PART I, SKETCH XLI: "WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

“What have I done?” (Jeremiah 8.6.)

Introduction. God is so attentive to everything that is good, even in the poor sinner’s heart, that to him there is music in a sigh, and beauty in a tear; and in this verse that I have just read, he represents himself as looking upon man’s heart and listening—listening, if possibly he may hear something that is good. And oh! you that are this day seeking a Saviour, remember, that Saviour’s eyes are on your seeking soul today.

(1) Eager Persuasion. “What have I done?” Few men like to take the trouble to review their own biographies. Better, my friend, for you to know the past while there is yet time for repairing it. Search yourself and see if you are a Pharisee or not. Unless Christ be your Christ, you will be weighed in the balances and found wanting, and be cast away for ever. Your disguise will not fool God. I fear that I have baptized many of you that the Lord has never baptized. Some of you have been received into the church fellowship who were never received by God. If Jesus Christ had one hypocrite in his twelve, how many must I have here in nearly twelve hundred? Ah! in this age it is an easy thing to say you’re saved. Do not put off self-examination. Some of you may not see New Year’s Day. Many have thought, “There is time enough yet.” And before the time they have found themselves where time shall be no more.

(2) Answering the Question. Christian, what have you done for Christ’s church? for the salvation of the world? for your own growth in grace? Have you been the means of the salvation of a soul? I ask myself too, “What have I done?” The moralist says, “I have done plenty, attended church, prayed, shared, done my duty, done a great deal.” Quite right, but good works, if done for deserving salvation, are no better than sins. Christ will never go shares with you in the work of salvation. Another character says, “I am not much for talking about eternity. But neither my country, nor my friends, nor my conscience, can say anything against me. I may go too far in some things. But so what? It will be easy to set matters right before the end.” Stop! What is a little too much drink but drunkenness? What is loose talk but filthy conversation? What is joy riding on Sunday but Sabbath breaking? What is a hasty exclamation with the ‘Lord’ in it but swearing? Your sin list is getting long now. And unfair business is stealing. And desiring your neighbor’s prosperity is covetousness, which is idolatry. The list is black now. Whoever you are, remember all your sins of this past year, and be frightened! Ah! you that live in sin, know that one sin is enough to damn you forever! Despise Christ on the cross, and how terrible to be judged by Christ on the throne! And you, whose lifestyle has been copied, you have done your best to damn others! Oh, give me cause to hope that you will be saved! 

(3) Loving Caution. It is a solemn thing how the years roll away. I never spent a shorter year in my life than this one, and the older I grow, the shorter the years get. You old men, I dare say, you look back on your sixty and seventy years, and say, “Ah, young men, your years will seem shorter soon!” No doubt they will. “So teach us to number our days, O God, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Another year nearly gone, and yet many of you are unsaved. You are just where you were last year. No, you are nearer death, nearer hell, unless you repent. 

Selection from Conclusion. “Methinks, I see a spirit launched upon the sea of eternity. I hear it say, ‘What have I done?’”

PART I, SKETCH XL: THE WARNING

“He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 33.5.)

Introduction. In all worldly things men are always awake enough to understand their own interests. In religion, men prefer to believe in ideas than to think that Jesus has spoken personally about them. We need to be self-interested in the matter of salvation. I ask for God’s help to speak personally. Never mind if what I say seems to apply to your neighbor. I am speaking to you.  

(1) The Warning was all that could be Desired. If an army ignores the warning of its own guards, and then is attacked, their blood must rest on their own heads. So it is with you. If you die under the sound of the gospel, and have turned a deaf ear to it, your damnation must be an unpitied one. Among many of you, I have seen the tear guttering the cheek, and the soul moved, but you are not an inch closer to heaven. The man who heard the trumpet understood that the enemy was at hand. It is the same with you. I always use the homely phrase if I can. When I step out of the pulpit, I know at least, that I was perfectly understood. My hands are clean of your blood. What is more startling than a trumpet sound? It will even wake the sleepers on the resurrection morning. Yes, and you have had a startling ministry. Some of you have heard preachers preach hell as if they’d actually been there. They spoke the secrets of your heart. And I made you uneasy about your pleasure parties. And what if you have heard the trumpet blast frequently?—not only in sermons, but in deaths and sicknesses, etc. Some of you have heard a hundred sermons in a year! Just one warning neglected, and the guilt will be on your own head. I am warning you in time. Will you not be anxiously concerned now, before the wrath comes? 

