Idols Found Wanting, But Jehovah Found Faithful

Idols Found Wanting, But Jehovah Found Faithful

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, DECEMBER 9, 1888,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, DELIVERED ON THURSDAY
EVENING, SEPT. 27, 1888.

"Belbows down, Nebo stoops, theiridols were upon the beasts and upon
the cattle:your carriages were heavyloaded. They are a burden to the
weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together. They could not deliver
the burden but themselves are gone into captivity. Hearken unto Me, O
house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are
borne by Me from the belly, which are carried from the womb. And even
to your old age I am He. And even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I
have made and I will bear. Even I will carry and will deliver you."
Isaiah 46:1-4.

THE confidence of Babylon is buried among her heaps of rubbish for her
gods have fallen from their thrones. "Bel bows down, Nebo stoops." As
for us, Beloved, our trust is in the living God who lives to bear and
carry His chosen, even in Jehovah, the only true Lord. We begin our
spiritual life by faith in Him, for till faith comes we have no power
to become the sons of God. Our spiritual life will have to be continued
in the same way of trust in the Lord, "for the just shall live by
faith."

We live by faith upon the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for
us. We rejoice that we shall never have to change our confidence, for
our God will never be carried into captivity, nor torn from His Throne.
Our faith is built upon a rock that can never be moved. Nothing in the
past has shaken the foundation of our faith. Nothing in the present can
move it. Nothing in the future will undermine it. Whatever may occur in
the ages to come, there will always be good reason for believing in
Jehovah and His faithful Word.

The great Truths which He has revealed will never be disproved. The
great promises He has made will never be retracted. The great purposes
He has devised will never be abandoned. So long as we live, so long
shall we have a refuge, a hope, a confidence, that can never be
removed–

"His sovereign mercy knows no end, His faithfulness shall still endure;
And those who on His Word depend Shall find His Word forever sure."

That part of our text which says, "Even to your old age I am He. And
even to hoar hairs will I carry you," may seem to be a promise made to
old age. So, indeed, it is. Many a hoary saint has made a soft pillow
of this precious promise and has rested upon it with delight in the
days of his decay. But yet the text, if it is rightly read, is a
promise to the people of God at any and every period between their
birth and their death. While the Lord does say that He will carry us to
hoar hairs, yet He begins by telling us that He has carried us from the
womb and that He will carry us still. All tenses meet in these
verses–"Hearken, O house of Jacob, which are borne by Me; which are
carried from the womb. Even to your old age I am He. I have made and I
will bear. Even I will carry and will deliver you."

The Lord is good to us in all tenses and in all ways. We shall not,
alone, consider in our discourse the mercy of God to those who are near
the end of their pilgrimage but that same mercy to His people
throughout their wilderness journey–from the day when they first ate
of the Paschal Lamb and left Egypt–even to that hour when the Jordan
was dried up and they took possession of the land which flows with milk
and honey. Our experimental dealings with God make us

know that He is our gracious Helper from the first to the last. When we
begin with the Alpha of our life's spelling, we find Him good. And when
we come to the Omega and faintly pronounce the last letter of life, we
know still better how gracious He is. Bel and Nebo disappoint their
votaries but Jehovah is our God forever and ever and He will be our
guide even unto death.

I. I shall begin my sermon by calling your attention, first, to the
background, which is placed behind the brilliant promise which is
herein given to the Lord's people.

Observe that FALSE CONFIDENCES PASS AWAY. The Lord has made a full end
of false gods and their worship. "Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their
idols were upon the beasts and upon the cattle: your carriages were
heavy loaded: they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they
bow down together. They could not deliver the burden but themselves are
gone into captivity." Bel and Nebo were two great gods of Babylon. You
get the name of Bel in the name of king Belshazzar. And the name of
Nebo in the name of Nebuchadnezzar.

