DELIVERED BY
C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise
with healing in His wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as
calves of the stall." Malachi 4:2.
THE Jews expected that the coming of the Messiah would exalt every one
of the Israelite race. Their expectations were great, but they were
also carnal and sensuous since they looked for an earthly king who
would make the despised nation victorious over all its enemies and
enrich every man of Abraham's race. The Scriptures gave them no ground
for such universal expectations, but quite the reverse. In the chapter
which is now before us the Prophet explains that the coming of Christ
would certainly be like the rising of the sun, full of glory and of
brightness, but the results would not be the same to all. To those who
thought that they were righteous and despised others, but who were
wicked in their conversation–the rising of that sun would bring a
burning, withering day.
Read the first verse. "The day comes that shall burn as an oven and all
the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble." They shall
not be like plants full of sap that would flourish in the tropical
heat, but like stubble which becomes drier and drier until it takes
fire–"and the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord, that
it shall leave them neither root nor stock," for so might it be
translated, and then the figure would be congruous throughout. It would
scorch up the stubble in which there was no life, so intense would be
the heat. Now that was the consequence of Christ's coming. The religion
of the Jews at His coming was dry and dead, like stubble.
The Pharisee thought that he was righteous because he put on a broad
phylactery, tithed anise and mint, cumin and such trifles. The Sadducee
thought much of himself because he was a man of common sense, a
thinker, a rationalist. And other sects of that period found equally
frivolous grounds for glorying. The ministry of Christ dried them right
up and they have ceased to be. We use the name of Pharisee and Sadducee
today, but there is no person in the world who would like to wear
either name!
The result of Christ's coming, by His Spirit as well as by His personal
Advent, is always much the same. Should the Spirit of God visit this
Church with revival it will not have an equally beneficial effect upon
all. To some, the rising of this Sun will bring healing and blessing;
but to others it will bring scorching and withering. Know you not that
the summer which fills the corn and makes it hang its golden head,
blushing in very modesty for the blessing which has come upon it,
fetches up also the noxious weeds from their secret lairs?
Tares gather encouragement from the sun as well as does the wheat and
so the bad come to their ripeness as well as the good. But the ripeness
of that which is bad is only a hurrying on to destruction– the dryness
of the stubble is the preparation for its being utterly consumed. We
may well pray for revival, but we must not suppose that to the mere
formalist a revival will bring a blessing. It may possibly disgust him
and drive him from religion altogether. He will discover that he has no
true religion as he sees the work of the Spirit of God around him and
so the day of the Lord will, to him, "burn as an oven"–and being proud
and at the same time doing wickedly, his empty profession of religion
will consume like the stubble.
The coming of the Messiah was to bring to another class a fullness of
blessing and it is of these we have to speak. "But unto you that fear
My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise," not with scorching, but,
"with healing in His wings; and you shall go forth"–you shall not be
dried up, burnt and destroyed–but you shall "grow up as calves of the
stall." You shall obtain great blessings through the Presence of your
Lord! Two things will take up our attention. The first is, the
description of the people
of God–"Unto you that fear My name." And the second is, the blessing
which is promised to them– "the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with
healing in His wings; and you shall go forth, and grow up as calves of
the stall."
I. Here are TRUE SAINTS DESCRIBED. Let us look at them. The description
may be divided into two parts. First, here is their abiding
character–they fear the name of the Lord–and secondly, we gather from
the text their Providential character, a character which is not always
theirs, but into which they sometimes fall, namely, that they need
healing, for were they not sick there would be no need of the promise
that the Sun of Righteousness should arise upon them with healing in
His wings!
Notice then, first, their abiding character–they fear the name of the
Lord. I am delighted to think that this promise is given to this
particular character, for it thus comes to beginners in Grace. "The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"–it is not the highest
Grace, nor the loftiest attainment of the spiritual nature. Bless the
Lord, therefore, you weak and feeble ones, that the promise is given to
you! You fear the Lord. There are times when we ask ourselves whether
we know the rapture of love and we greatly question whether we ever had
the assurance of faith, but even then, we know that we have an awe of
God.
Jonah in the ship was in a very sinful state of mind and was fleeing
from God, but yet he did not hesitate to say, "I am an Hebrew and I
fear the Lord." This is the abiding character of the saints in their
worst state. If they backslide, they still fear the name of the Lord.
