DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"For My flesh is meat, indeed, and My blood is drink, indeed." John
6:55.
WE know that the Savior spoke of spiritual, not carnal things, and He
spoke of Himself not as being in any sense meat for our bodies–that
could not be–but as being food for our souls. This statement is very
plain to us, but those who heard it at the first, found it very
difficult to understand. Nor need we wonder, for men of the schools who
play with letters, words and phrases, frequently meet with difficulties
where none exist. The Jews of our Lord's day had fallen into the
foolish habit of taking words to pieces and dwelling upon the syllables
and letters until they seemed to have lost all power of getting at the
plain meaning which ordinary language was intended to convey. They
blinded their own eyes with the pretense of superior wisdom; made
puzzles and riddles out of plain words; raised a lot of dust and sat
down in it blinded to the end.
Our God has taught us more and given us to understand more clearly, for
His Holy Spirit has given us back the childlike spirit so that we are
willing to see the natural sense which words were meant to reveal. Now
we see great force and clear expressiveness in that very language which
seemed, before, to conceal the Savior's meaning. It was a veil to the
Jews and they saw not–it is an instructive parable to us, which,
instead of hiding the Truth of God, shadows it out to us and softens
the light for our weak eyes. We see, I fear, even now but dimly, for
our spiritual sight is scarcely clear as yet, but we see, blessed be
God for that, and we see Jesus and something of His loving meaning. We
do more than see–we enjoy and, therefore, know to the life what it is
to feed upon His flesh, which is meat, indeed, and to drink His blood,
which is drink, indeed.
We cannot attempt to explain the deep mysteries of our text, but
rather, as the swallow touches the brook with his wing and is away
again, we will glance at these crystal waters of this sacred Truth of
God and then up and away! The text teaches us, first, what Christ must
be to us. We shall consider, secondly, what is bound up in this. And,
thirdly, what reflections naturally arise out of it.
I. WHAT CHRIST MUST BE TO US. The answer from the text is, He must be
our meat and drink. He must be everything to us–the one thing
necessary, the indispensable, necessary all-sufficient supply. He must
be the source of strength, the support of life and we must feel Him to
be so. He must, to come back to the figure, be meat and drink to us.
Our Lord, in speaking to the Jews, was doubtless thinking of the
Paschal Lamb and of the time when Israel came out of Egypt–when they
not only had the blood of the lamb sprinkled upon their houses for
their security, but the lamb, itself, within them as their sustenance.
They sat down to feed upon it before they enjoyed the fullness of
redemption by passing out of Egypt from under the bondage of Pharaoh.
They did not understand that symbol and they little knew what our great
Lord and Master meant when He employed it to set forth Himself and
said, "My flesh is meat, indeed, and My blood is drink, indeed." Our
Lord Jesus Christ must be to us, then, our spiritual meat and drink.
What do we mean by that? First, that the doctrine of God Incarnate must
be the food of our souls. Brothers and Sisters, we have no doubt as to
the true and proper Deity of our Lord Jesus. We have long since passed
out of the region of controversy about that, for He has been God to us
in the work of salvation and in the new creation which we have
experienced through His power.
We have, moreover, no doubt about His humanity, but we do not usually
dwell enough upon it. We are bound to adore His Deity, but we must not
forget that He is as truly Man as if He were not God, and as much a
Brother to us as if He were not the Son of the Highest. Jesus is
assuredly Man. Now feed on this. The man Christ Jesus heads up a new
race–as the first Adam headed up the race of old and was our federal
head to stand or fall for us, and we were to stand or fall in him–so
is there now a new Head who brings us up from the ruin of the first
Adam's fall and puts us into a new position before the living God.
There is a Man who has redeemed us! There is a Man who has made all the
men in Him
well-pleasing to God. There is a Man who represents manhood in
perfection in the Glory above. There is a Man in whom all Believers
are–even as we read that Levi was in the loins of Abraham when
Melchisidec met him!
