Christ, the Glory of His People

Christ, the Glory of His People

A Sermon
(No. 826)

Delivered on Lord's Day Evening, March 22, 1868, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
at the [36]Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

"A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the Glory of Your people
Israel."
Luke 2:32.

WE must read this passage literally, for so Simeon intended it. The
Lord Jesus Christ, though once despised and rejected by His own
countrymen, is the great honor and splendor of God's people, Israel. It
is reckoned an honor to a nation when eminent persons are born of its
stock and lineage–but Israel can claim the palm above all lands, for
she can say that our Lord sprang out of Judah.

Put together all the heroic and famous names of Greece and Rome–add
all the literary splendors of Germany and the flashing beauties of
France. Combine with these the blazing fame of Milton and Shakespeare,
of Bacon and of Newton in our own land–and all countries put together
cannot compass so great a glory of manhood as can the nation of the
Jews, for they can claim not so much Moses, and David, and the
Prophets, as Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, in whom dwells
the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

If mention is made of Egypt and Babylon, or Philistia and Tyre, saying,
"This man was born there," the answer shall be concerning Zion, "The
Son of Man was born in her." It ill behooves us ever to speak
slightingly of the Jew. It ill behooves the Christian Church to despond
concerning the conversion of the seed of Israel, or to be so
indifferent as she sometimes is as to the conversion of Israel.
Brethren, the day will come when the veil shall be taken from the eyes,
and the hardness from the heart, and Abraham's sons shall behold the
true Messiah and accept Him as their Glory and their All.

In that day, after the long time of winter, how bright the summer will
be! If their casting away brought the Gentiles so much blessing, what
will their gathering together be but life from the dead! After so long
an alienation, how ravishing and delightful will be the reconciliation
between the Bridegroom and His ancient spouse! How will the earth ring
with joy and every river in Judea's land flow to the tune of Heaven's
own music, when Jesus and the Jew shall be reconciled, and He shall be,
as He is prophesied to be, the Glory of His people Israel!–

"The hymn shall yet in Zion swell

That sounds Messiah's praise,

And Your loved name, Immanuel!

As once in ancient days.

For Israel yet shall own her King,

For her salvation waits,

And hill and dale shall sweetly sing

With praise in all her gates.

Hasten, O Lord, these promised days,

When Israel shall rejoice,

And Jew and Gentile join in praise,

With one united voice."

It would have been wrong to use the text as I am going to use it if I
had not first given you its primary meaning. We have no right to use
texts for other purposes without, first of all, giving the literal
meaning, and saying, "Such-and-such is originally the mind of the Holy
Spirit." It is doubtless the mind of the Spirit speaking here by
Simeon, that the Lord Jesus shall be a Light to lighten the once
darkened Gentiles, but peculiarly the Glory of the Jewish nation. We
shall now employ the natural Israel as a type of the Lord's elect ones,
and surely there is no straining of the text when we say that Jesus
Christ is the Glory of the spiritual seed, the redeemed people, who
stand to the Lord actually where Israel of old stood in the type.

Jesus Christ is the Glory of His people, His spiritual people Israel.
And why, with evident propriety, may the saints of God be compared to
Israel? Surely because God has made a Covenant with them as He did with
Jacob. Jacob at the foot of the ladder saw a way which led from earth
to Heaven. We at the foot of the Cross have beheld the same vision. We
see a way from our poor fallen estate up to all the glories of the
place where Jehovah dwells. That night a Covenant was made with Jacob.
And between God and our own souls–in the Person of the Lord
Jesus–there is a blessed compact made which shall stand secure though
earth's old columns bow.

He will be our God, and we shall be His people. He has made with us a
Covenant ordered in all things and sure. This is the great fountain of
all our mercies, the ground of all our hopes. Our Covenant God is the
delight of our inmost souls, our castle and high tower, our sun and our
shield–

"He by Himself has sworn.

I on His oath depend.

I shall, on eagles' wings upborne,

To Heaven ascend:

I shall behold His face,

I shall His power adore,

And sing the wonders of His grace

Forevermore."

We may be compared with Israel, again, because if we are the children
of God we have learned to wrestle with the angel and prevail. It is one
mark of the heir of Heaven that he understands the value of secret
prayer, and that he exercises himself in it–that is to him as stern a
reality as wrestling is to the athlete when he seeks to hurl his
antagonist to the ground. Not a mumbling of words, but a marshalling of
all the powers of manhood to come into contest–loving, blessed
contest–with God Himself! Well may they be called prevailing princes
who are so. Dear Friend, if you are a man of secret prevailing
supplication, why need you doubt that you are one of the Lord's
Israels?

