The Unwearied Runner

The Unwearied Runner

A sermon

(No. 876)

Delivered on Thursday Evening, APRIL 15, 1869, by

C.H.SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"They shall run and not be weary."- Isaiah 40:31.

Being the Annual Sermon of the Young Men's Association in Aid of the
Baptist Missionary Society.

BEING asked to address myself upon this occasion principally to young
people, it occurred to me that running was the young man's pace, the
motion of the strong man who in his earliest days rejoices in the race.
It is not often that running is taken up by those who are compelled to
lean upon a staff, for in the feebler and more mature years of age a
quiet pace most accords with the man's ability and best beseems his
gravity. When the steeds which draw life's chariot first commence their
journey they fly before the wind in excess of rigor–but as they close
their course they find it all that they can do to walk steadily to the
goal.

To the older Christian, incitements to zeal may be necessary, but to
the young I need offer no exhortations to quicken their pace. With
overflowing strength and buoyant spirits, the danger is not that young
men should not run, but that they should run amiss, or that they should
attempt to run in the right road in their own strength. My text speaks
of running and commends it. No, it promises as a blessing that those of
whom it speaks shall run, but then it describes a character as well as
gives a promise.

There is a chosen band who shall run and not be weary, but these are
not those who run in their own strength, as if the Lord took pleasure
in the legs of a man or in the energies of unsanctified nature. The
untiring runners are described as being such as wait upon the Lord, and
so renew their strength. Tonight you are full of energy, my Brothers,
and you are resolved to make your lives real and sublime. You have high
ambitions within your spirits and far be it from me to repress them.
But let me whisper in your ear a word of caution, for if those
ambitions should be directed to a wrong object, your life will be a
miserable failure.

Or even if you should seek the right thing–yes, seek God Himself–if
you go about to serve Him without asking the aid of His Holy Spirit,
sure and sorrowful decline will come upon you before long. You shall
either become a miserable apostate from that which your heart is set
upon, or else you will maintain a hollow name to live while you are
dead in the sight of God. May God grant a blessing, this evening, and
while we meditate upon the energetic spiritual life described as
"running," may we have Divine Grace to learn how to run in a right
fashion.

I shall speak tonight, first of all, of the running. Then a word or two
by way of commendation of running. Then thirdly, the runner's
attire–he waits upon the Lord. And, lastly, the runner's staff–he has
the promise that he shall not be weary.

I. First, then, THE RUNNING. There are different paces among the Lord's
servants–Ahimaaz is swifter than Cushi and John outruns Peter–but he
who, by faith, has truly entered upon the road to Heaven, though his
march is slow and limping, shall nevertheless ultimately reach his
journey's end. Scores of timid Believers creep towards Heaven as the
snail crept into the ark and yet, being chosen of God in Christ Jesus,
they are safe. However, my Brothers, there is no reason why you should
imitate these slowly-moving pilgrims.

If Mephibosheth is lame in both his feet, it is not desirable that you
should imitate his limp. Respect for his infirmity must not be made
into an excuse for your own sluggishness. Many walk with sacred dignity
and consistency in the path of right. Would God their number were
multiplied a thousand fold! Walking will always be the general and
usual pace of the great host of God's elect–but there are a few chosen
men whose hearts have been specially touched–who have learned to
outstrip their fellows in their advances towards God and in their zeal
for His service. These are the mighties in

the hosts of the Son of David–the flower of the Church militant! They
are, under God, the strength and hope of the good cause.

These are runners rather than walkers. Asahels light of foot as young
roes, swifter than eagles, stronger than lions, filled with the Holy
Spirit and very zealous for the Lord of Hosts. I should say of this
running, in the first place, if I must describe it, that running is the
pace of energy. There are men in this world who never do anything with
energy, who never under any circumstances throw force into anything
they have to do. They walk over the sands of life with a light foot and
make no impression. While others, as they tread the pathway which God
has allotted for them, take care to bring down their feet with such
firmness of purpose and fixedness of resolve that they leave behind
them, "footprints on the sands of time," which shall be seen by others
after many days.

