Holy Work For Christmas
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 24, 1865, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT
THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was
told them concerning this Child. And all they that heard it wondered at
those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all
these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds
returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had
heard and seen, as it was told unto them." Luke 2:17-20.
EVERY season has its own proper fruit–apples for autumn, holly berries
for Christmas. The earth brings forth according to the period of the
year and with man there is a time for every purpose under Heaven. At
this season the world is engaged in congratulating itself and in
expressing its complimentary wishes for the good of its citizens. Let
me suggest extra and more solid work for Christians. As we think,
today, of the birth of the Savior, let us aspire after a fresh birth of
the Savior in our hearts–that as He is already "formed in us the hope
of glory," we may be "renewed in the spirit of our minds"–that we may
go again to the Bethlehem of our spiritual nativity and do our first
works, enjoy our first loves and feast with Jesus as we did in the
holy, happy, heavenly days of our espousals.
Let us go to Jesus with something of that youthful freshness and
excessive delight which was so manifest in us when we looked to Him at
first. Let Him be crowned anew by us, for He is still adorned with the
dew of His youth and remains "the same yesterday, today and forever."
The citizens of Durham, though they dwell not far from the Scotch
border, and consequently in the olden times were frequently liable to
be attacked, were exempted from the toils of war because there was a
cathedral within their walls and they were set aside to the bishop's
service, being called in the olden times by the name of "holy
work-folk."
Now, we citizens of the New Jerusalem, having the Lord Jesus in our
midst, may well excuse ourselves from the ordinary ways of celebrating
this season. And considering ourselves to be "holy work-folk," we may
keep it, after a different sort from other men, in holy contemplation
and in blessed service of that gracious God whose unspeakable gift the
new-born King is to us.
I selected this text this morning because it seemed to indicate to me
four ways of serving God, four methods of executing holy work and
exercising Christian thought. Each of the verses sets before us a
different way of sacred service. Some, it appears, published abroad the
news, told to others what they had seen and heard. Some wondered with a
holy marveling and astonishment. One, at least, according to the third
verse, pondered, meditated, thought upon these things. And others, in
the fourth place, glorified God and gave Him praise. I know not which
of these four did God the best service, but I think if we could combine
all these mental emotions and outward exercises we should be sure to
praise God after a most godly and acceptable fashion.
I. To begin then, in the first place, we find that some celebrated the
Savior's birth by PUBLISHING ABROAD what they had heard and seen. And
truly we may say of them that they had something to rehearse in men's
ears well worth the telling! That for which Prophets and kings had
waited long had at last arrived and arrived to them! They had found out
the answer to the perpetual riddle. They might have run through the
streets with the ancient philosopher, crying, "Eureka! Eureka!" for
their discovery was far superior to his.
They had found out no solution to a mechanical problem or metaphysical
dilemma. Their discovery was second to none ever made by men in real
value, since it has been like the leaves of the Tree of Life to heal
the nations and a river of Water of Life to make glad the city of God!
They had seen angels! They had heard them sing a song all strange and
new. They had seen more than angels–they had beheld the angel's King,
the Angel of the Covenant whom we delight in! They had heard the music
of Heaven, and when near that manger, the ear of their faith had heard
the music of earth's hope, a mystic harmony which should ring all down
the ages–the sweet melody of hearts attuned to praise the Lord and the
glorious swell of the holy joy of God and man rejoicing in glad accord.
They had seen God Incarnate–such a sight that he who gazes on it must
feel his tongue unloosed–unless, indeed, an unspeakable astonishment
should make him dumb! Be silent when their eyes had seen such a vision?
Impossible! To the first person they met outside that lowly stable door
they began to tell their matchless tale and they wearied not till
nightfall, crying, "Come and worship! Come and worship Christ, the
new-born King!" As for us, Beloved, have we also not something to
relate which demands utterance? If we talk of Jesus, who can blame us?
This, indeed, might make the tongue of him that sleeps to move–the
mystery of God Incarnate, for our sake bleeding and dying–that we
might neither bleed nor die! God Incarnate descending that we might
ascend! Wrapped in swaddling cloths that we might be unwrapped of the
grave clothes of corruption!
