Sermon 6
Fury Not in God
"Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me." ISAIAH 27:4,5
THERE are three distinct lessons in this text. The first,
that fury is not in God: the second, that He does not want to glorify Himself
by the death of sinners - "Who would set the briers and thorns against me in
battle?" the third, the invitation - "Take hold of my strength, that you
may make peace with me; and you shall make peace with me."
I.
First, then, FURY IS NOT IN GOD.
But how can this be: is not fury one
manifestation of His essential attributes? do we not repeatedly read of His
fury - of Jerusalem being full of the fury of the Lord - of God casting the
fury of His wrath upon the world - of Him rendering His anger upon His enemies
with fury - of Him accomplishing His fury upon Zion - of Him causing His fury
to rest on the bloody and devoted city? We are not therefore to think that fury
is banished altogether from God's administration. There are times and occasions
when this fury is discharged upon the objects of it; and there must be other
times and other occasions when there is no fury in Him. Now, what is the
occasion upon which He disclaims all fury in our text? He is inviting men to
reconciliation; He is calling upon them to make peace; and He is assuring them,
that if they will only take hold of His strength, they shall make peace with
Him. In the preceding verses He speaks of a vineyard; and in the act of
inviting people to lay hold of His strength, He is in fact inviting those who
are without the limits of the vineyard to enter in. Fury will be discharged on
those who reject the invitation. But we cannot say that there is any exercise
of fury in God at the time of giving the invitation. There is the most visible
and direct contrary. There is a longing desire after you. There is a wish to
save you from that day in which the fury of a rejected Savior will be spread
abroad over all who have despised Him. The tone of invitation is not a tone of
anger - it is a tone of tenderness. The look which accompanies the invitation
is not a look of wrath - it is a look of affection. There may be a time, there
may be an occasion, when the fury of God will be put forth on the men who have
held out against Him, and turned them away in infidelity and contempt from His
beseeching voice; but at the time that He is lifting this voice - at the time
that He is sending messengers over the face of the earth to circulate it among
the habitations of men - at the time particularly among ourselves, when in our
own place and our own day Bibles are within the reach of every family, and
ministers in every pulpit are sounding forth the overtures of the gospel
throughout the land - surely at such a time and upon such an occasion, it may
well be said of God to all who are now seeking His face and favor, that there
is no fury in Him.
It is just as in the parable of the marriage feast:
many rejected the invitation which the king gave to it - for which he was wroth
with many of them, and sent forth his armies and destroyed them, and burned up
their city. On that occasion there was fury in the king, and on the like
occasion will there be fury in God. But well can He say at the time when He is
now giving the invitation - there is no fury in Me. There is kindness - a
desire for peace and friendship - a longing earnestness to make up the quarrel
which now subsists between the Lawgiver in heaven and His yet impenitent and
unreconciled creatures. This very process was all gone through at and before
the destruction of Jerusalem. It rejected the warnings and invitations of the
Saviour, and at length experienced His fury. But there was no fury at the time
of His giving the invitations. The tone of our Savior's voice when He uttered -
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem," was not the tone of a vindictive and irritated fury.
There was compassion in it - a warning and pleading earnestness that they would
mind the things which belong to their peace; and at that time when He would
willingly have gathered them as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings -
then may it well be said that there was no fury in the Son of God, no fury in
God. Let us make the application to ourselves in the present day.
On
the last day there will be a tremendous discharge of fury. That wrath which
sinners are now doing so much to treasure up will all be poured forth on them.
The season of God's mercy will then have come to an end; and after the sound of
the last trumpet, there will never more be heard the sounding call of
reconciliation. Oh, my brethren, that God who is grieved and who is angry with
sinners every day, will in the last day pour it all forth in one mighty torrent
on the heads of the impenitent. It is now gathering and accumulating in a
storehouse of vengeance; and at the awful point in the successive history of
nature and providence, when time shall be no more, will the door of this
storehouse be opened, that the fury of the Lord may break loose upon the guilty
and accomplish upon them the weight and the terror of all His threatenings. You
misunderstand the text, then, my brethren, if you infer from it that fury has
no place in the history or methods of God's administration. It has its time and
its occasion - and the very greatest display of it is yet to come, when the
earth shall be burned up, and the heavens shall be dissolved, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, and the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not
God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; and they shall be
punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from
the glory of His power. It makes one shudder seriously to think that there may
be some here present whom this devouring torrent of wrath shall sweep away;
some here present who will be drawn into the whirl of destruction, and forced
to take their descending way through the mouth of that pit where the worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched; some here present who so far from
experiencing in their own persons that there is no fury in God, will find that
throughout the dreary extent of one hopeless and endless and unmitigated
eternity, it is the only attribute of His they have to do with.
