The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Consider Before You Fight
A sermon preached at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
by C.
H.
Spurgeon.
Luke 14 verses 31 and 32.
What king, going to make war against another
king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether
he be able with ten thousand to meet
him that cometh against him with twenty thousand.
For else, while the other is yet a
great way off, he sendeth an embassage, and
desireth conditions of peace.
Every sensible man endeavours to adapt his purposes
to his strength.
He does not begin to build a house
which he will not be able to finish,
nor commence a war which he cannot hope
to fight through.
The religion of Christ is the most reasonable
one in the world, and Jesus Christ never
desires to have any disciples who shall blindly
follow him without counting the cost.
We always esteem it to be a happy
thing when we can get men to sit
down and consider.
The most of you are so full of
other thoughts, so occupied with the world ever
running hither and thither about your ordinary business,
that we cannot get you to think or
calmly sit down and soberly look at things
as in the light of eternity, and weigh
them deliberately as you ought.
And yet it is only reasonable the master
should ask of you to do for him
with regard to your own spiritual matters what
you will admit that every sensible man does
in his business continually.
You are poor traders if you never have
any stock takings.
You are likely to be ere long in
the bankruptcy court if there is no periodical
examination of accounts, and so Christ would have
you sit down sometimes and take stock as
to where you are and what you are,
and then to figure up by some sort
of arithmetic by which you may come to
a truthful calculation what you are able to
do and what not to do, and what
therefore it is reasonable for you to undertake,
and what unreasonable, and where your position ought
and where it ought not to be.
I especially invite this evening those who are
unconverted in this assembly to some few thoughts
upon the war in which they are engaged
with God, hoping that peradventure if they consider
a little upon it they will send an
ambassage and desire peace.
When I have spoken upon that there will
be some perhaps who will be running away
with the idea that they will at once
be at peace with God and make war
with Satan, but I shall want to pin
them down a moment and make them estimate
their chances of victory in such a war
as that, and see whether they are able
to meet the black prince of darkness in
their own strength.
We will try if we cannot make it
tonight the subject of a little homely talk
about our souls and a little earnest personal
consideration about our future.
First then, there are some here who are
not the friends of God, and in this
case he that is not with him is
against him.
If you cannot look up to God and
say, my father, and feel that your heart
beats true to him, then remember it is
a fact that you are his enemy.
If you could have what you wish there
would be no God.
If it were in your power you would
never trouble yourself again with thoughts of him.
You would like to live, you say, as
you list, and I know how you would
list to live.
It would be anyhow rather than as God
commands.
Now as you are engaged in antagonism with
him, just think a while.
Can you expect to succeed?
Are you likely to win the day?
You have entered into a conflict with his
law.
You do not intend to keep it.
With his day you do not regard it.
You are thus at war with God.
Now is it likely that you will be
successful?
Is there a chance for you?
If there be, why then perhaps it may
be as well to go on.
If you can conquer him, if the battlements
of glory may yet see the flag of
sin wave triumphant there, why, man, then try
it.
There will be at least an ambition worthy
of Satan who desired sooner to reign in
hell than to be ruled by heaven.
But is there any hope for you?
Let me put a few things before you
which may perhaps make you think the conflict
too unequal and thus lead you to abandon
the thought at once.
Think of God's stupendous power.
What is there which he cannot do?
We see but little of God's power comparatively
in our land.
Now and then there comes a crash of
thunder in a storm, and we look up
with amazement when he sets the heavens on
ablaze with his lightning.
But go and do business on the deep
waters.
Let your vessel fly before the howling hurricane.
Mark how every staunch timber seems to crack
as though it were but matchboard, and the
steady mast goes by the board and snaps,
and is broken to shivers.
Mark what God does when he stirs up
the great deep and seems to bring heaven
down and lift the earth up till the
elements mingle in a common mass of tempest.
Then go to the alps and listen to
the thunder of the avalanche.
Stand amazed as you look down some grim
precipice or peer with awestruck wonder into the
blue mysteries of a crevasse.
See the leaping cataracts and mark those frozen
seas, the glaciers, as they come sweeping down
the mountainside.
