Wholehearted Religion

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 9, 1881,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear Me
forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them."
Jeremiah 32:39.

THOSE of you who were present last Lord's-Day morning will remember my
sermon upon "Mongrel Religion," [Sermon #1622] in which I dealt with
those who feared the Lord and served other gods. Their heart was
divided and, therefore, they were found faulty. They had, as the Hebrew
puts it, a heart and a heart–a heart that went this way and a heart
that went the other way. And so, as a matter of fact, they became, as
the Prophet says, as "a silly dove that has no heart." The discourse of
this morning is intended to exhibit wholehearted religion which is the
opposite of the sad mixture which we have so lately denounced. We wish
to look upon persons of Caleb's stamp, who followed the Lord fully– in
whom, by the Grace of God, the divided heart has become united–so that
with their whole heart they serve the Lord their God.

Our text is an extract from Jeremiah's copy of the Covenant of Grace.
The Lord promises to Israel, "They shall be My people, and I will be
their God." And in the 40th verse He says, "And I will make an
everlasting Covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to
do them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall
not depart from Me." This, then, is the Covenant of Grace which God has
made with His people and it is highly suggestive that the first
blessing of it relates to the heart, for God, when He begins with men,
does not begin with the outward way, but with the inward spirit. He
puts it, "I will give them one heart and one way"–the way is
second–the heart comes first. Understand, then, that in all true
godliness we must begin with heart-work.

It is no use hoping to polish the outside until, by degrees, you
enlighten the interior. No, but the light must first be placed within
and then, as it shines through, spots on the exterior will be
discovered and will all the more readily be cleansed away. God works
not to the center, but in the center, and then from the center into the
outer life. In reference to the heart, one of the earliest works of
Divine Grace is to unite it in one. Strange to say, but I would be
equally truthful if I said that one of the first works of Grace is to
break the heart–but so paradoxical is man that when his heart is
unbroken, it is divided–and when his heart is broken, then, for the
first time, it is united, for a broken heart, in every fragment of it,
mourns over sin and cries out for mercy.

Every shattered particle of a contrite spirit is united in one desire
to be reconciled to God. There is no union of the heart with itself
till it is broken for sin and from sin. Early in the morning of Grace,
the man comes to himself and is restored to the unity of his manhood.
The effect of this inner reunion is very salutary. We read of the
prodigal, that, "when he came to himself," he said, "I will arise and
go to my father." The heart is united in itself when it is united to
the Lord! Even as the Lord has said by the mouth of the Prophet, "I
will give them an heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall
be My people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto Me
with their whole heart."

It is of this unitedness of heart that I shall speak first. And then I
shall go on to those other Covenant blessings which come after it,
according to the text. These are placed after it, in order to show its
great value, since it is the first step to exceedingly precious
blessings. First, then, we will consider unitedness of heart–"I will
give them one heart." Secondly, the blessing which immediately arises
out of it, consistency of walk–"I will give them one way." From these
two come the third blessing, "steadfastness of principle–"that they
may fear Me forever." And consequent upon all this comes personal
blessings, "for the good of them." And attendant upon that favor,
relative benediction–"and for the good of their children after them."
Our program is very extensive–may the Spirit of God help us to fill it
up.

I. We begin, then, at the beginning, with UNITEDNESS OF THE HEART. Our
first statement under this head shall be that it is naturally divided.
Sin is confusion and at its entrance it created a Babel, or a
confusion, within the heart of

man. Until man sinned, his nature was one and undivided, but the Fall
broke him and destroyed his unity. Within him, now, there are many
voices, many imaginations and many devices. Within him there is strife
and contention, wars and fights, which come of his lusts, which
struggle with each other and with his understanding. Observe the
contest which is constantly visible between his conscience and his
affections. His affections choose that which is evil, while his
conscience approves that which is right. The desires go after that
which appears to be pleasant, but the judgment warns the mind of its
folly and, therefore, a controversy between the two powers of the soul.

