The Matchless Mystery

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones"
Ephesians 5:30.

I DO not hesitate to say that this is one of the most wonderful texts
in the whole compass of Revelation. It sets forth the mystery of
mysteries, the very pith and marrow of the loftiest divinity. It is
fitted rather to be the theme for a hundred elaborate discourses than
for one brief homily. Most assuredly it is a deep that knows no
sounding, an abyss where thought plunges into never-ending
contemplations. He who handles it had need, first of all, to be filled
with all the fullness of God. Therefore we feel incapable of dealing
with it as it should be dealt with–it is all too great and vast for
us–we can no more hope to compass it than a child can hold an ocean in
his hand.

Beloved, it is a text that must not be looked upon with the eyes of
cold, theological orthodoxy which might make us content to say, "Yes,
that is a great and important Truth," and there leave it. It is a text
to be treated as the manna was that fell from Heaven, namely, to be
tasted, to be eaten, to be digested and to be lived upon from day to
day! It is a text for the quietude of your meditation, when you can sit
still and turn it over and, like Mary, ponder it in your hearts. Long
and loving should be your gaze upon the facets of this diamond of
Truth, this diamond of Revelation.

It is a golden sentence fitted for those choice hours when the King
brings us into His banqueting house and His banner over us is love.
When the distance between earth and Heaven has become less and less,
till it scarcely exists–those undisturbed times when all is rest round
about us, because He who is our Rest enables us to lean upon His bosom
and to feel His heart of love beating true to us. I ask you, O my
Brothers and Sisters, therefore, as though you were quite alone in your
own chamber, to pray for that frame of mind which is suitable to the
subject, and to pray for me that I may be placed in that condition of
heart which shall best enable me to speak upon it. We need our thoughts
to be focused before they can reveal to us the great sight before us.
Get to the place where Mary sat at Jesus' feet and then will this text
sound like music in your ears.

Without any accompaniment of exposition from me, it will have all
Heaven's music in it–"We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of
His bones." Sevenfold will be the happiness of the spirit which knows
how to sit down and to taste of the marrow and the fatness, to drink of
the "wine on the less well-refined," which are to be found in this
Inspired declaration. Before I preach upon it, there is one thing which
it is necessary for us to do. They have a way in Scotland, before the
communion, of "fencing the table," that is to say, warning all those
who have no right to come to the table to avoid the sin of unlawful
intrusion, and so of eating and drinking condemnation unto themselves.
They help the hearers to self-examination, lest they should come
thoughtlessly and participate in that which does not belong to them.

Now, my text is like a table of communion richly loaded, and far from
you to whom it does not belong, unless you learn the sacred way of
coming in by the Door, into this sheepfold, where the pasture is so
rich and green. If you come by Christ, the Way, come and welcome! If
you rest in Him, if His dear wounds are the fountains of your life, and
if His atoning Sacrifice is your soul's only peace, come and
welcome–for of you, and such as you, and all of us who are trusting in
Jesus, it may be truly said–"We are members of His body, of His flesh,
and of His bones."

But if not Believers in Him, this heavenly verse has nothing to do with
you. It is "the children's bread." It belongs only to the children. It
is Israel's manna–it falls for Israel. It is the stream which leaps
from Israel's smitten rock and comes neither for Edom, nor for
Amalek–but only for the chosen seed, alone. Look back, then, to the
beginning of the Epistle, and see of whom the Apostle was speaking when
he said, "we." This little word, "we," is like the door of Noah's
ark–it shuts out and shuts in. Does it shut us out or in?

Now, the Apostle wrote his Epistle to those of whom he said, "Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He
has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love." Answer this question,

you who would enjoy this text–Have you made your calling and election
sure? Has that matter ever been decided in your spirit after honest
search and inquiry into the grounds of your confidence? Have you been
led to choose your God, for if so, your God had long ago chosen you!
That matter is ascertained beyond all question and out of it springs
the undoubted assurance that you are one with Him, since of all whom He
has chosen it is true–"We are members of His body, of His flesh, and
of His bones."

