“The Shadow of a Great Rock”

"The Shadow of a Great Rock"

(No. 3031)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1907.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, JULY
18, 1869.

"A man shall be as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Isaiah
32:2.

[Other Sermons by Mr. Spurgeon on previous portions of this verse, are
as follows–No. 2856, Volume 49–OUR HIDING PLACE and No. 1243, Volume
21–RIVERS OF WATER IN A DRY PLACE.]

EVEN in our usually temperate climate, we sometimes complain of the
great heat, which is coolness itself compared with the terrible burning
of Oriental lands. A journey through the Sahara Desert might make us
long for even the heat of our hottest summer, unbearable though it
seems to us to be. With the hot sand beneath his feet from day to day,
with not a tree and scarcely so much as a bush within sight. With the
sun pouring down torrents of heat as though he were full of wrath
against the wayfarer, with water exceedingly scarce and what is to be
obtained about as nauseous as one can conceive, the traveler through
the wilderness finds it to be a "weary land," indeed, and longs for the
time when he shall once again see the cultivated fields and the lands
that flow with brooks and rivers!

Travelers tell us that when the heat has become so intense that every
living creature seems to be exhausted–when birds, if there are any,
droop their wings, and beasts lie down and pant out their very life–at
such times they have been glad to see great rocks right in the center
of the barren plain. And, creeping under their shadow, they have left
it on record that they have found most refreshing coolness and have
lifted up their hands in gratitude to God for the blessing of "the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Though I have never
experienced to the same degree what these travelers report, I remember
one hot day in Northern Italy, when riding over a dry plain where the
only living creatures seemed to be the lizards and the abundant flies
which they were pursuing, and the myriads of mosquitoes that stung one
almost to madness–a great rock was really a source of solid comfort.
Though we could afford time to rest only for a little while beneath its
shadow, we gratefully remembered it all day long and wished that we
could have stayed until nightfall beneath the shadow of that "great
rock in a weary land."

Writing under Divine Inspiration, the Prophet Isaiah describes the Lord
Jesus Christ, in His Manhood, as being comparable to this great rock.
In this wilderness life of ours, this wretched life apart from Him–to
us pilgrims through this desert to the better land beyond–Christ is a
great Rock and He casts a blessed shadow across our path in which we
refresh ourselves and renew our strength to go on our way rejoicing.

I shall try to bring out the meaning of the text by noticing, first,
why our Lord may thus be compared to the shadow of a great rock.
Secondly, I shall show when He is especially refreshing to us and,
thirdly, and practically, I shall ask, what is our business with regard
to Him?

I. First, then, WHY MAY OUR LORD BE SAID TO BE A GREAT ROCK IN A WEARY
LAND CASTING A REFRESHING SHADOW?

We may remember concerning Him, in the first place, that, like a rock,
He is always in the same place. There are some shadows which you can
create artificially and carry with you. There have been shadows which
have been cast by great trees, but those trees have been removed. And
if the traveler, in passing over the same route, should expect to enjoy
their cooling shade, he would be disappointed. But, the great rock
remains just where it was when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob sheltered
beneath it–and the traveler, today, may do the same. It is just so
with our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be His name, He has not shifted His
position! If any poor soul here wants to find Him, He is just where He
used to be–that

is, He is waiting at the Mercy Seat to receive every soul that will
come and trust Him. Jesus Christ is not far away from any of you–He is
so near that a prayer will reach Him, a sigh will find Him and a tear
will get at His heart! Only turn your desires towards Him! Only say to
Him, now, in the silence of your spirit, "Jesus, Master, cast Your
shadow over my sin-burdened head. Protect my soul from the wrath of God
and from the fierce heat of Hell!" Only ask this and it shall be given
you, for Jesus is still waiting to be gracious and ready to bless you
even now!

