To the Saddest of the Sad
A Sermon
(No. 2026)
Intended for Reading on Lord's-day, June 3rd, 1888, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At [5]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not
unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage."'Exodus 6:9.
LITTLE WORDS OFTEN CONTAIN great meanings. It is often the case with
that monosyllable "so." In the present instance we must lay stress upon
it and read the text thus'"Moses spake so unto the children of Israel."
That is, he said what God told him to say. He did not invent his
message. He did not think out the gospel that he had to carry to the
people. He was simply a repeater of the divine message. As he received
it, so he spake it. "Moses spake as unto the children of Israel." If he
had not done so, the responsibility must have rested upon himself,
whether the nation was moved by his words or not; but when he was
simply God's ambassador, saying only what God would have him say, his
responsibility was limited. If he delivered the Lord's own word and it
failed to win the heart of Israel, he could not be blamed. Although it
was a great sadness of heart to him that the people did not, and even
could not, receive the divine message, yet as far as he was concerned,
his conscience was clear. It is ever so with the preacher of the
gospel: if he declares the word of the Lord as he has received it,
whether men will hear or whether they will forbear, he is clear before
God, whatever his hearers may do or may not do.
I often wonder what those preachers do who feel called to make up their
message as they go on; for if they fail, their failure must be
attributed in great measure to their want of ability to make up a
moving tale. They have to spread their sails to the breeze of the age,
and to pick up a gospel that comes floating down to them on the stream
of time, altering every week in the year; and they must have an endless
task to catch this new idea, or, as they put it, to keep abreast of the
age. Unless, indeed, like chameleons, they have a natural aptitude to
change colour, they must have a worrying time of it, and a horrible
amount of shifting to get through. When they have done their best to
preach this gospel of their own, then they are accountable for having
made that gospel. For every bit of its teaching they are accountable,
because they were the manufacturers of it, and it came forth from their
foundry, bearing their stamp. If they take this yoke upon them, and so
refuse to learn of Christ, they will find no rest to their souls. To me
the preaching of the Lord's own gospel is a joy and a privilege; for
notwithstanding that concern for your souls loads me with the burden of
the Lord, it is his burden, and not one which I have selected for
myself. I often feel on a Sabbath night when I go home weary: "I know
that I have preached what I believe to be God's gospel." I have not
said anything'I have not intended to say anything that was my own. I
have not left out, at least, I have not intended to leave out anything
that was in the text, nor anything which I believe to be the teaching
of the gospel of Christ. And then if you do not receive it, that is a
sorrowful business, but it is no concern of mine so that I shall have
to answer for it at the last great day. When a man-servant goes to the
door with a message from his master, if you do not like what he tells
you, do not be angry with him. What has he to do with it? Has he said
what his master told him to say? If he has, then be angry with his
master if you must be, or accept what his master says if you think fit;
but let the poor man that brought the message be held clear if he has
faithfully reported his master's words. I claim that, if I have
preached my Master's gospel, whether men are saved or lost, whether
they accept it or reject it, I must leave that with themselves, and not
have their sin laid at my door. How heartily do I cry to God that the
Word may not be a savour of death unto death, but a savour of life unto
life; but oh, my hearers, if you perish after hearing the gospel of
God, do not think that you can cast the blame on me.
Now, the message Moses brought was rejected, and he knew why it was
rejected. He could see the reason. The people were in such bondage,
they were so miserably ground down, they were so unhappy and hopeless,
that what he spake seemed to them to be as idle words. There are
hundreds of reasons why men reject the gospel. We will not go into them
to-night. He that wants to beat a dog can always find a stick, and he
that wishes to reject Christ can always find a reason for it; and,
however unreasonable a reason may be, it will serve a sinner's turn,
when that turn happens to be the making of some excuse for himself why
he should not yield to the Saviour. Oh that men were less cunning in
making apologies for refusing the Lord Jesus!
