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“But Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick,” — 2 Timothy 4:20.

THESE are among the last words of Paul the Apostle, for we find them in the closing verses of the last of his epistles. The chapter reminds us of a dying man’s final adieu to his best beloved friend, in the course of which he calls to mind the associates of his life. Among his memories of love we find Paul recollecting Trophimus, who had frequently shared with him the perils of rivers and perils of robbers which so largely attended the apostle’s career. He had left the good man ill at Miletum, and as Timothy at Ephesus was within an easy journey of him, there was no need to add a hint that he would visit him, for he would be sure to do it. The love of Jesus works in the hearts of his disciples great tenderness and unity. The overflow of our Lord’s great soul has saturated all his true followers with brotherly affection: because Jesus has loved Paul, Paul loves Timothy, and Timothy must needs love Trophimus. From this love there arises communion of feeling, so that in sympathy they share each other’s joys and griefs. When one member rejoices the body rejoices, and when one member suffers the whole body suffers with it.

Trophimus is sick, and Paul cannot forget him, though he himself expects in a few weeks to die a martyr’s death; neither would he have Timothy ignorant of the fact, though twice within a few verses he hurries him to come to Rome, saying, “Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me.” If Timothy could not personally visit the sick friend, yet it was well that he should know of his affliction, for he would then remember him in his prayers. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God.” Let us remember those who are one with us in Christ, and especially let us bear on our hearts all those who are afflicted in mind, body, or estate. If we have had to leave Trophimus at Miletum, or at Brighton, or at Ventnor, let us leave our heart’s love with him; and if we hear that another Trophimus lies sick not far from our own abode, let us accept the information as in itself a sufficient summons to minister to the afflicted friend. May holy sympathy pervade all our souls, for, however active and zealous we may be, we have not yet reached a perfect character unless we are full of compassion, tender-hearted, and considerate of the sorrowful, for this is the mind of Christ.

Let us admire “the love of the Spirit” who, while he lifts Ezekiel and Daniel above the spheres, and raises the language of David and Isaiah to the utmost pitch of poetry and eloquence, yet deigns to breathe in such a line as this, — “Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.” Can we learn anything more from this plain line of apostolic penmanship? Let us see. If the same divine Spirit who inspired it will shine upon it we shall not read it in vain.

I. From the fact that Paul left Trophimus at Miletum sick we learn that IT IS THE WILL OF GOD THAT SOME GOOD MEN SHOULD BE IN ILL HEALTH.

Whatever the malady may have been which affected Trophimus, Paul could certainly have healed him if the divine Spirit had permitted the use of his miraculous powers to that end. He had raised up Eutychus from death, and he had given the use of his limbs to the cripple at Lystra; we feel, therefore, fully assured that had God allowed the apostle so to use his healing energy, Trophimus would have left his bed, and continued his journey to Rome. Not so, however, had the Lord willed; the good fruit-bearing vine must be pruned, and Trophimus must suffer: there were ends to be answered by his weakness which could not be compassed by his health. Instantaneous restoration could have been given, but it was withheld under divine direction.

This doctrine leads us away from the vain idea of chance. We are not wounded by arrows shot at a venture, but we smart by the determinate counsel of heaven. An overruling hand is everywhere present, preventing or permitting ill, and no one shaft of disease is ever let fly by stealth from the bow of death. If some one must be ill it was a wise providence which selected Trophimus, for it was better for him to be ill than Titus, or Tychicus, or Timothy. It was well, too, that he happened to be ill at Miletum near to his own native city, Ephesus. We cannot always see the hand of God in providence, but we may be always sure that it is there. If not a sparrow lighteth on the ground without our Father, surely not a child of the divine family is laid low without his sacred will. Chance is a heathenish idea, which cannot live in the presence of an everywhere present, living, and working God. Away with it from every Christian mind! It is alike dishonoring to the Lord and grievous to ourselves.

This also delivers us from regarding affliction as being always brought upon men by their personal sin. Many a sickness has been the direct result of intemperance, or some other form of wickedness; but here is a worthy, well-approved brother laid aside and left on the road through a malady for which he is not blamed in any measure. It is too common nowadays for men to be of a hard and cruel spirit, and ascribe the illnesses even of those who are true children of God to some fault in their habits of life. We wonder how they would like to be dealt with in this manner if they were suffering, and could wash their hands in innocency in reference to their daily lives. In our Lord’s day they told him, “Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick”; and Solomon long before that time wrote, “whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” This was much better, more humane, and more truthful speech than the frozen philosophy of modern times which traces each man’s sickness to his own violation of natural law, and, instead of pouring in the balm of consolation, pours out the sulphuric acid of slanderous insinuation. Let the afflicted examine himself to see if the rod be not sent to correct some secret evil, and let him diligently consider wherein he may amend; but far be it from us to stand at his bedside like judges or lictors, and look upon our friend as an offender as well as a sufferer. Such brutality may be left to the philosophers, it would ill become the sons of God. We may not think a shade the less of Trophimus because he is sick at Miletum; he is probably a far better mart than any of us, and perhaps for that very reason he is more tried. There is gold in him which pays for putting into the crucible; he bears such rich fruit that he is worth pruning; he is a diamond of so pure a water that he will repay the lapidary’s toil. This may not be quite so true of any of us, and, therefore, we escape his sharper trials. Let us, as James saith, “count them happy that endure,” and, like David, say, “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.” What saith the Scriptures — “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?”

Lazarus of Bethany, Dorcas, Epaphroditus, and Trophimus are a few of that great host of sick folk whom the Lord loves in their sicknesses, for whom the promise was written, “The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.”

II. We have only strength and space for mere hints, and so we notice, secondly, that GOOD MEN MAY BE LAID ASIDE WHEN THEY SEEM TO BE MOST NEEDED, as Trophimus was when the aged apostle had but a scanty escort, and required his aid.

Paul wanted him badly enough soon after he had been obliged to leave him at Miletum, for he writes sorrowfully, “Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.” “And Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus.” How glad he would have been of Trophimus, for we see how he begs Timothy to come with all speed, and to bring Mark with him, whose service he greatly needed. Yet not even for Paul’s sake can Trophimus be suddenly raised up: his Lord sees it to be needful that he should feel the heat of the furnace, and into the crucible he must go.

We think that the church cannot spare the earnest minister, the indefatigable missionary, the faithful deacon, the tender teacher; but God thinketh not so. No one is indispensable in the household of God. He can do his own work not only without Trophimus, but even without Paul. Yea, we go further; it sometimes happens that the work of the Lord is quickened by the decease of one upon whom it seemed to depend. When a broad, far-spreading tree is cut down, many smaller trees which were dwarfed and stunted while it stood suddenly shoot up into vigorous growth; even so, one good man may do much, and yet when he is removed others may do more. Temporary illnesses of great workers may call to the front those who would else, from very modesty, have remained in the rear, and the result may be a great gain.

Poor Trophimus had in his healthier days been the innocent cause of bringing Paul into a world of trouble, for we read in Acts 21:27, that a tumult was made by the Jews, because they imagined that Paul had brought Trophimus into the temple, and so had defiled it. Now, when he could have been of service, he is sick, and no doubt it was a great grief to him that it should be so: yet for him, as oftentimes for us, there was no alternative but to submit himself under the hand of God, and feel that the Lord is always right. Why do we not yield at once? Why do we chomp the bit and paw the ground, restless to be on the road? If our Lord bids us stand still, can we not be quiet? Active spirits are apt to become restive spirits when under the restraining hand; energy soon sours into rebellion, and we quarrel with God because we are not allowed to glorify him in our own way — a foolish form of contest, which at bottom means that we have a will of our own, and will only serve God upon condition of having it indulged.

Brethren, he who writes these lines knows what he writes, and this is the verdict of his experience: — God’s work needs us far less than we imagine, and God would have us aware of this fact, for he will not give his glory to human instruments any more than he will allow his praise to be bestowed on graven images.

III. Our text clearly shows us that GOOD MEN WOULD HAVE THE LORD’S WORK GO ON WHATEVER BECOMES OF THEM.

Paul did not desert Trophimus, but left him, because a higher call summoned him to Rome. Trophimus we may be sure did not wish to delay the great apostle, but was content to be left. No doubt they both felt the separation, but like true soldiers of Christ they endured hardness, and for the sake of the cause parted company for a while.

It would be a great grief to a true-hearted worker if he knew that any fellow-laborer slackened his pace for his sake. The sick in an army of an earthly monarch are necessarily an impediment, but it need not be so in the army of the King of kings. Spiritual sickness is a sore hindrance, but sickness of body should not delay the host. If we cannot preach we can pray; if one work is out of our reach we can try another, and if we can do nothing our inability should serve as a call to the vigorous to be doing all the more. Trophimus is sick, then let Timothy be the more energetic.

Trophimus cannot attend the apostle then let Timothy be the more diligent to come before winter. Thus, by acting as an incentive, the lack of one man’s service may produce tenfold more in others who are roused to extra exertions.

Brethren, it will be the sweetest alleviation to the pains of a sick pastor if he sees you each and all nerved to special diligence; his enforced rest will be the better enjoyed if he knows that the Church of God is not a sufferer because of it; and his whole mind and spirit will minister to the health of his body if he sees the fruit of the Spirit of God in you all, keeping you faithful and zealous. Will you not see to this for Jesus’ sake?

A sermon preached from the sick bed of C. H. Spurgeon (January 12th, 1879).

The current formatting and editing is copyrighted by Jim Ehrhard, 2000. You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author; (2) any modifications are clearly marked; (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction; and (4) you do not make more than 100 copies without permission. If you would like to post this material to your web site or make any use other than as defined above, please contact Teaching Resources International

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“Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick .”-John 11:3.

That disciple whom Jesus loved is not at all backward to record that Jesus loved Lazarus too: there are no jealousies among those who are chosen by the Well-beloved. Jesus loved Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus: it is a happy thing where a whole family live in the love of Jesus. They were a favored trio, and yet, as the serpent came into Paradise, so did sorrow enter their quiet household at Bethany. Lazarus was sick. They all felt that if Jesus were there disease would flee at his presence; what then should they do but let him know of their trial? Lazarus was near to death’s door, and so his tender sisters at once reported the fact to Jesus, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” Many a time since then has that same message been sent to our Lord, for in full many a case he has chosen his people in the furnace of affliction. Of the Master it is said, “himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses,” and it is, therefore, no extraordinary thing for the members to be in this matter conformed to their Head.

I. Notice, first, A FACT mentioned in the text: “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” The sisters were somewhat astonished that it should be so, for the word “behold” implies a measure of surprise. “We love him, and would make him well directly: thou lovest him, and yet he remains sick, Thou canst heal him with a word, why then is thy loved one sick?” Have not you, dear sick friend, often wondered how your painful or lingering disease could be consistent with your being chosen, and called, and made one with Christ? I dare say this has greatly perplexed you, and yet in very truth it is by no means strange, but a thing to be expected.

We need not be astonished that the man whom the Lord loves is sick, for he is only a man. The love of Jesus does not separate us from the common necessities and infirmities of human life. Men of God are still men. The covenant of grace is not a charter of exemption from consumption, or rheumatism, or asthma. The bodily ills, which come upon us because of our flesh, will attend us to the tomb, for Paul saith, we that are in this body do groan.”

Those whom the Lord loves are the more likely to be sick, since they are under a peculiar discipline. It is written, “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” Affliction of some sort is one of the marks of the true-born child of God, and it frequently happens that the trial takes the form of illness. Shall we therefore wonder that we have to take our turn in the sick chamber? If Job, and David, and Hezekiah must each one smart, who are we that we should be amazed because we are in ill-health?

Nor is it remarkable that we are sick if we reflect upon the great benefit which often flows from it to ourselves. I do not know what peculiar improvement may have been wrought in Lazarus, but many a disciple of Jesus would have been of small use if he had not been afflicted. Strong men are apt to be harsh, imperious, and unsympathetic, and therefore they need to be put into the furnace, and melted down. I have known Christian women who would never have been so gentle, tender, wise, experienced, and holy if they had not been mellowed by physical pain. There are fruits in God’s garden as well as in man’s which never ripen till they are bruised.

