Coming–Always Coming

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"To whom coming." 1 Peter 2:4.

THE Apostle is speaking of the Lord Jesus, of whom he had previously
said, "If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious," and He
follows that sentence up with this, "To whom coming as unto a living
stone." Now, I want to call your special attention to this present
participle–this act of coming–for there is much to counsel and to
comfort us in the fact and the reflections it suggests. The Christian
life is begun, continued and perfected altogether in connection with
the Lord Jesus Christ! This is a very great blessing for us. Sometimes
when you go on a journey, you travel so far under the protection of a
certain Company–but then you have to change and the rest of your
journey may be performed under very different circumstances–upon quite
another kind of line.

Now we have not to go just so far to Heaven in the guardian care of
Jesus Christ and then at a certain point to change, so as to have
somebody else to be our leader, or some other method of salvation. No,
He is the Author and He is the Finisher of our faith. If we begin
aright, we go on aright–we go on with "Christ is All." And if we
finish aright we finish with "Christ is All." It was a great delusion
of some, in Paul's day, that after they had begun in the Spirit, they
hoped to be made perfect in the flesh. And there are some, nowadays,
who begin as sinners resting upon Christ–but they want to go on as
independent saints, resting on themselves.

That will never do, Brothers and Sisters. It is not, "Christ and
Company." The sinner knows that it must be Christ only, because he has
nothing of his own. And the saint ought to know that it must be only
Christ because he has less than nothing apart from Christ! I believe
that if we grow out of Christ we grow in an unhealthy mushroom fashion.
What we need is to grow up into Christ in all things, knowing Him more
and more and being more and more satisfied that He is what we need.
This is really a healthy growth and may God send more and more of it to
us as long as we live!

Blessed be His holy name! With us it is Christ in the morning, when we
are young and full of strength. It is Christ at noon, when we are
bearing the burden and heat of the day. And it is Christ at eventide,
when we lean on the staff for very age and the shadows lengthen and the
light is dim. Yes, and it shall be only Christ when the night settles
down and shades of death curtain our last bed. In all circumstances and
conditions we look only to Jesus! Are we wealthy? Christ crowns it. Are
we in poverty? Christ cheers it. Are we in honor? Christ calms us. Are
we in shame? Christ consoles us. Are we in health? He sanctifies it.
Are we in sickness? He relieves it.

As He is at all times the same in Himself so He is the same to us. To
the same Christ we must come and cling under every new circumstance.
Our heart must abide faithful to her one only Lord and lovingly sing–

"I'll turn to You in days of light As well as nights of care. You are
brightest amid all that's bright, You are fairest of the fair!"

We have not to seek a fresh physician, to find a new friend, or to
discover a novel hope, but we are to look for everything to Jesus
Christ, "the same yesterday, and today, and forever." "You are complete
in Him." Stand to this, my Brothers and Sisters! Never think that you
need anything beyond the provision which is stored up in Him for
sanctification, for satisfaction, or for safety! Cast not your eyes
around you to find a supplement to the Lord Jesus, or you will deceive
yourselves and dishonor Him.

It is not with our Lord as it was with Moses. Moses led the people
through the wilderness, but he could not bring them into the promised
land–that was reserved for Joshua. Brothers and Sisters, the Lord
Jesus has led you so far through the wilderness and He will lead you
over the Jordan and secure your heritage for you! He will see you
safely landed in it–look not, therefore, for any other leader or
lawgiver! It is not with Christ as it was with David. David

collected the materials for the temple, but though he could gather
together vast stores of great value, he could not build them up, for
the Lord said that this honor should be reserved for his son that
should be after Him and, therefore,, the construction of the temple was
left for Solomon.

But our Lord Jesus Christ, blessed be His name, has not only gathered
together His people and the precious treasures with which He is to
build a living temple unto God, but He will also build it, stone upon
stone, and bring forth the top stone with shouting! He shall build the
temple of the Lord and He shall bear the Glory! Christ in the
Christian's alphabet is A, B, C right down to Z–and all the words of
the pure language of Canaan are only compounds of Himself! Has He not
said it, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end"?