The lusts crave for that which the intellect condemns; the passions
demand that which the reason would deny; the will persists in that
which the judgment would forego! The ship of our manhood will not obey
the helm; there is a mutiny on board and those powers which should be
underlings, strive for the mastery. Man is dragged to and fro by
contending forces; conscience draws this way and the affections drag in
the opposite direction. Our propensities and faculties are, by nature,
like the crowd in the Ephesian theater of whom we read, "Some,
therefore, cried one thing and some another; for the assembly was
confused."

We sin not without some measure of compunction and we do not quit our
sin, thoroughly, even when we yield to conscience, for the heart still
hankers after that which the conscience disallows. To many a man it is
given to admire things that are excellent and still to delight in
things which are abominable! His conscience bids him rise to a pure and
noble life, but his baser passions hold him down to that which is
earthly and sensual. Frequently, too, there is a very great division
between a man's inward knowledge and his outward conduct. Men are often
wise in the head and foolish in the hand–they know the right and do
the wrong! The Law of God is read in their hearing and written upon
their memories and yet it is forgotten in their lives. They are men of
great discernment in theory and yet in their actions they put bitter
for sweet and sweet for bitter; darkness for light and light for
darkness!

They sin against the Light of God–"They love darkness rather than
light, because their deeds are evil." Often and often the man is as
right as Justice, herself, in his opinions, and clear as the day in his
information–and yet he gropes as the blind and stumbles at noonday as
in the night! His knowledge goes one way and his will another. He knows
the consequences of sin and, therefore, fears! He perceives the
pleasureableness or profit of sin and, therefore, presumes! He is sure
that he will never be so base as to fall into a certain fault, but,
by-and-by, he rushes into it and defends himself for so doing, till he
changes his fickle mind–and then he denounces that which just now he
allowed! How can he be right with God when he is not even right with
himself?

All through the carnal man, if you look at him, there is confusion and
mischief! We would call that creature a monster which had its head
towards the earth and its feet towards Heaven–and yet the carnal man
lives in that position! He ought to tread the world beneath his feet,
but he places it above–while the Heaven to which he should aspire, he
daily spurns! He lets his animal passions, which should be treated as
the dogs of his flock, become his lords and masters. He reverses the
order of Nature and bids the beast within him to have dominion over the
spirit. Appetites, which in their way are good if they are kept in with
bit and bridle, are permitted to become evil because they have
unlimited indulgence and are allowed to be the tyrants of the soul! The
Ishmael of the flesh mocks the Isaac of the conscience and is
unreproved! Solomon said, "I have seen servants upon horses and princes
walking as servants upon the earth." And the same may be seen in the
little world within where appetites rule and grander capacities are
placed in servitude.

Man is a puzzle and none can put him together but He that made him at
the first. He is a self-contradiction, a house divided against itself,
a mystery of iniquity, a maze of folly, a mass of perversity, obstinacy
and contention! Sin has made the heart to be so inwardly divided as to
be like the troubled sea which cannot rest, or like a cage of unclean
birds–every one fighting its fellow–or like a den of wild beasts
which cease not to rend each other. When man cast off the yoke of the
One God, he fell under bondage to many gods and many lords who struggle
for supremacy and make the one kingdom into many rival principalities.

Since sin became natural to man, it became natural that man's heart
should be divided. But it must be united–that is the point and,
therefore, the Covenant promise, "I will give them one heart." For,
dear Friends, in the matters of godliness, if our heart is not whole
and entire in following after God, we cannot meet with acceptance. God
never did and never will receive the homage of a divided heart!
Alexander, when Darius proposed that the two great monarchs should
divide the world, replied that there was only room for one sun in the
heavens. What his ambition affirmed, God declares from the necessity of
the case. Since one God fills all things, there is no room for another!
It is not possible for a heart to

be given up to falsehood and yet to be under the power of truth! It is
idle to attempt to serve two such masters as holiness and iniquity.

