The Savior’s Precious Blood

The Savior's Precious Blood

(No. 3395)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1914.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Theprecious blood of Christ." 1 Peter 1:19.

We have come in our theological conversation to use that word, "blood,"
somewhat lightly. I think it should scarcely ever be pronounced without
a shudder. "The blood is the life thereof." When shed, it indicates
suffering–suffering more intense than that of chastisement or
bruising. Wounds are inflicted which make the lifeblood to flow out. In
the case of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the term, "blood," brings before us
all His griefs and anguish and where the crown of thorns pierced Him.
Behold the Man! Think of Gethsemane, where He sweat, as it were, great
drops of blood falling to the ground! Think of Gabbatha, the pavement,
where they scourged Him with rods, and with the scourge of the Roman
lictors where the crown of thorns pierced Him. Behold the Man! Think,
lastly, of Golgotha! There they pierced His hands and His feet and, at
last, pierced by the spear, out of His side there came blood and water.
Pass not lightly, therefore, over such a word as this–blood–the blood
of Jesus Christ, God's dear Son! And when you read of its being
"precious," remember that the word never had such a wealth of meaning
in it, before, in any of its applications. Precious metals–gold and
silver. Precious stones–sardonyx, agate and diamond–these are but
gaudy toys compared with Christ's precious blood! Precious, for He is
God as well as Man. Precious, for He is Jehovah's Darling, the Lamb of
God, without spot or blemish! Precious, when you think of God's design.
Precious, when you see the effects which it produces. Precious,
certainly, to the heart of every pardoned sinner and precious in the
song of every glorified spirit before the Throne of God!

It is not, however, my objective, this evening, to pursue the sacred
history, so much as to set forth the saving Doctrine, while I remind
you of some of the uses of this precious blood. For, after all, the
standard of preciousness, when we come to the very essence of it, is
not scarcity, but usefulness, for there are things in this world
exceedingly scarce and, therefore, precious among the sons of men,
which will be left out and treated with contempt when we get into the
land where the true standards of value are in use. That is the most
precious which is the most serviceable. So in truth, the precious blood
of Christ is beyond all estimation! I want to conduct you, step by
step, through the application of this blood and its effects upon the
heart and conscience. And I shall pause at each step to ask you, dear
Hearer, and to ask myself this question–Do you know the blood, the
precious blood, in this respect? Have you felt it in this peculiar form
of its efficacy? Beginning thus at the first–

I. THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST IS THE BLOOD OF THE ATONEMENT.

We read of the blood of the Atonement under the old Law. Christ, now
under the Gospel, is the Propitiation for our sins. It is through the
blood that God, infinitely just, without the violation of His
Character, can pass by the transgression of the guilty. It is not
possible that any one attribute of God should ever shadow another. He
is perfect. He is infinitely merciful, but He will not be merciful at
the expense of justice! Justice shall never triumph against mercy!
Mercy, on the other hand, shall never cut off the skirts of the flowing
robe of justice. It is in the Person of Jesus and especially in the
blood of Jesus, that the great riddle of the ages is solved! God can be
just and yet the Justifier of him that believes in Jesus. We have
sinned. God must punish sin. According to the inexorable laws which God
has stamped upon the universe, the sinner cannot go unpunished. His sin
is, in fact, its own punishment and becomes the mother of unnumbered
griefs. The Mediator steps in–the Son of God and the Son of Man,
eternal, and yet as Man, born of Mary and slumbering in Bethlehem' s
manger–He comes as the Substitute for the guilty. "The chastisement of
our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." And "now in
Christ Jesus, we who some time were afar off, are made near by the
blood of Christ." God can be gracious without the violation of the
severity of His judgment. His moral government remains untarnished in
all the majesty of its purity, and yet He puts out the right hand of
reconciliation and love to all who approach Him making mention of the
blood of the Atonement of His dear Son!

