Hosea 2:23: God's People, or Not God's People

NO. 2295
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, FEBRUARY 12TH, 1893, DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.” — Hosea 2:23.

“As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.” — Romans 9:25.

To my mind, it is very instructive to notice how Paul quotes from the Prophets. The revelation of the mind of God in the Old Testament helps us to understand the gospel revealed in the New Testament. There is no authority that is so powerful over the minds of Christian men as that of the Word of God. Has God made known any truth in his Word? Then, it is invested with divine authority. Paul, being himself inspired by the Holy Spirit, and therefore able to write fresh revelations of the mind of God, here brings the authority of God’s Word in the olden times to back up and support what he says: “As he saith also in Osee.”

Beloved friend, if you are seeking salvation, or if you want comfort, never rest satisfied with the mere word of man. Be not content unless you got the truth from the mouth of God. Say in your spirit, “I will not be comforted, unless God himself shall comfort me. I want chapter and verse for that which I receive as gospel.” Our Lord’s reply to Satan was, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Give me, then, but a word out of God’s mouth, and I can live upon it; but all the words out of man’s mouth, apart from divine inspiration, must be as unsatisfying food as if men tried to live on stones.

Notice, again, how Paul teaches that the very essence of the authority of the Scriptures lies in this, that God speaks through his revealed Word: “As HE saith also in Osee.” It is God speaking in the Bible whom we ought to hear. The mere letter of the Word alone will hill; but when we hear God’s voice speaking in it, then it has power which it could not possess otherwise. It is a blessed thing to put your ear down to the promises of Scripture, till you hear God speaking through them to your soul. It is truly profitable to read a gospel commandment, and to listen to its voice until God himself speaks it with power to your heart. I pray you, do not regard anything that is preached here unless it agrees with what is written there in the Bible. If it is only my word, throw it away; but if it is God’s truth that I declare to you, if God himself speaks it through my lips, you will disregard it at your peril.

I will make only one other observation by way of introduction. Is it not wonderful how God’s Word is preserved century after century? There were seven or eight hundred years between Hosea and Paul; and it is remarkable that the promise to the Gentiles should lie asleep all that time, and yet should be just as full of life and power when Paul was quoting it after all those centuries. God’s Word is like the wheat in the hand of the mummy, of which you have often heard. It had lain there for thousands of years; but men took it out of the hand, and sowed it, and there sprang up the bearded wheat which has now become so common in our land. So you take a divine promise, spoken hundreds or thousands of years ago, and lo, it is fulfilled to you! It becomes as true to you as if God had spoken it for the first time this very day, and you were the person to whom it was addressed. O blessed Word of God, how we ought to prize thee! We cannot tell yet all that lies hidden between these covers; but there is a treasury of grace concealed here, which we ought to seek until we find it.

Having thus introduced our texts as taken from God’s Word in the Old and New Testaments, and as being God’s voice to us, speaking adown the centuries with all the freshness and force it would have if it were uttered anew to-night, I invite every unconverted person to listen with both his ears, and his whole heart, to hear if there shall drop some living word of cheer and promise that shall make this evening to be his birthnight. If so, this shall be the time wherein his captivity shall be ended, his mouth shall be filled with laughter, and his tongue with singing, and his spirit shall rejoice in God his Savior.

I. Now, first, in considering the words in the Epistle to the Romans, let us look at The Original State Of God’s People. “I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.”

If we look at the original state of God’s people, we shall gaze upon a very gloomy picture. Yet this portrait reveals the state in which every unconverted man is to-night, the state in which all of us, who are now saved, once were. We were not God’s people; that is to say, We had not God’s approval. I speak now of all those whom God has saved. There was a time when there was no approval of them; as the apostle says, “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.” So was it with those who were not God’s people; their thoughts were contrary to God’s thoughts; their ways were such as God could not endure; their speech grated in his ears; they followed the devices and imaginations of their own hearts; the prince of this world had dominion over them, and God’s grace had not been displayed upon them. They went astray like lost sheep. That is your condition tonight, sinner, you are the object of divine disapproval. “Not beloved”, says the text. “Not beloved.” How can you be beloved of God? How can the Lord take any delight in a man who takes no delight in his God, who tries not even to think of him, who breaks his law with impunity, and finds pleasure in that which God abhors? “Not my people”, says the text, that is, they were not the subjects of divine approval.

Next, such people receive from God no good thing of the highest order.

“Oh!” say some, “but we are receiving all sorts of temporal blessing’s from God.” I know you are, and you ought to thank him for them; but as you are not his people, and not beloved, even these good things turn out to be evil things to you. Your table becomes a snare and a trap to you. Men who receive God’s mercies before his grace has brought them to himself, make idols of the good things he bestows upon them. They receive benefits at his hands, and use them to provoke him to anger. They take of their wealth, and they say, with the rich fool, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry;” and so they forget that they must die, and they forget their God. Oftentimes, even health and strength become a snare to men. They will plunge into greater sin because they have so much vigor of body. We have known some, who have been so robust in health that they would no; think of God, or of Christ, or of their souls, or of eternity. I tell you, sinners, that while you are as you are, God’s curse rests upon your blessings. There is no good thing out of Christ; for that which would be good with Christ becomes evil without Christ; it becomes a thing which destroys rather than blesses, and which helps men the more rapidly to destroy their souls. Oh, what a sad state is yours of whom God says, “They are not my people, and they are not beloved”! While they are as they are, they cannot receive the highest good from God; even the beat thing that he sends them they turn into evil.

Remember, too, you who know not God, that yon are in a very miserable condition, because to you there is no application of the precious blood of Christ. Jesus died for sinners; but you pass by his cross as though you had nothing to do with it. Israel in Egypt was saved because God saw the blood, and passed over the houses of his people; but you are not beneath that crimson sign. You have never looked to Christ by faith. No blood is on the lintel and on the two side-posts of your door. All we can say of you, as we look at you, is “Not beloved: not beloved.” Oh, poor souls, you who have not believed, what does the Scripture say to you? Why, that you are “condemned already” because you have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. You who have not believed in Christ are lying in the wicked one; and what does that expression mean? Why, lying in his bosom, as if you were the darling children of the devil. How can there be any sign of the divine delight or complacency towards you while your delight is in Satan and in sin? No, you have no interest in the precious blood of Jesus. Ah, me! What should I do if this were my case? I would sooner lose my eyes, my hearing, my sense of taste; I would sooner lose life itself than lose an interest in the precious blood of Jesus. Yet some of you live at ease though there has been for you no pardon of sin, no washing in the blood of sprinkling. You axe still guilty before God.

Again, when these people were called by God “not my people”, and not beloved”, there had been no saving work of the Spirit of God upon them. I am addressing some here to-night who have never had their hearts broken by the Spirit of God. They have never been brought to repentance, they have never been led to faith in Christ. Consequently, to them the Spirit of God is not a Quickener; to them he is not a Comforter; to them he is not an Illuminator. All his divine offices are fulfilled in other people; but not in them. They are strangers to that blessed power, without which no man can come to God, or believe in Christ. Oh, what a sad condition for any to be in — “not my people”, and “not beloved”! They have no trace of that life which they would have if the Spirit of God had made them to pass from death unto life. God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living; and as long as you are dead in sin he is not your God in this special sense, neither does he call you his people.

Those who are in that sad state have no relief in prayer. They do not pray; they cannot pray. Now, when I am in trouble, I need nobody to advise me to pray. A trouble no sooner comes to me than I spread it before God, and I find a sweet relief at once. Oh, if there were no mercy-seat, I should wish that I had never been born! But there are some of you who never truly pray. Such prayers as you do offer have no heart in them, no life in them; and therefore God does not hear you, and you live on in this world without prayer. Men, how can you exist thus? Life mu t be to you like a burning desert, where every particle of sand blisters the foot that treads upon it. What can this world be to a prayerless man?

And as you are without prayer, so you are without the promises of God to sustain you. The wealth of God’s people seldom lies in ready money. Their treasure consists mostly in promises to pay, promises which God has made to his own people. But for the ungodly there are no blessed promises. God will give nothing to you who will not even believe his Word. He has made no covenant with you who will not even trust his Son. You remain as he says, — it is not my word, but his, — “not my people”, and “not beloved”, as long as you are without faith in the Lord Jesus Christ: whatever promises he has made to his people, you are without power to plead those promises at the throne of grace, for they do not belong to you.