Young women who are apt to be volatile, conceited, or talkative, are often trained to be full of sweetness and light by sickness after sickness, by which they are taught to sit at Jesus’ feet. Many have been able to say with the psalmist, “It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” For this reason even such as are highly favored and blessed among women may feel a sword piercing through their hearts. Oftentimes this sickness of the Lord’s loved ones is for the good of others. Lazarus was permitted to be sick and to die, that by his death and resurrection the apostles might be benefited. His sickness was “for the glory of God.” Throughout these nineteen hundred years which have succeeded Lazarus’ sickness all believers have been getting good out of it, and this afternoon we are all the better because he languished and died. The church and the world may derive immense advantage through the sorrows of good men: the careless may be awakened, the doubting may be convinced, the ungodly may be converted, the mourner may be comforted through our testimony in sickness; and if so, would we wish to avoid pain and weakness? Are we not quite willing that our friends should say of us also “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick?”

II. Our text, however, not only records a fact, but mentions A REPORT of that fact: the sisters sent and told Jesus. Let us keep up a constant correspondence with our Lord about everything.

“Sing a hymn to Jesus, when thy heart is faint;

Jesus knows all about us, but it is a great relief to pour out our hearts before him. When John the Baptist’s broken-hearted disciples saw their leader beheaded, “they took up the body, and went and told Jesus.” They could not have done better. In all trouble send a message to Jesus, and do not keep your misery to yourself. In his case there is no need of reserve, there is no fear of his treating you with cold pride, or heartless indifference, or cruel treachery. He is a confidant who never can betray us, a friend who never will refuse us.

There is this fair hope about telling Jesus, that he is sure to support us under it. If you go to Jesus, and ask, “Most gracious Lord, why am I sick? I thought I was useful while in health, and now I can do nothing; why is this?” he may be pleased to show you why, or, it not, he will make you willing to bear his will with patience without knowing why. He can bring his truth to your mind to cheer you, or strengthen your heart by his presence, or send you unexpected comforts, and give you to glory in your afflictions. “Ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us.” Not in vain did Mary and Martha send to tell Jesus, and not in vain do any seek his face. Remember, too, that Jesus may give healing. It would not be wise to live by a supposed faith, and cast off the physician and his medicines, any more than to discharge the butcher, and the tailor, and expect to be fed and clothed by faith; but this would be far better than forgetting the Lord altogether, and trusting to man only. Healing for both body and soul must be sought from God. We make use of medicines, but these can do nothing a part from the Lord, “who healeth all our diseases.”

We may tell Jesus about our aches and pains, and gradual declinings, and hacking coughs. Some persons are afraid to go to God about their health: they pray for the pardon of sin, but dare not ask the Lord to remove a headache: and, yet, surely, if the hairs outside our head are all numbered by God it is not much more of a condescension for him to relieve throbs and pressures inside the head. Our big things must be very little to the great God, and our little things cannot be much less. It is a proof of the greatness of the mind of God that while ruling the heavens and the earth, he is not so absorbed by these great concerns as to be forgetful of the least pain or want of any one of his poor children. We may go to him about our failing breath, for he first gave us lungs and life. We may tell him about the eye which grows dim, and the ear which loses hearing, for he made them both.

We may mention the swollen knee, and the gathering finger, the stiff neck, and the sprained foot, for he made all these our members, redeemed them all, and will raise them all from the grave. Go at once, and say, “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.”

III. Thirdly, let us notice in the case of Lazarus A RESULT which we should not have expected. No doubt when Mary and Martha sent to tell Jesus they looked to see Lazarus recover as soon as the messenger reached the Master; but they were not gratified. For two days the Lord remained in the same place, and not till he knew that Lazarus was dead did he speak of going to Judaea. This teaches us that Jesus may be informed of our trouble, and yet may act as if he were indifferent to it. We must not expect in every case that prayer for recovery will be answered, for if so, nobody would die who had chick or child, friend or acquaintance to pray for him.

In our prayers for the lives of beloved children of God, we must not forget that there is one prayer which may be crossing ours, for Jesus prays, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.” We pray that they may remain with us, but when we recognize that Jesus wants them above, what can we do but admit his larger claim and say, “Not as I will, but as thou wilt?” In our own case, we may pray the Lord to raise us up, and yet though he loves us he may permit us to grow worse and worse, and at last to die. Hezekiah had fifteen years added to his life, but we may not gain the reprieve of a single day. Never set such store by the life of any one dear to you, or even by your own life, as to be rebellious against the Lord. If you hold the life of any dear one with too tight a hand, you are making a rod for your own back; and if you love your own earthly life too well, you are making a thorny pillow for your dying bed. Children are often idols, and in such cases their too ardent lovers are idolaters. We might as well make a god of clay, and worship it, as the Hindus are said to do, as worship our fellow-creatures, for what are they but clay? Shall dust be so dear to us that we quarrel with our God about it? If our Lord leaves us to suffer, let us not repine. He must do that for us which is kindest and best, for he loves us better than we love ourselves.

Did I hear you say, “Yes, Jesus allowed Lazarus to die, but he raised him up again?” I answer, he is the resurrection and the life to us also. Be comforted concerning the departed, “Thy brother shall rise again,” and all of us whose hope is in Jesus shall partake in our Lord’s resurrection. Not only shall our souls live, but our bodies, too, shall be raised incorruptible.

The grave will serve as a refining pot, and this vile body shall come forth vile no longer. Some Christians are greatly cheered by the thought of living till the Lord comes, and so escaping death. I confess that I think this no great gain, for so far from having any preference over them that are asleep, those who are alive and remain at his coming will miss one point of fellowship, in not dying and rising like their Lord. Beloved, all things are yours, and death is expressly mentioned in the list, therefore do not dread it, but rather “long for evening to undress, that you may rest with God.”

IV. I will close with A QUESTION—”Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus” -does Jesus in a special sense love you? Alas, many sick ones have no evidence of any special love of Jesus towards them, for they have never sought his face, nor trusted in him. Jesus might say to them “I never knew you,” for they have turned their backs upon his blood and his cross. Answer, dear friend, to your own heart this question, “Do you love Jesus?”

If so, you love him because he first loved you. Are you trusting him? If so, that faith of yours is the proof that he has loved you from before the foundation of the world, for faith is the token by which he plights his troth to his beloved.

If Jesus loves you, and you are sick, let all the world see how you glorify God in your sickness. Let friends and nurses see how the beloved of the Lord are cheered and comforted by him. Let your holy resignation astonish them, and set them admiring your Beloved, who is so gracious to you that he makes you happy in pain, and joyful at the gates of the grave. If your religion is worth anything it ought to support you now, and it will compel unbelievers to see that he whom the Lord loveth is in better case when he is sick than the ungodly when full of health and vigor.

If you do not know that Jesus loves you, you lack the brightest star that can cheer the night of sickness. I hope you will not die as you now are, and pass into another world without enjoying the love of Jesus: that would be a terrible calamity indeed. Seek his face at once, and it may he that your present sickness is a part of the way of love by which Jesus would bring you to himself. Lord, heal all these sick ones in soul and in body. Amen.

Edited from a sermon Spurgeon preached before an audience of invalid ladies at Mentone, France, where Spurgeon himself often convalesced.

The current formatting and editing is copyrighted by Jim Ehrhard, 2000. You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author; (2) any modifications are clearly marked; (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction; and (4) you do not make more than 100 copies without permission. If you would like to post this material to your web site or make any use other than as defined above, please contact Teaching Resources International

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He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the

midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth

is like the Son of God. Daniel 3:25.

The narrative of the glorious boldness and marvellous deliverance of the three holy children, or rather champions, is well calculated to excite in the minds of believers firmness and stedfastness in upholding the truth in the teeth of tyranny and in the very jaws of death. Let young men especially, since these were young men, learn from their example both in matters of faith in religion, and matters of integrity in business, never to sacrifice their consciences. Lose all rather than lose your integrity, and when all else is gone, still hold fast a clear conscience as the rarest jewel which can adorn the bosom of a mortal.

I do pray you, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, do my God the honor to trust him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle. See whether he will be your debtor! See if he doth not even in this life prove his word, that “Godliness is great gain,” and that they who “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, shall have all these things added unto them.” Mark you, if in the providence of God it should be the case that you are, and continue to be a loser by conscience, you shall find that if the Lord pays you not back in the silver of earthly prosperity, he will discharge his promise in the gold of spiritual joy, and I would have you remember that a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of that which he possesseth. To have a clear conscience, to wear a guileless spirit, to have a heart void of offense, is greater riches than the mines of Ophir could yield or the traffic of Tyre could win. Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and inward contention therewith. An ounce of heart’s-ease is worth a ton of gold; and a drop of innocence is better than a sea of flattery. Burn, Christian, if it comes to that, but never turn from the right way. Die, but never deny the truth. Lose all to buy the truth; but sell it not, even though the price were the treasure and honor of the whole world, for “what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

But my particular design in referring to the narrative this morning, was not to use the whole of it as an incentive to young Christians, by way of earnest advice, although I confess I feel much inclined to do so; but I have this one verse on my mind, wherein the astonished despot saw his late victims quietly surviving the flames which he intended for their instant destruction. I desire to use his exclamation as a consolation to afflicted Christians everywhere. Concentrate then your thoughts on the words before us, and may the Holy Spirit be our instructor.

I. [Consider] the place WHERE GOD’S PEOPLE OFTEN ARE.

In the text we find three of them in a burning fiery furnace, and singular as this may be literally, it is no extraordinary thing spiritually, for, to say the truth, it is the usual place where the saints are found. The ancients fabled of the salamander that it lived in the fire; the same can be said of the Christian without any fable whatever. The ancient Church used, in a favorite metaphor, to describe itself as a ship; where should the ship be, but in the sea? Now the sea is an unstable clement, frequently vexed with storms; it is a troubled sea which cannot rest; and so the Christian finds this mortal life to be far from smooth and seldom settled. It is rather a wonder when a Christian is not in trial, for to wanderers in a wilderness discomfort and privation will naturally be the rule rather than the exception. It is through “much tribulation” that we inherit the kingdom. There is no life so joyous as that of a man bound for the Celestial city; and, on the other hand, there is no life which involves so much conflict as does the life of a pilgrim to the skies. The furnaces into which Christians are cast are of various sorts.

Perhaps we may divide them into three groups.

First, there is the furnace which men kindle. As if there were not enough misery in the world, men are the greatest tormentors to their fellow-men. The elements in all their fury, wild beasts in all their ferocity, and famine and pestilence in all their horrors, have scarcely proved such foes to man, as men themselves have been. Religious animosity is always the worst of all hatreds, and incites to the most fiendish deeds; persecution is as unsparing as death, and as cruel as the grave. The believer in Jesus, who is one of a people everywhere spoken against, must expect to be thrown into the furnace of persecution by his fellowmen. “If the world hate you,” saith our Lord, “it hated me before it hated you.” “If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” Some suppose that these words are out of date-old-fashioned words, words that refer only to apostolic times. I answer, you are out of the apostolic faith, or else you would painfully find them to be still standing in all their force. At times the Christian feels the heat of the furnace of open persecution. What multitudes of saints have mounted to heaven like Elias, in a chariot of fire; their seraphic spirits found a safe way to heaven through the flames, for they were guarded by ministering spirits whom God hath made as flames of fire. Thousands of the precious sons of Zion have been left to rot in the dungeon, or have been slain upon the mountain side, or have perished in penury and want; and to this day there be many that endure trials of cruel mockings, and are in divers painful ways made to bear the cross, for if any man will live godly in Christ Jesus, he must suffer persecution.

Another furnace is that of oppression. In the iron furnace of Egypt the children of Israel were made to do hard bondage in brick and in mortar; and doubtless many of God’s people are in positions where they are little better than slaves. Oppression is far from dead; under the freest form of government there is always a possibility for the heads of households and the masters of establishments to practice the most galling oppression towards those whom they dislike; and doubtless many choice spirits are still trodden down as straw is trodden for the dunghill.

