It is important for congregations to provide age-specific classes and activities. Children can learn at

their pace and on their level. Teens can “hang out” with others who share Christian values and

But, it is also important for congregations to care for the entire family as one organism. Many of

our church activities actually pull family members apart from each other. Here are practical ways to

1. Do a survey. Ask people with children/teens, “How family-friendly do you find our church?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate us? Why did you give our church this rating? Do

you have helpful suggestions?”

2. Welcome parents into children/youth programs. Parents are often curious and interested in

learning about your congregational activities for their child. When parents are involved,

they can make faith links between church and home.

3. Welcome children into adult programs. With some adaptation, a quiet play area and snack

table can be added to an adult meeting or program. Worried about noise level? You may

have noticed that adult’s tolerance for noise increases after having children. It can work the

same way in a family-friendly church.

4. Turn traditional programs into intergenerational programs—an intergenerational Bible class

or Sunday school, an all-generation Vacation Bible School, an all-person annual meeting.

5. Bring a book sale to your congregation once a year. Arrange a consignment of family devotional

books, family fun night suggestions, Christian family videos, Christian computer

games and activities.

6. Give families opportunity to serve together—visit a nursing home as a family, work at a

Habitat for Humanity site, pack food at the Food Bank.

7. Choose Sunday school curriculum that is family-friendly, that has take-home papers, activities

or suggestions so families can reinforce lessons.

8. Invite someone with a desk-top publishing program on their computer to design a faith-

building activity booklet for families. Include ideas like these: daily prayers, simple

Christian rituals, Bible verses to memorize, suggestions for family discussion about how to

apply Bible truths to their lives.

9. Create a quiet room, a prayer room or a spirituality centre at your church where entire families

can go and pray together.

10. Organize family outings such as canoe trips, picnics, tobogganing.

11. Invite…invite…invite children and youth to stay in worship. One minister says this at

every worship service, “In our congregation we provide Sunday school for babies to age 12,

but children are also welcome in our congregational worship. You, as a family, may choose

where to be.”

12. Give families instructions for a simple Christian ritual which can be used at every meal. Here

is the one we use in our family at meal time:

Leader lights a white Christ candle.

Leader: We light this candle to remind us that Jesus is like a light to the world. The Lord be with you.

Others: And also with you. We join hands and say a prayer of thankfulness for food. At the end of the meal, we use a candle snuffer to extinguish the candle.

Leader: The smoke from this candle reminds us of the Spirit of God going out all over (our town) and the world.

“When the Church learns the power of prayer… they will shake the world.” – R.A. Torrey 

In Old Testament Israel, the high priest would venture into the Holy of Holies to confess the sin of his people and carry out the vital business of intercession with God on their behalf. In the New Testament, Jesus, our high priest, extended this privilege of priesthood to all believers through the New Covenant and the shedding of His own blood. The apostle Peter proclaims that we who were washed with His blood have now become a “royal priesthood”.

We as New Testament followers of Christ have also been given the prophetic mantle that was once reserved for isolated prophets of old like Isaiah and Jeremiah. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that “you can all prophesy.” In addition, one day we will actually rule and reign with the Lord as His royal heirs. In the meantime, however, through prayer we can utilize the awesome authority He gives to affect the nations, indeed our whole globe. As His chosen ones we are called to advance His purposes until that day when His glory covers the earth like the waters cover the sea.

Derek Prince, in his book Shaping History through Prayer and Fasting, made a stunning comment: “God has vested in us – His believing people on earth – authority by which we may determine the destinies of nations and governments. He expects us to use our authority both for His glory and our own good.” He based this astounding statement on Jeremiah 1:9-10. In that passage the Lord says He will put His words in the prophet’s mouth and in so doing will appoint him “over nations and kingdoms.” God’s words, spoken forth by an insecure, self-doubting teenager, would have a revolutionary impact, affecting the very life and destiny of societies. History bears out how accurately the God-inspired prophetic prayers and words of Jeremiah were fulfilled.

Centuries later, Jesus erupted with fiery rage at the Jerusalem temple when He found that a preoccupation with marketing and money had subverted the temple’s ministry and priesthood’s calling to be a “house of prayer for all nations.” What a tragic diversion had taken place since apparently the very wellbeing of the world and its peoples was dependent on the prayers from that place!

It could be said that the future of our planet is now in the hands and hearts of today’s intercessors. These are people who share God’s heart, allowing His Word and Spirit to guide their praying as they encounter the world in all its disturbing darkness and hopeful possibility. Having more access to late-breaking and comprehensive information than any other generation before us, we have an unprecedented and awesome privilege to shape history through prayer.

Theologian Walter Wink, in his thoughtful book, “Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination,” has penned one of the most compelling rationales for the importance of intercessory prayer and the profound influence it can exert on world affairs. He affirms, “History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being… These shapers of the future are the intercessors, who call out of the future the longed-for new present.”

Be assured that our heartfelt, faith-filled prayers will make a huge difference to the wellbeing of our world!

John Robb

http://www.wpa2012.org

NO. 2057 INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD’S-DAY, DECEMBER 16TH, 1888
BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,
ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 2ND, 1888.

“But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”-Hosea 1:7.

GOD is very considerate towards the messengers by whom he delivers his word to men. They are bound to deliver his word faithfully, whatever the tidings may be. Sometimes the burden of the Lord is very heavy. The prophets have to denounce woe upon woe, with terrible monotony of threatening; and then it is that God hastens to relieve them by giving them a gracious word, so that they may refresh their hearts, and not be altogether crushed beneath their load. We have an instance here of the Lord’s care for his heralds. Hosea was bound to say, in the name of the Lord, “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away”; but when he had said that, with heavy heart and tearful eye, he was allowed to add, “But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah.” The Lord will not let our spirit fail beneath a burden which is all of grief; but he will grant us the high privilege of proclaiming grace, as well as publishing judgment. Dear brethren in Christ, if you have to preach God’s word, preach it faithfully, and abate no syllable of its stern threatenings. Woe unto him who is afraid to preach the terrors of the Lord! Woe unto the man who refuses to put his hand into the bitter box, and take out the wormwood and gall which make such salutary medicine for the souls of men! We must at times speak lightning, and prove ourselves sons of thunder. We must bring on the storm and tempest in the heart of man, if fair summertide discoursing will not touch them. For the most of men there is no going to heaven except by Weeping Cross; and we must drive them that way with God’s thundering sentences of judgment. Let us lead them by the path of sorrow to the Man of sorrows, sorrowing ourselves because it is so hard to bring them to a godly sorrow. It is at our soul’s peril that we allow a warning to lie silent. “If the watchman warn them not, they shall perish; but their blood will I require at the watchman’s hands.” Let us think of that, and give ourselves up to our Master’s work, even when it is heaviest, cheered by the fact that we have to speak of such glorious truths, such precious promises, such a gracious Christ, such a free salvation, such full pardon for the very chief of sinners, such abundant help for those that have no strength, such fatherly compassion to those that are out of the way. Our themes of joy by far outweigh our topics of grief, and we find the Lord’s service a happy one.

The connection of our text suggests the thought that there is a limit to the long-suffering of God. He bade Hosea say, “I will no more have mercy upon Israel.” He had borne with that guilty people very long, and overlooked their daring crimes; but he would do so no longer: he would give them over to the enemy, who would carry them quite away, so that Israel as a distinct monarchy should cease to be. O my hearers, God is very gracious, but his Spirit shall not always strive with you. A little more sin, and you may be over the boundary, and God may give you up. Stay, I pray you! Do not further provoke. Repent, and turn unto the Lord with full purpose of heart.

Having made that observation, I would make another, namely, that the Lord makes distinctions among guilty men according to the sovereignty of his grace. “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah.” Had not Judah sinned too? Might not the Lord have given up Judah also! Indeed he might justly have done so, but he delighteth in mercy. Many sin, and righteously bring upon themselves the punishment due to sin: they believe not in Christ, and die in their sins. But God has mercy, according to the greatness of his heart, upon multitudes who could not be saved on any other footing but that of undeserved mercy. Claiming his royal right he says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” The prerogative of mercy is vested in the sovereignty of God: that prerogative he exercises. He gives where he pleases, and he has a right to do so, since none have any claim upon him. We are all under his rule, and by that rule we are under condemnation; and if he should leave us there, it would be strictly just; but if any be saved it is an act of pure, undeserved grace, for which he is to have all the praise.

Note, too, that even in the darkest times, when whole nations go astray from him, he still reserves unto himself a people. “I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them.” God will have a people even when those who are called his people prove unworthy of the name. There never was a night so dark but that God had a star shining through its blackness. There never was a desert so drear but God could lead a people through it, and make the wilderness rejoice. There never shall be a time in which Christ will not have a remnant according to the election of grace, who will maintain his truth and the honor of his name. Let us be comforted by this, and look for brighter and better times, however dark the days may seem to be just now. God will save his own, and by his own will keep his glory bright among men.

But now the text brings us to consider this fact, that God will save his own people in his own way. He tells us positively how he will save the house of Judah, and negatively how he will not save them. “I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” God displays his sovereignty not only in the persons saved, but in the ways whereby that salvation is wrought out.

The point which we shall consider is God’s way of saving his people, as instanced in the text; and we remark, first, that oftentimes God puts visible means aside in dealing with his people: “Not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” Secondly, he has good reasons for doing this: he acts with infinite wisdom. Thirdly, there is a gospel in this, a gospel which has special relation to us. Oh, for a blessing from the Spirit of the Lord!

I. First, then, God Is Pleased Very Often, In Working Salvation, To Put Means Aside.

He said of Israel, “I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.” He thus struck out of the hands of his people their only defense; they had trusted in their bow, and the Lord destroyed it.

First, the Lord does this in the work of salvation by grace. Salvation is of the Lord alone. Salvation is not of human merit, for there is no such thing. Plenty of demerit you can find anywhere and everywhere, but of merit there is none. “When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants: we have done no more than it was our duty to have done.” But we have not done all. Alas! on the contrary, we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and we have left undone the things which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us. In ourselves we have neither health, help, nor hope. We are not, we cannot be, saved by our works. We dismiss the idea with an honest indignation, each one of us for himself. Neither are we saved by any good dispositions which lie dormant and latent within us, for there are no such things. There is none good, no not one. The heart is, in every case, deceitful, and desperately wicked. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. If our salvation depended upon our hearts going after God of themselves, and the motions of our nature ascending towards the Most High of themselves, it would be a hopeless case. But divine grace waiteth not for man, neither tarrieth for the sons of men. When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. “You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and in sins.” The first movement is from God to us, not from us to God. As soon expect the darkness to create the day as expect the sinner to turn his own heart to the Lord. We are saved by the Lord’s grace, not by our works; nor by our feelings, nor by our desires, nor even by our sense of need. I believe it is one object of God’s infinite wisdom in each individual case to make this doctrine clear to the understanding and the heart. Certainly it is one object of every faithful ministry. We preach down the creature, and preach up the Savior. Yet, preach as we may, self-righteousness is so natural to man, self-trust is so congenial to our proud imbecility, that we cannot get it out of men till the Holy Spirit comes. Every man his own Savior is the kind of doctrine which is popular; but to set aside our own doings is to offend many. I see before me a picture which was once before the mind of Isaiah. Our nature seems like a rainbow-coloured field of grass in the early days of summer. The golden kingcups are intermingled with flowers of every hue. What a luxuriant garden! Wait a moment! A wind comes-a hot sirocco burns its deadly way. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.” So have we seen men glorious in their own self-righteousness, boastful of their moral purity and we have half thought, surely there is something in all this! We walk over the same field after the withering work of the Holy Ghost has been there, and men have been convinced of sin, and we see nothing but disappointment, and hear nothing but confession of failure. We see no flowers, but dead, withered grass. How soon has the glory departed! The comeliness of the field is passed away as in the twinkling of an eye!

