God's Foreknowledge of Man's Sin
A sermon
(No. 779)
Delivered on Lord's-day Morning, NOVEMBER 3, 1867, by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Yes, you heard not; yes, you knew not; yes, from that time that your
ear was not opened: for I knew that you would deal very treacherously,
and were called a transgressor from the womb."- Isaiah 48:8.
THE ancient people of God were most annoyingly emotionless, and
although the Lord taught them very plainly and repeatedly, precept upon
precept, here a little and there a little, yet they would not
understand His will. More especially, in order to convince them that
Jehovah was the only true God and that the gods of the heathen were not
gods, He was pleased to send them Prophets to foretell things to come.
And when those events transpired which had been so plainly predicted,
one would have thought that ordinary sense and reason would have led
them to adore the God who thus proved His existence and His
foreknowledge. But even this powerful proof did not convince them! They
still paid more respect to the gods of the heathen than to the one and
only living God, and their souls hankered after the idols of the
nations.
The Lord rebukes them for this folly in the verse before us. "Yes, you
heard not," though I spoke so plainly that the deaf might hear, yet you
would not listen to My voice. Though taught by God-sent Prophets, yet
the people refused to be instructed. "Yes, you knew not," though your
own internal consciousness might have taught it to you, apart from any
voice, yet you would neither learn from without nor consider within.
Nothing can exceed the obstinate stupidity of the unrenewed heart. It
will not learn, let the teaching come as it may. "From that time that
your ear was not opened," for your ear had become as though sealed up,
impervious to sound. Your heart had become so vile with iniquity as to
be incapable of feeling. And this was not because the Jewish people
were foolish or naturally devoid of intelligence, for, as we all know,
to this very day there is no sharper generation under Heaven than the
sons of Judah.
And yet, in the days of Isaiah and until the captivity they proved
themselves to be most arrant fools in that they still went after the
idols which had brought them no blessing, and forsook the Lord who
alone could benefit them. As in a looking glass, let us see ourselves!
Let the unconverted man see his own picture! God has spoken quite as
pointedly to you as ever He did to the seed of Israel. He has called
you by Providences of different kinds. His mercies have wooed you to
the worship of a generous God. Afflictions have called you to kiss the
hand that smote you and to turn unto the Lord who smites us out of
mercy to our souls.
Providence has spoken to you with many tongues, with singular patience
and persevering tenderness. As for the Bible, which is open before you
and in all your houses, has it not often addressed you with a voice
most clear and simple, "Turn you, turn you! Why will you die?" There is
not a lack of express texts of Scripture to assure you that the way of
sin is not the path of peace, and that only the path of obedient
repentance and trust in the Lord Jesus can lead you to happiness here
and hereafter. You have, some of you, been called by the admonitions of
affectionate and godly parents, who, perhaps from the skies are
beckoning you this morning in spirit to follow them to Paradise. You
were further invited to the path of holiness by loving friends in
Sunday school–the recollections of whose earnest warnings have not
quite faded from the tablets of your memory.
Frequently the voice of God's minister has bid you to come to Jesus
from the pulpit. And Conscience, a nearer pleader still, if you would
but hear his voice, has often echoed the voice of God setting its seal
to the testimony of God's Word, bidding you turn from your evil ways
and acquaint yourself with God that you might be at peace. And yet up
till now it may be said of many of you, "Yes, you heard not; yes, you
knew not; yes, from that time that your ear was not opened."
As yet the plow has been driven upon a rock which has not felt its
power. The bread has been cast upon the water and after many days there
is no return. Three times a "yes" is put in our text, as if to show
God's wonder at man's obstinacy,
and the certainty that such was the state of the heart. It was
certainly so. You heard, but it went in one ear and out the other! You
heard and heard not–you heard as sticks and stones might hear–or as
cold, insensible steel. You knew not though the knowledge was before
your eyes and you might have known it. You are, I fear, many of you,
among the blind people that have eyes and the deaf people who have ears
who refuse to use their eyes and fast close their ears through willful
ignorance. You know not what you might have known. The very birds of
the air know their time, and the fishes of the sea obey the laws of the
world's great Governor–but ungodly men are more stupid and foolish
than irrational creatures! The net is spread before us and yet we fly
into it! The lure is laid before our very eyes and yet we willfully are
ensnared!