He is like a rock, too, because His shadow is always there as well as
Himself Wherever the sun and a rock are, there is sure to be a shadow.
So, whenever God pours out the fierce beams of His wrath upon a sinner,
let that sinner fly to Christ and he shall find a shelter from that
wrath! Whenever conscience oppresses you and reminds you of your guilt,
depend upon it that Christ has not lost His power to quiet conscience
and to calm your fears. Sometimes a sinner fears that it is too late
for him to find peace in Christ, or, possibly, he thinks it is too
soon, or that he has sinned away his day of grace. Ah, poor Soul, all
these suggestions are Satan's lies! If you really desire to have
Christ's love shed abroad in your heart, that is a proof that Christ
has already fixed His love upon you! If your head is now beaten upon by
the fierce sunlight of God's wrath, you may come and find a shelter in
the great rock of Christ's atoning Sacrifice! If you will trust in
Jesus, you shall have the peace which only He can give–the peace which
passes understanding. We rightly sing–

"Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood

Shall never lose its power

Till all the ransomed Church of God

Is saved to sin no more"–

and they are not all saved yet–there are still some to be gathered
and, therefore, Christ's blood has not yet lost its power to cleanse
from sin! And Christ, as a rock, casts His welcome shade over all who
come to Him to be thus refreshed!

Our Lord may also be compared to the shadow of a great rock because the
shadow of a great rock is broad. I remember the time when, after a
long, hot and dusty walk, I found myself at the top of a considerable
elevation where there is neither shrub nor tree–but a huge cross which
someone has erected there. And I remember well how my friend and I
tried to get under the shelter of that cross, but there was only room
enough in the shadow for one of us. We both tried to get under the
shadow, for it was terribly hot in the sunshine, but the cross could
not give shelter to the two of us, so we had to take turns as long as
we waited on the hillside. But it is not so in the case of a great
rock! The shadow there is sometimes so wide that if a whole caravan
shall wish to rest there free from the sun's heat, they may all come
and shelter under it–travelers, camels and all! So is it with my
Master. He is no little Savior! He has already saved millions, but He
is just as able to save unnumbered millions more! If the shadow of His
Cross could only screen one sinner, what a scramble many of you would
make in order to be that one. Yet I fear that the very freeness of the
Divine Mercy makes many despise it, though it should not do so. If the
whole of us felt the heat of the sun of God's wrath in our conscience
and we were all to come crowding to Jesus, we would not hear Him say,
"I cannot receive you all. I have not room for you all." If there were
room in Christ for all but one, I should hear a cry from somewhere in
this place, "O God, shut me not out, but receive me, even me!" Yet many
of you are content not to get under the shadow of Christ though there
is room there for you! There is room in Christ for the biggest sinner
out of Hell! There is room for ten thousand times ten thousand sinners!
There will be room for all of Adam's race who are ever led to come and
put their trust in Him! It is the shadow of a Great Rock and,
therefore, it is a broad shadow!

Further, the shadow of a rock is free to all Nobody thinks of paying
for a seat in the shadow of a rock, and nobody would wait to be asked
to come under that shadow. No one would dream of needing preparation
before sitting on the shady side of a great rock. Everybody who is
weary seeks the shelter–every man who is wiping the hot sweat from his
brow comes and stretches himself to rest beneath that genial shade even
without an invitation! In like manner, Jesus Christ is as free as the
air to all who will trust in Him! You do not need to make any
preparation for coming to Him and although many invitations are given
to you to come to Christ, this is because of your unwillingness to come
to Him–not because there are any hindrances on His part! When a soul
is once brought to long for Christ, that soul may at once have Christ.
The great difficulty is to make sinners feel their need of a
Savior–they think that they do not need Him. They stand in the blazing
sunshine and imagine that they will never faint beneath that fierce
heat. But when their strength begins to depart, they are willing to
come under the shadow of the Great Rock and there it stands, just as it
always did, and they are invited to come to it, after all their neglect
of it, and find a refreshing shelter there. Does not this Truth of God
comfort some poor soul in my audience? Are there not some of you who
have made the great mistake of supposing

that you had to grow better, or to do some good thing in order to get
to Christ? Well, then, let me assure you that as free as is the water
in the drinking-fountain at the street corner, as free as is the air
which enters into your lungs, so free is the ever-gracious Savior to
every guilty sinner who will but come and seek a shelter beneath this
"shadow of a Great Rock in a weary land!"

