The Pilgrim’s Longings

Delivered by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

'And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they
came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now
they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is
not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a
city.''Hebrews 11:15-16.

ABRAHAM left his country at God's command, and he never went back
again. The proof of faith lies in perseverance. There is a sort of
faith which does run well, but it is soon hindered, and it doth not
obey the truth. That is not the faith to which the promise is given.
The faith of God's elect continues and abides. Being connected with the
living and incorruptible seed, it lives and abides for ever. Abraham
returned not; Isaac returned not; Jacob returned not. The promise was
to them as 'strangers and sojourners,' and so they continued. The
apostle tells us, however, that they were not forced so to continue;
they did not remain because they could not return. Had they been
mindful of the place from whence they came out, they might have found
opportunities to go back. Frequent opportunities came in their way;
there was communication kept up between them and the old family house
at Padan-Aram: they had news sometimes from the old quarters. More than
that, there were messages exchanged, servants were sometimes sent, and
you know there was a new relation entered into'did not Rebekah come
from thence? And Jacob, one of the patriarchs, was driven to go down
into the land, but he could not stay there; he was always unrestful,
till at last he stole a march upon Laban and came back into the proper
life'the life which he had chosen, the life which God had commanded
him, the life of a pilgrim and a stranger in the land of promise. You
see, then, they had many opportunities to have returned, to have
settled comfortably, and tilled the ground as their fathers did before
them; but they continued to follow the uncomfortable shifting life of
wanderers of the weary foot, who dwelt in tents, who own no foot of
land'they were aliens in the country which God had given them by
promise.

Now, our position is very similar to theirs. As many of us as have
believed in Christ have been called out. The very meaning of a church
is, 'called out by Christ.' We have been separated. I trust we know
what it is to have gone without the camp, bearing Christ's reproach.
Henceforth, in this world we have no home, no true home for our
spirits; our home is beyond the flood; we are looking for it amongst
the unseen things; we are strangers and sojourners as all our fathers
were, dwellers in this wilderness, passing through it to reach the
Canaan which is to be the land of our perpetual inheritance.

I. I propose, then, first of all this evening, to speak to you upon the
opportunities which we have had, and still have, to return to the old
house, if we were mindful of it. Indeed, it seems to me as if the word
'opportunity' as it occurs in the text, were hardly strong enough to
express the influence and incentive, the provocations and
solicitations, by which, in our case, we have been urged. It is a
wonder of wonders that we have not gone back to the world, with its
sinful pleasures and its idolatrous customs. When I think of the
strength of divine grace, I do not marvel that saints should persevere;
but, when I remember the weakness of their nature, it seems a miracle
of miracles that there should be one Christian in the world who could
maintain his steadfastness for a single hour. It is nothing short of
Godhead's utmost stretch of might that keeps the feet of the saints,
and preserves them from going back to their old unregenerate condition.
We have had opportunities to have returned. My brethren, we have such
opportunities in our daily calling. Some of you are engaged in the
midst of ungodly men, and those engagements supply you with constant
opportunities to sin as they do, to fall into their excesses, to lapse
into their forgetfulness of God, or even to take part in their
blasphemies. Oh, have you not often strong inducements, if it were not
for the grace of God, to become as they are? Or, if your occupation
keeps you alone, yet, my brethren, there is one who is pretty sure to
intrude upon our privacy, to corrupt our thoughts, to kindle strange
desires in our breasts, to tantalise us with morbid fancies, and to
seek our mischief. The Tempter he is, the Destroyer he would be, if we
were not delivered from his snares. Ah, how frequently will solitude
have temptations as severe as publicity could possibly bring. There are
perils in company, but there are perils likewise in our loneliness. We
have many opportunities to return. In the parlour, pleasantly
conversing, or in the kitchen, perhaps, occupied with the day's
work'toiling in the field, or trading on the mart, busy on the land or
tossed about on the sea, there are critical seasons on which destiny
itself might appear to hang contingent. Where can we fly to escape from
these opportunities that haunt us everywhere and peril us in every
thing? If we should mount upon the wings of the wind, could we find 'a
lodge in some vast wilderness,' think ye, then, we might be quite clear
from all the opportunities to go back to the old sins in which we once
indulged? No. Each man's calling may seem to him to be more full of
temptation than his fellow's. It is not so. Our temptations are pretty
equally distributed, I dare say, after all, and all of us might say,
that we find in our avocations, from hour to hour, many opportunities
to return.

