2 Kings 2:14. Where Is The God of Elijah?

NO. 2596
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, JUNE 24TH, 1883.

“And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the LORD God of Elijah? and when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither ∙ and Elisha went over.” — 2 Kings 2:14.

THE great object for our souls to seek after is our God. We love his house; the place where prayer is wont to be made is very dear to us; but the courts of the Lord’s house are dull and dreary if the Lord himself be not there. Our question is not so much, “Where are his courts?” as, “Where is Jehovah himself?” Brethren, we love beyond expression the ministry of God’s Word, it has been unspeakably precious to our spirits; by it we were called into spiritual life, and by it our life is fed and nourished; but, still, if God himself be not in the Word, and with the Word, what does it avail us? Our spirits must be sustained by the Holy Spirit, or else they faint and die.

In reading a gracious book, or in engaging in private devotion, or in coming into the great assemblies of God’s house, our chief question is, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah? “ — for, if we do not find God in all these things, what have we found? Nothing; or we have mere husk, whereas the precious, priceless kernel is lost to us Oh, I wish that we always felt in prayer that we would never leave off praying till we found the God of prayer! I wish that, in our singing, we would always feel that we had not truly praised God at all unless our song had found him, and every note in it had had some one of his attributes to sing. Oh, what an effort it is sometimes really to get at God! We are ready to cry with the poet, -

“I will approach thee, — I will force
My way through obstacles to thee.”

“I will break through gates of brass, I win leap over the loftiest wall, but I must get to my God, the living God. Oh, when shall I come and appear before God?” I wish that we were always in this state of mind, that our continual cry might be, “The Lord God of Elijah, — we must have him; we cannot live without him, we cannot be strong without him, we cannot rejoice without him. We would not wish even to be in heaven without him; it would be no heaven to us if the Lord were gone from it. “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee?”

Now, this great truth that our first and last object should be to seek our God is peculiarly true when we are called upon to undertake some new office or work hitherto unknown to us. Elisha, for instance, has poured water upon the hands of Elijah, and been his personal attendant; but Elijah has been taken away by a whirlwind into heaven, and now Elisha has to be the prophet of Israel in Elijah’s stead. A great weight of responsibility has fallen upon him. He has to do what scarcely any other man of woman born had ever done before; he has to follow one who seems well-nigh inimitable he has to be successor of the prophet of fire — the man of God, Elijah. “Well,” you say, “he has Elijah’s mantle.” Yes, he has his mantle, and there is something in that. If ever I could feel any great reverence for relics, I should like to have Elijah’s mantle. Elisha had it; but what was the use of having the mantle of Elijah unless he could also have his God? Though he be called to take the mantle, and with it to smite the waters, yet he knows where his strength must lie, and his prayer his cry, is, “Here is the prophet’s mantle; but where is Jehovah, God of Elijah?” If he can get Elijah’s God, then the mantle will mean something; but, if not, it may even be like a garment of fire to him when he puts it on, and he will not be able to wear it becomingly. Men will see that he has Elijah’s mantle, but they will ask, “Where is Elijah’s power?”

Now, dear brother, you are about to succeed a man of God. You have his mantle; the people have chosen you, so you are entering in by the door. you have not intruded into the office uncalled. You are a fit man, no doubt, to be a successor of the one who has fallen asleep; but do not be satisfied with your succession to the office. Whatever it is that has been bequeathed to you by your predecessor, be not satisfied with that alone; above everything else you want his God. If you have his God, you will do very well even if you do not have his mantle. If you should turn out to be a very different man from him who went before you,-as different as Elisha was from Elijah,-you will do very well if your confidence is where your holy predecessor placed his confidence. And you, good sister, have undertaken the charge of a class, or some special work for Christ, and the dear sister who went before you was a woman of renown; her death has made a great gap in the church, and you do not feel fit to fill it. Well, never mind about that, if you can get her God; if you can rest in him with a simple faiths you may go on without the slightest fear. If you have the same God as she had, and have the same faith in him, even if you do not work exactly in the same way, yet you shall bring glory to God, and you shall be a blessing to those round about you. I exhort all young people who are entering upon an untried path to say to themselves, “Where is my father’s God? The dear old man has fallen asleep, and I am apt to cry, ’My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof;’ but I have now to follow him. Oh, that I may have the same Spirit resting upon me the same God to come to my succor! Then I shall do well enough.” You see, then, dear friends, this question of Elisha is an important one; but most of all when you are entering upon some untried work: “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?”

This question also comes in most appropriately when some great difficulty lies in your way. Before Elisha, the Jordan is flowing, a deep and rapid stream; how is he to cross it? He takes the mantle which those waters knew before, when Elijah passed that way, and striking them with it, he cries, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” and the waters at once divide, and the prophet Walks through. Have you come to a great difficulty, my dear friend? Cannot you get over it? Are you in trouble about it? Now, if this is a difficulty that ought to be removed, the shortest way to have it removed is to go to God about it. If it be one that ought not to be removed, then also you have done rightly in going to God, for he who will not remove it will at least give you grace to glorify him in some other way. The best thing we can do, in all times of trouble and trial, is to lay the matter before the Lord. Here is a church in difficulty; it does not know what to do, or which way to look. This is the question for its members to ask, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” Here is a Christian man in great difficulties; he has not brought himself into them, but the pressure of the times has brought him into a very sad condition; what is he to do? Why, look to his God, and see what God will do; let him also cry, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” I do not think that we shall ever find that any man truly trusted in God, and yet was confounded. No difficulty which was ever propounded to the Most High, and left in his hands, ever remained a difficulty long. He has the solution of all our problems, the answer to all our riddles. He can work out to a blessed result all our difficulties. There is nothing which can possibly be beyond the power of Him whose name is Jehovah, the I AM, God all-sufficient.

So, then, we learn from Elisha’s question that we must specially ask after God when we are beginning any new work, or when there is some great difficulty in our way.

Thus have I introduced the text; now there are two things I wish to speak upon. The first is, this question turned into a prayer: “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” Though it reads like an enquiry, yet there is no doubt that, properly construed, it is a prayer, an invocation: “Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah?” Secondly, if we have time, we will have a few words together upon this question answered: “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?”

—————

I. First, then, let us think of This Question Turned Into A Prayer, and let us ourselves pray it as we meditate upon it: “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?”

That means, first, the Lord that kept Elijah faithful when all the rest of the nation turned aside. Elijah could say, with some little exaggeration, “I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away.” Jezebel, that imperious Sidonian queen, held Ahab entirely under her power, and she had set up the worship of the goddess Ashtaroth, which had straightway become popular all over the land, though it was accompanied by foul and filthy rites; and side by side with that was the worship of Baal. The worship of the Most High God was carried on by the faithful few; but they generally consisted of the very poorest of the land, and they were molested, and persecuted, and hunted to the death, by the cruel and idolatrous zeal of Jezebel. But there was one man at least whom Ahab and Jezebel could not touch, — one man who was Ahab’s master, who spoke out for Jehovah even to the king’s face, and who stood alone, and cried, “The God that answereth by fire, let him be God.” When the fire-answer had come, he cried to the people, “Take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape.” That man, when all the waters raged around him, stood like a rock, unmoved and unmovable; for the most part of his life he was steadfast and firm.

