See what He has done!

And see what he has done for us! He has procured our pardon; we who have believed in him are forgiven. He has procured our adoption; we are sons of God in Christ Jesus. He has shut the gates of hell for us; we cannot perish, nor can any pluck us out of his hands. He has opened the gates of heaven for us; we shall be with him where he is. Our very bodies shall feel the power of his death, for they shall rise again at the sound of the trumpet at the last day. He was delivered for us his people, “for us all;” he endured all for all his people, for all who trust him, for every son of Adam that casts himself upon him; for every son and daughter of man that will rely alone upon him for salvation. Was he delivered for you, dear hearer?

From a sermon entitled "The Gospel Of Abraham's Sacrifice Of Isaac," delivered May 2, 1869. Image by Michael under Creative Commons License.

A faith which will not retreat

Brethren beloved in the Lord, believe that all things work together for your good, and that if you are commanded by conscience and God’s word to do that which would beggar you or cast you into disrepute, it cannot be a real hurt to you; it must be all right. I have seen men cast out of work owing to their keeping the Lord’s-day, or they have been for a little time out of a situation because they could not fall into the tricks of trade, and they have suffered awhile; but, alas! some of them have lost heart after a time, and yielded to the evil.

O for the faith which never will, under any persuasion or compulsion, fly from the field. If men had strength enough to say, “If I die and rot I will not sin; if they cast me out to the carrion crow, yet still nothing shall make me violate my conscience, or do what God commands me not to do, or fail to do what God commands me to perform!” This is the faith of Abraham. Would God we had it! We should have a glorious race of Christians if such were the case.

From a sermon entitled "Mature Faith - Illustrated By Abraham's Offering Up Isaac," delivered May 2, 1869. Image by Mike McCullough under Creative Commons License.

Binding your own hands

“He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” - Psalm 126:6.

We must go fresh from the mercy-seat to the field of service if we would gather plenteously. Our truest strength lies in prayer. I am persuaded, brethren, that we are losing much of blessing which might come upon the church through our negligence in private supplications. I cannot pry into your prayer-closets, but I believe that in the conscience of many of you, there will be an affirmative voice to the charge I lay against some of you; ye have restrained prayer before God. Your restraining of prayer, if you seek to serve God, is binding your own hands and cutting the sinews of your strength. As you could not expect to be vigorous if you denied yourselves food, so neither can you hope to be strong if you deny yourselves prayer. Get close to God, for strength flows out of him. Keep at a distance from him, and you lose all power and become weak as water. “He that goeth forth,” must mean, then, that he has stood before the mercy-seat, that he has told out the story of his wants where the blood is sprinkled, and then has gone forth in the power which prayer alone can bring from heaven to scatter his precious seed among men.

From a sermon entitled "Tearful Sowing And Joyful Reaping," delivered April 25, 1869. Image by Satoru Kikuchi under Creative Commons License.

Finding Real Rest

Our faith must take God at his word, or it cannot taste the sweetness of his abounding peace. The child that cannot trust its parent, cannot expect to have the freedom from care which is childhood’s dear inheritance; but the more fully we can rest upon our Father’s promise, the more we can feel that it is not for us to enquire how he can do this, nor how he can do that, nor when he will deliver us, but can altogether leave everything with him: and lean on him alone without a second helper, then it is that our rest becomes profound and undisturbed.

O you who are in the church, and yet cannot rest as you could wish, ask the Lord to increase your faith. O you who do trust him, but are often staggered, go again to the cross-foot and look to him who suffered there; look again to the precious sin-atoning blood; look up once more into the great Father’s face who accepts those that trust in Jesus, and you shall yet have the perfect rest which God gives only to believers.

From a sermon entitled "Rest," delivered April 18, 1869. Image by Satoru Kikuchi under Creative Commons License.

A love with no boundary

He loved you without beginning. Before years, and centuries, and millenniums began to be counted, your name was on his heart. Eternal thoughts of love have been in God’s bosom towards you. He has loved you without a pause; there never was a minute in which he did not love you. Your name once engraved upon his hands has never been erased, nor has he ever blotted it out of the Book of Life. Since you have been in this world he has loved you most patiently. You have often provoked him; you have rebelled against him times without number, yet he has never stayed the outflow of his heart towards you; and, blessed be his name, he never will. You are his, and you always shall be his. Jesus saith, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” God’s love to you is without boundary. He could not love you more, for he loves you like a God; and he never will love you less. All his heart belongs to you. “As the Father hath loved me,” saith Jesus, “even so have I loved you.”

From a sermon entitled "Deep Calleth Unto Deep," delivered April 11, 1869. Image by Satoru Kikuchi under Creative Commons License.

Are you a stuffed Christian?

How like to a Christian a man may be and yet possess no vital godliness! Walk through the British Museum, and you will see all the orders of animals standing in their various places, and exhibiting themselves with the utmost possible propriety. The rhinoceros demurely retains the position in which he was set at first, the eagle soars not through the window, the wolf howls not at night; every creature, whether bird, beast, or fish, remains in the particular glass case allotted to it; but you all know well enough that these are not the creatures, but only the outward semblances of them. Yet in what do they differ? Certainly in nothing which you could readily see, for the well-stuffed animal is precisely like what the living animal would have been; and that eye of glass even appears to have more of brightness in it than the natural eye of the creature itself; yet you know well enough that there is a secret inward something lacking, which, when it has once departed, you cannot restore.

So in the churches of Christ, many professors are not living believers, but stuffed believers, stuffed Christians. There is all the external of religion, everything that you could desire, and they behave with a great deal of propriety, too; they all keep their places, and there is no outward difference between them and the living, except upon the vital point, the life which no power on earth could possibly confer. There is this essential distinction, the life is absent. It is almost painful to watch little children when some little pet of theirs has died, how they can hardly realize the difference between death and life! Your little boy’s bird moped for awhile upon its perch, and at last dropped down in the cage; and do not you remember how the little fellow tried to set it up, and gave it seed, and filled its glass with water, and was quite surprised to think that birdie would not open his little eye upon his friend as it did before, and would not take its seed, nor drink its water! Ah, you had at last to make him know that a mysterious something had gone from his little favourite, and would not come back again. There is just such a spiritual difference between the mere professor and the genuine Christian. There is an invisible, but most real, indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the absence or the presence of which makes all the difference between the sinner and the saint.

From a sermon entitled "Life's Ever-Springing Well," delivered April 4, 1869. Image by marya under Creative Commons License.

Not a fable

Disprove the resurrection of our Lord, and our holy faith would be a mere fable; there would be nothing for faith to rest upon if he who died upon the tree did not also rise again from the tomb; then “your faith is vain;” said the apostle, “ye are yet in your sins,” while” they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” All the great doctrines of our divine religion fall asunder like the stones of an arch when the key-stone is dislodged, in a common ruin they are all overthrown, for all our hope hinges upon that great fact.

