Miracles Of Love

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 4, 1873,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"You have loved my soul out of the pit of corruption." Isaiah 38:17

(Marginal reading).

THE means used for the restoration of Hezekiah's body to health was a
lump of figs laid as a plaster upon the boil, but the means used for
the renewal of his soul from the disease of despondency was something
equally effectual and far sweeter–what if I say that the Lord laid to
the sore of Hezekiah's heart some of the leaves of the Tree of Life
which are for the healing of the nations? The fact is that Hezekiah,
under such a mass of troubles, had sunk very low in doubts, fears and
dark forebodings until he almost despaired and, therefore, the Lord
shed abroad in his heart a sense of Divine love– deep, true and
mighty–and as Hezekiah's body recovered, so Hezekiah's spirits also
rose. And instead of chattering like a crane, he began to sing the
praises of the Host High. The remedy for his soul's sickness was love.
His heart was fetched up from the grave of its despair by love–love
was the hand of power that drew him up and love the cords by which he
was lifted.

Now, what was true of Hezekiah with regard to his sickness and
depression is true in the fullest sense of all Believers. See, dear
Brethren, where we lay by nature–in the grave of death. Yes, and
more–in the pit of corruption. We were so destroyed by sin that we
were like men who had rotted in a pit and were corrupt, for sin is a
foul putrefaction of our nature and it has worked in us to the most
dreadful degree. We are like the slain upon the battlefield, rotting
with foul decay–obnoxious to God, corrupt and abominable. At this
present moment, by Sovereign Grace, those of us who have believed in
Jesus have been brought up out of the horrible pit. Our standing, now,
is a blessed one, for our feet are upon the Rock of Ages–immutable
promises and eternal purposes are now the bases of our confidence.

Now shall our head be lifted up above our enemies round about us and,
therefore, with joy will we offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy!
We will sing, yes, we will sing praises unto the Lord! It is hardly
necessary that I remind you that it was the love of God which moved Him
to have compassion upon us when we were in the pit of corruption. The
Lord loved us even when we were in that loathsome condition. This is a
deep mystery of love. Well does the Apostle speak of "His great love
wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins."
To love us when there was no good in us, but every evil in us–to love
us when we were unlovable and even hateful–this is not after the
manner of man, but is worthy of the infinite heart of God.

Now we know that this ancient, primeval love which had no cause except
itself, devised the way of lifting us up out of the pit. We were to be
brought up by Substitution, by the sacrifice of Another in our place.
We were to be brought up by the operations of the Divine energy–that
same power which brought our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead was to
bring us up from our death in sin. Love planned this admirable method
of mercy and we are equally ready to admit, this morning, and to exult
as we admit it, that it was love which supplied all the provisions
necessary for carrying out the plan. Love brought the Savior to the
Cross. Love made Him bear our sins in His own body on the tree. Love
led Him to give up His precious life on our behalf and to become a
hostage in the tomb. Love sent the Holy Spirit to quicken us, to
illuminate us, to strengthen us and to dwell in us forever. Love found
the materials for our redemption and love applied the redemption when
it was completed. Love led us to the Savior's Cross. Love regenerated
us. Love has supported us till this day and will keep us to the end.

I shall not, however, call your attention to this great Truth of God,
but to one of the same order. The text sets forth a charming fact which
I desire to insist upon as God's Spirit shall help me. It is this–not
merely that love desired our salvation, planned it, provided it, and so
on–but that the instrument which love has used has been love. In order
to get us out of the pit we have not been drawn out of it by power, nor
driven out of it by terror, but we have been loved out of it. "You have
loved my soul out of the pit of corruption." The other Sunday morning
[DIVINE LOVE AND ITS GIFTS

NO. 1096] I spoke to you upon our loving souls into Christ and tried to
show in a few sentences the power of love to lead sinners to Jesus. Now
that is what the text means–that God's love has loved us out of the
pit of corruption–it has been the energetic means which has brought
the saved ones to be what they are.

