Amos 3:3 Communion With Christ - A Baptizing Sermon

NO. 2668
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, APRIL 1ST, 1900,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL, SOUTHWARK,
ON A THURSDAY EVENING, EARLY IN THE YEAR 1858.

“Can two walk together, except they be agreed? “—Amos 3:3.

THE expression “walking together” is often used in Scripture as a figure for communion. “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” Communion, if it be thorough and entire, implies activity. It is not merely contemplation, it is action; and hence, inasmuch as walking is an active exercise, and walking with a man is communion with him, active communion with him, we see how walking comes to be the picture of true communion with Christ. An old Puritan said, “It doth not say that Enoch returned to God, and then left him, but he ’walked with God.’“ All his journey through, he had God for his companion, and lived in perpetual fellowship with his Maker.

There is also another idea contained in the term “walking together.” It is not only activity, but continuance. So, true communion with Christ is not a mere spasm, not just an excitement of ecstasy: but if it be the work of the Holy Spirit, and if it be enjoyed by the healthful soul, it will be a continual thing.

It implies also progress; for, in walking together, we do not lift up our feet, and put them down in the same place, but we proceed nearer to our journey’s end; and he that hath true communion with Christ is making progress. It is true that Christ can go no further towards excellence, for he hath already attained perfection; but the nearer we get to that perfection, the more fellowship we have with Jesus; and unless we progress, unless we seek to be more child—like in faith, more instructed in knowledge, and more diligent in service, unless we seek to have more zeal and fervency, we shall find that, in so standing still, we lose the presence of the Master; for it is only by following on with the Lord that we continue to walk with him. It will, therefore, very readily strike you how walking with a person is an excellent figure for communion with him; and how the term “walking with God” is the best expression for fellowship with God. Hence, our text implies, by its very form, that two can—not walk together except they be agreed; and it teaches us, there—fore, that unless we be agreed with Christ, we cannot attain to the sweet state of communion with him.

We, shall, first, notice the agreement here mentioned; we shall, secondly, try to notice the necessity for this agreement; and then, thirdly, we shall ask all Christians to seek after this agreement with Christ that they may have full communion with him.

I am not addressing myself so much to the world without as to the church within. When we are preaching the gospel of salvation, we preach that to the world; but communion is like the holy of holies. Salvation itself seems to be but as the court of the priests, but communion is the innermost place, that which is within the veil, and into that none but the Christian can be allowed to enter.

I. First, then, Christian, we shall endeavor to show thee What Is The Agreement which must subsist between thy Lord and thyself before thou canst walk with him. We will do this in a very simple way. We shall keep to the figure, and we shall see that there are certain things necessary to enable one person to walk with another.

First, then, it is quite certain that, if we would walk with Christ, we must walk in the same path. Two men cannot walk together if one turns his head in one direction, and another turns his head the opposite way. If one should turn to the right, and the other to the left, they cannot walk together, although they may arrive at the same end by devious roads; but they cannot walk together unless they walk along the same road. It is true that they can have a little conversation even if they are some yards apart; but if one walks on one side of the road, and the other on the other, we should think that their communion was rather distant, and their love rather chill. But, the nearer they walk in precisely the same road, the more are they enabled to hold fellowship with one another.

Now, child of God, albeit thou canst not be saved by thy good works, and thy salvation does not depend upon thy works, remember that thy communion doth. It is impossible for thee to have fellowship with Christ except as thou art obedient unto his commands. Let a Christian err, and he will be pierced with many sorrows. Let the child of God forsake the way of God, let him, as alas we oftentimes do, go down by the stile to By-path Meadow, and he will not have his Master go down By-path Meadow with him. If we will be self-willed, and choose our own path, we must go our own path alone. If, for some seeming pleasure, or some fancied gain, instead of following the fiery-cloudy pillar, we follow the will-o’-the-wisp of our own desires, we shall have to go alone, and in the dark, too. Christ will go with us anywhere where duty calls us. If duty should call us into the burning fiery furnace, the Son of man will be there; if it should lead us into the lions’ den, he will be there to shut the lions’ mouths. He would not have gone there with Daniel if he had sought, by neglect of duty, to avoid the threatened destruction. Although the Lord would go with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego even into the heat of the burning fiery furnace, yet, if they had bowed down to the image, he would not have gone with them. “If ye walk contrary to me,” saith the Lord, “I will walk contrary to you.”

Here I must guard what I have said, lest I should be misunderstood. I do not mean that Christ forsakes his people so as to destroy them; but he forsakes them so as to take away their communion with himself; For again I repeat that, although salvation doth not depend upon good works, communion hath this dependence, and cannot be enjoyed between Christ and the soul that is full of sin. A man may have much sin about him, and yet be a saved man; and much of frailty and imperfection cleaveth to us all. But if we are living in sin, if we are in any way whatever breaking the commands of God, to the extent of our sin there will be just that extent of separation between our souls and Christ. Sin may not kill us, but it will make us sick; it will take Christ’s right hand from under our heads. Take care, therefore, Christian, that thou walkest in the steps of thy Master; strive to be obedient to his law; righteously, soberly, and godly do thou live in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Be thou like Caleb, who followed the Lord fully. Endeavour in every way to learn his will, and then to do it; in all thy Lord’s appointed ways pursue thy journey. Remember all his ordinances, and perform his every precept; resign thyself to his every dispensation; be thou not as the horse or mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle lest they come nigh unto thee; but be thou guided by the Lord’s own eye, run thou in the way of his commandments, and thou shalt find them a delightful road. This is the first point; those who walk together must go the same way.

Further, in going the same way, they must go with the same motive. Two persons may be going the same way, but suppose they are going for very opposite ends. There is a lawyer walking side by side with the man whom he is going to fleece. Let the poor man know that he is to be robbed a the end of his journey, and there will not be any communion between the two travelers. Suppose two men are going together, and one is about to bring an action against the other, there will not be any communion between them. Suppose they are going to fight with each other, there will not be any communion between them. Suppose the two are going to the same election, intending to vote for opposite candidates, they will not be likely to hold very sweet conversation with one another, albeit they may go in the same way. So, it is needful that we should not only go in the same road, but with the same motive.

Perhaps you ask, “Is it possible that we can go with Christ in the same road, and yet not with the same motive?” Certainly, it is. You see a man who appears to be quite as holy as a Christian; he seems to be as obedient to the Lord as the man who really follows the Master. As for ceremonies, he is the very first to observe them; as for the duties of morality, he attends to them most scrupulously; but ask him why he does all this, and he says it is because he desires to save his soul by it. Immediately, he and Christ are at arms’ length; Christ calls such an one an anti-Christ, and they are sworn enemies. You are trying to save yourself, are you? Then you are to be a savior, while Christ is a Savior; then you and le are at enmity; but if you are travelling on this road to be saved by grace, desiring to show forth your thanks with your lips, and in your life, then you do not wish to rob Christ’s kingly or priestly office of any of its dignity; you do not desire to set yourself up as another king in Zion. But if you are walking in this road with a motive contrary to Christ, you cannot hold any communion with him.

There is very blessed communion with Christ to be enjoyed in the Lord’s supper; but if anyone comes to the Lord’s table merely with the thought that it may do him good, and save his soul, there is no communion with Christ; for him, because that is not Christ’s object; and it is the same with baptism. That ordinance is a blessed means of communion with Christ in his death and burial; but if anyone desires to be baptized, supposing that the observance of the ordinance will save his soul, then there is no communion. If anyone attaches more to the act than that Christ has commanded it, and, therefore, it is our duty to fulfill it,—the moment a man supposes any efficacy in the water, and in the body being buried therein, then the communion ceases; for unless we come to anything with Christ’s motive, or with a motive which is congenial to Christ’s heart, we are not capable of walking with him. Two cannot walk together except they be agreed, not only in the way they walk, but also in the object with which they walk in that way.

Once again, two persons may walk the same road, and they may walk with the same purpose, and yet they may not be able to speak to each other, unless they travel the same pace. If one person shall travel home very swiftly to-night, and another, who lives in the same house, goes creeping home very slowly, perhaps they will go down the same streets, yet they will say nothing to one another, because one will be at home long before the other. So, we must agree in the pace at which we travel. Why is it that many Christians hold no fellowship with Jesus? It is because they travel to heaven so slowly, that the Lord Jesus leaves them behind. They are so lukewarm, so cold, so indifferent, they have so little zeal, so little love, they have so little true desire to glorify God, that the swift heart of Jesus cannot be restrained to tarry with them.

