DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?"
Psalm 116:12.
DEEP emotion prompts this question. But where are the depths of love
and gratitude that can meet its exuberant demands? You will perhaps
remember an incident in the life of a famous soldier, who also became a
famous Christian, Colonel James Gardiner. One night he was little
thinking of Divine things, but on the contrary had made an appointment
of the most vicious kind. He was waiting for the appointed hour when he
saw, or thought he saw before him in the room where he sat alone, a
visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross.
He was impressed, as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice,
had come to him to this effect–"O sinner, I did all this for you. What
have you done for me?" Some such representation as that I would put
before the eyes of every person in this assembly. I earnestly pray that
the vision of the Christ of God, the mercy of God, the love of God, may
appear to all your eyes. And may a Voice say in your conscience, both
to saint and sinner, "I did all this for you. What have you done for
Me?" It will be a humiliating night probably for us all, if such should
be the case–but humiliation may prove salutary–yes, the very
healthiest frame of mind in which we can be found.
I. I shall first of all this evening, invite you to CAST UP A SUM IN
ARITHMETIC. The text suggests this. "What shall I render unto the Lord
for all His benefits toward me?" Come, let us reckon up! Though I know
that the number will surpass all human numeration, let us try to reckon
up His benefits toward any one of us. I wish each one of you,
distinctly and severally, would now endeavor to think of the mercy of
God towards yourself.
First, let us call over the roll of our temporal mercies. They are but
secondary, but they are very valuable. There is a special Providence in
the endowment of life to each individual creature. David did not
disdain to trace back the hand of God to the hour of his nativity. And
Paul adored the Grace of God that separated him from the time that his
mother gave him birth. Our gratitude may, in like manner, revert to the
days when we hung upon the breast. Or in the case of some, you may
thank the goodness that supplied the lack of a mother's tender love.
Childhood's early days might then make our thoughts busy, and our
tongues vocal with praise. But here we are now. We have been preserved,
some of us, these thirty or forty years. We might have been cut down
and punished in our sin. We might have been swept away to the place
where despair makes eternal night. But we have been kept alive in the
midst of many accidents. By some marvelous godsend, death has been
turned aside just as it seemed, with a straight course, to be posting
toward us. When fierce diseases have been waiting round to hurry us to
our last home, we have yet escaped.
Nor have we merely existed. God has been pleased to give us food,
raiment, and a place where to lay our weary heads. To many here present
He has given all the comforts of this life, till they can say, "My cup
runs over, I have more than any heart can wish." To all here He has
given enough, and though you may have passed through many straits, your
bread has been given you, and your water has been sure. Is not this
cause for thankfulness?
You cannot think of a shivering beggar tonight in the streets, you
cannot think of the hundreds of thousands in this unhappy
country–unhappy for that reason–who have no shelter but such as the
poorhouse can afford them. And no bread but such as is doled out to
them as a pauper's meager pittance, without being grateful that you
have been, up to now, supplied with things convenient for your
sustenance, and defended from that bitter, biting penury which palls
self-respect, cows industry, damps the ardor of resolution, chafes the
heart, corrodes the mind, prostrates every vestige of manliness, and
leaves manhood itself to be the prey of misery and the victim of
despair.
More than that, we have reason tonight to be very grateful for the
measure of health which we enjoy. "It is indeed a strange and awful
sensation to be suddenly reduced by the unnerving hand of sickness to
the feebleness of infancy. For giant strength to lie prostrate, and
busy activity to be chained to the weary bed." Oh, when the bones begin
to ache, and sinews and tissues seem to be but roads for pain to travel
on, then we thank God for even a moment's rest. Do you not
know what it is to toss to and fro in the night and wish for the day,
and when the daylight has come, to pine for the night?
If there has been an interval of relief, just a little lull in the
torture and the pain, how grateful you have been for it! Shall we not
be thankful for health, then, and specially so for a long continuance
of it? You strong men that hardly know what sickness means, if you
could be made to walk the wards of the hospital and see where there
have been broken bones, where there are disorders that depress the
system, maladies incurable, pangs that rack and convulse the frame, and
pains all but unbearable, you would think, I hope, that you had cause
enough for gratitude.
