The Wondrous Covenant
(No. 3326)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1912.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"For this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord; I will put My Laws into their mind,
and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they
shall be to Me a people." Hebrews 8:10.
THE Doctrine of the Divine Covenant lies at the root of all true
theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction
between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace is a master of
divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make
concerning the Doctrines of Scripture are based upon fundamental errors
with regard to the Covenants of Law and of Grace. May God grant us now
the power to instruct–and you the Grace to receive instruction on this
vital subject.
The human race in the order of history, as far as this world is
concerned, first stood in subjection to God under the Covenant of
Works. Adam was the representative man. A certain Law was given him. If
he kept it, he and all his posterity would be blessed as the result of
obedience. If he broke it, he would incur the curse, himself, and
entail it on all represented by him. That Covenant our first father
broke. He fell–he failed to fulfill his obligations–and in his fall
he involved us all, for we were all in his loins and he represented us
before God. Our ruin, then, was complete before we were born! We were
ruined by him who stood as our first representative. To be saved by the
works of the Law is impossible, for under that Covenant we are already
lost. If saved at all, it must be all quite a different plan, not on
the plan of doing and being rewarded for it, for that has been
tried–and the representative man upon whom it was tried has failed for
us all. We have all failed in his failure! It is hopeless, therefore,
to expect to win Divine favor by anything that we can do, or merit
Divine blessing by way of reward!
But Divine Mercy has interposed and provided a plan of salvation from
the Fall. That plan is another Covenant, a Covenant made with Christ
Jesus, the Son of God, who is fitly called by the Apostle, "the Second
Adam," because He stood again as the Representative of man. Now, the
Second Covenant, as far as Christ was concerned, was a Covenant of
Works quite as much as the other! It was on this wise. Christ shall
come into the world and perfectly obey the Divine Law. He shall also,
inasmuch as the first Adam has broken the Law, suffer the penalty of
sin. If He shall do both of these, then all whom He represents shall be
blessed in His blessedness and saved because of His merit. You see,
then, that until our Lord came into this world, it was a Covenant of
Works towards Him. He had certain works to perform, upon condition of
which certain blessings would be given to us. Our Lord has kept that
Covenant! His part in it has been fulfilled to the last letter! There
is no commandment which He has not honored. There is no penalty of the
broken Law which He has not endured! He became a Servant and obedient,
yes, obedient to death, even the death of the Cross. He has thus done
what the first Adam could not accomplish and He has retrieved what the
first Adam forfeited by his transgression. He has establishedthe
Covenant, and now it ceases to be a Covenant of Works, for the works
are all done!–
"Jesus did them, did them all, Long, long ago."
And now what remains of the Covenant? God on His part has solemnly
pledged Himself to give undeserved favor to as many as were represented
in Christ Jesus. For as many as the Savior died for, there is stored up
a boundless mass of blessing which shall be given to them–not through
their works, but as the Sovereign gift of the Grace of God, according
to His Covenant promise by which they shall be saved!
Behold, my Brothers and Sisters, the hope of the sons of man! The hope
of their saving themselves is crushed, for they are already lost! The
hope of their being saved by works is a fallacious one, for they cannot
keep the Law–they have
already broken it! But there is a way of salvation opened on this
wise–whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ– receives and partakes
of the bliss which Christ has bought! All the blessings which belong to
the Covenant of Grace through the work of Christ shall belong to every
soul that believes in Jesus! Whoever works not, but believes on Him who
justifies the ungodly, unto him shall the blessing of the new Covenant
of Grace be undoubtedly given!
I hope that this explanation is plain enough. If Adam had kept the Law,
we would have been blessed by his keeping it. He broke it and we have
been cursed through him. Now the Second Adam, Christ Jesus, has kept
the Law–we are, therefore, if Believers, represented in Christ and
blessed with the results of the obedience of Jesus Christ to His
Father's will. He said of old, "Lo, I come to do Your will, O God! Your
Law is My delight." He has done that will and the blessings of Grace
are now freely given to the sons of men!