We are in Christ and we now stand before the eternal Throne in that
blessed representative Man. Feed on this doctrine! Jesus is a real Man,
though clothed with all power He is God and yet He is the mirror of
tenderness! He rules all things and yet is touched with the feeling of
our infirmities. You must believe this and you must receive it–and you
must rest upon it–otherwise you have no life in you. Some try to turn
this fact into a myth, but, indeed, it is no parable or figure of
speech, for the Christ who spoke these words was there before them–one
whom they had often seen eat and drink! He spoke of Himself with His
own lips and was not a phantom or apparition, but a solid existence of
flesh and blood. So, then, it is upon the historical Christ, whose
existence is a matter of fact, that my soul must feed as I believe Him
to be both Human and Divine.
But this is not all–the food to be fed upon is not merely God
Incarnate, but Christ suffering. Notice that He puts it, "My flesh is
meat, indeed, and My blood is drink indeed"–when the flesh and the
blood are mentioned separately, death is implied. The two being divided
and being named together in one connection are the token and emblem of
our Savior's vicarious Sacrifice. We also, (I am speaking of the
Brothers and Sisters worshipping here), have long ago passed beyond the
region of controversy as to the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus
Christ our Lord. If it is not so, then is our preaching vain and our
hope is also vain and we are yet in our sins. We have no hope of
eternal life save that which begins, centers and ends in the Sacrifice
of Jesus Christ! "This Man, when He had offered one Sacrifice for sins
forever, sat down at the right hand of God"–that is our sole hope.
He has made expiation for sin–
"He bore, that we might never bear, His Father's righteous ire."
We are now to build up our souls by feeding upon the suffering, the
crucified, the dead, the buried Christ, as having stood as our
Representative and as having endured death in our place. You cannot
obtain comfort apart from this if you have felt the weight of sin! And
you cannot continue happy apart from this great historical fact if you
are conscious of sin. Fly, my Hearers, into the wounds of Jesus and,
like doves, you shall find shelter in that Rock! And with eager wings
you may glide over the waste of human thought without finding a rest
for the soles of your weary feet till you light upon the Truth of God
of the great Substitution.
"The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," is the first bell of
Heaven's marriage peal–and the second has an equally sweet note of its
own–"Christ died for our sins." Ring them both often! Listen to them
as they sound forth, "God with us, Christ for us." Incarnation,
Substitution–was there ever better meat and drink for a hungry soul?
This surely satisfies the desire of the most hungry spirit–"The blood
of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." I have, as it were,
in those few words set out the viands of the feast.
But now I would have you note that our Lord must be to us meat and
drink–and meat is not intended to look at, but to feed on. I heard the
other day that in a certain Socinian place of worship they have gone
the length of setting the bread and wine on the table for the people to
look at, but they suppose that it is quite unnecessary that they should
actually eat and drink. It is fittingly done of them–that is
consistent with their creed. They have no Christ to feed upon! There is
nothing in their belief which could feed the soul of a mouse, if a
mouse had a soul! Why should they attempt to feed the people in figure
when really they have no Incarnate God or atoning Savior? If it is,
indeed, true that in one of their places of worship they have exhibited
the bread and wine instead of handing it out to be eaten, it is
remarkably typical of their bloodless, lifeless gospel! Their Christ
who is no Deity! Their Jesus who is no Sacrifice for sin!
How can the soul find food there? But we must beware lest we,
ourselves, should ever rest content with merely glancing at Christ and
not partaking of Him. What is to be done with food, with meat and
drink? It is to be received! Food on the table does not nourish! It
must be taken into the hand. The cup on the board will never cheer–it
must be lifted–it must be appropriated. I know that many of you have,
by a humble but brave faith, appropriated Christ as He is set before
you in the Gospel. He has bid you come and eat and you have come
pressed by a sore famine that was in your soul. You have come and you
have said, "He is mine," and you have taken Him to yourselves by simple
childlike confidence in Him. You have done well–continue to do the
same.
