3509. Coming to Christ

A Sermon Published On Thursday, April 27, 1916.

To whom coming. {1Pe 2:4}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1334, “Coming—Always Coming” 1325}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1376, “True Priesthood, Temple and Sacrifice, The” 1367}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3509, “Coming to Christ” 3511}

   Exposition on 1Pe 1:17-2:12 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3258, “Stumbling at the Word” 3260 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on 1Pe 2 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2765, “Marvellous Light” 2766 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on 1Pe 2 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 2790, “Our Lord’s Substitution” 2791 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on 1Pe 2 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3014, “Sermon from a Sick Preacher, A” 3015 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on 1Pe 2 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3112, “Sermon and a Reminiscence, A” 3113 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on 1Pe 2 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3485, “Disconsolate Lover, The” 3487 @@ "Exposition"}

1. In these three words you have, first of all, a blessed person mentioned, under the pronoun “whom”—”To whom coming.” In the way of salvation we only come to Jesus Christ. All comings to baptism, comings to confirmation, comings to sacrament are all null and void unless we come to Jesus Christ. What saves the soul is not coming to a human priest, nor even attending the assemblies of God’s saints; it is coming to Jesus Christ, the great exalted Saviour, once slain, but now enthroned in glory. You must get to him, or else you have virtually nothing on which your soul can rely. “To whom coming.” Peter speaks of all the saints as coming to Jesus, coming to him as to a living stone, and being built on him, and no other foundation can any man lay than what is laid, and if any man says that coming anywhere but to Christ can bring salvation, he has denied the faith and utterly departed from it. The coming mentioned in the text is a word which is sometimes explained in Scripture by hearing, at other times by trusting or believing, and quite as frequently by looking. “To whom coming.” Coming to Christ does not mean coming with any natural motion of the body, for he is in heaven, and we cannot climb up to the place where he is; but it is a mental coming, a spiritual coming; it is, in one word, a trusting in and on him. He who believes Jesus Christ to be God, and to be the appointed atonement for sin, and relies on him as such, has come to him, and it is this coming which saves the soul. Whoever, in the whole wide world over, has relied on Jesus Christ, and is still relying on him for the pardon for his iniquities, and for his complete salvation, is saved.

2. Notice one thing more in these three words, that the participle is in the present. “To whom coming,” not “To whom having come,” though I trust many of us have come, but the way of salvation is not to come to Christ and then forget it, but to continue coming, to be always coming. It is the very spirit of the believer to be always relying on Christ, as much after a life of holiness as when he first began that life; as much when he has been blessed with much spiritual nearness of access to God, and a holy, heavenly frame of mind; as much then, I say, as when, a poor trembling penitent, he said, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” To Christ we are to be always coming; always relying on him, always looking to his precious blood.

3. So I shall take the text, then, this evening like this:—These three words describe our first salvation, describe the life of the Christian, and then describe his departure, for that is only to be still coming to Christ, to be in his embrace for ever?

