Exodus 3:6 The Two Pivots

NO. 2633
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, JULY 30TH 1899,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 18TH, 1882.

I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  Exodus 3:6.

Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. --Hebrews 11:16.

YOU recollect, dear friends, that Paul is writing to the Hebrews concerning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he says, "God is not ashamed to be called their God." Then, when you turn back to our text in Exodus, you find that God was called their God at the burning bush; and, oftentimes, on other occasions, he is called the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. We must not forget that, at the time when God appeared to Moses, in the desert, in the bush that burned, but was not consumed, the condition of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was very terrible. They were slaves to the Egyptians; they were an oppressed and downtrodden race; their male children were taken from them, and cast into the river. They were entirely in Pharaoh’s hands. They were a degraded people, as all slaves gradually become; and they were unable, of themselves, to rise out of that degradation; yet, at that very time, God was not ashamed to be called their God. There, with Israel in bondage, Jehovah, whose name is the great I AM,--a name which makes all heaven bright with ineffable glory,--did not disdain to say to Moses, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." I do not wonder that the apostle should note it, as a remarkable thing, that he was not ashamed to be called their God.

I have been looking into this text very earnestly, and trying to find out exactly what was the meaning of the Holy Spirit in it; and I think I have discovered a due in two words which it contains; first, "Wherefore": "Wherefore God is not ashamed. to be called their God;"--and next, "for": "For he hath prepared for them a city." As a door hangs upon two hinges, so my golden text turns upon these two pivots, "wherefore" and "for."

I. I shall ask you to keep your Bibles open at the 11th of Hebrews, that you may see, first, "Wherefore" it is that God is not ashamed to be called the God of his people. Look at the 18th verse: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and wore persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth;" and so on. "Wherefore God. is not ashamed to be called their God."

To begin with, ther., the Lord was not ashamed to be called his people’s God because they had faith in him. You read here of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and then Paul says, "These all died in faith." If a man believes in God, trusts him,--believes that his promise is true, and that he will keep it,--believes that God’s command is right, and therefore ought to be obeyed,--God is never ashamed to be called that man’s God. He is not the God of unbelievers, for they act contrary to his will. They set up their own will in opposition to his; many of them even doubt his existence, they deny his power, they distrust his love; wherefore, he is not called their God; but when a man comes to trust God, and to accept his Word, from that moment God sees in that man the work of his grace, which is very precious in his eyes, and he is not ashamed to be called that man’s God.

Notice that it is said, "These all died in faith," so that they did not believe in God for a little while, and then become unbelievers; but, throughout the whole of their lives, from the moment when they were called by God’s grace, they continued to believe him, they trusted. him till they came to their graves; so that this epitaph is written over the mausoleum where they all lie asleep, "These all died in faith." Ah! my beloved brother’s and sisters, it is very easy to say, "I believe," and to get very enthusiastic over the notion that we have believed; but so to believe as to persevere to the end,--this is the faith which will save the soul. "He that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved." The faith that many waters cannot drown and the fiercest fires cannot burn,--the faith that plods on throughout a long and weary life,--the faith that labors on, doing whatever service God appoints it,--the faith that waits patiently, expecting the time when every promise of God shall be fulfilled to the letter when its hour has come,--that is the faith which, if it be in a man, makes him such a man that God is not ashamed to be called his God. I put it to every one of you, have ’you a faith that will hold on and hold out,--not a faith that starts with a fine spurt, but a faith that runs from the starting-place to the goal? Some of you, I know, have believed in God these twenty, thirty, forty, or even fifty years. Just before I came to this service, I stood by the bedside of a dear brother who is the nearest to Job of any man I ever saw, for he is covered from head to foot with sore blains; I might almost say, "wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores;" and yet he is as happy as anyone among us, joyful and. cheerful as he talks about the time when he shall be "with Christ, which is far better." Oh, that is the faith we want! "These all died in faith," "wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God." He is not the God of apostates, for he hath said, "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." If he has put his hand to the plough, and. looks back, he is not worthy of the kingdom. It is the man who steadily, and perseveringly, resting in his God, and believing him against all that may be said by God’s foes, holds on until he sees the King in his beauty in the land which is very far off. Of such a man it may be truly said that God is not ashamed to be called his God.

Now let us come back to the Scripture; we cannot do better than keep close to it, for our text is only to be understood by the context. Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture. The locks of Scripture are only to be opened with the keys of Scripture; and. there is no lock in the whole Bible, which God meant us to open, without a key to fit it somewhere in the Bible, and we are to search for it until we find it. Now read on in the 18th verse: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises." That is to say, the things that God promised to them, he did not give them in their mortal life, and they did not always expect that he would do so. They were a waiting people. God loves those who are like himself; I am not now speaking of his love of benevolence, for with that love he loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, but I am speaking of the love of complacency, which makes him not ashamed to be called our God. In that sense, God. loves those who are like himself, and God is a waiting God; he is never in a hurry. How wondrous is the leisure of the Eternal! When he is coming to help his people, he is quick indeed: "He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind." But, oftentimes, he waits and tarries till some men count it slackness; but he does not reckon time as we Co. With God, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. So, being himself a waiting God, he loves a waiting people; he loves a man who can take the promise, and say, "I believe it; it may never be fulfilled to me in this life, but I do not want that it should be. I am perfectly willing that it should be fulfilled when God intends that it should be." Abraham saw Christ’s day afar off, but he never saw Christ; yet he rejoiced in the promise of which he did not receive the fulfillment. Isaac did. not see Christ, except in a vision of the things that were long afterwards to come to pass. Jacob did not hear that joyful sound, which--

Kings and prophets waited for,
And sought, but never found.

But they were perfectly willing to wait, and God was not ashamed to be called the God of such a waiting people. You remember Mr. Bunyan’s description of the two children, Passion and Patience. Passion would. have his best things now, and he had them; but he soon spoiled them, misused them, and abused them. But Patience would have his best things last; and, as Bunyan very prettily says, "There is nothing to come after the last." Therefore, when Patience got his best things, they lasted on for ever and for ever. God, loves not the passion, but he loves the patience. "The husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it;" and I would fain imitate him. "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." The worldly man lives in the present; but that is a poor way of living, worthy only of the beasts that perish. Look on the sheep and bullocks in the pasture; what kind of life is theirs? They also live in the present. If they have grass enough for to-day, they are perfectly satisfied. The butcher’s knife has no terrors for them; neither do they, in the cold of winter, look forward to the bright days of summer. They cannot look before them; and God loves not men who are like the beasts of the field, he is ashamed to be called their God. But he loves the man who gets to live in eternity, for God himself lives there. To God, there is no past, present, or future; he sees all at a single glance. And when a man comes to feel that he is not living simply in to-day which will so soon end, but that he is living in the eternity which will never end, when he is rejoicing in the covenant, "ordered, in all things, and sure," made from before the foundation of the world,--when a man feels that he is living in the future as well as the present, that his vast estates are on the other side of Jordan, that his chief joy is up there where Christ sitter at the right hand of God, and that his own heart has gone up there whore his treasure is, for "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also," --when the affection is set, not upon things below, but upon things above,--that is the man whom God loves, because he has learned how to live in God’s atmosphere, in God’s own eternity. He has risen above the beggarly elements of time and space. He is not circumscribed by Almanacks, and days, and months, and years; his thoughts range right away from that glorious declaration, "I have loved. thee with an everlasting love," to those endless, dateless periods when still the everlasting love of God shall be the constant delight of his people.

I see, then, why it is written that "God, is not ashamed to be called their God," because they are content to live without having received the promises, but to keep on patiently waiting, with a holy, joyful confidence, till the hour of God’s gracious purpose shall arrive, and the promise shall be fulfilled.