You cannot have forgotten, some of you, when this terrible self-withering happened to you. When God’s rebukes corrected you, your beauty passed away as the moth. Before I was instructed as to myself I thought myself as good a fellow as could be found within fifty miles; but when the Spirit of God had revealed me to myself, I thought myself the basest creature within five hundred miles; or, for the matter of that, even outside or inside of hell itself. You may, perhaps, have seen a picture drawn by a cunning artist. It represents a lady, very fair and beautiful to look upon; but the picture is so contrived that you discover underneath it the form of death. That which appeared outwardly so lovely is only a veiled skeleton. Just that kind of change the Spirit of God makes upon our moral beauty: he turns it into corruption by making us see what we really are. The bones of the skeleton of depraved nature stand out through the proud flesh of our self-righteous pride. Then we cry to God for mercy. Then we give up all idea of saving ourselves. Neither bow, nor sword, nor horse, nor horsemen, are any longer our confidence. The weapons of our self-help are looked upon by us as weapons of rebellion-and they really are so; and we throw them away, and will have nothing further to do with them. The man upon whom there is found a bad coin is very earnest in declaring that it is none of his, somebody must have slipped it into his pocket. He will not own it. A little while ago he thought to himself, “What a splendid imitation it is! How well I have cheated the Queen!” Self-righteousness is nothing but a piece of counterfeit coin; and when all goes well with us, we say, “How well I have done it! How splendid is my righteousness!” But when the Spirit of God arrests us, then we are anxious to get rid of the very thing wherein we gloried. What was our righteousness we reckon to be as filthy rags-and we reckon according to truth. Thus God saves us, not by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by horsemen, but by his grace, which comes to us freely when Jesus is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

It is so in the actual salvation of men, and it is often so in their calling to this salvation. Was any man ever converted in the way in which he expected to be? I hardly think so. I know what you thought would happen; at least I know what many expect. They look for an interesting incident. They suppose, perhaps, that they will have a very wonderful dream; or that, going to hear a minister, there will be something very striking in the sermon which will alarm or depress them, so that they will be tempted to commit suicide, or do some other outrageous thing. Possibly, on the other hand, they half expect that there will happen a sudden death in the family, or sickness upon many, and that so they will be impressed; or, possibly, like Martin Luther with his friend Alexis, they may be walking out in a thunder-storm, and Alexis will be killed, and they will be aroused in that way. I, myself, always looked for something very remarkable, but it did not come to me. And yet something happened which was more remarkable than the most remarkable thing would have been: I simply heard the gospel command, “Look unto me, and be ye saved.” I looked and I lived; and that is all the story I have to tell you. Dear hearer, that is all the story, very likely, you will ever have to tell. You have come in here to-night, and perhaps you have even desired that something very wonderful may take place. Nothing of the sort may happen, and yet the infinite mercy of God may visit your heart and sweetly melt it. Or ever you are aware, you may say to yourself-

“I do believe, I will believe, That Jesus died for me”;

and, on a sudden, that change will come over you of which you have so often heard-by no means the physical change which you have looked for, the extravagant delirium of sorrow struggling with delight. You will simply drop into the arms of Christ, and rest in his great sacrifice, and find peace. That will be all. You will not be saved by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by horsemen, but by a simple trust in the Lord alone. What more do you want? What more can you hope to receive?

I feel very grateful to God whenever a person attributes his conversion to me. I feel both honored and humbled. But if you are brought to the Lord Jesus, and no word of mine shall be used, but only that still small voice which speaks in solemn silence to the heart, I shall be equally pleased, so long as you are saved. If hungry souls receive the bread of heaven, I will not fret because they took it from some other hand than mine, Oh, that even now the Lord himself might come like the dew which falls in its own special way, and may he refresh your hearts unto eternal life, and fulfill this word: “I will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”

In the next place, the same thing is true with regard to the progress of religion, and the work of revivals. Let every man work as he feels called to do, provided he follows the rules of his Lord; but we have seen revivals of which it was said at the first, “We will get up a revival.” Revivals can be got up, but are they worth the trouble? What has been the end of them all? A few years after, the result, where is it? I hear an echo say, “Where is it?” I cannot tell you what has become of it; in many cases I fear that the disappointed church has become more hard to stir than it was before. Brethren, I hopefully believe that there will soon come a deep, widespread, lasting revival of religion, and it may be it will come just as it used to in apostolic times. How did they act in Jerusalem? What did they do throughout Asia Minor? What was the apostles’ plan? I cannot find, for the life of me, that they did anything else but preach the gospel, while at the same time they went from house to house, and held meetings for prayer; and thus the kingdom of Christ came. They did not work up a revival, but they prayed it down. They simply waited upon the Lord in supplication and service. They might have tried other plans had they been so unwise as to think of them. They would never have tolerated the dodges of the present period, the adaptations of the gospel, and the degrading of it, by secular lectures, entertainments, and so forth. They never dreamed of keeping abreast of the times with liberal philosophical teaching; but I recollect that Paul was so resolutely ignorant as to say, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Standing all together the chosen preachers of the first days could aver- “We preach Christ crucified.” They could all say that, and say it emphatically. All the men of the college of the apostles stuck to that theme; and see the effect!

“Nations, the learned and the rude, Were by these heavenly arms subdued, While Satan raging at his loss, Abhorred the doctrine of the cross.”

I wish all the churches would try this old way again, for it seems to me that the world will never be subdued to Christ by the wooden sword of reason, but only by the true Jerusalem blade of a gospel revealed from heaven. Until we take up such methods as our Lord has ordained, and make our sole confidence to be in the Lord our God, who “will not save by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen,” we shall never see great results. Grand preaching, fine preaching, eloquent preaching! Yes; but the apostle was afraid of it, lest the faith of his converts should stand in the wisdom of men. Though he could have spoken with the tongue of an orator, he did not use the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be of none effect.

“But, surely,” cries one, “we must have some advancement in theology. We ought to know more than our old fathers did.” This is the pride of our hearts. Would you advance beyond the apostles? Into what can you advance but into the ditch of error? They did not crave for an advance in the apostolic times; but they were satisfied to speak over again “all the words of this life.” They remained true to the “faith once for all delivered to the saints,” and they found salvation in this primitive revelation. Why should we go gadding elsewhere? Depend upon it God will not save men by advanced thought, nor by eloquent discoursings, nor by literary beauties: he “will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.”

I believe that the same great truth will be made apparent as to the establishment of the truth of God in this land. How my soul has been burdened with the many that have turned aside, and the few that remain faithful to the covenant God of Israel! These last are not so very few as some would make them out to be, but yet they are sadly scant in number. God has reserved unto himself seven thousand that have not bowed their knee to Baal, Oh, that there were a thousand times as many! But we have striven with all our might to bear our outspoken testimony for the old faith, and we have hopefully thought, that many would rally to the cry; but it is not so, nor, perhaps, is it God’s mind that it should be. Men of eminence have held their tongues, and brethren once ardent for the gospel have practically gone over to the enemy. I am sure that the Lord will confound the adversary, and bring forth his truth as the noonday; but it may not be as we would suggest. He has his own way; let us watch for him to make bare his arm. Perhaps those who are faithful must stand alone, must bear their witness in solitary places, and be the objects of general derision. Perhaps for many a year the heavenly fire will only smoulder amidst the ashes. But it is all right; truth shall hold the crown of the causeway yet, and Christ’s own word shall lift its head from the waves that have washed over it, and be the fairer for the washing; for the truth hath God’s might with it, and it must prevail. He “will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” We must be content to subside; to be nothing; to be never heard of; to die. So be it if the truth shall live. This will be better than if we formed a numerous band, and carried everything by majorities, and set up a strong party, and won the day: for then man might be great, and God be forgotten, but now he shall be all in all. When you have seen how I fail, and those that are with me, and how plans and efforts are futile, you will all the more clearly see what the Lord can do.

Dear friends, I would make one other application of these words, and I trust it may be profitable to you. The text has a voice to God’s people in the day of trouble. I may be addressing godly people who are in most terrible distress. You have faith in God that he will bring you out of your affliction. Maintain that faith; and if for a long time no deliverance should come, still maintain it. Perhaps you have hopes from a certain quarter. Those hopes may come to nothing: that cistern will leak. You have another friend to whom you can apply. Yes, you can apply; that is all that will happen, for that tank also holds no water. When you have tried all the cisterns, be wise enough to recollect the fountain. It may be that there will come a day when every door will be fast closed, and you will see no way of relief whatever; but bethink you that then there will remain the one way, which you should have followed at the first. In such an hour let my text speak with you: “He will save them by the Lord their God, and he will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” What a glorious vision is that of Jehovah alone with his own right hand getting to himself the victory! When Israel came out of Egypt, what armies vanquished Pharaoh? Who fought on Israel’s side to bring them out of Egypt? Nobody. Then there was no human victor to extol, no human warrior to praise; but clear and plain the hymn rang out- “Sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously.” If there had been an ally with God the glory might have been divided; but as it was, the Lord alone was exalted in that day. When Israel fought with Amalek it is evident that the battle never depended upon their fighting, for-

“While Moses stood with arms spread wide, Success was found on Israel’s side; But when through weariness they failed, That moment Amalek prevailed!”

so that the real fighting was done by those uplifted hands that brought down the divine success, and made Joshua mighty in the battle. When Israel crossed the Jordan, and came into the promised land to fight the Canaanites, the very first conquest was that of Jericho. Did they bring battering-rams to the walls? Did they gradually throw down the structure with their axes and picks? Oh, no! they compassed the city seven days, and God made the walls to fall when the people gave a shout. In the memorable deliverances of God’s people, God has said to the second cause, “Stand back; let my glory come to the front.” The bow, the sword, the battle, the horses, and the horsemen, he has sent them all about their business; and then the Lord their God has led the van, and his enemies have been scattered like the dust of the threshing-floor. When he takes up the quarrel of his covenant he makes short work of it, for “the Lord is a man of war; Jehovah is his name;” and when he lays bare his arm to defend the cause of his people, he wants no helpers. Now can you lean on the Lord? Can you grasp the Invisible? Can you lean alone on God, and forego all helpers? Can you grasp his bared arm, and let all things else go? O man of God, if thou canst, thou shalt glorify God, and thou shalt surely be delivered! If thou must have thy bow and thy sword, or else give up hope, then the battle rests with thyself. How canst thou plead the promise of God? But when thou puttest the bow aside, and the sword is hung on the wall, then canst thou go to him who is better to thee than bow and sword, and rest in him, and he will work gloriously, so that his own name shall be magnified, and thou shalt be blessed. I pray the Holy Spirit to apply that truth to any heart here that is heavy by reason of sore conflict at this time. Oh, for grace to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him, for in his own time and way he will work, and none shall hinder him.

So much upon our first point, that oftentimes God puts the means aside in dealing with his people.

II. But now, secondly, God has Good Reasons For This.

I shall very briefly touch upon this theme. The Lord is full of wisdom, and his doings are ever prudent. He always has good reasons for everything, but one of the things we should never do is, to ask his reasons. It is an unreasonable thing to ask God to give reasons for what he does. His answer to arrogant questioners is- “ May I not do as I will with my own?” Oh for grace to be silent where God is silent! Is he not God, and we worms of the dust? Who shall presume to ask him why or what he does? Better far to say, “It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.” If he never gave us a reason for what he did, we ought to be well content to leave all with him, knowing that he must do that which is best and wisest.

But, so far as in humility we may dare to look, we have looked, and we believe that the Lord’s ways are intended, first, to prevent all boasting. How prone we are to self-esteem! How wickedly we rob God to honor ourselves! If God uses us-if God uses any sort of means-yet there is no credit to the means which he uses, but to himself only. I read the other day of a certain writer who says, “I wrote the four hundred pages of this book with one pen.” Where is that pen? Does anybody want it? If it were advertised as an exhibition, I should not go to see it. I care a deal more for the hand that wrote, and for what was written, than for the pen with which it was written. A common goose-quill it was in the case referred to, and no more. Ah, how plainly can we see where the quill came from! God uses men for a certain purpose, as we use a hammer, or a saw, or a gimlet. Suppose that when we had done with such tools, and put them back into the box, they all began to cry, “See what we have done! What a sharp saw I was! What a heavy hammer I was! Did I not hit the nail on the head?” Such boastings would be foolishness. Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? We do not judge that the instrument ought to take credit to itself; but it does so in our case whenever it can, and this is a great injury to us. Some of us might have enjoyed a much larger blessing, if we had not grown top-heavy with the blessing we already enjoyed. God saved a soul or two by you, my dear friend, and you began to rub your hands, and think that you were something better than an angel. You were running away with God’s glory, and thus ending your own influence. Often this is the cause of the drying up of hopeful usefulness. The instrument began to exalt itself, and so the Lord put up the bow, the sword, the horses, and the horsemen, and then all men saw what powerless things these were. Oh, that the Lord may never feel compelled to leave you and me to ourselves! Oh, that he may deign to honor us by using us to his glory. I had far rather die than stand a withered tree in the vineyard of the Lord, and yet, what better should. I be if he withdrew the dew of his grace from me?

