3529. More Room for More People

A Sermon Published On Thursday, September 14, 1916.

It is done as you have commanded, and there is still room. {Lu 14:22}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3221, “Yet There is Room” 3222}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3529, “More Room for More People” 3531}

   Exposition on Lu 14:7-24 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3221, “Yet There is Room” 3222 @@ "Exposition"}

1. How delightful it is to observe that the wrath of man becomes tributary to the glory of God! See an illustration in the parable of the marriage supper. Those people who were first invited would not come. In order to do the good man of the house a despite, they declined his invitation, they refused to grace his table. Instead of causing his honour to be tarnished, they were, against their own will, the means of increasing his reputation. Had they come, it would only have been said that he made a great feast for his good friends. Since they did not avail themselves of his hospitality, he brought in the beggars from the streets, and swept the hedges and the byways to find the poorest of the poor, to all of whom he gave a hearty welcome. So it became the common talk all over the land, and tens of thousands extolled the generosity of the host who had given such a sumptuous banquet to such strange guests. Do not let the haughty, the arrogant, or the scornful of the children of men imagine that their paltry conceit can thwart God’s covenant purpose, or bring discredit on the riches of his mercy. Oh! sinner, if you reject a Saviour, it shall be your own loss, not his. If you live and die without faith in Christ, the fearful punishment will fall on your own head. When the self-righteous reject him, it only causes Jesus to say, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” When the rich men and the rulers refuse the gospel, then “the poor have the gospel preached to them.” When the wise and prudent reject it, then it is graciously revealed to babes. Thus God is glorified, though the temper of men is ever so turbulent. Let us, my brethren, always be patient of heart when we see the rage of men aroused against the gospel of Christ. They can do it no harm. His purpose shall stand; he will do all his pleasure. The bit is in their mouths; the hook is in their nose. Let them roar as they may, they cannot resist the force by which they are driven as chaff before the wind. He will surely perform his work, and his name shall be glorious.

2. It is no less delightful to observe how the anger of God, instead of venting itself in rashness, vindicates his goodness. In reading the parable to you just now I pointed out to you that because the man who made the feast was angry, he said, “Go out quickly into the highways and hedges, and bring in the blind, and the halt, and the lame to the supper.” So kindly disposed was he that his very anger impelled him to an extraordinary deed of grace. The Lord was angry with the Jews, and his apostles turned to the Gentiles. The natural branches of the olive were put away in his wrath; but what then? Why, he took us who were of the wild olive, and grafted us in who were previously wild and alien, so that even his anger towards Israel has turned to the benefit of the Gentiles, and we receive reconciliation out of their rejection. May we not regard this as a rule of his government? When a congregation hears the Word and tramples it underfoot, is it any wonder if God takes the lampstand out of the place in his anger? But does he break the lampstand? No, he moves it to another place. Others get the benefit of the light which those despised who had it previously. Great God of wonders, we bless you that even when your anger burns, your mercy brightly shines. Amid the thunder and the storm, soft showers are rained in silver drops to make glad the earth.

3. Our text tells us that the servant said, “It is done as you have commanded, and there is still room.” I think I see here a satisfactory announcement, “It is done as you have commanded,” a remarkable statement, “there is still room”; and an implied consummation, that the room will eventually be filled.

4. I. First, then:—A DESIRABLE ANNOUNCEMENT.

5. He said, “It is done as you have commanded.” Those who serve God best have generally the least to say about it. When I hear people boast about their religious attainments, I am seriously apt to suspect their deficiencies. A boastful Christian I knew something of, when talking to an earnest man, met very curt replies. “And pray” said the one, “do you not have any grace?” “Yes,” said the other, “but I never had any to boast about.” Disciples who are fullest of grace will be slowest to vaunt. Humility befits a servant. “It is done,” sounds better than “I have done as you have commanded.” In the same way the man who gained five pounds in one of the parables did not come and say, “Lord, I have gained five pounds”; but he said, “Your pound has gained five pounds” That was a more delicate way to put it; not as an affectation of speech, but with a becoming modesty. So, too, with the Church of God, when she has done as Christ commands her, she will always feel desirous to wait on him as a humble servant, considering this no more than her duty. Besides, the declaration appears to have been made in a waiting attitude, with an expectancy of having something more to do. “It is done as you have commanded, and there is still room,” so that the servant seems to stand ready to do something more to fill the vacant places at the feast.

