Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

Verse 1. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God. Paul had not seen the Romans when he wrote this Epistle. They were strangers to him and, therefore, he begins by asserting his Apostle-ship, "called to be an Apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God." That expression should be true of every Christian minister! We are not Apostles, but we are, "separated unto the Gospel of God." I do not think that we are called to have anything to do with party politics, or social problems, or any such questions—we are set apart for this purpose— "separated unto the Gospel of God." There are plenty of people who can attend to those things better than we can. If we mind our own business, or rather, if we mind our Master's business, we who are ministers will have quite enough to do. "Separated unto the Gospel of God." There are some Brothers who, in preaching, are as timid as mice—but on a political platform they can roar like lions! Had not they better take to what they like best and give up the work at which they are not at home? For my part, I believe that I am like Paul when he says that he was "separated unto the Gospel of God." I am set apart unto the Gospel, cut off from everything else so that I may preach the glorious Gospel of the blessed God to the perishing sons of men!

2. (Which He had promised afore by His Prophets in the Holy Scriptures). Notice, Brothers and Sisters, how reverent the Apostles were to Holy Scripture. They had no doubt about its Inspiration! They quoted the Old Testament and delighted to make it a kind of basis for the New Testament—"which He had promised afore by His Prophets in the Holy Scriptures."

3, 4. Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. What a glorious Lord we serve! He is God's Son—"Jesus Christ our Lord." In His Human Nature, He is a Man of royal race—"of the seed of David." He was a Man, therefore He died, but He rose again, for He was more than Man—"declared to be the Son of God with power."

5, 6. By whom we have received Grace and Apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for His name: among whom are you also the called of Jesus Christ. That is a sweet name for every truly converted man, "called of Jesus Christ." He has called you personally. He has called you effectually. He has called you out of the world. He has called you into fellowship with Himself—"the called of Jesus Christ." The revised version has it—"called to be Jesus Christ's." Those who are called by Christ, are called to be His.

7, 8. To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. What contrasts we have in the seventh verse! "In Rome, beloved of God." "In Rome called to be saints." God has beloved ones in the darkest parts of the earth! There is all the more reason for them to be saints because they are surrounded by sinners. They must have had true faith, or they could not have confessed Christ between the jaws of a lion, for they lived in Rome, with Nero hunting after Christians as if they had been wild beasts! And yet they were not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.

9. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. This man, Paul, did a great deal by prayer. I remember a minister, who is now with the Lord, who was thanked by his people for his wonderful sermons. But he said to them, "You never thanked me for my prayers, yet they were the best part of my service for you." When men of God are mighty in prayer, we owe much to them.

10. Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. Paul wanted to go to Rome, but I do not suppose that he ever thought that he would go there at the expense of the government, with an imperial guard to take care of him all the way! We pray and God gives us the answer to our peti-tions—but often in a way in which we would never have dreamed! Paul goes to Rome as a prisoner for Christ's sake. Now suppose Paul had gone to Rome in any other capacity—he could not have seen Caesar. He could not have obtained admission into Caesar's house. The prison of the Palatine was just under the vast palace of the Caesars and everybody in the house could come into the guard room—and have a talk with Paul if they were minded to do so. I suppose that whatever I might be willing to pay, I could not have preached in the palace of the Queen, even in this nominally Christian country! But Paul was installed as a royal chaplain over Caesar's household in the guard room of the Palatine prison! How wonderfully God works to accomplish His Divine purposes!

11. 12. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith of you and me. Paul wanted his faith to establish theirs, and their faith to establish his. Christians grow rich by and exchange of spiritual commodities, but I am afraid some Christians are very poor because they do not engage in the spiritual bartering with one another. You know how it was in the old time, "They that feared the Lord spoke often, one to another." Shall I tell you how it is now? They that fear not the Lord speak often, one against another! That is a very sad difference. Oh, for more Christian communion, for when we blend our "mutual faith," we are "comforted together"—each Believer grows stronger as he cheers his Brothers and Sisters in the Lord!

13. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you, also, even as among other Gentiles. Ah, Paul, you could not go when you wished! Caesar must convoy you. Your Master would have you go to Rome under the protection of the eagles of the empire. God has servants everywhere—He can make Satan, himself, provide the bodyguard for His faithful Apostle's journey!