They were esteemed to be such great deities that their kings were named
after them and professed to be their servants. Bel and Nebo stood
supreme in Babylon. The Babylonian empire which served these deities
was so strong as to be invincible–it carried its cruel sword into all
nations and piled up the dead bodies of men in heaps–it was,
therefore, dreaded in every part of the world. And not without cause.
What kingdom or empire could stand against it? If you had gone to
Babylon and seen its mighty walls, its lofty towers, its engines of
war, its wonders of art, its multitudes of heroes, you would have
thought that the worship of Bel would endure forever and that the image
of Nebo would stand there to be adored of mortals as long as the world
existed.

But these idols–always a mere deceit–proved themselves powerless in
the day of trial. Cyrus came, the Euphrates was dried up, the empire of
Babylon ended and the gods were discredited for all ages. In the ruin
of Babylon the gods became a prey. The golden images, themselves, were
too precious to be left standing in Babylon and too little venerated to
be treated with respect. They were taken off to Persia as spoil and
became a burden to the weary beasts. Huge images of less costly
material were dragged down with ropes, dashed in pieces, or buried
beneath heaps of ruins.

Ah me, what a melancholy fate for things which were called gods, and
received the reverence of great nations! Even in these latter days, we
have had an illustration of "Bel bows down and Nebo stoops," when Mr.
Layard went to the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh and dragged out those
huge bulls, which stand today in the British Museum–objects of our
curiosity but certainly not of our worship. "Bel bows down, Nebo
stoops." The false gods that reigned supreme over so many myriads of
men were made contemptible. The Prophet cries, "They stoop, they bow
down together, they could not deliver the burden but themselves have
gone into captivity."

Not only concerning Bel and Nebo but concerning many a set of heathen
deities, a note of exultant derision may be taken up. "The idols He
shall utterly abolish." As potters' vessels are broken, so are the gods
of the heathen ground into dust and treated as nothing. The like thing
has happened unto false systems of teaching. They have risen and they
have dominated over the minds of men–but, like Bel and Nebo–they have
tottered and fallen. They seemed to be established beyond all hope of
confutation and overthrow, and yet they have passed away!

If you are at all readers of the history of religious thought, you will
know that systems of philosophy and philosophical religions have come
up and have been generally accepted as indisputable and have done
serious injury to true religion for a time. And yet they have vanished
like the mirage of the desert. When at their best, they have
withered–the grass has flowered, the flower has come to its full and
has fallen beneath the scythe. The gourds have come up in a night and
have perished in a night. Even those of us who are not aged, yet
remember two or three different forms of philosophical Divinity which
preceded this new dreaming, which is just now so loudly cried up.

Many modern thoughts have come up and have gone down again. Bel has
bowed down and Nebo has stooped. The boastful "thinkers" carried up
their elaborate systems into their places with great labor and then
they carried them away again and buried them with equal labor. What
philosophers prove one year, philosophers disprove another year. We,
old-fashioned Christians, have remained unchanged in our fidelity to
the revealed Truth of God and we have seen Bel go up and Bel go down,
and Nebo go up and Nebo go down. Yes, we have seen rubbish venerated as
a precious thing and before long the precious thing carted away as so
much lumber.

Like a child's merry-go-round at a fair, heresy is a revolution of the
old things over and over again. Yet people think it new. The present
idols of the mind are just as worthless as those of former times. The
god of modern thought is a mon-

key. If those who believed in evolution said their prayers rightly,
they would begin them with, "Our Father, which are up a tree." Did they
not all come from a monkey, according to their own statement? They came
by "development," from the basest of material and they do not belie
their original. If you are not well acquainted with this new Gospel, I
would not advise you to be acquainted with it. It is a sheer clear
waste of time to know anything about it at all.

The moderns are able to believe anything except their Bibles. They
credulously receive any statement, so long as it is not in the
Scriptures. But if it is founded on Scripture, they are, of course,
prepared to doubt and quibble straight away. The credulity of the new
theologians is as amazing as their skepticism. But we shall see the
monkey-god go down yet and evolution will be ridiculed as it deserves
to be. The philosophy of the present, whose aim is to get rid of God,
has nothing to support it in fact or in nature. It will fly as chaff
before the wind and in fifty years nobody will own that he ever thought
of believing it.

