3111. Warning And Encouragement

A Sermon Published On Thursday, September 24, 1908.

And Esau said to his father, “Have you only one blessing, my father? Bless me, even me also, oh my father.” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept. {Ge 27:38}

1. You know the story of Esau and Jacob. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 239, “Jacob and Esau” 232} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1718, “Certain Special Subjects” 1719} Esau was the older of the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah, the birthright was his by right, but he despised it. He was a profane person, who did not prize the hereditary privilege which was really his, and actually sold his right to it to his younger brother, Jacob, for a mess of “pottage of lentils.” Time rolled on, and Isaac, feeling the infirmities of age creeping over him, determined to give to Esau the blessing to which, as his oldest son, he was entitled. Rebekah wanted the blessing to be given to her younger son, and therefore resorted to a stratagem in order to make the poor blind father believe that Jacob was Esau, and in that way he gained the blessing by fraud. When Esau came in, and found that the blessing was given to Jacob, and that it could not be revoked, he cried bitterly, and besought his father to give him “only one blessing.”

2. The whole story reflects no credit on any of the people concerned. It certainly brings no credit to Isaac; he was a true believer in God, but he was a man of an easy-going, gentle spirit, who did not control his household as he ought to have done; and it appears that, in his later days, he craved dainty dishes to tempt his appetite, “savoury food,” such as he asked Esau to prepare for him, and so he did not wait on God for guidance concerning the bestowal of his paternal blessing; but, in direct opposition to the divine purpose, determined to give the blessing to the son whom God had not chosen. It was a bad thing for the household to be divided as it was,—the husband and wife at cross-purposes, Rebekah seeking the blessing for her favourite son, and Isaac preferring the bolder spirit of the wilder man. I cannot excuse either Rebekah or Jacob; they were acting very wickedly in trying to get Isaac’s blessing by fraud and falsehood; neither can I justify Esau, for he was trying to keep what he had sold to his brother, and what he had despised, and contemptuously called “this birthright.”

3. One thing is certain; God’s providence, notwithstanding their sin, carried out God’s purpose. It was no business of theirs, as it is no business of ours, to try to fulfil God’s decrees. God would have managed the whole affair far better without Rebekah’s meddling, and the foolish mother would not have had to send her darling son away from home, nor would he have had to go away as an exile, to endure all that he had to endure at the hands of the grasping Laban. Still, God overruled the evil, and his purpose was accomplished, as it always is and will be.

4. My special purpose, at this time, is to take this very bitter cry of the disappointed Esau, and use it for two purposes; first, by way of warning; and, secondly, by way of encouragement, taking it then out of its immediate context.

5. I. First, I am going to use Esau’s cry BY WAY OF WARNING.

6. Beware, my dear hearers, first, of ever giving up spiritual benefits for anything that is carnal, or bartering eternal blessings for anything temporal. Esau came in from the chase hungry and faint; Jacob’s mess of red pottage smelled delicious to him, and when he begged for it as a starving man craves food, his crafty brother sold it to him in exchange for his birthright as Isaac’s elder son. Esau’s sin consisted in his willingness to sell the covenant blessing at such a price as that; yet how many nowadays are selling their souls just as cheaply as Esau sold his birthright!

7. Some sell their souls for what they call “pleasure.” They say that they wish to be saved, but a little transient gaiety exercises more fascination over their minds than all eternal joys or the delights of present fellowship with God. The time will come when they will rue their fatal choice, and call themselves a thousand fools; but, just now, they sneer at anything like self-denial with a view to eternal blessedness, and consider that man wise who makes the moments fly most merrily, who is satisfied with the passing “pleasure” of the hour. Foolish creatures of the day; I wish that you were only creatures of a day, that would die like the insects of a summer’s evening! But for immortal souls to barter eternal happiness for present joys is folly indeed.

