The Mysteries of the Brazen Serpent
A Sermon
(No. 153)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, September 27, 1857, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have eternal life."–John 3:14.
WE are told by wise men that all languages are based upon figures, that
the speech of men who are uncivilized is mainly composed of figures;
and that indeed the language of the most civilized, when cleaved so as
to bring it to its natural foundation, is based upon a set of metaphors
perceived by the mind, and then used in language. This much I know,
that when we would teach children to speak, we are accustomed to call
things, not exactly by the names by which they are known to us, but by
some name which represents, for instance, the kind of noise which is
uttered by some animal; but which in some way or other, by a species of
figure, is easily understood by the child to represent the things. But
certain it is that among savage nations, the speech is almost entirely
composed of metaphors. Hear an Indian warrior addressing the chiefs,
and inflaming them for war; he gathers together all the metaphors of
heaven and earth to make his speech. And you will note the same thing
is true even in the names which the Indian warriors bear. Those of you
who are acquainted with their nomenclature will remember, that the
strangest names are given to their great men, by way of figure and
metaphor to set forth the qualities of their mind.
Now, beloved, it is the same in spiritual language as it is in natural
speech Nicodemus was but a child in grace: when Jesus Christ would
teach him to speak concerning things of the kingdom, he did not talk to
him in abstract words, but he gave him metaphorical words whereby he
might understand the essence of the thing better than by giving him a
mere abstract term. When he talked to Nicodemus, he did not say
anything about sanctification; but he said, "Except a man be born of
water." He did not talk anything to him about the great change of the
heart; but he said, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the
kingdom of God." He would not tell him much about the Spirit when he
began, but he said "The wind bloweth where it listeth." And when he
wanted to teach him faith he did not begin by saying, "By faith we are
allied to Christ, and derive salvation from our living head;" but he
said–;"Like as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness." And so
the first religious talk of converted men must always be in figures.
Not the epistles of Paul, which are pure didactic teaching, but the
words of Jesus, must first be applied to the sinner, before he is
enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and understands the mysteries of the
kingdom. And I believe I have hit upon the reason why our Master used
this figure, and talked to Nicodemus with metaphor after metaphor, and
figure after figure, because the root of all language must be in
figures.
And now, to-day, I am about to address the mass of my congregation
concerning that simple subject of faith in the Lord Jesus, whereby men
are saved. And instead of addressing them in a didactic and doctrinal
manner, I shall adopt the parable of my text, and endeavour to imitate
the example of my Lord, in trying to make faith plain to those who are
but children in grace.
Allow me, then, dear friends, to describe first, the people in the
wilderness–the representatives of men who are sinners. Let me describe
next, the brazen serpent–the type of Jesus Christ crucified. Let me
then note what was to be done with the brazen serpent–it was to be
lifted up; and so was Christ to be lifted up. And then let us notice
what was to be done by the people who were bitten–they were to look at
the serpent; and so sinners must believe in Christ.
I. Our first figure represents MEN IN THE ESTATE OF SIN; and the figure
is borrowed from the children of Israel in the wilderness, when they
were invaded by the fiery serpents. Can you imagine the horror and
dismay depicted upon the countenances of the Israelites, when, for the
first time, they saw themselves invaded by an army of fiery flying
serpents? They had stood valiantly in fight against Amalek; but these
were things that trembled not at the sword. Moses had taught them the
use of the bow, as it is written in the book of Jasher, but these were
thing, against which the arrow could not prevail. They had endured
weariness, and thirst and hunger; the sun had sometimes smitten them by
day, and the frost by night, and but for God's preservation, the
hardships of the wilderness would have cut them off. All these they had
endured and were inured to them; but these fiery serpents were
novelties; and all new terrors are terrible from their very novelty.
Can you imagine how they began to tell one another of the awful
visitants which they had beheld! and can you. imagine how their terror
spread like wildfire through the camp, and ere the rumour had spread
the serpents were devouring them?
And now, dear friends, if we could all of us see our position in this
world, we should this day feel as Israel did when they saw the serpents
coming upon them. When our children are born into this world, we
believe there is sin in them; but it is a terrible thing for us to
reflect that even if the serpent had not bitten them in the birth, yet
they are surrounded everywhere by innumerable evils! Can a father send
his son into this wicked world with a consciousness of all the evils
that will surround him, without a sense of terror? And can a Christian
man trust himself to walk in the midst of this ungodly and libidinous
generation, without feeling that he is surrounded with temptations,
which, if he were left to himself, would be a thousand times more
dangerous to him than the most destroying of serpents?