But, dear brethren, it is not merely in our business and in our
calling; the mischief lies in our bone and in our flesh. Opportunities
to return! Ah! Who that knows himself does not find strong, incentives
to return. Ah! how often will our imagination paint sin in very glowing
colors, and, though we loathe sin and loathe ourselves for thinking of
it, yet how many a man might say, 'had it not been for divine grace,
where should I have been?'for my feet had almost gone, my steps had
well nigh slipped.' How strong is the evil in the most upright man! How
stern is the conflict to keep under the body, lest corruption should
prevail. You may be diligent in secret prayer, and, perhaps, the devil
may have seemed asleep till you began to pray, and when you were most
fervent, then will he also become most rampant. When you get nearer to
God, Satan will sometimes seem to get nearer to you. Opportunities to
return, as long as you are in this body, will be with you. To the very
edge of Jordan you will meet with temptations. When you sit expectant
on the banks of the last river, waiting, for the summons to cross, it
may be that your fiercest temptation will come even then. Oh, this
flesh, the body of this death'wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from it? But while it continues with me, I shall find opportunities
to return.

So too, dear brethren and sisters, these opportunities to return are
adapted to our circumstances and adjusted to any condition of life, and
any change through which we may pass. For instance how often have
professors, when they have prospered, found opportunities to return! I
sigh to think of many that appeared to be very earnest Christians when
they were struggling for bread, who have become very dull and cold now
that they have grown rich and increased in goods. How often does it
happen in this land of ours, that a poor earnest Christian has
associated with the people of God at all meetings, and felt proud to be
there, but he has risen in the world and stood an inch or two above
others in common esteem, and he could not go with God's people any
longer: he must seek out the world's church and join in to get a share
of the respectability and prestige that will always congregate in the
domain of fashion. Henceforth, the man has turned aside from the faith,
if not altogether in his heart, at least in his life. Beware of the
high places: they are very slippery. There is not all the enjoyment you
may think to be gathered in retirement and in ease. On the contrary,
luxury often pulleth up, and abundance makes the heart to swell with
vanity. If any of you are prospering in this world, oh watch, for you
are in imminent danger of being mindful to return to the place whence
you came out.

But, the peril is as instant every whit in adversity. Alas, I have had
to mourn over Christian men'at least I thought they were such'who have
waxed very poor, and when they have grown poor, they hardly felt they
could associate with those they knew in better circumstances. I think
they were mistaken in the notion that they would be despised. I should
lie ashamed of the Christian who would despise his fellow, because God
was dealing with him somewhat severely in Providence. Yet there is a
feeling in the human heart, and, though there may be no unkind
treatment, yet, oftentimes, the sensitive spirit is apt to imagine it,
and I have observed some absent themselves by degrees from the assembly
of God with a sense of shame. It is smoothing the way to return to your
old place; and, indeed, I have not wondered when I have seen some
professors grow cold, when I have thought where they were compelled to
live, and how they have been constrained to pass their time. Perhaps
they were living at home before, but now they have to take a room where
they can have no quiet, but where sounds of blasphemy greet them, or,
in some cases, where they have to go to the workhouse, and be far away
from all Christian intercourse or anything that could comfort them. It
is only God's grace that can keep your graces alive under such
circumstances. You see, whether you grow rich or whether you grow poor,
you will have these opportunities to return. If you want to go back to
sin, to carnality, to a love of the world, to your old condition, you
never need to be prevented from doing so by want of opportunities: it
will be something else that will prevent you, for these opportunities
are plentiful and countless.

Opportunities to return! Let me say just one thing more about them.
They are often furnished by the example of others.

'When any turn from Zion's way,

Alas, what numbers do!

Methinks I hear my Savior say,

Wilt thou forsake me too?'

