GRACE REVIVING ISRAEL.
NO. 342
DELIVERED AT TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD CHAPEL,
BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON.
“I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.” — Hosea 14:5, 6, 7.
In reading this passage, does it ever fail to charm you? How full of beauty, and how full of poetry it is! Every word is a figure. Fair flowers that adorn, and corn that enricheth the fields; the olive tree, and the vine; the scent of the wine of Lebanon, and all rich things are here gathered and clustered together, to set forth the beauty of Israel under the reviving influences of God’s favor. And as this one portion of Sacred Writ is full of poetry, the like holds good of all the Word Of God. There is no book so poetic in its character as the Book of Inspiration. We had rather for poetry’s sake, lose all the books that have ever been written by all the poets that ever lived, than lose the sacred Scriptures; yea, if a collection could be made of all the gems of all the noted books; could they all be bound into one volume, there could not be found so many beauties as lie here, some of them hidden, and others of them manifest, in this most blessed volume of Revelation. Altogether apart from the sublimity of the matters treated, and the glory of the doctrines, the style itself is enough to make the book precious to every reader. It is a wondrous book; it is the book of God: yea, as Herbert says, “The god of books.” It is a book full of stars; every page blazes with light, from almost every sentence there beams forth some beautiful metaphor, some glorious figure.
In expounding the words of the text, we shall observe, first, the promise of grace made to Israel, notwithstanding, Israel’s sin: “I will be as the dew unto Israel.” Secondly, the influences of divine grace sweetly set forth in divers metaphor; and thirdly, the elect of divine grace upon those around: “they that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.”
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I. Here is A Promise Of Grace Made To The Christian: “I will be as the dew unto Israel.” I need not remind you that the Christian, (under the similitude of Israel, as I shall presently show you,) is here compared to a plant, a plant which cannot be watered by any water that is to be found on earth, a plant which needs heavenly watering, even the dew from above. Hypocrites may be watered by natural religion. Formalists may get their supply from the wells and springs of earth; but the Christian is a plant which can only be supported by dew from heaven. He feels that though the river of Egypt might be turned to his roots, he could not grow; though all the water in its floods, and though the ocean itself might be brought to irrigate him, yet he could get no genial moisture, no true growing power, from all that could be had on earth. He needs to have his dew from heaven. “Well,” says God to Israel, “thou art of thyself dewless, and sapless, and motionless, and thou hast no moisture. Thou canst not obtain any of thine own, nor can mortals give it thee; but do thou stand still where I have planted thee, and I will water thee every moment. I, the Lord will keep thee, I will be as the dew unto thee.” That Eastern figure, dew — for it is essentially Eastern, and not so well to be understood in this country — has in it several beauties.
You will notice, first of all, that grace, like the dew, often comes down imperceptibly into man’s heart. When did the dew tell us that it was about to fall? Who ever heard the footsteps of the dew coming down upon the meadow grass? Who ever knew when it was descending? We see it when it has fallen; but who saw it come? And so with Christianity: it is very often imperceptible in its operations. True it is sometimes like the rattling hail, pelting on the windows: the sinner knows when it comes by stormy convictions, and by troubled feelings within, but quite as often the work of grace in man’s heart is like the “still small voice,” which few hear, and of which even the man himself is partially unconscious, not as to its operation perhaps, but as to its nature, feeling that there is a something in his heart, though not positively sure that it really comes from God. Christian! despise not spiritual things, because thou hearest not a sound therewith. Much that God doeth, he doeth in silence. There is a plant which bursts with the sound of a trumpet; but full many a flower called beautiful, openeth in silence, and no man heareth the sound thereof. There be some Christians who seem bound to make a noise in the world, they were made for that purpose; but there be far more who have to blush unseen whose glory it is not to “waste their sweetness,” though to perfume “the desert air,” and to make it sing and blossom like the garden of the Lord. Beloved, you may perhaps fancy that you have not grace, because it has not come upon you in terrible excitements and in awful convictions. I beseech you, do not distrust the power of grace, because it has stolen imperceptibly into your hearts. Mark the promise: “I will be as the dew unto Israel,”
Again, if the dew is sometimes imperceptible, it is always sufficient. If God waters the earth with dew, foolish would be the man who should go afterwards, to water after his Maker. And God’s grace, when it comes upon man’s heart, is all-sufficient. What he giveth unto Israel, his own chosen people, is always enough for them. They sometimes think they want something more; they never really do, and what else they want, or think they want, it is better for them still to want. God is sufficient.
And the dew, too, when it is required, is constant. God may, if he pleases, withhold the dew, that he may make a nation fear before him, but he usually sendeth the dew in its appointed time, and each morning beholdeth the pearly drops shed forth from the hand of God; and do, Christian, God will be thy dew. As thou wantest grace; so shalt thou find it.
“All needful grace will God bestow,
And crown that grace with glory too;
He gives us all things. and withholds
No real good from upright souls.”