The Apostolic description is before you, I pray you read on–"Having
predestinated us into the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." Do you know
anything about adoption? Have you been taken out of the family of Satan
and enrolled in the family of God? Have you the Spirit of adoption in
you? Does your soul cry, "Abba, Father," at the very thought of God?
Are you an imitator of God as a dear child? Do you feel that your
nature has been renewed, so that, whereas you were a child of wrath,
even as others, you have now become a child of God? Judge, I pray you,
and discern concerning these things, for on your answer to this
question depends your condition before God, your union with Christ, or
your separateness from Him.

Note, still, the Apostle's words as you read on, "To the praise of the
glory of His Grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved."
Dear Hearer, do you know the meaning of those last words, "Accepted in
the Beloved"? You can never be accepted in yourself–you are sinful,
and undone, and unworthy–but have you come and cast yourself upon the
work, the blood and the righteousness of Jesus? Are you, therefore,
accepted, "Accepted in the Beloved"? Have you ever enjoyed a sense of
acceptance so that you could draw near to God, as no longer a servant
beneath the curse, but a son beneath the blessing? If so, come and
welcome to the text! It is all your own!

But note the next verse–"In whom we have redemption through His
blood." Oh, dear Brothers and Sisters, do you know the blood? I do not
care what else you know if you do not know the blood. Nor do I much
mind what else you do not know. You may differ very widely in doctrine
from some of the Truths of God which I think I have learned from the
Word of God, but do you know the blood? Were you ever washed in it?
Have you seen it sprinkled overhead and on the side posts of the house
where you dwell, so that the destroying angel passes you by? Is the
blood of Christ the lifeblood of your hope? God save me from preaching,
and you from believing in a bloodless theology! It is a dead theology!
Take Christ away, take the Atonement by a substitutionary Sacrifice
away–and what is there left? But, oh, if we in very deed have
redemption through His blood, then we are "members of His body, of His
flesh, and of His bones."

The Apostle adds, "The forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of
His Grace." And here, again, I press home the question upon the
consciences of the members of this Church, and upon the members of
every professing Church of Christ–Have you tasted forgiveness? Have
you felt the burden of sin? Have you gone with that burden to the foot
of the Cross? Has the Heavenly Father ever said to you, "Your sins are
forgiven you"? Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins, and that in
reference to yourselves? Oh, do not be satisfied unless you do! Do not
be put off with a bare hope that perhaps your sin is forgiven you, but
struggle after that blessed full assurance which is able to say–

"Oh, how sweet to view the flowing Of my Savior's precious blood, With
Divine assurance knowing He has made my peace with God!" And if you do
know, possess and enjoy the forgiveness of sins, then are you "members
of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones."

Oh, how this last sentence concerning pardon and rich Grace seems to
cheer my soul! If none might come but those who never sinned, my guilty
soul could never venture near the Lord! If none might come but those
who have committed little sin, then I must be debarred. But it is "the
forgiveness of sins" on a grand scale! Let me read the words–"The
forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His Grace." So it is
great forgiveness, the forgiveness of great sin, because of great love.
O beloved Hearer, great sinner as you have been, yet if you are
"accepted in the Beloved," and have "redemption through His blood,"
then all that is in the text belongs to you!

So I will keep you waiting in the vestibule no longer, but set the door
wide open, saying, "Come in, you blessed of the Lord. Why do you stand
outside?" I pray the Holy Spirit to help you come in to this high
festival, give you a sacred appetite and enable you, now, to appreciate
the extraordinary sweetness of the words before us! First, I shall try
and expound–and it must be but feebly what the text means and,
secondly, what the text secures.

I. First, WHAT DOES THE TEXT MEAN? "We are members of His body, of His
flesh, and of His bones." Read it in the light of the second chapter of
the book of Genesis, for it is evident that there is a distinct
allusion to the creation of before. The very words of Adam are quoted
and we are mentally conducted to that scene in the Garden of Eden when
the first man gazed upon the first woman, created to be his dear
companion and helpmeet. What did Adam mean when he used these words?
The great Husband of our souls must mean the same, only in a more
spiritual and emphatic sense.

First, there was meant here similarity of nature. Adam looked at Eve
and he did not regard her as a stranger, as some creature of a
different genus and nature, but he said, "She is bone of my bones, and
flesh of my flesh." He meant that she was of the same race, a
participant in the same nature. He recognized her as a being of the
same order as himself. Now, that is a low meaning of the text, but it
is one meaning.