8. We have known some to sell their souls for gain. They are making money in a dishonest or disreputable way. To become Christians, they must give up their business; and they frankly say that they cannot afford it. Their shop would never “pay” if it were closed on Sundays; their trade would never “prosper” if it were conducted on Christian principles! Possibly it is an evil trade, and the gain from it comes out of the vices of men. There are such trades; may God save all of us from having anything to do with them! But with many, the glitter of the thirty pieces of silver is more fascinating than the Christ of God, and, Judas-like, they take the silver, deliberately reject the Saviour, and so commit spiritual suicide.

9. We have known some to sell their souls for the sake of the love of their friends. They laughed at you because you frequented a place of worship, and expressed some anxiety about your eternal welfare, and made a little reform in your outward life; and because of that laughter, you have gone back like a coward. You have turned your back on heaven, and are going down to hell, merely to escape the jeers and sneers of sinners like yourself! Such conduct is unworthy of anyone who calls himself a man; and such conduct will surely bring down the just condemnation of God on anyone who is guilty of acting like this. Yet how many snatch up the mess of pottage, and push away from them heavenly blessings for fear someone or other should call them Methodists or Puritans, and sneer at them for their precision of character!

10. Alas! some have even sold their souls for the cup of the drunkard. The intoxicating cup, which is very rarely, if ever, a benefit to anyone, even when taken in what is called moderation, leads to the certain damnation of many if they touch a single drop of it. It has allured thousands into the jaws of hell; they could not resist its spell when it once fell on them. It is, alas! only too true that men, who were once honourable and loving husbands and fathers, have become brutes and monsters; indeed, I slander the brutes when I compare them with many men whom I have seen, who have seemed, through strong drink, to have made themselves into incarnate fiends. There is the “pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,” and there is the fire-water, which has its origin among the flames of hell; and yet, when the choice is left to men, many of them prefer the fiery liquor to that water which would be in them “a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Some of those men who are selling their souls for drink are with us here; oh that God would give them grace enough to see themselves as they really are in his sight, so that they might then ask for the grace which would make them to be new creatures in Christ Jesus!

11. Others have sold their souls for lust;—lust which I must not now describe, lest the cheek of modesty should be caused to blush. Alas! alas! we have known some who have stood high in the esteem of their fellow men, and some who have even dared to enter the visible Church of God, who, all the time, have preferred their “mistress” to the Messiah; and, as surely as they continue to do so, the day will come when they will rue it. Oh, that they had the grace to rue it now, and to escape from their Delilahs! It will need more than human strength to shake off this deadly hydra, {a} whose cruel folds have twisted themselves so tightly around them.

12. Beware, next, of being content with a secondary blessing. Esau did not seem to care that Jacob had the spiritual blessing; since he could not get that, he appeared willing to be content with a temporal one; and many a man says, “Give me a prosperous business, give me plenty to eat and drink, let me enjoy myself, and have my full swing in this life; and then, as for those joys of which Christians talk, I do not care a snap of the finger about them. They may have their fine country up among the stars for all that I care if I can only have my good things here.” Yes, I know that is how you talk, my friends, but I charge every sensible man here not to talk or act like that. Even if you could sell your soul for fifty years of intense physical or mental delight, what would become of your soul when the fifty years came to an end; and if you could have the fifty years extended to seventy, or even to a hundred, what would become of your soul at the end of the century? And what would become of your soul for ever? It is for ever, let men say what they will. “These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” “The punishment” is of the same duration as the “life”—for ever and ever. Is it worth while to make such a bargain as that,—to buy a mess of red pottage at the price of your immortal soul? I charge each one of you to buy the truth, and do not sell it, to lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, to get Christ, to get peace and pardon, to get acceptance with God, to get heaven in the way that this Book tells you to get it. If you only succeed in getting broad acres of fertile fields, they must all be left; if you amass a great amount of gold and silver, it must all be left to your heirs, who will probably laugh at the thought of the fool who hoarded so much for them to scatter. Do not act so foolishly, but seek to get the chief blessing; may God graciously enable you to get it this very hour!

