1 Peter 2:8 Stumbling at the Word

NO. 3258
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 13TH, 1911
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON.
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, MARCH 6TH, 1864.

“And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient.”-1 Peter 2:8.

Yonder is a wreck; after a terrible tempest, that is all that remains of a once fine vessel, and on the wreck, lashed to the mast, I see clinging a number of mariners, almost frost-bitten with the gold, and drenched through and through with brine. But shore goes the lifeboat so I trust they will soon all be rescued from their perilous position. I am absolutely certain of one thing with regard to all those who are clinging to that poor wreck of a ship, that there is not a man among them who will raise any objection to being saved. No; whatever may have been their previous position in life, or their habits, or tastes, or anything else, they will all be equally glad to welcome the friendly lifeboat,, and to be taken on board the vessel of mercy. Yet is it not a strange thing, dear friends, that when poor humanity has become a total wreck, and poor souls are clinging to the sinking ship with hopes that must certainly be disappointed, and when Jesus Christ, appears within hail, willing and able to save, unto the uttermost, there are multitudes who raise all sorts of objections to being saved by him. He is not the sort of Savior they would like to have, or his way of saving sinners is not the one that they approve, and there are all manner of difficulties which they invent, which they imagine to be evidences of their wisdom, but which are really only proofs of their folly and vanity. They prefer to be lost rather than to be saved by such a Savior in such a way as he has ordained.

Men in a dungeon do not take exception to the man who breaks open their prison, and sets them free; men who are dying do not generally object to the physician who is seeking to save their lives; a man who is condemned to death does not quarrel with the king who gives him a free pardon; and there is nothing which shows the strange infatuation of sin more than this, that a man quarrels with his best Friend, puts away from him the plan of salvation which God has made with infinite wisdom, and will not come unto Christ that he may have life. I want, as the Holy Spirit shall help me, to plead with all those in this assembly to whom Christ himself has hitherto been “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense,” those who still “stumble at the Word, being disobedient.”

I shall try, first, to plead with you against your objections; then I will endeavor to plead with you for Christ; and after that I will plead with God’s people for you, and ask them to plead with God on your behalf.

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I. First, then, let me Plead With You Against Your Objections.

What is it that makes you think so little of Christ, or that makes you think so badly of Christ? Shall I take the words out of your mouth? It may be that one reason of your quarrel is that, Christ’s commands seem to you to be so strict. He will have you pluck at your right eye and cut off your right arm if they would prevent you from entering into life. He lays the axe to the root of the tree, and not only condemns your overt acts of sin, but tells you that a look or a word is sufficient to condemn you. He would have you turn at once from all those pleasant but seductive things which will ruin your soul unless you forsake them. You do not like such strictness as this; if you could be permitted to keep some of your sins, if now and then you might be allowed some sinful indulgence and yet be saved, you would be quite content; but to give up all, to be separated at once from the world and from mammon, is more than you can endure. But, my dear hearer, is this objection of shine founded upon the belief that Christ denies thee anything that is really good and pleasant? Is it a good thing for a malt even occasionally to do that which his Maker condemns? Does not God desire your happiness, and word he deny you anything which would be for your highest enjoyment? No, sirs, he is too good to do that; his very name is love. Why, if sin were far your eternal welfare, he would not only permit you to indulge in it, but he would command you to commit it; but knowing it to be a deadly poison, he forbids you to touch it. More fatal than an adder’s sting is sin, more terrible than the conflagration which fire devours the peasant’s cottage, and then wraps a whole city in its fiery embrace; and God, in commanding you to forsake it, and Christ, in entreating you too leave it, do but consult your real welfare and lasting happiness.

After all, what is the gratification which you derive from sin that it should make you quarrel with Christ for taking it from you? How much sorrow does it bring you afterwards? What pleasant fruit have you had from sin up till now? Are you a happy man

or a happy woman? If you have so long sought the pleasures of sin, and have been in no wise the better for them, wherefore do you still pursue such a profitless counsel? Can it be worth while to sin yourselves into hell ? Can there, be any supposable pleasure that can ever compensate you for everlasting pain ? If so, then choose the pleasures of sin for a season; but rest assured that, for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. But if, on the other hand, it be a wise decision to think more of eternity than you do of time, I pray you be not, angry with my Master because he is willing to cure you of your fatal diseases, to pluck from your hand the poisoned cup, and to kill the venomous reptiles that would destroy you. Surely you can see abundant reason why you should drop your objection that Christ’s commands are too strict; may the Holy Spirit enable you to drop it, for ever!

Perhaps, however, you slay that you do not so much object to the strictness of Christ’s commands as to the severity of his threatenings. Well, I freely admit that my loving Master did say some of the sternest things that ever fell from mortal lips; none of his servants have ever uttered more terrible warnings shall he did concerning the worm that never dies and the fire that cannot be quenched. But why are you angry with him for speaking thus? Is it not the duty of an honest and sincere friend to give warning of impending danger? Are you such fools as to wish to be flattered with false hoods concerning your immortal souls and their eternal interests? Do you want men to come to you in soft raiment, and to use dulcet notes to charm you to the pit. Your own hearts will flatter you quite enough without my Master doing it. It is his great love that moves him to speak what you call harsh words; he foresees the ruin that awaits you if you continue in your present course of sin, so be not angry with him because of his faithfulness. It pained him more to say those words than it can ever pain you to hear them; he never uttered a threatening without first feeling its force in his own heart. If you could have looketh into his tearful eyes, if you could have gazed upon his sympathetic countenance as he pleaded with men, you would have seen and heard ineffable love speaking in every word that he uttered. O sinners, quarrel not with Christ for warning you of a hell from which he would fain preserve you I Be angry with yourselves, rather, for choosing the path to destruction; be vexed and wrathful with your own sins for dragging you down to ruin; but oh ! be not angry with the loving Savior for telling you, once for all, that you cannot escape if you neglect this great salvation. Let your objection to the severity of his threatenings drop for ever; that very severity ought to make you fly to him, and not drive you from him.

Possibly there is one, here who says,

“I do not like the spirituality of Christ’s teaching. If he would tell me to take the sacrament, if he would bid me go to such-and-such a church so many times a day I would do it; but he tells me that all these things count for nothing unless I worship God in spirit and in truth, he tells me that I must be born again, and that the Holy Spirit must dwell within me, or else I am none of his. Now sir, all this kind of teaching is too difficult for me to grasp; it is a sort of invisible, impalpable thing, that I can neither see with my eyes nor touch with my hands, and this causes me to stumble at the Word.” But sinner, such talk as that is utterly unreasonable. If you will but think seriously for even a minute or two, you must see that no drops of water, no priestly incantations, no cups of wine, no loaves of bread, not even your own prayers can take away your sin.

“No outward forms can make you clean,
The leprosy lies deep within.”

You know that it is a, spiritual diseases from which you are suffering; so why should you be angry because the great Physician prescribes a spiritual remedy for you? Suppose that, in Christ’s teaching, there “are some things hard to be understood,” they are well worth understanding, and it is quite possible for you to understand all that is necessary to make you wise unto salvation. Some very simple-minded persons have comprehended the meaning of the gospel message, and have been saved; many a man who never went to school has gone to heaven, and he who is willing to understand the gospel can understand it. Besides, the Holy Spirit is waiting and willing to instruct all who desire to be taught. It was he who inspired the apostle James to write, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him;” and the Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” It is your own fault if you remain in the darkness of ignorance when the Spirit is ready to illuminate you, and to guide you into all truth; may he graciously shine into your hearts now, and then you will welcome the spirituality of Christ’s teaching instead of stumbling at it.