But the picture blackens; we must have deeper shades to paint it.
Behold the people after they were bitten! Can you picture their
writhings and contortions when the poison of the serpent had infected
their veins? We are told by the old writers that these serpents when
they bit caused vehement heat, so that there was a pain throughout the
body, as if a hot iron had been sent along the veins. Those who had
been bitten had a great thirst; they drank incessantly, and still cried
for water to quench the burnings within. It was a hot fire which was
lit in the fountain, and which ran through every nerve and every sinew
of the man; they were racked in pain, and died in most fearful
convulsions. Now my brethren, we cannot say that sin instantly produces
such an effect as this upon the men who are the subjects of it; but we
do affirm, that, let sin alone, and it will develop itself in miseries
far more extreme than ever the bite of the serpent could have caused.
It is true the young man who quaffs the poisoned cup of intoxication,
wots not that there is a serpent there; for there is no serpent except
in the dregs thereof. It is sure that the woman who boasts herself of
her riches, and arrays herself right gaudily in her pride, wots not
that a serpent binds the zone of her waist; for there is no serpent
there as she knoweth, but she shall know it when the days of her
frivolity are ended. It is true he that curseth God knows not that a
viper hath infused the poison which he speaks out against his Maker;
but he shall know it in days to come. Look ye at a bloated drunkard;
see him after years of intoxication have defaced all that was manlike
in him, as he totters to his grave a poor feeble creature; the pillars
of his house are shaken, his strength has failed him, and that which
God had meant to be his own image hath become the image of misery
incarnate! See the lascivious debauchee after his brief day of pleasure
has closed!–No, it is too loathsome for me to paint; my lips refuse to
depict the miseries which our hospitals see every day; the awful
loathsomeness, the accursed disease which eats up the very bones of
those who indulge in sin. Fiery serpents, ye are nothing when compared
with fiery lusts! ye may infuse poison into the blood; but lusts do
that, and do something more, for they infuse damnation into the soul!
When sin has had its perfect work; when its last fair conception has
been brought forth, and hath developed itself in the dire crime and the
loathsome iniquity–then we have a picture which serpent-bitten Israel
would not set forth to us in all its horrors!
And the shades thicken yet again; the darkness lowers, and the clouds
are heavier! How awful must have been the death of those who died by
the serpents! There are some deaths which are sweet to think upon. The
death of the late eminent preacher, Dr. Beaumont, who died in his
pulpit, was a death which all of us might envy; whose released spirit,
whilst the singing of God's praise was ascending up to heaven, left his
body, and was forthwith raised to the throne of God. The death of him,
who having served his Master, sinks like a shock of corn fully ripe, or
like a sun that hath run its race, is something to be noted and
remembered with delight. But the death of the sinner, who hath been
bitten by his lusts, and hath not been saved by faith in Christ–oh,
how terrible! It is not in the power of mortal language to depict the
horrors of the death-bed of a man who has lived without God and without
Christ. I challenge all the orators that have ever lived, to draw forth
from their vocabulary, words full enough of horror and of terror to
depict the departing scene of the man who has lived at enmity with God,
and who dies with his con science quickened then. Some men it is true
live in sin, and take the last dregs of their infatuation before they
die, and sink into the pit blindfolded, without the slightest pang of
horror; but other men who have had their consciences awakened, die not
so. Oh, the shrieks, the yells, the screams! oh, the face of anguish,
the contortions, the misery. Have you never heard how men do bend their
fists and swear they will not die; and how they start forth, and
declare–" I cannot, and I must not die; I am unprepared!" Starting
back from the fiery gulph they clutch the physician, and desire him, if
possible, to lengthen out the thread of their existence! Ay, many a
nurse has vowed that she would never nurse such a man again, for the
horrors would be with her till she died.
