3262. Satan’s Arrows and God’s

A Sermon Published On Thursday, August 10, 1911.

He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He has caused the arrows of his quiver to enter into my loins. {La 3:12,13}

1. Jeremiah did not intend these verses to be a description of a sinner under conviction of sin. He was sorrowing over the woes of Jerusalem and the nation that had been so heavily punished for its sin, yet we may rightly apply his words to the most bitter of all human griefs, — I mean, of all human griefs except that ruinous remorse which sometimes comes as the prelude of eternal destruction.

2. Dear friends, when we preach to you, we do as it were, shoot arrows at a mark; but, alas! how few of them ever reach the target! If any of our arrows are shot without earnestness and zeal, they are almost certain to fall short of the mark. How sad it is that any of us, who are sent by God to do such important work as this, should be cold-hearted or lukewarm! Shame on the preacher who does not bend the bow with all his might, and throw his whole strength of spirit, soul, and body into his efforts to win souls! At times, our arrows fly too high. Perhaps we use expressions which our hearers do not understand, or do not talk sufficiently concerning the simplicities of the gospel. In such a case, we ought to repent and be grieved with ourselves that we have not carried out our commission better, and so adapted the means we have used so as achieve the purpose we ought to have had in view. But even when we aim properly, and put our whole force into the drawing of the bow, how often do our arrows glint off the steel armour of indifference in which so many of our hearers are encased from head to toe! The point of the arrow is blunted, or the shaft is snapped as we shoot again and again at those who try to prevent the entrance of the truth into their hearts. Year after year I have drawn my bow at some of you; I have used the sharpest arrows and the most polished shafts that my quiver could supply, and have thrown my whole strength into the effort, yet, up until now no arrow has pierced your hearts or reached your loins. But how different is the case when God himself draws the bow! Ah, my brethren, his arrows never miss the mark; the joint in the sinner’s harness is always visible to him, and though it is only a very small opening which no one else can see, between the plates of the armour the arrow unerringly enters. God knows how to wound mortally too; as the text reminds us, the arrow is driven right into one’s loins, into those parts of our being where the vital principle is most active; so that there is no hope of escape from the arrows which God sends right into the heart, the soul, the conscience of the one at whom he shoots his shafts.

3. As God shall enable me, by his Holy Spirit, I intend to describe the case of those who have been pierced by God’s arrows, but I want first, to speak of some arrows which do not come from God’s quiver at all, but which, nevertheless, cause very much pain to some sensitive spirits. So, first, I am going to try to break the devil’s arrows; secondly, to endeavour to describe God’s arrows, and then, thirdly, to seek to comfort those who have been wounded by these arrows.

4. I. First, then, I am TO TRY TO BREAK SOME OF THE DEVIL’S ARROWS.

5. I will venture to say that nine out of ten of the terrible feelings which men have when under conviction of sin are not the work of God’s Spirit, but are the result of the uprising of their own unbelief stirred and agitated by the diabolical suggestions of Satan. He knows that it is “now or never” with them; if he can now drive them to despair, and keep them from coming to Christ, he will have achieved his purpose; but if now the anxious soul should find shelter and rest in the atonement of Christ, the prince of darkness will have lost it for ever, and therefore he exerts all his power, and stirs up all his fellow fiends to do their utmost, to keep the poor soul in despair.

6. One of the arrows which the devil shoots at such a time is this; he says to the troubled soul, “Your sins are so great that it is not possible for God to forgive you. You have sinned so grossly and so long; remember your sin on such and such a day, and your such and such a night; if you had not committed such and such a sin, you might have been forgiven, but now there is no hope for you. Besides, think of the many ways in which your offences have been aggravated. You have sinned against light and knowledge; — though you have been often reproved, you have hardened your neck, and you shall surely be destroyed, and that without remedy. Your case is utterly hopeless.” Now, although part of Satan’s speech is quoted from the Scriptures, I dare to affirm that this arrow never came out of God’s quiver. That quotation has no reference to one who sincerely repents of sin, and comes to God seeking mercy for Jesus’ sake. However great your guilt may have been, remember that “the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.” If you had gone as far in sin as Satan himself could have led you, that great promise of the Lord Jesus Christ would still have been available for you, “All kinds of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men.” If the guilt of a thousand sinners had been concentrated in you, yet still, if you only washed in the — 

         Fountain fill’d with blood,

   Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins, — 

there is potency enough in that precious blood to make you whiter than the newly-fallen snow. Oh poor troubled one, let this arrow be broken in pieces once and for all! Let the thought of God’s everlasting mercy and his boundless power to forgive snap it in two, and cast it to the ground.

