve
the children of men for nothing." There is always a "needs be," if "we
are in heaviness through manifold temptations." Is it not the part of
wisdom to say, with Job, "Show me why you contend with me?" Should not
the sick chamber be a place where we should seek God?
Indeed, where is there a place in which we should not seek Him?
Brethren, we ought to ask the sanctified use of everything. Are we not
to ask a blessing at the table upon our every meal? What is there,
then, upon which we do not need the blessing of God? But especially do
we need it upon our trials. Ask a blessing, my Brothers and Sisters,
upon your troubles. Say grace over a table which is not so well loaded
as it used to be. Say grace over broken bones and aching heads, over
pains and pangs and partings, for there you want Divine Grace more than
anywhere else, with the exception, it is true, of your prosperity–and
there, likely enough, you need a double portion of His Spirit.
If we have been lifted up from the couch of languishing and suffering,
then let us quietly expect the comfortable fruits of righteousness
which are afterwards to be brought forth in those who are exercised
with trials. Let us pray God that the pruning may make us bring forth
more fruit. That the filing may make us shine the more brightly. That
the furnace may consume our dross, and the deep rivers drown our
follies. If the rod shall scourge our sloth to death, and the staff
shall strengthen our faith, both rod and staff shall be seen to be in
the Lord's hands and shall therefore comfort us.
I think you will all agree with me, too, that the Lord's bringing us
low and raising us up again, should cause great searching of heart.
Suppose I had died when last I was sick–was I then prepared to die?
Woman, you remember when you last were stretched upon that sickbed and
even the physician had given you up for hopeless? God spared you. But
if He had not, where now would your soul be? Let your conscience answer
that question and it may be that it will make you tremblingly say, "I
should have been like unto them that go down into the pit."
If it had been your lot, my Hearers, some of you to have perished as
this friend of ours has done during the past week,
1 dare not have said of you, "Lord, we thank You that it has pleased
You to take this, our Brother, to Yourself." I could not have uttered a
sentence of hope concerning you. I should have forged a lie had I
comforted your friends by holding out a fraction of hope concerning
your soul's salvation, for alas, are there not some of you who are
Gospel-hardened, and grow worse rather than better?
While we are preaching to you, and pleading with you, and weeping for
you to turn to Christ; and while we are trying to lift up Jesus upon
His Cross in the hope that the Spirit may thereby attract you, you are
getting to look upon the Gospel as an old, old tale, and upon the
preacher himself as one whom you have heard so often, that really he is
growing quite tedious and dull. Ah, there are some of you whom I could
stir once, as a thunderclap, or a flash of lightning would have
startled you, but you can almost sleep under my voice now. God knows I
am willing enough to confess my own lack of zeal and earnestness.
But still, my Hearers, it is not thatwhich keeps some of you from
coming to Christ. It is because you keep putting off the day of
repentance by perpetual procrastination. You live in a continual
suicide, always destroying your own soul. Meanwhile, that which does
not melt you, hardens you, and so you grow worse and worse, ripening
like tares for the fire. My dear Friends, let the judgments of God lead
you to try your hearts and to see what your state before God may be.
"Beware lest He take you away with His stroke: then a great ransom
cannot deliver you."
To those of us who are Believers in Christ, restoration from sickness,
and the privilege of again coming up to God's House after an absence
from it through illness, should suggest renewed activity. Hurry up!
Hurry up! For behind you are the flying wheels of the chariot of Death,
and the axles are growing red hot with speed. Fly, Man, if you would
accomplish your lifework, for you have not a moment to spare! I think I
see my work before me–the wheat ripe unto the harvest–"broad acres
and wide fields"–multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision!
"Arise," says the Master, "reap for me!" I have reaped until my arm
aches and my head swims. I wipe the hot sweat from my weary brow and
would gladly rest awhile, but He says, "Reap! Reap! Reap! Reap while
the morning's dew is falling! Reap while the hot sun scorches the
ripening corn! Reap while the sun is setting! Reap until he has quite
gone down. Then you shall rest from your labors. But until then your
work shall not be done!" Am I to reap alone?
