Judgment Threatening But Mercy Sparing
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 17, 1865, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT
THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"Cut it down; why does it use up the ground? But he answered and said
to him, Lord, let it alone this year also."
Luke 13:7,8.
THE comparison of a man to a tree and of human works to fruit is
exceedingly common in Scripture because it is most suggestive, natural,
and appropriate. As fruit is the production of the tree's life and the
end for which the tree exists, so obedience to the Divine will and
holiness unto the Lord should be the product of man's life and for it
he was at first created. When men plant trees in a vineyard, they very
naturally expect to find fruit on them. And if at the age and season of
fruit bearing they find no produce, their natural and justifiable
expectation is disappointed.
Even thus, speaking after the manner of men, it is natural that the
great Maker of all should look for the good fruit of obedience and love
from the men who are the objects of His providential care and be
grieved when He meets with no return. Man is very much more God's
property than a tree can ever be the property of the man who plants a
vineyard. And as God has spent so much more skill and wisdom in the
creation of a man than a farmer can have spent in the mere planting of
trees, it becomes the more natural that God should look for fruit from
His creature, man. And the more reasonable that His most righteous
requirements should not be refused.
Trees that bear no fruit must be cut down. And sinners who bear no
repentance, faith and holiness, must die. It is only a matter of time
as to whether or not the vineyard shall be cleared of the encumbrance
of its barren trees. And it is but a matter of time as to when the
world shall be delivered from the burdensome presence of barren souls.
It stands to reason that barren trees, which soon become the haunts of
all sorts of mischievous creatures, should be a nuisance to the
vineyard. Neither can sinners be permitted forever to become the
dwelling places of evil spirits and the dens of iniquity– a thorough
riddance must be made of impenitent sinners as well as of rotten trees.
There is a time for felling fruitless trees, and there is an appointed
season for hewing down and casting into the fire the useless sinner.
I. We shall not linger on the threshold of our solemn work this
morning, for our burden is very heavy and we would be rid of it
speedily. We shall address ourselves at once to those persons who are
living without God and without Christ, among whom many of my hearers
must be numbered. We shall speak to those who are not saved–there are
such in the professing Church everywhere. O may the Holy Spirit find
them out by our word and bring them in real earnest to consider their
ways.
To all unprofitable, unfruitful sinners, we utter this hard, but
needful sentence–TO CUT YOU DOWN WOULD BE MOST REASONABLE. It is right
and reasonable to fell barren trees and it is just as right and
reasonable that you should be cut down.
1. This will appear in the first place, if we reflect that this is the
shortest and the surest way to deal with you. It will cost the least
trouble and be most certainly effectual in removing you from the place
to which you are an injury rather than a benefit. When the owner of the
vineyard says to the gardener concerning the tree, "Cut it down," the
remedy is very sharp, but it is very simple. The felling is soon done,
the clearance is thorough–and when another tree is planted the benefit
is evident. To dig about the tree, to trench it, to feed it, to prune
it and water it–all this takes time– requiring care and labor and
attention.
And, after all that, the process may fail and love's labor may be lost.
To spare is difficult and involves trouble. To cut down is easy and
effectual. Unconverted Hearer, to preach the Gospel to you, to call you
to repentance, to entreat, exhort, instruct and warn you is a laborious
process and will probably be unsuccessful, after all. The work will
require much thought! Providential agencies must be directed with
wisdom! Saints must pray with earnestness! Ministers must plead with
tears! The Scriptures must be written and those Scriptures must be
expounded and explained!
All this is more than you have any natural right to expect that God
should do with you, when He has in His hands a far simpler remedy by
which He may at once ease Himself of His adversary and prevent your
being any further offense– He has but to take away your breath and
permit your body to descend into the grave and your soul into Hell and
the vineyard is clear and there is room for another tree.
This sharp, short, simple process is one which commends itself to men
in the case of trees. And it is one in which it is a thousand wonders
that the Lord has not used with you! There will be no more blaspheming
God, Sinner, when the axe has laid you low! There will be no more
rejecting the promise of His mercy! No more violating Sundays! No more
despising Scripture when the day of doom arrives! Death shall end all
these abominations forever! We shall no more have to agonize for you in
vain. No more shall we weep bitterly because of your hardness of
heart–no longer study to meet your objections and sigh at your
constant oppositions.