6. And so we ought always to stand as Christians when we have done our best—waiting for further directions, never saying, “I have done enough, and now I can retire from service.” Rather let God be thanked for what we have been enabled to do; but, strengthened and encouraged by success, let us resolve to do more, and entreat him to show us what still remains to be done, and what more we can have the pleasure of doing. “Oh! my Lord, I have grown grey in your service; fulfil your promise to me, ‘You shall produce fruit in old age to show that the Lord is upright.’ Do not put me away from your loved employ. Honour me with some other task. Delight my willing soul with some new command. Ask me to do or, suffer for your will, but do not pass me by, do not leave me to be a laggard, unhonoured and uninterested in fulfilling my Lord’s behests.” So, let the Church of God always feel that she has never come to the place where she can say, “Rest and be thankful.” “Higher, higher, higher, higher,” must still be her motto. If her missions have conquered one continent, they must invade another. If half the world had been converted, there would be no rest for us until the other half were converted also. “It is done as you have commanded, and there is still room—room for more work, because there is room for more guests at your feast.”

7. Did I not say that this was a desirable announcement? I am afraid these servants said what some of us should hesitate to affirm. “It is done as you have commanded.” Alas! how few churches could say this! And where the church might collectively affirm it, many members of the church must shrink from professing individually to have done as the host commanded. For what was it that your Lord requested? “Go out quickly.” How little there has been of going out after sinners. We have been content to preach to those who came to hear us. Of course, if the people will come to hear us in such numbers, and throng this Tabernacle so constantly, we have no reason to go away from them. But, alas! there are places of worship which I could indicate without difficulty that are not filled, that never were filled, that never will be filled, where there are, probably, as many spiders as there are people under ordinary circumstances, where there are certainly more pews than sitters; and yet it does not seem to have ever occurred to the preacher that he should go out after the people. Small congregations will continue to worship in places not one fourth occupied, when they might go across to the theatre or the music hall, or to some other large building into which the people might come, and where they might be met.

8. It would be a strange thing for the supply of fish, if our fishermen only sat at the window and caught what came beneath it, but never went out to sea after the fish. There would be little game, I warrant you, on his lordship’s table if he sat at the drawing-room window to shoot only what came there to be shot. For it does not come that way. The moors must be trodden, and the bushes must be beaten. So if we are to have many sinners saved, we must go out of our own quiet haunts, and go out into frequented places. We must preach in the street, or at the market-place, or on the village green. We must take the Word to the people, if they will not come to the Word. “Go out, go out,” says the Saviour. This is a word that should ring loudly in the ears of many Christians. You have heard almost enough sermons; go out and teach yourself. While you have been eating the fat and drinking the sweet, multitudes are perishing for lack of the heavenly bread. Go out and break it to them. Oh! that there might come a holy impulse on many present here to begin some good work for Christ! Break up some soil so far uncultivated; make an incursion and an invasion into Satan’s territory. There is no land that yields so well as what is newly broken up. The virgin soil that has long been given up to the forest, the brier and the thorn—only let the plough go through this, and there shall be sevenfold harvests. No preaching is half so successful as what carries the gospel to the dissolute classes—those who never have been hardened by hearing and rejecting the good news of mercy—those who, albeit they may have their faces stained with immorality, certainly do not have any affectation in their character. To these it comes like a new thing; it strikes them as sweet music; and, hearing the joyful sound, they very often turn to God and live. To this day it is true, as our Saviour said in his day, that Publicans and prostitutes enter into the kingdom of heaven before Pharisees. This is a sphere of labour that remunerates the labourer. The lowest of the low, when hearing the Word, often accept what the so-called respectable despise. Go out, therefore.

