Quiet Musing
NO. 576
BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
While I was
musing the fire burned Psalm 39:3
(See
definition of "musing")
(Spurgeon's
other Comments on Ps 39:3)
Our
subject this evening will not stand in need of much preface. The Psalm may
teach us that there are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech.
The company of sinners was a grief to
David’s soul, and because their converse was profane, he chose rather to
fly away from their midst; or if they must still continue in his presence,
he determined that he would resolutely seal his lips. Touchingly he says,
“I was dumb with silence (that is, utterly dumb), I held my peace, even
from good.”
This painful necessity soon proved to him a pleasing
occasion. While he yielded himself up to the thoughts, the reveries, and
the pensive workings of his own heart, a sacred fire of devotion was
kindled in his breast. But, brethren, whatever the circumstances of the
Psalmist, you will all see that the exercise was profitable; and however
peculiar the advantages of meditation at particular seasons, it may not be
amiss for us to make it a common habit. Inverting a popular proverb,
“What was one man’s medicine
may be food for others.”
There is much that
is light and frothy in our ordinary intercourse; and our communications
one with another soon grow frothy and insipid when we have no definite
matter in hand. Whether, therefore, to free ourselves from the stress of
business, or to escape from the temptations of idleness, let it be thought
worthy of note that “musing” hath sweet charms, and calm reflection is
capable of kindling a bright fire.
Our remarks will now
run in two directions. First, we shall say something in praise of musing;
and then, secondly, we shall supply you with some fuel to burn on the
altar of your hearts.
IN
PRAISE
OF MUSING
I.
First, then,
Let Us Say
Something In Praise Of Musing.
We do not muse much
in these days of ours. We are too busy. We are hurrying here and there,
doing much, and talking much, but thinking very little, and spending but
very little time indeed in the modesty of
retirement.
“The calm
retreat, the silent shade,”
are things which we
know but very little about. We should be better men, if we were more
alone; and I trow (believe, think) that we should do more good after all, if with even less
of active effort we spent more time in waiting upon God, and gathering
spiritual strength for labor in his service.
Where lives there upon earth,
in these days, a man who spends hour after hour of the day in meditation
upon God?
There may be such, and if there be, I
would that I had their acquaintance; but where will you find giants such
as those who lived in the Puritanic times, whose lips dropped pearls,
because they themselves had dived down deep in the fathomless ocean of
mercy by the sweet aid of meditation?
There may be such, and I would that
it were our lot to sit under their ministry; but I fear that the most of
us are so little in retirement, so seldom in communion with God in
private, and even when there, the communion is for so short a time that we
are but tiny dwarfs, and can never, while we live thus, attain to the
stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus.
DAYS
OF A-MUSING
The world has put a
little letter before the word “musing,” and these are the days, not for
musing, but for a-musing. People will go anywhere for amusement; but to
muse is a strange thing to them, and they think it dull and wearisome. Our
good sires loved the quiet hour, and loved it so well, that they cherished
those times which they could spend in musing as the most happy, because
the most peaceful seasons of their life. We drag such time off to
execution in a moment, and only ask men to tell us how we may kill it.
Now there is much
virtue in musing, especially if we muse upon the best, the highest, and
the noblest of subjects. If we muse upon the things of which we hear and
read in sacred Scripture, we shall do wisely. It is well to muse upon the
things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them.
A man
who bears many sermons, is not necessarily well-instructed in the faith.
We may read so many religious books, that we overload our brains, and they
may be unable to work under the weight of the great mass of paper and of
printer’s ink.
The man who reads but one book, and that book his Bible,
and then muses much upon it, will be a better scholar in Christ’s school
than he who merely reads hundreds of books, and muses not at all.
And he,
too, who gets but one sermon in a day, though it is an ill habit to stay
away from half our Sabbath engagements, and only go out once, yet, he who
hears but one sermon in a day, if he meditates much upon it, will get
far more out of it than he who hears two or three but meditates not.
