A Sermon
(No. 3)
Delivered on Sabbath Morning, January 14, 1855, by the
REV. C.H. SPURGEON
At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark.
"And that lord answered the man of God, and said, Now, behold, if the
Lord should make windows in heaven, might such a thing be? And he said,
Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes but shalt not eat thereof"–2
Kings 7:19.
ONE WISE man may deliver a whole city; one good man may be the means of
safety to a thousand others. The holy ones are "the salt of the earth,"
the means of the preservation of the wicked. Without the godly as a
conserve, the race would be utterly destroyed. In the city of Samaria
there was one righteous man–Elisha, the servant of the Lord. Piety was
altogether extinct in the court. The king was a sinner of the blackest
dye, his iniquity was glaring and infamous. Jehoram walked in the ways
of his father Ahab, and made unto himself false gods. The people of
Samaria were fallen like their monarch: they had gone astray from
Jehovah; they had forsaken the God of Israel; they remembered not the
watchword of Jacob, "The Lord thy God is one God;" and in wicked
idolatry they bowed before the idols of the heathens, and therefore the
Lord of Hosts suffered their enemies to oppress them until the curse of
Ebal was fulfilled in the streets of Samaria, for "the tender and
delicate woman who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon
the ground for delicateness," had an evil eye to her own children, and
devoured her offspring by reason of fierce hunger (Deut 28:56-58). In
this awful extremity the one holy man was the medium of salvation. The
one grain of salt preserved the entire city; the one warrior for God
was the means of the deliverance of the whole beleaguered multitude.
For Elisha's sake the Lord sent the promise that the next day, food
which could not be obtained at any price, should be had at the cheapest
possible rate–at the very gates of Samaria. We may picture the joy of
the multitude when first the seer uttered this prediction. They knew
him to be a prophet of the Lord; he had divine credentials; all his
past prophecies had been fulfilled. They knew that he was a man sent of
God, and uttering Jehovah's message. Surely the monarch's eyes would
glisten with delight, and the emaciated multitude would leap for joy at
the prospects of so speedy a release from famine. "To-morrow," would
they shout, "to-morrow our hunger shall be over, and we shall feast to
the full."
However, the lord on whom the king leaned expressed his disbelief. We
hear not that any of the common people, the plebeians, ever did so; but
an aristocrat did it. Strange it is, that God has seldom chosen the
great men of this world. High places and faith in Christ do seldom well
agree. This great man said, "Impossible!" and, with an insult to the
prophet, he added, "If the Lord should make windows in heaven, might
such a thing be." His sin lay in the fact, that after repeated seals of
Elisha's ministry, he yet disbelieved the assurances uttered by the
prophet on God's behalf. He had, doubtless, seen the marvelous defeat
of Moab; he had been startled at tidings of the resurrection of the
Shunamite's son; he knew that Elisha had revealed Benhadad's secrets
and smitten his marauding hosts with blindness; he had seen the bands
of Syria decoyed into the heart of Samaria; and he probably knew the
story of the widow, whose oil filled all the vessels, and redeemed her
sons; at all events the cure of Naaman was common conversation at
court; and yet, in the face of all this accumulated evidence, in the
teeth of all these credentials of the prophet's mission, he yet
doubted, and insultingly told him that heaven must become an open
casement, ere the promise could be performed. Whereupon God pronounced
his doom by the mouth of the man who had just now proclaimed the
promise: "thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat
thereof." And providence–which always fulfills prophecy, just as the
paper takes the stamp of the type–destroyed the man. Trodden down in
the streets of Samaria, he perished at its gates, beholding the plenty,
but tasting not of it. Perhaps his carriage was haughty, and insulting
to the people; or he tried to restrain their eager rush; or, as we
would say, it might have been by mere accident that he was crushed to
death; so that he saw the prophecy fulfilled, but never lived to enjoy
it. In his case, seeing was believing, but it was not enjoying.
I shall this morning invite your attention to two things–the man's sin
and his punishment. Perhaps I shall say but little of this man, since I
have detailed the circumstances, but I shall discourse upon the sin of
unbelief and the punishment thereof.