God cannot smile upon an unhallowed compromise and allow men to bow in
the house of Rimmon and yet worship in His holy Temple. God will have
all or nothing–He will have us only, wholly, altogether and always His
or else He will have nothing to do with us! False gods can bear a
divided empire, but the true God cannot have it. You may assemble a
parliament of idols, but Jehovah says, "I am God alone." It was once
proposed to the Roman senate to set up the image of Christ in the
Pantheon among the gods, but when they were informed that He would not
agree that any worship should be mingled with His own, the senate
straightway refused Him a shrine. In this they acted in a manner
consistent with itself–but those are altogether inexcusable who swear
by the Lord and swear by Malcham!

We provoke the Lord to jealousy when we offer Him a corner in our souls
and allow our vain thoughts to lodge within us. Errors can lie down
like sheep in a field, but no error can lie side by side with the
lordly lion of the Truth of God! There is no god but God. Jehovah, He
is God! There is one Mediator between God and man–the Man Christ
Jesus. Whatever a man sets up in his heart as the object of his
affections in opposition to God is a vain, a vile, a vicious thing–and
that man cannot be accepted of the Lord! Would you, then, serve God, O
man? Him only must you serve. Would you bring unto Him an offering? You
must first give Him your heart–your undivided heart. He cries, "My
son, give Me your heart," and He says not, "Give Me a share of it."

He will not call that house His Temple where other things are
worshipped as well as Himself. Abhorrence, not acceptance, shall fall
to the lot of that man who is half-hearted with God! And is not this as
it should be? Does not the love of Jesus deserve our wholehearted love
in return? His love, which made Him become Man, deserves man's entire
homage! His love which led Him to the Cross deserves that we be
crucified to the world for His sake! His love to death demands that we
be dead to sin for His sake! His love which now rules all Heaven for
our sakes deserves our soul, our life, our all. He gave Himself for
us–His whole self–and we must give our whole hearts to Him.

In the chapter before us the Lord says, "Yes, I will rejoice over them
to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with My
whole heart and with My whole soul." Shall we give half a heart to our
wholehearted God? Shall we be double-minded when He is so intense in
blessing us? Shall we love the world and hope to have the love of the
Father in us at the same time? God will not have it and we do not wish
it. The heart must be united! We have seen that it must be united for
acceptance. We now note that it must be united for sincerity–a divided
heart is a false heart. Where there is no unity of heart there is no
truth in the spirit. Tell me that you love the world and I will tell
you that the love of the world is enmity to God! Declare that you will
serve Belial ever so little and I know that your service to Christ is
but Judas' service–mercenary, temporary, traitorous! Sincerity does
not open the front door to Christ and the back gate to the devil.

Our heart must be united, next, for intensity of life. True religion
needs the soul to be always at a fervent heat. "The kingdom of Heaven,"
says our Lord, "suffers violence and the violent take it by force."
None climb the hill whereon the New Jerusalem is built except such as
go on hands and knees and, laying aside every weight, give themselves
wholly to the divine ascent. The pilgrim who hopes to reach the better
land and makes a pleasure trip of it is under a mistake–it is hard
traveling and requires ardor and perseverance. It is so in every good
word and work. A lazy prayer requests a denial and shall have it.
Half-hearted praise is an insult to God and everything in religion that
is not done with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our
strength–is a sin–however much it may look like a virtue! When we are
most intense, we do not come up to the zeal which these important
things deserve–how can we, then, imagine that we can please God with
less than our best?

Know you not that our Lord has said, "Because you are lukewarm, I will
spue you out of My mouth"? No stronger expression of disgust can
possibly be used and this disgust is not for the bold and hardened
rebel, but for the moderate disciple who served God without fail, but
without zeal! God loves a whole heart, but half a heart is His
abhorrence. Only those who run with all their might will win the race
and, as the man of divided heart is lame in both his feet, he can have
no hope of the prize. Lord, make my heart one that I may give it all to
You and spend and be spent in Your one service, since You, only, are
the One in whom my soul delights!

