NO. 348<\/b><\/p>\n
A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, DECEMBER 2ND, 1860,<\/b><\/p>\n
BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,<\/i><\/p>\n
AT EXETER HALL, STRAND<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cIf there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies.\u201d \u2014 Philippians 2:1.<\/i><\/p>\n
THE language of man has received a new coinage of words since the time of his perfection in Eden. Adam could scarce have understood the word consolation, for the simple reason that he did not understand in Eden the meaning of the word sorrow. O how has our language been swollen through the floods of our griefs and tribulations! It was not sufficiently wide and wild for man when he was driven out of the garden into the wide, wide world. After he had once eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, as his knowledge was extended so must the language be by which he could express his thoughts and feelings. But, my hearers, when Adam first needed the word consolation, there was a time when he could not find the fair jewel itself. Until that hour when the first promise was uttered, when the seed of the woman was declared as being the coming man who should bruise the serpent\u2019s head Adam might masticate and digest the word sorrow, but he could never season and flavor it with the hope or thought of consolation, or if the hope and thought might sometimes flit across his mind like a lightning flash in the midst of the tempest\u2019s dire darkness, yet it must have been too transient, too unsubstantial, to have made glad his heart, or to soothe his sorrows. Consolation is the dropping of a gentle dew from heaven on desert hearts beneath. True consolation, such as can reach the heart, must be one of the choicest gifts of divine mercy; and surely we are not erring from sacred Scripture when we avow that in its full meaning, consolation can be found nowhere save in Christ, who has come down from heaven, and who has again ascended to heaven, to provide strong and everlasting consolation for those whom he has bought with his blood.<\/p>\n
You will remember, my dear friends, that the Holy Spirit, during the present dispensation, is revealed to us as the Comforter. It is the Spirit\u2019s business to console and cheer the hearts of God\u2019s people. He does convince of sin; he does illuminate and instruct; but still the main part of his business lies in making glad the hearts of the renewed, in confirming the weak, and lifting up all those that be bowed down. Whatever the Holy Ghost may not be, he is evermore the Comforter to the Church, and this age is peculiarly the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in which Christ cheers us not by his personal presence, as he shall do by-and-bye, but by the indwelling and constant abiding of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Now, mark you, as the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, Christ is the comfort. The Holy Spirit consoles, but Christ is the consolation.<\/i> If I may use the figure, the Holy Spirit is the Physician, but Christ is the medicine. He<\/i> heals the wound, but it is by applying the holy ointment of Christ\u2019s name and grace. He takes not of his own things, but of the things of Christ. We are not consoled to-day by new revelations, but by the old revelation explained, enforced, and lit up with new splendor by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost the Comforter. If we give to the Holy Spirit the Greek name of Paraclete<\/i>, as we sometimes do, then our heart confers on our blessed Lord Jesus the title of the Paraclesis.<\/i> If the one be the Comforter the other is the comfort.<\/p>\n
I shall try this morning, first, to show how Christ in his varied positions is the consolation of the children of God in their varied trials,<\/i> then we shall pass on, secondly, to observe that Christ in his unchanging nature is a consolation to the children of God in their continual sorrows;<\/i> and lastly, I shall close by dwelling awhile upon the question as to whether Christ is a consolation to us<\/i> \u2014 putting it personally, \u201cIs Christ a present and available consolation for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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I. <\/b>First, Christ In His Varied Positions Is A Consolation For The Divers Ills Of The Children OF God.<\/p>\n
Our Master\u2019s history is a long and eventful one; but every step of it may yield abundant comfort to the children of God. If we track him from the highest throne of glory to the cross of deepest woe, and then through the grave up again the shining steeps of heaven, and onward through his meditorial kingdom, on to the day when he shall deliver up the throne to God even our Father, throughout every part of that wondrous pathway there may be found the flowers of consolation growing plenteously, and the children of God have but to stoop and gather them. \u201cAll<\/i> his paths drop fatness, all his garments which he wears in his different offices, smell of myrrh, and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby he makes his people glad.\u201d<\/p>\n