This subject has carried my own soul away in my private contemplations,
but I fear I cannot set it forth to you as I would wish. I am like the
child which said to its mother, "Mother, I will bring the sea to you,"
and the little one went down to the shore and filled its little palm
with the water, but before it reached its mother it had spilt ten times
as much as it had carried and if it had carried all it had taken up, it
would only have brought a few drops and left behind it the great and
wide sea altogether undiminished. I am hopeless of being able to convey
to your souls a tenth of what I feel! I could have danced with David
before the ark while I was drinking the new wine out of the golden cup
of the text. I am hopeless of transferring my joy to you and if I could
succeed in it, I should have accomplished little compared with the
glory of the text before me.

I pray that many of you may, however, get enough out of this sermon to
make you sing–

"In the heavenly Lamb Thrice happy I am, And my heart it does dance At
the sound of His name."

May the Spirit of God love you, this morning, into a sense of the
Savior's love–love you into a ravishing enjoyment of the love of God.
We shall consider, first of all, that we were loved into an entrance
into Grace. Secondly, we are loved into advance in Grace and thirdly we
shall be loved from Grace into Glory.

I. We were, in the beginning, LOVED INTO GRACE. What brought us to be
converted men and women? We know it was the power of the Holy Spirit,
but of that we shall not now speak. Our question is–what
instrumentality did the Spirit use? The answer is, in most cases–in
mine, certainly, and I do not doubt in the case of you all, in some
degree– love was the constraining power. The love of Christ to sinners
was the topic which arrested our solemn attention to the Gospel. That
Jesus Christ should die, "the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God,"
is a thought which commands attention and compels men to hear. As the
ancient mariner laid hold upon the wedding guest and held him
spell-bound by his strange story, so have myriads of men been held fast
by the wondrous news of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

If we desire attention from sinners we must preach Christ to them–all
else will be flat and mindless compared with Christ Crucified. The
first missionaries to Greenland thought that the natives were too
debased to understand at once the doctrine of Atonement. Therefore they
began to tell them of the existence of a God and so on. The effect
produced stale information, but when translating the chapter of John in
which the passage occurs, "God so loved the world that He gave His
only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
have everlasting life," a Greenlander said, "Is that true?" When the
missionary affirmed that it was, "Why then," said he, "did you not tell
us that at first, for that is good news, indeed!"

That there is a God the heavens are telling us! That God will punish
injustice and wrong, conscience affirms. The visible creation and the
inner consciousness of man sufficiently declare that there is a God and
that He is just. But that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto
Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them–this is a novelty, a
thing which never was spelt out yet by the wisdom of human nature! And
so, if attention is to be arrested, it must be through the news, the
blessed news, of redeeming love! It was so with many of us. We were
loved out of indifference, loved into attentive hearing–Love won our
ears to her sweet tale.

Having come to listen with interest, we were, nevertheless, but little
anxious to become doers of the Word of God. To be saved did not seem to
us to be very important. But when we heard, again and again, from our
minister and from our Bibles of the "great love wherewith He loved us,"
we began to feel awakened. Love touched our hearts as well as our ears!
When the sun visits the flowers which have hid themselves away in the
cold earth to escape from hungry winter, he begins to call them out of
their hiding places by shining upon them. And then by-and-by they say
unto themselves, "Let us break our bands of sleep! Let us lift up the
mold which covers us and let us peep forth that we may see the blessed
sun, for full surely he is calling us."

Even so, when the warm beams of Love began to fall upon us in the form
of invitations, expostulations, entreaties, and instructions, we felt
their sweet influence and at last we said, "We will arise and seek Him
who loves our souls, if haply we may be saved by Him." The Lord loved
us out of our neglect of salvation! Our face was set towards sin and
our

back was towards Him, but He loved us right round till we could not
help turning our faces towards Jesus and our backs upon our sins. Do
you remember, Brothers and Sisters, when you began to seek the Lord?
Love had brought you as far as that, but you were hampered with the
idea that it was of no use to hope for mercy–doubt hung like a head
shroud upon you–you sat in the region of the shadow of death and you
would have remained there had you not been loved into faith!

