NO. 3525<\/b><\/p>\n
PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 17TH, 1916<\/b><\/p>\n
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,<\/i><\/p>\n
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.<\/b><\/p>\n
ON LORD\u2019S DAY EVENING, 22ND FEB., 1871.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he [the angel of the Lord] said, Hagar, Sarai\u2019s maid, whence comest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.\u201d \u2014 Genesis 16:8.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cAnd she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?\u201d \u2014 Genesis 16:13.<\/i><\/p>\n
Hagar had lived for many years in Abraham\u2019s family. This was no small advantage. While all the rest of the world was in heathendom, the light shone brightly in Abraham\u2019s tent. Not only was Abraham himself a worshipper of the Most High God, but he commanded his household after him. We may rest assured that shore were family gatherings for devotion \u2014 that the patriarch took occasion, both by precept and example, to teach the knowledge of the true God to all that were in his service. His was the central spot of light in the world, and all around him was the thick gloom of heathenism. Yet I do not find that Hager, during the years she lived with Abraham, even when she saw his faith in going forth from his kindred and his country, and dwelling in tents in the promised land \u2014 I do not find that she herself received any personal call from God, or had a word from the angel of mercy to her own soul. And truly in this she is like very many servants, ay, and sons and daughters too, in godly families who are surrounded by the light, but yet see not; who are where God speaks, and yet he has not spoken personally to them; who enjoy the means of grace, but have never yet got the grace of the means \u2014 who are themselves strangers in the midst of Israel, foreigners, though they dwell in the land itself. Now it would be a source of the greatest imaginable joy to many of us if some of these should be called as Hagar was should hear the voice from heaven, and he enabled to make the double discovery which she made, namely, that God saw her, and that she might come into contact with God \u2014 might look to him who had seen her.<\/p>\n
At this time I shall first direct your attention to a very interesting circumstance, namely: \u2014 <\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
I. <\/b>The Singular Season Chosen By God For The Interposition Of His Mercy.<\/p>\n
Let us dwell on that a moment. God displays his sovereignty in saving souls, both in the souls whom he chooses to save, in the instrumentality he uses in calling them, and in the conditions of mind in which he finds them when he it pleased to look upon them in mercy.<\/p>\n
Now Hagar at that time \u2014 at the time when the angel called to her seemed to be in somewhat an unlikely state to be visited of God. She was, first of all, at that moment smarting under a sense of wrong. She felt that Sarah had not treated her well, and in all probability Sarah had not. The Eastern mistress is often very tyrannical towards her servants, and Hagar stood very much in the position of a slave. We do not doubt but what the jealous wife had been very severe \u2014 unjustly severe towards the woman. There she sat by the well, feeling bitterness in her own soul, that in the house of good people where she had expected better things she had been treated with injustice. It did not seem likely that the God of Abraham should call her, when her heart was seething like a pot with indignation against the household where God was worshipped. At the same time, as she turned the matter over and her soul grew more and more bitter within her, I should not wonder but what she felt she had brought a good deal of it upon herself. She was but the servant, and she had desired to play the mistress. She had despised the mistress; no doubt spoken to her very contemptuously; and now it had returned upon her, and she was made to suffer for her own pride. Her proud, fierce spirit, perhaps, did not admit it, but yet she must have felt in her conscience that much of what was wrong about her she had, notwithstanding, brought upon herself. Now when a person is under such a feeling as that, disturbed, tossed to and fro, vexed, distracted, it does not seem a likely time for them to hear the voice of God speaking to their souls.<\/p>\n