I hardly imagine that there is one here who will raise the objection that the gospel is too simple. Yet we do sometimes get people here who seem to think themselves much too important or too learned to listen to our simple story of the crucified Christ of Calvary; they want something more philosophical, something that ordinary people cannot comprehend, something that they can monopolize and keep to themselves. The gospel is too simple for such as these, who regard themselves as the elite of society; and, sometimes, those who have neither rank nor education get similar whims into their heads. They do not like to be told that they must come to Christ as guilty sinners needing to be washed in his blood, and as helpless sinners needing to receive everything from him. No; many of you want to do something, or to be something, you want to learn something mysterious; and that simple message, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,”-that plain, understandable gospel, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” is too easy, too ABC like, too childish for you. Now, sirs, why do you talk thus foolishly? Suppose the gospel had been of such a philosophical character that it could only have been understood by those who had high intellectual powers, what would have been the use of it the nine persons out of ten ? Suppose it had consisted of some very recondite revelation, how would any of the poor and the simple minded have been saved ? We thank God that the way of salvation is so plain that “the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” The gospel is so simple that many, who have had but feeble intellects, have been able to understand it, and have been saved by it. I bless God that the gospel we have to preach is the gospel for the illiterate, the gospel for the poor, and that we can still say, as our Master did, “the poor have the gospel preached to them;” and that many of them have, through that gospel, become “rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that have him.” Do not quarrel with my Master because of the simplicity of the: gospel, lest your pride should hang you on a gallows as high as Haman’s.

A more common objection, however, which is raised against Christ is on account of the doctrine that he teaches. Some do not like the doctrine of election, others do not like the doctrine of final perseverance. Some kick at one thing, and some at another, but one doctrine at which many stumble is the doctrine of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. They cannot see how it is possible for Christ to be a Substitute for sinners; they cannot understand how God can punish Christ in the place of men, and that men shalt be saved because Christ died in their stead. Well now, suppose I was in a burning building, and a man brought, to the house a fire-escape of a very unusual shape, but one that he assured me had been the means of saving thousands of lives, do you think that I should object to trust myself to it because it was such a peculiar shape? Of course, I should not be so foolish; then why are sinners so foolish as to object to the shape of the fire-escape which God has designed to rescue them from everlasting burnings? What could be better than the divine plan of substitution? God must punish sin, he could not be God unless he did; it is a necessity of his nature that he should hate sin with an infinite hatred, and he must punish it. Yet, as he had loved his people with an everlasting love, how could he better show his love to them and his hatred of sin than by giving up his well-beloved Son to die instead of them, making him, who knew no sin, to be sin for them, that they might be made the righteousness of God in him? This seems to me to be the most beautiful thing I ever heard of, and it delights my soul to preach it. There is something so fresh about the gospel that, if I were to preach it every day in the week, I do not think I should grow weary of telling it over and over again. See what wisdom and love are here combined so that we have a just God and yet a Savior; sin punished, and; yet love magnified; mercy free to go about her gracious errands, and yet the faithfulness of God glorified to the highest degree. To my mind, the most glorious work that God ever performed was when God incarnate died that sinners might, live. You surely cannot object to that doctrine of substitution; if you do, and if you persist in that objection, let me tell you that you will perish, for he, who rejects the Savior who died upon the cross brings eternal ruin to his soul.

There are many who raise objections to Christ because of the character of his people. They say that, there are so few of them, and that they are such a poor lot, and they are not all of them what they should be. So, sirs, you object to go to heaven because you think there are so few going there; but if you go to hell, it will be no relief to you to know that many are sharing the agony with you. It seems to me to be wisdom to be saved even if I were the only one, and eternal folly to be damned even though everyone else should be lost with me. So do not raise any objection because of the number of the saved; and as to their being poor, what of that? Would it not be better to go to heaven side by side with a poor old almshouse woman, or a chimney-sweep, or a pauper from the workhouse, than to go to hell with a lord, a duke, or a millionaire? I can always find the best of company among the Lord’s poor people. I am glad to be associated with all of you in your various works of faith and labors of love, but I have often learned more about Christ from the poor than from the rich. Besides, if Jesus Christ was willing to be, reckoned amongst the poor, there is no man who needs to be ashamed of his poverty unless it is brought on by his own sin. I will not say more upon that point, for I can scarcely imagine that I have any simpletons in this congregation who are foolish enough to raise such au objection as this.

Some, however, object to Christ because, if they take up with him, they will have to break of their friendship with others. One of them says, “If I become a Christian, everybody will laugh at me.” Well, who minds being laughed at when he is in the right? “But all my old companions will forsake me.” It, will be a good thing for you if they do unless they also will join you in following Christ. “But when I go to the workshop or the market, they will point me out as a Christian.” I hope they will, or I hope you will be such an out-and-out Christian that they will not need to point you out. I trust that your life will be of such a character that, wherever you go, men will be compelled to say, “Yes, that man is a Christian.” Why should you want, as it were, to sneak into heaven by some back way where nobody could see you? There is nothing in Christ of which you have any need to be ashamed; so I hope you will have the grace, to say, “I will take my stand with Christ. If he is despised, I will be despised; if he is spit upon, I will be spit upon; if he bears the cross, I will bear the cross; I am not ashamed of him, and I pray that he may not have reason to be ashamed of me.”

Now, though I hope some, of your objections have been removed, I feel that the great objection, with which we began, still remains, -that is, you stumble at Christ’s word because he bids you repent, and turn from your sins. There are some of you of whom I almost begin to despair; you continue to come where the gospel is preached, but sometimes you sing the song of the drunkard, or you join the ranks of the profane, or indulge in other sins that I need not name, yet you would not like to give up the hope that you still cherish that some day you will be converted. O sirs, I implore, you to delay no longer! Christ and your sins will never agree, so come to Christ, and leave your sins. However stern may be the conflict, draw the sword, and fling away the scabbard; let it be war to the death with sin, for Christ’s sake and your soul’s sake. May the Spirit, of God, who alone can separate, you from your sin, proclaim the divorce this very hour, that you may be saved now and saved for ever!

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II. Having pleaded with you against your objections, I pray now for power from on high that I may Plead With You For Christ.

I have tried to show you that you have no reason to object to Christ; I want now, just for a minute or two, to remind you that you have many reasons for yielding to him. First of all, let me ask, How is it that you are still alive? If stern justice had dealt with you without the interposition of mercy, you would not now have been living upon the earth. You remember that long and serious illness from which you scarcely expected to recover, yet here you are in robust health and strength; why were you so wonderfully restored ? You recollect that time when you were in the river, and you gave up all hope of being rescued, yet you were saved as if by a miracle; why was that? You have had many marvellous escapes from accidents in which others have been killed; why were you spared? It may be, soldier, that the bullets whistled close by your ear, yet you came back from the war unscathed. It may be, sailor, that, your ship was almost gone, or possibly she was a total wreck, and you only escaped to tell the tale; why was that? Well, let this great mercy that you are still alive move you to repent of your sins, and that in Christ as your Savior; as he has been your Preserver, may he also be your Redeemer, your Lord, your All-in-all!