To begin at the beginning, there are times when we look upon the past with the deepest grief. The withering of Eden\u2019s flowers has often caused a fading in the garden of our souls. We have mourned exceedingly that we have been driven out to till the ground with the sweat of our brow \u2014 that the curse should have glanced on us through the sin of our first parent, and we have been ready to cry, \u201cWoe worth the day in which our parent stretched forth his hand to touch the forbidden fruit.\u201d Would to God that he had rested in unsullied purity, that we his sons and daughters might have lived beneath an unclouded sky, might never have mourned the ills of bodily pain or of spiritual distress. To meet this very natural source of grief, I bid you consider Christ in old eternity. Open now the eye of thy faith, believer, and see Christ as thine Eternal Covenant-head stipulating to redeem thee even before thou hadst become a bond-slave, bound to deliver even before thou hadst worn the chain. Think, I pray thee, of the eternal council in which thy restoration was planned and declared even before the fall, and in which thou wast established in an eternal salvation even before the necessity of that salvation had begun. O, my brethren, how it cheers our hearts to think of the anticipating mercies of God! He anticipated our fall, foreknew the ills which it would bring upon us, and provided in his eternal decree of predestinating love an effectual remedy for all our diseases, a certain deliverance from all our sorrows. I see thee, thou fellow of the Eternal, thou equal of the Almighty God! Thy goings forth were of old. I see thee lift thy right hand and engage thyself to fulfill thy Father\u2019s will \u2014 \u201dIn the volume of the book it is written of me, \u2019I delight to do thy will, O God.\u2019\u201d I see thee forming, sinning, and sealing that eternal covenant by which the souls of all the redeemed were there and then delivered from the curse, and made sure and certain inheritors of thy kingdom and of thy glory. In this respect Christ shines out as the consolation of his people.<\/p>\n
Again, if ever your minds dwell with sadness upon the fact that we are at this day absent from the Lord, because we are present in the body, think of the great truth that Jesus Christ of old had delights with the sons of men, and he delights to commune and have fellowship with his people now. Remember that your Lord and Master appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre under the disguise of a pilgrim. Abraham was a pilgrim, and Christ to show his sympathy with his servant, became a pilgrim too. Did he not appear also to Jacob at the brook Jabbok? Jacob was a wrestler, and Jesus appears there as a wrestler too. Did he not stand before Moses under the guise and figure of a flame in the midst of a bush? Was not Moses at the very time the representative of a people who were like a bush burning with fire and yet not consumed? Did he not stand before Joshua \u2014 Joshua the leader of Israel\u2019s troops, and did he not appear to him as the captain of the Lord\u2019s host? And do you not well remember that when the three holy children walked in the midst of the fiery furnace, he<\/i> was in the midst of the fire too, not as a king, but as one in the fire with them? Cheer then thy heart with this consoling inference. If Christ appeared to his servants in the olden time, and manifested himself to them as bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, in all their trials and their troubles, he will do no less to thee to-day; he will be with thee in passing through the fire \u2014 he will be thy rock, thy shield, and thy high tower; he will be thy song, thy banner, and thy crown of rejoicing. Fear not, he who visited his saints of old will surely not be long absent from his children today: his delights are still with his people, and still will he walk with us through this weary wilderness. Surely this makes Christ a most blessed consolation for his Israel.<\/p>\n
And now to pursue the Master\u2019s footsteps, as he comes out of the invisible glories of Deity-, and wears the visible garment of humanity. Let us view the babe of Bethlehem, the child of Nazareth, the Son of Man. See him, he is in every respect a man. \u201cOf the substance of his mother\u201d is he made, in the substance of our flesh he suffers; in the trials of our flesh he bows his head; under the weakness of our flesh he prays, and in temptation of our flesh he is kept and maintained by the grace within. You<\/i> to-day are tried and troubled, and you ask for consolation. What better can be afforded you than what is presented to you in the fact that Jesus Christ is one with you in your nature \u2014 that he has suffered all that you are now suffering \u2014 that your pathway has been aforetime trodden by his sacred foot \u2014 that the cup of which you drink is a cup which he has drained to the very bottom \u2014 that the river through which you pass is one through which he swam, and every wave and billow which rolls over your head did in old time roll over him. Come! art thou ashamed to suffer what thy Master suffered? Shall the disciple be above his Master, and the servant above his Lord? Shall he die upon a cross, and wilt not thou bear the cross? Must he be crowned with thorns; and shalt thou be crowned with laurel? Is he to be pierced in hands and feet, and are thy members to feel no pain? O cast away the fond delusion I pray thee, and look to him who \u201cendured the cross, despising the shame,\u201d and be ready to endure and to suffer even as he did.<\/p>\n