If Jesus rose, then is this gospel what it professes to be; if he rose not from the dead, then is it all deceit and delusion. But, brethren, that Jesus rose from the dead is a fact better established than almost any other in history. The witnesses were many: they were men of all classes and conditions. None of them ever confessed himself mistaken or deceptive. They were so persuaded that it was the fact, that the most of them suffered death for bearing witness to it. They had nothing to gain by such a witnessing; they did not rise in power, nor gain honor or wealth; they were truthful, simpleminded men who testified what they had seen and bore witness to that which they had beheld. The resurrection is a fact better attested than any event recorded in any history whether ancient or modern.

From a sermon entitled "The Stone Rolled Away," delivered March 28, 1869. Image by Sergio R. Nuñez C. under Creative Commons License.

From one heart to another

I counsel you, my dear friends, when you have a choice of the ministry you shall attend, do not select a man merely for his learning, nor according to his standing in society, nor according to the excellence of his speech. Remember, all these may be but as sounding brass, and as a tinkling cymbal; they may just mean nothing, and less than nothing.

But, on the other hand, should the preacher be illiterate, if God’s Spirit evidently rests upon the man, and he speaks from his heart to your heart, and God has blessed his message to you, it will be better for you to frequent the humblest shed where God is present, than to worship in the most respectable edifice where you will have nothing but the words of man, without the living power of the living God. My soul is more and more growingly convinced that the great need of some of us is not to cull the flowers of rhetoric tastefully, and polish our sentences, till they glide daintily into your ears, but to let the speech come forth with unchecked freedom, the outpouring of our hearts in simplicity under the power of the Spirit.

From a sermon entitled "Winnowing-Time," delivered January 17, 1867. Image by Jim Unterscholtz under Creative Commons License.

What shall we long for on this earth?

If I have grown in anything since I have known the Lord, I think it is in this one thing, in having more frequent and realising thoughts of God the Father, Son, and Spirit, personally considered.

There was a day when I thought doctrine the first thing and all important, and there was a time when I conceived inward experience to be most exceedingly worthy of my regard; I think the same now, but over and above all, that my soul possesses a deep sense of God, and a longing to be in daily personal fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. Surely this being filled with God is a more excellent way, for doctrine may be but food untasted, and experience may turn out to be but fancy, but to live upon God by faith, and to serve Christ with the heart, and to feel the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, this is reality and truth.

From a sermon entitled "Broken Bones," delivered March 21, 1869. Image by Damien Firmenich under Creative Commons License.

Preaching His Cross will bring new life

Many have come under the sound of the gospel resolved to scoff, but they have returned to pray. The idlest and even the basest motives have brought men under the preaching, but when Jesus has been lifted up, they have been savingly drawn to him, and as a consequence have smitten upon their breasts in repentance, and gone their way to serve the Savior whom they once blasphemed. Oh, the power, the melting, conquering, transforming power of that dear cross of Christ! My brethren, we have but to abide by the preaching of it, we have but constantly to tell abroad the matchless story, and we may expect to see the most remarkable spiritual results. We need despair of no man now that Jesus has died for sinners.

From a sermon entitled "Mourning At The Sight Of The Crucified," delivered March 14, 1869. Image by Jesse Kruger under Creative Commons License.

Beware of Self-Righteousness

...the old way which wicked men have trodden is a way of self-righteousness. Cain, especially, trod that road. He was not an outwardly irreligious man, but quite the reverse. Inasmuch as a sacrifice must be brought, he will bring an offering on his own account. If Abel kneels by the altar, Cain will kneel by the altar also. It was respectable and reputable in that age to pay deference to the unseen God, Cain therefore does the same; but mark where the flaw was in his religion! Abel brought a bloody sacrifice, a lamb, indicating his faith in the great atoning sacrifice, which was to be offered in the end of the world in the person of the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus; but Cain presented an unbloody offering of the fruits of the earth, the products of his own toil, and he thought himself as good as Abel, perhaps better. When the Lord did not accept his service, the envious heart of the self-righteous man boiled over with indignation, and he became a persecutor, ay, a murderer.

None are so bitter as the self-righteous; none so cruelly persecute the righteous as those who think themselves righteous and are not. It was because Saul of Tarsus boasted in a fancied righteousness of his own that he breathed out threatenings against those who found their righteousness alone in Christ. The old way of self-righteousness, then, was trodden by the feet of the first murderer, and it is trodden still by tens of thousands of men. Ah, your church-goings and your chapel-goings, your carings of the sacrament, your baptism, your confirmation, your ceremonies of all sorts and kinds, your gifts to the poor, your contributions to charities, your amiable speeches, and your repetitions of your liturgies, or of your extemporaneous prayers; these, put together, are rested on as the rock of your salvation. Beware, I entreat you, for this is the old way of the Pharisee when he thanked God that he was not as other men; it is the old way of universal human nature which evermore goeth about to establish its own righteousness, and will not submit itself to the righteousness of Christ. As surely as the Pharisees were condemned as a generation of vipers, and could not escape the damnation of hell, so surely every one of us, if we set up our righteousness in the place of Christ’s righteousness, will meet with condemnation, and will be overthrown by God’s sudden wrath. Mark that old way, and I beseech you, men and brethren, flee from it; by God’s grace, flee from it now.

From a sermon entitled "The Old Way Of The Wicked," delivered March 7th, 1869. Image by Geof Wilson under Creative Commons License.

One subject over all

Brethren, there is an abiding fullness of truth in Christ; after you have heard it for fifty years, you see more of its fullness than you did at first. Other truths weary the ear. I will defy any man to hold together a large congregation, year after year, with any other subject but Christ Jesus. He might do it for a time; he might charm the ear with the discoveries of science, or with the beauties of poetry, and his oratory might be of so high an order that he might attract the multitudes who have itching ears, but they would in time turn away and say, “This is no longer to be endured. We know it all.”

All music becomes wearisome but that of heaven; but oh! if the minstrel doth but strike this celestial harp, though he keepeth his fingers always among its golden strings, and be but poor and unskilled upon an instrument so divine, yet the melody of Jesus’ name, and the sweet harmony of all his acts and attributes, will hold his listeners by the ears and thrill their hearts as nought beside can do. The theme of Jesus’ love is inexhaustible, though preachers may have dwelt upon it century after century, a freshness and fullness still remain.

From a sermon entitled "The Fulness Of Jesus The Treasury Of Saints," delivered February 28, 1869. Image by Luis Argerich under Creative Commons License.

Nearer than ever to home!

