Unpurchasable Love

Unpurchasable Love

No. 2466. A Sermon Intended for Reading May 24th, 1896, Delivered by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on Thursday Evening, June 6th, 1872.

"If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
it would utterly be scorned." -- Song of Solomon 8:7.

That is a general truth, applying to all forms of real love; you cannot
purchase love. If it is true love, it will not run on rails of gold. Many a
marriage would have been a very happy one if there had been a tenth as
much love as there was wealth. Sometimes, love will come in at the
cottage door, and make the home bright and blest, when it refuses to
recline on the downy pillows of the palace. Men may give all the substance
of their house, and form a marriage bond- the bond may be there, but not
that which will make it sweet to wear. "If a man would give all the
substance of his house for love, it would utterly be scorned."
Who, for instance, could purchase a mother's love? She loves her own
child specially because it is her own; she watches over it with sedulous
care, she denies her eyes the necessary sleep at night if her babe be sick,
and she would be ready to part with her own life sooner than it should die.
Bring her another person's child, and endow her with wealth to induce her
to love it; and you shall find that it is not in her power to transfer her
affection to the son or daughter of a stranger. Her own child is exceedingly
precious to her, and another infant, that to an unprejudiced eye might be
thought to be a far more lovely babe, shall receive tenderness from her,
for the woman is compassionate; but it can never receive the love that
belongs to her own offspring.
Take, again, even the love of friends; I only instance that just to show how
true our text is in relation to all forms of love. Damon loved Pythias; the
two friends were so bound together that their names became household
words, and their conduct towards one another grew into a proverb. Yet
Damon never purchased the heart of Pythias neither did Pythias think to
pay a yearly stipend for the love of Damon. The introduction of the
question of cost would have spoiled it all; the very thought of anything
mercenary, anything like payment on the one side or receipt upon the
other, would have been a death-blow to their friendship. No; if a man
should give all the substance of his house even for human love, for the
common love that exists between man and man, it would utterly be
scorned.
Rest assured that this is pre-eminently true when we get into higher
regions, when we come to think of the love of Jesus, and when we think of
that love which springs up in the human breast towards Jesus when the
Spirit of God has renewed the heart, and shed abroad the love of God
within the soul. Neither Christ's love to us nor our love to him can be
purchased; neither of those could be bartered for gold, or rubies, or
diamonds, or the most precious crystal. If a man should offer to give all the
substance of his house for either of these forms of love, it would utterly be
scorned.

I. We will begin at the highest manifestation of love, and commune
together upon it. So let me say, first, that THE LOVE OF OUR LORD JESUS
CHRIST IS ALTOGETHER UNPURCHASABLE.
This fact will be clear to us if we give it a moment's careful thought.
Indeed, so clear is it that I scarcely like to multiply words upon it, and I do
so only that you may dive the deeper into this glorious truth. It must be
quite impossible to purchase the love of Christ, because 'it is inconceivable
that he ever could be mercenary'. It would be profane, surely, it would
amount to blasphemy, and a very high degree of it, to suppose that the love
of his heart could be bought with gold, or silver, or earthly stores. No, if he
loves, it must be all free, like his own royal self.
If he condescends to cast his
eyes so far downward as to view the creatures of an hour, and to set his
love upon them so that his delights are with the sons of men, it is not
possible that he could gain anything from them. No, were we angels, we
could not think that he could love us because of some service we could
render, or some price we could pay to him. The bare idea runs cross and
counter to all we know of Jesus; it is a flat contradiction of all our beliefs
and all our knowledge concerning him.
He loves us because he pities us,
but not because there is a fee when he comes to us as the great Physician.
He instructs us because he grieves over our ignorance, and because he
knows the sorrow of it, and would have us learn of him; but his
instructions are not given in order that we may each one bring our school
pence to him. He labors, it is true; but none shall say that he labors for hire;
though if he asked all worlds for his hire, he might well claim them for such
labors as those which he has performed.
