“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” — Jeremiah 33:3.

Some of the most learned works in the world smell of the midnight oil; but the most spiritual, and most comforting books and sayings of men usually have a savor about them of prison-damp.  I might quote many instances: John Bunyan’s Pilgrim may suffice instead of a hundred others; and this good text of ours, all moldy and chill with the prison in which Jeremiah lay, hath nevertheless a brightness and a beauty about it, which it might never have had if it had not come as a cheering word to the prisoner of the Lord, shut up in the court of the prison-house.  God’s people have always in their worst condition found out the best of their God.  He is good at all times; but he seemeth to be at his best when they are at their worst.

“How could you bear your long imprisonment so well?” said one to the Landgrave of Hesse, who had been shut up for his attachment to the principles of the Reformation.  He replied, “The divine consolations of martyrs were with me.”  Doubtless there is a consolation more deep, more strong than any other, which God keeps for those who, being his faithful witnesses, have to endure exceeding great tribulation from the enmity of man.  There is a glorious aurora for the frigid zone; and stars glisten in northern skies with unusual splendor.  They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.  You know, my companions in affliction, that it is so.  You whose bones have been ready to come through the skin through long lying upon the weary couch; you who have seen your earthly goods carried away from you, and have been reduced well nigh to penury; you who have gone to the grave yet seven times, till you have feared that your last earthly friend would be borne away by unpitying Death; you have proved that he is a faithful God, and that as your tribulations abound, so your consolations also abound by Christ Jesus.

My prayer is, in taking this text this morning, that some other prisoners of the Lord may have its joyous promise spoken home to them; that you who are straitly shut up and cannot come forth by reason of present heaviness of spirit, may hear him say, as with a soft whisper in your ears, and in your hearts, “Call upon me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”

The text naturally splits itself up into three distinct particles of truth.  Upon these let us speak as we are enabled by God the Holy Spirit.  First, prayer commanded — “Call unto me;” secondly, an answer promised — “And I will answer thee;” thirdly, faith encouraged — “And shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”

I. The first head is PRAYER COMMANDED.

We are not merely counseled and recommended to pray, but bidden to pray.  This is great condescension.  An hospital is built: it is considered sufficient that free admission shall be given to the sick when they seek it; but no order in council is made that a man must enter its gates.  A soup kitchen is well provided for in the depth of winter.  Notice is promulgated that those who are poor may receive food on application; but no one thinks of passing an Act of Parliament, compelling the poor to come and wait at the door to take the charity.  It is thought to be enough to proffer it without issuing any sort of mandate that men shall accept it.  Yet so strange is the infatuation of man on the one hand, which makes him need a command to be merciful to his own soul, and so marvelous is the condescension of our gracious God on the other, that he issues a command of love without which not a man of Adam born would partake of the gospel feast, but would rather starve than come. In the matter of prayer it is even so.  God’s own people need, or else they would not receive it, a command to pray.

How is this?  Because, dear friends, we are very subject to fits of worldliness, if indeed that be not our usual state.  We do not forget to eat: we do not forget to take the shop shutters down: we do not forget to be diligent in business: we do not forget to go to our beds to rest: but we often do forget to wrestle with God in prayer and to spend, as we ought to spend, long periods in consecrated fellowship with our Father and our God.  With too many professors, the ledger is so bulky that you cannot move it, and the Bible, representing their devotion, is so small that you might almost put it in your waistcoat pocket.  Hours for the world!  Moments for Christ!  The world has the best, and our closet the parings of our time.  We give our strength and freshness to the ways of mammon, and our fatigue and languor to the ways of God.  Hence it is that we need to be commanded to attend to that very act which it ought to be our greatest happiness, as it is our highest privilege to perform, viz. to meet with our God.  “Call upon me,” saith he, for he knows that we are apt to forget to call upon God.  “What meanest thou, oh, sleeper? arise and call upon thy God,” is an exhortation which is needed by us as well as by Jonah in the storm.

He understands what heavy hearts we have sometimes, when under a sense of sin.  Satan says to us, “Why should you pray?  How can you I hope to prevail?  In vain, thou sayest, I will arise and go to my Father, for thou art not worthy to be one of his hired servants.  How canst thou see the king’s face after thou hast played the traitor against him?  How wilt thou dare to approach unto the altar when thou hast thyself defiled it, and when the sacrifice which thou wouldst bring there is a poor polluted one?”  O brethren, it is well for us that we are commanded to pray, or else in times of heaviness we might give it up.  If God command me, unfit as I may be, I will creep to the footstool of grace; and since he says, “Pray without ceasing,” though my words fail me and my heart itself will wander, yet I will still stammer out the wishes of my hungering soul and say, “O God, at least teach me to pray and help me to prevail with thee.”

Are we not commanded to pray also because of our frequent unbelief?  Unbelief whispers, “What profit is there if thou shouldst seek the Lord upon such-and-such a matter?”  This is a case quite out of the list of those things wherein God hath interposed, and, therefore (saith the devil), if you were in any other position you might rest upon the mighty arm of God; but here your prayer will not avail you.  Either it is too trivial a matter, or it is too connected with temporals, or else it is a matter in which you have sinned too much, or else it is too high, too hard, too complicated a piece of business, you have no right to take that before God!  So suggests the foul fiend of hell.

Therefore, there stands written as an every-day precept suitable to every case into which a Christian can be cast, “Call unto me — call unto me.”  Art thou sick?  Wouldst thou be healed?  Cry unto me, for I am a Great Physician.  Does providence trouble thee?  Art thou fearful that thou shalt not provide things honest in the sight of man?  Call unto me!  Do thy children vex thee?  Dost thou feel that which is sharper than an adder’s tooth — a thankless child?  Call unto me.  Are thy griefs little yet painful, like small points and pricks of thorns?  Call unto me!  Is thy burden heavy as though it would make thy back break beneath its load?  Call unto me!  “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee; he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”  In the valley — on the mountain — on the barren rock-in the briny sea, submerged, anon, beneath the billows, and lifted up by-and-by upon the crest of the waves — in the furnace when the coals are glowing — in the gates of death when the jaws of hell would shut themselves upon thee — cease thou not, for the commandment evermore addresses thee with “Call unto me.”  Still prayer is mighty and must prevail with God to bring thee thy deliverance.  These are some of the reasons why the privilege of supplication is also in Holy Scripture spoken of as a duty: there are many more, but these will suffice this morning.