(2) The Warning is Neglected without Excuse. You will not be excused because you thought there was no need to pay attention to the warning. You have been told to prepare for the judgment, that only through Christ can sinners be saved. Nor will you be excused for not liking the Gospel or certain teachings. That is like wanting a silver trumpet instead of one made of brass. Or maybe you did not like the way the trumpet was blown. If a man calls, “Fire! Fire!,” we do not care what note he takes, or how harsh his voice is. Maybe you did not like the man who blew the trumpet. This is like refusing the rescue rope just because you do not like the sailor that threw it to you. Maybe you think the trumpet sound is for everybody but yourself. But what says the Word to you? Are you too busy, maybe? Does a sick man not make time to see a physician? Maybe you need more time for pleasures, and then you’ll take religion. Would a promise of a Wednesday’s repentance save you from a Tuesday damnation? All excuses are idle. 

(3) The Warning Neglected is Inexcusable and Terrible. “His blood shall be on his own head.” He shall perish. The wrath to come is as inexpressible as the glory that shall be revealed. No preacher was ever so loving as Christ, but no man ever spoke so horribly about hell. We have heard of exquisite torments, but we have never dreamt of any like this! Go to the asylums and sick beds and see the suffering a person is capable of enduring. Judgment is not a matter of perhaps or chance. And once lost, always lost. Prepared or not, death’s appointment will not delay.

Selection from Conclusion. “Now Satan and the evil heart together are saying, ‘Reject the message; laugh it off; forget it: take a ticket for the theater to-morrow: do not let this man alarm us: it is his very profession to talk to us like this…let us spend the rest of this day in merriment.’…There are some of you that will this hour decide to damn yourselves.” 

PART I, SKETCH XXXIX: A MIGHTY SAVIOUR

“Mighty to save” (Isaiah 63.1.)

Introduction. This refers to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, who is ‘very God,’ equal and co-eternal with the Father, possessing all divine attributes in an infinite degree. He participated with his Father in all the acts of his divine might: the decree of election, the making of the world. Before these acts, he was the eternal Son of God. Nor did he cease to be God when he became man. We have proof of this in the miracles he did. He is God now, the true and proper object of worship. Yet he is also man, ‘bone of our bone,’ in every thing except our sin. His sufferings, death, and burial are strong proofs of that. His natures are not mixed. He is not God melted into man, nor man made into God, but a being with two distinct natures in one person. So we trust in him as the Son of God and Son of Man. The subject this morning is about one part of his mightiness. He is ‘mighty to save.’ 

(1) What are We to Understand by the Words ‘To Save?’ Christ saves men from the penalty of their guilt. But ‘to save’ means more than delivering penitents from going to hell. It involves the whole great work of salvation, from the first holy desire to complete sanctification. Some men tell us that ‘to save’ means that Christ came into the world to put all men into a salvable state so they can save themselves. I believe that he came to put men into a saved state. The highest proof of Christ’s power is not that he offers salvation, but that when you reject it and hate it, he has the power to change your mind and turn you. And our Lord is mighty to carry on that work in the soul to the end. God never begins a good work in man without finishing it. This belief is not merely Calvinism or even Paulism, but the fullness of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

(2) How Can We Prove that Christ is ‘Mighty to Save?’ The argument is that he has done it.  Has Christ’s gospel power to save the cannibal? Education may do very much. But what would it do with this savage? The schoolmaster who goes to him will be eaten before the day is up. Ask our missionaries whether Christ’s gospel is able to save. We have had proofs enough in heathen countries. The best proof you can have of God’s being mighty to save is that he saved you. If religion lays hold of you, and makes you a new man, then you will say there is something in it. 

(3) Why is Christ ‘Mighty to Save?’ Well, because of the infinite efficacy of his atoning blood. This is how Jesus saves. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘I love these poor sinners: let me suffer instead of them!’ Now they who believe in him, thus proving themselves to be his chosen, may conclude that he was punished for them, and that therefore they never can be punished. How does Christ make men repent, believe, and turn to God? By the eloquence of preachers or the force of moral suasion? God forbid we should say that! Preaching is the instrument, but the Holy Spirit is the great agent. 

