The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.
Do you know him?
Sermon delivered on Sunday morning, January 31st, 1864,
by the Reverend C.
H.
Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
Philippians 3, verse 10.
That I may know him.
The object of the Apostle's life, that for
which he sacrificed everything, country, kindred, honor, comfort,
liberty, and life itself, was that he might
know Christ.
Observe that this is not Paul's prayer as
an unconverted man, that he may know Christ
and so be saved.
For it follows upon the previous supplication that
he might win Christ and be found in
him.
This is the desire of one who has
been saved, who enjoys the full conviction that
his sins are pardoned and that he is
in Christ.
It is only the regenerated and saved man
who can feel the desire that I may
know him.
Are you astonished that a saved man should
have such a desire as this?
A moment's reflection will remove your astonishment.
Imagine for a moment that you are living
in the age of the Roman emperors.
You have been captured by Roman soldiers and
dragged from your native country.
You have been sold for a slave, stripped,
whipped, branded, imprisoned, and treated with shameful cruelty.
At last, you are appointed to die in
the amphitheater to make holiday for a tyrant.
The populace assemble with delight.
There they are, tens of thousands of them,
gazing down from the living sides of the
capacious Colosseum.
You stand alone and naked, armed only with
a single dagger, a poor defense against gigantic
beasts.
A ponderous door is drawn up by machinery,
and forth there rushes the monarch of the
forest, a huge lion.
You must slay him or be torn to
pieces.
You are absolutely certain that the conflict is
too stern for you and that the sure
result must and will be that those terrible
teeth will grind your bones and drip with
your blood.
You tremble.
Your joints are loosed.
You are paralyzed with fear like the timid
deer when the lion has dashed it to
the ground.
But what is this?
A wonder of mercy.
A deliverer appears.
A great unknown leaps from among the gazing
multitude and confronts the savage monster.
He quails not at the roaring of the
devourer, but dashes upon him with a terrible
fury till, like a whipped cur, the lion
slinks towards his den, dragging himself along in
pain and fear.
The hero lifts you up, smiles into your
bloodless face, whispers comfort in your ear, and
bids you be of good courage, for you
are free.
Do you not think that there would arise
at once in your heart a desire to
know your deliverer?
As the guards conducted you into the open
street and you breathed the cool fresh air,
would not the first question be, who was
my deliverer, that I may fall at his
feet and bless him?
You are not, however, informed.
But instead of it, you are gently led
away to a noble mansion house where your
many wounds are washed and healed with salve
of rarest power.
You are clothed in sumptuous apparel.
You are made to sit down at a
feast.
You eat and are satisfied.
You rest upon the softest down.
The next morning you are attended by servants
who guard you from evil and minister to
your good.
Day after day, week after week, you are
once supplied.
You live like a courtier.
There is nothing that you can ask which
you do not receive.
I am sure that your curiosity would grow
more and more intense till it would ripen
into an insatiable craving.
You would scarcely neglect an opportunity of asking
the servants, Tell me, who does all this?
Who is my noble benefactor?
For I must know him.
Well, but, they would say, is it not
enough for you that you are delivered from
the lion?
Nay, say you, it is for that very
reason that I pant to know him.
Your wants are richly supplied.
Why are you vexed by curiosity as to
the hand which reaches you the boon?
If your garment is worn out, there is
another.
Long before hunger oppresses you, the table is
well loaded.
What more do you want?
But your reply is, It is because I
have no wants, that therefore my soul longs
and yearns, even to hungering and to thirsting,
that I may know my generous loving friend.
Suppose that as you wake up one morning
you find lying upon your pillow a precious
love token from your unknown friend, a ring
sparkling with jewels and engraved with a tender
inscription, a bouquet of flowers bound about with
a love motto.
Your curiosity now knows no bounds.
But you are informed that this wondrous being
has not only done for you what you
have seen, but a thousand deeds of love
which you did not see, which were higher
and greater still as proofs of his affection.
