The Prince of Preachers Charles
Haddon Spurgeon has been called England's greatest contribution
to the spread of the gospel in the
19th century.
One of his contemporaries said that the chief
secret of Spurgeon's attractiveness was the fact that
in every sermon, no matter what the text
or the occasion, he explained the way of
salvation in simple terms.
Spurgeon's messages remain one of the great treasure
houses of Christian literature, still bringing the light
of the gospel and the comfort of the
scriptures to hungry souls long after the preacher
has passed into glory.
This is Charles Kelch inviting you to listen
to a message from the Prince of Preachers.
Prince of Preachers C.H. Spurgeon preached this
message on September 19th, 1858, in the music
hall of the Royal Surrey Gardens.
It is entitled, His Name Wonderful.
The text is found in Isaiah chapter 9
and verse 6.
His name shall be called Wonderful.
One evening last week I stood by the
seashore when the storm was raging.
The voice of the Lord was upon the
waters, and who was I that I should
tarry within doors when my Master's voice was
heard sounding along the water?
I rose and stood to behold the flash
of His lightnings and listened to the glory
of His thunders.
The sea and the thunders were contesting with
one another, the sea with infinite clamor striving
to hush the deep-throated thunder so that
His voice should not be heard.
Yet over and above the roar of the
billows might be heard that voice of God
as He spake with flames of fire and
divided the way for the waters.
It was a dark night, and the sky
was covered with thick clouds, and scarce a
star could be seen through the rifts of
the tempest.
But at one particular time I noticed far
away on the horizon, as if miles across
the water, a bright shining like gold.
It was the moon hidden behind the clouds
so that she could not shine upon us,
but she was able to send her rays
down upon the waters far away where no
cloud happened to intervene.
I thought as I read this chapter last
evening that the Prophet seemed to have stood
in a light position when he wrote the
words of my text.
All round about him were clouds of darkness.
He heard prophetic thunders roaring, and he saw
flashes of the lightnings of divine vengeance.
Clouds and darkness were many a league were
scattered through history.
But he saw far away a bright spot,
one place where the clear shining came down
from heaven.
And he sat down, and he penned these
words.
The people that walked in darkness have seen
a great light.
They that dwell in the land of the
shadow of death, upon them hath the light
shined.
And though he looked through whole leagues of
space where he saw the battle of the
warrior with confused noise and garments rolled in
blood, yet he fixed his eye upon one
bright spot in futurity, and he declared that
there he saw hope of peace, prosperity, and
blessedness.
For, said he, unto us a child is
born, and unto us a son is given.
And the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called Wonderful.
My dear friends, we live today upon the
verge of that bright spot.
The world has been passing through these clouds
of darkness, and the light is gleaming on
us now like the glintings of the first
rays of morning.
We are coming to a brighter day, and
at evening time it shall be light.
The clouds and darkness shall be rolled up
as a mantle that God needs no longer,
and he shall appear in his glory, and
his people shall rejoice with him.
But you must mark that all the brightness
was the result of this child born, this
son given, whose name is called Wonderful.
And if we can discern any brightness in
our own hearts or in the world's history,
it can come from nowhere else than from
the one who is called Wonderful, Counselor, the
mighty God.
The person spoken of in our text is
undoubtedly the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is a child born with reference to
his human nature.
He is born of the Virgin, a child.
But he is a son given with reference
to his divine nature, being given as well
as born.
Of course, the Godhead could not be born
of woman.
That was from everlasting and is too everlasting.
As a child he was born, as a
son he was given.
The government is upon his shoulder, and his
name shall be called Wonderful.
Beloved, there are a thousand things in this
world that are called by names that do
not belong to them.
But in entering upon my text, I must
announce at the very opening that Christ is
called Wonderful because he is so.
God the Father never gave his son a
name which he did not deserve.
There is no panegyric here, no flattery.
It is just the simple name that he
deserves.
They that know him best will say that
the word doth not overstrain his merits, but
rather falleth infinitely short of his glorious deserving.
His name is called Wonderful.
And Mark, it does not merely say that
God has given him the name of Wonderful,
though that is implied, but his name shall
be called so.
It shall be.
It is at this time called Wonderful by
all his believing people, and it shall be.
As long as the moon endureth, there shall
be found men and angels and glorified spirits
who shall always call him by his right
name.