7. Another of the devil’s arrows which often goes whizzing through the air is this: — ”The Holy Spirit cannot soften such a hard heart as yours. You cannot repent as a sinner should do, sin has gotten too firm a hold on you. Why, you know that you can listen to a most earnest discourse, and yet not be in the least impressed by it; or if you are for a time moved by the message, you soon go back to your sin as the dog returns to his vomit, and as the sow that was washed goes back to her wallowing in the mire. There is no tenderness left in you; your conscience is seared as with a hot iron; the Holy Spirit is powerless to do anything in such a case as yours.” That is another lie, a gross and slanderous falsehood. What is there that the Holy Spirit cannot do? Oh my brethren, when anyone is talking about what the Deity can do, the word “powerless” must never be mentioned! Even the word “difficult” is not to be put side by side with the name of God. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.” Why, one drop of Jesus’ precious blood could melt a mountain of ice as huge as a million worlds; one flash of the Holy Spirit’s celestial fire could make a rock of granite run like the water that gushed from the struck rock in the wilderness. There is no doubt about the hardness of your heart, and the badness of your nature; probably you are much worse than you think you are; but it is impossible that your depravity should exceed the potency of the Holy Spirit’s influence to renew your nature, and change your whole life, so let this diabolical arrow also be smashed to atoms, so that even the devil himself cannot use it again.

8. Here is another shot from Satan’s quiver. The devil says, to the poor troubled soul, “It is too late for you to repent. If you had repented and turned to God years ago, you might have been saved; when you were a young man, you had your day of grace, but that is over now. Do you not remember being in a certain chapel, one Sabbath night, when the minister was so earnestly pleading with sinners, and many were struck down under conviction of sin? You also seemed to be impressed, but your anxiety had all gone in the morning; so you missed your opportunity, and now the gates of heaven are shut against you for ever. You may seek the Lord, but you shall not find him; you may call on him, but he will not answer you.” That is another of Satan’s lies, for there is no man living who has arrived at a time when it is too late for God to save him. We rightly sing, — 

   While the lamp holds out to burn,

      The vilest sinner may return.

Did not Christ save the dying thief? He was fastened to the cross, and was soon to die; but when he repented of his sin, and pleaded with Christ to remember him, he received the gracious assurance that he should be that day with Christ in paradise. If old age could keep men out of heaven, there are many now before the throne of God who would never have been there. If you are seventy, or eighty, or even ninety years of age, it is a sad and solemn thing that you should have lived for so long without Christ, but this is no reason why you should die and be damned after all. God’s message to you is still this, “Turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die?” The commission to Christ’s servants is still the same as when he gave it to his first disciples, “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” — not merely to every creature under fifty years of age, but to every one of the whole human race. If you are over a hundred years old, yet, since you are a creature, I have to preach the gospel to you, and the gospel is, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved”; so, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, however great your age may be, or however many times you may have refused to believe in him, there is no doubt about God’s willingness and power to still receive, and pardon, and accept you.

9. Another of Satan’s arrows is this. He whispers in a sinner’s ear, “You are not one of God’s elect: you are shut out of the kingdom of heaven. It is no use for you to think of being saved, a stern decree has blotted out all possibility of hope for you.” But how does the devil know that? This is one of the things that God has never revealed to anyone, and I am sure that Satan has never been allowed to read the names in the Lamb’s book of life, so do not let this arrow trouble you for a moment. Why should you not be one of God’s elect as well as any other man? Have you been a drunkard? Many drunkards have been saved in spite of their drunkenness. Have you been addicted to profane swearing? There are many, who once uttered the foulest oaths, but who were afterwards washed in the precious blood of Christ, and who are now singing the new song before the throne of God in glory. Have you been a willing servant of the devil? There are many, who long served him here below, who are now playing their golden harps in the presence of God above. You cannot tell whether you are one of the elect or not until you believe in Jesus; when you do that, you will have positive proof that God chose you for salvation, and gave you to his Son long before he formed the world. The doctrine of election is not one about which you need trouble yourself just now. Begin to read your Bibles at the Gospel according to Matthew, and see there how you are told to repent, and invited to come to Christ. When you have done that, you can go on to the Epistles, and read about election and all the other doctrines of grace, but your first business is to repent of sin, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

10. I have also known Satan to whisper to a man, “It is no use for you to pray. You know that you have been praying for a long time, but you have gotten no comfort from it, so give it up, for it is an utterly useless exercise. It is no use for you to believe. There was a man, the other day, who said that he believed, but he was just as great a sinner afterwards, so what good is it for you to believe?” Here again we have Satan’s lies set in contrast with God’s truth. It is of great use for everyone to pray, for our Saviour said, “Everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened.” There is not one case of true prayer that is exempt from this general rule. Then as for Satan’s assertion that there are some who say that they have believed, and yet they are not saved, we can reply that it is one thing to say that we believe, but quite another thing really to believe. No doubt there are some who say that they believe who are no better for it, but it is equally true that “he who believes in the Son has everlasting life.” Faith does justify the soul; “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So will you believe Satan’s lie or God’s truth?

