When Can We Find Comforters?
(No. 2322)
INTENDED FOR, READING ON LORD'S-DAY, AUGUST 20, 1893.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
21, 1889.
"Where shall I seek comforters for you?" Nahum 3:7.
IT is the business of the Prophet of God and of the minister of Christ
to seek comfort for those who are in distress. "Comfort you, comfort
you My people, says your God." It is a part of our calling to seek,
under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to bring words
of consolation to those who are heavy in heart. We have other work to
do, but, still, this is a part of our commission. God would not have
His people's heads hang down. He would have their hearts full ofjoy and
peace in believing, so He sends us, with tender, sympathetic words, to
strive to comfort all that mourn.
I can truly say that while this is our duty, when we succeed in it, it
is also our delight. To take the burden from the heavy heart is a great
joy. Whenever I have comforted any mourners, I think that I have had
even more comfort than the comforted ones! You cannot impart
consolation to others without, at the same time, enjoying it, yourself,
in some measure, at any rate. You put out your hands to open the door
into the King's banqueting house for another and, lo, your own fingers
drip with sweet-smelling myrrh, from the handle of the door! Try to
cheer another heart and you will go the nearest way to cheer your own.
So then, I am glad that I have a text like this–only the gladness is
sobered and saddened by the connection in which it stands and by the
almost hopeless character of the question–"Where shall I seek
comforters for you?"
I shall have only two divisions, tonight. First, sometimes, our work is
very easy. Secondly, at other times, it becomes so hard as even to be
impossible.
I. First, SOMETIMES OUR WORK IS VERY EASY, especially to those long
practiced in it. To a young surgeon, a case of a broken bone may be a
difficulty, but to one who has long been in his profession, it is a
simple matter and he soon sets the bone.
Now, first, it is a comparatively easy thing to find comforts for true
children of God in the day of their adversity. Dark days come to the
brightest saints. A Christian may, perhaps, enjoy worldly prosperity
for a long time and then the tide may turn, and the man may find all
that he has melt away before his eyes. Nothing that he does may
succeed. He may be brought very low, even to poverty. In such a case as
that, it is not hard to comfort the child of God, for the Lord helps
him to say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord." My Brother, your riches consist not in gold and
silver–you have in Heaven a more enduring portion and if God, by
impoverishing you of these grosser things, enriches you with more
refined treasures, you will be a gainer–your loss will turn to your
eternal profit. Therefore we comfort you readily enough with words like
these.
The same is true with God's people in bereavement. We come to them and
tell them that it is the Lord who has done it and ask, "Shall He not do
what seems good to Him?" In many cases we are able to tell them that
they have not lost their relative or friend. Their beloved ones have
only crossed the river a little before them and they will soon pass
over the same stream and be forever joined where they shall part no
more. Though it is some beloved child, or other dear relative, or even
the partner of one's bosom, or a much-beloved friend, yet to find
consolation for mourners of that kind is not the hardest work that the
pastor has to do. Refrain your eyes from weeping, especially keep back
your heart from tears. They shall come again from the land of their
captivity. They die but to live forever and you shall meet them before
long!
And, dear Friends, it is not so very difficult to find comfort for
children of God who are under the trial of persecution. There are still
many of God's people who endure the trial of cruel mockings and
something worse than that. Some of you
have to suffer in many ways for Christ's sake. "Rejoice, and be
exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in Heaven: for so persecuted
they the Prophets which were before you." Let not this trouble
you–Christ has provided abundant consolation for all who suffer with
Him, for they shall reign with Him forever and ever. They shall be–
"Brightest of the saints in light,
'Midst the bright ones doubly bright." They shall receive larger palms
and brighter crowns than others who have suffered less for His dear
name's sake. We do not say about these dear Christians, "Where shall I
seek comforters for you?" for we know where to point them to most
effectual consolation!
Sometimes, we have to deal with fainting Christians, yet when we meet
with them we do not find their case one of superlative difficulty.