And now, my dear hearers, you are not dying now; but you will be dying
soon. None of you have taken a lease of your lives; it is impossible
for you to guarantee to yourselves existence for another hour. And if
you are Godless and Christless, ye have all in your veins the venom of
that death unutterable which will make your departure doleful beyond
expression! I would to God I could cut the cords of my stammering
tongue so as to address you with vehemence and passion upon this
subject. Men are dying every day around us; at this very hour there are
thousands departing into the world of spirits. In upper chambers, where
mourning relatives are pouring floods of tears upon their burning
brows; far away on the wild sea, where the sea-gull utters the only
scream over the shipwrecked mariner; down, deep, deep, deep, in the
lowest valley, and high upon the loftiest hills, men are dying now, and
dying in all the agonies I have sought to describe, but have failed to
do. Ah, and ye must die also! and will ye march on heedlessly; will ye
go on step after step, singing merrily all the way, and dreaming not of
that which is to come! Oh, will ye be like the silly bullock that goeth
easily to the slaughter, or will ye be like the lamb that licks the
butcher's knife! Mad, mad O man, that thou shouldst go to eternal wrath
and to the chambers of fell destruction, and yet no sigh comes from thy
heart; no groan is uttered by thy lips! Thou diest every day, but
groanest never, till the last day of thy death, which is the beginning
of thy misery. Yes, the condition of the mass of men is just like the
condition of the children of Israel when they were bitten by the
serpents.
II. And now comes THE REMEDY. The remedy of the bitten Israelites was a
brazen serpent; and the remedy for sinners is Christ crucified. "Stuff,
nonsense," said some of the children of Israel, when they heard that a
brazen serpent lifted up on a pole was to be the means of their cure.
Many of them laughed in the jollity of unbelief–absurd, ridiculous;
who ever heard of such a thing, how can it be? A serpent of brass
lifted up upon a pole, to cure us of these wounds, by being looked
Upon! why all the skill of the physicians cannot do it; will a glance
at a brazen Serpent do it? It is impossible!" This much I know, if they
did not despise the brazen serpent, there be many that despise Christ
crucified. Shall I tell you what they say of him? They say of him as
they did of the brazen serpent. Some Wise one said–" Why it was a
serpent that did the mischief; how can a serpent Undo it?" Yes, and men
will say, "It was by man that sin and death came into the World, and
can a man be the means of our salvation?" "Ah," says another, having
the prejudice of a Jew about him, "and what a man he was! No king, no
prince, no mighty conqueror; he was but a poor peasant, and he died
upon a cross." Ah, so said some in the camp; they said it was only a
brazen serpent, not a golden one, and how could a brazen serpent be of
any use to them? It would not sell for much if it were broken up. What
was the use of it? And so men say of Christ. He is despised and
rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and they
hide their faces from him because they cannot see how he is adapted for
their cure.
But some will have it that the preaching of the cross not only cannot
save, but will increase the evil. Old physicians tell us that brass was
the most likely thing in the world to make people die the quicker; the
sight of anything that is bright would have the effect of making the
poison yet more strong in its effects, so that it would be death at
once to look upon brass. And yet strange to say, to look at the brazen
serpent saved them. "Now," says the infidel, "I cannot see how men are
to be saved from sin by the preaching of Christ." "Truly, sir," he
says, "you go and tell men that though they have sinned never so much,
if they do but believe, their sins shall all be washed away! Why they
will take advantage of that, and they will be more wicked than ever
they were. You tell men that their good works are of no avail whatever,
that they must rest on Christ alone!" "Why," says the sceptic, "my dear
fellow, it will be the destruction of all morality; instead of a cure,
it will be a death. Why preach it?" Ah, the preaching of the cross is
to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved, it is
Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. I cannot, myself, but
admit, that at first sight the brazen serpent seems to be the most
absurd invention, in itself, for curing those who were bitten, that
ever mind of man could have invented; and yet I see in the brazen
serpent, when I come to study it, the highest wisdom that even God
himself could develop. I grant you that the cross of Christ also does
in its outward appearance seem to be the simplicity of simplicities;
something which any one might have thought of, but which would have
been beneath their thought. But when you come to study and understand
the marvellous scheme of God's justice vindicated, and man pardoned
through the atoning blood of the cross, I say, that not even the mighty
intellect of God could have conceived a wiser plan, than the wisdom of
God displayed in Christ Jesus crucified.