The new religion will be regarded as a craze, an emanation from bedlam.
And every man will be ashamed to think that he stopped to hear or read
anything about it. So idiotic is it from beginning to end that it will
become a standing jest for ages to come, a proverb and a byword to
mankind. Bel bows down, Nebo stoops already. And, as the Lord Jehovah
lives, the whole of this thing, which has been so cunningly and
carefully devised to dethrone Him and cast down His Gospel, shall be
had in derision. These new gods, newly come up, shall not deliver
themselves, or their worshippers any more than did the idols of
Babylon.

But now, Beloved, it will be just the same with us if we trust in false
confidences of any sort–for instance, our experiences, or our
attainments, or our services, or our orthodox belief, or anything else.
If we set up any confidences apart from our God, we shall soon see the
end of them. Imagine that any Christian here should be so foolish as to
rely upon his own works. God forbid we should! What an airy nothing our
confidence would be! Before long that Bel would bow down and that Nebo
would stoop, for the hope would be too flimsy to bear the least weight.

Or, if we should begin to rely upon our own enjoyments–if frames and
feelings should become our confidence–all would come down and our
boast would become our burden, our glory our shame. "Bel bows down,
Nebo stoops"– sooner or later this will be the end of all false
trusts. Placing confidence in our inward feelings is like building upon
a bog, or leaning upon a rush, or feeding upon wind. The idols of our
feeling are like the mud gods of India–they are utterly worthless and
they turn to mere clay almost as soon as they are formed. If in our
daily life we look to an arm of flesh, or practice self-reliance
instead of God-reliance, or if we trust to friends instead of leaning
upon the one great Invisible, we shall yet learn with tears the terror
of that sentence, "Cursed is he that trusts in man, and makes flesh his
arm."

"Bel bows down, Nebo stoops"–anything that you make your confidence,
instead of God, will fail to bear your burden and will itself become a
burden to you. Instead of its carrying you, you will have to carry it.
Instead of its taking your load, it will increase your load and become
at last an intolerable curse. "Little children, keep yourselves from

idols."

Beloved in the Lord, think not that this is an unnecessary warning,
even for you, for you may as easily set up an idol in your heart as
other men may set up a false system of philosophy, or an idol god.
Guard against setting up a rival trust to rob the Lord of even a small
part of your confidence. "My Soul, wait you only upon God. For my
expectation is from Him." None but Jesus is the ground of
salvation–none but the Eternal God is the disposer of Providence.
Trust wholly in Him who loves to be trusted. Let us lean upon our God
with all our weight and lean nowhere else.

If we put our confidence elsewhere, our idolatry will come home to us
and we shall hear the voice of disappointment, wailing bitterly, "Bel
bows down, Nebo stoops: your carriages were heavy loaded. They are a
burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together."

II. Let that stand as the black cloud on which God will paint his
bright rainbow, while I notice in the second place, that OUR GOD ABIDES
ALWAYS THE SAME. "Even to your old age I am He." He is always the same
in Himself and always the same to His people. If you are, indeed, a
Believer in the Lord and resting in Christ Jesus, He says to you at
this time with regard to all the future unknown and, perhaps greatly
dreaded, "Be not afraid, for I am the Lord your God. Even to your old
age I am He."

Dear Friends, we rightly expect trials between here and Heaven. And the
ordinary wear and tear of life, even if life should not be clouded by
an extreme trial, will gradually wear us out. We shall come, by-and-by,
if life is spared, to that

bottom of the hill where the eye grows dim and the ear is heavy and the
arms are trembling and the strong men bow themselves. Well, what then?
What says our God concerning the days of decline and decay? He says to
us, "I AM HE." He will not grow weak. His eye will not be dim. His ear
will not be heavy. His arm will not be shortened that He cannot help
us, nor His hand palsied that He cannot deliver us. Change is written
across the countenance of every mortal but there are no furrows on the
brow of the Eternal.

