2056. Idols Found Wanting, But Jehovah Found Faithful

No. 2056-34:661. A Sermon Delivered On Thursday Evening, September 27, 1888, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, December 9, 1888.

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavily loaded; they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but they themselves are gone into captivity. Listen to me, oh house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who are borne by me from the belly, who are carried from the womb: And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs I will carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. {Isa 46:1-4}

For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2056, “Idols Found Wanting, but Jehovah Found Faithful” 2057}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 81,8, “God of the Aged, The” 77}

1. The confidence of Babylon is buried among her heaps of rubbish, for her gods have fallen from their thrones. “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops.” As for us, beloved, our trust is in the living God, who lives to bear and carry his chosen, even in Jehovah, the only true Lord. We begin our spiritual life by faith in him, for until faith comes we have no power to become the sons of God. Our spiritual life will have to be continued in the same way of trust in the Lord, “for the just shall live by faith.” We live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us. We rejoice that we shall never have to change our confidence, for our God will never be carried into captivity, nor torn from his throne. Our faith is built upon a rock that can never be moved. Nothing in the past has shaken the foundation of our faith; nothing in the present can move it; nothing in the future will undermine it. Whatever may occur in the ages to come, there will always be good reason for believing in Jehovah and his faithful word. The great truths which he has revealed will never be disproved; the great promises he has made will never be retracted; the great purposes he has devised will never be abandoned. As long as we live, we shall have a refuge, a hope, a confidence, that can never be removed.

   His sovereign mercy knows no end,
   His faithfulness shall still endure;
   And those who on his word depend
   Shall find his word for ever sure.

2. That part of our text which says, “Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs I will carry you,” may seem to be a promise made to old age. So, indeed, it is. Many a hoary saint has made a soft pillow of this precious promise, and has rested upon it with delight in the days of his decline. But yet the text, if it is properly read, is a promise to the people of God at any and every period between their birth and their death. While the Lord does say that he will carry us to hoar hairs, yet he begins by telling us that he has carried us from the womb, and that he will still carry us. All tenses meet in these verses: “Listen, oh house of Jacob, who are borne by me; who are carried from the womb. Even to your old age I am he; I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.” The Lord is good to us in all tenses, and in all ways. We shall not, only, consider in our discourse the mercy of God to those who are near the end of their pilgrimage, but that same mercy to his people throughout their wilderness journey, from the day when they first ate from the Paschal Lamb, and left Egypt, even to that hour when the Jordan was dried up, and they took possession of the land which flows with milk and honey. Our practical dealings with God make us know that he is our gracious Helper from the first to the last. When we begin with the Alpha of our life’s spelling, we find him good; and when we come to the Omega, and faintly pronounce the last letter of life, we know even better how gracious he is. Bel and Nebo disappoint their votaries, but Jehovah is our God for ever and ever, and he will be our guide even to death.

3. I. I shall begin my sermon by calling your attention, first, to the black background which is placed behind the brilliant promise which is herein given to the Lord’s people. Observe that FALSE CONFIDENCES PASS AWAY.