The flames of Hell will end all this, to your sad and awful cost. No
longer will a long-suffering God be wearied with your sins and pressed
down under the load of your iniquities. He will make short work in
righteousness and a clean work, too. He will sweep you away with the
broom of destruction and your rebellions will end and your iniquities
will receive a reward most sure and terrible! Barren fig tree, you will
draw the fatness from the ground no longer and overshadow with evil
influence your fellow trees no more! You are become a mere waste and
worse than a waste.
Sinner, I ask you, is not the readiest plan to be rid of you suggested
by the text, "Cut it down"? You yourself would do thus with a tree!
What reason is there why the Lord should not deal thus with you? Do you
argue that you are of far greater importance than a tree? How do you
figure this? A tree is far more valuable to you than you can be
supposed to be to the infinite God! The gardener would possibly lose
something by cutting down his tree–but how can you suppose that your
ruin would be any damage to the great God?
The man who has many acres of vineyard is not much distressed if one
barren vine is cut down, for there are so many more. If God had but one
man in His dominions, it might seem to be of importance whether that
man were saved or not–but there are so many of our race that your loss
will be no more than the blowing of one atom of sand from the shore, or
the removal of one drop from the sea! You yourself could not well
complain of being cut down, for you do not think much of your own
soul–you are not concerned about its salvation–you trifle with its
best interests!
Why should you expect another to value you at a higher rate than you
have set upon yourself? You fling away your soul for passing joys! You
neglect the great salvation! You live in daily disobedience against
God, who alone can do you good! Even the preaching of the Gospel, that
all-powerful engine, seems to have no effect upon you because you
despise yourself. Well, man, if God despises you, too, and commands His
angels to cut you down, you cannot complain–it is but reasonable that
God should estimate you at your own price and weigh you in your own
balances!
You have wantonly used the axe to yourself on many occasions. Why
should not the proper Executioner use it in earnest? Some men ruin
their health by their sins. They wildly dash the axe against their own
roots and wound themselves terribly. On your soul you are using that
axe continually–for you damage it by sin and seek out folly and the
way to damnation–and labor to be lost! You cannot, therefore,
complain. The crushing of you will be of no more consequence in this
great universe than the killing of some one ant upon the hill. You will
never be missed! You may think greatly of yourself, but you are no more
than a mere worm compared with the great universe of God.
Beware, O rebellious, unrepentant Sinner! My love yearns for your
salvation, but my reason approves of your ruin! I foresee it and expect
it speedily unless you turn unto the Lord and live.
2. Another reason makes the argument for judgment very powerful,
namely, that sufficient space for repentance has already been given
you! If there had been any hope of your repentance, I think many of you
would have repented long ago. I do not know what can be done for some
of you more than has been done. You have been dug about–the digging, I
suppose, is to loosen the roots of their hold upon the earth. And you
have had affliction, trial and trouble–like the gardener's great
spade–to wean you from earth and loosen your hold of carnal things.
You have had sickness–you have tossed to and fro upon the bed of pain.
You have been in the jaws of death and the horrid teeth seemed above
and beneath you, as though they would enclose you forever–but all this
has been of no avail. Why should you be stricken any more? You will
revolt more and more. Already some of you have been smitten until your
whole head is sick and your whole heart faint, but you will not hear
the rod. By the blueness of the wound, says Solomon, the heart is made
better. But in your case it has not been so. Those blue wounds of
yours–those great and grievous afflictions–have not been sanctified
to you, but rather you have gone on offending God and provoking the
Most High.
The gardener spoke of feeding as well as of digging and some of you
have had plentiful helps towards repentance. The Gospel has been put
close by your roots hundreds of times. You have a Bible in every house.
You have had, some of you, the advantage of godly training from your
youth up. You have been warned again and again and again, sometimes
sternly, sometimes affectionately. You have heard the wooing voice of
Mercy and the thundering notes of Judgment! But yet, though Jesus
Christ's own Gospel has been laid close to your roots, O barren Tree,
you are barren still! What is the use, then, of sparing you?
Sparing has been tried and it has had no effect–the other remedy is
certain–"Cut it down." O God, cut not down the sinner! And yet we dare
not say it would be unreasonable, but on the contrary, the most natural
result of slighted mercy. O Sinner, you may well say–
"I have long withstood His Grace,
Long provoked Him to His face.
Would not hearken to His calls,
Grieved Him by a thousand falls.
Depths of mercy! Can there be
Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear?
Me, the chief of sinners spare?"