The heart must be united to be consecrated. Will God be served with
broken cups and cracked flagons? And shall His altars be polluted with
torn and mangled sacrifices? All the things in Heaven and earth which
the Lord acknowledges as

consecrated things are dedicated to Him and to Him alone. Can you
imagine that within the Holy Place there would be an altar, part of
which was used for sacrifices offered to Jehovah–and another portion
for victims presented to Molech? The idea cannot be endured! The Lord
said of old to Ezekiel, "Son of man, the place of My throne, and the
place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the
children of Israel forever, and My holy name, shall the house of Israel
no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, in their setting of
their threshold by my thresholds, and their posts by My posts." God
will not account that to be consecrated to Himself which is used by
another. Brethren, we must be wholly consecrated unto the Lord, or we
cannot be consecrated to Him at all! We are unconsecrated, we are
polluted, we are as things accursed if we are divided in heart!

Once more, we must have our heart united or else none of the blessings
which are to follow in Covenant order can possibly reach us. For, look,
"I will give them one heart." And then it follows, "one way"–no man
will have a consistent, uniform way while he has a divided heart! Read
next, "That they shall fear Me forever." But no man will fear God
forever unless fear has taken possession of his whole heart! The
convert may profess to follow the Lord for a while, but he will soon
turn aside. He who does not begin with his whole heart will soon tire
of the race. "Forever" is a long day and requires our whole soul to
hold on and to hold out!

The Lord also promises that this shall be "for the good of them, and of
their children after them." But those who give God a part of their
heart neither win a blessing for themselves nor for their
posterity–they are not among the seed that God has blessed, neither
can they be. Oh men and women, if your hearts run here and there and
your aims and desires are scattered like a flock of sheep–running
abroad according to their own willfulness–the Good Shepherd will not
feed you! When He comes to visit you, He will gather all your desires
and aspirations into one fold–and then He will lead you into green
pastures and make you to lie down therein. As under the old Law men
might not sow with mingled seed, nor wear garments of linen and woolen
mixed, so neither can those of divided way and heart come into the
favor of God.

So I leave the first head when I have noticed that, according to the
text, God will give His chosen this unified heart–"I will give them
one heart." Ah, we shall never obtain this blessing other than as a
free gift of God's Grace! Teachers may put holy thoughts into our
heads, but they cannot alter our hearts. We may unite our thoughts in
some system of divinity, but we can never unite our desires upon the
Divinity, Himself, except we experience a work of Grace upon our souls.
The one Lord must make our heart one! He who once made the heart, must
make it anew to make it one. "There is one body and one Spirit, even as
you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all,
and in you all." But none of these seven ones would ever be ours unless
it were added, "But unto every one of us is given Grace according to
the measure of the gift of Christ," and only that Grace can make our
heart one!

This the Lord does, in part, by enlightenment through the light of His
Holy Spirit. He shows us the worthlessness and deceptiveness of
everything that would attract our hearts away from Jesus and from our
God. And when we see the evil of the rival, we give our heart entirely
to Him whom we worship. The Lord works this, also, by a still more
thorough process, for He weans us from all idolatrous loves. He makes
our carnal delights to become bitter to us, so that we turn aside from
them with disgust, even as the Egyptians loathed to drink of the waters
of the river which they formerly idolized, for the Lord had turned it
into blood. He puts gall upon the breasts of the world and then we look
elsewhere for comfort. It takes much to make us cry with David, "My
soul is even as a weaned child."

Disease and death are summoned to shoot their fatal arrows at our
dearest ones before we will give God the whole of our hearts. It is
hard to love the creature much and yet not too much–it is a great
thing to love our beloved ones in Christ and in subordination to
Christ. Many a mother has had to lose child after child because she had
stirred the jealousy of the best Beloved by dividing her heart between
Him and her little ones. Many a man in business has fallen from wealth
and prosperity because God saw that His heart went astray after His
possessions. Doubtless many have had eloquence, talent and gifts of
various kinds–and they doted upon these things until it has been
necessary to remove them to unite their hearts upon God and so they
have been laid aside by sickness, or the mind has lost its vigor, or
the voice has failed and the gift has become a plague, rather than a
comfort–and thus their heart has lost its idol and has turned unto the
Lord.