Every now and then, I suppose, almost all of us get into a condition in
which our joy and comfort have to be looked for and can scarcely be
found. Partly through ill-health, partly from the strain of high
excitement, which is followed by a reaction, we got to be like Elijah,
when he said, "Now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than
my fathers." There are times when the pulse scarcely beats and the
blood begins to cool and the heart is faint. Beloved, whenever we meet
with you in that condition, we tell you that we have been in that
state, ourselves. No, we remind you that our Lord, Himself, was in an
agony and was greatly depressed in spirit. We have to assure you that
the condition of your frames and feelings does not affect your safety
in Christ. We have to remind you that, though you are changed, God is
not changed. The promise, the Old Covenant, stands just as fast when
you are down in distress as when you are on the high places of
exultation. You are saved by faith, not by feeling–and when feeling
ebbs out to the very last degree, still hold on to Jesus–sink or swim,
still trust in Him! When you see no trace of His actual Presence with
you, rely upon Him, all the same, and be of good cheer. This is not
hard to say–and when the Spirit of God is with us, we find no lack of
consolation for fainting saints.
Nor do we find ourselves much embarrassed by cases of disappointed
workers. We hear them say, "Surely we have labored in vain and spent
our strength for nothing. Who has believed our report? To whom is the
arm of the Lord revealed?" But we tell them of many of God's saints who
labored long without seeing any immediate results and yet they were
accepted of God. Jeremiah, the plaintive, Weeping Prophet, saw the
people reject everything that he said, yet he was not rejected, but
accepted of God! And among honorable men, there is none more excellent
than the Prophet Jeremiah. Beloved, you may be sent to warn a people
who never will be saved and yet you will be blessed. When Isaiah saw
the seraphim, and in answer to God's call, "Whom shall I send?" said,
"Here am I; send me," remember what his commission was–he was sent,
not to bring the people to God, but to go and say to them, "Hear you,
indeed, but understand not; and see you, indeed, but perceive not. Make
the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their
eyes."
He obeyed his commission as it was given to him and his Lord rewarded
him. That may be your case. Besides, you are no judge of your own
success! I think that it has been noticed by ministers, very often–so
often as to be like a Baconian induction–that when we think that we
preach worst, God usually blesses the people most, and that when we
appear to have had the least power, God displays His ability more
clearly than at other times! Therefore, when you go home weeping, while
you have only sown in tears, you shall doubtless come again rejoicing,
bringing your sheaves with you! But you are no judge of what you do,
yourself, and you cannot tell what the results of your work may be. If
you see them not, the angels may have seen them and while you are
weeping, they are rejoicing! At any rate, you are not responsible for
the harvest–you are responsible for plowing and sowing. If you have
done your work well, in the fear of God, what comes of it rests with
God–not with you!
Sometimes, beloved Friends, we have the task of comforting dying
Believers, and that is no very difficult thing. There is one whom I
could mention to you who, not long ago, spent all that he had in taking
a new business which he needed for his growing family. And he hoped to
prosper in it. He had scarcely been in the house many weeks before his
daughter was brought home to him and, when taken upstairs, she was
found to be raving with madness! She was watched over carefully but, to
the breaking of his heart, she had to be put away. Not long after,
another, dear to his heart, was suddenly taken away. By-and-by, he,
himself, fell ill and, at last, going to a physician, he was told that
his case was a very serious one–he had better see a specialist. He saw
the specialist, who told him that he had an internal cancer, that he
might be operated upon, but that, in all probability, he would die
under the operation. And he would advise him to live as long as he
could.
That happened not long ago. If I were to introduce him to you, what
kind of a man would you expect him to be, with his bereavements and
with his prospect of soon dying probably a very painful death? You
would suppose that he would look very dull, haggard, and so forth.
There is not a more cheerful person beneath the cover of Heaven! And
when he crawled up to London, the other day, to do some business, and
some persons wondered that he did it, he said, "While I can, I will do
my best in the place where God has put me. When I can get out no more,
I will sit still and praise God. And when the time comes, I will die
with my face towards the New Jerusalem." That is how Christians live
and that is how Christians die! We do not find, when we have to deal
with a believer in Christ, that it is at all a difficult thing to cheer
the heart either in the near or the distant prospect of death.
Nor, dear Friends, do we find ourselves much troubled in seeking to
comfort repenting backsliders. It is grievous that any should
backslide. It is horrible that the Church of God should have her name
disgraced, that the Christ of God should have His religion spattered by
the iniquities of professing Christians. But when the Lord touches the
wandering heart and it breaks under a sense of guilt–and the man turns
back to his God, we find it easy to say, "The Lord delights in mercy.