This is the kind of men that we want to-day. See how the whole world seems to be rocking and reeling, and men are continually asking for one novelty after another. This cry for something fresh has led to the casting off of the worship of God. “Nay,” say you. “Yea,” say I. They worship, today, gods many and lords many, gods newly come up, which our fathers knew not; but Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, is scarcely known among us. Men, so far as they could, have dethroned him; they have set up. an effeminate being whom they call their god; — a god without justice, a god whose name has no terror in it, as the name Jehovah has, as we read the story of it in the Old Testament. We want, nowadays, to have men who will say, “We worship no new god. The God of the Old Testament, who is also the God of the New, — this God is our God for ever and ever, he shall be our Guide even unto death.” You know how they cry down Jehovah. They will not have him; at least, they will not have him on the throne. His sovereignty is a thing that is scoffed at and made a by-word almost everywhere. And yet, beloved, Jehovah reigneth. He sitteth upon the floods. He ruleth as King for ever and ever; and unto his blessed name we will give praise, whatever others may do.

In these days, too, we want men who can stand steadfast for an kinds of truth, — not only as doctrines, but in practice. We want you, young men, to be upright and honest in your trade, when so many tradesmen all around you do all sorts of evil things in order to get gain. We want you, young men, to confess Christ in the workshop, and to stand up for him amidst the mass of your associates who keep not the Sabbath, neither regard the worship of God at all Do you ask, “Flow can we be kept steadfast?” The answer is, “Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah? “ — for he that held him up can hold us Up. I would that we had ten thousand men like John Knox was in Scotland, — men that could not be turned aside from the truth, — men that know the power of it in their hearts, and that know the practice of it by being sanctified of the Spirit of God, and who therefore are “steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” We shall never have such men unless they find the Lord God of Elijah, so let us all seek for him.

Next, this question,” Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” reminds me of Elijah’s mighty power in prayer. A man of like passions with ourselves was this Elias; yet God gave to him the key of prayer, and he locked up heaven with a turn of his hand; and when the time came, he went up to the top of Mount Carmel, and put his head between his knees, and there cried unto the Lord until once again the heavens were covered with clouds, and down came a deluge of rain. This was the man who, in his chamber, prayed Back the spirit of a child. This was he who could have anything of God that he listed, like Luther of old. Do not some of you say, “Would God I had his power in prayer! How am I to get it?” Why, where he got it, — of his God. The Lord God of Elijah can help you to pray prayers like his; and if he does, he will give you answers like to his. It may be that you will have nothing to do with bringing or withholding rain, but you may have something to do with things quite as important, that shall touch the inward lives of men, and shall bring them food from heaven, and the benediction and bedewing of the Holy Ghost. Get you to your God; lay hold upon him by a brave and daring faith. Fall flat upon the promises, and then pray straight up to the God who gave them, and so shall you get the blessing that you desire. You and I are going about after this and after that, till we compass sea and land, and miss the blessing. Straightforward makes the best running. Let us go straight to God in prayer, with simple confidence in him, and we shall not have long to ask, “Where is Jehovah, the God of Elijah?” for we shall prove that he still answers prayer even as he did in the prophet’s day.

The third rendering of the text is this: As God provided for Elijah at the brook Cherith and at Zarephath, so can ha provide for us. I think I hear you say, “My store of meal is running very short, my flask of oil is almost empty. ’Where is the Lord God of Elijah? ’“ Why, he is with his Elias still, and he is with such widows as the widow of Zarephath still. Do you think that he is dead? Has it crossed your mind that Divine Providence is a failure, and that God will no more provide for his own? Oh, think not so! If you do, your unbelief will prove a scourge to you; it will break that meal-barrel, it will dash in pieces that oil-flask. You will get nothing of the Lord if you waver; but if you keep strong in faith, you shall find that Jehovah Jireh is still his name, — “the Lord will provide.” “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” God can help us to put such confidence in him that we shall find the Lord God of Elijah supplying our daily wants, and feeding us until we want no more. Sing ye this song, O ye tried ones! Sing it at this moment, —

“The Lord my Shepherd is,
I shall be well supplied;
Since he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want beside?”

I see also in this great text, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” that the God that raised the dead by Elijah is the God I want. Oh, I have had to try to raise the dead in this place many a time; and it has been done, too! Man has spoken God’s mandate, and as the command has been uttered, “Lazarus, come forth,” full many a Lazarus has left his tomb; and you, my brothers and sisters, by your gentle, kindly teaching, have loosed them, and let them go about their daily occupation, or upon holy service, as those who have been raised from the dead. But there are still some dead ones for whom I have prayed full often, and others, too, who love them, have pleaded for them; we never cease to make them the subject of our earnest supplication, but they are still as dead as they were several years ago. Shall they remain so? Shall they lie there till, at last, they become utterly corrupt? Shall it ever be said of them, “Bury the dead out of my sight”? God will say that concerning all dead souls; for he will have no dead ones in heaven. They must be put out of sight; they must be driven from the presence of Christ, and from the glory of his power, — far from his glorious abode of peace and love. O brothers and sisters, pray mightily for these dead nes, for still the Lord God of Elijah can raise them! Never despair of anybody, and remember how, even when Lazarus had been so long dead that his body stank, he was nevertheless made to live; and if men go so far into evil that their sins turn to corruption, and their lives become foul and loathsome, yet even then the quickening Spirit can make them live. Oh, let us be importunate for these dead souls! Let us still plead for them; let us urge our suit with earnestness and perseverance; and let us never cease crying unto God for them until the dead in sin become the living in Zion. Here is the great hope for them, and here alone, that the God who raises the dead is still in the midst of his Church.

Further, we still want “the Lord God of Elijah” as “the God that answereth by fire.” Today, in this country, we are undergoing very much the same sort of ordeal as Elijah had to endure. The priests of the modern Baal and of the groves swarm on every side. The mass and all the other idols of Rome are set up again in this land; they may be seen as objects of adoration even in our parish churches. The candle that Latimer lit, which never can be quite put out, seems as if it burns but very dimly in this land, and the old and glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was preached by Luther and by Calvin, and by our Lord and his apostles, has come to be regarded as an old worn-out-thing, to be thrown away and cast aside. Oh, for the God of Elias once again to answer by fire! We want a baptism of the Holy Spirit for all such as are spiritually alive, and an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon such as know not the Lord, and obey not his truth. Oh, that we could see the Lord making bare his arm again in the midst of the land! When I think of how God visited Pharaoh, and magnified his might by smiting that stout-hearted rebel by plague after plague, my soul cries, “O Lord, wilt thou not rend the heavens, and come down, even if it be with a rod of iron, to dash in pieces, like a potter’s vessel, those who have so long resisted thy grace? Thy longsuffering seems to have been displayed long enough, and men grow bolder and yet bolder in their iniquity.” I can understand the spirit of Jonah — though I do not wish to fall into it, — when he seemed to feel that Nineveh ought to be smitten for its enormous sin. At this day the world still lieth in the wicked one, and Christ crucified is disowned and derided. Perhaps London is more heathenish than ever it was since first the foot of savage walked among its woods; the people grow worse and worse in many respects, and there is less and less of vital godliness and of seeking after the Most High. O Lord, how long? “Pluck thy right hand out of thy bosom,” and once again, as on Carmel the fire descended, so let the sacred flame fall upon thy true Church, that we may no longer need to ask, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” We want Him, we want HIM beyond everything in these dead days.

