2294. The Memory Of Christ’s Love

No. 2294-39:61. A Sermon Delivered On Lord’s Day Evening, November 2, 1890, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

A Sermon Intended For Reading On Lord’s Day, February 5, 1893.

We will remember your love more than wine: the upright love you. {So 1:4}

For other sermons on this text:
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2294, “Memory of Christ’s Love, The” 2295}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2461, “Rejoicing and Remembering” 2462}
   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2794, “Refreshing Canticle, A” 2795}
   Exposition on Ge 45:1-13 So 1:1-7 3:1-5 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2516, “Jesus and His Brethren” 2517 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on Ps 22:1-22 So 1:1-7 2:1-7 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3373, “Man’s Scorn and God’s Shelter” 3375 @@ "Exposition"}
   Exposition on So 1 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2469, “Incomparable Bridegroom and His Bride, The” 2470 @@ "Exposition"}

1. I do not think I can preach tonight; I feel so weary, and worn, and ill. {a} Still, I can talk to you a little concerning the great love of Christ. If I were dying, I think I could speak upon that theme; and oh, when we rise again, how we shall talk for ever and ever about Christ’s love! This will be our endless theme throughout the eternal ages, “His great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins.”

2. I have taken for a text the last two sentences in the Song of Solomon, the first chapter, and the fourth verse: “We will remember your love more than wine: the upright love you.” {So 1:4}

3. This is a night for remembering Christ’s love. The communion table spread before us, the sacred feast to which we are about to come, is meant to recall to our minds our Saviour’s words, “Do this in memory of me … . Do this, as often as you drink it, in memory of me.” But, while we remember Christ, the central thought in our minds shall be what Paul wrote, “who loved me, and gave himself for me.” We will, above all other things tonight, remember his love. Have any of you been forgetting it? Is it long since you had an hour’s real enjoyment in meditating upon the love of Christ? Then, beloved, come tonight, and renew your vows; begin again your fellowship; and make this firm resolve, “We will remember our Lord; we will remember his love tonight!” May the Holy Spirit, who brings everything to memory whatever Christ has said to us, help us to remember him now! For him to remember us when he comes to his kingdom, will be our heaven. For us to remember him, though he has gone away to his kingdom, shall be a little heaven to us tonight.

4. As I am able, I will talk with you briefly, first, upon the preparations for the holy memory mentioned in our text. We shall find them in the verse in which the text is embedded: “Draw me, we will run after you: the king has brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in you.” When we have considered the preparations for the holy memory referred to here, I will speak on the divine subject of this holy memory: “We will remember your love more than wine.” Then, thirdly, we will meditate upon the divine product of this holy memory: “The upright love you,” love you because they remember your love.

5. I. First, then, dear friends, as I may be helped by the Holy Spirit, I would remind you of THE PREPARATIONS FOR THIS HOLY MEMORY. Here they are.

6. The first word is, “Draw me.” Lord, I would gladly come to you; but like Mephibosheth, I am lame in both my feet. I would gladly fly to you; but my wings are broken; if, indeed, I ever had any. I cannot come to you. I lie inert, and dead, and powerless. So the first preparation is, “Draw me.” It is a sweet, gracious, efficacious exercise of divine power that I need and entreat. I do not say, “Drive me”; but, “Lord, draw me.” I do not say, “Throw me there, or force me over there”; but, “Lord, draw me. While you do draw, I shall have liberty left to run: draw me, we will run after you.”

7. We do not need to be born again; we who are believers in Christ have had that miracle performed on us already. We are not asking now for pardon and justification; as believers in Christ, we have these priceless blessings already. What we want is the gentle influence of the Holy Spirit to attract us nearer to Christ; so each one cries to the Lord, “Draw me.” We are not dead; we are quickened and made alive. Our very pain and anguish, because we are not able to come to Christ as we wish, prove that we are alive. I commend this prayer to you, “Lord, draw me; draw me.” It is the work of Christ to draw. “I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me.” It is the work of the Father. “No man can come to me,” said Christ, “unless the Father who has sent me draws him.” It is the work of the Spirit of God to draw a soul towards Christ. I pray this for myself, and I trust that you will pray with me, “Come, Sacred Spirit, and draw us nearer to Christ; enliven our hopes; incline our hearts; arouse our desires; and then help us to yield our whole being to your gracious influences!”

