Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Come on let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come
to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our
enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.
Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their
burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and
Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and
grew."–Exodus 1:10-12.
THE children of this world are wise in their generation. Their policy
may be short-sighted and their stratagems crooked, nevertheless the
world admires the wisdom of their counsels, and makes light of the
craftiness of their projects. In their opposition to the Christian
church, the men of the world might certainly have been as well able to
outwit her by the variety of their manoeuvres as to overwhelm her by
the force of their numbers, were it not that there is an unseen One in
her midst, who is more than a match for the guile of their hearts and
the might of their hosts. Looking back at the early struggles of the
Hebrew race to gain a footing among the nations, it is very clear that
had the contest been merely between Pharaoh and Israel, the Egyptian
king could exercise power and policy enough to defeat the sons of Jacob
and reduce them to serfdom; but when a new name is brought in, and the
contest appears to be truly between Pharaoh and Jehovah the God of
Israel, it is quite another matter, and a far different issue may be
counted upon. There is one behind the curtain that takes Israel's part.
He sees through all Pharaoh's plots. Or ever his thoughts have ripened
into plans they are forestalled; fast as they are set up they are
upset; for every intrigue there is a reprisal. Thus he taketh the wise
in their own craftiness. The whole history of the long feud between the
seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent illustrates the subtlety
of the serpent's seed, and the simplicity of the woman's seed; but
still more does it bring to light the infinite wisdom of him who rules
the seed of the woman; and who will in the end bruise the serpent's
head, and give unto his people and the cause they have espoused a
complete triumph. Whatever has been done by the enemies in rage or in
recklessness, God has always met it calmly and quietly. He has shown
himself ready for every emergency. And he has not only baffled and
utterly defeated all the inventions of wicked men, but he has turned
their strange devices to good account, for the development of his own
sovereign purposes. Be has made his enemies work for him, aiding the
enterprise they eschewed: he has turned their curse into a blessing: he
has made evil productive of good: he has extracted sweetness out of
their bitter spleen, and distilled healthful medicine out of their
deadly animosity. He hath his way in the whirlwind: the clouds are the
dust of his feet. He does not only meet evil with good, but he takes
the evil, and subjects it to his own eternal purpose, and from it
brings forth a course of events that results in his own glory, the
benefit of his children, and the fulfillment of their destiny.
Of this general principle we shall now proceed to consider three
special illustrations. First, the circumstances of the children of
Israel; secondly, the history of the church of Christ; thirdly, the
experience of individual Christians.
I. IN THE CASE OF ISRAEL, it did seem to be a deep-laid plot, very
politic and crafty indeed, that as the kings of Egypt, themselves of an
alien race, had subdued the Egyptians, they should prevent the other
alien race, the Israelites, from conquering them. Instead of murdering
them wholesale, it did seem a wise though a cruel thing to make them
slaves; to divide them up and down the country; to subject them to toil
till their spirits were broken; to appoint them to the most menial work
in the land, that they might be crushed down and their spirits become
so base that they would not dare to rebel. Thus we may suppose it was
hoped that their physical strength would be so relaxed, and their
circumstances so reduced, that the clan would soon be insignificant if
not utterly extinct. But God met and overruled this policy in various
ways. "The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied." The
census proved the error of their calculation. The cause looked likely,
but it was not productive of the consequence expected. Had it been
another people, the tactics might have been successful; but they were
God's people, endeared to him by their ancestry, ennobled in his sight
by their covenant destiny, and encompassed with his favor as with a
shield. No conspiracy formed against them could thrive. And so it came
to pass, that like certain herbs which spring up when trodden down, or
like certain trees that grow taller if loaded with weights, Israel rose
superior to all her disadvantages. "The more they afflicted them, the
more they multiplied and grew."
The glory of God shines forth conspicuously in the use to which he
turned the persecutions they endured. The severe treatment they had to
bear from the enemy became to them a salutary discipline. This cometh
of the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in
working. From that time the children of Israel began to feel a disgust
with Egypt. They had settled down very quietly in Goshen, and thought
that it was their rest. They had imbibed much of the manners and
customs of the Egyptians. We have it on record that they worshipped the
gods of Egypt. They seemed greatly to have appreciated what they
afterwards called the luxuries of the land–the leeks, the garlics, the
onions, the melons, and the cucumbers. They appear to have been almost
naturalised to that country. They were little better than Egyptians.
