The Lord,–the Liberator

The Lord,–the Liberator
A Sermon
(No. 484)
Delivered on Sunday Morning, December 14th, 1862, by
Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
"The Lord looseth the prisoners."–Psalm 146:7.
WHEN PREACHING LAST TUESDAY in Dover, the mayor of the town very
courteously lent the ancient town-hall for the service, and in passing
along to reach a private entrance, I noticed a large number of grated
windows upon a lower level than the great hall. These belonged to the
prison cells where persons committed for offenses within the
jurisdiction of the borough were confined. It at once struck me as a
singular combination, that we should be preaching the gospel of liberty
in the upper chamber, while there were prisoners of the law beneath us.
Perhaps when we sang praises to God, the prisoners, like those who were
in the same jail with Paul and Silas, heard us; but the free word above
did not give them liberty, nor did the voice of song loose their bonds.
Alas! what a picture is this of many in our congregations. We preach
liberty to the captives; we proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord;
but how many remain year after year in the bondage of Satan, slaves to
sin. We send up our notes of praise right joyously to our Father who is
in heaven, but our praises cannot give them joy, for alas! their hearts
are unused to gratitude. Some of them are mourning on account of
unpardoned sin, and others of them are deploring their blighted hopes,
for they have looked for comfort where it is never to be found. Let us
breathe a prayer at the commencement of the sermon this morning, "Lord,
break the fetters, and set free the captives. Glorify thyself this
morning by proving thyself to be Jehovah, who looseth the prisoners."
The little circumstance which I have mentioned, fixed itself in my
mind, and in my private meditations it thrust itself upon me. My
thoughts ran somewhat in an allegory, until I gave imagination its full
rein and bid her bear me at her will. In my day-dream I thought that
some angelic warder was leading me along the corridors of this great
world-prison, and bidding me look into the various cells where the
prisoners were confined, reminding me ever and anon as I looked
sorrowful, that "Jehovah looseth the prisoners." What I thought of, I
will now tell out to you. The dress of the sermon may be metaphorical;
but my only aim is to utter comforting, substantial truth, and may the
Master grant that some of you who have been in these prisons, as I have
been, may this day come out of them, and rejoice that the Lord has
loosed you.
I. The first cell to which I went, and to which I shall conduct you, is
called the common prison. In this common prison, innumerable souls are
shut up. It were useless to attempt to count them; they are legion;
their number is ten thousand times ten thousand. This is the ward of
SIN. All the human race have been prisoners here; and those who this
day are perfectly at liberty, once wore the heavy chain, and were
immured within the black walls of this enormous prison. I stepped into
it, and to my surprise, instead of hearing, as I had expected, notes of
mourning and lament, I heard loud and repeated bursts of laughter. The
mirth was boisterous and obstreperous. The profane were cursing and
blaspheming; others were shouting as though they had found great spoil.
I looked into the faces of some of the criminals, and saw sparkling
gaiety: their aspect was rather that of wedding-guests than prisoners.
Walking to and fro, I noticed captives who boasted that they were free,
and when I spoke to them of their prison-house, and urged them to
escape, they resented my advice, saying, "We were born free, and were
never in bondage unto any man." They bade me prove my words; and when I
pointed to the irons on their wrists, they laughed at me, and said that
these were ornaments which gave forth music as they moved; it was only
my dull and sombre mind, they said, which made me talk of clanking
fetters and jingling chains. There were men fettered hard and fast to
foul and evil vices, and these called themselves free-livers, while
others whose very thoughts were bound, for the iron had entered into
their soul, with braggart looks, cried out to me, that they were
freethinkers. Truly, I had never seen such bond-slaves in my life
before, nor any so fast manacled as these; but ever did I mark as I
walked this prison through and through, that the most fettered thought
themselves the most free, and those who were in the darkest part of the
dungeon, thought they had most light, and those whom I considered to be
the most wretched, and the most to be pitied, were the very ones who
laughed the most, and raved most madly and boisterously in their mirth.