But it is superfluous for me to tell you what is the meaning of this figure. You all know it ten times better than I do, or at least you ought, for I am sure this text has been preached from times enough, and you are always hearing the metaphor used. Like many of God’s metaphors it is so simple, so glorious, it arrests our attention at first sight — “I will be as the dew unto Israel.” Instead of explaining, therefore, allow me to question you concerning it. Are you, my dear friends, of the number here mentioned who belong to Israel? You ask me what is meant by Israel. I reply, that historically Israel means God’s elect, his chosen ones: “Israel have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” But as you cannot tell that you are God’s elect, except by signs and marks, I must tell you another meaning of Israel. Israel means a man of prayer. The name of “Israel” was given to Jacob, because he “wrestled with the angel, and prevailed.” Are you a man of prayer? Come now, answer the question, each one of you for yourselves. Are you men of prayer, and women of prayer? Alas! some of you may use a form of prayer, but it hath no life in it. You ask, do I object to forms of prayer? I answer, no. I believe that sometimes forms of prayer, moulded according to the mind of the Spirit, are offered up with the vital breath of the same Spirit of God. Far be it from me to say, that because you use a form of prayer, therefore you do not pray at all; this however I remind you, your form of prayer is merely a vehicle, that moveth not except as it is drawn. Of itself it is like a steam engine, motionless till the furnace is heated; or rather, it is like the carriage which is drawn by the steam engine, being linked thereto with chains. A form of prayer is a heavy material thing, which prayer has to drag after it. It is no help to prayer, but rather a burden to it. There may be prayer with the huge cumbrous thing called the form attached but the form is distinct in every sense from the power. The prayer is the spirit, the life, the desire, the wish, the agonizing panting with God to obtain the blessing I ask you not whether you use a form of prayer, or whether you utter extempore prayers; for you may speak extemporaneously in prayer, and talk as much nonsense, ay, and a great deal more than you would if you used a prescribed form; you may avoid formality, and become frivolous. It is not uttering spontaneous words that is prayer any more than repeating a litany. But I ask you, do you pray? If you are prayerless, then you have no right to call yourselves God’s elect. God’s people are a praying people. They are an Israel, a wrestling race; and unto them the promise is made — “I will be unto them as the dew unto Israel.”
Yet one more hint: Israel may represent those who have chosen a better portion, who have given up the mess of pottage, who have sold that to “the men whose portion is in this life,” and are looking to the recompense in another world. Art thou, my hearer, one of those who are content with a mess of pottage? Is it enough for thee if thy dish be filled with dainty meat, thy wine-cup full, thine income steady, and thy back clothed with goodly raiment; and dost thou then care nothing for the things to come? Is thy whole soul set on the things of earth? Then I warn thee. Though thou mayest talk about being elect, thou art none of God’s elect unless thou hast set thine affections on things above and not on things on the earth. If thou art trying to make the best of things in this world, rejecting or even slighting that one object which ought to be three only one, to make the best of the next world, and dost not leave this in God’s hand for him to take care of, thou art none of his. Unless thou hast renounced the pottage, and taken Christ to be thine all and heaven thy portion, thou hast no well-founded hope, and thou hast no right to take this promise to thyself — “I will be as the dew unto Israel.” But thou who abhorrest the world, thou who spendest thy time in prayer, thou mayest take this to thyself; and in thy most barren and dry moments, thou mayest urge this at the mercy-throne — “I will be as the dew unto Israel.”
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II. The Influence Of Divine Grace In The Soul Are Here Set Forth In Metaphor — “I will be as the dew unto Israel.” What is the effect? Although grace is imperceptible in its coming, it is discernible enough in its fruits.
The very first effect of grace in the heart is, that it makes us grow upward. We shall “grow as the lily.” This refers to the daffodil lily, which on a sudden, in a night, will spring up. There may have been no lilies at all in a field, but after a shower of rain the lilies may be seen springing up everywhere and the ground will appear perfectly covered with their yellow hue. Mark, that is what grace does in a man’s soul. Wherever grace comes, its first operation is to make us grow up. It is a remarkable fact, that young Christians grow upward faster than any other Christians. They grow upward in their flaming love, mighty zeal, ardent hopes and longing expectations. Sometimes indeed our old friends step in and say, “Ah! young man, you are growing a great deal too fast; you are springing too rapidly upward; you will have a bitter frost to nip you a little presently.” Very well, that is true enough; but that frost will come quite soon enough, without any of your frosty breath going before it. Let the young grow when they can do not give them a piercing nip with your freezy fingers. Let them thrive while they can. You may tell us we shall hurt our constitutions, and by-and-bye we shall not be so zealous; nevertheless, let us alone till our constitutions are hurt, suffer us to be zealous while we can. You know very well, with all your prudence, you would give a king’s ransom if you could to-morrow have your juvenile ardor over again; and yet you quarrel with us because we grow upward. Why it is the effect of grace to grow upwards. The very first thing that grace does for us is to make us grow upward in love. Oh! what sweet love that is that we have in the early morning of life! There is not a prayer-meeting, but we are there; there is not a lecture, but oh how sweet it is to us; there is scarce a good deed to be done, but we must be engaged in it; we are so earnest, we are growing so fast. “They shall grow as the lily;” that is the promise. So when you see the promise fulfilled, my dear aged friends, do not be peevish or rebuke the young people, because they grow up and flourish in the courts of the Lord’s house.
