3347. Things to Be Remembered

A Sermon Published On Thursday, March 27, 1913.

A psalm of David to bring to remembrance. {Ps 38:1 Title}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3347, “Things to be Remembered” 3349}

   Exposition on Ps 38 Isa 53 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2911, “Cases of Conscience” 2912 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Ps 38 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2385, “Another Lesson From Manasseh’s Life” 2386 @@ "Exposition"}

1. These words form the title to the psalm before us, which we read just now in your hearing. Let us note, for a short time, the subjects which David thought it necessary to bring to remembrance. All of us must have noticed that our memories much more readily retain evil than good. The snatch of a profane song heard in childhood will remain with us to our graves, while many a holy thought, leaves scarcely an impression on the tablets of memory. We heard it — it is gone — it would be difficult to recall it. The refuse that flows down the rivers of Sodom one retentively collects, but the goodly cedars of Lebanon that are floated down the stream pass by unheeded. We may well say, “Do not forget all his benefits,” for, alas! while the multitude of God’s benefits is forgotten, if there is anything to murmur about, it is pretty sure to be treasured up, as though it were a priceless relic to be carefully preserved. May the Lord mend our memories. As he makes us new men in Christ Jesus, may the Holy Spirit give to our memories the power to grip the right and the true, and with a loose hand to let slip what is evil and contrary to his rule. The psalm is “to bring to remembrance.” This seems to teach us that good things need to be kept alive in our memories, that we should often sit down, look back, retrace, and think over in our meditation things that are past, lest, at any time we should let any good thing sink into oblivion.

2. I. I have read the psalm to you, and I think you will all agree with me that among the things which David brought to his own remembrance, the first and foremost were: — HIS PAST TRIALS AND HIS PAST DELIVERANCES.

3. Come, my brethren, let me stir up your pure minds by way of reminder. Let me remind you of your past battles and victories, of your troubles and conflicts, and your sweet cheer and safe preservation. It will do you good to remember them, such a remembrance will prevent your imagining that you have come into the land of ease and perfect rest. We may have our time of prosperity and say with David, “I shall never be moved. Lord, by your favour, you have made my mountain to stand strong.” But immediately adversity surprises us, as it suddenly overtook him and changed his tune, “You hid your face and I was troubled.” This is not the place for us to have peace and rest. We are as yet at sea; the vessel has not reached the port. We are as yet in the wilderness; we have not come to the goodly land, even to Canaan. We are not yet out of gun-shot of the devil. We are not yet beyond afflictions and trials, and if for a while the weather has been calm, and the sun has been bright, and we poor pilgrims have been trudging on along green pastures and by the side of still waters, let us remember the giants with whom we fought in days long gone by. Let us remember the hills of difficulty; the valleys of humiliation; the conflicts with Apollyon; for as it was at the first, so it shall ever be until we come to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Oh! you who are making for yourself a downy nest, and building up a castle in the air, remember you do this without the permission of your God; indeed you do it in the teeth of his warnings, for has not Jesus said, “In the world you shall have tribulation,” and is it not written, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous”? Bring to remembrance, then, your former struggles lest you begin to settle on your lees, and imagine that there is no more trial for you.

4. Remember them, too, because they will refresh your memories with regard to the mercy of God, and so will stir you up to gratitude. Oh! we thought when we were in trouble that if the Lord would grant deliverance, he would never hear the end of it. We said then to ourselves “I will praise him while I have any being if he brings me out of this strait, and sets my feet once again in a large room.” But our song was not quite as long as we expected, and after having praised God a little the novelty of the mercy departed, and our gratitude subsided. But, oh! my brothers and sisters, have we not many reasons to bless God? Have we not good reason to bless him that we have been delivered from the burden of guilt — a burden that once bowed us to the earth; that we have been saved in dire afflictions when it seemed as if we must be crushed; that tribulations have been averted which threatened us, or that we have been sustained under those that have actually happened to us? Oh! sing to the Lord a new song, and weave that new song out of the memories of his past mercies, when he appeared for his servants in the times of trouble, and worked for them strangely according to the counsels of his love. Blessed be the name of the Lord at this time as we bring to remembrance past trials, and mercies that have been received!