3. Sinner, I argue your case somewhat harshly, you think. Ah, Man,
would God I could make you think me harsh if you would but have pity on
your own soul! For my harshness is only apparent, not real, and your
carelessness for your soul is real harshness, for you care not for your
own soul but treat it as a thing to be cast away and its ruin to be
laughed at, as though it were contemptible.
And all this while there has been no sign of improvement whatever in
you. If there had been some little fruit. If some tears of repentance
had been flowing from your eyes. If there had been some seeking after
Christ. If your heart had been a little softened. If you had but a
little faith in Jesus, though it were but as a grain of mustard seed,
then there were, indeed, reasons for sparing you! But, sorrowful to
add, your sparing has had an ill effect upon you. Because God has not
punished you, therefore you have waxed wanton and bold! You have said,
"Does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?"
You think that He is altogether such an One as you are and that He will
never bring you into judgment. You fancy that His sword is rusted into
the scabbard and His arm waxed short. Strange madness of evil that you
should pervert the long-suffering which calls you to repentance into a
reason for running to greater lengths of sin! What? When Jehovah spares
you that you may turn to Him–shall that very sparing make you lift up
the foot of your rebellion and spurn Him? It has done so. Up to this
time you have grown hardened instead of softened. You have grown older,
but you are no wiser, except it be with Satan's subtlety to be more
wise in sin.
The Gospel has not now the effect it once had on you. This voice could
make your soul shiver and your very blood chill in its veins, but it
cannot do so now. These eyes have sometimes looked on you and seemed as
though they flashed with fire–but now they are dull as lead to you.
Once, when we spoke to you of the wrath to come, the tears would
flow–there were some tears of gentle pity for your own soul. But ah,
it is not so with you now! You will go your way and our most earnest
tones will seem but as the whistling wind and our most importunate
entreaties as a child's playful song.
O God, it is reasonable, indeed, that You should lift up that sharp axe
of Yours and say, "Cut it down." I think I could abundantly justify the
severity of God, if now He were to use it, when I thus perceive that
all His sparing has had no effect but to make you worse! When I
perceive that, notwithstanding these years of waiting, there are no
tokens of improvement in you, if He says, "Cut it down," Justice and
Reason say, "yes, Lord, it is well it should be so."
4. But there are other reasons why, "Cut it down," is most reasonable,
when we consider the Owner and the other trees. First of all, here is a
tree which brings forth no fruit whatever and therefore is of no
service. It is like money badly invested bringing in no interest. It is
a dead loss to the owner. What is the use of keeping it? The dead tree
is neither useful nor ornamental–it can yield no service and afford no
pleasure. Cut it down, by all means!
And even so with you, Sinner! What is the use of you? You are of use to
your children, to your family. In business you may be of some service
to the world–but, then, the world did not make you! And your children
and your family– they did not create you. God has made you. God has
planted you. God is your proprietor–you have done nothing for God.
Even in coming up to His House today, you did not come with any desire
to honor Him. And tomorrow, if you should chance to give something to
the poor, it will not be because they are God's, nor out of love to
Him. You neither pray to God, nor praise God, nor live for God.
You live for anything, for everything, for nothing, sooner than live
for the God that made you. Then what is the good of you to God? All His
other creatures praise Him. There is not a spider spinning its web from
leaf to leaf but does His bidding. "The ox knows his owner and the ass
his master's crib," but you do not know. Would you keep a horse that
never did you service? Would you have a dog in your house that never
licked your hand or fawned upon you, or did your will? You would say,
"What is the good of this? A servant in my house to feed upon my bread,
to be clothed with my bounty, and yet never to obey me but to live in
constant reckless disregard of my most reasonable commands!"
You would say to such a servant, "Get out! You are no servant of mine."
Well might the Lord say this to you! All these years preserving
Goodness has winked at the past. Longsuffering has borne with your
follies and your faults–but it cannot be so forever, for reason
demands that a useless thing should not always stand and–"Cut it
down," is the natural inference from the uselessness of your life.
Nor is this all. While you have been thus living without yielding
anything, you have been a very costly tree. The tree in the vineyard
does not cost much except to dig about it and to feed it and to prune
it. There is, of course, the expense of the gardener who has to watch
over it, but this is very little. You may let the barren tree stand,
for it is no great expense. But see what it costs to keep you! You have
to be daily fed. The breath in your nostrils must come from God every
moment. There has to be an emanation from Omnipotence at every single
tick of that clock, or else you would not live.
