The Northern Iron and the Steel

Delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?"–Jeremiah 15:12.

THE prophet Jeremiah was, as we saw upon a former occasion, a man of
exquisitely sensitive character; not a prophet of iron, like Elijah,
but nearer akin to him who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief. He lived in times which were peculiarly trying to him, and in
addition was called to exercise an office which involved him in
perpetual sorrow. He loved the people among whom he dwelt, yet was he
commissioned by God to pronounce judgments upon them; this in itself
was a hard task to such a nature as his. As a loving father, fearful of
Eli's doom, uses the rod upon his child, but feels each stroke in his
own heart far more acutely than the child does upon his back, so every
threatening word which the prophet uttered lashed his own soul, and
cost his heart the direst panics. He went, however, to his work with
unstaggering firmness; hopeful, perhaps, that when his countrymen heard
the divine threatening, they would repent of their sin, seek mercy, and
find it. Surely if anything can add weight to the prophecy of the
judgments of God, it is the trembling love, the anxious fear with which
such a messenger as Jeremiah would deliver his warning. The deep sorrow
of him who warned them ought to have driven the sinful nation to a
speedier repentance; instead of which they rejected his warnings, they
despised his person, and defied his God. As they thus heaped wrath upon
themselves, they also increased his sorrow. He was a delicate,
sensitive plant, and felt an inward shudder as he marked the tempest
gathering overhead. Though a most loyal servant of his God, he was
sometimes very trembling, and though he never ventured, like Jonah, to
flee unto Tarshish, yet he cried in the bitterness of hie soul, "O that
I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might
leave my people, and go from them!" The Jews treated him so harshly and
unjustly, that he feared they would break his heart; they smote him ae
with an iron rod, and he felt like one crushed beneath their
unkindness. To silence his fear, the Lord assures him that he will
renew his strength. "Behold," saith he, "I have made thee this day a
defenced city and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole
land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against
the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. And they shall
fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am
with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee." Thus the Lord promised to
his servant the divine support which his trials demanded He never did
and never will place a man in a trying position and then leave him to
perish. David dealt thus treacherously with Uriah, but the Lord acts
not thus with his servants. If the rebellious seed of Israel were iron,
the Lord declared that his prophet should be hardened by sustaining
grace into northern iron and steel. If they beat upon him like hammers
on an anvil, he should be made of such strong, enduring texture, that
he should be able to resist all their blows. Iron in the olden times
amongst the Israelites was very coarsely manufactured, but the best was
the iron from the north. So bad was their iron generally, that an
admixture of brass, which among us would be thought rather to
deteriorate the hardness, was regarded as an improvement; so the Lord
puts it, "Shall iron–the common iron–break the most firm and best
prepared iron?" It cannot do so: and if the people acted like iron
against Jeremiah, God would make his spirit indomitably firm, that they
should no more be able to put him down than common iron could break the
northern iron and the steel.

That being the literal meaning, we shall draw from our text a general
principle. It is a proverbial expression, no doubt, and applicable to
many other matters besides that of the prophet and the Jews; it is
clearly meant to show, that in order to achieve a purpose, there must
be a sufficient force. The weaker cannot overcome the stronger. In a
general clash the firmest will win. There must be sufficient firmness
in the instrument or the work cannot be done. You cannot cut granite
with a pen-knife, nor drill a hole in a rock with an auger of silk.
Some forces are inadequate for the accomplishment of certain purposes.
If you would break the best iron, you will be foiled if you strike it
with a metal less hard.

I. We shall first of all apply this proverb to the PEOPLE OF GOD
INDIVIDUALLY. Shall any power be able to destroy the saints?

