Unreasonable Reasons

Unreasonable Reasons

(No. 3247)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1904.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"O you oflittle faith, why did you doubt?" Matthew 14:31.

OUR Savior did not ask Peter that question for His own information. He
could have told Peter much more about his unbelieving heart than Peter
knew! The Savior was well acquainted with those springs from which the
unbelief of Peter arose. He asked it, therefore, rather that Peter
might make the enquiry of himself–that he might look into the matter
and see how groundless his unbelief was–so that on the next occasion
he might not fall into the same error. I believe it is sometimes a very
great cure for unbelief to look it in the face even while we are under
it–and after we have escaped from it, it is still a preventive for the
future if we look back upon it and reason concerning it. Remember how
David, in the 42nd Psalm, twice asked himself, "Why are you cast down,
O my Soul? And why are you disquieted within me?" He was persuaded that
the questioning of his unbelief would convict him of its folly. It only
needs to be looked at closely to lose all its terror, to be robbed of
its seeming foundation and to be overcome!

I am afraid that most of us have, some time or other in our lives, been
like sinking Peter and have cried, "Lord, save me," not in tones of
faith, but in the language of unbelief. And if so, it will be as good a
thing for us as for Peter to hear the Master say to us, tonight, "Why
did you doubt? Why did you doubt? Was there any good reason for it? Was
there any excuse for it? Did any good come of it? Why did you
doubt?"And I hope, too, that after I have spoken to Believers in that
way, I may have a word for sinners–only for them I shall have to take
liberties with the text and alter it into the present tense, saying to
anyone who is desirous of peace in Christ, but who trembles and is
afraid, "Why do you doubt? Why do you doubt? Why do you continue in
this state of hesitancy and unbelief?"

I. First, then, I have to say TO THE CHILD OF GOD, "Why did you doubt?"

Some Christians appear to go from one form of doubt to another. Fears
are with them perennial. They are plants that affect the shade–they
seldom open their golden cups to drink in the blessed Light of the
Divine sun! Even the strongest Believers are, I fear, at times overcome
with this disease. As King David, that matchless warrior, once waxed
faint–the bravest servants of God sometimes faint even in the day of
battle–I will ask them, each one, to look back upon any seasons of
doubts or faintings, whether they are numerous or few, and I will then
say to each one, "Why did

you doubt?"

Did you doubt the promise thinking it was not firm enough? It was a
promise to meet your trial–did you distrust it? It was the promise of
God–did you think, perhaps, that it was fallible and might be broken?
It was a promise sent to you by Inspired Apostles or Prophets, as the
case might be–did you still think it was no better than the word of a
man and might fall to the ground? You have often placed great reliance
upon the promises of those you love–could you not rely upon the
promise of God? You have found man's promise sometimes true when you
have trusted it–were you afraid that God's promise would not be true?
Or was it that you had met with so many disappointments trusting in an
arm of flesh that you thought the Lord to be altogether such as man is?
Did you think that He was a man that He would lie, or the son of man
that He would change His mind? Did you forget that Jesus Christ made
the promises, Yes and Amen, in Himself to the Glory of God? Was that
the reason? If so, how wicked it was to doubt the promise of God! How
could you

do it?

Did your unbelief assail the promise in itself? Did you think your
deliverance a matter of such difficulty that Omnipotence could not
accomplish it? Were you in such need that you supposed the stores of
Heaven could not supply you? Were you of their mind who said, "Can God
furnish a table in the wilderness?" Or of his who exclaimed, "If the
Lord would make windows in Heaven, might this thing be?" Did you
conceive that anything was too hard for the Lord? That His arm was
shortened, that He could not save, that His granaries were empty, that
He could not feed you? Did you think that the river of God, which is
full of water, was dried up? Did you conceive that the foundations
wherein you dwelt were no longer of rock, but of crumbling sand? That
your bread would not be given you and that your water would not be sure
because God had failed? Beloved, if that thought lay at the bottom of
your unbelief, was it not a baseless thing, indeed? What a slander upon
God and upon God's almightiness, to think that He had promised what He
could not perform! Whether it was His truthfulness or His power which
your unbelief attacked, it was equally a wanton and an unpardonable
thing! God will pardon it, I know, but I mean that it was unpardonable
to yourself, for surely you must now feel as if you could not forgive
yourself for having doubted either the power or the truthfulness of
your God!

