Let Him Deliver Him Now

Let Him Deliver Him Now

A Sermon

(No. 2026)

Intended for Reading on Lord's-day, June 17, 1888, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At [6]the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"He trusted in God; let him deliver him now; if he will have him: for
he said, I am the Son of God."'Matthew 27:43.

THESE WORDS ARE a fulfilment of the prophecy contained in the
twenty-second Psalm. Read from the seventh verse'"All they that see me
laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him,
seeing he delighted in him." Thus to the letter doth our Lord answer to
the ancient prophecy.

It is very painful to the heart to picture our blessed Master in his
death-agonies, surrounded by a ribald multitude, who watched him and
mocked him, made sport of his prayer and insulted his faith. Nothing
was sacred to them: they invaded the Holy of holies of his confidence
in God, and taunted him concerning that faith in Jehovah which they
were compelled to admit. See, dear friends, what an evil thing is sin,
since the Sin-bearer suffers so bitterly to make atonement for it! See,
also, the shame of sin, since even the Prince of Glory, when bearing
the consequences of it, is covered with contempt! Behold, also, how he
loved us! For our sake he "endured the cross, despising the shame." He
loved us so much that even scorn of the most cruel sort he deigned to
bear, that he might take away our shame and enable us to look up unto
God.

Beloved, the treatment of our Lord Jesus Christ by men is the clearest
proof of total depravity which can possibly be required or discovered.
Those must be stony hearts indeed which can laugh at a dying Saviour,
and mock even at his faith in God! Compassion would seem to have
deserted humanity, while malice sat supreme on the throne. Painful as
the picture is, it will do you good to paint it. You will need neither
canvas, nor brush, nor palette, nor colours. Let your thoughts draw the
outline, and your love fill in the detail; I shall not complain if
imagination heightens the colouring. The Son of God, whom angels adore
with veiled faces, is pointed at with scornful fingers by men who
thrust out the tongue and mockingly exclaim, "He trusted on the Lord
that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in
him."

While thus we see our Lord in his sorrow and his shame as our
substitute, we must not forget that he also is there as our
representative. That which appears in many a psalm to relate to David
is found in the Gospels to refer to Jesus, our Lord. Often and often
the student of the Psalm will say to himself, "Of whom speaketh the
prophet this?" He will have to disentangle the threads sometimes, and
mark off that which belongs to David and that which relates to the Son
of God; and frequently he will not be able to disentangle the threads
at all, because they are one, and may relate both to David, and to
David's Lord. This is meant to show us that the life of Christ is an
epitome of the life of his people. He not only suffers for us as our
substitute, but he suffers before us as our pattern. In him we see what
we have in our measure to endure. "As he is, so are we also in this
world." We also must be crucified to the world, and we may look for
somewhat of those tests of faith and taunts of derision which go with
such a crucifixion. "Marvel not if the world hate you." You, too, must
suffer without the gate. Not for the world's redemption, but for the
accomplishment of divine purposes in you, and through you to the sons
of men, you must be made to know the cross and its shame. Christ is the
mirror of the church. What the head endured every member of the body
will also have to endure in its measure. Let us read the text in this
light, and come to it saying to ourselves, "Here we see what Jesus
suffered in our stead, and we learn hereby to love him with all our
souls. Here, too, we see, as in a prophecy, how great things we are to
suffer for his sake at the hands of men." May the Holy Spirit help us
in our meditation, so that at the close of it we may more ardently love
our Lord, who suffered for us, and may the more carefully arm ourselves
with the same mind which enabled him to endure such contradiction of
sinners against himself.

Coming at once to the text, first, observe the acknowledgment with
which the text begins: "He trusted in God." The enemies of Christ
admitted his faith in God. Secondly, consider the test which is the
essence of the taunt: "Let him deliver him, if he will have him." When
we have taken those two things into our minds, then let us for a while
consider the answer to that test and taunt: God does assuredly deliver
his people: those who trust in him have no reason to be ashamed of
their faith.