"As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in Him." Go on
receiving Him. "To whom coming," says the Apostle, "as unto a living
stone." Regard Him not as one to whom you have come by one act and have
done with Him, but as one to whom you come continually! "Of His
fullness have all we received and Grace for Grace," but we are going on
receiving by continuing to believe in Him! Hold on to this. Having
begun in the spirit, do not hope to be perfected by the flesh! Do not
think that you are to be fed, afterwards, on something other than
Christ, but go on receiving, appropriating and taking home the great
Truths concerning your Lord. Here, my Brethren, is the life of your
faith.
But even appropriating is not enough to constitute feeding. After
taking the morsel, it is put into the mouth and received inwardly–the
draught of wine is poured into the throat and it disappears. Receive
the Truth of God not only as a matter of creed, but drink it in as the
ox sucks in the water when he stands up to his knees in the pool. Take
Christ into your very soul–into your heart's belief as well as into
your mind's belief! Mental beliefs shift and change, but the inward
soul's belief never alters. I reckon that we know nothing rightly till
we have absorbed it and made it part and parcel of ourselves. The vital
Truths with regard to our Lord Jesus must go down into the inward parts
of the soul, as the food descends into the secret parts of the belly to
feed the entire man.
And you know what becomes of the food. It is taken up by the Nature,
itself, and becomes transmuted into it. After its digestion, it passes
through various processes and ultimately becomes the life-blood out of
which is built up nerve, muscle, sinew, bone, flesh, heart. Everything
comes of it. Now, you must so believe in Jesus that no longer is it a
matter of question with you whether you will retain Him or not, for if
you have inwardly received Him, you cannot lose Him forever. Oh that
blessed "Quis separabitV–"Who shall separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?" It is difficult to deprive a person
of that which he has received mentally, for facts learned in childhood
are remembered even to old age.
No one could compel another to forget, but yet without such compulsion
the memory might relax its hold through lapse of years–the mind might
part with that which it has received, but no known power could take
away from a man that which he has eaten and assimilated! A person may
very readily pick my pocket of my wallet, but what I ate yesterday he
cannot steal! That is mine–it is joined to myself and has built me up.
I do not know what portion of my flesh comes of my morning meal, or of
my mid-day repast, but there it is and there it must be. It has entered
into me and never can be taken away from me. So when the soul takes in
Christ's Truth with that simple childlike faith which is the mouth, the
Truth goes into the soul and is thought over, trusted in, delighted in
and becomes so part and parcel of the inner consciousness and of the
new nature of the man that it would be utterly impossible to tear away
that Truth from him!
Pound a true Christian in a mortar and every single atom would say, "I
belong to Christ." Grind him finer than the smallest dust of the
threshing floor and every minute particle would still say, "Christ is
in me." For so it is that the Christ has entered the man, permeated his
nature, become his very life and now it is, "I live, yet not I, but
Christ lives in me." Now is the text fulfilled in us, "For you are dead
and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in Glory." "Abide in
Me," said our Lord and He gave His own promise to be with us forever.
That is the result of eating Christ and to this we must come!
Beloved, I have thus explained the matter as well as I can, but as old
Rollock says, "The only way to understand feeding upon Christ is to
feed upon Christ." This is a practical, personal, experimental
business. In learning certain acts you must, yourself, become a
practical scholar, the master cannot teach by merely setting the
copy–the scholar must imitate it line by line with his own hand–and
so here I can teach little by words only, you must practice what is
spoken. Now feed on the Lord Jesus! Let each one of you do it. I know
what some will do–they will not feed on Christ, but they will pick
over the heavenly bread like dainty folks who have no stomach for their
meat. This bit of Christ they would have, but the other does not suit
their taste–Justification by Faith they would have, but not
Sanctification–they do not like that.
It is a whole Christ you and I must have–a whole Christ as to every
part of His teaching, Character, work and offices. We must receive Him
into ourselves without division, rejoicing to take Him just as He is.