14. I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. Paul felt a debt to everybody. The God who saved him had saved him that he might preach the Gospel in every place he could reach. Brethren, if you have received much from God, you are so much the debtor to men and you are debtors not only to the respectable, but to the disreputable—debtors not only to those who come to a place of worship, but to the dwellers in the slums— "to the Greeks, and to the barbarians; to the wise and to the unwise."

15. So, as much as in me, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome, also. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many other people were ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. It was too simple—it had not enough of mystery about it. It had not enough of worldly wisdom about it. Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ," and then gives his reason for not being ashamed of it—

16,17. For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. The Gospel tells us about this living by faith, this believing, this receiving righteousness through believing and not through working. This is the sweet story of the Cross, of which Paul was not ashamed!

18. For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the Truth in unrighteousness. Those last words may be read, "Who hold down the Truth of God in unrighteousness." They will not let the Truth work upon their hearts. They will not allow it to operate in their minds, but they try to make it an excuse for their sin. Is there anybody here who is holding down the Truth of God to prevent its entering his heart? I fear that there are some such persons who have come here for years—and the Truth of God has pricked them, troubled them, made them lie awake at night—but they are holding it down, like one who grasps a wild animal by the ears and holds it down for fear it should bite him! Oh, Sirs, when you are afraid of the Truth, you may well be afraid of Hell! When you and the Truth quarrel, you had better end your fighting soon, for you will have the worst of it if you do not yield, "For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the Truth in unrighteousness."

19, 20. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. Men who never heard the Gospel can see God in His works if they open their eyes. There is written upon the face of Nature enough to condemn men if they do not turn to God. There is a Gospel of the sea, of the heavens, of the stars and of the sun—and if men will not read it, they are guilty—for they are willfully ignorant of what they might know and ought to know.

21, 22. Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. The way to be a fool is to pretend to be wise! A short cut to wisdom is the confession of folly. The near way to folly is the profession of wisdom.

23, 24. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. It is very easy to make a beast of yourself when you have made a beast to be your god, as the Egyptians did, when they worshipped the god that they had made in the form of an ox, or a crocodile, or a cat.

25. Who changed the Truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. There are many preachers who have "changed the Truth of God into a lie"—and by their exaltation of man, they have "worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever." God save all of us from such idolatry as that! Amen.

"Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock? Where is He that put His holy Spirit within him? That led them by the right hand of Moses with His glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make Himself an everlasting name? That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble? As a beast goes down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest: so did You lead Your people, to make Yourself a glorious name." Isaiah 63:11-14.

I told you, in the reading, that Israel had a golden age, a time of great familiarity with God, when Jehovah was very near to His people in their sufferings and was afflicted in their affliction—when He helped them in everything they did and the Angel of His Presence saved them. But after all that the Lord had done for them, there came a cold period. The people went astray from the one living and true God. They fell into the ritualism of the golden calf. They must have something visible, something that they could see and worship. Even after they were brought into the Promised Land and the Lord had worked great wonders for them, they turned aside to false gods till they worshipped strange deities that were no gods and provoked Jehovah to jealousy. "They rebelled and vexed His Holy Spirit: therefore He was turned to be their enemy and He fought against them." Not that He ceased to love His chosen, but He must be just and He could not patronize sin—so He sent their enemies against them and they were sorely smitten, and brought very low. Then it was that they began to remember the days of old and to sigh for Him whom they had treated so evilly. And they said, one to another, "Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock? Where is He that put His holy Spirit within him? That led them by the right hand of Moses with His glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make Himself an everlasting name? That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble? As a beast goes down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest: so did You lead Your people to make Yourself a glorious name."

I have but a short time, as the Communion Service is to follow and, therefore, I must leave much unsaid that I think your own imagination will make up to you at home.

But I shall ask you to notice, first, that the text contains a sacred, loving remembrance. It dwells very much upon what God did in the old times, when He was familiar with His people and they walked in the light of His Countenance. After that, I shall call your attention to an object clearly shining in the text. We get it twice over. In the 12th verse we read, "To make Himself an everlasting name." In the 14th verse, "To make Yourself a glorious name." When I have spoken of those two things, I shall dwell more at length upon an anxious enquiry, which is put here twice—"Where is He?" In the 11th verse you get this repeated question, "Where is He? Where is He?"