Beloved Brethren, think of this Truth for a moment. Jesus, the Son of
God, counted it not robbery to be equal with God. "Without Him was not
anything made that was made." He is "very God of very God." Yet He
deigned, for love of us, to take upon Himself our nature, and He did it
completely, so that He assumed the whole of human nature, apart from
its sin. And in that respect we may say of ourselves–that we are "bone
of His bone, and flesh of His flesh." The very nature which we wear on
earth, Christ Jesus once carried about among us, and at last carried
aloft to Heaven. You believe in His Godhead–take heed never to
commingle His Godhead and His humanity. Remember, Christ was not a
deified man, neither was He a humanized God.

He was perfectly God, and at the same time perfectly Man, made like
unto His brethren in all things. Dwell for a moment upon this Truth of
God, for the text sets it forth. Born of a human mother and swaddled
like any other child, He was, from His birth, as perfectly human even
as you are. In nothing did He differ from you except in this, that He
never wandered from God and broke His Commandments, and He was not
defiled with that hereditary taint of Original Sin which dwells in you
by nature. The like depressions–those which sadden your spirit–He
knew. The temptations of our nature assailed Him. Men and devils both
sought to influence Him. He was amenable to all the external physical
arrangements of the globe.

On Him the shower pelted down and wet His garments. And on Him the
burning sun poured forth its undiminished heat. Upon His sacred Person
on the lone mountainside, the dews descended till His head was wet with
them, and His locks with the drops of the night. For Him there were
poverty, hunger, thirst, reproach, slanders and treachery. For Him the
sea tossed the boat as it will for you. And for Him the land yielded
thorn and thistle, as it does to you. He suffered, He ate, He toiled,
He rested, He wept and He rejoiced, even as you do, sin, alone,
excepted. A real kinsman was He, not in fiction, but in substantial
reality. Are you man? Jesus was a Man! Do not doubt it. Do not look at
your Lord as standing up there on a pinnacle of superior nature where
you cannot come near Him, but view Him as your own flesh and blood, "a
Brother born for adversity."

For so he is. He comes to you and says, "Handle Me and see. A spirit
has not flesh and bones as you see I have." He invites your faith to
look at the prints of the nails and the scar of the spear. Did He not,
after He had risen from the dead, prove His true humanity by eating a
piece of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb? And that same humanity has
gone to Heaven! The clouds received it out of our sight, but it is
there–

"A Man there was, a real Man, Who once on Calvary died; And streams of
blood and water ran Down from His wounded side."

That same blest Man exalted sits high on His Father's throne. Believe
this, and you will see how He is bone of your bone, and flesh of your
flesh. And then remember that, as His Nature is as yours, so, in
another sense, He has made your nature as His, for you are born-again
and gifted with a higher life. You were carnal–He has now made you
spiritual. You could not drink of His cup, or be baptized with His
baptism till His Spirit had come upon you.

But now you are made "partakers of the Divine Nature"–strong words,
but Scriptural–"partakers of the Divine Nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust." "For as you have borne
the image of the earthy Adam, you shall also bear the image of the
heavenly." Now, you, as spiritual men, cry out to God in prayer, and so
did He when He was here. Now you are in an agony as you strive with God
and so was He, but the bloody sweat is a part of His substitutionary
work in which He trod the winepress alone. His meat and drink was to do
the will of Him that sent

Him, and it is yours, I trust–at any rate, it should be if you are
your Lord's. He lived for God. He lived and died for love of men. And
that same love of God and man, though in a feebler measure, burns
within your heart.

You are, therefore, now made, by His Grace, to participate in His moral
and spiritual Nature, and you will never be satisfied till you awake in
His likeness. And you will awake in His likeness, so that when He sees
you and you see Him, then it shall be abundantly manifest to you that
you are a member "of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones"–

"Such was Your Grace, that for our sake

You did from Heaven come do wn.

You did of flesh and blood partake,

In all our sorro ws one.

Ascended now, in glory bright,

Still ours with us You are.

Nor life, nor death, nor depth, nor height.