We must not leave our first part till we have made another remark.  We ought to be very glad that God hath given us this command in his word that it may be sure and abiding.  You may turn to fifty passages where the same precept is uttered.  I do not often read in Scripture, “Thou shalt not kill;” “Thou shalt not covet.”  Twice the law is given, but I often read gospel precepts, for if the law be given twice, the gospel is given seventy times seven.  For every precept which I cannot keep, by reason of my being weak through the flesh, I find a thousand precepts, which it is sweet and pleasant for me to keep, by reason of the power of the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in the children of God; and this command to pray is insisted upon again and again It may be a seasonable exercise for some of you to find out how often in scripture you are told to pray.  You will be surprised to find how many times such words as these are given; “Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee” — “Ye people, pour out your heart before him.”  “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near.”  “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” — “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”  “Pray without ceasing” — “Come boldly unto the throne of grace,” “Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.”  “Continue in prayer.”  I need not multiply where I could not possibly exhaust.  I pick two or three out of this great bag of pearls.  Come, Christian, you ought never to question whether you have a right to pray: you should never ask, “May I be permitted to come into his presence?”  When you have so many commands, (and God’s commands are all promises, and all enablings,) you may come boldly unto the throne of heavenly grace, by the new and living way through the rent veil.

But there are times when God not only commands his people to pray in the Bible, but he also commands them to pray directly by the motions of his Holy Spirit.  You who know the inner life comprehend me at once.  You feel on a sudden, possibly in the midst of business, the pressing thought that you must retire to pray.  It maybe, you do not at first take particular notice of the inclination, but it comes again, and again, and again — “Retire and pray!”  I find that in the matter of prayer, I am myself very much like a water-wheel which runs well when there is plenty of water, but which turns with very little force when the brook is growing shallow; or, like the ship which flies over the waves, putting out all her canvas when the wind is favorable, but which has to tack about most laboriously when there is but little of the favoring breeze.  Now, it strikes me that whenever our Lord gives you the special inclination to pray, that you should double your diligence.  You ought always to pray and not to faint; yet when he gives you the special longing after prayer, and you feel a peculiar aptness and enjoyment in it, you have, over and above the command which is constantly binding, another command which should compel you to cheerful obedience.

At such times, I think we may stand in the position of David, to whom the Lord said, “When thou hearest a sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, then shalt thou bestir thyself.”  That going in the tops of the mulberry trees may have been the footfalls of angels hastening to the help of David, and then David was to smite the Philistines, and when God’s mercies are coming, their footfalls are our desires to pray; and our desires to pray should be at once an indication that, the set time to favor Zion is come.  Sow plentifully now, for thou canst sow in hope; plough joyously now, for thy harvest is sure.  Wrestle now, Jacob, for thou art about to be made a prevailing prince, and thy name shall be called Israel.  Now is thy time, spiritual merchantmen; the market is high, trade much; thy profit shall be large.  See to it that thou usest right well the golden hour, and reap thy harvest while the sun shines.  When we enjoy visitations from on high, we should be peculiarly constant in prayer; and if some other duty less pressing should have the go-bye for a season, it will not be amiss and we shalt be no loser; for when God bids us specially pray by the monitions of his spirit, then should we bestir ourselves in prayer.

II. Let us now take the second head — AN ANSWER PROMISED.

We ought not to tolerate for a minute the ghastly and grievous thought that God will not answer prayer.  His nature, as manifested in Christ Jesus, demands it.  He has revealed himself in the gospel as a God of love, full of grace and truth; and how can he refuse to help those of his creatures who humbly in his own appointed way seek his face and favor?  When the Athenian senate, upon one occasion, found it most convenient to meet together in the open air, as they were sitting in their deliberations, a sparrow, pursued by a hawk, flow in the direction of the senate.  Being hard pressed by the bird of prey, it sought shelter in the bosom of one of the senators.  He, being a man of rough and vulgar mould, took the bird from his bosom, dashed it on the ground and so killed it.  Whereupon the whole senate rose in uproar, and without one single dissenting voice, condemned him to die, as being unworthy of a seat in the senate with them, or to be called an Athenian, if he did not render succor to a creature that confided in him.

Can we suppose that the God of heaven, whose nature is love, could tear out of his bosom the poor fluttering dove that flies from the eagle of justice into the bosom of his mercy?  Will he give the invitation to us to seek his face, and when we as he knows, with so much trepidation of fear, yet summon courage enough to fly into his bosom, wilt he then be unjust and ungracious enough to forget to hear our cry and to answer us?  Let us not think so hardly of the God of heaven.

Let us recollect next, his vast character as well as his nature.  I mean the character which he has won for himself by his past deeds of grace.  Consider, my brethren, that one stupendous display of bounty — if I were to mention a thousand I could not give a better illustration of the character of God than that one deed — “He that spared not his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all” — and it is not my inference only, but the inspired conclusion of an apostle — “how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”  If the Lord did not refuse to listen to my voice when I was a guilty sinner and an enemy, how can he disregard my cry now, that I am justified and saved!  How is it that he heard the voice of my misery when my heart knew it not, and would not seek relief, if after all he will not hear me now that I am his child, his friend?  The streaming wounds of Jesus are the sure guarantees for answered prayer.  George Herbert represents in that quaint poem of his, “The Bag,” the Savior saying,

“If ye have anything to send or write

(I have no bag, but here is room)

Unto my Father’s hands and sight,

(Believe me) it shall safely come.

That I shall mind what you impart

Look, you may put it very near my heart,

Or if hereafter any of friends

Will use me in this kind, the door

Shall still be open; what he sends

I will present and somewhat more

Not to his hurt.”

Surely, George Herbert’s thought was that the atonement was in itself a guarantee that prayer must be heard, that the great gash made near the Savior’s heart, which let the light into the very depths of the heart of Deity, was a proof that he who sits in heaven would hear the cry of his people.

You misread Calvary, if you think that prayer is useless.  But, beloved, we have the Lord’s own promise for it, and he is a God that cannot lie: “Call upon me in, the day of trouble and I will answer thee.”  Has he not said, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believe that ye shall have it and ye shall have it.”  We cannot pray, indeed, unless we believe this doctrine; “for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them, that diligently seek him;” and if we have any question at all about whether our prayer will be heard, we are comparable to him that wavereth; “for he who wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed; let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.”

Furthermore, it is not necessary, still it may strengthen the point, if we add that our own experience leads us to believe that God will answer prayer.  I must not speak for you; but I may speak for myself.  If there be anything I know, anything that I am quite assured of beyond all question, it is that praying breath is never spent in vain.  If no other man here can say it, I dare to say it, and I know that I can prove it.  My own conversion is the result of prayer, long, affectionate, earnest, importunate.  Parents prayed for me; God heard their cries, and here I am to preach the gospel.  Since then I have adventured upon some things that were far beyond my capacity as I thought; but I have never failed, because I have cast myself upon the Lord.