Then let me further ask, How is it that you are in a place where the gospel is being preached? Suppose that to-night, instead of a preacher of the gospel being on this platform, there had come here some stern prophet, like Moses or Elias, and that he had turned to you who are out of Christ, and had said to you, “The day of mercy is over, justice now reigns supreme. Hear, ye, despisers, and wonder and perish; for God will rend you in pieces, and there shall be none to deliver you;” what could you have said in arrest of judgment? But this has not in the case; I have not pronounced a curse upon you, I have not spoken a hard word to you; but I have pleaded with you-oh, that the Lord would teach me how to plead with you more earnestly and more effectually!-to turn unto him, and live. “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” The fact that there is a proclamation of mercy still made to you ought to cause you to weep tears of penitence for your sin, and to move you to turn believingly unto him who died upon the cross, “the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.”

Then, again, should you not run to Jesus when you remember that he tells you that he will hear your prayers? What! will he hear your prayers, and yet will you refuse to pray unto him? He says to you, “All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men,” so will you not believe that your sin and your blasphemy shall be forgiven for his sake? Oh, that you really knew him! But you do, not know how full of love and grace he is. I wish that you could hear his voice saying to you, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Whenever I repeat my Master s words, I feel vexed with myself because I cannot utter them as they ought to be uttered. I know that he must have spoken them with a majesty of tone and with a melting melody of earnestness that must have, put more force in them than I can ever hope to do. He lived for sinners, he died for sinners, he rose again for sinners, he pleads in heaven for sinners, ah, how can you refuse to trust him, and lave him, and serve him for ever?

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III. Now I close by Pleading With The People Of God For Sinners.

I know that there are, in this assembly, not merely hundreds, but thousands who love the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is with them that I am now going to plead. Brethren and sisters in Christ, while I have been talking to those who stumble at the Word, have you not been reminded of what you used to do. I have been thinking of my own experience, for I also stumbled at the Word, being disobedient; and I feel some comfort in preaching to those to whom Christ is “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense,” by reflecting that he who could save me can also save them; and as Christ has quickened you “who were dead in trespasses and sins,” you cannot doubt his power to quicken others.

Probably most of you remember that, when you were dead in sin, there were some who prayed for you. My mother and father and many others prayed for me, and I feel that this is one of the, many reasons why I should pray far others. Most of you had someone who thus cared for you, so ought you not to care for others in a similar fashion I feel sure they you do care for others, there is in your heart an earnest longing to see them brought to the Savior; may I therefore urge you to be more earnest than ever in prayer for the salvation of sinners? I rejoice that we are a praying church, but I am always jealous lest we should lose the spirit of prayer which the Lord has so graciously poured out upon us. Some of us recollect times when we have grip the Angel of the covenant, and we would not let him go until he blessed us. Many of you were given to us in answer to these effectual fervent prayers, and this makes me the more urgent in pleading with you to pray for others.

1 Peter 2:9 Marvellous Light

NO. 2765
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, FEBRUARY 9TH, 1902,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, OCT.26TH, 1879

“His marvelous light.”-1 Peter 2:9

Everything about a true Christian is marvelous. He is a marvel to himself, and a marvel to all who are round about him. Mere professors-men-made Christians-people who have made themselves Christians by their own free will apart from the Spirit of God, have nothing marvelous about them. You can make professors of that sort by the score, and you can see them dissolve by the score, for what man made, man can unmake, and what is merely natural has its season, like the leaves on the trees; and, by-and-by, it withers away because its time to fade has come. But a true Christian is a God-made man, a twice-born man; and he is a partaker of the divine nature. He is a mass of marvels, for he is dead, and yet he is alive; he is one who lives here, and yet his life has gone away up yonder; he is one who is a citizen of earth, and yet his citizenship is in heaven. He is a true man, but he is more than a man, for God has lifted him up above the level of other men, given him a life which other men do not possess, revealed to him secrets which others do not know, and prepared for him a place into which the ungodly can never enter. The longer he looks at himself, the more he wonders at God’s grace, and at what God’s grace has done, is doing, and will yet do for him. He is a riddle to himself,-an enigma made up of a thousand enigmas. Probably, he does not fully understand all that has happened in any single day of his life, and there are certain days in which God’s dealings with him quite stagger him; and though faith seeth all things to be plain, yet, to mere human reason, things often appear to be in a snarl, and intertwisted, and he knows not what to make of them.

Everything about a true Christian is marvelous, as angels know, who often desire to look into the things which concern them., and as he knows who is our Leader and Commander,-who was a Man wondered at, and whose faithful followers are all wondered at still He himself is the greatest marvel of all; and among the many marvels that surround him is the marvelous light in which he dwells. Those of us, who are now in Christ, lived at. one time in the gross darkness of ignorance. I mean even those of us who were brought up in Christian families, and knew the letter of the gospel well. We did not know its inner meaning, and we never felt its power. We were in darkness; though, indeed, there was a certain measure of light which had come to us, which made us responsible for our wrongdoing; yet, still, our heart remained in gross darkness.

And, by-and-by, this darkness was attended with much misery. There came to us a little light, just sufficient to make our darkness visible; so that we perceived the darkness in which we dwelt, and we began to sigh and cry, like prisoners shut up in an underground dungeon, to whom light and fresh air cannot come. Then everything about us seemed to blacken, and the gloom around us deepened. We were in the dark as to our apprehensions of the future. We knew that we must die, yet we feared to die. We clung to life; yet, sometimes, we did not desire even life itself, but said, with Job, “My soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.” The prospect of annihilation would have seemed almost like heaven to us, if we could, thereby, have got rid of our sinful, sorrowful being, clouded with apprehensions of the wrath of God, and of judgments yet to come upon us. I know that I am talking about something, which many of you understand. It was a thick Egyptian night in which you were then enveloped, a darkness that might be felt; and you tried your utmost to escape from it, but you could not, for it was in you. Your soul was in darkness, the light within your spirit was quenched, and all around you seemed to darken, and darken, and darken, as though an eternal midnight were surely descending upon you.

Well, at that time, it happened unto me, and I know that it also happened unto some of you, as it did to Peter, that the angel of the Lord suddenly smote us on our side, and a light shone into our prison-house, and we arose, scarcely knowing what we were doing, but we girded our garments about us, and followed our angelic leader, while the prison gates, which had formerly shut us in, opened before us of their own accord, and we found ourselves to be free, and in broad daylight, too; although, for a time, we. could scarcely realize those blessed facts. We saw what we had never seen before; we enjoyed what we had never even hoped to enjoy. Ay, as in an instant, we possessed what we thought must for ever be denied to us, and we scarcely knew how to contain our joy; but we made our way, as fast as we could, to the house of Christ’s disciples who had prayed for us aforetime. And how we gladdened them as we told them the story of God’s delivering and enlightening grace, and so showed forth the praises of him who had called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Truly, it was marvelous light to us at that time. Many day have passed since then with some of us, but it is marvelous light still; and as we look upon it now, it is not any less marvelous than it was at the very first. It is of that marvelous light that I am going to speak; and as I tell of my own experience of it, I pray God to grant that some of you, who have never known its power in your own souls, may be made to rejoice in it.

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I. I have already touched upon the first point., of which I want now to speak somewhat more fully; that is, This Light Appears Marvelous Because Of Our Former Darkness.

Out of darkness, light comes not. Out of our dark nature no marvelous light ever shone. This light came from above; but how marvelous it was! Imagine, if you can, the condition of a man who has lived all his lifetime in a coal mine. Suppose him never to have had a brighter light than his flickering candle; and then, after a while, to be brought up the shaft, and to see the brightness of the sun at mid-day. I can scarcely picture his amazement; you may fancy what it would be like, but you can hardly realize it. Or suppose a worse case still, that of one born blind, who had heard of a thing called light, but who could never imagine what it was like till a skillful oculist took away the film that was blinding him, and his eye was opened so that he could perceive the light. It would be very difficult to describe all the emotions of one who had never enjoyed the light before; but, certainly, such a person would be full of wonder and amazement. It would be, indeed, marvelous light to him.