There is also the furnace of slander. The ripest of fruit will be pecked at most by the birds; those who have most of God’s image will have most of the world’s contempt. Expect not that the world shall speak well of thee, for it never gave thy Master a good word. “Shall the disciple be above his master, or the servant above his Lord?” Expect to be misunderstood-that is man’s infirmity; expect to be misrepresented-that is his wilful hatred. A very strenuous effort is making just now to mark our denomination with the famous “S. S,” which was the old brand of the Puritan “Sower of Sedition.” This slander is very ancient, for in Nehemiah’s day the accusation ran, “This city of Jerusalem of old made sedition against kings;” and this is the charge now against our missionaries, and indeed the whole of us, that we are accomplices with those who stir up the people to sedition. Sirs, we shall not disclaim the fact that we are ever swift to vindicate the liberties of all men, and are little given to flatter tyrants whether in Jamaica, or elsewhere; on the contrary, our witness is very loud and clear, that there is one Lord who will execute righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. We hate the treading down of the needy, and we abhor wholesale butchery quite as much when perpetrated by Englishmen as when laid to the door of Turks or Russians, and however unfashionable it may be, we maintain the opinion that liberty is the birthright of every man, not only the liberty which permits his neck to go free from a chain, but the liberty which allows the exercise of the rights of manhood.

Suffering humanity is to be aided even when it wears the ebon hue, and high-handed wrong is to be impeached even when the much despised negro is its victim. It can never be too much lamented that the terrible passions excited by years of wrong should have led to a riot so fierce and cruel, but we must remember that oppression makes even wise men mad, and in justice we must lay the onus of the outbreak, not alone at the door of those unhappy and uneducated men who were goaded to this passionate display of wrath, but we must give the greatest measure of blame to the men of standing, wealth, and education, who have laid grievous burdens upon these people, and refused to hear their earnest cries and grant their justifiable demands. The infernal revenge taken by their enemies almost exonerates me from even this word of apology, for it alone is sufficient proof of the spirit which has dominated over the black race, and compelled the unhappy victims to rise against it.

But of course it will still be insisted that the Baptists are at the bottom of the outbreak, and so God’s Church will be the scapegoat for offenders. We are the friends of liberty, but we never taught rebellion; we endeavor to implant manly principles of independence and freedom, but we put side-by-side the gentle precepts of the loving Jesus; yet scandals of every sort we expect to receive, and we count them no strange thing when they happen to us.

Secondly, there is a furnace which Satan blows with three great bellows –some of you have been in it. It is hard to bear, for the prince of the power of the air hath great mastery over human spirits; he knows our weak places, and can strike so as to cut us to the very quick. He fans the fire with the blast of temptation. The evil one knows our besetting sins, our infirmities of temper, and how we can be most readily provoked. He understandeth how to suit his bait to his fish, and his trap to his bird. At times the most earnest Christian will be compelled to cry out, “My steps had well nigh gone; my feet had well nigh slipped.” The Savior went through this furnace in the wilderness, and was thrice tempted of the devil; and in the wilderness of this life God’s people frequently experience temptations of the most horrible kind.

Then he works the second bellows of accusation. He hisses into the ear, “Thy sins have destroyed thee! The Lord hath forsaken thee quite! Thy God will be gracious no more!” He tells us that we are hypocrites; that our experience has been fancy; that our faith is mere presumption; that our glorying has been a hectoring boast, and the very sins which, as a tempter, he himself incited us to commit, he brings against us when he assumes his favorite character of” the accuser of the brethren.” Unless graciously comforted under the attacks of the roaring lion, we shall be almost ready to give up all hope.

And thirdly, there is a furnace which God himself prepares for his people. There is the furnace of physical pain. How soon is the strong man brought low! We who rejoiced in health are in a few moments made to mourn and moan, not in weakness merely, but in pain and anguish. He only thinks little of pain who is a stranger to it. A furnace still worse perhaps is that of bereavement. The child sickens, the wife is gradually declining, the husband is smitten down with a stroke, friend after friend departs as star by star grows dim. We bitterly cry with Job, “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance unto darkness.”

Then added to this there will crowd in upon us temporal losses and sufferings. The business which we thought would enrich, impoverishes. We build the house, but providence plucks it down with both its hands. We hoist the sail and seek to make headway; but we are driven by a back wind far from the desired haven. “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” I cannot multiply the description of these crosses which our heavenly Father in his mysterious providence lays upon his beloved ones. Certain is it that, like the waves of the sea, the drops of rain, the sands of the wilderness, and the leaves of the forest the griefs of the Lord’s people are innumerable.

Into the central heat of the fire doth the Lord cast his saints, and mark you this, he casts them there because they are his own beloved and dearly loved people. I do not see the goldsmith putting dross into the furnace—what would be the good of it? It would be a waste of fuel and labor. But he thrusts the crucible full of gold into the hottest part of the fire and heaps on coals till the heat is terrible. As silver is purified in a furnace of earth seven times, simply because it is silver, so are saints afflicted because of their preciousness in the sight of the Lord. Men will not be at such pains to purify iron as they will with silver; for when iron is brought to a tolerable degree of purity it works well, but silver must be doubly refined, till no dross is left. Men do not cut common pebbles on the lapidary’s wheel, but the diamond must be vexed again, and again, and again with sharp cuttings, and even so must the believer.

The context reminds us that sometimes the Christian is exposed to very peculiar trials. The furnace was heated seven times hotter; it was hot enough when heated once; but I suppose that Nebuchadnezzar had pitch and tar, and all kinds of combustibles thrown in to make it flame out with greater vehemence. Truly at times the Lord appears to deal thus with his people. It is a peculiarly fierce heat which surrounds them, and they cry out, “Surely I am the man that hath seen affliction—I may take precedence of all others in the realm of sorrow.” This is not so, remember, for princes have sat in the king’s gate with their heads covered with ashes, and the best of men who eat bread at Jehovah’s table this day, have had to say, “Thou hast filled me with wormwood, and broken my teeth with gravel-stones.” The path of sorrow is well frequented, beaten down, and trodden by hosts of the chosen ones of God, who have found that the path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the place where sorrow is unknown.

I do not like to leave this point without observing too, that these holy champions were helpless when thrown into the furnace. They were cast in bound; and many of us have been cast in bound, too, so that we could not lift hand or foot to help ourselves. They fell down, it is said, into the midst of the furnace; and often a sort of fainting fit overtakes the saints of God at the beginning of their trouble—the very trouble in which afterwards they can rejoice; for the present fills them with heaviness, and they fall down bound into the midst of the furnace. Pretty plight to be in! Who does not shudder at it! Certainly none of us would choose it; but we have not the choice, and as we have said with David, “Thou shalt choose mine inheritance for me,” if the Lord determines to choose it for us among the coals of fire, it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good. Where Jehovah places his saints they are safe in reality, although exposed to destruction in appearance.

II. We proceed to the second—WHAT THEY LOSE THERE.

Look at the text, and it will be clear to you that they lost something Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego lost something in the fire—not their turbans, nor their coats, nor their hosen, nor one hair of their heads or beards—no; what then? Why, they lost their bonds there. Do observe “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire.” The fire did not hurt them, but it snapped their bonds. Blessed loss this! A true Christian’s losses are gains in another shape. Now, beloved, observe this carefully, that many of God’s servants never know the fullness of spiritual liberty till they are cast into the midst of the furnace. Many of them are bound and fettered till they get into the flame, and the flame consumes the bonds in which they had been willing to be held captives. Like the pure gold which loses nothing but its dross in the fire; like the iron which loses nothing but its rust under the file; so is the Christian—he loses what he is glad to lose, and his loss is blessed gain. Shall I show you some of the bonds which God looses for his people when they are in the tire of human hatred? Sometimes he bursts the cords of fear of man, and desire to please man.

Martin Luther, I dare say, like other men, had some respect for his own character, and some reverence for public opinion, and might have been willing to pay some deference to the learning and authority of the age, both of which lent their aid to the ancient system of Rome, but in a happy hour the Pope excommunicated the German troubler. All is well for Luther now. His course is clear, and plain before his face! He must henceforth never conciliate or dream of peace. Now his bonds are broken. He burns the Pope’s bull and thunders out, “The Pope of Rome excommunicates Martin Luther, and I, Martin Luther, excommunicate the Pope of Rome. The world hates me, and there is no love lost between us, for I esteem it as much as it esteems me. War to the knife,” says he. The man was never clear till the world thrust him out.

“Why,” you say, “is this how I am treated for the statement of truth? I was inclined to conciliate and yield, but after this never! Thou hast loosed my bonds.” When man has done his worst, as Nebuchadnezzar did in this case, why then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, could say, “What more could he do? He has thrown us into a fiery furnace heated seven times hotter; he has done his worst and now what have we to fear?” When persecution rages, it is wonderful what liberty it gives to the child of God. Never a freer tongue than Luther’s! Never a braver mouth than that of John Knox! Never bolder speech than that of John Calvin! Never a braver heart than that which throbbed beneath the ribs of Wycliffe! Never a man who could more boldly confront popery than John Bradford or Hugh Latimer! But under God these men owed their liberty of speech and liberty of conscience to the fact that the world thrust them out from all hope of its favor, and so loosed their bonds.

Again, when Satan puts us in the furnace, he is often the means of breaking bonds. How many Christians are bound by the bonds of frames and feelings; the bonds of dependence upon something within, instead of resting upon Christ the great Sacrifice. When the devil comes with his sharp temptations, he roars out, “You are no children of God.” Why, what then? Why, then we go straight away to Christ, to look at and view the flowing of his precious blood, and trust him just as we did at first; and now what about frames and feelings? What about emotions within? Why, we are so satisfied with that finished work upon the tree, that we feel the bonds of doubt and fear no more. Now we are free, because we have come to live on Christ, and not on self. Fierce temptations may be like waves that wash the mariner on a rock—they may drive us nearer to Christ. It is an ill wind which blows no one any good; but the worst wind that Satan can send blows the Christian good, because it hurries him nearer to his Lord.

Temptation is a great blessing when it looses our bonds of self-confidence and reliance upon frames and feelings. As for the afflictions which God sends, do they not loose our bonds? Dear brethren, doubts and fears are far more common to us in the midst of work and business than when laid aside by sickness. I do not know how you have found it, but so it is, “When I am weak, then am I strong.” Many believers smug most sweetly when providence clips their wings, or puts them in a cage; they are very mute, and their heart towards the Lord is very heavy till they are involved in trouble; and then their faith revives, their hope returns, their love glows, and they sing God’s praises in the fire. Have not you, dear friends, frequently experienced that trouble cuts the cords which bind us to earth? When the Lord takes away a child, there is one tie less to fasten to the world, and one band more to draw towards heaven. When money vanishes, and business all goes wrong, we frequent the prayer-meeting more, and the closet more, and read the Bible more—we are driven by all tribulation away from earth. If everything went well with us, we should begin to say, “Soul, take thine ease;” but when things go amiss with us, then we want to be gone. When the tree shakes the bird will not stop in the nest, but takes to its wings and mounts. Happy trouble that looses our care of earth! Give you a few days of sharp pain on a bed of sickness, and you will not love life so much as you now do; you will begin to say, “Let me be gone.” Why, even selfishness makes you wish for that; then you can understand what David meant when he said his heart and his flesh cried out after God.

Thus, I think, I have shown you, though very briefly, for time fails us, that the saints lose something in the furnace which they are glad to lose: they are cast in bound, but amid the glowing coals they are set at liberty.

III. In the third place, WHAT SAINTS DO THERE.

“Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire.” Walking! See those gardens so delightfully laid out with varying landscape, rippling fountains, blushing flowers, and odoriferous herbs, with quiet arbors every here and there, and soft-reclining seats, and there with the voice of glee young men and maidens walk. See that fair prospect! Turn hither—a blazing furnace, so fiercely heated that the eyes feel as if scorched from their sockets as they look upon it; and the fervent heat comes pouring forth as though old Sol had found a house on earth; yet there are four men walking—walking at their ease; and there is greater joy as they walk among those sulphureous flames, greater mirth in their spirits, than in those young men and maidens who walk among the flowers. They are walking—it is a symbol of joy, of ease, of peace, of rest-not flitting like unquiet ghosts, as if they were disembodied spirits traversing the flame; but walking with real footsteps, treading on hot coals as though they were roses, and smelling the sulphureous flames as though they yielded nothing but aromatic perfume Enoch “walked with God.” Their walking shows not only their liberty, and their ease, and their pleasure, and their calm, but it shows their strength.

