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Now, here's today's program.
A sermon by Robert Murray McChain.
The Mental Agonies of Hell.
But I keep under my body, and bring
it into subjection, lest, by any means, when
I approach to others, I myself should be
a castaway.
First Corinthians 9, 27.
First, observe.
The manner in which Paul sought the kingdom
of heaven.
Verse 26.
I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so
fight I not as one that beats the
air.
Although Paul wrote these words, he had a
full assurance of heavenly love.
It was many years after his conversion on
his way to Damascus, and I am sure
if anyone had assurance of his conversion, it
was the Apostle Paul.
I am in a straight betwixt the two,
having a desire to depart and be with
Christ, which is far better.
Philippians 1, 23.
We are confident, I say, in willing rather
to be absent from the body and to
be present with the Lord.
Second Corinthians 5, 28.
And you remember that sweet saying, There is
laid up for me a crown of righteousness.
Second Timothy 4, 8.
Yet for all that, Paul sought the kingdom
of heaven as if he had been running
a race.
He was as anxious seeking it after his
conversion as he had been before it.
There are many people who, after conversion, sit
down as it were all over.
They think they need do no more, but
it was not so with Paul.
The second thing I desire you to notice
from these words is one important effort Paul
made.
It was this, I keep under my body
and bring it into subjection.
Paul had noticed it in the Grecian games,
and men who ran and wrestled were temperate
in all things.
Now Paul said, This is what I will
do in running my race.
There are some Christians, I fear, who will
not do so much for an incorruptible crown
as the Grecian racer did for a corruptible
one.
The children of the world are wiser in
their generation than the children of light.
Luke 16, 8.
There is too much pampering of the body,
and then Satan gets the advantage.
There is a third truth I wish you
to notice.
The reason of Paul's anxiety and care was
that by any means, when I have preached
to others, I myself should be a castaway.
I have told you, brethren, already, that Paul
had a very clear sight of his conversion.
He knew that he was in Christ, and
that none could pluck him out of his
hand.
Yet for all that, Paul was afraid lest
he should be a castaway.
Paul knew that, though he was a minister,
yet if he gave way to the flesh,
if he lived after the flesh, he would
be a castaway.
He knew that many who seemed Christ's had
yet fallen away.
Judas he knew was a castaway.
Paul felt that which I have sometimes expressed
to you, if he lived after the flesh,
he would die.
Paul knew quite well that there is an
indissoluble connection between a wicked life and hell,
and oh, it was this that made him
temperate in all things.
At present I mean to speak to you
principally on the meaning of the word castaway.
In some previous times I have spoken to
you on the subject of an eternal hell,
on the worms that never die, and the
fire that is never quenched, but there is
one part of the subject I have passed
over, namely, the mental agonies of hell, and
that is a castaway.
The word castaway is supposed to be taken
from workers of metals.
You know there is part of the metal
which comes out of the furnace which is
called droth, which is of no manner of
use, and is cast away.
The same word is sometimes translated reprobate.
Those of you in this congregation who will
be cast away will be found to be
but droth.
Reprobate silver shall men call them, Jeremiah 6,
verse 30.
I will show you first that wicked men
will be cast away from Christ.
It is written, Depart from me ye cursed,
Matthew 25, 41.
Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from
the presence of the Lord, and from the
glory of his power, 2 Thessalonians 1, verse
9.
I say that those in this congregation who
shall be found on that day to be
impenitent shall be cast away.
They shall be punished with everlasting destruction from
the presence of the Lord.
Unconverted men in this world are often very
near Christ.
Christ often comes to the door of unconverted
men.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock,
Revelation 3, verse 20.
Yet he sometimes comes so near that he
stretches out his hands.
All day long have I stretched out my
hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.
Romans 10, verse 21.
Yea, I believe that sometimes you feel Christ
is near.
I believe that sometimes you feel that Christ
is knocking on your door.
But, O, it will be a change in
that day.
Christ will say, Depart from me.
Christ will no more seek your soul.
Christ will no more knock at your door.
Christ will no more stretch out his hands
all day long to you.
You will never hear his voice more calling
on you to turn.
You will never get one offer more of
Christ.
You will be cast away.
Christ is a way to the Father.
But the door will then be shut against
you forever and ever.
And the shutting of the door will echo
through all the caverns of hell.
The wicked and impenitent in this congregation will
be cast away from God.
In one sense, the wicked will never be
away from God because God feels heaven, earth,
and hell.
Job says, Hell is naked before him, and
destruction hath no covering.
And it is said in Proverbs 15, verse
1, Hell and destruction are before the Lord.
In one sense, then, the wicked will never
be away from God.
It was he that kindled hell.
The breath of the Lord like a stream
of brimstone doth kindle it, Isaiah 10, 33.
But still it is true, you will be
cast away from God.
You will be cast away from the relative
enjoyments of God.
Man's chief end is to glorify God and
to enjoy him forever.
God says to believers, I will be their
God and they shall be my people, 2
Corinthians 6, 16.
He said to Abraham, I am thy shield
and thy exceeding great reward, Genesis 15, 1.
Asaph sings, God is the strength of my
heart and my portion forever, Psalm 73, 26.
Ah, this is a portion of believers.
We can look up to heaven and say,
This God is our God forever and ever.
Psalm 48, 14.
God said to the Levites, Thou shalt have
no inheritance among them.
I am thy inheritance, Numbers 18, 20.
But that will not be the case with
those in this congregation who will be cast
away.
You will be cast away from the fruition
of God.
The attributes of God will minister no joy
to you.
It is true, you cannot get far enough
away from God now.
You cannot bear to be left alone with
God for five minutes.
But oh, it will be hell for all
that to be separated from him.
It will be the hell of hells to
be separated from God.
You will not only be cast away from
God, but from the favor of God.
