Fear Not

Fear Not

A Sermon

(No. 156)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, October 4, 1857, by the

REV. C.H. SPURGEON

at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

"Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee,
saith the Lord and thy redeemer the Holy one of Israel."–Isaiah 41:14.

I SHALL SPEAK this morning to those that are discouraged, depressed in
spirit, and sore troubled in the Christian life. There are certain
nights of exceeding great darkness, through which the spirit has to
grope in much pain and misery, and during which much of the comfort of
the Word is particularly needed. Those seasons occur in this manner.
Frequently they occur at the outset of a religious life. A young man,
deeply impressed under the ministry, has been led to feel the weight of
sin; he trusts also he has been led to look for salvation to the Christ
who is preached in the gospel. In the young ardor of his spirit he
devotes himself wholly to Christ; with the most solemn vows he
dedicates body, soul, time, talents, all that he has, to the great work
of serving God; he thinks it easy to fulfill his vow; he doth not count
the cost; he reckons it will be easy to forsake gay companions, to
renounce old established habits, and to become a Christian. Alas!
before many days he finds out his mistake, if he did not reckon without
his host he certainly reckoned without his heart, for his evil heart of
unbelief had deceived him, he knew not how hard would be the struggle,
and how desperate the wrestling between his old evil nature and the
new-born principle of grace within him. He finds it to be like the
rending off of right arms to give up old and cherished habits; he
discovers it to be painful to renounce his former pursuits, as painful
as it would be to pluck out his right eye. He sits down then, and he
says, "If this be the trouble at the outset what may I expect as I
proceed. O my soul, thou wast too fast in dedicating thyself to God;
thou hast undertaken a warfare which thy prowess can never accomplish;
thou hast started on a journey for which thy strength is not adequate;
let me again return unto the world;" and if the Spirit saith, "Nay,
thou canst not," then the poor soul sits itself down in deep misery,
and cries, "I can not go back and I can not go forward; what must I do?
I am exceedingly discouraged because of the way." The same feeling
often overcomes the most valiant Christian veteran. He who has been
long experienced in the things of the divine life will sometimes be
over taken with a dark night and a stormy tempest; so dark will be the
night, that he will not know his right hand from his left, and so
horrible the tempest, that he can not hear the sweet words of his
Master, saying, "Fear not, I am with thee." Periodical tornadoes and
hurricanes will sweep o'er the Christian; he will be subjected to as
many trials in his spirit as trials in his flesh. This much I know, if
it be not so with all of you it is so with me. I have to speak to-day
to myself; and whilst I shall be endeavoring to encourage those who are
distressed and down-hearted, I shall be preaching, I trust to myself,
for I need something which shall cheer my heart–Why I can not tell,
wherefore I do not know, but I have a thorn in the flesh, a messenger
of Satan to buffet me; my soul is cast down within me, I feel as if I
had rather die than live; all that God hath done by me seems to be
forgotten, and my spirit flags and my courage breaks down with the
thought of that which is to come. I need your prayers; I need God's
Holy Spirit; and I felt that I could not preach to-day, unless I should
preach in such a way as to encourage you and to encourage myself in the
good work and labor of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What a precious promise to the young Christian, or to the old Christian
attacked by lowness of spirits and distress of mind! "Fear not, thou
worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and
thy redeemer the Holy One of Israel. Christian brethren, there are some
in this congregation, I hope many, who have solemnly devoted themselves
to the cause and service of the Lord Jesus Christ: let them hear, then,
the preparation which is necessary for this service set forth in the
word of our text. First, before we can do any great things for Christ
there must be a sense of weakness: "Worm Jacob." Secondly, there must
be trust in promised strength; and thirdly, there must be fear removed
by that promise: "Fear not, for I will help thee."

