Our Sanctuary
(No. 1786)
A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, JUNE 15, 1884,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our
sanctuary. O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake You shall be
ashamed, and they that depart from Me shall be written in the earth
because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.
Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed, save me, and I shall be saved:
for You are my praise." Jeremiah 17:12,13,14.
THIS book of Jeremiah is a very thorny one–it might be called, like
his smaller work, "The Book of Lamentations." Our text is as a lily
among thorns, as a rose in the wilderness. The solitary place shall be
glad for it and the desert shall rejoice. The words sound like sweet
music amid the crash of tempest. The bitter tree yields us sweet fruit.
The weeping Prophet wipes away our tears. I do not know that the whole
of Scripture contains more delightful promises than those which fell
from the lips of this son of sorrow who has been to so many a son of
consolation! May God grant that this lily, today, may be exceeding
lovely in your eyes as you see it in the sunlight of the Holy Spirit.
It seems to me that in this passage the mourning Prophet is sitting
alone in communion with his God, speaking out his steadfast faith, and
washing the feet of his sorrows in the laver of the promises. The
singular change of the pronoun from You to Me shows how near the Lord
was to him–so near, indeed, that Jehovah not only speaks by the
Prophet, but breaks in with personal language and speaks, Himself All
men who have to deal with great multitudes of people for God must be
much alone or they will lose their power. Jeremiah was sick at heart,
for he prophesied, but he was not believed. He entreated and persuaded,
but his affectionate appeals were rejected. He saw the nation hastening
to destruction and he could not avert the doom! All this made him cry
out in the anguish of his soul, "I am the man that has seen
affliction."
And, therefore, he could not have lived if he had not found sanctuary
in his God. He often stole away into secret places that he might pour
out his breaking heart before the Lord and commit himself to the tender
care of Him whom he so faithfully served. Let us imitate him and
overcome our griefs by secret fellowship with the happy God! The
passage before us is a very broken one. Those who are acquainted with
the original tongue will tell you that it is difficult to construe it.
It is a fragmentary passage and several meanings have been given to it.
Do you know the reason of this? Should not a broken heart use broken
words? When you have been in great trouble and have drawn near to God,
you have often had to pour out your heart in faltering accents. Nor
does this destroy your prayer, or even shorten its power.
Our God can put our speech together when we cannot put it together
ourselves. A sigh here and a cry there–an utterance of faith at one
moment and a groan of sorrow at the next–these make up a singular
patchwork to ourselves, perhaps. And even more singular, still, to
anyone who should overhear us in our solitary sighs. But such
supplications are not at all singular to God! He reads the meaning of
His saints and understands the language of their sighs. However, it
seems to me that the translators of the Authorized Version have given
us the true meaning of the original, as I think they generally do. The
men are not yet born who will give us a better rendering either of the
Old or the New Testament than is to be found in our old English
Bibles–and it is my belief that they will never be born!
These men wrote a marvelously pure English and really translated the
Bible into our mother tongue, being helped of God not only to see the
meaning, but to write it in words which are understood by the people.
Learned men in our day, for the most part, know every tongue except
English–and they fall into the error of mistaking long Latinized words
for our native language. Give me plain expressive Saxon! You may place
every confidence in your grandmother's Bible– whatever small
improvements the translation may require–it is in the main so good
that its rivals have had but short lives while it retains all its
primitive power!
In this text, no doubt, the Prophet had in his eyes the Temple at
Jerusalem. Seated upon the summit of a hill, with deep valleys
surrounding it, the Temple stood aloft, above all, a noble structure,
seen from afar. To the Jew it was, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of
the whole earth." When God dwelt in it, the Temple might be fitly
described in the language of Jeremiah as, "A glorious high throne" for
God. That glittering Temple of snow-white marble, adorned with
abundance of gold, seemed, as it gleamed in the sun, to be the lofty
seat of Jehovah, whereon He reigned in the midst of His people. The
Temple, I say, may have been in the Prophet's eyes, but I do not think
that it was in the heart of his meaning. The passage which we read just
now, in the seventh chapter of Jeremiah, shows you that Jeremiah was by
no means a devotee for the material Temple, nor did he rest his
confidence in its outward ceremonies.
