True Learning

True Learning

(No. 2719)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 24, 1901.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 20,
1880.

"But you have not so learned Christ, if, indeed, you have heard Him and
have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus." Ephesians 4:20,21.

THE first two words of our text call attention to the distinction which
must always be drawn between true Christians and other people, "But
you." The Apostle had been writing concerning other Gentiles and the
evil lives they lived, so, to the Believers at Ephesus, he said that
they were not to walk as unbelievers ordinarily did. Thus we learn at
the very opening of our subject that if we are, indeed, Christians,
there is a manifest distinction between us and the men of the world. I
may be told that, of course, there was a great contrast between
Christ's followers and the heathen who lived in the Apostle's day. And
some persons will, perhaps, say that we cannot expect that there should
now be the same difference between Christian men and unbelievers. I
reply that there may be a variation as to the outward form of that
contrast, but, essentially, it must be quite as true and real.

Someone was asking, the other day, how it was that the church,
nowadays, was not so separate from the world as it used to be, and one
who heard the question suggested that, possibly, the world had grown
better. But someone more truly said that, probably, the church had
grown worse. There are two ways of our coming together–the world may
rise to our proper height, or we may descend to the world's level.
Well, now, I am quite certain that candor requires us to say that, in
some respects, the condition of society is much better than it was.
There are some of the grosser vices which were common enough 50 years
ago, which are now held in general reprobation. To a very considerable
extent, Christianity has leavened society. Men are not, as a rule, so
coarsely vicious as they were in the days of our grandfathers, yet
after making all the abatement I possibly can on that score, I cannot
help feeling that the difference between the church and the world has
been mainly changed by the church coming down from what it used to be!
I wish we were as liable to be called fanatics as the first Methodists
were simply because men judged us to be as earnest as they were. I
would be glad if we were as worthy to be called Puritans as were the
men of the days of Dr. John Owen and Oliver Cromwell. For my part, I
think that, nowadays, we are not Puritan enough, or precise enough and,
without any hesitation, we may make the assertion, which we are sure
God's Word will support, that whatever improvements there may be in the
world, there must always be a marked distinction between the children
of God and the seed of the serpent! There can never be a time in which
death and life will be exactly alike, nor a season in which darkness
will be the same thing as light. We must still, to the end of the
chapter, be either born of God, born from above, or else continue to
lie under the power of Satan. We must either be dead in trespasses and
sins or else be quickened by Divine Grace. We must either have passed
from nature's darkness into God's marvelous light, or else we are still
abiding in that darkness!

You must also remember, my Brothers and Sisters, whoever you may be,
that if there is no distinction between you and the world around you,
you may be certain that you are of the world, for, in the children of
God there must always be some marks to distinguish them from the rest
of mankind so that we can contrast them with the ungodly, and address
to them the words of our text, "But you have not so learned Christ."
There is a something in them which is not to be found in the best
worldling. Something which is not to be discovered in the most
admirable carnal man. A something in their character which can be
readily perceived and which marks them as belonging to another and
higher race–the twice-

born, the elect of God, eternally chosen by Him and, therefore, made to
be choice ones through the effectual working of His Grace. Note this
fact at the very commencement of our meditation, that there is a clear
distinction between Christians and all other people.

Further, it appears from the text that the great means of this
distinction is our being made into disciples to be taught of God, for
the Apostle says, "But you have not so learned Christ." So that it is
something which we have learned'that makes us different from the rest
of mankind. In our spiritual life, the first essential is conversion.
This great change is like the turning of the helm which makes the boat
head up in a new direction. But conversion is not everything. After the
boat is turned, it has to be rowed, or else it will drift down the
stream. If a man becomes Christ's disciple by conversion, he must
remain Christ's disciple throughout the rest of his life by sitting at
his Master's feet and receiving instruction from Him, for it is only as
we are taught of God that we shall be able to keep up the high
spiritual distinction between ourselves and the rest of mankind. We are
under the tutorship of the Holy Spirit–He has taken us into His
school–He has already taught us something–He is now teaching us more
and He will keep on teaching us more and more till we shall know even
as we are known.