9. Know this, likewise, that the matter is urgent, for the Master said “go out quickly.” Here, again, I am afraid we cannot say we have done this. “Go out quickly”; go out in haste; go out with the utmost speed; go out as one who runs on an errand, anxious to fulfil his mission; go out, not listlessly, as if you had to wait for an opportunity, but eagerly, knowing that this is the opportune time. Hurry yourself to have it done at once. Go out quickly. The world goes by steam nowadays, while the Church still jogs on by the broad-wheeled wagon. I know some churches that crawl like a snail on a small leaf, making much ado to accomplish nothing. If half-a-dozen converts are added in twelve months, they think it is rather too many to be safe, and they are half afraid that they cannot be all genuine Christians. They would gladly “summer them and winter them,” as they say, and try them in half-a-dozen modes. In fact, it seems to them as if God never sent a new-born convert into their church except for them to worry it—not for them to accept it as a blessing from heaven, and to train it, and nurse it—but to worry it. This will never do. We are to look after something more rapid than the progress which these churches will ever make. Go out quickly. Men are dying. There is no time for us to be quibbling among ourselves. It behoves us to show our zeal rather than waste our energies. Men are perishing. We must preach the gospel to them now; tell them that it is “now or never” for some of them; make known to them a present Saviour, and cry to them, “If God is God, serve him; if Baal is God, serve him. How long do you halt between two opinions? For the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you will hear his voice.’” There needs to be promptness, quickness, speed, avidity, eagerness after souls, in the preachers of the gospel. “Go out quickly.”

10. And have we not failed again in another point? “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the blind, and the halt, and the maimed, and compel them to come in.” There are certain missions now established for which we have reason greatly to bless God. There are works going on in London which are the glory of Christendom. May God prosper them all! Such beloved friends as Miss MacPherson, Dr. Bernardo, our brother Orsman, and many others, deserve our love and esteem, for they have given themselves up to work among the poorest of the poor and the lowest of the low, bearing a great deal which some of us might shrink from, rejoicing to show their diligence among a people much neglected, and reaping a good harvest of comfort for themselves in the salvation of souls. But, dear friends, where there is one of such works there ought to be fifty; and with this population of London, verging now on four million, when we have added all these works of faith and labours of love together, we might well say of them, “What are they among so many?” May God touch many of your hearts, my brothers and sisters, and make you feel the soft touch of sympathy for the perishing, while you hear the Master’s words spoken to you! “Go out yourselves quickly, and lay hold on the blind, and the halt, and the maimed, and bring them into the supper.” Indeed, bring them to Jesus. You cannot do it by yourself, but his Spirit dwells in you. Do not forget that. You are not an ordinary man; you are not an ordinary woman. “Do you not know that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit?” God dwells in you, and with a God in you, what can you not do? Only have faith in the indwelling Deity, and attempt difficulties; no, attempt what some think impossibilities, and you shall find that with God all things are possible. Weak as you are, yet, through his strength, you shall perform all things. I pray God for this church, that she may not be found guilty at the coming of Christ of not having gone out after the poor. Encourage them to come to this house at all times, whenever you can. I do not know where we are to put any more; but there is Thursday evening, and there is Monday evening, and there is room then. Oh! bring in whomever you can, for perhaps when the gospel is preached God may bless it to them. Let us not be deficient in this.

11. II. In the next place we proposed to draw your attention to:—A REMARKABLE STATEMENT.

12. They had fished up all the poor people in the city, and they had brought in the four characters—the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind—and after that it was alleged “there is still room.” Well, well, that is a very encouraging piece of information for ungodly people here. For those who have not come to Jesus this is welcome information, “There is still room.” Now we know there is still room for sinners, from several reasons.