Perhaps persons travelling, except by certain tones of language and
contour of countenance, would scarcely have known but what they were
descendants of Ham. But now their masters treat them cruelly, and they
loathe the Egyptians. They are scattered up and down throughout the
land, and Goshen is no longer dear to them. The, are treated like
strangers, and they feel they are strangers. Now that they hear from
morning till night the taskmaster's oath, and the crack of the cruel
whip, and are subjected to incessant toil and bondage, they think far
less of Egypt than they used to do. This is what the Lord designed. He
never intended that his people Israel should be absorbed into any other
family. He never meant them to be other than sojourners on that soil.
He had some better thing for them than that they should dwell in that
land, and be as the heathen were. God was thus answering one purpose.
And he did more than this. Now they began to remember, as their bondage
waxed more and more severe, the God of their fathers whom they had
forgotten. I have reminded you that they had fallen into the worship of
the gods of Egypt; but now they turn with abhorrence from the gods of
their oppressors, and they bethink themselves of the covenant which
Jehovah had made with Abraham, and with Isaac and Jacob, and they
betook themselves to their knees. In secret, they utter their groanings
before the Most High, and when their taskmasters make them smart, they
lift their eyes, suffused with bitter tears, and silently appeal to
heaven, to the God of their fathers, that he would have mercy upon
them. They had forgotten to pray until then. The mass of them had been
unused to call upon the name of the Lord; but now the scourge drives
them to seek help from above. Their terrors, their pains, their griefs,
and their vexations compel them to lift up that cry to heaven which
came into the ears of Jehovah, and moved his hand to help them.
More than that, remember that it was necessary for this people to be
altogether rescued from that land which for many a year had taxed their
labor and bounded their enterprise, because it was not the land which
had been promised them as an inheritance. It was God's intention and
covenant purpose to give them the Land of Canaan, a land that flowed
with milk and honey. But it is not very easy to induce a nation,
numbering some millions, to leave a country in which they have been
born and nourished and found a home. Only some very fearful evil can
induce them to expatriate themselves. Had Moses gone to the children of
Israel before the time of their bondage, and said, "Up I get you hence
unto the land which the Lord swears that he will give it to you," he
would have seemed to them as one that mocked: they would have laughed
him to scorn. In order to cut loose the bonds that bound them to Egypt,
the sharp knife of affliction must be used; and Pharaoh, though he knew
it not, was God's instrument in weaning them from the Egyptian world,
and helping them as his church to take up their separate place in the
wilderness, and receive the portion which God had appointed for them.
Once more–and here you may see the wisdom of God–the very means which
Pharaoh devised for the effectual crushing of the people–the
destruction of the male children–became the direct, nay, the divine
provision for educating a deliverer for them. Moses had never been, in
all probability, trained in the courts of Pharaoh if he had not been
put in the basket of bulrushes on the brink of the Nile; and his mother
would certainly never have put him there if there had not been a
pitiless edict that the male children should be put to death. Moved by
maternal instinct to save her child, and moved by faith in God not to
obey the king's command, she places her child in the ark. Pharaoh's
daughter finds the child, compassionates its cry, extricates it from
peril, loves it fondly, adopts it capriciously, and educates it in the
very court of Pharaoh. That child grows up to be the man who should vex
the fields of Zoan–the man of God, who with a high hand and an
outstretched arm, would lead forth the slaves of Egypt to become a
great nation, which God should bless. So you see the Lord in all points
meets Pharaoh and foils him. This Pharaoh was the great representative
in those days of the power of evil, and he stands still to the
Christian church as the type of the seed of the serpent. But the Lord
withstands him, despoils him of his purpose, and turns all he does to
the very highest and best end. Such the narrative, full of instruction,
and charged with portent, that serves as a type of the Lord's doing
when he makes bare his arm for the salvation of his own heritage.
II. Let us now carry the same thought a stage farther, and take a brief
survey of THE HISTORY OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD. The like means will
appear in manifold operation. Men meditate mischief, but it miserably
miscarries. God grants protection to the persecuted, and provides an
escape from the most perilous exposure. Full often the darkest
conspiracy is brought to the direst confusion. No sooner does Christ
gather a church in any place, be it a renowned empire or a paltry
village, than opposition is stirred up. "If ye were of the world, the
world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I
have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." "I
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and
her seed," is the first check for the serpent's wiles, the first ray of
hope for his helpless victims; and the prediction will continue to be
fulfilled till at last, according to the word of the Lord, the tares
are bound in bundles to burn them, and the wheat is gathered into his
garner.