The puffball is the emblem of many a forceless life. See yonder man
with a hammer in his hand–he touches the heads of the nails right
daintily, as if he were afraid to hurt them! See another, how heartily
he drives them in and gives them yet another blow to clench them and
make all sure. Too many play at work, but the earnest man means work
when he is working and throws his heart into it. It is dreadful to see
some men at their ordinary occupation–I cannot call it labor, one drop
of their perspiration must be a very costly thing–as rare as a pearl
of the first water. But others throw their soul into whatever they have
to do and not only strike while the iron is hot, but make the iron hot
by striking. They do not wait for opportunities, but accept the present
event as an opportunity. They work with both hands and make the anvil
ring again with the music of their hearty blows.

Now, in the service of God we are bound to fulfill our work with the
utmost degree of vigor. If the Lord's work is worth doing, it is worth
doing well! And as the service of Christ is the highest in which any
man can be engaged, the Master ought to be served with body, soul and
spirit. All that is within us should bless His holy name. We should
keep our spiritual faculties strained up to the highest possible
tension, that all the strength we have may be fully given to Him. Let
us serve Christ with all the ability we have–how little it is compared
with His work for us! Shall He be put off with our dregs and our
dreaming? If we were to live always at the topmost bent of zeal. If we
should put on high pressure and should work for Christ to the highest
point of spiritual energy yet exhibited by mortal man, yet should we
give but a faint return for that agony and bloody sweat, that Cross and
passion which have opened the kingdom of Heaven for us!

By running, then, I understand an energetic spiritual life, a life on
fire. And I pray that many of us may have Grace in this sense to run
the race which is set before us. The ideal I would form of the
Christian man raised up to do his Master good service is that of Elijah
when he girded up his loins and ran before the chariot of Ahab. Hale
old man, see how nimbly he flies along that dusty road! See with what
ardent enthusiasm he dashes forward to reach the shelter so soon to be
needed, for his faith expects that speedily the heavens, which have
gathered blackness, will pour down the needed rain. Be it yours and
mine to outstrip the energy of this world and so to run in our Master's
ways as to prove that the servants of Christ can render Him more loyal
and devoted service than princes win from their favorites and
flatterers. Like Gabriel, may we be made to fly very swiftly. Like all
the angels of God, may we be as flames of fire.

Running is a pace which indicates fullness of willingness. If your
servant has an errand to do for you and he creeps along the road, it is
probably because he is unwilling. But if he is thoroughly willing, he
is usually forward and quick in all his movements. When Abraham saw the
three men, strangers, passing by his tent, he said to them, "Turn in,
my Lord," and he ran and fetched a calf and killed it–the Patriarch
showing, by quickening his pace, how welcome they were. When Eleazer
came to the well, we find that Rebekah ran and hastened to draw water
for him and for the camels– her readiness to do an act of kindness was
indicated by the pace which she used. When young Samuel thought that
Eli called him by night, he arose and we read he ran to Eli and said,
"Here am I, for you did call me."

Now, there ought, in the service of our God, always to be a holy
promptness and alacrity. I dare say you have noticed in the Gospel
according to Mark, how Mark uses about our Lord so often the words,
"straightway," and, "immediately." Mark's is the Gospel descriptive of
Christ as a Servant and it is one of the attributes of a good servant
that he is prompt at once to do his lord's bidding. Our blessed Savior
straightway did whatever He had undertaken to do. We ought to be ready
in the Master's service and to say at once, without hesitation, "Here
am I, send me." Foul scorn is it that soldiers of the Cross should ever
require to be flogged to the battle as the Persian monarch's slaves in
the days of the invasion of Greece.