“Oh! “saith one, “I travel as fast as I can, but I am only a poor feeble creature; I often creep when I see others run; and when I run, I often see others flying.”

Beloved, Christ does not measure your walking by the speed at which you go. If your desire be slack, then the Lord Jesus will leave you, and travel on before you; and you will probably find the whip of affliction behind you, goading your soul to travel more swiftly. John Bunyan has a good picture. He says, “if you send a serving-man for medicines, and he goes as fast as he can, perhaps he rides on a sorry jade of a horse, and he cannot make it go fast; but the master does not measure the pace by the rate at which the horse goes, but by the rate at which the servant wishes the horse to go, and he says, ’That man would go fast if he could; if you put him on a horse that had some mettle in him, he would be back, and bring the medicines.’“ So is it with our poor flesh and blood. It is an ill pace at which we can ever go with such a sorry thing to ride on; but the Lord Jesus measures our pace, of by the actual distance traversed, but by our desires. When he sees us kicking and spurring, as it were, in prayer, pulling at the rein, and toiling to make our poor flesh and blood rise to something like devotion and zeal, then he accepts the will for the deed, and Christ stops to keep company even with us who are, such poor disciples. But let our desires be cold, let us become lazy, let us do little or nothing for Christ, what wonder if the Lord Jesus says, “This man observeth not my words, and keepeth not my sayings; I will not sup with him, and he shall not sup with me. I will give him enough comfort to keep him alive; I will give him enough spiritual food to keep his soul from actually starving, but I will put him on poor diet until he turns to me with full purpose of heart, and then I will take him to my bosom, and show him my love”?

There is one thing more. You can suppose two persons travelling on the same road with the same intentions, and at the same pace; yet they do not walk together, so as to hold any fellowship with each other, because they do not like each other. Where there is no love (and that, perhaps, is the fullest meaning of the text), there can be no communion. Unless two be agreed in heart, they cannot walk together. You know some of our very excellent Hyper-Calvinistic friends. Now, suppose one of them meets an Arminian, you cannot suppose for one instant that there could be any conversation between them, except it were some jangling, and abuse of each other. Suppose some good strict Baptist brother speaks to us, who have more enlarged principles. He smites us with his heavy weapons, and cuts us down for the great sin of loving all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, and welcoming to the Lord’s table all whom we believe the Lord has received. But, so far as communion is concerned, our brother would be obliged to go on the other side of the road; there must be, he thinks, a little distinction and a little difference kept up, for the honor of his own views. And we know that there are some brethren, who have a peculiar obnoxiousness of temper; they seem to be covered with bristles and sharp quills, to prick and annoy any and every person who happens to come in their way. You cannot commune with them; it is impossible for you to walk in the same rod with them, for you would feel it better to hold your peace all the way, because they would be sure to misunderstand what you said. There must be an agreement in heart, an agreement in opinion, or otherwise two cannot walk together.

O believer, hast thou agreement of heart with the Lord Jesus? Say, dost thou love Christ, and dost thou think a great deal of him? Dost; thou ever seek to magnify him, and speak well of his name? Dost; thou think him the chief amongst ten thousand, and altogether lovely? And dost thou feel that he also has a good opinion of thee? Hath he said to thee, “Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee”? Has he spoken soft words to thine heart, which have caused thee to think that his bowels of compassion have yearned over thee? Ah, then, communion is easy with thee and thy Lord; for your two souls are bound up in the same bundle of life; therefore, it is possible for thee and Christ to walk together. Art thou and he of the same opinion? Are Christ’s words thy doctrine? Hast thou been taught to give up all divinity except that which came from Jesus? Canst thou say of him, “He is my only Rabbi, my only Teacher in the law and the gospel; at his feet, with Mary, I could sit and receive his words, and believe all that he has uttered to be the very truth of God”? If so, believer, communion between thee and Christ is easy; for, when two agree in thought, and intention, and way, and affection, then they can walk together.

I have taken so much time for this first point that the other two must be very briefly hinted at.

II. The second point was to be, The Necessity For This Agreement.

First, Christ will not; walk with us, unless we are agreed with him, because if he did so, it would be a slur upon his own honor; nay, more than that, it would be a denial of his own nature. Should Christ come into concord with Belial? Should he make himself free and communicative with those who indulge the lusts of the flesh, and who disobey his commands? It would look ill if the king’s son should walk arm in arm with traitors. We should not think it any good sign if we saw the highest in the land herding with the lowest. Christ keeps good company; and if we do not have our hearts purified by the Holy Spirit, he will not come to us at all. He will not abide even with his own children so long as they harbour sin. Invite the devil into the front parlour of your heart, and Christ will not come too. No, it would be a derogation of his own dignity, an insult to his own character to do so. Give your heart up to the indulgence of some ambitious desire, and you cannot give the Savior the insult of inviting him to come to you. In our own houses, we do not invite two persons who are at enmity; and is it likely that Christ will come where sin is reigning, or pampered, or indulged? No; brethren; he knows there is sin in the best human heart; but, as long as it is kept down, and as long as he sees that our desires are to overturn it; he will come there; but when he sees sin petted and fed in the place which ought to his own palace, when he sees self-righteousness and self-security harboured there, he says, “I will not return until they have repented of their sin.”

There is another reason why you cannot commune with Christ unless you are in agreement with him, and that is because you yourselves are incapable of it. Unless your soul be in agreement with Christ, unless in motive, and aim, and will, you are, as far as possible, like your Master, you cannot rise to the dignity of fellowship with him. Fellowship with Christ is a high privilege; no man can attain to if, as long as he indulges evil purposes, or low desires. The heart must be assimilated to the likeness of Christ, it must be cleansed and renewed by the Holy Spirit, or else it loses its wings, and is unable to mount to the high places of the earth, where Christ doth show to his people his love.

There is another reason why Christ will not commune with us unless we are agreed with him, namely, for our own good. Christ cannot and will not hold sweet fellowship with his people unless they are in harmony with him. If Christians swerve from Christ’s path, and backslide from his ways, and Christ were still to indulge them with love feasts, they would not realize their sin, and would still continue in it. Let a father indulge the erring child with all the usual display of his affection; let him put away the rod, let him never use a harsh word at all, but treat the sinning one with the same love as another who is dutiful and obedient, how is it to be expected that the child would ever forsake its faults? If Christ should give the same love, the same enjoyments, in sin and after sin, as he does in duty and after duty, his people would scarcely recognize their sins, and they would continue in them; but just as the Lord is pleased to make pain the tell-tale of disease, so that a headache becomes an indication of something wrong within the system, so does he make the absence of his own fellowship the tell-tale by which we may know that there is something within our soul that is hostile to him, something that must be driven away before the sacred Dove will come, with wings of comfort, to dwell in our hearts. “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” No; that is impossible.

III. Now, thirdly, I want to urge all Christians to seek after this agreement with Christ.

Beloved brethren and sisters, in order that you may agree with Christ, I have first to remind you that the perpetual indwelling of the Holy Spirit must be with you. Unless the same Spirit that dwells in Christ shall dwell in you, your agreement can never rise to such a height as to admit of any depth or nearness of union. Take care continually to seek the unction from on high, the indwelling of the Holy One of Israel. In the measure in which your heart has been endued by the divine influence and baptized by the holy fire of the Spirit, in that proportion will your soul be in agreement with Christ, and your union be true, and close, and lasting. Take care of that.

And then, next, under that divine influence, look well to all your motives. Seek not to have any aim to get honor to thyself, or honor to thy fellow-men. Take care that, in all thou doest, thou doest it with a single eye to thy Master’s honor; for, unless thine eye is single, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If thou wilt win the sunlight of thy Master’s face, thou must seek his glory, and his glory alone.

Then, if thou wouldst have union with Christ, take care, in the next place, that thou doest all in dependence upon him; for if, in the affairs of thy soul, thou settest up in business for thyself, Christ will be at enmity with thee. Seek not only to turn thine eye to him for direction, but also for support; and look to him in thy prayers, in thy preachings, in thy hearings, and in everything, for so shall Christ and thy soul be agreed, and thou shalt have fellowship with him.

