Deuteronomy 1:6 Advance

NO. 2957
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12TH, 1905,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 24TH, 1875.

“The LORD our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.”- Deuteronomy 1:6

IT is a good thing sometimes to look back, — to take a retrospective view of our life. It is a very bad thing to live upon the past, — to say, “I believe I am a child of God because I had certain spiritual enjoyments and experiences ten or twelve years ago.” Ah! such stale fare as this will not feed hungry souls. They need present enjoyment, or, at least, present confidence in the ever-living God. Yet, brethren, we may sometimes gather fuel for today from the ashes of yesterday’s fire. Remembering the mercies of God in the past, we may rest assured concerning the present and the future.

If we have wisely learnt by experience, we may, from our own failures in the past, gain wisdom which shall enable us to avoid the evils which overcame us on former occasions. It is well to do as you may sometimes have seen the barge do own a river or canal. They walk backward, pushing with all their might backward, to drive their barge, forward; and, sometimes, we may go backward just far enough to help us to push forward, but no further than that. Never must any one of us say to himself, “What I was in my youth, or what I was in middle life, is a sufficient comfort for me now. Soul, take thine ease, for I have much goods laid up for many years.” That will never do, for we need to exercise a present faith, to enjoy a present love, and to live in present holiness and fear of the Lord. Yet it will help us if we remember all the way whereby the Lord our God has led us these many years in the wilderness.

But, coming to our text, we are reminded that we must expect changes: “Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.” Secondly, we ought not to make these changes without the authorization of our Divine Leader: “The Lord our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.” But, thirdly, in our spiritual pilgrimage, there are times when it becomes very clear that we have been long enough in a certain condition and need to make an advance towards the Canaan which is our blest inheritance.

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I. To begin, then, We Must Expect Changes.

Israel was not always to dwell at Horeb, and even the choicest place of divine manifestation is not always to be ours. The land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, and the hill Mizar, though very precious to us because of the spiritual experiences we have enjoyed there, are not to be our permanent places of abode. We have to journey onward, and pitch our tent somewhere else.

We need not wonder at this, my brethren and sisters, for this is a changing world. We should be out of gear with the whole creation if we did not frequently change. Behold how the year changed. It seems but yesterday that the rivers were locked in ice. Anon, we saw the flowers peeping up from the soil, and now we have reached midsummer, and shall soon be looking for the appointed weeks of harvest, and it will not be long before winter will be here, again. On this earth, on the greatest or on the; minutest scale, all things change, whether it be an empire that rises and passes away, or a crocus or a harebell that blooms and fades. All things that are, once were not, and by-and-by shall not, be; or, at least, the place which knoweth them now shall know them no more for ever. These forest once slept in an acorn cup. That some forest, beneath the axe, shall pass away, and vanish into smoke. All things change, and therefore we also must expect to change.

And, mark you, we have already changed. Perhaps we had a happy childhood, and can remember even now the songs of the nursery and the holy hymns of our cradle days. But there came a time when we had dwelt, ion, enough in that mount, for it would have been ill for us always to continue children. Then we were youths, and were at school, and perhaps we recollect with pleasure, those free days of boyhood and girlhood when, if we did not know the value of knowledge, at any rate we found that those who taught us had more pleasant ways of teaching than our fathers knew. But it was not well for us always to stay at school; there came a time when our parents felt, and we also felt, that we had stayed long enough in that mount. Since that, some of us have passed from change to change till we have come to: the full maturity of spiritual life; and some of you I see, with the snows of many a winter lying on your brows, are approaching yet another change; you know that, by-and-by, you must come to another, for it will be said of you, “You have dwelt long enough in this mount.” And so, through all the several stages of man we shall pass till we come to the blessed mount where we shall never dwell too long, nor ever feel that we have dwelt there long enough. But while we are beneath the moon, there must be waxings and wanings to all who come under the moon’s spell; and where the very heart of the earth, like a great sea, has its ebbs and its floods, we cannot but expect that we, too, should have our ebbs and our floods without us and within us.

We must expect to have changes, next, because it is good for us to have them; for, if not, we might become rooted to the earth.

This is not our rest; but if we were always in one place, and in one state, we should begin to think that it was. Have you no noticed, with regard to the brethren who are free from trouble, — who, to use a Scriptural simile, have not been emptied, from vessel to vessel, — how they settle on their lees, and what a scum generally rises upon the surface of such people’s hearts? Because they have no changes, they begin to this; that they shall continue for ever as they are. They do not put that thought into words, they are not quite so foolish; yet they have the notion treasured up in their hearts that tomorrow will be as this day, only more abundant, and all the future in a similar fashion. If we have a long-continued spell of calm weather, we, are apt to think that it will always be so; and if it always were so, perhaps we should get into as bad a condition as Coleridge pictures in his “Ancient Mariner.” Because there was no wind to drive the ship along, and the tropical sun was everywhere shining, everything was becoming corrupt. God knows that our tendency is in that direction, and therefore he makes us to be pilgrims and strangers here, as all our fathers were.

Were it not for changes, too, some would grow utterly weary. Some of God’s children would welcome almost any change from their present condition. They suffer, perhaps, from abject poverty, — perhaps, from unkindness on the part of those who ought to love and care for them it may be that their condition is one in which the iron enters into their soul. Possibly, their sorrow is a secret sorrow, and the more severe because it must be kept to themselves, and cannot be communicated to others. A worm, unseen by any human eye, it gnawing at their heart. They dare not mention it; if they did, they would not, be sympathized with, and might even be ridiculed. Ah! we little know the sorrows of others; and there are some, who look most cheerful, and are wise to look so, who ought to be praised because, with sacred patience, they keep their sorrow to themselves. There are some, whom you perhaps, are envying, who far more need your pity than they deserve your envy. There is much sorrow even among God’s saints, and it is a great mercy for them that the Lord sometimes turns their captivity. It seemed a pity that, when Job had all his treasures, there should come such a change to him, and that he should have to sit down among the ashes; but when he sat among the ashes, it was a happy circumstance for him that a change came, and that “the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.” What if you are the lowest spoke of the wheel just now? You will be the highest spoke in less than a minute, for the wheel is always turning round. You are not in a permanent position as to your low estate any more than as to your high estate; if prosperity does not endure, neither doth adversity it is written, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning;” the hours of the night will pass away in due course, and the joys of the morning will recompense you for the sorrows of the season of darkness.

Besides, dear friends, it is well that we should have these changes, because, if we did not, we might all of us become unwatchful. I do not know anything that helps more to take away the freshness and vigor with which a man does a thing, than for him to do that particular thing every day. The same kind of thing happens when he does many times something that at first is very trying. If you put a man into one of the big boilers over in Southwark, when they are putting in the rivets, — well, I should not like to be that man, for the hammering is apt to make him deaf; yet I am told, by those who have to be inside the boiler to hold the rivet-head, that they do not know anything about the great noise, for they have got used to it. ’They are like the blacksmith’s dog, that will go to sleep under the anvil when the sparks are flying all around him; and it is possible to get used to anything in life. The sentinel, who stands still in his box, must not be very severely blamed if he goes to sleep. It is a good thing for him if he has a little walk to take, so that he can go to and fro with his rifle on his shoulder, and thus may be able to keep awake by a change of posture. He may have a difficulty in doing that, however, if the watch is to long continued. The mill-horse, that goes round and round perpetually in a certain track, learns to sleep as he goes his round. There was a prisoner, who was sentenced to the cruel punishment of being awakened every quarter of an hour throughout the night; but, at last, he learned to answer to the knock, and still sleep right on, and so was not disturbed one whit.

