Sermon: Help for Your Sickness
"When evening was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the Prophet, saying, He took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." Matthew 8:16,17.
IT was the evening—in all probability it was the evening of a Sabbath day. The Jews were so tender not to break the Sabbath that they did not even bring forth the sick to the Savior until the evening was come. The Savior would gladly have healed them on the Sabbath, for that was to Him a high day for holy work—but they did not think it right—and so they kept back their sick till the day was ended. If any of you have thought that the time has not come for you to approach the Savior, you have labored under a great error for He would not have you delay for a single hour! But I hope you are now satisfied that you have waited long enough and that at last the evening is near in which you should come to Jesus. God grant that any superstition which has kept you back may be removed and may this be the set time, the hour of Divine Grace to your souls!
Whether it was a Sabbath evening or not, the day had been spent by the Savior in diligent labor, for our Savior took care, when the people would listen to Him on the seventh day, to preach with all His might. As soon as the sun was up, He began to proclaim saving Truth. He was tired when evening was come and He might have sought rest, but instead of that they brought out the sick to Him to heal and He must close up a weary day by a yet more arduous task. Until darkness had covered the earth He must continue, still, to scatter blessings right and left. At this hour our blessed Master has laid aside all weariness and now at eventide He is waiting to bless. Whatever has been done during the day, yet if some poor, weary soul has spurned the Divine voice through all the former hours, He is still waiting to save before yet the sun has quite gone down.
When evening was come they brought unto Him those that were sick. We are in like case. Let us put up this prayer to Him, "O You who did bless the sick in the evening, come, now, and bless us while all is cool and still and let us find Your salvation!" What a strange sight that evening saw! They brought forth to the Savior those that were possessed of evil spirits and those that were sick. They brought them on their mattresses and laid them in the streets. It must have been a very difficult thing to bring out some that were possessed because they struggled and raved—but nevertheless they brought them. The streets were turned into a hospital and in the still evening air you could hear the cries of those poor creatures who were possessed of evil spirits and the moans of those in acute pain.
It was a sad sight, a piteous sight, to look upon—and as far as Christ's eyes could see, every nook and corner were occupied with these sick people. But what a glorious thing it must have been to see Him, the Divine Physician, with tears of pity in His eyes and yet with beaming joy on His Countenance! He was suffering intensely all the while because of their suffering and yet joyous because He was able to bless them. You see Him go along and lay His hands on one sick man and he leaped up from his bed! And you hear Him speak to another and the foul spirit flees—and he that was madness itself becomes calm and rational!
See Him cast a look over yonder and with that glance He expels the fever! Hear Him speak a word to one far away and with that word He dries up dropsy or opens a blind eye! It was grand to see the Savior thus fighting with Satan and with foul diseases and everywhere victorious! That was one of the happiest evenings that ever ended a day in Palestine! I want you to feel that we can have its parallel tonight. We have Jesus here! We have been seeking Him. There are some here who dwell with Him. Jesus is here and the sick folk are here and He is just as able to heal tonight as He was in days gone by.
I am going to speak about His works of healing and to draw encouragement from them. And then we shall go into the explanation of His power to heal which is given us in the second verse of our text—"He took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses."
I. Let us notice, first, OUR LORD'S WORKS OF HEALING. On that occasion and on many others He cured all sorts of sickness. I think I am right in saying that there is not in the whole list of diseases one which the Savior did not heal. They may be known by new names, for they say the doctors have invented a dozen new diseases lately—but they are only old diseases to which they have given new names. Our great grandfathers died of diseases the names of which they never knew, or else they had other names than those which are given to them now. But as man has always been much the same, most diseases have continued as long as the human race.
We have to be very grateful that leprosy, which was the great scourge of the Jews, is almost extinct now. But in our Savior's day it seems to have been exceedingly common. And leprosy and all forms of disease came under the Savior's power and became deaf at His word. Now the parallel of that is this—Jesus Christ can forgive sins of all sorts. There are different grades of sin. Some are exceedingly defiling and loathsome. Other sins are scarcely hurtful to the general commonwealth and so are often almost unnoticed. Yet any sin will ruin a soul forever. It may be thought to be little, but as a little prick with a poisoned arrow will heat all the blood and bring on death, so is sin such a venomous disease that the least of it is fatal.
