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- C. H. Spurgeon - The True Christian's
Blessedness
"The True Christian's Blessedness" by C. H. Spurgeon
 "We
know that all things work together far good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose."—Romans 8:28.
We have here the description of a true Christian, and a declaration
of that Christian's blessedness. We have him first very succinctly,
but very fully described in these words—"Them that love God, them
who are the called according to his purpose." These two expressions
are the great distinguishing marks whereby we are able to separate
the precious from the vile, by discovering to us who are the
children of God.
The first contains an outward manifestation of the second—"Them that
love God." Now, there are many things in which the worldly and the
godly do agree, but on this point there IS a vital difference. No
ungodly man loves God—at least not in the Bible sense of the term.
An unconverted man may love a God, as, for instance, the God of
nature, and the God of the imagination; but the God of revelation no
man can love, unless grace has been poured into his heart, to turn
him from that natural enmity of the heart towards God, in which all
of us are born.
And there may be many differences between godly men, as there
undoubtedly are; they may belong to different sects, they may hold
very opposite opinions, but all godly men agree in this, that they
love God. Whosoever loveth God, without doubt, is a Christian; and
whosoever loveth him not, however high may be his pretensions,
however boastful his professions, hath not seen God, neither known
him for "God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God,
and God in him." True believers love God as their Father; they have
"the spirit of adoption, whereby they cry Abba, Father." They love
him as their King, they are willing to obey him, to walk in his
commands is their delight; no path is so soft to their feet as the
path of God's precepts, the way of obedience thereunto. They love
God also as their Portion, for in him they live and move and have
their being; God is their all, without him they have nothing, but
possessing him, however little they may have of outward good, they
feel that they are rich to all the intents of bliss. They love God
as their future Inheritance, they believe that when days and years
are past they shall enter into the bosom of God; and their highest
joy and delight is the full conviction and belief, that one day they
shall dwell for ever near his throne, be hidden in the brightness of
his glory, and enjoy his everlasting favor. Dost thou love God, not
with lip-language, but with heart-service? Dost thou love to pay him
homage? Dost thou love to hold communion with him? Dost thou
frequent his mercy-seat? Dost thou abide in his commandments, and
desire to be conformed unto his Image? If so, then the sweet things
which we shall have to say this morning are thine. But if thou art
no lover of God, but a stranger to him, I beseech thee do not pilfer
to-day and steal a comfort that was not intended for thee. "All
things work together for good," but not to all men; they only work
together for the good of "them that love God, to them who are the
called according to his purpose."
Note the second phrase, which contains also a description of the
Christian—"the called according to his purpose." However much the
Arminian may try to fritter away the meaning of this 8th chapter of
the Romans we are obliged as long as we use terms and words to say,
that the 8th chapter of the Romans and the 9th, are the very pillars
of that Gospel which men now call Calvinism. No man after having
read these chapters attentively, and having understood them, can
deny that the doctrines of sovereign, distinguishing grace, are the
sum and substance of the teaching of the Bible. I do not believe
that the Bible is to be understood except by receiving these
doctrines as true. The apostle says that those who love God are "the
called according to his purpose" by which he means to say two
things—first, that all who love God love him because he called them
to love him. He called them, mark you. All men are called by the
ministry, by the Word, by daily providence, to love God, there is a
common call always given to men to come to Christ, the great bell of
the gospel rings a universal welcome to every living soul that
breathes; but alas! though that bell hath the very sound of heaven,
and though all men do in a measure hear it, for "their line is gone
out into all the earth and their Word unto the end of the world" yet
there was never an instance of any man having been brought to God
simply by that sound. All these things are insufficient for the
salvation of any man; there must be superadded the special call, the
call which man cannot resist, the call of efficacious grace, working
in us to will and to do of God's good pleasure. Now, all them that
love God love him because they have had a special, irresistible,
supernatural call. Ask them whether they would have loved God if
left to themselves, and to a man, whatever their doctrines, they
will confess—
"Grace taught my soul to pray,
Grace made my eyes o'erflow,
'Tis grace that kept me to this day
And will not let me go."
I never heard a Christian yet who said that he came to God of
himself, left to his own free-will. Free-will may look very pretty
in theory, but I never yet met any one who found it work well in
practice. We all confess that if we are brought to the
marriage-banquet—
"'Twas the same love that spread the feast
That gently forced us in
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin."
