Resistance to Salvation
(No. 2966)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1905.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST
12, 1875.
"What have I to do with You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?" Mark
5:7.
WHEREVER Jesus comes, there is a commotion. No sooner does He set His
foot on the shore at Gadara than He is at once assailed by the powers
of darkness! And it is not long before the whole population of the
district is affected by His Presence. However uninfluential other
people may be, Jesus is never so. He is always either, "the savor of
death unto death" or, "the savor of life unto life." He is never a
savorless Christ! Virtue is always going out of Him and that virtue
stirs up the opposition of evildoers so that, straightaway, they come
forth to fight against Him.
You remember that when Paul and Silas preached at Thessalonica, the
unbelieving Jews cried out, "These that have turned the world upside
down are come here also!" Was that an amazing thing? No, rather was it
not exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ had prophesied when He said, "I
came not to send peace, but a sword"? He said that because of Him,
there would be division even in families, so that a man would be at
variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a
man's foes would be those of his own household! Christ must make a stir
wherever He comes and His Gospel must cause a commotion wherever it is
preached. Stagnation is inconsistent with life. Death-like slumber is
the condition of those who are dead in sin, but to be awakened to
action is the sure consequence of the Gospel coming with power to
anyone!
Yet Jesus Christ's actions were, as a rule, very quiet and, on this
occasion, He merely landed at Gadara. He had no trumpeters to herald
His arrival and no squadron of cavalry to escort Him. In fulfillment of
the ancient prophecy, He did not strive, nor cry, nor cause His voice
to be heard in the street. He was so gentle that a bruised reed He did
not break, and the smoking flax He did not quench. Yet, wherever He
went, there was always a stir. Well, we might have expected that it
would be so–the analogies of Nature would teach us to look for that.
When the morning sun arises, without sound of drum, or tramp of armed
men, straightway it causes confusion among the doers of darkness! With
a roar the lion goes back to his den and the wolf and the hyena flee
before the eyes of light. I daresay, too, that the owl and the bat have
a very strong aversion to the rising of the sun. If they could speak
their minds, they would hoot or hiss out their opinions which would
probably be found to be very much opposed to anything like daylight and
noontide glory! "Oh, if all the passing hours could be one long night,"
says the owl, "then I could continually seek my prey. But these long
summer days are obnoxious to me." And the bat would gladly pursue his
tireless flight, but the light of the sun is too much for him, so he
must get back to his hiding place till again the evening shades
prevail. But the sunlight is only objectionable to creatures that
delight in darkness–and so it happened that Christ's landing at Gadara
was like the sun rising upon the thick darkness in which that poor
tortured demoniac was dwelling–and like the sun rising upon the dense
darkness of ignorance and sin in which the swine-keeping Gadarenes were
dwelling! So there was quite certain to be a stir, and a commotion, and
an opposition!
I trust that the Lord Jesus Christ will be with us here in the
preaching of His Gospel. And if so, there will be a stir here! And if
some opposition should be awakened, we shall not wonder at it. And if
others should find their opposition to the Truth of God disarmed by the
power and Grace of the Holy Spirit, we shall not marvel at that, for it
is God's habit thus to overcome His adversaries!
I. The first point that I shall speak upon in connection with the
demoniac's question is this–THE DEVIL
DREADS ALL CONTACT WITH CHRIST, for he moved the poor man to cry out,
with a loud voice, "What have I to
do with You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?"
The devil dreads all contact with Christ and he does so because, first,
Christ's Nature is so contrary to his own. "Can two walk together,
except they are agreed?" And these two, so far from being agreed, are
absolutely opposed to each other in every respect. There is a very
ancient warfare between them–a warfare which, as far as this world is
concerned, was proclaimed in the Garden of Eden when God said to the
serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
seed and her Seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His
heel." Christ loves light, Satan loves darkness. Christ works life,
Satan works death. Christ is Love, Satan is hate. Christ is Goodness,
Satan is evil. Christ is Truth, Satan is falsehood. Christ is God and
Satan labors to supplant God–to set himself up for an antichrist,
exalting himself above all that is called God. It is not possible that
those two should dwell together in the same universe without
continually coming to hand-to-hand conflicts. They are as much opposed
to each other as water is to fire and, therefore, Satan cannot endure
the Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ!