But remember, that much as those who heard of the brazen serpent might
have despised it, yet there was no other means of cure. And, now hear
me for one moment, while I tell the whole story of salvation. Men,
brethren, and fathers, we are born of a sinful generation, and we have
ourselves increased our guilt, for us there is no hope; do what we may,
we cannot save ourselves.
"Could our zeal no respite know,
Could our tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone."
But brethren, Christ Jesus, God's eternal Son, came into this world,
and was born of the virgin Mary, he lived a doleful life of misery, and
at last he died a death accompanied by unutterable pangs–that was the
punishment of the sins of those who, as penitents, come to Christ. If
you this day so repent, and put your trust in Jesus, you have in your
trust and repentance a sure proof that Christ was punished for you.
III. And now WHAT WAS TO BE DONE WITH THE BRAZEN SERPENT? The text
says, "Moses lifted it up;" and we read he was to lift it up upon a
pole. Ah, dear friends, and Christ Jesus must be lifted up. He has been
lifted up; wicked men lifted him up, when, with nails on an accursed
tree, they crucified him! God the Father hath lifted him up; for he
hath highly exalted him, far above principalities and powers. But the
minister's business is to lift him up. There are some ministers who
forget that their errand in the world is to lift up Christ. Suppose
Moses, when God told him to lift up the brazen serpent, had said in
himself, "It is becoming In me, before I lift it up, that I should give
some explanatory remarks. And instead of lifting it up before the
vulgar crowd, I will initiate a proved few, so that they may understand
about it. I will arrange around this serpent a few golden cloths, I
will garnish it with silver tapestry, so that it may not be looked upon
by vulgar eyes, and I will endeavour to explain it to them." Now this
is what many priestly persons in this age and in ages past have tried
to do. The gospel! oh, that must not be preached to the poor! "The
Bible," says the Church of Rome, "must not be read by the vulgar crowd!
How can they understand it? It is a thing too sacred for the common
people to see! No, wrap up the brazen serpent; wrap it up in a cloth,
do not let it be exhibited." "No," say our Protestant ministers, many
of them, "the Bible must he given, but we must never alter the
translation of it!" There are some passages in the present translation
that are so dark, that no man can understand them without an
explanation. "But no," say the divines of this age, "we will not have
the Bible translated properly, the people must always put up with a
faulty translation. The brazen serpent must be wrapped up, because it
would a little unsettle matters, if we were to have a new translation!"
"No," say others, "we will have a new translation, if need be; but
there are some parts of the truth that ought not to be preached!" I am
not now misrepresenting some of my brethren in the ministry. I know
they hold that some doctrines of God's Word ought not to be
preached–every day at least. They say Election is true; but they never
mention it. They say Predestination is no doubt a godly doctrine, but
it ought to be kept from the people. It must be in their creed, or else
they would not be sound; but in the pulpit it must not be mentioned at
all. "No," says the Church of Rome, "if we have a brazen serpent, we
will put it in the sanctum, where it cannot be seen, and we will have
the smoke of incense before it, so that it shall not be plainly
discerned; the pomp, and ceremony, and trappings of formality, shall
shield it from the vulgar gaze of the people; we will have it girt all
round with a thousand ceremonies, which will abstract the gospel, and
leave the people to be content with the ceremonies!" Now in these days
there are great ten dencies to that. The Puseyites are trying, instead
of preaching the simplicity of the gospel, to give us figures. "Oh,"
they say, "what an elevating thing is a Gothic church; how it lifts the
soul to heaven to sit in a place where there is a forest of Gothic
pillars! oh, what a sweet influence a well played organ has on the
mind!" They tell us there is a kind of heavenly influence poured forth
from vestments when well worn; and that to see the priest discharge his
functions in a holy and reverent manner, is a most excellent way of
impressing souls. They will have us believe that holly at Christmas
time is a most heavenly and spiritual thing. They teach us that our
passions will be carried to heaven by these little sprigs of green;
that putting flowers now and then where the gas lamps should be, has a
most extraordinary influence in carrying away our souls to paradise;
that burning candles in the daylight is just the most splendid way in
all the world of showing forth the sun of righteousness! Now, we do not
exactly fall in with their views. We believe that these places are good
for children; they are not so liable to cry there, for there are more
things to amuse them. But we never could see how a man–who was a
man–could ever sit down to a thing so infamously namby-pamby as the
religion of a Puseyite. There is nothing in it but pure nonsense, and
all that the gospel may not be seen. It is as if Aaron had filled his
censer full of incense and waved it before the brazen serpent, and made
a great smoke, so that the people could not see; and then poor Moses
tarried behind and tried to look, but none of the poor souls could see
because there was the smoke before them. No, the only thing we have to
do with Christ Jesus crucified is, just to lift him up and preach him.