5. Such a remembrance will be of great service to you, my brethren, if you are at this time enduring the same exercises. What God was, that he is. “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and for ever,” is his people’s trust and glory. Having begun to deliver you, he will not afterwards forsake you. He has not brought you this far to put you to shame. What is the trouble of today? You have passed through another quite as great. What is the doubt that assails you! You have already met a doubt quite as gloomy, and by faith you have overcome it. What is the fear which now gathers like a heavy cloud? The time before, it burst with mercies upon your head, and it shall do the same again. Draw courage from the memories of the past, and go forward to the fears of the future, and they shall vanish as you advance, confident in your God.

6. II. The great point, however, in David’s psalm is: — TO BRING TO REMEMBRANCE THE DEPRAVITY OF OUR NATURE.

7. There, perhaps, is no psalm which more fully than this, describes human nature as seen in the light which God the Holy Spirit casts on it in the time when he convicts us of sin. I am persuaded that the description here does not tally with any known disease of the body. It is very like leprosy, but it has about it certain features which cannot be found in any leprosy described either by ancient or modern writers. The fact is, it is a spiritual leprosy, it is an inward disease which is described here, and David paints it to the very life, and he would have us remember this. Child of God, let me bring to your memory tonight the fact that you are by nature no better than the vilest of the vile. “Children of wrath even as others,” are we. Even you who are favoured by divine grace to enter into rich fellowship with Christ, are no better naturally than the lost spirits in hell. There was no difference at the birth, and no intrinsic essential difference of moral constitution between Peter and Judas, between Paul and Demas, between the brightest apostle and the bloodiest persecutor. We have grown in grace; had we been left to ourselves, we would have rotted in sin. We have gone from strength to strength in the way of holiness, but if it had not been for grace that intervened most sovereignly we should have gone from depth to depth in the way of crime.

8. Just think that over for a minute. By nature not one bit better than the rest of mankind, see what grace has done for you in making such a difference. Why are you not tonight on the drunkard’s bench? Why do you the not fill seat of the scorner? Perhaps you have been there already, and if grace had not prevented it, you would have continued there. I think it does us a world of good, when grace has made the difference, still to take the place which the Publican did. I never feel so well in spiritual health as when I cry out, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Somehow, there is a safeness about it, when a sense of sin makes one cling to the sinner’s Saviour. Growth in grace and high feelings in spirituality are very pleasant, but it does us so much good every now and then to come right on the ground again, flat on our face before the Lord, crying out, “What am I that you have brought me to this? God forgive me, and accept me through the precious blood, for in myself I am loathsome, vile, and abhorred, and in me there dwells no good thing.” The best mode of living is to live on Christ every day as you did the first day of your conversion — always to stand at the foot of the cross with: — 

   Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to thy cross I cling.

9. A saint, I hope, by grace, but a sinner certainly by nature. Still, still dependent on the same merit of the Substitute, still accepted through the continual plea of the divine Intercessor who has espoused my cause, and is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God by him. “Heirs of wrath even as others,” this is what we were; sinners saved by grace, this is what we are.

10. It is good for the child of God to remember that, although his past sin is all blotted out, and he is justified by faith which is in Jesus Christ, yet there still remains in him the old body of this death. Sin, the force of sin, still dwells in him. Now, brethren, there are times when everything goes very smoothly with us. Everyone treats us kindly. We are much in religious exercises. We go from prayer meetings to lectures, from lectures to sermons, and from sermons to our room, and to our Bibles; we do not get vexed or troubled, and we begin to think, “Now, I really am somewhat of a superior being; I think I am not what I used to be; I never could be roused to that old anger which once flamed out so furiously, nor could I now be led into such fretfulness as once was accustomed to overcome me.” I have noticed — take my experience for what it is worth — that the most dangerous time in the Christian’s life occurs when he has been nearest to God in devotion. Outside the church you meet the devil, and not expecting him he is too much for you. It is just when you have been most spiritual that the temptation which you had almost thought would never come again, trips you up, and ah! how soon you find that if, when on the mountain, your face glowed, down in the valley again, unless your Master holds you up, your foot will slip, and your face will be covered with the filthiness of the valley! Remember, child of God, let others say whatever they wish to you, that the dictates of experience and the teachings of God’s Word, lead you to the remembrance that there is still in you a spirit that lusts after all kinds of evil, a nature which, if it were not curbed and confined by the grace of God, would again make you to be what you were, yes, and would bring into your house seven demons worse than the first. Never conceive that any one of the evils of your nature is so dead that it cannot have a resurrection. Strive against every form of sin, every thought of sin, every carnal tendency, every evil passion, but when you have striven most, never consider your victory to be complete, until your feet are within the pearly gate. Never think that you may take off your helmet, and lay aside your sword, and say, “The battle is completely won,” until you have crossed the river of death, and go waving the banner of love in the streets of the New Jerusalem.