Now read on in the 18th verse, and see whether this description fits yourself, dear friend: "But having seen them afar off." So they were a far-seeing people. God, you know, sees everything; and he loves people who can see afar off. The gods of the heathen have eyes, but they see not; and the psalmist says, "They that make them are like unto them." So they that worship a blind god are a blind people; but they that worship a seeing God, are themselves made to see, for they are numbered with the pure in heart who shall see God. It is a grand thing when a man can see infinitely further than these poor eyes can carry, and far beyond the range of the strongest telescope, when he can see beyond death,--and see beyond the judgment-seat, and see right into heaven, and there behold the Lamb leading his glorified flock to the living fountains of waters, and the saints, with tearless eyes, for ever bowing before the throne of God and the Lamb. God is not ashamed to be called. the God of the people who can do this. God is ashamed to be called the God of you blind people, whose eyes have never been opened; but when he opens your eyes, then he becomes your God, and he is not ashamed to be so called., for he it is that gives us this blessed power to see. Until spiritual sight is thus bestowed upon us, we are blind; but when God has given us sight, then he is not ashamed, to own us as his children, nor is he ashamed to own that he himself is our God.

I appeal to you whom I am now addressing, and ask whether you can see God’s promises afar off? There are some who say, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Yes, it may be so with the poor birds that sing here; but, for my part, I am willing to wait till I can have the one in the bush, if it is in the bush that burned. with fire because God was there. You may have the bird in the hand, if you will. You will soon pluck off its feathers; it will speedily die in your hand, and there will come an end to it; but there are other birds which, as yet, we cannot reach, but which are really ours; and if we cannot at present grasp them, we are willing to wait God’s time, because we can see that they will be in our hands in the future, we can already see them "afar off." Unhappy is the man who sees nothing but what he calls "the main chance," or who sees nothing but that which is within a few feet of him. Wretched indeed is he who lives only to get money, or to gain. honor,--whose whole life is spent in the pursuit of personal comfort, but who never had his eye opened enough to see the things eternal, and who never was able to set a value upon anything but what could be paid for with pounds, shillings, and pence. Beloved, have you seen the promises afar off? Has the Lord opened, your eyes to see eternal things? Then it is written concerning you also, "Wherefore God is not ashamed, to be called their God."

Now pass on to the next sentence, for every word is fruitful with meaning: "and were persuaded of them, and embraced them." They were people who rejoiced in things unseen. You will find that, in the Revised Version, the words "persuaded of them" are left out, and very properly so, for there is no doubt whatever that they were not in the original, but were added by somebody who wished to explain the meaning to us. The Greek is properly rendered, "but having seen them afar off, greeted them;" but I like, even better, the translation "embraced them." It means that, as for the things which are promised to us, if we are believers, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we have, from afar, seen those promised things, and we have welcomed them; or, to use our Authorized Version, we have "embraced them." We have pressed them to our bosom, we have hugged them to our heart, we have loved them in our very soul, we have rejoiced in them; they have filled our spiritual nature full of music, and all the bells of our being are ringing merry peals because of the blessed promises of our God.

Now, when a man is of that mind, God is not ashamed to be called his God. Let me, then, ask you, dear friend,--What is it that you are embracing? Is it some earthly thing? Does your heart love and cling to that which you can see, and touch, and. handle? Is that your chief delight? Then God is ashamed to be called your God, because you are an idolater; you are worshipping some created thing. But if you can say of Christ, "He is all my salvation, and all my desire," then God is not ashamed to be called your God. Remember what David said: "Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart;" for God is able to give to a man his desires when all his heart is delighting in his God; and God is not ashamed to be called his God. The Lord’s love is not set upon merely material objects; the infinite heart of God loves truth, and righteousness, and purity, and everything that is holy and glorious. And if your heart does the same, God is not ashamed to be called your God; but if you do not love these things, you have neither part nor lot in God, but you are a stranger to him: and, though I speak this solemn truth in gentle language, I pray that it may drop like caustic upon your spirit, and burn its way into your very soul. What an awful thing it must be to be without God,--to have no part nor lot in him,--never to be able to say, "My God, my Father," but only to speak of him as a God,--an unknown God, another man’s God, but no God to you! Nay it not be so with you, brethren! If you can say that you have seen the promises from afar, and have by faith embraced them, then God is not ashamed to be called your God.

Pass on to the next sentence: "and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." They owned that they were not at home here. Abraham never built a house; Isaac never lived anywhere but in a tent; and though Jacob tried to dwell in a settled habitation, he got into trouble through it, and he was bound still to be a tent-dweller. The reason why they live in tents was because they wanted to show to all around them that they did not belong to that country. There were great cities with walls which, as men said, reached to heaven; but they did not go to dwell in those cities. You remember that Lot did, yet he was glad enough to get out again,—"saved, yet so as by fire;" but Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob kept away from other men, for they were commanded to dwell alone, and not to be numbered among the nations. Nor were they; they kept themselves apart from other people as strangers and sojourners here below, so, for that very reason, God is not ashamed to be called their God. Remember how David says to the Lord, "I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." That is a very singular expression: "a stranger saith thee;"--blessed be God, not "a stranger to thee;" but, "a stranger with thee." That is to say, God is a stranger here; it is his own world, and he made it; but when Christ, who is the Son of God, and the Creator of the world, came into it, "he came unto his own, and his own received him not;" and they soon made him feel that the only treatment which he would receive at their hands was this: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours." There was no man, who ever lived, who was a truer man than was Christ the Lord; but there never was a man who was more unlike the rest of men. He was a homely man, a home-loving man, to the last degree; yet he was never at home. This world was not his rest; he had nowhere even to lay his head; and what was true naturally, was also true spiritually. This world offered Christ no rest whatever. Now, dear friends, how is it with us? Do we belong to this world, or to the unseen? How do you feel about this matter? Do you feel at home here? I think that, often, we are compelled to cry, with the psalmist, "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" We wish to do good to others as far as we can; we are men of peace, but when we speak, they are for war; and we realize the truth of our Lord’s words, "A man’s foes shall be they of his own household." The more a man comes right straight out for God, the more opposition he is sure to meet with. Re half-asleep, and nobody will say much against you; but wake up, and be active for God, and for his Christ, and you will soon discover that the seed of the serpent has the serpent’s venom in it still, and it hates the seed of the woman as much as ever it did. It must be so; therefore always feel that you are only a stranger here, and that your business is to go through this world, as a traveler passes through a foreign country. He does not speak the language of the people, he does not follow their customs, he is not one of the citizens of the land; he is just a temporary dweller here below, and he is on his journey home. If that is the kind of man you are, God is not ashamed to be called your God; but he is not the God of the earthworms that only want to burrow down into the soil. He is not the God of those who build their nests, and say, "Here would we live for ever." He is not the God of the man who can say, "Give me a knife and fork, and plenty to eat and drink; give me suitable clothes to wear in the day, and a nice soft bed to sleep on at night; give me wealth, give me fame; that is all I want, and I will let heaven go to anyone who wants it." Jehovah is not the God of Esau, who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage; but he is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and. of Jacob, who have a heritage that they cannot see, and who count the land in which they dwell to be a place of strangers and of sojourners; and they think of themselves as only strangers and sojourners in it.

Now read on a little further: "For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." The word translated "country" might, I think be better rendered. "fatherland." "They who say that they are strangers here declare plainly that they seek a fatherland." The word is sometimes translated "their own country." "A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country." It is the same word here in the Greek. It signifies that they sought their own country,--their fatherland. Wherefore, God, who is the Father of all his people, and whose heaven is their fatherland, is not ashamed to be called their God. Now, dear friends, are you seeking a fatherland ? I put the question to every hearer here,--Are you looking for a fatherland? Sir Walter Scott wrote,-

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?

So said the patriot poet, and we have said it, too, for we are patriots; but yet I venture to say that this is not my home, this is not my fatherland.

I'm but a stranger here;
Heaven is my home.

My fatherland lies out of sight, beyond the everlasting hills, where God. dwells, and where Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. Now, the men who, by grace, have been brought to say this, "We are out of our own country, we are seeking a fatherland," these are the people of whom it is written, "Wherefore God. is not ashamed to be called their God."