You know as a church that I have not scrupled to indulge large ideas of what we might do for God; and we have accomplished all that we purposed.  I have sought God’s aid, and assistance, and help, in all my manifold undertakings, and though I cannot tell here the story of my private life in God’s work, yet if it were written it would be a standing proof that there is a God that answers prayer.  He has heard my prayers, not now and then, nor once nor twice, but so many times, that it has grown into a habit with me to spread my case before God with the absolute certainty that whatsoever I ask of God, he will give to me.  It is not now a “Perhaps” or a possibility.  I know that my Lord answers me, and I dare not doubt, it were indeed folly if I did.  As I am sure that a certain amount of leverage will lift a weight, so I know that a certain amount of prayer will get anything from God.  As the rain-cloud brings the shower, so prayer brings the blessing.  As spring scatters flowers, so supplication ensures mercies.  In all labor, there is profit, but most of all in the work of intercession: I am sure of this, for I have reaped it.  As I put trust in the queen’s money, and have never failed yet to buy what I want when I produce the cash, so put I trust in God’s promises, and mean to do so till I find that he shall once tell me that they are base coin, and will not do to trade with in heaven’s market.

But why should I speak?  O brothers and sisters, you all know in your own selves that God hears prayer; if you do not, then where is your Christianity?  Where is your religion?  You will need to learn what are the first elements of the truth; for all saints, young or old, set it down as certain that he doth hear prayer.

Still remember that prayer is always to be offered in submission to God’s will; that when we say, God heareth prayer, we do not intend by that, that he always gives us literally what we ask for.  We do mean, however, this, that he gives us what is best for us; and that if he does not give us the mercy we ask for in silver, he bestows it upon us in gold.  If he doth not take away the thorn in the flesh, yet be saith, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” and that comes to the same in the end.  Lord Bolingbroke said to the Countess of Huntingdon, “I cannot understand, your ladyship, how you can make out earnest prayer to be consistent with submission to the divine will.”  “My lord,” she said, “that is a matter of no difficulty.  If I were a courtier of some generous king, and he gave me permission to ask any favor I pleased of him, I should be sure to put it thus, ‘Will your majesty be graciously pleased to grant me such-and-such a favor; but at the same time though I very much desire it, if it would in any way detract from your majesty’s honor, or if in your majesty’s judgment it should seem better that I did not have this favor, I shall be quite as content to go without it as to receive it.’  So you see I might earnestly offer a petition, and yet I might submissively leave it in the king’s hands.”  So with God.  We never offer up prayer without inserting that clause, either in spirit or in words, “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt; not my will but thine be done.”  We can only pray without an “if” when we are quite sure that our will must be God’s will, because God’s will is fully our will.

III. I come to our third point, ENCOURAGEMENT TO FAITH, “I will shew thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”

Let us just remark that this was originally spoken to a prophet in prison; and, therefore, it applies in the first place to every teacher, and, indeed, as every teacher must be a learner, it has a bearing upon every learner in divine truth.  The best way by which a prophet and teacher and learner can know the reserved truths, the higher and more mysterious truths of God, is by waiting upon God in prayer.  I noticed very specially yesterday in reading the Book of the Prophet Daniel, how Daniel found out Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.  The soothsayers, the magicians, the astrologers of the Chaldecs, brought out their curious books and their strange-looking instruments, and began to mutter their abracadabra and all sorts of mysterious incantations, but they all failed.

What did Daniel do?  He set himself to prayer, and knowing that the prayer of a united body of men has more prevalence than the prayer of one, we find that Daniel called together his brethren, and bade them unite with him in earnest prayer that God would be pleased of his infinite mercy to open up the vision.  “Then Daniel went to his house and made the thing known to Hannriah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, that they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret, that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.”

And in the case of John, who was the Daniel of the New Testament, you remember he saw a book in the right hand of him that sat on the throne — a book sealed with seven seals which none was found worthy to open or to look thereon.  What did John do?  The book was by-and-by opened by the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, who had prevailed to open the book; but it is written first before the book was opened, “I wept much.”  Yes, and the tears of John which were his liquid prayers, were, as far as he was concerned, the sacred keys by which the folded book was opened.

Brethren in the ministry, you who are teachers in the Sabbath school, and all of you who are learners in the college of Christ Jesus, I pray you remember that prayer is your best means of study: like Daniel you shall understand the dream, and the interpretation thereof, when you have sought unto God; and like John you shall see the seven seals of precious truth unloosed, after that you have wept much.  “Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up the voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.”  Stones are not broken, except by an earnest use of the hammer; and the stone-breaker usually goes down on his knees.  Use the hammer of diligence, and let the knee of prayer be exercised, too, and there is not a stony doctrine in Revelation which is useful for you to understand, which will not fly into shivers under the exercise of prayer and faith.  “Bene orasse est bene studuisse” was a wise sentence of Luther, which has been so often quoted, that we hardly venture but to hint at it.  “To have prayed well is to have studied well.”

You may force your way through anything with the leverage of prayers.  Thoughts and reasoning may be like the steel wedges which may open a way into truth; but prayer is the lever which forces open the iron chest of sacred mystery, that we may get the treasure that is hidden therein for those who can force their way to reach it.  The kingdom of heaven still suffereth violence, and the violent taketh it by force.  Take care that we work away with the mighty implement of prayer, and nothing can stand against you.

We must not, however, stop there.  We have applied the text to only one case; it is applicable to a hundred.  We single out another.  The saint may expect to discover deeper experience and to know more of the higher spiritual life, by being much in prayer.  There are different translations of my text.  One version renders it, “I will show thee great and fortified things which thou knowest not.”  Another reads it, “Great and reserved things which thou knowest not.”  Now, all the developments of spiritual life are not alike easy of attainment.  There are the common frames and feelings of repentance, and faith, and joy, and hope, which are enjoyed by the entire family: but there is an upper realm of rapture, of communion, and conscious union with Christ, which is far from being the common dwelling-place of believers.  All believers see Christ; but all believers do not put their fingers into the prints of the nails, nor thrust their hand into his side.  We have not till the high privilege of John to loan upon Jesus’ bosom, nor of Paul, to be caught up into the third heaven.  In the ark of salvation, we find a lower, second, and third story; all are in the ark, but all are not in the same story.  Most Christians, as to the river of experience, are only up to the ankles; some others have waded till the stream is up to the knees; a few find it breast-high; and but a few — oh! how few! — find it a river to swim in, the bottom of which they cannot touch.  My brethren, there are heights in experimental knowledge of the things of God which the eagle’s eye of acumen and philosophic thought hath never seen; and there are secret paths which the lion’s whelp of reason and judgment hath not as yet learned to travel.  God alone can bear us there; but the chariot in which he takes us up, and the fiery steeds with which that chariot is dragged, are prevailing prayers.

