382. What to Do with Jesus

What to Do with Jesus

Mat_27:22 : ’93What shall I do then with Jesus?’94

Pilate was an unprincipled politician. He had sympathies, convictions of right, and desires to be honest; but all these were submerged by a wish to be popular and to please the people. Two distinguished prisoners were in the grasp of government, and the proposition was made to free one of them. There stands Barrabas, the murderer; there stands Christ, the Saviour of the world. At the demand of the people the renegade is set free, but Jesus is held. As the hard-visaged and cruel-eyed Barrabas goes among his sympathizers, receiving their coarse congratulations, Pilate turns to his other distinguished prisoner’97mild, meek, inoffensive, loving, self-sacrificing’97and he is confounded as to what course he had better take, so he impanels the mob as a jury to decide, saying to them, ’93What shall I do then with Jesus?’94

Oh, it is no dried or withered question, but one that throbs with warm and quick pulse in the heart of every man and woman here. We must do something with Jesus. He is here. You and I are not so certainly here as he is, for he fills all this place’97the loving, living, dying Christ’97and each one of us will have to ask and answer for himself the question, ’93What shall I do then with Jesus?’94 Well, my friends, there are three or four things you can do with him.

You can, in the first place, let him stand without a word of recognition; but I do not think your sense of common courtesy will allow that. He comes walking on such a long journey, you will certainly give him a chair on which he may sit. He is so weary, you would not let him stand without some recognition. If a beggar comes to your door, you recognize him and say, ’93What do you want?’94 If you meet a stranger faint in the street, you say, ’93What is the matter with you?’94 and your common humanity and your common sympathy and your common sense of propriety will not allow you to let him stand without recognition’97the wounded one of the hills. You will ask, What makes him weep? where was he hurt? who wounded him? whence came he? whither goes he? I know there have been men who have with outrageous indifference hated Christ, but I know very well this morning that that is not what you will do with Jesus.

Another thing that you can do with him: You can thrust him back from your heart, and tell him to stand aside. If an inoffensive person comes and persists in standing close up to you, and you have in various ways given him to understand that you do not want his presence or his society, then you ask the reason of his impertinence and bid him away. Well, that is what we may do with Jesus. He has stood close by us a great while’97ten, twenty, thirty, forty years. He has stood close by you three times a day, breaking bread for your household, all night watching by your pillow. He has been in the nursery among your children, he has been in the store among your goods, he has been in the factory amid the flying wheels, and now if you do not like his society you can bid him away; ay, if he will not go you can take him by the throat and tell him you do not want his interference, that you do not want his breath on your cheek, that you do not want his eye on your behavior. You can bid him away, or if he will not go in that way, then you can stamp your foot, as you would at a dog, and cry, ’93Begone!’94 Yet I know you will not treat Jesus that way. I know you too well. When Pilate could not do that, you could not. If you were desperadoes and outlaws, I might expect it of you; but I know that that is not the way you will treat him, that that is not what you will do with Jesus.

There is another thing you can do with him: You can look on him merely as an optician to cure blind eyes or an aurist to tune deaf ears, a friend, a good friend, a helpful companion, a cheerful passenger on shipboard; but that will amount to nothing. You can look upon him as a God, and be abashed while he rouses the storm or blasts a fig-tree or heaves a rock down the mountain-side. That will not do you any good; no more save your soul than the admiration you have for John Milton or Oliver Cromwell.

I can think of only one more thing you can do with Jesus, and that is to take him into your hearts. That is the best thing you can do with him; that is the only safe thing you can do with him; and may the Lord omnipotent by his Spirit help me this morning to persuade you to do that. A minister of Christ was speaking to some children, and said, ’93I will point you to Christ.’94 A little child arose in the audience, and came up and put her hand in the hand of the pastor and said, ’93Please, sir, take me to Jesus now. I want to go now.’94 Oh, that it might be this morning with such simplicity of experience that you and I join hands and seek after Christ and get an expression of his benefaction and his mercy.