MEDITATION
TREADS THE CLUSTERS OF TRUTH
Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: if you would have wine
from it, you must bruise it; you must press and squeeze it many times. The
bruisers’ feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice
will not flow; and they must leap, and leap, and leap again, and well
tread the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. You
must, by the feet of meditation, tread the clusters of truth, would you
get the wine of consolation there from.
Our bodies are not supported by
merely taking food into the mouth, but the
process which really supplies the muscle, and the nerve, and the sinew,
and the bone, is the process of digestion. It is by digestion that the
outward food becomes assimilated with inner life. And so is it with our
souls; they are not nourished merely by what we hear by going hither, and
thither, and listening awhile to this, and then to that, and then to the
other. Hearing, leading, marking, and learning, all require inwardly
digesting; and the inward digesting of the truth lies in the meditating
upon it.
Ruminating creatures chew the cud, and these have always been
considered clean animals; and so it is a mark of a true child of God that
he understandeth how to chew the cud of meditation.
Why is it that some
people are always in a place of worship, and yet they are not holy, though
they make some slight advances in the divine life? It is because they
neglect their closets. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they
would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather
it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water
flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink of it. They are
either too idle, or too busy, I will not say which, but often to be busy
is to be idle; and when some men think us idle, we are then best at work.
You who know anything of the divine life know very well what I mean by
that. Meditation is not idleness, and retirement is not forsaking the good
of the world. I trow (believe) that Moses did as much for Israel on the
mountain’s summit with uplifted hands, as ever Joshua did in the valley
with his drawn sword; and Elias upon the top of Carmel, ay, even by the
brook Cherith, or in the house of the widow of Zarephath, was as much
serving Israel as when he smote the priests of Baal, and hewed them in
pieces before the Lord. I commend meditation to you, then, for fetching
the nutriment out of truth.
MEDITATION
FIXES THE TRUTH UPON THE MEMORY
Another note in the
praise of this most blessed, but much-neglected duty, is that it fixes the
truth upon the memory. You complain of short memories; you say that what
you have heard you can scarcely remember to another day. If thy paint be
thin, and thou canst not make thy picture stand out in glowing colors, lay
on many coats of thy paint, and so wilt thou do what thou wantest. If thy
memory will not retain the truth the first time, then think it over, and
over, and over again, and so, by having these several coats of paint, as
it were, the whole matter shall abide.
When the fisherman goeth out to
angle (to fish with a hook), it may be that in mid-stream he sees a great fish, and having cast
his fly, the hook is soon fairly in the fish’s jaws; but what now? Why, he
must let him run out the line, and then he must drag him back again, and
after all he never thinks his fish safely his own till he gets him into
the landing-net. Well, now, hearing sermons is but, as it were, getting
the hook into the fish’s mouth, but meditation is the landing-net, it is
this which gets the thing to shore.
And what if I say that after that, the
same meditation becomes a fire of coals upon which the fish is broiled and
prepared for our spiritual food. If you cannot hold a thing well, try and
get many hooks to hold it with, and meditation will supply you, as it
were, with a hundred hands, by every one of which you may grasp the truth.
I am sure, dear friends, that we give not earnest heed enough to these
things, or else we should not let them slip. There are many photographers
who can take a street view more rapidly than I can speak of it; they have
but just to lift up the cover, and put it down again, and the whole thing
is done; but for many things which are to endure and last, they like, if
they have time, to have the object long before the camera, and there it
stands, and fairly fixes itself upon the plate. And surely, there may be
some few men who can just hear a sermon, and retain the impression of it
all their days; there are some who are quick of understanding in the
things of God, and as with a flash they get the truth, and never lose it;
but the most of us need more than this. If we would have the truth
photographed upon our hearts, we must keep it long before the spiritual
lens, or else it never will fix itself there.