Amongst all the reasons, however, that I ever heard, that with which I
have the most sympathy, is this one'that some cannot receive Christ
because they are so full of anguish, and are so crushed in spirit that
they cannot find strength enough of mind to entertain a hope that by
any possibility salvation can come to them. It is to their sad case
that I desire to speak. I think that I can speak to the case, if God
help me, for I have felt the same. I do remember when I could not
believe even Jesus himself by reason of sore anguish and straitness of
spirit; and, therefore, as one who has worn the chains, I speak to
those who are still in chains. I know the clanking of those fetters,
and what it is to feel the damp of the stone walls, and to fear that
there is no coming out of prison, and to be so despairing that even
when the emancipator turned the great key in the lock, and set the door
wide open, yet still my heart had made for itself a direr cage, and I
could not believe in the possibility of liberty, and therefore I sat
bound in a dungeon of my own creation. Ah! there is no Bastille so
awful as that which is built by despair, and kept under the custody of
a crushed spirit. Many are the desponding ones whose eyes fail so that
they cannot look up, or look out. To such I speak. May God speak
through me by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter!
I. And first, will you notice that what Moses brought to these people
was glad tidings. IT WAS A FREE AND FULL GOSPEL MESSAGE. To them it was
the gospel of salvation from a cruel bondage, the gospel of hope, the
gospel of glorious promise. It is a very admirable type and
metaphorical description of what the gospel is to us. Moses' word to
them was singularly clear, cheering, and comforting; but they could not
receive it. "They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit and
cruel bondage."
First, Moses spoke to them about their God. He said, "You have a God,
and his name is Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
of Isaac, and of Jacob." They looked up from their bricks, and they
seemed to say, "God? What have we to do with him? Oh, that the straw
were given us to make our bricks! We are up to our necks in this filthy
Nile mud, making the bricks, and you come and talk to us about God. Go,
and preach to Pharaoh and the taskmasters that rule us; but as for us
poor creatures, slaves that we are, we do not understand you. What do
you mean by JAH, Jehovah, our God? Bring us more garlic and onions, or
lessen our daily tasks, or take away the sticks from our drivers, and
then we will listen to you." And so they shook their heads, and said
that such mysteries and theologies were not for them. And yet, dear
sirs, if any of you are in such a case, it is for you. Jehovah,
Israel's God, was indeed their only hope, and he is your only hope
also. Alas, that they should be so unwise as to refuse to let the light
shine upon them, for light it was! What a poor reason for refusing
light because the night is so dark! Man's best hope lies in his God. O
you whose lives are bitter with toil and want, there is something for
you after all, much better than the hard saying, "What shall we eat,
and what shall we drink?" There is an inheritance above the grinding
toil of every-day life. There is a portion much better than this
killing care, which frets so many of you and makes life a calamity to
you. Do not, therefore, because of the heaviness of your lot, refuse to
hear about God, your Maker, your Benefactor. In that direction lies
your only real hope. Have this God for a father and a friend, and life
will wear another aspect, and you will be another man.
Then Moses went on to tell them about a covenant. He said, "You have a
God, and that God has said, "I have also established my covenant with
them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage,
wherein they were strangers.'" Covenant? Why, many of them would hardly
know what it meant. "Covenant?" said they, "God made a covenant with us
poor brickmakers, that have to slave from morning to night without
wage, and now are forced to make bricks without straw?" God and a
covenant: these are strange words in ears that hear the curses of
taskmasters and the crack of their whips. It sounded like mockery to
them to talk of such high matters. I doubt not they muttered to
themselves, "This Moses is a mad philosopher who has grand mouthfuls of
words; but what are words to us? A bit of fish out of the Nile, or a
cumber from the irrigated fields would be a deal better than talking to
us about a covenant." And yet, hearken. If any of you are in a sad
condition, your best hopes may lie this way. What if God has entered
into covenant with you that he will bless you for Jesus Christ's sake?
There may be a mint of wealth for the sons of poverty in this
everlasting covenant; and the best kind of wealth, too. There may be
for you a promised emancipation which will break the fetters which now
hold you, and set you free. I tell you that in the covenant of grace
lies the charter of the poor and needy. At any rate, if you come under
that covenant it cannot be worse with you than it is now. You seem now
to be under a covenant of bondage and of sorrow, and any change will be
for the better. If there be another covenant'a covenant of grace, and
love, and peace, and everlasting faithfulness, it were worth while to
hear about it, and to seek it out until you discover whether you have
part and lot in it. I entreat you, look into this matter. Hearken
diligently to the voice of the gospel. Hear, and your soul shall live.