We are sent into the world, if we are believers in Christ, like sheep
in the midst of wolves, defenseless, and in danger of being devoured,
yet no power on earth can destroy the chosen disciples of Christ. Weak
as they are, they will tread down the strength of their foes. There are
more sheep in the world now than wolves. There are parts of the world
where wolves once roamed in troops where not a wolf can now be found;
yet tens of thousands of sheep feed on the hillside: one would not be
very bold to say that the day will come when the wolf will only be
known as an extinct animal, while as long as the world lasts the sheep
will continue to multiply. In the long run, the sheep has gained the
victory over the wolf. And it is so with Christ's people. They appear
to be weak, but there is a force about them which cannot be put down:
they will overcome the ungodly yet, for the day will come when mighty
truth shall prevail. God hasten that blessed and long-expected day.
Till then, when persecuted we are not forsaken, when cast down we are
not destroyed. Many Christians, are placed in positions where they are
subject to very great temptations and persecutions; they are mocked,
laughed at, ridiculed, called by evil names. Persecuted one, will you
deny the faith? Are you going to put aside your colors, and relinquish
the cross of Christ? If so, I can only tell you, you are not made of
the same stuff as the true disciples of Jesus-Christ; for when the
grace of God is in them, if the world be iron, they are northern iron
and steel; they can bear all the blows which the world may possibly
choose to lay upon them, and as the anvil breaks the hammers in the
long run, so will they, by their patient endurance for Christ's sake,
break the force of all persecution, and triumph over it. Do I speak to
a young Christian, who has come up to London, and finds himself placed
where he is continually ridiculed? Will you shrink in the day of trial?
Do you mean to play the coward? Shall the iron break the northern iron
and the steel! Let it not be so. Be strong. Quit you like men; and in
the energy of the Holy Spirit, endure as seeing him that is invisible.
There is no need that we should fear, for amid all dangers the love of
God shall live within us as a fire unquenchable. "Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" "Nay, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

Besides persecution, we are called frequently to serve the Lord under
great difficulties. There are supreme difficulties connected with the
evangelisation of this city. To stand here and preach to such a
congregation as this, so large and so eager for the word, is a
pleasure; but every sphere of labor is not equally cheering. Some of
you who go to the lodging-houses to speak, or who visit the alleys, or
stand up in the low neighbourhoods to preach the word of life, I know
full well find it anything but child's play to serve your Lord under
such conditions. Yours is rough hedging and ditching work, with very
little in it of rosewater and gentility, and very much of annoyance and
disappointment. What, then, is your resolution? I trust it is this:
that as much strength is needed, you will wait more than ever upon the
strong One till the needed power is given you. I trust you are not of
that craven spirit which shrinks at difficulty or toil. Will you give
way before the labors demanded of you? Do the redeemed of the Lord
consent to give London up to Satan's rule? Do they say in despair that
its darkest parts cannot be enlightened? Will the church of God despair
of any race or country? Will it say: "There is no converting the
Romanist; there is no convincing the literate and crafty Brahmin?" Is
the iron to break the northern iron and the steel? Will we not rather
take a firmer grip upon Omnipotence, and draw down almighty help by the
blessed vehemence of prayer? What are we at? What aileth us that we are
so soon dispirited? Is the Lord's arm waxed short? The apostles never
thought of defeat; they believed that the gospel could break everything
in pieces that stood in its way: and they went without hesitation to
the work which the Lord sent them to do. Twas theirs to dare and die;
questions and forebodings were not theirs. Into the bloody jaws of
death those champions of Christendom rode on with dauntless courage,
and won the victory. And are we to give way under difficulties? Are we
to be as reeds shaken of the wind? You, Sunday-school teacher, are you
going to give up your class because the boys are unruly? You in the
Ragged-school, are you thinking of closing the doors, because as yet
the children have not come in great numbers, or because the young Arabs
are as wild as unbroken colts? You, who stood in the corner of the
street the other night to preach, did you determine never to stand up
and preach again, because of the rough reception you received? O man,
be of different metal from this! If God has called you to do anything,
do it, if you die in doing it. To a man for whom Jesus died, no work
should seem hard, no sacrifice grievous. All things are possible to
those who burn with the love of God. There is nothing but what you can
make a way through if you can find something harder to bore it with.
Look at the Mont Cenis Tunnel, made through one of the hardest of known
rocks; with a sharp tool, edged with diamond, they have pierced the
heart of the Alps, and made a passage for the commerce of nations. As
St. Bernard says: "Is thy work hard? set a harder resolution against
it; for there is nothing so hard that it cannot be cut by something
harder still." May the Spirit of God work in thee invincible resolution
and unconquerable perseverance. Let not the iron break the northern
iron and the steel. Under persecutions and difficulties, let God's
people resolve on victory, and by faith they shall have it, for
according to our faith so shall it be unto us.

