man is dead in sin, and life a gift.
If the righteous and good are not saved, if they reject the gospel, there are others who are to be called, others who shall be rescued, for Christ will not lose the merits of his agonies, or the purchase of his blood.
11. “To us who are called.” I received a note this week asking me to explain that word called; because in one passage it says, “Many are called but few are chosen,” while in another it appears that all who are called must be chosen. Now, let me observe that there are two calls. As my old friend John Bunyan says, “The hen has two calls, the common cluck, which she gives daily and hourly, and the special one which she means for her little chickens.” So there is a general call, a call made to every man; every man hears it. Many are called by it; you are all called this morning in that sense; but very few are chosen. The other is a special call, the children’s call. You know how the bell sounds over the workshop to call the men to work — that is a general call. A father goes to the door and calls out, “John, it is dinner time!” — that is the special call. Many are called with the general call, but they are not chosen; the special call is for the children only, and that is what is meant in the text, “To us who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” That call is always a special one. While I stand here and call men, no one comes; while I preach to sinners universally, no good is done; it is like the sheet lightning you sometimes see on the summer’s evening, beautiful, grand, but who has ever heard of anything being struck by it? But the special call is the forked flash from heaven; it strikes somewhere, it is the arrow sent in between the joints of the harness. The call which saves, is like that of Jesus, when he said, “Mary,” and she said to him, “Rabboni.” Do you know anything about that special call my beloved? Did Jesus ever call you by name? Can you remember the hour when he whispered your name in your ear, when he said, “Come to me?” If so, you will grant the truth of what I am going to say next about it, — that it is an effectual call. There is no resisting it. When God calls with his special call, there is no withstanding it. Ah! I know I laughed at religion; I despised, I abhorred it; but that call! Oh! I would not come. But God said, “You shall come. All that the Father gives to me shall come.” “Lord, I will not.” “But you shall,” said God. And I have gone up to God’s house sometimes almost with a resolution that I would not listen, but listen I must. Oh! how the word came into my soul! Was there a power of resistance? No; I was thrown down; each bone seemed to be broken; I was saved by effectual grace. I appeal to your experience, my friends. When God took you in hand, could you withstand him? You stood against your minister times enough. Sickness did not break you down; disease did not bring you to God’s feet; eloquence did not convince you; but when God put his hand to the work, ah! then what a change; like Saul, with his horses going to Damascus, that voice from heaven said, “I am Jesus whom you persecute.” “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” There was no going further then. That was an effectual call. Like that, again, which Jesus gave to Zacchaeus, when he was up in the tree: stepping under the tree, he said, “Zacchaeus, come down, today I must abide at your house.” Zacchaeus, was taken in the net; he heard his own name; the call sank into his soul; he could not stay up in the tree, for an Almighty impulse drew him down. And I could tell you some singular instances of people going to the house of God and having their characters described, painted to perfection, so that they have said, “He is painting me, he is painting me.” Just as I might say to that young man here who stole his master’s gloves yesterday, that Jesus calls him to repentance. It may be that there is such a person here; and when the call comes to a peculiar character, it generally comes with a special power. God gives his ministers a brush, and shows them how to use it in painting life-like portraits, and thus the sinner hears the special call. I cannot give the special call; God alone can give it, and I leave it with him. Some must be called. Jew and Greek may laugh, but still there are some who are called, both Jews and Greeks.
12. Then to close up this second point, it is a great mercy that many a Jew has been made to drop his self-righteousness; many a legalist has been made to drop his legalism and come to Christ, many a Greek has bowed his genius at the throne of God’s gospel. We have a few such here. As Cowper says:
We boast some rich ones whom the gospel sways,
And one who wears a coronet and prays;
Like gleamings of an olive tree they show,
Here and there one upon the topmost bough.
13. III. Now we come to our third point, A GOSPEL ADMIRED; to us who are called of God, it is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Now, beloved, this must be a matter of pure experience between your souls and God. If you are called by God this morning, you will know it. I know there are times when a Christian has to say,
’Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought;
Do I love the Lord or no?
Am I his, or am I not?
But if a man never in his life knew himself to be a Christian, he never was a Christian. If he never had a moment of confidence, when he could say, “Now I know in whom I have believed,” I think I do not utter a harsh thing when I say, that that man could not have been born again; for I do not understand how a man can be born again, and not know it; I do not understand how a man can be killed and then made alive again, and not know it; how a man can pass from death to life, and not know it; how a man can be brought out of darkness into marvellous light without knowing it. I am sure I know it, when I shout out my old verse,
Now free from sin, I walk at large,
My Saviour’s blood is my full discharge;
At his dear feet content I lay,
A sinner saved, and homage pay.
There are moments when the eyes glisten with joy; and we can say, “We are persuaded, confident, certain.” I do not wish to distress anyone who is under doubt. Often gloomy doubts will prevail; there are seasons when you fear you have not been called; when you doubt your interest in Christ. Ah! what a mercy it is that it is not your hold of Christ that saves you, but his hold of you! What a sweet fact that it is not how you grasp his hand, but his grasp of yours, that saves you. Yet I think you ought to know sometime or other, whether you are called of God. If so, you will follow me in the next part of my discourse which is a matter of pure experience; to us who are saved, it is “Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”
14. The gospel is to the true believer a thing of power. It is Christ the power of God. Indeed, there is a power in God’s gospel beyond all description. Once, I, like Mazeppa, bound on the wild horse of my lust, bound hand and foot, incapable of resistance, was galloping on with hell’s wolves behind me, howling for my body and my soul, as their just and lawful prey. There came a mighty hand which stopped that wild horse, cut my bands, set me down, and brought me into liberty. Is there power, sir? Indeed, there is power, and he who has felt it must acknowledge it. There was a time when I lived in the strong old castle of my sins, and rested in my works. There came a trumpeter to the door, and bade me open it. I with anger chided him from the porch, and said he never should enter. There came a goodly personage, with loving countenance; his hands were marked with scars, where nails were driven, and his feet had nail prints too; he lifted up his cross, using it as a hammer; at the first blow the gate of my prejudice shook; at the second it trembled more; at the third down it fell, and in he came; and he said, “Arise, and stand upon your feet, for I have loved you with an everlasting love.” A thing of power! Ah! it is a thing of power. I have felt it here, in this heart; I have the witness of the Spirit within, and know it is a thing of might, because it has conquered me; it has bowed me down.
His
