The Best Cloak
A Sermon
(No. 832)
Delivered by
C. H. SPURGEON
at the [41]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
"And was clad with zeal as a cloak.'"
Isaiah 59:17.
THE solitary champion who is here spoken of, who looked and, "saw that
there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor"–and
therefore His own arm brought salvation unto Him, and His righteousness
it sustained Him–this conquering hero we cannot fail to recognize as
the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Prince of the House of David, our
Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever may have been the first and primary meaning
of the text, we are persuaded that the ultimate reference of it is to
that destroyer of death, the Captain of our salvation, by whose
struggles the whole host of the elect have obtained the victory!
Of Him we may say beyond and above all others, that He "was clad with
zeal as a cloak." When a man has all other excellencies, when the Grace
of God has worked in him all other virtues, then zeal is still needed
to elevate and perfect his entire manhood. Behold the altar, built of
unhewn stones, and after God's own Law. Behold the wood laid on it. See
the victim slain and the blood flowing. But you cannot make a sacrifice
without fire–unless the fire from Heaven shall perfect the sacrificial
preparations, all will be useless. Behold in the altar the figure of
the man–he has faith, courage, love, consecration–but if he lacks the
fire of fervent zeal, his life will be a failure. He will remain an
offering unconsumed, and consequently worthless and unaccepted.
By this, indeed, may you know the genuine from the false when other
things might raise a question–the false is like the altar of Baal
whereon there is much wood and a well-fed bullock. And around it are
active genuflections and vigorous rituals, but there is no true fire
from Heaven. While the genuine is like the altar of Elijah, upon which,
in answer to fervent prayers, the hallowed flames descend! One of the
first requisites of an earnest, successful, soul-winning man must be
zeal. As well a chariot without its steeds, a sun without its beams, a
Heaven without its joy–as a man of God without zeal.
Taking the text and coming to it at once, with eager expectation,
because the Lord is there, we shall first observe– how zeal is to be
regarded–it is to be to the Christian man as a cloak. Secondly, we
shall joyfully show how our Lord Jesus Christ exhibited it. And then,
thirdly, look for a few minutes at the secret springs which fed the
zeal of our blessed Lord, and which in our case must also feed us.
I. First, then, according to the text, ZEAL IS TO BE REGARDED AS A
CLOAK THAT COVERS ALL. The Christian man is to wear zeal as we wear an
outward garment which covers all the rest of our garments–a flowing
robe which encompasses the entire person. Zeal is all enveloping–zeal
should envelope all the powers of the Christian. He is to invest
himself with faith and love, with patience and perseverance, with hope
and joy–but zeal must be over all these. We are not to be zealous with
one part of ourselves, nor zealous in one particular duty, only, nor
zealous at one special season.
We are to be altogether zealous for all Christ's work, for all Christ's
truth–and at all times zealous not only in one good thing, but in all
good things, wrapping ourselves up completely in zeal–by the power of
God's Spirit, just as the traveler in the snowstorm wraps himself up in
his great coat or binds his cloak about him. Zeal is to envelope all.
We are to wear holy zeal as a cloak in order to preserve the different
parts of our soul from danger. Zeal is preserving. The cloak covers the
arms, the breast, the heart and all the more delicate parts of the
body. In order that when the rain comes down we may not so soon be
chilled to the skin and suffer injury from cold, we are protected with
a cloak and find it to be a warm and welcome shelter–so our love needs
to put on zeal as a protection against the coldness of the outside
world.
Our faith needs to buckle on a garment of zeal as a defense that when
the storm of troubles comes as a blast against the soul, confidence may
not be frostbitten. Zeal is to wrap up the whole man so that when he is
subject to a furious hail of persecution, or a biting wind of poverty,
or a torrent of down-pouring griefs, the pilgrim to the skies may hold
on his way and bid all weathers brave defiance.
Beloved, I am afraid that many of God's children are sickening for lack
of wearing this cloak. They never rise to the point of being zealous.