You are told that he was wounded and
imprisoned and scourged for your sake, for he
had a love to you so great that
death itself could not overcome it.
You are informed that he is every moment
occupied in your interests, because he has sworn
by himself that where he is there you
shall be.
His honors you shall share, and of his
happiness you shall be the crown.
If I am he thinks you would say,
Tell me, men and women, any of you
who know him, tell me who he is
and what he is.
And if they said, But it is enough
for you to know that he loves you
and to have daily proofs of his goodness,
you would say, No, these love tokens increase
my thirst.
If ye see him, tell him I am
sick of love.
The phlegons which he sends me and the
love tokens which he gives me, they stay
me for a while with the assurance of
his affection, but they only impel me onward
with the more unconquerable desire that I may
know him.
I must know him.
I cannot live without knowing him.
His goodness makes me thirst and pant and
even die that I may know him.
Have I imagined emotions which would not be
natural?
I think not.
The most cruel in calculating would be warmed
with desires like these.
Methink what I have now pictured before you
will wake the echoes in your breasts, and
you will say, Ah, it is even so.
It is because Christ loved me and gave
himself for me that I want to know
him.
It is because he has shed his blood
for me and has chosen me that I
may be one with him forever, that my
soul desires a fuller acquaintance with him.
Now may God the Holy Ghost very graciously
lead me onward that I may also quicken
in you the desire to know him.
Beloved, let us pass by that crowd of
outer-court worshippers who are content to live
without knowing Christ.
I do not mean the ungodly and profane.
We will not consider them just now.
They are altogether strangers and foreigners to him.
I mean children of God, the visible saints.
How many there are of those whom I
must call outer-court worshippers, for they are
strangers to this panting to know him.
They can say with Paul that I may
win him and be found in him.
That they do want, but this higher wish
that I may know him has not stirred
their hearts.
How many brethren we know who are content
to know Christ's historic life.
They read the evangelists and they are charmed
with the perfect beauty of the Savior's history.
Never man spake like this man, say they.
And they confess that never man acted with
such love as he did.
They know all the incidents of his life
from his manger to his cross, but they
do not know him.
They are as men who have read Caesar's
commentaries, but who have never seen Caesar.
They know the battles which Caesar fought.
They can even recognize the mantle which Caesar
wore that day he overcame the Nervi, but
they do not know Caesar himself.
The person of the Lord Jesus is as
much hidden from their eyes as the golden
pot of manna when concealed in the ark.
They know the life of Christ, but not
Christ the life.
They admire his way among men, but they
see not himself as the way.
Others there are who know Christ's doctrine and
prize it too, but they know not him.
All which he taught is dear to them,
orthodoxy.
For this they would burn at Smithfield or
lay down their necks at Tower Hill.
Many of them are well instructed and divinely
illuminated in the doctrine of Christ, and the
wonder is that they should stop there.
Because, beloved, it does seem to me when
I begin to know a man's teaching that
the next thing is the desire to know
his person.
Addison in one of the spectators tells us
that the reason why so many books are
printed with the portraits of the authors is
just this, that as a man reads a
book, he feels a desire to know what
sort of appearance the author had.
This indeed is very natural.
If you have ever been refreshed under a
minister's printed sermons, if you have at any
time received any benefit from his words, I
know you have said, I would like to
see that man.
I would like to hear the truth flow
hot and fresh from his living lips.
I would like to know just how he
said that sentence and how that passage sounded
as it came from his earnest heart.
My beloved, surely if you know the doctrine
of Jesus, if you have so been with
Christ as to sit at his feet and
hear what he has to say, you must,
I hope, have had some longings to know
him, to know his person, and if you
have, you will have had to pass by
multitudes of followers of Jesus who rest satisfied
with his words, but forget that he is
himself the word.
Beloved, there are others, and against them I
bring no complaint.
They go as far as they can who
are delighted with Christ's example.