If life should flow ever so smoothly, yet there are the rapids of old
age and the broken waters of infirmity and the waterfall of disease.
And these we are apt to dread. But why? Is not the Lord our trust? Is
it not sure that the Lord changes not? Make this your strong
confidence. As for you, you youths, you are strong, but boast not of
your strength. The Lord Jehovah is our strength and our song. As for
you in the midst of life–tremble not because of your difficulties–"is
anything too hard for the Lord?" As for you that are sinking into the
decline of life and know that very soon your tabernacle will be taken
down, be not afraid, for the Lord has not altered. Has he not said, "I
am the Lord, I change not"?

Let this be your delight. In the course of years, not only do we change
but our circumstances change. Many look forward to trying circumstances
in the declining days of life. "When I cannot earn my livelihood. When
I cannot go out to the farm, or stand at the counter, or work on the
bench, what will become of me then?" Hearken, my Brother, if you are
where you ought to be, your confidence is in God now–and you will have
the same God then–and He will still be your guardian and provider. He
will be under no decay from age, nor decline from weakness. His bank
will not break, nor his treasury fail. His granary will not be
exhausted and His bounty will not be worn out.

Trust in Him for that which is written between the folded leaves of
destiny, as well as for the page which lies open before you. If the
infirmities of the body scare you, trust Him. And if the changing
circumstances of your life alarm you, trust Him. For He must be the
same though Heaven and earth should be dissolved. He says, "Even to
your old age I am He." "Ah," you say, "but what I most mourn is the
death of friends." Yes. That calamity is a daily sorrow to men who are
getting into years. A new-made grave is with us every day. How many of
those whom I dearly loved are now with

God?

When we near sixty, or pass onward towards seventy, we lament the
multitude of dear Friends that have fallen like the innumerable leaves
of autumn. Some of us have now more friends in Heaven than we have on
earth. The best are going, still going–the messengers with heavy
tidings follow close upon each other's heels. One of these days we
think that some friend will cry, "Only I am left." Ah, yes, but the
Lord says, "I AM HE," as much as to say, "I am left to you and will not
fail you." Jehovah dies not but still abides the same. If you have only
viewed your friends as loans from Him– but Himself as your ultimate
confidence–then you have acted wisely. When your friends are gone, you
have not lost the source of all your strength and help and
comfort–therefore, be not afraid–for the Lord says, "Even to your old
age I am He."

Some trouble themselves more than there is need concerning prophetic
crises which are threatened. One would think from their perpetual
alarms that the Prophets wrote to afflict us rather than to comfort us.
"Oh, what shall I do," says one, "if there should be wars and rumors of
wars and earthquakes in different places, and so forth?" What would you
wish to do but trust in the Lord even as you do now? I know some good
people who are much distressed with political prospects, with the
evident tokens of social disorder, with the increasing tendency to
break up everything and with the stealthy progress of the superstition
of Rome.

Well, you may sit and look out of your windows till you see nothing but
clouds and darkness, for fancy and fear together can fashion out of
clouds monsters and portents and alarms. We know so little of the
future that to worry about it will be the height of folly. Our view of
the near future may be incorrect–why fret over that which will never
happen? Certainly, we only see part of the Lord's ways. And if we could
see the whole we should most probably rejoice where now we grieve. Why,
then, are we cast down? The Lord Himself says to us, "Even to your old
age I am He."

In our days of palsy, Jehovah trembles not. The Lord took care of the
world before we were here to help Him and He will do it just as well
when we are gone. We can leave politics, religion, trade, morals, and
everything else with Him. What we have to do is to obey Him and trust
Him and rejoice in Him and go on our way rejoicing. He knows the end
from the beginning and will not allow the flood of human iniquity to
swell beyond the control of His supreme will. His purpose shall stand
and He will do all His pleasure. Not even to the extent of the small
dust of the balance shall the event vary from the decree, or the decree
vary from the rule of unmingled love.