Stay a while till a storm shall gather
there, and alps shall talk to alps, and
those white prophetic heads shall seem to bow
while the wings of tempests cover them.
There you may learn something of the power
of God amidst the crash of nature.
If you could have stood by the side
of Dr. Wolfe when, rising early one morning,
he went out of Aleppo and, upon turning
his head, saw that Aleppo was no more,
it having been in a single moment swallowed
up by an earthquake, then again you might
see what God can do.
But why need I feebly recapitulate what you
all know so well?
Think of what that book records of his
deeds of prowess when he unloosed the depths
and bade the fountains of the great deep
be broken up, that the whole world that
then was might be covered with water.
Think of what he did at the Red
Sea when the depths stood upright as in
a heap for a time, while his people
went through, and when afterwards, with eager joy,
the floods clasped their hands and buried the
foemen in the deep, never to rise again.
Let such names as Og, King of Bashan,
Sion, King of the Amorites, and Sennacherib the
Mighty rise before your recollection and mark what
God has done.
Who has ever dashed upon the bosses of
his buckler without being wounded?
What iron has he not broken?
What spear has he not shivered?
Millions came against him, but by the blast
of the breath of his nostrils they fell,
or they flew like the chaff before the
wind.
Let the sea roar in the fullness thereof,
but the rocks stand still and hurl off
the waves in flakes of foam, and so
doth God when his foes are most enraged
and passionate.
He that sitteth in the heavens doth laugh,
the Lord doth have them in derision, and
he breaketh them in pieces without a stroke
of his hand or even the glance of
his eye.
Think, sinner, think of him with whom thou
contendest.
Hast thou an arm like God's?
Canst thou thunder with a voice like his?
Canst thou stamp with thy foot and shake
the mountains?
Canst thou touch the hills and make them
smoke?
Canst thou say to the sea, Be stead
to thy depths, or canst thou call to
the winds, and bid the steeds of tempest
be unloosed?
If thou canst not, then think of the
battle.
Attempt to do no more but hide thee
back to thy bed, and there commune with
thine heart, and make thy peace with him
against whom thou canst not hope successfully to
contend.
Think again, O rebellious man.
You have to deal not only with Almighty,
but with an ever encompassing power.
Pleased to think how much you are in
God's power tonight as it regards your temporal
position.
You are prospering in business, but the tide
of prosperity may be turned in a way
unknown to you.
God has a thousand ways of stripping those
whom he aforetime seemed to clothe most lavishly.
You dote upon that wife of yours.
She may be smitten before your eyes, and
waste with consumption or decline, or more rapidly
still she may be taken from you at
a stroke, and then where is your joy?
Those children, those happy prattlers who make glad
your hearth, could you hold them for a
moment if God should call back their spirits?
If he said, return ye children of men,
your prayers, the position, your love, what could
all these avail you?
You have but to buy the coffin, and
the shroud, and the grave, and bury your
dead out of your sight.
God can sweep away all if he will,
and leave you penniless, childless, a widower without
comfort in the world.
I would not contend with him who has
so many ways to wound me.
I am vulnerable at so many points, and
he knows how to pierce me to the
quick in them all.
I will therefore make him my friend rather
than my foe.
I had better not strive with him who
has the key of the postern, and of
the front gate, and of the iron gate,
and who can storm every position along my
bastion whenever he shall please.
Think again how much you are personally in
his hand.
You are strong, you say.
You will do a day's work with any
man.
There are few can lift a load more
readily than you can, perhaps, and yet one
second would be enough to paralyze every limb.
Your faculties are clear.
You can write with perspicuity.
No one can see through an intricate account
more rapidly than you can, or find out
a secret more speedily, and yet one tick
of that clock is time enough to reduce
either you or me to a driveling idiot
or to a raving madman.
A mysterious hand falls on that brain and
cools it, so that there is no longer
the light of intellect within it, or else
an awful breath fans its flame till it
burns like Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, and the soul walks
within it a martyr doomed to live in
the midst of fire.
Think of this.