Now look yet again at our text: “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” I should like to meet him, and to know him as the God who gave Elijah such wondrous food. In the strength of that meat, he went for forty days; I should like to feed on that kind of fare! One grain of meal to a gallon of water is the sort of food served out by some preachers nowadays; there is nothing in it to satisfy or to sustain the soul. But God gave Elijah forty days’ meat at one meal; do you, dear friends, ever get meals such as that? I do, when I read certain books; not modern thought books, give me no such meat as that, but let me have one of the good solid Puritan volumes that are so little prized nowadays, and my soul can feed upon that. You do the same, and see whether you do not find food that will last not merely for forty days, but that will make you strong to walk before the Lord even unto the Mount of God, there to bless and adore him for ever and ever. But, oh, the milk-and-water diet that is too often given in these times! Well may we cry, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” Oh, to be fed once more upon the doctrines of discriminating grace! Oh, to be told continually of the love without a beginning, love without a change, love without an end! Oh, to hear of an atonement that an atonement, and that does indeed put away sin, — not the kind of atonement of which many talk to-day, which is all mist and cloud, and which accomplishes something or nothing according as men are pleased to let it! We want again to have meat unto life eternal, to know the great truth of union to Christ, of being in him, and so safe before the Lord, and made well pleasing unto the Most High. God send us back this food! Brothers and sisters, do not be satisfied until you get it. Turn from all other tables, and say, “’Where is the Lord God of Elijah?’ Where is that flesh that is meat indeed, and that blood which is drink indeed?” Be content with none but Christ; have no gospel but Jesus Christ and him crucified. May God so satisfy the souls of him saints that they shall be able either to serve well or to suffer well! We are only strong either in patience or in zeal as the Lord God of Elijah foods us with the Bread which came down from heaven, the Bread of life, Christ Jesus himself. “Lord, evermore give us this Bread!”

Once more, we want the God who took Elijah away in a chariot of fire. I shall close with that. I daresay many of you do not expect to go to heaven in that way; if I had my choice between that form of translation and death, I think I would prefer to die. I never could sympathize with the great delight which some brethren have in expecting that they shall never die. Why not? You will be a loser even throughout eternity if you do not, for you will not have fellowship with Christ in his death so fully as those who fall asleep, and so have fellowship with him in the grave. It will be a great joy to meet with Christ whatever we may miss in any other way. To behold him, and to be with him, is the utmost hope of our spirits; but, still, I would not wish to miss fellowship with him in death. ’What is there to be afraid of in death? “The pain,” says one. What pain? “The pain in dying.” There is no pain in dying; there can be none; the only pain is in living. Death is the great quietus. There shall be no sorrow or sighing when death has passed upon the believer. What, then, are you afraid of? Of death? But has not Christ told you that you shall never die? You shall depart out of this world unto the Father, and very likely you will not know when you are going. I have personally known several friends who were always afraid of dying, and I am morally certain that they never knew anything about death, for they went to bed, one night, apparently in good health, and when they were called in the morning, it was discovered that the Lord had called them before, and they had gone up to be “for ever with the Lord.” The placid countenance showed that there had not been any struggle, probably not even a sigh or a gasp. They shut their eyes, and dreamed of heaven; and when they woke, they found that they were there. They had passed through no iron gates, nor struggled through any chill stream; but they were in heaven. “Oh!” says someone, “but still I am afraid to die.” Let me tell you of one who said the same. Some years ago, I was away in the South of France; I had been very ill there, and was sitting in my room alone, for my friends had all gone down to the midday meal. All at once it struck me that I had something to do out of doors; I did not know what it was, but I walked out, and sat down on a seat. There came and sat on the seat next to me a poor, pale, emaciated woman in the last stage of consumption; and looking at me, she said, “O Mr. Spurgeon, I have read your sermons for years, and I have learned to trust the Savior! I know I cannot live long, but I am very sad as I think of it, for I am so afraid to die.” Then I knew why I had gone out there, and I began to try to cheer her. I found that it was very hard work. After a little conversation, I said to her, “Then you would like to go to heaven, but not to die? .... Yes, just so,” she answered. “Well, how do you wish to go there? Would you like to ascend in a chariot of fire?” That method had not occurred to her, but she answered, “Yes, oh, yes!” “Well,” I said, “suppose there should be, just round this corner, homes all on fire, and a blazing chariot waiting there to take you up to heaven; do you feel ready to step into such a chariot?” She looked at me, and she said, “No, I should be afraid to do that.” “Ah!” I said, “and so should I; I should tremble a great deal more at getting into a chariot of fire than I should at dying. I am not fond of being behind fiery homes, I would rather be excused from taking such a ride as that.” Then I said to her, “Let me toll you what will probably happen to you; you will most likely go to bed some night, and you will wake up in heaven.” That is just what did happen to her not long after; her husband wrote to tell me that, after our conversation, she had never had any more trouble about dying; she felt that it was the easiest way into heaven, after all, and far better than going there in a whirlwind with horses of fire and chariots of fire, and she gave herself up for her Heavenly Father to take her home in his own way; and so she passed away, as I expected, in her sleep.

Now I want you, clear friends, to feel that your great need in dying is to have “the Lord God of Elijah” with you. If you have him, then you may cry, “Come, horses of fire, and chariots of fire, we are not afraid to ride behind these fiery steeds if ’the Lord God of Elijah’ be with us.” Oh, no! Or it may be, “Come, silent chamber; come, bed made hard with weary weeks of pain; come, at last, the message that the wheel is broken at the cistern, and that we must depart; come death, and some celestial band, to bear my soul away.” Thus you will have such a sweet realization of the presence of “the Lord God of Elijah” with you that you will not be at all afraid. You timid ones are sure to “play the man” when you come to die. Often, the most trembling saints are the boldest at the last. I have known some who dared hardly call their souls their own, they were so full of doubts and fears; but when they have come to the river, they have been the bravest of the brave. You remember how Mr. Bunyan says of poor Miss Much-afraid, Mr. Despondency’s daughter, that she went through the river singing! Some of God’s Great-hearts, when they have died, have found the water up to their chin; and it is a glorious thing for them to be able to stand there, to feel the bottom beneath their feet, and to know that it is good, to let death do its worst, and all the while to be shouting, “Victory, victory, victory, I am more than conqueror through him that loved me!” But if you are weak, and feeble, and timid, you will very likely die in a different way; you will probably have a sweet, calm, happy, blessed passage. “The Lord God of Elijah” will be with you and you shall triumph at the last, even as he did.

You see, dear friends, that the time has gone, though I have only been able to speak upon the first part of my subject; so you must come another time for the second part, if the Lord will.

Sermon Notes 1
2 Kings 2:14

And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah? — 2 Kings 2:14

The great object to be desired is God, Jehovah, Elijah's God. With him all things flourish. His absence is our decline and death. Those entering on any holy work should seek for the God who was with their predecessors. What a mercy that the God of Elijah is also the God of Elisha! He will also be with us, for "this God is our God, for ever and ever, he will be our guide even unto death" (Ps. 48:14).

In great difficulties no name will help but that of God. How else can Jordan be divided but by Jehovah, God of Elijah?

Elisha sought first for the Lord, and inquired, "Where is he?" Elijah was gone, and he did not seek him, but his God.

He used Elijah's old mantle, and did not invent novelties; desiring to have the aid of the same God, he was content to wear the mantle of his predecessor. The true is not new.

Still we do not need antiquities from the past, nor novelties of the present, nor marvels for the future; we only want the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we shall then see among us wonders equal to those of Elijah's age. "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" The old mantle, used with faith in the same God, parted the waters hither and thither. The power is where it used to be.

I. THE QUESTION TURNED INTO PRAYER.

It is as though he cried, — "O thou, who wast with Elijah, be thou also with me!" At this day our one need is Elijah's God.

