By C.H. Spurgeon
“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a
stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:23, 24
WHAT contempt has God poured upon the wisdom of this
world! How has He brought it to nothing and made it appear as nothing. He has
allowed it to work out its own conclusions and prove its own folly. Men boasted
that they were wise. They said that they could find out God to perfection. And
in order that their folly might be refuted once and forever, God gave them the
opportunity of doing so. He said, “Worldly wisdom, I will try you. You say that
you are mighty, that your intellect is vast and comprehensive, that your eye is
keen, that you can unravel all secrets–now, behold, I try you–I give you one
great problem to solve.
“Here is the universe. Stars make its canopy, fields and
flowers adorn it and the floods roll over its surface. My name is written
therein–the invisible things of God may be clearly seen in the things which are
made. Philosophy, I give you this problem–find Me out. Here are My works–find
Me out. Discover in the wondrous world which I have made, the way to worship Me
acceptably. I give you space enough to do it–there is data enough. Behold the
clouds, the earth and the stars. I give you time enough. I will give you four
thousand years and I will not interfere–you shall do as you will with your own
world.
“I will give you men in abundance, for I will make great
minds and vast, whom you shall call lords of earth. You shall have orators, you
shall have philosophers. Find Me out, O reason. Find Me out, O wisdom. Discover
My nature, if you can–find Me out unto perfection, if you are able. And if you
can not, then shut your mouth forever and then I will teach you that the wisdom
of God is wiser than the wisdom of man. Yes that the foolishness of God is
wiser than men.” And how did the reason of man work out the problem? How did
wisdom perform her feat? Look upon the heathen nations–there you see the result
of wisdom’s researches. In the time of Jesus Christ, you might have beheld the
earth covered with the slime of pollution–a Sodom on a large scale, corrupt, filthy,
depraved, indulging in vices which we dare not mention, reveling in lusts too
abominable even for our imagination to dwell upon for a moment.
We find the men prostrating themselves before blocks of
wood and stone, adoring ten thousand gods more vicious than themselves. We
find, in fact, that reason wrote out her own depravity with a finger covered
with blood and filth. That she forever cut herself out from all her glory by
the vile deeds she did. She would not worship God. She would not bow down to
Him who is “clearly seen,” but she worshipped any creature. The reptile that
crawled, the crocodile, the viper, everything might be a god, but not the God
of Heaven. Vice might be made into a ceremony, the greatest crime might be
exalted into a religion, but true worship she knew nothing of. Poor reason!
Poor wisdom! How are you fallen from Heaven! Like Lucifer–you son of the
morning you are lost. You have written out your conclusion, but it is a
conclusion of consummate folly.
“After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew
not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe.” Wisdom had had its time and time enough. It had done its all and that
was little enough. It had made the world worse than it was before it stepped
upon it. And now, says God, “Foolishness shall overcome wisdom. Now ignorance,
as you call it, shall sweep away your science. Now, humble, child-like faith
shall crumble to the dust all the colossal systems your hands have piled.”
He calls His army. Christ puts His trumpet to His mouth
and up come the warriors–clad in fisherman’s garb, with the brogue of the Lake
of Galilee–poor humble mariners. Here are the warriors, O wisdom! that are to
confound you. These are the heroes who shall overcome your proud philosophers!
These men are to plant their standard upon the ruined walls of your strongholds
and bid them fall forever. These men and their successors, are to exalt a
Gospel in the world which you may laugh at as absurd, which you may sneer at as
folly, but which shall be exalted above the hills and shall be glorious even to
the highest heavens.
Since that day God has always raised up successors of the
Apostles. I claim to be a successor of the Apostles, not by any lineal descent,
but because I have the same roll and charter as any Apostle and am as much
called to preach the Gospel as Paul himself–if not as much owned in the
conversion of sinners–yet in a measure, blessed of God. And, therefore, here I
stand, foolish as Paul might be, foolish as Peter, or any of those fisherman,
but still with the might of God I grasp the sword of Truth–coming here to
“preach Christ and Him crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the
Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Before I enter upon our text, let me very briefly explain
what I believe preaching Christ and Him crucified is. My Friends, I do not
believe it is preaching Christ and Him crucified to give our people a batch of
philosophy every Sunday morning and evening and neglect the Truth of this Holy
Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and Him crucified, to leave out
the main cardinal doctrines of the Word of God and preach a religion which is
all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatever. I take it that man
does not preach Christ and Him crucified, who can get through a sermon without
mentioning Christ’s name once.
