For instance how often have professors, when they have prospered, found opportunities to return! What shouts of triumph would they raise, and how would they welcome him! Opportunities to return you have now; but ah! Each man's calling may seem to him to be more full of temptation than his fellow's. a. They are, in truth, the pilgrim's solace. There were no carnal arguments between God and Abraham, for God has not invited his people to reason with him with human arguments. The call is given again, will you obey it or not? There are snares in company, but there are snares in our loneliness. Make the attempt by faith in God; for it is written, "Out of weakness were made strong." An American once said, "I have got a good religion; it's the right sort of religion; I do not know that it costs me a cent a year; and yet I believe I am as truly a religious man as anybody." The Meaning of Faith 11 Now faith is the assurance[ a] of things hoped for, the conviction[ b] of things not seen. Perhaps they were living at home before, but now they have to take a room where they can have no quiet, but where sounds of blasphemy greet them, or, in some cases, where they have to go to the workhouse, and be far away from all Christian intercourse or anything that could comfort them. For us henceforth our leader is the Lord alone. All glory to his grace! Noah obeyed the Lord very carefully. That is to say, do what you may, strive as earnestly as you can, live as excellently as you please, make what sacrifices you choose, be as eminent as you can for everything that is lovely and of good repute, yet none of these things can be pleasing to God unless they be mixed with faith. Hebrews 11:8 . The spirit of proselyting is the spirit of Christianity, and we ought to be desirous of possessing it. WE CANNOT TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO BACK BECAUSE WE DESIRE SOMETHING BETTER than we could get by going back. If thou dost trust in thy works, then thy works are anti-christ, and Christ and anti-christ can never go together. There are seas of suffering which the sufferer must navigate alone. We shall never find a heaven here. It is only grace that can keep grace alive under such circumstances. You can not have faith, and yet live in sin. If a man says he has faith, and has no works, he lies; if any man declares that he believes on Christ, and yet does not lead a holy life, he makes a mistake; for while we do not trust in good works, we know that faith always begets good works. Thus we have Abraham before us; may the Holy Spirit make us like him. Will you not yield your weakness to him, and receive his strength, Permit me to speak to some aspiring spirit here, and say,--Dear friend, would you like to do something great for God Have you heard the motto of our early missionaries: "Attempt great things for God"? Thus you see the reason why the Christian cannot go back. He is not ashamed that it should be so. It may be that an awful temper broke over us in surging waves. Those sons of Heth also were willing to make him a present of a piece of land around the cave of Machpelah; but he did not want a present from Canaanites, and so he said, "No, I will pay you every penny. I have seen many a soul wearying to ascend; receiving a little light, and a little more light, and a little more light; but yet far from being clear of the dark waters of iniquity. Why, if grace was a sort of chain that manacled you, so that you could not leave your Lord; if it had become a physical impossibility to forsake the Savior, there would be no credit in it. But note what it is. Would to God that such conduct were usual, yea, universal; for with many of our fellow-men, and I fear with some now present, the call alone is not enough to produce obedience. Amen and amen. Now which man does the dog follow? Yet most people today have never heard of John Gill. Thy sin was laid on him: it is forgiven thee. Our temptations are pretty equally distributed, I dare say, after all. You need not even appeal to friends for consolation. We have had opportunities to have returned. While our voices blend, do not our very souls become more and more richly cemented? If, as a decided believer, he takes his stand, and if he is firm and steadfast for his God, he will make a man, and his after years will be bright and useful; but if he begins to give way a little, and if he tries to trim his sail to the wind, he will never attain to a holy character. if you start on the voyage of life, by divine grace, with the resolve that you will follow the track; marked down on the chart by the Lord your God, you will find that you have chosen a course to which the Lord's hand alone can keep you true. The apostle Paul undertook to raise the structure, and he erected a most magnificent pillar in the chapter before us. Here is one that can never be diminished, much less exhausted. Amen. But, I must close with the sweetest part of the text, wherein it is shown that we have a great and blessed assurance vouchsafed to us as an acknowledgment, on the part of God, of those opportunities, and those yearnings persisted in. May I pass the question round these galleries, and put it to you also in this vast area? It is not ours to judge the Lord's command, but to follow it. Brethren, you desire something better than this world, do you not? Carelessness cannot tread the highway of holiness. Even among the most attentive hearers how many there are to whom the word comes with small practical result in actual obedience. Abraham "went out, not knowing whither he went," but the moderns must have every information with regard to the way, and then they will not go. Do not try to deal with your husband otherwise than by faith in God. You can never know how great it is unless you have stood in the capacity of a saviour to other men. Art thou resting in the promise of a faithful God?" The same faith which saved Rahab can save thee. They are coming to a crossroad: one goes to the right, the other goes to the left. "Many are called, but few are chosen." "No; the fact of it is, I think, if I look to myself that is quite enough." "Hast thou faith? What a glorious degree Abraham took when he was called "the friend of God"; was not his loss of earthly friendships abundantly made up to him? HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK" 649, 653, 650. Alas! And now