The Way Everlasting
A sermon
(No. 903)
Delivered by
C.H.SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"Lead me in the way everlasting."- Psalm 139:24.
WE must all of us have a "way." We must be journeying, for this is not
our resting place. We cannot abide in any one stay. "Forward" is the
word of command. As the round earth never pauses but perpetually
revolves. As the stars never halt in their course but traverse
incessantly their ordained orbits. As the rivers evermore seek the
sea–as the ocean waves unrestingly pursue each other–even so feel we
the common motion and always must we move onward, onward through this
life unto the next–onward forever and ever.
Since we must have a way, it is of the highest importance that our way
should be a right one. Important, because if it is not right we shall
not long be happy in our course since the happiness of those who follow
the path of evil is fleeting as a meteor, mocking as a
will-o'-the-wisp, deceptive as the mirage, frail as a bubble on the
wave and unsubstantial as a phantom of the night. Today the path of sin
leads us through flowery meads and groves resounding with song of
birds, but tomorrow it will wind among the desolations of many
generations where souls and all their joys are withered as the green
herb in the summer sun. The ways of righteousness are ways of
pleasantness and all her paths are peace. The good is growing and the
pleasure deepening where the wise in heart are walking, but nowhere
else. We have need, then, to find the right way, that we may be happy
pilgrims along it.
We have need of the right way, also, because whatever the way we
pursue, others will be affected by it. Little ones who gather around
our knees will think, "father's way" must be the way for them.
Servants, neighbors, brothers, sisters and if we are very young,
playmates and school fellows under our influence–any or all of these
will be affected for good or evil by our choices. Our following the
wrong way will lead them to the wrong and we shall become a ministry of
evil unto them if we choose evil unto ourselves. More important, still,
is it that we should choose the right way because of the right end.
"All's well that ends well." But what if the way is such that it must
end amiss–must lead to the blackness of darkness forever–must land us
"where their worm dies not and their fire is not quenched"? Oh, then it
will be terrible to have been found in such a way! Terrible for our
souls to meet such a doom!
May it be yours, my dear Hearers, to be led early in life through the
gate of faith in Jesus which leads into the straight and narrow way of
eternal life! May it be yours to be kept in that way, your faith
confirmed by following in it. May it be yours to be found in that way
when the summons shall come from the Master to render up your account.
May it be yours to win, through Divine Grace, the sure results of
perseverance in the way of holiness by reaching that blessed end that
has no end–the joy of the blessed in the land of the hereafter at the
right hand of the Most High!
We shall take the text as a prayer and point out to you three things in
it which strike us as being somewhat remarkable. The first is a
remarkable attribute of the right way–it is said to be "everlasting."
Secondly, a remarkable confession implied in the language here
employed. And then, thirdly, the remarkably comprehensive prayer
contained in the words before us.
I. First, then, A REMARKABLE ATTRIBUTE OF THE RIGHT WAY–IT IS "THE WAY
EVERLASTING." It is most certain that the way of many men cannot be
everlasting. The way of the sinful is not so. I hope, with regard to
some, that their way will last but for a very little time, for it is
the way of evil. May they soon turn from it! "It is a long lane that
has no turning." May their road be so hedged up by God's Providence and
Grace that they may be compelled to take another road. May their prayer
be unto God, "turn me and I shall be turned." The way of the sinner
ought not to be a way everlasting, for if it should be, it must be a
way of everlasting sorrow. The sinner's way of pleasure is far from
being everlasting, for even here the wine cup of sin first yields the
sweetness of intoxication, but afterwards it becomes insipid with
satiety. And after that it grows bitter with remorse, and as for the
dregs, what a Hell burns within them!
The way of pleasure in sin is but as the way of foam on the breaker,
soon to disappear. The devil would gladly persuade men that their life
shall always be as it is, that they shall dance on forever–forever as
the merry butterflies that need not toil and that flit away the golden
hours. He would have them forget the killing frosts that will blight
forever each idle wing. Death and the Justice of God have decreed that
the way of pleasure and the life of sin shall not be everlasting. An
end must surely come to the houses of cards built on carnal
merriment–their bowing walls must lie level with the dust–their
tottering fences must fall down to the ground.