The complicated machinery of the human body needs to be tended and kept
in order by the great Master Craftsman, or else before long the cogs
would cease to act upon one another and the wheels would be broken and
the whole machine would be put out of gear. Your body is a mass of
thousands of strings–and fails if one is gone. The good harpist must
watch with sedulous care to prevent the strings from snapping.
You cost God much patience, much bounty, much skill, much power. Why
should He spare you? What is there in you that He should go on with you
in this manner? You would not spare the gnat that was always stinging
you, buzzing in your face and every moment insulting you. If it cost
you much of your poor gold to spare that poor gnat's life, you would
not be long about it–you would crush it! And oh, it is a marvel that
Jehovah does not deal thus with you, for you are more impertinent than
that gnat could be! Sinner, if you were in God's place and were as
ill-treated by your creature as the Lord is by you, would you lavish
love and goodness upon him to receive hardness of heart and rebellion
in return? Assuredly not! Judge, then, whether it is not right that the
Lord should say, "Cut it down."
But there is a worse consideration, namely, that all this while you
have been filling up space which somebody might have been filling to
the glory of God. Where that barren tree stands there might have been a
tree loaded with fruit. You are using up the ground, as the text says,
that is, doing nothing but just being a cumbersome nuisance. If another
mother had those children, she would pray for them and weep over them
and teach them of Christ–but you do no such thing. If another man had
that money it would be laid out for God's glory–but you lay it out for
your own pleasure and forget the God who gave it to you!
If another had sat in that seat which you occupy, it may be that he had
long ago repented in sackcloth and ashes! But you, like the men of
Capernaum, have been hardened, instead of being softened under the
Gospel. It may be, man of influence, if another had stood where you
have stood in the world's judgment, he would have led hundreds in the
path of right–but you, standing there, have done no such thing! Oh, if
another had your gifts, young man, he would not be making a company
laugh at the tavern, but pleading with all his might for Jesus! If
another had but your gifts of utterance he would be spending in prayer
and teaching what you now spend in fun and frolic to make amusement for
fools.
Oh, if another had that time to live in, he would live in earnest for
his Master. If that young saint, just going through the flood, had your
health and vigor, how would he spend and be spent! I recollect a
minister of Christ who had but one talent, but much heart. I remember
hearing him pray this prayer–"O God, I wish I had ten talents, that I
might serve You better." When I think of some that have them and do not
serve my Master with them, I am inclined to pray,
"Lord take away their ten talents and trust me with them if You will,
for I do desire to have something more to lay out for You."
Take heed, O my dear, but sinful Hearer, lest the Lord remove you
suddenly and fill up your place with one who will be obedient to His
will. Moreover and to make bad worse even to the worst degree–all this
while ungodly men are spreading an evil influence. Thinking over the
two lines of the verse we have been singing, I felt a horror of great
darkness as I realized fully their solemn truthfulness with regard to
some of you–
"I have shed His precious blood,
Trampled on the Son of God.
Filled with pains unspeakable
I who yet am not in Hell."
Well may the question arise–"Why to me this waste of love?" It is so
apparently a waste of long-suffering and mercy that some transgressors
should be spared at all, that they may well marvel. Look at it, and I
think you will see it very clearly–the very fact that God does not
punish sin on the spot is mischievously interpreted. Men in all ages
have drawn a wicked inference from the patience of the great Judge. The
Preacher, in Ecclesiastes, says, "Because sentence against an evil work
is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is
fully set in them to do evil." "Why," you say, "So-and-So drinks and
swears and he has lived to be a hale, hearty old man. He has plunged
into all sorts of folly and wickedness. He was a thief and everything
bad besides, and yet he prospers in the world and grows rich. Instead
of God sinking him down at once to Hell, He has favored him and
fattened him as a bullock in rich pasture. "Oh," the worldling says,
"there is no justice in God. He does not punish sin."
The very fact that you are spared, O Sinner, is doing mischief in the
world. Do you see that? Your mere existence in this world is to others
an inducement to continue in sin! While you are spared, others look at
you and say, "God has not punished him." Therefore they infer that He
will not punish sin at all. Moreover, how many there are of you whose
example is fearfully contagious–whose lips and lives combine to lead
your associates astray from God? In this dreadful disease which has
ravaged our fields and destroyed the cattle, farmers have been advised
as soon as ever the cow is attacked with the disease, to kill it on the
spot and bury it five feet deep out of the way.