1. The God who kept him faithful must make us stand firm should we be left alone in the truth (1 Cor. 1:8).

2. The God who heard his prayer must give us also the effectual in-wrought prayer of the righteous man (James 5:16).

3. The God who provided for him at Cherith and Zarephath, and in the wilderness, must also supply all our needs (Ps. 23:1).

4. The God who raised the dead by him must cause us to bring men up from their death in sin (1 Kings 17:22).

5. The God who answered by fire must put life, energy, and enthusiasm into our hearts (I Kings 18:38).

6. The God who gave him food for a long journey must fit us for the pilgrimage of life, and preserve us to the end (1 Kings 19:8).

7. The God who gave him courage to face kings must also make us very bold, so as to be free from the fear of man (1 Kings 21:20).

8. The God who divided Jordan for the prophet will not fail us when we are crossing into our Canaan (2 Kings 2:8).

9. The God who took him away in a chariot of fire will send a convoy of angels, and we shall enter into glory.

II. THE QUESTION ANSWERED.

The Lord God of Elijah is not dead, nor sleeping, nor on a journey.

1. He is still in heaven regarding his own reserved ones. They may be hidden in caves, but the Lord knoweth them that are his.

2. He is still to be moved by prayer to bless a thirsty land.

3. He is still able to keep us faithful in the midst of a faithless generation, so that we shall not bow the knee to Baal.

4. He is still in the still small voice. Quietly he speaks to reverent minds: by calm and brave spirits he is achieving his purposes.

5. He is still reigning in providence to overturn oppressors (1 Kings 21:18-19), to preserve his own servants (2 Kings 1:10), and to secure a succession of faithful men (1 Kings 19:16).

6. He is coming in vengeance. Hear ye not his chariot-wheels? He will bear away his people, but, sorely, O ye unbelievers! shall ye rue the day wherein ye cried in scorn, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?"

Oh, to be so engaged that we can court the presence of God!

Oh, to be so consecrated that we may expect his benediction!

Oh, to have that presence, so as to be girded with his strength!

Oh, to live so as never more to ask this question!

Auxiliary Extracts

2 Kings 5:13 A Serious Remonstrance**

NO. 892
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

(** Remonstrance = a petition presented in protest against something)

“My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean?” — 2 Kings 5:13.

**

I am somewhat myself in the position of Elijah, when Naaman, the Syrian, came dashing up with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of the prophet. There are before me in this house, I fear, many who are spiritually diseased. Your motive for coming up to this assembly should be to hear the gospel, and to discover the remedy by which your spiritual disease may be removed. But what, let me ask, are really the thoughts that occupy your minds? I can suppose that you are looking for different things from me. One, perhaps, imagines that something will be said odd and strange that shall provoke a smile: another imagines that I shall labor to make some display of elocution and speak tender words softly, like flakes of featherd snow melting as they fall, and so draw forth the silent, graceful tear. When both of these are alike disappointed, you will probably say to yourselves, “Well, it is only the old story we used to hear when we went to the Sunday-school; it is just what we have listened to Sunday after Sunday, till we turn away surfeited with it. It is, believe in Jesus Christ and live; there is nothing fresh or new to stimulate our intellect; nothing original to whet our curiosity. In whatever shape the preacher puts it, whatever illustrations he uses to enforce it, it comes to just what we have always heard — ’believe and live.’“ Forthwith you take umbrage. Because it is so simple and so plain, you will not attend to it. I will therefore suppose myself to mingle in the crowd as you retire, and come up to you, one by one, and kindly take you by the hand, and say, “If the preacher had told you of some new and strange thing, some difficult matter, you would have inclined your ear and devoted your heart to it; how much more, then, when he has simply told you a plain matter, and laid before you a simple method by which you may obtain pardon for your sin, cleansing for your guilt, health and cure for your conscience! If the intricate and the hard would have commanded your interest, how much more should the simple and the easy engross your attention? The thing I spoke of cannot be, wish it as I might. I cannot speak to every one of you individually. It remains that I stand here, returning’ the glance of each and all of you as best I can, while I converse with you freely and friendly, but firmly and truly, of the things that make for your peace.

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I. Our subject shall be full of remonstrance. First of all, let me notice the Pride Of Man’s Heart.

Stands there before your mind’s eye this great man, the Captain of the host of the king of Syria. He is a typical character, or to say the least, he is a representative man. His haughty bearing prompts the inquiry, “Who is this?” As you learn that he holds a high office, that he has served his country well, and that he enjoys the favor of his master, you will be apt to count him a man of mark, one to be admired. But look at him more narrowly; observe his pale face and his emaciated frame, and your pity is moved; now you ask with concern, what ails this mighty man of valor? The fatal secret is quickly told, he is a leper. Why then comes he thus with his splendid equipage to Samaria? Surely it is not to air his nobility, but to get relief from his debility that he takes this journey into the land of Israel. How better then could his distressing case be met than by the simple message which Elisha sent him? The manner disappoints his expectation; his temper is irritated by a method of treatment that he thinks beneath his station; and he indignantly rejects the faithful admonition of the prophet. The more you consider his circumstances, the more surprise you will feel at his conduct. Why, his own servants respectfully expostulate with him, “My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it?” Ah! he thinks himself great, and therefore only a great thing will be becoming. If he be commanded to make some great sacrifice, or to do some great service, he will do it, do it willingly. It suits his high and lofty nature. I am not about to launch on a sea so wide as the theme of human pride in general — that would require many a sermon — but only this one point of human pride, which shows itself in wanting to do some great thing in order to obtain eternal salvation, concerns us now. It is a universal rule of the entire family of man, in every place and at every time, that man wants to do some great thing by which to restore himself to the favor of God. If you had asked the ancient heathen how men could win the favor of the gods, they would have told you that, like Socrates, they must drink the hemlock cup, and die with words of cheer upon their lips, or like the brave ten thousand under Xenophon, cut their way through innumerable difficulties, or die like victims for freedom at the pass of Thermopylae. For such men there would be quiet resting places in the Elysian fields, and perhaps some men might be caught up to high Olympus, to sit down in the circle of the celestials. That was the old heathen notion, and it is much the stone in the present day. To obtain salvation, a man, amongst the Hindoos, must torture himself; must lie down in the path of the car of Juggernaut to be crushed, or hold up his hand till it grows stiff, and he is unable to take it down. All forms of self-denial and of torture are practiced to this very day in the heathen world, for man longs to do some great thing that he may be cured of his spiritual leprosy. This is the character of heathenism in every place.

The Jews ought to have known better. They had a pure law put before them; they ought to have perceived the impossibility of their altogether keeping it, and in their constant sacrifices there was a very distinct intimation given to them that the salvation of man must depend upon the offering of a sacrifice given by another for his ransom. But in our Lord’s day the Jews had the idea that a man must make wide the phylactery to the hem of his garment, if he would enter into eternal life. He must fast on certain days of the week, must wash so many times a-day when he had been to the market-place, or had been with the multitude; that he must, in fact, do some great thing or other in order that he might be healed of his sin. That was the Jewish notion everywhere.

And this is the kernel of the Roman system. Stripped of its less important features, it comes to this, that thou must do some great thing! If thou wouldst be saved and enter into eternal life — wearing hair shirts, abstaining from meat on Fridays, and shutting thyself up in a nunnery or a convent; or if thou wouldst do it perfectly, get up to the top of a pillar with Simon Stylites, and live there a noble specimen of humility in obscurity. This is what Romanism says in some form or other: “By doing some great thing, work out your own salvation, and work it out constantly.” I know the canon of inspiration is partly acknowledged; I know there is something said about the blood of Jesus Christ; I know the work of the Spirit is not entirely denied, but at the same time this is the main evil; there is a superscription written over the gospel — not that the tablet is summarily obliterated, but that the handwriting is written over, so that you cannot decipher the original record — ”This do, and thou shalt live.”