Complain not, then, of thy memory, complain of thyself it thou art not
given to meditation. Let thy closet rebuke thee because thou hast not been
oftener there, if thy memory be frail. Whereas another man may do with
less meditation, if thou sayest thy memory is weak, the more reason why
thou shouldst be a longer time, and oftener with thy God in secret. All
want this, but thou needest it more than others; see thou to it, then,
that thou neglectest not this duty.
MEDITATION
CLIPS THE WINGS OF THOUGHTS
For getting the nourishment out of
truth, and moreover, for preserving, for salting down the truth for future
use, employ much meditation. Meditation clippeth the wings of thoughts,
which otherwise would fly away at the first clapping of the world’s hands.
Thou shalt thus keep thy prey, as it were, surrounded and entangled in a
net, else it might escape thee; thy meditation shall hold it fast until
thou needest it.
MEDITATION
OPENS TRUTH AND LEADS US TO ITS SECRETS
Yet further,
meditation is of great value in opening up truth and leading us into its
secrets. There is some gold to be found on the surface of this land of Ophir, the Book of God. There
are some precious jewels which may be
discovered even by the wayfaring man, but the mass of the gold is hidden
in the bowels of the earth; and he who would be rich in these treasures,
must dig into Scripture as one who seeketh for choice pearls. Thou must go
down into its depths, and thou must rummage there until thou gettest at
last at the treasure.
Truth is sometimes like a flint, which, when it is
smitten the first time yieldeth not, and you may even strike it yet again,
and still it yieldeth not; but at last one happy blow of the hammer shall
make it fly to shivers.
MEDITATION
IS LIKE A BATTERING RAM
Meditation may be compared, for its potency, to
the great battering-ram which Sir Christopher Wren used when he built the
present St. Paul’s Cathedral. Old St. Paul’s, you remember, had been
destroyed by the fire, but its walls were so extremely thick, that it was
found very difficult to take the old walls away; and they were so lofty,
that there was also great danger to the workmen. Sir Christopher therefore
invented a ram, composed of a large piece of timber, and intended to he
used in the same way as the Romans used their rams of old. A number of men
were set to work with this ram, and of course, being a new instrument to
them, they did not like it, and they did not believe in it either; so,
after hammering away some five or six hours, and the wall showing no sign
whatever of anything like an impression, they complained to Sir
Christopher that he had given them a useless work to do. He set them at it
again, and the ram fell heavily, but not a stone seemed to stir. One whole
day they kept on thus, battering away at the walls. The architect knew
full well that, although it might not be palpable to the laborers, there
must have been a degree of oscillation given to the whole structure. And
so it proved, for the next morning, when they began the work again, all of
a sudden down tumbled the whole mass. Thus at length the men were
convinced that the work of the day before had not been lost, it really had
been telling when they could not chalk down the progress.
You will find it
the same with gospel doctrine, that you want to understand but cannot. There is some difficulty you cannot surmount.
Meditation comes and gives one stroke after another with all the weight of
prayer and of thoughtfulness, but it stirs not; till at last our diligence
is rewarded, and we see the whole mass of masonry which reason had piled
together of fabulous traditions, cometh tumbling down; the foundation is
discovered, and the truth made clear to our apprehension in a moment.
What! think ye
that the great thoughts of master-minds come in a minute. People say,
“Oh! what a genius!” Nonsense! the man had been hard at work over that
for years, and years, and years, though perhaps the thing came at last to
him suddenly, it was not a whit less a result of study, the success which
crowns the patient brain-work of a meditative mind.
Never despair, dear
friends, of understanding the truth. If you will but in the name of Jesus
give your souls to the study, come resolved to sit at Christ’s feet as
Mary did, to believe just what he tells you, as he tells it to you, though
he may reveal dark things and speak of them to you in parables, yet you
shall be able to comprehend with all saints what are the heights and
depths, and you shall yet know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.