Not many yards from here there stands in
Bedlam an awful proof of what the providence
of God can do in one moment with
those who seemed the most sane, the most
witty, and the most able of men, and
you have not to go far in either
direction before.
At the gate of some hospital you will
find how soon the body may become very,
very low, even to the dust, if God
but will it.
I would not, O sinner, I would not
have God other than my friend, while I
am thus helplessly in his control.
If the moth is in my hand, I
can crush it at my will and pleasure.
Surely if that moth had wit and sense,
it would not provoke me to anger, nor
seek to bring down my plagues upon it,
but if it could, it would seek to
nestle near my heart, that I, so able
to crush it, might use my power for
its protection, and might make what wit I
have to be its wisdom for its shelter
and defense.
It is well also to remember the mighty
army of the Lord of hosts, and that
you live amidst the creatures of God who
all are ready to do his bidding.
As the children of Israel journeyed in the
wilderness, they were preserved by God from many
foes and innumerable dangers which lurked around, waiting
to destroy them.
Once God gave the fiery serpents permission to
assault the host, and what death and terror
immediately filled the camp!
They must have seen then that it was
no small thing to be at variance with
God when he had so many allies waiting
to do his bidding.
How clearly this was shown in the plagues
of Egypt, when frogs, locusts, and lice, hell
and fire, plague and death flooded the ill
-fated land when, beckoned on by the uplifted
finger of God, he can still call to
his help the forces of creation.
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera,
and God can still make all things work
for evil as well as good, if he
be pleased to command them.
When Herod strove with God, he was smitten
of worms and died, and God has still
a countless army of servants who do his
commandments, hearkening to the voice of his word.
You had better wait a while and think
how you can meet them.
Are your friends as numerous?
Can you muster an army like unto God's?
Is the muster roll of your hosts like
unto his?
Consider the heavens, for he marshalleth yon starry
multitude, and calleth them all by names, because
he is great in strength, not one faileth.
Be wise, and enter into covenant with him
through blood, and rush not on to certain
defeat by seeking to out-rival God.
Remember, moreover, what is the extent of God's
wisdom, and that his foolishness is greater than
your highest knowledge.
A good general is worth more than a
regiment of men.
When Stonewall Jackson was killed, his enemies and
friends alike felt that his death was more
than the loss of ten thousand men.
Our Iron Duke, when alive, was a strength
to our army beyond all calculation.
Now, mark the skill and infinite wisdom of
the God who leads the army of the
skies.
All light and knowledge are his.
He is the Ancient of Days, and his
experience runs back to all eternity.
You are but of yesterday and know nothing.
His plans are beyond your conception, but he
knoweth the way you take.
He is far above your thoughts and ever
out of your sight, but he can see
you through and through, and knoweth you better
than you know yourself.
Do not show your folly by weighing your
wisdom against his in the scales, or by
expecting to outshine him so as to triumph
over him.
Poor moth rushing into the flame, you'll be
consumed amidst the pity of good men and
the derision of evil ones.
Yet there is another matter I want you
to recollect.
You that are the enemies of God, that
you have a conscience.
You have not got rid of it yet.
You have a thief in that candle of
the Lord, it is true, but still it
is a light.
It is not put out, and God has
ways of making it to become a terrible
plague to you if you do not accept
it as a friend.
Conscience is meant to be man's armor-bearer,
beneath whose shield he may fight the battles
of the right, but if you make it
your enemy, then conscience often places a sword
in such a way as to cut and
wound you severely.
You have a conscience, and that is a
very awkward thing for a man to have
who is an enemy of God.
If I were God's enemy, I should prefer
having no monitor to call my attention to
the holy character and righteous law of the
Most High.
I should be glad to get rid of
every particle of moral sense.
But you have consciences, and most of you
are not yet dead to all feeling of
guilt and shame.
You cannot therefore sin so cheaply as others,
and if you do for the present manage
to put Mr. Conscience down, yet since he
is still in you, the time will come
when you will find his voice grow louder,
and there will be a tear in that
voice which will make it a tear for
you to sleep, and hard for you to
go about your daily business with your accustomed
regularity.