I can well understand how, abiding in one state, we may get to be mechanical as a matter of routine, with no life, and no vigor. I wonder how some of you would feel if you had to preach as often as I have; I wonder whether you would not find that, it was apt to become rather mechanical. That is one of the things which I dread almost beyond all else), and I trust that it, will never become so with me, for I feel that, if our ministry ever becomes merely mechanical, our usefulness will be completely destroyed. But the same thing may happen in Christian life; you may get to live mechanically. I have seen professedly Christian people, who have done the right thing, but they have done it while they have been sound asleep. Did you ever or go into a congregation-it has not been my lot to see such a sight often, but I have seen such a sight, — where the minister has been fast asleep, and the preaching has been nothing better than articulate snoring? There, the people sing while they are asleep, and pray while they are asleep; there is no life, no force, no power, no change of any sort. Well now, if you could burn that meeting-house down, and the good man had to preach to-morrow in the little meadow by the side of it, why, he would be wide awake then, and so would all his people be. The mere change of position would do them good. Sometimes, sitting in a different seat might help people to feel a little more attentive to the message. It is for this reason that the Lord comes, and shakes us up, and we begin to awake out of sleep, and each one says, “Where am I? New troubles have given me new grace and new comforts; so, Lord, I bless thee for them. Give me new praises.” Thus the change begins to do us good; it lifts us out of the old ruts, and sets us doing something different from what we have done before, which we are able to do with a measure of freshness which we have not previously known. That may be one reason why we have changes.

Another reason is this; if we have no changes in our pilgrimage, it is quite clear that we shall make no progress. If the children of Israel had remained at Horeb, they would never have reached the land of Canaan. We cannot stay in one place, and go on to another at the same time. So, shifts and changes are often promotive of growth. See, there is a tree, which has grown in the place it now occupies as much as it can grow there, because there is not much earth there, and there is, besides, a pan of rock just underneath it from which it cannot derive any nutriment. Now, if with care the husbandman lifts the tree, and shifts it to another position where the sail is deeper and richer, the tree will develop wondrously; and, sometimes, it is so with us. We have grown as big in Christ as we ever shall grow in that particular position, so now we must be shifted into a new one. Why, our very comforts may be like a pan of rock under the tap-root of our soul. We cannot get down any deeper, and it may be that our circumstances but us in like huge walls through which the roots of our spiritual being cannot penetrate to get fresh nourishment. To make us grow, it is a good thing that we do not always remain in one position.

And, moreover, I believe that our removes help us to grow in proportion; for one condition of life may make us grow only in one way. There is one set of trials that, we have, and they develop a certain set of graces; or there is one kind of service that we perform, which brings out one special faculty, and strengthens and sanctifies it; but God does not want his children to grow so as to have their arms twice as long as their toes, and he does not want the trees of his own right-hand planting to be lop-sided trees, sending all their branches out either toward the East or the West, and having no boughs for the other pantie of the compass. God would have us to be developed as manhood should be, — each faculty and limb and muscle having its fair share of harmonious growth, and the whole keeping up that equilibrium which is characteristic of all Glad’s works. My dear brethren, you have been in a very comfortable position for a long time, and you know that you have never had a trial to test your patience. The result is, that you have not any patience. You are very impatient if you have ever such a little trouble. Now, the Lord is going to shift you into a place where you will need a great deal of patience, and he will give it to you. And there is another side of your character of which you know next to nothing, and which none of your friends suppose that you possess; but the Lord is going to bring that out. He has painted one part of your portrait, and he is now going to turn his attention, by his blessed Spirit, to another side of it, that it may be seen that you are a representation of all the graces of the Christian character. You ought to be glad that it is so, for who knoweth how much of glory God is about to get from you through this change, which, perhaps, you are looking upon with the greatest-possible dread?

Once more, and then I shall have given reason enough why we must expect changes. It may be, brethren, that we undergo changes in order that we may do more good. Some Christian man, perhaps, who has long been in one position, has practically brought to Christ all who ever will be brought in by him in that place. I know that it is so with ministers. We sow our seed, and we reap our harvest, and it would be very wise of some brethren if they would just take their sickles, and go off to another field, and sow and reap there. After you have been a long while fishing in one pond, and have caught all the best of the fish, it will be a weary task to go on fishing there; so, do as wise angler would do, take your rod and line off to another pond, and try there. Changes for God’s servants are not at all things for which they ought to be blamed; at least, I know some ministers, whom I would not blame if they were to make a change; neither do I think that the people of their charge would to particularly anxious to retain them. It is the same with us in our Christian life. It may be that we have done all the good we can do in our own family at home. Well, then, God is going to put us into another family it may be that, from our present standpoint, we are only capable of a certain form of good; so the Lord is going to shift us, and make different men and women of us, that we may be fitted for another form of service; and it is a blessed thing to be furnished and equipped for all the work of the Lord, whatsoever it may be that he commits to our charge.

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II. And now, secondly, and very briefly, Thue Lord’s People Are To Be Careful That They Do Not Make Changes Without Divine Authorization:

“The Lord our God spake unto us in Holeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.”

The children of Israel had a fiery-cloudy pillar to guide them in their many wanderings; and if the pillar did not more, they stopped. Whether it was a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, they stopped while the pillar stopped; and when the pillar moved, then they moved, even though they had scarcely pitched their tents; and, brethren, let us also always seek divine guidance, let us put ourselves under the protection of providence, especially in making changes.

Some make changes out of mere love of novelty. Some make changes because they think that anything new will be better than what they have at present. My dear brother, you knew the temptations that assail you now, so I should not advise you to seek to have a new set, about which you know nothing. My dear sister, the cross that you have been carrying did not, at first seem to fit your shoulders, but your shoulders have by degrees become fitted to it, so you had better keep that cross than seek another. There are many people who leap out of the frying-pan into the fire, as our old proverb says. They think that things are going to be much better with them as soon as they make a change, but they had better “let well alone,” as another proverb says, for “as a bird that wandereth from her nest, so it a man that wandereth from his place.” There have been many people who have changed from side to side, just as sick persons restlessly move to and fro, merely shifting their position, yet all the while keeping their pain. One of the greatest blessings that we can have is a contented mind; and if we have that, we shall not be anxious for a change.

Do not change because of a mere whim; let not that be your reason for altering your position. Do not change from worldly motives, and be not always seeking the best for yourself. Do not change because of distrust, or because of anger with thy God. If he bids thee stand where thou art, stand thou there, and die at thy post if need be; but, if he bids thee go, then go, though it would make a rent as if thy very heart were cleft in twain. It will be better for thee thus to suffer then to disobey thy Lord. We do not make many mistakes in life where we absolutely give ourselves up to God’s guidance, because, though we do not hear voice speaking out of the oracle, and we have not, our way mapped out for us as on a chart, yet, somehow or other, if we are honestly seeking to do right, and yet are about to make a mistake, God graciously interposes, and prevents the mistake, or he overrules what evidently was a mistake in such a way that it turns out to be the right thing after all. Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it, to pass. You are not fatherless; you are not left without a guide. Poor tempest-tossed and weather-beaten baroque, thou still hast a helmsman; thou art not a derelict, left to drift upon the sea at the mercy of every current and every gale. There is within thee, O believer, One who is strong of hand and keen of eye, who steers thee through the fiercest storms and direst tumults of the sea, making even these to contribute to thy progress towards the desired heaven. Be not swift to change because of any reason of thine own, but, be not slow to change if God bids thee do so. When the time comes, and you have dwelt long enough in this mount, up with the stakes, roll up the tent lines, and put the canvas on the camel’s back, and be off to the next halting-place which the Lord has marked out for thee, for he has gone before these to prepare thy way.

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III. I will not, dwell longer upon that topic, but pass on to notice that There Are Some Places, Spiritually, In Which God’s People Have Dwelt Quite Long Enough. I wish to speak to the heart of everyone here; take home what belongs to you, and may the Spirit of God be pleased to apply it to your soul!