Where else did the unbelief lie? Had you something in your own
experience which troubled you? Was there something which you remembered
in the past of failure on God's part? I will ask you–though I do not
want you to answer to anyone but just to whisper the answer to
yourself–Had there been a cause in some dark hour? Had He forsaken
you? Had He proved as Ahithophel? Though you had eaten with Him, did He
lift up His heel against you? Did He turn a deaf ear to you when you
sought Him in the hour of peril? Had He then been false after all? Was
there something dark and mysterious to others, which to yourself was
made plain by the belief that the Lord had deceived you, that He had
utterly failed and changed? Was it so? You repudiate with horror the
thought! Then, Beloved, "Why did, you doubt?" Since you already deny
that the promise made you doubt, or that the Promiser was One whom you
had cause to doubt–since you also must now confess that there was
nothing in your experience that could have caused you to doubt because
the past had all been a proof of the faithfulness of God, then–"Why
did the doubt?"

The child that has always been fed by its father, to whom the father
has always been kind, loving and tender, who then doubts without any
sort of reason, is surely to be blamed. Dear child, what is wrong with
you? Here is a beloved wife, we will say, and for many years she has
been the joy of her husband. He has done all for her comfort that she
could desire–yes, and often before she has expressed her desire! He
has anticipated her needs and made her life very happy in her
confidence in him. And now is she going to doubt him? "No," she says,
"I would not do him that injustice. In all my life with him I have had
no reason to distrust him. Therefore I cannot wantonly throw away my
confidence." Well, child of God, there was never husband so tender to
His spouse as your God has been to you! There was never one on earth,
in any relationship, that has proved His faithfulness to another as
your Lord, your Bridegroom, has proved His faithfulness to you! If you
will never doubt till you have cause to doubt Him, doubting will never
trouble your spirit. But you have doubted Him and the question comes
cuttingly to you, under such an aspect, "Why did you doubt?"

Was there something about the experience of others that led you into
doubt and fear?We will imagine that you met with some older
person–someone who had long been a pilgrim on the road to Heaven–who
took you aside and holding you as the ancient mariner detained the
wedding guest, said to you–"It is a fiction that God is true and you
are a dupe if you trust Him, for I have gone on a pilgrimage, and
though it was fair setting out, I found it foul along the road. And the
promises I relied upon failed me. I came to them as wells in the
desert, and found them dry. I looked up to them feeling that they were
as sure as the sunshine, but they did not warm me. God had forgotten to
be gracious and in His anger He had shut up the heart of His
compassion." Have you met with such a being? I have seen many of God's
people– my experience and observation have been rather wide–but I
have never met with one who has come to me to make an expose of his God
and say, "I have been deceived by Him."

We have seen some of them on their dying beds. Now dying men sometimes
let out tales, and tell truths unthought of before. They are not able
to keep secrets then. I think I have known some of them, honest men,
who at such times, close upon the borders of eternity, could not have
lied–they were not accustomed to do so at other times, but then I am
sure the truth would have been imperative upon them had it not been so
before–and they have declared that not one good thing had failed of
all that the Lord God had promised. Their declaration was that they had
found Him faithful and true. In six troubles He had been with them, and
in seven He had not forsaken them. Well, then, "Why did you doubt?" If
there has been no story told you by another, and no information from
those who have gone further on the road than you

have, which would lead you to distrust your God, why, oh, why, without
any reason or cause whatever, "Why did you

doubt?"

Did you doubt because you thought the Covenant was an unworthy thing?
You know it is "ordered in all things, and sure." You have learned from
God's Word that it stands fast like the great mountains and abides like
the eternal hills. You are not of these who think that God has entered
into Covenant with His dear Son and yet will run back from it. You do
not suspect that a Covenant which has been ratified as the Covenant of
Grace has been, will ever come to an end. I am sure you do not! Why,
then, did you doubt when there is a Covenant, a Divine Covenant, always
standing?