Moreover, in the next place, Satan is well aware that the mission of
our Lord Jesus Christ in this world is not for his good. He has no
share in Christ's Incarnation, nor in His atoning Sacrifice. This is
one of the amazing results of the Election of Grace. Those persons who
stumble at the election of some men rather than others ought equally to
stumble at the fact that Christ did not redeem the fallen angels, but
only fallen men–for why God chose to save men and not to save angels,
who among us can tell? The only answer I know to that question is this,
"Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight." It appears to
me to be an instance of pure Sovereignty in harmony with the Lord's own
declaration, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will
have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Paul tells us that
Christ took not up angels, but He took up the seed of Abraham. He
passed by the seraph when he had fallen into sin. He passed by that
mighty spirit, Satan, when he had fallen–and took up men. One
naturally thinks that if any ruin should be restored, it should be the
choicest of buildings and that if any fallen being is to be restored,
it should be the one with the most colossal intellect that God ever
made–but it was not so. The great and mighty angels were passed by and
we, who are but worms of the dust, were looked upon with eyes of favor
and love! And Satan, knowing this, and being jealous of the love which
lights upon men, cannot endure the Presence of Christ.
Moreover, Satan knows that not only is there nothing for his good in
the mission of Christ, but he understands that the whole drift of
Christ's mission is against him. "For this purpose the Son of God was
manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." What
horrible work the devil has already done in the world! Behold how the
Garden of Eden is withered, blighted and burned into a desert. See the
fertile earth bringing forth thorns and thistles and see man, who was
made in the image of God, reduced to the position of a toiling sinner,
earning his bread by the sweat of his face! See war, famine, pestilence
and all kinds of evil and woe thickly spread over the whole earth! And
remember that all this has come as the result of that one disobedience
into which man was led by the temptation of the Evil One. But the Evil
One has little room to glory in the mischief that he has worked, for
Christ has come to undo it! He has come to lift man up and, in His own
Person, He has lifted him up and made him to "have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth." In the Person of the Second Adam, the Lord from
Heaven, man is lifted up from all the sin into which he fell through
the first Adam. And, as to this poor world, itself, sin-blighted as it
now is, it travails in anticipation of the new birth which yet awaits
it. And the day shall yet dawn when new heavens and a new earth shall
prove how completely Christ has cancelled the curse and made the earth
fragrant with blessings! It is for this reason that Satan hates the
Presence of Christ because Christ is to destroy his evil work and,
therefore, he dreads that Christ should come near to him.
The whole wish of this particular legion of devils was concentrated
into the one request that they might be left alone–and Satan wishes to
be left alone–to be allowed to work his evil will and to do whatever
he pleases. He did not, at that time, want to come into conflict with
Christ. He did not wish that Christ should be assailed, nor did he have
any hope that Christ might be caused to suffer any sort of defeat–he
was too cowardly to aspire to any such thing as that! That had been his
dream, in earlier days, when he had met Him in the wildness, but now he
only asked to be left alone– just to be allowed to skulk off and hide
and keep himself out of Christ's notice. That is very much what the
devil wants nowadays when Christ's power is manifestly working in His
Church! In past times the devil has moved his minions to say,
"We will overthrow the Gospel! With sword and stake, and rack, and
dungeon we will destroy the people of God!" But when the Lord has, in
His gracious Providence, given peace to the persecuted and, by His
Spirit has given power to the preaching of the Gospel, then the devil
whines out that he only wants to be left alone! Just leave him alone
and all things will go on comfortably and pleasantly. He would have a
kind of truce proclaimed between himself and Christ–he wants a little
respite and desires to be left alone.
One reason for this is that he knows his own powerlessness in the
Presence of Christ. In the presence of man, Satan is great and strong,
and crafty. But in the Presence of the Christ of God, he shrinks into
utter insignificance. He knows that he cannot resist even a word from
Christ's lips, or a glance from His eyes, so he says, "What have I to
do with You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?" The question appears
as if Satan pleaded with Christ not to put forth His power–not to
touch him, but just to leave him alone as too insignificant to be
noticed! Such is the craft of Satan, that he will whine like a whipped
cur and crouch at the great Master's feet, and look up to His face, and
entreat to be left alone, for he knows well enough the power of the Son
of God! On a later occasion, one of Satan's imps said, "Jesus I know,"
and there was such power in that name that the evil spirit added, "and
Paul I know." Paul was only a humble servant of the Lord Jesus Christ,
yet the devil knew him and linked his name with his Master's! Yes, the
name of Jesus has wondrous power over all the hosts of Hell! So,
Brothers and Sisters, let us not be discomfited nor dismayed by all the
armies of Satan, but let us with holy courage contend against all the
powers of evil, for we shall be more than conquerors over them through
Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!
