DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY 12, 1878,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on
thejust and on the unjust." Matthew 5:45.
[On this night the Tabernacle was free to all comers, the regular
congregation having vacated their seats.]
You see our Lord Jesus Christ's philosophy of Nature. He believed in
the immediate Presence and working of God. As the great Son of God, He
had a very sensitive perception of the Presence of His Father in all
the scenes around Him and, therefore, He calls the sun, God's sun–"He
makes His sun to rise." He does not speak of the daybreak as a thing
which happens of itself as a matter of course, but He traces the
morning light to His Father and declares, "He makes His sun to rise."
As for the rain, our great Lord and Master does not speak of the laws
of condensation causing the vapor to become fluid and fall to the earth
in a beneficial shower, but He says of His Father, "He sends rain upon
the just and upon the unjust."
Jesus knew far better than any of us all the laws by which the great
Creator governs the world of matter and yet He never speaks of these
laws as though they operated without the Divine power making them to be
effective. In Christ's philosophy, the Lord God Himself was everywhere
present, working all things–yes, even numbering the hairs upon the
heads of His chosen–and marking the falling of a sparrow to the
ground. Let such be your philosophy and mine, for it is the true one!
Dr. Watts taught us to sing when we were children–
"My God, who makes the sun to know
His proper hour to rise,
And to give light to all below,
Does send him round the skies." So our mothers taught us and they
taught us the truth. But the very wise men of this proudly enlightened
age seem to be spinning all sorts of theories to get rid of God, to
turn our Benefactor out of His own world and put man's best Friend as
far away as possible.
I am sometimes reminded by these schools of philosophy and science of
Tom Hood's, "I remember, I remember." Here is a verse of it–
"I remember, I remember, The fir trees dark and high I used to think
their slender tops Were close against the sky. It was a childish
ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm farther off from Hea ven
Than when I was a boy."
It were a good thing for our skeptical teachers who have banished God
out of His own universe if they could go back to their mothers' knees
and learn to talk simply and naturally after the fashion of the wisest
man that ever lived, namely, our Lord and Master. Then would they also
confess that our heavenly Father "makes His sun to rise and He sends
the rain," for so it is. Laws of Nature can do nothing without a power
at the back of the laws. What is Nature, about which many infidels
speak so very plentifully? Ask them to tell you what Nature is and they
will reply, "Why, it is Nature." Well, but what is that? And they can
only say, "Why Nature, you know, you know, you know, Nature is Nature."
Some such sensible reply was given to certain of our friends on
Kennington Common by one who was there reviling his Maker. Now, if men
did but understand Nature, they would know that Nature is simply God's
creation, workshop, laboratory, storehouse and banqueting hall. In
Nature, what God has made and what God is doing are made visible before
our eyes. God is among us still, blessed be His name! Believing this,
we at once perceive that the Lord has been talking with us during the
last few days very sweetly and delightfully. The merciful Father speaks
to us with charming eloquence on such a day as this, of which George
Herbert would have said–
"Sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and
sky." Coming just in the middle of this fair season of hope and
promise, concerning which he sang–
"Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets
compacted lie," it has a still small voice which all should wish to
hear.
What a blessing to have enjoyed such a May day as this has been! We
have had God speaking to us according to the exact style of our
text–He has made His sun to shine, and He has us sent rain. Our days,
for some little time, have been made up of sunshine and shower with,
every now and then, that wondrous masterpiece of glory in the sky which
we call the rainbow, of which God has said, "I, even I, do set My bow
in the cloud," "whose warp is the raindrop of earth and whose woof is
the sunbeam of Heaven!" Glorious symbol of His Grace and faithfulness,
who hung it in the clouds! Now what does God say to us in the sunshine
and the shower which come, the one after the other, in such pleasant
alternation, making the grass so green and causing flowers to deck both
tree and herb? What does He say in all this?