So, when Moses had spoken of the covenant, he went on to speak yet more
about God's pity to them. He reported that Jehovah had said, "I have
also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians
keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant." I fancy that those
words opened their eyes a little. They looked up and said to one
another, "Is there, indeed, a God who has heard our groanings? Oh,
but," they muttered, "look at the many years we have been groaning.
Why, it is forty years since this man Moses first came out and saw our
burdens. Where has he been these forty years? What is the use of pity
that is so tardy in its movements?" And yet, dear sirs, if you are
inclined to talk so, it may be that if God be slow he is sure; and if
he be slow to you it is out of patience and long-suffering to others.
He knows best when and how to save his people. Remember that when the
tale of bricks was doubled then Moses came; and when you are getting to
your very worst, and your night is darkening into a sort of hellish
midnight, it may be that your darkness is coming to an end. Therefore,
be not so bowed down as to let the brick-earth get into your ears and
eyes and make you deaf and blind. But do listen if there be anything to
be heard that is better than your daily moans and groans. Listen to the
messenger of God who comes to tell of what God is about to do. He is a
God full of compassion, and he has respect unto broken hearts and
tearful eyes.
And then Moses went on further with his blessed gospel message to tell
them about the Lord's resolve to rescue them by a great redemption. The
Lord had said, "I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from under the
burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage." Do
you notice that all along the Lord uses strong words, and speaks like a
great king? "I am Jehovah. I will. I will. I will." When you go home
just notice what a number of "I wills" there are in this declaration of
the great God. When God says, "I will," he means it; depend upon it. He
does not ask our leave, or wait for our help. "I will" is omnipotence
putting itself into speech. Jehovah will accomplish what he promises.
He told them, therefore, that he meant to come to their rescue. "I will
bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid
you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out
arm, and with great judgments." God means to save you. Poor, troubled,
confessedly guilty sinner, believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and
trust yourself with him, and the Lord will save you. He will deliver
you from all the guilt of your past life, from the evil habits of your
present life, and from the temptations of your future life. He will
break the yoke of Satan from off your neck and make you to be no more
the slave of sin, but you shall become the child of the living God.
Moses told them about the Lord's ways of grace and the inheritance
which he had prepared for them. My message is after the same sort. Thus
saith Jehovah to-night, in the preaching of the gospel to every one
that will believe in Jesus, "I will save and I will deliver you; and I
will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am your God, which
bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will
bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it
to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an
heritage: I am the Lord." These are great words, but they come from the
mouth of the great God, who cannot lie. Wherefore believe them, and
take heart of hope. God will take you, poor guilty ones, to be his
children. He will promote you to be his willing servants. He will use
you for his glory though now you dishonour his name. He will sanctify
you and cleanse you, and he will bring you to heaven, even you who have
lien among the pots and have been defiled in the brick-kilns of sin. He
will never rest till he makes you sit upon his throne with him, where
he is glorified, world without end. This I speak to you who are in
bondage. Even as Jesus said of old, so say I in my measure as his
messenger: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because he hath sent
me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Believe you in
Christ Jesus, and he who has come to save the lost will give you as
clear and clean a deliverance from the power of sin as Jehovah gave
Israel deliverance from the power of the Egyptian tyrant. He will bring
you out of bondage and guide you through the wilderness till you come
into the eternal rest, even to a goodlier land than Canaan, though it
flowed with milk and honey.
II. We come now to note that IT WAS RECEIVED WITH UNBELIEF CAUSED BY
ANGUISH OF HEART. The message was from the Lord, and it was full of
hope for them, but they were too much broken down to receive it. We can
quite understand what that meant. Let us look into the case. They could
not now receive this gospel because they had at first caught at it, and
had been disappointed. They were under a misapprehension, for they
expected to be free at once, as soon as Moses went to Pharaoh; and as
they did not get immediate relief, they fell back into sullen despair.