11. I do not know what other arrows the devil may have shot at any of you. He may perhaps have told you that you have committed the unpardonable sin, but that is certainly more than he knows. If you now desire to be saved, you may depend on it that you have not committed that sin which is to death; and if you are now believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have the best possible proof that this sin cannot be laid to your charge, for whomever believes in him is not condemned, but has everlasting life. Cling to the cross of Christ, and you shall never sink down to perdition.

12. II. So having tried to break some of the devil’s arrows, I want, next, TO ENDEAVOUR TO DESCRIBE SOME OF GOD’S ARROWS.

13. Here I will give you a piece of my own experience. When God began to deal with me, one of the first arrows that flew right into my heart was this, “You God see me.” I remembered that God knew all about my sins, that he had seen them or heard them, and had written them all down in his book of remembrance. I was greatly alarmed, for I had forgotten many of them, and had dreamed that God also had forgotten them.

14. Then came another arrow, bearing this motto, “I the Lord search the heart, I try the loins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” I realized that God knew all about my motives and thoughts. He had seen my selfishness when I was trying to do what was right merely so that I might be saved by it. He had watched all the wanderings of my heart, and all the evil imaginations of my mind; and I was almost driven to despair as I thought what must be the fruit of my doings.

15. Then came another sharp arrow, and it was labelled like this, “The soul that sins it shall die.” I knew that I had sinned, and I felt that I must die, for the law can show no mercy, it can only punish the guilty. Then I heard that terrible sentence, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” Then I was very afraid, like Belshazzar was when he saw the mysterious handwriting on the wall.

16. Then came another arrow, bearing this inscription, “Your commandment is extremely broad,” and I began to see that the law of the Lord was much more than I had thought it to be. I had imagined that, if I kept the letter of the commandments, I should be accounted innocent; but I found that the commandment which said, “You shall not kill,” meant that, if I hated my brother, I should be a murderer; and that “You shall not commit adultery” not only referred to that shameful act, but also included the lascivious look and the unclean thought. Ah, me! where was all my imagined righteousness then? In view of the spirituality of God’s holy law, I might well say, with Moses at Sinai, “I greatly fear and quake.”

17. Another arrow that came to me was marked, “Without me you can do nothing.” I found that, by my own unaided power, I could not pray, I could not repent, I could not believe, but there I lay, as helpless as the dirt beneath my feet, and with no more power to save myself than a sere leaf driven by the blast of a tornado would have had.

18. Ah! these were sharp arrows indeed; and just when I seemed covered with wounds all over me, I thought I had another arrow shot into me, and bearing this terrible message, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” When I went to sleep, I determined that I was in hell; and when I woke up, I wondered that the earth did not open, and swallow up such a sinner as I felt myself to be. Life became almost unbearable for me.

19. Then there came another arrow, which caused me to suffer even more. It bore this missive, “You have sinned against light and knowledge. You were not ignorant, as many lads were, of what you ought to do; you had received gracious instruction, and you knew what the gospel was; you sinned against your father’s prayers and your mother’s tears.” I remembered the Lord’s day evenings at home when my mother had prayed with me, and pleaded with me to lay hold on eternal life, yet I had still refused to turn to God, and to trust in Jesus as my Saviour; and this thought came to my mind, “It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, and for Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment than for you.” So the arrows of God’s quiver entered into my loins.

20. These are God’s arrows, and the messages they bear are all true. It is true that God sees us, it is true that he reads our thoughts and motives, it is true that he punishes sin, it is true that his commandment is extremely broad, it is true that we are powerless to save ourselves; and if, my dear hearers, you are feeling the force of any of these truths, I congratulate you that God has made you a mark for his arrows.

21. III. Now, thirdly, I want TO SEEK TO COMFORT THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN WOUNDED BY THESE ARROWS.