Whenever there has been a great persecution raised against the
Christian church, God has overruled it, as he did in the case of
Pharaoh's oppression of the Israelites, by making the aggrieved
community more largely to increase. The early persecutions in Judea
promoted the spread of the gospel; hence, when after the death of
Stephen the disciples were all scattered abroad throughout the regions
of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles, the result is thus given:
"Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching
the word." So, too, when Herod stretched forth his hands to vex certain
of the church, and killed James, the brother of John, with the sword;
what came of it? Why Luke tells us in almost the same words that Moses
had used: "The word of God grew and multiplied." Those terrible and
bloody persecutions under the Roman Emperor by no means stayed the
progress of the gospel; but strangely enough seemed to press forward
for the crown of martyrdom. The church probably never increased at a
greater ratio than as when her foes were most fierce to assail and most
resolute to destroy her. It was so in after times. The Reformation in
this country and throughout Europe never went on so prosperously as
when it was most vigorously opposed. You shall find in any individual
church that wherever evil men have conspired together, and a storm of
opposition has burst forth against the saints, the heart of the Lord
has been moved with compassion, and the hand of the Lord has been
raised to succor, till we have come to look upon opposition as an omen
of good, and persecution for righteousness' sake as a tearful
seed-time, quickly to be followed by a harvest of joy. We have looked
on our adversaries, though they seemed like stormy petrels, as being
the index of a favorable wind to the good barque of Christ's church.
Persecution seems to be the wave that, when it leaps up around her,
speeds her course. Let the mountains be removed, and cast into the
midst of the sea; but after long experience of Jehovah's faithfulness
towards his people, we are confident that his church shall not be
moved: in quietude shall she possess her soul. Persecution has
evidently aided the increase of the church by the scattering abroad of
earnest teachers. We are very apt to get hived–too many of us
together–and our very love of one another renders it difficult to part
us and scatter us about. Persecution therefore is permitted to scatter
the hive of the church into various swarms, and each of these swarms
begins to make honey. We are all like the salt if we be true
Christians, and the proper place for the salt is not massed in a box,
but scattered by handfuls over the flesh which it is to preserve. We
are of good service when we are kept together in great bands: happy we
certainly are in the presence of each other; but we are to separate and
scatter, and we shall conquer as we are scattered abroad. You remember
the days of our Puritan forefathers, when the dominant church of the
day determined to crush out pure evangelism. To what extent did it
succeed? Did it destroy their faith and their confidence? Nay, my
brethren; by driving them out of an apostate church, and compelling
them to take up their stand as separated believers without the camp,
bearing Christ's reproach and cross, an everlasting testimony for pure
truth was enshrined. Was the crisis prolonged? Were deeds of violence
legalised? By the increasing rigour of such persecution, our
forefathers were constrained to leave their native shores, and they had
to pass in the May Flower, and afterwards in some succeeding vessels,
across the blue Atlantic, sadly but surely to found another center for
the proclamation of the gospel, and upon the wide continent of a new
world they became the progenitors of another nation holding fast the
fundamentals of the faith, and rejoicing in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free. There might have been no church in the United
States if it had not been that our sires were driven to the wilds
amongst the Red Indians, there to establish themselves, and set up a
banner for the truth as it is in Jesus. It will always be so. I could
almost wish that in this island, though I dread calamity, I could
almost wish, for the Master's honor, that some irresistible impulse
should force his disciples to go abroad to the regions beyond our
present sphere of life and labor. I rejoice, though I love not to miss
my friends, when I find them led or driven, it may be, to emigration,
whether it be to Australia, Canada or anywhere else, because I trust
that if they are living seed they will be as a handful of corn sown in
the land, the fruit whereof shall shake like Lebanon. Christian men are
sometimes called to leave positions of great comfort and to occupy
stations of great hardship. They may account it a reverse of fortune,
while God designs it as an appointment to especial service. If they
bear Christ's gospel with them to a people sitting in darkness, that
will be great gain in the long run to the church. Your being sent to a
village, though you like it not, may be a lasting blessing to the
hamlet. Your residing among strangers, when you would far rather find a
more congenial home among your own kindred, may be for the good of that
neighborhood. Who knows? Where should lamps be set up but in dark
places? Where should we have a guard for Christ's army, but where the
enemy is most likely to make the assault? Be patient, then, my
brethren, amidst the persecutions or trials you may be called upon to
bear; and be thankful that they are so often overruled for the growth
of the church, the spread of the gospel, and the honor of Christ.
