to the edge of a precipice, as he thought, and in his own apprehension
fell over the cliff? He clutched at an old tree, and there hung,
clinging to his frail support with all his might. He felt persuaded
that, should he quit his hold, he would be dashed in pieces on some
awful rocks that waited for him down below. There he hung, with the
sweat upon his brow, and anguish in every limb. He passed into a
desperate state of fever and faintness, and at last his hands could
hold up his body no longer. He relaxed his grasp! He dropped from his
support! He fell--about a foot or so, and was received upon a soft
mossy bank, whereon he lay, altogether unhurt, and perfectly safe till
morning. Thus, in the darkness of their ignorance, many think that
sure destruction awaits them, if they confess their sin, quit all hope
in self, and resign themselves into the hands of God. They are afraid
to quit the hope to which they ignorantly cling. It is an idle fear.
Give up your hold upon everything but Christ, and drop. Drop from
all trust in your works, or prayers, or feelings. Drop at once! Drop
now! Soft and safe shall be the bank that receives you. Jesus Christ,
in his love, in the efficacy of his precious blood, in his perfect
righteousness, will give you immediate rest and peace. Cease from
self-confidence. Fall into the arms of Jesus. This is the major part
of faith--giving up every other hold, and simply falling upon Christ.
There is no reason for fear: only ignorance causes your dread of that
which will be your eternal safety. The death of carnal hope is the life
of faith, and the life of faith is life everlasting. Let self die,
that Christ may live in you.
But the mischief is that, to the one act of faith in Jesus, we cannot
bring men. They will adopt any expedient sooner than have done with
self. They fight shy of believing, and fear faith as if it were a
monster. O foolish tremblers, who has bewitched you? You fear that
which would be the death of all your fear, and the beginning of your
joy. Why will you perish through perversely preferring other ways to
God's own appointed plan of salvation?
Alas! there are many, many souls that say, "We are bidden to trust
in Jesus, but instead of that we will attend the means of grace
regularly." Attend public worship by all means, but not as a substitute
for faith, or it will become a vain confidence. The command is,
"Believe and live;" attend to that, whatever else you do. "Well,
I shall take to reading good books; perhaps I shall get good that
way." Read the good books by all means, but that is not the gospel:
the gospel is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved." Suppose a physician has a patient under his care, and he says
to him, "You are to take a bath in the morning; it will be of very
great service to your disease." But the man takes a cup of tea in
the morning instead of the bath, and he says, "That will do as well,
I have no doubt." What does his physician say when he enquires--"Did
you follow my rule?" "No, I did not." "Then you do not expect, of
course, that there will be any good result from my visits, since you
take no notice of my directions." So we, practically, say to Jesus
Christ, when we are under searching of soul, "Lord, thou badest me
trust thee, but I would sooner do something else! Lord, I want to
have horrible convictions; I want to be shaken over hell's mouth; I
want to be alarmed and distressed!" Yes, you want anything but what
Christ prescribes for you, which is that you should _simply trust him_.
Whether you feel or do not feel, cast yourself on him, that _he_ may
save you, and he alone. "But you do not mean to say that you speak
against praying, and reading good books, and so on?" Not one single
word do I speak against any of those things, any more than, if I were
the physician I quoted, I should speak against the man's drinking a
cup of tea. Let him drink his tea; but not if he drinks it instead of
taking the bath which is prescribed for him. So let the man pray: the
more the better. Let the man search the Scriptures; but, remember,
that if these things are put in the place of simple faith in Christ,
the soul will be ruined. Beware lest it be said of any of you by our
Lord, "Ye search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal
life; but ye will not come unto me that ye might have life."