Our text speaks about coming to Him and I shall endeavor to expound it
to you thus. This is a full picture of Christian life. I consider it to
be a complete picture of a saint drawn with one stroke. It is not easy
to make a portrait with one line, yet I remember seeing a somewhat
famous portrait of our Lord in which the artist never lifted his pencil
from the paper from beginning to end. He drew the whole of it with one
continuous series of circles. So here I may say the whole Christian
life is drawn in one line–coming unto Christ. "To whom coming."

When we have spoken upon that, I shall answer two questions. The
first–what is the best way of coming to Him at first? The other–what
is the best way of coming to Him afterwards? May the Holy Spirit bless
the whole discourse to our souls.

I. First, then, HERE IS A COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
It is a continuous "coming" to Jesus. If you have your Bibles open at
the text, I want you to notice that the expression occurs in connection
with two figures. There is one which precedes it in the second verse,
namely, the figure of a little child fed upon milk. "As newborn babes,
desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby. If
indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. To whom coming."
Children come to their parents and they frequently come rather longer
than their parents like–it is the general habit of children to come to
their parents for what they need.

They begin with coming to the mothers when they are newborn babes. Look
at the little child. It cannot provide for itself. If it were left to
shift for itself, it must die. But having tasted the unadulterated
milk, it thirsts for more of it. When the time comes round for it to be
fed, and it comes very often, it gives unmistakable signs even before
it can speak that it needs its food! It knows where to come and it will
not rest till it reaches its place and nestles down. As the child grows
up it knows the breakfast hour, the dinner hour and knows where to come
for the grateful meal and the hearty welcome. You do not need, in most
of your houses, I suspect, to ring a bell to call your children
together to the family table! They all carry little interior bells
which let them know pretty accurately when mealtimes are and they come
freely, without persuading or forcing.

Some of them are now getting to be 15 or 16 years of age and they still
keep on coming! They come to your table just as they used to come. When
first you had to lift them into their little chairs, they were coming.
And now they take their big chairs as if they quite belonged to
them–and they still keep on coming! Yes, and they come to you not only
for bread and for meat, but they come for a great many things besides.
In fact, the older they grow, the more they come! They used to come for
little shoes and little garments, but now they need them cut of a
larger size and of more expensive material–and they come accordingly.
Though they cost you more, they come with greater freedom, for habit
has made them very bold in their coming!

They do not require any entreaty or encouragement to come for what they
need–they look for many things as a matter of course–and for the rest
they come with all the readiness imaginable. Perhaps they let you know
their desires a little sooner than you need them to, and when you think
that they might manage a little longer with what they have, they press
their claims with earnestness and vote them urgent! They very soon find
out their requirements–you never have to call them together and say,
"Now girls, I need you to earnestly consider whether you really need
more dresses. Now boys, I need you to lay it to heart whether you
really require new clothes."

Oh, nothing of the sort! Your children do not need to be called in such
a way. They come without calling! They are always coming for something,
as you very well know! Sometimes they constrain you to put your hands
into your pockets so frequently and for such a variety of expenses that
you wonder how long the purse will hold out and when your resources
will be exhausted! Of one thing you feel quite sure–it will be easier
to drain your purse than to stop your

children from coming for one thing or another! They come to you, now,
for a great many things they did not come for at first. It seems that
there is no end to the things they come for, and I believe there is no
end at all.

Some of them, I know, continue to come after they have got beyond their
boyish years. Though you have a notion, I suppose, that they might
shift for themselves, they are still coming for sovereigns where
shillings used to suffice! There was a time when you could put them to
bed at night with the reflection that you had found them food and
raiment and house and home. You knew your expenses–but now the big
fellows come to you with such heavy demands that you can hardly see the
end of it! So it is. They are always coming!

Now, in all this long talk I have been showing you how to understand
the figure of coming to Christ. Just what your children began to do
from the first moment you fixed your eyes on them–and what they have
continued to do ever since–that is just what you are to do with the
Lord Jesus Christ! You are to be always coming to Him–coming to Him
for spiritual food! Coming to Him for spiritual garments! Coming to Him
for washing, guiding, help and health! Coming, in fact, for everything!
You will be wise if, the older you grow, the more you come–and He will
be all the better pleased with you.

If you discover other needs, come for more than you used to come for!
You will prove, thereby, that you better understand and appreciate what
manner of love it is that you should be called the sons of God. "He
that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall
He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Has He not said to
you, "Open your mouth wide and I will fill it"? It is rather strange
that you never have to tell your children to do that! They do it
without any telling–but you have been told to do it and yet you do not
do it! Our Lord complains, "you have not called upon Me, O Jacob."