Here is such a story, so profitable to all hearers that he who repeats
it the most often does best, and he who speaks the least has most
reason to accuse himself for sinful silence. They had something to tell
and that something had in it the inimitable blending which is the
secret sign and royal march of Divine authorship–a peerless marrying
of sublimity and simplicity! Angels singing–singing to shepherds!
Heaven bright with glory! Bright at midnight! God! A Babe!! The
Infinite! An Infant of a span long!! The Ancient of Days! Born of a
woman!! What more simple than the inn, the manger, a carpenter, a
carpenter's wife, a child?
What more sublime than a "multitude of the heavenly host" waking the
midnight with their joyous song and God Himself in human flesh made
manifest? A child is but an ordinary sight–but what a marvel to see
that Word which was "in the beginning with God, tabernacling among us
that we might behold His Glory"–the Glory as of the only Begotten of
the Father, full of Grace and Truth? Brethren, we have a tale to tell,
as simple as sublime. What simpler?– "Believe and live." What more
sublime?–"Was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself!" A system
of salvation so wonderful that angelic minds cannot but adore as they
meditate upon it. And yet so simple that the children in the temple may
fitly hymn its virtues as they sing. "Hosanna! Blessed is He that comes
in the name of the Lord."
What a splendid combining of the sublime and the simple have we in the
great Atonement offered by the Incarnate Savior! Oh make known to all
men this saving Truth of God! The shepherds need no excuse for making
everywhere the announcement of the Savior's birth, for what they told
they first received from Heaven! Their news was not muttered in their
ears by Sybilline oracles, nor brought to light by philosophic
research. It was not conceived in poetry nor found as treasure trove
among the volumes of the ancient. It was revealed to them by that
notable Gospel preacher who led the angelic host and testified, "Unto
you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ
the Lord."
When Heaven entrusts a man with a merciful Revelation, he is bound to
deliver the good tidings to others. What? Keep that a secret whose
utterance Eternal Mercy makes to charm the midnight air? To what
purpose were angels sent if the message were not to be spread abroad?
According to the teaching of our own beloved Lord we must not be
silent, for He bids us, "What you hear in secret, that reveal you in
public. And what I tell you in the ear in closets, that proclaim you
upon the housetops." Beloved, you have heard a voice from Heaven–you
twice-born men, begotten again unto a lively hope–you have heard the
Spirit of God bearing witness of God's Truth with you and teaching you
of heavenly things. You, then, must keep this Christmas by telling to
your fellow men what God's own holy Spirit has seen fit to reveal to
you!
But though the shepherds told what they heard from Heaven, remember
that they spoke of what they had seen below. They had, by observation,
made those Truths of God most surely their own which had first been
spoken to them by Revelation. No man can speak of the things of God
with any success until the doctrine which he finds in the Bible, he
finds, also, in his heart. We must bring down the mystery and make it
plain by knowing, and by the teaching of the Holy Spirit its practical
power on the heart and conscience. My Brethren, the Gospel which we
preach is most surely revealed to us by the Lord. But, moreover, our
hearts have tried and proved, have grasped, have felt, have realized
its truth and power!
If we have not been able to understand its heights and depths, yet we
have felt its mystic power upon our heart and spirit. It has revealed
sin to us plainly. It has revealed to us our pardon. It has killed the
reigning power of sin. It has given us Christ to reign over us and the
Holy Spirit to dwell within our bodies as in a temple. Now we must
speak! I do not urge any of you to speak of Jesus who merely know the
Word as you find it in the Bible–your teaching can have but little
power. But I do speak earnestly to you who know its mighty influence
upon the heart, who have not only heard of the Babe but have seen Him
in the manger.
I speak to those who have taken Him up in your arms and received Him as
being born to you, a Savior to you– Christ the Anointed–Jesus, the
Savior from sin, for you. Beloved, can you do otherwise than speak of
the things which you have seen and heard? God has made you to taste and
to handle of this good Word of Life and you must not, you dare not hold
your peace! You must tell friends and neighbors what you have felt
within.
