The Second Time
(No. 3096)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 1908.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MAY
24, 1874.
"And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers." Acts
7:13.
[Two other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon upon this incident, based upon
Genesis. 45:1-5, are as follows–#449, Volume 8–JOSEPH AND HIS
BROTHERS and #2516, Volume 43–JESUS AND HIS BRETHREN]
THIS did not happen on the first occasion when they went down into
Egypt. Joseph knew them, then, but they did not recognize him. He
filled their sacks with corn, put the purchase money into their sacks,
gave them provision for the way and sent them home, but he gave them no
token by which they were able to recognize him as their long-lost
brother. And I want to show you that as it was with Joseph, so it is
with Jesus. There are times when sinners do not know Him even when they
are speaking to Him. And on the first occasion He does not manifest
Himself to them, but it is a very delightful thought that, full often,
at the second time, Jesus is made known unto His brethren even as
Joseph was. I will tell you the gist of my discourse at once. It is
this–if you have sought the Savior and have not yet found Him, seek
Him again! If your first seeking has been a failure, let my text be a
message of encouragement to you–"At the second time Joseph was made
known to his brothers"–let it encourage you to seek the Savior again
in the hope that, at the second time, Jesus may make Himself known to
you!
We are constantly preaching the same Gospel, in the simplest terms we
can find–and the Gospel that we preach is this, "Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Believing on Christ is simply
trusting Him, trusting in His great atoning Sacrifice in which He stood
in the place of sinners and suffered as their Substitute, so bearing,
that they might never have to bear, the righteous wrath of God on
account of their sin. We might have supposed that every person who
attended our ministry did at least fully understand the plan of
salvation, but it is not so. There are seekers here who are still in
the dark. The light shines upon their eyes, but those eyes are
blind–even in broad daylight they grope as in the night because there
is a night within their spirit which it is not in our power to change
into spiritual day! There are some seekers after Christ who,
notwithstanding the simplicity of the Gospel, remain seekers by the
space of weeks, months and even years. Yet, it seems to me that no man
or woman who is out of Christ ought to remain in that condition for
another hour! During that hour he may die and be damned, and it ill
becomes him to run so solemn and terrible a risk. If I had any doubt of
my being saved in Christ, I would give no sleep to my eyes nor slumber
to my eyelids until I had found Him. I would say to myself, "I must
have Him! I cannot live without Him." Yet there are some who seem to be
awakened to a sense of their danger and who are apparently concerned
about their soul's eternal interests, yet they remain in that state of
semi-concern and semi-awakening not merely for an hour, or for a day or
two, but from month to month, and even from year to year, continually
crying with Job, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" Yet they
never get any nearer to the Savior–turning their faces towards Zion,
yet never truly starting upon the heavenly pilgrimage! Desiring,
hoping, fearing, resolving, debating, yet never actually trusting in
Christ–and so not saved!
Our fear concerning these Seekers who are not finders, is that one of
two things will happen to them–either they will fall into utter
despair, or else into complete infidelity–perhaps into both, for
despair is often the mother of infidelity. They will first, perhaps,
fall into gloom, depression, despondency. And at last they will say,
"It is no use for us to keep on seeking the Savior, for if we do seek
Him, we shall not find Him. If we pray, we shall not be heard. If we
listen to the Gospel, it will not bless us. If we make an appeal to
Christ, He will not grant our request." And so they will settle down
into deeper and deeper and yet deeper gloom and declare that there is
no salvation for them. Out of this despair
may ultimately come an utter infidelity like that of those of old who
said, "There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices and we
will, everyone, do the imagination of his evil heart." We have known
some who have said that as there was no hope for them in the next life,
they would have their swing in this life! They were going to be lost,
they said, and therefore they might just as well enjoy themselves here
while they could. If they could not be pardoned, they might as well be
hung for a sheep as for a lamb–they would lay the reins upon the necks
of their lusts, give full sway to all their passions–and plunge into
sin till they were covered with its pollution!