There is a voice full of the music of love, to which we shall do well
to listen. There is one instruction in it and only one that I shall be
able to expound tonight. It is the fact brought out in the text, "He
makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on
the just and on the unjust." One of the most considerable heights
anywhere near London is Leith Hill, near Dorking. And if you have ever
stood there, as I often have done with delight, you may, perhaps, have
thought over our text. You see far around the distant lands, pasture,
parks, woods, with here and there the laughing water. And beyond the
blue hills the distant sea. Up comes a gleam of sunlight, where all was
cloud before. By-and-by the sun bursts out in full beauty.
Do you notice how impartial it is? Men have mapped out the country–so
far is allotted to this squire, so far to that–with here and there an
insignificant patch pilfered from the wayside or the common which may
belong to some industrious peasant. But the sun shines on all, glances
into the halls, peeps into the cottages, gleams from the white spires
of the churches and flashes from the tavern signboards swinging in the
breeze. It shines on the wayside and floods the green with its golden
light where the children are at play–it sweeps over all, in fact. Now
that farm over yonder belongs to a fool who is sure to rake his stubble
after the harvest, lest the poor should glean an ear or two–a man who
fights and quarrels with his neighbors, yet the sun shines on his
selfish heritage!
Yonder farm belongs to one who would, if he could, rob the orphan and
fatherless and the widow–a heartless wretch unworthy to gather a sour
apple from the sharpest crab–yet the sun shines on his wheat and
barley just the same as on that portion of land which belongs to the
generous-hearted and the free, to the gracious and the godly. There is
no distinction made between the meadows of the righteous and the
pastures of the wicked! As you see the sunlight bathe the whole of the
scene before you, the entire landscape smiles with universal joy. While
you are watching, that cloud which all day long you had suspected would
turn to a shower, comes rushing up with the wind–the Great Father
blowing with His breath this traveling fountain of the sky!
Then it begins to pour. We seek the shelter of the lofty tower of Leith
without a murmur, for we know that the rain is seasonable. The land
needs it. It has been dry and parched for weeks. Down comes the blessed
shower that shall fill our barns with plenty. Yes, yes, the Lord is
pouring forth a shower of food-creating moisture and, look, it is
raining on the fool's piece of land just as much as on his liberal
neighbor's! It is watering the farm of the man who would rob the
fatherless of his shoes if the law permitted him. It is making his
broad acres teem with plenty just as surely as it is fattening the poor
man's patch, or falling upon the widow's scanty plot, or on the farm of
the gracious godly man.
As though He did not regard human character at all, God bids His sun
shine on good and bad. As though He did not know that any men were
vile, He bids the shower descend on just and unjust. Yet He does know,
for He is no blind God! He does know and He knows when His sun shines
on yonder miser's acres that it is bringing forth a harvest for a fool.
He
does it deliberately. When the rain is falling upon yonder oppressor's
crops, He knows that the oppressor will be the richer for it and means
that He should be. He is doing nothing by mistake and nothing without a
purpose. It is of His own will that He thus scatters sunlight with both
His hands and pours the bounteous shower on all things that grow. He
knows what He is doing, blessed be His name! He sends forth, on
purpose, sunshine and shower on the evil and on the good–and that is
the one lesson we want to bring out tonight.
What is the meaning of this boundless generosity? Why this impartial
bounty, this indiscriminate liberality? What does God say to us when He
acts thus? I believe that He says this–"This is the day of free Grace.
This is the time of mercy." The hour for judgment is not yet, when He
will separate between the good and the bad, when He will mount the
Judgment Seat and award different portions to the righteous and to the
wicked. Sheep and goats, as yet, feed together and He gives to them all
their fodder. Wheat and tares grow in the same field and He ripens both
for the harvest. This is not the Day of Justice, but the period of
mercy–free, rich mercy–mercy to the undeserving, Divine Grace to the
worthless, sunlight of love for the evil and showers of blessings for
the unjust!