I. First, then, my beloved brethren, you who know the Lord by faith and
live by trusting in him, let me invite you to OBSERVE THE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT which these mockers made of our Lord's faith: "He
trusted in God." Yet the Saviour did not wear any peculiar garb or
token by which he let men know that he trusted in God. He was not a
recluse, neither did he join some little knot of separatists, who
boasted their peculiar trust in Jehovah. Although our Saviour was
separate from sinners, yet he was eminently a man among men, and he
went in and out among the multitude as one of themselves. His one
peculiarity was that "he trusted in God." He was so perfectly a man
that, although he was undoubtedly a Jew, there were no Jewish
peculiarities about him. Any nation might claim him; but no nation
could monopolize him. The characteristics of our humanity are so
palpably about him that he belongs to all mankind. I admire the Welch
sister who was of opinion that the Lord Jesus must be Welch. When they
asked her how she proved it, she said that he always spoke to her heart
in Welch. Doubtless it was so, and I can, with equal warmth, declare
that he always speaks to me in English. Brethren from Germany, France,
Sweden, Italy'you all claim that he speaks to you in your own tongue.
This was the one thing which distinguished him among men'"he trusted in
God," and he lived such a life as naturally grows out of faith in the
Eternal Lord. This peculiarity had been visible even to that ungodly
multitude who least of all cared to perceive a spiritual point of
character. Was ever any other upon a cross thus saluted by the mob who
watched his execution? Had these scorners ever mocked anyone before for
such a matter as this? I trow not. Yet faith had been so manifest in
our Lord's daily life that the crowd cried out aloud, "He trusted in
God."

How did they know? I suppose they could not help seeing that he made
much of God in his teaching, in his life, and in his miracles. Whenever
Jesus spoke it was always godly talk; and if it was not always
distinctly about God, it was always about things that related to God,
that came from God, that led to God, that magnified God. A man may be
fairly judged by that which he makes most of. The ruling passion is a
fair gauge of the heart. What a soul-ruler faith is! It sways the man
as the rudder guides the ship. When a man once gets to live by faith in
God, it tinctures his thoughts, it masters his purposes, it flavours
his words, it puts a tone into his actions, and it comes out in
everything by ways and means most natural and unconstrained, till men
perceive that they have to do with a man who makes much of God. The
unbelieving world says outright that there is no God, and the less
impudent, who admit his existence, put him down at a very low figure,
so low that it does not affect their calculations; but to the true
Christian, God is not only much, but all. To our Lord Jesus, God was
all in all; and when you come to estimate God as he did, then the most
careless onlooker will soon begin to say of you, "He trusted in God."

In addition to observing that Jesus made much of God, men came to note
that he was a trusting man, and not self-confident. Certain persons are
very proud because they are self-made men. I will do them the credit to
admit that they heartily worship their maker. Self made them, and they
worship self. We have among us individuals who are self-confident, and
almost all-sufficient; they sneer at those who do not succeed, for they
can succeed anywhere at anything. The world to them is a football which
they can kick where they like. If they do not rise to the very highest
eminence it is simply out of pity to the rest of us, who ought to have
a chance. A vat of sufficiency ferments within their ribs! There was
nothing of that sort of thing in our Lord. Those who watched him did
not say that he had great self-reliance and a noble spirit of
self-confidence. No, no! They said, "He trusted in God." Indeed it was
so. The words that he spake he spake not of himself, and the great
deeds that he did he never boasted of, but said "the Father that
dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." He was a truster in God, not a
boaster in self. Brethren and sisters, I desire that you and I may be
just of that order. Selfconfidence is the death of confidence in God;
reliance upon talent, tact, experience, and things of that kind, kills
faith. Oh that we may know what faith means, and so look out of
ourselves and quit the evil confidence which looks within!

