God's Law in Man's Heart
(No. 2506)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1897.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JUNE
28, 1885.
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind,
and write them in their hearts." Hebrews 8:10.
WHEN God gave Israel His Law–the Law of the First Covenant–it was
such a holy Law that it ought to have been kept by the people. It was a
just and righteous Law, concerning which God said, "You shall do My
judgments, and keep My ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord your
God. You shall therefore keep My statutes, and My judgments: which if a
man does, he shall live in them: I am the Lord." The Law of the Ten
Commandments is strictly just–it is such a Law as a man might make for
himself if he studied his own best interests and had wisdom enough to
frame it aright. It is a perfect Law in which the interests of God and
man are both studied. It is not a partial Law, but impartial, complete,
and covering all the circumstances of life. You could not take away one
command out of the ten without spoiling both tables of the Law and you
could not add another command without being guilty of making a
superfluity. The Law is holy, just and good–it is like the God who
made it–it is a perfect Law. Then, surely, it ought to have been kept.
When men revolt against unjust laws, they are to be commended, but when
a law is admitted to be perfect, then disobedience to it is an act of
exceeding guilt.
Further, God not only gave a Law which ought to have been kept because
of its own intrinsic excellence, but He also gave it in a very
wonderful way which ought to have ensured its observance by the people.
The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai in fire and the mountain was
altogether on a smoke–and the smoke thereof ascended "as the smoke of
a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." And the sight that was
then seen on Sinai and the sounds that were there heard, and all the
pomp and awful grandeur were so terrible that even Moses–that boldest,
calmest, quietest of men said, "I do exceedingly fear and quake." The
children of Israel, as they heard that Law proclaimed, were so amazed
and overwhelmed with God's display of His majesty and might, that they
were ready enough to promise to keep His Commandments. The Law of God
could not have been made known to mankind in grander or more sublime
style than was displayed in the giving of that Covenant on Mount Sinai.
And, dear Friends, after the giving of the Law, did not God affix to it
those terrible penalties which should have prevented men from
disobeying His commands? "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all
things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them." "The soul
that sins, it shall die." It was the capital sentence that was to be
pronounced upon the disobedient–there could be no heavier punishment
than that! God had, as it were, drawn His sword against sin, and if man
had been a reasonable being, he ought at once to have started back from
committing an act which he might be sure would make God his foe.
Moreover, the blessings that were appended to the keeping of the Law
ought to have induced men to keep it. Look again at those words I
quoted just now–"You shall therefore keep My statutes and My
judgments: which if a man does, he shall live in them: I am the Lord."
This did not mean that the man who kept God's Law should merely
exist–there are some in these degenerate days who seek to make out
life to be existence and death to be annihilation, but there is little
likeness between the words, or between what those words mean. "He shall
live in them," said the Lord concerning the man who kept His Law–and
there is a fullness of blessedness couched in that word, "live." If men
had kept the Covenant of the Lord–if Adam, for instance, had kept it
in the Garden of Eden, the rose would have been without a thorn to tear
his flesh, and the enjoyment of life would never have been marred by
the bitterness of toil or grief.
But, alas, notwithstanding all these solemn sanctions of the ancient
Covenant, men did not keep it. The promise, "This do, and you shall
live," never produced any doing that was worthy to be rewarded with
life, and the threat, "Do this, and you shall die," never kept any man
back from daringly venturing into the wrong road which leads unto
death! The fact is, that the Covenant of Works, if it is looked upon as
a way of safety, is a total failure! No man ever persevered in it unto
the end and no man ever attained unto life by keeping it. Nor can we,
now that we are fallen, ever hope to be better than our unfallen
covenant-head, Adam. Nor may we, who are already lost and condemned by
our sinful works, dream for a moment that we shall be able to save
ourselves by our works. You see, dear Friends, the first Covenant was
in these terms–"You do right and God will reward you for it. If you
deserve life, God will give it to you." Now, as you all know right
well, that Covenant was broken all to pieces–it was unable to stand by
reason of the weakness of our flesh and the corruptness of our nature!