There is a second effect. After they have been growing upward, they have to grow downward. While “he shall grow as the lily,” he shall “cast forth his roots as Lebanon” likewise. God will not have his people all flower and foliage, he wants them also to take deep root and throw out strong fibres. After a few years, when we have been growing up in ardent piety, it usually happens that some doubt crosses the mind, or some affliction comes, which, if it does not chill our ardor, yet sometimes checks our energy, and we do not grow so fast as we should. Well, what is the effect? Are we really hurt or injured thereby? I trow not. Growing down is quite as good as growing up. I will not say it is better. The most blessed growth in grace is to be growing up and growing down — to be rooted in humility, And yet growing up in zeal; but usually the two do not come together. Sometimes we grow up, and at other times we grow down. We are such poor mortals, we cannot attend to two things at once. So sure as ever we take to shooting up, the devil comes and tries to prevent us growing down; and if we are growing down, he generally keeps us from growing up. Well, if we cannot do two things at once, what a mercy it is that we can do one at a time, by God’s grace! After having grown up. the Christian grows down; “he casts forth his roots as Lebanon;” that is, he gets less in his own esteem. He was nothing once, but he now begins to be less than nothing. He thought humbly of himself before; but now he thinks worse of himself than ever he did. If you ask him now what is his character, although he said he was “a poor sinner and nothing at all” before; now he will tell you, that he thinks he is the poorest of sinners, for he has not grown one atom the richer all the time he has served his Lord. He is still poor in spirit, and perhaps poorer than ever he was. Blessed is it to grow downward!
And let me remind you, my dear friends, that growing downward is a very excellent thing to promote stability. Perhaps that is the exact meaning of the passage. When we are first brought to God, we are like the lily, wafted about by the wind, afterwards we grow downwards, and become firm. I am fully convinced that the prevailing lack of this age is not so much in respect to growing upwards as growing downwards. Whenever I look abroad on the aggregate assemblies of religious people, I am obliged to hold a large number of my hearers in supreme contempt. Are you not one day crowding to hear me preach what I think the truth, and another day cramming a place where a man is preaching the very opposite to what I hold to be true? The fact is, some of you have no idea of what fundamental truth in theology is. The popular cry is for liberality of sentiment, and if a man happens to say a hard word against anything he thinks essentially wrong, he is accounted a bigot directly. Many of you shrink from the imputation of bigotry, as if it were more awful than heresy in regard to the faith. You would as soon be called a common informer as be called a bigot. I beseech you, do not be appalled at a taunt. Do not be a bigot, but do not be ashamed of being called one. A man ought to have stable principles, and not be ever shifting about from one set of opinions to another. He ought not to be hearing a Calvinistic minister in the Morning, and saying, that is good, and then going in the evening to hear an Arminian minister, and saying, that is good. We are often told by some ministers in their drawing rooms, that God will not ask in the day of judgment what a man believed, for if his life has been correct, it will not much matter what doctrines he held. I am at a loss for the authority on which they base such laxness. I wonder who told them that was the truth. I have read my Bible through, and I have never found a text that could absolve my judgment from its allegiance to my Maker. I hold, that to believe wrongly is equally as great a sin in the sight of heaven as to act wrongly. Error is a crime before God, and though there is liberty of conscience, so far as man and man are concerned, there is no liberty of conscience with God. You are not free to believe truth, or to believe error just as you like. You are bound to believe what God says is truth, and on your soul’s peril be it, that you believe two things that are contrary, or confound the positive and the negative, where faith is the evidence of justification, and unbelief the seal of a sinner’s doom. Methinks God will say to you at last, “Man, I gave thee brains; I endowed thee with reason; how couldst thou suppose thyself less responsible for the use of thy brains than for the use of thy tongue?” One man says, “Yes;” another says “No,” and because it is the fashion to call out “Liberality, liberality, liberality,” thou dost assent to both, and joining the crowd thou art sincere in neither. Thou oughtest rather to say, “I believe that what I hold is true, and if I did not, I should not avow it, and believing it to be true, I cannot hold that the opposite is true, nor can I be continually going to hear one doctrine at one time and another at another; my conscience demands that I distinguish between things that differ.”
My dear friends, do try to grow down; strive to get a good hold of the rocky doctrines of free grace; do not give them up; keep fast hold of them. When you believe a thing upon genuine conviction, do not shrink from the avowal, because an ill name is applied to it; say rather,
“Should all the forms that men devise
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I’d call them vanity and lies,
And bind the gospel to my heart.”