The departures from the faith of those whom we highly esteem are, at
least while we are young, very severe trials to us. We keenly suspect
whether that religion can be true which was feigned so cunningly and
betrayed so wantonly, by one who seemed to be a model, but proved to be
a hypocrite. It staggers us: we cannot make it out. Opportunities to
return you have now; but ah! may grace be given you so that, if others
play the Judas, instead of leading you to do the same, it may only bind
you more fast to your Lord, and make you walk more carefully, lest you
also prove a son of perdition.

And ah, my brethren and sisters, if some of us were to return, we
should have this opportunity'a cordial welcome from our former
comrades. None of our old friends would refuse to receive us. There is
many a Christian who, if he were to go back to the gaiety of the world,
would find the world await him with open arms. He was the favourite of
the ball-room once; he was the wit 'that set the table in a roar;' he
was the man who above all was courted when he moved in the circles of
the vain and frivolous: glad enough would they be to see him come back.
What a shout of triumph would they raise, and how would they fraternize
with him! Oh, may the day never come to you, you young people
especially, who have lately put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and professed
his name, when you shall be welcomed by the world, but may you for ever
forget your kindred and your father's house, so shall the king greatly
desire your beauty, for he is the Lord, and worship you him. Separation
from the world will endear you to the Savior, and bring you into
conscious enjoyment of his presence; but, of opportunities to return
there is no lack.

Perhaps, you will say, 'Why does the Lord make them so plentiful? Could
he not have kept us from temptation?' There is no doubt he could, but
it was never the Master's intention that we should all be hothouse
plants. He taught us to pray, 'Lead us not into temptation,' but, at
the same time, he does lead us there, and intends to do it, and this
for the proving of our faith, to see whether it be true faith or not.
Depend upon it, faith that is never tried is not true faith. It must be
sooner or later exercised. God does not create useless things: he
intends that the faith he gives should have its test, should glorify
his name. These opportunities to return are meant to try your faith,
and they are sent to you to prove that you are a volunteer soldier.
Why, if grace was a sort of chain that manacled you, so that you could
not leave your Lord; if it had become a physical impossibility to
forsake the Savior, there would be no credit in it. He that does not
run away because his legs are too weak, does not prove himself a hero;
but he that could run, but will not run; he that could desert his Lord,
but will not desert him, has within him a principle of grace stronger
than any fetter could be'the highest, firmest, noblest bond that unites
a man to the Savior. By this shall you know whether you are Christ's or
not. When you have opportunity to return, if you do not return, that
shall prove you are his. Two men are going along a road, and there is a
dog behind them. I do not know to which of them that dog belongs, but I
shall be able to tell you directly. They are coming to a crossroad: one
goes to the right, the other goes to the left. Now which man does the
dog follow? That is his master. So when Christ and the world go
together, you cannot tell which you are following; but, when there is a
separation, and Christ goes one way, and your interest and your
pleasure seem to go the other way, if you can part with the world and
keep with Christ, then you are one of his. After this manner these
opportunities to return may serve us a good purpose: they prove our
faith, while they try our character; thus helping us to see whether we
are indeed the Lord's or not.

But, we must pass on (for we have a very wealthy text) to notice the
second point.

II. We cannot take any opportunity to go back, because we desire
something better than we could get by returning to that country from
whence we came out. An insatiable desire has been implanted in us by
divine grace which urges us to'

'Forget the steps already trod,

And onward press our way.'