It may be that you have another likeness to Israel in the fact that you
are much tried. It is not so sure a token of salvation as some would
make it out to be, but yet it is written, "Through much tribulation we
must enter into the kingdom of God." Poor Israel said, "All these
things are against me," when one after another his beloved children
were taken from him and famine was in the land. Perhaps you may be
tempted to say the same, and in this you have a likeness to Jacob–from
which I could wish you to escape, for it were better far if, taking all
these evils as they come, you could believe the heavenly declaration,
"All things work together for good, to them that love God."

Faith must be tried. God had one Son without sin but He never had a son
without the rod. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." I hope we
shall be like Jacob always in our faith, for though he may have
distrusted occasionally, yet he was a man of giant faith and has a
place in that roll call of heroes in the Epistle to the Hebrews. He
blessed the sons of Joseph, leaning upon his staff, and gave
commandment concerning the taking away of his bones. He was not content
to allow his body to rest in Egypt–he looked for the promised land and
there, there only, would he have his aged body laid in the grave–as if
in death he would take possession of the heritage which the Lord had
promised to him and to his seed forever.

May you and I have a faith that cannot be satisfied with all the green
plains of Goshen, nor the granaries of Egypt, but which longs for the
better state–the promised land–which to the eyes of our body may be
invisible, but which to the eye of our faith is clearly revealed! Now,
the true Israel, which is spiritually the Church of Christ, are said,
according to the text, to be the Lord's people. "The glory of Your
people Israel." Briefly let me remind you, my fellow Believers, of the
ties which make us the Lord's. Are we not His, tonight, by His eternal
choice? "You only have I known of all the nations of the earth."

The eternal Father has selected us from among the ruins of the Fall and
given us into the hands of Christ that we may be His portion, His
bride, His jewels, "according as He has chosen us in Him before the
foundation of the world." We are Christ's, next, by redemption. He has
redeemed us from among men by a special and particular redemption which
is peculiar to ourselves. A price has been paid for us–an effectual
price, which will not permit, for a moment, that the objects so
purchased shall ever be lost. "You are not your own, you are bought
with a price." The saints are redeemed from among men. Thus are you
Christ's by double bonds–the gift of the Father and the purchase of
His own blood. The Father gave you to Jesus and none shall pluck you
out of His almighty hands!

You are His, too, this night, by conquest. Admit it. He has struggled
with your sins and overcome them. The Spirit of the living God has
taken you, as it were, like a lamb from the jaws of the lion. You were
led captives by Satan, but Christ met the devil and overcame him in a
terrific duel, and you, the once willing captives of the powers of
Darkness, are now Christ's portion made free and blessed! You are now
the possession of your Conqueror, for He took you out of the hand of
the enemy with His sword and with His bow. You belong to Christ as the
spoil which He has won from death and Hell.

You are His, again, by the voluntary dedication of yourselves to Him.
Come, Beloved, is it not so? Will you not confess–

"'Tis done! the great transaction's done!

I am my Lord's, and He is mine!

He drew me, and I followed on,

Charmed to confess the voice Divine"?

If you feel aright, you will confess that there is not a drop of blood
in your veins which does not belong to Jesus, nor a hair on your head
which is not His. All the Isle of Man now belongs to Jesus, and you
will count it foul scorn that sin should have a lodge within the
territories which belong to your liege Lord and Master! From within the
triple kingdom of your spirit, soul, and body, you will, to the best of
your power, hunt out every rebel against the dominion of your Lord
Jesus. You are His tonight, you know you are! You rejoice to confess
the blessed impeachment and are willing, before men, angels, and
devils, to renew the dedication of yourselves to Him.

And, once again, you are His in conjugal bonds–married to Him as
chaste virgins. His unbounded love espoused you before time began and
it has not diminished. He claims you as His own bride, and you call Him
the Husband of your souls, and delight to have it so. More than that,
you are His in vital union as the members belong to the head. You are
in personal, vital, actual communion with the Son of God! You are thus
His in the fullest and most absolute sense. Oh, you will not start back
from being altogether His, but come closer and closer to a full
surrender and desire to feel more powerfully the fact that you are
Christ's people, wholly belonging to Him–not in part, not held by a
kind of mortgage–but Christ's freehold, Christ's absolute property!