11. David brings this to remembrance, and that, too, in the most forcible words. Some of the children of God can use very terrible words about what they feel in their own nature, so that ungodly men say of them, “How bad these Christians must be!” It is not that they are worse than others, but that they have the sense to see the evil. A man in a black coat may make a hundred spots and blots on it, but no one will see them; but let him wear a coat of white, and if there is ever so little a speck of mire, it is immediately seen. The holier the Christian becomes, the more readily he perceives his imperfections and the wickedness of his sins, and sin, instead of becoming more bearable to a Christian, becomes growingly more and more intolerable. A man in the water may bear much; in fact, much of it might roll over his head, and he would not feel the weight of it; but let him come out on the dry land, and only put a small quantity of water in a bucket, and how heavy it is when he carries it on his head. When he is in the element he does not feel the weight, for it presses him on all sides; but get him out of the element, and then he begins to feel its gravity. So, a sinner in his sin is like a man in the deep; he does not feel the weight of his sin; but get him out of it, bring him into a new element, and then immediately sin becomes very sinful. Oh, if we could only be perfect! If it were only possible to be rid of this evil nature! So we sigh, and so we cry, waiting for the adoption, for the coming of the Lord, for the perfecting of our nature, as it shall be eventually, when the furnace-work of Providence and the refining work of grace shall all be done.

12. It is a gloomy thing to bring to your remembrance, my dear friends, but it is often brought to mine, and I know it is good for me — what you were by nature, and what you still are, unless the grace of God prevents it. Remember old John Bradford’s remark; whenever he saw a man go by his window to Tyburn {a} to be hanged — and he lived at that time where he saw them all — “Ah!” he said, “there goes John Bradford if the grace of God had not prevented it.” It is said that a Scotchman once went to see Rowland Hill, and sitting down, he looked at the lines in his face. He looked for a long while, until Rowland smilingly said, “And what are you looking at, my friend?” “I am looking at the lines in your face, Mr. Hill.” “And what,” he said, “do you make of them?” “Why, that if the grace of God had not saved you, you would have been a great rogue.” “Ah!” said Rowly, “and you have hit the mark.” It is even so, and even worse than that, if the grace of God had not come into our hearts and made new creatures of us, we would have been equal to the devil, or, at any rate, it would not have been our fault if we had not excelled even Apollyon himself in rebellion and enmity against God.

13. III. A third thing the psalm brings to our remembrance is: — OUR MANY ENEMIES.

14. David says that his enemies laid snares for him, and sought his harm, and spoke mischievous things, and devised and imagined deceits all day long. “Well,” one says, “how was it that David had so many enemies? How could he make so many? Must he not have been imprudent and rash, or, perhaps, morose?” It does not appear so in his life. He rather made enemies by his being scrupulously holy. His enemies attacked him, not because he was wicked, but, as he says in this very psalm, they were his enemies because he loved the thing which is good. Now, you must not suppose that because you seek to live in all peaceableness and righteousness, that therefore everyone will be peaceable towards you. Far from it. Our Lord put us on the right tack when he said, “I did not come to send peace on earth, but a sword.” The ultimate result of the religion of Christ is to make peace everywhere, but the first result is to cause strife. When the light comes, it must contend with the darkness; when the truth comes, it must first combat error; and when the gospel comes, it must fight with enemies; and the man who receives the gospel will find that his foes shall be those of his own household. You shall not be helped by an ungodly father, nor be cheered onward by an un-Christian mother. One would think that even nature itself might lead parents to admire what should make their children virtuous, preserve them in this life, and bless them in the life to come. But such is the enmity of the human heart against Christ and his gospel, that hundreds of parents have been monsters to their children when those children have been obedient subjects to Christ. Why those stakes, those dungeons, and those racks? Why the snows of Piedmont dyed scarlet with human blood? Why the glens of Scotland dotted with the lurking places of the saints? Because this world hates the people of God. “You are not of the world,” says Christ, “even as I am not of the world, and therefore the world hates you.” It is good to be reminded of this, so that we may not be astonished at the fiery trial as though some strange thing had happened to us. It is the part and lot of the follower of the true to have to contend with deadly odds.