One of the greatest trials to which the people of God are subject, in
trying to serve their Master, is non-success. The seven lean kine, as
they eat up the seven fat kine, sorely try the believer's faith. Alas!
our disappointments seldom come alone, but like Job's messengers,
follow close upon each other's heels. When a man succeeds, he continues
to succeed, as a rule; he derives encouragement from what God has
already done by him, and goes from strength to strength. Probably,
however, there is more grace exhibited by the Christian, who, without
present success, realises the things not seen as yet, and continues
still to work on. To labor is not easy, but to labor and to wait is
harder far. It is a grand thing to continue patiently in well doing,
confident that in the end the reward is sure. He is a man indeed who
under long-continued disappointment will not–

"Bate a jot

Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer

Right onward."

Such a man "plucks success even from the spear-proof crest of rugged
danger." The well-annealed steel within him ere long breaks in shivers
the common iron which strikes him so severely. To him, to overcome by
grace is glory indeed.

Some of the greatest works that were ever performed by Christian people
were not immediate in their results. The husbandman has waited long for
the precious fruits of the earth. The question has been asked, again
and again, "Watchman, what of the night?" Some, no doubt, have had to
labor all their lives, and have bequeathed to their heirs the promise
whose fulfillment they had not personally seen. They laid the
underground courses of the temple, and others entered into their
labors. You know the story of the removal of old St. Paul's by Sir
Christopher Wren. A very massive piece of masonry had to be broken
down, and the task, by pick and shovel, would have been a very tedious
one, so the great architect prepared a battering-ram for its removal,
and a large number of workmen were directed to strike with force
against the wall with the ram. After several hours of labor, the wall,
to all appearances, stood fast and firm. Their many strokes had been
apparently lost, but the architect knew that they were gradually
communicating motion to the wall, creating an agitation throughout the
whole of it, and that, by-and-by, when they had continued long enough,
the entire mass would come down beneath a single stroke. The workmen,
no doubt, attributed the result to the one crowning concussion, but
their master knew that their previous strokes had only culminated in
that one tremendous blow and that all the nonresultant work had been
necessary to prepare for the stroke which achieved the purpose. O
Christian people, do not expect always to see the full outgrowth of
your labors! Go on, serve your God, testify of his truth, tell of
Jesus' love, pray for sinners, live a godly life, serve God with might
and main, and if no harvest spring up to your joyous sickle, others
shall follow you and reap what you have sown, and since God will be
glorified, it shall be enough for you. Let no amount of nonsuccess
daunt you. Be uneasy about it, but do not be discouraged; let not even
this iron break the resolution of your soul; let your determination to
honor Jesus be as the northern iron and the steel.

I might thus enlarge, but I have so many other things to speak of, that
I shall pass on. The pith of what I want to say is this: if any dear
brother here, as a Christian, is put to very severe trials, he may
depend upon it there is nothing that happens to him but what is common
to men, and that there is grace enough to be had to enable him to bear
up under all. There is no need for any one soldier of God to turn his
back in the day of battle. It is not right that any one of us should
consider himself doomed to be defeated. The Holy Spirit giveth power to
the weak, and lifts the common warriors into the ranks of the
mightiest. Fulness of grace is provided for us in Christ Jesus, and if
we draw from it by faith we shall not need to fail. Let us not be slow
to arm ourselves with the divine might. Let us ask the Captain of our
salvation to make us as tough in the day of battle as the northern iron
was beneath the blow of the common iron; that having done and suffered
all, we may still stand, and none may be able to rob us of our crown.