Their sinews were not snapped, they were walking. Sometimes God’s people, as Jacob at the brook Jabbok, halt on their thigh; but I think it is only a small trouble that lames believers; a greater trial will set them right again. A stream of trouble may almost overturn a. believer; but a flood of trials will make him rise as the ark rose, nearer to heaven. These men had no limping gait, they were walking, walking in the midst of the fire. Now, for the explanation of all this, turn to the biographies of any of God’s saints. There is another blessed old book, which used to be chained in the Churches side by side with the Bible—I mean “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs;” every family ought to have a copy of it, illustrated with pictures for the children to look at; and if you read “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs,” you will see clearly that there was more joy in old Bonner’s coal-hole, and in the Lollard’s tower, than palaces of kings have known. The martyrs felt a heaven of joy while they were suffering a hell of pain.

Many and many a child of God has had an experience manifesting as clearly the lovingkindness of the Lord. Yes, they were walking in the midst of the furnace. See Paul and Silas with their feet in the stocks, and their poor bleeding backs on the hard stone damp floor of the Roman dungeon at Philippi, and yet they sing, and the prisoners hear them, Why, I think I would as soon have been with Paul and Silas, as with Peter when he was on the mountain; at any rate, the three holy children might have said to the fourth, who was their Comforter and Companion, what Peter said to his Lord—”Lord, it is good to be here; let us build three tabernacles, and dwell under the fiery roof of these boughs of flame; for it is happy to be where thou art, though it be in Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace.”

IV. In the fourth place, WHAT THEY DID NOT LOSE THERE.

The text says, “And they have no hurt.” They did not lose anything there. But we may say of them first, their persons were not hurt. The child of God loses in the furnace nothing of himself that is worth keeping. He does not lose his spiritual life-that is immortal; he does not lose his graces—he gets them refined and multiplied, and the glitter of them is best seen by furnace-light. The gifts of God the Holy Ghost to the Christian are not taken away by the fiery hands of flame. The Christian does not lose his garments there. You see their hats, and their hosen (hoses, stockings), and their coats were not singed, nor was there the smell of fire upon them; and so with the Christian: his garment is the beauteous dress which Christ himself wrought out in his life, and which he dyed in the purple of his own blood. This is wrapped about the Christian as his imperishable mantle of glory and of beauty.

“This sacred robe the same endures

As it is not hurt by age, nor moth, nor worm, nor mildew, so neither can it be touched by fire. When the saint shall come up to heaven, wearing Christ’s righteousness, and the question is asked, “Who are these?” as the spirits gather round them, there shall be no traces upon them whatever of any of the persecution or suffering through which they have been made to pass. The Christian never loses a grain of his treasure when he passes through the furnace-in fact, to sum up in a word, he loses nothing. The empress threatened to banish Chrysostom. “That thou canst not do,” said he, “for my country is in every clime.” “But I will take away thy goods.” “No,” said he, “that thou canst not do, for I am a poor minister of Christ, and I have none.” “Then,” said she, “I will take away your liberty.” “That you cannot do, for iron bars cannot confine a free spirit.” “I will take away your life,” said she. “That you may do,” said he, “in one sense, but I have a life eternal which you cannot touch.” The empress thought she had better leave the man alone—she could do him no hurt. So is it better for the enemy to leave the child of God alone, for he that kicketh against God’s people, only kicks with naked feet against the pricks; and as the ox smitten with the goad only hurts himself when he kicks against it, so shall it be with all who touch the saints of the living God.

Now, it is hard for some of you to think that this will be the case, but thus it will be with all of you who truly put your trust in Jesus Christ. My brethren, I know you dread that furnace—who would not?—but courage, courage, courage, the Lord who permits that furnace to be heated will preserve you in it, therefore be not dismayed! You would wish so to live as to have some tale to tell when you shall mount to heaven: you would not be silent there—coming to glory without any adventure to narrate before the throne. Now, you cannot be illustrious without conflict; you cannot be a conqueror without fighting; you cannot by any possibility have anything to witness to the glory of God unless you test and try the promises and the faithfulness of the Most High; and where can you do this except in the furnace of woe? Be of good courage, then:

“The flames shall not hurt thee, I only design

V. The last and perhaps the most pleasing part of the text is, WHO WAS WITH THEM IN THE FURNACE.

There was a fourth, and he was so bright and glorious, that even the heathen eyes of Nebuchadnezzar could discern a supernatural luster about him. “The fourth,” he said, “is like the Son of God.” What appearance Christ had put on I cannot tell, which was recognizable by that heathen monarch; but I suppose that he appeared in a degree of that glory in which he showed himself to his servant John in the Apocalypse, and such was the excessive splendor and brightness, the God-like air that was about him, the flash of his eye and the splendor of his gait as he walked the fire with the other three, that even Nebuchadnezzar could not help saying he was like the Son of God.

Beloved, you must go into the furnace if you would have the nearest and dearest dealings with Christ Jesus. Whenever the Lord appears, it is to his people when they are in a militant posture. Moses saw God at Horeb, but it was in a burning bush; Joshua saw him, but it was with a drawn sword in his hand, to show that his people are still a militant people; and here where the saints saw their Savior, it was as himself being in the furnace. The richest thought that a Christian perhaps can live upon is this, that Christ is in the furnace with him. When you suffer, Christ suffers. No member of the body can be pained without the head enduring its portion; and so you, a member of Christ’s body, in every pain you feel, pain the head Christ Jesus. As Baxter says, “Christ takes us through no darker rooms than he went through before;” and one could improve upon it and say, “He takes us through no rooms so dark but what he is himself there in the darkness, and makes that darkness by his presence light, cheering and gladdening our hearts.”

I know that to the worldling this seems a very poor comfort, but then if you have never drank this wine you cannot judge its flavor. If the King has never taken you into his banqueting house, and his banner over you has never been love; if he has never kissed you with the kisses of his mouth; if he has never said unto you, “I am thine and thou art mine,” why you cannot be expected to know what you have not experienced; but he who has once drunk of the well of Bethlehem, would hazard his life that he might get a draught of it again; would be willing to go through the furnace though it were heated seventy thousand times hotter, that he might be able once more to see that Son of God, the fourth bright One who trod the glowing coals. The presence of Christ is the brightest joy beneath the stars.

Oh! Christian, seek it; do not be content without it, and thou shall have it. A very unhappy thought starts up and claims expression before we close our discourse. I do not like to close with it, and yet faithfulness requires me to utter it: what must it be to be cast into that fiery furnace without Christ in it! What must it be to dwell with everlasting burnings! One’s heart beats high at the thought of the three poor men being thrown into that furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, with its flaming pitch and bitumen reaching upwards its streamers of flame, as though it would set the heavens on a blaze; yet that fire could not touch the three children, it was not consuming fire. But, my hearers, be ye warned, there is one who is “a consuming fire,” and once let him flame forth in anger, and none can deliver you. “Our God,” we are told, “our God is a consuming fire.” The day cometh which shall burn as an oven, and the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble, and every soul on earth that believeth not in Christ Jesus, shall be cast into that furnace of fire; this is the second death. Beware, ye that forget God, lest the eternal fires of Tophet kindle upon you, for their flame searches the joints and marrow, and sets the soul upon a blaze with torment. For you, my hearers, who have listened to the gospel often, but heard it in vain, for you the furnace of divine wrath shall be heated seven times hotter, and you shall fall down bound into the midst of it, never to be loosed; and instead of having Christ then to be with you and to comfort you, you shall see him sitting on his throne, and his glance of lightning shall perpetually make that flame to burn more terrible, and yet more terrible. If you were thrown into Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, it would be all over in a moment, not even your calcimined bones would be found; but the soul never dies. The punishment of the wicked is of the same duration as the reward of the righteous. Justice will ever exist in the divine mind, and will ever have objects upon which to display itself. If the soul died, hell would not be hell, for there would then be hope; and so the most terrible element of hopelessness would be removed. Sinner, dream not of being annihilated, but dread the fire which never shall be quenched, the worm which never dies. It is written in God’s Word that he “is able to destroy both body and soul in hell,” a destruction which amounts not to annihilation, a destruction of everything that is true life, but which leaves existence still untouched,

“What to be banished for my life,

Dreadful indeed is such a doom. There is a second death which will pass on all the ungodly, but it is not annihilation; for as death does not annihilate the body so does not the spiritual death annihilate the soul; you shall lose life but never existence, you shall linger in perpetual death. But there stands the Savior, and as he was with his people in the furnace, so he is near you this day in mercy, to deliver you from your sins. He calls to you to leave your sins and look to him, and then you shall never die, neither upon you shall the flame of wrath kindle because its power was spent on him, and he felt the furnace of divine wrath, and trod the glowing coals for every soul that believeth in him. God give his blessing for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Edited and excerpted from a sermon preached by Spurgeon on November 26, 1865.

The current formatting and editing is copyrighted by Jim Ehrhard, 2000. You are permitted to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author; (2) any modifications are clearly marked; (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction; and (4) you do not make more than 100 copies without permission. If you would like to post this material to your web site or make any use other than as defined above, please contact Teaching Resources International

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“Even so we, when we were children, wore in bondage under the elements of the world: but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.” — Galatians 4:3-6.

The birth of our Lord Jesus Christ into this world is a wellspring of pure, unmingled joy. We associate with his crucifixion much of sorrowful regret, but we derive from his birth at Bethlehem nothing but delight. The angelic song was a fit accompaniment to the joyful event, and the filling of the whole earth with peace and good will is a suitable consequence of the condescending fact. The stars of Bethlehem cast no baleful light: we may sing with undivided joy, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”

When the Eternal God stooped from heaven and assumed the nature of his own creature who had rebelled against him, the deed could mean no harm to man. God in our nature is not God against us but God with us. We may take up the young child in our arms and feel that we have seen the Lord’s salvation; it cannot mean destruction to men. I do not wonder that the men of the world celebrate the supposed anniversary of the great birthday as a high festival with carols and banquets. Knowing nothing of the spiritual meaning of the mystery, they yet perceive that it means man’s good, and so in their own rough way they respond to it. We who observe no days which are not appointed of the Lord, rejoice continually in our Prince of Peace, and find in our Lord’s manhood a fountain of consolation.

To those who are truly the people of God, the incarnation is the subject of a thoughtful joy, which ever increases with our knowledge of its meaning, even as rivers are enlarged by many trickling brooks. The Birth of Jesus not only brings us hope, but the certainty of good things. We do not merely speak of Christ’s coming into relation with our nature, but of his entering into union with ourselves, for he has become one flesh with us for purposes as great as his love. He is one with all of us who have believed in his name.

Let us consider by the light of our text the special effect produced upon the church of God by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in human flesh. You know, beloved, that his coming a second time will produce a wonderful change upon the church. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun.” We are looking forward to his second advent for the uplifting of the church to a higher platform than that upon which it now stands.” Then shall the militant become triumphant and laboring become exultant. Now is the time of battle, but the second advent shall bring both victory and rest. Today our King commands us to conflict, but soon he shall reign upon Mount Zion, with his ancients gloriously. When he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Then shall the bride adorn herself with her jewels, and stand ready for her Husband. The whole waiting creation which now groaneth and travaileth together in harmony with the birth pangs of the church shall then come to her time of deliverance, and enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

This is the promise of the second advent; but what was the result of the first advent? Did that make any difference in the dispensation of the church of God? Beyond all doubt it did. Paul here tells us that we were minors, in bondage under the elements of the world, until the fullness of time was come, when “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Some will say, “He is speaking here of the Jews;” but he expressly guards us in the previous chapter against dividing the church into Jews and Gentiles. To him it is only one church, and when he says we were in bondage, he is talking to the Galatian Christians, who were many of them Gentiles; but in truth he regards them neither as Jews nor Gentiles, but as part of the one and indivisible church of God. In those ages in which election mainly embraced the tribes of Israel, there were always some chosen ones beyond that visible line, and in the mind of God the chosen people were always regarded as neither Jews nor Gentiles, but as one in Christ Jesus. So Paul lets us know that the church up to the time of the coming of Christ was like a child at school under tutors and governors; or like a young man not yet arrived at years of discretion, and therefore most fitly kept under restraint. When Jesus came his great birthday was the day of the coming of age of the church, then believers remained no more children but became men in Christ Jesus. Our Lord by his first advent brought the church up out of her nonage and her pupilage into a condition of maturity, in which it was able to take possession of the inheritance, and claim and enjoy its rights and liberties. It was a wonderful step from being under the law as a schoolmaster, to come from under its rod and rule into the freedom and power of a full-grown heir, but such was the change for believers of the old time, and in consequence there was a wonderful difference between the highest under the Old Testament and the lowest under the New. Of them that are born of woman there was not born a greater than John the Baptist, and yet the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. John the Baptist may be compared to a youth of nineteen, still an infant in law, still under his guardian, still unable to touch his estate, but the least believer in Jesus has passed his minority, and is “no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

May the Holy Spirit bless the text to us while we use it thus. First, let us consider in itself the joyful mission of the Son of God, and then let us consider the joyful result which has come of that mission, as it is expressed in our text.