Those men who serve God most faithfully, yet
find that their conscience, when it can accuse
them of anything wrong, though it be their
best friend, is no very pleasant companion.
It is said that David's heart smote him.
I would sooner have anybody smite me than
my own heart, for it strikes with so
hard a blow and hits the place where
one may most tenderly feel it, and it
will be so with you unless you get
your conscience seared with a hot iron.
I am afraid there will come a time
when you will not rest in your beds,
nor be able anywhere to find peace or
satisfaction.
I think, therefore, if I had a friend
of God inside my heart, I would not
like to fight with God so long as
he continued within me.
Oh, that you would be at peace with
him, and thereby good shall come unto you.
One other reflection, for I must not keep
you thinking on this point long.
It is this.
Remember, you must die, and therefore it is
a pity to be at enmity with God.
You may put it off and say, I
shall not die yet, but you do not
know.
How can you tell?
It is possible that you may die tomorrow,
but suppose you live for the next twenty
or thirty years.
Why, what is that?
I am only some thirty years of age,
and yet I confess that I never thought
time so short as I feel it to
be now.
When we were children, we thought twelve months
a great length of time.
When we were twenty, a year seemed to
be a very respectable period, but now it
flies, and some of my friends here whose
hair is turning grey will tell you that
whether it is fifty, sixty, or seventy years,
it all seems but a mere dream, a
snap of a finger.
It is gone so soon.
We'll just push through a little interval of
time, and then you must die.
My dear friend, will it not be a
very dreadful thing to die when you are
at war with God?
If you could fight this out forever under
such circumstances as those in which you now
are, I could not then commend the struggle,
but since it must come to such an
awful pause, since there must be that death
rattle in your throat, since there must be
that clammy sweat upon your brow, oh, you
will want some better business than to be
carrying arms against the God of heaven in
your dying moments.
They that have God for their friend yet
find death no very pleasant task, but what
will you find it?
Who will have to strike yourselves in every
blow, and you are aiming against the Most
High, whom you have made and continue to
make your enemy.
And here is this, too, to think of.
There is a future state, so that when
you die, you have to live again.
We know very little about that next state,
and I do not intend to say much
about it tonight.
You are launched without your body and unclothed
spirit into a world which you have never
seen.
Will you find companions there, or will you
be alone?
Where will it be?
What sort of place will it be like?
I should not choose to enter upon the
realm of spirits without having God to be
my friend, for it were a dreadful thing
to get into that mysterious unknown country, having
nothing to take with me across its borne
except this, an inveterate enmity to the King
that reigns supreme in it.
If I must cross the border and go
into a land I have never trodden, I
would like at least to carry a passport
with me, or to be able to say,
I am a friend of the King that
reigns here, but to go there as God's
enemy, why, how terrible it must be.
Besides, let me say, you cannot hope to
succeed.
All experience is against you.
There never was one yet that either in
this state or the next has fought with
God and conquered, and you will not be
able to be the first, for they who
contend with God all come to this one
conclusion.
He comes forth in his strength, and his
enemies are given like stubble to the fire
and like wax to the flame.
He lifteth up his voice, and they melt
away.
He looks at them, and that one flash
of fire withers them forever, and out of
the bottomless pit of despair they weep and
wail, the piteous but useless regret that their
harvest is past, and their summer is ended,
and that they are not saved, for they
have spent their strength against their God, and
so have brought themselves where ruin is eternal
and hope can never come.
Oh, that thou wouldst send an embassage and
be at peace.
Methinks I hear some say, well, we wish
to give up the contest, but what is
to be done so as to be at
peace with God?
I ask, have you got an ambassador to
go to God for you?
That is the first thing.
He cannot look at you.
Jesus Christ is the ambassador between God and
man.
Can you commit your case into his hand?
Will you do so?
If so, your case will speed well.
God cannot deny him any request.
He has a right to all he ever
asked the Father to give, and the Father
is always well pleased in him and delighteth
to grant him whatever he desires.
That Savior is willing to plead your case.
He waiteth to be gracious.