This accusation which God brought against the Jews, He can this day
bring against the Gentiles, and who shall dare deny it? More painful,
still, is it to remember that in a certain degree the same accusation
may be laid at the door of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ! Even
those who have received Divine Grace to become the sons of God have not
such a degree of spiritual sensibility as they should have. Alas, my
Brothers and Sisters, we may well bewail ourselves that we do not hear
the voice of God as we ought. God often speaks in the heart of man, but
man regards Him not. There are gentle motions of the Holy Spirit in the
soul which are unheeded by us. There are whispers of Divine commands
and of heavenly love in our souls which alike are unobserved by our
lead intellects.
God speaks to us in the silent shadows of the night, but when we lie
awake we are not with Him, though He is with us. How often do we shirk
a duty clearly revealed to us as a duty? How constantly do we postpone
obedience to precepts which are only to be fully obeyed by being kept
at once? How constantly are we in the habit, when a command becomes
disagreeable, even though we know it to be right, of ignoring it?
Forgetting it and finding apologies for neglect? How little is there of
the little child about us, and how much of the willful man! We are not
like the sheep that follows close at the shepherd's hand, but, I fear
we are more like the bull unaccustomed to the yoke which kicks against
the pricks!
Whether you have to make the same confessions in private that I have to
make I do not know, but verily I must say, "Guilty," if the Lord says
to me, "Yes, you have not heard." "Yes, you have not known." There are
matters within which we ought to see–corruptions which are making
headway unobserved–sweet affections which are being blighted like
flowers in the frost, untended and uncared for by us. There are gleams
of heavenly sunlight which would enter if we did not shut them out.
There are glimpses of the Divine Face which might be perceived if we
did not wall up the windows of our soul–but we have not known.
It is marvelous how little of introspection there is with many of God's
people–how little they look within–how little they look after their
own vineyard and the garden of their own souls. I am afraid most of us
would have to say, "It is so," if it were said," Yes, you have not
known." Alas, though our ears are open, they naturally soon close
themselves. They need to be cleansed again and again. Sanctification
has need to be in us, my Brethren, a perpetual work, a daily work. If
ever we are to be sanctified wholly–spirit, soul, and body (as we
thank God we shall be)–we shall need to have the blood of Jesus
applied every day. We need to go continually to Him and ask that the
Holy Spirit would manifest in us the cleansing influence of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ–for still we do not hear and know as we should hear
and know–nor are our ears opened as we should desire.
Having thus reminded you, dear Friends, of your sin, trusting we may be
led to confess it with deep humility, I have now an encouraging Truth
of God to tell to you this morning–a very simple one. I leave no room
for any of the graces of oratory, but tell of a Truth which, to my
mind, has been exceedingly refreshing. And I trust it may be to yours.
It is this, that all this folly and ignorance, and obstinacy and
rebellion on our part was foreknown by God! And notwithstanding that
foreknowledge, He yet has been pleased to deal with us in a way of
mercy.
That one Truth is the subject of this morning's discourse. We read it
in these words, "For I knew that you would deal very treacherously, and
were called a transgressor from the womb." The same Truth is stated in
the fourth verse, "Because I knew that you were obstinate, and your
neck was an iron sinew, and your brow brass." First, we shall endeavor
to address this Truth of God to the Believer, and secondly to the
unbeliever.
I. First, THE BELIEVER. The latter part of our text mentions a mournful
fact, "I knew that you would deal very treacherously, and were called a
transgressor from the womb." Believer, here, then, is this sorrowful
Truth–you have dealt very treacherously! Does not the very mention of
this bring tears into your eyes? Ah, if your heart were not hard, it
would be so. You have dealt very treacherously! Let me sound those two
words again, "treacherously." "Very treacherously."
You are the beloved of Heaven, redeemed by blood, called by Divine
Grace! You are preserved in Christ Jesus, accepted in the Beloved, on
your way to Heaven, soon to be with God! And yet, "You have dealt very
treacherously." Very treacherously with God, your best Friend! Very
treacherously with Jesus, whose you are! Very treacherously with the
Holy Spirit, by whom alone you can be quickened unto life eternal! That
word, "treacherously," is one which a man would not like to have
applied to himself in the common transactions of life. He would feel it
to be very galling, and, if there were truth in it, very degrading! And
yet I question whether it will produce the same effect upon our minds
when it is applied to us in relation to unfaithfulness to God!