The infinite liberality of your heavenly Father has urged you to make
great requests of Him and yet you have stuttered and stammered and been
afraid to ask! He now tells you that "you have not because you ask
not." Beloved, let us learn from our children, and let it be the habit
of our lives to be incessantly coming to the heavenly Father–coming
more often, coming for more reasons, coming for larger blessings,
coming with greater expectations, coming in one lifelong perpetual
coming–and all because He bids us come!

If you will look again at your Bibles, you will get a second
illustration from the fourth and fifth verses, "To whom coming as unto
a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and
precious. You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house,
an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God
by Jesus Christ." Here we have the figure of a building. A building
comprises, first, a foundation, and then the stones which are brought
to the foundation and are built upon it.

This furnishes a very beautiful picture of Christian life. I have read
that there has been discovered beneath Jerusalem an immense cavern or
quarry near the Damascus gate. Travelers who have been into this quarry
say that there are niches in the live rock out of which the magnificent
stones were cut with which Solomon's temple was built. The temple is up
there on the top of the rock, and then far down in the quarry can
distinctly be seen where the huge stones used to be. Now there was a
process of coming by which each stone came to the foundation. Some
stones that were expected to form part of the building never reached
it–there is one huge stone of that sort in the Bezetha cavern right
now.

It is still there for this reason–though it is squared and chiseled on
the front and two sides and also on the top and the bottom–yet it has
never been cut away at the back. And so it cleaves to the rock of which
it is naturally a part and remains in its original darkness. Now, the
passage that I would like you to think of is that in the 51st chapter
of Isaiah– "Look unto the rock from which you were hewn, and to the
hole of the pit from which you were dug." There are many here present
who have been cut off from the rock and lifted up out of the horrible
pit! And since the early operation of Divine Grace they have been
coming and coming till they have reached the Foundation–and are built
up as living stones in the temple which is established upon Christ!

But there are others of you who need further excavating. God has begun
His work upon you. He has used sharp tools and begun to separate you
from the world–it has taken a long time to get you cut away from the
rock, even in part. You used to be altogether sinful and earth-bound.
You lived in worldliness, just as the stone formed a part of the rock.
God has been using His great chisel upon you. He has cut you away and
separated you, to a great extent, from your fellow men. But still, at
the back, in secret, your heart cleaves to sin! You have not given up
the darling lust of your heart

and, therefore,, you are not quarried yet. And you cannot come to
Christ, for that is impossible till you are separated from the rock of
which you naturally form a part!

Oh, how I wish that almighty Grace would take the saw of the Word of
God, tonight, and make clean cuts right across your stony heart until
you are sawn right off from the hard rock of sin that you may
afterwards be made to come to Christ to be built upon Him as your
Foundation! That is how the work of Grace begins–by cutting loose the
soul from the evil world of which it has been a component part! This is
part of the process by which the living stones are brought to rest on
the Foundation, for it is clear that they cannot come to the Foundation
till first they are removed from their native bed in the pit of sin.
Oh, may God's Grace continue to take out many of this congregation like
stones divided from the quarry, that so by Grace they may come to
Jesus!

Well, after they had cut out those stones in the quarry, which, with a
little imagination, you can see lying there, detached and distinct, the
next operation was to pull them up to the top of Mount Zion. It was a
long drag up to the summit of the hill. How Solomon managed to remove
such enormous masses we do not know. If he had no machinery or motive
force that could supersede manual labor, and the force on which he
relied was in the sinews of men, the matter is all the more amazing!
They must have pulled away, perhaps, many thousands of them at one
single stone, hauling it out of the pit, dragging it up the zigzag
roads till, at last, the gigantic mass reached its place.

Now, there is a lifting, a drawing of the soul to Christ after this
fashion and I see among you some who have recently been drawn. You have
not been dragged by men. All the men in the world could not draw a
sinner to Christ! No machinery is known or will ever be invented that
can ever draw a proud, stubborn will to Christ! We may tug and pull
till we break the ropes, but we shall never make a soul stir one inch
toward Christ! But there is another power which can accomplish the work
impossible to us. "I, if I am lifted up," says Christ, "will draw all
men unto Me." He has such attractive power that He draws the stones out
of the quarry of nature, right up to the Foundation which His free
Grace has laid in Zion and they are built upon Him. This is the second
part of the work of Grace in the soul–first it separates us from the
rock, and then it draws us up to the Foundation. And in both it is
working out our coming to Christ.