Christ's character is, in their esteem, the mirror
of all perfection.
They desire to walk in his footsteps.
They listen to his sermon upon the mount.
They are enchanted with it, as well they
may be.
They pray to be obedient in all things
to Christ as their Master and their Lord.
They do well.
Mark, I am finding no fault with any
of these who prize the history or who
value the doctrine or who admire the precept,
but I want more.
I do want, beloved, that you and I
should know him.
I love his precepts, but I love him
better.
Sweet is the water from Bethlehem's well and
well worth the struggle of the armed men
to win but a bucket from it, but
the well itself is better and deserves all
Israel's valor to defend it.
As the source is ever more valuable than
the stream, so is Christ ever better than
the best words of his lips or the
best deeds of his hand.
I want to know him.
I do care for his actions.
My soul would sit down and admire those
masterly works of holy art, his miracles of
humiliation, of suffering, of patience and of holy
charity, but better far I love the hands
which wrought these masterworks, the lips which spoke
these goodly words, and the heart which heaved
with that matchless love which was the cause
of all.
Yes, beloved, we must get farther than Immanuel's
achievements, however glorious we must come to know
him.
Most believers rest perfectly at ease with knowing
Christ's sacrifice.
They see Jesus as the great high priest,
laying a great sacrifice upon the altar for
their sins, and with their whole heart they
accept his atonement.
By faith they know that all their sin
is taken away by precious blood.
This is a most blessed and hallowed attainment
I will grant you, but it is not
every Christian who perceives that Christ was not
only the offerer of a sacrifice but was
himself the sacrifice and therefore loves him as
such.
Priest, altar, victim, everything Christ was.
He gathers up all in himself, and when
I see that he loved me and gave
himself for me, it is not enough to
know this fact.
I want to know him, the glorious person
who does and is all this.
I want to know the man who thus
gave himself for me.
I want to behold the lamb once slain
for me.
I want to rest upon the bosom which
covers the heart which was pierced with the
spear.
I pray him to kiss me with the
kisses of that mouth which cried Eloi, Eloi,
I love Calvary, the scene of woe, but
I love Christ better, the great object of
that agony, and even his cross and all
his sufferings, dear though these must ever be
to the Christian mind, only occupying a second
place.
The first seat is for himself, his person,
his deity, and humanity.
Thus, you see, we have to leave a
great many believers behind.
Nor have we enumerated all, for I believe
that even some of those saints who have
received grace to look for the coming of
Christ, yet in their vision of his coming
too much forget him.
Is it not possible for me to pant
for the second advent as to lose sight
of him who is to make that advent?
So to long for a millennium that I
may forget him who is to reign king
of kings?
So to pant after that glory of Israel
that I may forget him who is Israel's
glory?
Anywhere short of knowing him, I would not
have you stop, beloved.
And even when you know him, I would
urge you still to be impelled with the
same desire and to press forward, crying with
the apostle that I may know him.
Beloved, how many there are who have heard
of Christ and read about Christ, and that
is enough for them.
But it is not enough for me, and
it should not be enough for you.
The apostle did not say, I have heard
of him on whom I have believed, but
I know whom I have believed.
To hear about Christ may damn you.
It may be a savour of death unto
death to you.
You have heard of him with the ear,
but it is essential that you know him
in order that you may be partakers of
eternal life.
My dear hearers, be not content unless you
have this as your soul's present portion.
Others there are who have been persuaded by
the judgment and encouragement of others that they
know something about the great Redeemer.
They do not know him, but still they
are persuaded by others that they have an
interest in him.
Let me warn you of second-hand spirituality.
It is a rotten soul deceiving deception.
Beware of all esteeming yourself according to the
thoughts of others, or you will be ruined.
Another man's opinion of me may have great
influence over me.
I have heard of a man in perfectly
good health, killed by the opinion of others.
Several of his friends had foolishly agreed to
play him a practical trick, whereupon one of
them met him and said, How ill you
look this morning.