In addition to all this, you are now without any fellowship with God, or with his Son, Jesus Christ. God made this world; but you never speak with the world’s Maker. You are guardianed by his providence, and yet you have no fellowship with the God who ruleth over all. Why, the joy of life to some of us lies mainly in our fellowship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is the very center of the circle in which we move. He is the height and glory of our manhood; the all in all of our existence. We would not wish to live if it were not for him. He is the sun that makes our heaven bright; all would be dark without him; and yet some of you have no communion with him, perhaps not even any knowledge of him. Oh, my dear friend, you have no Christ, no Savior, no communion with God, no fellowship with the Most High! “What a terrible condition is yours!

Besides this, you have no hope of heaven. If you were to die as you now are, what could be your eternal portion but to be driven from the presence of God, and from the glory of his power? The Lord Jesus would say of you, “I never knew them, I never know them. They are not my people. They are not my beloved.” Why, you have never even sought him; you have never cried to him; you have never forsaken the sin which he hates! You have never rested upon the atonement which he has made. You have never trusted in his living power to save. Ah, poor creatures that you are, how I do pity you! “Do not call us poor,” say you. “We are rich, we are increased in goods, and have need of nothing.” So much the worse is your poverty, because of your fancied wealth. It will be an awful thing to go from your well-spread table to the place where you will be denied a drop of water to cool your burning tongues. It will be a terrible thing if you go from the weakness and sickness of the dying bed at once to stand before your God, to be driven from the pangs of your last moments into that dread position of a culprit, unpardoned, to receive sentence from the great Judge of all. “Not my people”, and “not beloved.” I cannot bear the thought of your doom; and I can say no more on that terrible theme.

II. But now, in the second place, I have to speak of The New Condition Of God’s People. Listen, and as you listen, may God make it to be your new condition! There are many in this world to whom my text has been proved to be true: “I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.”

Now see the change which God can make. It is God who makes it. The very same people of whom he said, “They are not my people,” he now, calls his people. Ay, and in the very place where he said that they were not his people, he says they are the people of the living God. Now, what if tonight I have been saying of such and such that they are not God’s people? But what if, before they leave this place, God should say to them, “You are my people”? Oh, what a blessed change would have taken place in them! Let me describe it.

If the Lord shall say to us to-night, “Ye are my people, and ye are my beloved,” then we shall know, first, that he thinks upon us, that his mind is toward us, that he has a kindly regard for us, that he takes delight in us, that his heart is set on doing us good. Oh, ye who do love the Lord, and are his children, do think of this, you have the thoughts of God running towards you in streams of ever-abounding tenderness, and mercy, and goodness, and faithfulness!

And, as the Lord thinks of us, he speaks to us. Oh, to think that the Lord should speak to those who were not his people once, and speak to them so effectually as to make his sweet promises enter into their ears, yea, into their hearts, and should become familiar to them, for “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant”! Oh, how sweetly does God commune with his own children! How he does open up his very heart to them, and make them to know him, even as Jesus manifests himself unto his chosen as he does not unto the world! It is a choice privilege of a child of God to be thought of, and then to be spoken to by the Lord.

More than that, God hears as speak. When we are his people, and his beloved, then our accents become sweet in his ears. You know that your dear children often speak very poorly and badly, and other people do not care much to listen to their talk; but to a father’s ear tile sound of his own child’s voice is always sweet. You have been away from home for some weeks. I know that you are longing to hear the dear prattlers once again. Well, like as a father loves the voice of his child, so does our heavenly Father love the voices of his beloved whom he calls his people, and he has regard to what they say, he hearkens to the voice of their cry.

Then, beloved, he not only hears us, but he grants us our desire. He will come to our deliverance in the time of trouble. He will bestow upon us all good things: “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Oh, the privileges of those who are God’s people! The theme is too vast for human language to compass.

One special mark of our now condition is that the Lord forgives our sin. Once we were loaded with sin; but now we have not a single sin left upon us. The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s clear Son, cleanses us from all sin. Paul challenges the whole universe to lay anything to the charge of God’s elect, for God has justified them. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Oh, the heaped-up blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! And that is true of all whom God calls his people, though they once were not his people.

And then, dear friends, sin being forgiven, the Lord works all things for our good. Whether we are joyous or depressed, if we are the Lord’s people, all is working for our good. “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Our losses and oar crosses, our bereavements and our bodily pains, as well as our rapturous joys and our highest delights, are all working out the best results for us.

More than this, when we are in trouble, God pities us; for like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Ay, and he sends us relief, too, according to that word of David, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” What is better still, God dwells in us, as he said, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” And the Holy Spirit has come, and taken up his abode in these mortal bodies, and he dwells there, our Teacher and our Comforter, our Guide and our Friend.

By and by, the Lord Jesus will come again, and receive us unto himself, that where he is there we may be also. I wish I had the tongues of men and of angels that I might tell you the splendor of the position of those who are the Lord’s own people, the Lord’s own beloved. And who where these people once? I come back to my text again. They were not God’s people, and not beloved: “I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.” Now then, some of you, whom God cannot now look upon except with anger, why should ho not look upon you with love to-night through Jesus Christ? He that believeth in Christ Jesus may have the blessed assurance that the Lord loves him, and that he is one of the Lord’s people. You may have come in here saying, “I belong to the devil. I am sure I do; I feel within my spirit that I am under his cruel sway. Alas! I have not a spark of grace, or a thought of goodness. I am as far off from God, and holiness, and heaven, as ever I can be.” Then to you, may God say, “I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved”! Oh, the magnificence of this grace that waits not for man, neither tarries for the sons of men, but works according to the eternal purposes of God, and accomplishes all his sovereign will!

III. This brings me, in the third place — going back to the text in Hosea to notice The Grand Result Of This Wonderful Change: “I will say to them which were not my people, thou art my people; and they shall say, thou art my God.” Here is a dialogue between the Lord and his people. God says something to them, and they say something to him.

Remember that there is no change in God; it is only a change in our relation to him, because those who have become his people were really his people, in his everlasting purpose, from before the foundation of the world, though they were not actually so as to their own spiritual condition. But now, when this change comes to pass in their relations to God, see the grand result of it.

First, the Lord says, “Thou art my people.” Now I pray that the Lord may come to-night, and speak to some who never made mention of his name before, some who never knew him, who never trembled at his Word, never hoped in his mercy, never trusted in his Son, never, indeed, meant to be his people at all. I do trust that the Lord will now say to some of them, “Thou art my people.” Oh, what a wonderful experience it is when the poor lost sinner finds out that he belongs to God, that he has been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, that God means to save him, that he will not let his Son’s blood be shed for him in vain! I remember the shame and yet the joy that filled my soul when I first woke up to the consciousness of what Christ had done for me. I remember the confusion of face I felt because I had treated such a Savior so badly; and yet I also felt intense delight in thinking that he loved me, notwithstanding all my sins. This is a text that comforted me, — I pray the Lord to send it home to some other heart, — “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee;” and this one also, “I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” Oh, if the Holy Spirit would apply those words with power to some sinner’s heart to-night, what a running after God, what a seeking after Christ there would be!

“I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people.” The Lord does not always say that to his people with equal force. At first, they half hope that it is so. They indistinctly hear his voice saying it; but as faith increases, they hear him say it more distinctly, “Thou art my people.” I do feel that it is most gracious of God to call those his people that were not his people. You see that he gives them a new name, and that overrides the old one. I think that I hear some one saying, “I have found the Savior.” “What? What?” says somebody who knows you. “You? Heugh! we all know what you were.” Perhaps one says, “Ah, you know that you have been as bad as any of us!” Possibly in one case they might say, “You talk of being God’s child? You are a fallen woman,” or, “You have been a thief,” or, “You have been a liar,” or, “You have been a frequenter of places where God is forgotten, a lover of Pleasure rather than a lover of God.” Yes, but beloved, if the Lord says, “I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine;” you can say to yourself, “They may say what they please about me, and I must own the truth of it all; but this word of the Lord, “Thou art mine,” overrides it all.