So God set aside that first Covenant. He put it away as an outworn and
useless thing and He brought in a new Covenant–the Covenant of
Grace–and in our text we see what is the tenor of it. "I will put My
laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." This is one of
the most glorious promises that ever fell from the lips of Infinite
Love. God said not, "I will come again, as I came on Sinai, and thunder
at them." No, but, "I will come in gentleness and mercy, and find a way
into their hearts." He did not say, "I will take two great tablets of
stone and with My finger write out My Law before their eyes." No, but,
"I will put My finger upon their hearts, and there will I write My
Law." He did not say, "I will give promises and threats that shall be
the safeguard of this new Covenant," but, "I will, with My Spirit,
graciously operate upon their minds and their hearts, and so I will
sweetly influence them to serve Me–not for reward, nor from any
servile motive, but because they know Me, and they love Me, and they
feel it to be their delight to walk in the way of My Commandments." O
dear Sirs, may you all be sharers in the blessings of that new
Covenant! May God say this of you and do this to you! And if so, we
shall meet in the land of Glory, to sing unto the Grace of that eternal
God who has worked so wondrously with us, and in us, and for us!
Coming directly to the text, I shall, first of all, speak upon the
meaning of this blessing. Secondly, upon the means whereby God bestows
this blessing upon us, trying to show you with what pencil the Lord
writes upon the human heart. And, thirdly, I shall dwell for a few
minutes upon the exceeding Grace of this blessing.
I. First, then, I am to speak upon THE MEANING OF THIS BLESSING–"I
will put My Laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." It
means, first, that when God comes to deal with His own chosen people,
to really save them, He makes them to know His Law. The Law still
stands in the Old Testament and our blessed Master, the Lord Jesus
Christ, has condensed it into one word, "Love." And then He has
expanded it throughout the whole of His earthly life to show us how it
ought to be kept. So we sing–
"My dear Redeemer and my Lord,
I read my duty in your Word,
But in Your life the Law appears
Drawn out in living characters." But although we can read that Law in
the Scriptures and see it worked out in the life of Christ, yet it is
necessary that the Spirit of God should come and enlighten us with
regard to it if we are really to know what it is. Otherwise, a man may
hear the Ten Commandments read every Sunday and go on breaking them
without ever knowing that he is breaking them! He may be keeping the
letter of the Commandments and yet, all the while, be violating their
spirit.
When the Holy Spirit comes to us, He shows us what the Law really is.
Take, for instance, the Commandment, "You shall not commit adultery."
"Well," says one, "I have not broken thatCommandment!" "Stay," says the
Spirit of God, "till you know the spiritual meaning of that
Commandment, for whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has
committed adultery with her already in his heart." There is, also, the
Commandment, "You shall not kill." "Oh," says the man, "I never killed
anybody, I have not committed murder!" "But," says the Spirit of God,
"whoever hates his brother is a murderer." When the Lord thus writes
His Law upon our heart, He makes us to know the far-reaching power and
scope of the Commandment. He causes us to understand that it touches
not only actions and words, but thoughts, yes, and the most transient
imaginations–the things that are scarcely born within us–the sights
that pass in a moment across the mind, like a stray passenger who
passes in front of the camera when a photographer is taking a view! The
Spirit of God teaches us that even these momentary impressions are
sinful and that the very thought of foolishness is sin.
Did you, dear Friend, ever have the Truths of God truly written on your
heart? If so, I will tell you how you felt– you abhorred yourself and
you said, "Who can stand before this terrible Law? Who can ever hope to
keep these Commandments?" You looked to the flames that Moses saw on
Sinai and you shrank and trembled almost unto despair! And you
entreated that these terrible words should not be spoken to you any
more. Yet it was good for you to thus be made to know the Law of
God–not in the letter of it, only, but in its cutting, crushing,
killing spirit–for it works death to self-righteousness and death to
all carnal boastings! When the Law comes, sin revives and we die–that
is all that can come of it by itself. Yet it is necessary that there
should be such a death as that and that there should be such a revival
of sin that we may know the truth about it–and under the force of that
truth may be driven to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the "end of the
Law for righteousness to everyone that believes." So, then, writing the
Law in our heart means, first, making us know what the Law really is.