I. And first, the SIN.
His sin was unbelief. He doubted the promise of God. In this particular
case unbelief took the form of a doubt of the divine veracity, or a
mistrust of God's power. Either he doubted whether God really meant
what he said, or whether it was within the range of possibility that
God should fulfill his promise. Unbelief hath more phases than the
moon, and more colors than the chameleon. Common people say of the
devil, that he is seen sometimes in one shape, and sometimes in
another. I am sure this is true of Satan's first-born child–unbelief,
for its forms are legion. At one time I see unbelief dressed out as an
angel of light. It calls itself humility, and it saith, "I would not be
presumptuous; I dare not think that God would pardon me; I am too great
a sinner." We call that humility, and thank God that our friend is in
so good a condition. I do not thank God for any such delusion. It is
the devil dressed as an angel of light; it is unbelief after all. At
other times we detect unbelief in the shape of a doubt of God's
immutability: "The Lord has loved me, but perhaps he will cast me off
to-morrow. He helped me yesterday, and under the shadows of his wings I
trust; but perhaps I shall receive no help in the next affliction. He
may have cast me off; he may be unmindful of his covenant, and forget
to be gracious." Sometimes this infidelity is embodied in a doubt of
God's power. We see every day new straits, we are involved in a net of
difficulties, and we think "surely the Lord cannot deliver us." We
strive to get rid of our burden, and finding that we cannot do it, we
think God's arm is as short as ours, and his power as little as human
might. A fearful form of unbelief is that doubt which keeps men from
coming to Christ; which leads the sinner to distrust the ability of
Christ to save him, to doubt the willingness of Jesus to accept so
great a transgressor. But the most hideous of all is the traitor, in
its true colors, blaspheming God, and madly denying his existence.
Infidelity, deism, and atheism, are the ripe fruits of this pernicious
tree; they are the most terrific eruptions of the volcano of unbelief.
Unbelief hath become of full stature, when quitting the mask and laying
aside disguise, it profanely stalks the earth, uttering the rebellious
cry, "No God," striving in vain to shake the throne of the divinity, by
lifting up its arm against Jehovah, and in its arrogance would
"Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his justice–be the god of God."
Then truly unbelief has come to its full perfection, and then you see
what it really is, for the least unbelief is of the same nature as the
greatest.
I am astonished, and I am sure you will be, when I tell you that there
are some strange people in the world who do not believe that unbelief
is a sin. Strange people I must call them, because they are sound in
their faith in every other respect; only, to make the articles of their
creed consistent, as they imagine, they deny that unbelief is sinful. I
remember a young man going into a circle of friends and ministers, who
were disputing whether it was a sin in men that they did not believe
the gospel. Whilst they were discussing it, he said, "Gentlemen am I in
the presence of Christians? Are you believers in the Bible, or are you
not?" They said, "We are Christians of course." "Then," said he, "does
not the Scripture say, of sin, because they believed not on me?' And is
it not the damning sin of sinners, that they do not believe on Christ?"
I could not have thought that persons should be so fool-hardy as to
venture to assert that, "it is no sin for a sinner not to believe on
Christ." I thought that, however far they might wish to push their
sentiments, they would not tell a lie to uphold the truth, and, in my
opinion this is what such men are really doing. Truth is a strong tower
and never requires to be buttressed with error. God's Word will stand
against all man's devices. I would never invent a sophism to prove that
it is no sin on the part of the ungodly not to believe, for I am sure
it is, when I am taught in the Scriptures that, "This is the
condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness
rather than light," and when I read, "He that believeth not is
condemned already, because he believeth not on the Son of God," I
affirm, and the Word declares it, unbelief is a sin. Surely with
rational and unprejudiced persons, it cannot require any reasoning to
prove it. Is it not a sin for a creature to doubt the word of its
Maker? Is it not a crime and an insult to the Divinity, for me, an
atom, a particle of dust, to dare to deny his words? Is it not the very
summit of arrogance and extremity of pride for a son of Adam to say,
even in his heart, "God I doubt thy grace; God I doubt thy love; God I
doubt thy power?" Oh! sirs believe me, could ye roll all sins into one
mass,–could you take murder, and blasphemy, and lust, adultery, and
fornication, and everything that is vile and unite them all into one
vast globe of black corruption, they would not equal even then the sin
of unbelief. This is the monarch sin, the quintessence of guilt; the
mixture of the venom of all crimes; the dregs of the wine of Gomorrah;
it is the A1 sin, the master-piece of Satan, the chief work of the
devil.