Dear seeking Friend, I tremble lest that should ever be the case with
you. I fear lest you should wipe away those tears and that they should
be succeeded by the infidel's jest. I dread lest your trembling should
cease and be succeeded by a conscience seared as with a hot iron! Such
experiences have happened to others and I am afraid lest they should
happen to you. The sun has been shining upon you and it seemed as if it
was going to melt you into penitence. It will certainly do one of two
things–it will either soften you or harden you. And if the melting
time should pass over and you are not melted, there may then come a
hardening time, and you will become Gospel-hardened and remain forever
without hope concerning the world to come! May the God of Infinite Love
and Mercy graciously grant that it may not be so with you! And that it
may not be so, I shall try now to speak some words of encouragement to
you. And may God the Holy Spirit move all who are the Lord's people to
pray that these words of encouragement may be the means of bringing
you, this very hour, to full acceptance with God through faith in His
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior!
I. I want to remind you, first, that THERE IS A SOMETHING WHICH YOU DO
NOT KNOW.
Those who went down into Egypt did not know their brother Joseph in his
exalted position, but "at the second time Joseph was made known to his
brothers." Sinner, you need above everything to know Christ When
Joseph's brothers went down into Egypt, they thought that if they could
buy corn there, it would be enough to supply all their needs. But the
grand thing that God had in store for them there was not merely corn,
but that they might find Joseph who would secure to them all the corn
and everything else that they could possibly need! So, Sinner, I remind
you again that your great need is to know Jesus Christ! And if you do
come to know Him, you will have all that you can require.
You need to know Christ as Lord of All. The keys of all the granaries
of Egypt were under the power of Joseph. He could open or close them
when he pleased and when he gave his orders, none could countermand
them. So, only in a much higher sense, it has pleased the Father that
in Christ all fullness should dwell, "therefore He is able also to save
them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him." Infinite ability to
save is treasured up in Christ because He is Lord of All. Oh, how I
wish that you all knew this! You tell me, Friend, that you doknow this.
Yes, you know that it is a fact, but you do not realize that all that
is needed for your salvation is laid up in Christ Jesus, the Son of
God, and that nothing is needed from you and that you have not to
procure anything from any other source! If you did but know Jesus
Christ, the Nazarene, to be the appointed and anointed Savior, able to
save you to the uttermost, it would make a grand change in your whole
life!
But you also need to know not only that Christ is Savior and Lord, but
that He is your Brother, one with you in nature, relationship and love.
The sons of poor old Jacob did not know that the man who was lord over
Egypt was their own brother! They had never even dreamed of such a
thing, yet all the while his heart was palpitating with love to them.
The passion of his soul could scarcely be restrained. He saw the
well-remembered image of his father in every one of their faces and he
longed to weep upon their necks and to tell them how much he loved
them. He restrained himself for a while, but "the second time Joseph
was made known to his brothers." And then, oh, how glad they were to
know him as their brother! And, dear Friend, if you ever found out that
Jesus Christ is your Brother and that He loved you before the
foundation of the world–if ever you should make this blessed discovery
that for love of you, He took your nature upon Himself and was born at
Bethlehem–that for love of you He sweat great drops of blood in
Gethsemane, and that for love of you He died upon the Cross of
Calvary–oh, then what joy will fill your spirit! This is what you need
to know– Christ in His eternal love for sinners, Christ in His
brotherhood with all who trust Him, Christ in His everlasting union
with all His redeemed people! And if you ever know this, you will know
more than Solomon, himself, could have taught you, and you will be able
to speak upon a theme which will far exceed any upon which Demosthenes
or Cicero was ever able to speak! O Soul, we want you to know that
Jesus is ready to forgive you, ready to befriend you, ready to help
you, ready to enrich you, ready to enrich you with His own spotless
robe of righteousness in place of your own filthy rags, ready to be All
in All to you between here and Heaven! I pray that the Holy Spirit may
impart this knowledge to you this
very hour, so that you may go out of this place saying, "Christ has now
been made known to me. I never knew Him before. I have ridiculed His
religion, I have despised His Gospel, but now that I know that He loved
me and gave Himself for me, that makes all the difference! Knowing that
I am one of His chosen people, one of His redeemed ones, one for whom
His precious blood was shed, I can never speak against Him again! But I
will praise Him as long as I live, and after I die I shall live again
to extol Him forever and ever for having made Himself known to me as my
Lord and Savior, and Brother!" That is what you all need to know if you
have not yet learned it.