Nor does that man preach Christ and Him crucified who
leaves out the Holy Spirit’s work, who never says a word about the Holy
Spirit–so that indeed the hearers might say, “We do not so much as know whether
there is a Holy Spirit.” And I have my own private opinion that there is no
such a thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless you preach what
now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas and those I always state
boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the Gospel and nothing
else. I do not believe we can preach the Gospel, if we do not preach
justification by faith, without works. Nor unless we preach the sovereignty of
God in His dispensation of grace. Nor unless we exalt the electing,
unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering, love of Jehovah.
Nor do I think we can preach the Gospel, unless we base
it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for His elect and chosen
people. Nor can I comprehend a Gospel which lets saints fall away after they
are called and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of
damnation after having believed. Such a Gospel I abhor. The Gospel of the Bible
is not such a Gospel as that. We preach Christ and Him crucified in a different
fashion and to all gainsayers we reply, “We have not so learned Christ.”
There are three things in the text. First, a Gospel
rejected–“Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks
foolishness.” Secondly, a Gospel triumphant–“unto those which are called, both
Jews and Greeks.” And thirdly, a Gospel admired–it is to them who are called
“the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
First, we have here A GOSPEL REJECTED. One would have
imagined that when God sent His Gospel to men, all men would meekly listen and
humbly receive its truths. We should have thought that God’s ministers had but
to proclaim that life is brought to light by the Gospel and that Christ is come
to save sinners and every ear would be attentive, every eye would be fixed and
every heart would be wide open to receive the Truth. We should have said,
judging favorably of our fellow creatures, that there would not exist in the
world a monster so vile, so depraved, so polluted, as to put so much as a stone
in the way of the progress of Truth.
We could not have conceived such a thing. Yet that
conception is the truth. When the Gospel was preached, instead of being
accepted and admired, one universal hiss went up to Heaven–men could not bear
it–its first Preacher they dragged to the brow of the hill and would have sent
Him down headlong–yes, they did more, they nailed Him to the Cross. And there
they let Him languish out His dying life in agony such as no man has borne
since. All His chosen ministers have been hated and abhorred by worldlings. Instead
of being listened to, they have been scoffed at–treated as if they were the
offscouring of all things and the very scum of mankind. Look at the holy men in
the old times, how they were driven from city to city, persecuted, afflicted,
tormented, stoned to death wherever the enemy had power to do so.
Those friends of men, those real philanthropists, who
came with hearts big with love, hands full of mercy, lips pregnant with
celestial fire and souls that burned with holy influence–those men were treated
as if they were spies in the camp–as if they were deserters from the common
cause of mankind. They were treated ass if they were enemies and not, as they
truly were, the best of friends. Do not suppose, my Friends, that men like the
Gospel any better now, than they did then.
There is an idea that you are growing better. I do not
believe it. You are growing worse. In many respects men may be better–outwardly
better–but the heart within is still the same. The human heart of today
dissected would be just like the human heart a thousand years ago–the gall of
bitterness within that breast of yours is just as bitter as the gall of
bitterness in that of Simon of old. We have in our hearts the same latent
opposition to the Truth of God. And therefore we find men even as of old, who
scorn the Gospel.
I shall, in speaking of the Gospel rejected, endeavor to
point out the two classes of persons who equally despise the Truth. The Jews
make it a stumbling block and the Greeks account it foolishness. Now these two
very respectable gentlemen–the Jew and the Greek–I am not going to make these
ancient individuals the object of my condemnation. But I look upon them as
members of a great parliament, representatives of a great constituency and I
shall attempt to show that if all the race of Jews were cut off, there would be
still a vast number in the world who would answer to the name of Jews, to whom
Christ is a stumbling block. And that if Greece were swallowed up by some
earthquake and ceased to be a nation, there would still be the Greek unto whom
the Gospel would be foolishness. I shall simply introduce the Jew and the
Greek. And let them speak a moment to you, in order that you may see the
gentlemen who represent you–the representative men. The persons who stand for
many of you, who as yet are not called by Divine grace.
The first is the Jew. To him the Gospel is a stumbling
block. A respectable man the Jew was in his day. All formal religion was
concentrated in his person. He went up to the temple very devoutly. He tithed
all he had, even to the mint and the cummin. You would see him fasting twice in
the week, with a face all marked with sadness and sorrow. If you looked at him,
he had the Law between his eyes. There was the phylactery and the borders of
his garments of amazing width, that he might never be supposed to be a Gentile
dog–that no one might ever conceive that he was not a Hebrew of pure descent.
