Justification by Faith
(No. 3392)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1914.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY EVENING, APRIL
28, 1867.
"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1.
WE desire this evening not to preach upon this text as a mere matter of
Doctrine. You all believe and understand the Gospel of Justification by
Faith, but we want to preach upon it tonight as a matter of experience,
as a thing realized, felt, enjoyed and understood in the soul. I trust
there are many here who not only know that men may be saved and
justified by faith, but who can say in their own experience,
"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ," and who are now, at the present moment, walking
and living in the actual enjoyment of that peace!
Wishing to speak of the text, then, in this sense, I shall ask you to
accompany me not only with your ears and with the attention which you
usually give so generously, but also with the eyes of your
self-examination, asking yourselves, as we proceed, step by step, "Do I
know that? Have I received that? Have I been taught of God in this
matter? Have I been led into that Truth of God?" And our hope will be
that some person to whom these things have hitherto been merely
external and, therefore, valueless, may be led by God to get hold of
them, so that they may be matters of soul, heart and conscience–so
that they may enjoy them and find themselves where once they feared
they would never be, namely, in a state of reconciliation with
God–happily enjoying peace with the Most High.
Our first thought shall be some plain, earnest talk concerning–
I. A FEW PRELIMINARY DISCOVERIES WHICH A MAN MAKES BEFORE HE GETS PEACE
WITH GOD.
These, I do not think, are by any means foreign to the text, or merely
imported to it, but belong rightfully to it. You see that Paul, before
he came to this justification by faith, had been speaking about sin. It
would not have been possible for him to have given an intelligent
definition ofjustification without mentioning that men are sinners,
without informing them that they had broken God's holy Law and that the
Law, by and of itself, could never restore them to the favor of God.
Now, some of these things of which I am going to speak are absolutely
necessary, if not to my sermon, yet certainly to your spiritually
understanding even so much as one jot or tittle of what it is to be
justified by faith!
Well, then, what are these things? The first discovery that a man is
led by the Spirit of God to make before he is justified is that it is
important to be justified in the sight of God. Many people do not know
this. You shall step into a shop this evening and find a man at the
counter, and you say to him, "Well, do you never go to a place of
worship?" "No," he would say, "but I am quite as good as those who do."
"How so?" "Well, I am a great deal better than some of them." "How is
that?" "Well, I never failed in business. I never duped people in a
limited liability company. I never told lies. I am no thief. I am not a
drunk–I am as honest as the days are long in the middle of June–and
that is more than you can say of some of your religious, people." Now,
that man has got a hold of one part of a good man's character. There
are two parts, but he can only see one, namely, that man is to be just
to man. He sees that, but he does not see that man is to be also just
to God. And yet if that man were really to think a little while, he
would see that the highest obligations of a creature must be not to his
fellow creatures, but to his Creator–and that however just a man may
be to another man, yet if he is altogether unjust to God, he cannot
escape without the severest penalty! But oh, the most of men think that
so long as they keep the laws of the land, so long as they give to
their fellow men their due, it matters not though God's day should be a
subject of scorn, God's will be used as men will and God's Law trodden
under their feet! Now, I think that everyone here who will but put his
fingers to his brow for a moment and think, that he will see that even
though a manmay go before the bar of his country and say before any
judge or jury, "I have in nothing injured my fellow man. I am just
before men," yet it does not make the man's character perfect. Unless
he is also able to say, "And I am also just before the Presence of the
God who made me and whose servant I am," he has only kept one half–and
that the less important of God's Law for him.
It cannot help being–it must be important to the highest degree that
you and I should stand on good terms with the great God unto whom we
shall so soon return in the Great Day when He shall say, "Return you
children of men." We must then render up our souls to Him who created
us. Well, you can surely go as far as that with me–that it is
necessary. You do feel, do you not, a desire in your heart to be just
before your Maker? I am thankful that you can go so far.