If that is done, the Lord is pleased, next, to cause His people to
remember that Law. When a thing is "learned by heart," you know the
common meaning of that expression, even among our children. If they
have learned a thing by heart rather than merely by rote, they have
made it their own and it remains with them. A man with whom God the
Holy Spirit deals is one who does not have to go to the 20th of Exodus
to know what the Law is. He does not need to stop and ask concerning
most things, "Is this right?" or, "Is this wrong?" He carries within
him a balance and a scale, a standard and test by which he can try
these things for himself! He has the Law of his God written upon his
heart, so that, almost as soon as he looks at a thing, he begins to
perceive whether there is evil in it or whether it is good. There is a
sort of sensitiveness in his soul which makes him discern between good
and evil. When God the Holy Spirit is dealing with him, there is a
true, enlightened conscience within him, so that he no longer puts
bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, or darkness for light and light
for darkness–something within him tells him, "This is right," or,
"That is wrong." It is a most blessed thing when this is the case and
it is alwaysthe work of the Spirit of God!
I know that there is some sort of a conscience in most men. I am afraid
it is a very small rush light in some and that it is almost blown out
by their evil habits. They can even make themselves think that they are
doing right when they are as wrong as wrong can be! But in a child of
God there is a burning and a shining light which reveals the truth
concerning sin. There is within him a something that cannot be
silenced–this is that principle or power which John Bunyan calls, in
his, Holy War, "Mr. Conscience the Recorder of Mansoul." You know that
when the city of Mansoul rebelled against the great King Shaddai and
came under the sway of Diabolus, they shut Mr. Recorder Conscience up
in a dark room, for they did not want to let him see what was being
done. Yet, notwithstanding, when the old gentleman had his fits, he
used to sorely trouble the inhabitants of the guilty town–so they kept
him under lock and key as much as possible. But when Mr. Recorder
Conscience gets full liberty and lifts his brow into the sunlight, ah,
Sirs, then are we guided in a very different way from that of ungodly
men who follow their own evil course! Then does the Lord say, "I will
put My Laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts." The Law
is there to censure or to cheer! It is there to let us hear its voice
say, "This is the way, walk in it." Or it is there to say, "Stay where
you are, go no farther." Or, "Return, you backsliding daughter, and
seek mercy of the Lord."
God does more than that for His people. When He writes His Law in our
heart, He makes us to approve it. An ungodly man wishes to alter God's
Law. "There," he says, "I do not like thatCommandment, 'You shall not
steal,' I should like to be a little bit of a trickster." Another says,
"I do not like that purity of which the minister spoke just now, I
should like to indulge myself a little. Am I to have no pleasure?" But
when the Law of the Lord is written in his heart, the man says, "The
Law is right." He would not alter it if he could! There is nothing that
he hates more than the lowering of the tone of the Law of God, for he
does not want a lax morality. "Oh, no," he says, "let us have the
highest form of righteousness that can be–and may God help me to live
up to it!" Paul says, "I delight in the Law of God after the inward
man." And so is it with every true child of God–he cannot think of the
holiness of God without, at once, saying, "I would not have Him other
than He is–let Him be holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, for as
such I can worship Him. But if He were less than that, I could not
esteem Him." If he hears of God's Justice, he delights even in that
stern attribute, for he would not have an unjust God! It is a great
thing when God leads a man to approve of all that is right. I do not
mean merely to acknowledge that it is right, but to be gladthat it is
so, and to wish that in his own soul he were conformed to it.
There is a further writing of the Law in the heart when the man of God
is made to appropriate that Law–not only to approve of it, but to
approve of it for himself. There are many people who approve of laws as
far as they keep their fellow men in check, but they do not want laws
for themselves. "Oh," says such a person, "of course everybody ought to
be honest! My servants ought not to embezzle, they ought not to rob me,
they ought to give me a good day's work for their wage." When the
argument is turned round and the question is about giving a good day's
wage for the work, then they talk about political economy–which means
that it is absolutely necessary that men should be dishonest! That is
the pith and marrow of that political science–that every man will be
selfish and that there is no hope that people will be otherwise. A man
speaks that which is not true and sees no evil in it! But if another
should say anything against his character, that is a very different
matter, it is quite unpardonable! He may walk through the earth and
devour men's characters as much as he pleases–that, of course, is mere
criticism such as we ought all to expect. But if he is touched and
there is a word spoken against him, it is cruel and unkind, and ought
to be put down at once! When God writes the Law in a man's heart, he
takes the Law more to himself than he applies it to anybody else and
his cry is not, "See how my neighbors sin," but, "See how I sin!" His
clamor is not against his brother's fault, but against his own fault.
