Isaiah tells us that, "He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastis.e.m.e.nt of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed." In Romans iv. 25, we read: He "was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." Let us believe, and get the benefit of His finished work.
Then again in John x. 9: "I am the door: by Me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." That is the promise. Then the 27th verse, "My sheep hear my voice; and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My father which gave them is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father"s hand." Think of that! The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are pledged to keep us. You see that it is not only the Father, not only the Son, but the three persons of the Triune G.o.d.
Now, a great many people want some token outside of G.o.d"s word. That habit always brings doubt. If I made a promise to meet a man at a certain hour and place to-morrow, and he were to ask me for my watch as a token of my sincerity, it would be a slur on my truthfulness. We must not question what G.o.d has said: He has made statement after statement, and multiplied figure upon figure. Christ says: "I am the door; by Me if any man enter in he shall be saved." "I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine." "I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." "I am the truth;" receive Me, and you will have the truth; for I am the embodiment of truth. Do you want to know the way? "I am the way:" follow Me, and I will lead you into the kingdom. Are you hungering after righteousness? "I am the Bread of life:" if you eat of Me you shall never hunger. "I am the Water of life:" if you drink of this water it shall be within you "a well of water springing up unto everlasting life." "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die."
(John xi. 25, 26.)
Let me remind you where our doubts come from. A good many of G.o.d"s dear people never get beyond knowing themselves servants. He calls us "friends." If you go into a house you will soon see the difference between the servant and the son. The son walks at perfect liberty all over the house; he is at home. But the servant takes a subordinate place. What we want is to get beyond servants. We ought to realize our standing with G.o.d as sons and daughters. He will not "un-child"
His children. G.o.d has not only adopted us, but we are His by birth: we have been born into His kingdom. My little boy was as much mine when he was a day old as now that he is fourteen. He was _my son_; although it did not appear what he would be when he attained manhood.
He is mine; although he may have to undergo probation under tutors and governors. The children of G.o.d are not perfect; but we are perfectly His children.
Another origin of doubts is looking at ourselves. If you want to be wretched and miserable, filled with doubts from morning till night, look at yourselves. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." (Isa. xxvi. 3.) Many of G.o.d"s dear children are robbed of joy because they keep looking at themselves.
Some one has said: "There are three ways to look. If you want to be wretched, look within; if you wish to be distracted, look around; but if you would have peace, look up." Peter looked away from Christ, and he immediately began to sink. The Master said to him: "O thou of little faith! Wherefore didst thou doubt?" (Matt. xiv. 31.) He had G.o.d"s eternal word, which was sure footing, and better than either marble, granite or iron; but the moment he took his eyes off Christ down he went. Those who look around cannot see how unstable and dishonoring is their walk. We want to look straight at the "Author and Finisher of our faith."
When I was a boy I could only make a straight track in the snow, by keeping my eyes fixed upon a tree or some object before me. The moment I took my eye off the mark set in front of me, I walked crooked. It is only when we look fixedly on Christ that we find perfect peace. After He rose from the dead He showed His disciples His hands and His feet. (Luke xxiv. 40.) That was the ground of their peace. If you want to scatter your doubts, look at the blood; and if you want to increase your doubts, look at yourself. You will get doubts enough for years by being occupied with yourself for a few days.
Then again: look at what He is, and at what He has done; not at what you are, and what you have done. That is the way to get peace and rest.
Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the emanc.i.p.ation of three millions of slaves. On a certain day their chains were to fall off, and they were to be free. The proclamation was put up on the trees and fences wherever the Northern Army marched. A good many slaves could not read: but others read the proclamation, and most of them believed it; and on a certain day a glad shout went up, "We are free!" Some did not believe it, and stayed with their old masters; but it did not alter the fact that they were free. Christ, the Captain of our salvation, has proclaimed freedom to all who have faith in Him. Let us take Him at His word. Their feelings would not have made the slaves free. The power must come from the outside.
Looking at ourselves will not make us free, but it is looking to Christ with the eye of faith.
Bishop Ryle has strikingly said: "Faith is the root, and a.s.surance the flower." Doubtless you can never have the flower without the root; but it is no less certain you may have the root, and not the flower.
"Faith is that poor trembling woman who came behind Jesus in the press, and touched the hem of His garment. (Mark v. 27.) a.s.surance is Stephen standing calmly in the midst of his murderers, and saying, "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of G.o.d"" (Acts vii. 56).