That is the teaching of the great Father to us tonight and, in trying
to bring it out, I shall first show how forcible it is made to appear
by its being placed as an example. Secondly, I shall dwell upon the
act, itself, drawing inferences from the impartiality of sunshine and
shower to encourage all who long to receive Grace at the great Father's
hand. And, lastly, I shall let the plants and grass and trees talk to
you a little.
I. First, then, this which is spoken concerning God's causing His
sunshine to fall on the evil as well as on the good is set before us as
AN EXAMPLE AND HENCE THE EMPHASIS OF ITS MEANING. We are, according to
the verses which precede our text, to love our enemies, to bless them
that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, to pray for them which
despitefully use us and persecute us because, if we do, we shall be
like our Father in Heaven who blesses with sunshine and showers the bad
as well as the good. It must mean, then, that He, in causing His sun to
shine upon the bad, is rendering good for evil, is wishing well to
those who treat Him ill, is intending favor to those that despitefully
use Him and persecute His cause.
That is what the text means. God would not command us to do what He
will not do, Himself, if placed in similar circumstances! He bids us
forgive because His sunshine and showers teach us that He is ready to
forgive. He bids us do good to those who do us ill, because in sunshine
and showers He is doing good to those who hate Him and despitefully use
Him. Now suppose, my Brethren, that we were all enabled, by Divine
Grace, to follow out the precept which is set before us? Our conduct
would be regarded by most men as being very extraordinary–for most
people say, "Well, I will do good to a man if he is a deserving
character, but you cannot expect me to help the undeserving. I will
cheerfully render a measure of assistance to a person who is grateful,
but to the ungrateful and the evil you do not expect me to be kind?
Yes, I will be kind to my neighbor, but that man who the other day was
so contemptuous in his behavior as to treat me worse than a dog and
seemed as if he would tread me under his feet like dirt–would you have
me do him kindness?"
Now, suppose that you are able to rise to the example which is put
before you and that you persistently do good and only good even to the
worst of men? And when you are treated with evil, let us suppose you
are able to do only more good and thus heap coals of fire upon the
offender's head by being more generous to him than ever–that will be
very extraordinary conduct, don't you think? You think so, I know, for
you feel the proposal to be too hard for flesh and blood to carry out
and so, indeed, it is! And if you are enabled to rise to so great a
height, you will astonish all around you and become a wonder to many!
Admire, then, with all your hearts, the marvelous conduct of your God!
He is prepared to put away all the offenses of the past and He is ready
to forgive and to do good to those who have been doing ill all their
days. Yes, to take into His very heart of love and make into His
children the very persons who have hated Him and spoken evil against
Him! Will it not be extraordinary if He does that to you, dear Friend,
if such has been your character? Know, then, that the Lord loves to do
extraordinary things! "Who is a God like unto You, passing by
transgression, iniquity, and sin?" "As high as the heavens are above
the earth, so high are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above
our thoughts." God is prepared to save extraordinary sinners by an
extraordinary act of love, wiping out the past and causing them to
begin a new life in which they shall be enriched with His favor and
preserved by His love.
Again, if a man should carry out what I have tried to set forth–the
continuous rendering of good to the undeserving–he would be regarded
by all thinking persons whose judgment is worth taking, to be very
noble. When a
man has been abused, misrepresented and slandered, and he simply smiles
and says, "If you knew me better you would not treat me so." And, if
the first time he finds an opportunity, he helps the man who injured
him and still gets no gratitude, but, on the contrary, worse treatment
than before, and he is still able to persevere in doing good–most of
you would say, "What a noble fellow he is!" Even the man who does not
praise him is obliged to feel his greatness. There is about such a man
a superiority which covers him with honor in the consciences of those
who observe his gentle spirit!
Now, listen, you that are conscious of great sin against God! If the
Lord were, tonight, to put all your sins behind His back and would take
you into His family, as He took the poor returning prodigal and make a
great feast for you as He did when His son that was lost was found,
would it not be noble of Him? Would you not feel that His thoughts are
far above your thoughts? Of course you would! Yes, but my God does
noble deeds such as make the harps of Heaven ring with ecstatic music
as the cherubim and seraphim behold His Grace. O thrice noble God,
there is none like You, so ready to pardon and to receive each
returning penitent and restore him to Your favor! To pardon you, my
sinful Brother, would be extraordinary and honorable to the last
degree, but God is prepared to act after that noble fashion! Will you
not accept such boundless love and be at peace with such a Lord?