Moreover, at that moment she was leaving all that was good; she had turned her back upon the household, the chosen household \u2014 left it, I will not say deliberately, but at any rate she had left it; she was going down into Egypt \u2014 going \u201canywhere, anywhere out of the world,\u201d so that she could but get away from the place where her bondage had become irksome. She was going she scarce knew where, but she did know probably that she was going into heathendom, among heathenish people. The best she could hope to meet with was separation from God. She could not but feel that it was black darkness which was before her, and she was rushing, madly into it because her high spirit would not bend \u2014 would not bow \u2014 would not yield before the majesty of the Most High. I think I see her there, her eyes red with weeping, her spirit broken down with the hunger of her journey, sitting a while and refreshed a moment, and resolved not to stoop and never to go back, and then again shuddering at the darkness that lay before her, and afraid to go on. It was in such a state as that that God met with her; to all intents and purposes she was a friendless, outcast woman. She had left the only tents where she could claim a shelter; she had gone into the wilderness \u2014 no father, no mother, no brother, no sister to care for her. She turned her back upon those who had any interest in her, and now she was left alone, alone, alone in a desert land, without an eye to pity or a hand to help. It was then, under those peculiar circumstances of trial and of sin commingled, that God met with her.<\/p>\n
I have been wondering in my soul, when I burned over this text, whether there would stray into this Tabernacle some kindred case, and whether, though no angel spake, yet the voice of man might be to-night the voice of the messenger of the covenant to some poor soul. I know thee not by name, nor face, yet I know well thy feeling. It may be to-night thou art sorely angry, greatly vexed, smarting, wrathful, thou hast made up thy mind to choose the world and give up every semblance of that which is good. It may be to-night that thou hast lost everything that makes earth worth living in. Thou longest for death, thou wouldest almost seek the place where the lamps quiver on the dark river, for thy spirit is bitterness itself, thy lamp of hope is gone out. Oh! but it may be that this is the night when God\u2019s mighty mercy is ordained to meet with thee \u2014 the very evening in which the Lord shall call out thy name, and thou shalt feel that he knows thee, thy case, and thy circumstances, and that he has come to call thee to himself an thou never mightest have been called had not these extremities of shine brought God to thy rescue and to thy salvation! I do not suppose that there will be anyone whose case exactly resembles that of the text, but it has sometimes happened that the turning point of human life has been the point of great sorrow, and great penury, and distress of mind on account of some gigantic fault, or it has been the time of some dreadful alternative put before the soul, in which it seemed as though it must be God or devil that night, heaven or hell that night, eternal joy or eternal misery that night. On some such strange occasion as this in your mental history you have come here to-night; may God, who is here, speak with you. A singular season for mercy. Now, secondly, let us look at: \u2014 <\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
II. <\/b>The Mode Of Mercy, Or The Home Questions Which The Angel Put To Her.<\/p>\n
She is sitting there by the well; it is in a desert; it may be a little oasis on the road; but there is no one within sight, nor any probability of any caravan passing that way. As she sits quite still she hears a voice, \u201cHager.\u201d She starts, she looks up, and there is a brightness like the sun above her; brighter than the sun at noonday does it shine. She can scarce bear the light, and she hears it again, \u201cHager, Sarah\u2019s maid.\u201d Whoever it is that is speaking knows who she is, and what she is, and all about her. \u201cWhence comest thou? and whither wilt thou go?\u201d She is so startled, she has just been thinking of the place from whence she came, and that dismal question had just been starting her mind. \u201cWhither wilt thou go?\u201d She felt that there was no place for her to go to. It was only a choice of equal horror she knew not where to go. Now remark this, that very often the gospel call comes to the sons of men not by a voice heard by the ear, but through the ministry in the way of describing the person\u2019s case with minute accuracy. It was the Savior\u2019s way of doing it when he was on earth. The woman was by the well; the Savior spoke to her. The words did not seem to take effect. He turned the subject, and he said, \u201cGo, call thy husband and come hither.\u201d \u201cI have no husband,\u201d said she. If she could blush, she blushed then \u2014 \u201dI have no husband.\u201d \u201cThou hast well said, \u2019I have no husband,\u2019 for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now best is not thy husband. In that midst thou truly.\u201d Then the shock went to her very heart; she perceived that he who spoke was something more than man. And when the gospel fully preached describes the sinner, paints him, photographs him, holds it before him, and makes him say, \u201cWhy, that is myself; he speaks of me \u2014 it is even me,\u201d then it is that the soul perceives what Hagar perceived, that God saw her, and that she might look to God.<\/p>\n