Not far off this spot there stands a dome–I thank God for the
existence of the place of which it forms a part–but I can never look
at it. I hope I never shall, without lifting up my heart in thanks to
God that my reason is spared. It is no small unhappiness to be bereft
of our faculties, to have the mind swept to and fro in hurricanes of
desperate, raging madness, or to be victims of hallucinations that shut
you out from all usefulness, and even companionship with your fellow
men. That you are not in St. Luke's or Bedlam tonight should be a cause
for thankfulness to Almighty God.
But why do I enlarge here? Consider to what pains the human body may be
subjected. Imagine what ills may come upon humanity. Conceive what
distress, what woe, what anguish, we are all capable of bearing–and
then in proportion as you have been secured from all these, and in
proportion on the other hand as you have been blessed with comforts and
enjoyments–"let each generous impulse of your nature warm into
ecstasy." And then ask yourselves the question, "What shall we render
unto the Lord for all His benefits toward us?" Cast up the sum, and
then draw a line and ask what is due to God for even these common gifts
of Providence.
But, my Brothers and Sisters in Christ, you who have something better
than this life to rest upon, I touch a higher and a sweeter string–a
chord which ought to tremble with a nobler melody, when I say to
you–think of the spiritual blessings which you have received! It is
not very long ago that you were in the gall of bitterness and in the
bonds of iniquity. We look back but for a little while, some of us, and
we were under the bondage of the Law. We had been awakened, and we felt
the load and the guilt of sin–a grievous burden from which we feared
we never could escape–a flagrant defilement from which we knew no
means of cleansing.
Do not I remember well my fruitless prayers, my tears that were my meat
both day and night, my grief of heart! They cut me to the quick, and I
found no kind of deliverance! How I sought the Lord then! How I cried
for mercy, but I found none! I was shut up and could not come forth. I
was delivered up to fear, and doubt, and despair. Bless the Lord, it is
over now! Blessed be the name of God, my soul has escaped like a bird
out of the net! And this night, instead of talking of sin as a thing
unpardonable, I can stand here and say for you, as well as myself, that
He has put away all our iniquity, and cast our transgressions into the
depths of the sea!
If He had never done anything for us but that, it seems to me that we
should be bound forever and forever to extol His name with as much
exultation as Miriam and Moses felt, when Miriam took the timbrel, and
Moses wrote the song, "Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed
gloriously. The horse and his rider has He cast into the sea. The Lord
is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation."
Not indeed, Beloved, that forgiven sin was the total. It was but an
item, the beginning of His tender mercies towards us. For after that He
comforted us like as a mother comforts her children. He bound up every
wound. He removed every blot. He covered us with a robe of
righteousness and decked us with the jewels of the Spirit's Graces. He
adopted us into His family, even we who were aliens by nature, foes by
long habit, rebels and traitors by our revolt against His government.
He made us heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. All the
privileges of sonship, which never would have been ours by nature, have
been secured to us by regeneration, and by adoption. All His benefits!
If these were all, oh, what should we render unto Him who is the Author
and Giver of such inestimable blessings? All His benefits! How could we
estimate their value, even if we had to stop here? Mark you, they are
benefits, indeed, not merely the kind intent of benevolence, or good
wishes, which may or may not be of real service to us. But verily the
saving effect of beneficence, or good deeds accomplished for us–the
full advantage of which we have richly to enjoy.
There is a vexatious uncertainty about all human philanthropy. How weak
it often is, expending strength for nothing, and failing to mature its
best projects! Though the physician should exhaust the resources of
medical science while he spares no pains in watching his patient, that
patient may die. Though the advocate pleads for his client with intense
fer-
vor, cogent reasoning, and a torrent of eloquence, that client may yet
lose his cause. Though the general of an army command the troops ever
so skillfully, and fight against the enemy ever so bravely, the battle
may yet be lost.