It is said, In thy favor is life.
Ah, child of God, say, what would you
sell this favor of God for?
Ah, the favor of God can lighten up
the pale cheek of the dying saint with
terrific brightness and can make him rejoice even
on the scaffold and the stake.
But sinner, you will be cast away from
the favor of God.
God will send you nothing but the black
cloud of his frown forever and ever.
And you will be cast away from the
blessing of God.
God makes everything blessed to us.
Our friends are blessed to us.
Our food and our raiment are blessed by
him.
But he can make these things minister no
blessedness, even though we be in possession of
them.
And this will be the case with those
of you who will be cast away.
God will take away all blessedness from you.
I come to show you, brethren, that the
wicked will be cast away by the Spirit.
It is the Spirit that is the author
of joy in the unconverted, and it is
he that keeps them from sin.
There are three ways by which God the
Spirit keeps wicked men from sin.
He does so by ordinances.
He makes them a band on their wickedness.
Family worship is a great band on the
wicked.
The ordinance of the preached word is a
great means of keeping men from open acts
of wickedness.
You have the terror of the law and
the sweet winning invitations of the gospel to
keep you from sin, though they may not
save you.
And again, brethren, the Spirit works very much
through providence.
You may notice that a wicked man would
go further into sin were he not restrained
by providence.
God brings poverty so that he is not
able to go into those expensive vices that
he would otherwise do.
And God lays sickness on him or on
his child, which keeps him from sin.
Now these things are all owing to the
restrained grace of God.
There is a third way, that is, by
convictions.
I believe there are none here who have
not had some convictions of sin.
Now God makes use of these convictions in
order to restrain you.
He keeps you back from going into those
fearful debaucheries into which you would otherwise fall.
But, O brethren, do you remember the scripture,
My spirit shall not always strive with man,
Genesis 6, verse 3.
He is striving with you now, but there
is a time coming when he will no
more strive with you.
It may not be during your life, yet
it will be immediately at death.
All my friends, you will have no ordinances
in hell.
There will be no family worship in hell.
There will be no singing praises in hell.
There will be no preaching in hell.
Some of you will ruin your service now,
but you will have none in hell.
And there will be no more providences in
hell.
There will be no sickness in hell.
And there will be no more convictions in
hell.
The Spirit will not strive with you in
hell.
O then, brethren, what an awful state you
will be in when the Spirit casts you
away.
Read the first chapter of Romans and see
what a man becomes when God the Spirit
gives him over.
Think what your families would become if the
Spirit were to give them over.
What a town this would be if the
Spirit were to give it over.
What murders, wickedness, and so on would you
hear of before tomorrow?
I know of a godly man in London
who, every morning, thanks God for restraining the
wicked.
And often at the breakfast table I have
heard him say, Where would we have been
this morning if God had not restrained the
wicked?
But, O, when you will go away from
this world, the Spirit will give you over
to your own heart's lusts.
Then you will blaspheme God.
Then you will have no more any fear
of losing your character.
And, O, that will be misery.
It is an evil thing and a bitter
to sin against God.
Jeremiah 2.19 It is not only evil,
but bitter.
The way of transgressors is hard.
Proverbs 13.15 You say stolen waters are
sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
Proverbs 9.17 But you will find out
that sin is the hardest master.
It is an evil thing and a bitter.
And you will find that the very sin
you wore beneath your tongue now is a
sweet morsel, will yet be your curse.
The lust of drink and passion will rage
within you, and that forever.
All your lusts that are now pent up
in your little bosom will burst out like
a volcano, and there will be nothing to
subdue them.
Were there no lake of fire, that would
be hell enough.
To be a castaway is to be cast
away from all God's holy creatures.
Now the state of wicked men is awful,
but there are some pleasant ingredients in the
cup.
All God's holy creatures are anxious about you.
The angels are anxious about you.
If they are present here, it is to
watch if a tear fall from your eye
or a prayer falter on your lips.
And all regaining men take an interest in
you.
We know that we were once as you
are.
David says, Rivers of water run down my
eyes because they keep not thy law.
Psalm 119.136 And it is the same
with God's children now.
I believe there is not a child of
God in this place that does not weep
for you.
And my brethren, Christ has pity for men
and women.
And then ministers pity you and seek your
conversion.
But oh, how different it will be when
the day of grace is over.
You will be cast away by the angels.
They will pity you no more.
They will know that the number of the
elect is sealed.
The redeemed will no more pity you.
They will see you enter into the eternal
fire.
And they will not put up one prayer
for you.
And ministers will give up pleading for you
when Christ casts you away.
We cannot hold you.
When he casts you away, you will not
have our invitation anymore.
Alas, brethren, I believe that even the devil
will cast you away.
Ah, it is true, he gives you now
many a sweet word.
He says, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread
eaten in secret is pleasant.
But oh, then the devil himself will not
bear your company.
You will be cast away even by your
friends.
If you are beside them in hell, they
will cast you from them.
Oh, none in heaven or hell will pity
you.
This is to be lost.
This is to be a cast away.
I have just one word more.
It is the complete misery of the unconverted.
You will be cast away by yourself.
I believe this is what suicide tries to
do in this world.
They try to cast themselves away from themselves.
And therefore, it is said of the damned,
They will seek death, but it will flee
from them.
You know, dear friends, that unconverted men are
often very complacent in this world.
Your money gives you a great deal of
pleasure.
And your friends and acquaintances gives you pleasure.
But oh, that will not always be the
case.
There is a day coming when every unconverted
man in his congregation would rid himself of
himself if he could.
You will then understand that the law of
God is unalterable.
You will then understand that God and you
are enemies.
Your understanding will be a torment to you.
You will eternally hate what God loves and
eternally love what God hates.
And then your conscience will be like a
hungry lion as soon as that day God's
vice-regent in the soul will cry out
and will not be quiet.