"Faith is the penitent thief, crying, "Lord, remember me" (Luke xxiii.
42). a.s.surance is Job sitting in the dust, covered with sores, and saying, "I know that my Redeemer liveth;" "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him"" (Job xix. 25; xiii. 15).
"Faith is Peter"s drowning cry, as he began to sink, "Lord, save me!"
(Matt. xxiv. 30). a.s.surance is that same Peter declaring before the Council, in after-times, "This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner: neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved"" (Acts iv. 11, 12).
"Faith is the anxious, trembling voice, "Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief!" (Mark ix. 24). a.s.surance is the confident challenge, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of G.o.d"s elect? Who is he that condemneth?"" (Rom. viii. 33, 34).
Faith is Saul praying in the house of Judas at Damascus, sorrowful, blind, and alone. (Acts ix. 11.) a.s.surance is Paul, the aged prisoner, looking calmly into the grave, and saying, "I know whom I have believed." "There is a crown laid up for me" (2 Tim. i. 12; iv.
8).
"Faith is Life. How great the blessing! Who can tell the gulf between life and death? And yet life may be weak, sickly, unhealthy, painful, trying, anxious, worn, burdensome, joyless, smileless, to the very end.
"a.s.surance is _more than life_. It is health, strength, power, vigor, activity, energy, manliness, beauty."
A minister once p.r.o.nounced the benediction in this way: "The heart of G.o.d to make us welcome; the blood of Christ to make us clean, and the Holy Spirit to make us certain." The security of the believer is the result of the operation of the Spirit of G.o.d.
Another writer says: "I have seen shrubs and trees grow out of the rocks, and overhang fearful precipices, roaring cataracts, and deep running waters; but they maintained their position, and threw out their foliage and branches as much as if they had been in the midst of a dense forest." It was their hold on the rock that made them secure; and the influences of nature that sustained their life. So believers are oftentimes exposed to the most horrible dangers in their journey to heaven; but, so long as they are "rooted and grounded" in the Rock of Ages, they are perfectly secure. Their hold of Him is their guarantee; and the blessings of His grace give them life and sustain them in life. And as the tree must die, or the rock fall, before a dissolution can be effected between _them_, so either the believer must lose his spiritual life, or the Rock must crumble, ere their union can be dissolved.
Speaking of the Lord Jesus, Isaiah says: "I will fasten Him as a nail in a sure place; and He shall be for a glorious throne to His Father"s house: and they shall hang upon Him all the glory of His father"s house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quant.i.ty, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons" (xxii. 23, 24).
There is one nail, fastened in a sure place; and on it hang all the flagons and all the cups. "Oh," says one little cup, "I am so small and so black, suppose I were to drop!" "Oh," says a flagon, "there is no fear of you; but I am so heavy, so very weighty, suppose I were to drop!" And a little cup says, "Oh, if I were only like the gold cup there, I should never fear falling." But the gold cup answers, "It is not because I am a gold cup that I keep up; but because I hang upon the nail." If the nail gives way we all come down, gold cups, china cups, pewter cups, and all; but as long as the nail keeps up, all that hang on Him hang safely.
I once read these words on a tombstone: "Born, died, kept." Let us pray G.o.d to keep us in perfect peace, and a.s.sured of salvation.
CHAPTER VIII.
_CHRIST ALL AND IN ALL_.
(Colossians iii. 11.)
Christ is _all_ to us that we make Him to be. I want to emphasize that word "all." Some men make Him to be "a root out of a dry ground," "without form or comeliness." He is nothing to them; they do not want Him. Some Christians have a very small Saviour, for they are not willing to receive Him fully, and let Him do great and mighty things for them. Others have a mighty Saviour, because they make Him to be great and mighty.
If we would know what Christ wants to be to us, we must first of all know Him as our Saviour from sin. When the angel came down from heaven to proclaim that He was to be born into the world, you remember he gave His name, "He shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." Have we been delivered from sin? He did not come to save us _in_ our sins, but _from_ our sins. Now, there are three ways of knowing a man. Some men you know only by hearsay; others you merely know by having been once introduced to them, you know them very slightly; other again you know by having been acquainted with them for years, you know them intimately. So I believe there are three cla.s.ses of people to-day in the Christian Church and out of it: those who know Christ only by reading or by hearsay, those who have a historical Christ; those who have a slight personal acquaintance with Him; and, those who thirst, as Paul did, to "know Him and the power of His resurrection." The more we know of Christ the more we shall love Him, and the better we shall serve Him.