I shall ask your attention then, first, to the privileges of the
Covenant of Grace. Secondly, to the parties concerned in it This will
be quite enough, I am sure, for consideration this evening during the
brief period allotted to our sermon.
I. As to THE PRIVILEGES OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE.
The first privilege is that to as many as are interested in it there
shall be given an illumination of their minds. "I will put My Law in
their minds." By nature we are dark towards God's will. Conscience
keeps up in us a sort of broken recollection of what God's will was. It
is a monument of God's will, but it is often hardly legible. A man does
not care to read it–he is averse to what he reads there. "Their
foolish heart was dark," is the expression of Scripture with regard to
the mind of man. But the Holy Spirit is promised to those interested in
the Covenant. He shall come upon their minds and shed light instead of
darkness, illuminating them as to what the will of God is. The ungodly
man has some degree of light, but it is merely intellectual. It is a
light that he does not love. He loves darkness rather than light
because his deeds are evil. But where the Holy Spirit comes, He floods
the soul with a Divine luster in which the soul delights and desires to
participate to the fullest degree! Brothers and Sisters, the renewed
man, the man under the Covenant of Grace, does not need constantly to
resort to his Bible to learn what he ought to do, nor to go to some
fellow Christian to ask instructions. He has not got the Law of God now
written on a tablet of stone, or upon parchment, or upon paper–he has
got the Law written upon his own mind! There is now a Divine,
Infallible Spirit dwelling within him which tells him the right and the
wrong–and by this he speedily discerns between the good and the evil.
He no longer puts darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for
sweet, and sweet for bitter! His mind is enlightened as to the true
holiness and the true purity which God requires!
Just mark the men to whom this Light of God comes. By nature some of
them are deeply depraved. All of them are depraved, but by practice
some of them become yet further dark. Is it not marvelous that a poor
heathen who scarcely seemed to recognize the distinction between right
and wrong before the Spirit of God entered his mind, has afterwards,
without needing to be taught all the precepts, individually, received
at once the quick Light of a tender conscience which has led him to
know the right and love it, and to see the evil and eschew it? If you
want to civilize the world, it must be by preaching the Gospel! If you
want to have men well instructed as to the right and the wrong, it must
be by this Divine Instruction which only God, Himself, can impart. "I
will do it," and oh, how blessedly He does it when He takes the man
that loved evil and called it good, and so sheds a Divine beam into his
soul that henceforth he cannot be perverse, cannot be obstinate, but
submits himself to the Divine Will! That is one of the first blessings
of the Covenant–the illumination of the understanding.
The next blessing is, "And I will write My Law in their hearts.." This
is more than knowing the Law–infinitely more. "I will write the Law,
not merely on their understandings, where it may guide them, but in
their hearts where it shall lead them." Brothers and Sisters, the Holy
Spirit makes men love the will of God, makes them delight in all in
which God delights and abhor that which the Lord abhors! It is well
said in the text that God will do this, for certainly it is not what a
man can do for himself. The Ethiopian might sooner change his skin or
the leopard his spots! It is not what the minister can do, for though
he may preach to the ears, he cannot write God's Law on the affections.
I have marveled at the expression used in the text, "I will write My
Law in their hearts." To write on a heartmust be difficult work, but to
write in a heart, in the very center of the heart–who can do this but
God? A man cuts his name upon a tree in the bark and there it stands.
And the letters grow with the tree–but to cut his name in the heart of
the tree–how shall he accomplish this? And yet God does Divinely
engrave His Will and His Law in the very heart and nature of man!
I know what the notion is about Christian people–that they do not
conform to this and that custom because they are afraid–they would
like to revel in the vanities of the world, but they do not care to
encounter the penalties. Ah, you sons of men, you comprehend not the
mysterious work of the Spirit! He does nothing of this sort! He makes
not the child of God to be a serf, a slave, in fear of bondage, but He
so changes the nature of men that they do not love what they once
loved! They turn away with loathing from the things they once delighted
in and can no more indulge in the sins which were once sweet to them
than an angel could plunge himself down and wallow in the mire with the
swine! Oh, this is a gracious work! And this is a blessed Covenant in
which it is promised that we shall be taught the right, to know and
love the right, and to do the right with a willing mind!