What a blessed text this is for one who has lost his character, for one who has lost all repute! If you come to Christ, and believe in him, here is a text that applies to you. God says, “Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee.” God can make “right honourables” out of those who are in themselves most dishonorable, and he can give them a name and a place among his people. Yet I can imagine God looking upon some one here to-night, and saying of such an one, “How can I put him among the children? What! put such a sinner among my children?” I can fancy there is somebody here who is so extremely sinful that, if I were to propose to God’s people that he should be received among them, they would say, “We should not like to receive that man into the church.” Ah, but when our heavenly Father welcomes home his prodigal son, he will not have the older brother talk like that. He comes out, and reasons with him, and says, “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” Jesus would have us receive the very chief of sinners, the jail-birds, the hell-birds, the men who have gone farthest astray, the men who have lost all hope, the most forlorn and self-condemned, the most dejected, distressed, devil-haunted men and women out of hell. These are just the people in whom the grace of God triumphs over all sin. “I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved;” “and I will say to them, which were not my people, thou art my people.”

When the Lord says this to any, their sin is; put away. My Lord is a great Forgiver! My Lord, whom I preach to you to-night, who was once nailed to the cross, is able to save all them to the uttermost that come unto God by him. “He delighteth in mercy,” it if; his right-hand attribute, his last-born, his Benjamin. Never does he display his mercy more than when, like the mighty sea, his love rolls over the very tops of the mountains of iniquity, and covers them.

I close by noticing what the Lord’s people say to him, “They shall say, Thou art my God.” That is the right saying for every one of the Lord’s people, “Thou art my God.” Poor sinner, may God the Holy Ghost help you to begin to say that, “Thou art my God”! Here is a text that should help you to say it, even as it helped me in the hour of my conversion, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” Will you look to God, sinner? Will you say to the Lord, “Thou art my God”? “My God, I have long forgotten thee, I have blasphemed thee, I have rebelled against thee, I have desecrated thy Sabbath, I have decried thy gospel, I have ridiculed thy servants! But, behold, I look to thee, for I have sinned; have mercy upon me, for thy dear Son’s sake!”

That is a good beginning; but may you have grace to advance beyond that experience, so that you may come and lay your hand on Christ the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world, saying “This Savior is my Savior. I accept him as my Substitute, to stand in my room, and place, and stead”! When you have once rightly uttered this blessed sentence, Thou art my God,” God’s grace will help you to keep on saying it. There is no getting farther than this, “Thou art my God.” That is the end of all good things. What more does a man want? What more can a man desire? There is not a good thing anywhere out of Christ. One of the old Puritans, in the days when nobody much liked going to sea, said, “When a man is in a ship, and in his own little cabin, if he casts his eye all around, and sees nothing but the wild waste of waters, without a sign of land anywhere, nothing but angry billows tossing the vessel up and down, if anyone says to him, Will you leave your little cabin? Will you leave your little ship? ’No,’ says he, ’where else can I go? There is nowhere else to go.”’ That is just how I feel to-night about my Lord. My cabin, my ship, my Christ, my faith in him, gives me rest and peace. I cannot see anywhere else that I can go except to destruction and despair; so my soul says over again, “Thou art my God, thou art my God. Others may have what they will; but I will have my God. They may have what god they like; but thou, Triune Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, thou art my God, and on thee my soul doth rest, seeking no other confidence.”

Will you say that to-night, my dear hearers? I do not know your cases; but I know that, if I want to get sheep into a fold, a good way is to set the gate open as widely as ever I can; and then another good way to entice the sheep in is to have rich pasture inside. Well, I have tried to set before you the rich, free grace of God to the very chief of sinners, and I have pointed to the opened door, that is wide enough to let the biggest sinner come through. Jesus said, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” Now, if Noah’s ark had a door that was big enough to lot an elephant through, then it was big enough to let a dog through, or a fox, or a cat, or a mouse. You may come if you are the biggest sinner in the world; and I do not suppose that you are, for the biggest sinner died and went to heaven long ago. Paul says that he was the biggest sinner, the chief of sinners; and I believe that he knew what sized sinner he was. If there was room for him to go through the gate of salvation, there is room for you. May God’s grace draw you this very night; and unto the God of all grace shall be the praise for ever and ever! Amen.

Hosea 3:5 A Fear to Be Desired

NO. 2801
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, OCTOBER 19TH, 1902,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON THURSDAY EVENING, NOV. 7TH, 1878.

“And shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.”-Hosea 3:5.

THIS passage refers in the first place to the Jews. If we read the whole verse, and the preceding one, we shall see that they describe the present sad condition of God’s ancient people, and inspire us with hope concerning their future: “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.” From this, and many other texts of Scripture, we may conclude, without the shadow of a doubt, that the Jews shall, one day, acknowledge Jesus to be their King. The Son of David-who is here, doubtless, called by the name of David, and who, when he died upon the cross, had Pilate’s declaration inscribed over his head, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews,”-will then be owned by them as their King, and then shall they be restored to more than their former joy and glory. God has great things in store for the seed of Abraham in the latter days. He has not finally cast them away, and he will be true to that covenant which he made with their fathers, and on Judaea’s plains shall roam a happy people, who shall lift up their songs of praise unto Jehovah in the name of Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior. Whenever that shall happen, we, or those who will then be living, may know that the latter days have fully come, because it is foretold here, and in other passages that this is what will occur in the latter days. I am not going to attempt any explanation of the prophetic intimations concerning the future, but this one fact is plain enough,-that, when the end of the world is approaching, and the fullness of the Gentiles is gathered in, and all the splendor of the latter days has really commenced then “shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness.”

On this occasion I intend only to call your attention to this expression, “They shall fear the Lord and his goodness;” for what Israel will do, in a state of grace, is precisely what all spiritual Israelites do when the grace of God re s upon them. The fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, fills the heart, and the goodness of the Lord becomes the source and fountain of that fear in the hearts of all those whom the Lord has blessed with his grace. So I shall, first of all, ask you to notice a distinction which is to be observed; secondly a grace which is to be cultivated; and then, thirdly, a sin which is to be repented of in the case of many.

I. First, then, here is A Distinction To Be Observed.

Human language is necessarily imperfect. Since man’s fall, and especially since the confusion of tongues at Babel, there has not only been a difference in speech between one nation and another, but also between one individual and another. Probably, we do not all mean exactly the same thing by any one word that we use; there is just a shade of difference between your meaning and mine. The confusion of tongues went much further than we sometimes realize; and so completely did it confuse our language that we do not, on all occasions, mean quite the same thing to ourselves even when we u e the same word. Hence, “fear” is a word, which has a very wide range of meaning. There is a kind of fear which is to be shunned and avoided,-that fear which perfect love casts out, -because it hath torment. But there is another sort of fear which has in it the very essence of love, and without which there would be no joy even in the presence of God. Instead of perfect love casting out this fear, perfect love nourishes and cherishes it, and, by communion with it, itself derives strength from it. Between the fear of a slave and the fear of a child, we can all perceive a great distinction. Between the fear of God’s great power and justice which the devils have, and that fear which a child of God has when he walks in the light with his God, there is as much difference, surely, as between hell and heaven.

In the verse from which our text is taken, that difference is clearly indicated: “Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord;” so that this fear is connected with seeking the Lord. It is a fear, which draws them towards God, and makes them search for him. You know how the fear of the ungodly influences them; it makes them afraid of God, so they say, “Whither shall we flee from his presence?” They would take the wings of the morning if they could, and fly to the uttermost part of the’ earth, if they had any hope that God could not reach them there; at the last, when this fear will take full possession of them, they will call upon the rocks and the hills to hide them from the face of him who will then sit upon the throne, whose wrath they will have such cause to dread. The fear of God, as it exists in unrenewed men, is a force which ever drives them further and yet further away from God. They never get any rest of mind until they have ceased to think of him; if a thought of God should, perchance, steal into their mind, fear at once lays hold upon them again, and that fear urges them to flee from God.