There is many a man who could only speak in a ploughman's dialect, who
will wear a bright and starry crown in heaven, because he lifted Christ
up, and sinners saw and lived. And there is many a learned doctor, who
spoke with the brogue of the Egyptian, and, with dark and mysterious
language, he talked he knew not what, who, after having ended his
course, shall enter heaven without a solitary star in his crown, never
having lifted up Christ, nor won crowns for his Master. Let each of us
who are called to the solemn work of the ministry remember, that we are
not called to lift up doctrine, or church governments, or particular
denominations; our business is to lift up Christ Jesus and to preach
him fully. There may he times when church government is to be
discussed, and peculiar doctrines are to be vindicated. God forbid that
we should silence any part of truth: but the main work of the
ministry–its every day work–is just exhibiting Christ. and crying out
to sinners, "Believe, believe, believe on him who is the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sins of the world."
And let it be remembered, that if the minister doth but preach Christ
plainly, that is all he has to do; if with affection and prayer he
preaches Christ fully, if there were never a soul saved–which I
believe would be impossible–he would have done his work, and his
Master would say, "Well done." I have gone away from this hall, after
preaching upon divers doctrines, and though many have complimented me,
foolishly, I have said to myself, "I can but groan that I had such a
subject at all." And at another time, when I have been faltering in my
delivery, and committed a thousand blunders in my speech, I have gone
away as happy as a prince, because I have said, "I did preach Christ."
There was enough for sinners to be saved by; and if all the papers in
the world should abuse me, and all the men in the world should say cry
him down;' he will still live and still breathe as long as he feels in
himself, "I have preached to sinners, and Christ has been preached to
them, so as they could understand and lay hold on him and be saved."
IV. And now, dear friends, I have almost concluded; but I have come to
that part of the discourse which needs most of power. WHAT WERE ISRAEL
TO DO? What are convinced sinners to do? The Israelites were to look;
the convinced sinner must believe. Do you picture Moses with his
reverend head standing erect, and boldly crying out with all his
might–" Look, look, look!" Do you see him, as with his right hand he
grasps the pole, and lifts it up, and marches with it through the camp
like a great standard-bearer, pointing with his finger, and speaking
with hand, and eye, and lip, and foot, and every part of the body, as
he passionately bids poor bitten Israel to look? You can, perhaps,
conceive the scene as men roll over one another, and the dying and
almost dead behold the brazen serpent. and begin to live. Now note,
there may be some in the camp who would not look; they obstinately shut
their eyes, and when the pole was brought near them they would not
look. Perhaps it was through unbelief; they said, "What was the use of
it? it could do them no good!" There is the wretch, the pole is before
him, and yet he will not look. Well what will become of him? Oh, the
death-pangs are upon him; see how death is twitching him! How his flesh
seems to writhe in agony! He has shut his eyes with all the force and
passion he can command, lest they should be opened on that brazen
serpent, and he should live I Ah! my hearer, and I have such an one
here to-day. I have many here who will not come to Christ that they may
be saved–men, who when the gospel is preached to them resist it,
despise it, and reject it. Though the reception of the gospel be all of
grace, yet the rejection of it is all of man. And I have some here who
have often been touched in their con science; they have often been
moved to believe, but they have been desperately set on mischief, and
they would not come to Christ. Ah, sinner, thou little knowest how
direful thy doom shall be. Thou mayest this day tell me thou dost not
believe on the Saviour; thou mayest turn away thine ear from the
warning, and say, "What need to make so great a noise about it? I would
rather die than believe; for I do not think that Christ can save! What
good is there in it?" Ah, sir, you may reject me; but remember there is
a greater preacher than I am coming to you soon. He with a skeleton
arm, and bony finger, and cold speech, he will freeze, and yet
convince! It is one called Death! Look me in the face to-day; and tell
me I preach you a lie–you can do that easily! Look death in the face
to-morrow, and tell him that, and you will find it harder work. Ay, and
if you have the fool-hardiness to do that, you will not look at the
face of the Great Judge, when he shall sit upon the throne, and tell
him that his gospel was not true; for affrighted and alarmed, you shall
rush hither and thither to hide yourselves from the face of him that
sitteth upon the throne. Perhaps there were some in the camp who said
they would look by-and-by. "Oh," said they, "there is no need to look
now; the venom has not yet worked its effects: we are not yet dead; a
little longer!" And ere they uttered the last word they were stiff and
clay-cold! How many do the same? They will not be religious yet;
another day, another hour. They believe they can be pious when they
like, which is a fallacy; and therefore they will postpone the matter
as long as they may. How many have postponed the day of salvation,
until the day of damnation has come, before they had repented! Oh, how'
many have said, "A little sleep, a little folding of the hands!" and
they have been like men on shipboard, when the ship was foundering, who
would not escape while they might, but still tarried on deck; at last a
sea swallowed them, and they went down alive into the depths. Take heed
of procrastination; delays are dangerous, and some delays are damnable!