The way of the merely moral man is not a way everlasting. It may be
that he is one who steadily pursues money, conducting his business on
the best principles, commanding the fullest confidence of the
mercantile community and the admiration of all who can appreciate tact
and principle. The man may manage to acquire wealth, it may grow from
day to day–his account may be large at the bank, his capital may be
ample and the stream of interest that flows in may, every day, be more
considerable. But this cannot always last. There may come disaster and
loss and that which was long in accumulation may very swiftly be swept
away. At any rate, death will put an end to the filling of the money
bags. Like Jesus in the Temple, Death will enter and overturn the
tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sell doves–and
with a voice of authority he will cry, "Take these things out!"
Men will find that they cannot barter and bargain, that they cannot
accumulate and grow rich when the time has come to lay aside their
mortal bodies and face the Judge of all the earth! These things of
time, however dear to them, those who are summoned to the land of
spirits must leave. Bitter the parting, but it is inevitable. Naked
came they forth and naked must they return–let them have gained what
they may. It may be that the man, instead of making money, finds it
difficult to make ends meet and his way is that of plodding hard and
industriously to rear a family as respectably as he can. This has in it
much to be commended, but even then, unsanctified by nobler ends, it is
not a way everlasting, for there is a land where they neither marry nor
are given in marriage and where, consequently, there shall be no wife
nor children for whom to toil and no avocation for the worker who lived
by bread alone.
There will be no sphere for the mere servant of men or master of men to
occupy in Heaven. The mere earth-server will be out of place–his way
must come to an end. The arm must be paralyzed that earned the bread
and the fingers that drove the pen or wielded the needle must rest in
long repose. And when they are reanimated at the Resurrection they
cannot pursue their old toil. If they know nothing but the handicraft
of earth, their way will have a wretched end. The way of the merely
moral is not a way everlasting. It might be if it were consecrated by
the Grace of God. These more common things might be the prelude to the
everlasting service before the Throne of God, but inasmuch as the life
is unconsecrated, let it be spent as it may–the way is a way that
comes to an end.
The way of the purposeless and dabbler is not everlasting. How many a
man's life reminds you, instead of an everlasting way, of a mere
cul-de-sac–a blind alley, as we say–down which you wander merely to
come back again! Hundreds of men's lives are like that–like the famous
king in the nursery rhyme who led his troops up a hill and then down
again. They live and they die and that is all that you can say of many.
Their way is a vain show–it passes and is gone and we say, "Where is
it?" Some remind me of those circular lanes which we have sometimes
been lost in–you go round and you come hack to the same place again
and you are no more forward. As the tramp of the blind horse going
round the mill, such is the way of many–from morn till eve, from year
to year–they are mere pendulums swinging to and fro. Their life would
be, if they could exist forever, an everlasting toil. But since they
must die, it must come to an end, and their unhappy spirits must remain
forever in that pathless wilderness of woe from which no traveler ever
finds his way of escape.
My Brothers and Sisters, let me remind you, also, that the way, even of
some religious people, is not the way everlasting. I mean the path, for
instance, of those who are hypocritical. They may put on the mask and
look like beauty, itself, but death will rudely dash the visor on one
side and let their face be seen. Like the veiled prophet, who wore over
his leprous brow a mask of silver, such are many men. They may pass in
the crowd as bright and beautiful, but when the time comes for them to
be seen in the light of God, their loathsomeness will be discovered.
The way of the Pharisee, again–who differs somewhat from the
hypocrite–is not the way everlasting. He will not always dare to say,
"God, I thank You that I am not as other men." Not always will he be
able to boast, "I fast twice in the week. I pay tithes of all that I
possess." The time will come when he will see all this outside washing
of the platter to have been of no service, because his inward part was
full of very wickedness. What will be his dismay and despair!
No, Brethren, neither the way of the hypocrite, the formalist, nor the
Pharisee, is the way everlasting. Neither is any way but that which is
according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Do not tell me that if you are
sincere it will little matter which way you take! You know better! If
you sincerely believe that you are going to St. Paul's, or to London
Bridge, when you leave this Tabernacle and you turn to the right, you
will probably find yourselves at Clapham or at Tooting, but not at St.
Paul's or London Bridge, with all your sincerity of misbelief. The
sincere belief that you will be saved by your good works will by no
means avert your damnation if you persist in refusing to trust in Jesus
Christ. Faith in Jesus is the only way of salvation and if you will not
walk in that way, there is no other.
Our Lord's teaching leaves us no room to hope for the salvation of
unbelievers. "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." But
what of those who do not believe? May they not be sincerely mistaken?