But the fear mentioned in our text draws to God. The man who has this fear in his heart cannot live without seeking God’s face, confessing his guilt before him, and receiving pardon from him. He seeks God because of this fear. Just as Noah, “moved with fear,” built the ark wherein he and his household were saved, so do these men, “moved with fear,” draw nigh unto God, and seek to find salvation through his love and grace. Always notice this distinction, and observe that the fear which drives anyone away from God is a vice and a sin, but the fear that draws us towards God, as with silken bonds, is a virtue to be cultivated.
This appears even more clearly in the Hebrew, for they who best understand that language tell us that this passage should be read thus, “They shall fear toward the Lord, and toward his goodness.” This fear leans toward the Lord. When thou really knowest God, thou shalt be thrice happy if thou dost run toward him, falling down before him, worshipping him with bowed head yet glad heart, all the while fearing toward him, and not away from him. Blessed is the man whose heart is filled with that holy fear which inclines his steps in the way of God’s commandments, inclines his heart to seek after God, and inclines his whole soul to enter into fellowship with God, that he may be acquainted with him, and be at peace.

It is also worthy of notice that this fear is connected with the Messiah: “They shall seek the Lord their God, and David their King,”-who stands here as the type of Jesus the Messiah, the King of Israel; and further on it is said, “They shall fear the Lord and his goodness;” and I should not do wrong if I were to say that Christ is Jehovah’s goodness,-that, in his blessed person, you have all the goodness, and mercy, and grace of God condensed and concentrated. “In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” So, that fear which is a sign of grace in the heart,-that fear which we ought all to seek after,-always links itself on to Christ Jesus. If thou fearest God, and knowest not that there is Mediator between God and men, thou wilt never think of approaching him. God is a consuming fire, then how canst thou draw near to him apart from Christ? If thou fearest God, and knowest not of Christ’s atonement, how canst thou approach him? Without faith, it is impossible to please God, and without the blood of Jesus there is no way of access to the divine mercy-seat. If thou knowest not Christ, thou wilt never come unto God. Thy fear must link itself with the goodness of God as displayed in the person of his dear Son, or else it cannot be that seeking fear, that fear toward the Lord, of which our text speaks. It will be a fleeing fear, a fear that will drive thee further and yet further away from God, into greater and deeper darkness,-into dire de destruction,-in fact, into that pit whose bottomless abyss swallows up all hope, all rest, and all joy for ever.

II. Let this distinction be kept in mind, and then we may safely go on to consider, in the second place, The Grace Which Is To Be Cultivated: “they shall fear the Lord and his goodness.”

We will divide the one thought into two; and, first, I will speak about that fear of God, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, a token of grace, a sign of salvation, and a precious treasure to be ever kept in the heart. What is this fear of God? I answer, first, it is a sense of awe of his greatness. Have you never felt this sacred awe stealing insensibly over your spirit, hushing, and calming you, and bowing you down before the Lord l It will come, sometimes, in the consideration of the great works of nature. Gazing upon the vast expanse of waters,-looking up to the innumerable stars, examining the wing of an insect, and seeing there the matchless skill of God displayed in the minute; or standing in a thunderstorm, watching, as best you can, the flashes of lightning, and listening to the thunder of Jehovah’s voice, have you not often shrunk into yourself, and said, “Great God, how terrible art thou!”-not afraid, but full of delight, like a child who rejoices to see his father’s wealth, his father’s wisdom,, his father’s power,-happy, and at home, but feeling oh, so little! We are less than nothing, we are all but annihilated in the presence of the great eternal, infinite, invisible All-in-all. Gracious men often come into this state of mind and heart by watching the works of God; so they do when they observe what he does in providence. Dr. Watts truly sings,-

“Here he exalts neglected worms
To sceptres and a crown;
Anon the following page he turns,
And treads the monarch down.”

The mightiest kings and princes are but as grasshoppers in his sight. “The nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance,” that has not weight enough to turn the scale. We talk about the greatness of mankind; but “all nations before him are’ as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.” Again Dr. Watts wisely sings,-

“Great God! how infinite art thou!
What worthless worms are we!”

When we realize this, we are filled with a holy awe as we think of God’s greatness, and the result of that is that we are moved to fall before him in reverent adoration. We turn to the Word of God, and there we see further proofs of his greatness in all his merciful arrangements for the salvation of sinners,-and especially in the matchless redemption wrought out by his well-beloved Son, every part of which is full of the divine glory; and as we gaze upon that glory with exceeding joy, we shrink to nothing before the Eternal, and the result again is lowly adoration. We bow down, and adore and worship the living God, with a joyful, tender fear, which both lays us low, and lifts us very high, for never do we seem to be nearer to heaven’s golden throne’ than when our spirit gives itself up to worship him whom it does not see, but. in whose realized presence it trembles with sacred delight.

It is the same fear, but looked at from another point of view, which has regard to the holiness of God. What a holy being is the great Jehovah of hosts! There is in him no fault, no deficiency, no redundancy; he is whole, and therefore holy; there is’ nothing there but himself, the wholly perfect God. “Holy! holy! holy! is a fit note for the mysterious living creatures to sound out before his throne above; for, all along, he has acted according to the principle of unsullied holiness. Though blasphemers have tried, many times, to-

“Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
rejudge his judgments, be the god of God,”

they have always failed, and still he sits in the lonely majesty of his absolute perfection, while they, like brute beasts, crouch far beneath him, and despise what they cannot comprehend. But to a believing heart, God is all purity. His light is “ as the color of the terrible crystal,” of which Ezekiel writes; his brightness is so great that no man can approach unto it. We are so sinful that, when we get even a glimpse of the divine holiness, we are filled with fear, and we cry, with Job, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” This is a kind of fear which we have need to cultivate, for it leads to repentance, and confession of sin, to aspirations after holiness, and to the utter rejection of all self-complacency and self-conceit. God grant that we may be completely delivered from all those forms of pride’ and evil!

The fear of God also takes another form, that is, the fear of his Fatherhood, which leads us to reverence him. When divine grace has given us the new birth, we recognize that we have entered into a fresh relationship towards God; namely, that we have become his sons and daughters. Then we realize that we have received “the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Now, we cannot truly cry unto God, “Abba, Father,” without at the same time feeling, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” When we recognize that we are “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,” children of the Highest, adopted into the family of the Eternal himself, we feel at once, as the spirit of childhood works within us, that we both love and fear our great Father in heaven, who has loved us with an everlasting love, and has “begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.”

In this childlike fear, there is not an atom of that fear which signifies being afraid. We, who believe in Jesus, are not afraid of our Father; God forbid that we ever should be. The nearer we can get to him, the happier we are. Our highest wish is to be for ever with him, and to be lost in him; but, still, we pray that we may not grieve him we beseech him to keep us from turning aside from him; we ask for his tender pity towards our infirmities and plead with him to forgive us and to deal graciously with us for his dear Son’s sake. As loving children, we feel a holy awe and reverence as. we realize our relationship to him who is our Father in heaven,-a clear, loving, tender, pitiful Father, yet our Heavenly Fattier, who “is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.”

This holy fear takes a further form when our fear of God’s sovereignty leads us to obey him as our King; for he, to whom we pray, and in whom we trust, is King of kings, and Lord of lords, and we gladly own his sovereignty. We see him sitting upon a throne, which is dependent upon no human or angelic power to sustain it. The kings of the earth must ask their fellow men to march in their ranks in order to sustain their rulers, but our King “sits on no precarious throne, nor borrows leave to be” a king. As the Creator of all things, and all beings, he has a right to the obedience of the entire creature he has made. Again I say that we, who believe in Jesus, are not afraid of God even as our King, for he has made us also to be kings, and priests, and we are to reign with him, through Jesus Christ, for ever and ever. Yet we tremble before him lest we should be rebellious against him in the slightest degree. With a childlike fear, we are afraid lest one revolting thought or one treacherous wish should ever come into our mind or heart to stain our absolute loyalty to him. Horror takes hold upon us when we hear others deny that “the Lord reigneth;” but even the thought that we should ever do this grieves us exceedingly, and we are filled with that holy fear, which moves us to obey every command of our gracious King so far as we know it to be his command. Having this fear of God before our eyes, we cry to those who would tempt us to sin, “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” It is not because we are afraid of him, but because we delight in him, that we fear before him with an obedient, reverential fear; and, beloved, I do firmly believe that, when this kind of fear of God works itself out to the full, it crystallizes into love. So excellent, so glorious, so altogether everything that could be desired, so far above our highest thought or wish, art thou, O Jehovah, that we lie before thee, and shrink into nothing; yet, even as we do so, we feel another sensation springing up within us. We feel that we love thee; and, as we decrease in our own estimation of ourselves, we feel that we love thee more and more. As we realize our own nothingness, we are more than ever conscious of the greatness of our God. “Thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged,” says the prophet Isaiah, and so it comes to pass with us. The more we fear the Lord, the more we love him, until this becomes to us the true fear of God, to love him with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength. May he bring us to this blessed climax by the effectual working of his Holy Spirit!