And, lastly, be continually panting after more holiness. Never be content with what thou art; seek to grow, seek to be more and more like Christ; and then, when that desire for holiness is strongest, thou wilt have the same desire that Christ has; for his desire is that thou shouldst be holy, even as he is holy; and his command is, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” And when your desires are Christ’s desires, then shall it be possible for you to walk with Christ, but not till then.

I do long to have a church in complete agreement with the Lord Jesus Christ, for that would be a church against which the gates of hell could never prevail. If a church be merely founded by a man, the man will die, and the church shall perish. If a doctrine be only taught by a man, and you receive it on his authority, his authority shall pass away as all earthly things must; but, if it be of God, woe unto them that fight against it, for they can never prevail against him! Woe unto him that dashes himself against this stone, for he shall be broken in pieces; but if it be rolled upon him, it shall grind him to powder! Let us know that any church is a Church of God in her doctrines, and in her ordinances, and in her prayer and praise, and we may know that she shall be like the stone we read of in Daniel, “cut out of the mountain without hands;” none shall be able to break her, but she shall break all opposers in pieces, and she shall fill the earth.

Now there are some friends who are about to walk with Christ into this pool of baptism. Can two walk here except they be agreed? You may walk into this pool, but you cannot bring Christ with you except you are agreed with him. If you come without agreement with Christ, you will make a slip of it in your life, or else go back, and walk no more with him, and be offended with him. Remember, brethren and sisters, unless your two hearts are agreed, unless Christ and your heart be made one, you will fall out with one another before long; Christ will not long be at peace with you, nor will you be at peace with Christ. Your profession will be short-lived, after all, unless it be a true and real one, the expression of the inner heart. I pray that your profession to-night may be a sincere one, that you may testify to the world a true, saving, and entire agreement with your Lord and Master; and if any of you be not agreed with Christ. I beseech you, though you have come so far, come no farther. Go not into this pool till you are thoroughly agreed with Christ. I charge you, in the name of the living God, as you shall have to stand before his bar at last, play not the hypocrite. Be sincere; for, if you give yourselves not wholly to Christ, you are doing like those who come unworthily to the Lord’s table, and who eat and drink condemnation to their own souls, for he that is plunged into the baptismal pool, as a hypocrite, is immersed unto his own damnation. But, O, ye humble followers of Jesus, you have testified to us your fellowship in the faith! Be not afraid now to confess it before men, and may God own all your names at last amongst the followers of the Lamb, for his dear Son’s sake! Amen.

Amos 3:3-6 The Voice of the Cholera

NO. 705
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 12TH, 1866,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not he afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it.”-Amos 3:3-6.

WE have all felt grieved when reading our bills of mortality to observe the mysterious spread of cholera in our great city. It is high time that it should be made the subject of special prayer, and that the nation should seek unto the Lord for its removal. While as yet there has been but comparatively little of the evil, we should be humbled under it, that we may be spared a greater outbreak.

There are different ways of looking at this disease. Men viewing it from one point of view alone, have frequently despised those who have regarded it under another aspect. Occasionally Christian men express themselves indignantly concerning those who speak of cholera as the product of ascertained and governable causes, to be checked and even prevented by due attention to the laws of health. I have never shared in that indignation. It seems to me that this disease is to a great extent in our own hands, and that if all men would take scrupulous care as to cleanliness, and if better dwellings were provided for the poor, and if overcrowding were effectually prevented, and if the water supply could he larger, and other sanitary improvements could be carried out, the disease, most probably, would not occur; or, if it did visit us occasionally, as the result of filth in other countries, it would be in a very mitigated form. I am thankful that there are many men of intelligence and scientific information who can speak well upon this point, and I hope they will never cease to speak until all men learn that the laws of cleanliness and health are as binding upon us as those of morality. So far from a Christian man being angry with those who instruct the people in useful secular knowledge, he ought rather to be thankful for them, and hope that their teaching may be powerful with the masses. The gospel has no quarrel with ventilation, and the doctrines of grace have no dispute with chloride of lime. We preach repentance and faith, but we do not denounce whitewash; and much as we advocate holiness, we always have a good word for cleanliness and sobriety. We would promote with all our hearts that which may honor God, but we cannot neglect that which may bless our neighbors whom we desire to love even as ourselves. On the other hand, it is even more common for those who look to natural causes alone to sneer at believers who view the disease as a mysterious scourge from the hand of God. It is admitted that it would be most foolish to neglect the appointed means of averting sickness; but sneer who may, we believe it to be equally an act of folly to forget that the hand of the Lord is in all this. The singular manner in which this disease seizes frequently upon unlikely persons, and turns aside from its expected path, should show us that there is an unseen band which directs its gloomy circuit. Let the wise man work below, but fix his hope above; let him cleanse and purge away the hotbeds of death, but let him look up to the Lord and Giver of life for success in all his doings.

It is not my business this morning to describe the sanitary aspect of the subject; this is not the day nor the place, but I shall claim a full liberty to enter into the theological view of it, and if that should happen to excite the contempt of the practical man, we shall be more grieved for his narrowness of mind than for his contempt of us. We do not despise him, but wish him God speed in his reforms, and he should not despise us, but recognize in us his true allies. We believe that God sends all pestilences, let them come how they may, and that he sends them with a purpose, let them be removed in whatever way they may; and we conceive that it is our business as ministers of God, to call the people’s attention to God in the disease, and teach them the lesson which God would have them learn. I am not among those, as you know, who believe that every affliction is a judgment upon the particular person to whom it occurs. We perceive that in this world the best of men often endure the most of suffering, and that the worst of men frequently escape; and therefore we do not believe in judgments to particular persons except in extraordinary cases; but we do nevertheless very firmly believe that there are national judgments, and that national sins provoke national chastisements. As to individuals, their punishment or reward is reserved for the next state; but nations will not exist in the next world: there is no such thing as a judgment of nations, so such, at the last great day; that will be the judgment of individuals one by one. The trial and punishment of nations takes place in this state, and it is here that we are to look for the judgment of God upon national sin. Upon the present visitation as a national chastisement we shall speak this morning, but I shall not detain you with further preface, but conduct you at once to the questions of the text.

I. The First Question is a metaphor taken from the traveler: “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” which means, being interpreted, that it is no wonder if God does not continue to walk with a sinful people; that it is not to be expected that when a nation falls out with God, God should continue to bless it.

Two travelers have been walking together for some little time, but on a sudden they fall to angry words, and after awhile one strikes the other and maltreats him. You cannot suppose that the person thus attacked will continue to walk with him who maliciously assaults him. They must part company. Now, when God walks with a nation that nation prospers, but if that nation falls to words with God, quarrels with him about his will and law, and rushes perversely into sinful courses nay, if there be some in it who would have no God at all, who do their best to extirpate his very name from the earth which he himself has made, then we cannot expect that God should continue to walk with such offenders. Brethren, let me ask you soberly, without fanaticism, to consider whether there has not been enough in England, and especially in this great city, to make God angry with us? Has there not been grievous disagreement between the dwellers in this city and God? Has there not been enough to make him say, “I will walk no more with this people: I will chasten them sorely, and send heavy judgments upon them”?

We will not speak of those sins of this city which are common to all other places; but let me ask whether the drunkenness of England is not enough to provoke God to smite it with all his thunderbolts. If it be said that there is as much drunkenness elsewhere, I reply that possibly there may be places found which are quite as besotted, where the gin palace blazes with glaring light at every corner, and the gates through which drunkards reel to hell are opened at every turn,-it may be so; but I must still hold that there is no other country where drunkenness is carried on to such an extent under so strong a protest, for drunkenness happens to be a sin against which not only the pulpit, the press, and the bench, are continually exclaiming, but tens of thousands of earnest, indefatigable, courageous, self-denying men are both by their example and their teaching denouncing this vice. We certainly have no deficiency of protests against excess of drink, for there are few companies in which the most sweeping censures are not frequently heard. There is not a place throughout the world where drunkenness is so vehemently and abundantly cried down as in England; there is no place where there is established so strong a public sentiment against this degrading form of self-indulgence. There has been much done, not, I say, only by those who preach the gospel, which lays the axe at the root of all sin, but also by those who dedicate their strength to the sawing off of this particular limb from the great tree of evil; so that this vice is known by every man to be a vice, and is no longer winked at as a venial offense. It wears upon its front the damning mark; it is no longer misnamed conviviality, and excused as an amiable weakness. The public mind to a great extent is enlightened upon the subject of strong drink, and consequently this sin of drunkenness is more God-provoking in this country than in any other. There may be countries where there is just as much drunkenness, but none in which the protest is more clear and plain, and we all hold that sin is increased by the measure of light against which a man commits it, and that when an evil practice is by the common consent of mankind denounced and put down, it becomes the more atrocious on the part of those who still pursue it. Alas, alas! this drunken city may well expect that God should visit it.