You have been nearly shipwrecked, but you are not wrecked. The storm has been very furious, but above all the billows Jehovah’s power has kept and preserved you. Your feet had almost gone, your steps had well nigh slipped, but the divine power interposed in everlasting grace, and to this day - a wonder unto many, but especially a wonder to yourself - you are still on the road towards the celestial city, and you are nearer to it than when you first believed.

From a sermon entitled "Timely Reflections," delivered December 27, 1868. Image by Craig ONeal under Creative Commons License.

Praying always

You need not be afraid that there is anything in any lawful calling that need make you desist from vital prayer; but, oh! if your calling is such that you cannot pray in it;, you had better leave it. If it be a sinful calling, an unholy calling, of course, you cannot present that to God, but any of the ordinary avocations of life are such that if you cannot sanctify them, it is a want of sanctity in yourself, and the fault lies with you.

Men ought always to pray. It means that when they are using the lapstone, or the chisel, when the hands are on the plough handles, or on the spade, when they are measuring out the goods, when they are dealing in stocks, whatever they are doing, they are to turn all these things into a part of the sacred pursuit of God’s glory. Their common garments are to be vestments, their meals are to be sacraments, their ordinary actions are to be sacrifices, and they themselves a royal priesthood, a peculiar people zealous for good works.

From a sermon entitled "The Importunate Widow," delivered February 21, 1869. Image by Jasen Miller under Creative Commons License.

Wasting our strength

While this world remains so wicked as it is, we need not be spending our strength as Christian denominations in attacking one another: it will be better for us to go and fight with the Canaanites than with rival tribes which should be one united Israel. I should reckon it to be a burning disgrace if it could be said, “The large church under that man’s pastoral care is composed of members whom he has stolen away from other Christian churches.” No, but I value beyond all price the godless, the careless, who are brought out from the world into communion with Christ. These are true prizes, not stealthily removed from friendly shores, but captured at the edge of the sword from an enemy’s dominions.

We welcome brethren from other churches if in the providence of God they are drifted to our shores, but we would never hang out the wrecker’s beacon to dash other churches in pieces in order to enrich ourselves with the wreck. Far rather would we be looking after perishing souls than cajoling unstable ones from their present place of worship. To recruit one regiment from another is no real strengthening of the army; to bring in fresh men should be the aim of all.

From a sermon entitled "Every-Day Usefulness," delivered February 14, 1869. Image by Donald Macleod under Creative Commons License.

We need His fire!

...the fire in the preacher sent of God is not that of mere excitement, nor that alone of an intelligent judgment acting upon the passions; but there is also a mysterious influence resting on God’s servants which is irresistible. The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven anoints all true evangelists, and is the true power and fire. The more we believe in the presence and power of the Holy Ghost, the more likely shall we be to see the gospel triumphant in our ministry.

Brethren, there is nothing in the gospel, apart from the Spirit of God, which can win upon man, for man hates the gospel with all his heart. Though the reasonableness of the gospel of Jesus ought to make the belief of it universal, yet its plain dealing with human sin excites deadly antagonism; and, therefore, the gospel itself would make no progress were it not for the divine power. There is an arm invisible which pushes forward the conquests of the truth, there is a fire unfed of human fuel, which burns a way for the truth of Jesus Christ into the hearts of men.

From a sermon entitled "Fire - The Want Of The Times," delivered February 7, 1869. Image by Arturo Donate under Creative Commons License.

Do not be swallowed up by your mourning

Let none of us give way to an irritable, complaining, mournful temperament. It is the giving way which is the master-mischief; for it is only as we resist this devil that it will flee from us. Let not your heart be troubled. If the troubles outside the soul toss your vessel and drive her to and fro, yet, at least, let us strain every nerve to keep the seas outside the bark, lest she sink altogether. Cry with David, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?”

Never mourn unreasonably. Question yourself about the causes of your tears; reason about the matter till you come to the same conclusion as the psalmist, “Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him.” Depend upon it, if thou canst believe in God, thou hast, even in thy soul’s midnight, ten times more cause to rejoice than to sorrow. If thou canst humbly lie at Jesus’ feet, there are more flowers than thorns ready to spring up in thy pathway; joys lie in ambush for thee; thou shalt be compassed about with songs of deliverance. Therefore, companions in tribulation, give not way to hopeless sorrow; write no bitter things against yourselves; salute with thankfulness the angel of hope, and say no more, “My soul refused to be comforted.”

From a sermon entitled "A Sermon For The Most Miserable Of Men," delivered January 31, 1869. Image by Romtomtom under Creative Commons License.

You will complete your journey!

Earnest Christians in toiling towards heaven often grow faint, and in year after year of the pursuit of righteousness, human nature becomes weary of the daily watching unto prayer; but the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen his saints for the pilgrimage, lest they faint or turn aside. The Lord will renew the strength of those who wait on him, so that they shall hold on their way.

Poor traveler to Mount Zion, the devil tells you that you will soon turn back unto perdition, but be of good courage, mighty is he that is in you; his grace is sufficient for you. The divine life within you will not stay its sacred impulse for the holy and the heavenly till it has brought you up from the wilderness and lodged you within the palace gate of Jehovah.

From a sermon entitled "Constancy and Inconstancy - A Contrast," delivered January 24, 1869. Image by Vince Alongi under Creative Commons License.

First, the Cross

Christ’s second coming was never intended to take the place of Christ’s crucifixion, and yet there have been some, I fear, who, in their zeal for the very great and important truth of the coming glory, have suffered the blazing light of the second advent to obscure the milder radiance, and the more healing beams of the first advent, with its bloody sweat, its scourge, and thorn-crown, and ransom price for sinners lost.

Let it be never forgotten, that while we bless Immanuel, God with us, for his incarnation, and we joyfully perceive that even our Lord’s birth in human flesh brought man near to God; while we thank and praise the Man of Sorrows for his divine example, and we see that this is a blessed help to us practically to advance towards our heavenly Father; while we praise and magnify the Lord Jesus for his resurrection and his ascension, and discern in each glorious step fresh rounds of the ladder which leads from earth to heaven; yet still, for all that, we are not made nigh to God by the incarnation; we are not in very deed made nigh to God by the resurrection, nor by the second advent, but we are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

The first, the grandest, the highest, the most essential truth for us to lay hold of and to preach, is the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sakes according to the Scriptures, and that this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and for sinners gave himself up to die, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. God is glorified because Christ was punished for the sin of his people. Love hath its full, but law has its due. On the cross we see sin fully punished and yet fully pardoned. We see justice with her gleaming sword triumphant, and mercy with her silver scepter regnant in sublimest splendor. Glory be to the wondrous wisdom which discovered the way of blending vengeance with love, making a tender heart to be the mirror of unflinching severity, causing the crystal vase of Jesus’ loving nature to be filled with the red wine of righteous wrath.