Every man among us should be as David, who ran forward to the giant,
eager for the fray, or as Elisha, who left the oxen and ran after
Elijah, or as Philip, who ran to meet the chariot of the Ethiopian. O
to abide like a ship waiting for orders, with the steam ready, sailors
on board, anchor drawn up–only waiting for orders to put out to sea,
directly, wherever the great High Admiral of the seas may bid us steer!
May the Holy Spirit enable us to wait with our eyes upwards to our
great Master as the eyes of handmaidens are to their mistress–and make
us quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord, so that the moment
we receive the Divine message, our will and ability move spontaneously
in cheerful effort. Gird up your loins, young men, you that have the
love of God in you! Brace up your loins tonight and pray God to teach
you to run–to run, first, with energy and next with sacred forwardness
and eagerness–so run that you may obtain. So run that the great cloud
of witnesses may applaud. So run that the King may say, "You did run

well."

In the third place, to run is to be diligent. We should hardly call
that running in which a man starts and stops and starts and stops
again. In some Christian works we are painfully conscious that the
persons undertaking them, if they ever run, run only for a very short
time. Indeed, they do not seem even to have got up to that pace for a
time. Alas, for the poor Sunday school teaching that is so wretchedly
common. Much of the teaching is a very slovenly make-believe. If it
were paid for, smallest coin of the realm might represent its value.

And, oh, the preaching that we sometimes hear–droning, cold, lifeless,
sleepy, wretched! The preacher does not seem to have any idea that he
should deliver himself with force, life and energy. How very common is
the humdrum! It is deadly preaching, more fitted to send souls to sleep
than to startle them out of their dreams. Would God we had not all of
us to accuse ourselves of this in a measure. We dally over our work. We
do it superficially. We plow our acre, but it is mere scratching of the
topsoil–we do not plow deep. We cover a surface, but we do not perform
the work well. If we had such slovenly servants in our houses as God
has in His, we should discharge them all. It is infinite mercy, only,
that has allowed some of us to remain servants of the Lord at all.

We have need to turn to Him and say: "O Master, teach us to be more
diligent. We beseech You, quicken us in Your ways. Help us no longer to
crawl and creep upon Your errands, but to quicken our pace and run,
putting heart and soul into all that we do. Lead us to persevere in
Your fear, not running with, now and then, a spasm of zeal, but with a
constant, sacred persistency–a stern and solemn devotion to the work
which You have entrusted to our care." You have need of patience.
Patient continuance in well-doing is crowned. He that runs to the goal
alone is rewarded.

Running, further, in the fourth place, indicates thorough-going hearty
zeal. It must have been a noble spectacle to have seen Aaron when the
plague broke out among the people, rushing for his censer, putting on
the holy fire and the sacred incense and running in between the living
and the dead, that the plague might be stopped. He could not have had
the honor of being the priest to stand in the gap in the hour of sudden
wrath if he had not learned how to run. I suppose he was, at that time,
from 120 to 130 years of age–but how nimbly he bestirred himself! The
thought of saving his plague-stricken countrymen put new life into the
venerable man.

O Sirs, if anything could make a man run, it should be the fact that
men are dying–dying without Christ, dying in their sins–to die
eternally and perish without hope! Beloved, it is a marvel that we are
not more zealous than we are! We who believe in death and judgment to
come, and in Hell and in the casting away of the impenitent–how is it
we can be so calculating, indifferent, pitiless? How is it we can walk
so leisurely when humanity demands that we run? While time runs and
never ceases and the sun, the great master and marker of our time, like
a giant coming out of his chamber delights to run his race–how is it
that with so much work before us for our Master, we dare to loiter as
if we were gentlemen at ease?

Christ is dishonored by our heartlessness! The Gospel is derided
through our indifference and souls are lost by our sloth! Sound an
alarm in Zion! Blow the trumpet in Gibeah, that all the servants of the
Lord bestir themselves, for the day of battle is come and the swift and
the strong are summoned to the fray! These four notes may suffice to
indicate what the running is. I look upon the runner in the road to
Heaven as one who has received the inner spiritual life in its highest
degree. Luther called it, I think, a second conversion. It is a great
thing when a man is not only saved from the sins of the world, but is
also saved from the ordinary slothfulness of common Christians–when,
to use Apostolic words–he saves himself, by God's Grace, from this
untoward generation.