My Brothers and Sisters, there are many new, bright sickles–here is
one for each of you. Up and to the fields, my fellow reapers! Men and
women, up from your lethargy! Woe unto you that are at ease in Zion,
who lie upon beds of down and forget that men are making their beds in
Hell! Get up and begin to be troubled for the sorrows of God's people,
for the deaths of sinners, for the destruction of this great city. If
ever Jonah's soul was stirred within him as he thought of Nineveh, much
more ought yours and mine to be stirred with the burden of this great
London.
There is no time to waste. Men are dying! Hell is filling! How dare you
loiter! Again I sound the alarm. Work, O you saints of the Lord, with
all your might! Work with both your hands, by night and by day! Sow
beside all waters! In the morning sow your seed and in the evening
withhold not your hand. Let, then, the nearness of death and the
shortness of life be to us as double spurs to stimulate our jaded
spirits to fresh action.
What need I say more? You who are scholars in the college of affliction
are more fit to instruct me than I am to teach you. I shall but add
this one thought–surely, if it is the Lord who brings down to the
grave–and He may do it at any day, we ought to be very watchful. Are
we not, many of us, like the virgins of the parable? We have fallen
asleep. We have our lamps with us, but are not they almost out? It is
the dead hour of night and all things are quiet. I think I hear a cry
which ought to startle every sleeper–"Behold, the Bridegroom comes! Go
out to meet Him!"
Can you sleep after that? Do I not see you startled? You rub your
drowsy eyes. You look at your lamps and you find the oil gone. You seek
to trim them and the cry fills you with alarm and confusion, "Behold,
the Bridegroom comes! Go out to meet Him!" But some of you have no oil,
and now you try to borrow it where it is not to be had. Alas for you,
for you will be shut out, and shut out forever! Others of you have oil
in your vessels, but you need hastily to trim your lamps or else the
Bridegroom will come and find you sleeping.
The Lord grant that as He may come today, as you, sitting there in your
seat, may die. As I, standing here, may cease to breathe before the
next word shall come from my lips, we may all be ready–
"That awful, that tremendous day, Is coming, who shall tell? For as a
thief Unheard, unseen, it steals with silent pace Through night's dark
gloom. Perhaps as here I stand, And rudely talk of these tremendous
themes, Soon shall the tongue be checked, and dumb the mouth That lisps
the faltering strain. O Power supreme, You Guardian of my life,
Preserve me from a dread surprise in death. From ways where I might
weep to find a grave, Keep You Your servant by Your mighty Grace. O may
Your heavenly summons never disturb, Nor come unwelcome, to my waiting
heart But find me rapt in meditation high, Hymning my great Creator! Or
in prayer, Bringing the blessing down upon the crowd; In earnest work
for Jesus, lifting up His Cross and glory of His saving name." Be
watchful, Brothers and Sisters, for the Lord brings down to the grave,
and from that grave He brings us not up again to work, though He will
bring us up to the reward and to the rest which remain for the people
of God. I shall now leave the text as it stands naturally. And briefly,
but O may the Spirit of God help me to do it earnestly, try to speak of
it in a spiritual sense.
II. OUR TEXT SEEMS TO INDICATE A STATE OF HEART THROUGH WHICH THOSE
PASS WHO ARE BROUGHT TO GOD. There always is, in every case, though not
to the same degree, a stripping time before there is a clothing time.
There must be an emptying before there is a filling. There is the
digging out of the foundations before the building up of the house.
There is a time in which this verse is fulfilled–"The Lord kills and
makes alive: He brings down to the grave and brings up."
Let me describe now, for the comfort of those who are passing through
the same, what that state of heart is in which the Lord brings down to
the grave. I shall speak now experimentally, for if there breathes one
soul on earth that can speak experimentally here, I am that man.