They are very proper, and with that doubtful virtue they remain
content. Oh, that dreadful propriety which is the death of all true
godliness wherever its frosty scepter sways its wintry dominion over a
man! Thousands of our members are locked in the deadly arms of an
Arctic propriety. They are proper, very proper! They are always afraid
of being fanatical, even more than of being worldly or backsliding.
When religious work is being done in earnest, they say it is exciting
and irregular–and they therefore avoid it. They have heard of unwise
excitement attending some religious meetings and they at once conceive
a great dread of everything like excitement–however holy and useful.
And therefore, in order to avoid as much as possible that which is at
all unusual, they make to their tents and shun the very angels of God
lest they should become too enthusiastic by conversing with them! I
will not commend them for this because I am persuaded there is no cloak
in which a man can be so well wrapped up against the trials of the
world and the temptations of business as a cloak of zeal that covers
him all over. The devil cannot so readily assail a zealous man. There
is a point, of course, at which he can overthrow him by turning that
zeal into unhallowed passion, fierce bigotry, or unbridled rant. But
still, in the ordinary temptations of life the man who is thoroughly
and heartily possessed by the spirit of true and thoroughly Christian
zeal throws off the blows of the enemy as the shields of the ancient
warrior hurled off the fiery darts of the foe. Zeal is comforting, even
as the cloak, when wrapped about the traveler in the snowstorm– and so
must zeal be with us.
Oftentimes the Christian minister, especially, will pass through a
pelting, raging, whirling tempest and hurricane of difficulties. And in
such times, unless he is very zealous, he may be inclined to succumb
and to yield to the present distress. But He who says, "I am called of
God to a work, and I will do it or I will die. I must win souls. God
has called me to it, and I can lie in prison, or I can have my name
cast out as evil, or I can suffer poverty–but I cannot give up
ministering to poor souls and snatching them, as brands, from the
burning." Such a man dreams not of pausing in his career because old
Boreas howls!
The man who is possessed by an irresistible passion for carrying out
his lifework will gird this gracious ardor well around him, and, let
the snowflakes come as they may, they will only fall, as it were, into
a furnace and will melt before they can injure. You who have zeal for
God in your Sunday school classes will find it protects you from the
numbing influence that will come over you in the class. After teaching
for some months, and perhaps years, the routine of the school is apt to
become a heavy toil, and you are apt to say, "I work hard all week, and
I really need my Sundays for rest." And you will take them for rest
unless zeal shall forbid–and wrapping yourselves in holy fervor you
will look at your little ones and feel that you cannot let them perish
for lack of knowledge! And out of love to them, and out of love to your
Master you will return to the class with extra devotion–and troubling
nothing for the consequences, you will press on like a true
hero–because your soul is warmed and comforted with zeal as a cloak,
and, therefore your heart beats warm within however cold the world may
be without.
We may regard zeal as a cloak by reason of its adorning a man's
character. Many a person looks all the more comely because of the
garment in which he has arrayed himself. There is no more becoming
garment to the Christian when he possesses all the virtues than an
all-enveloping zeal! Do not tell me that the beauty of holiness
consists in a mere stately, dull, sober round of duties. It is not so!
The beauty of holiness consists in that bursting of love towards God
which is enamored of holiness and would rather suffer a thousand ills
than do anything of evil. Brothers and Sisters, you will not be, as
Christians, thought beautiful in the eyes of angels and perfect
intelligences, (and these are the best judges of beauty), because you
coldly pursue the regular rounds of duty.
But you will be beautiful to them if you glow, and flame, and blaze
with intense affection towards God. God, who is the greatest and
highest example of all beauty, when He reveals Himself, does so in a
flaming fire–Sinai is altogether on a smoke–He touches the hills and
they melt like wax though they were granite before. God as a Spirit is
a consuming fire, and the more we get to be like God the more shall we
become like consuming fires. The half-animated lethargic state in which
we sing–
"Our souls can neither fly nor go
To reach celestial joys,"
is earthly, gross, sensual. But oh, when we once receive the promised
eagle wings, and begin to mount, then are we spiritual! And when our
soul, like a sharp sword, cuts through the scabbard and the body seems
as if it could not bear the indomitable energy that rules within–it is
then that we are elevated to be like God.