If Christ is married to us, He will have use chaste unto Himself. What
would we think of a man who is engaged to a woman and is found spending
his love upon another as well? We say he is false and treacherous, and
we utterly despise him. He ought to give his heart to her whom he has
espoused and to love her with constancy, or he cannot be esteemed a
pure-minded man. Even so, in our dealings with the Lord Jesus, we must
be watchful lest a single desire or affection should prove false to
Him. Such a glorious Object of affection must fill the whole horizon of
the soul, even as the sun fills all the heavens with his light and the
stars are quite forgotten. All the rivers run into the sea and so must
all our love run to Jesus. Oh Brothers and Sisters, shut the gates of
your hearts lest any steal away by night from the Lord! The heart must
be whole and wholly His.

Remember that you may have a great gash in your head and yet you may
live. But if but a pin's point should divide your heart, you will die.
Ask for Divine Grace to say with the Psalmist, "O God, my heart is
fixed." Then, indeed, will you sing and give praise. This is not only
important, it is essential! See, my Hearers, whether you have received
this choice blessing of the Covenant of Grace, each one for
himself–this holy, uniting work of the Spirit of God.

II. If we have this, we may now advance to the second blessing of the
Covenant here mentioned, which is CONSISTENCY OF WALK–"I Will give
them one way." When the heart is united, the man lives for a single
objective and that alone. Running in one direction, striving for one
purpose, he keeps to the one way which leads to Heaven. As Christ is
our one life, so is He our one way. Without this unity, there can be no
truth in a man's life. If he spins by day, and unravels at night, he is
acting out a falsehood. If he runs to the right while men look at him,
but trudges back, again, to the old post, as soon as men's eyes are
taken from him, his life is double-talk–which is but a fine word for a
lie!

It is a dreadful thing for a man's word to be a lie, but for a man's
whole life to be a lie is still more horrible. We may have much more of
the liar about us than we dream. Let us see to it and pray God, that,
like Nathanael, we may have no guile in us. We may patch up our life
with bits of religion and remnants of profession till it becomes like
the beggar's coat, of which no man knows the original–such a garment
may be fit for a beggar–but shall we wear it? The seamless garment of
the Truth of God, woven from the top throughout, adorns a Christian,
but motley raiment proves a man a fool. Unless we follow the Lord with
one heart and one way, we shall be found to be liars, after all, and if
all liars have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and
brimstone, which is the Second Death, what will be his lot whose life
was false to itself and false to God? Inconsistency of behavior shows
that the Truth of God is little set by in the heart.

We must, dear Friends, have one walk, or else our life will make no
progress. He who travels in two opposite directions will find himself
not moving forward. How is it that some professors are at much the same
place as they occupied 20 years ago? Years have made them more gray,
but not more gracious! At night they fastened up their boat in a little
creek of the river and when the tide ran out, they waited and waited
until, close to the end of its running–and then they went down a
little way with the tide but very soon the stream ceased to turn–and
so they drifted back with the flood and hitched up near the same muddy
shore as before! Like a pendulum, they travel far, but get no farther!
Growth, progress, advancement–none of these can they know, for they
are double-minded–and so run to and fro in the earth and wear
themselves out with vanity.

Multitudes of people are doing this! They make such progress one Sunday
that they resolve, from now on, to live unto God. They begin at a steam
engine rate! They plow the sea of life in their eagerness–they are
like a vessel which has had new boilers put into her! But by tomorrow
where are they? They have burst their boilers, or they have allowed the
fires to go out–and from now on they are without spiritual life or
motion and lie like logs upon the stream. This will not do! We must
have one way of uniform vitality. I do not say that we can always make
apparent progress at the same rate, for powerful under-currents affect
our life and a man may be doing much who is successfully over adverse
influences.