"Still," says one, "there are such evil tokens in the Church itself as
must cause serious apprehension to godly men." Yes, I know it. I have
had to know it to my personal sorrow. The Church grows old–gray hairs
are upon her here and there and she knows it not. But never despair of
the Church of God, for of her it is true, "Even to hoar hairs will I
carry you. To your old age I am He." The Head of the Church never
alters. His choice of His Church is not reversed. His purpose for His
Church is not shaken. The Holy Spirit, as indwelling in the Church, has
not returned to His rest. He still abides in His Church and works
mightily.

Beloved, fear not. We shall see better days and brighter times yet, if
we have but faith in God and importunity in prayer. Let us not be
afraid, though clouds should come, for it is written, "Behold He comes
with clouds." God is the same–there is the cornerstone of our comfort.
If you are depending upon anything or any person beside your God, woe
unto you! "Oh," you say, "I used to hear a dear old minister in my
early days. But I find none like him now. He has gone home. And I feel
as if I could cry, 'My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the
horsemen thereof!' " I could make some of you weep if I were to go
through the list of those holy men who fed you with food convenient for
you in your younger days.

Their very names are like music to our ears and honey in our mouth.
Remember Joseph Irons and Harrington Evans and Watts Wilkinson and
Rowland Hill and men of that order? Where are the teachers and fathers
now? But then the point is, the God of these saints is not dead. The
Great Shepherd of Israel still lives and He leads us still and feeds us
still and guards us still. And He will guard His flock and guide His
flock–till He makes us to lie down in the green pastures on the
hilltops of Glory. Oh, let us bless and praise His name tonight, that
He gives us this rich comfort, "I am He." Jehovah, eternally the same,
is the Rock of our salvation.

III. And now, thirdly, I want to call your attention, in the words
before us, to the fact that while false confidences pass away, GOD WILL
FOREVER BE THE SAME. His former mercies guarantee to us future mercies.
Read the passage before us–He says, "I have made and I will bear. Even
I will carry, and will deliver you."

First, you see, He says, "I have made." The Lord, who is your helper is
He that created you–you certainly could not have created yourself. It
is well to remember the mercy of God to us in our formation and in the
first days of our birth and infancy. David was not ashamed to say to
his God, "You are He that took me out of the womb." The Lord gave us
birth, or we had never seen the light. When we were born, we could not
help ourselves in the least degree. Poor helpless, shiftless
creatures–all we could do was to cry! We shall never again be so weak
as we were at our birth. Great decrepitude may fall upon us but we
shall never be so little, so feeble, so puling, so dependent as we were
when we could not speak and make known our wants, except by a cry.

We were entirely dependent upon others for everything. We were quite
helpless and yet we survived. We did not starve then. Yet for years we
never earned a crust. We did not want for clothing then. And yet we
could not have fingered a needle if we had been offered a thousand
pounds. We were taken care of then, and surely God will take care of us
for all the rest of our lives. We have been nursed through our first
childhood and we shall be nurtured through our second childhood, should
it come upon us. We know very little, indeed, about those first three
or four years, yet the Lord fed us and led us and here we are in proof
of it.

Therefore, when He says, "I have made," He takes us back to those early
days and makes us feel that He that made us to grow and gave us one by
one the powers of manhood, will not leave us to molder away in old age,
nor to break up like a wreck upon the rocks of disease. But think,
Beloved! God made us in another sense. He made us new. Blessed is the
man that has been twice born and thus twice made! The Lord God has made
us new creatures in Christ Jesus. He has made us to be His children–we
have been "begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead."