May they not be very good people, after all, and be saved in their own
way? Our Lord's reply is sharp, clear and decisive, "He that believes
not shall be damned." He has nothing else for them but that! Christ is
too great and too honest to court popularity, as many do nowadays, by
an affectation that right or wrong are much the same. The wicked
charity of this age sickens us with its deceptive cant, as it whines
out, "It will little matter what you believe. Nothing, nowadays, is of
very great consequence. Believe what you like and it shall be all right
in the long run." No, but according to the Gospel of Jesus you must
believe the Truth of God and have faith in the power of the Truth, for
a lie will not regenerate you! A lie will not fit you to see the face
of God. A lie will not conduct you to Heaven, but only that Truth which
has the stamp and seal of God and of His Holy Spirit.
I have thus shown you that there are many ways which are not
everlasting. Let us now notice that the right way–the way of faith in
God and of a life that flows out of faith in God–the way, indeed,
which Jesus trod, the way which we tread when we follow in Jesus'
footsteps–is the way everlasting, because it is a way which was mapped
out upon everlasting principles. The Truth of God will never die. The
stars will grow dim. The sun will pale his glory, but the Truth of God
will be forever young. Integrity, uprightness, honesty, love,
goodness–these are all imperishable. No grave can ever entomb these
immortal principles. They have been in prison, but they have been freer
than before. Those who have enshrined them in their hearts have been
burned at the stake, but out of their ashes other witnesses have
arisen. No sea can drown, no storm can wreck, no abyss can swallow up
the ever living Truth of God!
You cannot kill goodness and truth and integrity and faith and
holiness! The way that is consistent with these must be a way
everlasting. Holiness is a way everlasting, because it is pursued by
the possessors of a life that is everlasting. No man enters the way of
truth, righteousness, faith, love to God and love to his neighbor but
the man who has received the new birth. Now, the product of the new
birth is not like the fruit of the flesh which is mortal and
perishable–it is a living and incorruptible seed that lives and abides
forever, so that the man who is born again can no more die than God
Himself! He has received the life of Christ within him, and, according
to the Scriptures, because Christ lives he shall live also. It is an
everlasting way, then, because the pilgrims who tread it, though they
are mortals to all appearance, are yet, in the sight of God, immortal!
They bear within them a life unquenchable, whose endurance shall be
coexistent with the life of Jehovah Himself.
Godliness is a way everlasting, because no circumstances can by any
possibility necessitate any change in it. The man who lives by policy
is like a sailor on a gusty day, or who has a foul wind against him and
must tack about to reach first this point, and then the other, and
makes but slow progress, after all, in the direction which he really
wishes to pursue. But the man who has the life of God and follows the
way of the Truth of God is like the steamship which plows its road
straight on, wind or tide notwithstanding. Why needs it to tack? It
bears its force within itself and is not dependent upon the extraneous
circumstances of winds and waves! Happy is that man who is in this
condition! If he is poor, he may cheerfully pursue the way of Truth and
find his poverty a blessing! If he is rich, the same immortal
principles which guided him in poverty will suffice him now that he has
come to the possession of wealth.
If he were elected to a kingdom, such a man, having the Law of God in
his heart, would know how to walk and to behave himself right royally.
His way is everlasting because he has not to stop every morning and
enquire, "How am I to behave today? What is the new rule by which I
shall shape my course?" Your tricky politicians, who this day are one
thing and that the other, as they fancy the public mind may
change–these had need to consult their barometer to know what kind of
weather the popular will ordains. But we, if we are taught of God to do
the right thing, care not about the
weather or the will of man. Whether it is fair or foul–whether the sun
shines or not–we would still serve our God and do the right, by His
Grace, and if the heavens should fall, expect to still find a shelter.
Righteousness is the way everlasting, because such a way, even death,
itself, shall not terminate. The man who learns to live as God would
have him live, will find death to be only a circumstance in his
immortality. He will pass onward, with no more pause than the earth
makes when the moon comes between her and the sun. As when the iron
horse pursues his rapid way, he shoots through a tunnel and is out of
it again, making the darkness but an interlude in his progress– even
so is death a small matter to the converted and regenerate man! The man
who walks in the way of God passes through death as through a temporary
gloom, but he still pursues the even tenor of his way. What he did on
earth he shall do in Heaven, only he shall do it better and after a
nobler sort!