[Illustration]
Come by faith to Jesus, for without him you perish for ever. Did you
ever notice how a fir-tree will get a hold among rocks which seem to
afford it no soil? It sends a rootlet into any little crack which
opens; it clutches even the bare rock as with a huge bird's claw; it
holds fast, and binds itself to earth with a hundred anchorages. Our
little drawing is very accurate. We have often seen trees thus firmly
rooted upon detached masses of bare rock. Now, dear heart, let this
be a picture of yourself. Grip the Rock of Ages. With the rootlet of
little-faith hold to him. Let that tiny feeler grow; and, meanwhile,
send out another to take a new grasp of the same Rock. Lay hold on
Jesus, and keep hold on Jesus. Grow up into him. Twist the roots of
your nature, the fibres of your heart, about him. He is as free to you
as the rocks are to the fir-tree: be you as firmly lashed to him as the
pine is to the mountain's side.
[Illustration]
DIFFICULTY IN THE WAY OF BELIEVING.
It may be that the reader feels a difficulty in believing. Let him
consider. We cannot believe by an immediate act. The state of mind
which we describe as believing is a result, following upon certain
former states of mind. We come to faith by degrees. There may be such
a thing as faith at first sight; but usually we reach faith by stages:
we become interested, we consider, we hear evidence, we are convinced,
and so led to believe. If, then, I wish to believe, but for some reason
or other find that I cannot attain to faith, what shall I do? Shall I
stand like a cow staring at a new gate; or shall I, like an intelligent
being, use the proper means? If I wish to believe anything, what shall
I do? We will answer according to the rules of common-sense.
If I were told that the Sultan of Zanzibar was a good man, and it
happened to be a matter of interest to me, I do not suppose I should
feel any difficulty in believing it. But if for some reason I had a
doubt about it, and yet wished to believe the news, how should I act?
Should I not hunt up all the information within my reach about his
Majesty, and try, by study of the newspapers and other documents,
to arrive at the truth? Better still, if he happened to be in this
country, and would see me, and I could also converse with members of
his court, and citizens of his country, I should be greatly helped to
arrive at a decision by using these sources of information. Evidence
weighed and knowledge obtained lead up to faith. It is true that
faith in Jesus is the gift of God; but yet he usually bestows it in
accordance with the laws of mind, and hence we are told that "faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." If you want to
believe in Jesus, hear about him, read about him, think about him, know
about him, and so you will find faith springing up in your heart, like
the wheat which comes up through the moisture and the heat operating
upon the seed which has been sown. If I wished to have faith in a
certain physician, I should ask for testimonials of his cures, I should
wish to see the diplomas which certified to his professional knowledge,
and I should also like to hear what he has to say upon certain
complicated cases. In fact, I should take means to know, in order that
I might believe.
[Illustration]
Be much in _hearing_ concerning Jesus. Souls by hundreds come to faith
in Jesus under a ministry which sets him forth clearly and constantly.
Few remain unbelieving under a preacher whose great subject is Christ
crucified. Hear no minister of any other sort. There are such. I have
heard of one who found in his pulpit Bible a paper bearing this text,
"_Sir, we would see Jesus_." Go to the place of worship to see Jesus;
and if you cannot even hear the mention of his name, take yourself off
to another place where he is more thought of, and is therefore more
likely to be present.
Be much in _reading_ about the Lord Jesus. The books of Scripture are
the lilies among which he feedeth. The Bible is the window through
which we may look and see our Lord. Read over the story of his
sufferings and death with devout attention, and before long the Lord
will cause faith secretly to enter your soul. The Cross of Christ not
only rewards faith, but begets faith. Many a believer can say--
"When I view thee, wounded, grieving,
Breathless, on the cursed tree,
Soon I feel my heart believing
Thou hast suffered thus for me."
If hearing and reading suffice not, then deliberately _set your mind
to work to overhaul the matter_, and have it out. Either believe, or
know the reason why you do not believe. See the matter through to the
utmost of your ability, and pray God to help you to make a thorough
investigation, and to come to an honest decision one way or the other.
Consider who Jesus was, and whether the constitution of his person
does not entitle him to confidence. Consider what he did, and whether
this also must not be good ground for trust. Consider him as dying,
rising from the dead, ascending, and ever living to intercede for
transgressors; and see whether this does not entitle him to be relied
on by you. Then cry to him, and see if he does not hear you. When Usher
wished to know whether Rutherford was indeed as holy a man as he was
said to be, he went to his house as a beggar, and gained a lodging,
and heard the man of God pouring out his heart before the Lord in
the night. If you would know Jesus, get as near to him as you can by
studying his character, and appealing to his love.