These were shepherds, unlettered men. I will warrant you they could not
read in a book. There is no probability that they even knew a single
letter. They were shepherds, but they preached right well. And, my
Brethren, whatever some may think, preaching is not to be confined to
those learned gentlemen who have taken their degrees at Oxford or at
Cambridge, or at any college or university. It is true that learning
need not be an impediment to Grace and may be a fitting weapon in a
gracious hand. But often the Grace of God has glorified itself by the
plain clear way in which unlettered men have understood the Gospel and
have proclaimed it.
I would not mind asking the whole world to find a Master of Arts now
living who has brought more souls to Christ Jesus than Richard Weaver.
If the whole bench of bishops have done a tenth as much in the way of
soul-winning as that one man, it is more than most of us give them
credit for. Let us give to our God all the Glory, but still let us not
deny the fact that this sinner saved, with the brogue of the coal miner
still about him, fresh from the coal pit, tells the story of the Cross,
by God's Grace, in such a way that Right Reverend Fathers in God might
humbly sit at his feet to learn the way to reach the heart and melt the
stubborn soul!
It is true an uneducated Brother is not fitted for all work–he has his
own sphere–but he is quite able to tell of what he has seen and heard.
And so it strikes me, is every man in a measure. If you have seen Jesus
and heard His saving voice. If you have received Truth as from the
Lord. If you have felt its tremendous power as coming from God to you,
and if you have experienced its might upon your own spirit–why you can
surely tell out what God has written within! If you cannot get beyond
that into the deeper mysteries, into the more knotty points, well,
well, there are some who can, and so you need not be uneasy. But you
can at least reveal the first and foundational Truths and they are by
far the most important!
If you cannot speak in the pulpit. If as yet your cheek would mantle
with a blush and your tongue would refuse to do her office in the
presence of many, there are your children! You are not ashamed to speak
before them! There is the little cluster round the hearth on Christmas
night. There is the little congregation in the workshop. There is a
little audience somewhere to whom you might tell out of Jesus' love to
lost ones. Do not get beyond what you know. Do not plunge into what you
have not experienced–for if you do, you will be out of your depth–and
then very soon you will be floundering and making confusion worse
confounded. Go as far as you know. And since you know yourself to be a
sinner–and Jesus a Savior, and a great one, too–talk about those two
matters and good will come of it! Beloved, each one, in his own
position, tell what you have heard and seen! Publish that abroad among
the sons of men.
But were the shepherds authorized? It is a great thing to be
authorized! Unauthorized ministers are most shameful intruders!
Unordained men who are not in the Apostolic succession entering the
pulpit–very horrible–very horrible indeed! The Puseyite mind utterly
fails to fathom the depth of horror which is contained in the idea of
an unauthorized man preaching and a man out of the Apostolic succession
daring to teach the way of salvation! To me this horror seems very much
like a schoolboy's fright at a hobgoblin which his fears had conjured
up. I think if I saw a man slip through the ice into a cold grave and I
could rescue him from drowning it would not be so very horrible to me
to be the means of saving him, though I may not be employed by the
Royal Humane Society.
I imagine if I saw a fire and heard a poor woman scream at an upper
window and likely to be burned alive, if I should wheel the fire escape
up to the window and preserve her life, it would not be so very
dreadful a matter though I might not belong to the regular Fire
Brigade. If a company of brave volunteers should chase an enemy out of
their own county, I do not know that it would be anything so shocking
although a whole army of mercenaries might be neglecting their work in
obedience to some venerable military rubric which rendered them
incapable of effective service. But mark you, the shepherds and others
like them are in the Apostolic succession and they are authorized by
Divine ordinance–for every man who hears the Gospel is authorized to
tell it to others.