Especially must we receive the spirit of Christ, for, "if any man have
not the spirit of Christ he is none of his." We must partake in the
loving spirit, the self-denying spirit, the generous spirit which lives
not within itself, but goes forth in forgiveness of injuries and in
seeking to benefit all mankind. We must have Jesus in us, delighting to
take in the whole of Him, for He says
farther on in this very chapter, "He that eats Me"–that is even more
comprehensive than His, "flesh and His blood"– "He that eats Me, even
he shall live by Me." The entire Christ must be taken into the soul to
build up the inner man.
II. Now, secondly, WHAT IS BOUND UP IN THIS EATING OF HIS FLESH AND
DRINKING OF HIS BLOOD? Here we will take you back to the context. And
notice, first, that there is, for this eating the flesh and drinking
the blood of Christ, such an essential necessity that he who has not so
eaten and drank has no spiritual life at all. It is a strong word,
"Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you
have no life in you." He does not mean that they have no natural
life–He is speaking about spiritual things.
Some that are as foolish as Judaizers in the matter of sticking to the
letter tell us that this means existence and that no man's eternal
existence is certain except that of a Believer in Christ. That dogma is
not taught here, certainly. Our Lord is not speaking of existence–He
is speaking of a far higher thing than existence, namely, life. Have
you ever learned the difference between death and non-existence and
between life and existence? If you have not, you are babes in
understanding and you will often be blundering and losing your way in
the midst of texts of Scripture. A man may exist in everlasting death,
as, alas, all who die unbelievers must do. But blessed is he who lives!
Blessed is he who shall live forever! Let me repeat the word,
"lives"–I did not say "exists."
What a glorious thing is life! Yet, if I had to explain to you what
life is, I might find it far easier by some action of my own to show
that I lived than to tell you exactly what life is. He, however, who
eats Christ has life. He who has not done so has not life. Do you
understand this–that unless you have received Christ by faith into
your souls you have no life? You can work, you can walk, you can
speak–you have all sorts of natural life–but you have not the life
everlasting of which Jesus speaks! The life of God is not in you! You
are dead and what a frightful condition that is–and to what greater
horror does it lead! For wherever there is death, the dead thing will
go a stage farther on. And what is that stage? Corruption!
Only leave a corpse alone long enough and it must corrupt. Flesh
corrupts necessarily. Already there are some signs of corruption about
every ungodly man–outward sin and especially the inward sin of
rejecting Christ are grievous corruptions. Your worm has begun to
devour, even the worm that never dies. Then will be reached another
stage, for corruption must be cast into the fire. For utter rottenness,
the end must be burning! O Sinner, your fire has begun to burn–the
fire that will never be quenched–for sin is the kindling of Hell! It
is an awful thing to abide in death and yet he that believes not on
Christ is condemned already, because he has not believed on the Son of
God! It is enough to make you spring from your seats, O you that are
unbelievers, to think that you are not waiting to be tried–you are
condemned already!
This is not a state of probation, as I often hear it said. Your
probation is past! You are condemned already because you have not
believed on the Son of God–and death is now upon you. The sentence has
already begun to take effect and it will go on to the consummation of
corruption till, at last, the Lord shall say, "Bury My dead out of My
sight," and you must be driven from the Presence of the Lord and from
the glory of His power. There is no life in you unless you have
received Christ! Will you think of this, you thinkers? Only think of
your being dead! Will you think of this, you ceremonialists to whom the
outward Baptism and the outward Lord's Supper and the church attendance
and the chapel going are everything? Unless you have fed on Christ
there is no life in you!
Then comes, in the next place, the further Truth of God, namely, that
all who have received Jesus Christ as their meat and drink have eternal
life. "Whoso eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life." I do
not know how our Brethren who doubt the final perseverance of the
saints manage to escape from the plain teaching of the text. There are
always ways of getting over everything–you can drive a coach and six,
they say, through any form of human language. But it does seem to me
that if I have eternal life I must eternally live and cannot possibly
die! if I have eternal life–if words mean anything–I am an eternally
saved man! If I have received Jesus Christ into my soul, I have the
life in me which will no more die than the life of God, for God's own
life is eternal life and if I have received such life as His, how can I
perish?