The next thing is this. A man, when the Spirit of God is bringing him
to Christ, discovers that his past life has been marred badly by
serious offenses against the Law of God. Before the Spirit of God comes
into our soul, we are like being in a room in the dark–we cannot see
in it. We cannot discover the cobwebs, the spiders, the foul and
loathsome things that may be lurking there. But when the Spirit of God
comes streaming into the soul, the man is astonished to find that he is
what he is! And especially if he sits down and opens the Book of the
Law and, in the light of the Divine Spirit, reads that perfect Law and
compares it with his own imperfect heart and life! He will then grow
sick of himself, even to loathing and, sometimes, despair! Take but one
command. Perhaps there are some here who will say, "I know I have been
very chaste all my life, for the command says, 'You shall not commit
adultery,' and I have never broken it–I am clean there." Yes, but now
hear Christ explain the command, "He that looks upon a woman to lust
after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." Now,
then, who among us can say that we have not done that? Who is there
upon earth, if that is the meaning of the command, who can say, "I am
innocent"? If the Law of God, as we are told by Scripture, has to deal
not with our outward actions, alone, but with our words, and with our
thoughts and with our imaginations–if it is so exceedingly broad that
it applies to the most secret part of a man–then who of us can plead
guiltless before the Throne of God? No, dear Brothers and Sisters, this
must be understood by you and by me, before we can be justified, that
we are full of sin! What if I say that we are as full of sin as an egg
is full of meat? We are all sin! The imagination and the thought of our
heart is evil and only evil, and that continually. If some of you plume
yourselves with the notion that you are righteous, I pray God to pluck
those fine feathers off you and make you see yourselves, for if you
never see your own nothingness, you will never understand Christ's
All-Sufficiency! Unless you are pulled down, Christ will never lift you
up! Unless you know yourselves to be lost, you will never care for that
Savior who came "to seek and to save the lost." That is a second
discovery, then, that it is important to be just before God, but that
on account of the spirituality of God's moral Law and our consequent
inability to keep it perfectly, we are very far from standing in that
position.
Then there comes another discovery, namely, that consequently it is
utterly impossible for us to hope that we ever can be just before God
on the footing of our own doing. We must give it up, now, as an utterly
lost case. The past is past–that can never be blotted out by us! And
the present, inasmuch as we are weak through the flesh, is not much
better than the past. And the future, notwithstanding all our fond
hopes of improvement, will probably be none the better! And so,
salvation by the works of the Law becomes to us a dreary impossibility!
The Law said, "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things
written in the Book of the Law, to do them." I was conversing on one
occasion with one of our most illustrious Jewish noblemen. And when I
put to him the question–he believed himself to be perfectly righteous,
and I believe if any man could be so by his moral conduct, he might
have fairly laid claim to it–but when I said to him, "Now, there is
your own Law for it, 'Cursed is everyone that continues not in all
things written in the Book of the Law, to do them'–have you continued
in all things?" He said, "I have not." "Then," and I found that to be a
question for which he, at any rate, had no answer–and it is a
question, which, when properly understood, no man can answer except by
pointing to the Cross of Christ and saying, "He was made a curse for us
that we might be made a blessing." Unless you and I keep the Law of God
perfectly, it matters little how near we get to perfection! It is as
though God had committed to our trust a perfect crystal vase and had
said, "If you keep that whole, and present it to me, you shall have a
reward." But we have cracked it, chipped it–ah, my Brothers and
Sisters, the most of us have broken it and smashed it to pieces! But we
will suppose that we have only cracked it a little. Yes, but even then
we have lost the reward, for the condition was that it should be
perfectly whole–and the slightest chip is a violation of the condition
upon which the reward would have been given! But you say that you will
not break it farther. But you have broken it! You have thrown
yourselves outof the list. It sometimes seems hard when you tell people
that if they have violated the Law in one point, they have broken the
whole of it–but it is not so hard as it looks to be, for if I tell a
man who is going down a coal mine on a long chain that if he breaks one
link of the chain, it does not matter though all the other hundreds or
thousands of links may be sound–if there is only one link that is
broken–down will descend the basket and the poor miner will be dashed
to pieces! Nobody thinks that is difficult. Everybody recognizes that
as being a matter of mechanical law that the strength of a chain must
be measured by its weakest part. And so, the strength of our obedience
must be gauged by the very point in which it fails. Alas, our obedience
has failed and, through it, no one of us can ever be just before God!
