Thanksgiving And Prayer

Thanksgiving And Prayer
A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 27, 1863, BY THE REV.
C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"You crown the year with Your goodness. And your paths drop fatness."
Psalm 65:11.
POSSIBLY objections might have been raised to a day of thanksgiving for
the abundant harvest if it had been ordered or suggested by Government.
Certain Brothers and Sisters are so exceedingly tender in their
consciences upon the point of connection between Church and State that
they would have thought it almost a reason for not being thankful at
all if the Government had recommended them to celebrate a day of public
thanksgiving.
Although I have no love to the unscriptural union of Church and State,
I should on this occasion have hailed an official request for a
national recognition of the special goodness of God. However, none of
us can feel any objection arising in our minds if it is now agreed that
today we will praise our ever-bounteous Lord and as an assembly record
our gratitude to the God of the harvest. We are probably the largest
assembly of Christian people in the world and it is well that we should
set the example to the smaller Churches.
Doubtless many other Believers will follow in our footsteps, and so a
public thanksgiving will become general throughout the country. I hope
to see every congregation in the land raising a special offering unto
the Lord, to be devoted either to His Church, to the poor, to missions,
or some other holy end. Yes, I would have every Christian offer
willingly unto the Lord as a token of his gratitude to the God of
Providence.
I had almost forgotten that today we have to ask your contributions for
the support of two ministers of our own body laboring in Germany. It is
well that it so happens, because it furnishes an object for the
practical expression of the thanks which we feel to Almighty God. While
as the sum required for this object will at once be raised, our beloved
college will be a worthy object for friends at a distance to assist
with their free will offerings.
Without any preface, we will divide our text as it divides itself. Here
we have crowning mercies calling for crowning gratitude. And in the
same verse, paths offatness, which should be to us ways of delight.
When we have talked upon these two points, we may meditate for a few
moments upon the whole subject and endeavor, as God shall help us, to
see what duties it suggests.
I. First of all, we have here CROWNING MERCIES, SUGGESTING SPECIAL AND
CROWNING THANKSGIVING. All the year round, every hour of every day, God
is richly blessing us–both when we sleep and when we wake His mercy
waits upon us. The sun may leave off shining, but our God will never
cease to cheer His children with His love. Like a river His loving
kindness is always flowing with a fullness inexhaustible as His own
Nature, which is its source. Like the atmosphere which always surrounds
the earth and is always ready to support the life of man, the
benevolence of God surrounds all His creatures–in it, as in their
element–they live and move and have their being.
Yet as the sun on summer days appears to gladden us with beams more
warm and bright than at other times, and as rivers are at certain
seasons swollen with the rain, and as the atmosphere itself on
occasions is fraught with more fresh, more bracing, or more balmy
influences than before, so is it with the mercy of God–it has its
golden hours, its days of overflow when the Lord magnifies His Grace
and lifts high His love before the sons of men.
If we begin with the blessings of the nether springs, we must not
forget that for the race of man the joyous days of harvest are a
special season of excessive favor. It is the glory of autumn that the
ripe gifts of Providence are then abundantly bestowed. It is the mellow
season of realization, whereas all before was but hope and expectation.
Great is the joy of harvest. Happy are the reapers who fill their arms
with the liberality of Heaven. The Psalmist tells us that the harvest
is the crowning of the year.
What if I compare the opening spring to the proclamation of a new
prince, the latest born of Father Time? With the musical voices of
birds and the joyful lowing of herds, a new era of fertility is ushered
in. Every verdant meadow and every leaping brook hears the joyful
proclamation and feels a new life within. The little hills rejoice on
every side. They shout for joy. They also sing. Throughout the warm
months of summer the royal year is dressing itself in beauty and
adorning itself in sumptuous array.
What with the plates of ivory, yielded by the lilies, the rubies of the
rose, the emeralds of the meads and all manner of fair colors from the
many flowers, we may well say that, "Solomon in all his glory was not
arrayed like one of these." No studs of silver or rows of jewels can
vie with the ornaments of the year. No garments of needlework of divers
colors can match the glorious vesture of Time's reigning son. But the
moment of the coronation, when earth feels most the sway of the year,
is in the fullness of autumn. Then it is when the fields are covered
with a dose of gold, and fruits are glowing with the rich hues of
ripeness, and the leaves are burnished with inimitable perfection of
tint and shade.