Are you, then, thus reconciled to God by the death of His Son, or are
you still an enemy? Have you ever seen the distance between you and God
bridged by the Cross? Have you seen at once how God, the infinitely
Just, can commune with you without consuming you, because He poured His
wrath upon Christ, instead of you? And then, accepted in Him and for
His merits, you live because Jesus lives! Ah, dear Hearer, if you have
not seen this, may the Lord open those blind eyes of yours and by His
eternal Spirit bring you, with your burden of sin upon your back, to
the foot of the Master's Cross, where you may look up and sing–

"Oh, how sweet to view the flowing,

Of His sin-atoning blood!

With Divine assurance knowing,

That it made my peace with God." The blood of Jesus Christ has another
effect upon us, namely–

II. IT CLEANSES FROM SIN.

Surely we can never fail to remember that choicest of all Scriptural
texts, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin."
There is such music in it that when the spirits before the Throne of
God desire to have a song of which they might never grow weary, they
select that sentiment, and they sing before the Throne that they have
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Their
purity before God is due to the fountain filled with blood wherein
their stained garments, all soiled with sin, have been made clean! When
the soul comes to Jesus Christ by faith and relies upon Him, then the
sentence of the perfect pardon goes forth from God and the soul is
purged from all the stains of accumulated years! In a single moment
those who were black as Hell become white as Heaven through the
application of the blood of sprinkling–for all sin disappears as soon
as the blood falls on the conscience! That which the blood of bulls and
of goats could not do, the blood of Jesus effectually
accomplishes–cleansing from all sin!

Now, dear Hearer, have you ever been thus cleansed? Say not you had
never need of cleansing, else you know not your natural condition and
your actual transgressions. Man, you can never have seen yourself in
the mirror of the Word of God, or you would perceive yourself to be
totally defiled and altogether as an unclean thing! You would have
bowed yourself before the Lord and joined in the confession, "We have
erred and strayed from Your ways like lost sheep. We have done those
things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those
things which we ought to have done. And there is no health in us."
Well, if you have ever thus felt your guilt, have you ever realized
your pardon? If not, give yourself no sleep till you have! Can you bear
to live unpardoned, or in doubt whether or not God has absolved you?
Can you ever take any kind of rest, much less indulge your soul with
mirth, until the word, "Absolvo," has come from God, Himself, the
eternal Spirit bearing witness with your spirit that you are born of
God? Happy are they who have been washed! They have need to come each
night (even as Peter the Apostle had need) to wash their feet, but they
need not except to wash their feet, for they are clean every whit.
Jesus has made them clean through His blood! The third step is that–

III. THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST IS THE GREAT PRICE OF OUR REDEMPTION.

Redemption sometimes in Scripture is spoken of as being the same thing
as pardon, and I shall not at all dogmatically attempt tonight to draw
any nice distinction between the two. "We have redemption through His
blood–to wit, the forgiveness of sin–according to the riches of His
Grace." But redemption seems rather to be in some sense the effect
produced by a pardon than the actual pardon, itself. Man is a slave. As
long as guilt is written in God's book against us, we are in bondage.
We feel for the present that we are slaves to sin and that for the
future, the punishment of sin will inevitably come upon us to our
eternal destruction. But the moment we are purged from the guilt of
sin, we are set free from the slavery of it! Jesus Christ takes us from
being slaves and makes us to be children! He gives us no longer "the
spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption whereby we
cry, Abba, Father!" He was slain and He has redeemed us unto God by His
blood! And in the liberty wherewith Christ makes us free, we rejoice to
see that it was the blood which was the price, thereof, and because He
suffered, therefore our chains have dropped off from us. We
arefree–the Lord' s freemen–free henceforth to serve Him with renewed
love and renewed hearts because of the abundance of the Grace which He
has manifested towards us!