Let us look at Him as He hangs upon the Cross, and see how He has put away sin. He was manifested that He might take away our sins; and if we really know Him we must first of all see Him as our Saviour from sin. You remember how the angels said to the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people: for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." (Luke ii. 10, 11.) Then if you go clear back to Isaiah, seven hundred years before Christ"s birth, you will find these words: "I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no Saviour" (xliii. 11).
Again, in the First Epistle of John (iv. 14) we read: "We have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." All the heathen religions, we read, teach men to work their way up to G.o.d; but the religion of Jesus Christ is G.o.d coming down to men to save them, to lift them up out of the pit of sin. In Luke xix.
10, we read that Christ Himself told the people what He had come for: "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." So we start from the Cross, not from the cradle. Christ has opened up a new and living way to the Father; He has taken all the stumbling-blocks out of the way, so that every man who accepts of Christ as his Saviour can have salvation.
But Christ is not only a Saviour. I might save a man from drowning and rescue him from an untimely grave; but I might probably not be able to do any more for him. Christ is something more than a Saviour.
When the children of Israel were placed behind the blood, that blood was their salvation; but they would still have heard the crack of the slave-driver"s whip if they had not been delivered from the Egyptian yoke of bondage: then it was that G.o.d delivered them from the hand of the king of Egypt. I have little sympathy with the idea that G.o.d comes down to save us, and then leaves us in prison, the slaves of our besetting sins. No; He has come to deliver us, and to give us victory over our evil tempers, our pa.s.sions, and our l.u.s.ts. Are you a professed Christian but one who is a slave to some besetting sin? If you want to get victory over that temper or that l.u.s.t, go on to know Christ more intimately. He brings deliverance for the past, the present, and the future. "Who delivered; who doth deliver; who will yet deliver." (2 Cor. i. 10.)
How often, like the children of Israel when they came to the Red Sea, have we become discouraged because everything looked dark before us, behind us, and around us, and we knew not which way to turn. Like Peter we have said, "To whom shall we go?" But G.o.d has appeared for our deliverance. He has brought us through the Red Sea right out into the wilderness, and opened up the way into the Promised Land. But Christ is not only our Deliverer; He is our Redeemer. That is something more than being our Saviour. He has brought us back. "Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money." (Isaiah lii. 3.) "We were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold." (1 Peter i. 18.) If gold could have redeemed us, could He not have created ten thousand worlds full of gold?
When G.o.d had redeemed the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, and brought them through the Red Sea, they struck out for the wilderness; and then G.o.d became to them their Way. I am so thankful the Lord has not left us in darkness as to the right way. There is no living man who has been groping in the darkness but may know the way.
"I am the Way," says Christ. If we follow Christ we shall be in the right way, and have the right doctrine. Who could lead the children of Israel through the wilderness like the Almighty G.o.d Himself? He knew the pitfalls and dangers of the way, and guided the people through all their wilderness journey right into the promised land. It is true that if it had not been for their accursed unbelief they might have crossed into the land at Kadesh Barnea, and taken possession of it, but they desired something besides G.o.d"s word; so they were turned back, and had to wander in the desert for forty years. I believe there are thousands of G.o.d"s children wandering in the wilderness still. The Lord has delivered them from the hand of the Egyptian, and would at once take them through the wilderness right into the Promised Land, if they were only willing to follow Christ. Christ has been down here, and has made the rough places smooth, and the dark places light, and the crooked places straight.
If we will only be led by Him, and will follow Him, all will be peace, and joy, and rest.
In the frontier, when a man goes out hunting he takes a hatchet with him, and cuts off pieces from the bark of the trees as he goes along through the forest: this is called "blazing the way." He does it that he may know the way back, as there is no pathway through these thick forests. Christ has come down to this earth; He has "blazed the Way:"
and now that He has gone up on high, if we will but follow him, we shall be kept in the right path. I will tell you how you may know if you are following Christ or not. If some one has slandered you, or misjudged you, do you treat them as your master would have done? If you do not bear these things in a loving and forgiving spirit, all the churches and ministers in the world cannot make you right. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." (Romans viii. 9.) "If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creature: old things are pa.s.sed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Cor.
v. 17.)