Your saints and You can part.

Oh, teach us, Lord, to know and own

This wondrous mystery,

That You with us are truly one,

And we are one with Thee!

Soon, soon shall come that glorious day,

When, seated on Your Throne,

You shall to wondering worlds display,

That you with us are one!" Similarity of Nature, then, is the first
meaning of the text.

Regard, I pray you, Brothers and Sisters, with much solemn attention, a
higher step of the ladder. It signifies intimate relationship, for I
hardly think that Adam would have said quite so strongly, "She is bone
of my bones, and flesh of my flesh," if he had thought that the woman
would disappear, or would become the wife of another. It was because
she was to be his helpmeet and they were to be joined together in bonds
of the most intimate communion, that, therefore, he said, "Not only is
she of the same bone and flesh as I am, but she is bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh. She is related to me." What a near and dear and
loving relationship marriage has bestowed upon us! It is a blessing for
which good men dwelling with affectionate wives praise God every day
they live.

Marriage and the Sabbath are the two choice gifts of primeval love that
have come down to us from Paradise–the one to bless our outer and the
other our inner life. Oh, the joy, the true, pure, elevated peace and
joy which many of us have received through that divinely ordained
relationship! We cannot but bless God every time we repeat the dear
names of those who are now parts of ourselves. Marriage creates a
relationship which ends only when death parts us. Only then may it may
be dissolved. Alas, sin enters even here! A dark crime may be
committed, but, with the exception of that, it is for life–for better,
for worse–only the mortal stroke can part.

Now think of it. As is your relation, O woman, to your husband, and as
is your relation, O man, to your wife, such is the relation which
exists between you, as a believer in Jesus, and Christ Jesus your Lord!
It is the nearest, dearest, closest, most intense and most enduring
relationship that can be imagined. I love and bless God, forever
declaring that His relationship to us may be likened to that of a
father or a mother to a child. Did you ever hear those words without
tears–(I think I never did)–"Can a woman forget her sucking child,
that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they
may forget, yet will I not forget you."

And yet there is a closer intimacy, somehow, in the relationship which
is declared in the text, because there is a kind of equality between
the married ones, tempered by that headship of which the Apostle speaks
and which we delight to recognize in our beloved Lord towards
ourselves. The child cannot, while it is yet a babe, at any rate, enter
into its mother's feelings. It is far below the mother. But the wife
communes with her husband–she is lifted up to his level! She is made a
partaker of his cares and sorrows, of his joys and his successes, and
the intimacy arising out of their conjugal union is of the closest
kind.

Now–again I say it, and I cannot open it up further than to say
it–such is the relationship between the Believer's soul and the Lord
Jesus. Well did the spouse break out with the rapturous language, which
forms the first word of the song–"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of
His mouth, for His love is better than wine," as if she did not need to
describe

her relationship, but longed to enjoy the sweets of it. My Brothers and
Sisters, I pray you may so enjoy it, that now, if you are poor in this
world, if you are an orphan, if you are almost alone in this great
city, you may feel, "No longer am I an orphan, no longer am I alone. My
Maker is my Husband. The Lord of Hosts is His name, and my Redeemer,
the Mighty One of Israel. And from this day forth will I rejoice that I
am bone of His bones, and flesh of His flesh." Similarity of Nature and
closeness of relationship are evidently in the text.

But I clearly see another and deeper meaning. It meant, from Adam's
lips, mysterious extraction. I will not make bold to say that he knew
what had occurred to him in his sleep. He might not have known all, but
he seems to have had a mystic enlightenment which made him guess what
had occurred–at least the words seem to me to have that ring in them.
"She is bone of my bones"–for a bone had been taken from him, "and
flesh of my flesh," for out of him had she been taken. He seems to have
known that somehow or other she sprang from him. Whether he knew it or
not, Christ knows right well the origin of His spouse! He knows where
His Church came from. There is still the mark in His side– there is
the memorial in the palms of His hands and on His feet.