Nor less is it the current religion of this exceedingly Protestant country. Most of the men you meet with, if they have not been accustomed to attend on an evangelical ministry, and catch the phrases of religious society, you will find adhering to the doctrine, that goodness, virtue, morality, excellence, and subscriptions to charitable objects, will win for us eternal life. The trader has never been in the bankruptcy court, therefore he is clean from the great transgression, and he will be saved. The laborer who has always paid his way, and never had relief from the parish, is exemplary in the eyes of the poor law guardians, and he will be saved. Every man in his own order, and each with his mode of respectability. I do not know all the shapes that the certificate takes, but the general belief current everywhere is that good of all sorts are sure to be saved. You are to do some great thing; you are to be better than your neighbors, to keep yourselves above the common tuck, and you shall certainly without fail attain unto everlasting life. Though some have thought that we may preach the doctrine of justification by faith too nakedly, and affirm it too frequently, I have the fullest possible belief that we have not erred yet in that direction, we have need still to keep on hammering in the public ear that great truth, that by the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified; he that believeth hath everlasting life. We want to revive more clearly and fully the old testimony which Christ has left to us, that “he that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

Here, then, is human pride always longing to do some great thing. I have mentioned several phases it assumes, but to make the description complete, I must bring home the censure to myself and to you. I honestly confess that before I knew Christ and the way of salvation by his finished work, I would have done anything in order to be saved. Such was my sense of guilt, and such my fear of the wrath to come, that no pilgrimage would have been too wearisome, no pain too intense, no slavery too severe, to appease my troubled conscience. I would gladly have laid down my life, if I might have saved my soul thereby. Times without number have I thought I wished I had never been born; and could there have been put before me any possible form of penance, though it might have consisted of excruciating agony, I am sure I would gladly have accepted it if I might be saved. Little did I think that it was done for me by another, and that what I had to do was to accept what had been done, and not to do anything but to trust in Christ. I appeal to any unprofessing unconverted persons here, whether you do not say inwardly when you hem- a gospel sermon, “I do not understand this believing; I cannot make it out; it puzzles me; I wish the preacher would tell me straightway what I had to do, and I would do it”? Supposing you had to walk to John O’Groat’s house, you would start off to-night if your soul could thereby be saved. You would open your hearts to notice all the particulars of duty, and you would with those little pencils be jotting down every minute point of rite or custom, in order that you might make yourselves secure of salvation. It just suits us all, indeed it does. We all lean that way because we are proud, we do not like to be saved by charity, we cannot conceive it possible that so simple a thing as relying and trusting upon Christ can save our souls; and yet not only can it save us, but nothing else can. Not only is there salvation in Christ, but there is salvation in no other, for there is no other name given under heaven, among men, whereby we must be saved.

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II. We can all see in Naaman’s case, that It Were A Great Pity If He Should Be So Proud As To Go H0me With The Leprosy About Him.

Would not he be a great fool? Would not his arrogance be manifestly the very highest form of madness, if it led him to reject the only method of cure? Make the case, however, your own, while I say a little about the folly of men who will not come and trust in Jesus Christ, because they want to be doing some great thing. This is a grievous infatuation, my dear friend, and I will try to show you how. The great things you propose to do, these works of yours, what comparison do they bear to the blessing which you hope to obtain? I suppose by these works, whatever they may be, you hope to obtain the favor of God, and procure a place in heaven. What is it, then, you propose to offer? What estimation could you bring to God? Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof for a burnt-offering. Would you bring him rivers of oil, or ten thousand of the fat of fed beasts? Suppose you were to empty Potosi of its silver, and Golconda should be drained of its diamonds; nay, count up all the treasures that couch beneath the surface of the earth: if you brought them all, what would they be to God? And if you could pile up gold reaching from the nether-most parts of the earth to the highest heavens, what would the mass be to him? How could all this enrich his coffers, or buy your salvation? Can he be affected by anything you do to augment the sum of his happiness, or to increase the glory of his kingdom? If he were hungry, he would not tell you. “The cattle on ten thousand hills,” saith he, “are mine.” Your goodness may please your fellow creatures, and your charity may make them grateful, but will God owe anything to you for your alms, or be beholden to you for your influence? Preposterous questions! When you have done all, what will you be but a poor, unworthy, unprofitable servant? You will not have done what you ought, much less will there be any balance in your favor to make atonement for sin, or to purchase for you an inheritance in the realms of light. O sirs, if you would but think of it, God’s value of heaven and yours are very different things. His salvation, when he set a price upon it, was only to be brought to men through the death of his own dear Son, and you think that your good works — oh, what mockery to call them so! — can win the heaven which Christ, the Son of God, procured at the cost of his own blood! Would you dare to put your miserable life in comparison with the life of God’s obedient Son, who gave himself even to death? Does it not strike you that you are insulting God? If there be a way to heaven by works, why did he put his dear Son to all that pain and grief? Why the scenes of Gethsemane, with its bloody sweat? Why the tragedy on Golgotha, with its cross, and nails, and cries of “Lama sabachthani?” Why all this, when the thing could be done so easily another way? You insult the wisdom of God, and the love of God. There is no attribute of God which self-righteousness does not impugn. It debases the eternal perfections which the blessed Savior magnified, in order to exalt the pretensions of the creature which the Almighty spurns as vain and worthless. The poor Indian may barter his gold for thy trinkets and glass beads, but if thou shouldst give all the substance thou hast to God, it would be utterly contemned. He will bestow the milk and the honey of his mercy without money and without price, but if thou comest .to him trying to bargain for it, it is all over with thee; God will not give thee choice provisions of his love that thou knowest not how to appreciate.

Further to show the folly of this, let me remind you that when you talk about doing better for the future, and saving yourselves by your works, you forget that you can no more do this in the future than you have done it in the past. You that are going to save yourselves by reforms, and by earnest fryings and endeavors, let me ask you, ira man could not perform a certain work when his arm had strength in it, how will he be able to perform it when the bone is broken? When you were young and inexperienced, you had not yet fallen into evil habits and customs. Though there was depravity in your nature then, you had not become bound in the iron net of habit, yet even then you went astray like a lost sheep, and you followed after evil. What reason have you to suppose that you can suddenly change the bias of your heart, the course of your actions, and the tenor of your life, and become a new man? Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Are there not ten thousand probabilities against one, that as you did sin before you will sin still? You found the pathway of evil to be attractive and fascinating, so that you were enticed into it, and you will still be enticed, and be drawn away from that path of integrity which you are now so firmly resolved to tread. O man, the way up to heaven by Mount Sinai is very steep and narrow, and by one wrong step a man is dashed to pieces. Stand at the foot and look up at it if thou darest. On its brow of stone there is the black cloud, out of which leaps the live lightning; while there is the sound of the trumpet that waxes exceeding loud and long. Dost thou not see Moses tremble? and wilt thou dare to stand unabashed where Moses doth exceedingly fear and quake? Look upwards, and decline the thought of climbing those steep crags, for no man hath ever striven to clamber up there in hope of salvation without finding destruction among the terrors of the way? Be wise, give up that deceitful hope of salvation which your pride leads you to choose, and your presumption would soon cause you to rue.