II. But we shall now make a second use of this same proverb. It is
applicable to the cause of God in the world–to THE CHURCH. I shall
speak but little upon this, for time would fail me. What power, however
like to iron, shall suffice to break the kingdom of Jesus, which is
comparable to steel? We every now and then hear the babyish talk of
persons who say that the gospel will die out in England–that Romanism
will return in all its darkness, gospel light will be extinguished, and
the candle which Latimer helped to light will be blown out. Atrocious
nonsense, if not partial blasphemy. If this thing were of men it would
come to nought; but if it be of God, who shall overthrow it? It has
sometimes happened that fear has been the father of the thing it
feared: let it not be so in this case; let us not court defeat by
anticipating it. As surely as the Lord liveth the end of the Romish
Anti-Christ will come, and the long-expected angel shall cry with a
loud voice, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the
habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of
every unclean and hateful bird." "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye
holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her."
Revelation 18:2, 20. Other desponding prophets foretell that infidelity
will so spread through all the churches and the fabric of society, that
at last we shall see this country without a gospel ministry, and
perhaps, through the spread of revolutionary principles, bereft of all
respect for law and order. We are to go down by way of Paris to the
foulness of Sodom, and thence into Pandemonium. Brethren, let those who
will believe these evil tidings, I am not greatly moved thereby; for
there are eternal principles and immutable decrees which uphold my
joyful hopes. Consider for a moment what is involved in these gloomy
forebodings. Then the gates of hell are to prevail against the church,
are they? Then Christ is to be defeated by anti-Christ, is he? Then the
pleasure of the Lord is not to prosper in his hand? Who said that? Who
but a lying spirit that would lay low the faith and confidence of the
people of God? It is no more possible for the truth of God and the
church of God to be defeated, than for God himself to be overcome in
conflict. Lo! Jehovah girds his church like a buckler on his arm: this
is his battle-axe; this his weapons of war; and if you can wrench from
his hand the weapons of his choice, then may you lift up the shout of
triumph over the Eternal himself. But it never can be, for who shall
stand against the Lord and prosper? My brethren, we may well fear the
crafty machinations of the church of Rome, for all the subtlety of the
old serpent is within her; but with the wisdom of God to meet it, there
can be no alarm. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: there is
no device nor counsel against the Lord. We may well be dismayed at the
insidious attacks of scepticism; but while there remains a Holy Ghost
to create and sustain faith in the world, we need not fear that the
faithful will utterly cease out of the land. The thousands will still
be reserved whose knees have never bowed to Baal. Infidelity and
Socinianism have ready tongues, but every tongue that rises against the
church in judgment she will condemn. The forges of hell are busy in
fashioning new weapons with which to assail us, but the Lord will break
their bows and cut their spears in sunder. They may and will defeat the
dogmas of superstition, but the truths of revelation and the people who
believe them they can never overthrow. The iron will never break the
northern iron and the steel. The church can bear the blows of Ritualism
and Infidelity, and survive them all, and be the better for them too.
See what the cause of Christ is. It is truth: therein is victory. Who
knows not that the truth must prevail? There is in the church of God,
moreover, life, and life is a thing you cannot overcome. A dead thing
may be cut in pieces, and strewn to the winds of heaven; but the life
in Christ's church is that which has defied and overcome Satan a
thousand times already. In the dark ages the enemy thought he had
destroyed the church, but life came into the monk in his cell, and
Luther shook the world. The church in England fell into a deadly
slumber in the days of Whitfield and Wesley; but she was not dead, and
therefore a time of awakening came. The flame burned low but the
heavenly fire still lingered among the ashes, and only needed the Holy
Spirit to blow upon it, and cause a hallowed conflagration. Six young
men in Oxford were found guilty of meeting to pray: their offense was
contagious, and soon there sprang up hundreds glorying in the same
blessed crime. Earnest servants of the living God were forthcoming and
no man knew whence they came; like the buds and blossoms which come
forth at the bidding of spring, a people made willing in the day of
God's power came forward at once. Seeing that there is life in the
church of God, you can never calculate what will happen within its
bounds to-morrow, for life is an unaccountable thing, and scorns the
laws which bind the formal and inanimate. The statues in St. Paul's
Cathedral stand fixed on their pedestals, and the renowned dead in
Westminster Abbey never raise a riot; but who can tell what the living
may next conceive or attempt? Men have said: "We will put down the
troublesome religion of these gospellers. Build prisons enough, forge
chains enough, make racks enough, concoct tortures infernal enough,
slay enough victims, and stamp out the plague." But their designs have
never been accomplished. They hatched the cockatrice's egg, but that
which came of it died. They burnt the gospel out in Spain, did they
not? And in the Low Countries they erased the memory thereof. How is it
now? Has not Spain achieved her liberty at a blow? Is not also Belgium
free to the preacher of the word? Not even Italy or Rome itself is safe
against the obnoxious heretic. Everywhere the gospel penetrates. Even
the earth helps the woman, and swallows up the flood which the dragon
casts out of his mouth to drown the man child: political rulers
restrain the violence of those who otherwise would slay the saints in
one general massacre. It shall be so, right on through all the ages
till Christ comes–the iron shall not break the northern iron and the
steel. Glory be to God, we have confidence in this, and in the name of
God we set up our banner. This, too, is a pleasing theme; but we must
leave it and pass on to another.