   If thou hast drawn a thousand times,
   Oh, draw me, Lord, again!

That, then, is the first preparation for the holy memory mentioned in our text, divine drawing: “Draw me.”

8. Notice, next, that this verse says, “Draw me, we will run after you.” I like the change in the pronouns, as though I should pray tonight, “Lord, draw me; I am the most weighty, the heaviest of all your children in this congregation; but draw me, we will run after you. All my brothers and sisters will run at once if you draw me. If you draw the most burdened one towards yourself, all the rest will come to you at a rapid rate,” Do you not feel, my dear brother or sister, as if you could use this expression? Lord, if you will draw me, all my fellow members will be running with me; yet they will not outstrip me in their eagerness to reach you, for we will run together after you. Therefore, draw me, my gracious Lord!

9. If we would be fully prepared to remember Christ, we must get into this running pace: “Draw me: we will run after you.” Be quick, my soul, be quick, about heavenly things! Creep, if you wish, about your worldly business; but run after your Lord. Oh, that everyone of us might attain the running pace tonight! Oh, that we might speed along towards our Lord with that strong, impetuous desire which will not let us rest until we are close to him: “Draw me, we will run after you.”

10. Divine drawing is the first preparation for the holy memory, and next comes speedy running.

11. Now, in the further preparation, if you read the verse through, you will find that an answer comes to the prayer as soon as it is uttered: “The king has brought me into his chambers.” “What I asked for, I have obtained at once; and I have received more than I asked for. I prayed, ‘Draw me,’ and he has carried me bodily. ‘The king has brought me into his chambers.’ I only prayed that I might come a little nearer to my Lord; but he has brought me into his secret places, into his private rooms. He has brought me where he brings his bride. He has brought me where he receives his courtiers. The King has brought me into his chambers; and now I see how truly royal he is. The King has done it. The King, not a king; but that King who is King of all kings, the most royal of all monarchs, ‘the Prince of the kings of the earth,’ even my Lord Jesus, has brought me into his chambers.”

12. How quickly this was done! I want you to believe, beloved, that it could be done just as quickly in your case. Pray, “Lord, draw me. I feel as if I were coming to the communion table quite unfit to come.” Is that what you say? Then pray, “Draw me,” and in a moment, before the prayer is uttered, you shall find yourself not only drawn, but actually brought into the secret place of fellowship. “The king has brought me into his chambers.” “Even before I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib.” I know, and some of you know, unhappily, what it is to feel very cold and lifeless; but I also know, and some of you know, what it is to become full of life, full of love, full of joy, full of heavenly rapture, in a single moment. You who could only creep begin to run. You who could only sigh begin to sing. I want it to be so with every one of you, dearly beloved, tonight. And you, who think you are forgotten, shall be remembered tonight, at any rate. You who have almost forgotten what a real, hallowed time of communion means, may learn it over again tonight, as you cry, “Draw me, we will run after you: the king has brought me into his chambers.”

13. So we have had three preparations for the holy memory mentioned in our text: drawing, running, and bringing.

14. There is only one more preparation for remembering Christ, and that is to feel gladness and joy in him: “We will be glad and rejoice in you.” Come, take those ashes from your head, you who are sighing by reason of affliction! Come, unbind that sackcloth, and throw it aside, you who have lost fellowship with God, and are consequently in the dark! Christ is yours if you believe in him. He has given himself to you, and he loves you. Rejoice in that blessed fact. Remember who he is, and what he is; very God of very God, yet perfect man, God in human nature, Emmanuel, God with us, glorified now in the highest heavens, though once, for our sakes, he sank down into the very depths of death and the grave. Bless his dear name. Be glad and rejoice in him.