Prevailing prayer is victorious over the God of mercy “By his strength, he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Beth-el, and there he spoke with us.”  Prevailing prayer takes the Christian to Carmel, and enables him to cover heaven with clouds of blessing, and earth with floods of mercy.  Prevailing prayer bears the Christian aloft to Pisgah and shows him the inheritance reserved; ay, and it elevates him to Tabor and transfigures him, till in the likeness of his Lord, as he is, so are we also in this world.  If you would reach to something higher than ordinary groveling experience, look to the Rock that is higher than you, and look with the eye of faith through the windows of importunate prayer.  To grow in experience then, there must be much prayer.

You must have patience with me while I apply this text to two or three more cases.  It is certainly true of the sufferer under trial: if he waits upon God in prayer much he shall receive greater deliverances than he has ever dreamed of — “great and mighty things which thou knowest not.”  Here is Jeremiah’s testimony: — “Thou drawest near in the day that I called upon thee: thou saidst, Fear not O Lord , thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul; thou hast redeemed my life.”  And David’s is the same: — “I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place…. I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation.”  And yet again: “Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.  And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.”  “My husband is dead,” said the poor woman, “and my creditor is come to take my two sons as bondsmen.”  She hoped that Elijah would possibly say, “What are your debts? I will pay them.”  Instead of that, he multiplies her oil till it is written, “Go thou and pay thy debts, and” — what was the “and?” — “live thou and thy children upon the rest.”

So often it will happen that God will not only help his people through the miry places of the way, so that they may just stand on the other side of the slough, but he will bring them safely far on the journey.  That was a remarkable miracle, when in the midst of the storm, Jesus Christ came walking upon the sea, the disciples received him into the ship, and not only was the sea calm, but it is recorded, “Immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.”  That was a mercy over and above what they asked.  I sometimes hear you pray and make use of a quotation which is not in the Bible: — “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we can ask or even think.”  It is not so written in the Bible.  I do not know what we can ask or what we can think.  But it is said, “He is able to do exceeding abundantly above what we ask or even think.”  Let us then, dear friends, when we are in great trial only say, “Now I am in prison; like Jeremiah I will pray as he did, for I have God’s command to do it; and I will look out as he did, expecting that he will show me reserved mercies which I know nothing of at present.”  He will not merely bring his people through the battle, covering their heads in it, but he will bring them forth with banners waving, to divide the spoil with the mighty, and to claim their portion with the strong.   Expect great things of a God who gives such great promises as these.

Again, here is encouragement for the worker.  Most of you are doing something for Christ; I am happy to be able to say this, knowing that I do not flatter you.  My dear friends, wait upon God much in prayer, and you have the promise that he will do greater things for you than you know of.   We know not how much capacity for usefulness there may be in us.  That ass’s jaw-bone lying there upon the earth, what can it do?  Nobody knows what it can do.  It gets into Samson’s hands, what can it not do?  No one knows what it cannot do now that a Samson wields it.  And you, friend, have often thought yourself to be as contemptible as that bone, and you have said, “What can I do?”  Ay, but when Christ by his Spirit grips you, what can you not do?  Truly you may adopt Paul’s language and say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.”

However, do not depend upon prayer without effort.  In a certain school, there was one girl who knew the Lord, a very gracious, simple-hearted, trustful child.  As usual, grace developed itself in the child according to the child’s position.  Her lessons were always best said of any in the class.  Another girl said to her, “How is it that your lessons are always so well said?”  “I pray God to help me,” she said, “to learn my lesson.”  “Well,” thought the other, “Then I will do the same.”  The next morning when she stood up in the class she knew nothing; and when she was in disgrace she complained to the other, “Why I prayed God to help me learn my lesson and I do not know anything of it.  What is the use of prayer?”  “But did you sit down and try to learn it?”  “Oh, no,” she said, “I never looked at the book.”  “Ah,” then said the other, “I asked God to help me to learn my lesson; but, I then sat down to it studiously, and I kept at it till I knew it well, and I learned it easily, because my earnest desire, which I had expressed to God was, help me to be diligent in endeavoring to do my duty.”  So is it with some who come up to prayer meetings and pray, and then they fold their arms and go away hoping that God’s work will go on. Like the woman singing, “Fly a broad, thou mighty gospel,” but not putting a penny in the plate; so that her friend touched her and said, “But how can it fly if you don’t give it wings to fly with?”  There be many who appear to be very mighty in prayer, wondrous in supplications; but then they require God to do what they can do themselves, and, therefore, God does nothing at all for them. “I shall leave my camel untied,” said an Arab once to Mahomet, “and trust to providence.”  “Tie it up,” said Mahomet, “and then trust to providence.”  So you that say, “I shall pray and trust my Church, or my class, or my work to God’s goodness,” may rather hear the voice of experience and wisdom which says, “Do thy best; work as if all rested upon thy toil; as if thy own aim would bring thy salvation;” “and when thou hast done all, cast thy self on him without whom it is in vain to rise up early and to sit up late, and to eat the bread of carefulness; and if he speed thee give him the praise.”

I shall not detain you many minutes longer, but I want to notice that this promise ought to prove useful for the comforting of those who are intercessors for others.  You who are calling upon God to save your children, to bless your neighbors, to remember your husbands or your wives in mercy, may take comfort from this, “I will shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”  A celebrated minister in the last century, one Mr. Bailey, was the child of a godly mother.  This mother had almost ceased to pray for her husband, who was a man of a most ungodly stamp, and a bitter persecutor.  The mother prayed for her boy, and while he was yet eleven or twelve years of age, eternal mercy met with him.  So sweetly instructed was the child in the things of the kingdom of God, that the mother requested him — and for some time he always did so — to conduct family prayer in the house.  Morning and evening, this little one laid open the Bible; and though the father would not deign to stop for the family prayer, yet on one occasion he was rather curious to know “what sort of an out the boy would make of it,” so he stopped on the other side of the door, and God blessed the prayer of his own child under thirteen years of age to his conversion, said, The mother might well have read my text with streaming eyes and said, “Yes, Lord, thou hast shewn me great and mighty things which I knew not: thou hast not only saved my boy, but through my boy thou hast brought my husband to the truth.”  You cannot guess how greatly God will bless you.  Only go and stand at his door, you cannot tell what is in reserve for you.