Once again, our Lord is like a rock because His shadow is most
refreshing. I do not know how true they are, but there are some old
country notions that certain trees give an unhealthy shade. I have been
sometimes warned not to sit under such-and-such a tree–if I did so, I
would have a headache and I know not what evil besides! But this I do
know– the shadow of Christ never hurts anyone, but uniformly blesses
in a thousand ways! When a man does but come and rest in Jesus,
headaches and heartaches, as far as they have to do with moral and
spiritual disorders, pass away. The believing man realizes that he is
forgiven and, oh, what a blessed realization is that! Hear him sing–

"Now, oh joy! My sins are pardoned, Now I can, and do believe!"

And with that sense of pardoned sin comes a sense of perfect peace with
God! The forgiven man feels a joy which he never knew before–not the
wild joy in which he once delighted, which first intoxicated him and
then left him depressed and heart-broken, but a joy like the course of
a great river, increasing as it flows, widening and deepening as months
and years roll on!

It is a blessed thing to get under the shadow of Christ. I cannot tell
you all the happiness I have personally felt since I first believed in
Jesus, many years ago. Amidst many struggles, and wars, and fights, I
can bear my testimony that there is no life like the life of one who
trusts in Jesus! There is no happiness this side the grave that is
comparable with the happiness of living by faith upon the Crucified
Redeemer! I do but speak what I know to be true when I recommend all
young people to come beneath the shadow of this Great Rock in the early
part of their lives, that ever afterwards, even until life's latest
hour, they may have the shelter which that Rock will surely bring!
Never did I meet a Christian who repented of having trusted in Christ!
And never have I heard of one who, in his old age, said that he had
made a mistake in relying upon Christ as his Savior. Never have I sat
by the bedside of the dying to receive the recantation of a saint who
told me that salvation by Grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, was all a deception, all a delusion! But often have these ears
of mine heard expiring songs as full of melody as the songs of angels,
and heard declarations of peace and joy from departing Believers that
have made my heart leap and my eyes flash with joy at the very hearing!
So much more deep and profound have been the joy of those who uttered
such words of holy exultation and delight!

I have just one more observation to make upon this part of our
subject–our Lord is like "a great rock in a weary land" because,
though it gives shade to others, that is because it bears the heat of
the sun itself The rock is the interposing medium between the burning
sunbeams and the weary traveler. Here is a delightful picture of the
mediatorial work of Christ. He puts Himself between the wrath of God
and us. The awful beams that streamed from the meridian sunshine of
inflexible Justice concentrated all their fierce heat upon Christ and
because they fell upon Him and were absorbed by Him, He now presents a
cool and refreshing shade to all who come and trust in Him! Jesus
suffered that we may not suffer. Jesus died that we may live. He was
punished in order that we may be forgiven. He was crushed to death
beneath the heel of Divine Vengeance against sin in order that we may
be lifted up to Heaven by the hands of Infinite Mercy. Here, then, is
the Gospel in miniature set before you! You can, in your mind's eye,
see the Great Rock and its welcome shadow, the sun shining on the rock
and the traveler protected by the rock. Oh, that all of you who know
not the Lord Jesus Christ would come to Him now! As you seek a shade
from the sun when his beams are too hot for you to bear, so seek a
shelter from the fierce rays of the sun of God's wrath! There is no
shelter but in Christ, but there is perfect protection in Him. To come
to Him needs no long pilgrimage, no elaborate ceremonies–you can sit
in your pew and trust in Jesus. There is life in a single look at Him!
As soon as you trust in Him–

"The great transaction's done!" And beneath the shadow of that Rock
your spirit is secure forever!

II. But we must now pass on to notice that THERE ARE CERTAIN TIMES WHEN
OUR LORD, LIKE THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ROCK, IS PECULIARLY REFRESHING.