From where came this new Eve, this new mother of all living? From where
came this spouse of the second Adam? She came of the second Adam. She
was taken from His side, right near His heart. Have you never read,
"Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone;
but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit"? Had Jesus never died, He
would have been made to abide alone as to any who could be helpmeets
for Him, and could enter into fellowship with Him. But, inasmuch as He
has died, He has brought forth much fruit and His Church has sprung
from Him. And in that sense she is bone of His bones, and flesh of His
flesh.

"What do I mean by the Church?" asks one. I mean by the Church all the
people of God, all the redeemed, all Believers, as I explained at the
commencement. Do you think I mean by the Church the harlot of the seven
hills? God forbid that Christ should have fellowship with her! How can
He so much as look upon her except with horror? Do you think He means,
by the Church, the politically supported corporation that men call a
Church nowadays? No, but the spiritual, the quickened, the living, the
believing, the holy people–wherever they may be–or by whatever name
they may be called. These are they that sprang of Christ, even as Levi
from the loins of Abraham. They live because they receive life from Him
and at this day they are dead in themselves–and their life is hid with
Christ in God. So the text leads us to a deep meditation as to
mysterious extraction.

But I find the time goes too swiftly for me and I must observe, next,
that I am sure that in the text there is more than this. There is, in
the fourth place, loving possession. He said, "She is bone of my bones,
and flesh of my flesh." He felt she was his own and belonged solely to
him. Of anything there might be in the Garden, Adam was but owner in
the second degree. But when he saw her, he felt she was all his own. By
bonds and ties which did not admit of dispute, his bone and his flesh
was she. Now, Beloved, at this moment let this thought dance through
your soul–you belong to Jesus– altogether you belong to Jesus! Let
not your love go forth to earthly things, so soiled and dim, but send
it all away, up to Him to whom you belong–yes, send it all to Him.

"Set not your affection upon things on the earth," but set it all upon
things above, for you belong wholly to your Lord. All that there is of
your spirit, soul and body–the treble kingdom of your nature–Christ
has purchased by His blood. It were a dark thought to cross a man's
mind, that his spouse belonged in part to some other. It could not be!
And will you provoke your Lord to jealousy? Will you suffer it to seem
so by your actions or your words? No, rather say tonight, anew–

"'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.

High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow,

That vow renewed shall daily hear,

Till in life's latest hour I bow,

And bless in death a bond so dear." "For you are not your own, you are
bought with a price." "We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of
His bones." We belong entirely to Him.

And to close this exposition–this skimming of the surface,
rather–there is one more matter and this is the very essence of the
meaning. A vital union exists between us and Christ. When the Apostle
wrote, showing that we were one with Christ, as the wife is with the
husband, he felt that the metaphor, though it set forth much, did not
set forth all. He would have us know that we are more closely knit to
Jesus than is a woman to her husband, for they are, after all, separate
individualities, and they may act and too often do so, far too
distinctly for themselves. But here he puts it, "We are members of His
body." Now, here is a vital union, the closest imaginable! It is not
unity–it is identity! It is more than being joined to–it is being
made a part of–and an essential part of the whole!

Do you think I strain the text and go beyond the fact? Listen to this
word. The Apostle, in speaking of the Church, said, concerning Christ,
that the Church was His body, "the fullness of Him that fills all in
all." And note the majesty of that speech–that the Church should be
the fullness of Christ! Now, Christ, without His fullness, is evidently
not full– He must have His people–they are essential to Him. The idea
of a Savior is lost, apart from the saved. He is a head without a body
if there are no members. Without His people Jesus is but a king without
subjects, and a shepherd without a flock. It is essential to any true
thought of Christ that you think of His people! They must come in. They
are one with Him in every true view of Jesus Christ our Lord.

How are we one with Him? Ah, Brothers and Sisters, much might be said,
but I fear little would be explained by words. I want you to feel it
and to be comforted by the fact of the vital union of Jesus and His
people. Have you never heard Him say to you–

"I feel in My heart all your sighs and your groans,

For you are most near Me, My flesh and My bones.

In all your distresses, your Head feels the pain,

They all are most necessary, not one is in vain"? Oh, do get to know
this, you tried and tempted ones, you poor poverty-stricken people of
God! Get to know this, you who could not help coming here tonight, wet
as it was, because you must have spiritual meat, you were so hungry
after your Lord! Oh, do get this morsel now, and feed on it! You are
one with Him! You were "buried in Him in baptism unto death," wherein
also you have risen with Him! You were crucified with Him upon the
Cross! You have gone up into Heaven with Him, for He has raised us up
together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. And surely you shall be actually in your very person with Him
where He is, that you may behold His Glory! You are one with

Him!