Paul goes on to say, "And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned." Brethren, this is another characteristic of believers, we have left the world as our home, and joy, and comfort, to seek a better country; but toe may go back if we like. There is no compulsion to keep a man a Christian, but the compulsion of love. He who is enlisted in the army of Christ may desert if he pleases, but the blessed grace of God will hold us so that we shall do no such thing. We have plenty of opportunities to return. Oh, how many invite us to turn back! I know how they beckon some of you who have lately come out on the Lord’s side. Sometimes it is a female voice that would charm you, and there is a great fascination about it, and you have to mind what you are doing lest you become unequally yoked together. Sometimes it is the voice of the world promising you wealth,--offering you a better situation, perhaps, if you will go back; but, like Noses, you esteem "the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." You have plenty of opportunities to return. There are back entrances to Satan’s Kingdom; he does not ask you to come in at the front door, he lets you sneak in again by the back gate. If you want to go into slavery again, there are many opportunities of returning; but if you are made by Christ to be, in this respect, like God, immutable, so that you say, "I cannot turn; I cannot change; I must be what Christ has made me; I must stand fast for truth and for holiness, and stand fast as long as I live, so help me, my God," --if you are able to talk like that, then God is not ashamed to be called your God. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you can get back to the old. country whenever you like. But they never will go back; the deep dividing river rolls between them and that land, even as, to-day, there rolls between some of us and the world the stream in which we have been buried with Christ, and, by God’s grace, we shall never cross it again; and, because of that holy determination, God is not ashamed to be called our God.

I finish up my remarks upon the word "wherefore," which is very full of matter, by noticing how the apostle says, "But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly." That is to say, instead of going back, we are pressing forward towards heavenly things. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." "The Father seeketh such to worship him." That is, those who are spiritual, who are seeking after heavenly things with all their heart, these are they whom God loves, for God. is spiritual; God is heavenly; and when he has made us spiritual, and. made us pant after heavenly things, then he is not ashamed to be called our God.

I have put these points before you as briefly as I could, wishing every moment to be examining myself, and. asking you to examine yourselves. Have you a life within you which makes you pant and pine after heavenly things? Whatever you have in this world, do you hold it with a loose hand? Do you feel that it is not your real riches,--it is not your true treasure? You know that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all rich men. God blessed. them, and gave them a great increase to all that they had; but, still, they did not live simply to gather riches; they did not make them their chief delight. If you had asked them, they would have told you that they were inheritors of a mysterious covenant, by which God had bound himself to be their God, and the God of their seed; and. in that covenant was included the promise that Christ himself should come out of their loins, and for him they waited, and. he was the hope of their spirit. Now, dear friends, if that be the ease with you also, you can understand the meaning of my text, "Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God."

II. I must give but a few minutes to the second part of the text, yet; it wants a good deal of thought, for it says, "for he hath prepared for them a city." The second pivot-word is "for."

Now go back again to the text in Exodus, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Yet Paul says, "These all died;" and we know that our Lord said to the Sadducees, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Is he not ashamed to be called the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, seeing that they all died? No; because they are not dead, though they died, "for he hath prepared, for them a city." Thee men, though they lived, and died, and passed out of the world without having received the heritage, are not dead. There is the glory of the matter. When they lay a-dying, the devil might have come, and said to them, "Now, what have you got by your covenant with God.? You left father, and mother, and everything that you had, and went and lived the separated life, and now you are dying out here; what have you got? Nothing but some little holes in the Cave of Machpelah, into which they will push your bodies; that is all that you have got." Oh, but the devil does not know; or if he does, he is a liar, for they gained everything by that life of faith, for they still live, and God has prepared for them a city. They have entered that city now. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are at the very head of the celestial company, for our Lord said., "Many shall come from the east, and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." And, by-and-by, Machpelah shall yield up her dead; and Abraham, and Sarah, and Isaac, and Jacob shall live again in the fullest sense, for their bodies as well as their souls shall live again; and Joseph’s bones, which he would not suffer to lie in Egypt, --for he would not let the Egyptians have a scrap of him,--shall live; --and thus, in their flesh, shall they see God, and shall rejoice before him. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called the God of these people who all died in faith, because they are still living, and they shall continue to live for ever and ever.

Somebody may perhaps say that these people did not receive the promises. Well, they did not literally receive the fulfillment of them. They did not see Christ; they de not witness the descent of the Holy Ghost; they did not hear the gospel preached. They did not see those wonders that they looked for, so is not God ashamed. to be called the God of people who did not receive the promises after all? No, because "he hath prepared for them a city." They have received the promises now; and. they shall receive them yet more and more. God will yet cause the believer’s life to be all blessing. Do not be afraid of the consequences of trusting in Christ; you may have the rough side of the road here; but what we sang, just now, is quite true,--

Afflictions may press me, they cannot destroy, One glimpse of his love turns them all into joy; And the bitterest tears, if he smile but on them, Like dew in the sunshine, grow diamond and gem.

Let doubt, then, and danger my progress oppose, They only make heaven more sweet at the close: Come joy or come sorrow, whate'er may befall, Au hour with my God will make up for them all.

If God gave to his children here gall and wormwood to drink,--ay, if they never had anything but aches and pains from the moment of their conversion till they died, yet they would have the best of the bargain, after all, for there is an eternity of bliss in the heaven which is prepared for them.

But, further, these people were a sort of gypsies, always moving about, and living in tents, different from everybody else. Yes, they were strangers among the people where they dwelt; and men often say of us now, that we cannot be content to go on as other people do. Those patriarchs were strangers, odd folk, peculiar people. Is not God ashamed to be called their God? No; because, now, they have gone where they are all right, for their manners and customs are exactly suitable to the place. A very dear old woman, whom I visited when she was dying, said to me, "One thing comforts me, sir, I do not think that God will ever send me among the wicked, for I never could got on in their company. The best times I have ever had were when I could sit with a few of the Lord’s people, and hear them talk about him; and though I could not always be sure that I was myself a Christian, yet I was very like them, and I was very happy when I was with them. I think I shall go to my own company, sir." Yes, dear soul, and so she did; and if we are strangers here, we are going to that company where we shall not be at all strangers. They will understand our language when once we got across the river into the King’s own country. "Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God," because they speak the language which he speaks, the language of his own courts; and he is not ashamed to say, "These are my people, and. I own them before you all."

Notice, yet again, that these people were seekers and desirers all their lives: "They seek a country;" "they desire a better country." Is this a right state of heart for a Christian, --to be always seeking and always desiring? Well, brethren, that is the state in which I often am, and I wish still to keep in that condition,--always seeking, always desiring. whenever God gives ma any spiritual blessing, I always seek some more; and if he gives me more, I seek for more still. And if he gives me my heart’s desire, I pray him to enlarge my heart, that I may desire some greater boon. For, in spiritual things, we may be as covetous as ever we like; and we may say, "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." And God is not ashamed to be called the God of those who are thus seeking and desiring, because he has laid up for. them all that they seek, and he has prepared for them all that they desire. I should be ashamed to set a poor person desiring if I could not gratify the desire; I should be ashamed to set a man seeking if I knew that he could not get what he sought acier; but because God has prepared a city for these seekers and desirers, he is not ashamed to be called their God. As I stood, this evening, by the bedside of the dear brother whom I mentioned to you, a little while ago, I could. not help saying, "Here is a poor soul covered with boils and blains, but God is not ashamed to be called his God." And there may be a child of God who is very poor indeed, with hardly sufficient garments to cover him, but God is not ashamed to be called his God. Perhaps his own brother is ashamed to be callers his brother; I have even known cases where men have been so wicked as to be ashamed of their own parents, because they were not so well off as themselves; but God is never ashamed of his poor people. Ay, and if God’s people are persecuted, and ill-used, if they are covered with mud from head to foot, or if they are cast into prison, God. is not ashamed. to be called their God. In those days when God permitted his people to be fastened up to the cross, or when others were taken to the stake and burnt, and everybody hissed at them, and cast out their name as evil, and said that they wore the offscouring of all things; God was not ashamed to be called their God. I am almost ashamed to say what I am going to say; I really feel my very heart blush that I should have to say it. I have known some professors who have been ashamed to call God their God. Is it not strange that the glorious God of heaven and earth should call a worm his own, and take mean wretches such as we are, and say, "I am not ashamed to be called their God," and yet that some of these creatures should be so miserably cowardly that they are ashamed to be called the people of God? Oh, write his name on your foreheads! Never be ashamed of it. Ashamed of God? Ashamed of Jesus? Ashamed of the truth ? Ashamed of righteousness? I do not wonder that there is such a text as this,--"The fearful" --that is the cowardly --"and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." If you really do love the Lord, come out, and show yourself on his side; and if he is not ashamed of you, and if your prayer be, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom," own him as your Lord and Savior now. You who are not members of any Christian church,--you who have believed in Christ, or think you have, and yet have never confessed him,--you who are hiding like rats behind the wainscot, come out, and confess Christ. What are you at? How can you be soldiers of the cross, and followers of the Lamb, if you fear to own his cause, and blush to speak his name? Come out of your hiding-places! May God the Holy Spirit draw or drive you out at once! If anything could do it, surely, it should be such a blessed fact as this, that you are numbered amongst those of whom it is said that "God is not ashamed to be called their God."