Return, you backsliding children! God is willing to receive you, He is
waiting to bless you." The Word of God is full of consolation to
backsliders who are seeking His face. Guilty as you are, the Lord says,
"Return unto Me, for I am married to you." He might well divorce you,
but the Lord, the God of Jacob, says that He hates putting away. He
will not cast off the people of His choice! He is glad to receive them
back after all their uncleanness and filthiness. Yes, there is much
comfort for returning backsliders and if there are any such here,
tonight, I would put out my hand and say, "Come back, my Brother, my
Sister–come and welcome to the Savior."
And certainly there is no difficulty in trying to comfort seeking
sinners. If any man is seeking the Savior, the Savior is seeking him–
"Your seeking His face Is all of His Grace""
He has begun with you, or else you would not have begun with Him, and
now, if you will simply trust Him, only trust Him, you shall have
immediate peace! "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life."
That is a glorious passage. "He that believes on Him is not condemned,"
is another blessed phase of the same comforting Truth of God. If you
have received Christ, to you He gives the power to become one of the
sons of God, "even to them that believe on His name." There is a whole
hive full of real honey for a soul that comes to Christ! You may even
dip your hand in it, if you will, and eat as much sweetness as you
please, for you will never exhaust it.
Thus I have explained how, sometimes, in seeking comforters, our work
is easy.
II. But, dear Friends, AT OTHER TIMES IT BECOMES SO HARD AS TO BE
IMPOSSIBLE. Nahum says, concerning Nineveh, "Where shall I seek
comforters for you?"
Assyria, of which Nineveh was the capital, was an empire which existed
entirely for itself. No Assyrian monarch ever thought of what would be
for the good of the nations that he conquered. I should think that if
anybody ever mentioned such a thing, he would have laughed at him, or
he would have put out his eyes, or cut off his head! There was no idea
that anybody else had any rights at all except the king of Assyria, for
even his subjects were simply his puppets, destroyed by his will and
pleasure. And Assyria was thus the incarnation of pure, or rather of
impure selfishness. Well, when a selfish man goes down as Nineveh did,
who comforts him? He never did anybody any good and he may say, if he
likes, "I care for nobody, and nobody cares for me." It is very hard,
indeed, to say anything by way of comfort to a man who is broken down
and who never cared for other people. Do not get into that state of
mind, I pray you, dear Friends. I believe that selfishness is the
front-door key of despair, for it never did any good to anybody. So,
when it gets into trouble, nobody brings it comfort and everybody says,
Who will bemoan you? "Where shall I seek comforters for you?"
The Assyrians also dealt very cruelly with others. On the great stones
that Mr. Layard brought home, there are awful pictures of what was
being done with the captives, heaps of heads cut off from men who had
been taken in war, eyes gouged out, and all sorts of dreadful things
with which I will not horrify you. And, consequently, when that cruel
power was put down, who would wish to seek comfort for it? Oh, that we
may be prevented from ever being cruel to others! If we are cruel to
others, when our turn comes, there will be no comfort for us. These
people plundered every nation wherever they went. They took away
everything that they could and left them penniless. They devoured the
fruits of the
ground and cared nothing what desolation they left behind. And when the
time came for them to be robbed and their capital to be despoiled,
nobody thought of comforting them. They were left to reap what they had
sown.
Besides that, they were famous for their pride, and that pride rose up
into blasphemy. Remember how the Assyrian messenger, Rabshakeh, defied
Jehovah? He said, "Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arphad? Who are
they among all the gods of the countries that have delivered their
country out of my hands that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of
my hand?" So, when their corpses were all piled up in the streets, no
nation wept for them, nobody cared for them. Oh, dear Friends, conduct
your business in such a way that you do not crush the poor! Manage
everything in such a way that you rob nobody. Be straight. Be just. Be
kind. "Live and let live," or else, if your turn to fall should come,
one of these days, nobody will bemoan you, or be sorry for you! If you
lift up your hand in proud blasphemy against God and He brings you down
to the dust, you will be quoted as an instance of how the Justice of
God overtakes the proud. The Lord keep us from all this! I cannot help
mentioning it because it is in the chapter and has to do with the text.
It is much better that you and I should go humbly on in laborious
poverty and find our way to Heaven with good repute, than that we
should become, even, kings of the earth and lords of all her
wealth–and after all should be found to have lived only for self and
to have cared for none besides–for then our downfall will be terrible
in the day of the Lord's vengeance.