15. Now, please let your mouth be filled with laughter, your tongue with singing, and your heart with holy ecstasy, as you think of who your Well-Beloved is, how great he is, and what greatness he bestows upon you by virtue of his union with you. We cannot very well remember Christ as we should while we carry around a heavy heart with us. Come, sad spirit, be glad in the Lord! “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, ‘Rejoice.’ ” If ever a human soul had reason to rejoice, it must be the soul that believes in Christ. If ever there were any of the sons of Adam who had reason to be glad, and to clap their hands with holy mirth, it is the men who have found Christ to be their salvation, and their all in all.

16. These, then, are the preparations for the holy memory of which our text speaks. If they are well made, you will have no difficulty in remembering Christ’s love tonight.

17. II. So now, in the second place, as I may be strengthened, I would like to speak about THE DIVINE SUBJECT OF THIS HOLY MEMORY: “We will remember your love.”

18. First, we will remember the fact of Christ’s love. What a wonderful thing it is that the Son of God should love us! I do not wonder so much that he should have any love for you; but I am lost in wonder at the fact that he has any love for me, even for me. Does not each believer feel that the wonder of wonders must always be that the Lord Jesus Christ loves him? He was in glory, needing nothing. He was in his Father’s bosom, enjoying ineffable delight. If he wanted to cast his eyes of love on any of his creatures, there were myriads of bright spirits before the throne. But, no, he must look down, down, down, to earth’s dunghills, and search for us who were utterly unworthy of his regard. Then he might have pitied us, and left us in our lost estate; but it could not be so with one who has such a heart as our dear Saviour has; he needed to love us. What it is for God to love, God only knows. We faintly guess, by the love that burns in our heart towards the objects of our affection, what the love of God must be. The love of God must be a mighty passion. I use the word because I know no better; I am conscious that it is not the right one, for human language is too feeble to describe divine love.

   Stronger his love than death or hell;
   Its riches are unsearchable:
      The firstborn sons of light
   Desire in vain its depths to see;
   They cannot reach the mystery,
      The length, and breadth, and height.

Oh, the love of Christ! It must always be the wonder of wonders that Jesus Christ, the darling of the heavens, should have set the eyes of his affection upon men of mortal mould, on sinful men, on me! That, to me, is the climax.

19. We will remember the fact of Christ’s love.

20. But we will remember, also, the character of Christ’s love. What a love it was! He loved us before the foundation of the world. With the telescope of his prescience, he foresaw our existence, and he loved us when we had no being. Then he struck hands with the great Father, and entered into covenant on our behalf, and engaged that he would stand sponsor for us, and redeem us from the ruin of our sin. Oh, the love, the love, the everlasting love of Christ! He has never stopped loving us from the very first. All through the ages before the world was, and through the centuries in which the world has existed, he has loved his chosen every moment, and loved them to the full. Can you drink in the sweetness of that thought? Oh, please, remember the antiquity and the constancy of the love of Christ for his people! “We will remember your love.”

21. It was unmerited love, which had no reason in us for it to light upon.

   What was there in you that could merit esteem,
      Or give the Creator delight?
   “’Twas even so, Father,” you ever must sing,
      “Because it seem’d good in thy sight.”

He loved us because he would love us. It was the sovereignty of his love that made him love those whom he chose to love. He loved them freely, without anything in them, or that would ever be done by them, to deserve his love. But he loved fully as well as freely; he loved intensely, divinely, immeasurably. You know your love for your child; it is only a feeble spark compared to the great sun of Christ’s love for you. You know your love for your husband; it is a tiny rill compared with the ocean of Christ’s love for his people. Beloved, think over the wondrous qualities of the love of Christ for you, and say, as you sit at the communion table tonight, “We will remember your love, for we cannot forget it. We will remember your love, for the joyful theme forces itself upon us. We will remember your love more than wine.”