Suppose you could do some great thing, which I am sure you cannot, were it possible that you could from henceforth be perfect, and never sin again in thought, or word, or deed, still how would you be able to atone for your past delinquencies? Shall I call for a resurrection in that graveyard of your memory? Let your sins start up for a moment, and pass in review before you. Ah, they may well frighten you, the sins of your youth; those midnight sins; those midday sins, those sins against light and knowledge, those sins of body, those sins of soul! You have forgotten them, you say, but God has not. Behold the file! they are all placed there, all registered in God’s day-book, not one forgotten — all to be read against you in the day of the last assize. How can future obedience make up for past transgression? The cliff has fallen, and though the wave washes up ten thousand times, it cannot set the cliff up again. The day is bright, but still there was a night, and the brightest day does not obliterate the fact that once it was dark. Your sins, how are these to be blotted out? “Trifles,” say you, but they are not so to God, nor will they be to you in that day when your reason shall be taught right judgment, and you shall stand amidst the thunders of the last tremendous day, and receive according to the deeds done in your body, whether they have been good or evil.

“Could your tears for ever flow, Could your zeal no respite know, All for sin could not atone Christ must save, and Christ alone.”

This doing of great things is an empty conceit; nor could it avail you even if you had the power to put your grand resolutions into full effect, and fulfill the schemes that your folly doats upon.

Ah! ye who seek salvation by your own doings, let the example of others warn you. All those who do thus labor for that which satisfieth not, lead a miserable life in this world, and in the world to come, their existence is without hope. I have seen many of those who hope to be saved by ceremonies, by prayers, and by holy services, as they think them to be, but I am sure when I have come to talk to them, I have never met with one of them that possessed perfect peace. How could they? The foundation is so rotten, that the house cannot stand fast. Look at them. When they have done their best, what does conscience say? Why, like the horse-leech, it crieth “Give, give, give.” ’With many men, when they lie awake at night, or seriously think about their lives, there is an inward suspicion creeping over them, that; though they stand so well with the church and with their neighhours, and are spoken so well of, yet it is not quite right. They say “after all, my church-goings, and chapel-goings, and prayers, and alms-givings, do not stand me in so good a turn as I could wish.” I tell you such people are like the blind horse going round the mill, they never get any further. They realize the old fable of those who tried to fill up the bottomless pit. They are like Sisyphus, who was always rolling a stone up hill that always rolled back to his feet again before he could accomplish the task. The self-righteous man knows that what he is doing cannot satisfy God, for it cannot satisfy himself; and though he may perhaps drug his conscience, there is generally enough left of the divine element within the man to make him feel and know that it is not satisfactory. When he lets his heart speak he finds it so; it is dreadful to die with no other hope than what you have done for yourselves. Oh! it is poor work, and it is poor comfort too to lay on a dying bed and turn over such poor rotten rags as prayers, attendances at worship, alms-givings, and religious exercises, that looked so nice when we were in the dark. When the veil begins to be pulled up, and the light of eternity comes streaming in, then we see that we had bad motives for our good actions, that our charities were done out of ostentation, that our worship of God was only formality, and even our own private prayers, if not insincere, were yet mixed with such selfishness and inconsistency as to make them unacceptable to God. Oh! it is a sad discovery the unbeliever makes when he feels that his righteousness has vanished, and all his fair white linen is suddenly turned to masses of spiders’ webs, to be swept away. But what must be the fate of such a man at the bar of God? I think I see the King coming in his glory, and the last tremendous morning dawn. When the King sits on his glory-throne, where are the self-righteous? Where are they? I cannot see them. Where are they? Come, come, Pharisee, come and tell the Lord that thou didst fast twice in the week, and then wast not even as the Publican. There sits the Publican, at the right hand of the Judge! Come and say that thou wast cleaner and more holy than he! But where is the wretch? Where is he? Come hither, ye proud and ostentatious ones, who said you had no need to be washed in blood; come and tell the Judge so; tell him he made a mistake; tell him that the Savior was only wanted to be a make-weight and assistant to those who could help themselves! But where are they? Why, they were dressed so finely; can those poor, naked, shivering wretches be the gay, vaunting professors we used to know? Yes. Hear them as they cry to the rocks to fall on them, and the hills to cover them, to hide them from the presence of the great Judge whom in their lifetime they insulted by putting their poor merits in comparison with the boundless wealth and merit of his blood. Ah! may it never be your lot nor mine to commit the blasphemy of preferring the labor of our hands to the handiwork of Christ.

And what will be the lot of such men when they are cast down to hell? Then those whom they despised so much on earth, the old sinners, will be their companions, for there are not two hells, one for respectable moral sinners, and another for the openly profane and the drunken. “bind them up in bundles to burn,” is the command, and you cannot pick your company. If you are out of Christ, though your self-righteousness be ever so fair, I tell you it will not yield you a drop of water to cool your parched tongue. If your self-righteousness be ever so fine to look upon to-day, it will appear loathsome enough when you turn over in the lurid light of that anguish which shall never be assuaged, of that torment which shall know no change. I pray you east not yourself into the sea with such a millstone about your neck, for instead of lifting you up, it shall sink you lower and lower. This shall be the arrow which shall pierce your heart for ever — ”I would not have Christ; I relied on my own merits; I believed that I must do something, and I would not yield to have it all done for me; I would not consent to be saved by the righteousness of Jesus Christ; I would persist in being saved by some doings of my own, and now I have for ever to bewail my foolish pride, without hope, without chance of mercy.”

May infinite mercy prevent this being the lot of so much as one of us in this assembly.

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III. Rather bethink you, sirs, now while eschewing this false pride, and deprecating this egregious folly, what is Man’s Best Wisdom!

Methinks I see thee, brother, baffled in all thy schemes, sickened of thy solemn but hollow pretences, bewildered with strange imaginings, and thoroughly out of conceit with thyself. Is it thus with thee? Do I rightly describe thy present feelings? Sit not down desponding, though thy lips are parched and thy strength exhausted. One drop from the pure fountain of faith will refresh thy spirits. Yield thyself up like a child to be taught by the great Comforter, and thou shalt not only find rest unto thy soul, but thou shalt be able to instruct and cheer others also. To believe that which God says, to do that which God bids, to take that salvation which God provides — this is man’s highest and best wisdom. Disdain not now to begin with the alphabet, and to spell out the golden letters from this great prophetic book. It is the child’s primer, the pilgrim’s guide, and still it is the apocalypse of the saint in which he descries the glory yet to be revealed. This is the one message of the gospel, “Believe and live.” Trust in the Incarnate Savior, whom God appointed to stand in the stead of sinners. Trust in him, and you shall be saved. The whole gospel is condensed into one sentence as Christ left it before he ascended up on high, “He that; believeth and is baptised shall be saved.” He who with his whole heart relies on Christ, and then avows his faith by being buried with Christ in baptism, such a one hath the promise that he shall be saved. But “He that believeth not” — that being a vital omission — ”he that believeth not, shall be damned” — condemned, cast away for ever. Thy sole business then, sinner, is with this trusting thyself with Christ. Surely thou knowest what this means! The old divines used to call it “recumbency,” a leaning; a leaning with all your weight, so that you have no dependence but on that upon which you lean — leaning just so on Christ, with all the weight of your soul and all the weight of your sin. The negro had a good idea of faith who said he “fell down flat on de promise,” and then, said he, “when I am flat down on de promise, I cannot fall no lower.” Nor can you be safer than when you fall flat on the promise of mercy which God has given through our Lord Jesus Christ. You remember what those who were bitten by the burning serpents were bidden to do. They had but to look to the brazen serpent, and the moment they looked they were healed. There were no rounds of prayer, no performances, nothing else than a look. If the eye was filled with tears, and the force of the virus had half poisoned the man, a glance did it. One glance of the eye at the brazen serpent which blazed and glittered in the sunlight, the virus stayed its force, the man was healed. So, if thou dost but trust in Jesus, thou shalt be saved.