Now, tie up these five Truths of God like five choice flowers in a
nosegay. Band them, like sweet spices, and let them be a bundle of
camphire and a cluster of myrrh to lie all night upon your bosom to
give you rest and to sweeten your repose. There is between you and your
Lord a similarity of Nature and an intimate relationship! You have a
mysterious extraction from Him and He has a loving possession of
you–and a vital union with you. Come, now, we must only have a few
minutes to catch some of the juice that will flow out of these clusters
of Eshcol while we tread them for a moment, just to show what the wines
of the kingdom are like.

II. WHAT DOES THE TEXT SECURE? First, it seems to me, that the text
secures the eternal safety of everyone who is one with Christ. You know
the figure we often use, that when a man's head is above water you
cannot drown his feet–and as long as my Head is in Glory, though I am
but the sole of His foot–and only worthy to be trod in the mire, how
can He drown me? Is it not written, "Because I live you shall live
also"–all of you who are one with Him? The idea of Christ losing
members of His body is to me grotesque and at the same time ghastly.
Does He change His members like some aquatic creatures which lose their
limbs and get fresh joints? I know it is not so with Christ, the second
Adam! Will He lose His members? Can He lose one member? NO! Then can He
lose all?–

"Ifever it should come to pass That sheep of Christ could fall away, My
fickle, feeble soul, alas, Would fall a thousand times a day."

But herein lies our safety–"I give unto My sheep eternal life, and
they shall never perish; neither shall any pluck them out of My hand."
I know that some have perverted this blessed Truth of God into the
wicked lie that the Christian man may live as he likes and yet be safe.
No such doctrine is to be found between the covers of this Book! The
doctrine of the safety of the saints is far other than that! It is that
the renewed man shall live as God likes, shall persevere in holiness

and hold on his way until he arrives at the blessed perfection of his
Lord, changing from glory to glory into that image which he shall reach
and possess forever. I see–I pity those who do not see it, but I will
not blame–I see, I think, strong reason for believing in the security
of every soul which is one with Christ.

But, next, I see here a very sweet thought. If I am one with Christ,
then I certainly enjoy, above all things, His love. Last Saturday week,
in the evening, I was trying to turn over this text to preach to you
from it in the morning, but I was wrung with bitter pains which made me
feel that I should not preach, and kept me wearily waiting through the
night watches. But do you know what comforted me very much about the
text? It was that sentence which is a near neighbor of it–"No man ever
yet hated his own flesh." I seized upon that and my sad heart cried
out, "Surely the Man Christ Jesus never yet hated His own flesh." If we
are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, He may
chasten, He may correct and lay on heavy strokes, and give sharp
twinges, and make us cry out–He may even thrust us in the fire, and
heat the furnace seven times hotter–but He never can neglect and abhor
His own flesh!

There is still love in His heart. I hate no part of my body, not even
when it aches. I hate it not, but love it still–it is a part of
myself–and so does Jesus love His people. And you, poor Sinners, who
feel that you are not worthy to be called His people, nevertheless His
love goes out to you, despite your imperfections. Having loved His own,
which were in the world, He loved them to the end and He has left it on
record–"As My Father has loved Me, even so have I loved you. Continue
you in My love."

Another most enchanting thought also arises from our subject. The
Apostle goes on to say, "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but
nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord of the Church." Oh, those
two words, "nourishes it." Are you living in a district where you do
not get the Gospel? Well, then, go to the Gospel's Lord and say to Him,
"Lord, hate not Your own flesh, but nourish me." Have you been for a
while without visits from Christ? Have you lost the light of His
countenance? Do not be satisfied with nourishing–go further and plead
for cherishing! Ask for those love tokens, for those gentle words, for
those secret blandishments known to saints, and to none but saints,
for, "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and He will
show them His Covenant." Go and ask for both these forms of love and
you shall be nourished and cherished!