Moreover, we know enough-and we do not wish to know more of the evil, which the moon sees-of the debauchery with which certain of the streets of our city are reeking. We thank God it has never come to such a pass in England, that we nationally recognize and systematically regulate lasciviousness, so that it may be indulged in with comparative impunity, but there can be no sort of doubt that amongst all classes and ranks of men there is enough of lewdness to bring down Heaven’s wrath upon our city. The sins of the flesh are sure to be visited ere long by that God who loathes iniquity, and in whose nostrils fornication is a stench. He will not for ever endure this abounding sin, for it is committed, be it remembered, in a country famous above all others for its love of home and its estimation of the joys which cluster around the family hearth. We have not the pestilential influence of a licentious court and a degraded public opinion, but this sin is carried on in the teeth of a general reverence for purity. Shall not God visit London for the sins which nightly pollutes her streets, festers in gilded halls, and riots amid revelry and music? Like a terrible monster, the social evil drags our daughters down to destruction, and our young men to the gates of the grave, and while this lasts we need not wonder if God’s health-giving providence should refuse to walk with us, for he cannot be agreed with a people who choose the way of filthiness.

Constant neglect of the worship of God is a sin for which London is peculiarly and pre-eminently guilty. In some of our country towns and villages, the accommodation in places of worship is even larger than the population, and I know places in England where there is scarcely a soul to be found at home at the hour of public worship-certainly not more than absolutely necessary to nurse the sick, care for the infants, and protect the doors, for the whole population turn out to attend the place of worship. But in London the habitual forsakers of public worship are probably in a large majority. It must be so, because we know that even if they wished to go, the provision of seat room is most lamentably short of what they would require, and yet, short as it is, there is not half so much want of churches and chapels in London as there is of inclination to go to either the one or the other. The masses of our people regard not God, care not for the Lord Jesus, and have no thought about eternal things. This is a Christian city we sometimes say, but where shall be found more thorough heathens than we may find here? In Canton, Calcutta, or even Timbuctoo, the people have at least a form of worship and a reverence for some idea of a God, but here tens of thousands make no pretense of religious worship. I protest unto you all that whereas you think Christianity to be well known in our streets and lanes, you only think so because you have not penetrated into their depths, for thick darkness covers the people. There are discoveries yet to be made in this city, that may make the hearts of Christendom melt for shame that we should have permitted such God-dishonoring ignorance, that in the very blaze of the sun, as we think our country to be, there should be black spots where Christian light has never penetrated. O London! dost thou think that God’s Sabbaths are for ever to be forgotten; that the voice of the gospel is to sound in thine ears, and for ever to be despised? Shalt thou for ever turn thy foot from God’s house and despise the ministrations of his truth, and shall he not visit such a city as this? This dreaded cholera is but a gentle blow from his hand, but if it be not felt, and its lesson be not learnt, there may come instead of this a pestilence which may reap the multitude as corn is reaped with the sickle; or he may permit us to be ravaged by a pestilence worse than the plague; I mean the pestilence of deadly, soul-destroying error. He may remove the candle of his gospel out of its place, and may take away the bread of life from those who have despised it, and then, O great city! thy doom is sealed!

Brethren, if there be any one thing which yet provokes God above all this, it is the fact that, we have once again, as a nation, permitted downright Popery to claim to be our national religion. Dark is the day, and dismal is the hour, which sees the ancient superstitions defiling the houses, which are at least nominally dedicated to the God of heaven. In our Established Church the gospel is no longer dominant, albeit that a little band of good and faithful men still linger in it, and are like a handful of salt amid general putrefaction. We have no longer any right to speak of our national Protestant Church; it is not Protestant, it tolerates barefaced Popery, and swarms with worshippers of the God whom the baker bakes in the oven, and whom they bite with their teeth. Not many streets from the house in which we are assembled, you may have your candles, and your incense, and your copes, and your albs, with all the other pomps and vanities of the detestable idolatry of Rome. That Romanism against which Latimer bore testimony at the stake has been suffered to hold its mummeries and practice its fantastic tricks in the name of this nation, until it counts its deluded admirers by tens of thousands. That monster, which stained Smithfield with gore and made it an ash-heap for the martyrs of God, has come back to you; the old wolf that rent your fathers and tore their palpitating hearts out of their bosoms, you have suffered to come back into your house, and you are cherishing it, and feeding it with your children’s meat. Once again, the harlot of Babylon flaunts her finery in our faces almost without rebuke. Do not tell me it is not Popery, it is the selfsame Antichrist with which your fathers wrestled, and a man with but half his wits about him may see it to be so: and yet this land bears it, and rejoices in it, and crouches at the foot of a priest once more. Our great ones, our delicate women, and dainty lords, are once again the willing vassals of priest-craft and superstition; and amid all this, it any one speaks out, he is assailed as uncharitable, and abhorred as a troubler in Israel. Is it for nothing that God has favored this land with the gospel? Mast all her light be turned to darkness? Must all the gains of the valiant men of old be lost by the sloth and cowardice of this thoughtless generation? In days of yore, men like Knox and Welch in Scotland, and Hugh Latimer, and John Bradford, fought like lions for the truth, and are we to yield like coward curs? Are the men of oak succeeded by the men of willow? The men who cried, “No Popery here!” now sleep within their sepulchres, and their descendants wear the yoke which their fathers scorned. Shall not God visit us for this? I would that a voice of thunder could arouse this slumbering generation. I am for liberty of conscience for every man: I would have, by all manner of means, the Catholic as free to practice his religion as any one else; I would have religion left to its own native power for its support, and would allow no church to offer to God what it had taken from an unwilling people by the legalised robbery of church-rate and tithe; but, above all things, if we must be doomed to have an Established Church, I pray God it may not for ever be a den of superstition and the haunt of Papistical heresies. If the Church of England does not sweep Tractarianism out of her midst, it should he the daily prayer of every Christian man, that God would sweep her utterly away from this nation; for the old leprosy of Rome ought not to be sanctioned and supported by a land which has shed so much of her blood to be purged from it.

Can two walk together, then, except they be agreed? And as these things cannot be supposed to be agreeable to the mind and will of God, we cannot wonder if there should be a plague upon our cattle, and then a plague upon men, and if these should come sevenfold as heavy as they have ever come as yet.

II. The Second Question of the prophet is, “Will a lion roar in the forest when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den if he have taken nothing?”

Amos had observed that a lion does not roar without reason. By this question he brings forward the second truth, that when God speaks it is not without a cause, and especially when he speaks with a threatening voice. My brethren, our God is too gracious to send us this cholera without a motive; and he is moreover too wise, for we all know that judgments frequently repeated lose their force. It is like the cry of “Wolf,” if there be no meaning in it, men disregard it. God therefore never multiplies judgments unnecessarily. Besides, he is withal too great to trifle with men’s lives. We heard of some twelve hundred or more who died in a week in London, but did we estimate the aggregate of personal pain couched in that number, the aggregate of sorrow brought to so many hundred families, the aggregate too of eternal interests which were involved in those sudden deaths? Time and eternity, both of them big with tremendous importance, were wrapped up, just so many times in those hundreds who fell beneath the mower’s scythe. Think you the Lord does this for nothing? The great Lion of vengeance has not roared unless sin has provoked him.

Since I have already indicated our great public sins, I should like to ask Christians present how far they have been concerned in them. You who profess to be people of God, and who recognize God’s hand in this visitation, I ask you how far has justice found provocation in you? What have you had to do, professing Christians, with the drunkenness of this city? Are you sure that you are quite clear of it? Have you both by your teaching and by your example shown to men that the religion of Jesus is not consistent with drunkenness? Have you tried to put down this vice, or are you in some degree a fellow-criminal, an accomplice before or after the fact? Oh if you have been guilty, I pray you seek to be purged of this sin. You cannot wipe out all the national iniquity, but if each man reformed himself of this vice, by God’s grace, this great evil would cease. Let each Christian look at home. How far you professors of religion-how far are you clear in the matter of sins of the flesh? Has there never been any lightness of speech about these sins? When merriment has become uproarious upon impurity, have you never joined in such laughter? And what about your course of conversation? Have you always been free-I will not say from the grosser acts of sin-I scarcely like to ask you such a question, but have you been clear from everything that verged upon it? Have you heard ringing in your ears the precept, “Be ye holy, for I am holy”? Has the Holy Spirit by his mighty grace kept you from indulging in unclean words and thoughts. Have you in any way fallen into lightness of talk and thought, and so helped to increase the flood of this evil? Oh, my brethren, who among us must not confess to some guilt, when we remember the Savior’s words, “He that looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Let us bow our heads in penitence, and seek to the God of all grace that he would not roar over this his prey, but be pleased to purge us from it that we may be clean in his presence?