When a fierce wind is blowing, a captain at the will may be driven on
shore if he does not steam right into the teeth of the hurricane. If he
does this, is he not making the surest real progress if he manages to
stay where he is and avoid the fatal danger? I say, then, that if we do
not seem to advance, we may, nevertheless, in the judgment of God, be
making true progress if we resist the mighty impulses which would
otherwise hurry us on to destruction. But if we have two ways and steer
this way and that way and every way by turns–with the view of pleasing
men and making things easy all round–we cannot speed towards the
desired haven. We must choose and keep to one way or we cannot attain
to usefulness.

What influence has a double-minded man? If a man speaks for God, today,
and so lives, tomorrow, that he virtually speaks for the devil, what
power has he over those around him? How can he lead who has no way of
his own? If your actions play fast and loose with truth. If your life
is a checkerboard of black and white. If you are everything by turns
and nothing long, what force, for good, can you possibly exert?
Consistency and unity of life are necessary to usefulness! And I am
sure it is necessary for anything like assurance. The best of Believers
may, through holy anxiety, question their own state, but the man who
has two ways may well sing–

"'Tis a point I long to know,

Oft it causes anxious thought,

Do Ilove the Lord or no?

Am I His or am I not?"

O you who are inconsistent in life, I must be bold to tell you that
many of your friends are even more in doubt about you than you are
about yourself! 'Tis a point we also long to know, for we cannot tell
whether you love the Lord or no, whether you are His or not! Sometimes
we see happy signs about you and our charity hopes all things. But when
we see you falling, again, into evil ways, we are distressed and even
our charity weeps over you! How can we be assured of your change of
heart when we see so little change of life? What a pity to lead such a
life that it puzzles those who love you best to form any judgment as to
your condition! If you were to die as you are, we should not know which
way you would go, for your present path is dubious and intricate.

Would you go to Heaven or Hell? Common judgment would depend upon
whether you died in one of your good fits or in one of your bad ones!
Is this a pleasant way of putting it? O you who blow hot and cold, you
are strange beings! You seem, to the common observer, to be too good
for Hell and not good enough for Heaven! You cannot be divided at the
last and, therefore, you may rest assured that the powers of evil will
seize you as their own! No person can come to any true personal
assurance while his life is of a double character. But if I know that I
have one heart and that my heart belongs to my Lord–and that I have
one way, a way of obedience to Him–then may I be assured that I am
His!

If I cannot make such progress as I would, yet if I follow my Lord and
keep my face steadfastly set towards Jerusalem, then I know where I am,
what I am and where I am going! Holiness of life proves our faith and
faith ensures our salvation–and salvation begets joy, peace, and
confidence! "Hereby we know that we know Him if we keep His
commandments." A plain way will make our condition plain. This unity of
way is a Covenant blessing–it comes not of man, neither by man, but
God gives it to His own elect as one of the choice favors of His
Grace–"I will give them one heart and one way."

III. Briefly we notice, in the third place, the next Covenant blessing,
STEADFASTNESS OF PRINCIPLE–"That they may fear Me forever." Get the
heart and the way right and then the spiritual force of the fear of God
will abide in us in all days to come. Notice the basis of true
religion–it is the fear of God–it is not said that they shall join a
Church, make a profession and speak holy words forever. No, it is that,
"They may fear Me forever." Oh Brothers and Sisters, our religion must
have the Lord in the very heart of it! We must be in constant contact
with God and possess in our souls the true fear of God, for as this is
the beginning of wisdom, so is it the only security of perseverance!