And oh, my brethren, your affections that are
now so pleasant to you, they will be
your torment.
I believe that even hell will not take
affections out of your heart.
But ah, that will be your torment.
Often you hear a wicked man say, I
am a good father, I love my children.
But ah, if they are in hell, it
will be your torment that you brought them
there.
Or if they are in heaven, it will
be your torment that they will have no
pity for you.
And brethren, your memory that is now so
sweet to you will be the worst of
all.
You will remember your sins of sin.
You will remember your misspent Sabbath.
You will remember your lying lips.
You will remember your minister's voice warning and
intruding you to be saved.
Memory will sting like an adder.
Oh, brethren, I believe you will loathe yourselves.
You will try to tear that memory out
of your bosom even if it were possible.
Oh, you will exclaim, would that the whole
soul would go out of being.
This is to be lost.
You will be cast away by God.
You will be cast away by Christ.
You will be cast away by the Spirit.
You will be cast away by all God's
holy creatures.
You will be cast away by devils.
You will be cast away by yourself.
And now, my brethren, I would apply this
to yourselves.
Those of you who are godly, learn to
be as earnest as Paul was to keep
under the body and bring it into subjection.
And those of you who are ungodly, those
of you who are ungodly men under my
ministry, oh, if I had a voice that
could reach your inmost soul, I would use
it.
You think I am exaggerating this, but ah,
you little know who can endure the power
of thy wrath.
I have not mentioned the furnace of fire.
I have not spoken of God's raining snares,
fire and brimstone on the wicked, but ah,
if there were no bodily agonies, what will
the mental agonies of hell be?
But oh, whence these two meet, what will
it be?
Oh, what will it be to have all
the wrath of God poured out on your
soul and body and yet never to annihilate
you?
Ah, then you will know what it is
to be a castaway.
And if you would not be a castaway,
cleave close to God.
Finally, dear brothers and sisters, learn from this
the love of Christ to you and me.
He bore all that is contained in being
a castaway in order that we might be
saved.
Ah, poor sinner, Jesus is willing to rescue
you.
Many of you are old.
Many of you will die before the year
is done.
Come then to Christ, for oh, soon it
will be too late.
Soon the door will be shut forever.
May God bless His own word.
Amen.
Robert Murray McChain preached on the Sabbath forenoon
the 15th of January, 1842, narrated by Tom
Sullivan.
The soul winner.
What is it to win a soul?
I propose, dear brethren, if God shall enable
me to give you a short course of
lectures under the general head of the soul
winner.
Soul winning is the chief business of the
Christian minister.
Indeed, it should be the main pursuit of
every true believer.
We should each say with Simon Peter I
go a fishing, and with Paul our aim
should be that I might by all means
say some.
We shall commence our discourses upon this subject
by considering the question what is it to
win a soul?
This may be instructively answered by describing what
it is not.
We do not regard it to be soul
winning to steal members out of churches already
established and train them to utter our particular
shibboleth.
We aim rather at bringing souls to Christ
than at making conflicts to our synagogue.
There are chief stealers abroad concerning whom I
will say nothing except that they are not
brethren, or at least they do not act
in a brotherly fashion.
To their own master they must stand or
fall.
We count it utter meanness to build up
our own houses with the ruins of our
neighbors' mansions.
We infinitely prefer to quarry for ourselves.
I hope we all sympathize in the large
-hearted spirit of Dr. Chalmers who, when it
was said that such and such an effort
would not be beneficial to the special interests
of the free church of Scotland, although it
might promote the general religion of the land,
said, What is a free church compared with
the Christian good of the people of Scotland?
What indeed is any church or what are
all the churches put together as mere organizations
as they stand in conflict with the moral
and spiritual advantage of the nation if they
impede the kingdom of Christ?
It is because God blesses men through the
churches that we desire to see them prosper,
and not merely for the sake of the
churches themselves.
There is such a thing as selfishness in
our eagerness for the aggrandizement of our own
party, and from this evil spirit may grace
deliver us.
The increase of the kingdom is more to
be desired than the growth of a clan.
We would do a great deal to make
a paedo-baptist brother into a baptist, for
we value our Lord's ordinance.
We would labor earnestly to raise a believer
in salvation by free will into a believer
in salvation by grace, for we long to
see all religious teaching built upon the solid
rock of truth and not upon the sand
of imagination.
But at the same time our grand object
is not the revision of opinions but the
regeneration of natures.
We would bring men to Christ and not
to our peculiar views of Christianity.
Our first care must be that the sheep
should be gathered to the Great Shepherd.
There will be time enough afterwards to secure
them for our various folds, to make proselytes
as a suitable labor for Pharisees, to beget
men into God as the honorable aim of
ministers of Christ.
In the next place we do not consider
soul winning to be accomplished by hurriedly inscribing
more names upon our church wall in order
to show a good increase at the end
of the year.
This is easily done if there are brethren
who use great pains, not to say arts,
to effect it.
But if it be regarded as the alpha
and omega of a minister's efforts the result
will be deplorable.
By all means let us bring true converts
into the church for it is a part
of our work to teach them to observe
all things whatsoever Christ has commanded them.
But still this is to be done to
disciples and not to mere professors, and if
care be not used we may do more
harm than good at this point.
To introduce unconverted persons to the church is
to weaken and degrade it, and therefore an
apparent gain may be a real loss.
I am not among those who decry statistics,
nor do I consider that they are productive
of all manner of evil, for they do
much good if they are accurate, and if
men use them lawfully.
It is a good thing for people to
see the nakedness of the land through statistics
of decrees that they may be driven on
their knees before the Lord to seek prosperity.
And on the other hand it is by
no means an evil thing for workers to
be encouraged by having some account of results
set before them.