On the other hand, we may wisely remember that, while our Lord Jesus
was not self-reliant, he trusted, and was by no means despondent: he
was never discouraged. He neither questioned his commission, nor
despaired of fulfilling it. He never said, "I must give it up: I can
never succeed." No; "He trusted in God." And this is a grand point in
the working of faith, that while it keeps us from self-conceit, it
equally preserves us from enfeebling fear. When our blessed Lord set
his face like a flint; when, being baffled, he returned to the
conflict; when, being betrayed, he still persevered in his love, then
men could not help seeing that he trusted in God. His faith was not
mere repetition of a creed, or profession of belief, but it was
childlike reliance upon the Most High. May ours be of the same order!

It is evident that the Lord Jesus trusted in God openly since even
yonder gibing crowd proclaimed it. Some good people try to exercise
faith on the sly: they practise it in snug corners, and in lonely
hours, but they are afraid to say much before others, for fear their
faith should not see the promise fulfilled. They dare not say, with
David, "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear
thereof, and be glad." This secrecy robs God of his honour. Brethren,
we do not glorify our God as he ought to be glorified. Let us trust in
him, and own it. Wherefore should we be ashamed? Let us throw down the
gauge of battle to earth and hell. God, the true and faithful, deserves
to be trusted without limit. Trust your all with him, and be not
ashamed of having done so. Our Saviour was not ashamed of trusting in
his God. On the cross he cried, "Thou didst make me hope when I was
upon my mother's breast." Jesus lived by faith. We are sure that he
did, for in the Epistle to the Hebrews he is quoted as saying, "I will
put my trust in him." If so glorious a personage as the only begotten
Son of God lived here by faith in God, how are you and I to live except
by trust in God? If we live unto God, this is the absolute necessity of
our spiritual life "the just shall live by faith." Shall we be ashamed
of that which brings life to us? The cruel ones who saw Jesus die did
not say, "He now and then trusted in God"; nor "he trusted in the Lord
years ago"; but they admitted that faith in God was the constant tenor
of his life: they could not deny it. Even though, with malicious
cruelty, they turned it into a taunt, yet they did not cast a question
upon the fact that "he trusted in God" Oh, I want you so to live that
those who dislike you most may, nevertheless, know that you do trust in
God! When you come to die, may your dear children say of you, "Our dear
mother did trust in the Lord"! May that boy, who has gone furthest away
from Christ, and grieved your heart the most, nevertheless say in his
heart, "There may be hypocrites in the world, but my dear father does
truly trust in God"! Oh, that our faith may be known unmistakably! We
do not wish it to be advertised to our own honour. That be far from our
minds. But yet we would have it known that others may be encouraged,
and that God may be glorified. If nobody else trusts in God, let us do
so; and thus may we uplift a testimony to the honour of his
faithfulness. When we die, may this be our epitaph'"He trusted in God."

David, in the twenty-second Psalm, represents the enemies as saying of
our Lord'"He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him." This
practical faith is sure to be known wherever it is in operation,
because it is exceedingly rare. Multitudes of people have a kind of
faith it God, but it does not come to the practical point of trusting
that God will deliver them. I see upon the newspaper placards,
"Startling New! People in the Planets!" Not a very practical discovery.
For many a day there has been a tendency to refer God's promises and
our faith to the planets, or somewhere beyond this present every-day
life. We say to ourselves, "Oh yes, God delivers his people." We mean
that he did so in the days of Moses, and possibly he may be doing so
now in some obscure island of the sea. Ah me! The glory of faith lies
it its being fit for every-day wear. Can it be said of you, "He trusted
in God, that he would deliver him"? Have you faith of the kind which
will make you lean upon the Lord in poverty, in sickness, in
bereavement, in persecution, in slander, in contempt? Have you a trust
in God to bear you up in holy living at all costs, and in active
service even beyond your strength? Can you trust in God definitely
about this and that? Can you trust about food, and raiment, and home?
Can you trust God even about your shoes, that they shall be iron and
brass, and about the hairs of your head that they are all numbered?
What we need is less theory and more actual trust it God.

