Sincere Seekers–assured Finders
(No. 3490)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1915.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
FEBRUARY 26, 1871.
"If you seek Him, He will be found of you." 1 Chronicles 28:9.
ALTHOUGH this was addressed to Solomon, it may, without any violence to
the Truth of God, be addressed tonight to every unconverted person here
present, for there are a great many texts of Scripture of a similar
import which apply to all ungodly ones, such, for instance, as that,
"Seek you the Lord while He may be found; call you upon Him while He is
near." And that other, "He that seeks, finds; to him that knocks, it
shall be opened." I should like to go round, if it were possible, and
say to every hearer here, as I put my hand upon his shoulder, "If you
seek your God, He will be found of you"–even of you. May I ask you to
take it as spoken to each individual–not to your neighbors, not to one
who is better or worse than yourselves, but to you? You, young man, and
you of riper years, you of all ages, classes and sexes, "If you seek
Him, He will be found of you." I know that those who think at all about
religion and do not understand it, are very apt to conceive that there
is something wonderfully mysterious about it. That a man should follow
it, and may, perhaps, attain the blessing of it towards the end of
life, or on a dying bed, though some conceive that then nobody is quite
sure that he is saved unless it is some extraordinarily good man! Oh,
is not this strange, that with a book so plain as this, and with a
Gospel preached by so many in these days, yet the mass of mankind are
in a cloud and a fog about the blessed Revelation of God? Jesus Christ
is salvation! He is to be had–He is to be had now! You may know you
have Him. You may be saved now –completely saved, and live in the full
enjoyment of that knowledge! "If you seek Him, He will be found of
you."
The notion is that there are a great many very mysterious
preliminaries, a great deal to do, and a great deal to be, and all
quite beyond our power. It is not so, but seek Him. We will tell you
what that means and he that seeks Him finds Him. "If you seek Him, He
will be found of you." It has been supposed that we should need a good
deal of help in seeking after salvation–certain persons who step in to
be absolutely necessary priests between us and God. A great delusion,
but there are thousands who believe it and who fancy that God won't
hear them if they pray, except they have some respect for these human
mediators. Away with the whole lie! Away with any pretence for anyone
to stand between the soul and God, except Jesus Christ! "If you seek
Him, He will be found of you." Though you bring no other man with you,
but come empty-handed as you are to God, here, without paraphernalia,
or altar, or "sacrifice of the Mass," He will be found of you! Take the
text in its simplicity and sublimity. It is just this–that if any
heart really seeks God in His way, it shall find Him! If any man really
wants mercy from God and seeks it as God tells him to seek it, he shall
have it! Any man of woman born, be he who he may, if he comes to God in
the way laid down, and sincerely asks for salvation, that salvation he
shall surely have! The matter is simple enough–our pride alone
obscures it! The way to Heaven is so plain that "a wayfaring man,
though a fool, may not err therein." We do but muddle it because we
dislike it! We do but add this and that and the other to it because,
like Naaman, the Syrian, we need to do some great thing, and we are not
content to take the Prophetic word, "Wash and be clean." I aim at
nothing tonight, therefore, but that some here present may be brought
to see the way of salvation and may be led to run in it. Oh, may God
grant that, out of this company, there may be some at least who will be
willing to seek and to find! While we shall cast the net, may the
Master grant that some may be taken in it to their own eternal welfare!
We shall try to do three things, four perhaps. First, to notice that
there is a promise here explained. We will then give directions.
Thirdly, we will answer objections. And, if time serves us, we will
offer a stimulant to the pursuit of this. First, then, there is–
I. A PROMISE TO BE EXPLAINED.
"If you seek Him, He will be found of you." I have almost completed my
explanation already. We have lost our God by the Fall–by our own sin.
We have alienated ourselves from Him, but our case is not hopeless.