And now behold our Master\u2019s humanity clothed even as ours has been since the fall He comes not before us in the purple of a king, in the garb of the rich and the respectable, but he wears a dress in keeping with his apparent origin, he is a carpenter\u2019s son, and he wears a dress which becomes his station. View him, ye sons of poverty, as he stands before you in his seamless garment, the common dress of the peasant; and if you have felt this week the load of want \u2014 if you have suffered and are suffering this very day the ills connected with poverty, pluck up courage, and find a consolation in the fact that Christ was poorer than you are \u2014 that he knew more of the bitterness of want than you ever yet can guess. You cannot say, \u201cFoxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but I have not where to lay my head,\u201d or if you could go as far as that, yet have you never known a forty-day\u2019s fast. You have some<\/i> comforts left to you, you do know at least the sweet taste of bread to the hungry man, and of rest to the weary; but these things were often denied to him. Look at him, then, and see if there be not to you comfort in Christ.<\/p>\n
We pass now, O Jesus, from thy robe of poverty to that scene of shame in which thy garments were rent from thee, and thou didst hang naked before the sun. Children of God, if there be one place more than another where Christ becomes the joy and comfort of his people, it is where he plunged deepest into the depths of woe. Come, see him, I pray you, in the garden of Gethsemane; behold him as his heart is so full of love that he cannot hold it in \u2014 so full of sorrow that it must find a vent. Behold the bloody sweat as it distils from every pore of his body, and falls in gouts of gore upon the frozen ground. See him as all red with his own blood, wrapped in a bloody mantle of his own gore, he is brought before Herod and Pilate and the Sanhedrim. See him now as they scourge him with their knotted whips, and afresh encrimson him, as though it were not enough for him to be dyed once in scarlet, but he must again be enwrapped in purple. See him, I say, now that they have stripped him naked. Behold him as they drive the nails into his hands and into his feet. Look up and see the sorrowful image of your dolorous Lord. O mark him, as the ruby drops stand on the thorn-crown, and make it the blood-red diadem of the King of misery. O see him as his bones are out of joint, and he is poured out like water and brought into the dust of death. \u201cBehold and see, was there ever sorrow like unto his sorrow that is done unto him? \u201cAll ye that pass by, draw near and look upon this spectacle of grief. Behold the Emperor of woe who never had an equal or a rival in his agonies! Come and see him; and if I read not the words of consolation written in lines of blood all down his side, then these eyes have never read a word in any book, for if there be not consolation in a murdered Christ, there is no joy, no peace to any heart. If in that finished ransom price, if in that efficacious blood, if in that all-accepted sacrifice there be not joy, ye harpers of heaven, there is no joy in you, and the right hand of God shall know no pleasures for evermore. I am persuaded, men and brethren, that we have only to sit more at the Cross to be less troubled with our doubts, and our fears, and our woes. We have but to see his<\/i> sorrows, and lose our<\/i> sorrows, we have but to see his wounds, and heal our own. If we would live, it must be by contemplation of his death; if we would rise to dignity it must be by considering his humiliation and his sorrow.<\/p>\n
Lord, thy death and passion give
Strength and comfort in my need,
Every hour while here I live,
On thy love my soul shall feed.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
