225. Satan’s Banquet

A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, November 28, 1858, By Pastor C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

The governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and says to him, every man at the beginning sets out good wine; and when men have well drunken, then that which is worse; but you have kept the good wine until now. (John 2:9,10)

1. The governor of the feast said more than he intended to say, or rather, there is more truth in what he said than he himself imagined. This is the established rule all the world over: “the good wine first, and when men have well drunken, then that which is worse.” It is the rule with men; and have not hundreds of disappointed hearts bewailed it? Friendship first—the oily tongue, the words softer than butter, and afterwards the drawn sword. Ahithophel first presents the lordly dish of love and kindness to David, then afterwards that which is worse, for he abandons his master, and becomes the counsellor for his rebel son. Judas presents first of all the dish of fair speech and of kindness; the Saviour partook of it, he walked to the house of God in company with him, and took sweet counsel with him; but afterwards there came the dregs of the wine—“He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.” Judas the thief betrayed his Master, bringing forth afterwards “that which is worse.” You have found it so with many whom you thought were your friends. In the heyday of prosperity, when the sun was shining, and the birds were singing, and all was fair and happy and cheerful with you, they brought forth the good wine; but there came a chilling frost, and nipped your flowers, and the leaves fell from the trees, and your streams were frosted with the ice, and then they brought forth that which is worse,—they forsook you and fled; they left you in your hour of peril, and taught you that great truth, that “Cursed is he who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm.” And this is the way all the world over—I say it once again—not merely with men, but with nature too.

Alas, for us, if you were all,
And nothing beyond oh earth;

for does not this world treat us just the same? In our youth it sets out the best wine; then we have the sparkling eye, and the ear attuned to music; then the blood flows swiftly through the veins and the pulse beats joyously; but wait a little and there shall come forth afterwards that which is worse, for the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves; the grinders shall fail because they are few, they that look out of the windows shall be darkened, all the daughters of music shall be brought low; then shall the strong man totter, the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail, the mourners shall go about the streets. First there is the flowing cup of youth, and afterwards the stagnant waters of old age, unless God shall cast into those dregs a fresh flood of his lovingkindness and tender mercy, so that once again, as it always happens to the Christian, the cup shall run over, and again sparkle with delight. Oh Christian, do not trust in men, do not rely upon the things of this present time, for this is always the rule with men and with the world—“the good wine first, and when we have well drunken, then that which is worse.”

2. This morning, however, I am about to introduce you to two houses of feasting. First, I shall bid you look within the doors of the devil’s house, and you will find he is true to this rule; he sets out first the good wine, and when men have well drunken, and their brains are muddled with it, then he sets out that which is worse. Having bidden you to look there and tremble, and take heed to the warning, I shall then attempt to enter with you into the banqueting house of our beloved Lord and Master Jesus Christ, and of him we shall be able to say, as the governor of the feast said to the bridegroom, “You have kept the good wine until now;” your feasts grow better, and not worse: your wines grow richer, your food is far daintier, and your gifts more precious than before. “You have kept the good wine until now.”

3. I. First, we are to take a warning glance at the HOUSE OF FEASTING WHICH SATAN HAS BUILT: for as wisdom has built her house, and hewn out her seven pillars, so has folly its temple and its tavern of feasting, into which it continually tempts the unwary. Look within the banqueting house, and I will show you four tables and the guests sitting there, and as you look at those tables you shall see the courses brought in. You shall see the wine cups brought, and you shall see them vanish one after another, and you shall note that the rule holds good at all four tables—first the good wine, and afterwards that which is worse—yes, I shall go further—afterwards, that which is worst of all.