He had reached a more spiritual region. That evangelical spirit which
spoke by Isaiah also rested upon Jeremiah. He had come to understand
that God is not to be worshipped as if He dwelt in temples made with
hands, nor to be served by merely outward rites–but that God is a
Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. It seems to me to
be clear that the Prophet here speaks of God, Himself, as being to His
people the place of their sanctuary and a glorious high throne. With
this I shall begin–the true place of our sanctuary. Secondly, I shall
have a little to say about the departers from God, the true place of
our sanctuary–they are to be ashamed and written in the dust. Then,
thirdly, the comers to God as the true sanctuary. How do they come?
They come with the language of the 14th verse, "Heal me O Lord, and I
shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved."
I. First, let us consider THE TRUE PLACE OF OUR SANCTUARY. It is not at
Jerusalem, nor at Samaria. It is not at Rome, nor at Canterbury. The
place of our sanctuary is not the meeting house wherein we gather. The
place of our sanctuary is our God, Himself. "God is our refuge and
strength." "Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations."
He is viewed under the aspect of a sovereign reigning in majesty–"A
glorious high throne is the place of our sanctuary." Many refuse to
worship God as reigning–they have not yet grasped the idea that the
Lord is King, so that they cannot understand the song, "The Lord
reigns, let the earth rejoice." For that includes, first, Divine
Sovereignty, and some men grow black in the face with rage against that
Truth of God–they cannot stand it! Not even over His own mercy will
they allow God to exercise any sovereignty–He is to be bound by their
rules and compelled to deal the same with all–so they say. But He will
not have it so, for this is His Word–"I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."
The crown rights of God include this among the rest, that He has the
power of life and death–and can punish or pardon according to His
royal pleasure. While He will deal justly with all mankind, yet He has
a special favor towards His chosen, passing by their iniquity through
the Sacrifice of Calvary. He will make His own election and He will
distribute His mercy as seems good in His sight. To all who rebel
against this sovereignty He gives this answer–"Is it not lawful for Me
to do what I will with My own? Are your eyes evil, because I am good?"
When any cavil at His acts, His only answer is–"No but, O man, who are
you that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that
formed it, Why have You made me thus?"
Now, this God whose sovereignty is so much disputed is our God–a
glorious high throne for absolute dominion and sovereignty is the place
of our sanctuary! To Him whose Sovereign Grace is the hope of the
undeserving, we fly for succor. Besides sovereignty, of course, His
glorious high Throne includes power. A throne without power would be
but the pageantry of vanity. There should be power in the King who
rules over all–and is there not? Who shall stay His hand, or say unto
Him, "What are You doing?" God is ruler even at this hour! The floods
lift up their voices, yes, the great waves of the raging sea roar in
their pride, but, "the Lord sits upon the flood; yes, the Lord sits
King forever." Hallelujah! Do not imagine that Jehovah has vacated His
Throne or left the affairs of His Kingdom to chance, or to the free
will of man. Whatever you think you see of chance, has an underlying
order about it which shows that God is there! Whatever you see of man's
free agency–and you do see it–yet over it and above it there is the
overruling hand of Him that works all things according to the counsel
of His will. "Surely the wrath of man shall praise You: the remainder
of wrath shall You restrain."
Oh, it is such a blessed thing to me that the place of our sanctuary is
the reigning God! As long as He is on the Throne, it must be well with
the righteous. "Oh, but," they say, "evil reigns." Yes, but God reigns
over the evil and through the evil still produces good! Do not imagine
that Satan is an independent power, a sort of second Deity, outside
of the dominion of the Lord, for even he is subordinated to the eternal
purpose. "Alas," cries Despondency, "sorrow reigns and the effect of
the curse!" I know it! But the Redeemer also reigns, lifting up His
people from that curse! And the creation itself, which has been made
subject to vanity, shall be delivered and rise into the glorious
liberty of the children of God! Therefore, rejoice in this, that the
Lord reigns as absolute Monarch, full of power to execute His own
purposes of infinite love! In all times of disturbance and trouble flee
to the Lord of All as to a sanctuary and find your comfort in
Him.
Forget not that the Lord reigns in extending glory. The excellence of
His dominion surpasses all other, for He is the blessed and only
Potentate. Every act of His empire exhibits His glorious Character, His
justice, His goodness, His faithfulness, His holiness. Other kings need
the tinsel of pomp and the trickery of policy to make them great. But
the Lord God is essentially glorious and those who know Him best are
most struck with His grandeur. The chronicles of Jehovah's Kingdom are
honorable and glorious. The forces of His Throne are infinite; the
purposes of His majesty are holy and His name is to be praised from
generation to generation! We shelter beneath no insignificant
princedom–a glorious high throne is the place of our sanctuary!