The feats attributed to Hercules
are nothing compared with the wonders wrought by Christ. He has
cleansed stables far more filthy than the Augean, and slain monsters far
more terrible than the hydra-headed demons of the ancient fables. True, "He
shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied;" there was a joy
that was set before him, for which he endured the cross, despising the
shame; yet the love that lay at the bottom of it all was love 'unbought', and
love 'unsought', and love in which not so much as a single atom of any thing
like selfishness could ever be discovered. The pure stream of his love leaps
like the crystal stream, and there is no sediment that can be found in it; it is
altogether unmixed love to us.
Besides, brethren, there is another point that renders this idea of
purchasing Christ's love as impossible, as the first thought shows it to be
incredible- 'for all things are already Christ's'. Therefore, what can be
given to him with which his love could be purchased? If he were poor, we
might enrich him; but all things are his. "He was rich," says the apostle; "he
is rich," we also may reply. He could say to us, at this moment, if we were
so foolish as to attempt to bribe him to win the love of his heart, "I will
take no bullock out of your house, nor he-goats out of your folds. For every
beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all
the fowls of the mountain: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I
were hungry, I would not tell you: for the world is mine, and the fullness
thereof."
All things are Christ's, not only on this speck of a world, but
throughout the universe. The things that are seen by us are as nothing
compared with the things that we have not seen; yet all belong to Christ,
and he has the power to create ten thousand times more than ever yet have
been formed by him. There is nothing which he conceives in his infinite
mind but he could at once fashion it by his almighty power; there is nothing
he might desire but he could in an instant command it to appear before him.
"Let it be," he might say, and it would be even as he had said. With what,
then, could you bribe him, and where is the substance of your houses that
you would give in exchange for his divine love? O you who dwell in houses
of clay, where is the substance which you could bring to him who is Lord
of heaven and earth? Our substance? It is but a shadow. Our wealth? It is a
child's plaything in his sight; it is nothing compared with his boundless
riches.
Let us also note that, if Christ's love could be won by us by something we
could bring to him or do for him, it would suppose that there was
something of ours that was of equal merit and of equal value with his love,
or, at any rate, 'something which he was willing to accept as bearing some
proportion to his love'. But, indeed, there is nothing of the sort. Gold and
silver-- I scarcely like to mention them in the same connection with the
love of Christ. I am sure our poet was right when he said--
"Jewels to you are gaudy toys
And gold is sordid dust."
Think of the difference between gold and the love of Christ, in the hour of
pain, in the hour of depression of spirit; what can the strong boxes of the
merchant do for him then? But one drop of the love of Christ helps him to
bear up, however fast the heart may palpitate, or however much the spirits
may have been cast down. What is the use of earthly riches when one
comes to die? One laid his money bags close to his heart, to see if they
could make a plaster that would give him rest, but they were hard and cold.
But the love of Jesus, like the touch of the king's hand in the old
superstition, heals even the disease of death itself, and makes it no longer
death to die.
There is nothing, then, by way of treasure that could be
compared with the love of Christ. I will say it, and every believer here will
agree with me, that there is no emotion we have ever felt in our most
sanctified moments, there is no holy desire that has ever flashed through
our soul in our most hallowed times, there is no seraphic longing that has
ever been begotten in us when the Spirit of God has been most operative in
our hearts, that we should dare to put side by side with the love of Christ,
and say that it was at all fit to be reckoned as a fair price for it. Our best is
not one-thousandth part as good as Christ's worst. Our gold is not equal to
his clay. There is nothing that can be found in us, or that ever will be in us,
that we should dare to say could for a moment stand in comparison with
his love.
Well, then, since there is no coin of metal, or emotion of mental condition,
or power of spiritual grace, that could be counted out or weighed as the
purchase price of Christ's love, we will not dream of having anything of the
kind; for there comes, at the back of this thought, the consciousness that,
even if we do possess anything that is really valuable, if there is something
about us now that is commendable, and pure, and acceptable, 'yet it all
belongs to Christ already'. We have nothing with which we can buy
anything of him, because all we have belongs to him. Under the righteous
law of God, all the good of which we are capable is already due to our
Creator. His command is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Very comprehensive,
very sweeping, are the demands of the law of the Lord. You must not
imagine that there is the slightest truth in the idea that man may come to do
more for Christ than it is his duty to do; this cannot be, for all that is
possible for us to do, is already Christ's.