Well, what next? After Christian has become confirmed in his doctrine, and has received the truth in the love of it, what next? Why the next thing is, he makes a profession. “His branches shall spread.” He has been a lily straight up, with no branches at all; but now his roots have struck deep into the ground, like the cedars of Lebanon; and the next thing he does is to send forth branches. He says, “I am a Christian; I cannot keep it a secret, I must let somebody know I am a child of God.” He goes to a prayer-meeting, and he is asked to pray. There is one branch spread. He goes to join a church; there is another branch. He sits down to the Lord’s supper: there is another branch. And so the little lily, which was at first but a tiny plant, now grows into a tree, and his branches spread. That is a blessed effect of grace, believe me, when it leads you to come forth from your obscurity, and let the world know what you are. I have no patience with some of you who talk about being secret Christians. I should think a man a deserter if he were to say, “Well, I am a soldier, but I do not like anybody to know it.” I should think that he did not belong to one of our good regiments surely, or he would not be ashamed of his colors. But there are many now-a-days that you scarce know whether they are Christians. Shall I tell you why? The awful fact is, that they are not Christians. “No man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bushel.” You know what the consequence would be if he did, — it would burn a hole through so sure as it was a candle; and no man can have grace in his heart, and keep it a secret. I am sure it must come out; it is one of the things that cannot be concealed. You shall not tell me you can walk into worldly company, and never let it be known that you are a Christian; that you can live for months in a house, and keep it dark that a Christian is living there. If that is the case, I tell you the angels do not know it; for it is not a fact. He that is a child of God will be discovered; his conduct will be different from the rest of men. “Thy speech betrayeth thee,” said the maid to Peter. And our speech will betray us, if we are disciples. I beseech you, let me stir you up, my young friends, to make a more open profession of your faith. The Savior has done much for you; do not be ashamed of him, I implore you, but begin to make a profession of Christ Jesus, your Lord.
Having joined the church and made a profession, what is the next effect of grace for the believer then? Why it is to make him beautiful as “the olive-tree.” The most beautiful thing in the world is a Christian. Shall I tell you what kind of beauty he has? His beauty is the beauty of an olive tree; and that consists, first, in its fruitfulness. The most beautiful olive tree a man can grow is the one that bears the most; and the most beautiful Christian in the Church is the one that abounds most in good works. Besides, the olive is an evergreen, and so is the Christian. He has an olive-green beauty. ’He has a beauty which does not fade away, as it does from other trees, but lives for ever. Ah! my friends, we sometimes put one of our members before others because of his wealth, and at times we show a little partiality to another because of his eloquence, and to another because of his talents, but I take it that God ranks us all according to our fruitfulness. The most beautiful tree in a garden is the one that bears the most fruit: and there is a promise given to a Christian that after his branches have spread, his beauty shall be as the olive tree; that is, he shall grow and be laden with fruit.
The olive tree, I have told you before, is evergreen; and so is the beauty of the Christian. Alas for the beautiful Christians we have in some of our places of worship on Sunday! Glorious Christians! Oh! if they could be packed up and sent to heaven just as they are, or provided their appearances were true indications of their state, what a blessed thing it would be! But alas, alas! on the Monday they have not the same sort of dress they had on Sunday, and therefore they have not the same kind of actions. Oh! dear friends, there is so much more Sunday religion in these days! Now, I like a Monday religion, and a Tuesday religion, and a Wednesday religion, and a Thursday religion, and a Friday religion, and a Saturday religion. I do not think the religion of the pulpit, or the religion of the pen, is to be relied upon. I think it is the religion of a draper’s shop, the religion of a corn exchange, religion in a house, religion in the street, and the religion of a fireside, that proves us to be God’s children. But how would some of you come off if you were weighed in these balances? Fine fellows, with your feathers on, on Sunday; but poor creatures when you are in your undress, in your religious dishabille on Monday! Ye are not well arrayed then; but ah! if ye were Christians, ye would be always well arrayed: yea, you would be always beautiful as the olive tree.
Again, “His smell shall be as Lebanon.” Now, I take it, the smell means the report which will go out concerning a man. As you walk up Lebanon, it is said that the flowers of the aromatic herbs there cast up a most delicious perfume. You need not touch a flower — you can smell it at a distance. And so with the true Christian. Without seeking for it, he will obtain a blessed name among his brethren, and some name also amongst the world. “His beauty shall be as the olive tree.”