There is a salvation that God alone can work. There is another
salvation which He bids us work when He says– "Save yourselves from
this generation"–when, by God's Holy Spirit, we strive to rise out of
the lethargy and coldness in which the most of Christians are plunged.
There are some who have the Divine Spirit so resting upon them that
they could not be negligent in the Master's work as others are. For
them the chill hand of charity must be exchanged for a far more fervid
grasp. For them the occasional feeble prayer must give way to long
wrestlings with the angel–for they have learned that there is
something higher to live for than domestic comfort and personal
aggrandizement. They have learned to live for Christ in the spirit of
the Apostle, who counted not his life dear unto him.

And they labor to imitate the language and the spirit of him who said,
"It is My meat and My drink to do the will of Him that sent Me and to
finish His work." Would God that the young men now present and the
young men of all our Churches, were, by God's Grace, made to be
runners!

II. Secondly and very briefly, I shall COMMEND THE RUNNING. Running is
most commendable, because it is a warming pace. In the depth of winter
when a man runs, he seldom complains of the cold. The largest fire of
Christmas logs that one can pile upon the hearth will not warm a man so
thoroughly as the exertion of running. And the comforts of the Gospel
and the Doctrines of Grace do not put men in such a comfortable frame
of mind as active exertions in the Master's cause. Give me two
Christians, both truly converted to God, one of them a constant hearer
of the Word and a delighter in the sweet things of the Gospel, but not
a worker–and then show me another who hears the Word and loves it, but
who besides that is a diligent worker for his Master and I will,
without a moment's hesitation, tell you which is the happier man of the
two!

The first man, the mere hearer, a consistently moral man and so on, but
not a diligent servant of the Lord Jesus, will gradually demand more
and more from his minister of comfortable preaching, because he will
grow more and more selfish, more and more doubting, and more and more
unhappy. But the man who, loving the Truth and feeding on it,
nevertheless works for the conversion of others, is the man to whom the
Lord ministers secret springs of consolation which make his heart glad.
In watering others, his own soul is watered. If there are any
Christians here who are troubled with doubts, and fears and
despondencies and spiritual indigestion in general, let them ask
themselves whether, if they instructed the ignorant, fed the poor and
cheered the down-trod, they would not find in such a course the way to
the most effectual remedy!

Let them resort to the Good Physician and among His Divine
prescriptions will be this–"Quicken your spiritual pace. Throw more
energy into what you are doing in My cause and the comforts of the Holy
Spirit shall abound towards you in a greater measure." Running is a
warming pace.

In the next place, running is a pace that clears the ground. The more
slowly a traveler goes, the more likely will he be to notice the rough
places on the way, but when he has quickened his pace, difficulties
pass away rapidly. He has cleared that rough piece of shrub on the
common. He has leaped that ditch. He has passed that muddy lane. He has
climbed that hill. He has descended that valley–while he has been
running he has not had time to notice the road–he has been looking
towards the finish.

In our more leisurely spiritual life, when the lamp burns dimly and
love is cold, we fret over a thousand little things and trouble
ourselves about difficulties which would not be difficulties at all if
we had more Divine Grace. If we did but run we should leap over troops
of obstacles, but as we walk, or creep, or crawl, we discover hundreds
of hardships, concerning which we pipe our mournful ditties and hang
our harps of joy upon the willows. Pshaw! You have been alarmed,
because a fool laughed at you? What must you be yourself? Do you think
Anne Askew would have been thus alarmed when she could sit on the floor
of her dungeon for two hours together, after they had racked her and
stretched every bone from its fellow, and argue with the Popish priests
like a heroine though ready to faint and die from pain?