I. CONSIDER THE JOYFUL MISSION OF THE SON OF GOD.

The Lord of heaven has come to earth; God has taken upon himself human nature. Hallelujah!

This great transaction was accomplished at the right time: “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman.” The reservoir of time had to be filled by age after age and when it was full to the brim the Son of God appeared. Why the world should have remained in darkness for four thousand years, why it should have taken that length of time for the church to attain her full age, we cannot tell, but this we are told, that Jesus was sent forth when the fullness of time was come. Our Lord did not come before his time nor behind his time: he was punctual to his hour, and cried to the moment, — “Lo, I come.” We may not curiously pry into the reasons why Christ came when he did; but we may reverently muse thereon. The birth of Jesus is the grandest light of history, the sun in the seasons of all time. It is the pole star of human destiny, the hinge of chronology, the meeting-place of the waters of the past and the future.

Why happened it just at that moment? Assuredly it was so predicted. There were prophecies many which pointed exactly to that hour. I will not detain you just now with them; but those of you who are familiar with the Old Testament Scriptures well know that, as with so many fingers, they pointed to the time when the Shiloh should come, and the great sacrifice should be offered. He came at the hour that God had determined. The infinite Lord appoints the date of every event; all times are in his hand. There are no loose threads in the providence of God, no stitches are dropped, no events are left to chance. The great clock of the universe keeps good time, and the whole machinery of providence moves with unerring punctuality. It was to be expected that the greatest of all events should be most accurately and wisely timed, and so it was God willed it to be when and where it was, and that will is to us the ultimate reason.

If we might suggest any reasons which can be appreciated by ourselves, we should view the date in reference to the church itself as to the time of her coming of age. There is a measure of reason in appointing the age of twenty-one as the period of a man’s majority, for he is then mature, and full-grown. It would be unwise to make a person to be of age while only ten, eleven, or twelve; everybody would see that such boyish years would be unsuitable. On the other hand, if we were detained from being of age till we were thirty, every one would see that it was a needless and arbitrary postponement. Now, if we were wise enough, we should see that the church of God could not have endured gospel light earlier than the day of Christ’s coming: neither would it have been -well to keep her in gloom beyond that time. There was a fitness about the date which we cannot fully understand, because we have not the means of forming so decided an estimate of the life of a church as of the life of a man. God alone knows the times and seasons for a church, and no doubt to him the four thousand years of the old dispensation male up a fit period for the church to abide at school, and bear the yoke in her youth.

The time of coming of age of a man has been settled by law with reference to those that are round about him. It were not meet for servants that the child of five or six should be master: it were not meet in the world of commerce that an ordinary boy of ten or twelve should be a trader on his own account. There is a fitness with reference to relatives, neighbors, and dependents. So was there a fitness in the time when the church should come to her age with regard to the rest of mankind. The world must know its darkness that it might value the light when it should shine forth, the world must grow weary of its bondage that it might welcome the great Emancipator. It was God’s plan that the world’s wisdom should prove itself to be folly; he meant to permit intellect and skill to play themselves out, and then he would send his Son. He would allow man to prove his strength to be perfect weakness, and then he would become his righteousness and strength. Then, when one monarch governed all lands, and when the temple of war was shut after ages of bloodshed, the Lord whom the faithful sought suddenly appeared. Our Lord and Savior came when time was full, and like a harvest ready for his reaping, and so will he come again when once more the age is ripe and ready for his presence.

Observe, concerning the first advent, that the Lord was moving towards man. “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son.” We moved not towards the Lord, but the Lord towards us. I do not find that the world in repentance sought after its Maker. No; but the offended God himself in infinite compassion broke the silence, and came forth to bless his enemies. See how spontaneous is the grace of God. All good things begin with him.

It is very delightful that God should take an interest in every stage of the growth of his people from their spiritual infancy to their spiritual manhood. As Abraham made a great feast when Isaac was weaned, so doth the Lord make a feast at the coming of age of his people. While they were as minors under the law of ceremonial observances, he led them about and instructed them. He knew that the yoke of the law was for their good, and be comforted them in the bearing of it; but he was glad when the hour came for their fuller joy. Oh, how truly did the Psalmist say, “How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!” Tell it out with joy and gladness, that the blessings of the new dispensation under which we dwell are the spontaneous gifts of God, thoughtfully bestowed in great love, wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence. When the fullness of time was come, God himself interposed to give his people their privileges; for it is not his will that any one of his people should miss a single point of blessedness. If we are babes it is not his wish; he would have us men. If we are famished it is not by his desire, he would fill us with the bread of heaven.

Mark the divine interposition, — “God sent forth his Son.” I hope it may not seem wearisome to you if I dwell upon that word “sent,” — “God sent forth his Son.” I take great pleasure in that expression, for it seals the whole work of Jesus. Everything that Christ did was done by commission and authority of his Father. The great Lord, when he was born at Bethlehem, and assumed our nature, did it under divine authorization; and when he came and scattered gifts with both his hands among the sons of men he was the messenger and ambassador of God. He was the Plenipotentiary of the Court of Heaven. At the back of every word of Christ, there is the warrant of the Eternal; at the back of every promise of Christ there is the oath of God. The Son doeth nothing of himself, but the Father worketh with him and in him. O soul, when thou dost lean on Christ thou dost rely upon no amateur Savior, no uncommissioned Redeemer; but upon One who is sent of the Most High, and therefore is authorized in everything that he does. The Father saith, “This is my beloved Son; hear ye him:” For in hearing him you are hearing the Most High. Let us find joy, then, in the coming of our Lord to Bethlehem, because he was sent.

Now run your eye to the next word: “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son.” Observe the Divine person who was sent. God sent not an angel, nor any exalted creature, but “his Son.” How there can be a Son of God we know not. The eternal filiation of the Son must forever remain one of those mysteries into which we must not pry. It were something like the sin of the men of Beth-shemesh if we were to open the ark of God to gaze upon the deep things of God. It is quite certain that Christ is God; for here he is called “his Son.” He existed before he was born into this world; for God “sent” his Son. He was already in being or he could not have been “sent.” And while he is one with the Father, yet he must be distinct from the Father and have a personality separate from that of the Father, otherwise it could not be said that God sent his Son. God the Father was not made of a woman, nor made under the law, but only God the Son, therefore, while we know and are assured that Christ is one with the Father, yet is his distinctness of personality most clearly to be observed.

Admire that God should have only one begotten Son, and should have sent him to uplift us. The messenger to man must be none other than God’s own Son. What dignity is here! It is the Lord of angels that is born of Mary; it is he without whom was not anything made, who deigns to hang at a woman’s breast and to be wrapped in swaddling bands. Oh, the dignity of this, and consequently, oh, the efficiency of it! He that has come to save us is no weak creature like ourselves, he that has taken upon himself our nature is no being of limited strength, such as an angel or a seraph might have been; but he is the Son of the Highest. Glory be to his Blessed name! Let us dwell on this with delight.

“If some prophet had been sent

With salvation’s joyful news,

Who that heard the blest event

Could their warmest love refuse?

But ‘twas he to whom in heaven

Hallelujahs never cease;

He, the mighty God, was given —

Given to us — a Prince of Peace.

None but be who did create us

Could redeem from sin and hell;

None but he could reinstate us

In the rank from which we fell.”

Press on, still keeping to the very words of the text, for they are very sweet. God sent his Son in real humanity — “made of a woman.” The Revised Version properly hath it, “born of a woman.” Perhaps you may get nearer to it if you say, “Made to be born of a woman,” for both ideas are present, the factum and the natum, the being made and the being born.

Christ was really and truly of the substance of his mother, as certainly as any other infant that is born into the world is so. God did not create the human nature of Christ apart, and then transmit it into mortal existence by some special means; but his Son was made and born of a woman. He is, therefore, of our race, a man like ourselves, and not man of another stock.

You are to make no mistake about it; he is not only of humanity, but of your humanity; for that which is born of a woman is brother to us, be it born when it may. Yet there is an omission, I doubt not intentional, to show how holy was that human nature, for he is born of a woman, not of a man. The Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin, and “that holy thing” was born of her without the original sin which pertains to our race by natural descent. Here is a pure humanity though a true humanity; a true humanity though free from sin. Born of a woman, he was of few days and full of trouble; born of a woman, he was compassed with our physical infirmities; but as he was not born of man he was altogether without tendency to evil or delight therein. I beg you to rejoice in this near approach of Christ to us. Ring out the glad bells, if not in the spires and steeples, yet within your own hearts; for gladder news did never greet your ear than this, that he that is the Son of God was also “made of a woman.”

Still further it is added, that God sent his Son “made under the law,” or born under the law; for the word is the same in both cases; and by the same means by which he came to be of a woman he came under the law. And now admire and wonder! The Son of God has come under the law. He was the Lawmaker and the Lawgiver, and he is both the Judge of the law and the Executioner of the law, and yet he himself came under the law. No sooner was he born of a woman than he came under the law: this voluntarily and yet necessarily. He willed to be a man, and being a man he accepted the position, and stood in the place of man as subject to the law of the race. When they took him and circumcised him according to the law, it was publicly declared that he was under the law. During the rest of his life you will observe how reverently he observed the commands of God. Even to the ceremonial law as it was given by Moses he had scrupulous regard. He despised the traditions and superstitions of men, but for the rule of the dispensation he had a high respect.

By way of rendering service unto God on our behalf, he came under the moral law. He kept his Father’s commandments. He obeyed to the full both the first and the second tables; for he loved God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself. “I delight to do thy will, O my God,” saith he, “yea, thy law is within my heart.” He could truly say of the Father, “I do always those things that please him.” Yet it was a marvelous thing that the King of kings should be under the law, and especially that he should come under the penalty of the law as well as the service of it. “Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” As our Surety and Substitute he came under the curse of the law; being made a curse for us. Having taken our place and espoused our nature, though without sin himself, he came under the rigorous demands of justice, and in due time he bowed his head to the sentence of death. “He laid down his life for us.” He died the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. In this mystery of his incarnation, in this wonderful substitution of himself in the place of sinful men, lies the ground of that wonderful advance which believers made when Jesus came in the flesh. His advent in human form commenced the era of spiritual maturity and freedom.

II. CONTEMPLATE THE JOYOUS RESULT WHICH HAS COME OF OUR LORD’S INCARNATION.

I must return to what I have said before — this coming of Christ has ended the minority [status as minors] of believers. The people of God among the Jews were before Christ came the children of God, but they were mere babes or little children. They were instructed in the elements of divine knowledge by types, emblems, shadows, symbols: when Jesus was come there was an end of that infantile teaching. The shadows disappear when the substance is revealed; the symbols are not wanted when the person symbolized is himself present. What a difference between the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ when he shows them plainly of the Father and the teaching of the priests when they taught by scarlet wool and hyssop and blood!

How different the teaching of the Holy Ghost by the apostles of our Lord, and the instruction by meats and drinks and holy days. The old economy is dim with smoke, concealed with curtains, guarded from too familiar an approach; but now we come boldly to the throne, and all with unveiled face behold as in a glass the glory of God. The Christ has come, and now the Kindergarten school is quitted for the college of the Spirit, by whom we are taught of the Lord to know even as we are known. The hard governorship of the law is over. Among the Greeks, boys and youths were thought to need a cruel discipline: while they went to school, they were treated very roughly by their pedagogues and tutors. It was supposed that a boy could only imbibe instruction through his skin, and that the tree of knowledge was originally a birch; and therefore there was no sparing the rod, and no mitigation of self-denials and hardships. This fitly pictures the work of the law upon those early believers. Peter speaks of it as a yoke, which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear (Acts 15:10). The law was given amid thunder and flaming fire, and it was more fitted to inspire a wholesome dread than a loving confidence. Those sweeter truths, which are our daily consolation, were hardly known, or but seldom spoken.