Now, Beloved, have you ever been redeemed by the blood of Jesus? I am
not talking to you now about a redemption effected upon the Cross, but
have you ever felt redemption in your own spirit from the curse of the
Law, from the thrall-dom of a guilty conscience and from the power of
sin? Let me ask you, are you the Lord's freeman tonight? Oh, happy are
you, then, for you can say, "Lord, You have loosed my bonds and,
therefore, I am Your servant." "We are not our own because we are
bought with a price." And inasmuch as we are no more slaves to the Law
from henceforth, for the love we bear His name who has redeemed us with
such a price, we reckon ourselves to be His servants and we bear in our
body the marks of the Lord Jesus! Ah, Friends, if you were never
redeemed by the precious blood, then you are still slaves–slaves to
sin and Satan–slaves under the vengeance of God and slaves to the Law
of God. But may you never be content in slavery! May you pine after
freedom, and may Jesus give it to you–give it to you tonight if it is
His blessed will! In the fourth place, the blood of Jesus is spoken of
in Scripture as–

IV. INTERCEDING.

"The blood of sprinkling speaks better things than that of Abel." It is
said to be sprinkled within the veil, so that where the high priest
could only go once a year, we may now go at all times, for the blood is
there, interceding for us perpetually! Well, in fact, says one of our
poets–

"The wounds of Christ for us,

Incessantly do plead."

Even after His death, remember, His heart for us poured out its flood.
After death that heart was pierced and blood and water came. So, after
His voice was silent and He could no longer say, "Father, forgive
them," the wounds were still elo-quent–and even when the suffering
passed, they still continued to plead with God.

Now, Soul, have you ever come to God through the intercession of the
blood? You have said prayers, you have repeated forms of devotion, you
have gone to Church or to Meeting Houses. This is all well enough, but
have you gone farther? For if not, all outward forms of devotion are
but frivolous endeavors that may allure, but will deceive you! Did you
ever come to God by the blood and did you ever, by faith, fix your eye
upon "the High Priest who ever lives to make intercession for us," who
with our names upon His bosom, still offering the blood, stands at this
moment before the Father, God, pleading for us who love Him and trust
Him? Happy they who look to the interceding Savior and who feel that
His blood speaks not revenge, but cries at every vein, "Mercy, mercy
for the chief of sinners!" This leads me to remark that the blood of
Jesus–

V. BECOMES THE MODE AND WAY OF ACCESS TO GOD.

We have boldness to enter into the holiest through the blood of Christ.
After first cleansing the man and making him fit to come as a priest
and a king unto God, then the blood, as it were, takes away the veil
and opens up the pathway to God, Himself, for the forgiven and redeemed
soul! Never let us attempt to come to God by anything but the blood!
All other ways to God, except through the blood of Jesus, are
presumptuous. All other fire that we may put upon the altar, except
this, is strange fire, and the Lord's anger will go forth against us.
May I never plead when on my knees before God anything but the precious
merits and the dear wounds of the Man of Sorrows who is now exalted at
the right hand of God. How close to God we should come if we did but
always bring Christ with us! But what are our prayers when we leave Him
behind? What are our devotions when we are met together, or when we are
in secret, and we go to the Mercy Seat, but forget the blood that was
sprinkled on it, oblivious of the new and living way through the rent
body of Imma-nuel? Come, Brothers and Sisters, let us chide ourselves
for sometimes having forgotten our Lord! And henceforth, be it ours
never to think of drawing near to God except by this way of access–the
crimson road which the blood has paved for us! To advance farther, the
blood of Jesus Christ, according to the Word, is–

VI. SANCTIFYING.

Jesus sanctified His people by His own blood and, therefore, suffered
outside the gate. By sanctification is usually meant in Scripture the
setting apart of anything for the service of God and so making it holy.
Now, the blood separates the saints from all others. It was the blood
that was the distinguishing mark of Israel in Egypt. Every Egyptian
house was without the blood, but every house of the seed of Abraham had
the blood mark upon the lintel and the two side posts, and when God saw
the blood He passed over them and spared them in the night of His
furious anger. The blood, then, Beloved, if you have ever had it on
your soul, is to be the distinguishing mark between you and the ungodly
in the Day of Wrath and it should distinguish you now. You should, by
your life and your conversation, make yourself to appear to be as the
blood has made you–to really be a separated one! We are not of the
world, even as Christ is not of the world. We have heard the
mandate–"Come you out from among them; be you separate; touch not the
unclean thing." We have left the world's sin and we have left the
world's religion, too! We have separated ourselves at once from the
world's goodness, as well as from the world's vileness, to walk in the
path of nonconformity to the world, that we may tread in the footsteps
of our crucified Redeemer! And the more the blood is applied, the more
the obedience of Jesus is trusted in– and the sprinkling of the blood
is relied upon–the more shall we become sanctified in spirit, soul and
body by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us never forget the purifying
power of Jesus in the heart. Wherever He is trusted to take away the
guiltof sin, we must next seek the water which flowed with the blood to
take away the powerof sin! And we must ask to see Him sit as a refiner
to purify, yes, it must be our prayer that He would take His fan in His
hand and purge our hearts as He does His floor! Refining Fire, go
through my soul! Oh, sweet love of Jesus, burn up the love of the
world! Oh, death of Jesus, be the death of sin! Oh, life of Christ, be
the life of everything that is gracious, God-like, heavenly, eternal!
So shall it be in proportion as we partake of the power and the
efficacy of that blood! The blood, furthermore, is–