2. And now, having thus sought to explain the text in regard to the Christian let me try to support it. I would support it first of all by the common consent of all believers in all ages. With the exception of ancient Pelagians and their modern off-spring, I do not know that the Church has afforded any instance of any professors who have doubted the inability of man apart from God the Holy Spirit. Our confessions of faith are nearly unanimous upon this point. .But I hear some one say — “Do not the Arminians believe that there is natural strength in man by which he can do something?” No, my brethren, the true Arminian can believe no such thing. Arminius speaks right well upon this point. I quote his words, as I have them in a translation: — “It is impossible for free-will without grace to begin or perfect any true or spiritual good. I say, the grace of Christ, which pertains to regeneration is simply and absolutely necessary for the illumination of the mind, the ordering of the affections, and the inclination of the will to that which is good. It is that which operates on the mind the affections, and the will, which infuses good thoughts into the mind, inspires good desires into the affections, and leads the will to execute good thoughts and good desires. It goes before, accompanies, and follows. It excites, assists, works in us to will, and works with us that we may not will in vain. It averts temptations, stands by and aids us in temptations, supports us against the flesh, the world, and Satan; and in the conflict, it grants us to enjoy the victory. It raises up again those who are conquered and fallen, it establishes them and endues them with new strength, and renders them more cautious. It begins, promotes, perfects, and consummates salvation. I confess, that the mind of the natural and carnal man is darkened, his affections are depraved, his will is refractory, and that the man is dead in sin.” Richard Watson, who among modern Arminians is considered to be a standard divine, especially in the Wesleyan denomination, is equally clear upon this point. He fully admits that “The sin of Adam introduced into his nature such a radical impotence and depravity, that it is impossible for his descendants to make any voluntary effort (of themselves,) towards piety and virtue,” and then he quotes with great approbation an expression of Calvin’s, in which Calvin says that “Man is so totally overwhelmed, as with a deluge, that no part is free from sin, and therefore, whatever proceeds from him is accounted sin.” It is very satisfactory to have these testimonies to the common doctrine of the Church. I know that some Arminians are not so sound even as Arminius or Richard Watson. I know that some of them do not understand any creed at all, not even their own, for in all denominations there are men so ignorant of all theology, that they will venture upon any assertion whatever claiming to be Arminian, or Calvinistic, without knowing what either Calvin or Arminius taught. Arminians would be much better even if they were as good as Arminius. Much as he swerved from the faith in some respects, he was not one-half so grave a heretic as multitudes of his followers, but in many points would be as stern and unflinching a defender of the faith as John Calvin himself.
But my dear friends, instead of dwelling upon this point any longer, let me make one or two other remarks. Suppose for a moment that the doctrine of our text were not true, and that Christians had power in themselves to do something, take down your Bibles when you get home and see what a great many promises of the Word of God would be without any value to you. God never made a promise which was not necessary, now if I have strength of my own, God certainly will not need to make me a promise of giving his strength to me. But inasmuch as there are scores of promises in which it is written, “Unto him that hath no might, he increaseth strength;” inasmuch as we are often told that “young men do faint and are weary, and the youths do utterly fail, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,” I think you see that the very fact of these promises prove that they are needed, and if needed, it must be because man is weak. But again, what should we make of the praises of the saints? Have ye not heard them all through Holy Scripture ascribing their strength and their power to God? Did they not all, from the first even to the last, confess that all their fresh springs were in him; that he, the Lord Jehovah, was their strength and their song, and had become their salvation? Did they not unanimously confess that their sufficiency was of God, that when they were weak then were they strong; that in themselves they we’re nothing? I say, what make you of these praises? What are they? Are they not mere empty wind, if these men, really had in themselves strength and power to do good? And what are the songs before the throne — those eternal cries of “Salvation be unto our God that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb?” How can they ascribe power and dominion, and might, to him for ever and ever, if their power was of themselves? Must there not be a mingled strain; and while they sing the power of grace, must there not be some interludes in which they will chant the power of nature too? If they came to heaven partly by God and partly by themselves, must not some of the saved harpers sing to grace, but others of them vary the strain, at least at intervals, to the praise of him who by his own strength did snap the fetters of his sin, and by his own watchfulness did preserve himself unto eternal life? ’Tis blasphemy to think thus. Oh! no, my brethren, it is because they had no power on earth but that it which God gave to them, that they have no song in heaven except the song which exalts and praises God!
Other arguments I suppose are unnecessary, but yet let me mention one other. If it were so, that man had power in himself, what were the need of the Holy Spirit’s office at all? The office of the Holy Ghost becomes at once a useless sinecure if man can do anything and everything. What need to quicken men by the Spirit if they can take the first step towards quickening themselves? What need to strengthen us with might according to his Spirit in the inner man, if the inner man be already strong enough in its own natural power? What need that the Spirit should daily teach God’s people if they can instruct themselves? What need that I should pray “Hold thou me up,” if I can hold up myself? Prayers for spiritual aid are prayers for mercies that are unneeded, if we have strength of our own. I do aver that, if man has grace enough to keep himself one single hour from sin, it is not necessary for him to pray at least during that hour. Why should he want more strength than he needs? Should he have it to spend it upon his lusts? If it be possible for me to perform any one holy action apart from the Lord Jesus, then let me at least perform that one action independently of him. Let me for that time dispense with the Holy Spirit. But you revolt from such an idea. I see your blood would curdle if I should continue to talk thus.
“No,” say you, “day-by day we have need to pray; hour by hour we have need to trust. ’My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him.’” I am compelled to feel each day I can no nothing without him; my strength is wholly thine. The very fact that the offices of the Holy Spirit are needed, by our experience, proves that we can do nothing without him.
3. Now let us improve this doctrine. We see here a reason for the deepest humility. Art thou proud, believer, because thou hast done some little service to the Church and to thy times? Who maketh thee to differ, and what hast thou which thou hast not received? Hast thou shed a little light upon the darkness? Ah! who lit thy candle; and who is it that keeps thee still shining and prevents thee from being extinguished? Hast thou overcome temptation? Hang not up thy banner; do not decorate thine own bosom with the glory, for who made thee strong in the battle?