When Moses came to them and said that God had appeared to him at the
bush, and had sent him to deliver them, they bowed their heads, and
worshipped. Great things they looked for on the morrow, for they were
at the end of their patience; but after that, when Moses went in unto
Pharaoh, and the tyrant doubled their labour by denying them straw,
then they could not believe in God or in his messenger. In the process
of salvation it often happens'I have seen it many time'that after
persons have come to hear the gospel, after they have, in some measure,
become attentive to its invitations, they have for a season been much
more miserable than they were before. Have you never noticed, in taking
a medicine, how often you are made to feel more sick before you are
made well? It is often so in the workings of the great remedy of divine
grace: it discovers to us our disease that we may the more heartily
accept the heavenly medicine. Yes, and in special cases there may be
evils within the spiritual system which must be thrown out in the
flesh, to be made visible, and so to become the subjects of repentance
and abhorrence. The man who judges with shortness and straightness of
judgment, demands a remedy that will cure his soul of all evils on the
spot, and if it does not evidently and immediately do this, he cries,
"Away with it." I find that the Hebrew word translated "anguish" here
signifies shortness. Your marginal Bibles have "straitness." So they
could not believe because of the shortness of their judgment: they
measured God by inches. They limited the great and infinite God to
minutes and days; and so, as they found themselves at first getting
into a worse case than before, they said to Moses, deliberately, "Let
us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians." They did as good as say'You
have done us no good; indeed you have increased our miseries; and we
cannot believe in you or accept your message as really from God, seeing
it has caused us a terrible increase of our sufferings.
Grace may truly and effectually come to a heart, and for a while cause
no joy, no peace; but the reverse. I have known many a man coming to
this Tabernacle, who has been prospering in business, and so on, and
yet he has been going down to hell as fast as ever he could travel.
Well, he has come and heard the gospel, and he has made a great many
improvements in his conduct, and has become a regular and attentive
hearer; and at that very time he has fallen into an affliction the like
of which he had never experienced before; and he has consequently
complained, "Why, I am worse instead of better. I find my heart grows
more rebellious against God than ever it was before." I do not wonder
that it should be so, for I have seen so many examples of it. The
discipline of the household of God begins very early. But a present
increase of sorrow has nothing to do with what the main result will be,
except that it works towards it in a mysterious manner. Perhaps what
you at first thought was genuine faith was not faith; and God is going
to knock down the false before he builds up the true. If you had an old
house, and any friend of yours were to say, "John, I will build you a
new house. When shall I begin?" "Oh!" you might say, "begin next week
to build the new house." At the end of the week he has pulled half your
old house down. "Oh," say you, "this is what you call building me a new
house, is it? You are causing me great loss: I wish I had never
consented to your proposal." He replies, "You are most unreasonable:
how am I to build you a new house on this spot without taking the old
one down?" And so it often happens that the grace of God does seem in
its first work to make a man even worse than he was before, because it
discovers to him sins which he did not know to be there, evils which
had been concealed, dangers never dreamed of. Thus the work of grace
even makes his bondage seem to be heavier than ever it was; and yet
this is all done in wisdom, in love, and in fulfilment of the promise
which God has given. Yet I am never very much astonished when I find
people ready almost to turn away from the hearing of the gospel;
because, after having at first heard it with pleasure, they find that,
for the time being, it involves them in even greater sorrow than
before. How earnestly would I persuade them to overcome their very
natural tendency to a hasty judgment! Press on, dear friend. Be of good
courage. Pharaoh will not long be able to make you keep up that
enormous number of bricks. Within a very few days he will be glad to
get rid of you. Wait hopefully; for the God who begins in darkness will
end in light, and before long you will come to understand those ways of
mercy, which are now past finding out. Not many weeks after the sobbing
and sighing at the brickyards, Moses and the children at Israel sang
this song unto the Lord: " Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed
gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." The
work of deliverance began very grimly, but it ended very gloriously.