4. 1. At the first table to which I shall invite your attention, though I beseech you never to sit down and drink there, sits the PROFLIGATE. The table of the profligate is a carefree table; it is covered over with a gaudy crimson, and all the vessels upon it look exceedingly bright and glistening. Many are sitting there; but they do not know that they are the guests of hell, and that the end of all the feast shall be in the depths of perdition. Do you now see the great governor of the feast, as he comes in? He has a bland smile upon his face; his clothes are not black, but he is girded with a robe of many colours; he has a honeyed word on his lip, and a tempting witchery in the sparkle of his eye. He brings in the cup, and says, “Hey, young man, drink here, it sparkles in the cup, it moves itself aright. Do you see it? It is the wine cup of pleasure.” This is the first cup at the banqueting house of Satan. The young man takes it, and sips the liquor. At first it is a cautious sip; it is only a little he will take, and then he will restrain himself. He does not intend to indulge much in lust, he does not mean to plunge headlong into perdition. There is a flower there on the edge of that cliff: he will reach forward a little and pluck it, but it is not his intention to dash himself from that overhanging crag and destroy himself. Not he! He thinks it is easy to put away the cup when he has tried its flavour! He has no design to abandon himself to its intoxication. He takes a shallow draught. But oh how sweet it is! How it makes his blood tingle within him. What a fool I was, not to have tasted this before! he thinks. Was joy ever like this? Could it be thought that bodies could be capable of such ecstasy as this? He drinks again; this time he takes a deeper draught, and the wine is hot in his veins. Oh! how blest he is! What would he not say now in the praise of Bacchus, or Venus, or whatever shape Beelzebub chooses to assume? He becomes a very orator in praise of sin. It is fair, it is pleasant, the deep damnation of lust appears as joyous as the transports of heaven. He drinks, he drinks, he drinks again, until his brain begins to reel with the intoxication of his sinful delight. This is the first course. Drink, oh you drunkards of Ephraim, and bind the crown of pride about your head, and call us fools because we put your cup from us; drink with the prostitute and sup with the lustful; you may think yourselves wise for so doing, but we know that after these things there comes something worse, for your vine is the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah, your grapes are grapes of gall, the clusters are bitter; your wine is the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps.

5. Now with a leer upon his brow, the subtle governor of the feast rises from his seat. His victim has had enough of the best wine. He takes away that cup, and he brings in another, not quite so sparkling. Look into the liquor; it is not beaded over with the sparkling bubbles of rapture; it is all flat, and dull, and insipid; it is called the cup of satiety. The man has had enough of pleasure, and like a dog he vomits, though like a dog he will return to his vomit yet again. Who has woe? Who has redness of eyes? Those who tarry long at the wine. I am now speaking figuratively of wine, as well as literally. The wine of lust brings the same redness of the eyes; the profligate soon discovers that all the rounds of pleasure end in satiety. “What!” he says, “What more can I do? There! I have committed every wickedness that can be imagined, and I have drained every cup of pleasure. Give me something fresh! I have tried the theatres all around: there! I do not care so much as one single farthing for them all. I have gone to every kind of pleasure that I can conceive. It is all over. Gaiety itself grows flat and dull. What am I to do?” And this is the devil’s second course—the course of satiety—a fitful drowsiness, the result of the previous excess. There are thousands who are drinking of the tasteless cup of satiety every day, and some novel invention by which they may kill time, some new discovery by which they may give a fresh vent to their iniquity would be a wonderful thing to them; and if some man should rise up who could find out for them some new fashion of wickedness, some deeper depths in the deeps of the lowest hell of lasciviousness, they would bless his name, for having given them something fresh to excite them. That is the devil’s second course. And do you see them partaking of it? There are some of you who are having a deep draught of it this morning. You are the jaded horses of the fiend of lust, the disappointed followers of the will-oh’-the-wisp of pleasure. God knows, if you were to speak your heart out you would be obliged to say, “There! I have tried pleasure, and I do not find it to be pleasure; I have done the rounds, and I am just like the blind horse at the mill, I have to go around again. I am spellbound to the sin, but I cannot take delight in it now as I once did, for all the glory of it is as a fading flower, and as the early fruit before the summer.”

