God’s people, after they are called by grace, are preserved in Christ
Jesus; they are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation;”
they are not suffered to sin away their eternal inheritance, but as
temptations arise, they have strength given with which to encounter
them; and as sin defiles them, they are washed afresh, and again
cleansed. But mark, the reason why God keeps His people, is the same as
that which made them His people–His own free, sovereign grace. If you
have been delivered in the hour of temptation, pause and remember that
you were not delivered for your own sake. There was nothing in you which
deserved the deliverance. If you have been fed and supplied in your hour
of need, it is not because you have been a faithful servant of God, or
because you have been a prayerful Christian; it is simply and only
because of God’s mercy. He is not moved to anything He does for you by
anything which you do for Him; His motive for blessing you lies wholly
and entirely in the depths of His own bosom. Blessed be God, His people
shall be kept.
“Nor death nor hell shall e’er remove
His favorites from His breast;
In the dear bosom of His love
They must forever rest.”
But why? Because they are holy? Because they are sanctified? Because
they serve God with good works? No, but because He, in His sovereign
grace, has loved them, does love them, and will love them to the end.
Thus, salvation from first to last is all of grace. Then how humble a
Christian ought to be! We have nothing whatever to do with our
salvation; God has done it all. It is mercy undeserved which we have
received. It is His boundless, fathomless love which has led Him to save
us; and it is the same love and mercy which upholds us now. To Him be
glory!
“ This Man Receiveth Sinners. ”
“This man receiveth sinners.” Poor sinsick sinner, what a sweet word
this is for thee! Respond, respond to it, and say, “Surely, then, He
will not reject me.” Let me encourage thee to come to my Master, that
thou mightest receive His great atonement, and be clothed with all His
righteousness. Mark: those whom I address, are the bona fide , real,
actual sinners; not those who only say they are sinners with a general
confession, but those who feel their lost, ruined, hopeless condition.
All these are frankly and freely invited to come to Jesus Christ, and to
be saved by Him. Come, poor sinner, come. Come, because He has said He will receive you. I know thy fears; I know thou sayest in thy heart, “He
will reject me. If I present my prayer, He will not hear me; if I cry
unto Him, yet per-adventure, the heavens will be as brass; I have been
so great a sinner, that He will never take me into His house to dwell
with Him.” Poor sinner! say not so; He hath published the decree. Is
not this enough? He has said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out.” Dost thou not venture on that promise? Wilt thou not go to
sea in a ship as stanch as this. He hath said it ? It has been often
the only comfort of the saints; on this they have lived, on this they
have died. He hath said it. What! dost thou think Christ would tell
thee He will receive thee, and yet not do so? Would He say, “Come ye to
the supper,” and yet shut the door upon you? No; if He has said He will
cast out none that come to Him, rest assured He cannot, He will not cast
you out. Come, then, try His love on this ground, that He has said it.
Come, and fear not, because remember, if thou feelest thyself to be a
sinner, that feeling is God’s gift; and therefore thou mayst very safely
come to One who has already done so much to draw thee. If thou feelest
thy need of a Saviour, Christ made thee feel it; if thou hast a wish to
come after Christ, Christ gave thee that wish; if thou hast any desire
after God, God gave thee that desire; if thou canst sigh after Christ,
Christ made thee sigh; if thou canst weep after Christ, Christ made thee
weep. Ay, if thou canst only wish for Him with the strong wish of one
who fears he never can find, yet hopes he may–if thou canst but hope
for Him, He has given thee that hope. And O, wilt not thou come to Him?
Thou hast some of the King’s bounties about thee now; come and plead
what He hath done; there is no suit which can ever fail with God, when
thou pleadest this. Come to Him, and thou wilt find it is true which is
written, that “this man receiveth sinners.”
“ Wherein Ye Greatly Rejoice. ”
“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye
are in heaviness.” And can a Christian “greatly rejoice” while he is “in
heaviness?” Yes, most assuredly he can. Mariners tell us that there are
some parts of the sea where there is a strong current upon the surface
going one way, while, down in the depths there is a strong current
running the other way. Two seas also do not meet and interfere with one
another, but one stream of water on the surface is running in one
direction, and another below in an opposite direction. Now, the
Christian is like that. On the surface there is a stream of heaviness
rolling in dark waves, but down in the depths there is a strong
under-current of great rejoicing which is always flowing there. Do you
ask what is the cause of this great rejoicing? The apostle tells us,
“ Wherein ye greatly rejoice.” What does he mean? Refer to his epistle,
and you will see. He is writing “to the strangers scattered throughout
Pontus, etc.” And the first thing which He says to them is, that they
are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” This is an assurance
“wherein ye greatly rejoice.” Ah! even when the Christian is most “in
heaviness through manifold temptations,” what a mercy it is that he can
know that he is still elect of God! Any man who is assured that God “has
chosen him from before the foundation of the world,” may well say,
“Wherein I greatly rejoice.” Let us reflect on this. Before God made the
heavens and the earth, or laid the pillars of the firmament in their
golden sockets, He set His love upon me; upon the breast of the great
High Priest He wrote my name; and in His everlasting book it stands,
never to be erased–“elect according to the foreknowledge of God.” Why,
this may make a man’s soul leap within him, and all the heaviness which
the infirmities of the flesh may lay upon him shall be but as nothing;
for this tremendous current of His overflowing joy shall sweep away the
mill-dam of his grief. Bursting and overleaping every obstacle, it shall
overflood all his sorrows till they are drowned and covered up, and
shall not be mentioned any more forever. “Wherein ye greatly rejoice.”
Come, Christian! thou art depressed and cast down. Think for a moment:
thou art chosen of God and precious. Let the bell of election ring in
thine ear–that ancient Sabbath-bell of the covenant; and let thy name
be heard in its notes, and say, I beseech thee, say, doth not this make
thee “greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, thou art in
heaviness through manifold temptations?”
Again, you will see another reason. The apostle says that we are “elect
through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of
the blood of Jesus Christ”–“wherein we greatly rejoice.” Is the
obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ girt about my loins, to be my beauty
and my glorious dress? and is the blood of Jesus sprinkled upon me, to
take away all my guilt and all my sin? and shall I not in this greatly
rejoice? What shall there be in all the depressions of spirit which can
possibly come upon me which shall make me break my harp, even though I should for a moment hang it upon the willows? Do I not expect that yet
again my songs shall mount to heaven; and even now, through the thick
darkness, do not the sparks of my joy appear, when I remember that I
have still upon me the blood of Jesus, and still about me the glorious
righteousness of the Messiah?
But the great and cheering comfort of the apostle is, that we are elect
unto “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not
away, reserved in heaven for us,” even as we are reserved for it. Well
may this indeed make him greatly rejoice. He is drawing near the gates
of death, and his spirit is in heaviness, for he has to leave behind him
all that life holds dear. Besides, sickness brings upon him naturally a
depression of spirits. But you sit by him in his chamber, and you begin
to talk to him of the
“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,
Arrayed in living green.”
You tell him of Canaan on the other side the Jordan–of the land which
floweth with milk and honey–of the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and
of all the glories which God hath prepared for them who love Him; and
you see his dull eye light up with seraphic brightness, “his heaviness”
is all gone, and the language of his heart is–
“On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.”
The anticipation of the coming glory and happiness fills him with “joy
unspeakable.”