You bear in your body the marks of the Lord Jesus and desire to be His,
now, and His, world without end. Now, it is to such as these, who are
like Israel, and who belong to Christ, that the text shall be addressed
tonight. Jesus Christ is the Glory of such. We will pause a moment, and
then let us plunge into the center of the text.

I. When we say that Christ is our Glory, we mean that WE GET ALL THE
GLORY WE HAVE THROUGH HIM. Some men go to schools for glory, others to
the camps of war. In all kinds of places men have sought after honor,
but the Believer says that Christ is the mine in which he digs for this
gold–Christ is the sea in which he fishes for this pearl–he gives up
all other searchings and looks for Glory in Jesus and nowhere else.

Now, Beloved, we find our adorable Lord to be our Glory tonight, but in
what respects? Well, we have the glory, first, of election–of being
chosen by God out of the rest of mankind–to be a separated people
before which imperial pomp grows pale! And this comes to us altogether
through Jesus Christ. "According as He has chosen us in Him from before
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy."

Our next glory is that we are redeemed. It is no small honor for a man
to know that God loved Him so well that He gave a price so costly that
all Heaven and earth could not match it with another–that He gave His
only begotten Son that we might be redeemed. Now, Beloved, we are not
redeemed except through Jesus Christ. And if it is our glory that we
are emancipated today–that our fetters are all broken, that we are the
Lord's freemen–we know with what a price we gained this liberty, for
we were not free-born. Yes, the glory of the Lord's freeman must be
only in the Lord Jesus, who is the Son, who by His blood makes as free,
indeed.

It is the glory of a Christian that he is adopted, that he is a son of
God–but this, again, is only through Jesus Christ. We are joint heirs
with Christ. We have no relation except through His standing at the top
of the page in the family register. He is a Son, and we become the many
brethren, but only because He condescended to take upon Him our nature
and become the first-born among us. Brothers and Sisters, it is a great
joy to know, and a great glory to say, "I am justified." We can stand
upright tonight and say, "Who shall lay anything to my charge? Before
the court of King's Bench of Heaven, before the Chancery of the
universe, who dare condemns me?"

To be pardoned and accepted of God is a matchless privilege. Now, no
man can claim justification of a truth except through Jesus Christ, for
here is the top and the bottom of a man's justification–that the
righteousness of Christ has been given to him, and that the blood of
Christ has washed him. "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that
died, yes, rather that has risen again; who sits at the right hand of
God, who also makes intercession for us." Remember this, my
Brethren–we are accepted, but we are accepted in the Beloved–and we
are justified, but we are justified in His righteousness. We are a
people dear to God, and near unto Him, but all this lies in Jesus
Christ. We are comely with the comeliness which He puts upon us, and
secure in God's sight because we are preserved in Christ Jesus.

One part of the Christian's glory, and for my part one which I sigh for
more and more, is the glory of sanctification. It is a great glory to
have a new heart and a right spirit and to pant after holiness, but
this also comes by the same royal road–for we are sanctified through
the blood of Jesus–which the Holy Spirit applies to us. There is not a
particle of true sanctity in all the world which does not spring from
the Cross! Everything which makes us like Christ first comes from
Christ, not from the works of the Law, nor from the strivings of the
flesh, nor the teachings of philosophy–but altogether–

"From the water and the blood

From the riven side which flowed."

If we glory, then, in sanctification, we dare not glory except in
Christ Jesus, whose blood has made us priests and kings unto God.

And, Brothers and Sisters, it is a great glory to a man to know that he
is safe. I love our Arminian friends very heartily, but I should not
like to be one of them, myself, for they have such a precarious
salvation that they do not know whether it will ultimately save them or
not. It will save them if they are faithful, but ah, that unhappy
thought is the one dangerous link in the chain–and I dare not trust my
poor unfaithful soul to such a frail support. They are traveling in a
carriage, the axles of which may break before they reach their
journey's end! I bless God I know whom I have believed, and am
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him
until that day.

But if a man knows himself, by faith, to be saved, his knowledge is
baseless presumption if he rests his safety anywhere but on the
immovable rock of the finished work of Jesus Christ! He who can say,
"Yes, I trust Christ to save me not only today, or tomorrow for He has
worked out for me an everlasting salvation. I believe that He will be
with me and own my name at the bar of judgment"–such a man knows that
he is resting only in Jesus, and then his glory as to his safety is a
glory in Christ, and in Christ alone.

