Hope, Yet No Hope–No Hope, Yet Hope
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 8, 1866, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE
METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"You are wearied in the length of your way; yet you did not say, There
is no Hope."
Isaiah 57:10.
"And theysaid, THEREISNO HOPE: but we will walk after our own devices,
and we will everyone do the imagination of his evil heart." Jeremiah
18:12.
WHO can understand the subtlety of the human heart? Well said the
Prophet, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked." The physician of the body had need be skillful to track
disease to its secret origin and to follow it through all its
mysterious pathways in the mazes of the human body. But he who has to
deal with souls has a task far harder, inasmuch as sin is more subtle
than the virus of the most incurable disease, and the way in which it
intertwines itself with every power of humanity is even more marvelous
than the strange influences of plague and pest upon the human body.
Those whose business and office it is to deal with sick souls set it as
their great object to be instruments in the hands of God of bringing
diseased souls to trust in the great salvation which God has provided
in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And simple as such a work may
seem to be, every truly experienced minister is brought to confess that
it needs a Divine art and Omnipotent power to bring a soul to rest
simply upon Christ. All the subtlety of the human heart exerts itself
to the utmost to prevent that heart from trusting in the Savior–and
while evil is always cunning, it shows itself to be supremely so in its
efforts to guard the Cross against the approaches of sinners. By the
Cross, as the Savior said, the thoughts of many hearts are revealed.
The Cross develops the subtlety of man when we see his struggles and
contortions to avoid resting upon its glorious provisions of Divine
Grace.
There are two phases in spiritual life which well illustrate the
deceitfulness of the heart. The first is that described in my first
text, in which the man, though wearied in his many attempts, is not and
cannot be convinced of the hopelessness of self-salvation but still
clings to the delusion that he shall be able, somehow–he knows not
how–to deliver himself from ruin. When you shall have hunted the man
out of this, you will then meet with a new difficulty which is
described in the second text. Finding there is no hope in himself, the
man draws the unwarrantable conclusion that there is no hope for him in
God. And, as once you had to battle with his self-confidence, now you
have to wrestle with his despair.
It is self-righteousness in both cases. In the one case it is the soul
content with self-righteousness. In the second place it is man sullenly
preferring to perish rather than receive the righteousness of Christ. I
ask the children of God to pray that I may be enabled to simply but
earnestly deal with men's souls this morning! It is their conversion
that I am aiming at.
I shall neither strive to please your ears nor your tastes, nor do I
court an opportunity for oratorical display. All I want is to lead the
sinner, by God's Grace, out of himself and then afterwards to lead him
up from his self-despair. And oh, may God the Holy Spirit bring some
souls by my means this morning to the foot of the Cross, and may they
look up and know themselves to be saved through the finished sacrifice
of our Great High Priest!
I. Considering the first text, we have to speak of A HOPE WHICH IS NO
HOPE. "You are wearied in the length of your way; yet you did not say,
There is no hope. You have found the life of your hand; therefore you
were not grieved." This well pictures the pursuit of men after
satisfaction in earthly things. They will hunt the frequents of wealth.
They will travel the pathways of fame. They will dig into the mines of
knowledge. They will exhaust themselves in the deceitful delights of
sin, and finding them all to be vanity and emptiness, they will become
sorely perplexed and disappointed.
But they will still continue their fruitless search. Wearied with the
length of their way, they still stagger forward under the influence of
spiritual madness! And though there is no result to be reached except
that of everlasting disappointment, yet they press forward with as much
ardor as if a full assurance of success sustained their spirits.
Worldlings seem far more resolved to die than some Christians are to
live. They are more desperate in seeking their own destruction than
Believers are in enjoying spiritual life. Indeed, they are content
because they have found the life of their hand. Living from hand to
mouth is enough for them. That they are still alive–that they possess
present comforts and present enjoyments–this contents the many.
As for the future, they say, "Let it take care of itself." As for
eternity, they leave others to care for its realities–the life of
their hand is enough for them. Their motto is, "Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die." They have no foresight for their eternal state
and the present hour absorbs them. Carnal minds with all their might
pursue earth's vanities, and when they are wearied in their pursuit
they still say not, "There is no hope," but change the direction, and
continue the idle chase! They turn to another and another of earth's
broken cisterns, hoping to find water where not a drop was ever
discovered before.