I should be very sorry if the practice
of adding up and deducting and giving in
the net result were to be abandoned for
it must be right to know our numerical
condition.
It has been noticed that those who object
to the process are often brethren whose unsatisfactory
reports should somewhat humiliate them.
This is not always so, but it is
suspiciously frequent.
I heard of a report of a church
the other day in which the minister, who
is well known to have reduced his congregation
to nothing, somewhat cleverly wrote, Our church is
looking up.
When he was questioned with regard to this
statement he replied, Everybody knows that the church
is on its back and it cannot do
anything else but look up.
When churches are looking up in that way
their pastors generally say that statistics are very
delusive things and that you cannot tabulate the
work of the Spirit and calculate the prosperity
of a church by figures.
The fact is you can reckon very correctly
if the figures are honest and if all
circumstances are taken into consideration if there is
no increase.
You may calculate with considerable accuracy that there
is not much being done and if there
is clear decrease among a growing population you
may reckon that the prayers of the people
and the preaching of the minister are not
of the most powerful kind.
But still, all hurry to get members into
the church is most mischievous both to the
church and to the supposed converts.
I remember very well several young men who
were of a good moral character and religiously
hopeful but instead of searching their hearts and
aiming at their real conversion the pastor never
gave them any rest until he had persuaded
them to make a profession.
He thought that they would be under more
bonds to holy things if they professed religion
and he felt quite safe in pressing them
for they were so hopeful.
He imagined that to discourage them by vigilant
examination might drive them away and so to
secure them he made them hypocrites.
These young men are at the present time
much further off from the church of God
than they would have been if they had
been affronted by being kept in their proper
places and warned that they were not converted
to God.
It is a serious injury to a person
to receive him into the number of the
faithful unless there is good reason to believe
that he is really regenerate.
I am sure it is so for I
speak after careful observation.
Some of the most glaring sinners known to
me were once members of a church and
were, as I believe, led to make a
profession by undue pressure well meant but ill
judged.
Do not therefore consider that soul winning is
or can be secured by the multiplication of
baptisms and the swelling of the size of
your church what may these dispatches from the
battlefield.
Last night fourteen souls were under conviction fifteen
were justified and eight received full sanctification.
I am worried of this public bragging this
counting of unhatched chickens this exhibition of doubtful
spoils.
Lay aside such numberings of the people such
idle pretense of certifying in half a minute
that which will need the testing of a
lifetime.
Hope for the best that in your highest
excitements be reasonable.
Inquiry rooms are all very well but if
they lead to idle boastings they will grieve
the Holy Spirit and work abounding evil.
Nor is it soul winning dear friends, merely
to create excitement.
Excitement will accompany every great movement.
We might justly question whether the movement is
earnest and powerful if it was quiet and
serene as a drawing room Bible reading.
You cannot very well blast great rocks without
the sound of explosions nor fight a battle
and keep everybody as quiet as a mouse.
On a dry day a carriage is not
moving much along the road unless there is
some noise and dust.
Friction and stir are the natural result of
force and motion.
So when the Spirit of God is abroad
and men's minds are stirred, there must and
will be certain visible signs of the movement,
although these must never be confounded with the
movement itself.
If people imagine that to make a dust
is the object aimed at by the rolling
of a carriage they can take a broom
and very soon raise as much dust as
fifty coaches but they will be committing a
nuisance rather than conferring a benefit.
Excitement is as incidental as the dust, but
it is not for one moment to be
aimed at.
When the woman swept her house she did
it to find her money and not for
the sake of raising a cloud.
Do not aim at sensation and effect.
Flowing tears and strained eyes, sobs and outcries,
crowded after meetings, and all kinds of confusions
may occur and may be borne with as
concomitments of genuine feeling.
But pray do not plan their production.
It very often happens that the converse that
are born in excitement die when the excitement
is over.
They are like certain insects which are the
product of an exceedingly warm day and die
when the sun goes down.
Certain converse live like salamanders in the fire,
but they expire at a reasonable temperature.
I delight not in a religion which needs
or creates a hot head.
Give me the godliness which flourishes upon Calvary
rather than upon Vesuvius.
The utmost zeal for Christ is consistent with
common sense and reason.
Raving, ranting, and fanaticism are products of another
zeal which is not according to knowledge.
We would prepare men for the chamber of
communion and not for the padded room at
bedlam.
No one is more sorry than I that
such a caution as this should be needful,
but remembering the vagaries of certain wild revivalists
I cannot say less and I might say
a great deal more.
What is the real winning of a soul
for God?
So far as this is done by instrumentality,
what are the processes by which a soul
is led to God and to salvation?
I take it that one of its main
operations consists in instructing a man that he
may know the truth of God.
Instruction by the gospel is the commencement of
a real work upon men's minds.
Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even
unto the end of the world.
Teaching begins the work and crowns it too.
The gospel according to Isaiah is, Incline your
ear and come unto me, here in your
soul shall live.
It is ours, then, to give men something
worth their hearing, in fact, to instruct them.
We are sent to evangelize or to preach
the gospel to every creature, and that is
not done unless we teach them the great
truths of revelation.
The gospel is good news.
To listen to some preachers you would imagine
that the gospel was a pinch of sacred
snuff to make them wake up, or a
bottle of ardent spirits to excite their brains.
It is nothing of the kind.
It is news.
There is information in it.
There is instruction in it concerning matters which
men need to know and statements in it
calculated to bless those who hear it.
It is not a magical incantation or a
charm whose force consists in the collection of
sounds.
It is a revelation of facts and truths
which require knowledge and belief.
The gospel is a reasonable system and it
appeals to men's understanding.
It is a matter of thought and consideration
and it appeals to the conscience and the
reflecting powers.
If we do not teach men something we
may shout, Believe!
Believe!
But what are they to believe?
Each exhortation requires a corresponding instruction or it
will mean nothing.