The text teaches more than this, however. It says, "A glorious high
throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary." It is a very
blessed thing to come back to the fact that the Lord has not newly
assumed a Throne from which He has newly cast out some former king. No,
"A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our
sanctuary." As His is the most potent of empires, so is it the most
ancient! There was a time before all times when there was no day but
the Ancient of Days and then God was supreme, purposing, determining,
counseling, arranging all things according to the good pleasure of His
will. "With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him?"
Then there came a day when He had created worlds, I know not how many,
but in them all He found no rival. Perhaps all the stars we see are
worlds full of inhabitants who worship the infinite Creator–and
perhaps all the stars that have ever been seen by the telescope are, to
the whole universe of God, as a little dust behind the door might be to
a large room! But in all these worlds, from the beginning, the Lord is
a glorious high Throne. When He made this world and put man upon it, He
did not make it without a plan and a purpose from the beginning. He
never lifted His anger upon any work of His hand without first knowing
what He was going to do and what would come of it. God is never taken
by surprise! He has foreseen all things and worked them into His grand
plan.
The arrangements of Providence which seem so complex to us are not
complex to Him–they are simple, direct and effective. God is always
working for a glorious purpose which shall, one day, make the universe
and all eternity to sing with rapturous joy that ever God determined to
do what He is now doing. Let us rest in that Truth of God. From the
beginning, a glorious high Throne ordained everything, and it arranges
all things today–this is the place of the sanctuary of God's people!
Oh, be not cast down and troubled, for the Lord reigns! Beneath His
royal pavilion we may rest in peace. There is evil and there is sorrow;
there is sin and there is bold rebellion; but infinite goodness is
still ruling upon the Throne of Glory! Be not worried as though truth
would be defeated by falsehood, and goodness would be exterminated by
evil–for the Lord of Holiness wears the crown–and He will break the
hosts of wickedness with His scepter, as with a rod of iron.
A glorious high throne, higher than the throne of Satan, higher than
the heights of pride, higher than the loftiness of ambition, higher,
even, than the Heaven of heavens, is still the Throne of God forever
and ever–and this is the refuge of all His saints. The Lord has
graciously said of His people, "Although I have scattered them among
the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary." And He has
also said, "Sanctify the Lord of Hosts Himself; and let Him be your
fear, and let Him be your dread. And He shall be for a sanctuary."
When the Prophet alludes to the place of our sanctuary, our mind is
naturally led to feel that there must be some kind of place where God
especially reveals Himself. We all know that He manifests Himself in
Heaven and we expect, before long, to be there to swell the number of
His courtiers! But He has also revealed Himself on earth and very
significant are the places where He has done so. The place where He
mainly revealed Himself among men was the Temple, to which I have said
Jeremiah somewhat alludes. Now, where was the Temple built? It was
built upon that mountain where Abraham took his son, Isaac, to offer
him up as a sacrifice. Wonderful scene! There, all in lonely
quietude–the servants left at the foot of the hill–the great
Patriarch, the father of the faithful, laid the wood upon the altar and
unsheathed the knife to slay his only son! There the scene ends and the
curtain drops, but what a wonderful picture it was of the greater Fa-
ther, the everlasting God, who did, in very deed and truth, offer up
His Son, the Heir of the promise, that we might live through Him!
A ram caught in the thicket was the substitute for Isaac, but there was
no substitute for Jesus, the Son of God! He died, the Just for the
unjust, to bring us to God! And there, where the most instructive of
all types of the heavenly Father's love was exhibited, there must be
the Temple wherein God would converse with men and make a place of
sanctuary for men. The Temple, itself, was built upon that site, and
there it was that God dwelt visibly between the wings of the cherubim,
above the Ark of the Covenant, over that golden lid which was called
the Mercy Seat. What was that Ark of the Covenant but a type of our
Lord Jesus Christ in a most instructive way? There stood the cherubim
above the golden lid of that coffer–and Jesus, also, was "seen of
angels." The cover made the Mercy Seat, or propitiatory, and this the
Lord Jesus is to us. He, as the blood-sprinkled Mercy Seat, is the
place where God meets with us; hears our prayers and accepts our
persons and our praises.
Look within the lid with holy reverence and, first, you see two tables
of stone upon which the Law of God was engraved. Did not Jesus say, "I
delight to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your Law is within My heart"?