I am sent to tell you the good
news of his love and mercy, to warn
you of the certain doom which awaits all
who turn from Christ, and to bid you
and every sin-sick rebel to come at
once, just as you are, to the footstool
of mercy, and I can pledge the honor
of God as being Christ's ambassador for this
purpose, that if you come, he will in
no wise cast you out.
The terms of peace are very brief.
They are these.
Give up the traitors.
There can be no peace between you and
God while you harbor sin.
Give them up and be willing to renounce
every sin of every sort and kind, for
one harbored traitor will prevent God concluding peace
with you.
Sinner, what sayest thou?
Is it hard to give up thy sin?
Does that condition strike thee as unreasonable?
Out with the knife, man, and cut the
throat of every iniquity.
Why, there is no sin for which it
is worth your while to be damned.
A little rioting and chambering and wantonness, is
that worth hell-fire forever?
What, to have thy giddy amusements for an
hour or two, is this a due recompense
for an eternity of fire unmitigated by a
drop of water?
I pray thee, be reasonable.
Barter not away thy soul for trifles.
Pawn not eternity for the mere fictions of
an instant.
God give thee grace, sinner, not to kick
at that condition, but at once cast out
your enemies and gods, and then lay hold
on Christ, on Jesus Christ alone, and let
him stand as ambassador for thee.
Thou canst not fight it out.
Let peace be made.
Oh, may it be made tonight through the
blood of Jesus Christ, God's dear son.
Then next, confess that you deserve the king's
wrath.
Bow that head, put the rope about your
neck, as though you felt you deserved that
the executioner should lead you forth.
Pray to God for pardon, and cry, God,
be merciful to me, a sinner, and then
cling to the skirts of that appointed Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who on yonder bloody
tree made expiation for the sin of God's
enemies, that they might thereby become God's friends.
God demands of you a confession of your
guilt.
He will be honored by your humbling yourself
before him.
Your sin has aimed at his glory, and
now he will glorify himself by your repentance.
It were only just on his part if
he spurned you away and cast you out
into the pits which hath no bottom, but
he has said that whoso confesseth his sin
shall obtain forgiveness.
Go, therefore, in the spirit of the publican.
Smite upon your breast and say, God, be
merciful to me, a sinner.
Confess that you deserve hell, but ask for
heaven, and you shall not plead in vain.
Only honor God's justice and appeal to his
mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ.
This, surely, is not much for God to
expect at your hands.
If you will not submit, what can you
say when God shall crush you?
You refuse to bend the knee and to
bow the head.
What will you do when God shall trample
on you in his fury and tread you
in his hot displeasure?
You must, therefore, now in the accepted time,
while it is still the day of mercy,
seek his face, and with weeping and supplication,
take with you words and turn unto the
Lord, and he will have mercy upon you
and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon.
And now we turn the subject so as
to look at the second contest in which
I trust many are anxious to be engaged.
Some young spirit that has been touched with
a sense of its own condition and somewhat
aroused may be saying, I will be God's
enemy no longer.
I will be his friend.
Bowing the knee, the heart cries, O God,
reconcile me unto thyself by the death of
thy dear son.
I throw down all my weapons.
I confess my guilt.
I plead for mercy.
For Jesus' sake, vouchsafe it to me.
But, says that soul, if I am the
friend of God, I must be the foe
of Satan.
And from this day I pledge myself to
fight forever with Satan till I get the
victory and am free of sin.
My dear friend, I want you to stop.
I do not wish you to make peace
with the evil one, but I want you
to consider what you are at.
There are a few things I would whisper
in your ear, and one is that sin
is sweet.
The uppermost drops of sin's cup glitter and
sparkle.
There is pleasure in sin of a certain
sort and for a certain season.
It is a poisoned sweet.
It is but a temporary delusion, but still
the world does promise fair.
Its gingerbread is gilt, and though it wears
nothing but tinsel and a little gold leaf
now and then, yet it does look very
much like gold.
Canst thou resist sin when it seems so
charming?
The next time the cup is brought thee,
thou knowest the flavor of it.
O, it is rich!
Canst thou turn away?