13. We may infer it, to begin with, from the doctrine of election. God has chosen a people for himself. We are told that their number is a number that no man can number. Well now, those who are saved are not so very many yet. They are a great many more than some bigots would like to believe, but they are a great many fewer than some enthusiasts would imagine. I am sure God has not saved enough yet to complete the number that he has proposed to save, by a very long way. It is my own belief, as it is my earnest hope, that in all things Christ will have the pre-eminence. As in other things, so also in this, he will have more souls than Satan, so that he may have the pre-eminence over the old serpent. It does not look to me likely that there should be at the last more lost than saved. We cannot answer the question for certain, but surely the Lord’s mercy will triumph over human sin, and God will gain for himself the victory. A good divine used to say that he hoped and thought that, at the last, there would be no more people lost, in proportion, than there might be found of people in prison, in any well-ordered state, in proportion to the number of those who were citizens at large. I only trust it may be so. But the lines of God’s election do not encompass a mere handful. There is a great and vast number chosen by him, and there is no such great and vast number gathered in yet. Therefore, we are persuaded that there is still room.

14. Next, the efficacy of the atonement leads us to believe this. The atonement that Christ offered on the cross was no small matter. It was the sacrifice of himself as an infinite being—as God and as man; and I dare set no limit to it in its efficacy, itself considered. The death of so august a Personage, in circumstances of such dishonour, amid agonies so inconceivable, must have about it an amount of virtue utterly beyond all reckoning. Jesus Christ is to see the travail of his soul and to be satisfied; and the travail of his soul does not mean the few Christian people who are now in the world or have been, and his satisfaction will not be consummated by the few million that have so far been saved. Why, it does not satisfy us; yet our hearts are narrow compared with his. He will not be satisfied unless myriads are his. The jewels of his crown must be countless as the stars of heaven by night, and as the sands on the sea-shore by day. By that bottomless, fathomless, summitless atonement, I do believe that yet there is, and must be, room.

   Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood

      Shall never lose its power,

   Till all the ransomed Church of God,

      Be saved to sin no more.

The end has not been reached. The virtue of the blood has not been stopped. The ransomed Church has not been all gathered in. So there is still room.

15. Again, when I consider the greatness of the adorable Persons who entered into covenant to devise the wondrous plan and accomplish the mighty work of salvation, I feel persuaded that there is still room. Who is it who saves me? It is God who made heaven and earth. He devised the magnificent purpose according to the good counsel of his will. Do you think that the Architect of those heavens has designed a little Church for the display of his glory? Do you think that he who spread the stars abroad in all their countless hosts to adorn his universe has limited the number, with causeless thrift, of brilliant diadems who shall celebrate the everlasting song of his praise? We do not think so. It was Jesus who accomplished salvation; and do you think that such a Saviour, of such unrivalled dignity, came to accomplish a petty salvation for a petty few whom you might count on your fingers? Incredible! Impossible! God forbid!

16. And what shall I say of the Holy Spirit, whose majesty awes us, whose mystery baffles us, whose mercy enlivens us—the Spirit of God who works in us that salvation which the Christ of God has worked, for us—do you think that he has come to dwell on earth with any little or insignificant intent? What small sect will contribute to his satisfaction? No, glory be to his name, he brought three thousand in on the day of Pentecost, and he will cause nations to be born in a day yet, and the Church shall cry, “Who has begotten these for me? These—where did they come from?” If I go to Gethsemane and see the bloody sweat, I expect a wonderful harvest from that matchless sowing. If I stand on Calvary and see the flowing wounds, I expect a marvellous reward for those tremendous griefs. If we are not to be pitifully disappointed, there must still be something greater in store than the world has ever seen. The history of Christendom is far more grand than any chapter that has yet been written. There is room; there must be room at the feast of mercy—still much room to be occupied. It is not half filled yet. Scant at present is the array of guests, compared with the complement of those who need to be brought in.