Now I shall not endeavor to make any picture of you, dear hearer. If I were to try it I could not do it; it is only the Lord himself that guides us in such matters; but I will put the question to you, \u201cWhence comest thou?\u201d Did you come into the condition in which you now are out of a godly parentage? Have you got into London sin, but was there a time once when you knelt at your mother\u2019s knee at eventide and repeated a gracious prayer? Ah! you have spent many a day and many a night in the haunts of sin! You were once a teacher in the Sabbath school \u2014 once a lover of the gospel (at least professedly so) which now you turn from and abhor. \u201cWhence comest thou?\u201d From old impressions that have been forgotten, from an old profession that has been disgraced, honorable once, dishonorahle now \u2014 a servant of God once ostensibly, but now<\/p>\n
a servant at the devil\u2019s altar \u2014 a ringleader in sin it may he, though once thou wert at heaven\u2019s own gates. \u201cWhence comest thou?\u201d Remember whence thou hast fallen, and repent. And \u201cwhither wilt thou go?\u201d Oh! let me put the question! You stand to-night just here, \u201cWhither wilt thou go?\u201d Another sin tempts thee to-night; wilt thou commit it? I would fain stand with thee, as the old Scythian did of old when his country was about to be invaded by the foe. He drew a line before the chieftain of the invading host, and said, \u201cCross that line, and there is war for ever; stay there, and there may be peace.\u201d I put a line before your steps to-night; in the name of the everlasting God, I charge you cease from that sin. Once more commit it, and it may be that no mercy\u2019s trumpet shall ever sound out a message of forgiveness to thee again. \u201cWhither wilt thou go?\u201d Oh! go not like a dog to thy vomit, like the sow that was washed to her wallowing; go not further, for \u201cwhither wilt thou go\u201d in the future? A man who sins today will sin worse to-morrow, and the next day worse. Many a young man when he has commenced with what are called the follies of London life had no idea that he would end it debauched, depraved, and abandoned. Many a woman when she has once begun to trifle with sin had no idea that her name would be coupled one day with infamy. Many a young man at his master\u2019s till is scrupulously honest to-day, and never dreams that he will one day be a thief. Yet he is about to take a step that will surely make him so \u2014 the first step to evil. Oh! \u201cwhither wilt thou go?\u201d I believe that many a man, many a woman, if they could go back twenty years and be young people again and have their history written, the true history as they lived it, would say, \u201cI never shall live so. Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?\u201d They would have been indignant at the supposition that they could ever be capable of the transgression into which they have now actually fallen. \u201cWhither wilt thou go?\u201d Halt! halt! ye that that are marching on to evil, halt! in the name of him that liveth, halt! lest you march to damnation, and take one step that shall be your inevitable ruin, for this is the worst of it. \u201cWhither wilt thou go?\u201d The way of sin is the way of destruction. Men cannot sin and be happy. The end, the end, the end, the end of it, oh! think of it! It is not to-day, nor to-morrow, but it is that dying hour; nay, it is not that only, it is that hour when, up from among the dead, you shall arise amidst the ringing of the last judgment trump. It is that opening of the books, that reading of the several dooms that separation of the righteous from the wicked \u2014 it is that which hangs upon this question, \u201cWhither wilt thou go? \u2019, Oh! go not to the judgment unforgiven go not to the judgment to be condemned, to be cast into the place \u201cwhere their worm dieth not, and their fire its not quenched.\u201d God save you, sinner; may he says you to-night instrumentally by the force of those two questions, \u201cWhence comest thou? Whither wilt thou go?\u201d<\/p>\n
And now let us notice, attentively, having observed the remarkable season and the home questions, let us notice attentively: \u2014 <\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
III. <\/b>The Discovery And Its Consequences.<\/p>\n