We have dealt with Him very treacherously. Come, let me refresh your
memories, my Beloved in the Lord. How treacherous you and I have been
to our own vows and promises when we were first converted! Do you
remember the love of your espousals, that happy time, the springtide of
spiritual life when the rain was over and gone, and the voice of the
turtledove was heard in your soul? Oh, how closely did you cling to
your Master then! You heard some of the older saints complaining that
their souls were cleaving to the dust–you wondered at them–for you
said within yourself, "The blessedness I know in finding Christ will
continue with me forever! He shall never have to charge me with
indifference. My feet shall never grow slow in traveling the way of His
service. I will not suffer my heart to go wandering after other loves.
White and ruddy is my Beloved with all human excellencies and Divine
glories combined! Farewell, all you meaner creatures, for in Him is
every store of sweetness ineffable. I give all up! I renounce all for
my Lord Jesus' sake."
But now, has it been so? Charge your memory–has it been so?
Conscience, what do you say to this? Alas, if Conscience speaks, it
will say, "He who promised so well has performed most ill. Prayer has
oftentimes been slurred–it has been short, but not sweet–it has been
brief, but not fervent. Communion with Christ has been forgotten by the
day, no, by the weeks together! Instead of a heavenly mind there have
been carnal cares, worldly vanities and thoughts of evil. Instead of
service, there has been disobedience! Instead of fervency,
lukewarmness. Instead of patience, petulance. Instead of faith,
confidence in an arm of flesh."
We have, if we look at what we thought we should be and at what we are,
reason to confess that we have dealt very treacherously. Look at this
picture, and on that look at what we vowed to be, and at what we have
been–truly none among us will be able to say, "Not guilty." We must
confess that we have been traitors to the Most High! This is not all.
It is not merely that we have failed in promises which were made in a
period of excitement, but we have been treacherous to obligations which
were altogether apart from voluntary vows on our part. We have been
treacherous to the most blessed relationships which mercy could have
instituted. Know you not that you are redeemed men and women, and
therefore the property of the Lord Jesus? "You are not your own," says
the Apostle, "For you are bought with a price." "Forasmuch as you know
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold
but with the precious blood of Jesus."
I ask you, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, most solemnly–have you
not lived as if you were your own? Have you not found yourselves full
often spending your strength for self and for the world, and robbing
Jesus of that which He purchased at so dear a price? Treachery to the
blood of Jesus! What words shall I use in denouncing it? Words would
little avail–let our penitent thoughts execrate the sin which is so
surely in us! Treacherous to Your wounds, O Jesus! Oh forgive us, and
let us not be farther guilty of it! How shameful to be treacherous to
Him who never forgets us, but who this day stands with our names
engraved on His breastplate before the eternal Throne.
Remember that we are soldiers of Christ, enlisted soldiers, sworn in
for a life-long campaign. As soldiers, by cowardice, disobedience, and
desertion, we have been treacherous to a very shameful degree. You know
what the military penalty is for a treacherous soldier on earth! Truly,
if we had been accused and condemned by court martial, and ordered to
be shot dead, we should have been dealt with most righteously! We have
been armed, and carried bows, and have turned back in the day of
battle! When we ought to have fought we have fled! When we should have
stood fast we have swerved! And when we might have conquered we have
basely surrendered!
We have been treacherous, also, as disciples of Christ. We were taken
into His school to be taught and trained. We engaged to sit at His feet
and learn His Word. We engaged to imitate His example, to abide by His
precepts. Who among us has not played the Peter and sometimes denied
Him? Who among us can say that he has not forsaken Christ and fled in
some sharp hour of persecution? Beloved, as disciples we are not worthy
of the name! If the Master should discharge us forever from His sacred
school of holy learning, and say, "You have been false friends. You
have eaten bread with Me, but lifted up your heel against Me. You have
only followed Me in the days of sunshine, but have gone from Me in the
days of storm," should we not have to bow our heads before Him, and
say, "Lord, it is even so"?
Worst of all is the fact that we have been treacherous to our Lord in a
relationship where fidelity constitutes the very essence of bliss! I
mean in the marriage bond which exists between our soul and Christ.
There is not one among us who would not blush or feel indignant if the
slightest accusation could be brought against our conjugal fidelity to
those who are dear to us on earth. But there is a marriage which has
been consummated between us and a nobler Bridegroom than this earth can
find, and here–ah, where are your blushes!–let your cheeks burn as
you confess the unpardonable infidelity! We have been unfaithful to the
Well-Beloved, the infinitely glorious Husband of our souls!