Then it is with a coronal of Divine goodness, amidst the glad shouts of
toiling lads and the songs of rejoicing maidens, the year is crowned!
Upon a throne of golden corn, with the peaceful sickle for his scepter,
sits the crowned year bearing the goodness of the Lord as a coronet
upon his placid brow. Or, what if we compare the year to a conqueror,
striving at first with stern winter, wrestling hard against all his
boisterous attacks, and at last joyfully conquering in the fair days of
spring? He rides in triumph throughout the summer along a pathway
strewed with flowers, and at last, mounting the throne amidst the
festivities of harvest, while the Lord in loving kindness puts a diadem
of beauty and goodness upon his head–
"Cheerfulness and holy pleasure Well become our happy isle, When our
God in copious measure Deigns to bless us with His smile; Joyful, then,
all people come, Celebrate the harvest home."
We may forget the harvest, living as we do, so far from rural labors,
but those who have to watch the corn as it springs up and track it
through all its numberless dangers until the blade becomes the full
corn in the ear, cannot, surely, forget the wonderful goodness and
mercy of God when they see the harvest safely stored. My Brothers and
Sisters, if we require any considerations to excite us to gratitude,
let us think for a moment of the effect upon our country of a total
failure of the crops.
What if today it were reported that as yet the corn was not carried,
that the continued showers had made it sprout and grow till there was
no hope of its being of any further use and that it might as well be
left in the fields? What dismay would that message carry into every
cottage? Who among us could contemplate the future without dismay? All
faces would gather blackness. All classes would sorrow and even the
throne itself might fitly be covered with sackcloth at the news.
At this day the kingdom of Egypt sits trembling. The rejoicing and
abounding land trembles for her sons. The Nile has swollen beyond its
proper limit, the waters continue still to rise, and a few more days
must see the fields covered with devastating floods. If it is so, alas
for that land, in other years so favored as to have given us the
Proverb of "Corn in Egypt." My Brothers and Sisters, should we not
rejoice that this is not our case and that our happy land rejoices in
plenty? If the plant had utterly failed and the seed had rotted under
the clods, we should have been quick enough to murmur–how is it that
we are so slow to praise?
Take a lower view of the matter–suppose even a partial scarcity–at
this juncture, when one arm of our industry is paralyzed, how serious
would have been this calamity! With a staple commodity withdrawn from
us, with the daily peril of war at our gates, it would have been a
fearful trial to have suffered scarcity of bread. Shall we not bless
and praise our Covenant God who permits not the appointed weeks of
harvest to fail? Sing together all you to whom bread is the staff of
life and rejoice before Him who loads you with benefits!
We have none of us any adequate idea of the amount of happiness
conferred upon a nation by a luxuriant crop. Every man in the land is
the richer for it. To the poor man the difference is of the utmost
importance. His three shillings are now worth four. There is more bread
for the children, or more money for clothes. Millions are benefited by
God's once opening His liberal hand. When the Hebrews went through the
desert there were but some two or three millions of them, and yet they
sang sweetly of Him who fed His chosen people.
In our own land alone we have ten times the number. Have we no hallowed
music for the God of the whole earth? Reflect upon the amazing
population of our enormous city–consider the immense mount of
poverty–think how greatly at one stroke that poverty has been
relieved! A generous contribution, equal to that made for the
Lancashire distress, would be but as the drop of a bucket to the relief
afforded by a fall in the price of bread. Let us not despise the bounty
of God because this great benefit comes in a natural way. If every
morning when we awoke we saw fresh loaves of bread put into our
cupboard, or the morning's meal set out upon the table, we should think
it a miracle.
But if our God blesses our own exertions and prospers our own toil to
the same end, is it not equally as much a ground for praising and
blessing His name? I would I had this morning the tongue of the
eloquent, or even my own usual strength to excite you to gratitude, by
the spectacle of the multitudes of beings whom God has made happy by
the fruit of the field. My sickness today makes my thoughts wander and
unfits me for so noble a theme, yet my soul pants to set your hearts on
fire. O for Heaven's own fire to kindle your hearts! O come, let us
worship and bow down, let us exalt the Lord our God and come into His
Presence with the voice of joy and thanksgiving!