Now, I want to stop a minute and put the question round the galleries
and below stairs. Have you all got as far as that? It is important to
be just before God–we see that we are not so–do we see that we cannot
be so? Are we quite convinced that by our own obedience to the Law of
God, it is hopeless for us to think of standing accepted before the
Most High? I pray the Eternal Spirit to convince you all of this, or
you will keep on knocking at the door until you are quite sure that God
has nailed it up forever! And you will go scrambling over that Alp and
tumbling down this precipice until you are convinced that it is
impossible for you to climb it–and then you will give up your
desperate endeavor and come to God in God's way–which is quite another
way from your own! I trust that we are all convinced of this.
Let us notice one more preliminary discovery. A man, having found out
all this, suddenly discovers that inasmuch as he is not just before God
and cannot be, he is at the present moment under condemnation! God is
never indifferent towards sin. If, therefore, a man is not in a state
in which God can justify him, he is in a state in which God must
condemn him! If you are not just before God, you are condemned at this
very moment! You are not executed, it is true, but the condemnation has
gone forth against you and the sign that it is so is your unbelief,
for, "He that believes not is condemned already, because he has not
believed on the Son of God." How some of you would spring up from your
seats tonight if all of a sudden you got the information that you had
been condemned by the courts of your country! But when I say that you
have been condemned by the Court of Heaven, this glides across your
conscience like drops of water, or oil over a marble slab! And yet, my
Hearers, if you did but know the meaning of what I am saying–and I
pray God the Holy Spirit to make you know it, it would make your very
bones quiver! God has condemned you! You are out of Christ! You have
broken His Law! God has lifted His hand to smite you! And though His
mercy tarries for awhile, yet days and hours will soon be gone–and
then the condemnation shall take the shape of execution–and where will
your soul be, then? Now, you must have the sentence of condemnation
passed in your own soul, or else you will never be justified, for until
we are condemned by ourselves, we are not acquitted by God! Again I
pause and say, Do you feel this, my dear Hearer? If you do, instead of
despairing, be hopeful! If you have the sentence of death within you,
be thankful for it, for now shall life be given you from the hand of
God's Grace!
Having occupied, perhaps, too much time over that, we now come more
immediately into the text to–
II. SHOW THE GOSPEL LEARNING WHICH IS TAUGHT TO US BY THE SPIRIT OF
GOD.
That Gospel learning I may give you in a few sentences, namely, these,
that inasmuch as through man's sin, the way of obedience is forever
closed, so that we–none of us–can ever pass by it to a true
righteousness, God has now determined to deal with men in a way of
mercy, to forgive them all their offenses, to bestow upon them His
love, to receive them graciously and to love them freely! He has been
pleased, in His Infinite Wisdom, to devise a way by which, without
injury to His Justice, He can yet receive the most undeserving sons of
men into His heart and make them His children– and can bless them with
all the blessings which would have been theirs had they perfectly kept
His Law, but which now shall come to them as a matter of gift and
undeserved Grace from Himself.
I trust we have learned that that there is a plan of salvation by Grace
and, by Grace alone–and it is a great thing to know that where Grace
is, there are no works!
It is a blessed thing to never muddle in your head the Doctrine of
working and the Doctrine of receiving by Grace, for there is an
essential and eternal difference between the two. I hope you all know
that there can be no mixing of the two. If we are saved by Grace, it
cannot be by our own merits! But if we depend upon our own merits, then
we cannot appeal to the Grace of God, since the two things can never be
mingled together. It must be all works or else all Grace. Now, God's
plan of salvation excludes all our works. "Not of works, lest any man
should boast." It comes to us upon the footing of Divine Grace, pure
Grace alone. And this is God's plan, namely that inasmuch as we cannot
be saved by our own obedience, we should be saved by Christ's
obedience! Jesus, the Son of God, has appeared in the flesh, has lived
a life of obedience to God's Law and, in consequence of that obedience,
being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the Cross! And our Savior's life and
death make up a complete keeping and honoring of that Law of God which
we have broken and dishonored. And God's plan is this–"I cannot bless
you for your own sakes, but I will bless you for His sake. Looking at
you, I must curse you, but I have laid the curse on Him and now,
looking at you through Him, I can bless you though you deserve it not.