Art thou certain that thou wilt be able
to dash it from thy lips?
Ah, man, thou wilt find it different when
the trial hour comes to what it is
now that thou art sitting in a tabernacle
and resolving, away from the temptation that thou
wilt do the right.
Remember again, you may be enticed by friends
who will be very pressing.
You can give up sin just now, but
you do not know who may be the
tempter at some future time.
If she should allure thee who has tempted
so well before, if he, he should speak,
he, the very word, has awakened up your
recollection, if he should speak as he alone
can speak and look as only he can
look, can you then resist and stand out?
That witching voice, that fascinating eye!
O, how many souls have been damned for
what men call love!
O, that they had but a little true
love of themselves and others, and would not
thus pander to the prince of hell!
But, alas, alas, while the cup itself looks
sweet, there is to be added to it
the hand that holds it out.
It is not so easy to contend with
Satan when he employs the service of someone
whom you esteem highly and love with all
your heart.
Remember the case of Solomon, whose wisdom was
marvellous, but who was enticed by his wives
and fell a prey into the hands of
the evil one.
It needs a spirit like the master's to
be able to say, Get thee behind me,
Satan, to the tempter when he has the
appearance of one of your best loved friends.
The devil is a crafty being, and if
he cannot force the door, he will try
and get the key which fits the wards
of the lock, and by the means of
our tenderest love and affections will make a
way for himself into our hearts.
You will find it no easy task, therefore,
to contend with him.
Then again, remember, man, there is habit.
You say you will all of a sudden
give up your sins and fight Satan.
Do not tell me that.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the
leopard his spots?
If so, then he that is accustomed to
do evil may learn to do well.
If you had never sinned as you have
sinned, there were not this difficulty with you.
But he that has gone day after day
and year after year into sin is not
so easily turned from it.
As well hope to make Niagara leap up
instead of down, as make human nature flow
back to virtue instead of going downward to
sin, you do not know yourself.
Habit is an iron bond, and he that
is once enveloped in it may pull and
strain, but he will tear away his flesh
sooner than break the links of that dread
chain.
We have seen men who, convinced of the
error of their ways, have sought to turn
from them without asking the help of God.
For a time they have made some little
progress in appearance, but it has only been
like the retreating of the waves at the
rising of the tide.
Their evil habits have returned upon them with
a rush and have covered them deeper than
before.
Read the parable of our Lord concerning the
unclean spirit which went out of the man
and roamed through dry places, seeking rest but
finding none.
And it said, I will return to the
place from whence I went out.
It came back and found it swept and
garnished, and then took to it seven other
evil spirits more wicked than itself, so the
last end of that man was worse than
the first.
Thus it is with those who enter upon
the work of saving themselves without looking up
by faith to God for his needed help.
Satan will triumph over you.
You are like the fly in the toils
of the spider's web.
The more it struggles, the more it will
be encompassed.
You must cry for help as you are
quite unable of yourself to escape from the
snares of the wicked one.
He has you bound fast, hand and foot,
and you will never break his cords nor
be able to cast his bands from you.
You have no seven locks of strength like
Samson, but you will certainly be overcome.
And again, you think you will give up
sin, but ridicule is very unpleasant.
And when the finger comes to be pointed
at you and they say, Ah, so you
have set up for a saint, I see,
when they put it as they only can
put it in such a sharp, cutting, grating
manner, when it is wrapped up so wittily
in an epigram that is told all around
the shop against you, and when, moreover, there
is some foible of yours, some giddy weakness,
and they know how to hook on your
attempt at saintship to your weakness, and they
bandy that all round, and there are fifty
laughing faces for you.
Can you stand that?
Yes, it is a very pretty thing for
you to come here on Sundays and say
what you will do, but it is different
to do it on Mondays.
To be laughed at is not really to
a sensible man anything very wonderful, for methinks
you have only to get used to it,
and then you will just as much expect
to hear people laugh at you as to
hear birds singing when you walk out of
a morning.
But at first, that is a very sharp
trial, that trial of cruel mockings, and many
who have been going to fight Satan have
drawn back, for they found they could not
stand it.