I shall not be slain by sin–the life in me cannot sin because it is
born of God! The life in me will throw off the darts of temptation if
it is eternal life. There remains nothing for it but to shake off the
death which often surrounds it by reason of the old man and to mount up
like a bird set free from its cage, singing because of its escape,
singing in the joy of life and winging its happy way upward to the
Throne of God! Rejoice then, dear Friends, that if you have received
Christ, you have eternal life in actual possession at this moment!
"Sometimes I don't feel it," you say. Do not try to live
by feeling! It is the most uncertain thing in the world. You might as
well try to live by the barometer. Feeling goes up and down, up and
down and changes more often than the moon. It is hard, uncomfortable
living. Live by faith, for it is written, "the just shall live by
faith." Your life is a life of trust. Keep to it.
"Ah, but I see so much about me that grieves me." Thank God it grieves
you! If you see sin and it does not grieve you, it is a token of death!
But if it grieves you, there is life in you, notwithstanding all the
death that surrounds it. You may have seen a spark in the midst of a
heap of autumn leaves which are all damp and will not burn, but only
smolder and smoke. And yet that spark continues to live and the very
smoke from the heap proves it is so. There is One who will not quench
the smoking flax but will fan it till it rises to a flame, and then it
will devour the leaves which covered it and dry up the dampness which
sought to destroy it!
Furthermore, if you believe in Jesus and have received Him, you have
gathered a life in which Christ gives us the victory, even through His
name–life which will rise and rise and rise and conquer all sin. The
Believer's inner life must come to absolute perfection and tread every
sin beneath its feet. Very different is this from the doctrine that a
man who is a child of God may sin as he pleases and yet be saved! That
doctrine is of the devil! But this is quite another doctrine and
ministers to holiness. The quickened man will not willingly and
habitually sin, for His Seed remains in him and he cannot sin because
he is born of God. The tone and tenor and bearing of his life will be
towards holiness and not towards sin– and the Lord who is able to keep
him from falling will preserve him to His eternal kingdom and glory and
He that has begun a good work in him will perfect it unto the day of
Christ.
Our Lord, having thus given us the negative and the positive in our
text, tells us that His flesh and blood, or Himself, received into the
soul are most efficient nourishment–in it is satisfaction. "My flesh
is meat indeed." The Greek word is "truly," or, some say, "true meat."
Now that which we eat for the body is not true meat. As George Herbert
says, "When you are at your meat, eat a bit and then say, 'Earth to
earth I commit.'" It is a deadly business. It is burying earth in earth
and that living grave of earth will be, itself, buried in earth,
by-and-by. The eating of material meat is the poor building up of a
fabric that must ultimately crumble into nothingness. The meat we eat
has all the elements of dissolution about it before we receive it and
it only feeds for a short time and, therefore, it is not meat, indeed.
In the matter of mental food, how much there is which is not bread and
can never satisfy the mind. There is nothing in the world that can fill
a soul to the fullest, but Jesus. Perhaps I address some thinker who
has been trying to satisfy his soul by sniffing up the east wind of
speculative philosophy. Ah, well, if you swallow a dose of Kant, or
Hegel, Schleicrmacher, or any one of those gentlemen–if you do not
feel as if you had been eating bubbles and bladders, your mental
constitution and mine greatly differ! There is nothing in them but gas,
or less substantial vapor. Why, a man may take down their books–a
whole dozen of them–and devour their contents and then say, "What is
it? Is it not much ado about nothing? These thoughts are dreams,
vacuums, airy nothings!" All the philosophies that ever were invented
could not satisfy a soul!