VII. CONFIRMATORY.

We must not forget this one effect of it. It is called the Blood of the
Covenant–the Blood of the Testament–the Blood of the New Testament.
The Covenant was not in force in the olden times until there had been a
sacrifice to confirm it. And a will stands not until the death of the
testator has been proved to make it valid. The heart's blood of Jesus
is, as it were, the establishment of His last will and testament.
Jesus, the great Testator, has died, has made an end of sin and His
blood is the great seal of His testament and makes it valid to us. If
He had never died! Oh, dreadful, "if," only equaled in horror by that
other, "if"–if He had never risen again from the dead! But now is
Christ risen from the dead! Now has Christ slept and awoke as the first
fruits of them that slept! Never doubt the promise of God, for the
blood confirms it! Never doubt the love of God, for He spared not His
own Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all! How shall He not, with
Him, also freely give us all things? If you need evidence as to the
eternal goodness of God, His willingness to pardon, His power to save
and to bless–look to the Cross of Calvary and see the bleeding
Savior–and never doubt again!

Dear Hearer, did the blood so come to you as to confirm your hope, or
is your hope a fancy, a delusion? Do you think it needs no
confirmation? Have you ever in your moments of questioning and anxiety
gone over, again, to the altar where is the Great Victim? Have you said
once more–

"Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Your blood was shed for me!

And that You bid me come to Thee,

Oh, Lamb of God, I come!"

Have you, then, got your consolation back? Have you received the
witness of God? Have you heard the voice which bears witness both in
Heaven and earth, the voice of the Spirit, and the water and the blood?
And have you been satisfied because you needed no better confirmation
than the witness of the blood of Jesus applied with power to your soul?
The blood of Jesus has another effect of which we ought to think more
than we do–that of–

VIII. NOURISHING, CHEERING AND SUSTAINING THE BELIEVER.

To this end the ordinance of communion with Christ in the breaking of
bread and partaking of the cup of blessing has been instituted. When we
come to the Lord's Table, we have set before us in the broken bread, of
which we eat, and in the wine of which we drink, this present
fact–that the sufferings of our Master are now at this moment for our
nourishment, sustenance, consolation and exhilaration. We have been
washed in the blood–we are now to receive, after a spiritual sort, the
precious blood of Jesus to nourish our faith, to comfort our hope, to
excite in us the liveliest joy and to make us sing and be merry with
holy confidence in Him who has redeemed us from all iniquity and made
us unto God priests and kings, to reign with Christ forever and ever!
There is no cordial for the heart like the blood of Jesus. To think of
the atoning Sacrifice is the readiest way to consolation. Our sorrows
are not worth a thought when once compared with His! Sit down under the
shadow of the Cross and you will find a cooler shade than that of a
great rock in a weary land. There is no pasturage for the sheep of
Christ like that which grows on Calvary! There is nowhere to be found
suchwine that makes glad the heart of God and man, as that which comes
from the sacred cup of His heart, of which Believers drink by faith
when they have fellowship with Him and come into near and dear
communion with Him! Although we do sometimes enjoy this without any
emblems–without the bread and without the wine–these are still great
assistants, blessed exponents, and they graciously help our
forgetfulness! We are yet in the body and we need something that shall
aid this lagging flesh to see something of the Lord.