Well, we have watched the stone as it has been carried up. What is the
next process? Why, the next work is to let it down so that it lies in
due order upon the foundation. The foundation of the temple very likely
was far below the adjacent soil and so this mass of stone had to be let
down to the foundation steadily and wisely, that it might rest in its
proper bed. What a task it is sometimes–to let a huge stone down upon
the foundation–and to get it to lie square and true so that every bit
of it is in its proper position with the rest of the structure!

Picture the process in your mind's eye. We have got the stone upon the
base, but half of it projects beyond the foundation and, so far, it has
nothing to lean upon. That will never do. It must be moved till it lies
plumb with the foundation, exactly square with the other stones–and
till every portion of it rests firmly on its proper bed. Oh, dear
Hearts, this is one work which the Grace of God has to do with you–to
bring you to lie upon Christ, to recline upon Christ, and that wholly,
rightly, and squarely!

It takes a long time to bring some sinners to this. They want to be
propped up with a little bit of self-righteousness! They cannot be
induced to lie right square upon Christ–they want to tilt a little,
have a little shoring up with their own doings and a little dependence
on themselves–but this will never do! "To whom coming," says the text,
"coming as to a living stone." Oh, that almighty Grace would constrain
you all to be coming till you lie flat and square on Christ! Till you
have Christ at one corner and Christ at the other corner–and Christ at
all the four corners where your soul lies– till you are resting on the
Lord Jesus Christ at all times, in all respects, under all
circumstances, for everything! Other Foundation can no man lay! You
must be sure that you rest wholly upon Jesus!

"Bless the Lord," says one, "I know I have come as far as that! Can I
get any farther?" Well, look, Brother, as long as ever that huge stone
lies on the foundation it is always coming to the foundation! Its own
weight is always pressing it down upon the foundation and the heavier
it is, the more closely and compactly it lies. I feel myself, now, to
be more close to Christ than ever I was! My weight of sin helps to
press me down on Him. My weight of trouble, my weight of care, my
weight of anxiety about the souls of my hearers and even my weight of
joy all help me to press more on my Lord! The way to be coming to
Christ, Brothers and Sisters, as long as you live, is to lean more on
Christ, press more heavily on Christ, and depend more upon Christ than
ever before!

In this way, you know, some stones seem, by long abiding and pressing,
to cleave to one another and unite together till they appear to be no
longer distinct, but one mass. Have you not often noticed in an old
Roman wall that you cannot distinguish the mortar from the stone? You
cannot tell where the stones were joined–they have grown to be one
piece. And blessed is that Christian who, like a living stone, has
continued so to come to the Foundation till Christ and he have become
one, as it were! Yes, one in conscious fact, so that nothing can divide
them!

Thus we continue to come to Jesus and draw nearer to Him–nearer and
yet nearer, still, built up into Him– perfectly joined in one spirit.
Then, only then, shall Christian life be perfected! These two figures
of the babe and the stone have shown you, I trust, what the text means.
I have not gone far afield to find them–they lie, as you have seen, in
the immediate context. "To whom coming" is an apt description of the
whole of Christian life–mind that you make it the rule of yours.

II. But now, secondly, I have to ANSWER THE QUESTION, what is the best
way of coming to Christ at first? There are some poor hearts among you
longing to be saved. "Ah," you say, "I hear that if I come to Christ I
shall be saved. But how can I come to Him? What do you mean by coming
to Jesus?" Well, our reply is plain and clear–it is to trust Christ,
to depend upon Him, to believe Him, to rely upon Him. Then they
enquire, "But how can I come to Christ? In what way would you recommend
me to come?" The answer is, the very best way to come to Christ is to
come with all your needs about you. If you could get rid of half your
needs apart from Christ, you would not come to Jesus half so well as
you can with the whole of them pressing upon you, for your need
furnishes you with motives for coming and gives you pleas to urge.