He had a holy ancestry. He came of a pious family. A
right good man was he. He could not endure those Sadducees at all, who had no
religion. He was thoroughly a religious man. He stood up for his synagogue. He
would not have that temple on Mount Gerizim. He could not bear the Samaritans,
he had no dealings with them. He was a religionist of the first order, a man of
the very finest kind. A specimen of a man who is a moralist and who loves the
ceremonies of the Law. Accordingly, when he heard about Christ, He asked who
Christ was. “The son of a carpenter.” “Ah, The son of a carpenter and His
mother’s name was Mary. And His father’s name Joseph.” “That of itself is
presumption enough,” said he, “positive proof, in fact, that He cannot be the
Messiah.
And what does Christ say? Why He says, “Woe unto you,
Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. That won’t do. Moreover,” He says, “It is
not by the works of the flesh that any man can enter into the kingdom of
Heaven.” The Jew tied a double knot in his phylactery at once. He thought he
would have the borders of his garment made twice as broad. He bow to the
Nazarene? No, no! And if so much as a disciple crossed the street, he thought
the place polluted and would not tread in his steps. Do you think he would give
up his old father’s religion–the religion which came from Mount Sinai–that old
religion that lay in the ark and the overshadowing cherubim? He give that up?
Not he! A vile impostor–that is all Christ was in his eyes. He thought, “A
stumbling block to me? I cannot hear about it! I will not listen to it.”
Accordingly, he turned a deaf ear to all the Preacher’s
eloquence and listened not at all. Farewell, old Jew. You sleep with your
fathers and your generation is a wandering race, still walking the earth.
Farewell, I have done with you. Alas, poor wretch, that Christ who was your
stumbling block, shall be your Judge and on your head shall be that loud
curse–“His blood be on us and on our children.” But I am going to find out Mr.
Jew here in Exeter Hall–persons who answer to his description–to whom Jesus Christ
is a stumbling block.
Let me introduce you to yourselves, some of you. You were
of a pious family, too, were you not? Yes. And you have a religion which you
love–you love it so far as the chrysalis of it goes, the outside, the covering,
the husk. You would not have one rubric altered, nor one of those dear old
arches taken down, nor the stained glass removed for all the world. And any man
who should say a word against such things, you would set down as a heretic at
once. Or, perhaps you do not go to such a place of worship, but you love some
plain old meeting house, where your forefathers worshipped, called a dissenting
chapel. Ah, it is a beautiful plain place. You love it, you love its
ordinances, you love its exterior.
And if anyone spoke against the place, how vexed you
would feel. You think that what they do there, they ought to do everywhere. In
fact your church is a model one. The place where you go is exactly the sort of
place for everybody. And if I were to ask you why you hope to go to Heaven, you
would, perhaps, say, “Because I am a Baptist,” or, “Because I am an
Episcopalian,” or whatever other sect you belong to. There is yourself. I know
Jesus Christ will be a stumbling block to you. What if I come and tell you that
all your going to the house of God are good for nothing? What if I tell you
that all those many times you have been singing and praying–all mean nothing in
the sight of God–because you are a hypocrite and a formalist?
What if I tell you that your heart is not right with God
and that unless it is so, all the external is good for nothing? I know what you
will say–“I shan’t hear that young man again.” It is a stumbling block. If you
had stepped in anywhere where you had heard formalism exalted. If you had been
told, “this must you do and this other must you do and then you will be saved,”
you would highly approve of it. But how many are there externally religious,
with whose characters you could find no fault, but who have never had the
regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit? How many are there who never were
made to lie prostrate on their face before Calvary’s Cross–who never turned a
wishful eye to yonder Savior crucified?
How many are there who never put their trust in Him that
was slain for the sons of men? They love a superficial religion, but when a man
talks deeper than that, they set it down for cant. You may love all that is
external about religion, just as you may love a man for his clothes–caring
nothing for the man himself. If so, I know you are one of those who reject the
Gospel. You will hear me preach. And while I speak about the externals, you
will hear me with attention. And while I plead for morality and argue against
drunkenness, or show the heinousness of Sabbath-breaking, all well and good.