I shall attempt this morning, for a little while, to shew the extremely
evil nature of the sin of unbelief.
1.
And let me say here, that unbelief in the Christian is of the self-same
nature as unbelief in the sinner. It is not the same in its final
issue, for it will be pardoned in the Christian; yea it is pardoned: it
was laid upon the scapegoat's head of old: it was blotted out and
atoned for; but it is of the same sinful nature. In fact, if there can
be one sin more heinous than the unbelief of a sinner, it is the
unbelief of a saint. For a saint to doubt God's word–for a saint to
distrust God after innumerable instances of his love, after ten
thousand proofs of his mercy, exceeds everything. In a saint, moreover,
unbelief is the root of other sins. When I am perfect in faith, I shall
be perfect in everything else; I should always fulfill the precept if I
always believed the promise. But it is because my faith is weak, that I
sin. Put me in trouble, and if I can fold my arms and say,
"Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide," you will not find me using
wrong means to escape from it. But let me be in temporal distress and
difficulty; if I distrust God, what then? Perhaps I shall steal, or do
a dishonest act to get out of the hands of my creditors; or if kept
from such a transgression, I may plunge into excess to drown my
anxieties. Once take away faith, the reins are broken; and who can ride
an unbroken steed without rein or bridle? Like the chariot of the sun,
with Phaeton for its driver, such should we be without faith. Unbelief
is the mother of vice; it is the parent of sin; and, therefore, I say
it is a pestilent evil–a master sin.
2.
"Law and terrors do but harden,
All the while they work alone:
But a sense of blood-bought pardon
Will dissolve a heart of stone."
Methinks the tale of Calvary is enough to break a rock. Rocks did rend
when they saw Jesus die. Methinks the tragedy of Golgotha is enough to
make a flint gush with tears, and to make the most hardened wretch weep
out his eyes in drops of penitential love; but yet we tell it you, and
repeat it oft, but who weeps over it? Who cares about it? Sirs, ye sit
as unconcerned as if it did not signify to you. Oh! behold and see all
ye that pass by. Is it nothing to you that Jesus should die? Ye seem to
say "It is nothing." What is the reason? Because there is unbelief
between you and the cross. If there were not that thick veil between
you and the Saviour's eyes, his looks of love would melt you. But
unbelief is the sin which keeps the power of the gospel from working in
the sinner: and it is not till the Holy Ghost strikes that unbelief
out–it is not till the Holy Spirit rends away that infidelity and
takes it altogether down, that we can find the sinner coming to put his
trust in Jesus.
3.
Faith fosters every virtue; unbelief murders every one. Thousands of
prayers have been strangled in their infancy by unbelief. Unbelief has
been guilty of infanticide; it has murdered many an infant petition;
many a song of praise that would have swelled the chorus of the skies,
has been stifled by an unbelieving murmur; many a noble enterprise
conceived in the heart has been blighted ere it could come forth, by
unbelief. Many a man would have been a missionary; would have stood and
preached his Master's gospel boldly; but he had unbelief. Once make a
giant unbelieving, and he becomes a dwarf. Faith is the Samsonian lock
of the Christian; cut it off, and you may put out his eyes–and he can
do nothing.
4.
And, oh! do you not know that unbelief kept Moses and Aaron out of
Canaan? They honored not God; they struck the rock when they ought to
have spoken to it. They disbelieved: and therefore the punishment came
upon them, that they should not inherit that good land, for which they
had toiled and labored.
Let me take you where Moses and Aaron dwelt–to the vast and howling
wilderness. We will walk about it for a time; sons of the weary foot,
we will become like the wandering Bedouins, we will tread the desert
for a while. There lies a carcass whitened in the sun; there another,
and there another. What means these bleached bones? What are these
bodies–there a man, and there a woman? What are all these? How came
these corpses here? Surely some grand encampment must have been here
cut off in a single night by a blast, or by bloodshed. Ah; no, no.
Those bones are the bones of Israel; those skeletons are the old tribes
of Jacob. They could not enter because of unbelief. They trusted not in
God. Spies said they could not conquer the land. Unbelief was the cause
of their death. It was not the Anakims that destroyed Israel; it was
not the howling wilderness which devoured them; it was not the Jordan
which proved a barrier to Canaan; neither Hivite or Jebusite slew them;
it was unbelief alone which kept them out of Canaan. What a doom to be
pronounced on Israel, after forty years of journeying: they could not
enter because of unbelief!