Some of you know that you are not happy, and that you lack something, but you do not know what it is that you lack. Some of you used to be very happy, at one time, in the pleasures of the world; but, somehow, either they have changed or else you have. You have an empty space in your heart now, and you cannot fill it. The glass seems to have come off the world’s amusements; and your businesses, which used to occupy you from morning to night, has become distasteful to you. You feel that you want something, but you do not know what that something is; let me tell you that what you really want is your God. Surely you have lived long enough without him, you have lived long enough in sin, you have lived long enough in impenitence, you have lived long enough in danger of the wrath to come. O prodigal son, thy father calls thee to come home! Thou surely hast had enough of riotous living, enough of the swine-trough and the company of the hogs, enough of the citizens of that country, and their scorn and cruelty, enough of rags, and enough of the husks that the swine feed upon. Say now, “I will arise, and go to my father;” and if thou sayest this, the Spirit of God helping thee so to do, this very hour thou shalt be in the embrace of thy God, thou shalt receive the kisses of his love, the best robe shall be put upon thee, and thou shalt be welcomed home even as the prodigal in the parable was.

The mount mentioned in our text, was Mount Horeb, or Sinai, — the mount that burned with fire, the mount around which they set bounds so that, if so much as a beast touched the mount, it should be stoned or thrust, through with a dart it was that mountain from which they heard the thunder pealing while the law was being proclaimed in a voice so terrible that they entreated that they might not hear it any more. I believe there are some here, — I had almost said that I hope there are, — who have been long standing at the foot of Sinai. You have heard the thunder of that dreadful voice, and you have felt condemned; your soul is in bondage even now. If ever there was a slave in this world, you are one; you have the festers on you, and you have the cruel whip perpetually flagellating your conscience. Other slaves do have rest sometimes, but you get none; you are tortured and tormented; you are almost like the fiend himself when he walked through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none. Well do I remember when I was in your present condition, and I was in it, oh, so long! And blessed was the day when my Lord said to me, “Thou hast dwelt long enough; in this mount,” and then I came to Calvary, and the blood of sprinkling, and I had done with Sinai. Yet I have never felt regret that I lingered so long at the foot of Sinai. I shall regret it if any of you do so; but I do not regret it in my own case, because I think it was needful for one, who was to be a public teacher, that he should have more depression of spirit and more trial than anybody else, that he might know the ins and outs of this matter in his own experience, and so be able to help others who may be tortured in a similar way. But there is no reason why you, my friend, should have this experience, for it may be that you are not to be a public teacher; and it would be well for you if, this very moment, the spirit of bondage were cast out of you and the Spirit of adoption took possession of your soul. You need not remain at the foot of Sinai, for, as I found out, there is another hill, called Calvary. You need not listen to the threatenings of the law, for there is another voice, the voice of the blood of Jesus, “which speaketh better things than that of Abel.” If you will, by simple faith, but listen to that voice, you will learn that it speaks peace, not punishment, and cries out for mercy, not for justice. O tempted, distressed, despairing soul, thou hast dwelt long enough in mount Sinai! At this glad hour, the silver trumpet proclaims a jubilee for thee. Thine inheritance, which thou hast forfeited, has been redeemed; and thou thyself, once sold into slavery, art now manumitted, for the price of thy redemption has been paid to the utmost farthing.

There is another mount, a little further on, to which some of my friends have come, — the mount of Little Faith. They do believe in God now; they have looked to Jesus, and have been lightened; yet they still see men as trees walking. Now and then, they have high days and holidays, and then they know whom they have believed, and have great joy in the Lord; but, at other times, they get down in the dumps, and sing, — or rather, moan, —

’Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought, —
’Do I love the Lord, or no?
’Am I his, or am I not?’

Some of these are the very best people in the world, and I would sooner see a man always doubling his interest in Christ and walking humbly and carefully before God, than presuming upon his own safety, and getting proud, and then venturing into temptation, and falling into sin. There are some of God’s children, who are truly his, but who seem to be like those flowers that grow best in shady places. If they had too much sunshine, I do not know what might become of them; but these people do not allow themselves that luxury. They are constantly troubled. They say that they believe, yet the petition always has to be added, “Lord, help our unbelief.”

Now, my brother or my sister, if you are in this condition, do you not think that you have dwelt long enough in this mount? I knew you when you used to be raising such doubts and questions five years ago. Is it not time that, you abandoned that bad habit? You never complain of a baby for cutting its teeth, and you do not wonder if it has a lot of little complaints while it is a baby; but you do not expect it to cut its teeth, and to have all these little infantile diseases, when it gets to be a man. Do you not think that it is time that you had grown from being little children to become young men? And should not the young men begin to grow into fathers in the Christian church? We watch and tend you while you are the lambs of the flock; but are you always going to be lambs? You, who are forty, fifty, sixty years of age, and who ought to set an example to others by being courageous, and full of confidence, are you always going to be Feeble-minds and Ready-to-halts? What, are you always going to use crutches? Will you never outgrow them? Must we always wheel you about in a perambulator of rich consolation? Will you never walk alone? Will you never outgrow your days of weakness? You must have dwelt long enough, and far too long, in this mount. Remember that Jesus Christ declared that he had come that his, people “might have life.” Well, you have that, have you not? But he added, “and that they might have it more abundantly.” You have not that, but do not rest satisfied until you have it.

There is another company of professors, — men of brain, but with less heart than brain; — men of the Thomas order, who want a great deal of evidence to convince them; — who tarry in the mount of questioning. We have some persons of this kind, who, we trust, are Christians, but they always have some question to ask, and they come to see the pastor about it; and after that one is answered, they ask another, and then another and another. We are very glad to see them so thoughtful; we wish everybody was thoughtful, and we do not want people to take things for granted just because we say them, we like to have them enquiring. But these people are always enquiring, and they seem to have been always enquiring. If I have lost my way, on a foggy night, I do not mind enquiring; but, I like to move on a little, and not stand still, and keep on enquiring which is the way. There are some people who are always in a fog, and always enquiring, and every new heresy that is started gives them a new set of enquiries. It is a wretched life that they lead themselves, and other people, too; and I may well say to them, “Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount.”

Just think, my Christian brother, while you have been vainly trying to find out how many angels can stand on the point of a needle, your brother has been winning souls for Jesus Christ. You have been sitting up at night seeking to discover the meaning of the tenth toe of the great image mentioned in the book of Daniel, and of these little horn an the fourth beast, and you have been puzzling yourself as to what is going to happen at a certain period of the world’s history; but you have not found out much yet. Now, if you had been visiting the sick, and the poor, and the ignorant, and going after the lost sheep of the house of Israel, would not your occupation have been much more remunerative? Would it not have brought you a brighter crown at the last great day? Enquire, certainly, as to all truth revealed in the Scriptures; but many of you have already dwelt quite long enough in that mount of questioning; it is time that you had ascertained that, there are some things that are settled. I spoke with a man, some time ago who said that he made his creed every week. I thought that he must be a disciple of the moon, though I did not call him a lunatic yet he was very like one, and you might as well measure the moon for a suit of clothes as judge such a man by the creed which he is constantly changing. Oh, but there are same things about which we are sure; and I bless God that some of us can say that the gospel, which we preached more than twenty years ago, is precisely the same gospel that we preach now; we are not conscious of having shifted our ground with regard to any of its doctrines, precepts, warnings, or invitations it is a grand thing when all old divine is able; to say, as my own dear grandsire said to me not long before he died, “For sixty years I have preached the gospel, and the sermon that I preached the first time I went into the pulpit, I could have preached the last time I went there, for I have made no alteration in my sentiments. The truths that God taught me at the beginning, I have held fast, though I have been continually learning more and more of the meaning of them.” It is very needful, if we are to do any good to others, though for a while we go to the mount of enquiry, that we should feel that there comes a time when we have made up our minds, and have learned something which we never mean to question again; we have dwelt long enough in that mount.