Satan also fears the Presence of Christ because he dreads the doom
which awaits him. Those fallen spirits at Gadara were afraid that they
were about to begin to endure the dismal fate which, certainly, will be
theirs, by-and-by. There will come a day when the arch-traitor and all
the multitudes of fallen spirits whom he dragged down with him from
Heaven shall have to appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ. The
saints of God will take part in that judgment, for Paul wrote to the
Corinthians, "Know you not that we shall judge angels?" And then the
devil shall receive his final sentence and be forever banished to Hell.
There he will be bound, no more to wander through dry places, seeking
rest and finding none–no more to tempt and beguile the sons of men by
putting on the garb of an angel of light–no more to intrude into the
assemblies where the sons of God come before the Lord–no more to dare
to accuse the brethren–no more to be able to molest the children of
God and disturb their devotions–no more to be able to lay traps for
the ensnaring of the feet of God's elect–no more to dress out his
antichrists and to work with his puppets, the Pope of Rome and the
false prophet, Mohammed–no longer able to beguile the multitude and
lead them astray–no longer able to go through Christ's fields by night
and to sow his tares in the midst of the good wheat–but kept in
prison, forever bound in chains, to continue as an eternal and awful
evidence of the wrath of God against transgression! It is no wonder
that in anticipation of his ultimate fate, in Hell, the very shadow of
the Lord Jesus, as it falls upon him, makes him tremble! And, although
he cannot repent and cannot turn from the evil in which his heart
indulges, yet is he cowed as he feels how awful goodness is and how
majestic is the supremacy of Christ over all who oppose His almighty
will! It is for this reason that Satan so dreads to have Christ come
near to him, that he says, "What have I to do with You, Jesus, You Son
of the Most High God? I implore You by God, that You torment me not."
II. There will, perhaps, be more practical teaching in the second part
of my subject which is this–WHEN SATAN GETS MEN INTO HIS POWER, HE
ALSO LEADS THEM TO OPPOSE THE COMING OF CHRIST TO THEM.
When they submit to Satan's sway, they cry out, in various ways, "What
have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?" I wonder
whether there are any now in this house who are saying that in their
hearts, if not with their voices. They do not oppose Christ actively.
They do not persecute His followers. They would let everybody do and
think just what he pleases, but they do not want religion for
themselves and, above all, they do not want the religion of Jesus
Christ. All they want is to be left alone, and the reasons for that
desire–which, perhaps, they would not state in words, but which are
really in their hearts–are such as I will try to set before you.
First, conscience is feared by them. They have not quite lost all
knowledge of right and wrong and, sometimes, Mr. Conscience, though
drugged with Satanic opiates and very hoarse with the cold that he has
taken in this sinful world, does cry out at such a rate that they
cannot sleep at night and they cannot feel comfortable by day. So they
say to themselves, "If we begin to think of Jesus and His Gospel, this
conscience of ours will grow still more troublesome and we shall not
have any peace or enjoyment at all. Even now we cannot indulge in our
cups and our merry dances as we used to do. And we cannot go with our
former jolly companions. If our conscience should once become
thoroughly alive and active, it would follow us at our heels like a dog
and we should not know how to get away from it. We do not want to have
that state of things–we just want to be left alone." So they carefully
avoid attending a place of worship where there is likely to be anything
to trouble and alarm their conscience. They do not object to go to a
sort of Sunday music hall, or to a place where there is very fine
oratorical preaching where they can get an intellectual treat. But they
do not want Jesus Christ and His Gospel. They try to keep clear of
preaching that is plain and outspoken against sin and if, perchance,
they happen to hear a sermon which might come home to their conscience,
they are all the while planning how they can keep out of its way! They
even think how applicable it may be to other people, but they avoid, as
much as they can, any idea that it is applicable to themselves, for
they do not want conscience to the disturbed. They say, "Hush,
Conscience, hush! Lie still and slumber. Do not cry out at such a
rate–we shall get all right, by-and-by, and no doubt everything will
be squared up at the last. But, for the present, keep quiet,
Conscience, and do not trouble me, for I do not want to think." There
are some men who seem as if they would not mind six months imprisonment
if, thereby, they could escape six months thinking about their
character and their state before God! May the Holy Spirit graciously
save all of us from getting into that terrible condition! That is one
reason why men cry out, as this demoniac did, "What have I to do with
You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?"–because conscience is
feared by them.