I looked with sorrow but as I looked, I saw a bright spirit touch a
prisoner on the shoulder, who thereon withdrew with the shining one. He
went out, and I knew, for I had read the text–"The Lord looseth the
prisoners," I knew that the prisoner had been loosed from the house of
bondage. But I noted that as he went forth his late bond-fellows
laughed and pointed with the finger, and called him sniveller,
hypocrite, mean pretender, and all ill names, until the prison walls
rang and rang again with their mirthful contempt! I watched, and saw
the mysterious visitant touch another, and then another, and another,
and they disappeared. The common conversation of the prison said that
they had gone mad; that they were become slaves, or miserable fanatics,
whereas I knew that they were gone to be free for ever; emancipated
from every bond. What struck me most was, that the prisoners who were
touched with the finger of delivering love were frequently the worst of
the whole crew. I marked one who had blasphemed, but the Divine hand
touched him, and he went weeping out of the gate. I saw another who had
often scoffed the loudest when he had seen others led away, but he went
out as quietly as a lamb. I observed some, whom I thought to be the
least depraved of them all, but they were left, and oftentimes the
blackest sinners of the whole company were first taken, and I
remembered that I had somewhere in an old book read these words–"The
publicans and the harlots enter into the kingdom of God before you." As
I gazed intently, I saw some of those men who had once been prisoners
come back again into the prison–not in the same dress which they had
worn before, but arrayed in white robes, looking like new creatures.
They began to talk with their fellow prisoners; and, oh! how sweetly
did they speak! They told them there was liberty to be had; that yonder
door would open, and that they might escape. They pleaded with their
fellow-men, even unto tears. I saw them sit down and talk with them
till they wept upon their necks, urging them to escape, pleading as
though it were their own life that was at stake. At first I hoped
within myself that all the company of prisoners would rise and cry, Let
us be free." But no; the more these men pleaded the harder the others
seemed to grow, and, indeed, I found it so when I sought myself to be
an ambassador to these slaves of sin. Wherever the finger of the
shining one was felt our pleadings easily prevailed; but save and
except in those who were thus touched by the heavenly messenger all our
exhortations fell upon deaf ears, and we left that den of iniquity
crying, "Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the
Lord revealed?" Then I was cast into a muse, as I considered what a
marvel of mercy it was that I myself should be free; for well do I
remember when I spurned every invitation of love; when hugged my
chains, dreamed my prison garb to be a royal robe, and took the meals
of the prison, called the pleasures of sin, and relished them as sweet,
yea, dainty morsels, fit for princes. How it came to pass that
sovereign grace should have set me free I cannot tell; only this I
know, I will sing for ever, while I live and when I die, that "The Lord
looseth the prisoners." Our gracious God knoweth how to bring us up out
from among the captives of sin, set our feet in the way of
righteousness and liberty, make us his people, and keep us so for ever.
Alas! how many have I now before me who are prisoners in this common
prison?
"Oh! sovereign grace, their hearts subdue;
May they be freed from bondage too;
As willing followers of the Lord,
Brought forth to freedom by his word."
II. I asked the guide where those were led who were released from the
common ward. He told me that they were taken away to be free perfectly
free; but that before their complete gaol deliverance it was necessary
that they should visit a house of detention which he would show me. He
led me thither. It was called the solitary cell. I had heard much of
the solitary system, and I wished to look inside this cell, supposing
that it would be a dreadful place. Over the door was written this
word–"PENITENCE," and when I opened it I found it so clean and white,
and withal so sweet and full of light, that I said this place was
fitter to be a house of prayer than a prison, and my guide told me that
indeed so it was originally intended, and that nothing but that iron
door of unbelief which the prisoners would persist in shutting fast
made it a prison at all. When once that door was open the place became
so dear an oratory, that those who were once prisoners therein were
wont to come back to the cell of their own accord, and begged leave to
use it, not as a prison, but as a closet for prayer all their lives
long. He even told me that one was heard to say when he was dying, that
his only regret in dying was, that in heaven there would be no cell of
penitence. Here David wrote seven of his sweetest Psalms; Peter also
wept bitterly here; and the woman who was a sinner here washed the feet
of her Lord. But this time I was regarding it as a prison, and I
perceived that the person in the cell did so consider it. I found that
every prisoner in this cell must be there alone. He had been accustomed
to mix with the crowd, and find his comfort in the belief that he was a
Christian because born in a Christian nation; but he learned that he
must be saved alone if saved at all. He had been accustomed aforetime
to go up to the house of God in company, and thought that going there
was enough; but now every sermon seemed to be aimed at him, and every
threatening smote his conscience. I remembered to have read a passage
in the same old book I quoted just now–"I will pour out upon the house
of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace
and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have
pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only
son, and shall be in bitterness for his, as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the
family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family
of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the
house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart,
and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family
apart, and their wives apart." I noticed that the penitent, while thus
alone and apart in his cell, sighed and groaned full oft, and now and
then mingled with his penitential utterances some words of unbelief.