Many men cavil at election; the very word with some is a great bug
ear; they no sooner hear it than they turn upon their heel
indignantly. But this know, O man, whatever thou sayest of this
doctrine, it is a stone upon which, if any man fall, he shall suffer
loss, but if it fall upon him it shall grind him to powder. Not all
the sophisms of the learned, nor all the legerdemain of the cunning,
will ever be able to sweep the doctrine of election out of Holy
Scripture. Let any man hear and judge. Hearken ye to this passage in
the 9th of Romans! "For the children being not yet born, neither
having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to
election might stand not of works, but of him that calleth; It was
said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then?
Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid! For he saith to
Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him
that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth
mercy." "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? for
who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that
repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed
it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the
clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another
unto dishonor! What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make
his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of
wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches
of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared
unto glory. Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but
also of the Gentiles." These are God's words; if any man doth cavil
at them, let him cavil; he rejecteth the testimony of God against
himself. If I promulgated the doctrine on my own authority, I could
not blame you if you should turn against me, and reject it; but
when, on the authority of Holy Scripture, I propound it, God forbid
that any man should quarrel therewith.
I have affirmed, and I am sure most Christians will bear witness,
that what I said was the truth, that if any man loveth God he loves
him because God gave him grace to love him. Now, suppose I should
put the following question to any converted man in this hall. Side
by side with you there sits an ungodly person; you two have been
brought up together, you have lived in the same house, you have
enjoyed the same means of grace, you are converted, he is not; will
you please to tell me what has made the difference? Without a
solitary exception the answer would be this—"If I am a Christian and
he is not, unto God be the honor." Do you suppose for a moment that
there is any injustice in God in having given you grace which he did
not give to another? I suppose you say, "Injustice, no; God has a
right to do as he wills with his own; I could not claim grace, nor
could my companions, God chose to give it to me, the other has
rejected grace wilfully to his own fault, and I should have done the
same, but that he gave 'more grace,' whereby my will was
constrained." Now, sir, if it is not wrong for God to do the thing,
how can it be wrong for God to purpose to do the thing? and what is
election, but God's purpose to do what he does do? It is a fact
which any man must be a fool who would dare to deny that God does
give to one man more grace shall to another; we cannot account for
the salvation of one and the non-salvation of another but by
believing, that God has worked more effectually in one man's heart
than another's—unless you choose to give the honor to man, and say
it consists in one man's being better than another, and if so I will
have no argument with you, because you do not know the gospel at
all, or you would know that salvation is not of works but of grace.
If, then, you give the honor to God, you are bound to confess that
God has done more for the man that is saved than for the man that is
not saved. How, then, can election be unjust, if its effect is not
unjust? However, just or unjust as man may choose to think it, God
has done it, and the fact stands in man's face, let him reject it as
he pleases. God's people are known by their outward mark: they love
God, and the secret cause of their loving God is this—God chose them
from before the foundation of the world that they should love him,
and he sent forth the call of his grace, so that they were called
according to his purpose, and were led by grace to love and to fear
him. If that is not the meaning of the text I do not understand the
English language. "We know that all things work together for good to
them that love God, to them who are the called according to his
purpose."
Now, my hearers, before I proceed to enter into the text, let the
question go round. Do I love God? Have I any reason to believe that
I have been called according to his purpose? Have I been born again
from above? Has the Spirit operated in my heart in a manner to which
flesh and blood never can attain? Have I passed from death unto life
by the quickening agency of the Holy Ghost? If I have, then God
purposed that I should do so, and the whole of this great promise is
mine.
II. We shall take the words one by one, and try to explain them.
1. Let us begin with the word "work." "We know that all things
work." Look around, above, beneath, and all things work. They work,
in opposition to idleness. The idle man that folds his arms or lies
upon the bed of sloth is an exception to God's rule; for except
himself all things work. There is not a star though it seemeth to
sleep in the deep blue firmament, which doth not travel its myriads
of miles and work; there is not an ocean, or a river, which is not
ever working, either clapping its thousand hands with storms, or
bearing on its bosom the freight of nations. There is not a silent
nook within the deepest forest glade where work is not going on.
Nothing is idle. The world is a great machine, but it is never
standing still: silently all through the watches of the night, and
through the hours of day, the earth revolveth on its axis, and works
out its predestinated course. Silently the forest groweth, anon it
is felled; but all the while between its growing and felling it is
at work. Everywhere the earth works; mountains work: nature in its
inmost bowels is at work; even the center of the great heart of the
world is ever beating; sometimes we discover its working in the
volcano and the earthquake, but even when most still all things are
ever working.