Thus I might continue showing you that there is not a single treasure
which a Christian possesses which does not come to him but through
Christ. He has nothing in which he can glory but what he is sweetly
compelled to say of it, "I gained this in the market of Calvary. I
found this in the mines of a Savior's suffering. All this came to me
through my bleeding, buried, risen, coming Lord, and He shall have the
glory of it as long as I live."

II. There is a second meaning to the text, namely this–WE SEE A GLORY
IN CHRIST which swallows up all other glories as the sun's light
conceals the light of the stars. True Believers see Glory, first, in
Christ's Person. They are often overwhelmed as they contemplate His
Godhead and His Manhood Divinely blended. All His attributes strike
them as glorious. They cannot think of His Character as He manifested
it while here below, or as it is revealed before the Throne above,
without falling into raptures of adoring wonder, love, and praise.

If others tell them of the glory of such-and-such philanthropists and
able men, the saints reply, "We have perceived no glory anywhere
comparable with that which gleams in the Character of Christ." Oh, how
deeply was Rutherford in love with his sweet, unutterably sweet Lord
Jesus! Would to God I were as far gone as he in that heavenly union,
communion, and rapture! What expressions he uses! How deep he dips his
pen! How glowingly he writes and yet he never exaggerates. It is
impossible! Christ is too lovely for us ever to say a word that shall
approach half-way to the fullness of His unspeakable excellence and
boundless worth! Much less need we ever fear lest we shoot with a bow
that shall pass the mark. No, Beloved, our Lord's Person is the
admiration of the highest intellects that God has ever made, and though
angels have been educated in the great science of Christ Crucified
these many years, yet–

"The first-born sons of light

Desire in vain its depths to see!

They cannot reach the mystery,

The length, the breadth, the height."

Incarnate God is yet beyond them, and still, instead of being wearied
with their pursuit, they are students yet, sitting at the feet of the
Church of God that there may be made known among principalities and
powers the manifold wisdom of God! Oh, you shall never see anything so
glorious as the Person of the Beloved if your eyes are but once favored
to gaze upon Him and your heads but once permitted to lean upon His
loving bosom! Brethren, the moon is a blot, and the sun a burnt-out
coal compared with our Immanuel!

The saints see a great Glory in the sufferings of Christ. When a base
world turns away from the Despised and Rejected, it is then that the
regenerate heart clings fastest to Him. Oh, how Divinely the scarlet of
His blood becomes Him! Was ever Caesar's purple half so glorious? He is
bright in Heaven. Be You worshipped forever, Sun of our souls! But if
there is a place where, above all others, we would kiss His feet and
wash them with our tears, and love Him best of all, it is Calvary's
Cross. How our hearts burn when we think of His bearing the load of
guilt for us–groaning, sweating, bleeding and painfully yielding up
His life!

A root out of a dry ground He may be to this blind-eyed world, but to
us, Beloved, who have been admitted into the mystery of His inmost
heart–all over glorious is our precious Lord–a miracle of love, the
astonishment of earth, the marvel of Heaven, the All in All of our
souls! If there were time, we might say that He has been glorious to us
in His Resurrection, especially since He has taught us to rise with Him
in newness of life–glorious in His Ascension, now that He is sitting
at the right hand of the Father–especially now that we have been
raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Him.

He is glorious in His intercession. What a comfort it is to us to think
that our name is on one of the stones of that glorious breastplate! He
is glorious, too, in His second advent. We expect Him to come soon. It
is earth's highest hope, the Church's most fervent prayer! Come quickly
Lord Jesus! To see You we would gladly give up the sight of everything
beneath the stars. To see the King in His beauty come riding through
the streets! To behold Him with the rainbow wreath and robes of storm!
Yes, to have one glimpse of that Great White Throne, though it were but
a distance–and to hear Him say one word–was a kind of everlasting
Heaven! But for once to have seen Him! But for once to have heard Him!

It might make men content to bear a thousand trials but for once, with
heart, and eye, and soul, to drink a full draught of the Glory of
Christ. Brethren, our soul fires as we proceed, and we long to praise
and sing–

"King of kings! Let earth adore Him,

High on His exalted throne!

Fall, you nations, fall before Him,

And His righteous scepter own:

All the glory

Be to Him, and Him alone!"