17. “There is still room.” With a mysterious spiritual consciousness, with an eager, sympathetic anxiety, the Church feels and knows that there is room. The individual yearnings of our Lord’s disciples attest to it. Do I not myself daily feel as if there were room; places that need filling, as well as people that need placing at the feast. Brethren, our churches prove that the new converts introduced into their fellowship are like new blood poured into their veins. A church cannot be happy and healthy for long without recruiting, renewing, reviving, and we are always needing new workers with the dew of the morning on their souls. We are needing preachers powerfully impressed with their own call to proclaim the gospel. Many pulpits need them! We need evangelists; men who have just welcomed the news, the good news, the heavenly tidings, and hurry to tell it at the street corners, to the passengers along our thoroughfares. Lovers of souls; seekers of souls; oh! how much we require them! Many a Sunday School needs teachers. Many a Ragged School {a} needs self-denying assistants. Everywhere there is a need—a real need—for more helpers in the church, for more labourers in the harvest. So there must be room to store the fruits they need to reap. As the benches of the feast seem to groan for guests, so does the Church long after new additions to her community.

18. If you were here sometimes at the Monday night prayer meeting, you would feel there was room. Some of our brethren pray as if they had room in their hearts for hundreds and thousands who must be reclaimed. When the Church gets into the spirit of prayer, her cries and groans give proof of secret tears and private wrestlings. Her earnest members, by the instant entreaties made to God, prove that the Church feels that the guest room is not yet full. Her tent is not filled with children; she is crying out, like Rachel of old. “Give me children, or I die.” She wants to see her converts multiplied; she longs to stretch out the curtains of her habitations. There is, there must be, room.

19. Judging by my own experience, I should say that the minister can generally feel when God is saving the souls of his hearers. The efforts and anxieties of his labour are accompanied with such pangs and throes within his own soul that he is well content with the pain and travail for the joy he has in prospect. When last week I had some conversation with the candidates for church fellowship my heart rejoiced, as I found out how many of you had recently found the Saviour. After being half-dubious whether a blessing had attended the sermons I recently preached, as I listened to the stories of conversion that so many told me, it made my heart leap for joy. The fact was that no news had come to me of the expectations I had fostered. There is an interval between the sowing time and the reaping time. But I am encouraged. No doubt there are more of you coming. All but decided now, you will be altogether decided soon. God is at work with you; he intends to bring you in, so that his grace may have honour. Well, those desires and prayers, those longings and hopings, those wishes and expectations of the Church all show that she does not feel thorough satisfaction with the present results, and certainly she feels no misgiving concerning the accommodation ready for all comers. “There is still room.” Yes, God be praised, there is. That mother says, “Oh! that my child were brought in!” Blessed be God, there is room for him. And the father says, “Oh! that my sons were saved!” Well, there is room for them. There have been thousands who have gone to heaven recently, but there is still room. There are thousands who have come to Christ recently, but there is still room. Prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, saints, have gone into glory, but there is still room. In this church hundreds have pressed in to know the Lord, but there is still room. There is room; there is still room; and there is room for you. Blessed be God for that! Oh! that you may occupy that room!

20. III. My third point is this, that there is implied in the text:—A MOST BLESSED CONSUMMATION, that the room will be filled.

21. It is an old saying of the natural philosopher that nature abhors a vacuum. It is true, I do not doubt. But here is another axiom: Grace abhors a vacuum. The good man of the house could not bear to see a vacant seat at his table. All things were ready, but there were empty places, and he did not like it. The glory of the feast is to be found not merely in the provisions, but in the guests; so he must have the chairs occupied, as well as the table covered. May be it said with reverence, the glory of Christ lies not only in his sacrifice, but in the sinners whom that sacrifice saves. A king is no king who has no subjects. A head is no head if it has no body. And so Jesus Christ would be a King without subjects if no one was saved. He would be a Head without members, and that is a ghastly thought. He must have a people, and, what is more, he must have all his people. In our natural bodies, if only a little finger is missing, the body is not perfect. So also in Christ, if all his members are not saved, there would not be a perfect Christ. The apostle tells us that the Church is the fulness of Christ. Hence if a part of the Church were lost, a part of Christ’s fulness would be lost. Therefore, he must cause all to come in the unity of the faith to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, for grace abhors a vacuum. When at last the end shall come, and the age of grace shall be wound up, it will be seen that at the table of mercy here below there was not a seat left empty. “All those whom the Father gives me shall came to me.” “Whom he foreknew he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son; and whom he predestinated those he also called.” So it shall be. Satan shall not be able to point to a single empty place and say, “A certain soul should have been seated there; God appointed it; I frustrated his purpose.” That cannot, shall not be. The wedding must and shall be furnished with guests.