I can pass by your undeserving. I can blot out your sins like a cloud
and cast your iniquities into the depths of the sea through what He has
done. You have no merits, but He has boundless merits! You are full of
sin and must be punished, but He has been punished instead of you–and
now I can deal with you." This is the language of God put into human
words, "I can deal with you upon terms of mercy through the merits of
My dear Son." This is the way in which the Gospel comes to you, then.
If you believe in Jesus–that is to say if you trust Him–all the
merits of Jesus are your merits and are imputed to you. All the
sufferings of Jesus are your sufferings. Every one of His merits is
imputed to you. You stand before God as if you were Christ, because
Christ stood before God as if He were you–He in your place, you in His
place. Substitution! That is the word! Christ, the Substitute for
sinners! Christ standing for men and bearing the thunderbolts of the
Divine opposition to all sin! He "who knew no sin, being made sin for
us." Man standing in Christ's place and receiving the sunlight of
Divine favor, instead of Christ.
And this, I say, is through trusting, or believing! God's way of your
getting connection with Christ is through your reliance upon Him.
"Therefore, being justified"–how? Not by works! That is not the link,
but–"being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ." Christ offers to God the substitution–through faith we
accept it–and from that moment God accepts us!
Now, I want to come to this, dear Friends. Do you know this? Have you
been taught this by the Spirit of God? Perhaps you learned it in the
Assembly's Catechism when you were but children. You have learned it in
the various classes since then, but do you know it in your own soul and
do you know that God's way of salvation is through a simple dependence
upon His dear Son? Do you so know it that you have accepted it and that
you are now resting upon Jesus? If so, then thrice happy are you!
But, going further, I have now to dwell for a minute or two upon–
III. THE GLORIOUS PRIVILEGE OF THE TEXT.
We have led you, and I hope the Spirit of God has led you, too, through
the preliminary discoveries and through the great discovery that God
can save us through the merits of Another! Now let us notice this
glorious privilege word by word.
"Being justified." The text tells us that every believing man is at the
present moment perfectly justified before God. You know what Adam was
in naked innocence in Paradise. Such is every Believer. Yes, and more
than that. Adam could talk with God because he was pure from sin and
we, also, have access with boldness unto God our Father because,
through Jesus' blood, we are clean. Now, I do not say that this is the
privilege of a few eminent saints, but here I look around these pews
and see my Brothers and Sisters–scores and hundreds of them–all of
whom are tonight just before God–perfectly so! Completely so–so just
that they never can be otherwise than just–so just that even in Heaven
they will be no more acceptable to God than they are here tonight! That
is the state into which faith brings a poor, lost, guilty, helpless,
good-for-nothing sinner! The man may have been everything that was bad
before he believed in Jesus, but as soon as he trusted Christ, the
merits of Christ became his merits and he stands before God as though
he were perfect, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," through
the righteousness of Christ!
Note, however, as we have noticed the state of justification, the means
whereby we reach it. "Being justified by faith." The way of reaching
this state ofjustification is not by tears, nor prayers, nor humbling,
nor working, nor Bible-reading, nor Church-going, nor Chapel-going, nor
sacraments, nor priestly absolution, but by faith–which faith is a
simple and utter dependence and believing in the faithfulness of God–a
dependence upon the promise of God because it is God's promise–and is
worthy of dependence. It is a reliance with all our might upon what God
has said! This is faith–and every man or woman who possesses this
faith is perfectly justified tonight!
I know what the devil will say to you. He will say to you, "You are a
sinner!" Tell him you know you are, but that for all that, you are
justified. He will tell you of the greatness of your sin. Tell him of
the greatness of Christ's righteousness. He will tell you of all your
mishaps and your backslidings, of your offenses and your wanderings.