Christ is not only our way; He is the Light upon the way. He says, "I am the Light of the world." (John viii. 12; ix. 5; xii. 46.) He goes on to say, "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." It is impossible for any man or woman who is following Christ to walk in darkness. If your soul is in the darkness, groping around in the fog and mist of earth, let me tell you it is because you have got away from the true light. There is nothing but light that will dispel darkness. So let those who are walking in spiritual darkness admit Christ into their hearts: He is the Light. I call to mind a picture of which I used at one time to think a good deal; but now I have come to look more closely, I would not put it up in my house except I turned the face to the wall. It represents Christ as standing at a door, knocking, and having a big lantern in His hand. Why, you might as well hang up a lantern to the sun as put one into Christ"s hand. He is the Sun of Righteousness; and it is our privilege to walk in the light of an unclouded sun.
Many people are hunting after light, and peace, and joy. We are nowhere told to seek after these things. If we admit Christ into our hearts these will all come of themselves. I remember, when a boy, I used to try in vain to catch my shadow. One day I was walking with my face to the sun; and as I happened to look around I saw that my shadow was following me. The faster I went the faster my shadow followed; I could not get away from it. So when our faces are directed to the Sun of Righteousness, the peace and joy are sure to come. A man said to me some time ago, "Moody, how do you feel?" It was so long since I had thought about my feelings I had to stop and consider awhile, in order to find out. Some Christians are all the time thinking about their feelings; and because they do not feel just right they think their joy is all gone. If we keep our faces towards Christ, and are occupied with Him, we shall be lifted out of the darkness and the trouble that may have gathered round our path.
I remember being in a meeting after the war of the great rebellion broke out. The war had been going on for about six months. The army of the North had been defeated at Bull Run, in fact, we had nothing but defeat, and it looked as though the republic was going to pieces.
So we were much cast down and discouraged. At this meeting every speaker for awhile seemed as if he had hung his harp upon the willow; and it was one of the gloomiest meetings I ever attended. Finally an old man with beautiful white hair got up to speak, and his face literally shone. "Young men," he said "you do not talk like sons of the King. Though it is dark just here, remember it is light somewhere else." Then he went on to say that if it were dark all over the world, it was light up around the Throne.
He told us he had come from the east, where a friend had described to him how he had been up a mountain to spend the night and see the sun rise. As the party were climbing up the mountain, and before they had reached the summit, a storm came on. This friend said to the guide, "I will give this up; take me back." The guide smiled, and replied, "I think we shall get above the storm soon." On they went; and it was not long before they got up to where it was as calm as any summer evening. Down in the valley a terrible storm raged; they could hear the thunder rolling, and see the lightning"s flash; but all was serene on the mountain top. "And so, my young friends," continued the old man, "though all is dark around you, come a little higher and the darkness will flee away." Often when I have been inclined to get discouraged, I have thought of what he said. Now if you are down in the valley amidst the thick fog and the darkness, get a little higher; get nearer to Christ, and know more of Him.
You remember the Bible says, that when Christ expired on the cross, the light of the world was put out. G.o.d sent His Son to be the light of the world; but men did not love the light because it reproved them of their sins. When they were about to put out this light, what did Christ say to His disciples? "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." (Acts i. 8.) He has gone up yonder to intercede for us; but He wants us to shine for Him down here. "Ye are the light of the world." (Matt. v.
14.) So our work is to shine; not to blow our own trumpet so that people may look at us. What we want to do is to show forth Christ. If we have any light at all it is borrowed light. Some one said to a young Christian: "Converted! it is all moonshine!" Said he: "I thank you for the ill.u.s.tration; the moon borrows its light from the sun; and we borrow ours from the Sun of Righteousness." If we are Christ"s, we are here to shine for Him: by and by he will call us home to our reward.
I remember hearing of a blind man who sat by the wayside with a lantern near him. When he was asked what he had a lantern for, as he could not see the light, he said it was that people should not stumble ever him. I believe more people stumble over the inconsistencies of professed Christians than from any other cause.
What is doing more harm to the cause of Christ than all the scepticism in the world is this cold, dead formalism, this conformity to the world, this professing what we do not possess. The eyes of the world are upon us. I think it was George Fox who said every Quaker ought to light up the country for ten miles around him. If we were all brightly shining for the Master, those about us would soon be reached, and there would be a shout of praise going to heaven.