From a sermon entitled "Nearness To God," delivered January 17, 1869. Image by Vince Alongi under Creative Commons License.

How to carve a permanent memorial

I think it was Michelangelo who once carved certain magnificent statues in snow. They are gone; the material readily compacted by the frost as readily melted in the heat. Far wiser was he when he fashioned the enduring marble, and produced works which will last all down the ages. But even marble itself is consumed and fretted by the tooth of time; and he is wise who selects for his raw material immortal souls, whose existence shall outlast the stars.

If God shall bless us to the winning of souls, our work shall remain when the wood, and hay, and stubble of earth’s art and science shall have gone to the dust from which they sprang. In heaven itself, the soul-winner, blessed of God, shall have memorials of his work preserved for ever in the galleries of the skies. He has selected a wise object, for what can be wiser than to glorify God, and what, next to that, can be wiser than in the highest sense to bless our fellow men; to snatch a soul from the gulf that yawns, to lift it up to the heaven that glorifies; to deliver an immortal from the thraldom of Satan, and to bring him into the liberty of Christ?

From a sermon entitled "Soul Winning." Image by Wouter under Creative Commons License.

Great falls are gradual

Rest assured, beloved, great falls and terrible mischief never come to a Christian man at once, they are a work of slow degrees; and be assured, too, that you may glide down the smooth waters of the river and never dream of the Niagara beyond, and yet you may be speeding towards it. An awful crash may yet come to the highest professor among us, that shall make the world to ring with blasphemy against God, and the church to resound with bitter lamentations because the mighty have fallen.

God will keep his own, but how if I should turn out not to be his own? He will keep the feet of his saints, but what if I leave off to watch, and my feet should not be kept, and I should turn out to be no saint of his, but a mere intruder into his family, and a pretender to have what I never had! O God, through Christ Jesus, deliver each of us from this.

From a sermon entitled "Unsound Spiritual Trading," delivered January 10, 1869. Image by Wouter under Creative Commons License.

A Savior, not merely an Example

On Calvary was it seen that the Son of Man saved others, though, through blessed incapacity of love, “himself he could not save.” When he was made to feel the wrath of God on account of sin, and pangs unknown were suffered by him as our substitute, when he was made to pass through the thick darkness and burning heat of divine wrath, then was he, according to Scripture, “the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe.”

Yes, it is on the tree that Christ is peculiarly a Savior. If he were nothing better than our exemplar [example], alas for us! We might be grateful for the example if we could imitate it, but without the pardon which spares us, and the grace which gives us power for holiness, the brightest example were a tantalising of our grief. To be shown what we ought to be, without having any method set before us by which we could attain to it, were to mock our misery. But Jesus first draws us up out of the horrible pit into which we were fallen, takes us out of the miry clay, by the efficacy of his stoning sacrifice, and then, having set our feet upon a rock by virtue of his merits, he himself leads the way onward to perfection, and so is a Savior both in life and in death.

From a sermon entitled "Jesus Christ Immutable," delivered January 3, 1869. Image by Yuval Haimovits under Creative Commons License.

Fear will magnify your trouble

I remember well, one night, having been preaching the word in a country village, I was walking home alone along a lonely footpath. I do not know what it was that ailed me, but I was prepared to be alarmed, when of a surety I saw something standing in the hedge, ghastly, giant-like, and with outstretched arms. Surely, I thought, for once I have come across the supernatural; here is some restless spirit performing its midnight march beneath the moon, or some demon of the pit. I deliberated with myself a moment, and having no faith in ghosts, I plucked up courage, and resolved to solve the mystery. The monster stood on the other side of a ditch, right in the hedge. I jumped the ditch, and found myself grasping an old tree, which some waggish body had taken pains to color with a little whitewash, with a view to frighten simpletons. That old tree has served me a good turn full often, for I have learned to leap at difficulties, and find them vanish or turn to triumphs.

Half our afflictions are only appalling in prospect because we do not know what they are; and if we will but in faith patiently await them, they will be but light and transient. Thus, by chasing away the gloom of our dark imagination, God often makes darkness light before us. Much, again, of the darkness which does really exist is exaggerated. There is some cause for alarm, but not one half the cause which your fancy pictures. “All these things are against me,” says Jacob: “Joseph is not, Simeon is not; and now ye will take Benjamin away.” There was something in this complaint. Joseph was not with his father, Simeon was kept in ward; but the old man had pictured Joseph devoured of an evil beast, and Simeon given up to be a perpetual slave in a foreign land.

His fears had magnified the trouble which existed. And, believer, so probably it is with you. You shall find that the load which seems now to be far too ponderous for you to lift, shall be easily carried on the shoulders which divine grace shall strengthen if you have but confidence enough to venture upon the task. That cross is not made of iron, it is only a wooden one; it may be painted with iron colors, but iron it is not; it has been carried, ay, and a weightier one by far, has been carried by other men aforetime - shoulder it like a man, shoulder it like a man of God. Take up your cross daily, and go forward with your Master, and you shall find that mountains shrink to molehills, giants are seen to be but dwarfs, dragons and griffins are but bats and owls, and the leviathan himself a defeated foe.

From a sermon entitled "Joyful Transformations," delivered December 27, 1868. Image by Thomas & Dianne Jones under Creative Commons License.

Glorious Names

O beloved, what glorious names our Lord deservedly wears! Whichever of his names you choose to dwell upon for a moment, what a mine of wealth and meaning it opens up to you! Here is this name, “El Shaddai;” “El,” that is, “the strong one,” for infinite power dwells in Jehovah. How readily may we who are weak become mighty if we draw upon him! And then, “Shaddai,” that is to say, “the unchangeable, the invincible.” What a God we have then, who knows no variableness, neither shadow of turning, against whom none can stand! “El,” strong; “Shaddai,” unchangeable in his strength; always therefore strong in every time of need, ready to defend his people, and able to preserve them from all their foes.

Come, Christian, with such a God as this why needest thou abase thyself to win the good word of the wicked man? Why gaddest thou abroad to find earthly pleasures where the roses are always mixed with thorns? Why needest thou to put thy confidence in gold and silver, or in the strength of thy body, or in aught that is beneath the moon? Thou hast El Shaddai to be thine.

From a sermon entitled "Consecration to God - Illustrated By Abram's Circumcision," delivered December 13, 1868. Image by Tony under Creative Commons License.

The real faith

The faith which justifies the soul concerns itself about Christ and not concerning mere abstract truths. If your faith simply believeth this dogma and that, it saveth you not; but when your faith believes that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses; when your faith turns to God in human flesh and rests in him with its entire confidence, then it justifies you, for it is the faith of Abram.