Alas! were it not for these, that heavy door would long ago have been
taken from its hinges. 'Twas unbelief that shut the prisoners in, and
if unbelief had been removed from this cell I say it had been an
oratory for heaven, and not a place for disconsolate mourning and
lamentation. As the prisoner wept for the past, he prophecied for the
future, and groaned that he should never come out of this confinement,
because sin had ruined him utterly, and destroyed his soul eternally.
How foolish his fears were all men might see, for as I looked round
upon this clean and white cell, I saw that the door had a knocker
inside, and that if the man had but the courage to lift it there was a
shining one standing ready outside who would open the door at once;
yea, more, I perceived that there was a secret spring called faith, and
if the man could but touch it, though it were but with a trembling
finger, it would make the door fly open. Then I noticed that this door
had on the lintel and on the two side posts thereof the marks of blood,
and any man who looked on that blood, or lifted that knocker, or
touched that spring, found the door of unbelief fly open, and he came
out from the cell of his solitary pentitence to rejoice in the Lord who
had put away his sin, and cleansed him for ever from all iniquity. So I
spoke to this penitent, and bade him trust in the blood, and it may be
that through my words the Lord afterwards loosed the prisoner; but this
I learned, that no words of mine alone could do it, for in this case,
even where repentance was mingled with but a little unbelief, 'tis the
Lord, the Lord alone, who can loose the prisoners.
III. I passed away from that cell, though I would have been content to
linger there, and I halted at another; this, also, had an iron gate of
unbelief, as heavy and as ponderous as the former. I heard the warder
coming, and when he opened the door for me it grated horribly upon its
hinges, and disturbed the silence, for this time I was come into the
silent cell. The wretch confined here was one who said he could not
pray. If he could pray he would be free. He was groaning, crying,
sighing, weeping because he could not pray. All he could tell me, as
his eyeballs rolled in agony, was this–"I would, but cannot, pray; I
would plead with God, but I cannot find a word, my guilt has smitten me
dumb." Back he went, and refused to speak again, but he kept up a
melancholy roaring all the day long. In this place no sound was heard
but that of wailing; all was hushed except the dropping of his tears
upon the cold stone, and his dreary miserere of sighs and groans.
Verily thought I this is a sad and singular case, yet I remember when I
was in that cell myself I did not think it strange. I thought that the
heavens were brass above me, and that if I cried never so earnestly the
Lord would shut out my prayer. I durst not pray, I was too guilty, and
when I did dare to pray 'twas hardly prayer, for I had no hope of being
heard. "No," I said, "it is presumption; I must not plead with him;"
and when at times I would have prayed, I could not; something choked
all utterance, and the spirit could only lament, and long, and pant,
and sigh to be able to pray. I know that some of you have been in this
prison, and while I am talking to you this morning you will remember
it, and bless God for deliverance. Perhaps some of you are in it now,
and though I say I think your case is very strange, it will not seem so
to you. But do you know, there was a little table in this cell, and on
the table lay a key of promise, inscribed with choice words. I am sure
the key would unlock the prison-door, and if the prisoner had possessed
skill to use it; he might have made his escape at once. This was the
key, and these were the words thereon–"The Lord looked down from the
height of his sanctuary: from heaven did the Lord behold the earth, to
hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to
death." Now, thought I, if this man cannot speak, yet God hears his
groans; if he cannot plead, God listens to his sighs, and beholds him
all the way from heaven, with this purpose, that he may catch even the
faintest whisper of this poor man's broken heart and set him free; for
though the soul feels it can neither plead nor pray, yet it has prayed,
and it shall prevail. I tried to catch the ear of my poor friend a
little while, and I talked to him, though he would not speak with me. I
reminded him that the book in his cell contained instances of dumb men
whom Jesus had taught to speak, and I told him that Christ was able to
make him speak plainly too. I turned to the book of Jonah, and read him
these words,–"Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest me."