Have you forgotten that the Covenant was sealed with an oath? God swore
and because He could swear by no greater, He swore by Himself! Will you
look the fact in the face, that to doubt one promise in the Covenant
amounts to an accusation of perjury against the Most High? I tremble to
think that such guilt may have lain upon my own soul and I desire to be
cleansed from this high crime and misdemeanor of doubting my God. For
who can imagine that God can lie when He swears that after having
lifted His hand to Heaven, and sworn by Himself, He can possibly draw
back from a single Word which that oath confirms?

Then, to make assurance doubly sure, there comes in, over and above the
oath, the blood! The blood of victims always ratified the Covenant–and
the blood of Jesus Christ has ratified the Covenant of Grace. What? Can
you not trust the bleeding Son of God? His blood is on the promise and
can that promise be a slighted thing, never to be redeemed by a God of
Grace? Has He given it and will He make it to become a dead letter and
allow His enemies to throw it in His teeth and say, "He spoke, but He
did not fulfill! He promised, but He did not perform!"? Rather let us
say–

"The Gospel bears my spirit up, A faithful and unchanging God Lays the
foundation for my hope In oaths, in promises, and blood." "Why did you
doubt?" In the sight of the Eternal Covenant, "Why did you doubt?" In
the Presence of the Incarnate Son of God bleeding on the Cross to make
every promise sure, "Why did you doubt?"

Let me ask you another question. Do you remember that dear hour when
Jesus first revealed Himself to you? He led you into the wilderness and
there He spoke to your heart and in a momentblotted out your sins like
a cloud! Then your love to Him was very warm. You went after Him into
to wilderness, forsaking all for His dear sake. In the memory of that
early love when He was near to you, how can you doubt Him? Since that
time He has helped you in all difficulties, borne you up in all dangers
and has carried you all the days of old, so why did you doubt Him? You
have laid your head upon His bosom, you have broken bread with Him and
dipped in the same dish with Him–and you have been as dear to Him as
the ewe lamb in Nathan's parable was to its owner–you have been His
darling! You have had chaste fellowship with Him. You have been
admitted into the secret place of the Most High. There were times when
you could tell others what a dear Savior and a blessed Lord He had been
to you. Yes, there were "high days as holidays" to you, when your heart
did dance at the sound of His name! Why did you doubt Him? What has He
done, or what have you found out about Him that has led you into this
state of heart? What has He done, or what have you heard of Him that
could have brought you into such a condition that you should doubt the
Lord your God?

Now I will suppose some of the answers that might be given to this
question of Christ. I hear one say, "I doubted because I was in
peculiar circumstances. I hardly think anybody ever was in a condition
similar to mine. I felt as if I was made peculiarly the target for the
arrows of the Most High. I felt that I was the man that above all
others had seen affliction." Well, but do you think that these things
were peculiar to God? Remember He had promised that He would deliver
you and bring you through! He had said, "I will never leave you, nor
forsake you." Did that promise say, "except in a peculiar case"? Is
there a caveat put at the end of such gracious words? "There may,
however, arise some conditions in which this promise will not stand,"
you say. You know it is not so! That promise, "I will never leave you,
nor forsake you," has five negatives in it in the original text,
sweeping away altogether all supposition that He could fail you! How
could you say, "Mine was a peculiar case"? Peculiar as it is, Christ
has suffered it–

"In every pang that rends the heart, The Man of Sorrows had a part."

You have not gone where Jesus has not gone! No, the way in which you
have gone was first trodden by Him. In all your afflictions He was
afflicted and, therefore we say to you, "Why did you doubt?" Your trial
was peculiar to you, but not to Him!

"Oh, but," says another, "I doubted because the difficulty was a new
one. It was so strong! I never before felt such perplexity. I never
before experienced such a sensation of dismay!" But then your
difficulty was not new to God. Had something happened to you which God
had not foreseen? Did you suppose you were in a condition in which God
never intended you to be and did not foreknow that you would be? Had
you then outstripped His Providence and outrun His love? Have you
forgotten how the Psalmist puts it? "If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Your hand
lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me." Why, the Lord knew all
about your case of old and provided for it! Then, "Why did you doubt?"