Now I want to dwell, with somewhat of emphasis, upon the second part of this fear: “They shall fear the Lord and his goodness “ It may at first seem, to some people, a strange thing that we should fear God’s goodness; but there are some of us who know exactly what this expression means, for we have often experienced just what it describes. How can we fear God’s goodness? I speak what I have often felt, and I believe many of you can do the same as you look back upon the goodness of God to you,-saving you from sin, and making you to be his child; and as you think of all his goodness to you in the dispensations of his providence. You may, perhaps, be like Jacob, who left his Father’s house with his wallet and his staff; and when he came back with a family that formed two bands, and with abundance of all that he could desire, he must have been astonished at what God had done for him. And when David sat upon his throne in Jerusalem, surrounded by wealth and splendor, as he recollected how he had fed his flock in the wilderness, and afterwards had been hunted, by Saul, like a partridge upon the mountains, he might well say, “Is this the manner of man, O Lord God?”

In this way, God’s goodness often fills us with amazement, and amazement has in it an element of fear. We are astonished at the Lord’s gracious dealings with us, and we say to him, “Why hast thou been so good to me, for so many years, and in such multitude of forms? Why hast thou manifested so much mercy and tenderness toward me? Thou hast treated me as if I had never grieved or offended thee. Thou hast been as good to me as if I had deserved great blessings at thy hands. Hast thou paid me wages, like a hired servant, thou wouldst never have given me such sweetness and such love as thou hast now lavished upon me, though I was once a prodigal, and wandered far from thee. O God, thy love is like the sun; I cannot gaze upon it, its brightness would blind my eyes! I fear, because of thy goodness.” Do you know, dear friends, what this expression means? If a sense of God’s goodness comes upon you in all its force, you will feel that God is wonderfully great to have been so good to you. Most of us have had friends who have become tired of us after a while. Possibly, we have had some very kind friends, who are not yet tired of us; but, still, they have failed us every now and then at some points; either their power could not meet our necessity, or they were not willing to do what we needed. But our God has poured out his mercy for us like a river; it has flowed on without a break. These many years he has continued to bless us, and has heaped up his mercies, mountain upon mountain, until it has seemed as though he would reach the very stars with the lofty pinnacles of his love. What shall we say to all this? Shall we not fear him, and adore him, and bless him for all the goodness that he has made to pass before us; and, all the while, feel that, even to kiss the hem of his garment, or to he beneath his footstool, is too great an honor for us?

Then there will come upon us, when we are truly grateful to God for his goodness toward us, a sense of our own responsibility; and we shall say, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?” We shall feel that we cannot render to him anything compared with what we ought to render; and there will come upon us this fear,-that we shall never be able to live at all consistently with the high position which his grace has given to us. As God said concerning his ancient people, we shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that he has procured for us. It will seem as though he had set us on the top of a high mountain, and had bidden us walk along that lofty ridge; it is a ridge of favor and privilege, but it is so elevated that we fear lest our brain should reel, and our feet should slip, because of the height of God’s mercy to us. Have you never felt like that, beloved? If God has greatly exalted you with his favor and love, I am sure you must have felt like that many a time.

Then, next, this holy fear is near akin to gratitude. The fear of a man, who really knows the love and goodness of God, will be somewhat of this kind. He will fear lest he should really be, or should seem to be, ungrateful. “What,” he asks, “can I do? I am drowned in mercy. It is not as though my ship were sailing in a sea of mercy; I have been so loaded with the favor of the Lord that my vessel has gone right down, and the ocean of God’s love and mercy has rolled right over the masthead. What can I do, O Lord? If thou hast given me only a little mercy, I might have done something, in return, to express my gratitude. But, oh! thy great mercy in electing me, in redeeming me, in converting me, and in preserving me, and in all the goodness of thy providence, toward me,-what can I do in return for all these favors? I feel struck dumb; and I am afraid lest I should have a dumb’ heart as well as a dumb tongue; I fear lest I should grieve thee by anything that looks like ingratitude.”

Then the child of God begins, next, to fear lest he should become proud; “for,” says he, “I have noticed that, when God thus favors some men, they begin to exalt themselves, and to think that they are persons of great importance; so, if the Lord makes the stream of my life flow very joyously, I may imagine that it is because there is some good thing in me, and be foolish enough to begin to ascribe the glory of it to myself.” A true saint often trembles concerning this matter; he sometimes gets even afraid of his mercies. Ho knows that his trials and troubles never did him any hurt; but he perceives that, sometimes, God’s goodness has intoxicated him as with sweet wine, so he begins to be almost afraid of the goodness of his God to him. He thinks to himself, “Shall I be unworthy of all this favor, and walk in a way that is inconsistent with it?” He looks a little ahead, and ho knows that the flesh is frail, and that good men h ye often been found in very slippery place’s, and he says, “What if, after all this, I should be a backslider? Thou, O Lord, hast brought me into the banqueting house, and thy banner over me is love; thou hast stayed me with flagons, and comforted me with apples; thou hast laid bare thy very heart to me, and made me know that I am a man greatly beloved! Shall I, after all this, ever turn aside from thee? Will the ungodly ever point at me, and say, Aha! Aha! Is this the man after God’s own heart? Is this the disciple who said he would die rather than deny his Master?” Such a fear as that very properly comes over us at times, and then we tremble because of all the goodness which God has made to pass before us.

I think you can see, dear friends, without my needing to enlarge further upon this point, that, while a time of sorrow and suffering is often, to the Christian, a time of confidence in his God; on the other hand, a time of prosperity is, to the wise man, a time of holy fear. Not that he is ungrateful, but he is afraid that he may be. Not that he is proud; he is truly humble because he is afraid lest he should become’ proud. Not that he love’s the things of the world, but he is afraid lest his heart should get away from God, so he fears because of all the Lord’s goodness to him. May the Lord always keep us in that state of fear for it is a healthy condition for us to be in. Those who walk so very proudly, and with too great confidence, are generally the ones who first tumble down. My observation and experience have taught me this; when I have met with anyone who knew that he was a very good man, and who boasted to other people that he was a very good man,-he has generally proved to be like some of those pears that we sometimes see in the shop,-very handsome to look at, but sleepy and rotten all through. Then, on the other hand, I have noticed a great many other people, who have always been afraid that they would go wrong, and who have trembled and feared at almost every step they took. They have feared lest they should grieve the Lord, and they have cried unto him, day and night, “Lord, uphold us;” and he has done so, and they have been enabled to keep their garments unspotted to their life’s end. So, my prayer is, that I may never cease to feel this holy fear before God, and that I may never get to fancy, for a moment, that there is, or ever can be, anything in me to cause me to boast or to glory in myself. May God save all of us from that evil; and the more we receive of his goodness, the more may we fear, with childlike fear, in his presence!

III. Now I must close with just a few words upon the last point; which is, A Sin To Be Repented Of.

I cannot help fearing that I am addressing some to whom my text does not apply except by way of contrast. Are there not some of you, who are unsaved, and yet who do not fear God? O sirs, may the Holy Spirit make you to fear and tremble before him! You have cause enough to fear. If you live all day long without even thinking of God, or if, when you do think of him, you try to smother the thought at once;-if you say that you can get on very well without him, and that life is happy enough without religion;-I could weep for you because you do not weep for yourselves. You say, “We are rich;” yet, all the while, you are wretched, and miserable, and poor. Your poverty is all the worse because you fancy that you are rich. You are also blind. That is bad enough, yet you say, “We can see.” It is doubly sad when the spiritually blind declare that they can see, for they will never ask for the sacred eye-salve, or go to the great Oculist who can open blind eyes, so long as they are satisfied with their present condition. It is a great pity that many unconverted men do not fear God even with a servile fear. If they would only begin with that, it might prove to be the lowest rung of the heavenly ladder, and lead on to the blessed fear which is the portion of the children of God.

