Christ’s Past and Present Witnesses

Christ's Past and Present Witnesses

(No. 2709)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 13, 1901.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, MARCH
7, 1880.

"And you also shall bear witness, because you have been with Me from
the beginning." John 15:27.

OUR Lord Jesus Christ ought to be believed upon His own unsupported
Word, first, because of the Divinity of His Nature. God cannot lie and
that Christ is God is abundantly proved by His miracles. He did that
which none but God could do. He ought also to be believed because of
the perfection of His Character, for even the enemies of the Gospel
have been obliged to confess that the perfection of the Character of
Jesus is altogether undeniable. They have critically examined it, but
they have not been able to find a single fault or flaw in it. They have
thrust the Character of Christ into a furnace such as that in which men
try silver–and they have heated the furnace seven times hotter than
usual–yet has the Character of Christ come forth unhurt from every
trial. A perfect Man ought to be believed when He speaks. The
perfection of His Character proves Him to be worthy of confidence.

Put together, then, the Godhead and the perfect Manhood of Christ, and
I am not too bold when I say that He deserves to be believed upon His
bare Word without any further witness. Yet such is the natural
infidelity of the human heart with regard to anything that comes from
God–so resolutely do men shut their eyes against the light lest they
should be reproved by it–that our Lord Jesus Christ has not left
Himself without witnesses. The first and chief Witness to Christ is the
Holy Spirit. Read again the verse preceding our text, upon which I have
already commented–"When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto
you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the
Father, He shall testify of Me." The Holy Spirit is still here on
earth, working spiritual miracles in the hearts of men, and those works
of His are the attestation and seal of the mission of Christ, that He
is, indeed, the Savior of men. "There are three that bear witness in
earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree
in one." The water and the blood are two things about which we,
ourselves, become witnesses, as I shall show you directly, but the
point I want you to notice just now is that as it was with the
Apostles, so is it in a measure with ourselves, for we are called, as
they were, to the most honorable office conceivable, seeing that we are
called to do what the Holy Spirit, Himself, deigns to do, that is, to
witness to Christ, for, after He had spoken of the testimony of the
Spirit of Truth, He added, "And you also shall bear witness." We are to
be laborers together with the Holy Spirit! We are to stand, as it were,
in the witness-box with Him, and bear similar testimony to that which
He bears concerning Christ–"He shall testify of Me: and you also shall
bear witness." Oh, what an honorable position we are to occupy! What a
grand work we are to do–a work which an angel might envy us, for we
are to be witnesses, together with the Holy Spirit, concerning Christ!

In handling this text, I shall have, first of all, to remark that the
Apostles were witnesses to the facts of Christ's life. He said to them,
"You also shall bear witness, because you have been with Me from the
beginning." Then I shall have to show you that Believers are now
witnesses to the results of Christ's Gospel. We have not been with Him
from the beginning and, therefore, our witness is not concerning the
facts of His life–but we can testify to the results of His Gospel.
When I have spoken upon those two themes, I shall close by noticing the
objective of both these forms of testimony–the Apostles' witness to
the facts of Christ's life and the Believers' witness to the results of
those facts.

I. First, then, the Apostles were stated by Christ to be WITNESSES TO
THE FACTS OF HIS LIFE, from the time when they became His disciples,
right down to the day when He was taken up into Heaven.

You know, dear Friends, how any historical fact comes to be accepted as
a fact. It is by the weight of the evidence by which it is supported.
If Tacitus, for instance, makes a statement in his history, as a rule
we believe what he says because he is known to be a veracious
historian. But Tacitus is certainly not more reliable than is Matthew,
or Mark, or Luke, or John, because Tacitus never died for the defense
of any statement that he made. But those who bore witness concerning
Christ, and were His historians, were ready to die and did die rather
than deny anything that they had said concerning their Lord and Master.
When we find discrepancies in the writings of historians, we examine
and weigh the evidence as to any contradictions, so as to see which is
the correct record of the facts in question. If anyone made a statement
that such-and-such a thing happened yesterday, and you needed to
ascertain if the statement were true, you would call witnesses who saw
it. Suppose you could not get those witnesses for a month–their
testimony would be just as good in a month's time as it is today.
Suppose you could not get them together for 50 years–their evidence
would be just as valid. Or if they had written their testimony, and had
it duly attested, what they had written would be just as good evidence
50 years hence as it would be today and, if true at all, it would stand
true–yes, as true as the testimony of these witnesses stands though
1,800 years and more have elapsed since they bore their witness! We
have, concerning the life of Christ, the testimony of those who were
with Him from the beginning–and their testimony is good because it
complies with certain rules which usually apply to reliable evidence.