“Well,” says one, “I do not see how it will be.” Well, if thou dost not see how it will be, try it and find out. But I will tell you. God must be just; he must punish sin. It is a necessity of his divine nature that sin should not be winked at. Jesus Christ came into the world and took upon himself, as a great Substitute, the sins of all those who ever did, or who ever shall, believe on him. He was punished instead of them; consequently, justice cannot require that those for whom he was punished should be punished for themselves. Their debt was paid by him; their penalty was endured in his person. If thou trustest him that is an evidence that thou art one of such, one of those for whom he effectually and practically stood as a Substitute. “Oh!” says one, “then if Christ stood in my stead, I am altogether forgiven; if I could believe that, I should feel very happy. I should feel very grateful to God, and I think I should spend all my life in serving him.” Ah, that is the salvation we require. To serve God is a salvation from your old hatred of God. To desire to be like God, and to love him fervently, that is a salvation from your former indifference and waywardness. It is an evidence of the new birth. One of the immediate results of the thorough change of your nature is that you desire to love and serve the God whom once you only thought of with a fear that brought torment, never with a love that made his name sweet as music, his courts amiable, and his precepts more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold. You will never get to that point by coming to God first in the bald revelation of his adorable attributes. No man cometh to the Father but through the Son. You must believe in the man Christ Jesus, the man in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, for he is God over all blessed for ever. Trust him for the remission of your sins and the acceptance of your person; and when you know in your soul that your sin is forgiven, with holy joy you will sing-

“Now for the love I bear his name,
What was my gain I count my loss;
My former pride I call my shame,
And nail my glory to his cross.

Yes, and I must and will esteem
All things as loss for Jesu’s sake;
O may my soul be found in him,
And of his righteousness partake.”

The man who has not the work of saving himself to do, the man who feels that Christ has saved him, now out of love gives himself up to holiness, and this is salvation practically illustrated. When people put water in children’s faces, and regenerate them, we say — ”Well, if you do it, let us see it: are those children better than anybody else’s children?” and we do not find out that they are the least better. I consider that such regeneration is not worth the snap of a finger. When a man really believes in Jesus Christ, he lives to Christ and to righteousness. If he has been a drunkard, or unchaste, or a swearer, he renounces his former evil course, and becomes a new man. That which satisfactorily and practically saves men from guilt deserves notice and consideration, and with some reason may it be supposed to rescue them from the doom of transgressors. The gospel does this. It makes the leper whole. Did not Naaman return to his master with his flesh like the flesh of a little child? Surely the king would believe that a wonderful cure had been wrought, and, heathen though he was, he could hardly reproach the God of the prophet, or the prophet of God with the result.

I would to God that some here might be led to try it. May the Lord show you that your best works are sins, that your righteousness is unrighteousness, that your supposed obedience is essentially disobedience, and may you be brought to look to God’s own dear Son, and to the work which he has finished, and then, looking to him and finding that you are saved, there will spring up in your bosom a loving life, a holy life, a divine life. You will be a living monument of the power of God. As Naaman was in his way, so will you be in your way, a proof that there is a prophet, and that there is a God in Israel.

O my dear hearers, may the Holy Ghost constrain you now to trust in Jesus! I think I never see the depravity of man’s heart so clearly as in this reluctance. To believe in Christ is so easy, yet no man will believe in him till the Holy Spirit gives him a sounder and a better mind. What a fool must man be that he cannot trust God, that he cannot trust God’s own Son, when he dies that sinners may live! Why, I feel as if I could not only trust Christ with my poor guilty soul, but if I had all your souls in my soul, I could trust him for you all. All I do feel that if I had all the sins of all the men that ever lived, the precious blood of Jesus could wash them all away. I am sure it could, I cannot doubt its infinite power. Since I believe that Christ is God, I cannot doubt the efficacy of his droning, cleansing blood. Then how is it that you do not trust him, that you do not believe him? What, did he die in vain? Is there no merit in the pangs he endured? That bloody sweat, does it mean nothing? That bitter cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” that face clad in the pallor of death; those blessed limbs, all dislocated on the cross; those dear, those ruby wounds, flowing with rivulets of gore, oh! are these nothing? Can you look and yet not trust him? Can you look at the incarnate God, laying down his life for sinners, and yet doubt? Oh! blackest of sins is this doubting of God and of Christ! Yield, I pray you, yield to a simple faith in Jesus, and there shall rush through your soul a life the like of which you never knew, and you shall go out of this tabernacle saying in your spirit, “I have been born again this night; the mystery has been unravelled; the divine deed is done; I am forgiven:, I am forgiven, glory be to his name!”

“Oh! how sweet to view the flowing
Of the Savior’s precious blood,
With divine assurance knowing
He has made my peace with God!”

Sermon Notes 2
2 Kings 6:17

And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. — 2 Kings 6:17

Faith serves the believer for eyes, and makes him see what others cannot. This keeps the man himself quiet and calm, and enables him to check the fears of those who cry, "Alas, my master! how shall we do" (verse 15)?

From this narrative we learn how much may be about us, and yet it may be invisible to the natural eye. We shall use it to teach:

I. THAT THE NATURAL EYE IS BLIND TO HEAVENLY THINGS.

God is everywhere; yet sin-blinded eyes see him not.

His law touches the thoughts and intents of the heart; yet its wonderful spiritual meaning is not perceived.

Men themselves are evil, guilty, fallen; yet they see not their own wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores'.

Their danger is imminent; yet they sport on, blindly dancing at hell's mouth. There is a man at Brighton who wears a placard about his neck, on which are these words, "I am quite blind." This might suit such foolish ones.

Jesus is near, and ready to help; but their eyes are holden so that they know not that it is Jesus. He is altogether lovely, and desirable, the sun of the soul, yet is he altogether unknown.

This want of spiritual discernment makes man ignoble. Samson blinded is a sorry spectacle: from a judge in Israel he sinks to a slave in Philistia.

This keeps a man content with the world: he does not see how poor a thing it is, for which he sweats, and smarts, and sins, and sacrifices heaven.

This causes many men to pursue the monotonous task of avarice; never more aspiring after better things, but pursuing the dreary round of incessant moil and toil, as blind horses go round and round the mill.

This makes men proud. They think they know all things because they see so little of what can be known.

This places men in danger. "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch" (Matt. 15:14).

II. THAT GOD ALONE CAN OPEN MAN'S EYES.

We can lead the blind, but we cannot make them see; we can put truth before them, but we cannot open their eyes; that work remains with God alone.

Some use artificial eyes, others try spectacles, telescopes, colored glasses, etc., but all in vain, while the eyes are blind. The cure is of the Lord alone.

1. To give sight is the same wonder as creation. Who can make an eye? In the sinner the faculty of spiritual vision is gone.

2. The man is born blind. His darkness is part of himself. "Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind" (John 9:32).

3. The man is willfully blind. None so blind as those who will not see. "The blind people that have eyes" (Isa. 43:8).

4. Opening of the eyes is set down as a covenant blessing. The Lord has given his Son "for a covenant of the people, to open the blind eyes" (Isa. 42:6-7).