II. Now, secondly, THERE IS A REASON WHY, AT YOUR FIRST GOING, YOU DID
NOT LEARN THIS. Joseph was not made known to his brothers at their
first visit, nor have you yet found Jesus so as to know His love. You
have sought Him in some fashion or other, but He has not yet made
Himself known to you. Shall I try to tell you why?
I cannot be sure, but I think that one reason is that you have not
really looked for Christ to be made known to you. These sons of Jacob
went down into Egypt, not to hunt for Joseph, but to buy corn. In like
manner, you prayed, but for what did you pray? You say that you asked
that your sins might be pardoned, that you might be saved from Hell.
That is quite right as far as it goes, for you need that, even as
Joseph's brothers needed corn, but you need more than that, as they
did. Your prayers were not answered because you did not really ask for
what you most needed. Your previous searches ended in failure because
you were not seeking what you most needed. If you had truthfully said–
"You, O Christ, are all I need– More than all in You I find" and then
had presented to God this petition–
"Gracious Lord, incline Your ear, My requests vouchsafe to hear. Hear
my never-ceasing cry– Give me Christ, or else I die! Wealth and honor
I disdain, Earthly comforts all are vain– These can never satisfy,
Give me Christ, or else I die"– you would soon have received an answer
to your supplication. But if you have been praying in the wrong
fashion, it may be that is the reason why the first time you went to
Christ, He was not made known to you.
In the next place, you did not go to Him with a confession of your
guilt Joseph's brothers went down into Egypt, the first time, simply to
buy corn–they did not go there to search for their brother, Joseph,
feeling that they had done a great wrong to him. But he took means to
bring home to them a sense of their guilt, so that they said one to
another, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother." Though his life
had not actually been taken, it was no credit to them that he had been
spared. They had practically aimed at his murder and they confessed
their guilt. And you, Sinner, have been guilty of the death of Jesus.
Have you ever realized that it was your sins that fastened Him to the
Cross of Calvary? Have you ever thought how greatly you have sinned
against Jesus, the ever-blessed Son of God? No, you have thought of
your sin as committed against yourself, or against your neighbor, but
not as against Jesus! Yet this has been the greatest of all your
sins–that you have been the cause of His death. And when He convinces
you that He loved you before He made the world, this will cause you to
condemn yourself because you have not loved Him in return. I know that
when I found out that Christ had bought me with His precious blood, I
felt grieved at heart to think that I had so long been an enemy to Him.
This is what you all need to know, and what some of you do not yet
know. As you have not come to Him with a broken heart and contrite
spirit, you should not wonder that Jesus has not yet revealed Himself
to you!
You remember that when Joseph's brothers went down into Egypt the first
time, they did not all go. They left Benjamin at home, so Joseph would
not reveal himself to them until Benjamin was with them. And sometimes,
when sinners go to Christ, they do not go whole-heartedly. They leave
some faculty or capacity dormant, just as these brothers left Benjamin
at home. You prayed, you say, but what sort of a prayer was it? It was
a cold, languid prayer, scarcely worthy of the name. You did not put
your heart into it and you know that our Lord Jesus Christ said, "The
Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force,"
implying that intense earnestness is required if we would prevail with
God. Or if lukewarmness was not the hindrance in your case, possibly
there was a Benjamin-sin that you had not given up, or a
Benjamin-self-confidence that you wanted to keep–but all these must be
abandoned if Christ is to make Himself known to us. We shall never
learn to know the Lord until we go to Him and pray from our very soul–
"You do freely save the lost!
Only in Your Grace I trust–
With my earnest suit comply
Give me Christ, or else I die!
All unholy, all unclean,
I am nothing else but sin.
On Your mercy I rely,
Give me Christ, or else I die!
Lord, deny me what You will,
Only ease me of my guilt.