4. I. First, then, these three words describe, and very accurately too:—THE FIRST SALVATION OF THE BELIEVER.

5. It is coming to Christ. I shall not try to relate the experience of many present; I know if it were necessary you could rise and give your “Yes, yes” to it. In describing the work of grace at the first, I may say that it was indeed a very simple thing for us to come to Christ, but simple as it was, some of us were very long in finding it out. The simplest thing in all the world is just to look to Jesus and live, to drink of the life-giving stream, and find our thirst for ever assuaged. But though it is so plain that he who runs may read, and a man scarcely needs any wit to comprehend the gospel, yet we went here and there, and searched for years before we discovered the simplicity which is in Christ Jesus. Most of us were like Penelope, {a} who spun by day, and then unwound her work at night. It was even so with us. We thought we were getting up a little. We had some evidence. We said, “Yes, we are in a better state; we shall yet be saved.” But before long the night of sorrow came in. We had a sight of our own sinfulness, and what we had spun, I say, by day, we unwound again quite as quickly by night. Well, there are some of you much in the same way now. You are like a foolish builder who would build a wall, and then would begin to knock down all the stones at once. You build, and then pull down. Or, like the gardener who, having put into the ground his seeds and planted his flowers, is not satisfied with them, and thinks he will have something else, and so tries again. Oh! the means and the methods we will be doing to try and save ourselves, while, after all, Christ has done it all. We will do anything rather than be saved by Christ’s charity. We do not like to bow our necks to take the mercy of God, as poor undeserving sinners. Some will attend their church or their chapel with wonderful regularity, and think that that will ease their conscience, and when they get no ease of conscience from that, then they will try sacraments, and when no salvation comes from them, then there will be good works, Popish ceremonies, and I do not know what else besides. All kinds of doings, good, bad, and indifferent, men will try, if they may only have a finger in their own salvation, while all the while the blessed Saviour stands by, ready to save them altogether if they will only be quiet and take the salvation he has accomplished. All attempts to save ourselves by our own works are only a base bargaining with God for eternal life, but he will never give eternal life at a price, nor sell it, for all that man could bring, though in each hand he should hold a star; he will give it freely to those who want it. He will dispense it without money and without price to all who come and ask for it, and, hungering and thirsting, are ready to receive it as his free gift, but:—

   Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorred,

   And the fool with it, who insults his Lord,

by bringing in anything that he can do as a basis of dependence, and putting that in the place of the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

6. I said, dear friends, that it was very simple, and indeed it is so, a very simple thing to trust Jesus and be saved, but it cost some of us many a day to find it out. Shall I just mention some of the ways which people use, long before they find it out. Some ask, “What is the best way to get faith? What is the best way to get this precious believing that I hear so much spoken of?” Now the question reminds me of a madman who, standing by a table which is well spread, says to a person standing there, “Tell me what is the best way to eat? What is the philosophy of eating?” “Why,” the man replies, “I cannot be long about that; I need not write a long treatise on it: the best way I know of is to eat.” And when people say, “What is the best way to get faith?” I say, “Believe.” “But what is the best way to believe?” Why, believe. I can tell you nothing else. Some may say to you, “Pray for faith.” Well, but how can you pray without faith? Or if they tell you to read, or do, or feel, in order to get faith, that is a roundabout way. I do not find such exhortations as these recorded as the gospel, but our Master, when he went to heaven, told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and what was that gospel to be? His own words are, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved,” and we cannot say anything clearer than that. “Believe”—that is, trust—”and be baptized,” and these two things are put before you as Christ’s ordained way of salvation. Now you want to philosophize, do you? Well, but why should a hungry man philosophize about the bread that is before him? Eat, sir, and philosophize afterwards. Believe in Jesus Christ, and when you get the joy and peace which faith in him will be sure to bring, then philosophize as you wish.

7. But some are asking the question, “How shall I make myself fit to be saved?” That is similar to a man who, being very black and filthy, coming home from a coal mine or from a forge, when he sees the bath before him, says: “How shall I make myself fit to be washed?” You tell him at once that there cannot be any fitness for washing, except filthiness, which is the opposite of a fitness. So there can be no fitness for believing in Christ, except sinfulness, which is, indeed, the opposite of fitness. If you are hungry, you are fit to eat; if you are thirsty, you are fit to drink; if you are naked, you are fitted to receive the garments which charity is giving to those who need them; if you are a sinner, you are fitted for Christ, and Christ for you; if you are guilty, you are fitted to be pardoned; if you are lost, you are fitted to be saved. This, is all the fitness Christ requires, and cast every other thought of fitness far away; yes, cast it to the winds. If you are needy, Christ is ready to enrich you. If you will come and confess your offences before God, the gracious Saviour is willing to pardon you just as you are. There is no other fitness required.