So then, to begin with, we go back to God's dealings with His people and with us—and we have A SACRED, LOVING REMEMBRANCE. The people remembered what God did to them. What was it? As it is here described, He, first of all, gave them leaders. "Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock?" Moses and Aaron, and a band of godly men who were with them, were the leaders of the people through the sea and through the wilderness. Brothers and Sisters, we are apt to think too little of our leaders! First of all we think too much of them and afterwards we think too little of them. We seem to swing like a pendulum between these two extremes. Man is reckoned as if he were everything to some and God becomes nothing to such, but, without unduly exalting man, we can truly say that it really is a great blessing to the Church when God raises up men who are qualified to lead His people.

Israel did not go out of Egypt as a mob—they were led out by their armies. They did not plunge into the Red Sea as an undisciplined crowd, but Moses stood up there with his uplifted rod and led them on that memorable day. We may as well sigh for the glorious days of old when God gave His people mighty preachers of His Word. There have been epochs in history that were prolific of great leaders of the Christian Church. No sooner did Luther give his clarion call, than God seemed to have a bird in every bush—and Calvin, and Farel, and Melancthon, and Zwingli and so many besides that I will not attempt to make out the list—joined with him in his brave protest against the harlot Church of Rome. "The Lord gave the Word: and great was the company of those that published it." The Church remembers those happy days, with earnest longing for their return! They were giants in those days—mighty men of renown—well fitted by the Lord to lead His people.

We are next told that God put His spirit within these shepherds. They would have been nothing without it. Where is He that put His Holy Spirit within them? A man with God's Holy Spirit within him—can anybody estimate his worth? God says that He will make a man more precious that the gold of Ophir, but, to a man filled with His Spirit, mines of rubies or of diamonds cannot be set in comparison! When the 11 Apostles went forth on the day of Pentecost, endowed by the Spirit of God, there were forces in the world whose very marching might make it quiver beneath their feet! God send us once more many of His servants, within whom He has put His Spirit in an eminent and conspicuous manner, and then we shall see bright days, indeed! The command to such is still, "Tarry until you be endued with power from on high."

Then there was, in the next place, as a happy memory for the Church, a great manifestation of the Divine Power. "That led them by the right hand of Moses with His glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make Himself an everlasting name." "The right hand of Moses," by itself, was no more than your right hand or mine! But when God's glorious arm worked by the right hand of Moses, the sea divided and made a way for the hosts of Israel to pass over! As the Psalmist sings, "He divided the sea, and caused them to pass through; and He made the waters to stand as a heap." The right hand of Moses could not have worked that miracle! But the glorious arm of the Lord did. What we need today, Brothers and Sisters, is a manifestation of Divine Power! Some of us are praying for it day and night. We have expected it. We do expect it! We are longing for it with an insatiable hunger and thirst. Oh, when will Jehovah pluck His right hand out of His bosom? When will He make bare His arm, as one that goes to His work with might and main? Pray, O you servants of God, for leaders filled with the Spirit and with the power of God working with them, that multitudes may be converted unto Christ and the sea of sin be dried up in the advance of His Kingdom!

Then, there came to God's people a very marvelous deliverance—"That led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble." Understand by the word, "wilderness," here, an expansive grassy plain—a place of wild grass and herbs, for so it means. And as a horse is led where it is flat and level and he does not stumble, so were the hosts of Israel led through the Red Sea. The bottom of the sea may be stony or gravelly, or it may be full of mire and mud. Probably there will be huge rocks standing up in the middle of the stream. There may be a sudden fall from one stratum of rock to the other—and to come up from the sea on the further bank would be hard work for struggling people carrying burdens, as these Israelites did—for they went out of Egypt harnessed and laden, bearing their kneading troughs in their clothes upon their shoulders. But God made that rough sea bottom to be as easy traveling for them as when a horse is led across a flowery meadow! Beloved, God has done so with His Church in all time. Her seas of difficulty have had no difficulty about them. He has come in all the Glory of His power and smoothed the way for the ransomed to pass over. Has it not been so with you, my Brothers and Sisters?