On earth he loved his God. In Heaven he shall do the same. On earth he
found his joy in a sight of Christ–in Heaven he shall enjoy that sight
more near and unveiled! On earth he loved the true and the right and
the good–and in Heaven he shall dwell in the midst of the city that is
of pure gold and whose light is brighter than the sun, where only
holiness and perfection are admitted. He shall not even change his
company, for the Church militant in which he fought on earth is also
the Church triumphant with which he shall reign forever and ever in
Heaven! You see, then, that the godly man's path is a way everlasting.
I might have said much more, but this shall suffice.
II. Dear Brothers and Sisters, the next remarkable thing in the text is
THE CONFESSION WHICH IS MADE.
David says, "Lead me in the way everlasting." David was a good man, a
Grace-taught man, a spiritual man, an eminently spiritual man and yet
he required to be led in the way–"Lead me in the way everlasting."
What is more, David was a deeply experienced man. This Psalm is towards
the end of the book and I suppose his hair was all gray when he wrote
it. He had come to threescore years and ten, probably, and there he is,
dear man, able to teach others, yet pleading, "Lead me, lead me."
He was a ripe Believer, for he had not only the years of age, but the
experience of a much-tried life. In fact, David seems to have been an
epitome of all men. You never had a trouble but what you could find
something to suit you under it in the Psalms. And I think you never had
a joy but what you discovered a verse that would help you to sing out
your joy. David, somehow or other, seems to have known all the ups and
downs, all the hills and all the valleys of Christian experience and
yet for all that he cries, "Lead me, lead me." David was the man after
God's own heart, despite his slips. His sin was the soldier's common
sin–we must remember that. His position was an extraordinary one, such
as ours can never be. He was a man after God's heart because of his
deep sincerity, his child-likeness and his warmth of soul. And yet
notwithstanding that and all his eminence in Divine Grace, he says,
"Lead me, lead me."
What does this prayer teach us? Why, that the most mature Christian, if
he judges aright, feels that he needs as much to be led in the right
way as if he were only beginning the spiritual life! The words seems to
me to be almost humiliating, "Lead me." It is a little child saying,
"Lead me, Mother, lead me." It is more than that–it is a blind man
putting out his hands, he cannot see, he cannot find his way and he is
begging–"Lead me." Such babes are we. Such blind men are we, apart
from the guiding Grace of God! Oh, how dependent we are, then, and what
confessions ought we to make who are so much less than David, so much
younger, the most of us, so much less experienced than he! How ought we
to pray emphatically, "Lead me, Lord, for I am so little, so
uninstructed and have had such little experience. Lead me in the way
everlasting."
This remarkable confession and prayer should suggest two
things–ignorance and impotence. When we say, "Lead me," if it is a
blind man, it means ignorance–he cannot see the way and therefore he
needs to be led, though he may be strong enough to walk if he only knew
the way. "Lead me, Lord," also signifies impotence if it is judged of
as the child's case–he needs to be led in another sense because he has
not strength enough in his little feet to go without the help of his
mother's hand. "Lead me in the way." So, you see, our confession should
be double–of our ignorance and of our impotence–of our need of
knowledge and of our lack of strength.
1. First, our need of knowledge. "'Lead me in the way everlasting,' for
I do not know that way everlasting. Naturally I know nothing of it, nor
can I, as a natural man, until You teach me–for only the spiritual man
receives spiritual things and the carnal mind cannot know the things of
God, for they are spiritual and must be spiritually discerned. O God,
how dangerous is my case and how hopeless, too, unless You teach me! I
pray You, therefore, instruct me! Enlighten me. Lead me in the way
everlasting! O Lord, I may well confess that I need this instruction
because even
though I am converted and so know something of Your way, yet it often
happens that I know not which is the right way through defect
ofjudgment.
"If willing to do the right, yet it may sometimes happen that I may put
bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Though anxious and even desirous
to take the right road, yet I may come to a place where two ways meet
which seem, both of them, to be the right one and I may not know which
way to choose. My judgment, Lord, is very imperfect and apt to err.
Lead me, I pray You. He that leans to his own judgment is foolish and
he that trusts to his own heart is a fool–neither to my judgment nor
to my heart would I trust, but say, 'Lord, lead me.'" Moreover, in
addition to a deficient judgment we ought to confess, and I hope we
shall humbly do so, that we are apt to be misled by vitiated
affections. There is a leaning in us all towards the evil way if we
dare pursue it! Ah, how soon we touch the forbidden fruit! How does the
heart run after vanity, even when we have resolved by Divine Grace that
we will always close our eyes to it!