Do you not all feel that if you could act in so noble a style it would
be very pleasurable to you? No doubt there is some pleasure in knocking
a fellow down who insults you, but it cannot last long. When the fire
of passion goes out, a man begins to think whether it was a good thing
to do, after all–but not to do it, to turn the other cheek when you
have been struck, to do good instead of evil–have you ever tried that?
If you have done so, you have heard music in your heart at midnight at
the remembrance of your forbearance! When you have been lying awake,
you have thought it over and you have said to yourself, "It makes me
happy to think that I did not reply to that angry man in an angry
tone–to think that I did not, after all, give him a smart blow when he
gave me one–but that I showed patience and good temper and endured ill
treatment for Christ's sake." It is a pleasure as deep as it is noble!
To be Christ-like is to enjoy a Heaven within your breast!
And even so, it is a pleasure to God to have mercy upon sinners. He
delights in mercy! Nothing gives God greater delight than to save those
who have offended Him. He is always ready for a gracious deed and
freely, of His own will, He meets those who seek His face. He does not
want you to melt His heart with tears in order to win His love and He
does not require the laceration of your body by penance, nor a long
period of agonizing doubt before He grants full and effectual pardon.
It is His joy to pardon! He meets returning sinners when they are yet a
great way off and kisses them. So rejoiced is He to receive them that
if they are glad to be received, yet He is the more glad of the two!
Joyous is the great Father's heart when He presses His Ephraims to His
bosom!
Did I hear somebody say, "But this that you are talking about is not
justice"? Listen–it is not unjust. Look at the conduct which our Lord
commands us and see if that would be unjust. If a man has insulted me
and I forgive him, am I unjust? If a man has slandered me and I
overlook it, am I unjust? If a man has done me an injury and I refuse
to take any revenge except that of doing good to him, am I unjust?
Certainly I am not acting according to the laws of justice, but then I
am not the judge–and not being the judge–why should I undertake an
office to which I am not called? God is the Judge of all by necessity
of His Nature, but He will not fully display that Character till the
day when in the Person of His Son He shall come with all His holy
angels to summon men to His bar. For the present He does not deal with
living men after the rule of justice, but He deals with them according
to His Grace.
If anyone should question why He should give His Grace to the
undeserving, here is a sufficient answer for them– "May I not do as I
will with My own? Is your eye evil because Mine is good?" If you choose
to show kindness to those who do not deserve it, who shall say to you,
"no"? May not a man be as generous and forbearing as he pleases? What
Law, human or Divine, forbids him? And if God, with infinite
sovereignty of mercy, chooses to dispense His favors even to those who
deserve nothing at His hands, let Him be adored forever, but let Him
not be questioned for so doing! At any rate, it ill becomes the
undeserving, themselves, to raise such a question–rather let them
eagerly accept the bounty of the pardoning God!
And then note this thought–that to do good to the evil is, after all,
promotive of righteousness. To be good to the unjust is to help on the
cause of right, for goodness to the evil is one of the most wooing
things in the world, wooing them, I mean, to repent and do good in
return! Let me give you an anecdote. There was a farmer who lived in
one of the new settlements of America. We will call him Mr. Wrath, for
he was a man of a horrible temper and everybody who lived
near him was made to know it. He had an excellent Christian man living
near him–a gentle, good, easy-tempered soul–and on one occasion this
good man's hogs strayed into the bad man's wheat and caused damage. Mr.
Wrath came down in a tearing rage and said what he would do and what he
would not do.
The other offered to pay for the damage and said that he was very sorry
for his neglect and would do his best that it should not happen again.