But come troubled heart, and follow the dead body of thy Master, for though dead, it is as full of consolation as when alive. It is now no more naked, the loving hands of Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus and the Magdalene and the other Mary, have wrapped it in cerements, and have laid it in the new tomb. Come, saints not to weep, but to dry your tears. You have been all your lifetime subject to fear of death: come, break your bonds asunder, be free from this fear. Where your Master sleeps, you may surely find an easy couch. What more could you desire than to lie upon the bed of your royal Solomon? The grave is now no more a charnel-house or a dark prison, his<\/i> having entered it makes it a blessed retiring-room, a sacred hath in which the King\u2019s Esthers purify their bodies, to make them fit for the embraces of their Lord. It becomes now not the gate of annihilation, but the portal of eternal bliss, \u2014 a joy to be anticipated, a privilege to be desired. \u201cFearless we lay us in the tomb and sleep the night away, for thou art here to break the gloom, and call us back to day.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am certain, brethren, that all the consolations which wise men can ever afford in a dying hour will never be equal to that which is afforded by the record, that Jesus Christ ascended from the tomb. The maxims of philosophy, the endearments of affection, and the music of hope, will be a very poor compensation for the light of Jesus\u2019 grave. Death is the only mourner at Jesus\u2019 tomb, and while the whole earth rejoices at the sorrow of its last enemy, I would be all too glad to die, that I might know him, and the power of his resurrection. Heir of heaven! if thou wouldst be rid once for all of every doubting thought about the hour of thy dissolution, look, I pray thee, to Christ risen from the dead. Put thy finger into the print of the nails, and thrust thy hand into his side, and be not faithless but believing. He is<\/i> risen, he saw no corruption; the worms could not devour him, and as Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, he has become the first fruits of them that slept. Inasmuch as he has risen, thou shalt rise. He has robed the stone away, not for himself alone, but for thee also. He has unwrapped the grave-clothes, not for his own sake, but for thy sake too, and thou shalt surely stand in the latter day upon the earth, when he<\/i> shall be here, and in thy flesh thou shalt see God.<\/p>\n
Time would fail us, if we should attempt to track the Master in his glorious pathway after his resurrection. Let it suffice us briefly to observe that, having led his disciples out unto a mountain, where he had delighted often to commune with them, he was suddenly taken up from them, and a cloud received him out of their sight. We think we may conjecture, by the help of Scripture, what transpired after that cloud had covered him. Did not the angels<\/p>\n
\u201cBring his chariot from on high
To bear him to his throne,
Clap their triumphant wings and cry,
His glorious work is done?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Do you not see him, as he mounts his triumphal chariot,<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd angels chant the solemn lay,
Lift up your heads, ye golden gates,
Ye everlasting doors give way?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Behold angels gazing from the battlements of heaven, replying to their comrades who escort the ascending Son of Man. \u201cWho is the King of Glory?\u201d And this time those who accompany the Master sing more sweetly and more loudly than before, while they cry, \u201cThe Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in.\u201d And now the doors<\/p>\n
\u201cLoose all their bars of massy light,
And wide unfold the radiant scene,\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
and he enters. \u201cHe claims those mansions as his right,\u201d and all the angels rise to \u201creceive the King of Glory in.\u201d Behold him, as he rides in triumph through heaven\u2019s streets, see Death and Hell bound at his chariot wheels. Hark to the \u201cHosannas\u201d of the spirits of the just made perfect! Hear how cherubim and seraphim roll out in thunders their everlasting song \u2014 \u201dGlory be unto thee; glory be unto thee, thou Son of God, for thou wast slain and thou hast redeemed the world by thy blood \u201cSee him as he mounts his throne and near his Father sits. Behold the benignant complacency of the paternal Deity. Hear him as he accepts him and gives him a name which is, above every name. And I say, my brethren, in the midst of your tremblings, and doubtings, and fearings anticipate the joy which you<\/i> shall have, when you shall share in this triumph, for know you not that you ascended up on high in him? He went not up to heaven alone, but as the representative of all the blood-bought throng. You<\/i> rode in that triumphal chariot with him; you were exalted on high, and made to sit far above principalities and powers in him; for we are risen in him, we are exalted in Christ. Even at this very day in Christ that Psalm is true \u2014 \u201dThou hast put all things under his feet; thou madest him to have dominion over all the works of thy hands.\u201d Come, poor trembler, thou art little in thine own esteem, and but a worm and no man! Rise, I say, to the height of thy nobility; for thou art in Christ greater than angels be, more magnified and glorified by far. God give you grace, ye who have faith, that ye may now, in the fact of Jesus Christ\u2019s exaltation, find consolation for yourself!<\/p>\n