The sinner is led, first of all, to hear his own sentence pronounced.
He was getting careless and thoughtless before, but now he is brought
to think Thinking, he perceives his sins. Perceiving his sins, he fears
an angry God looking down from Heaven, no, with His sword drawn,
reaching down from Heaven, to smite him on account of his iniquities.
Well do I remember when I stood speechless at God's bar. Not a word had
I to answer Him with for one sin of a thousand.
When I read, "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things which
are written in the Book of the Law, to do them," I knew that that curse
was upon me, for I had not continued in anything, much less in all
things'written in the Book of the Law. It seemed to me as though I saw
the Judge open the book. Not to read my indictment–for that had
already been published–but to proclaim the sentence. The trial had
been gone through. I myself had made confession of my crimes, and now
the Judge put on the black cap and commanded me to be taken to the
place from which I was to suffer eternal wrath.
When that sentence was to be executed He did not tell me, but it
appeared to me as if it must come the next moment. And if it did come,
I knew I could not blame the justice of God, for I deserved it well. Is
that your position? Oh, where are you tonight, poor condemned Sinner?
Perhaps I cannot see you, for the crowd is great, nor can you see me,
for you are in a corner, but yet you are bowing your head and saying,
"Ah, that is just my case. I am cursed and I deserve it. God is angry
with the sinner every day, I am a sinner and deserve that anger."–
"There is a dreadful Hell
And everlasting pains,
Where sinners must with devils dwell,
In darkness, fire, and chains."
"That is my lot," you are saying. And you are wringing your hands while
you are speechless as to any self-justification and are only able to
say, "It is most just. I deserve it well"?
Further than this–the convicted sinner is often made to feel not only
the sentence and the justice of it, but the very horror of death itself
You may have read in the narrative of the old American war of the
execution of deserters. They were brought out one bright morning, while
yet the dew was on the grass and were bid to kneel down, each man in
his coffin. And then a file of soldiers stepped forth. The word was
given and each man fell down in his coffin in which he was to be
buried. Such things as the punishment of deserters are common in every
war, but what must be the horror of the man who stands there, knowing
that the bullet is waiting to reach his heart?
In the old wars, they used to have a black heart sown on the man's
breast and all the soldiers were to take aim and fire at that. Why the
man must suffer a thousand deaths while he stood waiting for the word
of command! I have stood there, spiritually. And there are hundreds
here who have thus faced their eternal doom. They have felt the horrors
of death get hold upon them and the pangs of Hell encompass them–and
they have found trouble and sorrow. O Sinners, if you know yourselves,
you will soon feel this, for do you not know that if you are without
Christ, you are standing in that position now?
The great guns of the Law, charged to the muzzle, are all pointed at
you. They do but wait the fatal moment when the uplifted finger of
Justice shall bid them be discharged. And where will you be then? Lost
beyond hope! Ruined beyond remedy! Beware, Sinner, beware of this.
"Well," says one, "that is the horror which I felt tonight. I felt as I
came along that it was a wonder the earth did not open and swallow me
up. And though I am now in God's House, I feel as if such a wretch as I
am ought not to be in the company of the faithful. I wonder that I am
still alive. I am ready to cry out with the hymn writer–
"Tell it, unto sinners tell; I am, I am out of Hell."
Ah, dear Friends, this is another part of the experience through which
many are called to go before the Lord who brings them down to the grave
and vouchsafes to bring them up again.
Then there is yet a further death which the convicted sinner is made to
feel and that is the death of inability. While we are unregenerate, we
think that we can do everything. Nothing is so easy, we imagine then,
as believing. It is mere child's play to pray to God, only a trifle to
turn to God, and get a new heart. Yes, but when man begins to work in
real earnest, he finds it a very different thing. He feels like one in
a swoon. There lies a woman who has fainted. You tell her it is but to
put up her finger, to open her eyes, to move her limbs, to walk into
the fresh air, to drink a draught of water, and to recover. Yes, but
she cannot do any of these things!