However, it did happen again, and the owner of the wheat was in a great
passion. He caught the swine and killed them all, put their bodies on a
cart and took them back to his neighbor. "Your hogs," he said, "got
into my wheat–here they are." And sure enough there they were, all
dead. Of course, the owner of the hogs might have gone to the
authorities against Mr. Wrath and obtained damages at more or less the
cost of trouble and temper, but he merely said that he was exceedingly
sorry that his hogs had transgressed again and there ended the matter.
Some time after, it came to pass that Mr. Wrath's pigs went astray, as
pigs will do, and they damaged the Christian's wheat. What did he do?
He had not sought a legal remedy against his adversary–would not it
have been fair and straightforward to butcher Mr. Wrath's hogs on the
principle of tit for tat, as the proverb puts it? Of course it would
have been, but a Christian does not act upon that worn-out legal
principle! Instead of killing the creatures, he caught them all, tied
their legs, put them on a cart, drove up to the door and said, "Friend
Wrath, your hogs got into my wheat. I have brought them to you. Here
they are"–the very words that Mr. Wrath had used to him.
Mr. Wrath went to the cart, of course expecting to find his swine all
dead. But there they were, all right enough, grunting in proof of their
continued existence. "There," the neighbor said, "hogs are always
troublesome. I dare say you could not help their getting into my
wheat." Mr. Wrath's temper was changed from that very day. How could he
behave badly to such a neighbor who had vanquished him by forgiving him
the injury that he had done him? Now, just as men can win upon men by
their kindness, so does God win upon the hearts of men by His love when
the Holy Spirit leads them to see and feel that He acts graciously
towards them. There is no power to win a man like the power of love! If
you have ever been converted, dear Friends, I think that you have felt
that you could say–
"I yield, by Sovereign Love subdued– Who can resist its charms?"
The thunderbolts of God might have broken you down, but they could not
have forced love into your terrified soul! Yet, when Jesus came in love
and mercy, you were compelled to yield and that most gladly and
heartily!
So God's goodness to the unjust is aiding and assisting the cause of
righteousness and justice and who, therefore, shall say a word against
it? "Ah," says somebody, "but it is very liable to be abused. If you go
and help the bad and benefit the unjust, you will find that they will
take your charity and spend it wrongly, or perhaps they will turn,
again, and harm you." This is very true, but still, the Master says,
"Love your enemies and pray for them that despitefully use you." He
does not insert a clause to the effect that we are only to do this
where we are sure that it will not be abused. No, it is absolute! If
they make bad use of it, that is no business of ours. Your heavenly
Father knows that the fool, when he reaps his harvest, will simply
spend it on himself, yet He sends him the sunlight and the shower. He
knows that yonder oppressive wretch will, with his wealth, go on to
grind the poor, but He sends his crops the warm, genial sun and the
refreshing rain, notwithstanding it.
But, dear Friends, there is this thing to be said about Divine Grace,
that if God gives it to you, you cannot misuse it, for Grace will
change your heart and renew your nature! And if He is so ready to give
to men those benefits which they can and do abuse, much more will He
bestow that Grace which is liable to no such ill usage. Let me add,
however, if anybody does abuse God's mercy, just as if any man abuses
your practical kindness, it involves him in great guilt. Men cannot do
despite to goodness without becoming exceedingly vile. You will soon
see this if I mention one anecdote. In Holland, in the days when the
Baptists were persecuted, it happened that the canals were frozen over
and one poor despised Baptist escaped from a person who was seeking to
drag him before the magistrates to get blood money for his head. He ran
across the river, which was wide and frozen. The ice was strong enough
to bear him and he got safely to the other shore.
The person who was seeking his life was a heavier man and he slipped
through the ice and went into the water. And what did this poor hunted
Christian man do? He turned round and at the peril of his own life he
helped his persecutor out and landed him on the bank. And what did the
wretch do but seize him and drag him before the magistrates–and he was
burnt as the result of his own act of generosity! There is not a man in
the world who does not feel that the wretch
deserves universal condemnation! Everybody denounces him at once. So
if, after God's mercy to the unjust and the bad, they still go on to
sin against Him I will leave the universal conscience of mankind to cry
them down!