I want, at this time, as His Divine power rests upon me, to try to
speak a little, first, upon our lesson. "You have not so learned
Christ." Secondly, I will say something upon how we have not learned
that lesson. "You have not so learned Christ." And then, thirdly, I
wi1l endeavor to tell you how we have learned it. We have learned it in
this fashion–"If, indeed, you have heard Him, and have been taught by
Him, as the truth is in Jesus."

I. First, then, we are to think about THE CHRISTIAN'S LESSON. "You have
not so learned Christ." It is a very uncommon expression which the
Apostle here employs, for it is not usual to learn a person, yet Paul
says, "You have not so learned Christ," by which he did not mean merely
learning the doctrine of Christ. Many a man knows what Christ taught
and yet has not learned Christ. He has read the Bible. He may even have
studied it, after a fashion, and may know what orthodox doctrine is so
that he does not care to hear any other–he could stand up and tell you
very correctly what the teachings of Jesus Christ are, yet he has not
learned Christ. It is quite right that we should learn the teachings of
Christ and value every word that He has spoken. Still, that is not the
main lesson that the Christian has to learn.

Nor is it merely learning Christ's precepts, for we might learn them
all and yet not have learned the one lesson that is essential to our
Christian life–to learn Christ. Some men are very earnest, and rightly
so, to learn all the ceremonies that Christ has taught us. There are
not many of those ceremonies and people make great mistakes concerning
them, notwithstanding their earnest zeal to be correct. But, supposing
a man should know all about Believer's Baptism and the Lord's Supper,
according to their Scriptural mode and meaning–still, that is not the
lesson spoken of in the text! Neither doctrines, nor precepts, nor
ordinances will suffice as the life-lesson of a Christian–it is the
blessed Person of our Lord that we must learn!

Paul also meant a great deal more than merely learning about Christ. I
think the distinction will readily strike you. A man may know much
about Christ–whose Son He is, what work He came to do, what He is
still doing and what He will yet do at His glorious appearing–he may
have sufficient understanding about Christ to be able to be a teacher
of others and to be reckoned a theologian. And yet, for all this, he
may never have learned Christ. That is quite another thing. I know much
about many people as far as their history can be known by a stranger to
them, yet I do not know them. I have never spoken to them, I have never
even seen them. There are many persons, I am sure, of whom you can
truly say that you know everything that can be known about them, for
their whole career in so well known and you have been told so much
concerning them–yet you do not know them. To use Paul's word, you have
never "learned" them. Beware, then, of being satisfied with knowing
aboutChrist, for the life-lesson of a Christian is to knowHim–to learn
Him. What does this mean?

It means, first, that you and I must know Him as a personal Christ. We
must know Him as being a real Savior, actually existing, to whom we
have come, with whom we have spoken and who has spoken to us–and of
whose existence we can have no doubt because we know Him and are known
of Him. It does not mean that He is so little known to us that we can
just detect and discover Him, but that we have so learned Him that we
knowHim–know His heart, know His voice, know that secret of the Lord
which only He can reveal and which He tells to none but those who are
truly His own. This is the very essence of true religion–personally
living with a personal Savior, personally trusting a personal Redeemer,

personally crying out to a personal Intercessor and receiving personal
answers from a Person who loves us and who manifests Himself to us as
He does not unto the world. To many people, Christ is only a name to
bow at, not a Person to embrace. To some, Christ is merely the name by
which they designate their religion, such as it is. But to us, Beloved,
I trust that He is much more than a name–"a living, bright reality,"
who abides with us and in whom we also abide.

Next to this realization of His personality and the entering into
communion with Him, learning Christ means knowing His Nature. As long
as we have known Christ, we have known that He is Divine. Indeed, many
of us knew that before we really and savingly knew Him. Since we were
little children we never had any question about Jesus Christ being
"very God of very God" and if anybody had called us Socinians or
Unitarians, we would have been deeply grieved, because we always held
the doctrine of His Divinity. But now we know that He is God, for "His
eternal power and Godhead" have been proved in our spirit. He has taken
away from us a mass of sin which none but God could have removed. He
has breathed peace into us, even the peace of God which passes all
understanding. He has helped us when we have been staggering under a
burden too heavy for us to bear–He has borne it for us as none but God
could have done. Our Lord Jesus has not only revealed Himself to us,
but He has also made our true selves known to ourselves by that
Omniscient power which dwells in none but God! And we have said to Him
as emphatically as Thomas did when he put his finger into the print of
the nails, "My Lord and my God." I never care to read any arguments
about the Deity of Christ–I would as soon think of reading a book
which sought to prove the existence of my mother! This is a matter
which I know for myself. I have tried it and proved it–and felt its
power.