But, besides this, there are other people whom we cannot comfort. There
is a man in a good deal of trouble about his soul, so he says. He comes
to me and, on talking with him, and probing him a bit, I find that he
is living in the commission of a known sin. He says that he cannot
believe. He cannot pray. He cannot get comfort. Of course he cannot
while he indulges any known sin! "Where shall we find comforters for
you?" God will not forgive you while you continue in that sin! Christ
will not cleanse you from the guilt of it while you continue in the
practice of it! You must part with sin, or we cannot comfort you. We
will not even try to do so!
And, next, there are some who do not get any comfort, though they have
left off sin, because they have never made restitution. If you have
robbed or wronged anybody, when you come to Christ, do what Zaccheus
did, who said that if he had taken anything from any man by false
pretense, he would restore him four-fold. There was a minister in this
city, a dear friend of mine, who preached a sermon upon the necessity
of restitution when wrong had been done, and some of his friends told
him that if he preached in that way he would drive the people away.
But, during the week, he met in the street a man of about his own age,
who said to him, "Were you not in Messrs. So-and-So's warehouse once?"
"Yes, I was." Did you not lose a watch while you were there?" "Yes, I
did." Well, I was there at the same time. Do you remember me?" "What is
your name? Oh, yes, I remember your name!" "I stole your watch. I came
to hear you last Sunday night and I cannot rest till I have given you
ten pounds to make restitution for that watch." "No," said my friend,
"I do not want money." "But I must make restitution," said the other.
At last my friend explained that the watch was not worth ten pounds,
though it might have been worth four. So the man gave him the four
pounds–and he came back to his critics, and said–"I have made four
pounds profit by that sermon, whatever you may have thought of it. I
had forgotten all about my lost watch, but my sermon has brought me
back the money for it." The man who thus made restitution is now, I
believe, an honorable Christian man. I do not see how he could have
been so with that watch on his conscience, and I do not believe that,
do what we may, we can give comfort to people who have wronged others
till, to their very utmost, they have made restitution! How shall I
comfort you, if you repent not of your robbery, but keep the proceeds
of it?
Again, there is another sort of people whom we cannot comfort, people
who seem very concerned to get pardon, but when you come to understand
them, you discover that they are living in enmity against somebody–a
brother, a mother-in-law, a cousin, or a friend whom they will not
forgive. They keep on harboring hatred in their minds. I am grieved to
say that it is not altogether an unusual thing to find fathers who will
not forgive a daughter, or a son. They did not happen to marry the
person you would have liked to choose for them and, of course, you have
a perfect right, have you not, to make the selection for them? You
thought you had a right to pick for yourself, but you will not give
that right to your children–so you have a grudge against them on that
account–and then you go whining to God to forgive you and yet you will
not forgive your daughter! Here you are on your knees, crying, "Lord
have mercy upon me," yet you will not have mercy upon that friend who
once did you wrong and whom you ought to have forgiven long ago! Now,
remember, that it is of no use for you to pray, or do anything else if
you will not, from your heart forgive those who have offended you–for
neither will God, even for Christ's sake–forgive you! There must be a
clean sweep of everything like enmity
out of your heart, or else you cannot be at peace with God. Enmity
cannot lie down with love! Darkness cannot weld with light! You cannot
enter into the peace of God till you are willing to forgive others.
There are many people who get hung up on that nail–I wish they could
get released from it, by God's Grace.
We meet with some also who profess to be very anxious to be saved.
Perhaps I have some such here, tonight, and yet they do not pray. You
rise in the morning and you go to bed at night without a prayer! And
all day long God is not at all in your thoughts. Do you expect, then,
to be saved by accident? Do you really reckon that, one of these days,
as you walk down the street, salvation will drop on you, whether you
will or not? Beloved, if you desire this great Gift of God, ask for it!
"He that asks, receives." If you want to find this treasure, look for
it! "He that seeks, finds." If you would get Heaven's door opened, I
pray you, use the knocker! "To him that knocks, it shall be opened." No
prayer, no Bible-reading, no going to hear the Word of God with the
earnest intent to find out what the way of salvation is, why, dear me,
how can you escape if you neglect so great a salvation? You are
evidently living in constant neglect! Nobody ever prospers in business
who does not pay attention to it and no man can expect to enter into
peace with God when he goes on in a sort of slipshod way, going
sometimes to a place of worship, occasionally feeling a little earnest,
but never seeking the Lord with his whole heart! You will have to be
awakened out of this fatal lethargy! May the Spirit of God awaken you
this very night! Resolve that you will not let the Angel go unless He
bless you. May the great Master bring you to that state of mind at
once!