But from whatever kind of sin you are suffering, I would encourage you to come to Jesus with it—be it what it may. Is yours an extreme case? Have you been grossly guilty? Come with it, then, for our Lord healed the worst diseases. On the other hand, have you been kept out of gross sin from your early youth? Have you been preserved from outward vice? It may be that your chief sin is the forgetting of God and living without love to Christ—a deadly sin, let me tell you— but bring it to the Savior! Have you been idle? Have you been proud? Have you been lascivious? Have you been untruthful? Have you been profane? Have you been malicious? I cannot tell, but God—who can read your heart as readily as we read a book—knows.
But whatever the sin may be, remember that all manner of sin and of blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Oh, hear this and look up to the Savior and pray Him of His great mercy to exercise the healing art of His redeeming love on you, this evening, now that the sun has set! They brought to Jesus all sorts of diseases.
Note, next, that Jesus can deal with special cases of devilry. Possession with evil spirits was probably peculiar to that age. I sometimes think that when the Savior came down on earth, the devil had the impudence to ask to be let loose, that he and all his servants might come on earth and, in person, might meet the Savior. Satan is still busy, going about, seeking whom he may devour—but not exactly in the particular way in which he raged in Christ's day. He cannot take possession of men's bodies as he did then. So the Savior met Satan foot to foot and face to face—and the devil made a poor fight of it—for whenever the Lord Jesus made His appearance, the devil wanted to be off! And if he did not want to go, the Savior soon moved him by saying, "Come out of him."
Like a whipped dog he did not dare to make a sound, but fled. A whole legion of demons were glad to get into a herd of swine and ran violently down a steep place into the sea to escape from the frown of our Lord! Satan found somebody that was more than a match for him! The parallel to that is this. There are some men that we meet with in whom the devil evidently reigns—and there are such women, too—for when women are bad, they can be bad and there can be no mistake about it. The devil can make more mischief out of a woman than out of a man when he thoroughly gets possession of her.
Well, whether men or women, there are some who might be called "the devil's own." One man is a drunk—there is no stopping him—he must drink on. He seems to be infatuated by it. He takes the pledge and abstains for a little while but, by-and-by, the devil gets hold of him again and he goes back to his taps. Though he has drunk himself into delirium tremens and to Death's door, yet still he gives way to this loathsome vice. Others are possessed with the devil of lasciviousness and it does not matter what they suffer—they will always be defiling themselves—ruining body and soul by their iniquity.
We know persons who seem to have a devil in them in the matter of passion. They are but a little provoked and they lose all command of themselves. You would think that they ought to be put in a padded room in Bethlehem Hospital and kept there till they cooled down—otherwise they might do mischief to themselves and to others. Surely some men, who can scarcely speak without swearing, have the devil in them! How one's blood runs chill, in going down our streets, to hear how commonly our working men degrade themselves with filthy conversation! It is not exactly cursing—it is less honest and more vile!
Is there any hope for such? These are the very people in whom Jesus Christ has often displayed His healing power! I could tell you tonight of lions that have been turned to lambs—men of furious passions who have become gentle, quiet and loving—men of profane speech who would be shocked at the very remembrance of what they once said and whose voices have been often heard in prayer. I could tell you of men and women, too, who loved the wages of iniquity and lost their character and defiled themselves—but they are washed and they are sanctified! I have blessed the name of God when giving the right hand of Christian fellowship to ransomed ones to whom we could not have given our right hand a little while ago, for it would have been wrong to join with them in the wickedness of their pursuits.
Oh, yes, my Master still casts devils out of men! If there are any such here tonight, let your cry for help go up to our blessed Master! Come again, great Lord, and cast out the evil spirit from men and get to Yourself the victory in many a heart, to the praise of the glory of Your Grace! The remarkable point about this miracle-working was that all were healed and there was never a failure. When a man brings out a patent medicine he publishes verifications of the efficacy of his product. He gets a number of cases and he advertises them.