22. We will also remember the deeds of Christ’s love. It is a grand story; I cannot stop to tell it to you tonight. You know how, in the fulness of time, the Son of God came out of glory, and alighted on a stall where the horned oxen fed. He who had made all worlds was nursing on a woman’s breast, for he was made flesh so that he might save us from our sins. “Herein is love!” See him living a laborious life, going around doing good, despised, maligned, yet always ready to give even greater grace and mercy to the unworthy. You know his life, the wondrous life of Christ. “Herein is love.” At last, he gave himself up in agony even to a bloody sweat. He gave his back to the smiters, and his cheeks to those who pulled out the hair; he did not hide his face from shame and spitting. And then he gave himself, his hands to the nails, his feet to the cross and the cruel iron, his side to the lance, his body to the tomb, his soul to depart to his Father. “Herein is love.” I wish I could preach upon this theme as it deserves to be proclaimed. Oh, that I knew how to speak of the dying love of Christ! The angels desire to look into the mystery of the love of Jesus; but even they cannot encompass its immeasurable height, and depth, and length, and breadth. Will not each of us, who are the objects of it, remember his dying love?

   When to the cross I turn mine eyes,
      And rest on Calvary,
   Oh Lamb of God! my sacrifice!
      I must remember thee.
   Remember thee, and all thy pains,
      And all thy love to me;
   Yea, while a breath, a pulse remains,
      Will I remember thee!

23. But Jesus rose from the grave. He rose with the same love; he ascended with the same love; he lives with the same love, pleading for us. He loves us now; and he will come for us in love. Love shall give him wings to fly down to earth again. He will reign here; but not without his people. “The Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.” He will reign for ever in love. For evermore, throughout the life to come, and the ages that shall never end, Christ will rest in his love, he will rejoice over his people with joy, he will rejoice over them with singing. He will also give them to share his glory, and to sit upon his throne, and to reign with him for ever and ever.

24. Oh, what a theme is this, the deeds of Christ’s love! In trying to talk about it, I feel like a poor schoolboy standing here, speaking on a subject he loves. Oh, that there were a Milton, or someone of Milton’s calibre, to proclaim the story of this great love of Christ! Yet, maybe, the theme is better with my poor description than it would be with the loftiest words of men, because you are more likely to forget the description, and to remember the love that cannot be described; whereas, had my discourse been filled with lofty and worthy diction, you might have forgotten the theme, and remembered the speaker.

25. I would like you, brothers and sisters, tonight, to remember the proofs of Christ’s love. You were far off, but he sought you, and brought you back. You were deaf, but he called you, and opened your ear to hear his loving call. You came trembling, and afraid, but he cheered you; and in a moment he took your burden from you, and set you free. Do you remember it?

   Dost mind the place, the spot of ground,
      Where Jesus did thee meet?

I remember, tonight, the place where I first saw the Lord; I know it to a yard. Some of you cannot speak as definitely as that, and you need not blush because you cannot. Did Jesus come to you? Did he forgive your sins? Did he comfort you with his love? Then remember it tonight. Never mind about dates and places; but remember his love.

26. Since Jesus first came to you, and saved you, many a time you have been in trouble, and he has comforted you. You have been in labour; and he has sustained you. You have been in disrepute; but he has honoured you. Alas, you have proved yourself unworthy of his love; but he has forgiven your backslidings. You have wandered from him; but he has restored you. Remember his great love.

27. No word of mine will, I fear, help you much; but let your memory begin to go over the pages of your diary. Turn over the leaves that record your Lord’s favour towards you. Are there not some pages with great crosses on them, which you made in the day of trouble, and other crosses, which you made in the hour of your deliverance when Jesus came to your relief? Oh, remember his love, remember his love more than wine!