When God within us manifests the weight of Deity, and bows the weakness
of our humanity into the dust while the new-born nature is, in sublime
ecstasy, made to stand forth, alone and away from the body, in the
blaze of the Divine Presence, then it is that we are favored of the
Lord! I pray God that we may be evermore ardent as seraphs, made of God
to be like those celestial ministers of His who are as flames of fire.
The true man of God burns his way. His life is like the passage of a
meteor across the sky. None can stay his onrush! He has Omnipotence
within him! He is launched like a thunderbolt from the eternal hand,
and he must go forward till his career is run. He is not like you
half-awakened sons of the sluggard, who, having no strength from God
and possessing none of your own, crawl as the snail crawls, and melt as
it melts until there is nothing left of them.
As Watts writes in his couplet–
"They trust their native strength,
And melt away, and droop, and die."
Such as confide in God and in His might, clothing themselves with the
holy ardor which God has given them, shall be beautiful in His sight,
and beautiful to all eternity in the judgment of those who know how to
estimate true beauty of character! Perhaps these four points may bring
out the excellence of being clothed with zeal as a cloak. Zeal is to
envelope all our powers. It is to preserve us in danger. It is to
comfort us in affliction. It is to adorn us at all times.
But I should like to say one or two other things on this subject. We
must take care to put on zeal us a cloak and not as a hood. Some put it
over their heads and do not wear it over their bodies. Now, nobody
wears his cloak over his head and yet I have known some persons whose
zeal has entirely blindfolded their judgment! They have taken zeal as
men put a bandage over their eyes when they would be blinded, and then
have gone headlong in evil or foolish work. Now the zeal that God would
have us cultivate is wise and prudent–it does not heedlessly leap into
the ditch, though it would swim a river, yes, and the Atlantic to
boot–if it felt that God had bid it do so.
Zeal is like fire which is said to be, "a good servant but a bad
master." The fire in the grate–who shall say too much in its favor?
But fire in the thatch of the house–who shall say too much against it?
The fire, the flaming fire of zeal burning and blazing in the
soul–this is a Christian gift and virtue! But when zeal takes away
judgment and the man is led here and there by the first loud talker.
When he is carried about by every wind of doctrine, and is first in
love with this, and then with that–then the man does not wear zeal as
a cloak–he makes a hood of it and makes himself brother to a fool!
Zeal, again, is a cloak, and therefore is not intended to supersede the
other Graces. We do not put on our great coats and leave off all our
other clothes. We do not see the traveler climbing the Alps with
nothing upon his body but his cloak–that would be most absurd! And so,
zeal cannot take the place of knowledge, or faith, or love, or
holiness. It is a cloak which is a great thing, it is true, but it is
nothing more than a cloak–and the rest of the garments must be
carefully attended to.
When I have sometimes heard a zealous Brother preaching, who evidently
did not know anything of this subject, or of human nature, I have been
pleased to see the cloak, but I wished that I could have seen some
other garments for decency's sake! Ill is the case of those ill-clad
zealots who bray with all their might, "Believe, believe, believe," and
thump the pulpit and make great demonstration when they cannot tell
what is to be believed, nor expound the doctrine of the Atonement–nor
give an intelligent description of the plan of salvation! All such zeal
is as rational as it would be for us all to go abroad bare of every rag
except a cloak.
Modesty ought to keep such unclothed men out of sight. Go home,
Brothers! Go home, you who have only your cloaks–and get other
garments–and then we shall be glad enough to see you. Zeal is a cloak,
but it is very far from being everything. Again, zeal is a cloak, and,
therefore, we are not to regard it as an extraordinary robe to be worn
only occasionally on high days and holidays. A man wears his great coat
or his cloak when he needs it. He wears it not on Sundays only, but in
going to and fro in his labor. He reckons his cloak not to be a thing
in which to walk in state with my lord through the streets, but as a
portion of his ordinary working-day dress–and so ought our zeal to be.