You who have never been converted, who never were regenerated, do not know any more about the light of God than the man in the coal mine knows about the sun, or that man born blind knows about the light of day. Perhaps you talk a good deal about it, and, possibly, you write about it; and you form judgments about it; and they are just as wise, and just as accurate, as the verdict of blind men would be concerning colors of which they have no conception. You say, sometimes, concerning the gospel, “It is all nonsense; there is no such thing as the light of truth,”-just because you never saw any, which is a very poor method of argument. I once heard a man say, “I have lived in the world sixty years, and I never had the apprehension of anything spiritual.” When I looked at his face, and especially at his red nose, I thought that what he said was very likely to be true; but I did not, therefore, conclude that there was nothing spiritual because he had not seen it. Any blind man might say, “I have lived so many years, and I have never seen the sun, so there is not any;” but you would not accept negative evidence of that sort. So, my dear friend, whenever you are going to speak about something which you do not know anything about, just keep silence, and let somebody else talk who does know. If you never knew what it was to be converted,-if you never felt the divine life go coursing through your soul,-if you never had the divine light flashing in the midst of the darkness of your spirit, pray speak with bated breath if you speak at all; and when you are going to write one of those famous articles of yours, just say to yourself, “Perhaps I had better take some subject that I do understand for this I do not know, as I never h d the light.” If you ever had received it, then you might comprehend something of the wondrous change which conversion makes in a man, and you would agree with us that the light of the gospel is indeed marvelous light.

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II. Secondly, we perceive that it is marvelous light When We Consider Its Origin.

Our text tells us that it is God’s light: “who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” What is God’s light? Can you imagine how that light existed before he made the sun or the moon? Light shone on this world before the sun and the moon were created, for light comes not from them except as God has stored it up in them, or continually supplies it to them. But there is always light in God. He is the great Light-Creator; yet I never read that the light which God created in the world was called his marvelous light. God made the light, but it was not his light even then. There is another light which is natural to him,-a light of brightness and knowledge, clear and heavenly,-a light such as mortal man attains not unto except as the supreme gift of the grace of God shall visit him. It is this light which rests upon the people of God. There is a light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, but God’s marvelous light comes only to his chosen, and gladdens only those whose eyes have learned to look to Jesus, and who find their souls confidence and salvation in him who is the very Light of God.

“Oh!” asks someone, “can a man have this light? I do not believe it.” Again I tell you, my friend, that I did not expect you would believe it. He who has never had any experience of it may well doubt its existence; but he who has ever had the light of God shining into his soul is as conscious of becoming a new man,-as conscious of seeing after another fashion than he ever saw before,- as a blind man would be if his eyes were suddenly opened. I know that this world is not to me now the world that it once was. All things were then seen, if seen at all, as in a mist so thick that I took the transient to be the eternal, and I highly prized trifles while I despised that which was most precious. I put light for darkness, and darkness for light; bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter; for my foolish heart was darkened, and I knew it not. But, now, such a change has come to me that all things have become new; and in speaking of my own experience, I am also telling of the experience, not merely of some of you, but of hundreds of you upon whose hearts the divine light has come changing all things around you. They are not what they seem to others to be, for they are all now seen in the clear white light of God himself, and you know even as you are known.

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III. Thirdly, this is marvelous light, Because Of Its Excellence Over All Other Light, this light, which God gives to his people, is far superior to the light which comes of education, or of meditation, or which can be produced by any human effort.

When you have gone through a street lighted with the electric light, I have no doubt you have smiled to see, side by side with it, the gas lamp with its little yellow attempt at showing that it could not shine. But how bright was the electric light at the side of it! Yet, if it is left to burn at mid-day, how dim it seems compared with the sun; and how the sun must smile at all our attempts to light up this world without him! Well, now, the best light that a man ever gets by his own unaided effort is no better than that of a candle, or, if you will, than flickering gaslight; but the light-the marvelous light, is the illumination caused by the Holy Ghost shining into the inmost recesses of the soul in full meridian splendor. It is the light of God, and there is no other light that is like that. He who has but a spark of that light may not know so much about some things as the worldly-wise man knows, but he is well acquainted with many things to which the other man is an utter stranger. Cowper said, as some of you may remember, when contrasting the infidel Voltaire with the poor, godly lace-maker, she-

“Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.”

Perhaps you smile, and think within yourself,-”That is not knowing much.” Ah! but, to know the Bible to be truer, to live in that Bible truth, and to have it all round about you, peopling the air, filling your own soul, filling earth and heaven with wondrous things that the spirit’s eye can see,-this is truly marvelous. He who sees even the most of this world has but the same sort of eyes that birds and beasts have; but he who knows his Bible to be true, and who realizes the truth of it in his soul, has another set of eyes that can peer into another realm altogether. He sees spiritual things, and around him there shines a light which is indeed marvelous.

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IV. Fourthly, this is marvelous light Because Of What It Reveals, for that man, who has the light of God shining in his soul sees that which is invisible.

“O utterer of paradoxes!” cries someone. Yes, but I cannot otherwise express the truth. This illuminated man sees God, whom ordinary human eyes can never see. He looks back into the ages past and gone, and he sees God making all the worlds that ever existed; while those, who are reckoned as wise men, but who are without that light, spin ingenious but worthless theories about how those worlds grew. These men have such wonderful theories that it really seems surprising that they do not themselves make a few worlds, since they profess to have found out so many ways of making them. But the opened eye sees “that the worlds were framed by the word of God,” and it sees God’s hand in all the histories of all the centuries,-and it even sees God’s hand in the things recorded in the newspaper that most startle us. The man, who has his eyes opened, sees heaven and hell, eternity and everlasting life. He sees them,-not with dull optics, like these eyes of ours which, after all, do not really see, for it is the soul behind the eye that really looks out through that window, and perceives what is to be seen; but, in this marvelous light of God, the soul sees without any optics and without any glass; it has flung away its telescope, for it has come so near the object upon which it is gazing that there is no need of any intervening medium. It walks and talks with the angels; and, what is far better, it speaks with God himself. This is indeed marvelous light which has made us to see the things that, to ordinary mortal eyes, are invisible.

And it is such marvelous light because it enables us to see them so clearly. To the man who has this light, God does not appear to be sitting like the heathen Jove is represented, upon a distant Olympus, and sleeping while the world is troubled. Ho who lives in this marvelous light sees God here, there, everywhere; within him, and about him, he feels the presence of God, he has an immediate consciousness that God is with him,. And, better still, such a man as that sees God to be reconciled by the death of his Son, he sees God to be his Father, for he is made a partaker of the divine nature, “having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” It is indeed marvelous light to see God that enables us thus.

A further characteristic of this light is that it enables us to see right into the heart of things. By his world’s light, you only see that such-and-such a thing is, you see the appearance it presents; but this light lets you see into the innermost heart of truth and, what is better still, it brings the truth right into your soul. By this light, you not only see the doctrine of election, but you also know yourself to be elect. You see the great truth of redemption, and you know yourself to be redeemed. By this light, you see regeneration, and you feel the pulsings of the life of God within your spirit; and, though mortal eye hath not seen heaven, neither hath the ear of man heard its rapturous harmonies, nor has the true conception of heaven entered into the heart of man, yet the Spirit of God brings heaven down to us, and raises us up to heaven, so that we sit among the heavenly in Christ Jesus; and “our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” All this proves that it is a glorious light, does it not?