Escape from what?
This requires for its answer the doctrine of
the punishment of sin.
Fly, but wither.
Then you must preach Christ and his wounds.
Yea, and declare doctrine of atonement by sacrifice.
Repent of what?
Here you must answer such questions as What
is sin?
What is the evil of sin?
What are the consequences of sin?
Be converted.
But what is it to be converted?
By what power can we be converted?
What from?
What to?
The field of instruction is wide if men
are to be made to know the truth
which saves.
Does the soul be without knowledge?
It is not good, and it is ours
as the Lord's instruments to make men so
to know the truth that they may believe
it and feel its power.
We are not to try and save men
in the dark, but in the power of
the Holy Ghost we are to seek to
turn them from darkness to light.
Do not believe, dear friends, that when you
go into revival meetings or special evangelistic services
you are to leave out the doctrines of
the gospel, for you are then to proclaim
the doctrines of grace rather more than less.
Teach gospel doctrines clearly, affectionately, simply, and plainly,
and especially those truths which have a present
and practical bearing upon man's condition and God's
grace.
Some enthusiasts would seem to have imbibed the
notion that as soon as a minister addresses
the unconverted he should deliberately contradict his usual
doctrinal discourses because it is supposed that there
will be no conversions if he preaches the
whole counsel of God.
It just comes to this, brethren, it is
supposed that we are to conceal truth and
utter a half-falsehood in order to save
souls.
We are to speak the truth in God's
people because they will not hear anything else.
But we are to weedle sinners into faith
by exaggerating one part of the truth and
hiding the rest until a more convenient season.
This is a strange theory and yet many
endorse it.
According to them, we may preach the redemption
of a chosen number to God's people but
universal redemption must be our doctrine when we
speak with the outside world.
We are to tell believers that salvation is
all of grace but sinners are to be
spoken with as if they were to save
themselves.
We are to inform Christians that God the
Holy Spirit alone can convert but when we
talk with the unsaved the Holy Ghost is
scarcely to be named.
We have not so learned Christ.
Thus others have done let them be our
beacons and not our examples.
He who sent us to win souls neither
permits us to invent falsehoods or to suppress
truth.
His work can be done without such suspicious
methods.
Perhaps some of you will reply, but still
God is blessed to have statements and wild
assertions.
Be not quite so sure.
I venture to assert that God does not
bless falsehood.
He may bless a truth which is mixed
up with error, but much more a blessing
would have come if the preaching had been
more in accordance with his own word.
I cannot admit that the Lord blesses evangelistic
Jesuitism and the suppression of truth is not
too harshly named when I so describe it.
The withholding of the doctrine of the total
depravity of man has wrought serious mischief to
many who have listened to a certain kind
of preaching.
These people do not get a true healing
because they do not know the disease under
which they are suffering.
They are never truly clothed because nothing is
done toward stripping them.
In many ministries there is not enough of
probing the heart than arousing the conscience by
the revelation of man's alienation from God and
by the declaration of the selfishness and the
wickedness of such a state.
Men need to be told that except divine
grace shall bring them out of their enmity
to God they must eternally perish and they
must be reminded of the sovereignty of God
that he is not obliged to bring them
out of this state that he would be
right and just if he left them in
such a condition that they have no merit
to plead before him and no claims upon
him but that if they are to be
saved it must be by grace and by
grace alone.
The preacher's work is to throw sinners down
in utter helplessness that they may be compelled
to look up to him alone who can
help them.
To try to win a soul for Christ
by keeping that soul in ignorance of any
truth is contrary to the mind of the
spirit and to endeavor to save men by
mere claptrap or excitement or oratorical display is
as foolish as to hope to hold an
angel with a bird line or lure a
star with music.
The best attraction in the gospel is its
purity.
The weapon with which the Lord conquers men
is the truth as it is in Jesus.
The gospel will be found equal to every
emergency, an arrow which can pierce the hardest
heart, a bomb which will heal the deadliest
wound.
Preach it and preach nothing else.
Rely implicitly upon the old old gospel.
You need no other nets when you fish
for men.
Those your master has given you are strong
enough for the great fishes and have meshes
fine enough to hold the little ones.
Spread these nets and know others and you
need not fear the fulfillment of his word.
I will make you fishers of men.
Secondly, to win a soul it is necessary
not only to instruct our hearer and make
him know the truth but to impress him
so that he may feel it.
A purely didactic ministry which should always appeal
to the understanding and should leave the emotions
untouched would certainly be a limping ministry.
The legs of the lame are not equal
says Solomon and the unequal legs of some
ministries cripple them.
We have seen such a one limping about
with a long doctrinal leg but a very
short emotional leg.
It is a horrible thing for a man
to be so doctrinal that he can speak
cruelly of the doom of the wicked so
that if he does not actually praise God
for it, it costs him no anguish of
heart to think of the ruins of millions
of our race.
This is horrible.
I hate to hear the tears of the
Lord proclaimed by men whose hard visages, harsh
tones, and unfeeling spirit betray a sort of
doctrinal desiccation.
All the milk of human kindness is dried
out of them.
Having no feeling himself such a preacher creates
none and the people sit and listen while
he keeps to dry lifeless statements until they
come to value him for being sound and
they themselves come to be sound too and
I need not add sound to sleep also
or what life they have spent in sniffing
out heresy and making earnest men offenders for
a word.
Into the Spirit may we never be baptized.
Whatever I believe or do not believe, the
command to love my neighbor as myself still
retains its claim upon me and God forbid
that any views or opinions should so contract
my soul and harden my heart as to
make me forget this law of love.
The love of God is first, but this
by no means lessens the obligation of love
to man.
In fact the first command includes the second.
We are to seek our neighbor's conversion because
we love him and we are to speak
to him in loving terms of God's loving
gospel because our heart desires his eternal good.