Do you want authority? Here it is in strong confirmation from Holy
Writ–"Let him that hears say, Come"–that is, let every man who truly
hears the Gospel bid others come to drink of the Water of Life. This is
all the warrant you require for preaching the Gospel according to your
ability. It is not every man who has ability to preach the Word. And it
is not every man that we should like to hear preach it in the great
congregation, for if all were mouth, what a great vacuum the Church
would be! Yet every Christian in some method should deliver the glad
tidings. Our wise God takes care that liberty of prophesying shall not
run to riot, for He does not give efficient pastoral and ministerial
gifts to every many. Yet every man, according to his gifts, let him
minister! Every one of you, though not in the pulpit, yet in the pew,
in the workshop–somewhere, anywhere, everywhere–make known the savor
of the Lord Jesus. And let this be your authority–"Let him that hears,
say, Come."
I never thought of asking any authority for crying, "Fire!" When I saw
a house burning, I never dreamed of seeking any authority for doing my
best to rescue a poor perishing fellow man. Nor do I mean to seek it
now! All the authority you want, any of you, is not the authority which
can stream from prelates decorated with long sleeves–but the authority
which comes directly from the great Head of the Church who gives
authority to every one of those who hear the Gospel to teach every man,
his fellow, saying, "Know the Lord." Here, dear Brethren, is one way
for you to keep a right holy, and in some sense, a right merry
Christmas!
Imitate these humble men, of whom it is said, "When they had seen it
they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this
Child."
II. We set before you, now, another mode of keeping Christmas by HOLY
WONDER, ADMIRATION, AND ADORATION. "And all they that heard it wondered
at those things which were told them by the shepherds." We shall have
little to say of those persons who merely wondered and did nothing
more. Many are set a wondering by the Gospel. They are content to hear
it, pleased to hear it–though not, to them, in itself something
new–yet there are new ways of putting it and they are glad to be
refreshed with the variety. The preacher's voice is to them as the
sound of one that gives a goodly tune upon an instrument. They are glad
to listen.
They are not skeptics. They do not cavil. They raise no difficulties.
They just say to themselves, "It is an excellent Gospel. It is a
wonderful plan of salvation. Here is most astonishing love, most
extraordinary condescension." Sometimes they marvel that these things
should be told them by shepherds. They can hardly understand how
unlearned and ignorant men should speak of these things! And they
marvel how such things should ever get into these shepherds'
heads–where they learned them, how it is that they seem so earnest
about them–what kind of operation they must have passed through to be
able to speak as they do!
But after holding up their hands and opening their mouths for about
nine days, the wonder subsides and they go their way and think no more
about it. There are many of you who are set to wondering whenever you
see a work of God in your district. You hear of somebody converted who
was a very extraordinary sinner and you say, "It is very wonderful!"
There is a revival. You happen to be present at one of the meetings
when the Spirit of God is working gloriously–you say, "Well, this is a
singular thing! Very astonishing!" Even the newspapers can afford a
corner, at times, for very great and extraordinary works of God the
Holy Spirit! But then all emotion ends–it is all wondering and nothing
more.
Now, I trust it will not be so with any of us–that we shall not think
of the Savior and of the doctrines of the Gospel which He came to
preach simply with amazement and astonishment–for this will work us
but little good. On the other hand, there is another mode of wondering
which is akin to adoration, if it is not adoration, itself. I think it
would be very difficult to draw a line between holy wonder and real
worship. When the soul is overwhelmed with the majesty of God's Glory,
though it may not express itself in song, or even utter its voice with
bowed head in humble prayer, yet it silently adores.
I am inclined to think that the astonishment which sometimes seizes
upon the human intellect at the remembrance of God's greatness and
goodness is, perhaps, the purest form of adoration which ever rises
from mortal men to the Throne of the Most High. This kind of wonder I
recommend to those of you who, from the quietness and solitariness of
your lives, are scarcely able to imitate the shepherds in telling out
the tale to others–you can at least fill up the circle of the
worshippers before the Throne by wondering at what God has done! Let me
suggest to you that holy wonder at what God has done should be very
natural to you. That God should consider His fallen creature, man–and
instead of sweeping him away with the besom of destruction–should
devise a wonderful scheme for his redemption and that He should,
Himself, undertake to be man's Redeemer and to pay his ransom price,
is, indeed, marvelous!