The man, who has not this light, may believe there is a God. Yes; and he believes that there is a Chain of Tartary, but he does not care about him. He believes that there is a heaven, but it never enters as a factor into his life to operate upon him. He believes that there is such a thing as sin, and he says, “Oh, yes, yes, yes! we are all sinners, no doubt.” But he, who has this marvelous light, sees sin so as to tremble at it, and to hate it. It is a present thing with him which he abhors; he also sees the atoning blood of Jesus, and knows that, by it, he is cleansed from sin, and he rejoices in this as a blessed matter of fact.

“Oh! “says someone, “that is all fancy.” Of course it is only a matter of fancy to you; did I not tell you so when I began my discourse? To a blind man, a picture by Kaphael or Titian is all fancy. You say to him, “How splendidly the colors are laid on there! Do you see that wonderful effect of light and shade?” but your wise blind man says, “I do not believe a word of it.” Of course he does not; we cannot hope that ho will do so all the while that he is blind; and, in like manner, he who knows nothing of God’s marvelous light, will ask, “Who is he that bears witness concerning this strange thing?” “Well, sir, he is one among a great number who have as much right to be believed as you have, for he is as honest a man as you are” Hundreds of us, thousands of us, can bear witness concerning the phenomena of grace,-the mysteries of the new creation,-the putting into a man of a new life,-and we have as much right to be believed as gentlemen who bear witness about the backbone of a fish, and who would feel insulted if we said that they told us lies. We have never examined their fish, but we believe their testimony, because we know they have studied the question of which they speak. They have never looked into our inner life, but they have as good reason to believe our testimony as we have to believe theirs; and this is our witness,-that there is such a thing as God’s marvelous light, that the light of divine grace has broken in upon our souls, and brought us to see a new heaven and a new earth, and to live in a new creation altogether, waiting for the time when Christ shall come to take our body, as he has already taken our soul, into that new world, and make us perfect with himself for ever.

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V. Fifthly, this light is marvelous, Because Of What It Produces. I have already shown you its marvelous character in that it reveals a new world to a man, a world he once despised,-and it makes him value it, and live worthy of it.

Thus it produces a great change in that man, for it makes him love the things he once hated, and hate the things he once loved. I heard someone say, “’Take care of Number One, is a capital rule. Self-love is the first law of nature.” But, when this marvelous light breaks in upon a man, that law of nature ceases to operate, and he says, “No; the first law of my new nature is that I should honor my God, that I should do that which is right, that which is just, that which is true, that which is loving, that which will be like the life of Jesus Christ my Lord.” If you carefully watch that man, you will see him beginning to give up many of the pursuits that once delighted him. Perhaps you will say, “Poor man, he is denying himself;” but he will answer, “No, I am not. I could not enjoy those things now; in fact, I hate them. They were very pleasurable to me once; but, then, I was a blind man. Now that I can see, they give me no pleasure.” Such a man, before his conversion, may have enjoyed a spicy song which had just a little touch of what should not have been in it; but, now, if he hears the sound of it in the street, he is ready to stop his ears, for he cannot bear it. “Sing us one of the songs of Zion,” he says now;-the very songs that he used to call “Methodistic cant, Presbyterian hypocrisy,” and all sorts of evil names. There are new tastes developed now that he has the new life within him.

If this were the proper time, I could tell some remarkable stories of marvelous changes that have been wrought in so me people whom I know. I am sure they would not recognize themselves if they were to meet their old selves as they were five years ago; or, if they did, they would cross the road, and get on the other side of the street, so as not to come into contact with their old solves. They would say, “Thank you, no; I would rather not walk with you. You are not good company for mo. I hoped you were dead and buried, and I never wanted to see you again. I am dead with Christ, I have been buried with Christ, I have risen from the dead in him, and I am a new creature in him,” This marvelous light makes a wonderful change in a man’s character; that is to say, if it really comes to him; because, you know, there are some who go into the enquiry-room, and kneel down, and cry a good deal, and all the good that can possibly do is to take away some of the superfluous fluid from the brain, for there is no heart in their repentance; it is mere excitement, and nothing else. But it is a very different thing to have the light of God,-to have the Holy Ghost really shed abroad in the heart. Do not any of you be satisfied with saying, “I am converted. Happy day!” Mind that you are converted; be sure that it is heart-work, soul-work, and that the Spirit of God has wrought it,-not the preacher,-not an excited evangelist,-not a book you read;-but that God himself has come to you, and made you a new creature in Christ Jesus; for, unless this is the case, I shall not be able to speak of the change as I have spoken, and which, to my intense joy, I have seen in hundreds, and in thousands, who have passed from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan into the kingdom of Christ. One change that always takes place, as the result of receiving this light, is great joy. The joy is not always as great in all to whom the light comes; but, still, it does bring great joy wherever it shines. Talk of true happiness; it is nowhere to be discovered till the light eternal breaks in upon the mind and heart; and, then, heaven has begun below. Some of us have our full share of pain of body and depression of spirit; yet, in our worst moments, we would not change places with the happiest worldling that lives. Not even when most depressed and weary, would we exchange our position, even for a minute, for that of the greatest emperor in the world who does not know that Inner Light. I can truly say, and so can many of you,-”I would not change my blest estate For all that earth calls good or great; And while my faith can keep her hold, I envy not the sinner’s gold.”

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VI. Lastly, it is marvelous light, Because It Will Never Go Out.

As it is the light of God, the devil cannot blow it out. If all the devils in hell were to try to blow out one single spark that is in a true believer’s heart, they might puff till they died of puffing, but they would never put that spark out. God has lit it, and they cannot quench it. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” If you do not keep this everlasting life, it is quite clear that you never had it. If you really have eternal life, it must be eternal life, and it shall abide with you forever.

But, what is better, not only shall you never lose it, but it will continually increase. If you have God’s marvelous light, though it seems only like starlight now, it will be like moonlight soon; then it will be daylight, and soon it will be noontide; for, to whomsoever God has given a little of this divine light, more is sure to follow, for the light of God, which is given to us by the Holy Ghost here, is the very light of heaven; it has only to be fully developed. You have all the elements of eternal happiness within your own spirit now, if the Holy Ghost has truly enlightened you, and made your character like that of the Lord Jesus Christ. As to death,-well, at the moment of death, you will leave your body behind, and you will leave with it all tendency to sin. The root of eternal blessedness is in you now, if the Lord has really looked upon you in love, and you have looked to Christ by faith. You have the upspringing plant of grace; some of you have leaves and buds; so, all that will happen to you in heaven is that the buds will open, and the flower will be perfected, but it is all there now. Christ said, “I give”-not, “I will give,” but “I give unto my sheep eternal life.” You have eternal life if you believe in him; the same life that will develop in glory is in you now.

“I did not know that,” says someone. Well, did you think that you were going to be born again a second time? That can never be. To be born again, is mentioned in Scripture; but to be born again, and again,-I never did read of that in the Word of God; though I have heard certain people talk about falling from grace and being restored; as if they could be born again, and again, and again, and again, no end of times; but there is nothing like that in the Bible. The great change takes place once, and that change is final. If you are born again, you receive the life that you will live in heaven. Just think of this; Christ has gone to heaven to prepare a place for you, but he has left within your bosoms now the life that is to be in heaven. Pray God to develop that life; entreat the Lord to increase it. Think a great deal of it; value it highly; suffer not your body, which is its temple, to be dishonored by sin. God dwelleth in you; the life divine is within you; so, I beseech you, live as those should live who are not only heirs of heaven, but who have the life of heaven already abiding in their hearts. Come, my brethren and sisters, let us rejoice and be glad as we thus think of this marvelous light which is to be our light for ever and ever; for, up there, the Lord God giveth them light, and he giveth light to us even now; and it is his light, and there cannot be any light better than his; so, in it let us rejoice, and magnify his name.