You tell me a deacon has thrown cold water upon your efforts? Cold
water! Does that discourage you? Are you in a fluster about that? What
would you have done if, like old Latimer, you had been called to take
off your garments some cold morning in Smithfield and to be warmed
after an awful fashion–by standing on a stake to play the man and
light up a candle for your God? The pity that some people sigh for on
account of their petty persecutions and troubles–it is a shame to ask
and a waste to give. Cannot we suffer for Christ? If we cannot, it must
be because we are not runners and scarcely walkers–our spiritual
strength must be low and our life unhealthy. O for more love and more
faith and more spiritual vigor in our constitutions, and then we shall
clear half our difficulties at a running leap and scarcely call them

other than light afflictions which are but for a moment and are not
worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us!

Running, in the next place, is to be commended because it is a cheering
pace. While a man advances hesitatingly and leisurely to face a
difficulty, doubts and fears have time to work. But when he comes
forward at a run, he has not time to be dispirited. It was good policy
on David's part to run when he fought with the giant. He threw his
stone at Goliath and when the giant fell he ran to finish the monster
at once. Why, the lad might have said, "The giant may only have been
stunned a little. He will be up again. I had better keep out of the way
of that huge arm. Dying bulls gore terribly." But David gave himself no
time to conjure up such thoughts as those–he ran and stood on the
giant and drew his sword and cut off his head.

Courage maintains itself by its running, as some birds rest on the
wing. There is an energy about agility that will often give a man a
fortitude which otherwise he might not have possessed. I can understand
the gallant regiment at Balaclava riding into the valley of death, but
I could scarcely imagine their marching slowly up to the guns, coolly
calculating all the deadly odds of the adventure! When the Lord gives
His servants Divine Grace to follow out their convictions as soon as
they feel them, then they act courageously. First thoughts are best in
the service of God. Second thoughts often come up timorously and
limpingly and incite us to make provision for the flesh. There is
nothing like a running pace, for by it courage may be maintained in our
Lord and Master's cause.

Running, moreover, is the winning pace. "So run that you may obtain."
If we are ever to win the crown, it will certainly not be by loitering,
but by running with all our might. We are not saved by works–we are
saved by the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, alone–but yet,
being saved, by a work within us we work out our own salvation into our
outer lives. Men do not ride to Heaven in carriages. They are not
carried there in ambulances. But they toil like pilgrims, and they do
not come to their journey's end through sluggishness, but through
energy. The righteous scarcely are saved. If we would win a crown that
shall sparkle and shine with many jewels of precious souls whom we have
brought to Christ, we shall not win such a crown by being
negligent–but it will be by putting out all our God-given strength and
living with all our might in our Master's service.

Running, again, is a fitting pace for a Believer. Jesus Christ deserves
that we should run for Him. He has done so much for us that we ought to
spend and be spent in His service. For men who have so short a time to
live. For men to whom such solemn interests are entrusted. For men who
are so indebted to their best Friend. For men who have so long a time
before them in which to rest, even forever and ever. For men who expect
so bright a reward, there ought to be no arguments needed to urge them
to run with diligence the race that is set before them! I am persuaded
that those Christians to whom God has given Grace to live highly
diligent, spiritual, useful lives, would, if their humility would
permit them, tell you that they have found themselves far above other
men in the point of happiness than they were before they fell in love
with "life in earnest."

To live in God's fear at a low rate is sorrowful work, but to live for
God a high and self-denying life–to live in the light of His
Countenance, to lean one's head on Christ's bosom, to live in
singleness of consecration and with fervor of purpose and devotedness
of heart–this is to live, as it were, like Milton's angel, in the very
midst of the sun, never lacking for life and heat and light–because
dwelling near to God and existing alone for God, in the power of His
might! Young men, I commend to you the pace, and I pray for you that
you may gird up your loins and maintain this, your running from now on,
until you reach your journey's end.