The first rule is, when witness is borne to any fact, that the
witnesses must be sufficiently numerous. There were 11 true Apostles,
and 11 good men are quite enough to testify to any fact known to them.
There were others besides the Apostles who were with Christ from the
beginning, and in the mouth of any two of these good honest witnesses a
fact might be established, so that, in the mouth of the eleven, the
truth remains beyond all doubt.

Further, the 11 Apostles had actual sight of the things to which they
bore witness. You remember that John says, concerning the blood and the
water which flowed from Christ's side when the soldier pierced it with
a spear, "He that saw it bares record, and his record is true: and he
knows that he says true." And the same might have been said of all the
facts which John records in his Gospel, for he was an eyewitness of
them–and so was Matthew. He was on the spot and what he wrote was not
hearsay, but what he saw with his eyes, and his ears had heard, and his
hands had handled. Well, now, 11 witnesses who have actually seen a
certain thing would be a sufficient number to prevent mistakes and, as
I have already reminded you, there were many more than 11 witnesses on
many occasions, especially the witnesses to our Lord's Resurrection,
for there were over 500 brethren at once, and it was not possible that
such a large company as that should have been deceived.

Again, these witnesses bore their testimony at or near the time when
the events happened, for the Apostles came forward and spoke concerning
Christ and His holy, useful, and miraculous life, and His wondrous
death and Resurrection just after the events had occurred. They only
waited a little while, according to their Lord's instructions, and then
they stood up in the midst of Jerusalem–Peter, who had been with
Christ from the beginning, and the other Apostles, bearing witness that
these things were even so. Had they been liars and false witnesses,
they would have been put to confusion, and would have been unable to
open their mouths again! But, as they said, these things were not done
in a corner, they were common town talk and admitted by everybody to be
facts. Moreover, in order especially to establish historical facts, the
witnesses must bear testimony on the spot–and these 11 men did not go
off to Rome and there begin to publish that Jesus was the Son of God,
and that He worked miracles, and that He rose from the dead! They did
go to Rome and everywhere else, ultimately, but they began at Jerusalem
where they would have been contradicted if men could contradict them
anywhere! But so fully was their witness known to be true that the very
first time they stood up to bear their testimony, though they were
unlearned and ignorant men, there were 3,000 persons who became the
disciples of their slain Master simply through their witness as blessed
by the Holy Spirit!

I do not know whether you are prepared to doubt their testimony, but I
am not. I am resolved to believe that what they spoke was true and the
more so because they spoke very plainly When a man wants to take you
in, he often speaks in a roundabout fashion. He guards his statements
and puts them in such a way that he can afterwards say, "Ah, you did
not quite understand me! You made a mistake in thinking that was what I
meant." But when the people who listened to Peter and John saw their
boldness, and heard the plain manner in which they gave their
testimony, they knew that the Apostles were speaking of the things
which they had themselves witnessed. There was no misunderstanding
their language–they

were plain, honest, simple-minded, straightforward witnesses to Christ
who gave their testimony with great plainness of speech.

Besides, they all agreed in their testimony. True, when we read the
four Gospels, we notice that they contain just those little differences
which prove the men to have been honest, for, if you set four men to
tell a story, they will all tell it differently even though each one of
them speaks the truth, for each of them will look at the matter from a
different standpoint. If all four of them spoke in exactly the same
words and there were no apparent discrepancies between them, you would
know that they had laid their heads together and concocted the tale in
order to deceive their hearers. A judge in court would soon find them
out and he would say, "That is a trumped-up story, so they, none of
them, go an inch beyond the other for fear they should contradict one
another, and so be found out." But the four Evangelists differ in their
statements only as honest men must of necessity differ if they are
independent witnesses–and their agreement in the facts to which they
testify helps to confirm their witness–and to make assurance doubly
sure.