Since Jesus Christ has come into the world and given the Gospel, and
provided an Atonement, it is a certainty that if we desire the Lord and
seek Him, He will be found of us. Now God has told us the way in which
to seek. It is by coming to Him as He is revealed in Christ Jesus and
trusting our souls with Jesus. If we do this, we have found God–and we
are saved! The sum and substance of the promise is this–any soul that,
by prayer, seeks God, desires salvation through Jesus, through faith in
Jesus–such a soul shall be heard, shall get the blessing it desires,
shall find its God! You shall not pray in vain! Your tears, cries and
longings shall be heard. Christ shall be revealed to you and, through
your believing in Christ, you shall certainly be saved! There is not,
and never will be, in Hell, a single person who dares say that he
sought the Lord through Christ and could not find Him. There is not
living a man who dares say that, or if he did, his own conscience would
call him a liar! They that seek Him may not find Him at once, but they
shall, ultimately. Delays from God are not denials. I will repeat what
I said. There is not, and there never shall be, in the pit of Hell, a
soul that shall dare to say, "I earnestly sought mercy of God through
Jesus Christ, and did not find it." They who never found mercy in
Christ never sought it, or never sought it correctly and earnestly! The
seeker will become a finder. Seeking in God's way, heartily and
earnestly, God will not reject him. "How do you know who I may be?"
asks one–"you speak at large of all." I do not know who you may be,
but I do know this, that if "the wicked forsakes his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts, and turns unto the Lord, He will have
mercy upon him, and our God will abundantly pardon" him! I also know
this, concerning you, my Friend, that "whoever calls upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved," and be you who you may, I am bidden to preach
this Gospel to every creature under Heaven–and surely you are a
creature! And what is this Gospel? Why, "He that believes and is
baptized, shall be saved." Therefore, however peculiar your case or
circumstances, there stands the one grand, glorious promise–"if you
seek Him, He will be found of you." The only, "if," there is, is with
you! If you seek Him–no, "if," about His being found of you! Oh, shall
it be an, "if? Shall it be an "if? The Lord convert that "if into
certainty, and may you be compelled to say, tonight, "I will seek Him,
and I will never cease my seeking until in my case the promise is true,
and I have found Him of whom it was written, 'If you seek Him, He will
be found of you.'" I have thus explained the text, though it scarcely
needed it. Now let me give–
II. SOME DIRECTIONS.
What is it to seek the Lord? To seek the Lord is, in one way, simply
this–the readiest way to seek Him is to believe that Jesus is the
Christand to trust Him who Jesus, the Savior, is God's Anointed–and to
trust Him as God's Anointed to save your soul! You shall find peace the
moment you do that. "But," says one, "I need to get this faith you
speak of– this trust which you explain." Well then, let me help you
somewhat. How do we get faith in anything? Why, surely by trying to
know what it is! It would be very idle for me to stand here and say to
you, "Believe, believe, believe"–but not tell you what to
believe–what is to be believed! A man cannot command his faith about a
something that he knows nothing of! Therefore, let me say to every soul
that is seeking mercy, "Acquaint yourself with God and be at peace."
"Study the Scriptures." Try to understand God's way of salvation. See
who Christ is. What He did. What was the result of what He did. Get a
clear view of His Person and His work and this will materially help you
to believe.
Next to that, remember, faith comes by hearing. Frequent, therefore,
the hearing of the Word and be careful that you seek not after the
gaudy words of man's eloquence, which may feed your pride and vanity,
and tickle your ears, but can never save your soul! Seek a
Christ-exalting ministry. Desire to be where your soul will be handled
with fidelity and where Christ will be held up before you with
simplicity and earnestness–for the hearing that God blesses is not the
hearing of every man that speaks, but the hearing of the Word of God
that, "the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."
"That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, even the very
chief." Listen with all your ears when Christ is being talked of, and
pray while you are hearing, and say, "Lord, bless that message to me."