8. But then, if you have answered that, some will begin to say, “Yes, but the way of salvation is coming to Christ and I am afraid I do not come in the right way.” Dear, dear, how unwise we are in the matter of salvation! We are much more foolish than little children are in common, everyday life. A mother says to her little child, “Come here, my dear, and I will give you this apple.” Now I will tell you what the first thought of the child is about; it is about the apple; and the second thought of the child is about his mother; and the very last thought he has is about the way of coming. His mother told him to come, and he does not say, “Well, but I do not know whether I shall come in the right way.” He totters along as best he can, and that does not seem to occupy his thoughts at all. But when you say to a sinner, “Come to Christ, and you shall have eternal life,” he only thinks about his coming. He will not think about eternal life, nor yet about Jesus Christ, to whom he is told to come, but only about coming, when he need not think of that at all, but just do it—do what Jesus tells him to—simply trust him. “What kind of coming is that,” says John Bunyan, “which saves a soul?” and he answers, “Any coming in all the world if it only comes to Jesus.” Some come running; at the very first sermon they hear they believe in him. Some come slowly; they are many years before they can trust him. Some come creeping; scarcely able to come, they have to be helped by others, but as long as they only come, he has said, “Whoever comes to me I will by no means cast out.” You may have came in the most awkward way in all the world, as that man did who was let down by ropes through the ceiling into the place where Jesus was, but Christ rejects no coming sinner, and you need not be looking to your coming, but looking to Christ. Look to him as God—he can save you; as the bleeding, dying Son of man—he is willing to save you, and cast yourself flat before his cross, with all your guilt on you, and believe that he will save you. Trust him to do it, and he must save you, for that is his own word, and he cannot depart from it. Oh! cease, then, that care about the coming, and look to the Saviour.

9. We have met others who have said, “Well, I understand that, that if I trust in Christ, I shall be saved, but—but—but—I do not understand that passage in the Revelation; I cannot figure out that great difficulty in Ezekiel; I am a great deal troubled about predestination and free will, and I cannot believe that I shall be saved until I understand all this.” Now, my dear friend, you are altogether on the wrong tack. When I was going from Cook’s Haven to Heligoland to the north of Germany, I noticed when we were out at sea, far away from the sight of land, innumerable swarms of butterflies. I wondered whatever they could be doing there, and when I was at Heligoland I noticed that almost every wave that came up washed ashore large quantities of poor, dead, drowned butterflies. Now do you know those butterflies were just like you? You want to go out onto the great sea of predestination, free will, and I do not know what else. Now there is nothing for you there, and you have no more business there than the butterfly has out at sea. It will drown you. How much better for you just to come and fly to this Rose of Sharon—that is the thing for you. This Lily of the Valley—come and alight here. There is something here for you, but out in that dread-sounding deep, without a bottom or a shore, you will be lost, seeking after the knowledge of difficulties, which God has hidden from man, and trying to pry into the thick darkness where God conceals truth which it would be better not to reveal. Come to Jesus. If you must have the knots untied, try to untie them after you get saved, but now your first business is with Jesus; your first business is coming to him; for if you do not, your ruin is certain, and your destruction will be irretrievable. But I must not enlarge. Coming to Christ is very simple, yet how long it takes men to find it out!

10. Again, we bear our witness tonight that nothing but coming to Christ ever did give us any peace. In my own case I was distracted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted for some years, and I never could believe my sin was forgiven or have any peace by day or night until I simply trusted Jesus, and from that time my peace has been like a river. I have rejoiced in the certainty of pardon, and sung with triumph in the Lord my God, and many of you are constantly doing the same, but until you looked to Christ, you did not have any peace. You searched, and searched, and searched, but your search was fruitless until you looked into the five wounds of the expiring Saviour, and there you found life from the dead.