Probably it is most marvelous to you in its relation to yourself, that
you should be redeemed by blood! That God should forsake the thrones
and royalties above to suffer ignominiously below for you! If you know
yourself you can never see any adequate motive or reason in your own
flesh for such a deed as this. "Why such love to me?" you will say.
What should you and I say, if David, sitting in his house, could only
say, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought
me up to now?"
Had we been the most meritorious of individuals and had unceasingly
kept the Lord's commands we could not have deserved such a priceless
gift as Incarnation! But, Sinners, offenders who revolted and went from
God further and further, what shall we say of this Incarnate God dying
for us? "Herein is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us."
Let your soul lose itself in wonder, for wonder, dear Friends, is in
this way a very practical emotion! Holy wonder will lead you to
grateful worship! Being astonished at what God has done, you will pour
out your soul with astonishment at the foot of the golden Throne with
the song, "Blessing and honor and glory and majesty and power and
dominion and might be unto Him who sits on the Throne and does these
great things for me."
Filled with this wonder it will cause you a godly watchfulness. You
will be afraid to sin against such love as this! Feeling the Presence
of the mighty God in the gift of His dear Son, you will take off your
shoes because the place where you stand is holy ground. You will be
moved at the same time to a glorious hope! If Jesus has given Himself
to you. If He has done this marvelous thing on your behalf, you will
feel that Heaven itself is not too great for your expectation and that
the rivers of pleasure at God's right hand are not too sweet or too
deep for you to drink! Who can be astonished at anything when he has
once been astonished at the Manger and the Cross?
What is there wonderful left after one has seen the Savior? The nine
wonders of the world? Why, you may put them all into a nutcracker and a
child's art can excel them all! This one wonder is not the wonder of
earth only, but of Heaven and earth and even Hell itself! It is not the
wonder of the olden time, but the wonder of ALL time and the wonder of
eternity. They who see human wonders a few times finally cease to be
astonished. The noblest pile that architect ever raised finally fails
to impress the onlooker–but not so this marvelous temple of Incarnate
Deity! The more we look the more we are astonished! The more we become
accustomed to it, the more we have a sense of its surpassing splendor
of love and Grace!
There is more of God, let us say, to be seen in the Manger and the
Cross, than in the sparkling stars above, the rolling deep below, the
towering mountain, the teeming valleys, the abodes of life, or the
abyss of death! Let us, then, spend some choice hours of this festive
season in holy wonder–such as will produce gratitude, worship, love
and confidence.
III. A third manner of holy work, namely, HER HEART PONDERING AND
PRESERVING, you will find in the next verse. One at least and let us
hope there were others, or at any rate let us ourselves be the
others–one kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. She
wondered–she did more–she pondered. You will observe there was an
exercise on the part of this blessed woman of the three great parts of
her being–her memory–she kept all these things. Her affections–she
kept them in her heart. Her intellect–she pondered them, considered
them, weighed them, turned them over–so that memory, affection and
understanding were all exercised about these things.
We delight to see this in Mary, but we are not at all surprised when we
recollect that she was, in some sense, the most concerned of all on
earth–for it was of her that Jesus Christ had been born. Those who
come nearest to Jesus and enter the most closely into fellowship with
Him will be sure to be the most engrossed with Him. Certain persons are
best esteemed at a distance, but not the Savior! When you shall have
known Him to the very fullest, then shall you love Him with the love
which passes knowledge. You shall comprehend the heights and depths and
lengths and breadths of His love. And when you shall do so, then your
own love shall swell beyond all length and breadth, all height and
depth.
The birth most concerned Mary and therefore she was the most impressed
with it. Note the way in which her concern was shown–she was a woman
and the Divine Grace which shines best in the female is not
boldness–that belongs to the masculine mind. Affectionate modesty is a
feminine beauty, and from now we do not read so much of her telling
abroad as pondering within. No doubt she had her circle and her word to
speak in it, but for the most part she, like another Mary, sat still in
the house. She worked, but her work was most directly for Him, her
heart's joy and delight.