His name shall be called Wonderful.
I find that this name may bear two
or three interpretations.
The word is sometimes in Scripture translated marvellous.
Jesus Christ may be called marvellous.
And a learned German interpreter says that without
doubt the meaning of miraculous is also wrapped
up in it.
Christ is the marvel of marvels, the miracle
of miracles.
His name shall be called miraculous, for he
is more than a man.
He is God's highest miracle.
Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh.
It may also mean separated or distinguished.
And Jesus Christ may well be called this.
For as Saul was distinguished from all men,
being head and shoulders taller than they, so
is Christ distinguished above all men.
He is anointed with the oil of gladness
above his fellows.
And in his character and in his acts,
he is infinitely separated from all comparison with
any of the sons of men.
Thou art fairer than the children of men.
Grace is poured into thy lips.
He is the chief among ten thousand and
altogether lovely.
His name shall be called the Separated One,
the Distinguished One, the Noble One.
Set apart from the common race of mankind.
We shall, however, this morning keep to the
old version and simply read it thus.
His name shall be called wonderful.
And first I shall notice that Jesus Christ
deserveth to be called wonderful for what he
was in the past.
Secondly, that he is called wonderful by all
his people for what he is in the
present.
And in the third place, that he shall
be called wonderful for what he shall be
in the future.
First, Christ shall be called wonderful for what
he was in the past.
Gather up your thoughts, my brethren, for a
moment and center them all on Christ, and
you will soon see how wonderful he is.
Consider his eternal existence, begotten of his father
from before all worlds, being of the same
substance with his father.
Begotten, not made, co-equal, co-eternal in
every attribute, very God of very God.
For a moment remember that he who became
an infant of a span long was no
less than the King of the ages, the
everlasting Father who was from eternity and is
to be to all eternity.
The divine nature of Christ is indeed wonderful.
Just think for a moment how much interest
clusters round the life of an old man.
Those of us who are but as children
in years look up to him with wonder
and astonishment as he tells us the varied
stories of the experience through which he has
passed.
But what is the life of an aged
man?
How brief it appears when compared with the
life of the tree that shelters him.
It existed long before that old man's father
crept a helpless infant into the world.
How many storms have swept over its brow?
How many kings have come and gone?
How many empires have risen and fallen since
that old oak was slumbering in its acorn
cradle?
But what is the life of the tree
compared with the soil on which it grows?
What a wonderful story that soil might tell!
What changes it has passed through in all
the eras of time that have elapsed since
in the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth!
There is a wonderful story connected with every
atom of black mold which furnishes the nourishment
of the oak.
But what is the history of that soil
compared with the marvelous history of the rock
on which it rests, the cliff on which
it lifts its head?
Oh, what stories might it tell!
What records it hides within its bowels!
Perhaps it could tell the story of the
time when the earth was without form and
void and darkness was upon the face of
the earth.
Perhaps it might speak and tell us of
those days when the morning and the evening
were the first day and the morning and
the evening were the second day, and could
explain to us the mysteries of how God
made this marvelous piece of miracle the world.
But what is the history of the cliff
compared with that of the sea that rolls
at its base, that deep blue ocean over
which a thousand navies have swept without leaving
a furrow upon its brow?
But what is the history of the sea
compared with the history of the heavens that
are stretched like a curtain over that vast
basin?
What a history is that of the hosts
of heaven, of the everlasting marches of the
sun, moon, and stars!
Who can tell their generation, or who can
write their biography?
But what is the history of the heavens
compared with the history of the angels?
They could tell you of the day when
they saw this world wrapped in the swaddling
bands of mist, when, like a newborn infant,
the last of God's offspring, it came forth
from him, and when the morning stars sang
together and the sons of God shouted for
joy.
But what is the history of the angels
that excel in strength compared with the history
of the Lord Jesus Christ?
The angel is but of yesterday, and he
knoweth nothing.
Christ, the Eternal One, chargeth even his angels
with folly, and looks upon them as his
ministering spirits that come and go at his
good pleasure.
O Christians, gather with reverence and mysterious awe
around the throne of him who is your
great Redeemer.
For his name is called Wonderful, since he
has existed before all things, and by him
all things were made, and without him was
not anything made that was made.
Consider again the incarnation of Christ, and you
will rightly say that his name deserveth to
be called Wonderful.