Dear hearer, have you such a faith as this? Is it faith in the promise of God? Is it faith that deals with Christ and looks alone to him?

From a sermon entitled "Justification By Faith - Illustrated By Abram's Righteousness," delivered December 6, 1868. Image by Melissa Wiese under Creative Commons License.

Called and separated

For Christ’s sake the Christian man is henceforth obliged to be separated in many respects from such of his family and kindred as remain in their sins. They are living according to the flesh, they are seeking this world; their pleasure is here, their comfort below the skies. The man who is called by grace lives in the same house, but lives not under the influence of the same motives, nor is he ruled by the same desires. He is so different from others that very soon they find him out; and, as Ishmael mocked Isaac, so the sons of the world mock at the children of the resurrection. The call of grace, the more it is heard the more it completes the separation.

At first, with some believers, they only go part of the way in nonconformity to the world; they are only partly conformed to Jesus Christ’s image, and partly led out of worldly influences. Indeed, this is the case with most of us; but as we ripen in the things of God, our decision for God becomes more complete, our obedience to the law of Christ becomes more perfect, and there is a greater division set between us and the world. Oh! I wish that all Christians would believe this great truth, and carry it out, that “ye are not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world.” To try to be a worldly Christian or a Christian worldling, is to attempt an impossible thing.

From a sermon entitled "Effectual Calling Illustrated By The Call Of Abram," delivered November 29, 1868. Image by James Jordan under Creative Commons License.

When we shall be as the angels

As we shall resemble the angels in beauty, so no doubt we shall also equal them in strength: “Bless the Lord, ye his angels that excel in strength.” Thus saith the apostle, “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.” What kind of power that will be we may guess. There will be an enlarged mental capacity, a far more extensive spiritual range. So far as the new body is concerned, there will be an amount of power in it of which we have no conception. What we shall be, beloved, in the matter of strength, we cannot tell, but this we know, that we shall not need so constantly to stretch our weary frames upon the bed of rest, and to lie half our time in unconsciousness, for we shall serve him day and night in his temple; and this indicates a degree of unweariedness and physical endurance to which we are total strangers now. We shall in this also be as the angels of God.

Just then for a minute let your thoughts foresee that blessed personality which shall be yours when this present age is past. You suffer today, you are today despised and rejected; but as from yonder creeping caterpillar, or from this dried up chrysalis, there will arise a lovely creature with wings coloured like the rainbow, so from your poor groaning humanity there shall come forth a fair and lovely being; while your spirit also shall cast off the slough of its natural depravity, be rid of all the foulness and damage of its sojourn here below, and your whole man shall be restored a goodly fabric - a temple glorious to look upon, in which God shall dwell with you, and in which you shall dwell with God.

From a sermon entitled "The Angelic Life," delivered November 22, 1868. Image by John Talbot under Creative Commons License.

Our privilege and our duty

If there be any here who have received the grace of God, it will be natural for them to induce others to listen to the word of life, that so they also may find salvation in our exalted Savior. Thus it is that more and more the kingdom grows, until the strongholds of sin are overthrown and the gates of hell are shaken. The little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand increases till it darkens all the skies, and at last deluges the earth with blessing. Let us take care that we prove not an exception to this blessed rule, never let us by unholy silence rob our Master of one of his best weapons, and the church of her greatest joy. You who are healed should publish abroad in every place the fame of the Friend of Sinners, it is your privilege and your duty.

From a sermon entitled "Crowding To Touch The Savior," delivered November 13, 1868. Image by Jayanta Debnath under Creative Commons License.

Admonition to Parents

Parental care can alone preserve household piety, and if that be gone, the pillars of the nation are removed. It is an ill day for any church when family piety is on the decline. Household religion has been the great defense of England against Popery. Do not tell me of your state paid clergy and their lofty prelates - give me family prayer, and the Pope may curse away as long as he likes. Give us the open catechism, and the children made to understand it; give us the Bible read from day to day, and godly parents inculcating gospel truths upon their little ones’ minds, and we may laugh to scorn all the powers of Pope or devil.

But once let the family altar be forsaken, and let parents forget the natural duty of ordering their households before the Lord, and you may guard the church as you will, your labor will be vain; you have cast down her hedges, the bear out of the wood shall waste her; you have taken away the tower of the flock, and when the wolf cometh he will find the sheep an easy prey. Christian parents, though I cannot address you this morning as I would, yet with all my heart would I say to you, do not sin against the child by your ill example or by your negligence as to his salvation, but seek of the Holy Spirit that to your own offspring you may fully discharge the solemn duties which providence and grace have thrown upon you.

From a sermon entitled "Do Not Sin Against The Child," delivered November 8, 1868. Image by Chris under Creative Commons License.

Christ our Teacher

It is nothing, my brethren, to the faithful servant of Jesus Christ that a certain dogma comes down to him with the grey antiquity of the ages to make it venerable. Like a sensible man, the Christian respects antiquity, but like a loyal subject of his King, he does not so bow before antiquity as to let it become ruler in Zion instead of the living Christ. A multitude of good men may meet together, and they may, in their judgment, propound a dogma, and assert it to be essential and undoubted, and they may even threaten perils most abundant to those who receive not their verdict; but if the dogma was not authorized long before they decided it - if it was not written in the Book, the decision of the learned council amounts to nothing.

All the fathers, and doctors, and divines, and confessors, put together, cannot add a word to the faith once delivered unto the saints: yea, I venture to say, that the unanimous assent of all the saints in heaven and earth would not suffice to make a single doctrine binding upon conscience unless Jesus had so determined. In vain do men say, “So did the early church” - the early church has no supremacy over us. It is to no purpose to quote Origen or Augustine: quote the inspired apostles and the doctrine is established, but not otherwise. In the church of God it is never sufficient to say, “So thinks Martin Luther.” Who was Martin Luther? A servant of Jesus Christ, and nothing more. It is not sufficient to say, “So teacheth John Calvin,” for who is John Calvin? Hath he shed his blood for you, or is he your master? His opinion is to be respected as the opinion of your fellow servant, but in no respect as a doctor or authoritative teacher in the church - for Christ alone is Rabbi, and we are to call no man Master upon earth.

From a sermon entitled "The Head of the Church," delivered November 1, 1868. Image by Martina Rathgens under Creative Commons License.

The Perils of Idleness

Some men have not enough force of character in them to be downright wicked; they are mere chips in the porridge, with nothing of manhood in them. They are so idle that they are not even good enough to be diligent servants of Satan. There be some who would if they could, I think, lie in bed and rot of slothfulness, to whom it would be their supremest bliss for ever to have nothing to do, and nothing to think of, except it may be a little eating and drinking by way of variety. Because this indolence abounds, many men sleep on and awake not to righteousness and to the service of God. To repent is troublesome; to believe in Jesus Christ requires the exercise of thought; to be a Christian is too laborious; to watch your conduct and conversation is too much to require of them. If heaven could be reached in a sound sleep, and sleeping cars could be run all the way to the Celestial City, they would be among the best of pilgrims; but they cannot rub their eyes even to see Jesus, or leave their couch to win heaven itself.