I quoted the words of Elias, "Go again seven times." I told him that
the Lord needed no fine language, for misery is the best argument for
mercy, and our wounds the best mouths to speak to God's ear. Besides, I
told him we have an Advocate with the Father who openeth his mouth for
the dumb, so that those who cannot speak for themselves have one to
speak for them. I told the man that whether he could pray or not he was
bidden to look at the blood-marks over his door; that the publican was
justified by the blood, though he could only cry "God, be merciful to
me, a sinner." I pleaded with him to receive the Lord's own testimony,
that the Lord Jesus is "able to save unto the uttermost them that come
unto God by him," that he waited to be gracious, and was a God ready to
pardon; but after all, I felt that the Lord alone must loose his
prisoners. O, gracious God, loose them now!
IV. We had not time to stay long at any one place, so we hastened to a
fourth door. The door opened and shut behind me and I stood alone. What
did I see? I saw nothing! 'Twas dark, dark as Egypt in her plague! This
was the black hole called the cell of ignorance. I groped as a blind
man gropeth for the wall. I was guided by my ear by sobs and moans to a
spot where there knelt a creature in an earnest agony of prayer. I
asked him what made his cell so dark. I knew the door was made of
unbelief, which surely shuts out all light, but I marvelled why this
place should be darker than the rest, only I recollected to have read
of some that sat "in darkness, and in the shadow of death, being bound
in affliction and iron." I asked him if there were no windows to the
cell. Yes, there were windows, many windows, so people told him, but
they had been stopped up years ago, and he did not know the way to open
them. He was fully convinced that they never could afford light to him.
I felt for one of the ancient lightholes, but it seemed as if, instead
of giving light, it emitted darkness; I touched it with my hand and it
felt to me to have once been a window such as I had gazed through with
delight. He told me it was one of the doctrines of grace which had
greatly perplexed him; it was called Election. He said he should have
had a little light had it not been for that doctrine, but since God had
chosen his people, and he felt persuaded that he had not chosen him, he
was lost for ever, since if he were not chosen, it was hopeless for him
to seek for mercy. I went up to that window and pulled out some
handfuls of rags; filthy rotten rags which some enemies of the doctrine
had stuffed into the opening; caricatures and misrepresentations of the
doctrine maliciously used to injure the glorious truth of divine
sovereignty. As I pulled out these rags, light streamed in, and the man
smiled as I told him, "It is a mercy for thee that there is such a
doctrine as election, for if there were no such doctrine, there would
be no hope for thee; salvation must either be by God's will or by man's
merit; if it were by man's merit, thou wouldest never be saved, but
since it is by God's will, and he will have mercy on whom he will have
mercy, there is no reason why he should not have mercy on thee, even
though thou mayest be the chief of sinners. Meanwhile he bids thee
believe in his Son Jesus, and gives thee his divine word for it, that
"Him that cometh unto him he will in no wise cast out." The little
light thus shed upon the poor man led him to seek for more, so he
pointed to another darkened window which was called–The Fall–or Human
Depravity. The man said, "Oh, there is no hope for me for I am totally
depraved, and my nature is exceeding vile; there is no hope for me." I
pulled the rags out of this window too, and I said to him, "Do you not
see that your ruin fits you for the remedy? It is because you are lost
that Christ came to save you. Physicians are for the sick, robes for
the naked, cleansing for the filthy, and forgiveness for the guilty."