That, however, is not the subject of this morning. The text applies
very eminently to those who are seeking salvation by ceremonies. This
is a very numerous and increasing class. It is getting to be the
current and fashionable belief that we are to be saved by going to holy
places, receiving priestly baptism, Episcopal confirmation, eating
consecrated bread, drinking hallowed wine, and repeating devout
expressions. We are going back to the beggarly elements of Rome about
as fast as we can and in a very short time we shall see the whole of
this country covered by an Anglican Popery which will be far more hard
to deal with than the more manifest Popery of Rome.
It is surprising that in an age which was supposed to be one of thought
and common sense, men should so soon be dazzled with the gaudy toys of
Romanism! I marvel that the childish processions, the babyism, the
effeminate millinery, the infantile nurseryisms of Rome should have
charms for reasonable men and women! Some of the churches during the
past week would have made little children scream with delight–they
would have felt that they were in the prettiest nurseries and toyshops
which they had ever seen! O it is an age of folly in which men think to
worship God with displays fit only for children's sports!
There may be some hearer here who is pursuing salvation by outward
ceremonies. Your path is certainly a very tedious one and it will end
in disappointment. If you addict yourself to the fullest ceremony. If
you are obedient to it in all its jots and tittles–keeping its fast
days and its feast days, its vigils, matins and vespers, bowing down
before its priesthood, its altars, and its millinery, giving up your
reason and binding yourself in the fetters of superstition–after you
have done all this you will find an emptiness and a vexation of spirit
as the only result!
And it is probable that when you have once committed yourself to that
course you will go on, wearied with the road, but too bewitched to be
able to leave it! Pressing forward, you will be unwilling to confess
that you have been mistaken. You will be conscious that you feel but
little consolation but continue to pursue your downward course as if
glory surely shone before you.
It is only Divine Grace that can enable us to follow Luther's example,
who, after going up and down Pilate's staircase on his knees, muttering
so many Ave Marias and Pater Nosters, called to mind that old text,
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God." He sprung
up from his knees and forsook once and forever all dependence upon
outward formalities and quit the cloistered cell and all its
austerities to live the life of a Believer, knowing that by the works
of the Law there shall no flesh living be justified.
Yet, dear Friends, albeit that I know only Divine Grace can turn you
from the delusive path of vain ceremonies, I would like to suggest a
doubt or two to you which may be helpful one of these days to make you
choose a wiser course. Does it not seem to you to be inconsistent with
the Character of the God of Nature that He should have instituted a
plan of salvation so singularly complicated and theatrical as that
which is nowadays taught us by priests? Nature is simple! Her grandeur
lies in her simplicity. If you walk in the fields of our own happy
land, or climb the lofty ranges of the Alps, you are delighted with the
beautiful simplicity of nature in which there is an utter absence of
everything gaudy, showy, and theatrical.
Everything has a practical design, and even the colors of the flowers,
which are not without intent and design, enable the plant to drink in
certain rays of light which shall best satisfy its need. There is
nothing in nature for mere display! But you step inside a place of
worship dedicated to salvation by ceremonies, and I am persuaded that
your taste will be outraged, if that taste has been formed upon the
model of nature. Frequently, on the Continent, I turned with loathing
from gaudily decorated churches daubed with paint, smothered with gilt,
and bedizened with pictures, dolls, and all sorts of baby prettiness. I
turned aside from them in uttering, "If your god accepts such rubbish
as this he is no god to me! The God of yon rolling clouds and crashing
thunder, yon foaming billows and towering rocks is the God whom I
adore. Too sublime, too noble, too great-minded to take delight in your
genuflections and stage-play devotions."
When I beheld processions with banners, and crosses, and smoking
censers, and saw men who claimed to be sent of God, and yet dress
themselves like Tom fools, I did not care for their god, but reckoned
that he was some heathenish idol whom I counted it my glory as a man to
scoff at and to despise! Do not fall into the notion that the God of
nature is different from the God of Grace. He who wrote the book of
Nature wrote the book of Revelation, and writes the book of experience
within the human heart. Do not, therefore, choose a way of salvation
utterly at variance with the Divine Character.
Has it never struck you that ceremonial salvation would be a very
wicked way of salvation? What is there, for instance, about drops of
baptismal water which could make men better? What is there about
confirmation that should assure you of the forgiveness of your sins?
What is there about receiving a piece of bread and drinking a drop of
wine that should confer Divine Grace? Might you not remain as bad at
heart and as wicked after all as ever you were? And is it not a
violation of the eternal principles of morality that a man should be
endowed with Grace while his soul still clings to sin?