God bless you, dear friends, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"--854, 847, 848

Exodus 2:23-25, 3:9-10 ISRAEL’S CRY AND GOD’S ANSWER

NO. 2631
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, JULY 16TH, 1899,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, APRIL 23RD, 1882.

“And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered hie covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.... Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.” Exodus 2:23-25; and Exodus 3:9, 10.

GOD had chosen the children of Israel, and he had. determined to make of them a great nation and a peculiar people, to whom he could communicate the law and the testimony, that they might keep the heavenly lamp burning until Christ should come. Jacob and his family had gone down into Egypt, and for a long time they and their descendants were very happy there. The land of Goshen was very fruitful, and the Israelites were greatly favored by the Egyptian king. The mass of them, therefore, had little thought of ever leaving that country; they resolved that they would settle there permanently. In fact, though God would not have it so, they became Egyptians as far as they could. They were a part of the Egyptian nation, they began to forget their separate origin; and, in all probability, if they had been left to themselves, they would have been melted and absorbed into the Egyptian race, and lost their identity as God’s special people. They were content to be in Egypt, and they were quite willing to be Egyptianized. To a large degree, they began to adopt the superstitions, and idolatries, and iniquities of Egypt; and these things clung to them, in after years, to such a terrible extent that we can easily imagine that their heart must have turned aside very much towards the sins of Egypt. Yet, all the while, God was resolved to bring them out of that evil connection. They must be a separated people; they could not be Egyptians, nor yet live permanently like Egyptians, for Jehovah had chosen them for himself, and he meant to make an abiding difference between Israel and Egypt.

Now see the parallel. God still has a people whom he has chosen to be his own in a very peculiar sense, but they are at present mixed up with the world. They are in the world, and they are, at least in appearance, of the world; they are as fond of sin, and as much slaves to sin, as others are. They even love the world, and the things of it, and many of them are quite happy where they are, and have no wish whatever to became a part of the separated people, set apart unto the Lord. They would rather remain still in the world; but God will bring his redeemed out from the rest of mankind. He that bought them with blood will deliver them by power. Christ did not offer his atonement in vain, but “he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.” God will yet call every one of his sons and. daughters out of Egypt, even as he called his Firstborn; and he will bring his chosen out of the midst of the people among whom they are sojourning until the time appointed for their emancipation.

The first thing to be done with the Israelites was to cause them to be anxious to come out of Egypt, for it is not God’s way to make men his servants, except so far as they willingly yield themselves to him. He never violates the human will, though he constantly and effectually influences it. Jehovah wants not slaves to grace his throne; and, therefore, God would not have the people dragged out of Egypt, or driven out in fetters, against their own glad consent. He must bring them out in such a way that they would be willing to come out, so that they would march forth with joy and delight, being thoroughly weary and sick of oil Egypt, and therefore rejoicing to get away from it. How was this to be done? It was accomplished by a new king coming up, who knew not Joseph and his eminent services, and this Pharaoh began to be jealous of the people, fearing that, some day, when Egypt was at war, Israel might turn and side with the Egyptians’ enemies. He looked upon the people, therefore, as being a great danger, and determined, if he could, to thin their ranks. Hence, he issued the barbarous edict to slay all the male children; and, to break their spirit effectually, he put them to hard labor in making bricks, and erecting vast structures, so that the treasure cities of Egypt and peradventure some of her huge pyramids were built by the unpaid labors of Israelitish slaves. The whip fell often and heavily upon their backs, for they were put under brutal taskmasters, who beat them most shamefully. They had no rest, they had to toil on and on and on, and scarcely had bread enough to eat to keep body and soul together. At last, the you’re of bondage became altogether intolerable; and then, as we have it in the first part of our text,

“The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered. his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.” I want to use this subject in showing to any here, who are in soultrouble, and do not understand why they have such sorrows and distress, that God is seeking to make them sick of the world, and sick of sin, and therefore he is putting them into a condition of spiritual bondage so that they may be willing to come out of Egypt; yea, that they may, by-and-by, with the utmost joy and gladness, leave the land of their captivity.

I. The first thing I have to speak about is, The Cry Of Misery;

“The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning.”

Notice, first, that they began to sigh, and to cry, because their time of prosperity had passed. The land of Goshen might still be very fruitful, but their taskmasters devoured their substance. The country might be fair to lour upon, but they had no time to enjoy the prospect. They were worked well-nigh to death, and they could no longer God any rest in Egypt. All their prosperity and. happiness had departed. Am I addressing any who were once very well content and satisfied to live as ordinary worldlings do? And has everything changed with you? Is there no joy now in what was once such a pleasure to you? Does it seem very dull and dreary if you go where you used to find so much merriment? Those haunts which were once the scene of your greatest delight,— are they now avoided by you because you cannot endure them? Do you feel that, now, you would gladly give up all those things which once you doted on? I am thankful to hear that it is so, for when God. is about to give a man to drink of the cup of salvation, he often first puts his taste right by washing out his mouth with a draught of bitters to take away the flavour of the accursed sweets of sin. I always regard it as a good and hopeful sign when a man becomes tired of the world, altogether weary of its sins, and says, “I find no pleasure in them.” This happens to some while they are still young, and their passions are strong,— while their substance is undiminished, while their health is vigorous,— while their friends are numerous. In the very middle of the day, their san of enjoyment seems to go down. There is the honey, but it is no longer sweet. There is the wine cup, but it has no further fascination for them. Their joy has departed just when one would have thought that it would have been most abiding with them. Do I speak to any in this condition? If so, I think that I bring a message from the Lord to them.

But, next, the Israelites had not only lost their former prosperity, but they began to feel that they were in bondage. An Israelite in Egypt was at first a gentleman,— in fact, a nobleman,— for was he not related to the great prime minister, Joseph, who was second only to Pharaoh himself? Every Jew walked through Goshen as an aristocrat, for he was intimately connected with almost the highest in the realm. But now, all that was changed with them, and they felt that they were slaves, they were in bitter bondage; they must act and move at the will of others. There were hard laws and regulations made for them, and cruel taskmasters to put those laws in action. They must rise, not when they chose, but when they were bidden; and they might get to their beds only when they were allowed to do so at the slavedriver’s will; and they felt that they could not bear it any longer. This was God’s way of bringing them out of bondage, by first making them feel that they were in slavery. Have I any here who realize that they also are in slavery? Am I addressing a man who feels that he is in bondage to evil habits. which he cannot break off, although he wishes that he could, and counts himself degraded by the fact that to will, is present with him, but how to perform that which he would, he finds not, because he is s slave? His passions rule him, his companions control him, he dare not do what his conscience tells him is right, for there is a fear of somebody or other that makes him into a coward, and so into a slave. I am always glad when the fetters begin to gall. They who are content to be in bondage will never be freed; but when they feel that they cannot, and that they will not, any longer endure their captivity, then has the hour of freedom struck. It is an untold blessing when the grace of God makes a man feel that what was once a pleasure has now become a servitude, and what he formerly found to be liberty has now become utter slavery to him.