Prophets did speak of Christ, but they were more frequently employed in pouring out lamentations and denunciations against children that were corrupters. Methinks, one day with Christ was worth a half century with Moses. When Jesus came, believers began to hear of the Father and his love, of his abounding grace, and the kingdom which he had prepared for them. Then the doctrines of eternal love, and redeeming grace, and covenant faithfulness were unveiled, and they heard of the tenderness of the Elder Brother, the grace of the great Father, and the indwelling of the ever-blessed Spirit. It was as if they had risen from servitude to freedom, from infancy to manhood. Blessed were they who in their day shared the privilege of the old economy, for it was wonderful light as compared with heathen darkness; yet, for all that, compared with the noontide that Christ brought, it was mere candle-light. The ceremonial law held a man in stern bondage: “You must not eat this, and you must not go there, and you must not wear this, and you must not gather that. Everywhere you were under restraint, and walked between hedges of thorn. The Israelite was reminded of sin at every turn, and warned of his perpetual tendency to fall into one transgression or another. It was quite right that it should be so, for it is good for a man that, while he is yet a youth, he should bear the yoke, and learn obedience; yet it must have been irksome.

When Jesus came what a joyful difference was made. It seemed like a dream of joy, too glad to be true. Peter could not at first believe in it, and needed a vision to make him sure that it was even so. When he saw that great sheet let down, full of all manner of living creatures and four-footed things, and was bidden to kill and eat, he said, “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” He was startled indeed when the Lord said, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.” That first order of things “stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation;” but Paul saith, “I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself.” Prohibition upon mere ceremonial points, and commands upon carnal matters are now abolished, and great is our liberty: we shall be foolish indeed if we suffer ourselves to be again entangled with the yoke of bondage. Our minority was ended when the Lord, who had aforetime spoken to us by his prophets, at last sent his Son to lead us up to the highest form of spiritual manhood.

Christ came, we are told next, to redeem those who are under the law: that is to say, the birth of Jesus, and his coming under the law, and his fulfilling the law, have set all believers free from it as a yoke of bondage. None of us wish to be free from the law as a rule of life, we delight in the commands of God, which are holy, and just, and good. We wish that we could keep every precept of the law, without a single omission or transgression. Our earnest desire is for perfect holiness; but we do not look in that direction for our justification before God. If we be asked today, are we hoping to be saved by ceremonies? We answer, “God forbid.” Some seem to fancy that baptism and the Lord’s Supper have taken the place of circumcision and the Passover, and that while Jews were saved by one form of ceremonial, we are to be saved by another. Let us never give place to this idea; no, not for an hour. God’s people are saved, not by outward rites, nor forms, nor priestcraft, but because “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,” and he has so kept the law that by faith his righteousness covers all believers, and we are not condemned by the law.

As to the moral law, which is the standard of equity for all time, it is no way of salvation for us. Once we were under it, and strove to keep it in order to earn the divine favor; but we have now no such motive. The word was, “This do and thou shalt live,” and we therefore strove like slaves to escape the lash, and earn our wage; but it is so no longer. Then we strove to do the Lord’s will that he might love us, and that we might be rewarded for what we did; but we have no design of purchasing that favor now, since we freely and securely enjoy it on a very different ground. God loves us out of pure grace, and he has freely forgiven us our iniquities, and this out of gratuitous goodness. We are already saved, and that not by works of righteousness which we have done, or by holy acts which we hope to perform, but wholly of free grace. If it be of grace, it is no more of works, and that it is all of grace from first to last is our joy and glory. The righteousness that covers us was wrought out by him that was born of a woman, and the merit by which we enter heaven is the merit, not of our own hands or hearts, but of him that loved us, and gave himself for us.

Thus are we redeemed from the law by our Lord’s being made under the law; and we become sons and no more servants, because the great Son of God became a servant in our stead.

“What!” saith one; “then do you not seek to do good works?” Indeed we do. We have talked of them before, but we actually perform them now. Sin shall not have dominion over us, for we are not under law, but under grace. By God’s grace we desire to abound in works of holiness, and the more we can serve our God the happier we are. But this is not to save ourselves, for we are already saved. O sons of Hagar, ye cannot understand the freedom of the true heir, the child born according to promise! Ye that are in bondage, and feel the force of legal motives, ye cannot understand how we should serve our Father who is in heaven with all our heart and all our soul, not for what we get by it, but because he has loved us, and saved us, irrespective of our works. Yet it is even so; we would abound in holiness to his honor, and praise, and glory, because the love of Christ constraineth us. What a privilege it is to cease from the spirit of bondage by being redeemed from the law! Let us praise our Redeemer with all our hearts. We are redeemed from the law in its operation upon our mind: it breeds no fear within us now. I have heard children of God say sometimes, “Well, but don’t you think if we fall into sin we shall cease to be in God’s love, and so shall perish?” This is to cast a slur upon the unchangeable love of God. I see that you make a mistake, and think a child is a servant. Now, if you have a servant, and he misbehaves himself, you say, “I give you notice to quit. There is your wage; you must mind another master.” Can you do that to your son? Can you do that to your daughter? “I never thought of such a thing,” say you. Your child is yours for life. Your boy behaved very badly to you: why did you not give him his wages and start him? You answer, that he does not serve you for wages, and that he is your son, and cannot be otherwise. Just so. Then always know the difference between a servant and a son, and the difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

I know how a base heart can make mischief out of this, but I cannot help it: the truth is the truth. Will a child rebel because he will always be a child? Far from it; it is this which makes him feel love in return. The true child of God is kept from sin by other and better forces than a slavish fear of being turned out of doors by his Father. If you are under the covenant of works, then, mind you, if you do not fulfill all righteousness you will perish: if you are under that covenant, unless you are perfect you are lost; one sin will destroy you, one sinful thought will ruin you. If you have not been perfect in your obedience, you must take your wages and be gone. If God deals with you according to your works, there will be nothing for you but, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son.” But if you are God’s child, that is a different matter; you will still be his child even when he corrects you for your disobedience.

“Ah,” saith one, “then I may live as I like.” Listen! If you are God’s child, I will tell you how you will like to live. You will desire to live in perfect obedience to your Father, and it will be your passionate longing from day to day to be perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. The nature of sons which grace imparts is a law unto itself: the Lord puts his fear into the hearts of the regenerate so that they do not depart from him. Being born again and introduced into the family of God, you will render to the Lord an obedience which you would not have thought of rendering to him if you had only been compelled by the idea of law and penalty. Love is a master force, and he that feels its power will hate all evil. The more salvation is seen to be of grace, the deeper and more mighty is our love, and the more does it work towards that which is pure and holy. Do not quote Moses for motives of Christian obedience. Do not say, “The Lord will cast me away unless I do this and that.” Such talk is of the bondswoman and her son; but it is very unseemly in the mouth of a true-born heir of heaven. Get it out of your mouth. If you are a son, you disgrace your father when you think that he will repudiate his own; you forget your spiritual heirship and liberty when you dread a change in Jehovah’s love. It is all very well for a mere babe to talk in that ignorant fashion, and I don’t wonder that many professors know no better, for many ministers are only half-evangelical; but you that have become men in Christ, and know that he has redeemed you from the law, ought not to go back to such bondage. “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.”

What else has he come for? Notice further, “That we might receive the adoption of sons.” The Lord Jesus Christ has come in human flesh that his people might to the full realize, grasp, and enjoy, “the adoption of sons.” I want you this morning to see if you can do that. May the Holy Spirit enable you. What is it to receive the adoption of sons? Why to feel, Now I am under the mastery of love, as a dear child, who is both loved and loving. I go in and out of my Father’s house not as a casual servant, called in by the day or the week, but as a child at home. I am not looking for hire as a servant, for I am ever with my Father, and all that he has is mine. My God is my Father, and his countenance makes me glad. I am not afraid of him, but I delight in him, for nothing can separate me from him. I feel a perfect love that casteth out fear, and I delight myself in him. Try now and enter into that spirit this morning. That is why Christ has come in the flesh — on purpose that you, his people, may be to the full the adopted children of the Lord, acting out and enjoying all the privileges which sonship secures to you.

And then, next, exercise your heirship. One who is a son, and knows he is an heir of all his father’s estates, does not pine in poverty, nor act like a beggar. He looks upon everything as his own; he regards his father’s wealth as making him rich. He does not feel that he is stealing if he takes what his father has made to be his own, but he makes free with it. I wish believers would make free with the promises and blessings of their God.

Help yourselves, for no good thing will the Lord withhold from you. All things are yours: you only need to use the hand of faith. Ask what thou wilt. If you appropriate a promise it will not be pilfering: you may take it boldly and say, “This is mine.” Your adoption brings with it large rights: be not slow to use them. “If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” Among men, sons are only heirs, heirs in possession, when the father is dead; but our Father in heaven lives, and yet we have full heirship in him. The Lord Jesus Christ was made of a woman on purpose that his dear people might at once enter into their heirship.

You ought to feel a sweet joy in the perpetual relationship which is now established between you and God, for Jesus is still your brother. You have been adopted, and God has never cancelled adoption yet. There is such a thing as regeneration, but there is not such a thing as the life then received dying out. If you are born unto God, you are born unto God. The stars may turn to coals, and the sun and moon may become clots of blood, but he that is born of God has a life within him which can never end: he is God’s child, and God’s child he shall be. Therefore let him walk at large like a child, an heir, a prince of the blood royal, who bears a relationship to the Lord which neither time nor eternity can ever destroy. This is why Jesus was made of a woman and made under the law, that he might give us to enjoy the fullness of the privilege of adopted sons.

Follow me a minute a little further. The next thing that Christ has brought us by being made of a woman is, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts.” Here are two seedings. God sent his Son, and now he sends his Spirit. Because Christ has been sent, therefore the Spirit is sent, and now you shall know the Holy Ghost’s indwelling because of Christ’s incarnation. The Spirit of light, the Spirit of life, the Spirit of love, the Spirit of liberty, he same Spirit that was in Christ Jesus is in you. That same Spirit which descended upon Jesus in the waters of baptism also descended upon you. You, O child of God, have the Spirit of God as your present guide and Comforter; and he shall be with you for ever. The life of Christ is your life, and the Spirit of Christ is your Spirit; wherefore, this day be exceeding glad, for you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption.

There we finish, for Jesus has come to give us me cry as well as the spirit of adoption, “whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” According to ancient traditions no slave might say, “Abba, Father,” and according to the truth as it is in Jesus none but a man who is really a child of God, and has received the adoption, can truly say, “Abba, Father.” This day my heart desires for every one of you, my brethren, that because Christ has been born into the world you may at once come of age, and may at this hour confidently say, “Abba, Father.” The great God, the Maker of heaven and earth, is my Father, and I dare avow it without fear that he will disown the kindred. The Thunderer, the ruler of the stormy sea, is my Father, and notwithstanding the terror of his power I draw near to him in love. He who is the Destroyer, who says, “Return, ye children of men,” is my Father, and I am not alarmed at the thought that he will call me to himself in due time. My God, thou who shalt call the multitudes of the slain from their graves to fire, I look forward with joy to the hour when thou shalt call and I shall answer thee. Do what thou wilt with me, thou art my Father. Smile on me: I will smile back and say “My Father.” Chasten me, and as I weep I will cry, “My Father.” This shall make everything work good to me, be it never so good to bear. If thou art my Father all is well to all eternity. Bitterness is sweet, and death itself is life, since thou art my Father. Oh, trip ye merrily home, ye children of the living God, saying each one within himself, “I have it, I have it. I have that which cherubim before the throne have never gained; I have relationship with God of the nearest and the dearest kind, and my spirit for her music hath this word, ‘Abba, Father; Abba, Father.’”