I. In the first place, the first qualification for serving God with any
amount of success, and for doing God's work well and triumphantly, is A
SENSE OF OUR OWN WEAKNESS. When God's warrior marches forth to battle
with plumed helmet, and with mail about his loins, strong in his own
majesty– when he says, "I know that I shall conquer, my own right arm
and my mighty sword shall get unto me the victory, defeat is not far
distant. God will not go forth with that man who goeth forth in his own
strength. He who reckoneth on victory having first calculated his own
might, has reckoned wrongly, for "it is not by might, nor by power, but
by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." They that go forth to fight,
boasting that they can do it, shall return with their banners trailed
in the dust, and with their armor stained with defeat; for God will not
go forth with the man who goeth forth in his own strength. God hath
said it; men must serve him, they must serve him in his own way, and
they must serve him in his own strength too, or he will never accept
their service. That which man doth, unaided by divine strength, God
never can accept. The mere fruits of the earth he casteth away; he will
only have that, the seed of which was sown from heaven, sprinkled in
the heart, and harvested by the sun of grace. There must be a
consciousness of weakness, before there can be any victory.

I think I hear many saying to-day, "Well, sir, if that be a
qualification for doing much, I have it to a very large extent." Well,
do not marvel, do not wonder. Depend on this: God will empty out all
that thou hast before he will ever put his own into thee; he will first
empty out all thy granaries, before he will fill them with the finest
of the wheat. The river of God is full of water; but there is not one
drop of it that takes its rise in earthly springs. God will have no
strength used in his own battles but the strength which he himself
imparts, and I would not have you that are now distressed in the least
discouraged by it. Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being
filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting
up.

Are there others of you that would almost desire to be cast down that
they might be prepared to serve God? Let me tell you, then, how you can
promote in yourself a sense of your own nothingness. The text addresses
us as worms. Now, the mere rationalist, the man who boasts of the
dignity of human nature, will never subscribe his name to such a title
as this. "Worm," says he, "I am no worm: I am a man; a man is the most
glorious thing that God has made; I am not going to be called a worm; I
am a man–I can do anything; I want not your revelations; they may be
fit for children, for men of childish minds that only learn by
believing: I am a man: I can think out truth; I will make my own Bible,
fashion my own ladder, and mount on it to heaven, if there be a heaven,
or make a heaven, if that be all, and dwell in it myself." Not so,
however, he who is wise and understandeth; he knows that he is a worm,
and he knows it in this way:

First, he knows it by contemplation. He that thinks, will always think
himself little. Men who have no brains are always great men; but those
who think, must think their pride down–if God is with them in their
thinking. Lift up now your eyes, behold the heavens, the work of God's
fingers; behold the sun guided in his daily march; go ye forth at
midnight, and behold the heavens; consider the stars and the moon; look
ye upon these works of God's hands, and if ye be men of sense, and your
souls are attuned to the high music of the spheres, ye will say, "What
is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou
visitest him?" My God! when I survey the boundless fields of ether, and
see those ponderous orbs rolling therein–when I consider how vast are
thy dominions–so wide that an angel's wing might flap to all eternity
and never reach a boundary–I marvel that thou shouldst look on insects
so obscure as man. I have taken to myself the microscope and seen the
ephemera upon the leaf, and I have called him small. I will not call
him so again; with me he is great, if I put myself in comparison with
God. I am so little that I shrink into nothingness when I behold the
Almightiness of Jehovah–so little, that the difference between the
animalculae and man dwindles into nothing, when compared with the
infinite chasm between God and man. Let your mind rove upon the great
doctrines of the Godhead; consider the existence of God from before the
foundations of the world; behold Him who is, and was, and is to come,
the Almighty; let your soul comprehend as much as it can of the
Infinite, and grasp as much as possible of the Eternal, and I am sure
if you have minds at all, they will shrink with awe. The tall archangel
bows himself before his Master's throne, and we shall cast ourselves
into the lowest dust when we feel what base nothings, what
insignificant specks we are when compared with our all-adorable
Creator. Labor, O soul, to know thy nothingness, and learn it by
contemplating God's greatness.