O what is that I see?
O world of wonders, what is that I
see?
The Eternal of ages, whose hair is white
like wool, as white as snow, becomes an
infant.
Can it be?
Ye angels, are ye not astonished?
He becomes an infant, hangs at a virgin's
breast, draws his nourishment from the breast of
a woman.
O wonder of wonders, manger of Bethlehem, thou
hast miracles poured into thee.
This is a sight that surpasses all others.
Talk ye of the sun, moon, and stars.
Consider ye the heavens, the work of God's
fingers, the moon and the stars that he
hath ordained.
But all the wonders of the universe shrink
into nothing when we come to the mystery
of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was a marvelous thing when Joshua bade
the sun to stand still, but more marvelous
when God seemed to stand still and no
longer to move forward, but rather, like the
sun upon the dial of Ahaz, did go
back ten degrees and veil his splendor in
a cloud.
There have been sights matchless and wonderful at
which we might look for years and yet
turn away and say, I cannot understand this.
Here is a deep into which I dare
not dive.
My thoughts are drowned.
This is a steep without a summit.
I cannot climb it.
It is high.
I cannot attain it.
But all these things are as nothing compared
with the incarnation of the Son of God.
I do believe that the very angels have
never wondered but once, and that has been
incessantly ever since they first beheld it.
They never cease to tell the astonishing story
and to tell it with increasing astonishment, too,
that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was
born of the Virgin Mary and became a
man.
Is he not rightly called wonderful, infinite and
an infant, eternal and yet born of a
woman, almighty and yet hanging on a woman's
breast, supporting the universe and yet needing to
be carried in a mother's arms, king of
angels and yet the reputed son of Joseph,
heir of all things and yet the carpenter's
despised son, wonderful art thou, O Jesus, and
that shall be thy name for ever.
But trace the Saviour's course, and all the
way He is wonderful.
Is it not marvelous that He submitted to
the taunts and jeers of His enemies, that
for a long life He should allow the
bulls of Bastion to gird Him round and
the dogs to encompass Him?
Is it not surprising that He should have
bridled His anger when blasphemy was uttered against
His sacred person?
Had you or I been possessed of His
matchless might, we should have dashed our enemies
down the brow of the hill if they
had sought to cast us there.
We should never have submitted to shame and
spitting.
No, we should have looked upon them and
with one fierce look of wrath have dashed
their spirits into eternal torment.
But He hears it all, keeps in His
noble spirit the lion of the tribe of
Judah, but bearing still the lamb-like character
of the humble man before his foes, a
weary man and full of woes.
I do believe that Jesus of Nazareth was
the King of heaven, and yet He was
a poor, despised, persecuted, slandered man.
But while I believe it, I never can
understand it.
I bless Him for it, I love Him
for it, I desire to praise His name
while immortality endures, for His infinite condescension in
thus suffering for me.
But to understand it, I can never pretend.
His name must all His life long be
called Wonderful.
But see Him die.
Come, O my brothers, ye children of God,
and gather round the cross.
See your Master.
There He hangs.
Can you understand this riddle?
God was manifest in the flesh and crucified
of men.
My Master, I cannot understand how Thou couldst
stoop Thine awful head to such a death
as this, how Thou couldst take from Thy
brow the coronet of stars which from old
eternity had shone resplendent there.
But how Thou shouldst permit the thorn crown
to gird Thy temples astonishes me far more.
That Thou shouldst cast away the mantle of
Thy glory, the azure of Thine everlasting empire,
I cannot comprehend.
But how Thou shouldst have become veiled in
the ignominious purple for a while and then
be bowed to by envious men who mocked
Thee as a pretended king!
And how Thou shouldst be stripped naked to
Thy shame without a single covering!
This is still more incomprehensible.
Truly, Thy name is Wonderful.
O, Thy love to me is wonderful, passing
the love of women!
Was ever grief like Thine?
Was ever love like Thine that could open
the floodgates of such grief?
Thy grief is like a river.
But was there ever a spring that poured
out such a torrent?
Was ever love so mighty as to become
the fount from which such an ocean of
grief could come rolling down?
Here is matchless love, matchless love that could
make him suffer, matchless power to enable him
to endure all the weight of his father's
wrath.
Here is matchless justice that he himself should
acquiesce in his father's will and not allow
men to be saved without his own sufferings.