He did not feel so.
He was very much surprised at the remark.
When he met the next, who said to
him, Oh dear, how bad you look, he
began to think there might be something in
it.
And as he turned smart round the corner,
a third person said to him, What a
sight you are, how altered from what you
used to be.
He went home ill.
He took to his bed and died.
So goes the story, and I should not
marvel if it really did occur.
Now, if such might be the effect of
persuasion and supposed belief in the sickness of
a man, how much more readily may men
be persuaded into the idea of spiritual health.
A believer meets you and by his treatment
seems to say, I welcome you as a
dear brother and means it too.
You are baptized and you are received into
church fellowship.
And so everybody thinks that you must be
a follower of Christ, and yet you may
not know him.
Oh, I do pray you do not be
satisfied with being persuaded into something like an
assurance that you are in him, but do
know him, know him for yourself.
There are many who I hope will be
saved there long, but I am in great
doubt of them because they can only say
they half think they know Christ.
They do not quite believe in him, but
they do not disbelieve in him.
They hold between two opinions.
Our dear here, that is a very dangerous
place to stand in.
The borderland is the devil's hunting ground.
Undecided souls are fair game for the great
fowler.
God give you once for all the true
decision by which through grace you shall know
him.
Do not be satisfied with thinking you know
him, hoping you know him, but know him.
Oh, it is nothing to have heard about
him, to have talked about him, to have
eaten and have drank with him, to have
preached him, or even to have wrought miracles
in his name, to have been charmed by
his eloquence, to have been stirred with the
story of his love, to have been moved
to imitate him.
This shall nothing avail you unless you win
him and are found in him.
Seek with the apostle to give up everything
of your own righteousness and all other objects
and aims in life and say, this I
seek after that I may know him.
Thus much then on the first point, leaving
those behind who do not know him, let
us make an advance.
Secondly, let us draw curtain after curtain, which
shall admit us to know more of Christ.
Did you ever visit the manufacturer of splendid
porcelain at Sevres?
I have done so.
If anybody should say to me, do you
know the manufacturer at Sevres?
I would say, yes, I do.
And no, I do not.
I know it for I've seen the building,
I've seen the rooms in which the articles
are exhibited for sale, and I've seen the
museum and model room.
But I do not know the factory as
I would like to know it, for I've
not seen the process of manufacture and have
not been admitted into the workshops as some
are.
Suppose I had seen, however, the process of
the moulding of the clay and the laying
on of the rich designs, if anybody should
still say to me, do you know how
they manufacture those wonderful articles?
I should very likely still be compelled to
say, no, I do not, because there are
certain secrets, certain private rooms into which neither
friend nor foe can be admitted, lest the
process should be open to the world.
And so, you see, I might say I
knew and yet might not half know.
And when I half knew, still there would
be so much left that I might be
compelled to say I do not know how
many different ways there are of knowing a
person.
And even so, there are all these different
ways of knowing Christ, so that you may
keep on all your lifetime still wishing to
get into another room and another room near
and near to the great secret, still panting
to know him.
Good Rutherford says, I urge upon you a
near communion with Christ and a growing communion.
There are curtains to be drawn by in
Christ that we never shot and new foldings
in love with him.
I despair that ever I shall win to
the far end of that love.
There are so many plies in it.
Therefore, dig deep and set by as much
time in the day for him as you
can.
He will be won by labor.
To begin with, we know a person when
we recognize him.
You know the queen?
Well, I do.
I recollect seeing her.
And if I were to see any quantity
of ladies, I think I should know which
was the queen and which was not.
You may say honestly that you know her
to that extent.
Beloved, every Christian must, in this sense, know
Christ.
You must know him by a divine illumination
so as to know who he is and
what he is.
When Jesus said to Simon Peter, whom sayest
thou that I am?
He said, Thou art the Christ, the son
of the living God.