There are others, and these are the people we have so often to deal
with, who feel their sin and who really wish to be saved–and they do a
great deal in the hope of being saved–but there is one thing they will
not do. They will not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They try to be
saved by their prayers, as if there was any promise that God would save
us for our praying. They try Bible-reading, for in the Scriptures they
think they have eternal life–but they forget that eternal life is not
in the Bible except as the Bible testifies of Christ and points to
Christ–Christ is eternal life! They have been christened, they have
been confirmed, they are members of churches and so on, and there they
rest! No, they do not "rest." They feel that there is still something
needed which they have not yet obtained. That which is needed, my
Friend, is that you should come and–
"Cast your deadly doing down, Down at Jesus' feet,"
and trust in what He has done and then are you saved. That is the whole
philosophy of salvation!
There are two ways of salvation. The one is self-salvation, and it is a
dream, an empty thing, an awful disappointment. The other is Christ's
salvation–come, and put yourself wholly into His hands and say, "Save
me, Lord. By profession, You are a Savior. Execute Your holy craft upon
me and save me. Save me from my sin, the guilt of it. Save me from
sinning, the practice of it. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
purify me from the love of evil and make me clean. You can do it, and
You, alone, can do it." Now, if you trust the Savior, you are saved. I
will repeat again that declaration of Christ, "He that believes on the
Son has everlasting life." But if you will not believe, I know of
nothing whereby I can comfort you. If you will not have Christ, there
remains nothing but condemnation for you! There can be no other
Sacrifice for sin. You have insulted God by rejecting His Son and you
must go before your God unsaved and unforgiven. Beware of such a doom
as that!
Sometimes we have to feel what an awful thing it would be if we had to
deal with a soul that was eternally lost. Then, indeed, we might say,
in the language of our text, each word dripping with tears of blood,
"Where shall I seek comforters for you?" Will any of my Hearers be
lost? Will any here die without Christ? Will any here refuse the great
salvation to the last? If so, what comfort could I administer to such?
I shall have, on the contrary, to put it thus–"You know the way of
salvation, but you chose the other road, yes, chose it deliberately.
And if you have come into the place of wrath and death, who shall
bemoan you? Who shall comfort you?" You made your choice and you must
have your choice forever. All that you will suffer in the next world
will be the fruit of your own sin. Hell is sin fully ripe. Drunkenness,
lechery, dishonesty, lying, enmity–when these come to seed, they make
Hell! They pain men enough in this world. And if the softening
influences of Christianity were taken away and men were just left in
the world to act according to their own passions and their own lusts,
that would be all the Hell they would need!
You will have to feel forever, in every pang that you endure, "This is
nothing but my old sin." Whenever you are overwhelmed with woe in the
next world, and look your own woe in the face, you will say to
yourself, "Why, that is what
I used to call, 'pleasure,' and it has come to me here in this shape!
And I was told that I would say that. I was warned and yet I perished,
despite the warning." If you are lost, my Hearers, you will have
refused the great Sacrifice of which you know, for to the best of my
power, in the simplest words that I could find, I have set forth Christ
among you evidently crucified–and I have said, "There is your only
hope of salvation. Look to Jesus and live." If you will not have God's
Gift. If you put far from you the Christ who alone has life eternal,
you need not wonder when He leaves you to yourselves!
Besides, in that day some of you will especially have to remember how
you stifled conscience. You have gone into some worldly pleasure on
purpose to silence the voice of conscience. Sometimes, sitting in this
House, you have been almost brought to decision. You have said, "Please
God, when I get home, I will seek my chamber, and fall upon my knees
before Him in prayer." How often have you been brought very near the
Kingdom of God and how terrible is it to be so near and then
deliberately to turn back! Your blood will be upon your own heads and,
truly, if it is so, "where shall I seek comforters for you?" Some of
you would not be persuaded. You have had a mother's tearful admonition.
Teachers have pleaded with and for you in the most earnest way. You
have had judgments, too, from God–sicknesses that have shaken every
bone of your body! You have been brought to feel that there is a God
and that He would deal with you. Remember that solemn prophecy, "He
that being often reproved hardens his neck, shall suddenly be
destroyed, and that without remedy."