I suppose they are genuine. I should not like to be hanged if they were not. I suppose, therefore, they are all accurate and authentic. But there is one thing which you never knew a medicine advertiser to do—he never advertises the failures of the medicine. The number of persons that have been induced to buy the remedy and have derived no good from it—if these were all advertised it might occupy more room in the newspaper than those who write of a cure! My Lord Jesus Christ is a Physician who never had a failure yet—never once! Never did a soul wash in Christ's blood without being made whiter than snow! Never did a man, besotted with the worst of vice, trust in Jesus without receiving power to conquer his evil habits!
Not even in the lowest pit of Hell is there one that dares to say, "I trusted Christ but I am lost. I sought His face with all my heart and He cast me away." There is not a man living that could say that unless he dared to lie! Not one has with heart and soul sought the Savior and trusted in Him—and then had a negative from Him. He must save you if you trust Him! As surely as He lives He must save you, for He has put it, "Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." I will repeat it—"Him that comes to Me I will in no wise cast out." You have never come if He has not received you for He must save those who trust in Him.
Notice that His word was the sole medicine He used: "He cast out the spirits with His word." No other medicine, no charms, no long performances, no striking of His hand over the place—He spoke and it was done! He said to the devil, "Come out of him," and it came out. He said to the disease, "Go," and away it went! In that way the Lord saves men today—by His Word. While I am speaking it tonight, or when you shall be reading it, His Word will be the power of God unto salvation. I am glad that you are here to hear it, for faith comes by hearing. I shall be glad if you diligently read it, for reading is a kind of hearing and many are brought to the Savior that way.
Jesus Christ does not need to put you through a long "purgatory" and keep you for months getting ready to be saved. He has only this night to open your ears to hear His Word and when you hear it He can bless it to your soul so that you shall live and your sin shall die! And you shall become changed and renewed by His matchless Grace. I speak His Word tonight, praying that He will make it effectual as He has done before—and to Him shall be the praise! We have the same medicine tonight that Jesus used for we have His Word. We have got Himself here in answer to the prayers of His people and we have the same sort of sick people here—therefore we expect to see the same wonders worked!
II. May God give you a hearing ear and save you while I speak, secondly, of OUR LORD'S PERSONAL POWER TO HEAL! Why was it that He was able to save? We are pointed to the secret of His power by these words, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the Prophet, saying, He took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." Christ was able to heal the diseases of men because He bore them Himself.
Do not think that our Lord Jesus was actually diseased—He suffered greatly but I read not that any disease was upon Him. Probably there was no man in whom there was less tendency to natural disease than in Him. His pure and blessed body was not subject to the diseases which are brought upon men through sin being in them. How, then, did He take upon Him our sicknesses and our sorrows? First, He bore our sicknesses by intense sympathy. When Christ looked at all those sick people, He did, as it were, take all their sicknesses upon Himself. You know what I mean. If you talk with a person who is very ill and you feel for him, you seem to lay his pains upon yourself and then you have power to comfort him.
When I am seeing troubled people, I enter into one sorrowful case after another till I am more sad than any of them. I try as far as I can to have fellowship with the case of each one in order to be able to speak a word of comfort to him. And I can say, from personal experience, that I know of nothing that wears the soul down so fast as the outflow of sincere sympathy with sorrowing, desponding, depressed ones. I have sometimes been the means in God's hand of helping a man who suffered with a desponding spirit—but the help I have rendered has cost me dearly. Hours after, I have been myself depressed and I have felt an inability to shake it off.
You and I have not a thousandth part of the sympathy that was in Christ. He sympathized with all the aggregate of human woe and so sympathized that He made His heart a great reservoir into which all streams of grief poured themselves. My Master is just the same today. Though He is in Heaven He is just as tender as He was on earth. I never heard of anybody losing tenderness by going to Heaven. People get better by going there—and so is Christ—if it were possible, even more tender than when on earth.
Think of this. Somebody might not sympathize with you, poor Sinner, but Jesus does! You would not like to tell some people what you have done, for they would turn upon their heels and give you a wide berth—but it is not so with Jesus. He looks upon sin not with the eye of a judge, but with the eye of a physician. He looks at it as a disease and He deals with it that He may heal it. He has great sympathy with sinners though He has no sympathy with sin. He takes the sinner's sorrows to Himself. "Ah!" says one, "no man cares for my soul." Dear Friend, man or woman, whoever you may be—One greatly cares for you and He speaks to you tonight by these lips. Oh, that these lips were better fitted to be used by Him!