You were bid to believe in Jesus–it was the Gospel's standing
message–"Believe and you shall be saved." But how did you come to
believe, my Brother? I know your answer will be, "He loved me into
faith." As for myself I saw the great Lover of men hanging on a tree in
agony and blood–they told me it was love to miserable sinners, love to
those who hated Him, love to His murderers which made Him bleed–and as
I understood that it was God who hung there to die a felon's death for
unworthy men–I know not how it was, my Brothers and Sisters, but all
of a sudden I felt that I could not help believing! Love compelled me
to believe!

Unbelief in the presence of a dying Savior, if that dying Savior's love
is really understood, must surely be impossible. He, the Lord of
Heaven, without whom was not anything made that is made, humbling
Himself to become a Servant unto God and man–and then laying down His
life a Substitute for the ungodly–and all out of love! What a miracle
is here! Who can disbelieve in the presence of such love? Savior, we
must believe You! It is inevitable that we do so! Your love has loved
us into faith and at the foot of the Cross we hope and trust in You. At
the time when faith came into our hearts, there came with it the sister
Grace which always attends it, namely, repentance.

Beloved, you must remember, I think, the days of your hardness of
heart. Some of us were very hard–adamant itself is wax compared with
what our nature was. A mother's tears could not melt us, nor a father's
careful anxiety. How could we repent of sin? How could a millstone
feel, or a flint weep? Why, when we heard the Gospel say to us,
"Repent, and be converted," that command might as well have been spoken
to dry bones or to marble statues! We could not repent. We were in love
with our sins! We thought them sweet–we could not turn from them. But,
oh, do you remember when you did repent? Can you tell how it was
brought about?

I remember when my soul was like the rock in Horeb, for it gushed with
living streams. Yet it was not because Moses' rod had struck it, but
because Christ's voice of love spoke to it and the rock dissolved into
floods at once! See the summer's sun assail and vanquish the iceberg
which has floated from its northern home! Winter's rudest storms could
not dissolve the monstrous mountain of ice, nor could a thousand
hurricanes and storms break it in pieces–but the sun shot a strange
tremor through its heart as soon as he smiled on it and every beam that
fell from the fair orb of day shot through it like a dart, till at
last, yielding to the mysterious glow, the iceberg lost its hardness of
heart, bowed itself from its chilly loftiness, fell into the warm gulf
stream and was no more to be found!

Was it not so with you when the eyes of Jesus darted love into your
heart? How irresistible were His blissful arrows! How deadly to your
sins! How mortal to your pride! You were soon vanquished! Well does
John Newton describe our case in his hymn–

"Lord, You have won, at length I yield. My heart, by mighty trace
compelled, Surrenders all to You. Against Your terrors long I strove
But who can stand against Your love? Love conquered even me! If You had
bid Your thunders roll, And lightning flash, to blast my soul, I still
had stubborn been. But mercy has my heart subdued, A bleeding Savior I
have viewed, And now I hate my sin.'

Truly we were loved into repentance! There were other agents used, of
course. The Law thundered and conscience smote us, but still the master
weapon in all the armory of God against our unregenerate hearts was
love. We admit that it is more than a match for us–we confess that we
are conquered by its might! The Lord has loved our souls out of the pit
of corruption into that state of salvation in which we are now found!

II. Secondly, let us consider that we have been LOVED INTO GROWTH IN
GRACE. The great motive power

urging us onward has always been the same love of God. Let us turn
aside for a few minutes to meditate upon the love of God to us. Our
hearts will burn within us while we think upon it. It is quite certain,
my dear Brethren, that you who believe in Jesus are personally the
objects of the love of the Triune Jehovah. You are loved as much as you
love your children, or as the bridegroom loves his bride–no, those are
very feeble images–for you are loved by God infinitely. The heart of
God never does anything weakly–His love is strong and powerful, for it
is the affection of an Omnipotent Spirit.

Remember the words of the Lord Jesus–"As the Father has loved Me even
so have I loved you." Do you know how much the Father loves His Son?
Can you form any conception? Are you not baffled in the attempt? "Even
so," says Jesus, "have I loved you." There is another text from which I
never expect to preach till I get to Heaven, and I would like to preach
from it there if a pulpit might be had. It is this–"That the love
wherewith you have loved Me may be in them and I in them." O, you are
not dealing with trifles when you are dealing with the love of God to
you! It is not a spare corner of the heart of God that He gives to
you–as you may give a little love to the poor Arabs in the street or
the criminals in the jails–the great, inconceivably vast heart of God
belongs as much to every Christian as if there were not another being
in the world for God to love! Even as Jehovah loves His Only-Begotten,
so does He love each one of His children.