III. We may apply the principle to a very different matter indeed–THE
SELF-RIGHTEOUS EFFORTS WHICH MEN MAKE FOR THEIR OWN SALVATION. We may
remind them that the iron will never break the northern iron and the
steel. The bonds of guilt are not to be snapped by a merely human
power. Here is a man with the fetters of his transgressions about him,
but "he will get them off," he says: prayer shall be his file; tears
shall be the aquafortis to dissolve the metal, and his own resolutions
shall, like a hammer, dash the links in fragments. But it cannot be:
the iron shall never break this northern iron and the steel. Habits of
sin yield not to raspings of the unregenerate resolves. You are
condemned, and only Christ the Son of God can set you free from the
fetters which hold you in the condenmed cell. All your efforts apart
from Jesus are utterly useless. He must bring liberty–you cannot
emancipate yourselves. You say that you will break off the chains of
evil habit. There are some you can break off, but can you alter your
nature? "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?"
That were an easy task compared with a man renewing his own heart. The
imaginations of the thoughts of your heart are evil, only evil, and
that continually, and do what you will they will remain so. The dead
cannot give themselves life: it needs superior power to hew off the
fetters which hold you prisoner in the sepulcher of your natural death.
Your iron can never break the northern iron and the steel which bind
you to the slavery of hell. Do you think to force your way to heaven by
ceremony? Do you imagine that baptism can wash away your sin, that
confirmation can convey to you grace, that outward ceremonies of man's
devising, or of God's instituting can deliver you from wrath? Believe
no such thing; there is no potency in all these to deliver you from the
bonds which hold you. The iron cannot break the northern iron and the
steel. Come, sinner, with thy fetters, and day thy Christ here at the
cross-foot, where Christ can break the iron at once. Come, bring
thyself, chained as thou art, to him, or if thou canst not stir an
inch, cry out to him! Ask him to deliver thee! He can do it. Trust in
him, for trust in his precious blood and reliance upon his perfect
sacrifice will make thee a free man in a moment, never to be a
bondslave again. But, oh, let not thy puny strength be wasted on so
futile an effort as that which aims at self-salvation; how shall
weakness achieve the labor of omnipotence, or death accomplish the
sublimes miracle of the Immortal? Remember the work of salvation think
how great it is, how worthy of a God; and then cease utterly from all
self-reliance, for it is madness and blasphemy. Where were the need of
the Holy Ghost, if you could regenerate yourself? Where would there be
room for a display of the power of sovereign grace, if man's will and
effort could accomplish all? But I leave that topic, also, and pass on
to another consideration.