Notice how the text puts it:''But now they desire a better country,
that is, a heavenly.' Brethren, you desire something better than this
world, do you not? Has the world ever satisfied you? Perhaps it did
when you were dead in sin. A dead world may satisfy a dead heart; but
ever since you have known something of better things, and brighter
realities, have you been ever contented with earthly things and emptier
vanities? Perhaps you have tried to fill your soul with the daintiest
provisions the world can offer; to wit'God has prospered you, and you
have said, 'Oh, this is well.' Your children have been about you, you
have had many household joys, and you have said, 'I could stay here for
ever.' Did not you find very soon that there was a thorn in the flesh?
Did you ever gather a rose in this world that was altogether without a
thorn? Hare you not been obliged to say, after you have had all that
the world could give you, 'Vanity of Vanities, all is vanity?' I am
sure it has been so with me, with you, with all my kinsfolk in Christ,
and with all my yokefellows in his service. All God's saints would
confess that were the Lord to say to them, 'You shall have all the
world, and that shall be your portion,' they would be broken-hearted
men. 'Nay, my Lord,' they would reply, 'do not put me off with these
biding presents; feed me not upon these husks. Though thou shouldst
give me Joseph's lot, the ancient mountains, and the precious things of
the lasting hills,' 'Thou art more glorious and excellent than the
mountains of prey;' yea, though thou shouldst confer on me the precious
things of the earth, and the fullness thereof, I would prefer before
them all the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush. Give me thyself,
and take these all away, if so it please thee, but do not, my Lord, do
not think I can be content with Egypt since I have set forth for
Canaan, or that I can settle down in the wilderness now that I am
journeying to the land of promise. We desire something better.

There is this about a Christian that, even when he does not enjoy
something better, he desires it; of that, verily, I am quite sure. How
much of character is revealed in our desires. I felt greatly encouraged
when I read this, 'Now they desire a better''The word 'country' has
been inserted by our translators. It weakens the sense; vague but vast
is the craving expressed in the sentence, 'They desire a better''I know
I long for something far better, something infinitely preferable to
that which my eyes can see or that my tongue can express. I do not
always enjoy that something better. Dark is my path; I cannot see my
Lord; I cannot enjoy his presence; sometimes I am like one that is
banished from him; but I desire his blessing, I desire his presence;
and, though to desire may be but a little thing, let me say a good
desire is more than nature ever grew: grace has given it. It is a great
thing to be desirous. 'They desire a better country.' And, because we
desire this better thing, we cannot go back and be content with things
which gratified us once.

More than that, if ever the child of God gets entangled for awhile, he
is uneasy by reason of it. Abraham's slips, for he had one or two, were
made when he had left the land, and gone down among the Philistines;
but he was not easy there: he must come back again. And Jacob'he had
found a wife'nay, two'in Laban's land, but he was not content there.
No, no child of God can be, whatever he may find in this world. We
shall never find a heaven here. We may hunt the world through, and say,
'This looks like a little paradise,' but there is not any paradise this
side of the skies, for a child of God at any rate. There is enough out
there in the farm yard for the hogs, but there is not that which is
suitable for the children. There is enough in the world for sinners,
but not for saints. They have stronger, sharper, and more vehement
desires, for they have a nobler life within them, and they desire a
better country, and even if they get entangled for awhile in this
country, and in a certain measure identified with citizens of it, they
are ill at ease'their citizenship is in heaven, and they cannot rest
anywhere but there. After all, we confess to-night, and rejoice in the
confession, that our best hopes are for things that are out of sight:
our expectations are our largest possessions. The things that we have a
title to, that we value, are ours to-day by faith: we do not enjoy them
yet. But when our heirship shall be fully manifested, and we shall come
to the full ripe age'oh, then shall we come into our inheritance, to
our wealth, to the mansions, and to the glory, and to the presence of
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thus you see the reason why the Christian cannot go back. Though he has
many opportunities he does not embrace any, he shrinks with repugnance
from them all, for, through divine grace, he has had produced in his
heart desires for something better.

Even when he does not realize as yet, or actually enjoy, that infinite
good, which is something better than creature comfort or worldly
ambition, the desires themselves become mighty bonds that keep him from
returning to his former state. Dear brethren, let us cultivate these
desires more and more. If they have such a separating, salutary,
sanctifying influence upon our heart, and effect upon our character, in
keeping us from the world, let us cultivate them much. Do you think
that we meditate enough upon heaven? Look at the miser. When does he
forget his gold? He dreams of it. He has locked it up tonight and he
goes to bed, but he is afraid he heard a footstep down the stairs, and
he goes to see. He looks to the iron safe: he would be quite sure that
it is well secured. He cannot forget his dear gold. Let us think of
heaven, of Christ, and of the blessings of the covenant, and let us
thus keep our desires wide awake, and stimulate them to active
exercise. The more they draw us to heaven, the more they withdraw us
from the world.

