to him, “Jonah! you have lost your gourd, but you have not lost your God.” And so might we say to you: you have not lost his love; you have lost the light of his countenance, but you have not lost the love of his heart; you have lost his sweet and gracious communion, but he is still the same, and he wishes to have you believe his faithfulness and trust him in the dark and rely upon him in the stormy wind and tempest. Look to none of these outward things; but look to Christ alone — Christ bleeding, Christ dying, Christ dead, Christ buried, Christ risen, Christ ascended, Christ interceding. This is the thing you are to look to — Christ, and him only. And looking there, you shall be comforted. But look to anything else, and you shall begin to sink; like Peter, the waves shall fail you, and you shall have to cry, “Lord, save me, or I will perish.”
17. But, again, to conclude: others of God’s people are afraid that they shall never be able to persevere and hold out to the end. “Oh!” one says, “I know I shall yet fall away and perish, for look! — look what an evil heart of unbelief I have; I cannot live one day without sin; my heart is so treacherous, it is like a bombshell; let only a spark of temptation fall upon it and it will blow up to my eternal destruction. With such a tinderbox heart as I have, how can I hope to escape, while I walk in the midst of a shower of sparks.” “Oh!” one says, “I feel my nature to be so utterly vile and depraved that I cannot hope to persevere. If I hold on a week or a month it will be a great work; but to hold on all my life until I die — oh! this is impossible.” Are you not looking to secondary causes again? Will you please to remember that if you look to creature strength it is utterly impossible that you should persevere in grace, even for ten minutes, much less for ten years! If your perseverance depends upon yourself you are a lost man. You may write that down for a certainty. If you have one jot or one tittle to do with your own perseverance in divine grace you will never see God’s face at last; your grace will die out; your life will be extinguished, and you must perish, if your salvation depends upon yourself. But remember, you have already been kept these months and these years: what has done that? Why, divine grace; and the divine grace that has kept you for one year can keep you for a century, no, for an eternity, if it would be necessary. He who has begun can carry on and must carry on too, otherwise he would be false to his promise and would deny himself. “Ah! but,” you say, “sir, I cannot tell with what temptations I am surrounded; I am in a workshop, where everyone laughs at me; I am called nicknames because I follow the cause of Christ. I have been able so far to put up with their rebukes and their jests; but now they are adopting another strategy; they try to lure me away from the house of God, and entice me to the theatre, and to worldly amusements, and I feel that, placed as I am, I never can hold on. As well might a spark hope to live in the midst of an ocean as for grace to live in my heart.” Ah! but, soul, who has caused it to live so far? What is it that has helped you up until now to say, “No,” to every temptation? Why, the Lord your Redeemer. You could not have done it so long, if it had not been for him; and he who has helped you to stand so long will never put you to shame. Why, if you are a child of God, and you should fall away and perish, what dishonour would be brought upon Christ! “Aha!” the devil would say, “here is a child of God, and God has turned him out of his family, and I have got him in hell at last. Is this what God does with his children — loves them one day, and hates them the next — tells them he forgives them, and yet punishes them — accepts them in Christ, and yet sends them into hell?” Can that be? Shall it be? Never: not while God is God. “Aha!” again, Satan says, “believers have eternal life given to them. Here is one who had eternal life, and this eternal life has died out. It was not eternal. The promise was a lie. It was temporary life; it was not eternal life. Aha!” he says, “I have found a flaw in Christ’s promise; he gave them only temporary life, and called it eternal.” And again, the archfiend would say, if it would be possible for one child of God to perish: “Aha! I have one of the jewels of Christ’s crown here”; and he would hold it up, and defy Christ to his very face, and laugh him to scorn. “This is a jewel that you purchased with your own blood. Here is one whom you came into the world to save, and yet you could not save him. You bought him, and paid for him, and yet I have him, he was a jewel in your crown, and yet here he is, in the hand of the black prince, your enemy. Aha! King with a damaged crown! you have lost one of your jewels.” Can it be so? No, never, and therefore every one who believes is as sure of heaven as if he were there. If you cast yourself simply on Christ, neither death nor hell shall ever destroy you. Remember what good old Mr. Berridge said, when he was met by a friend one morning, “How do you do, Mr. Berridge?” “Pretty well, I thank you,” he said, “and as sure of heaven as if I were there; for I have a solid confidence in Christ.” What a happy man such a man must be, who knows and feels that to be true! And yet, if you do not feel it, if you are the children of God, I ask you this question, “Why do you doubt?” Is there not good reason to believe? “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” If you have believed in Christ, you are saved, and saved you shall be, if you have committed yourself into his hands: “I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him.”
18. “Yes,” one says, “this is not the fear that troubles me; my only doubt is whether I am a child of God or not.” I finish, therefore, by going over the old ground. Soul, if you wish to know whether you are a child of God, do not look to yourself, but look to Christ. You who are here today, who desire to be saved, but yet fear you never can be, never look to yourselves for any ground of acceptance before God. Not self, but Jesus; not heart, but Christ; not man, but man’s Creator. Oh sinner! do not think that you are to bring anything to Christ to recommend you. Come to him just as you are. He wants no good works of yours — no good feelings either. Come, just as you are. All that you can need to outfit you for heaven, he has bought for you, and he will give to you; all these freely you shall have only for the asking. Only come, and he will not cast you away. But do you say, “Oh, I cannot believe that Christ is able to save such a sinner as I am.” I reply, “Oh you of little faith, why do you doubt?” He has already saved sinners as great as you are; only try him, only try him.
Venture on him, venture wholly;
Let no other trust intrude.
Try him, try him; and if you find him to be false, then proclaim it everywhere that Christ was untrue. But that shall never be. Go to him; tell him you are a wretched undone soul, without his sovereign grace; ask him to have mercy upon you. Tell him you are determined, it you do perish, that you will perish at the foot of his cross. Go and cling to him, as he hangs bleeding there; look him in the face, and say, “Jesus, I have no other refuge; if you spurn me, I am lost; but I will never go from you; I will clasp you in life, and clasp you in death, as the only rock of my soul’s salvation.” Depend upon it, you shall not be sent away empty; you must, you shall be accepted, if you will simply believe. Oh, may God enable you, by the divine influence of his Holy Spirit, to believe; and then, shall we not have asked the question, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” I pray God now to apply these words for your comfort. They have been very simple, and very homely words; but nevertheless, they will suit simple, homely hearts. If God shall bless them, to him be the glory!
{a} Siren: One of several fabulous monsters, part woman, part bird, who were supposed to lure sailors to destruction by their enchanting singing. OED.
The Best Of Masters
No. 247-5:177. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, April 10, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. {John 14:27}
1. The gospel of John is peculiarly the history of Jesus, the Son of God. Matthew deals with Jesus as the Prince of the house of David; Mark treats him as the Servant of servants; and Luke views him as the Son of Man; but John, with eagle eye, looks beyond all the clouds of his humanity, and seeing the clear shining of his divinity, writes about him especially as the Son of God, the Word, that in the beginning was with God and was God. It seems only right, then, that since Jesus came