Let us reflect that the murrain of sin is much more pestilential and
more certain to kill than this murrain among the cattle and therefore
stern Justice cries, "Let the sinner be at once sent where He cannot
increase the plague of iniquity– it is of no use sparing him–he grows
no better. All the means used only make him worse and meanwhile we must
look to the welfare of others, lest he perish not alone in his
iniquity. He teaches his children to swear! He makes others worldly!
The whole current of his life is to incite men to rebel against
God–let his desperate course be stopped at once. The leprosy is upon
him and all that he touches he pollutes–for high sanitary reasons,
therefore, he must be removed."
It is better that one die than that many should be smitten and
therefore the highest consideration for the good of mankind in general
renders it necessary that the mandate should go forth, "Cut it down."
II. The second most solemn work is to remind you, O impenitent Sinner,
that FOR GOD TO HAVE SPARED YOU
SO LONG IS A VERY WONDERFUL THING. That the infinitely just and holy
God should have spared you, unconverted man, unconverted woman, up till
now, is no small timing but a matter for adoring wonder. Let me show
you this. Consider, negatively, God is not sparing you because He is
insensible towards your sins–He is angry with the wicked every day. If
the Lord could be indifferent towards sin and could bring His holy mind
to treat it as a mere trifle, then it would be no wonder that He should
let the transgressor live.
But He cannot endure iniquity–all the day long His anger smokes and
burns towards evil and yet He holds back the thunderbolt and does not
smite the guilty. If you had been angry for half-an-hour, you would
have come to hard words or blows. But here is the Judge of all the
earth angry every day for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy,
or eighty years with some of you and yet He has not destroyed you! It
is not because the offense is at a distance and therefore far from His
observant eyes. No–your sins are like smoke in His nose–your
iniquities provoke Him to His face! You touch the apple of His eye and
yet, for all that, though this accursed thing called sin intrudes into
His Presence every instant, yet still He has spared you until now!
Mark, Sinner, He has spared you not because He was unable to have
destroyed you. He might have bid the tiles fall from the roof, or the
fever might have killed you in the street. The air might have refused
to heave your lungs, or the blood might have ceased its circulation in
your veins. The gates to death are many. The quiver of Judgment is full
of sharp arrows. The Lord has but to will it and your soul is required
of you. He said to the foolish rich man, "This night your soul shall be
required of you," and he never saw the morning. And He might as easily
have sent the same sad message to you, and what then?
As I have said before, this great patience is not manifested towards
your sinful soul because the Lord is at all dependent upon you–your
living will not increase and your dying will not diminish His Glory!
You will be no more missed than one sere leaf is missed in a forest, or
one dewdrop in a thousand leagues of grass. Judgment needs but a word
to work its utmost vengeance and you are so provoking that the marvel
is that Divine severity has spared you so long! Admire and wonder at
this long-suffering. Remember that this wonder is increased when you
think of the fruit He deserved to have had of you. A God so good and so
gracious ought to have been loved by you. He has treated you so well
and given you such capacities for pleasure that He ought to have had
some service of you.
You are not to God what the ox is to its owner–you give to the ox but
his grass or his straw and you have done with him. But God gives to you
not only your daily food, but your very life–you are wholly dependent
upon Him! Nothing can be so much yours as you are God's. You ought to
have served Him, to have delighted in that service, to spend and to
have been spent for your Lord! He asks no more of you than He ought to
have had and yet He asks you to love the Lord your God with all your
heart, your soul, your strength–this was His first and great
commandment–and this you have constantly, persistently broken.
Oh, think, then, when you have given to God such a bad return, when He
ought to have received so much better– think, I pray you, how you must
have provoked Him! And ah, my Hearers! I have to touch upon a very
solemn part of the business now when I notice again that some, perhaps
here present, have been guilty of very God-provoking sins. Some
offenses provoke God much more than others–I believe that cursing
does, for it is wanton insolence by which nothing can be gained. It is
altogether a gratuitous piece of insult. To swear, to imprecate the
curse of God upon one's limbs and souls, is an unnecessary, superfluous
sin.
There cannot be any pleasure in pronouncing oaths any more than in
uttering any other form of words. It is just because man will hate his
Maker and will provoke Him, that he does this. O Sinner, did you ever
ask God to damn you and are you not astonished that He has not done it?