"You are not your own," and yet
you talk about giving yourself to him. You belong to him now, you
Christians, doubly so; and all men are under obligation to Christ even for
the temporal favors he has bestowed upon them. You, believer, cannot say,
"Now I am going to do for Christ something more than, I think, might
absolutely be claimed by him." Why, if you are really what you claim to be,
you are his already, body, soul, and spirit! All your time, all your money,
all your faculties, all the possibilities that are in you, are all his now; and
therefore, wherewithal shall you come to purchase his love? No, it cannot
be purchased; that is certain for many other reasons besides these which I
have given you.
But what a blessing it is that 'we have the love of Christ, though we could
not purchase it!' The Son of God has loved us; he has bestowed upon us
what he never would have sold us; and he has given it to us freely,
"without money and without price." And, beloved, this love is no new
thing. He loved us long before we were born. When his foreknowledge
sketched us in his mind's eye, he beheld us in love. He proved his love,
too. It was not merely 'contemplative' love, but it was 'practical' love- for he
died for us before we knew anything of him, or were even here to learn
about him.
His love is of such a wondrous kind that he always will love us.
When heaven and earth have passed away, and like a scroll the universe
shall be rolled up, or be put away like a worn-out vesture, he will still love
us as he loved us at the first. The greatest wonder to me is that this
unpurchasable love, this unending love is MINE; and you, my brethren and
sisters, can always say, each one of you, if you have been regenerated,
"This love is mine; the Lord Jesus Christ loves me with a love I never
could have purchased."
Peradventure, someone is saying just now, "I wish I could say that." Do
you really wish it? Then, let the text serve to guide you as to the way by
which you may yet know Christ's love to you. Do not try to purchase it,
abandon that idea at once. Perhaps you say, "I never thought of buying it
with money." Possibly not, but the mass of mankind think of purchasing it
in some way or other. They hear from their priests of certain ceremonies,
and they attach great importance to them, and offer them as a bribe to
Christ; but these things will never buy his love.
They then resort to prayers-- not prayers from the heart, but prayers said as a sort of punishment; and
it is thought by many that surely these will procure his love, but they never
will. We have even known some who have punished themselves, tortured
themselves, thinking they would get Christ's love in that fashion. Now, if I
knew anybody who tried to win my love by making himself miserable, I
should say to him, "My good fellow, you will never make me love you in
that way; be as happy as you can, that method is a great deal more likely to
touch my heart than the other." I don't believe that penance and
mortification afford any pleasure to God; I think he would be more likely
to say, "Poor silly creatures; when I make gnats, I teach them to dance in
the summer sunshine; when I make the fish of the sea, they leap up from
the waves with intense delight; and when I make birds, I show them how to
sing." God has no delight in the miseries of his creatures, and the
flagellations that fools give to themselves they deserve for their folly, but
they certainly bring no pleasure to the heart of God. It is vain to think of
purchasing the love of Christ in such a way.
"But surely, surely, we may do something. We will give up this vice, we
will renounce that bad habit, we will be strict in our religiousness, we will
be attentive to all moral duties." So you should; but when you have done
all that, do you do you think have done enough to win his love? Is the servant,
who has only done what he ought to have done, entitled to the love of his
master's heart because of that? You shall not win Christ's love this way. If you
have his love shed abroad in your heart, you have infinitely more than you
have ever earned.
Suppose any person here were to say, "I do feel so
resolved to be saved that I will give all I have in this world to some good
cause, and then I will give myself to go abroad into foreign lands, to some
fever-stricken place, to die in the service of God." Ah! should you do all
that, you would utterly be scorned if you did think thus to
purchase the love of God. Will he be bartered with? Will he put up his
heart to be sold in the market, he whose very temple was defiled by the
presence of buyers and sellers? It cannot be. Go and bid,
and barter with your fellow-men; even they will disdain you if you think
that love is thus to be procured, but dream not that you are thus to deal
with your God. I say again, it cannot be.