22. In the same way is the table of glory. Like the table of grace, while the table is richly spread, the seats shall be amply filled. There at that table, blessed be God, there is a place for me, and none of you can occupy it. It will be only occupied by him for whom it was designed. If you believe in Christ, dear friend, there is a place for you, a freehold, a vested right of which you cannot be deprived. There is a crown that will fit no other head than yours. There is a harp that will yield music to no other hands than yours. There is a mansion among the many, many mansions in our Father’s house for your residence. There will be no mansions in heaven at last untenanted. In some streets of London, “For rent” is written on half the houses. The outlook is cheerless. But when at last the King shall bring his children home, there will not be one prepared mansion that has lost its prepared tenant. The reserved inheritance shall revert to the reserved people; the purchased inheritance shall inherit the purchased possession. This gives me hope in preaching. It convinces me that I do not preach in vain. There must and there shall be some saved. God has declared it. God has made ready for it on earth, and he has made ready in heaven for it. Therefore, they shall be brought in. His preparation shall not be in vain. His wedding shall be furnished with guests. This certainty fortifies me against an apparent contingency. It inspires me with hope about some of you, my dear hearers, who look hesitant, that you before long will be resolute. If you come to God, there are preparations made to receive, to welcome you, to lodge you, to feed you, to supply all your needs. If you desire to come, you shall not be cast away. Why should you not wear one of those crowns? Why should you not tenant one of those mansions? “There is still room.”

23. But who will help to fill that room? Who out of this dense throng of people will help to fill the vacant places at the gospel supper? I cannot call you one by one, as I wish, but I do call to you with all my heart. Come to Jesus. Should you say, “How shall I come?” Well, it is not a motion of the body; it is a motion of the mind. “What kind of motion of the mind?” do you ask. It is trust—trust—simple conviction and unquestioning faith. If you commit your case to him, he will be concerned for you. Follow Christ; you shall have fellowship with him. Your resolution will be evidence of your redemption. Your plea will procure a sense of his pardon. By your acquiescence you will learn that you are “accepted in the Beloved.” May God incline you, by the mighty operation of his Spirit, to come to Jesus. So my prayers shall be answered. So your souls shall be blessed for ever. Amen.

{a} Ragged School: A free school for children of the poorest class. OED.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon {Lu 8:41-56}

41, 42. And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and besought him that he would come into his house: for he had only one daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay dying. But as he went the people thronged him.

Notice the word “behold,” for this was a wonder that a man so high in position to come to Christ at all, especially one who was in an ecclesiastical position, for he “was a ruler of the synagogue.” Usually those who were involved with the synagogue were great despisers of our Lord Jesus; God works great wonders, however, and sometimes the camel does go through the eye of the needle. This man’s name was Jair, a common Jewish name, and you will find it was the name of one of the judges recorded in the book of Judges. Notice this man’s humility, “He fell down at Jesus’ feet.” The greatest of men must humble themselves before they can obtain mercy. Jesus Christ is always ready to receive, to accept, and bless all those who fall down at his feet, but those who lift themselves up shall find him to be their sure and swift enemy, and the day shall come when he shall abase them to the dust. “He besought him that he would come into his house, for he only had one daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay dying.” She seems to have been not only the darling of the house, but of all the neighbours too, for we find that all the neighbours came together to weep and to lament her. You find Matthew says that this daughter was already dead. It seems that some delay arose, so that the child died, but the father, with triumphant faith, still besought him to come and raise her, even from the very jaws of death.

43, 44. And a woman having an issue of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her living on physicians, neither could be healed by any, came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stopped.