He says, "Come unto Me and I will give you rest." He bids you take of the Water of Life freely. He is ready at this moment to bestow salvation. "Nobody knows my case," cries one. But Jesus knows it. He knows that dark spot in it. He knows that hard core which will not go away. He knows that filthy thing which you remember tonight and shiver as you remember it. He knows it all and yet He says, "Return, you backsliding daughter." He bids the vilest of the vile come to Him for He still has sympathy with them.
Jesus Christ took upon Himself our sicknesses by His championship of our humanity. Satan misled our first parents and the powers of darkness held us captive. In consequence of sin we have become sick and infirm and liable to suffer. Now, when our Lord Jesus came on earth, He as good as said, "I am the Seed of the woman and I have come to bruise the head of men's adversary." So Christ, in that respect, took upon Himself all the consequences which come of sin. He stood forth as the Champion of fallen manhood to fight Satan and cast him out of men's bodies—to battle with disease and to overthrow the evil which lies at the root of it—that men might be made healthy.
He is still our Champion. I delight to preach Him to you, you suffering, you sorrowing, you sinful, you lost, you castaways! One has come who has taken up your cause—the sinner's Redeemer, next-of-kin to man—who has come to avenge him of his adversary and to buy back his lost inheritance. Behold in Jesus the Champion of sinners, the David who comes and defies the Goliath that has long afflicted men! Oh, I wish you would trust our glorious Champion! Remember how He met the adversary alone and vanquished him? "It was on that dark, that dreadful night." The enemy sprang upon Him in the garden like a lion and the Savior received him on His breast.
He brought the Savior to His knees but there He grasped the lion, hugged him, crushed him, tore him and flung him from Him! Our Samson, sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground—and though He had won that victory He afterwards bowed His head and gave up the ghost. He lives again, however—and He is now the Champion of the cause of all the suffering, the sorrowing and the sinful—if they will but come and put their case into His hands! He Himself took our sicknesses and our infirmities by championing our cause and standing in our place to fight our battles! Give Him your cause! Trust your soul in His hands and He will redeem you out of the jaw of the Lion, yes, out of the very mouth of Hell!
But here is the pith of the whole matter. The reason why Jesus is able to heal all the mischief that sin has worked is this— because He Himself took our sin upon Himself by His sacred Substitution. Sin is the root of our infirmities and diseases and so, in taking the root, He took all the bitter fruit which that root did bear. Oh, proclaim it again and again and every day! And shout it in the dead of night and tell it in the glare of noonday! Proclaim it in the market and shout in the streets and everywhere that God took sin from off the back of sinners and laid it on His innocent and only-begotten Son!
mystery Divine, never to be known if God had not revealed it, and not even now to be believed if God Himself had not assured us of it! He laid sin upon Christ! "All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Hearken, then, you guilty ones! Hear how freely God can forgive and yet not injure His justice. If you trust Christ you may be sure that you are among the number of those whose sins were laid on Christ. He was punished in your place!
Now, if Another was punished in your place it is not just that you should be punished, too. And therefore the very justice of God requires that if Christ suffered in your place, you should not suffer. Do you see that? "But did He suffer in my place?" I must answer this question by another, "Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ? Will you trust your soul with Him?" Well, if you do, your transgressions are not yours, for they were laid on Him. They are not on you, for, like everything else, they cannot be in two places at one time. And if they were laid on Christ, they are not laid on you.
"But what did Jesus do with the sins that were laid on Him? Can they not come back to us?" No, never! For He took them to the sepulcher and there He buried them forever. And now, what do the Scriptures say? "In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions; and, as a cloud, your sins." "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."
Our sins are gone! Christ has carried them away. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." Believers are the seed for whom the victory has been gained. They are the seed to whom the promise is sure. It is not to those who are of works, but to those who are offaith. Those that are born-again of the Spirit of God through faith which is in Christ Jesus—these are "redeemed from among men." Suppose I owed 10,000 pounds? If a dear friend should call on my creditor and pay that 10,000 pounds for me, I should then owe the creditor nothing. I could meet him with a smiling face.