Moreover, beloved, persecution in the church–even when it does not
take the form of burning or imprisonment, but of slander, of cruel
mockings, jesting, jeering, and venomous spite–in whatever form it is
sent, persecution helps to keep up the separation between the church
and the world. I fear most the rich when they bring gifts. I loathe the
world most when it fawns and flatters. When I heard of a lady who had
put on Christ by baptism, that the cold shoulder was given her in all
the circles in which she moved; did I, think you, feel more disposed to
condole or to congratulate? It was said that now she had but few
invitations to such places and such society as she had previously
frequented; and I rejoiced, and thanked God for it. I was glad of it,
for I felt she was farther removed from temptation. When I heard of a
young man that, after he joined the church, those in his workshop met
him at once with loud laughter and reproached him with bitter scorn. I
was thankful, because now he could not take up the same position with
themselves. He was a marked man: they who knew him discovered that
there was such a thing as Christianity, and such a one as an earnest
defender of it. It is no evil to the church, depend upon it, to have a
great gulf fixed between her and the world. The worst thing that ever
could happen for us is, when affinities are made between the sons of
God and the children of Belial. This brought on the Deluge; and if it
could ever be carried out thoroughly again, it would bring on judgments
terrible to think of. It is ill for the worldly, since "they that are
far from God shall perish;" but it is a thousand times worse for the
professing when they play foul with their profession, for so it is
written, "Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee."
Summary vengeance is their lot. "Come out from among them, and be ye
separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and
will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters." This
is a text that needs to be thundered in trumpet tone. What says the
great King unto the spouse? "Forget also thine own people, and thy
father's house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for he is
thy Lord; and worship thou him." "Be not conformed to this world: but
be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Too much laxness,
giving way to the world a friendship foil of fascination brings on
leanness of spirit, and causes us to be scarcely known as Christians,
weakens our testimony, and in every way promotes Satan's ends. But when
persecution breaks forth, barriers are set up, and distinctive colors
are worn, so the two camps are kept in open hostility, and when brought
to battle with each other, the church is kept pure with armor bright;
victory waits her march, and her champions win their laurels.
Again, persecution in the Christian church acts like a winnowing fan to
the heaps gathered on the threshing-floor. In these soft and silken
days any man may be a Christian professor. Oftentimes it pays well to
make a profession of godliness. Men think the better of you: it brings
customers to the shop. No one knows how many conveniences may attach to
the profession of religion: albeit, if it be pretense without pretext,
everlasting destruction awaits such violation of truth, for God will
surely avenge hypocrisy. But in days of persecution, to profess Christ
is very inconvenient. Then to be baptised in water may involve a
baptism of blood. Then for the soul to burn with zeal for Christ would
probably be followed with the body being burnt at the stake. Then a
word for Jesus would bring a word of conviction from the judge's mouth,
and, close at the heels of that word, death. Then they who loved not
Christ betook themselves to the other side; the cowards and the spies
shrunk away. Demas went, and Judas went, and all of that brood, to
their own company, and then only the true and the brave, the
regenerate, the elect of God were left. They stood fast and firm–all
the stronger for losing such ill company. Then in those days the church
was like a heap of golden wheat, all winnowed and clean grain, fit for
a burnt offering to the Most High, to be offered up as a meat offering
upon his altar. Her martyrs were amongst her noblest sons, the very
glory of the church and of the Lord Jesus Christ. So you see
persecution is overruled for this great good. It ought never to be,
while there are sinners in this world–it ought never to be that the
Christian escapes opposition. I take it that if a man makes an advance
in life, comes to a position of fame, he ought to win it, ought to
fight for it. Men ought not to be crowned until first of all they have
striven for the mastery; and it should be so in the church of God that
we must fight if we would reign. It should not be that we should think
it an easy thing and a light matter to be a follower of him whose life
was sorrow, and whose death was the death of the cross. If we are to be
conformed to him, it cannot be by ease and sloth. Not the downy couch,
but the crown of thorns; not the triumph, but the shame, must be the
portion of the imitators of the Crucified.