I heard, the other day, an instance of a dog's returning good for evil
and this places the matter in an equally strong light. A man had taken
a dog with the intention of drowning him–a large Newfoundland dog. He
went into a boat with a big stone intending to throw the dog out of the
boat into the stream with the stone about his neck. Somehow or other,
before he had securely tied the stone, the dog had become free and in
some little scuffle between them the boat was upset and dog and man
were both in the water. The man sank and was nearly drowned, but the
dog, noble creature, swam up and seized hold of the man and drew him
safely to shore.
Now suppose he had drowned the dog after that! Did I hear some
indignant person say, "Let him be drowned himself? He would not deserve
to live, surely. I would take such a dog as that home and say, "While I
have a crust, there shall be a bit for you, good dog who saved my life
when I was destroying yours." Now, if even a dog, when it renders good
for evil, gets a claim upon us, what shall I say of the great God who,
with generous liberality, continues to feed and keep in life and health
the undeserving sons of men? And who, more than this, has given His own
Son to die and sent a message of amazing love to mankind, in which He
says, "Come to Me: I am ready to forgive you. Come and accept My love
and mercy. Let us be friends, for I delight to forgive sin"? Is it not
clear that to abuse such love is black-hearted baseness? I beseech you,
be not guilty of it!
II. Now, secondly, we may gather fresh hope and encouragement from THE
FACT ITSELF. When the sunlight comes upon a wicked man's field and the
rain descends upon the farm of a blaspheming atheist, the man has done
nothing to deserve either shower or sun, but yet they favor him. And,
blessed be God, He gives His Grace to those who have done nothing to
deserve it! If all your life long you cannot think of one good action
you have ever performed, nevertheless the Grace of God is free to you
if you will have it. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
saved" is preached to you–deserving and merit are out of the question!
God gives freely even to the evil and the unjust!
Showers and sunlight from Heaven come to those who have not sought them
at the Lord's hands. That fool, there, never prayed for the sunlight.
He does not believe in praying–not he! And that oppressor over yonder,
that we spoke of, never asked God to send the rain–he said it was a
matter of chance and he did not see the good of praying about it. Yet
it came. And oh, what a wonder it is that God is often found of them
that sought Him not! Persons have come into this Tabernacle and the
last thing they thought of was that they would be saved that night–and
yet they have been! God's infinite mercy sometimes comes to those who
do not ask for it, according to the text, "I am found of them that
sought Me
not."
Look at Colonel Gardiner. He had made a commitment and was about to
perpetrate a gross act of vice, but the person whom he expected to meet
had not come and, therefore, he had to wait an hour or two. While he
waited he saw or thought he saw, a vision of the Savior who said to
him, "I did all this for you, what have you done for Me?" That
question, with the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ, by Divine Grace,
changed his heart! He never kept that appointment but, as most of you
know, he became one of the most devout Christians in the world! Oh,
tell it the wide world over that as the rain tarries not for man, nor
waits for the sons of men, but comes according to the good favor of
God, so often does His Grace visit those who knew not God and sought
not after Him! Let Him be praised and extolled forever and ever because
of this.
Now, if Grace sometimes comes to those who have not asked, do you not
think that it will come to you who are asking for it? Oh you that are
groaning for it, sighing for it and longing for it–do you think it
will be denied to you? God forbid! He will be sure to bless you.
Believe in the Lord Jesus and it is yours at once! The rain comes to
those who do not even acknowledge the existence of God. It waters the
atheist's fields and refreshes the pastures of the fool who says in his
heart, "There is no God." Even so, I have known the Grace of God
descend on those who have loudly denied His very existence. In our
Church there is one, at least, who not long ago was a loud spokesman
against God, but upon his dropping into this house, the Word came with
power to his soul and again, and again, and again it described his
case, till at last he said, "There is a God, for He has found me out.