Looking again, you observe a golden pot filled with manna and you
remember Him who is the Bread which came down from Heaven, of which if
a man eats, he shall live forever. Nor may we fail to notice a rod, a
rod that has budded and blossomed and brought forth almonds–for by it
we are reminded that the scepter of rule is with the Lord Jesus
Christ–and the government shall be upon His shoulders. This is His
living and productive scepter with which He rules the souls of His
people. Do you wonder that the Lord, in meeting His people, ordained as
the meeting place such an eminent type of His dear
Son?
The Ark of the Covenant was made according to the pattern which Moses
saw in the holy Mountain and above its Mercy Seat was the place where
God dwelt and communed with His people. But the sacrifice of Isaac and
the Ark of the Covenant were only types of that greater Sacrifice when
He who is the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace, went up to the Cross and, on Calvary, "it
pleased the Lord to bruise Him." It is natural that the Lord should
meet with us in Grace in the place where He put His Son to grief.
There, where He made His Son an offering for sin, the Lord becomes
well-pleased with us. O Friends, the Cross is the place where God has
His Throne of salvation, and truly we may say of it–"A glorious high
throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary."
In the great plan of salvation by the sacrifice of the Son of God, God
is indeed enthroned! Upon the Cross He is extolled and made very high.
Would you see His majesty? Behold it in the Person of the
Only-Begotten, full of Grace and truth. Would you see His justice? Read
it written in crimson lines upon the dying Person of the Son of God!
Would you see His love? Ah, I will not speak of it, but simply
say–Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us! In
giving us His own dear Son, He has glorified His Grace by an
unspeakable gift! God is never so revealed in all the works of His
hands as in the Cross of Christ. That is a glorious high Throne,
indeed! Its moral excellence, its infinite love, its spiritual beauty
can never be equaled! Earthly kings and princes often rule by
injustice, breaking the laws which they pretend to make–but He, our
God, in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, is lifted high–high above
all censure as to His justice, His holiness, His Grace, His truth, His
love. "A glorious high throne is the place of our sanctuary."
Now then, dear Friends, the place where we worship, God is, Himself,
revealed in the Person of His dear Son. I pray you, never try to
worship anywhere else! Christ is the one Altar, the one Temple, the one
Sanctuary. Set not up your high places of will-worship! Erect not
images to Baal in the form of self and sin! God in Christ Jesus should
absorb all the worship of all the sons of men!
In addition, the Lord God is our refuge, for a sanctuary was a place to
which men fled in the hour of peril. Is not Jesus our Refuge from
present guilt and from the wrath to come? Does He not deliver us from
the guilt of sin? Yes, He is our Refuge from temptation, our Refuge in
the hour of trial, our Sanctuary in every season of sorrow, distress
and pain! This glorious high Throne affords us an abiding shelter under
the assaults of the enemy! I do not think I can preach on such a
text–so there–I must just leave it for you to think it over, or,
better still, for you to flee to it and, fleeing to it, to abide in it,
worshipping in spirit and in truth!
II. Secondly, I am to speak but a few words, but those very solemnly,
concerning THOSE WHO DEPART FROM GOD. Alas, that there should be
such!–men who leave the river for the desert, the living for the dead!
Who are they?
The text says, "All that forsake You," and, "they that depart from Me."
See, then, that this text has a bearing upon us, because these people
of whom we are now going to speak were not an ignorant people who did
not know God, or how could they be said to forsake Him? They were not
like the heathen who have never heard His name. You cannot forsake a
person with whom you have no acquaintance!
They were a people who knew a great deal about God, since He had given
them His Law and sent His Prophets among them. They were the people of
Israel–God had dwelt among them–in open type and visible glory He had
been in the midst of their host. They had seen the sacrifice, they had
beheld the great wonders which the Lord worked for them in Egypt and at
the Red Sea–and yet they forsook Him. Alas, there are among His own
professed people a company that forsake Him! They mix, for a time, with
the people of God, but they ultimately go out from them because they
are not truly of them. In this land we have a people to whom God has
been very gracious in sending the Gospel to them, but they are
forsaking Christ for Rome–turning aside from faith in the Redeemer's
merit–that they may trust in priestcraft.