6. For a while the feaster remains in the putrid sea of his infatuation, but another scene is opening. The governor of the feast commands another liquor to be broached. This time the fiend bears a black goblet, and he presents it with eyes full of hellfire, flashing with fierce damnation. “Drink from that, sir,” he says, and the man sips it and springs back and shrieks, “Oh God! that I must ever come to this!” You must drink, sir! He who quaffs the first cup, must drink the second, and the third. Drink, though it is like fire going down your throat! Drink it, though it is as the lava of Etna in your bowels! Drink! you must drink! He who sins must suffer; he who is a profligate in his youth must have rottenness in his bones, and disease within his loins. He who rebels against the laws of God, must reap the harvest in his own body here. Oh! there are some dreadful things that I might tell you about this third course. Satan’s house has a front room full of everything that is enticing to the eye and bewitching to the sensual taste; but there is a back room, and no one knows, no one has seen all of its horrors. There is a secret room, where he shovels out the creatures whom he has himself destroyed—a room, beneath whose floor is the blazing of hell, and above whose boards the heat of that horrible pit is felt. It may be a physician’s place rather than mine, to tell about the horrors that some have to suffer as the result of their iniquity. I leave that; but let me tell the profligate spendthrift, that the poverty which he will endure is the result of his sin of extravagant spending; let him know, also, that the remorse of conscience that will overtake him is not an accidental thing that drops by chance from heaven,—it is the result of his own iniquity; for, depend upon it, men and brethren, sin carries an infant misery in its womb, and sooner or later it must deliver its terrible child. If we sow the seed we must reap the harvest. Thus the law of hell’s house stands—“first, the good wine, then, afterwards, that which is worse.”

7. The last course remains to be presented. And now, you strong men who mock at the warning, which I would desire to deliver to you with a brother’s voice and with an affectionate heart, though with rough language—come here, and drink from this last cup. The sinner has at the end brought himself to the grave. His hopes and joys were like gold put into a bag full of holes, and they have all vanished—vanished for ever; and now he has come to the last; his sins haunt him, his transgressions perplex him; he is taken like a bull in a net, and how shall he escape. He dies, and descends from disease to damnation. Shall mortal language attempt to describe the horrors of that last tremendous cup of which the profligate must drink, and drink for ever? Look at it: you cannot see its depths, but cast an eye upon its seething surface, I hear the noise of rushing to and fro, and a sound as of gnashing of teeth and the wailing of despairing souls. I look into that cup, and I hear a voice coming up from its depths—“These shall go away into everlasting punishment;” for “Tophet is prepared of old, its pile is wood and much smoke, the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, shall kindle it.” And what do you say to this last course of Satan? “Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire? Who among us shall abide with everlasting burnings?” Profligate! I beseech you, in the name of God, flee from this table! Oh, do not be so careless with your cups; do not be so sleepy, secure in the peace which you now enjoy! Man! death is at the door, and at his heels is swift destruction. As for you, who as yet have been restrained by a careful father and the watchfulness of an anxious mother, I beseech you shun the house of sin and folly. Let the wise man’s words be written on your heart, and be mindful of them in the hour of temptation—“Remove your way far from her, and do not come near the door of her house: for the lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.”