4. The Lord has made a full end of false gods and their worship. “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavily loaded: they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but they themselves are gone into captivity.” Bel and Nebo were two great gods of Babylon. You get the name of Bel in the name of King Belshazzar; and the name of Nebo in the name of Nebuchadnezzar. They were esteemed to be such great deities that their kings were named after them, and professed to be their servants. Bel and Nebo stood in Babylon supreme. The Babylonian empire which served these deities was so strong as to be invincible: it carried its cruel sword into all nations, and piled up the dead bodies of men in heaps: it was therefore dreaded in every part of the world; and not without good reason. What kingdom or empire could stand against it? If you had gone to Babylon, and seen its mighty walls, its lofty towers, its engines of war, its wonders of art, its multitudes of heroes, you would have thought that the worship of Bel would endure for ever, and that the image of Nebo would stand there to be adored by mortals while the world existed. But these idols — always a mere deceit — proved themselves powerless in the day of trial. Cyrus came, the Euphrates was dried up, the empire of Babylon ended, and the gods were discredited for all ages. In the ruin of Babylon the gods became a prey. The golden images themselves were too precious to be left standing in Babylon, and too little venerated to be treated with respect. They were taken off to Persia as a spoil, and became a burden to the weary beasts. Huge images of less costly material were dragged down with ropes, dashed in pieces, or buried beneath heaps of ruins. Ah me! what a melancholy fate for things which were called gods, and received the reverence of great nations! Even in these latter days, we have had an illustration of “Bel bows down, and Nebo stoops,” when Mr. Layard went to the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh, and dragged out those huge bulls, which stand today in the British Museum, objects of our curiosity, but certainly not of our worship. “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops.” The false gods that reigned supreme over so many myriads of men were made contemptible. The prophet cries, “They stoop, they bow down together, they could not deliver the burden, but they themselves have gone into captivity.” Not only concerning Bel and Nebo, but concerning many a set of heathen deities, a note of exultant derision may be taken up. “He shall utterly abolish the idols.” Just as potters’ vessels are broken, so are the gods of the heathen ground into dust and treated as nothing.

5. The same thing has happened to false systems of teaching. They have risen, and they have dominated over the minds of men: but, like Bel and Nebo, they have tottered and fallen. They seemed to be established beyond all hope of refutation and overthrow, and yet they have passed away! If you are at all readers of the history of religious thought, you will know that systems of philosophy, and philosophical religions, have come up, and have been generally accepted as indisputable, and have done serious injury to true religion for a time; and yet they have vanished like the mirage of the desert. When at their best, they have withered: the grass has flowered, the flower has come to its full bloom, and has fallen beneath the scythe. The gourds have come up in a night, and have perished in a night. Even those of us who are not aged, still remember two or three different forms of philosophical divinity which preceded this new dreaming, which is just now so loudly extolled. Many modern thoughts have come up, and have gone down again. Bel has bowed down, and Nebo has stooped. The boastful “thinkers” carried up their elaborate systems into their places with great labour, and then they carried them away again, and buried them with equal labour. What philosophers prove one year, philosophers disprove another year. We, old-fashioned Christians, have remained unchanged in our fidelity to revealed truth, and we have seen Bel go up and Bel go down, and Nebo go up and Nebo go down. Yes, we have seen rubbish venerated as a precious thing, and immediately the precious thing carted away as so much rubbish. Like a child’s merry-go-around at a fair, heresy is a revolution of the old things over and over again; yet people think it is new. The present idols of the mind are just as worthless as those of former times. The god of modern thought is a monkey. If those who believed in evolution said their prayers properly, they would begin them with, “Our Father, who is up a tree.” Did they not all come from a monkey, according to their own statement? They came by “development,” from the basest of material, and they do not deny their origin. If you are not well acquainted with this new gospel, I would not advise you to be acquainted with it; it is a sheer, clear waste of time to know anything about it at all. The moderns are able to believe anything except their Bibles. They credulously receive any statement, as long as it is not in the Scriptures; but if it is founded on Scripture, they are, of course, prepared to doubt and quibble and immediately criticize. The credulity of the new theologians is as amazing as their scepticism. But we shall see the monkey god go down yet, and evolution will be ridiculed as it deserves to be. The philosophy of the present, whose aim is to get rid of God, has nothing to support it in fact or in nature. It will fly as chaff before the wind, and in fifty years no one will admit that he ever thought of believing it. The new religion will be regarded as a craze, an emanation from Bedlam Asylum; and every man will be ashamed to think that he stopped to hear or read anything about it. It is so idiotic from beginning to end, that it will become a standing jest for ages to come, a proverb and a byword to mankind. Bel bows down, Nebo stoops already; and, as the Lord Jehovah lives, this entire thing, which has been so cunningly and carefully devised to dethrone him, and cast down his gospel, shall be had in derision. These new gods, newly come up, shall not deliver themselves, or their worshippers, any more than did the idols of Babylon.