And the Lord replied, Blessed art thou, Simon
Barjonas, for flesh and blood have not revealed
this unto thee.
It is an early step in this knowledge
of Christ to know and to believe that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to know that Christ
is God, divine to me, that Christ is
man, brother to me, bone of my bone
and flesh of my flesh, that as such
he is a sin subduing savior, that he
is for me an intercessor pleading before the
throne, my prophet, priest and king.
In this sense, I trust that most of
you know him.
If you do not, breathe this silent prayer
now.
Lord, help me that I may know him.
But this knowledge of recognition is comparatively a
low attainment, one of the lowest rounds of
the ladder of light.
In the second place, a believer knows Christ
to a higher degree when he knows him
by practical experimental acquaintance with what he does.
For instance, I know Christ as a cleanser.
They tell me he is a refiner, that
he cleanses from spots.
He has washed me in his precious blood,
and to that extent I know him.
They tell me that he clothes the naked.
He hath covered me with a garment of
righteousness, and to that extent I know him.
They tell me that he is a breaker,
and that he breaks fetters.
He has set my soul at liberty, and
therefore I know him.
They tell me that he is a king,
and that he reigns over sin.
He hath subdued my enemies beneath his feet,
and I know him in that character.
They tell me he is a shepherd.
I know him, for I am his sheep.
They say he is a door.
I have entered in through him, and I
know him as a door.
They say he is food.
My spirit feeds on him as on the
bread of heaven, and therefore I know him
as such.
You know, if anyone says, do you know
Dr. So-and-so?
It is a very satisfactory answer if you
can reply, oh yes, I know him, for
he attended me the last time that I
was ill.
There is more knowledge in that than if
you could only say, oh yes, I know
him, he wears such and such a hat,
or he is a man of such and
such an appearance.
And so, Christian, this is a second and
higher step to know Christ, because you have
experienced in your own soul that he is
just what God has revealed him to be.
For we know a man in a better
sense than this, when we are on speaking
terms with him.
Do you know So-and-so?
Yes, you say, I not only know him
by name so as to recognize him, I
not only know him as a tradesman having
dealt with him, but I know him because
when we pass each other in the morning,
we exchange a word or two.
And if I had anything to say upon
matters, any request to make, I should feel
no difficulty about asking him.
Well now, the Christian knows his Lord in
this sense.
He has every day official communication with Christ.
He is on speaking terms with him.
There may be persons here perhaps who know
the Queen in a sense in which I
do not know her.
Perhaps they speak to her.
They have so done.
I have never done that.
They go beyond me there.
But you see, dear friends, this is not
a very great thing, because you may be
on speaking terms with a man, but you
may not know much of him for all
that.
So you may be in the habit of
daily prayer, and you may talk with Christ
every morning and every evening, and you may
know exceedingly little of him.
You are on speaking terms with him, but
there is something beyond this, very far beyond
this.
As I might say that I know a
man merely because I meet him every day
and ask him for what I want and
understand that he is kind and generous.
But how shallow is such an acquaintance, for
I do not know his private character nor
his inward heart.
Even so, a believer may have constant dealings
with Christ in his prayers and in his
praises, and yet for all that he may
have only gone a certain distance and may
have need still to pray that I may
know him.
But you are said to know a person
better still when he invites you to his
house.
At Christmas time there is a family party
in a romp, and he asks you there,
and you are one of the children and
enter into all their sports around the fireside,
and you indulge as they do in the
genialities of social life.
You are asked again.
You go there pretty often.
In fact, if there is a happy evening
in that house, they generally expect to see
friends so and so there.
Well now, that is better.
We are getting now into something like knowing
a man, and I do trust there are
many of you, beloved, who have got as
far as this with regard to your divine
Lord.
Christ has entertained you with some rare visits
from his gracious presence.
He brought you into the banqueting house, and
his banner over you was love.
When he manifested himself, he did it unto
you as he did not unto the world.