(4) What Inferences are Derived from Jesus Christ being Mighty to Save? First, that ministers endeavor to preach in faith, nothing wavering. You are weak; God is ‘mighty to save.’ Again, that praying men and women be encouraged. Mother, don’t give up your prayers! I have heard of mothers who have prayed for their children twenty years, and of some who have died without seeing them converted, and then their very death being the means of saving their children, by leading them to think. Pray on, then! God shall yet bring your sons and daughters to his love and fear. 

Selection from Conclusion. “O poor sinner, trust in Jesus; cast thyself on him. Cry, and may God help thee to do it now. May he help thee this very day to cast thy soul on Jesus.”

PART I, SKETCH XXXVIII: GOING HOME: A CHRISTMAS SERMON

“Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee….” (Mark 5.19.)

Introduction. The poor wretch referred to, being possessed with a legion of evil spirits, had been driven to something worse than madness. He was worse than the wild beasts, for they might be tamed. In misery, he would howl and cut himself. Jesus passed by and told the devils to come out of him, and he was healed in a moment, and converted. Out of gratitude, he wanted to follow the Lord. The Lord told him to show his gratitude by going home and telling his friends about his deliverance. This teaches us that true religion does not separate men from their families. Superstition that calls itself Christianity has done that. Monks and nuns ought to go home to their friends! Be not without natural affection. True religion cannot be inconsistent with nature. Christianity does not free me from my duties as a son; it makes me a better son. Its intention is to make households which death itself shall never sever; it reunites families on the other side of the flood. Some are going home to see their friends. Our subject is about the story they have to tell. 

(1) Here is What They are to Tell. It is to be a story of personal experience. You are not commanded to go home and teach your doctrines, but to speak on what you have felt. Tell your friends how you were once a lost abandoned sinner, how the Lord met with you, how you poured out your soul before God, and leaped with joy. Next, it must be a story of free grace. It is not about what you have done, but about what the Lord has done for you. It is not about your doings, willings, prayings, and seekings, but about God who makes sinners his children, and heirs of everlasting life. And this poor man’s tale is a grateful story. A man who is grateful is always full of the greatness of the mercy God has shown him. With great earnestness, tell them it is a great story, and I hope they may be brought to believe that you, at least, are grateful. Lastly, the tale must be told by one who feels undeserving. Tell about ‘how he hath had compassion on thee.’ Do not tell the story of your conversion as if to boast about your sins, but with gratitude and thanksgiving. 

(2) Why Should We Tell this Story? First, for your Master’s sake. You can never think of his pierced hands and feet without loving him. Will you then refuse to tell the tale of his love to you? Next, if your friends are pious, tell it to make their hearts glad. Can you picture the joy when this poor demoniac went home and said that all the evil spirits were gone? If you, once possessed with sin, would go home and tell of your release, the scene could be somewhat similar. If they are bad, tell them for their soul’s salvation. Do not tell this story to your ungodly friends together, for they will laugh at you. Take them one by one, and they will hear you seriously. An elder in America rode five miles on horseback to tell this man that he had a concern for his soul. The next day that man was at the deacon’s house asking what he must do to be saved. 

(3) How is the Story to be Told? First, tell it truthfully. Do not tell Bunyan’s experience, but your own. One fly in the pot may spoil all. Next, tell it humbly, not as a preacher, but as a friend or a son. And tell it earnestly. Do not laugh at holy things, and maybe they won’t either. Also, tell it devoutly. Tell it to no man till you have told it to God. Wrestle with God for them, and you will be able to wrestle with them for God. Rely on the Holy Spirit. Trust not yourself, but fear not to trust him. He can give you words. He can apply those words to their hearts. 

Selection from Conclusion. “And shall such a tale be told in heaven?…Wilt thou not sit in the grassy meads of heaven, and tell the story of thine own redemption?…You will tell a long story there.”

PART I, SKETCH XXXVII: CHRIST: THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD

“Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1.24.)

Introduction. Unbelief toward the gospel of Christ is the most unreasonable thing in the world. The Jews wanted a sign. The miracles that Christ wrought were signs enough: Christ is the power of God. The Greeks wanted a wise philosophy. The gospel passes understanding: Christ is the wisdom of God. We shall understand our text in a threefold manner to answer both Jew and Greek.