At one time I might have needed evidence to make me believe in the
Lord Jesus; but now I know him so well, by proving him, that I should
need a very great deal of evidence to make me doubt him. It is now
more natural to me to trust than to disbelieve: this is the new nature
triumphing; it was not so at the first. The novelty of faith is, in the
beginning, a source of weakness; but act after act of trusting turns
faith into a habit. Experience brings to faith strong confirmation.
[Illustration]
I am not perplexed with doubt, because the truth which I believe has
wrought a miracle on me. By its means I have received and still retain
a new life, to which I was once a stranger: and this is confirmation of
the strongest sort. I am like the good man and his wife who had kept
a lighthouse for years. A visitor, who came to see the lighthouse,
looking out from the window over the waste of waters, asked the good
woman, "Are you not afraid at night, when the storm is out, and the big
waves dash right over the lantern? Do you not fear that the lighthouse,
and all that is in it, will be carried away? I am sure I should be
afraid to trust myself in a slender tower in the midst of the great
billows." The woman remarked that the idea never occurred to her now.
She had lived there so long that she felt as safe on the lone rock as
ever she did when she lived on the mainland. As for her husband, when
asked if he did not feel anxious when the wind blew a hurricane, he
answered, "Yes, I feel anxious to keep the lamps well trimmed, and the
light burning, lest any vessel should be wrecked." As to anxiety about
the safety of the lighthouse, or his own personal security in it, he
had outlived all that. Even so it is with the full-grown believer. He
can humbly say, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he
is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."
From henceforth let no man trouble me with doubts and questionings; I
bear in my soul the proofs of the Spirit's truth and power, and I will
have none of your artful reasonings. The gospel to me is truth: I am
content to perish if it be not true. I risk my soul's eternal fate upon
the truth of the gospel, and I know that there is no risk in it. My
one concern is to keep the lights burning, that I may thereby benefit
others. Only let the Lord give me oil enough to feed my lamp, so that
I may cast a ray across the dark and treacherous sea of life, and I am
well content.
Now, troubled seeker, if it be so, that your minister, and many others
in whom you confide, have found perfect peace and rest in the gospel,
why should not you? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Do not his
words do good to them that walk uprightly? Will not you also try their
saving virtue?
Most true is the gospel, for God is its Author. Believe it. Most able
is the Saviour, for he is the Son of God. Trust him. Most powerful is
his precious blood. Look to it for pardon. Most loving is his gracious
heart. Run to it at once.
Thus would I urge the reader to seek faith; but if he be unwilling,
what more can I do? I have brought the horse to the water, but I cannot
make him drink. This, however, be it remembered--_unbelief is wilful
when evidence is put in a man's way, and he refuses carefully to
examine it_. He that does not desire to know, and accept the truth, has
himself to thank if he dies with a lie in his right hand. It is true
that "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved": it is equally
true that "he that believeth not shall be damned."
[Illustration]
A HELPFUL SURVEY.
To help the seeker to a true faith in Jesus, I would remind him of the
work of the Lord Jesus in the room and place and stead of sinners.
"When we were yet without strength, in due time CHRIST DIED FOR THE
UNGODLY" (Rom. v. 6). "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body
on the tree" (1 Pet. ii. 24). "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity
of us all" (Is. liii. 6). "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins,
the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Pet. iii.
18).
Upon one declaration of Scripture let the reader fix his eye. "WITH HIS
STRIPES WE ARE HEALED" (Is. liii. 5). God here treats sin as a disease,
and he sets before us the costly remedy which he has provided.