But
hear me, hear me ere you have taken your bed in hell; hear me, ere that prison
door be shut upon you which is never, never again to be opened? Hear me, hear
me, ere the great day of the revelation of God's wrath comes round, and there
shall be a total breaking up of that system of things which looks at present so
stable and so unalterable? On that awful day I might not be able to take up the
text and say there is no fury in God. But, oh? hear me, for your lives hear me
- on this day I can say it. From the place where I now stand I can throw abroad
amongst you the wide announcement - that there is no fury in God; and there is
not one of you into whose heart this announcement may not enter, and welcome
will you be to strike with your beseeching God a league of peace and of
friendship that shall never be broken asunder. Surely when I am busy at my
delegated employment of holding out the language of entreaty, and of sounding
in your ears the tidings of gladness, and of inviting you to enter into the
vineyard of God - surely at the time when the messenger of the gospel is thus
executing the commission wherewith he is charged and warranted, he may well say
- that there is no fury in God.
Surely at the time when the Son of God
is inviting you to kiss Him and to enter into reconciliation, there is neither
the feeling nor the exercise of fury. It is only if you refuse, and if you
persist in refusing, and if you suffer all these calls and entreaties to be
lost upon you - it is only then that God will execute His fury, and put forth
the power of His anger. And therefore He says to us, "Kiss the Son, lest He be
angry, and ye perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little."
Such, then, is the interesting point of time at which you stand. There is no
fury in God at the very time that He is inviting you to flee from it. He is
sending forth no blasting influence upon the fig tree, even though hitherto it
had borne no fruit, and been a mere cumberer of the ground, when He says, we
shall let it alone for another year, and dig it, and dress it and if it bear
fruit, well; and if not, then let it be afterwards cut down.
Now, my
brethren, you are all in the situation of this fig tree; you are for the
present let alone; God has purposes of kindness towards every one of you; and
as one of His ministers I can now say to you all - that there is no fury in
God. Now when the spiritual husbandman is trying to soften your hearts, he is
warranted to make a full use of the argument of my text - that there is no fury
in God. Now that the ambassador of Christ is plying you with the offers of
grace and of strength to renew and to make you fruitful, he is surely charged
with matter of far different import from wrath and threatening and vengeance.
Oh! let not all this spiritual husbandry turn out to be unavailing; let not the
offer be made now, and no fruit appear afterwards; let not yours be the fate of
the barren and unfruitful fig tree.
The day of the fury of the Lord is
approaching. The burning up of this earth and the passing away of these heavens
is an event in the history of God's administration to which we are continually
drawing nearer; and on that day when the whole of universal nature shall be
turned into a heap of ruins, and we shall see the gleam of a mighty
conflagration, and shall hear the noise of the framework of creation rending
into fragments, and a cry shall be raised from a despairing multitude out of
the men of all generations, who have just awoke from their resting places - and
amid all the bustle and consternation that is going on below, such a sight
shall be witnessed from the canopy of heaven as will spread silence over the
face of the world, and fix and solemnize every individual of its incumbent
population. Oh, my brethren, let us not think that on that day when the Judge
is to appear charged with the mighty object of vindicating before men and
angels the truth and the majesty of God - that the fury of God will not then
appear in bright and burning manifestation. But what I have to tell you on this
day is, that fury is not in God - that now is the time of those things which
belong to the peace of our eternity, and that if you will only hear on this the
day of your merciful visitation, you will be borne off in safety from all those
horrors of dissolving nature, and amid the wild war and frenzy of its reeling
elements, will be carried by the arms of love to a place of security and
everlasting triumph.
II. This brings us to the second head of discourse -
GOD IS NOT WANTING TO GLORIFY HIMSELF BY THE DEATH OF SINNERS -
"Who
would set the briers and thorns against me in battle?"