In one sense she can. The faculties are there, but they are all in a
dormant state and so utterly powerless that all the woman is conscious
of is her inability. Such is the state of the sinner when under a sense
of guilt. He feels that deadly swoon of death into which Adam threw all
his children. Now he moans most wretchedly, in words like those of good
old John Newton–
"I would, but cannot sing, I would, but cannot pray. For Satan meets me
when I try, And frightens my soul away. I would, but can't repent,
Though I endeavor often. This stony heart can never relent Till Jesus
makes it soft. I would, but cannot love, Though wooed by love Divine.
No arguments have power to move A soul so base as mine.
could I but believe! Then all would easy be;
1 would, but cannot–Lord, relieve, My help must come from You!"
He feels himself brought into a perfect state of death, as if a stupor
had gone through every nerve and frozen every muscle rigidly in its
place. Even the lifting of his little finger to help himself appears to
be beyond his power. I am glad, dear Friend, you are brought here, for
I know the Lord never does empty a soul thoroughly of all
creature-strength without very soon showing what the Creator can do! If
He has brought you down to this grim sepulcher of corruption, dishonor,
weakness, and self-despair, He will shortly bring you up again. It is
when you are strong that I am afraid of you. But when you are weak,
then my hopes are high.
The climax of your disease is just the dawn of my hopes. Your direst
poverty is the time when I expect to see you enriched–for when you are
completely emptied and have nothing, then Jesus Christ will be your
strength and your salvation. Trust Him to be your All in All now that
you are nothing at all. There must, at least in some degree, be a sense
of thus being brought down to the grave before there will be a bringing
up again.
No doubt, the man now sees death written upon all his hopes. There was
a door through which I had hoped to enter eternal life. I had spent
much time in painting it, and making it comely to look upon. It seemed
to me to have a golden knocker, a marble threshold, and posts and
lintels of mahogany–and I thought it was the door of life for me. But
now what do I see? I see a great black Cross on it, and over it there
is written, "Lord, have mercy upon us." This door is the door to Heaven
by my own good works, which I thought full sure would always be open to
me.
But lo, I see that all my best works are bad and, "Lord, have mercy
upon us," is the highest thing my works can produce for me! Still I
must cry, even over them, "God have mercy upon my good works. Forgive
me for my best deeds, for I need to be forgiven even for these." The
death of legal hope is the salvation of the soul. I like to see legal
hope swung up like a traitor. There let him hang to rot before the sun,
more cursed than any other that was ever hanged on a tree. O, Soul,
have done with him, for while you are so fond of him, while you treat
him with the best you have, and set him at the head of your table, you
are ruined. But when you slay him and drive him from you, then it is
that your joy and your hope begin. No more, then, concerning this
death–"The Lord brings down."
But now a word or two of comfort for any of you who are brought down to
this spiritual grave. There are many precious promises for such.
"Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
you light." "Though you have lain among the pots, yet shall you be as
the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow
gold." Remember the experience of Jonah–"For You had cast me into the
deep, in the midst of the seas. And the floods compassed me about: all
Your billows and Your waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out
of Your sight. Yet I will look again toward Your holy temple…I went
down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about
me forever: yet have You brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my
God."
Let the hope of Jeremiah be your consolation–"But though He cause
grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His
mercies. For He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of
merit." You that are brought very low, you feel that you are wounded
tonight. Do you not know how many promises there are to the wounded
ones? "He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds." Was
not Jesus Christ sent on purpose for this–"to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of
the prison to them that are bound?" The name of our God is
"Jehovah-Rophi: the Lord that heals you."