If you do not beg at all, you will get nothing; but if you beg he may not only give you, as it were, the bones, and broken meat, but he may say to the servant at his table, “Take thou that dainty meat, and set that before the poor man.”  Ruth went to glean; she expected to get a few good ears: but Boaz said, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and rebuke her not;” he said moreover to her, “At mealtime come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar.”  Nay, she found a husband where she only expected to find a handful of barley.  So in prayer for others, God may give us such mercies that we shall be astounded at them, since we expected but little.  Hear what is said of Job, and learn its lesson, “And the Lord said, My servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job…. And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”

Now, this word to close with.  Some of you are seekers for your own conversion.  God has quickened you to solemn prayer about your own souls.  You are not content to go to hell, you want heaven; you want washing in the precious blood; you want eternal life.  Dear friends, I pray you take this text — God himself speaks it to you — “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”  At once take God at his word.  Get home, go into your chamber and shut the door, and try him.  Young man, I say, try the Lord.  Young woman, prove him, see whether he be true or not.  If God be true, you cannot seek mercy at his hands through Jesus Christ and get a negative reply.  He must, for his own promise and character bind him to it, open mercy’s gate to you who knock with all your heart.  God help you, believing in Christ Jesus, to cry aloud unto God, and his answer of peace is already on the way to meet you.  You shall hear him say, “Your sins which are many are all forgiven.”  The Lord bless you for his love’s sake.  Amen.

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.” Acts 15:11

You who are conversant with Scripture, will recollect that these are the words of the apostle Peter.  Paul and Barnabas had been preaching the gospel among the Gentiles with great success, but “certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed,” could not get rid of their old Jewish bigotry, and vehemently urged that the converted Gentiles ought to be circumcised, or else they could not be saved.  They made a great clamor over this, and there was no small dissension and disputation.  The children of the bondwoman mustered all their forces, while the champions of glorious liberty arrayed themselves for the battle.

Paul and Barnabas, those valiant soldiers of the cross, stood, out stoutly against the ritualistic brethren, and told them that the rite of circumcision did not belong to the Gentiles at all, and ought not to be forced upon them; they would not yield their free principles at the dictation of the Judaisers, but scorned to bow their necks to the yoke of bondage.  It was agreed to bring the matter up for decision at Jerusalem before the apostles and elders; and when all the brethren had assembled, there seems to have been a considerable dispute, in the midst of which, Peter, speaking with his usual boldness and clearness, declared that it would be wrong to put a heavy yoke upon the necks of the Gentiles, which neither that generation of Jews nor their fathers had been able to bear, and then he concluded his address by saying, in effect, “Although these people are not circumcised, and ought not to be, yet we believe that there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile, but by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”  Herein Peter was not to be blamed, but to be greatly commended, for he spake under the influence of the Spirit of God.

I. We shall use the text as concisely as we can for three important purposes; and in the first place, we shall look upon it AS AN APOSTOLICAL CONFESSION OF FAITH.

You notice it begins with, “ We believe.”  We will call it, then, the “Apostle’s Creed,” and we may rest assured that it has quite as clear a right to that title as that highly esteemed composition which is commonly called the “Nicene, or Apostle’s Creed.”  Peter is speaking for the rest, and he says, “We believe.”  Well, Peter, what do you believe?  We are all attention.  Peter’s answer is, “We believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

One thing is clear from this “Apostle’s Creed” which we have before us –it is clear that the apostles did not believe in ritualism. Peter –why, they make him out to be the head of the church!  Do they not say that he was the first pope, and so on?  I am sure if Peter were here he would grow very angry with them for slandering him so scandalously, for in his epistle he expressly warned others against being lords over God’s heritage, and you may be sure he did not fall into that sin himself.  When he is asked for his confession of faith, he stands up and declares that he believes in salvation by grace alone. “We believe.”  O bold apostle, what do you believe?  Now we still hear it.  Peter will say, “We believe in circumcision; we believe in regeneration by baptism; we believe in the sacramental efficacy of the Lord’s Supper; we believe in pompons ceremonies; we believe in priests, and altars, and robes, and rubrics!”  No; he does not utter a syllable concerning anything of the kind.  He says, “We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we who have been circumcised shall be saved, just like those who have not been circumcised; we believe that we shall be saved, even as they.”  He makes very small account, it seems, of ceremonies in the matter of salvation.  He takes care that no idea of sacramentarianism shall mar his explicit confession of faith; he glories in no rite, and rests in no ordinance.  All his testimony is concerning the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He says nothing whatever about ordinances, ceremonies, apostolical gifts, or prelatical unction-his theme is grace, and grace alone; and those, my brethren, are the true successors of the apostles who teach you that you are to be saved through the unmerited favor and free mercy of God, agreeing with Peter in their testimony, “We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved.”  These are the men who preach to you the gospel of salvation through the blood and righteousness of Jesus; but those pretended ministers who boast of their priesthood, preach another gospel, “which is not another; but there be some that trouble you.”  Upon their heads shall be the blood of deluded souls.  They profess to regenerate others, but they will perish themselves; they talk of sacramental grace, and shall receive eternal destruction.  Woe unto them, for they are deceivers.  May the Lord deliver this land from their superstitions.

Another thing is very clear here.  The apostle did not believe in self-righteousness. The creed of the world is, “Do your best, and it will be all right with you.”  To question this is treason against the pride of human nature, which evermore clings to salvation by its own merits.  Every man is born a Pharisee.  Self-confidence is bred in the bone-and will come out in the flesh. “What,” says a man, “do you not believe that if a man does his best, he will fare well in the next world?  Why, you know, we must all live as well as we can, every man according to his own light; and if every man follows out his own conscience, as near as may be, surely it will be well with us?”  That is not what Peter said.  Peter did not say, “We believe that through doing our best, we shall be saved like other people.” He did not even say, “We believe that if we act according to our light, God will accept that little light for what it was.”  No, the apostle strikes out quite another track, and solemnly affirms, “We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved,” not through our good works, not through anything that we do, not by the merit of anything which we feel or perform, or promise to perform, but by grace, that is to say, by the free favor of God.

“Perish each thought of human pride,

Let God alone be magnified.”

We believe that if we are ever saved at all, we must be saved gratis –saved as the gratuitous act of a bountiful God –saved by a gift, not by wages –saved by God’s love, not by our own doings or merits.  This is the apostle’s creed: salvation is all of grace from first to last, and the channel of that grace is the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved, and lived, and died, and rose again for our salvation.  Those who preach mere morality, or set up any way except that of trusting in the grace of God through Christ Jesus, preach another gospel, and they shall be accursed, even though they preach it with an angel’s eloquence.  In the day when the Lord shall come to discern between the righteous and the wicked, their work, as wood, hay, and stubble, shall be burnt up; but those who preach salvation by grace through Jesus Christ, shall find that their work, like gold, and silver, and precious stones, shall abide the fire, and great shall be their reward.