Here is matchless mercy to the chief of
sinners that Christ should suffer even for them.
His name shall be called Wonderful.
But he died.
He died!
See, Salem's daughters weep around.
Joseph of Arimathea takes up the lifeless body
after it has been taken down from the
cross.
They bury it away to the sepulcher.
It is put in a garden.
Do you call him Wonderful now?
Is this the Savior long foretold to usher
in the Age of Gold?
And is he dead?
Lift up his hands.
They drop motionless by his side.
His foot exhibits still the nail print, but
there is no mark of life.
Aha!
cries the Jew.
Is this the Messiah?
He is dead.
He shall see corruption in a little space
of time.
O watchman, keep good ward, lest his disciples
steal his body.
His body never can come forth unless they
do steal it, for he is dead.
Is this the Wonderful, the Counselor?
But God did not leave his soul in
Hades, nor did he suffer his body, his
holy one, to see corruption.
Yes, he is Wonderful, even in his death.
That clay-cold corpse is Wonderful.
Perhaps this is the greatest wonder of all,
that he who is death of death and
hell's destruction should for a while endure the
bonds of death.
But here is the wonder.
He could not be holden of those bonds.
Those chains which have held ten thousand of
the sons and daughters of Adam, and which
have never been broken yet by any man
of human mold, save by a miracle, were
but to him as green widths.
Death bound our Samson fast and said, I
have him now.
I have taken away the locks of his
strength.
His glory is departed, and now he is
mine.
But the hands that kept the human race
in chains were nothing to the Savior.
The third day he burst them, and he
rose again from the dead, from henceforth to
die no more.
O thou risen Savior, thou who could not
see corruption, thou art Wonderful in thy resurrection,
and thou art Wonderful too in thine ascension.
As I see thee leading captivity captive and
receiving gifts for men, his name shall be
called Wonderful.
Pause here one moment and let us think.
Christ is surpassingly wonderful.
The little story I have told you just
now, not little in itself, but little as
I have told it, has in it something
surpassingly wonderful.
All the wonders that you ever saw are
nothing compared with this.
As we have passed through various countries, we
have seen a wonder, and some older traveler
than ourselves has said, Yes, this is wonderful
to you, but I could show you something
that utterly eclipses that.
Though we have seen some splendid landscapes with
glorious hills, and we have climbed up where
the eagle seemed to knit the mountain and
the sky together in his flight, and we
have stood and looked down and said, How
wonderful!
said he, I have seen fairer lands than
these, and wider and richer prospects far.
But when we speak of Christ, none can
say they ever saw a greater wonder than
he is.
You have come now to the very summit
of everything that may be wondered at.
There are no mysteries equal to this mystery.
There is no surprise equal to this surprise.
There is no astonishment, no admiration that should
equal the astonishment and admiration that we feel
when we behold Christ in the glories of
the past.
He surpasses everything.
And yet again, wonder is a short-lived
emotion.
You know, it is proverbial that a wonder
grows gray-headed in nine days.
The longest period that a wonder is found
to last is about that time.
It is such a short-lived thing.
But Christ is and ever shall be wonderful.
You may think of him through threescore years
and ten, but you shall wonder at him
more at the end than at the beginning.
Abraham might wonder at him when he saw
his day in the distant future, but I
do not think that even Abraham himself could
wonder at Christ so much as the very
least in the kingdom of heaven today wonders
at him, seeing that we know more than
Abraham and therefore wonder more.
Think again for one moment and you will
say of Christ that he deserves to be
called wonderful not only because he is always
wonderful and because he is surpassingly wonderful, but
also because he is altogether wonderful.
There have been some great feats of skill
in the arts and sciences.
For instance, if we take a common wonder
of the day, the telegraph, how much there
is about that which is wonderful.
But there are a great many things in
the telegraph that we can understand.
Although there are a great many mysteries in
it, still there are parts of it that
are like keys to the mysteries, so that
if we cannot solve the little holy, yet
it is disrobed of some of the low
garments of its mystery.
But now if you look at Christ anyhow,
anywhere, any way, he is still all mystery.
He is altogether wonderful, always to be looked
at and always to be admired.
And again, he is universally wondered at.
They tell us that the religion of Christ
is very good for old women.