III. The third meditation concerns THE RUNNER'S ATTIRE. "They that wait
upon the Lord shall run and not be weary." What is it to "wait upon the
Lord"? This is the essence of the running, evidently. They shall not be
weary, but all others shall. It is a very sorrowful thing that, under
many ministries, which we cannot but admire in other aspects, hundreds
are led to start on a sort of running which very soon comes to an end.
When I hear it said of such-and-such preachers that they have many
converts for a time, but that few of these can be found after a month
or two, I am grieved that there should be so much truth in the
statement, but I am not at all surprised.

You can go into your garden and see tens of thousands of buds upon the
trees in the month of April and yet, in the autumn you shall not find
more than one apple for every thousand blossoms. This being the case,
is the gardener disappointed? Does he not count the one apple a good
percentage on the amount of flowers? Suppose there is but one
apple–perhaps there had not been that one if there had not been the
thousand blooms. No one expects every bloom to

become a fruit and we cannot expect everyone who is impressed under our
ministry to become really a living child of God. We are thankful for
the bud because of the hope it gives–but we do not reckon every flower
to become a lasting fruit.

Let us enquire who they are that last and do not grow weary! They are
those that wait upon the Lord, and I take it that to wait upon the Lord
is, first, to yield yourselves, by God's grace, to be His servant. He
is likely to hold on, who is entirely given up to the Lord's work, and
waits on Him as servants wait on their mistress. Some men have never
realized that a saved child of God is, from the moment he is saved, a
servant of God. They talk of being saved and then they serve self. They
speak about–

"I do believe, I will believe That Jesus died for me,"

and then they live in the world as if making money, or bringing up a
family, or indulging in pleasure were to be the object of a saved
sinner's life! Why, my dear Friend, if Christ has saved you, you belong
to Him–every hair of your head belongs to Him–and your business is
from this day to feel, "Now, Lord, I give myself up to You and from
this day forth every day and every hour of the day, I desire to study
Your interest, to do Your business, to promote Your honor and to bring
Your Gospel fresh renown."

If you do this, by God's Grace, you shall run and not be weary. But if
you join a Christian Church because you were a little excited and
thought you were converted, and if you still live a selfish life,
seeking your own comfort and not the Glory of God, you will grow weary
of religion and very soon you will give it up and you will go back to
the world from where you professed to have come. If you do not in heart
and soul belong to the Redeemer, you will be like the mixed multitude
who went into the wilderness with Israel–who sighed after Egypt
because they had the taste of the leeks and the garlic and the onions
in their mouths. You must be a consecrated servant of God, or you will
never keep up the running so as to win the crown.

To wait on the Lord means, in the next place, to go to Him for all your
strength, to be entirely dependent upon the spiritual power which comes
from the Holy Spirit and not at all upon the power which you fancy
dwells within yourselves. All the strength that there is in any man by
nature is perfect weakness as to spiritual things. I like the saying of
a man who declared to his minister that God had done His part in his
salvation and he had done the rest. "Well," said his minister, "What
part did you do?" "Why," said the poor man, "God did it all and I stood
in His way." That is about all that you and I shall ever do in our own
strength! Human strength only opposes the work of Grace until the
Divine strength comes in and sweeps our human strength away and finds
in our perfect weakness a reservoir into which the strength of God may
pour itself, to fill us with the fullness of God.

Dear Friends, if there is anything you are persuaded you can do and do
well without God, I would advise you to cease from it, because it must
be in vain. No blessing can rest on it. If any man here imagines that
he can preach a Gospel sermon without the help of the Holy Spirit, he
had better not try. If there is any man here who thinks he can live a
holy life without the constant help of God's Spirit, he will make a
very unholy life of it. Yes, and if you say, "Well, at least in one
point I can take care of myself–I would never be a drunkard. I could
never lie–I cannot bear those two sins. I would never fall into them
under any circumstances."