The heroic volunteer who assays to rescue a drowning man may fail in
the endeavor and lose his own life in the attempt. The valiant crew
that man the lifeboat may not succeed in bringing the shipwrecked to
shore. The best aims may miscarry. Kindness, like ore of gold in the
breast of the creature, may never be minted into the coin of benefit,
or pass current for its real worth. Not all donations expended in
charity are effectual to relieve distress. But the benefits of God are
all fully beneficial. They answer the ends they are designed to serve.
Forgetfulness on the part of God's children is without excuse, for here
we are, monuments of mercy, pillars of Grace, living Epistles–yes, the
living, the living to praise You, O God, as I do this day. And thus
beholden to the Lord for all His benefits, I feel that my thoughts and
actions of adoring gratitude should break forth, restrained by no
shore, but be continually overflowing every embankment that custom has
thrown up, and send out in tears of love and sweat of labor,
fertilizing streams on the right hand and on the left.
All His benefits! Ring that note again. His benefits are so many, so
various, so minute, that they often escape our observation while they
exactly meet our wants. True it is, the Lord has done great things for
us which may well challenge the admiration of angels. But true it also
is that He has done little things for us, and bestowed attention upon
all our tiny needs and our childish cares and anxieties. As we turn
over the leaves of our diary, we are lost in wonder at the keenness of
that vision and the extent of that knowledge whereby even the hairs of
our head are all numbered .
O God, what infinite tenderness, what boundless compassion You have
shown to us! You have continued to forgive our offenses–You have
perpetually upheld us in the hour of temptation. What comforts have
delighted our soul in the times of trouble! What gentle admonitions
have brought us back in the times of our going astray! We have had
preserving mercies, sustaining mercies, enriching mercies, sanctifying
mercies. Who shall count the small dust of the favors and bounties of
the Lord?
My dear Brethren, it is no small benefit that God has conferred upon
some of us that we are members of a happy Church on earth–that we are
united together in the bonds of love. I know some of you used to be
members of other Churches where there were periodic conflicts, and you
are glad enough that you have come with a loving and happy people where
you can serve the Lord to your heart's content. By His Grace you meet
with warm-hearted fellow Christians who bid you Godspeed. My heart
exults in the thought of all the prosperity we have enjoyed in this
place. The Lord's name be praised! Even as a Church, over and above the
mercies which have come to us as private Christians, I would say–and I
would invite you to join me in saying–"What shall we render to the
Lord for all His benefits toward us?"
But, Beloved, we have only begun the list of those mercies that we
strive in vain to enumerate. We shall not try to finish it, for blessed
be God, it never will be finished. He has given us Himself to be our
portion. He has given us His Providence to be our guardian. He has
given us His promises to be the vouchers of our inheritance. We shall
not die, though we must sleep, unless the Lord first comes. Yet we
shall sleep in Jesus! Our bones and ashes shall be watched over and
preserved until the Resurrection trumpet shall summon them by its
voice, and our bodies shall be reanimated by Divine power.
For our souls, we have the sure and certain hope that we shall be with
Christ where He is, that we may behold His glory. We are looking
forward to the blessed day when He shall say to us, "Come up higher,"
and from the lower room of the feast we shall ascend into the upper
chamber, nearer to the King, to sit at His right hand and feast
forever. Oh, the depths of His mercy! Oh, the heights of His loving
kindness! Faithfulness has followed us. Not a promise has been broken.
Not one good thing has failed us!
Now, my dear Brothers and Sisters, what have I just given you but a
sort of general outline of the mercies the Lord has bestowed on us, and
the benefits we have received at His hand? If each one would try to
fill that outline up, by the rehearsal of his own case, and the life
story of his own experience, how much glory God might get from this
assembly tonight! Your case is different from mine in the incidents
that compose it. I believe mine is different from any of yours– but
this I know–there is not a man in this place that owes more to God
than I do. There is not one here that ought to be more grateful.