Suppose a physician should come into a town with motives of pure
benevolence to exercise the healing art? What he needs is not to make
money, but to bless the town. He does not intend to charge any or take
any fees, but he lets it be known that he has come into the town to
display his skills. He has a love to his fellow men and he wants to
cure them and, therefore,, he gives notice that as he only wishes for
opportunities of displaying his kindness and skill, the poorest will be
welcome and the most diseased will be best received.

Now, then, who is the man that can come to the doctor's door with
confidence and give a good rat-tat-tat and feel that he will be
welcome? Well, there is a person who has cut his finger–will the
doctor rush into the surgery to attend to him? No doubt he will look at
the cut, but he will not grow very enthusiastic over it, for doctors do
not get much credit out of curing cut fingers! Here is another gratis
patient who has a wart on his hand. Well, there is nothing very famous
about curing warts and the physician is by no means excited over this
work! But here is a poor forlorn body who has been given up by all the
other doctors–a patient who is so bad that he lies at Death's door! He
has such a complication of diseases that he could hardly tell what
diseases he has not suffered from–and certainly his condition is
terrible enough to make it appear hopeless.

He seems to be a living wonder of disease. That is the man who may come
boldly to the physician and expect his immediate attention and his best
consideration! Now, Doctor, if you can cure this man, he will be a
credit to you! This man exactly answers to your advertisement. You say
that you only wish for patients who will give you an opportunity of
displaying your skills. Here is a fine object for your pity! He has bad
lungs, bad heart, bad feet, bad eyes, bad ears, bad head, bad all over!
If you desire an opportunity of showing your skill, here is the man!
Jesus, my Lord and Master, is the Great Physician of souls and He heals
them on just such terms as I have mentioned. Is there a far gone sinner
here tonight? Is there a deeply sin-sick soul anywhere within the range
of my voice? Is there man or woman who is altogether bad? Come along,
my Friends, you are just in a right condition to come to Jesus Christ!
Come just as you are, that is the best style of "coming."

Another illustration may be furnished by the common Scriptural figure
of a feast. A king determines to act with generosity and, to show how
liberal his disposition is, he desires to make a banquet for those who
need it most. He says, "If I make a great feast for my lords and dukes,
they will think little of my hospitality, for they fare sumptuously
everyday. Therefore I will seek out guests who will be more likely to
be grateful. Where shall I find guests who will most enjoy my dainties?
Men who will eat with the greatest gusto and drink with the greatest
delight?" Having considered the matter, he cries to his heralds, "Go
into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in."

From among the tramps by the roadside the heralds soon gather starving
wretches who exactly meet the king's wishes. Here is a poor man who has
had nothing to eat for the last 48 hours. Look at his eager delight at
the sight of the

food! If you want somebody to eat largely and joyfully, is not he the
man? Look how he takes it in! It is wonderful how the provisions
disappear before him! Here, again, is a poor woman who has been picked
up by the wayside, faint for lack of bread. She has scarcely any life
in her, but look how she begins to open her eyes at the first morsel
that is placed before her, and what delight there is in her every
expression as she finds herself placed at a table so richly loaded!

Yes, the poorer, the more hungry, the more destitute the guests, the
more honor is accorded to the king who feeds such mendicants and
receives such vagrants to his table. Hear how they shout the king's
praises when they are filled with his meat! They will never have done
thanking him! Now, if I address a soul tonight that is very needy, very
faint, very desponding, you are a fit guest for my Master because you
have such a fine appetite for His generous repast of love! The
greatness of your need is your fitness for coming to Christ–and if you
want to know how to come–come just as you are! Tarry not to improve
yourself one single atom–come as you are, with all your sin and
filthiness and need about you–for that is the best way to come!

If you want to know how to come aright the first time, I should answer,
come to find everything you need in Christ. Do not come with a load of
your own wealth. Remember what Pharaoh said to Joseph–"Also regard not
your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours." Do not
bring your old rubbish with you. "I thought I was to bring repentance."
Do not attempt to do so, but look to Jesus for it! COMINGTO
JESUS–ALWAYS COMING. Christ is exalted on high to give repentance and
remission of sins. Come and receive a heart of flesh, for you cannot
make one for yourself!