Look out! Mischief is ahead! That very point which you think you may
leave unprotected is that in which the enemy will break in to your
destruction. Where you are strong, you are weak and where you are weak,
you are strong. They that wait upon the Lord and draw all their power
and Grace from Him shall never grow weary in their sacred running.
Whatever strain your exertions for Christ may make upon your spiritual
strength, if you go to God for more, you shall have your power renewed
day by day. If you are called to high and lofty enterprises far beyond
your strength–if you have faith enough to go onward in the name of
God, leaning upon His promise and believing that His mighty arm will
not fail you–you shall rejoice in Divine all-sufficiency. And the more
you lean on it, the more you shall feel it your pleasure and your
wealth to be independent of all but God.

The more you dare for God, the more easy you will find it to dare
something yet beyond. The more often you can, like Peter, tread upon
the waves of the sea, trusting in the invisible God, the more easily
shall you be able to perform the same exploit yet again. O Christian
man, never think you can trust God too much! Never think that faith can
go too far! Shun self-confidence, dread the self-reliance which some
cry up as a virtue, but which is to the spiritual life the vice most

to be dreaded of all. Our description of waiting upon the Lord is not
complete unless we add to it the expectancy of hope. He that would
renew his strength in his running must be looking for fresh supplies
from the eternal fountains. You have the promise of it–expect that you
will have the fulfillment of the promise.

We often have not from God because we do not believe God. Some bank
bills require the signature of the person for whom they are drawn and
they would not be payable at the bank, though regularly signed, unless
countersigned by the person to whom they are due. Now many of the
Lord's promises are drawn in like fashion. Armed with such promises,
you go to the bank of prayer and you ask to have them fulfilled–but
your petitions are not granted because they need to be countersigned by
the belief of your faith in them. And when God has given you Divine
Grace to believe His promise, then shall you see the fulfillment of it
with your eyes.

Alas, we are poor and miserable when we might be clothed in scarlet and
fine linen! It is our unbelief that makes us poor. We are bowed down
with infirmities and are lame and halt and I know not what besides and
all because we have not confidence in God, though we know He cannot
lie, and though we are sure He never did, nor can, fail the soul that
puts its trust in Him. O for a higher spiritual life! Where must it
begin but in a deeper confidence in God and in a fuller expectation of
the fulfillment of His promise? O young men, and to this I think I may
call the fathers and the matrons, too, let us ask the Lord, who gave us
first the germ of faith, to increase our faith, that from this time
forward we may wait at the posts of His doors expecting that His mercy
will enrich us. Let us abide patiently at the foot of Jacob's ladder,
expecting that the angels will bring us down the blessings which our
prayers have sought through Jesus Christ!

Thus, with the three things put together–singleness of eye in serving
God, simplicity of dependence upon the Divine power and constant
expectation that the power will be given–we shall wait upon the Lord,
and we shall run and not be weary.

IV. So I close with the last point, THE RUNNER'S STAFF. The runner's
consolation lies in this promise, that he shall not be weary. Weariness
in the way to Heaven is not at all an uncommon trial. Some of us can
say that we are not weary of God's work, although we often grow weary
in it. It were easy to complete the Christian life if it consisted in
half-a-dozen acts of piety and then all were over. But to stand and
having done all. To stand to bear the wear and tear of daily
temptation. To be roasted, as it were, before the slow fire of constant
trials from inward sins and Satanic suggestions. Above all, to pass
through that horrible land called the Enchanted Ground and to feel the
sleepiness that comes over you there. To keep awake in a sluggish body
and to continue persevering against flesh and blood for 20, 30, 40, 50,
60 years, perhaps–why this is a thing impossible to flesh and blood!