8. 2. Do you see that other table over there in the middle of the palace? Ah! good easy souls! Many of you had thought that you never went to the feast of hell at all; but there is a table for you too; it is covered over with a fair white cloth, and all the vessels upon the table are most clean and comely. The wine does not look like the wine of Gomorrah, it moves aright, like the wine from the grapes of Eshcol; it seems to have no intoxication in it; it is like the ancient wine which they pressed from the grape into the cup, having in it no deadly poison. Do you see the men who sit at this table? How contented they are! Ask the white fiends who wait on them, and they will tell you, “This is the table of the self-righteous: the Pharisee sits there. You may know him; he has his phylactery between his eyes; the hem of his garment is made exceedingly broad; he is one of the best of the best professors.” “Ah!” says Satan, as he draws the curtain and shuts off the table from where the profligates are carousing, “be quiet; do not make too much noise, lest these sanctimonious hypocrites should guess what company they are in. Those self-righteous people are my guests quite as much as you, and I have them just as securely.” So Satan, like an angel of light, brings out a gilded goblet, looking like the chalice of the table of communion. And what wine is that? It seems to be the very wine of the sacred Eucharist; it is called the wine of self-satisfaction, and around the brim you may see the bubbles of pride. Look at the swelling froth upon the bowl—“God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.” You know that cup, my self-deceiving hearers; oh that you knew the deadly hemlock which is mixed in it. “Sin as other men do? Not you; not at all. You are not going to submit yourself to the righteousness of Christ: why do you need to? You are as good as your neighbours; if you are not saved, you ought to be, you think. Do you not pay everyone twenty shillings in the pound? Did you ever rob anyone in your life? You do your neighbours a good turn; you are as good as other people.” Very good! That is the first cup the devil gives, and the good wine makes you swell with self-important dignity, as its fumes enter your heart and puff it up with an accursed pride. Yes! I see you sitting in the room so cleanly swept and so neatly garnished, and I see the crowds of your admirers standing around the table, even many of God’s own children, who say, “Oh that I were half as good as he is.” While the very humility of the righteous provides you with provender for your pride. Wait awhile, you unctuous hypocrite, wait awhile, for there is a second course to come. Satan looks with quite as self-satisfied an air upon his guests this time as he did upon the troop of rioters. “Ah!” he says, “I cheated those carefree fellows with the cup of pleasure—I gave them, afterwards, the dull cup of satiety, and I have cheated you, too; you think you are all right, but I have deceived you twice, I have fooled you indeed.” So he brings in a cup which, sometimes, he himself does not like to serve. It is called the cup of discontent and unquietness of mind, and there are many who have to drink this after all their self-satisfaction. Do you not find, you who are very good in your own esteem, but have no interest in Christ, that when you sit alone and begin to examine your accounts for eternity, that they do not reconcile somehow—that you cannot strike the balance exactly to your own side after all, as you thought you could? Have you not sometimes found, that when you thought you were standing on a rock, there was a quivering beneath your feet? You heard the Christian sing boldly,—

Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who anything to my charge shall lay?
While, thro’ your blood, absolv’d I am
From sin’s tremendous curse and shame.

And you have said, “Well, I cannot sing that. I have been as good a Churchman as ever lived, I never missed going to my church all these years, but I cannot say I have a solid confidence.” You had once a hope of self-satisfaction; but now the second course has come in, and you are not quite so contented. “Well,” says another, “I have been to my chapel, and I have been baptized, and made a profession of religion, though I was never brought to know the Lord in sincerity and in truth, and I once thought it was all well with me, but I want something which I cannot find.” Now comes a trembling in the heart. It is not quite as delightful as one supposed, to build on one’s own righteousness. Ah! that is the second course. Wait awhile, and maybe in this world, but certainly in the hour of death, the devil will bring in the third cup of dismay, at the discovery of your lost condition. How many a man who has been self-righteous all his life, in the end has discovered that the thing on which he placed his hope had failed him. I have heard of an army, who, being defeated in battle, endeavoured to make good a retreat. With all their might the soldiers fled to a certain river, where they expected to find a bridge across which they could retreat and be in safety. But when they came to the stream, there was heard a shriek of terror—“The bridge is broken, the bridge is broken!” All in vain was that cry, for the multitude hurrying on behind, pressed upon those that were before and forced them into the river, until the stream was glutted with the bodies of drowned men. Such must be the fate of the self-righteous. You thought there was a bridge of ceremonies; that baptism, confirmation, and the Lord’s Supper, made up the solid arches of a bridge of good works and duties. But when you come to die, there shall be heard the cry—“The bridge is broken, the bridge is broken!” It will be in vain for you to turn around then. Death is close behind you; he forces you onward, and you discover what it is to perish, through having neglected the great salvation, and attempting to save yourself through your own good works. This is the last course except for one: and your last course of all, the worst wine, your everlasting portion must be the same as that of the profligate. Good as you thought yourself to be, inasmuch as you proudly rejected Christ, you must drink the wine cup of the wrath of God; that cup which is full of trembling. The wicked of the earth shall wring out the dregs of that cup, and drink them; and you also must drink from it as deep as they do. Oh, beware in time! Put away your high looks, and humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