Open your soul to the message–pray the Lord to open it, that you may
be like Lydia, whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things
which were spoken to her by Paul. Then when you think you understand
the Gospel, and have heard it so as to pretty plainly see it, if there
should remain some difficulties which do not seem to be opened up to
you by the ministry, seek some earnest Christian, to whom you may
confide your soul on such points. You shall find that what is very
difficult to you will be very easy to some Believers and they will be
able, in God's hands, to be the means of removing the scales
from your eyes. It was so with Paul when he was converted–he must go
to Ananias, and when Ananias would come in, then should the scales fall
from Paul's eyes. Meanwhile, take care to be constantly in prayer. Cry
unto God to show you the way! Ask Him to do it, for, remember, He can
do for you what you can never do for yourself. Understand that you
cannot save yourself–that you have no right to be saved–that if
saved, it will be by His Sovereign Grace–therefore, cry humbly, but
oh, note the value of the blessing you need and, therefore, pray
earnestly! Do not let Him go except He blesses you. Rob yourself of
sleep, Sinner, rather than rob your soul of Christ! Search the Word
again and again–and turn each promise into a prayer–and if you can
only get a hold on the edge of a promise, go with it to the Mercy Seat
and plead it! Be thankful for the smallest degree of hope! Trust that
the first beams of day will soon expand and deepen into dawn, and into
noonday. Grieve not the Holy Spirit by going on with your old sin. Part
with your old companions. Seek the House of God. Seek the people of
God–addict yourself to holy company and holy pursuits–and although I
would not put all this together in the place of my first word, which
was, "Believe now–believe now in Christ," yet if there are
difficulties in the way, they will yield under such an earnest mode of
seeking as I have tried to point out to you! Oh, if a soul is resolved,
"I will not perish if mercy is to be had. I will stoop to anything. I
will have Christ for nothing! I will be nothing! I will let Him do what
He wills with me, if I may but be saved! I will make no terms and no
conditions, only let my sins be blotted out"–my Friend, you are
already not far from the Kingdom of God! Already Grace is at work in
your soul and "if you seek Him, He will be found of you." Continue in
that blessed search! Let nothing take you away from it–it is your
life–your soul hangs on it! Heaven and Hell tremble in the balance for
you–give your heart to God, your faith to Christ, your whole soul to
the purpose of seeking your salvation, and say, "It is my only
business, with holy faith and holy fear, to make my calling and
election sure while here I stand upon this narrow neck of land, betwixt
the two unbounded seas." I have thus given you some directions, but I
am not going to linger over them, but pass on
to–
III. ANSWER A FEW OBJECTIONS.
I cannot anticipate them all, and objection-hunting from sinners is an
endless work, for when you have destroyed 50 objections, they will be
ready with 50 more! But still there are a few common ones, and one is,
"I am too guilty. Why should I seek, when it is impossible I should
ever be pardoned?" Oh, if your soul rested with a man like yourself, or
even with an angel, great Sinner, I would not encourage you–but who is
the Savior? Think for a little. He is the mighty God! He that made the
heavens and stretched them out like a tent to dwell in–He who speaks
and it is done–the everlasting Father–is anything too hard for Him?
Look to Him! He becomes a Man and yields Himself up to death! With
sufferings that can never be understood or fully described–
"He bears that we might never bear His Father's righteous ire."
Is anything impossible for the Savior? Oh, conceive not so! The idea
that any guilt is too great for Christ to pardon scarcely deserves to
be replied to! It is so absurd when you are dealing with the Infinite
Mercy of a Savior who is God Himself! It was said some years ago that
the city of Peking in China suffered greatly from severe climate at one
part of the year, and paid much for fuel, and yet underneath it, or
close to it, there were large coal mines. And when the Chinese were
asked why they did not work them, they said that they were afraid of
disturbing the equilibrium of the globe– perhaps the world might turn
over and the celestial empire–which had always been at the top, might
be at the bottom! Nobody thought it worthwhile to answer so absurd a
theory! And when any say, "My sins are too great for Christ to pardon,"
I could almost smile in the same way at a conception so ignorant! Can
anything be too great for the Infinite Mercy of the Eternal God who
took our sins upon Himself upon the Cross? Sinner, think not so!