Did you ever desire that the blast should come upon you and do you not
marvel that He has not long ago swept you where His wrath would wither
you forever? Swearing is a sin that provokes the Most High! O Sinner,
abhor this most detestable of vices!
Infidelity, and how many are guilty of that? How provoking to God for a
man to deny His very existence! Standing up and breathing God's air and
living upon God's life and yet saying that there is no God? An
insignificant worm dares challenge the Almighty to prove His Godhead
and existence by a tremendous act of justice. This is a God-provoking
sin. So again is persecution. There may be some here present who have
persecuted wife and child because of their following Christ. "He that
touches you touches the apple of My eye," says God. Beware, Sinner–you
will not touch the Lord's eye long without feeling His heavy hand!
If any man injures your children, the blood is in your cheek at once!
If you are a father you feel that you will show yourself strong in
their defense–even so the heavenly Father will avenge His own elect.
Therefore, take heed lest you persevere in this Heaven-provoking sin.
And slander, too–lying against God's servants–inventing and spreading
wicked tales against those who walk in God's fear. This is another evil
which awakens the anger of God and stirs up righteous fury against the
man who is guilty of it. Beware! Beware!
Filthiness, filthiness of body and of life, will also provoke the Most
Holy One. This once brought Hell out of Heaven upon Sodom! God sent
down fire and brimstone because of the lusts of the flesh that made
Sodom to stink in His nostrils. The harlot and the adulterer and the
fornicator shall know that they sin not without provoking God very
terribly. And let me add here among these God-provoking sins there is
that quenching of conscience of which some of you have been guilty. Ah,
my dear Hearers, there are not many of you to whom I spoke under these
first heads, for I know that very few of you would indulge in these
grosser sins!
But there are some of you quite as bad in another sense, for you know
the right and choose the wrong! You hear of Christ and do not give your
hearts to Him. We had hoped of some of you that long before this we
should have seen you walking in the Lord's fear. But you are still
strangers to Christ. You must have had hard work to do this. You must
have had a terrible tug with conscience, some of you! I know you have
been stifling many a holy desire and when the Spirit of
God has been striving with you, you have been so desperately set on
mischief that still you have gone on in the error of your ways.
Now these sins provoke God. I do not believe that I stand in this
pulpit and plead with you in God's name and then go back and tell my
Master that you have rejected His warnings without God's being angry
with your hardness of heart and stiff necks. I know if we send an
Ambassador to a foreign court to try and make peace and he honestly and
earnestly lays down proper stipulations for peace, if they are
rejected, you will soon find the newspapers and public opinion ringing
with indignation. "Why," they say, "will not the men have peace when
the terms are so reasonable? Get out the iron-dads, let them have
war–war to the knife. If they will not yield to what is reasonable,
thus let us dress ourselves in thunder and go forth across the sea."
And what do you think? Shall God be always provoked? Shall mercy be
preached to you in vain forever? Shall Christ be presented and always
rejected and will you continue to be His enemies and shall He never
proclaim war against your souls? It is a marvel! It is a wonder that
these God-provoking sins have so long been borne with, and that you are
not yet cut down!
III. And now, WHAT IS THE REASON FOR ALL THIS LONG-SUFFERING? Why is it
that this tree has not been cut down? The answer is because there is
One who pleads for sinners. I have shown you, and some of you will
think I have shown you with very great severity, too, how reasonable it
is that you should be cut down. I wish you felt it, for if you felt how
reasonable it was that God should send you to Hell, then you would
begin to tremble and there would be some hope for you!
I can assure you I have trembled for you when I have thought how
rational, how just–no, it would seem to me, how necessary it was that
some of you should be lost–it has made me tremble for you, and I would
to God you would tremble for yourselves! But what has been the secret
cause that you have been kept alive? The answer is Jesus Christ has
pleaded for you! The crucified Savior has interfered for you! And you
ask me, "Why?" I answer, because Jesus Christ has an interest in you
all. We do not believe in general redemption, but we believe in every
word of this precious Bible–and there are many passages in the
Scripture which seem to show that Christ's death had an universal
bearing upon the sons of men.
We are told that He tasted death for every man. What does that mean?
Does it mean that Jesus Christ died to save every man? I do not believe
it does, for it seems to me that everything which Christ intended to
accomplish by the act of His death He must accomplish or else He will
be defeated, which is not supposable. Those whom Christ died to save I
believe He will save effectually, through His substitutionary
sacrifice. But did He in any other sense die for the rest of mankind?