Tell him and tellyour own conscience, that you know all that, but that
Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and that although your sin is great,
Christ is quite able to put it all away. Some of you, it seems to me,
do not trust in Christ as sinners. You get a mingle-mangle kind of
faith. You trust in Christ as though you thought Christ could do
something for you–and you could do the rest. I tell you that while you
look to yourselves, you do not know what faith means! You must be
convinced that there is nothing good in yourselves–you must know that
you are sinners and that in your hearts you are as big and as black a
sinner as the very worst and vilest–and you must come to Jesus and
leave your fancied righteousnesses, and your pretended goodnesses
behind you! And you must take Him for everything and trust in Him. Oh,
to feel your sin, and yet to know your righteousness–to have the two
together–repentance on account of sin, and yet a glorious confidence
in the all-atoning Sacrifice! Oh, if you could understand that saying
of the spouse, "I am black, but comely"–for that is where we must
come–black in myself, as black as Hell, and yet comely, fair, lovely,
inexpressibly glorious through the righteousness of Jesus!
My dear Brothers and Sisters, can you feel this? If you cannot feel it,
do you believe it? And do you sing in the words of Joseph Hart–
"In your Surety you are free, His dear hands were pierced for thee!
With your Savior's vesture on, Holy as the Holy One."
For so it is–you stand before God as accepted as Christ is accepted
and, notwithstanding the inbred sin and corruption of your heart, you
are as dear to God as Christ is dear and as accepted in the
righteousness of Christ as Christ is accepted in His own obedience!
Have we got so far? That is the point on which I want to enquire this
evening. Have you got as far as to know at this moment that it is
through faith we are justified? If so, I shall conduct you just one
step farther, namely to observe–and this is coming back, while it is
also going forward–that "we are justified by faith through our Lord
Jesus Christ." There is the foundation! There is the mainspring! There
is the tree that bears the fruit! We are justified by faith, but not by
faith in itself. Faith in itself is a precious Grace, but it cannot in
itselfjustify us. It is " through our Lord Jesus Christ." Simple as the
observation is, I must venture to repeat it tonight because it is hard
for us to keep it in mind. Remember that faith is not the work of the
Spirit within, but the work of Christ upon the tree! That upon which I
must rest as my meritorious hope is not the blessed fact that I am now
an heir of Heaven, but the still more blessed fact that the Son of God
loved me and gave Himself for me! My dear Brothers and Sisters, when
all is fair weather within, there is such a temptation to say, "Well,
now, it is all right with me, for I feel this and I feel that." Very
good, these evidences are in their places, but oh, when it grows dark
and when, instead of these gracious evidences, you get equally clear
evidences that you are not perfect–when you have to say, "Oh wretched
man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" You
will find that instead of your beautiful evidences, you will have to
fly to the Cross! There was a time when I, too, could take a great deal
of comfort in what I believe is the Spirit of God's work in my soul. I
do thank God for it, and bless Him for it now, but I trust I have
learned to walk where poor Jack the huckster, walked–
"Im a poor sinner, and nothing at all! But Jesus Christ is my
All-in-All."
Brothers and Sisters, it is down on the ground that we must live! We
must build upon the Rock, itself! On the top of some mountains men
sometimes build heaps of timber, so as to get a little higher. Well,
now, some of these rickety platforms, you know, get shaky, but when you
get right down on the mountain, itself, it never shakes and you are
perfectly secure there! So sometimes we get to building up our rickety
platforms of our experience and our good works–all very well in their
way, but then they shake in the storm! Depend upon it, that the soul
that clings to the Rock, notwithstanding all that the Holy Spirit has
done for it, and having nothing, then, to depend upon, more than the
poor dying thief had when, without a single good work, he had to hang
on the dying Christ, alone–oh, believe me, that soul is in the safest
place to live in–and the most blessed place to die in! None but Jesus!
None but Jesus for a poor sinner when he is torn from his cups and his
sins! And none but Jesus for the aged saint when he stays himself upon
his bed to bear his last testimony–
"Nothing in my hands I bring–
Simply to Your Cross I cling."
"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ."