Unto them that believe, Jesus is always precious, but there are times
when He is peculiarly so. This was the case with them when they were
under conviction of sin. What memories that expression awakens in some
of us–"conviction of

sin!" Why, it was to some of us a very martyrdom! I think it would have
been less painful to have been burned alive at the stake than to have
passed through those horrors and depressions of spirit which some of us
passed through while we were seeking pardon, but seeking it in the
wrong way. When God makes the conscience a target for His sharp arrows.
When the ten great guns of the Law are all fired at the sinner's soul.
When shot after shot goes tearing through the man's false peace,
blowing his self-confidence to pieces and leaving him wounded, mangled
and maimed. When the man cries out in his agony, "What shal1 I do to
find salvation? How shall I get rid of sin? God is righteously angry
with me, how shall I appease His wrath? I fear that Hell will be my
everlasting portion, how can I escape that awful doom?"–it is then
that Christ becomes "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
Sinners will never come to Jesus while they have anything of their own
to rely upon–so may the lord strip us and bring us down to absolute
bankruptcy and beggary as far as everything of our own is concerned!
For then we shall look to Jesus and find everything in Him! So, in the
time of conviction of sin, when the ten-thonged whip of the Law falls
upon a man's conscience, Christ is indeed precious!

So too, dear Friends, in times of trial Believers find the shadow of
this Great Rock to be most delightful and refreshing. I suppose that
most of us, if not all, have had our trials. The dear child whom we
loved so fondly has sickened and died. The husband or the wife, the
delight of our eyes, has been borne away to the silent tomb. Possibly
we were slandered by a cruel enemy, or forsaken by a false friend in
whom we had implicitly trusted. It may be that our house was burned, or
our business proved a failure and that losses followed on the heels of
losses like Job's messengers with evil tidings. Yes, but, beloved
Believer, in all these times of trial you have found Christ to be a
blessed Comforter! And I will venture to say that the sharper your
affliction has been, the sweeter has Christ been to you. I wonder how
some people who have many troubles can get on without Christ? I marvel
at you, consumptive young woman, and you, hard-working man with a
growing family, trying to do without the consolations of our blessed
Savior! I know that some people have the notion that religion is not
meant for the poorest of the poor, but if there are any people whom it
suits best, surely it is these! If it does not fill the cupboard, it
makes the heart content with what it has! If it does not put broadcloth
on the back, it makes the wearer satisfied with fustian! There is no
one like Christ for the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the
sorrowing. He is, indeed, as "the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land" to all such poor tried souls.

Let me also remind you that we shall know more about the refreshing
shade of Christ when we come to die. Not many weeks hence some of us
must die. When there is such a large number of people gathered
together, some of them must soon die. But all of us must, before long,
gather up our feet in the bed and die–

"Our fathers' God to meet."

What must it be to die without a Savior? A shiver runs through my frame
as I think of it. To die without a hope, how sad! But to die trusting
in Christ, how blessed! I remember standing in the pulpit one sultry
summer's afternoon, preaching of the joys of Heaven and there was one
woman's eyes that specially caught mine as I was preaching. I knew not
why it was, but it seemed to fascinate me. And as I spoke of Heaven,
she seemed to drink in every word, and her eyes flashed back again the
thoughts I uttered. She seemed to lead me on to speak more and more of
the streets of gold and the gates of pearl till, suddenly, her eyes
appeared to me to be too fixed–and at last it struck me that while I
had been talking of Heaven, she had gone there. I paused and asked if
someone in the pew would kindly see whether the friend sitting there
was not dead and, in a moment, her husband said, "She is dead, Sir." I
had known her long as a consistent Christian woman and, as I stood
there, I half wished that I could have changed places with her! There
was not a sigh, nor a tear. She seemed to drink in the thoughts of
Heaven and then straightway to go and enjoy it! If such a sudden
departure is not ours, it will be much like it–we shall close our eyes
on earth and open them in Heaven beneath the shadow of that Great Rock!
In Heaven, they sit beneath Christ's shadow, and on earth we will do
the same. So we will still sing–

"Where is the shadow of that Rock

That from the sun defends Your flock?