How will these simpletons wake up one day when they find that their life of trifling has brought them within the fast closed gates of hell! God is not to be trifled with. He does not make immortal beings that they may sport like butterflies from flower to flower. He does not create souls and give them lives to spend in child’s play, fashionable frivolities, and killing of time. Yet in the face of eternity, life, death, heaven, and hell, multitudes upon multitudes are ruined simply because they neglect the great salvation, and are absolutely too idle to concern themselves about eternal matters. They doze into damnation, they sleep into eternal fire! But what a waking! O my
fellow men, run not the risk, run not the risk!

From a sermon entitled "Sins Of Omission," delivered October 25, 1868. Image by joiseyshowaa under Creative Commons License.

How God uses affliction

Our spirits, under God, live by passing through the sorrows of the present; for first, let me remind you, that by these trials and afflictions we live, because they are medicinal. There are spiritual diseases which would corrupt our spirit if not checked, kept down, and destroyed as to their reigning power by the daily cross which the Lord lays upon our shoulders. Just as the fever must be held in check by the bitter draught of quinine, so must the bitter cup of affliction rebuke our rising pride and worldliness. We should exalt ourselves above measure, and provoke the Lord to jealousy against us, were it not that trouble lays us low.

None of us shall know until we read our biography in the light of heaven, from what inbred sins, foul corruptions, damnable uncleanliness, and detestable lusts we have been delivered, by being driven again and again along the fiery road of affliction. Adversities are the sharp knives with which God doth cut from us the deadly ulcers of our sins; these are the two-edged swords with which he slays our enemies and his own which lurk within us. He must prune us and trim us as the gardener his trees, otherwise we shall bring forth no fruit.

From a sermon entitled "All These Things - A Sermon with Three Texts," delivered October 18, 1868. Image by Neal Fowler under Creative Commons License.

Waiting for God's Conclusion

Only little children put their seeds into the ground and then turn up the mould to discover whether the seeds are growing on the morrow. It was said of the northern nations, near the pole, and said truthfully, that they sowed their barley in the morning and reaped it at night, because the sun goes not down for four mouths at a time; but in sober truth we must not expect to have the rewards of grace given to us immediately we believe.

This is the time for running, not for tarrying to gaze upon the prize. This is the hour for the battle, not yet may we rest on our laurels. There must be a trial of our patience and our faith. God delights that his servants should be put through many exercises and ordeals, in order that the praise of the glory of his grace may be manifest in them and through them, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. Wait, then, Christian; be content to wait. The Bridegroom cometh quickly; rest assured of that; and if you think he lingereth, ask for greater patience, that you may patiently work on, continuing steadfast and unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Expect not your full reward of joy tomorrow; your lot is on the other side of Jordan; the bells of your wedding day shall ring out in another world, and your coronation will be received in the ivory palaces, upon which the sun hath never shone. You are espoused to a Husband who is not here; you look for a kingdom far above these changeful skies. Have patience, then, till the great hour shall come, and the King shall descend to take his own.

From a sermon entitled "Sown Light," delivered October 11, 1868. Image by Jeff Kubina under Creative Commons License.

Everyone called to cheerful giving

Some are enabled, being made stewards of wealth, to give largely of their substance. They are bound to do so, but they should not give it merely as being bound, but feeling it to be their privilege to give whatsoever they can to him who gave them their all, and who is their all. The poorest Christian is not exempted from this privilege. If he hath but little, God accepteth according to that which a man hath, and not according to that which he hath not, and if he be so poor that he cannot even give the two mites which make a farthing, still he may give to God of his time, he may give to God of such ability as he hath in the teaching of the young, in the distribution of the printed word, or in some other form of service which shall come conveniently within his reach. But none must escape from being givers to God in some way, for we are all receivers and should be all dispensers. Give him our prayers, give him our praises, give him such efforts as we can, but let us all be givers, and let us take heed to the text, and be cheerful givers too.

From a sermon entitled "A Cheerful Giver Beloved Of God," delivered August 27, 1868. Image by P J Hansen under Creative Commons License.

The Blessed Substitute

But, beloved, when I first understood that Jesus Christ stood in the place of all those that believe in him, and that, if I trusted him my sins were all forgiven, because they had been already punished in the person of my blessed substitute, then I had no longer occasion for despair; then I listened to the word of the gospel, feeling, “There is hope for me, even for me.” When I understood that there was nothing expected from me in order to salvation, but that all must come from Jesus; that I was not to be wounded, nor to be made to smart, but that he had been smitten and had been made to bleed on my behalf; and that my life must be found in his death, and my healing in his wounds, then hope sprung up - bright-eyed hope - and my soul turned unto her Father and her God with loving expectations. Was it not so with you?

From a sermon entitled "The Universal Remedy," delivered October 4, 1868. Image by Stephanie Klocke under Creative Commons License.

We shall give eternal praise

The sun shall grow dim with age, and the whole universe shall shrivel up like a scroll that is burnt in the flame; but God has selected immortal men who cannot die, and in these he has wrought a work which they never can forget, a work which has plunged them under solemn obligations to him which they never can discharge, bound them to himself by grateful ties of affection which nothing can dissolve. He has plucked us out of the horrible pit, and put us into such a place that throughout eternity it shall be our delight, cur very life, to praise and magnify his name.

Oh, how will we tell angels what he has done! How will we show forth in every street to the sacred inhabitants what grace has done for us, and how the love of God accomplished a mighty triumph over our sins! We will tell the cherubim and seraphim what God has done, and make them think they never saw God before till they beheld him working in men. Long adown the ages, when the morning star is laid asleep, we will tell our fellow immortals, of Golgotha, of Calvary, of Jesus and his love; we will repeat the story of the cross; we will publish abroad the story of the God that loved and died, and of the triumph of the pierced and crucified One when he entered the doors of our hearts and captured us by the force of his love. This then will be an everlasting sign unto the Lord our God. Let this encourage Christians.

From a sermon entitled "The Lord's Name And Memorial," delivered September 27, 1868. Image by Jeff under Creative Commons License.

Zeal

When a man has all other excellencies, when the grace of God has wrought in him all other virtues, then zeal is still needed to elevate and perfect his entire manhood. Behold the altar, built of unhewn stones, and after God’s own law; behold the wood laid thereon; see the victim slain and the blood flowing; but you cannot make a sacrifice without fire — unless the fire from heaven shall perfect the sacrificial preparations, all will be useless.