The worst of it is that many do not want to be satisfied. "We," they
say, "would sooner be seekers after truth than finders of it." They
somewhat differ from men of practical common sense who, ordinarily,
would rather have money than earn it and would rather eat their dinners
than hunt for them. Still, that is their way and, if they like it, I
suppose they must have it. Every creature after its own order! But if
you want to be fed, dear Friends, depend upon it, nothing will feed you
but Christ! There was a man of great appetite who lived many years ago
and he began to feast ravenously. He was such a drinker that I may say
of him that he drank up Jordan at a draught and he was such an eater,
that, if you heard the story of what was brought to his table, you
would be like the Queen of Sheba, utterly astonished, and say that the
half was not told you!
His name was Solomon and he fed his soul with all the arts and sciences
and with all the poetries and luxuries of the age. Nor did he refrain
from laughter and wantonness. There was not a cup he did not drain, nor
a dainty from any land, nor a fruit from any tree of which he did not
eat. Yet when he rose up from that abundant banquet, all he had to say
was, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" I have seen a poor soul feed
on Christ in a very humble cottage, upon a bed in a little room where
she has lain alone almost all day and all night long, year after year,
with many aches and pains and scarcely able to lift her hand to her
head–with little but dry bread and a cup of water–and yet I have seen
in that bedridden woman's pain-worn face a fullness of satisfaction! I
have known her speak like one that had not a wish ungratified, nor a
grief worth mentioning. I have beheld her when, in her sufferings she
could scarcely speak, and yet her every word was essential poetry when
she spoke of Him, her best Beloved, who had filled her soul even to
overflowing!
There is no food indeed, no drink indeed, for soul and spirit, but that
which you find in the Incarnate God and in the Sacrifice of Christ! O
you hungry, come here and eat that which is good and let your soul
delight itself in fatness! O you thirsty, come here, for behold the
waters are flowing freely and the wines on the lees are ready for you
in Christ Jesus! That is what is bound up in feeding upon Jesus! There
is satisfaction in Him!
And then there is bound up with it one other matter, namely,
in-dwelling. I go over the same ground again. The Lord Jesus says, "He
that eats My flesh and drinks My blood, dwells in Me and I in him."
When you have eaten bread, it dwells in you and you in it–it goes into
you and it is in you–it becomes part of yourself and you live by it
and in its strength. It is a part of the fabric in which you dwell.
Even so, he that believes in Christ lives in Christ. He does not merely
go to Christ, but he enters into Christ. I delight to remember that I
am not merely under the shadow of my Lord, but, as David in the caverns
of Engedi, so does my soul hide herself right away in Jesus. We dwell
in Him and are at home!
Moreover, He enters into us by our feeding upon Him so that He becomes
our life, the spring of our being, the object of our desire, the motive
force of our service! We are woven together–Christ warp and ourselves
woof–woven together in a living loom and so conjoined that it were
hard to tell where He ends who has no end and where we begin who are
lost in Him! We are less than the least of all saints and yet members
of His body who is Lord of All! We must leave the mystery remarking
that if we have fed on Christ for ourselves, we have proof of what good
meat it is we have fed on and we shall always pray, "Lord, evermore
give us this bread."
III. I need your attention for a few minutes while, in the third place,
we consider WHAT REFLECTIONS ARISE OUT OF THIS TRUTH. I will simply
throw them out for you to turn over for yourselves. They occurred to me
when I was hearing a Brother preach upon a kindred subject. They took
hold of my soul! May they prove useful to you. And the first was this.
If I have a life that feeds on Christ, what a wonderful life it must
be. My bodily life is wonderful, yet it only feeds on the fruits of the
earth. My mental life is a marvel, but I know that I can build it up
with literature and thought. Above all these I have a life which cannot
feed on anything but the flesh and blood of the Son of God! What a life
that must be!
What a wonderful being a man is when God is in him! I almost reverence
the meanest saint when I think of this, for he bears about with him not
a Kohinoor, but a gem of life, compared with which the queenly diamond
pales into a glittering vanity! O Love Divine, do You tabernacle in the
sons of men? I have been speaking of mysteries, but I ask you to
explain which is the greater mystery, the Incarnation of God in Christ
or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Believers? They are two
wondrous stoops of Deity which can only be likened to each other, being
each one without parallel. The spiritual life given to the regenerate
must be a life of inconceivable excellence and heavenliness since it
can only feed on Christ Himself.