Like other children, the holy Child needed care, which only a mother's
hand and heart could exercise. She was, therefore, engrossed with Him.
O blessed engrossment! Sweet engagement! Count not that to be
unacceptable service which occupies itself rather with Jesus than with
His disciples or His wandering sheep. That woman who broke the
alabaster box and poured the ointment upon our Jesus Himself was
faulted by Judas. And even the rest of the disciples thought that the
poor had lost a benefit, but "she has worked a good work on Me" was the
Savior's answer. I desire to bring you to this thought–if during this
season you retiring, quiet ones, cannot speak to others, or have no
desirable opportunity or suitable gift for that work–you may sit still
with Jesus and honor Him in peace.
Mary took the Lord in her arms. Oh that you may bear Him in yours! She
executed works directly for His Person– imitate her! You can love Him,
bless Him, praise Him, study Him, ponder Him, comprehend His Character,
study the types that set Him forth and imitate His life! And in this
way, though your worship will not blaze forth among the sons of men and
scarcely benefit them as some other forms of work, yet it will both
benefit you and be acceptable to your Lord. Beloved, remember what you
have heard of Christ and what He has done for you! Make your heart the
golden cup to hold the rich remembrances of His past loving-kindness!
Make it a pot of manna to preserve the heavenly bread on which saints
have fed in days gone by!
Let your memory treasure up everything about Christ which you have
either heard, or felt, or known! And then let your fond affections hold
Him fast forevermore. Love Him! Pour out that alabaster box of your
heart, and let all the precious ointment of your affections come
streaming on His feet. If you cannot do it with joy, do it sorrowfully!
Wash His feet with tears, wipe them with the hairs of your head–but do
love Him–love the blessed Son of God, your ever tender Friend. Let
your intellect be exercised concerning the Lord Jesus. Turn over and
over by meditation what you read. Do not be loiter men–do not stop at
the surface–dive into the depths!
Be not as the swallow which touches the brook with her wing, but as the
fish which penetrates the lowest wave. Drink deep draughts of love! Do
not sip and away–but dwell at the well as Isaac did at the well
Lahai-roi. Abide with your Lord–let Him not be to you as a wayfaring
man that tarries for a night, but constrain Him, saying, "Abide with
us, for the day is far spent." Hold Him and do not let Him go! The word
"ponder," as you know, means to weigh. Make ready the scales of
judgment. Oh, but where are the scales that can weigh the Lord Christ?
"He takes up the isles as a very little thing"–who shall take Him up?
"He weighs the mountains in scales." In what scales shall we weigh Him?
Be it so, if your understanding cannot comprehend, let your affections
apprehend. And if your spirit cannot compass the Lord Jesus in the arms
of its understanding, let it embrace Him in the arms of your affection.
Oh, Beloved, here is blessed Christmas work for you, if, like Mary, you
lay up all these things in your heart and ponder upon them!
IV. The last piece of holy Christmas work is to come. "The shepherds
returned," we read in the twentieth verse,
"GLORIFYING AND PRAISING GOD for all the things that they had heard and
seen, as it was told unto them."
Returned to what? Returned to business to look after the lambs and
sheep again! Then if we desire to glorify God we need not give up our
business. Some people get the notion into their heads that the only way
in which they can live for God is by becoming ministers, missionaries,
or Bible women.
Alas, how many of us would be shut out from any opportunity of
magnifying the Most High if this were the case? The shepherds went back
to the sheep pens glorifying and praising God! Beloved, it is not
office, it is earnestness! It is not position, it is Divine Grace which
will enable us to glorify God! God is most surely glorified in that
cobbler's stall where the godly worker, as he plies the awl, sings of
the Savior's lovel Yes, glorified far more than in many a cathedral
where official religiousness performs its scanty duties.