That man must have well listed his door who can keep out Satan's
temptations. But he who should have done that and left no crack by
which the old serpent could enter would find a serpent within the core
of his own heart, in his own corruptions. "Alas, then, O God, since my
soul leans towards evil and will go amiss if it can, lead You me, lest
my depraved affections should further pervert my judgment and I should
leave the King's highway." In addition to this, all over this world
there are influences which would make us take the wrong way, deceiving
us into the notion that we are right. The air is not clear
anywhere–there are mists and fog all around–the best of men often
have to pause and feel the hot sweat upon their brow through trembling
anxiety as to the right course. Which is right? Which is wrong?
This fog of custom–everybody does it! This fog of tradition–everybody
has done it these hundreds of years! The dread of being singular, the
dislike of being thought to be precise and I know not what beside–all
these cast a mist about us. Oh, how easy it is when we are traveling
through a thick and murky atmosphere for us to mistake the way! Lead
us, then, Lord! Lead us in the way everlasting! Alas, how many have set
out, as they thought, under God's guidance on the voyage of life, but
they have not really received Christ nor His life within them? And so,
being deluded by the false lights of wreckers, have soon come to
everlasting shipwreck, believing all the while that they were sailing
into the celestial haven!
Dear Brothers and Sisters, judge not yourselves to be wise, or the Word
will judge you to be foolish! But go, now, with a confession of your
ignorance unto God in silent prayer and lift up this petition, "Guide
me, O You great Jehovah! I am a pilgrim through this misty land. I am
foolish, You are wise–guide me with Your powerful hand, conduct me
safely, let no enemy tempt me from the narrow way, but lead me in the
way everlasting."
2. But, secondly, the confession also contains an admission of lack of
strength, for it is not merely, "Show me," which would suffice if the
man were strong, but, "Lead me," which, as I have said before, is as
the child that needs its mother's finger, or its father's supporting
hand. We not only need knowledge, but we need power to run in the right
way. Morally and physically men can do right if they will. "It is as
easy," says one, "for a man not to get drunk as it is to open his
hand." And that is a fact, for if a man, when he holds the intoxicating
glass, would only open his hand the liquor would fall to the ground and
the drink would not make a beast of him.
So any other sin may easily be avoided, so far as the moral and
physical power are concerned. But then there is a lack of will in the
man, and that is the point–and therefore we need to ask of God to give
us will, which is the real power. Oh, how irresolute a man often is
concerning a sin which he knows to be a sin, but which enchants him
with its sweetness! Ah, how a man will say, "I must give it up, but I
cannot!" How, like the serpent in the old story of Laocoon, Sin will
twist itself round and round a man and if he tugs and pulls away one
coil, yet there is another and another and another! Ah, how men dally
with sin! When it comes to plucking off the right arm and plucking out
the right eye, you say to yourselves, "We do not like losing this arm,
and besides, we have not yet found the proper knife to take it off
with."
Ah, if you had the proper knife, yet you would be slow to make the
gash! You would plead that it might be spared at least a little
longer–that a little good work might yet be done with it! There will
always be some excuse for delay in giving up sin and if the surgeon
does not interpose and take it off, the mortification of sin will
spread through the entire body before the man will be willing to lose
his limb. Sin dies hard. It makes a hundred excuses for itself and
pleads, "Is it not a little one? Is it not a sweet one?"
O Lord, then, give me strength of resolution, and when I know that a
thing is wrong, help me to have done with it! And when I perceive an
action to be right, help me to make haste and delay not to keep Your
Commandments. O my
Lord, may I never try to patch up a peace between my conscience and
myself by trimming and compromising. If I know a thing to be Your will,
may I never parley nor question–for that is to rebel. The spirit that
parleys is the essence of high treason. May I put away all questioning
and, obedient to You, at once yield my will to be Yours. Lead me, Lord,
lead me! Uphold me with Your hand of Grace and give me strength and
resolution to be holy!
There are some who have strength and resolution enough by fits and
starts, but they have not stability enough to persevere. If Heaven
could be won by one great leap, how soon they would have it! But if to
enter into the pearly gates one must go on pilgrimage all the way, then
they cannot hold out to the end. Lord, lead me! How speedily do I begin
to shrink! How soon would my rebellious heart draw back from Your
service! O give me persevering Grace and when I would stand aside, lead
me forward! Draw, draw me, good Lord! Yes, gently tug at my laggard
soul and when–
"My heart can neither fly nor go To reach celestial joys,"
Then–
"Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, With all Your power Divine. Come,
shed abroad a Savior's love, And that shall kindle mine."