Be not weary of well-thinking, use much diligence in musing, yield up thy
heart to sacred meditation. Turn the matter over, and over, and over again
in your minds.
You remember the story of the great philosopher who had
been attempting to discover how much alloy there was in the king’s crown,
but who could find no way of doing it. By day and by night he pondered it;
nay, at night when he slept, his day-dreams did but come to him again; but
on a sudden, when he was in the bath, he sprang up and wrapped his
garments about him, and ran through the street, crying out,
“Inveni,
Inveni”
“I have found it! I have found it!”
And one of these
days, Christian, when you are puzzling over some doctrine which you feel
must be true, but which you cannot grasp, you will spring upon your feet
when God the Holy Spirit has revealed the truth to you, and you will cry,
“I have found it! I have found it!” and great will be your joy at the
discovery. Cultivate much, then, the habit of retirement and meditation,
because of the way in which it opens up the truth.
Here, almost
unwittingly, I have touched upon another suggestion. This musing is a
charmed exercise, for, mark ye, the joy which it brings. There is a text
in Scripture which speaks of the sinner as rolling sin under his tongue as
a sweet morsel, an allusion to the habit of the man whose mouth is
somewhat flavorish, who, when he gets a dainty thing, swallows it not at
once, but rolls it under his tongue, trying to draw out more and more of
its sweetness. Well, now, this is what the Christian should do with
doctrinal truth. He should roll it under his tongue. Thou wilt have far
more enjoyment while it is in thy mouth than thou wilt afterwards, so keep
it there; meditate much upon it; roll it under thy tongue again, and
again, and again, until thou gettest more to find its savor.
Scripture is
often like a bone, but meditation is the hammer which cracks it, and then
the soul gets the marrow and the fatness. The beauties of Christ are not
to be seen by the passer-by who merely glances at him; there is something
to arrest attention at a glance, it is true, but he who would see the
beauties of Jesus, must look, and look, and look again, until his whole
soul is enamoured of the Savior; and as he looks, and is transformed into
the Savior’s image, he shall have such enjoyment, that this side of heaven
there is none other like it.
COMMUNION COMES
AFTER MUSING
“My meditation
of him shall be sweet,” said the Psalmist, and truly so it is. When I can
walk with him, as the old philosophers walked with Plato in the groves of
the Academe, then am I indeed made wise unto
salvation; and then, too, is my heart made glad. There is no riding in the
chariots of Amminadab, except by being much with Christ. The spouse does
not say, “I stood under his shadow;” no, but “I sat under his shadow
with great delight.”
Sitting down is the posture of waiting, in which we ungird the loins of the mind, and indulge the repose of meditation; let us
sit down then beneath his shadow, and we shall have great delight in
musing upon Christ.
MEDITATION
MAKES IT EASIER TO
LIGHT THE FIRE
But perhaps, after
all, the best reason, at least the best to clench all the other reasons I
have given, why we should spend munch time in musing, is, because musing
then becomes easier to us. I never did light an oven-fire in my life, but
I have heard that sometimes when a baker goes to light a coal-oven, if his
fuel be a little damp, he gets no blaze; but after the fire is once up,
then he may throw in what he will, and everything is speedily consumed by
the vehement heat. So sometimes you and I feel our hearts to be like cold
ovens, and we try to put some fresh truth in, but it will not burn. But
ah! when the heart gets hot and the fire is roaring, then even such damp
material as I am able to give you on Sabbath-days will burn right well,
and the feeble words of a poor servant of God will make your hearts hot
within you.
We can meditate better after we have addicted ourselves to a
meditative frame. When we have mused a little, then the fire begins to
burn; and you will perceive, that as the fire burns, meditation gets
easier, and then the heart gets warm; and oh! what holy affections, what
blessed excitements those have who are much alone with Christ! Such a man
never has a cold heart or a slack hand who is much in meditation with his
Lord Jesus; his heart comes to be like a mass of molten lard, and ere long
he verifies the experience of the Psalmist, and can make my text his own.