Best of all, remember that these men had nothing to gain by their
witness concerning Christ. They left all and followed Him. Instead of
gaining by their testimony, they were losers of their property, they
were losers of their reputation, they were losers of their comforts,
they were losers, even, of their lives! They were so certain that what
they had seen was really true that, rather than deny it, "they were
stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the
sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being
destitute, afflicted, tormented." Yet not one of the 11 ever drew back
and denied the truth of the testimony that he had given! And even the
12th , who was a traitor, confessed that he had taken blood money for
the betrayal of his innocent Master. In committing suicide, he gave
such witness as "the son of perdition" could that, after all, the Bible
was true. His testimony did not, in the least, invalidate the witness
of the 11 Apostles.

Now, my dear Friends, it is upon the evidence of these witnesses that
the Gospel first commenced to win belief among the sons of men. True,
the Spirit of God witnessed to the truth of that Gospel, but, as far as
human instrumentality was concerned, the Apostles were also witnesses
and they were good and sufficient witnesses. Nobody ought to ask for
any better ones–and if anyone will not believe them, it may be truly
said, "Neither would he believe though one rose from the dead."

II. Having spoken of the Apostolic witnesses to the facts of Christ's
life, I am now to speak of THE PRESENT WITNESSES TO THE RESULTS OF HIS
GOSPEL.

We who were not with Christ from the beginning cannot bear our personal
testimony to the facts of His life. We neither saw Him in Bethlehem's
manger, nor on Calvary's Cross, nor in Joseph's tomb, nor as He
ascended into Glory from the Mount of Olives, so we cannot testify to
those facts as the Apostles could. But we can bear witness to some
other things. We can testify to the results of the Gospel as we have
realized them in ourselves. And here we are something better even than
eyewitnesses, for we feelas well as seethe things concerning which we
testify. I want, my dear Brothers and Sisters, to put very briefly
before you some things about which you are to bear witness of Christ.
Read the text again, with the exception of the last three words–"You
also shall bear witness, because you have been with Me"–and learn from
it that you cannot witness for Christ unless you have been with Him.
You must have had spiritualdealings with the Lord Jesus Christ and felt
the power of His spiritual Presence upon you, or else you cannot be
such a witness as our text describes. But if you have been with Him,
you can testify of Him.

The first thing to which some of us can bear witness is the
peace-giving power of His precious blood. We were once thoroughly
convinced that we had broken the Law of God and we were under a
dreadful apprehension that God, the Just One, would punish us for this
sin. We sought all sorts of ways to find comfort, but we never found
any. We tried every nostrum of the wise men of the day, but they all
failed us altogether. But the very first time that, by faith, we saw
Jesus hanging on the Cross, and knew that by His Sacrifice, He had made
Atonement for our sin–I say that, the very moment we put our trust in
Him, our conscience found a wonderful peace and rest! Was it not so
with you, Beloved? You were, by faith, with Jesusas you saw Him hanging
upon the accursed tree as your Substitute and Surety! Did you not,
then, by the Grace of God, find immediate relief from the terrible
burden of sin which threatened to crush you to the earth? Well, now
that you have thus been with Him, you can bear witness to that fact,
can you not?

I know that my witness about it did not need to be told with my lips,
for I had not long been in the house, that morning when I found the
Savior, before one who had been anxious about me, said, "There is a
change come over my son."