A sinner has a heart as well as
a head.
A sinner has emotions as well as thoughts
and we must appeal to both.
A sinner will never be converted until his
emotions are stirred.
Unless he feels sorrow for sin and unless
he has some measure of joy in the
reception of the word, you cannot have much
hope of him.
The truth must soak into the soul and
dye it with its own color.
The word must be like a strong wind
sweeping through the whole heart and swaying the
whole man, even as a field of ripening
corn weighs in the summer breeze.
Religion without emotion is religion without life.
But still we must find how these emotions
are caused.
Do not play upon the mind by exciting
feelings which are not spiritual.
Some preachers are very fond of introducing funerals
and dying children into their discourses and they
make the people weep through sheer natural affection.
This may lead up to something better, but
in itself what is its value?
What is the good of opening up a
mother's grief or a widow's sorrows?
I do not believe that our merciful Lord
has sent us to make men weep over
their departed relatives by digging anew their graves
and rehearsing past scenes of bereavement and woe.
Why should he?
It is granted that you may profitably employ
the deathbed of a departing Christian or of
a dying sinner for proof of the rest
of faith in the one case and the
terror of conscience in the other, but it
is out of a fact proved and not
out of the illustration itself that the good
must arise.
Natural grief is of no service in itself.
Indeed, we look upon it as a distraction
from higher thoughts and as a prize too
great to exact from tender hearts, unless we
can repay them by engrafting lasting spiritual impressions
upon the stock of natural affection.
It was a very splendid oration, full of
pathos, as one who heard it.
Yes, but what is the practical outcome of
this pathos?
A young preacher once remarked, Were you not
greatly struck to see so large a congregation
weeping?
Yes, it is judicious, friend, but I was
more struck with the reflection that they probably
would have wept more at a play.
Exactly so, and the weeping in both cases
may be equally valueless.
I saw a girl on board a steamboat
reading a book and crying as if her
heart would break, but when I glanced at
the volume I saw that it was one
of those silly yellow-covered novels which load
our railway book stalls.
Her tears were a sheer waste of moisture,
and so are those which are produced by
mere pulpit tell-telling and deathbed painting.
If humans will weep over their sins and
after Jesus, let their tears flow in rivers.
But if the object of their sorrow is
merely natural and not at all spiritual, what
good is done by setting them weeping?
There might be some virtue in making people
joyful, for there is sorrow enough in the
world, and the more we can promote cheerfulness,
the better, but what is the use of
creating needless misery?
What right have you to go through the
world precking everybody with your lancet just to
show your skill in surgery?
A true physician only makes incisions in order
to effect cures, and a wise minister only
excites painful emotions in men's minds with the
distinct object of blessing their souls.
You and I must continue to drive at
men's hearts till they are broken, and then
we must go on preaching Christ crucified till
their hearts are bound up, and when this
is accomplished we must continue to proclaim the
gospel till their whole nature is brought into
subjection to the gospel of Christ.
Even in these preliminaries you will be made
to feel the need of the Holy Ghost
to work with you and by you, but
this need will still be more evident when
we advance a step further and speak of
the new birth itself in which the Holy
Spirit works in a style and manner most
divine.
I have already insisted upon instruction and impression
as most needful to soul winning, but these
are not all.
They are, indeed, only means to the desired
end.
A far greater work must be done before
a man is saved.
A wonder of divine grace must be wrought
upon the soul, far transcending anything which can
be accomplished by the power of man.
Of all whom we would faint when for
Jesus it is true, except a man be
born again he cannot see the kingdom of
God.
The Holy Ghost must work regeneration in the
objects of our love, or they never can
become possessors of eternal happiness.
They must be quickened into a new life,
and they must become new creatures in Christ
Jesus.
The same energy which accomplishes resurrection and creation
must put forth all its power upon them.
Nothing short of this can meet the case.
They must be born again from above.
This might seem at first sight to put
human instrumentality together out of the field, but
on turning to the Scriptures we find nothing
to justify such an inference and much of
quite an opposite tendency.
There we certainly find the Lord to be
all in all, but we find no hint
that the use of means must therefore be
dispensed with.
The Lord Supreme Majesty in power is seen
all the more gloriously because he works by
means.
He is so great that he is not
afraid to put honor upon the instruments he
employs by speaking of them in high terms
and imputing to them great influence.
It is certainly possible to say too little
of the Holy Spirit.
Indeed, I fear this is one of the
crying sins of the age, but yet that
infallible word, which always rightly balances truth while
it magnifies the Holy Ghost, does not speak
lightly of the men by whom he works.
God does not think his own honor to
be so questionable that it can only be
maintained by decrying the human agent.
There are two passages in the epistles which,
when put together, have often amazed me.
Paul compares himself both to a father and
to a mother in the matter of the
new birth.
He says of one convert, whom I have
begotten in my bonds, and of a whole
church, he says, my little children of whom
I travail in birth, until Christ be formed
in you.
This is going very far, indeed much further
than modern orthodoxy would permit the most useful
minister to venture, and yet it is language
sanctioned, yea, dictated by the Spirit of God
himself, and therefore it is not to be
criticized.
Such mysterious power does God infuse into the
instrumentality which he ordains that we are called
laborers together with God, and this at once
the source of our responsibility and the ground
of our hope.
Regeneration, or the new birth, works a change
in the whole nature of man, and so
far as we can judge, its essence lies
in the implantation and creation of a new
principle within the man.
The Holy Ghost creates in us a new,
heavenly and immortal nature, which is known in
Scripture as the Spirit by way of distinction
from the soul.
Our theory of regeneration is that man in
his fallen nature consists only of body and
soul, and that when he is regenerated there
is created in him a new and higher
nature.
