bringing with it less of rapture and ecstasy, but not less of solid consolation: I mean the infallible testimony of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God witnessing with our spirit, that we are born of God. I am no believer in those dreams and visions with which many people mar their experience. I do not believe in those tales I hear people tell about hearing a voice, or seeing an angel. Such things happen now and then — now and then but when we are overrun with them, we begin to suspect them to be utterly false. But I speak not as a fanatic or enthusiast when I testify that there is such a thing as an express revelation, made by the Holy Spirit to the individual man. Besides, this written Word of God, which is that on which we rely, as a sure word of testimony, by which you do well to take heed, as to a light that shines in a dark place. There is, besides this I say, another, a distinct, decided, infallible utterance of the Holy Spirit in the soul of man, when he bears witness with our spirit that we are born of God, and at such times — and I will not stop to explain how it is; for the natural man would not understand me, and the spiritual man knows already — at such times the believer says, “Now I know the love that God has for me.” If the devil himself in person should meet the believer when he has this witness, and tell him that God did not love him, he would call him a liar to his face, and say, “The Spirit of God has told me so, and I will believe the Spirit of God, and I will not believe you, you liar from the beginning, you father of lies.” Now, this is a very joyous part of the believer’s experience, that both by sight and by feeling, and by distinct inward witnessing, he can often say, “I know the love that God has for me.”
13. 2. But there are times of thick darkness, when neither sun nor moon appear for many days, when the tempest rages exceedingly, and two seas meet in dread collision. There are seasons when the Christian, dismasted and dismantled, drifts before the storm a miserable hulk, unable to grasp the rudder or to man the sails. All strength and hope are gone. He looks upward, but he sees no helper, downward, and he sees nothing but the uttermost depths of despair; around him there is nothing but terror, and all around him everything frowns dismay. At such a time, noble is the Christian who can say, “Now it may be I do not know the love that God has to me, but I believe it. Now I believe it,” he says: “Yes, roll on oh waves; tell me that you shall engulf me, but I do not believe you. He who has promised to preserve me — I believe him, and on his love I will rely, even though I see no proof of it now. Now, poor vessel, drift before the storm; and you, oh rocks, roar there with your sounding breakers; but I do not fear you, for I believe the love which God has for me. I cannot be wrecked completely. I may be driven before the storm; I am half a wreck and tempest tossed, but I never can be completely lost; and now today, in the teeth of evidence, in opposition to everything which goes against it, now I believe the love which God has for me.”
14. The first position, that of knowing God’s love, is the sweetest, but that of believing God’s love, is the grandest. To feel God’s love is very precious, but to believe it when you do not feel it, is the noblest. He may be only a little Christian who knows God’s love, but he is a great Christian who believes it, when the visible contradicts it, and the invisible withholds its witness. No one is so grand as that prophet, who sees the olive wither, the fig tree blasted, the vines devoured by the caterpillar, the stalls emptied, and the flocks destroyed, who sees famine staring him in the face, and yet rejoices in the Lord. Oh, that is honouring God. You who believe him in the sunshine, you offer him pence; but you who believe him in the storm, you pay him pounds. No revenue so rich as what comes from the fat yet seemingly barren land of affliction; God receives no honour greater than what he receives from the trustful faith, of a cast down but not destroyed believer. Blessed is he who is perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, who is poor, yet, by his faith, makes many rich; who has nothing yet possesses all things; who cries, “I can do nothing,” and yet can add, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
15. And now, do these two states not make up a summary of Christian experience? “We know and believe the love that God has for us.” “Ah,” one says “we have sometimes doubted it.” No, I will leave that. You may insert it in your confession, but I will not put it into my song. Confess your doubts, but do not write them in our psalm of praise. I am sure, in looking back, you will say, “Oh how foolish I was ever to doubt a faithful and unchanging God.” Bring all your doubts and fears today; hew them in pieces like Agag before the Lord, do not let one escape; take them and hang them up upon a tree until evening, and then take a great stone and set it at the mouth of their sepulchre so that they may rise no more. Oh for grace from this day forward to say, “When I do not know my Father’s love, I will believe it, and when I have his presence, then I will sing aloud ‘I know that love which he has for me.’ ” This, then, is my first point.
16. II. The second is, — this text is A SUMMARY OF THE BELIEVERS TESTIMONY. Every Christian is to be a witness. Everything that God has made speaks of him. One speaks of his power, another of his majesty. The rolling sea, and the bespangled sky, both tell of his power and of his strength. Others tell of his wisdom; some of his goodness. But the saint has a unique testimony. He is to be a witness with heart and lips. All the other creatures do not speak with words. They may sing as they shine, but they cannot sing vocally. It is the believer’s part in the great eternal chorus to lift up voice and heart at once, and as an intelligent, living, loving, learning witness, to testify about God. Now I think I can say, or rather, I will speak for the thousands of Israel gathered here this morning, — we can say that our testimony to an unbelieving world, and to poor despairing sinners, is just this, — “we know and have believed the love that God has for us.” This is our testimony, and we desire to tell it everywhere as long as we live; and, dying, we hope we shall be enabled to repeat it with our last labouring breath. We will say, when life is finished, and eternity begins, “We have known and have believed the love that God has for us.”
17. Let me enlarge, however, upon this testimony; and in the presence of many who know nothing about God, let me give an outline of the full testimony of every believer.
18. In the first place we have known that God’s love for us is undeserved. This we can tell you with the tears in our eyes.
There was nothing in us that could merit esteem,
Or give the Creator delight.
’Twas even so Father, we ever must sing,
For so it seem’d good in your sight.
Our astonishment increases every hour when we think of his love for us, for there was nothing in us that could have caused it. Often we have asked ourselves the question: —
Why was I made to hear your voice,
And enter while there’s room;
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?
and our only answer is —
’Twas the same love that spread the feast,
That sweetly forced us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perish’d in our sin.
You poor sinners, you think that there must be something in you before God can love you. Our testimony is, that God has loved us; we are sure of this, and we do not speak half-heartedly, when we declare that we are equally sure that there never was anything in us by nature that he could love. We may doubt a great many doctrines, but we cannot doubt this. This is a matter of fact, that in us, that is, in our flesh there dwells no good thing. We have known and have believed that the love of God towards us is free, sovereign,