It will not do, my Brothers and Sisters, it will not do! But there are
many such and many that did run well, for a time. What hindered them
that they should not still obey the Truth of God? They went back to the
world for gain or for ease–because of poverty, or because of riches,
or because of fear of man they turned aside and went away from God. We
still sorrowfully know that an evil heart of unbelief in departing from
the living God remains among us. Those who forsake the Lord are not
altogether an infidel people, they are not a people who refuse, even,
to hear His name. But their hearts are not right with Jehovah, neither
are they steadfast in His Covenant. Evidently at one time, these people
had something to do with the Lord, but after a while they forsook Him.
What did they do? They no longer sought after the Lord as once they
did, but ceased to be fervent in their service. At first they ceased to
worship Him, they took no delight in His ways. They tried to be
neutral, they were lukewarm, careless, indifferent–they forgot God.
After thus declining in zeal and refusing outward worship, they went
further, for He says they had departed from Him–they could not endure
the Lord and, therefore, went into the far country. They said unto God,
"Depart from us; we desire not the knowledge of Your ways." They went
into open sin. They disowned their God and broke His Commandments–some
of them even dared to blaspheme Him! The course of sin is downhill. The
man who once forgets his God soon forgets himself–and then he throws
the reins on the neck of his lusts and goes from sin to sin, forgetting
his God more and more.
I may be addressing such this morning. I fear I am. To such I have to
tell what will becomes of them one of these days. This will become of
you–you "shall be ashamed." I do not know a more painful feeling to a
true man than to be ashamed. When he feels–"I was foolish and wrong,"
it makes his cheeks crimson, his heart swells, his eyes overflow. The
most hardened of sinners will, one day, be ashamed, saying, "I acted
unprofitably to myself." Such shame will come over you forgetful ones
one of these days. You that live without God will, before long, be
disgusted with yourselves for it. It may not come upon you till you
die, but it is very probable that it will assail you then. When, in
your dying hours, what a dreadful thing it will be to be filled with
shame at the remembrance of the past, so as to be afraid to meet your
God, ashamed to think that you have lived a whole life without caring
for Him!
What will it be to wake up in the next world and to see the Glory of
God around you–the Glory of the God whom you despised! Oh, the shame
that will come over the ungodly in judgment! It is written, "They shall
wake up to shame and everlasting contempt." Every intelligent being
that is right towards God will despise the man that forsook God and
turned away from Him. "They shall wake up to shame and everlasting
contempt." What a waking! It is as terrible as our Lord's word, "In
Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment." How fearful to think
that the contempt will never end! Everlasting contempt! What a word! I
hope you have never acted so as to feel ashamed before your fellow men,
for it must be a dreadful thing when such a charge is brought against a
man that he has to appear before the judgment seat of his own country
and knows that he is guilty. He has only his fellow men to face, but
what a hang-dog look he has! He cannot face the jury. He is afraid to
cast his eyes upon the judge! He is ashamed to be seen, even, by the
meanest wretches in the court!
In the next world there will be none of that hardihood which enables
big villains to bronze it out before their neighbors. Conscience will
be awakened and, therefore, shame will have all the greater power.
Great men and proud men will be small enough, before long–and careless
and profane persons will be miserable enough when that Word of God
shall be fulfilled–"All that forsake You shall be ashamed." And then
it is added that they, "shall be written in the
earth." That is, if they turn away from God, they may win a name for a
while, but it will be merely from the earth and of the earth. They may
obtain a fortune and enjoy outward prosperity. They may be like David's
green bay tree that spread itself far and wide–but in the end it will
turn out that they were like bullocks fattened for the slaughter, or
like the swine that lie down in their sty, too full to move–but all
the more sure to be killed!
What an awful thing that a man should have his portion in this life and
nothing to come hereafter! O worldlings, you have your riches in this
poor country which is soon to be burned with fire! Your pleasures and
treasures will melt in the fervent heat of the last days! Your life's
pursuits are a short business, ending in eternal misery! They that have
forsaken God will have their little day, but the more they prosper and
the richer they become, and the more famous they grow, so much the
worse for them–for the higher they mount the more desperate shall be
their fall! We read that they, "shall be written in the earth," and
that means that they shall go into oblivion.
If you were to go to a school in the East, you would find that the
children have no slates and very few of them have wax tablets. These
are rather expensive and so the schoolmaster spreads the floor with
sand or earth–and you see the boys writing their copies on the ground.
Then, of course, when they have finished their writing, the master just
sweeps the floor and all the writing disappears. Was this the meaning
of our Savior when He stooped down and wrote on the ground? When they
brought to Him the woman taken in adultery, hypocrites that they were,
you remember He stooped down and wrote on the ground as though He heard
them not, as much as to say, "I shall rub it all out again–all that
you have to say will be forgotten."