No longer does he look out for motes in other men s eyes, but he is
most concerned about the beam which he is quite sure is in his own
eye–and he prays the Lord to remove it.
But, Brothers and Sisters, the Law is not fully written in the heart
till a man, approving the Law and appropriating it to himself, feels he
delights to obey it. "There," he says, "O my God, my highest happiness
lies in doing as You would have me to do. I do not want any excuse or
indulgence for sin, I want, above everything else, to be holy! It shall
be my greatest pleasure to be pure. It shall be my perfect bliss to be
perfectly holy. You have so written Your Law in my heart that every
time my heart beats, it seems to beat for holiness. All the
inclinations of my new-born nature are towards right, towards Your
Truth, towards goodness, towards God." This, dear Friends, is to have
the Law of the Lord written in your heart so as to delight in it after
the inward man and to delight to practice it with the outward man,
daily striving to make the entire life to be in accordance with the
dictates of God's will! O Brothers and Sisters, is it not a wonderful
thing that God shall ever make it as natural for us to be holy as once
it was natural for us to be unholy? And that then we shall find it as
much a joy to serve Him as once we thought it a pleasure notto serve
Him, when, indeed, to deny ourselves shall cease to be self-denial? It
shall be enjoyment to us to be nothing! It shall be delight to renounce
everything of self and to cling close to God, and to walk in His ways!
Then will be fulfilled in our experience the promise of our text, "I
will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts."
There is an old Latin proverb which says that "things that are written
remain," and I quote that proverb, here, believing that it is intended
in the text to teach us that when God's Law is written in our hearts,
it is retained there. The lawyer always says, "You had better be
careful what you say, but when you go to law, never write
anything–hold back from the use of pen and ink, for that which is
written remains." When God writes His Law in our hearts, He writes that
which will never be blotted out! Once let Him take the pen in His hand
and begin to write. "Holiness unto the Lord" right across a man's
heart–and the devil, himself, can never remove that sacred line! So it
is meant in our text as a part of the Covenant, that God will write,
"holiness," so deeply upon the nature of His chosen people that they
may sooner cease to be than cease to be holy! He will so put His Law
into their hearts that you must tear their hearts out before you can
tear out their conformity to the mind of God! Is not this a wonderful
method of writing the Law in the heart? This is sanctification, indeed!
May God work it in each one of you! And He will if you are Believers in
the Lord Jesus Christ, for if you trust in Christ you are in the
Covenant! And being in the Covenant, this is the promise concerning
you, "I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their
hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people."
Thus have I spoken upon the meaning of this blessing.
II. Now, for a few minutes, I am going to speak upon THE MEANS BY WHICH
THIS BLESSING IS GIVEN–the pens that God uses when He writes upon
human hearts–for I want you to notice this interesting process.
First, God writes his Law upon His people's hearts with the pen of
gratitude. He tells them that Jesus Christ loves them and gave Himself
for them. He gives them a sight of the bleeding Savior and tells them
that their sin is put away by His death. Then, in return, they love the
Lord with all their heart, mind, soul and strength, The best way to
make a man keep a Law of God is to make him love the Law-Giver. We
thought at one time that God was a cruel tyrant, but we have learned
that He is our loving Father. We could not have thought that He would
have given His only-begotten Son to die as the Substitute for us, but
now that He has done so, we love Him with all our heart. There is one
way of writing the Law of God in our heart by giving us gratitude as
the motive of a new life. The natural man's only motive for being good
is, "If I am good, I shall go to Heaven. And if I am bad, I shall go to
Hell." That is the slave's motive, but the child of God is no more a
slave–he has been delivered from his former bondage. He says, "I am
saved by Sovereign Grace, therefore I shall go to Heaven. I shall never
go to Hell–that cannot be! I am God's chosen one, washed in the blood
of the Lamb and–
'Now for the love I bear His name, What was my gain I count my loss! My
former pride I call my shame, And nail my glory to His Cross.
Chosen, not for any goodness of my own, but entirely of the free and
Sovereign Grace of God; tell me now what I can do to show my gratitude
to such a gracious God." That is one way in which the Law of the Lord
gets written in the hearts of His people.