11. And once more, when we did come to Christ, we came very tremblingly, but he did not cast us out. We thought he never died for us, that he could not wash our sins away. We conceived that we were not one of his elect; we dreamed that our prayers could only echo on a brazen sky, and never bring us an answer. But still we came to Christ, because we dared not stay away. We were like a timid dove that is hunted by a hawk, and is afraid. We feared we should be destroyed, but he did not say to us, “You came to me tremblingly, and I will reject you.” No, but into the bosom of his love he received us, and blotted out our sins. When we came to Jesus, we did not come bringing anything, but we came to him for everything. We came strictly empty-handed, and we found all we wanted in Christ. There is a piece of iron, and if it were to say, “Where am I to get the power from to cling to the magnet?” the magnet would say, “Let me get near you, and I will supply you with that.” So we sometimes think, “How can I believe? How can I hope? How can I follow Christ?” Indeed, \but let Christ get near us, and he gives us all that we need. We do not come to Christ to bring our repentance, but to get repentance. We do not come to him with a broken heart, but for a broken heart. We do not so much even come to him with faith, as come to him for faith.

   True belief and true repentance,

      Every grace that brings us nigh;

   Without money,

      Come to Jesus Christ, and buy.

12. This is the first way of salvation—simply trusting and looking up to Christ for everything. But, then, we did trust. There is a difference between knowing about trust and trusting. By God’s Holy Spirit, we were not left merely to talk about faith, nor to think about it, but we did believe. If the Government were to announce that there would be ten thousand acres of land in New Zealand given to a settler, I can imagine two men believing it. One believes it and forgets it; the other believes it and takes his passage to go out and get the land. Now the first kind of faith saves no one; but the second faith, the practical faith, is what, for the sake of seeking Christ, gives up the sins of this life, the pleasures of it—I mean the wicked pleasures of it—gives up all confidence in everything else, and casts itself into the arms of the Saviour. There is the sea of divine love; he shall be saved who plunges boldly into it, and casts himself on its waves, hoping to be borne up. Oh! my hearer, have you done this? If so, you are certainly a saved one. If you have not, oh! may grace enable you to do it before the sun has set. Have you known this before, that a simple trust in Christ will save you? This is the one message of this inspired Volume. This is the gospel according to Paul, the one gospel which we preach continually. Try it, and if it does not save you, we will be bondsmen for God for you. But it must save you, for God is true, and cannot fail, and he has declared, “He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Son of God.”

13. So I have tried to explain as clearly as I can that coming to Jesus is the first business of salvation.

14. II. Now, secondly, and with brevity. This is:—A GOOD DESCRIPTION OF THE ENTIRE CHRISTIAN LIFE.

15. The Christian is always coming to Christ. He does not look at faith as a matter of twenty years ago, and done with, but he comes today and he will come tomorrow. He will come to Jesus Christ afresh tonight before he goes to bed. We come to Jesus daily, for Christ is like the well outside the cottager’s house. The man lets down the bucket and gets the cooling draught, but he goes again tomorrow, and he will have to go again at night if he is to have a fresh supply. He must constantly go to the same place. Fishes do not live in the water they were in yesterday; they must be in it today. Men do not breathe the air which they breathed a week ago; they must have fresh air into the lungs moment by moment. No one thinks that he can be fed on the fact that he had a good meal six weeks ago; he has to eat continually. So “the just shall live by faith.” We come to Jesus just as we came at first, and we say to him:—

   Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to thy cross I cling;

   Naked come to thee for dress,

   Helpless, look to thee for grace;

   Foul, I to the fountain fly,

   Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

This is the daily and hourly life of the Christian.

16. But while we come daily, we come more boldly than we used to do. At first we came like cringing slaves; now we come as emancipated men. At first we came as strangers. Now we come as brethren. We still come to the cross, but it is not so much to find pardon for past sins, for these are forgiven, as to find fresh comfort from looking up to him who worked out a perfect righteousness for us.