Oh, feed then on Christ and do not be content unless day by day He is
your daily bread! He who has given you life must sustain that life. He
who has taught you how to rejoice must still supply you with power to
continue in your daily rejoicing! The blood without cleanses. The blood
within cheers, yes, sacredly inebriates the soul till the sinner drinks
and forgets his sorrow and remembers his misery no more! And in the
fullness of his delight he becomes sweetly oblivious, whether in the
body or out of the body, as he rises into almost celestial communion
with his unseen, but ever-present Lord! Once again, the blood of Jesus
Christ has the effect of–

IX. UNITING CHRISTIANS TOGETHER.

Paul, speaking of Jew and Gentile, says that He "has made both one,
through the blood of Christ," and surely there is nothing that unites
different denominations of Christians together like the precious blood
of Jesus! Brothers and Sisters, we may dispute–I think we do well to
dispute over important ordinances and doctrines, for wherein men err we
are not to wink at their errors–and neither ask them to wink at ours.
I have sometimes heard it said, "Spare such a Brother." Yes, as a
Brother–but who am I that I should be spared if I err, or who is he
that he should be spared? What are we, or what are our feelings
compared with the Truth of God? No, let questions be fought out as
kindly, as lovingly, as valo-rously, as honorably as they possibly can!
Truth fears not the shock of arms. Let the controversies go on. I
believe that, after all, there is ten times more Truth in this world,
now, with all the apparent divisions of Christians, than there would
have been if we had been united in a nominal union into some one great
church which might, perhaps, have rotted as thoroughly as the old
Church of Rome did before the days of Luther! But when we come to the
foot of the Cross, what union there is! If the saints in prayer appear
as one. If in the praise of the Infinite Jehovah they are one–much
more and much more tenderly are they one when they behold Jesus
bleeding and dying for them! My heart melts and breaks when I hear
Christ preached. He who lifted up Christ would have offended me had he
preached some other part of his creed. Had he talked over some Doctrine
which I hold to be erroneous, he and I had differed, but when it comes
to this, "HE loved me and gave Himself for me–He is the chief among
ten thousand, the altogether lovely–His blood is precious"–I feel
inclined to cry, "Brother, keep to that! Praise Him louder! Give Him
all the honor!–

"Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all!"

While we keep to that, we are none of us heretics over that! There
shall be no schisms and divisions over the matter. Son of God and Son
of Man, Redeemer of our souls from death and misery, all Your mother's
children praise You! Every sheaf bows before Your sheaf! Sun and moon,
and every star do obeisance unto You, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,
Head over all things unto your Church, which is Your dwelling place,
the fullness of Him that fills all in all! Since here we are one, when
we get together as Believers, I wish we more often struck that key–the
precious blood of Christ–and in our walks and talks with those
Christians who differ from us in many points, let us sometimes try to
turn those points aside and say, "We do agree to speak well of that
dear name which is above every name, that name which charms all our
fears and bids all our sorrows cease! That name which is the joy of the
Believer on earth and the bliss of the saints in Heaven! I close now
when I have noticed that the blood of Jesus Christ may be looked upon
by us every day as–

X. THE GREAT INSTRUCTOR AND THE CARDINAL WITNESS OF DIVINE TRUTH.

God is to be seen in Nature and seen vividly there, but not as He is to
be seen in Christ Jesus. Instruction as to the eternal power of the
Godhead, some find in the skies above, in the fields around and in the
sea beneath. But in the Cross there is more of God than in all the
world besides! I have often felt, when I have been rambling in the
Alps, that Nature was too small to set forth God. The mirror is not
large enough to reflect the face of the Eternal. You stand in the Alps
and hear the avalanche, like claps and peals of thunder resounding in
the air. You gaze afar off and there it is, and it looks to you like
the falling of a few flakes of snow. It is so inconsiderable that the
grandeur seems to be destroyed. Though every one of those flakes may be
a block of ice weighing a hundred tons, at such a distance the thing
grows small. The water leaps down hundreds of feet from the crags, but
up in the mountains it appears to be a little trickling creek scarcely
worth notice. The very Alpine summits seem to dwindle down to small
heaps of stones when one grows used to the scenery. God is too great
for this earth to bear Him. The axles of this world's chariot would
snap beneath the weight of Deity. We talk of going from Nature up to
Nature's God, but the top of the highest Alps is far below His
footstool! We do not get any conceptions of God out of Nature worthy of
His august Majesty. But in contemplating the Cross, in discerning,
there, how God can forgive, how willing He is to save the guilty, how
His justice is magnified at the same time as His Grace, I am persuaded
that those who have tried both forms of contemplation will tell you
that this last is the better by far! You see God through the wounds of
Christ as through windows of agate and gates of carbuncle–and you cry,
"My Lord, and my God!"