I think it is very clear, again, from the text, that the apostles did not believe in salvation by the natural force of free will. I fail to detect a trace of the glorification of free will here.  Peter puts it, “We believe that we shall be saved;” through what? Through our own unbiassed will?  Through the volitions of our own well-balanced nature?  Not at all, sir; but “we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved.”  He takes the crown from off the head of man in all respects, and gives all glory to the grace of God; he extols God, the gracious sovereign, who will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy, and who will have compassion upon whom he will have compassion.  I wish I had a voice of thunder to proclaim in every street of London this glorious doctrine, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”

This is the old reformation doctrine.  This is the doctrine which will shake the very gates of hell, if it be but faithfully preached.  O for an army of witnesses to publish abroad the gospel of grace in its sovereignty, omnipotence, and fullness.  If you are ever to get comfort, believe me, dear hearer, you must receive the doctrine of salvation by free grace into your soul as the delight and solace of your heart, for it is the living truth of the living God.  Not by ritualism, not by good works, not by our own unaided free will are we saved, but by the grace of God alone.

“Not for the works which we have done,

Or shall hereafter do,

Hath God decreed on sinful worms

Salvation to bestow.

The glory, Lord, from first to last,

Is due to thee alone:

Aught to ourselves we dare not take,

Or rob thee of thy crown.”

Were I now to take this apostle’s creed to pieces, and look closely at the details of it, it would be easy to show that this creed contains within it many important truths.  It implies, most evidently, the doctrine of human ruin. “We believe that we shall be saved.”  That statement assuredly implies that we need to be saved.  The apostle Peter, as well as his brother apostle Paul, was sound in the faith concerning the total depravity of human nature, he viewed man as a lost creature, needing to be saved by grace.  He believed in those three great “r’s” which Rowland Hill used to talk about-ruin, redemption, and regeneration.  He saw most clearly man’s ruin, or he would not have been so explicit upon man’s salvation.  If Peter were here to preach tonight, he would not tell us that man, though he is a little fallen, is a noble creature still, who needs only a little assistance, and he will be quite able to right himself.  Oh, the fearful flattery which has been heard from some pulpits!  Anointing corruption with the unction of hypocrisy; besmearing the abomination of our depravity with sickening eulogiums!

Peter would give no countenance to such false prophets.  No; he would faithfully testify that man is dead in sin, and life’s a gift; that man is lost, utterly fallen and undone.  He speaks in his epistles of the former lusts of our ignorance, of our vain conversation received by tradition of our fathers, and of the corruption, which is in the world through lust.  In the verse before us, he tells us that the best of men, men such as himself and the other apostles, had need to be saved, and, consequently, they must have been originally amongst the lost, heirs of wrath even as others.  I am sure that he was a firm believer in what are called “the doctrines of grace,” as he was certainly in his own person an illustrious trophy and everlasting monument of grace.  What a ring there is in that word GRACE!  Why, it does one good to speak it and to hear it; it is, indeed, “a charming sound, harmonious to the ear.”  When one feels the power of it, it is enough to make the soul leap out of the body for joy.

“Grace! how good, how cheap, how free,

Grace, how easy to be found!

Only let your misery

In the Savior’s blood be drowned!”

How it suits a sinner!  How it cheers a poor forlorn wanderer from God!  Grace!  Peter was not in a fog about this; his witness is clear as crystal, decisive as the sentence of a judge.  He believed that salvation was of God’s free favor, and God’s almighty power; and he speaks out like a man, “We believe that we are saved by grace.”

Our apostle was also most decided and explicit concerning the atonement. Cannot you see the atonement in the text, sparkling like a jewel in a well-made ring?  We are saved “through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  What does the apostle mean but the grace which came streaming from those five wounds when on the cross the Savior hung?  What does he mean but the grace which is revealed to us in the bleeding Sufferer who took our sins, and carried our sorrows, that we might be delivered from wrath through him?  O that every one were as clear about the atonement as Peter is!  Peter had seen his Master; nay, more, his Master had looked at him and broken his heart, and afterwards bound it up, and given him much grace; and now Peter is not content with saying, “We believe that we shall be saved through grace,” but he is careful to word it, “We believe that we shall be saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Dear hearers, never have any questions upon the vital point of redemption by blood.  This is a fundamental truth; he who is in darkness upon that subject, has no light in him.  What the sun is to the heavens, that the doctrine of a vicarious satisfaction is to theology.  Atonement is the brain and spinal cord of Christianity.  Take away the cleansing blood, and what is left to the guilty?  Deny the substitutionary work of Jesus, and you have denied all that is precious in the New Testament.  Never, never let us endure one wavering, doubtful thought upon this all-important truth.

It seems to me, too, that without straining the text, I might easily prove that Peter believed in the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints. They were not, in a certain sense, it seems, perfectly saved when he spoke, but he says, “We believe we shall be saved.”  Well, but Peter, may you not fall away and perish?  “No,” says he, “we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved.”  How positively he speaks of it!  I do wish you, dear friends, to get a firm and intelligent hold of the doctrine of the safety of the believer, which is as clear as noonday in the Scriptures.  Upon the whole, you have learned it to purpose, and can defend it well, but all of you should be able to give a reason for the hope that is in you.  I have known one of our people met by those who do not believe this doctrine, and they have said to him, “You will fall away; look at your own weakness and tendency to sin.”  “No,” said the man, “I know I should if I were left to myself, but then Christ has promised that he never will leave me nor forsake me.”

Then it is sometimes said, “but you may be a believer in Christ today, and yet perish tomorrow;” but our friends generally reply, “Do not tell us that falsehood: God’s saints shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of Jesus’ hand; as for your doctrine of the final falling of the Lord’s blood-bought ones, if that is the gospel, go and keep it to yourselves; as for us, we would not go two inches to listen to it; there is nothing in it to lay hold of; it is a bone without marrow; there is no strength, no comfort for the soul in it.”  If I know when I trust Christ that he will save me at the last, then I have something to rest upon, something worth living for, but if it is all a mere “if,” or “but,” or “perchance,” or “peradventure,” a little of myself, and a little of Christ, I am in a poor case indeed.  A gospel which proclaims an uncertain salvation is a miserable imposition.  Away with such a gospel, away with such a gospel; it is a dishonor to Christ; it is a discredit to God’s people; it neither came from the Scriptures of truth, nor does it bring glory to God.