We are one with Him! By eternal union, one, and yet we treat Him so
treacherously! Never did He have a thought towards us that was unkind.
Never one faithless wandering of His holy immutable mind! But as for
us, we have thought of a thousand lovers and suffered our heart to be
seduced by rivals which were no more to be compared with Christ than
darkness is to be compared with the blaze of noon! It is said of Israel
that although they had the manna from Heaven to eat, and God-given
water to drink, and the Divine Presence resplendent in the night in the
pillar of fire, and comforting by day in the shadowy pillar of cloud,
yet they did remember the leeks, the garlic, and the onions of Egypt!
What foolery is this, that God all glorious is to be despised and the
rank ill-scented garden stuff of Egypt–leeks, and garlic, and
onions–are put in the place of Jehovah! And yet such is our case.
Thrice glorious Lord Jesus, we must confess in Your Presence that we
have behaved very treacherously and gone after worthless trifles when
our soul should have been set on You alone.
I shall not enlarge upon a subject so painful, because I trust I may
have sufficiently revived your memories to bring you into a state of
humiliation. We pass on to the second Divine statement of the text,
that all this was known–"You have behaved very treacherously, and I
knew that you would do so." It was all known. The Lord foreknew all the
original corruption of His people–
"He saw them ruined in the Fall, Yet loved them notwithstanding all."
It was no secret that we were transgressors from the womb. God knew it!
He chose us as such. He saw us depraved, debased sons of Adam with
judgment unhinged, conscience darkened, affections polluted, and wills
perverted. He saw the neck as an iron sinew and the brow of brass, and
yet He chose us who from birth were full of sin!
As the Lord foreknew the fountain of sin, so He knew all the streams
which would gush from it. There is not a sin which a child of God has
committed, or ever shall commit, which was not clearly foreseen to the
prescient eye of God Most High from all eternity. You deny Him to be
God if you deny that–for it enters into the very essential of Deity
that He should know everything. There are no unknown things to God! He
fills His own eternal now. Man only occupies the present, which is ever
fleeting–but the past, the present, and the future are all as one
moment with God. A thousand years in His sight are but as yesterday
when it is past. Therefore all the actual transgressions of His people
were conspicuous before His eternal mind–
"Long before the sun's refulgent ray Primeval shades of darkness
drove."
And all the evil thoughts which have gone with these evil actions were
foreknown to Him. If there are mixed up with the sin some motive more
vile than the crime itself. If unexpressed and unknown to man there
should lurk in our breast some passion more pernicious than malice ever
produced. If there should be a thought more devilish than Satan's
vilest deed. If there should be known to us some cursed imagination so
diabolical that we dare not whisper it in the ear of our most tender
friend–yet all was well known in Heaven ages before! God knew that the
root of all evil was in your heart and foresaw how it would shoot and
spread and bear its horrid fruit.
Perhaps there is someone here who is recollecting in his mind some
gross sin of fearful name into which he fell in bygone years but which
he never will forget, let him live for centuries. God has forgiven him,
but he never can forgive himself. Some of the old bones of former
feasts with Satan will stick in our throat. It matters not though we
have humbled ourselves a hundred times for them, we still have need to
say with David, "Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my
transgressions."
Let us here again recall to our minds the fact that all our sinfulness
and the development of it, and all the thoughts and evil imagination
that went with that development–and all and sundry the aggravations of
our sin, whatever they may have been–must clearly have been known to
God. Nothing has come out of us which God did not know would come out
of us. We have never surprised the Most High! We have never brought Him
to such a position that He could say, "I did not know this." We have
never gone into any sin of which it could be said concerning God that
He did not know that it would so be worked by us.