6. But now, beloved, it will be just the same with us if we trust in false confidences of any kind; such, for example, as our experiences, or our attainments, or our services, or our orthodox belief, or anything else.

7. If we set up any confidences apart from our God, we shall soon see the end of them. Imagine that any Christian here should be so foolish as to rely on his own works. God forbid we should! But what an airy nothing our confidence would be! Before long that Bel would bow down, and that Nebo would stoop, for the hope would be too flimsy to bear the least weight. Or, if we should begin to rely on our own enjoyments — if moods and feelings should become our confidence — all would come down, and our boast would become our burden, our glory our shame. “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops”: sooner or later this will be the end of all false trusts. Placing confidence in our inward feelings is like building on a bog, or leaning on a bulrush, or feeding on wind. The idols of our feeling are like the mud gods of India — they are utterly worthless, and they turn to mere clay almost as soon as they are formed. If in our daily life we look to an arm of flesh, or practise self-reliance instead of God-reliance, or if we trust in friends instead of leaning on the one great Invisible, we shall yet learn with tears the terror of that sentence, “Cursed is he who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm.” “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops”: anything that you make your confidence, instead of God, will fail to bear your burden, and will itself become a burden to you. Instead of its carrying you, you will have to carry it. Instead of its taking your load, it will increase your load, and become at last an intolerable curse. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Beloved in the Lord, do not think that this is an unnecessary warning even for you, for you may as easily set up an idol in your heart as other men may set up a false system of philosophy, or an idol-god. Guard against setting up a rival trust to rob the Lord of even a small part of your confidence. “My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from him.” No one except Jesus is the basis of salvation: no one except the Eternal God is the disposer of providence. Trust entirely in him who loves to be trusted. Let us lean on our God with all our weight, and lean nowhere else; for if we put our confidence elsewhere, our idolatry will come home to us, and we shall hear the voice of disappointment, wailing bitterly, “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops: your carriages were heavily loaded; they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together.”

8. II. Let that stand as the black cloud on which God will paint his bright rainbow, while I notice in the second place, that OUR GOD ENDURES ALWAYS THE SAME.

9. “Even to your old age I am he.” He is always the same in himself, and always the same to his people. If you are indeed a believer in the Lord, and resting in Christ Jesus, he says to you at this time with regard to all the future unknown, and, perhaps greatly dreaded, “Do not be afraid, for I am the Lord your God; even to your old age I am he.”

10. Dear friends, we normally expect trials between here and heaven; and the ordinary wear and tear of life, even if life should not be clouded by an extreme trial, will gradually wear us out. We shall come, eventually, if life is spared, to that bottom of the hill where the eye grows dim, and the ear is heavy, and the arms are trembling, and the strong men bow themselves. Well, what then? What does our God say concerning the days of decline and decay? He says to us, “I AM HE.” He will not grow weak. His eye will not be dim. His ear will not be heavy. His arm will not be shortened that he cannot help us, nor his hand palsied that he cannot deliver us. Change is written across the countenance of every mortal, but there are no furrows on the brow of the Eternal.

11. If life should flow ever so smoothly, yet there are the rapids of old age, and the broken waters of infirmity, and the cataract of disease; and these we are apt to dread; but why? Is not the Lord our trust? Is it not certain that the Lord does not change? Make this your strong confidence. As for you, you youths, you are strong, but do not boast about your strength; the Lord Jehovah is our strength and our song. As for you in the midst of life — do not tremble because of your difficulties; “is anything too hard for the Lord?” As for you who are sinking into the decline of life, and know that very soon your tabernacle will be taken down, do not be afraid, for the Lord has not altered. Has he not said, “I am the Lord, I do not change?” Let this be your delight.