But if once I say, “Except you be converted and become as little children, you
can in no wise enter into the kingdom of God.” If once I tell you that you must
be elect of God–that you must be purchased with the Savior’s blood–that you
must be converted by the Holy Spirit–you will say, “He is a fanatic! Away with
him, away with him! We do not want to hear that any more.” Christ crucified, is
to the Jew–the ceremonialist–a stumbling block.
But there is another specimen of this Jew to be found. He
is thoroughly orthodox in his sentiments. As for forms and ceremonies, he
thinks nothing about them. He goes to a place of worship where he learns sound
doctrine. He will hear nothing but what is true. He likes that we should have
good works and morality. He is a good man and no man can find fault with him.
Here he is, regular in his Sunday pew. In the market he walks before men in all
honesty–so you would imagine. Ask him about any doctrine and he can give you a
formal discourse upon it. In fact, he could write a treatise upon anything in
the Bible and a great many things besides.
He knows almost everything. And here, up in this dark
attic of the head, his religion has taken up its abode. He has a better parlor
down in his heart, but his religion never goes there–that is shut against it.
He has money in there–mammon, worldliness. Or he has something else–self-love,
pride. Perhaps he loves to hear experimental preaching. He admires it all. In
fact, he loves anything that is sound. But then he has not any sound in
himself–or rather, it is all sound and there is no substance. He likes to hear
true doctrine. But it never penetrates his inner man. You never see him weep.
Preach to him about Christ crucified, a glorious subject and you never see a
tear roll down his cheek.
Tell him of the mighty influence of the Holy Spirit–he
admires you for it–but he never had the hand of the Holy Spirit on his soul.
Tell him about communion with God, plunging into the Godhead’s deepest sea and
being lost in its immensity–the man loves to hear–but he never experiences. He
has never communed with Christ and accordingly when once you begin to strike
home, when you lay him on the table, take out your dissecting knife, begin to
cut him up and show him his own heart–let him see what it is by nature and what
it must become by grace–the man starts, he cannot stand that. He wants none of
that–Christ received in the heart and accepted.
Albeit that he loves it enough in the head, ‘tis to him a
stumbling block and he casts it away. Do you see yourselves here, my Friends?
Do you see yourselves as others see you? Do you see yourselves as God sees you?
For so it is, here are many to whom Christ is as much a stumbling block now as
ever He was. O you formalists! I speak to you! O you who have the nutshell, but
abhor the kernel! O you who like the trappings and the dress, but care not for
that fair virgin who is clothed therewith–O you who admire the paint and the
tinsel, but abhor the solid gold, I speak to you! I ask you, does your religion
give you solid comfort? Can you stare death in the face with it and say, “I
know that my Redeemer lives”? Can you close your eyes at night, singing as your
vesper song–
“I to the end must endure,
As sure as the earnest is given”?
Can you bless God for affliction? Can you plunge in
furnished as you are and swim through all the floods of trial? Can you march
triumphant through the lion’s den, laugh at affliction and bid defiance to
Hell? Can you? No! Your Gospel is an effeminate thing. A thing of words and
sounds and not of power. Cast it from you, I beseech you–it is not worth your
keeping. And when you come before the Throne of God, you will find it will fail
you and fail you so that you shall never find another. For lost, ruined, destroyed,
you shall find that Christ who is now standing, “a stumbling block,” will be
your Judge.
I have found out the Jew and I have now to discover the
Greek. He is a person of quite a different exterior to the Jew. As to the
phylactery, to him it is all rubbish. And as to the broad-hemmed garment, he
despises it. He does not care for the forms of religion. He has an intense
aversion, in fact, to broad-brimmed hats, or to everything which looks like
outward show. He appreciates eloquence. He admires a smart saying. He loves a
quaint expression. He likes to read the last new book. He is a Greek and to him
the Gospel is foolishness. The Greek is a gentleman found in most places
now-adays–manufactured sometimes in colleges, constantly made in schools,
produced everywhere. He is on the exchange. In the market. He keeps a shop.
Rides in a carriage.
He is a noble, a gentleman. He is everywhere. Even in
court. He is thoroughly wise. Ask him anything and he knows it. Ask for a
quotation from any of the old poets, or anyone else and he can give it you. If
you are a Mohammedan and plead the claims of your religion, he will hear you
very patiently. But if you are a Christian and talk to him of Jesus Christ,
“Stop your cant,” he says, “I don’t want to hear anything about that.” This
Grecian gentleman believes all philosophy except the true one. He studies all
wisdom except the wisdom of God. He seeks all learning except spiritual
learning. He loves everything except that which God approves.