Zeal for God should be exhibited in workshops. It should be worn in the
market-house, in the senate, or wherever we may labor. Zeal should be
worn in the homestead and in the factory–by masters, by servants, by
children, by parents. If it is genuine zeal it will be like the cloak
which always hangs ready on the nail in the hall. No, since the storm
is always on, and we are always pilgrims, it will be like the cloak
which we cannot bear to lay aside! We shall try always to wear it for
Christ's sake.
Brethren, while I say that zeal is not everything, remember that the
cloak covers everything, and do not let your zeal be such a scanty
thing that it will only hang like a girdle round your loins. Let it be
a great wrapper in which to enfold all your manhood apparent
everywhere–not secret and inward alone, but revealed and active. Our
Lord is said to put on zeal as a cloak. He manifested and displayed His
holy fervor. We have heard some boast that they were zealous, but you
could not see it, for their zeal was deep in their hearts. Now our Lord
had not zeal merely in His heart, but He had zeal outwardly as well. It
is all very well to have Divine Grace in the heart–that is the first
and primary point–but where there is Grace in the heart it soon shows
itself in the life.
It is useless for a man to say he has an abundance of wealth if he
always dresses like a beggar and his household is conducted on the most
stingy system. So, a man must not claim to have zeal in his heart if he
never shows that zeal in his conversation nor in earnest service of
Jesus. Remember, our Lord put on zeal! While the Christian religion is
an internal thing, there is no religion in the world which shows itself
so much externally. There is a remarkable piece of advice given by Paul
which sounds very strange if you read it literally. He writes, "Put on,
therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, hearts of mercy."
Now, surely, hearts are things to be worn within and not without! And
yet he would have the Christian to be such a tender-hearted man as to
wear his very soul on his sleeve so that he can be easily touched,
moved, and affected by the woes of his fellow men.
So must it be with zeal. It must be in the heart, but it must also
shine, and flash, and sparkle throughout the whole of man's outward
life.
II. Leaving that point, it is now for a few minutes our very pleasant
duty TO OBSERVE HOW OUR LORD EXHIBITED THIS ZEAL. Beloved, we can but
speak a few words where volumes would scarcely suffice. In His earliest
childhood, you have tokens of Christ's inward zeal. He is found in the
Temple among the doctors, at an age when other children are shouting in
the playground, or laughing among their toys. He is hearing the rabbis,
and asking them questions, and when His anxious parents ask Him why He
has left them, He replies, "Know you not that I must be about My
Father's business?"
Yes, even at that early age his soul was longing to commence His work.
Eager for the Baptism that He was to be baptized with, He was
"straitened," even then, "until it was accomplished." In later life you
see His burning zeal in leaving all the comforts of life. What but His
zeal brought Him to such a condition that He said, "Foxes have holes,
and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where
to lay His head"? He might, if He had chosen, have enjoyed the comforts
of the domestic circle. There were those who loved Him! There were
hundreds throughout Judea who would have been but too glad to house
Him. Martha, and Mary and Lazarus, were but types of others whom Jesus
loved, and who loved Jesus. And yet, for love of souls, for love of God
He banishes Himself from all domestic joys. Oh, blessed Mirror of
quenchless ardor, when shall we learn self-denial from Your example and
imitate Your passion to glorify God?
His very dress showed His zeal because it was not ostentatious, but in
every way suitable for incessant labor and humble service. He wore
nothing that could attract attention. The common smock-frock of the
ordinary peasant was His outer dress. Nothing in His apparel
distinguished Him from others. He had given up all the dainties, yes,
and all the comforts of life for the one great object of accomplishing
our redemption. He showed His earnestness in persevering in His worship
under all manner of rebuffs. He was constantly misrepresented. He came
unto His own, and His own received him not. Though He was worthy to be
beloved of all hearts, yet, "He was despised and rejected of men."
Still He never turned aside from His work.