“Then spake I with my tongue.”
He cannot help it, for this lava will
soon be running over in burning hot words; and if this man should be a
preacher, he will preach with holy power; his heart being hot, his words
will burn their way into his hearers’ hearts. Nor will it end there, but
this hot heart will soon make a hot hand, and
the man who once has his soul full of Christ will not have his hand empty
for Christ. Now he will work; now he will preach for Christ; now he will
pray, now he will plead with sinners; now he will be in earnest; now he
will weep; now he will agonize; now he will wrestle with the angel, and
now he will prevail; for, as the fire burneth, his whole being gets into a
glow; and the man, like a pillar of fire, warms those who are round about
him, burns his way to the glory of success, and gives his Master fresh
renown.
Commend me, then,
for all these reasons which we have given, this blessed art of holy
musing.
PUTTING SOME FUEL
ON THE FIRE OF MEDITATION
II.
And now we have
to spend the few minutes which remain to us in
Putting Some Fuel On
The Fire Of Meditation.
The man who says
that he has nothing to think about, can surely have no brains; and that
professing Christian who says he has nothing to muse upon, must be a
laughing-stock for devils. A Christian man without a subject for
contemplation! Impossible! Only give us the time and the opportunity, and
there are a thousand topics which at once present themselves
for our consideration.
Let me just suggest
a few of these to the Christian.
ETERNAL LOVE
Your heart will
surely burn like an oven, my Christian brother, if you think, first, upon
eternal love. What a topic to muse upon!
“Sing we,
then, eternal love,
Such as did the Father move;
When he saw the world undone,
Loved the world, and gave his Son.”
Think of that love
without beginning, and which, blessed be God, shall never, never cease.
Give the wings of your imagination full play, and go back to the time
before all time, when there was no day but the Ancient of Days; when ages
had not begun to be, but God dwelt alone. Remember, if you are one of his
people, that the Father loved you even then, and he continues still to
love you, and will love you when, like a bubble, this earth has melted,
and like a gypsy's tent, the universe has been
rolled up and put away. Why, as you think of this, surely you will say
with our songster-
“Loved of my
God, for him again
With love intense I’d burn:
Chosen of God ere time began,
I’d choose him in return.”
If you want
meditation, dear friends, here is an ocean to swim in. That one doctrine
of election, that precious truth of predestinating love, and all the
consequences which flow from it, why, here is a
well, an overflowing well, which you can never drink dry. Take deep
draughts of it, then, and while you are musing, you shall find that your
heart is warmed.
DYING LOVE
Then, next, there is
dying love to think of. Oh! think of the Savior descending from the starry
heights of glory, and coming down to the Virgin’s womb, and then
descending from that lowly manger of Bethlehem, even to the cross and to
the grave for you; counting it not robbery to be equal with God, and yet
for your sake he takes upon himself the form of a servant, and makes
himself of no reputation, but becomes obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross. Many of the ancient saints were accustomed to spend hours in
meditating upon the wounds of Christ, and many of the martyrs have been
for days engaged in solemn meditation upon those wounded hands and
feet, and that pierced side. Oh! of all the volumes
which were ever written, this volume, printed in crimson upon the pure,
lily-like flesh of Christ, is the best to read. Talk ye of pictures? Was
there ever such a picture as that which God drew with the pencil of
eternal love, dipped into the color of Almighty wrath on Calvary’s summit?
Angels desired to see it, but there was a veil before the picture until
Jesus came and drew it up, and then the spectacle was revealed, to be
gazed upon throughout eternity by adoring spirits, with fresh wonder and
admiration for evermore. You cannot exhaust this subject, but, O, let me
beseech you to give it the first and chief place in your meditation. “I
have set the Lord always before me,” would be a good motto for the
believer, and well would it be for him to have the cross painted upon his
very eye-balls, so that everywhere he should be reminded of Christ
crucified, and so should be led always to say, “For me to live is
Christ.”