He may tomorrow morning bring his account books if he likes and say, "There, you see, there are 10,000 pounds down there against you." I would joyfully answer, "Yes, but look on the other side. You have been paid. Here are the words at the foot of your bill, 'Received in full of all demands.'" Now, when Jesus took the sins of Believers upon Himself He discharged them by His death—and every man that believes has the receipt in full in our Lord's Resurrection! "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God." Yes, those that believe in Christ have the complete forgiveness of every sin! As for me, I like to sing with Kent—
For sins to come here's pardon too!" All blotted out at once with one stroke of the sacred pen—obliterated once and for all! God does not again lay to the charge of men what He has once forgiven them. He does not forgive them half their sins and visit them for the rest—once given, the blessing is irrevocable! As it is written, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." He never draws back nor repents of what He has done. He saves and the salvation which saves is everlasting salvation. Now I see why Christ can heal!
Dear Heart, you have come here tonight full of the disease of sin and you are saying, "Will He heal me?" Look to Him! Look to Him! Look to Him! The morning that I found Christ I did not think to find Him. I went to hear the Word as I had heard it before, but I did not hope to find Jesus then and there. Yet I did find Him! When I heard that there was nothing to be done but simply to look to Jesus—and when the exhortation came so sharp and shrill and clear, "Look! Look! Look!" I looked and I bear witness to the change that passed over me—such a change as though I died and rose again! And such a change, my Hearer, shall pass over you if you believe—
"There is life for a look at the Crucified One; There is life at this moment for you." God give you the look and give you the life, even now, for Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.
We knew, then, we were newly cleansed sinners! Oh, that blessed period! Our earthly comforts were forgotten in the greater sweetness and our earthly sorrows ceased because guilt was gone. Taken out of the bonds of iniquity, our hearts danced at the very sound of the redeeming name. We sang, "I am forgiven! I am forgiven!" We wanted to tell the angels this strange wonder of almighty love. That was one of the good things of our beginning. We recollect very well, too, that we had, then, a delicious enjoyment of the good things of the Covenant of Grace. We did not know a tenth of what we know now, but we intensely enjoyed what we did know.
When the Israelites first came into Canaan they found it to be a land that flowed with milk and honey. It became afterwards a stony land through their sins, but rare clusters then grew in Eshcol and the wild bees made honey plentifully, even in such a strange place as the carcass of a lion. When we first came to Christ it was so with us as to the things of God—they were all sweets. We saw one Covenant blessing, then another and then another. And we were enraptured with each one. Whether in the body or out of the body we could scarcely tell, for we did not look, then, without tasting and we did not taste, then, without feasting—and we did not feast, then, without feasting again! We grudged the world the hours we spent in business—we wanted to get back to our Bibles—or to the assembly of the saints.
Our Lord was a precious Christ, then, and exceedingly lovely in our eyes that had been so newly opened. Everything about Him, His people, His Word, His day and His Cross was astonishing to us and filled us with an intense delight! It was "happy days," indeed, with us then. That was another blessed point in our beginnings. And, at that time, we were like the children of Israel in a third matter, namely, that we had repeated victories. Do you remember when your Jericho fell down—when a high walled-up sin that you feared would never yield to you, was brought down suddenly?
As Israel went from victory to victory and slew king after king, so in those early days did you. As quickly as conscience revealed a sin you smote it as with a two-edged sword. You sometimes wondered at professors, that they could live as they did. You felt you could not. Your hand was in for fighting and, like Joshua, you did not stop. The day was not long enough for you in which to slay your sins! You felt inclined to bid the sun stand still and the moon rest so that you might make full work of blessed carnage in putting sin altogether to the sword.
You have had a good many defeats since then, it may be, for which you cannot excuse yourself—but then, "Victory!" was your watchword and you went on to realize it in the name of the eternal God. From day to day, though attacked by the uprising of corruptions, you said, "In the name of the Lord I will destroy them." And you sometimes cried like she of old, "O my Soul, you have trodden down strength!" You marveled to see how the adversary was subdued beneath the feet of your faith! Those were good times, were they not—those beginnings? In those days, you had great delight in prayer. When alone with Christ, it was Heaven below—and in Prayer Meetings, when God's people were warm at heart—how you delighted to unite with them!