Remember, too, for this is sweet to think of, the Lord always did love
you. It is no novelty for God to love His people. He loved you before
you were born–in the glass of His purposes He saw you–in His book all
your members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as
yet there were none of them. Is it not written, "The Lord has appeared
of old unto me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting
love"? Divine love had no beginning! Yon stars are babes whose eyes but
yesterday were opened to the light and yonder mountains are infants
newly born! But as for God's love, it is coeval with His own Existence
and the objects of it are always the same.

Beloved, the love of God to you has never changed! He could not love
you more. He will not love you less. The Lord's love wild never vary.
O, believe it, my Brothers and Sisters, it is still the same! Whatever
may happen to you, or through whatever trials you may pass, with the
same love while He has loved you He will love you world without end! In
life, in death and in eternity you are the beloved of the Lord who
changes not! That same love which had no beginning shall never know an
end! If it were in my power only to make my Brethren realize the fact
that they are thus loved, it would elevate them, comfort them and set
them all in a blaze with love to God! Think it over, and then say, each
one to himself, "Jehovah, the Eternal, Self-Existent One loves me.
Jesus, the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, The Wonderful, Counselor,
The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace loves me!
The Holy Spirit, The Wonderworker, The Comforter, The Illuminator loves
me! What bliss is this!" O, you would not need a sermon if you realized
this–you would far rather need a place to weep and to sing, and mix
tears and songs together as you bathed in unspeakable delight!

Having thus brought the love of God to your remembrance, I want to come
back to the text and consider, again, that a sense of this love has up
to now been the cause of all our advances in the Divine life, for
first, after we were saved, we were still in the pit of corruption in
the sense that our natural depravity struggled with us for the mastery.
It would have made us captives to the love of sin if Divine Grace had
not stepped in. Our hearts were tempted by vanity and wantonness and
the pleasures of sin, like Sirens, tried to fascinate us to our sure
destruction. Have you never been in such a condition as a Christian
that you were compelled to doubt whether you were a Christian at all
because of the seething and raging of your innate depravity?

It may be you have never looked, yet, into the crater of that volcano
of sin which, believe me, is not extinct in any one of us–but if you
have ever peered into its horrid depths and seen the blackness, and
heard the boiling up of murders, envy, and lusts, you have said–"O
wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?" Now, I ask you, how have
you, up to now, escaped from the love of sin and its enchantments? I
think I can tell you. God has loved you out of them–loved you right
away from sin's beauties and temptations! When the dear love of God
comes into the soul, the man has no more heart for sin–"Sin! How can I
love you? I cannot endure you, you hateful thing! My God, I want
perfection! I pine after holiness now that I know that I am Your child,
Your blood-bought one, a member of the body of Your dear Son, as dear
to You as He is–I feel that I hate every false way. Away sins! I cry
revenge against you! I would gladly slaughter you

all!"–

"When the wounds of Christ exploring Sin does like itself appear."

Sin becomes black and hideous and abhorred in proportion as Jesus
becomes lovely in our eyes. If you love sin, it is because you do not
feel the love of God, for when that love fills your soul you must hate
sin. Thus the Lord loves you out of that love to sin. Again, we get
into the pit of corruption through the tendency of our souls to go
after idols. Who among us has not been tempted to idolatry? It may be
the partner of our bosom or a dear child has engrossed our hearts.
Sometimes our life's ambition or the pursuit of our business has almost
become our God. Our feet have almost gone–we have set up Dagon or
Mammon in our heart. It is not easy to live in this world–especially
to enjoy prosperity–and yet be clear from worshipping idols. How have
you and I been saved from idols? Not always by having them broken–that
is a remedy which God is slow to use though He will use it if we are
obstinate.