12. In the course of years, not only do we change, but our circumstances change. Many look forward to trying circumstances in the declining days of life. “When I cannot earn my livelihood; when I cannot go out to the farm, or stand at the counter, or work on the bench, what will become of me then?” Listen, my brother, if you are where you ought to be, your confidence is in God now, and you will have the same God then, and he will still be your guardian and provider. He will be under no decay from age, nor decline from weakness. His bank will not break, nor his treasury fail. His granary will not be exhausted, and his bounty will not be worn out. Trust in him for what is written between the folded leaves of destiny, as well as for the page which lies open before you. If the infirmities of the body scare you, trust him; and if the changing circumstances of your life alarm you, trust him; for he must be the same though heaven and earth should be dissolved. He says, “Even to your old age I am he.”

13. “Ah!” you say, “but what I most mourn is the death of friends.” Yes; that calamity is a daily sorrow to men who are getting on in years. A newly-made grave is with us every day. How many of those whom I dearly loved are now with God? When we near sixty, or pass onward towards seventy, we lament the multitude of dear friends who have fallen like the innumerable leaves of autumn. Some of us have now more friends in heaven than we have on earth. The best are going, still going: the messengers with heavy tidings follow close upon each other’s heels. One of these days we think that some friend will cry, “I only am left.” Ah, yes! But the Lord says, “I AM HE,” as much as to say, “I am left to you, and will not fail you.” Jehovah does not die, but still remains the same. If you have only viewed your friends as loans from him, but himself as your ultimate confidence, then you have acted wisely. When your friends are gone, you have not lost the source of all your strength, and help, and comfort; therefore, do not be afraid, for the Lord says, “Even to your old age I am he.”

14. Some trouble themselves more than there is need concerning prophetic crises which are threatened. One would think from their perpetual alarms that the prophets wrote to afflict us rather than to comfort us. “Oh, what shall I do,” one says, “if there should be wars and rumours of wars, and earthquakes in various places, and so forth?” What would you wish to do except trust in the Lord even as you do now? I know some good people who are much distressed with political prospects, with the evident signs of social disorder, with the increasing tendency to break up everything, and with the stealthy progress of the superstition of Rome. Well, you may sit and look out of your windows until you see nothing but clouds and darkness, for fantasy and fear together can form monsters, and portents, and alarms from clouds. We know so little of the future that to worry about it will be the height of foolishness. Our view of the near future may be incorrect; why fret over what will never happen? Certainly, we only see part of the Lord’s ways; and if we could see the whole we should most probably rejoice where now we grieve. Why, then, are we cast down? The Lord himself says to us, “Even to your old age I am he.” In our days of palsy Jehovah does not tremble. The Lord took care of the world before we were here to help him, and he will do it just as well when we are gone. We can leave politics, religion, business, morals, and everything else with him. What we have to do is to obey him, and trust him, and rejoice in him, and go on our way rejoicing. He knows the end from the beginning, and will not allow the flood of human iniquity to swell beyond the control of his supreme will. His purpose shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure. Not even to the extent of the small dust of the balance shall the event vary from the decree, or the decree vary from the rule of unmingled love.

15. “Still,” one says, “there are such evil signs in the Church itself as must cause serious apprehension to godly men.” Yes, I know it. I have had to know it to my personal sorrow. The Church grows old: grey hairs are upon her here and there, and she does not know it. But never despair for the Church of God, for of her it is true, “Even to hoar hairs I will carry you; to your old age I am he.” The Head of the Church never alters. His choice of his Church is not changed. His purpose for his Church is not shaken. The Holy Spirit, as indwelling in the Church, has not returned to his rest: once given, he still remains in his Church, and works mightily. Beloved, do not fear. We shall see better days and brighter times yet, if we only have faith in God and persistence in prayer. Let us not be afraid, though clouds should come, for it is written, “Behold he comes with clouds.” God is the same; there is the corner-stone of our comfort.

16. If you are depending on anything or any person besides your God, woe to you! “Oh,” you say, “I used to hear a dear old minister in my early days; but I find no one like him now. He has gone home; and I feel as if I could cry, ‘My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and its horsemen!’ ” I could make some of you weep if I were to go through the list of those holy men who fed you with food convenient for you in your younger days. Their very names are like music to our ear, and honey in our mouth. Remember Joseph Irons, and Harrington Evans, and Watts Wilkinson, and Rowland Hill, and men of that calibre. Where are the teachers and fathers now? But then the point is, the God of these saints is not dead. The Great Shepherd of Israel still lives, and he still leads us, and still feeds us, and still guards us; and he will guard his flock, and guide his flock, until he makes us to lie down in the green pastures on the hill-tops of glory. Oh, let us bless and praise his name tonight, that he gives us this rich comfort, “I am he.” Jehovah, eternally the same, is the rock of our salvation.