Suppliant at Your feet I lie–
Give me Christ, or else I die!"
If you will to be lost, you will be lost, but if you resolve that, by
God's Grace, you will notbe lost, but will cry to Him for mercy as long
as there is in you any power to cry, I venture to believe that you will
not be lost! That very importunity which the Holy Spirit has implanted
in your spirit is a token for good. You may well expect that the Lord
means to save you when He makes you resolve that you will not let Him
go except He shall bless you. Perhaps the reason why you have failed
until now to find Christ is that you have not been in real earnest in
seeking Him.
I may tell you one thing, you have kept the Lord waiting so long that
if He were to make you wait still longer, you ought not to wonder In
some of our London squares which are still private property, you may
drive through almost any day in the year and nobody tries to stop you.
But, occasionally, the owner has the gate shut just for a minute or
two, and you have to ask permission to go through. The gate is only
shut in order to preserve the rights of the proprietor over the
roadway. And, in a similar fashion, a sinner will sometimes find the
gate of Mercy shut for a while to make him realize that God has the
Sovereign right to do as He wills, and that it sometimes pleases Him to
withhold for a season the Light of His Countenance. But, Sinner, if God
were to make you pray to Him for 50 years, if He heard you at the last,
it would be well worth your while to keep on praying! If He were to let
you seek Him for 20 years and give you the Light of His Countenance
only at the last, you might be satisfied to have it so! He is not
likely to do anything of the kind, but if He did–you might be more
than content as long as He did but bless you!
III. Now we will turn to the third point. I have reminded you that your
great need is to know Christ. And I mentioned some reasons why you have
not yet known Him. Now I want to assure you that THERE IS GREAT HOPE IN
YOUR GOING TO HIM AGAIN.
I will read the text once more–"At the second time Joseph was made
known to his brothers." They went again to their brother–and you had
better go again to Christ, for remember that you must go or perish You
sang just now–
"Perhaps He will admit my plea,
Perhaps will hear my prayer.
But if Iperish, I willpray
And perish only there.
I can but perish if I go–
I am resolved to try,
For if I stay away, I know
I must forever die."
That is most true. There is only one door to salvation and that door is
Christ! So you had better keep on knocking if the door remains closed.
There is only one road to Heaven and if that road seems to be blocked,
you had better try again and again to pass along it, for there is no
other way! You must either know Christ or else everlasting Hell must be
your portion. Joseph's brothers knew that they must either go down into
Egypt for corn or else starve, so they went there. And, poor Sinner, go
to Christ because you must go–there is nowhere else for you to go.
Another reason why you should go to Christ again is because others have
gone to Him and done well by going. I wish I could speak personally to
every seeker here who has thus far sought Christ in vain, and encourage
him by my own case. I sought the Lord, when I was a child, not only for
days and weeks, but for months and even for years before I found
Him. I can scarcely tell how it was that my brain was so muddled and my
heart so distracted that I could not find Him, but I know that I wanted
Christ and yet could not get Him. I remember how I made up my mind that
I would go to every place of worship in the town where I lived–and I
did go to every dissenting place of worship that I knew of. Sometimes I
heard a man preach up election and then I said to myself, "That
Doctrine will do very well for the saints, but it is not for me." I
went to hear another man who was preaching the precept of the
Gospel–that was just like teaching people to dance who had no legs,
and was no good to me. Then I went to another place where the minister
was preaching some intellectual doctrine of which I could make neither
heads nor tails. So I went in vain from one place to another and often
I went down on my knees and my little bedroom was the scene of
sorrowful groans and falling tears. But, in God's good time, I found
the Lord, by His Grace, and at this moment I know that I am saved. So
why should not you also come to know Christ even though, until now, He
has not made Himself known to you? And not only I, but hundreds of
those who are sitting here had a hard time in coming to Christ, but
they did come to Him at last–so why shouldn't you?
You are like poor Mercy in John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." When
Christiana and her children went in at the gate, Mercy was left
outside. And while Christiana pleaded for her admission, she knocked so
loudly that she startled her friend inside. When the Keeper of the gate
looked out, poor Mercy had fallen down in a swoon through fear that she
would not get in, but he took her by the hand and led her gently in and
bade those that stood by bring something to stop her fainting. Thus you
see that Mercy got in and so will you if you only keep on knocking!