15. And remember, Christian, you have enemies who seek to turn you aside, and do you mischief. You are not travelling now along a road that is safe for your feet, in which there is no enemy whatever, but behind every hedge there lurks a foe. Whether you are in high or low estate, temptation will assail you. It is not possible for you to shut the door so fast as to shut out temptations to sin. Snares assail you in your bed and at your board; {table} snares will be about your feet at home and abroad; with your fellow workmen, and in the bosom of your family. Always be on the alert then; travel with a naked sword; never sheath it. “Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation,” and until you have come out of the enemy’s country, into the land that flows with milk and honey, always hear your Captain say, “What I say to you I say to all — watch.” Watch — especially watch against those who come to you with words softer than butter, which inwardly are drawn swords. Watch against temptations that appeal to your pleasure. You need not be so much afraid of what grieves you as of what charms you. Watch against the fair siren whose fascinating song will attract you from the billowy deep with the hope of rest to where, alas! you will find shipwreck and ruin. Do not look at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly. Let the charm of the temptation be the warning to you. Let the pleasure be the very beacon which shall make you turn aside from it, feeling that there must be evil lurking there. Christian, be always on your guard. Never be taken by surprise.

16. IV. Once more: — THE PSALM REMINDS US OF OUR GRACIOUS GOD.

17. Anything which drives us to God is a blessing, and anything which weans us from leaning on an arm of flesh, and especially that weans us from trying to stand alone, is a blessing to us. Think for a while how much you owe to the grace of God who has preserved you until now. The man who carries a bomb-shell within his heart, and has to walk through the midst of sparks, may wonder that he has not been blown to pieces.

   Kept alive with death so near,

   I to God the glory give.

18. With such a heart as mine, if you, oh Lord, had not held me firmly, I would have long ago declined, and turned back to the world. Praise the grace that has held you until now. Keep in remembrance the patience of God in enduring with you, the power of God in restraining you, the love of God in instructing you, and the goodness of God in keeping you to this day.

19. Nor ought we ever to forget with regard to our inward depravity and the grace of God, that mighty work which the Holy Spirit has undertaken. I was trying the other day in my own mind to weigh in the scales — the work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit; and the only conclusion I could come to was this, that I did not know which in its execution was the more difficult, or which in its results was the more precious. For Christ to take the guilt of sin and suffer was certainly a marvellous thing; but for the Holy Spirit to condescend to dwell in our hearts, and to combat day by day with our sin until he should eradicate the very principle of selfishness, and make us to be holy even as God is holy — this is a work worthy of God; and if the former work, that of Christ was divine, certainly this is not less so. Oh! let us never depreciate the Holy Spirit’s work, but looking forward to what we are to be, as well as backwards on what we were, let us magnify the Holy Spirit with our heart, and soul, and strength, who has accomplished all our works in us, and by whom we shall be presented faultless before the presence of God without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

20. “My God, I thank you for reminding me of yourself, of your Son by whom I am cleansed by your Holy Spirit by whom I am sanctified, of yourself by whom I am daily helped. Oh! bind me to yourself with tenfold cords, and as your providence brings me where I have to encounter new sins, and new trials, and to experience new deliverances and new mercies, may your own self be brought more closely to my soul, and may everything bring you to remembrance.” We never walk so safely as when we walk with God. We are never so rich as when we are poor in everything without him, and never so strong as when we are weakness itself, except for such strength as we get from our invisible Helper. Lean heavily there, Christian. Lean heavily; you can never make that arm weak. Bear with all your weight; he can never tire. Cast all your burden on him. You may even be glad to have a burden to cast there, so that you may have opportunities for knowing and proving the power and faithfulness of your God. Tonight, as your troubles have been brought to remembrance, let these bring your weakness to remembrance; let that bring your God to remembrance, and so you go up the rungs of the ladder from the bottom of the horrible pit and of the miry clay, to the very heights of joy and gladness, and as you go say, “My God, you are mine — mine, despite my sin — mine to deliver me from it all, and to make me like yourself, to dwell with yourself for ever.”