Look hither, look hither to Christ bleeding on cross. Look now, for the
Spirit saith, "to-day: if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts
as in the day of provocation."
I doubt not, there were some there who tried physicians: "Look at the
brazen serpent?" said they, "not we. Doctor, come hither, bring your
balsam; can you not take the caustic and burn out this poison from my
arm, and then pour in some cordial that will save me? Physician, have
you no antidote that might cool my blood? Ah. I laugh at that brazen
serpent; I will not look at it; I trust to your skill. O learned
physician!" And how many now do the same? They say, "I will not believe
in Christ; I will try and do better; I will reform myself, I will
attend to all the ceremonies of the church. Can I not help myself, and
so improve myself that I shall have no need of Jesus?" Ah, ye may try;
ye may lay that flattering unction to your souls, and film the ulcerous
wound, but all the while dark corruption shall sleep within, and shall
at last break out in sore flames upon thee; when thou shalt have no
time to attempt a cure, but shalt be swept away–not to the hospital of
mercy, but like the leper, without the city, thou shalt be cast away
from hope of blessedness.
It may be there were some who were so busy looking at their sores, that
they did not think of looking at the serpent. Poor creatures, they lay
in their misery, and kept looking first at that wound on the foot, and
then at that one on the hand; and crying over their sores, and never
looked at the serpent. Scores and hundreds perish in that way. ' Oh,"
says the sinner, "I have been so sinful!" Man, what has that to do with
it? Christ is all meritorious, look at him. "No, no," says another, "I
cannot look at Christ. Oh, sir, you do not know what crimes I have
committed; I have been a drunkard, I have been a swearer, I have been a
whore-monger, or what not; how can I be saved!" My dear man, your
wounds have nothing to do with it: it is just Christ on the cross. If
any poor creature, bitten by the serpent, had said to me–" Now it is
no good my looking there; see how often I have been bitten; there is a
huge serpent twisting round my loins, there is another devouring my
hand, how can I live?" I should say to him, "My dear fellow, do not
take any notice whether you have got one serpent or fifty serpents, one
bite or fifty bites; all you have to do is to look. You have nothing to
do with these bites, except that you have to feel them, and perish by
them unless you look. But just look straight to Christ." And now thou
chief of sinners, believe in the Lord Jesus; and be thy sins never so
many, he is able to save unto the uttermost, them that come unto God by
him. And yet how many perish through those divers delusions, with the
gospel before their very eyes, lifted up on the pole so plainly that we
wonder they do not see it.
And now I must tell you one or two sweet things for the encouragement
of the poor sinner. Oh, you that are guilty this morning, and know that
you are so, let me say to you, "Look to Christ." For remember the
brazen serpent was lifted up, that every one in the camp who was bitten
might live; and now Christ is lifted up to you, that "whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Sinner, the
devil says you are shut out; tell him that "whosoever" shuts out none.
Oh that precious word, "whosoever." Poor soul, I see thee clutch at it
and say, "Then, Sir, if I believe, he will not cast me away." I see the
harlot in all her guilt bemoaning her iniquity; she says it is
impossible that Christ should save. But she hears it said, "Whosoever,"
and she looks and lives! Remember, it mattered not how old they were,
nor how much bitten they were, nor whereabouts in the camp they lived;
they did but look and live. And now ye that have grown grey in
iniquity, whose hairs might rather be black than white, if they showed
forth your character, for it has been blackened by years of vice.