Thus, then, have I tried to open up the apostle’s creed, “We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

II. And now, I shall take it as THE CONVERTED MORAL MAN’S STATEMENT.

Let me show you what I mean.  Observe and admire the way in which Peter puts the case.  A company of Jews have assembled, to discuss a certain matter, and some of them look very wise, and bring up certain suggestions that are rather significant.  Say they, “Well, perhaps these Gentile dogs may be saved; yes, Jesus Christ told us to go and preach the gospel to every creature; therefore, no doubt, he must have included these Gentile dogs – we do not like them, though, and must keep them as much under our rules and regulations as we can; we must compel them to be circumcised; we must have them brought under the full rigor of the law; we cannot excuse them from wearing the yoke of bondage.”

Presently, the apostle Peter gets up to speak, and you expect to hear him say – do you not? – to these gentlemen, “Why, these ‘Gentile dogs,’ as you call them, can be saved, even as you.”  No; he adopts quite a different tone; he turns the tables, and he says to them, “We believe that you may be saved, even as they.”  It was just as if I should have a company of persons here now who had been very bad and wicked, who had plunged into the deepest sin, but God’s grace has met with them and made them new creatures in Christ Jesus: there is a church-meeting, and when these persons are brought before the church, suppose there were some of the members who should say, “Yes, we believe that a drunkard may be saved, and a person who has been a harlot may, perhaps, be saved too.”

But imagine, now, that I were to stand up and reply, “Now, my dear brethren, I believe that you may be saved even as these,” what a rebuke it would be!  This is precisely what Peter meant. “Oh!” said he, “do not raise the question about whether they can be saved – the question is whether you, who have raised such a question, will be saved; we believe that, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they.”  So he seems, in this dispute, to take the objectors aback, and to put the Gentile believers first in order, to cast out the bad, proud, wicked, devilish spirit of self-righteousness.

Now, brethren, some of us were favored by providence with the great privilege of having Christian parents, and consequently we never did know a great deal of the open sin into which others have fallen.  Some of us never were inside a theater in our lives, never saw a play, and do not know what it is like.  There are some here who, perhaps, never did frequent the tavern, do not know a lascivious song, and never uttered an oath.  This is cause for great thankfulness, very great thankfulness indeed.

But, O you excellent moralists, mind you do not say in your heart, “We are quite sure to be saved,” for, let me tell you, you have not before God any advantage over the outward transgressor, so as to entitle you to be saved in a less humbling manner.  If you ever are saved, you will have to be saved in the same way as those who have been permitted to plunge into the most outrageous sin.  Your being restrained from overt offenses is a favor for you to be grateful for, but not a virtue for you to trust in.  Ascribe it to God’s providential goodness, but do not wrap it about you as though it were to be your wedding garment, for if you do, your self-righteousness will be more dangerous to you than some men’s open sins are to them; for do you not know how the Savior put it, “Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you!”  You moral people must be saved by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ – saved even as they, the  outcasts, the wanderers.  You will not, you cannot, be saved in any other way, and will not be saved at all if you do not submit to this way.  You will not be permitted to enter heaven, good as you think yourselves to be, unless you come down to the terms and conditions which sovereign grace has laid down, namely, that you should trust Christ, and be saved by grace, “even as they.”

There is no difference in the blood of humanity, it flows from one polluted source, and is tainted in all its channels.  The depravity of human nature does not belong merely to those who are born in dirty backcourts and alleys, but it is as certainly manifest in those of you who were born in the best parts of the city.  You dwellers in Belgravia are as altogether born in sin as the denizens of Bethnal Green.  The west end is as sensual as the east.  Hyde Park has no natural superiority of nature over Seven Dials.  The corruption of those born in the castle at Windsor is as deep as the depravity of workhouse children.  You, ladies and gentlemen, are born with hearts as bad and as black as the poorest of the poor.  You sons of Christian parents, do not imagine, because you spring of a godly ancestry, that therefore your nature is not polluted like the nature of others.

In this respect, we are all alike; we are born in sin, and alike are we dead by nature in trespasses and sins, heirs of wrath, even as others.  Remember, too, that although you may not have sinned openly, as others have done, yet in your hearts you have, and it is by your hearts that you will be judged; for how often a man may commit adultery in his soul, and incur the guilt of theft, while his hand lays idly by his side!  Do you not know that a look may have in it the essence of an unclean act, and that a thought may commit murder as well as a hand?  God takes note of heart sin as well as hand sin.  If you have been outwardly moral, I am thankful for it, and I ask you to be thankful for it too; but do not trust in it for justification, seeing that you must be saved, even as the worst of criminals are saved, because in heart, if not in life, you have been as bad as they.

Moreover the method of pardon is the same in all cases.  If you moralists are to be washed, where must you find the purifying hath?  I never heard of but one fountain-that

“Fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins.”

That fountain is for the dying thief as much as for you, and for you as much as for him.  There is a robe of righteousness that is to cover the best living among professors – that same robe of righteousness covered Saul of Tarsus, the bloody persecutor: if you, of unspotted outward character, are ever to have a robe of righteousness, you must wear the same one as he wore there cannot be another nor a better.  O you who are conscious of outward innocence, do, do, humble yourselves at the foot of the cross, and come to Jesus just as empty-handed, just as broken-hearted, as if you had been outwardly amongst the vilest of the vile, and through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, you shall be saved, even as they.  O may the Holy Spirit bring you to this.

I do not know whether anybody here has ever fallen into such an unwise thought as I have known some entertain.  I met with a case of this sort only the other day.  A very excellent and amiable young woman, when converted to God, said to me, “You know, sir, I used almost to wish that I was one of those very bad sinners whom you so often speak to, and invited to come to Jesus, because I thought then I should feel my need more: that was my difficulty, I could not feel my need.”  But see, dear friends, we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we who have not plunged into black sin, shall be saved even as they who have done so.  Do not make a difficulty about this.  Others make a difficulty on the opposite side; they say, “Oh! I could trust Christ if I had been kept from sin.”  The fact is, that you unbelieving souls will not trust Christ whichever way you have lived, for from some quarter or other, you will find cause for your doubtings; but when the Lord the Spirit gives you faith, you big sinners will trust Christ quite as readily as those who have not been great offenders openly; and you who have been preserved from open sin will trust him as joyfully as the great transgressors.  O come, come, come, ye sick souls; come to my Master! Do not say, “We would come if we were worse,” do not say, “We would come if we were better,” but come as you are; come just as you are.  Oh! if you be a sinner, Christ invites you.  If you be but lost, remember Christ came to save the lost.  Do not be picking out your case, and making it to be different from others, but come, and welcome: weary and heavy-laden sinner, come, and welcome; come, even now!

“Just as thou art, without one trace

Of love, or joy, or inward grace,

Or meetness for the heavenly place,

O guilty sinner, come!

Come, hither bring thy boding fears,

Thy aching heart, thy bursting tears;

‘Tis mercy’s voice salutes thine ears,

O trembling sinner, come.”