And so with the other sins, which we have indicated. Have we all borne our earnest, fervent protest against them? Have we been negligent of the house of God, or has our continual meeting for public worship cleared us of this? I think most of us are clear here, but I know there are some professors who neglect the assembling of themselves together, who spend their Sabbath occasionally, at any rate, where it ought not to be spent, and who thus by their lax example increase the general forgetfulness of God.

And as to this Anglican Popery-have we spoken out about that? Or do we lend it our direct or even indirect support? God grant that if we have not repudiated it we may do so, and holding the truth in the love and power of it may we come out of Babylon, lest we be partakers of her plagues in the day when God shall visit her in his wrath. Such, I think, was what Amos indicated by his second question.

III. The Third Question is this: “Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth where no gin is for him?”

The first question was taken from travelers, the second from wild beasts, and the third from fowlers. You see the bird aloft in the sky, on a sudden it flies to the ground, and is taken in the net; now, Amos says it would not be taken in the net unless a net had been designedly laid to catch it. It is taken because the snare was meant to take it, and Amos means to remind us that men do not die without a design on God’s part. It is the same thought as before, but it is held up in another light. The bird is not taken in the net without the design of the fowler, and men do not fall into the net of death without an intent on God’s part. Death, with all which it involves on earth and in eternity, is not sent by God without a reason. For ever banished from the Christian’s conversation be the word “chance.” “It repenteth me greatly,” says Augustine, “that I ever used that heathenish word fortuna;” for fortune or chance is a base heathenish invention. God ruleth and overruleth all things, and he doeth nothing without a motive. Brethren, the falling of a sparrow to the earth is in the divine purpose, and answereth an end. Every grain of dust that is whirled from the threshing-floor is steered with as unerring a wisdom as the stars in their courses, and there is not a leaf that trembles in the autumn from the tree but is piloted by the plan and purpose of the Lord, as much as Arcturus and his sons. Surely, then, in so great an event as death, involving, as we have already said, so much of pain to the person falling, so much of bereavement and sorrow to the families of those who are smitten, we cannot believe but what God has a purpose. The insatiable archer is not permitted to shoot his bolts at random every arrow that flies bears this inscription, “I have a message from God for thee.” When God permitteth disease to walk through the streets at night, to stretch out his mighty but invisible hand, and take away here a child, and there a full-grown man, and consign to the grave those who might have otherwise long survived, you will not believe that the Lord commissioned so dread a messenger, without intending to answer some end by his errand. Let us conclude most surely that a purpose, consistent with the love and justice of God, lies hidden in the present harvest of death.

IV. Now follows a Fourth Question: “Shall one take up a snare from the earth and have taken nothing at all? by which he means that the fowler does not remove the net until he has caught his bird; so that this fourth question implies, that inasmuch as God had a purpose in sending tribulation, we may expect that he will not remove it until that design is answered.

Whatever God has to say to London, if it he heard at once he need not speak again, but if it be not heard the first time, there shall come a second voice, and yet another. The fowler takes not away his net unless some bird be caught, and God takes not away the trouble which he sends unless he has answered his design by it. If you ask me what I think to be the design, I believe it to be this-to waken up our indifferent population, to make them remember that there is a God, to render them susceptible of the influences of the gospel, to drive them to the house of prayer, to influence their minds to receive the Word, and moreover to startle Christians into energy and earnestness, that they may work while it is called to-day. My reason for selecting this subject at all was that I might be helpful in the hands of God the Holy Spirit to aid this great design, that you, dear friends, might hear at once God’s voice, that so for you, at any rate, it might not be necessary that there should be a repetition of the judgment. Brethren and sisters, y on are acquainted with history, and you have reason to bless God, I am sure, in turning over its pages that we have, during the last half century, been spared many of those dreadful calamities which in former days occurred in this and other lands. Who can read the story of the plague of London without a shudder? And who can close the book without thankfulness that such a black death is unknown among us? Who has read of famines in this land without gratitude for the abundance of bread? Who can turn to the descriptions of the sack and pillage of cities under such armies as those conducted by Tilly, and other savage commanders, without thankfulness that we live in better days? Who can even read the story of the last campaign in Austria without thanking God that our country is an island, and that so we are preserved from the horrors of war? But it is much to be feared that a constant run of prosperity, perpetual peace and freedom from disease, may breed in our minds just what it has done in all human minds before, namely, security and pride, heathenism and forgetfulness of God. It is a most solemn fact that human nature can scarcely bear a long continuance of peace and health. It is almost necessary that we should be every now and then salted with affliction, lest we putrefy with sin. God grant we may have neither famine, nor sword; but as we have pestilence in a very slight degree, it becomes us to ask the Lord to bless it to the people that a tenderness of conscience may be apparent throughout the multitude, and they may recognize the hand of God. Already I have been told by Christian brethren laboring in the east of London, that there is a greater willingness to listen to gospel truth, and that if there be a religions service it is more acceptable to the people now than it was; for which I thank God as an indication that affliction is answering its purpose. There was, perhaps, no part of London more destitute of the means of grace, and of the desire to use the means, than that particular district where the plague has fallen; and if the Lord shall but make those teeming thousands anxious to hear the gospel of Jesus, and teach them to trust in him, then the design will be answered; and without a doubt the great Fowler will gather up his net. May it be so, O Lord, for thy Son Jesus Christ’s sake.

V. The questions have all worked to one point. We have seen that it is no wonder if disease should come, we have learned that it does not come without a cause, we have seen that when it does come there is a design, and that it will not be removed unless that design be answered, and now we are prepared to take the further step, raised by The Fifth Question, namely, that an awakening should be the result.

“Shall the trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?” In times of war in the olden times, there were men stationed upon watch towers, and when they saw the enemy coming the cornet was sounded, and the people rushed to arms. The sound of a trumpet was the warning of war. This cholera is like the sound of a trumpet. The voice of the Christian ministry is not heard. Those who go to listen to it do not all hear it, for they hear as though they heard not; while the great mass know nothing, and care less about the preacher’s message. The ministry of London is not altogether powerless to those who attend it, but it is utterly without point or force to the dense mass who lie outside the house of God. Disease, however, is a trumpet, which must be heard. Its echoes reach the miserable garrets where the poor are crowded together, and have never heard nor cared for the name of Christ,-they hear the sound, and as one after another dies, they tremble. In the darkest cellar in the most crowded haunt of vice; ay! and in the palaces of kings, in the halls of the rich and great, the sound finds an entrance and the cry is raised, “The death plague is come! The cholera is among us!” All men are compelled to hear the trumpet-voice-would to God they heard it to better purpose! Would to God all of us were aroused to a searching of heart, and, above all, led to fly to Christ Jesus, the great sacrifice for sin, and to find in him a rescue from the greater plague, the wrath to come!

VI. The great end and design of God, then, it seems, is to arouse the city, and that arousing should follow from the fact declared in The Last Question: “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?”

Here is not intended moral evil-that rests with man-but physical evil, the evil of pestilence or famine! Shall there be cholera in the city, and God hath not done it? My soul cowered down under the majesty of that question, as I read it; it seemed to stretch its black wings over my head, and had I not known them to be the wings of God, I should have been afraid. The text talked with me in this fashion:-It is not the cholera which has slain these hundreds, the cholera was bat the sword. The hand which scattered death is the hand of a greater than mere disease. God himself is traversing London. God with silent footstep walks the hospitals, enters the chamber, strikes the wayfarer in the street, and chills the heart of the suppliant kneeling by his bed. God, the great Judge of all, at whose girdle swing the keys of death and hell, the mysterious one whose voice bids the pillars of heaven’s starry roof to tremble, who made the stars, and can quench them at his will;-it was none other than he who walked down our crowded courts, and entering our lanes and alleys called one after another the souls of men to their last account! God is abroad! There are times when God comes especially near to men. He is everywhere, and yet he is frequently described in Scripture as saying, “Let us go down, that we may see whether it be altogether according to the report thereof.” God has come down, and is going through this city. Tread solemnly when you go to your business tomorrow morning; you walk the streets where God has walked. You who will go to the cemetery with your dead ones, I had almost said, Put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground, for God is there! The last time this disease was here I had a pervading sense of the presence of God wherever I went, It seemed to me as if the veil between time and eternity were more transparent than usual. If anything ought to compel our attention to God’s voice, it should be the remembrance that it is attended with God’s presence, and if anything ought to make us feel his rod, it is the fact that it is not the rod that smites, but God himself that uses the rod.