That topic never can
be exhausted, and there are kindred ones connected with it your
justification, the work of the Spirit, and so on; let me rather now hint
at one or two other matters which I would ye should solemnly brood over.
DEATH:
OUR LORD'S DOOR KEEPER
You will do well, Christian, to meditate much upon death. What! man, did I
see you turn away? A Christian afraid of death? No, verily, for death is
our Lord’s door keeper. Life keeps the key, and saith to us,
“Ye shall
not enter into your Father’s mansions;”
But Death comes, and with his
bony hand snatches the key out of the grasp of the tyrant, Life, and puts
it into the lock, and opens the gate, and lets us in. Why, we say
sometimes that “the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death;” but
if he be “the last enemy,” he is not altogether the less a friend, for
he is a friend, too, now that Christ hath transformed him. It is to be
greatly wise, Christian, to think sometimes of the grave, the mattock, and
the shroud. The catacomb is no ill place for musing, and a little
cemetery, with its green knolls and its white memorial stones, will be a
good place to study in for the man who wishes to muse upon life and
immortality in the midst of death.
CHRIST'S "BIRDS"
&
THE NEARNESS OF
ETERNITY
The old naturalists, who tell us a good
many things which are not true, as well as some which are, say that the
birds of Norway always fly more swiftly than any others, because the
summer days are so short, and therefore they have so much to do in such a
little time. I do not know anything about the
birds of Norway, but this I do know, that Christ’s birds would surely fly
more swiftly if they would only meditate upon the fact, that the day is so
short and that the night is so near at hand. Surely they would fly more
swiftly and work more earnestly, if they only thought more of the nearness
of eternity.
THINK OF HEAVEN
And then, Christian,
if that does not make your heart burn, let me persuade you to think of
heaven. O, carry your thoughts from this poor, dunghill world, up to the
golden streets, and to the music-begetting harps; up yonder, I say, let
your souls soar, and dwell where your treasure is, with Christ upon his
throne. Hark! how they sing tonight the eternal hallelujah, louder than
the voice of many waters, and yet sweet as harpers harping with their
harps! Listen, how the music swells in a sea of glory round about the
throne of the eternal God! And you and I shall soon be there; leaving
behind the sweat of toil, the rags of poverty, the shame of persecution,
the pangs of sickness, and the groans of death, of the death of sin; we
shall soon be immortal, celestial, immaculate, glorified with the glory
which Christ had with his Father before the
world was. Oh! your hearts will surely glow if you can muse thus upon
heaven, if you can sing with me tonight-
“My soul amid
this stormy world
Is like some flutter’d dove,
And fain would be as swift of wing
To flee to him I love.
My heart is
with him on his throne,
And ill can brook delay;
Each moment listening for the voice,
’Rise up, and come away.
I would, my
Lord and Savior, know
That which no measure knows,
Would search the mystery of thy love,
The depth of all thy woes.
I fain would
strike my harp divine
Before the Father’s throne,
There cast my crown of righteousness,
And sing what grace has done.
Ah! leave me
not in this base world,
A stranger still to roam;
Come, Lord, and take me to thyself,
Come, Jesus, quickly come!”
Why is his chariot
so long in coming? Why tarrieth he? Come quickly, come, Lord Jesus, come!
Lash the white horse, and bid him come as soon as may be, that death may
meet me, and that I may meet my God!