But we must not stop, nor need we tarry. It is enough to have proved it
to every Christian heart, though, indeed, it needed no proof, that
Jesus Christ is the Glory of His people Israel, in the sense that they
shall glory in Him.

III. In the third place, the text is true in the sense that WE GIVE
GLORY TO HIM. Alas! Alas! It makes a Christian's blood boil to see
glory given in a professed place of worship, yes, and in a professed
Protestant Church, too, to a pack of scamps who call themselves
"priests"! I would not call them by such a name if they were honest
enough to go off to the Church of Rome, where they ought to be–but
having the impudent effrontery to attempt to palm themselves off in
this country of ours for what they are not, I know of no words bad
enough for them!

What reverence or respect is to be paid to those gentry inside those
brass gates, around the thing they call an altar? I suppose those gates
enclose a sort of holy place into which the poor laity must not go! If
these priests had their way, we should have to go down and lick the
soles of their feet as our benighted forefathers aforetimes bowed
before the hirelings of Rome! Does it not make a man feel, when you see
pictures of his holiness and the cardinals, and so on, scattering their
benedictions at the Vatican, or at St. Peter's, while admiring crowds
fall down and worship them, that it were infinitely better to bow to
Satan himself?

We give glory unto God, but not a particle of glory to anything in the
shape of a man, or an angel, either. Have I not stood and seen the
crowds by hundreds fall down and worship images and dressed-up dolls? I
have seen them worship bones and old teeth! I have seen them worship a
skeleton dressed out in modern costume–said to be the skeleton of a
saint! And I have marveled how we could, in this 19th century, find
people so infatuated as to think that such idolatry was pleasing to the
most high God! We, Brethren, the people of God who know Christ, can
give no glory to this rubbish, but turn away from it with horror! Our
glory must be given to Christ, and to Christ, alone.

Now, here is the touchstone to try your religion by. When you pray, to
whom do you pray? Through whom do you pray? When you sing, for whom is
the song meant? When you preach, to whose honor do you preach? To whom
do you intend to do service? When you go out among the poor. When you
distribute alms. When you scatter your tracts. When you talk about the
Gospel–for whom do you do all this? For, as the Lord lives, if you do
it for yourselves, or for any besides the Lord Jesus, you do not know
what the vitality of godliness is! Christ and Christ only must be the
grand Object of the Christian! The promotion of His Glory must be that
for which we are willing to live, and for which, if needs be, we would
be prepared to die.

Oh, down, down, down, with everything else–but up, up, up, with the
Cross of Christ! Down with your baptism, and your masses, and your
sacraments! Down with your priestcraft, and your rituals, and your
liturgies! Down with your fine music and your pomp, and your robes, and
your garments, and all your ceremonies! But up, up, up, with the
doctrine of the naked Cross, and the expiring Savior! Let the voice
ring throughout the whole world, "Look unto Me and live!" There is life
in a look at the Crucified One! There is life in simple confidence in
Him–but there is life nowhere else. God send to His Church an undying
passion to promote the Savior's Glory, an invincible, unconquerable
pang of desire and longing that by any means King Jesus may have His
own, and may reign throughout these realms! In this sense, then, Jesus
is and must be the Glory of His people.

IV. But there is another sense, namely, FROM JESUS IS REFLECTED ALL THE
GLORY WHICH IS PUT UPON HIS PEOPLE. Whatever glory they have–and they
have much in the eyes of angels and much honor in the eyes of
discerning men–it is always the reflection of the Savior's Glory. I
know some holy men and women for whom I cannot but feel the deepest and
keenest respect, but the reason is because they have so much of my
Master about them. I think I would travel many miles to talk with some
of them because their speech is always so full of Him and they live so
near to Him.

If you take down some of the old books of the Puritans, and others, I
know which you will love the best if you love Christ. Why, those that
talk of Him! And when you get into the middle of the chapter where some
holy man of God is extolling Him, then you will say, "He being dead yet
speaks, and speaks just that to which my ear would listen." If there
should ever be any glory about you, young man, it will have to come
through your having much of Christ in you! Believe me, the true path to
glory for a Christian is never to try to excel in literary attainments
apart from Jesus!

He may lawfully try for that in subservience to the higher aim–still,
that must not be his glory as a Christian. It never ought to be the
glory of the Christian that he is a good business man–he should be a
good business man, but still that is not to be the object of his glory.
If you make anything to be your glory except Christ, God will prepare a
worm to eat the root of it, for He will have you–if you are His, He
will have you chaste to Himself–and you shall never have anything to
glory in but Christ.