The preacher seems to know my case and character." Every time he came,
something was said which so accurately described himself that he could
not understand and interpret it in any other way than that God had
spoken to his soul!
Now, if God calls by His effectual Grace some that even doubt His
existence, how much more will He look on you who have been made to
tremble before Him and who desire to be reconciled to Him? Surely He
will hear the cry of the humble and grant your penitent request! The
Lord sends the rain to some that never thank Him for it. "A heavy
shower, William," says the fool. "Yes, Sir," says his pious servant,
"God be thanked for it." "I do not know much about that, William. I
dare say the wind had a good deal to do with it. I knew it would come,
for the glass was down." So he ends that talk. Yes, but, dear Friend,
if God sends temporal blessings to those who do not thank Him, will He
not give His Grace to those of you who feel that you would bless Him
forever if He would but save you?
A good woman said, when she sought the Lord, "If He saves me He shall
never hear the last of it, for I will praise Him as long as ever I live
and then to all eternity." Well, now, you may reckon quite surely that
when a soul feels after that manner the Lord will not deny it the sun
of His love, or the rain of His Grace! He gives rain even to those whom
He knows will remain thankless–will He not give His Spirit to those
who will become His grateful children? Remember, too, dear Friends,
that God gives this rain and this sunshine year after year! If I were
very kind to a man and he treated me unthankfully I should think that I
had a good deal of Grace if I kept on being kind to him for a year. And
supposing I kept on seven years, I fancy that I should think that I had
endured a long enough trial of him and should get a little tired of
being grieved by him–wouldn't you?
Yet, look, God has sent sunshine and showers upon the fields of the
wicked all their lives long! He has continued to be kind to them and He
has not grown weary. Perhaps some of you are 50 years old and yet have
never yielded to the love of God. Ah, you have been hearing sermons
these 50 years. Perhaps you are getting on for 70 now. Why, you have
heard tender words of love that went further than your ears and touched
your conscience–but you have still held out against God! Oh, the
patience of God to have borne with you from day to day! Now, if He has
suffered you so long, and if tonight you turn to Him with purpose of
heart and say, "I have had enough of this rebellion. Lord, I would be
at peace with You," do you think that He will refuse you? Far from it!
For His mercy endures forever!
One more remark on this. The sunshine which you saw today, I do not
doubt, was as bright a sunlight as that which Joshua saw when he bade
the sun stand still. And the showers that fell the other day,
especially as it fell in these quarters and at Brixton, I should say
were quite as plentiful as any downpour which our grandsires can
remember. It is evident that the sun's fire is not burnt out and that
the clouds are not exhausted. Well, it is so in heavenly things, for
there the eternal fullness dwells! God has as much love as ever and as
much Grace as ever–and as a thousand years ago He poured forth His
Grace to convert the bad and the unjust–He is just as able to pour
them out now upon the most guilty and the most worthless.
His Grace in conversion, pardon, adoption and preservation is as large
as ever! Glory be to His blessed name, He still rains His bounties on
the unjust! And that Christ who, when we were dead in sins, died for
us, and who, while we were yet sinners, manifested His great love to
us–that Christ who came into the world to save sinners–still abounds
in power to save and bless! And if you will go to Him (and oh, may His
Grace make you) you shall find it to is so!
III. Lest I should weary you, I will finish with the last head, under
which I should like to MAKE THE EARTH, THE
FLOWERS AND THE TREES WHICH HAVE BEEN WATERED AND WARMED, SPEAK TO YOU
A LITTLE.
And, first, I will suppose, dear Friend, that you are here tonight and
feel that you cannot pray–feel as if you could not come to God, could
not do anything. The flowers say, "We are cheered by the sun and
refreshed by the rain. We do nothing to deserve these blessings, but we
do long for them." The little flowers say, "We do long for the rain."
Look at them–they droop their heads during a long drought. See the
grass, how brown it gets! See the leaves, how dry they are! See the
earth, how chapped it is after a dry season.