21. Brothers and sisters, the mercy is that all the badness that we see in ourselves does not at all affect our standing before God, or our belief in our own personal safety. Though I see within myself all that is foul and corrupt, everything that is villainous and even devilish, by nature, yet I do know that I am saved, and rejoice that neither death nor hell shall separate me from my Master’s bosom, for our standing rests not in ourselves, but entirely in what Christ has done. His perfect work presents to us a foundation on which we can build securely, and though we do grieve daily over indwelling sin, and have come to God with many a bitter accusation against ourselves, yet glory be to his name, Christ does not change, and our acceptance in the beloved does not wax and wane like the moon, but remains in one sacred, high, eternal noonday, never to go down. Glory be to God, and let our souls exalt in such mercy as this.

22. I wish as I bring these things to your remembrance, that you would remember how many have forgotten these things all their lives; how many of your own companions live as if there were no God, and no hereafter. I bring them to your remembrance. Pray for them, and do what you can to lead them to Jesus.

23. I wish I could bring to their remembrance that they must die, and that after death there comes the judgment, and that the judgment for an unpardoned soul means eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord. Oh! you who have much remembrance for the things of this world that are not worth remembering, for a while use that faculty for nobler purposes. Do not scrape up the mire of the streets, but begin to gather a little of the pure gold that God puts before you. Think about your latter end. Think about the gospel which now is preached to you. Think about the time when it shall be preached to you no more. Think about the hour when you shall be called to account for having rejected the gospel’s invitation. Whoever trusts Jesus shall be saved. Rely on what Jesus has done, and guilty as you are, your sins shall be forgiven.

24. May God grant that it may be so with you, for his love’s sake. Amen.

{a} Tyburn was used for centuries as the primary location of the execution of London criminals; the Old Bailey was the main criminal court of London. Editor.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Ro 6 Isa 53}

6:1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, so that grace may abound?

The fifth chapter ends up in this way, that “where sin abounded, etc. … Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then he goes on to say, “What shall we say then?” What inference shall we draw from the fact that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound? Shall we be base enough to draw a wicked inference from a gracious statement? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? It is a horrible suggestion, and yet it is one which has come into the minds of many men, for some men are bad enough for anything; they will curdle the sweet milk of love into the sourest argument for sin. “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.” With all the vehemence of his nature, he says: — 

2. God forbid. How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer in it?

The grace of God makes us dead to sin. This is the grace of God, which delivers us from the power of evil, and if this is so, how can we live any longer in it?

3. Do you not know, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

If we are in Christ at all, we are partakers of his death; and since his was a death for sin and a death to sin, we are made partakers of it; we are really dead because Christ died, and we are in him. Therefore we are dead to the old life, to the old way of sin. We indicate that by our baptism.

4. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Our baptism, solemn as it was, was a great act of falsehood, a living pretence, unless we are dead to our former way of living, and have come to live for God in a new life altogether, by virtue of the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection:

If we have partaken of his death, we partake also of his rising power. We live because he lives, and we live as he lives, not after the old manner, but in newness of life.

6. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that from now on we should not serve sin.

We are to regard ourselves as people who have been dead. We are ourselves, it is true; and yet in another sense we are not ourselves. We are not to look at ourselves as though we owed any kind of service to the power which we obeyed before we knew the Lord. We are new people, we have a new life, and have entered into a new existence — the old man is crucified with him.

7, 8. For he who is dead is freed from sin. Now if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:

There was no getting free from the power of sin, except by dying to it; but, being dead to it, we are free from it; and, now being dead that way, we have entered into a new life so that we might live as Christ lives.

9. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him.

So we, being raised from our former death, shall die no more; death has no more dominion over us. That is to say, sin cannot reign in us again; we are dead to it, we are brought into a new life that can never end, even as our Lord Jesus Christ is. There is a parallel between us and Christ, even as there is a union between us.

10. For in that he died, he died to sin once: but in that he lives, he lives to God.

And so do we; we have died to sin once, but now that we live, we live to God.

11, 12. Likewise consider also yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do not let sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.

It is in the body that it tries to reign. These poor things, these mortal bodies of ours, have so many passions, so many desires, so many weaknesses, all of which are apt to bring us under the dominion of sin, unless we watch with great care.

13. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin: but yield yourselves to God, as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

“Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin” — neither eyes, nor ears, nor hands, nor feet, neither allow any of these to become the tools of sin, “but yield yourselves to God.” He is ready to use you, lay all the powers of your nature out as tools, for him to use. “Yield yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead.” He is not the God of the dead; he cannot use the dead, but he is the God of the living, and since you profess to have received a new life in Christ, yield up all the faculties of this new life to the living God, “and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

14. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under the law, but under grace.