The text does not merely say that
the price would be refused, but "it would utterly be scorned." Love
would open her bright eyes, and look at the man, and then she would
frown, and say, "How can you insult me so? Take back your gold, and
begone;" and God's great love, even when his pity was in the ascendant,
would but weep a tear, and then reply, "I pity you, for you know not
what you are doing; and I despise the price you bring to me. How
could you think that I was such an one as yourself, and that my love could
be purchased with paltry pelf that you can bring?"
We cannot spare more time for that point, but it is one that you may think
over for many a day, and your heart may be charmed with it until you love
and bless your Savior with all your heart, and mind, and soul, and strength.

II. My second remark is, that, IN OUR CASE, NOTHING CAN EVER SERVE
AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR LOVE.
If Christ has loved us, or if we are desirous of realizing that he has done so,
'the one thing needful and essential is that we have true love to him'. God's
demand of each one who professes to be his child is, "My son, give me
your heart." There are many who would like to be thought to be his sons,
and therefore every morning they wickedly say, "Our Father which are in
heaven," though God is not their Father. If they were to say, "Our father,"
to him who is their father, they would pray to the devil, for God is no
father of theirs. Alas! there are many who want to be thought to be God's
children and they will come and bring to him anything but love. Sad,
sorrowful truth!
If God would but say to men, "I will accept unspiritual service," he might
be the God of the whole earth at once; or rather, let me more truly say that
he would be the demon of the whole earth, for men do not care what the
religion is externally so long as it does not trouble their hearts. The last
thing some people will do is to think. "Give you a guinea? Oh, certainly-
Excellent is the charity for which you are pleading. A guinea for the
hospital? Certainly. Five guineas for a new place of worship? Certainly.
When I have money, I am always glad to give it; but don't you come and
bother me with any of your doctrines, for I don't want to hear about them.
You religious people are so divided into sects and parties, and you are always controverting and contradicting one another, so I do not want to
think about these things."
That is a very poor excuse, is it not? Because
this seems to be a matter which requires a great deal of thought, therefore
this person will not give it any consideration at all; and because those who
do think about it do not exactly agree on all points, therefore this man says,
"I shall not think of it at all." Because all the charts of an intricate portion
of the ocean may not happen to be exactly alike, therefore this man will not
even study that part of the sea over which his own vessel must go,
although there all the charts do agree! He makes an excuse upon some
trivial matter to neglect altogether the steering of his vessel.
He will strike
upon a rock one day, and he will have no one to blame for it but himself.
"Oh!" says another person, "I don't mind saying prayers; or I will go to
church and listen to the reading of prayers. I don't mind hearing sermons,
but don't come and tell me that I have to repent of my sins. I cannot do it;
I do not understand what you mean. I join in 'the General Confession'
every Sunday; I say that I am a miserable sinner though I don't know that I
am particularly miserable, and I don't know that I am particularly a sinner
either; but still, I always say that, and I don't mind saying it. Yet if you
come to me, saying, 'Repent,' I cannot do that."
Men will offer to God
anything but that which has to do with the heart. You may call upon them
to torment their bodies, as the priests of false religions have done; and they
will not object to that. The fakir in Hindustan will pierce himself with
knives, or lie upon a bed of spikes, or swing himself up by a hook in his
back, and hang there by the hour together in all but mortal agony. A man
will do almost anything except bow his heart before his God; he will not
confess that Jehovah is Lord of all, and that he himself is a poor sinful
creature who deserves to be punished; he will not obey a law that is
spiritual, and demands the allegiance of the secret thoughts and intents of
his heart; and he will not accept a faith which is so superlatively pure that it
demands that sin be given up, and tells him that even when given up it must
be washed out in the precious blood of Jesus, and that a man must exercise
repentance towards God and faith in the Savior or he cannot be saved.