28. I will not detain you on this point any longer; although there was much more I wanted to say. Only, brothers and sisters, if I cannot talk to you, do the thing that we are thinking about. Remember Christ and his great love. Now, before you partake of the emblems of his broken body and his shed blood, get to him. You may forget everything else if you like; but I charge you to remember Christ’s love. There, fling overboard every other memory, however precious! Let the golden ingots go; but hold firmly to the true lading of the ship, her real cargo, the love with which Christ has loved us. Remember that, and sit still, and enjoy the blessed memory.

29. Before I come to the last division of my subject, I should like to ask whether there are any here who cannot remember Christ’s love because they never knew it. Is that your case, my dear friend, over there? Let me remind you of the lepers of whom we have been reading, and then let me recall to your minds God’s ancient law concerning the man suffering from leprosy. When he was brought for the high priest to examine him, the high priest looked him up and down, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and he said to the leper, “Here is still a place over your heart where your flesh is perfectly clean”; and the leper said, “Yes, I am pleased to see that it is so.” But the high priest replied, “You are unclean, you must not go into the house of the Lord, or associate with the people.” Then there came another, and he searched him all over, and said, “Here, on this part of your leg, there is still a healthy spot.” “Yes,” said the other, “I have often thought what a good sign it was.” “You also are unclean,” said the high priest, “Go to your isolated house, and remain there.” Then there came one poor man who was white all over, and the high priest said to him, “Do you have any clean places?” “No, my lord, not one; examine me, and see”; and the high priest looked, and there was not a clean spot on him where you could have put a pin’s point; but the leprosy was all over him, he was saturated all through with the deadly virus, and foul with the loathsome disease; and there he stood, and cowered and trembled before the high priest. Then the high priest said to him, “Behold, you are clean; when you have performed the ceremony required by the law, you may go home to your house, and to the house of your God, for you are clean.” There was a medical reason, I suppose, for this law; the mischief had thrown itself out, it had come out to the skin, the disease was fully developed, and would soon be removed. But, whatever may have been the medical reason, such was the law; and if I am addressing anyone here who feels, “There is nothing good about me; I am unclean, unclean, unclean, from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, and the lowest place in hell is my just desert,” my friend, the grace of God has begun to work in you. Now that you are emptied, God will begin to fill you. Trust in the atoning sacrifice of his dear Son, and you shall have the assurance that you also are the subject of his saving grace; his love shall be shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit; and you shall join with us in remembering that great love with which he has loved us.

30. III. The last thing upon which I have to speak to you is this, THE DIVINE PRODUCT OF THIS HOLY MEMORY: “The upright love you.”

31. So it seems, then, that if we remember Christ, we shall have a respect for his people. His people are the upright; and she, who speaks in the sacred Canticle, here looks around on them, and says, “The upright love you.” “That commends you to me; for if those who are of a chaste spirit love you, how much more should I.” I think, if you feel as I do sometimes, you would be glad to be sure that you were even the least in God’s house. We know the upright love Christ, and we love the upright because they do so; and we esteem Christ because, the better men are, the more they think of him. Is it not so? But sometimes we are afraid we are not among the number of the chosen ones. “The upright love you.” Lord, am I one of the upright? Our hymn puts it, even concerning heaven,

   There ye that love my Saviour sit,
      There I would fain have place,
   Among your thrones, or at your feet,
      So I might see his face.

Would we not gladly sit at the feet of the very least of his people if we might only love Christ? They love him. I know how you look around you tonight, and you say, “There sits Brother So-and-so, he loves Christ; there is Mistress So-and-so, who is so busy in the service of her Lord, She loves Christ. And that dear man (Mr. William Olney), whose death we still commemorate by these sad memorials around the pulpit, he loved Christ.” “Ah, well!” you say, “I wish I loved him, too, and that I were among the upright in character, who truly admire him.” Seek that blessing, dear friends, for it is to be had if you seek it properly. Seek it, for the love of Christ will make you love the upright, and foster in you an esteem for them. I do not like to hear Christian people speak badly of each other; and I do not like to hear Christian people speak badly of the Church. If Christ loves her, and is married to her, woe to you if you find fault with my Master’s bride! He does not love those who do not love his chosen. Have a great love for the people of God, even the poorest of them. Consider them to be the aristocrats of the world, the blood-royal of the universe, the men and women who have angels to be their servants, and who are made kings and priests to God. If you remember Christ, you will remember his people. If you remember his love, you will feel a love towards them. May God grant that you may do so!