The Israelites went further than that. They now felt that their burdens were too heavy to be borne. They had worked and toiled very hard, yet they had lived through the work; but now, they were made to serve with rigour, and their bondage was too heavy to be endured. They could not bear it; and it is just so spiritually. As long as a man can carry his sins, he will continue to carry them; and as long as a man can be content with the pleasures of this world, rest assured that he will revel in them. It is a blessed thing when sin becomes an awful load, so that it crushes a man, until he seems to sink utterly hopeless beneath it. It is well with him, for now he will welcome the Deliverer. He will be glad of pardon from him who alone can forgive sins; he will rejoice to accept the word of absolution from the lips of the great High Priest; and, therefore, although it is often a sore sorrow, it is also a very great mercy, to be made to feel the intolerable load and burden of sin. If I am speaking to any who are in such a condition, and I hope that I am, I congratulate them on what is yet to come to them. Oh! well do I remember when I was such a slave,— when, as I rose in the morning, I resolved to live better than I had previously done, yet, long before noon, I had made a worse mess of the day than ever. Then I thought that, perhaps, by increasing my prayers, or reading more of the Scriptures, I might get ease from my burden; but I found that, the more I prayed, and the more I read, the heavier my burden became. If I tried to forget my sorrow, and so to shake off my gloom, I found that it would. not forget me, and I had to cry unto the Lord, with David, “Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” I remember all that painful time so vividly that I can speak to some of you like an experienced friend who is well acquainted with the dark and stony road on which you are walking. I know all about your painful pathway of grief, and. I long to help you to get over it quickly, and to come to a better and happier place. But this trial is God’s way of fetching you out of Egypt. He is making the house of bondage too hot for you. He does not mean to let you stop there, so he is permitting all this to come upon you that you may cry unto him to deliver you. He will bring you forth, and you shall march out with joy and gladness, thankful and happy to do what now seems like a hardship, and like self-denial to you.

These Israelites also felt one thing more, namely, their powerlessness to escape out of Pharaoh’s hand, and they thought that there was nobody to help them. When the young man of forty came forward, who had been educated in Pharaoh’s court, and was reckoned to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and. when, like a true hero, he threw in his lot with the despised people, and smote one of their adversaries, he thought, perhaps, that it would be the signal for a general revolt, and that the banner of Israel would wave defiantly in the face of Pharaoh, and that the people would boldly march to liberty; but they were too enslaved, they had been too long ground down and. oppressed, to act like that; they had lost all spirit, and they did not hope ever to be free, they were a nation of hopeless slaves.

Am I spearing to any here who have lost all heart and hope,— who have come to this place of worship with a sort of feeble wish for salvation, but with no expectation of receiving it? Are you so shut up in the prison of sin that you cannot come forth? Are your chains clanking in your ears’? Do you feel yourself to be in the low dark dungeon out of which you will never come alive? It is to you I have to say that I bless God that you are where you are. Self-despair is a blessed. preparation for faith in Jesus. The end of the creature is the beginning of the Creator. Your extremity is God’s opportunity. Now that you are helpless and hopeless, God will come to your rescue.

You notice that, in my text, there is a gradation, and such a gradation as some of us have felt in spiritual things. “The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage.” “Ah! miserable wretch! Woe is me! Alas! Alas!” That is how they sighed when they were at their labor; that is how they sighed when they went home at night, or lay down among the pots by the kiln side; and that is how they sighed when they wolfe up in the morning. When a man-child was born, they sighed as they looked at him, for they knew that he must be killed. “The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage.” And, then, as their misery grew, a sigh was not enough, “and they cried.” Ah! I cannot imitate the expressive language of their grief. There were tears many and often, and there was the voice of grief which made itself audible in piercing cries. “O God, how long shall this bondage last?” They sat them down and begged. for death, and sought it as if they were seeking for hidden treasure, for the life of a slave in Egypt was intolerable to them; and, often, the sigh and the cry were merged into a groan, for we read, “God heard their groaning,”

Is that how it has been going on with you, my brother? You used to sigh a good deal, sometimes; people noticed that you were very absent-minded, and that you seemed to have some sorrow upon your spirit which you could not express. Now you have gone further than that, for you have begun to cry, and. in prayer to God you pour out your very soul. Perhaps,— and that is the worst plight of all,— you feel that you cannot pray; you do not seem to be able to offer what you regard as a real prayer. You can only weep; — ay, and perhaps you cannot even weep, and so you sigh and groan because you cannot pray. You are troubled because you cannot be troubled enough; and that is the worst kind of trouble that there is in the world, after all. There are none so brokenhearted as those that are brokenhearted. because they are not brokenhearted. I have reminded you that the Israelites groaned, and that “God heard their groaning.” Ah! from the very bottom of their heart, came up their groaning. It was no mere heaving of a sigh, it was no mere utterance of a cry; but all day long it was groaning, groaning, groaning, each breath seemed to be yet another sorrowful groan.

I hope that many of you will find the Savior before you know much about this terrible groaning; but it was not so with me. I became so full of groans that I understood what Job meant when he said, “My soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.” It would be better never to live than to live for ever under conviction of sin, for the arrows of God. drink up the very fountains of our life, and pour fire into the blood, and make us feel as if a thousand deaths were preferable to living under an awful sense of God’s wrath. Perhaps I am speaking to some who, even when they fall asleep, are startled by dreams concerning the day of judgment, the sound of the archangel’s trumpet, and the setting up of the great white throne. And when they wake, and go out to their business, they make strange blunders, and all day long they are like men walking as in a dream.

Still, dear friends, if that is your experience, I am heartily glad of it, for it is to me a sign of better days coming. Looking down upon Egypt, the angels must have been glad when they heard the sighs and cries and groans of Israel. “Why,” you ask, “how is that?” because the angels would say to themselves, “God’s greatest difficulty is overcome; he wanted to incline these people to come out of Egypt; but now they long to come out, so they will be willing to accept the leader whom God will send to them, and with music and dancing they will come forth when Moses brings them out of the iron furnace and the house of bondage.” Those of us who were, only a little while ago, in the house of bondage, rejoice that we have been set free from it; and we are praying that you who are still within it, and are beginning to feel what a horrible place it is, may not stop there long. Nay to-morrow’s sun not see you there, but may you clean escape at once from that terrible captivity!

That, then, is the first head, a cry of misery.

II. The second is a very blessed one, The God Of Pity.

Let me read part of the text again: “They cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.”

Here, then, is the poor sinner’s hope,— not at all in himself, but wholly in God. Note the gradations here with regard to God’s pity for these people. First, “their cry came up unto God.” When it rose up, sharp, and shrill, and intense, it burst through the gates of heaven, and “came up unto God.” Not that he does not really hear everything, but, speaking after the manner of men, when it was a mere sigh, it did not reach him; but when it got to be a cry, and deepened into a groan, then it came up before him, and God himself seemed to stop, and say, “What is that? It is the cry of the seed of Abraham in Egypt.” Oh, poor soul; when your cry comes up from the depths of your very soul, then God will stop, and say, “What is that? It is the cry of a man in misery; it is the voice of a soul that is in bondage under sin.” “Their cry came up unto God.”