1 Peter 2:24 Our Lord's Substitution

NO. 2790
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, AUGUST 3RD, 1902,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 23RD, 1878.

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.”-1 Peter 2:24.

Peter had almost incidentally mentioned his Master’s name; and, having done so, he felt that he must enlarge upon that theme, for the name of Christ was very dear to him. He seems again to hear that thrice-repeated question ringing in his ears, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” and he can still answer, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.” So, having mentioned his Master’s name, he feels that he must say something about him. Oh, that we also may have such love to Christ that a touch of his hand, or a glance of his eye, may suffice to detain us! May we never be weary of hearing about him! May his name exercise a sacred fascination upon us! May it cheer us in life and in death, and be the theme of our song throughout eternity!

There is, perhaps, a special reason why Peter wrote, in this place, concerning the vicariousness of Christ’s death. He had just been alluding to another aspect of that death. In the 21st verse, he had said, “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.” “Ah!” thought Peter, “they may, from my mentioning his death by way of example, draw the inference that Christ only died as our Exemplar. They may say”-as, alas! so many in modern times have done,-”that the death of Christ was merely the completion of his life, and that he is simply the Savior of men by setting before them a higher ideal of what men should be than they would otherwise have had.” The Holy Spirit forewarned Peter of this danger, and taught him how to avert it, in the best possible way, by adding this most significant sentence, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” It is quite true that Christ is our Exemplar, but no man can ever follow Christ’s example until he has first believed in him as his Substitute and Savior. Christ did not come merely to be an example. When we are dead in trespasses and sins, of what use can his example be to us? It is life that dead men need, and Christ came to bring us life. In our natural state, we are condemned already, because we have not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. Of what use would an example of perfect innocence be to those who are already condemned? None whatever; but Jesus comes to bring us pardon bought with his own precious blood, that then, through gratitude to him, we might begin a new life, and then his example might be of service to us. It behoves us, first and foremost, to view Christ as the Sin-bearer; for, if we do not receive him in that capacity, we have missed eternal life altogether, and all our professed imitation of Christ will be but mere empty formality, which will fall far short of the righteous requirements of God.

We are going, therefore, to meditate upon the great central doctrine of our Lord’s substitution. I shall have nothing new to say upon it; but I find that “the old, old story” has an endless charm for believers, and I wish to tell it out again in such a way that, if it should have been hitherto unknown to any hearer, he may give heed to it, and, this very hour, find peace and pardon through believing in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. First, I shall speak upon the blessed fact mentioned in our text: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree;” and then, secondly, I shall call your attention to some points of practical instruction which may be found in this blessed fact.

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I. First, then, let us think about The Blessed Fact Itself.

That fact is, that Christ himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree. This fact is the sum and substance, the pith and marrow of the whole gospel; so, lay hold of it; feed upon it, and live by it. God, of old, in infinite justice, determined that sin must be punished, but he also determined to save his people, whom he had given to his Son by an everlasting covenant. How could both these results come to pass? Divine wisdom devised the plan of substitution; and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became man, that he might be able to be the Substitute for sinners. It was fitting that he should take that position, for he had, by his covenant with the Father, assumed the place of Head of the race of mankind,-the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. The people, whom he had chosen as his own, were all represented in him; therefore, he was fully qualified to stand in their stead, and to serve and suffer in their room and place.

And he did so, first, because the sins of God’s people were laid upon him. What saith Isaiah? “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” If you carefully read through that 53rd of Isaiah, you will notice that, several times, in so many distinct words, the sin of Christ’s people is said to have been transferred to him, and borne by him. I remember, once, hearing a certain divine assert that sin could not be transferred; but it was, for Holy Scripture again and again declares that it was. “Blessed is the man,” says David, “unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” The man has committed iniquity, but it is not imputed to him because it has been imputed to Christ Jesus, his Substitute, who stood in that sinner’s stead, and took upon himself that sinner’s sin. In vision, I can see the Christ of God coming forth from the Father, bearing upon his shoulders the enormous load of his people’s guilt. It well nigh crushes him with its awful weight, but he presses on. He is himself perfectly innocent; but sins not his own are reckoned to him, for “he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many.”

In due time, in consequence of this imputation, our blessed Master bore our sins in another sense, namely, by answering for them at the bar of God. As Joseph Hart sings,-

“Came at length the dreadful night;
Vengeance with its iron rod Stood, and with collected might
Bruised the harmless Lamb of God,”-

because he was the Sin-bearer. Christ thou appeared with his people’s sin upon him; so, when divine justice came to punish sin, and found it upon Christ, it arrested him, and bruised him so sorely that he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground. Justice took him off, like a malefactor, to the hall of judgment, and there was no one to declare his innocence, and to plead for his release. He was brutally scourged, and given over to the Roman soldiers, that they might treat him as they would; for nothing was thought of him, even as he had made himself of no reputation. In the hall of the Praetorian guards, all manner of insults were heaped upon his blessed person. Then they took him out to the hill of doom; they nailed him to the transverse wood, they lifted him up on high, they fixed his cross in the earth, and there they let him die, hanging by his hands and feet. Thus was he, “his own self,” bearing, “in his own body on the tree,” the sins of all his people, and, all the while, his soul was being tortured with sufferings that cannot be described in human language. We must be perfectly pure, as he was, before we can even begin to understand how sin must have affected him. We must be perfectly happy, as he was, before we can comprehend how he suffered when he was enduring the wrath of God for our sakes, and was forced to cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” That was because he was bearing the consequences of our sin. He took the sin upon him; and, therefore, he also took the sorrow, which resulted from the sin. He took the place of the guilty, so he must suffer the penalty which they had incurred; and the text tells us, as a matter of fact, that he, his own self, bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

Before we pass on, let us draw the right inference from this blessed fact; namely, that, if Christ bore our sins, we need not bear them;-nay, we do not bear them. If, as a believer in Jesus, I know that he bore my sin, it cannot be on my back and also on his. It cannot be that he took the gin upon himself, yet left it upon me. A thing cannot be in two places at one time; so, if he bore my sin, I am clear. Again is verified the text I quoted to you just now: “Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” How can he impute it to him when he has already imputed it to Christ, and caused Christ to suffer in that man’s stead? So there, again I say, is the very core of salvation, the heart of the gospel,-Christ suffering in the room, and place, and stead of all who believe in him.

Note carefully the words of the text. It saith, not only that Christ bore our sins; but, from the full, unqualified expression that is used, it is implied that he bore them all: “Who his own self bare our sins;” that is to say, whatever sins a believer has ever committed, or ever will commit, Christ bore them on the tree. Sins original and sins natural; sins actual and practical; sins of thought, and word, and deed; heinous sin,-blasphemies, uncleannesses; those that are thought to be the minor sins,-evil imaginations, hasty words; I will not go on with the list, for time would fail me to get to the end of it; but when you have mentioned all the sins you can think of, I can still say that the text covers them all: “Who his own self bare our sins”-not some of them, not the greater ones, not the lesser ones to the exclusion of the greater, but all our sins,-in his own body on the tree.”

“Covered is our unrighteousness,
From condemnation we are free.”