17. III. And now, thirdly, I want to call your attention, in the words before us, to the fact that, while false confidences pass away, GOD WILL FOR EVER BE THE SAME. His former mercies guarantee to us future mercies. Read the passage before us: he says, “I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”

18. First, you see, he says, “I have made.” The Lord, who is your helper, is he who created you: you certainly could not have created yourself. It is good to remember the mercy of God towards us in our formation, and in the first days of our birth and infancy. David was not ashamed to say to his God, “You are he who took me out of the womb.” The Lord gave us birth, or we would never have seen the light. When we were born, we could not help ourselves in the least degree. Poor helpless, shiftless creatures, all we could do was to cry! We shall never again be so weak as we were at our birth. Great decrepitude may fall upon us, but we shall never be so little, so feeble, so weak, so dependent, as we were when we could not speak, and make known our wants, except by a cry. We were entirely dependent on others for everything, we were quite helpless, and yet we survived. We did not starve then; yet for years we never earned a crust. We did not lack for clothing then; and yet we could not have fingered a needle if we had been offered a thousand pounds. We were taken care of then, and surely God will take care of us for all the rest of our lives. We have been nursed through our first childhood, and we shall be nurtured through our second childhood, should it come upon us. We know very little indeed about those first three or four years, yet the Lord fed us, and led us, and here we are in proof of it. Therefore, when he says, “I have made,” he takes us back to those early days, and makes us feel that he who made us to grow, and gave us one by one the powers of manhood, will not leave us to moulder away in old age, nor to break up like a wreck upon the rocks of disease.

19. But think, beloved! God made us in another sense. He made us anew. Blessed is the man that has been twice-born, and so twice made! The Lord God has made us new creatures in Christ Jesus. He has made us to be his children: we have been “begotten again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” If he has done all this, he does not intend to leave us until he has finished the work of grace with power. A statue thinks nothing of the man who made it; but the man who has fashioned a thing of beauty of that kind takes a great interest in his handiwork. You who are made do not take such interest in your Maker as your Maker takes in you. “I have made” he says, “I have made.” What he has done to you, in making you anew, should breathe into your heart the conviction that he will do even more for you. That is, if there is a true heart in the world, God made it, and thinks of it: if there is a true church in the world, God made it, and keeps it. Every church that is a church in the scriptural sense, God has gathered to himself; and he says of it, “I have made.” He called the people out, and knit them together, and built them up as a house for himself to dwell in. If he has made either heart or church, he will keep it: he will not forsake the work of his own hands. He has used both thought and skill, and has exercised both power and care for it, and he will not desert what has cost him dearly. God’s past mercy in the making of us encourages us to believe that he will exert all his might to bear us on even to the end.

20. And then, he also tells us, in the next place, that he has carried us; and if we have been carried by him, he will carry us the rest of the way. There is a quaint saying of Bishop Hall, that God has a very large family, and not one of his children can walk by themselves. In a certain sense, that is true. You know what an armful you have when you have two or three children who cannot walk by themselves. What a great care has our gracious God, since none of his children can walk by themselves without his power, his love, his grace! The Lord has to carry every one of us every moment of our lives. The beginning of a Christian’s life is very like the latter part of it! As for the natural man, we begin with being carried, and if we live long enough, we have to end with being carried. So, with the spiritual man, we begin with a simple trust; and as we grow in grace, we feel more and more our own weakness, and come a second time to a trust as simple as at first. But whether we have one childhood or fifty childhoods, here is a Father who is ready to carry us, from the first even to the last. “I have made, and I will bear; even to hoar hairs I will carry you.” Of this I am convinced, God will not begin to make and carry us, and then leave the work unfinished. It shall never be said of him that he began to build, and was not able to finish. God will not redeem us with the blood of his Son, and then lose us; he will not permit Calvary to become a mistake, and the Cross to be frustrated in its divine purpose. God will not prepare us for heaven, and prepare heaven for us, and not bring us there. He will not store up the blessings of the covenant, and then refuse to bestow them, or cast off those for whom they were provided. He who has begun a good work in us will carry it on, and perfect it to the day of Christ. The past guarantees the future, since we have to deal with a God who can never change.