Again, if you want to know your own nothingness, consider what you are
in suffering. I was thinking, the other evening, how small a matter it
must be with God to cast any man into the most unutterable agony. We
are well and in good spirits; we know not why, but it seems as if God's
finger had touched one nerve, but one poor nerve, and we are so
miserable that we could sit down and weep; we do not know how to bear
ourselves. But half an hour ago we could have "smiled at Satan's rage,
and faced a frowning world;" and God does but put his hand on our
hearts, and just let one of the strings run loose, and what discord
there is in our spirits; we are annoyed at the slightest matter; we
wish to be continually alone; the very promises yield us no comfort;
our days are nights, and our nights are black as Gehenna. We know not
how to endure ourselves. How easily, then, can God cast us into misery!
O man, what a little thing thou art, if so little a thing can overthrow
thee. Ye have heard men talk big words when they have been prosperous;
did you ever hear them talk so when they were in deep distress, and
great anguish and sorrow? No, then they say, "Am I a seal or a whale,
that thou settest a watch upon me? What am I, that thou shouldst visit
me every morning, and chasten me every night? Let me alone, until I
swallow down my spittle. Why am I sore vexed? What am I, that thou
shouldst make me a butt for thine arrows, and a target for thy wrath?
Spare me, O my God, for I am less than nothing; I am but a shadow that
passeth away and declineth. Oh deal not hardly with thy servant, for
thy mercies' sake." Great sorrow will always make a man think little of
himself, if God blesseth it to him.

Again: if you would know your own weakness, try some great labor for
Christ. I can understand how some minister who preaches to his
hundred-and-fifty on a Sabbath-day, and regards himself as having a
large congregation, should be very precise about the color of his
cravat, and about the respect that is paid to his dignity in his little
church; I can well comprehend how he should be as big as my Lord
Archbishop–because he does nothing; he has nothing at all to try him;
but I can not imagine Martin Luther standing before the Diet at Worms,
being proud because he had to do such a deed as that. I can not
conceive John Calvin, in his incessant labors for Christ, leading on
the reformation, and teaching the truth of God with power, saying to
himself, "Lo! this great Babylon that I have builded." I can suppose
the man that has nothing to do and that is doing nothing, sitting down
in devout complacency with his own adorable self; but I can not
conceive, if you nerve yourselves to great labors, but what you will
have to say, "Lord, what a worm am I that thou shouldst call me to such
work as this!" Turn, if you please, to the history of all men who have
done great deeds for God, and you will find them saying, "I marvel that
God should use me thus!" "This day my mind was exceedingly cast down,"
says one of them, "for God had called me to a great labor, and I never
felt so much of my own insufficiency as I did to-day." Says another, "I
have to-morrow to do such-and-such an eminent service for my Master,
and I can say that when I was in my low estate, I was often exalted
above measure, but this day my God has cast me into the lowest depths
at the recollection of the work for which he has engaged me." Go and do
something, some of you, and I will be bound to say it will be the means
of pricking that fair bubble of your pride, and letting some of it blow
away. If you would understand what is meant by being a worm, go and do
what the 15th verse says the worm should do–go and thrash the
mountains, and beat them small; make the hills as chaff fanned by the
wind, scatter them, and then rejoice in God: and if you can do that,

"The more God's glories strike your eyes,

The humbler you will lie."

Devout contemplation, sharp suffering, hard labor–all these will teach
us what little creatures we are. Oh! may God by all means and every
means keep us, well understanding and knowing that we are nothing more
and nothing better than worms!

How easy it is, my brethren, for you and I to fly up! How hard to keep
down! That demon of pride was born with us, and it will not die one
hour before us. It is so woven into the very warp and woof of our
nature, that till we are wrapped in our winding-sheets we shall never
hear the last of it. If any man telleth me that he is humble, I know
him to be profoundly proud; and if any man will not acknowledge this
truth, that he is desperately inclined to self-exaltation, let him know
that his denial of this truth is the best proof of it. Do you know what
is the sweetest flattery in all the world ? It is that flattery that
Caesar's courtiers of old gave to him, when they said Caesar hated
flattery, being then most highly flattered. We do not hate flattery,
any one of us; we all like it. We do not like it if it is labeled
flattery; but we like it if it is given in a little underhand fashion,
We all love praise.