IV. This same text is applicable to the case of any persons who are
making SELF-RELIANT EFFORTS FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS. How painfully are
we made to feel, my brethren, after every series of our special
services at this Tabernacle, that we of ourselves can do nothing! How
are we driven to the conclusion that it is not by might nor by power,
but by the Spirit of God, and by the Spirit of God alone! Man's heart
is very hard; it is like the northern iron and the steel. Our
preaching–we try to make it forcible, but how powerless is it of
itself! The preacher seeks goodly words and illustrations; he brings
forth the law of God, he gives forth threatenings in God's name; he
reasons concerning judgment to come, and flinches not from declaring
the eternal punishment of sin; he preaches the love of God, and the
infinite mercy of Christ Jesus, and he blends all this with an
affection which longs for conversion, and he prays for God's blessing;
but in many many hearts there is no change, the northern iron and the
steel remain unmovable. We call spirits from the vasty deep of their
lost estate, but they come not at our bidding. We plead with sinners to
be reconciled to God, and we beseech them as though God himself
besought them by us; but they remain unreconciled; they are even the
more obdurate in iniquity. The cries and tears of a Whitfield would not
avail. Though all the apostles reasoned with them they would turn to
them a deaf ear. Herein the best adapted means cannot break the
northern iron and the steel. With some of you an instrumentality has
been used which ought to have been more prolific of results. A mother's
tears, to your knowledge, have been shed for you. How affectionately
has she spoken to you of the Savior, whom she loves: but powerful as
your mother's pleadings would be on any other point, you reject them in
the matter of your soul. How would it make you gray-headed man, your
father, rejoice if he might see you saved! In other matters this also
would have weight with you, but it has none in this. You have had the
gospel, too, some of you, put to you very, very tenderly by those whom
you love best, but you are unsaved still. There could be no better
means than human love sanctified and strengthened by indwelling grace;
it has been strong as iron, and would have broken any ordinary heart,
but it has not crushed yours, for it is hard as the northern iron and
the steel. Ay, and you have been sick; you have been stretched upon the
bed with fever, within a hair's breadth of hell; or you have been at
sea, and escaped as with the skin of your teeth from shipwreck; but
even the judgments of God have not aroused you. The iron has not broken
the northern iron and the steel. This month, to some of you, there have
been addresses delivered pointedly, plaintively, which should have
moved a rock. I have been present at some of the meetings, when I have
heard certain of our brethren speak in a way that made me inwardly say,
"Surely these careless ones will yield to that." There has been much
sighing and crying for your souls; and you have been spoken with
personally, many of you; a kind hand has been put upon your wrist, and
with tearful eye, brother and sister have looked into your face, and
told you of your danger and of your remedy. Oh I if this does not save
you, what will? "What shall I do unto thee?" "O Ephraim, what shall I
do unto thee?" What other instrumentality can be employed? The iron
will not break the northern iron and the steel. Children of God, you
are driven to this, that here is a case in which you are powerless. You
might as well reverse the wind, or move a star, or create a world, as
soften these hardened hearts. What are you then to do? Certainly, you
are to continue the effort; nothing must tempt you to relinquish it, or
even to relax your zeal. If you cannot break the heart, truly it is no
business of yours to do so; commit that work to him who is fully equal
to the miracle, keep to your work, and fear not that the Lord will work
with you. God bids you continue prayer, warning instruction, and
invitation. If you knew that every soul you preached to or talked with
would be lost, it were no less your duty to preach the gospel; for the
duty to tell out the gospel is not influenced by our success, but is
based upon the commission of Christ: "Go ye into all the world, and
preach the gospel to every creature." It is not Ezekiel's duty to make
the dry bones live; but whether they live or not, it is his duty to
prophesy upon them. Noah was none the less a preacher of righteousness
because none, save his own family, listened to his appeals and sought
shelter with him in the ark. Go on with your work; but let a sense of
your personal inability make you fall back upon your God. Let it keep
you from one self-reliant prayer or word, much more from one
self-confident sermon or address. Every time we try to do good in our
own strength, the effort bears the certainty of defeat in its own
bowels. You shoot pointless darts; you wield a blunted sword when you
go to work for God without God. It is only when we go in God's power
that we can save souls. "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in
vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh
but in vain." Lo, spiritual children are a heritage of the Lord, and
the fruit of our soul's womb is his reward. Feel your weakness, my
brethren, and then you shall know your strength. Go to the sinner in
God's strength, and then shall you see the divine operation; but
certainly not till then. What a blessing it has been to some of us at
times to be made to lie very low in the dust, and see what unworthy
creatures we are! I have often noticed that when God intends to give a
great blessing upon my ministry, and to let me know it, he usually
makes me feel as if I had rather die than dive, because I feel myself
so utterly unworthy to preach his word, and am made to bemoan my
wretched unfitness to be used at all by my gracious Master. Let the
stone lie in the brook, and let it be rounded, and made smooth by
trituration of the water–it will do nothing of itself; but when it has
been worn away enough by the brook, and David slings it, and smites the
giant's brow, the stone cannot say, "I slew the giant by my own force;"
but all men will give glory to the champion who hurled it at the
giant's forehead. Yes, God will have the glory, and he will take means
to prevent us from usurping it. He will make us feel that the iron
cannot break the northern iron and the steel, and then he will send us
forth to victory. Truly my inmost heart confesses that if one heart has
been won for my Lord Jesus by me, I am less than nothing in it, and he
is all in all. My soul dares not touch the glory, but loathes every
thought of self-praise. He hath done it, and to him be everlasting
songs.

