To be the army of the Lord

I have often prayed to God that I might not be the pastor of an army of invalids. I would be glad enough to comfort them, and do my best to make this a hospital for them, but I want to be the captain of an army of soldiers, and to turn this place into a barracks for them. I want you to go out every day from Monday till Saturday, and on the Sabbath too, fighting for Christ, contending for the faith, seeking to gather in outcasts, looking after the poor and needy, helping the weak and feeble, comforting the disconsolate, and putting out all your strength in your Master’s cause. We have enough churches in London where they sleep. Oh! may God deliver us from having this place to be a huge cemetery, and make us to be a great house, a great city, from which shall go forth the hosts and armies of the Lord to do battle for him. May God send his Holy Spirit to abide amongst us in all his plenitude, and he shall have the glory.

From a sermon entitled "The Church Aroused," delivered October 7, 1866. Image by Kevin Walsh under Creative Commons License.

Able to save to the uttermost

I have argued out the case with my own heart, and I have concluded that if God becomes a Savior, there can be no case beyond his infinite power; if the Son of God dies and sheds his blood there can be no scarlet sin which his blood cannot wash out, and if he rose again and is gone up on high, then he is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by him. I am resolved therefore to wait and wrestle until he deigneth to give me an answer.”

No man clings more closely to Christ than he who is most sensible of his lost estate. Who holds the plank the tightest? Why the man who is the most afraid of being drowned. Fear frequently intensifies faith. The more afraid I am of my sins the more firmly do I grasp my Savior. Fear is sometimes the mother of faith. One who was walking in the fields was surprised to find a trembling lark fly into his bosom. A strange thing for a timid bird to do, was it not? But there was a hawk after it, and therefore fear of the hawk made the bird bold enough to fly to man for shelter. And oh! when the fierce vultures of sin and hell are pursuing a poor sinner, he is driven by the courage of despair to fly into the heart of the blessed Jesus.

From a sermon entitled "Children's Bread Given To Dogs," delivered October 14, 1866. Image by Sabrina Campagna under Creative Commons License.

Kept from sin - by love

Before your conversion you used to hear moral essays, and to yield your assent to the excellence of virtue, but when temptation attacked you, what help could mere moral essays afford you? What strength to resist sin did you find in your belief in the excellence of virtue? Did you not resign yourself to the energy of evil as the snow melts in the fierce heat of the sun? But now since you have been converted, you are not kept from sin by fear but by love, and you are not impelled to holiness because you are afraid of hell, but because, being saved from the wrath to come and loved with an everlasting love, you cannot be so recreant [unfaithful] to your heart’s love and to every hallowed impulse of gratitude as to turn back to the beggarly elements from which you have been delivered. What the law could not do with its iron fetters, the gospel has done with its silken bonds.

From a sermon entitled "A Savior Such As You Need," delivered October 7, 1866. Image by Kenneth Baruch under Creative Commons License.

We stand in need of forgiveness

There are many ways of being guilty of blood. Every man is guilty of it in one respect, namely, concerning the death of our Lord. I will not say that we are all guilty of his actual murder upon the tree, for we were not then born, yet as it was the common sin of mankind which rendered it needful that he should suffer, we cannot escape from a share in his death. This I can see very clearly, that those who reject, despise or neglect the claims of the Lord Jesus, and refuse to bow before him, do in effect mock him, scourge him, and put him to death. In speaking against his gospel, in deriding his servants, in neglecting his book, in denying his Deity, and in refusing to believe in him, men are virtually guilty of crucifying the Lord of glory; for they thus do that which proves that if they had been in a like condition with the Roman soldiery and with the Jewish priests, they would have nailed him to the cross.

We have committed actions tantamount to the crucifying of the Savior, and therein his blood cometh upon us to our condemnation, unless by faith it cometh upon us to our acceptance and forgiveness. Oh, sinner! be this for ever a subject of trembling to thee that thou hast necessarily something to do with the cross, that having heard of it, it shall be unto thee either a savor of death unto death, or of life unto life; either the blood of Jesus shall fall upon thy heart to cleanse thee from all guilt, or it shall fall upon thy head to condemn thee. Thou hast said, “I know him not, I will not obey him, I will not yield to him; I will as far as lieth in me put out his light and quench his dominion in the midst of mankind.” What is this but aiming at the very life of Christ, and being guilty of his blood?

From a sermon entitled "Soul Murder - Who Is Guilty?," delivered September 30, 1866. Image by under Creative Commons License.

Deceitful foes

“Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.”- Exodus 17:8.