They are ever working too, in opposition to the word play. Not only
are they ceaselessly active, but they are active for a purpose. We
are apt to think that the motion of the world and the different
evolutions of the stars are but like the turning round of a child's
windmill; they produce nothing. That old preacher Solomon once said
as much as that. He said—"The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth
down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward
the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about
continually, and the wind returneth again according to his
circuits." But Solomon did not add, that things are not what they
seem. The world is not at play; it hath an object in its wildest
movement. Avalanche, hurricane, earthquake, are but order in an
unusual form; destruction and death are but progress in veiled
attire. Everything that is and is done, worketh out some great end
and purpose. The great machine of this world is not only in motion,
but there is something weaving in it, which as yet mortal eye hath
not fully seen, which our text hinteth at when it says, It is
working out good for God's people.
And once again, all things work in opposition to Sabbath. We morally
speak of work, especially on this day, as being the opposite of
sacred rest and worship. Now, at the present moment all things work.
Since the day when Adam fell all things have had to toil and labor.
Before Adam's fall the world kept high and perpetual holiday; but
now the world has come to its work-days, now it hath to toil. When
Adam was in the garden the world had its Sabbath: and it shall never
have another Sabbath till the Millennium shall dawn, and then when
all things have ceased to work, and the kingdoms shall be given up
to God, even the Father, then shall the world have her Sabbath, and
shall rest; but at present all things do work.
Dear brethren, let us not wonder if we have to work too. If we have
to toil, let us remember, this is the world's week of toil. The
6,000 years of continual labor, and toil, and travail, have happened
not to us alone, but to the whole of God's great universe; the whole
world is groaning, and travailing. Let us not be backward in doing
our work. If all things are working, let us work too—"work while it
is called to-day, for the night cometh when no man can work." And
let the idle and slothful remember that they are a great anomaly;
they are blots in the great work-writing of God; they mean nothing;
in all the book of letters with which God has written out the great
word "work," they are nothing at all. But let the man that worketh,
though it be with the sweat of his brow and with aching hands,
remember that he, if he is seeking to bless the Lord's people, is in
sympathy with all things—not only in sympathy with their work, but
in sympathy with their aim.
2. Now, the next word, "All things work together." That is in
opposition to their apparent confliction. Looking upon the world
with the mere eye of sense and reason, we say, "Yes, all things
work, but they work contrary to one another. There are opposite
currents; the wind bloweth to the north and to the south. The
world's barque, it is true, is always tossed with waves, but these
waves toss her first to the right and then to the left; they do not
steadily bear her onward to her desired haven. It is true the world
is always active, but it is with the activity of the battle-field,
wherein hosts encounter hosts and the weaker are overcome." Be not
deceived; it is not so; things are not what they seem; "all things
work together." There is no opposition in God's providence; the
raven wing of war is co-worker with the dove of peace. The tempest
strives not with the peaceful calm—they are linked together and work
together, although they seem to be in opposition. Look at our
history. How many an event has seemed to be conflicting in its day,
that has worked out good for us? The strifes of barons and kings for
mastery might have been thought to be likely to tread out the last
spark of British liberty; but they did rather kindle the pile. The
various rebellions of nations, the heavings of society, the strife
of anarchy, the tumults of war—all, all these things, overruled by
God, have but made the chariot of the church progress more mightily;
they have not failed of their predestinated purpose—"good for the
people of God." I know my brethren, it is very hard for you to
believe this. "What!" say you? "I have been sick for many a day, and
wife and children, dependent on my daily labor, are crying for food:
will this work together for my good?" So saith the word, my brother,
and so shalt thou find it ere long. "I have been in trade," says
another, "and this commercial pressure has brought me exceedingly
low, and distressed me: is it for my good?" My brother, thou art a
Christian. I know thou dost not seriously ask the question, for thou
knowest the answer of it. He who said, "all things work together,"
will soon prove to you that there is a harmony in the most
discordant parts of your life. You shall find, when your biography
is written, that the black page did but harmonize with the bright
one—that the dark and cloudy day was but a glorious foil to set
forth the brighter noon-tide of your joy. "All things work
together." There is never a clash in the world: men think so, but it
never is so. The charioteers of the Roman circus might with much
cleverness and art, with glowing wheels, avoid each other; but God,
with skill infinitely consummate, guides the fiery coursers of man's
passion, yokes the storm, bits the tempest, and keeping each clear
of the other from seeming evil still enduceth good, and better
still; and better still in infinite progression.