If He has done all this, He does not intend to leave us till He has
finished the work of Divine Grace with power. A statue thinks nothing
of the man that made it. But the man who has fashioned a thing of
beauty of that sort takes a great interest in his handiwork. You that
are made do not take such interest in your Maker as your Maker takes in
you. "I have made," says He, "I have made." What He has done to you, in
making you anew, should breathe into your heart the conviction that He
will do yet more for you. That is, if there is a true heart in the
world, God made it and thinks of it–if there is a true Church in the
world, God made it and keeps it.

Every Church that is a Church in the Scriptural sense, God has gathered
to Himself. And of it He says, "I have made." He called the people out
and knit them together and built them up as a house for Himself to
dwell in. If He has

made either heart or Church, He will keep it–He will not forsake the
work of His own hands. He has used both thought and skill and has
exercised both power and care for it and He will not desert that which
has cost Him dearly. God's past mercy in the making of us encourages us
to believe that He will put forth all His might to bear us on even to
the end.

And then, He also tells us, in the next place, that He has carried us.
And if we have been carried by Him, He will carry us the rest of the
way. There is a quaint saying of Bishop Hall that God has a very large
family and not one of His children can run alone. In a certain sense,
that is true. You know what an armful you have when you have two or
three children that cannot run alone. What a great care has our
gracious God since none of His children can run alone without His
power, His love, His Grace! The Lord has to carry everyone of us every
moment of our lives. The beginning of a Christian's life is very like
the latter part of it!

As to the natural man, we begin with being carried, and if we live long
enough, we have to end with being carried. So, with the spiritual
man–we begin with a simple trust–and as we grow in Divine Grace, we
feel more and more our own weakness and come a second time to a trust
as simple as at first. But whether we have one childhood or fifty
childhoods, here is a Father who is ready to carry us, from the first
even to the last. "I have made and I will bear. Even to hoar hairs will
I carry you." Of this I am convinced, God will not begin to make and
carry us and then leave the work unfinished. It shall never be said of
Him that He began to build and was not able to finish.

God will not redeem us with the blood of His Son and then lose us. He
will not suffer Calvary to become a mistake and the Cross to be
frustrated in its Divine purpose. God will not prepare us for Heaven
and prepare Heaven for us and not bring us there. He will not store up
the blessings of the Covenant and then refuse to bestow them, or cast
off those for whom they were provided. He who has begun a good work in
us will carry it on and perfect it unto the day of Christ. The past
guarantees the future, since we have to do with a God who can never
change.

But I must not linger on any point, as our time flies. I must notice
next that, practically, God's mercies through life are always the same.
If you will look at the text carefully you will not fail to see that it
is so. God may be said to begin in regeneration the work which we
experience from His hands–therein He makes us. But all through life He
is still making us. We are perpetually revolving on the wheel. And He
is continually fashioning us. He has not yet perfected in us the image
of Christ. He has only to keep on doing what He has been doing and we
shall be perfected. His first work in us was resurrection work. And is
He not daily quickening us, constantly raising us from the dead?

It was new creation and He is daily creating us anew in Christ Jesus
unto good works. No new form of mercy is ever wanted. All we need is
the old mercy repeated and adapted to our case. My dear Friend, you
will never want anything of God but what you have already had. The
Divine Grace that saves the young man will save the old man. The
patience that bore with your follies in youth will bear with your
weakness in age. Depend upon it, you will require nothing but what you
have already received. In this matter, the thing that has been is the
thing that shall be–and there is nothing new under the sun.

As for this "carrying" of which the text speaks, assuredly that is no
new thing. As I have already said, the Lord carried us in our infancy.
Our first spiritual blessing came of our being carried–we were sheep
going astray and the Shepherd came after us. And when He found us, He
carried us upon His shoulders rejoicing and brought us home. After that
we were lambs in the fold and He gathered the lambs in His bosom and
carried us. Many a rough place have I encountered in my life's
pilgrimage and I have wondered how I should ever get over it. But I
have been carried over the rocky way so happily that the passage has
made one of the most charming memories of my heart. I begin to like
rough places, even as Rutherford fell in love with the Cross he had to
carry.