21. But I must not linger on any point, as our time flies; I must notice next that, practically, God’s mercies through life are always the same. If you will look at the text carefully, you will not fail to see that it is so. God may be said to begin in regeneration the work which we experience from his hands — in it he makes us. But all through life he is still making us. We are perpetually revolving on the wheel; and he is continually fashioning us. He has not yet perfected in us the image of Christ. He has only to keep on doing what he has been doing, and we shall be perfected. His first work in us was resurrection work; and is he not daily quickening us, constantly raising us from the dead? It was new creation, and he is daily creating us anew in Christ Jesus to good works. No new form of mercy is ever needed; all we need is the old mercy repeated, and adapted to our case. My dear friend, you will never need anything from God but what you have already had. The grace that saves the young man will save the old man. The patience that bore with your follies in youth will bear with your weakness in age. Depend on it, you will require nothing but what you have not already received in the past. In this matter, the thing that has been, is the thing that shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun.

22. As for this “carrying” of which the text speaks, assuredly that is no new thing. As I have already said, the Lord carried us in our infancy. Our first spiritual blessing came from our being carried: we were sheep going astray, and the Shepherd came after us; and, when he found us, he carried us on his shoulders rejoicing, and brought us home. After that we were lambs in the fold, and he gathered the lambs in his bosom, and carried us. I have encountered many a rough place in my life’s pilgrimage, and I have wondered how I should ever get over it; but I have been carried over the rocky way so happily that the passage has made one of the most charming memories of my heart. I begin to like rough places, even as Rutherford fell in love with the cross he had to carry. When the road is smooth, I have to walk; but when it is very rough, I am carried. Therefore, I feel somewhat like the little boy I saw the other night. His father had been carrying him uphill; but when he reached a piece of level road, the boy was a great lump to carry, and his father set him down, and let him walk. Then the little gentleman began to pull at his father’s coat, and I heard him say, “Carry me, father! Carry me, father. Carry me again!” Just so. Any sensible child of God will still say, “Carry me, Father! Still carry me, I pray!” The Father’s answer is, “I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry you.” Therefore call upon him, and ask that when the road is rough, or miry, he will carry you; and he will carry you.

23. The promise closes with the words, “And I will deliver you.” That is no new mercy. Have you not been delivered many times already? “The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine” — so David trusted, and so do we. Oh, the deliverances of God’s people! Time out of mind he has appeared for us. “Oh my soul, you have trodden down strength!” We have overcome through the power of the Lord, and have escaped even from between the jaws of death. Still he will save us in life, and when we come to die he will deliver us gloriously. It will only be the same mercy again — a repetition of the covenant guardianship in another form. See how Paul puts it, “Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver: in whom we trust that he will still deliver us.” See! it is a note from the same trumpet, a voice from the same mouth. Therefore, beloved, as you will only need the same mercy repeated, be confident, be joyful. Do not dread tomorrow. Do not fear next year. Do not pine because of the coming of old age. Do not dread that painful operation which seems necessary. Do not dread even death itself. He who made you will make you to endure; he who has carried you, will carry you; he who has delivered you will deliver you to the end. If it were possible, when we get to heaven, one of the things that we should do would be to sit down and laugh at our fears. Surely we would laugh and cry too. Shall we not say, “How could I ever doubt my God? How could I ever have not trusted my faithful Lord? Here I am, after all, sitting among the thrones of the glorified! Why did I doubt my God?” That poor old woman in the almshouse, that poor man who was bedridden, how different they will be, and how they will wonder that they ever were so timorous! Hear the sick one say, “I feared I would perish in my trouble; but here I am, as bright and glorious, as alert and nimble, as any of them.” Hear the poor man from his cottage shouting, “Hallelujah! I will sing aloud to the Lord all the more because of the weakness and the poverty through which I have triumphantly passed.” Blessed be God, we only need a continuance of the same mercy as we have already experienced, and that the Lord promises to us.