We must understand the word "together," also in another sense. "All
things work together for good:" that is to say, none of them work
separately. I remember an old divine using a very pithy and homely
metaphor, which I shall borrow to-day. Said he, "All things work
together for good; but perhaps, any one of those 'all things' might
destroy us if taken alone. The physician," says he, "prescribes
medicine; you go to the chemist, and he makes it up; there is
something taken from this drawer, something from that phial,
something from that shelf: any one of those ingredients, it is very
possible, would be a deadly poison, and kill you outright, if you
should take it separately, but he puts one into the mortar, and then
another, and then another, and when he has worked them all up with
his pestle, and has made a compound, he gives them all to you as a
whole, and together they work for your good, but any one of the
ingredients might either have operated fatally, or in a manner
detrimental to your health." Learn, then, that it is wrong to ask,
concerning any particular act of providence; is this for my good?
Remember, it is not the one thing alone that is for your good; it is
the one thing put with another thing, and that with a third, and
that with a fourth, and all these mixed together, that work for your
good. Your being sick very probably might not be for your good only
God has something to follow your sickness, some blessed deliverance
to follow your poverty, and he knows that when he has mixed the
different experiences of your life together, they shall produce good
for your soul and eternal good for your spirit. We know right well
that there are many things that happen to us in our lives that would
be the ruin of us if we were always to continue in the same
condition. Too much joy would intoxicate us, too much misery would
drive us to despair: but the joy and the misery, the battle and the
victory, the storm and the calm, all these compounded make that
sacred elixir whereby God maketh all his people perfect through
suffering, and leadeth them to ultimate happiness. "All things work
together for good."
3. Now we must take the next words. "All things work together for
good." Upon these two words the meaning of my text will hinge. There
are different senses to the word "good." There is the worldling's
sense: "Who will show us any good?"—by which he means transient
good, the good of the moment. "Who wilt put honey into my mouth? Who
will feed my belly with hid treasures? Who will garnish my back with
purple and make my table groan with plenty?" That is "good,"—the vat
bursting with wine, the barn full of corn! Now God has never
promised that "all things shall work together" for such good as that
to his people. Very likely all things will work together in a clean
contrary way to that. Expect not, O Christian, that all things will
work together to make thee rich; it is just possible they may all
work to make thee poor. It may be that all the different providences
that shall happen to thee will come wave upon wave, washing thy
fortune upon the rocks, till it shall be wrecked, and then waves
shall break o'er thee, till in that poor boat, the humble remnant of
thy fortune thou shalt be out on the wide sea, with none to help
thee but God the Omnipotent. Expect not, then, that all things shall
work together as for thy good.
The Christian understands the word "good" in another sense. By
"good," he understands spiritual good. "Ah!" saith he, "I do not
call gold good, but I call faith good! I do not think it always for
my good to increase in treasure, but I know it is good to grow in
grace. I do not know that it is for my good that I should be
respectable and walk in good society; but I know that it is for my
good that I should walk humbly with my God. I do not know that it is
for my good that my children should be about me, like olive branches
round my table, but I know that it is for my good that I should
flourish in the courts of my God, and that I should be the means of
winning souls from going down into the pit. I am not certain that it
is altogether for my good to have kind and generous friends, with
whom I may hold fellowship; but I know that it is for my good that I
should hold fellowship with Christ, that I should have communion
with him, even though it should be in his sufferings. I know it is
good for me that my faith, my love, my every grace should grow and
increase, and that I should be conformed to the image of Jesus
Christ my blessed Lord and Master." Well, Christian, thou hast got
upon the meaning of the text, then. "All things work together," for
that kind of good to God's people. "Well!" says one, "I don't think
anything of that, then." No, perhaps thou dost not; it is not very
likely swine should ever lift their heads from their troughs to
think aught of stars. I do not much wonder that thou shouldst
despise spiritual good, for thou art yet "in the gall of bitterness
and the bonds of iniquity;" a stranger to spiritual things, and let
thy despising of spiritual things teach thee that thou art not
spiritual, and therefore thou canst not understand the spiritual,
because it must be spiritually discerned. To the Christian, however,
the highest good he can receive on earth is to grow in grace.