"The proud to gain it toils on toils endure,

The modest shun it, but to make it sure."

We all love it, every soul of us, and it is right and meet that we
should all bow before God, and acknowledge that pride which is woven
into our nature, and ask him to teach us what little things we are,
that we may claim this promise–"Fear not, thou worm Jacob."

II. Now the next point. Before devoting ourselves to Christ, or doing
any great labor for the Saviour, it is necessary THERE SHOULD BE TRUST
IN THE PROMISED STRENGTH. "I Will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy
Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." It is a certain fact, that though
men be worms, they do what worms never could do; although men be
nothing they do accomplish deeds which need even the power of the
Infinite to rival them. How shall we account for this? Certainly it is
not the worms; it must be some secret energy which gives them might.
The mystery is unravelled in the text. "I will help thee, saith the
Lord." In ancient history there is a story told of a valiant captain
whose banner was always foremost in the fight, whose sword was dreaded
by his enemies, for it was the herald of slaughter and of victory. His
monarch once demanded of him that he should send this potent sword to
him to be examined. The monarch took the sword, quietly criticised it,
and sent it back with this message–"I see nothing wonderful in the
sword; I can not understand why any man should be afraid of it." The
captain sent back in the most respectful manner a message of this kind:
"Your Majesty has been pleased to examine the sword, but I did not send
the arm that wielded it; if you had examined that, and the heart that
guided the arm, you would have understood the mystery." And now we look
at men, and see what men have done, and we say, "I can not under stand
this; how was it done?" "Why, we are only seeing the sword; if we could
see the heart of infinite love that guided that man in his onward
course, we should not wonder that he, as God's sword, gained the
victory. Now, the Christian may remember, that little though he be, God
is with him; God will help him, and that right early. Brethren, I like
a man who, when he begins to do anything, is afraid of himself, and
says, "It is of no use; I can not do it." Let him alone: he will do it.
He is all right. The man who says, "Oh there is nothing in it, I can do
it," will break down to a dead certainty. But let him begin, by saying,
"I know what I am at, and I feel confident I can not do it unless I
have something more given to me than I feel to-day;" that man will come
back with flying banners, the trumpets proclaiming that he has been
victorious. But it must be because he puts reliance upon help promised.
Now, Christian, I see you this morning ready to run away from the
battle; you have been so dispirited this last week, through divers
adverse circumstances, that you are ready to give up your religion.
Now, man, here is a brother comrade that is passing through just the
same; he comes here this morning, half inclined to run off to Tarshish,
like Jonah did of old, only he could not find a boat, or else he might
have sailed away; and he has come here to pat you on the shoulder and
say, "Brother, do not let you and I play deserters, after all; let us
up to arms, and still fight for our Master; for the promise says, "I
will help thee, Brother, what an all-sufficient promise that is–"I
will help thee." Why, it matters not what God has given us to do; if he
helps us we can do it. Give me God to help me, and I will split the
world in halves, and shiver it till it shall be smaller than the dust
