XI. I am going another step further. MEN WOULD NOT LOVE, ADOPT, HONOR, AND ASSOCIATE WITH THE OFFENDING.
“Well,” says one, “suppose I could entirely forgive everything that has been done against me, is anything more required of me?” Could you do something else? Could you love the one who slandered you, who tried to take away your good name, who sought to injure your business, and offended you in every way that he could? Could you take him into your family, and make him your son, or make him heir of all that you have? Could you provide for him for life? Could you be content to make him your friend and companion? Could you trust him, do you think,—actually trust him with the most precious things that you have? Could you do all that? “Well, Mr. Spurgeon,” says one, “it is an unreasonable thing that you are asking; you are talking quite unreasonably.” I know that I am, but that is because you are a man that it seems unreasonable to you. Yet our God goes beyond all reason, for this is exactly what he does. He takes the wretched sinner just as he is, blots out his sin, and gives him to believe in Christ; and to as many as believe in him, to them he gives power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. More than that, he says, through his apostle, that, if children, then are they heirs, “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.” These poor miserable sinners become the objects of his daily care as they are the objects of his eternal choice. He engraves their names upon the palms of his hands. They lie on his heart, and in his heart. “They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.” Yea, more, Christ is married to them; oh, what condescension it is for him to be married to those who were black as Ethiopians! There is nothing that he will not do for a pardoned sinner; there is nothing that he will withhold from a soul that, believing in Christ, has sin forgiven. You shall be with him where he is, you shall sit on his throne with him, you shall reign with him for ever and ever, as surely as you come and accept of his infinite grace.
XII. The last point is, that MEN WOULD NOT LOVE TRUST ONE WHO HAD FORMERLY WRONGED THEM.
I have always felt, in my own mind, that it was one of the clearest proofs that I had God’s forgiveness of my many sins, when I was trusted to preach the gospel. I should think that, if a prodigal came back to his father, the old gentleman would kiss him, and receive him, and rejoice greatly over him; but the next Saturday, the market-day, the old gentleman would say, “I cannot send young William to market; that would be putting temptation in his way. Here, John, you have always been with me; go to market, and buy and sell for me, for all that I have is thine. William, you stay at home with me.” He might not let him see all that he meant, but he would say to himself, “Dear boy, he is hardly fit for that great trust; I love him, but still I hardly dare trust him as much as that.” But see what my Lord did with me; when I came home to him as a poor prodigal, he said, “Here is my gospel, I will entrust you with it; go and preach it.” I bless his name that I have not preached anything else, and I do not mean to begin to do so.
“E’er since by faith I saw the stream
His flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.”
Then the Lord said to me, “I will trust you with those people at Waterbeach, at New Park Street, at the Surrey Gardens, and at the Tabernacle. Go and see what you can do to bring them to heaven.” I do long to see souls saved as one great result of my ministry. But what an instance of my Lord’s love it is that he thus trusts me! That was one of the things that made Paul hold up his hands in astonishment; he said that he had been put in trust with the gospel, and he could not make it out. He was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious, yet he was put in trust with the gospel. O dear heart, you who have been a drunkard, or a swearer, or whatsoever else you have been, come and trust in Jesus! If you do so, I should not wonder but that, one of these days, you also will be put in trust to preach the gospel of Christ. “Oh!” say you, “I could never preach.” You do not know what the grace of God can do for you and through you; and you would, anyhow, be able to tell what a wonderful Savior he was who saved you, would you not? That is the best preaching in the world, telling out to others what God has done for you; and I know that the burden of your testimony would be, “He is God, and not man,” and you would ask them to sing over and over again,—
“Who is a pardoning God like thee?
Or who has grace so rich and free?”
Now trust the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the way of salvation. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth;” or, if you want the plan of salvation stated in full, here it is, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” God grant to all of us grace to believe in Christ, and to confess our faith in him, for his dear name’s sake! Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