Persecution has a further beneficial use in the church of God, and it
is this. It may be that the members of the church want it. It is a
sorrowful thing that slander should be so often used against God's
people; it is a grievous thing that their little faults should be
severely criticised and magnified; but, on the whole, it is good and
profitable. It is a great blessing to be made to walk carefully. The
Roman who professed that he would like to have a window in his bosom,
that everybody might see his heart, would have wished, I should think,
before long for a shutter to that window; yet it is no slight stimulus
to a man's own circumspection for him to know that he is observed by
unfriendly eyes. Our life ought to be such as will bear criticism. As
Christian men we serve a jealous God, and our works will have to stand
the test of fire at the last great day. The wood, and the hay, and the
stubble that we have builded will be consumed, and only the gold, the
silver, and the precious stones will remain. Are we, therefore, to be
afraid of the ordinary ordeal of human censure and malignity? If we run
with the footmen and they weary us, what shall we do when we contend
with horses? And if in this land of comparative peace we are weary,
what shall we do in the swelling of Jordan? This is the opposition
appointed for us. It is through much tribulation we are to inherit the
kingdom; and if we be sincere, and honest and true, we shall not flinch
at this: we shall feel that God will overrule it for our
sanctification, by making us take heed unto our ways, because the
wicked watch our paths.
And this persecution, dear brethren, has a further usefulness. Often
does it happen that the enmity of the world drives the Christian nearer
to his God. How many prayers have been offered up as the result of
persecution that would never have been offered else, heaven alone can
tell! How many a groan, and sigh, and tear, acceptable to God, have
been forced from true hearts by their sufferings, God alone knows! Ah!
in the soft days, the summer days of peace and prosperity, we are apt
to gad abroad after vain delights; but when the winter comes, with its
keen and cutting blast, we haste to our own abode, we cleave to our own
hearth, we love to dwell with our own kindred. Even so right
frequently, with hearts all chill and cheerless, we have sought the
house of our Father and our God, drawn near to his altar, and found a
refreshment we fain could wish that we might never leave. Why, oh! why,
are we so fickle? If we could find succor and solace apart from the
Rock, away from the Sun, absent from our Lord, our wayward hearts would
do so; but when the waters of affliction have covered all the earth,
then we fly back to our Noah, our ark, and find rest for the sole of
our foot. The friendship of this world is enmity to God. It rivals
God's friendship, it deceives and deludes many hearts; but when the
world frowns, it is a blessed frown that makes me seek my Savior's
smile. Anything that drives me to my knees is good. Anything that makes
me trust in the promise, and wait only upon God because my expectation
is from him, is healthful to my soul, infuses courage, and inspires
confidence, and invests her with fresh strength. O brethren, the very
glory of the church is to live nearer to God. The more she thinks of
her great and glorious Head, and the more she leans upon the invisible
arm of the Eternal, the more invincible she is persecution in driving
her to her stronghold is overruled to her help.
And yet, further, the dark days of fiendish persecution have witnessed
bright deeds of Christian heroism never to be forgotten. How often have
the richest and the ripest fruits of the Spirit been put forth by the
Lord's people when they have been most grieved and smitten! Then the
saints have been like clusters thrown into the winepress; but who shall
bring forth the red wine? Whose but the feet of God's enemies shall
tread the grapes? And as with exultation they bruise and trample down,
they shall crush nothing in the dust but husks: the living wine shall
flow, and God shall receive the whole of it. They work–these foes
work–and think that with axes they can break down our carved work, and
cast fire into the sanctuary of God, but all the while they burn not
the true sanctuary: they burn but the base wooden erection with which
man has defaced the living temple. Let them burn on: they do no hurt,
but good ensues. If you read "Foxe's Book of Martyrs," or any of the
martyrologies of earlier ages, you will find there patience,
self-denial, consecration, confidence in God, and all the finer graces
of temper in full bloom, perfuming the air with their fragrance. One is
astonished at what our poor, weak humanity has been able to endure for
the truth, when strengthened by the Spirit of God. Verily, humble and
weak, and timid women have shown true mettle, waxing valiant, and
cheering on men of muscle and sinew, whose hearts had grown faint. We
could mention the names of many saints, if this were the time, who have
endured torment as severe as inquisitors could devise, or relentless
executioners could inflict, and yet they have not denied their Lord.