The wicked and
the righteous are often represented in Scripture by figures taken from the
vegetable world. The saved and sanctified are called trees of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord that He might be glorified. The godly man is said to
be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which bringeth forth its fruit
in its season. The judgment which cometh upon a man is compared to an axe laid
to the root of a tree. A tree is said to be known by its fruit; and as a proof
that the kind of character of men is specified by the kind of tree in the
woods, we read that of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of the bramble bush
gather they grapes. You will observe that the thorn is one of the kinds
instanced in the text, and when God says, "I would go through them, I would
burn them together," He speaks of the destruction which cometh on all who
remain in the state of thorns and briers; and this agrees with what we read in
the Epistle to the Hebrews, "That which beareth thorns and briers is
rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned" (6:8).
Thorns and briers are in other places still more directly employed to signify
the enemies of God. "And the light of Israel shall be for a fire," says
one of the prophets, "and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall burn and
devour His thorns and His briers in one day." Therefore, when God says in
the text, "Who would set the thorns and the briers against me in battle? I
would go through them, I would burn them together," He speaks of the ease
wherewith He could accomplish His wrath upon His enemies. They would perish
before Him like the moth. They could not stand the lifting up of the red right
arm of the displeasure of Almighty God.
Why set up, then, a contest so
unequal as this? Why put the wicked in battle array against Him who could go
through them and devour them in an instant by the breath of His fury? God is
saying in the text that this is not what He is wanting. He does not want to set
Himself forth as an enemy, or as a strong man armed against them for the battle
- it is a battle He is not at all disposed to enter into. The glory He would
achieve by a victory over a host so feeble, is not a glory that His heart is at
all set upon. Oh, no! ye children of men. He has no pleasure in your death; He
is not seeking to magnify Himself by the destruction of so paltry a foe; He
could devour you in a moment; He could burn you up like stubble; and you
mistake it if you think that renown on so poor a field of contest is a renown
that He is at all aspiring after. Who would set the grasshoppers in battle
array against the giants? Who would set thorns and briers in battle array
against God? This is not what He wants: He would rather something else. Be
assured, He would rather you were to turn, and to live, and to come into His
vineyard, and submit to the regenerating power of His spiritual husbandry, and
be changed from the nature of an accursed plant to a tree of righteousness.
In the language of the next verse, He would rather that this enemy of His,
not yet at peace with Him, and who may therefore be likened to a brier or a
thorn - He would rather than he remained so that he should take hold of God's
strength, that he may make peace with Him - and as the fruit of his so doing,
he shall make peace with Him. Now tell me if this does not open up a most
wonderful and a most inviting view of God? It is the real attitude in which He
puts Himself forth to us in the gospel of His Son. He there says, in the
hearing of all to whom the word of this salvation is sent, "Why will ye die?"
It is true that by your death He could manifest the dignity of His Godhead; He
could make known the power of His wrath; He could spread the awe of His truth
and His majesty over the whole territory of His government, and send forth to
its uttermost limits the glories of His strength and His immutable sovereignty.
But He does not want to magnify Himself over men in this way; He has no
ambition whatever after the renown of such a victory, over such weak and
insignificant enemies. Their resistance were no trial whatever to His strength
or to His greatness. There is nothing in the destruction of creatures so weak
that can at all bring Him any distinction, or throw any aggrandizement around
Him.
And so in Scripture everywhere do we see Him pleading and
protesting with you that He does not want to signalize Himself upon the ruin of
any, but would rather that they should turn and be saved. And now, my brethren,
what remains for you to do? God is willing to save you: are you willing to be
saved? The way is set before you most patiently and clearly in the Bible - nay,
the very text, brief as it is, points out to you the way, as I shall endeavor
to explain and set before you in the third head of discourse. But meanwhile,
and all the better to secure a hearing from you, let me ask you to lay it upon
your consciences, whether you are in a state that will do for you to die in. If
not, then I beseech you to think how certainly death will, and how speedily it
may, come upon the likeliest of you all. The very youngest among you know very
well, that if not cut off previously - which is a very possible thing - then
manhood will come, and old age will come, and the dying bed will come, and the
very last look you shall ever cast on your acquaintances will come, and the
agony of the parting breath will come, and the time when you are stretched a
lifeless corpse before the eyes of weeping relatives will come, and the coffin
that is to enclose you will come, and that hour when the company assemble to
carry you to the churchyard will come, and the minute when you are put into the
grave will come, and the throwing in of the loose earth into the narrow house
where you are laid, and the spreading of the green sod over it - all, all will
come on every living creature who now hears me; and in a few little years the
minister who now speaks, and the people who now listen, will be carried to
their long homes, and make room for another generation.