(1) Christ Personally. He is the power of God from all eternity. When he came to earth in the fashion of a man, he still gave proof that he was the Son of God. The waves calmed by his voice, and became like marble beneath his tread. He raised the rotten carcass of Lazarus. After yielding up his own life, he proved his power by breaking the bonds of death. He is the power of God now, for it is written, “he sitteth at the right hand of God.” He is the Sovereign Head of the church and the Lord of heaven, death, and hell. He is equally the wisdom of God. He devised the system of atonement and substitution. He built the heavens by wisdom. As a child, he proved his wisdom before the doctors. As a man, those who came to take him stood spellbound by his oratory. Now he intercedes before the throne of God. We have abundant proofs that the wisdom of God is in Christ, as well as the power. Bow before him, you that love him!

(2) Christ’s Gospel. It is a thing of divine power. How else to account for its being spread the world over? It was spread by untaught fishermen. Did they convert men by force, as was done by those who followed Mohammed? Ah! no, but by simple words and the blessing of God’s Spirit. And what was this gospel which achieved so much? Did it offer a present paradise of happiness? prospects of wealth? prospects of lust like the coarse delusion of Joe Smith? No, this was a spotless gospel not palatable to human nature. Why did it spread? It has the power of God in it. How has it been maintained since then? Like the herb chamomile, the more it is trodden on, the more it grows. She cannot die, for she has the power of God within her. And what about that huge apostasy of Rome? A thousand miracles that the church outlived that! Even now, when I see the want of unction in the church and the disunions, it is a thousand miracles that the church of God should be alive. The power of God is in the church. And there are some here who were once unfaithful to truth, right, and chastity. Now they are as different as light from darkness. The gospel has been to men the power of God. And Christ’s gospel is the wisdom of God. Lord Lyttleton and West, professed infidels, sat down to write books ridiculing the subjects of Paul’s conversion and the resurrection. In studying, they both became Christians. Every man who gives the gospel the study it deserves will discover that it is true. 

(3) Christ in a Man, the Gospel in the Soul. The Christian begins in the prison chamber of conviction, ruin, and loss. But give him the name of Christ to plead, and he makes a happy escape. Then he is assailed by enemies. How shall he resist? By the true Jerusalem blade, Christ crucified. How shall he cross the river of Death? He remembers that Jesus died, and before his feet the Jordan opens up. Christ is wisdom, as well as power. Begin with the science of Christ crucified, and, beginning with the sun, you will see every other science moving round it in harmony. Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. Use the wisdom of God to direct your feet in his statutes.

Selection from Conclusion. “Do you feel that you are a sinner? If not, I have no gospel to preach to you…But if you feel your lost estate…come, and welcome, for he will never cast you away.”

PART I, SKETCH XXXVI: WHY ARE MEN SAVED?

“Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake” (Psalm 106.8.)

Introduction. In looking upon creation, two questions occur to the thoughtful mind: Who made all these things? And for what purpose were they made? The first question is easily answered. If man looks to the mountains, they seem to say, ‘The hand that made me is divine.’ The second question is not easy to answer apart from Scripture. The answer is that God made all things for his own glory and pleasure. What holds good in the works of creation holds good in the works of salvation. Lift up your eyes on high, higher than the stars. Who saved the glorified beings? And why were they saved? ‘He saved them for his name’s sake.’ Here, now, are four things from the text. 

(1) A Glorious Saviour. ‘He saved them.’ Who is to be understood by that pronoun ‘he?’ Jesus Christ is the Saviour of men, but not more so than God the Father, or God the Holy Ghost. The Father gave the Son; the Son redeems; the Holy Spirit regenerates. Moses stretched forth his rod, and the sea parted. But it was God who saved. Israel did not deliver itself. God did it. The preacher, under God, may be used to arrest man’s attention. But God gives the increase, and God must have all the glory. I would not cross the street to make a Baptist. But I would, under God, be the means of bringing men to Christ. Unless God converts, conversion shall not last. 

(2) The Favored Persons. ‘He saved them.’ Who are they? Respectable people? First, they were a stupid people. Moses says, “Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt.” God sends his gospel not always to the wise, but unto fools. Do not think that because you can barely spell your name that you cannot be saved. Next, they were an ungrateful people. Moses says “they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies.” God delivered them times without number; but they still rebelled. That is like you, my hearer. God has provided for you and kept you from the grave until now; but how ungrateful you have been! Yet some of your sort have been saved. ‘Nevertheless he saved them.’ And note, they were a provoking people. Moses says “they provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea.” Ah! how many people are provoking to God. Have you provoked God? If you repent, God has promised to save you. Sinner, I comfort you, not in your sin, but in your repentance. The saints of heaven were once as bad as you have been. Are you a drunkard, a swearer, unclean? “Such were some of them; but they have been washed.” 