Satan counterfeited this in the garden when he said, "Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods" (Gen. 3:5).

III. THAT WE MAY PRAY HIM TO OPEN MEN'S EYES.

We ought to cry, "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see."

1. When we see sinners in trouble it is a hopeful sign, and we should pray for them with double importunity (Isa. 26:2).

2. When we hear them inquiring, we should inquire of the Lord for them. Their prayer should call up ours.

3. When we ourselves see much, we should see for them.

4. When their blindness astonishes us, it should drive us to our knees.

5 The prayers of others availed for us, and therefore we ought to repay the blessing to the prayer-treasury of the church.

6. It will glorify God to open their eyes; let us pray with great expectancy, believing that he will honor his Son.

IV. THAT GOD DOES OPEN MEN'S EYES.

l. He has done it in a moment. Notice the many miracles performed by our Lord on blind men.

2. He specially opens the eyes of the young. "The Lord opened the eyes of the young man." See the text.

3. He can open your eyes. Many are the forms of blindness, but they are all comprehended in that grand statement, "The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind" (Ps. 146:8).

4. He can in an instant cause you to see his grace in its all-sufficiency and nearness. Hagar and the well (Gen. 21:19).

V. THAT EVEN THOSE WHO SEE NEED MORE SIGHT.

Elisha's young man could see; yet he had his eyes more fully opened.

1. In the Scriptures more is to be seen. "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law" (Ps. 119:18).

2. In the great doctrines of the gospel there is much latent light.

3. In Providence there are great marvels. To see God's hand in everything is a great attainment, specially glorifying to his name (Ps. 107:24).

4. In self, sin, Satan, etc., there are depths which it were well for us to see. May we be men with our eyes opened.

5. In Christ Jesus himself there are hidden glories. "Sir, we would see Jesus" (John 12:21; Heb. 2:9).

Have you spiritual sight? Then behold angels and spiritual things. Better still — behold your Lord!

Gleanings

One of the saddest conditions of a human creature is to read God's word with a veil upon the heart, to pass blindfolded through all the wondrous testimonies of redeeming love and grace which the Scriptures contain. And it is sad, also, if not actually censurable, to pass blindfolded through the works of God, to live in a world of flowers, and stars, and sunsets, and a thousand glorious objects of nature, and never to have a passing interest awakened by any of them. — Dean Goulbourn

A lady once said to Turner, when he was painting: "Why do you put such extravagant colors into your pictures? I never see anything like them in nature." "Don't you wish you did, madam?" said he. It was a sufficient answer. He saw them, if she did not. So believers, like the prophet, see many divine wonders which worldlings cannot perceive.

If his word once teach us, shoot a ray
Through all the heart's dark chambers, and reveal
Truths undiscerned but by that holy light,
Then all is plain. — Cowper

2 Kings 8:12, 13 Startling!

NO. 2828
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, APRIL 26TH, 1903,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON THE LORD’S-DAY EVENING, IN THE SUMMER OF 1861

“And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel... And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? “ — 2 Kings 8:12, 13.

I SUPPOSE that none of us can doubt that Hazael acted with perfect freedom when he became the murderer of his master. No one; surely, would dare to suggest that any constraint was put upon him. The glittering prospect of wearing the crown of Syria was before his eyes Nothing stood between him and the kingdom but the life of his master. That master lies sick of a fever. A wet cloth is the usual remedy. He has but to select one that shall be thicker than usual, and take care, in spreading it over his face, to place it so that the man is suffocated, and, lo! he comes to the throne. What wonder is it that Hazael easily puts his master out of the way, and then mounts the vacant seat? None of us will imagine for a moment that he was under constraint, unless it was Satanic; and yet, while he acted as a free agent, is it not quite clear that God foreknew what he would do, and that it was perfectly certain that he would destroy his master? The prophet speaks not as one who hazarded a conjecture. He foresaw the event with absolute certainty, yet did Hazael act with perfect freedom when he went and fulfilled the prophecy of Elisha.

I believe, my brethren, that it is quite as easy to see how God’s predestination and man’s responsibility are perfectly compatible, as it is to see how diving foreknowledge and human free agency are consistent with one another. Doth not the very fact of foreknowledge imply a certainty? Is not that which is foreknown certain? Is not the fact sure to be when God foreknows that it will be? How could it be foreknown conditionally? How could it be foretold conditionally? In this instance, there was no stipulation or contingency whatever. It was absolutely foretold that Hazael would be king of Syria. The prophet knew the fact right well, and he clearly descried the means; else, why should he look into Hazael’s face, and weep? God foreknew the mischief that he would do when he came to the throne; yet that foreknowledge did not in the least degree interfere with his free agency.

Nor is this an isolated and exceptional case. The facts most surely believed among us, like the doctrines most clearly revealed to us, point all of them to the same inference. The predestination of God does not destroy the free agency of man, or lighten the responsibility of the sinner. It is true, in the matter of salvation, when God comes to save, his free grace prevails over our free agency, and leads the will in glorious captivity to the obedience of faith. But in sinning, man is free, — free in the widest sense of the term, never being compelled to do any evil deed, but being left to follow the turbulent passions of his own corrupt heart, and carry out the prevailing tendencies of his own depraved nature. In reference to this matter of predestination and free will, I have often heard men ask, “How do you make them agree?” I think there is another question just as difficult to solve, “How can you make them differ?” The two may be as easily made to concur as to clash. It seems to me a problem which cannot be stated, and a subject that needs no solution. It is but a difficulty which we surmise, and theoretical dilemmas are always hard to deal with, and difficult to disentangle. When we look at matters of fact, the mist that clouds our understanding vanishes. We see God predestinating and man premeditating; God knowing fully, yet man acting freely; God ordaining every circumstance, yet man maneuvering to compass his own projects; in short, we see man accurately, but unconsciously, fulfilling all which was written in the wisdom of God, and that without any impetus of the Almighty upon his mind constraining or inciting him so to do. You will observe, in this chapter, three or four distinct instances in which both the foreknowledge and foreordination of God are distinctly proven; and yet, at the same time, the free agency of the creature is conspicuously set forth. That point, however, I have merely adverted to by way of introduction. My subject, on this occasion, as more immediately suggested by the words before us, is the common and too often fatal ignorance of men as to the wickedness of their own hearts.

—————

I. Let Us Expose And Expound This Ignorance.

Our ignorance of the depravity of our own hearts is a startling fact, Hazael did not believe that he was bad enough to do any of the things here anticipated. “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” He might have been conscious enough that his heart was not so pure but it might consent to do many an evil thing; yet crimes so flagrant as those the prophet had foretold of him, he thought himself quite incapable of committing. He could not believe that such wanton cruelty lurked in his breast, or that such barbarity towards women and children could be perpetrated with his sanction. Not yet, perhaps, was the ambition that aspired to the throne of Syria, or the treachery that issued in the murder of his master, fully ripe.

Ah, my brethren, the ignorance of Hazael is ours to a greater or less degree! In our natural state, we are oblivious of the depravity of our own hearts. How commonly we hear men deny that their hearts are depraved! They tell us that, though man be a little injured by the Fall, he is still a noble creature. His high and glorious instincts make amends, they would persuade us, for his low and beggarly vices. Such foolish conceits we impute to ignorance. Men account crimes revolting when they hear of their comrades being convicted of committing them, but they do not know the innate plague of their own heart. They have not yet le