Next, he does this to take us off from all reliance upon second causes and outward means. You people of God, the process of weaning is, with you, full often a long and tedious one; but if ever it is accomplished, your faith will rejoice, even as Abraham made a great feast at Isaac’s weaning.

My dear hearers, some of you are not saved yet, and I will tell you what happens with many of you. You come here on Sabbath days, and, to Monday prayer-meetings, and Thursday services, and I am glad to see you. You also read your Bibles; I am glad of that. You say a thing you call a prayer: I do not know whether I am glad about that. But I will tell you what you are doing. You are making yourselves quite comfortable, as if, by some singular process, salvation would insensibly penetrate you by your being found in good company, hearing the Word, and so on. Let me remind you that these things were never prescribed as the way of salvation. I do not want you to run away from hearing the Word, or from the use of the means; but I do want to assure you that, if you trust in these means, you will be disappointed in the result. These are mere pitchers, but they will not quench your thirst if there is no water in them. Look to God, not to your minister. Get to Jesus himself rather than to the sacred Book. Remember how the Savior puts it-for this is not a wrested reading- “Ye search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: but ye will not come to me that ye might have life.” Pass beyond the Scriptures to the Christ whom the Scriptures reveal. Do not stay in the porch of the Word, but enter the house of the truth itself, which is Christ Jesus. It is not singing hymns and saying prayers; it is getting to the Lord in praise and really coming to Christ in prayer. I wish you not to stay away from any of the services; I wish you to be where the means may be blessed to you; but the means of themselves cannot save you. There is nothing in preaching- there is nothing in public service that can mechanically bring salvation to you; and do not expect it. “Ye must be born again!” You must distinctly go to Christ for yourselves, for the Lord saves men by the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will not save them by books, and prayer-meetings, and sermons any more than he would save Judah by the bow, the sword, the battle, the horses, and the horsemen. The Lord set aside horse and horsemen to bring the people to himself; and often he lays people up so that they cannot get out to hear the minister, or he drafts them away to some portion of the country where they get no sermon, that then they may go to the God of all true sermons, and may find salvation in Jesus Christ himself.

Again, beloved, the Lord blesses his people himself that he may endear himself to them. He reveals himself to them apart from other things, that they may see him and know what he can do. You do not know to the full what God can do so long as he keeps within the bounds of the ordinary means, or you feel that you are well provided for by ordinary methods. You are apt to forget that God provides for you, because your quarterly allowance is received so regularly. Now, suppose that your business fails. Ah! then God must provide for you: then you will see what God is doing. Suppose that, instead of being in one place, you should be kicked about like a football, and still the Lord should give you rest in himself: then you will see what he can do. When we are in fine feather, and everybody is kind to us, we hardly know the lovingkindness of the Lord, it is so smothered up by secondary agencies. When we get quite alone, and nobody is kind to us, and we approach to the Lord in solitary trust, and prove his power to comfort us, then we know more of what he is in himself to his people. The night reveals the stars, and sorrow and loneliness manifest the Lord’s presence. But, beloved, God does this to endear himself to us, that seeing more of him we may love him more, and may say to ourselves, “What a gracious God he is to take notice of me, to interpose for me, to come and, by his own mighty power, do for me what the ordinary ways and means fail to do!” In this way also the Lord often gives a double blessing-a blessing in the gift, and a blessing in the way of giving.

Now look at Hezekiah’s case. Supposing Hezekiah had gone out to fight Sennacherib, and had defeated him, a certain number of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would have been killed in the battle; but when the Lord delivered Hezekiah without a battle, then there were no funerals in Jerusalem. Nobody was wounded; nobody was slain. So frequently God not only blesses us by the favor given, but by the way in which the gift is sent: he saves us from pains which any other method would have involved. The Lord often spares us the humiliation of being dependent upon a person who would have made his patronage bitter to us. If we had received the blessing through some great one, he might have crowed over us all the rest of his life. I like that bit in Abraham’s life when the king of Sodom offered him the property which he had captured. Abraham had a right to it, for he had taken it in war; but he said, “I will not take from a thread to a shoe-latchet, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.” No, no; the servant of the Lord would not have a king talk as if he had been the maker of the Lord’s own servant. God himself will so help you, so bless you, so carry you through, that you shall not have to take off your hat to any king of Sodom, neither shall he be able to go up and down the city and say, “I have made Abram rich.” God will put the king of Sodom away with the horses and the horsemen, and double the mercy to you by handing it out with his own hand after his own way.

I think that the Lord does this also to encourage you in all future troubles: he has rescued you in a way beyond means, without means, and even against means, and therefore you cannot be in a condition from which he will be unable to rescue you. If you should come to be more friendless and more feeble than you now are-what then? Are your resources within yourself or dependent upon friends? If so, you are in an evil case. But if all your supplies are in the Lord, you are no worse off than you used to be. When the Lord strips you bare of your own garments, then you can go to his wardrobe and put on the raiment which he has provided. You cannot wear God’s clothes while you glory that you are wearing your own. When want has swept your table, then all the bread on it will come from your God. When the Lord has brought you down to the bare rock, then you can go no lower, and there is a chance to build a house which will stand against flood and wind. Be reliant upon him who can work by means, but can equally well work without means whenever it seemeth good in his sight! In such confidence you will find security against all ill weathers. The Lord changes not, and therefore you shall not be consumed.

III. My time is done, or else I was going to say, thirdly, There Is A Gospel In This Text for those here present.

I can only hint at this in a few words.

The first gospel is that salvation is possible in every case. Notice, “I will save them.” What can stand against a divine “I will”? With God nothing is impossible. If there be nothing to help him, what does it matter? He does not need help. He expressly abjures the aid of a creature when he says, “I will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.” My dear hearer, whoever you may be, there is hope in your case: if God saves, then you can be saved. If you had to save yourself, you would not be saved; but as there is nothing wanted of you, but God worketh salvation with his own right hand, your case is hopeful. How clear is this! And how bright with comfort!

Next, salvation is to be sought of God alone. Do not go wandering about to the second cause. Go straight to the Lord himself, and go at once. Straightforward is the best running in the world. Go straightforward to your God, your Savior. Let there be no waiting for tears, feelings, repentance, sanctification, or anything else; but arise at once, and go to your God, and for Christ’s sake plead with him to have mercy upon you at this moment. As salvation does not necessarily come through the outward means, if I address any here who have neglected the outward means, let them come away to God at once, though they have neglected his courts, profaned his day, and despised his ministers. You came in here with no idea of worshipping God, but only just to see the place, and what the preacher is like. Never mind, look to the Lord Jesus Christ straight away! With these eyes that are so blinded, look! If you cannot see, it may be that in your obedient attempt to look, the Lord will give you sight. He does not command you to see, but he does command you to look to him and be saved: so that, if you turn your eyes towards Jesus, though they be sightless eyeballs, he will make them see. If you will trust in Christ you may cast your guilty soul on him at this moment. Why should you not do so? Then for you the rain will be over and gone, and you will see the bright light in the clouds. Instead of the dark and dismal winter of doubt, you shall have a summer-time of hope and comfort. These dreary weeks of cold despair shall give place to a season in which heaven and earth shall blend in your experience in a joy unspeakable. The Lord grant it, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Amen.

http://preceptaustin.org/spurgeon_sermons_on_hosea.htm

Then she said, “I must tell you that when a politician starts preaching I tend to react the same way as when a preacher starts talking politics. I become very, very wary.” And she justifies this in the following terms: “I believe we can unite the world in opposition to the murder of innocent people. But we will never unite the world in support of the idea that Americans have a unique relationship with God or a better understanding of God’s will than worshippers from other cultures and lands.”

There is a strategic rationale here, and it has a long history in political thought. What we want to be able to do is to form a coalition around a policy, and it is counterproductive to state the policy in such a way as to alienate potential coalition partners. To illustrate the history we could go back to Hugo Grotius, a Dutchman of the seventeenth century who grew up Calvinist. He was moved by the urgency of finding a basis for morality that could appeal across national and confessional boundaries. He found such a basis in the need for humans to live together even though their natural inclinations put them at odds with each other. And he thought that morality was the empirically discoverable set of laws that could accomplish this purpose without having to appeal to some contested notion of the highest good for human beings. The audience Grotius had in mind was uniformly Christian, and the problem he wanted to finesse was the difference between Catholic and Protestant. But in a time when many people in traditionally Christian countries do not identify themselves any longer as Christian or even theist, and when foreign policy has to be stated with an audience that includes many countries that are not traditionally Christian, this Grotian strategy ends up not using religious language at all. Language about God and faith drops out of public policy discussion. Richard Rorty used to put the point (though he has changed his mind about this) by saying that religious language is a “conversation stopper”; religious believers can believe what they want in private, but they should not introduce these beliefs into public discourse.

There is a problem with this. In the American political context, over ninety-five percent of the population identifies itself as believing in God in one way or another, and this is not a marginal belief to them. Their belief in God is something around which they organize their lives. Conservatives know this, and conservative political rhetoric, like Vice President Cheney’s Christmas card, is full of language about God and faith. Non-conservatives (it is hard to find the right label, now that “liberal” tends to mean “loony left”) have usually been “very, very wary” like Secretary Albright. But they are changing, and the Democratic Convention in Boston was an interesting picture of this. Religion is playing a larger role in the election of 2004 than it has for decades. Barack Obama, in the opening address, identified John Kerry as a man of faith. “We worship an awesome God in the blue states,” he said, not just in the red Republican states. “In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation: the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead.” Here he was tying belief in God to a politics of hope, and he contrasted this with those who used faith to divide people from one another. John Kerry himself echoed the same theme. He stressed his own faith, but he quoted Lincoln, who did not claim that God was on his side, but prayed, rather, that he would be on God’s side.

There is historical grounding for a Non-Conservative strategy of this type as well. My main example is going to be Immanuel Kant, and I will come back to him at the end. But another example is the famous nineteenth-century liberal John Stuart Mill. Mill believed strongly in the rational agenda of establishing rights and maximizing happiness, counting each person as one and no person as more than one, but he came to see (from personal experience) that this did not engage with some of the deepest springs of human motivation, especially with the need for hope. He quoted from Coleridge, “Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, and hope without an object cannot live.” And he returned to this topic in his Three Essays on Religion (published posthumously in 1874). He suggested a justification for publicly encouraging religion because of the power of the religious object of hope in helping people to feel their own lives worthwhile and to feel more strongly the value of others. Religious hope and liberalism in this older sense can be and have been allies and not opponents.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:13: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses it saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled.” We know what it means for food to be insufficiently salty. A dish without enough saltiness is bland, boring, fit to be thrown away. But we also know what it means for a dish to have too much salt. When a dish is too salty, all you taste is salt. Sometimes religious people try to talk about policy using the language of their faith too directly. About twenty years ago I worked for Lee Hamilton, first on his personal staff and then on the staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, which he ran. I remember people coming, as Christians, to tell us that the Bible taught what U.S. policy should be towards Israel, and they used especially the apocalyptic portions of the Scriptures. On the other side of the political spectrum, people would come, as Christians, to tell us that the Bible taught that even possessing nuclear weapons was a kind of sacrilege and offensive to God, because splitting the atom was reversing the order of creation. I remember getting irritated with both these kinds of people. The problem was not the prophetic voice, which brings a vital challenge to the political process. But these people had not understood either what kind of book the Bible is or the complexities of the situations to which they were trying to prescribe. A certain kind of translation has to be done if the Christian gospel is to speak in the language appropriate to the situation; otherwise it sounds forced, or stilted, or quaint. This is what I mean by the analogy of a dish tasting overwhelmingly of salt.