Now, all this,
you know, must and will happen - your common sense and common experience serve
to convince you of it. Perhaps it may have been little thought of in the days
of careless and thoughtless and thankless unconcern which you have spent
hitherto; but I call upon you to think of it now, to lay it seriously to heart,
and no longer to trifle and delay, when the high matters of death and judgment
and eternity are thus set so evidently before you. And the tidings wherewith I
am charged - and the blood lieth upon your own head and not upon mine, if you
will not listen to them - the object of my coming amongst you is to let you
know what things are to come; it is to carry you beyond the regions of sight
and of sense, to the regions of faith, and to assure you, in the name of Him
who cannot lie, that as sure as the hour of laying the body in the grave comes,
so surely will also come the hour of the spirit returning to the God who gave
it. Yes, and the day of final reckoning will come, and the appearance of the
Son of God in heaven, and His mighty angels around Him, will come, and the
opening of the books will come, and the standing of the men of all generations
before the judgment seat will come, and the solemn passing of that sentence
which is to fix you for eternity will come. Yes, and if you refuse to be
reconciled in the name of Christ, now that He is beseeching you to be so, and
if you refuse to turn from the evil of your ways, and to do and to be what your
Savior would have you, I must tell you what that sentence is to be - "Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels."
There is a way of escape from the fury of this tremendous
storm. There is a pathway of egress from the state of condemnation to the state
of acceptance. There is a method pointed out in Scripture by which we, who by
nature are the children of wrath, may come to be at peace with God. Let all
ears be open then to our explanation of this way, as we bid you in the language
of our text take hold of God's strength, that you may make peace with Him, and
which if you do, you shall make peace with Him.
III. Read now the fifth verse - "Or let him take
hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace
with me." Or here is the same with rather. Rather than that what is spoken
of in the fourth verse should fall upon you - rather than that I should engage
in battle with mine enemies - rather than that a result so melancholy to them
should take place, as my going through them and burning them together - rather
than that all this should happen, I WOULD GREATLY PREFER THAT THEY TOOK HOLD OF
MY STRENGTH IN ORDER TO MAKE PEACE WITH ME; and I promise, as the sure effect
of this proceeding, that THEY SHALL MAKE PEACE WITH ME. We have not far to seek
for what is meant by this strength, for Isaiah himself speaks (ch. 33:6) of the
strength of salvation. It is not your destruction but your salvation that God
wants to put forth His strength in. There has strength been already put forth
in the deliverance of a guilty world - the very strength which He wants you to
lay hold of. He will be glorified in the destruction of the sinner, but He
would like better to be glorified by his salvation. To destroy you is to do no
more than to set fire to briers and thorns, and to consume them; but to save
you - this is indeed the power of God and the wisdom of God - this is the
mighty achievement which angels desire to look into - this is the enterprise
upon which a mighty Captain embarked all the energy that belonged to Him, and
traveled in the greatness of His strength until that He accomplished it; and
now that it is accomplished, God would much rather be glorified in the
salvation of His saints, than glorified in the destruction of sinners (2 Thess
1:7,10). God will show His wrath, and make His power known in the destruction
of the sinner. But it is a more glorious work of power to redeem that sinner,
and thus He engages to do for you, if you will take hold of His strength. He
would greatly prefer this way of making His power known. He does not want to
enter into the battle with you, or to consume you like stubble by the breath of
His indignation. No; He wants to transform sinners into saints: He wants to
transform vessels of wrath into vessels of mercy, and to make known the riches
of His glory on those whom He had afore prepared unto glory. There is a
strength put forth in the destruction of the sinner, but there is also a
strength put forth in the salvation of a sinner, and this is the strength which
He wants you to lay hold of in my text - this is the strength by the display of
which He would prefer being glorified. He would rather decline entering into a
contest with you sinners; for to gain a victory over you would be no more to
Him than to fight with the briers and the thorns, and to consume them. But from
enemies to make friends of you; from the children of wrath to transform you
into the children of adoption; from the state of guilt to accomplish such a
mighty and a wonderful change upon you, as to put you into the state of
justification; from the servants of sin to make you in the day of His power the
willing servants of God; to chase away from your faculties the darkness of
nature, and to make all light and comfort around you; to turn you from a slave
of sense, and to invest with all their rightful ascendancy over your affections
the things of eternity; to pull down the strongholds of corruption within you,
and raise him who was spiritually dead to a life of new obedience - this is the
victory over you which God aspires after. It is not your destruction or your
death that He delights in, or that He wants to be glorified by - it is your
thorough and complete salvation from the punishment of sin, and the power of
sin, on which He is desirous of exalting the glory of His strength, and this is
the strength which He calls you to take hold upon.