V. But now I must close–time warns me to do so–by remarking that this
text has A VERY SOLEMN APPLICATION TO ALL THOSE WHO ARE REBELS AGAINST
GOD. Men sometimes think themselves of very great consequence. I spoke
with one some years ago who had professed to be a Christian, who
addressed me very indignantly after some little argument, and said that
ere long he intended to produce a pamphlet which would extinguish
Christianity. I remember making the remark, that I dared to say that
the world would hear as much about it as when a fly fell into a pail of
water and was drowned, and not much more. And then he was more
indignant still; but I told him I had seen many a moth dash against my
gas-burner in the evening, but I had never seen the light put out,
though I had seen the wretched insect fall with singed wings upon my
table, to suffer for its fatal folly; and I feared that such a fate
would happen to him. So rest assured it will be to you, O blasphemer of
God, or hater of his Christ. Fight against God, would you? Measure your
adversary, I charge you. The wax is about to wrestle with the flame:
the tow is about to contend with the fire. It is too unequal a warfare.
If you are wise, you will select another adversary, and not attempt to
go to war with the omnipotent King, with such a puny force as yours.
"Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like
him?" You may be like iron: go and break the potsherds of the earth;
they are fair game for you; but do not contend against the northern
iron and the steel, for these will break you. You will not be able to
deprive Christ of a single atom of his glory. You may blaspheme, but
even that shall, somehow or other by a holy alchemy, be turned to his
glory. You cannot thwart his decrees. The great wheels of his
providence grind on, and woe to him who throws himself in their track;
they will surely grind him to powder. The huge Matterhorn lilts its
colossal head above the clouds. Who will may speak against it; but it
bows not its giant form; and no matter what of snow and sleet may dash
against its ramparts, there it stands, still the same; emblem herein of
the great throne of the Eternal, firm and immutable, though all the
universe storm at its foot. To resist God is to strike with naked feet
against a goad. "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." You
will hurt yourself; you cannot injure him, nor change his purposes by
so much as the turning of a hair. God will have his way: None shall
resist his will. Everlasting and eternal are his decrees; and fast and
fixed they ever must remain, though all earth and hell should unite in
one great conspiracy. He thrusts a bit into the tempest's mouth, and
rides upon the wings of the wind. Confusion there is none to him.
Adversaries, what are they? They are utterly consumed as the stubble.
But take ye heed that God come not out against you, ye who are rebels;
for if he once put on the war-harness and fight against you, woe unto
you! Have you not heard? Hath no one told you of the arrows of his
quiver? They are sharp, heart-piercing, infallible. Sickness can shake
you till every nerve shall become a road for pain to carry on its
dreadful traffic. Poverty can come upon you, and want, like an armed
man. Death shall strike down ail your lovers, and your acquaintances
shall sink into the abyss. Let God but come forth in judgment against a
man, or a people, and what can he not do? Look at the nation across the
Channel, and see how God hath dealt with it. Turn to any other nation
against whom his fiat has gone forth, and read the story of its
overthrow. What can emperors do, and what their imperial guards, and
what their novel instruments of war, and what their death-dealing
machines, that were to mow down thousands in an hour? He that sitteth
in the heavens doth laugh; the Lord doth have them in derision. He hath
broken the bow and cut the spear in sunder; he hath burned the chariot
in the fire. Contend no more against the Almighty: put back thy sword
into the scabbard, and submit thyself to the inevitable; for remember,
ere long, O rebel against God, he will deal with thee in another
fashion than he doth now. Let that breath which is in thy nostrils go
forth from thee, and where art thou then? I will quote one passage of
Scripture and leave it to your thoughts. "Beware, ye that forget
God"–that is, the very mildest form of rebellion–"Beware, ye that
forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver." O
may you never know what that means! Cast down your weapons. Come now,
and ask for reconciliation. The ambassador of peace invites you. I
point you no longer to his burning throne, but to yonder cross. See
there God in human flesh–bleeding, suffering, dying. Those wounds are
fountains of mercy. Look to them, and you shall live. Wrath is appeased
by the death of Jesus. Fury is no more in Jehovah! Trust in Jesus, the
crucified, and your transgression shall be forgiven you. That precious
blood shall make reconciliation: there shall be peace between you and
God; but O resist no longer, for the iron cannot break the northern
iron and the steel.