The next thought is, if we have the life that feeds on such meat as
this, how strong it must be. They say of such-and-such men that they
may well be strong, seeing what good food they have. Yes, but see what
food we have–how strong we must be! Do we know our own strength? I do
not mean our natural strength, for that is weakness, but I mean the
strength which lies in the new Nature when it has fed on Christ! O
Brothers and Sisters, we are strong to do! We are strong to be! We are
strong to suffer! And to take an easy illustration of this–the one
that occurs to me first–look at how the saints have suffered. Take
down "Foxe's Book of Martyrs." Read of Marcus Arethusa, stung to death
by wasps without a sigh!
Think of Blandina tossed on the horns of bulls, exposed in a red-hot
iron chair and yet never flinching! Give up Christ? They never dreamed
of such a thing! Think of Lawrence on the gridiron and other
innumerable heroes who were made strong because Christ was in them!
Yes, and turn to humble men and women over yonder in Smithfield who
could clap their hands while every finger burned like a candle and
could shout, "None but Christ! None but Christ!" Why, they fed on the
flesh and blood of Christ and that made them mighty! They were tortured
on the rack like Anne Askew and yet they scorned to yield. Brave woman!
The priests and the friars could not vanquish her! Neither could all
the Bishop Bonners in the world burn Christ out of poor Tomkins!
When Bonner held the poor man's finger over the candle and said, "How
will you like that in every single limb of your body?" Tomkins smiled
at the bishop and said that he forgave him the cruelty that he was
doing him. Christ in a man makes him a partaker of Divine strength. Do
you not think, my Brothers and Sisters, that as you are not called to
suffer, you ought to lay out your strength in the line of doing,
giving, self-denial and serving Christ by holy living? Certainly you
should try to do so and your strength will be found equal to it! You do
not know how strong you are, but Paul shall tell you–"I can do all
things through Christ that strengthens me." Well may you do all things
if you have fed on Him who is All and in all!
Then a third reflection crossed my mind. If we have a life that feeds
on this, how immortal it must be. We have a text to prove that and we
have given it to you already–"He that believes on Him has everlasting
life." When a man has nothing but bad food, you do not wonder that he
dies. It is little marvel that they died by millions in India and
China, considering how little nourishment they had during the famine.
But if you and I eat Christ, eat the Incarnate God and drink His blood,
how can we die? What? Kill a man that has even a particle of Christ in
him? The devil cannot do it–he knows his Master! And what does Christ
say? "I give unto My sheep eternal life and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand."
Oh, blessed Truth of God! We live, not only because our life is itself
eternal, but because it feeds on eternal meat! We keep on receiving
Christ day by day, for we live upon Him. Eating is not a work that we
finished 25 years ago, but we continue to feed upon Jesus and,
therefore, we live. Feeding upon Christ does not mean being converted
and then saying, "I am safe and have no more need to care." Ah, no! It
means beginning to receive Him in conversion and continuing to feed
upon Him forevermore! And they who do this may be sure that their life
is immortal! The next thought that struck me was this–if we feed on
such meat as this, how that life must develop. I do not quite see in
myself and, I may say that I do not see in some Believers, the full
result I should like to see from such food.
Has this man been eating such Divine food? Let us hear him. He cries,
"My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!" He is doing Christ's work
spasmodically, feebly, sleepily. He does it without joy and is soon
weary. Is this all he is going to do? Is this all he is going to be? Oh
no, Brothers and Sisters, "It does not yet appear what we shall be." We
shall grow! We shall grow! When I hear a man talk about being perfect
in the flesh, I hope for the best and trust that he is not willfully
lying. At any rate, I do not believe him! I would like to see his
perfection rather than to hear him talk about it! I have generally
found that when a cart needs a bell, it is a dust cart. I never knew
the people of the Bank of England ring a bell when they were going
through the streets with bullion and I do not think it is likely that a
man who has much Grace will boast of it!