The faith of the text was personal: "that he would deliver him."
Blessed is that faith which can reach its arm of compassion around the
world, but that faith must begin at home. Of what use were the longest
arm if it were not fixed to the man himself at the shoulder? If you
have no faith about yourself, what faith can you have about others? "He
trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him." Come, beloved, have you
such a faith in the living God? Do you trust in God through Christ
Jesus that he will save you? Yes, you poor, unworthy one, the Lord will
deliver you if you trust him. Yes, poor woman, or unknown man, the Lord
can help you in your present trouble, and in every other, and he will
do so if you trust him to that end. May the Holy Spirit lead you to
first trust the Lord Jesus for the pardon of sin, and then to trust in
God for all things.

Let us pause a minute. Let a man trust in God; not in fiction but in
fact, and he will find that he has solid rock under his feet. Let him
trust about his own daily needs and trials, and rest assured that the
Lord will actually appear for him, and he will not be disappointed.
Such a trust in God is a very reasonable thing; its absence is most
unreasonable. If there be a God, he knows all about my case. If he made
my ear he can hear me; if he made my eye he can see me; and therefore
he perceives my condition. If he be my Father, as he says he is, he
will certainly care for me, and will help me in my hour of need if he
can. We are sure that he can, for he is omnipotent. Is there anything
unreasonable, then, in trusting in God that he will deliver us? I
venture to say that if all the forces in the universe were put
together, and all the kindly intents of all who are our friends were
put together, and we were then to rely upon those united forces and
intents, we should not have a thousandth part so much justification for
our confidence as when we depend upon God, whose intents and forces are
infinitely greater than those of all the world beside. "It is better to
trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man; it is better to trust
in the Lord than to put confidence in princes." If you view things in
the white light of pure reason, it is infinitely more reasonable to
trust in the living God than in all his creatures put together.

Certainly, dear friends, it is extremely comfortable to trust in God. I
find it so, and therefore speak. To roll your burden upon the Lord,
since he will sustain you, is a blessed way of being quit of care. We
know him to be faithful, and as powerful as he is faithful; and our
dependence upon him is the solid foundation of a profound peace.

While it is comfortable, it is also uplifting. If you trust in men, the
best of men, you are likely to be lowered by your trust. We are apt to
cringe before these who patronize us. If your prosperity depends upon a
person's smile, you are tempted to pay homage even when it is
undeserved. The old saying mentions a certain person as "knowing on
which side his bread is buttered." Thousands are practically degraded
by their trusting in men. But when our reliance is upon the living God
we are raised by it, and elevated both morally and spiritually. You may
bow in deepest reverence before God, and yet there will be no fawning.
You may lie in the dust before the Majesty of heaven, and yet not be
dishonoured by your humility; in fact, it is our greatness to be
nothing in the presence of the Most High.

This confidence in God makes men strong. I should advise the enemy not
to oppose the man who trusts in God. In the long run he will be beaten,
as Haman found it with Mordecai. He had been warned of this by Zeresh,
his wife, and his wise men, who said, " If Mordecai be of the seed of
the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail
against him, but shalt surely fall before him." Contend not with a man
who has God at his back. Years ago the Mentonese desired to break away
from the dominion of the Prince of Monaco. They therefore drove out his
agent. The prince came with his army, not a very great one, it is true,
but still formidable to the Mentonese. I know not what the high and
mighty princeling was not going to do; but the news came that the King
of Sardinia was coming up in the rear to help the Mentonese and
therefore his lordship of Monaco very prudently retired to his own
rock. When a believer stands out against evil he may be sure that the
Lord of hosts will not be far away. The enemy shall hear the dash of
his horse-hoof and the blast of his trumpet, and shall flee before him.
Wherefore be of good courage, and compel the world to say of you, "He
trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him."

II. Secondly, I want you to follow me briefly in considering THE Test
WHICH IS THE ESSENCE OF THE TAUNT which was hurled by the mockers
against our Lord'"Let him deliver him now, if he will have him."