24. And now, to close, notice in the text two things which are always here — the same God and the same mercy. There is no one else here except the Lord alone with his people. Will you note that? There is no one else here except you and your God; and you are a nobody, but a poor thing who has to be carried. “Even to your old age I am he. Even to hoar hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.” We have great admiration for angels, but we are very pleased to see that they are not mentioned in this promise. We have many kind-hearted friends, but we are glad to see that they are not brought in here. God’s great I, and that alone, fills up the whole space. And oh, what a blessing happens when we trust in the Lord alone! Look, beloved, when you were made, it was God who made you; when you were newly-made it was God who newly-made you. It was his grace, his power, his love, his wisdom, his life. No one else was there. Up to this time, he alone has carried you, and no other hand has sustained you. He has always been sufficient for the task, to bear you, and your own weight, and your divinely-appointed burden. The Lord has borne you up, and he has borne you through, and he has borne you on. He has borne you to this day. He alone has done it. Do you not think that he can do it in the future? His own right hand and his holy arm have gotten him the victory so far; can you not trust him for tomorrow? He alone has delivered you, and he alone can repeat the deliverance. You have been, perhaps, as I have often been, in a difficult place, where no one could tell you how to get out, but yet the Lord found a way of escape for you. You were shut up, and you could not come out, and then God cleared the way in a moment. What a great Maker of ways is the Lord God! His way has been in the sea, and his path through the deep waters; and there you have rejoiced in him. He alone dried up the sea and made a path for his chosen; but ten thousand hands could not have done it better. God alone is greater than a whole universe of creatures.

25. Come, brethren, let us hear the voice of our experience. Oh you who have known the Lord and his grace, trust your God, the lonely champion of the righteous, the sole Saviour of the sinner, the all-sufficient deliverer of those who cast themselves upon him.

26. You young people, oh, how earnestly I wish that you would begin with my Lord Jesus Christ — begin with the great and blessed Father, and trust him, for he will take care of you to hoar hairs! What may happen between your youth and your old age I cannot tell. You may never see old age. I cannot look into the palm of your hand and read your destiny; but come and trust my Lord, and all will be right, for your destiny will be in his hand for time and for eternity. You in midlife, with your children around you, and hard times to struggle with; your God whom you trusted in your youth will not leave you now. All between your birth and your death the God of our Lord Jesus guarantees; and he promises to remember your seed after you. Trust him. Play the man. Do not doubt your heavenly Father. Doubt yourself as much as you like, but do not doubt the Lord who cannot lie. Did you come here with a heavy heart tonight? Leave the heaviness behind. Many a time a friend has come in on a Thursday evening, I mean a friend who does not generally worship here on the Sabbath; he has come in from the Stock Exchange, or from the shop, having been a heavy loser in the day, and he has found such rest of mind at this service that he has been no more sad, but has gone home nerved for the conflict. How often friends have sent in help for different works because of the encouragement they have had while listening to the preaching of the Word here! By faith they have been delivered, and they have offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord God. Oh my brothers, do trust my God! Do not let the world say, “God’s own people cannot trust him!” Surely they will think that he is not to be depended on if you begin to doubt him. Trust him as he deserves to be trusted, and rest in him with all your souls.

   Trust him, ye saints, in all your ways,
   Pour out your hearts before his face;
   When helpers fail, and foes invade,
   God is our all-sufficient aid.