Behold in the altar the figure of the man; he has faith, courage, love, consecration; but if he lacks the fire of fervent zeal his life will be a failure; he will remain an offering unconsumed, and consequently worthless and unaccepted. By this, indeed, may you know the genuine from the false when other things might raise a question: the false is like the altar of Baal whereon there is much wood and a well fed bullock, and around it are active genuflexions and vigorous ritualisms, but there is no true fire from heaven; while the true is like the altar of Elias, upon which, in answer to fervent prayers, the hallowed flames descend. One of the first requisites of an earnest, successful, soul-winning man, must be zeal. As well a chariot without its steeds, a sun without its beams, a heaven without its joy, as a man of God without zeal.

From a sermon entitled "The Best Cloak," delivered. Image by Kevin Dolley under Creative Commons License.

To worship Him in spirit and in truth

We know of no holy place now, nor holy days, nor holy implements. Our soul serves God in spirit, for He is a Spirit and seeketh those to worship Him who do so in spirit and in truth. Our soul gives to Jesus Christ pre-eminence in all her trusting, coming only to God through Him, and never thinking that she can either serve, or worship, or live aright, except as she dwells in Christ, and the merit of Christ commends her to the Father.

From a sermon entitled "The Altar," delivered September 20, 1868. Image by Chris Bartnik under Creative Commons License.

Gradual Decline

Remember, brethren, that decays in grace and backsliding are usually very much like the fall of the autumn leaves. You are watching the trees, forever now they are beginning to indicate the coining fall. They evidently know that their verdant robes are to be stripped from them, for they are casting off their first loose vestments. How slowly the time of the brown leaf comes on! You notice here and there a tinge of the copper hue, and anon the gold leaf or the bronze is apparent. Week after week you observe that the general fall of the leaves is drawing nearer, but it is a matter that creeps slowly on. And so with backsliders. They are not put out of the visible church all at once, they do not become open offenders all at once. The heart by slow degrees turns aside from the living God, and then at last comes the outward sin and the outward shame. God save us from falling by little and little! The devil’s little strokes have felled many great oaks.

From a sermon entitled "Grey Hairs," delivered September 13, 1868. Image by Chris Darling under Creative Commons License.

Imagining His Love

We try to guess at what God’s love to one of his people may be by our love to our own children, to our spouse, to our friend. Now in a far higher degree and sublime sense, and after a loftier sort, even so God loves the people of his choice. Consider this, believer, and be astonished, that love should come from God to such a one as yourself. The Lord loves you. He has a complacency and a delight in you. You give him pleasure; he watches for your good; you are one of his household; your name is written on his heart. He loves you; can you catch the thought? If so there is no praise that can express your gratitude. Solemn silence will perhaps be the only vehicle that shall seem fitting for your soul’s adoration. Revolve the personal thought again and again in your soul! He that made the heavens and the earth loves me! He whose angels fly as lightning to obey his behests, the tramp of whose marching shakes both heaven and earth, whose smile is heaven, and whose frown is hell, loves me! Infinite, almighty, omniscient, eternal, a mind inconceivable, a spirit that is not to be comprehended; but he, even he has set his love upon the sons of men, and upon me.

From a sermon entitled "The Perfuming of the Heart," delivered September 6, 1868. Image by Michel Villeneuve under Creative Commons License.

Where we're headed!

I say our souls shall come back to their bodies to a new marriage. The spirit and the body shall be knit together once again, so that our manhood shall be again entire, body, soul, and spirit, all being in glory even as we are here on earth, but far more gloriously developed. Believers in Christ know that the first resurrection delivers them from all fear of second death. We shall reign with Christ upon the earth: a thousand years of glory shall be given unto the saints; on this selfsame globe in which they suffered with their Master they shall triumph with him. Then in the last time when Jesus shall have delivered up the kingdom unto God, even the Father, then the people of God shall reign forever and ever in unsurpassed and unimaginable delight.

From a sermon entitled "Dying Daily," delivered August 30, 1868. Image by Till Krech under Creative Commons License.

The medicine for your conscience

Only at Calvary is the medicine for a wounded conscience to be found. From those five wounds of our blessed Lord healing fonts are streaming still; he that looks to him shall find peace and comfort and full salvation; but the doing and the feeling, and the performing of this and that, and ten thousand things beside, are all a mockery, a delusion, and a snare, they touch not the case. The disease of fallen humanity is wholly incurable except by the hand of Omnipotence. It is as easy for us to create a world as to create a new heart; and a man might us well hope to abolish cold and snow as hope to eradicate sin from his nature by his own power; he might us well say to this round earth, “I have emancipated thee from the curse of labor,” as say to himself, “I will set myself flee from the thraldom of sin.” Jehovah alone can save, it is his prerogative...

From a sermon entitled "The Faculty Baffled, The Great Physician Successful" delivered August 23, 1868. Image by Reinante El Pintor de Fuego under Creative Commons License.

To Christ Alone Be The Glory

Now, here is the touchstone to try your religion by. When you pray, to whom do you pray? Through whom do you pray? When you sing, for whom is the song meant? When you preach, to whose honor do you preach? To whom do you intend to do service? When you go out among the poor, when you distribute alms, when you scatter your tracts, when you talk about the gospel, for whom do you do this? For, as the Lord liveth, if you do it for yourselves, or for any beside the Lord Jesus, you do not know what the vitality of godliness is, for Christ and Christ only must be the grand object of the Christian; the promotion of his glory must be that for which he is willing to live, and for which, if needs be, he would be prepared to die.

Oh! down, down, down, with everything else, but up, up, up, with the cross of Christ! Down with your baptism, and your masses, and your sacraments! Down with your priest-craft, and your rituals, and your liturgies! Down with your fine music, and your pomp, and your robes, and your garments, and all your ceremonials. But up, up, up, with the doctrine of the naked cross, and the expiring Savior.

From a sermon entitled "Christ the Glory of His People," delivered March 22, 1868. Image by johnny myreng under Creative Commons License.

He will sift and purify His Church

The church of God since its institution has never been perfectly pure. It has been the object of all true ministers, as the Lord’s watchmen, to keep his church pure; and the servants of God in every age have longed and desired that the tares might be rooted up from amongst the wheat, but it has never been so. The church has shared in the imperfection of everything else that is human, and hence upon God’s floor there has never been a heap of perfectly pure well-winnowed wheat, some chaff has always been introduced by some means or other. No matter how stringent your regulations, how scriptural your rules, how judicious your officers, how precise your examinations, for all that, as certainly as Judas thrust himself in among the twelve, so will there creep in unawares among us ungodly men who were of old ordained unto this condemnation, who shall be as chaff in the midst of the wheat.

