so softly, if you give him all the mercies of this life, you still cannot keep him from saying, —
To Jesus, the crown of my hope,
My soul is in haste to be gone;
Oh bear me, you cherubim, up,
And waft me away to his throne.
15. 5. And now, last of all, the acts, the acceptable acts, of the Christian’s life, cannot be performed without the Spirit; and hence, again, the necessity for the Spirit of God. The first act of the Christian’s life is repentance. Have you ever tried to repent? If so, if you tried without the Spirit of God, you know that to urge a man to repent without the promise of the Spirit to help him, is to urge him to do an impossibility. A rock might as soon weep, and a desert might as soon blossom, as a sinner repent of his own accord. If God should offer heaven to man, simply upon the terms of repentance of sin, heaven would be as impossible as it is by good works; for a man can no more repent by himself, than he can perfectly keep God’s law; for repentance involves the very principle of perfect obedience to the law of God. It seems to me that in repentance there is the whole law solidified and condensed; and if a man can repent by himself then there is no need for a Saviour, he may as well go to heaven up the steep sides of Sinai at once.
16. Faith is the next act in the divine life. Perhaps you think faith is very easy; but if you are ever brought to feel the burden of sin you would not find it quite so light a labour. If you are ever brought into deep mire, where there is no standing, it is not so easy to put your feet on a rock, when the rock does not seem to be there. I find faith just the easiest thing in the world when there is nothing to believe; but when I have cause and exercise for my faith, then I do not find I have so much strength to accomplish it. Talking one day with a countryman, he used this figure: “In the middle of winter I sometimes think how well I could mow; and in early spring I think, oh! how I would like to reap; I feel just ready for it; but when mowing time comes, and when reaping time comes, I find I have not strength to spare.” So when you have no troubles, could you not mow them down at once? When you have no work to do, could you not do it? But when work and trouble come you find how difficult it is. Many Christians are like the stag, who talked to itself, and said, “Why should I run away from the dogs? Look what a fine pair of horns I have got, and look what heels I have got too; I might do these hounds some mischief. Why not let me stand and show them what I can do with my antlers? I can keep off any quantity of dogs.” No sooner did the dogs bark, than off the stag went. So with us. “Let sin arise,” we say, “we will soon rip it up, and destroy it; let trouble come, we will soon get over it”; but when sin and trouble come, we then find out what our weakness is. Then we have to cry for the help of the Spirit; and through him we can do all things, though without him we can do nothing at all.
17. In all the acts of the Christian’s life, whether it is the act of consecrating one’s self to Christ, or the act of daily prayer, or the act of constant submission, or preaching the gospel, or ministering to the needs of the poor, or comforting the desponding, in all these the Christian finds his weakness and his powerlessness, unless he is clothed with the Spirit of God. Why, I have been to see the sick at times, and I have thought how I would like to comfort them; and I could not get a word out that was worth their hearing, or worth my saying; and my soul has been in agony to be the means of comforting the poor, sick, desponding brother; but I could do nothing, and I came out of the room, and half wished I had never been to see a sick person in my life: so I had learned my own folly. So has it been too often in preaching. You prepare a sermon study it, and come and make the greatest mess of it that can possibly be. Then you say, “I wish I had never preached at all.” But all this is to show us, that neither in comforting nor in preaching can one do anything right, unless the Spirit works in us to will and to do his own good pleasure. Everything, moreover, that we do without the Spirit is unacceptable to God; and whatever we do under his influence, however we may despise it, is not despised by God, for he never despises his own work, and the Spirit never can look upon what he works in us with any other view than that of complacency and delight. If the Spirit helps me to groan, then God must accept the groaner. If you could pray the best prayer in the world, without the Spirit, God would have nothing to do with it; but if your prayer is broken, and lame, and limping, if the Spirit made it, God will look upon it, and say, as he did upon the works of creation, “It is very good”; and he will accept it.
18. And now let me conclude by asking this question. My hearer, then have you the Spirit of God in you? You have some religion, most of you, I dare say. Well, of what kind is it? Is it a homemade article? Did you make yourself what you are? Then, if so, you are a lost man up to this moment. If, my hearer, you have gone no further than you have walked yourself, you are not on the road to heaven yet; you have your face turned the wrong way; but if you have received something which neither flesh nor blood could reveal to you, if you have been led to do the very thing which you once hated, and to love that thing which you once despised, and to despise that on which your heart and your pride were once set, then, soul, if this is the Spirit’s work, rejoice; for where he has begun the good work, he will carry it on. And you may know whether it is the Spirit’s work by this. Have you been led to Christ, and away from self? Have you been led away from all feelings, from all doings, from all willings, from all prayings, as the ground of your trust and your hope, and have you been brought nakedly to rely upon the finished work of Christ? If so, this is more than human nature ever taught any man; this is a height to which human nature never climbed. The Spirit of God has done that, and he will never abandon what he has once begun, but you shall go from strength to strength, and you shall stand among the bloodwashed throng, at last complete in Christ, and accepted in the beloved. But if you have not the Spirit of Christ, you are not his. May the Spirit lead you to your room now to weep, now to repent, and now to look to Christ, and may you now have a divine life implanted, which neither time nor eternity shall be able to destroy. God, hear this prayer, and send us away with a blessing, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Holy Violence
No. 252-5:217. A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, May 15, 1859, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. {Matthew 11:12}
1. When John the Baptist preached in the wilderness of Judea, the throng of people who pressed around him became extremely violent to get near enough to hear his voice. Often when our Saviour preached a similar scene occurred. We find that the multitudes were immense beyond all precedent. He seemed to drain every city, every town, and every village, as he went along preaching the word of the gospel. These people, moreover, not like our common church and chapel goers, — content to hear, if they could, and yet more content to stay away without hearing, if it would be possible, — were extremely earnest to get near enough to hear anyway. So intense was their desire to hear the Saviour that they pressed upon him, insomuch that they trampled on each other. The crowd became so violent to approach near him, that some of the weaker ones were pushed down and trampled. Now, our Saviour, when he witnessed all this struggling to get near him, said, “This is just a picture of what is done spiritually by those who will be saved. As you press and throng about me,” said Christ, “and thrust one another, with arm and elbow, to get within reach of my voice, even so must it be if you wish to be saved, ‘For the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.’ ” He pictured to himself a crowd of souls desiring to get to the living Saviour. He saw them press, and crowd, and throng, and thrust, and trample on one another, in their anxious desire to get near him. He warned his hearers, that unless they had this earnestness in their souls, they would never reach him savingly; but if they had it, they would certainly be saved. “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”
2. “But,” one says, “do you wish us to understand,