Again, the Law is written in the heart by repentance working hatred of
sin. Burnt children, you know, are afraid of the fire. Oh, what a
horror I have had of sin ever since the day when I felt its power over
my soul! It was enough to drive me mad when I felt the guilt of sin! It
would have done so, I sometimes think, if I had continued much longer
in that terrible condition. O Sin, Sin, I have had enough of you! You
did never bring me more than a moment's seeming joy and with it there
came a deep and awful bitterness which burns within me to this day! And
now, being set free from sin, can I go back to it? Some of you, my
Brothers and Sisters, came to Christ with such difficulty that you were
saved, as it were, by the skin of your teeth. You were like Jonah. You
had to come up from the bottom of the mountains–and out of the very
belly of Hell you cried unto God! Well, that experience has made sin so
bitter to you that you will not go back to it. The Law has been written
in your heart with the steel pen of repentance and God has made sin to
be a horrible evil to you!
Farther than that, and deeper than that, God also writes His Law upon
the heart in regeneration, wherein He creates in man a new and better
life. In regeneration, if I understand it at all, there is born in us a
new nature. Our old nature is all sin and it will never be anything.
You may doctor it as you will, but it is a body of sin and death, and
it will always remain so. But the new nature, which is born in us at
our new birth, cannot sin because it is born of God! It is a living and
incorruptible seed which lives and abides forever–and that new heart,
that right spirit, from its very birth, from its very origin, from its
very nature–has the Law and will of God engraved upon it. To the new
nature, it is as natural to obey as to the old nature, it is natural to
disobey. To the new nature, it is as much its element to live in
holiness, as to the old nature, it is its element to live in sin. Thus,
by regeneration, the Law of the Lord is written in the heart of His
people.
Again, God writes His Law the more fully in the heart of His people as
they increase in knowledge. The more we know of God, of this life, of
the life to come, of Heaven and Hell, of the Person of Christ, of the
Atonement and of every other subject that is taught us in the
Scriptures, the more we see the evil of sin and the more we see the
delights of holiness! Why, at the very first moment of his conversion,
man is afraid of sin because of what he has seen of it, but as he
begins to perceive how sin put the Christ to death, how sin dug the pit
of Hell, how sin brought all the plagues and curses upon the human
family and will continue to curse generations yet unborn–then the man
says–"How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" Trained
and educated in the school of Christ, the more he knows, the more he
delights in the Law and the will of God!
And farther than this, dear Friends, the Law is written in the heart as
God makes the new life in us to grow and increase. Some Christians, I
am sorry to say, have but little spiritual life. I spoke yesterday with
a man of God who has been preaching the Gospel in the New Hebrides
where, till lately, the people were cannibals and, by God's Grace, he
has brought hundreds, if not thousands of the former savages to become
Christians! And the good Brother, when he spoke of his hardships, said,
"Ah, but you do not know, in England, the joys of those who preach to
cannibals!" True, most of the missionaries who first went out were
killed and eaten–and our friend escaped by the skin of his teeth! I
looked at him again to hear what his special and peculiar joys were.
"Oh," he said, "the joy of converting a cannibal to Christ is a greater
blessing than can be known by you, who only bring ordinary people to
the Savior! And," he added, "I tell you that there are no Christians
that I know of that excel my converted cannibals. If you want to see
the Sabbath sacredly kept, you must come into my place and see how
these people who used to be cannibals keep it! Those who were
accustomed to eat their fellow men, now never rise without prayer, and
never sit at the table without asking a blessing. There is not a
Christian household but has family prayer in it, morning and evening.
These people walk with God," said the missionary, "and live close to
Christ. And as I look at them, it seems such a joy to have been the
means of bringing these cannibals to Christ."
I am afraid there are many nominally Christian people who are not half
as good as those converted cannibals. What is the reason? It is because
they seem to have God's life poured into them abundantly, while some
among us have but little of it. Now, when a man gets the life of God
abundantly poured into him, he is sensitive against sin, for he has the
Law of God written in his heart and, thereby, God has made his
conscience–
"Quick as the apple of an eye."