They fear it at times very slavishly, with the spirit of bondage, but
they fear it. They lose the evidence of their sonship and they cease to
walk in the light, but they still have a fear of the Most High–they do
not treat Him lightly, they could not sin against Him cheaply–there is
still within their hearts a sense of His greatness.
It generally assumes the form of a reverence of His Person. They know
there is a God and they are sure that He made the heavens and the
earth. They are equally clear that He is everywhere present, marking
the ways of men. Others may blaspheme, but they cannot; others may sin
and make merry with it, but sin costs them dear; others may feast
themselves without apprehension, but they cannot, for they fear the
Lord. I know that this expresses all true religion and has a very
comprehensive meaning, but it suits my purpose just now to view it as a
description of Believers, which is true of them all, into whatever
state they may come. They still fear the Lord.
Now, Soul, do you tremble before God? There is something in that. I do
not ask you whether you tremble at Hell. That were no sign of Grace,
for what thief will not tremble at the gallows? I do not ask you if you
are afraid of death. What mortal man is not, unless he has a good hope
through Divine Grace? But do you tremble in the Presence of God because
you have offended Him? And do you tremble in the presence of sin lest
you should offend Him? Does it ever come over you thus–"How can I do
this great wickedness and sin against God?" Just as some men are kept
back from crime by the fear of the law, are you kept back from folly by
the fear of God? Just as some are impelled to energy by the fear of
poverty, so are you impelled to the Divine service by a sense of the
fact that not to serve Him is to abide under His wrath?
It is a low and small matter compared with the higher Graces which God
works in His people, but it is still a precious thing to tremble, even,
at His Word. I am glad to think that many of you have lately begun to
fear God. I bless His name that you cannot live, now, as you once did.
You are uneasy in your former careless way. I am right glad of it and
though I cannot be sure that this fear may not be a slavish fear, yet I
hope for the best and pray that it may ripen into that real fear of God
which is always a work of Grace in the soul, so that the promise of our
text may belong to you.
Now, Beloved, I have said that the description which is here given of
the people of God denotes not only their abiding character, that they
fear the Lord, but it also mentions their occasional character. They
sometimes fall into a condition which they deplore and the text
intimates this, first, by the fact that the Sun of Righteousness is to
arise upon them, for this implies that they were in the dark until
then. Whatever other light there may be, we, every one of us, know that
until the sun rises our condition is one of comparative darkness.
There are children of God who walk in darkness, dear children of God,
too. Indeed, I am inclined to think that every child of God gets into
the dark sometimes. Some begin with brightness and then they get a
cloudy time in the middle of their experience; while others have their
worst darkness at last. Knox and Luther had their sharpest temptations
when they came to die. It has been well said that God sometimes puts
His children to bed in the dark. It does not matter, for they wake up
in the light–in the eternal morning! But a dark season usually happens
to us somewhere between the new birth and Heaven–perhaps to make the
brightness all the brighter when the night shall be forever ended.
Are you in the dark at this moment, dear Brother, and are you wondering
at it because everybody else seems so lively in their religion? Dear
Sister, does it seem to you as if, though you have been a Believer for
years, you were never in a worse state than now, while others are
rejoicing? Then ask yourself–Do you still fear the Lord? Is your soul
humbled in the Presence of His majesty and have you a desire for His
Glory? Never despair! The Sun shall rise upon you soon! Very clear is
it from the text, too, that the children of God may sometimes be in ill
health, for the Sun of Righteousness is to arise upon them with healing
in His wings–which would not be so necessary a promise if they were
not sick.
A Christian may be bowed down with grievous spiritual maladies. His
pulse may beat slowly; his heart may become feeble; he may be alive and
that may be about all. Lethargy may seize him, palsy may make him
tremble despondently. He may have wandered from his God. Alas, even a
feverish fit may be upon him, in which he shakes with unbelief from
head to foot! It may be his eyes have become so blinded that he cannot
see afar off and his ears may be dull of hearing. He may be like the
fools in the Psalm, whose souls abhorred all manner of meat.
He may have put away from him the comforts of the promises and he may
be brought very low–yet he shall not die, but live and proclaim the
works of the Lord–for the soul sickness of a saint is not unto death!