But how shall we give crowning thanksgiving for this crowning mercy of
the year? We can do it, dear Friends, by the inward emotions of
gratitude. Let our hearts be warmed. Let our spirits remember,
meditate, and think upon this goodness of the Lord. Meditation upon
this mercy may tend to nourish in you the most tender feelings of
affection, and your souls will be knit to the Father of spirits, who
pities His children. Again, praise Him with your lips. Let Psalms and
hymns employ your tongues today–and tomorrow, when we meet together at
the Prayer Meeting, let us turn it rather into a Praise Meeting and let
us laud and magnify His name from whose bounty all this goodness flows.
But I think, also, we should thank Him by our gifts. The Jews of old
never tasted the fruit either of the barley or of the wheat harvest
till they had sanctified it to the Lord by the feast of ingatherings.
There was, early in the season, the barley harvest. One sheaf of this
barley was taken and waved before the Lord with special sacrifices, and
then afterward the people feasted. Fifty days afterward came the wheat
harvest, when two loaves, made of the new flour, were offered before
the Lord in sacrifice, together with burnt-offerings, peace-offerings,
meat-offerings, drink-offerings and abundant sacrifices of
thanksgivings to show that the people's thankfulness was not stinted or
mean.
No man ate either of the ears, or grain, or corn ground and made into
bread, until first of all he had sanctified his substance by the
dedication of some unto the Lord. And shall we do less than the Jew?
Shall he, for types and shadows, express his gratitude in a solid
manner and shall not we? Did he offer unto the Lord whom he scarcely
knew and bow before that Most High God who hid His face amidst the
smoke of burning rams and bullocks? And shall not we, who see the Glory
of the Lord in the face of Christ Jesus come unto Him and bring to Him
our offerings?
The Old Testament ordinance was, "You shall not come before the Lord
empty." And let that be the ordinance of today. Let us come into His
Presence, each man bearing his offering of thanksgiving unto the Lord.
But enough concerning this particular harvest. It has been a crowning
mercy this year, so that the other version of our text might aptly be
applied as a description of1863, "You crown the year with Your
goodness."
Furthermore, Beloved, we have heard of heavenly harvests, the
out-flowings of the upper springs, which, in days of yore, awakened the
Church of God to loudest praise. There was the harvest of Pentecost.
Christ having been sown in the ground like a grain of wheat, sprang up
from it and in His resurrection and ascension was like the waved sheaf
before the Lord. Let us never forget that resurrection which crowned
the year of God's redeemed with goodness. It was a terrible year,
indeed. It began in the howling tempests of Christ's poverty, want,
shame, suffering, and death. It seemed to have no spring and no summer,
but yet it was crowned with an abundant harvest when Jesus Christ rose
from the dead.
Fifty days after the resurrection came the Pentecost. The barley
harvest had been passed wherein the wave-sheaf was offered. Then came
the days of wheat harvest. Peter and the eleven that were with him
became the reapers and three thousand souls fell beneath the Gospel
sickle. There was great joy in the city of Jerusalem that day–all the
saints who heard were glad, and Heaven itself, catching the Divine
enthusiasm, rang with harvest joy! It is recorded that the saints ate
their bread with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God.
Pentecost was a crowning mercy, and it was remembered by the saints
with crowning thanks.
May I not say that we have had the like crowning mercy shown to this
our highly-favored land, in the revivals which a few years ago were so
plentiful among us and which even now hover over our heads? The Spirit
of the Lord suddenly fell upon many a city and village–where the
Gospel had been preached with dull and heavy tones, suddenly the
minister began to glow–the cords which bound his tongue were snapped,
and like a seraph full of heavenly fire he began to tell of the love of
Jesus. Souls were moved as the trees of the woods are moved in the
wind–spirits long dead in sin's tremendous sepulcher woke up at the
quickening breath!
They stood upon their feet as a great army–they praised the Lord.
Other towns and other villages received the like Pentecostal shower and
we had hoped–O that our hopes had been realized–that all England
would have been filled with the same Divine enthusiasm and that the
effects would have continued among us. To a great extent the revival
has departed and many of our Churches are more stolid and cold than
ever. And our denomination–never too zealous, seldom guilty of
excessive heat, seems to have now, I think, as little earnest life as
it ever had. Back to their old beds of slumber–back again to their old
dens of routine–downward again to Laodicean lukewarmness have they
stolen. Their goodness was as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it
passes away. O that the Lord would once again crown the year with His
goodness and send us revivals from the right hand of the Most High!