The most effectual, as well as the most delicious medicine to cure
idolatry is to have the love of God shed abroad in the heart by Jesus
Christ! Get a sight of the Glory of God in the face of Christ and then
you will say–

"Farewell all you mean creatures For in Him is every store. Wealth, or
friends, or darling beauty, Shall not draw me any more. In my Savior I
have found a glorious whole." "He is the chief among ten thousand, and
the altogether lovely." We cannot see the stars when the sun is
shining. Our dear ones are dear still, but Christ is far dearer. I am
not afraid for you, dear Brothers, that you will get worldly if you
know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. I am not afraid for
you, dear Sister, that the marriage bond will lead you away from
holiness or that your maternal love will ever rival your love to Jesus
if you know how sweet and dear He is. Relationships are precious
things, but they are nothing compared with Him! We love them, but as
compared with Him we could hate father and mother, and sister and
brother for His name's sake.

When a certain martyr was about to be burned, they brought out his wife
and his 11 little children and bade them kneel in one long row to ask
their father, for their sakes, to consent to deny the faith and live.
But as he kissed them one by one and lingered longest over the dear
mother of them all, he said, "I would do anything for your sakes, my
dear Ones, that I might live with you. But since it is for Christ, my
Lord's sake, I must tear myself away even from you." When Jesus is in
the soul, the idols leave their thrones. He loves us out of the pit of
idolatry! There is another pit of corruption into which children of God
sometimes fall, namely, that of sluggishness. We do not always feel
equally alive towards the Lord and Divine things. Indifference is very
apt to steal over us.

There is a portion of the road to Heaven which John Bunyan describes as
the Enchanted Ground, where a tendency to sleep is very strong upon all
pilgrims. Some pilgrims of my acquaintance are pretty constantly
traversing that part of the road and are never quite awake. Very few
Christians are quickened into diligence and fervor by the scourge! I do
a little bit of whipping, sometimes, and I think I do right, for my
Master would not clear me if I suffered Believers to sleep without
waking them. But I am certain that the only effectual cure for a
slumbering Christian is to let him have the love of Christ shed abroad
in his heart–and here I speak by experience–for I have found that it
is the only thing which can quicken me. I think over my duties, but I
am none the more in love with them. I look over my responsibilities,
but I am scarcely the more impressed by them. But when I feel that my
Lord has chosen me from before the foundation of the world, loved me
and given Himself for me, then am I awakened!

When I have a sight of His thorn-crowned brow. When I see His majesty
of misery. When He shows me His hands and feet and side, and says, "I
have done all this for you and I am prepared to do yet more, for you
shall be with Me where I am, that you may share My Glory"–then I need
neither scourge nor spur to awake me–then for the love I bear His name
my heart becomes like the chariots of Amminadib, swift in duty, with
axles red hot with fervor! Then my soul would fly like the chariot of
God when He rides on the wings of the wind! Have you not felt it? What
blessed preaching it is when the heart glows with a sense of love! What
happy Sunday school teaching it is when you know that Jesus loved you!
What a delightful thing it is to make sacrifices, to give your
substance, to bear and to suffer if once you feel the love of Christ
burning within your soul!

The same is true of that abominable pit of selfishness, self-esteem,
pride and self-seeking into which our feet so easily glide. Beloved, we
are always something when Christ is nothing. We are always nothing when
Christ is All-in-All to us.

We cannot do Christ's work when our base hearts are puffed up with
conceit! But when we once see His beauty, then we feel that the laces
of His shoes we are not worthy to unloose. We know right well that we
have no business to be proud nor to shirk hard work and seek our own
ease. We know that and we condemn ourselves for this wrong–but we go
on with it till the moment the love of God enters the soul–and then we
are rid of it! Then we do, indeed, hate ourselves for ever having
imagined that anything that could be done for Christ was difficult.

I am ashamed to be speaking to you coolly on a theme which is like fire
within my own bones. I pray the Master, however, to make it like fire
in your souls, also. The love of Christ is the very best cure for
selfishness. And it is equally a cure for despondency and unbelief.
What a pit of corruption unbelief is–a pit in which we hear strange
noises of terrors to come, while unseen fears as to the present rush to
and fro with horrible sounds. "I cannot believe, I cannot trust," says
the man, but when God's love is shed abroad in his heart it is easy
enough to believe. He asks himself, "How can I distrust? I know what
Jesus did for me upon the Cross–how can I doubt? The Lord cannot be
unkind to me in Providence, for it is impossible that He can forsake
those whose names are engraved upon the palms of His hands."