Knock as if you would break the gate down! Feel that you must get in!
Put your whole soul into your prayers and keep on seeking for Jesus
with all your might, feeling that you must be saved and that you cannot
rest content until Christ reveals Himself to you. As others have found
mercy, why shouldn't you?
Go again, because, as I have already reminded you, since you went the
last time, you have lingered far too long. You were very earnest in
seeking the Savior a few months ago, but as you did not succeed in
finding Him, your earnestness passed away. But remember that before
this time your soul might have been lost. Thank God that you are still
alive, for if your body had been this night in your grave, your soul
would have been in Hell. As you are not there, take heart and resolve
to seek the Savior once more, for it may be that you will soon find
Him. I will tell you a secret–I believe that you are a man or a woman
in whom God has put His Spirit, who has already begun to work within
your heart. I think you are one of those to whom Jesus will reveal
Himself. I believe He has long wanted to do so. When Joseph's brothers
went down to Egypt the first time, though he did not tell them who he
was, he knew well enough who they were. He was rough in his manner
towards them, but when they went away, I am certain that he wished they
would come back the next morning. And I expect he said to his servants,
"Send word to the guards at the frontier of Egypt that when those men
come back from Canaan, they are to let me know at once that they have
come back." They probably made their corn hold out longer than Joseph
thought it would, but even when he was busy about the affairs of the
kingdom of Egypt, I have no doubt that he often sat down and said to
himself, "I wonder when those brothers of mine will be here again. I
should like to hear about my father. I should like to see my brother
Benjamin."
He was wanting them badly, yet they did not know it! And Jesus Christ
is wanting you, for those to whom He reveals Himself are those whom He
loved long before they were born and long before the world was made.
For love of them He came down from Heaven to earth, lived in poverty
and died in shame that He might save them. He is married to them and
they are as dear to Him as the spouse is to her husband. Jesus wants
you, Sinner, and if you do but know this, I feel sure that it will be
sufficient to make you say, "Then I will go to Him yet again trusting
that He will reveal Himself to me."–
"I'll go to Jesus, though my sin Has like a mountain rose. I know His
courts, I'll enter in, Whatever may oppose."
IV. What will happen if you do go to Christ again? This story of Joseph
and his brothers gives us A FORECAST OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU DO GO
TO CHRIST AGAIN.
Suppose that the Spirit of God should now work upon your soul and show
you that all that is needed for your salvation is already done, that
you have nothing to do because Christ has done it all? Suppose that the
Holy Spirit should then enable you simply to put your trust in Jesus?
You will be saved, saved now, and saved forever! Yet it is possible
that your experience will be like that of Joseph's brothers. At first,
when you know who Jesus is, you will tremble in His
Presence. You will say to yourself, "After these many years of hearing
the Gospel and slighting it, will Jesus receive me now?" You will fall
on your knees and even while you are in prayer, possibly you will feel,
"It cannot be any use for me to seek Him. I am growing old, now, and I
have wasted a long life and spurned the Grace of God which has been
pressed upon me all these years. I fear it is no use for me to seek the
Lord now." Then I will tell you what will happen next. Christ will bid
you draw near to Him, as Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me,
I pray you." The Holy Spirit will incline you to think about Christ and
you will think about who He was and what He was, and what He did and
what He is–and you will hear a Voice which will say to you, "Look unto
Me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth." And you will look to
Jesus and so you will be drawn near to Him!
What will happen then? Why, what happened to Joseph's brothers! He will
fall upon your neck and kiss you. By that act you will realize that all
your offenses are forgiven and your transgressions are all blotted out!
That kiss will be to you the token of forgiveness and acceptance. And
then Christ will say to His servants, "Take off My brother's filthy
rags. Make him clean, give him a change of raiment and let him sit at
My table and feast with Me." Then He will tell you that He will provide
for you all your days and, by-and-by, will take you to dwell with Him
in Heaven forever and ever!