Such a test will come to all believers. It may come as a taunt from
enemies; it will certainly come as a trial of your faith. The
arch-enemy will assuredly hiss out, "Let him deliver him, seeing he
delighted in him."

This taunt has about it the appearance of being very logical, and
indeed in a measure so it is. If God has promised to deliver us, and we
have openly professed to believe the promise, it is only natural that
others should say, "Let us see whether he does deliver him. This man
believes that the Lord will help him; and he must help him, or else the
man's faith is a delusion." This is the sort of test to which we
ourselves would have put others before our conversion, and we cannot
object to be proved in the same manner ourselves. Perhaps we incline to
run away from the ordeal, but this very shrinking should be a solemn
call to us to question the genuineness of that faith which we are
afraid to test. "He trusted on the Lord," says the enemy, "that he
would deliver him: let him deliver him"; and surely, however malicious
the design, there is no escaping from the logic of the challenge.

It is peculiarly painful to have this stern inference driven home to
you in the hour of sorrow. Because one cannot deny the fairness of the
appeal, it is all the more trying. In the time of depression of spirit
it is hard to have one's faith questioned, or the ground on which it
stands made a matter of dispute. Either to be mistaken in one's belief,
or to have no real faith, or to find the ground of one's faith fail is
an exceedingly grievous thing. Yet as our Lord was not spared this
painful ordeal, we must not expect to be kept clear of it, and Satan
knows well how to work these questions, till the poison of them sets
the blood on fire. "He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him;
let him deliver him;" he hurls this fiery dart into the soul, till the
man is sorely wounded, and can scarcely hold his ground.

The taunt is specially pointed and personal. It is put thus: "He
trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him";
"Do not come to us with your fiddle-faddle about God's helping all his
chosen. Here is a man who is one of his people, will he help him? Do
not talk to us big things about Jehovah at the Red Sea, or in the
Desert of Sinai, or God helping his people in ages past. Here is a
living man before us who trusted in God that he would deliver him: let
him deliver him now." You know how Satan will pick out one of the most
afflicted, and pointing his fingers at him will cry, "Let him deliver
HIM." Brethren, the test is fair. God will be true to every believer.
If any one child of God could be lost, it would be quite enough to
enable the devil to spoil all the glory of God for ever. If one promise
of God to one of his people should fail, that one failure would suffice
to mar the veracity of the Lord to all eternity; they would publish it
in the "Diabolical Gazette," and in every street of Tophet they would
howl it out, "God has failed. God has broken his promise. God has
ceased to be faithful to his people." It would then be a horrible
reproach'"He trusted in God to deliver him, but he did not deliver
him."

Much emphasis lies in its being in the present tense: "He trusted in
God that he would deliver him: let him deliver him now." I see Thee, O
Lord Jesus, thou art now in the wilderness, where the fiend is saying,
"If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."
No. Thou art nailed to the tree; thine enemies have hemmed thee in. The
legionaries of Rome are at the foot of the cross, the scribes and
Pharisees and raging Jews compass thee about. There is no escape from
death for thee! Hence their cry'"Let him deliver him now." Ah, brothers
and sisters! this is how Satan assails us, using our present and
pressing tribulations as the barbs of his arrows. Yet here also there
is reason and logic in the challenge.

If God does not deliver his servants at one time as well as another he
has not kept his promise. For a man of truth is always true, and a
promise once given always stands. A promise cannot be broken now and
then, and yet the honour of the person giving it be maintained by his
keeping it at other times. The word of a true man stands always good:
it is good now. This is logic, bitter logic, cold steel logic, logic
which seems to cut right down your backbone and cleave your chine. "He
trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him
now." Yet this hard logic can be turned to comfort. I told you a story
the other day of the brother in Guy's Hospital to whom the doctors said
that he must undergo an operation which was extremely dangerous. They
gave him a week to consider whether he would submit to it. He was
troubled for his young wife and children, and for his work for the
Lord. A friend left a bunch of flowers for him, with this verse as its
motto, "He trusted in God; let him deliver him now." "Yes," he thought,
"now". In prayer he cast himself upon the Lord, and felt in his heart,
"Come on, doctors, I am ready for you." When the next morning came, he
refused to take chloroform, for he desired to go to heaven in his
senses. He bore the operation manfully, and he is yet alive. "He
trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him" then and there, and the
Lord did so. In this lies the brunt of the battle.