"Oh, but I thought I was to bring faith." Faith, also, is the gift of
Christ. It comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Draw near,
then, to that Word to find faith. Come for everything. "Oh, but I want
to feel." And then, I suppose, after you have found a nice lot of
feelings you will come to Christ, and say, "Lord, You are now able to
save me, for my feelings are right"? What conceit! Come to Christ for
feelings! Come to Christ for everything!

"What?" says one, "Can you mean it, that I, an unfeeling, impenitent
wretch, am bid to come at once and believe in Jesus Christ for
everlasting life?" I mean just that! I do not mean to send you round to
that shop for repentance and to the other shop for feeling–and to a
third store for a tender heart–and then direct you to call on Christ,
at last, for a few odds and ends. No, no, but come to Christ for
everything!–

"Come, you needy, come and welcome,

God's free bounty glorify!

True belief and true repentance,

Every Grace that brings you near,

Withoutmoney

Come to Jesus Christ and buy." I heard of a shop, some time ago, in a
country town where they sold everything, and the man said that he did
not believe that there was anything a human being needed but what he
could rig him out from top to toe. Well, I do not know whether that
promise would have been carried out to the letter if it had been tried,
but I know it is so with Jesus Christ! He can supply you with all you
need, for, "Christ is All." There is not a need your soul can possibly
have but the Lord Jesus Christ can supply it and the very best way to
come, is to come to Him for everything! The best way to come to Christ
is to come meaning to get everything and to obtain all the plenitude of
Grace which He has laid up in store–and promised freely to give.

Some poor souls who come to Jesus Christ seem as if they need a little
relief from fear, a hope that they may just get saved and a fair chance
of going to Heaven when they die. Pray do not come in that way, my dear
Friend! Come intending to obtain the fullness of love, the uttermost of
Grace! Some time ago, when there was a dinner given to poor people,
they were told to come and they should have all they could eat. Do you
know what they did, some of them? There was not to be any dinner till
six o'clock. Well, that they might have a noble appetite, they did not
eat any breakfast–not they! They meant to get all they could, now they
had an opportunity, and so they came as hungry as possible.

Many years ago, I am told, it used to be the custom of the lord of the
manor, in certain villages, on Christmas Day to give the poor people a
basin of food. The rule was that whatever basin was brought, his
lordship always filled it. It was perfectly marvelous how the basins
grew, till at last, when some of the women came with their basins, the
lord of the manor looked at the huge bowls and wondered how they could
dare to bring such huge vessels! But he was a man of a

generous heart–all he would say to his steward would be, "These people
believe in my generosity. Go and fill their bowls. Fill and fill on
till you have filled them all. As long as they bring their bowls none
shall say that I denied them."

And now, when you go to Christ, take a spacious vessel of large prayer
and great expectation! Enlarge your desire and make up your mind to
this–"I am not going in to be a miserable Christian, with barely
enough Grace to keep me from open profanity, to whitewash me with a
respectable profession and ensure me against the peril of everlasting
perdition. I mean to take a higher aim and to seek a better portion!
Gladly would I vie with saints and angels and be the most happy, the
most useful, the most joyous, the most holy Christian that ever lived,
if God will help me to be so."

I wish we had some of the old Methodist fire back among us again. Some
of those dear old people, if they did not know much, used to enjoy much
and when they went to hear a sermon they listened with a zest, for they
received the Word of God as a fresh inspiration–it was a lively oracle
to them. The Gospel, as it was preached to them, awoke an echo in their
hearts! They were all alive to its good cheer and they shouted, "Amen,
hallelujah, bless the Lord," as they heard it, for it went home to
their souls!

Nowadays we are very proper and decorous in our behavior, all of us,
and we are not a little critical in our tastes. As we pick up a crumb
of the Gospel we like to know whether it is the real aerated bread
baked in a tin, or whether it is the common household bread of the
shops. The preacher is a "little odd" and he does not cut the bread
exactly into dice pieces, and so we do not like the manner of service,
for we are rather fastidious and we air our own conceits by
faultfinding. Because the Lord's servant does not very daintily bring
us our portion on a silver platter and hold it out to us, we curl our
lips and say, "No, thank you."

Oh, may God deliver us from the fashionable stiffness and artificial
nonsense! May He revive in us the reality both of nature and Divine
Grace so that we may come to His table of love with a good appetite!
Modern Christians remind me of our boyish days, when we went to bathe
in the sea and used to dip our toes in the waves instead of taking a
plunge head first. I am sure that to plunge right in is the best way
with religion! Throw your whole soul into it and allow the glorious
waves of everlasting love to go right over your head! And then dive and
swim in that sea which is bottomless and rejoice in the Lord with all
your heart!