And the text, from its unguardedness, teaches us that Christ completely bore all our sins: “Who his own self bare our sins.” They were all laid upon him, and he did effectually carry them away, and make an end of them. He bore them “to the tree,” says the margin, and crucified them there; he carried them, upon his shoulders, up to the cross, and there, once for all, annihilated them, so that they have ceased to be. O my soul, rejoice as thou dost look upon the Sin-bearer, who made a full, complete, and absolutely acceptable atonement, finished transgression, made an end of sins, made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness, as it was foretold that the Messiah would do. In this, we do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.

The text also implies, from its being free from any kind of limitation, that Christ alone bore them: “Who his own self bare our sins.” There was no Peter, or James, or John, to help him in his hour of deepest need; nor did an angel tread that winepress side by side with him. Alone and single-handed, our great Champion entered the arena, and won the victory for us. Let this be one of the chief articles in our creed henceforth and for evermore. I say to the man who calls himself a priest, “No, sir, I do not want any absolution from you, even though you may be a lineal descendant of the apostles,-through Judas Iscariot,-for I am perfectly satisfied with the forgiveness which I have obtained by faith in Christ Jesus. You say that you can offer for me the unbloody sacrifice of the mass in order to help in the putting away of my sin; but I need nothing of the kind, for Christ, his own self, bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” On that tree, he himself said of his atoning sacrifice, “It is finished.” “This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Let these words roll out like a thunder peal, and let all men know that there is no need of any addition to that sacrifice,-either of penance, or purgatory, or human merit, or priestly power,-nor can there be any repetition of it. Love’s redeeming work was done by Christ alone, and in him we rest, and in him alone.

The sweetness, however, of this passage lies in the fact that Christ bore our sins. Come, brethren and sisters, can we all say that,-”Christ bore our sins”? I am not now talking of the general aspect of the work of Christ, for it had a special aspect to believers, and the full blessings of the atonement only come to them. “Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Can we say, then, “Who his own self bare our sins”? Let me put it in the singular, and pass it round to each one here; can you say, my friend, “Who his own self bare my sins in his own body on the tree”? My sins, so many and so heavy, and once so terrible to me,-he bore them, bore them all, and I am clear, and free from every charge because he bore them. This is being saved. I trust Christ, and know, in consequence, that he bore my sins,-then I am saved. How many of you are thus saved? May the heart-searching Spirit of God go from soul to soul, and constrain you to give a true answer; and if you cannot reply in the way we wish, give the other answer, and say, “I do not know that Christ did bear my sins.” When you get home, write that down, and look at it: “I am not trusting in Christ. I have no part nor lot in him. My sin is pressing upon me, but I have no saving interest in Christ.” I think that, if you were to write that down legibly with pen and ink, and then sit down a little while, and think it over, it might be much more useful to you than any word of mine. “No, sir,” you say, “I should not like to write that.” But, surely, you may write what is true. A man ought not to be afraid to know the truth about his spiritual state, nor yet to write it for his own eye to see. I do not ask you to print it in the newspaper or in a book, but just to put it down for your own information: “I am without Christ; I am an unbeliever; I am still in my sins. If I die as I am, I shall be lost.” Oh, may God grant that you may see your true condition, and feel it, and not rest until you can say, “Now I have believed, and I know that Christ, his own self, bore my sins in his own body on the tree.” If you are trusting him, you know that he did so. Your faith is the evidence of your election, and the proof of your redemption; and if you do but simply and completely trust him, he has saved you, and you may rejoice in the fact that, in the sight of God, you are fully and freely forgiven.

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II. Now, secondly, I am to call your attention to Some Points Of Practical Instruction which may be found in the blessed fact mentioned in our text. I always like to be as practical as possible in my preaching; and I think there are, in this great truth of our Lord’s substitution, some practical lessons which we shall do well to learn.

The first is this. See the self-sacrifice of Christ, and imitate it.

Jesus Christ bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He was not constrained to do it. He might still have remained in heaven, sharing in all his Father’s glory, for ever; but, out of love and pity for us, he descended from his divine eminence, veiled his Godhead in our humanity, and came to earth among the sons of men that he might bear his people’s sins up to the tree, and away from the tree. Can anybody measure the self-denial of the Savior in acting thus? Is it possible for us to estimate the stoop of love, and the amazing suffering which he endured for us? Then, let us learn from, him what self-sacrifice means. I do not believe in our service for Christ always being pleasant. If we are truly his servants, there will sometimes be a galling of the shoulders by the yoke of our servitude, and we shall delight to be thus galled for his sake. Has any Christian man ever given what he ought to give until he reaches the pinching point when he has to deny himself in order that he may give to God’s cause? Has a Christian man ever done for his Savior what he ought to do, if he has not come to the point of real self-denial in it? To go to the Sabbath-school class when it is a pleasing duty, is all very well; but, in the service of our Master, we ought to keep on at such work, even if the brain should be weary, and if, in such trying weather as we often have, it should seem to be almost impossible to get through it. I have sometimes heard it said, “Oh, but the Lord cannot expect us to do that! There are two ways of looking at that expression. I do not expect much from some people; but from those for whom Christ died, from those whose sins he bore, we ought to expect anything and everything of which they are capable, if they act up to the measure of their sacred obligations. Many servants of our Lord Jesus Christ have been content to be poor, or have been satisfied to abide in a very lowly station in life, or have been willing to go to distant lands, and suffer great privations and hardships; and the secret of their willingness to deny themselves has been that each of them could truly say, “Christ denied himself for my sake; he bore my sin on Calvary’s cross; and if his blessed and perfect shoulders could bear the load of my sin, shall I not bear the far lighter load of his service? Shall I not take his yoke upon me, and learn of him, as he has bidden me do?” Are you worried by the little troubles of the family? Are you getting tired of trying to bear a testimony for Christ in the workshop? Are you becoming weary, my brother, or my sister? Then remember what Paul wrote to the Hebrews, “Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” Think how he bore your sins, and from this moment feel, “I will count self-denial to be a luxury if I may but exhibit to him my love, and let him see that I am not altogether oblivious of that which he endured for me.” Come, beloved, can you not be stirred up to some nobler form of love than you have ever before known? Is there not something more that you could do, or something more that you could suffer, by way of proving your love to him who, his own self, bore your sins in his own body on the tree? In the next place, see what abasement there was in Jesus Christ bearing our sins. Up, up, up, our soaring thoughts may fly, but we can never reach the height of his magnificence in the eternal world with the Father; yet down, down, down he comes, till he is a poor man,-nay, more, a despised man, a suffering man, a condemned man, a crucified man, a dead man, lying in a borrowed tomb! That is a wondrous stoop, but the greatest condescension of all is indicated by that expression in our text “Who his own self bare our sins.” Well, then, what say we concerning this abasement of our Lord? Why, surely, that we ought to be ready to be despised and reproached for Christ’s name’s sake. I think we get off wonderfully easy, in these days, compared with what some Christians have had to bear for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s; yet, in days gone by, some of us have know-n what it was to have all manner of evil spoken against us falsely, and to be reviled again and again for Christ’s sake. It is a good thing when a Christian minister feels that he has given up his character and everything else to Christ, so that, if men choose to slander and abuse him he will bear it all so long as he may thereby but honor Christ, and keep his conscience clean. If you are a Christian, you must expect to be dragged through all the muddy pools that your persecutors can find. If you do even a little wrong, they will magnify it a thousand times; and if you do no wrong at all, the most blameless’ life will not enable you to escape from the envenomed tongue of slander. If that is your lot, just bear it; be willing to be Christ’s servant, to be, as the apostle Paul was, Christ’s branded slave, bearing in your body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Say, to your Lord, as Thomas Haweis wrote,-

“If on my face, for thy dear name,
Shame and reproaches be,
All hail reproaches, and welcome shame,
If thou remember me.”