At Horeb, Moses divided the people, and marshalled them, and said that such-and-such a tribe should go first, and another second, and another last. He drilled them as an army, yet they were not always to be content with being marshalled and drilled, they were to go forward, and possess the land of Canaan. They had dwelt long enough in that mount of marshalling and drilling, and some of you Christian people have had quite enough marshalling and drilling. Is it not time for those of you, who are not doing anything for Christ, to begin to do something for him? I do not think that, when a young man is converted, he ought at, first; to begin working for Jesus Christ as the main business of his life. He should go to Christ’s school, and try to learn something that he can afterwards talk about to others. I was very pleased with a dear brother, a working-man, who joined the church here a month or two ago. When I put to him the question, “What are you doing for Christ?” he said, “Well, sir, I have the heart to do a good deal, and I hope I shall yet do it; but, at the present time, I am trying to learn more about him; for, if I were to go and speak to some of my mates about Jesus Christ, they would be more than a match for me, and I should not like to have my Savior man a subject of ridicule.” I thought there was sanctified common sense in that answer, and I would advise other young Christians to go and do likewise; only do not forget to serve your Master when you have learned the way to do it. You Mr. Recruit, have surely practiced “the goose step” long enough; can you not now go forward? To my certain knowledge, you have been in the army for a dozen years, could you not do a little fighting if you were to try? Could you not learn to load a gun, and fire it? Have you been studying the properties of gunpowder all this time, and done nothing else to prove that you are a soldier? Fie on you!

I fear that the Church of Christ as a whole, has been tarrying far too long in the mount of marshalling and drilling. Some clever brother draws up a fine plan and the next thing is to form a committee, with a president, and a vice-president, and all manner of officers. You are getting old now, like a house afire; and that is how the thing usually ends, — in smoke! There is the paraphernalia; there is the marshalling; there is the grand parade; and there is the army, — on paper! But when will the army begin the battle in real earnest? When will the Church of Christ get to close quarters with sinners? When will every Christian man and woman really begin working for Christ and cease talking about it? We have had the resolutions which have been proposed and seconded, and carried unanimously, and then forgotten! It is significant that there is no book containing the resolutions of the apostles, but we have the Acts of the apostles; and there will be something worth recording in the Lord’s “book of remembrance” if we turn our good resolutions into acts of holy service. Let us get to the work, for we have tarried long enough in this mount.

There are many other “mounts” that I might mention, but I do not think I need do so. Unto whatsoever truth you have attained, dear friend, make sure of that, and then go on to something beyond. Do not stop anywhere, for you have not yet attained, neither are you yet perfect. You can buy a box of the patent perfection paint, and cover over all the knots and imperfections in the wood, but the wind and the rain will test your fine-looking house, and you will find the paint, cracking and the bad joints and the holes in the wood showing before long. At least, it is so with me in a spiritual sense. Imperfections will reveal themselves very soon, and the paint will not answer after all. But, brother, never be satisfied with yourself, for self-satisfaction is the end of all progress. A painter said to his wife, one morning, “I shall never paint again.” “Why, my husband?” asked the good woman.

Because the picture, that I have just finished, perfectly satisfies me; it realizes my ideal; and, therefore, I know that, now, my genius is exhausted.” When a man says, “Yes, I am a splendid fellow. I will tell everybody what I am, only I will do it very cunningly, and say this is what grace has done for me; I will thank God for it, for the Pharisee in thee temple had grace enough to do that;” — then, depend upon it, brother, the very power to grow has gone from you; for, if you were growing, you would have growing pains; you would feel like the chick in the egg, that wants to get out. Oh, how often my soul feels cribbed, and cabined, and confined, within my imperfect self! She will get completely free one day; and, in anticipation of that blessed time, I joyously sing, —

Welcome, sweet hour of full discharge,
That sets my longing soul at largo,
Unbinds my chains, breaks up my cell,
And gives me with my God to dwell.

Till that “sweet hour” arrives when you will dwell with God for ever, do not delude yourself with the notion that you have got where you may stop. “Forward, onward,” must still be your motto. O eagle of God, if you are of the true royal breed, though you have looked the very sun in the face with eye undimmed, and soared till you have left the clouds far below you, yet still higher, higher, higher, must you soar! If you could distance the sun himself, and reach a yet more distant orb, still higher, higher, must you soar. “Excelsior” is the motto of every Christian until, at last, he comes into the very presence of his God, and sees him face to face. You never see an eagle roosting upon a thorn-bush, and saying, “I can get no higher;” and if any of God’s birds of paradise do that, I would bid them beware of the fowler. My self-satisfied brother, he is after you, and his big net will enclose you if you are not careful. Mount, higher, brother! Higher yet, for, however high you have ascended, you have dwelt long enough in that mount, and must advance to something higher and better still. May God help you so to do, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

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Deuteronomy 8:3-6
THE PILGRIM’S GRATEFUL RECOLLECTIONS.
NO. 939
DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, JULY 3RD, 1870,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years. Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Therefore then shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.” — Deuteronomy 8:3-6.

OUR aptness to forget God’s mercies, is, alas! too conspicuous. It has been said that the annals of a prosperous and peaceful country are singularly uninteresting; does this arise from the fact that we do not make memoranda of our mercies, or at least if we do they are far more readily blotted out than the record of our sorrows? We trace our joys in the sand, but we write our afflictions on marble. We forget the streams of mercy, never ceasing, which flow so continually parallel with our pathway. If we thus ungratefully forget, it should cause us serious reflections, when we see that God does not forget. Here in this Book he brings to his people’s memories all the mercies they have received, because they were always present before his own mind. The child may forget the kindness of its mother, but the mother doth not forget what she bore, and what she has sacrificed for her child. The friend may forget what he has received, but it is not likely that the benefactor will forget what he has bestowed. If God’s memory therefore records all that he has given me, let me be ashamed to let my memory suffer these things to slip. What God counts worthy of his divine recollection let me record on the pages of my memory, and often let me peruse the record.

We are also far too slow to draw the inference of obligation from benefits received. We receive the blessing, but we do not always feel that a proportionate debt is due in return to God, the bounteous giver of every good gift; yet grace has its obligations as well as laws — obligations which honorable minds reckon to be among the first to be discharged. If I do not do what I ought because I fear the law, at any rate let me prove that I am not so base as to be ungrateful to undeserved mercy and love. It has been said by some, and there have been others whose lives have almost proved it, that the driving of the law is more effectual to produce works than the sweet drawings of the gospel; but it ought not to be so — and if it be so, the fault is in the man acted upon, and not in the principle of gratitude; for with right-minded men, with men educated by the Spirit of God, with men who are lifted up out of the common mass of mankind and endowed with the higher life, the highest motive that can be suggested even by infinite wisdom is the in motive which is drawn from the transcendent love and grace of God.

Now, brethren, though we forget our obligations, it is clear from the text that God does not, for here, after giving a summary of his benefits, he concludes by drawing an inference with the word “therefore,” and he tells Israel that having received so much, they were bound to walk in his ways and in his fear, and to keep his commandments. If he thus considers, whose wisdom none dare dispute, let us voluntarily, cheerfully, practically, concede that such is the very truth, and ask that he will help us to be obedient, and resolve that, receiving his help, we will say in our hearts and lives: —

Loved of my God, for him again
With love intense I burn;
Chosen of him ere time began,
I choose him in return.

I shall now ask your attention to the list of favors given in the text, with the view of enforcing the divine conclusions there from.

—————

I. Let Us Pass In Review The Favors Of The Lord, taking what he did for Israel as being typical of what he has done for us.