Who made thy sword sharp and enabled thee to strike home? Remember, thou hast done nothing whatever of thyself. If thou be this day a vessel unto honor, decorated and gilded, — if now thou art a precious vase, filled with the sweetest perfume, yet thou didst not make thyself so. Thou art the clay, and He is the potter. If thou be a vessel unto honor, yet not a vessel unto thine own honor, but a vessel unto the honor of him that made thee. If thou standest among thy fellow-men as the angels stand among the fallen spirits — a chosen one, distinguished from them, yet remember, it was not any goodness in thyself that made thee to be chosen, nor has it been any of thine own efforts, or thine own power, which has lifted thee out of the miry clay, and set thy feet on the rock, and established thy goings. Off with thy crown from thy proud head, and lay down thine honors at the feet of him who gave them to thee. Come with cherubim and seraphim and vail thy face and cry, “Not unto us, not unto us, but unto his name be all the glory for ever and ever.”
And when thou art thus bowed down with humility, be thou prepared to learn another lesson, namely, — never to depend on thyself again. If thou hast aught to do, go not forth to do it leaning on an arm of flesh. First bow thy knee and ask power of him who makes thee strong, and then thou shalt come back from thy labor rejoicing. But if thou goest in thine own strength, thou shalt break thy ploughshare on the rock; thou shalt sow thy seed by the side of the salt sea upon the barren sand, and thou shalt look upon the naked acres in years to come, and they shall not yield thee so much as a single blade to make glad thy heart. “Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength;” but that strength is not available to you so long as you repose in any strength of your own. He will help you if you be but as a worm, but if you be strong in yourself, he will take away his own power from you, and cause you to stumble and to fall; and happy shall it be if you stumble not to be broken into pieces. Learn then the grace of depending daily upon God, and do this constantly with proper humility.
Ah, my brothers and sisters, I would speak very earnestly here ere I turn from this point, for this is a common vice with us all — To wish to grow independent. We get a little stock of grace on hand, and we think we will spend our pocket money before we will go again to our Father’s treasury. We have a little faith, our Master honors us with enjoyment of his presence, and we grow so great that we cry, “My mountain standeth firm; I shall never be moved.” Ah! there is always a trial near at hand. Do we not make most of our trials through our boasting, and do we not kindle our own furnace with the fuel of our pride? If we were more childlike, resting more simply on the Spirit’s power, should we not be more happy? Does not God our Father hide his face, because to see his face too much might make us exalted above measure? Does not that thorn tear our flesh because otherwise we should lie upon the bed of carnal security and sleep all day long? Oh! we might be always on the mountain-top if we had not such dizzy heads and such slippery feet. We might always have our mouths full of sweetness if it were not that we are so weak that we cannot bear these sweet things always, and must have a draught of wormwood that we may be brought back again by a bitter tonic into a healthy state of soul. I pray you seek to lie flat on the ground before our God, for every inch we rise higher than that, is an inch too high; not an inch heavenward, but an inch hellward. Every grain of self-strength we gain is a grain of weakness, and every particle of self reliance is but a new particle of poison infused into our veins. From all reliance upon self, and all carnal security, good Lord deliver us!
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II. I now turn to the second part of the discourse, upon which I shall dwell briefly but earnestly.
“Without me ye can do nothing.” If this be true of the saint, we affirm that it is equally, if not even more forcibly true of The Sinner.
Instead of dividing didactically here, as I have done under the first head, let me at once speak to the conscience. Sinner, the child of God who has been quickened and renewed, feels that without Christ he can do nothing. How much more must this be true of thee, for thou art absolutely dead in trespasses and sins. When the branch is in the vine, and has been grafted into the good olive, it can then bring forth no good fruit without the stem. How much less, then, canst thou hope to do anything, for thou art not even grafted in, but thou belongest to the wild olive — how canst thou bring forth fruit? If when the Christian’s face has been made white he cannot keep it so, how much more shall the Ethiopian — such as thou art — change his skin, or the leopard his spots? If when healed of his leprosy the believer feels that the leprosy would break out day-by-day, were it not for the constant miraculous power of the good physician, how much less canst thou, all over defiled with the leprosy of sin, make thyself clean? Sinner, it is true of thee that unless visited by the Holy Spirit, unless united to Christ, thou canst do nothing. We do not assert that thou art physically incapable; thou canst perform natural acts. Thou canst go to the house of God; thou canst read God’s Word; thou canst do a thousand things, which only need thy arms, and legs, and eyes. Nor art thou even mentally incapable. Thou canst discern between good and evil; thou canst judge of truth and error, and in choosing the false and rejecting the true thou art verily guilty. We speak now of thy actions spiritually, not morally. Of all spiritual acts thou art as totally incapable as the dead in the graveyards, or as the dried bones after they have passed through the fire. There remaineth in thee no spiritual life, no spiritual power with which to help thyself. Thou art utterly ruined, entirely undone; and in thyself thou art beyond the reach of all hope and of all human help. Yet remember, I pray thee, that this incapacity of thine is a sinful one. It is not one which is thy misfortune, but thy sin. Thou art incapable of righteousness, but thou art capable enough of iniquity, and thy very incapacity is in itself a deadly and a damning sin. Yet again, thy incapacity does not deliver thee from thy duty. Though thou canst do nothing, it is equally thy duty to do everything which God commands. Though thou canst not pay the debt, for thou art utterly bankrupt, it is still thy duty to pay it. God has not remitted his law because thou hast lost power to obey. Nay, even the gospel itself does not take back one of its precepts because thou canst not fulfill them in and of thyself. Still doth God demand of thee that thou shouldst “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength;” though thou canst no more do this than thou canst fly. Still doth he demand of thee that thou turn from sin, and that thou believe in the Lord Jesus with all thy heart, though thou canst no more accomplish this than a stone can transform itself into an angel, or silent rocks chant forth the hallelujahs of eternity. Thus, thou seest sinner, in what a state thou art. Thou hast a Lord to demand of thee, but thou hast nothing wherewith to pay. Thou hast the same claims upon thee, as Adam had in the garden, but thou hast lost all capacity to fulfill the demand. Oh, sinner! what a lost thing thou art! what a lost thing thou art!