"There!" he says, "I had rather be a bankrupt in business than I
would be a bankrupt in grace; let my fortune be decreased—better
that, than that I should backslide; there! let thy waves and thy
billows roll over me—better an ocean of trouble than a drop of sin,
I would rather have thy rod a thousand times upon my shoulders, O my
God, than I would once put out my hand to touch that which is
forbidden, or allow my foot to run in the way of gainsayers." The
highest good a Christian has here is good spiritual.
And we may add, the text also means good eternal, lasting good. All
things work together for a Christian's lasting good. They all work
to bring him to Paradise—all work to bring him to the Saviour's
feet. "So he bringeth them to their desired haven," said the
Psalmist—by storm and tempest, flood and hurricane. All the troubles
of a Christian do but wash him nearer heaven; the rough winds do but
hurry his passage across the straits of this life to the port of
eternal peace. All things work together for the Christian's eternal
and spiritual good.
And yet I must say here, that sometimes all things work together for
the Christian's temporal good. You know the story of old Jacob.
"Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and now ye will take Benjamin away;
all these things are against me," said the old Patriarch. But if he
could have read God's secrets, he might have found that Simeon was
not lost, for he was retained as a hostage—that Joseph was not lost
but gone before to smooth the passage of his grey hairs into the
grave, and that even Benjamin was to be taken away by Joseph in love
to his brother. So that what seemed to be against him, even in
temporal matters, was for him. You may have heard also the story of
that eminent martyr who was wont always to say, "All things work
together for good." When he was seized by the officers of Queen
Mary, to be taken to the stake to be burned, he was treated so
roughly on the road that he broke his leg; and they jeeringly said,
"All things work together for good, do they? How will your broken
leg work for your good?" "I don't know," said he, "how it will, but
for my good I know it will work, and you shall see it so." Strange
to say, it proved true that it was for his good; for being delayed a
day or so on the road through his lameness, he just arrived in
London in time enough to hear that Elizabeth was proclaimed queen,
and so he escaped the stake by his broken leg. He turned round upon
the men who carried him, as they thought, to his death, and said to
them, "Now will you believe that all things work together for God?"
So that though I said the drift of the text was spiritual good, yet
sometimes in the main current there may be carried some rich and
rare temporal benefits for God's children as well as the richer
spiritual blessings.
4. I am treating the text as you see, verbally. And now I must
return to the word "work"—to notice the tense of it. "All things
work together for good." It does not say that they shall work, or
that they have worked; both of these are implied, but it says that
they do work now. All things at this present moment are working
together for the believer's good. I find it extremely easy to
believe that all things have worked together for my good. I can look
back at the past, and wonder at all the way whereby the Lord hath
led me. If ever there lived a man who has reason to be grateful to
Almighty God, I think I am that man. I can see black storms that
have lowered o'er my head, and torrents of opposition that have run
across my path, but I can thank God for every incident that ever
occurred to me from my cradle up to now, and do not desire a better
pilot for the rest of my days, than he who has steered me from
obscurity and scorn, to this place to preach his word and feed this
great congregation. And I doubt not that each of you, in looking
back upon your past experience as Christians, could say very much
the same. Through many troubles you have passed, but you can say,
they have all been for your good. And somehow or other you have an
equal faith for the future. You believe that all things will in the
end work for your good. The pinch of faith always lies in the
present tense. I can always believe the past, and always believe the
future, but the present, the present, the present, that is what
staggers faith. Now, please to notice that my text is in the present
tense. "All things work," at this very instant and second of time.
However troubled, downcast, depressed, and despairing, the Christian
may be, all things are working now for his good; and though like
Jonah he is brought to the bottom of the mountains, and he thinks
the earth with her bars is about him for ever, and the weeds of
despair are wrapped about his head, even in the uttermost depths all
things are now working for his good. Here, I say again, is the pinch
of faith. As an old countryman once said to me, from whom I gained
many a pithy saying—"Ah! sir, I could always do wonders when there
were no wonders to do. I feel, sir, that I could believe God; but
then at the time I feel so there is not much to believe." And he
just paraphrased it in his own dialect like this—"My arm is always
strong, and my sickle always sharp, when there is no harvest, and I
think I could mow many an acre when there is no grass; but when the
harvest is on I am weak, and when the grass groweth then my scythe
is blunt." Have not you found it so too? You think you can do
wondrous things; you say,
"Should earth against my soul engage,
And hellish darts be hurled,
Now I can smile at Satan's rage,
And face a frowning world."