Lead me, Lord! You see what is meant by the prayer and I need not go
further, though there is much room for enlargement. Need of knowledge
and lack of strength are both confessed in this remarkable verse.
III. Let us close by noticing THE REMARKABLY COMPREHENSIVE PRAYER
before us. I do not know many of the collects or particularly wish to
know them, but I will give you my text for a collect and you shall
never find its superior. Let this be your constant prayer–you may use
it as long as you like and as often as you please, for if it is
sincere, it will never be a vain repetition–"Lead me in the way
everlasting."
1. Now, notice this prayer very carefully. First, observe how
comprehensive it is, because of its object. Its object is the whole
man. "Lead me–not half of me, not part of me. Lead me in the whole
way–not in some part of the way, but in the whole way, that is to say,
let my thoughts be led in the way that I may not think unrighteously,
that I may not believe the Truth of God in part, but that I may be
sound in the faith. Lead me that I may not believe false doctrine.
Lord, lead my understanding and my intellect in the way of
Revelation–make me to know Your Covenant Truths and the great
Doctrines of Grace. Let me not be satisfied to know half Your Truth and
think I know it all, but lead me into all Your Truth. Let there not be
one doctrine that I would erase, nor one precept that I would forget,
nor one single word in Your Book that I would blot out. Lord, lead me
as to my understanding, knowledge and thoughts–lead me in the way
everlasting."
He means his emotions, too, as well as his intellectual part. '"Lord,
lead me in Your way, for well I know that if my head should go without
my heart, yet were I all undone. Lord, help me to love not the world
nor the things that are of the world, but lead me in the way
everlasting. Let my best passions boil when Christ is the fire. Let my
heart be in its best trim when Christ has come to see it, like a garden
that is watered by His Presence and whose fruits are ripened by the
sunlight of His love." He refers his tongue to the same leading. "Lord,
grant that my tongue may not be a slanderous tongue, or a trifling
tongue, or a lascivious tongue, or a tongue that talks for mere talk's
sake. But, Lord, salt my tongue for me. Grant me Grace so to speak that
my conversation shall edify the hearer. Lead me in the way
everlasting."
He means, indeed, himself as to his actions. "I would keep Your way, O
Lord, when I go to my chamber–not sinning there–and when I come down
to my meals–not getting out of Your way by wrong-eating or drinking.
When I go to my shop, or to my work, to the field or to the market, to
the streets and to the Exchange let me not err in anything. Still,
Lord, lead me in the way everlasting and may no path of business, no
path of recreation, no path of society, no path of solitude ever take
me out of Your way, but wherever I am let the whole of me be altogether
and wholly in the whole of Your way." You see what a full prayer it is
as to its objects!
2. But it is also a great prayer, if you consider it in the matter of
its modes. "Lead me." How does God lead? Brothers and Sisters, He leads
us by the Law. The Law tells us what we ought to do. The Ten
Commandments of the Law are, as it were, ten signposts, all of them
saying–"This is the way; walk you in it." He leads us, better still,
by the example of Christ–
"We read our duty in Your Word,
But in His life the Law appears Drawn out in living characters."
The Law tells us what we should do, but Jesus has done it for us and
shown us how to do it! The whole life of Christ is a leading of us in
the way. He leads us in the way by His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
enlightens the conscience, influences the will, guides the judgment and
sweetly leads the heart in the path of sanctity. Under God, the Holy
Spirit, the ministry often becomes our guide in the way everlasting.
Some choice word from God's servants, coming at a right time, may check
us when we would do evil, may inspirit us when we would faint in the
way of right. And then good books and I know not what besides–the
example of the saints, the hints of Providence, the emotions of our own
hearts when near to God–these are often prompts to guide and lead us
in the way everlasting. So, you see, as to its modes the prayer of the
text is very comprehensive.
3. It is, dear Brothers and Sisters, a great prayer, if you think for a
minute of its issues. "Lead me in the way everlasting." Oh, what a word
is that word, "everlasting!" I think I see before me the gate of pearl,
as though this word, "everlasting," were that glorious gate. With what
soft radiance it beams upon my eyes at this moment! And lo, it turns
upon its hinges! It stands wide open and what do I see? Everlasting!