And, as a blessed ending to their trials, God brought them into a place of rest—"As a beast goes down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord causes him to rest: so did You lead Your people." In the desert they rested a good deal, but in Canaan they rested altogether. As the cattle come down from the mountains where they have been picking up their food, when the plains are fat with grass, and they feed to their full, and lie down and rest, so did God deal with His people, bringing them from all the mountains of their trouble into a sweet valley, a land that flowed with milk and honey, where they might rest. This is a memorial, a sketch of the past.

I read it, first, literally as a sketch of Israel's history. I read it, next, as a sketch of the Church's history. There have been times with the Church as at Pentecost and the Reformation, when, though she had wandered, God returned to her, made bare His arm, raised up shepherds, put His Spirit upon them and then led His people straight ahead through every difficulty and gave them rest. You are, most of you, acquainted with the history of the period before Luther's day. It did not seem likely, then, that the Gospel would be preached everywhere throughout Northern Europe, but it was so, and God singularly preserved the first Reformers' lives when they were very precious. Zwingli died in battle, but he should not have been fighting, and he might have died a natural death. But Calvin, Luther and the rest of them, for the most part, remained until their work was done and then quietly passed away. And the Churches, despite long persecution, had comparative rest. It was so here and it was so across the border in our sister Church of Scotland. She cannot forget the covenanting blood and the putting to death of those who were for the Crown Rights of King Jesus, but, at last, she had her time of rest. Time would fail me to tell you the long list of shepherds that God gave to His covenanting Church, the mighty men who, being dead, yet speak to us by their works and who, while they lived, made the Church of God in Scotland to be glorious with the Presence of her Lord!

Well now, the same thing has happened also to us as individuals! We have had our cloudy and dark days, but God has appeared for our help. Some of you could tell how God led you through the deep as through a prairie. You went a way that you never knew, a new way, an untrod path, as though it were the bottom of a sea but newly dry—but the Lord led you as a groom leads a horse, so that you did not stumble—and before long you came up out of the depths unharmed! With Moses and the children of Israel, you sang the praises of Him who had triumphed gloriously. And then you began to learn another song, not so martial, but very sweet—"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: He leads me beside the still waters." In conflicts for the God of Israel and His everlasting Truth, some of us have been counted as the mire of the streets—but in that we rejoice, and will rejoice—for Jehovah lives and He will bring up His people again from Bashan! He will bring them up from the depths of the sea and there shall be rest, again, in the midst of Israel, if men are but faithful to God and faithful to His Truth. Thus much upon the sacred memory of the past.

II. But now, in the second place, I want you to notice AN OBJECT CLEARLY SHINING, like the morning star. I see, through the text, God's great motive in working these wonders for His people. It was God who did it all— my text is full of God. He brought them up out of the sea. He put His Holy Spirit within them. He led them with His glorious arm. He led them through the deep. He caused them to rest. He did it all! When the history of the Church is written, there will be nothing on the page but God. I know that her sin is recorded, but He has blotted that out and, at the end, there will remain nothing but what God has done. When your life and mine shall ring out as a Psalm amid the harps of Glory, it will be only, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us, be glory and dominion forever and ever." "Non nobis, Domine." "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Your name give glory." So will sing all of us who are the Lord's redeemed, when we have come up out of the great tribulation and have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb!

But then, why had God done all this? Did He do it because of His people's merits, or numbers, or capacities? He tells them, many a time, "Not for your sakes do I this, says the Lord God, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel." God finds in Himself the motive for blessing men who have no merits. If God looked for any motive in us, He would find none. He would see in us many reasons why He should condemn us, but only in Himself could He discover the motive for His matchless mercy.

God works His great wonders of Grace with the high motive of making known to His creatures His own Glory, manifesting what He is and who He is, that they may worship Him. He tells us in the text that He "led them by the right hand of Moses with His glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make Himself an everlasting name." So He has done, for to this day the highest note of praise to God that we know of is the one that tells of the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt—and when this world is burnt up, the song that will go up to God in Heaven will be the song of Moses—the servant of God and of the Lamb! Still, if we want a figure and a foretaste of the ultimate victories of God over all His people's enemies, we have to go back to the Red Sea and look at Miriam's twinkling feet, and hear her fingers making the timbrel sound as she cries, "Sing you to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea." He did it to make Himself an ever-enduring name—and He has succeeded in that objective.