There is another objection far more common, however, which is not put
into words, but it means this–"I am too good to seek Christ. Why, have
I not always been brought up religiously? I am not as those poor
sinners are that have been drunks and the like. I have not any need of
seeking Him." Oh, Soul, if there is one that is least likely to be
saved, it is you, for they that go about to establish their own
righteousness are the last to submit to the righteousness in Christ
Je-sus–and verily, the publicans and the harlots enter into the
Kingdom of Heaven before some of you, for you can be sure of this–no
man shall ever enter Heaven by his own works! There is but one gate to
Heaven–one for queen or beggar, for the best order or the worst–and
that is through the blood and righteousness of the one only Redeemer!
And if you
have not this, be you ever so good, you are utterly undone! Oh, lay
aside that thought! You are neither too good nor too bad, but, "If you
seek Him, He will be found of you."
But I hear somebody in the corner saying, "It is no use my thinking of
seeking Christ, I am too poor." Oh, my dear Friend, your mistake,
indeed, is a strange one, for did not Jesus say, "To the poor the
Gospel is preached"? I'll be bound to say you are not poorer than the
Savior, Himself, for He said, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the
air have nests, but I, the Son of Man, have not where to lay My head."
Gold and silver have no value in His Kingdom! The poorest is as wealthy
as the wealthiest if He comes to Christ!
"Ah, yes," says another, "but I am too ignorant. I scarcely can read.
Unhappily for me, I was brought up where I got no learning. I can never
understand these things." Friend, if you are not able to read a word in
the Bible, yet may you read your title clear to mansions in the skies!
You need not have all this learning–it were a good thing for you if
you had it–serviceable for a thousand purposes, but not necessary to
the entering of that Kingdom! If you know yourself as a sinner, and if
you will trust Christ as a Savior, you shall be as welcome into the
Kingdom as doctors who have taken their degree at the Universities, or
the wisest men that have ever sat at the feet of Gamaliel. Come and
welcome! Come and welcome! Come and welcome! Let not this keep you
back.
But I have heard one say, "I would gladly seek the Lord, but I have no
place to seek Him." What do you mean? "I have no chamber into which I
can go and pray alone." That is a sad deprivation, I grant you, but do
not think for a moment that you need any special place in which to seek
the Lord! I remember a sailor who used to be much in prayer, and he was
asked where he went to pray. "Oh," he said, "I have been many a time
alone with Christ up on the mast." Why not? It is as good a prayer room
as a cathedral! Another man, when he was converted, used, while under
conviction of sin, to make use of an old coach that was in his master's
yard. Why not? Why not? I know one whose prayer place used to be a saw
pit, and another a hayloft! What does it matter?–
"Wherever we seek Him, He is found, And everyplace is hallowed ground!"
Every place is consecrated where there is a true heart. In that seat
you may seek and find Him. Standing there, up in the corner of the
gallery, your soul may find her God. In Cheapside, walking in the
busiest street, or at the plowshare amidst the fields, let your soul
but cry, "Jesus, pity a sinner"–let your heart trust in that Jesus–no
place is needed– any place suffices. Raise not that excuse!
"I have not the time," says another. Not the time? What time, pray
tell, does it require? But if it did require it, oh, Man, are you mad
to say, "I have no time"? You have time enough to dress your body–you
stay for that other pin, that other ribbon and that adornment of your
person. Not time to put on the Robe of Righteousness? You have time to
feed your bodies, to sit down to your meals. Not time to eat the Bread
of Heaven? Time to cast up your accounts to see how your business
stands, and not time to see to your soul's affairs? Oh, Sirs, be
ashamed to make such an excuse! I charge you, give not sleep to your
eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids till you are saved! A man wakes up in
the night and finds his house is on fire. There is a noise in the
street. The fireman is calling to him. The ladder is at the window! "I
have not time," he says, "to go down the ladder and escape. I have
little enough time for rest, and I must have my sleep while I can." The
man is mad, Sir, and so is every man who says, "I have not time to seek
my God"! Perhaps, however, you speak the truth, for before the next
word leaves my lips you may fall down a corpse! God sometimes makes our
base excuses turn into solemn truths. Oh, while you have time, use it!