1. The first blessing mentioned in our text is that of humbling: “And be humbled them, and suffered them to hunger.”

Not very highly esteemed among men will this favor be; and at first perhaps it may be regarded by ourselves as being rather a judgment, one of the terrible things in righteousness, than a great favor from the Most High. But rightly judged, this is one of the most admirable proofs of the Lord’s lovingkindness, that he does riot leave his people in their natural pride and obstinacy, but by acts of grace brings them to their right mind. Note in the text, that the humbling was produced by hunger. What makes a man so humble as to be thoroughly in want? It was not hunger for luxury merely, bread and water failed them. How could the soil beneath them of hot sand yield them a harvest? Where could they find a stream to slake their dreadful thirst, which the broiling sun and the arid sand continually increased? To want bread and water is a short way of making a man feel that he is but a man, and that he is dependent, very dependent, upon the providence of God. Their hunger was, no doubt, increased in its power to humble them by their position. They were hungry not, in Goshen, nor in Canaan, but hungry in a waste, howling wilderness, where, let them search as they would, they could find nothing available for sustenance. They were reduced to the most abject condition of spirit, and broken by the most urgent wants; and yet, I say, this was a great blessing to them, for, being humbled, they were put in a position where God could bless them. Speaking after the manner of men, there are some positions where God cannot bless us. If we are proud and lifted up, it is not consistent to the divine honor and glory that he should smile upon us; but when we are laid low at the foot of the throne, then there is an opportunity for God to come and deal with us in pity and grace. It was good, therefore, for Israel to be placed where God’s mercy could flow to them. Being there, and being hungry, there were opportunities given for divine grace and bounty; a man who is not hungry cannot be fed — why needs he, at any rate, to be fed? and if fed, he will not be grateful as a hungry man. But now when they are famishing, now will God work his miracles. The open windows of heaven shall, to their astonishment, rain down their daily food, and up through those open casements shall their praise and thankfulness ascend to the throne of God. There is room for mercy where there is misery, space for grace where there is poverty. Happy was Israel, therefore, to he humbled by hunger, and placed where mercy could glorify itself. They were thus, by their being made needy brought to receive superior supplies. If they had possessed the corn of Egypt, they would have missed the manna of heaven. If beneath their feet there had sprung up crops of common wheat, from which they could have reaped their daily supplies, they would have missed the angels’ food which fell from heaven around their camp. Absence of meals was more than compensated by the presence of manna. It is a blessed thing to have a famine of the creature, if thereby we are supplied by the Creator!

Now, my dear friends, just think for a minute that this was your case and mine. Years ago, in the case of some of us, the Lord met with us and brought us into a painful state of spiritual hunger. All our supplies failed us, we had thought before that, we were at feast as good as others, that we might somehow work our way to heaven, and we were satisfied, after a fashion, with worldly joys; but the Lord suddenly took away our earthly comforts, or took away our rest and enjoyment of them, and at the same time we saw sin and its punishment before us, and we were brought to a condition in which we were like those in the wilderness, who were afflicted with fiery serpents, and bitten with scorpions. Our thoughts would not suffer us to rest; our sins plagued and tormented us. We looked round for comfort, and we could find none; we looked and looked again, and we only found fresh cause to despair. We were driven right away from self. What a mercy it was that we were so humbled, for then the Lord could reveal his love to us! What a blessing it was that we were so wretched, for then there was room for Jesus to come with his pardoning blood, and the Holy Spirit to come with his divine quickening, and the promise of the Father to come with all its fullness of grace and truth. And oh! how blessedly, being deprived of earthly consolations, were we supplied with heavenly ones. Our self-confidence, what a blessing it was to lose it, for we had confidence in Christ instead of it! Our carnal security, happy were we to see it wither, for we had security in Christ given us in the place of it and our self-righteousness. Thrice happy was it for us that it was totally dried up, for now we come to drink water out of the living rock of Christ Jesus, and he has become our joy, our song, and our salvation. You remember well that humbling season — you have had such seasons since. You have been brought since then into great spiritual straits, when you found that all the supposed grace which you had in store utterly failed you, even as the manna which the children of Israel unbelievingly tried to lay by in store — it bred worms and stank. You have been brought down to deep spiritual poverty, but that has been a great blessing to you, for each renewed season of soul poverty has been the prelude for a fresh season of divine manifestation of grace. When I find myself brought very low in spirit, and made to see the depravity of my heart, and to groan over my own weakness, I have learned to expect better things. I have been thankful for humblings because I have learned by experience that when I am emptied the Lord means to fill me; that when I am brought low it is only a preface to being lifted by the divine Spirit. Surely for these reasons we may reckon our humblings amongst the choicest favors of heaven; and as here the humbling stands first in the text, so let it not be last in our song. As it is put here as the frontispiece to the volume of grateful remembrances, let it be prominent in our minds. “He humbled thee, and caused thee to hunger.” Oh, blessed hour in which he prostrated my soul at his feet! Oh, happy season when he stripped me of what I thought my glory, but which were filthy rags! Oh, thrice memorable period when he wounded me with the arrows of conviction, when he slew me by the law, for this was but a preparation for healing me with his touch of love, and making me alive with the eternal life which is in Christ Jesus. The first mercy, then, is that of humbling the soul.

2. I shall have to notice, in the second place, the divine feeding. We shall now see ourselves mirrored in the ease of Israel as in a glass. “He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee.” How sweetly that follows, “suffered thee to hunger and fed thee;” the light close on the heels of the darkness. Is there a desponding soul here who has been suffered to hunger? “Blessed are ye that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for ye shall be filled.” That “and” in the text is like a diamond rivet, none can ever take it out or break it. “He suffered thee to hunger and fed thee.” He who suffers thee to hunger will be sure to feed thee yet upon the bountiful provisions of his grace. Be of good cheer, poor mourning soul.

Now let us notice what our spiritual food has been, brethren, said the first remark shall be, we have been fed spiritually every day; we have had day by day our souls’ daily bread; as the manna fell daily, so has the food of our souls been given us from time to time by the power of the Spirit of God. Israel in the wilderness was always on the brink of starvation, yet never knew a want. There was nothing between the people’s being starved except (and what a blessed exception!), except the divine interposition. They could not go to their stores, and say, “Here are tons of food.” They could not, as you may in going down the Thames, look at huge warehouses full of corn laid by in store; no, no, there was not a halfpenny worth of store in the house of any Israelite as he went to bed, the whole place was bare, all was gone. There was nothing between them and being starved, I say, but the divine faithfulness. This is precisely how I have lived before the Lord ever since I have known the Lord; there has been nothing between my soul and falling from grace, except the divine faithfulness: no, nothing whatever at all of the past experience, or all the present knowledge, that could have stood me in any stead in the time of trial. Not a man among you has anything spiritually to depend upon but the daily interpositions of covenant grace. Let the child of God remember this, and when he feels himself very weak in himself, and driven to his Lord in prayer, let him rejoice that he is just where God would have him be. When I am weak, then am I strong; when I have nothing, then have I all things. While I have nought to depend upon of the old corn of the land, the manna will continually fall, and day by day my strength shall be renewed. Has that been your experience, dear brother? If it has been, then every day give God a fresh song, who interposes between your soul and death.
Yet though the manna came every day, it was always sufficient. I spoke of starvation, but Israel never had any reason even to think of it, for the provender which God sent was not limited so that any man could say, “It is not sufficient for me.” What sufficed one man might not suffice another in ordinary food, but of the manna every man had enough. So to this day it has been in grace with every believer. God has given to you and to me, up till this hour, all the grace we have needed, and though he has given us so much, there is as much more left in the infinite provision as if he had never drawn upon it. Go to the richest man’s store, and take something out, and there is so much less remaining; but when the manna came from heaven, there was just as much manna left after it had come as before. So the grace of God is just as all-sufficient after you and I have received as it was at the first. The only stint the Israelite knew in the matter of the manna was the limit of his own capacity to receive. He might have as much as ever he could eat; and if we have not had more grace, it has been our own fault; if we have not lived nearer to God, if we have not possessed more joy, or been more useful, we have not been straitened in our God, we have been straitened in our bowels. We have had the provisions of his grace day by day, we have had as much as we asked for, and often a great deal more, and we might have had as much more as we would if we had but had larger desires and greater confidence in God. The Lord’s name be praised for daily food in this wilderness, and for sufficient food.