But this mere dabbling about with goody-goody goodliness, instead of
the grand old godliness, makes professors all of a shiver and they
stand in doubt, as though they hardly liked it, and would rather get
back to the world and put on their old clothes again–only they are
half afraid to do so. Oh, may the Lord grant us Divine Grace to come
with all our needs to Him–to come to Him for everything and to come
determined to have everything that is to be had, and to go in for it
thoroughly! That is the way to come to Christ!

III. There remains one other question–WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO COME
AFTERWARDS? The answer is–

Come just as you used to come! Brothers and Sisters, the text does not
say that you have come to Christ, though that is true, but that you are
coming–and you are to be always coming. The way to continue coming is
to come in the same way as you came at first. I have many things to say
about this, but my time has gone and, therefore, I will not enlarge,
but I will only put them in brief.

I am persuaded that the only happy–the only safe way for a Christian
to live is to live in daily dependence upon the mercy of God in Jesus
Christ–just as he did when he was a babe in Grace and a stone newly
drawn from the quarry of nature. I know what it is to build up a nice
structure of my own experience on the Foundation of Christ and to climb
upon it instead of standing on my own foundation. If you were ever on
the top of Snowdon, or some other high mountain, you will have noticed
that to make the standing a little higher they put up some wooden
scaffold or other– some 10 or 12 feet of platform to increase the
elevation–and then everybody wants to get up on that platform.

Well, now, I have built my little platform on Christ. My own experience
has made a very handsome edifice, I can tell you. I have felt, "Well, I
know this and that and the other by experience," and I have been quite
exalted. Sometimes, too, I have built a platform of good works–"I have
done something for Christ, after all." The proud flesh says, "Oh yes,
you really have performed something you might talk about if you liked."
Self-confidence has piled my platform up and it has been a very
respectable looking concern and I have even asked a few friends up.

But, do you know what has occurred? Why, I have felt my platform shake!
It began to tremble! Stress of weather has rotted the beams and the
supports have begun to give way. And I have seen all my building tumble
down–and I have gone down with it! And as I have gone down with it, I
have thought, "It is all over with me now. I am going to crash

down, I do not know how far, but perhaps I shall fall to the bottom of
the mountain." Instead of that I alighted on the top of the mountain. I
did not fall very far, but came right down where it had been most
sensible of me if I had always kept, namely, on terra firma, down on
the solid earth!

I have noticed, lately, that a great many have been building some very
pretty little wooden structures on the top of Jesus Christ. I think
they call them, "the higher life," if I rightly remember the name. I do
not know of any life that is higher than that of simple faith in Jesus
Christ! As far as I am concerned, the highest life for me out of Heaven
is the life of a poor publican saying, "God be merciful to me a
sinner." My very good friends are not content with this position,
though he who keeps it goes to his house justified more than boasters!
Some friends built very high a little while ago–I thought they would
soon reach the moon! But certain of them went down in a very ugly way,
I have heard, and I am afraid some more will go down if they do not
mind what they are doing.

Give up building these artificial elevations! Give up resting on them
and just stand on the level of Christ's finished work, the blood of
Christ shed for sinners–the righteousness of Christ imputed to
sinners! Be yours the humble plea–

"I am the chief of sinners, But Jesus died for me."

He that is down there will never fall–and he who stays there is really
as high up as the man who thinks he is all aloft! All above living by
faith in Christ is mere dream and moonshine! There is nothing higher,
after all, than just being nobody, and Christ being everybody, and
singing with poor Jack, the huckster–

"I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my All in
All." If you grow till you are less than nothing, you are full grown,
but few have reached that stage! And if you grow till Christ is
everything to you, you are in your prime! But, alas, how far short of
this do most men fall! The Lord bring you to that highest of all
growths–to be daily coming to Christ–always empty in yourself, but
full in Him! Always weak in yourself, but strong in Him! Always nothing
in self, but Christ your perpetual All in All! The Lord keep you there,
Brothers and Sisters, and He will have praise and glory of you, both
now and forever. Amen.
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