Am I addressing some tonight who have been saying, "I wish I could be
saved." What do you mean by that? Do you mean you wish you might escape
from Hell? Ah, well, I would to God you had another wish–namely, "Oh,
that I could escape from sin! Oh, that I could be made pure, that my
passions could be bridled! Oh, that my longings and my likings could be
changed!" If that is your wish, see what a Gospel I have to preach to
you! I have not come to tell you–do this, and do not do that. Moses
tells you that–and the preacher of the Law speaks to you after that
fashion–but I, the preacher of the Gospel, unveiling the Covenant of
Grace tonight, tell you that Jesus Christ has done such a work for
sinners that God, now, for Christ's sake, comes to them, makes them see
the right and by a Divine work upon them and in them, makes them love
holiness and follow after righteousness!
I count this one of the greatest blessings of which ever tongue could
speak! I would sooner be holy than happy if the two things could be
divorced. Were it possible for a man to always sorrow and yet to be
pure, I would choose the sorrow if I might win the purity, for,
Beloved, to be free from the power of sin, to be made to love holiness
though I have spoken after the manner of men to you, is true happiness!
A man that is holy is in order with the Creation–he is in harmony with
God! It is impossible for that man to suffer long. He may for awhile
endure for his lasting good, but as sure as God is happy, the holy must
be happy! This world is not so constituted that in the long run
holiness shall go with sorrow, for in eternity God shall show that to
be pure is to be blessed, to be obedient to the Divine Will is to be
eternally glorified! In preaching to you, then, these two blessings of
the Covenant–I have virtually preached to you the open Kingdom of
Heaven–open to all such whom God's Grace shall look upon with an eye
of mercy!
The next blessing of the Covenant is–"I will be to them a God." If any
ask me what this means, I must reply, Give me a month to consider it.
And when I had considered the text for a month, I should ask another
month! And when I had waited a year, I should ask another year–and
when I had waited till I grew gray, I would still ask the postponement
of any attempt to fully open it up until eternity! "I will be to them a
God." Now, mark you, where the Spirit of God has come to teach you the
Divine Will and make you love the Divine Will, God becomes to
you–what? A Father? Yes, a loving, tender Father. A Shepherd? Yes, a
watchful Guardian of His flock. A Friend? Yes, a Friend that sticks
closer than a brother. A Rock? A Refuge? A Fortress? A high Tower? A
Castle of defense? A Home? A Heaven? Yes, all that, but when He said "I
will be their God," He said more than all these put together, for, "I
will be to them a God," comprehends all gracious titles, all blessed
promises and all Divine privileges! It comprehends–yes, now I stop,
for this is Infinite, and the Infinite comprehends all blessings. "I
will be to them a God." Do you need provision? The cattle on a thousand
hills are His–it is nothing to Him to give! It will not impoverish
Him! He will give to you like a God! Do you need comfort? He is the God
of all consolation–He will comfort you like a Lord. Do you need
guidance? There is infinite wisdom waiting at your beck and call! Do
you need support? There is eternal power, the same which guards the
everlasting hills waiting to be your stay! Do you need Grace? He
delights in mercy and all that mercy is yours! Every attribute of God
belongs to His people in covenant with Him. All that God is or can
be–and what is there not in that?–all that you can conceive and more!
All the angels have and more! All that Heaven is and more! All that is
in Christ, even the boundless fullness of Godhead–all this belongs to
you, if you are in covenant with God through Jesus Christ! How rich,
how blessed, how august, how noble are those in covenant with God,
confederate with Heaven! Infinity belongs to you! Lift up your head, O
child of God, and rejoice in a promise that I cannot expound, and you
cannot explore! There I must leave it–it is a deep which we strive in
vain to fathom!
Notice the next blessing, "And they shall be to Me a people." All flesh
belongs to God in a certain sense. All men are His by rights of
Creation and He has an Infinite Sovereignty over them. But He looks
down upon the sons of men and He
selects some, and He says, "These shall be My people, not the rest.
These shall be My peculiar people." When the King of Navarre was
fighting for his throne, the writer who hymns the battle, says–
"He looked upon the foemen, and his glance was stern and high.