of the threshing floor; ay, and if God be with me, this breath could
blow whole worlds about, as the child bloweth a bubble. There is no
saying what man can do when God is with him. Give God to a man, and he
can do all things. Put God into a man's arm, and he may have only the
jawbone of an ass to fight with, but he will lay the Philistines in
heaps: put God into a man's hand, and he may have a giant to deal with,
and nothing hut a sling and a stone; but he will lodge the stone in the
giant's brow before long; put God into a man's eye, and he will flash
defiance on kings and princes; put God into a man's lip, and he will
speak right honestly, though his death should be the wages of his
speech. There is no fear of a man who has got God with him, he is
all-sufficient; there is nothing beyond his power. And my brethren,
what an opportune help God's is! God's help always comes in at the
right time. We are often making a fuss because God does not help us
when we do not want to be helped. "O!" says one, "I do not think that I
could die for Christ; I feel I could not; I wish I felt that I had
strength enough to die." Well, you just won't feel that, because you
are not going to die, and God will not give you strength to die with,
to lay up till the dying time comes. Wait till ye are dying, and then
he will give you strength to die. "O!" says another, "I wish I felt as
strong in prayer as so-and-so." But you do not want much strength in
prayer, and you shall not have it. You shall have what you want, and
you shall have it when you want it; but you shall not have it before.
Ah, I have often cried to God and desired that I might feel happy
before I began to preach–that I might feel I could preach to the
people. I could never get it at all. And yet sometimes God hath been
pleased to cheer me as I have gone along, and given me strength that
has been equal to my day. So it must be with you. God will come in when
you want him–not one minute before, nor yet one minute later. "I will
help thee." I will help thee when thou needest help! And oh! brethren,
what an ennobling thing it is to be helped by God! To be helped by a
fellow man is no disgrace, but it is no honor; but to be helped by God,
what an honor that is! When the Christian prophet preacheth his
Master's word, and feels that he has girded about his loins the belt of
the Almighty, to strengthen him for his days work, that he may not fear
the people, what a noble being he is then! When the Christian
philanthropist goes into the prison, in the midst of reeking disease
and death, and feels that God has put the wing of the angel over him,
to shield him in the day of pestilence, how it ennobles and honors him
to have God with him! To have his strength girding his loins and
nerving his arm, is just the highest thing to which man can attain. I
thought but yesterday, "O, if I were a cherub I would stand with wings
outstretched, and I would bless God for opportunities for serving him;"
but I thought within myself, "I have an opportunity of serving God, but
I am too weak for it. O my God, I wish thou hadst not put the load on
me." And then it struck me, "Do the cherubim and seraphim ever say
that?" Do they ever for a moment say, I have not strength enough to do
it!'" No, if a cherub had a work to do which was beyond his might, he
would meekly bow his head and say, "My Lord; I fly, I fly! He that
commanded the deed will enable me to perform it." And so must the
Christian say; "My God, dost thou command? It is enough: tis done. Thou
never didst send us to a warfare at our own charges, and thou wilt
never do so; thou wilt help us, and be with us to the end."

