If your heart pants to read its title clear, it shall do so before long. No man ever desired Christ in his heart with a living and longing desire, who did not find him sooner or later. If you have a desire, God has given it to you. If you pant, and cry, and groan after Christ, even this is his gift; bless him for it. Thank him for little grace, and ask him for great grace. He has given you hope, ask for faith; and when he gives you faith, ask for assurance; and when you get assurance, ask for full assurance; and when you have obtained full assurance, ask for enjoyment; and when you have enjoyment, ask for glory itself; and he shall surely give it to you in his own appointed time.
19. III. Now to conclude I come with CONSOLATION. Is there anything here that can console me? Oh, yes, rivers of consolation flow from my calling. For, first, if I am called then I am predestinated, there is no doubt about it. The great scheme of salvation is like those chains which we sometimes see at horse ferries. There is a chain fixed to a post on this side of the river, and the same chain is fixed to a post on the other side, but most of the chain is under water, and you cannot see it: you only see it as the boat moves on, and as the chain is drawn out of the water by the force that propels the boat. If today I am enabled to say I am called, then my boat is like the ferry boat in the middle of the stream. I can see that part of the chain, which is named “calling,” but blessed be God, that is joined to the side that is called “election,” and I may be also quite clear that it is joined on to the other side, the glorious end of “glorification.” If I am called I must have been elected, and I need not doubt that. God never tantalized a man by calling him by grace effectually, unless he had written that man’s name in the Lamb’s book of life. Oh, what a glorious doctrine is that of election, when a man can see himself to be elect. One of the reasons why many men kick against it is this, they are afraid it harms them. I never knew a man yet, who had a reason to believe that he himself was chosen by God, who hated the doctrine of election. Men hate election just as thieves hate Chubb’s patent locks; because they cannot get at the treasure themselves, they therefore hate the guard which protects it. Now election shuts up the precious treasury of God’s covenant blessings for his children — for penitents, for seeking sinners. These men will not repent, will not believe; they will not go God’s way, and then they grumble and growl, and fret, and fume, because God has locked the treasure up against them. Let a man once believe that all the treasure within is his, and then the stouter the bolt, and the surer the lock, the better for him. Oh, how sweet it is to believe our names were on Jehovah’s heart, and engraven on Jesus’ hands before the universe had a being! May not this electrify a man for joy, and make him dance for very mirth?
Chosen by God before time began.
Come on, slanderers! rail on if it pleases you. Come on oh world in arms! Cataracts of trouble descend if you will, and you, oh floods of affliction, roll if it is so ordained, for God has written my name in the book of life. Firm as this rock I stand, though nature reels and all things pass away. What consolation it is then to be called: for if I am called, then I am predestinated. Come let us wonder at the sovereignty which has called us, and let us remember the words of the apostle, “For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, God has chosen, yes, and things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence. But you are in Christ Jesus by him, who is made wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption to us by God: that, according as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” {1 Corinthians 1:24-31}
20. A second consolation is drawn from the grand truth, that if a man is called he will certainly be saved at last. To prove that, however, I will refer you to the express words of scripture: — “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” {Romans 11:29} He never takes back what he gives, nor does he revoke his calling. And indeed this is proven by the very chapter from which we have taken our text. “Whom he did predestinate, these he also called; and whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified,” everyone of them. Now, believer, you may be very poor, and very sick, and very much unknown and despised, but sit down and review your calling this morning, and the consequences that flow from it. As surely as you are God’s called child today, your poverty shall soon be over, and you shall be rich to all the intents of bliss. Wait awhile; that weary head shall soon be wearing a crown. Stay awhile; that calloused hand of labour shall soon grasp the palm branch. Wipe away that tear; God shall soon wipe away your tears for ever. Take away that sigh — why sigh when the everlasting song is almost on your lips? The portals of heaven stand wide open for you. A few winged hours must fly; a few more billows must roll over you, and you will be safely landed on the golden shore. Do not say, “I shall be lost; I shall be cast away.” Impossible.
Whom once he loves he never leaves,
But loves them to the end.
If he has called you, nothing can separate you from his love. The wolf of famine cannot gnaw the bond; the fire of persecution cannot burn the link, the hammer of hell cannot break the chain; old time cannot devour it with rust, nor eternity dissolve it, with all its ages. Oh! believe that you are secure; that voice which called you, shall call you yet again from earth to heaven, from death’s dark gloom to immortality’s unuttered splendours; Rest assured, the heart that called you, beats with infinite love towards you, an undying love, that many waters cannot quench, and that floods cannot drown. Sit down; rest in peace; lift up your eye of hope, and sing your song with fond anticipation. You shall soon be with the glorified, where your portion is; you are only waiting here to be made fit, for the inheritance, and that when this is done, the wings of angels shall waft you far away, to the mount of peace, and joy, and blessedness, where
Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in,
you shall rest for ever and ever. Examine yourselves then whether you have been called. — And may the love of Jesus be with you. Amen.
Christ Precious To Believers
No. 242-5:137. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, March 13, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
Therefore to you who believe he is precious. {1 Peter 2:7}
1. This test calls to my recollection the opening of my ministry. It is about eight years since as a lad of sixteen, I stood up for the first time in my life to preach the gospel in a cottage to a handful of poor people, who had come together for worship. I felt my own inability to preach, but I ventured to take this text, “Therefore to you who believe he is precious.” I do not think I could have said anything upon any other text, but Christ was precious to my soul and I was in the flush of my youthful love, and I could not be silent when a precious Jesus was the subject. I had barely just escaped from the bondage of Egypt, I had not forgotten the broken fetter; still I remembered those flames which seemed to burn around my path and that devouring gulf which opened its mouth as if ready to devour me. With all these things fresh in my youthful heart, I could speak of his preciousness who had been my Saviour, and had plucked me as a brand from the burning, and set me upon a rock, and put a new song in my mouth, and established my goings. And now, at this time what shall I say? “What has God done?” How has the little one become a thousand, and the small one a great people? And what shall I say concerning this text, but that if the Lord Jesus was precious then, he is as precious now? And if I could declare then, that Jesus was the object of my soul’s desire, that for him I hoped to live, and for him I would be prepared to die, can I not say, God being my witness, that he is more precious to me today than he ever was? In the remembering his unparalleled mercy towards the chief of sinners, I must devote myself to him anew, and surrender my heart