"Oh, but," says one, "my case was so terribly trying–it consisted of a
series of troubles–it involved such dire calamities and dangers."
Still, what reason was there for doubt about that? Have you not heard
that God's way is in the whirlwind, that His path is in the sea and
that the clouds are the dust of His feet? If your way is through the
desert, did not He lead His people through a great wilderness, wherein
there were fiery serpents and terrible drought? Did He not guard them
in their desert march? Were you in such a perplexing condition that you
were worse off than the children of Israel in the Red Sea or by the
brooks of Arnon? Yet the Lord helped them, so why should He not help
you? Surely your circumstances must have been a small matter with Him
who speaks and it is done–who wills and it is finished!

"Ah, but I labor under such a sense of personal weakness." Just so,
dear Brother, but is that a novelty? Did you not know at the beginning
that you were weakness, itself, but that the Eternal God faints not,
neither is weary? If you had cause to suspect Him of weakness, then
there would be a reason for doubting Him–but to find out that you were
weak was stale news, indeed, for you are weak as water and were always
so! Did the Covenant run thus–that you were to fight the battle alone
at your own charges and carry yourself to Heaven? Was it not stated in
another place that God, Jehovah-Jireh, would preserve His people to the
end? "Why did you doubt?" For a man to say, "I doubted because I was
weak," is simply to give an unreasonable reason for perpetually
doubting! If I doubt you, my Brother, because of something in myself,
that is an absurd thing to do! I can only reasonably doubt you because
of some failure in you/If I doubt because of some weakness in myself, I
put the saddle on the wrong horse! I may be led to doubt and despair
about myself–that is right enough, it is clear and logical–but to
doubt God because I am weak is fantastic and ridiculous! Oh, be rid of
that, I pray you!

"But my doubt," says one, "arose from another reason. I lost so many
friends, one after another They died or they deserted me." Well, was
your faith dependent upon your friends? If so, it is little marvel that
your faith failed you! Have you learned that wonderful 62nd Psalm which
we call the "only" Psalm because it has the word, "only," so many
times, beginning with it, indeed, though our translation has it, "Truly
my soul waits upon God"? You know how David there says, "My Soul, wait
you only upon God, for my expectation is from Him." If you built your
hope on God, alone, and He was the one pillar of your confidence, what
if God's Providence knocked away all those useless buttresses of
yours–it could make no difference to the real strength of your faith!
If a man trusts in God andhis friends, he has no secure trust. He is
like one that has one foot upon the rock and another on the quicksand.
Betwixt two stools, we know what comes, even though the two stools are
good ones. To trust in God and to trust in friends is poor trusting! O
Beloved, if our faith was what it should be, it would lean only upon
the Lord, so that if we had none left to comfort us, we would still be
able to say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." There is no
reason to doubt God because friends fail us.

"Still I must say," adds another, "that I was so tossed to and fro that
I could not see my way." Oh, that was the reason, was it? I heard it
said, the other day, when I needed to know a man's character and asked
whether I could trust him, "Yes, you can trust him as far as you can
see him"–and I knew what was meant by that! But is that what you mean
about your God–that you can trust Him only as far as you can see Him?
Oh, shame! Shame! Shame! And yet I am afraid that the rebuke might come
home to many of us. We need to see how He will deliver us before we
rely upon Him. Now, of all the questions that ought to be banished from
the lips of a reasonable man, that should be silenced the soonest when
we have to deal with an Almighty God! What have I to do with how God
will deliver? He will do it somehow and that is enough for me! He will
do it in the best manner. He will do it in the wisest manner. He will
do it in the manner that will

bring the most Glory to His name and, in the end, most profit to His
people! Therefore, let us be content to know that it will be so and not
ask, "How?" and begin to doubt the Eternal God! "Why did you doubt?"