He shall be recovered from it and he shall sing of the Lord whose name
is, "Jehovah Rophi, the Lord That Heals You." Oh, child of God, if you
are in a sick and sorrowing state, cry mightily unto your Lord and the
Sun of Righteousness shall arise upon you with healing in His wings!
Note, again, that the children of God, according to our text, may be in
a condition of bondage, for it is said that when the Sun of
Righteousness arises, "they shall go forth as calves of the stall."
Understand the figure. The calf in the stall is shut up, tied up with a
halter at night, but when the sun rises, the calf goes forth to the
pasture. The young bullock is set free! So the child of God may be in
bondage. The remembrance of past sins and present unbelief may halter
him up and keep him in the stall, but when the Lord reveals Himself, he
is set free! Even true children of God may sometimes have to cry like
Paul that they are sold under sin. They may forget the blood of
redemption for a season and think themselves still to be slaves–and
yet they are the true children of God. Hence the beauty of the promise
that they shall go forth.
Yes, and there is more in the text. The children of God may be in such
a state that they are not growing, for else we should not have the
promise, "You shall go forth and grow up" when the Sun of Righteousness
shall shine. Do you, my dear Brother, feel as if you had not grown in
Grace for months? You need the Sun of Righteousness to shine upon you
and you will grow as the plants do! The trees are all bare in winter
and their branches apparently dead–but bring us the spring sun and the
buds will begin to swell, the leaves will appear and the trees shall
blossom and yield fruit! So shall it be with you. The Lord has not left
you! You may have stopped growing for a while, but you shall grow
again!
Once more, the child of God may get into such a condition that he has
lost his joy, for I will tell you a secret about the text–it might be
and probably ought to be translated, for the Septuagint has it so, and
the Hebrew has that force, "They shall go forth and leap like calves of
the stall." The young cattle may have been kept under cover in the
winter, but when the sun brings the spring, the fields are green and
you let the calves loose. There is joy about the creatures' movements!
Even so, when the Lord appears to His people, they move with delight
and dance for joy of heart! The Lord's love within them shall make them
give expression to their joy! I pray that you may feel this intense
delight in Gospel liberty and leap for joy!
Thus I have described the people to whom the promise comes.
II. My second and most pleasing duty is TO OPEN UP THE PROMISE ITSELF.
"The Sun of
Righteousness shall arise." Child of God in the dark, in prison,
ungrowing and unhappy, what a promise is here for you! "The Sun of
Righteousness shall arise." His rising is to do it all! There is
nothing for you to do–no works for you to perform in order to get the
needed blessing. The Sun of Righteousness shall arise! Now, the rising
of the sun is one of the most wonderful things in Nature, not merely
for its grandeur and beauty, but for its sublime display of strength.
Who could hold back the horses of the sun? What hand could block the
golden wheel of his chariot, or bid him stay his course?
The time is come for him to rise and lo, he delights the world with
dawn! Holy Spirit, such is Your power! When it is Your time to work,
who can stand against You? As the sun floods the whole earth with his
splendor and no power can hinder his movements, so will the Holy Spirit
work and none can stop Him. Plead then, this promise tonight and
cry–"O Sun of Righteousness, arise upon those that fear You! Come in
all Your majesty and wealth of Grace! Pour upon us Your light and heat
and life and fill this place with Your Glory!"
Now mark what will be the result of His rising. As soon as ever this
Sun is up and Christ begins to shine upon His people, they enjoy a
clear light! They were in the dark before, but they are in the light,
now! I have been living, for a while, in a country where the sun is
everything. The temperature and the atmosphere are made salubrious and
delicious, I had almost said celestial, by his presence. When he shines
not, the sick pine and the healthy are gloomy! But when clouds no
longer veil his face, we are as in the garden of the Lord! Everything
depends upon the sun! Step down into a valley where he has not shone
and you will find frost–cross the street into the shade and you shiver
in the cold.
So clear does the atmosphere become through the removal of all fogs and
mists that sometimes we have seen a hundred miles across the sea,
rising up like a fair vision, the distant mountains of Corsica! I
cannot help using the illustration because it is so distinctly before
me! When the Sun of Righteousness arises upon a Christian and shines
full upon him, he does not see islands a hundred miles away, but he
sees the golden gates of the Celestial City, the King in His beauty and
the land that is very far off–for the Presence of Christ endears the
atmosphere and enables us to see the invisible! Unto you that fear His
name may the Sun of Righteousness arise and give you just such
clearness and light!