You may take Christ into your confidence. If you cannot trust him, whom can you trust? I do not offer you a dry, a theological technicality. I simply ask you to come and put both feet on the Rock of Ages. Take hold of Christ’92s hands and draw him to your soul with perfect abandonment, and hurl yourself into the deep sea of his mercy. He comes and says, ’93I will save you.’94 If you do not think he is a hypocrite and a liar when he says that, believe him, and say, ’93Lord Jesus, I believe; here is my heart. Wash it. Save it. Do it now. Ay, it is done; for I obey thy promise and come. I can do no more. That is all thou hast asked. I come. Christ is mine. Pardon is mine. Heaven is mine.’94

Why, my friends, you put more trust in everybody than you do in Christ, and in every thing: more trust in the bridge in crossing the stream, in the ladder up to the loft; more trust in the stove that confines the fire; more trust in the cook that prepares your food; more trust in the clerk that writes your books, in the druggist that mixes the medicine, in the bargain-maker with whom you trade; more trust in all these things than in Christ, although he stands this morning offering without limit and without mistake, and without exception, universal pardon to all who want it. Now, is not that cheap enough’97all things for nothing?

That is the whole of the Gospel as I understand it, that if you believe that Christ died to save you, you are saved. When? Now. No more doubt about it than that you sit there. No more doubt about it than that you have a right hand. No more doubt about it than that there is a God. If you had committed five hundred thousand transgressions, Christ would forgive you just as freely as if you had never committed but one; though you had gone through the whole catalogue of crimes’97arson and blasphemy and murder’97Christ would pardon you just as freely, you coming to him, as though you had committed only the slightest sin of the tongue. Why, when Christ comes to pardon a soul, he stops for nothing. Height is nothing. Depth is nothing. Enormity is nothing. Protractedness is nothing.

O’92er sins like mountains for their size,

The seas of sovereign grace expand,

The seas of sovereign grace arise.

Lord Jesus, I give up all other props, give up all other expectations. Ruined and undone, I lay hold thee. I plead thy promises. I fly to thy arms. ’93Lord save me; I perish.’94

When the Christian Commission went into the army during the war there were a great multitude of hungry men and only a few loaves of bread, and the delegate of the commission was cutting the bread and giving it out to wounded and dying men. Some one came up and said, ’93Cut those slices thinner or there will not be enough to go around.’94 And then the delegate cut the slices very thin and handed the bread around until they all had some, but not much. But, blessed be God, there is no need of economy in this gospel. Bread for all; bread enough and to spare. Why perish with hunger?

Again, I advise you, as one of the best things you can do with Christ, to take him into your love. Now, there are two things which make us love any one’97inherent attractiveness, and then what he does in the way of kindness toward us. Now Christ is in both these positions. Inherent attractiveness: fairer than the children of men, the lustre of the morning in his eye, the glow of the setting sun in his cheek, myrrh and frankincense in the breath of his lip. In a heaven of holy beings, the best. In a heaven of mighty ones, the strongest. In a heaven of great hearts, the tenderest and the most sympathetic. Why, sculpture has never yet been able to chisel his form, nor painting to present the glow of his cheek, nor music to strike his charms; and the greatest surprise of eternity will be the first moment when we rush into his presence and with uplifted hands and streaming eyes and heart bounding with rapture, we cry out, ’93This is Jesus!’94

All over glorious is my Lord,

He must be loved and yet adored;

His worth, if all the nations knew,

Sure, the whole earth would love him too.