Once, when the flesh would have gladly shrunk from the cup of gall, how
mightily did He put aside the temptation with, "Nevertheless, not as I
will, but as You will"! His path was always onward and it mattered not
who stood in the way–whether Pharisee or Herodian–He tarried for
none. Whether the princes of this world, or the powers of the infernal
lake opposed Him, still onward He advanced to complete His victory.
And, as a clearer proof of His zeal, still, all the blandishments of
the world could not attract Him. The excited crowd would have taken Him
by force and have made Him a king–but such was His zeal for the one
work He had in hand, that He counted royal honors to be less than
nothing and vanity.
There were no temptations to Him in all the pomp of a kingdom. He had
received the offer of all earth's thrones from the arch-enemy and had
refused them all–what, then, was one petty princedom to Him! If all
Jerusalem had clapped their hands, and said, "God save the King!" He
would not have listened to the cry, nor have cared for it. He cared to
wear the crown of thorns, and to give His hands and feet to the nails,
and His heart to the spear–and He had no heart and no hands or feet
for anything except the love of God and the well-being of men.
Many and many a man has been very zealous for God till he has met with
fierce persecutions, or bitter enemies, and then he has turned his
back. And many more have been zealous in the highest degree until
wealth came in their way, or the possibilities of honor–and then they
have stooped and have licked the world's feet–and have been mere
puddles of fashion. Their ardor for the Truth of God has evaporated and
their zeal has fled. Jesus was turned aside neither by frowns nor by
smiles, but onward, still, He went, "clad with zeal as with a cloak."
Look, my Brothers and Sisters, at His incessant labors! In the three
years of Christ's life, you behold epitomized 3,000 years of ordinary
existence. I do not know how it seems to you, but the life of Christ
appears to me to be the longest life I ever read. It is such a
condensed, massive, close-grained life! It is very short–in truth it
consists of only three years of labor, as the former part of His life
was spent in obscurity–and there we leave it as God has left it. But
the three active years of His earthly sojourn, how are they crowded
with incidents! Why, He is here, and there, and everywhere! All the day
He is working, and all the night He is praying!
You read of the cold mountains and the midnight air as witnessing the
fervor of His prayer. And then, at morning light He is healing the sick
or preaching the Gospel, never pausing, but constantly pressing on like
a racer to the goal! We meet with incidents like this, "He had not
time, no, not so much us to eat bread." And at another time, "They took
Him even as He was, into the ship," implying that He could not walk
down to the vessel because He was too faint, so they bore Him away even
as He was. On board the ship He was so weary, so utterly overcome, that
when a storm came on, He slept! Slept while the sea and the sky were
mingled, and the ship was likely to go to pieces–slept from sheer
weariness and lack of rest!
Remember that all this was not merely work of the body, but that which
I dare say some of you think very easy, but which, if you were to try
it, you would find to be the most laborious work in the world–brain
work. And in our Lord's case, it was brain-work of the most intense
kind, for Jesus never preached a careless sermon, never produced a
single address before the people that was uninstructive or shallow and
never delivered a speech in an inefficient manner, coldly and
heartlessly. He was a man like ourselves, albeit He was God–and I am
speaking of His humanity now–and that human soul of His achieved
centuries of work in those three plenteous years.
There is, perhaps, no such thing as time to the brain. When we sleep, a
dream in which we think we have passed hours may have only occupied a
tick of a clock, or the winking of an eye. When Mahomet, in his absurd
story, tells you of his traversing the seven heavens, and yet returning
to earth again so quickly that the pitcher of water which had been
almost overturned by the angel's wing when he started, had not had time
for the water to spill, he does in quaint story but tell you what may
happen to the mind.
Men who have been rescued from drowning have stated that, though they
were but a second or two going down in the water, they have yet in that
time lived over again the whole of their lives. And their whole
history, as in a panorama, has been unfolded before them. There is no
time to the mind–and when this body shall drop from off us, eternity
will be no novelty to the mind–the soul will find itself perfectly at
home. Our Lord Jesus Christ realized this fact, for in mental labor He
condensed whole centuries of holy thought and desire into those three
short years of His service for us. Nothing but zeal could have
sustained that toil. Nothing but zeal could have upheld that
perpetually laboring Soul!