Leaving the text itself, I want to gather up my thoughts, as God shall help me, in a few earnest words. My dear hearers, I would speak as God’s mouth to you as his Holy Spirit shall enable me. Is not the Lord speaking to all of us both saints and sinners, and warning us to be agreed with him? O you who are his blood-bought people, believers in Jesus, is there any sin that has parted you from communion with Christ? Have you fallen into anything, which has provoked the Spirit, so that his comforts are withdrawn? If so, by deep humility and earnest prayer, standing at the foot of the cross of the Lord Jesus, pray-

“Return, thou heavenly Dove, return,
Sweet messenger of rest;
I hate the sins that made thee mourn,
And drove thee from my breast.”

At all times it is well for the Christian to acquaint himself with God and be at peace, but especially just now. How can you help others, if you yourself have lost the sense of the love of God shed abroad in your heart? I know you are his, and he will never cast you away, but if you do not enjoy his presence you will be as weak as water.

And oh! those of you who are not his people, can you bear to be at disagreement with God? How can he walk with you? You ask his protection, but how can you expect it if you are not agreed with him? Now, if two men walk together, there must be a place where they meet each other. Do you know where that is? It is at the cross. Sinner, if thou trustest in Jesus, God will meet thee there. That is the place where true at-one-ment is made between God and sinners. If thou goest repentingly to Jesus, saying, “Have mercy upon my iniquity; wash me in thy blood,” thou shalt be agreed with God, and then thou mayest look forward to living or dying with equal delight, for if we Live we shall walk with God on earth, and if we die we shall walk with God above.

Brethren, while the lion roars, should we not remove any evil which may have caused his anger to burn? Christian, search thyself’ now and purge out the old leaven. T he head of the Jewish household, when the feast of unleavened bread draws nigh, not only puts away the loaves of bread ordinarily used in the household, but takes a candle and searches every part of the house, lest there should be even a crumb of leaven anywhere. He cleanseth it all out, that he may keep the feast not with leavened bread. Now, Christian, as this is God’s visitation, ask for the candle of the Holy Spirit to discover any little sin. Let any little self-indulgence into which we have fallen he conscientiously given up, and for the sake of that dear Savior who denied himself every comfort for us, let us take up our cross and follow him, determined that if the lion shall roar, it shall not be because of any prey in us.

And oh, sinner, against whom God has been roaring, do you not remember his own words, “Beware, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there he none to deliver.” Who can remove the iniquity, which provokes the Lord to jealousy, except the dying Savior, the Lord Jesus? He has put away sin by bearing it in his own body, and if thou trustest him, there shall he no sin in thee to provoke God; but it shall be said of thee as of Israel, “In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall he sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.”

Moreover, the Lord our God speaks to us by his providence, and says, “Submit yourselves, this day, to God’s design.” The great Fowler has spread the net: he will not take away that net till he has caught the bird. Be caught in it. Saint, fly not from your God. If he puts out even an angry hand, fly into it: there is no shelter from an angry God but in the pierced hand of his dear Son. When vengeance would strike a heavy blow, the closer you can get to it, the less will it wound you. Get close to God in Christ; cling to him, and he will not destroy you. Fly to Jesus! Sinner, fly! Be taken in God’s net. Say to God, “What wouldst thou have me to do? Wouldst thou have me to be thine? Here I am, Lord; before thou takest me in the nets of death, take me in the nets of grace. Before the snares of hell prevent me, let the blessed snare of thine eternal love sweetly entangle me. I am, I would be, thine.”

Be awake, Christian, and be aware of God’s design, for the trumpet is sounding, and when the trumpet sounds, the Christian must not slumber. Let the presence of God infuse into you a more than ordinary courage and zeal. My brethren, I wish I could speak to you this morning as I had hoped to have done, for then I would throw my whole soul into every word; I charge you, as you love Jesus, as you know the value of your own soul, now, if never before, be in earnest for the salvation of the sons of men. Men are always dying, time like a mighty rushing stream is always bearing them away, but now they are hurried down the torrent in increasing numbers. If you and I do not exert ourselves to teach them the gospel, upon our heads must be their blood. It is God’s work we know to save, but then he works by instruments, and we have his own solemn word for it: “If the watchman warn them not, they shall perish, but their blood will I require at the watchman’s hands.” Are there no houses round your dwelling where Jesus is unknown? Is there no court, no lane, no alley near to where you reside, without God and without Christ? Have you no friends unconverted? Have you no acquaintance unsaved? May there not be even sitting in the pew with you, some unpardoned person? May there not be, Sabbath after Sabbath, sitting in the next seat some one who knows not Christ, who was never warned of his danger or pointed to the remedy? It is a great mercy when the bell tolls if we can say of those who die, “I did all I could to save them from ruin.” I thought when I read Whitfield’s words to his congregation; I wish I could always say as much. He said, “Ah, souls, if you are lost, it is not for want of praying for, it is not for want of weeping over, it is not for want of faithful gospel preaching.” I can say the last, but I cannot say the first as I could wish; and yet I know that there are some of you here, who, if you be lost, are not lost for want of warning, nor for want of teaching, nor for want of invitation. We have set before you life and death; we have threatened you in God’s name, and we have invited you by the precious blood of Jesus. Years ago there seemed to be some hope about you, but it was like the morning cloud and the early dew; for you are still unsaved. When I heard the other day that Mrs. So-and-So was dead, and that she died of cholera, I could not lament, for she was one who had long feared God. When they told me that a worthy young man had fallen, I was sorrowful to have lost so good a student from the college, but I was thankful that one who had served his God so well in his youth had gone to his rest; but if I heard of the death of some of you, it would cause me unmingled grief and fear. Some of you have been sitting here for years who will, I fear, go out of this tabernacle to destruction-you know you will, unless you are changed. If you die as you now are you have nothing to expect but a fearful looking for of judgment and of’ fiery indignation. Some of you know well the result of sin, and yet you choose it; your consciences prick you often, and yet you run against them; you have been alarmed and so awakened that it seems impossible that you can continue as you are; but alas, you will not turn and your end is coming. My hearer, I can hardly settle my face to think of thy fate; I feel like Elijah when he looked into the face of Hazael, and trembled as he foresaw his history. It is terrible to think of thy doom. He who has warned thee and prayed for thee will meet thee in another world, and when he meets thee thou shalt not have to say he did not speak plainly and pointedly to thee; thou shalt be speechless, because the trumpet was sounded and thou didst not take the warning, and God was in the city and thou wouldst not hear him, and death spoke as well as the minister, but thou stoppedst both thine ears because thou wast resolved to die, and thy heart was set on mischief. Thou scornest eternal life and choosest destruction for the sake of a few paltry pleasures, or a deceitful darling lust, which will treacherously stab thee through thy heart; thou lettest Jesus go and heaven go, and all this for a moment’s pleasure! Ah, my hearer, you shall have much to answer for. I speak to you as a dying man, and pray you not to venture into eternal wrath. Give these words some consideration, I pray you, and as you consider them, may God the Holy Ghost fasten them as nails in a sure place, and may you seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near, for this is his word to you, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” and Jesus adds his loving words, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;” and “the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

Amos 4:12 Prepared to Meet God

NO. 2965
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7TH, 1905,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, AUGUST 8TH, 1875.

“Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” — Amos 4:12.

There is a peculiar solemnity about the language of our text, because, albeit that the whole of Scripture is the Word of God, yet very much of it is given to us by the prophets, apostles, and other inspired writers. But, here, it is God himself who is speaking, and out of heaven he addresses his erring people, and says to them, “Because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” If ever every mortal ear should be earnestly attentive, it is when God’s voice is heard. Shall not the creature listen to its Creator? Shall not man give heed to the voice of the God of the whole earth? O Lord, give to us the hearing ear, and let not thy words merely reach our ears, but may the inward meaning of them penetrate our souls, through the effectual working of thine almighty Spirit!