Does someone ask, "Can all that happen to me tonight?" I answer–Yes,
if you will dispense with every other confidence and come and rest in
Jesus only, it will happen to you tonight! "But, Sir," says another, "I
have been so long seeking." There is really no need for anyone to be
seeking Christ for a long while. Remember what Paul wrote, "Say not in
your heart, Who shall ascend into Heaven? (that is, to bring Christ
down from above) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to
bring up Christ again from the dead). But what says it? The word is
near you, even in your mouth and in your heart: that is, the word of
faith which we preach; that if you shall confess with your mouth the
Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God have raised Him
from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
For the Scripture says, Whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed."
"But," says one, "I cannot understand how the simple act of trusting
Christ can change the heart and save the soul." Even if you cannot
comprehend it, it is true that as soon as a man has trusted Christ, he
knows that he is saved! Then he loves Christ for saving him–the
impulse of love and gratitude changes his whole attitude towards God
and towards God's will so that he desires to do the very things which
once he loved not to do, while sin, which was formerly his delight, has
become a misery to him and he longs with all his heart to escape from
it! There is salvation for each one here who trusts in the Lord Jesus
Christ, but there is no salvation in any other way! As my eyes range
around this audience, I see that many of you are strangers to me. But I
know the characters of some who are now present. I know that there are
some here who were once members of a Christian Church, but who fell
through drunkenness.
There are others here who once made a profession of faith in Christ,
but who were turned aside by one sin or another and so disgraced their
profession. Yet the Lord says to them, "Return, you backsliding
children; come back to your God." I charge you to come back without
further delay! Some of you have been inclined to return unto the Lord,
yet I fear that you are again relapsing into indifference. May the Lord
bring you a second time and make sure work of it, even as the second
time Joseph was made known unto his brothers!
As for you strangers who are with us at this service, if you are
unconverted it may be that you have been hitherto satisfied with your
state even though you have never possessed real vital godliness. Well,
if it is so, I pray that you may speedily learn to know the Lord Jesus
Christ as your Savior and your Brother! Never be satisfied with
anything short of that. Some people think they are all right because
they have learned the catechism and are familiar with the prayer book.
Others feel perfectly content because they know the creed of the place
they usually attend. Ah, Sirs, all that is of no avail! Nothing and no
one but Jesus Christ and Him Crucified can save a single soul! And it
is no use merely to know Him by report–you must know Him personally
and spiritually–your heart being humbled before Him because your sins
slew Him. Your heart rejoicing before Him because God allowed Him to be
put to death in order to save your soul!
Dear Hearers, if I should never be able to speak to you again, let this
one Truth of God ring in your ears and abide in your hearts–"Other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ"–so
that if you are not built upon Christ, the Rock of Ages, you are off
the only foundation that will endure the test of time, and death, and
judgment! And you are building on the sand–and down your building will
come just when you most need a shelter! And great will be the fall
thereof. You must have Jesus made known to you and only Jesus can make
Himself known to you by
His ever-blessed Spirit! The sun alone can show you the sunlight, and
Jesus must visit you in a supernatural way and reveal Himself to you by
His own Spirit. You must be born-again by the power of the Holy Spirit!
And if it is not so with you, and if you are not resting in Him alone–
where He is, you can never go! But if you know Him. If you are in Him,
go your way in peace, for "there is therefore now no condemnation to
those who are in Christ Jesus." Knowing Him, you have saving knowledge
and you shall, by-and-by, be with Him where He is, to behold His Glory
and to dwell with Him forever! May God grant to all of you this
privilege, for Christ's sake! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW 7:1-8.