32. One more thing, and I am finished. In remembering Christ’s love as the upright do, we shall grow upright. I believe that God blesses trouble to our sanctification, and that he can bless joy for the same purpose; but I am sure of this, that the greatest instrument of sanctification is the love of Jesus. One asked what he should think about to make him holy, and his friend answered, “Think about death.” It is wise to think about the grave, the mattock, and the shroud; but the living love of Christ has a sanctifying power that even thoughts of death do not have. One has said, “If you would grow holy, think of the punishment of sin, the pit that God has dug for the wicked. It will make you tremble at the thought of sin, and cause you to flee from it as from an arch-destroyer.” This is true; but still, if you would grow in grace fast, and become holy rapidly, this is the best theme for your meditation, “We will remember your love.” If you will remember Christ’s love, you will be lifted up from your crookedness, and made straight, and placed among the upright, who love the Lord.

33. Come, then, let us join tonight in sweet thoughts of love for Christ. The sermon is short, but the subject is long; and you now have an opportunity for coming to the communion table, and thinking out that theme which I have started for you, “The love of Christ for me, the love of Christ for me.” Then follow it up with this, “Oh, my poor love for Christ!” Think, dear friends, if you remember your own love for Christ, what a small thing it is to remember. His great love is like the sun in the heavens. Your love — well, you have to put on your spectacles before you can see it; it is so small a thing. May God grant it may grow tonight; and, at the communion table, may you have such a visitation from Christ, such delightful fellowship with him, that you may be able to sing again the hymn that you were singing when I was obliged to retire for a while from the platform, —

   My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine,
      For thee all the follies of sin I resign;
   My gracious Redeemer, my Saviour, art thou,
      If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
   I will love thee in life, I will love thee in death,
      And praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath;
   And say when the death-dew lies cold on my brow,
      “If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.”

34. May you sing it now, and be able to sing it when the death-dew lies cold on your brow! May the Lord be with you, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

{a} It will be seen, by the reference to the end of the sermon, that the beloved preacher had to retire from the platform for a little while during the service. Readers of the sermon will rejoice that he was so graciously helped to preach when “weary, and worn, and ill.”

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ps 113 Lu 17:11-19}

We will read, this evening, two passages in the Word of God; the first will be Psalm 113.

1. Praise the LORD. Praise, oh you servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD.

Three times you are stirred up to this duty of praise. Adore the Sacred Trinity with threefold praise. There is a trinity in you: let spirit, soul, and body praise the Lord. Let the past, the present, and the future make another threefold chord; and for each of these, “Praise the Lord. Praise, oh you servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord.”

2, 3. Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time on and for evermore. From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same the LORD’S name is to be praised.

“From the rising of the sun until the going down of the same the Lord’s name is to be praised.” In hours of morning light, when the dew is on the grass, and our soul is full of gladness, and in the hours of the setting sun, when the day is weary, and the night seems to be coming on, still let the Lord have the praise that is his due, for he is always to be praised.

There is never an hour in which it would be unseemly to praise God. For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven; but the praising of God is never out of season. All time and all eternity may be dedicated to this blessed work.

4, 5. The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Who is like the LORD our God, who dwells on high,

The loftiness, the majesty, the sublimity of God are attributes that are terrible in themselves; yet they minister much joy to those who love the Lord. For, you know, we can never make too much of those whom we love; and if we see them exalted, then our soul is glad. Would you wish to have a little God? Would you wish to have a God who had very little honour, or little power? No; you ascribe to him all conceivable and all inconceivable greatness, and you exalt as you think what a high and mighty God he is. “Who is like Jehovah our God, who dwells on high?”