When the road is smooth, I have to walk. But when it is very rough, I
am carried. Therefore, I feel somewhat like the little boy I saw the
other night. His father had been carrying him uphill. But when he
reached a piece of level road, the boy was a great lump to carry and
his father set him down and let him walk. Then the little gentleman
began to pull at his father's coat and I heard him say, "Carry me,
father! Carry me, father. Carry me again!" Just so. Any sensible child
of God will still say, "Carry me, Father! Carry me still, I pray you!"
The Father's answer is, "I have made and I will bear. Even I will carry
you." Therefore call upon Him and ask that when the road is rough, or
miry, He carry you. And He will carry you.

The promise closes with the words, "And I will deliver you." That is no
new mercy. Have you not been delivered many times already? "The Lord
that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the
bear, He will de-

liver me out of the hand of this Philistine"–so David trusted, and so
do we. Oh, the deliverances of God's people! Time out of mind He has
appeared for us. "O my Soul, you have trod down strength!" We have
overcome through the power of the Lord and have escaped even from
between the jaws of death. Still He will save us in life and when we
come to die He will deliver us gloriously. It will only be the same
mercy again–a repetition of the Covenant guardianship in another form.

See how Paul puts it, "Who delivered us from so great a death and does
deliver: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us." See, it is a
note from the same trumpet, a voice from the same mouth. Therefore,
Beloved, as you will only want the same mercy repeated, be confident,
be joyful. Do not dread tomorrow. Do not fear next year. Do not pine
because of the coming of old age. Do not dread that painful operation
which seems needful. Do not dread even death, itself. He that made you
will make you to endure. He that has carried you, will carry you. He
that has delivered you will deliver you to the end. If it were
possible, when we get to Heaven, one of the things that we should do
would be to sit down and laugh at our fears.

Surely we should laugh, and cry, too. Shall we not say, "How could I
ever doubt my God? How could I ever have mistrusted my faithful Lord?
Here I am, after all, sitting among the thrones of the glorified! Why
did I doubt my God?" That poor old woman in the almshouse, that poor
man who was bedridden, how different they will be and how they will
wonder that ever they were so timorous! Hear the sick one say, "I
feared I should perish in my trouble–but here I am, by God's Grace, as
bright and glorious, as alert and nimble, as any of them." Hear the
poor man from his cottage shouting, "Hallelujah, I will sing aloud unto
the Lord all the more because of the weakness and the poverty through
which I have triumphantly passed." Blessed be God, we only want a
continuance of the same mercy as we have already experienced and that
the Lord promises to us.

And now, to close, notice in the text two things which are always
here–the same God and the same mercy. There is nobody else here but
the Lord, alone with His people. Will you note that? There is nobody
else here but you and your God. And you are nobody but a poor thing
that has to be carried. "Even to your old age I am He. Even to hoar
hairs will I carry you. I have made and I will bear. Even I will carry
and will deliver you." We have great admiration of angels but we are
very pleased to see that they are not mentioned in this promise. We
have many kind-hearted friends, but we are glad to see that they are
not brought in here. God's great /, and that alone, fills up the whole
space. And oh, what a blessing it is when we trust in the Lord alone!

Look, Beloved, when you were made, it was God that made you. When you
were made new it was God that made you new. It was His Grace, His
power, His love, His wisdom, His life. Nobody else was there. Up to
this time, He, alone, has carried you and no other hand has sustained
you. He has always been sufficient for the task–to bear you and your
own weight–and your Divinely appointed burden. The Lord has borne you
up and He has borne you through and He has borne you on. He has borne
you to this day. He, alone, has done it. Do you not think that He can
do it in the future? His own right hand and His holy arm have up to now
gotten Him the victory–can you not trust Him for tomorrow?