Verses 1, 2. Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment
you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it
shall be measured to you again. Use your judgment, of course–the verse
implies that you will judge in a right sense. But do not indulge the
criticizing faculty upon others in a censorious manner, or as if you
were set in authority and had a right to dispense judgment among your
fellows. If you impute motives and pretend to read hearts, others will
do the same towards you. A hard and censorious behavior is sure to
provoke reprisals. Those around you will pick up the peck measure you
have been using and measure your corn with it. You do not object to men
forming a fair opinion of your character, neither are you forbidden to
do the same towards them. But as you would object to their sitting in
judgment upon you, do not sit in judgment upon them. This is not the
day of judgment, neither are we his majesty's judges, and therefore we
may not anticipate the time appointed for the final assize, nor usurp
the prerogatives of the Judge of all the earth! Surely, if I know
myself aright, I need not send my judgment upon circuit to try other
men, for I can give it full occupation in my own Court of Conscience to
try the traitors within my own bosom.
3-5. And why behold you the mote that is in your brother's eye, but
consider not the beam that is in your own eye? Or how will you say to
your brother, Let me pull the mote out of your eye; and, behold, a beam
is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your
own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cut the mote out of your
brother's eye.The judging faculty is best employed at home. Our
tendency is to spy out splinters in other men's eyes and not to see the
beam in our own! Instead of beholding, with gratified gaze, the small
fault of another, we should act reasonably if we penitently considered
the greater fault of ourselves. It is the beam in our own eye which
blinds us to our own wrong doing! But such blindness does not suffice
to excuse us, since it evidently does not shut our eyes to the little
error of our brother. Officiousness pretends to play the oculist, but
in very truth it plays the fool! Fancy a man with a beam in his eye
pretending to deal with so tender a part as the eye of another and
attempting to remove so tiny a thing as a mote or splinter! Is he not a
hypocrite to pretend to be so concerned about other men's eyes and yet
he never attends to his own? Jesus is gentle, but He calls that man a
"hypocrite" who fusses about small things in others and pays no
attention to great matters at home in his own person! Our reformations
must begin with ourselves, or they are not true and do not spring from
a right motive. Sin we may rebuke, but not if we indulge it! We may
protest against evil, but not if we willfully practice it! The
Pharisees were great at censuring, but slow at amending. Our Lord will
not have His Kingdom made up of hypocritical theorists–He calls for
practical obedience to the rules of holiness!
After we are ourselves sanctified, we are bound to be eyes to the blind
and correctors of unholy living–but not till then. Till we have
personal piety, our preaching of godliness is sheer hypocrisy! May none
of us provoke the Lord to say to us, "You hypocrite!"
6. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast you your
pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn
again and rend you. When men are evidently unable to perceive the
purity of a great Truth of God, do not set it before them. They are
like mere dogs and if you set holy things before them they will be
provoked to "turn again and rend you." Holy things are not for the
profane. "Outside are dogs"–they must not be allowed to enter the holy
place. When you are in the midst of the vicious, who are like "swine,"
do not bring forth the precious mysteries of the faith, for they will
despise them and "trample them under their feet" in the mire. You are
not needlessly to provoke attack upon yourself, or upon the higher
Truths of the Gospel. You are not to judge, but you are not to act
without judgment. Count not men to be dogs or swine, but when they avow
themselves to be such, or by their conduct act as if they were such, do
not put occasions in their way for displaying their evil character.
Saints are not to be simpletons– they are not to be judges, but, also,
they are not to be fools. Great King, how much wisdom Your precepts
require! I need You, not only to open my mouth, but also at times to
keep it shut!
7, 8. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock
and it shall be opened unto you: for everyone that asks receives; and
he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened. To men
you may not always speak of heavenly things, but to God you may. "Ask,
seek, knock." Let your prayer be adapted to the case. Let it increase
in intensity, let it advance in the largeness of its objective. To
receive a gift is simple, to find a treasure is more enriching, to
enter into a palace is best of all! Each form of prayer is prescribed,
accepted and rewarded in a manner suitable to its character. The
promise is universal to all who obey the precept. The commands are in
opposition to the methods of carking care which have been denounced in
the former chapter–and they are encouragements to the precepts of
giving and non-resistance set forth previously, since he that can have
of God for the asking may well give to men who ask and even yield to
those who unjustly demand! With such boundless stores at command, we
should not be either niggardly or litigious. Lord, help me to have done
with fretting and to abound in asking, seeking, knocking! So shall I
soon overflow with thanksgiving.