He looked upon his people, and the tear was in his eye."
And when he saw some of the French in arms against him–
"Then out spoke gentle Henry, No Frenchman is my foe Down, down, with
every foreigner, but let your brethren go."
The king looked for his people even if they were in rebellion against
him! He had a different thought towards them from what he had towards
others. "Let them go," he seemed to say, "they are my people." So, mark
you, in the great battles and strifes of this world, when Lord lets
loose the dread artillery of Heaven, His glance is stern upon His
enemies, but the tear is in His eyes towards His people. He is always
tender towards them. "Spare My people," He says, and the angels
interpose lest these chosen ones should dash their feet against a
stone!
People have their treasures, their pearls, their jewels, their rubies,
their diamonds–and these are their peculiar stones. Now, all in the
Covenant of Grace are the peculiar stones of God. He values them above
all things else! In fact, He keeps the world spinning for them! The
world is but a scaffold for the Church. He will send Creation packing
when once it has done with His saints. Yes, sun, moon and stars shall
pass away like worn-out rags when once He has gathered together His own
elect and enfolded them forever within the safety of the walls of
Heaven! For them time moves! For them the world exists! He measures the
nation according to their number and He makes the very stars of Heaven
to fight against their enemies and to defend them against their foes!
"They shall be to Me a people." The favor which is contained in such
love it is not for tongue to express. Perhaps on some of those quiet
resting places prepared for the saints in Heaven, it shall be a part of
our eternal enjoyment to contemplate the heights and depths of these
golden lines!
II. And now, Brothers and Sisters, I wish I had time to go over the
other parts contained in the 11th and 12th verses of the Chapter, but I
have not, for I have a practical business to do, and it is to
enquire–FOR WHOM HAS GOD MADE
THIS COVENANT?
I said He made it with Christ, but He made it with Christ as the
Representative of His people. The question tonight for you, and for me,
and for each one is, "Am I interested in Christ? Did Christ Jesus stand
for me?" Now, if I were to say that Christ was the Representative of
the whole world, you would not find any substantial advantage in that
because the great proportion of mankind being lost, whatever interest
they may have in Christ, it is certainly of no beneficial value to them
as to their eternal salvation! The question I ask is–have I such a
special interest in Christ that this Covenant holds good towards me so
that I shall have, or so that I now have the enlightened mind, the
sanctified affections and the possession of God to be my God? Be not
deceived, my Brothers and Sisters–I cannot and you cannot turn over
the leaves of the book of destiny! It is impossible for us to force our
way into the cabinet chamber of the Eternal! I hope you are not deluded
by superstitious ideas that you have had a Revelation made to you, or
that there has been some special sound or dream which makes any one of
you think you are a Christian!
Yet on sounder premises I will try to help you a little. Have you
already obtained any of these Covenant blessings? Have you got an
enlightened mind? Do you now find that your spirit tells you which is
the right and which is the wrong? Better still, have you got a love for
that which is good? Have you got a hatred for that which is evil? If
so, as you have got one Covenant blessing, all the rest go with it!
Now, men and women, have you passed through a great change? Have you
come to hate that which you once loved? If you have, the Covenant lies
before you like Canaan before the ravished eyes of Moses on top of the
mountain! Look now, for it is yours! It flows with milk and honey and
it belongs to you– and you shall inherit it! But if there has been no
such change worked in you, I cannot hold you out any congratulations,
but I thank God I can do what may serve your turn! I can hold you out
Divine Direction–the direction for the obtaining an interest in this
Covenant and for clearing up your interest in it is simple. It is
contained in few words. Mark well those three words–"Believe and
live," for whoever believes in Christ Jesus has everlasting life–which
is the blessing of the Covenant. The argument is obvious. Having the
blessing of the Covenant you must be in the Covenant! And being in the
Covenant, Christ evidently must have representatively stood Sponsor for
you. But says one, "What is it to believein Christ?" Another word is a
synonym to it. It is–trust Christ. "How do I know whether He died for
me in particular?" Trust Him whether you know that or not. Jesus Christ
is lifted up upon the Cross of Calvary as the Atonement for sin and the
proclamation is given out, "Look, look, look and live!" And whoever
will cast away his self-righteousness, cast away
everything upon which he now depends–and will come and trust in the
finished work of our exalted Savior, has, in that very faith, the token
that he is one of those who were in Christ when He went up to the Cross
and worked out eternal redemption for His elect! I do not believe that
Christ died on the tree to render men salvable, but to save them! Not
that some men might be saved "if," but to really redeem them! And He
did then and there give Himself a ransom. He paid their debts there.