His own words are, "I will restore health unto you and I will heal you
of your wounds." "I have seen his ways and will heal him: I will lead
him, also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners." You are
tonight like the dead. Do you not remember that passage in Ezekiel,
fraught with rich mercy to you, where the Lord speaks concerning
Israel, that they said their bones were dry, their hope was lost, and
they were cut off from their parts? But, nevertheless, He would raise
them up and they should live in His sight? "Therefore prophesy and say
unto them, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, O My people, I will open
your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you
into the land of Israel.
"And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves,
O My people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put My
Spirit in you and you shall live and I shall place you in your own
land: then shall you know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and
performed it, says the Lord." Remember how Hosea, speaking of the dead
who were slain as you are, says, "The third day He will raise us up and
we shall live in His sight"? And that passage we read just now–"I kill
and I make alive"–do you not see the comfort of it?
That "and" is a diamond rivet, joining the two sentences together. You
cannot separate the, "I kill," from the, "I make alive," for where God
kills by His Spirit, He always quickens by the same. He does not in
this life kill our legal hopes and our carnal security without
by-and-by making us alive. You will tell me that the Lord has withdrawn
from you. But, oh, what a multitude of promises there are for you! "For
a small moment have I forsaken you. But with great mercies will I
gather you." "If any walk in darkness and see no light, let him trust
in the name of the Lord." So that though you have lost the comfortable
hope of His love, you are still to trust in Him.
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," said Job. And so do you,
though you are slain, still trust–for there is still ground for
trust–no sinner was ever brought too low for God to bring him up
again. Others have been as low as you are now. Remember Heman the
Ezrahite, whose mournful notes we read just now in the eighty-eighth
Psalm. What words are these–"You have laid me in the lowest pit, in
darkness, in the deeps. Your wrath lies hard upon me and You have
afflicted me with all Your waves…I am afflicted and ready to die from
my youth up: while I suffer Your terrors I am distracted. Your fierce
wrath goes over me. Your terrors have cut me off"?
Yet this man of God received comforts, after all, from the God of his
salvation. You yourself are not brought so low as you would be if you
had a still clearer view of your sins. Remember, God's mercy is so
great that you may sooner drain the sea of its water, or deprive the
sun of his light, or make space too narrow–than diminish the great
mercy of God. So that though brought to the very last pinch, and dead
like the free among the slain that go down into the pit, you may still
find mercy in the Lord our God.
Let me beg you never to be satisfied until you get a Savior. Do not be
content with any comfort short of faith in Christ. Do recollect, dear
Friends, that you must not be satisfied because you have good desires,
or because you experience holy feelings. When friends say to you, "God
has begun the good work in you, and you may be content, for He will
carry it on"–remember, you can never be sure that God has begun the
good work till you have believed in Christ. Believe in Jesus Christ!
That is, as far as you are concerned, the first clear proof that God
has begun a saving work in you.
And it is for you, though dead and ruined, though swooning and
fainting, and unable to do anything as of yourself, to swoon into the
arms of the Savior. It is for you to faint, as many a child has done,
into its father's arms–to die in the bosom of the Savior and lie
buried in His grave. Oh, this is a happy, happy way of being
nothing–that Christ may be All in All. And now I close, for time fails
us, by just noticing, that where God has thus killed and brought down,
we may rest assured He will certainly bring up again.
Beloved Friends, the Lord does not send His Holy Spirit to bring
sinners to a sense of their need whom He does not intend to save, for
that were a waste of His Divine energy. He leaves reprobates, for the
most part, to their natural hardness and impassive hearts. But those
whom He deigns to make sensible of guilt, those whom He deigns to
condemn in their consciences, and to write the sentence of death in
their members–these He intends, sooner or later, to bring up again
from their despondency. Why, it stands to reason that He will! "Ah,"
said one good old Divine once to a fainting sinner, "You cost Christ
too much for Him to let you perish! He bought you too dearly to let you
be a castaway forever."