I sometimes start in my sleep at the thought of one of my Hearers being
in Hell. Ah, Sirs, if you do not care about your own souls, we, at
least, will care about them for you! How can I be clear of the blood of
you all, so many of you, and so often addressed? Do you wonder that I
am often distressed beyond measure at my own position? It were better
for me to have broken stones on the road than to have preached to you
if I have been unfaithful to your souls! For then, in the next world,
you will curse me and it shall be my Hell to bear the reproaches that
you shall justly fling at me. But I beseech you, by the living God, and
as you believe yourselves to be immortal beings, accept, tonight, His
way of salvation, so simple and so easy!
"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts:
and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him, and
to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." "Believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and you shall be saved." "He that believes and is
baptized"–which is the Christian method, the Biblical method of
confessing your faith–"He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved; but he that believes not shall be damned."
I leave you all in God's hands. Pray, dear Christian people, that
everyone who has heard me, tonight, may be saved, and that this rainy
night may be, indeed, memorable as the night in which many a sinner
cried–
"I do believe, I will believe,
That Jesus died for me!
That on the Cross
He shed His blood,
For sin to set me free."
Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON. NAHUM 2:11-13,3.
This is a prophecy of the destruction of Nineveh. Remember that Assyria
had been one of the great powers that swayed the world–a cruel,
tyrannical empire–and God at last determined to destroy Nineveh which
was its seat of government. In a high poetical strain, the Prophet
cries out,
Nahum 2:11. Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place
of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the
lion's whelp, and none made them afraid? You will remember how Mr.
Layard took out of the ruins at Nineveh those immense lions that now
stand in the British Museum. They were the very type of this great
empire that boasted itself in its lion-like strength and ferocity. So
the Prophet cries, "Where is the lair of the lion?"
12. The lion did tear in pieces enough for his whelps, and strangled
for his lionesses, and filled his holes with prey, and his dens with
ravin. They were always destroying and plundering, and carrying home
the spoil, so that everybody was fattened with the plunder of the
nations.
13. Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of Hosts. And whenever that
is the case, a man does not need any other adversary! If God is against
you, O my dear Hearer, what will become of you? Though you should have
all the power of the world and possess robust health, abundant riches
and keen wit, what can you do against God? "I am against you, says
Jehovah of Hosts." He throws down the gauntlet to Nineveh.
13. And I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall
devour your young lions: and I will cut off your prey from the earth,
and the voice of your messengers shall no more be heard. It is time
that they were stopped. You remember in what foul-mouthed language
Rabshakeh addressed King Hezekiah and God now declares that there shall
be no more such letters as his. God may allow evil to lord it over His
people for a while, but He puts a hook in the mouth of the leviathan,
by-and-by. He that restrains the sea and the waves thereof, Jehovah is
His name, and He restrains the wickedness of men!
Nahum 3:1. Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery;
the prey departs not. Assyria became a great empire through violence,
falsehood and robbery. The soldiers had no respect for justice. They
trod out the last spark of liberty and crushed all nations under their
feet.
2, 3. The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels,
and of the prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. The horseman
lifts up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a
multitude of slain, and a great number of carcasses; and there is no
end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses. When the
Medo-Babylonian army came against the great city, it inflicted a
terrible slaughter, killing the inhabitants without mercy, making a
very holocaust of human bodies. But, inasmuch as it was a den of
criminals, this horrible execution was well deserved. Yet is the story
dreadful.
4, 5. Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well favored
harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that sells nations through her
whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. Behold, I am against
you, says the LORD of Hosts. These people had been steeped in sin of
the worst kind. They had led other nations into it and had practiced
the witchcrafts which God abhors. Therefore, again, Jehovah says, "I am
against you." When God is in arms against a triumphant nation, He soon
makes an end of it.
5, 6. And I will discover your skirts upon your face, and I will show
the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame. And I will
cast abominable filth upon you, and make you vile, and will set you as
a gazing stock. See what God can do! They were the proudest of the
proud and now He makes them the scorn of the scorner, and sets them as
a gazing stock. May God never deal in that way with any proud man,
here! He can easily do it–when we set ourselves up to be little gods,
He can soon make us utterly mean and contemptible–and bring us down to
nothing at all. It is His way to deal thus with the proud.