There cast their sins into the Red Sea and there made a clean sweep of
everything that could be laid to the charge of God's elect. You are one
of His elect if you believe! Christ died for you if you believe in Him
and your sins are forgiven you. "Well but," says one, "how about that
change of nature?" It always comes with faith! It is the next akin to
faith. Wherever there is genuine faith in Christ, faith works love. A
sense of mercy breeds affection. Affection to Christ breeds hatred to
sin. Hatred to sin purges the soul–the soul being purged, the life is
changed!
You must not begin with mending yourselves externally–you must begin
with the new internal life and it is thus to be had–the gift of God
through simply believing in Jesus! A slave who had been for some time
attending a place of worship, had imbibed the idea and a very natural
one, too, that he was saved because he had been baptized. He had been
to one of those places where they teach little children to say after
this fashion, "In my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, a
child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven." "Now," said
he, very simply and very plainly, for so the catechism teaches–and a
gross delusion it is–"I am saved because I have been baptized! That
has made me a child of God." Now the good man who sought to instruct
him better could find no metaphor to suit his intellect better than
taking him into the kitchen and showing him a bottle of black ink.
"Now," he said, "I will wash it," and he washed the outside of the
bottle and invited the man to drink out of it because it was clean.
"No," said the man, It is all black! It is all black–it is not clean
because you have washed the outside." "Ah," said he, "and so it is with
you! All that these drops of water could do for you–all that baptism
could do for you is to wash the outside–but that does not make you
clean, for the filth is all within!" Now, the work of the Covenant of
Grace is not to wash the outside, not to clean the flesh, not to pass
you through rites and ceremonies and Episcopal hands, but to wash the
inside–to purge the heart, to cleanse the vitals, to renew the
soul–and this is the only salvation that will ever bring a man to
enter Heaven! You may go tonight and renounce all your outward vices–I
hope you will. You may go and practice all church ceremonies. And if
they are Scriptural, I wish you would. But they will do nothing for
you, nothing whatever as to your entering Heaven if you miss one thing
else–that is, getting the Covenant blessing of the renewed nature
which can only be had as a gift of God through Jesus Christ–and as the
result of a simple faith in Him who did die upon the tree!
I press the work of self-examination upon you all. I press it earnestly
upon you Church members. It is of no avail that you have been baptized!
It is of no avail that you take the sacrament. Avail? Indeed it shall
bring a greater responsibility and a curse upon you unless your hearts
have been by the Holy Spirit made anew according to the Covenant of
Promise! If you have not a new heart, oh, go to your chambers, fall
upon your knees and cry to God for it! May the Holy Spirit compel you
to do so! And while you are pleading, remember the new heart comes from
the bleeding heart, the changed nature comes from the suffering nature.
You must look to Jesus, and looking to Jesus, know that–
"There is life in a look at the Crucified One! There is life at this
moment for you!"
These blessings I have spoken of seem to me to be a great consolation
and inspiration. They are a great consolation to Believers. You are in
the Covenant, my dear Brother, but you tell me you are very poor. But
God has said, "I will be your God." Why, you are very rich! A man may
not have a penny in the world, but if he has a diamond, he is rich. So
if a man has neither penny nor diamond, if he has his God, he is rich!
Ah, but your coat is threadbare and you do not see where means are to
come from to renew your apparel. "Consider the lilies how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." You have
the same God that the lilies have–shall He so clothe the grass of the
field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, and shall He
not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? I also said it was an
inspiration and I think it is. It is an inspiration for us all to work
for Christ because we are sure to have some results. I would, indeed I
would, that the nations were converted to Christ. I would that all this
London belonged to my Lord and Master and that every street were
inhabited by those who loved His name! But when I see sin abounding and
the Gospel often put to the rout, I fall back upon this– "Nevertheless
the foundation of God stands sure. The Lord knows them that are His."