The description had been so accurate; \u201cHager, Sarah\u2019s maid.\u201d The questions had been so pertinent, had stuck so close to her soul; \u201cWhence comest thou? and whither wilt thou go?\u201d that she said, \u201cIt is God, it is God that speaks to me.\u201d And there came home to her what she had often heard before, but never felt. \u201cThere is a God; God is not an impalpable somebody up there, who has nothing to do with me, but there is God here, here, and he sees me; it is God that deals with me \u2014 not far away, asleep, or blind, but God sees me.\u201d Oh! it is a glorious thing when a soul starts up to that conviction, \u201cI am not alone, I am not friendless after all, there is a God, and a God who sees me and who takes such notice of note that he speaks to me.\u201d A man is never saved until he gets to feel something of the nearness of God, God in Christ Jesus, but yet God. Consciousness of Deity is one of the marks of salvation. Now Hagar\u2019s thoughts must have been something like this. After all, there is somebody that has seen me, and marked all my past life, though I did not see him. He knows everything that I have done or thought, or said, and I perceive now that he has spoken to me, that he cares about me. I thought Abraham did not care for me, Sarah was angry, and then I said, \u201cNo man cares for my soul, and I will away.\u201d Now I see that God was watching me, and he has cared about me, and though he did not interpose to help me just then, just when I was so bitterly oppressed, yet I know he has cared for me, for at last, when I was sitting on this well alone, he spoke to my soul. Sinner, I pray the Holy Ghost to make just this discovery to you, that, after all, God does care about you. He that made the heavens and the earth does think of you. Though you are little, and less than nothing as compared with the bulk of his vast creation, yet on you he sets his eyes, for you he has a care. \u201cWell,\u201d said she in her soul, \u201cseeing that he cares for me, he will interpose on my behalf.\u201d The angel, who make, spoke words of comfort to her heart \u2014 told her that there was a happier lot in future in store for her than she dreamed \u2014 sent her away with a comfortable word ringing in her ears. Oh! soul, I pray God to do that for thee to-night. Thou hast said, \u201cGod has forgotten me.\u201d He knows all about thee. It may be this is the truth \u2014 I hope it is \u2014 that thy name is written on the palms of Jesus\u2019 hands. What if it should turn out that thou, rebellious sinner that thou art, art one whom God loved before the foundation of the world? What if thou art one of his chosen, whom the Savior bought with blood? What if thou art one that shall surely sit in heaven, and wear the white robe, and sing the new song \u2014 what if thou art a favored one of the Most High? Oh! I think I hear you say, \u201cIf I had half a thought that that was true, I would not lie down in despair; I would up and bestir myself, and I would have done with my old companions; I would have done with my old sins, if that were true.\u201d Oh! soul, I cannot tell thee that it is true \u2014 I hope it is \u2014 but I can tell thee one thing that is true, namely, that if thou wilt now come and put thy trust in Jesus Christ, and repent of shine iniquities, then it is all true. I can only know shine election by thy calling; I can only tell thy calling by thy repentance and by thy faith, and if thou shouldest find peace to-night, and I pray thou mayest, then thou art God\u2019s beloved. He that made the heavens loves thee; he that made the earth bought thee with his blood, and heaven would not be complete without thee. What if thou hast been far off by wicked works, yet still thou art a child, and heaven shall yet ring with music on thy return. What if thou hast been lost in the filth of drunkenness and all manner of lasciviousness, yet still a piece of God\u2019s precious silver, the house shall be swept for thee, and the candle lit, and thou shalt be found and put into the Savior\u2019s treasury yet. Oh! what hope this ought to make well up in the poor hopeless sinner\u2019s heart! It is not because of your goodness, but because of his infinite goodness that he comes to meet with you, unworthy as you are, for he sees you, sees you; with thoughts of love he sees you, and to-night he interposes as he calls you by your name.<\/p>\n