13. Remember that, if you leave this world without getting this blessing, you will, like Esau, find no place of repentance, though you seek it carefully with tears. Isaac could not recall what he had said, and God will never alter what he has said. There has been spreading, in this country, and in other lands also, the idea of universal salvation; and, notice that, wherever that doctrine spreads, vice must and will spread as the natural and inevitable consequence. When men are taught to believe in ultimate universal salvation, their immediate and legitimate inference is, “Then we may live as we like, and all will come right in the end”; and they will live as they like, but all will not come right in the end! They are ambassadors of the devil who teach that lying doctrine, and they will have to answer for it at the judgment bar of God. I bring you no such falsehood as that. I tell you what God’s Book of Truth tells me, which is that, if you live and die without repentance, without faith, and without holiness, as surely as the righteous will live for ever in heaven, just as surely you will live for ever in hell. I implore you, as you value your immortal soul, do not imperil its eternal interest by trusting these dreams and fictions, for that is what they are. He who is righteous when he dies will be righteous for ever, and he who is unrighteous then will be unrighteous for ever; so that, if you do not wish to have to weep and gnash your teeth in anguish and in anger at your own stupidity, please flee now to the hope that is set before you in the gospel, and lay hold of Jesus, who alone can save you. It is no pleasure to me to have to utter this solemn message; I deliver it, from an aching heart, as the burden of the Lord; and having given you the warning, I leave it with you as I pass on to the second part of my subject.

14. II. Now I have more pleasant work to do, and that is, to use my text BY WAY OF ENCOURAGEMENT.

15. I wish that, this very hour, from many hearts there might arise this cry of Esau, only giving it a far higher meaning, “Have you only one blessing, my Father? Bless me, even me also, oh my Father.” And first, unconverted men and women, is it not time that you were blessed by God? Will not each one of you say to yourself, “Is it not time that I was blessed by God? So many dear to me have been blessed;—my mother has long been in heaven; my sister is a member of the church; some who sat side by side with me in this pew have believed in Jesus; when will the blessing come to me? The shower has fallen all around me; am I to be left for ever dry? The great tide of grace has seemed to sweep right up to my feet; will it never cast its gracious spray over me? I am getting on in years, and I was brought here as a child, and now I bring my own child; but I am not yet saved. Many of my friends have died since I first heard the gospel, and I have been to their funerals; I have lost first one relative, and then another; if I had been the one to be taken, alas, alas, what misery would my soul have been in at this moment! I have heard a great many plain gospel sermons. Our minister does not try to make a display of oratory; he always aims at preaching to our hearts. I know that he wants to bring me to Jesus, and that he would be delighted if he heard that some word of his, or anyone else’s, had brought me to trust in Christ as my Saviour. It is a great privilege to hear the gospel faithfully preached and I have at times felt the power of that gospel, and have resolved to repent, and then I have turned back, and here I am, still unsaved. It seems a strange thing that some who were morally worse than I have been have entered into the kingdom of heaven while I have remained outside, and that some, who had not heard the gospel half as long as I had, accepted it, while I have so far refused it.” I wish you would continue talking to yourself in that strain, both here and at home; perhaps God will bless it to you, and especially if you add to it this prayer, “Oh Lord, it is time that I had your blessing. Bless me, even me also, oh my Father! Do not pass me by, oh you loving, gracious, forgiving God, have mercy on me, and save me!”

16. The next question that I have to ask you is this. Does not the plenitude of God’s grace encourage you, whoever you may be, to seek his blessing? Esau could only say to his father, “Have you only one blessing?” And, truly, his father had only one that was worth having; but you are not talking to Isaac, you are talking to Jehovah; and when you approach him to seek his blessing, you know that he can bless as many as he wills, and that, if he should withhold the blessing, he would be none the richer, and if he should give it, he would be none the poorer, for he is an infinite God, able to do for all who come to him all that they need. God has innumerable sons and daughters; why should you not be among them? He has a blessing for every one of them, for it can be truly said concerning his children, “If children, then heirs,” all of them heirs; then why should you not be among them? If I knew that only three or four people could be saved, I would not rest until I knew that I was one of them; but since God has so large a family, surely I may have good hope in coming to him, if he gives me the grace to say, “I will arise and go to my Father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned.’”