Here it is, O well-beloved flock of my care and love, that I ask your
gratitude, mainly and chiefly. My Brothers and Sisters, how the Lord
has cheered and comforted our hearts while He has crowned our years
with His goodness! Here these ten years have I, as He has enabled me,
preached the Gospel among you. We have seen no excitement, no stirrings
of an unwarranted fanaticism–no wildfires have been kindled–and yet
see how the multitude have listened to the Gospel with unceasing
attention. And the surging crowds at yonder doors prove that, as in the
days of John the Baptist, so it is now–the kingdom of Heaven suffers
violence and every man presses into it.
As for conversions, has not the Lord been pleased to give them to us as
constantly as the sun rises in his place? Scarcely a sermon without the
benediction of the Most High–many of them preached in weakness, which
none of you have known but the speaker–preached at times with throbs
of heart and partings of anguish, which have made the preacher go home
mourning that he ever preached at all. And yet success has come and
souls have been saved! And the preacher's heart has been made to sing
for joy, for the seed rots not, the furrows are good, the field has
been well prepared and where the seed falls it brings forth a
hundredfold, to the praise and honor of the Most High.
Brethren, we must not forget this! We might have preached for nothing.
We might have plowed the thankless rock and gathered no sheaves. Why
then does He bless us? Is it our worthiness? Ah, no. Is it for anything
in the preacher or in the hearers? God forbid that we should think such
a thing! It has been the Sovereign Mercy of God which has prospered His
own Truth among us and shall we not, for this, praise and bless His
name?
If we, as a Church, do not continue to be as prayerful and as earnest
as we have been, the Lord may justly make us like Shiloh, which He
deserted, until it became a desolation where not one stone was left
upon another. No, I venture to say if we do not progress in
earnestness, if you, my Hearers, do not become more than ever devoted
to the Lord's cause. If there is not more and more of an earnest
missionary spirit stirred up and nurtured among us, we may expect the
Lord to turn away from us and find another people who shall more
worthily repay His favors.
Who knows but you may have come to the kingdom for such a time as this.
Perhaps the Lord intends, by some of you to save multitudes of souls,
to stir up His Churches and to awaken the slumbering spirit of
religion. Will you prove unworthy? Will you say, "I pray you have me
excused." Will you not rather, in looking back upon the plentiful
harvest of souls reaped in this place, consider that you are in debt to
God and therefore give to Him the fullest consecration that Believers
can offer, because of the crowning mercies which we as a Church
receive? "You crown the year with your goodness."
Beloved, one more remark here. We are looking forward to a time when
this world's year shall be crowned with God's goodness in the highest
and most boundless sense. Centuries are flying and yet the darkness
lingers–time grows old and yet the idols sit upon their thrones.
Christ does not yet reign. His unsuffering kingdom has not come. The
scepters are still in the hands of despots and slaves still fret in
iron bonds in vain. In vain, O earth, have you expected brighter days,
for still the thick and heavy night rests over your sons. But the day
shall come–and the signs of its coming are increasing in their
brightness–the day shall come when the harvest of the world shall be
reaped. Christ has not died in vain. He redeemed the world with His
blood and the whole world He will have.
From eastern coast to western, Christ must reign. Yet will the Seed of
the woman chase the powers of darkness back to their evil habitations.
Yet shall He pierce the crooked serpent and cut leviathan that is in
the depths of the sea. Yet shall the trumpet ring and the multitudes
represented in Him when He rose as the great wave-sheaf rise from the
dead from land and sea. And yet, in the day of His appearing, shall the
kings of the earth yield up their sovereignty, and all nations shall
call Him blessed. Tarry awhile, Beloved, wait yet a little season and
when you shall hear the shout, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, the Lord God
Omnipotent reigns," then shall you know that He crowns the year with
His goodness.