I was once complimented by a person who
told me he believed my preaching would be
extremely suitable for blacks, for negroes.
He did not intend it as a compliment,
but I replied, well, sir, if it is
suitable for blacks, I should think it would
be very suitable for whites, for there is
only a little difference of skin, and I
do not preach to people's skins, but to
their hearts.
Now of Christ we can say that he
is universally a wonder.
The strongest intellects have wondered at him.
Our Locke's and our Newton's have found themselves
to be as little children when they have
come to the foot of the cross.
The wonder has not been confined to ladies,
to children, to old women and dying men.
The highest intellects and the loftiest minds have
all wondered at Christ.
I am sure it is a difficult task
to make some people wonder.
Hard thinkers and close mathematicians are not easily
brought to wonder, but such men have covered
their faces with their hands and cast themselves
in the dust and have confessed that they
have been lost in wonder and amazement.
Well, then, may Christ be called wonderful.
His name shall be called wonderful.
He is wonderful for what he is in
the present, and here I will not diverge,
but will just appeal to you personally.
Is he wonderful to you?
Let me tell the story of my own
wonderment at Christ, and in telling it, I
shall be telling the experience of all God's
children.
There was a time when I wondered not
at Christ.
I heard of his beauties, but I had
never seen them.
I heard of his power, but it was
not to me.
It was but news of something done in
a far country.
I had no connection with it, and therefore
I observed it not.
But once upon a time, there came one
to my house of a black and terrible
aspect.
He smote the door.
I tried to bolt it, to hold it
fast.
He smote again and again till at last
he entered, and with a rough voice he
summoned me before him, and he said, I
have a message from God for thee.
Thou art condemned on account of thy sins.
I looked at him with astonishment.
I asked him his name.
He said, My name is the Law, and
I fell at his feet as one that
was dead.
I was alive without the Law once, but
when the commandment came, sin revived, and I
died.
As I lay there, he smote me.
He smote me till every rib seemed as
if it must break, and the bowels be
poured forth.
My heart was melted like wax within me.
I seemed to be stretched upon a rack,
to be pinched with hot irons, to be
beaten with whips of burning wire.
A misery extreme dwelt and reigned in my
heart.
I dared not lift up my eyes, but
I thought within myself, there may be hope,
there may be mercy for me.
Perhaps the God whom I have offended may
accept my tears and my promises of amendment,
and I may live.
But when that thought crossed me, heavier were
the blows and more poignant my sufferings than
before, till hope entirely failed me, and I
had not wherein to trust.
Darkness black and dense gathered round me.
I heard a voice, as it were, of
rushing to and fro, and of wailing and
gnashing of teeth.
I said within myself, I am cast out
from his sight.
I am utterly abhorred of God.
He hath trampled me in the mire of
the streets in his anger.
And there came one by, of sorrowful but
of loving aspect, and he stooped over me,
and he said, Awake, thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee light.
I arose in astonishment, and he took me,
and he led me to a place where
stood a cross, and he seemed to vanish
from my sight.
But he appeared again, hanging there.
I looked upon him as he bled upon
the tree.
His eyes darted a glance of love unutterable
into my spirit, and in a moment, looking
at him, the bruises that my soul had
suffered were healed.
The gaping wounds were cured.
The broken bones rejoiced.
The rags that had covered me were all
removed.
My spirit was white as the spotless snows
of the far-off north.
I had melody within my spirit, for I
was saved, washed, cleansed, forgiven through him that
did hang upon the tree.
Oh, how I wondered that I should be
pardoned!
It was not the pardon that I wondered
at so much.
The wonder was that it should come to
me.
I wondered that he should be able to
pardon such sins as mine, such crimes so
numerous and so black, and that after such
an accusing conscience he should have power to
still every wave within my spirit and make
my soul like the surface of a river,
undisturbed, quiet, and at ease.
His name then to my spirit was Wonderful.
But, brethren and sisters, if you have felt
this, you can say you thought him wonderful
then.
If you are feeling it, a sense of
adoring wonder enraptures your heart even now.
And has he not been wonderful to you
since that auspicious hour when first you heard
Mercy's voice spoken to you?
How often have you been in sadness, sickness,
and sorrow, but your pain has been light,
for Jesus Christ has been with you on
your sickbed.
Your care has been no care at all,
for you have been able to cast your
burden upon him.