22. My dear afflicted friends, so troubled and distressed in mind, please consider why God sends these arrows to you. Remember that they are not sent to destroy you, but to save you, and to save you by destroying some things of which you are very fond. They are sent, first of all, to destroy your false peace. God cannot bear that you should say, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace, and therefore he shoots these arrows to kill your carnal ease, so that you may be stirred up to seek his face. They are sent also to slay your self-righteousness, and they are blessed arrows that can do that. When Mr. Hervey asked a poor ploughman what was the hardest thing to get rid of, he expected him to answer, “Sinful self.” But the reply was, “Righteous self.” And, certainly, of the two, righteous self is much harder to part with than sinful self. These arrows are also sent to kill your strength. Remember, sinner, when you can do nothing, then God will do everything; when you are so completely emptied that you have nothing left, God will give you everything. If you wish to save yourselves, do it, but God will have no share in the work under such conditions. If he is to save you, he must be Alpha, and Omega; he must have all the praise because he gives all the power.

23. Next, since God’s name and nature are both love, he cannot take any pleasure in seeing you suffer. He has a purpose in setting you as a mark for his arrows, he has a design in causing the arrows of his quiver to enter your loins; he does not wound you out of ill-will towards you, but he is aiming for your good all the while. So thank him for shooting at you, and beg him not to spare any of his arrows, but to keep on shooting until he has killed the last relic of evil and self-righteousness that has kept you from coming to Christ.

24. Further, do not imagine that you are the first person who has suffered in this way. All the people of God, in their measure, pass through a similar experience. If they do not become God’s target at the time of their conversion, they find that his quiver is emptied against them sooner or later. Therefore, my poor wounded brother or sister, look at your pathway as being the pathway of the saints; it is the King’s highway which has been trodden by the pilgrims to heaven in all ages.

25. Once more, you are one of those who are especially invited in this blessed Book. Listen: “Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden,” — that must mean you; “and I will give you rest,” this is what you need. “Ho, everyone who is thirsty,” — that means you; “come to the waters, and he who has no money”; — that means you; “come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” “Whoever wills,” — that must mean you, for you are willing enough to be saved, — ”let him take the water of life freely.”

26. If you cannot get any comfort out of these invitations because you fear you are not the person described in them, remember that there is a general call given in the gospel. Not only are we invited to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and told to repent of sin; but, as Paul said at Athens, “God now commands all men everywhere to repent.” Be thankful that it is not too late for you to obey that command. The door of heaven is not yet closed against you, the gate of hell has not yet been fastened at your eternal prison-house; you are still on praying ground, and on pleading terms with God, so “seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

27. Above all, my dear hearers, remember that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” — sinners, notice that, — not the righteous, the good, the excellent, but the sinful, the bad, the guilty. God did not love men because of their goodness, Christ did not buy men because of their moral beauty, the Holy Spirit did not quicken those who were already alive; but “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly,” and “God commends his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Look by faith, sinner, to him as he hung on the cross. It is God’s eternal Son, “very God of very God,” who died there “the Just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God.” Remember how he cried, “It is finished,” before he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. What was finished? Why, the road from hell to heaven, the pathway along which the vilest sinner may travel to glory; — the fountain in which the most scarlet sins may be washed away; — the redemption by which the bondslaves of sin and Satan are for ever set at liberty. All this and more than this was finished on Calvary, and if you will trust in Jesus now, a finished salvation shall be yours this very moment. May the Holy Spirit enable you, just as you are, to rest on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then you will find that he, who wounded you with his arrows, shall heal you by his grace, and you shall be his for ever and ever. May God grant it, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {La 3:1-33}

I am about to read a portion of Holy Scripture which may seem very strange to some of you, but it belongs to a part of the congregation, and I hope it may be the means of giving them comfort. I read it as a picture of the suffering of a soul under a sense of sin. I think it is a most graphic portrait of a heart that is aroused and made to feel its lost state. If there are any such here, they will be sure to see themselves in the picture.

1. I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

It is a mistake that most souls make when in trouble, to suppose that no others ever felt as they do. John Bunyan describes Christian as being very much comforted by hearing someone quoting Scripture as he went through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, for then he perceived that there were others in a similar case with his own. Do not think, poor troubled soul, that no one ever was so broken in pieces as you are; your path of sorrow is a well-trodden one.

2. He has led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.

A Hebrew method of saying that it was a thick darkness without any light, either starlight or moonlight. You who have passed through this state of conviction know what it means, — no comfort from ordinances, no comfort from God’s Word, no comfort from your daily mercies. Every stream of comfort seems dried up for you, and sin lies heavily on you.

3. Surely against me he is turned; he turns his hand against me all the day.

As if, when a man is about to strike, he does not strike with his open hand, but turns his hand, so the prophet says God did with him. He felt that he was being struck with the heaviest blows that God seemed able to give.