So will it be with men who do not trust in God. Their names will be
written in the sand and, in a short time, the great foot of Providence
will obliterate them all and they will be quite forgotten! If you get
honor in this life by sin, your fame carries its death within its own
heart. The greatest name that ever rung forth from the clarion of fame
shall die out into oblivion or infamy if its honors are earned by an
evil life. Oh, you who dread a cold forgetfulness, live unto God, and
then your names shall shine on forever! But if you live after the
flesh, you shall die and leave your names for a curse unto the Lord's
people!
The text tells us that there shall come something besides this–they
that forsake God shall, one day, be sore athirst even unto death,
"because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters."
There is for the soul but one fountain of water–flowing, cool, clear,
always refreshing. "All my springs are in You," said David. And so may
we say, for our only source of supply is the Lord our God. If a man
turns away from God, he forsakes the cool fountain–he goes to broken
cisterns that hold no water–and he will perish of thirst. Oh, my
beloved Hearers, I wish I were able to put this very strongly before
you! You are such creatures that you must trust and love God, or else
you will never possess that which you were created to enjoy–you must
always be without the grand necessity of your being. You are vessels,
but what will be the use of you if you are not filled?
You are denying yourselves bread when you deny yourselves God–I mean
bread for your souls. You must have God in Christ Jesus or else you
will be as one that is parched with thirst in the Sahara. He looks
around him eagerly for a shell, but sees nothing but an ocean of sand!
He rushes this way till the hot sand beneath his feet burns out of him
all power to move! He struggles to his feet and turns in the other
direction, but with equal disappointment. He lifts his hands. He cries.
He tears his hair in utter despair. He stoops down; he scoops a hole in
the ground. He would gladly dig to the very center of the earth to find
drink, but all in vain! He must pine away and die. His mouth is an
oven. His tongue a firebrand–himself the victim of death! So, poor
Heart, there is nothing for you but God! If you forsake Him, you die.
Young man, you are miserable today. You used to enjoy the theater and
even baser amusement, but you cannot rejoice in them, now, and I am
thankful you cannot! You are becoming dissatisfied and wretched, but
you need not remain so. Here is the living water, fresh and free, and
the Spirit bids me cry, "Whoever will, let him take the Water of Life
freely." The supply for your soul is only to be found in this one well,
the well of Bethlehem, the well which springs up from the depths of
eternal love in Christ Jesus our Lord! God still sits enthroned in
Jesus as upon a glorious high throne–He receives thirsty sinners to
Himself, there–and gives them drink till they are filled to the full.
Oh, when I take hold of my God, I do not seem as if I need anything
else! If I have God in Christ, then I am all content, filled with all
the fullness of God. "But troubles will come." Never mind troubles, as
long as you have your God! I feel, sometimes, like Rutherford when he
said he could swim through seven Hells to get at Christ. So a man might
well do! You will not mind the trials of life when once you know that
God is yours. A boy once said to his fellow, "John,
would you like to have been Elijah? Would you have dared to get into
that chariot of fire with horses of fire?" "Yes," said the other, "I
would not mind as long as God drove."
That is how Believers feel about everything. If God drives, let us be
fully at ease, for all must be well! If the Lord is King, those who
trust in Him are safe! Since Jehovah rules, we mount the chariot of
fire or walk the waves of the sea and we are secure in either case. If
the worst comes to the worst, we shall be taken to the best place of
all, up to the Throne of God, to the right hand of the Host High!
Brothers and Sisters, comfort one another with these words if you find
sanctuary in your God! But if you trust not in the Hope of Israel, you
must thirst forever and never attain to satisfaction.
III. Thirdly, and lastly, let us look at THE COMERS TO GOD. Those who
come to God–how do they come? Very briefly, they come away from all
the world. Poor Jeremiah had nobody to help him or comfort him–the
best of the men that he met with were sharper than a thorn hedge–they
only wounded him. Therefore he came right out from them and confessed
that Jehovah, the Hope of Israel, was his God and his Sanctuary. He set
himself quite alone for God and His fear. Come, then, you that wish to
come to God, and find Him to be your Sanctuary! Come right out from the
world. I do not ask you, just now, as my dear Brother Moody does, to
stand up, but I believe that if I were to say, "Let those that follow
after God stand up," the bulk of you would gladly rise and acknowledge
your Lord.