There are others of you, I am afraid, who never fear either God or his goodness. How I wish you would do so, for the Lord has been very good to you. You were saved at sea after you had been wrecked. You were raised up from fever when others died. You have been prospered in business, on the whole, though you have had some struggles. Blessed with children, and made happy in your home;-all this you owe to the God whom you have never acknowledged. The goodness of God to some ungodly men is truly wonderful. I think, when they sit down at night, when everybody else has gone to bed, and remember how they began life with scarcely a shilling to bless themselves with, yet God has multiplied their substance and given them much to rejoice in, their hearts ought to be full of gratitude towards their Benefactor. I would like all such people to recollect what God said by the mouth of the prophet Hosea, “She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness.” Take care, O ye ungrateful souls, that the Lord does not begin to strip you of the mercies which you have failed to appreciate! I pray that you may be led to confess whence all these blessings came, and to cry, “My Father, thou shalt be my Guide, henceforth and for ever. Since thou hast dealt so lovingly and tenderly with me, I will come and confess my sin unto thee, and trust in thy dear Son as my Savior and Friend, that I may henceforth be led and commanded by thee alone, and may fear before thee all the days of my life.”

May God grant to every one of us the grace to believe in Jesus, and to rest in him, and then to walk in the fear of the Lord all our day, for Christ’s sake! Amen.

Hosea 3:5 The Silken Fetter

NO. 888
DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 29TH, 1869,
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“Fear the Lord and his goodness.” — Hosea 3:5.

THE whole verse runs thus: “Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.” A brief word may suffice upon the prophecy. I think no reader of Holy Scripture can doubt but that the seed of Abraham, however long they may be in blindness, will at the last obey the Messiah, Jesus, the Son of David, and in those days the goodness of God to them will be so extraordinary, that they shall fear and wonder at it; constrained by gratitude, they will be numbered among the most earnest servants of the Lord. May the Lord hasten so blest a consummation in his own time. O that the happy day would dawn, when Israel’s sons shall acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, to be the Messiah that was promised of old! The expression, “Fear the Lord and his goodness,” much impressed me, and I have therefore ventured to take it from its connection, that we may meditate upon it. Is it so, that there are powerful motives and active causes for fear not only in God himself, but also in his goodness? Alas! dear friends, too many who enjoy the blessings of divine men are far enough from fearing him. His goodness, from the very commonness and continuity of it, casts them into a self-complacent slumber, in which they dream that they will continue in prosperity for ever, but they spend not even a single thought on him from whom all goodness flows. Alas! another class of persons are even excited by the goodness of God to a height of pride and arrogance. If Pharaoh be fixed on a powerful throne, if his dominions be in peace, if the Nile causes Egypt to be fat with harvest, the proud monarch defiantly demands, “Who is Jehovah that I should obey his voice?” If the hosts of Sennacherib be mighty in battle, and if God give prosperity to his kingdom, what will Sennacherib do but wax exceeding haughty against God, the God of Israel, and laugh his people to scorn! Many a man has put his trust in his riches, and has presumed against the Most High; because he has enjoyed long years of success, he believes not that any evil can befall him, but his pride towers aloft, even to the very heavens. Alas! even in those men who are right-hearted, in whom grace reigns, it has too often happened that the goodness of God has not wrought in them a corresponding gracious result. Hezekiah is endowed with riches, and displays them with ostentatious pride: instead of honoring his God in the presence of the ambassadors that came from far, he sought only to give them a high idea of himself, and thus by the pride of his heart he brought upon himself a stern rebuke from his Lord. Asa prospered, but when he was lifted up in outward circumstances, he became also lifted up in heart, and departed from the Most High. Even good men cannot always carry a full cup without some spilling. Even those whose hearts are right have not always found their heads steady enough to stand with safety upon the pinnacles of prosperity and honor. Yet, my brethren, though these things do occur as the results of the goodness of God, on account of the evil of our hearts, yet the true and right effect of goodness upon us ought to be to make us fear God; not to lift us up, but to keep us down; not to make our blood hot with presumption, but to cool and calm it with a grateful jealousy; not unduly to exhilarate us until we become profanely defiant, but to sober us with conscious responsibility till we humbly sit with gratitude at the feet of him from whom our good things have proceeded. This, then, is to be the drift of this morning’s discourse — the right and proper result of the goodness of God upon our hearts.

I shall address myself, first of all, to God’s people; secondly, to such as are yet unreconciled to him.

I. First, To God’s People.

It is yours, beloved, to fear the Lord and his goodness. You have received of God’s goodness in two ways; the first and the higher is his spiritual goodness to you with regard to your immortal nature and your eternal concerns; the second form of goodness in which God has been very lavish to some now present is the providential bounty of God towards you as a pilgrim in this present world.

Let us take the first, and dwell upon it, and survey the spiritual goodness of God to you his people for a moment. It was no small goodness which chose you at the first, when there was no more in you than in others whom God beheld in the same glass of his purposes; he might have passed you by as he has passed by tens of thousands of others, but he chose you because he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he determined that you should be the vessels of mercy to be filled with his grace. It was no slight goodness which ordained a covenant on your behalf with Christ Jesus, a covenant ordered in all things and sure, which is, I hope, to you to-day all your salvation, and all your desire, even if your house be not so with God as you could wish. It was no slight goodness which fulfilled that covenant, by the gift of the Only Begotten. My words when applied to such a topic, seems to me to be threadbare and miserable things, too poor to set. forth the lovingkindness manifest in our incarnate God dwelling among men, in our holy Savior working out a perfect righteousness, above all, in our bleeding Redeemer making expiation for innumerable sins by the giving up of himself to death. Here are heights of goodness which the hind’s foot of imagination shall never scale; here are depths of mercy which the plummet of profoundest reasoning can never fathom — what do you not owe unto him who loved you and redeemed you unto God by his blood?
Think again of the goodness of God to you when you were as yet unconverted: what longsuffering! what tenderness! When you were determined to perish, he was determined to save. When you rejected his offers of mercy, he did not reject you; he would not take your denial for a reply, but he persevered with the sweet solicitations of his gospel and with the silent influences of his Holy Spirit, until at last he made you willing in the day of his power, and brought you to that cross to find your hope hanging thereon, and to be filled with joy and peace, as you looked up to Jesus and rested in him. Months and years have glided away since then, but all along life’s chequered way, divine goodness has continually followed you. My dear brethren and sisters, I need not be choice in my language in order to excite in you gratitude, if you will but now turn over the pages of your day-book, one by one, and think of what God has done for you since that dear hour when he brought you to his foot, and placed you among his children. Why, your bread has been given to you spiritually, and your waters have been sure. You have been preserved from temptations, and preserved in temptations, and brought out of temptations. You have been led first into one truth, and then into another; you have been conducted, step by step, in the pathway of experience; little by little, as you have been able to bear it, has he revealed himself unto you; you have been kept until this day by his power; you have been comforted unto this day by his presence; you are being taught every day by his Spirit; and you are being made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Oh, the goodness of God to you I If you do not feel it, I desire to be, for my own part, overwhelmed with thankfulness, so as to say in my own soul, “Oh, the goodness of God to me in spiritual matters, his goodness, to an unworthy one who continues still unworthy, his goodness in watering the plant that bears so little fruit, his goodness in ministering comfort to one so ready to create distresses by foolish fears; in bearing in his teaching with one so prone to forget, and so slow to understand.” Brethren, we cannot mention even the small dust of our great Father’s mercies; he has outdone all that we have asked or even thought in what he has revealed to us; he has dealt well with his servants according to his word.