He shall have His own! The infernal powers shall not rob Christ! He
shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied! Calvary
does not mean defeat!
Gethsemane a defeat? Impossible! The Mighty Man who went up to the
Cross to bleed and die for us, being also the Son of God, did not there
achieve a defeat but a victory! He shall see His seed, He shall prolong
His day, and the pleasure in the Lord shall prosper in His hands! If
some will not be saved, others shall. If, being invited, some count
themselves not worthy to come to the feast, others will be brought in,
even the blind, the crippled and the lame–and the supper shall be
furnished with guests! If they come not from England, they shall come
from the east, and from the west, from the north and from the south. If
it should come to pass that Israel is not gathered, lo, the heathen
shall be gathered unto Christ! Ethiopia shall stretch out her arms!
Sinim shall yield herself to the Redeemer! The desert ranger shall bow
the knee and the far-off stranger enquire for Christ! Oh, no, Beloved,
the purposes of God are not frustrated! The eternal Will of God is not
defeated! Christ has died a glorious death and He shall have a full
reward for all His pain. "Therefore, be you steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that
your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 5:1-11; PSALM 81:1-14.
Romans 5:1. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ The Gospel is full of "therefores," it is
above reason, but it is never against reason–it is the most reasonable
thing under Heaven! "Therefore"–it is a matter of argument. You will
have to read the previous Chapters to see how this conclusion flows
naturally from what he had before taught by the Holy Spirit.
Let us linger over these sentences while we read them. "Being justified
by faith." Is it so? Are you, indeed made just by faith in Jesus Christ
your Righteousness? Then you have peace this day and hour–peace within
your own conscience and with your fellow men–but what is much better,
you have peace with God! As soon as we are justified by reliance on
Jesus, we cease to have any quarrel with God and He has no quarrel with
us! We are allies, we are in happy union, we have peace with God! Not
shall have it by-and-by, but we have it nowas our present glad
possession because we are justified by faith. We are now in the
enjoyment of perfect peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. "By
whom also we have access by faith into this Grace wherein we stand."
Since we are at peace with God, we may enter His house. His door is
open to us–we have Divine welcome unto His Grace and we abide in
it–abide in it with certainty and full assurance!
2. By whom also we have access by faith into this Grace wherein we
stand, and rejoice in hope of the Glory of God. Oh, what a comfort this
is to be rejoicing, especially to be rejoicing in hope! It is better
ahead–there may be clouds and darkness, here, but we can see the
sunlight breaking yonder–"until the day breaks and the shadows flee
away," we will make hope to be our bright candle of the Lord! We
"rejoice in the hope of the Glory of God, and not only so." When we
once get into God's house, we rise higher in it–we go up another pair
of stairs. "Not only so," though that seems to be enough–to be
rejoicing in the hope of the Glory of God, and to have access into His
Grace and to have peace with Him because we are justified! But it is
not only so–"we Glory in tribulations also." We transform our troubles
into gladness and glorying! We get spiritually enriched by tribulation!
3, 4. And not only so, but we Glory in tribulations, also, knowing that
tribulation works patience andpatience, experience and experience,
hope. Another hope, or rather the same hope rising up into another
form. We begin with rejoicing in the hope of the Glory of God by faith.
Now we get a further hope which is born of experience–the things we
have tasted and handled of the love of God create in us a more radiant
hope inferred from what we have enjoyed.
5, 6. And hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. For
when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly. What is the connection here? Is it not this–that the Holy
Spirit makes us feel what a wonderful love the love of God is to us
because when we were without strength, in due time, Christ died for the
ungodly? Wonderful love! When we were Godless and Christless, in due
time Christ died for us!
7. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet perhaps for a
good man some would even dare to die. Nobody would feel impelled to die
for a man who is severely and strictly just. He may command our
admiration, but not our affection. Aristides the Just is, indeed, at
last banished–men cannot bear a man whose whole character is bare
justice, for they are themselves usually so unjust. But "a good
man"–he commands our love. A man of that character who is gra-
tuitously kind, gracious and benevolent, perhaps–and it is a bare
perhaps–somebody might be found to die for such as he. It is not,
however, very probable.
8. But God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. He did the utmost for us when we were the
least deserving of it! Oh, what a love is this! Let it be shed abroad
in our poor stony hearts and commended by us to others.
9. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him. This is a resistless argument and should be the
deathblow to all misgiving. If He died for us when we were unjust, will
He let us perish, now that He has made us just and completely justified
us? Impossible!
10. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the
death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His
life. There are three points which strengthen the argument here, which
you will readily see by reading it at your leisure. The Lord our God
who justified us when we were enemies, by the death of His Son, will
save us now that we are friends through the life of His Son. "And not
only so." Here we ascend again–it is ever higher and higher, something
yet more–so that we are never at the end of this blessed record of
mercy and Grace!
11. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom we have now received the Atonement.We are at one with
God. We are perfectly reconciled to Him and we have at present, at this
very moment, a great joy and delight in God!
Now we shall read together the 71st Psalm, just in order that we may
see how good men in all ages have been assisted by their experience and
their hope–and how their hope has grown out of their tribulation,
their patience and their experience. The Old Man's Psalm. You can
remember it, dear Friends, who are aged, by its being 71–it is just
past the threescore years and ten!
Psalm 71:1. In You, OLORD, do Iput my trust: let me never beput to
confusion. There is his trust and there is his fear. His trust he dares
to avow, his fear he turns into a prayer.
2, 3. Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline
Your ear unto me, and save me. Be You my strong habitation, whereunto I
may continually resort: You have given commandment to save me; for You
are my rock and my fortress. "Be you my strong habitation whereunto I
may continually resort." Not merely now and then a hiding place in
emergencies, but my constant abode, my home–so that from morning to
night I may come to You and feel myself secure. "You have given
commandment to save me; for You are my rock and my fortress." You see
he knows that God has commanded Nature, Providence and His Grace to
protect him! He has commanded His angels–indeed, He has commanded all
His forces to protect David for this reason–that David feels an inward
rest and peace in God. That calm, that Divine repose expressed in the
words "You are my rock and my refuge," are the tokens that God has
given commandment to save us.
4. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hands of the wicked, out of the
hands of the unrighteous and cruel man. Two iron hands are trying to
pull him down, but he cries to God, whose one almighty hand can set him
free!
5. For You are my hope, O Lord God: You are my trust from my youth.
Happy man that can look back upon a youth spent in God's fear, for if
we have trusted God in our youth, depend upon it, He will never cast us
away!
6. By You have I been held up from the womb: You are He that took me
out of my mother's womb: my praise shall be continually of You.When we
could not help ourselves, in the very moment of our birth, God took
care of us! And He will take care of us even to the end. Men and women
who are old should remember how carefully the Lord nursed them when
they were infants–and if you come to a second childhood, you shall
still have the same God!
7. I am as a wonder unto many.They cannot make me out! I am a blessed
problem and puzzle to them–it seems so strange that being so much
afflicted I am yet so much upheld!
7. But You are my strong refuge. Yes! There is the answer to the
riddle. If God is with us, men may well wonder, but He will always help
us.
8-9. Let my mouth be filled with Your praise and with Your honor all
the day. Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my
strength fails. A prayer which both young and old may offer, for if we
live long enough, that time of weakness will surely come. There are
many men who cast off their old servants–but God does not. When we are
worn out, He will still bless us.
10-14. For my enemies speak against me and they that lay wait for my
soul take counsel together, saying, God has forsaken him: persecute and
take him; for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me:
O my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed
that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered with reproach and
dishonor that seek my hurt. But I will hope continually and will yet
praise You more and more. In the 8th verse he had said, "Let my mouth
be filled with Your praise." That is a mouthful! Now he says, "I will
praise You more and more." As if he needed more mouths wherewith to
praise! More room for his heart's grateful thanksgiving to God! "I will
praise You more and more."