in conclusion, THE QUESTION, the vital question. They called his warning "an old wives' fable," and he himself was "an old fossil." Give me thyself, and take these all away if it so please thee, but don't my Lord, don't think I can fill myself with these things." He, too, have had many calls, but perhaps we have said, "If I heard a voice speaking from the sky I would obey it," but the form in which your call has come has been better than that, for Peter in his second epistle tells us that he himself heard a voice out of the excellent glory when he was with our Lord in the holy mount, but he adds, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy" as if the testimony which is written, the light that shineth in a dark place, which beams forth from the word of God, was more sure than even the voice which he heard from heaven. Scripture: Hebrews 2:9-13. If you are in real earnest, you might possibly do more by a break-down than by anything else. Let me try to show you how urgent a motive for steadfastness this is. "Well," said the other, "and you believe that you are God's elect, do you?" Obedience what a blessing it would be if we were all trained to it by the Holy Spirit! Couldst thou die for him? Whenever you feel a prompting to do a good thing do not ask anybody whether you should do it or not; no one ever repents of doing good. True, it brought him into a world of trouble, and no wonder: such a noble course as his was not likely to be an easy one. He is not ashamed to call them brethren. When you have opportunity to return, if you do not return, that shall prove you are his. We desire something better. Says one young man, in writing to me this week, "I have been praying for my fellow-clerk in the office; I have desired that he might be brought to the Saviour, but at present there is no answer to my prayers." Faith always has been the mark of God's servants, from the beginning of the world. You live in a back street, in a house which contains none but Sabbath breakers, and irreligious men and women. In the better land you shall find the rest which you never can find here, and need not wish to find, for the land is polluted; let us away from it. Do not give a penny for that man's piety which will not spread itself. Even when he does not realize as yet, or actually enjoy, that infinite good, which is something better than creature comfort or worldly ambition, the desires themselves become mighty bonds that keep him from returning to his former state. may grace be given you so that, if others play the Judas, instead of leading you to do the same, it may only bind you more fast to your Lord, and make you walk more carefully, lest you also prove a son of perdition. Let us fly away and find our home in the rock of ages." Trust thou in thy God, in his love to thee, in his care of thee, and then thou shalt be as the lilies, which toil not, and spin not, and yet are clothed; or as the ravens, which have no store, and yet are fed. If he had not believed the threat, he would not have prepared an ark, and so would not have received the promise. For an offensive weapon, take "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God"; and if this does not serve your turn, nothing will. "You will be captivated by the lofty way Spurgeon unfolds the real significance of marital love, the reverent way he honors Christ, and the genuine desire He must give up all agricultural pursuits, renounce his vine and his fig tree, and go his way, he knew not whither, to a land which to him was as unknown as the valley of the shadow of death. It is a great thing to be desirous. We cannot even have, when we judge ourselves rightly, patience with ourselves; but how is it that God bears with the ill-manners of such a froward, weak, foolish, forgetful people as his people are? Many of us may never have to brave the fiery stake, nor to bow our necks upon the block, to die as Paul did; but if we have grace enough to be out of weakness made strong, we shall not be left out of the roll of the nobles of faith, and God's name shall not fail to be glorified in our persons. He even offered up his son Isaac. Suppose that you are called to testify for truth in the midst of those who doubt, disbelieve, or even deride it. "Yes," says one, "I own that it is an urgent service to make known to others what the Lord has done for me: but, somehow, I cannot discharge my conscience by fully doing as I would. Faith is to be exercised about the commandments; for David says, "I have believed thy commandments." 1. He so believed, that fear came upon him, and that fear made him act as God bade him. Now, it is always foolish in us to be led by man, for then "the blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch;" but for the blind to be led by God is one of the best and wisest things. We will not have it that God, in his Holy Book, makes mistakes about matters of history, or of science, any more than he does upon the great truths of salvation. Hebrews 6:10. God-fearing example at home is the most fruitful of religious agencies. Stars cannot reach the zenith of the heavens by one sudden flash, nay even the sun himself must climb to his meridian. Jesus said, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" I trust we know what it is to have gone without the camp, bearing Christ's reproach. PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON--Hebrews 11:0 . Doubtless he was the frequent subject of sarcastic remark. There have been days when the world poured continually a river of infamy and calumny upset them, but they stemmed the torrent, and, by continued grace, made strong in weakness, they held their own until the current turned, and they, in their success, were praised and applauded by the very men who sneered before. Sermon. 