Isaiah adds that the Lord led His people and brought them into their rest to make Himself "a glorious name." God is glorious in the history of Israel. God is glorious in the history of His Church. God is glorious in the history of every Believer. The life of a true Believer is a glorious life! For himself he claims no honor, but by his holy life he brings great glory to God. There is more glory to God in every poor man and woman saved by Grace and in the one unknown obscure person, washed in the Redeemer's blood, than in all the songs of cherubim and seraphim who know nothing of Free Grace and dying love! So you see, Beloved, the motive of God in all that He did, and I dwell upon it, though briefly, yet with much emphasis because this is a motive that can never alter! What if the Church of today is reduced to a very low condition and the Truth of God seems to be ebbing out from her shores, while a long stretch of the dreary mud of modern invention lies reeking in the nostrils of God? He that worked such wonders, to make Himself a name, still has the same objective in view! He will be glorious! He will have men know that He is God and beside Him there is none else! Thus says the Lord God, "All flesh shall know that I the Lord am your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." "The earth shall be full of knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

O Brothers and Sisters, He is still a jealous God, and when the precious blood of Christ is insulted, God hears it and forgets it not! When the Inspiration of the blessed Book is denied, the Holy Spirit hears it and is grieved—and He will yet bestir Himself to defend His Truth. When we hear the Truth of God that we love, the dearest and most sacred Revelations from our God, treated with a triviality that is nothing less than profane, if we are indignant, so is He! And shall not God avenge His own elect which cry day and night unto Him? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily, though He bears long with His adversaries. God's motive is His own Glory. He will stand to that and He will vindicate it! And we need to have no doubt, nor even the shadow of a fear about the ultimate result of a collision between God and the adversaries of His Truth. Shall not the moth that dashes at the candle, die in that flame? How shall the creatures of a day stand out against our God who is a consuming fire? Here, then, is the hope of the people of God—the constant persistent, invariable motive of God to make Himself glorious in the eyes of men!

III. My third point is AN ANXIOUS ENQUIRY which I find twice over in my text. Believing in what God has done, and believing that His motive still remains the same, we begin to cry, "Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock? Where is He that put His holy Spirit within him?"

This question suggests that there is some faith left. "Where is He?" He is somewhere. Then, He lives! Beloved, the Lord God Omnipotent still lives and reigns. Many usurpers have tried to turn Him from His Throne, but He still sits upon it and reigns gloriously among His ancients. He was, and is, and is to come—the Almighty—"Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever."

He is, but where is He? The question implies that some were beginning to seek Him. Where is He? Those were brave days when He was here on the moors, or on the hills of Scotland, or at the stakes of Smithfield, or the prisons of Lambeth Palace! Those were glorious days when Christ was here and His people knew it and rejoiced in Him. Then the virgin daughter of Zion shook her head at the harlot of Rome and laughed her to scorn—for she lay in the bosom of her King, and rejoiced in His love! O Beloved, do we begin to long after Him again? I hope that we do. I trust the cry of many loyal hearts is, "Come back, King Jesus! When You are away, all things languish. Ride again down the streets of Mansoul, O Prince Emmanuel! Then shall the city ring with holy song and every house shall be bedecked with everything that is beautiful and fair. Only come back!" If the King may but have His own again, I shall be content to sing old Simeon's song, "Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your Word!" The Church longs for the King's coming. Where is He? Where is He?

It shows now, dear Friends, that she has begun to mourn over His absence. I like the reduplicated word. "Where is He? Where is He?" Not, "Where is Moses? Where are the leaders? The fathers, where are they?" Let them stay where they are. But where is He that made the fathers? Where is He that sent us Moses and Aaron? Where is He that divided the waters and led His people safely? Where is He? Oh, it is a question that I put to all your hearts! Oh, if only He were here! One hour of His glorious arm; just a day of His almighty working and what should we not see? We will not ask for tongues of fire, or mighty rushing winds. Let Him be here as He may, but if He is only here, the battle is turned at the gate and the day of His redeemed is come! We sigh for His appearing.