Then, next, change is dreaded by them. They are content to remain as
they are. In certain stages of a sinner's life he feels as if he does
not want to be anything but just what he is. He has succeeded in
business, he is merry of heart, he is enjoying himself. No doubt there
is a worm at the root of all his self-satisfaction, but he does not
want to think about that worm. The tree looks all right–why do you
want to interfere with it? The apple is beautiful, look at its fair
rosy cheeks–suppose there isa maggot in the very core that will
destroy it–why do you not let us look at the apple as long as we can
be pleased with it? People who talk like that have built a very pretty
house, but it is all cardboard–nothing more! But then, see how nicely
it is painted and how very beautiful it looks! It is true that the
first storm that arises will destroy it, but, possibly, there will not
come a storm just yet, so why not let us be easy while we can? There
are, alas, many of those easy-going souls. I pity the man who never has
any troubles. I believe that there are some people who never will have
the heartache till they have known what it is to be hungry almost to
starvation. It was so with that poor prodigal–he never thought of
going back to his father till, "he would gladly have filled his belly
with the husks that the swine did eat: but no man gave any unto him."
Poverty, sickness, bereavement and sorrow of heart are often God's
angels that come to smite men on the side and wake them up, as the
angel awoke sleeping Peter and delivered him from prison, where he was
to have been led forth to die on the morrow! Some of you ought to thank
God that He does not let you have a very easy or merry time. He does
not let you settle on your lees, but keeps on emptying you from vessel
to vessel. The reason for this is that He has designs of love for you
and He means that you never should rest till you rest in Him! But it is
often because of the pride which comes of fullness of bread and the
fatness of heart which grows out of worldly prosperity that many a man
says to the Lord Jesus Christ, "What have I to do with You, Jesus, You
Son of the Most High God?"
And then, if you try to probe such people a little deeper and begin to
talk to them about death and judgment, they probably turn upon you with
great indignation, for they claim the right to be left alone. "Surely,"
they say, "this is a free country, so we ought to be left alone and not
to interfered with." You will hear them say concerning a certain
preacher, "Why does not that man preach his own religion and leave
other people alone?" Perhaps one of them says, "I liked that sermon
very well, on the whole, but I did not like that part of it in which
the minister attacked such-and-such an error, as he called it. Why
cannot he leave other people alone?" Yes, that is the old cry, "Leave
us alone! Leave us alone!" If you will only let the devil alone, the
devil will let you alone–but if you once attack him, he will be
certain to attack you! But just think for a moment what this foolish
sinner claims–he claims the right to live in blindness! You who can
see must not tell him that he is blind! If you do so, he says you are
infringing his rights. He says that he has a right to lie in prison if
he chooses to do so! And if you come and hammer at the door, or shout
to him through the iron bars that there has come One who can let loose
the captives, he complains that you are disturbing him!
Here is a man on the verge of destruction, asleep on the edge of a
precipice! If you wake him, he tells you that he has a right to sleep
there if he likes and that he does not want you to awaken him in that
rough way and talk to him about his imminent danger! Here is another
man lying down on the railway track and the engine and train are coming
along that
line. If you try to move him, he says that he has a right to lie there
if he likes. What is it to you if the engine goes right over his body
and cuts him in pieces? You cry to him, "Madman, escape for your life!
The engine will be on you directly." If he does get up, he abuses you
and says, "Mind your own business! You go your way and leave me alone."