And now, to crown all, there is here the precious, precious privilege
which such men enjoy–"we have peace with God." I know that this may
seem a trifle to thoughtless people, but not to those who think! I
cannot say that I sympathize with those people who shut their eyes to
the beauties of Nature. I have heard of good men travelling through
fine scenery and shutting their eyes for fear they should see! I always
open mine as wide as ever I can because I think I can see God in all
the works of His hands–and what God has taken the trouble to make, I
think I ought to take the trouble to look at! Surely there must be
something to see in a man's works if he is a wise man–and there must
be something worth seeing in the works of God who is All-Wise! Now, it
is a delightful thing to say, when you look upon a landscape lit up
with sunlight and shaded with clouds, "Well, my Father made all this. I
never saw Him, but I do delight in the work of His hands–He made all
this and I am perfectly at peace with Him." Then as you are standing
there, a storm comes on. Big drops begin to fall. There is thunder in
the distance. It begins to peal louder and louder. Presently there
comes a flash of lightning. Now, those who are not at peace with God
may go and flee away, but those who are perfectly at peace with Him may
stand there and say, "Well, it is my Father who is doing all this. That
is His voice, the voice of the Lord which is full of majesty." I love
to hear my Father's voice. I am never as happy as in a tremendous
storm–and when the lightning flash comes, I think–well, it is only
the flashing of my Father's eyes! Now, God is abroad–He seemed as if
He had left the world before, but now He comes riding on the wings of
the wind! Let me go and meet Him. I am not afraid!
Suppose you are out at sea in a storm. You are justified by faith, and
you say, "Well, let the waves roar! Let them clap their hands! My
Father holds the waters in the hollow of His hand, why should I be
afraid?" Let me say to you that it is worth something to believe that
God can put us in a calm state of mind when "earth is all in arms
abroad." It is just so with the Believer when temporal troubles come.
There comes crash after crash until it seems as though every house of
business would come down. Nothing is certain. Man has lost confidence
and reliance in his fellow man. Everything is going bad. But the
Christian says, "God is at the helm. The whole business of business is
managed by the great King–let the sons of earth do as they will, but–
"He everywhere has sway, And all things serve His might."
It is something to feel that my Father cannot do me a bad turn. Even if
He should use His rod upon me, it will do me good, and I will thank Him
for it, for I am at perfect peace with Him.
And then to come to die and to feel, "I am going to God and I am glad
to go, for I am not going like a prisoner to a judge, but like a wife
espoused goes to her husband–like a child home from school to the
parents' arms. Oh, it is something to die with a sense of peace with
God! Surely every thoughtful man will feel that! Now, if you trust
Christ, you shall be justified by faith. Being justified, your heart
shall feel that perfect peace is brought into it, so that you shall
meet your Father' s will with perfect equanimity, let it be what it
may! Come life, come death, it shall not matter to you, for all is
right between God and your soul!
Oh, I wish it were so with all present! It may be so if God the Spirit
brings you to rest in Jesus. No, it shallbe so, my dear Friend! It
shall be so with you tonight! Though you never thought it would be when
you came in here, yet you see it all now. It is simply believing,
simply trusting! Oh, believe Him! Trust Him and it shall be the joy of
your soul to have a peace with God which as the world did not give
you–so the world shall never take away! But you shall have it forever
and ever! God grant it to each one of us! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: LUKE15:25-32.
Most of us recognize the beauty of this parable as it concerns the
prodigal and his boundless forgiveness by the father, but few of us
probably have seen how the elder brother has his portrait also painted
by our Lord and how He sets forth the self-righteous professor who
hates to have prodigals made much of.
25. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew near to
the house, he heard music and dancing. This was the better one of the
two. I have heard him often greatly blamed and so he deserves to be.
But for all that, he was a true son. He was not at home. He was out at
work. There are some Christians that are all for work and never seem to
have any fellowship and communion. They are always active, but they are
not always contemplative. He was in the field.
26. And he called one of the servants and asked him what these things
meant He was a gloomy spirit–good, solid, regular, constant–but not
very joyful. He took things rather severely, so he did not understand
what this amusement could mean. "Some of the Salvation Army got in
here," he said. "Some of those boisterous Methodist people got here and
I do not like it. I am more regular than that. I do not like these rows
and uproars. He asked of the servant what these things meant.