The preaching was marrow and fatness to you. You did not mind walking a long way on a wet night to hear about your Lord and Master. It may be there was no cushion to the seat or you had to stand in the aisle. You did not mind that—but you are getting wonderfully dainty now—you cannot hear the poor preacher whose voice was once like music to you. You cannot enjoy the things of God as you once did. Whose fault is that? The kitchen is the same and the food the same— I fear the appetite has gone.
How ravenous I was after God's Word—how I would wake early in the morning to read those books that are full of the deep things of God! I wanted none of your nonsensical novels, nor your weekly tales for which some of you pine, like children for sugar sticks. Then one fed on Manna that came from Heaven, on Christ Himself! Those were good times in which everything was delightful. You heard a Gospel preacher and perhaps he spoiled the Queen's English—but you did not care a bit about that. You were hungry and you minded not the knives and the tablecloths—you wanted meat, and plenty of it—and so long as it was good spiritual meat, your souls were delighted! That is one of the good things of our beginnings.
In those days we were full of living fruitfulness. I hope we have not lost it. Just as the mountains of Judea dropped with wine and ran with milk through the abundance of the soil, so was it with us, then. We could do anything! Sometimes, in looking back, we wonder how we ever attempted so much. We were not so anxious to keep up our spiritual life as we were to spend what we had got. We thought, then, we would push the Church before us and drag the world behind us! What marvels we were going to do! Yes, and we did many of them by God's good Grace!
Then, if we had but little strength, yet we kept the Lord's Word. If we had but one talent, we made as much use of it, perhaps, as some do with ten. I love to see you young Christians as active as ever you can be—and I am going to put my hand on young heads and say, "This is right. Do all you can. You may not be so lively by-and-by." If you are not earnest when you begin, what will you soon be? I want you to maintain that earnestness and to let it increase, for no man is doing too much for Jesus! No one is too consecrated! No one is too self-denying! No one is too enthusiastic! There has never been seen on the face of the earth, yet, a man who has laid himself out too much for the cause and kingdom of our Master. That will never be.
But it is one of the good points of our beginnings that we were full of fruitfulness for the Lord our God. This is because the saints begin generally with abounding love. Oh, how we loved the Savior when first we discovered how He had loved us with an everlasting love! When we see that the dunghill is never to be our portion again, but yon bright Glory at the right hand of the Eternal—oh, then we love our Savior with all our hearts! I am not saying that we do not now love even more—but it is a good beginning when we overflow with love to our Lord Jesus.
II. I could thus keep on reminding you of the days gone by, but I do not care to do so. I am going now, in the second place, to answer the question, CAN ANYTHING BE BETTER THAN THIS? Well, it would be a very great pity if there could not be because I am sure we, when we were young beginners, were not much to boast of and all the joy we had was, after all, but little compared with what is revealed in the Word of God! We ought to get to something better—and it would be a miserable thing if we were to get "small by degrees, and miserably less."
It would not look like Christian perseverance if our light were to shine less and less unto the perfect darkness! No, but it is to shine more and more unto the perfect day—and in the beginning our day is only twilight! In coming to God at first we are only in the outer courts—we have not yet entered the Holy of Holies of inward experience—we stand in the outer court. We are wheat in the blade as yet. Ask the farmer whether he thinks that the green blade is the best thing on the farm. He says, "Yes, for the present." But if it is a green blade next July he will not think so. There is something better than before.
All the good that God gives us draws something better behind it. And let me whisper it—there is a best thing yet to come—not yet revealed unto eye or ear of saint, but it will be ours by-and-by when our Lord comes. In what respects, then, can our future be better than that which is behind? I answer very readily, faith may be stronger. By the Grace of God it will be firmer and more robust. At first it shoots up like the lily, very beautiful but fragile. Afterwards it is like the oak with great roots that grip the soil and rugged branches that defy the winds. Faith in the young beginner is soon cast down and doubts and fears prevail—but if we grow in Divine Grace we become rooted and grounded.