That is the style in which sinners talk when they claim the right to be
left alone. But everybody who has any sense knows that such talk is the
language of a fool, for a man has not the right to be damned! He has
not the right to destroy himself eternally. Our law very properly
withholds from a man the right to commit suicide–if he is caught in
the act of attempting to take his own life, he is punishable as a
criminal. The act of suicide is a grave offense against the Laws of God
and man, and no man has the right to damn his own soul and so to commit
spiritual suicide. So we mean to interfere, by God's help, with such a
foolish and wicked man–and cry to him to escape from the wrath to come
and, in doing so, we are only obeying the highest instinct of
Nature–and the Law of Love, which is the Law of God.
What a blessing it is, dear Friends, that although some of us were once
of that way of thinking, our Lord Jesus Christ would not leave us
alone! We were sheep away on the mountains and we did not want the Good
Shepherd, but He came after us! And even when we saw Him coming, we
wandered further and further away from Him, yet He would not let us
wander away from Him altogether. He followed us in all our devious
tracks and, at last He found us and laid us on His shoulders,
rejoicing–and carried us back to the fold where He still watches over
us!
Once again, some of these people who entreat Christ to leave them alone
do so because they fear that He will torment them. The demoniac at
Gadara said to Christ, "I implore You by God that You torment me not."
Many people seem to think that it is a very sorrowful thing to be a
Christian, that believers in Christ are a miserable, unhappy lot of
folk who never enjoy themselves. Well, I must admit that I do know some
little communities of people who reckon themselves the very pick of
Christians and who meet together on a Sunday to have a comfortable
groan together, but I do not think that the bulk of us who worship in
this place could be truthfully charged with anything like that! We
serve a happy God and we believe in a joyous Gospel–and the love of
Christ in our hearts has made us anticipate many of the joys of Heaven
even while we are here on earth! "The peace of God, which passes all
understanding," keeps our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And
"the joy of the Lord is our strength." Perhaps if we were to let the
ungodly know more about this joy and peace, they would throw down the
weapons of their rebellion and say, "We did not know that the religion
of Jesus Christ was so blessed as this! We did not know that there was
such music as this in the great Father's House. We did not know that
there was a fatted calf waiting to be killed for us and that the whole
household would begin to be merry over us! Now that we know what joy
there is, we will enter and go no more out forever." O beloved Friends,
if you have never believed that there is joy in coming near to God
through Jesus Christ, His Son, believe it now! May the Holy Spirit
graciously draw you to Him, so that you may no longer ask, "What have I
to do with You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?"
III. Now I turn to the third part of the subject. We have seen what the
devil's views concerning Christ's Presence are and how he makes sinners
share those views. Now, thirdly, I want to show you that SANE MEN MAY
TAKE THE DEMONIAC'S QUESTION AND ANSWER IT. "What have I to do with
You, Jesus, You Son of the Most High God?"
First, what have I, whoever I may be, inevitably to do with You? This
is a question which concerns every person here. Suppose, my dear
Hearer, that you are a stranger to these things of which I have been
speaking and that you only came in here tonight by what you call,
"chance"? I beg you to give me your earnest attention, for, whether you
believe in Jesus Christ or not, you cannot escape from having some
connection with Him, because, first of all, He has come into the world
to save sinners and that good news has been made known to you! And
everyone who hears that Gospel message and refuses to believe it, is
responsible to God for that rejection!
Remember how the Lord Jesus Christ said concerning those cities in
which His mighty works had been worked, that it would be more tolerable
for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than it would be for
Capernaum and Bethsaida where He had so often been. Christ has been
near to you and you have heard His Gospel which many poor heathens have
not heard. Now that you have heard the Gospel–the Gospel of the
atoning Sacrifice of Christ–His blood will cry out against you, as the
blood of Abel cried out against Cain, if it is not applied to you to
cleanse you from sin! You cannot escape from the Lord Jesus Christ! You
are caught in the meshes of the great net which He has cast over all
those who have heard the Gospel! "He that believes not is condemned
already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten
Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the
world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were
evil." If you do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you resolve not
to be saved by Him, but to remain in the condition in which you now
are, that is, "condemned already." If you believe not in Christ you do
despite to Him! You bring dishonor upon His love and His blood! You
cannot get away from that connection with Christ.