He said but little, but he pointed to another window, which was one I
had long looked through and seen my Master's glory by its means; it was
the doctrine of Particular Redemption. "Ah!" said he, "suppose Christ
has not redeemed me with his precious blood! Suppose he has never
bought me with his death!" I knocked out some old bricks which had been
put in by an unskilful hand, which yet blocked out the light, and I
told him that Christ did not offer a mock redemption, but one which did
really redeem, for "the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us
from all sin." "Ah!" he said, "but suppose I am not one of the 'us!'" I
told him that he that believeth and trusteth Christ, is manifestly one
of those whom Jesus came to save, for he is saved. I told him that
inasmuch as universal redemption manifestly does not redeem all, it was
unworthy of his confidence; but a ransom which did redeem all
believers, who are the only persons for whom it was presented, was a
sure ground to build upon. There were other doctrines like these. I
found the man did not understand one of them; that the truth had been
misrepresented to him, and he had heard the doctrines of grace falsely
stated and caricatured, or else had never heard them at all. He had
been led by some blind guide who had led him into the ditch, and now
when the windows were opened and the man could see, he saw written over
the door, "Believe and live!" and in the new light which he had found
he trusted his Lord and Savior, and walked out free, and marvelled that
he had been so long a slave. I marvelled not, but I thought in my heart
how accursed are those teachers who hide the light from the eyes of men
so that they understand not the way of life. Ignorant souls, who know
not the plan of salvation, will have many sorrows, which they might
escape by instruction. Study your Bibles well; be diligent in attending
upon a free-grace ministry; labor after a clear apprehension of the
plan of salvation, and it will often please God that when you come to
understand his truth your spirits will receive comfort, for it is by
the truth that "the Lord looseth the prisoners."
V. I passed on and came to another chamber. This room, marked number
five, was large, and had many persons in it who were trying to walk to
and fro, but every man had a chain round his ankle, and a huge
cannon-ball fixed to it-a military punishment they said for deserters
from the ranks of virtue. This clog of habit troubled the prisoner
much. I saw some of them trying to file their chains with rusty nails,
and others were endeavoring to fret away the iron by dropping tears of
penitence thereon; but these poor men made but little progress at their
work. The warder told me that this was the chain of Habit, and that the
ball which dragged behind was the old propensity to lust and sin. I
asked him why they did not get the chains knocked off, and he said they
had been trying a long time to be rid of them, but they never could do
it in the way they went to work, since the proper way to get rid of the
chain of habit was, first of all, to get out of prison; the door of
unbelief must be opened, and they must trust in the one great deliverer
the Lord Jesus, whose pierced hands could open all prison doors; after
that, upon the anvil of grace with the hammer of love, their fetters
could be broken off. I stayed awhile, and I saw a drunkard led out of
his prison, rejoicing in pardoning grace. He had aforetime labored to
escape from his drunkenness, but some three or four times he broke his
pledge, and went back to his old sin. I saw that man trust in the
precious blood and he became a Christian, and becoming a Christian he
could no more love his cups; at one stroke of the hammer the ball was
gone for ever. Another was a swearer; he knew it was wrong to blaspheme
the Most High, but he did it still, till he gave his heart to Christ,
and then he never blasphemed again, for that foul thing was abhorred. I
noticed some, and methinks I am one of them myself, although they had
the ball taken away, yet on their hands there were the remains of old
chains. Like Paul, in another case, when we rejoice in all things we
have to say, "Except these bonds." Once we were chained both hands
together; the divine hammer has smitten off the connecting links, but
still some one or two are left hanging there. Ah! often has that link
made me cry out–"O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from
the body of this death!" Though I am free, yet still the iron clings to
its hold, and will hang there till I die. "When I would do good evil is
present with me." O that old Adam nature, the corrupt flesh, would God
we were rid of it! Blessed be the Lord, as the pulse begins to beat
high with heaven's glory, the band will burst, and we shall be perfect
for ever. There is no way of getting rid of the links of old habits but
by leaving the prison of unbelief and coming to Christ, then the evil
habits are renounced as a necessary consequence though the temptation
will remain. Though sometimes we have to feel a link of the chain, it
is a subject of unbounded thankfulness that the link is not fastened to
the staple. We may sometimes feel it dragging behind, enough to trip us
up, so that we cannot run in the path of obedience as swiftly as we
would, but it is not in the staple now. The bird can fiy; though there
be a remnant of its cord about its foot it mounts up to heaven, singing
its song of praise. The Lord must loose prisoners from their evil
habits. He can do it; a drop of Jesu's blood can eat the iron all away,
and the file of his agonies can cut through the chain of long-acquired
sins, and make us free. "The Lord looseth the prisoners."