Let me now, in what
remains, first say a few things more upon this strength, the strength of
salvation which is spoken of in the text, and then state very briefly what it
is to lay hold of it. And first we read of a mighty strength that had to be put
forth in the work of a sinner's justification. You know that all men are
sinners, and so all are under the righteous condemnation of God. How, in the
name of all that is difficult and wonderful, can these sinners ever get this
condemnation removed from them? By what new and unheard of process can the
guilty before God ever again become justified in His sight? How from that
throne, of which it is said that judgment and justice are the habitation, can
the sentence of acquittal ever be heard on the children of iniquity? How can
God's honor be kept entire in the sight of angels, if we men who have
repeatedly mocked Him and insulted Him, and made our own wish and our own way
take the precedence of His high and solemn requirements - if we, with all this
contempt of the Lawgiver expressed in our lives, and all this character of
rebellion against Him written upon our foreheads, shall be admitted to a place
of distinction in heaven - and that too after God has committed Himself in the
hearing of angels - after He had given us a law by the disposition of angels,
and we had not kept it - and after He had said how the wicked shall not go
unpunished, but that cursed is every one who continueth not in all the words of
the book of God's law to do them? But what is more, it was not merely the good
and the obedient angels who knew our rebellion - the malignant and fallen
angels not only knew it, but they devised and they prompted it. And how, I
would ask, can God keep the awful majesty of His truth and justice entire in
the sight of His adversaries, if Satan and the angels of wickedness along with
him shall have it in their power to say - we prevailed on man to insult Him by
sin, and have compelled God to put up with the affront, and to connive at it?
Now, just in proportion to the weight and magnitude of the obstacle was the
greatness of that strength which the Savior put forth in the mighty work of
moving it away.
We have no adequate conception upon this matter, and
must just take our lesson from revelation about it; - and whether we take the
prophecies which foretold the work of our Redeemer, or the history which
relates it, or the doctrine which expatiates on its worth and its efficacy -
all go to establish that there was the operation of a power - that there was
the severity of a conflict - that there was the high emprise of an arduous and
mighty warfare - that there were all the throes and all the exertions of a
struggling, and at length a prevailing energy in the execution of that work
which our Savior had to do - that He had a barrier to surmount, and that, too,
with the cries and the pains and the sorrows of heavy suffering and labor -
that a mighty obstacle lay before Him, and He, in the business of removing it,
had to travel in all the greatness of the faculties which belonged to Him -
that there was a burden laid upon His shoulders, which by no one else but the
Prince of Peace could have been borne - that there was a task put into His hand
which none but He could fulfill. And had the question ever been reasoned
throughout the hosts of paradise, Who can so bend the unchangeable attributes
of God, who can give them a shift so wonderful, that the sinners who have
insulted Him may be taken into forgiveness, and His honor be kept untainted and
entire? There is not one of the mighty throng who would not have shrunk from an
enterprise so lofty. There is not one of them who could at once magnify the law
and release man from its violated sanctions. There is not one of them who could
turn its threatening away from us, and at the same time give to the truth and
the justice of God their brightest manifestation. There is not one of them who
could unravel the mystery of our redemption through all the difficulties which
beset and which surround it. There is not one of them who, by the strength of
his arm, could have obtained the conquest over these difficulties.