Yet I do believe that we can be developed into something very
wonderful. A man may grow in Grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
till his conversation is in Heaven and he becomes wholly consecrated to
the Lord–hating sin and living like Enoch who walked with God. There
have been such men and there are such men and women still among us
whose lives glitter with the light of God–why should not we be like
they are? They are stars in God's firmament and they shine in the Glory
of the Most High! The Lord grant us that feeding on the Divine meat we
may develop till the image of Jesus is perfected in us!
And, lastly, he who is thus fed, dear Friends, what company he must
keep! "He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood, dwells in Me," says
Christ, "and I in him." What heavenly company is this! He goes home at
night to his poor family, perhaps, and there is nothing great about his
house that you can see–but if your eyes are opened you will see that
it is a king's palace–and if you are one of the Lord's and can step
inside, you will see that he has "come to the general assembly and
Church of the firstborn whose names are written in Heaven and unto God
the Judge of All, and unto the spirits of just men made perfect,"
because he that has Christ in him has Heaven around him!
All good things are attracted by Christ in man. Put down a little honey
and see how wasps and flies and bees come all around it! What is the
sweetest honey in the universe? It is Christ–and if you have Christ in
you, His name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins
love Him and they will come where He is. I will tell you–Christ is
never without God and he that has Christ has the company of the Father!
And Christ is never without the Spirit of God, for the Spirit of God is
upon Him and he that has Christ is never without the Spirit! What
Divine society is this! Our Lord Jesus is never unattended by a retinue
of sublime intelligences and so if Christ is in you, He will give His
angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways! They shall bear
you up in their hands lest you dash your foot against a stone.
Prince of the blood royal of Heaven! O Peer of God's own kingdom, you
are more nearly related to the King of kings than the peers of the
realm can be to the Queen, for are you not married to the Prince
Imperial? Is He not coming to receive you to Himself, that where He is,
you may be, also? If you are feeding on Him, your union with Him is
complete! If He is your food; if He is your raiment; if He is your
dwelling place; if He is your All in All, I think I may compare you to
that angel of whom Milton sang, even Uriel, who dwelt in the center of
the sun! It is there we live–in the very substance and essence of all
things and all things move around us like satellites around a central
globe, for we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar
people inasmuch as we have fed on Christ–and Christ dwells in us and
we in Him!
1 have not said anything to the unconverted and yet I have meant it all
for them. When you spread a dainty feast, you practically invite the
family to come and dine. It is the very best way of enticing them. If
they are hungry, the meats on the table will make their mouths water
and they will long to partake. Oh, my Hearers, whoever you may be, if
your mouths water after Christ, come and have Him for He is free to
every soul that hungers and thirsts after Him! The Lord give Him to you
at once, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
PORTION OFSCRIPTUREREAD BEFORE SERMON–John 6:41-71. HYMNS FROM "OUR
OWN HYMN BOOK"–260, 820, 761.
LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:
BELOVED FRIENDS, By the time that this note is printed, the Special
Services at the Tabernacle will be drawing to a close and it will be
meet to harrow in the seed with renewed supplication. Shall so much
effort be in vain? It cannot be and yet everything depends upon the
mighty working of the Spirit of God and, therefore, we must seek His
face if we would see large results! I suggest that every sermon reader
should spend a special time in prayer, next Lord's Day, in pleading for
the revival of Evangelical religion.
The Times pronounced the funeral oration of the Evangelical party, but
it is not dead, even, within the Established Church and certainly not
among Dissenters! Let us, however, pray that it may exhibit more
vigorous life. There is need of such supplication, but it must be
presented in faith and with holy importunity. So let it be.
For myself, one word only. I am recovering and rest is restoring mind
and heart. Pray for me. Yours to serve always,
C H. SPURGEON, Mentone, February 20, 1879.
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The Seven Sneezes