A Christian man may be beaten in business, he may fail to meet all
demands, and then Satan yells, "Let him deliver him now." The poor man
has been out of work for two or three months, tramping the streets of
London until he has worn out his boots; he has been brought to his last
penny. I think I hear the laugh of the Prince of Darkness as he cries,
"Let him deliver him now." Or else the believer is very ill in body,
and low in spirit, and then Satan howls, "Let him deliver him now."
Some of us have been in very trying positions. We were moved with
indignation because of deadly error, and we spoke plainly, but men
refused to hear. Those we relied upon deserted us; good men sought
their own ease and would not march with us, and we had to bear
testimony for despised truth alone, until we were ourselves despised.
Then the adversary shouted, "Let him deliver him now." Be it so! We do
not refuse the test. Our God whom we serve will deliver us. We will not
bow down to modern thought nor worship the image which human wisdom has
set up. Our God is God both of hills and of valleys. He will not fail
his servants, albeit that for a while he forbears that he may try their
faith. We dare accept the test, and say, "Let him deliver us now."

Beloved friends, we need not be afraid of this taunt if it is brought
by adversaries; for, after all, no test will come to us apart from any
malice, for it is inevitable. All the faith you have will be tried. I
can see you heaping it up. How rich you are! What a pile of faith!
Friend, you are almost perfect! Open the furnace door and put the heap
in. Do you shrink? See how it shrivels! Is there anything left? Bring
hither a magnifying glass. Is this all that is left? Yes, this is all
that remains of the heap. You say, "I trusted in God." Yes, but you had
reason to cry, "Lord, help my unbelief." Brethren, we have not a tithe
of the faith we think we have. But whether or not, all our faith must
be tested. God builds no ships but what he sends to sea. In living, in
losing, in working, in weeping, in suffering, or in striving, God will
find a fitting crucible for every single grain of the precious faith
which he has given us. Then he will come to us and say'You trusted in
God that he would deliver you, and you shall be delivered now. How you
will open your eyes as you see the Lord's hand of deliverance! What a
man of wonders you will be when you tell in your riper years to the
younger people how the Lord delivered you! Why, there are some
Christians I know of who, like the ancient mariner, could detain even a
wedding guest with their stories of God's wonders on the deep.

Yes, the test will come again and again. May the gibes of adversaries
only make us ready for the sterner ordeals of the judgment to come. O
my dear friends, examine your religion. You have a great deal of it,
some of you; but what of its quality? Can your religion stand the test
of poverty, and scandal, and scorn? Can it stand the test of scientific
sarcasm and learned contempt? Will your religion stand the test of long
sickness of body and depression of spirit caused by weakness? What are
you doing amid the common trials of life? What will you do in the
swellings of Jordan? Examine well your faith, since all hangs there.
Some of us who have lain for weeks together, peering through the thin
veil which parts us from the unseen, have been made to feel that
nothing will suffice us but a promise which will answer the taunt, "Let
him deliver us now."