Look at the Lord Jesus Christ, again, in His preaching, and you see His
zeal. What words of love He uses! How gently He addresses the poor
trembling ones, as He bids them come unto Him and they shall have rest.
He does not utter those blessed invitations in a sleepy manner, but His
heart goes out with every syllable, "Come unto Me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And when He turns to
sterner oratory and addresses those enemies of the Truth of God, the
Scribes and Pharisees, how He thunders at them! Were ever such
indignant words uttered as those of the Master, "Woe unto you, Scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites!"
Why, there stood the men! He was not speaking of them as I might speak
of people who are in Abyssinia or Japan! But there they were, before
His eyes–gnashing their teeth at Him, looking indignant and longing to
tear Him down and drag Him off to death. But, "woe unto you!" came
again from His lips, and yet again, "woe unto you! For a pretense you
make long prayers. You strain at a gnat, and you swallow a camel." No
man could speak more plainly than Jesus did in the face of these
hypocrites–for zeal was girt about Him as a cloak and no fear of man
could restrain Him.
Probably you see His zeal most of all in His prayers, for a man's
intensity of heart may eminently be judged of by his secret devotion
before God. What prayers were those that were heard by the stars and
admired by the astonished angels at midnight as they lingered on the
mountain side! What cries and groans! What strong cries and tears were
those that shook the gates of Heaven as Jesus prayed and pleaded for
the sons of men! Mighty Intercessor! It seemed as if this world were
not a strong enough base for You to rest the lever of Your prayer upon,
when You were lifting up a greater weight than this world, even the
weight of our infirmities, which then was heavy upon Your soul!
Ah, if you seek a pattern of zeal, you must stand in the garden when
the sweat is streaming from Him–not the sweat of man that works for
bread–the staff of life, but the sweat of a man toiling for life
itself! See there, my Brothers and Sisters, He sweats, as it were,
great drops of blood falling down to the ground! Still His zeal was
more manifest even than this, for having prayed and worked so hard, He
proved his zeal again by giving up Himself! Having persevered alone
when deserted by His friends, He persevered, still, when given over to
His enemies! What zeal was that which makes Him stand so silent before
the bar of Pilate?!
He will not speak though strong is the temptation to defend Himself. He
will not speak, for He must fulfill the prophecy, "He is brought as a
lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so
He opens not His mouth." It was a wonderful triumph of Christ to hold
His tongue. A master speaker feels an intense longing to speak when
great occasions demand his voice, but Jesus was greater than a master
speaker, for He was a great master of silence. And by His Divine energy
He restrained Himself and uttered not a word.
Then, when they scourged Him. When they spat upon Him. When they mocked
Him–why, a wish of His would have destroyed them all–but He bears
their contumely in the patience of His zeal for us. And when they hound
Him through the streets of Jerusalem along the Via Dolorosa. When they
take Him out to the mount of doom and pierce His hands and His feet,
and then stand around, and with many jests and jeers mock His griefs!
When, as I have said before, His wish could have annihilated all of
them, and have put an end to all His bitterness–was it not a matchless
zeal which upheld Him in majestic endurance?
His zeal was with Him when covered with His dying crimson! It was
wrapped about His naked body as a cloak so that the shame He despised
and the Cross He endured were bearable by His looking forward to the
recompense of reward. Ah, Brethren, I am not able to speak to you
concerning my Master's zeal. It is too great a subject! There it is.
Read it as the Evangelists tell you the story. Seek to enter into
fellowship with it, and ask God to help you to imitate it–and then
shall you best understand how He "was clad with zeal as a cloak."
Observe what His zeal was made of. It was zeal for God! He went into
God's Temple and saw the merchandise that was carried on there, and He
did not deliberate, but seizing a scourge of small cords, flogged the
buyers and sellers and drove them all out–as it was written, "The zeal
of Your House has eaten Me up."