When the Jews were rebuilding the walls of
Jerusalem after their return from captivity, one of
the most severe tests of their zeal and
devotion was the laughter of their enemies, who
came and looked on and said, What do
these feeble Jews?
Even that which they build, if a fox
go up, he shall even break down their
stone wall.
The words of their foes were more cutting
than swords, and keenly did they feel in
their spirits the derision of the scoffers.
It is as painful now for the sensitive
spirit as it was of old, but you
must not be daunted.
Heaven is worth buying, even though it should
cost a life heaped full of stinging words
and malicious sayings from a deriding and taunting
world.
Did not Christ Himself show us how to
endure this trial?
See His foes gathered around Him when He
hung dying on the cross.
They laugh at Him even there.
He saved others, Himself He cannot save, said
they as they wagged their heads and mocked
alike His dignity and His woe.
If thou be the Christ, come down from
the cross, and we will believe on thee.
These sayings must have been bitterer to His
spirit than the wormwood mingled with gall was
to His lips.
You must follow Christ here also, if you
would contend as He did with Satan.
Then count the cost.
Can you drink His cup and be baptized
with His baptism?
And yet further, let me say to you,
you that are forgoing to heaven so zealously,
gain.
Game is a very pretty thing, a very
pleasant affair.
Who does not like to make money?
You know, if you can be religious and
grow rich at the same time, that will
just suit some of you.
Oh yes, the two going together, that will
be admirable.
You will kill the two birds with one
stone.
Mr. Byens said, now if a man by
being religious can get a good wife who
has a considerable sum of money, and if
by being religious he gets a good shop
and many customers, why, says he, then religion
is a good thing.
For to get a good wife is a
good thing, and to get customers, that is
another good thing.
And so he says the whole is a
good thing put together.
But he that knows Mr. Byens knows that
he is an old rogue, notwithstanding that he
puts it prettily.
I've known him.
He is a member of this church, I
am sorry to say.
I never went into a church where he
was not a member.
I have tried to turn him out and
did once, but there was another one of
the family left inside, and however many you
may expel, there are sure to be more
of that breed remaining.
But there sometimes comes a pinch with Mr.
Byens.
Now if you should find that shutting up
your shop on Sundays should ruin your business,
well, what then?
Would you stand it?
Now there are some of you that try
it every now and then when you get
spasmodically godly, but it does not pay you,
you find.
And so you begin once more to open
shop on the Lord's day.
Some of you Sunday traders discover that it
gets a little hot and strong for you
when you come to the tabernacle occasionally, and
you shut up for a season, but soon
you say, well, people must live.
Yes, and people must die, and people must
be damned too.
If they try to live by breaking God's
laws, remember that it will not pay to
be religious, some people fancy.
We have heard of a man saying, I
cannot afford to keep a conscience.
It is too expensive an article for me.
Ah, but keep in mind the saying of
the Lord, what shall it profit a man
if he gained the whole world and lose
his own soul?
Or what shall a man give in exchange
for his soul?
There is such a thing as being penny
wise and pound foolish, and there is such
a thing also as being worldly wise and
eternally foolish.
Think of this then, for the trial will
come to you in the shape of yellow
gold, and it will be hard to keep
yourself from the glittering bait which the God
of this world will lay before you.
I am putting these things to you, that
you may calculate whether you can carry on
the war against the devil with all these
fearful odds against you.
If I were a recruiting sergeant, I should
not do this.
He puts the shilling into the country lad's
hand, and the lad may say fifty things.
Oh, never mind, says the gallant soldier, you
know it's all glory, nothing but glory.
There I will just tie these ribbons round
your hat, there are some long strips of
glory to begin with, and then all your
days it will be just glory, glory forever,
and you will die a general and be
buried at Westminster Abbey, and they will play
the dead march in Saul, and all that
kind of thing.
Now I cannot thus deceive or try to
cheat men to enlist under the banner of
the cross.
I do not desire to raise objections to
it.
All I want of you is to count
the cost, lest you should be like unto
him who began to build without being able
to finish.
That is the misery of so many.