There is another connection between you and Christ which you cannot get
away from, for there is a sense in which you belong to Christ whether
you believe in Him or not. In one of the last prayers He offered before
His death, He said, "Father, the hour is come; glorify Your Son, that
Your Son also may glorify You: as You have given Him power over all
flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given
Him." For the special purposes of His Grace to His own elect, Christ
has received from His Father power over the whole human race! And it is
in this sense that it is said "that He, by the Grace of God, should
taste death for every man," for, although the full saving results of
His death will come only to His chosen and redeemed people, "even to
them that believe on His name," yet that wondrous work of His upon the
Cross has a relation to all the sons of men! All mankind is put under
His mediatorial government, "for the Father judges no man, but has
committed all judgment unto the Son." You cannot, therefore, get away
from some connection with Christ even though you refuse to believe in
Him. So I put the definite question to you–Will you receive Him, or
will you reject Him? Will you be His subject, or will you be His foe?
The marriage supper is spread and you are bid to come to it! You are
not in the position of those who never were bid, so beware lest this
sentience should be applied to you, "I say unto you, That none of those
men which were bidden shall taste of My supper." If you refuse to
accept the great King's invitation, He will declare that you insulted
Him by doing so–and on your own head shall rest all the consequences
of your refusal!
Remember, too, that all here, whether they receive Christ or reject
Him, will have to stand before His Judgment Seat. The day comes when
not only the sheep, but the goats shall be gathered before Him, so you
must all be there. There is no way of escape for any of you! It used to
be said of the whole world, under the Roman Empire, that it was one
great prison for any man who had offended Caesar, for, wherever he
might go, the officers of Caesar could follow him and arrest him. And,
in a similar sense, the whole universe is, to an ungodly spirit, but
one great house of detention where that spirit is awaiting the Last
Dread Assize. In that day the ungodly shall know that they cannot
escape from Christ! Oh, that they would be wise enough not to want to
escape from Him, but would rather run to His open arms and find
salvation there!
It is much more sweet to turn to the other form of the question, What
connection is there between me and Christ by way of Grace? I believe my
text might be read in two ways and that in either sense it would be
equally true to the original, for the Greek runs something like this,
"What to me, to You?" And that may mean, "What have You to do with me?"
Or, "What have I to do with You?"
Put it the first way, "What have You to do with me?" O my blessed
Savior, what have You to do with me? Why, since I have believed on You,
You have had everything to do with me! And I now know that even before
I believed in You, You had everything to do with me! Did You not choose
me before the earth was created? Did not Your Father give me to You?
Did You not enter into Covenant with Him on my behalf? Did You not, in
the fullness of time, redeem me with Your precious blood? Did You not
call me by Your Grace and renew me by Your Holy Spirit, and intercede
for me in my times of temptation and upheld me in my hours of trials?
What have You to do with me, dear Savior? If there is anything good in
me, You have put it there! If anything evil has been eradicated or
weakened, You have done it! What have You to do with me? Why, You have
had everything to do with me!
And, then, what have I to do with You? Why, I have everything to do
with You! I have to receive my life from You, my food from You, my
drink from You! I have to receive my cleansing from You, my keeping
from You and everything else that I need in time or in eternity! You
are now my Example and You are forever to be my exceedingly great
Reward. What have I to do with You? I find in You my All-in-All. I am
to sit at Your feet and learn of You. Or I am to wash Your feet with my
tears. What have I to do with You? I am to serve You all my days, glad
to be Your servant, and then I am to be forever with You where You are,
that I may behold Your Glory! "What have I to do with You, Jesus, You
Son of the Most High God?" You have taken me to be Your spouse, for You
are married to me and You will bring me to the wedding feast before
long!
Brothers and Sisters in Christ I am tempted to go on with this wondrous
theme. What a subject it is! Yet I think you can work it out better in
your private meditations than I can in this public assembly. The
connection between us and Christ is very near, and very dear, and very
strong–blessed be His holy name! We do not want to snap that
connection, nor will it ever be snapped, for nothing in the whole
universe "shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord."
IV. I can only refer very briefly to my last point which is this. WHEN
MEN ARE BLESSED BY JESUS, THEY CHANGE THEIR MINDS WONDERFULLY WITH
REGARD TO HIM.