He was pleased in the majesty of his
condescension to take you aside and show you
his hands and his side.
He called you friend.
He treated you as such and permitted you
to enjoy the sweets of being one of
the family.
Ah, but you may go into a man's
house as a constant visitor, and yet you
may not know him.
That is to say, not in the highest
sense.
You speak to the man's wife and say,
Your husband is a marvelously charming man.
What a cheerful, joyful, spirited man he is.
He never seems to have any depressions of
spirit and experiences no changes whatever.
She shakes her head and she says, Ah,
you do not know him.
You do not know him as I do,
because she sees him at all times and
at all hours.
She can read the very heart of the
man.
That Christian has grown much in grace, who
has advanced not only to be the friend
of Christ, having occasional fellowship with him, but
who comes to recognize his marriage union with
the person of his Lord, and of whom
it can be said, The secret of the
Lord is with him that fear him, and
he will show them his covenant.
Now we have the intimacy of love with
its perfect frankness, nearness, sweetness, joyousness, delight.
The rending away of every separating veil makes
the communion to be as near as it
well can be this side the black river.
But a Christian may get farther than this.
Even the spouse may not know her husband.
The most loving wife who ever entered into
the cares of her husband must have discovered
that there is something which separates his experience
from her powers of comprehension.
Luther's wife, Catherine, was of all women, the
wife for Luther.
But there were times in Luther's gigantic tribulations
when he must leave Kate behind.
There were extraordinary times with him, times both
of ecstatic joy when, like a great angel,
he stretched his mighty wings and flew right
up to heaven, and of awful misery when
he seemed to sink down to the very
depths of hell, and in either case no
other heart could keep pace with him.
Then it was himself alone who had communion
with himself.
And a Christian may so grow in grace
as to become identified with Christ, a member
of his body, not so much married to
him as a part of him, a member
of the great body of Christ, so that
he suffers with Christ, sympathizes with Jesus, his
heart beating to the same dolorous tune, his
veins swollen with the same floods of grief,
or else his sparkling with that same gleam
of joy according to the master's word, that
my joy might remain in you and that
your joy might be full.
Well, have not you waited out of your
depth, some of you?
I have certainly got out of my own.
I feel as if the master might come
on to this platform, look round on many
of us, and say, Have I been so
long time with you, and yet hast thou
not known me, Philip?
For truly, even in the minor sense, though
I trust we are saved, though we have
believed in Jesus, yet we have not reached
the height of this great text, that I
may know him.
Having taken you so far, let us sit
down a few minutes and consider what sort
of knowledge this knowledge of Christ is, that
I may know him.
Then it is clear if I know him,
I shall have a very vivid sense of
his personality, that I may know him.
He will not be to me a myth,
a vision, a spirit, but a person, a
real solid person, as much real as I
am myself or as my dearest friend can
be to me.
My soul never be satisfied with a shadowy
Christ.
My heart be thou never content until he
hath embraced thy soul and proved to thee
that he is the lover of his people.
This knowledge, then, must be a knowledge of
him in his personality.
Then, beloved, it must be a personal knowledge
on our part.
I cannot know Christ through another person's brains.
I cannot love him with another man's heart,
and I cannot see him with another man's
eyes.
Heaven's delight is mine eyes shall see him
and not another.
These eyes shall behold the King in his
beauty.
Well, beloved, if this be heaven, we certainly
cannot do without a personal sight of Christ
here.
I am so afraid of living in a
second-hand religion.
God forbid that I should get a biographical
experience.
Lord, save us from having borrowed communion.
No, I must know him myself.
Oh, God, let me not be deceived in
this.
I must know him without fancy or proxy.
I must know him on my own account.
Then, these few thoughts upon what sort of
knowledge we must have.
It must be an intelligent knowledge.
I must know him.
I must know his natures, divine and human.
I must know his offices.
I must know his attributes.
I must know his works.
I must know his shame.