But I hear some one say, “Preaching like this will paralyse men’s exertions, and make them say, ’I can do nothing.’” Ah, my friends, it is just this which we wish to make them say. We wish to paralyse their exertions; we wish to strike them with a sense of their inability. Do not think I would deny or shrink from the consequences of this truth upon the sinner’s conscience; it is just this I wish to bring him to. The Arminian seeks to bring men to activity; I seek to bring him to no such thing at first, but to a sense of his inability; for thee, when he has come to know his inability, then God the Spirit worketh in him, and then shall the activity begin. But activity apart from a sense of inability, is but putting the sinner on a path which seems to lead to heaven, but which will really lead to hell. I care not though it should be said, thousands have been converted by a preaching contrary to this. The conversion of most of these has been a fallacy. I have been lately in a district where a most excellent brother in Christ had worked a very great revival. It was said, that nearly every person in the town had been converted, and the town is as drunken, as profane, as blasphemous at this day, as it was before. I am persuaded that much of the excitement and fanatical ravings, which have disgraced the true revival movement, are no more the work of God than the work of Satan himself. I would discern between the precious and the vile. God has made bare his arm, multitudes have been converted during the last few years by true revival work. But that excitement which has attended some of these revivals is nothing more than the excitement of the passions of men; making men weep about their parents, but not about their sins; making them cry about their children, but not about their souls; making them tremble for the moment, but not reaching their inmost heart. We shall need to have the Master come again, with a fan in his hand, thoroughly to purge his floor. I may state an unpalatable truth, but the floor is getting heaped with chaff now, and preachers are receiving into churches men that will need to be cast out again. They may be received with sound of trumpet, but they will have to be thrust out by the back door with the noise of weeping, because they were not savingly converted to God. I feel in my own conscience that I were not clear of man’s blood unless I did aver that any conversion which does not bear in it a consciousness of man’s total loss and ruin — any conversion which does not teach man the fact that he can do nothing, is a conversion from which he needs be converted, and a repentance which needs to be repented of. Still, I hear another say, “It must be an ill thing to bring men to feel that they can do nothing.” It is no ill thing, I would to God that every sinner felt it in his own soul. “But,” says one, “I knew a man who used to say he could do nothing, therefore, he would not try.” My friend, what that man said is one thing; what he felt was another. I venture to affirm that that man did not believe what he said, or he would not have added the last sentence. He thought in his own heart that he could believe, and could repent, and could be saved when he liked. He still treasured up in his soul the fallacy that one of these fine days, when he had a more convenient season, he would come to Christ. That was his inmost thought. What he said was but a mere presence to screen his conscience from your rebuke. Why, men and women, if you could be made to feel that you were so lost, so ruined, that you could do nothing, it would fill you with trembling and with self-despair and then you would cry out in the midst of your horror, “Lord save, or I perish.” “God be merciful to me a sinner.” I say again, it is because you do not feel it, but only say you do. You therefore make your saying it an excuse for a want of feeling. I pray God the Spirit strike you now with a sense of powerlessness, that at once you may fall flat on your face, and feel in your inmost heart that your salvation lies in Christ’s hands and not in your own; and that if you are saved, it must be the work of grace in you, and of grace for you. It cannot be your own work since you have no power to do it, in and of yourself
If I could only bring you there! Oh, my God, bring the sinner there! I pray thee bring him there! If thou art come there already poor sinner, God has begun a good work in thee. I tell thee if thou art come to know this truth really in thy very heart, God the Spirit has begun to save thee, and the work of his own hand he will never leave. Do not misunderstand me. If you merely say, “I can do nothing, — (any man can say that) — that is not the Spirit’s work. But if you feel you can do nothing, then that is the Spirit’s work. Is not this doctrine very unpalatable? There are many of my hearers who do not like it now, perhaps they will go away and say, “This is a hard saying who can bear it?” I do not expect the natural man to receive a spiritual truth. If you have received it, I thank God for it. He that strippeth you will clothe you. He that has killed you this morning will quicken you. He that has made you feel that you can do nothing, will give you strength to do all things. If you could see the bottom of your own treasury that there is not a farthing left in it, if you could feel your own emptiness, I am sure you would soon see Christ’s fullness, and would discover that he is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by him, that though we can do nothing he can do all things, that though we can neither begin nor end, “He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the author and the finisher of our faith.”