He likes everything which man makes and nothing which
comes from God. It is foolishness to him, confounded foolishness. You have only
to discourse about one doctrine in the Bible and he shuts his ears. He wishes
no longer for your company. It is foolishness. I have met this gentleman a
great many times. Once when I saw him, he told me he did not believe in any
religion at all. And when I said I did and had a hope that when I died I should
go to Heaven, he said he dared say it was very comfortable, but he did not
believe in religion and that he was sure it was best to live as nature
dictated.
Another time he spoke well of all religions and believed
they were very good in their place and all true. And he had no doubt that if a
man were sincere in any kind of religion, he would be all right at last. I told
him I did not think so and that I believed there was but one religion revealed
of God–the religion of God’s elect, the religion which is the gift of Jesus.
He then said I was a bigot and wished me good morning. It
was to him foolishness. He had nothing to do with me at all. He either liked no
religion, or every religion. Another time I held him by the coat button and I
discussed with him a little about faith. He said, “It is all very well, I
believe that is true Protestant doctrine.” But presently I said something about
election and he said, “I don’t like that. Many people have preached that and
turned it to bad account.” I then hinted something about free grace, but that
he could not endure, it was to him foolishness. He was a polished Greek and
thought that if he were not chosen, he ought to be. He never liked that
passage–“God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise
and the things which are not, to bring to nothing things that are.”
He thought it was very discreditable to the Bible and
when the book was revised, he had no doubt it would be cut out. To such a
man–for he is here this morning, very likely come to hear this reed shaken of
the wind–I have to say this–Ah, you wise man, full of worldly wisdom. Your
wisdom will stand you here, but what will you do in the swellings of Jordan?
Philosophy may do well for you to lean upon while you walk through this world.
But the river is deep and you will want something more than that. If you have
not the arm of the Most High to hold you up in the flood and cheer you with
promises, you will sink, Man.
With all your philosophy, you will sink–with all your
learning, you shall sink and be washed into that awful ocean of eternal
torment, where you shall be forever. Ah, Greeks, it may be foolishness to you,
but you shall see the Man, your Judge and then you shall rue the day that ever
you said that God’s Gospel was foolishness.
II. Having spoken thus far upon the Gospel rejected, I
shall now briefly speak upon the GOSPEL TRIUMPHANT. “Unto us who are called,
both Jews and Greeks, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Yonder man
rejects the Gospel, despises grace and laughs at it as a delusion. Here is
another man who laughed at it, too. But God will fetch him down upon his knees.
Christ shall not die for nothing. The Holy Spirit shall not strive in vain. God
has said, “My Word shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that
which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” “He shall
see of the travail of His soul and shall be abundantly satisfied.”
If one sinner is not saved, another shall be. The Jew and
the Greek shall never depopulate Heaven. The choirs of glory shall not lose a
single songster by all the opposition of Jews and Greeks. For God has said it.
Some shall be called. Some shall be saved. Some shall be rescued–
“Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorred,
And the fool with it, who insults his Lord.
The atonement a Redeemer’s love has worked
Is not for you–the righteous need it not.
See you yon harlot wooing all she meets,
The worn-out nuisance of the public streets,
Herself from morn to night, from night to morn,
Her own abhorrence and as much your scorn.
The gracious shower, unlimited and free,
Shall fall on her when Heaven denies it you.
Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift,
That 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. “Unto 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, “Unto 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, nobody 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 unto Him, “Rabboni.” Do
you know anything about that special call my Beloved? Did Jesus ever call you
by name? Can you recollect 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 keeping back. Ah, I know I laughed at religion. I despised, I
abhorred it. But that call! Oh, I would not come. But Jesus said, “you shall
come. All that the Father gives to Me shall come.” “Lord, I will not.” “But you
shall,” said Christ. 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 Zaccheus, when he was up in the
tree–stepping under the tree, He said, “Zaccheus, come down, today I must abide
at your house.” Zaccheus, 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 persons going to
the house of God and having their characters described, to perfection, so that
they have said, “He is describing me! He is describing 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.
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. As Cowper says–
“We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways,
And one who wears a coronet and prays.
Like gleanings of an olive tree they show,
Here and there one upon the topmost bough.”