II. But we must leave this point and turn to the next. PATHS OF FATNESS
SHOULD BE WAYS OF DUTY. "And your paths drop fatness." When the
conqueror journeys through the nations, his paths drop blood–fire and
vapor of smoke are in his tracks and tears and groans and sighs attend
him. But where the Lord journeys, His "paths drop fatness." When the
kings of old made progress through their dominions, they caused a
famine wherever they tarried. For the greedy courtiers who swarmed in
their camp devoured all things like locusts and were as greedily
ravenous as palmer-worms and caterpillars. But where the great King of
kings journeys, He enriches the land–His "paths drop fatness."
By a bold Hebrew metaphor–and the Hebrew poetry certainly seems to be
the most sublime in its conceptions–the clouds are represented as the
chariots of God–"He makes the clouds His chariot." And as the Lord
Jehovah rides upon the heavens in the greatness of His strength and in
His excellency on the sky, the rains drop down upon the lands and so
the wheel tracks of Jehovah are marked by the fatness which makes glad
the earth. Happy, happy are the people who worship such a God, whose
coming is ever a coming of goodness and of Divine Grace to His
creatures!
We see, then, dear Friends, that in Providence, wherever the Lord
comes, His "paths drop fatness." He may sometimes seem to pinch His
people and bring them into want, but if there is not a fatness of
outward good there will be a fatness of inward mercy. Even the trials
which the Lord scatters like coals of fire in His path, do but burn up
the weeds and warm the heart of the soil. Do but trust the Lord and
appeal to Him in all your straits and difficulties and you shall find
that when He comes forth out of His hiding place for your help, His
paths shall drop fatness. Your poverty shall be removed and your
dejection of spirit shall be cheered.
Beloved, we believe that our text has a fullness of meaning if it is
viewed in a spiritual sense–"His paths drop fatness." In the use of
the means, the sinner will find God's paths drop with fatness. Are you
hungry and thirsty? Does your soul faint within you? Are you longing to
be satisfied with favor? Then, Sinner, wait upon the Lord and hearken
diligently unto the message of His Gospel. Be constantly searching the
Scriptures, or listening to His Truth as it is proclaimed in your ears.
Especially, Sinner, remember that the ways of the Lord are to be seen
in the Person of Christ. Go to those hands which are the ways of Divine
justice. Go to those feet which are the pathways of infinite love.
Explore that side where deep affection dwells, and you shall find
fatness of mercy dropping there.
No sinner ever did come to God and was sent away empty. You may attend
the means, I grant you, and yet find no comfort, for means are not
always God's paths. But you cannot come to Christ, you cannot rest in
Him and be disappointed. Trust in Him at all times and however deep
your poverty, it shall have a superabundant supply. "His paths drop
fatness."
You also who are His people, I know that sometimes your souls grow
faint. Weary with the wilderness, worn with its cares, torn with its
briars, you come up to the House of God and oh, if you come there to
see your Master and not merely to join in the routine of service. If
you come there seeking after Him and panting for Him as the hart pants
for the water brooks, you will find that the most common services–poor
though the minister is, and plain the place and simple the
people–though the music may have but little charm for the ear of taste
and the words of the speaker may have none of the trappings of oratory,
yet sweet to you shall be the worship of God's House, and you shall
find that "His paths drop fatness."
So, too, in the use of those precious ordinances–Baptism and the
Lord's Supper. You that know the Truth and are made free by it, shall
find that those paths drop fatness. I believe many of you are lean and
starved because you are not obedient to your Lord's command in Baptism.
You know what He bids you do, but you stand back from it. You
comprehend your duty and perhaps you say you are Baptists in principle,
forgetting that this very principle of yours is that which will condemn
you unless you carry it out. In keeping that commandment there is a
great reward. And many besides the Ethiopian noble of queen Candace's
empire, have gone on their way rejoicing from the baptismal stream.
It is peculiarly so at the Lord's Table. I would not give up the Lord's
Supper as a means of Divine Grace for anything that could be devised.
To the godless it must ever be a condemnation. But to the saint of God
who comes there, desiring to be fed with the flesh of Christ, it
becomes a feast, indeed. I do trust, dear Friends, that in a very short
time we shall celebrate the Lord's Supper every Sunday. I am convicted
that a weekly celebration is Scriptural and I see more and more the
need of it. I think it is an ordinance to which we ought not to
prescribe our own times and our own seasons, where the Word of God is
so very express and so plain.