The most unpopular truth in the world is this sentence which fell from the
lips of Christ, "You must be born again" and, consequently, there are all
sorts of inventions to get the truth out of those words. "Oh, yes!" say
some, "you must be born again, but that means the application of aqueous
fluid to an infant's brow." As God is true, that teaching is a lie; there is no
grain or shade of truth within it. "Except a man be born again" (from
above), "he cannot see the kingdom of God." No operation that can be
performed by man can ever regenerate the soul; it is the work alone of God
the Holy Spirit, who creates us anew in Christ Jesus.
Men do not like that
truth; the spiritual still displeases the natural man. They will profess to
worship God in Jerusalem or at Gerizim, and fight about the place where
he ought to be worshiped, to show how little good their religion has done
them! They will not speak to each other, the Jew will have no dealings with
the Samaritan, to prove how unlike he is to the God who makes his sun to
shine both on the just and on the unjust! But when you utter this message,
"God is a Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and
in truth," they are offended, and turn away.
Still the truth holds good, whatever men think of it. If you give not to God
your heart, you have given him nothing. If you give not to God your soul, if
you love him not, if you serve him not because you love him, if you
come not to him, and surrender to him your inner self, you may have
been baptized-- immersed or sprinkled-- you may have come to the
communion table, you may have bowed your knees until your knees have
grown horny, you may have prayed until you are hoarse, and wept until the
fountains of your eyes are dry, you may have given all your gold, and
lacerated every member of your body with mortifications, and starved yourself
to a skeleton, but you have truly done nothing towards obtaining love to
Christ. The substance of your house is utterly scorned if you offer it
to the Lord in the stead of the love of your heart.
Love he must have; this is his lawful demand. His people delight to render
it; and if you do not, then you are none of his.

III. This takes us to a third truth, which is, that THE SAINTS' LOVE IS NOT
PURCHASED BY CHRIST'S GIFTS.
The love of saints to their Lord is not given to Christ because of his gifts to
them; I must explain what I mean, lest at the very outset I am mistaken or
misunderstood. We love our Lord, and we love him all the more because of
the many gifts he bestows upon us; but 'his gifts do not win our love'. I will
show you why. All that he has given me today, he gave me many years
ago. The covenant of grace was always mine. I heard the preacher tell
about it. He told how Christ had died for me; that he had loved me, and
given himself for me. Truly, he had done so; he had poured out his blood
for my redemption. I would not believe it to be so, or, believing it, I did not
think it was of any consequence to me. Then the preacher spread out the rare
gifts of Christ before me, and I saw that he had given these to such as
believed in him; but I did not think them worth examining, and I turned
away from them. I should never have loved him if he had not given me
much more than the substance of his house. I needed his blessed Spirit to
show me the value of the substance of his house, and above all, to show me
that for which this day I love my Savior best of all, namely, himself,
HIMSELF.
Oh, it is "Jesus Christ himself" who wins the love of our hearts! If he had
not given us himself, we should never have given to him ourselves. All else
that may be supposed to be of the substance of his house would not have
won his people's hearts, until at last they learned this truth, and the Spirit of
God made them feel the force of it, "He loved me, and gave himself for
me."
"My Beloved is mine, and I am his," is now one of the sweetest stanzas in
love's canticle. The spouse does not say, "His crown is mine, his throne is
mine, his breastplate is mine, his crook is mine;" she delights in everything
that Christ has as a King, and a Priest, and a Shepherd; but, above all else,
that which wins and charms her heart is this, "He himself is mine, and I am
his."
But I meant mainly to say, under this head, that 'there are some of Christ's
gifts that do not win our hearts', that is to say, our hearts do not depend
upon them. And they are, first, his temporal gifts. I am very thankful, and I
trust that all God's people are also, for health and strength. I have lost
these sometimes, but I did not love my Lord any the less then; neither do I
love Christ this day because I am free from pain. If I were not free from
pain, I would still love him. Christ has given to some of you a competence,
you have all you want for this world; but is that why you love Christ? Oh,
no, beloved! if he were to take all away, I know that you would love him in
your poverty.