Gladly would I feed among Your sheep,

Among them rest, among them sleep." But, my dear Hearers, what will it
be to have the shelter of Christ in the Day of Judgment?We can never
form right ideas of what that Day of Judgment will be–

"That day of wrath, that dreadful day

When Heaven and earth shallpass away"–

and weeping and wailing shall be the prelude to the sitting of the
Judge upon the Great White Throne! Then, when every eye shall see Him
and they, also, who pierced Him, it will be a blessed thing to have Him
as the Rock of Ages to hide us from the wrath of that tremendous day–

"Day of judgment, day of wonders!

Hark, the trumpet's awful sound,

Louder than a thousand thunders,

Shakes the vast creation round!

How the summons

Will the sinner's heart confound!

See the Judge our nature wearing,

Clothed in majesty Divine!

You who long for His appearing,

Then shall say, 'This God is mine!'

Gracious Savor!

Own me in that day for Thine!" III. Now lastly, if these things are so,
and they are so, WHAT IS OUR BUSINESS?

Our business is to get under this shadow if we are not already under it
What is the use of a shadow to those who stand in the blazing sunshine?
There is many a soul that stands in the sunshine longer than it needs
and so feels faint and weary. And there are some who have thus got such
a sunstroke as they will never lose this side of Heaven. I mean that
they have to go doubting and fearing all their spiritual life because
they were so long before they trusted in Christ. I know that only the
Holy Spirit can bring a sinner under this blessed shadow, but how base
must be the human heart when it will not come and take what Christ so
freely provides! Why will you die? Why will you perish when you need
not? There is a shadow–why will you stand in the fierce light of the
sun? All the bells of Heaven are ringing out, "Come and welcome!" All
the angels of God are singing, "Come and welcome! Come and welcome!"
From this open Book, from the Gospel preached by one of God's ministers
tonight, there sounds this message, "Come and trust in the Incarnate
Son of God!" I wish I knew how to put it in more melting tones, but it
needs the Holy Spirit to bring it home to your hearts. Dear trembler,
waverer, halting between two opinions, you who have so long put off
coming to Christ, come now! I ask again, why do you continue to stand
beneath the wrath of God when you need not linger there a moment
longer?

"Come to Jesus,

Come to Jesus, Sinner, come!" And when you have come, take care to tell
others what you have discovered. Do not let any poor soul be without
the knowledge of the way of salvation so far as you can tell it. Tell
to those who are round about you, your experience of the comforts of
true religion! This is the way to gather jewels for the Redeemer's
crown. If you find that Christ deceives you, let us know, for, as
honest men, we would not like to go on telling an idle tale. But if you
find Him true. If He comforts you, and blesses you, do bear your
testimony to others, for then, perhaps your child, your wife, your
brother, your neighbor may come and trust Him too! I will be bound for
Him that He will reject none of you who come to Him and I will be a
bondsman for Him for another thing, that if you once have Him as your
Savior, you will never grow weary of Him! You will say that it was the
best day that ever dawned upon you when you gave your heart to the
Crucified Christ, who, on Calvary's Cross, made the one Sacrifice for
sin forever! Oh, yield your heart to Him! I see Him standing there with
those pierced hands of His! He knocks softly at your heart's door–

"Admit Him, for the human breast

Never entertained so kind a guest

Admit Him, before His anger burns,

His feet depart, and never returns!

Admit Him, or the hour's at hand

When at His door denied you'll stand." By the love of God in Christ
Jesus, hold out no longer! Young man, I beseech you by the precious
blood of Christ, give yourself to Him! Have you done it? Do you trust
Him wholly? Then, rejoice and sing, you seraphs, and let Heaven be

glad, for Christ sees the reward of His soul-travail, for a child is
born in His House tonight that shall live to praise Him, both here and
throughout eternity!