The Spirit, which is a spark from the
everlasting fire of God's life and love, this
falls into the heart and abides there, and
makes its receiver a partaker of the divine
nature.
Then forward a man consists of three parts,
body, soul, and spirit, and the Spirit is
the reigning power of the three.
You will all remember that memorable chapter upon
the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15, where the distinction
is well brought out in the original, and
may even be perceived in our version.
The passage rendered, It is sown a natural
body, and so on might be read, it
is sown a soulish body, it is raised
a spiritual body.
There is a soulish body, and there is
a spiritual body, and so it is written,
The first man Adam was made a living
soul, the last Adam was made a quickening
spirit.
Albeit that was not first, which is spiritual,
but that which is soulish, and afterward that
which is spiritual.
We are first in a natural or soulish
stage of being, like the first Adam, and
then in regeneration we enter into a new
condition, and we become possessors of the life
-giving Spirit.
Without this Spirit no man can see or
enter the kingdom of heaven.
It must therefore be our intense desire that
the Holy Spirit should visit our ears and
create them anew, that He would come down
upon these dry bones and breathe eternal life
into the dead in sin.
Till this is done they can never receive
the truth, for the natural man receives not
the things of the Spirit of God for
their foolishness to him, neither can he know
them because they are spiritually discerned.
The carnal mind is enmity against God, for
it is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be.
A new and heavenly mind must be created
by omnipotence, or the man must abide in
death.
You see then that we have before us
a mighty work, for which we are of
ourselves totally incapable.
No minister living can save a soul, nor
can all of us together, nor all the
saints on earth or in heaven work regeneration
in a single person.
The whole business on our part is the
height of absurdity, unless we regard ourselves as
used by the Holy Ghost and filled with
His power.
On the other hand, the marvels of regeneration
which attend our ministry are the best seals
and witnesses of our commission.
Whereas the apostles could appeal to the miracles
of Christ and to those which they wrought
in His name, we appeal to the miracles
of the Holy Ghost, which are as divine
and as real as those of our Lord
Himself.
These miracles are the creation of a new
life in the human bosom, and the total
change of the whole being of those upon
whom the Spirit descends.
As this God-begotten spiritual life in men
is a mystery, we shall speak to more
practical effect if we dwell upon the signs
following and accompanying it.
For these are the things we must aim
at.
First, regeneration will be shown in conviction of
sin, this we believe to be an indispensable
mark of the Spirit's work.
The new life as it enters the heart
causes intense inward pain as one of its
first effects.
Though nowadays we hear of persons being healed
before they have been wounded and brought into
a certainty of justification without ever having lamented
their condemnation, we are very dubious as to
the value of such healings and justifyings.
The style of things is not according to
the truth.
God never clothes men until He has first
stripped them, nor does He quicken them by
the gospel till first they are slain by
the law.
When you meet with persons in whom there
is no trace of conviction of sin, you
may be quite sure that they have not
been wrought upon by the Holy Spirit.
For when He has come, He will reprove
the world of sin, and of righteousness, and
of judgment.
When the Spirit of the Lord breathes on
us, He withers all the glory of man,
which is but as a flower of the
grass, and then He reveals a higher and
abiding glory.
Do not be astonished if you find this
conviction of sin to be very acute and
alarming.
But on the other hand, do not condemn
those in whom it is less intense.
For so long as sin is mourned over,
confessed, forsaken, and abhorred, you have an evident
fruit of the Spirit.
Much of the horror and unbelief which goes
with conviction is not of the Spirit of
God, but comes of Satan or corrupt nature.
Yet there must be true and deep conviction
of sin, and this a preacher must labor
to produce.
For where this is not felt, a new
birth has not taken place.
Equally certain is it that the true conversion
may be known by the exhibition of a
simple faith in Jesus Christ.
You know not that I speak unto you
of that, for you yourselves are fully persuaded
of it.
The production of faith is the very center
of the target at which you aim.
The proof to you that you have won
the man's soul for Jesus is never before
you, till he is done with himself in
his own merits, and is closed in with
Christ.
Great care must be taken that this faith
is exercised upon Christ for a complete salvation,
and not for a part of it.
Numbers of persons think that the Lord Jesus
is available for the pardon of past sin,
but they cannot trust Him for the preservation
in the future.
They trust for years past, but not for
years to come, whereas no such subdivision of
salvation is ever spoken of in Scripture as
the work of Christ.
Either He bore all our sins, or none,
and He either saves us once for all,
or not at all.
His death can never be repeated, and it
must have made expiation for the future sin
of believers, or they are lost, since no
further atonement can be supposed, and future sin
is certain to be committed.
Blessed be His name!
By Him all the believers are justified from
all things.
Salvation by grace is eternal salvation.
Sinners must commit their souls to the keeping
of Christ to all eternity.
How else are they saved?
Men!
Alas, according to the teaching of some, believers
are only saved in part, and for the
rest must depend upon their future endeavors.
Is this the gospel?
I trow not.
Jimmy Wine's faith trusts the whole Christ for
the whole of salvation.
Is it any wonder that many converts fall
away when in fact they were never taught
to exercise faith in Jesus for eternal salvation,
but only for temporary conversion?
A faulty exhibition of Christ begets a faulty
faith, and when this pines away in its
own imbecility, who is to blame for it?
According to their faith, so it is unto
them.
The preterm possessor of a partial faith must
unitedly bear the blame of the failure when
their poor mutilated trust comes to a breakdown.
I would more earnestly insist upon this, because
a semi-legal way of believing is so
common.
We must urge the trembling sinner to trust
wholly in the Spirit, and be made perfect
by the flesh.
He will surely walk by faith as to
the past, and then by works as to
the future, and this will be fatal.
True faith in Jesus receives eternal life and
sees perfect salvation in Him, whose one sacrifice
is sanctified to people of God once for
all.