But according to the text, the Sun of Righteousness, when He rises on
those that fear the Lord, gives them healing. There is healing in His
wings. By the wings of the sun are meant the beams that shoot up from
it into the air, or seem to slant down from it when it is aloft in the
sky. There is really healing to men's bodies in the sun. Have we not
seen them come to the sunny land consumptive, doubled with
weakness–and as they have sat in the sun and warmed themselves for a
few weeks, the wounds within the lungs have begun to heal and the
consumptive man has breathed again and you have seen that he would
live? Some have gone there who scarcely could speak and beneath the sun
they began to speak again, like men whose youth has been renewed! The
sun is the great physician. Where he enters not the physician will be
needed, but where he shines, men speedily revive.
As for the Sun of Righteousness, oh, how He heals the sick! I would
like you sick Christians to sit in His sunlight by the year together,
if you did nothing else but bask there as animals delight to bask in
the sun. The flowers know the sun and they turn their cups to him and
drink in of the health he gives them from his golden store. Oh, that we
had as much sense to know the Sun of Righteousness, that we might by
prayer, meditation and holy living, bask and sun ourselves in His
delicious beams! We shall be strong, indeed, if He rises upon us with
healing in His wings. He has risen, but we wander into the shade! He
has risen, but we get into the ice wells of worldliness and sin–and
shut out His warmth–and then we wonder why we are sick, but sick we
always shall be till we come out into the Light again and Jesus shines
on us from morn till eve!
I must not enlarge upon any one point, for my time is limited, but I
would have you notice how the text says that when the Sun of
Righteousness shines, the Christian gets his liberty. "You shall go
forth." I have been staying where the invalid does not venture out if
the wind blows and if there is a little chill
and the sun is not bright he must stay indoors or lose the benefit he
has received. But when the sun is out and the air is calm, then he goes
forth and leaves his bedroom and is all alive once more. There are
Christians who have been kept indoors a long time. They have not walked
the length of the promise, nor spied out the breadth of the Covenant,
nor climbed to the top of Pisgah to gaze upon the landscape!
Beloved, if the Sun of righteousness, even the Lord Jesus, shall shine
upon you, you will go forth not only to enjoy Christian life, but to
enter into Christian service–and you will go further afield to bring
others to Christ! Then you will begin to grow! That is another effect
of the sun and how wonderfully the sunlight makes things grow. Here we
have in our hot-houses little plants that we think so wonderful that we
show them to our friends and put them on our tables as rarities. But I
have seen them in the sunny south 10 times as large growing in the open
fields because the sun has looked upon them! The rarities of our
country are the commonplaces of the land of the sun!
1 have known Christians who have received a little faith and been
perfectly astonished at it–and God has blessed them with a little love
to Jesus–and they have felt as though they were splendid saints! But
if they lived in the sunlight they might move mountains by their faith
and their love would lead them to devote their whole life to Jesus–and
yet they would not be astonished. The Sun of Righteousness can produce
fruits rich and rare. Our cold, sunless land, beneath its cloud and
fog–what can it yield in the winter? In more favored parts of the
earth, even in our winter, the trees are golden with fruits. So is it
with the soul. What can it grow if it lives in worldliness? What can it
produce if it lives to itself? But when it knows the love of Jesus and
the power of His Grace, even in its worst estate it brings forth the
richest and the rarest fruit to the glory of His Grace!
I shall close by exhorting my fellow Church members to live in the
sunlight. Get out of the shadows! There are dreary glens in this world
where the sun never shines–they are called glens of pleasure and
sometimes the pale moon looks down on them with sickly ray. But the
saint knows the light of the sun from the light of the world's moon.
Get away from those chill places into the clear light. "But," says one,
"I did not know there were joys in religion." My dear Friend, do you
know true religion, then? For it is, "a thing of beauty and a joy
forever." He who knows not Christ has seen the sun, but till he has
known Him, he has seen but the glow-worm's glitter! Peace, deep peace,
he never knew who never knew the power of the blood! And joy, real joy,
such as angels call joy, he never knew who never trusted in the
Savior's atoning Sacrifice!