As to the Humanity of Christ, beloved Friends, we always knew that He
was Human. I suppose that none of us ever had a doubt about that as a
matter of head knowledge, but now we know Him to be Human because we
have been with Him. He has felt for us as none but a Brother born for
adversity could feel. He has looked at us, sometimes, in our griefs,
with such eyes as no angel ever had! And only such a wondrous Person as
the Son of Mary, the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, would
have given us such a look as we have received from Him. And He has
spoken home to our heart, words of such matchless tenderness as only
one who was akin to us, and who had been tempted in all points like as
we are could even have invented and uttered to us. Just as truly as we
know Him to be God, we also know Him to be Man. It is not now to us a
matter of only doctrine–it is not a matter needing to be proved–we do
not now desire even Scriptural proof, for we have seen Him, ourselves!
We have spoken with Him personally and now we not only believe His
Word, but our own heart has proved and tested beyond all question that
He is Emmanuel–God With Us! I hope I have made plain the distinction
between knowing doctrinally that Christ is God and Man, and personally
learningHim in His combined Nature.

The next part of the lesson we have to learn is to know Christ in His
various offices. Did they not tell us, in our first Sunday school, that
Christ is Prophet, Priest and King? Yes, and from our childhood's days
we believed that He was all that. But now, Beloved, many of us know
that He is a Prophet, for, as I have already observed, He has read our
hearts and He has told us things that none but a Prophet of God could
know. He has revealed the condition of our hearts to us. He has shown
us our sins. He has discovered our needs and He has also supplied those
needs and restored peace to us, and brought us to Himself, and revealed
to us the Truth of God as we were able to bear it.

We also have no question concerning His priesthood. We always did
believe in it, but now we have learned it in another fashion. Not long
ago some of us stood covered with filth from head to foot, and we heard
one sing–

"There is a Fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel's veins.

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains"–

and we came to that Fountain and were plunged beneath that flood, and
we lost all our guilty stains. By faith we saw the Lord Jesus as our
great High Priest, standing at the altar, and offering Himself as the
Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world! And now that He has
taken away our sins, and our conscience has a sweet rest, in a sense,
of acceptance in the Beloved, we have learned Christ's Priesthood not
only out of the Book, but because the blood of His Atonement has been
sprinkled upon us! God has seen the blood and has passed over us. The
blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, has cleansed us from all sin. That
blood has brought us near to God and, at this very hour, it is speaking
to our heart better things than the blood of Abel ever spoke! And thus
we have learned Christ as our Priest.

It is the same with His Kingship. Some of us never doubted that Christ
is a King. We were brought up to believe it, but, in a much higher
sense, we feel Him to be our King now. We have bowed our willing neck
to His gracious rule and we can feel Him reigning over our stubborn but
subdued lusts which would never have been conquered, and we ourselves
would never have been led into happy captivity except through His
gracious Sovereignty. And now we rejoice that within our spirit we have
learned Christ for ourselves, and we know Him as "the blessed and only
Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords."

Dear Hearers, can you follow me in all this? Do you know anything
experimentally concerning what I have been saying? Perhaps some of you
do not–and that is not altogether surprising, for there is many "a
master of Israel," like Nicodemus, who knew not these things. It is one
thing to be a fluent talker about theological truths, but it is quite
another thing to know Christ personally, to lay hold of Him by faith so
as to be able to say, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine; let
Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth: for Your love is better than
wine." Where that declaration is true, there is more in it than in all
the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero! Doctors of divinity may know
many things and yet not have learned Christ. But he who has learned
Christ has been taught of God.

This blessed instruction will go still further, dear Friends, when we
come to know Christ as to His Character frequently I advise you all to
read the life of Christ as it is recorded by the four Evangelists. That
is the best, "Life of Christ," that was ever written, or ever will be!
And all the rest of the "Lives of Christ" might as well be burnt, for
you can get a better idea of Christ's life from the four Gospels than
from all other books put together! If you read aright the life of
Christ as it is recorded in the Inspired Word, you will be struck with
it and delighted with it. And if you are a candid person, you must be
charmed with it. But you will never truly learn it until God the Holy
Spirit renews your own heart and teaches you to love it–and makes you
to be like Christ Himself was!