I must know his glory, for I do
not know him if it be merely a
subject of passion and not of intellect.
I must let my head consciously meditate upon
him until I get something like an idea
of him that I may comprehend with all
saints what is the breadth and length and
depth and height, and to know the love
of Christ which passeth knowledge.
Then I must have an affectionate knowledge of
him.
And indeed, if I do know him at
all, I must love him.
As it is said of some men that
there is such a charm about them that
if once you get into their company you
cannot criticize any longer but must admire, and
so you feel with Christ.
It is said of Garibaldi that if you
are in a society he charms all so
that even malice and slander must be silent
in his presence.
Infinitely supremely so is it with Christ.
Being near him, his love warms our hearts
till we glow with intense love to him.
Then I shall find, if I know Christ,
that this is a satisfying knowledge.
When I know Christ, my mind will be
full to the brim.
I shall feel that I have found that
which my spirit passeth after.
This is that bread whereof if a man
eat he shall never hunger.
At the same time, it is an exciting
knowledge.
The more I know of Christ, the more
I shall want to know.
The deeper I plunge, the greater the deeps
which will be revealed.
The higher I climb, the loftier will be
the summits which invite my eager footsteps.
I shall want the more as I get
the more.
My spiritual thirst will increase, though in another
sense it will be entirely quenched.
And this knowledge of Christ will be a
most happy one.
In fact, so happy that sometimes it will
completely bear me up above all trials and
doubts and sorrows.
And it will, while I enjoy it, make
me something more than man that is born
of a woman who is a few days
and full of trouble.
For it will fling about me the immortality
of the ever-living Savior and gird me
with the golden girdle of His eternal happiness.
To be near to Christ is to be
near to the pearly gates of the golden
-streeted city.
Say not, Jerusalem, my happy home, my labors
have an end in thee.
But say, Jesus, thou art my rest, and
when I have thee my spirit is at
peace.
I might thus keep on speaking in praise
of this knowledge, but I will not.
Only permit me to say, what a refreshing,
what a sanctifying knowledge is this to know
Him.
When the Laodicean church was neither hot nor
cold, but lukewarm, how did Christ seek her
revival?
Did He send her precious doctrines?
Did He send her excellent precepts?
Mark you, He came Himself.
For thus it is said, Behold, I stand
at the door and knock.
If any man hear my voice and open
the door, I will come into him, and
will sup with him, and he with me.
That is a cure for it all, you
see.
No matter how lukewarm, though God may say
I will spew thee out of my mouth,
yet if Christ comes, that is the cure.
The presence of Christ with His church puts
away all her sicknesses.
When the disciples of Christ were at sea
in a storm, do you recollect how He
comforted them?
Did He send them an angel?
No, it is I.
Be not afraid.
And when they knew Him, then they had
no more fears.
They were assembled one night, the doors being
shut for fear of the Jews.
How did He comfort them?
Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them
and said, Peace be unto you.
There was Thomas full of doubts and fears.
How did Jesus Christ take away his doubts?
Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands,
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it
into my side.
Oh, it is Christ who cures all.
The company of Christ is the only thing
which a Christian wants.
I will undertake that if his heart be
like an iceberg, as soon as Jesus comes,
it shall flame like Vesuvius.
His spirit shall be dead and like a
rotten corpse, but if Jesus comes, he shall
leap like a horse and become strong as
a young unicorn.
Thy presence makes me like the chariots of
a minidab.
Now do not think I am talking what
I do not know.
And do not imagine that I am talking
mere fanatical slip-slop which I cannot prove.
I do assert, and God who searcheth all
hearts knows how true this is, I do
assert that from the depths of doubt, of
dullness, of worldliness, I have leaped in one
moment into love and life and holy enthusiasm
when Jesus Christ has manifested Himself unto me.
I cannot describe the difference between my spirit
waterlogged, worm-eaten, ready to sink to the
bottom without Christ, and that same spirit like
a strong-stanched ship with sails full with
favourable winds speeding into harbour with a golden
freight, like yon poor little bird which some
cruel boy is torn from the nest and
almost killed.