Notice, next, for it is a step further: “and God heard their groaning.” Do you know what that means? There are some people who seem to hear things, but the sounds pass through their ears, and there the matter ends. But if you go to visit a sick woman, and you sit down, and she tells you all about her ailments, and about her poverty, she is cheered because you listen to her kindly, and because you are willing to hear her even if you cannot help her, and it does help her even to hear her tell her sad story. Well now, God heard Israel’s crying and groaning; he heard them, not merely as men hear a sound, and take no notice of it, but he seemed to stand still, and listen to the sighs, and groans, and cries of his people. Sinner, tell God your misery even now, and he will hear your story. He is willing to listen, even to that sad and wretched tale of yours about your multiplied transgressions, your hardness of heart, your rejections of Christ, Tell him all, for he will hear it. Tell him what it is you want,— what large mercy,— what great forgiveness; just lay your whole case before him. Do not hesitate for a single moment; he will hear it, he will be attentive to the voice of your cry. Oh, what comfort there is for you in this truth if you can but grasp it! Dear fellow-Christians, pray that some poor sinners may grasp it even now; pray that they may lay hold upon the sweet thought that God is hearing the sighs and cries of the penitent souls in our midst.

God’s pity went further than that, for we read, next, that having heard their groaning, “God remembered his covenant.” I wish I knew how to preach upon that 24th verse: “God remembered his covenant.” He looked on the children of Israel, and he did not remember their declensions,— their becoming practically Egyptians, their loving Egypt and Egypt’s idols; but he remembered his friend Abraham, he remembered Isaac, he remembered Jacob whom he loved, and he remembered how he had promised to bless them, and to make them a blessing; and not because of any merit in the Israelites themselves, but for the sake of those whom be had loved and honored, and for the sake of the covenant which he had made with them, he said, “I will break the power of Pharaoh, and I will bless my people; I will bring them out of bondage, and set them at liberty.” Sinner, if God were to look on you to all eternity, he could not see anything in you but what he is hound to punish; but when he looks on his dear Son whom he loves, and remembers how he lived, and loved, and bled, and died, and made atonement for the guilty; and when he remembers his covenant with his Well-beloved, he says, “I will bless these people whom I gave unto him by an everlasting covenant. I promised that he should see of the travail of his soul; and so he shall. I will break the power of sin, and I will set these captives free; to the praise of the glory of my grace, they shall be accepted in the Beloved.” It is a great blessing that, although God cannot see any reason for mercy in us, he can see the best of all reasons for mercy in the covenant of his grace, and in his dear Son with whom he made it. “God remembered his covenant.” Do not you forget it, dear friends, but think much upon the covenant ordered in all things and sure, and upon all the blessings that are to come to you through that covenant.

God did still more for his people: “And God looked upon the children of Israel.” He had given them his ear; he had given them his memory; now he gives them his eyes. He stood still, and he looked upon them, in pity and in love; and it is further said, “And God had respect unto them.” The margin renders it, “God knew them,” which is the true meaning of the original. He looked upon a man, and he said, “That is one of my children.” He looked upon another, and. he said, “Yes; Egyptian though he be in dress, he is one of my Israelites.” He looked upon others, and he said, “I know them. I know their sorrows, I know their sins, I know their weaknesses; and I will surely deliver them.” Oh, that these lips could utter language in which I might fitly tell you how God looks upon you, my dear brokenhearted fellow-sinner,— how he looks upon you, my poor troubled friend, who cannot break loose from sin, but feel like a bull in a net, and cannot get free from it! I tell you that he is looking upon you in love and pity, and that he knows your condition, and is ready to help you. I will close my discourse by telling you what he has done to help you; and, oh! may he give you grace to lay hold of it, that you may End liberty this very hour!

III. The last point is, The Instrument Op Deliverance.

God’s power was quite sufficient to bring the people of Israel out of bondage, but he chose to deliver them by means of human instrumentality. God works for men by men, so he raised up Moses, and it was through Moses that the children of Israel were delivered. Now, for you, dear captive, God has raised up a Prophet like unto Moses. One who is infinitely greater than Moses has come to deliver you.

First, remember that Jesus, the Savior of men, is a man like ourselves. This ought to encourage you to come to him. Full of grief, and broken down under a sense of sin, you dare not approach to an absolute God; it would not be right that you should attempt to come to him without a Mediator; but you may come to the one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, for he can fully sympathize with you, he is able to have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way, for he himself, in the days of his flesh, was compassed with infirmity. Well did Dr. Watts sing,—

Till God in human flesh I see,
My thoughts no comfort End;
The holy, just, and sacred
Three Are terrors to my mind.
But if Immanuel’s face appear,
My hope, my joy begins;
His name forbids my slavish fear,
His grace removes my sins.

Jesus Christ is a man; therefore come boldly to him, even as Israel might come to Moses. But Jesus is clothed with divine authority and power, as Moses was; more than that, he is what Moses was not, and could not be, Jesus is actually Divine; Jesus is God. Oh, come, poor trembling sinner, and trust your case in his hands, because nothing ever fails that he undertakes! He can break the power of the Pharaoh of your sins, and set you free; ay, even now, he can bring you forth out of Egypt with the silver and gold of his abounding grace. Only trust him, and follow him, and be obedient to his commands, and all will be well with you.

This Moses, being a man, yet clothed with divine authority, gave himself up to the people entirely. He was such a lover of Israel that he lived entirely for the people, and once, you will remember, he even said, as he pleaded for them, “Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold! Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin —; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom it is our joy to preach, was really made a curse for us; he actually stood in the sinner’s stead, and bore the penalty of the sinner’s guilt. Therefore, oh, do trust him! Perhaps I may be the means of leading some poor sinner to end his delaying, and now to commit his spirit into the hand of the faithful Creator and Redeemer who died for him; and, dear friend, if you will but trust Jesus with yourself, you shall be saved st once. I hope you are willing to some out of Egypt; if you are, you may do so. Lo! Christ has broken all the power of sin, and he is willing now to set you free if you will but trust him, and give yourself up, once for all, entirely to his power.

Lastly, Moses did bring the people out, every one of them. He left not a little babe in Egypt; nay, not so much as a sheep or a goat remained there. He said, “There shall not a hoof be left behind.” All that belonged to Israel went marching out when Moses led the way; and God’s elect and Christ’s redeemed shall all come out of the Egypt of sin. Pharaoh’s power — the devil’s power — cannot hold the very least of them in captivity; nay, not even a bone of one of God’s children shall be left in the grasp of death and the devil. They shall die, and their bones shall be put into the sepulcher; but not the least atom of one of God’s own chosen ones shall be left in the power of death. They shall come again from the hand of the enemy. Yet remember, O ye sinners, that I do not urge you to trust Christ as though he cringed at your feet, and could not have honor and glory if you did not welcome him as your Savior. If you will not come unto him, if you will turn your backs upon him, I shall only say of you, “Ye believe not, because ye are not of his sheep, as he said unto you.” It is not for Christ’s sake, but for your own sake, that I plead with you. Oh, that you would come unto him, and trust him! Weary of self, and weary of sin, and hopeless of self-salvation, come and lay yourselves at Jesus’ feet, even at the feet of him whom God hath “exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” He hath laid help upon One who is mighty, and exalted One chosen out of the people; therefore, come and trust him even now, and you shall be saved. May God grant repentance and faith to this whole congregation, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exodus 7:12 The Power of Aaron's Rod

NO. 521
A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 26TH, 1863,
BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” — Exodus 7:12.

WE shall not attempt to discuss the question as to whether these magicians actually did turn their rods into serpents or no; it is probable that they, by dexterous sleight of hand, substituted living serpents for dry rods, and so deceived the eye of Pharaoh; on the other hand, it is possible that God was pleased to permit the devil to aid their enchantments, and so the old serpent produced a brood. Into that question, I say, I shall not enter. It is of no importance which opinion we may hold. Curious questions must this morning give way to important truths. I call your attention to the fact, that Aaron’s rod proved its heaven-given superiority, and silenced all the boastings of Jannes and Jambres, by readily swallowing up all their rods. This incident is an instructive emblem of the sure victory of the divine handiwork over all the opposition of men. Whenever a divine thing is cast into the heart, or thrown upon the earth, it swallows up everything else, and though the devil may fashion a counterfeit, and produce swarms of opponents as sure as ever God is in the work, it will swallow up all its foes. “Aaron’s rod swallowed up all their rods.”