III. It would be unreasonable if we did not vehemently resist every
opportunity and every solicitation to go back.

The men of faith to whom the apostle referred in our text were not only
strangers and pilgrims, but it is specially observed that they
confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They were
a grand company. From an unit they had multiplied into a countless
host. Sprang there not even of one, and him as good as dead, as many as
the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the
seashore innumerable? Now, brethren, you see we have here a very strong
reason for not returning. It is because you are the descendants, the
spiritual descendants, of the patriarchs. Let me try to show you how
urgent a motive for steadfastness this is. Practically, it comprises
two or three considerations of the highest moment. One thing it implies
very obviously is that you thoroughly admire their example and
fervently emulate their spirit. As you have glanced over the scroll of
history, or narrowly scanned the records of men's lives, the pomp of
Pharaoh has not dazzled you, but the purity of Joseph has charmed you;
the choice of Moses was to your taste, though it did involve leaving a
court where he was flattered, for fellowship with enslaved kinsmen by
whom he was suspected; and, you would rather have been with Daniel in
the lions' den than with Darius on the throne of empire. You have
transferred their strong will to your own deliberate choice. And, when
the jeer has been raised against canting methodists, you have said, 'I
am one of them.' You have confessed as occasion served before the
world, you have professed as duty called before the church, you have
accepted the consequences as honesty demanded before angels and men.
Therefore, in your heart of hearts you feel that you cannot go back.
The vows of God are upon you. It is well they are. Review them often:
refresh your memory with them frequently; recur to them and renew them
in every time of trial and temptation. Howbeit, repent of them never,
or woe betide you. There is a secret virtue in the confession, if it be
steadfastly adhered to and zealously maintained. It is a talisman,
believe me, against the contagion of an evil atmosphere that might
otherwise instil poison into your constitution.

Again, there is another thing; you have joined yourself to an ancient
fraternity that has something more than rules to guide or legends to
captivate; for it has a combination of both, seeing it is rich in
poetic lore. Why, it is on this that patriotism feeds as its daintiest
morsel. 'Thy statutes,' said David, 'have been my songs in the house of
my pilgrimage.' Brother! there hath no sorrow befallen thee but what
thy noble ancestors have celebrated in cheery tones, and set to music
in cheerful strains. Oh, beloved! if you could forget the statutes, can
you ever fail to remember the songs? There has never been a revival in
the church that has not witnessed to the value of our psalmody. God be
praised for our psalms and spiritual songs. Oh, how often they have
made melody in our hearts to the Lord! While our voices blend, do not
our very souls become more and more richly cemented? They are, in
truth, the pilgrim's solace.

Another thing strikes me. I should not like you to overlook it. There
is, in this chapter, a special commendation for faith in a pleasing
variety of operations. But the speciality of the strangers and pilgrims
is that they all died in faith. So, then, you cannot go back, because
you cannot accomplish the end for which you went forward till you die.
You have joined the company that makes the goal of life the object for
which you live. Your aim is to make a noble exit. 'Prepare to meet thy
God' was the motto you started with. To go back can hardly cross your
thoughts, when to look back seems to you charged with peril. Our lease
of mortal life is fast running out. The time of our sojourn on earth is
getting more and more brief. Therefore, because our salvation is nearer
than when we first believed, it is but meet that our desire to reach
the better country, and to enter the heavenly city should become more
and more vehement, as 'we nightly pitch our roving tent a day's march
nearer home.' It comes to this, brethren. You feel that you have little
to show for your faith. It never built an ark like Noah; it never
offered a sacrifice like Abraham; it never subdued kingdoms like
Joshua; it never quenched the violence of fire as Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abed-nego. Well, be it so; but he that endureth to the end shall be
saved; and all those that die in faith are gathered with the great
cloud of witnesses. Is not this enough to cheer the rank and file of
the church?