Such was Apostolic custom–search for yourselves and see, indeed, if
there were no Apostolic precedent. Methinks the sweetness of the
service and the delightful nature of the ordinance might suggest to
Christians that it was well to have it frequently. We cannot be
satisfied once a month with communion with Christ and methinks we
hardly ought to be satisfied with the sign itself so seldom. God's
paths drop fatness–happy are they who diligently walk in them.
Beloved, the Lord has other paths besides those of the open means of
Grace and these, too, drop fatness. Especially let me mention to you
the path of prayer. No Believer ever says, "My leanness, my leanness!
Woe unto me," who is much in the closet. Starving souls generally live
at a distance from the Mercy Seat. Close access to God in wrestling
prayer is sure to make the Believer strong–if not happy. The nearest
place to the gate of Heaven is the Throne of the heavenly Grace. Much
alone and you will have much assurance–little alone with God, your
religion will be very shallow. You shall have many doubts and fears and
but little of the joy of the Lord.
Let us see to it, Beloved, that since the soul-enriching path of prayer
is open to the very weakest saint. Since no high attainments are
required. Since you are not bid to come because you are an advanced
saint, but freely invited if you are a saint at all, let us see to it,
I say, that we be often in the way of private devotion. Be much on your
knees, for so Elijah drew the rain upon famished Israel's fields.
The like, certainly, I may say of the secret path of communion. Oh, the
delights which are to be had by that man who has fellowship with
Christ! Earth has no words which can set forth the holy mirth of the
soul that leans on Jesus' bosom. Few Christians understand it. They
live in the lowlands and seldom climb to the top of Nebo. They live
outside. They come not into the holy place. They take not up the
privilege of priesthood. At a distance they see the sacrifice, but they
sit not down with the priest to eat their portion and to enjoy the fat
of the burnt offering. Brother, Sister, sit always under the shadow of
Jesus! Come up to that palm tree and take hold of the branches. Let
your Beloved be unto you as the apple tree among the trees of the
woods, and you shall find a never-failing fruit which shall ever be
sweet unto your taste.
I must not forget that the path offaith, too, is a path that drops
fatness. It is a strange path–few walk in it, even of professors. But
they who in temporals and in spirituals have learned to lean on God
alone, shall find it a path of fatness. As we spoke the other morning
concerning the cedars up there upon that stormy ridge, unwatered by a
single river, and yet always green, so shall the Christian be who lives
alone upon his God. Wait only upon God. Let your expectation be from
Him. The young lions may lack and suffer hunger, but you shall not want
any good thing, for the paths of the Lord shall drop fatness for you.
my dear Hearers, I would to God the Lord would come into the midst of
our Churches and congregations by His Spirit–then would His path drop
fatness. We have a multitude of complaints at different times of the
dullness and lethargy of the Churches. What we need is more of the
Presence of the Holy Spirit–more of the holy baptism of His sacred
influences. In a very quaint sermon by Matthew Wilkes I remember he
said that ministers were like pens–some of them were common goose
quills, writing very heavily and often requiring sharpening. Others of
them, he said–the college men–were like steel pens and while they
could make good fine up strokes, they could not make such heavy down
strokes as some of the quills could.
But, he said, neither the one pen nor the other could do anything
without ink. And therefore, he said, our ministers want more ink. The
ink is the Holy Spirit–"written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of
the living God." And so Mr. Wilkes suggested that people, instead of
finding fault with the minister, would do well to pray, "Lord, give him
more ink–give him more ink!" There was much in that prayer, for we
need often to be dipped in that ink, or else we cannot make a mark on
your hearts. However experienced we may be in saved service, you and I
cannot serve God effectually, nor see any power resting on our
ministry, except as we get more of the Spirit of the living God.
1 would that the Churches laid to heart more and more the real need of
the times. We have been building hosts of Chapels lately and raising
thousands of pounds. And because there were revivals and we hear of
them every now and then, we have been thinking that we are in a good
state. Now I venture to say that all our denominations are in a bad
state. There is one which I mention with profound respect, whose
statistics cause me sincere sorrow. I believe that in that large,
wealthy and most earnest body of Christians, the Wesleyans, the clear
increase of all the Wesleyan Chapels in the whole metropolis, including
a wide district around London, for the whole of this year, is far from
equal to the annual increase of this one Church.