He alone has delivered you and He, alone, can repeat the deliverance.
You have been, perhaps, as I have often been, stuck in a cleft, where
nobody could tell you how to get out but yet the Lord found a way of
escape for you. You were shut up and you could not come forth–and then
God cleared the way in a moment. What a great Maker of ways is the Lord
God! His way has been in the sea and His path through the deep waters.
And there have you rejoiced in Him. He, alone, dried up the sea and
made a path for His chosen–and ten thousand hands could not have done
it better. God, alone, is greater than a whole universe of creatures.

Come, Brethren, let us hear the voice of our experience. O you who have
known the Lord and His Grace, trust your God, the lonely Champion of
the righteous, the sole Savior of the sinner, the all-sufficient
Deliverer of those that cast themselves upon Him. You young people, oh,
how earnestly I wish that you would begin with my Lord Jesus Christ–
begin with the great and blessed Father and trust Him, for He will take
care of you to hoar hairs! What may happen between your youth and your
age I cannot tell. You may never see old age. I cannot look into the
palm of your hand and read your destiny. But come and trust my Lord and
all will be right–for your destiny will be in His hand for time and
for eternity.

You in middle life, with your children about you and hard times to
struggle with. Your God whom you trusted in your youth will not leave
you now. All between your birth and your death, the God of our Lord
Jesus guarantees to be

there. And He promises to remember your seed after you. Trust him. Play
the man. Do not mistrust your heavenly Father. Doubt yourself as much
as you like, but do not distrust the Lord who cannot lie. Did you come
here with a heavy heart tonight? Leave the heaviness behind. Many a
time a friend has come in on a Thursday evening, I mean a friend who
does not generally worship here on the Sabbath. He has come in from the
Exchange, or from the shop, having been a heavy loser in the day and he
has found such rest of mind at this service that he has been no more
sad, but has gone home nerved for the conflict.

How often friends have sent in help for different works because of the
encouragement they have had while listening to the preaching of the
Word here! By faith they have been delivered and they have offered a
sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the Lord God. O my Brothers and Sisters,
do trust my God! Do not let the world say, "God's own people cannot
trust Him!" Surely they will think that He is not to be depended on if
you begin to doubt Him. Trust Him as He deserves to be trusted and rest
in Him with all your souls–

"Trust Him, you saints, in all your ways,

Pour out your hearts before His face;

When helpers fail and foes in vade,

God is our all-sufficient aid."

And you, my aged Brothers and Sisters, to whom I speak with much
reverence, show to us who are younger where your joy and your peace
are, that we also may rest in God. He has brought you through seventy
years of trial! Do you think that He will now forsake you? You are
eighty, you say, or even getting on to ninety. Well, you have at least
eighty reasons why you should not distrust your God and Savior. If you
will read your own diaries you will see that there are eighty million
reasons why you should trust Him and yet you cannot find one solitary
reason why you should not do so.

Therefore, "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him," and may He
bless you evermore, for Jesus' sake! Amen.

LETTER FROM MR. SPURGEON

DEAR FRIENDS, Although we have had two days of rainy and tempestuous
weather, I have improved so greatly that I feel like the man who is
described in Scripture as "walking and leaping and praising God." As I
cannot quite manage the two former exercises, I desire to be doubly
abundant in the third. Watts says–

"When we are raised from deep distress, Our God demands a song; We take
the pattern of our praise From Hezekiah's tongue."

That man of God, on his recovery, said, "The living, the living, he
shall praise you as I do this day." In that spirit I have prepared the
sermon to which this note is appended. And I have borne therein my
willing testimony to the faithfulness of God and to the certainty that
He honors the faith of His people.

From the Tabernacle I have joyful news of a meeting at which four or
five hundred persons came together to confess that they had found mercy
during the late services. What a cordial to one's heart! "Therefore we
will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life
in the House of the Lord." Blessed be His name! With my heart's best
wishes for all my hearers and readers, Their servant for Christ's sake,
C. H. Spurgeon. Mentone, Dec. 1, 1888