I. I am going to use the closing words of the text — “Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel, as An Address To All Who Are Now Present.

You have come hither, but for what purpose have you come? If you have come rightly, you have come to meet your God. The Israelites often came together to bow down before their graven images, or professing to worship God with rites of their own inventing. They forgot that all true worship must be spiritual; and, though they did not, and could not, meet with God in such a way as that, yet they went back to their homes perfectly satisfied with what they had done. They had performed the external rites of their religion; they had gone through all its ceremonies correctly, and they were content. But now God calls upon them to prepare to meet HIM, — no longer to be satisfied with the visible and the external, but to get to the Invisible and the Eternal; and that is the call of God to every one who is now present here.

“What went ye out for to see?” What came ye here to hear? Too many attend even the house of God with the notion of merely going to listen to the preacher. He is a thoughtful man, profound, philosophic; or he is an eloquent man, oratorical and fluent. Is it for this reason that ye go to your churches and your chapels, simply to be charmed by the voice of man? If so, let me remind you that God abhorreth this mockery of worship. As for myself, I have long ago despised the tricks of oratory and the gaudy displays of eloquence, and would sooner be dumb than merely speak so as to exhibit my own powers. If ye have come here aright, ye have come that God may meet with you, and that you may meet with God, that your consciences may be aroused, and that the truth may enter your hearts; but, O my hearers, have you come with any such design? Are there not some of you who have almost come out to meet God as Michal went out to meet David, — that she might scoff at him? Have not some of you come almost as Goliath went to defy Israel, — that ye may fight against God, and contend against the truth; or, possibly, to despise it, in your hearts, and to mock at it? God speaks to all such persons, and says to them, “Cease ye from your evil ways, and prepare your heart to meet ME.” Oh, if we always went up to the assemblies of God’s people with prepared hearts, we should not go there in vain. If sinners came up to hear the gospel with their hearts breaking all the way, and crying, from their very souls, “Oh, that we might find Christ!” — if they came up with earnest, believing prayer, — if they gathered together with a sacred expectation of blessing, — what meetings there would be between God and them! There would be for them no more wasted Sabbaths, no more sham profession, no more formal religion without any effect upon the conscience and the life. Then would our solemn services be streams of blessing; water would again leap out of the rock, and the thirsty congregation would be indeed refreshed. O God, wilt thou not touch men’s hearts so that, when they gather together in thy house, they will come prepared to meet thee there, and to worship thee in spirit and in truth!

II. A second application of the text which I shall make, without insisting upon its being the one designed, is this; it may be looked upon as An Address To God’s Own People.

Sometimes, the Lord’s people get out of the way of communion and fellowship with him. It was so with Israel in the day of Amos, yet the Lord here avows himself to be their God still, for he says, “Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.” As for you, who are his people, he it still your God; and though you may have fallen into a cold condition of heart, and are walking now in darkness, and seeing no light, yet he calls you to meet, him, for he desires to have your company. He has been chastening you, again and again, because you would not walk near to him, and he is prepared to chasten you yet more; but he will stay his hand if you will now come near to him. Remember what Eliphaz said to Job, and obey the injunction, “Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall unto thee.” Child of God, permit me to point to thee with my finger, and to say to thee, “Prepare to meet thy God.” Were not those blessed times when the sound of his feet made music in thine ears? Hast thou forgotten the Hermonites and the hill Mizar where the Lord appeared unto thee, and said, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” Oh, blessed were those days when we retired to a private corner, and communed with God. Hallowed was that study, that kitchen, that bedroom, that hay-loft, or that ditch under the hedge, where we were accustomed to meet with the Beloved of our souls, and to talk with him as one talketh with his friends. We have had many blessed occasion when heaven’s gate has seemed to be set wide open; and if we did not pass right through, yet we did sit down as upon the doorstep of glory, and Jesus unbosomed himself to us, and we poured out our heart before him. There have been times when we have received those kisses of his lips of which we love to speak even now when the company is select; and shore have been love-tokens between our soul and our Savior which have made us feel that, whether in the body or out of the body, we could hardly tell; God only knew. Then, by all your sweet recollections of the past, come, ye children of the living God, and prepare to meet him again now.

If you ask, “What shall we do in order to get ready to meet him? “I answer, — Cast out the idols from your hearts; let them all go; love no one else and nothing else as you love him, but give him your whole body, soul, and spirit. Humble yourself before him at the very thought that you should ever have wandered away from him, and played the wanton towards your Best-beloved. Come, also, with a firm reliance upon his unchanging mercy, believing that, though you have often forsaken him, he has never forsaken you. Believe in that gracious declaration of his which says, “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.” Look again to the precious blood of Jesus, which is the only way of access to the Father, and come besprinkled with it even now. Why should you not come to him at once? God has most delightful ways of blessing his people on a sudden. “Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib.” Personally, I know what it is to rise, from the deeps of despair, right away from the place where I was distracted with a thousand cares, and sorrows, and sins, and to soar straight away into the serene ether of perfect reconciliation with God, and conscious fellowship with him. “Behold,” says the risen and glorified Jesus, “I stand at the door, and knock.” It is at the door of Laodicea, the door of that church which was lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, and it is at your door, O lukewarm Christian, that Christ is now knocking. What is the cure for your lukewarmness? It is Christ’s standing at the door, and knocking, and saying unto you, “If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” This will lift you up out of your lukewarmness; and, instead of Christ spueing you out of his mouth, as it looks as if he must do, he will come and feast with you, and you shall feast with him. Open your hearts to him, now, brothers and sisters; who among us, who profess to love him, can keep our hearts closed against him? “Come in, thou blessed of the Lord,”-we cry to our Beloved; and, as we gaze upon him, and see that his head is wet with dew, and his locks with the drops of the night, our bowels yearn towards him, and with heartfelt love we pray to him, “Abide with us, O blessed Savior, and go no more out for ever, but let our fellowship with thee be perpetual!”

III. I should have liked, if I had had time, — but I have not, — to have applied this text to any professors here who have gone beyond the negative loss of communion with God, and who have backslidden into sin.

This is The Lord’s Address To Backsliders: “Prepare to meet your God.” Prepare to come back into his loving arms, and to be reconciled to him again. There are some of you, perhaps, who were not only members of this church, but who were also members of the class so long presided over by that godly woman Mrs. Bartlett had been “called home” during the week preceding the delivery of this discourse. (See Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, No. 1,249, “Saints in Heaven and Earth One Family.”) for whom we have hung up these memorials of our grief the wept over you when you burned aside; and, amongst the many things which have made it hard work for you to sin, is this one that you knew you were grieving her gracious and gentle spirit. Hear her voice calling to you from the grave; nay, more than that, listen as she speaks to you out of the excellent glory, saying, “My beloved sister, come back to your Lord!” You have had to suffer already for your backsliding. God has sent you, as the Lord says he sent to idolatrous Israel, “blasting and mildew.” He has also withheld from you the rain in a spiritual sense, so that you are nigh unto famishing; and there is something even worse coming upon you. God does not tell you what it is, even as he did not tell the guilty Israelites all that he would do to them it is something so terrible that he seems to hesitate to describe it; but he says, “Because I will do this unto thee.” I know not what it is, nor can you guess; but it is something that will destroy all your joys, and lay you prostrate in the dust of sorrow. Because he threatens to do this unto you, return unto him, return unto him now. “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little.” - I wish I could come round to each one of you, backsliders, and beseech you to remember that we have not ceased to love you, nor to pray for you, nor to hope that you may yet be led to prepare to meet your God.

IV. Now, coming to my principal object on this occasion, I want to take the text, and use it as A Message To The Unconverted. O Spirit of God, apply it to them with thine almighty power!

I think the text may be applied to the unsaved in three ways; first, as a challenge: “Prepare to meet thy God;” secondly, as an invitation: “Prepare to meet thy God;” and, thirdly, as a summons, — and it will, one day, come in that form to every one of us: “Prepare to meet thy God.”