VI. I must take you to another cell. In almost all prisons where they
do not want to make vagabonds worse than when they entered, they have
hard labor for them. In the prison I went to see in my reverie there
was a hard-labor room. Those who entered it were mostly very proud
people; they held their heads very high, and would not bend; they were
birds with fine feathers, and thought themselves quite unfit to be
confined, but being in durance vile, they resolved to work their own
way out. They believed in the system of human merit, and hoped in due
time to purchase their liberty. They had saved up a few old counterfeit
farthings, with which they thought they could by-and-bye set themselves
free, though my bright attendant plainly declared their folly and
mistake. It was amusing, and yet sad, to see what different works these
people were about. Some of them toiled at a tread-wheel; they were
going to the stars they said, and there they were, tread, tread, tread,
with all their might; but though they had been laboring for years, and
were never an inch higher, yet still they were confident that they were
mounting to the skies. Others were trying to make garments out of
cobwebs; they were turning wheels, and spinning at a great rate, and
though it came to nothing they wrought on. They believed they should be
free as soon as they had made a perfect garment, and I believe they
will. In one place a company labored to build houses of sand, and when
they had built up to some height the foundation always yielded, but
they renewed their efforts, for they dreamed that if a substantial
edifice were finished they would then be allowed to go free. I saw some
of them, strangely enough, endeavoring to make wedding garments out of
fig-leaves, by sewing them together, but the fig-leaves were of a sort
that were shrivelled every night, so that they had to begin the next
morning their hopeless toil. Some, I noticed, were trying to pump water
out of a dry well, the veins stood out upon their brows like whipcords
while they worked amain without result. As they labored, like Samson
when he was grinding at the mill, I could hear the crack of whips upon
their backs. I saw one ten-thonged whip called the Law, the terrible
Law–each lash being a commandment, and this was laid upon the bare
backs and consciences of the prisoners; yet still they kept on work,
work, work, and would not turn to the door of grace to find escape. I
saw some of them fall down fainting, whereupon their friends strove to
bring them water in leaking vessels, called ceremonies; and there were
some men called priests, who ran about with cups which had no bottoms
in them, which they held up to the lips of these poor fainting wretches
to give them comfort. As these men fainted, I thought they would die,
but they struggled up again to work. At last they could do no more, and
fell down under their burdens utterly broken in spirit; then I saw that
every prisoner who at last so fainted as to give up all hope of his own
deliverance by merit, was taken up by a shining spirit, and carried out
of the prison and made free for ever. Then I thought within myself,
'Surely, surely, these are proud self-righteons persons who will not
submit to be saved by grace, therefore He brought down their heart with
labor; they fell down and there was none to help; then they cried unto
the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.'"
I rejoiced and blessed God that there was such a prison-house to bring
them to Jesus; yet I mourned that there were so many who still loved
this house of bondage and would not escape, though there stood one with
his finger always pointing to the words–"By the works of the law shall
no flesh living be justified;" and to these other words, "By grace are
ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of
God." I had seen enough of that prison-house, for I recollect being
there myself, and I have some of the scars upon my spirit now. I desire
not to go back to it, but as I have received Christ Jesus the Lord so
would I walk in Him, knowing that if the Son make me free I shall be
free indeed.