He had not patience to tolerate making a gain of godliness! He had
patience with sinners when they bowed before Him–but with those who
trafficked in God's own Temple He grew indignant and chased them out!
He had a zeal for God which was also a zeal for the Truth of God! How
indignantly He denounced the adversaries of the true and the good, and
how constantly, and with what force did He declare the Gospel among the
ignorant and perishing thousands! He had, above all things, a zeal for
souls! He loved His Church and gave Himself for it! He saved others,
Himself He could not save. No burden was too heavy, no suffering too
severe for Him, if He might deliver men from going down into the pit.
Such was His zeal! O that all His followers were as their Lord!
III. Lastly, WHAT WAS IT THAT THE ZEAL OF CHRIST FED UPON? WHAT WERE
THE SECRET SPRINGS OF THE SEA WHICH FED THE OCEAN OF HIS ZEAL? We
answer that Christ's zeal was based upon a defined principle. He had of
old said, "Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I
delight to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your Law is within My heart."
Our Lord's was not a hurried, hasty zeal, excited in Him by the earnest
addresses of eloquent pleaders. It sprang from fixed and intelligent
principles. He had set His heart upon a great purpose. He had weighed
it, counted the cost, looked at it on all sides. And now He was not to
be turned from it. Beloved Hearers, I would that all Christians
possessed that intelligent zeal which does not arise from mere
excitement of our surroundings but springs from our knowing what we
are, understanding the Truth of God and holding to it, because we are
assured of it. Zeal without the Truth of God for its fuel is a mere
will-o'-the wisp.
Jesus knew the soul and its value–the loss of a soul and its horror,
the Heaven of a soul and its glory–and therefore was He zealous. And
if such fixed principles reign in you, they will be in you a well of
water springing up unto everlasting life. And your zeal will not cease,
but continue to flow on forever and ever. The zeal of our Lord Jesus
Christ was occasioned by intense love. He loved His Father. He could
not, therefore, but do His will. He loved His people. He could not,
therefore, do otherwise than seek their good. Oh, how He loved the
souls of men! It was a passion with Him!
Brothers and Sisters, we need to get the same love. We do not love God
as we should, or we should be more zealous. Neither do we love our
fellow men as ourselves, or we should be more heartfelt in our
Christian work. O that the Christian Church were baptized in zeal!
There is much in that promise, "He shall baptize you with the Holy
Spirit and with fire." Not drops of the Holy Spirit, nor sparks of
fire–we need to be plunged into it! We need that the fire should cover
us as it does the gold when it consumes the dross so that we may be
like the three holy children in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, living amid
flames, ourselves aglow, burning our way in our Lord's business! May it
be so by the Holy Spirit to the glory of God!
Then the zeal of our Lord Jesus Christ had an eye to the recompense.
"For the joy that was set before Him He endured the Cross, despising
the shame." Christian, think of the recompense of the faithful
servant–not of debt, but of Divine Grace! What joy, when you enter
Heaven, to be met by those who were converted to God through your
means! To hear them hail you as their spiritual father or their
spiritual mother! It is a great bliss, doubtless, to enter Heaven
alone, but it must be a greater joy, still, to hear the wings of others
behind you as you enter, and turning round–so soon as you can do so
after you have looked upon the blazing Throne and the Divine One at the
right hand of the Father– turning round, what bliss to see hundreds
who were called to Glory and immortality through your ministry!
Happy shall he be who has turned many to righteousness! He has his
Master's word for it that he shall shine as the stars forever and ever.
Beloved, seek after this! As men hunt after gold. As greedy misers
search it out, and busy merchants compass sea and land to gain it, so
seek after the souls of men! Count all things else but dross that you
may win Christ, and having won Christ for yourselves, bring others to
Him! I count that to be life in which I serve Christ, but that is death
in which I am unprofitable. I count that day to be a day of true living
in which I can tell out something of Jesus, build a single stone in His
living Temple, or carve a piece of cedar that may help to make the
rafters of His House!