The manna was a very mysterious thing. It is said in the text that it was food that they did not know, and which their fathers had not known; and, certainly, the grace of God which has kept us to this day is a most mysterious power upon us. The worldling does not understand what it is to eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood, and though we know what it is by sweet experience, we could not explain it. We have lived to this day upon the promises of God, upon the inflowing of the divine Spirit into our souls, but we cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth. Nor do our fathers after the flesh know; and though our sires, who have gone before us to heaven, fed on the same food, yet it was to them mysterious as it is to us. Talk of wonders, the Christian man is the greatest wonder in the world! Speak of miracles, what is the Christian life but a continued miracle, a series of miracles, like links in a chain, one following the other — kept alive in the midst of death, and supported by a marvellous food, which the world knoweth nothing of; we are wonders unto many, and more so to ourselves. Brethren, the manna came from heaven, and here is the very marrow of the truth as to what we have lived upon spiritually — we have lived upon heavenly food. If our supplies had depended on human ministry, they would have failed; if they had depended upon the mere reading of good books, there might be times when we could read to profit; but the everlasting well-Springs of divine love are not affected by our condition of body or of mind — the grace and love that are treasured up in Christ Jesus come to us when creature cisterns are broken, and all the help of friends is unavailing. From thee, great God, from thee we have derived the nutriment of our spiritual life, and it has always come in due season — up to this hour we have known no lack. Thou hast made us hunger when we have looked to earth for supplies, but when we have turned to thee, our souls have been satisfied with marrow and fatness! Blessed be thy name for evermore! Dear brethren and sisters, do endeavor to live more and more upon unseen things. Let your fellowship be with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Look not to the granaries of Egypt, stay not yourself on an arm of flesh. Israel in the wilderness had no grainaries, they looked neither to Moab nor Ammon, but they looked to Jehovah, and to Jehovah alone, and let it he so with you, and, assuredly, even in the time of famine, your spirit shall be satisfied.

After all, the children of Israel in the wilderness were fed on the best food that ever fell to the lot of mortals. They did eat angels’ food. Egypt and Assyria, with all their wealth, tasted not of bread which dropped from heaven, but poor Israel in the howling wilderness was fed with royal dainties. Let the sons of earth be nourished as they may, and fattened like kings’ sons, yet there are no faces that are so fair to look upon with holy joy and exultation, as the faces of the men who feed on Christ Jesus, who is the bread that came down from heaven; there are none who are so blest as those who live upon God himself, for they have this for their surpassing excellence, that eating as they do this bread, they live for ever. He that eats other bread derives temporary nourishment from it, but ere long he dies; he who feeds on Christ feeds on immortal food, and more, he becomes immortal himself — the food transforms the man. Matchless is the manna which comes from heaven, for it makes us heavenly and bears us up to the heaven from whence it came! They who live on Christ become like Christ; being fed upon him, they become conformed unto his image, made meet to be partakers of the glory of God in heaven. I wish I could speak so as to stir your hearts with gratitude, but the subject ought to do it without words of mine, and, sitting calmly here with Jordan sparkling before us, and Canaan hard by on the other shore, we are bound to remember all the way whereby the Lord our God hath led us, and the food which up to this day has never failed us.

3. The third favor mentioned in the text, upon which we will pause awhile is the remarkable raiment. “Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee.” This has been interpreted by some to mean that they were able constantly to procure from the surrounding nations fresh changes of clothing. Others have said, and there is truth in the remark, that they had among them persons of great skill, who were able to use the produce of the flocks and herds, so that they were not without clothes to supply their needs: and indeed if that be all the meaning, it declares a great cause for thankfulness. The tribes never became a ragged regiment, though always on the march they were always well dressed, their clothes waxed not old. But I am not among those who like to blot out every miracle from the word of God, and as the history of the children in the wilderness is altogether miraculous, and cannot be accounted for without the introduction of divine interposition, it seems to me that it is as natural to expect their raiment to be miraculously given as to expect their food to be. And the run of the text, if it were read by an intelligent child without any prejudice one way or the other, would suggest a miracle. It stands in the midst of miracles, and is one itself. “Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee.” Certainly this was the old interpretation which the rabbis put upon it, that by a continuous miracle their clothes did not wear out for the whole space of forty years. Though subject to the ordinary wear and tear incidental to travelling, yet their garments still continued to be as good at the end of forty years as they were when first they left the land of Egypt. I believe that to be what the text means. And how, spiritually it is the case with us. “Thy garments waxed not old upon thee.” Do you remember, brethren, when first you put your garments on? I do well remember when first I discovered, as Adam did in the garden, that I was naked, and I hid myself. I tried then as you did to make a fig-leaf covering for myself: that would have waxed old soon enough, for the fig leaves of our own righteousness soon wither and decay; but I was pointed to the righteousness which God had prepared, even as Adam and Eve were pointed to the coats of skins which the Lord God had made ready for them; and then I put on the robe of Christ’s righteousness which he had provided, and glory be to his name that garment has not waxed old upon me. Is it not so with you? You are not found naked this day. Perhaps you have been a believer forty or fifty years, but that robe of grace is ever new and evermore as fresh as at the first, and as suitable as at the beginning. All your nakedness is hidden from the face of God, and hidden from yourself too; you can now rejoice in the Lord, and approach him without fear. You do not want to hide yourself, but rather you wish to show yourself to God, and you say, “Search me, O God, and know my ways, try me, and know in my heart.” Our garment, then, which covers our nakedness, has not waxed old.

But we have a garment for more than this, namely, to make us acceptable. Jacob put on his brother Esau’s clothes, and he obtained the blessing of his father. We, too, have put on the garments of Christ, and have won the blessing; he who went into the feast and had not on a wedding garment was cast out; the wedding garment which we wear to-day is the righteousness which Christ has wrought out for us, find which he works in us by his Spirit; now, blessed be his name, that which we put on many years ago, has not waxed old yet, we are still accepted in the Beloved. That robe has endured much wear and tear; what with our imperfections and sins, shortcomings and transgressions, if it had not been divinely wrought, it would have been worn out long ago; but blessed be his name, I know, and you know, that we are as acceptable to God this day, as we were when, first we believed in Jesus. We are still dear children, still beloved of the Lord, still heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ Jesus, our garment of acceptance has not waxed old.

Besides, we have the garment of consolation. Men put on their clothes to warm and comfort them, and how often have we wrapped ourselves about with the promises of God’s word, and with the doctrines of revelation and made garments of them to screen us from the cold blast of tribulation! These, also, have not waxed old. Glory be to God for those everlasting promises! When we were young we trusted in them, and when we are old and grey-headed we shall still find them to be founts or consolation as clear, and true, and sure, and precious as ever they were. You cannot point me to a stale promise in all God’s book, neither can you find me a worn-out doctrine. The rabbis say that when the young Israelites grow older their clothes grew as they grew. I do not know how that was, but I do know that let us grow in mental stature as we may, the doctrines of the gospel still are suitable for us. If they were like milk to us when we were babes, they are strong meat to us when we become men. They always meet our needs and conditions, and thus we can joyfully say that the garment which covers our nakedness, which adorns us before God, and affords us consolation, has not waxed old these fort years. Blessed be the name of the Most High for all this.

4. But we pass on again. The next blessing for which we ought to be grateful is that sustained personal strength. Our spiritual vigor has not decayed during our sojourn in the wilderness, for it is written, “Neither did thy foot swell.” A swollen foot is the common ailment of pilgrims in the desert. Much marching over hot sand soon makes the foot become swollen and puffed up, or else it hardens it, and some read this text, “Neither did thy foot become callous.” In neither way in Israel’s case was the foot deformed, nor was walking rendered painful. For forty years the pilgrims footed it without pain, and though it was a weary land, yet their strength held out till they crossed the Jordan, and came into the promised rest. So it has been with us. Our foot has not swelled these forty years. In the way of perseverance we have been maintained and preserved. Personally I admire the grace which has kept me in my course, though assailed by many, many fierce temptations, and exposed to great perils in my position. If I wonder, I dare say each one of you has to wonder too. There have been scores of times since you made a profession, when your feet were almost gone, your steps had well nigh slipped, and yet your foot has not swollen, you are still on the way, in the way, and nearing to the end of the way, kept consistent, kept in godliness, even until now. What a blessing! Suppose you had been permitted to faint, suppose you had been suffered to fall on the road, and had no longer held on your way, you know what the result must have been, for only to perseverance is the promise made. But God has helped you to hold on to this hour, and he will aid you even to the end. Up till now you have held on: have confidence. He will keep you still. Your foot has not swelled in the way of perseverance.