Not to multiply instances, recollect Zechariah. He doubted, and the
angel struck him dumb. His mouth was closed because of unbelief. But
oh! if you would have the worst picture of the effects of unbelief–if
you would see how God has punished it, I must take you to the siege of
Jerusalem, that worst massacre which time has ever seen; when the
Romans razed the walls to the ground, and put the whole of the
inhabitants to the sword, or sold them as slaves in the market-place.
Have you never read of the destruction of Jerusalem, by Titus? Did you
never turn to the tragedy of Masada, when the Jews stabbed each other
rather than fall into the hands of the Romans? Do you not know, that to
this day the Jew walks through the earth a wanderer, without a home and
without a land? He is cut off, as a branch is cut from a vine; and why?
Because of unbelief. Each time ye see a Jew with a sad and somber
countenance–each time ye mark him like a denizen of another land,
treading as an exile in this our country–each time ye see him, pause
and say, "Ah! it was unbelief which caused thee to murder Christ, and
now it has driven thee to be a wanderer; and faith alone–faith in the
crucified Nazarene–can fetch thee back to thy country, and restore it
to its ancient grandeur." Unbelief, you see, has the Cain-mark upon its
forehead. God hates it; God has dealt hard blows upon it: and God will
ultimately crush it. Unbelief dishonors God. Every other crime touches
God's territory; but unbelief aims a blow at his divinity, impeaches
his veracity, denies his goodness, blasphemes his attributes, maligns
his character; therefore, God of all things, hates first and chiefly,
unbelief, wherever it is.
5.
II. This brings us now to conclude with the PUNISHMENT.
"Thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof." Listen
unbelievers! ye have heard this morning your sin; now listen to your
doom: "Ye shall see it with your eyes, but shalt not eat thereof." It
is so often with God's own saints. When they are unbelieving, they see
the mercy with their eyes, but do not eat it. Now, here is corn in this
land of Egypt; but there are some of God's saints who come here on the
Sabbath, and say, "I do not know whether the Lord will be with me or
not." Some of them say, "Well, the gospel is preached, but I do not
know whether it will be successful." They are always doubting and
fearing. Listen to them when they get out of the chapel. "Well, did you
get a good meal this morning?" "Nothing for me." Of course not. Ye
could see it with your eyes, but did not eat it, because you had no
faith. If you had come up with faith, you would have had a morsel. I
have found Christians, who have grown so very critical, that if the
whole portion of the meat they are to have, in due season, is not cut
up exactly into square pieces, and put upon some choice dish of
porcelain, they cannot eat it. Then they ought to go without; and they
will have to go without, until they are brought to their appetites.
They will have some affliction, which will act like quinine upon them:
they will be made to eat by means of bitters in their mouths; they will
be put in prison for a day or two until their appetite returns, and
then they will be glad to eat the most ordinary food, off the most
common platter, or no platter at all. But the real reason why God's
people do not feed under a gospel ministry, is, because they have not
faith. If you believed, if you did but hear one promise, that would be
enough; if you only heard one good thing from the pulpit here would be
food for your soul, for it is not the quantity we hear, but the
quantity we believe, that does us good–it is that which we receive
into our hearts with true and lively faith, that is our profit.
But, let me apply this chiefly to the unconverted. They often see great
works of God done with their eyes, but they do not eat thereof. A crowd
of people have come here this morning to see with their eyes, but I
doubt whether all of them eat. Men cannot eat with their eyes, for if
they could, most would be well fed. And, spiritually, persons cannot
feed simply with their ears, nor simply with looking at the preacher;
and so we find the majority of our congregations come just to see; "Ah,
let us hear what this babbler would say, this reed shaken in the wind."
But they have no faith; they come, and they see, and see, and see, and
never eat. There is some one in the front there, who gets converted;
and some one down below, who is called by sovereign grace; some poor
sinner is weeping under a sense of his blood-guiltiness; another is
crying for mercy to God: and another is saying, "Have mercy upon me, a
sinner." A great work is going on in this chapel, but some of you do
not know anything about it; you have no work going on in your hearts,
and why? Because ye think it is impossible; ye think God is not at
work. He has not promised to work for you who do not honor him.