God does not chide His people out of their unbelief, but loves them out
of it! He indulges them with such sweet festivals in the banqueting
house of communion–He does so sweetly stay them with flagons and
comfort them with apples that they soon shake off the sickness of
unbelief. Many a child of God can bear witness that the Lord has loved
him out of his impatience. When he has been full of pain he has thought
that God dealt harshly with him–but when Love has told him that all
things work together for his good, he has endured pain with
cheerfulness and gloried in his infirmities! In one word, are any of
you suffering today under any spiritual malady? Is any sin too strong
for you? Does any virtue appear to be so high that you cannot attain to
it?

Behold I will be a guide to you this morning and point you out a path
by which you may escape from your sin and rise to the greatest heights
of Grace! Do you see that narrow line, that blessed pathway? It is a
path which Love has made. Follow it and you shall come where you should
be. Not there, not there where Moses says you go! Not there, not there
where fear says if you do not you will be destroyed! Not there where
conscience alarms and terrifies! But here where Jesus shows Himself to
you and says, "I am married to you. You are My spouse, you are all My
own. I love you better than I love Myself, for I did not spare
Myself–but I died for you. I will love you whatever your infirmity and
sin may be. I will love you till I have washed you and made you clean.
And then I will present you to Myself without spot or wrinkle, or any
such thing. I am drawing you, but you do not come as you should.
However, I will still draw you till I have drawn you away from
yourself, your sin and your folly. I will draw you, and draw you, and
draw you till I draw you up to My right hand and there you shall be
with Me forever!"

Beloved, you can do anything when you feel this! You can do nothing if
you do not feel it. Lose your sense of Jesus' love and the power of
your religion is gone. You have stolen the life if you have taken away
the love. Oh, believe it! Know it! Pray for it! Spirit of God, make
them feel it and anything shall be possible, whether of sin slain or
duty worked! I have often felt myself to be a mere expanse of foulness,
like the mudflats by the seashore when the tide is out. As far as the
eye can see is a continent of mud, with black rocks, rotting seaweed,
pieces of wreck, creeping things innumerable and such foul matters as
the eye might never wish to see again. What is to be done with this
dismal region? Here lie the fisher boats embedded in the mud, what
shall float them? It would be impossible to drag them down to the
sea–must they lie there and decay? What is to be done with this mud
and weed?

Wait and lo, at the appointed time, the sea advances from its bed!
Ripple by ripple, wave by wave it rises, spreading out itself like a
molten looking glass, where just now all was foul. And lo, yonder ships
are lifted–they walk the waters like things of life–while all that
rotted in the noonday sun is forgotten and the waves follow each other
with continuous flashes of silver sheen! O Lord, You are that sea of
love–Your mercies are Your waves of lovingkindness! Let them come up
and flood my soul! With infinite power of love, arise and cover all my
nature. I hope the Lord will deal so with all of you, if not by means
of this sermon, yet by some other agency. Never rest until you enjoy
this love, and when you do enjoy it, keep it.

If you find my Beloved, hold Him and do not let Him go till you bring
Him into His mother's house among His brethren. When it is well with
you, I pray you speak for me to the King, that He would keep me, His
servant, for the sake of His people to whom I minister, living ever in
the light of His countenance, for there is strength and there is power
for ministry and everything else beside.

III. That love which loved us out of nature into Grace has yet another
work to do. The Lord will LOVE US OUT OF GRACE INTO GLORY. I know what
troubles you in your quiet moments. You are thinking about the passage
of that "narrow stream of death," as we call it in our hymn. You are
advanced in years and you know that death must come very soon. The
thought of death depresses you and you need not be surprised that it
should, for God has planted a Law of self-preservation in us all which
makes us love life. Nature shudders at the grave, but whenever your
nature starts back from dying, think of your faithful God and be
assured that He will love you through death. You shall be carried
through it by the force of love.