Remember, since you are His–and we have a comfortable hope that you
are because you sigh and cry and have a blessed hunger and thirst after
Him–since you are His, I say, you are very precious in His sight and
He will not, therefore, suffer you to be lost. "Oh," says one, "can I
be a child of God after all, and yet be brought so low as I have been?"
Some months ago, there were two women who kept a shop and they put all
their money, some hundred pounds, in sover- eigns, under the fireplace
at night, in a bag, to save it from thieves. The cleaning girl cleared
away the ashes, and of course, cleared away the sovereigns, too, and
they were swept into the dust heap.
Well, this gold might have said to itself, "Now I am going to the dust
heap! How worthless I am, because I am put here among the lowest
dregs–here is a piece of old rag–and here a rotten mass of filth. I
cannot be a gold sovereign or else I should not be cast here." Ah, but
you see, when they came to rake the heap they raked the golden coins
out again! The sovereigns were, by-and-by discovered. They might be in
the ashes, but they were not to lie there forever.
So you may be brought to feel yourselves the lowest, the worst, and the
most useless of all creatures–but if the Lord has set His love upon
you, you are gold in His esteem–none the less because of the ashes and
the dunghill upon which you may be cast. And He will yet bring you up
again. Remember, there may be a work of Divine Grace in your heart and
yet you may not know it. There are many pebbles in the bottom of a
river which you cannot see, but they are there. There may be some
degree of faith and hope and love, and yet your soul may be so much
disturbed that you cannot as yet perceive it. Or the Lord may be really
bringing you up from the grave and yet the muddiness of your thoughts
and the darkness of your soul's eyes may prevent your perceiving what
the Lord is doing for you.
Still, I repeat it, He willbring you up again. O let your faith seize
hold on this comforting assurance. If it is not done yet, it will be in
due time. "Well, how will it come?" says one, "how will the Lord give
me comfort?" My dear Friend, I do not know the manner of it. It may
come suddenly–before this service is over you may feel all the joy
that a Believer can know. It may be that the Lord will reveal Himself
to you as you are walking home, or tonight while you are in prayer
before you go to your rest. Possibly it will come gradually–first the
blade, then the ear–and then the full corn in the car.
There are some to whom the light of life comes as the light of the
rising sun–first a glimmering twilight. Then the ruddy hues upon the
clouds. Then a flood of light and afterwards the sun has fully risen.
It may be so with you. But there is one thing I know–when your hope
does come, when God quickens you from your grave–it will be just at
that moment when you are led to look away from your own feelings, your
own doings, and your own willings, and to look to Christ alone.
I heard the other day a trembling woman–I hope she will yet be
rejoicing in the Lord–I heard her saying she was afraid she never
should be saved. I told her I was afraid so, too, for she would not
believe in Christ, but was always raising questions and doubts. Well,
she said, she did not know whether the Lord had begun a good work in
her. I told her I did not know that either, and that I did not enquire
about it. I knew what the Gospel said and that was, "Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." But she said, perhaps it was
not God's time. Ah, I said, "Today is the accepted time; today is the
day of salvation."
Ah, she said, but she could not believe. I asked her why she could not
believe. Could she not believe what Christ said? Was He a liar? Could
she dare to say that she could not believe her God? Well, she did not
exactly mean that, but then there were her sins. But, I said, "The
blood of Jesus Christ cleans us from all sin." Well, she said, she
hoped she should have the strivings of the Spirit and that one day she
should get right. My sister, said I, I charge you before God, your
business is to come to Christ and to come to Christ now. But if you
stop anywhere short of that, in any sort of feelings or experience,
then you will never get to your journey's end.
A believing sinner's business is with Jesus and not with the Spirit's
operations. The Spirit works salvation in him, but he is nowhere bid to
look to the Spirit for salvation. No man can come to the Father but by
Christ. And no man can come to an acknowledgment of the Spirit's
operations but by a sight of Christ. I grant you that the Spirit brings
us to the Cross, but we do not know when we come that the Spirit is at
work with us. By a mysterious force we come to Jesus and then
afterwards we look back and say, "Why, it must have been the Spirit of
God that drew me to Christ." You are not, however, to begin with
that–you are to begin by looking at the Cross.