The inability of Israel to believe the message of Moses arose also from
the fact that they were earthbound by heavy oppression: the mere
struggle to exist exhausted all their energy, and destroyed all their
hope. The extreme hardness of their lot made them despondent and
sullen. They had to work from morning to night. The Egyptian fellahs of
the present age have known what it is to work very, very hard, and to
let their earnings go into the coffers of their precious princes. It
seems always to have been so with wretched Egypt: it is ever the house
of bondage. But these Israelites, being not even Egyptians, but
strangers in Egypt, were worked without any pity or mercy. It was a
daily question with them whether life was worth living under such cruel
conditions. I do not wonder that a great many are unable to receive the
gospel in this city of ours, because their struggle for existence is
awful. I am afraid that it gets more and more intense, though even now
it passes all bounds. If any of you can do anything to help the
toil-worn workers, I pray you, do it. The poor workwoman, who sits so
many hours with the candle and needle, and does not earn enough, when
she has worked all those hours, to more than just pay the rent and keep
body and soul together, do you wonder that she thinks that this gospel
of ours cannot be for her, and does not care to listen to it? I know
that it would be her comfort, but her soul refuseth to be comforted,
she is so crushed. The dock labourer, who comes home five days out of
the six having earned nothing, and hears his little children crying for
bread'is it any wonder that he cannot hear about heavenly things? Why,
it is with our white population very much as it was with the negro
population of Jamaica. When there was work to be had, and they could
get enough to eat and more, our churches were crowded with them. They
were the best of hearers and the speediest of converts; they were soon
gathered into immense churches. But when everything went badly with
them, and they had to work very hard barely to live, there were groups
of backsliders, and multitudes who did not feel that they could go to
the house of God at all. They said that they had no garments to wear,
and no money to spare; and do you wonder at it? Their poverty was so
grinding, and their toil so severe, that the services they had once
delighted in they had no heart for. It is all very easy to say that it
ought not to be so; but it is so; and it is so with multitudes in
London. And yet, dear friend'if such a one has come in here to-night'I
pray you do not throw away the next world because you have so little of
this. This is sheer folly. If I have little here, I would make sure of
the more hereafter. If you have such a struggle for existence here, you
should seek that higher, nobler, better life, which would give you,
even in penury and want, a joy and a comfort to which you are a
stranger now. May the Holy Ghost come upon you, and raise you out of
this present evil world into newness of life in Christ Jesus! I do not
find that God's people get into a condition of utter desolation: they
are, at their very worst, kept from total desertion; for the Lord hath
said, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." They do have to work
hard, and they may come very near to want, but my observation satisfies
me that they are happy still; that they are joyful still; and they are
uplifted by the inner life above the down-dragging depression of
external trials. I would to God that I could say a word that might
comfort any child of poverty who should happen to be here to-night, and
I pray the Lord himself to be their comforter and helper.
But, worst of all, there are some who seem as if they could not lay
hold on Christ because their sense of sin has become so intolerable,
and the wretchedness which follows upon conviction has become so
fearful, that they have grown almost to be continually despairing. I
hardly know any condition of mind that is worse than chronic despair,
when at last that which seemed alarming enough to drive to madness
settles down into a lifeless, sullen moroseness. These Israelites had
at last sunk so low that they said, "Let us alone, that we may serve
the Egyptians." But your lot is terrible. "We know it is," they said,
"but we shall never get out of it." But your bondage is horrible. "Yes,
but you may make it worse by interfering. You will only aggravate our
taskmasters, and bring upon us that last straw which breaks the back.
Let us alone. We are doomed to suffer: we are predestined to be
bondsmen. Let us go on as quietly as we may in our slavery. It may be
that like poor fishes in the cave, we may lose our eyes yet, and then
we shall not know that it is dark, for we shall have lost the capacity
for light." Oh, it is a dreadful thing when a heart gets to that'when a
man desires that Christ would depart from him, and let him alone to
perish. Do not some men virtually say, "I know I am lost. Let me enjoy
myself as well as I can; I cannot'I cannot enjoy sin; but don't vex my
conscience. Do not worry me with your talk here, for I shall suffer
enough hereafter. Do not tantalize me about saving faith, for I shall
never believe. Do not begin talking to me about repentance. I shall
never have a soft and tender heart; I know I never shall." A man who
has begun to be numbed with cold, cries to his comrades, "Leave me to
sleep myself to death"; and thus do despairing ones ask to be left in
their misery. Dear soul, we cannot, we dare not, thus desert you. I
will tell you what you shall do, dear soul; do give me a hearing. In
the name of God, believe that there is hope yet'that even now Christ
Jesus invites men, and especially such as you, to put their trust in
him. O you who are burdened with sin, he calls you to let him be your
Saviour. If there is a man in the world he died for, you are the man.