A man has not learned writing till he can write, and a man has not
fully learned Christ till he lives like Christ–and that fact puts many
of us on a very low form in the school of the Divine Teacher. If a man
wants to learn a trade, he will have to do a great deal beside walking
in and out of a workshop and seeing how everybody else does certain
things. He who properly learns a trade must learn it himself by
practically working at it. And he who really learns Christ's Character
is the man who hasChrist's Character–there is at least something of
likeness to Christ about him. I hope I can say of many here present
that they are learning Christ, and that they have learned Christ so
that, in one point and another, there is something about you which
should make men say, "They have been with Jesus"–"they have learned
Him." He who lies down in beds of spices will smell of their sweetness.
And he who lives with Christ will soon catch the savor of Christ! This
is what we are aiming at–to learn how to write as Christ did,
imitating both the upstrokes and the down strokes that are in the
perfect copy–to learn the trade and business of holiness after the
manner in which Christ carried it on while here below! There will be,
doubtless, many flaws and imperfections in our imitation of Him, but
still, we shall have learned something of the sacred art of doing our
Father's business and giving ourselves up wholly to His Glory. I pray
that we may all practically learn Christ in this way.

When that comes to pass and we know the Character of Christ, we then
come to know the sweet influences of Christ's Person. Knowing Him, we
see what charms there are in Him and what power He has over human
beings under all manner of circumstances. Did you ever feel Christ's
power to break the heart? You have not learned Him till you know that,
for He has a way of speaking in such loving tones that the heart seems
broken all in pieces. Have you ever learned His power to heal the heart
that He has broken? Do you know it for yourself? Has your poor broken
spirit, bleeding from a thousand wounds, suddenly found an effectual
remedy for its impending destruction and rested in peace? Oh, what
charms there are in Christ to all true Christians! If you have ever
really learned Him, you know how He can take you up out of the cold
world where you are lying freezing at His door, and lift you right
inside where the fire is brightly burning–and fill you with intense
delight!

You know how, when you are creeping along the road, He can come and
bear you up as on eagle's wings and how, when you can scarcely stir a
foot towards Heaven, He can, all of a sudden, make your soul like the
chariots of Ammi-nadib. Have you ever felt such raptures as Paul
experienced when he was caught up to the third Heaven and did not know
whether he was in the body or out of the body? Have you ever felt that
influence of Christ which makes a man's life to become sublime and
causes his every action to become something far beyond what mortal man
unaided could ever perform? Have you ever known what it is, through the
power of Christ, to sit with Him in the heavenly places and from that

altitude to look down on all the world and to utterly despise it as
thing for babes to play with, or as a fool's bauble, while you have
reveled in the eternal glories and the infinite bliss that God has
prepared for you? Read Rutherford's letters and if you have a spiritual
understanding, you will say, "This man had, indeed, learned Christ." He
was like a harp, responsive to Christ's lightest touch. His Master did
but lay His hand upon the string, and the music came out at once! But
you and I are often like an untuned harp–even our Lord's hand brings
no music out of us because we are not in a fit condition. Oh, that we
might all truly know Christ and the power of His Resurrection–yes, and
the power of His glorious Second Coming–and the power of His spiritual
Presence when He draws near to us in all His love and Grace!

So, dear Brothers and Sisters, learning Christ really comes to
this–personal acquaintance with Christ, personal knowledge of His
Nature and His offices, a personal experience of His power over the
human heart, a personal knowledge of Him by the surrender of yourself
to Him and, by His coming to incorporate you with Himself till, as it
were, Christ shall live in you, and you shall live in Christ, and you
two shall be one henceforth and evermore! There is a great deal more in
this subject than I can bring out of it, but I must leave this part of
it with you for your quiet meditations.

II. Now, secondly, and very briefly, the Apostle says something about
HOW WE HAVE NOT LEARNED OUR

LESSON. "You have not so learned Christ."