9. 3. Some of you have as yet escaped the lash, but there is a third table crowded with most honourable guests. I believe there have been more princes and kings, mayors and aldermen, and great merchants sitting at this table, than at any other. It is called the table of worldliness. “Humph,” says a man, “Well, I dislike the profligate; there is my oldest son, I have been hard at work saving up money all my life, and there is that young fellow, he will not stick to business: he has become a real profligate, I am very glad the minister spoke so sharply about that. As for me—there now; I do not care about your self-righteous people a single farthing; to me it is of no account at all; I do not care at all about religion in the slightest degree; I like to know whether the stocks rise or fall, or whether there is an opportunity of making a good bargain; but that is about all I care for.” Ah! worldling, I have read of a friend of yours, who was clothed in scarlet, and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. Do you know what became of him? You should remember it, for the same end awaits you. The end of his feast must be the end of yours. If your god is this world, depend upon it you shall find that your way is full of bitterness. Now, see that table of the worldly man, the mere worldling, who lives for gain. Satan brings him in a flowing cup, “There,” he says, “Young man, you are starting in business; you do not need to care about the conventionalities of honesty or about the ordinary old fashioned fancies of religion; get rich as quick as you can. Get money—get money—honestly if you can, but, if not, get it in any way,” says the devil; and down he puts his tankard. “There,” he says, “is a foaming draught for you.” “Yes,” says the young man, “I have abundance now. My hopes are indeed realised.” Here, then, you see the first and best wine of the worldling’s feast, and many of you are tempted to envy this man. “Oh, that I had such a prospect in business,” one says, “I am not half so sharp as he is, I could not deal as he deals; my religion would not let me. But how fast he gets rich! Oh that I could prosper as he does.” Come, my brother, do not judge before the time, there is a second course to come, the thick and nauseous draught of care. The man has got his money but they who will be rich, fall into temptation and a snare. Wealth ill-gotten, or ill-used, or hoarded, brings canker with it, that does not canker the gold and silver, but cankers the man’s heart, and a cankered heart is one of the most awful things a man can have. Ah! see this money lover, and note the care which sits upon his heart. There is a poor old woman, who lives near his lodge gate. She has only a pittance a week, but she says, “Bless the Lord, I have enough!” She never asks how she is to live, or how she is to die, or how she is to be buried, but sleeps sweetly on the pillow of contentment and faith; and here is this poor fool with untold gold, but he is miserable because he happened to drop a sixpence as he walked along the streets, or because he had an extra demand upon his charity, to which the presence of some friend compelled him to yield; or perhaps he groans because his coat wears out too soon.

10. After this comes avarice. Many have had to drink from that cup; may God save any of us from its fiery drops. A great American preacher has said, “Covetousness breeds misery. The sight of houses better than our own, of dress beyond our means, of jewels more costly than we may wear, of stately accoutrements, and rare curiosities beyond our reach, these hatch the viper brood of covetous thoughts; vexing the poor, who wish to be rich; tormenting the rich, who wish to be richer. The covetous man pines to see pleasure; is sad in the presence of cheerfulness; and the joy of the world is his sorrow, because all the happiness of others is not his. I do not wonder that God abhors him. He inspects his heart as he would a cave full of noxious birds, or a nest of rattling reptiles, and loathes the sight of its crawling tenants. To the covetous man life is a nightmare, and God lets him wrestle with it as best he may. Mammon might build its palace on such a heart, and Pleasure bring all its revelry there, Honour all its garlands—it would be like pleasures in a sepulchre, and garlands on a tomb.” When a man becomes avarice, all he has is nothing to him; “More, more, more!” he says, like some poor creatures in a terrible fever, who cry, “Water, water, water!” and you give them water, but after they have it, their thirst increases. Like the horseleech they cry, “Give, give, give!” Avarice is a raving madness which seeks to grasp the world in its arms, and yet despises the plenty it has already. This is a curse from which many have died; and some have died with the bag of gold in their hands, and with misery upon their brow, because they could not take it with them into their coffin, and could not carry it into another world. Well, then, there comes the next course. Baxter, and those terrible old preachers used to picture the miser, and the man who lived only to make gold, in the middle of hell; and they imagined Mammon pouring melted gold down his throat. “There,” say the mocking devils “that is what you wanted, you have got it now; drink, drink, drink!” and the molten gold is poured down. I shall not, however, indulge in any such terrible imaginations, but this much I know, he who lives for himself here, must perish; he who sets his affections upon things on earth, has not dug deep—he has built his house upon the sands; and when the rain descends, and the floods come, down must come his house, and great must be the fall of it. It is the best wine first, however; it is the respectable man,—respectable and respected,—everyone honours him—and afterwards that which is worse, when meanness has beggared his wealth, and covetousness has maddened his brain. It is sure to come, as sure as ever you give yourself up to worldliness.