The devil was a liar when he said of Job, "Does Job fear God
for nothing? Have not you made a hedge about him, and about his house,
and about all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his
hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth your hand
now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face." We do
not love God altogether for what he gives us in this world; ours is not such
poor cupboard-love as that. We love him because he first loved us, and we
do not pretend to have climbed to that high state of disinterested love in
which there is no gratitude mingled with it. We always must be grateful to
him, and love him for that reason; but still, temporal things never win our
heart's love to God.
There are numbers of you who have health, and
wealth, and many other things that so many desire, but they never make
you love God, and they never will. You love them, and make idols of them
very readily, but they do not lead you to love the Lord; while the children
of God, who love their dear Savior, can tell you that they do not love him
because of what he gives them, for if he takes from them, they love him all
the same. With Job, they say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken
away; blessed be the name of the Lord." They do not love him simply
because he caresses them, for if he chastens them, they love him still, and
kiss the rod with which he smites them.
I meant also to say that 'we do not love Christ because of his temporary
indulgence of us in spiritual things'. You know, beloved, our Savior very
frequently favors us with manifestations of his presence. We are overjoyed
when he comes very near to us, and permits us to put our fingers into the
prints of the nails. We have our high days and festivals when the
Bridegroom is with us, emphatically with us. He takes all the clouds out of
our sky, and gives us the bright shining of the sun; or he opens the lattices,
and shows us himself in a way only second to that in which we shall see
him when we behold him face to face. And oh, how we love him then!
But,
thank God, when he draws the lattice back again, and hides his face, we do
not leave off loving him because of that. Our love to our Lord does not
depend upon the weather. True, our love is not manifested to him so
sweetly when we are in the dark as when he cheers us with his smile, but
still it is there all the while. We could not let him go. "Though he slay
me," -though HE slay me-- he who loves me, though he turn to be my
enemy, and slay me-- "yet will I trust in him."
We will hold to him still,
and love him still, not because of the substance of his house, but because of
what he himself is. There are times when we are half inclined to say with
the elder brother, "These many years have I been with you, privileged to
serve you, and yet you have not given me so much as a kid that I might
make merry with my friends." Perhaps we have been long without the light
of his countenance, and have had no love-tokens from him; but for all that
we will remain in his service, and abide in his house; and even if our Father
should answer us roughly, we will tell him that he is our Father still. We do
not love him merely for the substance of his house, but for himself, and
because his Spirit has made love to him to be an instinct of our new nature,
and has put within us such a principle that we cannot help loving him. Even
if we should be called to pass through terrible trials and adversities, and
should have to walk a long time in clouds and darkness, yet still would we
love him and rejoice in him.

IV. The last observation I shall have to make upon our text is this, THE
LOVE OF SAINTS CANNOT BE BOUGHT OFF FROM CHRIST AT ANY PRICE.
The love of some people to religion is very cheaply bought, and very
speedily sold. It is very lamentable to notice the great numbers of people
who are quite content to go and worship God with Christian brethren, and
to hear the gospel preached, while they are themselves poor, or in middling
circumstances, but who find, as soon as they have accumulated a little
wealth, that the world has a church of its own, and they must go there,
"because, you see, everybody goes there; and if you are cut off from
Society, where are you?"
I have been asked that question, sometimes, and I
have replied, "Where are you? Why, where Christ would have you to be-- outside the camp, bearing his reproach.'" But that place of separation,
"outside the camp," is a position which is not always taken up cheerfully
by professedly Christian people. It is very sorrowful to see how, because
God has entrusted them with wealth, they get drawn away from the gospel,
and from the Church of God; and though they are troubled a little at first,
they soon get rid of one scruple after another, and subside altogether into
worldliness.
Well, now, I am not altogether sorry that there is this test in the world.