And a delicate question was put, which soon drew out of me the
confession that I had looked to Christ and that I was lightened. Why,
they could all see in my face the evidence of the change that had been
worked–there was all the difference between bondage and liberty, or
between despair and delight–and it was because I had been with Christ
that I had, in a moment, leaped out of nature's darkness into His
marvelous light! So, now, whenever anybody says to me, "Your view of
the Atonement, you know, is very old-fashioned–the Doctrine of
Substitution is quite out of date"–I am not at all shaken in my
belief. The gentlemen of the modern-thought school, who have been to
Germany for their theology, do not like that glorious Doctrine of
Substitution! They think that the Atonement is a something or other,
that in some way or other, somehow or other, has something or other to
do with the salvation of men–but I tell them that their cloudy Gospel
might have surrounded me till my hair grew gray, but I would never have
been any the better for it! I would never have found peace with God,
nor come to love the Lord at all if it had not been that I distinctly
saw that He, who knew no sin, was made sin for me, that I might be made
the righteousness of God in Him! When I realized that although I had
gone astray from God, and broken His righteous Law, He had laid my
iniquity on Christ, and punished Him in my place, my soul found rest at
once and, to this day, it cannot rest under any other explanation of
the Atonement of Christ! So I bear my own personal witness, and many of
you can heartily join with me in bearing similar testimony. You have
been with Christ, so you can speak of the power of His substitutionary
Sacrifice as begetting peace in your soul!

Next, we can bear witness to another thing. As soon as we believed in
Jesus Christ, we found ourselves strangely altered. Perhaps we had
formerly had a merely moral struggle against sin–that was quite proper
as far as it went, yet we never succeeded in that struggle. I have
known many persons who were accustomed to give way to passion, and who
never could curb their temper, but when they believed in Jesus, to
their surprise they found that the lion was changed into a lamb. I have
known men who had fallen into the habit of using profane language and
who could not break away from the evil even when they became aware of
the wrong of it–but when they have, by faith, looked to Jesus, and so
have been saved–they have never had a temptation to use an oath again.
All inclination to that sin seems to have gone clean away from them.
Many a time have I seen a drunk, who has signed the pledge–a very good
thing to do–but it has not been any use in his case, for he has not
kept it. Yet have I known him, when he has been converted to Christ,
keep that pledge and a great deal more–he has gone beyond abstinence
from strong drink–and has had multitudes of virtues. There are many
persons, here present, who do not need to tell people that believing in
Christ has worked a complete change in them, because anybody who is
acquainted with them can see it.

One man's wife knows all about that change. She had a black eye last
year, but she never gets one now. She is as happy as the birds in the
air with that husband of hers who has given up going to the public
house, and who is now found walking in the ways of God. There is a
mother who said to me, "I know that my boy is converted, Sir. Oh, what
a trouble he had been to me! What a rebellious, disobedient child he
was! But, now, though he is only a little boy, he makes a conscience of
obeying his mother and he tries to make everybody happy." This is
witness-bearing, and this is what our Lord Jesus Christ meant you who
have been with Him, and have learned of Him, to do. His transforming
hand has touched you, and changed you–and you can bear witness of that
fact. Why, if all the unbelievers in the world were to say to some
people whom I know, "The Grace of God has made no difference in you,"
they would be obliged to laugh with a holy laughter like that of
Abraham! They could not help it, for the Grace of God has so completely
changed them that if Hell were made into Heaven, the difference would
not be much greater than is the change from what they were to what they
now are! Well, this is good witness. I pray God that many of you may be
able to bear it.

There is a third witness which many of us can also bear. When we get
near to Christ in holy fellowship and commune much with Him in private
prayer, we find that our love for good things becomes very strong, our
zeal for God's cause is intensified and, moreover, our love to all
mankind is increased. We find ourselves willing to forgive our
adversaries and we are anxious in every way to prove the reality of our
love to God. But if we get away from Christ, we do not take much
interest in holy things. Then our chief concern consists in making as
much money as we can, or in enjoying as much so-called pleasure as we
can. If any of you, Brothers and Sisters, try the modern theology, you
will soon see whether it will do your soul any good. I have known some
who have tried it and I have noticed the change in their life and
conversation–no spirituality, no love to God, and no care about the
best things. They talk about politicalreligion, but there is very
little of vital godliness that is ever spoken of by them.

But if you get near to Christ and learn the power of His precious
blood, and dwell in Him, and live upon Him, you will then see whether
it does not sanctify you. I am sure you must all bear witness, you who
live farthest away from Christ, that you are worse men and worse women
when you wander away from Him, and that the nearer you get to Him, and
the more He occupies your thoughts, the more swiftly is your evil
temper overcome, and your whole heart filled with love to God and love
to men. I know it is so! And that is another witness to the Truth of
the Gospel, for that which promotes holiness cannot be, itself, a lie!
I lay it down as an axiom that whatever makes men holy must be true,
because truth and right are in the same line of things. That which
creates evil is itself a falsehood, and that which creates holiness is
and must be true.