III. I shall finish, in the third place, dear friends, by noticing The
Answer to the test. God does deliver those who trust in him. God's
interposition for the faithful is not a dream, but a substantial
reality. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord
delivereth him out of them all." All history proves the faithfulness of
God. Those who trust God have been in all sorts of troubles; but they
have always been delivered. They have been bereaved. What a horrible
bereavement was that which fell to the lot of Aaron, when his two sons
were struck dead for their profanity in the presence of God! "And Aaron
held his peace"! What grace was there! Thus will the Lord sustain you
also should he take away the desire of your eyes with a stroke. Grave
after grave has the good man visited till it seemed that his whole race
was buried, and yet his heart has not been broken; but he has bowed his
soul before the will of the ever-blessed One. Thus has the Lord
delivered his afflicted one by sustaining him. In other ways the bush
has burned, and yet has not been consumed. Remember the multiplied and
multiform trials of Job. Yet God sustained him to the end so that he
did not charge God foolishly, but held fast his faith in the Most High.
If ever you are called to the afflictions of Job you will also be
called to the sustaining grace of Job. Some of God's servants have been
defeated in their testimony. They have borne faithful witness for God,
but they have been rejected of men. It has been their lot, like
Cassandra, to prophesy the truth, but not to be believed. Such was
Jeremiah, who was born to a heritage of scorn from those whose benefit
he sought. Yet he was delivered. He shrank not from being faithful. His
courage could not be silenced. By integrity he was delivered.

Godly men have been despised and misrepresented, and yet have been
delivered. Remember David and his envious brethren, David and the
malignant Saul, David when his men spake of stoning him. Yet he took
off the giant's head; yet he came to the throne; yet the Lord built him
a house.

Some of God's servants have been bitterly persecuted, but God has
delivered them. Daniel came forth from the lions' den, and the three
holy children from the midst of the burning fiery furnace. These are
only one or two out of millions who trusted God and he delivered them.
Out of all manner of ill the Lord delivered them. God brought this
crowd of witnesses through all their trials unto his throne, where they
rest with Jesus, and share the triumph of their Master at this very
day. O my timid brother, nothing has happened to you but what is common
to men. Your battle is not different from the warfare of the rest of
the saints; and as God has delivered them he will deliver you also,
seeing you put your trust in him.

But God's ways of deliverance are his own. He does not deliver
according to the translation put upon "deliverance" by the ribald
throng. He does not deliver according to the interpretation put upon
"deliverance" by our shrinking flesh and blood. He delivers, but it is
in his own way. Let me remark that, if God delivers you and me in the
same way as he delivered his own Son, we can have no cause of
complaint. If the deliverance which he vouchsafed to us is of the same
kind as that which he vouchsafed to the Only Begotten, we may well be
content. Well, what kind of a deliverance was that? Did the Father tear
up the cross from the earth? Did he proceed to draw out the nails from
the sacred hands and feet of his dear Son? Did he set him down upon
that "green hill far away, beyond the city wall," and place in his hand
a sword of fire with which to smite his adversaries? Did he bid the
earth open and swallow up all his foes? No; nothing of the kind.
Jehovah did not interpose to spare his Son a single pang; but he let
him die. He let him be taken as a dead man down from the cross and laid
in a tomb. Jesus went through with his suffering to the bitter end. O
brothers and sisters, this may be God's way of delivering us. We have
trusted in God that he would deliver us; and his rendering of his
promise is, that he will enable us to go through with it; we shall
suffer to the last, and triumph in so doing.

Yet God's way of delivering those who trust in him is always the best
way. If the Father had taken his Son down from the cross, what would
have been the result? Redemption unaccomplished, salvation work undone,
and Jesus returning with his life-work unfinished. This would not have
been deliverance, but defeat. It was much better for our Lord Jesus to
die. Now he has paid the ransom for his elect, and having accomplished
the great purpose of atonement, he has slept a while in the heart of
the earth, and now has ascended to his throne in the endless glories of
heaven. It was deliverance of the fullest kind; for from the pangs of
his death has come the joy of life to his redeemed. It is not God's
will that every mountain should be levelled, but that we should be the
stronger for climbing the Hill Difficulty. God will deliver; he must
deliver, but he will do it in our cases, as in the case of our Lord, in
the best possible manner.