17. We come, also, to Jesus Christ, more closely than we used to do. I hope, brothers and sisters, you can say that you are not at such a distance from Christ now as you once were. We ought to be always getting nearer to him. The old preachers used to illustrate nearness to Christ by the planets. They said there were Jupiter and Saturn far away, with very little light and very little heat from the sun, and then they have their satellites, their rings, their moons, and their belts to make up for that. Just so, they said, with some Christians. They get worldly comforts—their moons, and their belts—but they do not have much of their Master; they have enough to save them, but oh! such little light. But, they said, when you get to Mercury, there is a planet without moons. Why, the sun is its moon, and, therefore, why does it need moons when it has the full blaze of the sun’s light and heat continually pouring on it? And what a nimble planet it is; how it spins along in its orbit, because it is near the sun! Oh! to be like that—not to be far away from Jesus Christ, even with all the comforts of this life, but to be near him, filled with life and sacred activity through the abundance of fellowship and communion with him. It is still coming, but it is coming in a nearer way.

18. And I may say, too, that it is coming in a dearer way, for there is more love in our coming now than there used to be. We did come at first, not so much loving Christ, as venturing to trust him, thinking him, perhaps, to be a hard Master; but now we know him to be the best of friends, the dearest of husbands. We come to his bosom, and we lean our heads on it. We come in our private devotion; we tell him all our troubles; we unburden our hearts, and get his love shed abroad in our hearts in return, and we go away with a joy that makes our heart to leap within us and to bound like a young roe over the mountain tops. Oh! happy is that man who gets right into the wounds of Jesus, and, with Thomas, cries, “My Lord and my God!” This is not fanaticism, but a thing of sober, sound experience with some of us. We can rejoice in him, having no confidence in the flesh. It is still coming but it is coming in a dearer way.

19. Yet, notice that, it is still coming to the same person, still coming as poor humble ones to Christ. I have often told you, my dear brothers and sisters, that when you get a little above the ground, if it is only an inch, you get too high. When you begin to think that surely you are a saint, and that you have some good thing to trust in, that rotten stuff must all be pulled to pieces. Believe me, God will not let his people wear a rag of their own spinning; they must be clothed with Christ’s righteousness from head to foot. The old heathen said he wrapped himself up in his integrity, but I should think he did not know what holes there were in it, or else he would have looked for something better. But we wrap ourselves in the righteousness of Christ, and there is not a cherub before the throne that wears a vestment so very royal as the poor sinner does when he wears the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Oh! child of God, always live on your Lord. Hang on him, as the pitcher hangs on the peg. Lean on your Beloved; his arm will never weary of you. Depend on him; always wash in the precious fountain; wear his righteousness continually; and be glad in the Lord, and your gladness need never fail while you simply and entirely lean on him.

20. III. And now, not to detain you longer, I come to the last point, on which we will only say a word or two. The text is:—A VERY CORRECT DESCRIPTION OF OUR DEPARTURE.

21. “To whom coming.” We shall soon, very soon, leave this mortal body. I hope you have learned to think of that without any kind of shudder. Can you not sing:—

   Ah! I shall soon be dying,

      Time swiftly glides away;

   But on my Lord relying,

      I hail the happy day.

What is there that we should wait for here? Those who have the most of this world’s goods have found it paltry stuff. It perishes in the using. There is a satiety about it; it cannot satisfy the great heart of an immortal man. It is good for us that there is to be an end of this life, and especially for us to whom that end is glowing with immortality. Well, the hour of death will be to us a coming to Christ, a coming to sit on his throne. Did you ever think of that? “To him who overcomes I will give to sit with me on my throne.” Lord, Lord, we would be well content to sit at your feet. It would be all the heaven we would ask for if we might only creep behind the door, or stand and be manual servants, or sit, like Mordecai, in the king’s gate. No; but it must not be. We must sit on his throne, and reign with him for ever and ever. This is what death will bring you—a glorious participation in the royalties of your ascended Lord.