And
however little we may enter into the elements of this weighty speculation, let
us forget not that the question was not merely between God and man - it was
between God and all the creatures He had formed. They saw the dilemma; they
felt how deeply it involved the character of the Deity; they perceived its
every bearing on the majesty of His attributes, and on the stability of the
government that was upheld by Him. With them it was a matter of deep and most
substantial interest; and when the Eternal Son stepped forward to carry the
undertaking to its end, the feeling amongst them all was that a battle behooved
to be fought, and that the strength of this mighty Captain of our salvation was
alone equal to the achievement of the victory.
"Who is this that
cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in His
apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength? I that speak in
righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy
garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press
alone; and of the people there was none with me; for I will tread them in mine
anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my
garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine
heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to
help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold; therefore mine own arm
brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me" (Isa 63:1-5).
A way of redemption has been found out in the unsearchable riches of divine
wisdom, and Christ is called the wisdom of God. But the same Christ is also
called the power of God. In the mighty work of redemption He put forth a
strength, and it is that strength that we are called to take hold upon. There
was a wonderful strength in bearing the wrath which would have fallen on the
millions and millions more of a guilty world. There was a strength which bore
Him up under the agonies of the garden. There was a strength which supported
Him under the hidings of His Father's countenance. There was a strength which
upheld Him in the dark hour of the travail of His soul, and which one might
think had well-nigh given way when He called out, "My God, my God, why hast
Thou forsaken me?" There was a strength which carried Him in triumph through
the contest over Satan, when he buffeted Him with his temptations; and a
strength far greater than we know of in that mysterious struggle which He held
with the powers of darkness, when Satan fell like lightning from heaven, and
the Captain of our salvation spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show
of them openly, and triumphed over them. There was strength in over-coming all
the mighty difficulties which lay in the way between the sinner and God, in
unbarring the gates of acceptance to a guilty world, in bringing truth and
mercy to meet, and righteousness and peace to enter into fellowship - so that
God might be just, while He is the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus.
So much for the strength which is put forth in the work of man's
redemption. But there is also strength put forth in the work of man's
regeneration. Christ hath not only done a great work for us in making good our
reconciliation with God - He further does a great work in us when He makes us
like unto God. But I have not the time to dwell upon this last topic, and must
content myself with referring you to the following Scriptures - Eph. 1:19,
2:10; Phil. 4:13; 2 Cor. 12:9,10; John 15:5. The power which raised Jesus from
the dead is the power which raises us from our death in trespasses and sins.
The power that was put forth on creation is the power that makes us new
creatures in Jesus Christ our Lord. Neither have I time to make out a full
demonstration of what is meant by laying hold of that strength. When you apply
to a friend for some service, some relief from distress or difficulty, you may
be said to lay hold of him; and when you place firm reliance both on his
ability and willingness to do you the service, you may well say that your hold
is upon your friend - an expression which becomes all the more appropriate
should he promise to do the needful good office, in which case your hold is not
upon his power only, but upon his faithfulness. And it is even so with the
promises of God in Christ Jesus - you have both a power and a promise to take
hold of. If you believe that Christ is able to save to the uttermost all who
come unto God through Him, and if you believe the honesty of His invitation to
all who are weary and heavy laden, that they might come unto Him and have rest
unto their souls, thus judging Him to be faithful who has promised, then indeed
will you lay hold of Christ as the power of God unto salvation, and according
to the faith which has thus led you to fix upon the Saviour so will it be done
unto you.
To continue in this faith is in the language of Scripture to
hold fast your confidence and the rejoicing of your hope firm unto the end.
Cast not away this confidence which hath great recompense of reward; or if you
have not yet begun to place this confidence in the assurances of the gospel,
lay hold of them now - they are addressed to each and to all of you. It is not
a vague generality of which I am speaking. Let every man amongst you take up
with Christ, and trust in Him for yourself. I am well aware that unless the
Spirit reveal to you, all I have said about Him will fall fruitless upon your
ears, and your hearts will remain as cold and as heavy and as alienated as
ever. Faith is His gift, and it is not of ourselves. But the minister is at his
post when he puts the truth before you; and you are at your posts when you
hearken diligently, and have a prayerful spirit of dependence on the Giver of
all wisdom - that He will bless the word spoken, and make it reach your souls
in the form of a salutary and convincing application. And it is indeed
wonderful - it is passing wonderful, that there should be about us such an
ungenerous suspicion of our Father who is in heaven. It cannot be sufficiently
wondered at that all the ways in which He sets Himself forth to us should have
so feeble an influence in the way of cheering us on to a more delighted
confidence.