The name of Jesus is glorified by yonder carter as he drives his horse
and blesses his God, or speaks to his fellow laborer by the roadside as
much as by yonder Divine who, throughout the country like Boanerges, is
thundering out the Gospel! God is glorified by our abiding in our
vocation. Take care you do not fall out of the path of duty by leaving
your calling, and take care you do not dishonor your profession while
in it! Think not much of yourselves, but do not think too little of
your callings. There is no trade which is not sanctified by the Gospel.
If you turn to the Bible, you will find the most menial forms of labor
have been in some way or other connected either with the most daring
deeds of faith, or else with persons whose lives have been otherwise
illustrious.
Keep to your calling, Brother, keep to your calling! Whatever God has
made you, when He calls you, abide in that, unless you are quite
sure–mind that–unless you are quite sure that He calls you to
something else. The shepherds glorified God though they went to their
trade. They glorified God though they were shepherds. As we remarked,
they were not men of learning. So far from having an extensive library
full of books, it is probable they could not read a word. Yet they
glorified God. This takes away all excuse for you good people who say,
"I am no scholar. I never had any education. I never went even to a
Sunday school." Ah, but if your heart is right, you can glorify God!
Never mind, Sarah. Do not be cast down because you know so little.
Learn more if you can, but make good use of what you do know. Never
mind, John! It is, indeed, a pity that you should have had to toil so
early, as not to have acquired even the rudiments of knowledge–but do
not think that you cannot glorify God! If you would praise God, live a
holy life! You can do that by His Grace, at any rate, without
scholarship. If you would do good to others, be good yourself. And that
is a way which is as open to the most illiterate as it is to the best
taught! Be of good courage! Shepherds glorified God and so may you!
Remember there is one thing in which they had a preference over the
wise men. The wise men wanted a star to lead them. The shepherds did
not. The wise men went wrong even with a star–they stumbled into
Jerusalem. The shepherds went straight away to Bethlehem. Simple minds
sometimes find a glorified Christ where learned heads, much puzzled
with their lore, miss Him. A good doctor used to say, "Lo, these
simpletons have entered into the kingdom, while we learned men have
been fumbling for the latch." It is often so. And so, you simple minds,
be comforted and glad!
The way in which these shepherds honored God is worth noticing. They
did it by praising Him. Let us think more of sacred song than we
sometimes do. When the song is bursting in full chorus from the
thousands in this house, it is but a noise in the ear of some men–but
inasmuch as many true hearts, touched with the love of Jesus, are
keeping pace with their tongues–it is not a mere noise in God's
esteem! There is a sweet music in it that makes glad His ear. What is
the great ultimatum of all Christian effort? When I stood here the
other morning preaching the Gospel, my mind was fully exercised with
the winning of souls. But I seemed, while preaching, to get beyond
that. I thought, Well, that is not the chief end after all–the chief
end is to glorify God and even the saving of sinners is sought by the
right-minded as the means to that end!
Then it struck me all of a sudden, "If in Psalm singing and hymn
singing we do really glorify God, we are doing more than in the
preaching because we are not then in the means–we are close upon the
great end itself." If we praise God with heart and tongue we glorify
Him in the surest possible manner–we are really glorifying Him then!
"Whoever offers praise glorifies Me," says the Lord. Sing, then, my
Brethren! Sing not only when you are together, but sing alone! Cheer
your labor with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Make glad the
family with sacred music! We sing too little, I am sure, yet the
revival of religion has always been attended with the revival of
Christian Psalmody.
Luther's translations of the Psalms were of as much service as Luther's
discussions and controversies. And the hymns of Charles Wesley and
Cennick and Toplady and Newton and Cowper aided as much in the
quickening of spiritual life in England as the preaching of John Wesley
and George Whitefield. We need more singing! Sing more and murmur less!
Sing more and slander less! Sing more and cavil less! Sing more and
mourn less! God grant us today, as these shepherds did, to glorify God
by praising Him.
I have not quite done with them. What was the subject of their praise?