THINK OF HELL
And, if that stir
you not, Christians, there is one other subject necessary for you to muse
upon. Sometimes, Christians, think of hell. Nay, start not, I pray you,
for you will never have to feel it, and therefore you need not shrink from
thinking of it. Think of that hell from which you have escaped, and it
will surely fire you with gratitude. Think of that place of doom into
which multitudes are going every day, and if this bring not the tears to
your eye, and make not your heart palpitate with zeal, I know not what
will. Bethink you that now, while I have been speaking, a soul has passed
into eternity, and oh! since we have been here how many spirits have taken
the last dreadful plunge into the lake which burneth with fire and
brimstone, lost, lost, lost beyond my call, and beyond your prayers! No
sermons can save them now; no tears can bring them to repentance now, but
they are gone, gone. Yes, and there are others who are going; who walk the
streets of this great London, what multitudes do meet who will for ever
have to magnify the awful justice of that God whom they have slighted, and
of that Savior whom they have rejected! And will not this make you bestir
yourselves? O my brethren, if we can think of hell and yet be idle, if we
can meditate upon the wrath to come, amid yet be prayerless then, surely,
feeling has been given to beasts, and we are turned to stone. What!
believe in judgement and in eternal wrath, and yet not weep for sinners!
Believe in hell and yet not weep for sinners! Surely, we may expect to be
turned, like Lot’s wife, into pillars of salt, if we thus show signs of
looking back with careless and wicked eye on burning Sodom, instead of
fleeing from it, and urging others to escape from the wrath to come.
Christians, I have
given you topics enough to meditate upon; may I fondly hope that some of
you will try during the next week to scrape up some fragments of time to
be alone? I should not have a cold-hearted congregation, I should not have
need to stir you up to liberality in giving, or in earnestness, or in
service, if you would but muse much, for well am I persuaded that while
you are musing the fire will burn.
TO THOSE NOT YET
CONVERTED
But I address myself
now-stealing a minute of your time which might, perhaps, be worse spent
than here-though I go beyond the allotted hour, I address myself to those
who are not yet converted to God. I could have hope of you, my dear
hearer, I could have good hope of you if I knew that you were given to
musing; and if you are so given, may I suggest a few topics which are most
likely to be useful to you?
Muse, I pray you,
unregenerate man, upon your present slate. “Dead in trespasses and
sins,” as you now are, the wrath of God abideth on you. Heirs of wrath
even as others, afar off, without God, without hope, and without Christ in
the world, I pray you bethink you of the hole of the pit where you now
are, and out of which you have never yet been digged. Perhaps I have
thought more about your soul than you have ever thought about it in your
life; I pray you now let your own thoughtfulness begin to exercise itself;
examine yourself; see what your state is.
And when you have
thought that over, I pray you bethink you of what your end must be if you
continue what you are. If you are resolved to perish, at least look your
doom in the face. If you mean to make your bed in hell, I pray you look at
it, and see the dreadful coverlet of flame in which you shall be wrapped
for ever. If you have made a league with hell, I pray you see whither that
league will take you. Count the cost, I beseech you, for every wise man
would do it. Can you dwell with the devouring flames? Can you, can you
dwell with everlasting burnings? I know you cannot; for while I do but
even use the word, my bones seem to tremble, and rottenness taketh hold
upon my heart; and how can you endure it when God cometh forth to tear you
in pieces, and there shall be none to deliver? Oh! what will you do in
that day of your visitation? What will you do when the sharp and furbished
sword is drawn from its scabbard, when God cometh forth dressed as a man
of war, to take vengeance upon your iniquities? I pray you, then, muse
upon these things, and perhaps the fire may burn, perhaps the heart may
melt, perhaps tears of penitence may come streaming down from both your
eyes in rivers.
But if you will not
think of this, at least let me give you a better and a sweeter topic to
muse upon. Think of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
“Is it
nothing to you, all ye that pass by,
Is it nothing to you that Jesus should die?”