IV. But, I must close with the sweetest part of the text, wherein it is
shown that we have a great and blessed assurance vouchsafed to us as an
acknowledgment, on the part of God, of those opportunities, and those
yearnings persisted in. 'Therefore God is not ashamed to be called
their God, for he hath prepared for them a city.' Because they are
strangers, add because they will not go back to their old abode,
'therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.' He might well be
ashamed of that. What poor people God's people are'poor, many of them,
in circumstances, but how many of them I might very well call poor as
to spiritual things. I do not think if any of us had such a family as
God has, we should ever have patience with them. We cannot, when we
judge ourselves rightly, have patience with ourselves; but, how is it
that God bears with the ill manners of such a froward, weak, foolish,
forgetful generation as his people are. He might well be ashamed to be
called their God, if he looked upon them as they are, and estimated
them upon their merits. Own them! How can he own them? Does he not
himself sometimes say of them, 'How can I put them among the children?'
Yet he devises means, and brings about the purposes of his grace.
Viewed as they are, they may be compared to a rabble in so many
respects, that it is marvellous he is not ashamed of them. Still, he
never does discountenance them, and he proves that he is not ashamed of
them, for he calls himself their God. 'I will be your God,' saith he,
and he oftentimes seems to speak of it as a very joyful thing to his
own heart. 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob.' While he calls himself their God, he never forbids them to call
him their God. In the presence of the great ones of the earth they may
call him their God'anywhere'and he is not ashamed to be so called.
Matchless condescension this! Have you not sometimes heard of a man who
has become rich and has risen in the world, who has had some poor
brother or some distant relative. When he has seen him in the street,
he has been obliged to speak to him and own him. But oh, how
reluctantly it was done. I dare say he wished him a long way off,
especially if he had some haughty acquaintance with him at the time,
who would perhaps turn round, and say, 'Why, who is that wretched,
seedy-looking fellow you spoke to?' He does not like to say, 'That's my
brother;' or, 'That's a relative of mine.' Not so our Lord Jesus
Christ. However low his people may sink, he is not ashamed to call them
brethren. They may look up to him in all the depths of their
degradation. They may call him a brother. He is in very fact a brother,
born for their adversity, able and ready to redress their grievances,
he is not ashamed to call them brethren. One reason for this seems to
me to be, because he does not judge of them according to their present
circumstances, but much rather according to their pleasant prospects.
He takes account of what he has prepared for them. Notice the text,
'Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath
prepared for them a city.' They are poor now, but God, to whom things
to come are things present, sees them in their fair white linen, which
is the righteousness of the saints. All you can see in that poor child
of God is a hard-working laboring man, mocked and despised of his
fellows. But what does God see in him? He sees in him a dignity and a
glory assimilated to his own. He hath put all things under the feet of
such a man as that, and crowned him with glory and honor in the person
of Christ, and the angels themselves are ministering servants to such.
You see his outward attire, not his inner self'you see the earthly
tabernacle, but the spirit newborn, immortal and divine'you see not
that. Howbeit, God does. Or, if you have spiritual discernment to
perceive the spiritual creature, you only see it as it is veiled by
reason of the flesh, and beclouded by the atmosphere of this world; but
he sees it as it will appear, when it shall be radiant like unto
Christ, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. God sees the
poorest, the least proficient disciple as a man in Christ; a perfect
man come unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
such indeed as he will be in that day when he shall see Christ, for
then he shall be like him as he is. It seems too, in the text, that God
looks to what he had prepared for these poor people. He hath prepared
for them a city. Methinks, that by what he has prepared for them, we
may judge how he esteems and loves them'estimating them by what he
means them to be, rather than by what they appear to be at present.
Look at this preparation just a minute. 'he hath prepared for
them'''them.' Though I delight to preach a free gospel, and to preach
it to every creature under heaven, we must never forget to remind you
of the speciality. 'He hath prepared for them a city''that is, for such
as are strangers and foreigners'for such as have faith, and, therefore,
have left the world, and gone out to follow Christ. 'He hath prepared
for them''not 'for all of you''only for such of you as answer the
description on which we have been meditating has he prepared 'a city.'