Now, if there is no effect in water to make you hate sin, and no result
from the priest's hands to make you love God, and no result from
sacraments to make you holy and heavenly-minded–can you trust in them?
Surely there must be some sort of congruity between the means and the
result! Surely it is immoral in the highest degree to tell a man that
by outward things, which cannot change the life, he shall have his sins
forgiven! We shall have the iniquity of the Middle Ages back again if
we have the faith of the Middle Ages proclaimed–and from all that may
God in His Grace deliver us! The votaries of superstition have
furnished us with a very solemn argument, for many of them, when they
have lain dying, have turned their eyes to other places and have
anxiously begged for full assurance of eternal life.
Superstition, strange to say, has been truthful enough to reply, "I
have no rest to offer you." For what does Rome offer when you have done
all? Purgatory and its pains! It tells you that when you have done all,
you may have to lie for hundreds of years in a place full of misery
till you have been purged from sin! How very different from the Gospel
which the Word of God reveals to you–that whoever believes in the Lord
Jesus Christ is saved not only from the guilt of sin but from the love
of sin–is enabled to be holy, is made a new creature, and without any
purgatorial cleansing shall ascend to his Father and his God to dwell
with Him forever!
So simple, so God-like, so Divine! How is it that so many cast it
aside, and take up with these sillinesses which are the inventions of
man? This whole Book through salvation is never said to be by anything
done by priests–but salvation is everywhere spoken of as being by
Christ through faith! There is not a place that gives a vestige of
confidence to anybody who hopes to be saved by the performances of
rituals–but everywhere salvation is presented to those humble,
contrite souls who know and trust the Savior's blood.
Perhaps these words of mine may not apply to many of you, and therefore
we will turn to another phase of the same thing. A great mass of
people, even though they reject priest-craft, make themselves priests,
and rely upon their good works. A poor and wretched man dreamed that he
was counting out gold. There it stood upon the table before him in
great bags, and as he untied string after string, he found himself
wealthy beyond Croesus' treasures. He was lying upon a bed of straw in
the midst of filth and squalor–a mass of rags and wretchedness–but he
dreamed of riches!
A charitable friend who had brought him help stood at the sleeper's
side and said, "I have brought you help, for I know your urgent need."
Now the man was in deep sleep and the voice mingled with his dream as
though it were part of it. He replied, therefore, with scornful
indignation, "Get you gone! I need no miserable charity from you. I am
possessor of heaps of gold. Can you not see them? I will open a bag and
pour out a heap that shall glitter before your eyes." Thus foolishly he
talked on, babbling of a treasure which existed only in his dreams till
he who came to help him accepted his repulse and departed mournfully.
When the man awakened he had no comfort from his dream, but found that
he had been duped by it into rejecting his only friend.
Such is the position of every person who is hoping to be saved by his
good works. You have no good works except in your dreams. Those things,
which you supposed to be excellent are really defiled with sin and
spoiled with impurity. Jesus stands by you this morning and cries,
"Soul, I have come from Heaven to redeem you. If you had any good works
there had been no need for Me to come to save you, but, inasmuch as you
are naked, and poor, and miserable, I came to earth and this face was
bedewed with sweat of blood, and these hands were pierced, and this
side was opened to work out your salvation. Take it! I freely present
it to you."
Will you, in your sleep this morning, make that sad reply, "Jesus, we
are rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing. We have
neither cursed Your Father's name, nor broken your Sabbath, nor done
anything amiss"? If so, dear Friends, you are resting upon a delusion
and will find it so when it is too late! The way of salvation by works,
if it were possible, would be a very wearisome way. How many good works
would carry a man to Heaven would be a question very difficult to
answer. It would be such a way that though a man should work his
fingers to the bone, yet he would never be able to clamber up the
precipice–for Sinai is too steep and high for mortal feet to force a
passage to the skies up its terrible battlements.
The way of salvation by works is totally contrary to that revealed in
the Bible. If there is anything plain there, this is plain, "By the
works of the Law there shall no flesh living be justified, for by the
Law is the knowledge of sin." The way of salvation by works is a proud,
rebellious way, by which man hopes to avoid humiliating himself before
his God. How should the Lord bestow His favor upon the man who refuses
to trust in His own dear Son? Shall the Lord yield to save men, and yet
let them remain proud and boastful? Shall He save a man who refuses to
owe that salvation to Divine mercy? You weary yourself, my Hearer, in
your resolutions, and doings, and works, in the greatness of your way,
and yet you will not confess that, "There is no hope." May the Lord
force that conviction upon you till you shall turn aside from all
self-confidence and rest in Jesus Christ alone!