11. 4. The fourth table is set in a very secluded corner, in a very private part of Satan’s palace. There is the table set for secret sinners, and here the old rule is observed. At that table, in a room well darkened, I see a young man sitting today, and Satan is the waiter, stepping in so noiselessly, that no one would hear him. He brings in the first cup—and oh how sweet it is! It is the cup of secret sin. “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” How sweet that morsel, eaten all alone! Was there ever one that rolled so delicately under the tongue? That is the first; after that, he brings in another,—the wine of an unsettled conscience. The man’s eyes are opened. He says, “What have I done? What have I been doing? Ah,” cries this Achan, “the first cup you brought me, I saw sparkling in that a wedge of gold, and a goodly Babylonian garment; and I thought, ‘Oh, I must have that;’ but now my thought is, ‘What shall I do to hide this, where shall I put it?’ I must dig. Indeed, I must dig deep as hell before I shall hide it, for sure enough it will be discovered.”

12. The grim governor of the feast is bringing in a massive bowl, filled with a black mixture. The secret sinner drinks, and is confounded; he fears his sin will find him out. He has no peace, no happiness, he is full of uneasy fear; he is afraid that he shall be detected. He dreams at night that there is someone after him; there is a voice in his ear, and telling him “I know all about it; I will tell it.” He thinks, perhaps, that the sin which he has committed in secret will be discovered by his friends; the father will know it, the mother will know it. Indeed, it may even be the physician will tell the tale, and blab the wretched secret. For such a man there is no rest. He is always in dread of arrest. He is like the debtor I have read about, who, owing a great deal of money, was afraid the bailiffs were after him: and happening one day to catch his sleeve on the top of a palisade, said, “There, let me go; I am in a hurry. I will pay you tomorrow,” imagining that someone was laying hold of him. Such is the position in which the man places himself by partaking of the hidden things of dishonesty and sin. Thus he finds no rest for the sole of his foot for fear of discovery. At last the discovery comes; it is the last cup. Often it comes on earth; for be sure your sin will find you out, and it will generally find you out here. What frightful exhibitions are to be seen at our police courts of men who are made to drink that last black draught of discovery. The man who presided at religious meetings, the man who was honoured as a saint, is at last unmasked. And what does the judge say—and what does the world say about him? He is a jest, and a reproach, and a rebuke everywhere. But, suppose he should be so crafty, that he passes through life without being discovered—though I think it is almost impossible—what a cup he must drink when he stands at last before the judgment bar of God! “Bring him out, jailor! Dread keeper of the dungeon of hell, lead forth the prisoner.” He comes! The whole world is assembled. “Stand up, sir! Did you not make a profession of religion? Did not everyone think you were a saint?” He is speechless. But there are many in that vast crowd who cry, “We thought he was.” The book is open, his deeds are read: transgression after transgression all are laid bare. Do you hear that hiss? The righteous, moved to indignation, are lifting up their voices against the man who deceived them, and lived among them as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Oh, how fearful it must be to bear the scorn of the universe! The good can bear the scorn of the wicked but for the wicked to bear the shame and everlasting contempt which righteous indignation will heap upon them, will be one of the most frightful things, next to the eternal endurance of the wrath of the Most High, which, I need not add, is the last cup of the devil’s terrible feast, with which the secret sinner must be filled, for ever and ever.