There cannot be one that is more indebted to the goodness of the Lord
than I am for every step of the pilgrimage that I have trod, from the
first day even until now. I can, no, I must speak well of His name.
Truly God is good, and I have
found Him so. "The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the
soul that seeks Him." I have proved Him so. Well, I know all your
tongues are itching to say the same. You feel that though He has led
you through deep waters, and through fiery trials, and sometimes
chastened you very severely, He has not given you over to death. He has
dealt with you as a father with His son whom He loves, and been to you
as a Friend that never forsakes.
You would not breathe half a word against His blessed name. Rather you
would say, to borrow an expression which Rutherford constantly used,
that you are, "drowned debtors to God's mercy." He meant that he was
over head and ears in debt to God–he could not tell how deep his
obligations were, so he just called himself, "a drowned debtor" to the
loving kindness and the mercy of his God. Well, there is a sum for you.
If you want to use your arithmetical faculties, sit down when you can
get an hour's quiet, and try to identify all the precious thoughts of
God towards you–all His benefits.
II. Our second point shall be A CALCULATION OF THE GRATITUDE WHICH IS
DUE TO GOD FOR ALL
THIS. I should like to make each man his own assessor tonight, to
assess the income of mercy which he has received, and put down what
should be the tribute of gratitude which he should return to the
revenue of the great King. "What shall I render unto the Lord for all
His benefits?"
Calculate, for a minute, what we owe to God the Father, and what we
ought to render Him for the debt. As many as have believed in Christ
were chosen of God the Father from before all worlds. He might have
left them unchosen. It was His own absolute good pleasure which wrote
them in the roll of the elect. He has chosen you, my Brothers and
Sisters, that you should be holy, that you should be His children, that
you should be made like your elder Brother, Christ Jesus. And because
He chose you to this, to this you shall come–though all the powers of
earth and Hell should withstand– for the Divine decree abides
immutably steadfast and shall surely be fulfilled.
You are God's favorite one, His child, ordained to dwell forever in
eternal bliss. What shall we render for this? O let the thought just
stir the depths of your soul a minute, if indeed it is so, that the
seal of the Everlasting Covenant has been set upon you! Before the sun
began to shine, or the moon to march in her courses, God did choose me,
in whom there was nothing to engross His love–nothing to attract His
favor. O my God, if it is so, that I, of all the sons of Adam, should
be made a distinguishing object of Your Grace, and the subject of Your
discriminating favor, take me. Take my body, take my soul, take my
spirit, take my goods, my talents, my faculties–take all I have, and
all I am, and all I ever hope to be–for I am Yours. You have loosed my
bonds, but Your mercy has bound me to Your service forever.
Now think for a minute of what you owe to God the Son, to Jesus Christ.
I mean as many of you as have believed on Him. Think for a moment on
the habitation of the highest Glory, and consider how Jesus left His
Father's Throne, deserted the courts of angels, and came down below to
robe Himself in an infant's clay. There contemplate Him living in our
nature. See Him after He has grown up, leading a life of toil and pain,
bearing our sicknesses, and carrying our sorrows. Let your eyes look
straight into the face of the Man who was acquainted with grief.
I shall not ask you to trace all His footsteps, but I would bid you
come to that famous garden, where in the dead of the night He knelt and
prayed, until in agony, He sweat drops of blood. It was for you, for
you, Believer, that there the bloody sweat fell to the ground! You see
Him rise up. He is betrayed by His friend. For you the betrayal was
endured. He is taken. He is led off to Pilate. They falsely accuse Him.
They spit in His face. They crown Him with thorns. They put a mock
scepter of reed into His hands–for you all that ignominy was endured!
For you, especially and particularly, the Lord of Glory passed through
these cruel mockings.
See Him as He bears His Cross–His shoulders are bleeding from the
recent lashes. See Him, as along the Via Dolo-rosa He sustains the
cruel load. He bears that Cross for you. Your sins are laid on His
shoulders and make that Cross more heavy than had it been made of iron.