Another thing to which we can bear witness is, the renewing power of
God's Grace. Whenever we grow dull with regard to eternal things, and
careless concerning our own souls, we find, I think, that getting near
to Christ again, coming back to the Cross, plunging afresh in the–

"Fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins"– sitting at
His feet again, eating His flesh and drinking His blood again–all this
wonderfully refreshes us. There is a fable concerning a bath, of which
it was said that if old men washed therein, it took the furrows from
their brows and made them young again. But, certainly, when we dwell in
Christ, He takes away the decrepitude of our declining Grace and we
grow vigorous once more. We renew our youth, like the eagle's, when our
mouth is satisfied with the good things of Christ! Have you not found
it to be so, you who had grown dull and cold? Have you not been
refreshed and revived by coming back to Him? The very genius of the
Christian religion is enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm is created by
contact with Christ. As we come near to our great Captain, every
soldier in the ranks of the King's army feels that he must be a hero.
We look at His scars and wounds, and see what He did and suffered, and
then we feel that it would be mean and contemptible on our part to be
otherwise than altogether in earnest for so great and good a Lord, and
for so grand a cause!

I think that many of you must also have noticed–and if so, you can
bear witness to it–the comforting power of the Presence of Christ with
you. All of you who know the Lord have had troubles of different kinds
to carry to the Lord in prayer. I will suppose that you, my Friend,
have lost a good deal of money in business, and that you have fretted
and worried a great deal over it. If it has been so with you, I will
tell you when you worried over your loss–it was before you took the
matter to the Lord in prayer. But after you had spread the whole case
before Him, it is amazing how different it looked! The circumstances
seemed quite changed and you took up the cross, and you found it very
light compared with what it had been before. Perhaps some of you know
what it is to be teased and perplexed by unreasonable and wicked men,
and you have been apt to get very snappish under their attacks. If that
is what has happened to you, my Brother, I know when it was–it was
when you had not been with Jesus and tried to meet the trouble by
yourself. But after you have had a few minutes of private prayer, you
have come down into the arena and you have seemed to say, "I am ready
for you now! You may do what you like, for I am calm and quiet, and I
can bear it all, for I have been with Jesus, and He has given me
strength according to my day." If you have been slandered and
persecuted for righteousness' sake, and have had your heart wounded by
some cruel stab, you have been restored by getting near to Christ, and
you have been able to sing–

"If on my face for Your dear name, Shame and reproaches be, All hail
reproach, and welcome shame, If You remember me."

On the bed of sickness, or by the grave where your loved ones are
buried, your heart has been sustained and comforted if you have been
with Jesus! Yes, that witness is true, and tens of thousands can
confirm it, that there is no sustaining power in anything else that is
worthy to be compared with the sustaining energy of communion with the
Lord Jesus Christ! Those who have ever felt its gracious influence must
know that this is the Truth of God, for Christ's Presence most
wondrously bears their spirit up when everything else gives way.

One of the evidences of the Truth of the Gospel which, perhaps, strikes
onlookers more than any other, is the serenity with which the Presence
of Christ endows His people when they come to die. Their end is often
very peaceful and very beautiful. There died, last week, not far from
here, a young man whose brother, as he watched him, saw tokens of such

wonderful happiness in him that he said to him, "Brother, what can I do
to be as happy as you are?" The dying man's answer was, "It is all in
Number 1,500. It is all in Number 1,500." You know that sermon of mine
about the bronze serpent? [Volume 25, #1500– "LIFTING UP THE BRONZE
SERPENT–read/download the entire sermon free of charge at
http://www.spurgeongems.org .] The young