The sense of being saved, completely saved in
Christ Jesus, is not, as some suppose, a
source of carnal security in the enemy of
holy zeal, but the very reverse.
Delivered from the fear which makes the salvation
of self a more immediate object than salvation
from self, and inspired by holy gratitude to
his Redeemer, the regenerated man becomes capable of
virtue, and is filled with an enthusiasm for
God's glory.
While trembling under a sense of insecurity, a
man gives his chief thought to his own
interests, but planted firmly on the rock of
ages, he has time and heart to utter
the new song which the Lord has put
into his mouth, and then is his moral
salvation complete, for self is no longer the
Lord of his being.
Rest not content till you see clear evidence
in your converts of a simple, sincere, and
decided faith in the Lord Jesus.
Together with undivided faith in Jesus Christ, there
must also be unfeigned repentance of sin.
Repentance is an old-fashioned word, not much
used by modern revivalists.
Oh, said a minister to me one day,
it only means a change of mind.
This was thought to be a profound observation.
Only a change of mind, but what a
change!
A change of mind with regard to everything.
Instead of saying it is only a change
of mind, it seems to me more truthful
to say it is a great and deep
change, even a change of the mind itself.
But whatever the literal Greek word may mean,
repentance is no trifle.
You will not find a better definition of
it than the one given in the children's
hymn.
Repentance is to leave the sins we loved
before, and show that we in earnest grieve
by doing so no more.
True conversion is in all men attended by
a sense of sin which we have spoken
of under the head of conviction.
By a sorrow for sin, or holy grief
at having committed it.
By a hatred of sin, which proves that
its dominion is ended.
And by a practical turning from sin, which
shows that the life within the soul is
operating upon the life without.
True belief and true repentance are twins, and
would be idle to attempt to say which
is born first.
All the spokes of a wheel move at
once when the wheel moves, and so all
the graces commence action when regeneration is wrought
by the Holy Ghost.
Repentance, however, there must be.
No sinner looks to the Savior with a
dry eye or a hard heart.
Aim therefore at heart-breaking and bringing home
condemnation to the conscience, and weaning the mind
from sin.
And be not content till the whole mind
is deeply and vitally changed in reference to
sin.
Another proof of the conquest of a soul
for Christ will be found in a real
change of life.
If a man does not live differently from
what he did before, both at home and
abroad, his repentance needs to be repented of,
and his conversion is a fiction.
Not only action and language, but spirit and
temper must be changed.
But, says someone, grace is often grafted on
a crab stock.
I know it is, but what is the
fruit of the grafting?
The fruit will be like the graft, and
not after the nature of the original stem.
But, says another, I have an awful temper,
and all of a sudden it overcomes me.
My anger is soon over, and I feel
very penitent.
Though I cannot control myself, I am quite
sure I am a Christian.
Not so fast, my friend, or I may
answer that I am quite as sure the
other way.
What is the use of your soon cooling,
if in two or three moments you scald
all around you?
If a man stabs me in a fury,
it will not heal my wound to see
him grieving over his madness.
Hasty temper must be conquered, and the whole
man must be renewed, or conversion will be
questionable.
We are not to hold up a modified
holiness before our people and say, You will
be all right if you reach that standard.
The Scripture says, He that commits sin is
of the devil.
Abiding under the power of any known sin
is a mark of our being servants of
sin.
For his servants you are, to whom you
obey.
I do not learn the boasts of a
man who harbors within himself the love of
any transgression.
He may feel what he likes, and believe
what he likes.
He is steeled in the gull of bitterness
and the bonds of iniquity, while a single
sin rules his heart and life.
True regeneration implants the hatred of all evil,
and where one's sin is delighted in, the
evidence is fatal to a sound hope.
A man need not take a dozen poisons
to destroy his life, one is quite sufficient.
There must be a harmony between the life
and the profession.
A Christian professes to renounce sin, and if
he does not do so, his very name
is an imposture.
A drunken man came up to Roland Hill
one day, and said, I am one of
your converts, Mr. Hill.
I dare say you are, replied that shrewd
and sensible preacher, but you are none of
the Lords, for you would not be drunk.
To this practical task we must bring all
our work.
In our converts we must also see true
prayer, which is a vital breath of godliness.
If there is no prayer, you may be
quite sure the soul is dead.
We are not to urge men to pray
as though it were the great gospel duty,
and the one prescribed way of salvation for
our chief message is belief on the Lord
Jesus Christ.
It is easy to put prayer into its
wrong place, and make it out to be
a kind of work by which men are
to live, but this you will, I trust,
most carefully avoid.
Faith is a great gospel grace, but still
we cannot forget that true faith always prays,
and when a man professes faith in the
Lord Jesus, and yet does not cry to
the Lord daily, we dare not believe in
his faith or his conversion.
The Holy Ghost's evidence by which he convinced
Ananias of Paul's conversion was not, behold he
talks loudly of his joys and feelings, but
behold he prayeth.
And that prayer was earnest, heartbroken confession and
supplication.
O to see the sure evidence in all
who profess to be our converts.
There must also be a willingness to obey
the Lord in all his commandments.
It is a shameful thing for a man
to profess discipleship and yet refuse to learn
his Lord's will upon certain points, or even
dare to decline obedience when that will is
known.
How can a man be a disciple of
Christ when he openly lives in disobedience to
him?
If the professed convert distinctly and deliberately declares
that he knows his Lord's will, but does
not mean to attend to it, you are
not to pamper his presumption, but it is
your duty to assure him that he is
not saved.
Has not the Lord said, He that taketh
not up his cross and cometh after me
cannot be my disciple?
Mistakes as to what the Lord's will may
be are to be tenderly corrected.
But anything like willful disobedience is fatal.
To tolerate it would be treason to him
that sent us.
Our prayer is that you have been blessed
and encouraged by this sermon.
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