This disease laughs at the physicians, and whenever a cure has been accomplished it has always been a slow one. Hence the supernatural character of this cure, “Immediately her issue of blood stopped.” This is the glory of our blessed religion, that it heals sin-sick souls at once and on the spot. The moment a man believes in Jesus, his nature is changed; he becomes a new creature; in that moment all his sins are gone; in that same hour he becomes heir of God, and joint-heir with Christ. “Immediately.”

45. And Jesus said, “Who touched me?” When everyone denied it, Peter and those who were with him said, “Master, the multitude throngs you and presses you, and do you say, ‘Who touched me?’”

What impudence on their part! Doubtless there are many things we say of our Lord, and even to him in prayer, that are very far from such words as he should like to have from his disciples. There were many who touched him out of curiosity, and doubtless some out of lack of respect for his person came too close to him, but there was only one who touched him with the finger of faith, which was the only true touch.

46-48. And Jesus said, “Someone has touched me: for I perceive that power is gone out of me.” And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, she declared to him before all the people for what reason she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And he said to her, “Daughter, be of good comfort: your faith has healed you; go in peace.”

Faith crowns Christ, and, therefore, Christ takes the crown off his own head and puts it on the head of faith. “Your faith has saved you.” Christ’s power would not have saved her without her faith, and certainly her faith could not have saved her without Christ’s power. We ought to note how vital faith is to true salvation, and what a high degree of importance is attached to it. Let us, therefore, if we have some degree of faith, pray for more, “Lord, increase our faith, for if a little of it may heal, what may not a great faith do?”

49. While he was speaking, there comes one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Master.”

Be resigned, and say, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away,” and do not expect the blessing back again. Do as David did, who, while the child was still alive, fasted and prayed, saying, “Perhaps, God will spare him, but when he was dead, fasted no more. Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Master.” Ah! but this man knew that he who can stop the soul at the gates of death can also bring it back from the gates of death if he wishes. He who can get it from the paw of the lion can get it from the jaw of the bear. He can deliver his people at all times and at all seasons, and even Death is a conquered foe.

50. But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, “Do not fear: only believe, and she shall be made well.”

“Only believe.” What a depth lies in those two words! Only believe! Ah! Lord, it ought to be the easiest thing in the world to believe you, for you are so truthful; you keep every promise to us, and yet sometimes when we are in the dark, and when circumstances go contrary to us, it is hard to believe; but is not the hardness in our own hearts? Only believe! Christian, what is your trouble this morning, what is your trial? Only believe, and let your humble faith cast your burdens on your God. “Only believe, and she shall be made well.”

51, 52. And when he came into the house, he allowed no man to go in, except Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And everyone wept, and bewailed her: but he said, “Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeps.”

They were so sure she was dead that they had actually hired the minstrels for her funeral—so Mark tells us—and the pipers, and the women who made those strange, oriental lamentations were there, ready to inter her.

53, 54. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And he put them out, and took her by the hand, and called saying, “Maid, arise.”

But Christ put them all out. They laughed him to scorn, and, therefore, he would not perform the miracle in their presence. It is not proper to cast pearls before swine.

55. And her spirit came again, and she arose immediately: and he commanded to give her food.

Note here the word “immediately.” Just now we had the word immediately, and now we have the word immediately again. It is one of the distinguishing features of the gospel, both of Mark and of Luke, that both evangelists use the word “eutheos,” “immediately.” Christ’s miracles do not take a long time to do; they are done immediately. If there is a distressed soul here now, your salvation need not take months and years; it may be done today, and in a moment you may be able to rejoice that your sins are forgiven, and that you are a child of God. “She arose immediately, and he commanded to give her food.” There are no unnecessary miracles. It needed a miracle to give her life, but food could sustain it, and, therefore, there is no further miracle performed.

56. And her parents were astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done.

But we know from another evangelist that its report went abroad everywhere, and, indeed, the healing of a soul is not a thing to be kept secret, but when any are raised from the dead the world must know it.