But that day is nothing else than a mere pretense of life, it is a day
of death, as though my body were sheeted and wrapped up in the
cerements of the tomb, in which I have done nothing, and thought
nothing, and prayed nothing to my Master's honor and the extension of
His Kingdom. O Brothers and Sisters, may God grant us Grace more and
more to have an eye to the coming reward, and to the, "Well done, good
and faithful servant!" so that zeal may be wrapped about us as a cloak!
Last of all, our Lord Jesus Christ was so zealous because He had a
greater spiritual discernment than you and I have. We are not zealous
because we cannot see. We can see these houses, these streets, and this
money. We can hear those people's tongues, and we can look at these
creature comforts. We hear the question, "What shall we eat? What shall
we drink? With what shall we be clothed?" But our ears are as though
they were stopped up with wax, and our eyes as though they were blinded
to better things. We do not hear true voices, neither do we see real
things, nor abiding, everlasting and eternal things.
Alas, how blind and deaf we are! But when Jesus was here he saw angels,
and He beheld the spirits of men. He beheld not their bodies only, but
their inner selves. And He looked upon men, not as flesh and blood, but
as immortals. Best of all, He saw God. He could say, "I have set the
Lord always before Me: because He is at My right hand I shall not be
moved." As Jesus Christ dwelt in this world He did not look on it as
you and I often do, as though it were all earth, fire, water, wood,
stone, trees, men, beasts. But He viewed it as a theater for spiritual
action. Devils came to tempt Him. Angels came to minister to Him.
The souls of bad men fought with Him though He fought not with His
hands or His staff. The spirits of good men sought Him, hung upon Him,
depended upon Him. As for Himself, His conversation was always
heavenly. He was on the earth, and doing good on earth, but still His
Soul, His great, grand Spirit was always talking with His God. When He
speaks aloud in prayer He says to His Father, "I know that You hear me
always, but because of them that stood by I did it." He had no need to
use vocal sounds with God. His spirit was so near to God that He was
always communing with God, breathing Himself into God. What a source of
zeal this must have been! He was brought nearer to God than we are,
being, indeed, Himself God!
And speaking, now, of His Manhood–as a Man He abode very near to the
Father. Yet we, too, have a wondrous nearness, for the Holy Spirit
dwells in us! In these bodies, as in a temple, God dwells if we are
Believers, so that there is a marvelously intimate union between God
and us! And if we can, by His Grace, rise to a higher spiritual life, a
life cognizant of spiritual things, familiar with spiritual personages,
and dealing with spiritual realities–we shall attain unto somewhat of
that mighty, Omnipotent zeal which glowed in the bosom of the Redeemer
and in which He was clad as in a cloak.
There are many here who have no faith in Christ, and therefore I cannot
exhort them, with respect to this zeal. Beloved Friends, you have heard
what I have been saying about zeal. Now, do you know one great reason
why I want to have this zeal, myself, and why I desire God's people to
obtain it? It is because of you! We believe that when we are zealous it
often happens that we are made the means of the conversion of others,
and we should like to see you saved! Do you know the way of salvation?
It is just this, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be
saved." To believe is to trust.
Here is God's Word, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."
To believe is simply to rely upon Jesus, and when you have done that
you are saved. God will never cast a soul away that leans all its
weight on Christ. After you are saved, remember, it is written, "He
that believes and is baptized." Your Baptism must follow your faith–it
is to be to you a sign, and a means of fellowship with Christ. You are
to regard yourselves as dead to the world, as dead in Christ, and to
come, therefore, and be buried with Him in Baptism.
May the Spirit of God bury you with Christ! May the Spirit of God give
you a familiar acquaintance with what it is to be dead, and for your
life to be hid with Christ in God! But to trust is the first great
thing. "He that believes on Him has everlasting life." Baptism follows
as an act of obedience and you must not neglect it, but trust Christ
and you are saved! God grant you Divine Grace to trust Him, for Jesus'
sake.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–ISAIAH 59.
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The Lord's Name and Memorial
A Sermon