It is only possible to God and only as God gives us Grace shall we be
able to achieve it. To keep up the running pace through life is an
impossibility of impossibilities except much Grace is given–and we
have, virtually, the promise that it shall be given when we are told
that we shall not be weary! How is it that running Christians do not
become weary? Answer, first, because they have daily strength given
them for all their daily needs. They would be worn out if they had
nothing more to rely upon than the first portion they received. God
does not allot us a stock of Grace to draw from, and when that is
exhausted award us another measure. But as "day by day the manna fell,"
so hour by hour fresh Grace streams into our souls!

We are lights, but we are not like the candle that burns supported by
its own fat–we are like these gas-lamps–once cut the communication
between the jet and the gas meter and at once the light is gone. We
only live by fresh communications from the Great Fountainhead of all
spiritual life! And no runner can weary while fresh strength is given.
He is not weary because as he advances he finds fresh matter to
interest him. I heard a gentleman, yesterday, say that he could walk
any number of miles when the scenery was good. But, he added, "When it
is flat and uninteresting, how one tires!" What scenery it is through
which the Christian man walks–the towering mountains of
predestination, the great sea of Providence, the mighty cliffs of
Divine promise, the green fields of Divine Grace, the river that makes
glad the city of God–oh, what scenery surrounds the Christian and what
fresh discoveries he makes at every step!

The Bible is always a new book. If you want a novel, read your Bible.
It is always new. There is not a stale page in the Word of God–it is
just as fresh as though the ink were not yet dry but had flowed today
from the pen of Inspiration. There have been poets whose sayings
startled all England when first their verses were thrown broadcast over
the land, but nobody reads their writings now. Yet the pages that were
written by David and by Paul are glowing with the radiant Glory which
was upon them when long ago the Holy Spirit spoke by them. As we
advance in the King's highway of

righteousness, there are such fresh things in the Christian's
experience and in Christian truth that we run and are not weary.

Above all, there is one fact that keeps the Christian from weariness,
namely, that he looks to the end, to the recompense of the reward. He
longs for the resurrection and he hears the voice that cries,
"Therefore, be you steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." When
travelers sail near to certain spice islands, they can tell their
nearness to the gardens of perfume by the odors wafted to them on the
winds. Even so, as the Christian runner advances nearer to Heaven, he
enjoys new delights such as celestial spirits rejoice to experience. In
proportion as he draws nearer and nearer, the perfume from the many
mansions, from the garments of Christ who dwells there and whose
garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia–that perfume, I say,
comes to him and it quickens his pace. The body may be waxing feeble,
but the soul is growing strong. The tabernacle may be falling, but the
sacred priestly soul within carries on its devotion with greater zest.
So, when you would think that the pilgrim's soul must faint, he grows
vigorous! When he sinks to the earth, he stretches out his hand and
grasps his crown!

I wish I could speak tonight as I desired to do, but I scarcely find
ability equal to my task. As God's Holy Spirit speaks by us according
as He wills, I submit to deliver myself feebly, if He so permits. Let
me conclude with these three or four sentences. If there is any Brother
in Christ here who was once a runner, but has begun to slacken his
pace, let him beware! It is a business which goes on much faster than
we think. I question, my Brother, whether there is an easy stopping
place in a downhill life. If you do a little less, you will do still
less. If you backslide by little and by little, you shall backslide
into a terrible fall.

Keep the pace up, Brother, by the Grace of God, and on your knees
tonight. If you have begun to grow cold and chilled, pray Him who
washed you years ago in His precious blood, to take you afresh and
baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire, that from this time forward
you may serve Him better than you ever did in the best part of your
previous life. If there is another here who never has served Christ at
all, let me ask him, how will he answer the Master in the day when He
comes? You have never trusted in Christ? You have never reposed your
confidence in Him? How will you face the King when He sits on His
Throne, after having rejected Him here, when in loving tones He said,
"Come unto Me and I will give you rest"?

You who love not Christ, O that you might be brought to trust Him, and
to love Him. And you who love Him, may you love Him better and run and
not be weary and walk and not faint–and God's shall be the Glory and
yours the comfort. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–2 Corinthians 5