(3) The Reason of Salvation. ‘He saved them for his name’s sake.’ Nothing in the sinner can entitle him to mercy, neither his goodness nor his talents. What does ‘his name’s sake’ mean? I think it means ‘his nature’s sake.’ He manifested his love by giving us the sun and stars. But he wanted to reveal himself still more. So he gave his Son to die in order to save the very worst of men. He has manifested all his attributes on the great balcony of salvation. Some say that God is a cruel tyrant. He saves the worst of sinners to vindicate his name and to make sinners love him. 

(4) The Obstacles Removed. ‘Nevertheless he saved them.’ The broken law demands blood. But Jesus silenced the law by keeping it and by paying the sinner’s penalty for breaking it. Further, his sprinkled blood silences the accusing conscience. And any covenant the sinner ever made with death and hell is nullified by the redemption that came before. The sinner is not his own. 

Selection from Conclusion. “Sinner, whatever be the ‘nevertheless,’ it shall never the less abate the Saviour’s love…On thy knee weep out a sorrowful confession; look to his cross.” 

PART I, SKETCH XXXV: MANASSEH

“Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God” (2 Chronicles 33.13.)

Introduction. Manasseh is one of those men who greatly sinned, and yet found great mercy. He ‘shed innocent blood very much,’ but found mercy through the Saviour whom God foresaw should die. 

(1) As a Sinner. He sinned against great light, a pious education, and early training. He was the son of Hezekiah, who ‘did right in the sight of the Lord.’ Manasseh pulled down what his father had built up, and built up the idol temples which his father had pulled down. The worst of men are those, who, having much light, still run astray. Such a one was Manasseh. He was a very bold sinner. He set up an idol right in the temple, as if to insult God to his face. He was a desperado in sin. Give me a coward—you give me nothing; give me a bold man, and you give me one that can do something, whether for Christ’s cause or the devil’s. Manasseh was a man of this kind. Yet this man, who had trampled on his father’s prayers, who had stifled the convictions of his conscience, and had gone to an extremity of guilt, was humbled to acknowledge that God was God alone. Let no man, therefore, despair of his fellow. Let no man despair of himself. Don’t give yourself up to Satan when he tells you your doom is cast. Manasseh had the power of leading others. As a king, he had great influence; what he commanded was done. It was the song and glory of the false priests that the king of Judah was on the side of the gods of the heathen. He was their great Goliath. He ‘caused his children to pass through the fire.’ Are there any here who have dedicated their children to the enemy? Even your case is not hopeless.

(2) As an Unbeliever. As an unbeliever of truth, Manasseh must have believed in the all-imaginary deities of the heathens. A man believes that atoms floated through space and came to certain shape, that man came to be in this world through the improvement of certain creatures, and that he is cousin-german to an ourang-outang. Then I may believe that Samson slew a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass! It requires the hardest faith to deny the Scriptures, because man, in his secret heart, knows they are true. ‘Lie down, conscience,’ he says, ‘or I cannot deliver my lecture tomorrow.’ The unlimited power Manasseh possessed tended to make him disbelieve in God. Unless governed by grace, power leads us to that. He was an unbeliever because he was proud. Pride lies at the root of infidelity; it is the germ of opposition to God. The intellectual will not become as a child to enter the kingdom! ‘I will not,’ says he. Manasseh was an unbeliever because he loved sin too well. Because the thought of God would check his lust, the unbeliever cries out, ‘There is no God.’ You would believe the gospel if you could believe it and live in your sin too. The gospel cries, ‘Down with sin.’ So men cry down the gospel. 

(3) As a Convert. Manasseh has just put his name to another murderous edict against the saints of God. But then he is taken captive to Babylon, and shut in prison. And now see what God can do. The proud king is on his knee. He weeps at how he ever could have sinned against a God so kind. Mercy whispers that promise from the murdered Isaiah: “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions.” O! can you conceive the joy of believers on that day? There was joy in heaven too; the bells of heaven rang merry peals the day Manasseh prayed. He believed in God because of answered prayer and because his sin was forgiven. He believed because he had a sense of pardoned sin. The wisest infidel cannot pervert the poorest saint who senses his blood-bought pardon. 

Selection from Conclusion. “’Once in Christ, in Christ for ever,/Nothing from his love can sever.’”