Now, all this goodness, which I would fain recall to your recollection, should constrain you to fear the Lord. To fear the Lord and his goodness-how is this to be done? First, there should be a fear in your souls of admiration to think that ever the infinite God should deal graciously with you; that he who made the heavens and the earth should stoop from his loftiness to you; that you, being sinful, and having therefore provoked him, and angered his sense of purity — that he should stoop to you in your defilement and loathsomeness, and should reveal his Son in you. The wonder grows as we think, not merely that he should give mercy, but such mercy; not merely grace, but such boundless grace, such unsearchable goodness and loving-kindness. A truly enlightened mind is bewildered amid the multitude of the Lord’s favors, and bowed down with sacred awe. The fear that hath torment love has cast out, but the fear which must ever suffuse a spirit when it stands on the brink of the boundless, and gazes into the infinite, such a devout and wondering fear we feel when we behold the everlasting love of God. I remember well being taken one day to see a gorgeous palace at Venice, where every piece of furniture was made with most exquisite taste, and of the richest material, where statues and pictures of enormous price abounded on all hands, and the floor of each room was paved with mosaics of marvellous art, and extraordinary value. As I was shown from room to room, and allowed to roam amid the treasures by its courteous owner, I felt a considerable timidity, I was afraid to sit down anywhere, nor did I hardly dare to put down my foot, or rest my hand to lean. Everything seemed to be too good for ordinary mortals like myself; but when one is introduced into the gorgeous palace of infinite goodness, costlier and fairer far, one gazes wonderingly with reverential awe at the matchless vision. “How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God!” I am not worthy of the least of all thy benefits. Oh! the depths of the love and goodness of the Lord.

Saints who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, should fear him for his goodness with the worshipful fear of adoration. Everything which comes to us from divine love should bow us to our knee. Mercies should be the unhewn stones of which we should build an altar to our God. Even the sterner attributes of God compel devotion in right minds much more than the gentle glories. Survey the nightly heaven and feel how true it is, “An undevout astronomer is mad.” Galen, the physician, when studying the marvellous fabric of the human body, declared that he who saw not there the handiwork of God must be devoid of reason. When one reviews the goodness of God the same feeling is produced, but it is more melting, personal, tender, and practical. In the works of creation, we behold grandeur and goodness, but in the grace that gave to man a Savior, you behold all the attributes of God in a soft subdued splendor which charms the soul to a more loving worship than nature alone can suggest. From nature up to nature’s God is well, but from grace to the God of grace is the more sure and easy way. I have never worshipped even in the presence of Mont Blanc, or amid the crash of thunder, as I have at the foot of the cross. A sense of goodness creates a better worshipper than a sense of the sublime. In our best seasons the most excellent sublimities of nature become too little for us, they dwarf rather than magnify our conceptions of God. The day in which I saw most of creation’s grandeur was spent upon the Wengern Alp; my heart was near her God, and all around was majestic; the dread mountains like pyramids of ice, the clouds like fleecy wool; I saw the avalanche and heard the thunder of its fall; I marked the dashing waterfalls leaping into the Yale of Lauterbrunnen beneath our feet, but my heart felt that creation was too scant a mirror to image all her God — his face was more terrible than the storm, his robes more pure than the virgin snow, his voice far louder than the thunder, his love far higher than the everlasting hills. I took out my pocket-book and wrote these lines:-

Yon Alps, who lift their heads above the clouds,
And hold familiar converse with the stars,
Are dust, at which the balance trembleth not,
Compared with his divine immensity.

The snow-crown’d summits fail to set him forth Who dwelleth in Eternity, and bears Alone the name of High and Lofty One. Depths unfathomed are too shallow to express The wisdom and the knowledge of the Lord; The mirror of the creatures has no space To bear the image of the Infinite, ’Tis true the Lord hath fairly writ his name, And set his seal upon creation’s brow; But as the skillful potter much excels The vessel which he fashions on the wheel, E’en so, but in proportion greater far, Jehovah’s self transcends his noblest works. Earth’s ponderous wheels would break, her axles snap, If freighted with the load of Deity: Space is too narrow for the Eternal’s rest, And time too short a footstool for his throne. E’en avalanche and thunder lack a voice To utter the full volume of his praise. How then can I declare him? Where are words With which my glowing tongue may speak his name? Silent I bow, and humbly I adore.

But in musing upon the person of Jesus Christ, and the plan of salvation, a very different result has been experienced. I have been prostrate under the weight of Deity there revealed, and ready to die amid the splendor there so graciously unveiled to my soul in rapt communion. No fear which cometh of bondage, but that which is borne of gratitude and bliss, has bowed me before the mercy-throne with awful wonder at divine goodness.

Further, the goodness of God to us should suggest aspiration as well as adoration. If he hath treated us so as never any other did, if he hath dealt with us in tenderness surpassing thought, then will we serve him if he will but condescend to accept the sacrifice. There was never such a God as he. Oh, what an honor to be his servants! With tears of joy bedewing our eyes, we ask, “My God, may we be permitted to serve thee? Is there aught of service or of suffering which thou canst condescend to allot to such as we are? for thy goodness constrains us with thy fear, we are bound by it to be thine for ever.” Brethren, the greatness of God’s goodness should suggest to us great service; the continuance of that goodness should move us to persevere in honoring him; the disinterestedness of the love of God should make us ready for any self-denials; and above all, the singularity and speciality of his goodness towards his elect should determine us to be singular and remarkable in our consecration to his cause. Each believer is so remarkably a debtor to his Lord, that he should not be content to render mere ordinary tribute, but should be panting and sighing that he may attain to eminence in holy labor. He owes more than others, he should render a worthier return. Oh, if the goodness of God would inspire but one here to-day to make a full surrender of his whole life to Jesus’ love, what a gain would this be to the church! If some young man whom God has favored with especial mercy would say, “Here am I, indulged as I have been with God’s goodness I will press into the front rank of self-abnegation; I will give myself up, spirit, soul, and body, to the Master’s service in foreign lands,” what might he not achieve! Come, ye gallant of heart, ye generous of spirit, ye owe a boundless debt to him; it is but your reasonable service that you give him your all. Come, lay your hands upon his altar-horns, and dedicate yourselves this day as a whole burnt-offering unto Christ. This is that fear of God and his goodness which every saint should covet.

We should also fear the Lord and his goodness in the sense of affection, an affection combined with the fears peculiar to holy jealousy. Has the Lord done so much for us! then how we ought to tremble lest we should grieve so kind a God. If you have a master for whom you do not care, because he is ungenerous or tyrannical, you will be little careful to please him, except so far as your sense of duty might demand; but when you are serving a kind and generous person, who has been your benefactor from your youth up, you would not for all the world vex him, either by negligence or fault. No father commands the obedience of his children like the parent whose affection to his children has been most manifest and undoubted. Fathers who provoke their children to anger, must not wonder if they find them discouraged in their reverence. Our gracious God wins the deepest affection of his people, and they become jealous lest by anything done or undone they should grieve his Holy Spirit. Oh, that blessed, holy fear, that sacred jealousy of sin! I wish we all had more of it. We had, I fear, more of it at our first conversion, but alas! many professors have little of it now. They are too familiar with the world, they have lost their sensibility of sin; they are no longer quick as the apple of an eye, they allow sins which horrified them once. God save us from getting a film over our consciences by slow degrees. He that serves God serves one who is very jealous. Remember, beloved, there are some among us here who have been permitted to enjoy communion with Christ in a very remarkable degree; you have been like John with his head on Christ’s bosom, taken into the innermost chamber of divine affection. Now, none can grieve God so soon as you can. There are none that must pick their steps more carefully than you. A common subject would be allowed by a monarch to do fifty things which one of his familiars must not do. Art thou a favorite of the King? It is an awful thing to be beloved of heaven — it is as dread as it is glorious; but it calls for great’ care and deep anxiety; and the Lord grant that you may walk humbly before him with that fear of his goodness which dreads lest for a single moment God should be provoked by your temper, your thoughts, words, or deeds.

We must fear him again — for I have a sevenfold fear to describe, and must therefore be brief upon each — with humiliation. The goodness of God to us if it finds us in a healthy state, will always make us think less of ourselves. We shall be like Peter’s boat, which when empty floated high, but which when full began to sink. God’s great mercy to us will make us sit down with David, overwhelmed with astonishment, and say, “Whence is this to me? What am I and what is my father’s house?” Reckon that thy soul is right with God if his mercy humbles thee, but if it puffs thee up, there is some base thing within thy heart that must be purged away.