III. Now we come to our third point, A GOSPEL ADMIRED.
Unto 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 of 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 unto life and not know it–how a man can be brought out of
darkness into marvelous 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 Savior’s blood’s 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–unto us who are
saved, it is “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
The Gospel is to the true Believer a thing of power. It
is Christ, the power of God. Yes, 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? Yes, 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 rifted 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 free grace alone, from the first to the last,
Has won my affection and held my soul fast.”
The Gospel to the Christian is a thing of power. What is
it that makes the young man devote himself as a missionary to the cause of
God–to leave father and mother–and go into distant lands? It is a thing of
power that does it–it is the Gospel. What is it that empowers yonder minister,
in the midst of the cholera, to climb up that creaking staircase and stand by
the bed of some dying creature who has that dire disease? It must be a thing of
power which leads him to risk his life. It is love of the Cross of Christ which
bids him do it. What is that which enables one man to stand up before a
multitude of his fellows, all unprepared he may be, but determined that he will
speak nothing but Christ and Him crucified? What is it that enables him to cry,
like the warhorse of Job in battle, Aha, and move glorious in might? It is a
thing of power that does it–it is Christ crucified.
And what emboldens that timid female to walk down that
dark lane in the wet evening, that she may go and sit beside the victim of a
contagious fever? What strengthens her to go through that den of thieves and
pass by the profligate and profane? What influences her to enter into that
charnel-house of death and there sit down and whisper words of comfort? Does
gold make her do it? They are too poor to give her gold. Does fame make her do
it? She shall never be known, nor written among the mighty women of this earth.
What makes her do it? Is it love of merit? No. She knows she has no desert
before high Heaven. What impels her to it? It is the power of the Gospel on her
heart. It is the Cross of Christ. She loves it and she therefore says–
“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
But I behold another scene. A martyr is hurried to the
stake. The executioners are around him. The crowds are mocking, but he is
marching steadily on. See, they bind him with a chain around his middle, to the
stake. They heap fire wood all about him–the flame is lighted up–listen to His
words–“Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy
name.” The flames are kindling round his legs. The fire is burning him even to
the bone! See him lift up his hands and say, “I know that my Redeemer lives and
though the fire devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see the Lord.” Behold
him clutch the stake and kiss it as if he loved it. Listen, as he says, “For
every chain of iron that man girds me with, God shall give me a chain of gold.
For all this fire wood and this ignominy and shame, He shall increase the
weight of my eternal glory.”
See, all the under parts of His body are consumed–still
he lives in the torture. At last he bows himself and the upper part of his body
falls over. And as he falls you hear him say, “Into Your hands I commend my
spirit.” What wondrous magic was on him, Sirs? What made that men strong? What
helped him to bear that cruelty? What made him stand unmoved in the flames? It
was the thing of power. It was the Cross of Jesus crucified. For “unto us who
are saved it is the power of God.”
But behold another scene far different. There is no crowd
there. It is a silent room. There is a poor pallet, a lonely bed–a physician
standing by. There is a young girl. Her face is blanched by consumption–long
has the worm eaten her cheek and though sometimes the flush came, it was the
death-flush of the deceitful Destroyer. There she lies, weak pale, wan, worn,
dying–yet behold a smile upon her face, as if she had seen an angel. She speaks
and there is music in her voice. Joan of Arc of old was not half so mighty as
that girl. She is wrestling with dragons on her deathbed–but see her composure
and hear her dying sonnet–
“Jesus! lover of my soul,
Let me to Your bosom fly,
While the billows near me roll,
While the tempest still is high!
Hide me, O my Savior! hide
Till the storm of life is past!
Safe into the haven guide;
Oh, receive my soul at last!”
And with a smile she shuts her eyes on earth and opens
them in Heaven. What enables her to die like that? It is the power of God unto
salvation. It is the Cross. It is Jesus crucified.
I have little time to discourse upon the other point and
be it far from me to weary you by a lengthened and prosy sermon, but we must
glance at the other statement–Christ is, to the called ones, the wisdom of God,
as well as the power of God. To a Believer, the Gospel is the perfection of
wisdom and if it appear not so to the ungodly, it is because of the perversion
of judgment consequent on their depravity.