If you look for friendship from a sinful world you are grievously mistaken. There is a deadly hereditary feud between the Christian and the powers of darkness. It sprang up in the garden, in the day when God said, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed,” and it continues still the same. You must fight if you would win the crown, and your pathway to the other side of Jordan must be the pathway of an armed crusader, who has to contend for every inch of the way if he is to win it. In proceeding with the narrative we notice that they found opposition from an unexpected quarter. Ignorance may have made them reckon upon the friendliness of Amalek, for they evidently journeyed at their ease without proper precaution, presuming upon the relationship and peaceableness of the dwellers in the land. It is just where we feel most safe that we should be most cautious. “A man’s foes are they of his own household.”

I do not think the Christian has so much to fear from open and avowed enemies as from those deceitful foes who feign to be his friends. Sin is never so much a Jezebel as when it paints its face with daubs of respectability and patches of innocence. Things dubious are more dangerous than things distinctly evil. The border land between right and wrong is thronged with thieves and robbers; beware of cut throats ye who journey there. Even right things may easily become wrong when they carry away our hearts, and therefore we must guard against their attractions. Many people need not be much afraid of being led into drunkenness and blasphemy, for we are not likely to give way to these grosser evils; but we have far more reason to watch against worldliness and pride, for these are enemies which select the godly as their special object of attack. Take heed to your virtues, Christian, for these, when exaggerated, become your vices; take care of the good things in which you boast, for they may furnish heat for the hatching of the vipers’ eggs of pride and self-satisfaction.

From a sermon entitled War With Amalek, delivered September 23, 1866. Image by Dean Souglass under Creative Commons License.

A life of warfare

“Then came Amalek, and fought with Israel in Rephidim.”- Exodus 17:8.

Young Christian, you have begun a life of warfare, rest assured of that. You would never be told to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ if it were not so. You must not put that sword up into its scabbard, but rather grind it sharp and hold it always ready in your hand. Watch constantly, and pray without ceasing; for, till you get your foot upon the golden pavement of the New Jerusalem, you must wear a warrior’s harness, and bear a warrior’s toils. Indeed, dear friends, there was that in the camp of the children of Israel which ought to have taught them to expect trouble, for was there not a voice heard among the murmuring host, “Is the Lord among us or not?” That croaking voice of unbelief foreboded ill. How could they expect to know peace when they doubted the God of peace. “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked;” and in proportion as the righteous are at all like the wicked, in that proportion they lose peace. The cry of unbelief in your beam and mine, when it says, “Is the Lord among us or not?” ought to warn us that we are not yet in the land of rest, but shall have to fight with many an enemy before the banner may be furled.

Besides, Israel ought to have remembered that there was an ancient feud between the children of Esau and the children of Jacob, for had not Esau been supplanted by his brother? Amalek, Duke Amalek as he was called, was a descendant of Esau, and treasured up all his father’s hatred and enmity towards the house of Israel. Did Israel expect to journey near to Edom and not be attacked? And do you expect, Christian, that sin shall be round about you and not assault you?

From a sermon entitled War With Amalek, delivered September 23, 1866. Image by Dean Souglass under Creative Commons License.

Wonderful in counsel, excellent in His Work

“This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”-Isaiah 28:29.

What a dream was that of Jacob when he saw the ladder the foot whereof rested upon the earth, and the top whereof reached up to the seventh heaven. That dream is more than realised when I see the foot of the ladder in the humanity of Christ, fixed in Bethlehem’s manger, or if you will at Calvary’s cross, and then behold the top of that ladder reaching up to the eternal throne, where he reigns as “God over all, blessed for ever,” who was also “the Son of Man.”

When I look at each of the rounds of that ladder, and see the proofs of Divine love in the Savior’s sighs and tears, and bloody sweat, and passion, and death, I am lost in wonder. Truly it is a matchless scheme by which justice has its due, and mercy has its sway, by which vengeance is satisfied, holiness is gratified, and yet love and mercy, uncontrolled and unlimited, sway their silver scepter among the sons of men. When I see this great sight those words of Isaiah’s ring with a bell-like music in my ears, “He is wonderful in counsel.” But, beloved, when you see redemption wrought out, and when you think that God really gave his only Son and that this Son actually did come to Bethlehem, really lived among the sons of men, bowed his neck to the yoke of obedience, and gave his hands to the nails, and his side to the spear, that his death was no fiction, but a grand reality, when you see that redemption completed by the resurrection of the Master, and bear the angelic shouts as he ascends on high, leading captivity captive, and see heaven lit up with a supernal splendor as he mounts to his well earned throne, you then find that he is as wonderful in the carrying out of redemption as he is in the proposing of it, that he is wonderful in counsel, and that he is also excellent in working.

From a sermon entitled "A Feast For Faith," delivered September 16, 1866. Image by DavetheGrey under Creative Commons License.