He cannot bear to hear an ill word from others, or himself have an evil
thought without being grieved and troubled. I have seen men who have
professed to be Christians do many questionable things and yet never
feel that they were doing any wrong. But as for the true Christian who
lives near to God and who has been acting perfectly right as far as
other people could judge, when he gets home, he begins blaming himself
for something he did not do! As far as you can see, he has said and
done the right thing, but he says, "No, I did not say it as earnestly
as I ought to have said it. I did not do it as I ought to have done
it." As for myself, I know that when I live nearest to God, I am most
conscious of sin and I believe that in proportion as you get away from
God, you will begin to think that you are perfect. But if you live in
the light of the Lord, sin will be a daily plague to you and you will
be crying for the precious blood to wash you and make you clean! It is
the man who is spiritually blind who talks about his holiness. But it
is the one whose eyes have been opened of God–the really holy man whom
God has brought near to Himself–who still cries out, "Holier! Holier!
Higher."–
"Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!
Even though it is a cross that raises me. Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee! Nearer to Thee!"
And this is how God writes His Law in His people's hearts, by giving
them so much light that they become tender and sensitive at the very
approach of sin!
And, once more, communing with Christ is the best way of getting the
Law written in the heart. He who is with Christ from morning to noon,
and from noon to dewy eve and who can say at night–
"Sprinkled afresh with pardoning blood, I lay me down to rest, As in
the embraces of my God, Or on my Savor's breast"
he is the man who will have the Law of God written in his heart. How
can he sin whose garments smell of the myrrh and aloes and cassia of
communion with Christ? How can he come out of the ivory palaces of
fellowship with his Lord and then go and live as others do, and sin
against his God?
Thus, you see, dear Friends, how it is that the Lord writes His Law in
the hearts of His people.
III. I have but a minute or two in which to speak upon THE GREAT GRACE
WHICH IS CONTAINED IN THIS
BLESSING. I do not know a greater gift than this that even God can
bestow–the gift of His only-begotten Son! "I will put My Laws into
their mind, and write them in their hearts."
O you poor Sinners, I may exhort you to keep the Law, but without the
Spirit of God working within you, nothing will come of it! But if God
puts His Law into your hearts, then you will keep it. Oh, that He might
even now lead you to His dear Son that you might see His Law in the
hand of Christ, and then feel that pierced hand dropping it into your
heart to abide there forever!
The great Grace of this blessing lies here. First, God does what man
would not and could not do. Man would not keep the Law. He refused to
obey it, so God comes, in the splendor of His Grace, and changes his
will, renews his heart, alters his affections so that what man would
not do, God does! Man has also become so fallen that he cannot keep the
Law. Sooner might the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his
spots, than he that is accustomed to do evil learn to do well. But what
man cannot do, by reason of the perversity of the flesh, God performs
within him, working in him to will and to do of His good pleasure. Oh,
what amazing Grace is this, which while it forgives our lack of will,
also removes our lack of power!
And, dear Friends, is it not a wonderful proof of Grace that God does
this without destroying man in any degree whatever? Man is a creature
with a will–a "free will" as they sometimes call it–a creature who is
responsible for his actions. So God does not come and change our hearts
by a physical process, as some seem to dream, but by a spiritual
process in which He never mars our nature, but sets our nature right!
If a man becomes a child of God, he still has a will! God does not
destroy the delicate machinery of our nature, but He puts it into
proper gear. We become Christians with our own full assent and consent
and we keep the Law of God not by any compulsion except the sweet
compulsion of love! We do not keep it because we cannot do otherwise,
but we keep it because we would not do otherwisebecause we have come to
delight, therein–and this seems to me the greatest wonder of Divine
Grace!
See, dear Friends, how different is the Lord's way of working and ours?
If you knock down a man who is living an evil life and put him in
chains, you can make him honest by force–or if you set him free and
hem him round with Acts of Parliament, you may make him sober if he
cannot get anything to drink! You may make him wonderfully quiet if you
put a gag in his mouth, but that is not God's way of acting! He who put
man in the Garden of Eden and never put any palisades around the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but left man a free agent, does the
same in the operations of His Grace. He leaves His people to the
influences that are within them and yet they go right because they are
so changed and renewed by His Grace that they delightto do that which
once they loathed to do! I admire the Grace of God in acting thus. We
would have taken the watch to pieces and broken half the wheels, and
made new ones, or something of the kind. But God knows how to leave the
man just as much a man as he was before his conversion and yet to make
him so entirely a new man that old things have passed away, and all
things have become new!