The trial which threatened to crush you has
rather lifted you up to heaven, and you
have said, How wonderful that Jesus Christ's name
should have given me such comfort, such joy,
such peace, such confidence!
Various things bring to my recollection a period
now removed by the space of nearly two
years.
Never shall we forget, beloved, the judgments of
the Lord when by terrible things in righteousness
he answered our prayer that he would give
us success in this house.
We cannot forget how the people were scattered,
how some of the sheep were slain, and
the shepherd himself was smitten.
I may not have told in you hearing
the story of mine own woe.
Perhaps never so went so near the burning
furnace of insanity, and yet came away unharmed.
I have walked by that fire until these
locks seemed to be crisp with the heat
thereof.
My brain was racked.
I dared not look up to God, and
prayer that once was my solace was the
cause of my affright and terror if I
attempted it.
I shall never forget the time when I
first became restored to myself.
It was in the garden of a friend.
I was walking solitary and alone, musing upon
my misery, much cheered as that was by
the kindness of my loving friend, yet far
too heavy for my soul to bear, when
on a sudden the name of Jesus flashed
through my mind.
The person of Christ seemed visible to me.
I stood still.
The burning lava of my soul was cooled.
My agonies were hushed.
I bowed myself there, and the garden that
had seemed a Gethsemane became to me a
paradise.
And then it seemed so strange to me
that naught should have brought me back but
the name of Jesus.
I thought indeed at that time that I
should love Him better all the days of
my life.
But there were two things I wondered at.
I wondered that He should be so good
to me, and I wondered more that I
should have been so ungrateful to Him.
But His name has been from that time
wonderful to me, and I must record what
He has done for my soul.
And now, brothers and sisters, you shall all
find every day of your life, whatever your
trials and troubles, that He shall always be
made the more wonderful by them.
He sends your troubles to be like a
black foil, to make the diamond of His
name shine the brighter.
You would never know the wonders of God
if it were not that you find them
out in the furnace.
They that go down to the sea in
ships, that do business in great waters, these
see the works of the Lord and His
wonders in the deep.
And we shall never see the wonders of
God except in that deep.
We must go into the deeps before we
know how wonderful His power and His might
to save.
I must not leave this point without one
more remark.
There have been times when you and I
have said of Christ, His name is wonderful
indeed, for we have been by it transported
entirely above the world and carried upward to
the very gates of heaven itself.
I pity you, beloved, if you do not
understand the rhapsody I am about to use.
There are moments when the Christian feels the
charms of earth all broken and his wings
are loose and he begins to fly.
And up he soars till he forgets earth's
sorrows and leaves them far behind.
And up he goes till he forgets earth's
joys and leaves them like the mountaintops far
below as when the eagle flies to meet
the sun.
And up, up, up he goes with his
Saviour full before him, almost in vision beatific.
His heart is full of Christ.
His soul beholds his Saviour.
And the cloud that darkened his view of
the Saviour's face seems to be dispersed.
At such a time, the Christian can sympathize
with Paul.
He said, Whether in the body or out
of the body, I cannot tell.
God knoweth.
But I am, as it were, caught up
to the third heaven.
And how is it this rapture is produced?
By the music of flute, harp, sackcloth, psaltery,
and all kinds of instruments?
No.
How then?
By riches?
By fame?
By wealth?
Ha, no.
By a strong mind?
By a lively disposition?
No.
By the name of Jesus.
That one name is sufficient to lead the
Christian into heights of transport that verge upon
the region where the angels fly in cloudless
day.
I have no more time to stay upon
this point, although the text is infinite, and
one might preach upon it forever.
I have only to notice that his name
shall be called Wonderful in the future.
The day is come, the day of wrath,
the day of fire.
The ages are ended.
The last century, like the last pillar of
a dilapidated temple, has crumbled to its fall.
The clock of time is verging to its
last hour.
It is on the stroke.
The time is come when the things that
are made must disappear.
Lo, I see earth's bowels moving.
A thousand hillocks give up the slumbering dead.
The battlefields are clothed no more with the
rich harvests that have been manured with blood.
But a new harvest springs up.
The fields are thick with men.
The sea itself becomes a prolific mother, and
though she hath swallowed men alive, she gives
them up again, and they stand before God,
an exceeding great army.
Sinners, ye have risen from your tombs.