Many persons are looking for salvation by another form of
self-deception, namely, the way of repentance and reformation. It is
thought by some that if they pray a certain number of prayers and
repent up to a certain amount, they will then be saved as the result of
their prayers and repenting. This, again, is another way of winning
salvation which is not spoken of in Scripture. This is a way by which
neither Law or Gospel receive honor. To repent is a Christian's duty,
but to hope for salvation by virtue of that, alone, is a delusion of
the most fearful kind! The reason for salvation lies not in my
repenting, but in Christ's suffering–not in my renunciation of sin,
but in Christ's having borne my sin in His own body on the tree. Oh,
that by God's Grace I may have done with relying upon anything that
comes from myself!
The idea of trying to repent in order to save yourself is so ridiculous
that it has sometimes reminded me of the old story of the Dutchman,
who, having no family, but having a great many cousins, left his estate
in this way–all the cousins were to meet in the Town Hall on a certain
day, and whoever could cry for him first, and could honestly say he
wept out of sorrow for his death should have the estate. Now there was
a very great difficulty here, because of the remarkable mingling of
feeling. Could they get themselves into a state of mind so as to lament
his death? Well, the largeness of the fortune and the desirableness of
the estate at once dried up the tears!
I forget how the story ends, but it sufficiently shows the
impossibility of lamenting in order to gain an object. The hopeful joy
and the sorrow, if both possible in themselves, would effectually
neutralize each other. The tears of true repentance must be as much the
gift of God as Heaven itself, and if we were to have an offer to be
saved on account of our repenting, repenting would be an impossibility
to us. Repentance is a part of salvation, and when Christ saves us He
saves us by making us repent! But repentance does not save–it is the
work of God, and the work of God alone. Now why do you weary yourself
in this way? For surely in it "There is no hope."
My drift in all this rambling talk is just this–whatever it is, my
dear Hearer, that you are looking to as a ground of confidence–if it
is anything in yourself– pray you give up all hope, for though you
have not seen it to be true, it is nevertheless assuredly so that there
is no hope whatever by it. Where you have to do with the work it will
be marred and spoiled and will end in confusion. Salvation is of the
Lord, and your deliverance from your present state of sin and guilt
must come from the right hand of the Most High! It cannot in any
degree, or in any measure, come from yourself. You have destroyed
yourself, that is, in your works–your help must be found in Another
from the first to the last.
I shall be accused, I know, of dispiriting you. I shall desire to plead
guilty to the accusation! And if it shall even be urged again that I
drive you to despair, I shall again plead guilty and glory in the
result! I wish to preach everyone who would save himself into utter
despair! If any man is hoping to save himself, I pray God that He may
smite that hope dead on the spot–that it may be renounced forever.
Sinner, oh that you would consent to yield up all confidence in
yourself, for then there would be hope for you!
Most men must have a secret hope somewhere of a false kind, for, look
at the way in which they are employing themselves. Most men are not
seeking to escape from the wrath to come–they are busy in worldly
things while Hell is near them. They are like idiots catching flies on
board a ship which is in the very act of going down. Surely those men
must have some fictitious hope somewhere or they would not act like
this! We see many persons busy about their persons, decorating
themselves when their soul is in ruin. They are like a man painting his
front door when his house is in flames! Surely they must harbor some
baseless hope which makes them thus insensible!
We see men who do not quail and tremble, though they profess to believe
the Bible which tells them that God is angry with them every day.
Surely their quietness of heart must arise from some secret hope
lurking in their spirits! The rope of mercy is cast to the sinner and
he will not lay hold of it! Surely he cannot be such a fool as to love
to die–he must have some hope somewhere that he can swim by his own
exertions and it is this hopefulness of the man in himself that is his
ruin and his destruction. Until you are totally separate from all
consciousness of hope in yourself, there is no hope that the Gospel
will ever be any power to you!
But when you shall throw up your hands like a drowning man, feeling,
"It is all over with me! I am lost, lost, unless a stronger than I
shall interpose." Oh Sinner, then there is hope for you! If we can once
get you to say, "One thing I know, I cannot save myself. One thing I
feel, I must have a stronger arm than mine to rescue me from ruin."