Now, Soul, do you long for the mercy of God? Do you pine for it, sigh
for it, cry for it? God help you to do that! To be forgiven, to get the
love of God shed abroad in your hearts–is not that worth having? Do
pant for it, I say, as the flowers sigh for the rain and the sun! And
next, the flowers seem to say, "Do turn to it." If you keep a plant in
your window, see how it grows the way the sun comes! Notice the trees,
how they put out their branches sunward. See the sunflower how it turns
its head in the direction of the sun. The flowers love the sun! If you
cannot do anything to get Divine Grace, at least turn your head that
way! Look that way! Long that way! Grow that way! You will receive
it–it will not be denied. It will come to you. It has already come to
you if you have begun to turn to it with longing gaze!
And then the flowers seem to say, "Drink it in when it does come." In
January there was the crocus just peeping up from the soil and the sun
shone on it and in gratitude it brought up from the deeps–from its
cellar somewhere–a gold cup and set it out to catch the sunbeams till
the sun smiled and graciously filled it to the brim! And have you
noticed when the soft April showers fall, how the flowers seem, each,
to have a cup to hold a share of Heaven's bounty? And certainly beneath
the soil each flower has its little traveling rootlets sucking up each
drop of moisture they can find. Now, dear Hearers, when Grace comes
specially near to you, drink it in! Is the sermon blest to you? Do not
go away and lose its influence! Do you feel some tender movements in
your conscience? Yield to them! Is there an invitation? Accept it! Is
there a threat? Tremble at it! Open your bosom and say, "Come in, my
Savior, come in and reign and save my soul from the wrath to come."
But then the flowers say, once more, "Do thank God for it." The last
two or three days I have seemed to live in a temple! When I go into my
garden I have a choir around me in the trees. They do not wear
surplices, for their song is not artificial and official. Some of them
are clothed in glossy black, but they sing like little angels! They
sing the sun up and wake me at break of day. And they warble on till
the last red ray of the sun has departed, still singing out from bush
and tree the praises of their God! And all the flowers–the primroses
that are almost gone–these bring into my heart deep meanings
concerning God till the last one shuts his eyes. And now the
forget-me-nots and the wallflowers and the lilacs and the guilder roses
and a host of sweet beauties are pouring out their incense of perfume,
as if they said, "Thank the God that made us! Blessed be His name! The
earth is full of His goodness!"
Now, dear Hearers, if you get the Lord's Grace, thank Him for it. Grow
by it, blossom with it, be fragrant with it. If you only receive a
little Grace, be very grateful for it, for a little Grace is worth a
great deal. If God gives you Grace enough to be called starlight, thank
Him for it and He will give you moonlight! And when you get moonlight
Grace, thank Him for it and He will give you sunlight! And when you
have obtained sunlight Grace, thank Him for it and He will give you the
light of Heaven which is as the light of seven days!
Lastly–and this the flowers cannot teach you, because the flowers
cannot do it–pray for Grace. It will come. It will come! Do you
remember George Herbert's pretty verse. With that I will finish. He
says–
"The dew does every morning fall– And shall the dew outstrip Your
Dove? The dew for which grass cannot call– Drops from above."
See his point? The dew comes every morning. The grass cannot ask for
it, but it comes. And shall the dew be more free and swift than the
Holy Spirit? No, says the poet–I can pray for that holy Dove–will He
not come to me, who prays, since the dew comes to the grass which
cannot call for it? Behold He visits the earth and waters it with the
river of God which is full of water and flings back the curtains of the
sky and bids the sun shine out with genial face upon the poor dead
soil! And if He does all this for the fields that cannot pray and for
flowers that cannot speak, how much more will He do it for you who seek
His face through Jesus Christ?!
Come, then, to Him! He will gladly welcome you. Come and trust His Son.
Come and rest in the merit of Jesus' blood and you shall find eternal
life! May God bless you all, for Jesus' sake. Amen.