This is the patience of the saints, I think, when the martyrs perished
in the Roman Amphitheatre, and the cruel crowd looked down to watch
their agonies as their bones were crushed between the jaws of wild
beasts; angels gathered in tiers, invisible multitudes of them
gathered, and looked on with eyes of admiration at the spectacle of
mortal men ravished with the love of God, waving the banner of immortal
truth, while from frightful wounds and horrid gashes their life-blood
streamed. Oh! what God can do by us when he works in us! Perhaps heaven
itself, save when it gazed upon the cross, never saw a nobler spectacle
than when men and women, who bore the cross of Christ in their hearts,
gave themselves up wholly as living sacrifices unto him. The church
looks fairer and shines brighter when she is in the furnace. Not the
smell of fire doth pass upon her. Her Lord is with her, and if the fire
be heated seven times hotter, his glory is seven times the brighter.
Thus, again, the principle of the text is brought out: "the more they
afflicted them, the more they multiplied." Their enemies try to deal
wisely with them to put them down, but their wisdom is folly. God has
blessed the church by her persecution.
And do you not think that persecution and opposition–such little
oppositions as we meet with now; little indeed, compared with those of
olden times–are permitted for our good, as in Israel's case, to make
us feel that this is not our rest, and cause us to long for the better
land? Perhaps, dear Christian, if you lived in a Christian household,
where all the wonted order helped your piety, if you were put into the
conservatory of a gracious providence, you might be content to dwell
below always. We soon take root in this soil, for we are earthy by
nature, and we cling to earth–like to its like. But when there comes
the jeer, the unkind remark, the cruel innuendo, the bitter sarcasm,
then we feel, "This is not my rest: I must seek better company than
this, a better land, and a better portion than I shall find this side
of Jordan." And then we long for the home-bringing, when the King, the
Husband, shall fetch home his spouse, and the marriage shall be
consummated in the skies. Oh! how sometimes, when the world has been
very very cold you have longed for the warm bosom of your Savior! You
would have nestled in the world's bosom if you could, but when she
would not receive you but thrust you forth, then you came to your true
self, and exercised your right senses, and you said, "I will return
unto my husband. It was better with me then than now." O that our
hearts were always set on heaven! There is our treasure: there let our
hearts be also. There is our Lord and King: to him should our hearts
fly. There are the best ones of our families, our relations, who are
everlastingly our associates, brethren and sisters whose brotherhood
and sisterhood no death can bring to an end–
"There my best friends my kindred dwell,
There God my Savior reigns."
We ought to long for that land: and I say the whip of persecution is
helpful, because it makes us learn that this is the house of bondage,
and moves us to long after and seek for the land of liberty–the land
of joy.
III. And now I close this address by just very briefly hinting that
THIS GREAT GENERAL TRUTH APPLIES TO ALL BELIEVERS; but I will make a
practical use of it. Dear brother, dear sister, are you passing through
great trials? Very well then, to meet them I pray that God's grace may
give you greater faith; and if your trials increase more and more, so
may your strength increase. You will be acting after God's manner,
guided by his wisdom, if you seek to get more faith out of more trial,
for that trial does strengthen faith, through divine grace, experience
teaches us, and as we make full proof of the faithfulness of God, our
courage, once apt to waver, is confirmed. Do pray the Lord that when
the trials multiply you may get faith wherewith to meet them; that out
of the eater you may get meat; and out of the strong find strength.
So, too, if you know the truth of God to be at any time assailed, and
your own mind is beset with doubt about any doctrine, always ask God so
to open that particular truth to your understanding, and endear it to
your heart, that by the assaults you are enabled to repel your faith
may be the more confirmed. Oh! there is a light way of holding truth,
and there is a tenacious way of grasping it. I have held doctrines, as
it were, in my hand, like a boy's ball, that might be thrown away. But
it is another thing when the King prints the mark of the doctrine right
into your very soul, so that you could no more part with it than you
could part with life itself. Trials often burn doctrines into us, and
heresies and infidelities make the good confession dear in our sight as
a prize which we could never part with. Thus opposition to the truth
leads to the multiplication of evidences in its support, and the more
we are assailed with the arguments of science, falsely so-called, the
firmer we adhere to the oracles of God.