Can you picture to yourself the change between that poor demoniac, as
he was when he first spoke to Christ and the same man when he was
clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus? If I were
able to give you a graphic sketch of that man in all the agony of his
delirium, you would be sick at heart as you looked upon the picture.
See him there, with unkempt locks, beard all matted and grimy, face
covered with filth, eyes starting out of their sockets, limbs twisted
with hideous contortions and the whole man a picture of horror! If you
have ever had the misery of looking into the face of a man when he was
in a delirium, you know what an awful sight it is! How glad you were to
get away from that fearful spectacle! But this man had a whole legion
of devils within him and must have looked a frightful object! He fell
down before Jesus, crying, "What have I to do with You, Jesus, You Son
of the Most High God?"–speaking with all his might in horrible tones
which must have seemed terribly sad to all who were near.
But Jesus has said, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit." And now
look at him! He has been washed, he has put on some garments, though he
has not worn any for years, and he sits down at the feet of Jesus,
calmly, collectedly. And when he gets up, he falls on his knees to
pray! And what is his petition? "Lord, let me be with You. Do not send
me away from You. You have done so much for me, let me always abide
with You. Let me loose the laces of Your shoes. Let me wash Your feet.
Let me be the servant of the servants of my Lord. Let me do what You
will, only let me stay with You." Is not that a wonderful change? It is
just the same with us who have come to Christ! Once we wanted to get
away from Him, but now that we know Him, we cannot get near enough to
Him! And, sometimes, we even carry that prayer of ours too far, as this
man did, because he wanted to be near to the Person of Christ as to the
flesh. And, at times I am afraid that our desires concerning going to
Heaven savor a little of that spirit. When we are saying–
"Let me be with You, where You are Your unveiled glory to behold"– we
must remember that, possibly, it is not the right thing for us, or for
the Kingdom of God at large, that we should go to Heaven just yet.
There is something more to be done by us down here and we ought to be
just as happy to have Christ with us in spirit as we would be if we
were actually with Him in Heaven. However, this man's petition marks
the change which had been worked in him, for, instead of begging Christ
to leave him alone, he pleaded that he might always be with Him.
Notice, also, that this man promptly obeys the Lord Jesus Christ in
something which must have been very unpleasant to him. In answer to his
petition, Christ said, "No, you must not stay with Me. Go home to your
friends." That looked, on the face of it–did it not–rather a harsh
answer? It seemed such a beautiful desire on the man's part, "Let me
abide with You." And it seemed in opposition to the finest instincts of
his newly-created nature to send him away. But it was not for this man
to judge what was best for him and nor is it for us to judge what is
best for us–
"Ours not to reason why,
Ours not to make reply,
Ours but to do and die"–
if so our Lord ordains! We are to do what Jesus tells us, as Jesus
tells us, because Jesus tells us! That is what this man did.
And that led, in the last place, to this man's glorifying Christ, for
he went home to his friends and told them what great things the Lord
had done for him! And then he went throughout all Decapolis–the ten
cities–and told, wherever he went, the story of the Savior's power and
love! That is just what we will all try to do–and what we must do if
the love of Christ has been shed abroad within us! We shall begin by
telling the story to our friends, the members of our own family. We
shall interest them in our account of what we have heard and seen and
handled of the Word of Life. And when we have done that, we shall need
a wider sphere, and our sphere of service will widen continually, for
we shall keep on seeking fresh opportunities to publish the name, fame
and Gospel of Jesus to others! "Ah," we shall each one say, "this
was not a pleasant theme to me, once, any more than it is to you now.
You will think I am intruding upon your privacy now that I begin to
talk to you about Christ, but the fact is, I once thought Christ was
intruding Himself upon me and I actually said to Him, 'Leave me alone.'
But He would not leave me alone. He cast sin out of me and now I cannot
leave you poor sinners alone! I must win you to Christ if I can! I must
pray you to Christ or I must pray to God for you until you are saved!
As though God did beseech you by me, I pray you, in Christ's stead, be
you reconciled to God!"
Thus have I set before you the teaching that I find in this text. May
God bless it to you, dear Friends! May His gracious Spirit put into the
hearts of His people the prayer that if any sinners want to be left
alone, Christ would, in His great mercy, come and deal with them this
very hour, casting out the spirit of unbelief and bringing them to
trust in Him!" "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
saved." Amen, and Amen.