One of the points about death which alarms you is this–you dread pain.
Now, remember there is no pain in death–the pain is in life–when a
man dies there is an end of life's pain! Death is the pain killer, not
the pain maker! Do you fear the pains associated with death? Have you
not already endured pain and been made to forget it through being
divinely sustained by love? The love of God, I do avow it, has often
acted as a Sovereign remedy for anguish. The bitter has been forgotten
in the sweetness of fellowship with God. Who says that there is no God,
no Christ, no Heaven? We have seen them all! Our eyes have seen
them–not these poor optics which were only meant to spy out a few
things in this dark world–but our inner eyes which see best in the
blessed sunlight of eternity! With those eyes we have seen God and the
enjoyment of the ravishing vision has subdued all the feebleness of the
flesh and removed the pangs of the body.

Now Christian, that is what God will do with you when you come to
die–He will bear you up on eagles' wings, so that you will say with
one of the old saints, "Is this dying? Why it is worth while to live
only to enjoy the pleasure of such a death as this," and yet he was not
free from pain–he was loved above pain. But you say, "My trouble is
about parting from dear friends." You think it will be a very sharp
pinch to be separated from the wife and from your friends. So it would
be–but when Jesus shall stand at your bedside and reveal Himself in a
more apparent manner than He has ever done before–you will turn away
from wife and children and friends and say, "O Lord, let me be with You
where You are, for my soul is taken up with You rather than with
these."

You had a little medicine to give your boy the other night and it had a
bad flavor, but you mixed it with some sweet confection and he never
tasted the bitter. Thus the pangs of separation will be mixed up with
the sweetness of seeing Christ, so that you will not mourn. That is a
blessed passage, "Death is swallowed up in victory," as though it were
dropped like one black, cruel drop into the cup and then Victory was
poured in as generous wine–and you drank the bitter drop right up
before you knew it! Saints shall not know that they die, but only that
they have gained the victory! "O, but I am afraid of death, itself,"
says one, "it is not parting with friends, or the pain, but I dread
death, itself." O, Soul, when Jesus comes to meet you, you will know
nothing at all about death. He will love you into Heaven! In a moment
He will embrace you and you shall be with Him!

Those dear lips which are like lilies dropping sweet smelling myrrh
shall kiss you away and you will be among the songs of angels in an
instant! You shall not see death–you shall only see your Master! There
shall be no skeleton with a scythe to cut you down–but a dear hand of
love to gather you and place you in the Father's bosom–

"One gentle sigh, the fetter breaks, We scarce can say he's gone,
Before the ransomed spirit takes Its mansion near the throne."

The Rabbis say that God took Moses' soul away with a kiss. So it was I
doubt not, for so He does with all His saints–He kisses them into
Heaven. "You have loved my soul out of the pit of corruption." Now,
when you and I stand in Heaven, with these poor heads enriched with the
crown and waving the palm branch in these hands, what bliss will be
ours! Here, let us stand upon this crystal rock a moment and gaze adown
the precipice of light. There, lean over, my Brother spirit, and look
steadily down.

See where stars and suns are glistering like glow-worms far below? How
small their grandeur compared with ours in these sublime abodes! Look
further down and peer into that awful darkness, that profound abyss,
across which flash the flames of infinite wrath, kindling evermore
afresh the fires of punishment. Oh, as we stand upon these heavenly
heights and gaze upon the Eternal without fear–and then see far below
us the outer darkness and the unquenchable fire, shall we not sing
aloud unto Him who has "loved our soul from the pit of corruption"?
Yes, we will sing louder and louder and louder and louder, and no
cherubim or seraphim shall ever excel us in the fullness of our
grateful praise! Blessing and

honor and glory and power be unto Him whose name is Love, who has
poured forth all His love upon us, His chosen, and saved us from the
abyss of woe!

To His name be praise forever and ever! O, Sirs, will you all know this
love? Will you all sing of it? Will you all be able to say, "He loved
me out of the pit of corruption"? You may say it–you shall say it if
you believe in Jesus! Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Isaiah 38.
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Motives for Steadfastness

A Sermon