Before we can do much, then, we must know our own weakness; and believe
God's strength.

III. And now comes the last point, upon which I shall be brief. We
must, then, LABOR TO GET RID, AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, OF FEAR. The prophet
says, "Fear not;" thou art a worm, but do not fear; God will help thee;
why shouldst thou fear? Let us labor to get rid of fear, when we are
not certain we are serving our Master. And let these be our reasons:

Get rid of fear, because fear is painful. How it torments the spirit!
When the Christian trusts, he is happy; when he doubts, he is
miserable. When the believer looks to his Master and relies upon him,
he can sing; when he doubts his Master, he can only groan. What
miserable wretches the most faithful Christians are when they once
begin doubting and fearing! It is a trade I never like to meddle with,
because it never pays the expenses, and never brings in any profit
–the trade of doubting. Why, the soul is broken in pieces, lanced,
pricked with knives, dissolved, racked, pained. It knoweth not how to
exist when it gives way to fear. Up, Christian! thou art of a sorrowful
countenance; up, and chase thy fears. Why wouldst thou be for ever
groaning in thy dungeon? Why should the Giant Despair for ever beat
thee with his crabtree cudgel? Up! drive him away! touch the key of the
promises; be of good cheer! Fear never helped thee yet, and it never
will.

Fear, too, is weakening. Make a man afraid–he will run at his own
shadow; make a man brave, and he will stand before an army and overcome
them. He will never do much good in the world who is afraid of men. The
fear of God bringeth blessings, but the fear of men bringeth a snare,
and such a snare that many feet have been tripped by it. No man shall
be faithful to God, if he is fearful of man; no man shall find his arm
sufficient for him, and his might equal to his emergencies unless he
can confidently believe, and quietly wait. We must not fear; for fear
is weakening.

Again; we must not fear; for fear dishonors God. Doubt the Eternal,
distrust the Omnipotent? O, traitorous fear! thickest thou that the arm
which piled the heavens, and sustains the pillars of the earth shall
ever be palsied? Shall the brow which eternal ages have rolled over
without scathing it, at last be furrowed by old age? What! shall the
Eternal fail thee? Shall the faithful Promiser break his oath? Thou
dishonorest God, O unbelief! Get thee hence! God is too wise to err,
too good to be unkind; leave off doubting him, and begin to trust him,
for in so doing, thou wilt put a crown on his head, but in doubting him
thou dost trample his crown beneath thy feet.

And lastly, doubt not the Lord, O Christian; for in so doing thou dost
lower thyself. The more thou believest, the greater thou art; but the
more thou doubtest, the less thou becomest. It was said of the worlds
conqueror, that when he was sick, he puled like a child. "Give me some
drink," cried one, like a sick girl, it was said to his dishonor. And
is it not to the dishonor of a Christian, who lives in secret on his
God, and professes to trust alone in him, that he can not trust him;
that a little child will overcome his faith? O, poor cockle-shell boat,
that is upset by a rain-drop! O poor puny Christian that is overcome by
every straw, that stumbles at every stone! Then, Christian men, behave
like men! It is childish to doubt; it is manhood glory to trust. Plant
your foot upon the immoveable Rock of Ages; lift your eye to heaven;
scorn the world; never play craven; bend your fist in the world's face,
and bid defiance to it and hell, and you are a man, and noble. But
crouch, and cringe, and dread, and doubt, and you have lost your
Christian dignity and are no longer what you should be. You do not
honor God. "Fear not, thou worm Jacob; I will help thee, saith the
Lord." Then why shouldst thou fear?

I feel that my voice fails me, and with it my very powers of thought
too, and therefore I can only turn to my comrades in arms, in the good
war of Christ, and I say to them, brethren, you and I can do nothing of
ourselves; we are poor puny things; but let us attempt great things,
for God is with us; let us dare great things, for God will not leave
us. Remember what he has done aforetime; and remember what he has done
of old he will do again. Remember David the shepherd-boy. Think ye well
of Shamgar, with his ox-goad. Forget ye not the jawbone of the ass, and
the stone from the sling. If these worked wonders, why should not we?
If little things have done great things, let us try to do great things
also. You know not, ye atoms, but that your destiny is sublime. Try and
make it so by faith; and the least of you may be mighty through the
strength of God. O for grace to trust God, and there is no telling what
ye can do. Worms, ye are nothing, but ye have eaten princes; worms ye
are nothing, but ye have devoured the roots of cedars, and laid them
level with the earth; worms, ye are nothing, but ye have piled rocks in
the deep, deep sea, and wrecked mighty navies; worms, ye have eaten
through the keel of the proudest ship that ever sailed the ocean. If ye
have done this yourselves, what can not we do? your strength lies in
your mouths; our strength lies in ours too. We will use our mouths in
prayer, and in constant adoration, and we shall conquer yet, for God is
with us, and victory is sure.

Ye trembling souls! dismiss your fears;

Be mercy all your theme:

Mercy, which, like a river, flows

In one continued stream.

Fear not the powers of earth and hell;

God will these powers restrain;

His mighty arm their rage repel,

And make their efforts vain.

Fear not the want of outward good;

He will for his provide,

Grant them supplies of daily food,

And all they need beside.

Fear not that he will e'er forsake,

Or leave his work undone;

He's faithful to his promises–

And faithful to his Son.

Fear not the terrors of the grave,

Or death's tremendous sting;

He will from endless wrath preserve–

To endless glory bring.