I will put it in this way, Beloved. Did any of you ever get any good
through doubting?Did you ever prosper because of it? Did doubt ever
calm a sorrow? Did it ever allay a fear? Did that handkerchief ever
wipe tears from your eyes? Did you ever find your distrust a staff to
lean upon? Did your doubts improve your circumstances? When you have
had suspicions of your God, have they ever filled your purse or put
bread upon your table? If the rain were about to spoil your crops, did
your doubts and fears bring fine weather? If the skies were
unpropitious and you needed rain, did your distrust ever make the
clouds burst with showers? Oh, you cannot say that it was ever so!

I will put it another way–Did your doubts ever glorify God? Did you
ever influence a sinner in the right way by distrusting God? Did you
ever bring to Jesus Christ the slightest honor by pouring suspicion on
His love? Has it not been all the other way? Do you not think that you
often grieve the Holy Spirit by doubting? Do you not think it very
likely that Christ has taken it hard that His Beloved should doubt Him?
I do not know anything that would cut me to the quick more than to be
suspected and not believed by those I love! We may go outside into the
market and make a statement– and if strangers are suspicious, we are
not surprised–but within the boundary of our own house, if our child
or our wife should not be able to trust us, that would be the end to
all the joys of the family!

Oh, how Christ's heart must be pierced when those He died for doubt
Him! When those He has helped and succored, blessed and caressed, made
to sit under His shadow and eat of His fruit, yet, in the day of trial
look somewhere else for help–run to broken cisterns that hold no
water, and will not come to Him, the Fountain of Living Waters! This is
what, in the Old Testament, He calls playing the harlot! And though the
term is harsh, yet since it is so constantly used in Scripture, I
cannot help referring to it. He calls this sin a lack of spiritual
chastity to Himself. It is a departure into a mental adultery when the
soul goes gadding abroad to this and that person or thing for
comfort–instead of keeping to her Lord. Drink waters out of your own
cistern and let your soul be always ravished with His love! Let Him be
as the loving hind and as the pleasant roe to you! Do not go after
other lovers, for if you do, they will be a mockery to you and drive
you back one day with bitter taunts! You will be compelled, at length,
to say, "I will go and return unto my first Husband, for then it was
better with me than now." Beloved, Jesus deserves our trust–let us
give it to Him!

Our doubts and fears have often prevented Him showing us more of
Himself. He has said, "I have told you of these earthly things that are
in My Kingdom and you believe Me not. How shall you believe Me if I
tell you of heavenly things?" Our dear Lord has many things to say to
us, but we cannot bear them yet because we are so unbelieving. But if
we had more faith and rested like little children upon Him, He would
tell us more and show us more! We might have been a long way further on
the road if we had not been hindered by unbelief. Of how many places
might it not be said, "He could not do many mighty works there because
of their unbelief?" Unbelief seems to hamper Omnipotence, to tie the
hands of the Almighty! We do not know what losers we have been by our
unbelief. God grant, then, that as we turn this question over, it may
breed repentance in our spirits! And as we find how impossible it is to
answer it, we may go and say, "Lord, we have no excuse to make. Only
give us more of Your Spirit. We believe; help You our unbelief."

II. Now a few minutes may be spent in speaking, secondly, TO THOSE WHO
DESIRE TO BELIEVE IN JESUS,

BUT FEEL THAT THEY CANNOT. To such, as I have already said, the
question must be slightly altered. I will ask each one of them, "Why do
you doubt?"

There once come into this place a young man who is now a minister of
the Gospel. And he has told us how he became converted to God. He sat
over in the gallery yonder, in great distress of mind because he could
not feel his sins enough. On that particular occasion I said, "There is
over in the gallery yonder a young man who feels that he is too great a
sinner to be saved, therefore he does not believe in Jesus." "Ah," my
Friend said, "I thought to myself, 'I wish I was like that young man, I
would like to feel the greatness of my sin.'" But then in my sermon I
went on to say, "There is another young man in that gallery who would
give his eyes to feel as the other one feels. They are a pair of
fools," I said–"the one for believing that he is too great a sinner
for an Omnipotent Savior to forgive–and the other for imagining that
Christ needs his strength of feeling to fit him for salvation, as if
Jesus could not save him just as he is."