But now today methinks I see the Master, as he stands before his Father\u2019s throne, dressed in the garments of a priest, upon his breast I see the Urim and Thummim glittering with the bejewelled remembrances of his people. In his hand I see still the remembrance of his sacrifice, the nail mark, and there I see still upon his feet the impress of the laver of blood in which he washed himself not as the priest of old with water but with his own gore. I hear him plead with authority before his Father\u2019s face, \u201cI will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.\u201d O my poor prayers, ye shall be heard! O my faint groans, ye shall be answered! Oh, my poor troubled soul, thou art safe, for<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus pleads and must prevail,
His cause can never, never fail.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Come, my poor heart, lift up thyself now from the dunghill, shake thyself from the dust; ungird thy sackcloth and put on thy beautiful garments. He<\/i> is our advocate today, our eloquent and earnest pleader, and he prevails with God. The Father smiles \u2014 he smiles on Christ; he smiles on us in answer to Jesus Christ\u2019s intercession. Is he not here also the consolation of Israel?<\/p>\n
I only remark once more that he who has gone up into heaven shall so come in like manner as he was seen to go up into heaven. He ascended in clouds, \u201cBehold he cometh with clouds.\u201d He went up on high with sound of trumpet and with shout of angels. Behold he cometh! The silver trumpet shall soon sound. \u2019Tis midnight: the hours are rolling wearily along; the virgins wise and foolish are all asleep. But the cry shall soon be heard \u2014 \u201dBehold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him.\u201d That same Jesus who was crucified shall come in glory. The hand that was pierced shall grasp the scepter. Beneath his arm he shall gather up all the sceptres of all kings; monarchies shall be the sheaves, and he<\/i> shall be the kingly reaper. On his head there shall be the many crowns of universal undisputed dominion. \u201cHe shall stand in the latter day upon the earth.\u201d His feet shall tread on the mount of Olivet, and his people shall be gathered in the valley of Jehoshaphat. Lo, the world\u2019s great battle is almost begun, the trumpet sounds the beginning of the battle of Armageddon. To the fight, ye warriors of Christ, to the fight, for it is your last conflict, and over the bodies of your foes ye shall rush to meet your Lord \u2014 he fighting on the one side by his coming, you on the other side by drawing near to him. You shall meet him in the solemn hour of victory. The dead in Christ shall rise first, and you that are alive and remain shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last triumphant sounding of the dread tremendous trump. Then<\/i> shall you know to the full how Christ can console you for all your sorrows, All your shame, and all your neglect which you have received from the hand of men. Ay, to-day bethink you, there awaits the recompense of an earthly splendor for your earthly poverty; there awaits you earthly dignity for your earthly shame. You shall not only have spiritual, but you shall have temporal blessings. He who takes away the curse will take it away not only from your soul, but from the very ground on which you tread. He who redeems you shall redeem not only your spirit, but your body. Your eyes shall see your Redeemer; your hands shall be lifted up in acclamation, and your feet shall bear your leaping joys in the procession of his glory, in your very body in which you have suffered for him you shall sit with him upon the throne and judge the nations of the earth. These things, I say, are all full of the purest and highest consolation to the children of God.<\/p>\n
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II. <\/b>Having taken nearly all my time upon the first point, I can only say a word or two upon the second and on the third. The second point was to be this \u2014 Christ In His Unchanging Nature; a consolation for our continual sorrows.<\/p>\n
Christ is to his people a surpassing<\/i> consolation. Talk of the consolations of philosophy? We have all the philosopher can pretend to; but we have it in a higher degree. Speak of the charms of music which can lull our sorrows to a blessed sleep?<\/p>\n
\u201cSweeter sounds than music knows,
Charm us in our Savior\u2019s name.\u201d
\u201cJesus, the very thought of thee,
With rapture fills my breast.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Speak we of the joys of friendship? and sweet they are indeed; but \u201cthere is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother\u201d \u2014 \u201da brother born for adversity.\u201d There is one who is better than all friends, more able to cheer than those who are dearest and nearest to our hearts. Or, speak we of the joys of hope? and certainly hope can console us when nothing else can do it. He<\/i> is our hope. We cast the anchor of our hope into that which is within the veil, whither the forerunner hath for us entered. The consolations of Christ are unrivalled by any which can be offered by wit, by wisdom, by mirth, by hope itself; they are incomparable, and can never be surpassed.<\/p>\n