Now I think I hear impatient minds enquiring clamorously, "what purpose
is there in the preacher's repeating to us this statement? He puts it
over and over again in very simple terms. What is he aiming at? Where
is the edification to the people of God?" In the first place, here is
the edification. Seeing that this is most certain and sure, I want you
to adore the amazing Grace of God! Do you see, then, that knowing and
foreknowing, God nevertheless chose us, elected us– though He saw us
covered from head to foot with sin! When election's eye fell upon us we
were regarded as the helpless infant in Ezekiel, cast out unwashed and
unswaddled to perish in our filth! But then, viewing us as such, the
Divine heart loved us! "His great love," says the Apostle, "wherewith
He loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins." We were, as
Kent puts it–
"Loved when a wretch defiled with sin, At war with Heaven, in league
with Hell, A slave to every lust obscene, Who, living, lived but to
rebel." Do you not admire the marvelous Sovereign Grace which could
have chosen you in the sight of all this? I can understand God's
choosing me if He had not known my sinfulness, or if He had known only
a part of it. But that He should choose me when He had an infinitely
clearer sense of my sin than I ever can have is, indeed, wonderful! I
do know something of my sins at times, and am horrified at them. Yet I
never have had such a clear estimate of my sinfulness as God has, for
the least sin is hateful to God and He looks upon it as worthy of the
eternal fires of Hell! Yet we, in whom there is not only to be found
little sin, but multitudes of great iniquities were chosen from before
the foundation of the world!
Child of God, does not this make you admire electing love? Further
remember that in consequence of your election your were redeemed! Come
here and wonder at the price that was paid for you, a traitor! You have
dealt very treacherously, and yet you were redeemed not with silver and
gold, but with the precious blood of Christ–when Christ knew what you
would be. What do you say to this? Does not that thought make your eyes
swim in tears as you think that He who hangs bleeding there foresaw you
as being unbelieving, backsliding, cold of heart, indifferent,
careless, lax in prayer, and yet He said, "I am the Lord your God, the
Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia
and Seba for you. Since you were precious in My sight, you have been
honorable, and I have loved you. Therefore will I give men for you, and
people for your life"? O Redemption, how wondrously resplendent do you
shine when we think how vile we are!
And then, dear Friends, remember that you have been adopted into the
Lord's family as well as redeemed. Now when a man adopts a child, he
supposes that he shall have an obedient child, that the child will be
of a pliable temper and he shall be able to rule and govern it. But
by-and-by, perhaps, it turns out to be a very sorry specimen of the
race. It grieves the generous spirit much to experience its ingratitude
to him. Then he complains to himself, "If I had known what this child
would have been, I should never have adopted it. I would have looked
somewhere else." See, Beloved, God knows what His children will
be–that they will deal very disobediently–and yet for all that He
says, "I will put them into the family." I might thus enumerate all the
marvelous works which Divine Grace has worked in us and for us. And I
think they would all shine very abundantly in the simple light of God's
having known what we would be, and having done, with this knowledge,
all that He has done for us.
Furthermore, I think this Truth of God is very important to us because
in the light of it our security is clearly manifest. I cannot
understand how we can be perplexed with the thought that God will cast
us away, now we are His people, if it is true that all the sins we have
committed since conversion were all present before His mind! For surely
if there is a reason in our sin for God casting us away now, since He
foreknew that sin, it would have been an equally valid reason for His
never loving us at all!
A man undertakes mining operations in such-and-such a place. He says,
"I shall dig for iron." Well, he meets with great difficulties, hard
rocks to bore through and so on. He comes to this conclusion, "If I had
known of this labor, and
of the expense, I should not have sought for the metal here." But
suppose the man is well aware of everything, and that he meets with
nothing but what he foresaw? Then you may depend upon it that the man
means business, and having commenced operations he will continue
working till he obtains that which he seeks after.
Now our God can never be obstructed by a circumstance in us which can
create surprise in His mind or throw His course out of His reckoning.
He knew that we should be what we are and He determined to save us in
the teeth of all our rebellion. And, my Brothers and Sisters, I am
persuaded that since the Divine determination was wisely made, the cost
all counted and every circumstance taken into consideration, there can
be no shadow of a fear that He will ever turn aside from His eternal
purpose. Has He found me, as His child, to be exceedingly willful? Will
that tempt Him to drive me from the family? He knew I should be
willful! It might have prevented His beginning to love, but, seeing He
has begun, how can it operate to make Him cease from blessing?
Oh let this be a comfort to you, when the evil of sin weighs most
heavily upon your faith! Your soul is married to Christ! Now, when a
man takes a wife, it is for better or worse. And I can imagine that a
man with a very base wife might say, "Had I known this woman better.
Had I known how she would constantly make my house unhappy, there
certainly would have been no marriage tie between us." But no husband
could say that unless he was an arrant fool, if he were able,
beforehand, to see as in a glass all that would happen between him and
his spouse in his married life! And if he, with his eyes open, made the
choice, surely he could never repent it without confessing his folly in
running into the snare. If he has wisely done he will stand to his
engagement and prove the power of his love.