Neither have you been lamed in the way of service. Perhaps you have been called to do much work for Christ, yet you have not grown tired of it, though sometimes tired in it; still you have kept to your labor, and found help in it. If you were ever called to preach the gospel, you would be compelled to see, even if you closed your eyes, how dependent you were upon God. Sabbath after Sabbath, and week day after week day, preaching still, having need to say something fresh continually, and often wondering where it will come from, the preacher is grateful that as yet his foot has not swollen. You too have gone to your Sunday-school, or you have held your position as a solitary testifier in the family, or you have served God as a missionary from door to door, and you have thought, “Surely, I shall come to the end of all I know, and all I can do,” but you have not yet. Your foot has not swollen all these years, you have kept on in the way of service.

So, too, your foot has not swollen in the way of faith. Such little faith you had at first, that you might well have thought it would all die out by now. See a spark that floats in the sea, see a stone that hangs in the air, surely these must come to an end; the one must be extinguished, and the other must fall! But it has not been so. God has not quenched the smoking flax, nor broken the bruised reed. Still your foot has not swollen. You believe in Jesus yet, and notwithstanding your unbelief, your faith still can give forth the cry of a loving child, and say, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”

In addition to all this, your foot has not swollen in the way of fellowship. You have walked with God, and you have not grown weary of the holy intercourse. Sometimes that walking with God has cost you much effort, much struggling with inward corruptions, much determination to be clear from the customs and the ways of ungodly men, and you had long ago been tired had not you leaned on your Beloved; but you have leaned so much on him, that your foot has not swollen; you can still walk with him, and hope to do so until you come to your journey’s end, and sit down with him for ever and ever.

Moreover, dear brethren and sisters, your foot has not swollen in the way of joy. You were happy young men in Christ Jesus, and you are happy fathers now. You were happy young women, when first you gave your heart to Christ, and you have grown to be matronly now, but you are as happy as in younger days. The novelty has not worn off, or rather one novelty has been succeeded by another, fresh discoveries have broken out upon you, and Jesus has still to you the dew of his youth. If the old light has passed away, yet the new light of a still brighter sun has come, and you are nearing the “sacred, high, eternal noon,” where the glory of God and of the Lamb shed splendor all around. He who walks with God Shall never weary, though through all eternity he continues the hallowed march. For all this we give to God our thanks yet again.

5. Bear with me when I notice in the fifth place the memorable blessing of chastisement. I must call special attention to it because God does so in these words, “Thou shalt also consider in thine heart.” That unswollen foot, and that unworn garment, you need not so much value as this, for this you are specialty bidden to consider, to meditate upon in your very heart, your deepest thoughts are to be given to it, and, consequently, your highest praises. “Consider in thine heart, that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.” My dear friends, I speak as one of the humblest of God’s servants, but I dare not withhold my testimony; I can truly say of everything I have ever tasted in this world of God’s mercy — and my path has been remarkably strewn with divine lovingkindness — I feel more grateful to God for the bodily pain I have suffered, and for all the trials I have endured of divers sorts, than I do for anything else except the gift of his dear Son. I am sure I have derived more real benefit and permanent strength and growth in grace, and every precious thing, from the furnace of affliction, than I have ever derived from prosperity. In fact, I have for years looked upon my great prosperity as being sent as a test and trial of my graces; I regard it as the severest of ordeals which I must lay before God humbly, and ask for grace to bear; but I have learned to regard affliction as being a sheltered nook in which I am more than usually screened from temptation, and in which I might expect to have the peculiar presence of the Lord my God. I am not fearful of my ballast, but I am very anxious about my sail. Moreover, I have discovered that there is a sweetness in bitterness not to be found in honey; a safety with Christ in a storm which may be lost in a calm. I know not how to express quite my meaning, but even lowness of spirits and deep sadness, have a peculiar charm within them which laughter in vain may emulate. It is good for me that I have been afflicted. Now I think if I were to take the testimony of many Christian friends here, they would have to say much the same; so then, as you know all this, let me say nothing about it but just this: Ponder and consider much the gratitude you owe to God for his chastening rod. Dwell much in your heart upon what God evidently regards as one of his distinguishing blessings. Do not pass over slightly what God would have you consider. Count the cross and the rod to be doubly worthy of your deepest thought. “Hear the rod and him that hath appointed it.” Remember that whenever you are chastened you are not chastened as a slave-master smites his victim, nor as a judge orders the criminal to be lashed, but as a man chasteneth his son so are you chastened. Your chastisement is a sign of sonship, it is a token of love. It is intended for your good. Accept it, therefore, in the spirit of sonship, and “despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, neither faint when thou art corrected of him.” Remember that chastisement is an assured token of the covenant relationship; it is the Lord thy God that chasteneth thee. If he were not thy God he might let thee alone; if he had not chosen thee to be his own, he would not take such care of thee; if he had not given himself to be thy treasure, he might not be so diligent in weaning thee from all other treasures; but because thou art his he will withdraw thy love away from this poor world. Perhaps he will take one child after another from thee, that all the love that was lavished on the child might flow towards himself. Perhaps he will leave thee a widow, that the love that ran in the channel of a husband may run altogether to himself. Perhaps he will take away thy riches, that the consolation thou didst derive from them may be all derived from him. Perhaps he will smite thee, and then lay thee on his own bosom, faint and helpless, that thou mayst derive a strength and a joy from fellowship, close, and near with himself, which thou wouldst never have had if it had not been that these other joys were removed. I have seen a little plant beneath an oak tree sheltered from the storm, and wind, and rain, and it felt pleased and happy to be so screened; but I have seen the woodman come with his axe and fell the oak, and the little plant has trembled with fear because its protection was removed. Alas! for me,” it said, “the hot sun will scorch me, the driving rain will drown me, and the fierce wind will tear me up by the roots.” But instead of these dreadful results, the shelter being removed, the plant has breathed freer air, drank more of the dews of heaven, received more of the light of the sun, and it has sprung up and borne flowers which else had never bloomed, and seeds that never else had sown themselves in the soil. Be glad when God thus visits thee, when he takes away these overshadowing but dwarfing comforts, to make thee have a clear way between thee and heaven, so that heavenly gifts might come more plentifully to thee. Bless God for chastenings; let the sweetest note of your music be to him that lays not by the rod, but like a father chasteneth his children for their good.

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II. Now your time is gone, but you must even be detained, for it is necessary to dwell upon the last thought, which is The Inference From All This.

All this humbling, feeding, clothing, strengthening, chastening, what of it all? Why this — “therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear Mm.” If you have not shared in these blessings, I shall not speak with you, for the inference would not tell upon you; but if in very deed and truth, every line here describes to the letter your Christian career, then let these arguments have power with you. He has done thus much for you, will you not serve him? Are you not his by a thousand bonds? Delivered out of deep distresses, supported under enormous burdens, forgiven heinous sins, saved with a great salvation, are you not now bound by every tie that can bind an honorable man, to be obedient to the Lord your God? Take the model of the text. Let your obedience be universal. Keep the commandments of the Lord, walk in his ways. Set your heart to the Scriptures to find out what the commandments are, and then, once knowing, perform at once. Settle it in your soul, that you only want to know it is his will, and you will, by his grace neither question nor delay, but whatsoever he saith unto you, you will do. Shut not your eyes to any part of his teaching, be not wilfully blind where Christ would guide you with his word. Let your obedience be entire. In nothing be rebellious. Let that obedience be careful. Doth not the text say, “Keep the commandments,” and doth not the first verse say, “Ye shall observe to do”? Keep it as though you kept a treasure, carefully putting your heart as a garrison round it. Observe it as they do who have some difficult art, and who watch each order of the teacher, and trace each different part of the process with observant eye, lest they fail in their art by missing any one little thing. Keep and observe. Be careful in your life. Be scrupulous. You serve a jealous God, be jealous of yourself. Let your obedience be practical. The text says, “Walk in his ways.” Carry your service of God into your daily life, into all the minutiae and details of it. Do not have an unholy room in your house. Let the bed-chamber, let the banqueting-hall, let the place of conversation, the place of business, let every place be holiness unto your Gold. Walk in his ways. Whereas others walk up and down in the name of their God, and boast themselves in the idols wherein they trust, walk you in the name of Jehovah your God, and glory always to avow that you are a disciple of Jesus, God’s dear Son, and let your obedience spring from principle, for the text says, “Walk in his ways, and fear him.” Seek to have a sense of his presence, such as holy spirits have in heaven who view him face to face. Remember he is everywhere; you are never absent from that eve. Tremble, therefore, before him with that sacred trembling which is consistent with holy faith. Serve him with faith and trembling, knowing that be you who you may, he is infinite and you are finite, he is perfect and you are sinful, he is all in all and you are nothing at all. With this sacred, reverential, child-like fear regnant within your spirit, you will be sure to walk practically in obedience to him.