See Him on the Cross, lifted up between Heaven and earth, a spectacle
of grievous woe. Hear Him cry, "I thirst!" And hear His cry more
bitter, still, while Heaven and earth are startled by it, "Why have You
forsaken Me, My God, My God?"
He is enduring all those griefs for you. For you the thirst and the
fainting, the nakedness and the agony. For you the bowing of the head,
the yielding up the ghost, the slumber in the cold and silent tomb. For
you His resurrection when He rises in the glory of His might, and for
you afterwards the ascension into Heaven, when they sing, "Lift up your
heads, O you gates, and be you lift up, you everlasting doors." For you
His constant pleading at the right hand of the Father. Yes, all for
YOU, and what should be done for Him?
What tribute shall we lay at the pierced feet? What present shall we
put into that nailed hand? Where are kisses that shall be sweet enough
for His dear wounds? Where is adoration that shall be reverent enough
for His blessed and exalted Person? Daughters of music, bring your
sweetest songs! You men of wealth, bring Him your treasures. You men of
fame and learning, come lay your laurels at His feet. Let us all bring
all that we have, for such a Christ as this deserves more than all.
What shall we render, Christ of God, to You for all Your benefits
towards us?
Let me ask you to think for a moment on the third Person of the blessed
Godhead, namely, the Holy Spirit. Let us never forget that when we were
like filthy rags His hand touched us. When we were like corrupt and
rotten carcasses in the graves of sin, His breath quickened us. It was
His hand that led us to the Cross. It was His fingers that took the
film from our eyes. It was His eye salve that illuminated us that we
should look to Jesus and live. Since that hour the blessed Spirit has
lived in our hearts. Oh, what a dreadful place, I was about to say, for
God to dwell in! But the Holy Spirit has never utterly left us. We have
grieved Him. We have oftentimes vexed Him–but still He is here, still
resident within the soul, never departing–being Himself the very life
of the living incorruptible seed that abides forever.
My dear Friends, how often the Holy Spirit has comforted you! How very
frequently in your calm moments has He revealed Christ to you! How
often has the blessed Truth been laid home to you with a Divine savor
which it never could have had, if it had not been for Him! He is God,
and the angels worship Him, and yet He has come into the closest
possible contact with you. Christ was Incarnate, and the flesh in which
He was Incarnate was pure and perfect. The Holy Spirit was not
incarnate, but still He comes to dwell in the bodies of His
saints–bodies still impure, still unholy.
Oh, what Grace and condescension is this! You blessed Dove, You dear
Comforter, You kind Lover of the fallen sons of men–Your condescension
is matchless! We love You even as we love Christ Himself, and this
night if we ask the question, "What shall we render unto the Lord, the
Holy Spirit, for all His benefits towards us?" we know not how to
answer, but can only say, "Take us, take us, Holy Spirit. Use us. Fill
us with Yourself. Sanctify us to Your holiest purposes. Use us right
up–make us living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God–for it is
our reasonable service."
Now perhaps, by God's Spirit, the text may come a little more vividly
before your minds. You have had another opportunity of adding up all
the benefits of God–another opportunity, dear Brothers and Sisters, of
calculating what you ought to do. Give heed, then, for I intend to
come, in closing, to be very personal and practical. I wish to speak
very pointedly to you as individuals–but there are so many of you that
some are sure to slip away in the crowd. I half wish I were in the
position of the preacher who had but one hearer, and addressed him as,
"Dearly Beloved Roger."
I want to put the question of my text as though only one person were
here, and that one person, yourself. "What shall I render to the Lord?"
Never mind your neighbor, your brother, your sister, your husband, your
wife, or anybody else just now. If you are a saved soul, the question
for you is, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits
toward me?" "What shall I render?" Suppose, dear Friend, you had been
the woman bowed with an infirmity for so many years, and Christ had
loosed you, and you had stood upright tonight? What would you render?
Well, you HAVE been loosed from your infirmity–a much worse
decrepitude than the physical ailment she was released from! Suppose
you had been poor blind Bartimeus sitting by the wayside begging, born
blind, and you had your sight given you tonight? What would you render?