So it is between our condescending Lord and His elect. He has taken all
our sins into the estimate when entering into marriage bonds with us,
and He says, "I will even betroth you unto Me in faithfulness: and you
shall know the Lord." "The Lord, the God of Israel, says that he hates
putting away." He has foreknown all their faults and yet ordained them
unto eternal life. Therefore are his people safe!
This truth also, I think, should tend very much to enhance our sense of
the fullness which is treasured up in Christ Jesus. The Lord our God
has provided for us in Christ all the necessities that can occur, for
He has foreknown all these necessities. "I knew that you would be this
and that." Oh, is your heart heavy this morning? God knew it would be!
There is the comfort that your heart's needs are already treasured in
the promise. Seek the promise! Believe it and obtain
it!
Do you feel, this morning, that you never were so consciously vile as
you are now? Behold the crimson Fountain is still open with all its
former efficacy to wash your sins away. Never shall you come into such
a position that Christ cannot aid you. No pinch shall ever come in your
spiritual affairs in which Jesus Christ shall not be equal to the
emergency, for it has all been foreknown and provided for in Him. A man
goes on a journey across the desert, and when he has made a day's
advance and pitches his tent, he discovers that he lacks many comforts
and necessities which he has not brought in his baggage. "Ah," he says,
"I did not foresee this. If I had this journey to do again, I should
bring these things with me so necessary to my comfort."
But God has foreseen all the necessities of His poor wandering
children! And when those needs occur, supplies will be found ready. "My
grace is sufficient for you." "As your days, so shall your strength
be." I think the Truth of God is capable of being turned in many
lights, but I must leave it with you. I believe the child of God will
find that, simple as the doctrine of God's foreknowledge is, it is
remarkably full of comfort. Some, who know no better, harp upon the
foreknowledge of our repentance and faith, and say that, "Election is
according to the foreknowledge of God." A very scriptural statement,
but they make a very unscriptural interpretation of it.
Advancing by slow degrees, they next assert that God foreknew the faith
and the good works of His people. Undoubtedly true, since He foreknew
everything. But then comes their groundless inference, namely, that
therefore the Lord chose His people because He foreknew them to be
Believers! It is undoubtedly true that foreknown excellencies are not
the causes of election since I have shown you that the Lord foreknew
all our SIN! And surely if there were enough virtue in our faith and
goodness to constrain Him to choose us, there would have been enough
demerit in our bad works to have constrained Him to reject us! So that
if you make foreknowledge to operate in one way, you must also take it
in the other–and you will soon perceive that it could not have been
from anything good or bad in us that we were chosen, but according to
the purpose of His own will, as it is written, "I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have
compassion."
Herein God's great power may be seen and His decree is made to roll, in
peals of thunder over the heads of rebellious men–that they shall hear
it even though they gnash their teeth at it. So, then, "it is not of
him that wills, nor of him that runs, but God that shows mercy."
II. And now, for a short time, as God shall help me, I have to use the
text in its relation to UNCONVERTED PERSONS. I shall hopefully believe,
this morning, that there are some in God's House, who, although they
are unsaved, are, nevertheless, sufficiently aroused to desire eternal
life–who have in them at least some sense of their guilt and their
dan-ger–and are anxious, if it may be, to find mercy. The doctrine of
my text may afford them some comfort.
My dear Friend, you have discovered lately the natural vileness of your
heart. If at one time anyone had told you that your heart was deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked, you would have been very
angry. But you know it to be so now, painfully know it. You wish,
sometimes, that you had never been born sooner than that this should be
the case. This day you have brought before your mind, by your quickened
conscience, your actual transgressions. There is no need that you
should read the list, but the roll may well be written within and
without with lamentations, for it is written within and without with
iniquities.
In addition to this, this morning, you have a deep regret for your long
delay in seeking mercy, for you have been called by the Gospel
thousands of times–sometimes more than outwardly called–for
conscience has been impressed and aroused, but your goodness "has been
as the morning cloud, and as the early dew." You have quenched the
Spirit of God. You have resisted frequently the better volitions of
your own spirit. You feel sorrowful that this is the case. And this
morning you are willing to acknowledge that there have been special
aggravations in your case–you have sinned against more light than
usual–against more expostulations than ordinary. You have sinned with
less excuse, with more fearful pertinacity. All this you acknowledge.