On the other hand, there is the danger of religious people using too little salt, and I want to give three types of this. First, they can conform so closely to the culture in which they live that all the leverage of the faith gets lost. Sometimes I look at the racks of Christian magazines in the library, for Christian business leaders, or Christian musicians, or Christian wedding planners, and some of it seems merely a second-rate endorsement of prevailing norms, with a veneer of Christian language pasted over the top of it. If it really is like this, then it is not merely useless, but also a way to cheapen the gospel.

A second way to lose saltiness is the opposite of too much assimilation; religious people can also make too little engagement with public life. I used to meet every week, when I was in Washington, with a group of Christian congressional staff from offices all over the Hill. We would try to talk about our work and our faith. But I noticed one group who took the view that politics is itself a domain under the power of the devil, and therefore not part of Christian life. It is true that they themselves engaged in politics, but they held their Christian lies separate from it; their Christianity was a matter of personal devotion and fellowship at church. They thought it was wrong, for example, to pray for the passage of any piece of legislation, because as legislation it was already corrupt. The politics they practiced was, so to speak, salt-free, except to the extent that they preserved personal honest and integrity in their professional lives.

The third way to have too little salt is to adopt the Grotian strategy I mentioned at the beginning. By a self-denying ordinance, religious people censor themselves in the name of good citizenship, and in this way deprive the public domain of the benefits of their faith. Secretary Albright herself mentions with admiration Archbishop Tutu, Archbishop Romero, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Pope John Paul II. But how is her evident admiration for the political effectiveness of these men consistent with her extreme wariness? She has the same kind of ambivalence as Reinhold Neibuhr, who says, in Moral Man and Immoral Society that the statesman should be “under the influence of the foolishness of the moral seer,” but also that “whenever religious idealism brings forth its purest fruits and places the strongest check upon selfish desire, it results in policies which, from the political perspective, are quite impossible.” Neibuhr ends up recommending a “frank dualism” between the religious ideal and politics, but it is not clear how such a dualism can succeed in holding political life “under the influence” of the gospel. A better solution is to allow the religious language to have its full effect, but to hold to certain guidelines, which I will come to next.

What is it like when a dish has just the right amount of salt? The key is that what you taste is not salt, but mushrooms or rice or shrimp. The right amount of salt allows the other flavors of the dish to taste the way they are supposed to taste, with full and distinct vividness and clarity. By analogy, then, the political use of the language of faith needs to have its focus on the policies being proposed and not on the religious language itself. One figure who put this point clearly was, arguably, the most important founder of classical liberalism, Immanuel Kant. A century of secondary literature on Kant by non-religious scholars has disguised from us the centrality of belief in God to Kant’s ethics. His view was that the moral life, and so the political life that takes its justification from morality, is unstable without this belief, and he insisted on the interest of the state in biblical preaching. But we can also find in his work some guidelines for how belief in God should relate to ethical and political judgment. First, it is important that the appeal to God should not come too soon, because it can provide an illegitimate shortcut, avoiding ethical deliberation. Kant was allergic to people who use the sufficiency of God’s grace as a way to escape having to justify what they do in terms of respecting the equal and infinite dignity of every human being. Second, he was modest about how much we can know about God’s will, given the tendency of the human heart to confuse God with our own interests. Secretary Albright makes this point in talking about the “axis of evil” in the form of poverty, ignorance and disease, and the fact that America ranks dead last among industrialized nations in the proportion of our wealth that we share with the developing world. Modest is praying that we are on God’s side. Third, God is, for Kant, the king of the kingdom of ends. This is male language, but there is a non-gendered moral point here. All moral agents are members of the moral realm, and are to be treated as ends in themselves and never merely as means; but only one member (God) is sovereign, and has, by analogy, legislative and executive and judicial roles. Because God is coordinating what is best for all these members, we may not use God’s name to privilege ourselves or our own patron.

Kant is writing from a Christian background, and it is important to study whether Jews and Muslims, for example, can observe the same guidelines in good faith. This is work that is now being done in earnest.

Non-conservatives who belong to these and other faiths can and should allow themselves to use the language of faith in public discourse, especially in domestic political discussion, being alert to both the similarities and the differences between their traditions. We need to do more work to determine what these similarities and differences amount to. To the extent that we are justifying foreign policy to an international audience, the strategic concerns that Secretary Albright alludes to are valid. But even here, if the guidelines I have mentioned can indeed be accepted outside Christianity, there need be no offense in holding ourselves publicly accountable to the religious traditions of the overwhelming majority of our people.

from Yale Divinity School’s Reflections, Fall 2004 edition

http://faithandglobalization.yale.edu

Much of the research linking spiritual and physical health has involved elderly patients; however, the data offer a glimpse into a possible tie between a spiritual life and good health for people of all ages.

Although spirituality has been shown to reduce depression, improve blood pressure, and boost the immune system, religious beliefs should not interfere with the medical care kids receive.

So what exactly is spirituality and how can it enhance your family’s health?

Spirituality and Physical Health

Doctors and scientists once avoided the study of spirituality in connection to medicine, but findings within the past 10 years have made some take a second look. Studies show that religion and faith can help to promote good health and fight disease by:

• offering additional social supports, such as religious outreach groups
• improving coping skills through prayer and a philosophy that all things have a purpose

Although research on kids hasn’t been done, many studies focusing on adults point to the positive effects of spirituality on medical outcome:

• In a 7-year study of senior citizens, religious involvement was associated with less physical disability and less depression. Death rates were lower than expected before an important religious holiday, which suggested to researchers that faith might have postponed death in these cases.
• Elderly people who regularly attended religious services had healthier immune systems than those who didn’t. They were also more likely to have consistently lower blood pressure.
• Patients undergoing open-heart surgery who received strength and comfort from their religion were three times more likely to survive than those who had no religious ties.

Spirituality and Mental Health

Religious and spiritual beliefs are an important part of how many people deal with life’s joys and hardships. Faith can provide people with a sense of purpose and guidelines for living.

When families face tough situations, including health problems, their religious beliefs and practices can help them fight feelings of helplessness, restore meaning and order to life situations, and promote regaining a sense of control. For some families, spirituality can be a powerful and important source of strength.

Medical studies have confirmed that spirituality can have a profound effect on mental states. In a study of men who were hospitalized, nearly half rated religion as helpful in coping with their illness. A second study showed that the more religious patients were, the more quickly they recovered from some disorders. A third study revealed that high levels of hope and optimism, key factors in fighting depression, were found among those who strictly practiced their religion.

http://kidshealth.org

Innovative and sophisticated techniques were required for lifting and moving the boat. First, a massive dike was built around the site to prevent the lake from inundating it, while pumps were used to keep the groundwater out. The wood had to be kept wet during the removal of the silt from inside the hull, which was then strengthened with fiberglass and filled with polyurethane. Tunnels were dug under the boat and its sides strengthened. When the extremely fragile remains of the boat were safely packed, water was pumped into the big pit that had been created during the excavation, and the boat was floated to shore. It was placed in a specially built conservation pool at the Yigal Allon Museum of Kibbutz Ginosar, where the poly- urethane casing was removed and the boat re-submerged in water. In a process which took several years, synthetic wax was added to the wood, to give it sufficient structural strength for display outside the pool.

The boat was found lying perpendicular to the shore, its stern toward the lake; only the lower portion of the rounded stern was preserved. The boat’s length is 8.2 m., its width 2.3 m. and its depth 1.2 m. It was built in the known “shell first” fashion, with mortise and tenon joinery and constructed mainly of cedar planks and oak frames. Much of the wood was in secondary use, i.e., it had been removed from older, obsolete boats. Additional wood fragments were uncovered nearby, attesting that the boat was found in a place that had served as a shipyard. It was large enough to carry 15 people, including a crew of five. Though apparently used for fishing, it may also have transported passengers and goods.

By the construction techniques and two pottery vessels found near it, archeologists judged that the boat was from the Roman period. Carbon-14 tests confirmed that the boat had been constructed and used between 100 BCE and 70 CE.

The few details known about boats on the Sea of Galiliee during Roman times are from written sources, such as Josephus Flavius and the New Testament, and from mosaic floors depicting boats. The discovery of this ancient boat of the Sea of Galilee therefore received worldwide attention.

The boat was excavated by S. Wachsmann and K. Raveh on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. O. Cohen served as the team conservationist.

http://www.mfa.gov.il

John Bunyan pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to be found all kinds of merchandise, consisting of the pomps and vanities, the lusts and pleasures of this present life and of the flesh. Now all the dealers, when they saw these strange pilgrims come into the fair, began to cry as shopmen will do, “Buy, buy, buy—buy this, and buy that.” There were the priests in the Italian row with their crucifixes and their beads. There were those in the German row with their philosophies and their metaphysics. There were those in the French row with their fashions and with their prettinesses. But the one answer that the pilgrims gave to all the dealers was this—they looked up and they said, “We buy the truth; we buy the truth,” and they would have gone on their way if the men of the Fair had not laid them by the heels in the cage and kept them there, one to go to heaven in a chariot of fire, and the other afterwards to pursue his journey alone. This is very much the description of the genuine Christian at all times. He is surrounded by vendors of all sorts of things, beautifully got up and looking exceedingly like the true article, and the only way in which he will be able to pass through Vanity Fair safely is to keep to this, that he buys the truth, and if he adds to that the second advice of the text, and never sells it, he will under divine guidance find his way rightly to the skies. “Buy the truth, and sell it not.”

Is not the parable we have just read a sort of enlargement of our text? When the merchantman all over the world had travelled to find out some pearl that should have no flaw, some diamond of the purest water fit to glisten in the crown of royalty, at last in his researches, he met with a gem the like of which he had never seen before, and knowing that here was wealth for him, in the joy of his discovery he sold all that he had that he might buy that pearl. Even so, the text seems to tell us that truth is the one pearl beneath the skies that is worth having; and whatever else we buy not, we must buy the truth; and whatever else we may have to sell, yet we must never sell the truth, but hold it fast as a treasure that will last us when gold has cankered and silver has rusted and the moth has eaten up all goodly garments, and when all the riches of men have gone like a puff of smoke, or melted in the heat of the judgment day like the dew in the beams of the morning sun. Buy the truth. Here is the treasure. Cost it what it may, buy you it. Here is the piece of merchandise which you must buy but must not sell. You may give all for it, but you may take nothing in exchange for it since there is nothing that can be likened unto it.

With this as a preface, let us now come straight up to the text, and we shall notice:—

I. The commodity that is mentioned: buy the truth.” I shall not speak tonight of those common forms of truth that relate to politics, to history, to science, or to ordinary life, yet would I say of all these—buy the truth. Never be afraid of the truth. Never be afraid in anything of having your prejudices knocked on the head. Always be determined, come what may, even though truth should prove you to be a fool, yet to accept the truth, and though it should cost you dear, yet still to pursue it, for in the long run they who build mere speculations, fancies, and errors, though they may seem to build suitable structures for the time, shall find that they are wood, hay, and stubble, and shall be consumed; but he that keeps to what he knows, to matters of fact, and matters of truth, builds gold, silver, and precious stones, which the trying fire of the coming ages shall not be able to destroy. I would sooner discover one fact and lay down one certain truth than be the author of ten thousand theories, even though these theories should for a while rule all the thought of mankind.