Or it may be, dear Christian worker, that of late you have met with a
great many discouragements. You seem to have labored in vain, and spent
your strength for nought. Ask then, in prayer, and act accordingly,
that the more you are defeated the less you may be disposed to yield;
but rather that you may be endowed with fresh energy for the service,
and strive with increased assurance for the victory. When you feel "I
am foiled in that point," say, "Nevertheless, I cannot be beaten: I
belong to a seed that cannot be vanquished. If I did not belong to the
house of Israel, I might have been destroyed and overcome; but none can
stand against the Hebrew race, against true Israelites–they must win
the day." Therefore, settle it in your mind that if you do not win
souls one day, you will another; and if you cannot press into your
enemies' territory in one part you will in another; and if he defeats
you at any time, then multiply your efforts to do good. Always take
revenge on Satan if he defeats you, by trying to do ten times more good
than you did before. It is in some such way that a dear brother now
preaching the gospel, whom God has blessed with a very considerable
measure of success, may trace the opening of his career to a
circumstance that occurred to myself. Sitting in my pulpit one evening,
in a country village, where I had to preach, my text slipped from my
memory, and with the text seemed to go all that I had thought to speak
upon it. A rare thing to happen to me; but I sat utterly confounded. I
could find nothing to say. With strong crying I lifted up my soul to
God to pour out again within my soul of the living water that it might
gush forth from me for others; and I accompanied my prayer with a vow
that if Satan's enmity thus had brought me low, I would take so many
fresh men whom I might meet with during the week, and train them for
the ministry, so that with their hands and tongues I would avenge
myself on the Philistines. The brother I have alluded to came to me the
next morning. I accepted him at once as one whom God had sent, and I
helped him, and others after him, to prepare for the service, and to go
forth in the Savior's name to preach the gospel of the grace of God.
Often when we fear we are defeated, we ought to say, "I will do all the
more. Instead of dropping from this work, now will I make a general
levy, and a sacred conscription upon all the powers of my soul, and I
will gather up all the strength I ever had in reserve, and make from
this moment a tremendous life-long effort to overcome the powers of
darkness, and win for Christ fresh trophies of victory." After this
fashion you will have an easier time of it, for if you do more good the
more you are tempted, Satan will not so often tempt you. When he knows
that all the more you are afflicted so much the more you multiply, very
likely he will find it wiser to let you alone, or try you in some other
method than that of direct and overt opposition. So whenever you have a
trial, take it as a favor; whenever God holds in one hand the rod of
affliction, he has a favor in the other hand; he never strikes a child
of his but he has some tender blessing in store. If he visits you with
unwonted affliction, you will have unusual delight; the Lord will open
new windows for you, and show his beauty as he shows it not to others
recording as your tribulations abound, so also shall your consolations
abound in Christ Jesus. In the deeper waters you shall find him nearer,
for he has said, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with
thee." He will be with you always, but he has promised to come to you
specially and peculiarly, and, as it were, by appointment, when you are
driven out into the wilderness, or harassed by the foe. He comforteth
those that are cast down. Rejoice, therefore, in your afflictions, if
so be you have faith to believe that they shall be blessed for your
good.
What is all this to the unconverted? Ah, sirs! while the men of God
flourish in adversity, the men of this world are ruined by their
prosperity. Even the cup of pleasure and sensual enjoyment, of which ye
delight to drink, has its bitter dregs which ye shall be compelled to
swallow. Yet even now all your days are not passed in sunshine. You
have your troubles; but you have no God to resort to. You will have
many sorer plagues than you have ever yet been visited with; but if you
continue in unbelief, you will still have no God to trust in. Perhaps
you go to some friends in any emergency now, but no friend can help you
in the dying hour. No brother can go with you through the swellings of
Jordan. O friendless one, O Christless sinner! dost thou not want God
to be thy helper, and Christ to be thy friend? If thou dost, then on
the cross behold the Savior. Turn to him thine eye: penitently trust
him: rely upon him, and he is ours, and then henceforth the Lord of
Hosts shall be with you, and God of Jacob shall be your refuge, and
your afflictions also shall work your good. May God bless each one of
you, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
MR. SPURGEON hopes to be permitted to preach on July 2. He is most
thankful to inform all friends that be is better in health, and trusts
be may be able again to occupy the pulpit of the Tabernacle from
Sabbath to Sabbath.