"Escape for your life! Look not behind you!" Stay not, but hasten till
you find the Savior and never think of resting till Christ is yours!
Another reason that some bring is one which occurs to them as if it
were very satisfactory, and that is, "I cannot. No man can come, except
he is drawn, and I cannot." Yes, but you may put a truth into such a
shape that it is a lie! Will you let me put that into the right shape?
Every time when a sinner cannot, the real reason is that he will not.
All the cannots in the Bible about spiritual inability are tantamount
to will nots! But when you say, "I cannot repent," you mean, "I will
not–I will not seek, I will not believe." Now put it honestly to your
own soul, for that is what you mean, for if you would, you could! If
the will were conquered, the power would be sure to come with it, but
the first difficulty is, "You will not"–and this is it, you will not
seek eternal life! You will not escape from Hell! You will not have
Heaven! You will not be reconciled to God–you will not come to Christ
that you might have Christ. You make it as an objection, but
I charge it upon you as crime–a crime which aggravates all the rest,
and is, in itself, greater crime, perhaps, than all the rest put
together! You will not come.
"Do you want to come?" "Yes, but there is much I cannot do." "Yes, but
there is means provided to help you." God the Holy Spirit helps you,
yes, works mightily in you! Have you never heard of that Negro servant
who was sent by his master on an errand? He did not particularly like
to go there. He was sent with a letter. He was back in a short time and
his master said, Sam, you have not gone with that letter." "No, Massa."
"Why not?" "Massa couldn't expect Sam to do impossibilities." "What
impossibilities, Sir?" "I went on as far as I could, Massa–came to
river–couldn't swim across river–very wide river–couldn't swim
across it." "But there is a ferry." "Ferry on t'other side,
Massa–ferry t'other side." "Did you call to the ferry, Sir?" "No,
Massa; didn't." "Oh, you rascal," he said, "that is no excuse at all!
Why didn't you call for the ferry? Why didn't you call for it?" Now if
that Negro had only just said, "Boat, ahoy there!" the ferry would have
come to him and all would have been well. It was an idle thing to say,
"I cannot." It was true, but it was false. So when I come to a point
where there is something in the matter of my being saved which I cannot
do, yet if I pray the Holy Spirit to work in me that which I cannot
work in myself, He will do it. Jesus Christ will give me "true belief
and true repentance–every Grace that brings me near." I have only to
ask for all that I need and I shall have it! It is idle for me to say,
"I cannot do it." Nobody asked you to! Christ will give it to you! Only
stand and call–call mightily, and cry with all your soul until the
blessing comes! But now I must close. I need to offer only a few
sentences.
IV. A STIMULANT, to lead you to seek Him who will be found of you. And
the first is, "Is it not our duty to God that we should seek HM" With
some persons this reflection may be important. You remember the
Countess of Huntingdon, one of the most remarkably gracious women that
ever lived–a mother in Israel. Her conversion was, to a great degree,
caused by this–she was a happy and worldly lady of noble rank,
excellent and amiable, and all that, but she had no thought of the
things of God. She was at a ball and the amusements of the evening were
engrossing all attention, and suddenly the answer to the first question
of the assembly's catechism, which she appears to have learned when she
was a child, came forcibly into her mind, "The chief end of man is to
glorify God, and enjoy Him forever." She thought to herself, "Why, here
am I, a butterfly among a lot of butterflies! All ourchief end is to
enjoy ourselves, to spend the evening merrily making ourselves
agreeable, and so on." She went away smitten in her soul with that
thought, "The end that God made me for I am not answering." Now there
are some minds that have sufficient Divine Grace in them to think of
such a thing as that, and I shall leave that to fall into some honest
and good ground. Perhaps some young man will say, "Well, after all, I
am not serving my Creator as I should." You remember the conversion of
Colonel Gardiner? He had lived a wild soldier's life and he had
appointed that very night of his conversion to perpetuate a gross sin.