22. What is the next thing? “Father, I will that those also whom you have given me be with me where I am, so that they may behold my glory.” So that we are to be going to Christ before long to behold his glory, and what a sight that will be! Have you ever thought of that too? What must it be to behold his glory? Some of my brethren think that when they get to heaven they shall like to behold some of the works of God in nature and so on. I must confess myself more satisfied with the idea that I shall behold his glory, the glory of the Crucified, for it seems to me that no kind of heaven but what comes up to the description of the apostle when he says, “Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man to conceive of the things which God has prepared for those who love him.” But to see the stars, has entered into the heart of man, and to behold the works of God in nature, has been conceived of; but the joys we speak of are so spiritual that the apostle says, “He has revealed them to us by his Spirit,” and this is what he has revealed, “That they may behold my glory.” St. Augustine used to say there were two sights he would like to have seen—Rome in her splendour, and Paul preaching—the last would be the better sight of the two. But there is a third sight for which one might give up everything, give up seeing Naples, or seeing anything, if we might only see the King in his beauty. Why, even the distant glimpse which we catch of him through a glass or a telescope darkly, ravishes the soul. Dr. Hawker was once waited on by a friend, who asked him to go and see a naval review. He said, “No, thank you; I do not want to go.” “You are a loyal man, doctor, and you would like to see the defences of your country.” “Thank you, I do not wish to go.” “But I have gotten a ticket for you, and you must go.” “No,” he said, “thank you,” and after he had been pressed hard he said, “You have pressed me until I am ashamed, and now I must tell you—my eyes have seen the King in his beauty, and the land which is very far off, and I do not have any taste now for all the pomp that this world could possibly show.” And if such a distant sight of Jesus can do this, what must it be to behold his glory with what the old Scottish divines used to call “a face to face view”; when the veil is taken down, when the clouds are blown away, and you see him face to face? Oh! long-expected day begin, when we shall be coming to him to dwell with him.

23. Once more only, remember we shall come to Christ not only to behold his glory, but to share in it. We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Whatever Christ shall be, his people shall be, in happiness, riches, and honour, and together they shall take their full share. The Church, his bride, shall sit on the same throne with him, and of all the splendours of that eternal triumph she will have her half, for Christ is not niggardly towards his imperial spouse, but she whom he chose before the world began, and bought with blood, and wrapped in his righteousness, and espoused to himself for ever, shall be a full partaker of all the gifts that he possesses world without end. And this shall be, and this shall be, and this shall be for ever; for ever you shall be with Christ, for ever coming to him. When the miser’s wealth has melted; when the honours of the conqueror have been blown away or consumed like chaff in the furnace; when sun and moon grow dim with age, and the hoary pillars of this earth begin to rock and reel with stern decay; when the angel shall have put one foot on the sea and the other on the land, and shall have sworn by him who lives that time shall be no more; when the ocean shall be licked up with tongues of fire, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all the works that are in it shall be burned up—then, then you shall be for ever with the Lord, eternally resting, eternally feasting, eternally magnifying him; being filled with all his fulness to the utmost capacity of your enlarged being, world without end.

24. So may God grant it to us, that we may come to Christ now, that we may continue to come to Christ, that we may come to Christ then, lest rejecting him tonight we should be rejecting him for ever; lest refusing to trust him, we should be driven from his presence to remain in misery for ever! May we come now, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

{a} Penelope: Name of the wife of Ulysses in ancient Greek legend, who, during her husband’s long absence, unravelled every night the web she had woven during the day, and thus put off the suitors whose offers she had promised to entertain when the web should be finished. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Mt 8:1-13}

1. When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

There was a charm about his preaching, not that he modified his doctrine, or that he cut down his precepts; he spoke very plainly, very searchingly, and yet the people came to hear him. There is something in the conscience of man that makes him turn away from what flatters him, and makes him hear almost against his liking what searches him.