Without any preface, let me ask you, first of all, to observe this fact; when we have duly considered it, let us, in the second place, draw an inference from it; and then, in closing, let me endeavor to show some reasons why it is right that it should be so.

I. Let us turn aside to see this great sight — the divine triumphant over the diabolical: the spiritual subduing the natural — Aaron’s Rod Swallowing All Its Rivals.

1. Let us take the case of the awakened sinner.

That man was, a few days ago, as worldly, as carnal, as stolid, as he well could be. If anyone should propose to make that man heavenly-minded, to lead him to set his affection upon things above, and not on things on the earth, the common observer would say, “Impossible! the man has no thought above what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and wherewithal he shall be clothed; his heart is buried in a grave of cares; he rises early; he sits up late; he eats the bread of carefulness; he is glued and cemented to the world — as in old Roman walls, the cement has become so strong, that the stone is no longer a separate piece, but has become a part of the wall itself — so this man is cemented to the world, he cannot be separated from it. You must break him in pieces with the hammer of death; you cannot separate him in any other way from the cares of life. Ah, but Aaron’s rod shall swallow up this rod. The man listens to the Word; the truth comes with power into his soul; the Holy Ghost has entered him; and the next day, though he goes to his business, he finds no true contentment in it, for he pants after the living God. Though still he will buy and sell, and get gain, yet there is a craving within — an awful hunger — a thirst unquenchable — which above the din and clamor of the world’s traffic, will be heard crying, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.” Now, his spirit pleads its needs, and outstrips the body in the contest for his warmest love. He spurns the trifles of a day: he seeks the jewels of eternity. The grovelling swine which wallowed in worldliness is transformed into an eagle; the man who lived for this shadowing earth has now an eye for the upper spheres, and a wing to mount into celestial heights. Grace has won the day, and the worldling seeks the world to come.

It may be that the man is immersed in pleasure. He is at this theater and at that. In all gay society he bears the palm. You shall find him at every horse-race and fighting ring; ah, and worse still, you may track him to dens of licentiousness, and learn that he is diving deeper than others in the turbid streams of vice. What power can make this gay sinner become a saint? As well ask over a mouldering grave, “Can these dry bones live?” How shall he find joy in the praise of God, or interest in waiting upon the worship of the Most High? “Absurd!” cries Unbelief, while Worldliness shouts, “Ridiculous!” The man is too far gone for regeneration! He is married to pleasure, and he wears the ring upon his finger! Ay, but Aaron’s rod can swallow up this rod. For we have seen such a man loathe the very joys he loved, till there was a charm in the music of sin — no mirth in the society of folly. He fled away to hide himself; he sought seclusion that he might weep alone. Where now the sweetness of your bowls and the melody of your viols? Where now the charms of the earth’s harlotry? Where now the giddy delights of chambering and wantonness? They are gone, for Aaron’s rod has swallowed up these rods of the magicians, and the mad sinner is sitting yonder — a penitent at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind. His companions follow him, with many weighty reasons, as they seem to think, they invite his return; they conjure him not to make a fool of himself, by joining those melancholy fanatics; they point out the faults of many professors; they remark that hypocrisies are common; they describe the inconsistencies of good men; and they say, “What! will you throw away the joviality of youth, the bloom and flush of life, to be united with a miserable band of enthusiasts and deceivers like these?” Then they insinuate cunning doubts; they thrust into the man’s way certain strange things, of which he had never heard before, which startle him like thunder-claps, and almost drive him from his purpose. If God’s grace be in him, the world’s best magicians may throw down all their rods: and every rod may be as cunning and as poisonous as a serpent, but Aaron’s rod will swallow up their rods. The sweet attractions of the cross will woo and win the man’s heart. The blessed arguments, fetched from the bleeding wounds of Jesus, will answer all the blandishments of Madam Wanton and the reasonings of her sister Madam Bubble. Everything shall be set aside, when true religion comes in. The man shall have a longing so intense, that he cannot stay it, nor can he stay himself from obedience to it — a longing atter pardon by blood, and salvation by grace.

Oh, have you not seen the trembling penitent, when under conviction of sin, apparently oblivious to everything else? How changed the man! The furrows of that brow prophesy a harvest of hope. Tears, those jewels of repentance, bedeck his eyes. He is dressed in the sackcloth and ashes, which are the court robes of those blessed mourners who shall be comforted. For a season even righteous joys yield him no solace; the comforts of his household, and the enjoyments of the fireside, fail to reach his case. There is no balm in Gilead for him, heaven alone can supply him a fit physician. His cry has become, “These can never satisfy; give me Christ, or else I die.” You have marked the stag when it is let down for a royal hunt. Away it flies. The dogs are behind it. It flies over flowery meads, but it does not pause to snuff the fragrance of the gale. It dashes along the wood, but it waits not for shelter beneath you umbrageous oak! It scatters the sparkling waters of the brook, but it scarce has time to bathe its limbs. Onward, up the hill, the scenery is grand; but that wild eye, starting from its head, is solaced by no sight of beauty. The birds are singing sweetly in yonder copse, but those startled ears are not comforted. The bay of the dog is all the noble victim hears; the wrath of the hunter is all it dreads; on — on — on it flies, panting for life. Such is the soul hunted by the dogs of conscience. Such is the awakened spirit, when the wrath of God is let loose upon it. No comforts can charm it; no joys can delight it. It flies on — on — on — resting never until it finds a shelter and deliverance in the clefts of the Rock of Ages. It is in vain that Satan tries to attract it from the one master-thought; the divine life must and will have its course. As some lofty mountain casts its shadow all along the valley, so a sense of condemnation throws its dark influence over the whole life; then follows a longing for mercy, which, like a swollen torrent, bears all before it. To use another illustration: the man has found the pearl of great price, and for joy thereof, he parts with all to buy it. No matter how dear the old ancestral homestead, it must be sold; the favourite horse; the faithful dog — all must go. He will sell his dearest joys and his most prized luxuries of sin, that he may buy this priceless, peerless pearl. Aaron’s rod swallows up all other rods, and serpents too.

2. Beloved, the same fact, with equal distinctness, is to be observed in the individual when he becomes a believer in Jesus Christ; his faith destroys all other confidences.

Once that man could trust in his self-righteousness. He was rich and increased in goods, and had need of nothing. He was honest. Who could say that he ever fraudulently failed in business, or robbed a creditor? For integrity, he boasted that none could say him nay. He was, moreover, kind and charitable; amiable in his deportment, and tender in heart towards the poor. He trusted that if any man went to heaven by his merits, he should. But where is that rod now? Lo, Aaron’s rod has swallowed it up. For now that man can say with the apostle Paul, “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” The man once could rely upon ceremonies. Was he not sprinkled in infancy in the customary manner? Was he not confirmed afterwards by episcopal hands? Did he not receive the blessed sacrament of the Lord’s Supper? What more was wanted? He was regular at his Church, or punctual at his chapel. He paid the contribution expected of him, and perhaps a little more. He had family prayers, and went through a private form at his bedside. What more did he want? But Aaron’s rod swallows this up, too, for all our righteousnesses are but as filthy rags. This is the cry of the man now — “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” My hearers, you are no Christians unless your faith in Christ has devoured every other confidence; unless you can say,

“On Christ, the solid rock I stand!
All other ground is sinking sand.”

It is not to trust Christ and to trust self; to rely on Jesus somewhat, and then upon our prayers and our works to some degree. Jesus ONLY! must be your watchword. Christ will never have a partner. He trod the wine-press alone, and he will save you alone. He stretched his hands to the cross, and none but he could bear the burden of sin: nor will he divide the work of salvation, lest at the last he should have to divide the crown. The rod of the one only High Priest must swallow up all other rods.