If we do not, at this moment, adopt that mode of confessing Christ, yet
we will do it in some way. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, acknowledge your
Lord! "Come out from among them and be you separate; touch not the
unclean thing." Come away, Lot, you cannot prosper and be happy in
Sodom! You do not know or love the ways of that place. Lot settled
there and thought he was going to get on first rate, but he was never
happy. His righteous soul was vexed by the wicked citizens. I am glad
it was so. Their ungodly conversation vexed righteous Lot and he
deserved to be vexed. If you try to be like worldlings, I hope they
will not welcome your imitation! Whenever I am told of a man's holding
with the hare and running with the hounds, I am always glad to hear
that the dogs bite him! What business has he with the dogs? Come right
out! O Soul, if you would have peace, come away to your God! Never take
your place with those who shall be written in the earth.
How did Believers of old come to God? Jeremiah came sick and needing to
be saved, for he cried, "Heal me, O Jehovah, save me!" That is the way
to come! If you want to have God and His glorious high Throne to be
your Shelter, come just as you are, sick and sorry! Do not stop till
you have bettered yourself–all bettering is mere battering till we
come to Christ–then He betters us in real earnest, for He makes us new
creatures in Himself! Come along, then, and say, "Heal me and save me."
But come to God with faith. It was grand faith of Jeremiah which
enabled him to say, "Heal me, and I shall be healed." Sick as I am, if
You will act as physician to me I shall be cured! If You save me, lost
as I am, I shall be saved! Come along, poor Sinner. "Where, Sir?" you
ask. To God in Christ Jesus! This is the Gospel–"Look unto Me, and be
you saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none
else." "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though
your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they
are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Come to your God, come to
your God in Christ Jesus with the full conviction that He can and will
heal you! "Heal me, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be
saved."
And come with this acknowledgment on your tongue–"You are my praise."
Some of you can already say, "You are my praise." "O Lord, I will
praise You." "Jehovah is my strength and my song." Oh, I think if I
were worn out with disease and if I had, to a large extent, lost my
powers of speech and powers of thought, too, I could, if I were
startled in the dead of night, sit up in my shirt sleeves and speak to
the praise of the Lord my God! That is a subject upon which a child of
God can surely talk in his sleep! We have a good God, a loving God, a
tender God, a gracious God, a God full of long-suffering and mercy and
faithfulness to us poor sinners–
"I'llpraise Him in life, I'll praise Him in death, I'll praise Him as
long as He lends me breath And say, when the death dew lies cold on my
brow, If ever I loved You, my Jesus, 'tis now." This is good argument
in prayer–"I have made my boast in You, O God. I pray You let not my
glorying be stopped. Be to me as I have declared You will be."
But suppose you cannot say so much as that? Then put it this way–"Heal
me, O Lord, heal me this morning! Save me, O Lord, save me at once, and
You shall be my praise. Lord, I promise that I will never rob You of
the honor of my salvation–if You will but save me, You shall have all
the glory of it." Oh, how I used to feel, when I first sought the
Lord, that if saved it must be all of Grace! I felt that I should never
have a word to say in my own praise, but every syllable should be for
Jesus. I was ashamed and confused, and could never open my mouth, any
more, in my own defense, but all must be to my Redeemer's praise! When
I get to Heaven how I will bless and magnify His name! Meanwhile I
would practice the holy exercise even here. O troubled ones, come to
Him just as you are! Trust Him and He will save you! Then will your
heart say–
"Now for the love I bear His name What was my gain I count my loss! My
former pride I call my shame And nail my glory to His Cross."
Henceforth I give myself up wholly to that one work of praising and
magnifying and adoring the name of the Most High! After 50 years of
life, I have no ambition but to glorify my Lord! Beloved, if you get
the glorious high Throne to be your Sanctuary, I am sure you will
praise the Lord, your King, forever and ever.
How is the preacher going to close with an appeal for the hospitals?
This is the day for the Hospital Collection and I hope you will give
largely–I think the text suggests it. If you pray for healing, help
others who need healing! If your prayer is, "Save me," if you expect
the Lord to have mercy upon you, have mercy upon others! As you serve a
great God, have large hearts and give liberally, like followers of the
generous Lord Jesus. If the Beloved Physician has healed all your
diseases, show your gratitude by what you do for the sick poor in the
hospitals of London this day. Amen.