VII. We must not leave these corridors till we have peered into all the
cells; for we may not come here again. As I passed along, there was
another cell, called The Low Dungeon of Despondency. I had read of this
in the book of Jeremiah–a pit wherein there was no water, of which the
prophet said, "He hath led me and brought me into darkness and not into
light." I looked down. It was a deep, dark, doleful place; down in it I
saw by the gloomy light of the warder's lantern a poor soul in very
deep distress, and I bade him speak to me, and tell me his case. He
said he had been a great offender, and he knew it; he hall been
convinced of sin; he had heard the gospel preached, and sometimes he
thought it was for him, but at other times he felt sure it was not;
there were seasons when his spirit could lay hold of Christ, but there
were times when he dared not hope. Now and then, he said, some gleams
of light did come; once a week when he had his provision sent down, a
little fresh bread and water, he did feel a little encouraged, but by
the time the Monday came–for his provision was always sent down on
Sunday–he felt himself as low and miserable as ever. I called out to
him that there was a ladder up the side of the prison and if he would
but climb it, he might escape, but the poor soul could not feel the
steps. I reminded him that he need not be where he was, for a divine
hand had let down ropes to draw him up, with soft cushions for his
armholes; but I seemed as one that mocked him, and I heard some that
tormented him bid him call me "liar." These were two villains called
Mistrust and Timorous, who were bent upon keeping him here, even though
they knew that he was an heir of heaven, and had a right to liberty.
Finding myself powerless, I thus learned the more fully that the Lord
must loose these prisoners or else they must be prisoners for many
a-day; yet it was a great comfort to recollect that no soul ever died
in that dungeon if it had really felt its need of Christ, and cried for
mercy through his blood. No soul ever utterly perished while it called
upon the name of the Lord; it might lie in the hold till it seemed as
if the moss would grow on its eye-lids, and the worms eat its mildewed
corpse, but it never did perish, for in due time it was brought by
simple faith to believe that Christ is "able to save, even to the
uttermost," and then they come up, O how quickly, from their low
dungeon, and they sing more sweetly than others–"He hath brought me up
out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay; he hath set my feet
upon a rock, and put a new song in my mouth, and established my going."
VIII. Shudder not at the clinging damps, for I must take you to another
dungeon deeper than this last; it is called the inner prison. Paul and
Silas were cast into the inner prison, and their feet made fast in the
stocks, yet they sang in their prison; but in this dungeon no singing
was ever heard. It is the hold of despair. I need not enlarge much in
my description. I hope you have never been there; and I pray you never
may. Ah! when a spirit once gets into that inner prison, comforts are
turned at once into miseries, and the very promises of God appear to be
in league for the destruction of the soul. John Bunyan describes old
Giant Despair and his crab-tree cudgel better than I can do it.
Sorrowful is that ear which has heard the grating of the huge iron
door, and full of terror is the heart which has felt the chilly damps
of that horrible pit. Are any of you in that dungeon to-day? Do you
say, "I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; my day of grace is
over; I have sinned against light and knowledge; I am lost?" O man,
where are you? I must have you free. What a splendid trophy of grace
you will make! My Master loves to find such great sinners as you are,
that he may exhibit his power to save. Oh! what a platform for my Lord
to rear the standard of his love upon, when he shall have fought with
you and overcome you by his love. What a victory this shall be. How
will the angels sing unto him that loved the vilest of the vile, and
ransomed the despairing one out of the hand of cruel foes. I have more
hope of you than I have of others; for when the surgeon enters the
hospital after an accident, he always goes to the worse case first. If
there be a man who has broken his finger only, "Oh! let him be," say
they, "he can wait;" but if there be a Poor fellow who is much mangled,
"Ah!" says the surgeon, "I must see to this case at once." So is it
with you; but the Lord must loose you; I cannot. Only this I know, if
you would but believe me, there is a key which will fit the lock of
your door of unbelief. Come, look over this bunch of keys: "He is able
to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him." "This is a
faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners." "He that believeth on him is not
condemned." "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I
will give you rest." Brother, this inner dungeon can be opened by the
Lord Jesus.
"The gates of brass before him burst, the iron fetters yield."