My dear friends, what multitudes of foes has our faith had to meet with; but how it has swallowed them all up. There were our old sins. The devil threw them down before us, and they turned to serpents. What bosts of them! What multitudes! How they hiss in the air! How they intertwist their many coils. How horrible are their deadly poison-fangs, the gaping jaws, their forked tongues! Ah, but the cross of Jesus, like the rod of Amram’s son, destroys them all. Faith in Christ makes short work of all our sins, for it is written, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Then the devil stirs up another generation of vipers, and shows us our inbred corruptions, our neglects of duty, our slackness in prayer, our unbeliefs, our backslidings, our wanderings of heart; and sometimes you and I get so tormented by these reptiles, that we grow alarmed, and are half inclined to flee. Do not run, brother, but throw down Aaron’s rod, and it will swallow up all these serpents, even though they were poisonous as the cobra, fierce as the rattlesnake, or huge as the python. You shall overcome through the blood of the Lamb. “Jesus is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him.” The battle is the Lord’s, and he will deliver them into your hands. The old enemy will throw down another host of serpents in the form of worldly trials, diabolical suggestions, temptations to blasphemy, ill-thoughts of God, hard thoughts of his providence, rash thoughts of his promises, and such like, till you will be almost distracted. You will wonder how you can meet such a host as this. Remember to stand fast, and throw down Aaron’s rod — your simple trust and faith in Jesus Christ — and it must and shall swallow up all these rods. There is not one doubt which the craft of hell can insinuate — there is not one difficulty which the infernal wisdom of Diabolus can suggest — but simple faith in Christ can disarm, tread under foot, and utterly destroy.

On a certain railroad there is a viaduct, the arches are of considerable height, wooden centres of course were used for the building of these arches, and they remain there till this day, because there is some suspicion that if the wooden centres were knocked out, the brick arches might not be strong enough and might come tumbling in. Now, there are some professors whose faith is of that kind, it is supported by wooden centres of human persuasion, reasoning, or excitement, which they cannot afford to lose. But the Christian man can say, that if by providence all the earthly props of his confidence should fail; if feelings, graces and excitements were all gone, still the cross alone is an all sufficient dependence, and faith could bear the most terrible strain which earth or hell could put upon it. I would to God we were more and more possessed of that faith which leans on God and God alone; for remember that the faith which is supported by anything except the word and promise of God, is no faith at all. It is a bastard faith which has the cross for a buttress, but finds its foundation elsewhere; the cross must be the foundation, corner-stone, and buttress too. None but Jesus! none but Jesus! We need to have a faith which can endure every form of trial, and that as long as life lasts. One day last week, when I was preaching, it came on to rain, a gentleman asked why the largest chapel in the neighborhood could not be used for the occasion? The reply was, “Why, the galleries are not safe.” I thought, what was the good of galleries into which they were afraid to let the people. Pull them down and get fresh ones. So there are some people who have a faith like that good-for-nothing gallery; it is not safe; it will not sustain a crowd of afflictions and temptations, difficulties and troubles; it would all come down with a crash in the day of trial, and great would be the fall of it. Brethren, if you have such a faith as I have described, prey God to take it away; it is worthless and dangerous; for remember, in the hour of death, if it cannot stand the tramp of the eternal feet, it will give way, and your everlasting ruin will be the result. Have a faith which is built upon God, which will bear whatever comes. But mind you mix not therewith wood, hay, stubble, of your own gathering. Let Aaron’s rod swallow up all other rods. Let your faith in Christ overturn every refuge of lies.

3. The same fact is very manifest after faith in all who truly love the Savior. It will be found, I am sure, that every true lover of Jesus has an all-consuming love — coals of juniper, which have a most vehement flame. They who love Christ aright, love no one in comparison with him. The husband is dear; the father is cherished; the children are precious; but after all, Jesus Christ is better than all kindreds. We can look upon all and say, “Yes, it were a bitter pang to lose you, but we would sooner lose you all ten times over, than once lose our Savior;” for, oh! if we lose him, we have lost all, even if all else remained; but if all be gone, and we still keep our Savior, we have all in him. The Christian as he loves nothing in comparison, so he loves nothing in contradiction to Christ. Whatever comes between him and his Savior, the true lover of Jesus abhors and rejects in a moment. He holds no deliberation or debate about the matter. He counts that vile, which, precious in itself, becomes evil through interposing between him and his Lord.

“The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be” —

Though it be a golden idol; though it be myself; whatever that idol be —

“Help me to tear it from thy throne,
And worship only thee.

The Christian’s love to Christ is of such a kind, that he would forego honor and think it honor to be dishonored for Christ. Persecution’s flame cannot, by any means, consume bands of union which unite his soul and his Lord. Through fire and through water this love can march; for “many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.” That is not true love to Jesus, which governs only one part of the man out of twenty. It must be all the passions bound into one. This is the reason why our apostle does not say, “Set your affections on things above;” but “Set your affection on things above.” Tie up the affections in one bundle. There are not to be a host of them; they are to be made into one. Bind them into a bundle of camphire and then offer them to your Best Beloved. Oh, if I pretend to love Christ, and have other lovers, too — he careth not for such a heart as mine, it must be an undivided heart. “Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty,” said Hosea; “Unite my heart to fear thy name,” cried the Psalmist, and let each of us pray so too. “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” Let that be without any sort of reserve. Let the giving up of ourselves to Christ and the taking of Christ to ourselves be done heartily and earnestly, with all the powers of the soul.

This love to Christ reminds me of the fire which fell of old upon Elijah’s sacrifice: there stood the altar made of twelve rough stones; on it lay the bullock and the wood: and over all the prophet had poured water, until it saturated the bullock and stood in the trenches. But when the fire came down from heaven, it devoured not only the wood and the sacrifice, but the very stones of the altar, and licked up the water from the trenches. So when this heavenly fire of love comes down upon our hearts in very deed and truth, it not only burns the sacrifice and the wood — our own true intentions and our renewed heart — but the stones, the very flesh that seemed as dull and cold as a stone — ay, and those old corruptions which seemed to quench the fire of grace like water, this love licks the whole up, and the whole man goes up to heaven, a living sacrifice unto God. “My heart and my flesh,” said the Psalmist, “cry out for the living God.” I used to wonder however he made his flesh to do it, for the flesh lusteth against the spirit; but there are times when Aaron’s rod does swallow up all other rods, and even the heart and the flesh cry out for the living God. Our love to Jesus should be like the love of David to Jonathan, and of Jonathan to David; as Jonathan was ready to take off both his sword and his bow, and his girdle, and give them to David, so should we make no reserve, our selfishness being swallowed up, giving to Jesus all that we are, and all that we have evermore.

I have heard of one good man who carried out to the letter this love to Christ. He was rich, he prospered much in business. A very sincere friend who might take great liberties, called upon him and said, “My dear brother, you are so prosperous, that I am afraid lest your heart should depart from God.” The other replied, “No, my brother, I thank you for the warning, but I am not in that danger, for I enjoy God in everything.” Years went on: riches took to themselves wings and fled away. The rich man was brought to the depths of poverty; he even knew what it was to want bread. The same friend came to see him, and he said, “My dear brother, you remember what I said to you in your prosperity; now, I am afraid lest in your adversity you should grow unbelieving, and so dishonor your Lord.” But the other said, “Dear brother, I thank you for your warning as I said before, but I am not in danger, for before I enjoyed God in everything, and now I enjoy everything in God.” Oh, this is a sweet way of living, when our love to Christ is such that we find Christ in everything. We see the marks of his pierced hands on our daily bread, and see the blood mark upon the garments which we wear. It is good, too, when suffering and wanting times shall come, to find we are rich because we have Christ, and can sing.

“Thee, at all times, will I bless;
Having thee, I all possess;
How can I bereaved be,
Since I cannot part with thee?”