There are some people who say that they have learned Christ, yet they
remain just as they were before. They say that they are Christians, yet
their lives give the lie to their language. They walk as other Gentiles
walk, yet they go to godly assemblies and they sing pious hymns. But,
Beloved, "you have not so learned Christ"

Some even profess to have learned Christ so as to make an excuse for
their sin out of the very fact that He is so ready to pardon. They
think that sin is a small matter and that it will have no serious
consequences–"but you have not so learned Christ." We never hated sin
as much as we have since we learned what it cost our Lord to put it
away. There are some who say that they have learned Christ, yet they
never obey Him nor serve Him, nor try to imitate Him. "You have not so
learned Christ." God save us from a dry doctrinal knowledge of Christ!
God save us from any kind of knowledge of Christ which is not in
connection with true saving faith in Him and with a practical obedience
to Him! There are some who talk much of what they know concerning
Christ, who even commit sin in His name. We have nations marching to
battle to kill and plunder and murder in the name of Christ! What did
the Spaniards do, in years gone by, with the Indians, but plunder and
slaughter them professedly in the name of Jesus Christ? And there are
some, in nominally Christian countries today, who act in the same
fashion! The Lord have mercy upon them! "But you have not so learned
Christ."

We have met with some people who imagine that they cannot have their
sin conquered. They think that they will be saved, but that sin is to
have the mastery over them–but we have not so learned Christ. We have
learned Him after this fashion, that we desire to be perfectly like He,
and we believe that we shall be. We are aiming at this, and asking Him,
by His Spirit, to change us into His own image from glory unto glory.
And we are looking forward to the day when we shall see Him as He is,
and shall be altogether like He. When a man enters a room where the
walls are covered with mirrors, he sees his own likeness reproduced on
all sides–here, and there, and there, and there–so is it with Christ
in Heaven. All the saints reflect His image and He sees Himself in them
all. This is their glory and it is also His Glory that He has given His
image to them and it is that image which we desire to reproduce even
now.

Beware, dear Friends, of trying to learn Christ in any other way but
this practical way of which I have been speaking. Never be satisfied
with a theoretical knowledge of Christ, nor with mere head knowledge of
Christ, nor with a hypocritical knowledge of Christ.

III. Now, in the third place, we will notice HOW WE HAVE LEARNED
CHRIST.

I call your particular attention to the latter part of the text. "If,
indeed, you have heard Him." We must be taught by Christ and by the
Holy Spirit. Dear Brothers and Sisters, do you say that you know
Christ, that you have learned Christ? Tell me howyou have learned Him.
"I heard our minister preach." Yes, yes, but did you hear Christ? The
only way of learning Christ is this–"If, indeed, you have heardHim."
You never know Christ by merely hearing men, you must hear Christ
Himself! Do you not remember His own words, "My sheep hear My voice"?
They not only hear the voice of the under-shepherd, but they hear the
voice of the Chief Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, that Great Shepherd who
laid down His life for the sheep! And you never can know Christ unless
you have thus heard Him speaking personally to you. You must regard the
various sayings of Christ, recorded in this Book, not merely as things
written in the Bible, but as the

very words of the living Christ spoken afresh to you each time you read
them–just as though they had never been uttered before.

Perhaps you say, "Well, Sir, all I know of Christ, I have learned from
the Bible." It is quite right that it should be so, but how did you
read the Bible? Did you merely become familiar with the letter of it
and get what you could out of it by your own wit and wisdom? Then you
have not yet learned Christ, for it is only as the Holy Spirit shall
make the printed letter to be the very voice of Jesus Christ, Himself,
to you that you will ever truly know Him. I do not see how I am to know
a man to whom I have never spoken and who has never spoken to me. He
may pass my house day by day yet if we never speak to one another, I
cannot get to know him. A certain philosopher once said, "Speak, and I
shall see you." So we may say to the Lord Jesus Christ, "Speak to me,
Lord, and then I shall know You." None but Christ can manifest Christ.
You cannot see the sun except by its own light–neither can you see
Christ except by His own light, that is, by the Holy Spirit.