IX. I am getting to the end of this dark story now, but tarry a moment
at the grating of the Devil's Torture Chamber, for I have been in it;
yes, I have been tormented in it, and therefore I tell you no dream; I
tarried in it till my soul melted because of agony, and therefore speak
what I do know, and not what I have learned by report. There is a
chamber in the experience of some men where the temptations of the
devil exceed all belief. Read John Bunyan's "Grace abounding," if you
would understand what I mean. The devil tempted him, he says, to doubt
the existence of God; the truth of Scripture; the manhood of Christ;
then his deity; and once, he says, he tempted him to say things which
he will never write, lest he should pollute others. Ah! I remember a
dark hour with myself when I, who do not remember to have even heard a
blasphem in my youth, much less to have uttered one, heard rushing
through my soul an infinite number of curses and blasphemies against
the Most High God, till I put my hand to my mouth lest they should be
uttered, and I was cast down, and cried to the merciful God that he
would save me from them. Oh! the foul things which the fiend will
inject into the spirit; the awful, damnable things, the offspring of
his own infernal den, which he will foist upon us as our own thoughts
in such hosts, and so quickly the one after the other, that the spirit
has hardly time to swallow down its spittle, and though it hates and
loathes these things, still it cannot escape from them, for it is in
prison. Ah! well, thank God no soul ever perished through such
profanities as those, for if we hate them they are none of ours; if we
loathe them it is not our sin, but Satan's and God will in due time
bring us to be free from these horrors. Though the hosts of hell may
have ridden over our heads, yet, let us cry "Rejoice not over me O mine
enemy, though I fall yet shall I rise again." Use your sword, poor
prisoner! You have one. "It is written"–"the sword of the Spirit which
is the Word of God." Give your foe a deadly stab; tell him that "God
is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him," and
you may yet see him spread his dragon wings and fly away. This, too, is
a prison in which unbelief has confined both saint and sinner, and the
Lord himself must loose these prisoners.
X. Last of all, there is one dungeon which those confined therein have
called the condemned cell. I was in it once. In that room the man
writes bitter things against himself; he feels absolutely sure that the
wrath of God abideth on him; he wonders the stones beneath his feet do
not open a grave to swallow him up; he is astonished that the walls of
the prison do not compress and crush him into nothingness; he marvels
that he has his breath, or that the blood in his veins does not turn
into rivers of flame. His spirit is in a dreadful state; he not only
feels he shall be lost, but he thinks it is going to happen now. The
condemned cell in Newgate, I am told, is just in such a corner that the
condemned can hear the putting-up of the scaffold. Well do I remember
hearing my scaffold put up, and the sound of the hammer of the lair as
piece after piece was put together! It appeared as if I heard the noise
of the crowd of men and devils who would witness my eternal execution,
all of them howling and yelling out their accursed things against my
spirit. Then there was a big bell that tolled out the hours, and I
thought that very soon the last moment would arrive, and I must mount
the fatal scaffold to be cast away for ever. Oh! that condemned cell!
Next to Tophet, there can be no state more wretched than that of a man
who is brought here! And yet let me remind you that when a man is
thoroughly condemned in his own conscience he shall never be condemned.
When he is once brought to see condemnation written on everything that
he has done, though hell may flame in his face, he shall be led out,
but not to execution; led out, but not to perish, "he shall be led
forth with joy, and he shall go forth with peace; the mountains and the
hills shall break forth before him into singing, and all the trees of
the field shall clap their hands." As we read in history of one who was
met with a pardon just when the rope was round his neck, just so does
God deal with poor souls; when they feel the rope about their necks,
acknowledge that God's sentence is just, and confess that if they
perish they cannot complain, it is then that sovereign mercy steps in
and cries, "I have blotted out like a cloud thine iniquities, and like
a thick cloud thy sins; thy sins which are many are all forgiven thee."
And now, thou glorious Jehovah, the Liberator, unto thee be praises!
All thy redeemed bless thee, and those who are to-day in their dungeons
cry unto thee! Stretch out thy bare arm, thou mighty Deliverer! Thou
who didst send thy Son Jesus to redeem by blood, send now thy Spirit to
set free by power, and this day, even this day, let multitudes rejoice
in the liberty wherewith thou makest free; and unto Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, Israel's one Redeemer, be glory for ever and ever! Amen.