I know that some of you young people get dreadfully frightened at the ugly epithets which have been applied to you. Perhaps you say that you do not like to be ridiculed because you are a Christian. Why, you ought to be proud of such treatment! Just adopt the very nickname that they give you, and let it be to you what the stars and garters are to the nobility of England; bear it as the insignia of a Knight Companion of the Cross of Christ. The Lord grant you grace, in this matter, to account the reproach of Christ to be greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt!

Those two things are, I think, clearly enough set forth in the text-our Savior’s self-sacrifice’ and self-abasement; and it is equally dear that those who would be his followers should imitate him, as far as they can, in both these respects.

Notice, next, our Savior’s willingness, as it is set forth in the text. “Who his own self bare our sins.” There was, in his self-sacrifice and self-abasement, the utmost spontaneity, freeness, voluntariness. Nobody pressed him to it; he his own self did it, and he did it of himself, unprompted, unsolicited. No sinners followed at his heels, crying, “Blessed Savior, bear our sins for us.” No necessity, except the wondrous love’ of his own great heart, constrained him to be a Sin-bearer. He could truly say, “Lo,” I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God.” He told his disciples that he had a baptism to be baptized with, and that he was straitened until it was accomplished. He loved us so much that he could not be content without dying for us. Now, mark, this is the way in which we ought to serve God,-freely, cheerfully, gladly. I dislike, above all things, that kind of holiness into which a man has to be flogged, for it could only be a mockery of holiness; I loathe that generosity which only flows through much pumping, and that work for Christ which results from such a remark as this, “You must do it, somebody will think ill of you if you don’t.” Bear your fruit to Christ freely; do not need to have it forced, like hothouse grapes. Grow on the wall, and bear your fruit freely. The best juice that comes from the grape is that which leaps from it on the first pressing; and the best grace in the world, the best piety, the best virtue, the best service, is that which a man freely yields to Christ and his cause. We say that one volunteer is worth five pressed men in the defense of one’s country, and I am sure that he is. The mercenary is but a poor tool compared with the noble citizen who grasps his sword to defend his hearth and home; and, in the service of Christ, troops of slaves may be urged forward, but they never do anything for him. It was said, of the Persians, that, whenever they went to battle, you could hear the sticks of the captains who were beating the soldiers to make them fight; but they won no victories. Look, on the other hand, at the brave Spartan; he was glad at the very thought of fighting, he lived in it. He was a born lion, and he rushed to the fray, delighted to be in the fiercest conflict. He was the man to win battles, and so is it with the Christian, to whom the service of God is his holiday,-his holy day. To serve the Lord Christ, in any way that is possible to him, is his highest ambition. He does not wish to be excused; he desires to be invited. As the eagles gather to the place where the carcass is, so do men of this stamp gather to the spot where the service of God can best be carried on. Leap to the front, Christians, leap to the front, and let no one hold you back; for, if Christ willingly suffered for us, we ought willingly and gladly to serve him.

I ask you, next, to notice the actualness of our Lord’s substitution:

Who his own self-what? Proposed to bear our sins? Oh, no; that rendering will not do! We must try again. “Who his own self promised to bear our sins”? No, no; that is not correct. “Who his own self began to bear our sins, and then became tired of the task”? No; yet I have read, in somebody’s book, something very like that. “Who his own self talked about bearing our sins”? “Who his own self had a good word to say in commendation of somebody else who would bear our sins”? No; none of these are correct readings, for our Lord’s substitution is something actual and real. He bore our sins, and bore them, not according to fiction or imagination, but “in his own body,”-in his own hands, his own feet, his own side,- “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” The bearing of our sins was as real as our sins themselves were.

Well, then, let us take care that we render to the Lord Jesus whatever actual service we can in return for his actual sacrifice for us.

Did you ever hear a very thrilling sermon or a very stirring speech about serving the Lord; and, as you listened to it, did you keep on saying to yourself, “Yes, I will do that; I will excel others in earnestness; I will make great sacrifices for the cause of God; I will be very prayerful; I will be one of the most devoted Christians who ever lived”? So you talked, and patted yourself on the back and said, “Well done!” but you never did anything, yet you gave yourself the credit for doing it. I have heard of a man, who owed great deal of money; and when a bill became due, he got it renewed, and then he came away, and said, “There, that is all right now;” and when the bill became due again, he did the same, yet he never paid sixpence of the debt, but he always walked away, and seemed as pleased as if it had been paid. We have far too’ many professing Christians of that kind; they are great at moving and seconding resolutions, and making fine speeches, but nothing ever comes of them. Now, in our Lord’s case, there was actual, solid service and suffering for us; so, do not try to put him off, brother, with good determinations, and with the repetition of those determinations again and again. Come, now, for the love we bear his name, let us really get at actual service for him. If it is only the teaching of one poor little boy to read his Bible, it will be far better than talking about what we mean to do, even if we utter it with commanding eloquence which might move the nations. To drop two-pence into the offering box will be better than writing a fine essay on liberality, and never giving anything. To breathe one real fervent prayer to God will be better than a long parade of your own excellencies, or a doleful talk about the sad declension of the church, and I know not what beside. There is nothing that can take the place of real service for Christ. We have a great deal of talk from some people who do very little work. I sometimes wish that those who write me long epistles about various plans and schemes, and who draw out elaborate details of what could be done if everybody gave so much, would only give their share, and not make any plans at all. We can all make plans when we want them, but a more important thing is to take our share and to do our part in the actual work. If we all do that, some of us will be following our Lord better than we are now doing.

My last observation is this: Notice the strong personality of our Lord’s substitution: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” He did not employ anybody else to accomplish the great work of our redemption, but he did it himself, in his own proper person. You and I do not believe in sponsors; but, assuredly, one of the worst forms of sponsor hip is that of a man getting somebody else to do his work for Christ. I sometimes admire the way in which certain persons, who have no special gifts, will try to get others to do what they themselves cannot do; that is quite right. A friend said to me, “I have often wished to preach the gospel, but I am slow of speech, and I have come to years at which I cannot expect ever to become fluent; so I want to find somebody who has a ready tongue, and who can speak well for my Master. I wish you could tell me of such a man.” I said that I thought I knew several, but what would be the good of them? “Because,” said he, “I will keep one; I will find the means for his support so long as he will go about, and preach Jesus Christ.” That seemed to me to be a right thing, especially when the gentleman said, “I do speak for Christ as much as I can.” Many Christian people say, “We are doing a great deal at our church; we have an excellent Sunday-school; we have an admirable Tract Society; we have a capital Young Men’s Institute.” Wait a moment, friend, and let us sit down, and figure it all out. What class do you take in the Sunday-school? “Oh, ahem! ahem! I don’t take any.” I thought so, but what part do’ you take in the tract-distribution?

Oh, there are fifty or sixty distributors, sir!” Yes; but what part do you take in it? None at all, I can see. “Well, our church does a great deal for home missions.” But what do you do for home missions? I see that some of you smile at this personal question; I wonder whether that is because’ you would not like to be pushed into a corner in that way! But I want to push you into that corner; I want to get you to answer-without any personal questioning from me,-by taking stock of yourself. An owl is a fine bird to look at, but he is a very small bird when he is plucked; he is nearly all feathers, and I think that a great many Christian professors are very like owls. They are fine birds to look at, but it is mostly feathers; just see whether it is mostly feathers with you.

1 Peter 4:18 If So, - What Then?

NO. 3047
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 4TH, 1907,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, OCT. 15TH, 1871