And now a little capful of wind blows on you and the tears run down
your cheeks, and you say, "Lord, let me die; I am no better than my
fathers." You, that were going to thrash mountains, find that
molehills cast you down.
It behoveth each of us, then, to comfort and establish our hearts
upon this word "work." "All things work." Merchant; though you have
been sore pressed this week, and it is highly probable that next
week will be worse still for you, believe that all things even then
are working for your good. It will cost you many a pang to keep that
confidence; but oh! for thy Master's honor, and for thine own
comfort, retain that consolation. Should thine house of business
threaten to tumble about thine ears so long as thou hast acted
honourably, still bear thy cross. It shall work, it is working for
thy good. This week, mother, thou mayest see thy first-born carried
to the tomb. That bereavement is working for thy good. O man, within
a few days, he that hath eaten bread with thee may lift up his heel
against thee. It shall work for thy good. O thou that art high in
spirits to-day, thou with the flashing eye and joyous countenance,
ere the sun doth set some evil shall befal thee, and thou shalt be
sad. Believe then that all things work together for thy good; if
thou lovest God, and art called according to his purpose.
5. And now we close by noticing the confidence with which the
apostle speaks. "A fiction!" says one; "a pleasant fiction, sir!"
"Sentimentalism!" says another; "a mere poetic sentimentalism."
"Ah!" cries a third; "a downright lie." "No," says another, "there
is some truth in it, certainly; men do get bettered by their
afflictions, but it is a truth that is not valuable to me, for I do
not realize the good that these things bring." Gentlemen, the
apostle Paul was well aware of your objections; and therefore mark
how confidently he asserts the doctrine. He does not say, "I am
persuaded;" he does not say, "I believe;" but with unblushing
confidence he appears before you and says, "We" (I have many
witnesses) we know that all things work together." What Paul are you
at? So strange and startling a doctrine as this asserted with such
dogmatic impudence? What can you be at? Hear his reply! "'We know;'
In the mouth of two or three witnesses it shall all be established;
but I have tens of thousands of witnesses." "We know," and the
apostle lifts his hand to where the white-robed hosts are praising
God for ever.—"These," says he, "passed through great tribulation,
and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb:
ask them!" And with united breath they reply, "We know that all
things work together for good to them that love God." Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, David, Daniel, all the mighty ones that have gone
before, tell out the tale of their history, write their
autobiography, and they say, "We!" It is proven to a demonstration
in our own lives; it is a fact which runs like a golden clue through
all the labyrinth of our history—"All things work together for good
to them that love God." "We," says the apostle again—and he puts his
hand upon his poor distressed brethren—he looks at his companions in
the prisonhouse at Rome; he looks at that humble band of teachers in
Rome, in Philippi, in all the different parts of Asia, and he says,
"We!" "We know it. It is not with us a matter of doubt; we have
tried it, we have proved it. Not only does faith believe it, but our
own history convinces us of the truth of it." I might appeal to
scores and hundreds here, and I might say, brethren, you with grey
heads, rise up and speak. Is this true or not? I see the reverend
man rise, leaning on his staff, and with the tears "uttering his old
cheeks, he says, "Young man it is true, I have proved it; even down
to grey hairs I have proved it; he made, and he will carry; he will
not desert his own!" Veteran! you have had many troubles, have you
not? He replies, "Youth! troubles? I have had many troubles that
thou reckest not of, I have buried all my kindred, and I am like the
last oak of the forest, all my friends have been felled by death
long ago. Yet I have been upheld till now, who could hold me up but
my God!" Ask him whether God has been once untrue to him and he will
say, "No; not one good thing hath failed of all that the Lord God
hath promised; all hath come to pass!" Brethren, we can confidently
say, then, hearing such a testimony as that, "We know that all
things work." Besides, there are you of middle age, and even those
of us who are young: the winter has not spared our branches, nor the
lightnings ceased to scathe our trunk; yet here we stand; preserved
by conquering grace. Hallelujah to the grace that makes all things
work together for good!
O my hearer, art thou a believer in Christ? If not, I beseech thee,
stop and consider! Pause and think of thy state; and if thou knowest
thine own sinfulness this day, believe on Christ, who came to save
sinners, and that done, all things shall work for thee, the tumbling
avalanche, the rumbling earthquake the tottering pillars of heaven,
all, when they fall or shake, shall not hurt thee, they shall still
work out thy good. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and be
baptized, and thou shalt be saved," for so runneth the gospel. The
Lord bless you! Amen.C. H. Spurgeon
October 18, 1857
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