It is not fledged yet and cannot fly,
and it lies down to die, trampled in
the mire in the streets.
That is my heart without Christ.
But see that other bird, the caged door
is opened, its wings vibrate, it sings with
all its might and flies up to talk
with the sun.
That is my heart when I have the
conscious presence of my Lord Jesus Christ.
I only bring in my own consciousness because
I do not know yours.
But I think I will now venture to
say that every believer here will admit it
is the same with him.
Midst darkest shades, if he appear, my dawning
is begun.
He is my soul's bright morning star, and
he my rising sun.
I shall close by urging you, dearly beloved,
who know the Lord, to take this desire
of the Apostle and by exhorting you, make
it your own that I may know him.
I wish I had time this morning.
Time will fly.
I wish I had time to urge and
press you believers onward to seek to know
him.
Paul, you see, gave up everything for this.
You will be seeking what is worth having.
There can be no mistake about this.
If Paul will renounce all, there must be
a reward which is worthy of the sacrifice.
If you have any fears, if you seek
Christ and find him, they will be removed.
You complain that you do not feel the
guilt of sin, that you cannot humble yourself
enough.
The sight of Christ is the very best
means of setting sin in its true colors.
There is no repenting like that which comes
from a look of Christ's eye.
The Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and
he went out and wept bitterly.
So, it is not a sight of the
law.
It is the sight of Christ looking upon
us which will break our hearts.
There is nothing like this to fill you
with courage.
When Dr. Andrew Reid found some difficulties in
the founding of one of his orphan asylums,
he sat down and he drew upon a
little piece of paper the cross, and then
he said to himself, What?
Despair in the face of the cross?
And then he drew a ring round the
cross and wrote in it, Nil Desperandum, and
took it for his coat of arms.
Oh, there cannot be any despair in the
presence of the cross.
Thou dying Lamb, didst thou endare the cross,
despising the shame?
And shall I talk of difficulties when thy
glory is in the way?
God forbid!
O holy face, bedewed with bloody sweat, I
pledge myself in thy solemn and awful presence
that though this face of mine should be
bedewed with sweat of the like sort, to
accomplish any labor upon which thou shalt put
me, by thy will and in thy strength
I will not shrink back from the task.
A sight of Christ, brethren, will keep you
from despondency and doubts and despair.
A sight of Christ!
How shall I stir you to it?
It will fire you to duty.
It will deliver you from temptation.
It will, in fact, make you like him.
A man is known by his company, and
if you have become acquainted with Christ and
know him, you will be sure to reflect
his light.
It is because the moon hath converse with
the sun that she hath any light for
this dark world's night.
And if you talk with Christ the sun,
he will shine on you so gloriously that
you, like the moon, shall reflect his light,
and the dark night of this world shall
be enlightened by your radiance.
And the Lord help us to know him.
But I do seem this morning to have
been talking to you about him, and not
to have brought him forward.
O, that I knew how to introduce you
to him!
You who do not love him!
O, that I could make you seek after
him!
But you who do love him and have
trusted in him!
O, that I could make you hunger and
thirst until you were filled with him!
There he is, nailed to his cross, suffering.
O, how much for you!
There he is, risen, ascended, pleading before the
throne of God for you.
Here he is, lo, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world.
Here he is, waiting to be comforted with
your company, desiring communion with you, panting that
his sister, his spouse, would be no longer
a stranger to him.
Here he is, waiting to be gracious, saying,
Come unto me, all ye that labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest.
Come, Christian, come, let this be thy desire,
that I may know him.
And you who do not know him, and
have not loved him, I pray you, breathe
this prayer with me.
Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.
O sinner, he is a gentle Christ, he
is a loving Saviour, and they that seek
him early shall find him.
May you seek and find him for his
name's sake.
Amen.