27. And you, my aged brothers and sisters, to whom I speak with much reverence, show to us who are younger where your joy and your peace are, so that we also may rest in God. He has brought you through seventy years of trial! Do you think that he will now forsake you? You are eighty, you say, or even getting on to ninety. Well, you have at least eighty reasons why you should not doubt your God and Saviour. If you will read your own diaries you will see that there are eighty million reasons why you should trust him, and yet you cannot find one solitary reason why you should not do so. Therefore, “rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him,” and may he bless you for evermore, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Isa 46]
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Privileges, Unchanging Love — The Firm Foundation” 732}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “God the Father, Attributes of God — Faithful And Unchanging” 193}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Privileges, Support in Affliction — ‘As Thy Day, Thy Strength Shall Be’ ” 745}

Letter From Mr. Spurgeon

Dear Friends, — Although we have had two days of rainy and tempestuous weather, I have improved so greatly that I feel like the man who is described in Scripture as “walking, and leaping, and praising God.” Since I cannot quite manage the two former exercises, I desire to be doubly abundant in the third. Watts says,

   When we are raised from deep distress,
      Our God demands a song;
   We take the pattern of our praise
      From Hezekiah’s tongue.

That man of God, on his recovery, said, “The living, the living, he shall praise you as I do today.” In that spirit I have prepared the sermon to which this note is appended; and I have borne in it my willing testimony to the faithfulness of God, and to the certainty that he honours the faith of his people.

From the Tabernacle I have joyful news of a meeting at which four or five hundred people came together to confess that they had found mercy during the recent services. What a cordial to one’s heart! “Therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.” Blessed be his name!

With my heart’s best wishes for all my hearers and readers,

                          Their servant for Christ’s sake,
                          C. H. Spurgeon
Mentone, December 1, 1888

The Christian, Privileges, Unchanging Love
732 — The Firm Foundation <11s.>
1 How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
   Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
   What more can he say than to you he hath said,
   You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
2 In every condition — in sickness, in health,
   In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
   At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
   “As thy days may demand shall thy strength ever be.”
3 “Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismay’d!
   I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
   I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
   Upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand.”
4 “When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
   The rivers of grief shall not thee overflow:
   For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
   And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.”
5 “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
   My grace all-sufficient shall be thy supply;
   The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
   Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”
6 “E’en down to old age, all my people shall prove
   My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
   And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
   Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.”
7 “The soul that on Jesus hath lean’d for repose,
   I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
   That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake,
   I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!”
                        George Keith, 1787.

God the Father, Attributes of God
193 — Faithful And Unchanging
1 How oft have sin and Satan strove
   To rend my soul from thee, my God!
   But everlasting is thy love,
   And Jesus seals it with his blood.
2 The oath and promise of the Lord
   Join to confirm the wond’rous grace;
   Eternal power performs the word,
   And fills all heaven with endless praise.
3 Amidst temptations sharp and long,
   My soul to this dear refuge flies;
   Hope is my anchor, firm and strong,
   While tempests blow and billows rise.
4 The gospel bears my spirit up;
   A faithful and unchanging God
   Lays the foundation for my hope
   In oaths, and promises, and blood.
                        Isaac Watts, 1790.

The Christian, Privileges, Support in Affliction
745 — “As Thy Day, Thy Strength Shall Be”
1 Afflicted soul, to Jesus dear,
   Thy Saviour’s gracious promise hear;
   His faithful word declares to thee
   That, “as thy day, thy strength shall be.”
2 Let not thy heart despond, and say,
   How shall I stand the trying day?
   He has engaged, by firm decree,
   That, “as thy day, thy strength shall be.”
3 Should persecution rage and flame,
   Still trust in thy Redeemer’s name;
   In fiery trials thou shalt see
   That, “as thy day, thy strength shall be.”
4 When call’d to bear the weighty cross,
   Or sore affliction, pain, or loss,
   Or deep distress, or poverty,
   Still, “as thy day, thy strength shall be.”
5 When ghastly death appears in view,
   Christ’s presence shall thy fears subdue;
   He comes to set thy spirit free;
   And “as thy day, thy strength shall be.”
                        James Fawcett, 1782.