May the Lord bless everyone here, and His shall be the glory forever.
Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: MATTHEW5:17-48.

Verse 17. Think not that I am came to destroy the Law, or the Prophets:
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill The life-work and words of
Christ are not an improvement of the Old Testament, or a doing away of
it. It stands fast and firm, fulfilled, carried to perfection, filled
to the fullest in Christ!

18, 19. For verily Isay unto you, TillHeaven and earth pass away, one
jot or one tittle shallin no wise pass away from the Law till all is
fulfilled. Whoever, therefore, shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in
the Kingdom of Heaven: but whoever shall do and teach them, the same
shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is vain to teach the
commandments without first doing them. The doing must always precede
the teaching. If a man's example cannot be safely followed, it will be
unsafe to trust his words.

20. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter
into the Kingdom of Heaven. The scribes and Pharisees were supposed to
be righteous beyond all others. "No," says Christ, "you must go beyond
them." They were, after all, superficial, flimsy, pretentious, unreal
in their righteousness–and we must have a far nobler character than
they ever attained, or we "shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of
Heaven."

21. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall not
kill; and whoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.This is
a proof that Christ did not come to abolish the Law, or to abate its
demands in any degree whatever.

22. But I say unto you. Oh, what Divine dignity there is in this
majestic Person whose ipse dixit i s to shift all the sayings of the
ages! He claims authority to speak, even though He should contradict
all the Rabbis and all the learned men that went before Him–"I say
unto you."

22. That whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in
danger of the judgment: and whoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
shall be in danger of the council: but whoever shall say, You fool,
shall be in danger of Hell fire. Christ here shows us that the
commandment, "You shall not kill," deals with anger, with angry words,
with words of cursing, with words of derision–for all these are
killing things, hurting and wounding things–and the passion of anger
is forbidden under the command, "You shall not kill." Men have not
thought so, but it really is so, for he who is angry with his brother
is a murderer! There is the spirit, the essence of that which leads to
murder in the passion which breeds malice and revenge. The Law of God
is spiritual–it touches the emotions, the thoughts, the desires as
well as the words and actions of men. If I desire ill for a man, I have
within me that which would desire his death–and what is that, after
all, but murder in the heart? How strict is this Law, and yet how just
and right!

23, 24. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there
remember that your brother has anything against you; leave there your
gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and offer your gift.It is said that in India
there is a complete divorce of religion from morality, so that a man
may be supposed to be eminently religious even while living in the
utmost filthiness and vice. But it must never be so among us. We must
never imagine that God can accept an offering from us while we harbor
any enmity in our hearts. Perhaps, after reading this passage, you say,
"If I had anything against my brother, I would go to him at once, and
seek to be reconciled to him." That would be quite right, but you must
go further than that, for Christ says, "If you bring your gift to the
altar, and there remember that your brother has anything against you."
It is much more easy to go to the man who has wronged you than to the
one whom you have wronged. Yet the second is evidently the clearer
duty, and should be attended to at once–neither can we expect the Lord
to attend to us unless we attend to this duty.

25, 26. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the way
with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver you to the judge, and
the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison.
Verily Isay unto you, You shall by no means come out till you have paid
the uttermost farthing. There is nothing like ending disputes at once,
before the

rancor grows and your adversary becomes determined to push you to
extremes. Oh, for more of that spirit of yielding! You know how people
say, "If you tread on a worm: it will turn." But, Brothers and Sisters,
a worm is not an example for a Christian, even if the poor wounded
creature does turn toward you in its agony. If you turn, turn to kiss
the hand that smites you, and to do good to them that evilly treat you!