But I speak now of religious truth. Buy that truth; buy that truth above all others. And here we must have three heads. First, in the matter of doctrinal truth, buy the truth. Holy Scripture is the standard of truth. To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no truth in them. “Thy word is truth.” Here is silver tried in the furnace and purified seven times. Speak of Infallibility? It is not at Rome, but it is here in this Book. Here is an infallible witness to the truth of God, and he that is taught of the Holy Spirit to understand it gets at the truth. Now dear brethren, do aim to get the right truth, the real truth as to matters of doctrine. Count it not a trifle to be sound in the faith. Think no error to be harmless for truth is very precious, and error, even when we do not see it to be so, may lead to the most solemn consequences of mischief. In this world we see too much of salvation without Christ—I mean we meet with many who believe that they are saved because they have been baptized, or confirmed, or passed through the ceremonies of the church to which they belong. They have not looked to the precious blood; they are not depending simply upon the finished work of the Redeemer, but something else than Christ has become their confidence. Now, avoid that, and buy the truth which lies here, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” We hear too much nowadays of regeneration without faith —the supposed regeneration of unconscious babes, the new birth of people through drops of water when they are not able to understand what is performed upon them. I beseech you, believe that there is no new birth where there is not a confidence in Christ, and that the regeneration which does not lead to repentance and faith, which is not, indeed, immediately attended therewith, is no regeneration whatever. Buy the truth in this matter. Stand to it that it is the work of the Holy Spirit in rational and intelligent beings, leading them to hate sin and to lay hold of eternal life. Alas! we have in some quarters too much of faith is trusted in, which is not practical. Men say they believe, but they do not prove it by their lives. They remain in sin, and yet wrap themselves up in the belief that they are God’s chosen ones. From such turn away, and remember that a faith without works is dead, and only the faith that changes the character, sanctifies the life, and leads the man to God, is the faith which will save the soul. We must see to it that in our doctrine we bow our judgment to the teachings of Scripture, and try to be conformed to all the revelation of God, and especially to all the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. May we not fall into one error or another. Scylla is there, and Charybdis is there, and he is a happy helmsman who can steer between the two. You shall fall into this ism or into that unless you keep to the truth. Never mind whether you can make the truth always consistent to your own judgment or not. If it is the truth, believe it; and though it should seem to contradict another truth, yet hold to it if it is in the Word, waiting till clearer light shall reveal to you that all these truths stood in a wonderful harmony and consistency which, at first, you could not perceive. In doctrine, buy the truth.

But secondly, buy experimental truth. I know not another word to use; I mean truth within, the truth experienced. See that this be real truth. How easy it is to be deceived with the notion that we are converted when we still need to be converted; to fancy that because we have the approbation of our minister and of our Christian friends, we must therefore necessarily be the people of God. There is only one true new birth, but there are fifty counterfeits of it. In this respect then, buy the truth. Let me have you beware of an experience which has a faith in it that was never attended with repentance. I am afraid of a dry-eyed faith. That faith seems to me to be the faith of God’s elect, whose eyes are full of tears. If thou hast never felt thyself a sinner, never trembled under the law of God, never felt that thou hast deserved to be cast into hell, I am afraid thy faith is a mere presumption, and not the faith that looks to Christ. Beware of an experience that lies in talk, and not in feeling. Mr. Talkative, in Bunyan’s Pilgrim, could speak very glibly about religion; no man more so than he; he was fit to take the chair in an assembly of divines, but it was not heart-work; it was all surface-work. Plough deep, my brethren. Feel what you believe. Let it be with you real homework, soul-work, the work of God the Holy Ghost—not a temporary excitement, not head-knowledge, not theory. May the truth be burned into your souls by the operation of the Holy Ghost. In this respect, buy the truth. Alas! we see nowadays in many professors a great deal of life without struggle, and I think I have learned that all spiritual life that is not attended with struggles is a mistake, for Isaac, the child of the promise, is sure to be mocked by Ishmael. No sooner does the seed of the woman come into the world than the seed of the serpent tries to destroy it. You must and will find a battle going on within you if you are a believer. Sin will contest with grace, and grace will seek to reign over sinful corruptions. Be afraid of too easy an experience. “Moab is at ease from his youth; he hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel” ; “for the time cometh when the Lord will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled upon their lees.” There must be strivings within or we may well beware of such an experience. And I think I have noticed a growing feeling abroad of confidence without self-examination. I would have you hold to believe God’s Word, but do not take your own state at haphazard. Do not conclude that you are a Christian because you thought you were ten years ago. Day by day bring yourself to the touchstone. He that cannot bear examination will have to bear condemnation. He that dare not search himself will find that God will search him. He that is afraid to look himself in the face has need to be afraid to look the Judge in the face when the great white throne shall be placed, and all the world summoned to judgment. Confidence is quite consistent with self-examination, and I pray you in this thing buy the truth, and seek to have a religion that will bear the test —a true faith, a living faith, a faith that moves your soul, a deep-rooted faith, a faith which is the supernatural work of the Holy Ghost, for the time cometh when, as the Lord liveth, nothing short of this will stand you in good stead.

Again, I spoke of three sorts of truth—doctrinal truth, experimental truth, and now practical truth. By practical truth I mean our actions being consistent, and those of a right and straightforward course. In this matter, buy the truth. You profess to be a Christian: be a Christian. You say that you are a follower of Christ: follow him then. You know it is right to be a man of integrity and uprightness: be so. Let no dirty tricks of trade, let no meannesses, let none of those white lies which degrade commerce nowadays ever come across your path, except to be reprobated and abhorred. Walk straight forward. Learn not to tack. Do not wish to understand policy and craft and cunning. Buy the truth. It will shame the world yet. He that speaks out his mind, says what he means and means what he says, does the just thing, does the right thing, fears no man and lifts his head boldly in the face of all creation if it dares to whisper that it will enrich him by his doing wrong—that is the man that buys the truth practically. You know how it can be carried out in commerce readily enough, in the parlour, in the drawing-room, and in the kitchen. There is a truthful way for a shoe-black to black shoes in the street, and there is a lying way of doing it. There is a truthful way of doing the commonest actions and there is a false method of doing the very self-same thing. In this respect then buy the truth as to the straightforwardness, the clean, sharp transparency of your moral character and of your Christian conduct. Never seem to be what you are not, or if you must for a while be in that position, count that you are unfortunate and escape from it as soon as you can. Never do what you are ashamed of; it matters not who sees. Think always that God sees, and with God for a witness you have enough of observers. Only do that which you would have done if all eyes were fixed on you, and you were observed even of your most cruel critics. Never stifle conscience. Carry out your convictions. If the skies fall, stand upright. What God’s Holy Spirit tells you, that do. What you find in this Book, carry out. If you bring any mischief to other people through it, that is their business. If I keep on the right side of the road and run over anybody—that is his fault; he should have kept out of the way. I would not run over him if I could help it, but I cannot turn aside from the right road. Stand in your place. Let malignant eyes look at you, but like the sun shine on, and if others envy you, yet fret not because of them, neither be you grieved to act the truth, but in this respect again fulfil the text and “buy the truth.”

So have I shown you what the commodity is—doctrinally, experimentally, and practically. “Buy the truth.” Now let us come and think specially to the first part of the text.

II. How this commodity is obtained. “Buy the truth.” Let us correct an error here. Some might suppose that Christ, and the gospel, and salvation—all of which are included in the truth—can be bought. They can, but they cannot. They can in the sense of the text; they cannot in any other sense. You cannot purchase salvation; merit cannot win it. Christ’s price is: “Without money and without price.” Has not the prophet so worded it? “Yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” Salvation is of free grace, and is from the very necessity of its nature, gratis. You cannot merit it; you cannot earn it. It is not of the will of man, nor of blood, nor of birth, but “he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have compassion on whom he will have compassion.”

What then does the text mean? I will try to expound the Word. It means first to be saved, give up everything that must be given up in order to your receiving the free salvation. Every sin must be given up. No man shall go to heaven while he lives in and favours any one sin. A man may sin and be saved, but he cannot love sin and be saved. Give up then thy drunkenness if that be thy sin. Give up then thine unchaste living if that be thy sin. Conquer that angry temper, that love of greed—whatever it is that keeps thee back from Christ. Buy the truth and give up these. Thou wilt not merit salvation then, but if this must be given up let it not stand in thy way. Give it up, man! Since thou canst not have thy sin and have Christ too, get a divorce from thy sin and take holiness, and take the Saviour. Thou must also give up all thy self-righteousness. Some are trusting in their prayers, some are trusting in their tears, their repentances, their feelings, their church-goings, their chapel-goings, and I know not what men will not trust in. Give them all up. They are all lies together. There is no reliance to be placed on anything you can do. Come and trust what Christ has done, and if it be, as it certainly is, needful for you to give up your own righteousness to win Christ and be found in him, then do it, and in this sense part with all you have that you may buy Christ. Yourself, your sinful self, and your righteous self —oh! that you might be willing to part with both that you might buy the true salvation!

And the text means this, again, that if in order to be saved it should cost you a deep experience and much pain, yet never mind it. It is better that you should bear all that and get the truth, than that you should escape without this heart-searching work and be deceived at the last. If the price at which you shall have a true experience is that of sorrow, buy the truth at that price. Be willing to let the doctor’s lancet wound you if thereby he shall heal you. Be willing to lose the right eye or the right hand, if thereby you shall enter into life eternal.

It also means this—buy the truth; that is, be willing at all risks to hold to the truth. Buy it as the martyrs did when they gave their bodies to be burned for it. Buy it as many have done when they have gone to prison for it. Buy it if you should lose your situation for it. Lose your situation sooner than tell a lie. Like the three holy children, be rather willing to go into the fiery furnace than to worship the image which Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Run the risk of being poor. Do not believe, as all the world says, that you must live. There is no absolute necessity for it. Sometimes it is a grander thing to die. Let the necessity be, “We must be honest; we must do the right; we must serve God,” for that is a far greater necessity than that of merely living. Count all things but dross that you may be a true man, a godly man, a holy man, a Christly man, and in this sense make sacrifice of all and thus “buy the truth.”

I think that is what the word means. I expound it to mean this —give anything and everything sooner than part with Christ, than part with the living work of grace in your heart, or part with the integrity of your conduct.

III.And now let me Paraphrase these words. “Buy the truth.” Then I say, buy only the truth. Do not be throwing away your life and your abilities and your zeal and your earnestness, for a lie. Some are doing it. Thousands of pounds are given to erect edifices for doing mischief. Multitudes of sermons are preached very zealously to propagate falsehoods, and sea and land are compassed to make proselytes who shall be ten times more children of hell than they were before. Buy only the truth. Do not buy the glittering stuff they call truth. Never mind the label; look to see if it be truth. Bring everything that is propounded as truth to the test, to the trial. If it will not stand the fire of God’s Word then do not buy it; nay, do not have it as a gift; nay, do not keep it in the house. Run away from it. It doth eat as doth a canker; let it not come near you. Buy only the truth.

“Buy the truth” at any price, and sell it at no price. Buy it at any price. If you lose your body for it, if you lose not your soul, you have made a good bargain. If you lose your estate for it, yet if you have heaven in return, how blessed the exchange! You certainly will not need for it to lose your peace of mind, but you may lose everything else, and you shall make a good bargain. Come to no terms with Christ. Throw all into the soul-bargain. Let all go as long as you may but have truth in the doctrine, truth in the heart, and truth in the life, and Christ who is the Truth, to be your treasure for ever.

Buy all the truth. When you come to the Bible do not pick and choose. Do not try to believe half of it, and leave out the other half. Buy the truth—that is, not a section of it that suits your particular idiosyncrasy, but buy the whole. Why need you break up pearls and dissolve them? Buy all that is true. One doctrine of God’s Word balances another. He who is altogether and only a Calvinist probably only knows half the truth, but he who is willing to take the other side, as far as it is true, and to believe all he finds in the Word, will get the whole pearl.

Buy now the truth—buy tonight the truth. It may not be for you to buy tomorrow. You may be in that land where God hath cast for ever the lost soul away from all access to the truth, where truth’s shadow, cold and chill, shall fall upon you, and you in outer darkness shall weep and wail and gnash your teeth because you shut out truth from you, and now truth has shut you out, and all your knockings at her door shall be answered with the dolorous cry, “Too late, too late! Ye cannot enter now!”

Thus I have paraphrased the text. Buy only the truth; buy all the truth; buy at any price the truth; and buy now the truth.

IV.Briefly let me give you the reasons for this purchase. You want the truth, and you will never be received by God at last unless you bring the truth in your right hand. Only the truthful can enter those gates of pearl. You want the truth now. You are not fit to live any more than to die without an interest in the truth as it is in Jesus. Accept Christ to be truly yours, so truly yours as to make you true. You know not how to fight the battle of life at all without the truth. Your life will be a blunder, and the close of it will be a disaster, except you buy the truth. God grant that you may buy the truth now. You need it. You need it now, and you will for ever need it. Oh! I would to God that that hymn we sang should not merely be heard by you, but felt by you:—

“Hasten, sinner, to be wise,

And stay not for the morrow’s sun.”