But you HAVE had such a gift bestowed on you. You were in spiritual
blindness–worse than that which is only natural–and Christ has opened
your eyes! What will you render? Suppose you had been Lazarus, and had
been in the grave so long that you began to be corrupt, and Christ had
raised you to life? What would you render? Well, you HAVE been
quickened when you were dead in sin. You were corrupt. You were buried
in darkness and in sin. But you can say with the Psalmist, "O Lord, You
have brought up my soul from the grave."
Now what will you render to Him? Suppose He stood on this platform
tonight, and instead of this poor voice, and these unclean lips, the
voice of the Well-Beloved should speak in music to you? And the lips
that are like lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrh could talk to each
of you? What would you render to Him, then? Well, do the same as though
He were here, for He sees you! Yes, and His Spirit, hovering over this
assembly, will accept the tribute you give as though He were here in
the flesh–or otherwise He will grieve over you and resent the neglect
of your heart. Think of Him as being here, and render unto Him as
though He were visibly and audibly in our midst.
What will you render? Let me ask you, dearly Beloved, whether you have
ever thought of what men and women can render. You may have read the
lives, I hope you have, of Mr. and Mrs. Judson in Burma, ready to
sacrifice all for Christ. Or the lives of our martyrs, in Foxe's
Martyrology, who rejoiced if they might burn for Christ. We still have
some men
and women among us–I wish there were more whose lives of consecration
tell you what men can be and do. Are you anything like they are? If
not, while they are not what they ought to be, and they fall short of
the Master's image, how far short must you be? Oh, I pray you are
grieved that it is so, and press the question upon yourselves the more,
What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?
A side question may help you. What have you rendered? You are getting
old now, or at least you are getting to the prime of life. What have
you done for Christ up to this time? Come, look. Look back now, I must
urge you to do it. Converted late perhaps, or if converted young, it
matters not, still the question must come–What have you done up to
now? Oh, I dare not answer the question myself–yet I am not in that
respect the worst here–I dare not look back upon my past life of
service for God with anything like satisfaction. After having done all
that we could do, we are but unprofitable servants. We have not done
what was our duty. There is no man here, I fear, who can answer the
question, "What have I rendered?" with any self-contentment. We must
all drop a tear, feel abashed, and say, "Good Lord, let not the future
be as barren as the past, but by Your mercy help us to a better and a
nobler sort of living!"
May I ask you, as it may assist in answering the question, how old you
are? Some of you tell me that you are far advanced in age. Then what
must you render in the few years you can have to live? Live hard,
Beloved, live hard–live fast in a spiritual sense, for you have little
time to use, none to waste. Get as much done as can be done for your
dear Lord, before He calls you to His face. You are young, others of
you tell me. Oh, then with such a long opportunity as God may give you,
you ought to be diligent every moment! If you are not diligent now in
your early days, there is no likelihood that you will be afterwards.
Since you have the special and peculiar advantage of early piety, O
render to the Lord the more, because He has opened before you a wider
field, and given you more time to cultivate it than full many of His
people have known.
Let me ask you, again, What are your capacities? That, perhaps, will
help you to answer the question. "Oh," says one, "I cannot do much."
Well then, my dear Friend, do the little you can. Do it all–do it up
to the very point–do not leave an inch untouched. If you can only do a
little, do all of that, and do it heartily. And keep at it till you
die. Says another, "Perhaps God has entrusted some talents to me." Then
He expects a great deal from the employment of them. O do not let your
talents lie idle! Your talents are not meant for your gain, nor merely
to serve the world. They are meant to serve your God, who has redeemed
you with the precious blood of Jesus. Take care, whether you have much
or little, to give Him all.