27, 28. You have heard that it was said by them of old time, You shall
not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whoever looks on a woman
to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart
So that the unholy desire, the lascivious glance, everything that
approximates towards licentiousness is here condemned–and Christ is
proved to be not the Destroyer of the Law, but the Confirmer of it! See
how He shows that the commandment is exceedingly broad, wide as the
canopy of Heaven, all-embracing. How sternly it condemns us all and how
well it becomes us to fall down at the feet of the God of Infinite
Mercy and seek His forgiveness–

"'Tis mercy–mercy we implore,

We would Your pity move–

Your Grace is an exhaustless store,

And You, Yourself, are Love." 29, 30. And if your right eye offends
you, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you
that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body
should be cast into Hell And if your right hand offends you, cut it
off, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of
your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast
into Hell Give up the dearest, choicest and apparently most necessary
thing if it leads you into sin. The same rule that bids you avoid sin,
bids you also avoid all that leads to sin. If adultery is forbidden, so
also is that glance with which the sin usually begins. We are to turn
away our eyes from beholding that which leads towards sin and we are
not to touch or taste that which would readily lead us into iniquity.
Oh, that we had sufficient decision of character to make short work of
everything which tends towards evil! Many persons, when their right eye
offends them, put a green shade over it. And when their right hand
offends them, they tie it up in a sling. But that is not obeying the
command of Christ. He charges you to get rid of everything that would
lead you wrong–make a clean sweep of it. You are wrong enough at your
best, so do not permit anything to appertain to you which would lead
you still further astray,

31, 32. It has been said, Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give
her a writing of divorcement: but Isay unto you, That whoever shall put
away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication. Which is a
sufficient and justifiable reason for divorce.

32. Causes her to commit adultery: and whoever shall marry her that is
divorced. That is to say, who is divorced without sufficient cause.

32. Commits adultery.Among the Jews, divorce was the easiest thing in
the world. A man might, in a pet, utter words which would divorce his
wife. The Savior abolished that evil once and for all and made divorce
a crime, as it always is "saving for the cause of fornication."

33, 34. Again, you have heard that it has been said by them of old
time, You shall not forswear yourself, but shall perform unto the Lord
your oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all Christ thus abolishes
the whole system of swearing, as it ought to be abolished in every
place. And He goes on to show that He did not mean merely unclean,
false oaths, or oaths taken as some men take them blasphemously, but
every form and kind of oath, for He says, "Swear not at

all."

34-37. Neither by Heaven; for it is God's Throne: nor by the earth; for
it is His footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the
great King. Neither shall you swear by your head, because you cannot
make one hair white or black But let your communication be, Yes, yes.
No, no: for whatever is more than these comes of evil If words mean
anything, this command of Christ is an utter abolishment of oaths taken
before magistrates as well as everywhere else. I can make nothing else
out of it–indeed, it must mean that because Christ contrasts His
teaching with that of former ages–"It has been said by them of old
time, You shall not forswear yourself, but shall perform unto the Lord
your oaths: but I say unto you, Swear not at all." A man who cannot be
believed upon his word, certainly cannot be believed upon his oath and,
usually, when a man tells a lie, the next thing he does is swear to it.
When Peter denied his Master, the next thing he did was to curse and to
swear, because he thought it likely that they would not imagine that he
was a follower of Christ if

he did curse and swear. So he gave that as a pretty clear proof that he
had not been with Christ and was not one of His disciples. Alas, that
we should need anything beside "Yes, yes," and, "No, no!"

38-43. You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a
tooth for a tooth: but Isay unto you, That you resist not evil: but
whoever shall smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other
also. And ifany man will sue you at the Law, and take away your coat,
let him have your cloak also. And whoever shall compel you to go a
mile, go with him two. Give to him that asks you, and from him that
would borrow of you turn not you away. You have heard that it has been
said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. There are many
who do the second of those two things, but not the first.

44, 45. But Isay unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse
you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the children
of your Father which is in Heaven: for He makes His sun to rise on the
evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust God
constantly does that which many people regard almost as a crime,
namely, doing good to the undeserving. It is the very genius of
Christianity to help those who are utterly unworthy–to be kind and
generous even to those who are pretty certain to repay us with
ingratitude and malice.

46-48. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do
not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your brethren only,
what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be you
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect
Stretch towards the highest conceivable standard and be not satisfied
till you reach it.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–708, 808.