First, this sentence comes to the ungodly as a challenge. At the time referred to in the text, God had been punishing the idolatrous Israelites again, and again, and again, and again, with the view of bringing them to repentance; but none of his chastisements had, so far, moved them to yield to him. The more God smote them, the harder they became, so he seemed to say to them, “Well, then, since you will not submit to me, since nothing appears to make you bow down at my feet, I will now put on my armor of wrath, and come out against you with sword and buckler; and I throw down this challenge to you, — prepare to meet me.” Now, my dear hearers, you who have long heard the gospel, but who, until now, have rejected it, I ask you, — Do you hope to be able to withstand God when he comes forth against you in the majesty of his righteous wrath? Already, when he has but touched you, he has made every bone and nerve in your body to tremble. You know how near to the gate of death he has brought you; do you imagine that, when he comes out against you in his might, you will be a match for him?

There are three things you may try to do, and I will ask you whether you are prepared to meet God in reference to them. The first will be, to justify yourself for remaining his enemy. Are you prepared to do that? When the Lord God says to you, “I created you, I have kept you in being, I have fed you, and cared for you until now, why have you not obeyed me?” — when the Lord Jesus Christ says to you, “I loved sinners so much that I died for them; why will you not believe in me?” — and when the Spirit of God says, “I strove with men; why did you resist me?” — what answer will you give? Will you be able to make it clear that you were perfectly justified in choosing the pleasures of this world rather than yield obedience to God? Will you be able, with all your logic, to make it seem right for you to have lived a wrong life, right to have despised the law of God, and right to have rejected the gospel of Christ? Come, man, set your wits to work, and see whether you can expect, in the great assize which will soon be held, to be able to justify yourself before the bar of God. Prepare, in that way, to meet your God.
Or, secondly, do you expect to be able to resist him? Come, ye brave men, gird on your armor, and come out to battle against the Lord God Almighty! Better let the thorns contend against the fire which licks them up with its flaming tongue, better let the wax contend against the furnace heat which makes it run like water, than let the sinner try to contend against the omnipotent God. His faintest breath would suffice to scatter the ungodly, and drive them like chaff before the wind. Can ye stand up against the Most High, O ye that despise and forget him? Did Pharaoh triumph over Jehovah at the Red Sea? Did Sennacherib overthrow the God of Israel on that dreadful night when his vast host was cast into a deep sleep from which there was no awakening? No; and you cannot successfully stand up against God; but if you mean to fight with him, count the cost, understand what it means, and so prepare to meet your God.

There is a third course open to you, and that is, are you able to endure what he can lay upon you? I have read of a prisoner insulting the judge by whom he has them sentenced, and telling him that the punishment he had awarded was a mere trifle. Can you say this to God? O unconverted men, will you be able to endure the terror of his ire in that day when he comes forth against your Oh, no! the very joints of your body shall be loosed in that day, your hair shall stand erect with horror, that bold spirit of yours shall despair, and all thee bravado with which you said, “There is no God,” shall have departed from you, and you will crouch, and tremble, and weep, and wail in his presence. You say to-day, “There is no hell:” but you will not say that when you get there. You defy God to-day, but you will not defy him in the day when he reveals himself to you; for, then, you will cry to the mountains to fall upon you to hide you from his angry face. O sirs, the challenge of the living God is just this, — if you will not yield to him, be prepared to fight the quarrel out with him. If you will not submit to his mercy, if you cannot justify yourselves for your wrongdoing, then take up your arms, and contend with him, or harden yourselves like adamant, and prepare to endure the fierceness of his wrath. But neither of these things can you do, so let that terrible challenge bring you to your knees, and cause you to
“Seek his grace Whose wrath ye cannot bear.”

So, in the second place, I will use the text as an invitation, and the note at once changes from the thunders of Sinai to the still small voice of Calvary: “Prepare to meet your God.” Have you heard these tidings, ungodly men? God is coming out against you, armed with his dreadful two-edged sword, — that very sword of infinite justice with which he smote his only-begotten Son in that day when he stood as the Substitute for sinners. What can you do? Will you run away from him? To whom or whether can you run? The utmost ends of the earth are in his hands. Should you fly to the far-distant seas, he will arrest you there; should you plunge into the thickest shades of darkness, his eye will still behold you.

“Lord, where shall guilty souls retire,
Forgotten and unknown?
In hell they meet thy dreadful fire,
In heaven thy glorious throne.
“If wing’d with beams of morning light,
I fly beyond the West;
Thy hand, which must support my flight,
Would soon betray my rest.
“If o’er my sins I think to draw
The curtains of the night;
Those flaming eyes that guard thy law
Would turn the shades to light.
“The beams of noon, the midnight hour,
Are both alike to thee:
Oh, may I ne’er provoke that power
From which I cannot flee!”

God is coming forth to meet you, and there is no way for you to escape from him. Will you stay where you are? Then he will soon overtake you; and when he does, then shall come your terrible end. Your wisdom is to give heed to the advice of the text, and go to meet him. You cannot escape if you remain where you are, so go to meet him. “How?” say you. Well, go to meet him thus: with humble confessions and petitions on your lips, and with ropes on your necks, adjudging yourselves worthy of death, and yielding yourselves up entirely into the Lord’s hands, confessing that you deserve any punishment that he pleases to put upon you. It is thus that a rebellious subject should meet his King, — confessing guilt, praying for mercy, pleading for forgiveness, asking for grace. Thus David met his God. Read the 51st Psalm, note how he prayed, and go thou, and do likewise. You must go also with repentance in your hearts. The sins you have loved in the past must be hated and forsaken. You must go to God abhorring yourselves, and making a full surrender of your souls to him. Yield yourselves thus to him, and do it at once, seeing that, since you have rebelled against him, his justice can seize you at any moment, and execute upon you his hot displeasure.

But let me tell you that you have a stern task before you if you are to prepare yourselves in this fashion to meet your God, — a task which you will find impossible to perform in your own strength. Our rebellious heart will not readily yield; our stubborn spirit will not easily bow; our pride will not let us confess our sin; the dumb devil within us will not permit us to pray. I will tell you what to do. Go to God, just as you are, in the Mediator’s name; or go first to Jesus, and say, “Lord Jesus, give me, repentance, give me faith, give me hatred of sin, give me a yielding spirit, give me a heart of flesh, give me a pliant mind;” and when you have thus yielded yourself up to Jesus, you are prepared to meet God, for the place where God meets sinners is at the cross of Christ and it is the only place where it is safe for a sinner to attempt to meet his God. If, then, you would be prepared to meet your God, go to that Jesus who met his Father on your behalf, and who, as the result of that terrible meeting, died for your sins, if you are truly trusting him. Go to Christ and he will wash you in his precious blood, and clothe you in his spotless robe of righteousness. Go to Christ and he will breathe the perfume of his merits over you; and then, when you meet God, he will not merely see, in you a sinner, but a sinner saved. He will smell the fragrant odour of the garments of his Son, which will have such a sweet savor to him that you will be acceptable to him for Christ’s sake. There is no other way to God than this. How I wish that every unconverted person here would heed this message, and obey it, “Prepare to meet thy God.” Go and meet him in the way I have pointed out to you; go and meet him this very hour.

“Where shall I go to meet God?” asks one. Well, meet him just where you are. Trust Jesus, and yield yourself to God, and the great transaction is done; or get away into some quiet corner, and pour out your grief before the Lord, and ask him, for Jesus sake, to meet with you, that you may be reconciled to him through the death of his Son.

It is scarcely a week ago since our good sister, Mrs. Bartlett, fell asleep; and I do not know of anything that would so well keep her in our memories, — especially in the memories of those of you who have often heard her loving invitations, but have not yielded to them, as for me to speak on her behalf, as well as on my Lord’s behalf, and say to you, “Come and meet the Lord; come and meet him now, prepared to meet him through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ your Lord.” Happy day, happy day, would it be if many were led by the gracious Spirit to meet with God now. I remember well the time when I first met him thus. I thought that I was a lost soul; I judged myself to be upon the brink of hell. I had no merit and no native goodness to bring to God; I was just a mass of corruption and sin; but — “I came to Jesus as I was, Weary, and wow, and sad; — and in Jesus I met my God, and, meeting God, my soul ways set at liberty; and, to-night, my soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior. The door that was open to me is open to thee, my friend, so enter it, and: enter it now. May the Holy Spirit graciously enable thee to come!

And, lastly, if the invitation of this text be not accepted, it will soon be heard as a summons. I am not the officer to bring the summons to you, I have no authority to do that; I am sent to invite you to meet your God, and I hav