When you have come to this, O Soul, we will begin to rejoice over you
and may God grant that our rejoicing may not be in vain!
II. We shall now turn to the second text. "And they said, THERE IS NO
HOPE: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will everyone do
the imagination of his evil heart." Here we have NO HOPE–AND YET HOPE.
When the sinner has at last been driven by stress of weather from the
road of his own confidence, then he flies to the dreary harbor of
despair. He is now convinced that there is no hope in himself, and like
a simpleton he goes to the other extreme, and concludes, "Then I cannot
be saved at all."
He acts as if there were nobody in the world but himself, and begins to
measure God's power and God's Grace by his own merit and power. Some
before me, convinced of their own powerlessness, are ready to lie down
in a fit of despair and die. "The preacher has been telling us there is
no hope, then we will give it up." My dear Friend, I know what will be
the result if you go away with that impression–you will go off to your
sins–for despair is the mother of all sorts of evil. When a man says,
"There is no hope of Heaven for me," then he throws the reins upon the
neck of his lusts and goes on from bad to worse.
You will thoroughly misunderstand me if you go away with that
impression. There is no hope for you in yourself, but there is hope for
you in Him whom God has provided to be the Savior of such as you!
Hopelessness in self is what we want to bring you to, but hopelessness
in itself, and especially in connection with God, would be a sin from
which we would urge you to escape. If you are sitting down in despair,
I want to speak to you, first, of the God of Hope. Dear Friend, there
is that in God–Father, Son, and Spirit–which may remove your fears so
that you need never utter a single doubting word again!
You are saying, "I am full of sin." That is true–you are much more
full of sin than you think you are. "But I have been a great sinner."
That is likely–and you are a greater sinner than you will ever know
yourself to have been. "But I don't feel my sinnership as I ought to
do." That is very likely–and you never will do so. No man on earth
ever did feel sin in all its guiltiness, for God alone knows the
blackness of sin. "But I am altogether such a one that there is nothing
in me to recommend me. I could almost wish I had been a great sinner,
that I might feel a great repentance. I have nothing to recommend me."
Now think of the loving kindness of God the Father. Do you remember how
He revealed Himself in that parable of the prodigal son? That prodigal
son had been ungrateful, wicked–very wicked. He had spent his life in
all sorts of vice and had become filthy in person and loathsome in
character. His associates were of the lowest race of men, and then
brutes themselves. Yet the goodness which he had not in himself his
father had. He was all sin, but his father was all mercy. He was all
iniquity, but his father was all loving kindness. Now can you not see,
if the prodigal were here, we might say to him, "There is no hope for
you in yourself. Those rags cannot recommend you. The swine trough
cannot be used as an argument."
But then that would not be a ground for his stopping where he is, for
"there is hope for you in your father. He is so good, so tender. He
rejoices to receive his returning children." And, Sinner, there is hope
in God for you. His name is God That Is Good. He delights in mercy–it
is His soul's highest joy to clasp His Ephraim to His bosom. This very
morning He has sent me to say to you, "Come now, and let us reason
together, said 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."
But you meet this invitation with another desponding suggestion. You
say, "Why should I come before the Most High God? I have sinned, and
what shall I bring as a recompense? Rivers of oil and ten thousands of
the fat of fed beasts, if I could bring them, would not be acceptable
to Him. If I had a mint of merits. If I had godly impressions. If I had
high moral excellence I would come with that to God, and hope to obtain
a hearing."
But hearken, Sinner, do you not know the name of the second Person in
the Trinity? It is Jesus Christ, the Son. Now, if you need merit, has
He not enough of it? For what cause do you think He lived on earth
three-and-thirty years and kept God's Law? Did He keep that for
Himself? What need for God to be a man and to become subject to Law at
all? He must have kept that Law for someone, then–but not for
righteous men, for such have kept the law themselves! He must have kept
it for the unrighteous.
Now, can you not take that which Christ has worked out, and take it to
yourself when He freely bids you take it? You talk of sin but have you
never heard that my Lord Jesus died? Why Man, you have heard this
hundreds of times! But I pray you open your eyes and see it! Do you see
that Cross, the center one of the three? Thieves hang upon the other
two, but God Himself hangs upon the one in the middle. God, in the form
of Mary's Son, hangs bleeding out His life in acute sufferings
exquisite, unutterable! For whom does He die? Not for Himself! What
cause that God should be a man and die? He suffers! He suffers for sin!