You know, Beloved, this is a trying point with many of us, for I am
afraid that sometimes we even get to glory in our ministry–and if we
do, it will be all over with our usefulness. We must glory in Jesus,
and not in our ministry, "Oh," said those disciples as they came back,
with excited hearts–"Lord, Lord, even devils are subject to us." "Ah,"
said Jesus, "Nevertheless, rejoice not in this, but rather rejoice that
your names are written in Heaven." There is the point. You must come
back to that–rejoicing in your own personal salvation through the
precious blood of Jesus Christ!

You must rejoice in Him, and then you will think thus: "Well, even if
my ministry should not prosper, though I hope it will, yet if I have
glorified Christ it shall be enough reward for me. If He is lifted one
inch higher, it does not matter if I am trod like mire in the streets.
If His dear name is but made illustrious, I will be nothing. If no one
shall ever lisp my name with approbation, then so be it! Let Your
servant be a dog and let him be buried and forgotten so long as King
Jesus wears the crown, and men cry, 'Long live the King!'"

Oh, this is the Christian's great desire–that he may win Christ! And
this it is which gives glory to him and makes him esteemed of God to
have lived with an unselfish passion for Jesus gleaming in his
breast–to have lived with so heavenly a brightness shining from his
brow, and glittering through his entire life! Thus the true glory of
every Christian is His Master's, and comes from Him.

V. But now once more. The text may be read in this sense–Christ is the
Glory of His people, that is to say, THEY EXPECT GLORY WHEN HE COMES.
"It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He
shall appear we shall be like He is." Our glory is laid up. We are not
wearing our Sunday clothes yet. All this is but the weekday garb, and
it is very dusty and commonplace. And with many, the poor body is
getting very worn out, too. You may well–

"Long for evening to undress

That you may rest with God,"

for when you wake up, what a bright suit will be ready for you! Oh,
such garments of glory and beauty that you will scarcely know
yourselves in them! You will not be like your present selves, you will
be like Christ–

"Since Jesus is mine

I'll not fear undressing,

But gladly put off this garment of clay.

To die in the Lord is a covenant blessing

Since Jesus to Glory through death led the way." When you follow Jesus
in resurrection, what glory! But we must not begin to speak of that,
for we should never leave off at all if we began to talk about that
glory–the glory of perfection, the glory of being delivered from sin,
the glory of conquest, having trod Satan under our feet! The glory of
eternal rest, the glory of infinite security, the glory of being like
Christ, the glory of being in the light and brightness of God,
standing, like Milton's angel, in the very sun itself!

If you want to know what Heaven is, you can spell it in five letters!
And when you put the five letters together they sound like this–JESUS!
That is Heaven! It is all the Heaven the angels round the Throne desire
to know. They want nothing better than this–to see His face, to behold
His Glory–and to dwell in it world without end!

VI. Thus far have we been led into many precious Truths of God–we have
now done with the doctrinal part of the text, but we must prolong our
meditation two or three minutes to speak a little upon THE PRACTICAL
DRIFT OF THE SUBJECT.

We have just two or three things to say. We would give a word of
warning to those of you who seek your glory anywhere else, because as
surely as you do so–even if you meet with honor for a time–you will
lose it. It is always ill to put your treasure where it will be stolen
from you. Now, suppose you seek your glory in your learning. Well,
well, well! Let the sexton take up your skull after you have been dead
a little while and what learning will there be in it? What show of
wisdom will be found in it when it is resolved into a little impalpable
brown powder? What will your science, and your mathematics, and your
classics do for you in death and judgment?

Suppose you seek your glory in fame, and become the favorite of the
nation as a great soldier. When the grave-digger rattles your old bones
about, what will that signify? You will have great fame, you say, and
men will talk about you. Well, will that stop the worms from eating
you? Will it give you a single moment's repose, if you are found in
Hell, to know that there are those on earth who say that you were a
famous man? Great men in Hell look very small! Great men in the pit
have to suffer as well as others–yes, they endure more of anguish
because they were so great and had so many responsibilities.

When you wake up in the Day of Judgment, you graspers of earthly honors
will get to reaching for your glory, and trying to find it, you will be
like the sleeper who dreamed that he had much gold. He was gathering it
up by handfuls, but when he woke he was in a narrow attic in the abode
of poverty, and as penniless as when he fell asleep. Ah yes, if you
seek your glory anywhere on earth you will lose it, even if for awhile
you win it.