If one is saying, "I cannot be saved because of the greatness of my
sins," you call God a liar, for Jesus said, "All manner of sin and of
blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." And there is that grand text,
"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanse us from all sin." "He is
able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him," and
He is able to save them now. There is no reason for your doubting, for
every sin that it is possible for you to commit, it is possible for
Christ to forgive!

But the other says, "My trouble is not that I feel I am a great sinner,
but that I do not feel that I am a great sinner" The nation has been
entertained by some that there is a certain amount of feeling required
before we are fit for Christ, and a good deal of preaching has gone to
show that the sinner is to fit himself for Christ. I have read
descriptions of the sinner's fitness that really were true enough about
those who were saved, but were most discouraging and unGospel-like if
they had reference to them who were not saved! Jesus Christ has come to
seek and to save that which was lost. If you are lost, He has come to
save you! It is not merely those who feelthat they are lost–there are
special promises for them– but those who are so lost that they do not
even feel it! He even comes to give a sense of being lost to those who
have no sense of it. And mark you, if Jesus waited till sinners of
themselves felt their need of Him, He would never save one! It is as
much His work to make us feelour need as it is to supplyour need! Hart
has well put it–

"True belief and true repentance

Every Grace that brings us nigh,

Without money,

Come to Jesus Christ, and buy."

If you cannot come with a broken heart, come for a broken heart! If you
are all bad and there is no good about you, not even a good feeling,
yet still the Gospel says to you, and to every creature under Heaven,
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "Still I
must feel," says one. Yes, you wilfeel, and feel as you never felt
before if you listen to this message. "Incline your ear, and come unto
Me. Hear, and your soul shall live." Believe in the crucified Savior!
Trust yourself with Him, for there is no salvation in any other!
Salvation is not in your feelings, but in His work Salvation is not in
looking at the bites of the serpent, but in looking at the bronze
serpent on the pole! Salvation is not in studying your leprosy, but in
looking to the great High Priest who puts His hand on you and says, "I
will, be you clean." Salvation is not in poring over your blindness,
but in lifting up your face to Him who puts His finger on your
sightless eyeballs and says, "See, for I have given you sight."
Salvation is not in trying to untwist the grave clothes, but in obeying
that glorious Voice that says, "Lazarus, come forth," even to one who
has already lain three days in his grave! It is not youthat are to do
the saving–it is Christ who is the Savior!

If you have any reason for doubting Christ, then doubt Him. But how can
you doubt Him? Is He not able to save? He is the Son of God! Do you
believe this? Did He not die, "the Just for the unjust, that He might
bring us to God"? Do you doubt the efficacy of His death? Can you stand
at the foot of the Cross and hear Him cry, "It is finished," and then
say, "That is not enough for me"? Do you think that to be incomplete
which He says is finished? And when He has entered into His Father's
Glory and sat down because He has forever completed the work of
Atonement, would you bother Him? Would you take Him away from His rest
and say, "You have not finished the work–it is still incomplete"? Oh,
say not so! If you should entertain such a thought, your unbelief would
be reckless, indeed!

To me, (I speak it as in the Lord's sight), it seems this day as if I
must trust Jesus and as if, racking my brain, I cannot think of a
reason for doubting the Son of God. Yet was I once as plentiful in
doubts and fears as you are, poor Sinner! I quibbled with Him about
this and I quibbled with Him about that! And all the answer He gave me
was to show me Himself and to say, "Look unto Me, and be you saved all
the ends of the earth." I needed some ceremony, or some dream, or some
strange feeling, or some revelation–I knew not what I needed–but this
I know, that I stood quibbling and quibbling, still, till I doubt not I
should have quibbled myself into Hell if at last I had not felt too
wretched to continue in such a miserable business–and by His Grace, I
just allowed myself to faint away into the arms of the Savior and to
wake up saved! I gave up my quibbles. I gave up my good works, such as
they were, wretched things! I gave up reliance upon feelings and
reliance on prayer–and came to rely only upon Him. And now, at this
day, if He cannot save a poor sinner who trusts in Him, alone, I shall
be damned! And if there is anything needed to save a soul except the
precious blood and perfect righteousness of Jesus, I must be lost!
Sinner, you have as much to trust in as I have, for I have not
anything! I have not the weight of a grain of dust of merit of my own!
I have not a rag! I have not a thread left of anything I can rely upon,
except that dear Lord whom God has set forth to be "the propitiation
for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole
world." Why then do you doubt?