The pillars of heaven are reeling.
The sky is moving to and fro.
The sun, the eye of this great world,
is rolling like a maniac's and glaring with
dismay.
The moon that long has cheered the night
now makes the darkness terrible, for she is
turned into a clot of blood.
Portents, signs, and wonders past imagination make the
heavens shake and make men's hearts quail within
them.
Suddenly upon a cloud there comes one like
unto the Son of Man.
Sinners, picture your astonishment and your wonder when
you see him.
Where art thou, Voltaire?
Thou saidst, I will crush the wretch.
Come and crush him now.
Nay, saith Voltaire, he is not the man
I thought he was.
Oh, how will he wonder when he finds
out what Christ is?
Now, Judas, come and give him the traitor's
kiss.
Ah, nay, saith he, I knew not what
I kissed.
I thought I kissed only the Son of
Mary, but, lo, he is the everlasting God.
Now, ye kings and princes that stood up
and took counsel together against the Lord and
against his anointed, saying, Let us break his
bands asunder and cast his cords from us.
Come now, take counsel once more, rebel against
him now.
Oh, can ye picture the astonishment, the wonder,
the dismay, when careless, godless infidels and Socinians
find out what Christ is?
Oh, they will say, This is wonderful.
I thought not he was such as this.
While Christ shall say to them, Thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such as yourselves, but
I am no such thing.
I am come in all my Father's glory
to judge the quick and the dead.
Pharaoh led his host into the midst of
the Red Sea.
The path was dry and shining, and on
either shore stood like a wall of alabaster
the clear white water, stiff as with the
breath of frost, consolidated into marble.
There it stood.
Can you guess the astonishment and dismay of
the hosts of Pharaoh when they saw those
walls of water about to close upon them?
Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish!
Such will be your astonishment when Christ, whom
ye have despised today, Christ, whom ye would
not have to be your Savior, Christ, whose
Bible ye left unread, whose Sabbath you despised,
Christ, whose gospel you rejected, shall come in
the glory of His Father and all His
holy angels with Him.
Ay, then indeed will ye behold and wonder
and perish, and you shall say, His name
is wonderful.
But perhaps the most wonderful part of the
day of judgment is this.
Do you see all the horrors yonder, the
black darkness, the horrid night, the clashing comets,
the pale stars sickly and wan, falling like
figs from the fig tree?
Do you hear the cry, Rocks, hide us!
Mountains, on us fall!
Every battle of the warrior is with confused
noise.
But there never was a battle like this.
This is with fire and smoke indeed.
But do you see yonder?
All is peaceful, all serene and quiet.
The myriads of the redeemed, are they shrieking,
crying, wailing?
No.
See them!
They are gathering, gathering round the throne.
That very throne that seems to scatter, as
with a hundred hands, death and destruction on
the wicked, becomes the sun of light and
happiness to all believers.
Do you see them coming, robed in white,
with their bright wings?
While gathering round Him they veil their faces.
Do you hear them cry, Holy, Holy, Holy,
Lord God of hosts!
For Thou wast slain, and Thou hast risen
from the dead.
Worthy art Thou to live and reign, when
death itself is dead.
Do you hear them?
It is all song and no shriek.
Do you see them?
It is all joy and no terror.
His name to them is wonderful, but it
is the wonder of admiration, the wonder of
ecstasy, the wonder of affection, and not the
wonder of horror and dismay.
Saints of the Lord, ye shall know the
wonders of His name, when ye shall see
Him as He is, and shall be like
Him in the day of His appearing.
O my enraptured spirit, thou shalt bear thy
part in thy Redeemer's triumph.
Unworthy though thou art, the chief of sinners
and less than the least of saints, thine
eye shall see Him and not another.
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and when
He shall stand at the latter day upon
the earth, though worms devour this body, yet
in my flesh shall I see God.
O make yourselves ready, ye virgins.
Behold, the bridegroom cometh.
Arise and trim your lamps, and go ye
out to meet Him.
He comes, He comes, He comes, and when
He comes, you shall well say of Him
as you meet Him with joy, Thy name
is called Wonderful.
All hail!
This message, His Name, Wonderful, was preached by
Charles Haddon Spurgeon on September 19th, 1858.
This is Charles Kelsch inviting you to join
me again for another message from the Prince
of Preachers.