An idea has long possessed the public mind that a
religious man can scarcely be a wise man. It has been the custom to talk of
infidels, atheists and deists as men of deep thought and comprehensive
intellect. And to tremble for the Christian controversialist, as if he must
surely fall by the hand of the enemy. But this is purely a mistake. For the
Gospel is the sum of wisdom, an epitome of knowledge, a treasure house of Truth
and a Revelation of mysterious secrets. In it we see how justice and mercy may be
married. Here we behold inexorable Law entirely satisfied and sovereign love
bearing away the sinner in triumph. Our meditation upon it enlarges the mind.
And as it opens to our soul in successive flashes of glory, we stand astonished
at the profound wisdom manifest in it.
Ah, dear Friends! If you seek wisdom, you shall see it
displayed in all its greatness. Not in the balancing of the clouds, nor the
firmness of earth’s foundations–not in the measured march of the armies of the
sky, nor in the perpetual motion of the waves of the sea. Not in vegetation
with all its fairy forms of beauty. Nor in the animal with its marvelous tissue
of nerve, vein and sinew–nor even in man–that last and loftiest work of the
Creator. But turn aside and see this great sight! An incarnate God upon the
Cross! A Substitute atoning for mortal guilt! A Sacrifice satisfying the
vengeance of Heaven–and delivering the rebellious sinner! Here is essential
wisdom enthroned, crowned, glorified. Admire this wisdom, you men of earth. And
if you are not blind–even you who glory in your learning. If you will only bend
your heads in reverence you will have to admit that all your skill could not
have devised a Gospel at once so just to God, so safe to man.
Remember, my Friends, that while the Gospel is in itself
wisdom, it also confers wisdom on its students. She teaches young men wisdom
and discretion and gives understanding to the simple. A man who is a believing
admirer and a hearty lover of the Truth, as it is in Jesus, is in a right place
to follow with advantage any other branch of science. I confess I have a shelf
in my head for everything now. Whatever I read I know where to put it. Whatever
I learn I know where to stow it away. Once when I read books, I put all my
knowledge together in glorious confusion. But ever since I have known Christ, I
have put Christ in the center as my sun and each science revolves round it like
a planet, while minor sciences are satellites to these planets.
Christ is to me the wisdom of God. I can learn everything
now. The science of Christ crucified is the most excellent of sciences–she is
to me the wisdom of God. Oh, young man, build your studio on Calvary! There
raise your observatory and scan by faith the lofty things of nature. Take a
hermit’s cell in the garden of Gethsemane and bathe your brow with the waters
of Siloa. Let the Bible be your standard classic–your last appeal in matters of
contention. Let its light be your illumination and you shall become more wise
than Plato–more truly learned than the seven sages of antiquity.
And now, my dear Friends, solemnly and earnestly, as in
the sight of God, I appeal to you. You are gathered here this morning, I know,
from different motives. Some of you have come from curiosity. Others of you are
my regular hearers. Some have come from one place and some from another. What
have you heard me say this morning? I have told you of two classes of persons
who reject Christ. The religionist who has a religion of form and nothing else.
And the man of the world, who calls our Gospel foolishness. Now put your hand
upon your heart and ask yourself this morning, “Am I one of these?” If you are,
then walk the earth in all your pride. Then go as you came in. But know that
for all this, the Lord shall bring you into judgment–know you that your joys
and delights shall vanish like a dream, “and, like the baseless fabric of a
vision,” be swept away forever.
Know this, moreover, O Man, that one day in the halls of
Satan, down in Hell, I perhaps may see you among those myriad spirits who
revolve forever in a perpetual circle with their hands upon their hearts. If
your hand be transparent and your flesh transparent, I shall look through your
hand and flesh and see your heart within. And how shall I see it? Set in a case
of fire–in a case of fire! And there you shall revolve forever, with the worm
gnawing within your heart, which shall never die–a case of fire around your
never-dying, ever-tortured heart. Good God! Let not these men still reject and
despise Christ. But let this be the time when they shall be called.
To the rest of you who are called, I need say nothing.
The longer you live, the more powerful will you find the Gospel to be. The more
deeply Christ-taught you are, the more you live under the constant influence of
the Holy Spirit. The more you will know the Gospel to be a thing of power, the
more also will you understand it to be a thing of wisdom. May every blessing
rest upon you. And may God come up with us in the evening–
“Let men or angels dig the mines
Where nature’s golden treasure shines.
Brought near the doctrine of the Cross,
All nature’s gold appears but dross.
Should vile blasphemers with disdain
Pronounce the Truths of Jesus vain,
We’ll meet the scandal and the shame.
And sing and triumph in His name.”