Again, the consolations of Christ, from the feet of his unchanging nature, are unfailing<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen every earthly prop gives way,
He still is all our strength and stay.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Look you at Job, and see the picture of how Christ can console. The messenger rushes in \u2014 \u201dThe Sabeans have taken away the oxen and the asses!\u201d \u201cWell, well,\u201d Job might console himself and say, \u201cbut the sheep are left.\u201d \u201cBut the fire of God hath fallen on the sheep! and the Chaldeans have carried away the camels and slain the servants!\u201d \u201cAlas!\u201d the good man might say, \u201cbut my children are left, and if they be spared, then I can still have joy.\u201d \u201cThe wind has come from the wilderness, and smitten the four corners of the house, and all thy sons and daughters are dead!\u201d Ah! well-a-day, penniless and childless, the patriarch might weep; but, looking on his wife, he would say, \u201cThere still remaineth one sweet comforter, my well-beloved spouse.\u201d She<\/i> bids him \u201ccurse God and die;\u201d \u201cspeaking as one of the foolish women speaketh.\u201d Yet might Job say, \u201cThough my wife hath failed me, there remaineth at least three friends; there they sit with me on the dunghill, and they<\/i> will console me.\u201d But they speak bitterness, till he cries, \u201cMiserable comforters are ye all.\u201d Well, but at least he has his own body in health, has he not? No, he sits down upon a dunghill, and scrapes himself with a potsherd, for his sores have become intolerable. Well, well, \u201cskin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.\u201d He may at least cheer himself with the fact, that he lives. \u201cWhy should a living man complain? \u201cYes, but he fears he is about to die. And now comes out the grandeur of his hope: \u201cI know that my Redeemer liveth, and though the worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.\u201d All the other windows are darkened; but the sun shines in at the oriel window of redemption. All the other doors are shut, but this great door of hope and joy still stands wide open. All other wells are dry; but this flows with an unceasing stream. Brothers and sisters, when all things else depart, an unchanging Christ shall be your unchanging joy.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the consolations of Christ are all powerful<\/i> consolations. When a poor soul is so deep in the mire that you cannot lift it with the lever of eloquence, nor draw it up with the hands of sympathy, nor raise it with wings of hope, he<\/i> can touch it with his finger and it can spring up from the mire, and put its feet upon a rock, and feel the new song in its mouth and its goings well established. There is no form of melancholy which will not yield before the grace of God; there is no shape of distress which will not give way before the divine energy of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, when he uses Christ as the consolation.<\/p>\n
Again: this consolation is everlasting<\/i> consolation. It consoled you, O aged sire when as a youth you gave your heart to Christ; it was your joy in the mid-winter of your manhood; it has become your strength and your song in the days of your old age, when tottering on your staff you shall go down to Jordan\u2019s brink, he will be your consolation then. In the prospect of your coming dissolution, yea, when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you shall fear no evil, for he is with you; his rod and his staff shall comfort you. All other things shall pass away as a dream when one awaketh; but this substantial support shall abide with you in the midst of the swellings of Jordan, in the hour of the departure of your spirit from your body.<\/p>\n
And then remember that this is a consolation which is always within the believer\u2019s reach. He is \u201ca very present help in time of trouble.\u201d Ye may always cheer your heart with Christ when other things are far away. When friend visits you not, and your chamber becomes lonely \u2014 when spouse has forgotten to speak the kind word to you, and children have become ungrateful, he will make your bed in your sickness, he will be your never-failing friend and abide with you in every dark and gloomy hour, till he brings you into his dear arms, where you will be emparadised for ever and ever.<\/p>\n
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III. <\/b>I close now with my last point \u2014 the grave and serious question, Is Christ An Available Consolation For Me?<\/p>\n