Anyhow, he will deliver his chosen: the taunt of the adversary shall
not cause our God to forget or forego his people. I know that the Lord
will no more fail me than any other of his servants. He will not leave
a faithful witness to his adversaries. "I know that my Avenger liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though
after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not
another; though my reins be consumed within me." Is this also your
confidence? Then do not sit down in sorrow, and act as though you
despaired. Quit yourselves like men. Be strong, fear not. Cast
yourselves on the love that never changeth and never fainteth, and the
Lord will answer all the revilings of Rabshakeh, and the blusterings of
Sennacherib.

There are times when we may use this text to our comfort. "Let him
deliver him now," saith the text, "if he will have him." You, dear
friends, who have never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ before, how I
wish you could try him now! You feel this morning full of sin, and full
of need. Come, then, and trust the Saviour now. See whether he will not
save you now. Is there one day in the year in which Jesus cannot save a
sinner? Come and see whether the 17th of June is that day. Try whether
he will not deliver you now from the guilt, the penalty, the power of
sin. Why not come? You have never, perhaps, been in the Tabernacle
before, and when coming here this morning you did not think of finding
the Saviour. Oh, that the Saviour may find you! Jesus Christ is a
Saviour every day, all the year round. Whoever cometh to him shall find
eternal life now. "Oh," you say, "I am in such an unfit state; I am in
all the deshabille of my carelessness and godlessness." Come along,
man, come along, just as you are. Tarry not for improvement or
arrangement, for both of these Jesus will give you; come and put your
trust in the great Sacrifice for sin, and he will deliver you'deliver
you now. Lord, save the sinner, now!

Others of you are the children of God, but you are in peculiar trouble.
Well, what are you going to do? You have always trusted in God before;
are you going to doubt him now? "O my dear sir, you do not know my
distress; I am the most afflicted person in the Tabernacle." Be it so;
but you trusted in the Lord the past twenty years, and I do not believe
that you have seen any just cause for denying him your confidence now.
Did you say that you have known him from your youth up? What! you
seventy years of age? Then you are too near home to begin distrusting
your heavenly Father. That will never do. You have been to sea, and
have weathered many a storm in mid-ocean, and are you now going to be
drowned in a ditch? Think not so. The Lord will deliver you even now.
Do not let us suppose that we have come where boundless love and
infinite wisdom cannot reach us. Do not fancy that you have leaped upon
a ledge of rock so high as to be out of reach of the everlasting arm.
If you had done so I would still cry'Throw yourself down into the arms
of God, and trust that he will not let you be destroyed.

It may be that some of us are in trouble about the church and the
faith. We have defended God's truth as well as we could, and spoken out
against deadly error; but craft and numbers have been against us, and
at present things seem to have gone wrong. The good are timid, and the
evil are false. They say, "He trusted in God: let him deliver him now."
Sirs, he will deliver us now. We will throw our soul once more into
this battle, and see if the Lord does not vindicate his truth. If we
have not spoken in God's name we are content to go back to the dust
from whence we sprang; but if we have spoken God's truth we defy the
whole confederacy to prevail against it.

Peradventure, I speak to some missionary, who is mourning over a time
of great trial in a mission which is dear to his heart. Ah, dear
friend! Christ intended that the gospel should repeat his own
experience, and then should triumph like himself. The gospel lives by
being killed, and conquers by defect. Cast it where you will, it always
falls upon its feet. You need not be afraid of it under any trial. Just
now, the wisdom of man is its worst foe, but the Lord will deliver it
now. The gospel lives and reigns. Tell it out among the heathen, that
the Lord reigneth from the tree, and from that tree of the curse he
issues his supreme commands. The self-same day in which Jesus died, he
took with him into his kingdom and his inmost paradise a thief who had
hung at his side. He liveth and reigneth for ever and ever, and calleth
to himself whomsoever he hath chosen. Let us drown the taunts of the
adversary with our shouts of Hallelujah! The Lord shall reign for ever
and ever. Hallelujah. Amen!

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON'Psalm 119.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"'196, 34, 37 (Part II).