He was waiting an hour before he went to his appointment, and he
thought he saw, I think upon the wall, the Savior on the Cross, and
underneath the representation of the Crucified, he read these words–
"I have done this for you; what have you done for me?" He never kept
that sinful appointment! He became a soldier of the Cross! Oh, I wish
that some here might feel something of nobility within them that would
make them feel, "It is mean to act so unjustly to God, as to prefer the
trivial things of time to the weighty matters of eternity."
The next stimulus I would offer is one of hope. "If you seek Him, He
will be found of you." "Oh," says one, "if I could find Him, I would
seek Him." When persons go to South Africa, they search for diamonds,
but if any man could be assured that he would find a Koh-I-Noor, I
guarantee you he would be one of the hardest workers there! Oh, there
are some here tonight that little dream it–that they will yet, before
long, be telling others what Eternal Love has done for them! They are
very ready to sneer at it, perhaps, at this moment. They think it is
impossible. The Lord does great marvels! He brings down the mighty from
their seat, and exalts them of low degree. Oh, Soul, the gate may not
open at the first knock to you, it may be, but it will open! Let me
encourage you. You shall yet rejoice. Your eyes shall see the King in
His beauty, for there is a harp in Heaven that no finger shall ever
play on but yours! And there is a crown there that will fit no head but
yours! And a throne on which no one must sit but you! The Lord has
chosen you, and, therefore, this night He calls you! "I have loved you
with an everlasting love, and with loving kindness have I drawn you."
Go, poor Soul, to Christ, and you shall find it so!
But if that does not move you, let me give you another stimulant, and
that is the opposite one, of fear. Suppose you should never seek your
Lord? Suppose you should die without a Savior–what then? "I shall
die," you say, "my soul will go before God." What then? Why, it must be
condemned! And by-and-by your body shall rise up from the grave, your
body shall spring, and you in body and soul shall stand before the bar
of that great Savior whom you, tonight, despise! Beware, for the books
will be opened and your rejection of Christ written there shall be read
before the assembled world! And then when the earth does rock and reel
and the ungodly in their terrors ask for the mountains to cover
them–when the stars fall like withered figs from the trees and all
Creation gathers up her skirts to flee away from the face of Him who
comes in terror, oh, what will you do? What will you do? Expire, you
cannot! Be extinguished, you will not–live on, you will! And in
anguish that shall never abate, in despair that shall never be
enlightened with a hope! "Turn you, turn you! Why will you die?" Why
will you reject Him? "If you seek Him, He will be found of you." Oh,
seek Him! Reject Him not! "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a
salvation?" Oh, who shall give me tears? Who shall teach me to speak
with pathos? How shall I reach your consciences and stir your hearts?
Eternal Spirit, do You this mighty work, and win this night to
Yourself! O Jesus, save many a heart by this testimony of the Grace,
which again and again we reiterate, "If we seek Him–if you seek
Him–He will be found of you." God bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN3:13-36.
Verse 13. And no man has ascended up to Heaven, but He that came down
from Heaven, even the Son of Man who is in Heaven.We are in the
stairway, now, between Heaven and earth. Christ has came down. Christ
has gone up, and yet He was always there–a mystery, but one that is
true, and new. Today we can go up by thought and prayer, and blessings
can come down, but Christ is always there. "He is at the Father's side,
the Man of Love, the Crucified."
14, 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
must the Son of Man be lifted up: That whoever believes in Him should
not perish, but have eternal life.What a glorious word! Here is the
Gospel in a verse, the whole Bible in a line or two! If we believe in
Him this morning, we nave eternal life–not merely life, but life
similar to the very life of God Himself–eternallife! We have in us
that which will outlast the world, the sun, the moon and the stars! We
have a life which, being like the life of God, we shall live forever
and ever!