I pray you sit down
at the foot of his cross, and answer these questions. Did he die for you,
or not? Remember, my hearers, Christ did not die for every one; some of
you will have no lot and no part in his blood; if you die without faith in
him, that blood will never cleanse you, that precious blood is not an
atonement for your sins. Do not suppose that Christ came into the world to
save damned souls. Nay, those whom he came to save he will save, and every
vessel of mercy bought with his blood shall glitter upon the tables of
heaven; not one of his precious sheep shall be cast out. The question is:
Is that blood shed for you? And you may know whether it is or not, by
this: Art thou willing to trust him? If thou trustest him this is the mark
of redemption, this is the bloodmark upon the purchased sheep; canst thou,
as thou sittest there, think upon this, that he died for sinners, the just
for the unjust, that he might bring them to God, and that he died for
those who hated him? Methinks I see him now; there
on the cross lie hangs, and suffers for those who
cursed him, bleeds for those who hounded him through the streets, bows his
head upon his bosom in an extremity of anguish for the very men who put
the vinegar and the gall into his mouth. “Of whom I am chief,” saith
Paul, when he spoke of sinners for whom Jesus died. Sinner, thou canst not
have sinned so foully as Paul did, and if thou restest on the blood of
Christ thou shalt be saved. Some men tell me that they do not know how to
get faith. Faith is the gift of God, but then faith usually comes by
meditating much upon Christ. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the
Word of God.” As it comes in this way, hearing begets meditation; and
while we are meditating upon the great and marvellous story of the
condescension and the suffering of Jesus, something seems to say within
us, “Yes, it is true, I will believe it;” and faith is thus wrought in
us before we are aware of it, and we cast ourselves upon Jesus Christ.
And then, sinner, if
this topic will not suit thee,, let me remind thee that there shall come a
day when thou wilt have to muse without any hope. Abraham said to Dives,
“Son, remember.” Son, remember, you may forget today; you have,
perhaps, forgotten until now, and you will forget when you leave this
Tabernacle what I have said to you, or what God has said, but you will
never be able to forget when once you have come into hell-fire. Then it
will be, “ Son, remember,” and you will remember your mother’s tears and
your father’s prayers; you will remember your privileges. The invitations
and the wooings of love which you had, will all
rise up before you anew, and you will see how guilty you have been. “Son,
remember,” and then all your sins will rise again before you-the nights,
the days, the words, the thoughts, the deeds, will all start up, and
people hell with multitudes of worse than fiends to plague and torment you
for ever. “Son, remember,” and then you will remember the Christ who was
preached to you, the stirrings of conscience when you once had, and how
you sinned against it all, and choked the good seed. “ Son, remember,”
and then you will be made to remember all that is yet to come! you will
remember God’s threatenings concerning the wrath which never can he
appeased, the fire which never shall be quenched, and the worm which shall
never die.
O I pray thee,
instead of remembering then to remember now! O that I could plead with
you! I stand here so far away from you; would that I could come and take
you by the hand, and say, “Why will you perish? Men and women, why will
ye die?” O you who are strangers to my Lord and Master, do you find any
pleasure in your sin? Are the ways of the world, after all, so fair and so
pleasant as you once thought them to be? Is there not an emptiness? Do you
not find “an aching void” in all your pleasures? Tell me now, will you
be able to die quietly as you now are? Can you put your head down upon
your death-pillow softly and in peace? Can you think of meeting God and
hearing the thunders of the last tremendous day, and beholding the wonders
of the resurrection-can you think of these things with anything like
composure? You cannot; I know you cannot. O, then,
“Come,
trembling souls, and flee away
To Christ, and heal your wounds;
This is the glorious gospel day
In which free grace abounds.”
May the Spirit of
God now sweetly bring you to the Savior. Poor dove, poor dove, the hawk is
after thee, and thou canst not fight him, nor canst thou escape him.
Hearken to one who loves thee; there is a cleft in yonder Rock to hide
thyself in, and then the hawk would lose his prey. Soul, the wounds of
Jesus are the clefts in the Rock; flee thou thither, and the fowler,
Satan, shall seek, but shall never be able to reach thee, for there is
salvation in him who died that we might live.
Save us now, for
His name’s sake. Amen.
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