When God has given us a true spiritual fear of Him, it will abide all
tests. Outward religion depends upon the excitement which created it.
But the fear of the Lord lives on when all around it is frostbitten.
What happens to many converts? The revivalists have gone and they have
gone, too. But if God has given us one heart to love and obey Him and
His fear is in us, we do not depend upon the mental thermometer! Like
salamanders, we can live in the fire–and like seals, we can live in
Arctic ice. We are not dependent upon special services and warm-hearted
exhortations, for we have a springing well within us! We live upon the
Master and not upon the servants– the Spirit of God does not leave us
because certain good men have gone elsewhere. No, God has given us to
fear Him forever.

Persecution comes, Christians are ridiculed in the workshop, they are
pointed out in the street and an opprobrious name is hooted at them!
Now we shall know who are God's elect and who are not! Persecution acts
as a winnowing fan and those who are light as chaff are driven away by
its blast. But those who are true corn remain and are purified.
Careless of man's esteem, the truly God-fearing man with one heart
holds on his one way and fears the Lord forever! Then, perhaps, comes a
more serious test, the trial of prosperity. A man grows rich. He rises
into another class of society. If he is not a real Christian, he will
forsake the Lord. But if he is a true-born heir of the Kingdom of God,
he will fear the

Lord forever and consecrate his substance to Him. A heart wholly given
to God will stand the wear and tear of life in all conditions, whether
in honor or in contempt.

Poverty is a severe test to many and I have known numbers of professors
forsake the House of God because, as they say, their clothes were not
fit to come in. That is a poor excuse! I fear their hearts were not fit
to come in! The fear of God would make the godly man swallow his pride
and follow Christ in rags–he will bear a famine of bread and a famine
of water–but he cannot endure a famine of the Word of God! His soul
must be fed and so he must and will be found where the Lord's Table is
spread with the Bread of Heaven. When God stripped Job of all his
riches, it was then that his integrity was seen and proven.

With some of you old age is creeping on, but I rejoice to know that
your Grace is not decaying! You are becoming deaf; eyesight is failing
you and your limbs are trembling–but you can still hear the voice of
the Lord and behold the beauties of His Word and run in the ways of His
statutes! If God has given the young man one heart and one way, he will
fear God forever and will not forsake the Lord when infirmities
multiply upon him. He will bring forth fruit in old age, to show that
the Lord is upright! If our soul is wholly Christ's, we can never go
back to perdition–"Who shall separate us from the love of God?"

The Lord has cast such cords of love about us that He holds us fast! We
can lose father and mother, yes, and our own lives, also, but we cannot
forsake the Lord whose blood has bought us from the lowest Hell! We are
bound for the Kingdom–who shall keep us out of it? We have been shot
like arrows from the bow of God and we must speed onward till we rest
in the target of eternal bliss! Oh what a mercy it is to have within us
a fear of God which is not to last for a period of years, but forever!

' IV. Very hurriedly I mention the next thing, which is PERSONAL
BLESSEDNESS, "for the good of them." Where God gives us one heart, one
way and steadfast principle, it must be for our good in the highest
sense. Tell me who are the happiest Christians. They will be found to
be wholehearted Christians! When heart and life are divided, happiness
leaks through the crack. We must be steady in the pursuit of
righteousness if we would abide in the enjoyment of peace. Brothers and
Sisters, if you want to know the sweetness of religion, you must know
the depth of it! The foam upon the top of the sacred cup is often
bitter, but at the bottom lies the essence of sweetness. I will not
say, drink deep or drink not at all, but I will say this, that those
who are content with superficial godliness have no idea of the delights
which dwell in the deep places of communion with God.

Plunge into the River of Life! Let body, soul and spirit be immersed
into its floods and you shall swim in unspeakable joy! Lose sight of
the shores of worldliness and you shall see God's wonders in the deeps!
In intense devotion to the Lord you will find the rare jewel,
satisfaction. "O Naphtali, satisfied with favor, and full with the
blessing of the Lord!" Sweet content never dwells with
half-heartedness. This shall be for your good every way–for your
guidance in business, for your direction in devotion, for the good of
your mind here–for the good of your spirit hereafter. To be endowed by
Grace with one heart and one way is to be rendered fit to live and fit
to die! I am sure if you read the biographies of men, if they are
fairly written, you will find that the good, the true, the great, the
noble were single-minded.