Every good husbandman keeps a winnowing fan; of course, he that is
foolish, when he sees a great heap lying on the barn door, says, "All this is
my wheat that I have brought in." He does not want to have it diminished,
for it is the result of his labor; -but if he is a wise husbandman, he says,
"Though I have brought in a great heap, I know that there is chaff with it,"
and he is glad to have the winnowing fan used, and the corn tossed up that
the fresh breeze may blow through it. If the mere professors go, let them
go. "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been
of us, they would no doubt have continued with us."
There are some who go away from Christ's people, and renounce religion
and love to Christ, because of business. It will pay better in certain lines
not to be religious; and therefore, as the main thing with them is to get
money-- religiously, if they can, but irreligiously, if need be-- therefore,
by-and-by they are offended, and they sell Christ Jesus. I am pained to see
the numbers of people who go and live in the suburbs of London, and
who make that an opportunity for selling their religion, such as it is. It is
not long ago that I stood at a dying bed, and a part of what I heard there
was, "O sir, ten years ago, we used to be members of such a church; we
came to live out here, but there was no place of worship handy, so we have
not been anywhere." That person was dying without hope, after selling
Christ for love of a little country air. That was about all it was, and little
more was to be gained by it.
"Oh, but!" asks someone, "do saints sell Christ like that?" No, not they;
these are only the 'professors' who have mingled with the saints. These are
like the 'mixed multitude' that came out of Egypt with the children of Israel;
howbeit they are not all Israel that are of Israel.
The saints sell Christ? No,
they are too much like their Master to do that. You recollect how Satan
took their Master to the top of a high mountain, and showed him all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said, "All these things
will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Wicked thief! It
was not his to give; yet he tempted Christ in that way, but Jesus answered,
"Get you hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your
God, and him only shall you serve."
If any of Christ's followers are
tempted in the same fashion, let them give the same reply. All the substance
of the devil's house could not win the love of that man who has set his
affection on Jesus. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The
cruel Romanists have taken the martyrs into the lone dungeon of the
Inquisition, and tormented them there in such a way that it pains us even to
read or hear of what they suffered. But did they give up Christ? No, not
they; they never would.
At other times, they have taken the Christians into
a palace, and said, "We will clothe you in scarlet and fine linen; you shall
fare sumptuously every day; but you must give up Christ." Yet they would
not. All the substance of this world has been laid at the feet of holy men,
and they have rejected the price with scorn. I know men today, and rejoice
to know them, who have sacrificed honor and position among men, who
have borne abuse and scorn, and have been glad to bear it, and counted it
their privilege that they were not only permitted to have Christ as their
Savior, but also that they were allowed to suffer for his sake. O brethren
and sisters, may the Lord so clothe us with the whole armor of
righteousness that no temptation may ever be able to wound our love to
Jesus! Let us feel, "We can let all else go, but we can never let him go."
"If on my face for his dear name,
Shame and reproaches be,"
there let them be for his sake.
Give me but a vision of the Crucified, let me
see that thorn-crowned brow, let me but gaze into his dear languid eyes so
full of love for me, and I will then say, "My Master, through floods or
flames, if you shall lead, I'll follow where you go. When the many turn
aside, I will still cling to you, and witness that you have the living Word,
and that there is none upon earth that I desire beside you. I will give up the
treasures of Egypt, for I have respect unto the recompense of the reward. I
will let the ingots of gold go, every one of them, I will cast them into the
sea without regret; but if you will abide in the vessel, my soul shall be
content. Bind me to your altar, for I am but flesh and blood, and may start
aside in the trial-hour. Cast the links of your love about me; chain me to
yourself; ay, crucify me; nail me to your cross, and let me be dead to the
world, for then the world will leave off tempting a corpse. Let me be dead
with you, for then the world, that cast you out, may cast me out, too, and
have done with me; and it were well then to be counted as the offscouring
of all things for your dear sake, my Lord!" If a man should give all the
substance of his house to bribe the saints to sell their Lord, it would utterly
be scorned. By this test shall we prove you, O professors! By this trial
shall it be known whether you can stand firm in the evil day. God grant that
you may, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.