Now when Hagar made that discovery she made another at the same time. She said, \u201cHave I also here looked after him that seeth me?\u201d \u2014 as much as to say, and probably she had not known it before, that as God could come to her, so she could go to God. \u201cGod has looked after me, and now I can look after him.\u201d There is not a great gulf between the creature and the Creator. We can send messages to heaven, and receive blessings from heaven. She felt from that moment that God was real, and living, and appreciable, and that God would hear her prayers and answer her petitions, and had really and literally spoken to her. Oh! I do not know anything that puts such strength into a man, such encouragement, such joy, makes him so patient, as the belief that God has spoken to him \u2014 that God has spoken in words of love and promise to him. Why, from that day poor Hager would say, \u201cI will go back; I will go back. The God of Abraham has spoken to me. Abraham may be unkind, but I will bear it, for Abraham\u2019s God hag spoken to me. Sarah may be more cross than ever \u2014 never mind, I do not know that I can tell her of its but oh! it will be such a joy in my soul \u2014 God has spoken to me, assured me of his favor, given me a blessing.\u201d Now that young man who thinks he has been so badly treated, if he gets his sins pardoned to-night, and the Lord speaks with him, be will go back and say, \u201cI daresay I was as much to blame as anybody, but, whether or no, I am saved and I can put up with anything now.\u201d And that man that is so poor that he would hardly dare come even into this Tabernacle because his clothes were so shabby, and he was ready to say, \u201cI will give up the battle of life; I will never try again\u201d \u2014 oh! if he were able to say, \u201cI know that God has spoken with me to-night, brought me to the Savior\u2019s feet, and blotted out my sin\u201d \u2014 oh! dear brother, you will pick up the weapons again and go to the battle of life once more, and your poverty will seem to have lost its edge; the bitterness will have departed; the iron will not enter into your soul. Get a word from God, and know that you are his child, and you can say, \u201cNow blow ye winds, rage ye waves, and all ye elements let forth your fury, the God that rules you all is now my friend; no hurt can you do to me.\u201d If you notice, it was just so with Hagar when she had heard the voice of the Lord, and perceived that God saw her and that she could speak to God \u2014 then at once she went back. Told to go back, back she went \u2014 submitted herself. You don\u2019t find her again personally \u2014 though the old blood came up afterwards in her son \u2014 you don\u2019t find her quarrelling with her mistress, but she patiently bears her lot, in the recollection of the blessing that she had received. This is just the way with men, wilful, wayward, headstrong \u2014 when they get the grace of God, they bend their shoulders to Christ\u2019s yoke and they become tame and gentle. Because they are happy in God\u2019s love they are patient at the ills of this life. Remember the story of the poor raving maniac. They had often bound: him with chains, but he snapped them asunder. He had left his family gone to dwell among the tombs. He made night hideous with his screams and howlings. Men dared not pass that way, for he was worse than a wild beast. He had cut himself and rent his flesh, torn himself with stones and briars \u2014 none could tame him. But after Jesus had said to the evil spirit, \u201cI charge thee that thou come out of him,\u201d we find him clothed, which he had not been for many a day, in his right mind, and sitting at the feet of Jesus. Oh! if some wild spirit be here now, some spirit driven to it by suffering, by neglect, by injustice from others, and also by its own personal sin, if the Lord bring thee to trust in Jesus, his dear Son, and see thy sin all laid upon him, then thou wilt, even at this moment, be a different man. Thy wife will source know thee, nor thy children either; thou wilt become another thou thou hast ever been before. Thou wilt go back to thy business, back to thy burdens, back to thy sufferings, and bear it all for the sake of him that spake out of heaven and saved thy soul.<\/p>\n
Now the most of this I daresay is not applicable to the most of you. You know I have been thinking, while preaching, that you might say I had not been preaching except to some one or two that were here. Well, I will tell you my excuse. \u201cWhat man of you, if he hath an hundred sheep, if he lose one, doth not leave the ninety and nine, and go after that which is gone astray?\u201d After that gone-astray one I have gone, and my Master too. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NO. 3525 PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 17TH, 1916 DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON. ON LORD\u2019S DAY EVENING, 22ND FEB., 1871. \u201cAnd he [the angel of the Lord] said, Hagar, Sarai\u2019s maid, whence comest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress … Continue reading “GOD\u2019S OVERTAKING MERCY”<\/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-4853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4853","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=4853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}