Everlasting! Why, I see before me the sea of glass and the harpers
standing on that waveless ocean, "where the wicked cease from troubling
and the weary are at rest." And what do I hear? I hear their songs like
the sound of many waters, yet sweet as harpers harping with their
harps!
And what do I see as I gaze, but Jesus Christ, the sun and center of
Heaven's Glory? And I behold His saints who trod this way everlasting
on earth, continuing, still, to tread it, proceeding further into the
bliss of His Presence and into the ecstasy of His love and into the
experience of His fellowship! Every day is advancing in this way that
has no end, this way everlasting! Oh, what a prayer this is! I, when I
say, "Lead me in the way everlasting," as good as ask for a holy life,
a happy death and a Heaven to crown it all! I do ask for all that is in
the Covenant, all that Christ came to give, all that God has laid up in
store and all that the Spirit works in men. It is a mighty prayer,
indeed!
4. The last remark is the prayer is most comprehensive as to the
persons who may fitly use it. It has but one stroke and aim. It is,
"Lead me, lead me." But it is suitable to thousands. It is a great
prayer and it is just suitable to your lips– yours, my Brother! Yours,
my Sister. Yours, whom I could not address by either of those names.
Yours, O stranger to the Grace of God. "Lead me." Who is there here
whom it would not suit? There are none too well grown in Divine Grace
and none too far gone in sin!
"Lead me." Is there one that is so far off from God and hope that she
has given herself up to despair? When your heart is overwhelmed within
you, He can lead you to the Rock that is higher than you are and bring
you out of the way of ruin into the way everlasting! Is there a man
here whose backslidings have become so numerous that he dares no longer
look up? Friend, your prayer can still reach God's ear! "Lead me in the
way everlasting." Poor Prodigal, if you cannot return, if you feel
yourself too vile to hope, yet He can come to you, even if to Him you
cannot come! Breathe the prayer, "Lead me, Lord, even me, from the
depths of Hell. I cry unto You like Jonah out of the whale's belly! Out
of the Hell of my despair, out of the Hell of my infamous sin, I
venture to ask You–black-handed, black-mouthed, black-hearted as I
am–lead me, O my God!"
He will hear you, Sinner, through the intercession of Jesus. He will
wash you in the atoning blood. He will guide you and bring you, even
you, into the way everlasting. Let it not, then, be omitted by any one
of us to make this our prayer before we leave this house! I charge you,
let not this evening's gathering be in vain, and I know it will be in
vain to each one present who is not led so to pray. Come! Let us pray
this prayer together and may the Lord hear us!
[Then the people bowed their heads and worshipped and said "Amen" after
the following prayer.]
"O Lord, my God, lead me in the way everlasting! I need it! You have
made me to teach others and my example influences many. Lead me in the
way everlasting! And Your servants who gather around me, my beloved
deacons and elders, whose example, also, will be potent for good if
they are good, and for evil if they are evil–Lord, hear them as they
say, 'Lead us in the way everlasting.' And the members of the Church,
the many hundreds, yes, the thousands who are associated in Church
fellowship here–who eat of Your bread and drink of Your cup–O hear
them, such of them as are now present who shall now cry unto You, 'Lead
me in the way everlasting.'
"Hear every Brother in dilemma and difficulty, every Sister in duty and
danger, every heart that is weary, every soul that is sick who says,
'Lead me in the way everlasting.' And Lord, hear the unconverted sinner
as he breathes this desire
towards your Throne of Grace. Is there one here that has left the paths
of virtue and of honesty and do his lips tremblingly say, 'Lead me in
the way everlasting'? Lord, hear his supplication! Lord, hear it for
Jesus' sake. Where ever there stands or sits in this Tabernacle one old
or young, rich or poor, learned or illiterate, moral or immoral–if
there is such a one here who in his heart says, 'Father, forgive me and
lead me in the way everlasting'–O do You answer that prayer speedily,
for Your dear Son's sake. And now, once more, for Jesus' sake we do
each of us beseech you, 'Lead me in the way everlasting.' Amen."
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Psalm 139.
[Mr. Spurgeon's illness prevented his revising the sermons of last week
and he much regrets that in the discourse entitled, "The Upper Hand,"
(Sermon #901), a passage concerning the Law has been wrongly printed.
The mistake was corrected as soon as observed.]