I ask you very solemnly to accompany me in your meditations, for a few
minutes, while I bring before you the stripes of the Lord Jesus. The
Lord resolved to restore us, and therefore he sent his only-begotten
Son, "very God of very God," that he might descend into this world to
take upon himself our nature, in order to our redemption. He lived
as a man among men; and, in due time, after thirty years or more of
obedience, the time came when he should do us the greatest service of
all, namely, stand in our stead, and bear "the chastisement of our
peace." He went to Gethsemane, and there, at the first taste of our
bitter cup, he sweat great drops of blood. He went to Pilate's hall,
and Herod's judgment-seat, and there drank draughts of pain and scorn
in our room and place. Last of all, they took him to the cross, and
nailed him there to die--to die in our stead. The word "stripes" is
used to set forth his sufferings, both of body and of soul. The whole
of Christ was made a sacrifice for us: his whole manhood suffered.
As to his body, it shared with his mind in a grief that never can
be described. In the beginning of his passion, when he emphatically
suffered instead of us, he was in an agony, and from his bodily frame
a bloody sweat distilled so copiously as to fall to the ground. It
is very rarely that a man sweats blood. There have been one or two
instances of it, and they have been followed by almost immediate
death; but our Saviour lived--lived after an agony which, to anyone
else, would have proved fatal. Ere he could cleanse his face from this
dreadful crimson, they hurried him to the high priest's hall. In the
dead of night they bound him, and led him away. Anon they took him to
Pilate and to Herod. These scourged him, and their soldiers spat in
his face, and buffeted him, and put on his head a crown of thorns.
Scourging is one of the most awful tortures that can be inflicted by
malice. It was formerly the disgrace of the British army that the "cat"
was used upon the soldier: a brutal infliction of torture. But to the
Roman, cruelty was so natural that he made his common punishments worse
than brutal. The Roman scourge is said to have been made of the sinews
of oxen, twisted into knots, and into these knots were inserted slivers
of bone, and huckle-bones of sheep; so that every time the scourge fell
upon the bare back, "the plowers made deep furrows." Our Saviour was
called upon to endure the fierce pain of the Roman scourge, and this
not as the _finis_ of his punishment, but as a preface to crucifixion.
To this his persecutors added buffeting, and plucking of the hair: they
spared him no form of pain. In all his faintness, through bleeding and
fasting, they made him carry his cross until another was forced, by the
forethought of their cruelty, to bear it, lest their victim should die
on the road. They stripped him, and threw him down, and nailed him to
the wood. They pierced his hands and his feet. They lifted up the tree,
with him upon it, and then dashed it down into its place in the ground,
so that all his limbs were dislocated, according to the lament of the
twenty-second psalm, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are
out of joint." He hung in the burning sun till the fever dissolved his
strength, and he said, "My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst
of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue
cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death."
There he hung, a spectacle to God and men. The weight of his body was
first sustained by his feet, till the nails tore through the tender
nerves: and then the painful load began to drag upon his hands, and
rend those sensitive parts of his frame. How small a wound in the hand
has brought on lockjaw! How awful must have been the torment caused
by that dragging iron tearing through the delicate parts of the hands
and feet! Now were all manner of bodily pains centred in his tortured
frame. All the while his enemies stood around, pointing at him in
scorn, thrusting out their tongues in mockery, jesting at his prayers,
and gloating over his sufferings. He cried, "I thirst," and then they
gave him vinegar mingled with gall. After a while he said, "It is
finished." He had endured the utmost of appointed grief, and had made
full vindication to divine justice: then, and not till then, he gave up
the ghost. Holy men of old have enlarged most lovingly upon the bodily
sufferings of our Lord, and I have no hesitation in doing the same,
trusting that trembling sinners may see salvation in these painful
"stripes" of the Redeemer.