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III. I now close with the third head, “Without me ye can do nothing.” This is true of The Saint On The Sinner’s Account.
Brethren, I sometimes hear of men called Revivalists, and I suppose it is imagined that there is some power in them or about them to create a revival. I should be sorry to wear the title lest I should be thought to arrogate any power to myself. I know, too, that people sometimes plan to have a revival at a certain time. As if the Spirit of God were at their disposal, as if they could make the wind, which bloweth where it listeth, and when it pleaseth, to come at their beck and at their command. I think all that is beginning at the wrong end. Instead thereof we ought to hold meetings for prayer, to confess our inability. If we began by feeling we could not do anything, we should do everything; but when we begin by thinking we can do everything, we shall end in doing nothing. The Church of to-day needs more and more to have this fact driven right into her heart. Church of God thou art powerless; thou hast no strength, no might to convert a single soul apart from the Spirit of God. Have any of you proved this to be true in your own experience? Perhaps, I look upon a father now who has many children. He says, “There is one of my sons who completely confounds me. I have prayed for him, I have talked with him. I have sought to instruct him; but I can only go up to my chamber and on my knees feel that unless God puts to his hand, that boy will never be saved.” It is a good thing that you should feel this, for now you will go to work in the right way, using not your own tools, nor your own power, but upon the strength of God. And I, too, come up into the pulpit and I feel I may preach — ay, with the tongues of men and of angels may I preach — not I alone, but all my brethren in the ministry, we may all of us preach vehemently, earnestly, but there will be no power whatever in our preaching for the winning of a single soul, apart from that Spirit of God who goeth forth with the Word. We want ministers always to feel that it is not the mere adaptation of the sermon to the salvation of souls, but the application of that sermon to the soul. It is not the mere fact that we are earnest but the energy of the Spirit going with our earnestness, to quicken the heart and arouse the conscience. Sunday-school teachers, you want to feel this. It will not unnerve you, it will not paralyse you, it will make you strong, for when we are weak then we are strong. You want to feel that you could no more convert a child in your class than create a world, that you could no more change a heart than make an ocean blaze, or compel the solid granite to mount in watery fountains to the sky. You know that this is in God’s hand, not in yours. Yours it is to use the means, but God’s to work the result. Go, then, each of you, beloved of your God, to your separate works, casting aside all your own trust, and depending simply, wholly, and entirely upon God.
I do believe there would be much more good done in the world if some of those who try to do good looked less to their own carnal power to do it. I mean by this, if they had less apparent power they would have more strength. There is a story told by Toplady of a Doctor Guyse, a very learned man. He was in the habit of preparing his sermons very carefully, and he used to read them very accurately. He did so for years, but there was never known to be a sinner saved under him — never such a wonder! The poor good man — for he was an earnest man, and wished to do good — was one day at prayer in the pulpit, praying to God that he would make him a useful minister. When he had finished his prayer he was stone blind. He had sufficient self possession to preach the sermon extempore, which he had prepared with notes. People did not notice his blindness, but they never heard the doctor preach such a sermon as that before. There was deep attention, there were souls saved. He found his way from the pulpit and began to express his deep sorrow that he had lost his eyesight, when some good old woman who was present, said, perhaps a little unkindly, but still very truthfully, — “Doctor, we have never heard you preach like this before, and if that is the result of your being blind, it is a pity you were not blind twenty years ago, for you have done more good to-day than you have done in twenty years.” So I do not know whether it would not be a good thing if some of our fine sermon readers were struck blind. If they were compelled to be less elaborate in the preparation of their sermons; to lose some half-dozen hard words, which they always write down as soon as they meet with them, and use them as stones in the middle of the sermon, if, when they came up into the pulpit, though condemned by critics as speaking vulgar language, they talked of commonplace things such as poor people could appreciate — if they were only to do this, God being with them, the absence of their mental power would be the means of more spiritual power, and he should have reason to thank God-that the man had become less, and that God did shine out with greater resplendence. For what are many learned men after all but stained glass windows to keep out the light? Oh that we had more men who were as the plain glass of the poor man’s cottage, to let the light of God shine through them. Let the Church feel that her power is not mental power, but spiritual power. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” She might then use all her learning, all her education, and all her eloquence. She would use them well too if she did but feel that these were not her weapons in the hand of God for the pulling down of strongholds.
May God add his blessing for Jesus Christ’s sake.