If I am not mistaken, the increase throughout the whole of the United
Kingdom is about four thousand five hundred, being scarcely two per
cent upon the whole body. If our Baptist denomination could have as
good and clear statistics, I exceedingly much question whether we
should be found, taking the whole of us together, to be in a much
better state. The fact is, denominations, when they are poor and
despised and live upon God and are all earnest, always increase and
have many conversions. But we are getting, all of us, so respectable,
building fine Chapels and looking after schools and all sorts of things
that the Spirit of God is departing from us–we are losing the Divine
anointing and the blessed unction–we are congratulating ourselves upon
an enlightenment which does not exist and upon an advancement that is
all moonshine.
Look at the journals for last week and see with horror a picture of
superstition worthy of the dark ages exhibited in a country village,
where, to my knowledge, there is both an Independent and Baptist Chapel
and yet the people believe in witchcraft still! Is this, is this the
effect of religion? Why, our places of worship do not operate as they
should upon the people. They are, in most places, mere clubs where good
people spend their Sundays, but the outlying mass is not touched. To a
great extent we have lost the old fire, the Divine enthusiasm, the
Pentecostal furor, that sacred flame of the first Apostles! We need all
these, by God's Grace, if ever we are to startle a dying world.
And in this place, where God has favored us with much of His Presence,
we are getting into very much the same condition. How many of you who
once were earnest are now as cold as slabs of ice! Some of you do
hardly anything for my Lord and Master. Converted, I trust, you
are–but where is your first love? Where is the love of your espousals
which made some of you talk of Jesus by day and dream of Him by night?
O for a return to God's paths–O for a revival once again in the midst
of the Churches. Ten years ago we could speak honestly that the
Churches were almost dead, but I think they are worse now, because they
have cherished the idea that they are not so dead as they were!
We are as bad as ever–with a name to live–whereas we are dead. O that
some trumpet voice could wake our sleeping Churches once again! Can you
live without souls saved? If you can, I cannot. Can you live without
London being enlightened with the light of God? If you can so live, I
pray my Master let me die. Can you bear to fight and win no victories?
To sow and reap no harvests? Brethren, if you are right, you cannot
endure it, but you must endure it till the Lord comes forth. Let us
pray, therefore, with might and main, with a holy violence which will
take no denial! Let us pray the Lord to come forth out of His hiding
place, for His "paths drop fatness," and there is fatness to be found
nowhere else besides.
III. And now I close. The whole subject seems to give us one or two
suggestions as to matters of duty. "You crown the year with Your
goodness." One suggestion is this–some of you in this house are
strangers to God, you have been living as His enemies and you will
probably die so. But what a blessing it would be if a part of the crown
of this year should be your conversion! "The harvest is past and the
summer is ended and you are not saved." But oh, what a joy, if this
very day you should turn unto God and live! Remember, the way of
salvation was freely proclaimed last Sunday morning, it runs in this
style–"This is the Commandment, that you believe on Jesus Christ whom
He has sent."
Soul, if this day you trust in Christ, it shall be your spiritual
birthday, it shall be unto you the beginning of day! Emancipated from
your chains, delivered from the darkness of the valley of the shadow of
death, you shall be the Lord's free man. What do you say? O that the
Spirit of God would bring you this day to turn unto Him with full
purpose of heart!
Another suggestion. Would not the Lord crown this year with His
goodness if He would move some of you to do more for Him than you have
ever done before? Cannot you think of some new thing that you have
forgotten, but which is in the power of your hands? Can you not do it
for Christ today?–some fresh soul you have never conversed with–some
fresh means of usefulness you have never attempted?
And lastly, would not it be well for us if the Lord would crown this
year with His goodness by making us begin from this day to be more
prayerful? Let our Prayer Meetings have more at them and let everyone
in his closet pray more for the preacher, pray more for the Church. Let
us, everyone of us, give our hearts anew to Christ. What do you say
today, to renew your consecration vow? Let us say to Him, "Here, Lord,
I give myself away to You once more. You have bought me with Your
blood, accept me again. From this good hour I will begin a new life for
a second time if Your Spirit is with me. Help me, Lord, for Jesus
Christ's sake." Amen.