Although I have been talking to you about how God wills to bring us
down, I have not set up these feelings as a standard of experience, or
as being the grounds of our salvation. A sense of need is a sign of our
salvation, for no soul ever will come to live through the life of
Christ unless he has first been slain by the great sword of the Law. No
sinner ever comes empty-handed to Jesus till he has been knocked down
and robbed of all the worthless trash which he prizes as jewels. But
still, I say for all this, the thing which saves the soul is for that
dead, helpless, swooning, feeble, lost, ruined soul, to look to Him who
hangs on yonder Cross–where the Just suffers for the unjust, that He
may bring us to God.
This is how the Lord brings us up again. I know there will be some who
will say they have not felt all I have described to any great degree or
extent. Remember, again, I do not set this up as a standard to keep you
from Christ. I have been preaching thus in order to catch you who do
not come because you have terrors–not to frighten those who come with-
out them. There are two sorts of you we have to deal with. Some of you
say you cannot believe in Christ because you have such terrible
convictions. You wish you had not felt them. And another class of you
say if you had these horrible terrors, you could believe in Christ.
There is no pleasing either of you.
Now, remember, you that have the convictions, the Lord who brings you
low will bring you up again. And you that have not the convictions, you
still have this preached to you–"Jesus Christ came into the world to
save sinners, of whom I am chief." Come to Jesus just as you are, you
shall have such conviction as the Lord sees fit for you. You shall,
indeed, be led in the same way as others. Though, being blind, you will
not know at the time that it is the same way. You will be killed and
you will be made alive. You will be emptied and you will be filled. You
will be made nothing and Jesus shall be your All in All.
O that my Master would bless these few rambling remarks to some of you.
I do not like drawing the bow at a venture. I cannot stand that
metaphor. I love to draw the bow at a certainty, to smite some of you
and I would to God that the Lord would do that now. The Lord greatly
blesses that class over which our dear sister, Mrs. Bartlett,
presides–but there are still some in it who are unconverted. O that
the Lord might bring some of them in tonight! You young women who take
an interest in the things of God–may the Lord now decide you. I want
to speak personally and affectionately to you now, because you may be
in the grave before another Sunday.
As I look around me here, I miss some of my congregation, and in such a
large congregation as this, there are at least two who depart every
week. I suppose, according to the natural order of things, two of you
must die each week. And when I think of this solemn fact, I ask–where
are the two? Where are the two who are to be the victims of death this
week? "Perhaps they are at home, sick," you say. Ah, well, perhaps,
also, they are here in good, strong health. Prepare to meet your God,
young men, for you are not too young to die! And you in the Sunday
school. I am so pleased to hear of the boys being converted and of the
girls being brought in.
But, O children, some of you may soon make a little hillock in the
cemetery with your young bodies! May the Lord make you young Samuels.
Remember, it was Samuel's mother who penned this text–may you be led
to feel your need of Jesus and then to find Him for the salvation of
your soul. You who are diligent in business, but are not fervent in
spirit, you will be busy buying and selling all the week, but oh, do
not sell your souls! "Buy the Truth and sell it not." You, gray heads,
yonder, what a multitude of old men we always have in this assembly and
I am glad to see the fathers here, though I often wonder how aged
Christians can be fed by such a child as I am.
But still, those gray hairs only make a fool's cap for you if you have
grown old in sin as well as old in years. God help you, that you may
yet be made babes in Grace though you are on the very verge of the
grave.
God add His blessing, but we will not separate till we have sung this
one verse–and I beg none to sing it but those who deeply can feel it–
"Just as I am, without one plea, But that Your blood was shed for me,
And that You bid me come to You, O Lamb of God, I come, I come!"