But he who has his glory in Christ, when he opens his eyes in the next
world will see Christ, and so behold his glory safe and firmly entailed
upon Him! "There," says he, "is my treasure and I have it, have it
forever." This is security which no bolts, and iron safes, and Chubb's
locks can ever give you! Do but put your treasures into Christ and they
are all safe! Even infernal pickpockets shall not be able to take
Christ from you! If you win Christ and put your treasure in Him, you
are secure! God grant, Brothers and Sisters, that we may be wise for
eternity, for all other wisdom is but folly.

Another word, and that is a word of rebuke. There are some preachers we
know of, and I suppose there will always be some of the form, who
preach, preach, preach, but they never preach what is Israel's Glory.
They talk of anything but Christ! Oh, how often have I heard the
complaint from Christian people, "Sir, our minister is a talented man.
He is, on the whole, a sound man doctrinally and he preaches to us a
great deal about the Gospel. But oh, we wish he would preach the
Gospel, not preach about it, but preach the thing itself! O that he
would preach Christ!"

The best sermons are the sermons which are fullest of Christ! A sermon
without Christ is an awful, a horrible thing! It is an empty well! It
is a cloud without rain! It is a tree twice dead, plucked by the roots!
It is an abominable thing to give men stones for bread and scorpions
for eggs, and yet they do so who preach not Jesus! A sermon without
Christ? As well talk of a loaf of bread without any flour in it! How
can it feed the soul? Men die and perish because Christ is not there,
and yet His glorious Gospel is the easiest thing to preach, and the
sweetest thing to preach–there is variety in it, there is more
attractiveness in it than in all the world besides!

And yet so many will gad abroad and make their heads ache, and turn
over those heavy volumes to get something which shall be nothing better
than a big stone to roll at the month of the sepulcher, and shut in
Christ as though He were still dead! O Brothers, let us, if we cannot
blow the silver trumpet, blow the ram's horn–but let the blast always
be Christ, Christ, Christ! Always let us make the walls ring with the
dear name of the exalted Savior, and let us tell men that there is
salvation in no other, but that there is salvation and life for them in
Jesus–life for them now, life for every soul that looks to
Jesus–depending, alone, in Him!

Dear teachers in the school, continue always telling the children about
Jesus! Dear Friends who work in any way for the Lord's Glory, here is
your one topic! The old proverb is, "Cobbler, stick to your last," so,
Christian, "Stick to your text," and let the text be Jesus Christ! Let
no glitter or show tempt you away from that. This cool snow of
Lebanon–be not taken away to drink of the tepid streams that mock the
thirsty soul. This gold of Ophir–there is none like it–seek no other!
This is the grandest pasture to wander in–this glorious
subject–Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Let Him be preached, since HE is the
GLORY of Israel!

There are some of you to whom I have a last word to say, and that is,
some of you love Jesus Christ but you are ashamed to say so. Now, since
He is the Glory of His people Israel, I shall be afraid of you and for
you if you do not make Him your Glory. Instead of being ashamed to
confess Him and His cause, why, surely you will count it to be your
shame that you are ashamed, and you will come forward and say, "Yes, I
cast in my lot with His people. He is such a blessed Christ. I will
never turn my back on Him. If He will but have me, here I am. Put my
name down in the Church roll–by all means let me be baptized as He
was! Let me come to His Table and let me do this in remembrance of Him.
He is a dear Lord, and I should not like it to be thought that I was
ashamed of Him."

I shall not press it on you, because a word is enough for a heart that
is tender. And if you truly love Him, you will not need any drawing
forward. You will say, "Oh, may He only keep me and make me faithful. I
am all too glad to have the opportunity of saying that I am on His
side–for Him I am resolved to live, and if need be, by His Grace, for
Him I would be resolved to die."

Do not put it off, then. Come and see the elders of the Church. They
will be glad to see you upon the matter, that is to say, if you belong
to Christ. If you do not, do not profess to be what you are not! Mind
you, do not come forward and say you are Christ's if you are not! To
you who are not His, let me say, Jesus is to be had for the asking. If
you seek Him, He will be found of you. Go not to your rest tonight till
you have said, "Lord, you are the Glory of Your people. Be my Glory!
Give me Yourself! Help me to trust You." And after you have done that,
then trust Him, and God bless you, for His own name's sake. Amen.
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The Faculty Baffled, The Great Physician Successful

A Sermon