He did. Nothing can be much more plain in Scripture, it seems to me,
than that all sinners are spared as the result of Jesus Christ' death.
And this is the sense in which men are said to trample on the blood of
Jesus Christ. We read of some who denied the Lord that bought them. No
one who is bought with blood for eternal salvation ever tramples on
that blood–but Jesus Christ has shed His blood for the reprieve of men
that they may be spared–and those who turn God's sparing mercy into an
occasion for fresh sin do trample on the blood of Jesus Christ. You can
hold that doctrine without holding universal redemption, or without at
all contradicting that undoubted Truth of God that Jesus laid down His
life for His sheep and that where He suffered He suffered not in vain.
Now, Sinner, whether you know it or not, you are indebted to Him that
did hang upon the tree for the breath that is now in you. You had not
been on praying ground and pleading terms with God this morning if it
had not been for that dear suffering One. Our text represents the
gardener as only asking to have it spared–but Jesus Christ did
something more than ask–He pleaded, not with His mouth only, but with
pierced hands and pierced feet, and pierced side. And those prevailing
pleas have moved the heart of God, and you are yet spared. May I speak
to you, then? If your life had been spared, when you were condemned to
die, by my intervention–suppose such a case–would you despise me?
If I had power at the Court and when you were condemned to die, had
gone in and pleaded for you and you had been reprieved–year after year
would you hate me? Would you speak against me? Would you rail at my
character? Would you find fault with my friends? I know you better–you
would love me! You would be grateful for the sparing of your life. O
Sinner, I would you would treat the Lord Jesus as you would treat man!
I would you would think of the Lord Jesus Christ as you would think of
your fellow man who had delivered you from death!
You are not in Hell where you would have been if He had not come in and
pleaded for you. I do beseech you, think of the misery of lost souls
and recollect that you would have been in such a woeful case yourself
this morning if He had not lifted up that hand once pierced for human
sin. There, there, where the flames can no abatement know, where a drop
of water is a gift too great to be received–there, where hope is
excluded and despair sits upon a throne of iron, binding captive souls
in everlasting bands–where "Forever!" is written on the fire and
"Forever!" is printed on the chain and "Forever! Forever! Forever!"
rings out as the awful death-knell of everything like hope and
rest–there you would have been this morning–this morning–if sparing
Grace had not prevented!
Where are your companions, your old companions? You sat in the pothouse
with them. They are in Hell, but you are not. When you were younger you
sinned with them and they are lost, but you are not. Why this
difference? Why are they cast away and you spared? I can only ascribe
it to the gracious long-suffering of Jehovah. O, I pray you look at Him
who spared you and weep and mourn for your sins! May the Spirit of God
come down on you this morning and draw you to the foot of His dear
Cross! And as you see the blood which has spared your blood and the
death which has made you live until now, I do trust that the Divine
Spirit may make you fall down and say, "O Jesus, how can I offend You?
How can I stand out against You? Accept me and save me for Your mercy's
sake."
While I have thus spoken of the general interest which Christ has in
you all, I have good hope that Christ has a special interest in some of
you! I hope that He has specially redeemed you from among men and
bought you not with silver and gold, but with His own precious blood,
having loved you with an everlasting love. I trust He intends with the
bands of His kindness to draw you this morning. "Oh," says one, "I
cannot think that such can be the case!" But suppose you were to find
out before long that you were chosen of God and dear to Christ and were
to be a jewel in His crown for-ever–what would you say, then, of
yourself?
"I would mourn that I could ever have hated Him that loved me so well!
Oh, that I could ever have stood out against Him that was determined to
save me! What a fool I was to quarrel with Him who had paid my price
and chosen me by His Grace and taken me to be married unto Himself
forever!"
I tell you that God will forgive you, but you will never forgive
yourselves for having stood out and resisted so long. Oh, may eternal
Mercy, which has not yet said, "Cut it down," now dig about you and
feed you that you may bring forth fruit–and then it shall be all to
the praise of Him whose precious blood has saved us from eternal wrath.
May God bless these feeble words of mine. He knows how I meant
them–how I meant to speak them, how I meant to have wept over you, how
I wanted that my soul should heave with passionate desire for your
conversion–but if there have been no such outward manifestations, yet
I pray God that the Truth itself may be irresistible and may He get to
Himself the victory and His shall be the praise, forevermore. Amen.