For whose sin, then? Not for His own for He had none. For the sins of
good people? What need of that? He dies for the sins of those who have
committed sins–for the sins of transgressors such as you and I are!
Oh Soul, do you not hear the voice that said, "Look unto Me and live"?
What? Jesus, am I not to do anything by way of merit? Am I not to be
anything by way of preparation? Am I to stand and simply look at You
and feel my sins forgiven? Blessed be Your name! What a simple plan of
salvation! Now I feel my heart begin to melt. Now I hate the sins that
nailed You there. Now do I give myself to You, to serve You all my
life. This is good evidence of salvation when a man can thus speak: "I
hate sin and I desire to serve Christ." You can see that he is saved
from the power of sin–the power of the Cross has made him a new man!
Oh Sinner, if you have no merit, you need not wish for any! Take Christ
in your hands for He is made of God unto you wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification and redemption! And all this for every soul of Adam born
who trusts in Him alone! But I hear you complaining again, "Oh, but I
have not the power to repent. You have told me this before and I cannot
believe it–I cannot soften my heart– I am so powerless I cannot do
anything! You have been teaching me that." I know I have, but there is
another person in the Trinity, and what is His name? It is the Holy
Spirit. And do you not know that the Holy Spirit helps our infirmity?
Though we know not what to pray for as we ought, yet He teaches us to
pray. It is true you are darkness, but then He is your light! It is
true you are naturally dead, but the Holy Spirit gives us life! And the
light of God is the Holy Spirit as He shows Himself to you. It is clear
that you can do nothing without that Spirit–that should make you
despair of self! But you can do everything with that Spirit! Now, lift
those eyes of yours with which He has already taught you to weep! Lift
them up to the Throne and say, "My Father, if I may dare to call You by
that name, help me to trust Your Son! My God, I see in Yourself a
Father's love, in Your Son a Savior's power, and in Your Spirit the
Quickener's life. Oh give me to feel Yourself within me, or, O God, if
I may not feel it I will still believe it, for You cannot lie, and
whether I have a comfortable evidence or not, I do this
morning–utterly hopeless of anything in myself–I do this morning cast
myself on You. "Lord, I believe! Help You my unbelief."
Why, Sinner, I do not know what it is that you may want, but I know one
thing–it is provided for you in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–and
resting upon the great Savior whom God has provided, there is hope for
you, my dear fellow creature! There is the brightness of a ray of hope
this very morning, only may God turn it from a possible into an actual
hope and give you a good hope of eternal life through believing in
Jesus Christ!
Thus I have tried to turn you away from self to the Lord–but it may be
I have some very hard cases to deal with– and so, two or three
suggestions by way of smiting at the despair which some of you feel. A
great Divine has said–and I think there is some truth in it–that a
very great number of souls are destroyed through the fear that they
cannot be saved. I think it is very likely. If some of you really
thought that Christ could save you, if you felt a hope that you might
yet be numbered with His people, you would say, "I will forsake my
sins, I will leave my present evil way, and I will fly unto the strong
for strength."
Now though I have laid judgment to the line, and righteousness to the
plummet, and sought to put the axe to the tree of all creature
confidence, yet there is hope in Jesus Christ! There is hope in Jesus
Christ, my dear Hearer, even for you! And I will give you these two or
three reasons. In the first place, would it not be wise even if there
were only a "perhaps," to go to Christ and trust Him on the strength of
that? The king of Nineveh had no Gospel message, He had simply the Law
preached by Jonah, and that very shortly and sternly. Jonah's message
was, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." But the king of
Nineveh said, "Who can tell?" And having nothing to rest upon–not a
single word of promise–he humbled himself before God, he and his
people, on the strength of a, "Who can tell?"
Ah, my dear Hearers, take care lest the men of Nineveh rise up in
judgment against you! You have got much more than a, "Who can tell?" Oh
Sinner, you are saying, "I cannot be saved." But I ask you, Who can
tell? "But I do not feel that there is hope." Who can tell? "But I am
such a sinner." Who can tell? "Oh, but I am such a dull, heavy spirit!
I cannot feel–there cannot be mercy for me." But who can tell? Surely
if but on the presumption of "Who can tell?" the men of Nineveh went
and found mercy, you will be inexcusable if you do not act upon the
same, having much more than that to be your comfort! Go, Sinner, to the
Cross, for who can tell?