To describe the outward sufferings of our Lord is not easy: I
acknowledge that I have failed. But his soul-sufferings, which were the
soul of his sufferings, who can even conceive, much less express, what
they were? At the very first I told you that he sweat great drops of
blood. That was his heart driving out its life-floods to the surface
through the terrible depression of spirit which was upon him. He said,
"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." The betrayal by
Judas, and the desertion of the twelve, grieved our Lord; but the
weight of our sin was the real pressure on his heart. Our guilt was
the olive-press which forced from him the moisture of his life. No
language can ever tell his agony in prospect of his passion; how little
then can we conceive the passion itself? When nailed to the cross,
he endured what no martyr ever suffered; for martyrs, when they have
died, have been so sustained of God that they have rejoiced amid their
pain; but our Redeemer was forsaken of his Father, until he cried, "My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That was the bitterest cry of
all, the utmost depth of his unfathomable grief. Yet was it needful
that he should be deserted, because God must turn his back on sin, and
consequently upon him who was made sin for us. The soul of the great
Substitute suffered a horror of misery instead of that horror of hell
into which sinners would have been plunged had he not taken their sin
upon himself, and been made a curse for them. It is written, "Cursed
is every one that hangeth on a tree;" but who knows what that curse
means?
The remedy for your sins and mine is found in the substitutionary
sufferings of the Lord Jesus, and in these only. These "stripes" of
the Lord Jesus Christ were on our behalf. Do you enquire, "Is there
anything for us to do, to remove the guilt of sin?" I answer: There is
nothing whatever for you to do. By the stripes of Jesus we are healed.
All those stripes he has endured, and left not one of them for us to
bear.
"But must we not believe on him?" Ay, certainly. If I say of a certain
ointment that it heals, I do not deny that you need a bandage with
which to apply it to the wound. Faith is the linen which binds the
plaster of Christ's reconciliation to the sore of our sin. The linen
does not heal; that is the work of the ointment. So faith does not
heal; that is the work of the atonement of Christ.
"But we must repent," cries another. Assuredly we must, and shall, for
repentance is the first sign of healing; but the stripes of Jesus heal
us, and not our repentance. These stripes, when applied to the heart,
work repentance in us: we hate sin because it made Jesus suffer.
When you intelligently trust in Jesus as having suffered for you, then
you discover the fact that God will never punish you for the same
offence for which Jesus died. His justice will not permit him to see
the debt paid, first, by the Surety, and then again by the debtor.
Justice cannot twice demand a recompense: if my bleeding Surety has
borne my guilt, then I cannot bear it. Accepting Christ Jesus as
suffering for me, I have accepted a complete discharge from judicial
liability. I have been condemned in Christ, and there is, therefore,
now no condemnation to me any more. This is the ground-work of the
security of the sinner who believes in Jesus: he lives because Jesus
died in his room, and place, and stead; and he is acceptable before God
because Jesus is accepted. The person for whom Jesus is an accepted
Substitute must go free; none can touch him; he is clear. O my hearer,
wilt thou have Jesus Christ to be thy Substitute? If so, thou art free.
"He that believeth on him is not condemned." Thus "with his stripes we
are healed."
[Illustration]
A REAL HINDRANCE.
Although it is by no means a difficult thing in itself to believe him
who cannot lie, and to trust in One whom we know to be able to save,
yet something may intervene which may render even this a hard thing to
my reader. That hindrance may be a secret, and yet it may be none the
less real. A door may be closed, not by a great stone which all can
see, but by an invisible bolt which shoots into a holdfast quite out
of sight. A man may have good eyes, and yet may not be able to see an
object, because another substance comes in the way. You could not even
see the sun if a handkerchief, or a mere piece of rag, were tied over
your face. Oh, the bandages which men persist in binding over their own
eyes!
A sweet sin, harboured in the heart, will prevent a soul from laying
hold upon Christ by faith. The Lord Jesus has come to save us from
sinning; and if we are resolved to go on sinning, Christ and our souls
will never agree. If a man takes poison, and a doctor is called in to
save his life, he may have a sure antidote ready; but if the patient
persists in keeping the poison-bottle at his lips, and will continue
to swallow the deadly drops, how can the doctor save him? Salvation
consists largely in parting the sinner from his sin, and the very
nature of salvation would have to be changed before we could speak of a
man's being saved when he is loving sin, and wilfully living in it. A
man cannot be made white, and yet continue black; he cannot be healed,
and yet remain sick; neither can anyone be saved, and be still a lover
of evil.