4. My flesh and my skin he has made old; he has broken my bones.

Just as men through excessive grief sometimes appear to grow prematurely aged, so the prophet says he had done through grief. He felt as if his bones were broken. The severe vexations of his spirit had dashed the solid pillars of the house of Manhood from their place.

5. He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and woe.

That is to say, as the besiegers erected a mound against a city, and threw up earthworks, so, the prophet says that God seemed to have thrown up earthworks from which he might fire off the great guns of the law against him.

6. He has set me in dark places, as those who are dead of old.

As though he had to live in a tomb, where neither life nor light could come to him.

7. He has hedged me in, so that I cannot get out: he has made my chain heavy.

“My way seems blocked up, nothing prospers for me.” As the convict sometimes drags around his chain, and has a ball at his foot, so the prophet felt as if God had fettered him with a heavy chain, so that he could not move because of its terrible weight.

8. Also when I cry and shout, he shuts out my prayer,

Which was the worst trial of all.

9. He has blocked my ways with hewn stone, he has made my paths crooked.

It was believed that hewn stones made the strongest wall as the joints would all the more closely fit into each other. Jeremiah seems to speak as if God had taken care and trouble to build, not as men do, roughly with common stones, but with polished and well-shapen troubles built like strong barriers in his way.

10. He was to me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.

He felt as if the justice of God was about to spring on him. He was afraid to move, lest the crouching lion should leap on him, and tear him in pieces. John Bunyan, in his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, describes in his own experience precisely what the prophet speaks of here.

11-13. He has turned aside my ways, and pulled me in pieces: he has made me desolate. He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow. He has caused the arrow of his quiver to enter into my loins.

And all this while, to aggravate his grief, he found no comfort anywhere.

14. I was a derision to all my people; and their song all the day.

It is just so with a man who is under a sense of sin. His companions ask him why he is so melancholy; he has an attack of the mopes, they say. They do not want his company; they will chase him from their midst. I do not marvel that they do not want his company, for well do I know that he does not want theirs, but this adds much to his grief, to find that they make derision and laughter of his woe.

15. He has filled me with bitterness, he has made me drunken with wormwood.

What a strong expression the prophet uses! As a drunken man has lost his wits, and staggers where he does not know, even so is a sinner when he really begins to taste the bitterness of sin. He does not act as if he were endowed with reason; despair and sorrow have driven his senses away.

16. He has also broken my teeth with gravel-stones, he has covered me with ashes.

The Easterners usually baked their cakes on the hearth, and very frequently there would be in the cakes pieces of grit, perhaps large lumps of cinder, and sometimes small gravel-stones, which would break the teeth. “So,” the prophet seems to say, “when I went to try to get some nourishment by the eating of bread, I was disappointed; my teeth were broken with gravel-stones.” I remember when I used to go up to the house of God to try to get comfort; but, instead of that, I came away more wretched than I went, for sin, that great devouring dragon, still followed me everywhere.

17-21. And you have removed my soul far off from peace: I forgot prosperity. And I said, “My strength and my hope are perished from the LORD”: remembering my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul still remembers and is humbled in me. I remember this, therefore I have hope. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 654, “Memory — The Handmaid of Hope” 645}

Notice the gracious change that has taken place, as if the sun had risen after the blackness and gloom of the night. Now the birds of joy begin to sing, and the flowers of hope begin to open their golden cups.

22. It is through the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions do not fail.

Bad as our state is, we are not yet in hell; we are not yet beyond the reach of hope.

23. They are new every morning: great is your faithfulness.

We had new mercies this morning, and we have had fresh mercies this evening. God has not forgotten us. The very breath in our nostrils is a proof of his goodness to us; let us, therefore, dear friends, still hope for even more favours from him.

24, 25. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul; “therefore I will hope in him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2436, “How Good to Those who Seek!” 2437}

Can you get a hold of this blessed truth any of you troubled ones who are here? Broken-hearted sinner, can you get a grip on this comforting assurance? If so, there will soon be peace for you.

26, 27. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he bears the yoke in his youth. {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1291, “The Best Burden for Young Shoulders” 1282}

For this yoke, though it may seem to be very heavy for a time, when it has humbled us, and brought us to Christ, will bring us innumerable blessings.

28-33. He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it on him. He puts his mouth in the dust; there may yet be hope. He gives his cheek to him who strikes him: he is filled full with reproach. For the LORD will not cast off for ever: but though he causes grief, yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.

Unless he has some gracious motive for it, he never afflicts or grieves them, and when he acts like this, it is as when a father strikes his child. It is because it must be done, and not because he loves to do it. See, then, the great mercy of God. May it lead the sinner to repentance, yes, and lead us all to put our trust in the Lord!