17. It should encourage you to seek God’s blessing when you think of the plenitude that there is in Jesus Christ, God’s Son. The merit of Christ was infinite; the sheep, for whom he laid down his life, are innumerable as the stars of the sky and the sand on the sea-shore. All who have believed in him, and all who shall yet believe in him, belong to that redeemed flock; so why should you not be among them? “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved,” for “he is able also to save those to the uttermost who come to God by him.”

18. You ought also to be encouraged to seek God’s blessing by the plenitude and power of the Holy Spirit. He is able to soften the hardest heart, and to subdue the most stubborn will. There is no sinful habit that he cannot overcome. He can give you the grace to enable you to resist the strongest temptation, and to conquer the fiercest besetting sin. There is almighty power in the ever-blessed Spirit, so that there is no limit to his regenerating and sanctifying work.

19. Well, then, with the infinite Father, and the infinite Redeemer, and the infinite Spirit, you need not say, “Have you only one blessing?” but you may open your mouth wide, so that God may fill it. We are still authorized by the Giver of the great gospel feast to cry, “There is still room.” The provisions of that royal banquet are not merely for the few who belong to some insignificant little sect, and who consider themselves to be all of the Lord’s elect. I can, by faith, see enormous tables laden with the oxen and the fatlings that have been killed, for the great King has made a great supper, in honour of his Son’s marriage, and he has invited many to come to it. I know that heaven is not meant for a small, select company of saints, for John saw there “a great multitude, whom no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,” who “stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms branches in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” {b} Then why should you not be among them? Ask yourself that question on your knees before God. If I was ill, and there was only one physician in all of London, I would try to seek him out, but I should not be very hopeful of being healed by him. But the hospital of grace has room in it for all the patients who ever will come to it; and never did the porters have to shut the door, and say, “There is no room for any more.” That can never be the case. God “delights in mercy.” There is such a fulness of grace in Christ Jesus that whoever comes to him, he will by no means cast out. {c} Then should not this encourage each one of you to believe in Jesus Christ, and so to live for ever, for “he who believes in the Son has everlasting life?”

20. Further, dear friends, are there any valid reasons why you should not be blessed? Do you really want to be blessed by God? Someone says, “Oh, that my sins were pardoned! Oh, that I had a new heart and a right spirit! I would gladly find the Saviour if I could.” Is there any reason why you cannot find him? “I have been a very great sinner.” That is no reason, for many great sinners have found Christ; so why should you not? “But I have a very hard heart.” That is no reason why you should not be saved, for many very hard hearts have been softened by the Holy Spirit; and when you have a redemption which is of infinite value, and a Holy Spirit with infinite power to renew the heart, the greatness of past sin or the deepness of present depravity cannot be a reason why infinite mercy should not be shown to you. Can you find me any text in the Bible where it is written that you cannot be saved? I have heard an anxious soul sometimes say, “I know I never shall be saved.” But how do you know that? I believe that it is not so. Christ himself said that “all kinds of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men”; and even under the old covenant, God said, by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, “Come now, and let us reason together,…though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” You cannot put your finger on a single passage of Scripture which proves that you will be lost, so do not believe that it must be so until you have it from God’s own mouth. Never imagine that you are excluded from his pardoning mercy until he himself says that you are; and he has never said that yet.

21. Who is there that stands in your way? I know that the devil does, but then Christ is the devil’s Master, and he can enable you to overcome him. Do you know of one true minister of the gospel who would push you back if he saw you coming to the Saviour? I know one who would gladly give you a helping hand, and draw you to Christ if he could. Would your godly mother be grieved if she heard that you were converted? Is anyone (except Satan) praying that you may not be saved? I never heard of a prayer of that kind, and I never shall; but day and night the Lord’s elect cry to him, “Bring the wanderers in! Let Jesus see the travail of his soul until he is satisfied.”