Again, the goodness of God ought to make us fear him with a sacred anxiety, an anxiety of a double character. Am I really his? This great salvation which I hope I have received, have I really received it, or is my experience mere fancy? I see before me a vast estate, is it mine, or do I misread the title-deeds? Does it belong to some other, or actually to me? The higher thoughts you have of the grace of God in the gospel, the more carefully should you examine yourselves whether you be in the faith, the more anxious should you be to go every day to the cross to make your calling and election sure by looking into those five wounds again, and counting once more the purple drops, and crying with holy faith, “Thus my sins are washed away.” Oh, if ye had but a small heaven and a God of little mercies, ye might play fast and loose therewith, but with a God who brims with kindness, and a heaven that is flooded with glory, oh! be anxious that there be no question in dispute as to whether ye are Christ’s or no. Our second anxiety should always be this, “If I be indeed his, and I have such goodness bestowed on me, am I rendering to him what he may expect?” Beloved, you are God’s vineyard, he has built a hedge about you, he has watered you, and planted in your soul the choicest vine of the true spiritual life, but see how little fruit you have yielded to him in return! He looks for clusters, and he finds but grape-gleanings; you give harbour to the wild boar of the wood, but you find little room for the Lord of the vineyard; he looks at your branches, and lo, they are covered with the moss of carelessness, and at your root the ground is overrun with evil weeds of pride and self-seeking. What more could he do than he has done to you? What more of goodness could he show you? Oh, fear and tremble lest you give him nought where he has given so much, rendering no interest on your talents, no return for the outlay of his mercy.

Once again, there is another fear, We should fear the Lord and his goodness with the fear of resignation. You remember Job, noble Job. He was once very rich and increased in goods; God had been very good to him for many years, both in spirituals and temporals, and Job loved his God because of his goodness. This love he proved to be genuine, for when the cattle and the camels, and what was worse, his children and his health, were all gone, he said, “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” In the hour of the gladness of your spirit, you ought to say within yourself, “Ah! after he has pardoned me, made me his child, and promised me that I shall be with him in heaven for ever, he may do what he will with me. Lord, here am I, do what seemeth good in thy sight. By thy Spirit’s help, I will not complain though the bone comes through the skin through long tossing on the bed of Sickness; since thou hast delivered me from hell, what is sickness that I should complain of it? If the wind whistles through my scanty rags, and my table be bare, and my house unfurnished, if I have a Christ on earth and a Christ in heaven to be my portion, then I dare not murmur.” Now this is the true fear of God, and if we could always keep in it, how happy should we be! If we were so satisfied that God is good, that we would not believe he could do us an unkind turn, so overjoyed with his spiritual goodness that all else appeared mere dirt and dross, we should honor our Lord more, and be far more blest ourselves.

Thus I have spoken at length upon fearing the Lord and his goodness, taking it as spiritual goodness. Now, for a few minutes, I wish to address myself to believers in Christ who possess much of the goodness of God in providential matters. All the saints are not poor. Lazarus is a child of God on the dunghill, but Joseph of Arimathea is no less beloved, though he hath great riches. Many were converted to God from the poorest classes in the apostles’ days, but the Ethiopian eunuch, who had great possessions, was none the less a genuine disciple. Now, there are some of you whom God has always prospered in your business, who have a healthy family growing up around you, while you enjoy excellent bodily health — indeed, you have the comforts of this life in profusion. I beseech you above others to fear the Lord for all this goodness. The tendency of prosperity is too often injurious; it is much harder to bear than adversity. As the fining pot to silver, and the furnace to gold, so is prosperity to a Christian man. Many a man will pass through trouble, and praise God under it, who, when he is tried with no trouble, will forget his God, decline in grace, and grow almost a worldling. Believe me, there is no trial so great as no trial, even as an old divine used to say that there was no devil so bad as no devil; there is no state in which a man is in such great danger as when he can see no danger.

“More the treacherous calm I dread
Than tempest howling overhead.”

Let me put these few thoughts to you, you who are blessed with temporal goodness. Fear God much more than ever before, lest these temporals should become your God. Money is compared in Scripture to thick clay, because it sticks; and what is more, it sucks a man into itself, Many a man sinks in wealth like a horse in a bog; his possessions suck him under. While your earthly goods are kept under foot, they will do you no hurt, but when they rise as high as your heart., they have begun to bury you alive. While a man carries money in his purse, it is well, especially if the rings are not too tight; but when he carries it in his heart, it is bad, be he who he may; his gold shall eat as doth a canker, and work him infinite mischief. Child of God, need I tell you this? You know better than to trust in uncertain riches. Well, then, if you worship the golden calf, you will be guilty indeed. Oh, be anxious to fear your God, and not to be an idolater. Fear him more than you ever did at any time of your life before, and in proportion to your prosperity let the depth of your godliness increase.

Fear God and his goodness, again, lest you should undervalue your responsibilities. What you have is none of yours. As far as your fellow men are concerned, your possessions are your own, but as far as your God is concerned you have nothing. You are but a steward; and is it the part of an honest steward to be constantly amassing for himself, and refusing his master his due? Why, if a steward should say, when he pays his master a certain part of his profits, “I have been generous and have given my master so much,” is he not a rogue to talk so? All that he makes in a year, since he is but a steward, belongs to his master, and it is not generosity in his case to render it up. O believers, all that you have belongs to him who bought you with his blood. I pray you ask grace that you may not accumulate sin as you increase your wealth. There is awful sin resting somewhere in the church. I know some Christians who are giving to God’s cause beyond their means, and others fully up to their proportion, and yet there are souls perishing by tens of thousands because they have not the gospel, and they might hear the gospel within a week if we had the pecuniary means of sending it to them; we have the men waiting, but not the means to support them. There are heathen nations in darkness ready to receive the gospel — providence has opened the door, but there is a lack of funds for entering the door. Now, I believe there is no lack of funds whatever among the whole body of professors, but the gold gets into the hands of certain pretenders to religion who are base hypocrites, since they profess to be wholly Christ’s, but their actions belie them; they do no more than others, and what is done is rather to get their names in the subscription lists and not to be thought mean, than with a single eye to God’s glory. It is a sad thing it should be so, for we ought never to give to receive honor of man, but out of love to God and God alone. The more you have, the more responsibility you have; get grace, then, to know and feel your responsibility, and ask for more grace as your talents increase, that you may be honest with your God.

Thirdly, fear God and his goodness, lest he turn his hand and make you poor. How soon can he dry the springs and send a drought upon you! He can send seven years of famine to eat up all the years of plenty. If he should do so to you who serve him so miserably, how you will wish that you had served him when you had the opportunity. God never leaves his people, but he often chastises them; and I do not doubt that many a man is brought down in the world because God tried him in other circumstances, but he was not faithful. “Ah,” saith the Master, “he is no good steward, and I will not trust him any more.” I should not wonder but that many of you might have been rich, but when in prosperity you did not give in proportion, and the Lord said, “I will. not put my talents out to so bad a servant.” Is it not often so, that when Christian men have given away their wealth in shovelfuls, God has given it back to them in wagon loads? “There was a man,” said Bunyan, “and some did count him mad, the more he gave away the more he had.” Let all wealthy Christians remember that he who gives them prosperity to-day may give them adversity tomorrow, and therefore with holy fear let them adore their God while they have the opportunity of serving him.

You should fear the Lord now, especially while you have your children about you, and you are in health, because you will have to leave all these things very soon. They may leave you, but certainly you will have to leave them. Oh, set loose by worldly comforts I enjoy them as though you had theta not; take them, and say as you receive them, “These are but passing, fleeting things. Embrace not such deceptive clouds, look not on these as your rest, but as slight refreshments on the way to your eternal home.

Beloved, fear God and his goodness, because he is better than all his gifts of providence. Let him give you a fair house, and a goodly estate, let him plant you among the rich and the noble, let him bestow on you good health and cheerful spirits, let him give you a numerous and happy family, let him cause his candle to shine upon you, still he is better than all this. All these put together could not fill a hungry soul. God alone can satisfy a true heart. You have him, and having him you have more than all the rest can contr