If I see a physician hurrying down the street in his brougham, and
anybody says to me, "Where is that doctor going?" if I knew every house
in the street, I should pick out the case of a man that I knew to be in
the worst condition, and most near to death's door. "Sir," I should
say, "the doctor is going there. That dying person needs him most, and
I believe that he is hurrying to his bedside." If there is one man here
that is worse than any other, more sad, more sick, more sorry, more
despairing than another, my Lord Jesus Christ, who is here, has come to
meet with such a one. O troubled heart, Jesus has come to seek and to
save you! I am sure it is so. Hope thou! Hope thou! Hope thou! Thou art
not beyond hope of salvation.
See, O soul, thou'rt yet alive,
Not in torment; not in hell.
Still doth his good Spirit strive,
With the chief of sinners dwell.
Lift up thy eyes, for thou art not yet where the rich man was after his
death and burial. Do not yet despair. May be, there awaits thee yet a
happy life of joy in God. The sun may yet bring thee brighter days,
days of peace, and rest, and usefulness. Did you never hear the story
of John Newton, on the coast of Africa? He had got himself into such a
state by his sins, his drunkenness, his vice, that at last he was left
on the coast of Africa, and virtually became a slave. Did John Newton
dream, when he wandered up and down with a hungry belly, full of fever,
and at death's door, that the day would come when he would be the
companion and dear friend of Cowper, and when the church of St. Mary
Woolnoth, over there in the city, would be crowded every time he stood
up to preach of free grace and dying love? He did not think it, but it
was so predestined. Something equally gracious may be ordered for you.
Blasphemer, you may preach the gospel yet. O thou Magdalene, full of
filthiness, thou wilt yet wash his feet with thy tears, and wipe them
with the hairs of thy head. Thou black villain, thou mayest yet stand
among that white-robed host, of whom the angel asked, "Who are these,
and whence came they?" You, even you, will sing more sweet and loud
than any of them unto him that loved you and washed you from your sins
in his precious blood. God make it so, and unto his name shall be
praise for ever and ever!
III. I have many more things to say, but I might weary you with them
rather than bless you. The message was at first not received by Israel
by reason of their anguish of soul, but IT WAS TRUE FOR ALL THAT, AND
THE LORD MADE IT SO. What did the Lord do when he found that those
people did not hearken to Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel
bondage? What did the Lord do? He was not going to give them up because
of their wretched condition. He had said, "I will bring them out," and
he meant to do it.
The first thing the Lord did to prove his persevering grace was to
commission Moses again. (Ex. 6:1; 7:2.) So the Lord God, in everlasting
mercy, says to his minister, "You have to preach the gospel again to
them. Again proclaim my grace." It seems a terrible thing to have to
pour our souls into deaf ears. Yet I shall not give it up, for I have
done it with some here for nearly thirty-three years, and I may as well
go on. Why should I lose so much labour? I will try again, like Peter,
who, after toiling all night and taking nothing, yet let down the net
at the Lord's bidding. One of these days those dead ears will be made
to live. God in mercy says, "Go on with it. As long as there is breath
in your body, tell them to believe in my Son, and they shall live. Tell
them till you die that 'He that with his mouth confesseth, and with his
heart believeth that God hath raised Christ from the dead shall be
saved.'"
But the Lord did more than that for Israel. As these people had not
listened to Moses, he called Moses and Aaron to him, and he renewed
their charge. He laid it upon them'gave them again their marching
orders: "He gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, and unto
Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land
of Egypt." A monstrous thing it did look. They would not even hear
Moses but the Lord will have his servants stand to their work. Moses
and Aaron have to do it, however impossible it may appear. There is to
be no backing out of it. They must know of a surety that Israel is to
be delivered by their means. It is a grand point when the Lord lays the
conversion of men on the hearts of his ministers, and makes them feel
that they must win souls. Moses was bound to bring out Israel. "But
there is Pharaoh" Pharaoh is included in the divine charge. They have
to beat Pharaoh into submission. "But those children of Israel will not
obey." The Lord put them in the charge: did you not observe the words,
"He gave them a charge unto the children of Israel, and unto Pharaoh "?