In these days, when it is fashionable to sneer at the doctrines of Scripture and nobody is thought to be sensible who believes anything, the young Believer is apt to be staggered. But it would take a great many of the critics and divines of the present day, with all their skepticism, to shake some of us. We have tasted and handled and lived upon these things— and being established in them we are not to be moved from the hope of our calling! Though all the wiseacres in the world should dip their pens in tenfold darkness and write it down as proven that there is no such thing as light, we have seen it with our eyes—we live in it and we are not to be moved from the eternal verities. This is something better than early faith, is it not? Go on and obtain it!
Again, God gives to His people, as they advance, much more knowledge. At first they enjoy what they know, but they hardly know what they enjoy! As we grow in Grace we know more. We are surprised to see that what we thought to be one blessing is 50 blessings in one. We learn the art of dissecting the Truth of God—taking it to pieces and seeing the different veins of Divine thought that run through it! And then we see with delight blessing after blessing conveyed to us by the Person and Sacrifice of our exalted Lord. Brothers and Sisters, if years and experience make us know more, our present is better than our beginnings!
Love to Christ gets to be more constant. It is a passion always, but with Believers who grow in Grace it comes to be a principle as well as a passion. If they are not always blazing with love, there is a good fire banked up within the soul. You know how you bank your fire up when you come to chapel in the evening, and have nobody at home, and want to keep the fire alight till you get home? That is often the condition of a Christian. Even if we do not talk much about assurance and say nothing about getting near perfection, yet we lie humbly before God and do not doubt that we love Him. We are sure that we do, for it becomes a daily delight to us to speak with Christ and, in the speaking, we feel our love glowing!
You do not always feel that you love those whom you never see—but when you talk to the dear objects of your love, your heart is moved. As one of the old Puritans used to say, our Graces are not apparent unless they are in exercise. You walk through a preserve and there may be partridges and pheasants and hares all round you—but you will not see them till one flies out of its hiding, or a hare starts up before you. You see them in motion—but while they were quiet in the bushes you did not observe them. So may love to Christ and all Christian virtues lie concealed till they are called into action. Our Lord's dear Presence attracts them all out of their hiding places and then you perceive that love was always there, and there in strength, too, though it was not always on your lips nor even in your thoughts.
As Christians grow in Divine Grace, prayer becomes more mighty. If the Lord builds you up into true spiritual manhood, you will know how to wrestle. Why did not Jacob meet the angel the first time when he went to Bethel? He lay down and slept, and dreamed a dream. He was a spiritual babe and a dream suited his capacity. But when he came back—a man who had grown by years of experience—then the Angel of God came and wrestled with him! It is one part of the teaching of Divine experience that we grow stronger in the art of prayer and know how to win from God greater things than we ever dreamt of asking at first. God grant you better things in the matter of prayer than at your beginnings!
So, I think, it is in usefulness. Growing Christians and full-grown Christians are more useful than beginners. They may not, apparently, be doing so much but they are doing it better and there is more result. Their fruit, if not quite so plentiful, is of better quality and more mellow. If there are fewer fruits, they are larger ones and each one of a finer flavor. In fact, this one thing is clear of all Believers who have grown in Grace—that the work of Grace in them is nearer completion. They are getting nearer Heaven and they are getting more fit for it. Some of you are sitting very loose by this world. You are expecting very soon to hear the summons which will call you to quit these earth-born things.
As ripe fruit comes from the tree with a gentle touch, so is it getting to be with you—the world had a greater hold upon you when you were young than it has now—and your thoughts of departure from it are more frequent and more full of desire than they used to be. You have come to look at death as though it were only a removal to a neighboring town, or like stepping across the street. You have looked at it so long that you can say like one I knew, "I have dipped my foot in the river every morning and I shall not be at all afraid to ford it when the time comes." The Lord has made you to stand on tiptoe, ready to rise. You can say, "The time of my departure is at hand." Your chariot is at the door!
Well, now, this is something better than your beginnings! The old Christian may look back upon the new wine and say regretfully, "How it sparkled and effervesced! But the old is better." You may think of the days of your youthful vigor when the body kept pace with the spirit—and you were young and full of nerve and muscle and enthusiasm. Those animal spirits have now gone from you and you are sobered and even slow. You have become old, and, perhaps, forgetful of many things. You go over the old story, now, instead of inventing new ones. But then, the old story—the old, old story—is as new to you as at the first and you love it better than ever before!