Where is He, then? As the text asks. Well, He is hidden because of our sins. The Church has been tampering with His Truth. She has given into the hands of critics the Word of God, to cut it with a penknife, to cut away this and tear out that. She has been dallying with the world! She has tried to gain money for her objectives by the basest of means. She has played the harlot in what she has done, for there are no amusements too vile or too silly for her. Even her pastors have filled a theater of late, to sit there and mark with their applause the labors of the actors! To this pass have we come at last, to which we never came before—no, not in Rome's darkest hour—and if you, who profess to be God's servants, do not love Christ enough to be indignant about it, the Lord have mercy upon you! The time has surely come when there should go up one great cry unto the Lord Jehovah that He would make bare His arm again, for well may we say, "Where is He? Where is He?"

For your comfort, the next verse to my text tells you where He is. He is in Heaven. They cannot expel Him from His Throne. "Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion." By every possible contrivance, in these modern days, they have tried to drive Christ out of His own Church! A Christless, bloodless Gospel defiles many a pulpit, and Christ is thus angered—but He is still in Heaven. At the right hand of God He sits! And let this be our continual prayer to Him, "Look down from Heaven, O Lord! Cast an eye upon Your failing, faltering, fickle Church. Look down from Heaven."

"Where is He?" Well, He is, Himself, making an enquiry, for, as some read the whole passage, it is God Himself speaking. He remembered the days of old—Moses and his people. And when He hid Himself and would not work in wrath, yet He said to Himself, "Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of His flock?" When God Himself, who is always a stranger here—for are we not strangers with Him and sojourners, as all our fathers were?—When God Himself begins to ask where He is and to regret those happier days, something will come of it! "You that make mention of the Lord—you that are the Lord's remembrances—keep not silence and give Him no rest—take no rest, and give Him no rest—till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth." "That little cloud," said one of old, when Julian the apostate threatened to extirpate Christianity, "That little Church will soon be gone." All that I see today of darkness is but a wave of smoke. Behold, the Lord God Himself shall chase it away with a strong west wind! He does but blow with His wind and the clouds disappear! And what stands before us today shall be as nothing.

I thought, as I came here tonight, that the man who drives the tram car gave me a lesson on how I should look upon all future time. He starts, say at Clapham, with his car. If he could have a view of all that was on the road between Clap-ham and the Elephant and Castle—the carts, the wagons and other traffic that are exactly where he wants to go—and he were to add all those obstacles together, He might be foolish enough to say, "I shall not complete my course tonight." But, you see, he starts, and if anything is on the rails, it moves off! And if, perhaps, some sluggish, heavily-laden coal wagon is slow to move, he puts his whistle to his mouth and gives a shrill blast or two, and lo, it is gone!

So when the Church, serving her God, begins to look far ahead through prophecy—which she never did understand and never will—she will think she will never reach her journey's end. But she will, for God has laid the line! We are on the rails and the rails do not come to an end till the journey's end is reached! And as we go along, we shall find that everything in our way will move before us—and if it does not, we will pray a bit. We will blow our whistles and the devil himself will have to move, though all his black horses shall be dragging along the brewer's dray, or what else belongs to him! He will have to get off our track, assuredly as God lives, for if Jehovah sends us on His errands, we cannot fail. The old Romans picture Jove as hurling thunderbolts. Sometimes God makes His servants, thunderbolts, and when He hurls them, they will go crashing through everything until they reach their mark! Therefore be not, for a moment, discouraged, but trust in God and be glad without a shadow of fear!

If any here have never trusted in God, never made Him their Friend, or been reconciled to Him by the death of His Son, I pray them to think of their present condition. Opposed to God? You are standing in the way of an express train! You are urged to get out of the way. You will not? You are going to throw that train off the rails, you say? Poor fool, I could put my arms about your neck and forcibly drag you from the iron way, for assuredly, if you remain there, nothing can come of it but your everlasting destruction! Therefore, flee, flee, I pray you, from the wrath to come! The train of Divine Judgment comes thundering along the iron road even now! It shakes the earth. Awake! Rise! Flee! God help you to do so! Behold, the Savior stands with open arms to be your shelter. Fly to Him and trust in Him, and live forever! Amen.