Remember there is the same Christ for big sinners as for little
sinners; the same Christ for grey heads as for babes; the same Christ
for poor as for rich; the same Christ for chimney sweeps as for
monarchs; the same Christ for prostitutes as for saints: "Whosoever." I
use broad words that I may take a broad range, and sweep the whole
universe of sinners through–whosoever looketh to Christ shall live.
And remember it does not say that if they looked but little they should
not live. Perhaps there was some of them so bitten that their eyelids
were swollen and they could scarcely see. Old Christopher Ness says,
"There may have been some of them that had so little sight that they
could but squint from one eye." Says he, in his strange language, "If
they did but dart a little glance at the brazen serpent, they lived."
And you who say you cannot believe; if God gives you only half a grain
of faith, that will carry you to heaven. If you can only say, "O Lord,
I would believe, help thou mine unbelief;" if you can but put out your
hand with Simon Peter, and say, "Lord save, or I perish," it is enough.
If you can only pray that poor publican's prayer–" God be merciful to
me a sinner," that will do. And if you cannot sing with some of the old
experienced saints–
"My name from the palms of his hands,
Eternity cannot erase;
remember it is quite enough, if you can only sing–
"I can but perish if I go,
I am resolved to try;
For if I stay away, I know
I must for ever die."
And now poor soul I have almost done. But I cannot let thee go. I see
thee with the tear in thine eye; I hear thee confessing thy guilt, and
bemoaning thy sin; I bid thee look to my Master and live. Be not afraid
to try my Lord and Master. I know what thy bashfulness is; I have felt
the same, and thought he never would save me. Come soul, thou art in
secret now with thyself; for though there be thou sands around thee,
thou thinkest I am speaking alone to thee. And so I am. My brother, my
sister, you are weeping to-day on account of sin–look to Jesus. And
for your encouragement note these three things. Note first that Jesus
Christ was put on the cross on purpose for you to look at. The only
reason why he died, was that poor sinners might look at him and be
saved. Now, my dear brethren, if that was Christ's purpose in being
hung on the tree, you need not think you may not do it. If God sends a
river, and sends it for us to drink of, will you disappoint him in not
drinking? No, rather you will say. "Did he design me to drink it? Then
will I drink it." Now, Jesus hung on the cross on purpose to be looked
at. Look at him, look at him, and live. Remember again for your
encouragement, he asks you to look; he invites you to believe; he has
sent his minister this day, even to command you to do it; he has said
to me, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature;
he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved." Now I need not
simply say that my Master's door is wide open for you; I will say
something more: he has told me to ask you to come in. Wisdom crieth
aloud, she uttereth her voice in the streets, she inviteth you; she
saith, "My oxen and my fatlings are killed, all things are ready, come
ye to the supper." Yea, my Master has given instructions to his Holy
Spirit that if men will not come of themselves, he should compel them
to come in that his house may be filled. Then, poor sinner, you must be
welcome, he will have enough sinners to fill his table; and if he has
made you feel your sinnership–come and welcome, sinner, come. And my
last encouragement is this: Come to my Master and try him, because he
promises to save you. The promises of Jesus Christ are all of them as
good as oaths; they never fail. He says–"Whosoever believeth in him
shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Now, if I had here a man
who declared himself to be the vilest wretch on earth, I would say to
him–Young man, I am very fond of proving the truthfulness of God's
promises; now God says, if you believe you shall not perish. My dear
friend, when a common sinner tries, and it does not fail, it is some
proof of its truthful ness: but you are an extraordinary sinner. Now,
thou extraordinary sinner, venture thyself on this promise; he says
thou shalt not perish; come and try him. And remember, God must undeify
himself, and cease to be true, before he can ever damn a sinner who has
believed in Christ. Come risk it, thou who art so laden with sin that
thou staggerest under thy burden; fall down on the simple promise, "He
is able to save to the uttermost." Just cast thyself wholly on Christ,
and if thou art not saved, God's book is a lie, and God himself has
broken his truth. But that cannot be. Come thou and try it. "Whosoever
believeth in Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting life."