Oh! that fatal “tomorrow”! Over the cliffs of “tomorrow” millions have fallen to their ruin. Tomorrow, ay, tomorrow! Here are these put-offs and these delays, and yet God has never given you a promise of mercy tomorrow. His word is “Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” A better day shall never come than this day. Oh! that you would accept it now.

“If you tarry till you’re better,

You will never come at all.”

And till times are more propitious, if you wait you will wait on for ever and for aye. God grant you may buy the truth now, for the text is in the present tense, for now you need it.

V. Let me direct you to the market where you can buy it. These are the words of Jesus Christ when he appeared to his servant John: “I counsel thee, buy of me,” said he. There is no place where truth can be found in its power and life except in Jesus Christ. Truth is in his blood; it will wash away what is false in you. Truth is in his Spirit; it will eradicate what is dark and vile in you. His love will make you true by conforming you to himself. Come to Christ. Bring nothing with you. Come as you are, empty-handed, penniless, and poor. The rills of milk and wells of wine are all with him. He is the banquet-giver, and the banquet too. To trust him is to live. To look to him alone for salvation is to find salvation in that look. Oh! that these simple words might point someone to the place where he shall buy the truth! And now let me repeat my text again, “Buy the truth.”

Do not misread it. It does not say hear about the truth. That is a good thing, but hearing is not buying as many of you tradesmen know to your cost. You may tell people where to go, but you do not want them merely to hear; you are not content with that; you want them to buy. Oh! that some of you my hearers would become buyers of the truth! I know some of you. I happen to look about and find out here and there one—some of you whom I know, and respect, and esteem, and pray for—I had thought that you would have bought the truth long ago, and it often staggers me why you have not. Oh! that you were decided for God! I am afraid I am preaching some of you into a hardened state. If the gospel does not save you it will certainly be a curse to you, and I am afraid it is being so to some of you. Do think of this, I pray you! Why should you and I have the misery of doing each other hurt when our intention is on both sides, I am sure, to do that which is kind and good? Oh! yield you to my Master. The Light of the World with his hand is at your door knocking tonight softly. Do you not hear the knock of the hand that was pierced? Admit him! He comes not in wrath; he comes in mercy. Admit him! He has tarried long, even these many years, but no frown is yet upon his brow. Rise now and let him in. Be not ashamed. Though ashamed, be not afraid, but let him in, and blushing with tears in your face say to him, “My Lord, I will trust thee; worthless worm as I am, I will depend upon thee.” Oh! that you would do it now this moment! The Lord give you grace to do it! Do not hear about it only, but buy the truth.

Do not merely commend the truth, by saying, “The preacher spoke well, and he spoke earnestly, and I love what he said.” The preacher had almost rather that you said nothing than that, if you do not buy the truth. How it provokes the salesman when a customer says, “Yes, it is a beautiful article, and very cheap, and just what I want,” and then walks out of the shop. Nay, buy the truth, and you shall commend it better afterwards, and your commendation shall be worth the hearing.

And I pray you, do not stand content with merely knowing about the truth. Oh! how much some of you know. How much more you know than even some of God’s people. You could correct many of my blunders. But ah! he that knows is nowhere unless he also has. To know about bread will not stay my hunger; to know that there are riches at the bank will not fill my pocket. Buy the truth as well as know it; that is, make it your own.

And do not, I pray you, intend to buy it. Oh! intentions, intentions, intentions! The road to hell—not hell—that is a mistake of the proverb—the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Oh! ye laggards, pull up the paving-stones and hurl them at the devil’s head. He is ruining you; he is decoying you to your destruction. Turn your intentions into actions and no longer intend to buy, but buy the truth.

And do not tonight wish that the truth were yours, but buy it. You say the cost is too great. Too great? It is nothing. It is “without money and without price.” Do you mean however to say that it is too great a cost to give up a sin? What, will you burn in hell rather than give up a lust? Will you dwell in everlasting burnings for ever, sooner than give up those cups that intoxicate you? Must you have your silly wantonness and lascivious mirth, or any kind of sin? Must you have it? Will you sooner have it than heaven? Then, sirs, your blood be on your own heads. You have been warned. I hope you are sober and have not yet gone to madness, and if you be you will see that no pleasures of an hour can ever recompense for casting yourselves under the anger of God for ever and for ever. Buy the truth. Do not merely talk about it and wish for it, but buy, buy the truth.

VI.And then lastly a warning as to losing the purchase. “Sell it not.” My time has gone, and therefore, as I never like to exceed it, there shall be but these few words. When you have once got the truth, I know you will not sell it. You will not, I am sure, at any price; but the exhortation nevertheless is a most proper one. There have been some who have sold the truth to be respectable. They used to hear the gospel, but now they have got on in the world, and keep a carriage, and they do not like to go where there are so many poor people, so, away they go where they can hear anything or nothing so that they may be respectable. Ah! I have the uttermost contempt for this affectation of gentility and respectability that leads men to be so mean as to forsake their Christian friends. Let them go; they are best gone. Such chaff had better not be with the wheat, and those that can be actuated by such motives are too base to be worth retaining.

Some sell the truth for a livelihood. I pity these far more. “I must have a situation; therefore, I must do what I am told there; I must break this law of God and that for I must keep my family.” Ah! poor soul, I pity thine unfortunate position, but I pray that thou mayest have grace even now to play the man and never sell the truth, even for bread.

Some sell the truth for the pleasures of the world. They must have enjoyment, they say, and so they will mingle with the multitude that do evil and give up their Christian profession.

Others seem to sell the truth for nothing at all. They merely go away from Christ because religion has grown stale with them. They are weary of it, and they go away. I shall put the question painfully to all: Will ye also go away? Will ye to be respectable, will ye to have a livelihood, will ye to have the pleasures of sin for a season, will ye out of sheer weariness—will ye go away? Nay, we can add:—

“What anguish has that question stirred,

If I will also go!

Yet, Lord, relying on thy Word,

I humbly answer, No.”

Sell it not; sell it not; it cost Christ too dear. Sell it not; you made a good bargain when you bought it. Sell it not. Sell it not; it has not disappointed you; it has satisfied you and made you blessed. Sell it not; you want it. Sell it not; you will want it. The hour of death is coming on and the day of judgment is close upon its heels. Sell it not; you cannot buy its like again; you can never find a better. Sell it not; you are a lost man if you part with it. Remember Esau and the morsel of meat, and how he would again have found his birthright if he could. Remember Demas; remember Judas, the son of perdition. You are lost without it. It is your life. Skin for skin, yea all that you possess, part with for it, and be resolved, come fair or come foul, come storm or come calm, come sickness or come health, come poverty or come wealth, come death itself in the grimmest form, yet none shall separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus your Lord, and none shall make you part from the truths you have learned and received from his Word, the truths you have felt and have had wrought into your soul by his Spirit, and the truths which in action you desire should tone and colour all your life.

God bless you, dear friends, and keep you, and when the Great Shepherd shall appear may you have the mark of truth upon you, and appear with him in glory.

A sermon (No.3449) published on Thursday, March 11th, 1915; Delivered on Lord’s Day evening, June 26th 1870,
at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington,
by C. H. Spurgeon.

source : christianbookshelf

Called an ossuary, the limestone box could reveal the home of Caiaphas, the high priest involved in the crucifixion of Jesus. The Israel Antiquities Authority, which confiscated the ossuary from looters three years ago, passed it along to Prof. Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology who led the authentication effort.

“Beyond any reasonable doubt, the inscription is authentic,” Goren said, after conducting a thorough examination of the limestone box, which boasts decorative rosettes in addition to the inscription

Goren’s findings mean the unusually descriptive inscription sheds light on one of the men behind Jesus’ death. The full inscription reads: “Miriam daughter of Yeshua son of Caiaphus, priest of Maaziah from Beth Imri,” naming the deceased within the context of three generations and a potential location.

The Maaziah refers to a clan that was the last mentioned order of 24 orders of high priests during the second temple period, Goren explained. While there are some records of the clan in Talmudic sources that detail their lives after they spread into the Galilee in 70 AD, the reference to Beit Imri gives new insight into the family’s location prior to their migration.

Though it is possible that Beit Imri refers to another priestly order, the researchers said, it more probably refers to a geographical location, likely that of Caiaphus’ family’s village of origin.

The ossuary is thought to come from a burial site in the Valley of Elah, southwest of Jerusalem, the legendary location of the battle between David and Goliath. Beit Imri was probably located on the slopes of Mount Hebron.

It’s not the first time ossuaries have made the news. An inscription discovered recently claiming an ossuary’s inhabitant to be James son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus. That revelation made headlines in 2002 – only to be revealed to be a hoax.

Goren is convinced this one is real — and he has science on his side.

“When a rock is deposited in the ground for millennia, it is affected by the surrounding environment and affects the surrounding environment,” he noted.

Processes such as erosion by acidic ground water and the accumulation of calcareous or siliceous coatings, biological activity such as the development of bacteria, algae, lichens, and the nearby activity of flora and fauna lead to a coating of the stone. Most of these features are impossible to replicate in the lab.

Prof. Goren’s finding is reported in the Israel Exploration Journal.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/31/2000-year-old-biblical-burial-box-reveals-fresh-clues-about-death-jesus/

2.— Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impression. If so, I make myself liable to great delusions.

3.— I seek the Will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.

4.—Next I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s Will in connection with His Word and Spirit.

5.—I ask God in prayer to reveal His Will to me aright.

6.—Thus, through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge, and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly. In trivial matters, and in transactions involving most important issues, I have found this method always effective.

GEORGE MUELLER.

by the REV. C.H. SPURGEON At Exeter Hall, Strand.

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”—2 Corinthians 3:17.