Who art thou, friend? Art thou one who needs no consolation? Hast thou a righteousness of thine own? Let me put it in thine own words. You are a good<\/i> man, kind to the poor, charitable, upright, generous, holy. You believe there may be some<\/i> faults in yourself, but they must be very few, and you trust that what with your own merits and with God\u2019s mercy you may enter heaven. In the name of God, I do solemnly assure you, that Christ is not an available consolation for you. Christ will have nothing to do with you, so long as you have anything to do with yourself. If you are trusting in any measure whatever upon aught that you have ever done or hope to do, you are trusting in a lie, and Christ will never be friends with a lie He will never help you<\/i> to do, what he came to do himself. If you will take his work as it is, as a finished work, well and good, but if you must needs add to it your own, God shall add unto you the plagues which are written in this Book, but he shall by no means give to you any of the promises and the comforts which Christ can afford.<\/p>\n
But instead thereof, I will suppose that I address myself this morning to a man who says, \u201cI was once, I think, a believer in Christ; I made a profession of religion, but I fell from it, and I have lost for years all the hope and joy I ever had; I think I was a presumptuous man that I pretended to have what I never had, and yet at the time I really thought I had it. May I think that there is consolation in Christ for a backslider and a traitor like me? Often, sir, do I feel as if the doom of Judas must be mine \u2014 as if I must perish miserably, like Demas, who loved this present world.\u201d Ah! backslider, backslider, God speaks to thee this morning, and he says, \u201cReturn ye backsliding children of men, for I am married to you;\u201d and if married, there has never been a divorce between Christ and you. Has he put you away? Unto which of his creditors has he sold you? Where do you read in his Word, that he has divided from the affection of his heart one whose name was ever written in his Book? Come, come, backslider, come again to the cross. He who received you once will receive you again Come where the blood is flowing; the blood that washed you once, can wash you yet once more. Come, come, thou art naked, and poor, and miserable; the raiment which was given to thee once, shall array thee again with beauty. The unsearchable riches which were opened up to thee aforetime, shall be thine again.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo thy Father\u2019s bosom press\u2019d,
Once again a child confess\u2019d
From his hand no more to roam,
Come, backsliding sinner, once.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
But I hear another say, \u201cI am not a backslider, but simply one who desires to be saved. I can say honestly, I would give my right arm from its socket if I might but be saved. Why, sir, if I had ten thousand worlds I would freely cast them away as pebble stones, and worthless, if I might but find Christ.\u201d Poor soul, and does the devil tell thee thou shalt never have Christ? Why, thou hast a warrant to lay hold on Christ to-day. \u201cNo,\u201d sayest thou, \u201cI have no right whatever.\u201d The fact that thou sayest thou hast no right should at least comfort the minister in addressing himself freely to thee. The right of a sinner to come to Christ does not lie in the sinner nor in any feelings which the sinner may have had, it lies in the fact that Christ commands him to come. If one of you should receive as you went out of yonder door a command to go at once to Windsor, and have an interview with the Queen as soon as you had received the order and were sure it came from her, you might say, \u201cWell, but if I had known this, I should have put on other clothes,\u201d but the order is peremptory \u201cCome now; come just as you are;\u201d you would, I think, without any very great doubt, though greatly wondering, take your place and ride there at once. When you came to the gate, some tall grenadier might ask you what you were at. \u201cWhy,\u201d he might say, \u201cyou are not fit to come and see Her Majesty; you are not a gentleman, you have not so many hundreds a year; how can you expect to be admitted?\u201d You show the command, and he lets you pass on. You come to another door, and there is an usher there \u201cYou are not in a court dress,\u201d says he; you are not properly robed for the occasion.\u201d You show the command, and he lets you pass on. But suppose when at last you should come into the ante-room you should say, \u201cNow I dare not go in, I am not fit; I feel I shall not know how to behave myself.\u201d Suppose you are silly enough not to go, you would be disobedient and ten times more foolish in disobeying than you could have been by any blunders in behavior if you had obeyed. Now it is just so with you to-day. Christ says, \u201cCome unto me.\u201d He does not merely invite you, because he knows you would think you did not deserve the invitation, but he gives the command<\/i>, and he bids me say to you, \u201cRepent, and be baptized every one of you,\u201d he bids me command you in his name, \u201cBelieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.