Are God's Words, after all, false?Does He say, "Ho, everyone that
thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money, come, buy,
and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price,"
and does He mean to

shut the door in your face when you do come? Does He say, "Whoever
will, let Him take the water of life freely," and when you come, will
He say to you, "I refuse you–I did not mean you"? Do you think that
God's invitations are, after all, a hideous mockery at the woes of men?
It cannot be! When He says, by the mouth of His servants, "Whoever will
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved," is it true or not? When
He says, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved," is it true
or not? When He says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He
will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly
pardon," is it true or not? If it is true, Why do you doubt? Will you
make God a liar? You will do so if you do not trust His promises!

Once more, O Sinner, to what end and purpose did Jesus come into the
world to bleed and die if, after all, there is no forgiveness for
sinners, and if those that seek His face will be rejected? When men
make a mockery of others, they do not often do it at vast expense. Do
you think God has hung His Son upon the tree for mockery? That He has
pierced Him with death-smarts–and all to laugh at sinners? "Ah, but I
am such a great sinner." And do you think that Christ came into the
world to be a little Savior to little sinners? Is He a physician that
can only heal cut fingers? Do you think that? He is the Son of God and
sin seems to vanish in His august Presence! When I look at the needs of
this city of London and see how many people there are, I am ready to
ask, "How shall they all be fed? Where shall there be flocks and herds
to supply them?" But if I go to the great markets in the early morning
and see the meat and other food there, I change my mind and enquire,
"Wherever can there be people enough to eat all these provisions?" So,
when I look at a sinner's sin, I say, "How can this ever be washed
away?" But when I look at the Savior's blood, I seem to say, "Sin is
readily enough put away in such a fountain as this!" I change my tone
and whereas I thought sin too great to be atoned for, I come to think
the Atonement almost too great for human sin, if such might be! I
cannot conceive it possible that God will find any difficulty in
forgiving sin after such an Atonement has been made! "Why do you
doubt?"

Now I will give you two great reasons for doubting and then I have
done.

The first time I can recommend any sinner to doubt the Savior is when
he finds a fellow sinner who has been to Jesus, has rested in Him–and
yet has perished. Now, set out upon this journey. Ask all God's people,
one by one, and see if God has rejected them. Look at those you knew
who were like yourself–perhaps they were drunks, perhaps they were
swearers. Now that they have sought the Lord, see whether He has
refused them. When you find that He has rejected one, then you will
have reason to think that He will reject you! Then you may reasonably
doubt.

The other reason is this. Try Him, yourself, and if He rejects you,
then you shall have cause for doubting. Go and throw yourself at His
door of mercy with this upon your heart, "I will perish here if I must
perish." Go to His Cross and look up, and say, "Savior, Redeemer, Son
of God, bleeding and dying–a guilty soul comes here and trusts itself
with You." See if He will spurn you! See if you are not saved! I
challenge the whole earth! I challenge all Hell to find a single soul
of woman born that ever came and humbly rested on the blood and
righteousness of Christ and yet was lost! Such a thing has never been
and never shall be while the earth abides!

O poor Soul, then come away–come away to the Savior! I will go with
you, for I love to go again and again and again, and be a beggar again
at my Lord's door! Come, let us say together, "Jesus, we have guilt. We
have no merit. We have no claim upon You. We deserve to be cast into
the lowest Hell. But by Your blood, by Your righteousness, have mercy
upon us and save us now. We desire to give up all our sins, to leave
them behind us and to be obedient to all Your bidding. Save us, dear
Savior, save us! Purge us with hyssop and we shall be clean! Wash us
and we shall be whiter than snow."

If that prayer comes from any heart here, the Lord will answer it,
indeed! May He bless you! Amen.