V. And now I shall close, not with this note of woe, but with A WORD
OF BLESSING. Depend upon it there shall come a great blessing to
any of you who feel the soul travail that brings souls to God. Your own
heart will be watered. You know the old illustration, so often used that
it is now almost hackneyed, of the two travelers, who passed a man
frozen in the snow, and thought to be dead; and the one said, “I have
enough to do to keep myself alive, I will hasten on;” but the other said,
“I cannot pass a fellow-creature while there is the least breath in him.”
He stooped down and began to warm the frozen man by rubbing him
with great vigor; and at last the poor fellow opened his eyes, came back
to life and animation, and walked along with the man who had restored
him to life; and what think you was one of the fist sights they saw? It
was the man who so selfishly took care of himself frozen to death. The
good Samaritan had preserved his own life by rubbing the other man;
the friction he had given had caused the action of his own blood, and
kept him in vigor. You will bless yourselves if you bless others.
Moreover, will it not be a joy to feel that you have done what you
could? It is always well on a Sunday evening for a preacher to feel
when he gets home, “Well, I may not have preached as I could wish,
but I have preached the Lord Jesus, and poured forth all my heart and I
could do no more.” He sleeps soundly on that. After a day spent in
doing all the good you can, even if you have met with no success, you
can lean your head on Christ’s bosom and fall asleep, feeling that if
souls be not gathered, yet you have your reward. If men are lost, it is
some satisfaction to us that they were not lost because we failed to tell
them the way of salvation. But what a comfort it will be to you
supposing you should be successful in bringing some to Christ. Why it
will set all the bells of your soul ringing. There is no greater joy except
the joy of our own communion with Christ, than this of bringing others
to trust the Saviour. Oh seek this joy and pant after it. And what if you
should see your own children converted? You have long hoped for it,
but your hopes have been disappointed; God means to give you that
choice blessing when you live more nearly to him yourself. Yes, wife,
the husband’s heart will be won when your heart is perfectly
consecrated. Yes, mother, the girl shall love the Saviour when you love
him better. Yes, teacher, God means to bless your class, but not until
first of all he has made you fit to receive the blessing. Why, now, if
your children were to be converted through your teacher, you would be
mightily proud of it: God knows you could not bear such success, and
does not mean to give it until he has laid you low at his feet, and
emptied you of yourself, and filled you with himself.
And now I ask the prayers of all this church, that God would send us a
time of revival. I have not to complain that I have labored in vain, and
spent my strength for nought; far from it. I have not even to think that
the blessing is withdrawn from the preaching of the word, even in a
measure, for I never had so many cases of conversion in my life as I
have known since I have been restored from sickness; I have never
before received so many letters in so short a time, telling me that the
sermons printed have been blest, or the sermons preached here; yet I do
not think we ever had so few conversions from the regular
congregation. I partly account for it from the fact, that you cannot fish
in one pond always and catch as many fish as at first. Perhaps the Lord
has saved all of you he means to save; sometimes, I am afraid he has;
and then it will be of little use for me to keep on preaching to you, and
I had better shift quarters and try somewhere else. It would be a
melancholy thought if I believed it:–I do not believe it, I only fear it.
Surely it is not always to be true that strangers, who drop in here only
once, are converted, and you who are always hearing the gospel remain
unaffected. Strange, but may it not be strangely, lamentably true of
you? This very day may the anxiety of your Christian friends be
excited for you, and then may you be led to be anxious for yourselves,
and give your eyes no slumber till you find the Saviour. You know the
way of salvation; it is simply to come with your sins and rest them on
the Saviour; it is to rely upon or trust in the atoning blood. Oh that you
may be made to trust this morning, to the praise of the glory of his
grace. The elders mean to meet together tomorrow evening to have a
special hour of prayer; I hope, also, the mothers will meet and have a
time wrestling, and that every member of the church will try to set
apart a time for supplication this week, that the Lord may visit again
his church, and cause us to rejoice in his name. We cannot go back; we
dare not go back. We have put our hand to the plough, and the curse
will be upon us if we turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. It must be
onward with us; backward it cannot be. In the name of God the Eternal,
let us gird up our loins by the power of his Spirit, and go onward
conquering through the blood of the Lamb. We ask it for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