Note what it is he has made ready for them. It is a city. This
indicates a permanent abode. They dwelt in tents'Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob'but he has prepared for them a city. Here we are tent
dwellers, and the tent is soon to be taken down. 'We know that this
earthly house of our' tent 'shall be dissolved, but we have a house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' 'He hath prepared a city.' A
city is a place of genial associations. In a lonely hamlet one has
little company. In a city, especially where all the inhabitants shall
be united in one glorious brotherhood, the true communism of Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity may be realised in the purest sense and
highest possible degree. In a city such as this there are plentiful
occasions for intercourse, where mutual interests shall enhance mutual
joy. 'He hath prepared a city.' It is a city too possessing immunities,
and conferring dignity upon its residents. To be a burgess of the City
of London is thought to be a great honor, and upon princes is it
sometimes conferred; but, we shall have the highest honor that can be
given, when we shall be citizens of the city which God has prepared.

I must not dwell on this theme, delightful as it is; I want a few words
with you, my friends, direct and personal, before I close. Do not
wonder, those of you who are the children of God, do not wonder if you
have discomforts here. If you are what you profess to be, you are
strangers: you do not expect men of this world to treat you as members
of their community. If they do, be afraid. Dogs don't bark as a man
goes by that they know: they bark at strangers. When people persecute
you and slander you, no marvel. If you are a stranger, they naturally
bark at you. Do not expect to find the comforts in this world that you
crave after, that your flesh would long for. This is our inn, not our
home. We tarry for a night: we are away in the morning. We may bear the
annoyances of the eventide and the night, for the morning will break so
soon. Remember that your greatest joy, while you are a pilgrim, is your
God. So the text says, 'Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their
God.' Do you want a richer source of consolation than you have? Here is
one that can never be diminished, much less exhausted. When the created
streams are dry, go to this eternal fountain, and find it ever
springing up. Your joy is your God: make your God your joy.

Now, what shall be said to those who are not strangers and foreigners?
Ah, you dwell in a land where you find some sort of repose; but I have
heavy tidings for you. This land in which you dwell, and all the works
thereof, must be burned up. The city of which you, who have never been
converted to Christ, are citizens, is a City of Destruction, and, as is
its name, such will be its end. The King will send his armies against
that guilty city and destroy it, and if you are citizens of it, you
will lose all you have'you will lose your souls'lose yourselves.
'Whither away?' saith one''Where can I find comfort then and security?'
You must do as Lot did, when the angels presses him and said, 'Haste to
the Mount lest thou be consumed.' To what mountain, say you, shall I
go? The mountain of safety is Calvary. Where Jesus died, there you
shall live. There is death everywhere else but there. But there is life
arising from his death. Oh, fly to him. 'But how?' saith one. Trust
him. God gave his Son, equal with himself, to bear the burden of human
sin; and he died, a substitute for sinners,'a real substitute, an
efficient substitute, for all who trust in him. If thou wilt trust thy
soul with Jesus, thou art saved. Thy sin was laid on him: it is
forgiven thee. It was blotted out when he nailed the handwriting of
ordinances that were against thee to his cross. Trust him now and you
are saved; you shall become, henceforth, a stranger and a pilgrim. In
the better land you shall find the rest which you never can find here,
and need not wish to find, for the land is polluted; let us away from
it. The curse has fallen: let us get away to the country that never was
cursed, to the city that is for ever blessed, Where Jesus dwells there
may we find a home and abide for aye. God add his blessing to this
discourse, and give a blessing to your souls, for Jesus Christ' sake.
Amen.

'THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL.' Edited by C. H. SPURGEON.

Contents for January, 1872.

The Year of Grace, 1872. By C. H. Spurgeon.

Paris and London. By C. H. Spurgeon.

Our London Arabs. By G. Holden Pike

Duncan Matheson, the Scottish Evangelist. By Vernon J. Charlesworth.

On Surrendering.

Sunday School Addresses. By E. D. Jones, A. M., St. Louis.

Bad Air versus Religion.

A Sabbath in Rome

The Blessed Poor. By C. H. Spurgeon.

Children in the Streets of Jerusalem.

Reviews.

Memoranda.

Pastors' College Account.

Stockwell Orphanage.

Golden Lane Mission.

Colportage Association.

Price 3d. Post free, 4 stamps.

London: Passmore & Alabaster, 18, Paternoster Row, and all Booksellers.
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How Can I Obtain Faith?

A Sermon