Unbelief makes you sit here in times of revival and of the outpouring
of God's grace, unmoved, uncalled, unsaved.
But, sirs, the worst fulfillment of this doom is to come! Good
Whitefield used sometimes to lift up both his hands and shout, as I
wish I could shout, but my voice fails me. "The wrath to come! the
wrath to come!" It is not the wrath now you have to fear, but the wrath
to come; and there shall be a doom to come, when "ye shall see it with
your eyes, but shall not eat thereof." Methinks I see the last great
day. The last hour of time has struck. I heard the bell toll its death
knell–time was, eternity is ushered in; the sea is boiling; the waves
are lit up with supernatural splendour. I see a rainbow–a flying
cloud, and on it there is a throne, and on that throne sits one like
unto the Son of Man. I know him. In his hand he holds a pair of
balances; just before him the books,–the book of life, the book of
death, the book of remembrance. I see his splendour, and I rejoice at
it; I behold his pompous appearance, and I smile with gladness that he
is come to be "admired of all his saints." But there stands a throng of
miserable wretches, crouching in horror to conceal themselves, and yet
looking, for their eyes must look on him whom they have pierced; but
when they look they cry, "Hide me from the face." What face? "Rocks,
hide me from the face." What face? "The face of Jesus, the man who
died, but now is come to judgment." But ye cannot be hidden from his
face; ye must see it with your eyes: but ye will not sit on the right
hand, dressed in robes of grandeur; and when the triumphal procession
of Jesus in the clouds shall come, ye shall not march in it; ye shall
see it, but ye shall not be there. Oh! methinks I see it now, the
mighty Saviour in his chariot, riding on the rainbow to heaven. See how
his mighty coursers make the sky rattle while he drives them up
heaven's hill. A train girt in white follow behind him, and at his
chariot wheels he drags the devil, death, and hell. Hark, how they clap
their hands. Hark, how they shout. "Thou hast ascended up on high; thou
hast led captivity captive." Hark, how they chant the solemn lay,
"Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." See the splendour of
their appearance; mark the crown upon their brows; see their snow-white
garments; mark the rapture of their countenances; hear how their song
swells up to heaven while the Eternal joins therein, saying, "I will
rejoice over them with joy, I will rejoice over them with singing, for
I have betrothed thee unto me in everlasting lovingkindness." But where
are you all the while? Ye can see them up there, but where are you?
Looking at it with your eyes, but you cannot eat thereof. The marriage
banquet is spread; the good old wines of eternity are broached; they
sit down to the feast of the king; but there are you, miserable, and
famishing, and ye cannot eat thereof. Oh! how ye wring your hands.
Might ye but have one morsel from the table–might ye but be dogs
beneath the table. You shall be a dog in hell, but not a dog in heaven.
But to conclude. Methinks I see thee in some place in hell, tied to a
rock, the vulture of remorse gnawing thy heart; and up there is Lazarus
in Abraham's bosom. You lift up your eyes and you see who it is. "That
is the poor man who lay on my dunghill, and the dogs licked his sores;
there he is in heaven, while I am cast down. Lazarus–yes, it is
Lazarus; and I who was rich in the world of time am here in hell.
Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in
water, to cool my tongue." But no! it cannot be; it cannot be. And
whilst you lie there, if there be one thing in hell worse than another,
it will be seeing the saints in heaven. Oh, to think of seeing my
mother in heaven while I am cast out! Oh, sinner, only think, to see
thy brother in heaven–he who was rocked in the selfsame cradle, and
played beneath the same roof-tree–yet thou art cast out. And, husband,
there is thy wife in heaven, and thou art amongst the damned. And seest
thou, father! thy child is before the throne; and thou! accursed of God
and accursed of man, art in hell. Oh, the hell of hells will be to see
our friends in heaven, and ourselves lost. I beseech you, my hearers,
by the death of Christ–by his agony and bloody sweat–by his cross and
passion–by all that is holy–by all that is sacred in heaven and
earth–by all that is solemn in time or eternity–by all that is
horrible in hell, or glorious in heaven–by that awful thought, "for
ever,"–I beseech you lay these things to heart, and remember that if
you are damned, it will be unbelief that damns you. If you are lost, it
will be because ye believed not on Christ; and if you perish, this
shall be the bitterest drop of gall–that ye did not trust in the
Saviour.