13. I pause now, but it is just to gather up my strength to beg that anything I may have said, that shall have the slightest personal bearing upon any of my hearers, may not be forgotten. I beseech you, men and brethren, if now you are eating the fat, and drinking the sweet of hell’s banquet, pause and reflect what the end shall be? “He who sows to the flesh, shall from the flesh reap corruption. He who sows to the Spirit, shall from the Spirit reap life everlasting.” I cannot spare more time for that, most assuredly.

14. II. But you must pardon me while I spend only a few minutes in taking you into the HOUSE OF THE SAVIOUR, where he feasts his beloved. Come and sit with us at Christ’s table of outward providences. He does not feast his children after the fashion of the prince of darkness: for the first cup that Christ brings to them is very often a cup of bitterness. There are his own beloved children, his own redeemed; who have only sorry cheer. Jesus brings in the cup of poverty and affliction, and he makes his own children drink from it, until they say, “You have made me drunken with wormwood, and you has filled me with bitterness.” This is the way Christ begins. The worst wine first. When the sergeant begins with a young recruit, he gives him a shilling, and then, afterwards comes the march and the battle. But Christ never gets his recruits this way. They must count the cost, lest they should begin to build, and not be able to finish. He seeks to have no disciples who are dazzled with first appearances. He begins roughly with them, and many have been his children who have found that the first course of the Redeemer’s table has been affliction, sorrow, poverty, and want.

15. In the olden time, when the best of God’s people were at the table, he used to serve them the worst, for they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy, and they kept on drinking of these bitter cups for many a day; but let me tell you afterwards he brought out sweeter cups for them, and you who have been troubled have found it so. After the cup affliction, comes the cup of consolation, and, oh, how sweet that is! It has been the privilege of these lips to drink that cup after sickness and pain; and I can bear witness, that I said to my Master, “You have kept the best wine until now.” It was so luscious, that its taste took away every taste of the bitterness of sorrow; and I said, “Surely the bitterness of this sickness is all past, for the Lord has revealed himself to me, and given me his best wine.” But, beloved, the best wine is to come last. God’s people will find it so outwardly. The poor saint comes to die. The Master has given him the cup of poverty, but now he no longer drinks from it, he is rich to all the intents of bliss. He has had the cup of sickness; he shall drink from that no more. He has had the cup of persecution, but now he is glorified, together with his Master, and made to sit upon his throne. The best things have come last to him in outward circumstances. There were two martyrs once burned at Stratford-le-Bow; one of them was lame, and the other blind, and when they were tied to the stake, the lame man took his crutch and threw it down, and said to the other, “Cheer up, brother, this is the sharp medicine that shall heal us, I shall not be lame within an hour of this time nor shall you be blind.” No, the best things were to come last. But I have often thought that the child of God is very much like the crusaders. The crusaders started off on their journey, and they had to fight their way through many miles of enemies and to march through leagues of danger. You remember, perhaps, in history, the story that when the armies of the Duke of Bouillon came within sight of Jerusalem, they sprang from their horses, clapped their hands, and cried, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” They forgot all their toils, all the weariness of the journey and all their wounds, for there was Jerusalem in their sight. And how will the saint at last cry, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” when all sorrow, and all poverty, and sickness are past, and he is blest with immortality. The bad wine—bad did I say? no the bitter wine is taken away, and the best wine is brought out, and the saint sees himself glorified for ever with Christ Jesus.