Now, my dear Hearers, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is sent to you in the
state in which you now are–to you lost by nature, ruined by practice,
and undone in a thousand ways! The Gospel says to you, even to you,
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Now, in
order that you may get a hold on that Gospel despite the difficulties
which your sins would raise, I would remind you of the Truth of God of
which we have been speaking. All these sins, delays, aggravations and
rebellions of yours–they were all foreknown to God! Therefore, since
He has sent the Gospel to you, I pray you be not slow to accept it,
since it is not possible that your sins, whatever they may be, can at
all militate against the fact that if you believe and receive the
Gospel you shall be saved!
Let me remind you that if God had not intended to save men upon
believing–if their sins were so great that He did not intend to save
them if they trusted in Jesus–why then, since He foreknew these things
He would never have planned the plan of salvation at all! If He stops
now and refuses to be gracious, why did He not stay His hand in the
very first stage of the business? You would not devise a scheme,
surely, unless you meant to go further. Who sits down to make plans of
a house unless he has some notion of carrying them out? If God intended
no mercy to such a sinner as you are, why did He devise a plan which is
suitable to such a sinner as you are? Why invent a scheme by which a
rebel might be saved if He foreknew that on account of sin that rebel
never could be pardoned?
Let me ask you, do you think God would have gone farther–gone to the
vast expense of providing a Savior–if really the Gospel were null and
void? Jesus Christ hangs on the Cross to die for sinners–sinners whose
sins were all foreknown! Do not say, therefore, that God does not
intend to save, for if He had not intended to save, He would have
stopped before He gave His Son for a sacrifice and nailed Him to the
tree! "Ah, but," you say, "mine is a particular and special case." Then
I remind you that since God had known all that, if He intended to leave
your case out, why did He not say so in the Bible? If this were
something new that had arisen since the Scriptures were written, then I
could understand that yours might be exceptional! But nothing is new
with the Most High.
Now, if the Lord intended to leave out a case He would have mentioned
it, and we should have found somewhere in the Bible, "Go you into all
the world and preach the Gospel to every creature except such-and-such
a one." I do not find it so. "Preach the Gospel to every creature."
Here it is, "He that believes and is baptized, shall be saved." He
makes not an exception. He bids us go and proclaim it east, west,
north, and south. "Ah, but," you say, "still mine is a very special
difficulty." Yes, but I tell you again your God foreknew, and you may
depend upon it, He provided for it in the plan of salvation. He says,
"If you believe, you shall be saved." He says not, "Unless you have
committed this or that." He says, "If you believe." And God is not true
unless He saves every soul that believes in Jesus.
Though a man had damned himself a thousand times with the blackest
filth that ever came from Hell, yet, if he believes in Jesus, God must
be true to His solemn promise! It is not possible that the sin of man
could justify God in flying from His promise or denying Himself. He
declares full pardon to every soul that trusts in the Lord Jesus–I
pray you slander not my Lord and Master by saying that this or that
could make Him take His words back, or break His Covenant in Christ
Jesus. Your blasphemies–He knew what oaths you would swear. Your lusts
and evil deeds–He knew into what mire you would plunge. The
imaginations of your wicked heart–He knew them! Yes, they have been
before His eternal mind every moment since the world began and before
it.
He knew that you would be a sinner–He never ceased to know your sins.
All things are present before God at every time and your aggravating
sins have been before God's mind at every moment of eternity, if we may
use the expression. And yet, notwithstanding that, He says, "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." God knew YOU, Sinner! He did not fall
upon the penitent's neck and kiss him, and think him clean and pure and
chaste while He kissed him. He knew that he had spent his living with
harlots. God knew that he went to feed with the swine, and yet He took
him into His house and heart and fed him daintily!
He knew what you have done in secret, in the darkness of the night, in
the chamber where none may follow you, in the inner chamber of your
soul where you have rebelled worse than in your outward actions. He
knew it all, and yet He says, "Let him return unto the Lord, and He
will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My
ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."
I do humbly and earnestly trust that the Lord may lead some
sinner–whose sins He has so clearly discerned–to perceive the
suitability of Christ to his own case and to close with the
proclamation of mercy, and to say–
"I'll to the gracious King approach,
Whose scepter, pardon gives.
I can but perish if I go.
I am resolved to try,
For if I stay away,
I know I must forever die.
But if I die with mercy sought,
When I the King have tried
This were to die delightful
As sinner never dies."
__________________________________________________________________
The Secret Spot
A sermon