Now notice the next sentence. "And have been taught by Him." The Greek
is "in" Him–"and have been taught in Him." That is to say, the only
way of learning more of Christ is by being in fellowship with Him. It
very frequently happens to me that somebody calls to see me professing
to have a message from God to deliver to me. It is usually some
crackpot individual or other who is not quite right in the upper story.
But I will not receive messages that come in that fash-ion–if the Lord
wants to say anything to me, He knows where I live! I feel inclined to
talk to these people as John Bun-yan did to the Quaker who went to
Bedford Jail and said to him, "Friend Bunyan, the Lord has sent me with
a message for you, and I have been over half of England trying to find
you." "No," said honest John, "you are telling a lie, Friend, for if
the Lord had sent you to me, He would have directed you straight here.
I have been in this prison for the last 12 years and He has known all
the time where I was."

These roundabout, cross-country messages do not come from Christ at
all. We learn Him by being with Him. Is it not said that if you want to
know a man, you must live with him? Mr. Whitefield was once asked the
character of a certain person, but he replied, "I cannot tell you."
"Why not?" the enquirer asked. "Because I have never lived with him.
After I have lived with him for a while, I shall be able to tell you
what I think of him." So, if you want to know the Lord Jesus Christ,
you must live with Him! First He must Himself speak to you and,
afterwards, you must abide in Him. He must be the choice Companion of
your morning hours. He must be with you throughout the day and with Him
you must also close the night. And as often as you may wake during the
night, you must say, "When I awake, I am still with You." There is no
way of fully learning Christ except by being perpetually with Him.

I should suppose that a man who has been in Heaven five minutes,
actually beholding Christ, knows more of Him than the most instructed
member of the assembly of divines ever learns here below! Oh, how much
we shall learn of Christ in our first glimpse of Him! Oh, that these
eyes could behold Him even now! Some people talk and write a great deal
about what we shall see in Heaven, but I do not pay much heed to what
they say. It will be a long while before I shall want to take my eyes
off my Savior. I agree with Dr. Watts in that verse which we have often
sung–

"Millions of years my wondering eyes Shall o'er Your beauties rove And
endless ages I'll adore The glories of Your love."

We shall learn Christ faster there than we can here because we shall
always be with Him and we shall see Him as He is.

The last part of the text says, "and have been taught by Him, as the
truth is in Jesus." There is no word, "the," in the original, it is "as
truth is in Jesus." That is to say, we must truly know Christ as Truth,
and it should be our desire to know truth even as it is in Him. Truth
is fully in Christ, so we must seek to know it fully. Truth is also in
Christ, practically–it is embodied in Him. Truth in Christ was not a
mere philosophy, not simply dry doctrine–He lived the truth, yes, He
was the Truth. This is how we need to know Christ–till truth in Christ
shall be truth revealed to us, truth embodied in us, truth lived out
again by us "as truth is in Jesus"–every lie put far away from us, all
guile and deceit forever banished. As truth was in Jesus, with no
fiction and no guile–as He was pure, simple-minded, childlike–so
shall we become through learning Him and being made like He! We, too,
shall become true, transparent, candid, honest, upright, Christ-like
men and women.

I wish we were all like that, dear Friends, but we know too much, or
think we do. We are too cunning and look too much round about us to be
as Christ was. People laugh at us if we wear our hearts upon our sleeve
for birds to peck at.

And we think that we should keep ourselves to ourselves, and be
careful, and cautious, and even suspicious of all we meet. Oh, but I
would rather be taken in a thousand times than suspect other people! It
is better to wear your heart wide open, though men laugh at its every
movement, than it is to cover it up and try to conceal what we really
are. God make us like the holy Child Jesus–children of God, with
Christ Jesus for our elder Brother! That is what we shall be when we
have learned Christ, have heard Him and have been taught by Him as
truth is in Him! May it be so with all of us! God bless you and help
you to cherish and to realize this desire, for Christ's own name's
sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H, SPURGEON: ZECHARIAH13.

Verse 1. In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of
David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness. They
shall see their pardon when they have truly seen their sin. When once
the foulness of their transgression is perceived, then the fountain of
cleansing shall be perceived, too. No man ever knows the preciousness
of the God-given remedy till he has felt the force of the terrible
disease. No one by faith plunges into the crystal fount of perfect
cleansing without first lamenting the filthiness which needs to be
removed!

2. And it shall come to pass in that day, says the LORD of Hosts, that
I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land and they shall no
more be remembered: and also I will cause the false prophets and the
unclean spirit to pass out of the land. Where there is pardon, there is
sure to be sanctification. The idols must fall and the false prophets
must go. We cannot have our sins and have a Savior, too. If we have
Christ to blot out our sin, we must have the same Christ to remove sin
as to its authority, power and dominion over us.