16, 17. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world through Him might be saved. Condemnation does come to
the world through Christ, because the world rejects Him, but that was
no part of God's design in sending Him. His design is
salvation–salvation only. Oh, that we might so believe as to answer to
the Divine Purpose in the sending of His Son. "He that believes on Him
is not condemned," not even now, notwithstanding every sin he has
committed, he is not condemned. "But he that believes not is condemned
already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God." Unbelieving is the condemning sin–it seals upon us the
condemnation of every other sin. If you do not believe in Christ this
morning, my Hearer, you are not in a state of probation, you are
condemned already! He that believes on Him is not in a state of
probation, he is not condemned! He is already acquitted, he is at this
moment free from condemnation before the Judgment Seat of God!
18-21. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil
For everyone that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the
light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that does truth comes
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are worked
in God. You see why men do not come to Christ–they do not want to give
up their sin–they do not want to be made uneasy in it. They are afraid
of being reproved. You see why saintly men come to Christ, for they
take a delight in beholding Him, and in having their faith and their
Divine Grace made manifest, both to themselves and to onlookers.
22-24. After these things came Jesus and His disciples into the land of
Judea: and there He tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was
baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there:
and they came, and were baptized. For John was not yet cast into
prison. So John was busy until he was cast into prison. He would not
waste an hour while he had an opportunity of doing good. He did it with
all his heart. John, are you here in this sanctuary at this moment, not
yet laid up, not yet obliged to stay in your bed? Work while you can,
then–spend every moment in your Master's service.
25. Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and
the Jews about purifying. Is it not a come-down–from reading about
looking to Christ and loving, to a contention about purifying? There
always are in the Church more or less idle quarrels about the dress of
the preacher, about the mode of administering sacraments and so on–a
discussion about purifying.
26. And they came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, He that was with
you beyond Jordan, to whom you bore witness, behold, the same baptizes,
and all men come to Him. "They are leaving you." They felt an envy on
behalf of John because his influence appeared to be declining. John was
quite a stranger to this feeling! He loved to see his Master grow, even
at the cost of his own effacing.
27. John answered and said, A man can receive nothing except it be
given him from Heaven. No spiritual power, no power to bless his fellow
men, except it comes from God. Shall I quarrel with God, therefore, if
He gives to this man more power than He gives to me? Shall I dispute
it? It is God's sovereign will and He does as He pleases!
28. 29. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the
Christ, but that I am sent before Him. He that has the bride is the
bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which stands and hears
him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: therefore this
joy of mine is fulfilled. They were vexed, but John was joyful! He
loved to hear of Jesus prospering.
30. He must increase, but I must decrease.So he did. This is John's one
song, almost the last of his utterances. He preaches no more sermons
that are recorded. He must now go to prison, and there lie in a silence
which he could scarcely bear. It was very hard for John to be quiet. He
had an active, noble mind, and he became the victim, we fear, of doubts
when he was shut up in prison. The breezy air of the wilderness suited
him much better than the dull, heavy atmosphere of a prison. I daresay
some of you may feel this at this time–do not set it down to spiritual
results, to spiritual causes– set it down to the atmosphere, for so it
is. We often feel dull and heavy, but heaviest when the heart is in a
heavy air. Every wind that rises blows away despair. So we must not
think too much of our feelings, which even the wind can change.
31. He that comes from above is above all: he that is of the earth is
earthly, and speaks of the earth: He that comes from Heaven is above
all.However good a man may be, he is earthly–there is flesh and blood
about him akin to the earth–and even if he handles heavenly things,
the earthiness of the preacher peeps out every now and then. Christ had
nothing of that about Him–He was above all.
32. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no man
receives His testimony. Sad note! The news that all men went to Christ
pleased John, but the fact that none received His testimony,
comparatively none, grieved his heart.
33. 34. He that has received His testimony has set to his seal that God
is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the Words of God: for God
gives not the Spirit by measure unto Him. There is an Infinite
spiritual power about the Words of Christ–they are the Words of God,
and the Holy Spirit concentrates all His energy in those Words!
35, 36. The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His
hands. He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and He that
believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on
him. So John's last words are thunder! His dying speech has in it the
words most terrible to all of you who believe not in Christ, "The wrath
of God abides on him."