In winding up this poor discourse of mine, let me say to you, Beloved,
be more in meditation upon Jesus. I say to myself–Preacher, preach
your Master more! Preach Him more after His own sort and endeavor to be
yourself more like He! Dear Hearer, live nearer to the Cross. With all
your study of Doctrine–and you do well to study it thoroughly– make
Jesus Christ the first. Believe in Him. Let Him be your creed. Speak of
a body of divinity–there never was in this world but one body of
divinity and that is Jesus Christ! And he that understands Jesus Christ
has got the only system of theology that is worth knowing! Get right
into Him. Some of the early Fathers used to study every wound. They
would write a treatise on almost every different spot where He was
scourged! They had some tears to let fall and some sweet songs to sing
for every step along the Via Dolorosa. Let us not treat lightly what
those nearer to the Light of God treated so solemnly, but regarding the
Master and thinking much of even the littles that concern Him (for the
leaves of this Tree of Life are for the healing of the nations), let us
study to understand Him and ask to be conformed to Him– even in His
sufferings to be like He–and when we suffer, to see Him in our pangs!
Let every grief be a glass through which to look into His life and
love, and understand His Grace.

I wish you all knew this, and more than this. Oh, that I could hope
that all this assembled company did trust in my Master! Poor Sinner,
why not trust Him? You will never be saved unless you do! There is no
other door of mercy for you than Jesus! Come, come, come, even though
you think He will cast you away. If Christ had a drawn sword in His
hand, yet I would bid you come! It were better to fall on the point of
His sword than to live without Him! Come and rest upon Him. He never
rejected a sinner yet, and He never can! The vilest of the vile can
find mercy in Him! And all He asks–and that He gives–is that you rely
on Him with all your heart and you shall be saved! God grant that you
may! "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." Obey the second
precept as you have attained to the first. When you have believed in
Christ crucified, dead and buried for you, then be dead and buried with
Him in Baptism! Take the outward symbol of His death, burial and
resurrection, and ask to have the inward spiritual Grace that you,
being dead to the world, and dead with Christ, and buried with Him, may
rise again to newness of life through His quickening Spirit.

The Lord thus bless you, for Jesus' sake!

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 PETER 1:1-16; MATTHEW10:37-40.

Verses 1, 2. Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through
sanctifcation of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood
of Jesus Christ Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied. The first
Christians were not so afraid of the Doctrine of Election as some are
now-a-days. Peter was not ashamed to address the saints as the elect of
God, for so, indeed, they are, if they are saints at all. It is He that
chose them, not because they were sanctified, but that they might
besanctified–chose them to eternal life through sanctification. Oh,
happy are they who, by Divine Grace have made their calling and
election sure, and now ascribe all the glory of their salvation to the
Sovereign choice of God! "Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied."

3-5. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who,
according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. To an
inheritance, incorruptible and unde-filed, and that fades not away,
reserved in Heaven for you. Who are kept by the power of God through
faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. How full
of Grace every sentence is! He blesses God because God has so freely
blessed us! And he abounds in thanksgiving because he sees that
abundant mercy by which Believers have been
begottenagain–born-again–made, therefore, children after a new sort
and so made heirs of an inheritance very different from that upon which
we enter by nature–"an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and
that fades not away." Brothers and Sisters, if you have, indeed, been
born by Divine Grace, to what estates are you born–to what high
dignities and sacred privileges! Rejoice and bless the Lord! But,
perhaps the dark fear crossed your mind that, perhaps, after all, you
may perish and miss the inheritance. Now notice the double consolation
of a double keeping. The inheritance is kept. It is reserved in Heaven
for you and you are kept, too. It is kept for you and you are kept for
it, "For you, who are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto
salvation."

6. Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be,
you are in heaviness through manifold temptations. This is your life.
This is like a rainbow made up of the drops of earth's sorrow in the
beams of Heaven's love–a happy combination, after all.

7. That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold
that perishes, though it is tried with fire, might be found unto praise
and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ Gilt looks very
much like gold but it will not stand the fire. It curls and disappears.
Oh, to be solid gold through and through! If so, you need not mind the
trials of today, since they will only prepare you for the eternal
glories at the appearing of Jesus Christ!

8-10 Whom having not seen, you love in whom, though now you see Him
not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
glory–receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your
souls. Of which salvation the Prophets have enquired and searched
diligently, who prophesied of the Grace that should come unto you.
Prophets knew about you. They did not taste of the Grace you know, but
through the vista of the future they foresaw it and they almost envied
you in this Gospel dispensation that you should live in so clear a
light and should be fed upon such rare mercies. Oh, what Prophets and
kings longed for, do not let us despise! And we shall despise these
mercies if we do not make the most of them by entering into the
fullness of the joy which they are meant to bring to us. These Prophets
searched diligently.

11-12. Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who
was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed that
not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are
now reported unto you by them that have preached the Gospel unto you,
with the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven; which things the angels
desire to look into. See you not your privilege, then? You have what
Prophets had not! You enjoy what angels desire to see! They cannot
enjoy what you do. Rightly does our hymn put it–

"Never did angels taste above, Redeeming Grace and dying love."

And you have, this very day!

13. Therefore gird up the loins of your mind. Be ready to depart to
your inheritance. Do not let your garments flow carelessly and loosely,
as though you had no journey before you, but, "gird up the loins of
your mind."

13. Be sober, and hope to the end for the Grace that is to be brought
unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That is a very blessed
subject. There is a Grace that was brought to you when Christ first
came. There is another Grace and a higher Grace that is to be brought
to you when Christ shall come the second time! Until that Second Coming
of Christ, the Church on earth and in Heaven cannot be perfected. The
bodies of the saints wait in the grave till He comes to give them
resurrection–

"O long expected day, begin!

Dawn on these realms of woe and sin."

For we wait for Your appearing, O Christ!

14-16. As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the
former lusts in your ignorance, but as He which has called you is holy,
so be you holy in all manner of conversation: Because it its written.
Be you holy, for I am hol. See your Model. See the Copy to which you
are to write. You are far short of it. Try again. May the power of
Jesus rest upon you and may He who has worked us to the same thing to
which we have attained continue to work in us till we are like our Lord
Himself!

MATTHEW10:37-40.

Verse 37. He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of
Me: and he that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
What a wonderful sight, then, the Church is, as it passes through this
world. The Head of it is Christ, the Cross bearer, and following in the
train are all His faithful disciples, all carrying crosses still–the
very picture of a Church. You know how Simon carried the Cross after
Christ–he is the type of all His disciples–

"Did Simon bear the Cross alone,

And all the rest go free?

No, there's a cross for everyone,

And there's a cross for me."

38, 39. And he that takes not his cross and follows after Me, is not
worthy of Me. He that finds his life shall lose it and he that loses
his life for My sake shall find it You gain life by dying for Christ,
but if you saved life by denying the faith you would in the worst sense
lose all that makes existence to be life! There is an existence which
is nothing but eternal death–and this is the doom of those who depart
from Christ. But blessed are they who can give up this temporary mortal
life for the sake of an eternal one! I have heard of one who used to
often boast of what he would do if it came to his being burnt–but just
before the day on which he was to be burnt alive for the faith, he
recanted. He was allowed to go home. In a few months it happened that
he was burnt alive in his house. Unhappy man that could not burn for
Christ, but had to burn after all! "He that finds his life shall lose
it: and he that loses his life for My sake shall find it."

40. He that receives you receives Me, and he that receives Me receives
Him who sent MM. Think of that, you that have received Christ! You have
received God, Himself, and He has come to dwell and reign with your
soul!