LIBERTY is the birthright of every man. He may be born a pauper; he may be a foundling; his parentage may be altogether unknown; but liberty is his inalienable birthright. Black may be his skin; he may live uneducated and untaught; he may be poor as poverty itself; he may never have a foot of land to call his own; he may scarce have a particle of clothing, save a few rags to cover him; but, poor as he is, nature has fashioned him for freedom—he has a right to be free, and if he has not liberty, it is his birthright, and he ought not to be content until he wins it. Liberty is the heirloom of all the sons and daughters of Adam. But where do you find liberty unaccompanied by religion? True it is that all men have a right to liberty, but it is equally true that you do not meet it in any country save where you find the Spirit of the Lord. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Thank God, this is a free country. This is a land where I can breathe the air and say it is untainted by the groan of a single slave; my lungs receive it, and I know there has never been mingled with its vapours the tear of a single slave woman shed over her child which has been sold from her. This land is the home of liberty. But why is it so? I take it, it is not so much because of our institutions as because the Spirit of the Lord is here —the spirit of true and hearty religion. There was a time, remember, when England was no more free than any other country, when men could not speak their sentiments freely, when kings were despots, when Parliaments were but a name. Who won our liberties for us? Who have loosed our chains? Under the hand of God, I say, the men of religion—men like the great and glorious Cromwell, who would have liberty of conscience, or die—men who, if they could not reach kings’ hearts, because they were unsearchable in cunning, would strike kings low, rather than they would be slaves. We owe our liberty to men of religion, to men of the stern Puritanical school—men who scorned to play the craven and yield their principles at the command of man. And if we ever are to maintain our liberty (as God grant we may) it shall be kept in England by religious liberty—by religion. This Bible is the Magna Charta of old Britain. its truths, its doctrines have snapped our fetters, and they never can be riveted on again, whilst men, with God’s Spirit in their hearts, go forth to speak its truths. In no other land, save where the Bible is unclasped—in no other realm, save where the gospel is preached, can you find liberty. Roam through other countries, and you speak with bated breath; you are afraid; you feel you are under an iron hand; the sword is above you; you are not free. Why? Because you are under the tyranny engendered by a false religion: you have not free Protestantism there; and it is not till Protestantism comes that there can be freedom. It is where the Spirit of the Lord is that there is liberty, and nowhere else. Men talk about being free: they describe model governments, Platonic republics, or Owenite paradises; but they are dreamy theorists; for there can be no freedom in the world, save, “where the spirit of the Lord is.” I have commenced with this idea, because I think worldly men ought to be told that if religion does not save them, yet it has done much for them—that the influence of religion has won them their liberties. But the liberty of the text is no such freedom as this: it is an infinitely greater and better one. Great as civil or religious liberty may be, the liberty of my text transcendently exceeds. There is a liberty, dear friends, which Christian men alone enjoy; for even in Great Britain there are men who taste not the sweet air of liberty. There are some who are afraid to speak as men, who have to cringe and fawn, and bow, and stoop, to any one; who have no will of their own, no principles, no voice, no courage, and who cannot stand erect in conscious independence. But he is the free man, whom the truth makes free. He who has grace in his heart is free; he cares for no one; he has the right upon his side; he has God within him—the indwelling Spirit of the Holy Ghost; he is a prince of the blood royal of heaven; he is a noble, having the true patent of nobility; he is one of God’s elect, distinguished, chosen children, and he is not the man to bend, or meanly cringe. No!—sooner would he walk the burning furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—sooner would he be cast into the lion’s den with Daniel, than yield a point of principle. He is a free man. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty” in its fullest, highest, and widest sense. God give you friends, to have that “Spirit of the Lord;” for without it, in a free country, ye may still be bondsmen; and where there are no serfs in body, ye may be slaves in soul. The text speaks of Spiritual liberty; and now I address the children of God. Spiritual liberty, brethren, you and I enjoy if we have “the Spirit of the Lord” within us. What does this imply? It implies that there was a time when we had not that Spiritual liberty—when we were slaves. But a little while ago all of us who now are free in Christ Jesus, were slaves of the devil: we were led captives at his will. We talked of free-will, but free will is a slave. We boasted that we could do what we pleased; but oh! what a slavish and dreamy liberty we had. It was a fancied freedom. We were slaves to our lusts and passions—slaves to sin; but now we are freed from sin; we are delivered from our tyrant; a stronger than he has cast out the strong man armed, and we are free. Let us now examine a little more closely, in what our liberty consists. I. And first, my friends, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from the Bondage of Sin. Ah! I know I shall speak feelingly to some of you when I talk about the bondage of sin. You know what that misery means. Of all bondage and slavery in this world, there is none more horrible than the bondage of sin. Tell me of Israel in Egypt preparing their tale of bricks unsupplied with straw; tell me of the negro beneath the lash of his cruel task-master, and I confess it is a bondage fearful to be borne; but there is one far worse—the bondage of a convinced sinner when he is brought to feel the burden of his guilt; the bondage of a man when once his sins are baying him, like hounds about a weary stag; the bondage of a man when the burden of sin is on his shoulder—a burden too heavy for his soul to bear—a burden which will sink him for ever in the depths of everlasting torment, unless he doth escape from it. Methinks I see such a person. He hath ne’er a smile upon his face; dark clouds hath gathered on his brow; solemn and serious he stands; his very words are sighs; his songs are groans; his smiles are tears; and when he seems most happy, hot drops of grief roll in burning showers, scalding furrows on his cheek. Ask him what he is, and he tells you he is “a wretch undone.” Ask him how he is, and he confesses that he is “misery incarnate.” Ask him what he shall be, and he says, “he shall be lost in flames for ever, and there is no hope.” Behold him alone in his retirement: when he lays his head on his pillow, up he starts again: at night he dreams of torment, and by day he almost feels that of which he dreamed. Such is the poor convinced sinner under bondage. Such have I been in my days, and such have you been, friends. I speak to those who understand it. You have passed through that gloomy Slough of Despond; you have gone through that dark vale of penitence: you have been made to drink the bitter cup of repentance: and I know you will say, “Amen” when I declare that of all bondage this is the most painful—the bondage of the law, the bondage of corruption. “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me” from it? But the Christian is free; he can smile now, though he wept before; he can rejoice now, whereas he lamented. “There is,” he says, “no sin upon my conscience now; there is no crime upon my breast; I need not walk through the earth fearful of every shadow, and afraid of every man I meet, for sin is washed away; my spirit is no more guilty; it is pure, it is holy; there no longer resteth the frown of God upon me; but my Father smiles: I see his eyes—they are glancing love: I hear his voice—it is full of sweetness. I am forgiven, I am forgiven, I am forgiven! All hail, thou breaker of fetters! glorious Jesus! Ah! that moment when first the bondage passed away I Methinks I recollect it now. I saw Jesus on his cross before me; I thought on him, and as I mused upon his death and sufferings, methought I saw him cast a look on me; and when he gazed on me, I looked at him, and said, “Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly.” He said “come,” and I flew to him and clasped him; and when he let me go again, I wondered where my burden was. It was gone! There, in the sepulchre, it lay, and I felt light as air; like a winged sylph, I could fly over mountains of trouble and despair; and oh! what liberty and joy I had! I could leap with ecstasy for I had much forgiven, and now I was freed from sin.” Beloved, this is the first liberty of the children of God. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from the bondage of sin. 2. Liberty from the Penalty of Sin.—What is it? Eternal death—torment for ever—that is the sad penalty of sin. It is no sweet thing to fear that if I died now I might be in hell. It is no pleasant thought for me to stand here and believe that if I dropped down I must sink into the arms of Satan and have him for my tormentor. Why, sirs, it is a thought that would plague me; it is a thought that would be the bitterest curse of my existence. I would fain be dead and rotting in the tomb rather than walk the earth with the thought that I might suffer such a penalty as this. There are some of you here who know right well that if you die hell is your portion. You don’t attempt to deny it; you believe the Bible, and there you read your doom, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” You cannot put yourselves among believers. You are still without Christ. Have any of you been brought into such a condition that you believe yourself so full of sin that God could not be just if he did not punish you? Have you not felt that you have so rebelled against God by secret crimes, ay, I say, by secret crimes, and by open transgression, that if he did not punish you he must cease to be God and lay aside his sceptre? And then you have trembled, and groaned, and cried out under the fear of the penalty of sin. You thought when you dreamed, that you saw that burning lake whose waves are fire, and whose billows are ever blazing brimstone; and each day you walked the earth it was with fear and dread lest the next step should let you into the pit which is without a bottom. But Christian, Christian, you are free from the penalty of sin. Do you know it? Can you recognize the fact? You are free at this moment from the penalty of sin. Not only are you forgiven, but you never can be punished on account of your sins however great and enormous they may have been. “The moment a sinner believes, And trusts in his crucified God; His pardon at once he receives, Salvation in full through his blood,” and he never can be punished on account of sin. Talk of the punishment of a believer! there is not such a thing. The afflictions of this mortal life are not punishments for sin to Christians; they are fatherly chastisements, and not the punishments of a judge. For me there is no hell; let it smoke and burn, if I am a believer I shall never have my portion there. For me there are no eternal racks, no torments, for if I am justified, I cannot be condemned. Jesus hath suffered the punishment in my stead, and God would be unjust if he were to punish me again; for Christ has suffered once, and satisfied justice for ever. When conscience tells me I am a sinner, I tell conscience I stand in Christ’s place, and Christ stands in mine. True, I am a sinner; but Christ died for sinners. True, I deserve punishment; but if my ransom died, will God ask for the debt twice? Impossible! He has cancelled it. There never was, and never shall be one believer in hell. We are free from punishment, and we never need quake on account of it. However horrible it may be—If it is eternal, as we know it is—it is nothing to us, for we never can suffer it. Heaven shall open its pearly portals to admit us; but hell’s iron gates are barred for ever against every believer. Glorious liberty of the children of God! 3. But there is one fact more startling than both of these things, and I dare say some of you will demur to it; nevertheless it is God’s truth, and if you don’t like it, you must leave it! There is liberty from the guilt of sin. This is the wonder of wonders. The Christian is positively not guilty any longer the moment he believes. Now, if Her Majesty in her goodness spares a murderer by giving him a free pardon, that man cannot be punished: but still he will be a guilty man; she may give him a thousand pardons, and the law cannot touch him, but still he will guilty; the crime will always be on his head, and he will be branded as a murderer as long as he lives. But the Christian is not only delivered from the bondage and from the punishment, but he is positively absolved from the guilt. Now this is something at which you will stand amazed. You say, “What? is a Christian no more a sinner in God’s sight ?” I answer, he is a sinner as considered in himself; but in the person of Christ he is no more a sinner than the angel Gabriel; for snowy as are angelic wings, and spotless as are cherubic robes, an angel cannot be more pure than the poor blood-washed sinner when he is made whiter than snow. Do you understand how it is that the very guilt of the sinner is taken away? Here I stand to-day a guilty and condemned traitor; Christ comes for my salvation, he bids me heave my cell, “I will stand where you are; I will be your substitute; I will be the sinner; all your guilt is to be imputed to me; I will die for it, I will suffer for it; 1 will have your sins.” Then stripping himself of his robes, he says, “There, put them on; you shall be considered as if you were Christ; you shall be the righteous one. I will take your place, you take mine.” Then he casts around me a glorious robe of perfect righteousness; and when I behold it, I exclaim, “Strangely, my soul, art thou arrayed, with my elder brother’s garments on.” Jesus Christ’s crown is on my head, his spotless robes are round my loins, and his golden sandals are the shoes of my feet. And now is there any sin? The sin is on Christ; the righteousness is on me. Ask for the sinner, Justice! Let the voice of Justice cry, “Bring forth the sinner!” The sinner is brought. Who doth the executioner lead forth? It is the incarnate Son of God. True, he did not commit the sin; he was without fault; but it is imputed to him: be stands in the sinner’s place. Now Justice cries, “Bring forth the righteous, the perfectly righteous.” Whom do I see? Lo, the Church is brought; each believer is brought. Justice says, “Are these perfectly righteous?” “Yes they are. What Christ did is theirs; what they did is laid on Christ; his righteousness is theirs; their sins are his.” I appeal to you, ye ungodly. This seems strange and startling, does it not? You have set it down to hyper-calvinism, and you laugh at it. Set it down for what you please, sirs. God has set it up as his truth; he has made us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. And now, if I am a true believer, I stand here freed from every sin. There is not a crime against me in the book of God; it is blotted out for ever; it is cancelled; and not only can I never be punished, but I have nothing to be punished for. Christ has atoned for my sins, and I have received his righteousness. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 4. Furthermore, the Christian man, whilst delivered from the guilt and punishment of sin, is likewise delivered from the dominion of it. Every living man before he is converted, is a slave to lust. Profane men glory in free living and free thinking. They call this free living—a full glass, a Bacchanalian revel, shouting, wantonness, chambering.