And this is very beautiful, too, that when God writes His Law in His
people's hearts, He makes this the way of their preservation. When
God's Law is written in a man's heart, that heart becomes divinely
royal property, for the King's name is there and the heart in which God
has written His name can never perish! Some years ago, my esteemed
Brother, Mr. John B. Gough, out of his great love for me, sent me a
very valuable walking stick. It must have cost him a large sum of
money, for it was made of ebony and it had a gold head to it, with
pieces of Californian quartz curiously worked into the head of the
stick. I cannot say that it was of much practical use to me, but still
I valued it as a present from Mr. Gough. One night a thief got into my
house and stole my walking stick, and the man, of course, broke up the
stick and took the gold from the head. He brought it down to a
pawnbroker's not far from here. He had hammered and battered it as much
as he could, but when the pawnbroker looked carefully at it, he saw the
letters, "S-p-u-r-g-e-o-n."
"Oh," he said, to the man, "you stop a bit," which, of course, was just
what the thief did not do! I got my gold back because my name was in
it. Though the man hammered it, there was my name, and the gold was
bound to come back to me–and so it did. Now, when the Lord once writes
His name in your heart, He writes His Law within you. And though the
devil may batter you, God will claim you as His own! Temptation and sin
may assail you, but if the Law of the Lord is in your heart, you shall
not give way to sin. You shall resist it, you shall be preserved, you
shall be kept–for you are the Lord's.
This is the only way of salvation that I know of for any of you. First,
you must be washed in the fountain filled with blood, and next, you
must have the Law of God written in your inward parts. Then shall you
be safe beyond fear of ruin. "They shall be Mine," says the Lord of
Hosts, "in that day when I make up My jewels." Oh, blessed plan of
salvation! May it be accepted by every man and woman here! And it can
only be so by the work of the Spirit of God leading you to a simple
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Christ to save you and He will do
it, as surely as He is the Christ of God. God help you to trust Him
now! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY. C. H. SPURGEON. JEREMIAH31:27-37.
Verses 27-33. Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I willsow the
house ofIsrael and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with
the seed of beast And it shall come to pass, that like as Ihave watched
over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to
destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build and
replant, says the Lord. In those days they shall say no more, The
fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on
edge. But everyone shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eats
the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Behold, the days come,
says the Lord, that I will make a new Covenant with the house of
Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the Covenant that
I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to
bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My Covenant they broke,
although I was an husband unto them, says the Lord: but this shall be
the Covenant that I willmake with the house ofIsrael. After those days,
says the Lord, I willput MyLawin their inward parts, and write it in
their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people. This
is the central Truth of all Scripture. It is the basis of all
Scripture. When Paul desires to set forth the Covenant of Grace, he
appeals to this passage. Twice, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, he bases
an argument upon it, and after quoting it, adds, "Whereof the Holy
Spirit also is a witness to us." Brothers and Sisters in Christ, under
the first Covenant we are ruined! There is no salvation for us but
under this new Covenant–therefore let us read to our joy and comfort
what the promises and provisions of that new Covenant are.
34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man
his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know Me, from
the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will
forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Pardoned
sin, as well as the change of nature, is implied in the writing of the
Law upon the heart. Oh, what a privilege it is to be among these
covenanted people! How shall we know whether we belong to them? The
seal of the Covenant is faith in Christ–I mean the personal seal upon
the heart and conscience. You believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior,
you are trusting alone to His atoning Sacrifice, then God is in
Covenant with you, for Jesus is the Mediator of the new Covenant–and
he who has Christ has the Surety of the Covenant–and he shall have, in
due time, every blessing which that Covenant guarantees!
35-37. Thus says the LORD, which gives the sun for a light by day, and
the ordinances ofthe moon and ofthe stars for a light by night, which
divides the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of Hosts is His
name: if those ordinances depart from before Me, says the LORD, then
the seed ofIsrael also shall cease from being a nation before Me
forever. Thus says the LORD; If Heaven above can be measured, and the
foundations ofthe earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all
the seed ofIsrael for all that they have done, says the LORD. Now
Israel still stands as a people separate from all others and there is
still before the literal seed of Israel a great and glorious future.
But as for the spiritual Israel, who worship God in the Spirit and have
no confidence in the flesh, God will sooner blot out the sun and moon
than cast away His people, or any one of them. They shall all be His
people and He shall be their God. He will preserve them and He will
keep His Covenant with them forever and forever, blessed be His holy
name, the name of Jehovah, the God of the Covenant which cannot be
broken!