2 Indeed, by faith[ c] our ancestors received approval. I cannot reproduce the letters that were written about the sturdy patriarch, nor can I recount the spiteful things which were said by the gossips; but I have no doubt they were very clever, and very sarcastic. There must be determination, thought, care, attention; and faith must work with all these to produce obedience to the will of the Lord. Nobody here will actually declare that he will not, but many will reply that they hope they shall. by I Gordon. He that knows the care of a household knows how easily a parent can do serious mischief with his children by his very efforts to do them good. that he would bring her now, though seventy years of age, to love the Saviour! When duty is contrary to your temperament, what will you do without faith? Ay, thou mayest conclude with absolute certainty that thou shalt never see perdition. Faith alone can confirm feeble knees. Trust you in Christ to overcome by his Spirit that which he has put away by his death. says she, secretly within herself, what she would willingly have said to her neighbors, "will you not now believe? By faith alone can you bear persecution, and turn it to account for the good of others. Dear struggler, you will never overcome sin except by faith in Jesus Christ. Let no man say, "I shall never fall." This will be sure defensive ground; but if you get off that rock, you will soon find yourself sinking or staggering. "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Grasp firmly the words, "and thy house." We are not our own, we are bought with a price. Dead fish always float down the stream, but the living fish forces its way against the current. Bible Study Series: Revealing Jesus in Revelation. He hated the very mention of religion. They accomplished all their feats by a power which was not in them by nature. If he saith, "Go," they go; if he saith, "Stay," they abide in their places. There are many who have that kind of faith: they believe just so far as probabilities go with them, but when the promise and the probability part, then they follow the probability and part with the promise. -- Hebrews 11:31. What grand life ever was easy? He hath prepared for them, not for all of you, but only for such as he has prepared for the city, has he prepared the city. If the Lord be God, he must be infallible; and if he can be described as in error in the little respects of human history and science, he cannot be trusted in the greater matters. but here it is that God exercises his great husbandry. Is it always going to be so? I would entreat you each one to make an application of the text to yourself in every work of faith, and labor of love, in which you may be engaged. Perhaps, you will say, "Why does the Lord make them so plentiful? WE HAVE FOR THIS REASON GREAT BLESSEDNESS. Does he not himself sometimes say of them, "How can I put them among the children?" Is not this enough to cheer the rank and file of the church, IV. It was easier for Noah to build the ark than to render so complete an obedience; but the Lord wrought in him by his grace. The Apostle tells us, however, that the people of God were not forced to continue, because they could not return. Ah! of both universities. I am persuaded that nothing but a spirit of distaste for free grace would ever have led any commentator to deny her sin. Most probably he heard a voice from heaven speaking audibly to him and saying, "Get thee out from thy kindred and from thy father's house." If so, thou mayest hope to be saved. To tell a very familiar story, and even the poorest may not misunderstand what I say: a minister was one day going to preach. Delivered on Sabbath Morning, July 10th, 1859, by the REV. They will take other cities before coming to Jericho; and, besides, the Canaanites are mighty, and the Israelites are only a parcel of slaves; they will soon be cut in pieces, and there will be an end of them; therefore, do not harbor these spies. It sees the Trinity; it cannot understand the Trinity in Unity, but it believes it. We have gone too far in sin already to dream of pardon and favour. If a man has been sunk down in black waters full of filth, a thousand fathoms deep, and if he has been long imprisoned in dark caves where no light has come, what a wondrous power would that be which should raise him to the sunlight! If any man pleases God, he does that which conduces most to his own temporal and eternal welfare. He asks your weakness: he has none of that himself, and he is longing, therefore, to take your weakness, and use it as the instrument in his own mighty hand. No; each man's calling may seem to him to be more full of temptation than his fellows, but it is not so. If you go to school to the obedience of faith, you will be good teachers. In all the cities of Europe there are reattains of the "Jews' quarter," and we in London had our "Old Jewry," the Jews being evermore a peculiar people. If we do as God commands, and do not seem to succeed, it is no fault of ours. Christ taketh away the vulture from the conscience, but he taketh away the chains too, and maketh the man wholly free when he doeth it all. saith one. Orders are given you which cause you great searchings of heart. You are deceiving yourselves if you think so. True faith gives its full assent to the Scriptures; it takes a page and says, "No matter what is in the page, I believe it;" it turns over the next chapter ands says, "Herein are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable do wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their destruction; but hard though it be, I believe it." Was it drunkenness? Do not cultivate doubt, or you will soon cultivate disobedience. I shall first have an exposition of what is faith; secondly, I shall have an argument , that without faith it is impossible to be saved; and thirdly, I shall ask a question Have you that faith which pleases God? So long as you are willing to be used, so long as God has given you an anxiety and travail of spirit for the souls of others, you need not fear; but may with faith get to work in all your feebleness, for as your day your strength shall be. Listen to their names: "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice;" "By faith Enoch was translated;" "By faith Noah built an ark;" "By faith Abraham went out into a place that he should afterwards receive;" "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise;" "By faith Sarah bare Isaac;" "By faith Abraham offered up Isaac;" "By faith Moses gave up the wealth of Egypt;" "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob;" "By faith Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph;" "By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel;" "By faith the Red Sea was dried up;" "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down;" "By faith the harlot Rahab was saved;" "And what more shall I say? 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