—Free living, sir! Let the slave hold up his fetters and jingle them in my ears, and say, “This is music, and I am free.” The man is a poor maniac. Let the man chained in his cell, the madman of Bethlehem, tell me he is a king, and grin a horrible smile; I say, “Ah, poor wretch, I know wherefore he counteth that he is a king; he is demented, and is mad.” So it is with the worldling who says he is free. Free sir! you are a slave. You think you are happy; but at night, when you lay yourself upon your bed, how many times have you tossed from side to side sleepless and ill at ease; and when you awaked have you not said, “Ah! that yesterday—that yesterday !” And though you plunged into another day of sin, that “yesterday,” like a hell-dog, barked at you, and followed at your heels. You know it, sir,—sin is a bondage and a slavery. And have you ever tried to get rid of that slavery? “Yes,” you say, “I have.” But I will tell you what has been the end of it. When you have tried, you have bound your fetters firmer than ever; you have riveted your chains. A sinner without grace attempting to reform him self is like Sisyphus rolling the stone up hill, which always comes down with greater force. A man without grace attempting to save himself, is engaged in as hopeless a task as the daughters of Danaus, when they attempted to fill a vast vessel with bottomless buckets. He has a bow without a string, a sword without a blade, a gun without powder. He needs strength. I grant you, he may produce a hollow reformation; he may earth up the volcano, and sow flowers around its crater; but when it once begins to stir again, it shall move the earth away, and the hot lava shall roll over all the fair flowers which he had planted, and devastate both his works and his righteousness. A sinner without grace is a slave: he cannot deliver himself from his sins. But not so the Christian! Is he a slave to his sin? Is a true-born heir of God a slave? Oh, no. He does not sin, because he is born of God; he does not live in uncleanness, because he is an heir of immortality. Ye beggars of the earth may stoop to deeds of wrong, but princes of heaven’s blood must follow acts of right. Ye poor worldlings, mean and pitiful wretches in God’s sight—-ye may live in dishonesty and unrighteousness, but the heir of heaven cannot; he loves his Lord; he is free from the power of sin; his work is righteousness, and his end his everlasting life. We are free from the dominion of sin. 5. Once more: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” in all holy acts of love—liberty from a slavish fear of law. Many people are honest because they are afraid of the policeman. Many are sober because they are afraid of the eye of the public. Many persons are seemingly religious because of their neighbours. There is much virtue which is like the juice of the grape—it has to be squeezed before you get it; it is not like the generous drop of the honeycomb, distilling willingly and freely. I am bold to say, that if a man be destitute of the grace of God, his works are only works of slavery; he feels forced to do them. I know before I came into the liberty of the children of God, if I went to God’s house, I went because I thought I must do it; if I prayed, it was because I feared some misfortune would happen in the day if I did not; if I ever thanked God for a mercy, it was because I thought I should not get another if I were not thankful; if I performed a righteous deed, it was with the hope that very likely God would reward me at last, and I should be winning some crown in heaven. A poor slave, a mere Gibeonite, hewing wood and drawing water. If I could have left off doing it, I should have loved to do so. If I could have had my will, there would have been no chapel-going for me, no religion for me—I would have lived in the world and followed the ways of Satan, if I could have done as I pleased. As for righteousness, it was slavery; sin would have been my liberty. But now, Christian, what is your liberty? What makes you come to the house of God to day? “Love made your willing feet In swift obedience move.” What makes you bend your knee in prayer? It is because you like to talk with your Father who seeth in secret. What is it that opens your purses, and makes you give liberally? It is because you love the poor children of God, and you feel, so much being given to you, that it is a privilege to give something back to Christ. What is it that constrains you to live honestly, righteously, and soberly ? Is it the rear of the jail? No; you might pull the jail down; you might annihilate the convict settlements; you might hurl all chains into the sea; and we should be just as holy as we are now. Some people say, “Then, sir, you mean to say that Christians may live as they like.” I wish they could, sir. If I could live as I liked, I would, always live holily. If a Christian could live as he liked, he would always live as he ought. It is a slavery to him to sin; righteousness is his delight. Oh! if I could but live as I list, I would list to live as I ought. If I could but live as I would I would live as God commands me. The greatest happiness of a Christian is to be holy. It is no slavery to him. Put him where you will, he will not sin, Expose him to any temptation, if it were not for that evil heart still remaining, you would never find him sinning. Holiness is his pleasure; sin is his slavery. Ah! ye poor bondsmen who come to church and chapel because ye must; ah! ye poor slavish moralists that are honest because of the gyves, and sober because of the prison; ah! ye poor slaves! We are not so; we are not under the law, but under grace. Call us Antinomians if you will; we will even glory in the scandalous title; we are freed from the law, but we are freed from it that we may obey it more than ever we did. The true-born child of God serves his Master more than ever he did. As old Erskine says:— “Slight now his loving presence if they can; No, no; his conquering kindness leads the van. When everlasting love exerts the sway, They judge themselves most kindly bound to obey; Bound by redeeming love in stricter sense, Than ever Adam was in innocence.” 6. But to conclude. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from the Fear of Death. O death! how many a sweet cup hast thou made bitter. O death! how many a revel hast thou broken up. O death! how many a gluttonous banquet hast thou spoiled. O death! how many a sinful pleasure hast thou turned into pain. Take ye, my friends, the telescope this morning, and look through the vista of a few years, and what see you ? Grim death in the distance grasping his scythe. He is coming, coming, coming; and what is behind him? Ay, that depends upon your own character. If ye are the sons of God, there is the palm-branch; if ye are not, ye know what followeth death—Hell follows him. O death! thy spectre hath haunted many a house where sin otherwise would have rioted. O death! thy chilly hand hath touched many a heart that was big with lust, and made it start affrighted from its crime. Oh! how many men are slaves to the fear of death. Half the people in the world are afraid to die. There are some madmen who can march up to the cannon’s mouth; there are some fools who rush with bloody hands before their Maker’s tribunal; but most men fear to die. Who is the man that does not fear to die? I will tell you. The man that is a believer. Fear to die! Thank God, I do not. The cholera may come again next summer—I pray God it may not; but if it does, it matters not to me: I will toil and visit the sick by night and by day, until I drop; and if it takes me, sudden death is sudden glory. And so with the weakest saint in this hall; the prospect of dissolution does not make you tremble. Sometimes you fear, but oftener you rejoice. You sit down calmly and think of dying. What is death ? It is a low porch through which you stoop to enter heaven. What is life ? It is a narrow screen that separates us from glory, and death kindly removes it! I recollect a saying of a good old woman, who said, “Afraid to die, sir! I have dipped my foot in Jordan every morning before break fast for the last fifty years, and do you think I am afraid to die now ?” Die! beloved: why we die hundred of times; we “die daily ;” we die every morning; we die each night when we sleep; by faith we die; and so dying will be old work when we come to it. We shall say, “Ah, death! you and I have been old acquaintances; I have had thee in my bedroom every night; I have talked with thee each day; I have had the skull upon my dressing table; and I have ofttimes thought of thee. Death! thou art come at last, but thou art a welcome guest; thou art an angel of light, and the best friend I have had.” Why, then, dread death; since there is no fear of God’s leaving you when you come to die! Here I must tell you that anecdote of the good Welch lady, who, when she lay a-dying, was visited by her minister. He said to her, “Sister, are you sinking?” She answered him not a word, but looked at him with an incredulous eye. He repeated the question, “Sister, are you sinking ?” She looked at him again, as if she could not believe that he would ask such a question. At last, rising a little in the bed, she said, “Sinking! Sinking! Did you ever know a sinner sink through a rock? If I had been standing on the sand, I might sink; but, thank God I am on the Rock of Ages, and there is no sinking there.” How glorious to die! Oh, angels, come! Oh, cohorts of the Lord of hosts, stretch, stretch your broad wings and lift us up from earth; O, winged seraphs, bear us far above the reach of these inferior things; but till ye come, I’ll sing, “Since Jesus is mine, I’ll not fear undressing— But gladly put off these garments of clay, To die in the Lord is a covenant blessing; Since Jesus to glory, though death lead the way.” And now, dear friends, I have shown you as briefly as I can the negative side of this liberty. I have tried to tell you, as well as I could put it in a few words, what we are freed from. But there are two sides to such questions as this. There are some glorious things that we are free to. Not only are we freed from sin in every sense from the law, and from the fear of death; but we are free to do something. I shall not occupy many moments, but shall just run over a few things we are free to; for, my brother Christians, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;” and that liberty gives us certain rights and privileges. In the first place, we are free to heaven’s charter. There is heaven’s charter—the Magna Charta—the Bible; and, my brother, you are free to it. There is a choice passage here: “When thou passest through the river I will be with thee, and the floods shall not overflow thee ;” thou art free to that. Here is another: “Mountains may depart, and hills may be removed; but my lovingkindness shall not depart:” you are free to that. Here is another: “Having loved his own, he loved them unto the end.” you are free to that. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Here is a chapter touching election: you are free to that if you are elect. Here is another, speaking of the non-condemnation of the righteous, and their justification; you are free to that. You are free to all that is in the Bible. Here is a never-failing treasure filled with boundless stores of grace. It is the bank of heaven: you may draw from it as much as you please without let or hindrance. Bring nothing with you, except faith. Bring as much faith as you can get, and you are welcome to all that is in the Bible. There is not a promise, not a word in it, that is not yours. In the depths of tribulation let it comfort you. Mid waves of distress let it cheer you. When sorrows surround thee, let it be thy helper. This is thy father’s love-token: let it never be shut up and covered with dust. Thou art free to it—use, then, thy freedom. Next, recollect that thou art free to the throne of grace. It is the privilege of Englishmen, that they can always send a petition to Parliament; and it is the privilege of a believer, that he can always send a petition to the throne of God. I am free to God’s throne. If I want to talk to God to-morrow morning, I can. If to-night I wish to have conversation with my Master, I can go to him. I have a right to go to his throne. It matters not how much I may have sinned. I go and ask for pardon. It signifies nothing how poor I am—I go and plead his promise that he will provide all things needful. I have a right to go to his throne at all times—in midnight’s darkest hour, or in noontide’s heat. Where’er I am; if fate command me to the utmost verge of the wide earth, I have still constant admission to his throne. Use that right, beloved—use that right. There is not one of you that lives up to his privilege. Many a gentleman will live beyond his income, spending more than he has coming in; but there is not a Christian that does that—I mean that lives up to his spiritual income. Oh, no! you have an infinite income—an in come of promises—an income of grace; and no Christian ever lived up to his income. Some people say, “If I had more money I should have a larger house, and horses, and carriage, and so on.” Very well and good; but I wish the Christian would do the same. I wish they would set up a larger house, and do greater things for God; look more happy, and take those tears away from their eyes. “Religion never was designed To make our pleasures less.” With such stores in the bank, and so much in hand, that God gives you, you have no right to be poor. Up! rejoice! rejoice! The Christian ought to live up to his income, and not below it. Then, if you have the “Spirit of the Lord,” dear friends, you have a right to enter into the city. There are many of the freemen of the City of London here, I dare say, and that is a great privilege, very likely. I am not a freeman of London, but I am a freeman of a better city. “Saviour, if of Zion’s city, I, by grace, a member am, Let the world revile or pity, I will glory in thy name.” You have a right to the freedom of Zion’s city, and you do not exercise it. I want to have a word with some of you. You are very good Christian people. but you have never joined the church yet. You know it is quite right, that he that believeth should be baptized; but I suppose you are afraid of being drowned, for you never come. Then the Lord’s table is spread once every month, and it is free to all God’s children, but you never approach it. Why is that? It is your banquet. I do not think if I were an alderman I should omit the city banquet; and being a Christian, I cannot omit the Christian banquet, it is the banquet of the saints. “Ne’er did angels taste above Redeeming grace and dying love.” Some of you never come to the Lord’s table; you neglect his ordinances. He says, “This do in remembrance of me.” You have obtained the freedom of the city, but you won’t take it up. You have a right to enter in through the gates into the city, but you stand outside. Come in brother; I will give you my hand. Don’t remain outside the church any longer, for you have a right to come in. Then, to conclude, you have the freedom of Jerusalem, the mother of us all. That is the best gift. We are free to heaven. When a Christian dies, he knows the open sesame that can open the gates of heaven, he knows the pass-word that can make the gates wide open fly; he has the white stone whereby he shall be known as a ransomed one, and that shall pass him at the barrier; he has the passport that shall let him into the dominions of Jehovah; he has liberty to enter into heaven. Methinks I see you, ye unconverted, in the land of shades, wandering up and down to find your portion. Ye come to the porch of heaven. It is great and lofty. The gate hath written o’er it, “The righteous only are admitted here.” As ye stand, ye look for the porter. A tall archangel appeareth from above the gate, and ye say, “Angel, let me in.” “Where is thy robe?” Thou searchest, and thou hast none; thou hast only some few rags of thine own spinning, but no wedding garment. “Let me in,” sayest thou, “for the fiends are after me to drag me to yonder pit. Oh, let me in.” But with a quiet glance the angel lifteth up his finger and saith, “Read up there;” and thou readest, “None but the righteous enter here.” Then thou tremblest; thy knees knock together; thy hands shake. Were thy bones of brass they might melt; and were thy ribs of iron they might be dissolved Ah! there thou standest, shivering, quaking, trembling; but not long, for a voice which frights thee from thy feet and lays thee prostrate, cries, “Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” O dear hearers, shall that be your portion? My friends, as I love you,—I do this morning, and hope I ever shall,—shall this be your lot? Will you not have freedom to enter into the city? Will you not seek that Spirit which giveth liberty? Ah! I know ye will not have it if left to yourselves; some of you perhaps never will. O God, grant that that number may be but few, but may the number of the saved be great indeed! “Turn, then my soul unto thy rest, The ransom of thy great High Priest, Hath set the captive free. Trust to his efficacious blood, Nor fear thy banishment from God, Since Jesus died for thee.”