The good husband does not merely bring so much bread and meat into the
house and fling it down, saying, "There, that will nourish you." Oh,
not so–there are tender words and kind acts by which he cherishes as
well as nourishes. And your Lord will not only give you bread to eat
which the world knows not of, but He will give it to you according to
His lovingkindness and the multitude of His tender mercies, for He
makes us to lie down in green pastures, He leads us beside the still
waters, gently guiding as a shepherd conducts his flock. Rejoice, then,
that your nourishing and your cherishing are secure!

I will not keep you longer when I have said this much. If we are
members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, then He will one
day present us to Himself, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such
thing," for the whole body must be so presented. Alas, our spots are
many, and sadly mar our beauty! Brothers and Sisters, I love not to
think little of my spots. I wish I had not even a speck. Alas, our
wrinkles! Let us not talk lightly of them. It is most sad that on the
Beloved's darling there should be a solitary blot. It is the worst
wrinkle of all when a man does not see his own wrinkles, or when he
does not mourn over them. But there are spots and wrinkles. I hope we
do not say, "Yes, they are there," and then add, "And they must be
there." No, Beloved, they ought not to be there–there ought to be no
sin in us.

If there is a sin which ought to be upon us, why it is clear it is no
sin! A thing that ought to be is not a sin. If we served our Master as
He deserves to be served, we should never sin, but our lives would be
perfect. Therefore it is our daily burden that the spots and wrinkles
still will show–but this is our consolation–that He will one day
present us to Himself, holy and without blemish, "not having spot or
wrinkle, or any such thing."–

"Oh, glorious hour, oh, blest abode; I shall be near, and like my God.
Nor spot nor wrinkle shall remain, His perfect image to profane."

It will be a blessed thing, indeed, to have attained to this, to wear
the image of the heavenly and be perfect even as our Bridegroom is
perfect.

Then, remember, all the glory Christ has we shall share in. You cannot
honor a warrior who returns from the wars, and say to him, "Great
general, we honor your head." Oh, no, he who fought his country's
battles and won the victory,

when he was honored was altogether honored as a man. And when the
Master, at the last, shall have finished all His work and the whole
battle that He undertook is finished and the victory gained. When He
enters perfectly into His joy, we, too, shall enter into the joy of our
Lord! Does He sit upon a throne? He has said we shall sit upon His
Throne. Has He triumphed? We shall bear the palm branch, too. Whatever
He has, we shall share. Are we not heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus
Christ? My soul feels ready to leap right away from this body at the
thought of the glory that shall be revealed in us–not in Paul and
Peter only, but in us!

Poor things, poor things, that struggle hard each day with infirmities
and trials, you shall be with Him where He is, and shall behold His
Glory forever! So shall we ever be with the Lord. Comfort one another
with these words."–

"Since Christ and we are one,

Why should we doubt or fear?

If He in Heaven has fixed His Throne,

He'll fix His members there."

In this spirit come to the Communion Table and find your Master there!
But oh, if you are not resting in Him. If the blood was never upon you,
you are condemned already because you have not believed on the Son of
God! I pray that your bed may be cold and hard as a stone to you
tonight and your eyes may forget to sleep–and your heart may know no
rest till you have said–"I will arise, and go to my Father, and will
say unto Him, Father, I have sinned." Then take with you Jesus as a
Mediator and draw near to the Throne of Grace! Plead His blood and
merits, and you shall live! And then you, too, shall be able to join
with the saints who say, "We are members of His body, of His flesh, and
of His bones." Amen. Amen.

PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Genesis 2:18;
Ephesians5:22-33. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–761, 762.

A MESSAGE:

I have revised this sermon at Cannes, to which place I have come for
health. I am happy to inform all friends that I am already much better.
The influences of a warm, sunny climate and rest from great labor are
being blessed by Infinite Mercy to my restoration. I commend the work I
am obliged to leave to the prayers of God's people and I desire, also,
to thank numerous friends for their substantial help to the College and
Orphanage, so that I am not tempted to be anxious about funds for these
at a time when ease of mind is especially desirable. With this I send
most loving salutations to all my readers. May the Lord send to our
beloved land a great revival of true religion.

C. H. SPURGEON.
__________________________________________________________________