\u201d Of his grace and mercy he puts it as a command. \u201cBut<\/i>,\u201d you say. Ah! what right have you to say, \u201cbut<\/i>\u201c to the Lord\u2019s commands? Again, I say, away with your \u201cbuts.\u201d What right have you to be \u201cbutting\u201d at his laws and his commands. \u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201cdo hear me for a moment.\u201d I will hear you then. \u201cSir, I cannot imagine that if such a hard-hearted sinner as I am were really to trust Christ I should be saved.\u201d The English of that is, that you give God the lie. He says you shall be, and do you think he speaks an untruth? \u201cAh!\u201d says another, \u201cbut it is too good to be true. I cannot believe that just as I am, if I trust in Christ, my sin shall be forgiven.\u201d Again, I say, the simple English of that is, that you think you know better than God, and so you do in fact stand up and say to his promise, \u201cThou art false.\u201d He says, \u201cHim that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.\u201d \u201cAh!\u201d you say, \u201cbut that does not mean me?\u201d Can any language speak more plainly? \u201cHim<\/i>.\u201d What him? Why, any \u201chim\u201d in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d says one \u201cbut the invitations are made to character \u2014 \u201dCome unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden; I am afraid I am not heavy laden enough?\u201d Yes, but you will mark, while the invitation is given to character, yet the promise is not given to the character; it is given to those who come \u2014 \u201dCome unto me, and I will give you rest;\u201d and while that one invitation may be confined to the weary and heavy laden, yet there are scores of others that stand as wide and free as the very air we breathe. If you have that qualification, do not come even with it, because you are unqualified when you think you are qualified, you are unfit when you think you are fit; and if you have a sense of need, which you think makes you fit to come to Christ, it shows you are not fit and do not know your need, for no man knows his need till he thinks he does not know his need, and no man is in a right state to come to Christ till he thinks he is not in a right state to come to Christ. But he who feels that he has not one good thought or one good feeling to recommend him, he is the man who may come. He who says, \u201cBut I may not come,\u201d is the very man that is bidden to come. Besides, my friends it is not what you think, or what I think; it is what Christ says, and is it not written by the hand of the Apostle John, \u201cThis is the commandment, that ye believe on Jesus Christ whom he hath sent? \u201cMen who say it is not the duty of sinners to believe, I cannot think what they make out of such a text as that \u2014 \u201dThis is the commandment, that ye believe on Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent,\u201d and that one where God expressly says \u201cHe that believeth not is condemned already, because<\/i> he believeth not.\u201d Why, I should think I was addressing heathens, if I addressed a company of men who thought that God did not command men to repent; for Scripture is so plain upon the point, and I say, if God commands thee to do it, thou mayest do it. Let the devil say, \u201cNay,\u201d but God says \u201cYea.\u201d Let him stand and push you back; but say to him, \u201cNay, Satan, nay, I come here in God\u2019s name,\u201d and as devils fear and fly before the name of Christ, so will Satan and thy fears all fly before his command. He commands thee to believe \u2014 that is, to trust him. Trust him, soul, trust him; right or wrong, trust him.<\/p>\n
But some of you want a great temptation, and a great deal of despair, before you will trust him. Well, the Lord will send it to you, if you will not trust him without it. I remember John Bunyan says he had a black temptation, and it did him a great deal of good, for, said he, \u201cBefore I had the Temptation I used always to be questioning a promise, and saying, \u2019May I come, or may I not come?\u2019\u201d But at last he said, \u201cYea, often when I have been making to the promise, I have seen as if the Lord would refuse my soul for ever: I was often as if I had run upon the pike, and as if the Lord had thrust at me, to keep me from him as with a flaming sword.\u201d Ah! and perhaps you may be driven to that. I pray you may; but I would infinitely rather that the sweet love and grace of God would entice you now to trust Jesus Christ just as you are. He will not deceive you, sinner; he will not fail you. Trusting him, you shall build on a sure foundation, and find him Who is the consolation of Israel and the joy of all his saints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NO. 348 A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, DECEMBER 2ND, 1860, BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND \u201cIf there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies.\u201d \u2014 Philippians 2:1. THE language of man has received a … Continue reading “CONSOLATION IN CHRIST.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}