How shall we account for it - that the barrier of unbelief
should stand so obstinately firm in spite of every attempt and every
remonstrance - that the straitening should still continue - not the straitening
of God towards us, for He has said everything to woo us to put our trust in Him
- but the straitening of us towards God, whereby in the face of His every kind
and exhilarating declaration we persist in being cold and distant and afraid of
Him? I know not, my brethren, in how far I may have succeeded, as an humble and
unworthy instrument, in drawing aside the veil which darkens the face of Him
who sitteth on the throne. But oh, how imposing is the attitude, and how
altogether affecting is the argument with which He comes forward to us in the
text of this day! It is not so much His saying that there is no fury in Him -
this He often tells us in other passages of Scripture; but the striking
peculiarity of the words now submitted to us is the way in which He would
convince us how little interest He can have in our destruction, and how far it
is from His thoughts to aspire after the glory of such an achievement, as if He
had said - it would be nothing to Me to consume you all by the breath of My
indignation - it would throw no illustration over Me to sweep away the whole
strength of that rebellion which you have mustered up against Me - it would
make no more to My glory than if I went through the thorns and briers and
burned them before Me. This is not the battle I want to engage in - this is not
the victory by which I seek to signalize Myself; and you mistake Me, you
mistake Me, ye feeble children of men, if you think that I aspire after
anything else with any one of you than that you should be prevailed on to come
into My vineyard, and lay hold of My strength, and seek to make peace with Me,
and you shall make peace with Me. The victory that My heart is set upon is not
a victory over your persons - that is a victory that will easily be gotten in
the great day of final reckoning over all who have refused My overtures, and
would none of My reproof, and have turned them away from my beseeching offers
of reconciliation. In that great day of the power of Mine anger it will be seen
how easy it is to accomplish such a victory as this - how rapidly the fire of
my conflagration will involve the rebels who have opposed Me in that devouring
flame from which they never, never can be extricated - how speedily the
execution of the condemning sentence will run through the multitude who stand
at the left hand of the Avenging Judge; and rest assured, ye men who are now
hearing Me, and whom I freely invite all to enter into the vineyard of God,
that this is not the triumph that God is longing after.
It is not a
victory over your persons then of which He is at all ambitious - it is a
victory over your wills now - it is that you do honour to His testimony by
placing your reliance on it - it is that you accept of His kind and free
assurances that He has no ill will to you - it is that you cast the whole
burden of sullen fear and suspicion away from your hearts, and that now, even
now, you enter into a fellowship of peace with the God whom you have offended.
Oh! be prevailed upon. I know that terror will not subdue you; I know that all
the threatenings of the law will not reclaim you; I know that no direct process
of pressing home the claims of God upon your obedience will ever compel you to
the only obedience that is of any value in His estimation - even the willing
obedience of the affections to a father whom you love. But surely when He puts
on in your sight the countenance of a Father - when He speaks to you with the
tenderness of a Father - when He tries to woo you back to that house of His
from which you have wandered, and, to persuade you of His good-will, descends
so far as to reason the matter, and to tell you that He is no more seeking any
glory from your destruction than He would seek glory from lighting into a blaze
the thorns and the briers, and burning them together - ah! my brethren, should
it not look plain to the eye of faith how honest and sincere the God of your
redemption is, who is thus bowing Himself down to the mention of such an
argument!
Do lay hold of it, and be impressed by it, and cherish no
longer any doubt of the good-will of the Lord God, merciful and gracious; and
let your faith work by love to Him who hath done so much and said so much to
engage it, and let this love evince all the power of a commanding principle
within you, by urging your every footstep to the new obedience of new creatures
in Jesus Christ your Lord. Thus the twofold benefit of the gospel will be
realized by all who believe and obey that gospel. Reconciled to God by the
death of His Son, regenerated by the power of that mighty and all subduing
Spirit who is at the giving of the Son, your salvation will be complete -
washed, and sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God ,
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