Because of this we must expect, wherever and whensoever God has a church, to find that it is in the sieve. As long as the farmer’s corn is not clean, he will keep on sifting it; and as long as God’s church is not pure, he will continue to purify it; he will, in fact, fulfill the words of the text, “Sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve." (Amos 9:9)

From a sermon entitled "The Sieve," delivered August 16, 1868. Image by Kevin Lallier under Creative Commons License.

They shall see His face

Whether dying young or old, whether departing after long service of Christ, or dying immediately after conversion as with the thief, of all the saints shall it be said in the words of the text, “They shall see his face.” What more can apostles and martyrs enjoy? Do you regret that your friends have departed? Do you lament that wife, and husband, and child, and father, and grandparent, have all entered into their rest? Be not so unkind, so selfish to yourself, so cruel to them.

Nay, rather, soldier of the cross, be thankful that another has won the crown before you, and do you press forward to win it too. Life is but a moment: how short it will appear in eternity. Even here hope perceives it to be brief; and though impatience counts it long, yet faith corrects her, and reminds her that one hour with God will make the longest life to seem but a point of time, a mere nothing, a watch in the night, a thing that was and was not, that has come and gone.

From a sermon entitled "The Heaven Of Heaven," delivered August 9, 1868. Image by James Jordan under Creative Commons License.

Rich and poor alike must come to Him

As the great man will not purchase an escape by all that which he hath stored up, so neither will the man be delivered because of his poverty. There was a rich man in hell, we read: poor men have been there, and are there now. As riches cannot save from hell, so neither can poverty raise to heaven. The grace and justice of God are independent of society, and rank, and state, and condition. What mattereth it to the Lord how much or how little of yellow metal thou hast about thee! he measures no man by his purse, but by his soul; and he whose soul is unpardoned is lost, be he rolling in plenty or pining in want. You must be born again; you must believe in Jesus; you must, in one word, get into the ark, or when the flood comes it will sweep you all away, be you rich as Dives, or poor as Lazarus.

From a sermon entitled "Noah's Flood," delivered March 5, 1868. Image by Duncan Rawlinson under Creative Commons License.

Why do we wander?

“As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” - Psalm 42:1.

There is something to be lamented in this state of mind, for if the psalmist had maintained unbroken communion with his God, he would not have been so much panting after him as enjoying him. It is deeply to be deplored that we who sometimes bask in the sunshine of God’s countenance cannot live so as always to enjoy it.

Wherefore do we wander? Why do we grieve his Holy Spirit? Why do we turn aside from God, our exceeding joy? Wherefore do we provoke him to jealousy, and cause him to make us grope in darkness, and sigh out of a lonely and desolate heart? There is much of an evil heart of unbelief in these departings from the living God; if, therefore, we can join in the language of the text, we must not too much congratulate ourselves, for though it be a sign of grace to pant after God as the hart pants for the waterbrooks, yet it is an equally certain sign of a want of more grace, and the loss of a privilege which we should strive always to possess. We are yet but poor in spiritual things when we might be rich; we are thirsting when we might put flagons to our lips.

From a sermon entitled "The Panting Hart," delivered July 20, 1868. Image by Brandon Godfrey under Creative Commons License.

Hope in Hopeless Cases

“Bring him hither to me.”-Matthew 17:17.

The disciples were baffled. The Master, however, remained undefeated, and cried, “Bring him unto me.” We ought to use the means so far as the means will go. We are bound, further, to make the means more effectual than they ordinarily are. Prayer and fasting are prescribed by our Lord as the means of stringing up ourselves to greater power than we should otherwise possess.

There are conversions, which will never be wrought by the agency of ordinary Christians. We have need to pray more, and by self-denial to keep our bodies more completely under, and so to enjoy closer communion with God before we shall be able to handle the more distressing cases. The church of God would be far stronger to wrestle with this ungodly age if she were more given to prayer and fasting. There is a mighty efficacy in these two gospel ordinances. The first links us to heaven, the second separates us from earth. Prayer takes us into the banqueting-house of God; fasting overturns the surfeiting tables of earth. Prayer gives us to feed on the bread of heaven, and fasting delivers the soul from being encumbered with the fullness of bread which perisheth. When Christians shall bring themselves up to the uttermost possibilities of spiritual vigor, then they will be able, by God’s Spirit working in them, to cast out devils, which to day, without the prayer and fasting, laugh them to scorn.

But for all that, to the most advanced Christian, there will still remain those mountainous difficulties, which must be directly brought to the Master’s personal agency for help. Still he tenderly commands us, “Bring them unto me.”

From a sermon entitled "Hope In Hopeless Cases," delivered July 19, 1868. Image by brokinhrt2 under Creative Commons License.

Careful with the Word

If we sometimes looked a little more to the connection of sentences, we should be kept from very dangerous errors. The Bible ought to be treated in conformity with common sense, as you would use any other book. If you took the writings of any author, however carefully he might express himself, if you picked out a sentence here and a sentence there, [you] might make the man to say what he never believed; nay, even make him to be the supporter of opinions which he abhors. So it is with the Bible: if you pay no regard to the connection and general run of the passage, you miss the mind of the Spirit of God, and rather thrust your own mind into God’s words than bring out God’s mind from the words of the Holy Ghost.

From a sermon entitled "Working Out What Is Worked In," delivered July 12, 1868. Image by Luis Argerich under Creative Commons License.

When the Church intercedes

God will bless his church when she acknowledges her faults and humbles herself; when, with an evangelical repentance, she stands before the mercy-seat, and cries, “God be merciful unto us.”

We must never expect that the Lord will bless a proud and conceited church, a hard-hearted and indifferent church. When humbled and laid in the dust under a sense of her own shortcomings, then shall God be pleased to look upon her in mercy. I gather from the tenor of the first verse, that God blesses his people when they begin to pray, as well as when they confess their sins. The prayer is urgent, humble, and believing, and therefore it must speed....

We are sure to receive the benediction from God when the entire church is instant and constant in intercession. Prayer is the best resort of an earnest people. Are we not witnesses of it? We have had prayer meetings in this house, in which we have all been stirred as the trees of the wood are moved in the wind, and then we have always had the presence of God afterwards in the conversion of souls. Our best praying times have always been followed by joyful harvest homes. The churches everywhere must be prayerful, intensely so, or else they cannot expect that the sound of abundance of rain should be heard throughout their land. Awake to confess sin, O Zion, awake to soul-travail for the souls of men, and then shall God, thy Lord, visit thee from on high. Come, Holy Spirit, and arouse thy slumbering people; bestir thy sluggard host, for when thy power is felt, then hath the bright day of triumph dawned upon us.

From a sermon entitled "The Minstrelsy Of Hope," delivered July 5, 1868. Image by Paulo Brandão under Creative Commons License.