2. And, behold,

Never mind about the crowd; fix your eye on the one man; behold, etc.—here is a mark of attention.

2. There came a leper and worshipped him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”

He could not live in the city, but he might be found on the mount, in the outskirts of the crowd, where he would hear that gracious voice; and he came and “worshipped him, saying, ‘Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,’” in which I detect no unbelief, but rather a very strong faith. “If you only will it, I can be made clean.” And Jesus, seeing the man was willing to dispense with any outward form used one.

3. And Jesus reached out his hand, and touched him,

Not making himself unclean, as any other man would have done, but making him clean whom he touched.

3. Saying, “I will”;

A word of encouragement.

3. Be clean.

A word of power.

3. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

Christ’s grace, which usually worked at once, in an instant, worked for ever—the man was cleansed, never to be sick again; cured perfectly; the leprosy was cleansed.

4. And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no man;

Do not spread the news, the crowd is inconvenient already. It was not only Christ’s modestly, but Christ’s wisdom to keep down the throng a little, for they were too many who gathered around him.

4. But go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony to them.”

While the ceremonial law stood, Christ was very careful to pay it honour. He did not come to destroy, but he came to build up and to fulfil. He would have this man go and get a certificate from the priest that he was cleansed. Perhaps if he did not go at once, when it was found out that Christ healed him, the certificate might have been denied, and the man might not have been able to mix with the company, so he sent him away quickly, to go to the priest with his offering to get the assurance that he was really cleansed. When Christ’s work is certified by Christ’s voice, then it is sure indeed.

5. And when Jesus had entered into Capernaum,

Which I may call his headquarters, he seems to have taken up his abode here for a time, to have gone to and fro to Capernaum.

5. A centurion came to him,

An officer over a hundred men, of some importance in those days; a small band of the Roman army placed in Herod’s territory, perhaps to keep watch.

5, 6. Beseeching him, and saying, “Lord, my servant lies at home sick with the palsy, grievously tormented.”

Sir Risdon Bennett tells us that there is a type of palsy which is accompanied with great pain, and we know, even from the apocrypha, there is a case there of a man grievously tormented with palsy—not exactly the same thing, perhaps, that we call palsy nowadays.

7. And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

He did not say, “I will come and see him”; that would have been kind—he did not say what you and I would say, “I will come and pray with him”; that is all we can do—but “I will some and heal him.” Here is the tenderness of man and the power of God.

8, 9. The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority,

Here was a great point—a man commissioned, a man authorized, armed with authority; and he looked at Christ as in the same condition, sent by God, under divine authority, armed with a heavenly commission.

9. Having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, ‘Go,’ and he goes: and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

He did not explain further. It is a pity sometimes when we explain things to God in prayer, as I am afraid we often do, God knows what we mean. And so here he did not explain his meaning; we can see it clearly enough. “You too, oh Christ, are under the authority of God, and sent by him, and you have the powers of nature under your control. You only have to say the word, and they go; do this, and they do it.”

10. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled,

He had marvelled at men’s unbelief; now he marvels at their faith, so that the thing which touches the wonder of God is man’s unbelief and man’s faith.

10. And said to those who followed, “Truly, I say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,

This man is not an Israelite; he is a Roman soldier; but I have never found so much faith in the native born as I find in this stranger.

11. And I say to you, that many shall come from the east and west,

From differing lands and extreme distances.

11. And shall sit down

Or recline in ease and rest.

11, 12. With Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom,

Those born in Israel, who belong to the promised seed.

12, 13. Shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way, and as you have believed, so be it done for you.” And his servant was healed in the very same hour.

It is greatly important not only that we believe, but that we believe as much as we ever can, that we believe all that Christ has spoken. Some people, when they are converted, believe that they may fall from grace, and they do; according to their faith, so it is for them. If they could believe for eternal life and lay hold on everlasting life, they would find it so, for generally it is according to their faith that it is done for them.