man said to his brother, "It is all in Number 1,500. It is Jesus only,
Jesus only. Look to Jesus, look and live. It is all there." His brother
said that he could not tell exactly when he passed away, so sweet was
the serenity that the Presence of the Master gave him. I could take you
to the Stockwell Orphanage, to the bedside of a little boy who may be
in Heaven by now, but when I saw him on Monday, he said to me, "I shall
soon die, Mr. Spurgeon. And when I think I am going, as I sometimes do
at night, I clap my hands at the thought that I shall so soon be with
Jesus." Poor little fellow, he could hardly lift those thin hands of
his, yet he clapped them with delight at the thought that he should so
soon be with Jesus! It would have done you good if you could have seen
him, and so it would if you could have seen our dear Sister, Mrs.
White, the wife of our beloved elder, when she knew that she had a
cancer which would soon take her Home. The look of her face is with me
now. I sat by her bedside and it was more than a sermon to me–it made
me feel willing to die at any time when I saw the calm serenity with
which that suffering saint looked forward to her departure. She did not
regard death as a thing to be spoken of as a dreadful and terrible
matter, but she calmly spoke of being with Christ, which was far better
than being with the dearest friends on earth!

This holy serenity has often convinced ungodly men of the Truth of the
Gospel–and though you and I cannot at present bear that witness, yet
very likely we shall do so in due season and, already, so many
thousands of saints have borne this witness to the power of faith in
Christ that it ought to be regarded, and a deaf ear ought not to be
turned to it. Look at the thousands of martyrs who have calmly stood at
the stake and been burned to death for Christ's sake, and yet have
cried, "None but Jesus! None but Jesus!" And, faithful to the end, have
gone up in a chariot of fire to be "forever with the Lord." What but
the Gospel of Christ could string them up to such wondrous courage and
press their spirits into such a sacred equanimity that even death
itself was despised by them, so that they cried, with the Apostle, "O
death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?" In all
these points, you also, who love the Lord, are to be witnesses for
Christ.

I had many other things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
Therefore, let me sum up all by saying– beloved Brothers and Sisters,
members of this Church, and members of the one Church of Jesus Christ,
be good witnesses for your Lord, remembering that you are standing up
with the Holy Spirit to testify concerning Him. Oh, be such witnesses
that none need be ashamed of you!

Remember that witness must be personal, not hearsay. A good woman in
the witness box begins, "She said," said she, but the judge stops her,
and says, "We do not want to know what she said, what did you yourself
see?" So, dear Friends, it is no use for you to try to bear testimony
to the world about a thing you never saw and never felt. Personal
godliness must be at the bottom of all evidence concerning the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. If a man has no faith, let him not talk about faith.
If he has never known the Lord, let him hold his tongue till he does
know Him, for it must be personal witness that must be borne if it is
to be of any value.

Further, it must be real, not fancied. The judge would at once stop a
witness if he said, "My lord, I thought," and he would say, "We do not
want your thoughts, my dear Sir. What did you see?" In like manner, we
want to know what you have felt about Christ, not what you have fancied
concerning Him. What has been really true in your spiritual life? What
has been proved to be true by your actions?

Next, good witness must be consistent, not contradictory, for, when a
witness contradicts himself, his evidence is not regarded as of any
value. So, if you say, "The Gospel makes me holy," but you are caught
in an act of cheating, or you lose your temper, or your talk is not
clean, men will say, "Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and
cursing, but which are we to believe?"

And, once more, good testimony must be persistent, not variable, for,
if a man says one thing now, and another thing another time, you
naturally say, "We never know where to find that fellow." That is the
case with far too many professors–we do not know where to find them.
On a Sunday, they are careful to carry a Bible and a hymn-book, but I
have heard that, on a week day, they are more likely to have a pack of
cards in their hand. On Sunday, it is, "Sing a hymn to Jesus." But on
Monday, it is, "Sing to anybody you like." On Sunday, it is, "Fear
God." But on Monday, if it were not for the fear of the policeman,
nobody knows what they might attempt! This will not do. If you are not
consistent

throughout your whole lives–if you are not all of one piece–I almost
wish that you were all the bad piece, because this mixture, this
mingle-mangle, this Baal and Jehovah, this partly for God and partly
for Mammon–this is the great mischief-making thing in the professing
Church today! Oh, that God would give us the Grace to bear persistent,
consistent, unvarying witness to the power of the Gospel on our souls
and in our lives!