Now, dear children of God, if any of you are in bondage under the law, why do you remain so? Let the redeemed go free. Are you fond of wearing chains? Are you like Chinese women that delight to wear little shoes which crush their feet? Do you delight in slavery? Do you wish to be captives? You are not under the law, but under grace; will you allow your unbelief to put you under the law? You are not a slave. Why tremble like a slave? You are a child; you are a son; you are an heir; live up to your privileges. Oh, ye banished seed, be glad! You are adopted into the household of God; then be not as a stranger. I hear Ishmael laughing at you: let him laugh. Tell your Father of him, and he will soon say, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son.” Free grace is not to be mocked by human merit; neither are we to be made sad by the forebodings of the legal spirit. Our soul rejoices, and, like Isaac, is filled with holy laughter; for the Lord Jesus has done great things for us whereof we are glad. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

[Preached on December 21st, 1884.]

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“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men.”—Luke 2:14.

It is superstitious to worship angels; it is but proper to love them. Although it would be a high sin, and an act of misdemeanor against the Sovereign Court of Heaven to pay the slightest adoration to the mightiest angel, yet it would be unkind and unseemly, if we did not give to holy angels a place in our heart’s warmest love. In fact, he that contemplates the character of angels, and marks their many deeds of sympathy with men, and kindness towards them, cannot resist the impulse of his nature—the impulse of love towards them. The one incident in angelic history, to which our text refers, is enough to weld our hearts to them forever. How free from envy the angels were! Christ did not come from heaven to save their peers when the fell. When Satan, the mighty angel, dragged with him a third part of the stars of heaven, Christ did not stoop from his throne to die for them; but he left them to be reserved in chains and darkness until the last great day. Yet angels did not envy men. Though they remembered that he took not up angels, yet they did not murmur when he took up the seed of Abraham; and though the blessed Master had never condescended to take the angers form, they did not think it beneath them to express their joy when they found him arrayed in the body of an infant.

How free, too they were from pride! They were not ashamed to come and tell the news to humble shepherds. Me thinks, they had as much joy in pouring out their songs that night before the shepherds, who were watching with their flocks, as they would have had if they had been commanded by their Master to sing their hymn in the halls of Caesar. Mere men—men possessed with pride, think it a fine thing to preach before kings and princes; and think it great condescension now and then to have to minister to the humble crowd. Not so the angels. They stretched their willing wings, and gladly sped from their bright seats above, to tell the shepherds on the plain by night, the marvelous story of an Incarnate God. And mark how well they told the story, and surely you will love them! Not with the stammering tongue of him that tells a tale in which he hath no interest; nor even with the feigned interest of a man that would move the passions of others, when he feeleth no emotion himself; but with joy and gladness, such as angels only can know. They sang the story out, for they could not stay to tell it in heavy prose. They sang, “Glory to God on high, and on earth peace, good will towards men.” Methinks, they sang it with gladness in their eyes; with their hearts burning with love, and with breasts as full of joy as if the good news to man had been good news to themselves. And, verily, it was good news to them, for the heart of sympathy makes good news to others, good news to itself! Do you not love the angels? Ye will not bow before them, and there ye are right; but will ye not love them? Doth it not make one part of your anticipation of heaven that in heaven you shall dwell with the holy angels, as well as with the spirits of the just made perfect? Oh, how sweet to think that these holy and lovely beings are our guardians every hour! They keep watch and ward about us, both in the burning noontide, and in the darkness of the night. They keep us in all our ways; they bear us up .in their hands, lest at any time we dash our feet against stones. They unceasingly minister unto us who are the heirs of salvation; both by day and night, they are our watchers and our guardians, for know ye not, that ‘the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him.”

Let us turn aside, having just thought of angels for a moment, to think rather of this song, than of the angels themselves. Their song was brief, but as Kitto excellently remarks, it was “well worthy of angels expressing the greatest and most blessed truths, in words so few, that they become to an acute apprehension, almost oppressive by the pregnant fumes, of their meaning”—”Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.” We shall, hoping to be assisted by the Holy Spirit, look at these words of the angels in a fourfold manner. I shall just suggest some instructive thoughts arising from these words; then some emotional thoughts; then a few prophetical thoughts; and afterwards, one or two preceptive thoughts.

I. FIRST THEN, THERE ARE MANY INSTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS.

The angels sang something which men could understand—something which men ought to understand—something which will make men much better if they will understand it. The angels were singing about Jesus who was born in the manger. We must look upon their song as being built upon this foundation. They sang of Christ and the salvation which he came into this world to work out. And what they said of this salvation was this: they said, first, that it gave glory to God; secondly, that it gave peace to man; and, thirdly, that it was a token of God’s good will towards the human race.

1. First, they said that this salvation gave glory to God.

They had been present on many august occasions, and they had joined in many a solemn chorus to the praise of their Almighty Creator. They were present at the creation: “The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” They had seen many a planet fashioned between the palms of Jehovah, and wheeled by his eternal hands through the infinitude of space. They had sung solemn songs over many a world which the Great One had created. We doubt not, they had often chanted, “Blessing and honor, and glory, and majesty, and power, and dominion, and might, be unto him that sitteth on the throne,” manifesting himself in the work of creation. I doubt not, too, that their songs had gathered force through ages. As when first created, their first breath was song, so when they saw God create new worlds, then their song received another note; they rose a little highar in the gamut of adoration. But this time, when they saw God stoop from his throne, and become a babe, hanging upon a woman’s breast, they lifted their notes higher still; and reaching to the uttermost stretch of angelic music, they gained the highest notes of the divine scale of praise, and they sung, “Glory to God in the highest,” for higher in goodness they felt God could not go. Thus their highest praise they gave to him in the highest act of his godhead. If it be true that there is a hierarchy of angels, rising tier upon tier in magnificence and dignity— if the apostle teaches us that there be “angels, and principalities, and powers, and. thrones, and dominions,” amongst these blest inhabitants of the upper world— I can suppose that when the intelligence was first communicated to those angels that are to be found upon the outskirts of the heavenly world, when they looked down from heaven and saw the new-born babe, they sent the news backward to the place whence the miracle first proceeded, singing:

“Angels, from the realms of glory,

Wing your downward flight to earth,

Ye who sing creation’s story,

Now proclaim Messiah’s birth;

Come and worship,

Worship Christ, the new-born King.”

And as the message ran from rank to rank, at last the presence angels, those four cherubim that perpetually watch around the throne of God—those wheels with eyes—took up the strain, and, gathering up the song of all the inferior grades of angels, surmounted the divine pinnacle of harmony with their own solemn chant of adoration, upon which the entire host shouted, “The highest angels praise thee.”— “Glory to God in the highest.” Ay, there is no mortal that can ever dream how magnificent was that song. Then, note, if angels shouted before and when the world was made, their hallelujahs were more full, more strong, more magnificent, if not more hearty, when they saw Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary to be man’s redeemer—”Glory to God in the highest.”

What is the instructive lesson to be learned from this first syllable of the angels’ song? Why this, that salvation is God’s highest glory. He is glorified in every dewdrop that twinkles to the morning sun. He is magnified in every wood flower that blossoms in the copse, although it live to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness in the forest air. God is glorified in every bird that warbles on the spray; in every lamb that skips the mead. Do not the fishes in the sea praise him. From the tiny minnow to the huge Leviathan, do not all creatures that swim the water bless and praise his name? Do not all created things extol him? Is there aught beneath the sky, save man, that doth not glorify God? Do not the stars exalt him, when they write his name upon the azure of heaven in their golden letters? Do not the lightnings adore him when they flash his brightness in arrows of light piercing the midnight darkness? Do not thunders extol him when they roll like drums in the march of the God of armies? Do not all things exalt him, from the least even to the greatest? But sing, sing, oh universe, till thou hast exhausted thyself, thou canst not afford a song so sweet as the song of Incarnation. Though creation may be a majestic organ of praise, it cannot reach the compass of the golden canticle—Incarnation! There is more in that than in creation, more melody in Jesus in the manger, than there is in worlds on worlds rolling their grandeur round the throne of the Most High.

Pause Christian and consider this a minute. See how every attribute is here magnified. Lo! what wisdom is here. God becomes man that God may be just, and the justifier of the ungodly. Lo! what power, for where is power so great as when it concealeth power? What power, that Godhead should unrobe itself and become man! Behold, what love is thus revealed to us when Jesus becomes a man. Behold, ye what faithfulness! How many promises are this day kept? How many solemn obligations are this hour discharged? Tell me one attribute of God that is not manifest in Jesus; and your ignorance shall be the reason why you have not seen it so. The whole of God is glorified in Christ; and though some part of the name of God is written in the universe, it is here best read—in Him who was the Son of Man, and, yet, the Son of God.

But, let me say one word here before I go away from this point. We must learn from this, that if salvation glorifies God, glorifies him in the highest degree, and makes the highest creatures praise him, this one reflection may be added—then, that doctrine, which glorifies man in salvation cannot be the gospel. For salvation glorifies God. The angels were no Arminians, they sang, “Glory to God in the Highest.” They believe in no doctrine which uncrowns Christ, and puts the crown upon the heads of mortals. They believe in no system of faith which makes salvation dependent upon the creature, and, which really gives the creature the praise, for what is it less than for a man to save himself, if the whole dependence of salvation rests upon his own free will? No, my brethren; there may be some preachers, that delight to preach a doctrine that magnifies man; but in their gospel angels have no delight. The only glad tidings that made the angels sing, are those that put God first, God last, God midst, and God without end, in the salvation of his creatures, and put the crown wholly and alone upon the head of him that saves without a helper. “Glory to God in the highest,” is the angels’ song.

2. When they had sung this, they sang what they had never song before.

“Glory to God in the highest,” was an old, old song; they had sung that from before the foundations of the world. But, now, they sang as it were a new song before the throne of God: for they added this stanza—” on, earth, peace.” They did not sing that in the garden. There was peace there, but it seemed a thing of course, and scarce worth singing of. There was more than peace there; for there was glory to God there. But, now, man had fallen, and since the day when cherubim with fiery swords drove out the man, there had been no peace on earth, save in the breast of some believers, who had obtained peace from the living fountain of this incarnation of Christ. Wars had raged from the ends of the world; men had slaughtered one another, heaps on heaps. There had been wars within as well as wars without. Conscience had fought with man; Satan had tormented man with thoughts of sin. There had been no peace on earth since Adam fell. But, now, when the newborn King made his appearance, the swaddling hand with which he was wrapped up was the white flag of peace. That manger was the place where the treaty was signed, whereby warfare should be stopped between man’s conscience and himself, man’s conscience and his God. It was then, that day, the trumpet blew—” Sheathe the sword, oh man, sheathe the sword, oh conscience, for God is now at peace with man, and man at peace with God.”

Do you not feel my brethren, that the gospel of God is peace to man? Where else can peace be found, but in the message of Jesus? Go legalist, work for peace with toil and pain, and thou shalt never find it. Go, thou, that trustest in the law: go thou, to Sinai; look to the flames that Moses saw, and shrink, and tremble, and despair; for peace is nowhere to be found, but in him, of whom it is said, “This man shall be peace.” And what a peace it is, beloved! It is peace like a river, and righteousness like the waves of the sea. It is the peace of God that passeth all understanding, which keeps our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. This sacred peace between the pardoned soul and God the pardoner; this marvelous at-one-ment between the sinner and his judge, this was it that the angels sung when they said, “Peace On earth.”

3. And, then, they wisely ended their song with a third note. They said, “Good will to man.”

Philosophers have said that God has a good will toward man; but I never knew any man who derived much comfort from their philosophical assertion. Wise men have thought from what we have seen in creation that God had much good will toward man, or else his works would never have been so constructed for their comfort; but I never heard of any man who could risk his soul’s peace upon such a faint hope as that. But I have not only heard of thousands, but I know them, who are quite sure that God has a good will towards men; and if you ask their reason, they will give a full and perfect answer. They say, he has good will toward man for he gave his Son. No greater proof of kindness between the Creator and his subjects can possibly be afforded than when the Creator gives his only begotten and well beloved Son to die. Though the first note is God-like, and though the second note is peaceful, this third note melts my heart the most. Some think of God as if he were a morose being who hated all mankind. Some picture him as if he were some abstract subsistence taking no interest in our affairs. Hark ye, God has “good will toward men.” You know what good will means. Well, all that it means, and more, God has to you, ye sons and daughters of Adam. Swearer, you have cursed God; he has not fulfilled his curse on you; he has good will towards you, though you have no good will towards him. Infidel, you have sinned high and hard against the Most High; he has said no hard things against you, for he has good will towards men. Poor sinner, thou hast broken his laws; thou art half-afraid to come to the throne of his mercy lest he should spurn thee; hear thou this, and be comforted. God has good will towards men, so good a will that he has said, and said it with an oath too, “As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but had rather that he should turn unto me and live.” So good a will moreover that he has even condescended to say, “Come, now, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool; though they be red like crimson, they shall be whiter than snow.” And if you say, “Lord, how shall I know that thou hast this good will towards me,” he points to yonder manger, and says, “Sinner, if I had not a good will towards thee, would I have parted with my Son? If I had not good will towards the human race, would I have given up my Son to become one of that race that he might by so doing redeem them from death? Ye that doubt the Master’s love, look ye to that circle of angels; see their blaze of glory; hear their song, and let your doubts die away in that sweet music and be buried in a shroud of harmony. He has good will to men; he is willing to pardon; he passes by iniquity, transgression, and sin.