‘The Spirit and the Bride say, Come;’

Rejoicing saints re-echo, Come;

Who faints, who thirsts, who will, may come:

Thy Savior bids thee come.”

III. THE CONFESSION OF THE GREAT OUTWARD SINNER WHEN CONVERTED.

I will now speak to those here present who, before conversion, indulged in gross sin. Such are here.  Glory be to God, such are here!  They have been washed; they have been cleansed.  My dear brethren, my dear sisters, I can rejoice over you; more precious are you by far in my eyes than all the precious gems which kings delight to wear, for you are my eternal joy and crown of rejoicing.  You have experienced a divine change; you are not what you once were; you are new creatures in Christ Jesus.  Now, I will speak for you.  “We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they.”  What do we mean?  Why, we believe that we shall be saved, even as the best are saved.  I will split that thought up, as it were, into individual instances.

Yonder sits a very poor believer. We are very glad to see him at the Tabernacle.  I know he had a thought that his clothes were hardly good enough to come in, but I hope none of you will ever stop away because of your clothes.  Come, come anyhow; we are always glad to see you, at least, I am, if others are not.  But my poor friend is very badly off indeed; he would not like anybody perhaps to see the room where he lives.  Yes, but my dear brother, do you expect to have a poor man’s salvation?  Do you expect that when you get to heaven, you will be placed in a corner as a pauper pensioner?  Do you think that Jesus Christ will only give you the crumbs which fall from off his table?  “Oh, no!” I think I hear you say, “oh, no! we shall leave our poverty when we get to glory.”  Some of our friends are rich, they have an abundance of this world’s goods, and we rejoice to think they have, and hope that they will have grace to make a proper use of this mercy; but we poor people believe that we shall be saved, even as they.  We do not believe that our poverty will make any difference to our share in divine grace, but that we shall be as much loved of God as they are, as much blessed in our poverty as they are in their riches, and as much enabled by divine grace to glorify God in our sphere as they are in theirs.  We do not envy them, but on the contrary, ask grace from God that we may feel that if we are poor in pocket, yet we are rich in faith, and shall be saved, even as they.

Others of you are not so much poor in money as you are poor in useful talent.  You come up to chapel, and fill your seat, and that is about all you can do.  You drop your weekly offering into the box, and when that is done, you have done all, or nearly all in your power.  You cannot preach; you could not conduct a prayer meeting; you have hardly courage enough to give away a tract.  Well, my dear friend, you are one of the timid ones, one of the little Benjamins, of whom there are many.  Now, do you expect that the Lord Jesus Christ will give you a second-hand robe to wear at his wedding feast?  And when you sit at the banquet, do you think he will serve you from cold and inferior dishes?  “Oh, no!” say you; “oh, no!  Some of our brethren have great talents, and we are glad that they have; we rejoice in their talents, but we believe that we shall be saved, even as they: we do not think that there will be any difference made in the divine distribution of loving-kindness because of our degree of ability.”  There are very proper distinctions here on earth between rich and poor, and between those who are learned and those who are unlearned; but we believe that there is no distinction in the matter of salvation – we shall be saved, even as they.

Many of you would preach ten times better than I do if you could only get your tongues unloosed to say what you feel.  Oh! what red-hot sermons you would preach, and how earnest you would be in their delivery.  Now, that sermon, which you did not preach, and could not preach, shall be set down to your account, while perhaps that discourse of mine will be a failure because I may not have preached it as I should have done, with pure motives and zealous spirit.  God knows what you would do if you could, and he judges, not so much according to what you do, as according to your will to do it.  He takes in this case, the will for the deed, and you shall be saved, even as they who with the tongue of fire proclaim the truth.

Most likely there is some doubting brother here. Well, my dear friend, you are a weakling; you are Mr. Much-afraid, or Mr. Little-faith; but, how is your heart?  What are your prospects?  Do you believe that you will be put off with a second-rate salvation, that you will be admitted by the back door into heaven instead of through the gate of pearl?  “Oh no!” say you; “I am the weakest lamb in Jesus’ fold; but I believe that I shall be saved, even as they; that is, even as they who are the strongest in grace, most useful in labor, and most mighty in faith.”  In a few hours, dear friends, I shall be crossing the sea, and I will suppose that there shall be a good stiff wind, and that the vessel may be driven out of her course, and be in danger.  As I walk the deck, I see a poor girl on board; she is very weak and ill, quite a contrast to that fine strong, burly passenger who is standing beside her, apparently enjoying the salt spray and the rough wind.  Now, suppose a storm should come on, which of these two is the more safe?  Well, I cannot see any difference, because if the ship goes to the bottom, they will both go, and if the ship gets to the other side of the channel, they will both land in security.  The safety is equal when the thing upon which it depends is the same.  So, if the weakest Christian is in the boat of salvation – that is, if he trusts Christ – he is as safe as the strongest Christian; because, if Christ failed the weak one, he would fail the strong one too. Why, if the least Christian who believes in Jesus does not get to heaven, then Peter himself will not get to heaven.  I am sure of it, that if the smallest star which Christ ever kindled does not blaze in eternity, neither will the brightest star.  If you who have given yourselves to Jesus should any of you be cast away, this would prove that Jesus is not able to save, and then all of us must be cast away too.  Oh, yes! “We believe that we shall be saved, even as they.”

I have nearly done; but I will suppose for a moment that there has been a work of grace in a prison – Cold Bath Fields, if you like.  There are half-a-dozen villains there, thorough villains; but the grace of God has made new men of them.  I think I see them; and, if they understood the text, as they looked across the room, and saw half a dozen apostles – Peter, James, John, Matthew, Paul, Bartholomew, and so on – they might say, “We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they, even as those apostles are.”  Can you catch the idea, and make it your own?

When artists have drawn pictures of the apostles, they have often put a halo round their heads, very like a brass pan, or something of that kind, as if to signify that they were some particular and special saints; but there was no such halo there – the painter is far from the fact; we say it, and say it seriously and thoughtfully, that twelve souls picked from the scum of creation who look to Christ, shall be saved, even as the twelve apostles are saved; halo or no halo, they shall join in the same hallelujah to God and the Lamb.

Dear hearer, if you have understood this very simple statement, go to Jesus at once with your soul; and may God enable you to obtain complete salvation at this hour.  I do pray you to come in faith to the cross – I pray my Master’s grace to compel you to enter into a state of full dependence upon Jesus, and so into a state of salvation.  If you are now led to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, no matter how black the past may have been, “the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s dear Son, cleanseth us from all sin.”

Here’s pardon for transgressions past,

It matters not how black their cast;

And oh! my soul, with wonder view,

for sins to come here’s pardon too.”