22. Did you ever hear me preach a sermon to prove that you had no right to lay hold on eternal life? I have heard of very discouraging sermons preached by ministers, who seemed to be afraid that too many people would get into heaven,—as if it were “a close {private} borough” for a few special favourites in the very small congregation at “Rehoboth” or “Jireh.” That is dying out, and I bless God that it never has been heard here. We preach to you a great gospel, and a free gospel, and our hearts are yearning over you with a strong desire that you may be saved.

23. Can you point to any attribute in God, or to any action on God’s part, which looks like malevolence towards you? You tell me that he has dealt severely with you in his providence. If so, it was that he might drive you to himself. Has he broken your idols in pieces? If so, it is so that you may worship the one living and true God. Are you very poor? Perhaps it is the best thing that could happen to you. How few rich folk ever enter the kingdom of heaven! Can you see anything in Jesus Christ that forbids sinners from coming to him? Look at his wounds; do they say, “Sinner, keep away from me?” Look at his thorn-crowned brow; does that say, “I do not want you to come to me?” Look at his widely-extended arms on the cross; do they repel you? No, rather, are they not kept open so that the biggest sinners may get at his heart, and find peace and pardon there? Think of the Holy Spirit, and read about what he has done, and then see if there is anything in him to show that he does not want you to come to Christ. Why, he is the blessed Spirit who draws sinners to Christ; he does not drive them away from Christ. If the Spirit convicts you of sin, it is not in order to make you despair;—except to make you despair of saving yourself, and that is a good work, for it will lead you to look away to Jesus, so that you may find eternal life in him. I dare to say that there is nothing in the Father, there is nothing in the Son, and there is nothing in the Holy Spirit, which should make any truly repenting and believing sinner say, “Mercy is not for me.” On the contrary, there is a great attraction about each blessed Person of the Divine Trinity to draw sinners to himself.

24. Now let me suggest one or two reasons why you should find mercy, if you come for it in God’s way; and God’s way is that you should believe in his Son, Jesus Christ,—that you should entrust your soul into his eternal keeping. If you do that, there are many reasons why you may expect to find mercy from him.

25. First, it would be an answer to the prayers of God’s people. It is certain that God hears his people’s prayers. I know that many have been praying that you may be saved. So your salvation would assure them that their prayers had been heard, and surely that is what God delights to do. It would be wrong for you to rely on other people’s prayers for your salvation; but I ask you to take comfort from the thought that it would cheer the saints of God to see you saved. The happiest church meetings that we ever have are those when there are many converts coming forward to tell what the Lord has done for their souls. Now the Lord Jesus very dearly loves his Church; she is his spouse; and just as a good husband loves to please his wife, so Jesus loves to please his Church; and nothing can please his Church so much as to see sinners saved, so I think that is one good reason why we may expect that he will save many of you.

26. Besides that, if you are saved, whether you are a great sinner or a smaller one, Christ will have a new servant; and if you have been a big black sinner, Christ will have an especially good servant if he converts you from the error of your ways. Whatever you do, you do it heartily; you now persecute the saints with all your might, but if you were converted, you would love Christ as Mary Magdalene did, or as Saul of Tarsus did; and our Master delights to have such a servant as you would make! I trust, therefore, that you will be encouraged by the thought that, since he wants many such servants, perhaps he will have you as one of them.

27. And, again, if you were converted, it would make the angels glad. Fresh hallelujahs and hosannas would resound throughout high heaven if you were born again, a new creature in Christ Jesus. They would set all the bells ringing with celestial carillons, because another sinner had been saved from going down to the pit. I think God will do it, for he loves to hear the melodies of the holy angels and of the spirits of just men made perfect.