To anyone who does not believe the Gospel, I have this word to say. My
Friend, you have come in here tonight and yet you are not a believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Is the Gospel true? Probably you reply, "Yes, I
believe it is true." Well, then, if it is true, why do you not believe
it? If Jesus Christ is true, why do you not believe Him? The Gospel
tells you about your souls, about eternity, about Heaven, about Hell,
about the only way of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, if
it is true, why do you not believe it? Why do you not see to it that
your soul is right with God through believing in Jesus Christ? I would
like to bring you to a point so that you would say of the Gospel, "I
believe it," or, "I reject it."

Suppose you should reject it? Then you practically say that the
Apostles were liars–that they bore testimony to a set of lies! More
than that, you are prepared to say that all the myriads of martyrs who
died for the Truth of God were fools, for they died in the defense of a
fiction–that they went to prison and lost all things, and suffered
every kind of ill treatment and torture for the sake of this
Gospel–yet you say that they were fools, all of them, and that you are
the one wise man who knows more than all of them! Well, we have only
your word for that, and we are not as sure about it as you seem to be.
Further, you are prepared to say that all of us who declare that belief
in Christ gave us peace of conscience, changed our lives, comforts our
hearts and supports us in sickness–you say that we are all under a
delusion! And your mother, when she died sweetly rejoicing in
Christ–was she deluded, too? And the little child who died singing of
Jesus, and who bade her father follow her to Heaven, was she also
deceived? Were these wrong? Were all these mistaken? And those of whom
I have spoken, whom I have myself seen within this last week, of whose
calmness and serenity on their deathbeds I have testified to you–was
that all a delusion? I should like you to say that to the little boy at
the Orphanage, only I do not think that you would have the heart to do
it. But if you did, it would not make any difference to him because he
knows better!

If you were to tell me, when I eat my dinner, that I am not nourished
by it, and that I do not enjoy it–that it is only just an idea and a
fancy–well, you know, I would not argue with you–I would laugh at
you! And I often feel inclined to laugh at unbelievers–only I remember
how much they are losing, and in what danger they stand–so my laughter
turns to tears. Oh, that you would believe the Gospel! It makes me
happy. It makes me blessed. I cannot live without it and I dare not die
without it! And, blessed be God, I will not try either experiment, to
live without it, or to die without it. No, I can still say–

"Ever since by faith I saw the stream His flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die"–

for I know that it is true! I have been with Jesus and, therefore, I
bear witness to Him! Go and do likewise, only do it much better than I
have done it, all you who have been with Him, and God bless you, for
Christ's sake! Amen and Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 15:12-27.

Verse 12. This is My commandment, that you love one another, as I have
loved you. O Beloved, do keep this commandment! Overlook each other's
infirmities. Bear with each other's faults. Love one another as Christ
has loved us!

13-15. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life
for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his
lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have
heard of My Father I have made known unto you. "I have explained Myself
to you in such a way that I have proved that you are My friends. A
master sets his servant to work without explaining what his objective
is in that work, but I have explained to you what My Father's design
is. Therefore, you are My friends."

16-21. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you,
that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should
remain: that whatever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may
give it to you. These

things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates
you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the
world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world
hates you. Remember the word that I said unto you, A servant is not
greater than his master If they have persecuted Me, they will also
persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.
But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake, because
they know not Him that sent Me. We cannot expect, therefore, to receive
honor and to wear a crown of gold where Jesus wore a crown of thorns!

22-24. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin:
but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hates Me, hates My
Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no other man
did, they had not had sin. They would have been comparatively free from
sin.

24-26. But nowhave they both seen andhated both Me andMy Father But
this happened that the Word might be fulfilled that is written in their
law, They hated Me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth,
who proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me. Notice that
blessed Truth of God–that even that Divine Person, the Holy Spirit,
when He comes to visit us, has nothing better to speak of than our Lord
Jesus Christ! "He shall testify of Me." Even the Holy Spirit, when He
exercises the function of the Comforter, testifies of Christ! Is He not
the consolation of Israel? Well did the poet write–

"You dear Redeemer, dying Lamb, We love to hear of Thee! No music's
like Your charming name, Nor half so sweet can be."

27. And you also shall bear witness, because you have been with Me from
the beginning.