6. Who humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!

It enables us to get some faint idea of the greatness of God when we read that he has to humble himself even to look at the things in heaven, perfect and spotless though they are. Dr. Watts truly sings, —

   The lowest step around thy seat
   Rises too high for Gabriel’s feet;
   In vain the tall archangel tries
   To reach thine height with wond’ring eyes.

All the faculties of all the angels cannot comprehend the Infinite. When the Lord looks down to us, how much he must humble himself! If he humbles himself to see the things in heaven which are clear and pure, what humility is required that he may look at the things on the earth!

7, 8. He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill; so that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.

Have you never noticed that, in all these joyful songs to God, there is almost always one of these notes, that God abases the proud, and exalts the humble? This was the basis of Hannah’s song; and it was the pith and marrow of Mary’s Magnificat: “He has put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted those of low degree.” This wonderful turning of things upside down; this withering of the green tree, and making the dry tree to flourish; this killing what lives, and quickening what is dead; this emptying of the full, and filling of the empty; this casting down the mighty from their thrones, and lifting the poor out of the dust; this is always one of the highest reasons for exalting joy. What a truth there is for you and for me tonight, if we feel ourselves to be spiritually so poor that the dunghill is no offence to us, because we feel ourselves to be even more offensive than the filthy things that are cast away by men! What a mercy it is that the Lord “lifts the needy out of the dunghill; so that he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people!”

9. He makes the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise the LORD.

Does your soul feel barren? May the Lord grant to it an abundant fruitfulness! Looking back upon the past year, perhaps you have had many barren times, or times that you have thought to be barren. If you are a minister of the gospel, I should not wonder if those have been your most fruitful seasons. When you have been most empty, God has been pleased to feed the people through you. Oh dear brothers and sisters, those very times of spiritual experience which are most humiliating and most painful are often the most soul-enriching to us, and they also bring the greatest glory to God!

Now we will read a New Testament story, in order that we may see how some men did not praise the Lord as they should have done. You will find the narrative in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, at the eleventh verse.

11. And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.

There is only One of whom we will think tonight, our divine Lord, who was on his way to Jerusalem. Passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee, he had the Jews on one side of him, and the Samaritans on the other. He took a middle course, as if to show how he was going up to the New Jerusalem, loaded with blessings for the Jews on one side, and Gentiles on the other.

12. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men who were lepers,

Oh, the abundance of human misery that met the Saviour’s eye: “ten men who were lepers!” I was reading only yesterday of what happened in Westminster many years ago. When the king went along the highway, there were crowds of poor lepers on either side of the road, a shocking sight to see in this dear land of ours; and the king, in his tender mercy, simply passed a law that the lepers should not come near the road again to shock his gracious majesty with their misery. That is all he had to do for them; but our glorious King treated lepers very differently: “There met him ten men who were lepers.”

12. Who stood afar off:

The rule was that they should never come onto the public road, or near the highway, lest the disease should be caught by others who might come near them.

13. And they lifted up their voices,

Not much of voices were they likely to have, for the leprosy dries the throat, and the voice is low and husky, and when lepers cry, “Unclean, unclean,” it is an awfully sad sound, but very weak. These ten lepers lifted up their poor voices.

13. And said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”

They raised a plain cry, and the whole ten of them had to lift up their voices before they could be well heard.

14. And when he saw them,

Even before he heard them, he saw their pitiable condition.

14. He said to them, “Go show yourselves to the priests.”

That is all Jesus said to the lepers: “Go show yourselves to the priests.” They were not to go to the priests until they were clean, for the priests could not heal them. It was the healed man who went to the priests to get a certificate that he was healed, and so might mingle in society again. It was a strange message, then, that the Saviour gave to these lepers: “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And oh, the faith of these men! With only this shell of a promise, as it were, they cracked it, and found a promise inside it, for they said to themselves, “He would not send us to the priests for nothing; he would not mock our misery; he must intend to heal us”: and therefore away they went. A grand faith is this! You are to come to Christ before you feel any grace in you; you are not to wait until you feel you are healed, and then come to him. Come just as you are, without any sense of grace, or any kind of feeling within you that is worth the having. Come just as you are.

14. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.

As the sinner believes, he is saved. As a man begins to go towards the Saviour, the Saviour’s grace meets him.

15. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed,

They all saw that they were healed, and they all must have felt extremely glad. Oh, the happiness of feeling the hot blood cooled, and full health taking the place of languor and disease!

15. Turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God.

This was a sure sign that he was healed, that he had his voice back; the disease had so thoroughly gone that the sound, which seemed to hide away in his husky throat, now came out clear and loud, like the stroke of a bell.

16. And fell down, on his face at his feet, giving him thanks:

When I read these words just now, I thought, that is the place where I would like to be, and that is what I would like to do, all my life, to fall down, “at his feet, giving him thanks.”

16. And he was a Samaritan.

Ah, me! nine of the seed of Israel were ungrateful, and only one poor outcast Gentile was grateful to the Lord for the miracle of healing that had been done.

17-19. And Jesus answering said, “Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Arise, go your way: your faith has healed you.”

May the Lord Jesus speak like this to many a poor, leprous sinner here tonight! “Arise, go your way: your faith has healed you.”

{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Privileges, Communion with Jesus — ‘Thy Name Is As Ointment Poured Forth’ ” 786}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “The Christian, Privileges, Communion with Jesus — My Jesus, I Love Thee” 804}
{See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Church, Ordinances, The Lord’s Supper — The Feast And The Guests” 944}

The Christian, Privileges, Communion with Jesus
786 — “Thy Name Is As Ointment Poured Forth”
1 Jesus, the very thought of thee
      With sweetness fill my breast;
   But sweeter far thy face to see,
      And in thy presence rest,
2 Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame,
      Nor can the memory find,
   A sweeter sound than thy blest name,
      Oh Saviour of mankind!
3 Oh, hope of every contrite heart!
      Oh, joy of all the meek!
   To those who fall, how kind thou art!
      How good to those who seek!
4 But what to those who find? Ah! this
      Nor tongue nor pen can show;
   The love of Jesus — what it is,
      None but his loved ones know.
5 Jesus, our only joy be thou,
      As thou our crown wilt be;
   Jesus, be thou our glory now,
      And through eternity.
                  Bernard of Clairvaux, 1153;
                  tr. by Edward Caswall, 1849.

The Christian, Privileges, Communion with Jesus
804 — My Jesus, I Love Thee <11s.>
1 My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine,
   For thee all the follies of sin I resign;
   My gracious Redeemer, amy Saviour art thou,
   If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
2 I love thee because thou hast first loved me,
   And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
   I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow,
   If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
3 I will love thee in life, I will love thee in death,
   And praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath;
   And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
   If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
4 In mansions of glory and endless delight,
   I’ll ever adore thee in heaven so bright;
   I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;
   If ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ‘tis now.
                  London Hymn Book, 1864.

Church, Ordinances, The Lord’s Supper
944 — The Feast And The Guests
1 How sweet and sacred* is the place,
      With Christ within the doors,
   While everlasting love displays
      The choicest of her stores.
2 While all our hearts and all our songs
      Join to admire the feast,
   Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
      “Lord, why was I a guest?
3 “Why was I made to hear thy voice,
      And enter while there’s room;
   When thousands make a wretched choice,
      And rather starve than come?”
4 ‘Twas the same love that spread the feast,
      That sweetly forced us in;
   Else we had still refused to taste,
      And perish’d in our sin.
5 Pity the nations, oh our God!
      Constrain the earth to come;
   Send thy victorious Word abroad,
      And bring the strangers home.
6 We long to see thy churches full,
      That all the chosen race
   May with one voice, and heart, and soul,
      Sing thy redeeming grace.
                        Isaac Watts, 1709.