And mark thee, it Satan shall then add, “But though God hath good will, yet he cannot violate his justice, therefore his mercy may be ineffective, and you may die.” Then listen to that first note of the song, “Glory to God in the highest,” and reply to Satan and all his temptations, that when God shows good will to a penitent sinner, there is not only peace in the sinner’s heart, but it brings glory to every attribute of God, and so he can be just, and yet justify the sinner, and glorify himself.

I do not pretend to say that I have opened all the instructions contained in these three sentences, but I may perhaps direct you into a train of thought that may serve you for the week. I hope that all through the week you will have a truly merry Christmas by feeling the power of these words, and knowing the unction of them. “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.”

1. NEXT, I HAVE TO PRESENT TO YOU SOME EMOTIONAL THOUGHTS.

Friends, doth not this verse, this song of angels, stir your heart with happiness? When I read that, and found the angels singing it, I thought to myself, “Then if the angels ushered in the gospel’s great Head with singing, ought I not to preach with singing? And ought not my hearers to live with singing? Ought not their hearts to be glad and their spirits to rejoice?” Well, thought I, there be some somber religionists who were horn in a dark night in December that think a smile upon the face is wicked, and believe that for a Christian to be glad and rejoice is to be inconsistent.

Ah! I wish these gentlemen had seen the angels when they sang about Christ; for if angels sang about his birth, though it was no concern of theirs, certainly men ought to sing about it as long as they live, sing about it when they die, and sing about it when they live in heaven forever. I do long to see in the midst of the church more of a singing Christianity. The last few years have been breeding in our midst a groaning and unbelieving Christianity. Now, I doubt not its sincerity, but I do doubt its healthy character. I say it may be true and real enough; God forbid I should say a word against the sincerity of those who practice it; but it is a sickly religion.

Watts hit the mark when he said, “Religion never was designed, To make our pleasures less.” It is designed to do away with some of cur pleasures, but it gives us many more, to make up for what it takes away; so it does not make them less. O ye that see in Christ nothing but a subject to stimulate your doubts and make the tears run down your cheeks; O ye that always say, “Lord, what a wretched land is this, That yields us no supplies.” Come ye hither and see the angels. Do they tell their story with groans, and sobs, and sighs? Ah, no; they shout aloud, “Glory to God in the highest.” Now, imitate them my dear brethren. If you are professors of religion, try always to have a cheerful carriage. Let others mourn; but “Why should the children of a king, Go mourning all their days?”

Anoint your head and wash your face; appear not unto men to fast. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say unto you rejoice. Especially this week be not ashamed to be glad. You need not think it a wicked thing to be happy. Penance and whipping, and misery are no such very virtuous things, after all. The damned are miserable; let the saved be happy. Why should you hold fellowship with the lost by feelings of perpetual mourning? Why not rather anticipate the joys of heaven, and begin to sing on earth that song which you will never need to end? The first emotion then that we ought to cherish in our hearts is the emotion of joy and gladness.

Well, what next? Another emotion is that of confidence. I am not sure that I am right in calling that an emotion, but still in me it is so much akin to it, that I. will venture to be wrong if I be so. Now, if when Christ came on this earth, God had sent some black creature down from heaven, (If there be such creatures there) to tell us,” Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men,” and if with a frowning brew and a stammering tongue he delivered his message, if I had been there and heard it, I should have scrupled to believe him, for I should have said, “You don’t look like the messenger that God would send—stammering fellow as you ate—with such glad news as this.” But when the angels came there was no doubting the truth of what they said, because it was quite certain that the angels believed it; they told it as if they did, for they told it with singing, with joy and gladness. If some friend, having heard that a legacy was left you, and should come to you with a solemn countenance, and a tongue like a funeral bell, saying, ” Do you know so-and-so has left you £10,000?” Why, you would say, “Ah! I dare say,” and laugh in his face. But if your brother should suddenly burst into your room, and exclaim, “I say, what do you think? You are a rich man; So-and-so has left you £10,000! Why you would say, “I think it is very likely to be true, for he looks so happy over it.”

Well, when these angels came from heaven they told the news just as if they believed it; and though I have often wickedly doubted my Lord’s good will, I think I never could have doubted it while I heard those angels singing. No, I should say, “The messengers themselves are proof of the truth, for it seems they have heard it from God’s lips; they have no doubt about it, for see how joyously they tell the news.” Now, poor soul, thou that art afraid lest God should destroy thee, and thou thinkest that God will never have mercy upon thee, look at the singing angels and doubt if thou darest. Do not go to the synagogue of long-faced hypocrites to hear the minister who preaches with a nasal twang, with misery in his face, whilst he tells you that God has goodwill towards men; I know you won’t believe what he says, for he does not preach with joy in his countenance; he is telling you good news with a grunt, and you are not likely to receive it. But go straightway to the plain where Bethlehem shepherds sat by night, and when you hear the angels singing out the gospel, by the grace of God upon you, you cannot help believing that they manifestly feel the preciousness of telling. Blessed Christmas, that brings such creatures as angels to confirm our faith in God’s goodwill to men!

2. THERE ARE SOME PROPHETIC UTTERANCES CONTAINED IN THESE WORDS.

The angels sang “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men.” But I look around, and what see I in the wide, wide world? I do not see God honored. I see the heathen bowing down before their idols; I mark the Romanist casting himself before the rotten rags of his relics, and the ugly figures of his Images. I look about me, and I see tyranny lording it over the bodies and souls of men; I see God forgotten; I see a worldly race pursuing mammon; I see a bloody race pursuing Mulch; I see ambition riding like Nimrod over the land, God forgotten, his name dishonored. And was this all the angels sang about? Is this all that made them sing “Glory to God in the highest?” Ah! no. There are brighter days approaching. They sang, “Peace on earth.” But I hear still the clarion of war; and the cannon’s horrid roar: not yet have they turned the sword into a ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning hook! War still reigns. Is this all that the angels sang about? And whilst l see wars to the ends of the earth, am I to believe that this was all the angels expected?

Ah! no, brethren; the angels’ song is big with prophecy; it travaileth in birth with glories. A few more years, and he that lives them out shall see why angels sang; a few more years, and he that will come shall come, and will not tarry. Christ the Lord will come again, and when he cometh he shall cast the idols from their thrones; he shall dash down every fashion of heresy and every shape of idolatry; he shall reign from pole to pole with illimitable sway: he shall reign, when like a scroll, yon blue heavens have passed away. No strife shall vex Messiah’s reign, no blood shall then be shed; they’ll hang the useless helmet high, and study war no more. The hour is approaching when the temple of Janus shall be shut for ever, and when cruel Mars shall be hooted from the earth. The day is coming when the lion shall eat straw like the ox, when the leopard shall lie down with the kid; when the weaned child shall put his hand upon the cockatrice den and play with the asp. The hour approacheth; the first streaks of the sunlight have made glad the age in which we live. Lo, he comes, with trumpets and with clouds of glory; he shall come for whom we look with joyous expectation, whose coming shall be glory to his redeemed, and contusion to his enemies. Ah! brethren, when the angels sang this there was an echo through the long aisles of a glorious future. That echo was— “Hallelujah! Christ the Lord God Omnipotent shall reign.”

Ay, and doubtless the angels heard by faith the fulness of the song, “Hark! the song of jubilee, Loud as mighty thunders’ roar, Or the fulness of the sea, When it breaks upon the shore.”

“Christ the Lord Omnipotent reigneth.”

3. NOW, I HAVE ONE MORE LESSON FOR YOU, AND I HAVE DONE. THAT LESSON IS PRECEPTIVE.

I wish everybody that keeps Christmas this year, would keep it as the angels kept it. There are many persons who, when they talk about keeping Christmas, mean by that the cutting of the hands of their religion for one day in the year, as if Christ were the Lord of misrule, as if the birth of Christ should be celebrated like the orgies of Bacchus. There are some very religious people, that on Christmas would never forget to go to church in the morning; they believe Christmas to be nearly as holy as Sunday, for they reverence the tradition of the elders. Yet their way of spending the rest of the day is very remarkable; for if they see their way straight up stairs to their bed at night, it must be by accident. They would not consider they had kept Christmas in a proper manner, if they did not verge on gluttony and drunkenness. They are many who think Christmas cannot possibly be kept, except there be a great shout of merriment and mirth in the house, and added to that the boisterousness of sin. Now, my brethren, although we, as successors of the Puritans, will not keep the day in any religious sense whatever, attaching nothing more to it than to any other day: believing that every day may be a Christmas for ought we know, and wishing to make every day Christmas, if we can, yet we must try to set an example to others how to behave on that day; and especially since the angels gave glory to God: let us do the same.

Once more the angels said, “Peace to men.” Let us labor if we can to make peace next Christmas day. Now, old gentleman, you won’t take your son in: he has offended you—Fetch him at Christmas. “Peace on earth;” you know: that is a Christmas carol. Make peace in your family.

Now, brother, you have made a vow that you will never speak to your brother again. Go after him and say, “Oh, my dear fellow, let not this day’s sun go down upon our wrath.” Fetch him in, and give him your hand. Now, Mr. Tradesman, you have an opponent in trade, and you have said some very hard words about him lately. If you do not make the matter up today, or tomorrow, or as soon as you can, yet do it on that day. That is the way to keep Christmas, peace on earth and glory to God. And oh, if thou hast anything on thy conscience, anything that prevents thy having peace of mind, keep thy Christmas in thy chamber, praying to God to give thee peace; for it is peace on earth, mind, peace in thyself peace with thyself, peace with thy fellow men, peace with thy God. And do not think thou hast well celebrated that day till thou canst say, “O God, With the world, myself, and thee, I ere I sleep at peace will be.’”

And when the Lord Jesus has become your peace, remember, there is another thing, good will towards men. Do not try to keep Christmas without keeping good will towards men. You are a gentleman, and have servants. Well, try and set their chimneys on fire with a large piece of good, substantial beef for them. If you are men of wealth, you have poor in your neighborhood. Find something wherewith to clothe the naked, and feed the hungry, and make glad the mourner. Remember, it is good will towards men. Try, if you can, to show them goodwill at this special season; and if you will do that, the poor will say with me, that indeed they wish there were six Christmases in the year.

Let each one of us go from this place determined, that if we are angry all the rear round, this next week shall be an exception. That if we have snarled at everybody last year, this Christmas time we will strive to be kindly affectionate to others. And if we have lived all this year at enmity with God, I pray that by his Spirit he may this week give us peace with him; and then, indeed, my brother, It will be the merriest Christmas we ever had in all our lives. You are going home to your father and mother, young men; many of you are going from your shops to your homes. You remember what I preached on last Christmas time. Go home to thy friends, and tell them what the Lord hath done for thy soul, and that will make a blessed round of stories at the Christmas fire. If you will each of you tell your parents how the Lord met with you in the house of prayer; how, when you left home, you were a gay, wild blade, but have now come back to love your mother’s God, and read your father’s Bible. Oh, what a happy Christmas that will make! What more shall I say? May God give you peace with yourselves; may he give you good will towards all your friends, your enemies, and your neighbors; and may he give you grace to give gory to God in the highest. I will say no more, except at the close of this sermon to wish every one of you, when the day shall come, the happiest Christmas you ever had in your lives.

Edited and excerpted from a sermon preached by Spurgeon on December 20, 1857.

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