28. Besides, it would be for his own glory in heaven above and down here among the sons of men. Oh, if the Lord would only convert some of the cardinals and priests of the Church of Rome, and some of the great infidel philosophers of the present day, and some of the licentious “nobility” as they are called, what high honour would be brought to the name of Jesus Christ! I must not detain you any longer, but I must just urge you, if you really want the blessing of God, in the form of pardoned sin and acceptance by Christ, to seek it from the Lord as earnestly as Esau sought the blessing of Isaac. He sought in vain, but you will not seek in vain. If you believe in Jesus Christ, you shall be saved, no matter who or what you may be. We have God’s Word for it,—the Word of God that cannot lie. Esau pleaded pitifully with his father: “Bless me, even me also, oh my father.” He was a rough, wild man, yet plaintively he put his plea before his old father, Isaac: “Bless me, your elder son, your Esau, your favourite.” Then, at last, he burst into tears, backing up his entreaties with his tearful appeal, “Bless me, even me also, oh my father.” You will not seek God’s blessing in vain if you only seek it sincerely and earnestly. Without his blessing, you are condemned already. Without his blessing, you will be condemned for ever. With his blessing, there is heaven for you; without it, there is hell. With his blessing, there is peace and joy; without it, there is a gloomy future, always growing darker and darker until it becomes eternal midnight. Cry mightily to God now for his blessing; and while you cry, look to Jesus on the cross, bleeding out his life for the guilty. One believing look at him saves the soul for ever. Again I quote Paul’s words to the jailer at Philippi, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.” I do not know what more I can say. If I have been talking to sensible men who value their immortal souls, and God blesses my message, I have said enough. If I speak to those who are besotted with their sin, and bent on committing spiritual suicide, I could not say enough though I spoke until your ears could no longer hear, and my tongue could no longer speak. Eternal Spirit, arrest the elect of God this very hour, and bring them to see themselves as they are, and then to see Christ as their Saviour, and force from each one of them this cry, “Bless me, even me also, oh my Father.” Amen.

{a} Hydra: Gr. Myth. The fabulous many-headed snake of the marshes of Lerna, whose heads grew again as fast as they were cut off: said to have been at length killed by Hercules. OED.
{b} Mr. Spurgeon’s Exposition on this passage, and the remaining verses of Revelation 7, is given in sermon:— {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2704, “Flee From the Wrath to Come” 2705 @@ "Exposition"}
{c} {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3000, “, or Come, and Welcome” 3001} —The sermon by Mr. Spurgeon that will be sent to anyone in the whole world who sends a postcard, containing the sender’s name and address, to Messrs. Passmore and Alabaster, 4, Paternoster Buildings, London, E. C.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Heb 12}

The apostle, having described the heroes of the faith, represents them as witnesses of the great race which Christians in all ages have to run. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2037, “The Rule of the Race” 2038} All through the chapter he keeps up the idea of the great Olympic games, and represents the saints as occupied with spiritual athletics in the presence of God, the angels, and glorified men.

1. Therefore since we are also surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

In those games, those who ran and wrestled wore very little clothing, or often nothing at all. A runner might lose the race through being entangled by his scarf, so he laid aside everything that might hinder or hamper him. Oh, for that blessed consecration to our heavenly calling, by which everything that would hinder us shall be put aside, so that we may give ourselves, disentangled, to the great gospel race!

2. Looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

His race is complete; his wrestling is over; so he sits down with the great Judge of all as the One who has won his crown for ever. Let us look to him. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1073, “A Honeycomb” 1064}

3. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 236, “The Shameful Sufferer” 229}

Think how he wrestled, think how he ran; and let your consideration of him nerve you for your struggle, and brace up every muscle of your spirit so that you will be determined that, as he won, so will you by the divine help of him who is “the Author and Finisher of our faith.”

4. You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.

Paul reminds you that, in your wrestling, you may have to endure an even sterner struggle: “You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.”

5-7. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to children, “My son, do not despise you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by him: for whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father does not chasten?

The apostle’s intention is to harden us to any suffering that may come to us in this mortal life. He does so first by showing us that we are like wrestlers and racers, and that we must expect to endure much hardship if we are to win the crown. We are to “endure hardness.” The crown cannot be won without it. You know what men will do to win an earthly crown; but the heavenly crown is an immortal, unfading one; so how much more may be expected of you in the way of patient endurance in your effort to win it. Then Paul changes the metaphor, and says, “You are the sons of God, and that is the reason why you are admitted to the arena where these sacred strugglings take place; and since you are the sons of God, you must endure the chastening rod as a part of your training.” {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 48, “Chastisement” 46} Dear brethren in Christ, will not each one of you thankfully accept it, and say, “Since this is one of the evidences of my sonship, I will thank God for every cut of the rod, and bless his holy name for every twig of it.”