3. And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy. When
any false prophet shall still pretend to prophesy–

3. Then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him,
You shall not live, for you speak lies in the name of the LORD: and his
father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he
prophesies. So intense shall be the hatred of false prophets, that men
shall not spare even their own children! They shall abhor them when
they stand up against the Lord of Hosts and against His truth.

4. And it shal come to pass in that day that the prophets shall be
ashamed, every one, of his vision, when he has prophesied; neither
shall they wear a rough garment to deceive. They shall give up this
wicked employment at once and forever. Just as when one who has
pretended to tell fortunes, is converted, and he forsakes that evil
occupation, so converted men must never be in association with those
who are familiar with the spirits of the dead and who practice sorcery
and the like abominations! Everything of the kind is to be abhorred by
godly men and they must turn away from it with holy horror and disgust.

5. 6. But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for a man
taught me to keep cattle from my youth. And one shall say unto him,
What are these wounds in your hands?What are these marks of the idol
gods and goddesses? Have you not been branded with them? Did you not
belong to the accursed fraternity that worship idols and receive the
stigmata in their hands?

6. Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of
my friends. Idolatry shall become so detestable a thing that he will
say anything rather than acknowledge that he has had anything to do
with idols. Those very marks in which the false prophets once gloried,
they shall loathe. The Brahmin shall throw away his sacred thread and
those who have been tattooed in honor of other false gods shall hate
the marks of shame that are upon their persons. Now, Brothers and
Sisters, inasmuch as the heathen prophets received in their bodies the
marks of their gods, we understand something of what Paul meant when he
wrote to the Galatians, "From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I
bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." He regarded his Baptism
as a kind of watermark that could not be removed. He looked upon the
marks of the scourge, with which he had been beaten again and again for
Christ's sake, as being proofs that he belonged to Jesus. They stamped
him with the broad arrow of the great King, so that all men might know
that he was dedicated to Him and to His service, tattooed with marks in
his flesh that were indelible and never to be re moved!

7. 8. Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, andagainst the Man that is
My Fellow, says the LORD ofHosts: smite the Shepherd, and the sheep
shall be scattered: and I will turn My hand upon the little ones. And
it shall come to pass,

that in all the land, says the LORD, twoparts therein shall be cut
offand die; but the thirdshall be left therein. So, in the times of
God's fiercest judgments, He has a remnant according to the election of
Grace who shall escape the sword because that sword has been awakened
against Him who was their Representative, their Surety–and who stood
as Substitute in their place.

9. And I will bring the third part through the fire. ' 'Saved, yet so
as by fire." This is true in a certain sense of all the righteous. They
shall certainly be saved and though the fires of persecution should
rage around, the Lord will bring them through the fire. They shall not
perish in it, but they shall even derive good from it–"I will bring
the third part through the fire."

9. And will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold
is tried. If you are God's people, you will certainly be tried and
tested. As surely as ever God has put you in the third part that He
will save, He has also ordained that you should pass through the fire.
You shall have both within and without, that which shall test your
sincerity, and prove whether your faith is of Divine origin or not.
There is no easy road to Heaven–

"Thepath of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow
is unknown." Yet we who believe in Jesus are not an unhappy people–the
character of God's saints is still according to Paul's paradoxes, "As
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as
having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

9. They shall call on My name, and I will hear them. What a precious
little sentence–"they shall call on My name"! And God will give ear to
their prayer–"and I will hear them." The "shall" and the "will" are
put close together, and the one is as much the work of God's Grace as
the other is! "They shall call on my name, and I will hear them."

9. I will say: This is My people: and they shall say, The LORD is my
God. Note these quick responses–echoes, as it were. They call and God
hears! God speaks and they reply. God says, "This is My people." They
answer, "The Lord is my God." Blessed are you if you can join in these
heart echoes, or can say, with the spouse, "My Beloved is mine, and I
am His." Is there this mutual interchange of love between you and the
all-glorious Lord? If so, thrice happy are you! But if not, God grant
that you may speedily enter into this secret of the Lord! May He bless
to every one of us the reading of His Word, for His dear Son's sake!
Amen.