I advise you, if you are about to
declare war with Satan, to see whether you
are able to carry it out and win
the victory.
Well, says one, it is hard to be
saved.
Nobody ever thought it was not, I hope.
What does Peter say?
If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall
the ungodly and the sinner appear?
It is hard to be saved, you say.
Whoever said it was not?
But it is not hard to be saved
if a man is willing to be received
according to the plan which God has appointed.
If Christ undertakes it, then it is done.
And my counsel to those of you who
are about making war with Satan is to
remember that it is too much for you,
and therefore do not attempt it in your
own strength.
Beware of this.
I know Satan will tempt you, first of
all, to believe that you need no Saviour.
And then, if you are not convinced of
this, but are disquieted because of sin, he
suggests that you can save yourself.
He speaks of a banner and far power,
rivers of Damascus which flow close by your
own door.
He says, wash in these home streams and
be clean.
Stay where you are and help yourself.
But if you listen to the words of
the seducer of souls, you are lost and
undone forever.
Can the man born blind see to operate
upon his own scale-covered eyes so as
to give himself sight?
Can the crippled man run away from his
lameness and outrun the feebleness of his feet?
Can the dead man exert himself to make
the life-tide flow once more in his
veins and flush his cheek anew with the
glow of health?
Can he call back his departed spirit from
the shades of the unseen world and make
it reoccupy its decaying habitation and bid the
marks of the mighty consumer be gone and
leave no trace of death's conquest behind to
remind the returning inhabitant that the palace had
been occupied by the ruthless spoiler?
We answer no.
A mighty finger must touch and open the
eyes.
An omnipotent arm must lift up the paralyzed
and impotent man into strength and power.
And most evidently, if life is to be
secured, the voice of God alone can speak
the word which shall make the dead to
live.
On this point we wish to be clearly
understood.
You will never of yourself successfully resist sin
so as to escape its thralldom.
How much less can you remove its guilt?
The cancer is in your blood, and you
can never get it out.
The black deed is done, and it is
written, The soul that sinneth, it shall die.
Oh, then at once ask help of him
who alone can save you from the wrath
to come.
Remember, poor feeble one, nothing is too hard
for God.
And therefore ask almighty strength to come unto
your help.
It is true you cannot contend with your
besetting sins.
Your passions, your corruptions of whatever sort they
may be, are much too strong for you.
Old Adam is too mighty for you with
your best intentions.
But there is a strong one whose hand
once pierced is always ready and at the
service of every sinner who would have Satan
cast out.
There is one mighty to save who can
come to the rescue and do for you
what you cannot do for yourself.
Oh, that you had Christ tonight, so that
at once you might cry to him, Jesus,
save me.
I see the fight is too unequal for
me.
I cannot drive out my sins.
I cannot fight my way to heaven.
Come and help me, Lord Jesus.
I put myself into thy hands.
Wash me in thy blood.
Fill me with thy spirit.
Save me with thy great salvation and let
me be with thee where thou art at
the last.
No man can save himself, says one.
Yet the case is very like that of
the master who sent his negro servant with
a letter.
The negro was like some others rather lazy
and came back with it.
Why did you not deliver it?
I could not.
Could not deliver it?
No, master.
Why not?
A deep river, sir.
Very deep river.
I could not get across.
A deep river, said he.
Yes.
Is not there a ferryman there?
Do not know, sir.
If there was, he was on the other
side.
Did you call across?
Boat ahoy?
No, sir.
Why then, you rascal, said he.
What does it matter?
It is no excuse.
It is true you could not get across
the river, but then there was one there
who could take you, and you never cried
to him.
So it is in your case.
You say, I cannot save myself.
Quite true, but there is one who can,
and you have never cried to him.
For mark you, if you cry to him,
if your heart says, O Savior, come and
save me, and your spirit rests in him,
deep as that river of your sin certainly
is, he knows how to bear you safely
through it and land you on the other
shore.
May he do that with each of you.
With God all things are possible, though with
man it is impossible.
May the blessing of the Most High rest
upon us this night.
For Jesus' sake.
Amen.