7. And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon you shall
flee from you, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her?
Where shall I seek comforters for you? If you could go, today, and see
the vast heaps of Kouyunjik, and of the great monuments of that mighty
city all destroyed and crumbling into powder, you would know something
of what God can do! It does not look likely to you that London can ever
become a heap of ruins and yet it may be, for its sins reek up to
Heaven as the sins of Nineveh did! The Lord can strike this city as He
smote that.
8. Are you better than populous No Amon, that was situated among the
rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea,
and her wall was from the sea? The Prophet quotes the destruction of
the city called No Amon, probably Thebes, as an instance of what God
can do.
9. Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite. There
seemed to be no measure to her strength. If she needed assistance from
other nations, she had only to call them in and the mercenary tribes
were ready to defend her.
9, 10. Put and Lubim were your helpers. Yet was she carried away, she
went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at
the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honorable men,
and all her great men were bound in chains. So one city is a warning to
another. No Amon in Egypt is a warning to Nineveh in Assyria, and both
of these a warning to our city, and a warning to every man who is
proud, haughty, domineering and oppressive to the poor–great in his
own wisdom and careless for the comfort of others!
11. You also shall be drunken: you shall be hid, you also shall seek
strength because of the enemy. Nineveh never dreamed of doing that! She
said, "I am a queen, I shall see no sorrow! I am the greatest of all
cities."
12. All your strongholds shall be like fig trees with the first-ripe
figs: if they are shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the
eater. As figs do when they are ripe. These castles, towers,
fortresses, built to stand the siege, would be no sooner attacked than
they would fall into the hands of the enemy!
13. Behold, your people in the midst of you are women. You see, on
those great Assyrian stones, the strong men that are sculptured, there,
with their enormous muscles, telling of gigantic force. When God came
to deal with them, they became weak and cowardly.
13, 14. The gates of your land shall be set wide open unto your
enemies: the fire shall devour your bars. Draw you waters for the
siege. The Prophet challenges them to defend themselves.
14. Fortify your strongholds: go into clay, and tread the mortar, make
strong the brick kiln. That was to mend the walls whenever they were
broken. They did this with great industry. "Do it," says God, "yet you
shall not be able to stand."
15-17. There shall the fire devour you; the sword shall cut you off, it
shall eat you up like the cankerworm: make yourself many as the
cankerworm, make yourself many as the locusts. You have multiplied your
merchants above the stars of Heaven: the cankerworm spoils, and flees
away. Your crowned are as the locusts, and your captains as the great
grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the
sun arises they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
What marvelous poetry is this! How terrible! Their soldiers, their
rulers, their captains, were as many as the locusts and the
grasshoppers, but when they were needed, all these hosts would flee
away. What cannot God do when He comes out to fight with men? "The Lord
is a man of war; the Lord is His name." He brings confusion to His
enemies. Oh, fight not against Him! Beloved, let us be at peace with
Him, the strong and mighty God. Let us confess our faults to Him,
acquaint ourselves with Him and be at peace.
18. Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria. They who should have
taken care of the people, the chief governors, neglected them. They who
should have defended the people were out of the way when they were
needed–"Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria."
18. Your nobles shall dwell in the dust: your people are scattered upon
the mountains, and no man gathers them. Let not the same be said of
London. Are there any who can say, "No man cares for my soul"? Let them
not be without a helper–
"Oh, come, let us go and find them!
In the paths of death they roam.
At the close of the day 'twill be sweet to say,
'I have brought some lost one home.'"
Brothers and Sisters, awaken yourselves–be shepherds to the people of
this modem Nineveh and seek to gather the scattered flock of Christ!
19. There is no healing of your bruise; your wound is grievous. Thank
God we have not come to that point–yet there is still healing for the
bruised sinner! Though the wounds of our people are grievous, there is
a balm for them! We know where it is and what it is–let us not be slow
to tell them about it.
19. All that hear bruit of you shall clap the hands over you. I think
that is the old Norman-French word, "bruit," signifying noise or
tumult, that has been left in our Bible.
19. For upon whom has not your wickedness passed continually? Nineveh
had been so wicked and had done so much evil that when men heard that
it was destroyed, they would even clap their hands for very joy that
such an evil-doer was out of the way! I know not to what purpose I was
moved to read this passage, but it is specially meant for someone, to
whom may God apply it by his Spirit!