When you were under the law, sin had dominion over you; that law which was ordained to life, worked towards death. The evil desires of your nature revolted against the command, and led you astray. But now, beloved, it is of love and grace, and now sin cannot get in: stronger motives shall hold you to holiness than ever held you before, and the grace of God itself, like a wall of fire, shall guard you from the dominion of sin.

15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

That must not be. Again the evil spirit crops up, trying to turn the grace of God into licentiousness, and to make us feel free to sin because of God’s love — that must not be.

16. Do you not know, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

This is a wonderful heart-searching text: let us put ourselves under its power. Whatever you obey, that is your master: and if you obey the suggestions of sin, you are the slave of sin: and it is only as you are obedient to God that you are truly the servants of God. So that, after all, our outward walk and conversation are the best test of our true condition. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord, nor can he have any reason to believe that he belongs to God.

17. But God be thanked, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you.

Or into which you were delivered. God has taken you, melted you down, and poured you into a new mould. God be thanked for that; you are not what you used to be. Although you are not what you hope to be, yet you have reason to bless God you are not what you once were — you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine into which you were delivered.

18. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.

The fetters are struck off, the lusts of the flesh do not hold us any longer. We are the Lord’s free men, and out of gratitude for this glorious freedom, we become the willing servants of the righteous God.

19. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for just as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanliness and to iniquity leading to more iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness for holiness.

It needs no explanation. In the days of our sin, we sinned with all our power. Every part of us became the willing servant of sin: and we went from iniquity to iniquity, and now the cross has made us entirely new, and we have been melted down, poured out into a fresh mould. Now, let us yield every member of our body, soul, and spirit to righteousness, even to holiness, until every part of us, in the wholeness and consequently the holiness of our nature, shall be given to God.

20. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.

You did not care about righteousness then. When you served sin you felt it was utterly indifferent to you what the claims of righteousness might be. Well, now that you have become the servant of righteousness, be free from sin, let sin have no more dominion over you now, than righteousness used to have when you were the slaves of sin. “What fruit had you then in those things of which you are now ashamed?” What profit did they ever bring you? There was a temporary delight, like the blossom on the tree in spring, but what fruit did you have? Did it ever come to anything? Is there anything to look back on with pleasure in a life of sin? Oh no, those things for which we are now ashamed were fruitless to us, “for the end of those things is death.”

22, 23. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Isaiah 53 is a chapter which you have read hundreds of times, perhaps, I am sure it is one that needs no comment from me. I shall read it through with scarcely a sentence of comment.

1-9. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he has no form nor beauty; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we esteemed him struck, struck by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he does not open his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he struck. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he has done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

A strange reason for making his grave with the wicked, and yet remember if it had not been that he had done no violence, he would not have been fit to be a substitute for sinners, and so he was numbered with transgressors to redeem men.

10-12. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he has poured out his soul to death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

How clearly you have before you here our blessed Redeemer, and how strong are the expressions used by Isaiah to describe his substitution. If he intended to teach us the doctrine that Christ suffered in the room and place of his people, he could not have used more expressive words; and if he did not intend to teach us that truth, it is marvellous that he should have adopted a phraseology so likely to mislead us. Yes, we believe and hold it firmly, that Christ took the sins of his people really and truly upon himself, and did in his own person make a complete expiation for the guilt of all his chosen, and in this we find our hearts’ best confidence: — 

   Our soul can on this doctrine live,

   Can on this doctrine die.

Do you and I have an interest in this atonement, or must the complaint be made concerning us: “Who has believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” While I was reading just now, could you say by faith, “Yes, surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” Do you have an appropriating faith, which takes the sufferings of Christ to be its own? Do you now humbly, but yet confidently, look to Jesus Christ, the great Burden-Bearer on that tree, and know that your guilt was there? If so, rejoice, and walk worthily of your calling. If not, soul, you do not know the first letters of the alphabet of religion!

May the Lord teach you, for his name’s sake.

Feathers for Arrows; or, Illustrations for Preachers and Teachers, from my Note-Book. By C. H. Spurgeon. Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s.

Barbed Arrows, from the Quiver of C. H. Spurgeon. A Collection of Anecdotes, Illustrations and Similes. With Preface by Pastor C. Spurgeon, A companion Volume to “Feathers for Arrows.” Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s.

Illustrations and Meditations; or, Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden. Distilled and dispensed by C. H. Spurgeon. Cloth. Published at 2s. 6d., offered at 2s.