The Lord bless you for Jesus' sake. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Isaiah 40. 9-31.

LETTER.

CLAPHAM, JUNE 5TH.

TO MY FRIENDS EVERYWHERE,

I HAVE now endured ten silent Sabbaths, and as I know that many of you
are anxious to have accurate information as to my state of health, and
as I have now something cheerful to communicate, I feel bound to add
the present note to this week's sermon. The pain of my disease, which
has been intense, has now ceased for a week or more. I have had a
succession of good nights, in which sweet sleep has so refreshed me
that I felt each morning to be far in advance of the previous day. I am
now very weak–weak as a little child–but by the same mercy which
allayed the pain strength will be restored, and I shall have the
pleasure of being again at my delightful labor. Please pray for me that
I may be speedily and lastingly restored to health, if it be the Lord's
will. Ask also that the furnace heat which I have suffered may produce
its full effect upon me in my own soul and in my ministry. My heart's
inmost desire, as the Lord knoweth, is the salvation of sinners and the
building up of his people in their most holy faith, to the glory of the
Lord Jesus: hence it has been very grievous to me to have been debarred
my pulpit and shut out from other means of usefulness. Nevertheless, no
work has flagged at the Tabernacle because of my illness; pecuniary
help has been furnished just when it was needed, and spiritual help has
been given by the Lord of Hosts. We desire to accomplish more and to
receive more blessing when our health is restored to us. Surely the
Master has some great design to be answered by laying his servants
aside: we trust it will prove to be so. Let our prayers be more
fervent, our zeal more ardent and our labors for the spread of the
truth more abundant, and "God will bless us, and all the ends of the
earth shall fear him."

I have one great favor to ask of all readers of the sermons, and that
is, that they will try to spread them abroad, and increase the number
of regular subscribers. What has been good to you will be good for
others if the Lord bless it. If you cannot preach yourself, you can
distribute the word spoken by others.

I hope to be able to occupy the pulpit again by June 25th, if the Lord
will; but all things are uncertain to us, especially when one is slowly
recovering from severe affliction.

Yours to serve till death,