It appears that they praised God for what they had heard. If we think
of it, there is good reason for blessing God every time we hear a
Gospel sermon. What would souls in Hell give if they could hear the
Gospel once more and be on terms in which salvation Grace might come to
them? What would dying men give whose tune is all but over if they
could once more come to the House of God and have another warning and
another invitation? My Brethren, what would you give, sometimes, when
you are shut up by sickness and cannot meet with the great
congregation–when your heart and your flesh cry out for the living
God?
Well, praise God for what you have heard! You have heard the faults of
the preacher–let him mourn them. You have heard his Master's message!
Do you bless God for that? Scarcely will you ever hear a sermon which
may not make you sing if you are in a right frame of mind. George
Herbert says, "Praying is the end of preaching." So it is, but praising
is its end, too. Praise God that you hear there is a Savior! Praise God
that you hear that the plan of salvation is very simple! Praise God
that you have a Savior for your own soul! Praise God that you are
pardoned, that you are saved! Praise Him for what you have heard!
But observe, they also praised God for what they had seen. Look at the
twentieth verse–"heard and seen." There is the sweetest music–what we
have experienced, what we have felt within, what we have made our
own–the things that we have made touching the King! Mere hearing may
make some music, but the soul of song must come from seeing with the
eye of faith! And, dear Friends, you who have seen with that God-given
eyesight–I pray you, let not your tongues be steeped in sinful
silence! Speak loudly to the praise of Sovereign Grace!
One point for which they praised God was the agreement between what
they had heard and what they had seen. Observe the last sentence. "As
it was told unto them." Have you not found the Gospel to be in
yourselves just what the Bible said it would be? Jesus said He would
give you Grace–have you not had it? He promised you rest–have you not
received it? He said that you should have joy and comfort and life
through believing in Him–have you not had all these? Are not His ways
ways of pleasantness and His paths, paths of peace? Surely you can say
with the queen of Sheba, "The half has not been told me."
I have found Christ more sweet than His servants could set Him forth as
being. I looked upon the likeness as they painted it, but it was a mere
daub as compared with Himself–the King in His beauty! I have heard of
the goodly land, but oh, it flows with milk and honey more richly and
sweetly than men were ever able to tell me in their best trim for
speech. Surely what we have seen keeps pace with what we have heard!
Let us, then, glorify and praise God for what He has done.
This word to those who are not yet converted and I have done. I do not
think you can begin at the seventeenth verse, but I wish you would
begin at the eighteenth. You cannot begin at the seventeenth–you
cannot tell to others what you have not felt. Do not try it. Neither
teach in the Sunday school, nor attempt to preach if you are not
converted. Unto the wicked, God says, "What have you to do to declare
My statutes?" But I would to God you would begin with the eighteenth
verse–wondering! Wondering that you are spared–wondering that you are
out of Hell–wondering that still does His good Spirit strive with the
chief of sinners! Wonder that this morning the Gospel should have a
word for you after all your rejections of it and sins against God!
I should like you to begin there because then I should have good hope
that you would go on to the next verse and change the first letter and
so go from wondering to pondering. Oh Sinner, I wish you would ponder
the doctrines of the Cross. Think of your sin, God's wrath, judgment,
Hell, your Savior's blood, God's love, forgiveness, acceptance,
Heaven–think on these things! Go from wondering to pondering!
And then I would to God you could go on to the next verse, from
pondering to glorifying. Take Christ! Look to Him! Trust Him! Then
sing, "I am forgiven," and go your way a believing sinner and therefore
a saved sinner, washed in the blood, and clean! Then go back, after
that, to the seventeenth verse and begin to tell others.
But as for you Christians who are saved, I want you to begin this very
afternoon at the seventeenth–
"Then will I tell to sinners round What a dear Savior I have found!
I'll point to Your redeeming blood, And say–'Behold, the way to God!'"
Then when the day is over, get up to your chambers and wonder, admire
and adore! Spend half an hour also like Mary in pondering and
treasuring up the day's work and the day's hearing in your hearts and
then close all with that which never must close–go on tonight,
tomorrow and all the days of your life, glorifying and praising God for
all the things that you have seen and heard!
May the Master bless you for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Luke 2:1-20.