I will put another question to you that may stir your mettle. How did
you serve Satan before you were converted? What rare boys some of you
were–not sparing body or soul to enjoy the pleasures of sin. Oh, with
what zest, with what fervor and force and vehemence did many of you
dance to the tune of the devil's music! I wish you would serve God half
as well as some of the devil's servants serve him. What? Now you have a
new Friend, a new Lover, a new Husband–shall He ever look you in the
face and say, "You do not love Me so well as the old. You do not serve
Me so zealously"? Shall Jesus Christ say to any man or woman among us,
"You do not love Me so well as you did love the world. You were never
weary of serving the world, but you do soon get weary of serving Me"? O
my poor Heart, wake up! Wake up! What are you doing, to have served sin
at such a rate, and then to serve Christ so little?
Another question may be to the point. How do you serve yourselves? You
are in business, some of you, and I like to see a man of business with
his hands full and his wits about him. Your drones, those indolent
fellows who go about the shop half asleep, and seem as if they never
did wake up, what is the use of them? Men who seem to cumber the earth,
men who never did see a snail unless they happened to meet one, for
they could not have overtaken it, they travel so slowly– such men are
or little use to God or man. I know that the most of you are diligent
in business. You never hear the ring of a guinea without being on the
alert to earn it if possible.
Your coats are off, and very likely your shirtsleeves are turned up
when there is a chance of driving trade. That I commend. But oh, do let
us have something like it in the service of Jesus Christ! Do not let us
be drudging in the world, and drawling in the Church–lively in the
service of mammon, and then laggard in the service of Christ! Heart and
soul, manliness, vigor, vehemence–let the utmost strain of all our
powers be put forth in the service of Him who was never prone to be
slow in the service of our souls when they had to be redeemed.
I shall not keep you much longer, but still pressing the same question,
let me ask you, dear Friends, how do you think such service as you have
rendered will look when you come to see it by the light of eternity?
Oh, nothing of life will
be worth having lived, when we come to die, except that part of it
which was devoted and consecrated to Christ. Live, then, with your
deathbeds in immediate prospect. Live in the light of the next world so
your pulse will be quickened, and your heart excited in the Master's
service.
I now put the question, What shall we render? What shall I render unto
the Lord? Let the question go all round the pews, and let everybody
answer, What shall I render? Is there any new thing I can do for Christ
that I never did before? Cannot I speak a word for Christ to somebody
tonight? Tonight, because you cannot overtake the loss of a single
opportunity. Tomorrow's mercies will bring tomorrow's obligations.
Today's obligations must be discharged today. What shall I render
tonight? Is there anybody I can speak to of Jesus before I retire to my
chamber? It is a little thing, but let me do it! What shall I render?
Let me give my God praise tonight somehow.
There is the communion table around which we are about to gather. That
may help me to render Him some homage. I will there take the cup of
salvation, and call upon His name. Tomorrow I shall be in the world
going forth to my labors. What shall I render? I will consecrate part
of my substance to God, but I will try to consecrate all tomorrow and
next day to Him. While I am at my work, if I use a saw, or use a
hammer, or if I stand at a counter, or in the fields, or in the streets
I will ask that my thoughts may be on God–that I may be kept from sin,
and that by my example I may render some tribute of honor to His name
in the sight of my fellow men. And I will try to seize every
opportunity that comes in my way of telling–
"To sinner round,
What a dear Savior I have found."
And yet, dear Friends, it is not for me to answer the question that is
propounded for you. With these few brief hints I do put the question in
all its touching pathos, in all its deep solemnity, in all its
momentous gravity, before every Christian man and woman here–and I
cite you to answer it before the Searcher of all hearts–"What shall I
render?" Thrice happy you who respond in lip and life to the urgent
call! "For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of
love, which you have showed toward His name, in that you have
ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one
of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the
end that you are not slothful, but followers of them who through faith
and patience inherit the promises."
As for those of you, my Hearers, who are not yet converted–you who are
not saved–this is not the question for you. Your question is, "What
must I do to be saved?" and the answer is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and you shall be saved." O believe on Him tonight! Trust
Him–that is the point–trust Jesus Christ. You may come to Him and be
saved at once. Then, not till then, you will begin to serve Him. May
God bless you, my dear Friends, every one of you, for Christ's sake.
__________________________________________________________________
The Putting Away Of Sin