Those who have the clearest sight of God are the pure in heart and the
undivided in heart–and those who enjoy a Heaven below are those whose
hearts and lives are engrossed with heavenly things. The blessed life
is that of fervent love and thorough consecration. Do these things
abound among you, Brethren? I believe that in this assembly there are
more wholehearted Christian men and women than I am likely to meet with
in any other gathering. And yet, for all that, I cannot help fearing
that even here there are professing Christians who never knew what it
was to give their hearts perfectly to God's work, or to the love of
Jesus!

When these people come to the hour of trouble, they are dispirited and
rebellious. Would it be so if they were perfectly resigned to God's
will? These people are often short of spiritual comforts. Would they be
short of them if they had made a clean and clear surrender to their
God? I believe they would not. Men who will not eat are starved and
weak– and many a disease finds soil within them through the weakness
of their constitution. But those who feed on Christ, the Bread of
Heaven, are nourished and strong–and are preserved from a thousand
ills by that very fact. O God the Holy Spirit, I cannot talk to
Christ's servants as I wish to do, but You can move them, now, to
aspire after a complete giving up of themselves to You, for this shall
be for their good!

V. The last is a RELATIVE BLESSING–"And for their children after
them." Wholehearted Christians are usually blessed with a posterity of
a like kind. Consecrated men and women live to see their children
following in their steps. When sons and daughters forsake the ways of
godliness, do you wonder, when you spy out the home life of their
parents? If religion is a sham, do you expect frank young men to
respect it? If the father was hollow-hearted in his profession, will
not the children despise it? The genuine, thoroughbred Christian is
often hated, but he is never the object of contempt. Men may ridicule
him and say that he is a fool, but they cannot help admitting that he
is happy! And the wiser sort among them wish that they were such fools,
themselves!

Be thorough and true, and your family will respect your faith. The
almost inevitable consequence of respect in a child towards his parent
is a desire to imitate him. It is not always so, but as a rule it is
so. If the parents live unto God in a thorough-hearted way, their sons
and daughters aspire to the same thing. They see the beauty of religion
at home around the fireside and their conscience, being quickened, lead
them to pray to God that they may have the same piety, so that when
they, themselves, commence a household, they may enjoy the same
happiness. Certainly if any of you are the children of eminently godly
parents and are living in sin, your parents' lives condemn you!

Are they in Heaven? Dare you go to their grave and sit upon the grassy
hillock and think of how you are living? It will force tears to your
eyes to contrast yourself with them! You may well tremble to think that
you neglect your mother's Savior, that you forget your father's God! It
will go hard with those who leap into Hell-fire over a father's prayers
and a mother's entreaties–yet some seem desperately resolved on such
suicide! I hope these are comparatively few and that it is still true,
"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will
not depart from it." Temporal and spiritual blessings come upon
households where the heads of the family are completely consecrated to
God. Try it! Try it! I will be bound that you will find it profitable!
If at the Last Great Day you shall find that consecration to Christ is
an error, I will be willing to bear the blame myself! I am not afraid
that anyone among you will ever censure me for having excited you into
a too fervent zeal, or a too devoted life!

Brothers and Sisters, I am afraid of those of you who go ankle deep
into religion and never venture further–I am afraid lest you should,
by-and-by, return to the shore! But as for you who plunge into the
center of the stream and find waters to swim in, I have no fears! You
shall be borne onward by a current ever increasing in strength till in
the ocean of eternal love you lose yourselves in Heaven above! I can
wish you no greater blessing than that the Holy Spirit may make you
wholehearted, consistent, persistent, ardent, established and
persevering in the things of God! On you and on your household my heart
pronounces this benediction–the Lord give you one heart and one way
that you may fear Him forever. Amen.
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Welcome! Welcome!