But, in the next place, you have had many clear and positive examples.
In reading Scripture through you find that many have been to Christ and
that there never was one cast out yet. If you had seen some repulsed,
you might conclude that you must be among them, but not one has been
rejected by the Savior. Why should you be? We need not turn to
books–there are living people here saved by Divine Grace. I myself am
one. I had no more preparation for Christ than you have. I had not the
shadow of anything to trust to any more than you have. When I heard the
Gospel precept, "Look unto Me and be you saved, all you ends of the
earth," I did look, and I am saved!
Oh my Soul, I am the witness for my Master that He is true! In a
moment, no sooner had I looked than I had joy and peace, and I can
promise you the same! Those wounds of Christ still stream with mercy!
That head crowned with thorns still beams with the splendor of Grace!
Do but look into His pierced side and you shall see a fount most deep
and full– still flowing with blood and water to cleanse you, even you,
from sin! Do not say you cannot come to Christ for He is not here–you
cannot come upon your feet, but then your thoughts are the feet of your
soul! Come to Him in thought. Come to Him in confidence. Come to Him in
trust, and you cannot trust Christ and yet be cast away. You have
living examples.
Moreover you have comfortable promises in the Word of God. I was
thinking much yesterday of this promise–I wonder whether God has sent
it to my heart for any of you–"Your hearts shall live that seek Him."
I was wondering whether I should preach from it, but anyhow it kept
following me about–"Your hearts shall live that seek Him." If you seek
Him your heart shall live! Leap on the back of that promise and let it
bear you, as the Samaritan's beast bore the dying man to an inn where
you may rest–I mean to Christ–where you may have confidence.
Here is another. "Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved." Now you do call upon His name. There are many others. They have
been quoted in your ears till you know them by heart. "Whoever will,
let him take the water of life freely." And you know that precious one,
"Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest." You see I had some black things to say at first–I had to
tell you that the disease was incurable by natural means–but then the
supernatural Physician can remove it! I had to tell you that the ship
was sinking and could not be saved, but I have now to point you to the
lifeboat which can never be wrecked. I had to warn you that your own
arm is palsied, but I have to assure you that the Lord's arm is not so
shortened that it cannot save, neither is His ear heavy that it cannot
hear.
I had to remind you that you were hopeless bankrupts and could not pay
a farthing in the pound, but I have to assure you that He has paid all
Believers' debts. I had to tell you that you were all so dirty in His
sight that, in yourselves considered, you never could be accepted. But
I have now to say, on the other hand, that every Believer is so clean
and fair after being washed in Jesus' blood that he is without spot or
wrinkle, or any such thing. Away, you broken cisterns! Oh, for the
hammer of God to dash you into shivers! But come, come, come you
thirsty ones to the ever-flowing, overflowing fountain! Here is nothing
stinted! Here is no shortness of supply, no illiberality of gift–come
as you are!
The fountain flows freely and richly for you, who, having nothing in
yourselves, are willing to have everything in Christ Jesus! Do not be
saying, "There is no hope," for there IS hope! There is more–there is
security–there is certainty to every soul that trusts in Jesus!
To conclude, do you not know, poor Sinner, you who believe in Jesus
this morning–do you not know the news? Then I will tell you a secret.
Do you not know that if you now prostrate yourself at the foot of the
Cross, you are God's chosen one? Your name is engraved on the hand of
Jesus, on the heart of God! Before the daystar knew its place or
planets ran their round–before the primeval darkness was pierced by
the sun's first ray you were dear to the heart of Deity! You are His
elect, His beloved one! And do you not know that the mountains may
depart and the hills be removed but the Covenant of His love shall
never depart from you? Neither shall His Grace be removed, said the
Lord, who this morning has manifested His mercy towards you!
Though you are but just now converted, there is laid up for you in
Heaven a crown of life that fades not away. Jesus pleads for you this
very day! He this day prepares one of the many mansions for your
eternal dwelling place! Be of good courage! Angels are singing, Heaven
is rejoicing over YOU! The Church on earth is glad concerning you! And
one day, when the great Shepherd shall appear, you also shall appear
with Him in glory–and all this for you, poor helplessly ruined
sinner–helpless in yourself, but saved in Christ Jesus! May God add a
blessing to this simple testimony this morning and His shall be the
praise.