Moses and Aaron, you have to bring Israel out, Pharaoh is to let them
go, and Israel is to go willingly. God has issued his royal decree, and
be you sure it will stand. I believe that God is saying to his church
"You have to do it. You have to gather out mine elect out of every
nation under heaven." To the church in London, he says, "Bring this
people out of the bondage of sin." That terrible London with all its
poverty, its drunkenness, its infidelity, and licentiousness: you are
to save it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Its darkness is dense; you
are to shine till it is enlightened. You have to save London. So do not
back out of it. "Oh," says one man, who lives down some street near
this place, "Sir, I can hardly live in the street. It teems with
ill-living women." You have to save them. Passing a little shop as I
did the other day, I saw written up in the window, "If any poor girl
that wishes to lead a better life will only step inside she will find a
friend." That is one of our dear members. I felt so pleased as I saw
it. I should like to see such a notice in a great many windows. I would
like to see you live among the wicked, and put up in your windows, "If
anybody wants a friend, there is one inside. Come in." You are called
to save them! They must not be lost. Somebody says, "What are you
talking about, Mr. Spurgeon? We cannot save them." I am talking as God
said, when be told Moses and Aaron that he gave them a charge to bring
his people out of Egypt. They could not do it: but yet they did it.
Anyone can do what he can do, but it is only God's servant that can do
what he cannot do. We, my brethren, are called to perform the
impossible; we are to be familiar with miracles. Look at Ezekiel. There
is a valley full of dry bones. Ezekiel is to go and say to them, "Thus
saith the Lord, Ye dry bones, live." What a preposterous thing! An able
divine of good repute once said that, to preach the gospel to dead
sinners, was as preposterous as to wave a pocket-handkerchief over a
grave. Ah, just so! Therefore, I would not have him do it. If the Lord
has not sent him to do it he would do no good if he were to attempt to
preach to the sinner dead in sin; but it is a different thing when it
is my case, for I feel that I am sent to do it, and therefore I am not
vexed at being thought to be acting absurdly. If God had sent me to
wave a pocket-handkerchief over the dead in Nunhead cemetery, that they
might live, I would go and wave that pocket-handkerchief, and they
would live. To the eye of reason there is no use in preaching to men
dead in sin. I freely admit that; but if it is a commission from God,
then it is not ours to raise questions, but to do as we are bidden. God
has commissioned his servants to preach the gospel to every creature.
Whatever those creatures may be, we are to say to them, "He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not
shall be dammed." This is our message and our mission, and we are just
to tell the truth, and leave God to apply it to the heart. Oh that he
may give us grace to tell out the gospel, and to keep on doing it till
he has brought his own elect out of the bondage of sin and Satan, and
saved them with an everlasting salvation!
Once more. As I told you in the reading, I greatly admire this chapter.
I cannot help admiring the next thing that God did when he told his
servant what to do. The Lord began to count the heads of those whom he
would redeem out of bondage. You see the rest of the chapter is
occupied with the children of Reuben, and the children of Simeon, and
the children of Levi. God seemed to say, "Pharaoh, let my people go!"
"I will not," said the despot. Straightway the Lord goes right down
into the brick-town where the poor slaves are at work, and he makes out
a list of all of them, to show that he means to set free. So many there
of Simeon. So many here of Reuben. So many here of Levi. The Lord is
counting them. Moreover he numbers their cattle, for he declares,
"There shall not a hoof be left behind." Men say, "It is of no use
counting your chickens before they are hatched"; but when it comes to
God's counting those whom he means to deliver, it is another matter;
for he knows what will be done, because he determines to do it and he
is almighty. He knows what is to come of the gospel, and he knows whom
he means to bless. And so let Satan rage, and let adversaries do what
they will, "The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The
Lord knoweth them that are his"; and to prove this, he goes on writing
down their names, and taking an account of them. "They shall be mine,
saith the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels." Now, my hearers,
if you do not come to Christ, it will be your own loss, and not his. If
you refuse him, it will be because you are not Christ's sheep, as he
said to you. He has a people, and he will save them, whether you, my
hearer, believe in Jesus or wilfully refuse to do so. Out of the mass
of mankind a company shall come to him, and shall glorify his name, as
it is written, "This people have I formed for myself; they shall show
forth my praise." Oh, that you had such a mind in you that you would
accept his gospel! Will you do so even now? Trust Christ, and you are
saved. Look unto him, and be ye saved The Lord bless you, for his
name's sake. Amen.
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Exodus 4:31 to 6:14.
HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"'397, 540, 502.
* Since this sermon was preached, brother Bilborough has gone to his
reward.