8. But if you are without chastisement, of which all are partakers, then you are bastards, and not sons.

A man may neglect such a child as that, for he is not his legitimate child; and God does not care for professors, who, though they seem to be his children, are not his true sons, so they are pampered, indulged, and spoiled, and left to enjoy themselves while they are here, since the Lord very well knows that they will have nothing but sorrow and misery hereafter.

9, 10. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they truly for a few days chastened us according to their own pleasure; but he for our profit, so that we might be partakers of his holiness.

God is the Father of our spiritual nature, so, if he pleases to chasten us for our profit, shall we not humbly yield ourselves up to him, and let him do with us whatever he wishes?

11. Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyful, but grievous:

It would not be chastening if it were a joy to us; it is necessary, in order that it may be chastening, that it should be grievous.

11. Nevertheless afterwards— {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 528, “Chastisement—Now and Afterwards” 519}

Oh, what melodious music there is in those two words to ears and hearts that are divinely taught to appreciate it! “Nevertheless afterwards”—

11-14. It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised by it. Therefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest what is lame is turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men,—

Run after it. It will often seem to run away from you, so you must pursue it, and capture it: “Follow peace with all men,”—

14, 15. And holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: looking diligently lest any man fall short of the grace of God; {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 940, “The Winnowing Fan” 931}

“Lest he should come short of the grace of God, and as it were fall back.” Paul is still keeping to his illustration drawn from the wrestling at the Olympic games. Sometimes, the wrestler gave his opponent a back fall, and down he went, and so lost the crown; beware lest such a fall should happen to you in your spiritual wrestling.

15, 16. Lest any root of bitterness springing up troubles you, and by it many are defiled; lest there is any fornicator,—

Fornication was the special sin of that age: in fact, it was so common that the heathen did not consider it to be a sin at all. Knowing about the tendency to licentiousness in everyone around them, Paul especially warned the Hebrew Christians against that horrible evil.

16, 17. Or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

His father could not transfer to him the blessing which he had given to Jacob.

18-21. For you are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice those who heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: (for they could not endure what was commanded, “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with an arrow”: and so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I greatly fear and quake”:)

“You have come to something very different from that mount of terror, even to a great gathering of holy beings in the midst of whom you should greatly rejoice.”

22-27. But you are come to Mount Zion, {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1689, “The General Convocation Around Mount Zion” 1690} and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, how much more shall we not escape, if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven: whose voice then shook the earth: but now he has promised, saying, “Yet once more I do not only shake the earth, but also heaven.” And this word, “Yet once more,” means the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

All that is eternal must, of course, endure for ever. The everlasting covenant, “the glorious gospel of the blessed God,” the purchase of the Saviour’s blood, the work of the Holy Spirit,—all these shall stand firm for ever, they can never be shaken. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 690, “A Lesson from the Great Panic” 681} The immutable Word spoken by the mouth of the unchanging God, lives and endures for ever!

28, 29. Therefore since we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire.

The God who gave the law on Sinai has never changed: the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of Moses, who overthrew Pharaoh and his hosts in the Red Sea, and killed Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and the multitude of murmurers, idolaters, and fornicators in the wilderness,—“this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even to death.”

I would again remind you of what I have often said concerning the wickedness of putting into this passage words that the Holy Spirit never inspired Paul to write. Many people say, “God outside of Christ is a consuming fire”: but Paul wrote nothing of the kind. It is “our God”—and he is not “our God” except as we view him in Christ,—who is “a consuming fire.” How greatly we ought to reverence him, and how earnestly we ought to ask of him that the divine fire may burn up everything in us that ought to be consumed, that only that may remain which will first endure the great shaking, and which will afterwards endure the great burning. May the Lord graciously grant to each one of us that grace which shall endure the fire!