16. And now, we will sit down at the table of inward experience. The first cup that Christ brings to his children, when they sit at that table, is one so bitter that, perhaps, no tongue can ever describe it,—it is the cup of conviction. It is a black cup, full of the most intense bitterness. The apostle Paul once drank a little of it, but it was so strong that it made him blind for three days. The conviction of his sin overpowered him totally; he could only give his soul to fasting and to prayer, and it was only when he drank of the next cup that the scales fell from off his eyes. I have drank of it, children of God, and I thought that Jesus was unkind, but, in a little while, he brought me forth a sweeter cup, the cup of his forgiving love, filled with the rich crimson of his precious blood. Oh! the taste of that wine is still in my mouth to this very hour, for its taste is as the wine of Lebanon, that cures in the cask for many a day. Do you not remember, when, after you had drunk the cup of sorrow, Jesus came and showed you his hands and his side, and said, “Sinner, I have died for you, and given myself for you; believe on me?” Do you not remember how you believed, and sipped the cup, and have you believed again and took a deeper draught, and said, “Blessed be the name of God from this time forth and for ever; and let the whole earth say, ‘Amen,’ for he has broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron asunder, and let the captives go free?” Since then the glorious Master has said to you, “Friend, come up higher!” and he has taken you to the upper seats in the best rooms, and he has given you sweeter things. I will not tell you, today, of the wines you have drunk. The spouse in Solomon’s Song may supply the deficiency of my sermon this morning. She drank of the spiced wine of his pomegranate; and so have you, in those high and happy moments when you had fellowship with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. But tarry awhile, he has kept the best wine yet. You shall soon come near the banks of the Jordan, and then you shall begin to drink from the old wine of the kingdom, that has been curing since the foundation of the world. The vintage of the Saviour’s agony; the vintage of Gethsemane shall soon be broached for you, the old wine of the kingdom. You are come into the land “Beulah,” and you begin to taste the full flavour of the wines on the lees well refined. You know how Bunyan describes the state which borders on the vale of death. It was a land flowing with milk and honey; a land where the angels often came to visit the saints, and to bring bundles of myrrh from the land of spices. And now the high step is taken, the Lord puts his finger upon your eyelids and kisses your soul out at your lips. Where are you now? In a sea of love, and life, and bliss, and immortality. “Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, you have indeed kept the best wine until now! My Master! I have seen you on the Sabbath, but this is an everlasting Sabbath. I have met you in the congregation, but this is a congregation that shall never break up. Oh my Master! I have seen the promises, but this is the fulfilment. I have blessed you for gracious providences, but this is something more than all these: you gave me grace, but now you have given me glory, you were once my shield, but you are now my sun. I am at your right hand, where there is fulness of joy for ever. You have kept your best wine until now. All I ever had before was as nothing compared with this.”

17. And, lastly, for time fails me, I could preach a week upon this subject. The table of communion is one at which God’s children must sit. And the first thing they must drink there, is the cup of communion with Christ in his sufferings. If you wish to come to the table of communion with Christ, you must first of all drink from the wine of Calvary. Christian, your head must be crowned with thorns, your hands must be pierced, I do not mean with nails, but, spiritually you must be crucified with Christ. We must suffer with him, or else we cannot reign with him; we must labour with him first, we must sup of the wine which his Father gave him to drink, or else we cannot expect to come to the better part of the feast. After drinking from the wine of his sufferings, and continuing to drink from it, we must drink from the cup of his labours, we must be baptized with his baptism, we must labour after souls, and sympathise with him in that ambition of his heart—the salvation of sinners, and after that he will give us to drink from the cup of his anticipated honours. Here on earth we shall have good wine in communion with Christ in his resurrection, in his triumphs and his victories, but the best wine is to come at last. Oh chambers of communion, your gates have been opened to me; but I have only been able to glance within them; but the day is coming when on your diamond hinges you shall turn, and stand wide open for ever and ever; and I shall enter into the King’s palace and go out no more. Oh Christian! you shall soon see the King in his beauty; your head shall soon be on his bosom; you shall soon sit at his feet with Mary; you shall soon do as the spouse did, you shall kiss him with the kisses of his lips, and feel that his love is better than wine. I can imagine you, brethren, in the very last moment of your life, or rather, in the first moment of your life, saying, “He has kept the best wine until now.” When you begin to see him face to face, when you enter into the closest fellowship, with nothing to disturb or to distract you, then you shall say “The best wine is kept until now.”

18. A saint was once dying, and another who sat by him said—“Farewell, brother, I shall never see you again in the land of the living.” “Oh,” said the dying man, “I shall see you again in the land of the living that is up there, where I am going; this is the land of the dying.” Oh brothers and sisters, if we should never meet again in the land of the dying, we have a hope that we shall meet in the land of the living, and drink the best wine at last.