Oh, come you depressed and distressed and despondent ones whose
religion has been slavery and whose profession has been bondage–get a
true Baptism into Christ by faith in Him and when you have been plunged
into the Godhead's deepest sea, then shall you know a joy and peace
which pass all understanding! The world gives them not–it cannot take
them away. "Unto you that fear the Lord, the Sun of Righteousness shall
arise with healing in His wings." I want to encourage those who fear
the Lord a little, I mean the seekers. Come into the Light! Come and
welcome! None will question your right! I never heard of anybody, yet,
who said, "I must not sit in the sun. The sun is not mine."
The lords of this world have hedged in every acre and there is scarcely
a sterile mountainside which is not guarded with, "trespassers beware."
But they cannot hedge in the blessed sunlight! No, not even for an
hour. Through the poor man's window, though the glass is broken and
stuffed up with rags, a beam of sunlight will pierce its way as gladly
as into the halls of monarchs! It shines on the beggar's rags as well
as on the prince's scarlet and it is free! When Diogenes bade Alexander
get out of his sunlight, he had a right to do so, for the sunlight
belonged as much to Diogenes in his tub as to Alexander who had
conquered a world! O meanest of the mean in your own judgment; lowest
of the low in your own esteem; guiltiest of the guilty as your
conscience calls you before God–know that the Sun of Righteousness has
risen and His light is free!
Come into the sunlight! Come into the sunlight! "Oh, but I shall get
better soon. I am sick, but I shall get better soon." Come into the
sunlight, Man, for there is healing beneath the wings of the Sun of
Righteousness, but nowhere else. "I am kindling a fire. I am hoping
that I may get warm by the sparks of my own kindling." Come into the
sunlight, Man. What were all your fires? Though you should set
Lebanon upon a blaze and take all the timber that ever grew on Sirion
to make a pile, what were it as compared with yonder mighty furnace of
the sun which has burnt on for ages and will burn on till the last eye
of mortal man shall have looked upon it?
O Soul, go not about with your whims and your fancies to save yourself!
Come into the sunlight! Come into the sunlight, Man! "But perhaps I may
not." Who is the poorer if the sunlight shines on you? There is enough
for others even though it pours its floods on you. The sun is no
brighter if you have not his beams! He will be no duller though you and
a thousand like you should lie by the century together basking in his
light. So with Jesus! "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily." If you take all the mercy that can be needed to lift you up
from the gates of Hell, to Heaven, itself, He will have as much mercy
left!
If all the merit you can need to save your condemned spirit and make
you into a child of God should be yours, as I pray it may, there will
be as much merit left in Christ as ever! Why keep back? Why keep back?
"But I am so base." Does not the sun shine on dunghills? May not the
mercy of God shine on you, you dunghill sinner? You cannot be too low!
You cannot be too vile! The infinite mercy of God, like the infinite
light of the sun, can reach you. "Alas, I am dark." And what night was
too dark for the sun to turn it into day? "Alas, I am cold." But what
iceberg was too cold for the sun to thaw it? What winter was too severe
for the sun to turn it into summer?
Yield yourself up, you icicle! Yield to the sun and it will melt you.
Yield yourself up, you dead and shriveled twig, to that dear sunbeam
which waits to kiss you and it will awaken life within you, and warm
you till you shall be loaded with rich fruit, to the praise and glory
of the Sun of Righteousness which has risen upon you! The Lord grant it
may be so with us all, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Malachi 3, 4. HYMNS FROM "OUR
OWN HYMN BOOK"–795, 799, 19.
LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON:
DEAR FRIENDS–Although I am still weak upon my knees, I am so greatly
refreshed in spirit that I feel able to return to preach on Sunday,
April 13. Glad tidings of the Lord's work at home have greatly cheered
me and I am also rejoiced that most of the work committed to me has
prospered during my absence. This is a great point gained, for now all
will know that the work is a living one and does not depend upon
personal oversight. I heartily thank all the workers and givers, and
most of all our gracious God who has kept them faithful. Right glad
shall I be to see the beloved Tabernacle people again. I beg to be
daily remembered in prayer and I am Yours to serve,
C.H. SPURGEON
Mentone, March 14, 1879
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A Refreshing Promise