You cannot be driven from it now. I should think Satan himself would hardly like to meddle with some of you—he feels that he cannot shake your faith in the living God! Or if he should shake you, you would in turn shake him! He has had so many brushes with you during the last 50 years that he begins to know that you carry the true Jerusalem blade— and he had rather deal with other folks who are fond of the "modern thought" wooden sword! You have come to the land Beulah and you are sitting on the brink of Jordan, waiting to cross over to the Celestial City. Surely, you have realized that God is dealing better with you than at your beginnings!
III. I will end with the last, which is a practical matter. How can we, dear Friends, we who are beginning a Christian life, HOW CAN WE SECURE THAT IT WILL BE BETTER WITH US, BY-AND-BY, THAN IT IS NOW? Alas, we have seen some start splendidly in appearance. They did run well but they were soon out of breath or turned aside. We hear no more of them. Our fear should be lest the like should happen to us. How can we act so as to hold on our way and go from good to better?
I answer, first, keep to the simplicity of your first faith. Never get away from that! You remember the story we used to tell of poor Jack the huckster, who sang—
"I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all, But Jesus Christ is my All in All"?
Questioners could not make him doubt. He said that he could not doubt that he was a poor sinner and nothing at all, for he knew he was! And why should he doubt that Jesus Christ was his All in All? The Word of God says so—why should he doubt it? Here he stood and would not budge an inch.
By God's Grace, neither will I. The coney is safe in the rock and he knows better than to come out. I hide in Jesus, and there I mean to remain, whatever the critics or the cultured may say. Jesus is my All in All and I am nobody! My life cost Him His death and His death is my life. He took my sin and died—I take His righteousness and live. You may laugh, but I win. You may sneer, but I sing. O dear Friend, fly to Jesus and hide in Him and stay there! Never get an inch beyond the Cross, for, if you do, you will have to come back. That is your place till you die—you are nothing— Christ is everything!
You have to sink lower, and lower and lower—and in your esteem Christ must rise higher, and higher and higher. The "nothing at all" must be more emphatic the older you grow—and the "All in All" must be more emphatic, too. If you get to borrowing wings and trying to fly up with speculations about what you may be in yourself, you will end in coming down heavily with a bruised heart—if not with broken bones. Keep at the foot of the Cross and you will maintain—no, you will increase your joy in the Lord! At the same time, dear Friends, practice great watchfulness. Many a child of God has to weep for months because he did not watch for minutes. He closed his eyes a little while and said, "It is all right with me." And in that little while the enemy came and sowed tares among his wheat and great mischief came because of a little nap.
We ought to have the eyes of a lynx and they ought never to be closed. We know not which way the most temptation will come. We need to be guarded on all sides and remember the words of our Master, "What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch." You will not keep your joy and grow in Divine Grace unless you watch. The next advice is grow in dependence upon God. For your watchfulness, depend upon His watching. You cannot keep yourself unless He keeps you. You must watch, but it is He that keeps Israel and does neither slumber nor sleep. Remember that. Determine, dear Friends, at the very beginning, to be thorough.
I love to see young Christians very scrupulous about the mind of the Lord. I would not have you say, "Oh, that is nonessential!" Obedience to a command may not be essential to your salvation but it must be essential to the completeness of your holiness. "Whatever He says to you, do it." Safe walking can only come of careful walking. I have known the time when I felt afraid to put down one foot before the other for fear I should go wrong—and I believe I was never so right as when that feeling was on me continually. You young people must cultivate more and more the Grace of holy fear. You must dread daily lest in anything you should omit to do your Lord's will, or should trespass against Him. In this way your joy shall be maintained and you shall be settled after your old estates—and God will do better unto you than at your beginnings.
Lastly, seek for more instruction. Try to grow in the knowledge of God that your joy may be full. It will be ill for you to say, "I know I was converted and therefore need not care any further." That will not do. No, no, in conversion you began a race from which you are never to cease! You have been born-again and therefore you need spiritual food. You enjoy spiritual life and you are to nurture that life till it is conformed to the perfect image of Christ. Onward, Brothers and Sisters! Onward, for that which is beyond will repay your labor!