I close by saving, we who have followed God’s word so far, and experienced the faithfulness of God so long, ought never to give way to unbelief. Thy foot has not swollen, thy garment has not waxed old these forty years — why wilt thou then mistrust or be suspicious? If he meant to deceive thee he would have left thee long ago.

He cannot have taught thee To trust in his name,
And thus far have brought thee To put thee to shame.

Go on! the present difficulty will melt like the past. Go on! the future mercy will be as sure as the mercies that have hitherto come to thee. Though winds and waves go o’er thy head, and friends vanish from thee, “trust in the Lord, and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and, verily, thou shalt be fed.” The heavens and the earth may pass away, and rocks ran to rivers, and the sun turn to a coal, but the eternal promise ne’er shall fail, and the heart of infinite love shall never change. “Be of good comfort, and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.”

What encouragement all this gives to young brethren who are setting out in the Christian life, or about to engage in the Christian ministry! With that reflection I close. If your fathers, and your fellow Christians of elder years, can say that their bread has been given them, and their supplies have been all-sufficient, then rest assured, my brethren, you are entering upon a happy life, even if it be a tried and difficult one; for the Lord who has dealt so well with some of his people, gives in that fact a pledge that he will deal so with all. Commit yourselves wholly to God, give up all your powers to his service, work for him with all your hearts, and he will supply your needs. Think not of this world’s gain, but “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Lay self in the dust, and let Christ be all in all. Live by the rule of truth; walk by the way of faith; have confidence in God, and your path shall be as brightness, and your glory as a lamp that burneth. Joined on earth to the hand of Christian soldiers, you shall ere long be added to the countless host of the church triumphant, who at this hour bear witness that God is faithful, and that his promise is sure.

Deuteronomy 22:8 Battlements

NO. 2999
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 2ND, 1906,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.” — Deuteronomy 22:8.

THIS interesting law, which in its letter was binding on the Jewish people, in its spirit furnishes an admirable rule for us upon whom the ends of the world are come.

It is not necessary to inform this audience that the roofs of Eastern dwellings were flat, and that the inhabitants were accustomed to spend much of their time upon the tops of their houses, not only conversing there during the day, but sleeping there at night. If the roofs were without any fencing or protection around their edge, it might often happen that little children might fall over, and not unfrequently grown-up persons might inadvertently make a false step, and suffer serious injury, if not death itself. Where there were no railings or low walls around the roof, accidents frequently occurred; but God commanded his people, while they were yet in the wilderness, that, when they came into the promised land, aid proceeded to build houses, they should take care in every case to build a sufficient battlement that life might not be lost through preventable casualty.

This careful command clearly shows us that God holds life to be very valuable, and that, as he would not permit us to kill by malice, so he would not allow us to kill by negligence, but would have us most tender of human lives. Such rules as the one before us as precedents for sanitary laws, and give the weight of divine sanction to every wise sanitary arrangement. No man has a right to be filthy in his person, or his house, or his brace; for, even if he himself may flourish amid unhealthy accumulations of dirt, he has no right, by his unclean habits to foster a deadly typhus, or afford a nest for cholera. Those whose houses are foul, whose rooms are unventilated, whose persons are disgusting, cannot be said to love their neighbor; and those who create nuisances in our crowded cities are guilty of wholesale murder. No man has a right to do anything which must inevitably lead to the death or to the injury of those by whom he is surrounded, but he is bound to do all in his power to prevent any harm coming to his fellow-men. That seems to be the moral teaching of this ordinance of making battlements around the housetops, — teaching, mark you, which I should like all housewives, working-men, manufacturers, and vestrymen, to take practical note of.

But, if ordinary life be precious, much more is the life of the soul, and, therefore, it is our Christian duty never to do that which imperils either our own or other men’s souls. To us there is an imperative call from the great Master that we care for the eternal interests of others, and that we, so far as we can, prevent their exposure to temptations which might lead to their fatal falling into sin.

We shall now lead you to a few meditations which have, in our mind, gathered around the text.

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I. First, God Has Battlemented His Own House.

Let this serve as a great truth with which to begin our contemplations. God takes care that all his children are safe. There are high places in his house, and he does not deny his children the enjoyment of these high places, but he makes sure that they shall not be in danger there. He sets bulwarks round about them, lest they should suffer harm when in a state of exaltation.

God, in his house, has given us many high and sublime doctrines. Timid minds are afraid of these, but the highest doctrine in Scripture is safe enough because God has battlemented it; and as no man need be afraid in the East to walk on the roof of his house when the battlement is there, so no man need hesitate to believe the doctrine of election, the doctrine of eternal and immutable love, or any of the divine teachings which circle around the covenant of grace, if he will at the same time see that God has guarded those truths so that none may fall from them to their own destruction.

Take, for instance, the doctrine of election. What a high and glorious truth this is, that God hast, from the beginning, chosen his people unto salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the truth! Yet that doctrine has turned many simpletons dizzy through looking at it apart from kindred teachings. Some, I do not doubt, have wilfully leaped over the battlement which God has set about this doctrines, and have turned it into Antinomianism, degrading it into an excuse for evil living, and reaping just damnation for their wilful perversion. But God has been pleased to set around that doctrine other truths which shield it from misuse. It is true he has a chosen people, but “by their fruits ye shall know them.” Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Though he has chosen his people, yet he has chosen them unto holiness; he has ordained them to be zealous for good works. His intention is not that they should be saved in their sins, but saved from their sins; not that they should be carried to heaven as they are, but that they should be cleansed and purged from all iniquities, and so made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

Then there is the sublime brush of the final perseverance of the saints. What a noble height is that! A housetop doctrine indeed! What a Pisgah view is to be had from the summit of it; “The Lord will keep the feet of his saints.” “The righteous also shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.” It will be a great loss to us if we are unable to enjoy the comfort of this truth. There is no reason for fearing presumption through a firm conviction of the true believer’s safety. Mark well the battlements which God has builded around the edge of this truth! He has declared that, if these shall fall away, it, is impossible “to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” If those who are true saints should altogether lose the life of God that is within their souls, there would remain no other salvation; if the first, salvation could have spent itself unavailingly, them would be no alternative, but “a certain looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.” When we read warnings such as, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,” and others of that kind, we see how God has made a parapet around this tower-like truth, so that saints may ascend to its very summit, and look abroad upon the land that floweth with milk and honey, and yet their brains need not whirl, nor shall they fall into presumption and perish.

That wonderful doctrine of justification by faith, which we all hold to be a vital truth, not only of Protestantism but of Christianity itself, is quite as dangerous by itself as the doctrine of election, or the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints; in fact, if a man means to sin, he can break down every bulwark, and turn any doctrine into an apology for transgression. Even the doctrine that God is merciful, simple as that is, may be made into an excuse for sin. To return to the doctrine that we are justified by faith, and not by the works of the law, Luther put it very grandly, very boldly, and for him very properly; but there are some who use his phrase, not in Luther’s way, and without Luther’s reasons for unguarded speaking, and such persons have sometimes done serious damage to men’s souls by not mentioning another truth which is meant to be the battlement to the doctrine of faith, namely, the necessity of sanctification. Where faith is genuine, through the Holy Spirit’s power, it works