27. 28. And he said unto him, Your brother is come: and your father has
killed the fatted calf because he has received him safe and sound. And
he was angry, and would not go in. No, I dare say he was glad his
brother was back, but he did not like such a fuss made over him. He was
glad to see a wandering one restored, but why, why, why should there be
all this extravagance of joy concerning this wandering young fellow who
had been no better than he should be? Why all this delight? And there
are some kinds of Christians who always feel that when there is a
sinner introduced into the Church, "Well, I hope that it will turn out
a genuine case," and always that is the first thought! They are afraid
that it cannot be. They have never sinned in that way. They have been
kept by the Grace of God from outward transgression and they are half
afraid to hear of these outrageous sinners being brought in and so much
joy made over them. "He was angry, and would not go in."
28. Therefore came his father out, and entreated him. He was worth
fetching in. There was a good deal of solid worth in his character and
his father kindly came to ask him to come in and share the joy.
29. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years have I
served you. You may read it, "slaved for you."
29. Neither transgressed I at any time your commandment: and yet you
never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. Here have
I been constant in the House of Prayer, regular at my Sunday school
class–and yet I get little or no joy from it. I go on just in the
regular path of duty but I have no music and dancing! I have a great
many doubts and fears, but very little exhilaration, very little
delight.
30. But as soon as this, your son, was come, which has devoured your
living with harlots, you have killed for him the fatted calf He has
been a great sinner and he is newly converted–and he has got all the
joy! He has been running, anyhow, and yet he is full of assurance, full
of delight, full of confidence. How can this be? I am a staid Christian
having but slight joy, and he is but newly converted, but confident and
full of delight. You have killed the fatted calf for him! But even one
of the little kid goats you have never given me. You have given him the
fatted calf.
31. And he said unto him, Son, you are always with me, and all
thatIhave is yours. Why did not this son wake up to his privileges?
Instead of not having a kid, he might have had whatever he liked! "All
that I have is yours." He had been put into such a position as that,
instead of being badly treated as he, perhaps, would half accuse his
father of treating him. "Son, you are always with me. You live at my
table. My house is your house. I love you and delight in you. All that
I have is yours."
32. It was meet–It was right, it was proper, it was fitting–
32. That we should make merry, and be glad, for this, your brother.
"You call him my son, but he is your brother, and I remind you of
it–this, your brother."
32. Was dead, and is alive again: and was lost, and is found. So if
there are any here that do not take the joy which they ought in the
conversion of great sinners, let them hear the gentle persuasive voice
of God. You, as Believers, have everything! Christ is yours. Heaven is
yours. You are always with God and all that He has belongs to you. But
it is proper and fit that when a sinner returns from the error of his
ways, they should ring the bells of Heaven and make a fuss over him,
for he was dead and is alive again! I hope that you and I will never
catch the spirit of the elder brother. Yet I remember that Krummacher
says that he sometimes found that same spirit in himself. There was a
man in the village where Krummacher lived, who was a great drunkard and
everything that was bad. But all of a sudden he came into a very large
sum of money and became a wealthy man. Krummacher felt, "Well, this
hardly looks like the right thing–so many good, honest, hard-working
people in the parish still remaining poor, and this worthless man has
suddenly become wealthy and well-to-do." It seemed a strange way in the
order of Providence. Oh, we ought to rejoice and be glad when another
person prospers! And we ought to wish that his prosperity may be
blessed to him.
I remember a minister years ago, when first Mr. Moody came, saying that
he did not believe that Mr. Moody was sent of God, "Because," he said,
"I find that many of the people who are converted under him never went
to a place of worship before. It is only the riffraff that are brought
in." There is a nasty elder brother spirit! The riffraff were just the
people that we wanted to bring in and if they had never been to a place
of worship before, it was time that they should go! It was a mercy that
they were brought in! Oh, instead of ever sniffing at sinners as if we
were better than they, let us welcome them with all our heart and
praise the heavenly Father that He so lovingly takes them in!