Has he not done enough to win our affections? Peter the Great, laying aside royal authority, went down among the ship-carpenters to help them; but Russia got the chief advantage of that condescension. John Howard turned his back upon the refinements and went around prisons to spy out their sorrows and to relieve their wrongs; but English criminals got the chief advantage of that ministry. But when Christ comes, it is for you and me. The sacrifice for you and me. The tears for you and me. The crucifixion for you and me. If I were hopelessly in debt and some one came and paid my debts and gave me a receipt in full and called off the pack of hounding creditors; if I were on a foundering ship and you came in a lifeboat and took me off, could I ever forget your kindness? Would I ever allow an opportunity to pass without rendering you a service or attesting my gratitude and love? Oh, how ought we to feel toward Christ, who plunged into the depth of our sin and plucked us out. Ought it not to set the very best emotions of our heart into the warmest, ay, a red-hot glow? The story is so old that people almost get asleep while they are hearing it. And yet there he hangs’97Jesus the man, Jesus the God. Was there anything before or since, anything to be compared with this spectacle of generosity and woe? Did heartstrings ever snap with a worse torture? Were tears ever charged with a heavier grief? Did blood ever gush, in each globule the price of a soul? The wave of earthly malice dashed its bloody foam against one foot, the wave of infernal malice dashed against his other foot, while the storm of God’92s wrath against sin beat on his thorn-pierced brow and all the hosts of darkness with gleaming lances rampaged through his holy soul. See the dethronement of heaven’92s king! the conqueror fallen from the white horse! the massacre of God! Weep, ye who have tears, over the loneliness of his exile and the horrors of his darkness. Christ sacrificed on the funeral pyre of a world’92s transgression; the good for the bad, the great for the mean; the infinite for the finite, the God for the man. Oh, if there be in all this audience one person untouched by this story of the Saviour’92s love, show me where he is, that I may mark the monster of ingratitude and of crime. If you could see Christ as he is, you would rise from your seat and fling yourselves down at his feet, crying, ’93My Lord, my light, my love, my joy, my peace, my strength, my expectation, my heaven, my all! Jesus! Jesus!’94 Can you not love him? Do you want more of his tears? Why, he has shed them all for you. He has no more. Do you want more of his blood? His arteries were emptied dry, and the iron hand of agony could press out nothing more. Would you put him to worse excruciation? Then drive another nail into his hand and plunge another spear into his side and twist another thorn into his crown and lash him with another flame of infernal torture. ’93No,’94 says some one; ’93stop! stop! He shall not be smitten again. Enough the tears. Enough the blood. Enough the torture. Enough the agony.’94 ’93Enough,’94 cries the earth. ’93Enough,’94 cries heaven. Ay, ’93Enough,’94 cries hell. At last enough.

Look at him, thy butchered Lord, unshrouded and ghastly as they flung him from the tree, his wounds gaping for a bandage. Are there no hands to close these eyes? Then let the sun go out and there be midnight. Howl, ye winds, and howl, ye seas, for your Lord is dead. What more could he have done for you and for me than he has done? Could he pay a bigger price? Could he drink a more bitter cup? Could he plunge into a worse catastrophe? And can you not love him? Groan again, O blessed Jesus, that they may feel thy sacrifice! Groan again. Put the four fingers and the thumb of thy wounded hand upon them, that the gash in the palm may strike their soul, and thy warm life may bleed into them. Groan again, O Jesus, and see if they will not feel.

Oh, what do you do with such a Christ as that? You have got to do something with him this morning. What will you do with Jesus? Will you slay him again by your sin? Will you spit upon him again? Will you crucify him again? What will you do with him who has loved you with more than a brother’92s love, more than a father’92s love, yea, more than a mother’92s love, through all these years. Is it not enough to make the hard heart of the rock break? Jesus! Jesus! What shall we do with thee?

I have to say that the question will after a while change, and it will not be what shall we do with Christ, but what will Christ do with us? Ring all the bells of eternity at the burning of a world. In that day what do you think Christ will do with us? Why, Christ will say, ’93There is that man whom I called. There is that woman whose soul I importuned. But they would not any of my ways. I gave them innumerable opportunities of salvation. They rejected them all. Depart; I never knew you.’94 Blessed be God, that day has not come. Halt, ye destinies of eternity, and give us one more chance. One more chance, and this is it. Some travelers in the wilderness of Australia a few year ago found the skeleton of a man and some of his garments and a rusty kettle on which the man had written or scratched with his finger-nail these words, ’93O God! I am dying of thirst. My brain is on fire. My tongue is hot. God help me in the wilderness.’94 Oh, how suggestive of the condition of those who die in the wilderness of sin through thirst. We take hold of them today. We try and bring the cool water of the rock to their lips. We say, ’93Ho, every one that thirsteth!’94 God, thy Father, awaits thee. Ministering spirits who watch the ways of the soul, bend now this moment over this weeping, sinning, dying auditory, to see what we will do with Jesus.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage